Fic: Time; past (5/9)
title: Time; past
author: mimarie
characters Rose Tyler/Jack Harkness, The Doctor (ninth)
rating: NC-17 overall - adult themes and language
spoilers/warnings: nothing past DW S1. This was once canon-compliant, but has become slightly AU since Torchwood S1.
word count: c.2,000 (/c. 37,300)
summary: He won’t remember talking to her, buying her a drink, laughing, dancing, flirting. He won’t remember anything he said...
notes: This follows on from Time; present (which needs to be read first, or this will make very little sense).
Claimed for the 100_situations challenge. Prompt 72 - Lost
Huge thanks to my wonderful betas aeshna-uk and jwaneeta, and to mallory_x and text_life for reading very early versions of this and heaping on the encouragement.
part one
Time; present
part two
Time; past (1/9)
Time; past (2/9)
Time; past (3/9)
Time; past (4/9)
Time; past
(5/9)
It’s later, now. Only it isn’t, not really.
The Vulcan woman is still folding T-shirts, the little Ferengi bloke is still doing a really good impersonation of a small businessman with a profit margin to think of, and they’re still his own ears. It’s still pissing down outside too, and while sticking her head under a hand dryer and adding as much make-up as she could stuff in her pockets without making them bulge has left her feeling vaguely human (because whatever Jack says about damp and dishevelled, drowned rat is another matter entirely), she’s never going to be ready for this.
Of course, there is always another option. Jack and the Doctor are out there in the TARDIS, just waiting for her to tell them it’s safe to get started, but she’s out there too: walking home, hand in green-hand with the Doctor - right now. She could text herself instead, before they even get back. And then...
How would she put it?
Got it wrong. Tell Dr about J NOW. Btw txting from future, crry sce v hot 2nite + pls avoid paradox
Maybe not, eh? It’s no good, blind stupidity got her into this; maybe a wet blouse on a cold night is the only thing that’ll get her out again.
But it’s not going to help if she doesn’t find him soon. There are people everywhere; queuing to buy things, queuing to pay to have someone sign them, queuing again.... And it’s good of them to arrange the haystack into such neat lines, but it’s just making clearer the distinct absence of Jack.
He has to be here. If he’s not here now - if she can’t find him - then all this has been for nothing. And it can’t be, not after she had to insist.
“It’s not safe.” That’s what he said, head in green hands, green elbows on his knees. “Why do you even want to do this?” Not looking at her, just sitting on the floor, blocking her way when she opened the bathroom door in a towel. He was still wearing his smelly old T-shirt and green-streaked jeans but she could see he’d got his armour back on: shoulders hunched, ears angling to offset his jaw and brows. And then he looked up, stood up, and looked down at her - and she’d wished he hadn’t. “No,” he said, “I’m not asking - you’re not doing this. If you’re that desperate to get laid you can find someone else.”
If he really wanted another slap he should try sounding like he meant it. He didn’t think she was going to just let it go, did he? He was fooling himself if he did. No way. Not after all that. Not even after the shouting.
Of course, most of that was her.
Another corridor, another room, another bar. Is that him? There are plenty of green T-shirt-and-combats combinations, but this one’s got a good arse too and … a mullet. Just another Stargate fan. And all right, so it means they don’t get stared at on the bus home, but it’s bloody inconsiderate of them to be so bloody -- green.
He wouldn’t listen though; he never listens. He’s as bad as him - and that’s saying something.
Although he wouldn’t barge into her room after she’d shut the door in his face. Or grab her clothes to stop her putting them on. And he’d run a bloody mile if she dropped her towel while she was trying to get them back off him - not just pick it up and hand it back to her.
The awkward gaze-avoiding when he did it though, that’s just what the Doctor would do.
How could Jack think she could leave it like that?
“I won’t let you,” he said. “It’s not that important. I don’t need to know.”
He’s good at insistent, but he’s a bloody awful liar. And as if it doesn’t matter. He can talk until he’s blue in the face - green if he wants to match - because she’s got to do this. Now. Because she should have told him to start with - yes, even if he couldn’t have done anything with her out there. And of course she doesn’t want to wear wet clothes, but that’s hardly the point, is it.
She’ll find him. She has to. He’s got to be here.
Only, if he was here, shouldn’t she have found him by now? Oh, he’s here somewhere - they’ve already got a lock, all they need is the distraction - but he’s obviously already turned up some fresh entertainment. Typical bloody Jack: if at first you don’t succeed, move on - and above all never stop to listen.
He’ll tell the Doctor she’s not going, he said. It’s not her decision - it’s his life, isn’t it? And it doesn’t matter, because it’s too dangerous. He’s not going to let her risk it, so why doesn’t she just go to bed? It’s been a long day, she must be exhausted. Get some sleep. He’ll go. He’ll leave her alone - but she has to understand, it’s just not safe. He’s not safe.
“Please, Rose,” he said, “just stop fiddling with your damned tights. I can’t let you go back out there. I could hurt you.”
“What, like I did you?” Why wouldn’t he listen? “Look, Jack, I -”
“If I didn’t believe she could handle this, do you think I’d let her go?”
It was a good job she’d already peed. And there was no way of telling how long the Doctor had been standing there, but he was right on cue - her last button buttoned, her skirt safely zipped - casually turning his silver stress-ball and shaking his head like the poor superior being he is, a strategic eyebrow raised at the tangle of black nylon, making sure they knew exactly how ridiculous they looked.
“I thought you’d like to know we’re here. If you two are quite finished, that is. Everything all right, Rose? You ready?”
Should she ask the audience? Or maybe just phone a friend... She looks like hell, her jacket’s sticking to her through her blouse, her skirt keeps riding up over her wet tights, and she still can’t find Jack. Yup, that’s her then - ready as she’ll ever be, considering she doesn’t want to be here at all.
There are so many people, and it’s a lot later than it looks. She needs to stop and get her bearings. Just for a minute, and then she’ll do another circuit. She’s going to find him - he can’t have picked anyone else up, surely; he went not long after this. Not unless he’s in the loo - or even just in the loos, or an alley somewhere...
It was too easy. She should have known. He’d been too quiet; just nodded at her ‘see you later then’, and yet she still jumped when he opened the door again almost as soon as she’d shut it.
“Rose,” he said. “Wait.” Bare feet splashing shiny and green over the wet concrete, following her towards the takeaway lights, a neon flash of plastic carrier bag in one glowing hand. “It was under the paper,” he said, “and he said you had it when you got back, so I thought...”
“Oh,” she said. “Oh. Yeah - thanks.” And she reached out to take it, because he was just standing there and she couldn’t let him start. Not again.
It was a mistake. Jack moves fast, and he’s strong too - she really has got to remember that. She can’t trust him out here. Can’t be complacent, can’t expect him to be Jack - even if that’s what he said; no rank, nothing else, just ‘Jack’. And he’s still going to want her to have an early night when she finds him, he’s just not going to be offering to make cocoa and keep out of her way. Not unless he’s a lot kinkier than she realised.
See? When she finds him - not if. It’s going to be okay. Or it would be if so many of these stupid bloody people wouldn’t insist on wearing combats.
He must be going spare back there, waiting - but what else was she supposed to do, agree with him? Give up? How could she?
“You’d do it.” That’s what she said. She didn’t say ‘for me’. There were a lot of things she hadn’t said. What did one more matter? “You’d go.”
“That’s different.”
“How? You never made a mistake only you could fix?” He didn’t answer. She knew he wouldn’t. He just stood there, holding on to her and the bag she needed to be carrying when she walked back in, rain sticking his hair to his scalp, streetlights shimmering orange off multicoloured plastic and turning blue cotton to green. She had to look away. She couldn’t explain. Not now. “And aren’t you s’posed to be doing something?”
“He downloaded the coding into the console. He says She’s got steadier hands than me.”
“He’s right. Look, Jack -”
“Come back inside. We can talk about it in there. He’ll stop if you’re there. Rose, please -”
“What’s the point? You’re out there waiting to be distracted and I’ve got what you want.”
That shut him up. Which was good - right? This is hard enough as it is without him trying to change her mind. However much she’d like him to. But he still wouldn’t go in though, even when he finally let her go. And she didn’t mean to look back, but she had to check he wasn’t following her, and there he was: dripping and glowing, watching her walk away.
Has she got time to go and throw up? Maybe if she can dislodge the chips she’ll stop feeling sick. Then, when she’s feeling a bit better, she’ll ring and see if they can fix his position properly. Of course, she might get Jack - which would probably be the best way of making the other him turn up, Sod’s Law being what it is. Although at least then she could stop worrying about how to send the text without him seeing. Or maybe if she gets a drink of water she’ll be able to spot him from the bar, or -
“Here y’are, love.”
There’s a glass of red wine on the table in front of her, a weary smile plastered to the man holding the tray. He’s tall and skinny with a dandelion of sun-bleached hair, the Bar staff on his laminated pass-on-a-string catching the light as he starts to turn away.
“What’s this for? I didn’t order anything.”
“Bloke over there bought it,” he says, nodding helpfully over his shoulder. Then adds, “American,” and leans closer and winks. “Look, if you don’t want him, make sure you tell him in here. I’ll keep him busy while you make a run for it.”
The wine goes down in a single, long gulp. She fumbles her phone out just far enough to press send, swallows down the urge to puke, and hands the glass back with a shrug and a ‘sorry’.
He’s leaning on the bar, watching her. No wonder she didn’t spot him, he’s not green at all now; a black shirt hanging open over a T-shirt in a familiar shade of blue and a pair of washed-out jeans. There’s a small herd of empty glasses by his elbow and - hell, maybe that’s why; she’s hardly going to argue - the conversation is easier than she’d imagined.
“Didn’t you fancy your chips?” he says.
“Not really. I didn’t get that far. I just... changed my mind.”
It seemed as good a start as any in the circumstances, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. In fact, beyond his muttered ‘already got one, thanks’, neither of them really says anything until several minutes after the Greater London Get-a-room Chorus has given up in disgust and gone to find someone who cares - and she’s practically incoherent by then anyway, so it doesn’t matter much.
next (6/9)
author: mimarie
characters Rose Tyler/Jack Harkness, The Doctor (ninth)
rating: NC-17 overall - adult themes and language
spoilers/warnings: nothing past DW S1. This was once canon-compliant, but has become slightly AU since Torchwood S1.
word count: c.2,000 (/c. 37,300)
summary: He won’t remember talking to her, buying her a drink, laughing, dancing, flirting. He won’t remember anything he said...
notes: This follows on from Time; present (which needs to be read first, or this will make very little sense).
Claimed for the 100_situations challenge. Prompt 72 - Lost
Huge thanks to my wonderful betas aeshna-uk and jwaneeta, and to mallory_x and text_life for reading very early versions of this and heaping on the encouragement.
part one
Time; present
part two
Time; past (1/9)
Time; past (2/9)
Time; past (3/9)
Time; past (4/9)
Time; past
(5/9)
It’s later, now. Only it isn’t, not really.
The Vulcan woman is still folding T-shirts, the little Ferengi bloke is still doing a really good impersonation of a small businessman with a profit margin to think of, and they’re still his own ears. It’s still pissing down outside too, and while sticking her head under a hand dryer and adding as much make-up as she could stuff in her pockets without making them bulge has left her feeling vaguely human (because whatever Jack says about damp and dishevelled, drowned rat is another matter entirely), she’s never going to be ready for this.
Of course, there is always another option. Jack and the Doctor are out there in the TARDIS, just waiting for her to tell them it’s safe to get started, but she’s out there too: walking home, hand in green-hand with the Doctor - right now. She could text herself instead, before they even get back. And then...
How would she put it?
Got it wrong. Tell Dr about J NOW. Btw txting from future, crry sce v hot 2nite + pls avoid paradox
Maybe not, eh? It’s no good, blind stupidity got her into this; maybe a wet blouse on a cold night is the only thing that’ll get her out again.
But it’s not going to help if she doesn’t find him soon. There are people everywhere; queuing to buy things, queuing to pay to have someone sign them, queuing again.... And it’s good of them to arrange the haystack into such neat lines, but it’s just making clearer the distinct absence of Jack.
He has to be here. If he’s not here now - if she can’t find him - then all this has been for nothing. And it can’t be, not after she had to insist.
“It’s not safe.” That’s what he said, head in green hands, green elbows on his knees. “Why do you even want to do this?” Not looking at her, just sitting on the floor, blocking her way when she opened the bathroom door in a towel. He was still wearing his smelly old T-shirt and green-streaked jeans but she could see he’d got his armour back on: shoulders hunched, ears angling to offset his jaw and brows. And then he looked up, stood up, and looked down at her - and she’d wished he hadn’t. “No,” he said, “I’m not asking - you’re not doing this. If you’re that desperate to get laid you can find someone else.”
If he really wanted another slap he should try sounding like he meant it. He didn’t think she was going to just let it go, did he? He was fooling himself if he did. No way. Not after all that. Not even after the shouting.
Of course, most of that was her.
Another corridor, another room, another bar. Is that him? There are plenty of green T-shirt-and-combats combinations, but this one’s got a good arse too and … a mullet. Just another Stargate fan. And all right, so it means they don’t get stared at on the bus home, but it’s bloody inconsiderate of them to be so bloody -- green.
He wouldn’t listen though; he never listens. He’s as bad as him - and that’s saying something.
Although he wouldn’t barge into her room after she’d shut the door in his face. Or grab her clothes to stop her putting them on. And he’d run a bloody mile if she dropped her towel while she was trying to get them back off him - not just pick it up and hand it back to her.
The awkward gaze-avoiding when he did it though, that’s just what the Doctor would do.
How could Jack think she could leave it like that?
“I won’t let you,” he said. “It’s not that important. I don’t need to know.”
He’s good at insistent, but he’s a bloody awful liar. And as if it doesn’t matter. He can talk until he’s blue in the face - green if he wants to match - because she’s got to do this. Now. Because she should have told him to start with - yes, even if he couldn’t have done anything with her out there. And of course she doesn’t want to wear wet clothes, but that’s hardly the point, is it.
She’ll find him. She has to. He’s got to be here.
Only, if he was here, shouldn’t she have found him by now? Oh, he’s here somewhere - they’ve already got a lock, all they need is the distraction - but he’s obviously already turned up some fresh entertainment. Typical bloody Jack: if at first you don’t succeed, move on - and above all never stop to listen.
He’ll tell the Doctor she’s not going, he said. It’s not her decision - it’s his life, isn’t it? And it doesn’t matter, because it’s too dangerous. He’s not going to let her risk it, so why doesn’t she just go to bed? It’s been a long day, she must be exhausted. Get some sleep. He’ll go. He’ll leave her alone - but she has to understand, it’s just not safe. He’s not safe.
“Please, Rose,” he said, “just stop fiddling with your damned tights. I can’t let you go back out there. I could hurt you.”
“What, like I did you?” Why wouldn’t he listen? “Look, Jack, I -”
“If I didn’t believe she could handle this, do you think I’d let her go?”
It was a good job she’d already peed. And there was no way of telling how long the Doctor had been standing there, but he was right on cue - her last button buttoned, her skirt safely zipped - casually turning his silver stress-ball and shaking his head like the poor superior being he is, a strategic eyebrow raised at the tangle of black nylon, making sure they knew exactly how ridiculous they looked.
“I thought you’d like to know we’re here. If you two are quite finished, that is. Everything all right, Rose? You ready?”
Should she ask the audience? Or maybe just phone a friend... She looks like hell, her jacket’s sticking to her through her blouse, her skirt keeps riding up over her wet tights, and she still can’t find Jack. Yup, that’s her then - ready as she’ll ever be, considering she doesn’t want to be here at all.
There are so many people, and it’s a lot later than it looks. She needs to stop and get her bearings. Just for a minute, and then she’ll do another circuit. She’s going to find him - he can’t have picked anyone else up, surely; he went not long after this. Not unless he’s in the loo - or even just in the loos, or an alley somewhere...
It was too easy. She should have known. He’d been too quiet; just nodded at her ‘see you later then’, and yet she still jumped when he opened the door again almost as soon as she’d shut it.
“Rose,” he said. “Wait.” Bare feet splashing shiny and green over the wet concrete, following her towards the takeaway lights, a neon flash of plastic carrier bag in one glowing hand. “It was under the paper,” he said, “and he said you had it when you got back, so I thought...”
“Oh,” she said. “Oh. Yeah - thanks.” And she reached out to take it, because he was just standing there and she couldn’t let him start. Not again.
It was a mistake. Jack moves fast, and he’s strong too - she really has got to remember that. She can’t trust him out here. Can’t be complacent, can’t expect him to be Jack - even if that’s what he said; no rank, nothing else, just ‘Jack’. And he’s still going to want her to have an early night when she finds him, he’s just not going to be offering to make cocoa and keep out of her way. Not unless he’s a lot kinkier than she realised.
See? When she finds him - not if. It’s going to be okay. Or it would be if so many of these stupid bloody people wouldn’t insist on wearing combats.
He must be going spare back there, waiting - but what else was she supposed to do, agree with him? Give up? How could she?
“You’d do it.” That’s what she said. She didn’t say ‘for me’. There were a lot of things she hadn’t said. What did one more matter? “You’d go.”
“That’s different.”
“How? You never made a mistake only you could fix?” He didn’t answer. She knew he wouldn’t. He just stood there, holding on to her and the bag she needed to be carrying when she walked back in, rain sticking his hair to his scalp, streetlights shimmering orange off multicoloured plastic and turning blue cotton to green. She had to look away. She couldn’t explain. Not now. “And aren’t you s’posed to be doing something?”
“He downloaded the coding into the console. He says She’s got steadier hands than me.”
“He’s right. Look, Jack -”
“Come back inside. We can talk about it in there. He’ll stop if you’re there. Rose, please -”
“What’s the point? You’re out there waiting to be distracted and I’ve got what you want.”
That shut him up. Which was good - right? This is hard enough as it is without him trying to change her mind. However much she’d like him to. But he still wouldn’t go in though, even when he finally let her go. And she didn’t mean to look back, but she had to check he wasn’t following her, and there he was: dripping and glowing, watching her walk away.
Has she got time to go and throw up? Maybe if she can dislodge the chips she’ll stop feeling sick. Then, when she’s feeling a bit better, she’ll ring and see if they can fix his position properly. Of course, she might get Jack - which would probably be the best way of making the other him turn up, Sod’s Law being what it is. Although at least then she could stop worrying about how to send the text without him seeing. Or maybe if she gets a drink of water she’ll be able to spot him from the bar, or -
“Here y’are, love.”
There’s a glass of red wine on the table in front of her, a weary smile plastered to the man holding the tray. He’s tall and skinny with a dandelion of sun-bleached hair, the Bar staff on his laminated pass-on-a-string catching the light as he starts to turn away.
“What’s this for? I didn’t order anything.”
“Bloke over there bought it,” he says, nodding helpfully over his shoulder. Then adds, “American,” and leans closer and winks. “Look, if you don’t want him, make sure you tell him in here. I’ll keep him busy while you make a run for it.”
The wine goes down in a single, long gulp. She fumbles her phone out just far enough to press send, swallows down the urge to puke, and hands the glass back with a shrug and a ‘sorry’.
He’s leaning on the bar, watching her. No wonder she didn’t spot him, he’s not green at all now; a black shirt hanging open over a T-shirt in a familiar shade of blue and a pair of washed-out jeans. There’s a small herd of empty glasses by his elbow and - hell, maybe that’s why; she’s hardly going to argue - the conversation is easier than she’d imagined.
“Didn’t you fancy your chips?” he says.
“Not really. I didn’t get that far. I just... changed my mind.”
It seemed as good a start as any in the circumstances, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. In fact, beyond his muttered ‘already got one, thanks’, neither of them really says anything until several minutes after the Greater London Get-a-room Chorus has given up in disgust and gone to find someone who cares - and she’s practically incoherent by then anyway, so it doesn’t matter much.
next (6/9)