Fic: The Doctor and His Time Ladies (Chapter 9)
Title: The Doctor and His Time Ladies
Author: country_who
Rating: PG
Word Count (This chapter): 4727
Genre: AU, Action/Adventure
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose, Tenth Doctor, Human Doctor, Rose, Jenny, Jack
Summary: AU Journey's End. Rose gets trapped in the TARDIS instead of Donna and now holds the mind of a Time Lord protected by the Bad Wolf, but what happens when the human Doctor dies, and the Time Lord tries to take her to a planet to get her mind off of him, and fulfill a promise? Does the Doctor have more to lose than gain?
Author's Note: Thanks to othermewriter who solidified the main ideas swimming in the soup I call my brain.
Prologue| Chapter 1| Chapter 2| Chapter 3| Chapter 4| Chapter 5| Chapter 6| Chapter 7| Chapter 8
The air of the holding cell was stale and biting cold, giving it a distinct clinical impression. The floors were covered in a soft padding, which Jack assumed was meant to double as a surface to sleep on once he took in the lack of a bed in the area. He crossed his legs over on another leaned back against the wall, with his arms crossed over his chest and looked over to Rose.
She had fallen asleep shortly after he had managed to get her to respond to him. She was clearly disoriented from the same chemical they had tried to use on him the day before. He remembered the sting of the drugs entering his system, but after that they had a limited effect on him. He assumed it was another pay off from his immortality. Unfortunately, it left him with no way of knowing what to expect would happen to Rose after the injection had taken its full effect on her.
She was shivering, Jack noticed, while he shrugged off his coat and draped it over her. It was plenty long enough to cover her from her feet to the top of her shoulders, while she curled up into its warmth. Jack smiled at the sight of her, as she pulled the coat around her clumsily and scrunched her nose up at being disturbed from her slumber.
Part of Jack was happy the Doctor wasn’t here to see this sight. He was certain that Time Lord wouldn’t want him doting on Rose and staring at her, even if it was just to care for her in a way that was purely between friends. A nearly silent chuckle formed at the base of Jack’s chest and his grin widened. He was already in far more trouble with him if the readings he had made were right.
“Wha’ s’funny? Rose slurred, opening her eyes and looking at Jack blearily.
“Thinkin’ of what the Doc’s gonna do to me when he gets here,” Jack told her with a grin. However, his cheerful demeanor turned compassionate, as he leaned forward and looked into Rose’s eyes with concern in his. “How are you feeling?”
Rose shrugged, leaning back against the wall and pretending to go back to sleep.
“Rose?” Jack prompted sternly.
“I know how the Doctor must’ve felt,” Rose said, trying to avoid the question.
“Meaning?” Jack said with a raise of his eyebrow.
“When we first got here,” she replied, rubbing her eyes and continuing on, “he got shot in the leg. He’s fine now-heals fast he does. But, it made him really ill for a few hours. If our captors can be believed, then they’ve injected me with the same cocktail that the bullet that shot the Doctor was laced with.”
Grimacing, Rose pulled down Jack’s coat and pushed up the tan sleeve of the shirt that she had received from Atali.
Jack’s eyes grew wide, as he reached his hand reached over to the damaged flesh. He paused short of touching her and looked up at Rose expectantly. When she nodded, he gently pressed his fingers into the blemished surface. The area was red and peeling around the area of injection, which was steadily growing from what must have been a pinprick sized puncture to a wound the size Jack’s thumb.
The area was hot under Jack’s finger and Rose winced slightly as he probed the area a bit more intently. He let up slightly and wished more than anything that the Saigans hadn’t taken all his belongings, surely the little that he kept in his pockets would have been able to do something to help Rose with the pain she was going through.
“The head doctor over there.” Rose continued not noticing that Jack was no longer paying attention and was instead examining her. “She… She said she didn’t really know what was going on with it. I think they were starting to run tests on it, but I dunno if they’re really worried. ‘Cause the Doctor got better s’fast.”
Nodding distractedly, Jack touched her forehead gently and felt Rose’s fever. “You’re burning up.”
“The Doctor was too,” she confirmed, while she tried to pull Jack’s coat back around her, but Jack pulled it back.
“No so fast, Rose,” Jack protested.
“S’cold,” Rose mumbled, shooting an angry glare in Jack’s direction.
“You’re hot,” Jack told her.
“Now is not the time, C-Captain Jack Harkness,” Rose said with a cheeky grin and taking the coat back from him and pulling it around himself. Unfortunately, she caught Jack’s worried gaze and knew that he was right. She pulled the coat pack off of her shoulders, handed the garment back and rubbed her arms. “S’itchy anyway.”
Jack gave her a winning smile and pushed the article to the far side of the cell, and moved next to Rose. He leaned his back against the side of the wall Rose was sitting on and put his arm around her.
“That’s the spirit,” Jack interjected with levity.
Rose gave him a smile and hugged him back. “How’ve you been?”
“How much time you got?” Jack asked with a chuckle. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the two of you. How long’s it been for you?”
“A few days since the stars were going out,” Rose replied apologetically. “Sorry.”
Jack gave her a shrug and brought his arm back to his side and crossed his arms. “It’s not your fault. Besides, you’re not the only one with time travel now,” Jack said with a flourish as he extended his wrist and showed it to Rose. “I met a pretty girl who showed me how to fix it.”
A laugh filled the air, and Rose looked up a Jack.
“That girl Jenny?” Rose asked, closing her eyes and leaning against Jack’s shoulder.
Jack raised an eyebrow at her. “How’d you know?”
“Met her. She’s here. Well, not here, but you know this planet. She’s with the Doctor. He knows ‘bout you and her, by the way,” Rose told him, opening her eyes and giving him a Cheshire cat grin. “She talked about you rather adoringly.”
“Well, I do have that affect on people,” Jack teased, while he leaned back and tried not to focus on Rose’s labored breathing or how pale she was growing. He felt her shivering next to him as her body desperately tried to get warmer despite the fever that was running rampant through her system. “Get some rest, Rose.”
He tried to sound stern, endearing, and a bit swift as he said it, but the anxiety in his voice over took any other emotion that he had tried to portray. He couldn’t stomach seeing Rose Tyler in the condition she was in-he didn’t think any real man ever could. Right next to him was one of the strongest women he had ever known, and she was failing right in front of his eyes. He had come to know something of the Doctor’s pain after living for several millennia and watching everyone he had known and loved die.
He was more than familiar with the fist that liked to tighten around his heart while it tried desperately to finally decide that it did in fact wish to keep beating. And, he was never far from those matches that liked to light a fire behind his eyes and make sure that his tears never ran out, even when he was certain that they must have by now. The thing that he didn’t understand was that it never got any easier. The only change was that every now and then he met someone whose pain threw him back just a bit harder, so that he ended up lying flat on his back-drowning with them.
Too bad he always survived the drowning.
Rose was strong, and Jack knew it, but she wasn’t indestructible. He was the only man in the universe that fit that description. She continued to smile. That cheeky smile that she used to throw to the Doctor when he was least expecting it, that made them both go a bit weak at the knees-the one where just the tip of her tongue poked out from between her teeth framed by her pink lips.
“I’ve been resting since I got here,” Rose complained, breaking him out of his thoughts. “B-besides, I’m lying down aren’t I?”
Jack gave her a half-hearted grin and shook his head in disapproval. He couldn’t resist her, not with those teeth and that tongue, or those big Rose eyes that couldn’t be described as any other color.
“Tell me about something,” Rose asked in a voice that would have been and should have been demanding, but was lacking its usual zeal.
“What?”
“Anything,” Rose said, leaning further back into the wall and sinking down further so that her legs splayed out in front of her.
“You’ve gotta give me more than that, Rose,” Jack teased.
“Oh, I dunno,” Rose murmured, rubbing her eyes and yawning. “Jenny, I just met her and I was hoping to get to know her better before all this happened. Tell me about her.”
Rose lowered her eyes half way and turned to face Jack, while he stared off. She could see the ghosted look on his face while he paused, drawing out his time while he thought of what to say. He was so much like the Doctor, but he was still so different. Jack hid how he felt with more humorous emotions, but the Doctor hid them by talking around them and acting like they never happened.
“She’s the Doctor’s daughter,” Jack started staring off and looking around him again, as if trying to see something that wasn’t there. “It’s funny ya know? Met her in biggest library in the Universe.”
“Captain Jack Harkness in a library,” Rose teased with a laugh.
“I wasn’t there on purpose,” Jack defended. “I just sort of ended up there… naked.”
Rose rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t want to know, Jack. I just don’t.”
“Lost the taste for my stories?” Jack asked, trying to keep the conversation moving.
“No, just think that maybe you might wanna wait ‘til you and Jenny are y’know back together before you delve that deeply into how you met. I was thinking more of what you’re doing here and why you’re still looking for Jenny.”
“She was nice. I wanted to know if she wasn’t all in my imagination. She… She was…” Jack trailed off and looked lost for a moment. “You know how I can’t die, right?”
“Yeah, but the Doctor wouldn’t tell me why,” Rose said with a small growl. “What happened to you, Jack?”
“Imagine it, Rose,” Jack said, carefully dodging her question, while he ran his hands through his short hair and let it fall back into place. “Living through all that and never having anyone constant by your side. I never had anyone. Everyone was mortal. And, when I met Jenny I thought I was in for another broken heart, but then she told me she was a Time Lady and regenerated but didn’t change. I just I thought all my prayers were answered. She wouldn’t live forever, but she would live longer than most.”
Jack thought back. It seemed so greedy when he thought about it now. He fell for someone who he could love the longest. Back when he was mortal, he was a one night stand in most cases, and it felt right then. It was strange that after he became immortal those relationships seemed the least appealing to him. That’s not to say he didn’t try-one could say he was trying to recapture his youth, but something still didn’t feel the same.
“She was amazing too though,” Jack continued. “Not just because I might be able to hold her a bit longer, but she was smart and funny and so much like the Doctor, but a bit like me as well.”
“I noticed she was a bit of a flirt,” Rose said with a small laugh, “didn’t act on it as much as you though, Jack.”
“She was a bit shy,” Jack said, running his hand up and down his neck. “But, she was only one when we first met.”
“Some might call that cradle-robbing,” Rose teased, finally seeming to succumb to sleep once more, but she held on. Her thoughts latched on to Jack’s voice and tried to stay conscious. She was afraid to fall asleep. She didn’t want to dream again, and she didn’t want to not wake up.
“Some might call it that, but it was in the fifty-first century,” Jack joked, remembering what the Doctor had called him.
Rose’s forehead scrunched up and at first Jack thought she was in pain, but she pushed away his hands and opened her mouth to speak. She mumbled something incoherent, but it was clear that she was slipping down on the wall. Jack nodded, looking at her intently and helping her to lie down a bit further on the padded floor, taking his discarded jacket and bringing it under her head. Rose didn’t protest this time as she turned on her side and clutched at her stomach.
“Jack,” Rose whimpered.
“I’m here,” Jack assured her, taking her hand, knowing that the man she really wanted was the Doctor. How did they get separated in the first place?
“The Doctor,” Rose mumbled softly, while she swallowed thickly. “He thinks I’m mad at him. I don’t know what he thinks about me exactly, but don’t let him… don’t let him think that. Tell him for me, okay?”
Jack gave her a serious look. “Tell him when you see him.”
“Promise, Jack.”
“Rose…”
“Promise,” Rose spat, forcing her eyes open and staring at Jack’s not letting his gaze turn away until hers did, while she curled around herself tighter. “Please.” The last word was weaker, slipping, falling. She was giving up.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jack said in a genuine tone. “But, only if you fight for him, Rose Tyler. He needs you.”
Rose suddenly looked a bit more peaceful, while she sucked in slow, deep breaths.
“He won’t be alone,” Rose told him with soft conviction. “He’ll have you and Jenny.”
“He still needs you,” Jack nearly shouted, while he watched as Rose closed her eyes. “Don’t say goodbye.”
Rose opened her eyes again obediently. “I’m not. I just need to know that you’ll look after him. He needs more than he lets on.”
Jack nodded. “I know.”
“I’m gonna go to sleep now,” Rose told him gently, reaching over and giving her friend’s hand a squeeze. “But, I’m just resting. It’s not goodbye.”
Jack nodded, giving her hand a final squeeze while she fell asleep.
~o~
The Doctor leaned forward on General Tent’s desk, seething.
“General, I’m begging you, please. I need the map. Rose is out there!” The Doctor shouted while he gestured wildly with his arm towards the door of the cramped space. “She’s out there alone, and she’s my responsibility, and she needs me.”
General Tents crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair in a relaxed position. “I’m sorry Doctor, there can be no moving of troops or vehicles towards an enemy base at night unless authorized head quarters.”
“But, you’re a General, can’t you just… you know, break SOP and let me. I’m not even taking any of your troops out there. Just one vehicle and my daughter, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry Doctor, but if you go out there and something happens to you and Jenny, forget about regulations I’ll never be able to live with myself.”
The Doctor took a step back from the desk. His eyes were a blaze of passion and fury. “What about Rose then? Hmm?”
“I’ll organize a rescue mission for the morning, with the proper planning and…”
“While Rose is out there dying,” the Doctor cut him off and leaned on the desk, while the General stared right back.
“You don’t know that,” he said defiantly.
“You don’t know that she isn’t,” the Doctor shot back. “Because, I’ve seen a lot of this universe in my time and if there’s one thing I’ve seen a lot of its grief. We’ve both had more than our fair share of pain, haven’t we, General?”
For the first time since the Doctor had walked through the door, General Tents avoided his eyes.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Who did you lose?” the Doctor asked, his posture loosening slightly, but his eyes were still filled with burning fury.
“My wife,” the General admitted. “She was a nurse, stationed in the front lines. I was deployed somewhere else for the time being. It was ten years ago.”
“I lost Rose once,” the Doctor told him. “We both know what that feels like and what’s worse is that after I got her back. I hurt her. I hurt her in the worst way possible, because I was selfish and I didn’t want that pain again. Don’t let me lose her again. ‘Cause, I will go without the map and I happen to know Jenny is good with engines and could hotwire a jeep, so it’s your choice General. You gonna give me those maps?”
The General paused for a moment. The Doctor was serious and wasn’t going to give up. Both men knew that. Without another word, the General opened the top cabinet of his desk with a key and slid the map in the Doctor’s direction and dropped keys to a jeep on top of them.
“Good luck,” the General said finally, while the Doctor took up the map and ran towards the door. “And, Doctor?’
The Doctor didn’t pause, but he did slow slightly, while he put his hand on the door knob and looked in the General’s direction. His Time Lord keenness took in every inch of the General’s appearance in seconds.
“Take this.” The General tossed what appeared to be a blue tooth earpiece in his direction. “If you need anything, just call. We’ll do everything we can from here.”
The Doctor caught the device with an easy move of his hand and nodded. “Thank you.”
~o~
Jenny pulled bounced on her heels in the middle of the motor pool, waiting for her father to show up. She looked down at Mr. Anderson who was sat up in her hands and looking at her anxiously.
“Anderson hot wire?” he asked.
“Not just yet,” Jenny said, beginning to pace in a wide circled. “Give Dad another minute to find those maps. We need them if we’re gonna get there faster.”
“Rose need us,” Anderson protested.
“I know,” Jenny quipped angrily and immediately regretted it. “I’m sorry; just it’s been a long day.”
“Anderson know,” Anderson sympathized. “Jenny and Jenny’s Dad get Rose. Then Jenny be happy.”
Jenny plastered a smile on her face for Anderson and stroked her fingers against his scalp, while she waited. She hopped onto the hood of the jeep and brought her boots up to rest on the bumper and leaned forward while she stared at the General’s tent. She was sure that her father must be arguing with the man and trying to secure the maps.
Finally, after five more agonizing minutes, Jenny saw the Doctor exiting the general’s tent and running towards her with a map in one hand and his fist balled around another object Jenny couldn’t distinguish.
He cleared threw keys in her direction, and she caught them with ease, while she unlocked the door to the passenger side and opened the driver’s side for the Doctor to get in. He didn’t say a word as he started the engine and started to drive out of the compound with the map opened in front of him and resting on the steering wheel.
“I see you convinced the general to give up the maps then,” Jenny said nervously, while she gently slid the map from her father’s grip and began examining it carefully.
“It wasn’t hard,” the Doctor said dismissively, while he pulled out the communication device and handed it to Jenny, and reached in his pocket and extracted his sonic screwdriver and thrust that into Jenny’s hands as well. “Here, that’s a communication device, from the general, but I don’t think it’ll last all the way out to where we’re going-it’s going to be at least a five hour drive.”
Jenny nodded, but she kept looking at the map.
“Okay,” Jenny said. “Hey, Dad, turn on the dirt road up here, it looks like a straighter path and it should shave about an hour or so off.”
“Thanks, Jenny,” the Doctor said, as he turned off and looked over to at her as she began to fiddle with the sonic screwdriver and the communication device. “Don’t you want some help with that? I’m clever you know.”
“I know,” Jenny said quietly, as she continued with her work, lighting up the small device with the sonic screwdriver and pressing the button. “Testing, testing, this is Jenny and the Doctor, please reply.”
“Jenny, we can hear you fine,” the sound of Atali’s voice came over the communication device. “Are you alright?”
“We’re both fine,” Jenny replied. “Should probably keep this communication closed as much as possible though. Thanks Atali.”
“No problem,” and with that, the communication device went silent.
“It works,” Jenny told him, while the Doctor stared at her, and she went back to her map.
“I can see that,” the Doctor muttered, while he looked out at the road and started to make a turn, but Jenny touched his shoulder.
“Not just yet Dad,” Jenny said. “It looks like they’ve marked areas of high traffic for Saigan troops. Keep going forward past two more paths and then turn to the one on your left, after that it should be a fairly straight path for another two hours or so, then you’ll turn right, and that should take you to the camp in about forty-five minutes and that should take you straight there.”
Jenny pointed out in front of her while she spoke and motioned to a knob on the side of the steering wheel. “Turn off your light, Dad.”
“Right, sorry,” the Doctor said, flicking the switch off and slowing down for a second while his eyes adjusted to the change in light. “I’m a bit distracted.”
“I understand,” Jenny said, while she leaned forward and read the map in the darkness.
When Jenny had finally put away the map, she felt Mr. Anderson turning around in his backpack on the floor of the jeep by her foot. She smiled and brought her feet back a bit so that he would have a bit more room. She leaned her head against the side of the jeep, closed her eyes slowly and took a deep breath.
“Still tired?” the Doctor asked in a soft whisper.
“A bit,” Jenny admitted. “It wasn’t this bad last time.”
The Doctor nodded sympathetically and leaned over and touched her forehead much to her annoyance.
“You’ve got a bit of a fever,” the Doctor noted. “You okay? Really okay? It’s not too late to turn back, okay? I’d only lose a few minutes.”
Jenny shook her head. “Don’t you dare. Rose needs us.”
“Jenny, I…”
“No, Dad,” Jenny said defiantly, while she pulled away and glared at him through the darkness. “I’m fine. Just tired.”
Silence stretched out between the two of them for several long moments before the Doctor spoke up.
“I’m sorry, Jenny,” he apologized looking in her direction and looking at her fondly. “I just… I don’t know. Suppose I’m a pretty rubbish father then?”
He gave his daughter a wan smile, but she just looked at him in shock and stared for a moment before she reached across the bench seat they say in and caught him in an awkward hug. She pressed her face into his ribs under his arms, while he moved his arm closest to her to rest on her back. His other hand stayed on the steering wheel, trying to keep them on the winding path.
“Never, father,” Jenny murmured. “Never that. You’re brilliant. I’m gonna learn-I have learned-so much from you already. Besides, how many girls can say their dad fights off villains and rescues whole civilizations?”
She drew back after a moment of just holding onto him and stared up ahead of them again.
“Thanks, Jenny,” the Doctor said and accelerated higher on the road as it straightened out. He took a deep breath, looking at Jenny, while she pulled out the map again and glanced around her at the sights, trying to make sense of them. She was so clever and bright and confident. She was everything he had hoped she would grow into after he had finally accepted her. He couldn’t take any of that credit, though, like he had wanted to. He was so proud of his daughter for making it on her own, for making her own name, but there was something deep inside him that burned slightly at the loss that he had received. He had missed her growing into that woman. He should have been there to help her out, to guide her, but he wasn’t. Sure, she was born smart and self sufficient, but that didn’t take away her need or his desire for her to be taught about what goes around her.
“You still want to learn what it means to be a Time Lady?” the Doctor asked softly, looking at Jenny through pleading eyes.
He caught her completely off guard as she was returning the folded map into her backpack and taking Mr. Anderson in her hands and stroking him softly with her fingers. She found herself not staring at her father, but at Mr. Anderson, who was beaming at him with that cheeky grin of his. He nudged her in the stomach with a fur covered paw. Jenny shook her head in confusion, but she quickly recovered and nodded furiously.
“Yes, of course, Dad,” Jenny said, staring at him with near bemusement. “Why do you think I spent all that time looking for you? Well, that’s not the only reason, obviously. I really wanted to be with my father. I’m only one or something or rather. I need a father.”
The Doctor grinned.
“Then as soon as we get out of here, I’m telling you everything you need to know about Gallifrey, and Time Lords and… the war,” the Doctor bit out the last words, like they hurt, and Jenny knew they really did. “There really is a beautiful history to our people, Jenny, A history not many other cultures could beat.”
“I’d like to hear about it.”
“Better late than never, right?”
“Well, in a way, you’re ahead of me,” Jenny said. “It’s technically a little under two hundred years since I was born on Messaline. Built a vortex manipulator, after I got to know Jack’s in the Library’s computer, even if it didn’t work in there.”
“You’re just brilliant,” the Doctor said with deep affection.
Jenny opened her mouth to reply, but she was cut off as she gasped in pain and let out a small scream.
“Jenny?”
She felt her father slowing the vehicle and stopping on the side of the road. She tried to yell at him to stop, but she couldn’t find the words while she let out a mangled scream and clutched her head. It felt like her head was a blaze with pain as she reached out blindly in front of her and felt her father’s hands clutching her arms and Mr. Anderson stroking her face.
“Jenny, talk to me,” her father’s voice cut through her reverie, and she tried desperately to comply.
“Hurts,” Jenny whimpered, clamping her eyes shut as a blue light came in front of her face and made her ears ring.
“Tell me where,” the Doctor encouraged, and the ringing filled her ears again.
“Evywere,” Jenny mumbled, opening her eyes, only to find that everything had gone blurry while he father leaned over her. She couldn’t make out his face, but she knew he was worried. Why was he worried? Why was she even here?
Jenny gave another small whimper as she gave into to the darkness, trying desperately to remember who she was.
Author: country_who
Rating: PG
Word Count (This chapter): 4727
Genre: AU, Action/Adventure
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose, Tenth Doctor, Human Doctor, Rose, Jenny, Jack
Summary: AU Journey's End. Rose gets trapped in the TARDIS instead of Donna and now holds the mind of a Time Lord protected by the Bad Wolf, but what happens when the human Doctor dies, and the Time Lord tries to take her to a planet to get her mind off of him, and fulfill a promise? Does the Doctor have more to lose than gain?
Author's Note: Thanks to othermewriter who solidified the main ideas swimming in the soup I call my brain.
Prologue| Chapter 1| Chapter 2| Chapter 3| Chapter 4| Chapter 5| Chapter 6| Chapter 7| Chapter 8
The air of the holding cell was stale and biting cold, giving it a distinct clinical impression. The floors were covered in a soft padding, which Jack assumed was meant to double as a surface to sleep on once he took in the lack of a bed in the area. He crossed his legs over on another leaned back against the wall, with his arms crossed over his chest and looked over to Rose.
She had fallen asleep shortly after he had managed to get her to respond to him. She was clearly disoriented from the same chemical they had tried to use on him the day before. He remembered the sting of the drugs entering his system, but after that they had a limited effect on him. He assumed it was another pay off from his immortality. Unfortunately, it left him with no way of knowing what to expect would happen to Rose after the injection had taken its full effect on her.
She was shivering, Jack noticed, while he shrugged off his coat and draped it over her. It was plenty long enough to cover her from her feet to the top of her shoulders, while she curled up into its warmth. Jack smiled at the sight of her, as she pulled the coat around her clumsily and scrunched her nose up at being disturbed from her slumber.
Part of Jack was happy the Doctor wasn’t here to see this sight. He was certain that Time Lord wouldn’t want him doting on Rose and staring at her, even if it was just to care for her in a way that was purely between friends. A nearly silent chuckle formed at the base of Jack’s chest and his grin widened. He was already in far more trouble with him if the readings he had made were right.
“Wha’ s’funny? Rose slurred, opening her eyes and looking at Jack blearily.
“Thinkin’ of what the Doc’s gonna do to me when he gets here,” Jack told her with a grin. However, his cheerful demeanor turned compassionate, as he leaned forward and looked into Rose’s eyes with concern in his. “How are you feeling?”
Rose shrugged, leaning back against the wall and pretending to go back to sleep.
“Rose?” Jack prompted sternly.
“I know how the Doctor must’ve felt,” Rose said, trying to avoid the question.
“Meaning?” Jack said with a raise of his eyebrow.
“When we first got here,” she replied, rubbing her eyes and continuing on, “he got shot in the leg. He’s fine now-heals fast he does. But, it made him really ill for a few hours. If our captors can be believed, then they’ve injected me with the same cocktail that the bullet that shot the Doctor was laced with.”
Grimacing, Rose pulled down Jack’s coat and pushed up the tan sleeve of the shirt that she had received from Atali.
Jack’s eyes grew wide, as he reached his hand reached over to the damaged flesh. He paused short of touching her and looked up at Rose expectantly. When she nodded, he gently pressed his fingers into the blemished surface. The area was red and peeling around the area of injection, which was steadily growing from what must have been a pinprick sized puncture to a wound the size Jack’s thumb.
The area was hot under Jack’s finger and Rose winced slightly as he probed the area a bit more intently. He let up slightly and wished more than anything that the Saigans hadn’t taken all his belongings, surely the little that he kept in his pockets would have been able to do something to help Rose with the pain she was going through.
“The head doctor over there.” Rose continued not noticing that Jack was no longer paying attention and was instead examining her. “She… She said she didn’t really know what was going on with it. I think they were starting to run tests on it, but I dunno if they’re really worried. ‘Cause the Doctor got better s’fast.”
Nodding distractedly, Jack touched her forehead gently and felt Rose’s fever. “You’re burning up.”
“The Doctor was too,” she confirmed, while she tried to pull Jack’s coat back around her, but Jack pulled it back.
“No so fast, Rose,” Jack protested.
“S’cold,” Rose mumbled, shooting an angry glare in Jack’s direction.
“You’re hot,” Jack told her.
“Now is not the time, C-Captain Jack Harkness,” Rose said with a cheeky grin and taking the coat back from him and pulling it around himself. Unfortunately, she caught Jack’s worried gaze and knew that he was right. She pulled the coat pack off of her shoulders, handed the garment back and rubbed her arms. “S’itchy anyway.”
Jack gave her a winning smile and pushed the article to the far side of the cell, and moved next to Rose. He leaned his back against the side of the wall Rose was sitting on and put his arm around her.
“That’s the spirit,” Jack interjected with levity.
Rose gave him a smile and hugged him back. “How’ve you been?”
“How much time you got?” Jack asked with a chuckle. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the two of you. How long’s it been for you?”
“A few days since the stars were going out,” Rose replied apologetically. “Sorry.”
Jack gave her a shrug and brought his arm back to his side and crossed his arms. “It’s not your fault. Besides, you’re not the only one with time travel now,” Jack said with a flourish as he extended his wrist and showed it to Rose. “I met a pretty girl who showed me how to fix it.”
A laugh filled the air, and Rose looked up a Jack.
“That girl Jenny?” Rose asked, closing her eyes and leaning against Jack’s shoulder.
Jack raised an eyebrow at her. “How’d you know?”
“Met her. She’s here. Well, not here, but you know this planet. She’s with the Doctor. He knows ‘bout you and her, by the way,” Rose told him, opening her eyes and giving him a Cheshire cat grin. “She talked about you rather adoringly.”
“Well, I do have that affect on people,” Jack teased, while he leaned back and tried not to focus on Rose’s labored breathing or how pale she was growing. He felt her shivering next to him as her body desperately tried to get warmer despite the fever that was running rampant through her system. “Get some rest, Rose.”
He tried to sound stern, endearing, and a bit swift as he said it, but the anxiety in his voice over took any other emotion that he had tried to portray. He couldn’t stomach seeing Rose Tyler in the condition she was in-he didn’t think any real man ever could. Right next to him was one of the strongest women he had ever known, and she was failing right in front of his eyes. He had come to know something of the Doctor’s pain after living for several millennia and watching everyone he had known and loved die.
He was more than familiar with the fist that liked to tighten around his heart while it tried desperately to finally decide that it did in fact wish to keep beating. And, he was never far from those matches that liked to light a fire behind his eyes and make sure that his tears never ran out, even when he was certain that they must have by now. The thing that he didn’t understand was that it never got any easier. The only change was that every now and then he met someone whose pain threw him back just a bit harder, so that he ended up lying flat on his back-drowning with them.
Too bad he always survived the drowning.
Rose was strong, and Jack knew it, but she wasn’t indestructible. He was the only man in the universe that fit that description. She continued to smile. That cheeky smile that she used to throw to the Doctor when he was least expecting it, that made them both go a bit weak at the knees-the one where just the tip of her tongue poked out from between her teeth framed by her pink lips.
“I’ve been resting since I got here,” Rose complained, breaking him out of his thoughts. “B-besides, I’m lying down aren’t I?”
Jack gave her a half-hearted grin and shook his head in disapproval. He couldn’t resist her, not with those teeth and that tongue, or those big Rose eyes that couldn’t be described as any other color.
“Tell me about something,” Rose asked in a voice that would have been and should have been demanding, but was lacking its usual zeal.
“What?”
“Anything,” Rose said, leaning further back into the wall and sinking down further so that her legs splayed out in front of her.
“You’ve gotta give me more than that, Rose,” Jack teased.
“Oh, I dunno,” Rose murmured, rubbing her eyes and yawning. “Jenny, I just met her and I was hoping to get to know her better before all this happened. Tell me about her.”
Rose lowered her eyes half way and turned to face Jack, while he stared off. She could see the ghosted look on his face while he paused, drawing out his time while he thought of what to say. He was so much like the Doctor, but he was still so different. Jack hid how he felt with more humorous emotions, but the Doctor hid them by talking around them and acting like they never happened.
“She’s the Doctor’s daughter,” Jack started staring off and looking around him again, as if trying to see something that wasn’t there. “It’s funny ya know? Met her in biggest library in the Universe.”
“Captain Jack Harkness in a library,” Rose teased with a laugh.
“I wasn’t there on purpose,” Jack defended. “I just sort of ended up there… naked.”
Rose rolled her eyes and shook her head. “I don’t want to know, Jack. I just don’t.”
“Lost the taste for my stories?” Jack asked, trying to keep the conversation moving.
“No, just think that maybe you might wanna wait ‘til you and Jenny are y’know back together before you delve that deeply into how you met. I was thinking more of what you’re doing here and why you’re still looking for Jenny.”
“She was nice. I wanted to know if she wasn’t all in my imagination. She… She was…” Jack trailed off and looked lost for a moment. “You know how I can’t die, right?”
“Yeah, but the Doctor wouldn’t tell me why,” Rose said with a small growl. “What happened to you, Jack?”
“Imagine it, Rose,” Jack said, carefully dodging her question, while he ran his hands through his short hair and let it fall back into place. “Living through all that and never having anyone constant by your side. I never had anyone. Everyone was mortal. And, when I met Jenny I thought I was in for another broken heart, but then she told me she was a Time Lady and regenerated but didn’t change. I just I thought all my prayers were answered. She wouldn’t live forever, but she would live longer than most.”
Jack thought back. It seemed so greedy when he thought about it now. He fell for someone who he could love the longest. Back when he was mortal, he was a one night stand in most cases, and it felt right then. It was strange that after he became immortal those relationships seemed the least appealing to him. That’s not to say he didn’t try-one could say he was trying to recapture his youth, but something still didn’t feel the same.
“She was amazing too though,” Jack continued. “Not just because I might be able to hold her a bit longer, but she was smart and funny and so much like the Doctor, but a bit like me as well.”
“I noticed she was a bit of a flirt,” Rose said with a small laugh, “didn’t act on it as much as you though, Jack.”
“She was a bit shy,” Jack said, running his hand up and down his neck. “But, she was only one when we first met.”
“Some might call that cradle-robbing,” Rose teased, finally seeming to succumb to sleep once more, but she held on. Her thoughts latched on to Jack’s voice and tried to stay conscious. She was afraid to fall asleep. She didn’t want to dream again, and she didn’t want to not wake up.
“Some might call it that, but it was in the fifty-first century,” Jack joked, remembering what the Doctor had called him.
Rose’s forehead scrunched up and at first Jack thought she was in pain, but she pushed away his hands and opened her mouth to speak. She mumbled something incoherent, but it was clear that she was slipping down on the wall. Jack nodded, looking at her intently and helping her to lie down a bit further on the padded floor, taking his discarded jacket and bringing it under her head. Rose didn’t protest this time as she turned on her side and clutched at her stomach.
“Jack,” Rose whimpered.
“I’m here,” Jack assured her, taking her hand, knowing that the man she really wanted was the Doctor. How did they get separated in the first place?
“The Doctor,” Rose mumbled softly, while she swallowed thickly. “He thinks I’m mad at him. I don’t know what he thinks about me exactly, but don’t let him… don’t let him think that. Tell him for me, okay?”
Jack gave her a serious look. “Tell him when you see him.”
“Promise, Jack.”
“Rose…”
“Promise,” Rose spat, forcing her eyes open and staring at Jack’s not letting his gaze turn away until hers did, while she curled around herself tighter. “Please.” The last word was weaker, slipping, falling. She was giving up.
“Yes, ma’am,” Jack said in a genuine tone. “But, only if you fight for him, Rose Tyler. He needs you.”
Rose suddenly looked a bit more peaceful, while she sucked in slow, deep breaths.
“He won’t be alone,” Rose told him with soft conviction. “He’ll have you and Jenny.”
“He still needs you,” Jack nearly shouted, while he watched as Rose closed her eyes. “Don’t say goodbye.”
Rose opened her eyes again obediently. “I’m not. I just need to know that you’ll look after him. He needs more than he lets on.”
Jack nodded. “I know.”
“I’m gonna go to sleep now,” Rose told him gently, reaching over and giving her friend’s hand a squeeze. “But, I’m just resting. It’s not goodbye.”
Jack nodded, giving her hand a final squeeze while she fell asleep.
~o~
The Doctor leaned forward on General Tent’s desk, seething.
“General, I’m begging you, please. I need the map. Rose is out there!” The Doctor shouted while he gestured wildly with his arm towards the door of the cramped space. “She’s out there alone, and she’s my responsibility, and she needs me.”
General Tents crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair in a relaxed position. “I’m sorry Doctor, there can be no moving of troops or vehicles towards an enemy base at night unless authorized head quarters.”
“But, you’re a General, can’t you just… you know, break SOP and let me. I’m not even taking any of your troops out there. Just one vehicle and my daughter, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry Doctor, but if you go out there and something happens to you and Jenny, forget about regulations I’ll never be able to live with myself.”
The Doctor took a step back from the desk. His eyes were a blaze of passion and fury. “What about Rose then? Hmm?”
“I’ll organize a rescue mission for the morning, with the proper planning and…”
“While Rose is out there dying,” the Doctor cut him off and leaned on the desk, while the General stared right back.
“You don’t know that,” he said defiantly.
“You don’t know that she isn’t,” the Doctor shot back. “Because, I’ve seen a lot of this universe in my time and if there’s one thing I’ve seen a lot of its grief. We’ve both had more than our fair share of pain, haven’t we, General?”
For the first time since the Doctor had walked through the door, General Tents avoided his eyes.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Who did you lose?” the Doctor asked, his posture loosening slightly, but his eyes were still filled with burning fury.
“My wife,” the General admitted. “She was a nurse, stationed in the front lines. I was deployed somewhere else for the time being. It was ten years ago.”
“I lost Rose once,” the Doctor told him. “We both know what that feels like and what’s worse is that after I got her back. I hurt her. I hurt her in the worst way possible, because I was selfish and I didn’t want that pain again. Don’t let me lose her again. ‘Cause, I will go without the map and I happen to know Jenny is good with engines and could hotwire a jeep, so it’s your choice General. You gonna give me those maps?”
The General paused for a moment. The Doctor was serious and wasn’t going to give up. Both men knew that. Without another word, the General opened the top cabinet of his desk with a key and slid the map in the Doctor’s direction and dropped keys to a jeep on top of them.
“Good luck,” the General said finally, while the Doctor took up the map and ran towards the door. “And, Doctor?’
The Doctor didn’t pause, but he did slow slightly, while he put his hand on the door knob and looked in the General’s direction. His Time Lord keenness took in every inch of the General’s appearance in seconds.
“Take this.” The General tossed what appeared to be a blue tooth earpiece in his direction. “If you need anything, just call. We’ll do everything we can from here.”
The Doctor caught the device with an easy move of his hand and nodded. “Thank you.”
~o~
Jenny pulled bounced on her heels in the middle of the motor pool, waiting for her father to show up. She looked down at Mr. Anderson who was sat up in her hands and looking at her anxiously.
“Anderson hot wire?” he asked.
“Not just yet,” Jenny said, beginning to pace in a wide circled. “Give Dad another minute to find those maps. We need them if we’re gonna get there faster.”
“Rose need us,” Anderson protested.
“I know,” Jenny quipped angrily and immediately regretted it. “I’m sorry; just it’s been a long day.”
“Anderson know,” Anderson sympathized. “Jenny and Jenny’s Dad get Rose. Then Jenny be happy.”
Jenny plastered a smile on her face for Anderson and stroked her fingers against his scalp, while she waited. She hopped onto the hood of the jeep and brought her boots up to rest on the bumper and leaned forward while she stared at the General’s tent. She was sure that her father must be arguing with the man and trying to secure the maps.
Finally, after five more agonizing minutes, Jenny saw the Doctor exiting the general’s tent and running towards her with a map in one hand and his fist balled around another object Jenny couldn’t distinguish.
He cleared threw keys in her direction, and she caught them with ease, while she unlocked the door to the passenger side and opened the driver’s side for the Doctor to get in. He didn’t say a word as he started the engine and started to drive out of the compound with the map opened in front of him and resting on the steering wheel.
“I see you convinced the general to give up the maps then,” Jenny said nervously, while she gently slid the map from her father’s grip and began examining it carefully.
“It wasn’t hard,” the Doctor said dismissively, while he pulled out the communication device and handed it to Jenny, and reached in his pocket and extracted his sonic screwdriver and thrust that into Jenny’s hands as well. “Here, that’s a communication device, from the general, but I don’t think it’ll last all the way out to where we’re going-it’s going to be at least a five hour drive.”
Jenny nodded, but she kept looking at the map.
“Okay,” Jenny said. “Hey, Dad, turn on the dirt road up here, it looks like a straighter path and it should shave about an hour or so off.”
“Thanks, Jenny,” the Doctor said, as he turned off and looked over to at her as she began to fiddle with the sonic screwdriver and the communication device. “Don’t you want some help with that? I’m clever you know.”
“I know,” Jenny said quietly, as she continued with her work, lighting up the small device with the sonic screwdriver and pressing the button. “Testing, testing, this is Jenny and the Doctor, please reply.”
“Jenny, we can hear you fine,” the sound of Atali’s voice came over the communication device. “Are you alright?”
“We’re both fine,” Jenny replied. “Should probably keep this communication closed as much as possible though. Thanks Atali.”
“No problem,” and with that, the communication device went silent.
“It works,” Jenny told him, while the Doctor stared at her, and she went back to her map.
“I can see that,” the Doctor muttered, while he looked out at the road and started to make a turn, but Jenny touched his shoulder.
“Not just yet Dad,” Jenny said. “It looks like they’ve marked areas of high traffic for Saigan troops. Keep going forward past two more paths and then turn to the one on your left, after that it should be a fairly straight path for another two hours or so, then you’ll turn right, and that should take you to the camp in about forty-five minutes and that should take you straight there.”
Jenny pointed out in front of her while she spoke and motioned to a knob on the side of the steering wheel. “Turn off your light, Dad.”
“Right, sorry,” the Doctor said, flicking the switch off and slowing down for a second while his eyes adjusted to the change in light. “I’m a bit distracted.”
“I understand,” Jenny said, while she leaned forward and read the map in the darkness.
When Jenny had finally put away the map, she felt Mr. Anderson turning around in his backpack on the floor of the jeep by her foot. She smiled and brought her feet back a bit so that he would have a bit more room. She leaned her head against the side of the jeep, closed her eyes slowly and took a deep breath.
“Still tired?” the Doctor asked in a soft whisper.
“A bit,” Jenny admitted. “It wasn’t this bad last time.”
The Doctor nodded sympathetically and leaned over and touched her forehead much to her annoyance.
“You’ve got a bit of a fever,” the Doctor noted. “You okay? Really okay? It’s not too late to turn back, okay? I’d only lose a few minutes.”
Jenny shook her head. “Don’t you dare. Rose needs us.”
“Jenny, I…”
“No, Dad,” Jenny said defiantly, while she pulled away and glared at him through the darkness. “I’m fine. Just tired.”
Silence stretched out between the two of them for several long moments before the Doctor spoke up.
“I’m sorry, Jenny,” he apologized looking in her direction and looking at her fondly. “I just… I don’t know. Suppose I’m a pretty rubbish father then?”
He gave his daughter a wan smile, but she just looked at him in shock and stared for a moment before she reached across the bench seat they say in and caught him in an awkward hug. She pressed her face into his ribs under his arms, while he moved his arm closest to her to rest on her back. His other hand stayed on the steering wheel, trying to keep them on the winding path.
“Never, father,” Jenny murmured. “Never that. You’re brilliant. I’m gonna learn-I have learned-so much from you already. Besides, how many girls can say their dad fights off villains and rescues whole civilizations?”
She drew back after a moment of just holding onto him and stared up ahead of them again.
“Thanks, Jenny,” the Doctor said and accelerated higher on the road as it straightened out. He took a deep breath, looking at Jenny, while she pulled out the map again and glanced around her at the sights, trying to make sense of them. She was so clever and bright and confident. She was everything he had hoped she would grow into after he had finally accepted her. He couldn’t take any of that credit, though, like he had wanted to. He was so proud of his daughter for making it on her own, for making her own name, but there was something deep inside him that burned slightly at the loss that he had received. He had missed her growing into that woman. He should have been there to help her out, to guide her, but he wasn’t. Sure, she was born smart and self sufficient, but that didn’t take away her need or his desire for her to be taught about what goes around her.
“You still want to learn what it means to be a Time Lady?” the Doctor asked softly, looking at Jenny through pleading eyes.
He caught her completely off guard as she was returning the folded map into her backpack and taking Mr. Anderson in her hands and stroking him softly with her fingers. She found herself not staring at her father, but at Mr. Anderson, who was beaming at him with that cheeky grin of his. He nudged her in the stomach with a fur covered paw. Jenny shook her head in confusion, but she quickly recovered and nodded furiously.
“Yes, of course, Dad,” Jenny said, staring at him with near bemusement. “Why do you think I spent all that time looking for you? Well, that’s not the only reason, obviously. I really wanted to be with my father. I’m only one or something or rather. I need a father.”
The Doctor grinned.
“Then as soon as we get out of here, I’m telling you everything you need to know about Gallifrey, and Time Lords and… the war,” the Doctor bit out the last words, like they hurt, and Jenny knew they really did. “There really is a beautiful history to our people, Jenny, A history not many other cultures could beat.”
“I’d like to hear about it.”
“Better late than never, right?”
“Well, in a way, you’re ahead of me,” Jenny said. “It’s technically a little under two hundred years since I was born on Messaline. Built a vortex manipulator, after I got to know Jack’s in the Library’s computer, even if it didn’t work in there.”
“You’re just brilliant,” the Doctor said with deep affection.
Jenny opened her mouth to reply, but she was cut off as she gasped in pain and let out a small scream.
“Jenny?”
She felt her father slowing the vehicle and stopping on the side of the road. She tried to yell at him to stop, but she couldn’t find the words while she let out a mangled scream and clutched her head. It felt like her head was a blaze with pain as she reached out blindly in front of her and felt her father’s hands clutching her arms and Mr. Anderson stroking her face.
“Jenny, talk to me,” her father’s voice cut through her reverie, and she tried desperately to comply.
“Hurts,” Jenny whimpered, clamping her eyes shut as a blue light came in front of her face and made her ears ring.
“Tell me where,” the Doctor encouraged, and the ringing filled her ears again.
“Evywere,” Jenny mumbled, opening her eyes, only to find that everything had gone blurry while he father leaned over her. She couldn’t make out his face, but she knew he was worried. Why was he worried? Why was she even here?
Jenny gave another small whimper as she gave into to the darkness, trying desperately to remember who she was.