Long Journey Home (8/?)
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. This story takes place on Pete's World immediately after Last of the Time Lords 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 Six Days
Since Canary Warf
The Vortex swirled in intertwined rays of panoramic light, wrapping around her and through her. Her cells tingled and expanded, her blood pounded through her veins, her mind opened.
She let herself fall back in the warmth and the beautiful glow, floating in the effervescent plasma like a child in a pool, eyes closed and the sounds of the world muffled by the water covering her ears. Voices whispered, overlapped, muffled each other but stood out clearly. One voice, two sounds, one man…
… That’s a great deal of trust to put in one man, Rose…
… Rose would know. Right now she’d say exactly the right thing…
… I’ve got a hundred an’ forty-seven different kinds of water from planets all over the galaxy. Oh, you’ve never tasted anything until you’ve had Jenivian glacial water with just a dash from the southern waterfalls of Oraphascia Alpha.”
… Setting 15B. Hold it against the port. Eight seconds then stop…
… All right, so it’s my turn! Then kill me! Kill me if it’ll stop you attacking these people! Do it! Do it! Just do it! Do it! ...
… We could go to Marbella in 1989…
… I’m trying to fix the mercury steam filter, Rose. If this gets clogged… Boom! Not good. You don’t want a TARDIS with a bad case of vapors…
… Everything she did was so human. She brought you back to life but she couldn’t control it. She brought you back forever. That’s something, I suppose. The final act of the Time War was life. I took the power out of her. She’s gone, Jack. She’s not just living in a parallel world, she’s trapped there. The walls have closed…
… Those coordinates there. Set them all to six. And hurry up!…
… Rose Tyler, you are magic…
… Like that, did you? New dance. Very popular in 1970’s Philadelphia. Called the Bumble. Early precursor to the Hustle …
… Right then, Rose Tyler, you tell me. Where do you want to go? Backwards or forwards in time? It’s your choice. What’s it gonna be?...
… Except that implies - In this grand scheme of gods and demons - that she’s just a victim. But I’ve seen a lot of this universe. I’ve seen fake gods and bad gods and demi gods and would-be gods - out of all that - out of that whole pantheon - If I believe in one thing… I believe in her…
… Beautiful Rose…
… Clever Rose…
… Precious Rose …
… Forever Rose …
“Rose!”
Rose shot from her sleep with a gasp, scrambling in the darkness to find her bearings. Light spread across the floor of her office in an abstract rectangle, and she blinked as she tried to focus on the person standing it the doorway. Her stomach did a funny flip as she sat up, but she took a deep breath and pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead.
“Yeah. What?”
“You’re gonna wanna see this.”
“Jack?” she mumbled, tossing back the jacket she’d used to cover her upper body as she tried to catch a couple hours sleep. They’d been working around the clock on the Dimension Cannon since it hummed to a semi-life three days earlier.
Captain Jack Harkness came across the room and offered his hand, pulling her to her feet. Her limbs were heavy, like she’d been swimming too long and her muscles didn’t know how to work in full gravity. Jack gripped her upper arm, steadying her until she found her footing and forced her mind to shake off the dregs of sleep. The hairs on her arms stood up with gooseflesh, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she still heard whispered voices that she couldn’t quite catch. Jack smoothed one of his large hands over her hair with a gentle touch.
Sometimes she forgot that he wasn’t the Jack she’d known… he was so similar.
“Sorry I woke you up, beautiful. But I knew-“
“Thank you,” she mumbled and tugged at the hem of her oversized jumper, making sure it fell over her hips. “Tell me.”
They left the office walking side-by-side, his hand cupping her elbow, and she squinted against the brightness of the Torchwood halls.
“At exactly 8:02 it was like someone turned on a switch. The whole thing powered up, humming so loud the walls are vibrating.”
Rose looked at her watch. Seven minutes past eight. At least they hadn’t wasted any time coming to get her. Or, Jack didn’t waste any time. She had no idea what Dr. Brandyn said or did. He was still miffed that an ‘uneducated’ nothing who he figured only got her job because of her famous ‘dad’ - and who might just be nutters since she believed she’d traveled through time and space in a parallel universe - had proven his brainiac, university educated scientists wrong weeks ago with their preliminary calculations. They’d all thanked her for her help, but he just scowled.
The ride down in the lift to the lower levels of Torchwood - commonly known as Research and Development, but called ‘The Dungeon’ by those who worked in it - felt like an eternity. When Rose first came here, she’d refused to wear a watch, a real watch, because she hated being trapped by the non-stop tick-tick of a second hand rotating around a circle. It was linear and boring and predictable, and she hated it. Now, every tick taunted her.
Hurry! Hurry! Time is running out!
“We’re getting some readings, but no one down there can make heads or tails of what it all means. Not surprising since not one of those boneheads even knows what they’re looking at,” Jack rambled on.
“What were they doing before it powered up?”
“Not a damn thing, that’s the most bizarre part about it. It’s eight in the morning, everyone was just rolling in. Half the staff isn’t even here yet. Joe the Janitor hadn’t finished mopping.”
When the lift doors opened, Rose had to catch her breath. Suddenly, every nerve in her skin tingled like every tiny hair had come to life and sparked with electricity. She quickly looked to Captain Jack, and he slid her a sidelong glance with a grin, his deep dimples showing. He strode out of the lift, calling out as he walked.
“I’ve got Rose.”
Dr. Brandyn looked up from one of the computer stations that formed a half-circle around the massive device they’d dubbed the Dimension Cannon. It didn’t look like a cannon, but the way it propelled its ‘passenger’ carried much the same force as being shot from a cannon. Well, she supposed if you titled your head and kind of looked at it sideways, it could pass as a cannon. It was a massive circular feat of science with the inner ‘tube’ large enough for a tall man to stand in and Rose couldn’t quite touch the walls on either side of her when she stood inside.
They could only assume the ‘effect’ on the body when the cannon was actually used, since until then no one had been able to make all the lights come on - let alone get it to work.
Jack’s description had been accurate. The cannon emanated a low, constant hum that vibrated through the floor. The interior of the cannon glowed a bright blue with random yellow and orange lights flashing through the clear walls. Rose kept tilting her head, trying to clear away the sound. It was like having water in her ears that she couldn’t shake. Things were muffled.
The baby moved suddenly, feeling so much like a sharp jerk that it nearly made her double over and she barely covered her gasp. It didn’t hurt, but she’d never felt the baby move with such force. Usually, she felt no more than a flutter, a whisper.
“What have we got?” she asked, hiding her kneejerk reaction by sliding into one of the empty computer stations.
Suddenly, the heavy jumper she wore was smothering and she wondered if her cheeks were flushed as bright as they felt. The hair on her arms prickled again to life, and something stirred in her chest akin to panic. She blinked and reached toward the keyboard with trembling hands. With a few brusque taps of her fingers, she was logged in and the same data scrolling on Brandyn’s screen filled hers.
Rose leaned closer, scanning the image. A familiarity slipped over her, comforting even though she couldn’t quite place it. Like she’d seen this before, just a glimpse. So beautiful…
“It’s nothing. Means nothing. Just light and color,” Dr. Brandyn mumbled.
“Don’t be stupid,” she snapped, touching the screen. “Can’t you see it? Here? The ribbon? It’s twisted, knotted. Frayed.”
Dr. Brandyn came to her station, looking over her shoulder. “No, Ms. Tyler. I don’t see anything but a bunch of colors and light.”
Jack leaned over on the other side of her, squinting at the image as he laid his hand on her shoulder. “I think I do. Here,” he said, touching the screen as he traced the line of the ribbon that Rose saw. “It knots here. And it’s broken here… looks like it’s split up the middle. But this part, it loops back on itself before getting all knotted.”
Rose nodded and looked back at Jack, smiling. She knew enough about this Jack Harkness to know that some things paralleled with the man she knew. Both were ‘Time Agents’, both had bounced around the universe a time or two… and both enjoyed ‘dancing’. She smirked and turned back to the screen.
“I’m going to try something.”
Rose had no idea what she wanted to do, but something soft and demanding whispered to her. She laid her fingers on the keyboard, took a deep breath, then began typing. Instinct drove every keystroke until her hands flew so fast the computer couldn’t keep up. When Rose stopped, the computer screen continued trying to display what she’d keyed for at least another thirty seconds.
When it caught up, the computer beeped, and the screen blinked - going black. All the screens went black.
“Lovely, Ms. Tyler. You’ve-“
Before Dr. Brandyn could finish, the computers popped to life again. The colorscape was gone, replaced by several windows that came up so fast they overlapped each other. It reminded Rose of when she used to play solitaire on Shireen’s computer. On the rare occasions that she won, the deck of cards would bounce and flow all over the screen until it was depleted.
In this case, instead of cards it was news reports, magazine pages, websites and blogs.
“Save all this. Can we save it?” she asked of no one in particular.
“I’m on it,” someone shouted from several stations down.
“Do you see the dates?” Jack asked, still watching over her shoulder.
Rose nodded. “Yeah.”
The same date would appear on half a dozen news flashes. But, all the stories would be very different. One date alone reported the draining of the Thames, while another reported sightings all over London of bizarre little flubbery creatures escaping through doggie doors. Another reported the deaths of hundreds. On the same date, hundreds were reported as falling ill, but recovered only to find that they’d somehow dropped a good stone’s worth of weight.
Newspapers reported the sighting of what appeared to be an aircraft over London that looked like the Titanic. The ship was reported to have flown low over the city, only to pull up short and disappear from the Earth’s atmosphere. Yet, another report from the United States said the exact same aircraft crashed into Buckingham Palace. Hundreds were killed, but the death toll would have been worse if the city hadn’t been nearly empty. And another paper reported the horrendous deaths of thousands of Londoners when the same described ship crashed into the center of the city.
All the same dates… all slightly different versions of the same event.
They’d connected to a parallel world… but a parallel world with multiple timelines.
“Is that even possible?” Rose mumbled to herself.
“It’s going to take weeks to muddle through all this,” Dr. Brandyn mumbled.
“Then I suggest we get started,” Jack said, straightening as he set his hand on Rose’s shoulder again.
The images continued to stack so quickly that she couldn’t see most of them or register what they were about, until the photo on one news article caught her attention.
“Oh, god,” she choked out, grabbing the mouse beside the keyboard to click back through the windows that had already worked to cover it.
She finally found it again, and pulled the window forward. The words across the top of the page swam in her vision, and she felt lightheaded, a steel fist closing around her heart.
BLUE POLICE CALL BOX FOUND AT THE BOTTOM OF DRAINED THAMES.
“Oh, god,” she whispered again.
Rose didn’t realize she’d tilted in the chair until Jack’s arms came around her, steadying her. He crouched beside her chair, using his body to keep her from tumbling to the floor. Rose turned her head slowly, blinking like she was in some drug-induced haze. She couldn’t focus and the words coming from Jack’s mouth didn’t quite line up with the movement of his lips.
“Are you okay?”
She tried to answer, but couldn’t make her mouth work. Jack stood, leveraging her to her feet so she stood with him. He said something to the techs to work on saving the files, and that he and she would be working in his office. The sheer force of his movements gave her momentum to move with him, putting one foot in front of the other.
Jack’s office was in the Dungeon, just down the hall from the cannon, and he ushered her inside, closing the door behind him with an audible click of the lock. Rose sank heavily onto the leather couch that sat against one wall. She shook all over, and cold sweat battled with the smothering effect of her jumper.
Jack crouched in front of her, his hands on her legs, studying her. “You gonna be okay?”
Rose nodded, finally feeling like some of equilibrium was returning. “Yeah, it’s just… could you feel it?”
Jack nodded. “Not as strong as you do, I think. You looked like you were going to keel over in there, beautiful.”
“I’ll be fine.” She took a deep breath, sinking back into the couch. “Thanks for getting me. Dr. Brandyn doesn’t exactly like me being involved.”
“I get that, but what I don’t get is why.”
“I showed ‘im up. Guess actually travelin’ in a time machine gives me a little edge over his scientists. It’s been a fight since I got here, and especially since you brought back that cannon. He’s convinced the only reason I want to help is so I can go back.”
“Isn’t it?”
Rose met his eyes. “Yeah.” She smiled and nodded. “But he doesn’t need to know that.”
Jack laughed and shifted to sit on the couch beside her. “Then I guess it’s all worth fighting for.”
Rose barely managed to hold back the small hiccup that hit her.
“Rose, you are worth fighting for.”
Jack laid his hand on her shoulder. “Is it something I said?”
She swallowed, reminding herself once again that this Jack Harkness wasn’t the same Jack Harkness who died on Satellite Five. “Sort of.”
“Rose, I’ve been meaning to ask you something… about that other world. I mean, I know that you probably met thousands of people and aliens and whatnot, but-“
She nodded before he finished. “Yeah, I knew you. The you of the other universe. The other…” Rose cleared her throat. “Back home.”
“Just the way you look at me sometimes, I wonder. I mean…” He grinned, the classic cocky grin of Captain Jack Harkness from any universe. “I’m used to beautiful women looking at me-“
“Oh, shut up,” she laughed.
“So did we-“
“No!” she cut him off. Then added with a grin. “Not that you didn’t want to.”
“Well, of course. Who wouldn’t? You’re beautiful, Rose Tyler.”
Rose let herself enjoy the warm flush that blossomed up her throat to her cheeks. It had been a long time since anyone had told her she was beautiful, and the last man had been the Doctor, but that didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy hearing it from someone else. “Thank you.”
“How did we know each other? Torchwood there?”
She shook her head. “No, actually… um… you travelled with the Doctor and me for awhile. Not very long, but… yeah, you were with us in the TARDIS. We met in London during World War II.”
Jack grinned, shifting deeper into the couch cushions. “Aaahhh, the good old days. I’ve never seen anything like London then, not before and not since. I came here from there. Guess things happened a bit different there, then.”
“Yeah, a bit…”
“Why did I stop travelling with you?”
Rose blinked against the tears that immediately sprang to her eyes. “You don’t want to know that, Jack. Not that it’ll ever happen that way here, but-“
“Did I die a hero?”
When he asked the question, he looked straight at her, and all joking had left his eyes. Rose stared back and pressed her lips together, nodding before she answered. “Yeah. You did.”
He grinned, the cockiness back in a flash. “Well, there’s that.”
Rose pulled her knees to her chest, resting her feet on the edge of the couch. Even though her mind knew that the man beside her wasn’t the man she remembered, she still felt some comfort in his presence. She knew she should be out in the control room, trying to decipher the information that had been pulled from the cannon, but she was so tired she couldn’t force her body to move. Whether it was the baby, or the lack of sleep, or a combination of both she didn’t know.
“Can I ask you one other thing? You don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to. I figure you’ve kept it to yourself this long…”
“What?”
“I don’t pretend to understand how this would work, but I’d bet dollars to donuts that you’re pregnant.” Before she could protest, he raised a hand to stop her. “I’ve spent a lot of time around women, Rose. Women of all ages, and even a few aliens here and there. I know a pregnant woman when I see one… but the thing is, I’ve been seeing one for a very long time.”
He waited until he was done before he looked at her, and by then the tears already rolled down her cheeks. Rose swallowed, but she couldn’t speak yet. So, she just nodded and pulled her knees closer to her chest. After a few moments, she managed to suck in another breath.
“Please don’t tell anyone, Jack,” she whispered.
“I won’t. I promise.” He reached out and took her hand, prying it from the death grip she had around her knees. Jack just held it on the cushion between them. “This Doctor of yours seems like an amazing man, and I’m going to do everything in my power to help you get home to him. I promise you, Rose.”
“Thank you.”
She sighed and leaned sideways to rest her head on his shoulder, still holding his hand. It didn’t matter what universe she was in, Jack Harkness was a hero.
Author's Note: In case you want to know where all the quotes came from, here's a list...
1. "I Believe in You" - part of the Unseen and In Between Series.
2. The Shakespeare Code - Season 3
3. "The Fruit of Kasterbarous" - Part of the Unseen and In Between Series.
4. Army of Ghosts - Season 2
5. Evolution of the Daleks - Season 3
6. Parting of the Ways - Season 1
7. "Everything Rose wanted to know about a Time Lord, and apparently wasn't afraid to ask - Lesson #4"- Part of the Unseen and In Between Series
8. Utopia - Season 3
9. Doomsday - Season 2
10. "TARDIS Lullabye" - Part of the Unseen and In Between Series
11. "Two Steps Forward, One Back" - Part of the Unseen and In Between Series
12. End of the World - Season 1
13. The Satan Pit - Season 2
14-17. Various points through the Unseen and In Between Series, beginning with "Two Steps Forward, One Back".
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. This story takes place on Pete's World immediately after Last of the Time Lords 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 Six Days
Since Canary Warf
The Vortex swirled in intertwined rays of panoramic light, wrapping around her and through her. Her cells tingled and expanded, her blood pounded through her veins, her mind opened.
She let herself fall back in the warmth and the beautiful glow, floating in the effervescent plasma like a child in a pool, eyes closed and the sounds of the world muffled by the water covering her ears. Voices whispered, overlapped, muffled each other but stood out clearly. One voice, two sounds, one man…
… That’s a great deal of trust to put in one man, Rose…
… Rose would know. Right now she’d say exactly the right thing…
… I’ve got a hundred an’ forty-seven different kinds of water from planets all over the galaxy. Oh, you’ve never tasted anything until you’ve had Jenivian glacial water with just a dash from the southern waterfalls of Oraphascia Alpha.”
… Setting 15B. Hold it against the port. Eight seconds then stop…
… All right, so it’s my turn! Then kill me! Kill me if it’ll stop you attacking these people! Do it! Do it! Just do it! Do it! ...
… We could go to Marbella in 1989…
… I’m trying to fix the mercury steam filter, Rose. If this gets clogged… Boom! Not good. You don’t want a TARDIS with a bad case of vapors…
… Everything she did was so human. She brought you back to life but she couldn’t control it. She brought you back forever. That’s something, I suppose. The final act of the Time War was life. I took the power out of her. She’s gone, Jack. She’s not just living in a parallel world, she’s trapped there. The walls have closed…
… Those coordinates there. Set them all to six. And hurry up!…
… Rose Tyler, you are magic…
… Like that, did you? New dance. Very popular in 1970’s Philadelphia. Called the Bumble. Early precursor to the Hustle …
… Right then, Rose Tyler, you tell me. Where do you want to go? Backwards or forwards in time? It’s your choice. What’s it gonna be?...
… Except that implies - In this grand scheme of gods and demons - that she’s just a victim. But I’ve seen a lot of this universe. I’ve seen fake gods and bad gods and demi gods and would-be gods - out of all that - out of that whole pantheon - If I believe in one thing… I believe in her…
… Beautiful Rose…
… Clever Rose…
… Precious Rose …
… Forever Rose …
“Rose!”
Rose shot from her sleep with a gasp, scrambling in the darkness to find her bearings. Light spread across the floor of her office in an abstract rectangle, and she blinked as she tried to focus on the person standing it the doorway. Her stomach did a funny flip as she sat up, but she took a deep breath and pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead.
“Yeah. What?”
“You’re gonna wanna see this.”
“Jack?” she mumbled, tossing back the jacket she’d used to cover her upper body as she tried to catch a couple hours sleep. They’d been working around the clock on the Dimension Cannon since it hummed to a semi-life three days earlier.
Captain Jack Harkness came across the room and offered his hand, pulling her to her feet. Her limbs were heavy, like she’d been swimming too long and her muscles didn’t know how to work in full gravity. Jack gripped her upper arm, steadying her until she found her footing and forced her mind to shake off the dregs of sleep. The hairs on her arms stood up with gooseflesh, and somewhere in the back of her mind, she still heard whispered voices that she couldn’t quite catch. Jack smoothed one of his large hands over her hair with a gentle touch.
Sometimes she forgot that he wasn’t the Jack she’d known… he was so similar.
“Sorry I woke you up, beautiful. But I knew-“
“Thank you,” she mumbled and tugged at the hem of her oversized jumper, making sure it fell over her hips. “Tell me.”
They left the office walking side-by-side, his hand cupping her elbow, and she squinted against the brightness of the Torchwood halls.
“At exactly 8:02 it was like someone turned on a switch. The whole thing powered up, humming so loud the walls are vibrating.”
Rose looked at her watch. Seven minutes past eight. At least they hadn’t wasted any time coming to get her. Or, Jack didn’t waste any time. She had no idea what Dr. Brandyn said or did. He was still miffed that an ‘uneducated’ nothing who he figured only got her job because of her famous ‘dad’ - and who might just be nutters since she believed she’d traveled through time and space in a parallel universe - had proven his brainiac, university educated scientists wrong weeks ago with their preliminary calculations. They’d all thanked her for her help, but he just scowled.
The ride down in the lift to the lower levels of Torchwood - commonly known as Research and Development, but called ‘The Dungeon’ by those who worked in it - felt like an eternity. When Rose first came here, she’d refused to wear a watch, a real watch, because she hated being trapped by the non-stop tick-tick of a second hand rotating around a circle. It was linear and boring and predictable, and she hated it. Now, every tick taunted her.
Hurry! Hurry! Time is running out!
“We’re getting some readings, but no one down there can make heads or tails of what it all means. Not surprising since not one of those boneheads even knows what they’re looking at,” Jack rambled on.
“What were they doing before it powered up?”
“Not a damn thing, that’s the most bizarre part about it. It’s eight in the morning, everyone was just rolling in. Half the staff isn’t even here yet. Joe the Janitor hadn’t finished mopping.”
When the lift doors opened, Rose had to catch her breath. Suddenly, every nerve in her skin tingled like every tiny hair had come to life and sparked with electricity. She quickly looked to Captain Jack, and he slid her a sidelong glance with a grin, his deep dimples showing. He strode out of the lift, calling out as he walked.
“I’ve got Rose.”
Dr. Brandyn looked up from one of the computer stations that formed a half-circle around the massive device they’d dubbed the Dimension Cannon. It didn’t look like a cannon, but the way it propelled its ‘passenger’ carried much the same force as being shot from a cannon. Well, she supposed if you titled your head and kind of looked at it sideways, it could pass as a cannon. It was a massive circular feat of science with the inner ‘tube’ large enough for a tall man to stand in and Rose couldn’t quite touch the walls on either side of her when she stood inside.
They could only assume the ‘effect’ on the body when the cannon was actually used, since until then no one had been able to make all the lights come on - let alone get it to work.
Jack’s description had been accurate. The cannon emanated a low, constant hum that vibrated through the floor. The interior of the cannon glowed a bright blue with random yellow and orange lights flashing through the clear walls. Rose kept tilting her head, trying to clear away the sound. It was like having water in her ears that she couldn’t shake. Things were muffled.
The baby moved suddenly, feeling so much like a sharp jerk that it nearly made her double over and she barely covered her gasp. It didn’t hurt, but she’d never felt the baby move with such force. Usually, she felt no more than a flutter, a whisper.
“What have we got?” she asked, hiding her kneejerk reaction by sliding into one of the empty computer stations.
Suddenly, the heavy jumper she wore was smothering and she wondered if her cheeks were flushed as bright as they felt. The hair on her arms prickled again to life, and something stirred in her chest akin to panic. She blinked and reached toward the keyboard with trembling hands. With a few brusque taps of her fingers, she was logged in and the same data scrolling on Brandyn’s screen filled hers.
Rose leaned closer, scanning the image. A familiarity slipped over her, comforting even though she couldn’t quite place it. Like she’d seen this before, just a glimpse. So beautiful…
“It’s nothing. Means nothing. Just light and color,” Dr. Brandyn mumbled.
“Don’t be stupid,” she snapped, touching the screen. “Can’t you see it? Here? The ribbon? It’s twisted, knotted. Frayed.”
Dr. Brandyn came to her station, looking over her shoulder. “No, Ms. Tyler. I don’t see anything but a bunch of colors and light.”
Jack leaned over on the other side of her, squinting at the image as he laid his hand on her shoulder. “I think I do. Here,” he said, touching the screen as he traced the line of the ribbon that Rose saw. “It knots here. And it’s broken here… looks like it’s split up the middle. But this part, it loops back on itself before getting all knotted.”
Rose nodded and looked back at Jack, smiling. She knew enough about this Jack Harkness to know that some things paralleled with the man she knew. Both were ‘Time Agents’, both had bounced around the universe a time or two… and both enjoyed ‘dancing’. She smirked and turned back to the screen.
“I’m going to try something.”
Rose had no idea what she wanted to do, but something soft and demanding whispered to her. She laid her fingers on the keyboard, took a deep breath, then began typing. Instinct drove every keystroke until her hands flew so fast the computer couldn’t keep up. When Rose stopped, the computer screen continued trying to display what she’d keyed for at least another thirty seconds.
When it caught up, the computer beeped, and the screen blinked - going black. All the screens went black.
“Lovely, Ms. Tyler. You’ve-“
Before Dr. Brandyn could finish, the computers popped to life again. The colorscape was gone, replaced by several windows that came up so fast they overlapped each other. It reminded Rose of when she used to play solitaire on Shireen’s computer. On the rare occasions that she won, the deck of cards would bounce and flow all over the screen until it was depleted.
In this case, instead of cards it was news reports, magazine pages, websites and blogs.
“Save all this. Can we save it?” she asked of no one in particular.
“I’m on it,” someone shouted from several stations down.
“Do you see the dates?” Jack asked, still watching over her shoulder.
Rose nodded. “Yeah.”
The same date would appear on half a dozen news flashes. But, all the stories would be very different. One date alone reported the draining of the Thames, while another reported sightings all over London of bizarre little flubbery creatures escaping through doggie doors. Another reported the deaths of hundreds. On the same date, hundreds were reported as falling ill, but recovered only to find that they’d somehow dropped a good stone’s worth of weight.
Newspapers reported the sighting of what appeared to be an aircraft over London that looked like the Titanic. The ship was reported to have flown low over the city, only to pull up short and disappear from the Earth’s atmosphere. Yet, another report from the United States said the exact same aircraft crashed into Buckingham Palace. Hundreds were killed, but the death toll would have been worse if the city hadn’t been nearly empty. And another paper reported the horrendous deaths of thousands of Londoners when the same described ship crashed into the center of the city.
All the same dates… all slightly different versions of the same event.
They’d connected to a parallel world… but a parallel world with multiple timelines.
“Is that even possible?” Rose mumbled to herself.
“It’s going to take weeks to muddle through all this,” Dr. Brandyn mumbled.
“Then I suggest we get started,” Jack said, straightening as he set his hand on Rose’s shoulder again.
The images continued to stack so quickly that she couldn’t see most of them or register what they were about, until the photo on one news article caught her attention.
“Oh, god,” she choked out, grabbing the mouse beside the keyboard to click back through the windows that had already worked to cover it.
She finally found it again, and pulled the window forward. The words across the top of the page swam in her vision, and she felt lightheaded, a steel fist closing around her heart.
BLUE POLICE CALL BOX FOUND AT THE BOTTOM OF DRAINED THAMES.
“Oh, god,” she whispered again.
Rose didn’t realize she’d tilted in the chair until Jack’s arms came around her, steadying her. He crouched beside her chair, using his body to keep her from tumbling to the floor. Rose turned her head slowly, blinking like she was in some drug-induced haze. She couldn’t focus and the words coming from Jack’s mouth didn’t quite line up with the movement of his lips.
“Are you okay?”
She tried to answer, but couldn’t make her mouth work. Jack stood, leveraging her to her feet so she stood with him. He said something to the techs to work on saving the files, and that he and she would be working in his office. The sheer force of his movements gave her momentum to move with him, putting one foot in front of the other.
Jack’s office was in the Dungeon, just down the hall from the cannon, and he ushered her inside, closing the door behind him with an audible click of the lock. Rose sank heavily onto the leather couch that sat against one wall. She shook all over, and cold sweat battled with the smothering effect of her jumper.
Jack crouched in front of her, his hands on her legs, studying her. “You gonna be okay?”
Rose nodded, finally feeling like some of equilibrium was returning. “Yeah, it’s just… could you feel it?”
Jack nodded. “Not as strong as you do, I think. You looked like you were going to keel over in there, beautiful.”
“I’ll be fine.” She took a deep breath, sinking back into the couch. “Thanks for getting me. Dr. Brandyn doesn’t exactly like me being involved.”
“I get that, but what I don’t get is why.”
“I showed ‘im up. Guess actually travelin’ in a time machine gives me a little edge over his scientists. It’s been a fight since I got here, and especially since you brought back that cannon. He’s convinced the only reason I want to help is so I can go back.”
“Isn’t it?”
Rose met his eyes. “Yeah.” She smiled and nodded. “But he doesn’t need to know that.”
Jack laughed and shifted to sit on the couch beside her. “Then I guess it’s all worth fighting for.”
Rose barely managed to hold back the small hiccup that hit her.
“Rose, you are worth fighting for.”
Jack laid his hand on her shoulder. “Is it something I said?”
She swallowed, reminding herself once again that this Jack Harkness wasn’t the same Jack Harkness who died on Satellite Five. “Sort of.”
“Rose, I’ve been meaning to ask you something… about that other world. I mean, I know that you probably met thousands of people and aliens and whatnot, but-“
She nodded before he finished. “Yeah, I knew you. The you of the other universe. The other…” Rose cleared her throat. “Back home.”
“Just the way you look at me sometimes, I wonder. I mean…” He grinned, the classic cocky grin of Captain Jack Harkness from any universe. “I’m used to beautiful women looking at me-“
“Oh, shut up,” she laughed.
“So did we-“
“No!” she cut him off. Then added with a grin. “Not that you didn’t want to.”
“Well, of course. Who wouldn’t? You’re beautiful, Rose Tyler.”
Rose let herself enjoy the warm flush that blossomed up her throat to her cheeks. It had been a long time since anyone had told her she was beautiful, and the last man had been the Doctor, but that didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy hearing it from someone else. “Thank you.”
“How did we know each other? Torchwood there?”
She shook her head. “No, actually… um… you travelled with the Doctor and me for awhile. Not very long, but… yeah, you were with us in the TARDIS. We met in London during World War II.”
Jack grinned, shifting deeper into the couch cushions. “Aaahhh, the good old days. I’ve never seen anything like London then, not before and not since. I came here from there. Guess things happened a bit different there, then.”
“Yeah, a bit…”
“Why did I stop travelling with you?”
Rose blinked against the tears that immediately sprang to her eyes. “You don’t want to know that, Jack. Not that it’ll ever happen that way here, but-“
“Did I die a hero?”
When he asked the question, he looked straight at her, and all joking had left his eyes. Rose stared back and pressed her lips together, nodding before she answered. “Yeah. You did.”
He grinned, the cockiness back in a flash. “Well, there’s that.”
Rose pulled her knees to her chest, resting her feet on the edge of the couch. Even though her mind knew that the man beside her wasn’t the man she remembered, she still felt some comfort in his presence. She knew she should be out in the control room, trying to decipher the information that had been pulled from the cannon, but she was so tired she couldn’t force her body to move. Whether it was the baby, or the lack of sleep, or a combination of both she didn’t know.
“Can I ask you one other thing? You don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to. I figure you’ve kept it to yourself this long…”
“What?”
“I don’t pretend to understand how this would work, but I’d bet dollars to donuts that you’re pregnant.” Before she could protest, he raised a hand to stop her. “I’ve spent a lot of time around women, Rose. Women of all ages, and even a few aliens here and there. I know a pregnant woman when I see one… but the thing is, I’ve been seeing one for a very long time.”
He waited until he was done before he looked at her, and by then the tears already rolled down her cheeks. Rose swallowed, but she couldn’t speak yet. So, she just nodded and pulled her knees closer to her chest. After a few moments, she managed to suck in another breath.
“Please don’t tell anyone, Jack,” she whispered.
“I won’t. I promise.” He reached out and took her hand, prying it from the death grip she had around her knees. Jack just held it on the cushion between them. “This Doctor of yours seems like an amazing man, and I’m going to do everything in my power to help you get home to him. I promise you, Rose.”
“Thank you.”
She sighed and leaned sideways to rest her head on his shoulder, still holding his hand. It didn’t matter what universe she was in, Jack Harkness was a hero.
Author's Note: In case you want to know where all the quotes came from, here's a list...
1. "I Believe in You" - part of the Unseen and In Between Series.
2. The Shakespeare Code - Season 3
3. "The Fruit of Kasterbarous" - Part of the Unseen and In Between Series.
4. Army of Ghosts - Season 2
5. Evolution of the Daleks - Season 3
6. Parting of the Ways - Season 1
7. "Everything Rose wanted to know about a Time Lord, and apparently wasn't afraid to ask - Lesson #4"- Part of the Unseen and In Between Series
8. Utopia - Season 3
9. Doomsday - Season 2
10. "TARDIS Lullabye" - Part of the Unseen and In Between Series
11. "Two Steps Forward, One Back" - Part of the Unseen and In Between Series
12. End of the World - Season 1
13. The Satan Pit - Season 2
14-17. Various points through the Unseen and In Between Series, beginning with "Two Steps Forward, One Back".