Fic: The Doctor and His Time Ladies (Chapter 7)
Title: The Doctor and His Time Ladies
Author: country_who
Rating: PG
Word Count (This chapter): 4046
Genre: AU, Action/Adventure
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose, Tenth Doctor, Human Doctor, Rose, Jenny, Jack
Summary: AU Journey's End. Rose gets trapped in the TARDIS instead of Donna and now holds the mind of a Time Lord protected by the Bad Wolf, but what happens when the human Doctor dies, and the Time Lord tries to take her to a planet to get her mind off of him, and fulfill a promise? Does the Doctor have more to lose than gain?
Author's Note: Thanks to othermewriter who solidified the main ideas swimming in the soup I call my brain.
Author's Note 2: I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update this, but the summer is here, so I should have time to update more frequently. ;)
Prologue| Chapter 1| Chapter 2| Chapter 3| Chapter 4| Chapter 5| Chapter 6
Some time during her reminiscing, Jenny had become wrapped in her father’s arms, while tears flowed down her face. She was shaking while she tried to regain her composure. This wasn’t how she was supposed to act, and she knew it. She was a Time Lady, that’s what she found out a female Time Lord was called. She was stronger than this. She could live up to the proud history of her people, who were revered as the silent observers of the universe.
However, she couldn’t stop. It hurt too much, the pressure of being one of the only two Time Lords in existence pressed down on her and made it worse. She needed to protect her father, stop him from doing something he would regret for the rest of his life.
She wrapped her arms around herself in a tight hug, while the Doctor enclosed her in his own, creating a cocoon against the rest of the world and all of the pain that she had let out onto him. She didn’t want to be a Time Lady; she just wanted to be his daughter.
The Doctor smoothed a hand down the back of Jenny’s hair and began to rub circles into her back. He thought about anything he could tell her, but he couldn’t. How could he console her? He had lost everything, yes, but never had to face whether or not he had imagined everything he had loved.
She opened her mouth and let a strangled sob come out from her lips, while she muttered something into his chest.
“Shh,” the Doctor cooed, while he pulled her even tighter to him. He pressed a kiss into the top of her head and used the pad of his thumb to gently wipe away the tears that stained his face, but they were quickly replaced by fresh ones.
“Don’t you see, Dad?” Jenny asked in a choked whisper, broken and rough from crying. “Don’t you see?”
Shaking his head, the Doctor looked into Jenny’s blue eyes imploringly. “What do you mean, Jenny?”
Jenny bit her lip, trying to regain her composure enough to speak. He had to know, but how would she tell him? Would he listen? How could she make him listen, if he didn’t? She looked down at her feet for inspiration, but only felt more disparagement washing over her.
“Tell me, Jenny,” her father said gently, but instead of lifting her head and making her look at him, he just knelt down lower and tilted his head into her vision. He cupped her cheek and gave her a small smile, which got him a watery one in return. “Trust me.”
It wasn’t a question of her trusting him; it was a question of him trusting her, of him understanding enough to really listen to her, despite what he would perceive as naiveté.
“Before you were the last, what were you?” Jenny asked quietly, letting her eyes look into his father’s brown eyes, piercing them.
He remained stubborn, not saying a word. Her eyes shifted from his burning eyes to his jaw. It flexed with bridled fury, part of her knew she should be afraid to know what lay behind that fury, but a bigger part didn’t care.
It wasn’t fair. She had him back now. Why couldn’t they have had a happy, carefree reunion? The one she always imagined? The one where she ran into his arms and he held her, while she laughed? Of course, she dreamed of that reunion while she was wrapped in Jack’s arms.
“Dad,” Jenny prompted.
“I don- I can’t,” the Doctor stuttered out, trying to gather his spiraling thoughts.
“Please, Dad,” Jenny practically begged.
A proper response didn’t leave his lips that time, words didn’t even come forward, and he just looked away.
“Dad, please tell me.”
He still ignored her, and bent over to tighten the laces of his converse sneakers repeatedly.
Jenny shook her head and held him hard by the shoulders, changing their roles in an instance. He didn’t try to wriggle out of Jenny’s grip; instead he just stared, trying to take in the image of his daughter in front of him. She had grown up. He saw that now. She wasn’t the same girl he left, but she was still a girl none the less. She might have seen more than she thought was possible, lost more than she ever hoped to gain, but that didn’t mean she knew him. No one knew him. No one knew his suffering.
“Jenny, this isn’t about me. It’s about you and Jack. I really don’t see where this is going,” the Doctor said finally, while he took another step back from his daughter.
“It has everything to do with you,” Jenny replied boldly. “You were someone other than the last of the Time Lords once, you had to have been. Just like I was the Generated Anomaly before I was Jenny Anderson and how I was different person before I met Jack. It’s a cycle. I was left behind, you were left behind. I met someone that made me feel special. You met someone who knew you were special. I lost my someone, and you lost yours. What’s the difference between the two of us?”
Mutely, the Doctor stared straight in front of him. He wouldn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t embrace the fact.
“You’ve gotten your someone back,” Jenny answered for him, pulling her hair out of its tie and running her fingers through it in frustration, sending it cascading down her back. “I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. I do, honestly, and I’m not going to let the same pain that I’m going through right now happen to you, and I’m not going you let your pain return. Rose loves you. The question is do you care enough to love her back.”
Jenny said the words with such resolution; the Doctor was silent for a long moment before he finally found the biting words to answer her with.
“I… I think she’s brilliant, and unique and fantastic. I think she’s everything,” the Doctor said hotly, his voice taking a dangerous low turn.
“Have you told her that?” Jenny asked undaunted, by his declaration. “Really told her? Taken her hand, looked into her eyes and said that you loved her? Have you hugged her until you both felt like you were one person? Have you kissed her just because you could?”
“I… no,” the Doctor said softly, letting his head drop and shoulders sag. The fire from his eyes faded the fight from his voice dissolving. He looked utterly wounded.
“Why not?” Jenny asked, letting her voice turn soft again.
“I ran out of time,” he muttered, not daring to look in Jenny’s eyes.
She reached out and touched his shoulder, but it was the ghost of a motion she had made before. It was motion she never wanted to make again without there being a chance of there being someone to catch in her hands.
The image of Jack being pulled away from her into that blinding white light, while she was pulled in the other direction filled her mind. She pushed it away quickly. It hurt too much sometimes.
“Then tell her now,” Jenny whispered, getting off of the edge of the cot and placing her hand on either side of his face. “Don’t waste a second, Dad. Hold her; tell her how you really feel.”
“She’s human. She ages. She withers.” The Doctor’s words were biting, self-loathing, but most of all they were laced in pain. He would lose Rose, yes. But, he would also see her suffering the effects of old-age, ill-health and injury, and all those other things that humans were so susceptible to.
“Then would you rather have no time with her at all?” Jenny asked.
“No,” the Doctor answered right away. He didn’t know what he would do if Rose hadn’t come into his life. He would be so lost and so broken.
Jenny nodded encouragingly and smiled. “Then make the most of your Time. You’re a Time Lord after all.”
Eventually, the Doctor nodded and smiled back at her. “I will.”
“Good,” Jenny said, lying back on the bed and closing her eyes. “My job’s done, then.”
Scrutinizing her, the Doctor moved in and placed a gentle hand on her face and made her open her eyes again.
“Tired?” the Doctor asked.
Jenny nodded. “Got a bit of a headache as well, but no worse than the last time I did this. I’ll be fine after I’ve got some sleep. I promise.”
Nodding, the Doctor handed her his blanket and pulled it over her to cover her shoulders, seeing that she had given her covers to Mr. Anderson-whose snores were still filling the small room, while he dozed.
“That’s just a bit of regeneration sickness,” he assured her, while he watched her bury herself deeper in the covers and close her eyes again. “I can smell the energy still leaking off of you. It’ll make you drowsy that’s for sure. You should be fine, although, the last time I regenerated I ended up in coma, so just in case keep me posted on how you’re feeling, alright?”
“Yes, father,” Jenny said sleepily, while she cracked one eye open and smiled dazedly. “Good night, Dad.”
Something in the Doctor’s hearts awakened at the way she said it, like a little stitch in left heart. Not a big stitch, a little one, but small stitches were the first step to sealing the biggest of holes. Maybe Donna was right, she was going to make him better.
“Good night, Jenny, and thank you-for showing your ol’ Dad a thing or two, eh?”
“Yeah, Dad.”
“And, Jenny?”
“Hmm?”
“I was a bit of a rebel,” the Doctor admitted. “You get it honestly.”
A smile ghosted across Jenny’s face, but she was already drifting towards sleep. The Doctor pressed a kiss into Jenny’s forehead and picked up his brown trench coat from the side of the cot, where Rose must have left it for him and stepped out of the tent and into the night.
~o~
Herman walked deeper in the encampment towards home. It wasn’t all a military base around here, despite what it might look on the perimeter, where all the defensive measures were taken. The first act of this little community wasn’t to defend, it was to live. Whole families came down from other planets that were becoming over crowed and moving to others. With the advancements made in terraforming these days, anything seemed possible.
He couldn’t quite believe it in all truth, changing new worlds to make them habitable. He still thought it was surreal-gorgeous-but surreal. It was downright amazing, but someone always had to complain, and it just had to be the Saigans. They thought they knew best for the survival of the cosmos, but none of their attempts ever ended well.
If anyone had ever bothered to take-or even ask for-his opinion, they would have seen that the Saigans were bad news all the way around from the start. Trying to preserve nothing for future generations instead of letting future generations spread out and prosper. It didn’t make any sense to Herman, but then, not much did. He knew his job and he knew his duty, but that was where he drew the line. He stopped trying to understand a long time ago. He found out that you just went mad with confusion and when the confusion passed, anger took its place. Too bad no one asked for his opinion.
There had to be a point to it all though. If humans weren’t meant to spread across the stars, what were they supposed to do? Die? Not the human race. Not his people. He thought that even the Saigans should understand that, but again he was wrong.
Then there was that new man and his wife and newly reunited daughter that showed up out of no-where. What were they even there for?
They never really said and Herman knew that should scare him, but it didn’t. They seemed trustworthy. He would put his own life and the life of his wife and children in that man’s hands without a second thought.
Herman thought it was his eyes, or maybe it was just his face in general, or even his personality. Any man who jokes while his body is being ravished by an unknown force is either crazy, tougher than nails, or cares too much to let someone worry about him. .
The way that he let his wife support him while just enough to make her feel needed, but not hanging on her to the point that she worried that he was in deep trouble was evidence of just how much he cared. He was tuned into his wife better than he’d seen with any other couple. It was like they shared a common bond, a common need, and even a common mind. He loved her, and she loved him. That was clear from the moment that he first laid eyes on the couple, while accompanied by his own wife, Nala.
They didn’t like to make a fuss of introducing themselves as husband and wife, mostly because they were working on the same base and liked to keep up a professional atmosphere, but also because that just wasn’t them. They always thought it would be clear to anyone around them that they were in love-that their body language would show any stranger. Nala had told him once, that she had always imagined the man that she knew loved her back just as much as she loved him would have this look in his eyes that told her everything she needed to know about him. She called it a spark that let her see their future together. Herman was the only man she ever admitted to seeing that spark in.
A smile crossed his lips, once he reached their little home that they had planned and set up once they moved into the compound. It was cozy and small, but plenty big enough for the two of them and their two children.
It was no small understatement to say that neither Herman nor Nala liked the idea of raising Jet and Kevin where they were never sure what the outcome of the next attack would be. However, like all the other parents who brought their kids to the base, there was no more turning back now. It was a gamble here, but so was any other place they could have decided to live.
Stepping through the doors, Herman expected to see Nala sitting up with baby Kevin in her arms and Jet somewhere nearby. Instead, he only saw Jet, with his nose buried in a book with his legs crossed, and his glasses sliding down his nose.
“Hey, Dad,” he said distractedly, while he turned the page and continued reading. He bit his lip as if something on the page angered or worried him. “Mum’s gone on a walk to see if she can get Kevin to calm down.”
Herman nodded, feeling a bit relieved. Kevin had been fussy with his teething lately and both of them were desperate to find some way to ease him.
“Did she say when she was coming back?” He asked his son.
Jet shook his head, looking over the top of the book and at his father.
“She seemed pretty frustrated,” Jet stated.
“Mhm,” Herman concurred. “She act like she wanted me to join her?”
“Nope, she said, quote, ‘if he tries to follow me tell him under no circumstances is he to do so, because he’ll just end up waking up Kevin after I’ve gotten him to sleep,’” Jet replied coolly, before closing his book and taking off his glasses. “I think she sent a pretty clear signal.”
Herman laughed at his twelve year old son. “Yeah, you could say that.” He ruffled the boy’s hair and took his book from him while he sat down next to him. “You should be in bed.”
“I know,” Jet said, getting to his feet, and walking away. “I’m going.”
“Good night,” Herman said teasingly.
~o~
The Doctor couldn’t understand how hard it was to find a Rose. Of course she was always wandering off, but it never got this complicated. Plus, he was clever. He should have her in his arms by now. They should be laughing. He should have been finally telling her how he really felt.
While he walked, he kept thinking of the best way to tell her. He could play coy and just slip it into a conversation and see if she noticed. He could go for the human approach, take her hands and fold them in his before dropping to his knees and telling her that he loves her-granted at first that might send her mixed signals.
But, something in his heart told him he shouldn’t even be planning it. He should just take her hand, lead her out to somewhere private, under the stars and just let the words come. That felt right, but he didn’t want to get it wrong. He didn’t want her to deny him. He knew the idea of her denying his love was absurd, but he couldn’t help thinking it. He’d deserve it after how he acted, after the countless times he pushed her away.
Why had it taken him so long to see that?
He should have known. All the memories came rushing into his brain now. When she wrapped him in a hug, when she had her face stolen and the word she was repeating over and over again was his name. He should have known when she was prepared to tear down whole universes to find him again. He should have known by the way that she kept running toward him even after he was hit by the Dalek instead of running away.
He should have known because she was Rose… his Rose.
Sighing, he put his rambling thoughts out of his mind and turned back to the job at hand.
He considered checking the other tents in the area, but Rose didn’t know any of the people around here, and it was unlikely that even she would have wandered into one of them at night.
Worry was beginning to eat away at the inside of his stomach and burn in his chest. What if she wasn’t just out for a stroll? What if something terrible really did happen to her? After all, this wasn’t exactly the best neighborhood. He shoved his hands deeply into his pockets and fished around for his sonic screwdriver.
“It’s got to be in here somewhere,” he muttered, while he tugged out a conker, two yoyo’s, a banana (half rotted), and a super ball. Finally, he found it and extracted it from his pocket. After adjusting the settings, he held it out in front of him and began turning in a slow circle. After he had made three full revolutions, he stopped and held up the sonic screwdriver to his ear.
“That’s odd,” he muttered to himself and he repeated the cycle.
Holding it up to his ear again, he frowned even deeper and hit the device against his palm. It couldn’t be working. It had to be wrong.
He tried new settings and rotating at different speeds, trying to amplify the settings, but everything ended in the same crushing answer.
“Rose is gone.” The Doctor said, having to stop himself from dropping to his knees in despair.
~o~
Jenny was Rose Tyler. She felt Rose Tyler. She knew Rose Tyler better than any other person in the world. Her memories were merging with the human and becoming hers and it hurt. Her mind was screaming for her to release her from the assault. She wanted to run to escape from Rose Tyler, but she couldn’t.
She was forced to blend her emotions with Rose’s; it got to the point that she wasn’t even sure whose fear was whose. Part of her wanted to defend her mind with the rudimentary psychic training that Jack had given her, but something deeper told her not to. She was meant to hear this. She needed to hear this.
She was hurting so much, the feeling of rejection swelled through her. She wanted to know where she went wrong. Why didn’t he love her? Why did she have to love him? Why couldn’t she just leave him like all his other companions? Why did she have to throw her heart into every person she met?
It wasn’t fair.
All she had to do was run away, it was easy right?
So easy.
Too easy.
She liked a challenge. Maybe that was the core of it. She needed to feel needed. She needed to feel like she was making a difference, and whether or not the Doctor loved her back didn’t matter as much as loving him did. She could make a difference. There were a lot of people in this universe that deserved love, but the Doctor deserved it the most.
Jenny tried to call out with her own thoughts. He did love her. He was broken. He was rude. And, he was stupid, but he loved her more than anything in all the galaxies. She screamed it in her head, but all she met was an unyielding wall, where emotions flowed out, but nothing could get in.
Of course, Jenny thought to herself, Rose wasn’t trained, just like she hadn’t. When Jack had taught her, the first lesson was to keep thoughts out and as many of yours in that you could. A simple wall like this was enough to handle simple anxieties, but pain like this just flooded over the edges.
Placing her hand on the smooth surface, Jenny tried to coax her way into the barrier to comfort Rose, but it was unyielding. Immediately, she knew that Rose couldn’t have erected this barrier herself. It was the work of someone who knew what they were doing. It must have been her father.
Jenny knew there was no chance of her breaking through a barrier that her father had erected, so instead she slid down with her back to the barrier and listened intently. Her entire mental form relaxed and in turn she heard Rose’s thoughts more clearly and images filled her mind along with a noise she couldn’t place.
Jenny focused harder, drawing all her energy into trying to become Rose Tyler, all while keeping her presence soft and unobtrusive.
She saw a match struck and the soft scent of lemons filled Jenny’s nostrils. The dark images in her mind’s eye of Rose’s eyes became clearer, as the soft sound she heard before became obvious. It was a baby’s cries.
Jenny felt her hearts clench with worry as she reached out in front of her and tried to touch what Rose was reaching for. She could feel the branches beneath the other woman’s fingers as she drew back the foliage to see the baby lying there nestled in a blanket. The pressure in Rose’s arms became the familiar pressure in Jenny’s arms. She instinctively wanted to comfort the crying infant and was thankful that Rose had the same thought as she gently rocked the baby back and forth, comforting him with soft words and coos.
A smile stretched over Jenny’s face. She missed this, even if the first time wasn’t real and if this time she wasn’t even the one holding the child.
Anxiety washed over Rose as a crunching met her ears, and she turned around quickly. He was about to cry out and ask who was there, but the feeling of a gun being pushed into the back of her head silenced her. She swallowed thickly.
Jenny’s hand reached up and touched the back of her own head. She rubbed the coolness there, ensuring that it wasn’t her own body that was being threatened.
Eventually, Rose found her voice. “Who… who are you?” Rose asked.
“That’s not important, what’s important is who you are,” the voice rasped lowly.
Author: country_who
Rating: PG
Word Count (This chapter): 4046
Genre: AU, Action/Adventure
Characters/Pairings: Ten/Rose, Tenth Doctor, Human Doctor, Rose, Jenny, Jack
Summary: AU Journey's End. Rose gets trapped in the TARDIS instead of Donna and now holds the mind of a Time Lord protected by the Bad Wolf, but what happens when the human Doctor dies, and the Time Lord tries to take her to a planet to get her mind off of him, and fulfill a promise? Does the Doctor have more to lose than gain?
Author's Note: Thanks to othermewriter who solidified the main ideas swimming in the soup I call my brain.
Author's Note 2: I'm sorry it's taken me so long to update this, but the summer is here, so I should have time to update more frequently. ;)
Prologue| Chapter 1| Chapter 2| Chapter 3| Chapter 4| Chapter 5| Chapter 6
Some time during her reminiscing, Jenny had become wrapped in her father’s arms, while tears flowed down her face. She was shaking while she tried to regain her composure. This wasn’t how she was supposed to act, and she knew it. She was a Time Lady, that’s what she found out a female Time Lord was called. She was stronger than this. She could live up to the proud history of her people, who were revered as the silent observers of the universe.
However, she couldn’t stop. It hurt too much, the pressure of being one of the only two Time Lords in existence pressed down on her and made it worse. She needed to protect her father, stop him from doing something he would regret for the rest of his life.
She wrapped her arms around herself in a tight hug, while the Doctor enclosed her in his own, creating a cocoon against the rest of the world and all of the pain that she had let out onto him. She didn’t want to be a Time Lady; she just wanted to be his daughter.
The Doctor smoothed a hand down the back of Jenny’s hair and began to rub circles into her back. He thought about anything he could tell her, but he couldn’t. How could he console her? He had lost everything, yes, but never had to face whether or not he had imagined everything he had loved.
She opened her mouth and let a strangled sob come out from her lips, while she muttered something into his chest.
“Shh,” the Doctor cooed, while he pulled her even tighter to him. He pressed a kiss into the top of her head and used the pad of his thumb to gently wipe away the tears that stained his face, but they were quickly replaced by fresh ones.
“Don’t you see, Dad?” Jenny asked in a choked whisper, broken and rough from crying. “Don’t you see?”
Shaking his head, the Doctor looked into Jenny’s blue eyes imploringly. “What do you mean, Jenny?”
Jenny bit her lip, trying to regain her composure enough to speak. He had to know, but how would she tell him? Would he listen? How could she make him listen, if he didn’t? She looked down at her feet for inspiration, but only felt more disparagement washing over her.
“Tell me, Jenny,” her father said gently, but instead of lifting her head and making her look at him, he just knelt down lower and tilted his head into her vision. He cupped her cheek and gave her a small smile, which got him a watery one in return. “Trust me.”
It wasn’t a question of her trusting him; it was a question of him trusting her, of him understanding enough to really listen to her, despite what he would perceive as naiveté.
“Before you were the last, what were you?” Jenny asked quietly, letting her eyes look into his father’s brown eyes, piercing them.
He remained stubborn, not saying a word. Her eyes shifted from his burning eyes to his jaw. It flexed with bridled fury, part of her knew she should be afraid to know what lay behind that fury, but a bigger part didn’t care.
It wasn’t fair. She had him back now. Why couldn’t they have had a happy, carefree reunion? The one she always imagined? The one where she ran into his arms and he held her, while she laughed? Of course, she dreamed of that reunion while she was wrapped in Jack’s arms.
“Dad,” Jenny prompted.
“I don- I can’t,” the Doctor stuttered out, trying to gather his spiraling thoughts.
“Please, Dad,” Jenny practically begged.
A proper response didn’t leave his lips that time, words didn’t even come forward, and he just looked away.
“Dad, please tell me.”
He still ignored her, and bent over to tighten the laces of his converse sneakers repeatedly.
Jenny shook her head and held him hard by the shoulders, changing their roles in an instance. He didn’t try to wriggle out of Jenny’s grip; instead he just stared, trying to take in the image of his daughter in front of him. She had grown up. He saw that now. She wasn’t the same girl he left, but she was still a girl none the less. She might have seen more than she thought was possible, lost more than she ever hoped to gain, but that didn’t mean she knew him. No one knew him. No one knew his suffering.
“Jenny, this isn’t about me. It’s about you and Jack. I really don’t see where this is going,” the Doctor said finally, while he took another step back from his daughter.
“It has everything to do with you,” Jenny replied boldly. “You were someone other than the last of the Time Lords once, you had to have been. Just like I was the Generated Anomaly before I was Jenny Anderson and how I was different person before I met Jack. It’s a cycle. I was left behind, you were left behind. I met someone that made me feel special. You met someone who knew you were special. I lost my someone, and you lost yours. What’s the difference between the two of us?”
Mutely, the Doctor stared straight in front of him. He wouldn’t answer. He couldn’t answer. He couldn’t embrace the fact.
“You’ve gotten your someone back,” Jenny answered for him, pulling her hair out of its tie and running her fingers through it in frustration, sending it cascading down her back. “I know what it’s like to lose someone you love. I do, honestly, and I’m not going to let the same pain that I’m going through right now happen to you, and I’m not going you let your pain return. Rose loves you. The question is do you care enough to love her back.”
Jenny said the words with such resolution; the Doctor was silent for a long moment before he finally found the biting words to answer her with.
“I… I think she’s brilliant, and unique and fantastic. I think she’s everything,” the Doctor said hotly, his voice taking a dangerous low turn.
“Have you told her that?” Jenny asked undaunted, by his declaration. “Really told her? Taken her hand, looked into her eyes and said that you loved her? Have you hugged her until you both felt like you were one person? Have you kissed her just because you could?”
“I… no,” the Doctor said softly, letting his head drop and shoulders sag. The fire from his eyes faded the fight from his voice dissolving. He looked utterly wounded.
“Why not?” Jenny asked, letting her voice turn soft again.
“I ran out of time,” he muttered, not daring to look in Jenny’s eyes.
She reached out and touched his shoulder, but it was the ghost of a motion she had made before. It was motion she never wanted to make again without there being a chance of there being someone to catch in her hands.
The image of Jack being pulled away from her into that blinding white light, while she was pulled in the other direction filled her mind. She pushed it away quickly. It hurt too much sometimes.
“Then tell her now,” Jenny whispered, getting off of the edge of the cot and placing her hand on either side of his face. “Don’t waste a second, Dad. Hold her; tell her how you really feel.”
“She’s human. She ages. She withers.” The Doctor’s words were biting, self-loathing, but most of all they were laced in pain. He would lose Rose, yes. But, he would also see her suffering the effects of old-age, ill-health and injury, and all those other things that humans were so susceptible to.
“Then would you rather have no time with her at all?” Jenny asked.
“No,” the Doctor answered right away. He didn’t know what he would do if Rose hadn’t come into his life. He would be so lost and so broken.
Jenny nodded encouragingly and smiled. “Then make the most of your Time. You’re a Time Lord after all.”
Eventually, the Doctor nodded and smiled back at her. “I will.”
“Good,” Jenny said, lying back on the bed and closing her eyes. “My job’s done, then.”
Scrutinizing her, the Doctor moved in and placed a gentle hand on her face and made her open her eyes again.
“Tired?” the Doctor asked.
Jenny nodded. “Got a bit of a headache as well, but no worse than the last time I did this. I’ll be fine after I’ve got some sleep. I promise.”
Nodding, the Doctor handed her his blanket and pulled it over her to cover her shoulders, seeing that she had given her covers to Mr. Anderson-whose snores were still filling the small room, while he dozed.
“That’s just a bit of regeneration sickness,” he assured her, while he watched her bury herself deeper in the covers and close her eyes again. “I can smell the energy still leaking off of you. It’ll make you drowsy that’s for sure. You should be fine, although, the last time I regenerated I ended up in coma, so just in case keep me posted on how you’re feeling, alright?”
“Yes, father,” Jenny said sleepily, while she cracked one eye open and smiled dazedly. “Good night, Dad.”
Something in the Doctor’s hearts awakened at the way she said it, like a little stitch in left heart. Not a big stitch, a little one, but small stitches were the first step to sealing the biggest of holes. Maybe Donna was right, she was going to make him better.
“Good night, Jenny, and thank you-for showing your ol’ Dad a thing or two, eh?”
“Yeah, Dad.”
“And, Jenny?”
“Hmm?”
“I was a bit of a rebel,” the Doctor admitted. “You get it honestly.”
A smile ghosted across Jenny’s face, but she was already drifting towards sleep. The Doctor pressed a kiss into Jenny’s forehead and picked up his brown trench coat from the side of the cot, where Rose must have left it for him and stepped out of the tent and into the night.
~o~
Herman walked deeper in the encampment towards home. It wasn’t all a military base around here, despite what it might look on the perimeter, where all the defensive measures were taken. The first act of this little community wasn’t to defend, it was to live. Whole families came down from other planets that were becoming over crowed and moving to others. With the advancements made in terraforming these days, anything seemed possible.
He couldn’t quite believe it in all truth, changing new worlds to make them habitable. He still thought it was surreal-gorgeous-but surreal. It was downright amazing, but someone always had to complain, and it just had to be the Saigans. They thought they knew best for the survival of the cosmos, but none of their attempts ever ended well.
If anyone had ever bothered to take-or even ask for-his opinion, they would have seen that the Saigans were bad news all the way around from the start. Trying to preserve nothing for future generations instead of letting future generations spread out and prosper. It didn’t make any sense to Herman, but then, not much did. He knew his job and he knew his duty, but that was where he drew the line. He stopped trying to understand a long time ago. He found out that you just went mad with confusion and when the confusion passed, anger took its place. Too bad no one asked for his opinion.
There had to be a point to it all though. If humans weren’t meant to spread across the stars, what were they supposed to do? Die? Not the human race. Not his people. He thought that even the Saigans should understand that, but again he was wrong.
Then there was that new man and his wife and newly reunited daughter that showed up out of no-where. What were they even there for?
They never really said and Herman knew that should scare him, but it didn’t. They seemed trustworthy. He would put his own life and the life of his wife and children in that man’s hands without a second thought.
Herman thought it was his eyes, or maybe it was just his face in general, or even his personality. Any man who jokes while his body is being ravished by an unknown force is either crazy, tougher than nails, or cares too much to let someone worry about him. .
The way that he let his wife support him while just enough to make her feel needed, but not hanging on her to the point that she worried that he was in deep trouble was evidence of just how much he cared. He was tuned into his wife better than he’d seen with any other couple. It was like they shared a common bond, a common need, and even a common mind. He loved her, and she loved him. That was clear from the moment that he first laid eyes on the couple, while accompanied by his own wife, Nala.
They didn’t like to make a fuss of introducing themselves as husband and wife, mostly because they were working on the same base and liked to keep up a professional atmosphere, but also because that just wasn’t them. They always thought it would be clear to anyone around them that they were in love-that their body language would show any stranger. Nala had told him once, that she had always imagined the man that she knew loved her back just as much as she loved him would have this look in his eyes that told her everything she needed to know about him. She called it a spark that let her see their future together. Herman was the only man she ever admitted to seeing that spark in.
A smile crossed his lips, once he reached their little home that they had planned and set up once they moved into the compound. It was cozy and small, but plenty big enough for the two of them and their two children.
It was no small understatement to say that neither Herman nor Nala liked the idea of raising Jet and Kevin where they were never sure what the outcome of the next attack would be. However, like all the other parents who brought their kids to the base, there was no more turning back now. It was a gamble here, but so was any other place they could have decided to live.
Stepping through the doors, Herman expected to see Nala sitting up with baby Kevin in her arms and Jet somewhere nearby. Instead, he only saw Jet, with his nose buried in a book with his legs crossed, and his glasses sliding down his nose.
“Hey, Dad,” he said distractedly, while he turned the page and continued reading. He bit his lip as if something on the page angered or worried him. “Mum’s gone on a walk to see if she can get Kevin to calm down.”
Herman nodded, feeling a bit relieved. Kevin had been fussy with his teething lately and both of them were desperate to find some way to ease him.
“Did she say when she was coming back?” He asked his son.
Jet shook his head, looking over the top of the book and at his father.
“She seemed pretty frustrated,” Jet stated.
“Mhm,” Herman concurred. “She act like she wanted me to join her?”
“Nope, she said, quote, ‘if he tries to follow me tell him under no circumstances is he to do so, because he’ll just end up waking up Kevin after I’ve gotten him to sleep,’” Jet replied coolly, before closing his book and taking off his glasses. “I think she sent a pretty clear signal.”
Herman laughed at his twelve year old son. “Yeah, you could say that.” He ruffled the boy’s hair and took his book from him while he sat down next to him. “You should be in bed.”
“I know,” Jet said, getting to his feet, and walking away. “I’m going.”
“Good night,” Herman said teasingly.
~o~
The Doctor couldn’t understand how hard it was to find a Rose. Of course she was always wandering off, but it never got this complicated. Plus, he was clever. He should have her in his arms by now. They should be laughing. He should have been finally telling her how he really felt.
While he walked, he kept thinking of the best way to tell her. He could play coy and just slip it into a conversation and see if she noticed. He could go for the human approach, take her hands and fold them in his before dropping to his knees and telling her that he loves her-granted at first that might send her mixed signals.
But, something in his heart told him he shouldn’t even be planning it. He should just take her hand, lead her out to somewhere private, under the stars and just let the words come. That felt right, but he didn’t want to get it wrong. He didn’t want her to deny him. He knew the idea of her denying his love was absurd, but he couldn’t help thinking it. He’d deserve it after how he acted, after the countless times he pushed her away.
Why had it taken him so long to see that?
He should have known. All the memories came rushing into his brain now. When she wrapped him in a hug, when she had her face stolen and the word she was repeating over and over again was his name. He should have known when she was prepared to tear down whole universes to find him again. He should have known by the way that she kept running toward him even after he was hit by the Dalek instead of running away.
He should have known because she was Rose… his Rose.
Sighing, he put his rambling thoughts out of his mind and turned back to the job at hand.
He considered checking the other tents in the area, but Rose didn’t know any of the people around here, and it was unlikely that even she would have wandered into one of them at night.
Worry was beginning to eat away at the inside of his stomach and burn in his chest. What if she wasn’t just out for a stroll? What if something terrible really did happen to her? After all, this wasn’t exactly the best neighborhood. He shoved his hands deeply into his pockets and fished around for his sonic screwdriver.
“It’s got to be in here somewhere,” he muttered, while he tugged out a conker, two yoyo’s, a banana (half rotted), and a super ball. Finally, he found it and extracted it from his pocket. After adjusting the settings, he held it out in front of him and began turning in a slow circle. After he had made three full revolutions, he stopped and held up the sonic screwdriver to his ear.
“That’s odd,” he muttered to himself and he repeated the cycle.
Holding it up to his ear again, he frowned even deeper and hit the device against his palm. It couldn’t be working. It had to be wrong.
He tried new settings and rotating at different speeds, trying to amplify the settings, but everything ended in the same crushing answer.
“Rose is gone.” The Doctor said, having to stop himself from dropping to his knees in despair.
~o~
Jenny was Rose Tyler. She felt Rose Tyler. She knew Rose Tyler better than any other person in the world. Her memories were merging with the human and becoming hers and it hurt. Her mind was screaming for her to release her from the assault. She wanted to run to escape from Rose Tyler, but she couldn’t.
She was forced to blend her emotions with Rose’s; it got to the point that she wasn’t even sure whose fear was whose. Part of her wanted to defend her mind with the rudimentary psychic training that Jack had given her, but something deeper told her not to. She was meant to hear this. She needed to hear this.
She was hurting so much, the feeling of rejection swelled through her. She wanted to know where she went wrong. Why didn’t he love her? Why did she have to love him? Why couldn’t she just leave him like all his other companions? Why did she have to throw her heart into every person she met?
It wasn’t fair.
All she had to do was run away, it was easy right?
So easy.
Too easy.
She liked a challenge. Maybe that was the core of it. She needed to feel needed. She needed to feel like she was making a difference, and whether or not the Doctor loved her back didn’t matter as much as loving him did. She could make a difference. There were a lot of people in this universe that deserved love, but the Doctor deserved it the most.
Jenny tried to call out with her own thoughts. He did love her. He was broken. He was rude. And, he was stupid, but he loved her more than anything in all the galaxies. She screamed it in her head, but all she met was an unyielding wall, where emotions flowed out, but nothing could get in.
Of course, Jenny thought to herself, Rose wasn’t trained, just like she hadn’t. When Jack had taught her, the first lesson was to keep thoughts out and as many of yours in that you could. A simple wall like this was enough to handle simple anxieties, but pain like this just flooded over the edges.
Placing her hand on the smooth surface, Jenny tried to coax her way into the barrier to comfort Rose, but it was unyielding. Immediately, she knew that Rose couldn’t have erected this barrier herself. It was the work of someone who knew what they were doing. It must have been her father.
Jenny knew there was no chance of her breaking through a barrier that her father had erected, so instead she slid down with her back to the barrier and listened intently. Her entire mental form relaxed and in turn she heard Rose’s thoughts more clearly and images filled her mind along with a noise she couldn’t place.
Jenny focused harder, drawing all her energy into trying to become Rose Tyler, all while keeping her presence soft and unobtrusive.
She saw a match struck and the soft scent of lemons filled Jenny’s nostrils. The dark images in her mind’s eye of Rose’s eyes became clearer, as the soft sound she heard before became obvious. It was a baby’s cries.
Jenny felt her hearts clench with worry as she reached out in front of her and tried to touch what Rose was reaching for. She could feel the branches beneath the other woman’s fingers as she drew back the foliage to see the baby lying there nestled in a blanket. The pressure in Rose’s arms became the familiar pressure in Jenny’s arms. She instinctively wanted to comfort the crying infant and was thankful that Rose had the same thought as she gently rocked the baby back and forth, comforting him with soft words and coos.
A smile stretched over Jenny’s face. She missed this, even if the first time wasn’t real and if this time she wasn’t even the one holding the child.
Anxiety washed over Rose as a crunching met her ears, and she turned around quickly. He was about to cry out and ask who was there, but the feeling of a gun being pushed into the back of her head silenced her. She swallowed thickly.
Jenny’s hand reached up and touched the back of her own head. She rubbed the coolness there, ensuring that it wasn’t her own body that was being threatened.
Eventually, Rose found her voice. “Who… who are you?” Rose asked.
“That’s not important, what’s important is who you are,” the voice rasped lowly.