Gone with the Morning Pt.1-1 - SiT Spring Hopes Eternal Ficathon (Doctor Who)
Title: Gone with the Morning
Author: Wish Wielder
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing / Character Focus: (Tenth) Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, a few Torchwood cameos; Doctor x Rose
Challenge: Songs in Time Spring Hopes Eternal Ficathon
Theme / Prompt: (Any S1 thru S4+) Somehow the Doctor (or Rose) figures out how to spend a whole day with the other. But it's just this one day, every year, then they have to go back to their “everyday” lives. Flashback from either POV and could be tied to a reunion. (“And I'll try to sleep / To keep you in my dreams / 'Til I can bring you home with me / I'll try to sleep / And when I do I'll keep you in my dreams / I knew it from the start / So my arms are open wide / Your head is on my stomach / And we're trying so hard not to fall asleep / So here we are /
On this 18th floor balcony, yeah” (“18th Floor Balcony” by Blue October))
Word Count: 11,176
Rating: M / PG-16
Summary: They’re not questioning the impossible anymore, but they are finding that maybe it’s not quite enough.
Notes: Post-S3/4, alternating from That Spoiler (a tad AU). Two-parter; slight spoilers for the end of Partners in Crime in the second part. Major thanks to Aku for putting up with me through this - love ya’ to bits, darlin’!
Disclaimer: “Doctor Who” and all respective properties are © the BBC. Megan D. (Wish Wielder) does not, has never, nor will ever own “Doctor Who”.
Gone with the Morning
Part I: Musings of the 18th Floor Balcony
Outside, he could hear the world moving on. Time surged forward, swirling around them differently but still just as lethal as…he closed his eyes against the klaxon and street shouts, blocking them out as he focused on the woman in his arms. He smiled for the briefest moment, calmed by the simple fact that he was there with her, but another shout from the night outside the windows and his reassurance vanished like morning smoke. He tightened his grip on her, holding her closer as he willed time to slow. It didn’t work as well over here, in a universe he couldn’t call home (even if it was where his home was). His eyes opened as she shifted, a worried groan slipping from her as her hand clutched at his bare chest.
“Doctor?” she whispered cautiously, and he shushed her. Her warm brown eyes slipped open just barely, and his breath hitched at the look in them.
“I’m still here,” he said, voice barely audible above the city life filtering from the open balcony doors. “Go back to sleep, Rose.”
“Can’t,” she mumbled, burrowing closer to him. “If I do…you’ll go away again. Y’always do.”
“No, I won’t,” he said. He kissed her forehead, and she smiled despite the gnawing in her gut. “We still have time, Rose. We still have time.”
He felt her slip back into sleep, and his eyes closed again as he pulled her even closer. His face burrowed in the crook of her neck, and he breathed her in. They still had time, but not much. Even as a Time Lord he couldn’t change that fact, or that by the time she woke again he would be gone. Not by choice, but all the same he’d vanish from her life for another year, until the walls were thin enough that he’d be pulled through again.
The first time, he hadn’t really realized what was happening. She hadn’t, either (well, at first).
He frowned at the slight jerking feeling, like a hook was attached to his navel and pulling him…somewhere. He’d lived long enough to know better than to brush it off as nothing, but he’d also lived long enough to not really care anymore. Long enough that it was hard to really care about anything anymore, even the doctor and redhead that had just bid him adieu the week before (he didn’t miss the noise; he really didn’t…not too much, at least).
It was the one constant in the universe, he’d learned: with people, there was always a goodbye. Even if neither of you asked for, or even wanted, one.
He shook his head, closing his eyes just a moment - focused enough on clearing his head that he didn’t notice the tugging disappear, or the feeling of a shift in the universe. He reached back up to grab some wires from underneath the console only to have his hands bang against…wood? His eyes snapped open, and he gawked at the underside of…well, it looked like a coffee table.
“Knew it was one of those days. You can’t have a Slitheen explode all over you and not have one of those days.”
His hearts stopped. For the longest moment, his hearts actually stopped. Shaking hands pushed him from under the table, and then he was sitting in what he guessed was her living room. There she was, the one he was never supposed to be able to see again, standing in the entryway to a…flat? What was she doing in a flat? Nice flat, though - her flat. Back on the…
And as he recognized the interior of the flat back on the Powell Estates, albeit different décor, he realized that yes, it was one of those days. Nothing more than a dream, no matter how realistic it seemed, brought on from exhaustion of a bad day and too much repair work. He was probably still under the console, probably knocked out by a random electrocution or after bumping his head or…
She looked good, though - for a figment of his imagination. A navy leather jacket over a dark pink shirt, black jeans, and pink Converse hi-tops, just like his. Her hair was a little longer, not much past her shoulders but still not as short as it had been or as long as it once was. Not as much makeup, and her roots weren’t as visible. He wondered at that, why his mind would change such little details he had always loved before.
“How’d you get here this time, then? Or is it that the universe needs saving and you don’t have anyone else to ask, universal collapse be damned?” she asked, and he frowned as he pushed himself up off the floor. He could almost hear the unasked question in his dream hers mind: ‘Or did you just miss me enough to not care?’ Why had he been under her coffee table, anyway? Seemed like a silly place to show up. “And why are you under my table?”
“I…” he started, but then stopped. It was a dream, anyway - why should he justify his actions to someone who wasn’t real? Even if she looked like someone who was…
“…it’s one of those then, is it?” she asked as he pulled away from her, and he wondered when he had crossed the room to kiss her in the first place.
“One of those?” he asked, and she smiled as she looked up at him, bumping her hip into his. Ah. One of those. Maybe it was.
“You look older than I remember - thought you weren’t supposed to age?” she asked, and he laughed slightly.
“Do you always have to point out how I’m not taking care of myself?” he asked, brushing a piece of hair out of her face. “I miss your roots.”
“Do you always have to point out how much you dislike what I’ve done to my hair?” she asked, and he kissed her again when he saw that bit of tongue poke out the side of her mouth. In dreams like this, he didn’t have to tell himself he didn’t miss that tongue, or that mouth; that he didn’t hate the fact he never got to do this properly in the first place.
“First time you’ve dyed it properly in one of these,” he said, grinning slightly at her. Her eyes widened, and she reached up to put a hand on his face.
“But…you’ve never said that before,” she said. “I’m the one dreaming.”
“Not the first time you’ve said that,” he said, kissing her again. He knew he shouldn’t; she was just a dream, and he shouldn’t indulge in what couldn’t be. But even knowing that, it didn’t keep her from feeling warm and real beneath his hands, or stop the stirring deep inside at the little ways she moaned when he brought his lips to a certain spot on her neck. It also didn’t keep him from wondering how she would react if it was really her he was kissing. “I think I like thinking you dream about me, too. Keeps me from feeling as mad.”
“You’ve always been mad,” she said, and he laughed at that. Maybe he had been, and maybe he still was. She always made him feel a little mad. “Oh, God…you need to stop.”
“Don’t want to,” he said, bringing up a hand to pull down the zip on her jacket. She put her hands on his chest, and he pulled away as she pushed him slightly.
“How are you here?” she asked, and he frowned as he ran a thumb under her eye.
“I’m not,” he said. “Not really. I can’t be, can I? Universes collapsing, impossible, and all that.”
“You always did say that word too much,” she said. He laughed and went back to kissing her neck, and she groaned as she arched against him. “Right, then - talking can wait. God, I missed you. It’s been hell over here.”
“You’re supposed to say you’re living the life fantastic,” he mumbled as he slipped her jacket off her shoulders. She laughed then, and he wasn’t sure how much he liked that.
“Most days, but it’s hard without you here. Boring,” she said. “Defending the Earth’s not the same without you. Better with two - you - and all that.”
He shouldn’t have been as thrilled by the little mewling sound she made as he was, but he loved the way she nudged him back around the table and onto the sofa. He fell back when his knees bumped into the furniture, and she climbed onto his lap to give him a thorough snogging. All the more proof it couldn’t be real, his mind told him; she would never let him jump her like this, not after so much time had passed. Not even before, and she had loved him th-oh. Oh, oh.
“You little minx,” he hissed as she grinned at him. She did it again, and she leaned down to his ear as he bit back a groan.
“You love me for it,” she whispered, and he squeezed where his hands held her hips as he caught her lips again.
“I’m sorry I ran out of time,” he said, just as he said every other time he found himself in a dream with her. He thought that maybe if he told his dream Rose enough it would someday make up for the fact that he had never told his real Rose. “But I do. Rassilon, I love you so much.”
“We should stop,” she said when his fingers hooked under the hem of her shirt. He looked up at her, smiling slightly. He couldn’t fully, not when he knew she wasn’t…
“You don’t want to,” he said. She looked away, and he took her hand, folding their fingers together and kissing the back. She squeezed slightly, and a part of his mind told him he couldn’t imagine how perfect it felt. “I don’t want to. I’m sorry I never did this before. It would’ve been nice to…I was so stupid back then.”
“I bet you still are, Mr. Genius,” she said with a grin. He looked at her, laughing slightly.
“Watch the cheek,” he said.
“Always,” she replied, leaning back down to kiss his jaw while she worked on his many buttons. As he gave up reminding himself she wasn’t really his Rose, he heard himself agree that yes, they would talk - later. He knew he’d wake up before he could give himself that false hope; he always did.
He hadn’t admitted to himself it was real until he had woken up the next morning to Martha’s screams and Jack’s wolf-whistles.
“Woah, Doc - do you always sleep naked under the console when there’s no one else on board?” Jack had asked, and he had received a very lovely bump when he had jumped up and crashed his head into the underside of the console. There had been Martha and Jack, standing in front of the open doors (where he could see Jack’s lackeys gawking at him, or maybe just the TARDIS, from the interior of the Hub - which had been strange, as he had been coasting in the vortex). Martha had quickly excused herself, and Jack had closed the doors before asking him what he had done to his clothes.
Remembering his dream, he had leapt up to check one of the monitors. His hearts had nearly stopped at the readings.
“Well?” Jack asked, and he gulped as he looked up from the screen, an impossible hope niggling into the heart he had long since decided resided across the Void.
“I…I think, and I know how mad this sounds, but…at Rose’s flat,” he said. Jack quirked an eyebrow at him.
“You went back to the Powell Estates and stripped?” he asked, and with a roll of his eyes he waved him off.
“No, no, no! Not…well, yes, but not…Jack, I think…I think I crossed the Void in my sleep,” he said.
“And lost your clothes in the process?” Jack asked, and he decided flushing was something better done with clothes to cover it up - especially when the blush went straight to your toes. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Christ, Doc, you didn’t!”
“I don’t know! I…Rassilon, it was really her…and she…oh, bollocks!” he cried, slamming his head against the monitor.
“Woah, Doc - stop that!” Jack said, running over and grabbing his shoulders. He looked over at him, a nauseous, glorious, stabbing feeling wrenching his gut. She had felt - looked - real because she was real. And he had thought she was a dream, and she had been acting like she thought it wasn’t, and…
“She’s going to wake up, Jack,” he said, his brows knotting together in a horrified look. “She’s going to wake up, and I’m not going to be there, and…she’s going to think I left her. Again.”
“What happened?” Jack asked, frowning at him, and he looked back to the monitor.
“I’m not sure,” he said. He tapped the screen, pointing to something he knew Jack would never be able to read. “That right there marks Voidal disturbances.”
“Voidal dis…?” Jack started, and he nodded. “You monitor the Void? Like how we monitor the Rift?”
“Yes,” he said. “Ever since…I knew it was impossible, but…I like hope, Jack. Too much to fully give it up. I thought that maybe the walls would wear thin - thin enough that I could poke through and bring her back. That or the Daleks and Cybermen were coming through again, and even then I’d need to know to stop them. But…it’s fluctuating, Jack. And right here, this gap of time here - twenty-four hours exactly - they were…they were thin enough.”
“Thin enough for what?” Jack asked, and he rolled his eyes.
“Do you have to be so thick?!” he snapped, and immediately he regretted it. He sighed and looked down, rubbing his forehead. The hand that was still on his shoulder gave a gentle squeeze, and he looked back to his old friend. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m just trying to help,” Jack said, and he smiled weakly.
“I know. I was able to slip through, Jack,” he said. He looked back to the monitor. “I don’t know how. There was this tugging, but I just brushed it off like…something pulled me through, Jack. And it brought me right under Rose’s table. And we…well, obviously.”
Jack grinned, despite the weight of the situation. He raised a brow at him, and he - damn him - laughed.
“Danced?” he asked, and he sighed before nodding. His grin turned wicked. “Hey, you’ve been wanting to for ages - don’t look so bummed about it!”
“Well how am I supposed to look, Harkness?!” he snapped, rounding on him. His fists clenched at his sides, his body thrumming with a suppressed frustration he just couldn’t give voice to. “I was there, with her, and I thought it was a sodding dream! And she didn’t, and she’s going to wake up thinking I just left because it was real, and I was too stupid to believe it! And I don’t even know how I got there, or how I could get back, because those bloody walls are sealed again and…and…”
“Doctor…” Jack sighed as he sank to the floor, gasping and looking off into empty space. Space where she should’ve been. Space where she had been, and now wasn’t - again.
“I’ve lost her, Jack,” he said. “All over again, I’ve lost her.”
“You could say that,” Jack said, and he looked up at him, “or you could stop being pathetic, go throw some clothes on, and figure out how you got over there in the first place. You were there once - you can get there again. You’ve only lost her if you want to lose her, and you and I both know you don’t. Now stop your pity-party and do something about it.”
It had taken a year. A whole year, but not by choice. It had taken him a week to figure out what he hadn’t been able to in years, and when he finally had his answer he hadn’t been able to do a damned thing about it. He had parked in the Hub (he had moved the TARDIS out of the way, of course - well, after Owen had had a few choice words with him over it), and Jack had helped him as best he could. What it came down to was…well, he still wasn’t sure. Some trick of time and vortex energy and he was fairly sure Bad Wolf or the TARDIS or both led to the walls wearing thin enough to cross once every three hundred and sixty-five Earth days, and even then only for twenty-four Earth hours.
It wasn’t what he had hoped, not by a long shot, but it would have to be enough. There was some saying about a gift horse’s mouth that applied to their situation; he was fairly sure of it.
Even then, he hadn’t been sure if he was right. He couldn’t figure out why it was only starting then, and going from that he hadn’t known if it would even repeat. So he went on as best he could, the only difference being that he had refused to let anyone else tag along. He knew it wasn’t the best of ideas - something Jack had argued with him over more than he cared to remember - but he couldn’t help it. If Rose was…if he was going to…
What it had come down to, for him, was this: either he was going to be popping out once a year to see Rose (which would be bad, if it resulted in abandoning a companion at a bad time), Rose would be coming back (in which case he didn’t really want someone else on board), or…nothing would happen. He would know within the year, and he could make his decision from there.
The second time it had happened, she had been cooking.
He stood in the console room, hands shoved into the pockets of his blue suit as he looked up at the vaulted ceiling expectantly. He was parked in the Hub - for safety measures, in case he was right (Rassilon, please let him be right) and would be popping over to Pete’s World. Jack was leaning against the railing by the ramp, arms folded across his chest and watching him fidget with focused eyes. The good captain was worried he was wrong, just as he was, but he was hiding it. Sometimes the man really was too good to him, rough patches and all.
“Come on,” he whispered. “Come on, come on, come on come on come on COME ON!”
“Doc, calm down!” Jack called, and he looked at him as he pushed a frustrated breath past his lips. “You said that last time you didn’t get pulled through until the window was a few hours from closing. It’s only just opening now - be patient.”
He nearly laughed at that; there was no such thing as patient with him anymore, not when it came to Rose Tyler. He’d spent too long after that blasted battle being patient. He couldn’t waste any more time on that particular virtue now.
An hour past without anything happening, not even the slightest niggle. Another hour marched by, and Gwen brought in some charts for Jack to go through. “Might as well be doing something while you stand around in here,” she had said, but she gave him a sympathetic look all the same. A look at the ring glistening on her finger and he smiled at her, a smile of comradery. She knew what it was like to be apart from the one you loved, too - even when that one was standing right next to her instead of a universe away.
By the next hour he was starting to lose that hope he had been clinging to so desperately the past year. By the fifth, he was sitting on the jump seat with his feet propped on the console, counting off happy primes to keep his mind from…
“It’s not going to work,” he said, his voice crumpling in defeat. “I was given that one chance to see her, to make things right, and I botched it up.”
“If by ‘make things right’ you mean finally tell her you love her, I think she got the message,” Jack said, looking up from another chart. He snorted derisively.
“Oh, yes - ‘wham, bam, thank you, ma’am’ is exactly the same as ‘I love you’,” he said, and he groaned as he let his feet droop from the console, rocking forward as he placed his head in his hands. “It’s not fair - it’s not bloody fair! The universe can’t just give her back and then take her away again!”
He was so busy yelling he missed the jerking, or Jack’s shout as reality slipped left. But when he looked up his eyes snapped open as he found himself back in her flat, sitting on that sofa they had…he laughed and jumped up, pumping his fist in the air as he twirled with a whoop.
“It worked!” he laughed, bouncing again as he looked around. “I was right! Ha ha! It worked!”
Part 1-2 | Part 1-3