Long Journey Home (6/?)
Title: Long Journey Home
Author: Gail R. Delaney
Series: The Unseen and In Between
Setting: Series 3 and 4 through “Journey’s End”. Each section will indicate which episode the particular scene revolves around either before - during - or after - as reference. I guess you could say this particular portion happens in Pete's Universe just before Sound of Drums in the Doctor's Universe.
Genre: Reunion/Fix-it Fic
Rating: PG-13 overall
Disclaimer: Not mine. If I owned Doctor Who, Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant would be my own private little playmates.
Summary: More than once, the Doctor told Rose something was ‘impossible’, just to later prove himself wrong. She no longer believed in impossible because of him. Then he told her that she could never see him again - that the walls were closed forever. Yeah, well… he also said they couldn’t do something else, and she had to prove one theory wrong to show he was wrong on both.
Pete’s World
Twelve months, one week and three days
Since Canary Warf
Rose sat in the dark nursery, staring through the softly billowing curtains at the giant moon beyond. The cool summer evening breeze carried the scent of honeysuckle and boganvelia from the garden below, reminding her of Sarah Jane Smith’s garden, and the only sound outside was the wind in the trees.
She rocked slowly in the gliding rocker, her feet tucked into the seat and her knees against the arms, with Tony nestled against her chest. He’d finished his bottle half an hour before, and had drifted off to sleep with a heavy sigh, but Rose didn’t want to give up the tiny spot of warmth on her chest quite yet.
She hummed softly no tune in particular. It was more of a rhythm… soft and low… a soothing cadence that was familiar to her soul, even if no one else would ever be able to place the song. It was a lullaby, just not one with words. A lullaby that had soothed her to sleep when she was nineteen and terrified of the new life she had jumped into feet first. It let her drift while she stared at the ceiling of her bedroom and wondered about the mysterious man who made her blood sing and her heart pound. It led her to him the first night they made love. And it wrapped around them when they held each other and he pretended to sleep just so he could lie beside her.
The door opened with a soft creak and her mum came in, the light from the hallway casting a long shadow on the carpet.
“You should put him down, sweetheart. He’ll never sleep on his own.”
Jackie eased Tony from her hold, and cooed softly to him when he whined a little before putting him in his crib. Rose immediately felt the loss of his heartbeat against hers and the warm spot he’d created, and drew her knees to her chest. This was her favorite room now, with its pale blue walls and celestial border filled with planets and moons.
In the three weeks since Tony had arrived, Rose found herself here more and more. She’d never thought of herself as a motherly person, had always shied away from her younger cousins and scowled when people brought their babies into restaurants where she happened to be eating. She never had patience for tantrums and tears.
Now, she was a paradox unto herself. She craved being near Tony, longed to hold him and soothe him, and yet the entire idea terrified her.
She finally consented to leave the nursery, following her mother into the hall and downstairs to the kitchen. Rose perched on one of the barstools at the counter while her mother made tea.
“Have you thought about what I said, sweetheart?” her mum finally asked. The question had been sitting between them for two days.
“I can’t, Mum.”
Her mother huffed, but continued making the tea. Only her mother and Pete knew about the baby, and Rose had made Pete swear to secrecy when she found out her mother had shared the secret. She couldn’t risk… didn’t dare risk… anyone else finding out. Not even Mickey. Rose worked for Torchwood, and she knew what kind of reception anything ‘alien’ received. It wasn’t all that different from the Torchwood in her universe. They took it, they dissected it, they picked it apart, and then they used it to their own ends.
What would they do with a child that had alien blood in its veins? A child with two hearts and - if she had to bet - a mind capable of surpassing the greatest geniuses the human race had ever known. A child that needed to be with his or her father.
“But what if they can help? They can tell you if everything is okay. If he’s growing okay.”
“How would they know? Mum, I’m already a year pregnant, maybe more since I have no bloody clue when I conceived. How are they supposed to tell me if the baby is growing okay? As soon as I say anything, I’m going to be under a microscope until the baby comes, whenever that is! How am I going to get back to him if I’m in a lab?”
Jackie closed her eyes and set their mugs down on the counter. Rose knew her words hurt her mother… the knowledge that all Rose wanted was to leave. She didn’t want to leave her mum, but she had no choice as far as she could see. Just like she’d told the Doctor just before she lost him…
I made my choice a long time ago, and I’m never going to leave you.
As far as she was concerned, getting back to him no matter the cost was one in the same promise.
“Sweetheart,” her mother began in a tone Rose knew so well. It said that whatever words came out of her mouth next would probably be something Rose didn’t want to hear. “I’m not asking you this to hurt you, and I don’t want you to think I’m doubting you… but, are you sure you’re pregnant? That you’re…” She waved her hands and shrugged her shoulders. “That you’re still pregnant? All you did were those home tests, and that was months ago. What if-“
“What if something happened?” Rose asked quietly. She wasn’t surprised by the question, because it was one she had asked herself already. Sure, she’d had to go up a size in her jeans. She’d swear she’d felt the small butterfly flutters of a child moving inside her. Sometimes, she swore she could sense the touch of a tiny, seeking mind reaching out to her. But, for anyone who didn’t look close enough, Rose hadn’t changed at all since coming to this world.
Maybe she’d imagined the whole thing… maybe deep down she’d wanted it so badly her body had told her what she wanted to hear. She’d heard of it before… even read about it on the Internet. Phantom pregnancies. Maybe she’d finally overeaten her quota of chips, just like Mickey always warned her. Maybe something had happened to her to change her, but that something wasn’t a baby. Maybe…. Maybe… maybe…
Jackie released a long breath and let her hands rest on the counter. She didn’t say anything, but just nodded. Rose slid from her stool and motioned for her mother to follow her. Jackie did without question, and Rose led her to the suite of bedrooms she’d been using since arriving. She still didn’t think of them as her rooms, and as far as she was concerned, she was just a guest until she found her way home.
Rose had asked herself all the questions. She’d spent countless hours staring at her ceiling in the painful silence of the big, empty house questioning everything. Questioning her body, her mind… questioning the impossible. Until finally, she had done something to make sure.
Inside the room, she went to her bedside table and took from the drawer a handheld sonic transmission device she’d doctored after hours. She smiled whenever she saw it, wondering if he would be proud of her attempts at making something ‘sonic’.
“Sit down, Mum.”
Jackie did, her blue eyes wide as she watched Rose settle on the bed. This had become almost a nightly ritual for Rose so she had the process down pat. She settled back on the pillows and tugged down the edge of her lounge pants until the small swell of her lower stomach was exposed. With a flip of the switch, the transmitted hummed to life.
“Tell me now…” Rose said softly before setting it to her skin just below her bellybutton. Almost immediately, the sound of two very rapid and distinct heartbeats filled the dark, quiet room. They were in rhythm, precise and infallible, but one was a half-beat behind the other so they were separate and undeniable two hearts beating in tandem.
Jackie sucked in a sharp breath and reached out a shaking hand to lay it on Rose’s stomach. Something tiny, something deep inside, shifted beneath Jackie’s touch… reaching out to the contact. Rose blinked hard, and sent out a silent ‘thank you’ for the tiny reminder that she carried the most precious piece of life inside her.
“By now I should just give up expecting anything but the impossible when that Doctor of yours is involved,” Jackie said softly.
Rose nodded, not daring to speak again. She tried - and failed - to keep the desperate surge of panic at bay that hit her so hard sometimes she nearly choked on it. Without a word, Jackie scooted forward and took Rose in her arms, holding her as she cried. The sobs nearly choked her, welling up from her soul the way they had when she thought he’d left her, thought he’d lied to her… when he changed his face and she thought she was alone.
“What if I don’t find a way, Mum?” she wept against her mother’s shoulder, curling her fingers into Jackie’s jumper until her knuckles ached. “What if I fail and I lose the baby because it took too long? Oh, god… what if I never see him again just like he said? What if I do see him again, but by then it’s too late? How do I tell him I failed? How do I-“ She couldn’t finish. The word ran through her mind without mercy. How do I tell him I let his child die?
Her mother didn’t provide any answers, just stroked her hair and shushed in her ear just as she had when Rose was a little girl and had been teased on the playground for not having a dad. Or because she lived in the ‘Estates’ instead of a nice house or flat.
The phone on her bedside table buzzed and bounced. Snuffling her nose, Rose leaned back from her mother to look at it. Her ‘superphone’ sat beside it, dark and unresponsive. It hadn’t worked since she’d been pulled through. Wouldn’t even turn on. The buzzing phone was her Torchwood phone.
Huffing a breath and swallowing hard, Rose picked it up. It had to be something important if they called her this late at night.
“Yeah,” she managed to force from her throat.
“Hey, beautiful. Jack Harkness.”
Rose smiled and closed her eyes. She’d met this universe’s version of Jack Harkness just weeks after beginning her work at Torchwood, and the effect the meeting had on her nearly bowled her over. He looked just like her Jack, talked like him… smiled and flirted with anything that breathed just like hers. But, this Jack Harnkess had no memory of a tall man in a black leather jacket. A man who could scowl one minute and dance with you the next.
“Hi,” she said on a breath, feeling some of her equilibrium return. “It’s late.”
“I don’t think you’ll mind once I tell you what’s going on here. The Time Cannon-“
Rose bolted up and swung her legs off the bed. “What happened?”
“Not sure yet, but it’s showing some signs of life. Nothing big yet, and we’re not ready to bounce back to last week and revote on who won Britain’s Got Talent or anything, but I figured you might want to know.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“I thought you might say that.”
“Thank you, Jack.”
Rose turned the phone off and dropped it on the bed as she bolted for her closet to change. As she pulled her tank off over her head and pulled on a pair of jeans one size larger than she used to wear, her mother sat silent on the edge of the bed, watching her. Jackie never asked what pulled Rose away to Torchwood until the small hours of the morning, or asked her to explain the schematics she brought home and studied through the weekend. Rose couldn’t explain them to Jackie, couldn’t explain how she even understood, and part of her knew Jackie didn’t want to know. She’d had her fill of the extraordinary while her daughter flittered around space and time with a man in a blue box.
Rose pulled on her boots and grabbed a leather jacket from her closet. “I don’t know when I’ll be home,” she said as she came back out of the closet.
She made it almost to the bedroom door before her mother called after her. Rose stopped with her hand on the knob, turning back. “Mum, I gotta go.”
“I know,” Jackie said with a heavy tone in her voice, her eyes sad. “Just… just promise me you’ll say good-bye.”
Rose pressed her lips together and swallowed. “I will, Mum. I promise.”
Then before she lost her control again, Rose yanked the door open and ran from the house. As she bounded down the front steps, she laid a hand on her stomach. No more doubts. No more fears. She would do this. No matter what.
Author: Gail R. Delaney
Series: The Unseen and In Between
Setting: Series 3 and 4 through “Journey’s End”. Each section will indicate which episode the particular scene revolves around either before - during - or after - as reference. I guess you could say this particular portion happens in Pete's Universe just before Sound of Drums in the Doctor's Universe.
Genre: Reunion/Fix-it Fic
Rating: PG-13 overall
Disclaimer: Not mine. If I owned Doctor Who, Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant would be my own private little playmates.
Summary: More than once, the Doctor told Rose something was ‘impossible’, just to later prove himself wrong. She no longer believed in impossible because of him. Then he told her that she could never see him again - that the walls were closed forever. Yeah, well… he also said they couldn’t do something else, and she had to prove one theory wrong to show he was wrong on both.
Pete’s World
Twelve months, one week and three days
Since Canary Warf
Rose sat in the dark nursery, staring through the softly billowing curtains at the giant moon beyond. The cool summer evening breeze carried the scent of honeysuckle and boganvelia from the garden below, reminding her of Sarah Jane Smith’s garden, and the only sound outside was the wind in the trees.
She rocked slowly in the gliding rocker, her feet tucked into the seat and her knees against the arms, with Tony nestled against her chest. He’d finished his bottle half an hour before, and had drifted off to sleep with a heavy sigh, but Rose didn’t want to give up the tiny spot of warmth on her chest quite yet.
She hummed softly no tune in particular. It was more of a rhythm… soft and low… a soothing cadence that was familiar to her soul, even if no one else would ever be able to place the song. It was a lullaby, just not one with words. A lullaby that had soothed her to sleep when she was nineteen and terrified of the new life she had jumped into feet first. It let her drift while she stared at the ceiling of her bedroom and wondered about the mysterious man who made her blood sing and her heart pound. It led her to him the first night they made love. And it wrapped around them when they held each other and he pretended to sleep just so he could lie beside her.
The door opened with a soft creak and her mum came in, the light from the hallway casting a long shadow on the carpet.
“You should put him down, sweetheart. He’ll never sleep on his own.”
Jackie eased Tony from her hold, and cooed softly to him when he whined a little before putting him in his crib. Rose immediately felt the loss of his heartbeat against hers and the warm spot he’d created, and drew her knees to her chest. This was her favorite room now, with its pale blue walls and celestial border filled with planets and moons.
In the three weeks since Tony had arrived, Rose found herself here more and more. She’d never thought of herself as a motherly person, had always shied away from her younger cousins and scowled when people brought their babies into restaurants where she happened to be eating. She never had patience for tantrums and tears.
Now, she was a paradox unto herself. She craved being near Tony, longed to hold him and soothe him, and yet the entire idea terrified her.
She finally consented to leave the nursery, following her mother into the hall and downstairs to the kitchen. Rose perched on one of the barstools at the counter while her mother made tea.
“Have you thought about what I said, sweetheart?” her mum finally asked. The question had been sitting between them for two days.
“I can’t, Mum.”
Her mother huffed, but continued making the tea. Only her mother and Pete knew about the baby, and Rose had made Pete swear to secrecy when she found out her mother had shared the secret. She couldn’t risk… didn’t dare risk… anyone else finding out. Not even Mickey. Rose worked for Torchwood, and she knew what kind of reception anything ‘alien’ received. It wasn’t all that different from the Torchwood in her universe. They took it, they dissected it, they picked it apart, and then they used it to their own ends.
What would they do with a child that had alien blood in its veins? A child with two hearts and - if she had to bet - a mind capable of surpassing the greatest geniuses the human race had ever known. A child that needed to be with his or her father.
“But what if they can help? They can tell you if everything is okay. If he’s growing okay.”
“How would they know? Mum, I’m already a year pregnant, maybe more since I have no bloody clue when I conceived. How are they supposed to tell me if the baby is growing okay? As soon as I say anything, I’m going to be under a microscope until the baby comes, whenever that is! How am I going to get back to him if I’m in a lab?”
Jackie closed her eyes and set their mugs down on the counter. Rose knew her words hurt her mother… the knowledge that all Rose wanted was to leave. She didn’t want to leave her mum, but she had no choice as far as she could see. Just like she’d told the Doctor just before she lost him…
I made my choice a long time ago, and I’m never going to leave you.
As far as she was concerned, getting back to him no matter the cost was one in the same promise.
“Sweetheart,” her mother began in a tone Rose knew so well. It said that whatever words came out of her mouth next would probably be something Rose didn’t want to hear. “I’m not asking you this to hurt you, and I don’t want you to think I’m doubting you… but, are you sure you’re pregnant? That you’re…” She waved her hands and shrugged her shoulders. “That you’re still pregnant? All you did were those home tests, and that was months ago. What if-“
“What if something happened?” Rose asked quietly. She wasn’t surprised by the question, because it was one she had asked herself already. Sure, she’d had to go up a size in her jeans. She’d swear she’d felt the small butterfly flutters of a child moving inside her. Sometimes, she swore she could sense the touch of a tiny, seeking mind reaching out to her. But, for anyone who didn’t look close enough, Rose hadn’t changed at all since coming to this world.
Maybe she’d imagined the whole thing… maybe deep down she’d wanted it so badly her body had told her what she wanted to hear. She’d heard of it before… even read about it on the Internet. Phantom pregnancies. Maybe she’d finally overeaten her quota of chips, just like Mickey always warned her. Maybe something had happened to her to change her, but that something wasn’t a baby. Maybe…. Maybe… maybe…
Jackie released a long breath and let her hands rest on the counter. She didn’t say anything, but just nodded. Rose slid from her stool and motioned for her mother to follow her. Jackie did without question, and Rose led her to the suite of bedrooms she’d been using since arriving. She still didn’t think of them as her rooms, and as far as she was concerned, she was just a guest until she found her way home.
Rose had asked herself all the questions. She’d spent countless hours staring at her ceiling in the painful silence of the big, empty house questioning everything. Questioning her body, her mind… questioning the impossible. Until finally, she had done something to make sure.
Inside the room, she went to her bedside table and took from the drawer a handheld sonic transmission device she’d doctored after hours. She smiled whenever she saw it, wondering if he would be proud of her attempts at making something ‘sonic’.
“Sit down, Mum.”
Jackie did, her blue eyes wide as she watched Rose settle on the bed. This had become almost a nightly ritual for Rose so she had the process down pat. She settled back on the pillows and tugged down the edge of her lounge pants until the small swell of her lower stomach was exposed. With a flip of the switch, the transmitted hummed to life.
“Tell me now…” Rose said softly before setting it to her skin just below her bellybutton. Almost immediately, the sound of two very rapid and distinct heartbeats filled the dark, quiet room. They were in rhythm, precise and infallible, but one was a half-beat behind the other so they were separate and undeniable two hearts beating in tandem.
Jackie sucked in a sharp breath and reached out a shaking hand to lay it on Rose’s stomach. Something tiny, something deep inside, shifted beneath Jackie’s touch… reaching out to the contact. Rose blinked hard, and sent out a silent ‘thank you’ for the tiny reminder that she carried the most precious piece of life inside her.
“By now I should just give up expecting anything but the impossible when that Doctor of yours is involved,” Jackie said softly.
Rose nodded, not daring to speak again. She tried - and failed - to keep the desperate surge of panic at bay that hit her so hard sometimes she nearly choked on it. Without a word, Jackie scooted forward and took Rose in her arms, holding her as she cried. The sobs nearly choked her, welling up from her soul the way they had when she thought he’d left her, thought he’d lied to her… when he changed his face and she thought she was alone.
“What if I don’t find a way, Mum?” she wept against her mother’s shoulder, curling her fingers into Jackie’s jumper until her knuckles ached. “What if I fail and I lose the baby because it took too long? Oh, god… what if I never see him again just like he said? What if I do see him again, but by then it’s too late? How do I tell him I failed? How do I-“ She couldn’t finish. The word ran through her mind without mercy. How do I tell him I let his child die?
Her mother didn’t provide any answers, just stroked her hair and shushed in her ear just as she had when Rose was a little girl and had been teased on the playground for not having a dad. Or because she lived in the ‘Estates’ instead of a nice house or flat.
The phone on her bedside table buzzed and bounced. Snuffling her nose, Rose leaned back from her mother to look at it. Her ‘superphone’ sat beside it, dark and unresponsive. It hadn’t worked since she’d been pulled through. Wouldn’t even turn on. The buzzing phone was her Torchwood phone.
Huffing a breath and swallowing hard, Rose picked it up. It had to be something important if they called her this late at night.
“Yeah,” she managed to force from her throat.
“Hey, beautiful. Jack Harkness.”
Rose smiled and closed her eyes. She’d met this universe’s version of Jack Harkness just weeks after beginning her work at Torchwood, and the effect the meeting had on her nearly bowled her over. He looked just like her Jack, talked like him… smiled and flirted with anything that breathed just like hers. But, this Jack Harnkess had no memory of a tall man in a black leather jacket. A man who could scowl one minute and dance with you the next.
“Hi,” she said on a breath, feeling some of her equilibrium return. “It’s late.”
“I don’t think you’ll mind once I tell you what’s going on here. The Time Cannon-“
Rose bolted up and swung her legs off the bed. “What happened?”
“Not sure yet, but it’s showing some signs of life. Nothing big yet, and we’re not ready to bounce back to last week and revote on who won Britain’s Got Talent or anything, but I figured you might want to know.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“I thought you might say that.”
“Thank you, Jack.”
Rose turned the phone off and dropped it on the bed as she bolted for her closet to change. As she pulled her tank off over her head and pulled on a pair of jeans one size larger than she used to wear, her mother sat silent on the edge of the bed, watching her. Jackie never asked what pulled Rose away to Torchwood until the small hours of the morning, or asked her to explain the schematics she brought home and studied through the weekend. Rose couldn’t explain them to Jackie, couldn’t explain how she even understood, and part of her knew Jackie didn’t want to know. She’d had her fill of the extraordinary while her daughter flittered around space and time with a man in a blue box.
Rose pulled on her boots and grabbed a leather jacket from her closet. “I don’t know when I’ll be home,” she said as she came back out of the closet.
She made it almost to the bedroom door before her mother called after her. Rose stopped with her hand on the knob, turning back. “Mum, I gotta go.”
“I know,” Jackie said with a heavy tone in her voice, her eyes sad. “Just… just promise me you’ll say good-bye.”
Rose pressed her lips together and swallowed. “I will, Mum. I promise.”
Then before she lost her control again, Rose yanked the door open and ran from the house. As she bounded down the front steps, she laid a hand on her stomach. No more doubts. No more fears. She would do this. No matter what.