open_flame | You Told Him Yes? - Fic for Bump in the Night Verse

Characters: Liz Sherman/Jack Harkness, The Doctor (12)/Thomas Harkness
Fandom: Hellboy/Torchwood/Doctor Who (Bump in the Night!Verse)
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1200
Prompt:

scifi_muses vol 2 week 24
Irwin: I'm pretty sure my mother doesn't allow me to go to the netherworld.
Setting: Bump in the Night!verse. BPRD, 19 years after Hellboy 2
AN: Got the idea from Jack's newest set of ficlets.

It had been nearly 15 years since Liz had lost control over her fire. For a decade and a half she held complete control in the face of things that would have made her spark in an instant in her twenties and thirties. Today however, was enough to make her lose it.

“You told him YES! Are you an IDIOT!?!” Liz couldn’t remember the last time she had been angry enough with Jack to raise her voice at him or speak at him like that. Sure, they fought about this thing or that thing, but they’d were usually not foolish or disrespectful enough to stoop to low blows or insults.

“He’s eighteen. He can make his own choices.” Jack didn’t tell his wife about the threat he’d laid down on the Doctor’s head if any harm were to come to their son. Maybe he should have, it might have stopped her from behaving like an angry mother bear. Or it might not have.

“Where is it?” Liz called the fire back just before she began tearing though her husband’s desk like her life depended on it. As far as she was concerned, it did. Ordinarily, making such a mess would make her skin crawl but none of that mattered right now. She had to find it; she’d tear that whole damn office apart until she did.

“Top left.” His voice was calm and collected. Jack was leaning against the doorframe of his office. Her over protectiveness of both of the boys, he was used to. He even expected this sort of reaction, but had hoped against hope that she’d take the news in stride. He also knew he couldn’t stop her from doing this and what’s more, part of him didn’t want to. He was just as concerned and scared as she was; he was just better at keeping a level head. He always was. He’d lived though it, after all. He knew in his heart that the Doctor would never let any harm come to anyone if he could help it.

Liz pulled the small computer attached to a leather wristband from the drawer and looked at it with an almost venomous amount of anger as she pushed the button to get the results she wanted. She nearly threw it back in the drawer and made her way into the hall when she heard the sound she’d dreaded hearing for much of her life.

It was just a few days ago that Jack has heard that unmistakable sound. It was a new face sure, though also unmistakable. “Did I forget something?” The Doctor stepped out of the blue box and glanced around BPRD with curious expression, an air of innocence in his voice that only made Liz want to yell at him more.

She looked just as curiously at the new face and body that stepped out of the TARDIS. She knew from the way he walked and talked, however that it was the man…person….Time Lord…she wanted to direct her anger at. “Yeah, you forgot to clear this little excursion of yours with someone’s mother.” She was in the Doctors face without an ounce of hesitation. He just smiled at her.

“Oh, so sorry. You weren’t here.” He grinned down at her as her eyes almost glowed with fire; his own eyes sparkling happily back at her. It only made her angrier.

“You have a TIME MACHINE! A time AND space machine! You could have found me!” She was screaming loudly enough for her son to hear her, causing him to step from the police box and rush over to her.

“Ma?” Thomas looked down at her eyes, feeling awful for the way they seemed to spark from the intense emotion. He’d never seen her lose control of it. He and Trevor were so young the last time it happened that he’d almost forgotten there were moments she couldn’t keep it together. He knew full well what he needed to do upset her deeply, and it was the last thing in the world he wanted. He dropped his eyes from hers, ashamed that he has left without saying goodbye to her. “I’m sorry.”

Liz couldn’t deny that he sounded just like her when he apologized like that. “Don’t be sorry.” She had tears in her eyes as she pulled her son out of earshot of the Time Lord. “Don’t say you’re sorry. Don’t…go. Don’t leave us, please. We need you.” The fact that Liz had said almost those exact words more times than she could count to his father was not lost on her. It was almost like history repeating itself. Something about this hurt more, though. More than every time over the course of their lives that Jack had walked away from her, and that was saying something.

Thomas had his father’s eyes; those soul piercing blue eyes that looked so sad and lost at times. Like the life he had was never enough. Like he wanted something more. Something more than this little rock of a planet could offer. “You have no idea what’s out there, when I’m traveling with him. The things he’s shown me in just a few weeks…”

“Weeks?” Liz’s mouth dropped open in shock for a moment before she put two and two together. He was gone a few days, not…

Of course…time machine.

“Ma.” He put his hands on her face in the same way he’d seen his father do when he needed to make her listen. He knew she wanted to drop her head and avoid his eyes, and he also knew he couldn’t let her. “I need to do this. I’ve been waiting my entire life for something like this. I don’t want to be…ordinary.”

She didn’t make any attempt to stop the tears from pouring out of her eyes as she wrapped her delicate fingers around her son’s wrists. “You come back.” She ordered him as she pulled his hands off her tear soaked face. She didn’t look away. “You go and save the god damned universe and when you’re done, you will come back home. You will stay safe and you come back to us, do you hear me, Thomas Harkness?” Her voice was stern but is wavered just enough to break her sons heart.

He sounded just like his father when he spoke. “I promise you, nothing bad will happen.” He pressed his lips on her forehead in the same way she did to both her sons and her husband all too often. He smiled and nodded to his father, who had watched the exchange without a word.

Thomas made his way back to the TARDIS with almost too much happiness as his father pulled his mother close. She spoke her next words too quietly for anyone but Jack to hear. “Whatever you do, don’t fall in love.” She was shaking with fear and worry. She knew that end was impossible to avoid. Something about that god damned Doctor. She could see it in her son’s eyes already, and the thought of it ripped her heart apart. Jack didn’t say a word; all he did was keep his arms twisted around her to hold her upright when he felt her body started to collapse with exhaustive worry.

She continued to cry as that sound came and went, leaving no trace that the blue box had ever been there. Once it was gone, she dropped to her knees, pulling her husband down with her as he held her tight.

“He’ll be fine.” Jack whispered to Liz as she regained her ability to breath normally. “He’ll be…amazing.” She knew he was right. She knew that if anything in the universe could change a person completely to make him the best person he could possibly be it was a going for a ride with that very strange man in that very strange ship.