Ulysses (10/?) [Ten/Jack/Rose - Firefly crossover - PG-13]
Title: Ulysses (10/?)
Author: aibhinn
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Rose, Jack, Ten (will end up OT3); the Firefly crew.
Spoilers: DW through Journey's End, TW through Children of Earth, and all aired Firefly canon, including episodes and the movie Serenity.
Betas: larielromeniel and canaana, though I did some editing after I got it back from them, so if I messed it up, it's not their fault!
Summary: After the death of the blue-suited Doctor, an immortal Rose uses the dimension cannon to teleport herself back into her home universe. Or should that be 'Verse? Crossover with Joss Whedon's Firefly.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. I promise to put everything back where I found it.
Author's Note: I am SO SORRY for how long this has taken. Please believe me when I say I never quite gave up on it; it just took me a long time to work through a serious block, as well as through the morass of busy-ness my RL became. I promise to finish this story. I absolutely swear. Thanks for not giving up on me-even when it's been almost a year and a half since my last update!
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9
The Doctor bent backwards, stretching his back before reaching up to press the button to send the full cart on its way. Another cart trundled in on the mag-line, and he dutifully began filling it. Bend, lift, turn, release, bend, lift, turn, release-it was as mindless a task as he'd ever done, up to and including some of the punishments he'd been set when he was in the Academy. It hadn't bothered him much at first, because it left his mind free to contemplate ways out of here-ways he could shut down the mine, find a fitting consequence for those who ran it, and return the captive workers to their homes. But now, weeks later, he was no further towards those goals than he'd ever been, and he honestly wasn't sure why.
Well, yes, he was, if he was honest. It was the sheer exhaustion of the work: the bone-deep fatigue he felt nearly all the time now. Strong as he was-much stronger than a human, and with more stamina-even he was wearing down. It pained him to watch the human men he worked with as they dragged themselves from work to eat to sleep and back to work. No rest days, no time off; just work, eat, sleep, and work again until they dropped.
"Doc! Doc!" Jackson, one of the drovers, came running in, and the Doctor turned, startled. "Ya gotta come quick! It's Doran. Cart derailed and dumped on him. Half-buried him in bags of stone. We got 'em off him, but he still can't breathe good."
The Doctor stared at him for a moment before his meaning penetrated; then anger abruptly welled up. No, no not anger. Fury. Fury at the men who had kidnapped him and these others, who forced them into slave labour, who couldn't even be arsed to keep the mag-lines in good repair-and who doubtless wouldn't care in the least if this man died. It ran through him, filling his body with warmth and energy he hadn't felt in too long. Here was something he could do; here was something he could fix. "Where?" he demanded.
"Depot cave," Jackson said.
Without waiting for another word, the Doctor was off, sprinting through the dim stone corridors. He heard Jackson behind him, but he didn't wait; he knew he could easily outdistance the man, and time was of the essence.
The train depot was on the highest level of the mine, and was the closest to the surface any of the mine workers were allowed to go. It was a natural bubble in the rock, deep enough to hold up to six ore cars and with an opening large enough to admit a full-sized locomotive. Normally, the door from the rest of the mine was manned by two burly guards who had orders, it was said, to kill anyone who attempted to come in without permission, but when the Doctor arrived a scant three minutes later, the door was standing open and unguarded. He didn't stop to wonder, just pelted inside and towards the knot of people at the far end.
As he drew closer, he could see that the cart had indeed slipped off the mag-line-a cart exactly like the ones he loaded, and maybe even one he had loaded himself. Beside it lay a pile of bags filled with ore, and between the two, a young man lay on his back, unmoving, his chest rising and falling quickly and shallowly. Even from across the depot, the Doctor could see how pale his face was, and the sheen of sweat that covered it.
One of the men turned and caught sight of him as he approached. "Get back!" he yelled. "It's the doc! Let 'im through!"
The knot of people separated, and the Doctor dropped to his knees beside the supine man. "Doran," he said. "Can you hear me?"
Doran opened his eyes, wincing, and blinked a couple of times. One pupil was blown, the other was a pinprick-concussion, the Doctor diagnosed. "Doc?" he croaked.
"That's right. We'll get you taken care of." The Doctor glanced around and caught sight of a bright yellow piece of rigid plastic. "Is that a backboard?" he asked.
Another man-Dyachkin, the Doctor identified, one of the cooks (and what was he doing here?)-said, "Yeah. None of us knew how to get him on it safely, though. We didn't want to touch him in case his neck was broken or something."
"Good thinking," the Doctor told him, and Dyachkin blushed. "You're right, you could've hurt him badly if you didn't know what to do." Carefully, he coached them into getting Doran safely onto the backboard and strapped in, and then they lifted the backboard onto the canvas stretcher. "Let's get him up to the infirmary," the Doctor said.
Obediently, two men took up the stretcher and the Doctor led the way towards the door from the depot into the rest of the mine, but before they made it a dozen meters, in came the mine foreman and the shift lead, flanked by guards-presumably the ones who had been on duty when Doran had been injured. "What's all this?" the foreman asked with patently false jollity. "Where are you going in the middle of the shift?"
The Doctor stood up straight, chin jutting forward, letting just a hint of his fury show in his eyes. "Doran was injured when the mag-line derailed," he said. "He's got a concussion, possible spinal damage, and almost certainly at least one cracked rib. We're taking him up to the infirmary."
"What, all of you?" the foreman asked with a slightly harder edge in his voice. "Ten men to take one injured one? Doesn't seem too logical to me. Can't imagine you'd need more than two."
The Doctor's fury kicked up a notch, but he was careful not to show it. Not quite yet. "They're concerned about their mate," he said, somewhat frostily. "I'd think that'd be perfectly natural."
"Maybe," the foreman acknowledged as the guards shifted slightly, eyes narrowing. "But they can be as concerned as they want while they're working. Not like they can do anything to help."
The others glanced away. "We was just going back to work, sir," said one of the litter-carriers: Addison, a young man from one of the other Rim planets who had been taken along with his brother not long after the Doctor arrived. Addison's brother hadn't toed the line to the foreman's satisfaction, and had been 'accidentally' killed in a cave-in. The Doctor suspected the foreman had made a point of explaining just why the elder brother had died while the younger survived. Certainly this Addison brother had never caused a moment's trouble for the company since. The Doctor's anger grew just a bit more.
"Three men," the Doctor countered, "at least. Me, Dyachkin, and Addison." The latter two, who were carrying the litter, stood up a little straighter. "I'm going to need some help getting him stabilized, especially if there's spinal damage."
The foreman snorted. "You ain't gonna be doing nothin'," he said flatly. "We got us a doctor-a real one, trained in the Core and everything. He'll take good care a' your friend here."
The Doctor's jaw came forward. "He won't be here until tomorrow morning," he said. "Doran needs help now."
"He ain't bleedin'," the foreman said while the shift lead smirked. "He ain't gonna die in a few hours. Take him up to the infirmary, and then you can get back to work." His voice lowered. "Or are we going to have a . . . problem?"
Rage took over, and the Doctor felt his control over his expression slipping away. The calm, cold façade of a Time Lord settled over him, and he stepped closer to the foreman-just one step, nothing more, but it was enough to make the other man step back. "This man has bleeding in his brain," he said icily. "He may have a broken spine. He may have a broken rib ready to puncture his lung with the first wrong movement. None of those situations can wait until tomorrow. I am going to go with him to the infirmary, and then I am going to do everything I can to save his life. Get out of my way."
The foreman and the shift lead both swallowed convulsively, and their eyes widened. The Doctor knew what they saw: dark, soulless eyes, the eyes of a killer or an alien or both. Those eyes had intimidated far more dangerous beings than these men ever could be. The foreman stepped back, letting the three of them and Doran through. The Doctor stayed for a moment, letting the litter go ahead of him while he held the foreman's gaze just a moment or two longer. When he was sure his point had been made, he turned and followed.
***
Jack lay on the bunk in the small cabin he'd been given, staring at the ceiling. The familiar acid-burn of worry sat in his chest and gut. Not for himself, nor for Zoë, who by all accounts was able to take care of herself. Not even for the Doctor-Jack was fairly sure the Time Lord could have got out of even the Master's clutches at any time during the Year that Never Was, so it followed that he could get out of whatever situation he was in now, too. No, there was only one person Jack was really worried about.
Rose.
They'd not had a chance to talk since being reunited. The news of Zoë's kidnapping had created a morass of arguing and discussing that had taken hours to work through, and left them right back where they started: Nobody knew exactly where she was, though "the mines" was as good a guess as any, and nobody had any good ideas for getting her out of there-at least, none that didn't involve suicide missions. And when they'd finally given up in exhaustion, Rose took advantage of a few moments of distraction to disappear off to her own room.
Jack wasn't stupid; he could read print, especially when it was blazoned in huge metaphorical red letters in front of his face. He went to the guest quarters Kaylee showed him, a vaguely Japanese-looking room complete with sliding wood-and-paper doors, and lay down to think. It wasn't that she was unhappy to see him-her greeting made that clear enough-so it had to be something else. He wasn't sure what, but he knew that pushing would only make it worse. So he folded his hands behind his head and forcefully told himself to stay put.
A soft voice echoed down the hallway, and he tensed. Andrea. Shit. He'd forgotten about her. Well, not forgotten, but in the blaze of shock and disbelief and love that'd hit him when he saw Rose, somehow she'd got pushed to the back of his mind. She deserved better than that, damn it. Maybe he should go to her, say something . . . .
An image of her expression when he'd finally set Rose down on the deck of the cargo hold earlier rose in his mind. She'd been smiling, but it was a frozen sort of smile, the sort you gave when you knew you were supposed to be happy about something that you weren't actually happy about at all, but over which you had no control. More guilt piled itself on his chest. She was a sweet girl, and he'd allowed himself to believe that she'd only intended friendship and a little sweaty fun with him. He should've known better. He should've said no to begin with, when she'd first come to his room in the hayloft-was it really just a week ago? He'd known, he'd always known, how she felt about him. What had possessed him to set up yet someone else for him to hurt?
Really, Captain? said a snarky, Northern-accented voice in his head. So if a woman sees you, she must have fallen in love with you? Watch you don't strain yourself carrying that ego around.
Jack huffed a chuckle at the thought. Doc's right, he said to himself, even when he's only in my brain. Andrea's a big girl and she can take care of herself. I do hope she's not hurt, though.
A soft sound, like a panel being slid back, sounded in the corridor, but he dismissed it and shut his eyes. Andie'd been up talking to Kaylee and Simon; she was probably going to bed, finally. He didn't sleep much, of course, but he'd probably better get as much as he could. Tomorrow was likely to-
He sat up suddenly. The sound had come from the room to the left of his. Andie's room was to his right. It wasn't Andie who was up and moving about.
Aware that the smartest thing for him to do was to stay put but unable to force himself to do so, he rolled off the bunk and stood, carefully making as little noise as possible. He listened carefully at the door before gingerly pushing it open.
The corridor was clear. Squeezing through the smallest possible space and sliding the door closed again, Jack turned to head down towards Rose's most likely destination.
The cargo hold… and the TARDIS.
***
Rose's footfalls echoed eerily in the control room as she made her slow, careful way up the ramp towards the centre console. The lights were dimmer than usual, and they didn't come up the way they usually did when she entered. She wondered why. "Hello?" she said cautiously.
A tendril of song wove its way into her brain in acknowledgement, then faded again. The TARDIS was aware of her, but something else was taking the time ship's attention. The Doctor? Rose wondered. She hoped so.
Sighing, she settled on the jump seat and drew her knees to her chest, resting her chin on them pensively. She was so close to the Doctor now-closer than she'd been in decades-but somehow, she felt farther away than ever. So much had happened in the last few hours, and her once laser-tight focus had become split, diffused even. She didn't know what to concentrate on first, and Serenity was so full of emotions right now that she couldn't even think straight. Maybe in here, in the place that had been 'home' for so long, she could clear her mind.
The Doctor was in the mines. Zoë was in the mines. But there was no way into them without having to bypass all the guards and such, unless they managed to get kidnapped themselves. Only one way in, and one way out: no back entrance, no delivery hatch, and air ducts that were too small for anything bigger than a rodent. It was a suicide mission… but they couldn't just leave them there to rot. Hours of discussion had left them no closer to an answer than they'd been before. Even Jack's expression had been grim.
Jack.
Rose blew out a sigh and rubbed her face with both hands. She'd felt awful about sneaking off to her quarters without telling him, but she hadn't been sure she could face him. She'd spent so many years feeling guilty over leaving his body behind, then even more years after the duplicate Doctor had joined her in Pete's World feeling guilty over having made him essentially immortal . . . until she realised she herself was essentially immortal as well.
She'd only died once-an explosion in one of the labs at Torchwood had sent a piece of shrapnel flying at her like a bullet. It was a through-and-through, and hit her heart. She remembered the shock of the impact, then nothing until her first revivifying breath, like daggers in her lungs. She'd opened her eyes and met her husband's gaze, reading in their dark depths a combination of relief and sorrow. Relief that he had her back; sorrow for the lot that was hers, a legacy of the Bad Wolf.
She'd hoped, once she found the Doctor, that she'd be able to reunite with Jack again. It had never occurred to her that she'd find him before the Doctor-or that he'd have such a weight of pain in his face and his eyes. She was afraid to ask him about it, and afraid to look too closely in the mirror, for fear she'd see a similar weight of pain in her own gaze. She wanted, more than anything, to let him hold her, to talk to him, to share her hopes and fears with him and let him share his with her. But she couldn't, not yet. Too much time had passed. She wasn't the same girl he'd known; he wasn't the same man she'd known. They had to get to know each other again, somehow. She just wasn't sure how to go about it.
A soft click sounded from the direction of the door, like a latch that hadn't caught properly, and she swivelled her head to look. The door swung open and Jack stepped inside just a few inches. His gaze unerringly met hers. "Hi," he said quietly.
She managed a smile. "Hi." He didn't move, and she added, "Come on in."
"You sure?" he asked, but stepped fully inside the doors. "I don't mind leaving you alone if you'd rather."
She shook her head and turned to sit properly on the jump seat, letting her feet dangle. "No, s'all right. Really."
He stuck his hands in his pockets and came slowly up the ramp, looking around. "Doesn't look much different from the last time I saw her," he said. A pause, and then he met her gaze. "That's the last time I saw you, too."
Tears began to well up, and she blinked them back furiously. "We've got a lot to talk about," she said, and held out her hands to him.
He smiled too, a smile full of pain and hope and love, and took her hands in his. "Yeah," he said. "We do."
She lifted her face to his, and he bent to kiss her slowly, softly, gently, like the first time he'd done it, back with her first Doctor. One of his hands released hers to cup her cheek delicately, thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone. A tear escaped and trailed down her face, but she wasn't sure whether it was a tear of regret for all the lost years, or of joy at having found him again.
Something clattered loudly on the decking, and they jumped apart, turning to see what it was. Mal picked himself up from where he'd fallen on the ramp, eyes wide as saucers and mouth agape. "Aiya," he said reverently. "What kind of a ship is this?"
Jack's jaw set, clearly in reaction to Mal's interruption, but Rose squeezed his hand and he subsided. "It's a TARDIS," she said. "Stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space."
"It's bigger on the inside!" Mal managed to make it up the ramp to the main deck without ever looking down. "Don't let Kaylee back in here. I'll never see her again."
"How did you get in?" Jack asked, with less edge to his voice than Rose had feared.
"Door was open. Thought I'd take a peek inside." Finally, Mal turned to look at them, and hesitated. "Oh. Sorry. If I'm intruding, I can just-" He hooked a thumb towards the door. "I shouldn't rightly be in here anyway, it not being my property. Sorry about that."
Rose glanced up at Jack, who had the good grace to look abashed at having left the door open. "No, it's all right," she said to Mal, who had, after all, been very good to her. "In fact, I can show you around a bit belowdecks if you wa-"
The door slammed shut, cutting Rose off, and before she could even process that it had shut on its own, the Time Rotor started up. Rose clutched at the back of the jump seat as the ship shuddered. "What the hell?" Mal yelped, grabbing one of the coral struts. "What's going on?"
Jack had already let go of Rose's hand and was at the console, typing something into the keyboard. He shook his head. "We're on the move," he said, "but that's all I can tell. Everything's in G-the Doctor's language, not ours. I don't know where we're going."
"But who's flying it?" Mal demanded. "Ships don't just start up all by themselves and kidnap folk! You take us back to Serenity right now!"
"Be happy to," Jack said shortly, "once I figure out where we're going. Rose, you're closer to the TARDIS than I ever was. Can you tell anything?"
She didn't even have to close her eyes for this one; the TARDIS was practically caroling her joy-a joy that her own heart echoed. She tried to speak, failed, tried again. "I think we're going to him," she said. Her voice trembled slightly.
"Going to who?" Mal snapped.
Rose met Jack's eyes. Hope was growing there, the same hope she knew had to be in her own eyes. "The friend I've been looking for," she said. A smile spread across her face, a huge grin; she couldn't have prevented it if she'd wanted to. "The Doctor."
Author: aibhinn
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Rose, Jack, Ten (will end up OT3); the Firefly crew.
Spoilers: DW through Journey's End, TW through Children of Earth, and all aired Firefly canon, including episodes and the movie Serenity.
Betas: larielromeniel and canaana, though I did some editing after I got it back from them, so if I messed it up, it's not their fault!
Summary: After the death of the blue-suited Doctor, an immortal Rose uses the dimension cannon to teleport herself back into her home universe. Or should that be 'Verse? Crossover with Joss Whedon's Firefly.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine. I promise to put everything back where I found it.
Author's Note: I am SO SORRY for how long this has taken. Please believe me when I say I never quite gave up on it; it just took me a long time to work through a serious block, as well as through the morass of busy-ness my RL became. I promise to finish this story. I absolutely swear. Thanks for not giving up on me-even when it's been almost a year and a half since my last update!
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9
The Doctor bent backwards, stretching his back before reaching up to press the button to send the full cart on its way. Another cart trundled in on the mag-line, and he dutifully began filling it. Bend, lift, turn, release, bend, lift, turn, release-it was as mindless a task as he'd ever done, up to and including some of the punishments he'd been set when he was in the Academy. It hadn't bothered him much at first, because it left his mind free to contemplate ways out of here-ways he could shut down the mine, find a fitting consequence for those who ran it, and return the captive workers to their homes. But now, weeks later, he was no further towards those goals than he'd ever been, and he honestly wasn't sure why.
Well, yes, he was, if he was honest. It was the sheer exhaustion of the work: the bone-deep fatigue he felt nearly all the time now. Strong as he was-much stronger than a human, and with more stamina-even he was wearing down. It pained him to watch the human men he worked with as they dragged themselves from work to eat to sleep and back to work. No rest days, no time off; just work, eat, sleep, and work again until they dropped.
"Doc! Doc!" Jackson, one of the drovers, came running in, and the Doctor turned, startled. "Ya gotta come quick! It's Doran. Cart derailed and dumped on him. Half-buried him in bags of stone. We got 'em off him, but he still can't breathe good."
The Doctor stared at him for a moment before his meaning penetrated; then anger abruptly welled up. No, no not anger. Fury. Fury at the men who had kidnapped him and these others, who forced them into slave labour, who couldn't even be arsed to keep the mag-lines in good repair-and who doubtless wouldn't care in the least if this man died. It ran through him, filling his body with warmth and energy he hadn't felt in too long. Here was something he could do; here was something he could fix. "Where?" he demanded.
"Depot cave," Jackson said.
Without waiting for another word, the Doctor was off, sprinting through the dim stone corridors. He heard Jackson behind him, but he didn't wait; he knew he could easily outdistance the man, and time was of the essence.
The train depot was on the highest level of the mine, and was the closest to the surface any of the mine workers were allowed to go. It was a natural bubble in the rock, deep enough to hold up to six ore cars and with an opening large enough to admit a full-sized locomotive. Normally, the door from the rest of the mine was manned by two burly guards who had orders, it was said, to kill anyone who attempted to come in without permission, but when the Doctor arrived a scant three minutes later, the door was standing open and unguarded. He didn't stop to wonder, just pelted inside and towards the knot of people at the far end.
As he drew closer, he could see that the cart had indeed slipped off the mag-line-a cart exactly like the ones he loaded, and maybe even one he had loaded himself. Beside it lay a pile of bags filled with ore, and between the two, a young man lay on his back, unmoving, his chest rising and falling quickly and shallowly. Even from across the depot, the Doctor could see how pale his face was, and the sheen of sweat that covered it.
One of the men turned and caught sight of him as he approached. "Get back!" he yelled. "It's the doc! Let 'im through!"
The knot of people separated, and the Doctor dropped to his knees beside the supine man. "Doran," he said. "Can you hear me?"
Doran opened his eyes, wincing, and blinked a couple of times. One pupil was blown, the other was a pinprick-concussion, the Doctor diagnosed. "Doc?" he croaked.
"That's right. We'll get you taken care of." The Doctor glanced around and caught sight of a bright yellow piece of rigid plastic. "Is that a backboard?" he asked.
Another man-Dyachkin, the Doctor identified, one of the cooks (and what was he doing here?)-said, "Yeah. None of us knew how to get him on it safely, though. We didn't want to touch him in case his neck was broken or something."
"Good thinking," the Doctor told him, and Dyachkin blushed. "You're right, you could've hurt him badly if you didn't know what to do." Carefully, he coached them into getting Doran safely onto the backboard and strapped in, and then they lifted the backboard onto the canvas stretcher. "Let's get him up to the infirmary," the Doctor said.
Obediently, two men took up the stretcher and the Doctor led the way towards the door from the depot into the rest of the mine, but before they made it a dozen meters, in came the mine foreman and the shift lead, flanked by guards-presumably the ones who had been on duty when Doran had been injured. "What's all this?" the foreman asked with patently false jollity. "Where are you going in the middle of the shift?"
The Doctor stood up straight, chin jutting forward, letting just a hint of his fury show in his eyes. "Doran was injured when the mag-line derailed," he said. "He's got a concussion, possible spinal damage, and almost certainly at least one cracked rib. We're taking him up to the infirmary."
"What, all of you?" the foreman asked with a slightly harder edge in his voice. "Ten men to take one injured one? Doesn't seem too logical to me. Can't imagine you'd need more than two."
The Doctor's fury kicked up a notch, but he was careful not to show it. Not quite yet. "They're concerned about their mate," he said, somewhat frostily. "I'd think that'd be perfectly natural."
"Maybe," the foreman acknowledged as the guards shifted slightly, eyes narrowing. "But they can be as concerned as they want while they're working. Not like they can do anything to help."
The others glanced away. "We was just going back to work, sir," said one of the litter-carriers: Addison, a young man from one of the other Rim planets who had been taken along with his brother not long after the Doctor arrived. Addison's brother hadn't toed the line to the foreman's satisfaction, and had been 'accidentally' killed in a cave-in. The Doctor suspected the foreman had made a point of explaining just why the elder brother had died while the younger survived. Certainly this Addison brother had never caused a moment's trouble for the company since. The Doctor's anger grew just a bit more.
"Three men," the Doctor countered, "at least. Me, Dyachkin, and Addison." The latter two, who were carrying the litter, stood up a little straighter. "I'm going to need some help getting him stabilized, especially if there's spinal damage."
The foreman snorted. "You ain't gonna be doing nothin'," he said flatly. "We got us a doctor-a real one, trained in the Core and everything. He'll take good care a' your friend here."
The Doctor's jaw came forward. "He won't be here until tomorrow morning," he said. "Doran needs help now."
"He ain't bleedin'," the foreman said while the shift lead smirked. "He ain't gonna die in a few hours. Take him up to the infirmary, and then you can get back to work." His voice lowered. "Or are we going to have a . . . problem?"
Rage took over, and the Doctor felt his control over his expression slipping away. The calm, cold façade of a Time Lord settled over him, and he stepped closer to the foreman-just one step, nothing more, but it was enough to make the other man step back. "This man has bleeding in his brain," he said icily. "He may have a broken spine. He may have a broken rib ready to puncture his lung with the first wrong movement. None of those situations can wait until tomorrow. I am going to go with him to the infirmary, and then I am going to do everything I can to save his life. Get out of my way."
The foreman and the shift lead both swallowed convulsively, and their eyes widened. The Doctor knew what they saw: dark, soulless eyes, the eyes of a killer or an alien or both. Those eyes had intimidated far more dangerous beings than these men ever could be. The foreman stepped back, letting the three of them and Doran through. The Doctor stayed for a moment, letting the litter go ahead of him while he held the foreman's gaze just a moment or two longer. When he was sure his point had been made, he turned and followed.
***
Jack lay on the bunk in the small cabin he'd been given, staring at the ceiling. The familiar acid-burn of worry sat in his chest and gut. Not for himself, nor for Zoë, who by all accounts was able to take care of herself. Not even for the Doctor-Jack was fairly sure the Time Lord could have got out of even the Master's clutches at any time during the Year that Never Was, so it followed that he could get out of whatever situation he was in now, too. No, there was only one person Jack was really worried about.
Rose.
They'd not had a chance to talk since being reunited. The news of Zoë's kidnapping had created a morass of arguing and discussing that had taken hours to work through, and left them right back where they started: Nobody knew exactly where she was, though "the mines" was as good a guess as any, and nobody had any good ideas for getting her out of there-at least, none that didn't involve suicide missions. And when they'd finally given up in exhaustion, Rose took advantage of a few moments of distraction to disappear off to her own room.
Jack wasn't stupid; he could read print, especially when it was blazoned in huge metaphorical red letters in front of his face. He went to the guest quarters Kaylee showed him, a vaguely Japanese-looking room complete with sliding wood-and-paper doors, and lay down to think. It wasn't that she was unhappy to see him-her greeting made that clear enough-so it had to be something else. He wasn't sure what, but he knew that pushing would only make it worse. So he folded his hands behind his head and forcefully told himself to stay put.
A soft voice echoed down the hallway, and he tensed. Andrea. Shit. He'd forgotten about her. Well, not forgotten, but in the blaze of shock and disbelief and love that'd hit him when he saw Rose, somehow she'd got pushed to the back of his mind. She deserved better than that, damn it. Maybe he should go to her, say something . . . .
An image of her expression when he'd finally set Rose down on the deck of the cargo hold earlier rose in his mind. She'd been smiling, but it was a frozen sort of smile, the sort you gave when you knew you were supposed to be happy about something that you weren't actually happy about at all, but over which you had no control. More guilt piled itself on his chest. She was a sweet girl, and he'd allowed himself to believe that she'd only intended friendship and a little sweaty fun with him. He should've known better. He should've said no to begin with, when she'd first come to his room in the hayloft-was it really just a week ago? He'd known, he'd always known, how she felt about him. What had possessed him to set up yet someone else for him to hurt?
Really, Captain? said a snarky, Northern-accented voice in his head. So if a woman sees you, she must have fallen in love with you? Watch you don't strain yourself carrying that ego around.
Jack huffed a chuckle at the thought. Doc's right, he said to himself, even when he's only in my brain. Andrea's a big girl and she can take care of herself. I do hope she's not hurt, though.
A soft sound, like a panel being slid back, sounded in the corridor, but he dismissed it and shut his eyes. Andie'd been up talking to Kaylee and Simon; she was probably going to bed, finally. He didn't sleep much, of course, but he'd probably better get as much as he could. Tomorrow was likely to-
He sat up suddenly. The sound had come from the room to the left of his. Andie's room was to his right. It wasn't Andie who was up and moving about.
Aware that the smartest thing for him to do was to stay put but unable to force himself to do so, he rolled off the bunk and stood, carefully making as little noise as possible. He listened carefully at the door before gingerly pushing it open.
The corridor was clear. Squeezing through the smallest possible space and sliding the door closed again, Jack turned to head down towards Rose's most likely destination.
The cargo hold… and the TARDIS.
***
Rose's footfalls echoed eerily in the control room as she made her slow, careful way up the ramp towards the centre console. The lights were dimmer than usual, and they didn't come up the way they usually did when she entered. She wondered why. "Hello?" she said cautiously.
A tendril of song wove its way into her brain in acknowledgement, then faded again. The TARDIS was aware of her, but something else was taking the time ship's attention. The Doctor? Rose wondered. She hoped so.
Sighing, she settled on the jump seat and drew her knees to her chest, resting her chin on them pensively. She was so close to the Doctor now-closer than she'd been in decades-but somehow, she felt farther away than ever. So much had happened in the last few hours, and her once laser-tight focus had become split, diffused even. She didn't know what to concentrate on first, and Serenity was so full of emotions right now that she couldn't even think straight. Maybe in here, in the place that had been 'home' for so long, she could clear her mind.
The Doctor was in the mines. Zoë was in the mines. But there was no way into them without having to bypass all the guards and such, unless they managed to get kidnapped themselves. Only one way in, and one way out: no back entrance, no delivery hatch, and air ducts that were too small for anything bigger than a rodent. It was a suicide mission… but they couldn't just leave them there to rot. Hours of discussion had left them no closer to an answer than they'd been before. Even Jack's expression had been grim.
Jack.
Rose blew out a sigh and rubbed her face with both hands. She'd felt awful about sneaking off to her quarters without telling him, but she hadn't been sure she could face him. She'd spent so many years feeling guilty over leaving his body behind, then even more years after the duplicate Doctor had joined her in Pete's World feeling guilty over having made him essentially immortal . . . until she realised she herself was essentially immortal as well.
She'd only died once-an explosion in one of the labs at Torchwood had sent a piece of shrapnel flying at her like a bullet. It was a through-and-through, and hit her heart. She remembered the shock of the impact, then nothing until her first revivifying breath, like daggers in her lungs. She'd opened her eyes and met her husband's gaze, reading in their dark depths a combination of relief and sorrow. Relief that he had her back; sorrow for the lot that was hers, a legacy of the Bad Wolf.
She'd hoped, once she found the Doctor, that she'd be able to reunite with Jack again. It had never occurred to her that she'd find him before the Doctor-or that he'd have such a weight of pain in his face and his eyes. She was afraid to ask him about it, and afraid to look too closely in the mirror, for fear she'd see a similar weight of pain in her own gaze. She wanted, more than anything, to let him hold her, to talk to him, to share her hopes and fears with him and let him share his with her. But she couldn't, not yet. Too much time had passed. She wasn't the same girl he'd known; he wasn't the same man she'd known. They had to get to know each other again, somehow. She just wasn't sure how to go about it.
A soft click sounded from the direction of the door, like a latch that hadn't caught properly, and she swivelled her head to look. The door swung open and Jack stepped inside just a few inches. His gaze unerringly met hers. "Hi," he said quietly.
She managed a smile. "Hi." He didn't move, and she added, "Come on in."
"You sure?" he asked, but stepped fully inside the doors. "I don't mind leaving you alone if you'd rather."
She shook her head and turned to sit properly on the jump seat, letting her feet dangle. "No, s'all right. Really."
He stuck his hands in his pockets and came slowly up the ramp, looking around. "Doesn't look much different from the last time I saw her," he said. A pause, and then he met her gaze. "That's the last time I saw you, too."
Tears began to well up, and she blinked them back furiously. "We've got a lot to talk about," she said, and held out her hands to him.
He smiled too, a smile full of pain and hope and love, and took her hands in his. "Yeah," he said. "We do."
She lifted her face to his, and he bent to kiss her slowly, softly, gently, like the first time he'd done it, back with her first Doctor. One of his hands released hers to cup her cheek delicately, thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone. A tear escaped and trailed down her face, but she wasn't sure whether it was a tear of regret for all the lost years, or of joy at having found him again.
Something clattered loudly on the decking, and they jumped apart, turning to see what it was. Mal picked himself up from where he'd fallen on the ramp, eyes wide as saucers and mouth agape. "Aiya," he said reverently. "What kind of a ship is this?"
Jack's jaw set, clearly in reaction to Mal's interruption, but Rose squeezed his hand and he subsided. "It's a TARDIS," she said. "Stands for Time and Relative Dimensions in Space."
"It's bigger on the inside!" Mal managed to make it up the ramp to the main deck without ever looking down. "Don't let Kaylee back in here. I'll never see her again."
"How did you get in?" Jack asked, with less edge to his voice than Rose had feared.
"Door was open. Thought I'd take a peek inside." Finally, Mal turned to look at them, and hesitated. "Oh. Sorry. If I'm intruding, I can just-" He hooked a thumb towards the door. "I shouldn't rightly be in here anyway, it not being my property. Sorry about that."
Rose glanced up at Jack, who had the good grace to look abashed at having left the door open. "No, it's all right," she said to Mal, who had, after all, been very good to her. "In fact, I can show you around a bit belowdecks if you wa-"
The door slammed shut, cutting Rose off, and before she could even process that it had shut on its own, the Time Rotor started up. Rose clutched at the back of the jump seat as the ship shuddered. "What the hell?" Mal yelped, grabbing one of the coral struts. "What's going on?"
Jack had already let go of Rose's hand and was at the console, typing something into the keyboard. He shook his head. "We're on the move," he said, "but that's all I can tell. Everything's in G-the Doctor's language, not ours. I don't know where we're going."
"But who's flying it?" Mal demanded. "Ships don't just start up all by themselves and kidnap folk! You take us back to Serenity right now!"
"Be happy to," Jack said shortly, "once I figure out where we're going. Rose, you're closer to the TARDIS than I ever was. Can you tell anything?"
She didn't even have to close her eyes for this one; the TARDIS was practically caroling her joy-a joy that her own heart echoed. She tried to speak, failed, tried again. "I think we're going to him," she said. Her voice trembled slightly.
"Going to who?" Mal snapped.
Rose met Jack's eyes. Hope was growing there, the same hope she knew had to be in her own eyes. "The friend I've been looking for," she said. A smile spread across her face, a huge grin; she couldn't have prevented it if she'd wanted to. "The Doctor."