Before His Time 3/3

[wendymr]

Story: Before His Time
Author: WMR
Rated: PG
Characters: Nine, Rose, Jack, Ten
Spoilers: All the way to TCI
Summary: After being left on Satellite Five, Jack tries to track his former companions down. Finally, he thinks he's found them... but all is not as he assumes.

Chapter 1: Familiar Strangers

Chapter 2: Testing Times 



Chapter 3: Reunion

The doors open. He steps outside and finds himself in the console-room of another TARDIS. It looks oddly different, somehow - less bare metal, the lighting is softer. But that doesn’t make sense. The Doctor told him that he’d caught up with the other TARDIS and its crew just days after they left him behind.

“ ‘Bout time you got back.” A voice he doesn’t recognise comes from the other side of the room, behind the console. But he doesn’t have time to investigate the source. Blonde hair flying, Rose is running to him. And all he can do - all he wants to do - is hold her in his arms. This is really her, this time. His Rose.

In the background, he’s barely aware of the sound of a TARDIS dematerialising. The other Doctor and Rose are leaving. But he’s not interested in them; all he cares about is that he’s found his friends again. And Rose is in his arms.

She clings to him as if she will never let him go. And, remembering their parting all those months ago, and the long, lonely time in between, he feels the same way. He kissed her, then; a kiss goodbye. Now, as a lump swells in his throat again, just as it did back on Satellite Five when he said his farewells, he dips his head to kiss her once more. She returns the kiss, less surprised by it this time. Enthusiastic, this time.

“We missed you,” she says as he raises his head. “ ‘S good to have you back.”

It’s so good to be back. To be home.

And now all he wants is to see the Doctor, too.

“Think you could let go of Rose long enough to say hello to another old friend?”

That same strange voice. Jack looks up to see a man he’s never met before standing next to them. He’s about his own height, younger than him by a few years, with floppy mid-brown hair and an open, friendly face. He’s dressed rather formally in a brown pin-striped suit, though the effect is softened by the loosened tie, open shirt-collar and the white running shoes.

Someone who knows him, apparently. Someone he knew during those missing years?

“I think you have the advantage - ” he begins slowly, but is thrown by Rose’s laugh and the stranger’s grin.

“Jack. Regeneration! New body. New face. New everything, really!” And the man’s grin gets wider. Then he continues, a little more seriously, “Well, not everything, actually. Still the same inside. Still me.”

The penny’s beginning to drop. He has heard of regeneration, though he thought it was another of those myths. Should have known, of course, that around the Doctor myths have an annoying habit of becoming reality.

There’s only one conclusion to draw. “Doctor?”

“That’s me!” And the Time Lord grins once again. “Welcome home, Jack. I would say that you took your time, ‘cept that it was obviously sheer genius on my part to wait until I was over the regeneration sickness and that little spot of bother in London over Christmas. Hmm? I did wonder why this me’s TARDIS was flying sort of erratically for a bit. Makes perfect sense now, of course.”

One thing’s now becoming perfectly clear to Jack. “You knew all along that I wasn’t dead?”

“Of course we did!” The Doctor says it as if it’s perfectly obvious. Even logical. To him, maybe.

“Then why...?” He has to swallow. “Why didn’t you wait for me?”

The Doctor’s expression turns sympathetic. “We had to leave you, Jack. History had to complete its circle.”

He frowns, not understanding.

“Think about it,” the Doctor says, now giving the appearance of a kindly, paternal schoolmaster. “We knew already - Rose and me - that you got left behind on Satellite Five. Because you told us that’s what happened. That’s how you ended up meeting us all those months ago, in our timeline. Just a few hours ago for you, of course. Now, if we hadn’t left you behind, that would have changed history. I’d never have asked you to stay after 1941, and you wouldn’t have been with us on Satellite Five to begin with - which could have meant disaster. You did, after all, play a crucial role there.” The Doctor finishes with an approving smile.

So he was right. It was only the knowledge that he had travelled with them that persuaded the Doctor he’d known to let him stay. Not much of a surprise, that, though.

“But I’m forgetting the most important thing!” A warm, mischievous smile spreads over the Doctor’s features. “Good to have you back.” And Jack finds himself enfolded in an enthusiastic, tight embrace.

He hugs the Time Lord back, mentally still trying to adjust to the new body - and new personality, come to that. Nothing’s familiar, really. Everything about the Doctor he knew seems to have changed. The darkly brooding alien he knew would never have initiated a hug with him, except under highly unusual circumstances - such as when he’d discovered that Rose hadn’t really been disintegrated after all and was still alive.

Yet there’s still something... Holding the Doctor in his arms, he recognises the truth. He’s not sure what it is, but it’s not just his brain that’s convinced that this man is really the Doctor. It’s as if he also knows it in his heart, too.

Then he feels lips covering his. A kiss. Initiated by the Doctor. Something else he knows the previous incarnation would never have done. Instinct rather than conscious decision guides his response, and it’s good. More than good. But it ends too soon.

“Thought I should make up for that goodbye kiss,” the Doctor says with a wink as he pulls back. “ ‘Specially as I knew all along it wasn’t actually goodbye.”

Of course. More consequences of his visit into the Doctor’s past. “You knew all along that we’d get out of there alive.”

“Well, I hoped so.” A smile flashes briefly, before the Doctor sobers again. “But it might not necessarily have turned out like that.” And his expression turns bleak. Rose, Jack notices, moves closer to the Doctor and slides her hand into his; the Time Lord grips it tightly.

“For a while,” he continues, “I wasn’t at all confident. Finding that I didn’t have time to modify the Delta wave, for example. Realising that I had no choice but to send Rose away in the TARDIS.” And he looks down at Rose and they share a long, private glance. “Then hearing you die.” Jack gets a sober, almost apologetic look at that. A hand slides into his; it’s Rose’s. He grips it tightly. He remembers all too well facing down those Daleks; remembers dying. And then, inexplicably, waking up alive. Weak, in pain, but indisputably alive.

“That gave me some serious doubts about the whole thing,” the Doctor continues with a frown. “But - ” And his expression brightens. “ - All’s well that ends well, as my good friend Will would say. Did say, actually. He wasn’t at all sure about that line, you know. I had to assure him that it would actually stand the test of time.” And the Doctor grins, looking pleased with himself.

“Course, there were times, too, even before we met you again,” the Doctor continues, before Jack can speak, “that I had my doubts that everything would turn out as it should. When I locked Rose in with a Dalek, for example.” And his expression darkens.

“Yeah.” Jack blows out a breath. “I can’t tell you how much I wanted to reassure you that she’d be all right then. And about other things, too.” Such as when the Doctor would take Rose to see her father. “But I couldn’t.”

“No.” The Doctor nods. “You couldn’t. The consequences could have been disastrous.”

The Time Lord falls silent, and Rose, standing between them, looks up at each of them in turn, her expression supportive, reassuring. “We’re all here,” she says. “We made it.”

“Yeah.” And the Doctor smiles. It’s a very different smile from the one he’s used to seeing, but he likes it. Thinks he could grow very accustomed to it.

“So,” he says then, “what did happen on the Game Station? How did you defeat the Daleks? And how come I’m alive?” All questions he’s longed to have the answers to for long months. And finally, now, he can.

“Ah! Explanations!” And suddenly the regenerated Time Lord beams, looking animated. Almost bouncy. “And you have some explaining to do as well, my friend. Six months, it took you to find us? What were you doing?”

An arm is slung around his shoulders, and the Doctor is leading him and Rose - whom he’s still holding by the hand - out of the console room and towards the kitchen. “Tea-time, I think. And, given you’ve just spent the last couple of hours helping me modify the TARDIS so she could materialise inside this one, you’re probably parched.” He grins.

Another TARDIS kitchen; another cup of tea. The kitchen is the same as he remembers, which is reassuring. He’s still trying to get his head around these changes.

But Rose is exactly the same as he remembers. Though, from her perspective, it’s only been a few days since she saw him last. And she’s glad to have him back. As they sit around the table and swap explanations, she holds his hand. The Doctor, he notices, doesn’t seem to mind - another difference, because the leather-jacketed Doctor would have been frowning or making sarcastic digs about it.

This new Doctor, though, is openly affectionate with Rose in a way the old incarnation wasn’t. He knows that the Doctor has always loved Rose, but with the Doctor he knew it would be evident through lingering glances, hand-holding when they were out together, hugs at especially emotional moments. Sometimes in a particular tone of voice when he addressed her, even if his words were less than affectionate.

This Doctor seems to take every opportunity to touch her. Fingers to the back of her hand. A caress along her upper arm. A stroke of the back of his hand against her hair. And, as well as that, smiles and long shared glances. So maybe this Doctor is less resistant to expressing his feelings. He’s never really understood why, when he knew the two of them were in love, they weren’t together. It didn’t make sense to him.

Now, they seem to be closer than before. And he’s pleased for them. They deserve to be happy. But, also, there’s a lot less jealousy of him - maybe just because the Doctor’s glad to have him back, or perhaps because, with this new open affection between him and Rose, he has less reason to feel insecure?

He’s left shaken by the account of events on Satellite Five: Rose’s return with the TARDIS, her absorption of the Time Vortex, the Doctor’s action to save her life, leading to his regeneration. That it was Rose who gave him back his life.

At that revelation, he looks at her, a lump in his throat again. “I don’t know what to say. Except... thank you.” And he tightens his grip on her hand. She squeezes back.

She shakes her head. “Couldn’t lose you, could I? Wanted both of you safe.” Then she pulls a face. “Didn’t even remember I’d done it, though. He told me, later. Says he saw it when he took the Vortex back from me.”

“And I was relieved, I can tell you.” The Doctor grins. “Was starting to believe we wouldn’t see you again, and that our history was going to unravel.” The Time Lord’s hand covers his for a few moments, and he knows in the way the Doctor looks at him that it was the first of those that troubled him more than the second.

“So,” the Doctor says brightly, “just what were you doing for those six months, hmm?”

He leans back in his chair. That time is actually beginning to feel like a distant memory now. “I was on the satellite alone for a few days, trying to figure out a way to get out of there, until a rescue and recovery party came from Earth. Seems not as much of the Earth was destroyed as I’d thought. Oh, and you might be glad to know that I wiped a couple of the security recordings - the ones that showed you and the TARDIS. The tapes weren’t complete,” he adds. “Otherwise I guess I’d have seen Rose coming back. Anyway, I figured you might not want any trace of yourself there.”

“Appreciated.” The Doctor smiles and gestures to him to continue.

“So I hitched a ride back to Earth. Fell in with an emergency comms team - so I spent a lot of time helping them restore communications systems to the devastated areas. And all the time I was working on trying to track you down. You say it took me a while,” he comments with a raised eyebrow. “I found you quickly enough. Kept finding you, actually. But never you and Rose. And since I know you’re ancient, Doctor, I could’ve been finding you at any point in your life.”

“Or any regeneration,” the Doctor adds dryly. “Could’ve been interesting, that.” He winks. “As it was, you still had to convince a me who hadn’t met you that you knew me.”

And that reminds him. “You said the only reason you let me stay after 1941 was that you knew me already.” He grimaces. “You have no idea how bad I feel about that - leaving you and Rose in that other TARDIS knowing what they’re going to find the next time they meet me.”

“Was a bit of a surprise, all right,” Rose says. But she’s grinning.

“Well, yes, if we hadn’t already met you I doubt I’d have kept you around longer than it took to take you back to 1941. Or somewhere you wanted to be.” The Doctor gives him an amused smile. “But seeing as we did already know you... And it wasn’t just that we knew you were meant to travel with us, you know. We met you for less than three hours that day, Jack, but you made an impression.”

“Ouch,” he says, wincing. But it’s the truth, and he knows it. He’d been at a very low point in his life when he’d run into these two in 1941. They’d done him far more of a favour than they know.

“A good impression!” Rose says, laughing.

“Very,” the Doctor agrees. And brown eyes hold his gaze for several seconds, a warm, approving look.

Struggling to get to grips with the fact that these two had known who he was all along when he’d met them in 1941 and they’d never said a word, that they’d known they’d get separated from him at some point and he’d spend six months trying to find them again, and they’d never said a word, he shakes his head slowly. “If you mean that, then why the hell were you such a bastard when I first joined you? I mean, after my ship blew up.”

The Doctor grins, but there’s a hint of apology in it. “Well, I said I was hard work.” He winks, but then sobers. “Had to make it realistic, Jack. That’s the kind of man I was then. If I’d taken to you immediately, you might have suspected something. You’re no fool, after all. And there was your conman past, too. Didn’t think much of that, y’know. And it wasn’t always easy,” he adds. “I did have to remind Rose several times that we couldn’t let you know that we already knew you.”

“Yeah,” Rose says. “Was definitely hard. ‘Specially when you pulled me down into your ship and I landed in your arms. Almost said your name right there.”

They’re good actors. Very good. Though it wasn’t all pretence. He’s certain about that. There would’ve been anger over his stupid mistake with the nanogenes, and he’d definitely deserved that. Plus, at least some of the Doctor’s attitude was provoked by jealousy over Rose. His own fault, of course, for coming on to her so strongly and for letting the Doctor see that he was attracted to her and would try to get her if he could.

Of course, the jealousy had faded with time, and with his own decision to cease the flirtation once he saw what was really going on with those two. And, interestingly, when he’d kissed Rose out in the console room the only reaction he’d seen from the Doctor had been... amusement. But then, the Doctor had kissed him shortly after that. A one-time thing? Or something that might be repeated? Time will tell.

But, honestly, none of it matters. Because it’s all worked out and he’s here now. With them. Where he wants to be. And it’s just possible that there may be interesting times ahead...

“But never mind all that!” the Time Lord exclaims then. “Can’t forget the most important thing, Jack.”

“What’s that?” Another most important thing? This new Doctor is certainly enthusiastic.

“Well, how do I look, of course! I mean, only had this body a matter of days, really, so I’m still growing into it. Haven’t had too many opportunities to get people’s opinions of the new me, really. Rose, now...” And he grins at her, and Jack spots a distinct wink. “Well, I think she likes the new me. Still think it’s a shame I’m not ginger, but she says I’m fine as I am. But what do you think?”

Because the Doctor really seems to be treating this as a serious question, and because Rose is grinning as if she’s looking forward to his answer, he takes his time. Studies the Doctor, letting his gaze slide over the boyishly handsome features, the hair that just invites fingers to trail through it, the lean body. Long, slender fingers, warm brown eyes that can switch from impish to affectionate in under a second.

Oh, yes, he likes the Doctor’s new body. But then he liked the old one, too.

“You look good, Doctor,” he says, and it’s the honest truth.

“Good? Good? Is that all?” He actually sounds disappointed. In a mournful tone, he continues. “I wanted to be handsome this time round. I wanted to be sexy. I asked Rose if I was sexy, you know, but she didn’t answer me.”

Rose, Jack notices, is stifling giggles while blushing. He tugs at her hand; she looks at him and he winks at her. That just makes her blush more.

“If you really want my opinion, Doctor, then let me assure you that you are sexy.” Unable to resist - this is his home territory, after all - Jack lets his tone drop an octave as he replies, and he gazes intently at the Doctor as he does. He wonders how this new incarnation will respond to blatant flirtation. Something to test out over the coming days and weeks, he decides. “Though, to be honest, I thought you were sexy before, too. And I’m pretty sure Rose did.”

The Doctor looks almost taken aback for a moment. But then his features rearrange themselves into a broad, satisfied grin. “Fantastic!”

And somehow, even though the word’s coming out of an unfamiliar mouth, it fits. Jack looks from one to the other; his best friends, the two people he loves most in the world. His family.

He’s home.

*******

“That was weird.” Still in the hallway, Rose meets the Doctor’s gaze as she hears the TARDIS door slam shut.

The Doctor grins. “Easy to know you haven’t been travellin’ with me long.” At her indignant look, he adds, “Meeting someone you know that you haven’t met yet, or who hasn’t met you yet, is just routine when you’re a time-traveller.”

She considers this for a moment. “S’pose you’re right.”

His eyes widen. “I’m always right!”

“Yeah, yeah.” She rolls her eyes at him. “Must be dangerous, though. I mean, he knows so much about our future. He was havin’ to watch what he said all the time. An’ he still let a couple of things slip.”

“Yes.” The Doctor leans against the wall, his posture casual, but his expression is serious. He’s in teaching mode. “In this kind of situation, you just have to be careful that your future - or theirs - doesn’t change accidentally as a consequence.”

She nods. “But now we know that he travels with us. Could that’ve changed our future? I mean, what if we didn’t know that an’ you never invited him along?”

The Doctor nods, an approving smile on his face. She’s learning from him, working things out for herself, and he’s proud of her. She likes it when that happens. “Very good. And, yes, that’s possible. But that just means - ” He grins swiftly. “ - that maybe this was always supposed to be the first time we met him.”

“But how?” That doesn’t make sense. “We couldn’t’ve met him now without knowing him in our future to begin with. An’ leaving him behind when we do.”

He gives a slight shake of his head. “What did I tell you about time not being linear?”

He straightens then, and heads back to the console room; she follows him. Once there, he quickly sets the controls to let the TARDIS dematerialise. Off somewhere else - maybe to that plasma storm he’d told her about? He’d promised her a rollercoaster ride of a trip, she remembers. Time he delivered on that one.

“So, where we going?” she asks.

He looks across at her and grins. “Anywhere you want.”

“Plasma storm?” she reminds him, and he looks taken aback, then actually apologetic.

“I forgot!” And he begins to play about with the controls. “Won’t be long. You’ll love this, Rose Tyler.”

She’s sure she will. “Yeah!” But her fingers play with the hem of her sweatshirt.

“What’s up with you?” he asks, giving her a steady look.

“Oh.” She grimaces. “Can’t stop thinkin’ about what Jack said.”

“What bit in particular?” He sounds faintly impatient, but she can read the concern underneath.

“That something bad’s gonna happen. The thing that makes us leave him behind.”

“Oh, that.” And he turns back to the console. Dark shadows flit across his face. He’s not as unconcerned about it as his words suggest.

Then he looks back at her again, and he’s smiling. Not warmly, not with humour, but with reassurance.

“He says we get out of it alive, though,” she says when he doesn’t say anything.

“True, he did.” And he continues to look at her, as if expecting more from her.

So she tries. “But you’re sayin’ that time’s always changin’. That what’s true in one timeline might not be the same in another?”

“Actually, I didn’t say anything.” He grins briefly at her. “But you’re learning, Rose Tyler. Yeah, there’s nothing saying it has to work out the same when we actually get there. Nothing’s certain about Time. But,” he adds, and now he’s smiling again, “there’s one thing we do know.”

“An’ what’s that?”

“We make a great team, you an’ me.”

“We do,” she agrees, and grins at him.

“Unbeatable,” he offers.

“The best,” she answers.

“Yeah.” And he holds out his hand to her. She takes it. He wraps his fingers around hers.

“ ‘S gonna be strange, though,” she says a few minutes later.

“What is?”

“Havin’ someone else around here. I mean, ‘s just been you and me.”

“True. Though it won’t be the first time I’ve travelled with more than one person,” he says. “Often two, sometimes three.”

She’s stunned. There’ve been other people he’s taken about with him before her?

But then that should’ve occurred to her. He did tell her that he’s nine hundred, after all. Silly to assume that she’s been the only one. Silly to feel... well, jealous about it.

What’s important is that she’s with him now. And he asked her to come.

“Jack seems all right, though,” she says, and watches for his response. Wondering what he thinks.

“Looks like he belongs in a toothpaste ad, doesn’t he?” And she spots the faintest curl of his lip.

Her mouth twitches. “Hadn’t noticed.”

He raises an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, right.” But, despite the teasing, she has the sneaking suspicion that there’s something there which might just be jealousy. Maybe he’s not quite so keen on the idea of having another good-looking, impressive guy around the TARDIS. Someone she might end up liking every bit as much as she likes the Doctor.

Maybe she’s imagining it. Although, all the same, she has the memory of what he said to her in Downing Street earlier - and the way he looked at her when he said it.

I could save the world, but lose you.

So perhaps jealousy isn’t so far-fetched after all.

She pats his arm. “He’s still not as impressive as you.”

“I should think not!” he protests, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah. He doesn’t have a TARDIS, for starters.”

“That all it takes for you, Rose Tyler? Show you my TARDIS an’ you’re all mine?”

His question just seems to hang in the atmosphere for a moment. Her breath catches, and he looks as if he wants to call back his words, as if he hadn’t quite realised what he was saying. As if maybe he does sort of mean it, but it’s not anything he wanted to declare.

And, anyway, it’s not anything she wants to start thinking about. Not yet. Maybe not at all. After all, they’re so different, and who knows how long she’ll stay with him? Though for at least three months after Jack joins them; she knows that much.

Plenty of time, then. No need to rush anything.

So she raises her eyebrow at him. “You should be so lucky, Doctor! You promised me a plasma storm an’ I’m still waiting!”

And he grins, back to normal. “Your wish is my command.”

END

x-posted to time_and_chips