As It Should Be (2/3) Ten, Rose, Jack (Teen) AU from 'Doomsday'
AUTHOR: sensiblecat
WORD COUNT: 3825
SPOILERS: None, really. It's AU after Doomsday.
CHARACTERS: Ten, Rose, Jack
RATING - Teen to be on the safe side (sexual refs)
Thanks to dave7 for the story that inspired this one, and to my wonderfully patient beta reader, wendymr
She might be a silly little human, she may be young, but no matter what he’d done, the Doctor was her future and she had to grow into the partner that he needed.
The trouble was she knew that he’d resist her all the way. He’d much rather have the illusions - about her, and about himself.
Burning Bridges (prequel by dave7)
Chapter One
Rose sat cross-legged on the bed in her room as waves of shock and nausea overcame her. She didn’t seem to be able to stop shivering, but somehow to give in and crawl under the duvet seemed like a backward step.
Part of her would have liked nothing better than to rewind the clock, to wipe out the last twenty-four hours and become the carefree person who’d teased the Doctor about being too lazy to carry her rucksack. Holding hands, exchanging secret smiles, sharing banter about her mum and Sarah Jane - it seemed like another lifetime now.
In the last two years she’d learned a lot about time. Time could be bent, stretched, slowed down, speeded up and much more besides, but the one thing you could never do was to fight your memories and the ways they changed you. That awareness had come to her in a flash a few minutes ago and the last of her childhood had vanished with it. She understood the Doctor so much better now and she saw how much he’d been concealing the reality of his life from her.
She had a choice. She could either accept all that had happened and start to rebuild her relationship with him from here, or she could turn tail and run.
But where would she go? She’d been torn from Pete’s arms. She’d never see her mum or Mickey again. Oh, what an obvious, easy choice that had seemed back in the Lever Room. Now she saw the truth; it had only been easy because she’d let the Doctor do her thinking for her.
She was determined never to do that again. Never to run from the truth. She might be a silly little human, she may be young, but no matter what he’d done, the Doctor was her future and she had to grow into the partner that he needed.
The trouble was she knew that he’d resist her all the way. He’d much rather have the illusions - about her, and about himself.
There was a polite rap on the door and Jack appeared, a glass in his hand. She turned her head and cracked a feeble joke. “Not like you to hesitate before you enter a lady’s room, Captain.”
“Depends on the lady,” he replied. He wasn’t going through the usual routine with her, though she was sure he was still more than capable of it. “Here,” he said, as he reached the bed and put the glass into her hands.
“That doesn’t smell like tea,” she observed.
“I figured you could use something stronger after the day you must have been through.”
“Thanks.” She took a sip of the firewater and it slipped down her throat like an internal hug. Unable to work out how to continue the conversation, she took another, and a third. Jack sat down and waited, his hands folded in his lap.
“Do you really work for Torchwood?” she said at last.
He combed his fingers through his hair. “It isn’t like you think.”
“Is anything?” She looked around the room; it might only be a few hours of her lifetime since she’d left it, but something - maybe a time sense humans didn’t usually develop - told her there was something off, something stale about it. The TARDIS had kept it clean but it hadn’t been occupied for a good while.
She sighed. “I don’t know what to think any more. Except that nothing’s ever gonna be the same.”
“Yeah.” He put out a big hand and squeezed it over hers. “I guess it’s called a reality check.”
“I never thanked you for rescuing me,” she said.
“Tearing you from your dad’s arms? I hope that counts as a rescue.”
“He’s not my real dad.” As soon as the words were out, they had the opposite effect to he one she’d intended. Grief swept over her and she had to shove a fist in her mouth to stop herself from sobbing.
Jack gently took the glass from her hand and placed it on the bedside table. “Come here,” he said, and wrapped her in his arms. “Let it all rip; you’ll feel better.”
“I’m no use to anybody,” she sobbed. “I’m just a kid in over her head. And I don’t know how you can bear to look at me after what we did to you, never mind hug me.”
“Rose, Rose….you’re what? Twenty years old, twenty-one? Cut yourself some slack. Being strong for him can come later. He’ll deal. He always does. And now he has you back.”
“We were kids,” she said. “Stupid little spoilt kids. We cared more about going to see Ian bloody Dury than we did about you dumped God knows where!”
“You didn’t know…”
“I didn’t ask! Ignorance is no excuse, that’s what the Doctor says.”
“He lied to you about me, but try not to hold that against him. The only reason he ever does that is to protect you.”
“I don’t want to be protected if this is what it does to people!” Her tears now had turned to tears of rage. She knew now how it felt to despise yourself as the Doctor did, to have enormous power and refuse to acknowledge the fact, because acknowledgement would bring the responsibility to use it wisely.
“Ah well, that’s something you’re gonna have to work out between the two of you.” He sighed deeply and rubbed his hands over her shoulders. “All I know is I’m stuck here with two people I’d gladly die for - if I could - and all I can do is sit and watch them crucify themselves.”
“Jack, why don’t you just hate us?”
“It’s been a long time for me.”
“How long?”
“Do you really want to know that?”
She wiped her eyes; it was time for something a bit more useful now. Then she met his gaze head on.
“Yes,” she replied. “I want to know everything. I might only be twenty-one but my mum was on her own with a baby by then. When it’s time to grow up, that’s what you do.”
Jack nodded with a look that made her think he’d found that out the hard way, and maybe even younger than her. She knew so little about him and that was something else that ought to change. He hadn’t said, she hadn’t asked.
Sometimes not asking was almost as bad as doing something wrong. She remembered another thing she’d heard the Doctor say - boy, was he good at giving other people the benefit of his advice and then not following it. She couldn’t quite recall the words, but it was something along the lines of evil triumphing because good people did nothing.
“Okay. Let’s sit down, then. I’ll start with Torchwood.”
The Doctor tried to find something to do. Correction, he tried to concentrate on the numerous things that needed doing. The TARDIS was in a bad way after months of neglect while he’d lacked the energy to bother with anything in the way of non-urgent maintenance, followed by a dangerous trip into the Void and back. They were stuck in the Vortex for a few days at the very least, and the longer he dawdled the longer there would be for…
….what? He’d counted every minute Jack had spent in Rose’s room. Pouring out his anger and betrayal, no doubt, telling her what he, the Doctor she’d naively worshipped, was really like. They’d clear up the misunderstanding about Torchwood soon enough. A man with Jack’s charm and talent for bullshit would soon win around any girl he took a fancy to, never mind Rose who was already half in love with him.
All he’d done was put off the inevitable. He’d been right all along - Rose needed to return to life as a human. If she couldn’t have her family back, a human partner was the next-best thing. Now he’d simply earned himself a few more reasons to despise himself. Against all the odds, not least her own refusal to co-operate, he’d managed to carve out a kind of happy ending for Rose and then, through his own weakness and selfishness, he’d ruined it. So much for the hallowed Time Lord policy of non-interference.
It had started when he’d found a tiny gap, on the verge of closing, between the two universes - just big enough for him to contact her and say goodbye. The spectre of Sarah Jane had hovered over him and he’d managed to convince himself that Rose, like her, would put her life on hold until he could see her one last time and tell her that this really was the end.
He needed something to focus on and the logistics of getting through to Rose soon obsessed him. But the closer he came to doing it, the more unbearable it seemed. He knew what she’d expect him to tell her. Worse still, what she’d almost certainly say to him. What if she was just beginning to forget him and rebuild her life? Wouldn’t it be cruel to interfere? What if she heard him calling but she couldn’t work out where to find him? What if she assumed he’d come to rescue her? How could he let her make a long journey to wherever he came through, hope growing all the way, then tell her they’d barely have two minutes together and she couldn’t even touch him?
No, he couldn’t go through with it. Couldn’t inflict more anguish on her, simply because it lay in his power to do so.
But then he’d contemplated never seeing her again. It still hadn’t sunk in. He’d been living in denial, waiting for something to turn up and make everything right. That must be how humans thought of him. The thought of driving the TARDIS straight into a black hole and destroying both of them had seemed frighteningly appealing. The Last of the Time Lords, driven to suicide. At the back of his mind he could hear the Master’s laughter.
He’d made himself think about the Earth undefended, and what would happen the next time the Daleks or the Sycorax attacked - the frantic pleas from the leaders of nations going unheeded, the millions who would die because he’d lost his head over a little human girl. Didn’t he already have sufficient blood on his hands?
For several days he’d wavered, trying to think of an alternative to contacting Jack and asking for his help. He’d known Jack’s whereabouts for a long time. In fact, Jack had been on a theoretical list of issues he should address for months; the events of Canary Wharf had left him with the time to do a lot of soul-searching. Besides, he’d missed him. There was nobody else he could talk to about Rose, even. That in itself had been worth burying a good deal of pride.
The risk now that Jack would bond with Rose, excluding him, was very real. That was probably why he’d refused to come up with a plan for dealing with it. Now, he’d time to do so. Everyone was still emotionally raw and unlikely to notice if he worked out a way drop them off somewhere and leave them together. It might be for the best. Put all this behind him, once and for all.
Yet even as he turned the plan over in his mind, he knew he wouldn’t be able to implement it. Right now he was going nowhere, either in the TARDIS or emotionally. Everything was on hold. So he waited, fiddling with controls, his mind probing the TARDIS for some kind of reassurance or condemnation, but his ancient ship was silent. That in itself was strange, because Jack’s very existence must be an affront to her. Oh, how easily he could give into the temptation to use his telepathic gifts and find out what was really going on between Jack and Rose as they talked, and perhaps went further than talking. But the last vestiges of decency held him back: he wouldn’t abuse his power over them by invading their minds without consent.
There were so many things he could make happen, more than any other being in the universe, but he was powerless to influence this particular sequence of events. All he could do was wait, the thing he found most difficult of all.
*****
“Can you honestly say you’ve forgiven him?” Rose asked. “Or me?” She’d heard Jack’s story now. She’d learnt about the team he was building and how he’d shaped them into a kind of substitute family, though he hadn’t been able to hide his loneliness from her. Always on the outside, looking in at other people’s relationships, able to go anywhere except home.
“You know, it’s been weird meeting him again,” Jack said. “All the different ways it could have gone, the scenarios I’d come up with. What I was gonna say, whether I’d punch him before he spoke to me or later, and then in the end I was just so glad to see the TARDIS again it all seemed to fade.”
“He’s in pretty bad shape,” said Rose. “I can’t believe how much he’s changed without me.”
“Has he really changed? Or has he just stopped hiding it?”
It was a good question. Hard to answer, because the last thing she wanted to admit was that the Doctor’s happiness with her hadn’t been genuine. Yet she’d been careful not to look at it too closely; if she had she’d have seen cracks in it, even at the best times. They’d managed by simply ignoring vast tracts of uncharted territory. Only the present moment had mattered. Particularly over the last few weeks, after the Beast’s prophecy and his refusal to discuss it.
“There was this creature - the Beast,” she said. “I suppose you could call it Satan, or whatever. Anyway, it was pure, unadulterated evil. We were on a space station millions of light-years from anywhere and there were just these few humans with some…” She decided not to mention the Ood at this stage. “Anyway, the thing started coming out with these prophecies. What was really scary was they all turned out to be true. It knew things about all of us. Told me I’d die in battle, and in a way I just did.”
“What did it say about him?” Jack asked. “The Doctor?”
Rose shuddered. “It called him the killer of his own kind, Jack.”
A long silence followed. She kept wanting to but in, to insist on some kind of denial or clarification, but wasn’t that exactly the kind of behaviour that had led them here? She could tell from Jack’s face that the accusation came as no surprise.
“How did he respond to that?” Jack asked.
“Ignored it and moved on,” Rose said. “What else could he do? He was the only hope for everybody there. We had to trust him.”
“And most of the time he’s flying by the seat of his pants,” said Jack. “He’s like democracy - the least worst option.”
“The way he talks about the Time War,” Rose went on. “It was massive, wasn’t it? Bigger than we can imagine.”
Jack nodded. “Went on for hundreds of years. Whole galaxies were lost. A lot of it’s legend. Probably we’ll never know for sure what happened.” He straightened his back and looked at her. “You do things in wars that you’d never contemplate doing in any other circumstances. Different rules apply. Part of you has to stay behind on the battlefield, or you just can’t go on living with yourself.”
“And do you think that’s what happened to him?” she asked.
“I know it is. Saw it pretty much the moment I met him. Nobody who’s gone through a war ever wants to try and explain it to the folks back home.”
“What do you think happened?” she persisted. “I’m sorry, Jack. I have to know.”
Jack took a deep breath and then released it.
“I think he had to push a button,” he replied. “Could have been following orders, or he could have volunteered. Wiped out everything to stop the Daleks taking over.”
The surge of anger she experienced took Rose by surprise. “He never should have had to do that!”
“I don’t think the Time Lords factored in stuff like PTSD and survivor’s guilt,” said Jack. “It isn’t the way I was trained. There should always be at least two people’s hands on a button like that. And the people who get to carry out the order should never be involved in drafting it. You don’t need soul-searching in a war; you need procedures. If the generals are doing their job, the arguments should be finished long before the war gets that bad.”
The more Rose thought about Jack’s theory, the better it fitted. “No wonder he won’t talk about it,” she said.
“Don’t think it would help him if he did,” Jack said. “Knowing we’ve figured it out, that would. I wouldn’t mention it, not in so many words. There’s ways of showing these things.” He frowned. “It can blind you a little that he looks so cute now. I don’t think it quite hit me until today that nobody’s ever going to hate him as much as he hates himself.”
It took all Rose’s self-control not to rush from the room and gather the Doctor up in her arms right there and then. “Oh Jack, what are we going to do with him?”
“Be there next time there’s a button that needs to be pressed, I guess. And not ask too many questions.”
“I’m sure he’d feel better if he talked about his home sometimes, though,” Rose said. “You can’t just float around forever not coming from anywhere.” She stopped, reached out and took Jack’s hand. “You must know a bit about that.”
“Yeah,” Jack said slowly. “But you know, even with people you trust, these things take time. There’s this idea that talking is therapy. It’s a very 21st century thing. And it’s true up to a point, but it has to be the right talk at the right time.” He paused. “There’s things I’m not ready to spill just yet. Family things, long ago stuff.”
“Jack…” Rose said quietly. He couldn’t have made it clearer - this wasn’t the right time to ask. It was, however, the right time to love him. She climbed off the bed and gestured to him to stand up. “Hold me, Jack. I’ve missed you so much.”
“Me too. When he told me he’d lost you…”
She stood up and he did likewise. It was difficult to believe it of the bloke who’d romanced her with Big Ben and flutes of champagne, but she sensed that they were both a little shy. She’d always known he was attracted to her. Jack had never been the kind of person to hide these things, though he’d backed off for obvious reasons once the three of them were sharing the TARDIS. To be honest, she’d rather enjoyed playing him and the Doctor off against one another - it was the kind of dangerous game she relished. But that was a long time ago. She felt as if it was more than a hundred years for her, too. If they acted on their feelings now, it would be more serious and complicated.
The Doctor had always backed off from having sex with her and she’d never been quite sure if that was because he wasn’t physically capable of it, or whether he was holding back for other reasons. She’d accepted it - not without a struggle at times because he could be awfully provocative - because their relationship had a gorgeous, terrible fragility about it that she was afraid to disturb. But now he’d more than declared himself. Both of them had. You didn’t come up with a rescue scheme like this unless you cared about someone.
Rose didn’t want to play any more games. She wanted Jack, right now, with all her heart and soul, and her body most of all. But she also realised that going to the Doctor with Jack’s scent on her was going to hurt him terribly, and possibly drive him straight back into the martyrdom that had made him try to push her away so many times in the past.
“Rose,” said Jack. “It’s just a hug. That’s okay. You need to sort your feelings out, and I know you won’t want to hurt him.”
“But I love you too, Jack,” she gulped. “It doesn’t make me love him less…”
He wrapped her in his strong arms and became her whole world for a moment. She realised that the Doctor was needy, demanding, nervous, always poised to run away even - maybe especially - at the point he loved her most. Jack, by contrast, felt strong and secure in his feelings, and she needed that. He gave them a fixed point, a stability that she saw, now, they’d lacked as a couple.
“Would you come back?” she asked him. “Would you travel with him - I mean us - again?”
“Aww, Rose…” He sighed. “That’s a tricky one. I’d like to, but I can’t just walk away from what I’m involved in back on Earth. People need me.”
“Well, he’ll just have to realise that,” Rose insisted. “People can’t always just drop everything and go with him. Maybe he needs to grow up a bit, too.”
“Yeah, I think he does.” He squeezed her hard. “Stop worrying - we don’t have to do everything right now. Kisses can wait. I know how much you care about him.”
She nodded into his shoulder. He was right, she knew. Just the feeling of safety in each other’s arms was all they needed right now. There’d be time enough to progress things, Rose was sure. She’d no intention of letting him slip away again.
“He shouldn’t be on his own,” she said at last. “He’s probably got it into his thick head that we just want him to drop us off somewhere, knowing him.”
“Yeah, the old martyr complex,” Jack agreed.
“What’s the cure for it?”
“Sometimes the only thing that does help is being alongside someone else who knows how it feels and won’t judge you.”
“That’s what you could give him,” Rose said. “I can’t.”
“I don’t think it was ever what he wanted from you, Rose. He wanted to forget.”
“But he can’t forget, can he? And one of the reasons for that is he’s walking into one war after another, all the time. Making up the rules as he goes. He needs somebody to keep him straight.”
“And someone to let his hair down with.”
“Yeah.” They grinned at each other and laughed. “Think we could manage that, the two of us?” Rose asked.
“Well, it is pretty great hair,” said Jack.
WORD COUNT: 3825
SPOILERS: None, really. It's AU after Doomsday.
CHARACTERS: Ten, Rose, Jack
RATING - Teen to be on the safe side (sexual refs)
Thanks to dave7 for the story that inspired this one, and to my wonderfully patient beta reader, wendymr
She might be a silly little human, she may be young, but no matter what he’d done, the Doctor was her future and she had to grow into the partner that he needed.
The trouble was she knew that he’d resist her all the way. He’d much rather have the illusions - about her, and about himself.
Burning Bridges (prequel by dave7)
Chapter One
Rose sat cross-legged on the bed in her room as waves of shock and nausea overcame her. She didn’t seem to be able to stop shivering, but somehow to give in and crawl under the duvet seemed like a backward step.
Part of her would have liked nothing better than to rewind the clock, to wipe out the last twenty-four hours and become the carefree person who’d teased the Doctor about being too lazy to carry her rucksack. Holding hands, exchanging secret smiles, sharing banter about her mum and Sarah Jane - it seemed like another lifetime now.
In the last two years she’d learned a lot about time. Time could be bent, stretched, slowed down, speeded up and much more besides, but the one thing you could never do was to fight your memories and the ways they changed you. That awareness had come to her in a flash a few minutes ago and the last of her childhood had vanished with it. She understood the Doctor so much better now and she saw how much he’d been concealing the reality of his life from her.
She had a choice. She could either accept all that had happened and start to rebuild her relationship with him from here, or she could turn tail and run.
But where would she go? She’d been torn from Pete’s arms. She’d never see her mum or Mickey again. Oh, what an obvious, easy choice that had seemed back in the Lever Room. Now she saw the truth; it had only been easy because she’d let the Doctor do her thinking for her.
She was determined never to do that again. Never to run from the truth. She might be a silly little human, she may be young, but no matter what he’d done, the Doctor was her future and she had to grow into the partner that he needed.
The trouble was she knew that he’d resist her all the way. He’d much rather have the illusions - about her, and about himself.
There was a polite rap on the door and Jack appeared, a glass in his hand. She turned her head and cracked a feeble joke. “Not like you to hesitate before you enter a lady’s room, Captain.”
“Depends on the lady,” he replied. He wasn’t going through the usual routine with her, though she was sure he was still more than capable of it. “Here,” he said, as he reached the bed and put the glass into her hands.
“That doesn’t smell like tea,” she observed.
“I figured you could use something stronger after the day you must have been through.”
“Thanks.” She took a sip of the firewater and it slipped down her throat like an internal hug. Unable to work out how to continue the conversation, she took another, and a third. Jack sat down and waited, his hands folded in his lap.
“Do you really work for Torchwood?” she said at last.
He combed his fingers through his hair. “It isn’t like you think.”
“Is anything?” She looked around the room; it might only be a few hours of her lifetime since she’d left it, but something - maybe a time sense humans didn’t usually develop - told her there was something off, something stale about it. The TARDIS had kept it clean but it hadn’t been occupied for a good while.
She sighed. “I don’t know what to think any more. Except that nothing’s ever gonna be the same.”
“Yeah.” He put out a big hand and squeezed it over hers. “I guess it’s called a reality check.”
“I never thanked you for rescuing me,” she said.
“Tearing you from your dad’s arms? I hope that counts as a rescue.”
“He’s not my real dad.” As soon as the words were out, they had the opposite effect to he one she’d intended. Grief swept over her and she had to shove a fist in her mouth to stop herself from sobbing.
Jack gently took the glass from her hand and placed it on the bedside table. “Come here,” he said, and wrapped her in his arms. “Let it all rip; you’ll feel better.”
“I’m no use to anybody,” she sobbed. “I’m just a kid in over her head. And I don’t know how you can bear to look at me after what we did to you, never mind hug me.”
“Rose, Rose….you’re what? Twenty years old, twenty-one? Cut yourself some slack. Being strong for him can come later. He’ll deal. He always does. And now he has you back.”
“We were kids,” she said. “Stupid little spoilt kids. We cared more about going to see Ian bloody Dury than we did about you dumped God knows where!”
“You didn’t know…”
“I didn’t ask! Ignorance is no excuse, that’s what the Doctor says.”
“He lied to you about me, but try not to hold that against him. The only reason he ever does that is to protect you.”
“I don’t want to be protected if this is what it does to people!” Her tears now had turned to tears of rage. She knew now how it felt to despise yourself as the Doctor did, to have enormous power and refuse to acknowledge the fact, because acknowledgement would bring the responsibility to use it wisely.
“Ah well, that’s something you’re gonna have to work out between the two of you.” He sighed deeply and rubbed his hands over her shoulders. “All I know is I’m stuck here with two people I’d gladly die for - if I could - and all I can do is sit and watch them crucify themselves.”
“Jack, why don’t you just hate us?”
“It’s been a long time for me.”
“How long?”
“Do you really want to know that?”
She wiped her eyes; it was time for something a bit more useful now. Then she met his gaze head on.
“Yes,” she replied. “I want to know everything. I might only be twenty-one but my mum was on her own with a baby by then. When it’s time to grow up, that’s what you do.”
Jack nodded with a look that made her think he’d found that out the hard way, and maybe even younger than her. She knew so little about him and that was something else that ought to change. He hadn’t said, she hadn’t asked.
Sometimes not asking was almost as bad as doing something wrong. She remembered another thing she’d heard the Doctor say - boy, was he good at giving other people the benefit of his advice and then not following it. She couldn’t quite recall the words, but it was something along the lines of evil triumphing because good people did nothing.
“Okay. Let’s sit down, then. I’ll start with Torchwood.”
The Doctor tried to find something to do. Correction, he tried to concentrate on the numerous things that needed doing. The TARDIS was in a bad way after months of neglect while he’d lacked the energy to bother with anything in the way of non-urgent maintenance, followed by a dangerous trip into the Void and back. They were stuck in the Vortex for a few days at the very least, and the longer he dawdled the longer there would be for…
….what? He’d counted every minute Jack had spent in Rose’s room. Pouring out his anger and betrayal, no doubt, telling her what he, the Doctor she’d naively worshipped, was really like. They’d clear up the misunderstanding about Torchwood soon enough. A man with Jack’s charm and talent for bullshit would soon win around any girl he took a fancy to, never mind Rose who was already half in love with him.
All he’d done was put off the inevitable. He’d been right all along - Rose needed to return to life as a human. If she couldn’t have her family back, a human partner was the next-best thing. Now he’d simply earned himself a few more reasons to despise himself. Against all the odds, not least her own refusal to co-operate, he’d managed to carve out a kind of happy ending for Rose and then, through his own weakness and selfishness, he’d ruined it. So much for the hallowed Time Lord policy of non-interference.
It had started when he’d found a tiny gap, on the verge of closing, between the two universes - just big enough for him to contact her and say goodbye. The spectre of Sarah Jane had hovered over him and he’d managed to convince himself that Rose, like her, would put her life on hold until he could see her one last time and tell her that this really was the end.
He needed something to focus on and the logistics of getting through to Rose soon obsessed him. But the closer he came to doing it, the more unbearable it seemed. He knew what she’d expect him to tell her. Worse still, what she’d almost certainly say to him. What if she was just beginning to forget him and rebuild her life? Wouldn’t it be cruel to interfere? What if she heard him calling but she couldn’t work out where to find him? What if she assumed he’d come to rescue her? How could he let her make a long journey to wherever he came through, hope growing all the way, then tell her they’d barely have two minutes together and she couldn’t even touch him?
No, he couldn’t go through with it. Couldn’t inflict more anguish on her, simply because it lay in his power to do so.
But then he’d contemplated never seeing her again. It still hadn’t sunk in. He’d been living in denial, waiting for something to turn up and make everything right. That must be how humans thought of him. The thought of driving the TARDIS straight into a black hole and destroying both of them had seemed frighteningly appealing. The Last of the Time Lords, driven to suicide. At the back of his mind he could hear the Master’s laughter.
He’d made himself think about the Earth undefended, and what would happen the next time the Daleks or the Sycorax attacked - the frantic pleas from the leaders of nations going unheeded, the millions who would die because he’d lost his head over a little human girl. Didn’t he already have sufficient blood on his hands?
For several days he’d wavered, trying to think of an alternative to contacting Jack and asking for his help. He’d known Jack’s whereabouts for a long time. In fact, Jack had been on a theoretical list of issues he should address for months; the events of Canary Wharf had left him with the time to do a lot of soul-searching. Besides, he’d missed him. There was nobody else he could talk to about Rose, even. That in itself had been worth burying a good deal of pride.
The risk now that Jack would bond with Rose, excluding him, was very real. That was probably why he’d refused to come up with a plan for dealing with it. Now, he’d time to do so. Everyone was still emotionally raw and unlikely to notice if he worked out a way drop them off somewhere and leave them together. It might be for the best. Put all this behind him, once and for all.
Yet even as he turned the plan over in his mind, he knew he wouldn’t be able to implement it. Right now he was going nowhere, either in the TARDIS or emotionally. Everything was on hold. So he waited, fiddling with controls, his mind probing the TARDIS for some kind of reassurance or condemnation, but his ancient ship was silent. That in itself was strange, because Jack’s very existence must be an affront to her. Oh, how easily he could give into the temptation to use his telepathic gifts and find out what was really going on between Jack and Rose as they talked, and perhaps went further than talking. But the last vestiges of decency held him back: he wouldn’t abuse his power over them by invading their minds without consent.
There were so many things he could make happen, more than any other being in the universe, but he was powerless to influence this particular sequence of events. All he could do was wait, the thing he found most difficult of all.
*****
“Can you honestly say you’ve forgiven him?” Rose asked. “Or me?” She’d heard Jack’s story now. She’d learnt about the team he was building and how he’d shaped them into a kind of substitute family, though he hadn’t been able to hide his loneliness from her. Always on the outside, looking in at other people’s relationships, able to go anywhere except home.
“You know, it’s been weird meeting him again,” Jack said. “All the different ways it could have gone, the scenarios I’d come up with. What I was gonna say, whether I’d punch him before he spoke to me or later, and then in the end I was just so glad to see the TARDIS again it all seemed to fade.”
“He’s in pretty bad shape,” said Rose. “I can’t believe how much he’s changed without me.”
“Has he really changed? Or has he just stopped hiding it?”
It was a good question. Hard to answer, because the last thing she wanted to admit was that the Doctor’s happiness with her hadn’t been genuine. Yet she’d been careful not to look at it too closely; if she had she’d have seen cracks in it, even at the best times. They’d managed by simply ignoring vast tracts of uncharted territory. Only the present moment had mattered. Particularly over the last few weeks, after the Beast’s prophecy and his refusal to discuss it.
“There was this creature - the Beast,” she said. “I suppose you could call it Satan, or whatever. Anyway, it was pure, unadulterated evil. We were on a space station millions of light-years from anywhere and there were just these few humans with some…” She decided not to mention the Ood at this stage. “Anyway, the thing started coming out with these prophecies. What was really scary was they all turned out to be true. It knew things about all of us. Told me I’d die in battle, and in a way I just did.”
“What did it say about him?” Jack asked. “The Doctor?”
Rose shuddered. “It called him the killer of his own kind, Jack.”
A long silence followed. She kept wanting to but in, to insist on some kind of denial or clarification, but wasn’t that exactly the kind of behaviour that had led them here? She could tell from Jack’s face that the accusation came as no surprise.
“How did he respond to that?” Jack asked.
“Ignored it and moved on,” Rose said. “What else could he do? He was the only hope for everybody there. We had to trust him.”
“And most of the time he’s flying by the seat of his pants,” said Jack. “He’s like democracy - the least worst option.”
“The way he talks about the Time War,” Rose went on. “It was massive, wasn’t it? Bigger than we can imagine.”
Jack nodded. “Went on for hundreds of years. Whole galaxies were lost. A lot of it’s legend. Probably we’ll never know for sure what happened.” He straightened his back and looked at her. “You do things in wars that you’d never contemplate doing in any other circumstances. Different rules apply. Part of you has to stay behind on the battlefield, or you just can’t go on living with yourself.”
“And do you think that’s what happened to him?” she asked.
“I know it is. Saw it pretty much the moment I met him. Nobody who’s gone through a war ever wants to try and explain it to the folks back home.”
“What do you think happened?” she persisted. “I’m sorry, Jack. I have to know.”
Jack took a deep breath and then released it.
“I think he had to push a button,” he replied. “Could have been following orders, or he could have volunteered. Wiped out everything to stop the Daleks taking over.”
The surge of anger she experienced took Rose by surprise. “He never should have had to do that!”
“I don’t think the Time Lords factored in stuff like PTSD and survivor’s guilt,” said Jack. “It isn’t the way I was trained. There should always be at least two people’s hands on a button like that. And the people who get to carry out the order should never be involved in drafting it. You don’t need soul-searching in a war; you need procedures. If the generals are doing their job, the arguments should be finished long before the war gets that bad.”
The more Rose thought about Jack’s theory, the better it fitted. “No wonder he won’t talk about it,” she said.
“Don’t think it would help him if he did,” Jack said. “Knowing we’ve figured it out, that would. I wouldn’t mention it, not in so many words. There’s ways of showing these things.” He frowned. “It can blind you a little that he looks so cute now. I don’t think it quite hit me until today that nobody’s ever going to hate him as much as he hates himself.”
It took all Rose’s self-control not to rush from the room and gather the Doctor up in her arms right there and then. “Oh Jack, what are we going to do with him?”
“Be there next time there’s a button that needs to be pressed, I guess. And not ask too many questions.”
“I’m sure he’d feel better if he talked about his home sometimes, though,” Rose said. “You can’t just float around forever not coming from anywhere.” She stopped, reached out and took Jack’s hand. “You must know a bit about that.”
“Yeah,” Jack said slowly. “But you know, even with people you trust, these things take time. There’s this idea that talking is therapy. It’s a very 21st century thing. And it’s true up to a point, but it has to be the right talk at the right time.” He paused. “There’s things I’m not ready to spill just yet. Family things, long ago stuff.”
“Jack…” Rose said quietly. He couldn’t have made it clearer - this wasn’t the right time to ask. It was, however, the right time to love him. She climbed off the bed and gestured to him to stand up. “Hold me, Jack. I’ve missed you so much.”
“Me too. When he told me he’d lost you…”
She stood up and he did likewise. It was difficult to believe it of the bloke who’d romanced her with Big Ben and flutes of champagne, but she sensed that they were both a little shy. She’d always known he was attracted to her. Jack had never been the kind of person to hide these things, though he’d backed off for obvious reasons once the three of them were sharing the TARDIS. To be honest, she’d rather enjoyed playing him and the Doctor off against one another - it was the kind of dangerous game she relished. But that was a long time ago. She felt as if it was more than a hundred years for her, too. If they acted on their feelings now, it would be more serious and complicated.
The Doctor had always backed off from having sex with her and she’d never been quite sure if that was because he wasn’t physically capable of it, or whether he was holding back for other reasons. She’d accepted it - not without a struggle at times because he could be awfully provocative - because their relationship had a gorgeous, terrible fragility about it that she was afraid to disturb. But now he’d more than declared himself. Both of them had. You didn’t come up with a rescue scheme like this unless you cared about someone.
Rose didn’t want to play any more games. She wanted Jack, right now, with all her heart and soul, and her body most of all. But she also realised that going to the Doctor with Jack’s scent on her was going to hurt him terribly, and possibly drive him straight back into the martyrdom that had made him try to push her away so many times in the past.
“Rose,” said Jack. “It’s just a hug. That’s okay. You need to sort your feelings out, and I know you won’t want to hurt him.”
“But I love you too, Jack,” she gulped. “It doesn’t make me love him less…”
He wrapped her in his strong arms and became her whole world for a moment. She realised that the Doctor was needy, demanding, nervous, always poised to run away even - maybe especially - at the point he loved her most. Jack, by contrast, felt strong and secure in his feelings, and she needed that. He gave them a fixed point, a stability that she saw, now, they’d lacked as a couple.
“Would you come back?” she asked him. “Would you travel with him - I mean us - again?”
“Aww, Rose…” He sighed. “That’s a tricky one. I’d like to, but I can’t just walk away from what I’m involved in back on Earth. People need me.”
“Well, he’ll just have to realise that,” Rose insisted. “People can’t always just drop everything and go with him. Maybe he needs to grow up a bit, too.”
“Yeah, I think he does.” He squeezed her hard. “Stop worrying - we don’t have to do everything right now. Kisses can wait. I know how much you care about him.”
She nodded into his shoulder. He was right, she knew. Just the feeling of safety in each other’s arms was all they needed right now. There’d be time enough to progress things, Rose was sure. She’d no intention of letting him slip away again.
“He shouldn’t be on his own,” she said at last. “He’s probably got it into his thick head that we just want him to drop us off somewhere, knowing him.”
“Yeah, the old martyr complex,” Jack agreed.
“What’s the cure for it?”
“Sometimes the only thing that does help is being alongside someone else who knows how it feels and won’t judge you.”
“That’s what you could give him,” Rose said. “I can’t.”
“I don’t think it was ever what he wanted from you, Rose. He wanted to forget.”
“But he can’t forget, can he? And one of the reasons for that is he’s walking into one war after another, all the time. Making up the rules as he goes. He needs somebody to keep him straight.”
“And someone to let his hair down with.”
“Yeah.” They grinned at each other and laughed. “Think we could manage that, the two of us?” Rose asked.
“Well, it is pretty great hair,” said Jack.