"Reunited" (2/15)
Title: Reunited (2/15)
Author: aibhinn
Pairings: Jack/Rose, Jack/Ten, Jack/Ten/Rose, Ten/Rose, mentions of (past) Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG this chapter
Spoilers: Doctor Who through "Doomsday", Torchwood through "End of Days".
Summary: The Rift is much more active than it was, and has been disgorging aliens and out-of-time people at an alarming rate… including one person Jack never expected to see again.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Auntie Beeb. I'm stuck here on the far side of the wrong continent, playing in her sandbox.
Author's note: This idea occurred to me during the last few episodes of Torchwood, but was almost destroyed by the end of episode 1x13, "End of Days." Consequently, I've decided to ignore that ending completely; the TARDIS never showed up in the Hub. Everything else remains the same. Thanks to zoanthropic06, rabid1st, joely_jo, and sensiblecat for beta services. Without them, this chapter would not be what it is.
Part I | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI | Part XII | Part XIII | Part XIV | Part XV
Ianto and Tosh nearly had everything set up when Jack and the others got back with Rose. They'd moved the autopsy table aside and were just pulling the gurney out of the storage room. Gwen helped them roll it into position and set the brakes.
Jack brushed Rose's hair away from her face as he gently laid her down. Meanwhile, Owen reached into a cupboard for a hospital gown. "Grab two litres of normal saline and one of glucose in IV bags," he ordered. Tosh, who was closest, reached down and pulled them out, ripping open the bags and laying them on the countertop.
Owen turned to Rose. "Okay, just getting your clothes off, then we’ll take a look at you," he said, and began to pull off her top. Jack noticed her recoil from his brisk, detached touch, and was opening his mouth to protest when Gwen intervened.
"She might prefer a woman handling her. We don’t know what she’s gone through."
Jack nodded. Trust her to think of that. "Thanks, Gwen."
"Gwen?" Rose repeated vaguely. She'd either fallen asleep or passed out on Jack's shoulder on the way back to the Hub, and didn't appear to be lucid just yet. He was struck by the change in her. This fragile, broken figure bore little resemblance to the bright, energetic, happy young woman he'd known and loved and died for. His heart squeezed tightly in his chest. What had happened to her?
Gwen stepped forward into her field of vision. "Yes, that's me. I'm Gwen."
Rose turned her head and her eyes managed to focus. They widened suddenly and she sat bolt upright on the gurney, causing everyone to jerk back reflexively. "But-you're dead, you died, I saw you die, you were taken over by the Gelth and then you blew up Mr Sneed's house and-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Jack interrupted, taking Rose's face between his hands. She didn't look at him; her full attention was on the other woman. "Gwen hasn't died, sweetheart, she's right here. She works here, works for me. She can help you. We're all going to help you, Rose, that's what we're here for."
"But-" Rose said again, still staring at Gwen, who was beginning to look uncomfortable. "But I saw the house blow up. And the Doctor said you'd died." Her eyes filled with tears again. "Did we leave you behind as well? Oh, God, did you die for us too and we left you behind?" She turned to Owen, eyes wide with horror. "Is that where I am? Is that what this is? Judgement? Revenge? Everyone we left behind, everyone we couldn't save?"
She was shaking uncontrollably. It was all Jack could do to hold her. "No, Rose, no. No judgement. No revenge. You're safe, sweetheart. We're not going to let anyone hurt you. We're just going to get you healthy, and then we'll figure out what to do from there, all right?" He glanced up; Owen had dug three small plastic packages out of drawers and was opening them, laying the contents on a wheeled metal hospital tray. An IV start, it looked like. Good.
"Left behind," she murmured. Her eyes were dilated. "Always left behind. Save the world and off we go, and nobody the wiser. But what if it isn't saved? What if we can't save it? What if, when we save it, we make it worse? Like Satellite Five. We get them killed or we leave them behind and we never, never fix things properly. Just away to the next adventure, off we go, with the singing filling our heads." She frowned, shaking her head in frustration. "No. No, that was the TARDIS. Or the Vortex? Got to keep it all straight."
Owen had taken hold of her right arm and managed to get an IV port inserted. "What's she on about?" he asked Jack under his breath as he attached the plastic tubing and taped it securely down to her arm. Jack just shook his head.
She raised her hands, looking at them, front and back. "So much blood," she mused, though Jack could see nothing but dirt. "Blood on our hands. None of it ever touched us, but it's still there. We're covered in it, drowning in it. How many did we kill? How many do we have to save before the scales balance?"
She lifted her tear-streaked face to Jack and, in a mercurial change of mood, smiled gently, so much tenderness in her expression that his breath hitched suddenly. "I always loved you, Jack," she said, cupping his cheek with her left hand. "You know that, yeah? You know that I loved you?"
Jack swallowed around the lump in his throat. "Yeah," he said hoarsely. "I always knew, Rose."
"Never did anything about it, but always wanted to. Never let you know. But I loved you… and I loved him… and we left you behind." Her hand dropped back to her lap, and her gaze drifted off, looking over his shoulder at nothing. "And then he left me behind. We're trapped in our own little minds now. All alone in our skulls, just like we're normal. But we're not. Not us. We can't be, not ever again." She laughed, a soft chuckle that was somehow chilling, and rested her head on his shoulder. "Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf…?" she sang quietly.
Owen hovered behind her, ready with a syringe. Jack looked at him questioningly over Rose's head. "Sedative," Owen mouthed, and before Jack could react, injected it into a port in the IV line. A few moments later, Rose's eyelids began to flutter. "Sleepy," she said through a yawn.
"Get some rest," Jack said, kissing her forehead gently. "It'll be all right, I promise."
"Mm." She sighed. "You won't leave me?"
"I'll be right here."
Another sigh, and she drifted off. Jack put a hand behind her head and carefully settled her back onto the gurney. His heart ached for her. He couldn't reconcile his memories of her-brilliant, beautiful, filled with life and energy and joy-with this broken, helpless doll. It was beyond comprehension.
"Finally," Owen said, rolling his eyes. "I've had nutters on my table in the past, but she was starting to get on my nerves. Is her name really Rose? 'Cos I think 'Lady Macbeth' might be a better-"
Lightning-fast, Jack reached across Rose and grabbed Owen by the shirt front, hauling him half over the table. "You will never speak disrespectfully of this woman," he said through gritted teeth. "Not in my hearing, not out of my hearing, not even in your deepest, darkest thoughts. Got it?"
Owen held his hands out to the side in surrender. "Okay, okay," he said. "Whatever you say."
Jack growled and let him go. "Good," he snapped. "Now get out. I'm going to get her undressed and cleaned up. When I'm ready, I'll call you."
Clearly much put-out, Owen dropped the syringe into the sharps container and straightened his collar, then headed up the stairs and out toward his desk. Tosh went as well, clearly uncomfortable. Jack ignored them, brushing the back of his fingers over Rose's cheek.
"Do you want me to go?" Gwen said quietly from behind him. "Or I can stay, if you want."
He shook his head. "You go on. Get some rest. I'll take care of her."
"All right." He felt her small hand on his shoulder, a touch of friendship and compassion, and then she too was gone.
He took a deep breath and looked down at Rose: her torn pink hoodie, ripped jeans, trainers that were nearly falling apart. "Where have you been, Rose?" he murmured. "How did you find your way back to me?"
Ianto shifted slightly, just enough for Jack to realise he hadn't gone. Jack looked up. "Oh, good. Ianto, would you do me a favour?"
***
"…all but threw me out," Owen was complaining to Tosh as Gwen came up into the Hub's communal office space. "Just so he can have some time alone with little miss loony down there. I'm tellin' you, she's barkin'."
"Why did you start her on saline, Owen?" Gwen asked pointedly as Ianto passed her by, heading toward the kitchen area.
Owen looked up and smirked. "Oh, toss you out as well, did he?"
"No, I left. Why the saline?"
He rolled his eyes again. "If you must ask, PC Cooper, it's because she's showing signs of dehydration. Dry lips, dry mouth, poor skin turgor-the only thing she wasn't doing was vomiting."
"Don't you start to go a bit funny in the head when you're dehydrated?" Gwen pointed out. "Start to lose coherence?"
Owen shifted from one foot to another. "Well, yeah," he admitted.
"So once she's got fluids in her, she should be fine."
"Yeah, but that's not the point, is it?" Owen said.
"Sounds like it is to me," Tosh said calmly, never looking away from her monitor.
"No, it's not. Listen." Owen leaned forward on his hands, looking back and forth from Gwen to Tosh. "He knew her. And she knew him. If she came through the Rift, how could she possibly know him?"
"What about that pattern you told me about?" Tosh asked. "The come-throughs are rotating from our past to our present to our future, and she's in the right place in the rotation to be from our present. What if she's from two or three years ago? Her clothing certainly looks contemporary."
"But how did she survive the Rift, then?" Owen pressed.
"Lots of humans have survived the Rift. We get them through all the time."
"Not if she was in there long enough to be that dehydrated." He pointed toward the medical bay. "She was a good two, maybe three days without fluids."
"She could have been dehydrated before she went in," Tosh said reasonably.
"So far gone that she's raving? Not bloody likely. Not unless she was trapped in the desert or something, and she'd be sunburnt if she was." He pushed away from the desk and pointed emphatically at Tosh. "I'm telling you, there's something weird about her."
"We could always ask Jack," Gwen suggested.
The silence that met that suggestion was eloquent, as were the expressions on Owen and Tosh's faces.
"Well, clearly he knows her," Gwen said a bit defensively. "And clearly he cares about her. He might be willing to tell us what he knows so we can help her."
"Yeah, because he's been so forthcoming about his past before this," Owen said dryly.
"Well, you don't know till you try, do you? It can't hurt."
"Tell you what," Owen said, going over to his workstation and sitting down at his computer. "You go ask him. I'll look her up in the database, see what I can find."
"'Rose Tyler' is likely to be a fairly common name," Tosh pointed out.
"Yeah, but I can narrow it down a bit. Contemporary clothes; knows Jack; London accent. If you're right and she's close to us in time, there'll be all kinds of data on her-probably even a picture."
Ianto walked past, carrying a washing-up bowl with what looked like a towel inside it. "What've you got there?" Gwen asked.
"Soap, a facecloth, and a towel, along with the bowl, of course. Jack's going to give Rose a bed bath."
"Ooh, wouldn't mind seeing that," Owen said, raising his eyebrows. "Little thinner than I like, not to mention mad as a hatter, but she's fit enough." He tapped a few keys, then his jaw dropped in shock. "Oi!" he protested. "He's cut off the CCTV in there!"
"Then I suggest you take the hint," Ianto said a bit sharply. "He won't be best pleased if he catches you gawking."
"Gawking?" Owen bristled. "I'm a bloody doctor!"
"Yes, and trust me, you'll want to keep this one purely professional. I've never seen Jack so protective." Ianto turned deliberately away and started off toward the medical bay. "Best get these down to him, and then I'm going home. You might want to do the same."
Owen watched him go, fuming. "Bloody fucking wanker," he growled, shoving his keyboard away from him and scattering papers in the process.
"Ianto or Jack?"
"Either. Both. Where the hell does Jack get off telling me what I can and can't have to do with my patient?"
"Oh, for God's sake," Gwen snapped, out of patience. "You insulted her right in front of him, when it was obvious they'd known each other and he cared about her. And then you talk about her like she was some sort of stripper or prostitute or something, here just to get you off." She glared at him, pointing a finger in his face. "If you do anything to hurt her or even to upset her, and Jack finds out about it, he'll kill you where you stand. And if there's anything left to you after he does, it's my turn." She turned on her heel and stalked back to her desk to retrieve her coat and purse. "I'm going home," she said, pulling the coat on. "I suggest you lot do the same. Maybe we'll all be a lot more reasonable after some sleep."
"Never seemed to help you before," Owen muttered, but reached for his coat anyway. Tosh silently followed suit. Without speaking to each other, they left for their separate cars.
***
Jack heard the round door clang shut, and a familiar stillness settled over the Hub. Everyone was gone now; for a few hours, it would be just him and Rose, no noise except the splashing from the water tower. Good. He had filled the washing-up bowl with warm water and set it next to the things Ianto had brought. She wasn't well enough for him to move her to a proper bed, but he could at least be sure she was clean.
"Okay, Rose," he said soothingly, "I'm going to undress you and give you a bath. It's only me. Nobody else is here; they've all gone home." Picking up a pair of scissors, he cut her out of the ruined hoodie, tossing the garment over the railing. All the while he kept up a quiet, soothing monologue of what he was doing, just in case she wasn't as deeply under as she looked. The last thing he wanted to do was startle her and cause her to flail, possibly pulling the IV port out of her arm. He pulled off her trainers and socks, laying them aside out of the way, then unfastened and removed her jeans. She remained quiet, unresponsive, which he took as a good sign; if she wasn't reacting to being undressed, at least there was a good chance she hadn't been sexually assaulted. That wasn't part of her trauma.
Even the thought of her being violated in that way was enough to send fury racing through him again, along with a wave of protectiveness that he hadn't felt in a long time. Until today, in fact. Even when Suzie had come back and started draining Gwen of her life force, he hadn't felt so protective. "I don't want you to worry, Rose," he told her firmly. "I'm not ever going to let anything happen to you."
But he had to focus. He looked her over, wondering whether to remove her underclothes as well. If he was going to bathe her, he might as well do it properly. "Okay, sweetheart," he said, bending down to slide his arm beneath her shoulders. "Just going to lift you here so I can finish getting you undressed." Gently, he raised her up into a sitting position so he could unclasp her bra, then laid her back down before cutting the right strap and pulling the garment off, laying it with the rest of her clothes. "Underwear, too," he told her, and pulled them down and off as well.
Naked. But though he had long fantasised about her while they'd travelled on the TARDIS together, this was not the stuff of fantasy. He could count every one of her ribs, see the bones in her wrists. Her hands were skeletal, as though the muscles and tendons had wasted away, leaving only skin over bones, and her cheeks were hollow. She wasn't just thin; she was nearly gaunt. "Oh, Rose," he said quietly, staring in horror at her emaciated body. "What's happened to you?"
She didn't move or react, of course, and he forced himself to keep going before the water grew cold. Wetting the facecloth and thoroughly soaping it, he went on with his soft monologue as he began washing her, cleaning off the dirt that seemed to have reached nearly every inch of skin, as though she'd not bathed in weeks.
He told her about the team, detailing each member, what they did, what they were like. He explained that this was Torchwood, "but not the egomaniacal lot that caused so much damage at Canary Wharf. We try to protect humans from aliens, and aliens from humans-try to keep the Rift from affecting the real world as much as possible. Not an easy job, and certainly not a safe one, but I think it's the most important job on the planet."
And he told her about himself, his history since he last saw her. Being killed, and then brought back to life. Being left behind on Satellite 5. Making his way down to the planet below. Discovering he couldn't die. Helping to rebuild the Earth after the Dalek attack. Learning to deal with his anger, watching it fade into hurt, then wistfulness, then a longing so intense that there were times he couldn't bear it. Managing to find his way back to Earth, circa 1900. Lahore. Estelle. Captain Jack-the real Captain Jack. Fighting his temptation to find her and the Doctor in any of their many trips back through the 20th century. Forcing himself to take the long road, knowing that it would be 2006 or beyond before he dared contact the Doctor again. Being recruited by Torchwood, and realising that this job was the single best way he could think of to find the Doctor again. "After all," he said, as he rinsed and wrung out the facecloth, "what better place to wait than the world's greatest petrol station for any time-and-dimensionally-transcendent living ship?"
At last she was clean and dry. He hadn't been able to wash her hair, but he'd combed it and fastened it into a pony tail at the nape of her neck, and then dressed her in the hospital gown Owen had brought out for her when they'd first arrived. Draping a blanket tenderly over her, he pulled up a chair and sat down, holding her hand loosely in his.
"But do you know what the worst part has been?" he asked quietly, eyes on her thin, almost skeletal fingers. "It's been thinking, all this time, that I'm the only one. That nobody else in the universe is like this. Nobody else is immortal. I'll be the one living on when the Earth is gone, when the human race is gone, when all the suns and all the galaxies have burnt up and gone cold. I'll still be here. Alone, because I can't trust anyone with this secret.
"Well," he added, "maybe a few. But just because they know, doesn't mean they can change anything. Gwen knows, but that doesn't mean anything, really; she'll still grow old and die, and I'll be left behind. Captain Jack Harkness, forever thirty-eight years old." He sighed. "I wanted to find the Doctor, because maybe he can explain it. Maybe he can tell me what's going on. And maybe, just maybe, he can fix it. I've lived too long, Rose, and I'm tired."
He raised her fingers and kissed them. "I'm not alone any more, though," he said, his throat tightening. "You're here now. And maybe, together, we can work this out. Maybe, together, living forever won't be such a curse."
She moved her head just slightly, shifting in her sleep, and he felt the ghost of pressure against his fingers, as though she'd tightened her hand the tiniest bit. He smiled wanly, leant forward, and kissed her forehead. "Sleep," he said, caressing her hair with his free hand. "I'll be right here."
Author: aibhinn
Pairings: Jack/Rose, Jack/Ten, Jack/Ten/Rose, Ten/Rose, mentions of (past) Jack/Ianto
Rating: PG this chapter
Spoilers: Doctor Who through "Doomsday", Torchwood through "End of Days".
Summary: The Rift is much more active than it was, and has been disgorging aliens and out-of-time people at an alarming rate… including one person Jack never expected to see again.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Auntie Beeb. I'm stuck here on the far side of the wrong continent, playing in her sandbox.
Author's note: This idea occurred to me during the last few episodes of Torchwood, but was almost destroyed by the end of episode 1x13, "End of Days." Consequently, I've decided to ignore that ending completely; the TARDIS never showed up in the Hub. Everything else remains the same. Thanks to zoanthropic06, rabid1st, joely_jo, and sensiblecat for beta services. Without them, this chapter would not be what it is.
Part I | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI | Part XII | Part XIII | Part XIV | Part XV
Ianto and Tosh nearly had everything set up when Jack and the others got back with Rose. They'd moved the autopsy table aside and were just pulling the gurney out of the storage room. Gwen helped them roll it into position and set the brakes.
Jack brushed Rose's hair away from her face as he gently laid her down. Meanwhile, Owen reached into a cupboard for a hospital gown. "Grab two litres of normal saline and one of glucose in IV bags," he ordered. Tosh, who was closest, reached down and pulled them out, ripping open the bags and laying them on the countertop.
Owen turned to Rose. "Okay, just getting your clothes off, then we’ll take a look at you," he said, and began to pull off her top. Jack noticed her recoil from his brisk, detached touch, and was opening his mouth to protest when Gwen intervened.
"She might prefer a woman handling her. We don’t know what she’s gone through."
Jack nodded. Trust her to think of that. "Thanks, Gwen."
"Gwen?" Rose repeated vaguely. She'd either fallen asleep or passed out on Jack's shoulder on the way back to the Hub, and didn't appear to be lucid just yet. He was struck by the change in her. This fragile, broken figure bore little resemblance to the bright, energetic, happy young woman he'd known and loved and died for. His heart squeezed tightly in his chest. What had happened to her?
Gwen stepped forward into her field of vision. "Yes, that's me. I'm Gwen."
Rose turned her head and her eyes managed to focus. They widened suddenly and she sat bolt upright on the gurney, causing everyone to jerk back reflexively. "But-you're dead, you died, I saw you die, you were taken over by the Gelth and then you blew up Mr Sneed's house and-"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Jack interrupted, taking Rose's face between his hands. She didn't look at him; her full attention was on the other woman. "Gwen hasn't died, sweetheart, she's right here. She works here, works for me. She can help you. We're all going to help you, Rose, that's what we're here for."
"But-" Rose said again, still staring at Gwen, who was beginning to look uncomfortable. "But I saw the house blow up. And the Doctor said you'd died." Her eyes filled with tears again. "Did we leave you behind as well? Oh, God, did you die for us too and we left you behind?" She turned to Owen, eyes wide with horror. "Is that where I am? Is that what this is? Judgement? Revenge? Everyone we left behind, everyone we couldn't save?"
She was shaking uncontrollably. It was all Jack could do to hold her. "No, Rose, no. No judgement. No revenge. You're safe, sweetheart. We're not going to let anyone hurt you. We're just going to get you healthy, and then we'll figure out what to do from there, all right?" He glanced up; Owen had dug three small plastic packages out of drawers and was opening them, laying the contents on a wheeled metal hospital tray. An IV start, it looked like. Good.
"Left behind," she murmured. Her eyes were dilated. "Always left behind. Save the world and off we go, and nobody the wiser. But what if it isn't saved? What if we can't save it? What if, when we save it, we make it worse? Like Satellite Five. We get them killed or we leave them behind and we never, never fix things properly. Just away to the next adventure, off we go, with the singing filling our heads." She frowned, shaking her head in frustration. "No. No, that was the TARDIS. Or the Vortex? Got to keep it all straight."
Owen had taken hold of her right arm and managed to get an IV port inserted. "What's she on about?" he asked Jack under his breath as he attached the plastic tubing and taped it securely down to her arm. Jack just shook his head.
She raised her hands, looking at them, front and back. "So much blood," she mused, though Jack could see nothing but dirt. "Blood on our hands. None of it ever touched us, but it's still there. We're covered in it, drowning in it. How many did we kill? How many do we have to save before the scales balance?"
She lifted her tear-streaked face to Jack and, in a mercurial change of mood, smiled gently, so much tenderness in her expression that his breath hitched suddenly. "I always loved you, Jack," she said, cupping his cheek with her left hand. "You know that, yeah? You know that I loved you?"
Jack swallowed around the lump in his throat. "Yeah," he said hoarsely. "I always knew, Rose."
"Never did anything about it, but always wanted to. Never let you know. But I loved you… and I loved him… and we left you behind." Her hand dropped back to her lap, and her gaze drifted off, looking over his shoulder at nothing. "And then he left me behind. We're trapped in our own little minds now. All alone in our skulls, just like we're normal. But we're not. Not us. We can't be, not ever again." She laughed, a soft chuckle that was somehow chilling, and rested her head on his shoulder. "Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf…?" she sang quietly.
Owen hovered behind her, ready with a syringe. Jack looked at him questioningly over Rose's head. "Sedative," Owen mouthed, and before Jack could react, injected it into a port in the IV line. A few moments later, Rose's eyelids began to flutter. "Sleepy," she said through a yawn.
"Get some rest," Jack said, kissing her forehead gently. "It'll be all right, I promise."
"Mm." She sighed. "You won't leave me?"
"I'll be right here."
Another sigh, and she drifted off. Jack put a hand behind her head and carefully settled her back onto the gurney. His heart ached for her. He couldn't reconcile his memories of her-brilliant, beautiful, filled with life and energy and joy-with this broken, helpless doll. It was beyond comprehension.
"Finally," Owen said, rolling his eyes. "I've had nutters on my table in the past, but she was starting to get on my nerves. Is her name really Rose? 'Cos I think 'Lady Macbeth' might be a better-"
Lightning-fast, Jack reached across Rose and grabbed Owen by the shirt front, hauling him half over the table. "You will never speak disrespectfully of this woman," he said through gritted teeth. "Not in my hearing, not out of my hearing, not even in your deepest, darkest thoughts. Got it?"
Owen held his hands out to the side in surrender. "Okay, okay," he said. "Whatever you say."
Jack growled and let him go. "Good," he snapped. "Now get out. I'm going to get her undressed and cleaned up. When I'm ready, I'll call you."
Clearly much put-out, Owen dropped the syringe into the sharps container and straightened his collar, then headed up the stairs and out toward his desk. Tosh went as well, clearly uncomfortable. Jack ignored them, brushing the back of his fingers over Rose's cheek.
"Do you want me to go?" Gwen said quietly from behind him. "Or I can stay, if you want."
He shook his head. "You go on. Get some rest. I'll take care of her."
"All right." He felt her small hand on his shoulder, a touch of friendship and compassion, and then she too was gone.
He took a deep breath and looked down at Rose: her torn pink hoodie, ripped jeans, trainers that were nearly falling apart. "Where have you been, Rose?" he murmured. "How did you find your way back to me?"
Ianto shifted slightly, just enough for Jack to realise he hadn't gone. Jack looked up. "Oh, good. Ianto, would you do me a favour?"
***
"…all but threw me out," Owen was complaining to Tosh as Gwen came up into the Hub's communal office space. "Just so he can have some time alone with little miss loony down there. I'm tellin' you, she's barkin'."
"Why did you start her on saline, Owen?" Gwen asked pointedly as Ianto passed her by, heading toward the kitchen area.
Owen looked up and smirked. "Oh, toss you out as well, did he?"
"No, I left. Why the saline?"
He rolled his eyes again. "If you must ask, PC Cooper, it's because she's showing signs of dehydration. Dry lips, dry mouth, poor skin turgor-the only thing she wasn't doing was vomiting."
"Don't you start to go a bit funny in the head when you're dehydrated?" Gwen pointed out. "Start to lose coherence?"
Owen shifted from one foot to another. "Well, yeah," he admitted.
"So once she's got fluids in her, she should be fine."
"Yeah, but that's not the point, is it?" Owen said.
"Sounds like it is to me," Tosh said calmly, never looking away from her monitor.
"No, it's not. Listen." Owen leaned forward on his hands, looking back and forth from Gwen to Tosh. "He knew her. And she knew him. If she came through the Rift, how could she possibly know him?"
"What about that pattern you told me about?" Tosh asked. "The come-throughs are rotating from our past to our present to our future, and she's in the right place in the rotation to be from our present. What if she's from two or three years ago? Her clothing certainly looks contemporary."
"But how did she survive the Rift, then?" Owen pressed.
"Lots of humans have survived the Rift. We get them through all the time."
"Not if she was in there long enough to be that dehydrated." He pointed toward the medical bay. "She was a good two, maybe three days without fluids."
"She could have been dehydrated before she went in," Tosh said reasonably.
"So far gone that she's raving? Not bloody likely. Not unless she was trapped in the desert or something, and she'd be sunburnt if she was." He pushed away from the desk and pointed emphatically at Tosh. "I'm telling you, there's something weird about her."
"We could always ask Jack," Gwen suggested.
The silence that met that suggestion was eloquent, as were the expressions on Owen and Tosh's faces.
"Well, clearly he knows her," Gwen said a bit defensively. "And clearly he cares about her. He might be willing to tell us what he knows so we can help her."
"Yeah, because he's been so forthcoming about his past before this," Owen said dryly.
"Well, you don't know till you try, do you? It can't hurt."
"Tell you what," Owen said, going over to his workstation and sitting down at his computer. "You go ask him. I'll look her up in the database, see what I can find."
"'Rose Tyler' is likely to be a fairly common name," Tosh pointed out.
"Yeah, but I can narrow it down a bit. Contemporary clothes; knows Jack; London accent. If you're right and she's close to us in time, there'll be all kinds of data on her-probably even a picture."
Ianto walked past, carrying a washing-up bowl with what looked like a towel inside it. "What've you got there?" Gwen asked.
"Soap, a facecloth, and a towel, along with the bowl, of course. Jack's going to give Rose a bed bath."
"Ooh, wouldn't mind seeing that," Owen said, raising his eyebrows. "Little thinner than I like, not to mention mad as a hatter, but she's fit enough." He tapped a few keys, then his jaw dropped in shock. "Oi!" he protested. "He's cut off the CCTV in there!"
"Then I suggest you take the hint," Ianto said a bit sharply. "He won't be best pleased if he catches you gawking."
"Gawking?" Owen bristled. "I'm a bloody doctor!"
"Yes, and trust me, you'll want to keep this one purely professional. I've never seen Jack so protective." Ianto turned deliberately away and started off toward the medical bay. "Best get these down to him, and then I'm going home. You might want to do the same."
Owen watched him go, fuming. "Bloody fucking wanker," he growled, shoving his keyboard away from him and scattering papers in the process.
"Ianto or Jack?"
"Either. Both. Where the hell does Jack get off telling me what I can and can't have to do with my patient?"
"Oh, for God's sake," Gwen snapped, out of patience. "You insulted her right in front of him, when it was obvious they'd known each other and he cared about her. And then you talk about her like she was some sort of stripper or prostitute or something, here just to get you off." She glared at him, pointing a finger in his face. "If you do anything to hurt her or even to upset her, and Jack finds out about it, he'll kill you where you stand. And if there's anything left to you after he does, it's my turn." She turned on her heel and stalked back to her desk to retrieve her coat and purse. "I'm going home," she said, pulling the coat on. "I suggest you lot do the same. Maybe we'll all be a lot more reasonable after some sleep."
"Never seemed to help you before," Owen muttered, but reached for his coat anyway. Tosh silently followed suit. Without speaking to each other, they left for their separate cars.
***
Jack heard the round door clang shut, and a familiar stillness settled over the Hub. Everyone was gone now; for a few hours, it would be just him and Rose, no noise except the splashing from the water tower. Good. He had filled the washing-up bowl with warm water and set it next to the things Ianto had brought. She wasn't well enough for him to move her to a proper bed, but he could at least be sure she was clean.
"Okay, Rose," he said soothingly, "I'm going to undress you and give you a bath. It's only me. Nobody else is here; they've all gone home." Picking up a pair of scissors, he cut her out of the ruined hoodie, tossing the garment over the railing. All the while he kept up a quiet, soothing monologue of what he was doing, just in case she wasn't as deeply under as she looked. The last thing he wanted to do was startle her and cause her to flail, possibly pulling the IV port out of her arm. He pulled off her trainers and socks, laying them aside out of the way, then unfastened and removed her jeans. She remained quiet, unresponsive, which he took as a good sign; if she wasn't reacting to being undressed, at least there was a good chance she hadn't been sexually assaulted. That wasn't part of her trauma.
Even the thought of her being violated in that way was enough to send fury racing through him again, along with a wave of protectiveness that he hadn't felt in a long time. Until today, in fact. Even when Suzie had come back and started draining Gwen of her life force, he hadn't felt so protective. "I don't want you to worry, Rose," he told her firmly. "I'm not ever going to let anything happen to you."
But he had to focus. He looked her over, wondering whether to remove her underclothes as well. If he was going to bathe her, he might as well do it properly. "Okay, sweetheart," he said, bending down to slide his arm beneath her shoulders. "Just going to lift you here so I can finish getting you undressed." Gently, he raised her up into a sitting position so he could unclasp her bra, then laid her back down before cutting the right strap and pulling the garment off, laying it with the rest of her clothes. "Underwear, too," he told her, and pulled them down and off as well.
Naked. But though he had long fantasised about her while they'd travelled on the TARDIS together, this was not the stuff of fantasy. He could count every one of her ribs, see the bones in her wrists. Her hands were skeletal, as though the muscles and tendons had wasted away, leaving only skin over bones, and her cheeks were hollow. She wasn't just thin; she was nearly gaunt. "Oh, Rose," he said quietly, staring in horror at her emaciated body. "What's happened to you?"
She didn't move or react, of course, and he forced himself to keep going before the water grew cold. Wetting the facecloth and thoroughly soaping it, he went on with his soft monologue as he began washing her, cleaning off the dirt that seemed to have reached nearly every inch of skin, as though she'd not bathed in weeks.
He told her about the team, detailing each member, what they did, what they were like. He explained that this was Torchwood, "but not the egomaniacal lot that caused so much damage at Canary Wharf. We try to protect humans from aliens, and aliens from humans-try to keep the Rift from affecting the real world as much as possible. Not an easy job, and certainly not a safe one, but I think it's the most important job on the planet."
And he told her about himself, his history since he last saw her. Being killed, and then brought back to life. Being left behind on Satellite 5. Making his way down to the planet below. Discovering he couldn't die. Helping to rebuild the Earth after the Dalek attack. Learning to deal with his anger, watching it fade into hurt, then wistfulness, then a longing so intense that there were times he couldn't bear it. Managing to find his way back to Earth, circa 1900. Lahore. Estelle. Captain Jack-the real Captain Jack. Fighting his temptation to find her and the Doctor in any of their many trips back through the 20th century. Forcing himself to take the long road, knowing that it would be 2006 or beyond before he dared contact the Doctor again. Being recruited by Torchwood, and realising that this job was the single best way he could think of to find the Doctor again. "After all," he said, as he rinsed and wrung out the facecloth, "what better place to wait than the world's greatest petrol station for any time-and-dimensionally-transcendent living ship?"
At last she was clean and dry. He hadn't been able to wash her hair, but he'd combed it and fastened it into a pony tail at the nape of her neck, and then dressed her in the hospital gown Owen had brought out for her when they'd first arrived. Draping a blanket tenderly over her, he pulled up a chair and sat down, holding her hand loosely in his.
"But do you know what the worst part has been?" he asked quietly, eyes on her thin, almost skeletal fingers. "It's been thinking, all this time, that I'm the only one. That nobody else in the universe is like this. Nobody else is immortal. I'll be the one living on when the Earth is gone, when the human race is gone, when all the suns and all the galaxies have burnt up and gone cold. I'll still be here. Alone, because I can't trust anyone with this secret.
"Well," he added, "maybe a few. But just because they know, doesn't mean they can change anything. Gwen knows, but that doesn't mean anything, really; she'll still grow old and die, and I'll be left behind. Captain Jack Harkness, forever thirty-eight years old." He sighed. "I wanted to find the Doctor, because maybe he can explain it. Maybe he can tell me what's going on. And maybe, just maybe, he can fix it. I've lived too long, Rose, and I'm tired."
He raised her fingers and kissed them. "I'm not alone any more, though," he said, his throat tightening. "You're here now. And maybe, together, we can work this out. Maybe, together, living forever won't be such a curse."
She moved her head just slightly, shifting in her sleep, and he felt the ghost of pressure against his fingers, as though she'd tightened her hand the tiniest bit. He smiled wanly, leant forward, and kissed her forehead. "Sleep," he said, caressing her hair with his free hand. "I'll be right here."