Relict (9/13?, DW, 9/J/R, Teen for the moment)

[ninamusing]

Chapter One - Bazaar | Chapter Two - Maintenance | Chapter Three - Off-Balance | Chapter Four - Whirl | Chapter Five - Shadows | Chapter Six - Latency | Chapter Seven - Ritual | Chapter Eight - Unpredictable

Thanks as always to wendymr for the beta reading.

And offered as a "bon voyage" gift to honorh.



Chapter Nine - Reverberation

She saw stars when the back of her head hit something hard, but Rose was distracted immediately by the feeling of the Doctor’s body convulsing in her arms.

“Damn it!” swore Jack, and as her eyes cleared, Rose could see him untangling himself from the Doctor, just as the long body went limp once more.

Jack rolled to his feet, reaching in the pocket of his jeans for his key, and she realized that they were in the clearing where they’d left the TARDIS. It was against the panelling of the box’s exterior that she’d struck her head, but Rose was already getting her arms underneath the Doctor’s to lift him into a sitting position as Jack got the doors open. Warm golden light flowed out, and Jack turned back to them, taking a deep breath.

“Okay.” He squatted down to sling the Doctor over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, grunting a little as he straightened up. Once he got his balance, he rushed into the TARDIS, Rose hot on his heels with Jack’s discarded jacket and her shawl in her hand.

The corridor lit up before them, guiding them to an open door. Jack stopped suddenly, and Rose almost ran into his back as he shouted with a slight edge of frustration, “Medlab! Please!” He turned and headed down the corridor again, and Rose glanced in to see a perfectly empty room before rushing behind him. Another door opened, and Jack rushed in, only to find himself in the middle of the same blank, empty room.

Rose stood in the doorway, suddenly aware that she was trembling, and Jack’s voice rose, strained, “Please! Let us find the medlab!” His eyes met Rose’s for an instant before sliding away, up the slightly curved walls toward the invisible light source. “Please?”

She thought she’d seen a shimmer of tears in his eyes, but she felt her nose stinging, and perhaps the shimmer was in her own eyes. She stepped out into the hallway, looking for another doorway, but it stretched ahead, uncharacteristically straight and brightly lit and completely without doorways, not even to the console room.

“It’s not out there,” she said, stepping into the room as she caught her lower lip between her teeth to stop its trembling.

The usual background hum seemed to be softer than usual, and this room was unlike anything Rose had seen in the months she’d been on board. It was almost egg-shaped, with no completely flat surfaces, glowing white but not harsh. As her eyes adjusted, she could start to see pinks and blues in the light, and there was a faint scent of roses in the warm air.

“’S okay.” The Doctor spoke, his voice raw, and his hand patted Jack’s back weakly. “Down.”

Jack looked mutinous for a moment, and surely the Doctor could feel the resistance in his body. He slapped a bit more firmly at Jack’s rear, and Jack went carefully down on one knee. Rose rushed around to help brace the Doctor’s head and shoulders as they laid him down on the surprisingly yielding surface of the floor.

The Doctor sighed in relief, and Rose dropped to her knees beside him, wrapping the jacket in her shawl. “Do you want this for your head?”

He looked up at her with widely dilated eyes, not entirely focusing on her face, and his smile was the softest, sweetest she’d seen from him. Her heart tightened, and when he spoke, his stress-roughened voice was still warm. “Thanks.” The simple word was full of emotion, and she smiled with some relief as he let her slip the makeshift pillow under his head.

Jack had his hands on his hips, his body tense as he watched them. “Why won’t the TARDIS let us take you to the medlab?”

The Doctor closed his eyes, his body relaxing visibly. “Where I need to be,” he said softly, and Rose was stroking his hair before she realized it. He made a soft sound in his throat, almost a purr, and she smiled, stroking him again more firmly.

“Feeling better?” she asked, as Jack went down on his hands and knees on the Doctor’s other side.

“Yeah.” His eyes opened, a bit more focused. “Thanks.” He looked from Rose to Jack. “Thank you.”

“No problem,” said Jack, his smile a bit more strained than usual as he sat back on his heels and looked around the room which - even on board the TARDIS - felt bigger than the compass of its walls. “What is this room?”

“Zero room.” The Doctor’s tongue caught on his dry lips, and Rose got to her feet, ready to run for water, but a small trolley with a pitcher of water and a filled glass had appeared, next to a small bath-sized pool recessed into the curve where the wall blended into the floor. Fluffy eggshell-white towels were folded onto the second shelf of the trolley, and the Doctor rolled slightly onto his side as Rose brought the glass to him, kneeling as he raised himself onto his elbow with Jack’s help. His hand trembled slightly as he took the glass, and Rose put her fingers lightly over his to steady him as he brought the glass to his lips and drained it, stopping only to catch his breath.

“Thank you,” he said with a weak smile, letting her take the glass away as he lay back, obviously feeling the exertion. His eyes closed, and for a moment, Rose held the glass in tight fingers, almost afraid to breathe. He was so still.

She looked up at Jack, catching his concerned gaze and surreptitious check of his wristcomp. He caught her eye and shook his head slightly, clearly not finding anything in his scan. The room seemed to be getting warmer, and the pool made a soft gurgling sound as the water started to bubble and swirl, despite the lack of visible jets.

Jack checked the pulse in the long, exposed throat, making it into a caress, and the Doctor spoke hoarsely, with barely an expression altering his features. “Gettin’ a bit forward, there, Captain?”

Jack grinned, his shoulders relaxing with relief. “Yeah, you’re the one who slapped my ass a couple of minutes ago.”

“Wasn’t a slap,” the Doctor replied. “More of a spank, really.”

“Even better,” grinned Jack, and a lifted eyebrow above closed eyes was the only response. But one that made Rose feel a bit less frightened as Jack drew the backs of his fingers lightly down the Doctor’s cheek before putting a palm to his forehead. The gurgle in the pool became a brief splash, and Jack said, “Okay, Doctor, I think the TARDIS is getting impatient and wants you in that bath.”

“Yeah.” The Doctor stretched a little on the floor, obviously testing his limbs, flexing his fingers. “Okay. I’m going.” The blue eyes snapped open, a bit more focused than before, and there was a clear attempt to bound to his feet in a normal fashion. The result, however, was more of a twitch of his arms, and legs. He just managed to get an elbow under him before it slipped, and he landed awkwardly on his shoulder before Rose could catch him.

She could have sworn that the TARDIS growled, although she could not detect any change in the background hum, but Jack tutted disapprovingly. “Doctors are always the worst patients. Look, the last thing we need is you with a sprain or bone chips in a joint. Let us help you so we don’t have to do more patching up later, okay?”

The Doctor turned his usual laser-like gaze on Jack, but it was more like a torch on a weak battery, and the tense shoulders relaxed a little against the floor. He nodded slightly, and Rose moved to help Jack get him into a sitting position. Jack stripped off his jacket as she moved down to untie his boots.

A soft grunt of protest made her look up as she pulled off one boot. Jack was attempting to get the cinnamon jumper off. “Am I going to have to knock you out? ’Cause I will,” he threatened.

The Doctor met Rose’s gaze, and she was astonished by the look of anguish in his eyes before they slid away. He meekly raised his arms, and Jack lifted up the jumper about halfway before stopping dead, his face paling noticeably. “Bloody hell,” he whispered, fingertips reaching out before evading the skin, and he pulled the jumper all the way off.

“What?” asked Rose, throat tightening as she tugged off the other boot.

“Nothin’ to do with today.” The Doctor’s voice seemed stronger, but hollow, and he looked down, unsteady fingers working at the fastenings of his jeans.

Rose bit back her curiosity, taking off the thick black cotton socks as Jack slid behind the Doctor on his knees, lifting him up enough to get the jeans over his hips. She kept her eyes on the Doctor’s face, trying to judge his response and not embarrass him, but she saw no sign of shyness or shame. Relieved, she knee-walked up to his side and helped Jack work the wet denim down the long legs. Dark shorts, like the briefest of boxer briefs, slipped down to expose one sharp hipbone and clung damply enough for her to register, “Quite human, then.”

Jack took one of the long arms and placed it around his neck, getting a good grip around his ribs to help him up to walk the couple of steps to the pool.

Rose sat back on her heels as if a punch to her stomach had sapped all her energy. Despite the warmth of the room, she felt a chill in her bones.

There was a barbaric beauty to it.

Her eyes traced every curve and line in horrified fascination as she remembered all the times he had managed to keep his back to the wall, keep on a shirt even if unbuttoned, keep a layer of cloth between her hands and the abstract map of scars on his back.

A rough disk of scar tissue larger than her hand cratered his left shoulder blade, smaller droplets decorating the circumference like jewels on a crown. It reminded her of slow-motion footage of a drop of milk she’d seen on an ad once. But that pale, accidental scar shone moonlight-silver behind the bright, twisted pink ribbons that striped his back, each perfectly spaced diagonally from shoulders to hips, disappearing beneath the shorts but for a couple of tapered ends trailing across his upper thighs.

Jack eased him into the water, and the soft groan of pleasure and relief cut through her haze of disbelief and revulsion. She gathered the discarded clothing together, except for the leather jacket, and shoved it toward the far side of the room. The jacket, she folded over the handle of the trolley before moving to the side of the pool, just as the Doctor was emerging from a full immersion, resting his head against a pillow-like ledge.

“Better?” asked Jack, sitting cross-legged near his head, and the Doctor ran slightly trembling hands over his head, then down over his face, sleeking away water that seemed to be slightly more viscous than normal. Even though it was cropped so short, his wet hair made tiny little spikes that were oddly cute, and Rose smiled, sitting next to Jack.

“Better,” agreed the Doctor, voice still hoarse, eyes still dilated, but not quite so much, and he managed a small smile, reaching out one hand to Rose. “Sorry I scared you.”

She took his hand in both of hers, swallowing the lump in her throat as she felt the unaccustomed weakness in his squeeze; she returned the pressure firmly. “I’m just glad you’re okay. Are you going to be okay?”

He tried his usual cocky grin, but it didn’t come off as convincingly even when he said, “’Course I am. Impressive alien physiology, ’member?” He tilted his head back slightly to look up at Jack. “And thank you. Again.”

“No problem. Again.” Jack’s broad smile didn’t cover his obvious relief, and when the blue-grey eyes drifted closed again, the hand between hers relaxing, the concern came back.

A slight trace of discomfort passed over the sharp features, and the Doctor reached down to slip out of the clinging undershorts, tossing them to the side of the pool. Rose couldn’t help her eyes from sliding down from his face for a moment, her cheeks pinkening more from shame at her prurient interest than embarrassment at his nudity. Quite human. Rather impressive. Not important at the moment.

She looked up to find Jack watching her, and he just winked, putting a hand on her shoulder for the most brotherly squeeze he’d ever given her, before turning back to the Doctor. “Anything else we can do to make you comfortable?”

He shook his head against the ledge. “Nah. Just need a good soak.” He took a deep breath, adjusting his position slightly and letting his arms and legs float a little in the water. “The two of you can leave me to it.”

Rose bit her lip uncertainly as Jack took a quick look around the room. “Uh, I’m afraid you’re stuck with us. The TARDIS has taken away the door.”

Rose grinned despite herself, relieved that the decision had been taken out of their hands and amused as the Doctor managed to roll his eyes even with them closed.

“Smarter than you, this ship.” Jack grinned, moving to prop his back against the curve of the wall. He stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankle as he crossed his arms on his chest. “So, do you know what brought this on?”

“Yep.”

Rose felt calm enough now to glare at him as his eyes and mouth remained firmly closed. “So? Gonna share with the class?”

A flicker of pain crossed his features, and she felt immediate remorse, leaning closer with her weight on one hand. “I’m sorry, but I think we need to know.” Her voice was soft and pleading. “Is there anything we can do to stop it?”

“It’s nothing you did.” His voice was warm for all its hoarseness, and his eyes, a soft pigeon-breast blue-grey, truly focused on her for the first time since he had lost consciousness. “It was something I did.”

The weight in his quiet words settled uneasily on Rose, and she could see Jack leaning closer out of the corner of her eye. “How d’you mean?”

He took a deep breath, his eyes drifting away from her in a way that sent a shiver up her spine. There was a war; we lost. I would know; there’s no one. The echoes reverberated in her mind before he spoke, voice low and raw.

“The Janiaru were a very old race. Traders. Gifted artisans. Travelled the universe. Their ships sailed the time vortex before my people were dippin’ their toes in.” He swallowed roughly, but Rose was transfixed by the quiet rhythms of his speech. “Aliala’s family were gemstone traders and jewellers. She was just a child when they came to Mirwadi Prime, lookin’ for charimur and xelele. The Mirwadi didn’t even know it was valuable stuff in this period. Maybe not the most admirable of trading practices, but pretty effective.” He closed his eyes, long enough for Rose to start to feel concern, but as she leaned forward, he spoke again. “Archaic-era Mirwadi Prime is a long way from the epicenter of the Time War, but Janiaru was right in the middle. Just - gone.” His eyelashes fluttered slightly, and Rose wasn’t sure the wetness was entirely due to the bath. “Most of the Janiaru would have disappeared in the initial event. But out here, the waves had started to break up. Aliala and her brother survived.”

“Like the Dalek,” she murmured, without thinking, and his eyes opened to her, focused but with the same bleak pain she recalled from the bunker in Utah.

“Like the Dalek.”

He did not break her gaze, but the pause seemed interminable until he said, “Their mother and a sister died a horrible death, their bodies aging and disintegrating in convulsions.”

The panic rose in her throat until she could taste it. “Is that what’s happening to you?”

“No.” The bitterness was thick in his voice. “Not exactly.”

“Then what, exactly?” asked Jack edgily.

“The mother and sister were jewellery-makers. They were working with charimur, a mineral that amplified the shock waves. It fed back on them. Aliala and Leru were left on their own.”

“They recognized you?” Jack seemed doubtful.

“Nah.” A brief wave of his hand sent a spray of water against the wall, but neither Jack nor Rose flinched. “But they knew I was a Time Lord. Aliala just wanted to ask if we could take her back to their people.” This time there was no doubt about the brightness in his eyes. “I had to tell her, there aren’t any more Janiaru. Worse than that, no one remembers them.”

“Except you.” Rose reached out for his hand, and he evaded her, pressing his hands against the bottom of the shallow pool to push himself into a sitting position.

“Yeah, except me,” he agreed, a mocking sing-song quality in his voice making her shudder. “The one who killed their family, their whole people. Ironic, innit?”

Rose caught her lip between her teeth, sharp canines biting into the flesh to cover her concern with physical pain. So much easier to deal with. But she met the challenge in his eyes, recognizing that gaze that dared her to sympathize with the monster.

“You had to do it,” she asserted, as if he had spoken the words aloud. “I know that.”

“You don’t know anything about it.” There was more strength in his voice than there had been since his seizure, but the force seemed to come from a pitying mocking that begged her to recoil. “I’ve killed more species than you lot ever knew existed. I’ve wiped out whole galaxies and time periods. History didn’t have a chance when it came up against me.”

She couldn’t hold back the tears, but the trembling was from anger and not fear. “I know you. I’ve seen you. I’ve seen you die for the history of a bunch of stupid apes. For me. I know you pushed the button or pulled the lever or whatever, but I know you only did it for the greater good. I know.”

The shock that flew across his face was followed by fear, and then sympathy as he slid closer to her in the pool, reaching out to take her hand. “Rose, I’m sorry.”

Her arms were around his neck before she could think about it, and she held onto him with all her strength. “I know how good you are,” she whispered fiercely into his ear, only then realizing that she was echoing his own words back to him. “I know you.”

His arms came around her comfortingly, and she didn’t mind the awkward position or the warm water seeping through her clothing. She was, however, concerned at the fine tremor she could still feel in his muscles, and her hand pressed over the splash of scar on his shoulder blade, almost as if covering it could make it go away.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated softly. “I didn’t mean to take it out on you. But you’re wrong. Mostly wrong, anyway.”

She drew back enough to look into his eyes as his hand smoothed her hair. “What do you mean?”

“I’m no shining knight, Rose. I just had to make a decision that was bad either way. I can only hope that the destruction I caused was less than the destruction I stopped. Do you understand me?”

The sob that escaped her seemed to come up from the base of her spine, and it hurt almost as much as the pain in his eyes. “Yes,” she choked out.

“Good.” He tried to smile, and she tried not to feel as if he was pushing her away as he shifted her weight back up onto the edge of the pool, leaving her with a gentle pat of her shoulder. “You keep your eyes clear, Rose.”

“She may be seeing things more clearly than you are, Doctor.” Jack’s tone was thoughtful, but a bit provocative. “Why did you have a seizure back there?”

The Doctor slid down in the pool once more, his hands trembling slightly as they floated on the surface. “Charimur. Aliala had a necklace made out of it. With the residual vibrations left over from her brush with the Time War and so much propagating medium, it amplified enough to create feedback with my time frame. The interference is like an earthquake, happening on a quantum level.” His voice was calm. “Fantastic effect, really. Had no idea that stuff was so powerful.”

Rose brushed her running nose on the wrist of her dress, her sympathy for Aliala’s plight warring with relief that there was a concrete reason for his seizure.

“But why did you have that spell a couple of days ago, before we ever came near here?” asked Jack.

The hesitation came with a thoughtful gaze at the wall ahead of him as the Doctor slid down far enough that the water nearly touched his lower lip. “How much do you remember about the Time War, Jack?” he asked, almost casually.

Rose looked to Jack, curiously, and could see his obvious surprise as his eyebrows flew up. “Never heard of it before I met you,” he said simply. “As is, I only know there was one, your people were fighting against the Daleks, and you were somehow involved in the last battle. Whatever you did ended it. As much as you’ve let drop - which isn’t much, by the way. You have the worst way with war stories I’ve ever heard.”

The Doctor smiled ruefully at Jack’s attempted levity, his eyes still focused on a space, a time far away from them. “’S a bit boring, in reality. Except for all the death and destruction, and no one wants to hear about that. Least of all me.” Not a trace of irony or humour lightened his tone. “Death can be horribly, crushingly monotonous.” He took a deep breath and pushed up onto one elbow, twisting to look up at Jack. “I think you came closer than you know, Jack, in those two years you lost. The scars in your mind - when I looked inside, I could feel the aftershocks.”

Jack’s face paled, and he shifted his eyes quickly away, to the wall. Rose reached out to put a hand on his leg, and he opened his mouth to speak, shutting it again. He swallowed heavily, reaching down to link his fingers with Rose’s, and she squeezed encouragingly. When he finally spoke, his voice was unsteady, “You mean I did this to you?”

“It’s okay to look at me, Jack.” The Doctor’s voice warmed; he reached out to put his wet hand over theirs, and Jack looked down at him cautiously. “I was going deep when I touched the scars. I can stay away if I’m careful. And I don’t think it would have had the same effect without amplification.”

“What was amplifying it?” asked Rose, and the Doctor sat up, reaching toward her. She leaned toward him, hoping for a hug, and feeling a spark of electricity as his wet fingers lightly brushed against the bare skin of her breast above the scooped neckline of her dress. But he carefully snagged the chain of her pendant, holding it up.

“This is a Janiaru design,” he explained. “I never thought anything of it at the time. The stone probably has traces of charimur, but the spiral shape is actually four-dimensional. It’s like a rain-catcher - it can take ripples in the vortex and send them along the shape in an endless loop, until the accumulation gathers in speed and strength. It’s the same shape at the heart of their sailing ships’ engines, and a symbol of their technology and culture, kind of like the hammer and sickle became a symbol of communism on Earth in the twentieth century.”

Rose tore the necklace over her head, not caring that it snagged some hair, and threw the pendant with some force at the wall. It disappeared into the softly glowing off-white material.

“Rose, you didn’t have to throw it away,” said the Doctor with gentle reproof. “It wasn’t that strong, I could have been careful around it.”

“No,” she replied firmly, meeting his eyes. “No. And I think the TARDIS agrees with me. That thing can hurt you, and I don’t want anything to do with it.”

“So… what do we do about me?” Jack was uncharacteristically hesitant. “How careful should we be? Although, I do look terribly good in sunglasses.”

The Doctor turned back to him with a grin only slightly dimmed by his exhaustion. “Don’t have to be that careful,” he said, gesturing with one hand for Jack to come closer. Jack turned to him and leaned down, a bit hesitantly, starting as the wet hands closed around his head, long fingers almost encompassing his skull as the palms framed his face. Rose could see the lean muscles in the wiry arms tighten beneath the pale, glistening wet skin, and caught her breath at the tenderness on the Doctor’s face as he pulled Jack’s forehead against his own, blue eyes caught up in each other.

The intensity in the gaze curled taut in Rose’s belly, and she remembered their dance of last night, knowing from the softening look on Jack’s face that he was remembering, too.

“See?” The Doctor’s voice was still raw, but dark and rich as he closed his eyes and slid his forehead along Jack’s until their temples pressed together. “I know where the boundaries are.” Jack’s eyes closed, one hand coming up to brace around the Doctor’s wrist, and Rose swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. “I just have to stay away from those missing years. I’m sorry, Jack.”

The depth of sorrow in his voice seemed to echo in the small room.

“Why are you sorry?” asked Jack, pulling back to look at him with a tender smile, his eyes bright.

“I was hoping to be able to help you recover those memories some day.” His long thumb brushed Jack’s cheek, his fingertips dragging against the slight stubble as he lowered his hands.

“Hey, I’m just relieved that we know what was going on with you. You are going to be able to shield yourself from this now, right?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s not going to happen again, unless I go looking for trouble.”

“Oh, and you’d never do that.” Rose was surprised as the words slipped out, and the Doctor chuckled as he settled back into the water.

“Nah. Doesn’t sound like me at all.”