Doctor Who: "Death in the Garden" (3/4)
Title: Death in the Garden
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Jack/Rose, the TARDIS, OFC
Rating: Teen
Beta: yamx
Summary: A week after his regeneration, the Doctor takes Jack and Rose to a party. But he's been keeping secrets from them, and the truth will soon catch up to them in the worst way the Doctor could have imagined.
Chapter 1: The Storm Garden | Chapter 2: Lazarus and the Wolf
Chapter 3: Wrong
Rose reached for the dermal regenerator. “Hold still. You're covered in scratches almost as badly as I am. I'm taking off that catsuit and healing you up. Then you can do me.”
It said something about Jack's emotional state, Rose thought, that he didn't make a single suggestive comment as she peeled away the remains of his shiny black catsuit. He relaxed a little as she sealed up the scratches on his skin, easing his physical pain, if nothing else. Then he disinfected and sealed her cuts and welts with a pass of the dermal regenerator.
Rose held his hand, and they walked to the wardrobe room. They played an old game they had: picking out each other's outfits and wearing whatever the other chose. Rose brought him jeans and a soft flannel shirt, both because he'd be comfortable in them and because she'd never seen him in flannel before. Jack had picked out a jumper, a knee-length skirt, and leggings, all in shades of pink and yellow and green, the colors of spring. She put them on, along with a pair of sturdy trainers. Jack put on trainers as well and tucked a pair of gloves in his pocket. They held hands again and went to the console room.
“How are we going to find him?” Rose said, staring at the console. She'd helped Jack and the Doctor when they were flying, pressing a button here and hitting the mallet there, but she wouldn't have the foggiest idea what to do without their instruction. Jack must know a thing or two, as he'd managed to come for her in time, but he'd had some idea of where she was.
“She must know where he is,” Jack said. “I just have to coax her into taking us there.” He put on the gloves from his pocket and reached for his wrist strap, which Rose realized was wired into the console. How hadn't she noticed before that he wasn't wearing it? She'd never seen him without it before. Now that she looked, there was a tan line on his wrist where it had been, just below the edge of his glove. He was keying something into the wrist strap - a scan for the Doctor's biosignature, probably. She'd seen him do that a handful of times.
“Why are you wearing gloves?” Rose asked.
“I told you,” Jack said, still focused on the wrist strap. “The TARDIS can't stand me. When I touch the console with my bare hands, I can feel how much my touch hurts her. Feels like being electrocuted. She can still feel me when I have gloves on, but at least I can concentrate on what I'm doing.”
Rose couldn't help but feel some of the betrayal that ached in Jack's voice. How could the TARDIS feel that way about Jack? Rose had always got the impression that she was especially fond of him. How could she do this to him? How could the Doctor allow it?
Sarge came into the console room then. She looked down at Rose's ankle, which she was now putting weight on normally, though it was still a bit sore. A crease appeared between Sarge's brows.
“Just accept that anything can happen in here,” Rose advised her. “It's easier that way.”
“I think I may have no choice,” said Sarge slowly. “The kettle took five seconds to boil the water and then asked me if I wanted Earl Grey or Irish Breakfast. It took me five tries to get it to give me rooibos.”
“The AI was just being rude,” Rose said. “It always gives you a choice, but it never offers the kind of tea you want. You have to show it who's in charge.”
“Got it,” said Jack, standing next to the screen on the console. “Or at least, as close to it as I can. Can you be ready with the mallet, Rose?”
Rose nodded. To Sarge, she said, “Better hang on to something.”
Sarge grimaced. “I learned that lesson last time.” She gripped a railing and spread her stance wide for balance.
“And go,” Jack murmured. A change came over him then that Rose had a hard time putting her finger on. He'd always been good at helping the Doctor pilot the TARDIS, but he didn't have the same bone-deep intuition about her. He'd relied on his intelligence, his experience, his mutual love for the ship, and on cues from the Doctor. But now he had that same split-second knowledge of where to be and which control to tweak. It was almost as if his body were an extension of the TARDIS herself. Rose wondered how the TARDIS could find Jack's presence so unbearable, and at the same time join with him into a nearly seamless whole. The journey was a lot bumpier than usual, but Jack had only months of experience, as opposed to the Doctor's centuries. Nothing about this made sense.
They landed with a thud, and Jack was himself again. Rose dearly wanted to ask him what it had been like for him, flying the TARDIS like that, but saving the Doctor had to come first. Sarge was waiting for them down the ramp, and Rose and Jack joined her.
Rose opened the door. They were surrounded by ocean. She could see a shore, but it looked to be far off. The TARDIS had landed on a bare rock jutting out of the ocean, too small to count as an island by anyone's standard. The waves were big enough that Rose felt a little seasick just looking at them. They crashed into the rock where they had landed, sending up fountains of spray. She couldn't see the Doctor anywhere.
“There,” said Sarge, pointing. There was a figure floating on one of the swells, just barely visible through the sea spray.
“I'm going in,” said Jack without hesitation, reaching for the top button of his shirt.
“Fool man!” said Sarge, gripping one of Jack's wrists. She pointed to the shore. “Can't you see? We're in the waters just off the Cape. There's a current going round the coast that brings waters up from Antarctica. You'll freeze to death.”
“He could be dying of exposure!” said Jack. “Let me go get a suit. I'm going in!”
“No you're not,” said Sarge. “I am.”
“Sarge, we can't ask you to risk - ” Rose began.
“You're not asking. I'm telling. I specialized in search-and-rescue for years. Retired to security detail for fancy parties after a traumatic brain injury. Had a near-complete recovery, thanks to my husband, but we decided I needed a career change.” Sarge shrugged. “But I'll change back to my old line of work for as long as I'm needed. Where can I get a wetsuit?”
Jack and Rose managed to dig up a 51st century wetsuit, which wasn't so much a suit as a blob of clear jelly that molded itself in a watertight seal around Sarge's body, with a slightly thicker layer around her nose and mouth that would convert water to oxygen. She didn't even have to take her uniform off. They added flippers for her feet, and she was ready to go.
“Good luck,” said Rose. “And thank you.”
Jack just smiled encouragingly and clapped her on the shoulder. She nodded, stepped out onto the edge of the rock, then dove into the spray.
It was obvious to Rose that Jack felt he should be the one rescuing the Doctor. Even when he felt that betrayed by the Doctor, Jack wanted to save him. Rose knew how he felt. She'd felt betrayed by the Doctor too, when he'd sent her back home without asking her what she wanted, but she came back to save him anyway.
She couldn't see Sarge anymore, and for a heart-stopping moment she couldn't see the Doctor either. She took Jack's hand and leaned her head against his shoulder, the soft flannel rubbing her cheek.
“He's right there,” said Jack, pointing with his other hand. Again the figure of the Doctor bobbed up on the crest of one of the huge swells.
“How can she swim through water like that? I'm getting seasick just watching,” said Rose.
“There's a trick to swimming through open ocean,” said Jack, his eyes distant, and Rose knew he was remembering his childhood on the Boeshane Peninsula, where the sea was as much a part of home as the shore. “You have to use the waves to propel you forward, not fight through them. Even when the waves are at the wrong angle for the direction where you're going, you zigzag like a sailcraft in an unfavorable wind. And you never forget which way is up, no matter how much the waves toss you around. That's the first lesson they taught all the kids, back on the Boe.”
Rose almost said that it wasn't past tense, that the Boeshane peninsula was just a TARDIS trip away, and somewhere in time and space the 'Shanes were still teaching children how to swim through the surf, but it wasn't true as far as Jack was concerned. For him, it was past tense. He was on the Boe right up until it was evacuated. Not long after that, the community of refugee 'Shanes didn't accept him anymore, and before his time - well, Rose knew all too well how dangerous that could be. The truth was that he couldn't go back. There was nowhere in the universe he could call home except the TARDIS.
A surge of anger rose in her. The TARDIS was Jack's only home. Didn't she know that? Couldn't she see what it meant to him, to be feared and rejected by the only place in the universe where he belonged?
“All right, that's it,” said Rose, pulling away from Jack. “The TARDIS and I are going to have it out, right now. And if she doesn't listen to me, I'll bloody well find another lorry to tear open her console with.”
She strode up to the console and planted her hands wherever there was room for them between the controls. She looked up at the central rotor, her eyes narrowed. “You know how I feel about you, girl, but I've had enough of this rubbish. If Jack's so frightening, I want to know why. Show me!”
A frisson of warning tickled across her palms. Rose set her jaw. “I don't care how bad it is. I want to know. Show me.”
All at once, the universe. The heart of the TARDIS, glowing golden. The stuff of gold, torn from her heart, woven into a rope as firm as steel amidst all the gossamer threads of Time, extending all the way from Beginning to End, inescapable. Hers, it was a part of her, how could it have been torn out and perverted into this? It was a noose ringed around the circle of Time, pressure, no way out, so unchangingly star-core-bright that it burned, and it was inside her and all she could do was scream -
Rose pulled her hands from the console and took a step back. “You're wrong,” she said.
She heard a gasp behind her, a low pained sound like a child in pain, alone. She turned to see Jack staring at her, face gone white. “No. Not you too,” Jack whispered. “I can't.”
Rose closed the distance between them in two long bounds and reached up to frame his face in her hands. “Not you, Jack. Never you. I'm going to show the TARDIS just how wrong she is.” And she pulled him down for a fierce kiss, drinking in the essence of him, his scent and the way his tongue moved against hers and the tiny responsive sounds he made. All the while, the memory of the TARDIS' terror and panic burned in the back of her mind. But she knew better than to let it get in the way.
She drew back, looked up at the ceiling, and said, “You're wrong! If it had been anyone else, I'd understand. It'd be terrible to have a part of you taken out and put inside someone you didn't care about. I'm not really sure what happened, exactly, but it'd be terrible for someone like Margaret the Slitheen or that tosser Adam to be all - part of Time like that. But this is Jack. He's the man who's walking around with a bit of your heart inside him. And don't think you're the only one, either! He's got a bit of my heart too, and the Doctor's hearts. That's what love is. And if you're afraid to entrust a bit of your heart to him the way we have, then you don't deserve him. You got that?”
A flood of empathy and regret washed up through her. The pain was there, too, no longer mingled with panic, though no less intense for that.
Jack must have felt it too. “I don't want to hurt you, old girl. You know that. I'll do whatever I can to help. But please forgive me for hurting you. Let me stay.”
That was when Jack did something Rose had never seen him do before. He blushed. His cheeks were bright pink, and with her face so close to his, Rose could feel the heat coming off them. What on earth?
“She kissed me!” said Jack, pressing his fingertips to his lips. “Like you just did. Except - it was the way it feels to kiss, in your head, everything narrowing down, and the warmth and all the things you try to say with your lips and your tongue and…” He shook his head in wonder. “She's a good kisser.”
Rose beamed. “Don't I get a snog, then?” she asked the TARDIS, but Jack tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned to look back out at the ocean.
Sarge had reached the Doctor and was hauling him back. They disappeared under a wave for a few moments, then resurfaced. Rose couldn't see well enough through the spray of the waves crashing against the rock to tell how the Doctor was doing. She twined her arm around Jack's and waited.
“Thank you,” said Jack, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
“Don't thank me just yet. I've got a feeling I'll have to repeat that performance with the Doctor. But I'll do it, Jack. Just you watch.”
“You promised,” said Jack, as if Rose's promise could rearrange the universe. She'd never heard anyone talk like that about her, not even the Doctor. After all, if he really believed in her that much, he wouldn't have sent her away from the Game Station as if she were a child trying to play in traffic, would he? Jack wasn't the only one with a score to settle with the Doctor, Rose decided.
Sarge surged through the spray and hauled herself back onto the rock, the Doctor in tow. Rose had only a moment to admire the sergeant's tremendous strength and bravery before fear and horror made her insides turn cold, even as Jack ran outside to help. The Doctor was grey, hollow-faced, and wracked with whole body spasms so violent that for a moment Rose wasn't sure whether he was shivering or having a seizure. Sarge pressed down on his chest a few times, and he spat up seawater before taking huge harsh gasps of air. When Jack appeared at his side, he had another full-body convulsion, then curled up on his side so he was facing away from Jack, arms tucked up over his head as if to shield himself from impact. Jack flinched and took a step back.
Rose ran outside. She wasn't dressed for the cold, and she felt her teeth chatter a little. She knelt at the Doctor's side and took his pulse. It was weak and thready.
“He can hang in a bit longer,” she shouted over the crashing waves. “We've got to get him to the medical bay quick, though!”
Sarge nodded and slung him over her shoulder in a fireman's carry. Jack was already halfway back to the TARDIS, so Rose led Sarge in through the door and to the medical bay. Jack stood just outside the entrance, looking desperately worried, but he made no move to help. That must be killing him, Rose thought, but there was nothing to be done. Jack was probably right to keep his distance, at least for now.
Sarge laid the Doctor on the bed as gently as she could. He coughed violently, then his body curled in on itself in another spasm, and now Rose was nearly certain it wasn't a reaction to the cold. She covered him with a blanket anyway and started tapping at a screen at the foot of the bed. She'd been through this often enough to know how to key up a medical scan, and forced herself to keep her mind clear until they figured out how to help the Doctor.
Sarge had stepped back outside the medical bay, and Jack was helping her take off the wetsuit. When it was pooled back into a blob of clear jelly in her hands, Jack asked, “How cold was the water? Was he like this when you found him?”
“Ten degrees, I'd say. And he was in no good shape when I found him, but he wasn't having fits like he is now.”
The Doctor spasmed again, his back flexing into a bow, and this time he found enough breath to scream. Rose bit back a cry of her own. She had to keep steady. The results of the scan told her that his body temperature was below normal, and his lungs were damaged from the seawater.
“Thank you, Sarge,” said Jack. “Rose and I will take care of him. As soon as he's well, we'll find everyone else the Angel took. I don't know how long it'll be, but the TARDIS travels in time. Wherever they are, we'll be there exactly when they need us. We just need the Doctor back first. OK?”
“My comm unit doesn't work in here,” said Sarge. “Is there any way I can contact my officers or my husband?”
Rose passed over her superphone without looking up. Jack gave her a brief demonstration of how to use it, then she left with quiet thanks. Rose told the bed to warm the Doctor up to his proper temperature. Then she found a mask hooked up to a series of gas tanks and fitted it over the Doctor's nose and mouth, pressing a button on the screen that prompted a flow of gases that would anesthetize the Doctor and heal the damage to his lungs.
Rose had hoped the anesthesia and the warmth would stop the Doctor's spasms, but she was mistaken. Even with the medicinal gas his face was an awful shade of grey, and he coiled into a tight ball of agony, almost making the mask slip off his face.
“The scanner won't tell me how to make it stop,” said Rose, her eyes filling with tears of worry and frustration. “He's freezing and he breathed in seawater, that's all it'll tell me, but that's not why he's in so much pain!”
Jack was leaning into the doorway of the med bay, just enough so his head poked through. He looked stricken at the sight of the Doctor. “No. It's me.”
“It's not you, it's something that happened to you. It isn't your fault.”
“Still. I should go.” After one last glance around the room, Jack said, “The screen says to take the mask off. There's enough of the gas in his lungs for now, and too much anesthesia could be dangerous.” Then he pulled his head out of the doorway and left.
Rose carefully slipped the mask off the Doctor's face. He met her eyes, the first sign she'd seen of any awareness of the world around him. “Rose,” he said, his voice a horrible rasp.
“I'm here,” she said, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder gently. “I've got you. Can you tell me what's wrong? What's hurting you?”
He shook his head.
“Please, Doctor,” she said. “You have to tell me.”
“There's nothing you can do,” he rasped. “Just let me - ahh!” He bucked against the bed in another convulsion.
“Is it Jack?” Rose said, her voice somehow steady through the tears she was choking back.
“What? No! Of course not!” The Doctor did a double take. “Where is he?”
“He just left. He was afraid he'd only hurt you worse if he stayed.”
“No! He can't!” The Doctor sounded almost panicked. “He can't leave!” He clutched at Rose, an almost painful pressure on her arm. She wondered, frantically, if he was delirious. “Rose, make him stay. You don't understand. I almost - ” The effort of speaking became too much, and he doubled over into another coughing fit.
Rose put the mask back on the Doctor's face before he had time to protest, and watched him breathe in the medicine, though her vision blurred with tears. It wasn't fair. The Doctor shouldn't have kept the truth from Jack, or from her. But it was obvious he didn't want Jack to leave, even though it hurt to be near him. What had happened to Jack, and why did it have to come between them?
The screen at the foot of the bed chimed, and Rose took the mask back off. The Doctor was breathing easier now, his color returning. It really had been Jack causing those fits of pain, Rose realized, feeling sick.
Prescription: bed rest, read the screen. That meant the Doctor was clear to leave the medical bay. Rose peeled the blanket off him, supported him under one arm, and helped him walk as best she could.
“I'm sorry,” the Doctor said. His eyes were unfocused, but his mouth kept going. “I tried, Rose. I blocked it in my head. Didn't let it in. Tried to make it not hurt. But now he knows and he's going to leave and it's all my fault!”
“No one's going to leave,” said Rose. “Hush. We're almost there. You'll get some rest. Here.”
She opened the door to their bedroom. It was warmer than usual, but Jack wasn't there, which made it seem colder than usual. Rose laid him on the bed and stripped off his soaked clothing, over his mumbled protests that he could undress himself, thanks. By the time she tucked the blankets over him, he was asleep.
A part of Rose wanted to sleep beside him, so he wouldn't be alone when he woke. But Jack needed her more, so she kissed the Doctor and left. She walked down the corridor with an image of Jack firmly in mind, which was usually enough to guide her to him no matter where in the TARDIS he was.
She found him at the archery range, a strung bow in his hand and a canister of arrows at his side. He nocked an arrow and lined up his shot, reacting not at all to Rose's presence. Jack drew the string back, tension gathering in his shoulders. He breathed in, aimed, and fired on an exhale. The string thrummed, and the arrow whispered through the air until it hit the target, just off center.
“He loves you,” said Rose, still standing in the doorway. “He didn't want you to leave.”
“I had to.” Jack nocked another arrow. “I will have to. Leave. This can't go on.” He drew the bowstring back.
“Didn't you listen? We don't want you to leave. You don't want to, either.”
Thrum. A soft thunk as the arrow hit.
“We do the impossible every day, Jack. We'll find a way. I promised, remember?”
Jack faced her, bow in one hand, an arrow in the other. “I trust you, Rose. You know that. But it isn't easy.” He looked down at the arrow. “Trust was a weapon, before I met you and the Doctor. I used it to hurt people.”
People used it to hurt you. Your own family used it to hurt you, Rose thought, but she stayed quiet, waiting.
“You showed me I was wrong. I trust you, and the Doctor, too. But I still don't understand it. I don't know the shape of it. It still feels… sharp. Not a weapon, but it could make me bleed if I don't hold on to it right.” He looked back up at Rose, and the look in his eyes was almost child-like, as if she had a map and could show him the way. “I need a bit of space. Time to think. Maybe we can talk when the Doctor wakes up. OK?”
Rose nodded. How could she tell him she didn't know the way out of this? She believed there was a way, but she couldn't see it. Her promise to him meant something, but it couldn't rearrange the universe the way she wanted it to be. She shut the door behind her, and before she left, stopped to listen as the bowstring thrummed once more.
She let the TARDIS guide her steps, and it occurred to her that things were different now between her and the timeship. She'd found Jack much faster than she used to, and she'd never been able to communicate with the TARDIS the way she had when they'd had their argument in the console room. She didn't know what it meant. Maybe Jack hadn't been the only one changed, one way or another, by what happened at the Game Station. It was a frightening thought. No wonder, then, that Rose found herself at the kitchen door. The TARDIS must know she'd find comfort in a cup of tea. Inside the kitchen, she saw Sarge cutting a sandwich into neat triangles.
“Hello,” said Rose. She took the kettle and filled it with water from an ornate silver tap.
“How's the Doctor?” said Sarge, setting her sandwich on a plate.
“Sleeping.”
“And Jack?”
“He's not the one who half-drowned,” said Rose, dodging the question.
Sarge gave her a look, eyebrows raised, but Rose ignored her. She didn't feel like explaining.
The kettle boiled. “Chai or Assam?” it said.
“Give me English Breakfast or I'll throw you out an airlock,” said Rose.
“This unit cannot process your request. Chai or Assam?”
Rose pulled a chipped blue mug down from the cabinet and set it in front of the kettle's spout. “Don't play stupid. You offered English Breakfast to the Doctor just two days ago when he wanted Darjeeling. Give me English Breakfast or I'll let him at you with the sonic screwdriver.”
A stream of tea tinged with milk poured from the spout into the mug. She took her tea and sat down at the kitchen table across from Sarge, who was starting on her sandwich.
“Did you make your phone calls?” said Rose, between sips of tea.
Sarge nodded, but she looked weary and grim. She reached into her jacket and passed Rose's mobile back to her across the table. “No sign of my missing officers, or of the young girl who was the first to disappear. Though I suppose there wouldn't be, if they were all sent back in time, same as you.”
Rose pocketed her mobile. “We'll find them,” she said. Of that much, at least, she was certain. “And your husband? Did you get through to him?”
“Ansel is…” Sarge took a bite of her sandwich and swallowed. “He's scared. I didn't tell him about all this,” she said, gesturing around at the TARDIS, “but I told him there's a kidnapper on the loose, which is true enough, and he feels helpless. He put a brave face on it, but I could tell he was frightened.”
“It's just like him, to muddle along like he isn't afraid. It reminds me of how we used to go sailing, before we were married. I've always loved sailing out on the ocean. I used to go out with a sailing club every weekend, back then, and Ansel started coming with me. It took me about three weeks to figure out it terrified him. He was scared half to death of falling off the boat and drowning, but he came along anyway, because he knew I loved it, and he wanted to share in all the things I loved.”
Sarge stopped to eat more of her sandwich, and Rose asked, “So what did you do?”
“Hmm?”
“When you found out. What did you do?”
Sarge shrugged, though there was a hint of a smile on her serious face. “I taught him how to swim.”
Rose stared at Sarge like she'd never seen the woman before, and swallowed a mouthful of tea, slowly. Maybe she could find the way out of this after all.
This entry was crossposted at http://joking.dreamwidth.org/95972.html.
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Jack/Rose, the TARDIS, OFC
Rating: Teen
Beta: yamx
Summary: A week after his regeneration, the Doctor takes Jack and Rose to a party. But he's been keeping secrets from them, and the truth will soon catch up to them in the worst way the Doctor could have imagined.
Chapter 1: The Storm Garden | Chapter 2: Lazarus and the Wolf
Chapter 3: Wrong
Rose reached for the dermal regenerator. “Hold still. You're covered in scratches almost as badly as I am. I'm taking off that catsuit and healing you up. Then you can do me.”
It said something about Jack's emotional state, Rose thought, that he didn't make a single suggestive comment as she peeled away the remains of his shiny black catsuit. He relaxed a little as she sealed up the scratches on his skin, easing his physical pain, if nothing else. Then he disinfected and sealed her cuts and welts with a pass of the dermal regenerator.
Rose held his hand, and they walked to the wardrobe room. They played an old game they had: picking out each other's outfits and wearing whatever the other chose. Rose brought him jeans and a soft flannel shirt, both because he'd be comfortable in them and because she'd never seen him in flannel before. Jack had picked out a jumper, a knee-length skirt, and leggings, all in shades of pink and yellow and green, the colors of spring. She put them on, along with a pair of sturdy trainers. Jack put on trainers as well and tucked a pair of gloves in his pocket. They held hands again and went to the console room.
“How are we going to find him?” Rose said, staring at the console. She'd helped Jack and the Doctor when they were flying, pressing a button here and hitting the mallet there, but she wouldn't have the foggiest idea what to do without their instruction. Jack must know a thing or two, as he'd managed to come for her in time, but he'd had some idea of where she was.
“She must know where he is,” Jack said. “I just have to coax her into taking us there.” He put on the gloves from his pocket and reached for his wrist strap, which Rose realized was wired into the console. How hadn't she noticed before that he wasn't wearing it? She'd never seen him without it before. Now that she looked, there was a tan line on his wrist where it had been, just below the edge of his glove. He was keying something into the wrist strap - a scan for the Doctor's biosignature, probably. She'd seen him do that a handful of times.
“Why are you wearing gloves?” Rose asked.
“I told you,” Jack said, still focused on the wrist strap. “The TARDIS can't stand me. When I touch the console with my bare hands, I can feel how much my touch hurts her. Feels like being electrocuted. She can still feel me when I have gloves on, but at least I can concentrate on what I'm doing.”
Rose couldn't help but feel some of the betrayal that ached in Jack's voice. How could the TARDIS feel that way about Jack? Rose had always got the impression that she was especially fond of him. How could she do this to him? How could the Doctor allow it?
Sarge came into the console room then. She looked down at Rose's ankle, which she was now putting weight on normally, though it was still a bit sore. A crease appeared between Sarge's brows.
“Just accept that anything can happen in here,” Rose advised her. “It's easier that way.”
“I think I may have no choice,” said Sarge slowly. “The kettle took five seconds to boil the water and then asked me if I wanted Earl Grey or Irish Breakfast. It took me five tries to get it to give me rooibos.”
“The AI was just being rude,” Rose said. “It always gives you a choice, but it never offers the kind of tea you want. You have to show it who's in charge.”
“Got it,” said Jack, standing next to the screen on the console. “Or at least, as close to it as I can. Can you be ready with the mallet, Rose?”
Rose nodded. To Sarge, she said, “Better hang on to something.”
Sarge grimaced. “I learned that lesson last time.” She gripped a railing and spread her stance wide for balance.
“And go,” Jack murmured. A change came over him then that Rose had a hard time putting her finger on. He'd always been good at helping the Doctor pilot the TARDIS, but he didn't have the same bone-deep intuition about her. He'd relied on his intelligence, his experience, his mutual love for the ship, and on cues from the Doctor. But now he had that same split-second knowledge of where to be and which control to tweak. It was almost as if his body were an extension of the TARDIS herself. Rose wondered how the TARDIS could find Jack's presence so unbearable, and at the same time join with him into a nearly seamless whole. The journey was a lot bumpier than usual, but Jack had only months of experience, as opposed to the Doctor's centuries. Nothing about this made sense.
They landed with a thud, and Jack was himself again. Rose dearly wanted to ask him what it had been like for him, flying the TARDIS like that, but saving the Doctor had to come first. Sarge was waiting for them down the ramp, and Rose and Jack joined her.
Rose opened the door. They were surrounded by ocean. She could see a shore, but it looked to be far off. The TARDIS had landed on a bare rock jutting out of the ocean, too small to count as an island by anyone's standard. The waves were big enough that Rose felt a little seasick just looking at them. They crashed into the rock where they had landed, sending up fountains of spray. She couldn't see the Doctor anywhere.
“There,” said Sarge, pointing. There was a figure floating on one of the swells, just barely visible through the sea spray.
“I'm going in,” said Jack without hesitation, reaching for the top button of his shirt.
“Fool man!” said Sarge, gripping one of Jack's wrists. She pointed to the shore. “Can't you see? We're in the waters just off the Cape. There's a current going round the coast that brings waters up from Antarctica. You'll freeze to death.”
“He could be dying of exposure!” said Jack. “Let me go get a suit. I'm going in!”
“No you're not,” said Sarge. “I am.”
“Sarge, we can't ask you to risk - ” Rose began.
“You're not asking. I'm telling. I specialized in search-and-rescue for years. Retired to security detail for fancy parties after a traumatic brain injury. Had a near-complete recovery, thanks to my husband, but we decided I needed a career change.” Sarge shrugged. “But I'll change back to my old line of work for as long as I'm needed. Where can I get a wetsuit?”
Jack and Rose managed to dig up a 51st century wetsuit, which wasn't so much a suit as a blob of clear jelly that molded itself in a watertight seal around Sarge's body, with a slightly thicker layer around her nose and mouth that would convert water to oxygen. She didn't even have to take her uniform off. They added flippers for her feet, and she was ready to go.
“Good luck,” said Rose. “And thank you.”
Jack just smiled encouragingly and clapped her on the shoulder. She nodded, stepped out onto the edge of the rock, then dove into the spray.
It was obvious to Rose that Jack felt he should be the one rescuing the Doctor. Even when he felt that betrayed by the Doctor, Jack wanted to save him. Rose knew how he felt. She'd felt betrayed by the Doctor too, when he'd sent her back home without asking her what she wanted, but she came back to save him anyway.
She couldn't see Sarge anymore, and for a heart-stopping moment she couldn't see the Doctor either. She took Jack's hand and leaned her head against his shoulder, the soft flannel rubbing her cheek.
“He's right there,” said Jack, pointing with his other hand. Again the figure of the Doctor bobbed up on the crest of one of the huge swells.
“How can she swim through water like that? I'm getting seasick just watching,” said Rose.
“There's a trick to swimming through open ocean,” said Jack, his eyes distant, and Rose knew he was remembering his childhood on the Boeshane Peninsula, where the sea was as much a part of home as the shore. “You have to use the waves to propel you forward, not fight through them. Even when the waves are at the wrong angle for the direction where you're going, you zigzag like a sailcraft in an unfavorable wind. And you never forget which way is up, no matter how much the waves toss you around. That's the first lesson they taught all the kids, back on the Boe.”
Rose almost said that it wasn't past tense, that the Boeshane peninsula was just a TARDIS trip away, and somewhere in time and space the 'Shanes were still teaching children how to swim through the surf, but it wasn't true as far as Jack was concerned. For him, it was past tense. He was on the Boe right up until it was evacuated. Not long after that, the community of refugee 'Shanes didn't accept him anymore, and before his time - well, Rose knew all too well how dangerous that could be. The truth was that he couldn't go back. There was nowhere in the universe he could call home except the TARDIS.
A surge of anger rose in her. The TARDIS was Jack's only home. Didn't she know that? Couldn't she see what it meant to him, to be feared and rejected by the only place in the universe where he belonged?
“All right, that's it,” said Rose, pulling away from Jack. “The TARDIS and I are going to have it out, right now. And if she doesn't listen to me, I'll bloody well find another lorry to tear open her console with.”
She strode up to the console and planted her hands wherever there was room for them between the controls. She looked up at the central rotor, her eyes narrowed. “You know how I feel about you, girl, but I've had enough of this rubbish. If Jack's so frightening, I want to know why. Show me!”
A frisson of warning tickled across her palms. Rose set her jaw. “I don't care how bad it is. I want to know. Show me.”
All at once, the universe. The heart of the TARDIS, glowing golden. The stuff of gold, torn from her heart, woven into a rope as firm as steel amidst all the gossamer threads of Time, extending all the way from Beginning to End, inescapable. Hers, it was a part of her, how could it have been torn out and perverted into this? It was a noose ringed around the circle of Time, pressure, no way out, so unchangingly star-core-bright that it burned, and it was inside her and all she could do was scream -
Rose pulled her hands from the console and took a step back. “You're wrong,” she said.
She heard a gasp behind her, a low pained sound like a child in pain, alone. She turned to see Jack staring at her, face gone white. “No. Not you too,” Jack whispered. “I can't.”
Rose closed the distance between them in two long bounds and reached up to frame his face in her hands. “Not you, Jack. Never you. I'm going to show the TARDIS just how wrong she is.” And she pulled him down for a fierce kiss, drinking in the essence of him, his scent and the way his tongue moved against hers and the tiny responsive sounds he made. All the while, the memory of the TARDIS' terror and panic burned in the back of her mind. But she knew better than to let it get in the way.
She drew back, looked up at the ceiling, and said, “You're wrong! If it had been anyone else, I'd understand. It'd be terrible to have a part of you taken out and put inside someone you didn't care about. I'm not really sure what happened, exactly, but it'd be terrible for someone like Margaret the Slitheen or that tosser Adam to be all - part of Time like that. But this is Jack. He's the man who's walking around with a bit of your heart inside him. And don't think you're the only one, either! He's got a bit of my heart too, and the Doctor's hearts. That's what love is. And if you're afraid to entrust a bit of your heart to him the way we have, then you don't deserve him. You got that?”
A flood of empathy and regret washed up through her. The pain was there, too, no longer mingled with panic, though no less intense for that.
Jack must have felt it too. “I don't want to hurt you, old girl. You know that. I'll do whatever I can to help. But please forgive me for hurting you. Let me stay.”
That was when Jack did something Rose had never seen him do before. He blushed. His cheeks were bright pink, and with her face so close to his, Rose could feel the heat coming off them. What on earth?
“She kissed me!” said Jack, pressing his fingertips to his lips. “Like you just did. Except - it was the way it feels to kiss, in your head, everything narrowing down, and the warmth and all the things you try to say with your lips and your tongue and…” He shook his head in wonder. “She's a good kisser.”
Rose beamed. “Don't I get a snog, then?” she asked the TARDIS, but Jack tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned to look back out at the ocean.
Sarge had reached the Doctor and was hauling him back. They disappeared under a wave for a few moments, then resurfaced. Rose couldn't see well enough through the spray of the waves crashing against the rock to tell how the Doctor was doing. She twined her arm around Jack's and waited.
“Thank you,” said Jack, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.
“Don't thank me just yet. I've got a feeling I'll have to repeat that performance with the Doctor. But I'll do it, Jack. Just you watch.”
“You promised,” said Jack, as if Rose's promise could rearrange the universe. She'd never heard anyone talk like that about her, not even the Doctor. After all, if he really believed in her that much, he wouldn't have sent her away from the Game Station as if she were a child trying to play in traffic, would he? Jack wasn't the only one with a score to settle with the Doctor, Rose decided.
Sarge surged through the spray and hauled herself back onto the rock, the Doctor in tow. Rose had only a moment to admire the sergeant's tremendous strength and bravery before fear and horror made her insides turn cold, even as Jack ran outside to help. The Doctor was grey, hollow-faced, and wracked with whole body spasms so violent that for a moment Rose wasn't sure whether he was shivering or having a seizure. Sarge pressed down on his chest a few times, and he spat up seawater before taking huge harsh gasps of air. When Jack appeared at his side, he had another full-body convulsion, then curled up on his side so he was facing away from Jack, arms tucked up over his head as if to shield himself from impact. Jack flinched and took a step back.
Rose ran outside. She wasn't dressed for the cold, and she felt her teeth chatter a little. She knelt at the Doctor's side and took his pulse. It was weak and thready.
“He can hang in a bit longer,” she shouted over the crashing waves. “We've got to get him to the medical bay quick, though!”
Sarge nodded and slung him over her shoulder in a fireman's carry. Jack was already halfway back to the TARDIS, so Rose led Sarge in through the door and to the medical bay. Jack stood just outside the entrance, looking desperately worried, but he made no move to help. That must be killing him, Rose thought, but there was nothing to be done. Jack was probably right to keep his distance, at least for now.
Sarge laid the Doctor on the bed as gently as she could. He coughed violently, then his body curled in on itself in another spasm, and now Rose was nearly certain it wasn't a reaction to the cold. She covered him with a blanket anyway and started tapping at a screen at the foot of the bed. She'd been through this often enough to know how to key up a medical scan, and forced herself to keep her mind clear until they figured out how to help the Doctor.
Sarge had stepped back outside the medical bay, and Jack was helping her take off the wetsuit. When it was pooled back into a blob of clear jelly in her hands, Jack asked, “How cold was the water? Was he like this when you found him?”
“Ten degrees, I'd say. And he was in no good shape when I found him, but he wasn't having fits like he is now.”
The Doctor spasmed again, his back flexing into a bow, and this time he found enough breath to scream. Rose bit back a cry of her own. She had to keep steady. The results of the scan told her that his body temperature was below normal, and his lungs were damaged from the seawater.
“Thank you, Sarge,” said Jack. “Rose and I will take care of him. As soon as he's well, we'll find everyone else the Angel took. I don't know how long it'll be, but the TARDIS travels in time. Wherever they are, we'll be there exactly when they need us. We just need the Doctor back first. OK?”
“My comm unit doesn't work in here,” said Sarge. “Is there any way I can contact my officers or my husband?”
Rose passed over her superphone without looking up. Jack gave her a brief demonstration of how to use it, then she left with quiet thanks. Rose told the bed to warm the Doctor up to his proper temperature. Then she found a mask hooked up to a series of gas tanks and fitted it over the Doctor's nose and mouth, pressing a button on the screen that prompted a flow of gases that would anesthetize the Doctor and heal the damage to his lungs.
Rose had hoped the anesthesia and the warmth would stop the Doctor's spasms, but she was mistaken. Even with the medicinal gas his face was an awful shade of grey, and he coiled into a tight ball of agony, almost making the mask slip off his face.
“The scanner won't tell me how to make it stop,” said Rose, her eyes filling with tears of worry and frustration. “He's freezing and he breathed in seawater, that's all it'll tell me, but that's not why he's in so much pain!”
Jack was leaning into the doorway of the med bay, just enough so his head poked through. He looked stricken at the sight of the Doctor. “No. It's me.”
“It's not you, it's something that happened to you. It isn't your fault.”
“Still. I should go.” After one last glance around the room, Jack said, “The screen says to take the mask off. There's enough of the gas in his lungs for now, and too much anesthesia could be dangerous.” Then he pulled his head out of the doorway and left.
Rose carefully slipped the mask off the Doctor's face. He met her eyes, the first sign she'd seen of any awareness of the world around him. “Rose,” he said, his voice a horrible rasp.
“I'm here,” she said, reaching out to squeeze his shoulder gently. “I've got you. Can you tell me what's wrong? What's hurting you?”
He shook his head.
“Please, Doctor,” she said. “You have to tell me.”
“There's nothing you can do,” he rasped. “Just let me - ahh!” He bucked against the bed in another convulsion.
“Is it Jack?” Rose said, her voice somehow steady through the tears she was choking back.
“What? No! Of course not!” The Doctor did a double take. “Where is he?”
“He just left. He was afraid he'd only hurt you worse if he stayed.”
“No! He can't!” The Doctor sounded almost panicked. “He can't leave!” He clutched at Rose, an almost painful pressure on her arm. She wondered, frantically, if he was delirious. “Rose, make him stay. You don't understand. I almost - ” The effort of speaking became too much, and he doubled over into another coughing fit.
Rose put the mask back on the Doctor's face before he had time to protest, and watched him breathe in the medicine, though her vision blurred with tears. It wasn't fair. The Doctor shouldn't have kept the truth from Jack, or from her. But it was obvious he didn't want Jack to leave, even though it hurt to be near him. What had happened to Jack, and why did it have to come between them?
The screen at the foot of the bed chimed, and Rose took the mask back off. The Doctor was breathing easier now, his color returning. It really had been Jack causing those fits of pain, Rose realized, feeling sick.
Prescription: bed rest, read the screen. That meant the Doctor was clear to leave the medical bay. Rose peeled the blanket off him, supported him under one arm, and helped him walk as best she could.
“I'm sorry,” the Doctor said. His eyes were unfocused, but his mouth kept going. “I tried, Rose. I blocked it in my head. Didn't let it in. Tried to make it not hurt. But now he knows and he's going to leave and it's all my fault!”
“No one's going to leave,” said Rose. “Hush. We're almost there. You'll get some rest. Here.”
She opened the door to their bedroom. It was warmer than usual, but Jack wasn't there, which made it seem colder than usual. Rose laid him on the bed and stripped off his soaked clothing, over his mumbled protests that he could undress himself, thanks. By the time she tucked the blankets over him, he was asleep.
A part of Rose wanted to sleep beside him, so he wouldn't be alone when he woke. But Jack needed her more, so she kissed the Doctor and left. She walked down the corridor with an image of Jack firmly in mind, which was usually enough to guide her to him no matter where in the TARDIS he was.
She found him at the archery range, a strung bow in his hand and a canister of arrows at his side. He nocked an arrow and lined up his shot, reacting not at all to Rose's presence. Jack drew the string back, tension gathering in his shoulders. He breathed in, aimed, and fired on an exhale. The string thrummed, and the arrow whispered through the air until it hit the target, just off center.
“He loves you,” said Rose, still standing in the doorway. “He didn't want you to leave.”
“I had to.” Jack nocked another arrow. “I will have to. Leave. This can't go on.” He drew the bowstring back.
“Didn't you listen? We don't want you to leave. You don't want to, either.”
Thrum. A soft thunk as the arrow hit.
“We do the impossible every day, Jack. We'll find a way. I promised, remember?”
Jack faced her, bow in one hand, an arrow in the other. “I trust you, Rose. You know that. But it isn't easy.” He looked down at the arrow. “Trust was a weapon, before I met you and the Doctor. I used it to hurt people.”
People used it to hurt you. Your own family used it to hurt you, Rose thought, but she stayed quiet, waiting.
“You showed me I was wrong. I trust you, and the Doctor, too. But I still don't understand it. I don't know the shape of it. It still feels… sharp. Not a weapon, but it could make me bleed if I don't hold on to it right.” He looked back up at Rose, and the look in his eyes was almost child-like, as if she had a map and could show him the way. “I need a bit of space. Time to think. Maybe we can talk when the Doctor wakes up. OK?”
Rose nodded. How could she tell him she didn't know the way out of this? She believed there was a way, but she couldn't see it. Her promise to him meant something, but it couldn't rearrange the universe the way she wanted it to be. She shut the door behind her, and before she left, stopped to listen as the bowstring thrummed once more.
She let the TARDIS guide her steps, and it occurred to her that things were different now between her and the timeship. She'd found Jack much faster than she used to, and she'd never been able to communicate with the TARDIS the way she had when they'd had their argument in the console room. She didn't know what it meant. Maybe Jack hadn't been the only one changed, one way or another, by what happened at the Game Station. It was a frightening thought. No wonder, then, that Rose found herself at the kitchen door. The TARDIS must know she'd find comfort in a cup of tea. Inside the kitchen, she saw Sarge cutting a sandwich into neat triangles.
“Hello,” said Rose. She took the kettle and filled it with water from an ornate silver tap.
“How's the Doctor?” said Sarge, setting her sandwich on a plate.
“Sleeping.”
“And Jack?”
“He's not the one who half-drowned,” said Rose, dodging the question.
Sarge gave her a look, eyebrows raised, but Rose ignored her. She didn't feel like explaining.
The kettle boiled. “Chai or Assam?” it said.
“Give me English Breakfast or I'll throw you out an airlock,” said Rose.
“This unit cannot process your request. Chai or Assam?”
Rose pulled a chipped blue mug down from the cabinet and set it in front of the kettle's spout. “Don't play stupid. You offered English Breakfast to the Doctor just two days ago when he wanted Darjeeling. Give me English Breakfast or I'll let him at you with the sonic screwdriver.”
A stream of tea tinged with milk poured from the spout into the mug. She took her tea and sat down at the kitchen table across from Sarge, who was starting on her sandwich.
“Did you make your phone calls?” said Rose, between sips of tea.
Sarge nodded, but she looked weary and grim. She reached into her jacket and passed Rose's mobile back to her across the table. “No sign of my missing officers, or of the young girl who was the first to disappear. Though I suppose there wouldn't be, if they were all sent back in time, same as you.”
Rose pocketed her mobile. “We'll find them,” she said. Of that much, at least, she was certain. “And your husband? Did you get through to him?”
“Ansel is…” Sarge took a bite of her sandwich and swallowed. “He's scared. I didn't tell him about all this,” she said, gesturing around at the TARDIS, “but I told him there's a kidnapper on the loose, which is true enough, and he feels helpless. He put a brave face on it, but I could tell he was frightened.”
“It's just like him, to muddle along like he isn't afraid. It reminds me of how we used to go sailing, before we were married. I've always loved sailing out on the ocean. I used to go out with a sailing club every weekend, back then, and Ansel started coming with me. It took me about three weeks to figure out it terrified him. He was scared half to death of falling off the boat and drowning, but he came along anyway, because he knew I loved it, and he wanted to share in all the things I loved.”
Sarge stopped to eat more of her sandwich, and Rose asked, “So what did you do?”
“Hmm?”
“When you found out. What did you do?”
Sarge shrugged, though there was a hint of a smile on her serious face. “I taught him how to swim.”
Rose stared at Sarge like she'd never seen the woman before, and swallowed a mouthful of tea, slowly. Maybe she could find the way out of this after all.
This entry was crossposted at http://joking.dreamwidth.org/95972.html.