(no subject)
Title: incongruities 1/4?
Author: christn7
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Alt!verse Jack & Rose
Author's notes: For allfireburns for the Jack/Rose Winter Ficathon over at available_very. The prompt will follow at the end of the story.
Many thanks are owed to both dark_aegis and wendymr. :)
Summary: It starts the same way it normally does, with pounding feet and dark corners and he expected her to run - they all do, when they’re found out.
incongruities
--
It starts the same way it normally does, with pounding feet and dark corners and he can feel his blood pulsing through his veins.
He expected her to run - they all do, when they’re found out. It wouldn’t be the same if there wasn’t a good chase, after all. What he hadn’t expected was that she’d stop, dead in her tracks, the moment she caught sight of him.
“Oh, Jack,” she says, one hand pressed to her chest. “It’s only you.”
Still playing at being innocent, then. He’s a little disappointed in her.
“Only me,” he agrees, returning the nervous smile she offers him. She’ll go with him, he knows, follow his lead and step right into his trap and, for once, he thinks, it doesn’t make things easier.
She laughs and it’s not quite genuine. “You scared me half to death.”
“Sorry.” She moves towards him, one small step, and he doesn’t want it to be - he wants to believe her - but the weight of his service weapon is reassuring against his hip. “What are you doing out so late?”
She shrugs. “Felt like a walk - couldn’t stand being cooped up in that house anymore. You know how it is.”
He nods, even though he doesn’t. Empathy, he knows, is what she usually responds to.
“I’ll take you home,” he offers, wondering if this might be his chance. There’re a few people around, sure, but if he can get her in his car, alone...
She nods, and, as if she’s just remembering who it is she’s supposed to be, she adapts an unsure posture. “I don’t really know my way around.”
He’s been following her long enough to know she’s lying, but he asks anyway, just to see her reaction. “You mean this isn’t your usual haunt?”
Something flashes in her eyes and he knows he’s hit a nerve. Council estates, then, one more piece in her puzzle.
“My car is this way,” he says, nodding towards his left.
She’s watching him, the same way that he watches her, almost as if she knows his secrets. They share something, the both of them - neither of them belong here - even if neither of them are willing to admit it.
She reaches out and takes his hand and he’s almost sorry for what it is he has to do. “Lead the way, Captain.”
He does.
Much as he’s grown to like her, he has a job to do and he has to do it soon. It’s changing him - the longer he spends in the time stream, the greater its effect on him. He’s forgetting details, facts, and that’s scaring him a little. The more things change, the longer he stays here, the harder it’ll be to reverse the damage.
He’s found the problem and he has to act and besides, he thinks, her secrets are worse than his.
Sure, he’s a Time Agent, but she doesn’t exist.
--
The Vortex is twisting around him, spinning and pulling and changing shape - time is moulding into a new form, even as he’s travelling through it, and the force of it all but pulls his ship apart.
It’s a rough landing, but he’s made it - the twenty-first century, that’s when it all changes.
It’s 2011 by his count, and that’s smack in the middle of where he wants to be - he can narrow it down to the few decades, somewhere around the turn of the century, but then his data gets hazy, his scans failing to identify the source.
The anomaly, whatever it is, is pretty well integrated.
He parks what’s left of his ship in the centre of the city, grateful that the cloaking device managed, somehow, to survive the landing. He knows repairs will have to wait - he needs to isolate the threat before it does any more damage.
“William,” he says aloud, testing his new name.
He nods, satisfied and stuffs his fake passport into his pocket. He steps outside, into a fluid past, and becomes William Cook.
--
He’s not used to driving the primitive vehicle and the gears stick as he tries to shift into third. The car jerks beneath his hands and he’s flicks his eyes across. She’s noticed.
“She’s new - I’m still getting used to the gear box,” he says. He’s not sure why he’s bothering to keep up the pretence - he can tell the drugs he slipped into her coffee are already at work in her system - she’s not about to try and escape. If she even knows that she has to.
“It’s okay,” she says, resting her head against the glass of the window. And, as if on cue, her eyes drift shut. “I doubt they still have cars in the fifty-first century.”
He jerks his head towards her, startled, but her eyes remain closed.
She’s asleep.
It’s still there, this irrational sense of destiny he’s felt since he first saw her, and he’s sorry, he really is. “Rose Tyler,” he says, eyes glued to the road before him. “Under the authority of the Time Agency, I’m arresting you for breaching section forty-two-delta-seven of the Time Code.”
He gets no response, but then, he expected none.
--
”Jack!”
He isn’t sure why he turns, but he does, just in time to catch an armful of the grinning blonde woman throwing herself at him.
“My God, Jack!” It almost feels familiar, her arms around him, and, despite himself, he lets his own wrap around her frame.
“Jack.” Again. “Oh, Jack.” When she speaks there’s pain in her voice. “I thought you were dead.”
He winces - his future, somewhere in her past?
He’s aware this is the point where his training is supposed to kick in, but he’s pulling up blanks - this is one of the reasons the protocols exist.
His mind is spinning, desperately searching for an appropriate response. He has no idea who she is and he’s never been a Jack, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be.
“Rose?” a voice calls and she stiffens in his arms. When he looks up, he recognises the speaker from his research - that’s one of the men who helped end the Cyber Wars.
“Sorry,” she says, twisting free and stepping back. He watches a mask slide over her face, mopping up all traces of emotion - of longing - and she looks at him like he’s a stranger before she turns on her heel and walks away.
She calls the man ‘Dad’, apologising, and there’s a prickle in his gut as he watches her leaving. When she looks at him over her shoulder, her eyes tinged with pain, the prickle becomes a voice in the back of his head.
Finally, he thinks, after weeks of searching, a clue to this mystery may have just found him - Peter Tyler never had a daughter.
“Wait!”
He runs after her and Jack, he thinks, is as good a name as William.
--
TBC...
--
Chapters:
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three
Author: christn7
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Alt!verse Jack & Rose
Author's notes: For allfireburns for the Jack/Rose Winter Ficathon over at available_very. The prompt will follow at the end of the story.
Many thanks are owed to both dark_aegis and wendymr. :)
Summary: It starts the same way it normally does, with pounding feet and dark corners and he expected her to run - they all do, when they’re found out.
incongruities
--
It starts the same way it normally does, with pounding feet and dark corners and he can feel his blood pulsing through his veins.
He expected her to run - they all do, when they’re found out. It wouldn’t be the same if there wasn’t a good chase, after all. What he hadn’t expected was that she’d stop, dead in her tracks, the moment she caught sight of him.
“Oh, Jack,” she says, one hand pressed to her chest. “It’s only you.”
Still playing at being innocent, then. He’s a little disappointed in her.
“Only me,” he agrees, returning the nervous smile she offers him. She’ll go with him, he knows, follow his lead and step right into his trap and, for once, he thinks, it doesn’t make things easier.
She laughs and it’s not quite genuine. “You scared me half to death.”
“Sorry.” She moves towards him, one small step, and he doesn’t want it to be - he wants to believe her - but the weight of his service weapon is reassuring against his hip. “What are you doing out so late?”
She shrugs. “Felt like a walk - couldn’t stand being cooped up in that house anymore. You know how it is.”
He nods, even though he doesn’t. Empathy, he knows, is what she usually responds to.
“I’ll take you home,” he offers, wondering if this might be his chance. There’re a few people around, sure, but if he can get her in his car, alone...
She nods, and, as if she’s just remembering who it is she’s supposed to be, she adapts an unsure posture. “I don’t really know my way around.”
He’s been following her long enough to know she’s lying, but he asks anyway, just to see her reaction. “You mean this isn’t your usual haunt?”
Something flashes in her eyes and he knows he’s hit a nerve. Council estates, then, one more piece in her puzzle.
“My car is this way,” he says, nodding towards his left.
She’s watching him, the same way that he watches her, almost as if she knows his secrets. They share something, the both of them - neither of them belong here - even if neither of them are willing to admit it.
She reaches out and takes his hand and he’s almost sorry for what it is he has to do. “Lead the way, Captain.”
He does.
Much as he’s grown to like her, he has a job to do and he has to do it soon. It’s changing him - the longer he spends in the time stream, the greater its effect on him. He’s forgetting details, facts, and that’s scaring him a little. The more things change, the longer he stays here, the harder it’ll be to reverse the damage.
He’s found the problem and he has to act and besides, he thinks, her secrets are worse than his.
Sure, he’s a Time Agent, but she doesn’t exist.
--
The Vortex is twisting around him, spinning and pulling and changing shape - time is moulding into a new form, even as he’s travelling through it, and the force of it all but pulls his ship apart.
It’s a rough landing, but he’s made it - the twenty-first century, that’s when it all changes.
It’s 2011 by his count, and that’s smack in the middle of where he wants to be - he can narrow it down to the few decades, somewhere around the turn of the century, but then his data gets hazy, his scans failing to identify the source.
The anomaly, whatever it is, is pretty well integrated.
He parks what’s left of his ship in the centre of the city, grateful that the cloaking device managed, somehow, to survive the landing. He knows repairs will have to wait - he needs to isolate the threat before it does any more damage.
“William,” he says aloud, testing his new name.
He nods, satisfied and stuffs his fake passport into his pocket. He steps outside, into a fluid past, and becomes William Cook.
--
He’s not used to driving the primitive vehicle and the gears stick as he tries to shift into third. The car jerks beneath his hands and he’s flicks his eyes across. She’s noticed.
“She’s new - I’m still getting used to the gear box,” he says. He’s not sure why he’s bothering to keep up the pretence - he can tell the drugs he slipped into her coffee are already at work in her system - she’s not about to try and escape. If she even knows that she has to.
“It’s okay,” she says, resting her head against the glass of the window. And, as if on cue, her eyes drift shut. “I doubt they still have cars in the fifty-first century.”
He jerks his head towards her, startled, but her eyes remain closed.
She’s asleep.
It’s still there, this irrational sense of destiny he’s felt since he first saw her, and he’s sorry, he really is. “Rose Tyler,” he says, eyes glued to the road before him. “Under the authority of the Time Agency, I’m arresting you for breaching section forty-two-delta-seven of the Time Code.”
He gets no response, but then, he expected none.
--
”Jack!”
He isn’t sure why he turns, but he does, just in time to catch an armful of the grinning blonde woman throwing herself at him.
“My God, Jack!” It almost feels familiar, her arms around him, and, despite himself, he lets his own wrap around her frame.
“Jack.” Again. “Oh, Jack.” When she speaks there’s pain in her voice. “I thought you were dead.”
He winces - his future, somewhere in her past?
He’s aware this is the point where his training is supposed to kick in, but he’s pulling up blanks - this is one of the reasons the protocols exist.
His mind is spinning, desperately searching for an appropriate response. He has no idea who she is and he’s never been a Jack, but that doesn’t mean he won’t be.
“Rose?” a voice calls and she stiffens in his arms. When he looks up, he recognises the speaker from his research - that’s one of the men who helped end the Cyber Wars.
“Sorry,” she says, twisting free and stepping back. He watches a mask slide over her face, mopping up all traces of emotion - of longing - and she looks at him like he’s a stranger before she turns on her heel and walks away.
She calls the man ‘Dad’, apologising, and there’s a prickle in his gut as he watches her leaving. When she looks at him over her shoulder, her eyes tinged with pain, the prickle becomes a voice in the back of his head.
Finally, he thinks, after weeks of searching, a clue to this mystery may have just found him - Peter Tyler never had a daughter.
“Wait!”
He runs after her and Jack, he thinks, is as good a name as William.
--
TBC...
--
Chapters:
chapter one
chapter two
chapter three