secret diaries of jack harkness, adventure on halova

SUMMARY: 
jack has been keeping a private diary to log events of his life ever since the time agency stole his memories all those years ago. so while rose remembers nothing of halova, and the doctor thinks jack also remembers nothing—jack has an account of everything. well…almost everything.

CH ONE:

I’ve always kept some records of my life, ever since the time agency stole two years from me. I had a small implant put in behind my ear where i store all of my entries, and i tell no one about it. But for the first time, here on Halova, I find myself wanting to actually write with my hands. So here I sit, once again in the tardis archives, writing out what has happened since we got here.

Meeting the doctor all those months ago changed my life. No one has challenged me the way he does in decades—and I forgot what it was like to want to be better, to be more. I forgot what it was like to feel wonder and amazement at all the good in the universe. The doctor and Rose reminded me of that.

I also forgot what it was like to feel love—to feel anything but my sorrows, really. We’ve been on Halova a long time now, the three of us, and things have changed between us. The change is for the better, I think. But it didn’t start out that way.

I was swimming in the pool when it happened. The tardis has many amazing things that the doctor never tells anyone about, because it’s completely commonplace to him. One of them being an amazing pool—shining tiles everywhere, the size of an old earth football field, with waterfalls on each end and a ceiling that somehow seems to open up to the heavens and the stars.

I had just finished doing laps and was floating on my back when the tardis jumped us to this planet, and by the time i got to the fucking control room, sopping wet—mind you, the doctor is in one of his fits raging about thermodynamic couplers!

It took Rose and I ages to get him to speak english and explain that tardis decided to strand us on an unknown planet at an undisclosed time. I tend to understand the quantum physics of multidimensional travel but that man does NOT make sense when he is flustered. He’s just smart enough to fool less evolved life forms by speaking scifi gibberish. He’s cute when he does it too, but that’s irrelevant. I wanted to go out exploring right away, but he insisted we all stay inside until he completed his safety scans. Which, the tardis would not do for him so, he had to do them manually. which took three hours.

By the time we finally went out, it was nightfall and hardly anyone was out in the city we had landed in. 
Rose thought it was earth at first until I pointed out to her the two lavender moons shining in the sky. The doctor once again slipped off on his own leaving the two of us to muck about, but luckily there was a bar open and he had circled back around to us before Rose got too tipsy. She gets real flirty when she drinks, as i learned at the last bar we visited a week ago when she asked me to dance and then tried to kiss my face off. The doctor had to literally pull her off of me! (not that i minded all that much actually, she’s quite good)

“We’re on Halova!” he announced as he walked up to the bar and plopped down on the other side of rose and stared across her to me.

“Class 3 planet, humanoid atmosphere, mostly land, gaseous oceans, several thriving cohabitant species! A nice place to be stranded wouldn’t you say?” He smiled his goofy wide grin, and I smiled back but Rose snapped her head towards him.

“Wait, did you say stranded? As in, stuck here? For how long?”

When she snapped her head back her hair sent a breeze into my face that smelled of her coconut conditioner. I’d been stranded before; it’s not all that bad—as long as there are no raptor predators or fascist drones.

“Oh idonno, however long it takes me to get the ol’ girl running again. A few days maybe.”

The doctor shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. Rose humphed and turned to me.

“I guess you’ll just have to keep me occupied for a few days then Jack.” She smiled her most gorgeous smile. I smiled back. Behind her, the doctor frowned. We all drank until last call, and walked back to the tardis with our arms linked together, singing the jolly giant song we learned in Frell.

The doctor and I walked Rose to her room as usual, and as usual she kissed us both on the cheek, a little too close to our mouths, and said, “goodnight, boys. Don’t get up to trouble while I’m out!” and sauntered into her room where we heard her land on her bed with a thump. We both laughed softly, and caught each others eyes.

The doctor has a way of staring deeply at you, looking into your eyes with an absolute frankness that can be unnerving. It almost always makes me blush and look away first. Tonight I felt bolder, so I stared back. He patted my shoulder. “Goodnight Jack. See you tomorrow. Listen to Rose’s warning and stay out of things!” he kissed my cheek softly and turned away, was down the corridor before I could respond.

Well, if he wasn’t staying up to get into trouble with me, it was his fault if I wondered my way into the tardis archives. I learned some interesting things, and fell asleep on the couch in the archives room.

CH TWO:

“So?” Rose raised her eyebrows at the doctor, looking down over both of us from our places on the ground. He was under the console, I was on my knees next to him handing him tools and trying not to make blithe remarks about how poor of an engineer he was turning out to be.

“So what?” he said.

“So, it’s been three days, I’ve walked like 20 miles around this town, by myself! mind you, cause Jack has been helping you this whole time! Have you fixed it?”

“Well..” his voices drifted off, too focused on the mess of wires hanging out over his face to give her a full response. She looked at me. I pursed my lips and shook my head no. The doctor kicked at my leg playfully.

“ouch! I’m just telling her the truth! You’ve got no idea why she won’t start! More than likely you offended her again and it has nothing to do with the couplers!”

He frowned at me and went back to the console. Rose just looked at me questioningly. I shrugged my shoulders, stood up, and dusted off my pants. I smacked the doctors knee,

“I’m gonna take Rose out for a nice time since we’re here and all; you good on your own?”

I received only grunts in reply. It’ll have to do—he doesn’t like when we go out on our own (for I’m sure a multitude of reasons, including jealousy and our proclivity for getting into life threatening situations) but he’ll have to deal with it today.

I smiled at Rose and offered her my arm. She grabbed my jacket off the rail next to her and handed it to me before taking my outstretched elbow.

It was a lovely day in Darshangi, the capital city on Halova. Their sun was shining brightly, their climate was perfect, flowers bloom every day of their year here. They have a high speed rail system running under the entire surface of the planet, and their cities are fully walkable.

They use bio-engineering so their buildings look like something from a fantasy book, the trunks of their trees spiraling up and around their tallest buildings, in magnificent colors. The Halovans can communicate and interface with their buildings and with the planet itself, and simply ask for whatever they want or need.

Their speed rail underground was designed by the planet’s fungi network. Their streets are natural cobblestone, often covered in moss, and lined with fruit trees and bushes and flower beds.

It truly is a lovely place to be stranded, if one has to be stranded somewhere.

“Well, darling Rose, whatever would you like to do today?”

She put a finger on her chin, mimicking deep thought, before holding her pointer finger in the air.

“I’d like a picnic, and to get absolutely hanged on some of the Halovans lovely brittleberry wine.” She nodded her head, with her widest smile, knowing that I would always indulge her.

“Well, I guess we better go fetch some supplies and then find a good spot!”

Rose had ofcourse already found the perfect spot, and had already fetched the supplies before coming into the control room and announcing her boredom earlier. She’s a sneaky one.

Among the lovely things she had “fetched” (and by fetched she meant she convinced a local to teach her how to interface with the planet) were 4 bottles of Halovan wine.

It was after two such bottles, that Rose began to lean in—towards my face—and I pulled back.
She frowned at me.

“What? suddenly in the light of day you don’t want to kiss me anymore? it’s not fun now that you’ve flirted enough to make me want it too?”

now i was frowning too.

“what? ofcourse not Rose. I just think now that we’re all traveling together it’s a bit more complicated than that.”

She quickly switched to a smile and raised her pointer finger in the air,

“ah! but we aren’t traveling. We’re stranded on Halova.” I started to see her point. Probably because I did in fact want to kiss her back.

“so a ‘what happens in Halova stays on halova’ sort of policy, you mean?”

“Exactly!” she stared at me. I stared back. she has such lovely eyes.

“so are you gonna kiss me or not, captain?” she said captain with a lilting tease in her voice—so I leaned forward and captured her lips with mine before she could say more.

We spent the day canoodling on that picnic blanket, in front of a beautiful waterfall. We eventually wondered back to the tardis, hand in hand. The doctor met us outside, looking absolutely harried.

“WHERE! HAVE YOU TWO!! BEEN?!”

he pulls out his sonic screw driver to scan us, started patting down our shoulders and arms like he needed to make sure they were still there.

“we told you we were going out? remember?” Rose said, a bit forlornly—she never liked being reminded that the doctor often ignored everything but his hyperfixation, even her.

“oh. yeah I guess you did. Well, did you have a good time?” he asked rose, was looking at rose, but he lifted his hand and wiped something off of my face. Rose’s lipgloss I suspect. His hand drifted to the front of my jacket where he grabbed onto a fistful of it and squeezed.

“I had a great time—“ his fist punched into my stomach before i could say anything else.

“Yeah it was lovely, doctor. Too bad you didn’t come too!” Rose said with a smirk, then she kissed him on the cheek and pushed past him, through the door and into the tardis.

We were still standing, the doctor and I, his fist in my jacket, neither of us moving. He wasn’t looking at me when he spoke;

“not her, jack. don’t play your games with her.”

“i’m not playing at anything doctor. i’m just respecting her wishes and autonomy. Maybe you should try it.”

I grabbed his wrist and pulled it away from my jacket, and swiftly followed rose’s example, rushing to my bedroom. 
I took a nap, and a shower, and came out to find the doctor laying across the end of my bed reading. He was in his signature knit black jumper and slacks, but had kicked off his shoes. He was reading a Agatha Christie novel. I was dressed only in the towel wrapped around my waist.

“Hello doctor. what can I do for you?”

He looked up at me and raised an eyebrow suggestively. I knew what he was hinting at. We’d dallied around before together.

“Oh no, i’m not supposed to be playing any games, remember?” I raised both of my eyebrows back at him and sat down in the chair in the corner of my room. Yes, there is a chair, and he still chose my bed to lounge on.

He groaned at me. “You know i’m just protective of rose, jack. No reason to be feisty about it.”

“feisty about it? if one of us is being feisty about it, it’s you. and I can’t tell if it’s because your jealous of me, or of her.” I copied the smirk rose had given him earlier. He sat up, and tossed his book to the side.

“Well maybe you need more data points to figure it out.”

“maybe I do! I should head back to the tardis archives to do some light reading.” I stood up as if I was heading to the door to the hallway. As I passed him, the doctor grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the bed. I turned towards him.

“yes doctor?”

Still holding onto my arm, his other hand reached towards my waist and lingered a moment—then pulled the towel away, never once looking away from my eyes. He knew the way his eyes mesmerized me.

And so I gave him what he wanted, more than once. I loved seeing him let go, the way he looked at peace right afterwards. He excited me and exhausted me, and I fell asleep holding him, my face nestled in the crook of his neck.

I woke up alone. I hadn’t been alone when I fell asleep; the doctor was at least a good enough lover to not walk out as soon as he got what he wanted. He was in fact, an excellent lover, as long as you expected no lasting commitment or deeper connection to him. Which I ofcourse didn’t. I mean, I didn’t expect it. And when I started traveling with him, I hadn’t wanted it either. Maybe that’s changing though. I don’t know. I just know I was disappointed to find my bed cold.

CH THREE:

“so I was right then? haha!” the doctor looked peeved and rose looked confused.

“I didn’t exactly say that.”

“you said, and I quote ‘there is nothing wrong with the tardis, technically speaking’ correct?”

He rolled his eyes and didn’t answer me.

“Which is what I said five weeks ago. You were playing around with wires under the console, I said ‘there’s probably nothing wrong she’s just probably pissed at you again’ then rose and I went and had that lovely picnic,” I stopped to turn to her and wink, she blushed in response.

“so like I said, I was right.” I continued giggling fitfully until the doctor looked me straight in the eyes and stared me down. I think I blushed too. Which made rose giggle.

“well!” The doctor patted his jacket pockets, “I guess there’s some mystery were meant to solve before we can take off!”

“Okay so should we go investigate?” rose asked.

“nooooo, it’ll come to us. why don’t I finally take you on the tardis tour, rose?” he offered her his elbow and they jaunted off.

“i guess i’ll just follow behind you like a third wheel then?” they ignored me. yeah, a third wheel.

the doctor was heading down the main corridor talking at lightning speed. I guess Rose caught about 50% of what he was saying but I know she wouldn’t care. None of us care when the doctor spends time just on us.

“so this is corridor liz, you know this one, since it’s what you use to get to the living quarters where the bedrooms are, and further through here on the right, you can find hallways serrta through urto, mostly just athletic stuff, pool, rock climbing gym, tennis courts, basketball, the stables and so on. There’s some holo decks too. Then on the left things branch off a bit, we’ve got down in the.. well i guess we’ll call it the basement, down there are archives and archives and more archives, all the records and past versions of the tardis, and so on. the middle branch has hallways for the libraries, then these over here are server and engine rooms, and then we’ve also got the vault, it’s where the tardis matches the currency of wherever we land; then ofcourse this hallway has the closets and the wardrobe generator,”

Rose stopped walking, “sorry did you say.. the vault and the wardrobe generator? and you’ve been letting me walk around in blue jeans with no money?”

i started laughing, the doctor just shrugged his shoulders.

“shall we continue?” rose nodded.

“okay so then over here we have conservatories, obviously by planet so the ecosystems don’t improperly overlap; there’s some art galleries on the opposite side; just representations not the actual art mind you! uhmm, there’s also miscellaneous rooms of nonsense on that branch, for instance the trampoline room, the axe throwing room, the pottery studio, hydroponics bay, galley kitchen, etc etc. so, what do you want to go and see?”

Rose was wide eyed;

“she wants the trampoline room doc. look at her glowing like a kid. it’s obvious.” she shot me a sharp look but before she could respond the doctor grabbed her hand and started running. soon we were all laughing and whooping through the hallways, making our way to the famed trampoline room. It was huge.

There had to be like a mile of rectangular trampolines all touching one another so you could jump from one to another. We spent a whole hour jumping and laughing hysterically like a pack of hyenas on a chase. We tackled one another and bounced in tangled webs of limbs. Rose and I chased the doctor around giving him kisses anywhere we could catch. Finally, when we all laid panting on the trampolines, Rose exclaimed,

“a conservatory! a beautiful conservatory with flowers everywhere. do you have that?” i smirked because really Rose, he’s slept with more than one queen of england, how do you think he courts them? but i said nothing. The doctor surprised me by grabbing my arm and asking me,

“Jack why don’t you take the lead?” Rose came up on my other side and they both looked at me expectantly, and i realized they were waiting for me to escort them.

“Very well, this way my darlings.”

When we entered my favorite garden conservatory, Rose gasped loudly. It was so beautiful, full of all kinds of flowers from earths evolution. I chose this one because it made me feel at home and i thought it might affect Rose that way too. I looked over to her and tears were falling across her cheeks.

“Oh Rose! What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing! i swear! it’s just so beautiful. you boys show me so many beautiful things i could never have imagined in my whole little life.”

She was still holding onto me, and folded our line of bodies into a triangle so that she could grab the doctor and i into a group hug. We allowed it, because it was rose.

Later that night, after we’d gone out on the town, and after we’d had our fill at a local restaurant, and after i’d said i wanted some alone time, and after they’d dropped me at my room and each kissed one of my cheeks, and after we had all gone to bed, and after i had fallen asleep reading about gallifrey, Rose crawled into my bed. It woke me up, because i’m a very light sleeper most nights. I turned towards her. Her eyes were shining and pink. She’d been crying. She was only wearing a robe. Oh. I opened my arms up and she crawled into them and the tears started again.

“i know love. i know.”

“he never stays does he?”

“no. never.”

CH FOUR:

Things continued to progress on Halova and between our threesome on the tardis. It had been 13 months and we were all beginning to be frustrated. Our relationships had deepened and become complex between us individually which had made functioning as a team more difficult. We were all stressed we would never leave the planet and (at least for Rose and I) we were also stressed that we WOULD leave the planet—and where would that leave things between us all?

“Okay so it wasn’t the Mercutors then? how many more mysteries are we going to solve before we can leave?” Rose was sitting on a bench in the control room with her head in her hands as she said so.

“Idonno. I must be missing something!” The doctor was pacing around the control panels.

“Why don’t we all just go to Benny’s and we can think it over?”

“Jack, a stiff drink isn’t the solution to everything.” Rose said. The doctor snorted.

“oookay.”

“sorry. didn’t mean to snap, just frustrated.”

“i know love. it’s fine.”

The doctor walked to Rose and held out his hand,

“Actually, i think we could all use a stiff drink.”

“Or something else stiff.” I meant to mutter under my breath but they both heard me and started laughing. I thought then that things between the three of us might be starting to even back out to our usual intuitive flow.

From the moment we met, we’d had a sense of the one another. Where they’d be, what they’d probably do. How best to support the others. When to take the lead. It seemed we were getting back to it, finally.

Benny’s was the bar we’d gone to that first night. It had turned into a piano bar when someone finally taught the doctor how to planet interface and he convinced the planet to make a baby grand in the middle of the bar.

He’d then proceeded to teach five different people to play by going around scanning people’s heads searching for musical proclivity.

Now someone was playing a sontaran opera, which sounded a bit like a war rhythm. How they were doing that on a piano, I didn’t know.

The doctor ordered schmi, which had a bit of a bite and went down your throat quite warm. It reminded me a bit of whiskey. Rose had more fruit wine, some new aki variety. I had a tried and true fluestell. Which is basically a fancy fizzy beer.

We sat at our usual table and drank in silence for a few minutes. The doctor was staring off into space thinking. Rose was staring at the doctor thinking. And i was looking at the two of them. Thinking. I decided to share my thoughts.

“You know… we’re pretty lucky here.”

Rose snapped towards me,

“lucky! to be stranded?!”

“no. we’re lucky to be together. lucky to see such a beautiful place. lucky that nothing has really tried to kill us all this time. just lucky.” i shrugged. it was my opinion of the matter and i was sticking to it. Roses face softened and she leaned towards me to give me a kiss. “you’re right. i do feel lucky right about now.”

The doctor was watching us but for once he was smiling about it.

“What are you smiling about over there?” I asked him, before he too leaned in and gave me a kiss. on my mouth. in public. Roses mouth hung open in astonishment, but then as soon as he was done with me he leaned towards her and kissed her too. Then we were both opening and closing our mouths like fish out of water. The doctor just leaned back in his chair, finished his drink and got up to get another. Rose and I looked at one another—I was trying to figure out if the doctor had been body swapped. Rose looked like she was trying to figure out what question to even ask.

We were still sitting like that when the doctor returned. HE laughed out loud at us.

“What you think i’ve never kissed anyone in public? You think i’ve always been this cool man of mystery?”

I snorted. Rose covered her laugh with her hand.

“cool man of mystery are you?”

Rose spoke up, “more like cold. frozen really.” Now i was laughing. The doctor frowned.

“I’m not cold. Just, aloof.” Rose and I laughed louder and harder. my stomach hurt from the laughing.

“look at my jacket! ferthian leather! i’m cool, with my cool jacket!”

we laughed harder. The doctor was frowning so we voted control of ourselves.

“I think you’re very cool.” i said, and quite genuinely too.

“suck up.” rose said with an eye roll. But she got up and stood at the doctors side, put a hand on his shoulder and the other on the side of his face, leaning in to him, and right before she kissed him she said,

“you know exactly what i think of you.”

It was an impressive kiss. I whistled at them. They broke apart a little breathless but both smiling. The rest of our night was chit chatting, laughing, some drinking.

We got back to the tardis late. The doctor and I were walking Rose to her room as usual. Both of us prepared for the cheek kissing and the nightly farewell, when instead she turned first to me, and kissed me full on the mouth. Then to the doctor, and kissed him as well. she grabbed my hand, and opened her bedroom door, pulling me through. I looked back at the doctor. She didn’t look back. He stood in the doorway. I looked towards Rose had let go of my hand, so that she could unbutton her shirt. I looked back to the doctor. I held out my hand for him, unsure if he would take it. He walked into the room and held my hand. I touched his face, leaned in to kiss him, biting his bottom lip so i could hear him groan. Rose turned just in time to see us pulling apart. She smiled.

I woke up facing Rose, her hair falling over her face and tickling my nose. My hand was on her waist, and another hand was on top of mine. I leaned up to see the doctor asleep behind Rose—his face nestled into her shoulder.

I thought i was dreaming so i laid my head back down and fell back asleep.

I woke again to the sound of whispering, and opened my eyes to the expanse of Rose’s back, and more of her hair in my mouth.

“Oh and look who’s finally awake.” the doctor teased.

“We were just discussing where we should take you out for breakfast. They have those purple pancake like things at Leefta, you like those right?”

I chuckled.

“Oh the two of you are taking me out, are you?”

Rose rolled over to face me, and put her hand on my cheek.

“Well, you did work quite hard last night.”

The doctor was raising his eyebrows behind Rose. I couldn’t help but smile, giggle like a youngling.

CH FIVE:

A few weeks of blissful mundanity passed between us.

“so there never was anything wrong on halova? or wrong with the tardis?”

I shook my head at her.

“nope. the tardis and the doctor have a psychic connection—she could sense he needed something and put him here until she saw he got it.”

Her eyebrows creased together.

“what did he need?”

“us.”

(sucked into a rift in time, barely get out of it alive, they lose their memories)