Fic: "The Slow Path" (Jack, Ten, Martha, Rose | PG)
Title: The Slow Path
Author: aibhinn
Pairing/Characters: Ten, Jack, Martha, Rose; implied past Nine/Jack/Rose
Beta: Wendy, Gillian, Gina, Ruth, and Jo
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Utopia
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not making any money. Only playing, I promise. I'll treat them nice and put them back where I found them when I'm done.
Summary: His heart ached with every beat, knowing its two missing pieces were so close, and yet still as far away as they'd ever been.
Challenge: Pertho. This is a Rune of finding lost items or possibly an old friend or long lost relative you probably lost contact with.
I: 1997
He shouldn't have come here. The chance of crossing timelines was too great, not to mention the chance of influencing the future. Who knew what kind of damage he could inflict if she actually met him now? Or even saw him well enough to remember his face in eight years' time?
So he was careful. He used all the skills he had learned as a Time Agent, and a few others that he'd picked up along the way, to make sure that he remained unnoticed. Change of clothes from period couture to '90s style (artful grunge-rather more the latter than the former, he thought with some disdain, but he did blend in), and a cap to shade his face. He set himself on the street corner, standing in the shadow of a newsagent's, and waited.
There she was. Her hair was a light, mousy brown, very different from the bleached blonde he'd known, but there was no mistaking that face, nor the already-characteristic grin. She walked between two girls, one a redhead, the other black, giggling and leaning on each other like any ten-year-olds. He folded his arms across his chest and watched her pass, his heart filled with a sensation of proprietary protectiveness.
A teenager carrying an armload of books brushed past them, setting them all to giggling again. "Hi, Mickey!" they chorused. The teenager looked back, rolled his eyes, and jogged off, clearly trying to put distance between himself and the girls, who collapsed into giggles one more time. Mickey Smith, Jack realised. Not always in love with Rose, apparently-though to be fair, at this age four years' difference was huge.
"He fancies you," the black girl said to Rose, conspiratorially.
"Ew!" Rose protested, causing the others to giggle. "Who wants to be fancied by a boy? They're all smelly and stupid."
Jack turned his head to the side to hide his grin. Not an opinion she'd hold forever, he knew without doubt.
"We're gonna be late," the redhead hissed, and the three of them broke into a run, knapsacks jouncing behind them. Jack watched her fade into the distance. His eyes misted, but not for the girl who was running off to school; they misted for the woman she would become, and whom he would love.
II: 2003
He sat in the park, ostensibly reading a book behind his sunglasses while in reality watching the couple a few yards away.
This must be Jimmy Stone. He wasn't a bad-looking bloke, Jack thought dispassionately. Tall, blonde, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, and ruggedly handsome. It was clear Rose was head over heels in love with him…but equally clear that he wasn't as interested in her, despite his possessive arm around her shoulders.
Oh, she would never have noticed it-or if she did, she certainly wasn't experienced enough to know what it meant. But Jack could read it in a hundred little details: the way Jimmy's attention wandered to the other women walking or sitting nearby, all but ignoring Rose if a particularly beautiful woman crossed his sight; the way he only half listened to her whenever she was speaking, filling her pauses with half-hearted "uh-huh"s and "yeah"s; the way he belittled Rose's opinions in a way that she clearly didn’t know how to rebut without sounding stupid (by Jimmy's lights, at least, which would be the only ones that mattered to her). Jack gritted his teeth and forced himself to stay where he was. As good as it would make him feel to introduce his fist to Jimmy Stone's face, it was probably not the best idea. Beyond screwing with the time-line-because Rose would certainly never forget the face of the man who'd attacked her boyfriend-it would make Jimmy a martyr in Rose's eyes, and that was the last thing Jack wanted to do.
But it felt like a dagger in his heart every time Jimmy's casual cruelty caused a flicker of hurt to pass over her face. That brilliant, gorgeous woman should never be treated this way. No woman should-but especially not Rose. He winced a bit when he remembered his own behaviour on top of his ship during the air raid in 1941, but told himself forcibly that he'd not known her then-and besides, he'd thought she was a Time Agent, experienced and fast-thinking, with excellent acting skills besides.
It didn't matter. The man he'd been then hadn't had the leisure for morals or decency. Or thought he hadn't. Conning was all he had left, once his memories had been taken. It took a nine-hundred-year-old alien and a nineteen-year-old human to convince him that he could be the man he'd always wanted to be.
And just the alien to convince him that even the best men were not above a little betrayal now and then.
Jimmy was tugging Rose to her feet, pulling her flush with his body and whispering something in her ear that had her blushing furiously and looking both excited and scared. He's trying to talk her into bed, Jack thought, and fought back another flare of anger and jealousy. Long nights talking with Rose in the TARDIS had taught him how this ended, and he couldn't bear knowing that she would be hurt that badly in just under a year's time.
"Yeah, go on," he muttered under his breath as Jimmy led Rose away by both hands. "And be grateful I'm trying to preserve the time-line here. I'll just wait till you've left Rose the broken, bleeding mess she described, and then I'll find you and do the same thing to you. Only in your case, broken, bleeding mess won't be a metaphor."
As they left, Jimmy glanced over his shoulder at Jack, as though he'd heard him. Jack grinned ferally and hoped he had.
III: 2005
He had to be really careful for this one. Cut it too fine, and he had a chance of the Doctor seeing him far too early-and that could really screw everything up.
But here she was, the Rose he knew: bottle-blonde, working in a shop, dating Mickey, and clearly happy. Most of the time.
Not all of the time, though. He's spent more and more time watching her over the past few months, and he's seen a slight melancholy in her expression sometimes, when she thought she was unobserved. A mild dissatisfaction, as if she was asking herself, Is this all there is?
And in the normal way of things, it would have been. She would have remained a shop girl, maybe been promoted to manager at some point, probably married Mickey, and lived her life in the same sort of neighbourhood she'd always lived in. But some part of her would always have been looking forward, wishing for more, though perhaps unsure how to get it.
Or not. Rose wasn't stupid; she might have ended up going back for her A-levels and got into university. But that wasn't necessary now, because the Autons were invading-Jack had scoped out their lair under Westminster Bridge just a couple days before-and tonight the Doctor would trace them here and run into her in the basement of Henrik's, saving her from shop window dummies and a life that would never have been good enough for her.
So many times during these years he'd been tempted to befriend Rose, or even just accidentally-on-purpose stumble into her and apologise, just so he could smell the familiar scent of her shampoo and look into those deep hazel eyes again. But he couldn't. He didn't dare. Perhaps one day the Doctor would find him (though that wasn't likely, was it, after all these years) and he'd be able to see her again. For now, he'd done the only thing he could: he'd watched her grow from a toddling child to a self-possessed young lady.
An explosion rocked the night, and he looked up. The top of the Henrik's building was on fire, burning away with orange-red flames. Footsteps caught his attention, and he looked back down to see Rose leaving the shop at a run, glancing behind her every few steps as though unable to believe what she'd just seen.
Nothing more to do here-nothing more he could do without risking discovery. Hunching into his coat, he turned and walked in the opposite direction as the sirens of emergency vehicles began to be audible. Back to Cardiff. The timeline was complete; now all he could do was wait.
Though his heart ached with every beat, knowing its two missing pieces were so close, and yet still as far away as they'd ever been.
IV: 2007
"Jack?"
It was Tosh, with coffee. Jack looked up, not bothering to hide the tear-tracks on his face.
"I brought you something hot to drink." She set the cup down, then clasped her hands nervously before her. "Thought you could use it."
He forced a smile. "Yeah," he said, his voice rough. "Thanks, Tosh."
She hesitated, watching as he took a sip. "Lots of us have lost someone we cared about at Canary Wharf," she said at last. "If you need to talk…." Her voice trailed off.
"Thanks," he said again, and she smiled wanly and left. He set the cup back down and buried his face in his hands.
So close. So close to them both, and the fuckwads at Torchwood One had to screw it up. And now Rose was gone.
How long had it been for them since they'd left him on Satellite Five? Couldn't have been too long, based on the pictures he'd salvaged from the security systems at Canary Wharf. She looked much as she always had. The Doctor was entirely different, though. Regeneration was what the files called it-if he died, he changed into a completely new man. But Rose was human, and so when she died, it was forever.
At least, he thought with no humour, she's not immortal like me. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. But some tiny part of himself wished she were-because he couldn't imagine his life without knowing she was in the world, somewhere.
Oh, Rose.
There in his office, Jack Harkness broke down and sobbed while the rest of his team pretended not to notice.
V: The end of the universe
She was alive. Alive! The joy bubbled up through him so brightly that he couldn't keep from bouncing forward to hug the Doctor. Despite his bitterness, his anger, his deep-seated pain at having been left behind, this news was too good not to celebrate. She was alive!
But still apart from him, he learned later. Trapped in another world. "The walls have closed," the Doctor said, and Jack could see the despair and loneliness in the Time Lord's eyes. Jack felt his own heart spasm in sympathy. He'd known how close the Doctor and Rose were back when he'd been travelling with them; how much closer had they grown in the time between Satellite Five and Canary Wharf?
He thought he knew. He'd seen that look many times, after all: the look of one bereft of one's soul-mate. He'd worn it himself.
Two men, bereft of their love…who just happened to be the same woman. Perhaps that was enough to re-create the bond between them, Jack thought, despite his immortality. Perhaps.
***
The TARDIS was gone, but the Doctor had a plan, of course. He always did. He borrowed Jack's wrist-comp, trying to repair the time-jump technology, and Jack settled himself into a corner and let his mind drift. It was a technique he'd used more than once when he needed his subconscious to process and combine disparate bits of information. He, Martha, and the Doctor would take care of the Master and get the TARDIS back, he had no doubt. But afterwards, there was another trip they needed to take-for both his sake and the Doctor's. It involved the Rift, the TARDIS, and a certain blonde they both loved.
He didn't know if he could do it, but wasn't that what immortality was for? To find ways to do the impossible? They'd opened the Rift before; with the help of the Time Lord, they could do it again. It might take years to determine the correct coordinates in the parallel world, but time was hardly an enemy-at least, not for the two of them.
"Nothing's impossible," he murmured as the Doctor examined the innards of his wrist-comp, talking a mile a minute and running his hand through his hair while Martha watched, half-enthralled, half-lost. "Only very, very improbable. And if another Time Lord managed to survive the War…why couldn't we find Rose?"
"What was that?" the Doctor asked abruptly, looking up at him.
Jack glanced up, then quirked a corner of his mouth. "Oh, nothing. Just musing on probabilities."
"This is not the time to be plotting your poker strategy," the Doctor said severely before returning to his work. But Jack had seen, as Martha had not, the tiny half-wink the Doctor had thrown his direction.
Jack grinned. Oh yes. He and the Doctor, solving problems together again. They could do anything, the two of them. Even the impossible.
***
"Jack," the Doctor said quietly a few hours later, so as not to wake Martha. "What was that you said earlier about another Time Lord surviving the war?"
"Just that," Jack answered, surprised. "Why?"
"Well, you see, about travel between parallel universes…it used to be simple when my people were alive. With just one of us, it's impossible. But with more than one…."
Their eyes met, and Jack grinned, hope rising in his chest. "But how will you get him to agree?"
"Oh, I won't," the Doctor said dismissively. "But I don't need to. See, brilliant as he is, I've got something he hasn't."
"And what's that?"
The Doctor smiled brightly. "Clever-and immortal-friends."
Author: aibhinn
Pairing/Characters: Ten, Jack, Martha, Rose; implied past Nine/Jack/Rose
Beta: Wendy, Gillian, Gina, Ruth, and Jo
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Utopia
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Not mine. Not making any money. Only playing, I promise. I'll treat them nice and put them back where I found them when I'm done.
Summary: His heart ached with every beat, knowing its two missing pieces were so close, and yet still as far away as they'd ever been.
Challenge: Pertho. This is a Rune of finding lost items or possibly an old friend or long lost relative you probably lost contact with.
I: 1997
He shouldn't have come here. The chance of crossing timelines was too great, not to mention the chance of influencing the future. Who knew what kind of damage he could inflict if she actually met him now? Or even saw him well enough to remember his face in eight years' time?
So he was careful. He used all the skills he had learned as a Time Agent, and a few others that he'd picked up along the way, to make sure that he remained unnoticed. Change of clothes from period couture to '90s style (artful grunge-rather more the latter than the former, he thought with some disdain, but he did blend in), and a cap to shade his face. He set himself on the street corner, standing in the shadow of a newsagent's, and waited.
There she was. Her hair was a light, mousy brown, very different from the bleached blonde he'd known, but there was no mistaking that face, nor the already-characteristic grin. She walked between two girls, one a redhead, the other black, giggling and leaning on each other like any ten-year-olds. He folded his arms across his chest and watched her pass, his heart filled with a sensation of proprietary protectiveness.
A teenager carrying an armload of books brushed past them, setting them all to giggling again. "Hi, Mickey!" they chorused. The teenager looked back, rolled his eyes, and jogged off, clearly trying to put distance between himself and the girls, who collapsed into giggles one more time. Mickey Smith, Jack realised. Not always in love with Rose, apparently-though to be fair, at this age four years' difference was huge.
"He fancies you," the black girl said to Rose, conspiratorially.
"Ew!" Rose protested, causing the others to giggle. "Who wants to be fancied by a boy? They're all smelly and stupid."
Jack turned his head to the side to hide his grin. Not an opinion she'd hold forever, he knew without doubt.
"We're gonna be late," the redhead hissed, and the three of them broke into a run, knapsacks jouncing behind them. Jack watched her fade into the distance. His eyes misted, but not for the girl who was running off to school; they misted for the woman she would become, and whom he would love.
II: 2003
He sat in the park, ostensibly reading a book behind his sunglasses while in reality watching the couple a few yards away.
This must be Jimmy Stone. He wasn't a bad-looking bloke, Jack thought dispassionately. Tall, blonde, broad-shouldered, narrow-waisted, and ruggedly handsome. It was clear Rose was head over heels in love with him…but equally clear that he wasn't as interested in her, despite his possessive arm around her shoulders.
Oh, she would never have noticed it-or if she did, she certainly wasn't experienced enough to know what it meant. But Jack could read it in a hundred little details: the way Jimmy's attention wandered to the other women walking or sitting nearby, all but ignoring Rose if a particularly beautiful woman crossed his sight; the way he only half listened to her whenever she was speaking, filling her pauses with half-hearted "uh-huh"s and "yeah"s; the way he belittled Rose's opinions in a way that she clearly didn’t know how to rebut without sounding stupid (by Jimmy's lights, at least, which would be the only ones that mattered to her). Jack gritted his teeth and forced himself to stay where he was. As good as it would make him feel to introduce his fist to Jimmy Stone's face, it was probably not the best idea. Beyond screwing with the time-line-because Rose would certainly never forget the face of the man who'd attacked her boyfriend-it would make Jimmy a martyr in Rose's eyes, and that was the last thing Jack wanted to do.
But it felt like a dagger in his heart every time Jimmy's casual cruelty caused a flicker of hurt to pass over her face. That brilliant, gorgeous woman should never be treated this way. No woman should-but especially not Rose. He winced a bit when he remembered his own behaviour on top of his ship during the air raid in 1941, but told himself forcibly that he'd not known her then-and besides, he'd thought she was a Time Agent, experienced and fast-thinking, with excellent acting skills besides.
It didn't matter. The man he'd been then hadn't had the leisure for morals or decency. Or thought he hadn't. Conning was all he had left, once his memories had been taken. It took a nine-hundred-year-old alien and a nineteen-year-old human to convince him that he could be the man he'd always wanted to be.
And just the alien to convince him that even the best men were not above a little betrayal now and then.
Jimmy was tugging Rose to her feet, pulling her flush with his body and whispering something in her ear that had her blushing furiously and looking both excited and scared. He's trying to talk her into bed, Jack thought, and fought back another flare of anger and jealousy. Long nights talking with Rose in the TARDIS had taught him how this ended, and he couldn't bear knowing that she would be hurt that badly in just under a year's time.
"Yeah, go on," he muttered under his breath as Jimmy led Rose away by both hands. "And be grateful I'm trying to preserve the time-line here. I'll just wait till you've left Rose the broken, bleeding mess she described, and then I'll find you and do the same thing to you. Only in your case, broken, bleeding mess won't be a metaphor."
As they left, Jimmy glanced over his shoulder at Jack, as though he'd heard him. Jack grinned ferally and hoped he had.
III: 2005
He had to be really careful for this one. Cut it too fine, and he had a chance of the Doctor seeing him far too early-and that could really screw everything up.
But here she was, the Rose he knew: bottle-blonde, working in a shop, dating Mickey, and clearly happy. Most of the time.
Not all of the time, though. He's spent more and more time watching her over the past few months, and he's seen a slight melancholy in her expression sometimes, when she thought she was unobserved. A mild dissatisfaction, as if she was asking herself, Is this all there is?
And in the normal way of things, it would have been. She would have remained a shop girl, maybe been promoted to manager at some point, probably married Mickey, and lived her life in the same sort of neighbourhood she'd always lived in. But some part of her would always have been looking forward, wishing for more, though perhaps unsure how to get it.
Or not. Rose wasn't stupid; she might have ended up going back for her A-levels and got into university. But that wasn't necessary now, because the Autons were invading-Jack had scoped out their lair under Westminster Bridge just a couple days before-and tonight the Doctor would trace them here and run into her in the basement of Henrik's, saving her from shop window dummies and a life that would never have been good enough for her.
So many times during these years he'd been tempted to befriend Rose, or even just accidentally-on-purpose stumble into her and apologise, just so he could smell the familiar scent of her shampoo and look into those deep hazel eyes again. But he couldn't. He didn't dare. Perhaps one day the Doctor would find him (though that wasn't likely, was it, after all these years) and he'd be able to see her again. For now, he'd done the only thing he could: he'd watched her grow from a toddling child to a self-possessed young lady.
An explosion rocked the night, and he looked up. The top of the Henrik's building was on fire, burning away with orange-red flames. Footsteps caught his attention, and he looked back down to see Rose leaving the shop at a run, glancing behind her every few steps as though unable to believe what she'd just seen.
Nothing more to do here-nothing more he could do without risking discovery. Hunching into his coat, he turned and walked in the opposite direction as the sirens of emergency vehicles began to be audible. Back to Cardiff. The timeline was complete; now all he could do was wait.
Though his heart ached with every beat, knowing its two missing pieces were so close, and yet still as far away as they'd ever been.
IV: 2007
"Jack?"
It was Tosh, with coffee. Jack looked up, not bothering to hide the tear-tracks on his face.
"I brought you something hot to drink." She set the cup down, then clasped her hands nervously before her. "Thought you could use it."
He forced a smile. "Yeah," he said, his voice rough. "Thanks, Tosh."
She hesitated, watching as he took a sip. "Lots of us have lost someone we cared about at Canary Wharf," she said at last. "If you need to talk…." Her voice trailed off.
"Thanks," he said again, and she smiled wanly and left. He set the cup back down and buried his face in his hands.
So close. So close to them both, and the fuckwads at Torchwood One had to screw it up. And now Rose was gone.
How long had it been for them since they'd left him on Satellite Five? Couldn't have been too long, based on the pictures he'd salvaged from the security systems at Canary Wharf. She looked much as she always had. The Doctor was entirely different, though. Regeneration was what the files called it-if he died, he changed into a completely new man. But Rose was human, and so when she died, it was forever.
At least, he thought with no humour, she's not immortal like me. I wouldn't wish this on anyone. But some tiny part of himself wished she were-because he couldn't imagine his life without knowing she was in the world, somewhere.
Oh, Rose.
There in his office, Jack Harkness broke down and sobbed while the rest of his team pretended not to notice.
V: The end of the universe
She was alive. Alive! The joy bubbled up through him so brightly that he couldn't keep from bouncing forward to hug the Doctor. Despite his bitterness, his anger, his deep-seated pain at having been left behind, this news was too good not to celebrate. She was alive!
But still apart from him, he learned later. Trapped in another world. "The walls have closed," the Doctor said, and Jack could see the despair and loneliness in the Time Lord's eyes. Jack felt his own heart spasm in sympathy. He'd known how close the Doctor and Rose were back when he'd been travelling with them; how much closer had they grown in the time between Satellite Five and Canary Wharf?
He thought he knew. He'd seen that look many times, after all: the look of one bereft of one's soul-mate. He'd worn it himself.
Two men, bereft of their love…who just happened to be the same woman. Perhaps that was enough to re-create the bond between them, Jack thought, despite his immortality. Perhaps.
***
The TARDIS was gone, but the Doctor had a plan, of course. He always did. He borrowed Jack's wrist-comp, trying to repair the time-jump technology, and Jack settled himself into a corner and let his mind drift. It was a technique he'd used more than once when he needed his subconscious to process and combine disparate bits of information. He, Martha, and the Doctor would take care of the Master and get the TARDIS back, he had no doubt. But afterwards, there was another trip they needed to take-for both his sake and the Doctor's. It involved the Rift, the TARDIS, and a certain blonde they both loved.
He didn't know if he could do it, but wasn't that what immortality was for? To find ways to do the impossible? They'd opened the Rift before; with the help of the Time Lord, they could do it again. It might take years to determine the correct coordinates in the parallel world, but time was hardly an enemy-at least, not for the two of them.
"Nothing's impossible," he murmured as the Doctor examined the innards of his wrist-comp, talking a mile a minute and running his hand through his hair while Martha watched, half-enthralled, half-lost. "Only very, very improbable. And if another Time Lord managed to survive the War…why couldn't we find Rose?"
"What was that?" the Doctor asked abruptly, looking up at him.
Jack glanced up, then quirked a corner of his mouth. "Oh, nothing. Just musing on probabilities."
"This is not the time to be plotting your poker strategy," the Doctor said severely before returning to his work. But Jack had seen, as Martha had not, the tiny half-wink the Doctor had thrown his direction.
Jack grinned. Oh yes. He and the Doctor, solving problems together again. They could do anything, the two of them. Even the impossible.
***
"Jack," the Doctor said quietly a few hours later, so as not to wake Martha. "What was that you said earlier about another Time Lord surviving the war?"
"Just that," Jack answered, surprised. "Why?"
"Well, you see, about travel between parallel universes…it used to be simple when my people were alive. With just one of us, it's impossible. But with more than one…."
Their eyes met, and Jack grinned, hope rising in his chest. "But how will you get him to agree?"
"Oh, I won't," the Doctor said dismissively. "But I don't need to. See, brilliant as he is, I've got something he hasn't."
"And what's that?"
The Doctor smiled brightly. "Clever-and immortal-friends."