Weaving 9/11
Story: Weaving
Author: wmr
wendymr
Sequel to: Broken Threads (Series: Tapestry)
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Jack Harkness, Rose Tyler; Team Torchwood and other characters, including Martha Jones, in minor roles
Rated: PG13
Disclaimer: None of them are mine, and that's a good thing ;)
Spoilers: DW: S3 and VotD; TW: pretty much all of S2, though this is completely AU.
Summary: She's back, and it should be just as it was before, the three of them... but can you ever really go back?
As before, my thanks to
dark_aegis and
kae_ninefor BRing, even in the middle of RL crises. This is a sequel to Broken Threads, as noted, and might not make a lot of sense without it.
Chapter 1: Transmission Complete l Chapter 2: Minefields l Chapter 3: Papering Over Cracks l Chapter 4: Secrets and Lies l Chapter 5: Mystery l Chapter 6: Plans and Schemes l Chapter 7: Home Truths l Chapter 8: Confrontations and Revelations
Chapter 9: Discovery
The Doctor discards the leather jacket, pulling on his own pin-striped jacket again as he heads towards the console. “All right now?”
Jack’s still looking a bit stunned, but he raises his head and nods, then follows him over. “Yeah. Fine. How... You know what I heard, right? How did you do that?”
He waves a hand vaguely. “Oh, just one of those mind-tricks you don’t like me using on you. Thought it might work better if it sounded like the old me, in the circumstances. That’s why I wore the jacket, too. Sound, touch and smell are so important to memory, you know that? Ask people what they remember about something in their past and sometimes the scents or the background noise are clearer than the events themselves.”
“True,” Jack says, joining him at the console.
“So, the question is...” Head bowed, he glances up at Jack from under his lashes. “Have we overwritten the old memory with a new one?”
Jack gives him a crooked smile. “Think you could say that, all right. Especially the leather. Love the leather. I’d forgotten how much I missed it. And, just so you know, now I’m gonna picture you in our bedroom wearing nothing but leather.”
“I’m guessing you’re not talking about a jacket,” he comments with a grin; Jack’s irrepressible. Impossible.
“Oh, the jacket’s good too. But I’m thinking chaps and a G-string. Maybe a vest.”
Not quite bondage gear, but then of course Jack wouldn’t suggest that. He grins. “Only if I can get you back into your RAF uniform. Including the cap. Loved the cap.”
Jack laughs. “It’s probably still around somewhere, knowing this ship of yours.”
“Probably. Jack, you know I won’t abandon you again, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I do know.” Jack’s sobered now. “I did since we talked properly on Malcassiro, really. It was only ever - well, just sometimes I’d wonder.”
He nods. “It’s that tiny niggle of doubt, isn’t it? It eats away inside you until you don’t know the truth from the lie any more. I won’t, though. Oh, you’ll leave some day, I know that, but it’ll be your decision. Or something we decide together. Can’t see us ever not seeing each other again, though.”
“The last Time Lord and the lone immortal guy?” Jack gives a rueful laugh. “Me neither. Who else can you guarantee will still be around in a couple of centuries?”
“Not Rose,” he says softly.
“No.” Jack’s hand covers his. “But you always knew that before. What’s so different about now?”
“Now?” He sighs. “Lost too many people, Jack. You know that.”
“I know you. It still doesn’t stop you caring.” Jack leans in to press a soft kiss to his lips. “I know you love her. Isn’t it better to make the most of what you have while you have it?”
“You never give up, do you?” He shakes his head; yes, Jack really is impossible. “Time we were getting back to pick her up.”
“She’s up to something,” Jack comments as he returns his attention to his side of the controls.
He grins. “Oh, I’m well aware of that. What I don’t know is what she’s up to. Think we should find out?”
Jack’s grin matches his own. “You don’t think she deserves a little privacy?”
Their gazes meet and hold, and they share a conspiratorial smile as he pushes down the lever. On their way.
***
“So now you know.”
They’re walking back through the centre, towards the exit where Martha’s parked. Neither of them’s talking very much, she because there’s just too much to take in and god how horrible it must have been for all of them, and Martha because... well, how can anyone relive all that and not be traumatised all over again?
“Yeah.” Shakily, she says, “Your family. They all right?”
“Mostly.” Martha pulls a face. “Jack offered to give me Retcon for them - that’s this drug he has that wipes people’s memories-”
“Jack?” she interrupts, incredulous. “Jack wipes people’s memories?”
Martha shrugs. “Says it’s unavoidable sometimes. Part of the job.”
How much he’s changed. “Jack had two years of his memory wiped before we met him. He always said it ruined his life. That it turned him into something he didn’t want to be, an’ we rescued him from that. An’ now he’s wiping other people’s memories?”
Martha shrugs again. “Don’t ask me. That’s what he told me when he offered me the drug. Anyway, I didn’t take it. They’re coping.”
“Right.” She carries on walking automatically, still stunned. Jack wiping people’s memories. It’s barely believable.
“There’s more I didn’t tell you,” Martha says abruptly. “I’ve no idea how long it was for the Doctor after I left him, but listen. The police arrested this bloke on Boxing Day, right? He’d got into an argument in a pub - seems he was saying stuff like if it wasn’t for the Americans we’d all be speaking German. How the US Air Force cracked the Enigma Code, led the D-Day landings, all that sort of stuff.”
“Weird,” she says, though she’s barely paying attention. Information overload. Horror overload.
“Anyway, he got into a fight, not surprisingly. Several people were arrested for breach of the peace, and they took samples to run blood-alcohol tests. This bloke’s came up weird, so they did it again. Still came up weird, so they passed him to UNIT. I’m a medic, and they know I have alien experience, so I got to examine him.”
This isn’t going to be good, she can already tell. “And?”
“And he was alien. From a planet called Sto, he told me. He’d got all his war history from Hollywood films, would you believe? Sweet bloke, really, once he realised I wasn’t going to lock him up or hurt him. His name was Copper. Told me he was on this cruise ship - a space cruise ship - on a tour of the Solar System. Some megalomaniac sabotaged it. Killed almost everyone on board, an’ it almost crashed into Earth too, except one bloke on board managed to stop it in time. Mr Copper said this bloke tried really hard to save everyone, but in the end only four survived and he was really cut up about it. Absolutely devastated. Seems he promised right at the start that he’d save them all, but it just didn’t work out that way, and he acted like it was all his fault, like he’d failed.”
The sick feeling that’s been in the pit of her stomach for the past couple of hours is getting worse still. “The Doctor?”
Martha nods. “Mr Copper’s description fits. And he said the bloke called himself the Doctor an’ he had a blue box he said was his spaceship, so... well, it was him.”
So, yet again, he tried to save people but had to watch most of them die. Is it ever going to stop, all this endless cycle of loss he has to go through? He lost his own home, his people - his family. He lost her to a parallel universe. He had to watch the only other Time Lord die. And then Martha left him. Is it any wonder he’s wary of getting close to anyone? Except Jack, of course, who won’t die and who needs the Doctor every bit as much as the Doctor needs him.
Does Jack know about this? If she can, she’ll have to try to find out.
“What happened to him?” she asks Martha, more for something to say than anything else. “Mr Copper, I mean.”
Martha’s smile is crooked. “I convinced my CO that he was harmless. An’ he was. Really, he was just like somebody’s granddad. He just wanted to be left in peace to live a quiet retirement. He had money, too - a credit card tied to an account with over a million quid in it. Anyway, we passed him to Torchwood - we don’t do resettlement of peaceful aliens, but Torchwood’s done it a few times.”
“Torchwood?” She has to ask.
“Yeah. Never got a chance to ask Jack if he had anything to do with it. Anyway, last I heard, Mr Copper was living in a nice little cottage in a quiet village, playing chess with his next-door-neighbour, who just happens to be a retired UNIT sergeant, once a week, pottering around his garden and taking adult ed classes at the local school. He’s doing fine.”
“Glad somebody is,” she says softly.
“Ye-” Martha stops talking abruptly, and as she looks at the other woman in curiosity she sees that she’s also stopped walking. Martha’s staring straight ahead and, as she follows her gaze, she freezes too.
The Doctor and Jack, disbelieving looks on their faces, are walking straight towards them.
***
Rose and Martha?
What are they doing together? How do they even know each other? Though that’s not too difficult to work out; it’s only been a couple of days, after all, since Rose asked him about people he’d travelled with since she left. He told her all about Martha Jones then, didn’t he?
By silent, mutual consent, he and Jack move behind a free-standing merchandise outlet so they can watch for a moment without being seen. This has so much potential to be bad. Terrible.
Because it’s never good when companions meet, is it? They fight. Fight over him, more often than not. And with these two the potential’s explosive - there’s Rose, who got jealous and spiteful when she found out he’d had companions he cared about before he met her, even though he told her he’d travelled with lots of other people. There’s Martha, who could never hear Rose’s name without feeling bitter or slighted, from what he could see.
If they’ve been together all this time, they should be tearing each other’s hair -
But they’re not. They’re talking, calmly, earnestly. And that’s even worse, isn’t it? Because the only thing worse than when companions argue is when they get on. When they like each other, or find things in common - usually talking about him. Ganging up against him.
He glances at Jack; time to join the party. Jack nods, and the two of them step out directly into the women’s path. Martha notices them first; she stops walking and just stares at them, looking shocked and... yes, guilty. Not surprised and delighted, as he might have expected.
When an equally guilty, embarrassed look comes over Rose’s face, he knows he’s not going to be happy at whatever explanation there is for this meeting.
“Doctor!” Martha exclaims - and, yes, there’s definitely embarrassment there. “Never expected to see you here!”
“Or I you,” he points out with deliberate lightness. “What a coincidence.”
Rose looks distinctly uncomfortable. He gives her a look that says he’ll be talking to her later, and turns back to Martha. “Been all right? How’s the family?”
“Oh, fine, fine. They’re doing... okay.” She swallows, and he knows the Joneses are far from okay. Not surprising, of course. He’s done what he can, but even UNIT’s resources and the best psychological and psychiatric care available in the country can’t offer miracle cures. As if she can’t change the subject fast enough, Martha’s greeting Jack, hugging him as he hugs her back.
He moves to Rose’s side. “Yes, quite a coincidence, that. Fancy you and Martha knowing each other.”
“Yeah, about that, Doctor...” she begins, obviously struggling to come up with something plausible.
“We’ll talk in the TARDIS,” he tells her, before reaching out to touch Martha’s arm. “S’pose you’re leaving, then? Since Rose knew we were picking her up at five o’clock.”
“Yeah.” Martha nods over-enthusiastically. “She was just walking me to my car.”
“Oh, I’ll do that,” he offers blithely. “Rose, I think Jack wanted to do some shopping. Maybe you can help him find what he needs while I see Martha off?” He stifles a smirk. It’ll serve Rose right if Jack takes the hint and goes looking for the leather gear they were just joking about.
“Yeah, just a sec.” Rose brushes past him and goes straight to Martha. “Thanks for coming, yeah? Was nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, you too.” Martha glances sideways at him and Jack before adding, “And you got my number if you ever need anything, right? Like a shoppin’ trip to Boots, yeah?”
Rose grins. “Thanks.” She hugs Martha suddenly, and then catches hold of her hand. “Hope he’s worth it, by the way.”
“He is.” Martha’s smile is tender. “Bye, Rose. Look after him, yeah?” She steps aside and comes to stand by the Doctor.
He glances at the ring on her finger. “You were going to invite me to the wedding, weren’t you?”
She shrugs as the other two walk off, leaving them alone. “Would you have come?”
“Of course!” She gives him a sceptical look. “Well... probably. Maybe. Umm... possibly?”
“Right.” The amused sarcasm’s familiar. Oh, it is good to see her again. “Rose is a good person, Doctor. I can see why you like her so much.”
“I like everyone I travel with,” he tells her, though he knows exactly what she’s saying - and what she’s not. He’s not going to discuss Rose with her, anyway, or her reason for being here. There’s no doubt in his mind that it was all Rose’s doing anyway. “Martha, are you all right? Really?”
Again, a shrug. “As well as I can be. No, really, I’m doing well. Great. It’s good to be working, and I love being with UNIT. Um... thanks for that, by the way.”
“Least I could do.” They exit into the car park; Martha indicates to where she’s parked, and they walk. “I never told you...” he begins, hands stuffed deep into his pockets, his head bowed. “I let you think... Martha, you were brilliant, and I never said. Thank you.”
“Oh.” She seems taken aback, but then she grins. “I know I was. But it’s nice to be told.”
“Should have said it before.” He reaches out to lay his hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him. “You could come with us. Again. You know. Your room’s still there.”
There’s no regret in her expression as she shakes her head. “Nah. Not now. I’m not that person any more, Doctor. ‘Sides, I’ve got a life here. People who need me - an’ someone special I’m going to marry. Anyway,” she adds, “think it might be a bit crowded.” She winks.
Ah. Rose obviously told her about him and Jack. He grins. “Not that crowded.”
Martha stretches up and plants a kiss on his cheek. “You look after yourself, Doctor. You an’ Jack an’ Rose. I don’t want to hear that you’ve gone and changed your face any time soon, you hear?”
He bends and presses a kiss to her cheek in return before pulling her into a hug. “Promise. And I’ll see you again, Martha Jones; that’s a promise, too.”
***
By mutual, silent agreement, neither he nor Rose mention Martha as they stroll back through the mall towards the storage area where the Doctor landed the TARDIS. Instead, while his mind’s running through all sorts of possible reasons why the two women might have met, he insists on stopping at every lingerie shop he sees and being deliberately outrageous, commenting on what he thinks Rose might look like in some of the underwear in the window display and suggesting that she might model it for him.
She’s teasing right back, suggesting that she’ll model it if he models a G-string or a posing pouch for her, but if she’s trying to pretend that there’s nothing at all on her mind she wouldn’t fool anyone, least of all a professional like him.
By the time they reach the TARDIS, the Doctor’s caught up with them. Without a word, he brushes past the two of them to get to the console, taking the ship into the Vortex. Then, in a mild tone the Doctor really should win an Oscar for, he says, “Let me guess. Best friends since primary school? Met at a Spice Girls concert years ago? On each other’s friends list on Facebook? Cause there’s no other way you two could know each other, is there?”
“No.” Rose stands straight, looking the Doctor in the eye. “I got her number from Jack’s phone and I called her to ask her to meet me.”
“Any particular reason?” Still deceptively pleasant, that voice, but the Doctor’s eyes are cool and withdrawn. “I know your mum’s not here any more. You can’t exactly phone Shireen either the way you used to.”
He’s offering Rose any number of excuses, and Jack holds his breath. Will she seize one of them? Will she lie? - because he knows damn well that’s what it would be.
She shakes her head. “Nothing like that. I had some questions, an’ I thought Martha’d be able to answer them.”
“What sort of-” the Doctor begins, but Rose interrupts him.
“You don’t need to ask me twenty questions, Doctor. It was like this. I wanted to know what happened to the two of you while I was gone. Cause I know something did, an’ it was bad. Jack has nightmares an’ you... you sometimes look as sad as you ever did when I first met you.”
She moves closer to the console, and he knows he’s as dumbstruck as the Doctor as they both stare at her. She asked Martha about them, about what happened, about the Year that Never Was?
It feels like a betrayal, like a kick in the stomach. She talked about very personal stuff concerning him, concerning the Doctor, with someone who’s a total stranger to her. Actually went out, poked around, spied on them - or that’s how it feels.
“Why would you even imagine-” the Doctor begins, biting out the words, anger radiating from him.
“I needed to know.” She’s still so calm, and it makes him want to shake her, because she shouldn’t be. She should be embarrassed that they’ve found her out, guilty about what she did, worried about how they’re going to react. She should be apologising to both of them. Yet she’s not even flinching, even in the face of the Doctor’s fury.
“I needed to know,” she repeats, “because it affected you and hurt you, both of you, and I needed to know what an’ why and what I could do to help. I couldn’t ask you cause it was obvious you didn’t want to talk about it, either of you, and anyway I didn’t want to bring back more bad memories by asking.”
“And you think this, now, isn’t bringing back bad memories?”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” Finally, she sounds apologetic. “Thing is, you weren’t supposed to know. If you hadn’t come back early, Martha would’ve been gone and you’d have never found out I knew.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” He can’t stay quiet any more; the words burst out of him and Rose turns to face him. There’s apology in her eyes, too, but it’s too little, too late. “You’ve been asking questions about me behind my back, and it’s okay because I never would have known? It’s not okay, Rose. You want to know stuff about me: you ask me.”
He spins on his heel and walks out of the room because, angry as he is right now, if he stays there any longer he’s going to say stuff to her that he’ll really regret later.
***
Well, that could have gone better. Correction: it could hardly have gone worse.
Maybe she should have listened to those second thoughts after all before calling Martha. On the other hand, even with the fallout, she can’t regret meeting Martha, or all the information she got as a result. The only thing she does regret is that she’s hurt the Doctor and Jack.
She won’t protest that she was only trying to help. That’s not good enough. It might have seemed the right answer when she was nineteen, but not now. She’s old enough to know better.
Was she wrong to go behind their backs? But they wouldn’t have told her, and she’s more convinced than ever that she needed to know.
“You should have left it alone.” The Doctor’s voice, clipped and distant, cuts into her thoughts. “It hasn’t been easy for him.”
“I know.” She moves closer to the console. “But, Doctor, seems to me it’s been harder for you.”
He waves a hand carelessly. “Me? Not at all.” Then, abruptly, he sighs. “Well, you’re dying to ask, so get it over with. You want to know why I didn’t want him to die, don’t you?”
“No.” That, at least, she’s very certain of. “I know why. He was the only one. The only other one. I mean, I know you’ve got lots of friends, people who care about you, and who you care about, but it’s not the same. We’re not your people. Why wouldn’t you want him alive, no matter what he’d done?”
“Really? No matter what?” He looks straight at her, a chill in his voice. “Even if he’d tortured your family? Turned Jackie into his maid, made her crawl on her hands and knees in front of him and had her whipped whenever it suited him? If you’d seen him kill Jack over and over?”
She shivers. Martha did tell her, yes, but hearing the Doctor say it seems different somehow.
“Course I’d hate him for it,” she says, no trace of doubt in her voice. “And of course I understand why everyone else wanted him dead. But they’re not Time Lords. They’re not the last of their - our - kind.”
“I would have taken him in the TARDIS with me.” The Doctor’s voice is still cold. “In preference to anyone else I had with me at the time.”
Instead of you. Instead of Jack. The message is clear. But what game’s he playing here? “Doctor, if you’re tryin’ to make me think badly of you, you’re wasting your time. I’ve seen you do far too much good for that.”
He looks down at the console, apparently focusing all his attention on the controls. “Just suggesting, for the next time you decide to ask questions about me behind my back, that maybe there are things you’re better off not knowing.” His tone’s cutting, but there’s something bleak in there too, and if it wasn’t that she knows he’d push her away she’d go and hug him.
She comes closer to him; he doesn’t acknowledge her. “I’m sorry that you’re upset with me.” Her voice is as contrite as she can let it be, given that she doesn’t regret what she did. “I can’t apologise for talkin’ to Martha, though, Doctor. Cause I don’t think it was wrong.”
“No?” It’s just one word, but it carries a wealth of sarcasm.
“Do you think you were wrong to send me away? On Satellite Five an’ again at Canary Wharf?” she asks. His head jerks up, and his expression tells her that he can’t see the significance of the question. “You did what you thought was right. I don’t agree that it was right. Same thing - you made a decision for me cause you thought it was for the best.”
His expression turns incredulous, but he just shakes his head and turns back to the console; after a few seconds, it’s apparent that he’s ignoring her. Distancing himself from her. Okay. Best to give him some time - and anyway, she’s hurt Jack too, and that needs sorting.
“Going to talk to Jack,” she says - he can ignore her, if he wants, but she’s not going to forget her manners - and she heads to the door.
He hasn’t gone far. She finds him in the kitchen, staring into a cup of coffee he seems to have no intention of drinking. Before she can say anything, he’s turned his gaze to her.
“You know why I’m angry? It’s not because you know what happened with the Master. It’s because I thought I could trust you. You should have asked me, Rose.”
She comes closer, but stops a few feet away. “Wouldn’t you have told me it wasn’t your story to tell? Cause of the Doctor?”
He takes a long, slow drink of coffee; buying time, she thinks, as he’s not meeting her gaze now. “Maybe,” he admits finally.
“You told me you didn’t want to talk about it,” she reminds him. “ ‘ S not hard to understand, not now I know. Thing is, I really wasn’t just bein’ nosy. It’s just that when I don’t know things it’s too easy to say the wrong thing. Or if something happens and I don’t know the truth - like when you died, Jack. Or when I found out the Doctor regenerated to save me.”
He inclines his head, just once. “I can see that. I just wish you’d asked, Rose. If you’d told me - us - why you needed to know. You didn’t give us the option of telling you ourselves. That’s what hurts.”
She can actually feel the colour fading from her face. He’s right. She didn’t. She just assumed they wouldn’t tell her.
“I didn’t think of it that way. I’m sorry. I jus’ assumed you wouldn’t tell me.” She begins to reach for him, but then withdraws her hand. “I’m really sorry, Jack.”
He gives her a lop-sided smile. “Yeah. You need to tell him too, though.”
“I will.” She has to - because she knows she hurt him. But there’s something else that maybe she needs to do, too, because it’s suddenly feeling as if she’s gone too far and shown them both that they can’t trust her.
She takes a deep breath. “Jack, if you’re still willing to help me, I think it’s time to get on with that retirement plan. Only... well, maybe it shouldn’t be just for retirement.”
“A retirement plan?” The Doctor’s shocked, angry voice from the doorway makes her turn. “What’s this? More secrets you’ve been keeping from me?”
“Not secrets. It’s just-” She breaks off abruptly as Jack’s phone rings. It’s still in her pocket. Fumbling, she finds it and passes it to him.
He stabs at the button. “Harkness. It’s not a good-” In an instant, his expression changes and he falls silent, just listening. It’s several seconds before he says, “Do whatever he says. We’ll be there as soon as we can,” and snaps the phone shut.
“What is it?” The Doctor’s voice is full of concern.
“That was Gwen. Remember the other Time Agent I told you about? My ex-partner?”
She stares at Jack; it’s odd to realise now that he’s told her so little about his work with the Time Agency. In her peripheral vision, she sees the Doctor nod. Again, she’s out of the loop.
“He’s back. And he’s telling them that he’s got Grey and if I don’t put in an appearance within ten seconds he’s going to kill the whole team.”
***
tbc
Author: wmr
wendymr
Sequel to: Broken Threads (Series: Tapestry)
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Jack Harkness, Rose Tyler; Team Torchwood and other characters, including Martha Jones, in minor roles
Rated: PG13
Disclaimer: None of them are mine, and that's a good thing ;)
Spoilers: DW: S3 and VotD; TW: pretty much all of S2, though this is completely AU.
Summary: She's back, and it should be just as it was before, the three of them... but can you ever really go back?
As before, my thanks to
dark_aegis and
kae_ninefor BRing, even in the middle of RL crises. This is a sequel to Broken Threads, as noted, and might not make a lot of sense without it.
Chapter 1: Transmission Complete l Chapter 2: Minefields l Chapter 3: Papering Over Cracks l Chapter 4: Secrets and Lies l Chapter 5: Mystery l Chapter 6: Plans and Schemes l Chapter 7: Home Truths l Chapter 8: Confrontations and Revelations
Chapter 9: Discovery
The Doctor discards the leather jacket, pulling on his own pin-striped jacket again as he heads towards the console. “All right now?”
Jack’s still looking a bit stunned, but he raises his head and nods, then follows him over. “Yeah. Fine. How... You know what I heard, right? How did you do that?”
He waves a hand vaguely. “Oh, just one of those mind-tricks you don’t like me using on you. Thought it might work better if it sounded like the old me, in the circumstances. That’s why I wore the jacket, too. Sound, touch and smell are so important to memory, you know that? Ask people what they remember about something in their past and sometimes the scents or the background noise are clearer than the events themselves.”
“True,” Jack says, joining him at the console.
“So, the question is...” Head bowed, he glances up at Jack from under his lashes. “Have we overwritten the old memory with a new one?”
Jack gives him a crooked smile. “Think you could say that, all right. Especially the leather. Love the leather. I’d forgotten how much I missed it. And, just so you know, now I’m gonna picture you in our bedroom wearing nothing but leather.”
“I’m guessing you’re not talking about a jacket,” he comments with a grin; Jack’s irrepressible. Impossible.
“Oh, the jacket’s good too. But I’m thinking chaps and a G-string. Maybe a vest.”
Not quite bondage gear, but then of course Jack wouldn’t suggest that. He grins. “Only if I can get you back into your RAF uniform. Including the cap. Loved the cap.”
Jack laughs. “It’s probably still around somewhere, knowing this ship of yours.”
“Probably. Jack, you know I won’t abandon you again, don’t you?”
“Yeah. I do know.” Jack’s sobered now. “I did since we talked properly on Malcassiro, really. It was only ever - well, just sometimes I’d wonder.”
He nods. “It’s that tiny niggle of doubt, isn’t it? It eats away inside you until you don’t know the truth from the lie any more. I won’t, though. Oh, you’ll leave some day, I know that, but it’ll be your decision. Or something we decide together. Can’t see us ever not seeing each other again, though.”
“The last Time Lord and the lone immortal guy?” Jack gives a rueful laugh. “Me neither. Who else can you guarantee will still be around in a couple of centuries?”
“Not Rose,” he says softly.
“No.” Jack’s hand covers his. “But you always knew that before. What’s so different about now?”
“Now?” He sighs. “Lost too many people, Jack. You know that.”
“I know you. It still doesn’t stop you caring.” Jack leans in to press a soft kiss to his lips. “I know you love her. Isn’t it better to make the most of what you have while you have it?”
“You never give up, do you?” He shakes his head; yes, Jack really is impossible. “Time we were getting back to pick her up.”
“She’s up to something,” Jack comments as he returns his attention to his side of the controls.
He grins. “Oh, I’m well aware of that. What I don’t know is what she’s up to. Think we should find out?”
Jack’s grin matches his own. “You don’t think she deserves a little privacy?”
Their gazes meet and hold, and they share a conspiratorial smile as he pushes down the lever. On their way.
***
“So now you know.”
They’re walking back through the centre, towards the exit where Martha’s parked. Neither of them’s talking very much, she because there’s just too much to take in and god how horrible it must have been for all of them, and Martha because... well, how can anyone relive all that and not be traumatised all over again?
“Yeah.” Shakily, she says, “Your family. They all right?”
“Mostly.” Martha pulls a face. “Jack offered to give me Retcon for them - that’s this drug he has that wipes people’s memories-”
“Jack?” she interrupts, incredulous. “Jack wipes people’s memories?”
Martha shrugs. “Says it’s unavoidable sometimes. Part of the job.”
How much he’s changed. “Jack had two years of his memory wiped before we met him. He always said it ruined his life. That it turned him into something he didn’t want to be, an’ we rescued him from that. An’ now he’s wiping other people’s memories?”
Martha shrugs again. “Don’t ask me. That’s what he told me when he offered me the drug. Anyway, I didn’t take it. They’re coping.”
“Right.” She carries on walking automatically, still stunned. Jack wiping people’s memories. It’s barely believable.
“There’s more I didn’t tell you,” Martha says abruptly. “I’ve no idea how long it was for the Doctor after I left him, but listen. The police arrested this bloke on Boxing Day, right? He’d got into an argument in a pub - seems he was saying stuff like if it wasn’t for the Americans we’d all be speaking German. How the US Air Force cracked the Enigma Code, led the D-Day landings, all that sort of stuff.”
“Weird,” she says, though she’s barely paying attention. Information overload. Horror overload.
“Anyway, he got into a fight, not surprisingly. Several people were arrested for breach of the peace, and they took samples to run blood-alcohol tests. This bloke’s came up weird, so they did it again. Still came up weird, so they passed him to UNIT. I’m a medic, and they know I have alien experience, so I got to examine him.”
This isn’t going to be good, she can already tell. “And?”
“And he was alien. From a planet called Sto, he told me. He’d got all his war history from Hollywood films, would you believe? Sweet bloke, really, once he realised I wasn’t going to lock him up or hurt him. His name was Copper. Told me he was on this cruise ship - a space cruise ship - on a tour of the Solar System. Some megalomaniac sabotaged it. Killed almost everyone on board, an’ it almost crashed into Earth too, except one bloke on board managed to stop it in time. Mr Copper said this bloke tried really hard to save everyone, but in the end only four survived and he was really cut up about it. Absolutely devastated. Seems he promised right at the start that he’d save them all, but it just didn’t work out that way, and he acted like it was all his fault, like he’d failed.”
The sick feeling that’s been in the pit of her stomach for the past couple of hours is getting worse still. “The Doctor?”
Martha nods. “Mr Copper’s description fits. And he said the bloke called himself the Doctor an’ he had a blue box he said was his spaceship, so... well, it was him.”
So, yet again, he tried to save people but had to watch most of them die. Is it ever going to stop, all this endless cycle of loss he has to go through? He lost his own home, his people - his family. He lost her to a parallel universe. He had to watch the only other Time Lord die. And then Martha left him. Is it any wonder he’s wary of getting close to anyone? Except Jack, of course, who won’t die and who needs the Doctor every bit as much as the Doctor needs him.
Does Jack know about this? If she can, she’ll have to try to find out.
“What happened to him?” she asks Martha, more for something to say than anything else. “Mr Copper, I mean.”
Martha’s smile is crooked. “I convinced my CO that he was harmless. An’ he was. Really, he was just like somebody’s granddad. He just wanted to be left in peace to live a quiet retirement. He had money, too - a credit card tied to an account with over a million quid in it. Anyway, we passed him to Torchwood - we don’t do resettlement of peaceful aliens, but Torchwood’s done it a few times.”
“Torchwood?” She has to ask.
“Yeah. Never got a chance to ask Jack if he had anything to do with it. Anyway, last I heard, Mr Copper was living in a nice little cottage in a quiet village, playing chess with his next-door-neighbour, who just happens to be a retired UNIT sergeant, once a week, pottering around his garden and taking adult ed classes at the local school. He’s doing fine.”
“Glad somebody is,” she says softly.
“Ye-” Martha stops talking abruptly, and as she looks at the other woman in curiosity she sees that she’s also stopped walking. Martha’s staring straight ahead and, as she follows her gaze, she freezes too.
The Doctor and Jack, disbelieving looks on their faces, are walking straight towards them.
***
Rose and Martha?
What are they doing together? How do they even know each other? Though that’s not too difficult to work out; it’s only been a couple of days, after all, since Rose asked him about people he’d travelled with since she left. He told her all about Martha Jones then, didn’t he?
By silent, mutual consent, he and Jack move behind a free-standing merchandise outlet so they can watch for a moment without being seen. This has so much potential to be bad. Terrible.
Because it’s never good when companions meet, is it? They fight. Fight over him, more often than not. And with these two the potential’s explosive - there’s Rose, who got jealous and spiteful when she found out he’d had companions he cared about before he met her, even though he told her he’d travelled with lots of other people. There’s Martha, who could never hear Rose’s name without feeling bitter or slighted, from what he could see.
If they’ve been together all this time, they should be tearing each other’s hair -
But they’re not. They’re talking, calmly, earnestly. And that’s even worse, isn’t it? Because the only thing worse than when companions argue is when they get on. When they like each other, or find things in common - usually talking about him. Ganging up against him.
He glances at Jack; time to join the party. Jack nods, and the two of them step out directly into the women’s path. Martha notices them first; she stops walking and just stares at them, looking shocked and... yes, guilty. Not surprised and delighted, as he might have expected.
When an equally guilty, embarrassed look comes over Rose’s face, he knows he’s not going to be happy at whatever explanation there is for this meeting.
“Doctor!” Martha exclaims - and, yes, there’s definitely embarrassment there. “Never expected to see you here!”
“Or I you,” he points out with deliberate lightness. “What a coincidence.”
Rose looks distinctly uncomfortable. He gives her a look that says he’ll be talking to her later, and turns back to Martha. “Been all right? How’s the family?”
“Oh, fine, fine. They’re doing... okay.” She swallows, and he knows the Joneses are far from okay. Not surprising, of course. He’s done what he can, but even UNIT’s resources and the best psychological and psychiatric care available in the country can’t offer miracle cures. As if she can’t change the subject fast enough, Martha’s greeting Jack, hugging him as he hugs her back.
He moves to Rose’s side. “Yes, quite a coincidence, that. Fancy you and Martha knowing each other.”
“Yeah, about that, Doctor...” she begins, obviously struggling to come up with something plausible.
“We’ll talk in the TARDIS,” he tells her, before reaching out to touch Martha’s arm. “S’pose you’re leaving, then? Since Rose knew we were picking her up at five o’clock.”
“Yeah.” Martha nods over-enthusiastically. “She was just walking me to my car.”
“Oh, I’ll do that,” he offers blithely. “Rose, I think Jack wanted to do some shopping. Maybe you can help him find what he needs while I see Martha off?” He stifles a smirk. It’ll serve Rose right if Jack takes the hint and goes looking for the leather gear they were just joking about.
“Yeah, just a sec.” Rose brushes past him and goes straight to Martha. “Thanks for coming, yeah? Was nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, you too.” Martha glances sideways at him and Jack before adding, “And you got my number if you ever need anything, right? Like a shoppin’ trip to Boots, yeah?”
Rose grins. “Thanks.” She hugs Martha suddenly, and then catches hold of her hand. “Hope he’s worth it, by the way.”
“He is.” Martha’s smile is tender. “Bye, Rose. Look after him, yeah?” She steps aside and comes to stand by the Doctor.
He glances at the ring on her finger. “You were going to invite me to the wedding, weren’t you?”
She shrugs as the other two walk off, leaving them alone. “Would you have come?”
“Of course!” She gives him a sceptical look. “Well... probably. Maybe. Umm... possibly?”
“Right.” The amused sarcasm’s familiar. Oh, it is good to see her again. “Rose is a good person, Doctor. I can see why you like her so much.”
“I like everyone I travel with,” he tells her, though he knows exactly what she’s saying - and what she’s not. He’s not going to discuss Rose with her, anyway, or her reason for being here. There’s no doubt in his mind that it was all Rose’s doing anyway. “Martha, are you all right? Really?”
Again, a shrug. “As well as I can be. No, really, I’m doing well. Great. It’s good to be working, and I love being with UNIT. Um... thanks for that, by the way.”
“Least I could do.” They exit into the car park; Martha indicates to where she’s parked, and they walk. “I never told you...” he begins, hands stuffed deep into his pockets, his head bowed. “I let you think... Martha, you were brilliant, and I never said. Thank you.”
“Oh.” She seems taken aback, but then she grins. “I know I was. But it’s nice to be told.”
“Should have said it before.” He reaches out to lay his hand on her shoulder, turning her to face him. “You could come with us. Again. You know. Your room’s still there.”
There’s no regret in her expression as she shakes her head. “Nah. Not now. I’m not that person any more, Doctor. ‘Sides, I’ve got a life here. People who need me - an’ someone special I’m going to marry. Anyway,” she adds, “think it might be a bit crowded.” She winks.
Ah. Rose obviously told her about him and Jack. He grins. “Not that crowded.”
Martha stretches up and plants a kiss on his cheek. “You look after yourself, Doctor. You an’ Jack an’ Rose. I don’t want to hear that you’ve gone and changed your face any time soon, you hear?”
He bends and presses a kiss to her cheek in return before pulling her into a hug. “Promise. And I’ll see you again, Martha Jones; that’s a promise, too.”
***
By mutual, silent agreement, neither he nor Rose mention Martha as they stroll back through the mall towards the storage area where the Doctor landed the TARDIS. Instead, while his mind’s running through all sorts of possible reasons why the two women might have met, he insists on stopping at every lingerie shop he sees and being deliberately outrageous, commenting on what he thinks Rose might look like in some of the underwear in the window display and suggesting that she might model it for him.
She’s teasing right back, suggesting that she’ll model it if he models a G-string or a posing pouch for her, but if she’s trying to pretend that there’s nothing at all on her mind she wouldn’t fool anyone, least of all a professional like him.
By the time they reach the TARDIS, the Doctor’s caught up with them. Without a word, he brushes past the two of them to get to the console, taking the ship into the Vortex. Then, in a mild tone the Doctor really should win an Oscar for, he says, “Let me guess. Best friends since primary school? Met at a Spice Girls concert years ago? On each other’s friends list on Facebook? Cause there’s no other way you two could know each other, is there?”
“No.” Rose stands straight, looking the Doctor in the eye. “I got her number from Jack’s phone and I called her to ask her to meet me.”
“Any particular reason?” Still deceptively pleasant, that voice, but the Doctor’s eyes are cool and withdrawn. “I know your mum’s not here any more. You can’t exactly phone Shireen either the way you used to.”
He’s offering Rose any number of excuses, and Jack holds his breath. Will she seize one of them? Will she lie? - because he knows damn well that’s what it would be.
She shakes her head. “Nothing like that. I had some questions, an’ I thought Martha’d be able to answer them.”
“What sort of-” the Doctor begins, but Rose interrupts him.
“You don’t need to ask me twenty questions, Doctor. It was like this. I wanted to know what happened to the two of you while I was gone. Cause I know something did, an’ it was bad. Jack has nightmares an’ you... you sometimes look as sad as you ever did when I first met you.”
She moves closer to the console, and he knows he’s as dumbstruck as the Doctor as they both stare at her. She asked Martha about them, about what happened, about the Year that Never Was?
It feels like a betrayal, like a kick in the stomach. She talked about very personal stuff concerning him, concerning the Doctor, with someone who’s a total stranger to her. Actually went out, poked around, spied on them - or that’s how it feels.
“Why would you even imagine-” the Doctor begins, biting out the words, anger radiating from him.
“I needed to know.” She’s still so calm, and it makes him want to shake her, because she shouldn’t be. She should be embarrassed that they’ve found her out, guilty about what she did, worried about how they’re going to react. She should be apologising to both of them. Yet she’s not even flinching, even in the face of the Doctor’s fury.
“I needed to know,” she repeats, “because it affected you and hurt you, both of you, and I needed to know what an’ why and what I could do to help. I couldn’t ask you cause it was obvious you didn’t want to talk about it, either of you, and anyway I didn’t want to bring back more bad memories by asking.”
“And you think this, now, isn’t bringing back bad memories?”
“I know, and I’m sorry.” Finally, she sounds apologetic. “Thing is, you weren’t supposed to know. If you hadn’t come back early, Martha would’ve been gone and you’d have never found out I knew.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?” He can’t stay quiet any more; the words burst out of him and Rose turns to face him. There’s apology in her eyes, too, but it’s too little, too late. “You’ve been asking questions about me behind my back, and it’s okay because I never would have known? It’s not okay, Rose. You want to know stuff about me: you ask me.”
He spins on his heel and walks out of the room because, angry as he is right now, if he stays there any longer he’s going to say stuff to her that he’ll really regret later.
***
Well, that could have gone better. Correction: it could hardly have gone worse.
Maybe she should have listened to those second thoughts after all before calling Martha. On the other hand, even with the fallout, she can’t regret meeting Martha, or all the information she got as a result. The only thing she does regret is that she’s hurt the Doctor and Jack.
She won’t protest that she was only trying to help. That’s not good enough. It might have seemed the right answer when she was nineteen, but not now. She’s old enough to know better.
Was she wrong to go behind their backs? But they wouldn’t have told her, and she’s more convinced than ever that she needed to know.
“You should have left it alone.” The Doctor’s voice, clipped and distant, cuts into her thoughts. “It hasn’t been easy for him.”
“I know.” She moves closer to the console. “But, Doctor, seems to me it’s been harder for you.”
He waves a hand carelessly. “Me? Not at all.” Then, abruptly, he sighs. “Well, you’re dying to ask, so get it over with. You want to know why I didn’t want him to die, don’t you?”
“No.” That, at least, she’s very certain of. “I know why. He was the only one. The only other one. I mean, I know you’ve got lots of friends, people who care about you, and who you care about, but it’s not the same. We’re not your people. Why wouldn’t you want him alive, no matter what he’d done?”
“Really? No matter what?” He looks straight at her, a chill in his voice. “Even if he’d tortured your family? Turned Jackie into his maid, made her crawl on her hands and knees in front of him and had her whipped whenever it suited him? If you’d seen him kill Jack over and over?”
She shivers. Martha did tell her, yes, but hearing the Doctor say it seems different somehow.
“Course I’d hate him for it,” she says, no trace of doubt in her voice. “And of course I understand why everyone else wanted him dead. But they’re not Time Lords. They’re not the last of their - our - kind.”
“I would have taken him in the TARDIS with me.” The Doctor’s voice is still cold. “In preference to anyone else I had with me at the time.”
Instead of you. Instead of Jack. The message is clear. But what game’s he playing here? “Doctor, if you’re tryin’ to make me think badly of you, you’re wasting your time. I’ve seen you do far too much good for that.”
He looks down at the console, apparently focusing all his attention on the controls. “Just suggesting, for the next time you decide to ask questions about me behind my back, that maybe there are things you’re better off not knowing.” His tone’s cutting, but there’s something bleak in there too, and if it wasn’t that she knows he’d push her away she’d go and hug him.
She comes closer to him; he doesn’t acknowledge her. “I’m sorry that you’re upset with me.” Her voice is as contrite as she can let it be, given that she doesn’t regret what she did. “I can’t apologise for talkin’ to Martha, though, Doctor. Cause I don’t think it was wrong.”
“No?” It’s just one word, but it carries a wealth of sarcasm.
“Do you think you were wrong to send me away? On Satellite Five an’ again at Canary Wharf?” she asks. His head jerks up, and his expression tells her that he can’t see the significance of the question. “You did what you thought was right. I don’t agree that it was right. Same thing - you made a decision for me cause you thought it was for the best.”
His expression turns incredulous, but he just shakes his head and turns back to the console; after a few seconds, it’s apparent that he’s ignoring her. Distancing himself from her. Okay. Best to give him some time - and anyway, she’s hurt Jack too, and that needs sorting.
“Going to talk to Jack,” she says - he can ignore her, if he wants, but she’s not going to forget her manners - and she heads to the door.
He hasn’t gone far. She finds him in the kitchen, staring into a cup of coffee he seems to have no intention of drinking. Before she can say anything, he’s turned his gaze to her.
“You know why I’m angry? It’s not because you know what happened with the Master. It’s because I thought I could trust you. You should have asked me, Rose.”
She comes closer, but stops a few feet away. “Wouldn’t you have told me it wasn’t your story to tell? Cause of the Doctor?”
He takes a long, slow drink of coffee; buying time, she thinks, as he’s not meeting her gaze now. “Maybe,” he admits finally.
“You told me you didn’t want to talk about it,” she reminds him. “ ‘ S not hard to understand, not now I know. Thing is, I really wasn’t just bein’ nosy. It’s just that when I don’t know things it’s too easy to say the wrong thing. Or if something happens and I don’t know the truth - like when you died, Jack. Or when I found out the Doctor regenerated to save me.”
He inclines his head, just once. “I can see that. I just wish you’d asked, Rose. If you’d told me - us - why you needed to know. You didn’t give us the option of telling you ourselves. That’s what hurts.”
She can actually feel the colour fading from her face. He’s right. She didn’t. She just assumed they wouldn’t tell her.
“I didn’t think of it that way. I’m sorry. I jus’ assumed you wouldn’t tell me.” She begins to reach for him, but then withdraws her hand. “I’m really sorry, Jack.”
He gives her a lop-sided smile. “Yeah. You need to tell him too, though.”
“I will.” She has to - because she knows she hurt him. But there’s something else that maybe she needs to do, too, because it’s suddenly feeling as if she’s gone too far and shown them both that they can’t trust her.
She takes a deep breath. “Jack, if you’re still willing to help me, I think it’s time to get on with that retirement plan. Only... well, maybe it shouldn’t be just for retirement.”
“A retirement plan?” The Doctor’s shocked, angry voice from the doorway makes her turn. “What’s this? More secrets you’ve been keeping from me?”
“Not secrets. It’s just-” She breaks off abruptly as Jack’s phone rings. It’s still in her pocket. Fumbling, she finds it and passes it to him.
He stabs at the button. “Harkness. It’s not a good-” In an instant, his expression changes and he falls silent, just listening. It’s several seconds before he says, “Do whatever he says. We’ll be there as soon as we can,” and snaps the phone shut.
“What is it?” The Doctor’s voice is full of concern.
“That was Gwen. Remember the other Time Agent I told you about? My ex-partner?”
She stares at Jack; it’s odd to realise now that he’s told her so little about his work with the Time Agency. In her peripheral vision, she sees the Doctor nod. Again, she’s out of the loop.
“He’s back. And he’s telling them that he’s got Grey and if I don’t put in an appearance within ten seconds he’s going to kill the whole team.”
***
tbc