Cheating Time, by Gillian Taylor and WMR, 5/9
Story: Cheating Time
Authors: dark_aegis and wendymr
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, others
Rated: PG13
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, no matter how much we beg, they're still not ours...
Summary: He's saved the universe over and over again. He's lost everything, including his own race. Doesn't the universe owe him something in return?
With thanks and hugs again to nnwest and aibhinn for BRing even despite major life events such as moving and losing computer access. Yes, it's morphed again. But the good news is that we've finished it! So we're celebrating by posting another chapter tonight, a day early. It's also a little thank-you gift to everyone who's been so very kindly posting comments and cheering us on, even though we're making you cry. You're all wonderful, and we thank you.
Chapter 1: The Lure of Temptation | Chapter 2: A False Sense of Security | Chapter 3: Home to Roost | Chapter 4: Consequences ( part a | part b)
Chapter 5: Armageddon
It’s even worse than he imagined. And it’s all his fault.
Of course the Cybermen weren’t going to go away just because he told his earlier self to stay well away from Earth. And of course, because the universe is never that generous, the Void ship would still have been opened. Probably by Mickey Smith again - and did the poor bloke manage to survive it this time around? Unlikely, he knows.
For two hours, he’s been living in denial. Now that’s all come crashing down around him. Reality bites.
Jack’s right. He abdicated responsibility for this planet he’s claimed more than once as his to protect, in the interests of his own selfishness, and with catastrophic consequences. Any longer, and Earth would’ve become another Gallifrey.
If Gallifrey still existed, if the Council knew what he’s done, they’d do worse than forcibly regenerate him.
How many people have suffered because of his impulsive decision? How many have died? More than died during the year that never was, certainly. What an irony: he’s responsible for the death of more humans than the Master.
Jackie paid the price - dead or Cyberised, and he doesn’t want to think about which is worse. And what right does he have to comfort Rose, as he’s doing, when it’s his fault? Jackie’s just one of many; there’s all the others who’ll have been in the middle of the fighting and are probably dead now. UNIT, Sarah-Jane, Martha, that team Jack spoke so fondly of.
Slowly, he removes his arm from around Rose’s shoulders, scrubbing his face to avoid what he knows will be her accusing stare.
Why can’t he once, just once, have something he wants? If he couldn’t keep the only other Time Lord, is it really so much to ask to have Rose with him as a consolation prize? Why must everything he touches turn to dust? Why, when he’s already lost everything time and time again, can’t he cling to one thing and keep it? Why must the Daleks always win?
Jack’s glaring accusingly at him again; his old friend, whom he’s wronged in so many ways, now despises him, and no wonder. He called Jack wrong, and abandoned him on a deserted satellite for that very reason - and he never even apologised for that, did he, in the timeline that’s now been overwritten. Jack’s wrongness pales into insignificance next to the magnitude of his own offence. How can Jack ever forgive this?
His gaze darts around the room, this underground hideaway, as he avoids the accusing stares of his companions and of the other woman Jack hasn’t introduced to them. It’s well-equipped, as befits a wartime bunker, and the access route Jack took them through offers more than adequate protection against the Daleks.
Is this what the few remnants of the human race are reduced to? Hiding away in caves, bunkers, cellars, anywhere the Daleks can’t reach, never daring to emerge into the daylight?
There’s a desk in the corner, Jack’s by the size of it and by the item resting on top of it. Jack’s so-called Doctor detector, which will be how he knew the two of them had arrived.
Movement catches his gaze; Rose has gone over to the other woman. Jack’s colleague, or a lone human survivor? He should care. He does care, except that this is just one more burden to bear. A young human, permanently disabled by the ravages of the apocalypse he’s allowed to happen.
Of course, he can put everything right. Simple. One wave of his hand, metaphorically speaking, and this will never have happened. But that’s not his decision alone. He gave up the right to make that decision when he stole Rose from her own time and kept her with him. She already knows that if he takes her back they’ll be separated permanently. She knows, because he’s told her, that she doesn’t die. But once before she chose the possibility of death over separation from him, didn’t she? Though that was different; she came back to try to save him. Dying with him was, he knows, only the fallback.
Still, he can’t make this decision without her agreement. Well, he could, but he’s already made a decision without her agreement and look what’s happened. He can’t - won’t - do that again.
The floor beneath them rumbles and everything in the room shakes violently. Another explosion outside. Did some other poor sod get caught in the firing line? Have yet more humans died in the cause of his self-centred act?
Rose has flinched, and she’s gripping a table for support, though instantly she’s bending down to the young woman in the roughly-constructed wheelchair, obviously checking that she’s okay.
Quietly, Jack speaks in his ear. “What are you talking about? You don’t mean that you caused this? How?”
He nods towards Rose. “Long story. But, yes, my fault.”
“Damn you!” Jack chokes off a curse. “Have you any idea how many people were killed? How many of my friends I had to watch die under Dalek fire?”
For a moment, he thinks Jack’s reaching for his gun again, but instead the Captain turns away, breathing heavily. When he turns back, he’s calmer. “Okay. You did this. You can tell me later what the fuck could have been so important that you’d destroy our planet for it. Right now what I want to know is what you’re going to do to stop the Daleks taking over the entire universe.”
“What was so important?” He swings around to face Jack fully, hands buried deep in his trouser pockets, greatcoat swinging at his heels. “For once, Jack, for once in all my nine hundred and more years, thinking the universe owed me a favour. I’ll put it right,” he adds grimly before Jack can comment. “If it’s the last thing I do, and it might as well be, I’ll put this right. But first-” He gestures towards the computer on the side of Jack’s desk. “I want some time on that.”
Jack just shrugs, though he brushes past the Captain without giving him an opportunity to object in any case. After all, when Rose almost destroyed the human race he made sure that she understood very clearly what she’d done. He did the same when Jack made a similar mistake.
He, who of all people ought to know better, doesn’t deserve to escape seeing the full horror of what he’s caused.
***
Suzie Costello is Jack’s second-in-command. Well, his entire team now. She’s all that’s left.
She lost her leg in a building collapse, trying to save another team member from being exterminated. Instead, she lay on the ground in agony, half a wall on top of her leg, watching someone called Owen and a dozen other local fighters get picked off one by one by a lone Dalek. The only reason she’s still alive is that another fighter, a local police detective she only refers to as Cathy, got between her and the Dalek. Cathy died; Suzie survived.
It’s just one tragic story among what Rose knows will be millions. All she can hope is that her mum’s fate was quick and painless; that she was killed instantly, not Cyberised, not starved to death, not hunted and hounded for weeks or months until she finally became too desperate or too tired to run any longer and simply gave herself up.
She’s glad the Doctor’s not hearing Suzie’s story. She knows him well enough to be aware that he’s already tearing himself apart with grief and guilt. He knows why this has happened as well as she does. It’s his fault - hers, too, because she didn’t insist enough that he take her back. Because she wanted to have the happy ending that he wants too. She wanted to stay with him. And, for a time, she allowed herself to believe that it could happen.
He’s heard enough to break his hearts as it is. He doesn’t need to hear the individual tragedies as well - though that’s probably what Jack’s telling him about. Because Jack’s angry, and in a way she can understand that he has a right to be. She could be angry, too: this is her planet that’s under siege, her fellow human beings who’ve been massacred. And her mother who’s missing, believed dead.
Here and now, though, anger’s a futile emotion. What’s much more important is working out what to do about the situation.
“Your friend, he said he destroyed the universe.” Suzie leans up towards her, speaking quietly. “What did he mean?”
Damn. She didn’t realise Suzie heard. “Nothing. He’s jus’... He does that. Exaggerates.”
“He must’ve meant something.” Her tone grows harder, the bitterness and anger making clear there’s a lot more to her question than mere curiosity. “You don’t just say something like that. And he knows what those things are. Just like Jack did. He knows Jack, too. I’ve never seen Jack react like that to anyone. Not even Yvonne Hartmann, and he despised her.”
“Leave it, Suzie.” Jack’s at her side suddenly, and she feels his presence so keenly even though he’s not touching her. In everything else that’s happened, she’s barely had time to acknowledge the fact that he’s alive.
Jack’s alive. He didn’t die on Satellite Five. He can’t die.
“Rose, I need you.” His hand’s at her elbow, his touch more impersonal than Jack’s ever been with her, and he steers her over to an alcove at the other side of the bunker.
“Jack.” Once they’re alone, she breaks from his grasp and faces him. “What happened to you? Not just that you’re alive when I thought you were dead, but... you’ve changed. You’re so different.” He’s not her funny, happy, flirty Jack any more, and it actually hurts to look at him. All the time she mourned him, that she wished there was some way to go back and save him, she never imagined there could be a time it’d hurt to have him back.
“You could say I’ve changed, all right.” His tone’s sarcastic, biting. “What happened? You and the Doctor happened. He brought me back from the dead, and then the two of you sailed off in the TARDIS and left me on a satellite full of dead bodies. Still, I guess it was good practice for this.” He gestures roughly around, above, signalling the carnage that’s the outside world.
“He brought you back - The Doctor did?” Her gaze flies to the Doctor, now seated at the large desk on the other side of the room, intent on whatever he’s doing at the computer. She’s about to protest that he wouldn’t have done that, that the Doctor knows far better than anyone the dangers of mucking about with time and life and death, when she hesitates.
There are two reasons why the Doctor could very well have done exactly that. One, he’s just stolen her from her past when she should be... somewhere else, apart from him with no way of getting back to him; and two, he admitted to knowing Jack was alive all along.
“Know anyone else with the power to change history? You’re good, Rose, but you’re not that good.” His mouth twists, and she aches for the pain she can see in his eyes. She was angry with him for that stunt he pulled earlier with the gun, but right now all she feels is anguish for what he’s suffered.
“Jack.” She moves towards him, not quite touching but making the offer of comfort clear. “I thought you were dead. He only told me you weren’t jus’ before we got here.”
His expression changes; alert suddenly, he scrutinises her. This is Jack the Time Agent, Jack the fearless fighter, Jack the Torchwood boss, and he’s deciding whether he believes her. And then, suddenly, he sighs. The tension fades, and he reaches for her.
“Rose. God, I missed you.”
His arms around her crush her to his chest, but she’s clinging back just as tightly. It’s Jack and he’s alive and he’s not so completely changed after all; there’s still some of the man she knew and loved underneath the embittered exterior.
Finally, he releases her, though he keeps hold of her hand. “What’s going on, Rose? Why did this happen? Did he tell you?”
“I know why,” she tells him, keeping her head turned away from the Doctor so there’s no chance he can read her lips. “ ‘S because of me.” She has to swallow before continuing. “I shouldn’t be here, Jack. That’s why this is happening.”
“I’m not following.”
“Jack.” She plays with his fingers. “Something’s happened to him. I don’t know what, but it’s bad. I’m not... I wasn’t with him. Dunno how it happened, but we got separated somehow. He couldn’t get me back, or I couldn’t get back to him - he won’t tell me exactly -”
“Wait a minute.” Jack cuts across her. “You’re here now, so are you saying -”
She nods. “He went back. Crossed his own timeline. Took me from an earlier him an’ went back into his own timeline so he wouldn’t lose me.”
“Oh, god.” Jack’s looking appalled. “That’s the kind of stupid stunt you get warned against in first year in the Time Academy. If I’d done something like that when I was travelling with you guys he’d have kicked me out an airlock.”
“Yeah.” Meeting Jack’s gaze, she adds, “That’s why something terrible must’ve happened. He’d never have done it otherwise.”
“You must have died.” His fingers tighten around hers. “That’s the only thing I can think of that’d make him do it.”
She shakes her head. “No. Worse than that. Has to be. Besides, he said I didn’t die.” Stealing a very brief glance at the Doctor - he’s still intent on the computer-screen, though she has a feeling that he’s very much aware that she and Jack are deep in conversation - before continuing, she adds, “I’ve never seen him this desperate, Jack. Not even the first him when he was so broken cause of his planet. Even when he wanted to shoot that Dalek... even then.”
Jack doesn’t react for a few moments; then he simply nods. “He said - he told me that something happened. Daleks and Cybermen - a war. And that’s how he lost me. He must’ve stopped them, in the original reality. This time... well, looks like he didn’t. He managed to change his own history as well as mine.”
He sent himself a message, he told her. Telling the earlier him that he had her, that she was safe. He must have said something that made the earlier him change whatever it was he should have done after that.
Time’s not a straight line, he told her once. It can twist and turn and change in any direction. Well, she’s seeing the proof of that right now. This shouldn’t have happened.
“And the universe’s,” Jack adds, his tone grim. “The question now is what we’re gonna do about it.” He blows out a breath. “I have to talk to him. Strategise. It’s too late for most of the human race, but there’s still the rest of the universe to fight for.”
She grips his hand, refusing to let go. “No. Not yet.” Taking a deep breath, she adds, “I think I know how to fix it. But I’m not sure if it’ll work, yeah?”
“How?” Jack the tactician is back, all businesslike and poised for action.
“This all happened cause he changed history, right? Took me from the past an’ kept me with him when I shouldn’t have been. So, what if he takes me back to where I should be? Will that just reset history to where it should have been, or will it only make things worse? You know, paradoxes an’ all?”
If he takes her back, is it just going to be an open invitation to the Reapers to come and destroy everything anyway?
Though, honestly, would that be any worse than what’s happening outside right now?
Another massive explosion rocks the underground chamber. Even Jack has to grab at something to keep his balance.
No. There’s no choice. Even if there is the danger of causing a paradox, she has to go back. Even if it means she dies - after all, one life is worth nothing against the lives of billions of people.
Now, all they have to do, her and Jack, is convince the Doctor.
***
If pictures could scream, these would be deafening. The destruction of the human race is immortalised in colour and black-and-white. Image after image fills the screen, branding themselves in his memory. He won't forget this, can't forget. Even after history is re-written, it will remain - an immortal testament to his folly.
There's no sound here, no sobs, no cries for mercy or screams of terror. Just cold, heartless images depicting Armageddon and the silent condemnation of Suzie Costello's gaze. He wants to look away, to deny these events, but he can't.
He did this, destroyed Earth, just as thoroughly as he destroyed Gallifrey.
In the handful of breaths it took for another Dalek to fire its weapons, he could hear the screams filtered over the comm unit. Time Lords shouldn't scream, not like that. No-one should ever have to scream like that. It wasn't fear that made them scream, nor was it pain - though there was enough of that to go around. No, it was the terrible, terrible knowledge that the end was nigh.
Gallifrey didn't die with a whimper or a bang.
It died with a scream.
His own.
The only screaming here is in his head, the denial of everything that he's lost and is about to lose again. What else can he do? What other choice does he have? Yes, he can run, but running will only get him so far before his past catches up with him.
What then? What if he runs, taking Rose and Jack and Suzie and whoever else he finds to the edges of the universe in both time and space? How long will he have before he loses her, them, everyone again? How long before the Daleks find him? How long before the universe itself falls?
Rassilon, why do these choices, these horrific choices, always fall to him? The one time he tried to do something for himself, this is what happens. Everyone else, everything else, he cares about is destroyed.
He knows what he has to do, what he must do, to fix this. This isn't what was meant to happen. That knowledge overwhelms his senses, even drowning out the fact that is Jack Harkness.
Everything rests upon a balance, doesn't it? The weight of the universe versus the weight of one Rose Tyler. In a perfect world, he knows what choice he'd make without fear of consequences. Yet this isn't a perfect world and never will be.
To save the universe, to save Earth and humankind, he has to lose once again. Tears burn at the corners of his eyes as he remembers her screaming, falling towards infinity. How she looked at him, terrified, as she fell and he could do nothing more than scream her name. How she met his eyes one last time as Pete Tyler pulled her into another universe. How nothing was left of Rose Tyler but a wall.
That is his future. His past. What's meant to be.
He fists his hands, wanting to throw something, to punch something, anything to alleviate these thoughts that are tumbling through his mind. This is his curse, isn't it? First wanting to save the Master, then wanting to save Rose. The curse of his selfishness is that humankind and the rest of the universe bear the brunt of his error.
No, wait. That isn't all, is it? Cautiously, he lets himself feel the timelines, become aware of just how much has been changed because of a single selfish choice. He's been holding himself so tightly in check, not bothering with his temporal awareness, that he never saw it. Never realised the far worse consequence to his toying with time and it isn't the Daleks or the Cybermen or the end of the human race.
It is a causality loop. Even now his memories are being re-written. He remembers Rose wandering off during a trip to a marketplace and not being able to find her, no matter how hard he looked. He remembers a note covered with words that disappeared as he tried to read it - the only word he managed to catch was 'Rose'. He remembers trying to chase Rose through time and space, but never finding her. And, always, always avoiding Earth because he didn't know what to tell Jackie Tyler.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. If he never lost Rose in the way he had, if the year that never was had never happened, if he'd never found the Master again, there was no reason for him to go to see her in the first place. No reason to risk the destruction of the universe for his own whims.
He senses all of these phantom memories trying to overwrite his own. The longer he waits, the harder it will be to stop this, too. Because if he never went to see Rose, never took her with him, and yet she was still gone and he couldn't find her, he knows what will happen.
Time is going to try to fix this time-stream in the only way it knows how - by eliminating the rogue element. By destroying the one thing that caused everything to go wrong. By eliminating Rose Tyler.
Fear causes his hearts to pound that much faster as he turns in his seat, desperate to rest his gaze upon her again. There isn't much time left. Maybe an hour at most, judging by the rate these new memories are popping into his brain.
She's walking towards him, trailed by Jack, and something in her expression seems to imply that she's come to a decision. But he's not concerned by whatever she's decided. No, he already knows what has to happen to prevent the causality loop's conclusion. He knows how to stop all of this and he knows exactly what he has to lose.
So he studies her, memorising every aspect of her as she moves towards him. The way her hair shifts with every step, the way her hips sway, the way her lips curl into a faint smile as she sees him watching her. Every second is precious because these seconds will never come again.
She will never come again. He knows that he can't afford to steal glimpses of the past again. It hurts too damned much when those glimpses, those moments are gone.
"Doctor, I think I know how to fix this." Rose's voice startles him out of his thoughts, reminding him once again of what's to come - what has already been.
Jack's appearance at Rose's side isn't unexpected. He knew, at least suspected, what would happen should he leave them alone. Of course they'd talk about this, about how everything's changed, about him. Of course they'd come to the same conclusion as he. They're too clever not to, even though they don't have all the facts.
"You-"
"I-"
"-have to go back," they say at the same time.
***
tbc
Authors: dark_aegis and wendymr
Characters: Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness, others
Rated: PG13
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, no matter how much we beg, they're still not ours...
Summary: He's saved the universe over and over again. He's lost everything, including his own race. Doesn't the universe owe him something in return?
With thanks and hugs again to nnwest and aibhinn for BRing even despite major life events such as moving and losing computer access. Yes, it's morphed again. But the good news is that we've finished it! So we're celebrating by posting another chapter tonight, a day early. It's also a little thank-you gift to everyone who's been so very kindly posting comments and cheering us on, even though we're making you cry. You're all wonderful, and we thank you.
Chapter 1: The Lure of Temptation | Chapter 2: A False Sense of Security | Chapter 3: Home to Roost | Chapter 4: Consequences ( part a | part b)
Chapter 5: Armageddon
It’s even worse than he imagined. And it’s all his fault.
Of course the Cybermen weren’t going to go away just because he told his earlier self to stay well away from Earth. And of course, because the universe is never that generous, the Void ship would still have been opened. Probably by Mickey Smith again - and did the poor bloke manage to survive it this time around? Unlikely, he knows.
For two hours, he’s been living in denial. Now that’s all come crashing down around him. Reality bites.
Jack’s right. He abdicated responsibility for this planet he’s claimed more than once as his to protect, in the interests of his own selfishness, and with catastrophic consequences. Any longer, and Earth would’ve become another Gallifrey.
If Gallifrey still existed, if the Council knew what he’s done, they’d do worse than forcibly regenerate him.
How many people have suffered because of his impulsive decision? How many have died? More than died during the year that never was, certainly. What an irony: he’s responsible for the death of more humans than the Master.
Jackie paid the price - dead or Cyberised, and he doesn’t want to think about which is worse. And what right does he have to comfort Rose, as he’s doing, when it’s his fault? Jackie’s just one of many; there’s all the others who’ll have been in the middle of the fighting and are probably dead now. UNIT, Sarah-Jane, Martha, that team Jack spoke so fondly of.
Slowly, he removes his arm from around Rose’s shoulders, scrubbing his face to avoid what he knows will be her accusing stare.
Why can’t he once, just once, have something he wants? If he couldn’t keep the only other Time Lord, is it really so much to ask to have Rose with him as a consolation prize? Why must everything he touches turn to dust? Why, when he’s already lost everything time and time again, can’t he cling to one thing and keep it? Why must the Daleks always win?
Jack’s glaring accusingly at him again; his old friend, whom he’s wronged in so many ways, now despises him, and no wonder. He called Jack wrong, and abandoned him on a deserted satellite for that very reason - and he never even apologised for that, did he, in the timeline that’s now been overwritten. Jack’s wrongness pales into insignificance next to the magnitude of his own offence. How can Jack ever forgive this?
His gaze darts around the room, this underground hideaway, as he avoids the accusing stares of his companions and of the other woman Jack hasn’t introduced to them. It’s well-equipped, as befits a wartime bunker, and the access route Jack took them through offers more than adequate protection against the Daleks.
Is this what the few remnants of the human race are reduced to? Hiding away in caves, bunkers, cellars, anywhere the Daleks can’t reach, never daring to emerge into the daylight?
There’s a desk in the corner, Jack’s by the size of it and by the item resting on top of it. Jack’s so-called Doctor detector, which will be how he knew the two of them had arrived.
Movement catches his gaze; Rose has gone over to the other woman. Jack’s colleague, or a lone human survivor? He should care. He does care, except that this is just one more burden to bear. A young human, permanently disabled by the ravages of the apocalypse he’s allowed to happen.
Of course, he can put everything right. Simple. One wave of his hand, metaphorically speaking, and this will never have happened. But that’s not his decision alone. He gave up the right to make that decision when he stole Rose from her own time and kept her with him. She already knows that if he takes her back they’ll be separated permanently. She knows, because he’s told her, that she doesn’t die. But once before she chose the possibility of death over separation from him, didn’t she? Though that was different; she came back to try to save him. Dying with him was, he knows, only the fallback.
Still, he can’t make this decision without her agreement. Well, he could, but he’s already made a decision without her agreement and look what’s happened. He can’t - won’t - do that again.
The floor beneath them rumbles and everything in the room shakes violently. Another explosion outside. Did some other poor sod get caught in the firing line? Have yet more humans died in the cause of his self-centred act?
Rose has flinched, and she’s gripping a table for support, though instantly she’s bending down to the young woman in the roughly-constructed wheelchair, obviously checking that she’s okay.
Quietly, Jack speaks in his ear. “What are you talking about? You don’t mean that you caused this? How?”
He nods towards Rose. “Long story. But, yes, my fault.”
“Damn you!” Jack chokes off a curse. “Have you any idea how many people were killed? How many of my friends I had to watch die under Dalek fire?”
For a moment, he thinks Jack’s reaching for his gun again, but instead the Captain turns away, breathing heavily. When he turns back, he’s calmer. “Okay. You did this. You can tell me later what the fuck could have been so important that you’d destroy our planet for it. Right now what I want to know is what you’re going to do to stop the Daleks taking over the entire universe.”
“What was so important?” He swings around to face Jack fully, hands buried deep in his trouser pockets, greatcoat swinging at his heels. “For once, Jack, for once in all my nine hundred and more years, thinking the universe owed me a favour. I’ll put it right,” he adds grimly before Jack can comment. “If it’s the last thing I do, and it might as well be, I’ll put this right. But first-” He gestures towards the computer on the side of Jack’s desk. “I want some time on that.”
Jack just shrugs, though he brushes past the Captain without giving him an opportunity to object in any case. After all, when Rose almost destroyed the human race he made sure that she understood very clearly what she’d done. He did the same when Jack made a similar mistake.
He, who of all people ought to know better, doesn’t deserve to escape seeing the full horror of what he’s caused.
***
Suzie Costello is Jack’s second-in-command. Well, his entire team now. She’s all that’s left.
She lost her leg in a building collapse, trying to save another team member from being exterminated. Instead, she lay on the ground in agony, half a wall on top of her leg, watching someone called Owen and a dozen other local fighters get picked off one by one by a lone Dalek. The only reason she’s still alive is that another fighter, a local police detective she only refers to as Cathy, got between her and the Dalek. Cathy died; Suzie survived.
It’s just one tragic story among what Rose knows will be millions. All she can hope is that her mum’s fate was quick and painless; that she was killed instantly, not Cyberised, not starved to death, not hunted and hounded for weeks or months until she finally became too desperate or too tired to run any longer and simply gave herself up.
She’s glad the Doctor’s not hearing Suzie’s story. She knows him well enough to be aware that he’s already tearing himself apart with grief and guilt. He knows why this has happened as well as she does. It’s his fault - hers, too, because she didn’t insist enough that he take her back. Because she wanted to have the happy ending that he wants too. She wanted to stay with him. And, for a time, she allowed herself to believe that it could happen.
He’s heard enough to break his hearts as it is. He doesn’t need to hear the individual tragedies as well - though that’s probably what Jack’s telling him about. Because Jack’s angry, and in a way she can understand that he has a right to be. She could be angry, too: this is her planet that’s under siege, her fellow human beings who’ve been massacred. And her mother who’s missing, believed dead.
Here and now, though, anger’s a futile emotion. What’s much more important is working out what to do about the situation.
“Your friend, he said he destroyed the universe.” Suzie leans up towards her, speaking quietly. “What did he mean?”
Damn. She didn’t realise Suzie heard. “Nothing. He’s jus’... He does that. Exaggerates.”
“He must’ve meant something.” Her tone grows harder, the bitterness and anger making clear there’s a lot more to her question than mere curiosity. “You don’t just say something like that. And he knows what those things are. Just like Jack did. He knows Jack, too. I’ve never seen Jack react like that to anyone. Not even Yvonne Hartmann, and he despised her.”
“Leave it, Suzie.” Jack’s at her side suddenly, and she feels his presence so keenly even though he’s not touching her. In everything else that’s happened, she’s barely had time to acknowledge the fact that he’s alive.
Jack’s alive. He didn’t die on Satellite Five. He can’t die.
“Rose, I need you.” His hand’s at her elbow, his touch more impersonal than Jack’s ever been with her, and he steers her over to an alcove at the other side of the bunker.
“Jack.” Once they’re alone, she breaks from his grasp and faces him. “What happened to you? Not just that you’re alive when I thought you were dead, but... you’ve changed. You’re so different.” He’s not her funny, happy, flirty Jack any more, and it actually hurts to look at him. All the time she mourned him, that she wished there was some way to go back and save him, she never imagined there could be a time it’d hurt to have him back.
“You could say I’ve changed, all right.” His tone’s sarcastic, biting. “What happened? You and the Doctor happened. He brought me back from the dead, and then the two of you sailed off in the TARDIS and left me on a satellite full of dead bodies. Still, I guess it was good practice for this.” He gestures roughly around, above, signalling the carnage that’s the outside world.
“He brought you back - The Doctor did?” Her gaze flies to the Doctor, now seated at the large desk on the other side of the room, intent on whatever he’s doing at the computer. She’s about to protest that he wouldn’t have done that, that the Doctor knows far better than anyone the dangers of mucking about with time and life and death, when she hesitates.
There are two reasons why the Doctor could very well have done exactly that. One, he’s just stolen her from her past when she should be... somewhere else, apart from him with no way of getting back to him; and two, he admitted to knowing Jack was alive all along.
“Know anyone else with the power to change history? You’re good, Rose, but you’re not that good.” His mouth twists, and she aches for the pain she can see in his eyes. She was angry with him for that stunt he pulled earlier with the gun, but right now all she feels is anguish for what he’s suffered.
“Jack.” She moves towards him, not quite touching but making the offer of comfort clear. “I thought you were dead. He only told me you weren’t jus’ before we got here.”
His expression changes; alert suddenly, he scrutinises her. This is Jack the Time Agent, Jack the fearless fighter, Jack the Torchwood boss, and he’s deciding whether he believes her. And then, suddenly, he sighs. The tension fades, and he reaches for her.
“Rose. God, I missed you.”
His arms around her crush her to his chest, but she’s clinging back just as tightly. It’s Jack and he’s alive and he’s not so completely changed after all; there’s still some of the man she knew and loved underneath the embittered exterior.
Finally, he releases her, though he keeps hold of her hand. “What’s going on, Rose? Why did this happen? Did he tell you?”
“I know why,” she tells him, keeping her head turned away from the Doctor so there’s no chance he can read her lips. “ ‘S because of me.” She has to swallow before continuing. “I shouldn’t be here, Jack. That’s why this is happening.”
“I’m not following.”
“Jack.” She plays with his fingers. “Something’s happened to him. I don’t know what, but it’s bad. I’m not... I wasn’t with him. Dunno how it happened, but we got separated somehow. He couldn’t get me back, or I couldn’t get back to him - he won’t tell me exactly -”
“Wait a minute.” Jack cuts across her. “You’re here now, so are you saying -”
She nods. “He went back. Crossed his own timeline. Took me from an earlier him an’ went back into his own timeline so he wouldn’t lose me.”
“Oh, god.” Jack’s looking appalled. “That’s the kind of stupid stunt you get warned against in first year in the Time Academy. If I’d done something like that when I was travelling with you guys he’d have kicked me out an airlock.”
“Yeah.” Meeting Jack’s gaze, she adds, “That’s why something terrible must’ve happened. He’d never have done it otherwise.”
“You must have died.” His fingers tighten around hers. “That’s the only thing I can think of that’d make him do it.”
She shakes her head. “No. Worse than that. Has to be. Besides, he said I didn’t die.” Stealing a very brief glance at the Doctor - he’s still intent on the computer-screen, though she has a feeling that he’s very much aware that she and Jack are deep in conversation - before continuing, she adds, “I’ve never seen him this desperate, Jack. Not even the first him when he was so broken cause of his planet. Even when he wanted to shoot that Dalek... even then.”
Jack doesn’t react for a few moments; then he simply nods. “He said - he told me that something happened. Daleks and Cybermen - a war. And that’s how he lost me. He must’ve stopped them, in the original reality. This time... well, looks like he didn’t. He managed to change his own history as well as mine.”
He sent himself a message, he told her. Telling the earlier him that he had her, that she was safe. He must have said something that made the earlier him change whatever it was he should have done after that.
Time’s not a straight line, he told her once. It can twist and turn and change in any direction. Well, she’s seeing the proof of that right now. This shouldn’t have happened.
“And the universe’s,” Jack adds, his tone grim. “The question now is what we’re gonna do about it.” He blows out a breath. “I have to talk to him. Strategise. It’s too late for most of the human race, but there’s still the rest of the universe to fight for.”
She grips his hand, refusing to let go. “No. Not yet.” Taking a deep breath, she adds, “I think I know how to fix it. But I’m not sure if it’ll work, yeah?”
“How?” Jack the tactician is back, all businesslike and poised for action.
“This all happened cause he changed history, right? Took me from the past an’ kept me with him when I shouldn’t have been. So, what if he takes me back to where I should be? Will that just reset history to where it should have been, or will it only make things worse? You know, paradoxes an’ all?”
If he takes her back, is it just going to be an open invitation to the Reapers to come and destroy everything anyway?
Though, honestly, would that be any worse than what’s happening outside right now?
Another massive explosion rocks the underground chamber. Even Jack has to grab at something to keep his balance.
No. There’s no choice. Even if there is the danger of causing a paradox, she has to go back. Even if it means she dies - after all, one life is worth nothing against the lives of billions of people.
Now, all they have to do, her and Jack, is convince the Doctor.
***
If pictures could scream, these would be deafening. The destruction of the human race is immortalised in colour and black-and-white. Image after image fills the screen, branding themselves in his memory. He won't forget this, can't forget. Even after history is re-written, it will remain - an immortal testament to his folly.
There's no sound here, no sobs, no cries for mercy or screams of terror. Just cold, heartless images depicting Armageddon and the silent condemnation of Suzie Costello's gaze. He wants to look away, to deny these events, but he can't.
He did this, destroyed Earth, just as thoroughly as he destroyed Gallifrey.
In the handful of breaths it took for another Dalek to fire its weapons, he could hear the screams filtered over the comm unit. Time Lords shouldn't scream, not like that. No-one should ever have to scream like that. It wasn't fear that made them scream, nor was it pain - though there was enough of that to go around. No, it was the terrible, terrible knowledge that the end was nigh.
Gallifrey didn't die with a whimper or a bang.
It died with a scream.
His own.
The only screaming here is in his head, the denial of everything that he's lost and is about to lose again. What else can he do? What other choice does he have? Yes, he can run, but running will only get him so far before his past catches up with him.
What then? What if he runs, taking Rose and Jack and Suzie and whoever else he finds to the edges of the universe in both time and space? How long will he have before he loses her, them, everyone again? How long before the Daleks find him? How long before the universe itself falls?
Rassilon, why do these choices, these horrific choices, always fall to him? The one time he tried to do something for himself, this is what happens. Everyone else, everything else, he cares about is destroyed.
He knows what he has to do, what he must do, to fix this. This isn't what was meant to happen. That knowledge overwhelms his senses, even drowning out the fact that is Jack Harkness.
Everything rests upon a balance, doesn't it? The weight of the universe versus the weight of one Rose Tyler. In a perfect world, he knows what choice he'd make without fear of consequences. Yet this isn't a perfect world and never will be.
To save the universe, to save Earth and humankind, he has to lose once again. Tears burn at the corners of his eyes as he remembers her screaming, falling towards infinity. How she looked at him, terrified, as she fell and he could do nothing more than scream her name. How she met his eyes one last time as Pete Tyler pulled her into another universe. How nothing was left of Rose Tyler but a wall.
That is his future. His past. What's meant to be.
He fists his hands, wanting to throw something, to punch something, anything to alleviate these thoughts that are tumbling through his mind. This is his curse, isn't it? First wanting to save the Master, then wanting to save Rose. The curse of his selfishness is that humankind and the rest of the universe bear the brunt of his error.
No, wait. That isn't all, is it? Cautiously, he lets himself feel the timelines, become aware of just how much has been changed because of a single selfish choice. He's been holding himself so tightly in check, not bothering with his temporal awareness, that he never saw it. Never realised the far worse consequence to his toying with time and it isn't the Daleks or the Cybermen or the end of the human race.
It is a causality loop. Even now his memories are being re-written. He remembers Rose wandering off during a trip to a marketplace and not being able to find her, no matter how hard he looked. He remembers a note covered with words that disappeared as he tried to read it - the only word he managed to catch was 'Rose'. He remembers trying to chase Rose through time and space, but never finding her. And, always, always avoiding Earth because he didn't know what to tell Jackie Tyler.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. If he never lost Rose in the way he had, if the year that never was had never happened, if he'd never found the Master again, there was no reason for him to go to see her in the first place. No reason to risk the destruction of the universe for his own whims.
He senses all of these phantom memories trying to overwrite his own. The longer he waits, the harder it will be to stop this, too. Because if he never went to see Rose, never took her with him, and yet she was still gone and he couldn't find her, he knows what will happen.
Time is going to try to fix this time-stream in the only way it knows how - by eliminating the rogue element. By destroying the one thing that caused everything to go wrong. By eliminating Rose Tyler.
Fear causes his hearts to pound that much faster as he turns in his seat, desperate to rest his gaze upon her again. There isn't much time left. Maybe an hour at most, judging by the rate these new memories are popping into his brain.
She's walking towards him, trailed by Jack, and something in her expression seems to imply that she's come to a decision. But he's not concerned by whatever she's decided. No, he already knows what has to happen to prevent the causality loop's conclusion. He knows how to stop all of this and he knows exactly what he has to lose.
So he studies her, memorising every aspect of her as she moves towards him. The way her hair shifts with every step, the way her hips sway, the way her lips curl into a faint smile as she sees him watching her. Every second is precious because these seconds will never come again.
She will never come again. He knows that he can't afford to steal glimpses of the past again. It hurts too damned much when those glimpses, those moments are gone.
"Doctor, I think I know how to fix this." Rose's voice startles him out of his thoughts, reminding him once again of what's to come - what has already been.
Jack's appearance at Rose's side isn't unexpected. He knew, at least suspected, what would happen should he leave them alone. Of course they'd talk about this, about how everything's changed, about him. Of course they'd come to the same conclusion as he. They're too clever not to, even though they don't have all the facts.
"You-"
"I-"
"-have to go back," they say at the same time.
***
tbc