Preventative Measures 3/3
Story: Preventative Measures
Author: wmr wendymr
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: idea mine, characters not
Summary: I can see everything. All that is... all that was... all that ever could be. What else might Bad Wolf Rose have done while she had the chance?
With thanks to dark_aegis for much-needed reassurance and BRing. Note that this story was begun before the S4 finale was shown (no spoilers herein; unless you know what happens in the final two episodes of S4 you won't know where the resemblance is).
Chapter 1: I Want You Safe l Chapter 2: I Bring Life
Chapter 3: I Think You Need a Doctor
“But I wouldn’t-” she protests, and then halts abruptly. Because she would, wouldn’t she? It’s exactly what she’d do, if she could.
A way to keep the three of them together as long as possible, no need to worry about any of them dying? Course she would.
“Makes sense,” Jack’s saying, but the obvious answer’s just occurred to her and she cuts across him.
“Can’t be.” She catches at the Doctor’s arm. “You’d know. Like you knew with Jack. You’d have been able to sense me soon as you took the power from me, and I’d feel wrong, yeah?”
“Yeah, she’s right,” Jack says immediately. “Didn’t think of it, but of course she is.”
The Doctor hasn’t said a word. He was looking at her when he said she might have made herself immortal, but now he’s turned completely away, his attention focused on one of his machines. It’s as if he hasn’t even heard her say that he’d know.
Now, he turns back to her, so abruptly her hand falls away from his arm. He studies her through narrowed eyes for a long moment, and she’s just starting to feel as if she’s an insect under his microscope when he finally speaks.
“Never happened before, this. So ‘s not like I have all the answers, is it?” He moves closer to her, takes her face between his palms and gazes into her eyes, still apparently searching for something. “Thing is, Jack was dead when you did it to him. He came back from the dead. That could be why I feel him an’ not you. Dunno, though.”
He drops his hands, leaving her feeling oddly chilled. “You didn’t die. Could have, mind, but you didn’t. Still, though, immortal would mean you don’t age either, so that could mean you’re a fixed point already an’ I should feel it. Or it could be that it’s cause you’re the one who held the power. Maybe you made yourself... I dunno, beyond my ability to feel it. A fixed point, but - well, disguised, I s’pose. You had the heart of the TARDIS, the Time Vortex, inside you. Anything’s possible.”
“So...” She can’t take her eyes off him. “Am I or not?”
“Jus’ said, didn’t I?” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. An’ I’d rather not go testing it any time soon, all right?”
Yeah, she’s not all that keen on that herself, really. Come to think of it, she’s not that keen on testing the theory with Jack either, even if the Doctor is convinced that Jack can’t die.
All the same, though... she holds his gaze as a slow smile comes over her face. “You’re actually admitting there’s stuff you don’t know?”
“Never claimed I knew everything,” he mutters, defensive.
“You so did!”
“Nah, just most things,” Jack quips.
The Doctor rolls his eyes. “If you don’t mind, still got stuff to do ‘ere. Rose.” He indicates the table Jack was sitting on a few minutes ago. “Up you get.”
She does. “So you’re doing what, exactly?”
“Takin’ samples.” He runs first one, then a second instrument over her; it bleeps and shrieks, sounding just the same as when he did it to Jack. Then she’s poked and prodded and he takes a swab from the inside of her mouth.
“Right, then!” he announces when he’s finished. “The TARDIS will compare all these samples with the ones already in her databanks, to see what - if anything - has changed. An’ then she’ll compare your samples against each other, look for patterns an’ so on.”
“How long will that take?” It seems like he’s finished with her, so she slides back down to the floor; Jack’s hand is instantly at her elbow to help her, even though she doesn’t need it. But, after the day they’ve had, she can understand needing to be close, to touch.
The Doctor shrugs. “Few hours, give or take.”
Okay, well, if it’s the best she’s going to get...
“And what about you?” Jack asks, and her gaze flicks to the Doctor again. She’d almost forgotten what she did to him. What she might have done.
He starts, as if he’s forgotten it too, and then he huffs out a breath and reaches for the instruments he used on her and Jack. As he turns away from them, it’s as if he’s not even aware of their presence, though Jack moves forward, offering to help. With what looks like grudging acceptance, the Doctor allows him to scan areas he can’t reach himself.
Left alone, ignored, for now, she’s got nothing to distract her. Nothing but one word.
Immortal. She might be immortal.
Never able to die. Never ageing. She’ll look nineteen - or twenty; isn’t she supposed to be twenty now? - for the rest of her life. A very, very long life.
She leans backwards carefully, discreetly - the last thing she wants is for the two of them to see she’s upset - and leans against the side of the examination table. Delayed reaction, she tells herself. It’ll pass.
But the immortality won’t, if she really is immortal.
Though it won’t just be her. Jack’s immortal too. They’ll have each other, right? Cause they’re going to outlive everyone else. Everyone they know will die, and the two of them will still be alive, still young.
Bit like the Doctor really, she thinks suddenly, and her heart skips a beat. That’s what it’s like for him? All the time? Getting to know people, becoming friends, caring about them - and then they up and die on him. But of course it is. He did say he’s over nine hundred years old, after all.
How does he stand it?
Maybe it was okay while his people were still around - at least they all lived long lives. But now he seems to spend his time with humans - or maybe he did before, too; he’s no stranger to Earth - so what’s that like? How does he dare get close to anyone knowing he’ll lose them?
He won’t have to worry about that now. She smiles slowly as that occurs to her. He’ll have Jack, and her too if she is immortal. The three of them, travelling through time and space in the TARDIS together, for ever. Better with three.
Maybe it’s not so bad after all. Though god knows what her mum’s going to say.
Her mum... oh! She left her mum and Mickey back there, where the TARDIS landed, not knowing if they’d ever see her again, dead or alive. She’ll have to - they’ll have to... but not yet. Not until she knows what she’s facing. What she’ll have to say, or what excuses she’ll have to make, if not now, then in five or ten years’ time when she’s not looking any older.
“Rose.” She starts, and in the same moment Jack’s arm slides around her shoulders. “Are you all right? You kind of spaced out there for a bit.”
“Fine,” she protests quickly. “I’m fine.”
“Sure?” His eyes narrow as he gazes at her. Over his shoulder, she notices the Doctor turning around, also studying her, assessing her.
“I’m okay,” she repeats. “Was just thinking.”
“Never a good idea, that,” the Doctor quips with a quick grin, but his eyes are still serious. “Rose, I might not be able to tell even when I get the results of these tests. You do realise that?”
She nods; she had, sort of, though she’s still getting used to the idea that the Doctor’s not all-knowing. That there are times when he doesn’t know the answer. Oh, there’ve been little things before, but never on this big a scale. Though he has just had to face half a million of his worst enemy, the creatures that had him paralysed with fear and hatred when he met just one of them.
“Thing is,” he continues, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets, “I promised your mum I’d keep you safe. You know that. That’s why I sent you home. You shouldn’t’ve come back, Rose.”
“What?” She stares, horrified. “If I hadn’t, you’d be dead, both of you. How could you think that’s right?”
“Worse than that.” Jack’s looking very serious. “From what you say, Doctor, the Daleks would have destroyed most of the Solar System and been halfway to conquering the universe.”
“Yep.” The Doctor looks away. That’s the one thing she’s found hardest to understand, too. That he’d just given up. That, when she arrived with the TARDIS, he was just standing there waiting to be killed. The Doctor, giving up and letting an enemy like that win.
But then he turns back, and his expression is brighter. “Didn’t happen, though.” He shakes his head, looking disbelieving. “The Time War ended by a human. Fantastic.”
“Well, a human aided by Time Lord technology,” Jack comments. “Rose couldn’t have done it without the TARDIS, could you?”
“Or without Mum and Mickey to help me open up the console,” she points out. “So, y’know, humans had a lot to do with it. Not such stupid apes now, are we?” she says, grinning at the Doctor, tongue curling around her teeth.
“You have your moments,” he concedes.
“You including all humans in that statement, Doctor, or just Rose?” Jack enquires, raising an eyebrow.
“S’pose there might be one or two others,” the Doctor answers, his tone grudging - but he’s looking straight at Jack, and his lips twitch.
“Good to know.” Jack grins. “So, to sum up... We just faced down battalions of Daleks, creatures we all thought were extinct. I was dead, now I’m immortal. You regenerated, but stayed as you are, and maybe you always will. And Rose... she should have died, but you saved her, and now you have no idea if she’s the same as me or not. I can’t say life’s ever boring with you, Doctor. That’s the most fun I can ever remember having in one day.”
She has to laugh. Only Jack could call the day they’ve just had fun.
“Typical,” the Doctor mutters, rolling his eyes. “Only you, Captain.”
“Yeah, but the thing is, Doctor,” Jack continues. “I thought I was gonna die. I thought I was never gonna see either of you again. Now, maybe there’s a few things we’re gonna have to deal with further down the line, but right now all that matters is we’re alive, like Rose said. And I think that’s worth celebrating.”
“Yeah.” A lump in her throat again, she turns to Jack, reaching out for a hug. He pulls her into his arms, lifting her off her feet, and before she realises his intent he’s kissing her: warm, firm lips pressing against hers, demanding a response which she finds herself giving willingly. And god can Jack kiss.
It’s nothing like his goodbye kiss on Satellite Five. This isn’t sweet and chaste - it’s so far from sweet and chaste it’s not even in the same galaxy. It’s hot, sensual and arousing and... what is he doing with his tongue? But, oh god, it doesn’t matter as long as he keeps doing it, and as long as his hands continue to shape her body, stroking and caressing and making clear that he’d be even happier to do it with clothes out of the way.
Eventually, and too soon, he lets her go with a whispered “Thank you for saving me,” and her legs are wobbly as she has to support herself again. Only then she’s not supporting herself as other strong arms are around her and she’s surrounded by the scent of leather and honey.
“Jack’s right,” the Doctor admits, his tone gruff. “Seen too much death and destruction, me. Never thought I’d live past this.”
And, she can’t help suspecting, for a while he might not even have wanted to. She doesn’t remember much about arriving back on the satellite, but there’s a strong image in her mind of a man who looked like he’d just given up.
A hand tilts her chin up. “Wouldn’t want you to think the Captain’s the only one who can snog you till you’re dizzy.”
Even with that, she still doesn’t believe she’s heard correctly until different, cooler lips - softer than she could ever have imagined - cover hers.
The Doctor’s kiss is as different from Jack’s as night is from day, yet it’s every bit as intense. He’s making her shiver inside and out, and it’s not all from the cooler temperature of his mouth and his tongue. His hands don’t move any further than her face, yet her entire body is tingling as if he’s touching her all over, even though she knows he’s not.
She’s clinging to his shoulders when he raises his head, and his intense blue eyes stare into hers.
“Nine hundred years old, me. I think you could say I’ve danced,” he murmurs, and his eyes twinkle with amusement.
“Took you long enough to prove it,” Jack comments from somewhere behind her, but neither of them pay him any attention.
“How... how come it felt like you were touching me all over?” she has to ask.
He grins. “Telepathic. You know that. Works if I touch your temples. What you felt was me thinking ‘bout touchin’ you.”
Her mouth forms a soundless wow. The word’s echoed aloud by Jack.
“I’d ask if I can have a turn,” Jack adds, his tone regretful despite a teasing note, “but I guess you can’t, what with you reacting badly to me.”
“That’s assumin’ I’d even want to,” the Doctor comments, his tone completely deadpan, and she winces for Jack. Even as he speaks, though, the Doctor’s setting her aside and advancing on Jack with slow, steady paces.
“C’mere,” the Doctor says, his voice little louder than a whisper, and he takes Jack’s face between his palms exactly as he did hers. She stares, watching Jack start and then grip the Doctor’s shoulders as if he needs the support to stand, and she wonders if this is what she looked like, too, just as needy and lost in the kiss.
There’s a second, too, when she can’t help thinking what her mum would say, or Mickey; after all, there’s three of them here, two blokes and her, and they’re all kissing each other. But that thought’s fleeting; she’s completely transfixed by the two men in front of her, each gorgeous in their own way, both her heroes, and each consumed by the other.
It’s the Doctor who breaks the kiss, dropping his hands from Jack’s face, and Jack who, for a few moments, looks dazed and stunned. “Wow,” he manages at last, and lets out a low whistle. “I’ve had a lot of kisses, but that...”
“Never snogged a Time Lord before, did you?” The Doctor’s looking very smug.
“True,” Jack agrees. And then, abruptly, he grins, a wicked glint in his eyes, and glides his fingertips over the Doctor’s chest. “You know, those tests you’re running... don’t you think it’d be a good idea to conduct a more in-depth examination? A physical examination, maybe?”
She’s just catching her breath on realising what his audacious suggestion actually entails, when the Doctor’s reply steals what air’s left in her lungs.
“Might be an idea, at that. What d’you think, Rose?”
***
The Doctor’s holding out his hand to her, while his other hand’s now resting on Jack’s shoulder. In her head, her mum’s voice is insistently demanding her attention, telling her that good girls don’t do that sort of thing and, even if she did have all those blokes while Rose was growing up, at least she only had one of them at a time. She never two-timed, and she certainly didn’t do what those two are suggesting.
She takes a deep breath, tells the Jackie Tyler in her head to shut up and reaches for the Doctor’s hand.
Somewhere, she’s got just enough presence of mind to note that Jack’s looking at the Doctor with an expression that says he’s almost as stunned as she’s feeling. Though Jack’s hardly going to be surprised at the idea that the three of them will... what? Have sex all together? Three in a bed? That’s part of what has her head reeling. But the stories Jack’s told make clear that this isn’t anything new for him. Is it for the Doctor? Has he done this sort of thing before? Is she the naïve innocent in this relationship, if it is a relationship?
What’s also got her gobsmacked, and she knows that’s why Jack’s stunned too, is that the Doctor’s doing this. Because he doesn’t. He never has. She’d concluded he never would. Yet he is.
“Well, come on, then! What’s keepin’ you?” Rolling his eyes, the Doctor stares at her, and then at Jack.
Jack grins. “Nothing at all. Lead on, oh fearless commander!”
He does, taking them deep into the heart of the ship, through corridors and along hallways she knows she’s never seen before, and she’s pretty sure Jack hasn’t either. Not going to her bedroom, then. Or Jack’s. The Doctor’s? Could be, though - even though she’s only been there once - she doesn’t remember it being anywhere near here.
“Hey, Doc, gotta be a bedroom closer than this!” Jack teases after a while, turning to raise his eyebrows at the two of them in exaggerated lust and impatience.
“Course there are!” the Doctor points out in his I’m talking to idiots voice. “Not goin’ to a bedroom, are we?”
“Huh?” Jack looks confused, and she’s feeling pretty much the same way. “I thought-”
“Typical of you, Captain. Sex on the brain. Course that’d be what you’d assume.”
“What?” Jack halts, frowning. “You didn’t mean we’re gonna have sex?”
“Oh, we’ll get to it.” The Doctor grins, that same wicked grin that keeps making her heart flip. “Sooner or later. ‘S just not the most important part of getting to know each other better, that’s all.”
“Okay,” Jack concedes, though it’s clear that he’s not following the Doctor’s intentions. It doesn’t seem to matter, though. The Doctor leads them a little further on, before stopping in front of a door and dropping their hands.
He lays one hand against the door, preventing them from going any further, and his face, as he looks at the two of them, is sombre, full of warning. “Be very sure, you two. Before we go in here, be sure this is what you want.”
“Don’t know what’s in there, do we?” she points out.
“Like I said. Like Jack said. Gettin’ to know each other.”
“Well, that can’t be bad.” She moves closer to him and lays a hand against his chest. “Gettin’ to know you, Doctor. ‘S what I want.” She turns to Jack, moving her free hand to his chest, bulkier than the Doctor’s but with only a single heartbeat. “You too, Jack.”
“Well, then,” the Doctor says. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Cause gettin’ to know someone doesn’t only mean the stuff you want them to know.”
She shrugs. “Got no secrets from either of you.”
Jack hesitates, but then shakes his head. “Me neither.”
“On your own heads...” the Doctor cautions again, then pushes the door open.
The Doctor leads the way, and they step onto soft grass under a burnt-orange sky, so bright she has to shade her eyes as she looks up. No wonder; there’s not one but two suns.
Jack nudges her. “Look.” He’s pointing to a clump of trees that’s just off to the side. The leaves are silver, and she’s about to run over and pick one, to see whether it still feels like a leaf, when a movement ahead of them catches her eye. The Doctor. He hasn’t stopped walking, but he’s slowed down, head bowed, as if he’s dreading what lies ahead.
Her interest in the leaves forgotten, she nudges Jack, and the two of them hurry to him, each taking a hand. “Doctor, what’s wrong?”
“Just watch,” he says, and in front of them the scene changes. The open countryside disappears, and they’re looking at a city enclosed in what seems to be a glass bubble. She’s got no time to marvel at the beautiful buildings, because suddenly they’re inside the bubble and the buildings themselves are starting to crumble, to decay.
They’re following someone now, a man, slighter in build than the Doctor, with curly brown hair and wearing a green velvet frock-coat. He stops abruptly next to a woman wearing some kind of robe and headdress; from what she can tell, they seem to be having an argument. The man’s objecting, waving his arms, shaking his head, and when he briefly turns his head in their direction she can see a look of agony on his face.
The scene changes again; the man’s now inside... “That’s the TARDIS!” she gasps softly, though it doesn’t look like the TARDIS she knows.
“Yep,” the Doctor agrees, almost under his breath. The man’s moving controls around on a panel that, apart from its shape, looks nothing like the TARDIS console. Somehow, now, they’re closer, and she can see that his coat is badly scorched and torn, and stained with what looks like blood. His face, though handsome when she saw him inside the city, is scarred and black with soot. Even with that, she can see the tears running down his face.
“I can’t... but I have to,” he murmurs, and she thinks she’s never heard anyone so tortured. “Just let me die too. That’s all I ask. Let Gallifrey’s end be mine.”
He bows his head, and his hand moves. Immediately, everything in front of them turns to a ball of fire, so vivid that she instinctively ducks back, and Jack grabs her, pulling her to the ground and protecting her with his body.
“It’s safe,” the Doctor says, and his voice is bleak. She scrambles up and goes to him, wraps her arms around him, barely aware that in front of him now there’s just an empty room.
“That was you, wasn’t it?” Jack asks as he joins the two of them. “The end of the Time War?”
“Yes.” And in that one word she has confirmation of what she’s suspected since they met the Dalek. His planet was destroyed, yes, along with the Daleks - and he’s the one who pushed the button. He saved the universe from the Daleks, but at the price of his own home, his own kind.
“So now you know,” the Doctor says, and his voice is dark, his eyes bleak. “Still want to be here? Still want to... get to know me better?”
Jack gets in before her. “Don’t be an idiot, Doctor. That man we just saw made the hardest decision anyone’s ever had to make, and he saved the universe. You know what? That’s a guy I’m proud to know and love, and if you’re offering me the chance to stay with you and get to know you better, then I’m honoured.”
“Me too,” she cuts in, her voice firm and strong.
The Doctor’s silent and unmoving for a long moment; then he tugs both of them into his arms, holding them tight.
“If that was you tryin’ to scare us off, Doctor, didn’t work,” she tells him, and kisses the side of his neck.
“Nah. Not a chance,” Jack echoes.
Abruptly, the Doctor loosens his grip, and the manic grin’s back. “Yeah, but that’s only the beginning. What ‘bout you two? You ready to show Jack an’ me stuff, Rose? Jack, what about you?”
Well, he did, so it’s only fair. Besides, this is another test, isn’t it? He doesn’t need her and Jack to do what he did, but he needs to know that they’re willing to. Well, she won’t let him down. “How’s this room work?” she has to ask first. “Do I choose what I’m gonna show you?”
“Nope.” He drops his arms and stands back, hands shoved into his pockets again. “Told you, the TARDIS is telepathic, and this room’s made to take advantage of that. Once you’re ready, it’ll find your worst memory, the one you’ve hidden away, never told anyone, buried it deepest in your mind. And it’ll replay it for Jack and me.” Head tilted as he regards her, he asks, “Still sure?”
No, she’s not, but after what he’s just let them see she can’t refuse. “Yeah,” she says, nodding, and he gestures, letting her know that she’s up.
She’s expecting to see the time she stole money from her mum’s purse to go to Brighton for the day with Shireen - she’s always been ashamed of that - or the time when she was fifteen and, to keep in with the popular girls, she laughed with them when they were calling Mickey stupid and thick even though he was her best mate.
Instead, she’s looking at the interior of a bedsit she thought she’d never see again. It’s dark, untidy despite her best efforts, and it smells. She’s there, huddled on the bed in her pyjamas, hair lank and with dark roots inches long.
“Rose?” Jack’s hand curls around hers. The Doctor, staying silent, rests his hand on her shoulder.
“He - he won’t let me go out.” She has to struggle to find her voice. The Doctor’s right. This is a time she’s all buy obliterated from her mind. “I had a job. Not much, jus’ down the chip-shop, but at least some money was coming in. I could buy food. But he didn’t like me talkin’ to other blokes.”
There’s a sharp knock at the door, but the her on the bed doesn’t react at all. The knock comes again, louder, and this time a male voice calls, “Police! We have a search-warrant.”
Oh. That day.
She wants to hide inside herself as she watches it all unfold, the day she discovered that Jimmy wasn’t just a user - on top of being a controlling, abusive boyfriend - but that he also dealt drugs. He sold drugs to twelve-year-olds. He got them hooked, and then he bled them dry to feed their habit. And she, his girlfriend, who’d lived with him for the past two months, never suspected a thing.
“I didn’t know,” the her in front of her’s sobbing to the police, but it’s obvious they don’t believe her - especially as they’ve just found a stash in Jimmy’s guitar-case, the case she found out the hard way she wasn’t to touch.
That’s the last time she was ever that naïve.
Strong leather-clad arms enfold her, and another body presses against her from behind, lips brushing the back of her head. “Course you didn’t know,” the Doctor murmurs, his lips against her cheek.
“You’re not the person you were then, anyone can see that,” Jack says, the sound of his voice reverberating along her spine. “You’re stronger. Better.”
“You’re fantastic,” the Doctor adds. “An’ you don’t let any bloke tell you what to do. I try to send you home, you tear my ship apart gettin’ back to us.”
She has to laugh at that, and the recognition that he’s right - they’re both right. She’s not that girl any more, and with that knowledge it feels like at least some of the pain of that time’s lessened.
Maybe, she can’t help thinking, this is also what this room’s for? Courage, she suspects, leads to healing. And bonding - getting to know each other better, like the Doctor said.
Jack pulls away from the two of them. “My turn.” His voice is just a little unsteady.
“You don’t have to,” the Doctor says immediately, and that convinces her even more that it’s a test - and she wonders if the Doctor’s even realised why sharing’s good. Does he feel any better about himself, about the sacrifice he had to make?
“Yes, I do,” Jack says, and she suspects that maybe he knows. Or he feels it’s not fair that they’ve shared private stuff and he hasn’t.
“Off you go, then.” The Doctor steps back, takes her hand and waits.
They’re on a beach then, panicked people all around, screams and cries barely audible above the sound of aircraft and strafing gunfire. Two boys, she’s guessing brothers, are running, trying to get away, the taller holding the younger one’s hand.
They stumble. Hands are dropped. The older drags himself to his feet again, looking around for the younger. “Grey!” he calls, fear in his voice. “Grey!” he calls again, panicky now as he starts to retrace his steps, scanning all around him, screaming and crying his brother’s name.
“Jack?” Her voice is soft as she tries to speak past the lump in her throat. “That’s you?”
He’s standing on her other side, body rigid, his jaw twitching. He simply nods. And the scene switches; the older boy’s kneeling beside a man, clearly dead, calling him father. Another switch, and a woman’s caught the boy by the shoulders. “Where’s Grey? Where’s Grey?”
“Go...gone,” the boy stammers. “I... I lost him. He let go of my hand. He-”
“How could you let him go?” the woman shouts, screams. “How could you? You were supposed to be looking after him! You’re the older one. You know he’s only little. How could you!”
The boy turns away, drops to his knees and sobs as the woman keeps raining accusations down on his head and attacking spaceships still fly overhead. And her heart aches for Jack, devastated by the loss of half his family in one go, blaming himself for his brother - and letting his mother blame him too.
“Oh, Jack.” She drops the Doctor’s hand and reaches for him. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was,” he says, and his voice cracks. “I was supposed to-”
“You were a kid too,” the Doctor says, and he’s on Jack’s other side, hand pulling Jack’s head down to his shoulder. “You were just a kid. It was an invasion. Bet he wasn’t the only one lost that day.”
Jack’s body shakes in their arms, and she knows he’s crying, just as the boy in front of them - no more than fourteen, she’d guess - is sobbing his heart out, only he’s got no-one to comfort him.
“Did she ever remember she had two sons?” she has to ask eventually. Jack, still in her arms, just shrugs, and she holds him tighter, telling him she loves him over and over until, finally, he looks up and says the words back to her before kissing her with such beautiful tenderness she’s ready to cry again.
***
Later, Jack does get his wish and the three of them make love in a bedroom the Doctor says wasn’t there before today. It’s wonderful and thrilling and loving, the most exciting thing she’s ever done or watched indoors, and she hopes there’ll be many repeats. There will be, she’s sure, as the Doctor comes apart in their arms, hers and Jack’s, and they kiss him and stroke him until he’s breathing normally again and giving them that goofy grin he wore as he helped her to undress Jack.
All the same, as close as she feels to both of them now, lying between them with both their arms around her, she knows that the real intimacy between them, the real trust, was born back in that room. No secrets any more. No hiding. They’ve seen the worst each of them’s been, and it’s made no difference. She still loves the Doctor and Jack the same, and they love each other, and her, the same too.
“You ever find your brother?” The Doctor’s voice cuts through the silence as they cuddle, occasionally exerting themselves enough to stroke or kiss.
“Never.” Jack’s voice is quiet. “Searched for him for years. I know he’s dead, but part of me could never give up hoping.”
“We can find him, can’t we? Or try, at least?” she asks, though she’s remembering Reapers and the dangers of going back into personal timelines.
“Course we can.” The Doctor reclines against the headboard, drawing each of them to lie with their heads on his stomach. “Can’t interfere, Jack, but we can find out what happened to him. That enough?”
Jack nods. “Better than I ever thought I’d get.”
“Good.” The Doctor smiles; after a moment, it turns into a wicked grin. “Don’t I get a thank you, then?”
By the look of it, Jack’s very happy to oblige.
***
Epilogue: You Were Fantastic - And So Was I
They’re both sleeping when he slips out of bed and pads along the hallway to the medlab to check the results of the tests.
It’s no surprise at all when he runs the data, scanning it quicker than the human eye’s capable of seeing, and discovers that all the equations and correlations and cross-tabulations add up to just one answer: inconclusive.
No, neither Jack’s or Rose’s test results are the same as they were before the Game Station, before Bad Wolf. But that’s completely consistent with Rose still being entirely human, entirely immortal. She’s had the Time Vortex inside her and, even though he knows he got it all out, there’s going to be residual traces around her DNA for a while. Just as there are traces of huon energy as well as regeneration energy around his.
There isn’t enough information in Jack’s and Rose’s results, either, for him to be able to determine that their life energies are or aren’t the same. Jack’s from the fifty-first century and naturally his DNA structure is different from Rose’s, but those differences haven’t increased in any significant way.
For every piece of evidence to suggest that Rose might be like Jack - immortal, unable to age - there’s another to suggest she’s not. And it’s just the same with his own data. Maybe she has stopped him from changing any time something happens that should make him regenerate, or maybe she hasn’t.
He should be worried about this, about the fact that he can’t tell one way or another, and about the fact that Rose could be immortal, just like Jack. After all, Jack’s fate’s not one he’d wish on anyone. But then if all three of them are the same then it won’t be so bad, because they’ll have each other. They won’t have to watch everyone they know grow old and die; there’ll still be a couple of people they won’t need to say goodbye to.
The inevitable conclusion, though it’s not one he likes, is that there’s no way of knowing for certain except through real-life testing... and that’s something he’s in no hurry to have happen. Oh, yeah, give it a few years and it’ll be obvious either way in Rose’s case. She might want an answer sooner, but he’s personally happy to wait and find out. Besides, he’s in no hurry either to get the slap Jackie Tyler’ll be handing his way as soon as she finds out what’s happened to her daughter.
He grins suddenly. She’ll be wanting to slap him for an entirely different reason now. But that slap - oh, that will be worth every sting.
Leaving the test results behind, he leaves the medlab and heads back towards the bedroom to see whether his human companions are awake yet.
Because maybe Jack was right about one thing, after all. Having sex on the brain’s not such a bad thing.
In fact, it’s bloody fantastic.
- end
Author: wmr wendymr
Characters: Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: idea mine, characters not
Summary: I can see everything. All that is... all that was... all that ever could be. What else might Bad Wolf Rose have done while she had the chance?
With thanks to dark_aegis for much-needed reassurance and BRing. Note that this story was begun before the S4 finale was shown (no spoilers herein; unless you know what happens in the final two episodes of S4 you won't know where the resemblance is).
Chapter 1: I Want You Safe l Chapter 2: I Bring Life
Chapter 3: I Think You Need a Doctor
“But I wouldn’t-” she protests, and then halts abruptly. Because she would, wouldn’t she? It’s exactly what she’d do, if she could.
A way to keep the three of them together as long as possible, no need to worry about any of them dying? Course she would.
“Makes sense,” Jack’s saying, but the obvious answer’s just occurred to her and she cuts across him.
“Can’t be.” She catches at the Doctor’s arm. “You’d know. Like you knew with Jack. You’d have been able to sense me soon as you took the power from me, and I’d feel wrong, yeah?”
“Yeah, she’s right,” Jack says immediately. “Didn’t think of it, but of course she is.”
The Doctor hasn’t said a word. He was looking at her when he said she might have made herself immortal, but now he’s turned completely away, his attention focused on one of his machines. It’s as if he hasn’t even heard her say that he’d know.
Now, he turns back to her, so abruptly her hand falls away from his arm. He studies her through narrowed eyes for a long moment, and she’s just starting to feel as if she’s an insect under his microscope when he finally speaks.
“Never happened before, this. So ‘s not like I have all the answers, is it?” He moves closer to her, takes her face between his palms and gazes into her eyes, still apparently searching for something. “Thing is, Jack was dead when you did it to him. He came back from the dead. That could be why I feel him an’ not you. Dunno, though.”
He drops his hands, leaving her feeling oddly chilled. “You didn’t die. Could have, mind, but you didn’t. Still, though, immortal would mean you don’t age either, so that could mean you’re a fixed point already an’ I should feel it. Or it could be that it’s cause you’re the one who held the power. Maybe you made yourself... I dunno, beyond my ability to feel it. A fixed point, but - well, disguised, I s’pose. You had the heart of the TARDIS, the Time Vortex, inside you. Anything’s possible.”
“So...” She can’t take her eyes off him. “Am I or not?”
“Jus’ said, didn’t I?” He shakes his head. “I don’t know. An’ I’d rather not go testing it any time soon, all right?”
Yeah, she’s not all that keen on that herself, really. Come to think of it, she’s not that keen on testing the theory with Jack either, even if the Doctor is convinced that Jack can’t die.
All the same, though... she holds his gaze as a slow smile comes over her face. “You’re actually admitting there’s stuff you don’t know?”
“Never claimed I knew everything,” he mutters, defensive.
“You so did!”
“Nah, just most things,” Jack quips.
The Doctor rolls his eyes. “If you don’t mind, still got stuff to do ‘ere. Rose.” He indicates the table Jack was sitting on a few minutes ago. “Up you get.”
She does. “So you’re doing what, exactly?”
“Takin’ samples.” He runs first one, then a second instrument over her; it bleeps and shrieks, sounding just the same as when he did it to Jack. Then she’s poked and prodded and he takes a swab from the inside of her mouth.
“Right, then!” he announces when he’s finished. “The TARDIS will compare all these samples with the ones already in her databanks, to see what - if anything - has changed. An’ then she’ll compare your samples against each other, look for patterns an’ so on.”
“How long will that take?” It seems like he’s finished with her, so she slides back down to the floor; Jack’s hand is instantly at her elbow to help her, even though she doesn’t need it. But, after the day they’ve had, she can understand needing to be close, to touch.
The Doctor shrugs. “Few hours, give or take.”
Okay, well, if it’s the best she’s going to get...
“And what about you?” Jack asks, and her gaze flicks to the Doctor again. She’d almost forgotten what she did to him. What she might have done.
He starts, as if he’s forgotten it too, and then he huffs out a breath and reaches for the instruments he used on her and Jack. As he turns away from them, it’s as if he’s not even aware of their presence, though Jack moves forward, offering to help. With what looks like grudging acceptance, the Doctor allows him to scan areas he can’t reach himself.
Left alone, ignored, for now, she’s got nothing to distract her. Nothing but one word.
Immortal. She might be immortal.
Never able to die. Never ageing. She’ll look nineteen - or twenty; isn’t she supposed to be twenty now? - for the rest of her life. A very, very long life.
She leans backwards carefully, discreetly - the last thing she wants is for the two of them to see she’s upset - and leans against the side of the examination table. Delayed reaction, she tells herself. It’ll pass.
But the immortality won’t, if she really is immortal.
Though it won’t just be her. Jack’s immortal too. They’ll have each other, right? Cause they’re going to outlive everyone else. Everyone they know will die, and the two of them will still be alive, still young.
Bit like the Doctor really, she thinks suddenly, and her heart skips a beat. That’s what it’s like for him? All the time? Getting to know people, becoming friends, caring about them - and then they up and die on him. But of course it is. He did say he’s over nine hundred years old, after all.
How does he stand it?
Maybe it was okay while his people were still around - at least they all lived long lives. But now he seems to spend his time with humans - or maybe he did before, too; he’s no stranger to Earth - so what’s that like? How does he dare get close to anyone knowing he’ll lose them?
He won’t have to worry about that now. She smiles slowly as that occurs to her. He’ll have Jack, and her too if she is immortal. The three of them, travelling through time and space in the TARDIS together, for ever. Better with three.
Maybe it’s not so bad after all. Though god knows what her mum’s going to say.
Her mum... oh! She left her mum and Mickey back there, where the TARDIS landed, not knowing if they’d ever see her again, dead or alive. She’ll have to - they’ll have to... but not yet. Not until she knows what she’s facing. What she’ll have to say, or what excuses she’ll have to make, if not now, then in five or ten years’ time when she’s not looking any older.
“Rose.” She starts, and in the same moment Jack’s arm slides around her shoulders. “Are you all right? You kind of spaced out there for a bit.”
“Fine,” she protests quickly. “I’m fine.”
“Sure?” His eyes narrow as he gazes at her. Over his shoulder, she notices the Doctor turning around, also studying her, assessing her.
“I’m okay,” she repeats. “Was just thinking.”
“Never a good idea, that,” the Doctor quips with a quick grin, but his eyes are still serious. “Rose, I might not be able to tell even when I get the results of these tests. You do realise that?”
She nods; she had, sort of, though she’s still getting used to the idea that the Doctor’s not all-knowing. That there are times when he doesn’t know the answer. Oh, there’ve been little things before, but never on this big a scale. Though he has just had to face half a million of his worst enemy, the creatures that had him paralysed with fear and hatred when he met just one of them.
“Thing is,” he continues, hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets, “I promised your mum I’d keep you safe. You know that. That’s why I sent you home. You shouldn’t’ve come back, Rose.”
“What?” She stares, horrified. “If I hadn’t, you’d be dead, both of you. How could you think that’s right?”
“Worse than that.” Jack’s looking very serious. “From what you say, Doctor, the Daleks would have destroyed most of the Solar System and been halfway to conquering the universe.”
“Yep.” The Doctor looks away. That’s the one thing she’s found hardest to understand, too. That he’d just given up. That, when she arrived with the TARDIS, he was just standing there waiting to be killed. The Doctor, giving up and letting an enemy like that win.
But then he turns back, and his expression is brighter. “Didn’t happen, though.” He shakes his head, looking disbelieving. “The Time War ended by a human. Fantastic.”
“Well, a human aided by Time Lord technology,” Jack comments. “Rose couldn’t have done it without the TARDIS, could you?”
“Or without Mum and Mickey to help me open up the console,” she points out. “So, y’know, humans had a lot to do with it. Not such stupid apes now, are we?” she says, grinning at the Doctor, tongue curling around her teeth.
“You have your moments,” he concedes.
“You including all humans in that statement, Doctor, or just Rose?” Jack enquires, raising an eyebrow.
“S’pose there might be one or two others,” the Doctor answers, his tone grudging - but he’s looking straight at Jack, and his lips twitch.
“Good to know.” Jack grins. “So, to sum up... We just faced down battalions of Daleks, creatures we all thought were extinct. I was dead, now I’m immortal. You regenerated, but stayed as you are, and maybe you always will. And Rose... she should have died, but you saved her, and now you have no idea if she’s the same as me or not. I can’t say life’s ever boring with you, Doctor. That’s the most fun I can ever remember having in one day.”
She has to laugh. Only Jack could call the day they’ve just had fun.
“Typical,” the Doctor mutters, rolling his eyes. “Only you, Captain.”
“Yeah, but the thing is, Doctor,” Jack continues. “I thought I was gonna die. I thought I was never gonna see either of you again. Now, maybe there’s a few things we’re gonna have to deal with further down the line, but right now all that matters is we’re alive, like Rose said. And I think that’s worth celebrating.”
“Yeah.” A lump in her throat again, she turns to Jack, reaching out for a hug. He pulls her into his arms, lifting her off her feet, and before she realises his intent he’s kissing her: warm, firm lips pressing against hers, demanding a response which she finds herself giving willingly. And god can Jack kiss.
It’s nothing like his goodbye kiss on Satellite Five. This isn’t sweet and chaste - it’s so far from sweet and chaste it’s not even in the same galaxy. It’s hot, sensual and arousing and... what is he doing with his tongue? But, oh god, it doesn’t matter as long as he keeps doing it, and as long as his hands continue to shape her body, stroking and caressing and making clear that he’d be even happier to do it with clothes out of the way.
Eventually, and too soon, he lets her go with a whispered “Thank you for saving me,” and her legs are wobbly as she has to support herself again. Only then she’s not supporting herself as other strong arms are around her and she’s surrounded by the scent of leather and honey.
“Jack’s right,” the Doctor admits, his tone gruff. “Seen too much death and destruction, me. Never thought I’d live past this.”
And, she can’t help suspecting, for a while he might not even have wanted to. She doesn’t remember much about arriving back on the satellite, but there’s a strong image in her mind of a man who looked like he’d just given up.
A hand tilts her chin up. “Wouldn’t want you to think the Captain’s the only one who can snog you till you’re dizzy.”
Even with that, she still doesn’t believe she’s heard correctly until different, cooler lips - softer than she could ever have imagined - cover hers.
The Doctor’s kiss is as different from Jack’s as night is from day, yet it’s every bit as intense. He’s making her shiver inside and out, and it’s not all from the cooler temperature of his mouth and his tongue. His hands don’t move any further than her face, yet her entire body is tingling as if he’s touching her all over, even though she knows he’s not.
She’s clinging to his shoulders when he raises his head, and his intense blue eyes stare into hers.
“Nine hundred years old, me. I think you could say I’ve danced,” he murmurs, and his eyes twinkle with amusement.
“Took you long enough to prove it,” Jack comments from somewhere behind her, but neither of them pay him any attention.
“How... how come it felt like you were touching me all over?” she has to ask.
He grins. “Telepathic. You know that. Works if I touch your temples. What you felt was me thinking ‘bout touchin’ you.”
Her mouth forms a soundless wow. The word’s echoed aloud by Jack.
“I’d ask if I can have a turn,” Jack adds, his tone regretful despite a teasing note, “but I guess you can’t, what with you reacting badly to me.”
“That’s assumin’ I’d even want to,” the Doctor comments, his tone completely deadpan, and she winces for Jack. Even as he speaks, though, the Doctor’s setting her aside and advancing on Jack with slow, steady paces.
“C’mere,” the Doctor says, his voice little louder than a whisper, and he takes Jack’s face between his palms exactly as he did hers. She stares, watching Jack start and then grip the Doctor’s shoulders as if he needs the support to stand, and she wonders if this is what she looked like, too, just as needy and lost in the kiss.
There’s a second, too, when she can’t help thinking what her mum would say, or Mickey; after all, there’s three of them here, two blokes and her, and they’re all kissing each other. But that thought’s fleeting; she’s completely transfixed by the two men in front of her, each gorgeous in their own way, both her heroes, and each consumed by the other.
It’s the Doctor who breaks the kiss, dropping his hands from Jack’s face, and Jack who, for a few moments, looks dazed and stunned. “Wow,” he manages at last, and lets out a low whistle. “I’ve had a lot of kisses, but that...”
“Never snogged a Time Lord before, did you?” The Doctor’s looking very smug.
“True,” Jack agrees. And then, abruptly, he grins, a wicked glint in his eyes, and glides his fingertips over the Doctor’s chest. “You know, those tests you’re running... don’t you think it’d be a good idea to conduct a more in-depth examination? A physical examination, maybe?”
She’s just catching her breath on realising what his audacious suggestion actually entails, when the Doctor’s reply steals what air’s left in her lungs.
“Might be an idea, at that. What d’you think, Rose?”
***
The Doctor’s holding out his hand to her, while his other hand’s now resting on Jack’s shoulder. In her head, her mum’s voice is insistently demanding her attention, telling her that good girls don’t do that sort of thing and, even if she did have all those blokes while Rose was growing up, at least she only had one of them at a time. She never two-timed, and she certainly didn’t do what those two are suggesting.
She takes a deep breath, tells the Jackie Tyler in her head to shut up and reaches for the Doctor’s hand.
Somewhere, she’s got just enough presence of mind to note that Jack’s looking at the Doctor with an expression that says he’s almost as stunned as she’s feeling. Though Jack’s hardly going to be surprised at the idea that the three of them will... what? Have sex all together? Three in a bed? That’s part of what has her head reeling. But the stories Jack’s told make clear that this isn’t anything new for him. Is it for the Doctor? Has he done this sort of thing before? Is she the naïve innocent in this relationship, if it is a relationship?
What’s also got her gobsmacked, and she knows that’s why Jack’s stunned too, is that the Doctor’s doing this. Because he doesn’t. He never has. She’d concluded he never would. Yet he is.
“Well, come on, then! What’s keepin’ you?” Rolling his eyes, the Doctor stares at her, and then at Jack.
Jack grins. “Nothing at all. Lead on, oh fearless commander!”
He does, taking them deep into the heart of the ship, through corridors and along hallways she knows she’s never seen before, and she’s pretty sure Jack hasn’t either. Not going to her bedroom, then. Or Jack’s. The Doctor’s? Could be, though - even though she’s only been there once - she doesn’t remember it being anywhere near here.
“Hey, Doc, gotta be a bedroom closer than this!” Jack teases after a while, turning to raise his eyebrows at the two of them in exaggerated lust and impatience.
“Course there are!” the Doctor points out in his I’m talking to idiots voice. “Not goin’ to a bedroom, are we?”
“Huh?” Jack looks confused, and she’s feeling pretty much the same way. “I thought-”
“Typical of you, Captain. Sex on the brain. Course that’d be what you’d assume.”
“What?” Jack halts, frowning. “You didn’t mean we’re gonna have sex?”
“Oh, we’ll get to it.” The Doctor grins, that same wicked grin that keeps making her heart flip. “Sooner or later. ‘S just not the most important part of getting to know each other better, that’s all.”
“Okay,” Jack concedes, though it’s clear that he’s not following the Doctor’s intentions. It doesn’t seem to matter, though. The Doctor leads them a little further on, before stopping in front of a door and dropping their hands.
He lays one hand against the door, preventing them from going any further, and his face, as he looks at the two of them, is sombre, full of warning. “Be very sure, you two. Before we go in here, be sure this is what you want.”
“Don’t know what’s in there, do we?” she points out.
“Like I said. Like Jack said. Gettin’ to know each other.”
“Well, that can’t be bad.” She moves closer to him and lays a hand against his chest. “Gettin’ to know you, Doctor. ‘S what I want.” She turns to Jack, moving her free hand to his chest, bulkier than the Doctor’s but with only a single heartbeat. “You too, Jack.”
“Well, then,” the Doctor says. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Cause gettin’ to know someone doesn’t only mean the stuff you want them to know.”
She shrugs. “Got no secrets from either of you.”
Jack hesitates, but then shakes his head. “Me neither.”
“On your own heads...” the Doctor cautions again, then pushes the door open.
The Doctor leads the way, and they step onto soft grass under a burnt-orange sky, so bright she has to shade her eyes as she looks up. No wonder; there’s not one but two suns.
Jack nudges her. “Look.” He’s pointing to a clump of trees that’s just off to the side. The leaves are silver, and she’s about to run over and pick one, to see whether it still feels like a leaf, when a movement ahead of them catches her eye. The Doctor. He hasn’t stopped walking, but he’s slowed down, head bowed, as if he’s dreading what lies ahead.
Her interest in the leaves forgotten, she nudges Jack, and the two of them hurry to him, each taking a hand. “Doctor, what’s wrong?”
“Just watch,” he says, and in front of them the scene changes. The open countryside disappears, and they’re looking at a city enclosed in what seems to be a glass bubble. She’s got no time to marvel at the beautiful buildings, because suddenly they’re inside the bubble and the buildings themselves are starting to crumble, to decay.
They’re following someone now, a man, slighter in build than the Doctor, with curly brown hair and wearing a green velvet frock-coat. He stops abruptly next to a woman wearing some kind of robe and headdress; from what she can tell, they seem to be having an argument. The man’s objecting, waving his arms, shaking his head, and when he briefly turns his head in their direction she can see a look of agony on his face.
The scene changes again; the man’s now inside... “That’s the TARDIS!” she gasps softly, though it doesn’t look like the TARDIS she knows.
“Yep,” the Doctor agrees, almost under his breath. The man’s moving controls around on a panel that, apart from its shape, looks nothing like the TARDIS console. Somehow, now, they’re closer, and she can see that his coat is badly scorched and torn, and stained with what looks like blood. His face, though handsome when she saw him inside the city, is scarred and black with soot. Even with that, she can see the tears running down his face.
“I can’t... but I have to,” he murmurs, and she thinks she’s never heard anyone so tortured. “Just let me die too. That’s all I ask. Let Gallifrey’s end be mine.”
He bows his head, and his hand moves. Immediately, everything in front of them turns to a ball of fire, so vivid that she instinctively ducks back, and Jack grabs her, pulling her to the ground and protecting her with his body.
“It’s safe,” the Doctor says, and his voice is bleak. She scrambles up and goes to him, wraps her arms around him, barely aware that in front of him now there’s just an empty room.
“That was you, wasn’t it?” Jack asks as he joins the two of them. “The end of the Time War?”
“Yes.” And in that one word she has confirmation of what she’s suspected since they met the Dalek. His planet was destroyed, yes, along with the Daleks - and he’s the one who pushed the button. He saved the universe from the Daleks, but at the price of his own home, his own kind.
“So now you know,” the Doctor says, and his voice is dark, his eyes bleak. “Still want to be here? Still want to... get to know me better?”
Jack gets in before her. “Don’t be an idiot, Doctor. That man we just saw made the hardest decision anyone’s ever had to make, and he saved the universe. You know what? That’s a guy I’m proud to know and love, and if you’re offering me the chance to stay with you and get to know you better, then I’m honoured.”
“Me too,” she cuts in, her voice firm and strong.
The Doctor’s silent and unmoving for a long moment; then he tugs both of them into his arms, holding them tight.
“If that was you tryin’ to scare us off, Doctor, didn’t work,” she tells him, and kisses the side of his neck.
“Nah. Not a chance,” Jack echoes.
Abruptly, the Doctor loosens his grip, and the manic grin’s back. “Yeah, but that’s only the beginning. What ‘bout you two? You ready to show Jack an’ me stuff, Rose? Jack, what about you?”
Well, he did, so it’s only fair. Besides, this is another test, isn’t it? He doesn’t need her and Jack to do what he did, but he needs to know that they’re willing to. Well, she won’t let him down. “How’s this room work?” she has to ask first. “Do I choose what I’m gonna show you?”
“Nope.” He drops his arms and stands back, hands shoved into his pockets again. “Told you, the TARDIS is telepathic, and this room’s made to take advantage of that. Once you’re ready, it’ll find your worst memory, the one you’ve hidden away, never told anyone, buried it deepest in your mind. And it’ll replay it for Jack and me.” Head tilted as he regards her, he asks, “Still sure?”
No, she’s not, but after what he’s just let them see she can’t refuse. “Yeah,” she says, nodding, and he gestures, letting her know that she’s up.
She’s expecting to see the time she stole money from her mum’s purse to go to Brighton for the day with Shireen - she’s always been ashamed of that - or the time when she was fifteen and, to keep in with the popular girls, she laughed with them when they were calling Mickey stupid and thick even though he was her best mate.
Instead, she’s looking at the interior of a bedsit she thought she’d never see again. It’s dark, untidy despite her best efforts, and it smells. She’s there, huddled on the bed in her pyjamas, hair lank and with dark roots inches long.
“Rose?” Jack’s hand curls around hers. The Doctor, staying silent, rests his hand on her shoulder.
“He - he won’t let me go out.” She has to struggle to find her voice. The Doctor’s right. This is a time she’s all buy obliterated from her mind. “I had a job. Not much, jus’ down the chip-shop, but at least some money was coming in. I could buy food. But he didn’t like me talkin’ to other blokes.”
There’s a sharp knock at the door, but the her on the bed doesn’t react at all. The knock comes again, louder, and this time a male voice calls, “Police! We have a search-warrant.”
Oh. That day.
She wants to hide inside herself as she watches it all unfold, the day she discovered that Jimmy wasn’t just a user - on top of being a controlling, abusive boyfriend - but that he also dealt drugs. He sold drugs to twelve-year-olds. He got them hooked, and then he bled them dry to feed their habit. And she, his girlfriend, who’d lived with him for the past two months, never suspected a thing.
“I didn’t know,” the her in front of her’s sobbing to the police, but it’s obvious they don’t believe her - especially as they’ve just found a stash in Jimmy’s guitar-case, the case she found out the hard way she wasn’t to touch.
That’s the last time she was ever that naïve.
Strong leather-clad arms enfold her, and another body presses against her from behind, lips brushing the back of her head. “Course you didn’t know,” the Doctor murmurs, his lips against her cheek.
“You’re not the person you were then, anyone can see that,” Jack says, the sound of his voice reverberating along her spine. “You’re stronger. Better.”
“You’re fantastic,” the Doctor adds. “An’ you don’t let any bloke tell you what to do. I try to send you home, you tear my ship apart gettin’ back to us.”
She has to laugh at that, and the recognition that he’s right - they’re both right. She’s not that girl any more, and with that knowledge it feels like at least some of the pain of that time’s lessened.
Maybe, she can’t help thinking, this is also what this room’s for? Courage, she suspects, leads to healing. And bonding - getting to know each other better, like the Doctor said.
Jack pulls away from the two of them. “My turn.” His voice is just a little unsteady.
“You don’t have to,” the Doctor says immediately, and that convinces her even more that it’s a test - and she wonders if the Doctor’s even realised why sharing’s good. Does he feel any better about himself, about the sacrifice he had to make?
“Yes, I do,” Jack says, and she suspects that maybe he knows. Or he feels it’s not fair that they’ve shared private stuff and he hasn’t.
“Off you go, then.” The Doctor steps back, takes her hand and waits.
They’re on a beach then, panicked people all around, screams and cries barely audible above the sound of aircraft and strafing gunfire. Two boys, she’s guessing brothers, are running, trying to get away, the taller holding the younger one’s hand.
They stumble. Hands are dropped. The older drags himself to his feet again, looking around for the younger. “Grey!” he calls, fear in his voice. “Grey!” he calls again, panicky now as he starts to retrace his steps, scanning all around him, screaming and crying his brother’s name.
“Jack?” Her voice is soft as she tries to speak past the lump in her throat. “That’s you?”
He’s standing on her other side, body rigid, his jaw twitching. He simply nods. And the scene switches; the older boy’s kneeling beside a man, clearly dead, calling him father. Another switch, and a woman’s caught the boy by the shoulders. “Where’s Grey? Where’s Grey?”
“Go...gone,” the boy stammers. “I... I lost him. He let go of my hand. He-”
“How could you let him go?” the woman shouts, screams. “How could you? You were supposed to be looking after him! You’re the older one. You know he’s only little. How could you!”
The boy turns away, drops to his knees and sobs as the woman keeps raining accusations down on his head and attacking spaceships still fly overhead. And her heart aches for Jack, devastated by the loss of half his family in one go, blaming himself for his brother - and letting his mother blame him too.
“Oh, Jack.” She drops the Doctor’s hand and reaches for him. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was,” he says, and his voice cracks. “I was supposed to-”
“You were a kid too,” the Doctor says, and he’s on Jack’s other side, hand pulling Jack’s head down to his shoulder. “You were just a kid. It was an invasion. Bet he wasn’t the only one lost that day.”
Jack’s body shakes in their arms, and she knows he’s crying, just as the boy in front of them - no more than fourteen, she’d guess - is sobbing his heart out, only he’s got no-one to comfort him.
“Did she ever remember she had two sons?” she has to ask eventually. Jack, still in her arms, just shrugs, and she holds him tighter, telling him she loves him over and over until, finally, he looks up and says the words back to her before kissing her with such beautiful tenderness she’s ready to cry again.
***
Later, Jack does get his wish and the three of them make love in a bedroom the Doctor says wasn’t there before today. It’s wonderful and thrilling and loving, the most exciting thing she’s ever done or watched indoors, and she hopes there’ll be many repeats. There will be, she’s sure, as the Doctor comes apart in their arms, hers and Jack’s, and they kiss him and stroke him until he’s breathing normally again and giving them that goofy grin he wore as he helped her to undress Jack.
All the same, as close as she feels to both of them now, lying between them with both their arms around her, she knows that the real intimacy between them, the real trust, was born back in that room. No secrets any more. No hiding. They’ve seen the worst each of them’s been, and it’s made no difference. She still loves the Doctor and Jack the same, and they love each other, and her, the same too.
“You ever find your brother?” The Doctor’s voice cuts through the silence as they cuddle, occasionally exerting themselves enough to stroke or kiss.
“Never.” Jack’s voice is quiet. “Searched for him for years. I know he’s dead, but part of me could never give up hoping.”
“We can find him, can’t we? Or try, at least?” she asks, though she’s remembering Reapers and the dangers of going back into personal timelines.
“Course we can.” The Doctor reclines against the headboard, drawing each of them to lie with their heads on his stomach. “Can’t interfere, Jack, but we can find out what happened to him. That enough?”
Jack nods. “Better than I ever thought I’d get.”
“Good.” The Doctor smiles; after a moment, it turns into a wicked grin. “Don’t I get a thank you, then?”
By the look of it, Jack’s very happy to oblige.
***
Epilogue: You Were Fantastic - And So Was I
They’re both sleeping when he slips out of bed and pads along the hallway to the medlab to check the results of the tests.
It’s no surprise at all when he runs the data, scanning it quicker than the human eye’s capable of seeing, and discovers that all the equations and correlations and cross-tabulations add up to just one answer: inconclusive.
No, neither Jack’s or Rose’s test results are the same as they were before the Game Station, before Bad Wolf. But that’s completely consistent with Rose still being entirely human, entirely immortal. She’s had the Time Vortex inside her and, even though he knows he got it all out, there’s going to be residual traces around her DNA for a while. Just as there are traces of huon energy as well as regeneration energy around his.
There isn’t enough information in Jack’s and Rose’s results, either, for him to be able to determine that their life energies are or aren’t the same. Jack’s from the fifty-first century and naturally his DNA structure is different from Rose’s, but those differences haven’t increased in any significant way.
For every piece of evidence to suggest that Rose might be like Jack - immortal, unable to age - there’s another to suggest she’s not. And it’s just the same with his own data. Maybe she has stopped him from changing any time something happens that should make him regenerate, or maybe she hasn’t.
He should be worried about this, about the fact that he can’t tell one way or another, and about the fact that Rose could be immortal, just like Jack. After all, Jack’s fate’s not one he’d wish on anyone. But then if all three of them are the same then it won’t be so bad, because they’ll have each other. They won’t have to watch everyone they know grow old and die; there’ll still be a couple of people they won’t need to say goodbye to.
The inevitable conclusion, though it’s not one he likes, is that there’s no way of knowing for certain except through real-life testing... and that’s something he’s in no hurry to have happen. Oh, yeah, give it a few years and it’ll be obvious either way in Rose’s case. She might want an answer sooner, but he’s personally happy to wait and find out. Besides, he’s in no hurry either to get the slap Jackie Tyler’ll be handing his way as soon as she finds out what’s happened to her daughter.
He grins suddenly. She’ll be wanting to slap him for an entirely different reason now. But that slap - oh, that will be worth every sting.
Leaving the test results behind, he leaves the medlab and heads back towards the bedroom to see whether his human companions are awake yet.
Because maybe Jack was right about one thing, after all. Having sex on the brain’s not such a bad thing.
In fact, it’s bloody fantastic.
- end