Fic: Mother Time (Chapter 4)
Title: Mother Time
Author: country_who
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Ten/Rose, Jenny/Jack, Idris
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Romance
Summary: The Doctor, Rose, Jenny and Jack are planning on going to see Donna, but when the TARDIS starts acting up and the Doctor receives a message, they have no choice but to investigate. (The Doctor's Wife, AU). Sequel to The Doctor and His Time Ladies.
Prologue | Chapter 1| Chapter 2| Chapter 3
The TARDIS corridors stretched endlessly ahead of Jack and Jenny, as they sprinted forward, the latter taking the lead and the former taking a defensive position at their rear. Jenny’s arguing had fallen on deaf ears, when she tried to convince him that there was no way that house would have allowed Jack’s gun to work in the TARDIS and that it would probably end catastrophically.
Slowing their speed to a small jog, when they reached a cross between two tunnels, Jenny chose the one on the left randomly. Looking all around her, she noted that there wasn’t an immediate threat and that it would be to their advantage to slow down to a walk and conserve their energy. She reached back for his hand at first, but instead took hold of his shoulder and began to gently try to calm the tension in his muscles. Slowly, she felt the hardness in there slowly become softer, and she watched as the rest of him relaxed as well, starting at both of his shoulders and down his arms and eventually to his fingers of his left hand as it reached out and took Jenny’s. She was more than happy to take it, slowly stroking her fingers over the skin between his first finger and thumb.
It didn’t go beyond her notice though, that Jack’s eyes still refused to meet hers and his jaw set in hard line. His knuckles had a strangle hold around the grip of his gun, and his blue eyes kept darting around him. Attempting to get closer to him, she slowly entwined her whole arm around his and finally got his eyes to land on hers. He gave her an almost apologetic gaze, but his lips couldn’t form a smile to match the timid one of her face, so she let it fall away.
She had noticed before how much she was like her father, but now he seemed even more so. Part of her was glad to think of him in that way, but the other part was slightly worried. Jack didn’t back down from anything, and she knew that losing his ability to revive himself wouldn’t change that, but she didn’t want him risking anything, not for her sake. She felt him squeeze back gently before she looked at his face and gave him a knowing look.
“Put it away, Jack,” Jenny said gently, motioning to the gun in his hand and closing her hand over it. “I don’t want to risk firing it in here, not with that thing controlling everything,” she told him.
She pressed down on the metal warmed by Jack’s hand and guided it back into the holster at his side, and smiled at him when he didn’t resist. “Thank you,” she whispered, taking his hand in hers and continuing to walk at a casual pace. However, she could feel Jack edging forward, trying to push her faster, like a horse waiting to be let out of the gate, pawing at the ground.
“We’ve got to move faster, Jenny,” Jack grated, while he edged past her, pulling her along, but she anchored him back.
“Why?” she asked, letting go of his hand and crossing her arms.
“Because, that Ood, is right behind us,” Jack stated.
“Or, it could be right in front of us,” Jenny pointed out, getting him to stop, while she ran a hand down the side of his arm. “Look, we do need to keep moving-we’d go mad otherwise, but we also need to be calm, so we have the energy to act when it comes down to it. We could be burning ourselves out running towards the enemy.”
“But, we’ve been going straight,” Jack protested.
“Yes, we are, but are the corridors? You know how much the TARDIS likes to move stuff around,” Jenny reminded him. “Just last night you were wandering around the corridors with your legs crossed trying to find the toilet.”
Jack grinned, just like Jenny expected him to as she stepped forward with her arms still crossed. “All right,” he conceded, running his hands down his sides in a frustrated motion.
“Good, so what d’you wanna talk about?” Jenny said, whirling around suddenly and taking Jack’s hand, as she gave him a cheerful smile and kissed his cheek.
“We’re facing a deadly threat and you, Jenny Har-Anderson, want to make small talk,” Jack accused, almost slipping with her last name, but he recovered quickly placing his hand between her shoulder blades and pulling her closely. “That’s what I missed about you.”
“Nothing else?” Jenny asked cheekily, while leaning into his shoulder and grinning at his lighter mood.
“Everything else,” Jack amended, pulling his arm protectively around her and holding her close.
“Oh really?” Jenny taunted. “Like what?”
Jack gave a noncommittal shrug and tightened his grip around her. She enjoyed the warmth from his human blood pumping through his veins warming her body. She imagined that it should have been unpleasant, like being wrapped in a blanket in the middle of summer, but it wasn’t. It was like sitting next to a fire, letting the flames dance before her eyes and the warm everything the light touched.
“Just, you, your life, your youth, your spirit,” Jack listed off endearingly, thinking back and smiling.
Jenny grinned and twirled her hair around her finger and batted her eyelids at him, taking pleasure in the slight hitch in his breath that she felt while leaning against him.
“That’s funny. I missed the same things about you,” Jenny told him looking down at their conjoined hands and swung them between them, while he tightened his grip and smiled.
“Hardly youthful,” Jack told her with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Very youthful,” Jenny retorted. “‘It takes a long time to become young,’ Picaso said that,” Jenny said cheerfully. “An old Earth artist. Can you believe it? Something that a simple human male says can be so true.”
“I’m a human male, you know,” Jack teased looking over at her face, noting the light that was growing there, the more that she rambled. He could tell there was something else churning away in her mind while she spoke. It somehow allowed her to focus, but he was far from understanding how. He had seen the Doctor doing the same thing.
“It’s hard to forget, all those hormones churning away inside of you, it’s a wonder you don’t go mad. It’s a wonder you don’t send me mad,” Jenny babbled, while she ran her hands down her sides and tried to focus, and caught Jack’s smirk. “Shut up-” she shook her head. “-Jack, I took control of it a long time ago, but it’s weird, being so young and not so young at the same time. I was born into puberty, Jack. How do you think that feels?”
Jack opened his mouth to explain, but Jenny cut him off, her hand flying over his mouth.
“I’ll tell you how it feels, con-fu-sing,” she said, punctuating each syllable by prodding him in the chest. “I snogged a boy within my first few hours of life, then I pointed a gun at him and tied him up.”
“Remind me never to get you angry,” Jack muttered, while Jenny continued.
“He was rubbish though,” Jenny admitted. “Like I said, hormones. They drive you mental. Luckily, I’m a Time Lady and completely in control. It helps you as well. It makes it so you don’t want to jump all over me every waking second.”
Jack mumbled against her hand, but she pushed down harder.
“I wouldn’t finish that sentence if I were you, Harkness.” She offered him a wink before she pulled her hand away still walking, still moving, still together.
She did an inventory in her head of any assets that she had, but it only got her depressed. A gun that would probably kill them, their clothes-hers torn and scorched form the electricity-and their spirits, which might fall at any moment. Jenny drew a deep breath through her nose and ignored her logistical thoughts. She was in a TARDIS being inhabited by a creature that shouldn’t exist in a universe that shouldn’t exist with Captain Jack, a man that shouldn’t exist. Logic didn’t matter here.
“The very same Jenny I remember,” Jack exclaimed cheerfully, while he hugged her out of nowhere.
She squealed and pushed against him, until she realized he wasn’t just hugging her, he was holding her back. Turning her head around, she saw the floor had opened up in front of them, while they had been joking. Biting her lip and looking back up at Jack, she saw the humor that she had worked so hard to create fade away and die, replaced by the stone hardness that had been there before.
“It almost took you,” Jack breathed. “It promised.”
“But, it didn’t Jack, focus on that,” she whispered lovingly, taking his face in both of her hands and pulling him close.
“I could have,” House snarled in an ever deepening voice. “I will do, and you won’t have any way to stop me.”
“We had a deal,” Jack shouted back, moving away from Jenny, while he stared up at the ceiling with malevolence, but kept his arm firmly wrapped around hers.
“And, you believed me, how predictable. Really, the Time Lord should pick his friends more wisely,” House boomed.
“Jack’s the best,” Jenny shot back, tightening her arm around Jack, while they turned around, so that she was taking the lead, getting ready to pull him nervously down the corridor, away from the hole, to take away any chances of falling it. “You know that, otherwise you wouldn’t want to break the rules.”
The lights flickered slightly, and the temperature dropped a few degrees. “Nervous then, eh?” Jenny asked triumphantly, while the floors trembled angrily and Jack grabbed her hand and whispered for her to stop in her ear. However, she ignored him and kept talking. “You’re afraid that you’ll lose for once, after killing all those Time Lords you think that you’re invincible, but you’re not.”
“Neither are you,” House said coolly and the floor opened up beneath her feet.
~//~
The Doctor stalked around, occasionally licking the walks or sniffing the ground, or combinations of both while Rose and the TARDIS walked well ahead of him. They hadn’t stopped talking since they had departed from the cell, and it was beginning to wear on his nerves. The TARDIS was his ship and Rose was his-Rose. Rose wasn’t the TARDIS’s or the other way around. He should have been what was holding them together, not the one that they were pushing away.
“It’s not like that and you know it,” the TARDIS said, whirling around suddenly and catching his shoulders. He tried to wiggle out of her grip, but she wouldn’t yield.
“I don’t know…” the Doctor trailed off as she shook him hard.
“Yes, you do know what I’m talking about, Doctor. She is my Wolf, I took her under my wing and showed her all of time and space and watched to see what her great, big, single human heart would do with it, and she saved the world. Yes, we’re close.”
The Doctor hung his head and looked away, while Rose stood in the background, trying to think of what to say.
“But, you are my Doctor, my thief, my pilot, my whole life pivots around you, my Wolf doesn’t change that. I am bigger on the inside even in-no especially in a human body. You know and I can spread love in well more than two directions and still have plenty for you,” she told him gently caressing his cheek and kissing him, gently this time, before whimpering slightly and pulling back. She grabbed her side and cried out, while the Doctor caught her and lowered her to the ground, gently stroking her face.
“My TARDIS,” he whispered, before giving a small genuine laugh and added. “My Sexy.”
She grimaced at him and moved her face away from his frantic hands. “No, you’re so nostalgic in this body. Focus.”
He shook his head and sat cross-legged next to her, while he ran his fingers through her curly dark hair. She whimpered in pain, but forced her hands to go to her sides, as she struggled to get to her feet. Despite the Doctor’s protestations, she reached out to Rose who immediately took her hands and helped her up.
Rose wrapped her right arm around the woman’s waist and helped her to stay upright.
“Not that much farther,” Rose uttered to her.
“He’s taking a long time to figure it out,” the TARDIS complained, and the Doctor raised a questioning eyebrow.
“You know what’s going to happen then?”
“I know the idea you will come up with and therefor, Rose knows, because I’m sharing my thoughts with her-it helps with the strain,” the TARDIS admitted haughtily, leaning on Rose and closing her eyes for a moment. “Doesn’t seem to be helping much at the moment though.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Rose told her, tightening her grip on her more in desperation than in thinking that she alone could keep the woman standing if she got much worse.
“Why don’t you tell me?” the Doctor asked, ignoring Rose.
The TARDIS took a deep breath and eyed the Doctor for a moment. “That would twist the time lines, I can’t. I just can’t. You should understand that.”
Opening his mouth to protest, the Doctor quickly snapped it shut when he knew there was no point. It shouldn’t be this hard, but it felt like he had more to lose than he ever. Otherwise, it would have just been a normal rescue mission, just like any other day. But, now even if he won, he would still lose. His TARDIS. His beautiful TARDIS, his constant companion and ship, she had been there through the hardest times in his life and never told him that something was impossible, when the rest of the world did. Sure, she tried to hold him back sometimes, and she was a bit over-bearing at times, but she did it out of love. They were talking with mouths, like they had never been able to do before.
“Okay, well, why don’t you let me go and explore ahead? Rose will stay with you, won’t you, Rose?”
Rose nodded hastily and smiled up at the TARDIS, while the Doctor and Rose both helped her to sit back on the ground, with her feet sticking out from under her. She didn’t think she would ever affirm to the Doctor ever offering for her to stay behind, but she looked at the TARDIS and knew that she had to. She was connected to the TARDIS in a way that was even more intimate than Rose’s connection with the Doctor.
“You’re leaving me behind again,” the TARDIS said sheepishly, while her face seemed to grow ever paler.
“I’ve never left you behind,” he retorted half-heartedly.
“All the time,” she said weakly. “And, now, even when I have legs you do the same. I can’t even do that thing with your legs that you always babble about. That word that means so much to you and the Wolf. The word that the wrong man missed and the yellow girl loves.”
“Run,” the Doctor told her gently, while he laced her fingers through hers and squeezed.
“Yes, you run around on legs and shout and talk and live and bring home strays, while I sit and wait for you to come home. I take you everywhere and anywhere, but I can never go with you, until now, and you leave. You promised when you first touched my console. You told me that I was beautiful, and then you promised to make me fly so fast and you would never get rid of me,” she whispered quickly, her voice dropping off lightly, but the words still carried more power than the Doctor had expected.
“Yeah, but you know what? I always come home,” the Doctor told her with a smile. “I always come back for you, and you’re always there waiting for me. Show me that nothing has changed, alright? Show me you’re still the same ol’ gal I fell in love with all those years ago.”
The TARDIS nodded, as she closed her eyes and sighed, while Rose moved closer to her and put her head in her lap. “Sorry, Doctor, but I coaxed her into a gentle sleep. It’s better for her now.”
“I know,” the Doctor said, as he stepped back a bit, edging in the direction of the area they had come home in. “See you later.”
“And, you,” Rose replied, as she watched the Doctor disappear behind the corner and looked back at the woman holding the TARDIS consciousness within her body. She didn’t even know her name, she realized, and yet she already owned the woman more than she could ever imagine.
“You’re going to be just fine,” Rose whispered. She had meant the words to comfort herself more than anything, but even so, the woman seemed to respond to her. She turned slightly and half-opened her eyes to look up at Rose.
“Help me,” she pleaded softly, shaking from trying to fight Rose gently trying to coax her into a heavy sleep.
The two words cut through her heart and all she could do was nod, as she reached down and touched the TARDIS’s temples with her fingers.
~//~
Rose had been taking everything so well, when all he seemed to do was get more and more confused. He couldn’t say he was surprised, she had always been this way, from the first day they met. She had always been showing him something he couldn’t see the need to see, things from a human perspective, the need for love, and the battle scared man who was really just a scared little boy.
He was still wearing leather the first time that she really showed him how much he meant to her and how they were meant to be together.
He had woken up screaming, not for the first time since the war, but this time it
was different. This time there was a gently pressure on his hand and warm eyes staring down at him in the darkness. She smiled at him, that grin that could make a lion roll over and be a kitten. The look in her eyes told him everything he needed to know as she gave him a final squeeze of the hand and left without another word. That little pink and yellow human had always been so in tune to his moods no matter what, and she knew right then and there that he wouldn’t have spoken to her about it. And, she accepted that. She let him go about the rest of their days together, not mentioning it, but she always made sure that her hand was never out of his reach.
Then, after he changed, she changed as well, syncing herself back to him, getting to know the moods and actions that went along with her new, new Doctor. The time between nightmares lasted longer this time, the regeneration and her presence allowing some sort of relief to take place, but they returned after the Olympics, when he was forced to leave her. He dreamed of losing her and never seeing her. He dreamed of an unseen wind taking him away from her, while she was pulled in the other direction.
So, he did what he never thought he could do, he crept into her room without knocking, toed off his shoes and slid into her bed over the covers, while she lay under, moving slowly as not to wake her. He gently draped an arm over her body to assure himself of her existence before allowing himself to fall into a deep sleep.
The next morning he opened his eyes to see her staring at him, a blanket thrown over his shoulders and their hands clasped between them. She smiled, kissed his forehead, and told him it wasn’t real.
Smiling he agreed with her and looked around her room quickly, taking it all in as he got to his feet and let his hand slide from hers and into his pocket. The pile of dirty laundry rested in the corner of her room, and he made a point of raising his eyebrows at it, knowing that she would notice him. She said she was sorry, and that she would get around to cleaning it as soon as they caught a break, but he told her they couldn’t. That he was trying a new setting to conserve power and had shut down the washers. They’d have to go to her mum’s to get it clean. He lied to her so easily, because he needed to be somewhere closed in for once. He didn’t want to run away, he just wanted her; he wanted her closed in by four walls, just for a little while.
He wanted her where he knew she would be safe.
The guilt stayed with him even to this day. He forced himself to think of her every day, as his torture, wouldn’t let himself forget her, and carried a picture of the two of them in his pocket right next to his left heart. Even now, he couldn’t forgive himself for what he did. The day she fell into the void was the day he realized that he was the problem in her life. It wasn’t her who was the jeopardy friendly human, he was just dangerous.
He had told Rose that a storm was approaching; he didn’t know it was his own.
The now familiar feeling of tears burning the backs of his eyes came to the Doctor’s attention. Blinking hard to try to get rid of the sensation, did nothing but send the rivulets pouring down his face, while he tried fervently to wipe them away. He ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head, lowering it and staring at his feet while he forced himself not to turn around.
“No need to be sad, Love,” a voice said from behind him, and two different hands rested on his shoulder. “It was always meant to be.”
He turned around to see Auntie and Uncle standing behind him and limping closer to him. The Doctor glared at them and went to turn around, but Auntie caught his arm and pulled him back around.
“No need to be that way,” she said, “it’s your we’re dying fault anyway.”
“I haven’t done anything,” the Doctor grated, walking away when Auntie keeled over. Running over to her out of instinct, he let out a small squeak of surprise and felt for her pulse. “What?”
He turned to Uncle, who shrugged a bit sadly. “House sees no more Time Lords, and no more TARDIS. He needs more. So, we die.”
“You can’t just die,” he said in exasperation as Uncle hobbled around for a few moments, muttering something unintelligible before collapsing on the ground with a calm groan. Feeling his neck like he did Auntie, the Doctor confirmed he was dead and rolled his eyes, knowing that they were dead before anyway, and were only animated by House. Sighing, he moved on, hands shoved deep in his pockets.
This had to end now.
Author: country_who
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Ten/Rose, Jenny/Jack, Idris
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Romance
Summary: The Doctor, Rose, Jenny and Jack are planning on going to see Donna, but when the TARDIS starts acting up and the Doctor receives a message, they have no choice but to investigate. (The Doctor's Wife, AU). Sequel to The Doctor and His Time Ladies.
Prologue | Chapter 1| Chapter 2| Chapter 3
The TARDIS corridors stretched endlessly ahead of Jack and Jenny, as they sprinted forward, the latter taking the lead and the former taking a defensive position at their rear. Jenny’s arguing had fallen on deaf ears, when she tried to convince him that there was no way that house would have allowed Jack’s gun to work in the TARDIS and that it would probably end catastrophically.
Slowing their speed to a small jog, when they reached a cross between two tunnels, Jenny chose the one on the left randomly. Looking all around her, she noted that there wasn’t an immediate threat and that it would be to their advantage to slow down to a walk and conserve their energy. She reached back for his hand at first, but instead took hold of his shoulder and began to gently try to calm the tension in his muscles. Slowly, she felt the hardness in there slowly become softer, and she watched as the rest of him relaxed as well, starting at both of his shoulders and down his arms and eventually to his fingers of his left hand as it reached out and took Jenny’s. She was more than happy to take it, slowly stroking her fingers over the skin between his first finger and thumb.
It didn’t go beyond her notice though, that Jack’s eyes still refused to meet hers and his jaw set in hard line. His knuckles had a strangle hold around the grip of his gun, and his blue eyes kept darting around him. Attempting to get closer to him, she slowly entwined her whole arm around his and finally got his eyes to land on hers. He gave her an almost apologetic gaze, but his lips couldn’t form a smile to match the timid one of her face, so she let it fall away.
She had noticed before how much she was like her father, but now he seemed even more so. Part of her was glad to think of him in that way, but the other part was slightly worried. Jack didn’t back down from anything, and she knew that losing his ability to revive himself wouldn’t change that, but she didn’t want him risking anything, not for her sake. She felt him squeeze back gently before she looked at his face and gave him a knowing look.
“Put it away, Jack,” Jenny said gently, motioning to the gun in his hand and closing her hand over it. “I don’t want to risk firing it in here, not with that thing controlling everything,” she told him.
She pressed down on the metal warmed by Jack’s hand and guided it back into the holster at his side, and smiled at him when he didn’t resist. “Thank you,” she whispered, taking his hand in hers and continuing to walk at a casual pace. However, she could feel Jack edging forward, trying to push her faster, like a horse waiting to be let out of the gate, pawing at the ground.
“We’ve got to move faster, Jenny,” Jack grated, while he edged past her, pulling her along, but she anchored him back.
“Why?” she asked, letting go of his hand and crossing her arms.
“Because, that Ood, is right behind us,” Jack stated.
“Or, it could be right in front of us,” Jenny pointed out, getting him to stop, while she ran a hand down the side of his arm. “Look, we do need to keep moving-we’d go mad otherwise, but we also need to be calm, so we have the energy to act when it comes down to it. We could be burning ourselves out running towards the enemy.”
“But, we’ve been going straight,” Jack protested.
“Yes, we are, but are the corridors? You know how much the TARDIS likes to move stuff around,” Jenny reminded him. “Just last night you were wandering around the corridors with your legs crossed trying to find the toilet.”
Jack grinned, just like Jenny expected him to as she stepped forward with her arms still crossed. “All right,” he conceded, running his hands down his sides in a frustrated motion.
“Good, so what d’you wanna talk about?” Jenny said, whirling around suddenly and taking Jack’s hand, as she gave him a cheerful smile and kissed his cheek.
“We’re facing a deadly threat and you, Jenny Har-Anderson, want to make small talk,” Jack accused, almost slipping with her last name, but he recovered quickly placing his hand between her shoulder blades and pulling her closely. “That’s what I missed about you.”
“Nothing else?” Jenny asked cheekily, while leaning into his shoulder and grinning at his lighter mood.
“Everything else,” Jack amended, pulling his arm protectively around her and holding her close.
“Oh really?” Jenny taunted. “Like what?”
Jack gave a noncommittal shrug and tightened his grip around her. She enjoyed the warmth from his human blood pumping through his veins warming her body. She imagined that it should have been unpleasant, like being wrapped in a blanket in the middle of summer, but it wasn’t. It was like sitting next to a fire, letting the flames dance before her eyes and the warm everything the light touched.
“Just, you, your life, your youth, your spirit,” Jack listed off endearingly, thinking back and smiling.
Jenny grinned and twirled her hair around her finger and batted her eyelids at him, taking pleasure in the slight hitch in his breath that she felt while leaning against him.
“That’s funny. I missed the same things about you,” Jenny told him looking down at their conjoined hands and swung them between them, while he tightened his grip and smiled.
“Hardly youthful,” Jack told her with a twinkle in his eyes.
“Very youthful,” Jenny retorted. “‘It takes a long time to become young,’ Picaso said that,” Jenny said cheerfully. “An old Earth artist. Can you believe it? Something that a simple human male says can be so true.”
“I’m a human male, you know,” Jack teased looking over at her face, noting the light that was growing there, the more that she rambled. He could tell there was something else churning away in her mind while she spoke. It somehow allowed her to focus, but he was far from understanding how. He had seen the Doctor doing the same thing.
“It’s hard to forget, all those hormones churning away inside of you, it’s a wonder you don’t go mad. It’s a wonder you don’t send me mad,” Jenny babbled, while she ran her hands down her sides and tried to focus, and caught Jack’s smirk. “Shut up-” she shook her head. “-Jack, I took control of it a long time ago, but it’s weird, being so young and not so young at the same time. I was born into puberty, Jack. How do you think that feels?”
Jack opened his mouth to explain, but Jenny cut him off, her hand flying over his mouth.
“I’ll tell you how it feels, con-fu-sing,” she said, punctuating each syllable by prodding him in the chest. “I snogged a boy within my first few hours of life, then I pointed a gun at him and tied him up.”
“Remind me never to get you angry,” Jack muttered, while Jenny continued.
“He was rubbish though,” Jenny admitted. “Like I said, hormones. They drive you mental. Luckily, I’m a Time Lady and completely in control. It helps you as well. It makes it so you don’t want to jump all over me every waking second.”
Jack mumbled against her hand, but she pushed down harder.
“I wouldn’t finish that sentence if I were you, Harkness.” She offered him a wink before she pulled her hand away still walking, still moving, still together.
She did an inventory in her head of any assets that she had, but it only got her depressed. A gun that would probably kill them, their clothes-hers torn and scorched form the electricity-and their spirits, which might fall at any moment. Jenny drew a deep breath through her nose and ignored her logistical thoughts. She was in a TARDIS being inhabited by a creature that shouldn’t exist in a universe that shouldn’t exist with Captain Jack, a man that shouldn’t exist. Logic didn’t matter here.
“The very same Jenny I remember,” Jack exclaimed cheerfully, while he hugged her out of nowhere.
She squealed and pushed against him, until she realized he wasn’t just hugging her, he was holding her back. Turning her head around, she saw the floor had opened up in front of them, while they had been joking. Biting her lip and looking back up at Jack, she saw the humor that she had worked so hard to create fade away and die, replaced by the stone hardness that had been there before.
“It almost took you,” Jack breathed. “It promised.”
“But, it didn’t Jack, focus on that,” she whispered lovingly, taking his face in both of her hands and pulling him close.
“I could have,” House snarled in an ever deepening voice. “I will do, and you won’t have any way to stop me.”
“We had a deal,” Jack shouted back, moving away from Jenny, while he stared up at the ceiling with malevolence, but kept his arm firmly wrapped around hers.
“And, you believed me, how predictable. Really, the Time Lord should pick his friends more wisely,” House boomed.
“Jack’s the best,” Jenny shot back, tightening her arm around Jack, while they turned around, so that she was taking the lead, getting ready to pull him nervously down the corridor, away from the hole, to take away any chances of falling it. “You know that, otherwise you wouldn’t want to break the rules.”
The lights flickered slightly, and the temperature dropped a few degrees. “Nervous then, eh?” Jenny asked triumphantly, while the floors trembled angrily and Jack grabbed her hand and whispered for her to stop in her ear. However, she ignored him and kept talking. “You’re afraid that you’ll lose for once, after killing all those Time Lords you think that you’re invincible, but you’re not.”
“Neither are you,” House said coolly and the floor opened up beneath her feet.
~//~
The Doctor stalked around, occasionally licking the walks or sniffing the ground, or combinations of both while Rose and the TARDIS walked well ahead of him. They hadn’t stopped talking since they had departed from the cell, and it was beginning to wear on his nerves. The TARDIS was his ship and Rose was his-Rose. Rose wasn’t the TARDIS’s or the other way around. He should have been what was holding them together, not the one that they were pushing away.
“It’s not like that and you know it,” the TARDIS said, whirling around suddenly and catching his shoulders. He tried to wiggle out of her grip, but she wouldn’t yield.
“I don’t know…” the Doctor trailed off as she shook him hard.
“Yes, you do know what I’m talking about, Doctor. She is my Wolf, I took her under my wing and showed her all of time and space and watched to see what her great, big, single human heart would do with it, and she saved the world. Yes, we’re close.”
The Doctor hung his head and looked away, while Rose stood in the background, trying to think of what to say.
“But, you are my Doctor, my thief, my pilot, my whole life pivots around you, my Wolf doesn’t change that. I am bigger on the inside even in-no especially in a human body. You know and I can spread love in well more than two directions and still have plenty for you,” she told him gently caressing his cheek and kissing him, gently this time, before whimpering slightly and pulling back. She grabbed her side and cried out, while the Doctor caught her and lowered her to the ground, gently stroking her face.
“My TARDIS,” he whispered, before giving a small genuine laugh and added. “My Sexy.”
She grimaced at him and moved her face away from his frantic hands. “No, you’re so nostalgic in this body. Focus.”
He shook his head and sat cross-legged next to her, while he ran his fingers through her curly dark hair. She whimpered in pain, but forced her hands to go to her sides, as she struggled to get to her feet. Despite the Doctor’s protestations, she reached out to Rose who immediately took her hands and helped her up.
Rose wrapped her right arm around the woman’s waist and helped her to stay upright.
“Not that much farther,” Rose uttered to her.
“He’s taking a long time to figure it out,” the TARDIS complained, and the Doctor raised a questioning eyebrow.
“You know what’s going to happen then?”
“I know the idea you will come up with and therefor, Rose knows, because I’m sharing my thoughts with her-it helps with the strain,” the TARDIS admitted haughtily, leaning on Rose and closing her eyes for a moment. “Doesn’t seem to be helping much at the moment though.”
“Don’t talk like that,” Rose told her, tightening her grip on her more in desperation than in thinking that she alone could keep the woman standing if she got much worse.
“Why don’t you tell me?” the Doctor asked, ignoring Rose.
The TARDIS took a deep breath and eyed the Doctor for a moment. “That would twist the time lines, I can’t. I just can’t. You should understand that.”
Opening his mouth to protest, the Doctor quickly snapped it shut when he knew there was no point. It shouldn’t be this hard, but it felt like he had more to lose than he ever. Otherwise, it would have just been a normal rescue mission, just like any other day. But, now even if he won, he would still lose. His TARDIS. His beautiful TARDIS, his constant companion and ship, she had been there through the hardest times in his life and never told him that something was impossible, when the rest of the world did. Sure, she tried to hold him back sometimes, and she was a bit over-bearing at times, but she did it out of love. They were talking with mouths, like they had never been able to do before.
“Okay, well, why don’t you let me go and explore ahead? Rose will stay with you, won’t you, Rose?”
Rose nodded hastily and smiled up at the TARDIS, while the Doctor and Rose both helped her to sit back on the ground, with her feet sticking out from under her. She didn’t think she would ever affirm to the Doctor ever offering for her to stay behind, but she looked at the TARDIS and knew that she had to. She was connected to the TARDIS in a way that was even more intimate than Rose’s connection with the Doctor.
“You’re leaving me behind again,” the TARDIS said sheepishly, while her face seemed to grow ever paler.
“I’ve never left you behind,” he retorted half-heartedly.
“All the time,” she said weakly. “And, now, even when I have legs you do the same. I can’t even do that thing with your legs that you always babble about. That word that means so much to you and the Wolf. The word that the wrong man missed and the yellow girl loves.”
“Run,” the Doctor told her gently, while he laced her fingers through hers and squeezed.
“Yes, you run around on legs and shout and talk and live and bring home strays, while I sit and wait for you to come home. I take you everywhere and anywhere, but I can never go with you, until now, and you leave. You promised when you first touched my console. You told me that I was beautiful, and then you promised to make me fly so fast and you would never get rid of me,” she whispered quickly, her voice dropping off lightly, but the words still carried more power than the Doctor had expected.
“Yeah, but you know what? I always come home,” the Doctor told her with a smile. “I always come back for you, and you’re always there waiting for me. Show me that nothing has changed, alright? Show me you’re still the same ol’ gal I fell in love with all those years ago.”
The TARDIS nodded, as she closed her eyes and sighed, while Rose moved closer to her and put her head in her lap. “Sorry, Doctor, but I coaxed her into a gentle sleep. It’s better for her now.”
“I know,” the Doctor said, as he stepped back a bit, edging in the direction of the area they had come home in. “See you later.”
“And, you,” Rose replied, as she watched the Doctor disappear behind the corner and looked back at the woman holding the TARDIS consciousness within her body. She didn’t even know her name, she realized, and yet she already owned the woman more than she could ever imagine.
“You’re going to be just fine,” Rose whispered. She had meant the words to comfort herself more than anything, but even so, the woman seemed to respond to her. She turned slightly and half-opened her eyes to look up at Rose.
“Help me,” she pleaded softly, shaking from trying to fight Rose gently trying to coax her into a heavy sleep.
The two words cut through her heart and all she could do was nod, as she reached down and touched the TARDIS’s temples with her fingers.
~//~
Rose had been taking everything so well, when all he seemed to do was get more and more confused. He couldn’t say he was surprised, she had always been this way, from the first day they met. She had always been showing him something he couldn’t see the need to see, things from a human perspective, the need for love, and the battle scared man who was really just a scared little boy.
He was still wearing leather the first time that she really showed him how much he meant to her and how they were meant to be together.
He had woken up screaming, not for the first time since the war, but this time it
was different. This time there was a gently pressure on his hand and warm eyes staring down at him in the darkness. She smiled at him, that grin that could make a lion roll over and be a kitten. The look in her eyes told him everything he needed to know as she gave him a final squeeze of the hand and left without another word. That little pink and yellow human had always been so in tune to his moods no matter what, and she knew right then and there that he wouldn’t have spoken to her about it. And, she accepted that. She let him go about the rest of their days together, not mentioning it, but she always made sure that her hand was never out of his reach.
Then, after he changed, she changed as well, syncing herself back to him, getting to know the moods and actions that went along with her new, new Doctor. The time between nightmares lasted longer this time, the regeneration and her presence allowing some sort of relief to take place, but they returned after the Olympics, when he was forced to leave her. He dreamed of losing her and never seeing her. He dreamed of an unseen wind taking him away from her, while she was pulled in the other direction.
So, he did what he never thought he could do, he crept into her room without knocking, toed off his shoes and slid into her bed over the covers, while she lay under, moving slowly as not to wake her. He gently draped an arm over her body to assure himself of her existence before allowing himself to fall into a deep sleep.
The next morning he opened his eyes to see her staring at him, a blanket thrown over his shoulders and their hands clasped between them. She smiled, kissed his forehead, and told him it wasn’t real.
Smiling he agreed with her and looked around her room quickly, taking it all in as he got to his feet and let his hand slide from hers and into his pocket. The pile of dirty laundry rested in the corner of her room, and he made a point of raising his eyebrows at it, knowing that she would notice him. She said she was sorry, and that she would get around to cleaning it as soon as they caught a break, but he told her they couldn’t. That he was trying a new setting to conserve power and had shut down the washers. They’d have to go to her mum’s to get it clean. He lied to her so easily, because he needed to be somewhere closed in for once. He didn’t want to run away, he just wanted her; he wanted her closed in by four walls, just for a little while.
He wanted her where he knew she would be safe.
The guilt stayed with him even to this day. He forced himself to think of her every day, as his torture, wouldn’t let himself forget her, and carried a picture of the two of them in his pocket right next to his left heart. Even now, he couldn’t forgive himself for what he did. The day she fell into the void was the day he realized that he was the problem in her life. It wasn’t her who was the jeopardy friendly human, he was just dangerous.
He had told Rose that a storm was approaching; he didn’t know it was his own.
The now familiar feeling of tears burning the backs of his eyes came to the Doctor’s attention. Blinking hard to try to get rid of the sensation, did nothing but send the rivulets pouring down his face, while he tried fervently to wipe them away. He ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head, lowering it and staring at his feet while he forced himself not to turn around.
“No need to be sad, Love,” a voice said from behind him, and two different hands rested on his shoulder. “It was always meant to be.”
He turned around to see Auntie and Uncle standing behind him and limping closer to him. The Doctor glared at them and went to turn around, but Auntie caught his arm and pulled him back around.
“No need to be that way,” she said, “it’s your we’re dying fault anyway.”
“I haven’t done anything,” the Doctor grated, walking away when Auntie keeled over. Running over to her out of instinct, he let out a small squeak of surprise and felt for her pulse. “What?”
He turned to Uncle, who shrugged a bit sadly. “House sees no more Time Lords, and no more TARDIS. He needs more. So, we die.”
“You can’t just die,” he said in exasperation as Uncle hobbled around for a few moments, muttering something unintelligible before collapsing on the ground with a calm groan. Feeling his neck like he did Auntie, the Doctor confirmed he was dead and rolled his eyes, knowing that they were dead before anyway, and were only animated by House. Sighing, he moved on, hands shoved deep in his pockets.
This had to end now.