Fic: You've Got to Hide Your Love Away (10/16?)
"Rose"
She hears the voice calling her name. Hears the concern--the fear for her life--underlying it. She knows she should respond but she can't. It's taking all of her strength, all of her power, just to keep the darkness at bay.
She's dying. Or will, if she doesn't find a way to stop this. Her mind is already starting to shut down and it's becoming harder and harder to determine where his ends and hers begins.
Then, suddenly, it's over. She doesn't even notice when the tendrils of her thoughts are untangled from his. Doesn't feel it as her mind is thrust out of his and back into her own consciousness. One second she's with him, feeling everything he feels, and the next she's standing in her bedroom again.
Her legs begin to buckle, pulling her down to the floor. Reaching out, she grabs the nearest sturdy object and holds on tight, waiting for the room to stop spinning. The headache she thought she beat is back with a vengeance. The one before was bad enough but it's nothing compared to this. And it's not just her head this time...every single part of her body is hurting.
The pain is so overwhelming, she retches once, twice, and she's sure she's going to be sick all over the new, white carpeting. Somehow she manages to hold onto the contents of her stomach and then there's a cool hand on her forehead, pushing the sweaty strands of hair out of her eyes. An arm wraps around her waist and she leans into it, letting the solid form behind her hold her upright.
“Rose, honey, are you alright?”
~~~
He can hear the drones behind him crying out in pain as he's forced out of their linked consciousness. The one in front of him--the one that appears to be their leader and is, for now, his jailer--hisses in anger, slamming his fist on the console in front of him.
“Traitor!” it screeches, both within the Doctor's mind and without. “You led the child to us, you fool!”
“I didn't--” he's quick to deny, and he's telling the truth. He has absolutely no idea how Rose got into his mind, nor how she managed to do so at such a great distance. It goes against everything he's ever known; a simple human, connecting telepathically to him is impossible. Beyond impossible!
“You were warned, Doctor. I told you she was most displeased. If you cannot do something about the human then we will have to stop her ourselves!”
“No, no, no, no, no.” He raises his hands in surrender. “Look, she didn't know what she was doing, that's all.” He pauses, searching desperately for words that will appease this Wraith standing in front of him, appease him enough that he won't go back on their deal and turn the ship towards Earth once more. “She--I can block her out next time. I can block her and stop her from interfering. She's--weak ...she's,” he cringes inwardly and finishes, “nothing. She's nothing.” He hopes his words are enough to convince it to leave Rose alone. “It won't happen again,” he promises, rebuilding his mental blocks, adding a few anti-Rose ones as he goes. “Just...just leave her out of this.”
There's a pregnant pause and then he finds himself on the receiving end of a Wraith's mirth once again. “You are not as wise as you believe yourself to be, Doctor,” it laughs. “She is not weak; she is strong and dangerous, this one you care so much about. We could use her to our advantage...” The look it gives him is unmistakable: mess with us again and we will not hesitate to do just that.
“Please,” he says, his voice low, solemn. He does not wish to get the Wraith riled up again, because, well, he doesn't have a plan here...he's stuck on their ship with the very real possibility of death, his death. Oh, sure, he may come up with something eventually, something on the fly. Something clever and brilliant and so him, but, at the moment, he is a prisoner and very much at their mercy.
After a moment's consideration, it nods its head and the drones beside him, now completely recovered from the unexpected invasion into their minds, grab his arms. “I will leave her...for now. But mark my words, Doctor, if she causes us one more problem we will dispose of your Rose and nothing you do, nothing you say, will stop us!”
~~~
“An' you just left 'im there?” Her voice rises in pitch until she's screaming at him. She's gone from feeling sick, to bawling like a baby, to this, and she knows there's a hysterical note to her voice--her behavior--but she doesn't care. How could Jack let this happen? How could he have done nothing to try to stop it?
He reaches out to her, tries to take her hand in his, but she won't allow it, not now, and probably not ever again. With a sigh, he drops his arm to his side. “There was no other way, Rose. He told me--showed me--on the way to the Wraith ship. If he hadn't agreed to their terms they would've destroyed Earth and everyone on it.”
Somewhere deep down, she knows that he's right, that there was nothing else they could have done but, still, she refuses to believe it. “We could 'ave done something!”
“No, Rose, we couldn't have.”
“We could've fought back. Blown their ships out of the sky!” She can see him shaking his head but doesn't give him the chance to respond. “We 'ave weapons; big, powerful weapons that surely would've destroyed--”
“No,” he repeats, his voice soft yet firm. There's a look of infinite patience on his face that only serves to infuriate her more.
He allowed this to happen. He could've stopped it, could've convinced the Doctor there was some other way...but he didn't.
“Says who? You?” she yells again, backing away from him. “So, because Mr. All-Knowing Jack Harkness doesn't think we could've done it that makes it fact? This isn't your Torchwood. You don't even know what we're capable of here!”
He doesn't even flinch, just continues with his frustratingly calm tone. “True enough, but the Doctor did. Pete...your dad, showed him.” He turns to look out the window. “Trust me, Rose, it wouldn't have worked. Their numbers were too great and their technology far superior to yours.”
She doesn't respond at first. The anger that, just a few minutes ago, consumed her, has been depleted, leaving in its place a despair like none she has felt before. Not even her separation from the Doctor at Canary Wharf or the final goodbye on the windswept beach at Bad Wolf Bay compares to this. At least then she knew he was still out there somewhere traveling in the TARDIS, going from one adventure to the next. Safe, or as safe as he's ever been before. He wasn't being held prisoner, a slave to a compassion-less race of life-thirsty snakes.
Yeah, it hurt, knowing she would probably never see him again, but this? This is slowly ripping her apart from the inside-out. No matter how she treated him over the past few days, she still loves him with all her heart and she can't bear the thought that he sacrificed himself once again for a bunch of stupid apes who will never truly appreciate all he does for them.
“Rose?” Jack asks hesitantly.
Suddenly she wants nothing more than for someone else to hurt just as much as she is hurting, wants to be the one to twist the knife and watch the pain steal over their face.
She doesn't notice--is too caught up in her own anger--when Jack's eyes widen in surprise, his hand moving to his throat.
Maybe that's wrong of her, maybe it's selfish and cruel and nothing like the Rose Tyler she once was.
His face screws up, his mouth opens wide, a gasp of air exiting his lungs.
But that's the thing isn't it?
He can't breathe, can't swallow down the non-existent blockage that's preventing the flow of oxygen into his body.
Because, once upon a time, she was that naïve19-year-old shop girl who wouldn't hurt a fly, but unfortunately, that girl packed her bags and left town a long time ago.
He's getting dizzy, lightheaded. Blindly reaching out, he's grasping for something--anything--he can hold onto.
There's a sick sort of satisfaction when it actually happens, when she finally opens her mouth and voices the thought that has been at the back of her mind all this time.
His body is on fire and he knows, braces himself, for the death and rebirth waiting patiently for his certain fall.
“It should've been you, Jack.”
~~~
As quickly as it began, it ends.
The second she turns from him he can breathe again. Gulping in huge mouthfuls of air, he tries to ignore what just almost happened. He doesn't want to believe it was intentional, can't believe she meant to...
But the anger was very real. He saw it in her eyes, in the rigidness of her stance. She blames him for what happened to the Doctor and that was a blow he saw coming, knew would happen eventually, but it still caught him off-guard. He thought it would take her longer to work out the logistics of it, to realize that the situation doesn't make any sense.
Obviously he underestimated her, in more ways then one.
It hurts to talk, but he has to make her understand somehow. “Rose, I...”
“No, Jack,” she cuts in, the challenge unmistakable. “It should've been you and you know it. He may be a Time Lord but he's not immortal. Sooner or later he's going to run out of regenerations and then he'll die just like anyone else...except you.”
There's a slight quaver in her voice, the resolve that she thought so strong failing her, but he doesn't notice. He's too busy fighting off the rising tide of shame that's slowly choking him.
“Is that the sort of mate you are? Huh? Good for a little flirting, but when it comes down to it, you run in fear, tail between your legs?”
She's right. Oh God, she doesn't even know just how right she is. 'Cause he could've stopped the Doctor but he hadn't tried, not nearly hard enough.
“You can't feed all of them. You'll run out of regenerations.”
“It's not just my life they want. I'm a Time Lord, Jack. I've lived for over 900 hundred years. There's so much knowledge, knowledge that they want, that they could use to their advantage.”
“But, I could...”
“No!”
He hadn't tried to argue, didn't point out how much more sense it made for him to be the sacrifice. The fear was too strong. Dying isn't exactly his most favorite experience in the world and the thought of having to live that over and over again for the rest of his life...
“Besides, she needs you.”
“It's you she needs, Doc.”
“She won't even look at me, not anymore.” He turned, but not before Jack caught a glimpse of pain in the other man's eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was quiet, subdued, “be there for her, Jack. Be there for her when she needs a friend.”
He handed it to Jack on a silver platter, free for the taking. A valid, reasonable excuse for letting his friend die in his place. The problem is, it doesn't make him feel any better like it should. It doesn't stop the guilt from overcoming him.
And it certainly isn't going to make Rose any happier.
Not knowing what else to do and not wanting to make things any worse than they already are, he makes his way to the bedroom door. He can feel her eyes, defiant and willful, boring a hole in his back but she doesn't say anything.
She just lets him leave.
~~~
It’s later, much later, when they’re finally able to have a proper sit-down.
An emotionally exhausted Rose is sleeping peacefully upstairs, thanks to the sedative that Martha administrated shortly after supper. Thank God, at least she’ll be getting a good night’s sleep, Jack thinks to himself as he regards the rest of his overly tired team. It's been way too long since any of them have managed to grab more than an hour or two of shut eye and the strain of it is apparent on their faces.
“So, now what, Jack?” Owen speaks up first, absently flicking at a speck of fuzz on his jumper. “Don’t get me wrong, we’re all worried about Rose, but some of us have a life in the other universe we'd like to go back to.”
Gwen's lips turn up into a smirk. “Boozing and shagging hardly counts as a life.”
“Oi!,” Owen gasps, feigning a hurt expression as he tosses a pillow in her direction.
The camaraderie between the two of them is like a slap in the face and it takes every last bit of control for Jack to keep from getting misty-eyed. If it weren't for him they wouldn’t even be here in the first place. He recruited them to Torchwood, asked them to come along on this mission . . . he hadn't insisted upon taking the Doctor’s place on the hive ship. If it had been Jack instead, then at least they could’ve--
“Jack?”
All eyes are on him, waiting expectantly. Only Martha seems to realize the impossibility of what they’re asking. Traveling with the Doctor as long as she has it’s not surprising that she understands that only one person in this universe (or any other for that matter) can fly the TARDIS and get them home again. And that person is millions of miles away, quite possibly dead or dying at this very moment.
“How're we gonna get home, Jack?” Gwen prompts when his silence spreads out too long.
He wishes this task didn't always have to fall to him but they have to know. As much as he doesn't want to extinguish their hope, they have the right to know just how unlikely it is they'll ever see their rightful universe ever again. “We don’t,” he says, watching as their eyes widen a bit. “The Doctor's the only one who can fly the TARDIS.”
“I thought your self-important-arse could fly anything?”
“Not the TARDIS, Owen. I can…the Doctor taught me some very basic controls when I traveled with him but there's more to it than flipping a few switches, turning a few dials.”
“Wait a second…Jack?” Gwen says, eyes rising to meet his. “I thought you said that Rose flew it once?”
“Yeah, ya did!” Owen chimes in as he leans forward in his seat.
He does not like where this is going, where they think this is going. “I did but…” turning from them he paces the room. “That was...it was an extenuating circumstance.”
“And this isn’t?” The anger and frustration is evident in Owen's voice.
He whips around to face his chief medical advisor, his fury barely contained. “She almost died. Would have if the Doctor hadn’t been there to save her. Who’s going to do that now? Who’s gonna save Rose when we get back to our universe and she burns up from all that power?”
“I could--” Owen begins but Jack cuts him off.
“Really?” Jack crosses the room until he’s standing directly in front of him. “You’re gonna take the time vortex out of her before it kills her? The Doctor did it but even he couldn’t handle all that power. It killed him, Owen. Do you really think you'd fair much better? Are you willing to take the risk?”
Owen just swallows and leans back into the couch. Jack can tell he’s frightened, all of them are by the looks of things, but he decides to use that fear to his advantage. 'Cause no matter how much his team means to him, no matter how fond he’s grown of all of them (yes, even Owen) he cares about Rose even more. She’s always been so much more than a friend to him, her companionship transcending anything he’s ever experienced before. And, even though he may not be at the top of her list right now--in fact, he seems to be rather low on that list at the moment, right below cockroaches and beetles--Jack will not risk her life for anyone or anything.
Taking a step back and turning slightly to the left so he can face all of them at once, he seeks out their attention. Once he’s certain all eyes are on him he continues, voice calm but firm. “I will not ask her to do that for us and neither will any of you.”
Worst-case scenario they end up stuck in this universe for the rest of their lives. As horrible as that may sound, at least they’d have a life. If Rose somehow, by some miracle, was able to fly the TARDIS through the void and back into their universe, she wouldn’t even have that.
“Discussion. Over.”