aibhinn_fics | Fic: Reunited (14/15)

Title: Reunited (14/15)
Author:

aibhinn
Pairings: Jack/Rose, Jack/Ten, Jack/Ten/Rose, Ten/Rose
Rating: PG-13.
Spoilers: Doctor Who through "Doomsday", Torchwood through "End of Days".
Summary: The Rift is much more active than it was, and has been disgorging aliens and out-of-time people at an alarming rate… including one person Jack never expected to see again.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Everything belongs to Auntie Beeb. I'm stuck here on the far side of the wrong continent, playing in her sandbox.
Betas:

rabid1st,

dark_aegis,

wendymr,

joely_jo,

larielromeniel, and

sensiblecat—all of whom are AWESOME.
Author's note: This chapter took a week longer than it might have because my betas thwapped me upside the head and said, "THIS ISN'T RIGHT!" Which, of course, is their job. So no apologies for the delay—the chapter's loads better than it would've been without them! Also, the line 'you are the dimmest intelligent man I've ever met' is a tribute to a marvellous novel by Pamela Dean, called Tam Lin. Read it, if you've got a chance; it comes highly recommended.

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X | Part XI | Part XII | Part XIII | Part XV

While his body sat in the SUV being driven back to Cardiff, the Doctor's consciousness walked carefully down what appeared to be a hallway lined with doors. At least, that was the image his brain was using to describe what he was actually doing: slipping into Rose's mind.

There had been a time when he'd entered Rose's mind without a qualm, but that was when they'd been lovers and she'd given him her permission. Strictly speaking, that permission had never been revoked, but he was honest enough with himself to know damn good and well that this was an invasion of privacy. It had been more than sixty years by her personal timeline since they'd been together—according to Jack, at least, and it was the 'feel' he got from her mind as well—and, no matter how pleased to see him she'd been, it was wrong of him to assume that she'd allow him in again.

But he didn't have a choice; he had to find out what had happened to her and, to do that, he had to go straight to the source.

He had to talk to the Bad Wolf.

The doors along here were mostly shut—things that Rose wanted to keep private for whatever reason. Some of them were cracked open, some were standing wide, but the Doctor very carefully did not look into them. His presence here was purely a fact-finding mission, he told himself. He didn't have permission to look into any of these doors, no matter how much he wanted to. He was no longer Rose's lover, no longer the one who slid into her mind as easily as he had into her body, sharing emotions in a synergystic loop that had transcended anything he'd ever experienced before, even with his own people. He was here as a guest—maybe even an unwanted guest.

"Never unwanted. You're a good man, Doctor."

The voice came from behind him. He whirled, automatically reaching into his pocket for a sonic screwdriver that wasn't there. He withdrew his hand from his pocket slowly, and forced himself to look into the gold-and-brown eyes of the Bad Wolf in Rose's form. As when they'd faced the Time Wraiths, all the memories of that moment on Satellite Five came rushing back to him—the horror of what he was about to do to the earth; the bone-crushing guilt of having done the same thing to his own people; the relief of having finally given up, waiting for the final gift of extermination like the coward he was….

The Bad Wolf smiled. "I was there during the war," she said gently. "Or part of me was. I saw what you did, and I saw what would have been if you hadn't. You committed an atrocity to prevent a greater atrocity."

"Is that meant to make me feel better?" he snapped, then shook his head. "Sorry. That's not what I'm here for."

"I know," she said. "And no, it's not going to make you feel any better, because you are a good man. Anyone who wasn't would not feel the guilt and anguish that you feel. You know this as well as I."

The Doctor ran a hand through his hair. He needed to get this conversation back on track. "What've you done to Rose?"

"Exhausted her body," the Bad Wolf said, still in that gentle voice with the slightly ethereal quality to it—almost as he imagined the TARDIS would sound, were she able to speak. "Otherwise, she is unharmed. As you can see." She raised a hand, indicating the doors around them. "Were she seriously injured or ill, all of these would be open because her barriers would be down."

That was true. The Doctor eyed a closed door and one beside it that was just cracked open, and nodded.

"So we leave her to wake on her own." Disappointment flooded him. He wanted—no, needed—her to wake. He needed to look into her eyes and know they were hers, not hijacked by a being who was using her body as a vehicle. He needed to finish the sentence he'd left unsaid on that beach because he'd been too afraid to let the words come out of his mouth.

The image of Jack flashed before his eyes, and his mouth tightened. But was she interested in hearing those words any more? Sixty years was a lifetime to a human. How much had changed?

The Bad Wolf cocked her head to the side consideringly. "Yes, we let her wake on her own. It may take several hours, but she will be all right." After a moment, she added, "Perhaps some intravenous fluids would not go amiss. The power I hold was not intended to be wielded by a human body; she may be slightly dehydrated."

"Yes," he agreed, quickly seizing on something familiar and practical he could do. "I'll put in an IV line. But…." He narrowed his eyes. "What are you doing in her in the first place? And what gave you the right to take over her body like that?"

The Bad Wolf's eyes widened slightly in surprise. "I am here to protect Rose, of course," she said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "And she gave me permission to take over so that I might banish the Time Wraiths. I was the only being that could except for the TARDIS herself, and she was too far away."

"She let you in? You mean she knows you're here?"

"She does now," the Bad Wolf confirmed with that otherworldly calm. "Though she did not for many years. She thought I was a dream-figment, a remnant of her experience on Satellite Five when saving you and Jack, but throughout her time in the parallel universe, I was protecting her from the effects of her existence there. There was never meant to be a Rose Tyler in that universe, and her presence would have caused great strain on the fabric of the space-time continuum were it not for me. It would have warped, if not torn outright, and you know the consequences of that."

He stared, though the logical centres of his brain told him he shouldn't have been so shocked. He'd been to Pete's universe, had seen the Tyler family before Cybus Industries had turned everything upside-down. Alternate Mickey, alternate Pete, alternate Jackie—but no alternate Rose. No human Rose, that was; somehow he couldn't see the glorious, vibrant, courageous, compassionate woman he'd known fitting into the space created by a terrier. How had he gone all this time without realising the strain her presence would create?

Easily enough, if he was honest with himself. He'd not wanted to think about the problems Rose might be having. Once the reality of her absence had begun to sink in, it had hurt more than anything he'd ever experienced before. The only way to make it bearable was to believe that she'd be happy there—that she could leave her life with him in the past and create a fantastic new life with Mickey and her family. Yet one more thing to feel guilty about.

Again, the Bad Wolf answered his unspoken thought. "You needn't blame yourself. Her life was fantastic by anyone's standards. Two marriages, an exciting job, her little sister and, later, her nieces and nephews."

"Two marriages," he repeated, wondering how that ought to make him feel.

"Yes." The Bad Wolf smiled sympathetically. "She didn't forget you any more than you forgot her. But she moved on. Would you like to see more?"

He wasn't sure if he could answer that. He knew "yes" was the right reply, but he wasn’t sure it was the truthful one. He'd spent several lifetimes running headlong into danger. Why did his courage fail him now?

The door in front of the Doctor suddenly swung wide open. He saw Rose in a cream-coloured wedding gown, laughing with a handsome young man in a morning suit. The laughter subsided into the type of devoted, almost sappy look common to just-married couples. The Doctor felt a stab of unreasoning jealousy and looked away, swallowing.

"Her first husband, Don," the Bad Wolf told him. "But it didn't last long."

Another door opened, and the Doctor found he couldn't look away though he knew he really should. There was Rose, still looking as youthful as ever, leaning on Mickey (who was clearly in his thirties) and sobbing. Before her was an open casket, and in the casket was her husband. The jealousy in the Doctor's hearts subsided into compassion. "How did he die?" he asked.

"A heart attack at age 31. Genetics, of course; a predisposition to blood clots that no-one knew about. If he'd been among other people they might have been able to save him, but he was working late and no-one else was nearby. He died alone, and Rose has never forgiven herself."

The Doctor watched Rose clinging to Mickey, fighting with himself over eavesdropping on her memories and trying not to think about how much he wanted to be the one holding her, comforting her. He should turn away. And yet, if Rose didn't want him to see these things, she could refuse. Not even the power of the Time Vortex could force a strong mind to give up its secrets without permission; the fact that he could see them meant that she wanted him to. And beyond that, he was finally admitting to himself how much he wanted to know about Rose's life without him.

The doors continued to open along the corridor, and as he looked into her memories, the Doctor found himself more and more amazed at what his Rose was capable of. Her job at Torchwood; her later marriage to Mickey; their fruitless attempts to have a child; Rose's horror when she finally realised she wasn't aging; Mickey's mixed shock and relief when she came back from the dead for the first time; the deaths of her parents; Mickey's diagnosis of Alzheimer's Disease; hours spent every night with a husband who no longer recognised her; the desperate, aching love in her eyes as she watched him declining; nights spent in wracking sobs curled up in the bedroom that she'd shared with two different men who'd each left her alone—

The Doctor swallowed with difficulty around the lump in his throat. She'd been as alone as he was; she wasn't exactly human anymore, and there was no-one in Pete's universe who was like her. She didn't even have a TARDIS to bond with. And worst of all, she knew he was out there; knew there was another person who'd lived as she was living, who was all but immortal and had watched everything he'd loved die, who was the only one like himself in existence, just as she was…and she couldn't get to him. Impossible, she'd been told. Could destroy two universes. And so all she could do was keep going, day after long, impossible day….

"But all was not lost," the Bad Wolf told him, turning him to face the other side of the corridor. "Look."

The scene changed to a back alley, and the Doctor watched as the commercial wheelie bin was rolled away and Rose saw Jack, limned in orange street light. His hearts clenched at how horribly thin she was, almost gaunt, as though she'd been starved nearly to death. Thank God Jack was there to find her. "How did she get to this Universe?" he asked.

"Through the Rift, with my help," the Bad Wolf said. "She's not quite ready to face the memories of the time she spent there, though." She indicated the five or six closed doors beside them. "I could not control the other beings that had fallen through, nor could I protect her completely from the Rift's effects, but I could and did guide her to an escape close to Jack, in a place and time when he'd be able to track her and find her quickly."

Motion from a neighbouring open door caught his eye, and he looked over. Suddenly he wasn't listening any more. In a room that looked like it belonged in a cheap hotel, Rose and Jack lay entwined on a bed, naked and sweaty, in the midst of making love. Rose's legs were wrapped around Jack's waist and, as the Doctor watched, she arched, baring her throat. Jack bent to kiss and nip at the exposed flesh, and she groaned, stroking her hands up his bare back to twine in his hair.

A dozen different emotions shot through the Doctor's brain and pooled between his hearts, including hurt, lust, jealousy, longing, and a deep, unutterable loneliness. He turned away once more, looking up towards the 'ceiling' and shoving his hands into his pockets, blowing out a pained breath and trying to get himself under control. She's not alone any more, he told himself firmly, blinking away the prickling sensation in his eyes. She's found Jack, the only other person in the universe who's as immortal as she, and for the same reasons. They were always close, after all, and now she's got exactly what she needs. She won't need me.

"Doctor," the Bad Wolf said with some exasperation, "you are the dimmest intelligent man I've ever met." She took him by the arm, ignoring the startled look he gave her, and shoved him back down the corridor the way he'd come.

The world turned white.

***

"Doctor? Doctor!"

Jack saw the Doctor blink and open his eyes, and stepped back, leaving him some space. "We're here," Jack said. "Let's get her into the TARDIS."

The Doctor immediately turned to look at Rose again, stroking his hand over her pale cheek. Jack looked away, swallowing. All the brave words he'd thought on the drive back paled when he saw the way the Doctor looked at her. All those years of hopelessness and loneliness—the memory of having been separated so unfairly by the idiots at Torchwood One and their interference with the Void—all of that had to be swimming through his brain, along with the fear of losing her when he'd just found her again. Jack at least had had the last few months with her; the Doctor hadn't even had that.

And, really, why would Rose stay with him when she could travel the universe with the Doctor?

The Doctor turned back to him. "She's all right," he said in a slightly unsteady voice. "She just needs to rest, that's all. We don't need to take her to the sickbay; we'll just put her to bed."

We'll just put her to bed? Jack blinked. We?

"Why don't you carry her?" the Doctor went on, apparently oblivious to Jack's sudden shock at his inclusion. "I'll show you where to go; the TARDIS has done some reconfiguring since you've been aboard."

It took a minute for Jack to recover from his shock enough to move. The Doctor was letting him carry Rose? Disbelieving, he shot a look at the Doctor, who just nodded and slid out of the car, leaving room for Jack to get to her. Still bemused, and trying not to think too hard about what all this might mean, Jack half-crawled into the SUV, one knee on the seat, and pulled Rose out easily, lifting her in his arms as though she weighed no more than a child.

Off to the side, Gwen was holding a fire door open. The Doctor went through and Jack followed him, trying to work out just exactly how he should broach the subject of his feelings for them both. If it had been an elephant in the TARDIS when Jack had travelled with him before—and it had been, he had to admit—it was a mammoth now.

Years of pain and betrayal between himself and the Doctor had created what seemed an insurmountable barrier between them, despite the joyous reunion of—was it only a few hours ago?—and the way they'd worked together to get Rose back. Consequently, Jack wasn't sure exactly what sort of reaction he'd get. The Doctor was already aware there had been a relationship between him and Rose, and had probably assumed immediately (and rightly) that they were lovers. Had he also assumed that they wanted him as nothing more than a friend?

Probably, Jack admitted to himself. Though the Doctor and Rose had themselves been lovers before the Battle of Canary Wharf, that was more than sixty years in Rose's past and who knew how many in the Doctor's. A Time Lord would know better than to assume a relationship would continue after years of separation—hell, even humans of this time knew better than that.

So how to convince him that they wanted him to be with them?

The familiar blue bulk of the TARDIS was just around the corner. The Doctor unlocked the door and held it open. Jack sent an apologetic glance at Gwen, and she nodded, hanging back as he carried Rose inside. He felt a surge of gratitude. Gwen was better at interpreting silent relationship signals than any other member of the team except perhaps Ianto, and she understood that there were things that needed to be said among the three of them. She might even have an idea what those things were; she was remarkably perceptive at times.

The Doctor closed the door behind them and led Jack below decks, past the 'public' areas (galley, lounge, sickbay) and the spots where Rose's and Jack's rooms had been, farther into the depths of the ship than Jack had ever been. The walk seemed interminable, but it was probably no more than a few minutes before they stopped at a door. The Doctor went in, holding the door, and Jack followed, slipping in sideways to get Rose through.

It was a sparsely-furnished room, nothing in it but a straight-backed wooden chair and a dressing table. Instead of a bed, there was a sunken section of floor, about a foot below the rest of the room, containing what looked like an enormous mattress of some sort—something like a futon—covered in a deep brown duvet. The unusual sleeping space, combined with the array of spare parts on the dressing table and the familiar vaguely-Celtic figure-of-eight symbol on the only wall hanging, told Jack exactly whose room this was.

He took us to his room, he thought numbly. Not Rose's room, not my room, not some spare room—his room.

But—did he take us here, or did he take her?

The Doctor was watching, so Jack carefully toed off his shoes—it only seemed polite when he was going to have to stand on the man's bed—and stepped cautiously down onto the mattress. It gave a bit, but not enough to overbalance him, and he sank carefully to his knees so he could lay Rose down. Her blonde hair spread out on the pillow, it and her fair skin providing a stark contrast to the sombre brown of the bedding. He arranged her limbs so she looked more comfortable and smoothed her hair tenderly, watching her face for any signs of waking.

"I wouldn't think she'd be out for too much longer," the Doctor said from just behind Jack. He felt the mattress shift as the Time Lord stepped down, and when he glanced back, the Doctor was sitting on the raised edge of the bed, sonic screwdriver in hand. He played the beam over Rose's inert form. "Yes—she's gone from being passed out to being asleep. She'll wake soon, I think." He paused, thinking. "I might have an IV line somewhere, but if she wakes soon enough, we can just make sure she drinks enough water. She should be all right."

"Good," Jack said. He touched her cheek again, then reached back to put his hands on the edge of the bed and shifted himself backward to sit beside the Doctor. "What happened to knock her out?"

"Oh, just exhaustion." A corner of the Doctor's mouth quirked upward in a not-quite smile. "I had a little talk with the Bad Wolf in Rose's clothing."

"You talked to her?" Jack turned to face the Doctor, suddenly focused on something other than Rose's form. "What did she—it—say?"

"'She' is probably the most accurate term," the Doctor said in an oddly clinical tone that immediately set off alarm bells in Jack's head. "If I had to guess, the Bad Wolf is a combination of the Vortex, the TARDIS, and Rose herself. She certainly had permission to be in Rose's memories." The Doctor paused, still looking down at the still blonde form. "And to show some of them to me."

"You saw into her memories?"

"A few. Mostly her life in the other world—her weddings, her job, her family."

Jack was starting to get an idea why the Doctor couldn't seem to meet his gaze. "But some were from after she came through the Rift, right?" he asked.

"Yeah." The syllable was short, clipped, with a suspicious thickness to it. He turned his head, looking away from Jack.

"Doctor," Jack said gently, "go ahead and say it." Maybe if it was out in the open, it would provide an opening. At least, he hoped so. Talking about his emotions was never a skill he'd mastered, but he didn't dare fail here.

"Say what?" In one of his mercurial changes of mood, the Doctor bounced to his feet, but without the lightness that Jack had already come to figure was part of his character in this body; there was an odd heaviness to it, as though something were weighing him down. "I fancy a cuppa. What about you? Or some coffee? I've got some of the best coffee ever grown in the freezer in the galley. Keep it for special occasions, and what's more special than this, eh? The old team together again."

Jack rose as well, following the Doctor with his eyes as he crossed the room. "Doctor," he said again.

"Really, it's amazing stuff. Not as good as tea, mind you, but I bought it a couple of lifetimes ago when I had a real palate for coffee. Two creams, one sugar, right? I'll just pop down the hall, won't take a minute—"

"Doctor," Jack said a third time, more forcefully.

The Doctor paused, frozen in place like the waves on Woman Wept. His expression was suddenly hunted. "What?" he asked, clearly attempting nonchalance.

Jack took a deep breath. "We need to talk," he said. "About you, and me, and Rose."

The Doctor's face broke into a huge grin that Jack might have taken for real if he hadn't known better. "Ah, plenty of time for that! Come on, if you won't take the coffee, a nice cuppa will do you wonders. Brought me out of regeneration sickness, that did. 'Course, it was Jackie Tyler's tea, so it probably would have woken nearly anyone up from anything. Cure comas, that tea will. Spoons stand straight up in it. Not sure if it's the sugar or if it's her own unique way of steeping the stuff, but it did save the world. Not something you can often say about tea, you know."

Jack nearly lost patience and grabbed hold of him, but a soft voice from behind him made him stop.

"You never stop talking, do you, Doctor?"

Jack swung around to see Rose lying there, eyes foggy with sleep but smiling. He grinned and dropped to his knees beside her, reaching down to pull her into a tight, tight embrace. She returned it, resting her forehead against the side of his throat. "Welcome back," he said into her hair.

"Thanks." She pulled back and kissed him, a soft, warm kiss that promised other things and was filled with joy and love. She grinned at him. "So we all got rescued this time!" she said, teasing.

"Yep. Bad Wolf to the rescue again." He grinned back. "What do you think, Doctor? Should we—"

He stopped. The room was empty, the door standing open in mute reproach.

The Doctor was gone.