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Universal Realignment
“We’ve got an alert!” the Doctor announced, halting their progress through time with a twist of the hand. Then he sprang into action, setting a tracer on the anomalous energy signature. He turned the monitor toward himself and crowed in delight. This one, he recognised – this one had real promise. He hadn’t done something like this in ages.
“What is it?” Martha shouted over the sounds of the TARDIS kicking into gear.
“Everything you could ever ask for,” the Doctor said. “Jack, work that vortex loop control as hard as you can!”
“Not a problem,” Jack said, and the Doctor could see him glancing over at the monitor, though he wouldn’t have any luck working out what it said. “Any clues on where we’re going?”
“We’ll know when we get there,” the Doctor said and then he called out more instructions over the console, smiling to himself as Jack showed that he still remembered where everything was.
The ride got bumpier and Martha shimmied out of the Doctor’s way when he reached to pull up one of the levers right in front of her.
Finally, they started slowing down and the Doctor could see their destination coordinates blinking up on the monitor. They were somewhere he’d been before, somewhere he knew.
“Next stop, Galtia Six,” the Doctor said, firmly shifting the dimensional stabiliser to a higher frequency level – they’d need that. Jack was standing on the other side of the console, twisting the polarity count down to minimal levels, while Martha clung to the side of the railing as the ship steadied. “Or, as the natives once called it -- Jat’ica.”
“Sounds like fun,” Martha said, with a wide smile and bright eyes.
“It’s a lizard hunt,” the Doctor said, grinning back at her. Martha’s face fell. “We’re here to get some contrary beasties out of this dimension before they start making Tuesday happen on Sunday.”
“There are lizards that can do that?” Martha asked.
“Not just any old lizards,” the Doctor said, double-checking the monitor to make certain that they’d tracked down the right energy signature. “We’ll be hunting down some Olpanilicks.”
“Aren’t they…?” Jack asked.
“They are,” the Doctor confirmed.
“What?” Martha asked.
“They’re transdimensional,” Jack said. “That’s why they’re causing so many problems. Am I right, Doctor?”
“Give the man a chocolate star,” the Doctor said. “Olpanilicks are wanderers of the dimensions. I thought they were extinct, to be honest, but they were just somewhere that I couldn’t see. And now they’re here, bringing in all sorts of exotic matter that really doesn’t belong.”
“So, we’re sending them home?” Martha asked.
“What home? They live through their family unit. They’re not intelligent, not strictly speaking, but they’re loyal. Can’t smell, can’t hear, can’t see, can’t taste anything but energy. Humans and other lifeforms are, luckily enough, incompatible energy. They’ve no interest in you, which makes them fairly well unique,” the Doctor said. Olpanilicks! They’d actually survived. If that energy signature weren’t entirely, utterly unique, he might have doubted himself, but as it was there simply wasn’t any question. “They just want enough power to travel on with their family. Understandable enough, given their circumstances. Oh, no, Martha, we’re not sending them home – we’re sending them to journey on, into universes where they’ll cause fewer problems.”
“Always something new with you, Doctor,” Martha said. “Suppose this means that I should change into something more appropriate.”
“Is there something wrong with what you’ve got on?” the Doctor asked, patting his pockets to make sure he had everything he needed.
“She’s wearing a skirt,” Jack pointed out. “Probably because you said our last trip together should be something fun, like a party on Maurix during their fourth Kipo dynasty.”
The Doctor glanced over at Martha – she was wearing a skirt, look at that. All dark red and fitted. Plus, she had on all sorts of jewellery – was that normal? The Doctor tried to recall if Martha used to wear any, before the year that hadn't happened, and came up with a big blank space.
Well, she probably wanted to impress Jack and hadn’t realised that Jack didn’t need bobs and slinky skirts. All Jack needed was a pulse – no, hang on, Jack didn’t really seem to need one of those either, now that he thought about it. The ability to say ‘yes’ was perhaps the key ingredient.
“Oh. Well, I can see where that might be a problem,” the Doctor said. “Right, then, go on and get changed. We’ll wait for you.”
Martha smiled at him and the Doctor smiled back happily, and then she skittered off towards the wardrobe room.
“She’s lovely,” Jack said.
“Very sweet,” the Doctor agreed. “Good to have around in a crisis.”
“That’s… not exactly what I meant,” Jack said.
“Right, of course,” the Doctor said, feeling a little like an idiot. He’d just been thinking about Jack and Martha together and then completely missed a hint. “It’s not as though you need my permission. Just don’t ask her while we’re in the middle of something.”
“I seemed to need it last time,” Jack said. The Doctor locked eyes with him, and Jack was actually serious.
“Jack, I’m not… the situations aren’t similar in the slightest,” the Doctor said. “Martha’s my friend – if you two want to have fun during non-hostile conditions, what business is it of mine?”
“We really need to have that talk someday,” Jack said, which seemed a bit of a non sequitur.
“Which one?” the Doctor asked. “I can’t fix you, Jack. And if you want to talk about… about Rose, I already told you what happened to her.”
“I get the feeling that you didn’t tell me everything,” Jack said.
Jack was fun to have around, truly he was, but he could be annoyingly persistent. Rose was never going to be here again and talking about her all the time wouldn’t change that.
Best to move on with their lives.
“That’s not what I’m talking about, though,” Jack said. “We need to have a conversation about Martha.”
“Oh. We do? Don’t you think she’s grand?” the Doctor asked. “I thought teaming up with her was a nice bit of luck.”
“I like her just fine,” Jack said. “My feelings have nothing to do with it.”
“Doesn’t she like you?” the Doctor asked. “I could have sworn that she did. Would have staked money on it. Guess it’s good that I didn’t. Mind you, not sure who I’d have made the bet with, as the two of you have conflicts of interest.”
“I’m sure that she likes me fine,” Jack said. “I’m talking about the reason she was wearing a skirt.”
“Maurix? We can probably still go there when this is all over,” the Doctor said. “And you can dance with her all you like.”
“I don’t want to step on any toes, that’s all,” Jack said, spreading his hands.
“Ah. Oh. No need to worry about that,” the Doctor said, grabbing his coat from the pilot’s chair and sliding it on. “She only goes for humans. Told me so herself. You’ve got a clear field, if you can convince her that you’re worth the time.”
“And you’ve got no objections?” Jack said.
“None,” the Doctor said, wondering how many times Jack was going to make him say it. “As long as you don’t have sex on the console – and don’t, by the way – it isn’t anything to do with me.”
Martha clattered back into the room, wearing trousers now, and Jack seemed to decide that it was a good time to shut up.
“So, Galtia Six,” Martha said. “What do I need to know?”
“Not much. We’re not here to do any sight-seeing and there shouldn’t be a civilisation about, at least not any more,” the Doctor said. “Actually, it’s quite boring, Galtia Six. Big, dead planet. Breathable atmosphere, plenty of vegetation, but no leap to animal life, at least not yet, and the plants haven’t shown any sign of sentience. It’s pretty enough, I suppose, but it won’t do for a holiday.”
“Wait just a minute,” Martha said. “There was a civilisation here before, but now there’s just plants?”
“Big catastrophe,” the Doctor said. “Their own fault. They irradiated the capital and then the rest moved off-world to keep from dying. No one ever came back. I’d say it was a loss for the galaxy, but considering that they were trying to build a weapon to invade Galtia Four, it’d be hard to argue that point.”
“Well, you don’t have to sound so cheerful about it,” Martha said. “You could have some sympathy.”
“They overreached themselves – decided that they should be the sole arbitrators of right and good,” the Doctor said. “I’m not saying that they deserved to die and I’m not saying that I didn’t try to save them, but it’s not as if it was the planet of sunshine and rainbows.”
“When did this happen?” Jack asked.
“For them, about… three hundred years ago, give or take,” the Doctor said. “For me… well, that’s actually what I was doing a month before I met Martha. Trying to save the Galtia Skaions. Useless, really. Some people can’t be saved.”
“I won’t believe that,” Martha said. The Doctor looked over at her, a warm feeling creeping into his bones.
“Oh, humans,” he said, fondly. “Don’t let go of that belief, Martha. That relentless optimistic faith that the best of you have, no matter how bad things get, is more precious than you can possibly imagine.”
Martha flushed and looked away, and Jack was looking… angry, of all things.
Really, all he did was compliment their species. A little appreciation back didn’t seem like too much to ask. Just one small word, ‘thanks’, but they were too busy being odd and emotional to say it.
He’d never understand them.
“Right, here we go,” he said. “Galtia Six. Watch your hands and feet as you exit the TARDIS, look both ways before crossing the street, remember that any alien life out there is more afraid of me than you are of it, and don’t forget to tip your waiter.”
Martha was smiling again at the end of his ramble, which marked that as a qualified success.
“So, these lizards – do they just look like lizards?” Martha asked.
“Oh, they look like your garden-variety lizard – green, vaguely spotted, long tail,” the Doctor said. “Only they’re about three feet tall, and they can paralyse you with a glance.”
“What?”
“Didn’t I mention that?”
“Not in so many words,” Martha said. “We’re hunting something that can paralyse us?”
“It wears off,” the Doctor pointed out. “And it’s not as though they do it on purpose – it’s just what happens when they expel their excess energy. They absorb energy, expel and paralyse, and then travel on to a new universe. It’s really quite brilliant.”
Jack glanced over at them, a smile finally tugging at the corner of his mouth, and then he opened the door, cautiously checking out what lay outside.
“We’re in a building,” Jack announced. “I think we’re blocking a hallway – it doesn’t look like there’s any room on either side of us.”
“Another expert parking job,” the Doctor said, reaching down to flip a switch that would mask the TARDIS’s radiation from the Olpanilicks. “Come on, then – time to go hunting. No point standing around here all day, yapping off our ears.”
Once outside, the Doctor could see that Jack was right – they were in one of the many dead buildings of Galtia Six. Abandoned for centuries, but still standing. In fact, judging by the architecture, they might even be in the same building where he'd been held prisoner.
One of his more miserable stints in prison, all things considered. Even more so because he’d had no company – just him, trying to argue some sense into people who wouldn’t listen, trapped in a city with a name that had struck him as a particularly sick joke on the part of the universe.
It didn't feel much better this time around.
He was trying to move on – he’d got a new suit and shoes, saved a few planets and the Earth a couple of times over, and he’d even got a brand new travelling companion. Martha Jones, medical student and brilliant asker of questions. Probably beautiful, judging by reactions from Shakespeare and Jack and a dozen other blokes. Definitely fun and very useful to have around when he nearly died, which seemed to be happening a lot recently.
He didn’t need to be standing in bloody J’arunp ‘k Y’narl Riif, thinking about something impossibly far away.
“Now, we should be fairly close to where the Olpanilicks entered our universe, but I didn’t want to put us right on top of them, so there’s still some searching to do,” the Doctor said, reaching into his pocket for supplies. “Martha, Jack: you might need these.”
He handed each of them a small hand mirror and then started down the corridor. Definitely Galtia Six – he’d have known that even if the TARDIS hadn’t said so – the tall pointed ceiling of the hallway, the way the paint had oozed down the walls as a result of the j’run radiation, the complicated sexagesimal windows that just showed more hallways, the soft ambient ever-glow lights that really had lived up to their name, one of their classic lop-sided staircases up ahead; it was all very familiar to him.
“Are you trying to tell us that they’re so ugly we can scare them away with their own reflections?” Martha asked, smirking.
The Doctor sighed, his momentum ruined. He glared at Martha for a bit, but she kept on looking terribly amused by herself, so he gave it up as a bad job and went on with his explanation. “The mirror will give you some protection against the paralytic. Just hold it up if you see an Olpanilick and you’ll probably be fine.”
“And ‘probably’ never gets us into trouble,” Martha said, giving her mirror a suspicious glance.
“We’re not dead yet,” the Doctor said as he pulled out his sonic screwdriver and started adjusting it.
“Not all of us, anyway,” Jack said. He was smiling when the Doctor looked at him, but there was a truth in his words that implied that they probably did need to have a talk of some kind. Jack deserved more of an explanation than the Doctor had been able to give him… or at least a better reason why the Doctor couldn’t tell him more.
In due time, they reached the stairway that the Doctor had spotted from the TARDIS – it spiralled into the walls in five different directions, complicated and inefficient as the people who’d made it.
“What now?” Martha asked.
“I’m not picking up anything,” Jack announced, after messing about with his wristband. “Doctor, which way should we go?”
“Let’s split up,” the Doctor said cheerfully, pulling out his sonic screwdriver and tuning it to pick up the right sort of exotic matter trail. “Jack – take the upward right; Martha – take the middle left.”
“And what about you?” Martha asked.
“Oh, I’ll wander about.” The Doctor waved the retuned screwdriver in Martha’s direction, pursing his lips slightly when the readings were off. “As I said earlier, they aren’t dangerous – just pests, really. I have a few things that I’d like to set up so that I can send them on their merry way.”
“All right, have it your way,” Martha said, heading into the stairwell he'd pointed her toward.
“He usually does,” Jack told her, and the Doctor looked over to see him grinning cheekily. Jack shrugged when he met the Doctor’s eyes, then he turned away and the Doctor sighed, all the words he should say to Jack sticking in his throat.
Then they were gone and he was alone, in the ruins of a civilisation that he hadn’t been able to save. A people too stubborn to admit that an outsider might have insight that they lacked, with leaders unwilling to back down even when their own scientists had told them that the weapon’s stability was questionable. He'd spent weeks screaming at them to save themselves and they'd refused to listen.
The Doctor sat down cross-legged on the stone floor, hauled a transfuse generator out of a pocket, and continued to adjust the settings on his screwdriver.
This, at least, was a problem that he could solve.
.
.
Martha was beginning to regret her shoes. Normally, she could run all over the place in whatever she wanted, but the stairs here were doing a number on her ankles. Add to that the fact that she’d stepped into something disgusting when she’d turned her last corner and she was pretty much done with Galtia Six.
Travelling the galaxy through time and space had been all very nice when it wasn't traumatic, but the Doctor always did seem to pick the dirtiest places to end up. Still, at least this place supplied its own light. She’d tried to figure out just where the lights were for ages before she’d realised that the glow was actually coming from everywhere – that the walls, floor, and ceiling all emitted a low level of light. She leaned up against the wall for a bit of a rest, hoping that the Doctor and Jack were having better luck than she was at finding the… oh, what had the Doctor called them? Olpagilicks? Olpahilicks? Whatever they were called, they'd sounded a bit like basilisks to Martha – lizards that turned people to stone. Like some of the other things she'd seen with the Doctor, the stories got it all wrong, this time made them sound more dangerous than they really were, but the people writing those stories hadn't had the Doctor with them. She shifted a bit on the wall… and then slowly stood up when she saw something glittering on the floor. A shed skin. And that meant that she was headed in the right direction. Martha smiled a bit, feeling a touch of giddiness come over her. She went over and reached out to grab a piece of the glimmering emerald skin, thinking to keep some of it for the Doctor to look over and then she yelped as the slightest touch sliced open her finger. Brilliant. Martha sighed and wished for a thick pair of gloves, then gave it up as a bad job. Besides, the Doctor already knew what the lizards were – there wasn’t a mystery here. She wished she'd thought of that before carving up her hand. She gingerly wiped away the blood and was pleased to see that the cut was quite shallow. She wouldn't even need to wrap it. That settled to her satisfaction, Martha headed down along the hallway, her boot heels clanking loudly on the bare floor – no hearing, no sense of smell, no sight; they wouldn’t know she was coming no matter how obvious she was. She spotted a brighter light coming in through a half-open door at the end of the hallway and she had the feeling that she was close. She burst into the room, prepared to start calling for the Doctor to join her, but stopped short when all she saw was a girl kneeling on the floor, facing half-away from her, her hand hovering just over another pile of shining green scales. “Be careful,” Martha said, rubbing her thumb gently over her cut. “They’re sharp.” “You’re right about that,” the girl said, though ‘woman’ was probably more accurate – she looked older now when Martha had a closer look, maybe a little older than Martha was, and just the slightest bit familiar, though Martha couldn’t place why. If they were at home, Martha would peg her as a South Londoner from the voice, but as it was, she could be from anywhere. “I fell into a patch a few days ago. Cuts all over my hands and legs. I was bleeding for a solid twenty minutes. Got a good yelling at by my doctor.” And sure enough, she was wearing gloves – good thick ones, from the look of them. “She'll be pleased that you're being more careful now,” Martha said absently, taking a moment to check out the room. It was massive, probably twice the size of the main room of the TARDIS, and it was open to the sky – there were enormous round skylights in the ceiling, all with the glass gone. The walls were the same old wood with paint slopped on, like the people making it had expended all their effort on building the walls and then given up when it came to decorating. The sky was an odd lavender shade that she’d never seen before, not even when she was looking through paints and colours for her flat, and the light from it made the woman's hair look nearly the same color. There was a moon up in the sky, only a sliver of a crescent, but still bigger than the moon would ever be at home. There was clearly a sun, too, judging from how bright the sky was, but it wasn’t where she could see it – they were in the morning or the evening, then, of this world. There was another pile of shed skin near a door on the other side of the room – there were three doors over there, plus another dozen scattered on the other five walls. She glanced behind her and saw yet another entrance, to the left of the one that she’d come through. Maybe that one led to where the Doctor was searching. “Do you know where we are?” the woman asked, standing up and brushing off her trousers. She’d gone and put some of the scales in a tube that Martha hadn’t noticed before, and after holding it up to the light, she went and tucked it away in a pocket, taking off her gloves and sticking them into a bag that had been sitting on the other side of her. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not from a planet with two moons.” “There’s two of them?” Martha asked. The woman laughed, something in the way of it making Martha want to smile, too. “You must have missed the other one,” she said. “It went down already. I could only see the edge of it before and I’ve been here at least an hour.” “I’ve been here longer than that, I think.” Though Martha couldn’t really be sure, now that she thought about it – her watch had stopped somewhere between the nineteen century and meeting Captain Jack. She’d never bothered to get it fixed. There hadn't been much point when she wasn’t going to be in the same time from one day to the next. “But I’ve been indoors all that time. This is the first time I’ve seen the sky here.” “Alien skies are the best sort of sky,” the woman said, an odd wistfulness in her voice. “Once, I thought I’d never see another one. And now… I’ll probably never see my own again.” “Oh, you don’t have to worry about that.” Martha hadn’t exactly been given permission to invite people on board, but she couldn’t imagine the Doctor saying no to something like this. “If you need a lift, I can take you home.” “You don’t even know where I’m from.” The woman looked over at Martha, her eyes warm, and Martha flushed slightly, glad that the girl probably wouldn’t be able to notice. “Or when I’m from… I don’t even know if…” “You’re out of your time?” Martha asked. “I don’t know.” She lingered over the words. “I was following these… alien lizards when they went into this bright – it wasn't light, it felt different than light, somehow. I went after them, completely ignoring protocol -- I didn’t even wait for back-up. And then it closed behind me and I couldn’t get back.” “You really have no idea where you are,” Martha said, feeling a wave of sympathy wash over her. Without the Doctor, she’d be as lost as this woman was. “And you haven’t got any friends with you.” “Haven’t needed any so far.” The woman’s body tightened into a defensive line. Then she paused, giving Martha an assessing look, her eyes looking darker, a deeper brown now than the greenish hazel they’d appeared a moment ago. That queer feeling of recognition tugged at Martha again – something about her eyes, something in the way she looked a little more deeply than Martha was comfortable with. “That’s not fair, is it? Not when you’re only trying to help.” “And I can help,” Martha promised, taking a step toward her. “I didn’t get here following the lizards. I’m here on purpose. This friend of mine has a ship. We can take you home, I promise.” “Yeah, but if humans are having space ships, then I’ve got to be out of my time.” She hadn’t moved away from Martha, but she hadn’t warmed up again, either. “And that won’t work out for me… unless you’re a Time Agent. Are you?” “Not exactly, but something similar,” Martha said, noticing that the woman knew about Time Agents but was apparently from before they existed. She was very familiar with time travel, then, despite wanting to go back home to her own time. “We’re not official. We just lark about, trying to help where we can.” “Sounds familiar.” The woman smiled widely. Martha’s breath caught in her throat and she shook her head slightly, because the Doctor had just that smile – huge and manic and not quite real. “All right, I’ll go with you… as soon as we’ve dealt with the lizards. They’re making things go sideways, if that makes sense. I don’t know what they are, but they made all of our instruments go mad. And a couple of our people just… froze in place when they went after them, but only for about twenty minutes at a time, so that part isn’t so bad. Still, they’re a nuisance at best and dangerous at worst, and I haven’t been lucky enough to end up with an ‘at best’ for eight years.” “I wish I could help more. I do know that they’re some kind of transdimensional lizard-like thing,” Martha mused, for once wishing that the Doctor had kept on babbling on about their alien du jour. “The name is right on the tip of my tongue. My friends, they knew all about them, said that they weren’t dangerous, but that they disrupt the universe. Though that sounds dangerous enough to me.” “You aren’t from the same place as your friends,” the woman said. When Martha looked over at her in surprise, she continued, “You talk about them like… like they’re expected to know more than you.” “Yeah, I guess you’re right about that.” Martha rubbed her hands together, not sure how she felt about this stranger seeing that so easily, when Martha hadn’t even noticed. “I’m used to being the smartest person in the room, but when the Doctor’s there-“ “Did you just say the Doctor?” The woman’s face paled, like she was going into shock. “The Doctor. Travels in a blue box that’s-“ “Bigger on the inside,” Martha finished with her. “You’ve met him?” “Met him… I’ve… but he said that there weren’t… and I’d hoped, but we still hadn't managed to make anything to…” After the confused rush of words, the woman fell silent, looking away from Martha. She seemed to be completely stunned; Martha could have knocked her over with a feather. And Martha couldn’t have even begun to catalogue everything that was flickering across her face – there was fear and pain and something that looked like wonder. “Transdimensional lizards.” Her voice was tight, like she couldn’t believe her own words. “You said it. Transdimensional. They travel across dimensions. And I’ve travelled with them. I’m home.” “That doesn’t make any sense,” Martha said, feeling completely lost. “You just said-” “The Doctor’s here. Right in this building. After so long-” “Who are you?” Martha asked. “You’re not planning on hurting him…” The woman shot her a fierce look and Martha stopped, started again, “Okay, you’re not planning on hurting him. But who are you? How d’you know the Doctor?” “I travelled with him, too,” the woman whispered. Martha stared at her for a moment, everything that the Doctor had and hadn’t told her falling into place. She didn’t have all the answers yet, but she had this one. “You’re Rose.” And now Martha knew exactly where she’d glimpsed those eyes, staring over from the pages of John Smith’s journal, the memory of Rose lingering even when the Doctor couldn’t remember himself. She’d only seen the page for a second, and from a horrible angle, but she was right. “Rose Tyler, yeah,” Rose said, confirming what Martha already knew. “I take it he’s mentioned me. That’s a step up for him.” “Suppose so,” Martha said faintly, trying to reconcile this woman with the ‘Rose’ that she’d constructed from the half-dozen things that the Doctor and Jack had said about her. “He’s going to be happy to see you.” Then Martha heard a familiar noise behind her and she spun around, seeing the knob on that door on the left turn. “Martha, are you in here?” the Doctor asked, frowning down at his sonic screwdriver as he let the door fall shut behind him. “I’ve been getting this peculiar feedback-” And then he looked up… right past Martha. His mouth fell open, his words drying up. He shook his head slightly, as though afraid to believe his own eyes. There was a dawning light in his face that cut Martha to the quick – they’d become so close, the two of them, friends and comrades, but some part of Martha hadn’t rid herself of that niggling desire to have him look at her like she was a woman, not just a friend. His lips parted, but no sound came out. He took a faltering step forward, and the sonic screwdriver fell out of his hand, clattering as it hit the worked-stone floor. Martha could hear Rose behind her, voice shaking out one word. “Doctor?” The Doctor sprang into motion, racing toward them, even as Martha felt Rose run past her the other way – they met about three metres in front of Martha, colliding in a hug that lifted Rose off the ground and almost knocked the Doctor over. And now she could see the Doctor’s face; he was whispering to Rose, too quietly for Martha to hear any of it, and she was wrapped up in him, maybe whispering back, and the Doctor’s eyes were all crinkled up at the corners and he was smiling so wide and happy that her heart ached from it. “Transdimensional lizards,” the Doctor said, as he pulled away from the hug without actually letting Rose go, his hands sliding down her arms to hold her close to him. There didn’t seem to be an inch of space between them. “A group of Olpanilicks just happened to wander from your dimension into mine, right when you were investigating them – that's too many coincidences, Rose.” “You’re right,” Rose agreed – Martha took a couple of steps closer, not quite able to fight her curiosity. “But it doesn’t have to be bad. I saw… in the tunnel where I first encountered the Olpen-“ “Olpanilicks,” the Doctor said, lifting his hand to brush through Rose’s hair, his gaze tracing over her face.
“Olpanilicks,” Rose repeated and the Doctor’s smile dazzled Martha briefly. “In the tunnel where I first met them, there was writing on the wall. You can probably guess what it said.” “Bad wolf,” the Doctor said, and the words meant nothing to Martha outside a fairytale. Maybe that was the sense that it made for these two, right now. “It’s here, too, Rose. It’s the name of this city – J’arunp ‘k Y’narl Riif. It means Town-Place of Dreadful Riif, which is the name of a wild canine-like creature that lived here hundreds of years ago. This is the City of Bad Wolf.” “And you didn’t believe it could mean anything, any more than I did with Dårlig Ulv Stranden or the half-dozen other times that I saw it in… in Pete’s world, but now we know the truth,” Rose said. “It was telling us not to give up hope – that I could find my way home.” “But… Jackie.” The Doctor sounded rather like Leo had when he got accepted into university – relief and fear all mixed up together. “She’s still there. Mickey, too. And there’s no way of making the Olpanilicks go to any specific dimension… well, I never thought there was, anyway, and I doubt there is, outside of the Vortex. You’re trapped here, Rose.” “Trapped with you.” Rose’s voice was choked up, but more like she was overwhelmed than any kind of sad. “Not so bad,” the Doctor said, only half a question, and he pulled Rose in for another hug, burying his face in her hair. Martha knew she should look away, that she was seeing something private, but… She’d been attracted to the Doctor the very first time that she’d ever met him – she’d thought he was nuts, yeah, but also a ‘bit of alright’. Everything since that first moment had only cemented those two feelings – he was utterly mad, but so completely brilliant and gorgeous. But she had never seen the Doctor look as beautiful as he did here, with this woman. Even when she had walked in on stupid, brave John Smith and Joan Redford, he hadn’t looked like this. She’d gone to a few weddings in her life, but only one really stuck out in her memory – Kitty Millings, someone she’d briefly roomed with after university, had got married to her long-term sweetheart, Keith Braxton, about a year before Martha had met the Doctor. To be honest, Martha hadn’t ever liked Kitty much – she’d always thought that the girl was a bit shallow and flighty. Kitty hadn’t finished university herself and hadn’t cared the least bit. She’d never liked Kitty much, but she remembered with crystal clarity that wedding and the look in Kitty’s eyes when she’d walked down the aisle toward Keith – as though every dream that she had ever had was coming true. Martha could still feel the sharp ache of longing that she had felt back then, wanting someone to look at her just that way. And that was how the Doctor looked now – like he’d just been handed the greatest gift in the universe. “Oh, my god.” Martha glanced over to where the voice had come from and saw Jack walking towards the group. Also not looking at her. Hanging about near Rose Tyler was going to give her a complex, she could already be sure of that much. The Doctor and Rose broke away from their hug, and Martha could see Rose’s face now, as brilliantly ecstatic as the Doctor’s. “Jack?” Rose asked, and Martha saw the Doctor’s arm slide around the curve of Rose’s back, his face turning studied and careful, though still filled with that inner glow. “Oh, Jack, it’s so good to see you.” “Right back atcha,” Jack said, somehow looking younger than he had only hours before, the shadows in his eyes not quite as deep. “So, the Doctor was wrong, then?” Martha winced, but the Doctor was grinning again now. “Completely wrong,” the Doctor enthused. “The best kind of wrong.” “The very best,” Jack agreed, that softness still in his face. He opened his arms wide. “So, sweetheart, do I merit a hug?” Rose laughed merrily and then launched herself at Jack, who caught her up in as tight a hug as the Doctor and Rose had shared. “Look at her,” the Doctor said, his voice warm and tender. Martha turned toward him. He’d never considered it, she realised, looking at his face. She had never even been an option, not any more than Jack or Tallulah. They were mates and he wanted to share his happiness with her. Simple as that. It had always been as simple as that. “Only ten minutes ago, I thought I’d never see her face again, never see that smile, and now… she looks right at home. Like she never left.” “Like Jack,” Martha said. “He slipped right back into place with you, too.” Rose and Jack had broken their embrace but, like the Doctor, Jack didn’t seem willing to let her go just yet, his voice bright and cheerful, telling her about an adventure of some kind that he taken on – something light and fun, from the sound of it. “Ah, but I knew where Jack was.” The Doctor was watching Rose like he was afraid she might disappear right in front of him; Martha remembered John Smith again, saying softly, she seems to vanish later on. “That still bothers me,” Martha said. “Leaving him behind, just because he felt wrong.” “If Jack forgave me, I don’t see why you shouldn’t,” the Doctor countered. “And I did go back for him, after all.” “You didn’t even know he was there,” Martha said. “You were there for the Rift. You were surprised as anything that he was there. You ran away from him.” “It still counts.” And then he walked away, towards Rose and Jack, without another word to her. “He’s going to drive me mad,” Martha muttered, following. “So, about those Olpanilicks,” the Doctor said cheerfully. Rose and Jack both gave him their full attention. “I think it’s time for me to send them along to brighter pastures. They’ve done what they came here for and we don’t need them any more.” “Sounds like a plan,” Jack said, and then he took one careful step toward the Doctor. Or was it away from Rose? He was looking at the Doctor, though. Martha bit her lip, trying to work out just what was going on. “Though I am still wondering how you’re making them leave. From what I’ve heard, they generally have to spend days in any given dimension to soak up enough power for a transfer.” “I’m going to…” The Doctor paused, mid-reach into his pocket. “Hmm.” Martha chuckled and he shot her a curious look. Then she pointed over towards the door where he came in; the sonic screwdriver still lying on the ground. “Right,” the Doctor said, looking mildly put-out when Rose started giggling too. “Anyway, I plan on blowing up my sonic screwdriver.” “You’re going to do what?” Rose asked, and then the confusion on her face cleared. “Oh. So that they get full on the energy and can go somewhere else.” “You have been learning things in that universe of yours,” the Doctor teased with a rakish smile, tilting his face towards Rose’s. “But there’s more to it than that.” “You’re going to rig it to send them to an apocalyptic universal cycle,” Jack explained, with the air of a man who knows that he’s got the right answer. Martha glanced over at Rose, who wrinkled up her nose and shrugged. Well, at least it didn’t make any sense to her, either. Rose was getting more likeable by the minute. “Well, if you must take all the fun out of guessing,” the Doctor said, bounding over to retrieve the sonic screwdriver. Martha tried to recall if she’d ever seen him bound before and was coming up with nothing. “Oh, I must,” Jack teased, heading over to the door the piles of scales marked out. The Doctor scowled a bit in Jack's general direction but no one was took it seriously. Everything felt lighter now, in this moment. The Doctor and Jack both seemed to be carrying less weight on their shoulders. "I've gone ahead and created a bit of a reflective waveform shield around us so, Martha and Jack, you won't need those mirrors anymore," the Doctor said, and Martha saw Rose mouth the word 'mirror', eyes bright. The Doctor continued babbling on about whatever he'd done, but Martha tuned him out, focusing on Rose, who had turned away from the Doctor and was heading back in Martha's direction. “I’m sorry for getting caught up there,” Rose said, grabbing her bag from the floor and then coming up alongside Martha. “We didn’t get properly introduced – did the Doctor call you Martha?” “That’s right. I’m Martha Jones.” “It’s good to meet you, Martha Jones,” Rose said, reaching over to give Martha her hand. “Anyone keeping company with the Doctor is someone worth knowing, so I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.” “I hope so,” Martha said. “I have to admit, I didn’t have you pegged right.” “No surprise there, not really.” Rose shrugged it off, like that didn’t matter, which didn’t make any sense to Martha. “The Doctor can talk your ear off when it comes to aliens and planets and things, but when it’s about what really matters, he’s rubbish at it. Always has been, judging from previous evidence.” “Sounds like you know more than I do,” Martha said, but it was hard to hold it against her. “Probably just know different things,” Rose offered with a touch of hesitation and Martha recognised this sort of conversation. She had been thinking that Rose would be above jealousy, completely certain of the Doctor’s feelings for her, but this was her feeling out the water and seeing just how close Martha was to him. “I’m sure he’s told you lots that I don’t have a clue about.” She could use this, if she wanted to. The way the Doctor had talked about his home, she was sure that he hadn’t told anyone else. She could make Rose jealous, even if it was only for a moment. “Mostly, he told me how much he missed you,” Martha said instead, but not feeling quite generous enough to smile at Rose, not just yet. “Really?” Rose asked. “Really,” Martha confirmed. And that was that. Martha stamped down hard on that last ember of a crush on the Doctor and looked over at Rose, who was glowing with happiness, and knew she’d made the right choice. “I’m so glad you ran into me,” Rose told her, as they trailed along behind the Doctor and Jack. “Just think, if you hadn’t shown up, I might have been in another room when the Doctor arrived. Could have missed each other by seconds. He’d have dealt with the problem and you lot could have all been gone by the time I heard the TARDIS leaving. You saved my life, Martha.” For one wild moment, Martha wished with everything that she was that just that had happened, that they’d missed Rose and that it was just her with the Doctor and Jack still – and then, she looked forward and saw the Doctor, leaning over to say something to Jack, his face quiet and content. The brittleness that had always been there, the distance that she had assumed was just part of his nature… it was gone now, snow melting with the coming of spring. “That’s what I’m here for,” Martha said, glancing over at Rose. “I’m a doctor, actually. A real one… or I will be, soon as I pass my exams.” “That’s brilliant,” Rose enthused, just like the Doctor had done, so many times. Martha distinctly remembered Rose saying that she was human… or, no, she’d said that if humans had time ships, she was out of her time. That wasn’t quite the same thing. But she was human; Martha remembered the Doctor saying that, too, that Rose was 'so human'. “We could use one of those around – you can’t leave him alone for a minute before he gets into trouble.” “True enough.” Martha shook her head, putting her questions away for another day. “I’ve had to save his life more times than I can count. He’s absolutely reckless.” That part of him had worried her as often as it delighted her. “Yeah,” Rose agreed, her grin wide and true, the joy in her eyes infectious. “Wouldn’t have him any other way.” “Neither would I,” Martha said, smiling back now. The Doctor was still the Doctor and it had all been worth it, she’d made that decision ages ago. And… she'd already decided to leave, back when the Doctor had coaxed Jack into 'one last trip' with him, but it was good to know that when she left, the Doctor wouldn't be alone.
And she and Rose Tyler were going to be very good friends.
.
.
Jack resisted the urge to look back at Rose and Martha, who seemed to be having quite the bonding session.
Rose had a way about her, something in her smile that made a person want to make her happy. The old Doctor had felt it, the new one clearly did, and Jack could still remember the way her old boyfriend had looked at her when they had all met up in Cardiff – like the answer to the universe could be found in her eyes. She was older now – if he had to guess, he’d say she was about three years older than the last time he had seen her, on the Game Station – but all the more beautiful for it. Her hair was shorter than it had been, but not by much, and it seemed to be lighter than he remembered. A different brand or just his memory playing tricks on him? She was wearing less make-up now, only a hint of eyeliner and mascara, and the lightest touch of a warm, pink lipstick. Her clothes were more serious, too – professional, but still attractive. When the Doctor had told him that she had ended up working for the Torchwood on the other side, Jack had tried to picture her in either of the Torchwoods he’d spent time in – the memory of her had fit no more gracefully into the blue glass tower of Torchwood One than it had in his basement in Cardiff. He still couldn’t imagine it. Torchwood hadn’t marked her, not the way that it had marked everyone at Torchwood Three. She was still Rose, from what he could see, though he looked forward to further investigation. Well, if the Doctor would let him near her. He had noticed the Doctor’s hand at Rose’s waist before she had pounced on him for a hug – and even in his joy at holding her in his arms, he had noticed the way the Doctor’s hand clenched into a useless fist as she’d left him behind, even for a moment. Still, Jack didn’t imagine he would be any different if he were in the Doctor’s shoes. The Doctor would never try to cage Rose, but Jack was betting that part of him wished that he could, just to keep her safe. And now, he was letting Rose and Martha have a good chat. If it hadn’t been obvious just that morning that the Doctor had no clue how Martha felt about him, Jack would have called it cruelty, plain and simple. As it was, the Doctor just seemed to be… trying not to be possessive of Rose. After all, the Doctor probably couldn’t imagine any reason why Martha wouldn’t adore Rose. Rose was… well, the one person that the Doctor would want to take home when there was a doomed battle looming. Jack had come to terms with that knowledge years ago, that Rose had merited more consideration than sweet and young Lynda, than Jack himself, than anyone else on the Game Station. Well, he thought he had, at least. Much as he adored Rose – and he did – he couldn’t go as far as the Doctor did in praising her virtues. Rose was a lovely example of some of the best of twenty-first century Earth, no doubt about that, but so was Martha and the Doctor wasn’t giving her any second looks. “Doctor!” Rose’s voice was giddy and sweet, just as he remembered it. He couldn’t stop himself from turning as the Doctor did, seeing Rose skip up ahead of Martha. He was better than the Doctor, though, who stopped dead in the corridor and spun about with a brilliant smile. “Yes, Rose?” the Doctor asked, reaching out with his free hand. Rose took it, easy as breathing. “Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything,” she said, and now he noticed that her words were a little crisper than when he’d known her before, more like the Doctor’s – this Doctor’s – way than her previous casual approach to them. Her ‘th’s sounded rather less like ‘f’s now. He was a bit disappointed by that, as he’d been fond of how her tongue wrapped around her accent, but it was still recognizably her. “But travelling between parallel worlds is supposed to be dangerous now. So, how come the Olpanilicks don’t have any problems doing it? Shouldn’t they be tearing a hole in the universe?” “Oh, I have missed you,” the Doctor said in delight, slipping his sonic screwdriver into a pocket and then leaning up against the wall – still holding Rose’s hand. Once again, they were the only two people in the universe, completely unaware of anyone watching them. “You always had the best questions.” “That’s not an answer,” she said archly, taking a step toward the Doctor. “No, I don’t suppose it is,” the Doctor said, tugging at her hand and urging her closer still. It was clear to Jack what he was doing – savoring the moment, making it last as long as he could. “Were they always like this?” Martha asked, right next to him now and very quiet. She didn’t really need to be – right now, the Doctor and Rose wouldn’t notice a bomb landing on them. “From the first time I met them,” Jack recalled, seeing Rose sporting that coy smile of hers. “They’re a sweet couple, but definitely wrapped up in each other.” “I thought, sometimes, that he was looking at me and seeing her, but I was wrong,” Martha’s voice was shaking, just a little, and Jack felt sorry for the kid. She hadn’t known what she was walking into, after all – before today, she hadn’t ever had the chance to see the way the pair of them focused in on each other. “He's never looked at me like that.” “Come on, tell me,” Rose said, her light voice breaking through Martha’s soft words. She was nestled next to the Doctor on the wall now, pressing her side up against his. “You know you want to – you can be all technical and clever about it.” “Well, if you insist,” the Doctor relented, stretching out the words. He pulled Rose’s hand over a bit as if he could get her any closer. Rose grinned in triumph and Jack saw the Doctor’s eyes slid to her mouth, where her tongue had peeked out, just a bit, and he glanced over to see that Martha had noticed that, too. “It’s a matter of natural evolution versus an artificial intrusion,” the Doctor said – he was better at lecturing this time around, Jack noticed. He didn’t go off into as many tangents about the stupidity of the human race as he had before. “The Olpanilicks evolved over the course of thousands of years to snap from one dimension to another.” “Does that mean… no Void?” Rose guessed. “Precisely. They skip the Void entirely. They’re originally from a planet – an entire planet! Rose, oh, I wish you could have seen it – that was dimensionally transcendent. It’s part of their basic structure, written into their DNA, into everything that they are. After the Time War, their planet just… disappeared,” the Doctor said. “I’d assumed that when the dimensions split and there was no safe path between, they’d all died. Clearly, I was wrong about that.” “Not to insult you or anything, but you seem to be wrong quite often, recently,” Rose told him, but there was no bite in her words and it was obvious that the Doctor wasn’t taking any offense, as he continued to grin at her, love-sick and unashamed of it. “Parallel worlds, species that aren’t quite dead yet, planets chained to black holes… the list goes on and on.” “Nothing wrong with being wrong,” the Doctor said, cheerily. Jack grinned, just about ready to jump into the conversation, when he heard an odd scratching noise from further down the hall, beyond the Doctor and Rose. “Doctor,” he warned, but he was too late – Rose had heard, too, and she hauled on the hand the Doctor was holding and then let go, the Doctor falling down behind her in a heap as she stared down the shimmering lizard that had appeared. “Now would be a good time to blow everything up,” Rose said, reaching to grip something in her pocket. The lizard hissed and Rose shifted to the side, standing between it and the Doctor. “It doesn’t want to hurt you!” the Doctor shouted, flailing about at his pockets. “It won’t even know that you’re here, as long as you don’t get in its way.” Another hiss, from behind, and Jack spun around, hauling out a gun to cover Martha, and three Olpanilicks ran right past her, didn’t even seem to register her presence as they converged on Jack, claws scraping loudly against the floor. “There’s more of them over here,” Rose called, and Jack backed up, glancing behind to meet her eyes – they were both doing the same thing, it seemed, protecting the Doctor at all costs. Maybe Torchwood had touched Rose Tyler, after all. There was something of the soldier about her now. “Doctor, they don’t look friendly.” Martha had backed up against the wall, and Jack could see her fingers tight around the edges of the mirror that the Doctor had given her. "Doctor," she said, warningly, "I'd suggest hurrying. I think they're about to-" “They aren’t going to hurt-” One of the lizards leapt toward Jack, claws outstretched – he shot at it and it let out an unearthly screech, falling back to the ground but appearing to be uninjured. There was a series of sharp barking noises from the lizards on Rose’s side, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the ones facing him. “They don’t seem too happy with us,” Jack said, ruefully, wishing that the Doctor had been right this time. “This doesn’t make any sense,” the Doctor muttered. Jack hoped that he was still working on finding that screwdriver. “They aren’t hostile. They shouldn’t even be able to detect-” He broke off, the sudden silence making Jack glance behind him. The Doctor was pale and guilty and Jack didn’t like the way that looked at all. “Doctor, what-” Rose looked back and down, her eyebrows drawn in concern at the look on the Doctor’s face. Jack was just about to break the silence when he saw movement behind her, heading toward her face. He stepped around the Doctor, snatching at Rose and spinning down to the ground, covering her with his body and then – oh! Their claws were ripping at him, tearing away clothes and then flesh. Lines of fire were being sliced into his back and it took everything in him to stay where he was, protecting the woman trembling under him and fighting to get free. She was so much more vulnerable than he was and he was not going to let her get hurt. He gasped when he felt the sharp sudden shock of one of the lizards reaching his spinal cord and with everything he had left, he prayed that he could shield Rose until the Doctor could-
Jack blinked against the brightness, his head aching slightly as he recovered from… well, apparently he was recovering from being clawed to death by lizards that were supposed to have completely ignored him. When he moved his head, he was aware of two things – a whimpering cry that broke into something close to hysterical sobs, and a warm female body holding him half-upright. “Jack?” It was Rose’s voice, of course it was. She hadn’t known after all. He’d died right in front of her and come back – though from looking at the Doctor, he knew this wasn't her first time with the experience. Still, he wished that he could have told her about this before she’d seen it with her own eyes – he hadn’t wanted to cause her pain. “I told you that he’d be fine.” Jack’s vision cleared and he could see the Doctor leaning against the wall, staring down at the scorched remains of his sonic screwdriver on the floor in front of him. “You did it,” Jack whispered, his voice still low and scratchy. “You sent them away.” “Not soon enough,” the Doctor said. “I’m sorry, Jack.” Jack tilted his head upward and saw Rose’s face, luminous over him, still wet from tears. He reached up with a shaking hand to wipe them away and she smiled softly at him, her eyes huge and sad. He wanted to kiss her, as he had back on the Game Station, to reassure her against the cold of night, but he didn’t think he had the coordination to manage it. “I’m so sorry, Jack,” Rose murmured. “I remember now, and I’m so sorry.” “You have nothing to be sorry about,” the Doctor said, his voice sharp. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” The Doctor reached down and grasped Jack’s hand, helping him up with a firm grip. Rose stayed where she was, letting Jack stand above her. “Rose,” Jack said, yanking his hand out of the Doctor’s and turning to look down at Rose, who was so still, so quiet. “Why are you sorry? I'm alive. I'm fine. No regrets.” She stared down at her hands and breathed in a quick, sobbing breath. Jack didn’t dare look at the Doctor, afraid of what he might see there. “Don't… don't lie, Jack. You aren’t happy,” she said, after a moment. “At the time… I didn’t even remember that I’d done it, but – I just wanted to save you.” Jack crouched down, reaching out to take Rose’s hands into his. She peeked up at him through her hair, those big brown eyes of hers meeting his own, and he rocked back on his heels, stunned at the depth of her grief. “Rose… talk to me.” “It was wrong for you to die,” she said, her tone urgent and quiet and just for him. “I knew it the second that I arrived, but it was selfish, so selfish. You couldn’t die, but not… not because time needed you or anything noble like the Doctor would do. You couldn’t die because I was the reason that you were there. Don’t you see, Jack? If it hadn’t been for me, you never would have died to begin with – it was my fault.” “Maybe,” Jack said, squeezing her hands gently. “I don’t regret it, Rose. That wasn't a lie. Dying for you – I’d have done it a thousand times over.” He chuckled, softly. “Maybe I have. It's been worth it." "I hurt you," she said. “You brought him back to life,” the Doctor said, breaking the spell. Jack glanced away from Rose, standing up and pulling her up to her feet at the same time. The Doctor was staring at Rose, all the wonder and terror of the universe on his face. “You looked into the Time Vortex and ended the War.” “I knew what I wanted,” Rose said, her gaze briefly flicking over to the Doctor and then shying away again. "That's what the trick is – you have to be absolutely sure of what you want." “And you saved him,” Jack finished, looking back over at Rose. She parted her lips to speak, and then she met his eyes steadily, her cheeks faintly flushed as she nodded. “I’m sorry,” she said again and, this time, it wasn’t about saving him. However much she cared about him, she loved the Doctor to her bones. Jack didn’t – couldn’t – blame her for that. “Well,” Martha said, clapping her hands together. Jack was probably the only person in the corridor who noticed how intensely uncomfortable she looked. “Maybe it’s time we headed back.” “Yes, that sounds like a brilliant notion,” the Doctor said, far too brightly. “Does anyone remember where we parked?” The Doctor always did know how to break the tension. “As a matter of fact, I happen to have the directions right here,” Jack said, bringing up the correct information on his wristband. “Though I can tell you right now that we start by going back the way we came.” They all headed off, though not exactly together. Rose still seemed lost in her own world and the Doctor was busy staring at her, while Martha spent her time staring at the Doctor. And Jack was left to look after the lot of them and make sure that they didn’t wander off in the wrong direction. It took almost an hour to get back to the TARDIS and Jack didn’t think any of them spoke more than five words during that entire time. “Jack, Martha – you should check out some of the rooms. There's some fascinating stuff in this old ship of mine,” the Doctor said when they finally entered the ship, still not tearing his eyes away from Rose. “I’ll meet you back here in a bit.” Then the Doctor reached out his hand toward Rose, who took it with an almost numb look on her face, and he led her out of the main room, down the hallway that Jack remembered leading to where Rose’s room had been. Martha watched them go, her eyes dark and wide. “You were lying there," she said. "You were dead. And he was more worried about whether or not she’d got scraped up a bit.” “He also knew that I’d get better,” Jack said, not letting Martha see the part of him that wanted to flinch at her words. “He doesn’t have any guarantees when it comes to her.” “You’re wrong about that,” Martha replied. “Rose – maybe she's just human, like me, but I don’t think there’s anything she wouldn’t do for him.” “You seem to have become her advocate,” Jack teased. “Ever since I met him, he’s been so sad and alone.” Martha sounded as if she were feeling her way around the words, trying to decide which ones felt best. “What I wanted, more than anything, was to fix that. I wanted to see him happy. She makes him happy, Jack. What sort of friend would I be if I ignored that?” Not much of one, Jack knew. “So, Martha Jones,” Jack said. “How long did you say you’ve been on the TARDIS?” She paused for a moment, clearly thrown by the change in subject, and then she gathered herself up again. “About four months – I've actually spent more of my time with the Doctor not being on the TARDIS.” She tilted her head at him, and her earrings caught the light, sparkling green and gold. “What’s that got to do with anything?” “Well, I was just wondering if you wanted to swap tours,” Jack said. “You show me the rooms you know and I’ll show you the ones that I knew, back when I was on the crew.” “That sounds like an amazing plan. Top of the line.” She beamed at him, and his breath stopped for just a moment, the way it always did when a beautiful person looked at him the right way. “Did you want to go first?” “I think that I do,” Jack said, holding out his hand toward Martha. She studied him for a moment and then, with a determined and promising look, she placed her hand inside his. “And I know just the place to start.” Martha would, Jack decided, absolutely adore this one little room that he’d discovered during his first week on the TARDIS, when the Doctor and Rose had been too caught up in their discovery of dancing to pay much attention to him. Martha’s hand felt perfect, right here and right now, and Jack grinned at the feeling.
It was moments like this that made life worth living.
.
.
Rose's room was just as she’d left it.
Messy and tumbled all about, the colours of the TARDIS tinted more purple and pink in here, one of her bags lying next to the bed, which was still unmade. Walking into the room felt like walking into a tomb. An ancient Egyptian one, maybe – the Doctor had taken her to Egypt more than once and she'd had the chance to see the brightness of the colours they'd used before time had dulled them all down. “You didn’t touch it,” she whispered, feeling as though she shouldn’t disturb the silence.
“You’re wrong,” the Doctor told her, letting go of her hand and moving forward towards the bed. He reached out and smoothed down the covers slightly and then, without appearing to notice what he was doing, twitched them back into their original messy state. “I didn’t change anything, but I’ve touched everything in here, Rose.” “How…” She swallowed hard, trying to get the words out. “How long has it been for you?” “Forever,” he said. She could barely see his face, but his voice was so cold. Rose shook her head, fighting back the urge to reach out for him. He seemed fragile in this moment, like he'd shatter if she touched him. “Well, I suppose that objectively that isn’t true,” he said, sounding more like himself as he eased into the details of it all. “It took me three months to track down that last crack in the universe. Another month to locate a suitable supernova to use to send you a message and close the gap. Then a year between when I last spoke to you and when I first saw you tonight. Technically speaking. There was another year that didn't happen in there, but, well… it literally didn't happen, so we can't count it. And you?” “Almost eight years since Bad Wolf Bay.” Rose spoke softly but he flinched and turned his face further away from her, hiding even his profile. “My little brother's seventh birthday was five months ago.” “It was a boy,” he said. He was speaking as quietly as she was, but she could hear something odd in his voice, something that, in anyone else, she would call ‘longing’. She hadn't thought of the Doctor as wanting to have children but, then again, she hadn't ever given it much thought. She hadn't particularly wanted children herself and their relationship hadn't quite made it to the level of wondering whether he might before... before Canary Wharf had happened and changed everything. “Yeah – named Tony,” Rose said, daring to come up close behind him and place a hand on his back. He stiffened slightly but didn’t pull away. “He's a real handful. Drives Mum mad sometimes.” “You’re never going to see either of them again.” He said it like it made a difference. “You think I don’t know that? Even if I’d known what Olpanilicks did, do you think that I’d have hesitated for a second, knowing that they could bring me back to you?” “And what about your life there?” he asked, finally turning to face her. He looked so old now, as old as he had when they’d said good-bye. “A little brother, your parents alive and together, a fantastic job where you can be as amazing as I know you are, and the chance at finding love with a man you could grow old with – isn’t that worth anything to you?” “Not as much as you,” she said, not needing to stop to think about it. This was something as true and as real as anything could be – she’d accepted years ago that the Doctor would always have the first claim on her heart. “Oh, Rose,” he breathed, reaching out towards her and cupping her cheek – he’d never done that in this body. His hand was shaking where he touched her and he looked more terrified than she could have ever imagined. “I tried,” she said, forcing the words out. It hadn't been her proudest moment, she had to admit. “About four years ago, I met a man. We were together for two years and then… then he asked me to marry him.” “You said no.” It wasn’t a question. His fingers firmed against the curve of her jaw, less tentative now. “I realised that I couldn’t promise him the rest of my life,” she said, shivering a bit as the Doctor stroked his thumb over her lips. She took a slow, even breath and then kept on talking. “It wouldn’t have been fair to either of us for me to pretend that I could – not when… not when my heart was still here.” It hadn’t been a matter of not loving him. She had fallen in love with Mark, over those hours and days that he had dedicated to getting to know her. She had loved spending time with him, she had adored the sex, and she had made him fit into her life, complicated and busy as it had been. Then he’d gone down to one knee and asked her to make him the happiest man in the world. “I’m sorry,” the Doctor said, but his hand was sliding around to the back of her neck. He was moments away from pulling her towards him; she could feel it. “I’m not,” she said and he blinked at the force of her words. “I love my mum. I adore my little brother and my day job was sometimes nearly as exciting as travelling with you. I could have made a life there – with the man I almost married or with some other bloke – and I wasn’t waiting for you like some princess in a tower, Doctor, I swear I wasn’t.” She stopped to take a breath and he waited for her to finish. “I was happy,” she said, finally. “But despite all that, I knew that if I found a way back to you, I would go, no matter what else I might have to lose. I couldn’t do that to him. I couldn't give him forever. Because, Doctor… with everything else I had over there, I never stopped looking for my chance to come home.” And her Doctor – her lovely, silver-tongued Doctor – seemed to be at a loss for words. Rose stepped closer to him, angled her face upward and pressed her lips against his, almost chastely. His eyes drifted closed and he was shivering against her, his lips slightly parted and cooler than any human man’s would be right now. She could feel him breathing, his air gusting out, his chest moving, and she would have sworn that she could hear his hearts pounding. His other hand was on her now, resting on her waist, a light and delicate touch. He was so gentle and still shaking and she wondered if he thought this was a dream. Suddenly, she realized that she was touching his shoulder with just as much hesitancy. Part of her was afraid of that same thing – that she’d blink and be back at the mansion in the other world, that he would still be a universe away from her, unreachable. She pulled away from him, studying his face – he hadn’t moved, caught deep in the throes of an emotional reaction that she hadn’t anticipated. She’d known that he would miss her, but this was more than that… this was somehow stronger and darker and stranger than that. His hand tightened around her waist, pressing her against him. She’d seen enough, that first Christmas with this version of him, to know that he looked close to a human man – now she could feel it, though something about him still felt odd. His eyes snapped open and there was a light in them, a burning depth to the deep brown that was new and yet somehow… incredibly familiar. He tilted her head slightly with his hand and she allowed it, the same curiosity that had drawn her into his life in the first place pulling her closer now. He dropped his gaze to her mouth and his tongue swept across his lower lip, and the wait was making her stomach twist with need. She wanted to touch him, rub herself up against him, pull off his coat and the pinstripes and everything just to feel what was underneath, but she held herself back. He was poised on the brink of something and she wanted to see him tumble over. She wanted them to fall together. “Thank you,” he said, his voice so rough and low that, even as close as he was to her, she had to strain to hear him. He leaned toward her and she parted her lips, but instead of kissing her mouth, he pressed his lips against her jaw line, tongue licking out just a bit, warm and soft and moist, and she shuddered in reaction, her eyes closing involuntarily. Something was popping in her brain – almost like she’d just been hit over the head, but it didn’t hurt, there was just the shock of an impact, something hard and powerful. She heard a dark rumbling sound – frustration and, oh, that was hunger. She could hear him talking, but it was so quiet, so far away. No, wait. It was close. Closer than the Doctor in front of her, closer than the sound of her own voice, her own breath. It was… it was inside her head. He’d touched Chloe’s face, Rose remembered, got inside to put her asleep so that he could talk to the Isolus. This might be similar but she couldn’t imagine… she couldn’t imagine him doing this to Chloe. This was more intimate than anything she had ever felt before – she could feel him whispering in her, with words that she couldn’t quite understand, and it rang through her entire body. She was dimly aware of her hands clutching him – his shoulder and his waist – tightening as the cord within her tightened. The TARDIS hummed brightly around them and it sounded clearer than it ever had before – was this how it sounded to him? She could feel the softness of her own body yielding to the hard press of their need, her fingers tangled up in her hair… His fingers, not hers, but that didn’t seem to matter – it was all the same. Entire solar systems were swirling about in her mind and she wasn’t just seeing them, she knew them – could have pointed to any star and named it in a hundred languages, knew which had planets and which of those planets had life… Life. It sang to her in its beautiful harmony of breath and blood and heat. The Doctor and Rose, no longer separate in any way – her heart was beating in the space between his heartbeats, fitting in perfectly, as though he had always needed three hearts. Their breathing was in unison, their flesh one flesh, all clothing incidental and meaningless. And there was more than that, even, so much more. This ship was part of the nameless song, twisting through both of their minds, connecting them with a soft percussive undertone. Translating, aiding, and… loving – Rose could feel the intensity of its love for the Doctor, the one it had sheltered so long. The TARDIS was alive, was so very much alive. She'd heard the Doctor talk about it, but now Rose could feel it – feel her – humming inside her mind. And then, through her, Rose felt the echo of dozens of minds. Jack and Martha, currently part of the circuit. Captain Jack Harkness, and there was another word behind that but it didn’t matter. Jack was a bright spark, the high and certain flourish of a trumpet. There was bitterness in him, but it was only a few dark specks in a wash of light. His love was so strong and she had forgotten why she’d ever been surprised by the breadth of it – in this moment of connecting with him, it was the clearest and best choice. Love everyone, forgive all, with peace and trust and faith. Martha Jones – Rose could see her future, sparkling, unwavering. She was destined to change the world; she'd already saved it. Martha smiled and death wept, because she brought healing in her wake. So many lives, so much joy. Oh, Martha Jones, Rose thought, you're a star. And then, deeper in the memory of the music, she recognised Sarah Jane – so young, yet she looked nearly the same, despite the ridiculous clothing. Rose felt a glow bursting through her and named it ‘pride’ – she felt so proud of Sarah Jane for accomplishing so much. Best friend, chimed through her head, through the Doctor’s memory, and it was right. There were other faces, other voices, but few that she had known as herself – both the faint discordant ring of Adam’s brief presence and the familiar but faint glow of her mum and Mickey were in there, but they were drowned out by the sound of others who had spent more time here – women with wide smiles and hesitant eyes, young men with courageous hearts and angry words, an elegant and shifting presence with two hearts and a mind as quick as the Doctor's, and so many others. There was a blurred man hidden behind many walls, with so many complicated, powerful emotions attached to him that Rose couldn't keep track of them all. A young brunette girl – she’d chosen to be Susan, but had been born something longer and much more alien. Granddaughter, Rose knew, gone now, but forever in her mind. All of them, eternal in this song, just as they had been when they’d lived here, when she had crept into their minds to give them access to alien words and the Doctor’s hearts. They called to Rose-who-was-the-TARDIS and they were Rose and she felt such affection for them all. She felt the Doctor breathe against the bend of her neck, and his thoughts, too, were clarifying, the jumble of words inside that had been nothing but noise becoming so much more. She could feel his hearts beat around the sound of hers and they were pounding to the thought of her name. They were still on the planet where she'd found him again, but her mind skipped to the Vortex, and she found the sense-memory of the way it felt when she raced through it. She could feel Time itself whistling around her, could feel the bumps and ripples of the travel. The light was blinding but not light at all – it was Time, too, and it had more colours than she’d ever imagined. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be – she could feel it all, but it didn’t touch her. She was in the eye of the greatest hurricane in the universe and she couldn’t have felt safer. She could feel the word ‘impossible’ trying to form in the Doctor’s mind, but it was being drowned out by everything else inside him. He was trying to pull back, she sensed – she felt his terror now, fear that he would push too far and break her in ways he couldn’t fix, fear that he'd already broken something incredibly important. She couldn’t open her mouth, couldn’t move to tell him that whatever happened, it would be worth it, but she could feel his mind respond to the thought anyway, could feel him desperately putting barriers back into place, walls that tumbled down again whenever his concentration wavered and his joy overwhelmed his fear. Then he let go, her body aching in the places where his skin had touched hers, and the connection in her head tore apart, the knowledge that she'd held with such ease only moments before already starting to slip away from her. For a brief moment, there was a great emptiness in her mind and the deafening silence filled her up; her eyes shot open to reveal a blinding light, like staring up at the sun during midday, only a thousand times brighter and more painful. She swayed, groping blindly for the Doctor and finding nothing in the white-hot emptiness surrounding her. “Why do they hurt?” she mumbled – something out of a dream – and the light was starting to fade a little. The Doctor was in front of her, sitting down on her bed. The glow was washing him out; his skin looked pale and drawn, his eyes blank and frozen, and she could still feel his fear, muted as it was by the distance in her mind. “It hurts because you aren’t set up to handle that kind of information flow,” the Doctor said, his words dim and far away. “Incandescent overload. Like I told you on Satellite Five – the human brain just isn’t wired for the job. You can’t hold it in your mind. If it stays in there too long, it starts trying to burn out new pathways, starts trying to make itself fit.” Rose blinked, shadows and color returning: her bed was violently pink, just as she’d have preferred nine years ago; the Doctor’s eyes were a rich and vivid shade of brown, all of his secrets hiding right in plain sight; his mouth was darker than normal, as though they’d been kissing for hours, though Rose only remembered a brief touch of her lips to his. “You’re saying that like the information is alive,” Rose said, tucking away the knowledge that the Doctor was wrong here – what she’d seen hadn’t hurt her at all. Pulling away from it, that’s what had caused her to hurt. What did that mean? “Oh, it is,” the Doctor told her. “All knowledge is, Rose. It wants to perpetuate itself, just like any other species. And the more esoteric and dangerous it is, the stronger it has to be to take hold in a mind. I was… trying to establish a link with you. No excuse for it, really, but I…” He faltered, losing his words again. Rose felt a sudden rush of sympathy for him and tried to reach out to touch him; he scooted backwards on the bed, looking stricken, and the agony in his mind remembered itself to her. So afraid of hurting her… “But you- what, Doctor?” Rose asked, because she had to, because it needed to be said. “I missed you,” he said, with an overwhelming sort of earnestness. “I wanted to drink you in, Rose, to understand what you’d been through without me but… you ended up drinking me, instead.” Drinking him – it was an apt turn of phrase. She still felt dizzy and flushed from his thoughts, from the universes inside his mind, from the power of what he felt for her. She’d had her moments of doubt, over the last few years, but those dim shadows had been blasted away by what she’d just seen. “It didn’t hurt,” she said and he shook his head. “I’m not… lying to make you feel better. You didn’t hurt me – the pain came after you’d gone.” “That’s not possible.” His words were the same as always, but his voice was so thin. “You’ve been wrong so often lately,” she said, tenderly. “I don’t think you’re much of an authority on what’s possible right now.” His lips lifted up in a half-smile, but he stayed where he was on the bed. When she sat down on the edge, he looked as if he wanted to run for the door. “I know how scared you are.” She tried to be slow and careful when all of her ached to touch him again. His eyes met hers, wounded and disbelieving. “I felt it, Doctor. I saw it.” “Not all of it,” he said. “Not everything.” He watched her warily as she placed her hand near his knee. She shifted up onto the bed, moving as close to him as she could while still not touching him. “Rose, don’t-” “Why not?” She held her open palm out toward him. “You wanted to know what happened to me while you were gone – don’t you see that I want the same thing?” He reached out to her, his hand hovering just over hers but not making contact. He had closed his eyes and he somehow looked both terribly old and shockingly young, an old man with a heart full of fear and a young boy burdened with a desperate and painful hope. “You’ll hate me,” he told her. She could see the tension in his body, could see that he felt the same yearning that she did. “Oh, Rose, you’ll never forgive what I’ve done.” “I already do. I always will.” Rose lifted up her hand, wrapping her fingers around his wrist. This time, she was prepared for the thudding pressure of this new connection and she didn’t allow it to overwhelm her. She slowly reached out, her entire mind a question and the Doctor the answer. Do it! It was raining, always raining here. Cold and burning on his face – the sun never showed itself, not in this place. He could hear a voice, far off. It was young Martha, perhaps, with her kind eyes and hopeful smile. She came here, sometimes, to talk to him and try to lead him out. He wasn’t sure why she bothered. There wasn’t any out. Out didn’t exist anymore, though he was sure that it had once.
Just do it! He blinked up into the sky, trying to see any break in the clouds, but they were as solid and grey as ever. Such a gloomy place, this. He wasn’t sure why he had come here. But there wasn’t anywhere else to go. He forgot that, sometimes. He’d always been here – this was the only place that was. Strange, how a man could lose track of the boundaries of his world like that. A man should know where his world ends. The sky was dark and it never stopped dripping down into his eyes. The ground was muddy and grey, nothing green and growing here. He cast his mind back and tried to remember what green looked like, but the memory faded as soon as it came and he couldn’t hold onto the shape of it. There wasn’t any point in trying to remember anyway – there wasn’t going to be any green any more, just as blue had disappeared when the sky had covered over with clouds. There was no life here, of course. There had never been anything alive in this place. He didn’t count himself, naturally. He hadn’t been alive for ages.
Am I ever going to see you again? His clothes clung to him unpleasantly, but he couldn’t imagine that taking them off would help – it was so cold here, as cold as space. As cold as everything had been, since she- They’d been brown once upon a time, his suit and coat had, but they were just unrelieved grey and black now, like everything else. Sodden and miserable. His socks squelched in his shoes and the muck had splattered so thoroughly over those that they were more mud than shoe anyway.
The Time Lord has such adventures, but he could never have a life like that. He wished that he could remember how long he’d been on this planet. He wished that that woman would come back – Nurse Redford… Joan, she’d been here, for a while. She’d smiled at him and made him dance. It had felt so familiar, like smiles and dances were things that were allowed to exist. But she’d left.
I've never had a life like that. There were other creatures here, but they weren’t alive either, he was sure of it. The old man in chains, the screaming women who all fell forever, the drowning spiders, that boy with the fixed smile, and his dear, beloved enemy – they were all here, sometimes. The little girl, with her balloon that pretended to be red, but couldn’t be, because red wasn’t a real colour. Red was a colour for hopes and flowers; it didn’t belong in a place like this.
The one adventure I can never have. Rose whimpered softly, but refused to let go of the Doctor’s wrist. Slowly, his eyes opened, though the connection stayed as it was, raw and aching. His eyes were dry, but she could feel him on the inside – rage and agony and the bitter fierce ache of a dying star. “You should let go,” he said; it echoed in the still quiet of the room. “You should turn around and leave, Rose Tyler.” “This is my room.” She raised her chin up, not letting the tears in her eyes keep her from staring him down. “I’m not going anywhere.” “I need you too much.” His words were bleak. “Please, Rose, please let go.” “I made you a promise once,” she said. She reached out with her other hand and gently stroked through his hair, feeling as though she were the older one. “I said that I would never leave you. I meant that promise, Doctor.” He breathed in, a slow, hitching breath, and then just relaxed into her touch, not holding them apart any longer. His head ended up pillowed on her chest, but she didn’t think he’d even noticed that – he just wanted to rest. She eased them back onto the bed, wrapping herself around him and pressing her lips against his forehead. “I’ve been so tired,” he whispered. “So very tired. Everything’s been so much work, lately.” “You need to rest,” she told him. “And if this is just a dream?” His eyes were open now and he was staring up at the ceiling, trying to hide that grey and howling darkness from her again, she was sure of it. “It isn’t,” Rose said, but he was still tense and terrified in her arms. “I promise that I will be here when you wake up. You trust me, don’t you?” “Of course,” he said, so quickly that that nimble tongue of his almost tripped over the words. “You know I do.” “Then believe me.” His gaze shifted to meet hers, the uncertainty in him breaking her heart, and then he nodded once, decisive and sure. He softened in her arms, the months of exhaustion that she’d glimpsed in his mind catching up to him. His eyes slowly shut and she rested her head on top of his, petting and touching him until she felt him drift off into more peaceful dreams than the ones that had been haunting him recently. Rose let her own eyes close. He was here, right next to her. She had no idea what tomorrow might bring, but here and now, they were together. Rose wrapped herself a little bit closer to her Doctor and, finally, let herself begin to dream.
.
.
"-and the Doctor wasn't really surprised," Martha said, as they wandered down the corridor back toward the main room. At least, she was pretty sure they were headed in that direction. "I mean, he didn't seem to know already, but it didn't shock him."
"I wish that I'd been with you," Jack said. He sounded wistful – having been lucky enough to meet the man in question, Martha didn't blame him. Sure, Shakespeare hadn't smelled all that great, but he'd been charming, handsome, and as interested in having a good time as Jack himself was. "I wasn't sure if Shakespeare preferred any particular gender-" "The wife didn't make you think he liked girls?" Martha asked. "Wife?" Jack said, forehead wrinkling up. "Billy Shakespeare was married?" "You seriously just called him 'Billy'," Martha said, with a disbelieving laugh. "But you were a Time Agent – how could any of you not know something like that? You'd think that history would be completely accurate." "Unfortunately, even before it stopped working, my vortex manipulator wasn't as powerful as the TARDIS – no human time travel is," he said. Martha would be willing to bet that Jack would have never said anything like that in the Doctor's hearing. "And given what intel I've gathered about the Doctor's people, I'm not sure that it's possible for the Time Agency or any other group to ever manage what the Time Lords did. They really do have an innate sense of time and it's not something that humans have evolved to have in any of the time periods that I've visited." "What goes wrong?" Martha asked. It was nice to talk to a bloke who just answered basic questions rather than evading them or going off on some crazy tangent, the way the Doctor did. "Some times – like Shakespeare's – just don't register on our machines. We can't go there at all. If a Time Agent tries to see a Shakespeare play while the author is still alive, they arrive twenty to thirty years after he's died. 1980's London is the same way. I saw that the hard way, slogging through time piece by piece. My vortex manipulator couldn't have taken me there even if it had been working." "Still, people would have known that he was married," Martha said. "If my Earth knew it, yours should have." "The Time Agency didn't have all that many historians in it," Jack said, looking away from her. "I knew it!" Martha said. "It's not that the future couldn't know about Shakespeare. You just didn't bother." "Most of the people from my time don't spend much time thinking about things like that," Jack said, which Martha knew to be a dirty lie, just from Jack's recent words. Jack might like to believe that he didn't think about people's sexuality, but he obviously did -- he just assumed that he'd be able to work around it. "Maybe because it didn't really matter – all humans in the fifty-first century are bisexual-" "Is that even possible?" Martha asked. "I mean, scientifically possible?" "If it happened, it has to be possible," Jack said, which seemed to Martha to be a horribly unorganized way of looking at things. "Well, yes, but… some people could just be conforming to societal norms," she said. "You'd have to find a way to hide your lack of aggressive pheromone distribution, but I suppose that it could be done." Jack angled his head slightly, thinking it over. "Not any of the people I was with, though. Too much enthusiasm." Martha chuckled – Jack was just as proud of his sexual appeal as the Doctor was of his intelligence. God, they were such men. And… while she was thinking of the Doctor… "They've been gone for a while," Martha noted, as they entered the control room and the Doctor and Rose were nowhere to be seen. "They have a lot of catching up to do," Jack said dryly, settling down on the seat. "I'm not expecting either of them to surface for a few more hours, at least." "I didn't even think," Martha said, all too aware that she was blushing. "You're right. Of course. Of course, they would." Martha had experienced her fair share of fantasies about the Doctor over the course of the year she'd travelled with him (and a few during that year when she'd walked the world to save it), so it shouldn't have shocked her how easy it was to conjure up an image of him, pressed up against Rose, his jacket off and shirt pushed up to show a flash of skin. She wondered if he had any moles or birthmarks on his stomach -- to her regret, he'd managed to stay mostly covered up in her presence during both of their extended stays on Earth. If he did have any, they would look very nice, she'd wager, perfect for an enterprising tongue to- "I'm getting over him," she announced to quell her unwelcome thoughts, immediately aware that she'd been far too loud to be believable. Jack gave her a sympathetic look. "Well," she amended, "That's what I was planning on – once we'd dropped you off, I was going to go home and… get over the Doctor." "It's not as easy as it sounds," Jack said, sprawling out on the seat and leaning his arm on the railing behind it. "He's memorable." "You're not kidding," Martha said, reaching up to play with her necklace. "I can still remember the first time that I saw him – I was just walking down the street and there he was, like the most peculiar dream you ever had, taking off his tie and saying things that made no sense at all." "He confused the hell out of me at first, too," Jack said. "I thought I had Rose figured out, but after I'd met him, my theory about her made less and less sense." "You met Rose before you met the Doctor?" "Oh, yes," Jack said, the hot look in his eyes contrasting with the tenderness of his smile. "My introduction to the Doctor's world started with a close-up of Rose Tyler's very excellent bottom." "Is she…" Martha paused and Jack narrowed his eyes slightly. God, this was not going to be easy to say. "I mean, the way the Doctor talks about her, I was half expecting her to be able to walk on water, but she looks... she sounds… if I'd met her before I'd known the Doctor, I don't think that I would have… she has this accent and you aren't from London, Jack, so you wouldn't understand because it-" Jack's lips had tightened and Martha's frustration warred strongly with her sense of honor. She wanted someone to know and to understand and maybe… to forgive her. "I wouldn't have given her a second look," she said, shrugging one shoulder. "Before I met the Doctor, I would have heard her voice and looked at her hair and thought it meant she was some useless social climber who gets everything she wants because she's blonde and… friendly." "Then the Doctor helped you as much as he helped me," Jack said and he was smiling at her, soft and easy. She grinned back at him, feeling warm. Because he was right, she hadn't made any of those old assumptions when she'd first run into Rose. She'd taken the woman at face value and liked her as a person, rather than judging her on her looks. "I guess he did," Martha said slowly. She glanced back at one of the doors behind her – still no Doctor or Rose. "How did she… how did she know how to look into the Time Vortex to save you?" "Oh, there's definitely a story there," Jack said. One that he enjoyed telling, from the sound of his voice. "We went to Cardiff – the same place where I ran into the two of you – to use the Rift to refuel the TARDIS." His tale went on, about Mickey, Rose's old boyfriend, who was still in love with her – of course, because naturally no one ever got over Rose Tyler – and how they'd run into an alien named Blon who was from a planet with a name that Martha knew she'd never remember. Blon had actually managed to take over the TARDIS and she'd been holding Rose hostage when… the console had just opened up, light washing over the room, and when the light had faded, Blon had regressed into an egg. It was a bit of a relief to find out that Rose had been taken hostage sometimes, too, back when she'd travelled with the Doctor. It was comforting to know that she wasn't quite as perfect as the Doctor seemed to believe. "Blon got to have a second chance at life," Jack said. "To be someone who wasn't a monster." "But how did Rose know that she could use that to save you?" Martha just couldn't get the Doctor's words from so long ago out of her head – 'Rose would know'. How? How did Rose figure these things out? She'd spent an entire year with the Doctor wondering if Rose would have been able to fix all of their problems with just a glance and, though she was mostly over that insecurity now, she knew that some of what the Doctor had said had to be based on fact and not just a nostalgic memory. "Desperation, I'd guess," Jack said. "I wasn't here for that but… you've seen the way they are with each other. He sent her away, out of the battle, to save her life. She came back to save his." "And yours." "Secondary consideration," Jack said, a flash of bitterness in his voice. "They left without me. Abandoned me on a space station and went on to have… many fun-filled adventures, I'm sure." "She's like him," Martha said, thoughtfully. It was something that she'd been thinking since before she'd even known who Rose was and it seemed more true with every new thing that she learned. "Not quite human." "Nothing wrong with not being human," Jack said, with a leer and a wink. "It's being inconsiderate that's the problem." "That's something I've been learning. On both counts," Martha said. The Doctor was very dear to her, but he didn't seem to think before he spoke half the time. Which was quite an accomplishment for a man as smart as that. And even his rudeness was appealing at times, when it wasn't directed at her. There was nothing wrong with a bit of directness, after all. Martha sighed as she realized the direction that her thoughts were taking -- rationalization and leaning toward forgiving the Doctor every slight fault. She'd been hoping that she'd stopped doing that. "Jack, you love the Doctor, too, I know. How have you coped?" "I fell in love with other people," he said. "That helped a bit. And I've got my team right now – Gwen, Tosh, Ianto, and Owen. They're… a little like a family. Sweet kids." "Are they really kids?" Martha teased. Jack snorted. "I've been around for over a hundred years, so, yeah, comparatively speaking, they are. But, no… they've faced death and worse," he said. His smile had faded away. "Torchwood has… a high turn-over rate. People die often and they die young. I lost one last year… Suzie Costello. She'd gone mad by the end… maybe that's why I didn't…" He trailed off, looking over past her for a moment. Martha sat down next to him, resting her hand on his knee. "Suzie may be why I understood some small part of what the Doctor was feeling when he forgave the Master," Jack said, covering her hand with his. "I had to shoot her to stop her from killing another member of my team. It was the right call, but I can still see her face when I close my eyes. When I'm dreaming, I hear her voice…" "Did you love her?" Martha asked, hesitantly. "Not enough," Jack said. Martha wasn't sure what to say after that, so it came as a bit of relief when the ship started bumping about a bit. "Are we in flight?" she asked, standing up. "I thought the Doctor needed to be out here for that." "We might be in the Vortex," Jack said, but he was obviously guessing. "We can't be headed towards a destination without him, but I've known him to take the TARDIS into the time stream and just… hang about for a while." "Should we go find them?" Martha wasn't sure how she felt about the idea, even as she suggested it. "Let's give them some more time," Jack said. "The turbulence isn't so bad and they should be able to feel it just as well as we can. If it's something that we need to worry about, the Doctor will come out to take care of it." As if to mock Jack's words, they hit a spot shaky enough that the both of them almost fell onto the floor. Martha bit her lip and looked over at the console. There was something written in the Doctor's language, blinking on the screen over and over in a purple-ish red script. It looked like a warning. "Oh, that can't be good."
.
.
His head was uncharacteristically fuzzy as he pulled out of sleep, but he was so comfortably warm that it didn't particularly bother him. His head shifted on his soft pillow and he became aware of a slow, deep thrum and an odd sensation of movement.
He blinked and the fog cleared away from his head in a rush. He'd fallen asleep in her room. Which he must have done dozens of times since he'd lost her, so that was nothing strange, but this new variable… He'd set the measure of his life by this sound once, thrilling when he heard the beat accelerate because that always meant that he could look over and see a blindly happy grin and the sweetest, most sparkling pair of eyes he'd encountered in all of time and space. He breathed in, deeply, and he could smell twenty-first century fabric softener, a hint of soap, and the clean and sharp and overwhelmingly familiar scent of her sweat. His head lifted and fell on its cushion, slightly and evenly. Asleep, then. She'd fallen asleep while guarding his dreams. He curled his fingers around a bit of fabric – her trousers – and rubbed against it, marking it down in his memory. This was what she was wearing, this day when she'd come back to him. He dared to lift his head a bit and allowed himself to look. Starting at her feet, which were very reasonably clad in black, low-heeled boots that looked durable and comfortable for running at top speeds, he continued upward to note that her trousers were black and wider at the foot than the knee. The bright pink blanket that she'd managed to wind around her legs was twisted around her right shin in a way that looked potentially crippling if she tried to escape the bed without first disentangling herself. Her trousers were topped off with a sensible black belt that, nonetheless, did not appear to actually be needed for the traditional duties one used a belt for – her clothes seemed fitted enough to stay up on their own. There was, at this point, a small sliver of warm-toned skin on view, just below her shirt's hemline. He hovered his fingertips over the gap, the heat of her body pouring through him. Finally stroking her skin was like reconnecting a circuit – energy flooded into his body and he shivered. He left his hand where it was and lifted his gaze higher. Her shirt wasn't black, though it had appeared that way on first glance, but was rather a deep, dark red that reminded him of blood drops welling up from a puncture wound. It was just a normal shirt, with a neckline that was neither cleavage-baring low nor high enough to kiss her neck. The jacket that she was wearing over it was blue and slightly shiny, made of some fake leather product. The edge of a chain glimmered around her neck, heavy and long enough to be barely visible, and he couldn't resist the temptation to straighten up a bit and shift over so that he could slide his other hand under that chain and slowly pull it out to reveal what she was wearing so close to her heart. Her TARDIS key. He pulled it out properly and then settled it down over her chest where it lay neatly against one of her soft curves. She'd kept it with her, always ready. He could feel his tight, satisfied smile at the thought. Eight years gone and there he was, lying next to her heart. She seemed thinner, which made something in one of his hearts clench. Chips, he decided. They would go somewhere for chips and he would make her laugh and he would watch her chew up deep-fried potatoes and he would attempt to steal one of them and she would smack his hand lightly to keep him away. The skin of her neck seemed unbearably fragile and he could see her pulse beat and he watched as her throat moved slightly as she breathed in and out. Her hair was everywhere – under her head and wrapped around her neck and fluffed up and impossibly adorable. He'd seen her like this far too rarely, before. From today onwards, he would have to make a habit of being around her before she woke up. She still wore ridiculously large hoop earrings. Gold, to match her hair, which was still bleached a color that it hadn't been naturally in all the years she'd known him. It was strange, how comforting those traces of normality were. She'd missed him, but she'd kept on dying her hair and putting on hugely impractical earrings. She'd stopped using as much mascara, though, he noticed. He reached up and brushed her hair off of her face – the strands were slightly oily and he knew that meant that she would immediately run off for the shower when she woke up. She'd never believed him when he told her that he liked her hair better when she hadn't washed it for a while, though she'd humored him a time or two. Her eyebrows were as dark and neatly arched as ever – he traced the lines of them lightly, feeling each tiny hair brush against his skin. He continued mapping her face with his fingers – the bump of her nose and the swell of her mouth. Her lower lip was pouting out slightly in her sleep and he could feel air pass by his hand as she inhaled and exhaled through both her nose and mouth. There was a faint whistling sound that accompanied this. Yet, as lovely as Rose's parts were on their own, he already felt himself longing for her to open up those big eyes of hers and stretch her mouth into a welcoming smile. He carefully placed his hands onto the bed on either side of her shoulders and leaned over, lightly pressing his closed mouth against hers. She sighed into him but remained obstinately asleep. He parted his lips slightly, slipping his tongue out to touch against her mouth. He could taste… peppermint, possibly the remains of tea, and the metallic chalky taste that all humans had, whether they were eighteenth century courtesans, twenty-first century shopgirls, or fifty-first century Time Agents. One of the lads that he'd gone to school with had claimed to have kissed a human once and he'd compared it to licking a computer screen. In the Doctor's opinion, that boy had never tasted a computer or a human in his life. With his mouth on hers, the Doctor could skim the very top of Rose's sleeping mind, and he caught a glimpse of his own smiling face and his hands touching her in those human-sensitive places. He felt her mouth curve up at the corners, but her breathing stayed even and true. It was, he felt, decidedly unfair of her to be all soft and accessible and yet completely unavailable. He pulled away from her mouth with a huff and then turned over to settle down next to her, her body letting off that delicious heat through all those layers of clothing. The TARDIS was making unsettled noises around them and he stroked Rose's arm lightly. They would have to deal with that once Rose woke up – Jack probably wouldn't let them avoid the subject. Still, Rose was here and she was warm and that made all of this worth it. For a time, he drifted off again into sleep, lightly and dreamlessly. When he woke again, it was because he could feel Rose stirring next to him. He slowly shifted up to a sitting position, not wanting to miss the moment when she realized that she'd really done it… again. She'd come back to him. She made a soft, sleepy noise, her head turning toward her own shoulder. One of her hands brushed up against her mouth and her body arched for a short moment and he could see the lines of her… not brassiere, Rose was a twenty-first century Londoner… her bra through the fabric of her shirt. It was, as were all things related to Rose's body, inexplicably fascinating. The room shook around them and Rose's nose scrunched up as she opened her eyes. "The ground's shaking," she said and then her gaze sharpened as it fixed on him. Everything about her changed – her pupils dilated, her heart rate increased, her breathing quickened, her lips parted. Classic human sexual responses. The Doctor hummed happily, wondering if she'd noticed that his fingers were pressed against her stomach. "Are… are we in the TARDIS?" "Safe and sound," he confirmed. "You seem to be feeling better." Her voice had dropped slightly in pitch, rumbling in the back of her throat. He flexed his fingers, stroking against delicate hairs and soft skin – her breath caught and her gaze flicked down to where he was touching her. This was something new for them. He thought that they'd been on the cusp of this, before Torchwood, but during those eternal days without her, he had begun to fear that the spark between them had been nothing more than a dirty old man's fantasy. It hadn't seemed believable, that someone as fresh and bright as Rose could want to share her… joy with him. "A little bit of sleep did the trick nicely," he said. He wondered if Rose would consider him too forward if he suggested they start removing clothing. He'd never had sex with a twenty-first century human woman. Were males still supposed to be the aggressors or had that gone out of fashion along with petticoats? Humans changed their notions about what constituted acceptable sexual practices far too frequently. No one could be reasonably expected to keep up. Rose was smiling at him, her lovely, slightly crooked teeth biting down on her lower lip. He blinked and then tried to regain his previous train of thought. Something about petticoats? "I was having an odd dream," she said. "I was caught in an earthquake and the only way out was in a direction that I desperately didn't want to take." "Ah." The Doctor tried to think of a reasonable explanation that might lead to a mutually pleasurable activity rather than to a less enjoyable conversation with Jack and Martha. Unfortunately, before he could think of one, the TARDIS shook again. "That's the TARDIS," Rose said, her head tilting. "But we should still be on that planet. And the TARDIS would protect us if the planet were having an earthquake. Like inertial dampeners, you said." "If you ignore the fact that my ship is brilliant and real and inertial dampeners are an impossible science-fiction invention," the Doctor protested. He dimly recalled using the phrase himself in a previous regeneration, but he was fairly certain that he'd been an arrogant git back then, so it clearly didn't count. "It's a fairly important qualifier." "Works well enough for an analogy," Rose said, with a dismissive hand-wave. "We shouldn't be feeling anything, is my point." "Oh, right. Yes," the Doctor said. "Quite right. Galtia Six could be tearing itself to pieces under us and the TARDIS wouldn't budge – it's not placed on the planet's actual surface but on the place where it knows the planet's surface should be. Works in all but the most extreme circumstances." "Like being in orbit around a black hole." "Or in the face of certain kinds of alien technology," the Doctor added. "So, what extreme circumstances are we facing now?" Rose asked, but she'd easily pushed up and out of the bed before the Doctor could even open his mouth. She didn't expect him to know already. Well, naturally she didn't. He was uncomfortably aware that Rose believed that he was a very good man. While he was quite often a great man, he was a good man much less frequently. She was already headed out of the room, so the Doctor reluctantly put his previous thoughts on hold and hurried after her. Hopefully, they would be able to sort out this mess without too much fuss.
.
.
Jack glanced up from the screen to see the Doctor and Rose stumble out of a corridor and into the main room. Nothing was stable – it was the bumpiest ride he'd ever had in the TARDIS and that was saying a lot.
"Something's wrong, Doctor," Jack said. "The monitor's been giving out these strange readings but it refuses to translate for me." The Doctor pulled out his specs and slipped them on, then stepped over to look at the screen. His face went still. "What is it? What's wrong?" Martha asked, her eyes wide with worry. There was another frozen moment and then the Doctor smiled widely, in a way that made Jack instinctively mistrust every word about to come out of his mouth. "Oh, there's a small fracture in space and time that appears to be widening and splitting off into microfractures," the Doctor said airily. The contrast between the lightness of his tone and the actual content of his words was staggering. What the hell was going on? "I say we give it a day or two. See if it settles by itself." "It's not dangerous?" Rose asked. She sounded dubious. "Well, I didn't say that." The Doctor pressed a button and yanked on a lever and all the motion just… stopped. Jack could still see the warning on the screen flashing, though. The Doctor hadn't fixed the problem, just one of the symptoms. "Then it is dangerous," Martha said, gingerly letting go of the railing where she'd been clinging. "How dangerous?" "If I understand what he just said correctly, it's very dangerous," Jack said. "If space and time is fracturing, this dimension is going to start breaking down. Letting in… the space between dimensions." "The Void," Rose said. Her face paled as she backed a step away from the Doctor. "Doctor-" "I don't think it's anything we should concern ourselves with at the moment," the Doctor said. "Maybe if we leave it alone, it'll stop. Or reverse. Or… go away. It's impossible to say with our current information." "If that fracture is widening then, soon enough, the universe will start collapsing," Jack said. "Why aren't you worried about this?" "Leave it, Jack." "Why should he?" Martha demanded. "You aren't denying that this is dangerous, so why don't you want to do anything to fix it?" "There's nothing to be done," the Doctor said. "And I really do think that it might get better on its own." Jack scrubbed a hand over his eyes, and glanced back over at the monitor… he still couldn't read it, but he recognized the flashing symbols now. That's what the TARDIS had been reading when they'd first landed on the planet. He'd been wrong before. They were still on Galtia Six. Whatever was happening was coming from the planet. Maybe from the lizards, but that didn't explain why… Jack's blood ran cold and his mind cleared. There was only one way that the Doctor's behavior made any sense. "Doctor, there is a way to stop this, isn't there?" Jack asked, looking over to meet the Doctor's level gaze. "And I think I know what it is." "No, Jack." The Doctor's words were all the worse for how calm they were. He wasn't screaming or shaking anyone's shoulders. He wasn't angry. He was quiet and certain. "That's not an option." "What's not an option?" Martha asked. "Universes collapsing… that sounds familiar," Rose said, with a shaky laugh. The Doctor didn't turn to face her, so Jack got to see the way his face tightened. "You're not telling me that this is about me, are you? You're not saying that to fix this, I have to go back. You're… you're not." "I'm sorry," Jack said, and he couldn't quite look Rose in the eyes. "It's the only possibility. I should have seen it before." "But that isn't fair," Martha said. "There has to be something else we can do." "I wish that I could think of something – hell, I wish that he could," Jack said. "If he had a plan, he would have already put it in motion. We don't have any choices." "Is Jack right?" Rose asked, placing her hand on the Doctor's back. He shivered and closed his eyes for just a moment. "Is this because of me?" "It doesn't matter. I won't do it," the Doctor said, shaking off Rose's hand, and now Jack could see the faint lines of strain by the sides of his mouth. "And without me, Jack can't." "He's right about that. I don't know the controls that well… I can't read the language." He could follow the Doctor's orders easily enough, but whatever might be needed to do to reopen that fracture wide enough without cracking the universe apart required skills that he'd never had the chance to learn. "But it doesn't make any sense." Martha looked over at Rose, mingled confusion and sympathy in her eyes. "I thought this was her original universe. How can she not belong to it?" "Opanilicks can be bothersome for the residents of any particular universe, but they aren't dangerous. Our problem is that they only create a transit window designed for something the size of a three-foot lizard. That light that appears when they travel burns off excess atoms from their previous universe, keeps them from tearing holes in reality," the Doctor said, pulling off his glasses and slipping them back into his pocket. "When Rose came through, being larger than an Opanilick, she was still dragging pieces of that other universe with her, attached to her, like burrs from a burdock plant – the air that she'd breathed and the food that she'd eaten was still inside her. They could sense it. It's why they attacked her. They knew that her presence in this universe was dangerous." "You knew," Rose said. "All along, you knew this was happening." "I knew it was a possibility. I was hoping that I was wrong. As you yourself pointed out, I've been wrong so often recently." The Doctor glanced slightly behind himself, where Rose was standing, tension bleeding through his deceptively casual outward appearance. "You didn't tell any of us," Martha said, leaning back heavily onto the console. Jack didn't have to look at her to peg the note of betrayal in her voice. He could sympathize – that first moment of realizing that, no matter what a person did to prove his loyalty, Rose Tyler would always matter more was hell to get through. Martha had thought that she and the Doctor were close… he'd thought the same thing before he'd been left behind, the sound of the TARDIS ringing in his ears. "You knew the universe was at risk and you didn't say a word." "Until we knew for certain, there was no point in causing panic." "And now we do know," Jack said, his voice harsher than he'd planned. "I love Rose, too, but we can't prioritize her over the universe." "I have to go back," Rose said, her voice breathy, as though the words were being forced out of her. The look on her face was almost… resigned, like she'd known all along that she wouldn't get to stay. "No," the Doctor said, finally turning to face Rose. If this conversation weren't quite so important, Jack would want to leave them to it, but he couldn't risk the Doctor making the wrong choice. As the Doctor continued speaking, Jack maneuvered so that he could see both of them. "I won't allow it." "It's my choice." "It's not what you want." "Of course it isn't," Rose admitted, earnest and honest. "I'd love to stay here with you, but I can't. We are not more important than the universe, Doctor." The Doctor's expression softened and he reached out to tuck some of Rose's hair behind her ear. "To me, you are." Jack could see Rose leaning slightly toward the Doctor and this was not a good direction for this conversation to be going in. "But won't Rose die along with the rest of the universe?" Martha said, looking startled when everyone turned toward her. "I mean… if the universe is collapsing, we're all going to die." "Actually, we probably wouldn't," the Doctor said. As Martha had pointed out, back when this trip had started, 'probably' wasn't the most reassuring word for the Doctor to use. "We'd likely end up stuck in the Void and, in that case, I wouldn't recommend us actually leaving the TARDIS… ever… but we'd still be alive and together. Ninety-eight percent certainty. Well, maybe eighty-nine. Well… no one really likes to hear the odds, anyway." "And that's the solution that you want to go with?" Martha asked. "Our universe in tatters and us with an eighty-nine percent chance of surviving at all?" "Seventy-seven at the lowest," the Doctor amended. "Still, better than the alternative." "How can that possibly be better?" Jack asked, trying to figure out if he could tie the Doctor up, drug him, and force him to tell Jack what to do to fix this. "Rose will be happy." "Destroying the universe will not make me happy," Rose said, looking stunned. "Doctor, I lived in that parallel world for eight years. I can do it again." "No, you told me," the Doctor said. And that was just lovely. Couldn't Rose and the Doctor just have been off having reunion sex, like any other couple? "You said that your heart would always belong to me. That other man – you couldn't promise him the rest of your life. Because you still love me. If I'm the only man who will ever make you happy, how can I possibly deny you that happiness? I was asked a question once… what use are emotions if-" "If you won't save the woman you love," Rose finished for him, and her eyes were bright with unshed tears and Jack wished that he could be anywhere but in this room right now, though they were too caught up in each other to pay attention to him or Martha. "Doctor… I said that I was happy without you. I was. I will be, again." "You were lying," the Doctor said, gently. His hand lifted up, as if to touch her again, but she pulled back and the Doctor curled his hand into a fist and let it drop. "We both knew it. Your… boyfriend… did he know about me?" "The first time he ever asked me out on a date, I said no. When he asked me why… I don't think he expected me to answer, but I said that I'd lost the man I loved and wasn't looking to replace him. Yeah, he knew," Rose said. "I did fall in love with him, Doctor. I didn't lie about that." "You wore my key around your neck," the Doctor said – and Jack could see it now, Rose's key lying on the outside of her shirt, the light from the console glinting off it. "You never stopped looking for a way back to me. You said that. You may have cared about this other man in a shallow and human way… but you knew where you belonged. Where you were meant to be." "I am human, Doctor. I only know how to love in a shallow, human way," Rose said, her voice lifting and sharpening. "I'm not just human when you're angry with me. I'm human all the time. I don't love you like one Time Lord loves another, with just her mind. I love you like a human, with everything that goes along with that. I'm sorry if human love isn't good enough for you, because it's all I've got on offer." Rose was nearly panting with frustration and the Doctor was practically quivering. With anyone else, Jack would be expecting angry sex up against a wall at this point, but with these two, he had no idea what would happen next. "You think that I love just your mind?" the Doctor asked, the words a challenge. "I told you were beautiful once, remember?" "Oh, yes, 'considering that I'm human', I do recall," Rose said and her old accent was rising up now to choke her words. "It's not exactly the best compliment in the world, now is it?" "I'd never found a human so attractive before! It was fairly new. Pardon me if I was a bit surprised. Besides, you always had Mister Mickey to fall back on, so it's not like you were starved for affection." "Oh, are we still going on about Mickey? Has that been bothering you? Have you been lying awake in your bed, wondering whether or not we might be shagging at that very moment?" Rose took a few steps forward, crowding the Doctor up against the console. "Well, it's not as though you ever really broke up with him," the Doctor said, not backing up an inch and as bitter and harsh as Jack had ever heard him sound. Jack saw Martha wince and cover her eyes. He fought the urge to do the same. Even with the universe in the balance, he was seriously considering sneaking out of the room until the yelling was over. "There I was, brand-new and all for you, and you were still kissing him hello and goodbye. Like nothing I'd done, which included saving you from the Daleks and, oh, yes, dying for you… like none of that mattered. No, I can't possibly see why that would bother me." "All for me? All for me?" Rose's voice was reaching pitches that Jack had never heard out of her before. "What about Reinette bloody Poisson? Remember her? 'France is a different planet' – remember that?" "She didn't mean anything!" the Doctor shouted, his arms flailing out wildly, though Jack noticed that, despite how close they were standing, Rose wasn't in any danger of getting accidentally hit. "Neither did Mickey!" The moment after the words rushed out, Rose took a step back from the Doctor and clapped a hand over her mouth, looking sick. "I didn't mean that. I didn't. I love Mickey. I've loved Mickey all my life." The Doctor, on the other hand, was looking positively gleeful. Jack had never found him less attractive. "Didn't mean anything?" His voice was smug in a way that made Jack want to punch him in the nose. "And when… do you think… did that happen for you? After I changed or… was it before? When was the last kiss with Mickey that you really meant?" "That's none of your business," Rose said faintly, still looking like she wanted to throw up. She took a slow, deep breath and Jack saw the Doctor's face fall a bit. "Mickey and I… we were friends in the parallel world, Doctor. Just friends. And… you never needed to be jealous of him." "You didn't need to be jealous, either," the Doctor said, his smugness having faded to normal background levels. "Not of Reinette and not of Sarah Jane or Kelly or Helen or Cleo or… or Christy or-" "Lucy?" Rose suggested, offering up a wobbly smile. "Or Lucy," he agreed, and his expression was rueful now, that ugly superiority gone. "When I first opened my eyes after regenerating, you were there with me… I can remember thinking that I wanted to hold your hand for the rest of my life. No one will ever replace you, Rose. No one could ever replace you. You don't need to worry about that." Rose's smile widened and the Doctor smiled back at her, both of them so full of relief, and… this could last a while, if they just let it happen and there was currently something of a crisis, so Jack should interrupt them. As soon as he was certain that the Doctor wouldn't murder him for it. "So, we need to find another solution," Martha said, and Jack could have kissed her. "We need a plan that will let Rose stay here with all of us. Doctor – you are the smartest man that I have ever met. You'll think of something better than hiding in the TARDIS and hoping that the bad things will go away." "That's just it," the Doctor said, glancing over at Jack. "I know that there has to be another way, but I can't… I can't think of one." "What makes you so certain?" Jack asked. "It's simple," the Doctor said. "Rose, do you hate me? Do you want me suffer horrible agonizing pain?" "Not at the moment," Rose said. "If you'd asked five minutes ago, it might have been a different answer." "There you have it," the Doctor said, as if everything had been explained. "There you have… what?" Martha asked. "There was this… thing… this phrase that followed Rose and me around for… probably longer than we actually noticed," the Doctor said. Jack's breath caught in his throat and he wondered- "Bad wolf?" Martha asked. Cardiff – that first time in Cardiff, the Doctor had pointed that phrase out and wondered if it meant anything. "You were paying attention. Earlier. When I was hugging Rose..." The Doctor paused, his expression hovering in an amusing mix of pride and self-consciousness. "You know, that was a bit of a personal moment." "Believe me, I would be much happier if you two would start having your personal moments in private," Martha said. "As it is, I can't avoid them." "That's… a good point. Anyway… it turned out that 'Bad Wolf' was actually a code that Rose retroactively planted in our timeline to guide herself to becoming powerful enough to scatter it in the first place." "That makes my head hurt," Martha said, but she had a sparkle in her eye. "Well, the point is… Bad Wolf is what led Rose to this universe. To bring her here just to have her pulled away again – this time knowing for certain that she'll always love me and never be truly happy without me – that would be torture. Rose wouldn't do that to me." The Doctor shrugged. "So, you see, there must be another way out of this. But I can't see it." "You know, if you'd just told us all this up-front, we could have avoided a lot of argument," Jack pointed out. The Doctor opened his mouth and Jack cut him off. "I know… you were hoping that you wouldn't need to tell us at all. But we're your friends, Doctor, and we want to be able to help you when we can." "Could Rose open up the TARDIS again?" Martha suggested. "That's not happening," the Doctor said, firmly. "Why not?" Martha asked. "Looking into the Time Vortex is incredibly dangerous," he said. "She shouldn't have survived it the first time. If I'd been there… well, I wasn't and that was precisely why she did it. In any case, it's completely out of the question. I won't put Rose at risk." "And I get no choice?" Rose asked. "It's my life, Doctor, if I decide to risk it." "I have bent enough to say that you can face any danger that I would face," the Doctor said, and Jack could see his hands trembling, though his voice stayed level. "Don't ask me to let you do something that I wouldn't dare do myself. If you died because of my ship, I would never forgive myself." "It really scares you that much?" Rose asked, glancing up to meet the Doctor's eyes. The Doctor closed the distance between them, wrapping his hands around her shoulders and leaning in to whisper something to her, the words too quiet for Jack to hear. Rose was nodding and she'd closed her eyes, her body leaning in toward the Doctor's. Jack looked over at Martha, who'd tilted her head and was staring at the Doctor and Rose with an intent look. He went over to find out what she was thinking. "Have you come up with something?" he asked her. She nodded carefully, reaching up to undo the necklace that hung around her neck. "Yeah – can you give this to the Doctor?" she asked, the heart-shaped pendant on it pressing into his palm when she handed it to him. "Right now. He'll know what to do with it." "What is it?" Jack asked, holding it up and trying to see what made it so special. It just looked like an ordinary, though pretty, necklace to him. "He'll know," Martha said, with a reassuring smile. Jack made his way over to the Doctor and Rose, who were standing right up against the railing. As he got closer, he could hear the sounds of their soft conversation. Just before he would have been able to make out individual words, Rose glanced up and acknowledged him with a slightly watery smile. "Have you two thought up another option?" Rose asked. Jack was pleased to meet the hope in her voice with a bright grin. He dangled Martha's necklace from his hand. "Martha seemed to think that this might help," Jack said. The Doctor took it from him, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion. "There's nothing unique about this necklace," the Doctor said, hauling out his sonic screwdriver and frowning as he waved it. "It's not an alien device in disguise, secretly advanced technology, or anything that would-" The Doctor broke off as he looked off over Jack's shoulder. Jack turned to see Martha standing at the console, feeling underneath for something. "Rose said the trick was to know – to absolutely know – what it is that you want," Martha said, not looking back at them. "Martha, don't-" the Doctor said, pushing past Jack. The Doctor was just a step away from her when the panel that Martha was standing at flipped up, the same way that it had with Blon all those years ago, and the room flooded with blinding light.
.
.
The bright, yellow wash of light was so familiar, but it wasn't Rose standing at the console this time – Martha Jones had reached the heart of the TARDIS and it was speaking to her.
Rose could see the Doctor reaching for Martha, to pull her away, but his hands slid off of her as though she were surrounded in slippery invisible armour. Some kind of force field created by the TARDIS, maybe. Tendrils of light were snaking up from the panel and into Martha's eyes. Watching it from the outside, like this, was actually a bit disturbing – she couldn't even see Martha's eyes at all, they were so filled with that golden light. Rose moved closer, blinking to clear her eyes. She could see Martha's face, full of ecstatic purpose, her mouth curved up into a knowing smile. "Oh," Martha said, looking over to meet Rose's gaze. The light had settled a bit and Rose could just barely make out the brown of Martha's irises now. "I can see you in here, from before. There were… so many possibilities and you had plans for… for all of them. Countless strategies, an infinite number of ways... to find him again. You always find him again." "Martha, you need to let go," the Doctor said, still trying to reach for her. "Please. The power will kill you if you hold onto it for too long. It's killing you now." Martha nodded, her expression distant. "I can feel it," she agreed, something in her voice echoing. "My body is burning and this world is spinning around us and I can feel the turn of it – the pull of the stars and the moons." "Let me-" "This is the answer, Doctor," Martha said, with ringing certainty. "I can… pull away the parts of that other universe that are infesting her and then I can close the gap. It's so clear to me." Martha's face was beautiful and terrifying. Rose wondered if this was this how she had looked to the Doctor, when she'd returned to him on the Game Station, so full of knowledge and power. If so, she could understand him not wanting to go into detail about it later. Martha's eyebrows quirked up, as if she could read Rose's mind and was amused, and then she clicked her fingers. An odd quivering feeling briefly overtook Rose's body – pins and needles, like a pinched nerve, but all over and inside her. She dropped to the floor, gasping, feeling a bit like half her ribs had been yanked straight out of her. It took her a few minutes before the buzz in her ears cleared, and she could feel the Doctor's arms around her, helping her to stand. Once she was under her own power, he was gone, and she took another moment just to breathe. When she looked up again, the Doctor was standing a couple of feet away from Martha, running his hands over empty air. Jack was a step behind him, fascination and worry written in every line of his body. "Martha, was that everything?" Rose asked. The Doctor turned toward the sound of her voice, one hand still on the barrier. He looked… absolutely wrecked and she felt the sudden, sharp urge to hold on tightly and never let him go. He glanced back at Martha; Rose saw his hand flex uselessly in mid-air. "Can you let go now?" "Not quite. I've done... almost everything that you'd planned out," Martha said. They were losing her. Rose didn't know how she knew it, but she did. If Martha held onto the power for much longer, she wouldn't be able to release it. It would consume her. "But I can see… so much more. I could do so much more. Doctor, I could bring him back-" "Don't you dare," the Doctor said. Who was 'him'? Who else had the Doctor lost while she'd been gone? "Martha, don't." "But you're my friend," Martha said, the glow in her eyes momentarily fading. "I want you to be happy." "That's what she was doing," Jack said, softly. Rose looked over at him. "She was staring at you two… she must have been fixing that thought in her mind so that it would dominate whatever the Vortex saw." "That's not the answer, Martha," the Doctor said. "Yes, I miss him. I always will. The universe does not. The dead should stay dead." Rose saw Jack's whole body flinch at the Doctor's words. She reached out toward him, but he moved away from her, avoiding her touch. "You don't want me to fix anything else?" Martha asked, sounding hopeful. "I'm good at fixing things. Particularly people." "You're brilliant," the Doctor said, a note of desperation in his voice. "You've done an amazing job. I'm so impressed, Martha. Now, please, let me take that power out of you." "No," Martha said. "Martha?" Rose stepped closer. "I can remember now how wonderful it felt to have time and space running through my head, but we aren't built to keep it there. Not even the Doctor can hold all of that inside his head without burning up." "No, I will," Martha said – looking into her eyes right now was like how Rose imagined falling into a well would feel like, deep darkness with that ever-shrinking bright sky overhead. "Just… not the Doctor." "Martha, what are you planning?" the Doctor asked, curiosity temporarily overcoming his fear. Rose felt a quick surge of affection for him. "Jack – did you really want to live forever?" Martha asked. Jack startled a bit, like a spooked horse. "I… no," Jack said, his voice disbelieving. Rose swallowed hard, choking back another apology. "I'd resigned myself to it, but I've never wanted it." "Then come over here," Martha said, tilting her head and smiling more widely. Jack moved to her, walking right over the barrier that was still holding the Doctor back. Martha's hand reached up and cupped Jack's cheek. "Kiss me." Jack leaned down and Rose blinked, trying to see anything past the light that surrounded the two of them. She moved forward, placing a reassuring hand against the Doctor's back. The light rose up even more brightly, for a moment, and then it lifted up and started to slowly drift back toward the open panel. It seemed to take an eternity, but eventually the glow between Martha and Jack faded away and the pair of them slumped to the ground, the console snapping shut. The Doctor relaxed against Rose, and his voice held a tight note of relief. "Martha's fine. Jack is mostly mortal again. The power has gone out of both of them." "It worked," Rose said, leaning down and brushing Martha's hair out of her face. "It worked, but they'll be out of it for a while. Jack wasn't quite as efficient as I was with you." "Then I reckon we should move these two to more comfortable beds," Rose said. The Doctor nodded and then knelt down to scoop Martha up into his arms – it didn't look like it was his first time doing it. "I'll take Martha to her room and then we'll move Jack together," he said, rising to his feet in one graceful motion. She always forgot how strong he was until he had occasion to show off. She settled herself next to Jack for the moment, tracing the lines of his face. She'd made him immortal – had it been for this moment, so that Martha could choose him instead of the Doctor? Had Jack's immortality been nothing more than Rose looking at the future, seeing this version of the Doctor, and deciding that she wanted to keep him looking that way? It was a bit of a lowering thought, that she could have been so shallow. She'd fallen in love with the Doctor when he'd looked the way he had before, but she couldn't deny that she found this version of him to be more attractive. The thick, dark hair that she already knew she loved running her fingers through, the sharp and pointed features of his face and body and the way the suits that he wore accentuated some of his best features… he was, to use Cassandra's word, foxy. Then she glanced up when he came back in the room and was hit with a rush of desire that had nothing to do with his appearance… oh, he was lovely, truly, but even if he'd changed into an eighty year-old man with a pot-belly and no teeth, she would still have loved him. "Ready to move Jack?" he asked, that relieved smile still on his face. Rose hopped up and, together, they shifted Jack from the control room and into a bed. Rose straightened out Jack's legs and… he started to snore. Rose glanced over to meet the Doctor's eyes and they burst into a round of giggles. "There, you see – sorted. No need for you to go anywhere," the Doctor said, as though he hadn't just been in a state of panic over what Martha had done. "I think that maybe we should talk," Rose said, taking the Doctor by the hand and leading him back to her room. "We talk all the time," the Doctor pointed out. Rose gave him a firm look and he settled down next to her on her bed. "One day, I am going to die," Rose said. "I'm well aware of that fact." He was speaking down to her hand and not to her face. "Doctor… you were prepared to let the universe collapse around us rather than let me go. I need to know that, after you lose me, you'll be all right again, someday." Before, she'd been worried because she knew how stubbornly lonely he could be, but now there was so much more at stake than just the Doctor's heart. "There was a young boy who traveled with me for a time," the Doctor said, which was… odd, but Rose was prepared to go along with it for now. He turned over her hand and lightly stroked along the lines of her palm. "Brilliant child. Loved mathematics and solving problems. He… died while with me." "I'm sorry." "Don't be. It was years ago. It hardly signifies." "It does or you wouldn't have brought it up." "I suppose that it isn't really a topic for idle conversation," he said. "I loved him. Not in… not like that. But like a talented kid brother that I wanted to show the universe off to, only… it didn't quite work out as I'd planned. Nothing went as I planned, in that particular regeneration." "How many…" she stopped to clear her throat. "How many times have you been hurt so badly that you changed?" "Nine – this is my tenth body." "So, you're the tenth Doctor?" "Oh, don't start calling me that. It makes me sound like a clone." Rose couldn't stop herself from giggling, despite the fact that it wasn't terribly funny. And once she started, she couldn't make herself stop. The Doctor put his hands on her shoulders and she could hear his voice saying that everything was going to be all right. It sounded like a lie. "The whole universe, Doctor," she whispered into his ear. "I don't... you have to promise me that you won't ever make that choice again." He pulled back so that they could look into each other's eyes – he was smiling, slightly, the corners of his eyes crinkling up the tiniest bit. "I've decided that what matters most to me is your happiness," he said, tenderly. "Some people would call that romantic." "Some people – and I want to make it very clear that I'm including you here – some people are complete nutters," Rose said, still feeling the edges of hysteria trying to sneak back up on her. "Now, you tell me what happened while I was gone. Because this isn't just about losing me. You said… you said that there was a year that didn't happen. Tell me about that." "It doesn't mat-" "It does. Tell me." The Doctor reached up and loosened his tie with a jerking motion. He glanced over at her, then at the door, and she wondered if he was thinking of making a run for it. "You know that I lost my people," the Doctor said. At first, his words came slowly, but they sped up as he continued, as if some part of him were absolutely aching to share this with someone. "Recently, briefly, I found one of them again. The man I found was the person who was the best and worst choice for a fellow survivor." "I don't understand." "When I was in school, there was a boy," he said. And that was the connection, then. He'd been thinking about an entirely different boy and wanting to avoid whatever the real problem was. "He was clever and funny. And I loved him. At the time, he was my closest friend." "You loved him like the boy that died or-" "I loved him the way you do the one person you feel can truly understand your feelings of… loneliness and alienation. It was partly physical, but primarily philosophical. We would talk for hours about our plans for the future, about how we were going to shake up the pale world of Gallifrey – my home planet – and make it vibrant and real once more. We even travelled together, after we left school," the Doctor said. There was such a painfully deep longing in his voice. "What happened?" "I met my wife," he said, each word carefully placed, as though he was afraid it might hurt her. Because apparently him letting on that he'd been a dad once wouldn't be a give-away in the 'wife' area. "Lieroniakiahoutonia had a laugh like silver bells and hair that gleamed like a flood of rubies. I was… charmed by her, for a time." "She was ginger?" Rose asked, amused, stroking the Doctor's hand lightly. He gave her a gentle, pleased smile. His wife's name had sounded more like a spill of musical notes than a word. It made Rose wonder, briefly, what his given name had been, but she was so used to calling him the Doctor that she doubted she could adjust even if he told her. Especially if it was as long as the one he'd just said. And he wouldn't call himself the Doctor if he didn't prefer it to his old name. "She was," he confirmed. "Nakoscheidorinel – my childhood friend – grew quite angry with me when I told him that I was planning on staying on Gallifrey with her instead of continuing to travel with him. He went off on his own and I had myself a small family." "And were you happy?" "Oh, yes," he reassured her. "For quite a few years, we were very content. We had three children, all girls. All of them passed the test to qualify for the Academy and Lieronia, in particular, was very pleased about that." "What went wrong?" Rose asked. The Doctor pulled in a deep, slow breath before continuing. "That friend of mine, Koschei, was dragged home by the Council for conduct unbecoming a Time Lord. They were going to strip him of the ability to regenerate. He begged for my help… I couldn't refuse him. Lieronia stood by the majority decision and asked me not to speak for him. It would make us laughingstocks, she said. He deserved his sentence, deserved to be less than he was." The Doctor's mouth twisted – this memory was clearly painful for him, even after all this time. "I went to see Koschei alone, to try to find out why he was behaving this way. He… entered my mind and I saw his madness." His hand tightened on hers, enough to hurt. She flinched a bit and he immediately loosened his grip, sending her a guilty look. "I only saw the very edges of it, of course," the Doctor said, more lightly. "If I'd known the full extent of what he carried around inside, I might have behaved differently." "You defended him." "I did. She… never forgave me for it. We drifted apart. It took over a century, all told, and after we finally parted ways, it was as if we'd never been married at all. She treated me as a stranger." "I'm sorry." "It worked, though," he said, quickly, as if to wave away the melancholy of his earlier words. "I saved Koschei from the judgment of the Time Lords. For a while, it was like we were kids again. And then…" He fell silent. None of these stories of his appeared to have happy endings. "What, Doctor?" "He pushed just a little too hard and I did what I always do – I ran," he said. "I ran all the way back to Gallifrey and I found someone there. Someone who needed me very much." "Who was that?" "Leirasusanitoudoria, my youngest daughter's firstborn," he said. The smile that appeared on his face at the thought of her was small, but seemed so spontaneous and true. "She was seven, just about to turn eight, and that meant that she would soon go through the test of the Time Lords. The same test that, I now believe, drove Koschei insane. I didn't know that back then but, still, I felt in my bones that I didn't want her to go through that ordeal. So, I suppose that she was the first young girl I stole away. The first in a long and glorious line." His voice turned bitter and low, but his thumb stroked along the curve of Rose's hand gently. "I… liberated my TARDIS from where it had been waiting to die and we started planet-hopping. They could have followed us if they'd really wanted to, I always knew that, but they never did try. They called me an exile and a criminal, but they didn't chase me." "You asked her," Rose said. The Doctor looked at her, startled. "You said that you stole her away, but you asked her what she wanted, didn't you?" "How did- yes. I asked her what she wanted to do, who she wanted to be. She wanted to see the stars and… it's hard to describe how relationships worked for us, but she understood that I was her grandfather in a very deep, very intuitive way, despite the fact that we'd never met before that conversation." "Because of the telepathy?" "In part, yes. It's… more complicated than that," he said. "With her, there was a shared kinship, one that touched more deeply than I'd felt with her mother or my other two daughters. She was in love with the universe in a way similar to how I was… similar to how you feel, I expect." "Oh, now don't you dare compare me to your granddaughter," Rose said, laughing. "That's… that's not the best way to flirt with a human woman, Doctor." "Fair point," he said. "We had… many adventures together and then we went to this tiny, insignificant little planet that she fell in love with. She wanted to stay there, go to one of their primitive schools, live like one of them." "I'm going to guess that this was Earth," she said. "Earth in the 1960's," he said. "She loved your world. She felt at home there, in a way that she never felt on Gallifrey or any of the other planets we happened upon." "Hold on… the phone box shape, you said that was from the 1960's," she said. "It reminds you of her, doesn't it? Keeping it the same way means that part of her is still with you." "The part of her that reminds me that I also fell in love with you humans," he agreed. "Your… exuberance and life… your passion and thirst for knowledge and justice… your ability to survive so much with such fragile bodies." As he said those last words, he lifted his hand up and rubbed the curve of her jaw, cool fingers dipping down to feel her pulse point. She took a quick, shuddery breath and his eyes narrowed with interest. She reached up and firmly pulled his hand away, giving him a stern look. "Was it this… Koschei that you ran into recently?" Koschei, Rose had decided at the beginning of this conversation, had to be the 'him' that Martha had mentioned. "Yes," he said, wrapping his fingers around hers again. "We've had quite a few encounters over the years, most of them ending up with him trying to kill me. And then there was the War and I thought he'd died." "You missed him." "He'd once been my best friend – he turned into, for lack of a better phrase, my best enemy. And I never stopped loving him. Nor, I suspect, did he ever stop loving me. He was just very bad at expressing his feelings." "Worse than you?" "I've never tried to kill you." "Not on purpose." She grinned at him and leaned in to place a quick kiss on his cheek. When she pulled back, his face had gone a bit pink. "But I forgive you anyway." "Oddly enough, that's just what I said to him," the Doctor said. "I forgave him." "What did he do?" "He… may have enslaved the entire population of the Earth, twisted the TARDIS into a machine that would allow a terrible paradox, and destroyed the future of the human race." The Doctor hesitated. "And… he hit his wife." "Did she forgive him?" "She shot him, actually." "Good for her," Rose said fiercely. The Doctor stared at her for a moment, as though he didn't quite know what to think, and then he broke into that fondly embarrassed smile of his, the one that usually went along with him rubbing at his eye. "My little Amazon," he said and the note of wonder in his voice was rather flattering. "How do I always end up with the violent ones?" "You're a very lucky man," she said. "You told me that, once." "So I did." "Was it losing this friend of yours that's made you so… stupid?" "I'm not sure that 'stupid' is really-" "I'm sure. I'm very sure. I am… an incredible person, no doubt about it. I don't suffer from a whole lot of self-esteem issues. Sometimes, I wish I were a bit thinner, but apart from that, I've got a fairly healthy self-image." "Why would you want to be thinner?" the Doctor asked, forehead scrunching up. "You've always been perfectly lovely, even by your current society's ridiculously narrow standards, and certainly by anyone else's." "Oh." Rose stopped for a moment, feeling herself flush. "Not the point. The point is… wonderful as I am… I'm still not worth more than an entire universe. Okay?" "We'll just have to disagree on that point," the Doctor said amiably. "Besides, it all worked out. No need to fuss over the details." "Choosing one person over… countless billions of lives seems like more than a detail to me," Rose said. "I wasn't really making that choice," he said. "Like I told the lot of you – you would have known that I couldn't leave you to be unhappy. Once I knew that you needed me for your happiness… I would have done anything. So, you made certain that I wouldn't need to. It's what we've always done, Rose. We balance each other out. Usually, it's the other way around, with you reminding me of the small details and me explaining the larger picture to you, but you picked up the slack admirably when I faltered." "Ten years ago, when I had the power of the Time Vortex racing through me." "Exactly. You knew what was needed and you made it happen. Just like you did with leaving 'bad wolf' lying around so that you could come back to me, that first time." "I still don't remember all of it," Rose said. "Just bits and pieces. The light was… so bright and so beautiful and I could see time slipping through the world. The inside of your head was… similar, though not nearly as strong." "And now Martha knows what it's like, too," the Doctor mused. "Her memories will be as shaky as yours were in the beginning, but they will grow in time. And Jack experienced immortality for a while, though he'll have to start being careful about his life again. He's probably only got about three hundred years left in him now." "Are you starting to think that maybe you aren't as alone as you thought you were?" "I'm considering the possibility," he allowed. "Even after I die – after Martha and Jack both die – there will still be people in the universe worth knowing," she said. "Maybe even worth falling in love with, don't you reckon?" "You know, many women would find it hopelessly endearing to know that the man who loves them has never felt as strongly about anyone else and almost certainly will never feel the same way again." "I'd say that those women are more in love with being loved than with the actual man," Rose said easily enough, though she knew she was blushing. It turned out that nearly getting engaged to a psychologist might have some long-term benefits after all. "I want you to be happy. I also would prefer that the universe stay intact. And… Doctor, I don't promise to choose you over the universe." "Quite right, too," the Doctor said, not looking offended in the least. "The universe needs its champions." "Speaking of… Jack seems well. Rebuilding the Earth working out for him all right?" "You know, I didn't actually lie to you. I feel that I should make that point," he said. Rose didn't point out that lies of omission should still count, because it was rather obvious from his need to justify himself that he realized it without her mentioning it. "I think that he might like Martha. There could be a romance budding right under our noses." "Have you been watching the soaps while I've been gone? Got a bit hooked on EastEnders?" Rose teased. The Doctor huffed in displeasure, looking quite put-out. Rose curled up next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. She couldn't see his expressions anymore, but he went and wrapped his arm around her and leaned his face against the top of her head, so that was all right. She entwined her fingers with his. "I'm sure that Jack does like Martha. Jack likes everyone." "It might do Jack a bit of good to like people a little less universally," the Doctor said, sounding adorably prim. "If you don't want him to start flirting with me again, you only have to say," Rose told him. "If it bothers you that much… it's not something that I care about. You might have noticed that I wasn't chatting up the boys once you and I had… you know. Become you and I." She didn't even have to look to know that the Doctor was about to say something. "Mickey doesn't count," Rose added firmly, before he could speak. "You would say that," the Doctor groused. "Besides, you're the one with the Lucys and the Reinettes," Rose teased. "You've got a girl in every city and every time period, from what I can see." "Nearly all of those women didn't even flirt with me," the Doctor protested. "I'll give you Reinette, but all Lucy did was answer a quick question. There was no flirting." "Doctor, you can flirt by breathing." Literally, in the case of trees, she thought, taking a moment and biting down on her lower lip to keep from laughing out loud at him. "You think they'll want to keep on travelling with us?" "Who will what?" "Martha and Jack. Do you think that they'll want to stay on?" "Why wouldn't they?" "The two of us almost destroying the universe comes to mind," Rose said. "They did get a chance to save it," the Doctor pointed out. "That had to have been enjoyable." "Hmm." "What does that mean?" "Just… I missed this," Rose said, pressing a kiss to the top of his shoulder. "All of this. I missed it so much while I was away." "Well… you could give sticking around for a bit longer a try," the Doctor said, utterly failing to sound casual. Rose made a soft murmur of agreement and tucked herself closer to him. "I… would like that very much. If you could stay here with me." "As long as humanly possible," Rose promised. "Longer, if I can manage it." It wasn't as grand and epic as promising him 'forever', but when she'd said that nine years ago she'd only been twenty. Eighty years had seemed like an eternity back then. "Any of those human things... marriage or children or even a house… if you want them… I'd rather stay with you in an immobile house filled with laughing children than visit all of the stars in the universe without you," he said, so quietly. "Anything you want, just tell me and I will do everything in my power to make it happen, if it would make you happy." "I am happy," Rose told him. "I'm perfectly content." He let out a soft sigh into her hair and she cuddled more deeply into his arms. Maybe they would have kids, maybe they wouldn't. Maybe she'd die in his arms when she was ninety and starting to forget her own name; maybe she'd get shot in an alien marketplace a week from now. The universe moved on and anything could happen next. Travelling with the Doctor meant that adventure was just around the corner and disaster was hovering on the horizon. There would certainly be explosions and near-death experiences and aliens in every shade of the rainbow. It would be familiar, but so much better. Because she'd never stopped being reckless in her years with Torchwood, she just hadn't had any company. Strange creatures and space and everything in the galaxy… none of it had seemed as exciting without him. She used go out running as fast as she could, every day, but she would still feel like she was standing still. In this universe, there would be his hand in hers, and Jack and Martha as friends – and Sarah Jane, back on Earth. And… her mother had Pete, young Tony, Mickey, and the dozens of friends that she'd made over the course of those long years in the parallel world. They'd both be all right. This was the choice that Rose would have made, eight years ago. This was the choice that she had made, ten years ago. She knew that she'd make this choice again, a hundred times over, if necessary. Life with the Doctor was dangerous, verging on impossible at times, generally uncertain… never boring and always, always fantastic. ~The End~
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Continue on to the next story in the series: Customs and Traditions.
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