Fic: A New Man (1/6) Ten/Rose/Jack G - spoilers up to Specials
“Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!"
Marley’s Ghost - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
It was snowing, thick wet slushy flakes of it that would soon soak through his coat. The Doctor didn’t care. He wanted this to be it, the last time ever. He could hear bells ringing and fireworks going off, the population of this obscure little planet he’d unaccountably taken to his hearts celebrating the purely arbitrary calculation of another completed circuit around its parent star. The city around him was teeming with revellers, and somewhere in the middle of them all was a young girl with long blonde hair who’d thought he was a drunken idiot when he’d careered into her a few minutes ago and told her what the coming year held in store for her.
She hadn’t recognised him. Of course she hadn’t, because she hadn’t met him yet. And Jackie had given him a look that would strip paint from the walls. He wondered if she’d remember him when - now - if…what would happen to the timeline…he ought to care. But he didn’t.
He was tired, so tired. Tired and running a fever; this regeneration promised to be a stinker, even worse than the last. And this time around there’d be no Jackie Tyler to tuck him up in the spare room, no bathrobe with a Satsuma in the pocket…
No Rose.
He’d thought it would help to see her one last time, and this was the only time that was safe. The only one he trusted himself with. She’d dismissed him as some weird bloke off his head on something, but at the very last moment her eyes had softened in the compassionate way he remembered so well and she’d been about to ask him if he was all right when her mother had pursed her lips and dragged her away.
So that was it. The very last time. Prolonging it would have been impossible - Jackie already had him marked down as a drunken pervert, and he could feel his strength failing him. Another moment or two and he’d be unable to stand upright without support; then he’d collapse right in front of them and the timeline would be shot to pieces. Instead, like a wounded animal, he’d crawled away to die alone but he’d stumbled and found himself clinging to a wall before he could reach the TARDIS. Taking a few ragged breaths, he’d hoped to gather enough strength to walk the last few yards across the open concrete space. But even that was not to be - here he was face down on the ground, barely able to lift his head without a monumental effort.
Not long now. He was barely holding onto this body; the long fight to retain it was almost over and he’d lost. And then it would all begin again - waking up in clothes that weren’t right any more, feeling terrible, wondering where the nearest mirror was - big ears, this time? Big hair again? What would his voice sound like? He didn’t care. Couldn’t imagine getting to the point, this time around, where he’d heave himself to his feet and search out the TARDIS and maybe look around for another travelling companion. Same old questions, same old routine. She might say yes. She might say no. Oh, I couldn’t do that stuff you do. Tanks and guns, it was horrible…
Donna was right. It was horrible, all of it, and he didn’t want to bother with it any more.
So he lay on the concrete, letting the snow soak through his torn clothes, pulling together a few threads of optimism as frayed as the knees of his trousers. Come on, he told himself, he’d been in worse places than this. He wasn’t going to wake up under a radio telescope with the Master after him this time around, or on an operating table, was he? And at least there was nobody around who’d need things explaining…It’s still me… It’s the end, but the moment has been prepared for...Tears, Sarah Jane? Where there’s life, there’s hope…
He used to have so much mercy, until he realised how little he deserved.
He used to have so much hope.
******
The moment had come. Now, when the year was turning and the walls between realities were paper-thin. Ood Body (known to his friends as Clarence), one of an ancient race that had always known so much more than it appeared to know, was ready to return the favour that the Doctor had bestowed on his people months before, the gift of liberation.
For the Ood it had been the end of slavery. He was here now to offer the Doctor, who deserved so much more than he ever allowed himself to receive, a second chance. He was not going to ask him, the man who held the universe in the palm of his hand but now lay broken on the ground, which wrong turning he would go back to if he was given the opportunity to retrace his steps. He was too weak, too exhausted, to choose from the many possibilities. Besides, Ood Body already know the answer. Silently, he entered the trance state and reached out towards the mind of Rose Tyler, now walking back home with her mum, shivering a little in her cheap pink hoodie despite the long scarf around her neck.
Go to him…
*****
“We can’t just leave him, Mum! Look, he’s just lyin’ there, there must be something wrong with him for him just to be on the ground like that…”
Jackie Tyler frowned. “There’s nothin’ the matter with him that a lie in an’ a couple of Alka-Seltzer tomorrow morning won’t cure. Let the coppers deal with him. That’s their job. Don’t get involved.”
“He wasn’t drunk, Mum!” Rose protested.
“Course he was! He was staggering, hangin’ onto the bloody walls!”
Rose knew if she folded her arms and stood her ground, it would only be a matter of time. Mum hadn’t been able to stop her getting the school choir to go on strike or running off with Jimmy Stone. Might have been better if she had, but she wasn’t always right. And right now, somehow, Rose just knew there was more to that man than met the eye. Something about the way he’d looked at her, like she was the only thing in the whole world he’d ever wanted and he’d never be able to tell her. The way he’d said, so certainly, that 2005 would be a brilliant year, the year her whole life changed.
“Mum, by the time they get to him he could’ve frozen to death. He’s that thin, we could get him up the stairs between us.” She delivered her clinching shot. “What about that time you were pissed out of your brain and Dad found you and saw you home? You said you could’ve died if he hadn’t been there. Sixteen and choked on your own vomit…”
“All right, you needn’t go on about it!” Jackie snapped. “We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. But he’s old enough to know better. I wasn’t.”
“I’m not leavin’ him, Mum!”
“Don’t be so bloody daft!” But Jackie knew she’d lost the battle, before Rose even started running off across the plaza.
“All right…but I’m coming with you!” Rose heard her say, as a second pair of footsteps began to follow hers. “An’ he’s not coming in the flat, that’s my last word! He could be anybody!”
******
There was no fool like an old fool, Jackie Tyler thought to herself.
The lifts weren’t working, as usual, so in the end they’d had to call Mickey to help get him up the stairs. Comatose blokes, even skinny ones, weighed more than people thought. More than Rose thought, anyway.
Mickey hadn’t wanted to leave them on their own with him. He was a nice lad, and Jackie wished Rose would realise how lucky she was and give him a chance. It was all very well wishing for the moon and stars - didn’t everyone at her age - but you’d think after the bad experience she’d had with Jimmy Stone she’d appreciate having a fella who was steady and reliable, in a proper job and devoted to her. The moon and stars didn’t just fall into your lap. Not on the Powell Estate, anyway.
And it was with that agenda in mind, to be honest, that she’d encouraged the two of them to go off to Mickey’s flat for a late-night coffee. They could take their turn later at watching their unexpected guest. He looked like he’d been in a fight, but there wasn’t any smell of drink on him and, once you got past the state of them, his clothes were decent enough - almost kind of posh. They’d laid him out on the sofa and now she was perched on the arm - he’d occupied the other arm, and in fact the whole length of the sofa, and now she sat with the curtains open and the street lights shining in, looking at his filthy trainers and trying to make him out. Who went out in a suit and tie, and a coat nearly down to the floor, wearing shoes like that? If it was a fancy dress get-up, she was blowed if she knew what he was supposed to be. She wondered if he knew himself.
Every now and then he groaned and shifted a bit, shivering like he was feverish, only he couldn’t be, could he? His skin wasn’t even warm. Rose had begged her not to phone the ambulance unless he took a turn for the worse. They’d be run off their feet tonight, she’d pointed out quite reasonably, and he didn’t seem to be in any state to give them any trouble. He probably just needed somewhere quiet to sleep it off.
And, to be honest, Jackie quite liked having him to herself. Hoped he’d wake up and they could have a bit of a chinwag. It hadn’t been much of a Christmas, after all - she’d been too skint to celebrate a lot and all she’d given Rose was that scarf and a few quid to help pay off her debts. She just hoped this temporary job she’d got in Henricks would work out for her. It was time something did.
So getting a mysterious and rather fetching fella having a kip on her settee was probably the most exciting thing that was likely to happen to her for a good while to come.
Then he woke up, and she found out that he was a lot more exciting than she’d bargained for.
*****
Where was he? How had he got here? And more to the point, why hadn’t he regenerated yet?
Temporal limbo, that must be it. He’d heard of it happening to other Time Lords, though it was never openly discussed, since regeneration was an intensely private subject. But this regeneration had been a dog’s breakfast from the start. Another version of him was running around somewhere, and that had never happened before, so why not a bit of a hiccup in the timelines as well?
He was lying on a sofa; it seemed familiar somehow. Still on Earth - still, probably, in one of the rougher parts of London if the sirens and alarms going off outside were anything to go by. It could almost be back on the…
Oh no. Not that. Anything but that. The mere thought of trying to untangle that particular timeline made his head ache. He jerked upright, ready to extricate himself before matters got any worse, but the bolt of pain that shot between his eyebrows left him gasping. Opening his eyes, grateful for the subdued lighting, he flinched.
“Neurone implosion. You woke me up too soon…”
“What are you goin’ on about? I never went near you! Dragged you up three flights of stairs all on me own, tucked you up on me own sofa, and that’s the thanks I get! If it wasn’t for me you’d be out there freezing to death!”
“Jackie Tyler!” he groaned, pinching the flesh between his eyes. “Oh bugger. Bugger, bugger, bugger…”
He was just about together enough to realise that was hardly the most graceful way to begin the conversation, so he tried again. “Sorry. I’m so sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just, this wasn’t meant to happen. None of it. I’ll have to go. Now, right now. Though I wouldn’t say no to a cup of tea, if there’s one on offer. Worked last time…oh, but you won’t remember, will you? Hasn’t happened yet. Sorry, I don’t suppose I’m making much sense. Listen.” He stopped, made himself focus intently on her and hoped he was being firm but not frightening. “Thing is, you’ve been very kind - or maybe Rose has - this has Rose all over it, you have to admit and by the way there is no way you could get me up those stairs all on your own…but I’m afraid the universe could implode if I don’t get back to the TARDIS right now…”
Shakily he stood up and immediately ruined the effect by collapsing against Jackie’s ample bosom.
“You’re not going anywhere in that state,” she told him, her voice mellowing slightly. “And what’s the TARDIS? Some new nightclub you got yourself wasted in?”
“I’m fine!” he protested. “Look, totally, utterly ticketty-boo and you have to get me out of here before Rose finds me…” He looked down at himself, realising in some embarrassment that even by his own relaxed standards, he wasn’t looking exactly dapper. “What happened to my coat?”
“Tumble drier,” she replied. “Soaked through. I hope there wasn’t anything in the pockets.” Shuddering, she added, “There’s no way I was goin’ in there.”
He groped around in what was left of his jacket. “Sonic screwdriver,” he breathed, in relief. “Though come to think of it, it’s been through worse things than one of your laundry cycles.”
“You’ve a nerve!” she exclaimed. “Oh, don’t say thank you for picking me up off the street, will you? No, come in here, moan about my washing, swear at me, demand a cup of tea…”
“I did not demand anything - I merely asked, politely…”
“Who are you anyway?” she demanded. “And how do you know my name?”
“Oh, I know more than that, Jacqueline Andrea Prentice.’ He was starting to enjoy this, though he knew he shouldn’t be doing anything of the kind. He ought to be legging it out of here as fast as his admittedly rather weary feet would carry him. Instead, he was bobbing his eyebrows and relishing her freaked-out expression. “Went to your wedding, as it happens.”
“Shut up.”
“Took Rose with me. Rose Marian Tyler, that’s right, isn’t it? Is she with Mickey the Idiot yet?”
“Who are you calling an idiot?” she said, all indignation.
“Won’t last, you know,” he continued. “He ends up in another universe. All to do with his gran. Fell down the stairs, didn’t she? That’s what he told me anyway.”
He was going too far - he could tell that by the way she was stepping back and away from him, eyes like saucers, hand over her mouth.
“I don’t know who you are,” she said, “but you can get out of my flat right now.” She paused, struggling with some kinder impulse. Knowing Jackie Tyler, kindness wouldn’t be the only motive, but at least they weren’t in her bedroom.
“How’d you get in that state, anyway?” she asked.
“I’ve a knack for getting into trouble.”
“Never!” she gasped, all sarcasm.
“Not that kind of trouble.”
“What other kind is there?”
“Hostile-entity-trying-to-take-over-the-universe type trouble. I’ve saved this planet more times than you’ve had hot dinners. Oh, and did I mention I can travel in time?”
“Get out.”
“I was just about to leave when you politely enquired about the state of my suit,” he pointed out. “Any chance of that tea, then?”
“You’re a time traveller addicted to tea?”
“That just about sums me up.”
He followed her into the kitchen, vaguely aware that he wasn’t behaving very well. Jackie Tyler was a kind woman, and he’d put her through hell, and if he didn’t leave soon he would screw up this timeline and she wouldn’t even have Pete and a millionaire lifestyle to show for it, not that these things were all they were cracked up to be.
There was a tricky silence while she pointedly banged around in the cupboards. It must be about three o’clock in the morning, he reflected, and humans had to sleep.
“I’m sorry,” he said. It happened in a microsecond - all the bluster faded away and all he wanted to do was pour out his hearts to this woman, tell her all the things he wished he’d said, the mistakes he’d made…
“You won’t remember this, you know,” he said. “It’s just a hiccup in time. Trust me, I know these things. I’ll leave here, go back to where I belong, and when you see me again there might be - ooh - the vaguest bit of residual awareness, a feeling that we’ve met before, but everything else will be gone and, believe me, it’s better for everybody that way. I take four sugars, by the way. Of course, you wouldn’t know yet.”
She paused, open-mouthed, her hand with the kettle in it suspended in time an inch or two above the teabag in the mug, and he felt a kind of squeeze in between his hearts as he noticed that, in the soft lighting, she had something of the look of Rose about her.
In this odd little pocket of intimacy between them, all kinds of things could be said. He could tell her, “I loved your daughter. Loved her and let her go, not just once either. I was a fool.” Except that the thought of him going anywhere near Rose would possibly result in her flinging boiling water in his face. Which was probably the least he deserved.
“When you look like that, I can almost believe you,” she said quietly.
“Yeah.” And the conversation stalled again.
“I don’t even know your name,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t be able to pronounce it even if I told you, which my people had a deep-seated cultural taboo against doing, anyway.” He sighed. “Not that it matters now. It’s all gone, Jackie. That old planet. The Panopticon and the Citadel and the beautiful orange skies…”
“Planet?” she squeaked. “What planet? You’ve got quite an imagination, I’ll say that for you.”
“Sometime’s the truth’s stranger than anything you could make up.”
She handed him a steaming mug of tea and he gulped it down in seconds. He wished he didn’t have to go, but every minute he stayed would make it more difficult to leave, until Rose came in and difficult became impossible.
This was an anomaly, a little gap between timelines, a moment of grace as fleeting as the feeling that tomorrow would be Christmas morning and nothing could ever quite equal the wonderful agony of anticipation.
“Remember that red bicycle?” he asked. “That was me.”
She turned away from him for a minute. Turned back, recovered. Composed - just about.
“That tea’s boiling hot,” she said. “You’ll burn your throat.”
“Different physiology,” he countered quickly. “You were kind to me, Jackie. Will be kind to me. I shouldn’t be telling you all this, really. It’s better not to know the future.”
She led him back into the lounge. He couldn’t help noticing that she, too, was carrying a cup of tea. Together they returned to the sofa and she turned her knees away to maximise the space between them.
“How did you know about the red bicycle?” she asked, a little catch in her throat.
“She told me. You’ll understand one day.” Awkwardly, he looked away. “Anyway, I was a different man then. Will be. It’ll all make sense, I promise, Jackie.” If only he could comfort her. He stood up. “I should go.”
“Will she be all right?” she asked, and he saw in that moment, in the look in her eyes, how much pain he’d thoughtlessly inflicted on her, this woman who loved Rose almost as much as he did, and much more usefully, to be quite honest.
“Oh yes,” he said, letting go of a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding in. “She’ll be fine. I’ll always make sure of that.”
“I should get your coat.” But she didn’t move.
For once, he had no words to express the memories that came over him. He sat silently, twisting the empty mug in his fingers, knowing she was watching him.
“You’re like one of those angels that come on Christmas Eve. You know, in the old films…” she said.
He raked his fingers through his hair and laughed a short, hollow laugh. “Oh, you wouldn’t say that if you knew me better, Jackie Tyler.”
“You really an alien?” she asked.
He sat down again. “Yep. Two hearts, everything.”
“You don’t look like an alien.”
“What were you expecting?” he said. “Green slime? Oh, you’ll see plenty of that when…never mind. But tell Mickey from me, if he was thinking of decorating his kitchen he’d best hang on a year or two.”
“Decorating!” Jackie snorted. “Him? That’ll be the day.”
“Wasn’t supposed to tell you, anyway.” He yawned and rubbed his eyes. The tea had warmed him up and he was beginning to feel sleepy - another good reason for not staying around.
“Why not?”
“Because as soon as you know the future, you can change it. And that’s not supposed to happen. Well, only very little things, anyway.”
“Go on,” said Jackie, quietly.
“Nah,” he said stretching his arms over his head. “You don’t want to know about all that. It’s complicated.”
“I’m not thick, you know!”
“Oh, I know that, Jackie Tyler. You could never have had a daughter like Rose if you’d been thick.”
“Tell me what happens to her,” she pleaded.
“No.”
“Not even one little thing?”
“No,” he repeated, getting up again. “Well, if you aren’t going to get that coat out of the dryer, I suppose I’ll just have to get it myself.”
“Please.” Her voice was very small, almost childlike. All the indignation, the hands-on-hips stuff, had gone and he hated himself all over again for what he had inflicted on her.
She wasn’t asking him to deal with his own laundry. They both knew that. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I can’t.”
“Then just tell me this,” she said, watching him from the doorframe as he opened the dryer and reached for his coat. “Suppose you could change just one little thing - what would it be?”
He leaned against the kitchen cupboards, his coat balled in his hands, enjoying the fleeting warmth. Oh, if she only knew what she was asking. What would he change? Coming back that second time to ask Rose to travel with him? Being rude to Queen Victoria? Letting Rose near that magnaclamp without a harness on? Or running down that street to meet her without a thought for Daleks lurking in the shadows?
No. None of those. He’d change the thing that had caused Torchwood in the first place. He’d go back to the very beginning - well, the beginning of this body, anyway - when he’d been giddy with love and victory over the Sycorax, when his new hand had been burning a hole in Howard’s pocket and he’d toppled Harriet Jones from power in the blink of an eye. Oh, he’d thought he was so clever, hadn’t he?
He shrugged on his coat with a sigh. “One thing?”
“Just one. After all, you said I won’t remember, so what harm can it do?”
No, she wouldn’t remember. He wasn’t telling her, but he was in her mind even now, beginning to erase the memories, smooth the edges, the inconsistencies. It would have been nice to have had someone he could talk to about things, another person who remembered tonight, but enough people had been harmed already by his self-indulgence.
He couldn’t remember exactly what had made him stop running, turn round and look his worst misjudgement in the eye. It might have been some conversation with Wilf. Or going over and over what had happened with Donna and whether he could have done things differently. Or the last time he’d returned to Cardiff and found a hole in the ground where the Hub should have been. One hundred and fifty years of someone’s life, just gone like that.
He’d looked up PC Andy; he’d led him to Gwen. Watching her and Rhys with their new baby so happy and complete had hurt. That, and Gwen holding back from saying he could have been there when Jack needed him.
Rhys had been rather more forthcoming. He got the feeling that he wouldn’t be welcome there again.
“All those years he spent waiting for you, and where were you when he needed you, boyo? Runnin’ away, same as always…”
I’ll find him, he’d promised. I’ll get him back.
Oh, get out, Rhys had said. Just get out, go. You’re all talk, you are. You dumped him once and I know your type. You’re not the type to say you’re sorry.
Just one little change, one memory he could leave behind, and so much pain could have been eased. Maybe, in another universe, a world of heads instead of tails, three travellers in time and space were still giving each other high-fives and filling the TARDIS with laughter and love.
He folded his arms in the moonlight and looked at Jackie. Then he turned his eyes to the ceiling, raised his chin and carried on. “One day,” he began, “maybe a year from now, maybe two - well, give or take a week - I’ll be here again. I’ll be lying on your sofa taking a kip after I’ve saved the Earth again - because that’s what I do - and while I’m asleep you’ll ask Rose what’ll happen when I wake up.”
She didn’t argue with him. That was a first, he couldn’t help thinking.
He rubbed the corner of his eye and met her stare once more.
He could feel his eyelids growing heavier, his limbs becoming strange to him. Not long now. Not long. Surely, any minute now, the regeneration would begin again, and he owed it to her to be out of the flat when it happened. It had been hard enough for Rose to watch him regenerate and she’d had the TARDIS around her to protect her.
Painfully, he forced his eyes open and looked at her very directly.
“There’s one thing I’d like you to say to her,” he went on. “It’s the only thing you’ll remember about tonight, and you won’t even know you’re remembering it.”
It was hard, very hard to say. But he’d learned the cost of difficult things left unsaid.
“Tell her…tell her to ask me what happened to Jack.”
tbc
Marley’s Ghost - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
It was snowing, thick wet slushy flakes of it that would soon soak through his coat. The Doctor didn’t care. He wanted this to be it, the last time ever. He could hear bells ringing and fireworks going off, the population of this obscure little planet he’d unaccountably taken to his hearts celebrating the purely arbitrary calculation of another completed circuit around its parent star. The city around him was teeming with revellers, and somewhere in the middle of them all was a young girl with long blonde hair who’d thought he was a drunken idiot when he’d careered into her a few minutes ago and told her what the coming year held in store for her.
She hadn’t recognised him. Of course she hadn’t, because she hadn’t met him yet. And Jackie had given him a look that would strip paint from the walls. He wondered if she’d remember him when - now - if…what would happen to the timeline…he ought to care. But he didn’t.
He was tired, so tired. Tired and running a fever; this regeneration promised to be a stinker, even worse than the last. And this time around there’d be no Jackie Tyler to tuck him up in the spare room, no bathrobe with a Satsuma in the pocket…
No Rose.
He’d thought it would help to see her one last time, and this was the only time that was safe. The only one he trusted himself with. She’d dismissed him as some weird bloke off his head on something, but at the very last moment her eyes had softened in the compassionate way he remembered so well and she’d been about to ask him if he was all right when her mother had pursed her lips and dragged her away.
So that was it. The very last time. Prolonging it would have been impossible - Jackie already had him marked down as a drunken pervert, and he could feel his strength failing him. Another moment or two and he’d be unable to stand upright without support; then he’d collapse right in front of them and the timeline would be shot to pieces. Instead, like a wounded animal, he’d crawled away to die alone but he’d stumbled and found himself clinging to a wall before he could reach the TARDIS. Taking a few ragged breaths, he’d hoped to gather enough strength to walk the last few yards across the open concrete space. But even that was not to be - here he was face down on the ground, barely able to lift his head without a monumental effort.
Not long now. He was barely holding onto this body; the long fight to retain it was almost over and he’d lost. And then it would all begin again - waking up in clothes that weren’t right any more, feeling terrible, wondering where the nearest mirror was - big ears, this time? Big hair again? What would his voice sound like? He didn’t care. Couldn’t imagine getting to the point, this time around, where he’d heave himself to his feet and search out the TARDIS and maybe look around for another travelling companion. Same old questions, same old routine. She might say yes. She might say no. Oh, I couldn’t do that stuff you do. Tanks and guns, it was horrible…
Donna was right. It was horrible, all of it, and he didn’t want to bother with it any more.
So he lay on the concrete, letting the snow soak through his torn clothes, pulling together a few threads of optimism as frayed as the knees of his trousers. Come on, he told himself, he’d been in worse places than this. He wasn’t going to wake up under a radio telescope with the Master after him this time around, or on an operating table, was he? And at least there was nobody around who’d need things explaining…It’s still me… It’s the end, but the moment has been prepared for...Tears, Sarah Jane? Where there’s life, there’s hope…
He used to have so much mercy, until he realised how little he deserved.
He used to have so much hope.
******
The moment had come. Now, when the year was turning and the walls between realities were paper-thin. Ood Body (known to his friends as Clarence), one of an ancient race that had always known so much more than it appeared to know, was ready to return the favour that the Doctor had bestowed on his people months before, the gift of liberation.
For the Ood it had been the end of slavery. He was here now to offer the Doctor, who deserved so much more than he ever allowed himself to receive, a second chance. He was not going to ask him, the man who held the universe in the palm of his hand but now lay broken on the ground, which wrong turning he would go back to if he was given the opportunity to retrace his steps. He was too weak, too exhausted, to choose from the many possibilities. Besides, Ood Body already know the answer. Silently, he entered the trance state and reached out towards the mind of Rose Tyler, now walking back home with her mum, shivering a little in her cheap pink hoodie despite the long scarf around her neck.
Go to him…
*****
“We can’t just leave him, Mum! Look, he’s just lyin’ there, there must be something wrong with him for him just to be on the ground like that…”
Jackie Tyler frowned. “There’s nothin’ the matter with him that a lie in an’ a couple of Alka-Seltzer tomorrow morning won’t cure. Let the coppers deal with him. That’s their job. Don’t get involved.”
“He wasn’t drunk, Mum!” Rose protested.
“Course he was! He was staggering, hangin’ onto the bloody walls!”
Rose knew if she folded her arms and stood her ground, it would only be a matter of time. Mum hadn’t been able to stop her getting the school choir to go on strike or running off with Jimmy Stone. Might have been better if she had, but she wasn’t always right. And right now, somehow, Rose just knew there was more to that man than met the eye. Something about the way he’d looked at her, like she was the only thing in the whole world he’d ever wanted and he’d never be able to tell her. The way he’d said, so certainly, that 2005 would be a brilliant year, the year her whole life changed.
“Mum, by the time they get to him he could’ve frozen to death. He’s that thin, we could get him up the stairs between us.” She delivered her clinching shot. “What about that time you were pissed out of your brain and Dad found you and saw you home? You said you could’ve died if he hadn’t been there. Sixteen and choked on your own vomit…”
“All right, you needn’t go on about it!” Jackie snapped. “We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. But he’s old enough to know better. I wasn’t.”
“I’m not leavin’ him, Mum!”
“Don’t be so bloody daft!” But Jackie knew she’d lost the battle, before Rose even started running off across the plaza.
“All right…but I’m coming with you!” Rose heard her say, as a second pair of footsteps began to follow hers. “An’ he’s not coming in the flat, that’s my last word! He could be anybody!”
******
There was no fool like an old fool, Jackie Tyler thought to herself.
The lifts weren’t working, as usual, so in the end they’d had to call Mickey to help get him up the stairs. Comatose blokes, even skinny ones, weighed more than people thought. More than Rose thought, anyway.
Mickey hadn’t wanted to leave them on their own with him. He was a nice lad, and Jackie wished Rose would realise how lucky she was and give him a chance. It was all very well wishing for the moon and stars - didn’t everyone at her age - but you’d think after the bad experience she’d had with Jimmy Stone she’d appreciate having a fella who was steady and reliable, in a proper job and devoted to her. The moon and stars didn’t just fall into your lap. Not on the Powell Estate, anyway.
And it was with that agenda in mind, to be honest, that she’d encouraged the two of them to go off to Mickey’s flat for a late-night coffee. They could take their turn later at watching their unexpected guest. He looked like he’d been in a fight, but there wasn’t any smell of drink on him and, once you got past the state of them, his clothes were decent enough - almost kind of posh. They’d laid him out on the sofa and now she was perched on the arm - he’d occupied the other arm, and in fact the whole length of the sofa, and now she sat with the curtains open and the street lights shining in, looking at his filthy trainers and trying to make him out. Who went out in a suit and tie, and a coat nearly down to the floor, wearing shoes like that? If it was a fancy dress get-up, she was blowed if she knew what he was supposed to be. She wondered if he knew himself.
Every now and then he groaned and shifted a bit, shivering like he was feverish, only he couldn’t be, could he? His skin wasn’t even warm. Rose had begged her not to phone the ambulance unless he took a turn for the worse. They’d be run off their feet tonight, she’d pointed out quite reasonably, and he didn’t seem to be in any state to give them any trouble. He probably just needed somewhere quiet to sleep it off.
And, to be honest, Jackie quite liked having him to herself. Hoped he’d wake up and they could have a bit of a chinwag. It hadn’t been much of a Christmas, after all - she’d been too skint to celebrate a lot and all she’d given Rose was that scarf and a few quid to help pay off her debts. She just hoped this temporary job she’d got in Henricks would work out for her. It was time something did.
So getting a mysterious and rather fetching fella having a kip on her settee was probably the most exciting thing that was likely to happen to her for a good while to come.
Then he woke up, and she found out that he was a lot more exciting than she’d bargained for.
*****
Where was he? How had he got here? And more to the point, why hadn’t he regenerated yet?
Temporal limbo, that must be it. He’d heard of it happening to other Time Lords, though it was never openly discussed, since regeneration was an intensely private subject. But this regeneration had been a dog’s breakfast from the start. Another version of him was running around somewhere, and that had never happened before, so why not a bit of a hiccup in the timelines as well?
He was lying on a sofa; it seemed familiar somehow. Still on Earth - still, probably, in one of the rougher parts of London if the sirens and alarms going off outside were anything to go by. It could almost be back on the…
Oh no. Not that. Anything but that. The mere thought of trying to untangle that particular timeline made his head ache. He jerked upright, ready to extricate himself before matters got any worse, but the bolt of pain that shot between his eyebrows left him gasping. Opening his eyes, grateful for the subdued lighting, he flinched.
“Neurone implosion. You woke me up too soon…”
“What are you goin’ on about? I never went near you! Dragged you up three flights of stairs all on me own, tucked you up on me own sofa, and that’s the thanks I get! If it wasn’t for me you’d be out there freezing to death!”
“Jackie Tyler!” he groaned, pinching the flesh between his eyes. “Oh bugger. Bugger, bugger, bugger…”
He was just about together enough to realise that was hardly the most graceful way to begin the conversation, so he tried again. “Sorry. I’m so sorry. Didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just, this wasn’t meant to happen. None of it. I’ll have to go. Now, right now. Though I wouldn’t say no to a cup of tea, if there’s one on offer. Worked last time…oh, but you won’t remember, will you? Hasn’t happened yet. Sorry, I don’t suppose I’m making much sense. Listen.” He stopped, made himself focus intently on her and hoped he was being firm but not frightening. “Thing is, you’ve been very kind - or maybe Rose has - this has Rose all over it, you have to admit and by the way there is no way you could get me up those stairs all on your own…but I’m afraid the universe could implode if I don’t get back to the TARDIS right now…”
Shakily he stood up and immediately ruined the effect by collapsing against Jackie’s ample bosom.
“You’re not going anywhere in that state,” she told him, her voice mellowing slightly. “And what’s the TARDIS? Some new nightclub you got yourself wasted in?”
“I’m fine!” he protested. “Look, totally, utterly ticketty-boo and you have to get me out of here before Rose finds me…” He looked down at himself, realising in some embarrassment that even by his own relaxed standards, he wasn’t looking exactly dapper. “What happened to my coat?”
“Tumble drier,” she replied. “Soaked through. I hope there wasn’t anything in the pockets.” Shuddering, she added, “There’s no way I was goin’ in there.”
He groped around in what was left of his jacket. “Sonic screwdriver,” he breathed, in relief. “Though come to think of it, it’s been through worse things than one of your laundry cycles.”
“You’ve a nerve!” she exclaimed. “Oh, don’t say thank you for picking me up off the street, will you? No, come in here, moan about my washing, swear at me, demand a cup of tea…”
“I did not demand anything - I merely asked, politely…”
“Who are you anyway?” she demanded. “And how do you know my name?”
“Oh, I know more than that, Jacqueline Andrea Prentice.’ He was starting to enjoy this, though he knew he shouldn’t be doing anything of the kind. He ought to be legging it out of here as fast as his admittedly rather weary feet would carry him. Instead, he was bobbing his eyebrows and relishing her freaked-out expression. “Went to your wedding, as it happens.”
“Shut up.”
“Took Rose with me. Rose Marian Tyler, that’s right, isn’t it? Is she with Mickey the Idiot yet?”
“Who are you calling an idiot?” she said, all indignation.
“Won’t last, you know,” he continued. “He ends up in another universe. All to do with his gran. Fell down the stairs, didn’t she? That’s what he told me anyway.”
He was going too far - he could tell that by the way she was stepping back and away from him, eyes like saucers, hand over her mouth.
“I don’t know who you are,” she said, “but you can get out of my flat right now.” She paused, struggling with some kinder impulse. Knowing Jackie Tyler, kindness wouldn’t be the only motive, but at least they weren’t in her bedroom.
“How’d you get in that state, anyway?” she asked.
“I’ve a knack for getting into trouble.”
“Never!” she gasped, all sarcasm.
“Not that kind of trouble.”
“What other kind is there?”
“Hostile-entity-trying-to-take-over-the-universe type trouble. I’ve saved this planet more times than you’ve had hot dinners. Oh, and did I mention I can travel in time?”
“Get out.”
“I was just about to leave when you politely enquired about the state of my suit,” he pointed out. “Any chance of that tea, then?”
“You’re a time traveller addicted to tea?”
“That just about sums me up.”
He followed her into the kitchen, vaguely aware that he wasn’t behaving very well. Jackie Tyler was a kind woman, and he’d put her through hell, and if he didn’t leave soon he would screw up this timeline and she wouldn’t even have Pete and a millionaire lifestyle to show for it, not that these things were all they were cracked up to be.
There was a tricky silence while she pointedly banged around in the cupboards. It must be about three o’clock in the morning, he reflected, and humans had to sleep.
“I’m sorry,” he said. It happened in a microsecond - all the bluster faded away and all he wanted to do was pour out his hearts to this woman, tell her all the things he wished he’d said, the mistakes he’d made…
“You won’t remember this, you know,” he said. “It’s just a hiccup in time. Trust me, I know these things. I’ll leave here, go back to where I belong, and when you see me again there might be - ooh - the vaguest bit of residual awareness, a feeling that we’ve met before, but everything else will be gone and, believe me, it’s better for everybody that way. I take four sugars, by the way. Of course, you wouldn’t know yet.”
She paused, open-mouthed, her hand with the kettle in it suspended in time an inch or two above the teabag in the mug, and he felt a kind of squeeze in between his hearts as he noticed that, in the soft lighting, she had something of the look of Rose about her.
In this odd little pocket of intimacy between them, all kinds of things could be said. He could tell her, “I loved your daughter. Loved her and let her go, not just once either. I was a fool.” Except that the thought of him going anywhere near Rose would possibly result in her flinging boiling water in his face. Which was probably the least he deserved.
“When you look like that, I can almost believe you,” she said quietly.
“Yeah.” And the conversation stalled again.
“I don’t even know your name,” she said.
“It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t be able to pronounce it even if I told you, which my people had a deep-seated cultural taboo against doing, anyway.” He sighed. “Not that it matters now. It’s all gone, Jackie. That old planet. The Panopticon and the Citadel and the beautiful orange skies…”
“Planet?” she squeaked. “What planet? You’ve got quite an imagination, I’ll say that for you.”
“Sometime’s the truth’s stranger than anything you could make up.”
She handed him a steaming mug of tea and he gulped it down in seconds. He wished he didn’t have to go, but every minute he stayed would make it more difficult to leave, until Rose came in and difficult became impossible.
This was an anomaly, a little gap between timelines, a moment of grace as fleeting as the feeling that tomorrow would be Christmas morning and nothing could ever quite equal the wonderful agony of anticipation.
“Remember that red bicycle?” he asked. “That was me.”
She turned away from him for a minute. Turned back, recovered. Composed - just about.
“That tea’s boiling hot,” she said. “You’ll burn your throat.”
“Different physiology,” he countered quickly. “You were kind to me, Jackie. Will be kind to me. I shouldn’t be telling you all this, really. It’s better not to know the future.”
She led him back into the lounge. He couldn’t help noticing that she, too, was carrying a cup of tea. Together they returned to the sofa and she turned her knees away to maximise the space between them.
“How did you know about the red bicycle?” she asked, a little catch in her throat.
“She told me. You’ll understand one day.” Awkwardly, he looked away. “Anyway, I was a different man then. Will be. It’ll all make sense, I promise, Jackie.” If only he could comfort her. He stood up. “I should go.”
“Will she be all right?” she asked, and he saw in that moment, in the look in her eyes, how much pain he’d thoughtlessly inflicted on her, this woman who loved Rose almost as much as he did, and much more usefully, to be quite honest.
“Oh yes,” he said, letting go of a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding in. “She’ll be fine. I’ll always make sure of that.”
“I should get your coat.” But she didn’t move.
For once, he had no words to express the memories that came over him. He sat silently, twisting the empty mug in his fingers, knowing she was watching him.
“You’re like one of those angels that come on Christmas Eve. You know, in the old films…” she said.
He raked his fingers through his hair and laughed a short, hollow laugh. “Oh, you wouldn’t say that if you knew me better, Jackie Tyler.”
“You really an alien?” she asked.
He sat down again. “Yep. Two hearts, everything.”
“You don’t look like an alien.”
“What were you expecting?” he said. “Green slime? Oh, you’ll see plenty of that when…never mind. But tell Mickey from me, if he was thinking of decorating his kitchen he’d best hang on a year or two.”
“Decorating!” Jackie snorted. “Him? That’ll be the day.”
“Wasn’t supposed to tell you, anyway.” He yawned and rubbed his eyes. The tea had warmed him up and he was beginning to feel sleepy - another good reason for not staying around.
“Why not?”
“Because as soon as you know the future, you can change it. And that’s not supposed to happen. Well, only very little things, anyway.”
“Go on,” said Jackie, quietly.
“Nah,” he said stretching his arms over his head. “You don’t want to know about all that. It’s complicated.”
“I’m not thick, you know!”
“Oh, I know that, Jackie Tyler. You could never have had a daughter like Rose if you’d been thick.”
“Tell me what happens to her,” she pleaded.
“No.”
“Not even one little thing?”
“No,” he repeated, getting up again. “Well, if you aren’t going to get that coat out of the dryer, I suppose I’ll just have to get it myself.”
“Please.” Her voice was very small, almost childlike. All the indignation, the hands-on-hips stuff, had gone and he hated himself all over again for what he had inflicted on her.
She wasn’t asking him to deal with his own laundry. They both knew that. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I can’t.”
“Then just tell me this,” she said, watching him from the doorframe as he opened the dryer and reached for his coat. “Suppose you could change just one little thing - what would it be?”
He leaned against the kitchen cupboards, his coat balled in his hands, enjoying the fleeting warmth. Oh, if she only knew what she was asking. What would he change? Coming back that second time to ask Rose to travel with him? Being rude to Queen Victoria? Letting Rose near that magnaclamp without a harness on? Or running down that street to meet her without a thought for Daleks lurking in the shadows?
No. None of those. He’d change the thing that had caused Torchwood in the first place. He’d go back to the very beginning - well, the beginning of this body, anyway - when he’d been giddy with love and victory over the Sycorax, when his new hand had been burning a hole in Howard’s pocket and he’d toppled Harriet Jones from power in the blink of an eye. Oh, he’d thought he was so clever, hadn’t he?
He shrugged on his coat with a sigh. “One thing?”
“Just one. After all, you said I won’t remember, so what harm can it do?”
No, she wouldn’t remember. He wasn’t telling her, but he was in her mind even now, beginning to erase the memories, smooth the edges, the inconsistencies. It would have been nice to have had someone he could talk to about things, another person who remembered tonight, but enough people had been harmed already by his self-indulgence.
He couldn’t remember exactly what had made him stop running, turn round and look his worst misjudgement in the eye. It might have been some conversation with Wilf. Or going over and over what had happened with Donna and whether he could have done things differently. Or the last time he’d returned to Cardiff and found a hole in the ground where the Hub should have been. One hundred and fifty years of someone’s life, just gone like that.
He’d looked up PC Andy; he’d led him to Gwen. Watching her and Rhys with their new baby so happy and complete had hurt. That, and Gwen holding back from saying he could have been there when Jack needed him.
Rhys had been rather more forthcoming. He got the feeling that he wouldn’t be welcome there again.
“All those years he spent waiting for you, and where were you when he needed you, boyo? Runnin’ away, same as always…”
I’ll find him, he’d promised. I’ll get him back.
Oh, get out, Rhys had said. Just get out, go. You’re all talk, you are. You dumped him once and I know your type. You’re not the type to say you’re sorry.
Just one little change, one memory he could leave behind, and so much pain could have been eased. Maybe, in another universe, a world of heads instead of tails, three travellers in time and space were still giving each other high-fives and filling the TARDIS with laughter and love.
He folded his arms in the moonlight and looked at Jackie. Then he turned his eyes to the ceiling, raised his chin and carried on. “One day,” he began, “maybe a year from now, maybe two - well, give or take a week - I’ll be here again. I’ll be lying on your sofa taking a kip after I’ve saved the Earth again - because that’s what I do - and while I’m asleep you’ll ask Rose what’ll happen when I wake up.”
She didn’t argue with him. That was a first, he couldn’t help thinking.
He rubbed the corner of his eye and met her stare once more.
He could feel his eyelids growing heavier, his limbs becoming strange to him. Not long now. Not long. Surely, any minute now, the regeneration would begin again, and he owed it to her to be out of the flat when it happened. It had been hard enough for Rose to watch him regenerate and she’d had the TARDIS around her to protect her.
Painfully, he forced his eyes open and looked at her very directly.
“There’s one thing I’d like you to say to her,” he went on. “It’s the only thing you’ll remember about tonight, and you won’t even know you’re remembering it.”
It was hard, very hard to say. But he’d learned the cost of difficult things left unsaid.
“Tell her…tell her to ask me what happened to Jack.”
tbc