Fic: I'll Meet You on the Other Side (1/?)
Title: I'll Meet You on the Other Side (1/?)
Author: fourzoas
Characters/Pairings: alt!Doctor, Rose, Jackie, alt!Ianto
Word Count: 1283
Rating: G for now
Spoilers: S4’s Journey’s End
Thank you persiflage_1 for the wonderous beta-age.
Disclaimer: I own none of it, not the Whoniverse (which is the BBC's), not the Homer or the other folks I'll be quoting later; I just thought it would be fun to play in their world for a little while.
Story Index
What's Past is Prologue
He alone survived,
Cast away on Kalypso's isle, Ogygia.
He told, then, how that nymph detained him there
In her smooth caves, craving him for her husband,
And how in her devoted lust she swore
He should not die nor grow old, all his days,
But he held out against her.
The Odyssey (23.331-37)
∞
He'd known from that moment on the beach, when the TARDIS disappeared and the wind blew and she ran from him and he took her hand--he'd known. He saw it in her eyes, the comprehension that comes when you finally get what you wanted and then learn what you want. And as much as he wanted to deny it, he’d always suspected that it was the scent of time that seduced them.
But she'd tried, oh how she'd tried. They'd returned to her home and she'd set him up with a job, a fake identity, half her bed. For 2 months they worked at it, always working, while he watched her wrestle with her growing awareness of time’s-not his, not anymore-hold on her. He fought it too; the novelty of human life wore off quickly, and he longed for the stars and the adventure. He ached for his lost ship and the oceans of time they’d ridden. As open as the sky had seemed on that day on that beach, as boundless as the sea appeared, he knew that he was imprisoned. He could still feel it, the earth’s turn, but now it was accompanied by the tether of gravity. Gravity and her. Him and gravity.
It hurt to hurt with no hope or plan of escape, and his hurting while watching her hurting was almost a bit too much humanity for him to cope with so soon.
They were outside, watching the stars, laughing about past adventures (always the past ones) when he told her that it was OK, that she didn't have to, that he understood, that he knew. She was silent for a while, then less so as she cried for what she'd had and lost, and let go the ungiven, unspoken promise she felt that she owed HIM. After so much time, so much work, so much struggle; it was cruel, and he silently cursed at the Doctor for making this happen, for leaving him here to pick up the pieces after yet another life was wrecked.
∞
And that was how it always had been, hadn't it? He could see that now, walking this slow walk, and he understood more distinctly and clearly each day how his former travels had played out after he was gone. Her pain had been the beginning, the key to unlocking a millennium’s storehouse of delayed guilt, empathy, and grief. After she left--gone traveling, the nearest she could get to him--he'd gotten a mate from Torchwood to help him arrange new lodging, furnish the flat he'd chosen and teach him how to live in it--to pay the bills, keep the fridge stocked, not burn down the place. When that was done, when he was alone, the storehouse walls finally came down around him in the cool, quiet still of an evening.
∞
Her mother came round a week after. No one at Torchwood had seen him and her husband asked her to check on him. She knew him before, and if her daughter wasn't available, she was the closest thing he had to an old trusted friend. She hadn't asked her girl why-she knew not long after he did, mothers know these things-and she hadn't held a grudge.
When she saw him there, curled up on the bed, surrounded by half-drunk cups of tea, crumbled bits of biscuits, his clothes smelling of bed and sweat and tears, grief etched into his face, he looked more familiar to her than he had in months. It was as though they'd crossed universes and switched places, the old and the new. When he looked up at her, she could see him working out how he knew her, his consciousness swimming through the sea of memories to cling to something safe. And then he remembered the look on her face, the sound in her voice every time he brought back the daughter she loved and feared she’d never see again. When she touched him, he broke and whispered his sorrow while she held him tight.
"I know, I know. There's nothing for it now. You've got to let it go," she soothed to him while she rocked him on the bed. He thought of all the mothers he'd seen and met and some he’d even loved, and he was glad that she was willing to play the part for him now when he had no one.
∞
One year passed and he was ready to step out on his own. All the things he'd valued before, the sacrifices made in his name, had been catalogued and recorded in a book, the names of the dead and the living in that other place written so that he could remember and reflect, but not live with it in his increasingly crowded mind.
He rejected the old names first. The Doctor, John Smith. Not him, not anymore. Something from his human half wouldn’t let him keep them, that fierce and guarded independence feeling suffocated by the meanings packed and stuffed inside those names. This, of course, made it difficult to move forward; a baby grows up with a name, has to take what it gets, can change it, but is essentially and eternally defined by someone else’s choice. His birth name, his given name, belonged in that other world and there it would stay. He chose a new one and as a christening gift, had it tattooed on his inner left thigh. He smiled a bit as he thought about what River would have said about the mark.
“Not in my lifetime, that one,” he thought and sighed. Another item on the list of things he wouldn’t live to see but already had.
Of course, there was still the matter of the calling card, the name to meet the faces that you meet, and he was a bit surprised when he found himself uttering the words in response to Ianto’s question.
“You want a Jingleheimer in there too?” Ianto smirked, surprised that all of the agonizing of the last 2 weeks had only brought him to this almost foregone conclusion.
“Wha-oi, watch it CoffeeBoy!,” he cracked and then he sighed as he felt the inevitable earwig invading his brain. “Yes, I guess his name is my name too. Well, his first and middle. But that Jingleheimer business is a bit cartoonish, don’t you think?”
Ianto was surprised that he’d actually taken the suggestion seriously, but his expression revealed nothing. He nodded, made a few adjustments in several national registry entries, and within 20 minutes John Jacob Smith was in full possession of a legitimate public identity. In the end, that skin was just too comfortable to shed, and he promised to be less rubbish as a human than that other human John Smith had been.
∞
He abandoned Torchwood; it had never really felt right, too confining and too reminiscent of his grounded life back there and then. He didn’t need to increase the strength of the tether and he didn’t want to be there if, when, she decided it was time to land. Instead he decided to play to one of his strengths-his willingness to wholeheartedly commit to solving problems-and became a man who investigated things, any things that walked in off the street.
One of those things led him to Martha Jones.
******************************************************************
A/N: Source of quotations:
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. Anchor Books, 1963.
Author: fourzoas
Characters/Pairings: alt!Doctor, Rose, Jackie, alt!Ianto
Word Count: 1283
Rating: G for now
Spoilers: S4’s Journey’s End
Thank you persiflage_1 for the wonderous beta-age.
Disclaimer: I own none of it, not the Whoniverse (which is the BBC's), not the Homer or the other folks I'll be quoting later; I just thought it would be fun to play in their world for a little while.
Story Index
What's Past is Prologue
He alone survived,
Cast away on Kalypso's isle, Ogygia.
He told, then, how that nymph detained him there
In her smooth caves, craving him for her husband,
And how in her devoted lust she swore
He should not die nor grow old, all his days,
But he held out against her.
The Odyssey (23.331-37)
∞
He'd known from that moment on the beach, when the TARDIS disappeared and the wind blew and she ran from him and he took her hand--he'd known. He saw it in her eyes, the comprehension that comes when you finally get what you wanted and then learn what you want. And as much as he wanted to deny it, he’d always suspected that it was the scent of time that seduced them.
But she'd tried, oh how she'd tried. They'd returned to her home and she'd set him up with a job, a fake identity, half her bed. For 2 months they worked at it, always working, while he watched her wrestle with her growing awareness of time’s-not his, not anymore-hold on her. He fought it too; the novelty of human life wore off quickly, and he longed for the stars and the adventure. He ached for his lost ship and the oceans of time they’d ridden. As open as the sky had seemed on that day on that beach, as boundless as the sea appeared, he knew that he was imprisoned. He could still feel it, the earth’s turn, but now it was accompanied by the tether of gravity. Gravity and her. Him and gravity.
It hurt to hurt with no hope or plan of escape, and his hurting while watching her hurting was almost a bit too much humanity for him to cope with so soon.
They were outside, watching the stars, laughing about past adventures (always the past ones) when he told her that it was OK, that she didn't have to, that he understood, that he knew. She was silent for a while, then less so as she cried for what she'd had and lost, and let go the ungiven, unspoken promise she felt that she owed HIM. After so much time, so much work, so much struggle; it was cruel, and he silently cursed at the Doctor for making this happen, for leaving him here to pick up the pieces after yet another life was wrecked.
∞
And that was how it always had been, hadn't it? He could see that now, walking this slow walk, and he understood more distinctly and clearly each day how his former travels had played out after he was gone. Her pain had been the beginning, the key to unlocking a millennium’s storehouse of delayed guilt, empathy, and grief. After she left--gone traveling, the nearest she could get to him--he'd gotten a mate from Torchwood to help him arrange new lodging, furnish the flat he'd chosen and teach him how to live in it--to pay the bills, keep the fridge stocked, not burn down the place. When that was done, when he was alone, the storehouse walls finally came down around him in the cool, quiet still of an evening.
∞
Her mother came round a week after. No one at Torchwood had seen him and her husband asked her to check on him. She knew him before, and if her daughter wasn't available, she was the closest thing he had to an old trusted friend. She hadn't asked her girl why-she knew not long after he did, mothers know these things-and she hadn't held a grudge.
When she saw him there, curled up on the bed, surrounded by half-drunk cups of tea, crumbled bits of biscuits, his clothes smelling of bed and sweat and tears, grief etched into his face, he looked more familiar to her than he had in months. It was as though they'd crossed universes and switched places, the old and the new. When he looked up at her, she could see him working out how he knew her, his consciousness swimming through the sea of memories to cling to something safe. And then he remembered the look on her face, the sound in her voice every time he brought back the daughter she loved and feared she’d never see again. When she touched him, he broke and whispered his sorrow while she held him tight.
"I know, I know. There's nothing for it now. You've got to let it go," she soothed to him while she rocked him on the bed. He thought of all the mothers he'd seen and met and some he’d even loved, and he was glad that she was willing to play the part for him now when he had no one.
∞
One year passed and he was ready to step out on his own. All the things he'd valued before, the sacrifices made in his name, had been catalogued and recorded in a book, the names of the dead and the living in that other place written so that he could remember and reflect, but not live with it in his increasingly crowded mind.
He rejected the old names first. The Doctor, John Smith. Not him, not anymore. Something from his human half wouldn’t let him keep them, that fierce and guarded independence feeling suffocated by the meanings packed and stuffed inside those names. This, of course, made it difficult to move forward; a baby grows up with a name, has to take what it gets, can change it, but is essentially and eternally defined by someone else’s choice. His birth name, his given name, belonged in that other world and there it would stay. He chose a new one and as a christening gift, had it tattooed on his inner left thigh. He smiled a bit as he thought about what River would have said about the mark.
“Not in my lifetime, that one,” he thought and sighed. Another item on the list of things he wouldn’t live to see but already had.
Of course, there was still the matter of the calling card, the name to meet the faces that you meet, and he was a bit surprised when he found himself uttering the words in response to Ianto’s question.
“You want a Jingleheimer in there too?” Ianto smirked, surprised that all of the agonizing of the last 2 weeks had only brought him to this almost foregone conclusion.
“Wha-oi, watch it CoffeeBoy!,” he cracked and then he sighed as he felt the inevitable earwig invading his brain. “Yes, I guess his name is my name too. Well, his first and middle. But that Jingleheimer business is a bit cartoonish, don’t you think?”
Ianto was surprised that he’d actually taken the suggestion seriously, but his expression revealed nothing. He nodded, made a few adjustments in several national registry entries, and within 20 minutes John Jacob Smith was in full possession of a legitimate public identity. In the end, that skin was just too comfortable to shed, and he promised to be less rubbish as a human than that other human John Smith had been.
∞
He abandoned Torchwood; it had never really felt right, too confining and too reminiscent of his grounded life back there and then. He didn’t need to increase the strength of the tether and he didn’t want to be there if, when, she decided it was time to land. Instead he decided to play to one of his strengths-his willingness to wholeheartedly commit to solving problems-and became a man who investigated things, any things that walked in off the street.
One of those things led him to Martha Jones.
******************************************************************
A/N: Source of quotations:
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. Anchor Books, 1963.