Guardians 2/4
Fic: Guardians
Author: wmr
wendymr
Characters: Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness... and others ;)
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: They're not mine, no; did you really think they were?
Summary: No, her past’s got nothing to do with why she’s on her way to Cardiff, in the cabin of a Torchwood private plane, the mysterious file and an overnight bag with her.
This is a sequel to Protector, and written for
honorh. With huge thanks to
dark_aegis for BRing and reassuring me that the skience isn't totally naff ;) Sorry this is later than I promised, but the last several days have been somewhat... challenging, what with injured husband getting sick, among other things!
Chapter 1: Disturbances
Chapter 2: Voices through the Void
Is it even possible? Is it really Jack, or just someone who sounds like him?
“Rhodhri! Where’s your earpiece?” Okay, he hasn’t heard her; he’s still talking to whoever’s with him, wherever he is. At a guess, Wales - Cardiff - in the other universe. But it’s Jack. It’s Jack, or someone who sounds exactly like him.
She worked out long ago that Jack survived Satellite Five, of course. How, she’s still got no idea, but he survived and somehow made it to Earth in the nineties. This, though... this makes no sense at all.
“Jack!” Again, she tries, though really there’s no guarantee that he’ll even be able to hear her. “Jack Harkness! Jack!”
Even as she’s shouting, she can hear him speaking, but suddenly he seems to break off mid-sentence. She tries again. “Jack!”
“Who’s there?” There’s suspicion and a hint of warning in his voice.
“Jack! Can you hear me?”
A pause. Then, disbelieving, “Rose?”
Her legs are actually shaking. Slowly, she sits on the cold, uneven floor. “Yeah, Jack, ‘s me.”
“Where are you?” He’s still sounding incredulous. “I can’t see you anywhere. The Doctor said you were trapped in a parallel universe.”
“I am.” Jack’s seen the Doctor? But then, why wouldn’t he? It’s not as if he’s been in a parallel universe all this time, is it? He’d have found the Doctor somehow. Or the Doctor would’ve found him, as soon as he realised Jack’s alive after all.
“I can’t -” He breaks off abruptly. “Hang on a minute, Rose. Let me just...” His voice fades, and then he’s yelling again, giving orders, so unlike the Jack she knew when they travelled together. Though he could give orders then, too. It’s just he never did it when the Doctor was around. “Get back to work,” he’s snapping, tone abrupt, almost cold. “This is nothing to do with you.”
She waits, and then he’s talking to her again. “Rose? So where are you? In the other universe still?”
“Yeah. It’s the Rift, Jack. Seems like it’s a... well, a conduit between the two universes. Stuff’s been turning up here for years that doesn’t belong here. Ever heard of a President Arthur Winters?”
Jack sounds astounded. “Heard of him? Saw him assassinated. We were right in the same room when it happened.”
God. She should’ve read that book, shouldn’t she? We? Not the Doctor?
“He never existed in this universe. Someone found a biography of him lying on a street in Cardiff.”
“Cardiff? That’s where I am. Though, yeah, you said the Rift.” There’s humour in Jack’s voice now, just as she remembers him. “God, always comes back to Cardiff, doesn’t it?”
There’s a lump in her throat as she says, “Never thought I’d get to talk to you again.”
“Me neither.” His voice is soft now, affectionate, just as it always was when he’d pull her into a hug. Oh, wouldn’t that be nice right now? “Unless the Doctor stopped being an idiot long enough to figure out a way back to you.”
Her heart thumps. “Did he... did he ever try?”
There’s a moment’s pause. “Dunno, to be honest. When I first caught up with him again he said you were trapped. That could’ve meant he tried - and he never really wanted to talk to me about you again after that.”
Sarah-Jane all over again. Why is she even surprised? She wriggles and shuffles on the hard ground, trying to get comfortable. “Yeah, that’s him - once gone, it’s like you never existed.”
“No!” Jack exclaims immediately, and his vehemence surprises her. “It wasn’t like that. Really. He talked about you - with me, with the companion he was with when I found him, and the one after that.”
That’s a change. Because it was her? Or because he realised not talking about companions was bad for him?
She doesn’t want to talk about the Doctor. It’s bringing back too many painful memories of when she first arrived here and missed him so much she cried every night even as she was trying to build a life here, for her mum’s sake and because she refused to turn into a Miss Havisham, forever mourning her lost love.
“You know, I used to wonder if there was a Jack Harkness in this universe,” she tells him, changing the subject. “I mean, most people I knew had counterparts here. Not me, though. I was a dog. A Yorkshire terrier, of all things!” She laughs, and hears Jack laughing with her. “Course, you could’ve been here for all I know. No time-travel in this universe. No Time Vortex, it seems.” The Doctor told her that, long ago. “So if there’s a Jack Harkness, he’s stuck in the fifty-first century.”
“Nah.” Jack’s grinning, she can tell. “Couldn’t be more than one of me.”
He seems about to say something else, but then she hears voices in the distance again. Then he’s speaking, but not to her. “Bronwen, can’t you manage -” He breaks off, then says, to her, “Damnit. Give me five minutes.”
Her legs are going to sleep. She stands, wobbling a bit from pins and needles, and paces. Jack. After all this time, she can talk to Jack. And if anyone had bothered to tell her sooner what was going on in Cardiff she could have had this long ago. Damnit. She owes Jeri one, big-time.
She’s got so many questions, though, she doesn’t even know where to start. When is he? What’s he doing? Is it sheer fluke that they’ve been able to communicate with each other today? If she’d come another day, would it have been someone else whose voice she’d heard, someone in a completely different time?
And why is this happening? Most of all, though she dreads even thinking about it, is it dangerous to the fabric of time and space? To the universe?
“Rose?” He’s calling her again. She drops down by the point where his voice is clearest. “Look, something’s come up. I’ve gotta -”
She’s almost ready to weep - to have found this, found Jack, and then lose him again so soon - but she keeps it together. “All right. ‘S been great talking to you, Jack. I...” She’s hesitating, but then remembers all those missed opportunities before, and the years she thought he was dead. “Love -”
He’s cutting across her; he probably didn’t even hear it. “Can you come back later? I can have them out of here by around eight tonight. That’s five hours. We can talk all night if you want,” he says, and there’s almost embarrassed humour in his voice.
As long as this communication port, or whatever it is, is still operational later. Jack’s obviously assuming it will be.
Five hours... She checks her watch. It’s just after three. Same time, then. “Yeah. Yeah, I can be here.” Before he can run off, she asks - she really wants to know - “What are you doing, Jack? Who are these people you’re working with?”
“My team.” He’s sounding distracted now, and she really should let him go. “Torchwood.” Her jaw almost falls open, and she’s about to comment on the coincidence when he adds, as if he’s desperate to get the words out, “I know what they did to the Doctor. To you. But it’s different, I swear. I am Torchwood these days. It’s nothing like that. We protect the Earth. Us and UNIT. The Doctor... he’s okay with it. Even helps us sometimes, just like we help him.”
She’d swear he’s actually looking for her approval. Was it like that with the Doctor? Did he give Jack a hard time over it? “That’s great,” she tells him immediately. “Can’t think of a better person for the job. And - you better go,” she reminds him. “But, just so you know, I work for Torchwood too. Here.”
“You do?” He sounds pleased, even proud. “Bet you’re practically running the place. They’re lucky to have you. And, yeah, I have to go. Later.”
He’s gone then; she’s left with the sound of pounding footsteps and then silence.
***
Lucky to have her? She muses on that as she steps outside into the daylight. Quite a few people in Torchwood senior ranks, both at her level and the few above her, would argue with that. Not just that she’s argumentative, that her attitude to aliens is less one of shoot on sight and more one of let’s see what they want first. But, also, to many people she’s an embarrassing secret. They don’t know how to explain her, and that scares them. Is she an experiment gone wrong? Is she even human? Some of the wilder stories she’s heard around Torchwood Tower suggest that she’s alien, or even that she’s a cyborg.
While Pete was still around - and Mickey, of course - she was accepted, even valued for her experience and instincts. Now, though, things have changed, but even though she’s been tempted at times to resign she knows she can still make a difference. Is making a difference. And she’s senior enough to have an impact. Even those who distrust her fear her - her authority as well as what most people refer to as her ‘special gifts’.
But Jack. She’s just been talking to Jack and she’s still pinching herself. She, who’s seen a man burn up and change into a completely different person, who’s seen worlds burn and planets born and seen the stars and the other end of the universe, and seen aliens and monsters and talking trees and met famous people who were dead and buried long before she was born... she’s just been talking to a man who’s in a completely different universe and it’s unbelievable. Amazing.
Hard to believe she can talk to him again later. Well, if whatever glitch or disturbance or whatever it is that’s allowing them to talk across the Void still works. It will. It has to.
***
She’s back an hour later with a folding chair, a flask of coffee and a bag of doughnuts. Sitting on that floor was cold and uncomfortable, and she’s planning on being here as long as she can - as long as Jack’s free to talk to her. He said eight, and she’s early, but they still haven’t really synchronised time between their two universes, not properly, and she’s not taking chances on five hours for him being two for her.
At twenty past eight, she’s still waiting. She’s spent the time in between reading, pacing, thinking, even going out for more coffee, and now for the past half-hour calling Jack’s name from time to time. But there’s only silence.
Maybe it was just a one-off. Maybe there are only certain times that the Rift allows communication. And maybe those few minutes earlier are all she’s ever going to get.
“Rose? Rose!”
Weak with relief, she calls back, “I’m here!”
There’s relief in his own voice, as well as apology, when he says, “Sorry, couldn’t get away sooner. And then I wasn’t even sure this’d still work.”
It does, but there’s no guarantee that it’ll keep working. There’s so much she wants to ask him about, but... god, she doesn’t even know where to start. Or how. So, instead, they end up talking about trivialities, stuff that barely even matters given all the important stuff. What her job is, what his job is, his team - Jack’s got a team! But then, he always did have great leadership qualities. It’s just that the Doctor was always in charge.
He’s in the middle of a complicated but hilarious story about a time when he and his team got caught naked halfway up a Welsh mountain when she just can’t wait any longer. Who knows how long she’s got, after all?
“D’you know, for the longest time I thought you were dead, Jack? I thought we’d lost you on Satellite Five. I thought the Daleks’d got you. Was only a long time later, after I came over here, that I realised you had to’ve survived. Would you believe, Mum recognised you from a photo I have of the three of us? An’ she told me about seeing you over the years when I was a kid. She said you always wore a long coat, but it was when she described your watch that I realised it had to be after Satellite Five for you.”
She’s about to ask how he survived, how he got to Earth and how he ended up in her childhood, but he interrupts.
“Yeah, that was pretty damn irresponsible of me. I scared the shit out of your mom, and it never even occurred to me what she’d think. I loved seeing you, Rose, but that wasn’t worth the worry I caused Jackie.” He laughs, but it’s without humour. “Just as well I never got around to visiting the Powell Estates with you when the three of us were together. She’d have knocked me flat soon as she saw me.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” She’s having to swallow a lump; even though it’s been ten years now, she still misses her mum so much. Still, Jackie had a good life. The best, after they came to this universe and she got a second chance at happiness with Pete. And, even, a second chance at being a parent.
It’s been fun having a younger brother - a brother twenty-one years younger than her. Jamie’s now married and living in Australia with his family, so they don’t get to see each other very often, but they talk a lot. The other side of the world’s not so bad. Better than a parallel universe, certainly.
Recalling the thread of her conversation with Jack, she adds quickly, “Think Mum liked you in the end. You did save me from a pervert, after all. She was grateful. Said she wished she’d got to know you properly.”
“Think I’d’ve liked that too,” Jack says, and there’s a wistful note in his voice.
“I’ve got to know,” she says immediately, before something else can take over the conversation. “How are you alive? I was sure the Daleks must’ve got you on Satellite Five.”
There’s a pause. Then, slowly, he says, “You don’t know? What did he tell you?”
Oh. She’s not gonna like this, that’s obvious. “He didn’t tell me anything about you. Well, when I said we should go back for you he said you were saving the Earth. But he’d only just regenerated an’ he was sick and two minutes later he crashed the TARDIS. When I thought about it later, an’ the fact that you’d gone off to hold back the Daleks, I thought you must’ve died an’ the Doctor just didn’t know how to tell me.”
Jack doesn’t respond. Deliberately digging, she says, “He must’ve been thrilled to find out you’re alive. Loses far too many people he cares about, he does.”
Again, there’s a pause. There’s a wry note to Jack’s voice when he finally answers. “I wouldn’t say thrilled, exactly.”
“Jack.” He won’t recognise that note in her voice, but then she’s a very different person now from the nineteen-year-old he travelled with. When she uses that voice around Torchwood, men nearly twice her size quake. “Tell me.”
She can almost feel the breath he blows out, even though there’s an entire Void between them. “I did die. You... You do know what you did to the Daleks?”
“Yeah. I remembered some of it, an’ he told me the rest.” Uh-oh. What else did she do that he never told her?
“You also resurrected me.”
As she’s trying to recover from that one, swallowing and steadying herself, he continues. “You wanted me alive. Can’t help but be flattered at that, really. Trouble is, you didn’t work out how alive you wanted me. Well, the Doctor said you just couldn’t control the power you were working with. So... I’m alive, Rose. I’m the Duracell man, I guess. I just keep on going.”
Now her blood’s running cold. “Jack, what year is it for you? And... oh, god... How long’s it been for you since Satellite Five?”
“Always were pretty smart, Rose Tyler.” Jack’s smiling, so it can’t be that bad. Well, it is that bad, but maybe he’s coping better than she sometimes has. “Let’s see. It’s 2061. And, hell, I’ve lost count. Let’s see... when I made it off Satellite Five, I was heading for Earth your time, cause I figured that’s when I’d most likely find the Doctor. But I missed my target. Landed in 1869. I’ve been living in linear time ever since, apart from one year that was a paradox and got undone, but that’s another story.”
God. “That’s... a hundred and ninety-two years!”
“Well, hundred and ninety-three, if we’re being pedantic.” He’s grinning, she can tell, but how does he cope? How many times has he seen friends grow old and die - what the Doctor called the curse of the Time Lords? How many times has he had to move away or change his identity because he can’t explain why he never looks any older?
“So... you’re two hundred and thirty years old now?”
“A mere baby, according to the Doctor.” He laughs. “But you don’t sound shocked, Rose. You come across immortal humans a lot?”
“Just once. Before today, that is,” she says dryly. “But, Jack - I’m sorry. I really am. I had no idea what I was doing.”
“I know you didn’t.” The words are soft, affectionate. “Told you. You wanted me alive. That makes me happy.”
“Makes me happy, too,” she admits. “Jack...”
“Yeah?”
“It’s 2061 here too.”
“Oh?” He sounds mildly curious... and then he gets it. “Soundin’ pretty good for a seventy-five-year-old, Rose.”
“Looking pretty good for one, too,” she retorts. “Still got all my own teeth. The hair’s dyed, but then it always was.”
“You too, huh?”
“Yeah, me too.” Rose Tyler, the never-ageing, never-dying freak of nature. Torchwood’s little secret. Certain elements at Torchwood, once her unique nature was discovered, wanted to lock her up in a lab and run experiment after experiment on her. Pete forbade it, and to this day her interests - her safety - are protected by watertight legal documents with severe penalties. Even though he’s not around to protect her himself any more, he’s made sure that she’s safe.
Although they did make one concession: once a year, she gives a blood sample for analysis. So far, no-one’s been able to find anything to explain her longevity, or her miraculous healing powers.
And Jack too. She did it to Jack; did she do it to herself, too? While she had the Time Vortex inside her, did she just decide that she never wanted to die? Or maybe that the Doctor should never be alone, so she made the two of them immortal so that he’d always have them?
It’s a better explanation than any of the things she’s come up with over the years - including that the Doctor did it to her, which she very quickly decided couldn’t possibly be true.
The Doctor... “Jack, you said he wasn’t exactly pleased to find out you were alive. What do you mean?”
There’s a definite edge to his voice as he says, “Actually, he knew all along that I was alive. He deliberately left me behind on the Game Station. Says I’m wrong. I’m something that shouldn’t exist, a fixed point in time, and it sets his Time Lord hackles on edge. So he ran away.”
What? Horrified, she stares at the point on the floor from where she imagines Jack’s voice is coming. “He did what? He left you behind deliberately?”
“Yeah. Hey, it’s ancient history now,” he adds, with a lightness in his voice that’s too obviously false. “We’ve got past it. He even visits me a couple of times a year. I help him out every once in a while, too. Y’know, friends forgive each other, that’s how it is. Thing is,” he adds slowly, “that was before I knew -”
“That I’m wrong too,” she finishes for him. “An’ he ran away from you, jus’ dumped you like an empty chip-wrapper, but he kept me with him. God, Jack, how could he do that to you?”
***
Jack’s silent for a long while, and not for the first time since this conversation started she wishes she could see his face. He was always good at putting on a front, but over the time she knew him she got good at seeing through it.
Finally, he says, “Who knows? Maybe he thought I could take care of myself and you couldn’t, or he didn’t want to feel he was losing you to me - you remember how dog-in-the-manger he was when I first joined you two. I got nothing.” She can picture his shrug. “I was over it, you know? Made my peace with him a long time ago. But now this - knowing that you’re the same as I am and he didn’t leave you behind... way to feel unwanted.”
“I wanted you,” she tells him, fierceness in her voice. “I missed you every bloody day, Jack. If I’d known you were alive, I’d have made him go back for you.”
“I know. Thanks.” He’s silent again for several seconds, and then, in a completely different tone, says, “So, tell me something. I’ve always wondered, and it’s not like I’m ever gonna get an answer out of him... did you ever manage to get him in the sack?”
Despite her anger, and the disillusionment that’s turning her cold inside, she smiles. “You might be over two hundred, Jack Harkness, but you haven’t changed a bit.”
“You’d be surprised,” he murmurs. “But you haven’t answered my question.” And he’ll push until she does, of course. That’s Jack.
“No. We were never like that.” Somehow, against her will, her eyes drift closed and the memories come flooding back. “Used to think he just didn’t do that kind of thing. Until he did, one time. Then I knew he just didn’t want to do it with me.” She smiles wryly. It was a disappointment at the time, yeah, but at the same time she always knew she’d prefer to keep him as her best mate as long as she could, rather than have him as a lover for a few nights and then lose him.
“What? With someone else? While you were with him?” Jack’s obviously taken aback.
“Yeah. We were trying to save this woman...” No point telling Jack who she was. He’d never let the Doctor hear the end of it. By the sound of things, he does see the Doctor from time to time. “Anyway, he went off with her, an’ when he came back his clothes were messy an’ he had lipstick on his face. Then she died,” she added softly, “and he was devastated.”
There’s a low whistle; it still feels weird to have these sounds, Jack’s voice, coming from nowhere. “He was devastated when he lost you, too. Martha said he never stopped talking about you. Donna said the first time she met him - and that was just after he said goodbye to you on that beach - he almost cried every time he remembered you. And when he told me you were trapped over there I could almost see his hearts breaking. He loved you, Rose. If you never knew that - well, you should’ve.”
Oh, she did, of course. Though it’s good to hear it, even if it is too late. Altogether too late.
“God, I’m an idiot!” She can almost see Jack slapping himself in the forehead. “I can call him! He set that up years ago - I can contact the TARDIS if I need him. Stupid - there I am, talking away, when you could be talking to him instead.”
“No!” Her answer’s sharper than she intended - but it’s the right answer. She can’t talk to him. Not now. “I’m... angry with him now, Jack. For what he did to you. If he came now - it wouldn’t be pretty.” She sighs. “Later, maybe I’ll be ready. For now... well, if this is all I can ever have, it’s enough. Never thought I’d get to talk to you again, Jack.”
“Me neither, sweetheart,” he says softly.
And then all hell breaks loose.
***
The ground’s shattering beneath her feet. Cracks and fissures spread all around her, like ice cracking and splintering on a pond. There’s a roaring in her ears, and somebody’s shouting.
Diving from her chair, she makes for a corner of the warehouse, beneath some large support beams - there’s no doorway to hide in, but maybe those beams will provide more protection than the open space where she was sitting.
Now the earth’s opening up. The Rift’s calling to her, singing to her, come home, come back, you don’t belong, but it’s not the Rift, is it? Something else, something -
Everything before her eyes turns red, and gold, and then black, and there’s silence.
***
tbc
Author: wmr
wendymr
Characters: Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness... and others ;)
Rated: PG
Disclaimer: They're not mine, no; did you really think they were?
Summary: No, her past’s got nothing to do with why she’s on her way to Cardiff, in the cabin of a Torchwood private plane, the mysterious file and an overnight bag with her.
This is a sequel to Protector, and written for
honorh. With huge thanks to
dark_aegis for BRing and reassuring me that the skience isn't totally naff ;) Sorry this is later than I promised, but the last several days have been somewhat... challenging, what with injured husband getting sick, among other things!
Chapter 1: Disturbances
Chapter 2: Voices through the Void
Is it even possible? Is it really Jack, or just someone who sounds like him?
“Rhodhri! Where’s your earpiece?” Okay, he hasn’t heard her; he’s still talking to whoever’s with him, wherever he is. At a guess, Wales - Cardiff - in the other universe. But it’s Jack. It’s Jack, or someone who sounds exactly like him.
She worked out long ago that Jack survived Satellite Five, of course. How, she’s still got no idea, but he survived and somehow made it to Earth in the nineties. This, though... this makes no sense at all.
“Jack!” Again, she tries, though really there’s no guarantee that he’ll even be able to hear her. “Jack Harkness! Jack!”
Even as she’s shouting, she can hear him speaking, but suddenly he seems to break off mid-sentence. She tries again. “Jack!”
“Who’s there?” There’s suspicion and a hint of warning in his voice.
“Jack! Can you hear me?”
A pause. Then, disbelieving, “Rose?”
Her legs are actually shaking. Slowly, she sits on the cold, uneven floor. “Yeah, Jack, ‘s me.”
“Where are you?” He’s still sounding incredulous. “I can’t see you anywhere. The Doctor said you were trapped in a parallel universe.”
“I am.” Jack’s seen the Doctor? But then, why wouldn’t he? It’s not as if he’s been in a parallel universe all this time, is it? He’d have found the Doctor somehow. Or the Doctor would’ve found him, as soon as he realised Jack’s alive after all.
“I can’t -” He breaks off abruptly. “Hang on a minute, Rose. Let me just...” His voice fades, and then he’s yelling again, giving orders, so unlike the Jack she knew when they travelled together. Though he could give orders then, too. It’s just he never did it when the Doctor was around. “Get back to work,” he’s snapping, tone abrupt, almost cold. “This is nothing to do with you.”
She waits, and then he’s talking to her again. “Rose? So where are you? In the other universe still?”
“Yeah. It’s the Rift, Jack. Seems like it’s a... well, a conduit between the two universes. Stuff’s been turning up here for years that doesn’t belong here. Ever heard of a President Arthur Winters?”
Jack sounds astounded. “Heard of him? Saw him assassinated. We were right in the same room when it happened.”
God. She should’ve read that book, shouldn’t she? We? Not the Doctor?
“He never existed in this universe. Someone found a biography of him lying on a street in Cardiff.”
“Cardiff? That’s where I am. Though, yeah, you said the Rift.” There’s humour in Jack’s voice now, just as she remembers him. “God, always comes back to Cardiff, doesn’t it?”
There’s a lump in her throat as she says, “Never thought I’d get to talk to you again.”
“Me neither.” His voice is soft now, affectionate, just as it always was when he’d pull her into a hug. Oh, wouldn’t that be nice right now? “Unless the Doctor stopped being an idiot long enough to figure out a way back to you.”
Her heart thumps. “Did he... did he ever try?”
There’s a moment’s pause. “Dunno, to be honest. When I first caught up with him again he said you were trapped. That could’ve meant he tried - and he never really wanted to talk to me about you again after that.”
Sarah-Jane all over again. Why is she even surprised? She wriggles and shuffles on the hard ground, trying to get comfortable. “Yeah, that’s him - once gone, it’s like you never existed.”
“No!” Jack exclaims immediately, and his vehemence surprises her. “It wasn’t like that. Really. He talked about you - with me, with the companion he was with when I found him, and the one after that.”
That’s a change. Because it was her? Or because he realised not talking about companions was bad for him?
She doesn’t want to talk about the Doctor. It’s bringing back too many painful memories of when she first arrived here and missed him so much she cried every night even as she was trying to build a life here, for her mum’s sake and because she refused to turn into a Miss Havisham, forever mourning her lost love.
“You know, I used to wonder if there was a Jack Harkness in this universe,” she tells him, changing the subject. “I mean, most people I knew had counterparts here. Not me, though. I was a dog. A Yorkshire terrier, of all things!” She laughs, and hears Jack laughing with her. “Course, you could’ve been here for all I know. No time-travel in this universe. No Time Vortex, it seems.” The Doctor told her that, long ago. “So if there’s a Jack Harkness, he’s stuck in the fifty-first century.”
“Nah.” Jack’s grinning, she can tell. “Couldn’t be more than one of me.”
He seems about to say something else, but then she hears voices in the distance again. Then he’s speaking, but not to her. “Bronwen, can’t you manage -” He breaks off, then says, to her, “Damnit. Give me five minutes.”
Her legs are going to sleep. She stands, wobbling a bit from pins and needles, and paces. Jack. After all this time, she can talk to Jack. And if anyone had bothered to tell her sooner what was going on in Cardiff she could have had this long ago. Damnit. She owes Jeri one, big-time.
She’s got so many questions, though, she doesn’t even know where to start. When is he? What’s he doing? Is it sheer fluke that they’ve been able to communicate with each other today? If she’d come another day, would it have been someone else whose voice she’d heard, someone in a completely different time?
And why is this happening? Most of all, though she dreads even thinking about it, is it dangerous to the fabric of time and space? To the universe?
“Rose?” He’s calling her again. She drops down by the point where his voice is clearest. “Look, something’s come up. I’ve gotta -”
She’s almost ready to weep - to have found this, found Jack, and then lose him again so soon - but she keeps it together. “All right. ‘S been great talking to you, Jack. I...” She’s hesitating, but then remembers all those missed opportunities before, and the years she thought he was dead. “Love -”
He’s cutting across her; he probably didn’t even hear it. “Can you come back later? I can have them out of here by around eight tonight. That’s five hours. We can talk all night if you want,” he says, and there’s almost embarrassed humour in his voice.
As long as this communication port, or whatever it is, is still operational later. Jack’s obviously assuming it will be.
Five hours... She checks her watch. It’s just after three. Same time, then. “Yeah. Yeah, I can be here.” Before he can run off, she asks - she really wants to know - “What are you doing, Jack? Who are these people you’re working with?”
“My team.” He’s sounding distracted now, and she really should let him go. “Torchwood.” Her jaw almost falls open, and she’s about to comment on the coincidence when he adds, as if he’s desperate to get the words out, “I know what they did to the Doctor. To you. But it’s different, I swear. I am Torchwood these days. It’s nothing like that. We protect the Earth. Us and UNIT. The Doctor... he’s okay with it. Even helps us sometimes, just like we help him.”
She’d swear he’s actually looking for her approval. Was it like that with the Doctor? Did he give Jack a hard time over it? “That’s great,” she tells him immediately. “Can’t think of a better person for the job. And - you better go,” she reminds him. “But, just so you know, I work for Torchwood too. Here.”
“You do?” He sounds pleased, even proud. “Bet you’re practically running the place. They’re lucky to have you. And, yeah, I have to go. Later.”
He’s gone then; she’s left with the sound of pounding footsteps and then silence.
***
Lucky to have her? She muses on that as she steps outside into the daylight. Quite a few people in Torchwood senior ranks, both at her level and the few above her, would argue with that. Not just that she’s argumentative, that her attitude to aliens is less one of shoot on sight and more one of let’s see what they want first. But, also, to many people she’s an embarrassing secret. They don’t know how to explain her, and that scares them. Is she an experiment gone wrong? Is she even human? Some of the wilder stories she’s heard around Torchwood Tower suggest that she’s alien, or even that she’s a cyborg.
While Pete was still around - and Mickey, of course - she was accepted, even valued for her experience and instincts. Now, though, things have changed, but even though she’s been tempted at times to resign she knows she can still make a difference. Is making a difference. And she’s senior enough to have an impact. Even those who distrust her fear her - her authority as well as what most people refer to as her ‘special gifts’.
But Jack. She’s just been talking to Jack and she’s still pinching herself. She, who’s seen a man burn up and change into a completely different person, who’s seen worlds burn and planets born and seen the stars and the other end of the universe, and seen aliens and monsters and talking trees and met famous people who were dead and buried long before she was born... she’s just been talking to a man who’s in a completely different universe and it’s unbelievable. Amazing.
Hard to believe she can talk to him again later. Well, if whatever glitch or disturbance or whatever it is that’s allowing them to talk across the Void still works. It will. It has to.
***
She’s back an hour later with a folding chair, a flask of coffee and a bag of doughnuts. Sitting on that floor was cold and uncomfortable, and she’s planning on being here as long as she can - as long as Jack’s free to talk to her. He said eight, and she’s early, but they still haven’t really synchronised time between their two universes, not properly, and she’s not taking chances on five hours for him being two for her.
At twenty past eight, she’s still waiting. She’s spent the time in between reading, pacing, thinking, even going out for more coffee, and now for the past half-hour calling Jack’s name from time to time. But there’s only silence.
Maybe it was just a one-off. Maybe there are only certain times that the Rift allows communication. And maybe those few minutes earlier are all she’s ever going to get.
“Rose? Rose!”
Weak with relief, she calls back, “I’m here!”
There’s relief in his own voice, as well as apology, when he says, “Sorry, couldn’t get away sooner. And then I wasn’t even sure this’d still work.”
It does, but there’s no guarantee that it’ll keep working. There’s so much she wants to ask him about, but... god, she doesn’t even know where to start. Or how. So, instead, they end up talking about trivialities, stuff that barely even matters given all the important stuff. What her job is, what his job is, his team - Jack’s got a team! But then, he always did have great leadership qualities. It’s just that the Doctor was always in charge.
He’s in the middle of a complicated but hilarious story about a time when he and his team got caught naked halfway up a Welsh mountain when she just can’t wait any longer. Who knows how long she’s got, after all?
“D’you know, for the longest time I thought you were dead, Jack? I thought we’d lost you on Satellite Five. I thought the Daleks’d got you. Was only a long time later, after I came over here, that I realised you had to’ve survived. Would you believe, Mum recognised you from a photo I have of the three of us? An’ she told me about seeing you over the years when I was a kid. She said you always wore a long coat, but it was when she described your watch that I realised it had to be after Satellite Five for you.”
She’s about to ask how he survived, how he got to Earth and how he ended up in her childhood, but he interrupts.
“Yeah, that was pretty damn irresponsible of me. I scared the shit out of your mom, and it never even occurred to me what she’d think. I loved seeing you, Rose, but that wasn’t worth the worry I caused Jackie.” He laughs, but it’s without humour. “Just as well I never got around to visiting the Powell Estates with you when the three of us were together. She’d have knocked me flat soon as she saw me.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” She’s having to swallow a lump; even though it’s been ten years now, she still misses her mum so much. Still, Jackie had a good life. The best, after they came to this universe and she got a second chance at happiness with Pete. And, even, a second chance at being a parent.
It’s been fun having a younger brother - a brother twenty-one years younger than her. Jamie’s now married and living in Australia with his family, so they don’t get to see each other very often, but they talk a lot. The other side of the world’s not so bad. Better than a parallel universe, certainly.
Recalling the thread of her conversation with Jack, she adds quickly, “Think Mum liked you in the end. You did save me from a pervert, after all. She was grateful. Said she wished she’d got to know you properly.”
“Think I’d’ve liked that too,” Jack says, and there’s a wistful note in his voice.
“I’ve got to know,” she says immediately, before something else can take over the conversation. “How are you alive? I was sure the Daleks must’ve got you on Satellite Five.”
There’s a pause. Then, slowly, he says, “You don’t know? What did he tell you?”
Oh. She’s not gonna like this, that’s obvious. “He didn’t tell me anything about you. Well, when I said we should go back for you he said you were saving the Earth. But he’d only just regenerated an’ he was sick and two minutes later he crashed the TARDIS. When I thought about it later, an’ the fact that you’d gone off to hold back the Daleks, I thought you must’ve died an’ the Doctor just didn’t know how to tell me.”
Jack doesn’t respond. Deliberately digging, she says, “He must’ve been thrilled to find out you’re alive. Loses far too many people he cares about, he does.”
Again, there’s a pause. There’s a wry note to Jack’s voice when he finally answers. “I wouldn’t say thrilled, exactly.”
“Jack.” He won’t recognise that note in her voice, but then she’s a very different person now from the nineteen-year-old he travelled with. When she uses that voice around Torchwood, men nearly twice her size quake. “Tell me.”
She can almost feel the breath he blows out, even though there’s an entire Void between them. “I did die. You... You do know what you did to the Daleks?”
“Yeah. I remembered some of it, an’ he told me the rest.” Uh-oh. What else did she do that he never told her?
“You also resurrected me.”
As she’s trying to recover from that one, swallowing and steadying herself, he continues. “You wanted me alive. Can’t help but be flattered at that, really. Trouble is, you didn’t work out how alive you wanted me. Well, the Doctor said you just couldn’t control the power you were working with. So... I’m alive, Rose. I’m the Duracell man, I guess. I just keep on going.”
Now her blood’s running cold. “Jack, what year is it for you? And... oh, god... How long’s it been for you since Satellite Five?”
“Always were pretty smart, Rose Tyler.” Jack’s smiling, so it can’t be that bad. Well, it is that bad, but maybe he’s coping better than she sometimes has. “Let’s see. It’s 2061. And, hell, I’ve lost count. Let’s see... when I made it off Satellite Five, I was heading for Earth your time, cause I figured that’s when I’d most likely find the Doctor. But I missed my target. Landed in 1869. I’ve been living in linear time ever since, apart from one year that was a paradox and got undone, but that’s another story.”
God. “That’s... a hundred and ninety-two years!”
“Well, hundred and ninety-three, if we’re being pedantic.” He’s grinning, she can tell, but how does he cope? How many times has he seen friends grow old and die - what the Doctor called the curse of the Time Lords? How many times has he had to move away or change his identity because he can’t explain why he never looks any older?
“So... you’re two hundred and thirty years old now?”
“A mere baby, according to the Doctor.” He laughs. “But you don’t sound shocked, Rose. You come across immortal humans a lot?”
“Just once. Before today, that is,” she says dryly. “But, Jack - I’m sorry. I really am. I had no idea what I was doing.”
“I know you didn’t.” The words are soft, affectionate. “Told you. You wanted me alive. That makes me happy.”
“Makes me happy, too,” she admits. “Jack...”
“Yeah?”
“It’s 2061 here too.”
“Oh?” He sounds mildly curious... and then he gets it. “Soundin’ pretty good for a seventy-five-year-old, Rose.”
“Looking pretty good for one, too,” she retorts. “Still got all my own teeth. The hair’s dyed, but then it always was.”
“You too, huh?”
“Yeah, me too.” Rose Tyler, the never-ageing, never-dying freak of nature. Torchwood’s little secret. Certain elements at Torchwood, once her unique nature was discovered, wanted to lock her up in a lab and run experiment after experiment on her. Pete forbade it, and to this day her interests - her safety - are protected by watertight legal documents with severe penalties. Even though he’s not around to protect her himself any more, he’s made sure that she’s safe.
Although they did make one concession: once a year, she gives a blood sample for analysis. So far, no-one’s been able to find anything to explain her longevity, or her miraculous healing powers.
And Jack too. She did it to Jack; did she do it to herself, too? While she had the Time Vortex inside her, did she just decide that she never wanted to die? Or maybe that the Doctor should never be alone, so she made the two of them immortal so that he’d always have them?
It’s a better explanation than any of the things she’s come up with over the years - including that the Doctor did it to her, which she very quickly decided couldn’t possibly be true.
The Doctor... “Jack, you said he wasn’t exactly pleased to find out you were alive. What do you mean?”
There’s a definite edge to his voice as he says, “Actually, he knew all along that I was alive. He deliberately left me behind on the Game Station. Says I’m wrong. I’m something that shouldn’t exist, a fixed point in time, and it sets his Time Lord hackles on edge. So he ran away.”
What? Horrified, she stares at the point on the floor from where she imagines Jack’s voice is coming. “He did what? He left you behind deliberately?”
“Yeah. Hey, it’s ancient history now,” he adds, with a lightness in his voice that’s too obviously false. “We’ve got past it. He even visits me a couple of times a year. I help him out every once in a while, too. Y’know, friends forgive each other, that’s how it is. Thing is,” he adds slowly, “that was before I knew -”
“That I’m wrong too,” she finishes for him. “An’ he ran away from you, jus’ dumped you like an empty chip-wrapper, but he kept me with him. God, Jack, how could he do that to you?”
***
Jack’s silent for a long while, and not for the first time since this conversation started she wishes she could see his face. He was always good at putting on a front, but over the time she knew him she got good at seeing through it.
Finally, he says, “Who knows? Maybe he thought I could take care of myself and you couldn’t, or he didn’t want to feel he was losing you to me - you remember how dog-in-the-manger he was when I first joined you two. I got nothing.” She can picture his shrug. “I was over it, you know? Made my peace with him a long time ago. But now this - knowing that you’re the same as I am and he didn’t leave you behind... way to feel unwanted.”
“I wanted you,” she tells him, fierceness in her voice. “I missed you every bloody day, Jack. If I’d known you were alive, I’d have made him go back for you.”
“I know. Thanks.” He’s silent again for several seconds, and then, in a completely different tone, says, “So, tell me something. I’ve always wondered, and it’s not like I’m ever gonna get an answer out of him... did you ever manage to get him in the sack?”
Despite her anger, and the disillusionment that’s turning her cold inside, she smiles. “You might be over two hundred, Jack Harkness, but you haven’t changed a bit.”
“You’d be surprised,” he murmurs. “But you haven’t answered my question.” And he’ll push until she does, of course. That’s Jack.
“No. We were never like that.” Somehow, against her will, her eyes drift closed and the memories come flooding back. “Used to think he just didn’t do that kind of thing. Until he did, one time. Then I knew he just didn’t want to do it with me.” She smiles wryly. It was a disappointment at the time, yeah, but at the same time she always knew she’d prefer to keep him as her best mate as long as she could, rather than have him as a lover for a few nights and then lose him.
“What? With someone else? While you were with him?” Jack’s obviously taken aback.
“Yeah. We were trying to save this woman...” No point telling Jack who she was. He’d never let the Doctor hear the end of it. By the sound of things, he does see the Doctor from time to time. “Anyway, he went off with her, an’ when he came back his clothes were messy an’ he had lipstick on his face. Then she died,” she added softly, “and he was devastated.”
There’s a low whistle; it still feels weird to have these sounds, Jack’s voice, coming from nowhere. “He was devastated when he lost you, too. Martha said he never stopped talking about you. Donna said the first time she met him - and that was just after he said goodbye to you on that beach - he almost cried every time he remembered you. And when he told me you were trapped over there I could almost see his hearts breaking. He loved you, Rose. If you never knew that - well, you should’ve.”
Oh, she did, of course. Though it’s good to hear it, even if it is too late. Altogether too late.
“God, I’m an idiot!” She can almost see Jack slapping himself in the forehead. “I can call him! He set that up years ago - I can contact the TARDIS if I need him. Stupid - there I am, talking away, when you could be talking to him instead.”
“No!” Her answer’s sharper than she intended - but it’s the right answer. She can’t talk to him. Not now. “I’m... angry with him now, Jack. For what he did to you. If he came now - it wouldn’t be pretty.” She sighs. “Later, maybe I’ll be ready. For now... well, if this is all I can ever have, it’s enough. Never thought I’d get to talk to you again, Jack.”
“Me neither, sweetheart,” he says softly.
And then all hell breaks loose.
***
The ground’s shattering beneath her feet. Cracks and fissures spread all around her, like ice cracking and splintering on a pond. There’s a roaring in her ears, and somebody’s shouting.
Diving from her chair, she makes for a corner of the warehouse, beneath some large support beams - there’s no doorway to hide in, but maybe those beams will provide more protection than the open space where she was sitting.
Now the earth’s opening up. The Rift’s calling to her, singing to her, come home, come back, you don’t belong, but it’s not the Rift, is it? Something else, something -
Everything before her eyes turns red, and gold, and then black, and there’s silence.
***
tbc