Doctor Who: "Death in the Garden" (4/4 + epilogue)
Title: Death in the Garden
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Jack/Rose, 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.
Note: There will be an adult-rated epilogue to follow. If you'd rather stick with a Teen rating, the story stands just fine on its own without the epilogue.
Chapter 1: The Storm Garden | Chapter 2: Lazarus and the Wolf | Chapter 3: Wrong
Chapter 4: Rescue Missions
The Doctor woke to the sight of Jack Harkness on his ceiling.
Well. Not on his ceiling. Rather, the mirror on the ceiling of their bedroom (Jack's doing, of course) had become a window into another room on the TARDIS, where Jack was sprawled on a recliner, looking back at him.
He could feel Rose beside him in bed. Jack was in a far distant room, as far as the TARDIS could make them. He could tell by the way his presence only simmered in his mind, rather than blazing like toxic fire.
The first words out the Doctor's mouth were: “Were you watching me sleep, Jack Harkness?”
“Both of you, actually,” said Jack, his voice light. “I couldn't pass up the opportunity when Rose set it up so nicely.”
“Rose did this? Since when has she been able to sweet-talk the TARDIS into doing something like this?”
“I don't know,” said Jack, and this time the lightness in his voice was almost painfully forced. “Seems like you ought to know.”
“I don't,” the Doctor said. He didn't. Nothing like the Bad Wolf had ever existed before, and if the universe was lucky, nothing like her would exist again. There was no telling what aftereffects she might have left, besides the obvious. More fool him, to assume Rose had been left untouched.
“Don't give me that,” Jack said, his casual sprawl gone rigid. “Something happened on the Game Station that you're not telling us. When the Weeping Angel had me, you knew what was going to - wait. Where is the Weeping Angel? Is it still out there somewhere with a TARDIS key?”
The Doctor could feel Rose stirring beside him. He seized on the change of subject. “I'm good at teleports, remember? After the Angel - after what it did, I ran, but I could tell that I was going to have to blink before I reached the TARDIS, and it'd have me. So I set up my sonic screwdriver so it'd teleport along with me wherever I went, and I activated the screwdriver and blinked at the same time. It was really just a stroke of luck that we ended up in the ocean. I kept my eyes on it and it sank like a stone. I put my head underwater and went on watching it sink for as long as I could. I don't know if Weeping Angels in their natural state can breathe underwater or even swim. Suppose I'll have to change the lock on the TARDIS, just to be safe.”
“So you led the Weeping Angel away from the TARDIS,” said Rose, her voice still fogged with sleep, “and trusted that Jack would pilot her and come to your rescue.”
“Well, er…” The Doctor hadn't even thought about that when he'd done it. He'd just assumed. Of course he could rely on Jack. “Yes, I suppose I did.”
He saw Rose give Jack a pointed look through the window. There was a pained sort of hope on the man's face. It hit the Doctor, then, a crushing weight on his chest: Jack really wasn't sure if the Doctor trusted him. He'd just assumed that Jack knew. Perhaps he had known, once. But the Doctor had shattered that when he'd kept the truth from him.
A part of him wanted to rush to reassure Jack, to tell him that it was the same as it had always been. But that wasn't quite true, and even if it were, with Jack feelings were best expressed through action. Since the Doctor couldn't reach Jack through all the space between them, he did the next best thing.
“You were killed, Jack. On the Game Station. That's where it all started. When I heard the Dalek fire, I - it was the beginning of the end. No matter what happened, from then on, it wouldn't be the same. Because you had died for me. And I thought - no, I knew - that I would be next. I would follow in your steps, give my life to save the universe.”
He wanted very badly to skip this bit. It had nothing to do with Jack's immortality, or Rose's newfound rapport with the TARDIS. They didn't need to know. But if he wanted to prove to them - to himself - that he trusted them, then he would have to say it.
“I couldn't do what you did, Jack. I was a coward. I didn't set off the delta wave.”
“So I died for nothing,” said Jack, voice flat.
The Doctor winced. “Not nothing. I would have died, permanently, if you hadn't stood in the way of the Daleks for as long as you did. But you didn't - I didn't - I wasn't as strong as you were. It would have been the wrong choice, if not for Rose.”
He could feel Rose tense beside him. If she hadn't been fully awake before, she was now. “What did I do?”
“You looked into the heart of the TARDIS. Like Margaret. And the heart of the TARDIS looked into you. And you became - no, you created the Bad Wolf.”
“I didn't do that! Bad Wolf was following us.”
“Like footprints follow you as you walk along the beach.” Both Rose and Jack still looked disbelieving, so he went on, “The TARDIS is enormously powerful. She's linked to the Time Vortex itself. She could do almost anything if she wanted - but she doesn't want. That's not in her nature. But put her together with someone who does want, so very much, and they create the Bad Wolf. A being with desires, and passions, and loves, who can rearrange the universe to suit. The Bad Wolf wanted the Daleks gone, and they were. The Bad Wolf wanted Jack to not be dead, to never be dead, and he was.”
“I did that? What's happened to Jack - that's my fault?”
“No!” said the Doctor and Jack at once. The Doctor looked up at him for a moment, then back to Rose. “No, Rose. That was the Bad Wolf. Part you, part the TARDIS, but mostly something you created, together. There's no way you could have known what she would do when you made her. You didn't consciously mean to create her in the first place.”
“It's still hard to imagine that I could make something like that at all,” said Rose.
“I believe it,” said Jack. “You would've done anything, if you thought it could help us. And you did. We made it through, and the Time War is finally over. Maybe this isn't what you meant to happen, but it would have been worse if you'd stayed in that chippie with your mum.”
“How can you say that? If I'd done it differently - if I hadn't done this to you - the Doctor can't even be in the same room with you anymore!”
“I can,” the Doctor said. “Jack, come over here. I kept it up for this long. I can block it out, I promise.”
Jack shook his head, lips pressed into a line. “And wait for the next time you get hurt and can't block me out anymore? What happens then? Maybe the seizures get so bad they kill you, next time. You can't just block it out until it goes away.” The corner of his mouth twisted cruelly. “Because it doesn't look like it'll go away. Ever.”
“Don't,” the Doctor said, before he could stop himself. “Whatever you're thinking, don't. Leaving is not an option.”
“Well, you haven't acted like it, have you?” Jack growled. “The Weeping Angel was about to kill me, and I thought I'd never see you again, and you just let me think - ”
“That's not what - I didn't mean for that to - ”
“Oh yeah? Then what did you mean? Because it seems to me like - ”
“I almost left you, Jack!” the Doctor bellowed. “I was dying, and Rose was unconscious on the floor, and I could feel you burning with a fire I could never put out, not ever, and it felt like poison, and I was scared! Do you know what I could do with an impossible thing like you, Jack? I could replace the Eye of Harmony with you. I could put you in an infinite millisecond loop and power the TARDIS forever. With a fixed point in time and space at my command, I could create the Bad Wolf and worse. I was terrified, and I very nearly closed the TARDIS doors and piloted a course to anywhere, anywhen, as long as it was away from you.”
“So you felt you couldn't tell him, because you didn't want to push him away, like you almost did,” said Rose. “And because you didn't want to remember what you could do to him, if you let yourself.”
“I'm sorry, Jack. I'm so sorry. If you do want to leave, I'll understand. It might be better. I'm not sure I trust myself with you, the way you are now.”
“There's no way to undo it? To make him mortal again?”
“Not without creating a being even greater and more terrible than the Bad Wolf. I can't do that. It might be more than the universe can take.”
“Jack?” Rose rolled onto her back so she was facing the window in the ceiling.
“You wouldn't do that to me, you know,” Jack said.
“What?” the Doctor said.
“You wouldn't use me like that. To power the TARDIS, or remake the universe, or whatever it is you could do. Maybe if it were a crystal or a tree or a jammie dodger that was a fixed point, you'd be tempted - and even then, I'm not so sure you'd give in. But this much I'm sure of: you wouldn't do that to me.”
“That's more credit than I deserve.”
“It's not about what you deserve. I don't deserve to be trapped into being a fixed point, if that's what I am now. You don't deserve to be in pain whenever I come close to you. Maybe you don't deserve our trust. But that's the way things are.”
“You're acting like nothing's going to change,” said Rose. “But I think it will. If I understand what the Doctor says about what it's like being near you, it's like when you step outside and there's snow everywhere, and the light's so bright it makes your head hurt. But if you stand outside long enough, your eyes get used to it, and after a while you can't even remember how you could have thought it was so bad.”
It was there, again: a ray of hope illuminating Jack's face, as if through a shuttered window. Well, there was nothing for it now. If both Jack and Rose could see a way, then he would follow. It was always the humans who led him, in the end.
Rose's words set off a chain reaction of ideas in the Doctor's mind. He'd have to test some of them out, later, but for now, there were at least a few that it wouldn't hurt to try. And, he decided with a sudden ferocity, he wasn't going to let Jack's immortality get in the way. When he'd realized what he'd almost done to Jack at the Game Station, he'd chosen to ignore what Jack had become, to push it away. But he was going to do more than that. He was going to defy the order of the universe and his own nature as a Time Lord so they could be together. The three of them, as it ought to be, with the TARDIS woven through and binding them.
“I've gone about this the wrong way,” the Doctor said slowly. “I've taken down my mental shields all at once. But I can take them down bit by bit instead as I get more used to you, Jack. I won't be able to do it when you've just resurrected - at the Game Station I could feel you from a floor up. That's too much to block. But otherwise, yes. I can get used to it. And I want to.” He sat up, so he could bring himself that much closer to the window in the ceiling. “Can you forgive me?”
“Do you promise not to do this again? Hiding the truth from us?”
Anything to keep him, even if holding to his promise proved difficult in the future (as he had no doubt it would). “I promise.”
Jack let out a slow breath, eyes closed. Then he opened his eyes and gazed into the Doctor's. “OK, then. I forgive you.” But there was something fragile there, too, and the Doctor felt only more certain that he had to keep it from breaking again.
“Me too,” said Rose.
“Good,” he said, relaxing into a smile. “That's - good. And thank you both, for rescuing me.”
He was pleased to see that neither of them protested that it was Sarge who had done the rescuing. Though she had been brilliant. Speaking of which - “And Sarge? Where is she? There's people still missing, and on her watch. She must be half-mad with wanting to find them. What do you say we go on another rescue mission?”
Rose sat up. “Sarge said there was a young girl who went missing before me. We ought to find her first.”
The Doctor nodded. “First the Stormgarden to get DNA samples, then the girl.”
“Can I help fly the TARDIS?” Jack asked, almost shyly.
“'Course you can,” the Doctor said. “Allons-y!”
Jack hesitated on the threshold of the console room. A part of him still feared that he'd send the Doctor into fresh agony if they were in a room together. He couldn't bear to see that again.
Then the Doctor caught his eye and grinned, that goofy lopsided grin that spread lazily over his face like syrup on a pastry. It was so different from the quicksilver grin of his previous Doctor, that came and went before there was time to drink in their dazzling light. But it was just as irresistible, and Jack was drawn toward him before he could even think of stopping himself.
As soon as he was near enough, the Doctor took his shoulders and pulled him in for a kiss. It was fierce and hot, claiming Jack's mouth with insistent strokes of his tongue, and Jack felt so thoroughly his that his fears of having to leave were, for the moment at least, banished.
“Are we good to go, Captain?” That goofy grin was back, and Jack's head swam with the urge to snog him again.
Instead, Jack saluted. “Yes, sir!” He noticed Sarge entering the console room, and for her benefit he said, “Destination?”
“The Stormgarden, right after we left. We need DNA samples from the people the Angels took. We feed the DNA into my timey-wimey detector, and we'll be able to find them anywhere, anywhen.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Timey-wimey detector?”
“Don't get him started,” said Rose. “He made it out of bits and bobs while I was in the shower, and he kept trying to show me how clever he was, waving it in front of the shower door and jabbering on about - ”
They all heard Sarge cough significantly, exchanged a guilty look, and got back to business. Rose stood ready with the mallet, and the Doctor said, “The Stormgarden, 2361, seven o'clock in the evening.”
In some ways, it was the same as every other time he'd co-piloted the TARDIS with the Doctor. He fulfilled the same functions: fine-tuning the target coordinates, steering clear of eddies in the Vortex, and stabilizing the 10-D vectors.
But beneath it all, there was a sense from the TARDIS which at first he didn't understand, until he realized it was the Doctor as seen from her point of view. He was a universe all his own - the TARDIS could explore him forever and never cease to find wonders - yet she understood his internal symmetries, his trajectories through Time, his orbit, with her at the center. It was dizzying to see the Doctor this way - like a sun loves her planet, Jack thought - but if he let that vision float across his mind like water over oil, he always knew where to be and which controls to activate. It was, in a strange way, as close he'd ever felt to the Doctor.
The TARDIS' materialization ended with a dull thud, and Jack's trance dissipated.
“Would you like us to come with you to get the samples?” the Doctor asked Sarge.
“No need,” she said. “I'd like to check in with my officers and talk to the girl's father myself. He reported her missing to me first, and he'll want to hear that I've got a lead on where she is.” She paused. “Even if he won't believe me if I say that lead is a time machine.”
“Go on then,” the Doctor said. “We'll be right here.”
Sarge left.
“So,” said Jack, leaning back against the console. “How is it?”
“How's what?” said the Doctor.
“Being in the same room with me.”
“Fine.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Well. A little bit sandpapery, I suppose, but nothing I can't muddle through.”
“And when we kissed?”
“More sandpaper. But I don't think there was any lack of enthusiasm for all that.”
Jack let himself relax a little. After all, he'd snog the Doctor and Rose even if they felt like sandpaper. “No. There wasn't.”
“See?” said Rose. She reached out and took one of each of their hands in hers. “It'll work out.” She pulled them toward her, and they leaned their heads against hers for a while, just sharing breath.
There was a polite cough from somewhere near the doorway, and the three of them sprang apart, a flush rising on Rose and the Doctor's faces. Jack just winked at Sarge and took up position at the console. The Doctor took samples from Sarge - DNA data chips for the officers, a few strands of dark hair for the girl - and fed them into a contraption he'd wired into the mess of circuitry beneath the console.
“Ready to fly again?” said the Doctor, and Jack could see in his eyes that whatever had happened during the last flight, the Doctor had felt it too. There was a sort of wonder, there, and it occurred to Jack that the Doctor may not have felt anything like this since his people died, sealed away in ash behind a lock that couldn't be breached.
“Ready.”
This time, Jack could feel Rose helping at the console, a sensation like the brush of golden fur against his palm. She was part of the orbit, too, three celestial bodies and the TARDIS. When they landed, the Doctor was first to the door. He peeked his head out, looked around, and took in a big sniff of the air. He stepped back in. “Abandoned diamond mine, late 23rd century. Better bring some torches and oxygen masks. There could be bad air trapped down here.”
The Doctor opened a supply closet and somehow found headlamps and oxygen masks amid a chaos of tools and knick-knacks from a dozen galaxies. Sarge insisted that they each bring a spare oxygen mask, too, just in case.
The tunnel in the mine they'd landed in was just wide enough that they didn't run facefirst into a wall when they exited the TARDIS. The air was dank and stale, and the sound of their footsteps echoed weirdly. The ceiling was low enough that the spiky tips of the Doctor's hair brushed against it. Jack put on his oxygen mask, and tried not to think about what would happen if the tunnel caved in. Even immortality wouldn't do him any good if he were trapped under a big enough pile of rubble.
The TARDIS was in the middle of a tunnel. They could go left or right. “Just how precise is your, ah, timey-wimey detector?” asked Jack. “Do we know which way she is?”
“Well, er, not as such, no.”
“Then we split up,” said Jack, looking to the Doctor for confirmation. “She doesn't have an oxygen mask, and if she's caught in a pocket of bad air she'll need our help as quickly as possible. Sarge and I go right, you and Rose go left. With my wrist strap and Rose's mobile, we'll be able to keep in touch.”
The Doctor nodded, and they parted ways.
The tunnel was nearly featureless, the harsh glare of his headlamp revealing only dark stone. Every so often, Jack would look back over his shoulder at Sarge to make sure she was all right. She was grim-faced, clearly in no mood to chat, even if only to make their journey lighter. Jack might have started talking and telling stories for the sake of his own nerves, but she might take it as a sign of distraction or flippancy, so he kept quiet. It wasn't pleasant. When he didn't talk, he had time to wonder how long it would take the Doctor to adjust to him, whether they could ever recapture what the three of them had had together, back when the Doctor was a woman in a leather jacket and Jack's life had an end.
After a time, the tunnel began to slope downward. He could almost swear he heard faint sounds behind the walls, like claws scuttling over stone. Then he heard a sound he knew was real - a distant gasp from the tunnel ahead. It was the sound of someone panting desperately for air.
Jack and Sarge wasted no time. They ran down the tunnel and followed the sound. At the end of the tunnel was a deep hole in the ground, perhaps the beginning of a new mine shaft that was abandoned along with everything else. There was a ten year old girl curled in a fetal ball at the bottom, her chest heaving. She shut her eyes against the light of their headlamps, blindingly bright after however long she'd spent down there. It couldn't have been long - probably at the same time they'd landed, in fact - or she'd have been dead already.
“Hang in there,” said Jack. “We're here to rescue you.” When it looked like she might try to speak, he added, “Don't waste your breath.”
Quietly, he asked Sarge, “Do you think you can get her back out of there without ropes?” They should have brought ropes, damn it. Why hadn't it occurred to him? “Because I don't know how.”
Sarge swept her light around the aborted mine shaft. “The walls aren't vertical. They're sloped. I can haul her up without ropes.”
“Can I help?”
She shook her head. “You're not trained in rescue missions, I can tell. You're more the covert ops type. You'd only get in the way.” And before Jack could protest, she jumped into the hole.
Sarge knew how to take a fall. She got up with barely a pause and put her spare oxygen mask over the girl's nose and mouth. The awful ragged gasps quieted, though her chest still rose and fell like a bellows as she took in gulps of good air. Sarge took her pulse, then put the girl over her shoulder, leaving her hands free to climb back out of the hole.
Jack forced himself to look away and place a call to Rose's mobile. “Rose? How are you?”
“Haven't found the girl yet.”
“We have. Sarge is getting her now. I think she's going to make it fine, but you should head in our direction just in case. The girl was breathing bad air. Sarge got an oxygen mask on her, but we should get her to the TARDIS as quick as we can.”
“All right. We're on our way. Tell Sarge she's done a great job.”
Jack cut the call and looked down at Sarge. She climbed with single-minded determination, though sweat poured freely all over her body and her muscles trembled and twitched with exertion. More than once, she nearly lost her grip on a hand- or foothold. Once she had her breath back, the girl began to whimper with fear.
“Hey,” said Jack, leaning out so the girl could hear him. “Hey, kid, the sergeant's got you. You'll be safe. You hear me?”
Once Sarge came within reach, Jack lifted the girl from Sarge's shoulder, relieving her of the burden. Immediately, the girl tucked her head against Jack's chest, trembling.
“You all right there?” he said. No response. “My name's Jack. The woman who saved you is Sarge. What's your name?”
In a voice so small Jack could barely hear, she said, “Mudiwa.”
“We're going to take you back to your father, Mudiwa,” said Jack. “Come on.” He took her by the hand and led her back along the tunnel, murmuring quiet encouragements.
That sound he'd thought he heard in the walls was back. “Do you hear that?” he asked Sarge.
She nodded.
“Might be the first sign of a cave-in,” Jack said grimly. He picked Mudiwa up. “Run!”
They ran, Mudiwa's hands fisted tightly in Jack's shirt. Up ahead of them, a hole - or, no, a doorway - was opening in the side of the tunnel. Jack could see figures moving around in the darkness beyond. He passed Mudiwa over to Sarge, and took out the laser pistol from its holster at the small of his back. Not once did he stop moving in the direction of the TARDIS.
“Go,” Jack said tightly, not taking his eyes away from the door. Sarge ran. A moment later, two-legged reptiles in metal masks boiled out of the doorway into the tunnel, hissing in rage. Jack recognized them from textbooks: Homo reptilia, famous for their long history of bloody conflict with humans. Of course, by the time these facts had coalesced in Jack's brain, he'd already started firing.
The reptilians' armor was high-tech for the 23rd century, but Jack's laser pistol was from the 51st. The first rank fell, and Jack bolted down the tunnel toward the TARDIS, sending back rounds of cover fire as he went. He was forced to hit the ground, though, when the second rank got over the surprise of his first attack and started firing back at him.
Energy bolts crackled and ricocheted around the tunnel. Jack rose to a crouch and fired back, though he had to squint to see through the flying white energy. A bolt grazed his shoulder, sending agony all up and down his arm, but he never stopped shooting. The reptilians were falling, falling - how many were left? - the air rippled with weapons fire and high hissing screams, and then his chest was torn apart in a blaze of white flame.
Immortal or not, Rose could tell already that the horror of seeing Jack dead would never fade. Even though she'd felt it through the TARDIS, had known it beyond any doubt, it was hard to believe it now, holding his lifeless hand between hers.
The Doctor and Rose had had to haul his body back to the TARDIS, one burnt human corpse among many more reptilian ones, their armor blackened and twisted by laser fire. Well, the Doctor had done most of the hauling, really. Rose had been so overcome at the sight that she'd fallen to her knees, and she hadn't been much more useful than that on the way back. He was covered by a sheet, now, except for his face, so she wouldn't have to see the charred ruin where his heart should have been.
Rose heard a gasp, and Jack's hand tightened between hers. His eyes were open and staring, though not really seeing, as he took in great lungfuls of air. It was as if the life had been shoved back into his body with painful force. Finally, Jack's eyes focused on her.
“Rose,” he breathed. The pulse in his wrist felt shockingly strong, after having been so still. “I'm sorry you had to see that.”
She pulled back the sheet, saw that his chest was whole and unmarked, and let out a shaky breath. Rose boggled a little. She had done this. Well, not exactly her, but something she'd created on purpose had done this. It was hard to accept, even now.
“It was awful,” Rose admitted, “but you can't protect me from it forever.” She pressed a hand to his chest. It was solid, firm, with a steady heartbeat. “If you're going to stay, and you will, then this might happen again. I'd rather I was at least a bit prepared for it.”
“Where's the girl? And the Doctor and Sarge?”
“Mudiwa's asleep. Sarge made her a cup of tea and tucked her in while the Doctor and I went for you. They both just left to fetch one of the security people.” Rose smiled at him. “I'm so glad you're back.” She leaned over and kissed him, slow and sweet. “You know the Doctor would be here, if he could. But you heard what he said. It's still too much for him, when you've just come back.”
“I know,” Jack said, though Rose could see he still longed for the Doctor to be here, at the moment when he felt so vulnerable. “Did he explain what happened in the tunnel?”
“He said they were a splinter group of Silurians. They hate humans, because they evolved first and we took over the planet, so now they have to live underground. They attack any human who comes near one of their homes. Probably why the diamond mine was abandoned in the first place, he says.”
“As if tainted air and the risk of cave-ins weren't enough,” Jack said. He looked distant and worried.
“He's not angry, you know. He hates guns, but you did what you had to. They would've killed Sarge and Mudiwa. He knows that. He's just… sad. I think he's met Silurians before. He wishes it could have been different.”
“Thanks for that.” He seemed less worried, now, but still weary. “Any chance we can take this somewhere more comfortable?”
“All right,” she said. “Let's go.” Rose offered a hand. Jack took it and rolled out of bed. They walked through the first door they encountered in the corridor, which led to what looked like a sitting room in an old Tudor manor house. There was a chandelier, a full-length mirror in an ornate wooden frame, and a fireplace surrounded by armchairs and a sofa upholstered in gold chenille. A low fire crackled in the fireplace, filling the room with the smell of woodsmoke.
Rose paused in the doorway, resting her hands on its frame. “Thanks, girl. Any chance we can have the same arrangement with the mirror as before?”
In answer, the mirror flickered and changed to a view of the console room. Jack shifted the sofa so it angled toward the mirror. Rose sat beside him and took his hand. After a minute, they heard the TARDIS doors open. The Doctor and Sarge came in with a woman in a uniform similar to Sarge's. They were all more or less damp, but nothing seemed to have gone wrong. Sarge had a reassuring hand on the woman's shoulder as she looked around the TARDIS, wide-eyed, and leaned in to speak to her, too quietly for Rose to hear.
The Doctor spotted them on the screen and waved. “This one was lucky! Landed on a beach near Durban.”
“In winter, during a rainstorm,” Sarge added, breaking away from her conversation for a moment.
“Want to come with us for the next pickup?” the Doctor asked.
“You can be near me, now?” Jack said hopefully.
The Doctor shook his head. “Sorry. Hasn't faded yet. You're still - too bright. But we could split up, like we did in the mine.”
“Shouldn't someone stay in case Mudiwa wakes up?” said Jack.
“Sarge shouldn't stay, she's the expert at rescuing people,” said Rose. “The officer you just picked up shouldn't be alone in here, she's new to the TARDIS. Jack's just come back from the dead, and I don't care what he says, he shouldn't be alone at all. So I stay behind or you do.”
The Doctor hesitated, then said, “You two can go. I'll stay in the TARDIS with Mudiwa. And Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“What you did, for Sarge - ”
“It was my choice. It's my life to give, and it doesn't run out no matter how many times I give it. It was an honor to give my life for Sarge.”
Behind the Doctor, Rose saw Sarge go still as she heard Jack's words. Meanwhile, her officer looked even more confused.
“No, that's not - what I was going to say - what you did, it was good. Sarge is - I would've done the same.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
Over the Doctor's shoulder, Sarge smiled.
After that, there were two more officers from Sarge's unit to rescue. The next one was stuck up to his waist in mud in the middle of a bog, and they all came back covered in mud and mosquito bites. As the only one in any state to be seen in public, the Doctor went out himself to fetch the last victim of the Weeping Angel, who fortunately had been stranded in no place more exotic or dangerous than a rail station in Bloemfontein. Then it was back to the Stormgarden, where everyone could go back to the time and place they belonged.
A freshly-showered Sarge came to the console room with her officers and Mudiwa in tow. Rose, now clean herself and wrapped in a dressing gown, was waiting by the console with the Doctor.
“Did you get to say goodbye to Jack?” Rose asked Sarge.
She nodded. “Of course.”
Rose wondered what they'd said to each other. Jack had saved Sarge's life, and even though Jack was immortal now, Sarge had as good as saved his. After all, if she hadn't been there, what would have happened when Jack came back from death, alone and heartbroken in a darkness full of monsters?
“If you ever need anything, call me,” said Rose. She recited the number of her superphone, and Sarge keyed it into her comm unit.
“If I call, it won't be for a joyride.” Sarge settled her hands on Mudiwa's shoulders, and the girl relaxed a little into the touch. “Bringing a girl back to her father is all the excitement I've ever needed.”
The Doctor beamed at her. “Best of luck to you, Sarge.”
When they all filed out, the TARDIS felt strangely empty. Not because they'd left, but because Jack wasn't in the console room with them.
Rose cleared her throat. “Can you and Jack…?”
The Doctor shook his head.
“Do you know how long until you can?”
“Based on how long it took after his last death, no more than twelve hours. Don't know any more than that.”
“Jack needs me more than you do right now,” said Rose. “But we found a sitting room with a mirror in it. Care to join us?”
The Doctor gave her a penetrating look, dark and a little sad. Rose folded her arms. “Just because you're not with him doesn't mean you're not with him. That was the point of him staying. Stop punishing yourself, Doctor. You can still have him. He's just a bit further away than you're used to, for now.”
“I'll see you in a bit, then.” The Doctor's mouth turned up at the corners, and he pulled her into a kiss. “Pass that on for me.”
“I will.”
Rose let the TARDIS guide her to where Jack was, the sensation of him still burning like a sore within her, but loved all the same. He was in the sitting room, on one side of the sofa, waiting.
She kissed him, using the same pressure and tilt of the head the Doctor had used to kiss her. “That's from Himself,” said Rose, not pulling away, their foreheads pressed together. “Special delivery.”
Jack smiled a little against her face. “Will he be joining us?”
“Any moment.”
The Doctor appeared in the mirror, and they pulled their faces apart to look. He was sitting in an overstuffed armchair in the library, a book of poetry in one hand. “Thought I might read to you a bit. Have either of you read John Donne?”
They both shook their heads.
“Go ahead,” said Jack. “With that voice, you can read me anything.”
Rose twined her arm through Jack's and listened. He was right. For all the Doctor talked, it wasn't often enough that he put thought into shaping his words, the way he did when he read poetry. This new voice was so different from their first Doctor's, but the sound of it still filled her with peace and warmth.
“…Dull sublunary lovers' love
- Whose soul is sense - cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing that elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know now what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
Our two souls, therefore - ”
The Doctor paused, looked up at them, and smiled with what seemed to be his whole body, the warmth of it lighting his mouth and cheeks and eyes and hands.
“Our three souls, therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.”
And Rose, remembering the fine golden thread she'd seen in the TARDIS and Jack, and in herself and the Doctor, all woven together, smiled back.
This entry was crossposted at http://joking.dreamwidth.org/96138.html.
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Jack/Rose, 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.
Note: There will be an adult-rated epilogue to follow. If you'd rather stick with a Teen rating, the story stands just fine on its own without the epilogue.
Chapter 1: The Storm Garden | Chapter 2: Lazarus and the Wolf | Chapter 3: Wrong
Chapter 4: Rescue Missions
The Doctor woke to the sight of Jack Harkness on his ceiling.
Well. Not on his ceiling. Rather, the mirror on the ceiling of their bedroom (Jack's doing, of course) had become a window into another room on the TARDIS, where Jack was sprawled on a recliner, looking back at him.
He could feel Rose beside him in bed. Jack was in a far distant room, as far as the TARDIS could make them. He could tell by the way his presence only simmered in his mind, rather than blazing like toxic fire.
The first words out the Doctor's mouth were: “Were you watching me sleep, Jack Harkness?”
“Both of you, actually,” said Jack, his voice light. “I couldn't pass up the opportunity when Rose set it up so nicely.”
“Rose did this? Since when has she been able to sweet-talk the TARDIS into doing something like this?”
“I don't know,” said Jack, and this time the lightness in his voice was almost painfully forced. “Seems like you ought to know.”
“I don't,” the Doctor said. He didn't. Nothing like the Bad Wolf had ever existed before, and if the universe was lucky, nothing like her would exist again. There was no telling what aftereffects she might have left, besides the obvious. More fool him, to assume Rose had been left untouched.
“Don't give me that,” Jack said, his casual sprawl gone rigid. “Something happened on the Game Station that you're not telling us. When the Weeping Angel had me, you knew what was going to - wait. Where is the Weeping Angel? Is it still out there somewhere with a TARDIS key?”
The Doctor could feel Rose stirring beside him. He seized on the change of subject. “I'm good at teleports, remember? After the Angel - after what it did, I ran, but I could tell that I was going to have to blink before I reached the TARDIS, and it'd have me. So I set up my sonic screwdriver so it'd teleport along with me wherever I went, and I activated the screwdriver and blinked at the same time. It was really just a stroke of luck that we ended up in the ocean. I kept my eyes on it and it sank like a stone. I put my head underwater and went on watching it sink for as long as I could. I don't know if Weeping Angels in their natural state can breathe underwater or even swim. Suppose I'll have to change the lock on the TARDIS, just to be safe.”
“So you led the Weeping Angel away from the TARDIS,” said Rose, her voice still fogged with sleep, “and trusted that Jack would pilot her and come to your rescue.”
“Well, er…” The Doctor hadn't even thought about that when he'd done it. He'd just assumed. Of course he could rely on Jack. “Yes, I suppose I did.”
He saw Rose give Jack a pointed look through the window. There was a pained sort of hope on the man's face. It hit the Doctor, then, a crushing weight on his chest: Jack really wasn't sure if the Doctor trusted him. He'd just assumed that Jack knew. Perhaps he had known, once. But the Doctor had shattered that when he'd kept the truth from him.
A part of him wanted to rush to reassure Jack, to tell him that it was the same as it had always been. But that wasn't quite true, and even if it were, with Jack feelings were best expressed through action. Since the Doctor couldn't reach Jack through all the space between them, he did the next best thing.
“You were killed, Jack. On the Game Station. That's where it all started. When I heard the Dalek fire, I - it was the beginning of the end. No matter what happened, from then on, it wouldn't be the same. Because you had died for me. And I thought - no, I knew - that I would be next. I would follow in your steps, give my life to save the universe.”
He wanted very badly to skip this bit. It had nothing to do with Jack's immortality, or Rose's newfound rapport with the TARDIS. They didn't need to know. But if he wanted to prove to them - to himself - that he trusted them, then he would have to say it.
“I couldn't do what you did, Jack. I was a coward. I didn't set off the delta wave.”
“So I died for nothing,” said Jack, voice flat.
The Doctor winced. “Not nothing. I would have died, permanently, if you hadn't stood in the way of the Daleks for as long as you did. But you didn't - I didn't - I wasn't as strong as you were. It would have been the wrong choice, if not for Rose.”
He could feel Rose tense beside him. If she hadn't been fully awake before, she was now. “What did I do?”
“You looked into the heart of the TARDIS. Like Margaret. And the heart of the TARDIS looked into you. And you became - no, you created the Bad Wolf.”
“I didn't do that! Bad Wolf was following us.”
“Like footprints follow you as you walk along the beach.” Both Rose and Jack still looked disbelieving, so he went on, “The TARDIS is enormously powerful. She's linked to the Time Vortex itself. She could do almost anything if she wanted - but she doesn't want. That's not in her nature. But put her together with someone who does want, so very much, and they create the Bad Wolf. A being with desires, and passions, and loves, who can rearrange the universe to suit. The Bad Wolf wanted the Daleks gone, and they were. The Bad Wolf wanted Jack to not be dead, to never be dead, and he was.”
“I did that? What's happened to Jack - that's my fault?”
“No!” said the Doctor and Jack at once. The Doctor looked up at him for a moment, then back to Rose. “No, Rose. That was the Bad Wolf. Part you, part the TARDIS, but mostly something you created, together. There's no way you could have known what she would do when you made her. You didn't consciously mean to create her in the first place.”
“It's still hard to imagine that I could make something like that at all,” said Rose.
“I believe it,” said Jack. “You would've done anything, if you thought it could help us. And you did. We made it through, and the Time War is finally over. Maybe this isn't what you meant to happen, but it would have been worse if you'd stayed in that chippie with your mum.”
“How can you say that? If I'd done it differently - if I hadn't done this to you - the Doctor can't even be in the same room with you anymore!”
“I can,” the Doctor said. “Jack, come over here. I kept it up for this long. I can block it out, I promise.”
Jack shook his head, lips pressed into a line. “And wait for the next time you get hurt and can't block me out anymore? What happens then? Maybe the seizures get so bad they kill you, next time. You can't just block it out until it goes away.” The corner of his mouth twisted cruelly. “Because it doesn't look like it'll go away. Ever.”
“Don't,” the Doctor said, before he could stop himself. “Whatever you're thinking, don't. Leaving is not an option.”
“Well, you haven't acted like it, have you?” Jack growled. “The Weeping Angel was about to kill me, and I thought I'd never see you again, and you just let me think - ”
“That's not what - I didn't mean for that to - ”
“Oh yeah? Then what did you mean? Because it seems to me like - ”
“I almost left you, Jack!” the Doctor bellowed. “I was dying, and Rose was unconscious on the floor, and I could feel you burning with a fire I could never put out, not ever, and it felt like poison, and I was scared! Do you know what I could do with an impossible thing like you, Jack? I could replace the Eye of Harmony with you. I could put you in an infinite millisecond loop and power the TARDIS forever. With a fixed point in time and space at my command, I could create the Bad Wolf and worse. I was terrified, and I very nearly closed the TARDIS doors and piloted a course to anywhere, anywhen, as long as it was away from you.”
“So you felt you couldn't tell him, because you didn't want to push him away, like you almost did,” said Rose. “And because you didn't want to remember what you could do to him, if you let yourself.”
“I'm sorry, Jack. I'm so sorry. If you do want to leave, I'll understand. It might be better. I'm not sure I trust myself with you, the way you are now.”
“There's no way to undo it? To make him mortal again?”
“Not without creating a being even greater and more terrible than the Bad Wolf. I can't do that. It might be more than the universe can take.”
“Jack?” Rose rolled onto her back so she was facing the window in the ceiling.
“You wouldn't do that to me, you know,” Jack said.
“What?” the Doctor said.
“You wouldn't use me like that. To power the TARDIS, or remake the universe, or whatever it is you could do. Maybe if it were a crystal or a tree or a jammie dodger that was a fixed point, you'd be tempted - and even then, I'm not so sure you'd give in. But this much I'm sure of: you wouldn't do that to me.”
“That's more credit than I deserve.”
“It's not about what you deserve. I don't deserve to be trapped into being a fixed point, if that's what I am now. You don't deserve to be in pain whenever I come close to you. Maybe you don't deserve our trust. But that's the way things are.”
“You're acting like nothing's going to change,” said Rose. “But I think it will. If I understand what the Doctor says about what it's like being near you, it's like when you step outside and there's snow everywhere, and the light's so bright it makes your head hurt. But if you stand outside long enough, your eyes get used to it, and after a while you can't even remember how you could have thought it was so bad.”
It was there, again: a ray of hope illuminating Jack's face, as if through a shuttered window. Well, there was nothing for it now. If both Jack and Rose could see a way, then he would follow. It was always the humans who led him, in the end.
Rose's words set off a chain reaction of ideas in the Doctor's mind. He'd have to test some of them out, later, but for now, there were at least a few that it wouldn't hurt to try. And, he decided with a sudden ferocity, he wasn't going to let Jack's immortality get in the way. When he'd realized what he'd almost done to Jack at the Game Station, he'd chosen to ignore what Jack had become, to push it away. But he was going to do more than that. He was going to defy the order of the universe and his own nature as a Time Lord so they could be together. The three of them, as it ought to be, with the TARDIS woven through and binding them.
“I've gone about this the wrong way,” the Doctor said slowly. “I've taken down my mental shields all at once. But I can take them down bit by bit instead as I get more used to you, Jack. I won't be able to do it when you've just resurrected - at the Game Station I could feel you from a floor up. That's too much to block. But otherwise, yes. I can get used to it. And I want to.” He sat up, so he could bring himself that much closer to the window in the ceiling. “Can you forgive me?”
“Do you promise not to do this again? Hiding the truth from us?”
Anything to keep him, even if holding to his promise proved difficult in the future (as he had no doubt it would). “I promise.”
Jack let out a slow breath, eyes closed. Then he opened his eyes and gazed into the Doctor's. “OK, then. I forgive you.” But there was something fragile there, too, and the Doctor felt only more certain that he had to keep it from breaking again.
“Me too,” said Rose.
“Good,” he said, relaxing into a smile. “That's - good. And thank you both, for rescuing me.”
He was pleased to see that neither of them protested that it was Sarge who had done the rescuing. Though she had been brilliant. Speaking of which - “And Sarge? Where is she? There's people still missing, and on her watch. She must be half-mad with wanting to find them. What do you say we go on another rescue mission?”
Rose sat up. “Sarge said there was a young girl who went missing before me. We ought to find her first.”
The Doctor nodded. “First the Stormgarden to get DNA samples, then the girl.”
“Can I help fly the TARDIS?” Jack asked, almost shyly.
“'Course you can,” the Doctor said. “Allons-y!”
Jack hesitated on the threshold of the console room. A part of him still feared that he'd send the Doctor into fresh agony if they were in a room together. He couldn't bear to see that again.
Then the Doctor caught his eye and grinned, that goofy lopsided grin that spread lazily over his face like syrup on a pastry. It was so different from the quicksilver grin of his previous Doctor, that came and went before there was time to drink in their dazzling light. But it was just as irresistible, and Jack was drawn toward him before he could even think of stopping himself.
As soon as he was near enough, the Doctor took his shoulders and pulled him in for a kiss. It was fierce and hot, claiming Jack's mouth with insistent strokes of his tongue, and Jack felt so thoroughly his that his fears of having to leave were, for the moment at least, banished.
“Are we good to go, Captain?” That goofy grin was back, and Jack's head swam with the urge to snog him again.
Instead, Jack saluted. “Yes, sir!” He noticed Sarge entering the console room, and for her benefit he said, “Destination?”
“The Stormgarden, right after we left. We need DNA samples from the people the Angels took. We feed the DNA into my timey-wimey detector, and we'll be able to find them anywhere, anywhen.”
Jack raised an eyebrow. “Timey-wimey detector?”
“Don't get him started,” said Rose. “He made it out of bits and bobs while I was in the shower, and he kept trying to show me how clever he was, waving it in front of the shower door and jabbering on about - ”
They all heard Sarge cough significantly, exchanged a guilty look, and got back to business. Rose stood ready with the mallet, and the Doctor said, “The Stormgarden, 2361, seven o'clock in the evening.”
In some ways, it was the same as every other time he'd co-piloted the TARDIS with the Doctor. He fulfilled the same functions: fine-tuning the target coordinates, steering clear of eddies in the Vortex, and stabilizing the 10-D vectors.
But beneath it all, there was a sense from the TARDIS which at first he didn't understand, until he realized it was the Doctor as seen from her point of view. He was a universe all his own - the TARDIS could explore him forever and never cease to find wonders - yet she understood his internal symmetries, his trajectories through Time, his orbit, with her at the center. It was dizzying to see the Doctor this way - like a sun loves her planet, Jack thought - but if he let that vision float across his mind like water over oil, he always knew where to be and which controls to activate. It was, in a strange way, as close he'd ever felt to the Doctor.
The TARDIS' materialization ended with a dull thud, and Jack's trance dissipated.
“Would you like us to come with you to get the samples?” the Doctor asked Sarge.
“No need,” she said. “I'd like to check in with my officers and talk to the girl's father myself. He reported her missing to me first, and he'll want to hear that I've got a lead on where she is.” She paused. “Even if he won't believe me if I say that lead is a time machine.”
“Go on then,” the Doctor said. “We'll be right here.”
Sarge left.
“So,” said Jack, leaning back against the console. “How is it?”
“How's what?” said the Doctor.
“Being in the same room with me.”
“Fine.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Well. A little bit sandpapery, I suppose, but nothing I can't muddle through.”
“And when we kissed?”
“More sandpaper. But I don't think there was any lack of enthusiasm for all that.”
Jack let himself relax a little. After all, he'd snog the Doctor and Rose even if they felt like sandpaper. “No. There wasn't.”
“See?” said Rose. She reached out and took one of each of their hands in hers. “It'll work out.” She pulled them toward her, and they leaned their heads against hers for a while, just sharing breath.
There was a polite cough from somewhere near the doorway, and the three of them sprang apart, a flush rising on Rose and the Doctor's faces. Jack just winked at Sarge and took up position at the console. The Doctor took samples from Sarge - DNA data chips for the officers, a few strands of dark hair for the girl - and fed them into a contraption he'd wired into the mess of circuitry beneath the console.
“Ready to fly again?” said the Doctor, and Jack could see in his eyes that whatever had happened during the last flight, the Doctor had felt it too. There was a sort of wonder, there, and it occurred to Jack that the Doctor may not have felt anything like this since his people died, sealed away in ash behind a lock that couldn't be breached.
“Ready.”
This time, Jack could feel Rose helping at the console, a sensation like the brush of golden fur against his palm. She was part of the orbit, too, three celestial bodies and the TARDIS. When they landed, the Doctor was first to the door. He peeked his head out, looked around, and took in a big sniff of the air. He stepped back in. “Abandoned diamond mine, late 23rd century. Better bring some torches and oxygen masks. There could be bad air trapped down here.”
The Doctor opened a supply closet and somehow found headlamps and oxygen masks amid a chaos of tools and knick-knacks from a dozen galaxies. Sarge insisted that they each bring a spare oxygen mask, too, just in case.
The tunnel in the mine they'd landed in was just wide enough that they didn't run facefirst into a wall when they exited the TARDIS. The air was dank and stale, and the sound of their footsteps echoed weirdly. The ceiling was low enough that the spiky tips of the Doctor's hair brushed against it. Jack put on his oxygen mask, and tried not to think about what would happen if the tunnel caved in. Even immortality wouldn't do him any good if he were trapped under a big enough pile of rubble.
The TARDIS was in the middle of a tunnel. They could go left or right. “Just how precise is your, ah, timey-wimey detector?” asked Jack. “Do we know which way she is?”
“Well, er, not as such, no.”
“Then we split up,” said Jack, looking to the Doctor for confirmation. “She doesn't have an oxygen mask, and if she's caught in a pocket of bad air she'll need our help as quickly as possible. Sarge and I go right, you and Rose go left. With my wrist strap and Rose's mobile, we'll be able to keep in touch.”
The Doctor nodded, and they parted ways.
The tunnel was nearly featureless, the harsh glare of his headlamp revealing only dark stone. Every so often, Jack would look back over his shoulder at Sarge to make sure she was all right. She was grim-faced, clearly in no mood to chat, even if only to make their journey lighter. Jack might have started talking and telling stories for the sake of his own nerves, but she might take it as a sign of distraction or flippancy, so he kept quiet. It wasn't pleasant. When he didn't talk, he had time to wonder how long it would take the Doctor to adjust to him, whether they could ever recapture what the three of them had had together, back when the Doctor was a woman in a leather jacket and Jack's life had an end.
After a time, the tunnel began to slope downward. He could almost swear he heard faint sounds behind the walls, like claws scuttling over stone. Then he heard a sound he knew was real - a distant gasp from the tunnel ahead. It was the sound of someone panting desperately for air.
Jack and Sarge wasted no time. They ran down the tunnel and followed the sound. At the end of the tunnel was a deep hole in the ground, perhaps the beginning of a new mine shaft that was abandoned along with everything else. There was a ten year old girl curled in a fetal ball at the bottom, her chest heaving. She shut her eyes against the light of their headlamps, blindingly bright after however long she'd spent down there. It couldn't have been long - probably at the same time they'd landed, in fact - or she'd have been dead already.
“Hang in there,” said Jack. “We're here to rescue you.” When it looked like she might try to speak, he added, “Don't waste your breath.”
Quietly, he asked Sarge, “Do you think you can get her back out of there without ropes?” They should have brought ropes, damn it. Why hadn't it occurred to him? “Because I don't know how.”
Sarge swept her light around the aborted mine shaft. “The walls aren't vertical. They're sloped. I can haul her up without ropes.”
“Can I help?”
She shook her head. “You're not trained in rescue missions, I can tell. You're more the covert ops type. You'd only get in the way.” And before Jack could protest, she jumped into the hole.
Sarge knew how to take a fall. She got up with barely a pause and put her spare oxygen mask over the girl's nose and mouth. The awful ragged gasps quieted, though her chest still rose and fell like a bellows as she took in gulps of good air. Sarge took her pulse, then put the girl over her shoulder, leaving her hands free to climb back out of the hole.
Jack forced himself to look away and place a call to Rose's mobile. “Rose? How are you?”
“Haven't found the girl yet.”
“We have. Sarge is getting her now. I think she's going to make it fine, but you should head in our direction just in case. The girl was breathing bad air. Sarge got an oxygen mask on her, but we should get her to the TARDIS as quick as we can.”
“All right. We're on our way. Tell Sarge she's done a great job.”
Jack cut the call and looked down at Sarge. She climbed with single-minded determination, though sweat poured freely all over her body and her muscles trembled and twitched with exertion. More than once, she nearly lost her grip on a hand- or foothold. Once she had her breath back, the girl began to whimper with fear.
“Hey,” said Jack, leaning out so the girl could hear him. “Hey, kid, the sergeant's got you. You'll be safe. You hear me?”
Once Sarge came within reach, Jack lifted the girl from Sarge's shoulder, relieving her of the burden. Immediately, the girl tucked her head against Jack's chest, trembling.
“You all right there?” he said. No response. “My name's Jack. The woman who saved you is Sarge. What's your name?”
In a voice so small Jack could barely hear, she said, “Mudiwa.”
“We're going to take you back to your father, Mudiwa,” said Jack. “Come on.” He took her by the hand and led her back along the tunnel, murmuring quiet encouragements.
That sound he'd thought he heard in the walls was back. “Do you hear that?” he asked Sarge.
She nodded.
“Might be the first sign of a cave-in,” Jack said grimly. He picked Mudiwa up. “Run!”
They ran, Mudiwa's hands fisted tightly in Jack's shirt. Up ahead of them, a hole - or, no, a doorway - was opening in the side of the tunnel. Jack could see figures moving around in the darkness beyond. He passed Mudiwa over to Sarge, and took out the laser pistol from its holster at the small of his back. Not once did he stop moving in the direction of the TARDIS.
“Go,” Jack said tightly, not taking his eyes away from the door. Sarge ran. A moment later, two-legged reptiles in metal masks boiled out of the doorway into the tunnel, hissing in rage. Jack recognized them from textbooks: Homo reptilia, famous for their long history of bloody conflict with humans. Of course, by the time these facts had coalesced in Jack's brain, he'd already started firing.
The reptilians' armor was high-tech for the 23rd century, but Jack's laser pistol was from the 51st. The first rank fell, and Jack bolted down the tunnel toward the TARDIS, sending back rounds of cover fire as he went. He was forced to hit the ground, though, when the second rank got over the surprise of his first attack and started firing back at him.
Energy bolts crackled and ricocheted around the tunnel. Jack rose to a crouch and fired back, though he had to squint to see through the flying white energy. A bolt grazed his shoulder, sending agony all up and down his arm, but he never stopped shooting. The reptilians were falling, falling - how many were left? - the air rippled with weapons fire and high hissing screams, and then his chest was torn apart in a blaze of white flame.
Immortal or not, Rose could tell already that the horror of seeing Jack dead would never fade. Even though she'd felt it through the TARDIS, had known it beyond any doubt, it was hard to believe it now, holding his lifeless hand between hers.
The Doctor and Rose had had to haul his body back to the TARDIS, one burnt human corpse among many more reptilian ones, their armor blackened and twisted by laser fire. Well, the Doctor had done most of the hauling, really. Rose had been so overcome at the sight that she'd fallen to her knees, and she hadn't been much more useful than that on the way back. He was covered by a sheet, now, except for his face, so she wouldn't have to see the charred ruin where his heart should have been.
Rose heard a gasp, and Jack's hand tightened between hers. His eyes were open and staring, though not really seeing, as he took in great lungfuls of air. It was as if the life had been shoved back into his body with painful force. Finally, Jack's eyes focused on her.
“Rose,” he breathed. The pulse in his wrist felt shockingly strong, after having been so still. “I'm sorry you had to see that.”
She pulled back the sheet, saw that his chest was whole and unmarked, and let out a shaky breath. Rose boggled a little. She had done this. Well, not exactly her, but something she'd created on purpose had done this. It was hard to accept, even now.
“It was awful,” Rose admitted, “but you can't protect me from it forever.” She pressed a hand to his chest. It was solid, firm, with a steady heartbeat. “If you're going to stay, and you will, then this might happen again. I'd rather I was at least a bit prepared for it.”
“Where's the girl? And the Doctor and Sarge?”
“Mudiwa's asleep. Sarge made her a cup of tea and tucked her in while the Doctor and I went for you. They both just left to fetch one of the security people.” Rose smiled at him. “I'm so glad you're back.” She leaned over and kissed him, slow and sweet. “You know the Doctor would be here, if he could. But you heard what he said. It's still too much for him, when you've just come back.”
“I know,” Jack said, though Rose could see he still longed for the Doctor to be here, at the moment when he felt so vulnerable. “Did he explain what happened in the tunnel?”
“He said they were a splinter group of Silurians. They hate humans, because they evolved first and we took over the planet, so now they have to live underground. They attack any human who comes near one of their homes. Probably why the diamond mine was abandoned in the first place, he says.”
“As if tainted air and the risk of cave-ins weren't enough,” Jack said. He looked distant and worried.
“He's not angry, you know. He hates guns, but you did what you had to. They would've killed Sarge and Mudiwa. He knows that. He's just… sad. I think he's met Silurians before. He wishes it could have been different.”
“Thanks for that.” He seemed less worried, now, but still weary. “Any chance we can take this somewhere more comfortable?”
“All right,” she said. “Let's go.” Rose offered a hand. Jack took it and rolled out of bed. They walked through the first door they encountered in the corridor, which led to what looked like a sitting room in an old Tudor manor house. There was a chandelier, a full-length mirror in an ornate wooden frame, and a fireplace surrounded by armchairs and a sofa upholstered in gold chenille. A low fire crackled in the fireplace, filling the room with the smell of woodsmoke.
Rose paused in the doorway, resting her hands on its frame. “Thanks, girl. Any chance we can have the same arrangement with the mirror as before?”
In answer, the mirror flickered and changed to a view of the console room. Jack shifted the sofa so it angled toward the mirror. Rose sat beside him and took his hand. After a minute, they heard the TARDIS doors open. The Doctor and Sarge came in with a woman in a uniform similar to Sarge's. They were all more or less damp, but nothing seemed to have gone wrong. Sarge had a reassuring hand on the woman's shoulder as she looked around the TARDIS, wide-eyed, and leaned in to speak to her, too quietly for Rose to hear.
The Doctor spotted them on the screen and waved. “This one was lucky! Landed on a beach near Durban.”
“In winter, during a rainstorm,” Sarge added, breaking away from her conversation for a moment.
“Want to come with us for the next pickup?” the Doctor asked.
“You can be near me, now?” Jack said hopefully.
The Doctor shook his head. “Sorry. Hasn't faded yet. You're still - too bright. But we could split up, like we did in the mine.”
“Shouldn't someone stay in case Mudiwa wakes up?” said Jack.
“Sarge shouldn't stay, she's the expert at rescuing people,” said Rose. “The officer you just picked up shouldn't be alone in here, she's new to the TARDIS. Jack's just come back from the dead, and I don't care what he says, he shouldn't be alone at all. So I stay behind or you do.”
The Doctor hesitated, then said, “You two can go. I'll stay in the TARDIS with Mudiwa. And Jack?”
“Yeah?”
“What you did, for Sarge - ”
“It was my choice. It's my life to give, and it doesn't run out no matter how many times I give it. It was an honor to give my life for Sarge.”
Behind the Doctor, Rose saw Sarge go still as she heard Jack's words. Meanwhile, her officer looked even more confused.
“No, that's not - what I was going to say - what you did, it was good. Sarge is - I would've done the same.”
“Thanks, Doc.”
Over the Doctor's shoulder, Sarge smiled.
After that, there were two more officers from Sarge's unit to rescue. The next one was stuck up to his waist in mud in the middle of a bog, and they all came back covered in mud and mosquito bites. As the only one in any state to be seen in public, the Doctor went out himself to fetch the last victim of the Weeping Angel, who fortunately had been stranded in no place more exotic or dangerous than a rail station in Bloemfontein. Then it was back to the Stormgarden, where everyone could go back to the time and place they belonged.
A freshly-showered Sarge came to the console room with her officers and Mudiwa in tow. Rose, now clean herself and wrapped in a dressing gown, was waiting by the console with the Doctor.
“Did you get to say goodbye to Jack?” Rose asked Sarge.
She nodded. “Of course.”
Rose wondered what they'd said to each other. Jack had saved Sarge's life, and even though Jack was immortal now, Sarge had as good as saved his. After all, if she hadn't been there, what would have happened when Jack came back from death, alone and heartbroken in a darkness full of monsters?
“If you ever need anything, call me,” said Rose. She recited the number of her superphone, and Sarge keyed it into her comm unit.
“If I call, it won't be for a joyride.” Sarge settled her hands on Mudiwa's shoulders, and the girl relaxed a little into the touch. “Bringing a girl back to her father is all the excitement I've ever needed.”
The Doctor beamed at her. “Best of luck to you, Sarge.”
When they all filed out, the TARDIS felt strangely empty. Not because they'd left, but because Jack wasn't in the console room with them.
Rose cleared her throat. “Can you and Jack…?”
The Doctor shook his head.
“Do you know how long until you can?”
“Based on how long it took after his last death, no more than twelve hours. Don't know any more than that.”
“Jack needs me more than you do right now,” said Rose. “But we found a sitting room with a mirror in it. Care to join us?”
The Doctor gave her a penetrating look, dark and a little sad. Rose folded her arms. “Just because you're not with him doesn't mean you're not with him. That was the point of him staying. Stop punishing yourself, Doctor. You can still have him. He's just a bit further away than you're used to, for now.”
“I'll see you in a bit, then.” The Doctor's mouth turned up at the corners, and he pulled her into a kiss. “Pass that on for me.”
“I will.”
Rose let the TARDIS guide her to where Jack was, the sensation of him still burning like a sore within her, but loved all the same. He was in the sitting room, on one side of the sofa, waiting.
She kissed him, using the same pressure and tilt of the head the Doctor had used to kiss her. “That's from Himself,” said Rose, not pulling away, their foreheads pressed together. “Special delivery.”
Jack smiled a little against her face. “Will he be joining us?”
“Any moment.”
The Doctor appeared in the mirror, and they pulled their faces apart to look. He was sitting in an overstuffed armchair in the library, a book of poetry in one hand. “Thought I might read to you a bit. Have either of you read John Donne?”
They both shook their heads.
“Go ahead,” said Jack. “With that voice, you can read me anything.”
Rose twined her arm through Jack's and listened. He was right. For all the Doctor talked, it wasn't often enough that he put thought into shaping his words, the way he did when he read poetry. This new voice was so different from their first Doctor's, but the sound of it still filled her with peace and warmth.
“…Dull sublunary lovers' love
- Whose soul is sense - cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove
The thing that elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know now what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
Our two souls, therefore - ”
The Doctor paused, looked up at them, and smiled with what seemed to be his whole body, the warmth of it lighting his mouth and cheeks and eyes and hands.
“Our three souls, therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.”
And Rose, remembering the fine golden thread she'd seen in the TARDIS and Jack, and in herself and the Doctor, all woven together, smiled back.
This entry was crossposted at http://joking.dreamwidth.org/96138.html.