Fic: The Last Thing That Dies, New Who, Nine/Jack/Rose, PG
Author:
wojelah
Title: The Last Thing That Dies
Fandom: New Who, Nine/Jack/Rose, for the OT3 Ficathon.
Rating/Warnings: PG at worst. Spoilers for Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways.
Recipient:
honorh , who wanted Nine, and prompted with
"Jack manages to avoid extermination on Satellite Five and witnesses Rose as the Bad Wolf; what happens afterward is up to the author."
Summary: We can save him, he says. Hope will be there whether we remember or not.
Author's Notes: Many thanks to
smittywing for the idea - and the beta! Title is from the quote by François de la Rochefoucauld; "Hope is the last thing that dies in man; and though it be exceedingly deceitful, yet it is of this good use to us, that while we are traveling through life it conducts us in an easier and more pleasant way to our journey's end."
Jack had expected dying to hurt. He'd just figured on the fact that eventually it'd stop. More fool him, apparently.
It isn't like he understands what's going on - he supposes he counts as "aware", in the cogito, ergo sense, but that's pretty much it. No body, not that he can feel - which only serves to point out that all five senses have apparently taken a vacation as well, except for the whole blinding pain thing, because that has to be coming from somewhere. Other than that, though, it's all down to a blurry, vague sense of consciousness.
Gradually he realizes - hears? feels? whatever - that something's skittering along the edges of his awareness, an insistent, if distant, call that demands his attention. He considers it, time running syrup slow and oppressively heavy. He considers it, and eventually thinks, What? Kind of busy dying, here.
Jack, it thinks/says/whatevers at him, and he flinches at the whispering roar, scraping over his mind like sandpaper. It seems familiar, though, once he moves past the general idea of hurts!. Familiar and loving and sad and afraid.
Can't have that, his mind whispers back, and he rouses himself enough to ask, What, sweetheart?. If he knew where his lips were, he'd smile, slow and gentle.
Jack, it says again, setting off pain like gold starbursts, we can save him.
Save who? he manages, dazed and hurting and frustrated. Who are you talking about?
The Doctor, it answers, and he screams as all of time and space crash over him, battering with patterns and colors and equations even a fifty-first century human was never meant to understand. He tries to pull back, tries to save himself, but Look, the voice orders, and forces him farther down, farther in. The patterns narrow, twisting and merging into the figure of a woman, burning alive while she rebuilds history with her bare hands. A woman, and a man, tired and empty and - not a man at all, he knows, suddenly - not a man, but a Time Lord, that Time Lord, the Doctor, which means - Rose? he tries to shout, Rose, no! You can't, you'll -
Look, the voice says, and Jack hears both goddess and terrified girl. He watches, future after future after future, as Time Lord or human or both catch fire, flare incandescent, leaving only dust.
He watches, and he rages, and - No! he demands. This can't be the only - this isn't - I won't -
You die, Rose-but-not-Rose whispers.
I don't have to, he argues, wishing for hands. You said so. You said we can save him. Bring me back, he pleads, feeling that overwhelming presence hesitate, panicked that she'll disappear. Show me what happens if you bring me back.
Oh, Jack she says, almost a sob.
Show me.
She says nothing, for so long he thinks he's lost his chance, that she's left him here, in the dark, in pain, knowing what could be - for so long that he can't help himself, has to call out, Rose?
The barest sense of pressure, featherlight and fleeting, and the universe falls down again, falling inward, focusing, pummeling him with timelines in which he tries, and they die; or he comes too late and they die; or he comes and they live, and they leave him alone; or they live, and they argue, and they separate, angry and isolated and broken. You hurt, she says. So much hurt.
But we can save him, Jack demands, and clings to the worlds in which he comes and they live, and they all stay. We can save him, he argues, and there's hope.
We can save him, she agrees, and then, so softly he barely hears it, but we won't remember about hope.
We can save him, he says. Hope will be there whether we remember or not.
She says nothing for a time. We hurt, she says, finally, words thick with tears. I can't make it so we don't hurt.
Nobody can do that, he answers at length. Life's got a lot of hurt. In his memory, he watches her burn. But it's our choice whether we try or not. And you know, he says, trying his hardest at an incorporeal leer, If we don't, I can't ever show you all the things that really are better with three.
Oh, Jack, she says again, humor creeping in.
So what do you say, sweetheart? he asks.
He feels her gather herself, feels space-time rush past him, leaving him naked and tiny and formless in the face of her power, and reminds himself that this is Rose, in the end, at the bottom of it all. He waits, a blur of impatience and aches and hope, and then she says, I bring life, and the words roar past him and through him and into him and at length, Jack realizes he's gasping in the hallway, near a weird grey pile of ash, his side throbbing, with no idea how he'd gotten there, because he's pretty sure he's supposed to be dead.
But then he has other things to think about, because if he isn't dead, then he has no idea what had happened to the Doctor and Rose, and that's an imperative urgent enough to drive him past the soreness in his ribs and up onto his feet. When he bursts into the room, he stops short, terrified of - but really, more terrified for - the glowing, weeping girl standing in front of the TARDIS. He barely has time to process that when the Doctor gets to his feet, face awed and stern and sad, and really, Jack thinks with the part of his brain that isn't gibbering in disbelief, he's going to have to talk to the Doc about timing.
Then Jack's moving forward, catching the Doctor, who's catching Rose, and they crumple to the floor of the Game Station. Rose isn't moving, lashes dark against too-pale cheeks, and the Doctor's too hot in his hands - he's picked up enough about Time Lord physiology to know that much. Jack shakes him, gently, and when the Doctor looks at him, the pupils are like flame. "Doc?" Jack managed, and tries to ignore the quaver in his voice.
"Jack. Medlab," he orders, voice hollow, and lays Rose down. "Get me -"
"Got it," he says, hauling the Doctor up and lugging him across the room. "Rose?"
"She'll -" the Doctor pauses, swallows. "She'll live." Which isn't exactly reassuring, but it's the best they're going to get. He still doesn't have a clue what's going on as he dumps the Doctor into the bastard child of a tanning bed and a late 31st-century Tat-o-mat and the Time Lord reaches up and clamps a hand around his wrist. "Jack. Get Rose. Dematerialize, if you can," he orders, and recites a string of instructions Jack more-or-less comprehends. He's hoping more.
"Aye, aye," he tries to quip, snapping his heels in lieu of a salute. "And then?"
"Wait," the Doctor says, and lets go as the machine closes.
"Wait," Jack reiterates, and laughs bitterly when he realizes he's wishing for just a bit more time for questions.
He makes it back to Rose, and she weighs nothing in his arms; either adrenaline has a hell of a kick, or he needs to hit the medlab himself, because his side doesn't so much as twinge as he scoops her up. He puts her back down in the control room - he'll move her somewhere comfortable once he's gotten them the hell out of here, but he needs to dematerialize the TARDIS and he wants Rose where he can see her.
The old girl's been banged up - Jack's sure there's a good explanation for the gouges in the console, but he winces in sympathy. Still, everything looks functional, so he walks himself through the Doctor's instructions, forcing himself to go slow, to take the time to recall them clearly and follow them precisely, plotting a holding pattern that should leave them drifting in a quiet pocket of the Vortex for as long as they need to be there. When he slams the final lever and the column wheezes to life, he slumps into the chair with relief.
Rousing himself, he turns back to Rose, limp and still and so entirely out of it he'd panic, but for her deep, even breathing. He contemplates her room, but with the Doctor out of reach, he still wants her close. He tucks her into his own bed, and then just... stops, out of pre-planned activity and at a complete loss as to what happens next.
"Wait," he mutters to himself, and hopes his chuckle isn't too bitter. He's got more questions than answers, and now that he has time to process such things, he realizes he's practically buzzing with energy. It's like the world's worst caffeine high, fizzing and sparking and all but bursting out of his fingertips, and the only thing he can do with himself is wait.
He's jogged the circuit from medlab to bedroom a good fifteen times when he sticks his head back in his bedroom door to find Rose sitting up, groggy and pale, staring at him in confusion. "Jack?" she murmurs, and then her eyes fly wide. "Jack!" She struggles to her feet, and he barely makes it in time as her knees buckle.
They end up on the floor anyway, his back against the bed as she clings to him and asks questions that he doesn't even have a clue as to how to answer, apart from reassuring her - firmly, and often - that the Doctor's fine, just in the medlab, and that the best thing she can do is let the machine work. He hopes she believes him more than he believes himself; she looks at him sharply, but eventually subsides, settling against his side and eventually drifting off into sleep again, curled into his side.
He's still restless, but she feels right nestled up against him, and he's loathe to let go, settling for drumming his fingers against the floor. He's midway through the rhythm of the guitar solo from the 29th-Era remake of MacArthur Park when movement in the hallway makes him look up, just in time to see the Doctor walk past, steps slow and halting.
Jack extricates himself gently, bolting for the door as soon as he's free. "Doctor," he calls, working his voice around the lump in his throat even as he tries not to wake Rose.
The Time Lord turns, stumbles, catches himself with a hand on the wall, the other raised in warning. "Not now, Captain."
Jack guesses he's relieved that the Doctor's got enough energy for the patented Forbidding Stare of Doom, but the Doc's barely holding himself upright and he's been in the damn medlab for hours. Jack'll be damned if he pays attention to that order. "Whatever, Doctor," he shrugs, and muscles in, slinging an arm around the Doctor's waist. It's there again, that same feeling of rightness, and he knows it means something, but they'll have to figure it out later. Next to him, the Doctor's thin-lipped and vibrating with something that looks a lot like anger, but he doesn't pull away.
They stumble back towards Jack's room and through his door. Rose has levered herself up on the bed, but her eyes are still drooping. She holds out a hand to them and the Doctor goes still, frowning. He opens his mouth to argue; Rose's hand wavers, falters, and Jack's not having it. "No, Doctor." He doesn't know what happened. Right now, he doesn't care. They have things to talk about, yeah, but right now, they're both exhausted, and Jack's practically vibrating in place with the need to gather them in close, to make sure they're alive. He's terrified, suddenly, of everything that can or could or would or had gone wrong - a million possibilities are rushing through his head, and it's déjà vu all over again. All he knows is that they're here, now, together, and he needs to hold on to that.
"No," he says again, and the Doctor and Rose look at him in surprise. "Not now. Whatever's going on in your head, it'll wait." He pretends his voice isn't shaking. The Doctor's either too tired or too wise to protest, because Jack's done for today, and not above wrestling him into the damn bed in a totally platonic fashion. Rose leans into the Doctor as he settles onto the bed, and no one says a word.
The air's humming with something - tension or possibility, Jack's not sure - but whatever it is, it will keep till tomorrow. Right now, they need sleep, and Jack needs them, and as the pair on the bed fall back asleep, Jack settles himself down in an armchair to keep watch. Tomorrow will wait; tonight, he'll hold on to the two of them, alive and asleep on his bed, and he'll hope.
wojelah
Title: The Last Thing That Dies
Fandom: New Who, Nine/Jack/Rose, for the OT3 Ficathon.
Rating/Warnings: PG at worst. Spoilers for Bad Wolf/Parting of the Ways.
Recipient:
honorh , who wanted Nine, and prompted with
"Jack manages to avoid extermination on Satellite Five and witnesses Rose as the Bad Wolf; what happens afterward is up to the author."
Summary: We can save him, he says. Hope will be there whether we remember or not.
Author's Notes: Many thanks to
smittywing for the idea - and the beta! Title is from the quote by François de la Rochefoucauld; "Hope is the last thing that dies in man; and though it be exceedingly deceitful, yet it is of this good use to us, that while we are traveling through life it conducts us in an easier and more pleasant way to our journey's end."
Jack had expected dying to hurt. He'd just figured on the fact that eventually it'd stop. More fool him, apparently.
It isn't like he understands what's going on - he supposes he counts as "aware", in the cogito, ergo sense, but that's pretty much it. No body, not that he can feel - which only serves to point out that all five senses have apparently taken a vacation as well, except for the whole blinding pain thing, because that has to be coming from somewhere. Other than that, though, it's all down to a blurry, vague sense of consciousness.
Gradually he realizes - hears? feels? whatever - that something's skittering along the edges of his awareness, an insistent, if distant, call that demands his attention. He considers it, time running syrup slow and oppressively heavy. He considers it, and eventually thinks, What? Kind of busy dying, here.
Jack, it thinks/says/whatevers at him, and he flinches at the whispering roar, scraping over his mind like sandpaper. It seems familiar, though, once he moves past the general idea of hurts!. Familiar and loving and sad and afraid.
Can't have that, his mind whispers back, and he rouses himself enough to ask, What, sweetheart?. If he knew where his lips were, he'd smile, slow and gentle.
Jack, it says again, setting off pain like gold starbursts, we can save him.
Save who? he manages, dazed and hurting and frustrated. Who are you talking about?
The Doctor, it answers, and he screams as all of time and space crash over him, battering with patterns and colors and equations even a fifty-first century human was never meant to understand. He tries to pull back, tries to save himself, but Look, the voice orders, and forces him farther down, farther in. The patterns narrow, twisting and merging into the figure of a woman, burning alive while she rebuilds history with her bare hands. A woman, and a man, tired and empty and - not a man at all, he knows, suddenly - not a man, but a Time Lord, that Time Lord, the Doctor, which means - Rose? he tries to shout, Rose, no! You can't, you'll -
Look, the voice says, and Jack hears both goddess and terrified girl. He watches, future after future after future, as Time Lord or human or both catch fire, flare incandescent, leaving only dust.
He watches, and he rages, and - No! he demands. This can't be the only - this isn't - I won't -
You die, Rose-but-not-Rose whispers.
I don't have to, he argues, wishing for hands. You said so. You said we can save him. Bring me back, he pleads, feeling that overwhelming presence hesitate, panicked that she'll disappear. Show me what happens if you bring me back.
Oh, Jack she says, almost a sob.
Show me.
She says nothing, for so long he thinks he's lost his chance, that she's left him here, in the dark, in pain, knowing what could be - for so long that he can't help himself, has to call out, Rose?
The barest sense of pressure, featherlight and fleeting, and the universe falls down again, falling inward, focusing, pummeling him with timelines in which he tries, and they die; or he comes too late and they die; or he comes and they live, and they leave him alone; or they live, and they argue, and they separate, angry and isolated and broken. You hurt, she says. So much hurt.
But we can save him, Jack demands, and clings to the worlds in which he comes and they live, and they all stay. We can save him, he argues, and there's hope.
We can save him, she agrees, and then, so softly he barely hears it, but we won't remember about hope.
We can save him, he says. Hope will be there whether we remember or not.
She says nothing for a time. We hurt, she says, finally, words thick with tears. I can't make it so we don't hurt.
Nobody can do that, he answers at length. Life's got a lot of hurt. In his memory, he watches her burn. But it's our choice whether we try or not. And you know, he says, trying his hardest at an incorporeal leer, If we don't, I can't ever show you all the things that really are better with three.
Oh, Jack, she says again, humor creeping in.
So what do you say, sweetheart? he asks.
He feels her gather herself, feels space-time rush past him, leaving him naked and tiny and formless in the face of her power, and reminds himself that this is Rose, in the end, at the bottom of it all. He waits, a blur of impatience and aches and hope, and then she says, I bring life, and the words roar past him and through him and into him and at length, Jack realizes he's gasping in the hallway, near a weird grey pile of ash, his side throbbing, with no idea how he'd gotten there, because he's pretty sure he's supposed to be dead.
But then he has other things to think about, because if he isn't dead, then he has no idea what had happened to the Doctor and Rose, and that's an imperative urgent enough to drive him past the soreness in his ribs and up onto his feet. When he bursts into the room, he stops short, terrified of - but really, more terrified for - the glowing, weeping girl standing in front of the TARDIS. He barely has time to process that when the Doctor gets to his feet, face awed and stern and sad, and really, Jack thinks with the part of his brain that isn't gibbering in disbelief, he's going to have to talk to the Doc about timing.
Then Jack's moving forward, catching the Doctor, who's catching Rose, and they crumple to the floor of the Game Station. Rose isn't moving, lashes dark against too-pale cheeks, and the Doctor's too hot in his hands - he's picked up enough about Time Lord physiology to know that much. Jack shakes him, gently, and when the Doctor looks at him, the pupils are like flame. "Doc?" Jack managed, and tries to ignore the quaver in his voice.
"Jack. Medlab," he orders, voice hollow, and lays Rose down. "Get me -"
"Got it," he says, hauling the Doctor up and lugging him across the room. "Rose?"
"She'll -" the Doctor pauses, swallows. "She'll live." Which isn't exactly reassuring, but it's the best they're going to get. He still doesn't have a clue what's going on as he dumps the Doctor into the bastard child of a tanning bed and a late 31st-century Tat-o-mat and the Time Lord reaches up and clamps a hand around his wrist. "Jack. Get Rose. Dematerialize, if you can," he orders, and recites a string of instructions Jack more-or-less comprehends. He's hoping more.
"Aye, aye," he tries to quip, snapping his heels in lieu of a salute. "And then?"
"Wait," the Doctor says, and lets go as the machine closes.
"Wait," Jack reiterates, and laughs bitterly when he realizes he's wishing for just a bit more time for questions.
He makes it back to Rose, and she weighs nothing in his arms; either adrenaline has a hell of a kick, or he needs to hit the medlab himself, because his side doesn't so much as twinge as he scoops her up. He puts her back down in the control room - he'll move her somewhere comfortable once he's gotten them the hell out of here, but he needs to dematerialize the TARDIS and he wants Rose where he can see her.
The old girl's been banged up - Jack's sure there's a good explanation for the gouges in the console, but he winces in sympathy. Still, everything looks functional, so he walks himself through the Doctor's instructions, forcing himself to go slow, to take the time to recall them clearly and follow them precisely, plotting a holding pattern that should leave them drifting in a quiet pocket of the Vortex for as long as they need to be there. When he slams the final lever and the column wheezes to life, he slumps into the chair with relief.
Rousing himself, he turns back to Rose, limp and still and so entirely out of it he'd panic, but for her deep, even breathing. He contemplates her room, but with the Doctor out of reach, he still wants her close. He tucks her into his own bed, and then just... stops, out of pre-planned activity and at a complete loss as to what happens next.
"Wait," he mutters to himself, and hopes his chuckle isn't too bitter. He's got more questions than answers, and now that he has time to process such things, he realizes he's practically buzzing with energy. It's like the world's worst caffeine high, fizzing and sparking and all but bursting out of his fingertips, and the only thing he can do with himself is wait.
He's jogged the circuit from medlab to bedroom a good fifteen times when he sticks his head back in his bedroom door to find Rose sitting up, groggy and pale, staring at him in confusion. "Jack?" she murmurs, and then her eyes fly wide. "Jack!" She struggles to her feet, and he barely makes it in time as her knees buckle.
They end up on the floor anyway, his back against the bed as she clings to him and asks questions that he doesn't even have a clue as to how to answer, apart from reassuring her - firmly, and often - that the Doctor's fine, just in the medlab, and that the best thing she can do is let the machine work. He hopes she believes him more than he believes himself; she looks at him sharply, but eventually subsides, settling against his side and eventually drifting off into sleep again, curled into his side.
He's still restless, but she feels right nestled up against him, and he's loathe to let go, settling for drumming his fingers against the floor. He's midway through the rhythm of the guitar solo from the 29th-Era remake of MacArthur Park when movement in the hallway makes him look up, just in time to see the Doctor walk past, steps slow and halting.
Jack extricates himself gently, bolting for the door as soon as he's free. "Doctor," he calls, working his voice around the lump in his throat even as he tries not to wake Rose.
The Time Lord turns, stumbles, catches himself with a hand on the wall, the other raised in warning. "Not now, Captain."
Jack guesses he's relieved that the Doctor's got enough energy for the patented Forbidding Stare of Doom, but the Doc's barely holding himself upright and he's been in the damn medlab for hours. Jack'll be damned if he pays attention to that order. "Whatever, Doctor," he shrugs, and muscles in, slinging an arm around the Doctor's waist. It's there again, that same feeling of rightness, and he knows it means something, but they'll have to figure it out later. Next to him, the Doctor's thin-lipped and vibrating with something that looks a lot like anger, but he doesn't pull away.
They stumble back towards Jack's room and through his door. Rose has levered herself up on the bed, but her eyes are still drooping. She holds out a hand to them and the Doctor goes still, frowning. He opens his mouth to argue; Rose's hand wavers, falters, and Jack's not having it. "No, Doctor." He doesn't know what happened. Right now, he doesn't care. They have things to talk about, yeah, but right now, they're both exhausted, and Jack's practically vibrating in place with the need to gather them in close, to make sure they're alive. He's terrified, suddenly, of everything that can or could or would or had gone wrong - a million possibilities are rushing through his head, and it's déjà vu all over again. All he knows is that they're here, now, together, and he needs to hold on to that.
"No," he says again, and the Doctor and Rose look at him in surprise. "Not now. Whatever's going on in your head, it'll wait." He pretends his voice isn't shaking. The Doctor's either too tired or too wise to protest, because Jack's done for today, and not above wrestling him into the damn bed in a totally platonic fashion. Rose leans into the Doctor as he settles onto the bed, and no one says a word.
The air's humming with something - tension or possibility, Jack's not sure - but whatever it is, it will keep till tomorrow. Right now, they need sleep, and Jack needs them, and as the pair on the bed fall back asleep, Jack settles himself down in an armchair to keep watch. Tomorrow will wait; tonight, he'll hold on to the two of them, alive and asleep on his bed, and he'll hope.