Request Fic: Forming Judas 3/4
Story: Forming Judas
Author: wmr
wendymr
Characters: The Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Jackie Tyler, possibly others
Rated: PG13
Disclaimer: Doctor Who and its associated characters are the property of the BBC. I'm only borrowing them to play with them for a short while.
Summary: "I only came to say goodbye. Won’t be coming again.” Sequel to Finding Judas and Fixing Judas.
Written by request for
debs7, who asked in the 'ask me a question about a fic' meme for: ten years after Fixing Judas. And with very many thanks to
dark_aegisfor terrific BRing and support and, in this chapter, for a brilliant suggestion.
Chapter 1: Bad Parking l Chapter 2: Avoidance
Chapter 3: Truth
Rose has pulled away from him and is halfway to the Doctor before he’s even finished speaking. She’s right. No matter what keep-off signs the Doctor’s sending out, no matter how strong they are, that’s not what he needs.
In four strides, he’s joined Rose and, between them, they hold the Doctor, arms wrapped around him, Rose’s face pressed to his chest and his own head against the Doctor’s shoulder.
For a long moment, he stands between them, rigid, stiff, unresponsive. And then, suddenly, his arms come around them and he grips the two of them in a compulsive movement. There’s a choking, gulping sound and Jack realises that it’s coming from the Doctor.
There are questions, so many questions - what exactly happened; where the Cybermen came from; what the Doctor’s strategy was; how Lauren happened to get into the line of fire; how exactly she died. And, of course, who was Lauren? How long did she travel with the Doctor?
The rest of their questions are answered, of course: why the Doctor came to them, and why he’s saying their relationship’s finished and that he won’t be coming back. He’s lost someone else he loved. He’s blaming himself. And he’s hurting so much he can hardly bear to go on.
Rose catches his gaze, and indicates with her eyes in the direction of the interior door. She’s right; this isn’t the best place. “Come on.” Summoning a bracing tone, he encourages the Doctor to come with them. He does, moving like an automaton, until they get him into the room Rose many years ago christened the den.
The Doctor collapses into a sofa, then catches both their hands to pull them down beside him. It’s progress.
They share a long silence as the minutes go past, turning into what feels like an hour or more as the three of them sit together, leaning into each other. The Doctor leans his head back, his breathing becoming less ragged as the minutes tick by.
Finally, eyes still shut, he says, “Go on. I know you want to.”
“Want to what?” Rose asks, without moving.
“Ask me questions.” The hand around Jack’s tightens for a moment.
Where to start? But Rose, after a few moments, says quietly, “Tell us about Lauren. She was special to you, yeah?”
They all are, of course. Everyone the Doctor’s travelled with. And there’ve been plenty in the years since he and Rose were in the TARDIS full-time. The Doctor comes for them when he’s between companions, but sometimes there’s overlap between companions and it’s been a decade or two for him before he’s come back, and then when he takes them with him again the stories of his adventures in the meantime carry three, four, sometimes five new names.
Lauren’s a new name, too. But then he did tell them that it’s been a long time for him since he’s been back here.
“Yes,” the answer comes, and it’s barely audible. “She was. Very.”
Rose shifts so that her arm’s across the Doctor’s waist and her head on his shoulder again, hugging him, this new body they don’t know yet but is still their Doctor. “Tell us.”
For a long moment, it seems as if he’s not going to answer them. And then he says, his voice stronger than before, “She was strong and determined and passionate. Impulsive, too - too impulsive. Had a ferocious temper, and used it on me plenty of times. And she was caring and decent and wise and very, very beautiful.”
Rose twitches just a little at that but, to her credit, she immediately says, “She sounds nice. How old was she?”
“Twenty-eight when I met her. That was... oh, two years ago, almost.”
Thirty. So, with a life she left behind when she went with the Doctor, probably with a family - though unlikely to be married or living with someone - and a job. “Human?” he asks, just checking, though with a name like Lauren she probably is.
“Yeah, human. American, actually. I met her in 2078, Earth calendar.” The Doctor scrubs his face roughly, takes a deep breath and then continues. “She was a travel agent. Spent all day every day booking people on holidays to all sorts of exotic places - places she always wanted to go to herself but she couldn’t afford it.”
And with the Doctor she could go anywhere.
“She must have loved travelling with you,” Rose says softly.
“Oh, she did. So much.” He closes his eyes again, then adds, very quietly, “And I loved her travelling with me.”
More than that, it’s obvious. He loved her, very much. “You were close,” he prompts, because he thinks the Doctor needs to say it. To acknowledge it.
“Yes.” The reply is abrupt. Then, suddenly, the Doctor launches himself upwards and across the room, pacing agitatedly. “You want to know how close? You really want the details? How many times we slept together? How often she told me she loved me? What she sounded like when she -”
“Stop!” Rose exclaims, and Jack shoots a concerned glance at her. He’s never thought that the Doctor saved himself, sexually, for the two of them; he only sees them once every several years. He had companions who became lovers before the two of them came into his life, and naturally he’d continue that. And, after all, the two of them are together when they’re not with him; why shouldn’t he have companionship?
And it’s good that he does that, anyway. Because the Doctor they met first, and the Doctor he became, held himself aloof far too much. He wouldn’t allow himself to get close. That he’s opening up now to new companions shows how far he’s come from the broken, closed-off Doctor they knew ten years ago. Or how far he came, before this set-back.
But Rose has tended, over the years, to idealise the Doctor a bit, even despite giving him a few home truths the first time the two of them came to this universe to find her. He wouldn’t be surprised, really, if she did believe that he’s celibate during the times they’re not with him.
This Lauren, though, was not only a lover; he was in love with her. No wonder he’s devastated.
Rose is already going to him, her hands reaching out for his. “Course we don’t, Doctor. She’s dead an’ you’re hurting. That’s all we care about. You know that.”
“I don’t deserve your sympathy. She’s dead and I killed her,” he says, tone harsh, eyes bleak.
***
“You said that before.” She tightens her hands around his, refusing to let him pull away. “Doctor, it was the Cybermen. It wasn’t your fault.”
He meets her gaze then, and the anguish and guilt in his eyes is tearing her apart. “It wasn’t the Cybermen. It was me.”
“What happened?” Jack’s standing nearby now.
“These were original Cybermen. Not like Lumic’s lot. You can kill these ones with gold.” He’s speaking quickly, as if, if he doesn’t manage to get the words out now, he never will. “So I’d got some gold. Rounded up some locals to help, too. We weren’t winning, but we were holding our own. Just about. I mean, we couldn’t have held on indefinitely, but I’d have come up with a plan sooner or later.”
The hands in hers tighten; she’ll have bruises later.
“I heard Lauren scream, but I was trying to stop a Cyberman dragging off one of the locals. By the time I looked around, I couldn’t see her anywhere.”
Ice-cold chills run through her. Even though it’s twenty years ago now, she can still remember sneaking into Lumic’s Cyber factory; still remembers following the original Jackie of this universe, only to see her taken into the conversion chamber. And it doesn’t take a genius to work out what happened to Lauren.
“I found her eventually,” he says, and it’s clear that he’s barely holding on to control. “When we were clearing up. We defeated them. Had a lucky break - reinforcements arrived with weapons and more gold. But the Cybermen had conversion pods. Highly unreliable, they were. The conversion process didn’t always work, not completely.”
“Oh, god.” Jack’s interjection is barely above a whisper, and her gaze shoots to him. He’s white-faced, and instantly she realises why. He told her, after all, about Ianto and his Lisa.
“I found her,” the Doctor repeats. “What was left of her. Most of her body and half of her face was converted, but her brain was still intact. She knew exactly what’d happened to her.”
The thought of what Lauren must have looked like sends chills through her again. And how the poor woman must have felt...
“She begged me to help her. What could I say? What should I have said? How could I tell her there was nothing I could do for her?”
“What did you say?” she asks.
“I... couldn’t.” And that makes so much sense. He’s always been useless at words at times like these.
“There was nothing you could do to save her,” Jack says. “Nothing, Doctor. You know that as well as I do.”
Jack’s right. Now she understands why the Doctor says he killed her - and it really was the only thing he could have done.
“I had one handful of gold left.” There are tears streaming down the Doctor’s face now, but he’s still talking, and again the words are pouring out. “She reached up and kissed me, and she grabbed my hand - the one with the gold in it.”
“She was telling you what to do, Doctor,” Jack says, and he takes the couple of steps to close the gap between them.
“I’m trying to tell myself that.” He closes his eyes and takes a shuddering breath. “I held the gold to her chest. I kissed her and I killed her, in the same minute.”
“You had to,” Jack reiterates. “You had no choice.”
“Yeah.” She presses closer to him. “Doctor, she wouldn’t have wanted to live like that. You know that. If it was me, I’d’ve wanted you to do it too.”
A mercy killing. He knows it, really. He must know it. He’s no fool, the Doctor; never has been. He’s just hurting, that’s all, and so he’s not thinking straight.
“You wouldn’t have wanted that for her, either, Doctor. And if you hadn’t done that for her she’d have gone mad,” Jack says. “I’ve seen a half-converted human. I’ve seen what it did to her - half-Cyber, half-human, neither one thing nor the other. The part of her brain that realised what’d happened to her was driving her insane. And the rest of her was trying to kill everyone in sight.”
The Doctor nods. “I know that, Jack. Of course I know it!” he says, and even through his tears his tone’s savage. “If it was Rose, could you do it? Would you have the slightest hesitation?”
Jack looks straight at her as he answers. “If it was Rose, yes, I’d kill her. Without any hesitation. Because I know it’s what she’d want.” He blows out a breath. “Would it hurt me to do it? Course it would. I’d probably be as much a basket-case as you are. But where there’s no other choice...”
The Doctor nods, then frees his hands, scrubbing his eyes with the back of one. “Anyway, so now you know. That’s why it’s not safe to be with me. I can’t keep people safe.”
Oh, he’s not back to that, is he?
She’s about to argue, but Jack pre-empts her and steers the subject away. “Something I’m curious about, Doctor. You said you’d won - the Cybermen were defeated. So how come you regenerated?”
A bitter laugh precedes the Doctor’s answer. “Poetic justice. I killed Lauren with the gold... and she shot me.”
***
In his head, he’s back there, on Ngaya and on the battlefield.
Screams all around. The tramp of metal feet. The screech and clatter of the conversion pods. Metallic voices issuing commands, making threats. ERADICATE!
His nose burns with the stench, too. Seared flesh. Blood everywhere. The unmistakeable smell of fear.
His own fear, too: for everyone he’s talked into fighting with him, and for Lauren. Her scream’s echoing in his ear, but he can do nothing about it. Nothing to help her. All he can do is trust in her, believe that she’ll do everything she can to keep herself safe, because he can’t help her. He’s got to fight on, because if he doesn’t, if he retreats to find her the others will give up.
It’s not until later, after B’jido arrives with reinforcements and explosives and destroys the conversion pods, that he’s able to look for her.
The memory’s burned into his brain. Seeing her, half-Cyber, half-Lauren. The couple of seconds it takes to realise that this is reality, not the nightmare of his fears. The dawning knowledge of what he has to do, because there’s nothing he can do to save her. Kissing her and betraying her in that same second.
After that, dying could only be a mercy. In the second he realises she’s raising her gun, aiming it at his right heart and firing, he’s almost glad. The pain and the fire coursing through him as he falls is just punishment, and oblivion, when it comes, is welcome.
Arms tight around him; voices in his ear, call his name and demand his attention. And he’s recalled to the present.
“Come on. Come and sit down.” Rose, of course. What ever made him think she’d leave him alone just because he told her to?
But he lets them lead him back to the couch, all the same. He’s not sure he has the energy to do anything else, and anyway his legs don’t really seem to want to hold him up any more.
And, for a long time, they leave him to his memories.
“You regenerated, of course.” Jack’s tone is matter-of-fact, but the hand holding his offers more comfort than he deserves.
He shrugs. “As you see.”
“And you came straight here.” It’s not a question, though he treats it as one.
“Told you. I came to say goodbye.”
“So you said.” And Jack doesn’t believe him. Tough. He’ll realise it’s true, all right, when this does turn out to be the last time either of them see him. “You’d just regenerated and you were in no shape to think straight. And you take the TARDIS straight through the Void to tell us we’re off the guest list? I don’t think so.”
He’s about to argue with that, and to complain about Jack’s focus on the two of them - him and Rose - given what he’s just told them, when his brain starts to clear. It’s a common tactic of Jack’s: when he’s got something on his mind that they don’t want him obsessing over, the Captain always seems to be able to introduce a red herring that tears his focus away from the main issue. It’s not going to work this time.
“That’s not what I meant, anyway,” Jack continues. “What about Lauren? What did you do with her? After you woke up, I mean.”
“What? You think I just left her body there, on the battlefield?” The angry accusation’s out before he remembers that Jack, of all people, has every reason to know that he’s very capable of doing just that.
“I don’t know. That’s why I asked.”
“Course I didn’t.” And he’s back on the battlefield again, struggling to his feet in a new, unfamiliar body, taller and bulkier than he’d been before and feeling ungainly as a result. Staggering up and finding his gaze drawn by the half-Cyberised body at his feet. Acting on autopilot as he picked her up and carried her back to the TARDIS.
“She’s in the med-lab,” he tells them. Sealed in a thermal drawer, the TARDIS’s equivalent of a morgue. It’s a facility he hasn’t used for centuries.
“What about her family?” Rose’s hand tightens around his. “She had family, right?”
Family. Oh, she had family, all right. Parents who disapproved of him every bit as much as Jackie Tyler and Francine Jones, and many more companions’ parents since, had. Unlike Jackie, Lauren’s parents never changed their minds about him. Every time he took her home, they pleaded with her to leave him, used emotional blackmail, told her that he’d get her killed.
Well, he’s just managed to prove them right.
“You haven’t told them, have you?” Rose persists. “You have to, Doctor. You know you have to.”
Tell Lauren’s parents what happened to her? That he’s the one who killed her? Never. An army of Daleks would be preferable.
He turns his head to meet Rose’s gaze. For some reason, her face seems blurred. “I can’t.”
***
“Oh, Doctor.”
For all his courage in the face of danger, when it comes to relationships he’s still a complete coward, isn’t he? He can’t do this, though. She’s got to make him see that.
He’s looking away again, trying - too late - to hide his tears. And part of her just wants to hold him and tell him that it’s okay. That he’s been through enough pain and she won’t make him do anything he doesn’t want to. That if he wants to hide away - here in this universe, or inside the TARDIS on the other side of his own universe - he can.
But that’s not the right thing to do, either for him or for Lauren. Or for her family. If she and Jack let him avoid doing the right thing now, he’ll regret it later, too.
Whatever his excuse, he’s come here because he needs their help. She’s not going to let him down; not now, not ever.
“Back when I was first travelling with you, Doctor,” she begins, keeping hold of his hand between both of hers, “it was all about the excitement. Yeah, it was dangerous, but everything we saw, everything we did - that made it worth it. I knew I could die any time, but I didn’t care. Like I told you once, I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”
He flinches. They never really did talk about that, of course. Him locking her in with a Dalek, both of them expecting her to be killed.
“There was only ever one thing that bothered me about the thought of getting killed.” She’s looking straight at him again now, holding his gaze, not letting him look away. Those unfamiliar green eyes, still damp with his tears, look back at her. “My mum. Waiting at home for me, worried sick. How she’d feel if I never came back. But I held on to one thing. Reassurance. I knew, though you never said it, that if anything happened to me you’d go and tell Mum. You’d bring my body home, if you could.” She pauses just long enough to let her words sink in. “You telling me I was wrong?”
“Oh, I’d have gone to Jackie.” He’s smiling suddenly, but with black humour. “She’d have chased me to the end of the universe if I hadn’t. Couldn’t avoid it.”
“And you won’t do the same for Lauren’s family?” Jack interjects.
“What can I tell them?” The Scottish accent’s even more pronounced now. “Your daughter got turned into a metal alien. I killed her to stop her killing anyone else.” He mimes speech-marks. “And I give them her body, do I? Half-metal, half-human. You think any parent wants that brought home to them in place of their daughter?”
“It’s better than nothing at all,” Jack says. He’s leaning against the bookcase on the other side of the room, arms folded. “If it was Rose, I’d want her, even if she was fully Cyber.”
“It’s different for you.” The Doctor’s tone is impatient now, but at least the tears have gone. “You’ve been out there. You’ve seen the universe - you know what can happen. These are ordinary humans from a small town in the American mid-west. The most out-of-the-ordinary thing they’ve seen’s the time somebody cross-bred a pig with a sheep.”
“Ask Jackie what she’d have wanted, all those years ago.” Jack’s persistent, and she’s glad of it. “Think about it, Doctor. Yes, you loved her. But she was their daughter, and they deserve to know, and they deserve to get her back, even if she is barely recognisable as the woman they loved.”
***
He could ask Jackie. But then he already knew that, and it did cross his mind earlier. If Pete hadn’t interrupted, he might have.
But, really, he doesn’t need to. He knows exactly what she’d say. And, too, he knows exactly what Mike and Alicia Barrett would want. Knows what he owes them.
Not yet, though. He can’t do it yet; that’s the simple truth. He knows damn well what he’s doing here, in this universe, with Rose and Jack. It’s got nothing to do with coming to tell them goodbye, even if he is serious about ending what he’s had with them. He’s hiding. He’s come here to lick his wounds, while looking for any excuse to delay the inevitable.
They know that, too. He can see it written all over Jack’s face. They’re not letting him get away with it, either. Oh, he can stay here as long as he wants; they won’t throw him out. But neither will they let him forget his obligations.
And maybe that’s exactly why he’s here.
He scrubs his face with one hand again. “Got any milk in the house? Could murder a coffee, but I think the milk in the kitchen’s off.”
“Sure.” Jack straightens, moving away from the bookcase. “Can even do better than that if you want.”
Back inside the house, Rose makes coffee and Jack cooks; he hadn’t realised it was so late and neither of them had eaten. After dinner, a bottle of single malt is produced and the three of them clink glasses.
“To Lauren,” Rose says softly.
“She died a hero,” Jack adds. That’s true, of course; as did so many others he’s lost through the centuries. Katarina. Adric. Sara Kingdom. Captain Sorin. Gwyneth. Sir Robert and several of his staff. Scooti Manista. Mrs Moore - or Angela Price, as he prefers to remember her.
He’s so old, so tired, now. He’s heard that died a hero line too many times, and it’s lost any ability it once had to comfort.
Still. “Lauren,” he echoes, and drinks deeply. He doesn’t refuse a refill when Jack offers, nor again the third or fourth times.
Later, when the two of them offer him their hands and they lead him back upstairs, he goes. No, he can’t hide here, in this universe, with them, for ever, but decisions can wait until tomorrow. Tonight, they’re offering him shelter and comfort, and he’s not stupid enough to reject that again.
So many nights he’s shared this bed with the two of them, but tonight’s different. No lovers’ games tonight. Just the comfort of their arms around him as he drifts off to sleep, their presence and their touch helping to banish the memories, even if just temporarily.
In his dreams, she’s next to him again, her warm human body curled into his, her arms around him and her breath soft against his skin. She’s here, his Lauren, and he needs her so much. In his dreams, he wraps his arms around her, pulls her beneath him and presses his lips to hers, kissing her over and over as he drives his body home.
“Lauren, my Lauren.” Her name emerges on a sob as he comes, and it’s only then that he realises he isn’t dreaming, and that the woman whose body he’s inside isn’t Lauren at all.
***
In the morning, the Doctor’s gone.
He and Rose are alone in the bed, and the clothes the Doctor was wearing the day before, and that he left folded on a chair, have gone.
In the kitchen, a note sits propped up against the coffee-machine. In handwriting that’s new to them, it says:
Thank you. I’ll never forget you.
And under that, two Gallifreyan symbols they’ve seen before - the same symbols that appear on the back of that photograph Mickey took of the three of them ten years earlier. The Doctor’s Gallifreyan name, and I love you.
He’s gone. And, judging by this note, he’s not coming back.
***
tbc