9Rose Fic: Forget the World (3/8)
Title: Forget the World - Chapter Three
Pairing: None, mentions of 9/Rose.
Rating: G, possibly with bits of T for safety.
Word Count: 1,571
Spoilers: Through POTW. AU after that.
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone or anything, but I do have CE tied up in my closet. So far he's enjoying it. Until he wakes up, anyway.
Summary: For the first time, in the past six years, she’d woken up without the sharp, keening blade of his betrayal. And it was betrayal, because he had not only let himself die, but he’d forbidden her from the pleasure of doing so.
Link to:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
“How? How are you here?” Was that her voice? That weak? She felt like she couldn’t get the breath to her lungs.
“Oh, Rose. I’ve been looking for you for so long.” He wrapped his arms tight around her, pulling her against him, cradling her head in the crook of his shoulder with his hand. She breathed in his scent, the cologne that she’d still caught whiffs of from time to time and that was enough to break the damn.
“Jack. Oh my God, Jack.” His soft lips descended on her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks and they were both sobbing like fools, in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. “How? How is this possible? You said goodbye, you died.”
“I’ve been looking for you, Rose. 10 years I’ve been looking for you.”
“10…” she pulled back, snuffling, and looked up at him. His pale, greenish-blue eyes were red-rimmed, tear tracts on his tan cheeks.
He even managed to make crying look good. She knew she looked a mess.
“It’s only been six years. Six years today.”
“For you. You better than anyone should know that time doesn’t run in a straight line.”
“The Doctor! Is he here, too? Where is he? Didn’t he want to say hi?” She looked around for a minute, knowing the Doctor was hiding around the corner, waiting for Jack to surprise her so he could come out and steal the show.
“It would be just like him to show off, to want the spotlight for himself.” She looked up at Jack again and he was looking down at her, sorrowfully. “Jack…? The Doctor…?”
“I don’t know, Rose. I haven’t seen him anymore than you have. When I…came to…on Satellite 5…I was alone. Just stinking bodies and me. I don’t know how long I was out.”
“And…the Doctor?” Her heart was pounding.
“Wasn’t there. Neither were you.” She opened her mouth but her throat was in her heart and she couldn’t nudge the words past.
“He sent you home, I know,” Jack said quietly. He cupped her cheek in his wide-palmed hand. “Oh, God, Rose. I can’t believe it’s you.”
“He…he’s dead.” She looked away, swallowed hard. She studied the cracked sidewalk before looking back up at him. “He’s dead, right?”
“Rose…” He pulled her close again, kissed the top of her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. I haven’t seen him in 10 years.”
And then the dam, the concrete wall she had spent so long and so much concentration on building and securing lost its support and crumbled down. So much work, over so many years, destroyed in seconds.
She was sobbing in his arms and not caring who saw her. All the grief, all the pain that she had locked away to build her perfect world came bubbling up and pouring out of her, threatening to consume her with its power.
All the whispers, the hesitancy, the furtive glances when they thought she didn’t see had only helped her to build her resolve, helped her lock away feelings she hadn’t allowed herself to feel in years.
And this man, this one who was left behind, just like she was, collapsed it all with a word.
“It’s okay, Rose. I’m here now. You can come, stay with me.”
The words echoed in her head. Stay with him. Him. Jack. She couldn’t believe it, closing her eyes as her fingers flexed their grip in his shirt.
Jack.
He wasn’t the Doctor. But he was her best friend, her older brother and she’d loved him madly. But it wasn’t right.
Seeing him in front of her now, feeling him, holding him, smelling the familiar tang of his cologne felt…wrong.
It hurt as much as saying goodbye had.
She stepped back and dug through her bag for a travel pack of tissue. Pulling several out of the little plastic package, she stuffed it in her coat pocket before blowing her nose noisily. She felt his eyes on her the whole time, but couldn’t meet his gaze.
“Rose? What is it?”
“I need to get back to work, I’m late.” She sneaked a glance at his face and then wished she hadn’t. The incredulous look he was struggling to maintain slipped and she saw the underlying emotion-hurt.
“Rose…work? Screw your job, you can get out of here, come live with me. In my time. My place. You don’t fit in here, remember?”
“But I do,” she said quietly. “The Doctor told me to have a fantastic life, a good life. He said if I wanted to remember him to have a fan-“ she cut off, unable to keep her voice from breaking and resolutely swallowed the tears.
When she spoke again, she was calm.
“I’ve spent years trying to keep that. Trying to have a good life. He died for us-“
“We don’t know that,” Jack interjected. She closed her eyes, let out a deep breath, opened them again.
“He died for us, Jack,” she said quietly. “I’ve…for the most part, I’ve accepted it. He told me himself-well, Emergency Programme One told me-that if he had locked me in and was sending me back, it was because we wouldn’t survive. He sacrificed himself to-“
“I was there, Rose. After he sent you back,” Jack sighed, ran a hand through his hair. “I was so…angry. When I first found out. He wasn’t going to tell me, but I tried to talk to you and he had to tell me you weren’t there. And then I realized how hopeless it was. He wouldn’t have sent you back if he thought we had any chance of surviving.”
“You survived,” she whispered. Did she hate him for it? She wasn’t sure.
“I still don’t know how. And I looked for him, I swear to you, I did. I turned over every body trying to find his. Either he was disintegrated or taken or he got away. But he wasn’t on that satellite.”
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Suddenly, the vastness of 6 years seemed unfathomable.
This was not the same Rose he’d kissed goodbye. She was broken, beaten.
She’d become exactly what he’d always heard her mother wanted her to be. She was weak.
“What happened to working for what you want?”
“That’s what I’m doing, Jack. I want this life. I’ve built my life up, I’ve got a good job, my own flat…”
“This isn’t who you’re supposed to be.”
“It is. It is! This is what he wanted!”
“What about what you want?” She visibly deflated and Jack cursed himself.
“It’s what I want, Jack. I just…I want to put it all behind me, yeah? I want to forget about that part of my life.”
“Forget? Forget about him? How can you? He was such a huge part of my life and you were closer to him than I ever was-“
“Will you stop yelling at me?” She hissed. “People are staring.”
“I don’t care! I don’t, Rose. This isn’t you!” He gripped her arms, gave her a shake. “This isn’t you!”
“I’m not doing this right now.” She wrenched herself from his grasp, took a couple steps back. “I have spent six years...six years of my life trying to recover, trying to not think of him or you or that part of my life and here you come, like nothing’s changed and that’s just it, Jack, everything has! Everything’s changed! I’m not the same person I was then and as much as you’d like to believe differently, you’re not the same either! How can we just go back to how it was? How can we go back without insulting what we had?”
He stared at her, thinking. This Rose was different, that was sure. His Rose…their Rose, because he fully believed the Doctor was still alive, it was just a matter of finding him… would have jumped at the chance to live in the 51st century.
An idea occurred to him and he was positive she’d hate it. That made it seem all the more reason.
“I won’t push, Rose. If you want to stay here…”
“I do.” But she didn’t seem quite so sure now. She seemed wary, not sure of where he was going with it.
“Then I won’t push. But do you think I could stay with you until I get out of here? I don’t carry a lot of 21st century British money on me.” He threw on his disarming grin, one he knew used to melt her defenses. A small smile flitted across her face.
“Let me call my boss, yeah? I’ll come up with something…then I’ll show you where my flat is and you can get settled.”
He slung an arm across her shoulders, pulled her in for a tight, one-armed squeeze.
If anything was obvious to him, there was nothing more obvious than this:
He had to fix Rose.
He had to find the Doctor.
And fast.
fin chapter
Pairing: None, mentions of 9/Rose.
Rating: G, possibly with bits of T for safety.
Word Count: 1,571
Spoilers: Through POTW. AU after that.
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone or anything, but I do have CE tied up in my closet. So far he's enjoying it. Until he wakes up, anyway.
Summary: For the first time, in the past six years, she’d woken up without the sharp, keening blade of his betrayal. And it was betrayal, because he had not only let himself die, but he’d forbidden her from the pleasure of doing so.
Link to:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
“How? How are you here?” Was that her voice? That weak? She felt like she couldn’t get the breath to her lungs.
“Oh, Rose. I’ve been looking for you for so long.” He wrapped his arms tight around her, pulling her against him, cradling her head in the crook of his shoulder with his hand. She breathed in his scent, the cologne that she’d still caught whiffs of from time to time and that was enough to break the damn.
“Jack. Oh my God, Jack.” His soft lips descended on her forehead, her eyelids, her cheeks and they were both sobbing like fools, in the middle of Piccadilly Circus. “How? How is this possible? You said goodbye, you died.”
“I’ve been looking for you, Rose. 10 years I’ve been looking for you.”
“10…” she pulled back, snuffling, and looked up at him. His pale, greenish-blue eyes were red-rimmed, tear tracts on his tan cheeks.
He even managed to make crying look good. She knew she looked a mess.
“It’s only been six years. Six years today.”
“For you. You better than anyone should know that time doesn’t run in a straight line.”
“The Doctor! Is he here, too? Where is he? Didn’t he want to say hi?” She looked around for a minute, knowing the Doctor was hiding around the corner, waiting for Jack to surprise her so he could come out and steal the show.
“It would be just like him to show off, to want the spotlight for himself.” She looked up at Jack again and he was looking down at her, sorrowfully. “Jack…? The Doctor…?”
“I don’t know, Rose. I haven’t seen him anymore than you have. When I…came to…on Satellite 5…I was alone. Just stinking bodies and me. I don’t know how long I was out.”
“And…the Doctor?” Her heart was pounding.
“Wasn’t there. Neither were you.” She opened her mouth but her throat was in her heart and she couldn’t nudge the words past.
“He sent you home, I know,” Jack said quietly. He cupped her cheek in his wide-palmed hand. “Oh, God, Rose. I can’t believe it’s you.”
“He…he’s dead.” She looked away, swallowed hard. She studied the cracked sidewalk before looking back up at him. “He’s dead, right?”
“Rose…” He pulled her close again, kissed the top of her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. I haven’t seen him in 10 years.”
And then the dam, the concrete wall she had spent so long and so much concentration on building and securing lost its support and crumbled down. So much work, over so many years, destroyed in seconds.
She was sobbing in his arms and not caring who saw her. All the grief, all the pain that she had locked away to build her perfect world came bubbling up and pouring out of her, threatening to consume her with its power.
All the whispers, the hesitancy, the furtive glances when they thought she didn’t see had only helped her to build her resolve, helped her lock away feelings she hadn’t allowed herself to feel in years.
And this man, this one who was left behind, just like she was, collapsed it all with a word.
“It’s okay, Rose. I’m here now. You can come, stay with me.”
The words echoed in her head. Stay with him. Him. Jack. She couldn’t believe it, closing her eyes as her fingers flexed their grip in his shirt.
Jack.
He wasn’t the Doctor. But he was her best friend, her older brother and she’d loved him madly. But it wasn’t right.
Seeing him in front of her now, feeling him, holding him, smelling the familiar tang of his cologne felt…wrong.
It hurt as much as saying goodbye had.
She stepped back and dug through her bag for a travel pack of tissue. Pulling several out of the little plastic package, she stuffed it in her coat pocket before blowing her nose noisily. She felt his eyes on her the whole time, but couldn’t meet his gaze.
“Rose? What is it?”
“I need to get back to work, I’m late.” She sneaked a glance at his face and then wished she hadn’t. The incredulous look he was struggling to maintain slipped and she saw the underlying emotion-hurt.
“Rose…work? Screw your job, you can get out of here, come live with me. In my time. My place. You don’t fit in here, remember?”
“But I do,” she said quietly. “The Doctor told me to have a fantastic life, a good life. He said if I wanted to remember him to have a fan-“ she cut off, unable to keep her voice from breaking and resolutely swallowed the tears.
When she spoke again, she was calm.
“I’ve spent years trying to keep that. Trying to have a good life. He died for us-“
“We don’t know that,” Jack interjected. She closed her eyes, let out a deep breath, opened them again.
“He died for us, Jack,” she said quietly. “I’ve…for the most part, I’ve accepted it. He told me himself-well, Emergency Programme One told me-that if he had locked me in and was sending me back, it was because we wouldn’t survive. He sacrificed himself to-“
“I was there, Rose. After he sent you back,” Jack sighed, ran a hand through his hair. “I was so…angry. When I first found out. He wasn’t going to tell me, but I tried to talk to you and he had to tell me you weren’t there. And then I realized how hopeless it was. He wouldn’t have sent you back if he thought we had any chance of surviving.”
“You survived,” she whispered. Did she hate him for it? She wasn’t sure.
“I still don’t know how. And I looked for him, I swear to you, I did. I turned over every body trying to find his. Either he was disintegrated or taken or he got away. But he wasn’t on that satellite.”
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Suddenly, the vastness of 6 years seemed unfathomable.
This was not the same Rose he’d kissed goodbye. She was broken, beaten.
She’d become exactly what he’d always heard her mother wanted her to be. She was weak.
“What happened to working for what you want?”
“That’s what I’m doing, Jack. I want this life. I’ve built my life up, I’ve got a good job, my own flat…”
“This isn’t who you’re supposed to be.”
“It is. It is! This is what he wanted!”
“What about what you want?” She visibly deflated and Jack cursed himself.
“It’s what I want, Jack. I just…I want to put it all behind me, yeah? I want to forget about that part of my life.”
“Forget? Forget about him? How can you? He was such a huge part of my life and you were closer to him than I ever was-“
“Will you stop yelling at me?” She hissed. “People are staring.”
“I don’t care! I don’t, Rose. This isn’t you!” He gripped her arms, gave her a shake. “This isn’t you!”
“I’m not doing this right now.” She wrenched herself from his grasp, took a couple steps back. “I have spent six years...six years of my life trying to recover, trying to not think of him or you or that part of my life and here you come, like nothing’s changed and that’s just it, Jack, everything has! Everything’s changed! I’m not the same person I was then and as much as you’d like to believe differently, you’re not the same either! How can we just go back to how it was? How can we go back without insulting what we had?”
He stared at her, thinking. This Rose was different, that was sure. His Rose…their Rose, because he fully believed the Doctor was still alive, it was just a matter of finding him… would have jumped at the chance to live in the 51st century.
An idea occurred to him and he was positive she’d hate it. That made it seem all the more reason.
“I won’t push, Rose. If you want to stay here…”
“I do.” But she didn’t seem quite so sure now. She seemed wary, not sure of where he was going with it.
“Then I won’t push. But do you think I could stay with you until I get out of here? I don’t carry a lot of 21st century British money on me.” He threw on his disarming grin, one he knew used to melt her defenses. A small smile flitted across her face.
“Let me call my boss, yeah? I’ll come up with something…then I’ll show you where my flat is and you can get settled.”
He slung an arm across her shoulders, pulled her in for a tight, one-armed squeeze.
If anything was obvious to him, there was nothing more obvious than this:
He had to fix Rose.
He had to find the Doctor.
And fast.
fin chapter