Fic: The Shadow of Death (2/2)
Title: The Shadow of Death
Author: Gillian Taylor
Character/Pairing: Jack Harkness, Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler
Rating: PG-13
Summary: You can't change the past. Can you? And, if you do, can you live with the consequences?
Disclaimer: Don't own them. I just like playing with them...a lot.
A/N: Thanks, as always, to my lovely betas wendymr and ponygirl72. Sorry for the delay with this one.
Chapter 1: A Time to Weep
Chapter 2: A Time to Heal
The Doctor watches the myriad expressions cross his friend’s face. It’s a bit, okay a lot, difficult to come to terms with. New face, same man. Well, almost the same. Better hair and the mole is brilliant, but really he’s still the Doctor.
The only problem is that he shouldn’t be this Doctor just yet. He knows that. He has the memory of two separate time streams, which isn’t good. In fact, that’s not good at all. It means someone’s been meddling. While some meddling is okay, this sort of meddling isn’t.
Some amateur time traveller has apparently decided he - or she, he amends - didn’t like how things turned out. So they changed it. Thunder rumbles overhead, mingling with the sounds of the attack. That’s telling, that is. Whoever did this didn’t try to change history just once. By the feel of the atmosphere, this has to be their fifth or sixth go at it.
Oh, right. Jack asked him a question, didn’t he? “Yup,” he says, popping the ‘p’ because he thinks he likes the sound of it. “That’s me. The Doctor. Hello!” He grins, waggling his fingers at the other man.
It isn’t his fault Jack swanned off before he could see him regenerate. He shakes his head, reminding himself firmly that that isn’t how this all started. Well, he really doesn’t know how it started but he has a very, very good idea. “Someone doesn’t like you, Jack,” he says.
His reward for that brilliant observation is Jack rolling his eyes. “Wow, you’re a clever one, aren’t you?”
“Oi! That’s rude!” he scolds. “So, right. Questions?”
“What happened to you?”
“It’s this thing that Time Lords do when they…well, it means I changed. I was all big ears and leather and now I’m me. Only there’s a problem. A really, really big problem and it has nothing to do with the fact that Rose is currently in the TARDIS suffering from shock. Well, it does in a really loosely related…”
“Doctor,” Jack cuts him off. Probably a good thing, that. He seems to have a bit of a gob this regeneration. But words are fun! He likes words. And it’s very, very obvious that he’s not entirely over the whole regeneration sickness thing. His thoughts are bouncing around too much. To be expected, though. He only regenerated six point five hours ago.
“Right. Sorry. Seem to have a tendency to babble. Oooh, I like that word. Babble. Try it, Jack. Babblebabblebabblebabble. It sort of rolls off the-“ He curbs himself at Jack’s look. “-As I was saying. Problem. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Time’s been changed and not for the better.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I was trying to save Rose,” Jack retorts angrily. There’s a hint of desperation to those words and he holds no illusions that Jack wouldn’t fight to save her. No matter what.
Rassilon, there was time that he… He drops his gaze. “I know.”
“It was wrong. I know it was. But I couldn’t just-“
“Of course you couldn’t,” he says softly, still not looking at Jack. Does that make him a coward? Is that what sort of man he is now? “I was tempted. You had to know that. But there’re rules against that sort of thing. I’d make a terrible god, you know. Choosing who lives and who dies. Bad idea, that. Very, very bad.”
“So you’re still here to stop me.” Such a simple statement. Cause and effect. Jack is here to save Rose - well, him now. He’s here to stop it. Wrong.
“Nope,” he corrects, lifting his head to look at Jack. “I’m not. Because, you see, none of this is supposed to have happened.”
Jack meets his gaze and now he can see the instant hope begins to rise in his friend’s eyes. “You mean-?”
“Your friend the Time Agent has been toying with time. Decided he didn’t like the results of the last time he tried to kill you, so he tried again. Well, to be absolutely correct, that’d be again, again, again, again, again and again.” He ticks the count off his fingers.
“It isn’t supposed to be like this? You mean I was right?” Jack asks and suddenly he remembers the former conman’s words, when he accused him of doing nothing.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” he warns. “Oh, and there’s something I forgot to add.”
“There is?”
His thoughts settle for a brief moment, letting him level the full force of his gaze on Jack. This time, he’s telling the truth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve implied that it was your fault Rose died. It wasn’t.” It’s his. Or would’ve been his, had it happened. Which it did. In another timeline. After all, he’s the one who took her away from her home. He’s the one who exposed her to this danger. Not Jack.
“Wasn’t your fault, either, Doc. The fault lies squarely on that bastard’s head who shot her.” Jack looks down at his wrist and taps something into his Vortex Manipulator. There’s a beep and Jack frowns. “Got him. No, wait, there’re echoes…Yes. I’ve got him.”
“Where?” he asks, immediately reaching into his pocket for the sonic screwdriver.
Jack points upwards and he follows the line of the finger towards the roof.
“Oooh, brilliant. Always did fancy becoming a roofer.”
Even though all his thoughts are screaming at him to hurry, Jack takes his time climbing to the roof. It wouldn’t do for the Time Agent to realise they’re coming. All he needs is one clear shot and it’ll be all over. He’s not going to watch either of his friends die again.
The instant he puts his feet onto the roof, everything changes. He never realised how he’d been ignoring the bombings and the various sounds of the Siluxan attack until they were gone. He was surrounded by something that cut out all external sound. He could hear the sound of his own breath, the soft scuff of his foot against the roof’s tiles, but that was all.
Outside this bubble of silence, the Siluxans are still systematically trying to destroy the city. Fighters whirl overhead, dodging the meagre Tiruli attempts to fire back, returning every blast that rose from the ground tenfold. From what he remembers, the fight will end with a Tiruli surrender in the same few minutes that he cradles his friend’s dying body in his arms.
A lump comes to his throat and he forcefully pushes it back. He can’t afford to grieve now. It’s too much of a distraction. He needs the anger more. That’s all there is that’s keeping him here. The anger and the need to destroy the man who dared take away someone he…
His free hand fists at his side as he looks around. There isn’t much to see at the moment. The roof slopes to a peak above them, hiding the opposite side of the building from their view. There are enough peaks to this roof to provide plenty of cover. For them, and for the assassin.
He’s just stepped over a low wall that surrounds the roof. Every ten feet or so, the wall is broken by a taller segment of concrete and mortar. If he were the one who was the assassin, he’d use one of those to hide behind as he sighted his victim.
His fingers clench instinctively around the cool metal of his gun. Not this time. Not again.
“We should split up,” the Doctor says softly from where he's just climbed up beside him, his voice barely carrying even in this unnatural stillness.
“I’ll take this way,” Jack says, nodding his head to the right. He knows from his sensors that the assassin is nearby. Most likely closer to his chosen direction than to the Doctor’s. That’s good. That’s very good. He’ll be the one who will find him first. He’ll be the one who will stop that bastard before he does more damage. He won’t have to watch either of his friends die again.
The Doctor pauses for a moment, reaching out to touch his shoulder. In the Doctor’s eyes he can see the full weight of time, and it’s staggering. He carries the knowledge of two timelines. The Doctor carries knowledge of them all.
How does he know so much and not go mad?
Then the Doctor blinks and that insight is gone. “Be careful,” the Time Lord says softly, giving his shoulder a brief squeeze.
A moment later, he’s gone.
Shaking his head, Jack turns and creeps along the edge of the roof, holding his blaster at the ready. He tells himself that he won’t hesitate. When he sees the assassin, he’s going to shoot to kill. It doesn’t matter any more. If it saves Rose and the Doctor, it’s worth it. Anything’s worth it.
Movement catches his attention just around the corner ahead. It looks like someone’s arm is moving slightly in and out of view. Just a sliver of fabric, but it’s enough to tell that someone’s there. Finally.
His lips stretch into a feral smile as he creeps forward, taking care not to step too heavily.
And there he is. The Time Agent is aiming his weapon at someone on the street below. Not this time. He won’t allow it. No more time changes, no more echoes. Just the Time Agent dead and the Doctor and Rose alive. That’s what matters.
Jack’s finger is tightening on the trigger when he’s distracted by the tell-tale scuff of a shoe against the roof. The assassin turns both his head and his weapon towards the noise, and Jack’s left to stare dumbly at the Doctor. What the hell is he doing?
“Hello,” he says, waggling his fingers in a half-hearted wave. “Lovely day, isn’t it? Well, it would be if it weren’t for the storm or the attack, but you can’t have everything, can you?”
“Who are you?” the assassin growls. Shit. He’s moving around too much. That damned higher section of the wall is giving the agent too much cover. He doesn’t have a clear shot, though he suspects the assassin has a clear view of the Doctor.
NO! Not again. Gritting his teeth, he begins to ascend the roof, trying to keep both the Doctor and the agent in his sights. The instant he has a clear shot, he’s taking it. He doesn’t want to hear the agent’s rationale for trying to kill him. He doesn’t even care to know why the Agency still has a price on his head. All he cares about is stopping the assassin.
“Oh, I’m the Doctor. And you are about to make a very, very, very, very big mistake.”
There’s humour tingeing the agent’s tone now as he replies, “Oh, I am, am I? I’m the one with the gun.”
“So you are, so you are. You’ve also got a gift for poetry. But, no. You see, the high moral ground’s still mine, but that’s neither here nor there. Never really understood that saying, myself. How can something be neither here nor there? If it’s something, shouldn’t it be somewhere? Doesn’t make sense, that. Then again, there’s a lot about slang that doesn’t make sense.”
What the hell is the Doctor doing? Doesn’t he realise that babble’s only going to make the assassin angrier?
If the Doctor keeps this up, he won’t have to worry about the assassin killing him. He’s going to do it himself for pulling this stupid stunt.
“Now, where was I? Oh, yes. The mistake. Can you feel that against your skin? It’s like a huge potential current, running through the air, raising the little hairs at the nape of your neck. The atmosphere’s reacting to it, you know. That’s why it’s getting ready to storm. Didn’t do that before, did it?”
“Before?” the agent asks dumbly.
He’ll hand it to the Doctor, though. He does know how to provide a decent distraction. Just a few more seconds and he’ll have a clear shot.
“Yup. This isn’t the first time you’ve done this, is it? What are you on? Number six? And you keep failing. So you keep going back and trying again. Switching the spots every time so you avoid meeting yourself. But that’s a problem. A very, very big problem because time doesn’t like that.”
The assassin’s shoulder muscles are clenching. He’s going to do something. Before he has conscious thought of it, his finger is pulling the trigger.
Two seconds later, nothing is left of the agent but rapidly dispersing molecules.
“And I didn’t even get to the good part of my-“ the Doctor starts to protest before he feels the world begin to spin.
Vertigo causes him to lose his balance and he falls heavily against the roof. Time’s shifting again, reordering itself, and he doesn’t know if he-
The Doctor watches the skies warily as he eases his companions closer to the security of the wall. The Siluxan attack seems to have abated, but he isn’t about to take any sort of chance with their lives. Something about this place bothers him, makes him want to keep Rose and Jack nearby.
It’s been a long time since he’s felt this nervous. Almost as though something terrible is about to happen. He’d blame it on the attack, but they’ve been through worse. The Blitz in London comes to mind. Or that time they were chased by the Imperial Guard on Ultis IV. There’s no reason for him to feel this way.
But he does. He frowns slightly as something niggles his senses. Is that movement? On that roof, over there. He pauses a few moments, shifting so he’s between his companions and that building. That’s when he realises it. He’s not seeing movement - he’s seeing the potential for movement.
Big difference, that. One is fact. The other only might be fact, provided the proper events occur in the right sequence. It’s very rare to see a potential so vividly, though. Time is a little weak here, but not terribly so.
Then why is he seeing potential movements? He blinks and, for the briefest of moments, he thinks he hears gunfire, a bullet hitting flesh and a scream of denial. Potential sounds, too?
One prospective occurrence he could dismiss as a strange, yet interesting, aspect of this planet. But two? Nope. Definitely not. Only can mean one thing. Something happened here. Something bad. And it involves, or involved, them - Rose, Jack and himself. Not the Siluxans. Not the Tiruli. Them.
The hairs rise on the nape of his neck as a chill runs down his spine. How do humans put it? Someone just walked over his grave. Quite literally, in fact. He’s feeling the potential for a regeneration and it’s far stronger than it should be.
At his side, he feels Rose shiver despite the relative warmth of the atmosphere. She feels something, too.
That’s it. He’s had enough of this.
Another bomb drops nearby, almost deafening him with the sound of its explosion. That was two, maybe three streets away. Too close, but that’s not what bothers him. He doesn’t like the feel of this place.
“We’re leaving,” he announces during the next lull between bombings. The further away they get, the happier he’ll be.
“Doctor?” Rose asks, her trepidation almost palpable.
“Problem?” he asks, turning towards her. She must see something in his eyes as she shakes her head. “How ‘bout you, Captain?”
“No problems here,” Jack replies. He suspects that Jack does have concerns about this, but that doesn’t matter.
They’re getting out of here.
“Fantastic,” he says, reaching out to grab his companions’ hands. Jack gives him a startled glance, but wraps his fingers around his regardless. “Run for your life,” he instructs.
He doesn’t let either of them go until they reach the TARDIS.
Jack’s hands fist in the sheets, curling tightly around the fabric. In his half-asleep state, it feels like that contact is all there is to keep him anchored to reality.
The reality in his head, the reality of this dream, is one that he never wants to see. Yet he feels it threaten to overwhelm him and, with a low groan, he surrenders.
It happens in slow motion. There’s a bang and then he sees the moment of impact. Her body jerks, her mouth open in a wide ‘o’ of astonishment as she crumples to the ground. There are two shouts of denial, but in the end he’s the one who holds her in his arms as she dies.
He gasps and turns over, wrapping himself tightly in duvet and sheets in a futile attempt to comfort himself. He almost awakens on the breath of a sob, but settles back again into that strange half-aware state of the dream.
It happens again in slow motion. There’s a bang and he sees the moment of impact. His body jerks forward, his eyes open wide as he begins to collapse. There are two shouts of denial, her screams echoing in his ears as she tugs on the Doctor’s limp hand. In the end, he’s the one who holds him as his blue eyes close for the…
He sits up with a shout. His eyes are open, but unseeing, as he tries to banish the memory of the dream. They’re fine. All of them are fine. Safe and sound in the TARDIS. Rose is just down the hall. The Doctor’s probably somewhere in the console room.
It’s fine, he tells himself firmly. However, he can’t seem to calm his racing heart. He can’t seem to be able to convince himself, really convince himself, that Rose and the Doctor are alive with words alone.
Feeling somewhat foolish, he kicks himself free of the sheets and rests his bare feet against the floor. He curls his toes into the carpet and firmly reminds himself that this is real. The sound of the TARDIS is real, too. He’s home, he’s safe and so is everyone else.
He can’t stop himself from pulling on a loose pair of trousers. He can’t stop himself from walking to the door. He can’t stop himself from resting his hand on the handle and pulling it open.
He does manage to stop when he finds himself staring at Rose, her hand raised as if she were about to knock. “Jack, I-“ she begins, but he cuts her off by drawing her into his arms.
Ignoring her small squeak of surprise, he buries his face in her hair and simply breathes her in. This is what holding a living Rose is like. Warm, vibrant, passionate. Curves in all the right places. This is what holding her is supposed to be like, not that phantom memory from a dream.
She’s fine. She’s alive and here and…
“Jack?” she whispers, drawing back just enough so she can look into his eyes. “Are you all right?”
He’s about to answer that he’s fine, before he quells that thought. He’s still too rattled from the dream to let that flippant answer slide. “Getting there,” he allows.
“I had this really strange dream,” she says, lifting her hand up to touch his cheek. He can’t help himself from leaning into it. He knows he shouldn’t be doing this. He knows his place on this ship and it isn’t here with her. That’s the Doctor’s place, but he can’t find it within himself to care. “I think I…I think I died. An’ then I was alive an’ the Doctor died instead.”
His eyes widen in shock. Oh god. He tightens the embrace as her hand drops to his shoulder. “It was just a dream,” he says, not sure who he was trying to convince.
“Was it? It felt so real,” she says.
“Nope, just a dream.” The voice is unexpected and he almost leaps away from Rose, feeling a bit like he’d been caught making out with the boss’s wife. “Thought I heard you two jabberin’ away,” the Doctor says.
Strange. Why isn’t the Doctor glaring at him? Shouldn’t he be scolding him for holding Rose like this? No, wait. Something tells him that it isn’t pure chance that brings the Doctor down this particular hallway at this time of night. He was probably trying to do the same thing Jack was planning on doing. Make sure everyone was safe. That everyone was alive.
What if-?
“It wasn’t a dream, was it?” he asks, spearing the Doctor with his gaze. “We weren’t dreaming about it - we remembered it. That’s why you had us run. You felt it, too.” He can’t claim to be an expert on what the Doctor can and cannot feel. But he does know this. The Doctor cares about, maybe even loves, Rose. If the Doctor knew something might happen, he’d save her. It’s as true a fact as any.
“Yes,” the Doctor replies after a long minute of silence. “But for you - “ The Doctor gives him a long look and he feels as though all his secrets are in the open. “-both of you, it was just a dream. Didn’t happen. Only might’ve happened.”
“Then why did it feel so real?” Rose asks as she draws back from his hug to look at the Time Lord.
“Time affects you differently, Rose. Part of bein’ a time traveller. You’re more sensitive to its nuances. That potential was a bit too close to reality. Felt real because of that.”
Rose frowns as she moves towards the Doctor, lifting her hand to rest it against his chest. Jack can easily imagine how it feels for her - the reassuring double-beat of the Doctor’s hearts. His fingers itch to reach out to him, too, but he holds himself back.
“So you felt that, too? Dyin’?”
“It wasn’t real,” the Doctor says, lifting his hands to rest them on her shoulders.
She slides her hands around to slip them underneath the Doctor’s leather jacket. She steps closer, almost as though she were trying to meld herself to his body, Rose rests her head against his chest and closes her eyes. “But it was. At one point, it was real, yeah?”
Jack should feel like a voyeur as he watches them hold each other, but he doesn’t. He should slip back into his room and leave them to it, reassured that both are fine. He doesn’t. It feels as if his feet are rooted to the floor.
He’s caught in the Doctor’s gaze, like a moth to a flame. There’s a challenge there, but for what? “Not any more.”
The Doctor’s head jerks slightly, beckoning him closer. Somehow his feet come uprooted and he can walk again. One step. Two. And then he’s so close he can feel the warmth of Rose’s body and the chill of the Doctor’s.
There’s a touch of a cold hand against his own and he’s pulled into a three-way embrace. It’s almost an affirmation that everyone lives. The Doctor. Rose. Him.
The ache in his chest, the one he hadn’t realised was there, loosens and dissipates in this comfort. And, in the back of his mind, he thinks he hears a voice both familiar and not say two words:
Thank you.
He lifts his head and meets the Doctor’s gaze with his own and smiles.
END
xposted everywhere: dark_aegis, better_with_3 & dwfiction
Author: Gillian Taylor
Character/Pairing: Jack Harkness, Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler
Rating: PG-13
Summary: You can't change the past. Can you? And, if you do, can you live with the consequences?
Disclaimer: Don't own them. I just like playing with them...a lot.
A/N: Thanks, as always, to my lovely betas wendymr and ponygirl72. Sorry for the delay with this one.
Chapter 1: A Time to Weep
Chapter 2: A Time to Heal
The Doctor watches the myriad expressions cross his friend’s face. It’s a bit, okay a lot, difficult to come to terms with. New face, same man. Well, almost the same. Better hair and the mole is brilliant, but really he’s still the Doctor.
The only problem is that he shouldn’t be this Doctor just yet. He knows that. He has the memory of two separate time streams, which isn’t good. In fact, that’s not good at all. It means someone’s been meddling. While some meddling is okay, this sort of meddling isn’t.
Some amateur time traveller has apparently decided he - or she, he amends - didn’t like how things turned out. So they changed it. Thunder rumbles overhead, mingling with the sounds of the attack. That’s telling, that is. Whoever did this didn’t try to change history just once. By the feel of the atmosphere, this has to be their fifth or sixth go at it.
Oh, right. Jack asked him a question, didn’t he? “Yup,” he says, popping the ‘p’ because he thinks he likes the sound of it. “That’s me. The Doctor. Hello!” He grins, waggling his fingers at the other man.
It isn’t his fault Jack swanned off before he could see him regenerate. He shakes his head, reminding himself firmly that that isn’t how this all started. Well, he really doesn’t know how it started but he has a very, very good idea. “Someone doesn’t like you, Jack,” he says.
His reward for that brilliant observation is Jack rolling his eyes. “Wow, you’re a clever one, aren’t you?”
“Oi! That’s rude!” he scolds. “So, right. Questions?”
“What happened to you?”
“It’s this thing that Time Lords do when they…well, it means I changed. I was all big ears and leather and now I’m me. Only there’s a problem. A really, really big problem and it has nothing to do with the fact that Rose is currently in the TARDIS suffering from shock. Well, it does in a really loosely related…”
“Doctor,” Jack cuts him off. Probably a good thing, that. He seems to have a bit of a gob this regeneration. But words are fun! He likes words. And it’s very, very obvious that he’s not entirely over the whole regeneration sickness thing. His thoughts are bouncing around too much. To be expected, though. He only regenerated six point five hours ago.
“Right. Sorry. Seem to have a tendency to babble. Oooh, I like that word. Babble. Try it, Jack. Babblebabblebabblebabble. It sort of rolls off the-“ He curbs himself at Jack’s look. “-As I was saying. Problem. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. Time’s been changed and not for the better.”
“Don’t you think I know that? I was trying to save Rose,” Jack retorts angrily. There’s a hint of desperation to those words and he holds no illusions that Jack wouldn’t fight to save her. No matter what.
Rassilon, there was time that he… He drops his gaze. “I know.”
“It was wrong. I know it was. But I couldn’t just-“
“Of course you couldn’t,” he says softly, still not looking at Jack. Does that make him a coward? Is that what sort of man he is now? “I was tempted. You had to know that. But there’re rules against that sort of thing. I’d make a terrible god, you know. Choosing who lives and who dies. Bad idea, that. Very, very bad.”
“So you’re still here to stop me.” Such a simple statement. Cause and effect. Jack is here to save Rose - well, him now. He’s here to stop it. Wrong.
“Nope,” he corrects, lifting his head to look at Jack. “I’m not. Because, you see, none of this is supposed to have happened.”
Jack meets his gaze and now he can see the instant hope begins to rise in his friend’s eyes. “You mean-?”
“Your friend the Time Agent has been toying with time. Decided he didn’t like the results of the last time he tried to kill you, so he tried again. Well, to be absolutely correct, that’d be again, again, again, again, again and again.” He ticks the count off his fingers.
“It isn’t supposed to be like this? You mean I was right?” Jack asks and suddenly he remembers the former conman’s words, when he accused him of doing nothing.
“Don’t let it go to your head,” he warns. “Oh, and there’s something I forgot to add.”
“There is?”
His thoughts settle for a brief moment, letting him level the full force of his gaze on Jack. This time, he’s telling the truth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve implied that it was your fault Rose died. It wasn’t.” It’s his. Or would’ve been his, had it happened. Which it did. In another timeline. After all, he’s the one who took her away from her home. He’s the one who exposed her to this danger. Not Jack.
“Wasn’t your fault, either, Doc. The fault lies squarely on that bastard’s head who shot her.” Jack looks down at his wrist and taps something into his Vortex Manipulator. There’s a beep and Jack frowns. “Got him. No, wait, there’re echoes…Yes. I’ve got him.”
“Where?” he asks, immediately reaching into his pocket for the sonic screwdriver.
Jack points upwards and he follows the line of the finger towards the roof.
“Oooh, brilliant. Always did fancy becoming a roofer.”
Even though all his thoughts are screaming at him to hurry, Jack takes his time climbing to the roof. It wouldn’t do for the Time Agent to realise they’re coming. All he needs is one clear shot and it’ll be all over. He’s not going to watch either of his friends die again.
The instant he puts his feet onto the roof, everything changes. He never realised how he’d been ignoring the bombings and the various sounds of the Siluxan attack until they were gone. He was surrounded by something that cut out all external sound. He could hear the sound of his own breath, the soft scuff of his foot against the roof’s tiles, but that was all.
Outside this bubble of silence, the Siluxans are still systematically trying to destroy the city. Fighters whirl overhead, dodging the meagre Tiruli attempts to fire back, returning every blast that rose from the ground tenfold. From what he remembers, the fight will end with a Tiruli surrender in the same few minutes that he cradles his friend’s dying body in his arms.
A lump comes to his throat and he forcefully pushes it back. He can’t afford to grieve now. It’s too much of a distraction. He needs the anger more. That’s all there is that’s keeping him here. The anger and the need to destroy the man who dared take away someone he…
His free hand fists at his side as he looks around. There isn’t much to see at the moment. The roof slopes to a peak above them, hiding the opposite side of the building from their view. There are enough peaks to this roof to provide plenty of cover. For them, and for the assassin.
He’s just stepped over a low wall that surrounds the roof. Every ten feet or so, the wall is broken by a taller segment of concrete and mortar. If he were the one who was the assassin, he’d use one of those to hide behind as he sighted his victim.
His fingers clench instinctively around the cool metal of his gun. Not this time. Not again.
“We should split up,” the Doctor says softly from where he's just climbed up beside him, his voice barely carrying even in this unnatural stillness.
“I’ll take this way,” Jack says, nodding his head to the right. He knows from his sensors that the assassin is nearby. Most likely closer to his chosen direction than to the Doctor’s. That’s good. That’s very good. He’ll be the one who will find him first. He’ll be the one who will stop that bastard before he does more damage. He won’t have to watch either of his friends die again.
The Doctor pauses for a moment, reaching out to touch his shoulder. In the Doctor’s eyes he can see the full weight of time, and it’s staggering. He carries the knowledge of two timelines. The Doctor carries knowledge of them all.
How does he know so much and not go mad?
Then the Doctor blinks and that insight is gone. “Be careful,” the Time Lord says softly, giving his shoulder a brief squeeze.
A moment later, he’s gone.
Shaking his head, Jack turns and creeps along the edge of the roof, holding his blaster at the ready. He tells himself that he won’t hesitate. When he sees the assassin, he’s going to shoot to kill. It doesn’t matter any more. If it saves Rose and the Doctor, it’s worth it. Anything’s worth it.
Movement catches his attention just around the corner ahead. It looks like someone’s arm is moving slightly in and out of view. Just a sliver of fabric, but it’s enough to tell that someone’s there. Finally.
His lips stretch into a feral smile as he creeps forward, taking care not to step too heavily.
And there he is. The Time Agent is aiming his weapon at someone on the street below. Not this time. He won’t allow it. No more time changes, no more echoes. Just the Time Agent dead and the Doctor and Rose alive. That’s what matters.
Jack’s finger is tightening on the trigger when he’s distracted by the tell-tale scuff of a shoe against the roof. The assassin turns both his head and his weapon towards the noise, and Jack’s left to stare dumbly at the Doctor. What the hell is he doing?
“Hello,” he says, waggling his fingers in a half-hearted wave. “Lovely day, isn’t it? Well, it would be if it weren’t for the storm or the attack, but you can’t have everything, can you?”
“Who are you?” the assassin growls. Shit. He’s moving around too much. That damned higher section of the wall is giving the agent too much cover. He doesn’t have a clear shot, though he suspects the assassin has a clear view of the Doctor.
NO! Not again. Gritting his teeth, he begins to ascend the roof, trying to keep both the Doctor and the agent in his sights. The instant he has a clear shot, he’s taking it. He doesn’t want to hear the agent’s rationale for trying to kill him. He doesn’t even care to know why the Agency still has a price on his head. All he cares about is stopping the assassin.
“Oh, I’m the Doctor. And you are about to make a very, very, very, very big mistake.”
There’s humour tingeing the agent’s tone now as he replies, “Oh, I am, am I? I’m the one with the gun.”
“So you are, so you are. You’ve also got a gift for poetry. But, no. You see, the high moral ground’s still mine, but that’s neither here nor there. Never really understood that saying, myself. How can something be neither here nor there? If it’s something, shouldn’t it be somewhere? Doesn’t make sense, that. Then again, there’s a lot about slang that doesn’t make sense.”
What the hell is the Doctor doing? Doesn’t he realise that babble’s only going to make the assassin angrier?
If the Doctor keeps this up, he won’t have to worry about the assassin killing him. He’s going to do it himself for pulling this stupid stunt.
“Now, where was I? Oh, yes. The mistake. Can you feel that against your skin? It’s like a huge potential current, running through the air, raising the little hairs at the nape of your neck. The atmosphere’s reacting to it, you know. That’s why it’s getting ready to storm. Didn’t do that before, did it?”
“Before?” the agent asks dumbly.
He’ll hand it to the Doctor, though. He does know how to provide a decent distraction. Just a few more seconds and he’ll have a clear shot.
“Yup. This isn’t the first time you’ve done this, is it? What are you on? Number six? And you keep failing. So you keep going back and trying again. Switching the spots every time so you avoid meeting yourself. But that’s a problem. A very, very big problem because time doesn’t like that.”
The assassin’s shoulder muscles are clenching. He’s going to do something. Before he has conscious thought of it, his finger is pulling the trigger.
Two seconds later, nothing is left of the agent but rapidly dispersing molecules.
“And I didn’t even get to the good part of my-“ the Doctor starts to protest before he feels the world begin to spin.
Vertigo causes him to lose his balance and he falls heavily against the roof. Time’s shifting again, reordering itself, and he doesn’t know if he-
The Doctor watches the skies warily as he eases his companions closer to the security of the wall. The Siluxan attack seems to have abated, but he isn’t about to take any sort of chance with their lives. Something about this place bothers him, makes him want to keep Rose and Jack nearby.
It’s been a long time since he’s felt this nervous. Almost as though something terrible is about to happen. He’d blame it on the attack, but they’ve been through worse. The Blitz in London comes to mind. Or that time they were chased by the Imperial Guard on Ultis IV. There’s no reason for him to feel this way.
But he does. He frowns slightly as something niggles his senses. Is that movement? On that roof, over there. He pauses a few moments, shifting so he’s between his companions and that building. That’s when he realises it. He’s not seeing movement - he’s seeing the potential for movement.
Big difference, that. One is fact. The other only might be fact, provided the proper events occur in the right sequence. It’s very rare to see a potential so vividly, though. Time is a little weak here, but not terribly so.
Then why is he seeing potential movements? He blinks and, for the briefest of moments, he thinks he hears gunfire, a bullet hitting flesh and a scream of denial. Potential sounds, too?
One prospective occurrence he could dismiss as a strange, yet interesting, aspect of this planet. But two? Nope. Definitely not. Only can mean one thing. Something happened here. Something bad. And it involves, or involved, them - Rose, Jack and himself. Not the Siluxans. Not the Tiruli. Them.
The hairs rise on the nape of his neck as a chill runs down his spine. How do humans put it? Someone just walked over his grave. Quite literally, in fact. He’s feeling the potential for a regeneration and it’s far stronger than it should be.
At his side, he feels Rose shiver despite the relative warmth of the atmosphere. She feels something, too.
That’s it. He’s had enough of this.
Another bomb drops nearby, almost deafening him with the sound of its explosion. That was two, maybe three streets away. Too close, but that’s not what bothers him. He doesn’t like the feel of this place.
“We’re leaving,” he announces during the next lull between bombings. The further away they get, the happier he’ll be.
“Doctor?” Rose asks, her trepidation almost palpable.
“Problem?” he asks, turning towards her. She must see something in his eyes as she shakes her head. “How ‘bout you, Captain?”
“No problems here,” Jack replies. He suspects that Jack does have concerns about this, but that doesn’t matter.
They’re getting out of here.
“Fantastic,” he says, reaching out to grab his companions’ hands. Jack gives him a startled glance, but wraps his fingers around his regardless. “Run for your life,” he instructs.
He doesn’t let either of them go until they reach the TARDIS.
Jack’s hands fist in the sheets, curling tightly around the fabric. In his half-asleep state, it feels like that contact is all there is to keep him anchored to reality.
The reality in his head, the reality of this dream, is one that he never wants to see. Yet he feels it threaten to overwhelm him and, with a low groan, he surrenders.
It happens in slow motion. There’s a bang and then he sees the moment of impact. Her body jerks, her mouth open in a wide ‘o’ of astonishment as she crumples to the ground. There are two shouts of denial, but in the end he’s the one who holds her in his arms as she dies.
He gasps and turns over, wrapping himself tightly in duvet and sheets in a futile attempt to comfort himself. He almost awakens on the breath of a sob, but settles back again into that strange half-aware state of the dream.
It happens again in slow motion. There’s a bang and he sees the moment of impact. His body jerks forward, his eyes open wide as he begins to collapse. There are two shouts of denial, her screams echoing in his ears as she tugs on the Doctor’s limp hand. In the end, he’s the one who holds him as his blue eyes close for the…
He sits up with a shout. His eyes are open, but unseeing, as he tries to banish the memory of the dream. They’re fine. All of them are fine. Safe and sound in the TARDIS. Rose is just down the hall. The Doctor’s probably somewhere in the console room.
It’s fine, he tells himself firmly. However, he can’t seem to calm his racing heart. He can’t seem to be able to convince himself, really convince himself, that Rose and the Doctor are alive with words alone.
Feeling somewhat foolish, he kicks himself free of the sheets and rests his bare feet against the floor. He curls his toes into the carpet and firmly reminds himself that this is real. The sound of the TARDIS is real, too. He’s home, he’s safe and so is everyone else.
He can’t stop himself from pulling on a loose pair of trousers. He can’t stop himself from walking to the door. He can’t stop himself from resting his hand on the handle and pulling it open.
He does manage to stop when he finds himself staring at Rose, her hand raised as if she were about to knock. “Jack, I-“ she begins, but he cuts her off by drawing her into his arms.
Ignoring her small squeak of surprise, he buries his face in her hair and simply breathes her in. This is what holding a living Rose is like. Warm, vibrant, passionate. Curves in all the right places. This is what holding her is supposed to be like, not that phantom memory from a dream.
She’s fine. She’s alive and here and…
“Jack?” she whispers, drawing back just enough so she can look into his eyes. “Are you all right?”
He’s about to answer that he’s fine, before he quells that thought. He’s still too rattled from the dream to let that flippant answer slide. “Getting there,” he allows.
“I had this really strange dream,” she says, lifting her hand up to touch his cheek. He can’t help himself from leaning into it. He knows he shouldn’t be doing this. He knows his place on this ship and it isn’t here with her. That’s the Doctor’s place, but he can’t find it within himself to care. “I think I…I think I died. An’ then I was alive an’ the Doctor died instead.”
His eyes widen in shock. Oh god. He tightens the embrace as her hand drops to his shoulder. “It was just a dream,” he says, not sure who he was trying to convince.
“Was it? It felt so real,” she says.
“Nope, just a dream.” The voice is unexpected and he almost leaps away from Rose, feeling a bit like he’d been caught making out with the boss’s wife. “Thought I heard you two jabberin’ away,” the Doctor says.
Strange. Why isn’t the Doctor glaring at him? Shouldn’t he be scolding him for holding Rose like this? No, wait. Something tells him that it isn’t pure chance that brings the Doctor down this particular hallway at this time of night. He was probably trying to do the same thing Jack was planning on doing. Make sure everyone was safe. That everyone was alive.
What if-?
“It wasn’t a dream, was it?” he asks, spearing the Doctor with his gaze. “We weren’t dreaming about it - we remembered it. That’s why you had us run. You felt it, too.” He can’t claim to be an expert on what the Doctor can and cannot feel. But he does know this. The Doctor cares about, maybe even loves, Rose. If the Doctor knew something might happen, he’d save her. It’s as true a fact as any.
“Yes,” the Doctor replies after a long minute of silence. “But for you - “ The Doctor gives him a long look and he feels as though all his secrets are in the open. “-both of you, it was just a dream. Didn’t happen. Only might’ve happened.”
“Then why did it feel so real?” Rose asks as she draws back from his hug to look at the Time Lord.
“Time affects you differently, Rose. Part of bein’ a time traveller. You’re more sensitive to its nuances. That potential was a bit too close to reality. Felt real because of that.”
Rose frowns as she moves towards the Doctor, lifting her hand to rest it against his chest. Jack can easily imagine how it feels for her - the reassuring double-beat of the Doctor’s hearts. His fingers itch to reach out to him, too, but he holds himself back.
“So you felt that, too? Dyin’?”
“It wasn’t real,” the Doctor says, lifting his hands to rest them on her shoulders.
She slides her hands around to slip them underneath the Doctor’s leather jacket. She steps closer, almost as though she were trying to meld herself to his body, Rose rests her head against his chest and closes her eyes. “But it was. At one point, it was real, yeah?”
Jack should feel like a voyeur as he watches them hold each other, but he doesn’t. He should slip back into his room and leave them to it, reassured that both are fine. He doesn’t. It feels as if his feet are rooted to the floor.
He’s caught in the Doctor’s gaze, like a moth to a flame. There’s a challenge there, but for what? “Not any more.”
The Doctor’s head jerks slightly, beckoning him closer. Somehow his feet come uprooted and he can walk again. One step. Two. And then he’s so close he can feel the warmth of Rose’s body and the chill of the Doctor’s.
There’s a touch of a cold hand against his own and he’s pulled into a three-way embrace. It’s almost an affirmation that everyone lives. The Doctor. Rose. Him.
The ache in his chest, the one he hadn’t realised was there, loosens and dissipates in this comfort. And, in the back of his mind, he thinks he hears a voice both familiar and not say two words:
Thank you.
He lifts his head and meets the Doctor’s gaze with his own and smiles.
END
xposted everywhere: dark_aegis, better_with_3 & dwfiction