Fic: An Overpowering Staleness (4/5)
Title: An Overpowering Staleness (4/5)
Betas: canaana, kae_nine & wendymr - Thank you, guys! All remaining mistakes are mine.
Rating: Adult (strong language, dark motives)
Spoilers: The Doctor Dances, Human Nature/The Family of Blood
Characters: Nine/Jack/Rose
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction; the characters are the property of the BBC and used here without permission. No money was made.
Summary: The Doctor has to use the Chameleon Arch while traveling with Rose and Jack. What will happen, and how will it affect their relationship?
This story was written for sahiya, who very generously donated in the help_haiti auction. Her prompt will be revealed at the end.
This story is part of my Those We Love the Best-verse, but can stand on its own.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
Chapter 4
The next few days are… well, "surreal" is the only word he can think of that even begins to describe it. Here he is, living the domestic life with Rose and Jack - eating regular meals, watching the telly, hell, once or twice he even goes to the supermarket with Rose to help her carry the shopping.
He's surprised at the confidence with which they leave money and valuables lying around. He's even more surprised at himself for not taking any.
He still drinks, of course, but not nearly as much as he used to - which was never as much as he wanted to back then. A few swigs here and there - enough to worry Rose, he can tell, but not enough to fall into a drunken stupor. Well, not unless he means to, that is. He has trouble sleeping, so he usually downs a few big ones in his room right before going to bed. Helps him sleep like a baby, that does. Course, it means he needs some hair of the dog to get up in the morning, but overall, his alcohol levels are lower than they've been in years - any time he had a choice, at any rate.
One night, he's woken by the sound of crying and whimpering, punctuated by long moans. His first instinct is to pull a pillow over his head and give Jack and Rose their privacy, but then he realizes that's not it. He's not sure how he knows, but those aren't the sounds they make in the throes of passion. It sounds like… Jack's having a nightmare.
He waits for a while, staring at the ceiling. None of his business, that. But the moans are getting louder, and Rose's urgent whispers sound more and more desperate. With a sigh, he gets up.
He briefly considers pulling on his jeans, but the pyjamas Rose bought him really are perfectly adequate cover. He leaves his room and knocks on their bedroom door.
Rose opens after a few seconds. "John? Do you need anything?"
"Was gonna ask you the same thing." He gestures towards the bed with his chin. All he can see through the half-open door is part of a blanket moving up and down, rustling, shifting and slipping across the mattress in an uneven pattern. "He okay?"
Rose shakes her head. "Not really. He's having a nightmare, and I can't get him to wake up."
"Want me to try?" If there's one thing that'll wake a soldier up and quick, it's someone unfamiliar touching him in his sleep.
Rose hesitates for a moment, then she nods. "Please. He gets these sometimes. I'm not that good at handling them. Th… someone else usually did that. But…" Her voice trails off.
Someone else? In their bedroom, at night? Seems weird, that. But what does he care? John approaches the bed. Jack is lying on his back, tangled up in the covers, apparently trying to push something heavy off his chest. Or someone.
John stops by the bedside. "Hey, Jack, wake up." There's no reaction. If anything, the struggling intensifies.
John is well aware that his next move means risking a broken nose - but with all the gadgets Jack has, that wouldn't be much of a problem, would it? He sits on the edge of the bed and roughly shakes Jack's shoulder. "Oi, wake up! You're scaring Rose!"
As suddenly as a cork popping from a bottle, Jack sits bolt upright. He's staring right through John, not really awake yet. Suddenly, his gaze focuses on John and he breathes in sharply. "Doctor!"
Before John can react, Jack has launched himself at him and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. Even more disconcertingly, the bloke's burrowing his face into John's shoulder and weeping in big, helpless sobs. "I thought..."
John is holding himself completely stiff. What the hell is going on? What did Jack dream, and how come he's mistaken him for, at a guess, that lost friend he and Rose are always on about? Does he resemble the guy? Is that why those two are so obsessed with helping him?
John glances at Rose. She's standing by the doorway, covering her mouth with one hand, crying quietly. No help there.
Slowly, he raises his arms and returns Jack's hug. Just to calm the lad down, of course, so he can get him off himself. He rubs a hand firmly up and down between the bloke's shoulder blades. It feels strangely natural. "Hey there. 'S all right. You're okay. Rose is okay. Everything's fine." Not exactly the St. Crispin's Day speech, but it seems to be calming Jack down.
Rose comes to sit on the other side of the bed, carefully putting a hand on Jack's neck. "Jack. It's okay now. I think you're crowding John."
At the sound of John's name, Jack stiffens. He pulls back, looking first at John, then at Rose. He shakes his head and curses quietly, then lets himself drop backwards on the pillow, groping for Rose's hand. He looks up at John. "Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you," he says, but John can tell that there's much more he wants to say.
"'S okay," he says with a shrug, and gets up to go to his room. "Leave you to it. Night."
As he closes the door, he hears Jack quietly say, "Oh Rose. We're screwing up so badly."
Screwing up what? Is this a chance to finally find out what they're up to? He closes the door, but leans against it, listening.
"I know," Rose says, and there are tears evident in her voice. "But I don't know what else we can do."
"Me neither," Jack replies. "I didn't think… I imagined it differently."
"Yeah. 'S not how he said it'd be at all. But it's not much longer now." After a few moments, she adds, "If the other bit works, that is."
He hears the mattress shift - probably Jack pulling Rose closer to himself. "It will. It has to."
There's no more talking, and after a few minutes he hears them both breathing deeply and regularly. John slowly makes his way back to his room.
He lies awake for hours trying to figure out what they were talking about, or if there's a way to ask. But finally he downs some more vodka and goes to sleep, cursing himself for even caring.
*****
He's not sure why he stays with them.
Well, no, that's a lie. A comfortable room, regular meals, a generous allotment of high-quality booze, and a minimum of preaching and disapproving looks - the latter mostly from Rose, and usually quickly quenched by Jack. Why wouldn't he stay?
Though, there's something else. He's not sure why - in fact, it makes absolutely no sense when he tries to think about it rationally - but this feels right. Living together with Rose and Jack seems… familiar. Like he's supposed to be with them.
Bollocks. Maybe he's getting maudlin in his old age.
He never asks them about their lost friend. Never tells them he's figured out they only want him around because he reminds them of the guy. And it's not just because of his dislike of personal talk. It's because, deep down, he doesn’t want to upset the balance. He doesn’t want to… hurt them. Hell, when did he start caring about other people's feelings again?
The more he finds himself drawn to them, the more he needs to distance himself. He starts taking long walks around the city. Sometimes stays out for hours. Frequently sets out telling himself that if he wants to, he can just keep walking. That he doesn’t have to come back.
But in the end, he always does.
And after a while, he realizes he doesn’t think of it as "going back to Jack and Rose's place" anymore. He thinks of it as "going home."
Home. What a strange concept. Not one he'd thought would ever apply to him again. And yet, the notion now feels so natural, so familiar.
Until the day he comes home from one of his walks and sees packed bags by the living room door. Jack and Rose are sitting on the sofa, looking serious.
He strides right past the door and goes straight to the kitchen to grab his bottle off the shelf. Feels the warmth run down his throat even as his blood runs cold.
Jack calls his name, asks him to join them in the living room. They need to talk.
This is it, then. They're throwing him out. Or maybe they're leaving. There were too many bags for them to just contain his few possessions. Even with all the clothes shopping Rose has done for him, his things couldn't fill more than a small duffel bag.
Now Rose is calling his name. Her voice sounds faintly desperate. Tense. As if she's waiting for something terribly important she's not sure will occur.
He takes a deep breath and turns to the kitchen door. In doing so, he catches a glimpse of the calendar. Today's April 30. They day marked with a big red X. The day they've been counting down to. How did he not notice this before?
Because he didn't want to, that's why. Because he didn't want anything to change.
He walks to the living room like to the gallows. He's telling himself he doesn’t care, but it's a lie. It's been a lie for a while now. He wonders when that happened.
He sits in the armchair across from them. Takes a deep breath. Looks from Rose's fretful face to Jack's tense one.
He leans back. Let them make an opening gambit. He's screwed, but hell if he's going to make this any easier on them.
Jack looks at him searchingly. "You have a fob watch, right? A silver one? Do you have it on you?"
John expected justifications. Apologies. Maybe something starting with "This is really nobody's fault, but…" What he didn't expect was to be quizzed about the contents of his pockets. And how did the bloke even know about the watch, anyway? Not too long ago, John would have bristled at the thought that Jack might have gone through his things. Now he just shrugs, and pulls it from his pocket. "Yeah. 'S old, though. Doesn’t work."
Jack shakes his head. "It works just fine. Open it."
"Wait!" Rose says. "Not just like this! We have to explain…"
"Rose," Jack says, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head. "I'm not sure that's such a good idea…"
"We promised!" Rose insists. She turns to John. "We promised you that one day we'd explain why we've been doing all of this." She indicates John, the flat, and herself and Jack with a gesture.
John scoffs. "Figured it out long ago. Told you I would."
They exchange a startled glance. "You have?" Rose asks quietly; there's more doubt than shock in her voice.
He grunts an affirmative. "That lost friend you two are always on about. Doctor something-or-other. I remind you of him."
Jack nods. "That's… not entirely off the mark."
"What is it, do I look like the bloke? Talk like him? Bloody don’t act like some university graduate, me." He keeps his voice cold and cutting like a knife blade. Anyone trying to get close to him will get hurt.
Tears are rolling down Rose's cheeks. John tries to sneer at her weakness, but finds he can't quite bring himself to. Fakes a laugh, instead. "What? Didn't think I'd get it, eh?"
"You don't!" Rose protests. "Not… not really."
Jack bends forward, extending a placating hand towards John. "Right. There's no easy way to say this. You're not like him. You are him. You're the Doctor."
"Doctor who?" John's beginning to think he's not the only one in this room who drinks too much.
Jack shrugs. "Just 'the Doctor.' Until a few months ago, you, Rose and me, we… traveled together."
He laughs in Jack's face. "Hardly. Haven't left the country since the war, me."
Jack gaze turns sharp. "What war was that?"
He hesitates. He knows this. Of course he knows. It was… he was sent to…
Jack presses on. "What unit were you in? Who was your commanding officer? What was your rank?"
Damn. He should know this. He should know all of this, no matter how much vodka he's pickled his brain in.
He takes a deep breath. "Look. I'm not sure what you're driving at here. But I think I'd know if-"
"You're the Doctor. You're a Time Lord." The way Jack pronounces the last two words makes them sound like something sacred.
"A what?"
"An alien." Jack holds up a hand to forestall his protests. "A few months ago, we ran into some enemies of yours. You said you had to go into hiding, that they'd give up if the trail went cold - and that the only way to do it was to become human."
John blinks. And then he gets it. Oh fuck. He leans forward in his chair, hesitantly looks from Jack to Rose. "Listen. You two have been really good to me. But... but I think…" He sighs. "You're really, really sick. We ought to get you some help. Maybe when your friend died, the grief-"
"He didn't die!" Rose sobs. "He became you! You're the Doctor, a nine-hundred-year-old Time Lord! You used a machine called the Chameleon Arch to make yourself human and create an identity for you to hide behind."
John shakes his head. "Rose, think. If I was such an all-powerful alien, why would my miracle machine turn me into… this?" He gestures to himself with his bottle.
Rose and Jack exchange a glance. "We don't know," Jack says. "Sure as hell isn't what we expected. We're thinking maybe something went wrong with the transformation, or maybe-"
"There was no transformation! I was always this! There's no chameleon machine! There're no aliens!" He's torn between storming out and dialing 999 to have Rose and Jack sectioned.
Rose gets up and walks behind John, to that damn police box Jack still hasn't got around to sending to his parents in Indiana. She pulls a small key from her pocket and unlocks it, then looks at John over her shoulder. "No aliens, eh? Then explain this." She opens the door.
Bloody hell. Bloody hell. He feels the bottle slip from his grasp and spill on the carpet. And unbelievably, he doesn’t care. He gets up, and slowly walks towards the little blue box. The little blue box that doesn’t seem so little anymore.
He stands in the door and stares, open-mouthed. There's a huge room inside. Huge. Like… a cathedral or something. And it seems… grown, almost. Organic, not constructed. There's a warm orange glow filling the room, and a green pillar of light in the middle, surrounded by strange machinery.
It takes him a minute to find his voice, and even then the best he can come up with is "Fuck." After another few seconds, he hesitantly steps across the threshold and looks around. Rose and Jack follow him. Rose stands by what looks like a coral strut, caressing it gently. Jack just leans against the door, watching John. There's a suspicious glimmer in his eyes.
John takes a deep breath. The air in here smells strange - old, but at the same time fresh and sweet. And this noise… a hum that seems to sing to him, only to him, seems to surround him, welcome him.
Because he still doesn’t know what to say, he goes for the obvious. "It's… bigger on the inside."
Jack laughs, loud and with an edge of hysteria. "For the record - I'll never let you forget that you said that." He grins, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
Rose is smiling wistfully. "You'll get it later," she says in reply to John's questioning look.
John retreats to the familiarity of the living room. Though as soon as he steps over the threshold, he feels a keen sense of loss, and for a moment, he's not sure if it comes from him or the police box.
What a ridiculous notion. And yet…
He carefully steps around the puddle of vodka on the floor, and sits heavily in the chair. "So… I'm an alien?"
"Well, not right now," Jack replies. "As we said, the Chameleon Arch turned you human. It put your real identity into that fob watch. And don't ask me how that works, 'cause I don't know."
He doesn’t look at them, stares at the watch instead. This whole thing is preposterous. Things like this don't happen, except on the telly and in penny dreadfuls. People don't turn into other people with the help of fancy alien gadgets, miracle police boxes notwithstanding.
Though… it'd explain a lot. His memories - anything that's further than a few weeks back is fuzzy and indistinct. If he's honest, he's always known that the vodka alone doesn’t explain that. And conversely, there are all the things he shouldn't know, but does - details about history, literature, even maths. He's just told them he's not an educated man, but sometimes, facts and figures he really has no business knowing pop into his mind. He noticed it every time he watched Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? with them. And they never even raised an eyebrow when he blurted out a chemical formula before the four choices were even on the screen. As fantastic as their story sounds, it'd account for a lot.
Also, it would explain this feeling he's always had - the feeling of knowing Rose and Jack better than he should. The feeling of connectedness, familiarity. Being able to read them, being a tad too quick to trust them, even his body's reaction to their closeness.
As absurd as it sounds, their story is actually more logical than any other explanation he can think of.
He's still looking at the fob watch, turning it over and over in his hand. It feels warm to the touch, and like it's calling to him. A soft, caressing hum, almost like the one inside the police box. His index finger glides over the button.
"It'll turn you back," Rose says. "Once you open it, all your memories, your other senses, your body, will go back to normal. You'll be the Doctor again."
John looks up sharply. "You mean I'll be dead."
Rose's jaw goes slack, her forehead creased in a frown. But there's understanding in Jack's eyes, so John turns to him. "Won't I?"
Jack nods. Just once, a brief, reluctant dip of the chin. At least he has the guts to admit it.
John snorts. Figures. Figures that now, now that he's finally, tentatively started to almost enjoy life again, or at least not hate every single bloody minute of it, the two people who made that possible are asking him to end it.
"But… no. You won't die!" Rose says, and John's not sure if she's trying to convince him or herself.
"My body will change. I'll become a different person. And my memories, if I keep them at all, will become a subset of a much vaster store of more important memories. How's that not dying?" he asks Rose.
She looks back at him, looks at Jack, and then at her hands. "Oh god." Her voice is raw with horrified pain. "I hadn't thought about it like that."
John feels his heart clench, seeing her so wretched. Damn it, he really does care about her. Cares about that forlorn look in Jack's eyes, too. And it's not like he was ever that attached to his life. He shrugs.
"Ah well, it doesn’t matter."
They both stare at him.
He smiles grimly. "Should've known it was too much to hope that you really cared about me."
"Of course we care about you!" Rose stands up and takes a step towards him, but he jumps up to evade her, backs up almost all the way to the police box door. He hears that humming again, stroking his mind, calling him.
"No, Rose, you don't. You care about him. That alien. The Doctor. Only reason you took care of me is so you could get him back. An' now you want me to die for him."
Jack's eyes are dark and unreadable, but his posture tells John all he needs to know. The lad has thought about this before, probably all along. He knows that what they're doing to John is wrong - but that doesn’t matter as much as getting his friend back does.
Rose, in contrast, is floored. She hadn't thought about it, and clearly Jack didn't share. Rose would never ask him to give up his life, now that she's seen that that's what opening the fob watch would mean. But she can't stand the thought of not getting the Doctor back, either.
"It's not just us," Jack starts. "The universe-"
"You're not doing this for the universe. You're doing this because you want him back." He glares at Jack, daring him to deny it.
Jack lowers his head and hunches his shoulders. "Sorry." As he looks up again, his eyes show real guilt, real regret. Jack'll miss him.
It suddenly strikes John what an extraordinary achievement that is. Despite everything, despite the wreck he was, despite the way he's treated them both, Jack will miss him. And, from the look of her, so will Rose.
Well, that's more than John Smith would ever have expected to accomplish in his life, had anyone asked him just a few weeks back. Two good people who will genuinely miss him once he's gone. Not too shabby, that.
John smiles at Jack and Rose. A true smile. The kind he'd long since have forgotten how to use if it weren't for the two of them. "Never mind. Not like I matter. To anyone. Not even me. It's all right."
Rose is shaking her head, silent tears running down her cheeks. Jack is looking at him, unwavering. He's standing erect, not evading his gaze.
John pushes the button. The watch snaps open. Tendrils of golden light seep out of it, wrap around him. "So I die today. I'm fine with that."
The last thing he sees are their faces - guilty, heartbroken, but also hopeful. Then the light engulfs him and grows hot. It seeps into every cell of his body and burns it from the inside out.
John Smith screams.
Go to chapter 5.
Betas: canaana, kae_nine & wendymr - Thank you, guys! All remaining mistakes are mine.
Rating: Adult (strong language, dark motives)
Spoilers: The Doctor Dances, Human Nature/The Family of Blood
Characters: Nine/Jack/Rose
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction; the characters are the property of the BBC and used here without permission. No money was made.
Summary: The Doctor has to use the Chameleon Arch while traveling with Rose and Jack. What will happen, and how will it affect their relationship?
This story was written for sahiya, who very generously donated in the help_haiti auction. Her prompt will be revealed at the end.
This story is part of my Those We Love the Best-verse, but can stand on its own.
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
Chapter 4
The next few days are… well, "surreal" is the only word he can think of that even begins to describe it. Here he is, living the domestic life with Rose and Jack - eating regular meals, watching the telly, hell, once or twice he even goes to the supermarket with Rose to help her carry the shopping.
He's surprised at the confidence with which they leave money and valuables lying around. He's even more surprised at himself for not taking any.
He still drinks, of course, but not nearly as much as he used to - which was never as much as he wanted to back then. A few swigs here and there - enough to worry Rose, he can tell, but not enough to fall into a drunken stupor. Well, not unless he means to, that is. He has trouble sleeping, so he usually downs a few big ones in his room right before going to bed. Helps him sleep like a baby, that does. Course, it means he needs some hair of the dog to get up in the morning, but overall, his alcohol levels are lower than they've been in years - any time he had a choice, at any rate.
One night, he's woken by the sound of crying and whimpering, punctuated by long moans. His first instinct is to pull a pillow over his head and give Jack and Rose their privacy, but then he realizes that's not it. He's not sure how he knows, but those aren't the sounds they make in the throes of passion. It sounds like… Jack's having a nightmare.
He waits for a while, staring at the ceiling. None of his business, that. But the moans are getting louder, and Rose's urgent whispers sound more and more desperate. With a sigh, he gets up.
He briefly considers pulling on his jeans, but the pyjamas Rose bought him really are perfectly adequate cover. He leaves his room and knocks on their bedroom door.
Rose opens after a few seconds. "John? Do you need anything?"
"Was gonna ask you the same thing." He gestures towards the bed with his chin. All he can see through the half-open door is part of a blanket moving up and down, rustling, shifting and slipping across the mattress in an uneven pattern. "He okay?"
Rose shakes her head. "Not really. He's having a nightmare, and I can't get him to wake up."
"Want me to try?" If there's one thing that'll wake a soldier up and quick, it's someone unfamiliar touching him in his sleep.
Rose hesitates for a moment, then she nods. "Please. He gets these sometimes. I'm not that good at handling them. Th… someone else usually did that. But…" Her voice trails off.
Someone else? In their bedroom, at night? Seems weird, that. But what does he care? John approaches the bed. Jack is lying on his back, tangled up in the covers, apparently trying to push something heavy off his chest. Or someone.
John stops by the bedside. "Hey, Jack, wake up." There's no reaction. If anything, the struggling intensifies.
John is well aware that his next move means risking a broken nose - but with all the gadgets Jack has, that wouldn't be much of a problem, would it? He sits on the edge of the bed and roughly shakes Jack's shoulder. "Oi, wake up! You're scaring Rose!"
As suddenly as a cork popping from a bottle, Jack sits bolt upright. He's staring right through John, not really awake yet. Suddenly, his gaze focuses on John and he breathes in sharply. "Doctor!"
Before John can react, Jack has launched himself at him and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. Even more disconcertingly, the bloke's burrowing his face into John's shoulder and weeping in big, helpless sobs. "I thought..."
John is holding himself completely stiff. What the hell is going on? What did Jack dream, and how come he's mistaken him for, at a guess, that lost friend he and Rose are always on about? Does he resemble the guy? Is that why those two are so obsessed with helping him?
John glances at Rose. She's standing by the doorway, covering her mouth with one hand, crying quietly. No help there.
Slowly, he raises his arms and returns Jack's hug. Just to calm the lad down, of course, so he can get him off himself. He rubs a hand firmly up and down between the bloke's shoulder blades. It feels strangely natural. "Hey there. 'S all right. You're okay. Rose is okay. Everything's fine." Not exactly the St. Crispin's Day speech, but it seems to be calming Jack down.
Rose comes to sit on the other side of the bed, carefully putting a hand on Jack's neck. "Jack. It's okay now. I think you're crowding John."
At the sound of John's name, Jack stiffens. He pulls back, looking first at John, then at Rose. He shakes his head and curses quietly, then lets himself drop backwards on the pillow, groping for Rose's hand. He looks up at John. "Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you," he says, but John can tell that there's much more he wants to say.
"'S okay," he says with a shrug, and gets up to go to his room. "Leave you to it. Night."
As he closes the door, he hears Jack quietly say, "Oh Rose. We're screwing up so badly."
Screwing up what? Is this a chance to finally find out what they're up to? He closes the door, but leans against it, listening.
"I know," Rose says, and there are tears evident in her voice. "But I don't know what else we can do."
"Me neither," Jack replies. "I didn't think… I imagined it differently."
"Yeah. 'S not how he said it'd be at all. But it's not much longer now." After a few moments, she adds, "If the other bit works, that is."
He hears the mattress shift - probably Jack pulling Rose closer to himself. "It will. It has to."
There's no more talking, and after a few minutes he hears them both breathing deeply and regularly. John slowly makes his way back to his room.
He lies awake for hours trying to figure out what they were talking about, or if there's a way to ask. But finally he downs some more vodka and goes to sleep, cursing himself for even caring.
*****
He's not sure why he stays with them.
Well, no, that's a lie. A comfortable room, regular meals, a generous allotment of high-quality booze, and a minimum of preaching and disapproving looks - the latter mostly from Rose, and usually quickly quenched by Jack. Why wouldn't he stay?
Though, there's something else. He's not sure why - in fact, it makes absolutely no sense when he tries to think about it rationally - but this feels right. Living together with Rose and Jack seems… familiar. Like he's supposed to be with them.
Bollocks. Maybe he's getting maudlin in his old age.
He never asks them about their lost friend. Never tells them he's figured out they only want him around because he reminds them of the guy. And it's not just because of his dislike of personal talk. It's because, deep down, he doesn’t want to upset the balance. He doesn’t want to… hurt them. Hell, when did he start caring about other people's feelings again?
The more he finds himself drawn to them, the more he needs to distance himself. He starts taking long walks around the city. Sometimes stays out for hours. Frequently sets out telling himself that if he wants to, he can just keep walking. That he doesn’t have to come back.
But in the end, he always does.
And after a while, he realizes he doesn’t think of it as "going back to Jack and Rose's place" anymore. He thinks of it as "going home."
Home. What a strange concept. Not one he'd thought would ever apply to him again. And yet, the notion now feels so natural, so familiar.
Until the day he comes home from one of his walks and sees packed bags by the living room door. Jack and Rose are sitting on the sofa, looking serious.
He strides right past the door and goes straight to the kitchen to grab his bottle off the shelf. Feels the warmth run down his throat even as his blood runs cold.
Jack calls his name, asks him to join them in the living room. They need to talk.
This is it, then. They're throwing him out. Or maybe they're leaving. There were too many bags for them to just contain his few possessions. Even with all the clothes shopping Rose has done for him, his things couldn't fill more than a small duffel bag.
Now Rose is calling his name. Her voice sounds faintly desperate. Tense. As if she's waiting for something terribly important she's not sure will occur.
He takes a deep breath and turns to the kitchen door. In doing so, he catches a glimpse of the calendar. Today's April 30. They day marked with a big red X. The day they've been counting down to. How did he not notice this before?
Because he didn't want to, that's why. Because he didn't want anything to change.
He walks to the living room like to the gallows. He's telling himself he doesn’t care, but it's a lie. It's been a lie for a while now. He wonders when that happened.
He sits in the armchair across from them. Takes a deep breath. Looks from Rose's fretful face to Jack's tense one.
He leans back. Let them make an opening gambit. He's screwed, but hell if he's going to make this any easier on them.
Jack looks at him searchingly. "You have a fob watch, right? A silver one? Do you have it on you?"
John expected justifications. Apologies. Maybe something starting with "This is really nobody's fault, but…" What he didn't expect was to be quizzed about the contents of his pockets. And how did the bloke even know about the watch, anyway? Not too long ago, John would have bristled at the thought that Jack might have gone through his things. Now he just shrugs, and pulls it from his pocket. "Yeah. 'S old, though. Doesn’t work."
Jack shakes his head. "It works just fine. Open it."
"Wait!" Rose says. "Not just like this! We have to explain…"
"Rose," Jack says, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head. "I'm not sure that's such a good idea…"
"We promised!" Rose insists. She turns to John. "We promised you that one day we'd explain why we've been doing all of this." She indicates John, the flat, and herself and Jack with a gesture.
John scoffs. "Figured it out long ago. Told you I would."
They exchange a startled glance. "You have?" Rose asks quietly; there's more doubt than shock in her voice.
He grunts an affirmative. "That lost friend you two are always on about. Doctor something-or-other. I remind you of him."
Jack nods. "That's… not entirely off the mark."
"What is it, do I look like the bloke? Talk like him? Bloody don’t act like some university graduate, me." He keeps his voice cold and cutting like a knife blade. Anyone trying to get close to him will get hurt.
Tears are rolling down Rose's cheeks. John tries to sneer at her weakness, but finds he can't quite bring himself to. Fakes a laugh, instead. "What? Didn't think I'd get it, eh?"
"You don't!" Rose protests. "Not… not really."
Jack bends forward, extending a placating hand towards John. "Right. There's no easy way to say this. You're not like him. You are him. You're the Doctor."
"Doctor who?" John's beginning to think he's not the only one in this room who drinks too much.
Jack shrugs. "Just 'the Doctor.' Until a few months ago, you, Rose and me, we… traveled together."
He laughs in Jack's face. "Hardly. Haven't left the country since the war, me."
Jack gaze turns sharp. "What war was that?"
He hesitates. He knows this. Of course he knows. It was… he was sent to…
Jack presses on. "What unit were you in? Who was your commanding officer? What was your rank?"
Damn. He should know this. He should know all of this, no matter how much vodka he's pickled his brain in.
He takes a deep breath. "Look. I'm not sure what you're driving at here. But I think I'd know if-"
"You're the Doctor. You're a Time Lord." The way Jack pronounces the last two words makes them sound like something sacred.
"A what?"
"An alien." Jack holds up a hand to forestall his protests. "A few months ago, we ran into some enemies of yours. You said you had to go into hiding, that they'd give up if the trail went cold - and that the only way to do it was to become human."
John blinks. And then he gets it. Oh fuck. He leans forward in his chair, hesitantly looks from Jack to Rose. "Listen. You two have been really good to me. But... but I think…" He sighs. "You're really, really sick. We ought to get you some help. Maybe when your friend died, the grief-"
"He didn't die!" Rose sobs. "He became you! You're the Doctor, a nine-hundred-year-old Time Lord! You used a machine called the Chameleon Arch to make yourself human and create an identity for you to hide behind."
John shakes his head. "Rose, think. If I was such an all-powerful alien, why would my miracle machine turn me into… this?" He gestures to himself with his bottle.
Rose and Jack exchange a glance. "We don't know," Jack says. "Sure as hell isn't what we expected. We're thinking maybe something went wrong with the transformation, or maybe-"
"There was no transformation! I was always this! There's no chameleon machine! There're no aliens!" He's torn between storming out and dialing 999 to have Rose and Jack sectioned.
Rose gets up and walks behind John, to that damn police box Jack still hasn't got around to sending to his parents in Indiana. She pulls a small key from her pocket and unlocks it, then looks at John over her shoulder. "No aliens, eh? Then explain this." She opens the door.
Bloody hell. Bloody hell. He feels the bottle slip from his grasp and spill on the carpet. And unbelievably, he doesn’t care. He gets up, and slowly walks towards the little blue box. The little blue box that doesn’t seem so little anymore.
He stands in the door and stares, open-mouthed. There's a huge room inside. Huge. Like… a cathedral or something. And it seems… grown, almost. Organic, not constructed. There's a warm orange glow filling the room, and a green pillar of light in the middle, surrounded by strange machinery.
It takes him a minute to find his voice, and even then the best he can come up with is "Fuck." After another few seconds, he hesitantly steps across the threshold and looks around. Rose and Jack follow him. Rose stands by what looks like a coral strut, caressing it gently. Jack just leans against the door, watching John. There's a suspicious glimmer in his eyes.
John takes a deep breath. The air in here smells strange - old, but at the same time fresh and sweet. And this noise… a hum that seems to sing to him, only to him, seems to surround him, welcome him.
Because he still doesn’t know what to say, he goes for the obvious. "It's… bigger on the inside."
Jack laughs, loud and with an edge of hysteria. "For the record - I'll never let you forget that you said that." He grins, but it doesn’t reach his eyes.
Rose is smiling wistfully. "You'll get it later," she says in reply to John's questioning look.
John retreats to the familiarity of the living room. Though as soon as he steps over the threshold, he feels a keen sense of loss, and for a moment, he's not sure if it comes from him or the police box.
What a ridiculous notion. And yet…
He carefully steps around the puddle of vodka on the floor, and sits heavily in the chair. "So… I'm an alien?"
"Well, not right now," Jack replies. "As we said, the Chameleon Arch turned you human. It put your real identity into that fob watch. And don't ask me how that works, 'cause I don't know."
He doesn’t look at them, stares at the watch instead. This whole thing is preposterous. Things like this don't happen, except on the telly and in penny dreadfuls. People don't turn into other people with the help of fancy alien gadgets, miracle police boxes notwithstanding.
Though… it'd explain a lot. His memories - anything that's further than a few weeks back is fuzzy and indistinct. If he's honest, he's always known that the vodka alone doesn’t explain that. And conversely, there are all the things he shouldn't know, but does - details about history, literature, even maths. He's just told them he's not an educated man, but sometimes, facts and figures he really has no business knowing pop into his mind. He noticed it every time he watched Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? with them. And they never even raised an eyebrow when he blurted out a chemical formula before the four choices were even on the screen. As fantastic as their story sounds, it'd account for a lot.
Also, it would explain this feeling he's always had - the feeling of knowing Rose and Jack better than he should. The feeling of connectedness, familiarity. Being able to read them, being a tad too quick to trust them, even his body's reaction to their closeness.
As absurd as it sounds, their story is actually more logical than any other explanation he can think of.
He's still looking at the fob watch, turning it over and over in his hand. It feels warm to the touch, and like it's calling to him. A soft, caressing hum, almost like the one inside the police box. His index finger glides over the button.
"It'll turn you back," Rose says. "Once you open it, all your memories, your other senses, your body, will go back to normal. You'll be the Doctor again."
John looks up sharply. "You mean I'll be dead."
Rose's jaw goes slack, her forehead creased in a frown. But there's understanding in Jack's eyes, so John turns to him. "Won't I?"
Jack nods. Just once, a brief, reluctant dip of the chin. At least he has the guts to admit it.
John snorts. Figures. Figures that now, now that he's finally, tentatively started to almost enjoy life again, or at least not hate every single bloody minute of it, the two people who made that possible are asking him to end it.
"But… no. You won't die!" Rose says, and John's not sure if she's trying to convince him or herself.
"My body will change. I'll become a different person. And my memories, if I keep them at all, will become a subset of a much vaster store of more important memories. How's that not dying?" he asks Rose.
She looks back at him, looks at Jack, and then at her hands. "Oh god." Her voice is raw with horrified pain. "I hadn't thought about it like that."
John feels his heart clench, seeing her so wretched. Damn it, he really does care about her. Cares about that forlorn look in Jack's eyes, too. And it's not like he was ever that attached to his life. He shrugs.
"Ah well, it doesn’t matter."
They both stare at him.
He smiles grimly. "Should've known it was too much to hope that you really cared about me."
"Of course we care about you!" Rose stands up and takes a step towards him, but he jumps up to evade her, backs up almost all the way to the police box door. He hears that humming again, stroking his mind, calling him.
"No, Rose, you don't. You care about him. That alien. The Doctor. Only reason you took care of me is so you could get him back. An' now you want me to die for him."
Jack's eyes are dark and unreadable, but his posture tells John all he needs to know. The lad has thought about this before, probably all along. He knows that what they're doing to John is wrong - but that doesn’t matter as much as getting his friend back does.
Rose, in contrast, is floored. She hadn't thought about it, and clearly Jack didn't share. Rose would never ask him to give up his life, now that she's seen that that's what opening the fob watch would mean. But she can't stand the thought of not getting the Doctor back, either.
"It's not just us," Jack starts. "The universe-"
"You're not doing this for the universe. You're doing this because you want him back." He glares at Jack, daring him to deny it.
Jack lowers his head and hunches his shoulders. "Sorry." As he looks up again, his eyes show real guilt, real regret. Jack'll miss him.
It suddenly strikes John what an extraordinary achievement that is. Despite everything, despite the wreck he was, despite the way he's treated them both, Jack will miss him. And, from the look of her, so will Rose.
Well, that's more than John Smith would ever have expected to accomplish in his life, had anyone asked him just a few weeks back. Two good people who will genuinely miss him once he's gone. Not too shabby, that.
John smiles at Jack and Rose. A true smile. The kind he'd long since have forgotten how to use if it weren't for the two of them. "Never mind. Not like I matter. To anyone. Not even me. It's all right."
Rose is shaking her head, silent tears running down her cheeks. Jack is looking at him, unwavering. He's standing erect, not evading his gaze.
John pushes the button. The watch snaps open. Tendrils of golden light seep out of it, wrap around him. "So I die today. I'm fine with that."
The last thing he sees are their faces - guilty, heartbroken, but also hopeful. Then the light engulfs him and grows hot. It seeps into every cell of his body and burns it from the inside out.
John Smith screams.
Go to chapter 5.