Fixing Judas 2/7?
Story: Fixing Judas
Author: WMR
Rated: Mostly PG13, though one chapter may go higher
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, brief appearances by Martha Jones and others.
Spoilers: Torchwood up to around They Keep Killing Suzie. Doctor Who: all the way to The Runaway Bride, some usage of S3 trailer material.
Summary: He's still doing it: pushing people away rather than letting them get too close, because they always leave. But it still hurts him when they go, and he's still alone.
With thanks, as always, to the wonderful dark_aegis and
nnwest for all their help :). This is a sequel to Finding Judas, which needs to be read first for this to make any sense.
Chapter 1: Another Goodbye
Chapter 2: The Captain’s Wife
So that’s why she was being so cagey, never referring to her husband by name. The little minx was setting him up for this surprise.
So much for Rose still loving him, still missing him. Not that he imagined she was, of course. Not that that’s the reason he came here, came to see her. It’s just that she’s an old friend, someone he knows will be glad to see him.
Jack and Rose. He never would have expected it... and yet it makes perfect sense. Jack, though, married, settled down with one partner? Not at all what he ever expected from the man who prided himself on being an intergalactic, multi-time playboy. The more the merrier was always his philosophy.
Not, though, the last time they met. That’s the difference.
And so Jack’s going to have to see him after all. He’d hoped to spare his one-time friend that.
“We’ve got a visitor,” Rose is saying as she releases Jack.
The other man turns, looks in his direction and then does a double-take. “Doctor!”
The smile - no, the broad grin - he gets is genuine, and he’s stunned by it. He notices something else, too. Although he’s six years older and there’s a touch of grey around his temples now, Jack looks younger than when they last met. More carefree. The bleak emptiness has gone from his eyes, and he’s learned how to smile again. How to laugh. He’s the Jack he and Rose first met, back in 1941.
Before he has a chance to do anything more than begin to smile and raise a hand in a tentative wave in return, Jack’s striding towards him. His face is taken between two warm hands, and familiar lips cover his in an enthusiastic kiss.
He has to respond - how can he not? - but at the same time he’s reeling inside. Jack, whom he knew was so close to hating him last time they met, is genuinely happy to see him.
“Wondered if we were ever going to see you again,” Jack says as he releases him. “Rose kinda thought so at first, but it’s been a few years.”
“Only two for me,” he points out. And then he has to say something about Jack’s reception of him. “Certainly didn’t expect this welcome from you. Not considering the last time we met.”
“Six years is a long time, Doctor. More than long enough to get over myself.” Jack grins lopsidedly, leaning his hip against the polished granite counter. “Besides, Rose told me some stuff that you never mentioned.”
“Such as?”
“Such as what you did with my uniform cap. I did wonder where that’d disappeared to. Nice idea, by the way. I was touched.”
Oh. Right. The ‘funeral’, such as it was, that they held for him, on a planet the three of them had been to together on one of the happy days. They buried his cap, a symbolic token of him since they had no body and he wasn’t able to bring himself to return to Satellite Five - for both his own sake and Rose’s - to find Jack’s body.
It was an emotional occasion, for both of them. Rose wasn’t the only one who cried. And, after, they held each other and talked about Jack, reminisced about the happy times, the dangerous times and even the sad times. And said goodbye.
He quirks an eyebrow at Jack. “Might’ve told you about that, yes. But would you’ve wanted to hear it?” Because he did tell Jack a lot, more than enough to know that he wasn’t abandoned, wasn’t forgotten. But his friend was too bitter to accept it.
Jack nods. “You’re right. I wasn’t ready to listen, not then. I am now.” He leans in and his lips press hard, briefly, against the Doctor’s again. “Thanks.”
“You’re staying for dinner, of course,” Jack adds, as if it’s not even a question, as he moves away, heading for the fridge. He shrugs. Might as well. Not as if he’s got to be anywhere in a hurry, and they’d see through any excuse he made.
“So how long’ve - ” He halts, remembering that Rose told him. “Right. Four years.”
They’ve been married four years, true. But how long were they together before that? Did Rose go straight from him to Jack? And yet she claimed she loved him. So much for that.
Though that’s not fair. If he thinks about it, didn’t he go straight from Jack to her? And, yes, he loved her - loves her still, really - but he refused to tell her. Hell, he loved Jack too but never said it - not that it would’ve been welcomed.
He should be happy that they’re together. He is happy. It’s just that, on top of Martha leaving, it only makes him feel more...
Alone.
“Married? Yeah.” Jack grins. “Rose show you the photos yet? You’d have a good laugh. She made me wear tails, would you believe it?”
“She never even told me it was you she’s married to,” he points out.
“Wanted to surprise you,” Rose says, grinning the way she used to, with her tongue peeking out from between her teeth. The kick he feels in his gut at that sight is startling. More. It’s alarming. Two years - three, if he counts from that day in Torchwood - since she was with him, and he still wants her that badly.
Scents of something Thai are coming from the cooker now, and he’s glad of the excuse to change the subject. “You always were good in the kitchen,” he says to Jack.
“Why d’you think I married him?” Rose says, still smiling. She leans against Jack briefly before coming over to sit at the counter with him.
A thought that didn’t occur to him until now just has to be addressed. “That why you stayed here, Jack? Because of Rose?”
Jack turns, and the surprised expression on his face is answer enough. But he says, “No, that had nothing to do with it. It was exactly as I told you - I needed a change of scene. Somewhere completely different, where no-one knew me. Well, apart from Rose. The fact that Rose was here - well, that was a bonus, because I knew she’d be able to help me get settled in.”
“Well, that was Dad, really,” Rose says. “He got you ID, same as he did me. An’ he took you to the Torchwood brass. They’d’ve been idiots to turn you down, with your experience.” She turns back to the Doctor. “The director knows Jack an’ me are from another universe, though not that Jack’s from the future. Had to tell her - it’s the only way we could explain how we got the experience we have.”
“You say that,” Jack comments dryly. “Didn’t stop them starting me off just as a team leader.”
“Hey, I was a team leader then, too! Don’t knock it,” Rose objects. Then she continues, “They promoted him after only a couple of months. Team lead co-ordinator, then manager. Now he’s a regional director, and I’m a team lead co-ordinator. Means we’re both away from home some nights, but we try to arrange it so our trips are at the same time and to the same place if we can manage it.”
He looks from one to the other, taking in the humour and the love for each other in their expressions. And, for the second time since arriving, he wishes he hadn’t come. For the first time ever in their friendship, he’s on the outside where Rose is concerned.
Even when Jack joined them in the TARDIS and for a few months it was the three of them, it was him and Rose first and Jack the added-on third. Oh, they didn’t deliberately try to exclude him, and he fitted in with them far better than Mickey did, but that’s the way it was and they all knew it.
Now, he knows exactly how Mickey, and everyone else who knew him and Rose when they were together, felt. It’s Rose and Jack here, and anyone else is just an outsider looking in.
He’s happy for them. Of course he is. But it’s not what he expected to find when he came looking for Rose.
Well, he’s stuck here for a couple of hours. After that, he can leave, and never cross the Rift again.
He’s still curious, though, so he has to ask. “So if it’s not why you stayed, Jack, how did you two get together?”
Jack shrugs. “It was probably inevitable, even though it didn’t happen for a few months. I stayed with Rose at first - asked if I could sleep on her couch, and she offered me her spare room. Then when I moved out a couple of months later... well, I guess I’d just got used to spending time with her, so I kept inviting her over to mine, or landing on her doorstep in the evenings and sometimes staying over.”
Ah. Right. Well, this is Jack, after all.
Rose must have seen his expression. “In my spare room,” she says pointedly. “Same when I stayed at his place.”
That does make sense. Though neither of them are referring to it, he remembers only too well Jack’s mental state when he left the TARDIS to stay in this universe. Even though he’d had the Time Vortex removed from him by then, Jack would have had a lot of recovering to do before he was anything approaching normal. No flirting. No kissing. No seduction games.
“Yeah.” Jack nods, turning back to the food he’s preparing. “I guess a lot of it was we’re the only ones who really understood, you know? I mean, it’s not as if we could exactly tell anyone else about our pasts. Especially mine. Even Rose’s parents don’t know all of that. Jackie knew I was with the two of you for a while, but she hasn’t a clue how long ago that was for me.”
That’s all true, and it makes him reflect again on what they’re not saying. After all, he remembers only too well Jack as he was six years ago in this universe’s timeline. Angry, bitter, hurt, uncommunicative - not the most congenial of flatmates. Or friends. It must have been a tough few months for Rose. Especially if Jack in any way held her to blame for what he went through.
It would have been a very hard time for both of them. Jack bitter and bleak on occasion, probably lashing out at anyone and anything in his hurt. Rose would’ve been a target, of course; no matter that Jack told her, when they met in the TARDIS, that he didn’t blame her, he knew even as he heard him say it that Jack was lying. He blamed Rose, and he blamed him.
Professional enough not to let his state of mind affect his work, Jack would have let it all build up inside, and then been hell to live with on occasion. If Rose’d stuck with him through all that time... well, she felt guilty about what she’d done to him, he knows that, but just guilt wouldn’t have been enough. It’s clear that she loves him - loved him enough to give him the time and the support he needed to get over a hundred years of anguish and abandonment.
Rose nods, and he can see the sympathy for Jack as she turns her gaze on her husband. “Wasn’t only that, though. I mean, thought you liked being with me!” she teases him.
Jack winks at her. “Guess you could say I did. Anyway,” he adds, “finally, we worked out that it just didn’t make sense having separate flats when we spent all our free time together, so I moved back in with Rose. Even then, though, nothing happened until Christmas - we went to Jackie and Pete’s for Christmas Day.”
“An’ Mum kept dropping hints,” Rose continues. “I don’t think she actually believed me when I told her we were just friends. Not with us living together and always doing everything together. Neither of us was dating anyone else, either.”
“Mistletoe was our downfall,” Jack comments with wry humour. “We got caught underneath it, so I had to kiss Rose.”
“Yeah.” Rose grins. “It was our first time - well, first time since the Game Station.”
The mention of Satellite Five makes the Doctor wince, and he watches Jack, sure there’ll be some sort of reaction. But he’s just smiling, as if it’s a fond memory.
“Soon as I got her home, I kissed her again, seeing as she didn’t seem to mind the first one.” He winks. “She didn’t mind that one either.”
“Well, that was hardly likely, seeing as I’d been wishing you’d kiss me for months,” Rose says with a roll of her eyes. “And it never even occurred to you, did it?”
Jack’s eyes widen. “Are you kidding? Course it did. But we were best friends, Rose. And with my history at relationships... I just didn’t want to start something that could ruin what we had.”
“Didn’t, though.” She’s grinning at her husband again.
“No.” Jack holds her gaze before turning his attention back to the Doctor. “But I realised after a while that Rose completely expected me to leave her and move on to someone else. She took a lot of convincing that that was the old me. That kind of life isn’t what I want any more. I asked her to marry me to prove I wanted to stay with her. Course, then she wouldn’t accept because she didn’t want to tie me down.” He rolls his eyes. “Took me nearly a year to convince her that I proposed because I really did want us to be married. If it’d been up to me, we’d have celebrated our fifth anniversary last month, not our fourth.”
“Congratulations,” he says, doing his best to inject enthusiasm into his voice. The two of them really are such a couple, aren’t they? So... couply.
Rose gives him a keen look through narrowed eyes. “What’s wrong? An’ don’t give me that,” she adds as he’s about to object that nothing’s wrong. “I know you too well. Even after all this time, you can’t fool me.”
He sighs, staring down into his almost-empty mug of tea. “It’s selfish, really. And I am happy for the two of you. I’m glad you’re together - can’t think of anyone I’d rather see either of you with. It’s just that...” He rubs the side of his face, feeling self-conscious. “Suppose I thought maybe you might’ve missed me. Just a bit, y’know.”
Rose stares at him, then reaches for his hand. “Are you kidding?”
Wishing he hadn’t said anything now, he’s about to laugh it off, pretend he was joking, but Jack gets in before him. “Come on. Got something to show you.” He’s taken the saucepans off the heat and is heading to the door.
With a shrug, he follows Jack out of the kitchen, Rose directly behind him. He’s led across the hallway into a spacious, comfortable living-room. Deep, squishy armchairs, a huge sofa, a wall-mounted plasma TV - that has to be Jack’s toy - DVD and satellite equipment and home theatre-style speakers.
Hands in pockets, a smile twitching at his lips, Jack jerks his head towards the fireplace. It’s an imitation fire - gas, he guesses - with a granite surround. On the mantelpiece, a couple of framed photographs stand. And something about them looks familiar.
“That’s us!” he exclaims, almost running over to pick one up. It’s him and Rose, in the outfits they wore as part of the catering staff that night at Pete’s mansion. They’re looking at each other and laughing, just as they did so many times. “But how?”
“Dad’s security cameras,” Rose explains, coming over to slide her hand through his arm and look at the photo with him, and he notices again just how easily the name seems to come from her for a man who isn’t biologically her father. But he shouldn’t be surprised. Right from the first time she saw Pete’s picture in this universe, she was ready to consider him her father. It’ll have been Pete who found the transition more difficult.
“He still had the tape,” Rose continues. “He took a few stills for me a few weeks after I ended up in this universe.”
And he can see in her face how much that meant to her. Still means to her. No, it’s not at all fair to say that Rose hasn’t missed him.
His eye’s caught then by a second photo; he shoves the first into Rose’s hand and reaches for the other one. It’s the former him this time, all leather jacket and big ears. He recognises the scene instantly: Woman Wept, the three of them standing with a huge frozen wave behind them, Rose in the centre and he and Jack both with arms around her. He remembers the moment: the three of them happy, enjoying their visit to the planet, and Jack rigging up something with his wrist computer - which he notices the man’s still wearing - to preserve the moment.
“That was in my room in the TARDIS,” Jack says. “Found it when I was packing.”
Right. When the two of them crossed the Void through the Rift to find Rose. And Jack took it with him, despite all the bitterness he was still feeling at the time. Even despite feeling betrayed, Jack obviously still missed the old him. Still wanted the reminder.
He nods to show that he understands. Jack holds his gaze for a long moment, then turns back towards the door. “Let’s eat.”
***
Conversation over dinner’s almost like old times, except he’s the audience for Jack and Rose’s tales of Torchwood exploits. Jack’s not lost his talent for exaggeration, or his ability to tell an entertaining story.
“...and then it turned around and I realised what it was. A Maniton.” Jack’s eyes are wide, his hands gesticulating, uncaring of the fork in one hand.
“A Maniton? With active poison glands?”
“Looked like it to me. Not that I was particularly interested in sticking around to find out.”
“Yeah, so he ran away backwards, almost knocked me over, then grabbed my gun - he managed to leave out the fact that he somehow mislaid his - an’ shot about half a dozen holes in the thing,” Rose finishes dryly.
The Doctor blinks. Rose with a gun? But of course; he shouldn’t be surprised. She does work for Torchwood, after all. Of course she has a weapon, and she’s been trained to use it.
“Anyway,” Jack continues, “we’d only just dispatched the Maniton when the ship’s porthole opens again and a fucking Vagron jumps out! And what the hell that was doing in there I had no idea. Not like they’re bosom buddies or anything.”
“So he’s yelling at the rest of the team to run like hell, and they’re all staring at him like he’s got two heads, cause this thing’s only about two feet high and they can’t see what’s so dangerous,” Rose adds with a grin.
“They’d’ve found out quickly enough if they’d got within spitting distance,” the Doctor comments with a crooked grin. “Literally!”
“Yeah,” Jack agrees dryly. “Told them that. Not sure they believed me.”
“What, the bloke who’d make the best second-hand spaceship dealer I’ve ever met?” He can’t help laughing at that. Jack really could convince anyone of anything, and not just while he was a conman.
Jack quirks an eyebrow. “Wanna buy a TARDIS? One less-than-careful owner, few knocks here and there, been around the block a few times... could cut you a good deal if you’re interested.”
When they’ve stopped laughing, and in the process adjourned to the living-room with a bottle of quite decent wine, a thought occurs to the Doctor. “Was wondering. Want to know how things are going back in your old Torchwood?”
“Yeah, I was gonna ask if you knew.” Jack runs a hand roughly through his hair. “I did feel kinda guilty for just walking out without any warning, let alone any kind of handover. But it wasn’t like you were gonna offer to take me back through the Void again. I had to take the chance while I had it.”
He rubs the back of his neck, then says tentatively, “I might have. If you’d asked.”
Jack looks very taken aback at that. He really has no idea, does he, what he would have been prepared to do for him. “I wouldn’t have, though. It was too rough on the TARDIS. I couldn’t do that to her.”
For a moment, something in Jack’s expression makes him wonder. Does he miss travelling through time and space? Is this apparent content with domesticity, with one time and place, a time three thousand years before he was born, only on the surface?
He has no intention of asking, though. That’s a whole can of worms he does not want to open - and not just for Jack and Rose’s sake.
“Anyway, I’ve been back to Cardiff a couple of times,” he says, but doesn’t add that it’s been more than a couple of times, and that he was deliberately checking up on the organisation for Jack’s sake. And, yes, partly for his own, too. That his hand was in Jack’s Hub seriously bothered him, even though Jack made clear why it was there. And Torchwood as an organisation bothers him, in that universe if not this one. “Seems to be fine. They’re surviving without you, from what I can see, though I’m guessing you didn’t give them much of an explanation in those letters you asked me to take back.”
Jack shrugs. “What could I say? Anyway, they were used to me being secretive. They’ll cope.”
Ah. So there still are some sore subjects for Jack. “You’d been replaced,” he adds. “From what I could make out, she used to be a police officer. A detective. Somebody called Swanson.”
“They gave her my job?” Jack looks indignant. “She laughed at me!”
“You probably deserved it,” Rose comments with a grin.
Jack relates a story of a woman who’s scathing about his attempts at flirtation, who objects to him and his people marching in and taking over, and who laughs her head off and puts him on speakerphone when he and his team get locked into their own base. By the end of it, Rose is almost in hysterics.
“Sorry to say it, but I’d’ve laughed too,” the Doctor points out.
Jack sighs, but suddenly he’s laughing as well. “Guess it was funny.”
They’re all laughing, and it’s companionable and happy and so like old times. So it’s a complete shock when Rose catches his gaze and says, “So, Doctor. We all know you didn’t bring the TARDIS back through the Void just to say hello. Why are you here?”
***
tbc