Doctor Who: Throught the Glass 3
Dec. 12th, 2007 11:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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milieva_ficsTitle: Through the Glass
Characters: Ten, Rose, Martha, Jack, Mickey, and more Tylers than you can shake a stick at.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Through Series Three.
Disclaimer: Only the story and a few characters belong to me. The rest belongs to these nice people.
Summary: Upon trying to return Jack to his team, the TARDIS falls through a crack in reality, taking her pilot to the woman he loves. But could his very arrival tear her world apart?
Previous Chapters
Chapter Three
Jackie dropped the pile of clothing in front of the washing machine. Why she offered to do his wash for him, she had no idea. Probably, so it wouldn’t stink, hanging wet in her daughter’s bathroom. Who knew how often he actually washed the damned thing. Lifting the trousers up for a better look, she realized something she hadn’t noticed before.
They were blue.
He was actually wearing a different suit. Raising an eyebrow at the bit of fabric, Jackie shrugged and shoved a hand into one of his pockets, God only knew what was in them. Just what she needed was a broken washing machine. Her arm disappeared nearly to elbow.
Great.
Bigger on the inside.
Three handfuls of paper and wires, two handfuls of jelly babies, one well worn copy of Persuasion and four bananas later, Jackie decided she’d just wash them as is and he could replace the machine if it broke.
Leaving the pile of debris on the top of the washer, she shoved the trousers in and grabbed for the jacket and shirt. Piling them in, she shut the door and switched it on.
With her back to the machine, Jackie gazed around the room. She didn’t come in here too often. Actually it had to have been quite some time since she’d done any washing by herself. Pete insisted she keep the maid. Benefits of being rich, she guessed, but it gave her far too much free time. Sometimes she wondered if she really fit in this new life.
Setting the basket out of the way, Jackie noticed a small packet on the floor near the humming machine. More crap from his pockets.
She bent down and picked it up. Something small was folded into the thick white envelope. When she unfolded the first bit, a gold ring fell into her palm. It was an odd sort of gold. A bit of an oil on water sheen. Some sort of alien material. But this wasn’t the first time she had seen a ring like this.
A smaller one had been hanging around Rose’s neck for some time--on the same chain as that damned silver key—but Jackie didn’t see it until two months after Canary Warf. That one now graced her daughter’s left hand on occasions it didn’t live on the chain.
So this was his wedding ring.
Kept in his pocket?
It wasn’t until the shock of realizing what the ring was, that Jackie noticed the paper the ring had been wrapped in wasn’t just paper. Unfolding it the rest of the way, she found the happiest photograph of her daughter she’d seen in years.
Rose was clad in little more than her bikini, wading waist deep in lavender surf. The bright sky above was also a purple hue. The wind was whipping at her hair as she smiled brightly at the photographer.
The photo itself was worn heavily at the edges and creased more than the few folds it had had when she found it.
Suddenly feeling guilty, Jackie folded the photo back around the ring and switched off the lights. She ought to return it to its owner.
The house was quiet and dark. Jack and Martha had been shown to guest bedrooms and lent pyjamas. Pete and Rose were still out on Torchwood business, and the children were all asleep.
On her way toward the back staircase, Jackie found the light on in the lounge.
The Doctor was hunched over the coffee table. His glasses perched precariously on the tip of his nose. Photo albums were piled before him, a sad smile on his face.
Snapshots of four years he’d missed.
He looked so pained, so broken, Jackie sighed in empathy. She’d seen what the separation had done to Rose. Never would she have imagined what it had so obviously done to the man before her.
Whipping off his specs, the Doctor turned toward the doorway. He didn’t say a word, just smiled at her. Slipping back on his glasses, he turned back to the photo albums.
Rubbing her thumb over the packet in her hand, Jackie stepped into the room.
“Budge up, you.”
The Doctor obediently scooted over as his mother-in-law moved to sit beside him. He didn’t offer to look at her this time. Long fingers simply turned to the next page.
He just looked so lost. The expression on his face was heart breaking. The way he gazed at this book was as if it held the answers to all his unvoiced questions. No matter how many times she said she hated this man, no matter how much he deserved a good slap, Jackie couldn’t help her heart going out to him. He obviously loved her daughter very much. She knew he would do anything to make Rose happy, even if it meant leaving her here and breaking his own heart again.
Gently turning the next page, the Doctor froze as a familiar package was set on the page before him. His head shot up, mouth open as if to say something.
“Fell out of your pocket while I was doing your wash.”
With the utmost care, he unfolded the photograph. Setting the ring aside, he smoothed the paper before folding it in half and tucking it into the breast pocket of his borrowed pyjamas as if it belonged there.
The ring he held longer, looking at it as if seeing it for the first time.
“One of the few things Rose had with her was that ring. She took to wearing hers on her hand after… That’s when she told me a bout Vegas.”
The Doctor shuffled the pages to one of Rose holding a grinning infant. In the gleaming sunlight, her left hand sparkled. So she’d actually kept it with her. Even after all the jokes she’d made about it, she was still wearing it. Not always on her hand. But she still wore it. Had she been wearing it on the beach? Her fingers were mostly covered by her hand warmers.
There was so much he didn’t know. So much he’d missed. Absently slipping the ring onto his own finger, the time lord turned to Jackie with a hopeful look in his eye.
“Jackie Tyler, may I ask for a favor?”
****
“So, you gonna stay with him?”
Jack comfortably leaned back against the headboard of Martha’s bed. He had changed his mind about what he thought he had wanted. It was only natural if she had as well. With all the new developments and all.
“I don’t think so.”
Martha buried her toes into the sheets as she drew her knees up against an imaginary cold. The pyjamas she’d been lent weren’t as cozy as her own comfortable broken in set. She cast her gaze over at the man on her right. “Will you?”
“No.” He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “I’ve had a lot of time to think during that year that wasn’t. Kept thinking about that team of mine.”
Though he was right in there in the room with her, his thoughts were a world away. It was a feeling she had become quite accustomed to in the six months she’d spent in the TARDIS. It was a feeling she knew best to escape from. Because staying would be beyond hypocritical.
“I had this friend..”
Gaze clearing, Jack turned toward her again, head thumping lightly against the headboard.
“Vicky. She lived with this bloke, Sean. Student housing. All five of them packed in. She adored him. Never stopped talking about him.”
“And he never even looked at her twice.” He finished.
“Never.” Martha agreed. She’d told Vicky to get out. Stop pining for him and get out. It was time she took her own advice and got out.
Jack nodded. That was how it was with the Doctor. Not quite student housing. More adrenaline pumped, running for your life, flat share, but no matter how hard you fell for him, he never gave you a second look.
Unless you were blonde.
Stifling a dramatic yawn, the captain patted her knee and climbed out of the bed. “You know, I could always use someone like you on my team. If you ever feel like moving to Cardiff.”
Martha scoffed.
“Oi!” Jack gave her a look of mock indignation as he backed toward the door. “But if you changed your mind…” He winked and walked out.
Halfway to his room, the captain paused. He heard sniffling. Turing on heel and setting off in search of the sound, Jack found himself in front of a half opened door. The room was dark save the little light in the corner. A tiny figure sat in the center of the bed, shoulders shuddering as she cried.
“Hey, Gorgeous. What’s the matter?”
Lily sniffed and whipped her eyes. “I want my mummy.”
“She’s not home yet.” He crossed the room and sat on the edge of her bed. “You wanna tell Uncle Jack all about this?”
Biting her lip, she shook her head and rubbed her eyes. More tears falling into her lap. She looked so lost, as if she didn’t have a friend in the world. It was an expression that he had seen before on a larger more masculine version of this tiny tear stained face.
“Do you want me to find your Daddy?”
Sniffling again, Lily wiped her eyes on her sleeve and nodded.
****
The Doctor closed his eyes and pressed lightly on Jackie’s temples. The world around them faded and he felt his words bubble back at him. “If there is anything you don’t want me to see. Just imagine a door, and I won’t look.” Blocking his path into her mind was a heavy wooden door.
If she didn’t want him there, then why did she tell him it was alright?
Jackie Tyler was so frustrating at times.
About to pull back and ask what the problem was, the Doctor froze. Behind the door, he heard weeping, muffled by running water, but definitely weeping. He promised not to look behind a closed door, but there was no where else for him to go.
Why wouldn’t Jackie let him see his child?
He laid his head against the door, trying to hear better. A wave of fear washed through him. The sobbing had gone louder. It was a painful sound. Like a wounded animal. The sort of cry that could make your blood run cold.
The voice he called out with was not his own. It was lighter, feminine, and utterly terrified.
“Rose, open the door.”
He reached for the knob and shook it. The door was locked.
“Sweetheart, you’re scarin’ me.”
If anything, the crying was becoming more broken and desperate. It was not just Jackie’s fear he was feeling.
For that was where he was, Jackie’s memories. She’d taken his words about hiding things and reversed it. She was showing him something she wanted him to see.
The fists that slammed against the door were manicured, nails a lovely pink. He felt her thoughts.
Blood.
She kept seeing blood. Something had happened to the baby. Or Rose had taken her fate into her own hands. Terror drove her adrenaline up as she threw her body against the door, breaking into the bathroom.
Rose was a pitiful sight, crumbled in the corner of the shower stall. Hands over her head she rocked back and forth on her heels as the scalding water poured down on her.
“Rose.”
Jackie shut off the water and gathered her daughter into her arms. No blood. Just one heartsick girl.
The younger blonde buried her face into her mother’s shoulder. “It hurts, Mum. It hurts...” She sobbed.
“What hurts?” Pushing Rose back to arms length, Jackie looked her all over. Wrists were clean and smooth. The cut on her shoulder was healing. “What hurts, Sweetheart?”
Brown eyes shimmering with tears, looked blankly up at her. “The burning. It keeps burning.”
“What’s burning?” Tears ran down Jackie’s own face as she frantically searched her daughter for any sort of wound.
“Pictures.” The girl’s hollow eyes shut, as she scratched at her scalp, tearing at her head as though it would relieve the pain, the fire. “Pictures in my head.” She choked on her tears. “It all burned, Mum.”
Rose’s voice was shattered from her tears. She gasped at every syllable as she continued, crushed into her mother’s embrace. “His planet burned. His people. His family. His…” She suffocated on the word. It sounded more like it was ripped from her throat than spoken in words. “His children.”
Jackie rocked back and forth, shushing her hysterical child. They sat on the damp tile floor for what seemed and eternity. A gentle hum, vibrated from the older woman’s throat, as Rose’s tears slowed and her laboured breathing eased.
“What am I going to do, Mum?” She sniffed and looked up at her mother with clearer, more alert, if puffy, eyes. Her voice was hoarse and barely louder than a whisper.
Hugging her tighter, Jackie kissed her forehead. “You’re going to live.”
“But she’s an alien, Mum!” The squeaky gasp shot through her as she sobbed anew. “I might…I could… kill her and never know what I did wrong.”
“Should have thought of that before you slept with him.”
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself. Now wasn’t exactly the best time for snide remarks. But Rose actually relaxed when she said it, a breathy laugh was muffled as she burrowed into her mother’s arms, her own comment, something about the Doctor being an idiot, was muffled by the fabric of her mother’s blouse.
The scene faded and the reality of the room around him reinstated itself. He felt the push of Jackie’s mind as it shoved him out of her head. He wasn’t going to be allowed to see his daughter in her memories tonight.
His chest was tight. Tears unshed shimmered in his eyes, when he finally looked at her. If anything, Jackie thought he couldn’t look more heartbroken.
“Oh, Jackie. What have I done?” He breathed, voice shaking.
The blonde shook her head, and rubbed her eyes. It was much later than she normally stayed awake. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but she couldn’t find the words.
Because wasn’t it his fault?
Everything.
If he had never met her daughter, she would never have spent a year of her life fearing the worst had happened. She and Rose would never have been trapped in this other world. Rose would never have had those horrible nightmares and visions. And she might not be a grandmother.
No matter how much she hated what he had done, she still loved her son, William, and her granddaughter, Lily, and she could not imagine life without them.
She could have had a different life. She could have had another child with some other man. Rose could have married some other nice bloke and started a different family, but those children wouldn’t be the children she loved, now. So how could she wish that life have been any different?
“Doctor?”
Two heads shot up at the sound of the masculine voice in the doorway.
“I have some one who needs to see you.” Jack motioned to the little girl clinging to his index finger. Her other hand clutched a worn stuffed rabbit to her chest.
Dropping her grip on the captain’s hand, Lily scrambled across the carpet and launched herself into the Doctor’s lap. Her tears soaking through the thin fabric of his pyjama shirt as she buried her face in his chest.
“I think she had a nightmare. And I guessed Dad was the next best thing to Mom, since she wouldn’t talk to me.” He shrugged and scooted out of the room.
Lily clung to her father as if she would be torn away from him. Her finger nails cutting into his skin. The time lord felt his blood run cold as he reached out into her mind to find the root of his child’s nightmares.
Burning.
Rose’s words echoed in his head as he saw the images flash through his mind. “His planet burned. His people. His family. His…his children”
He gasped as he saw the full detail of the devastation he had been the sole witness to. His tiny daughter had been dreaming of the horrors that had terrified him, 900 years old. The nightmares, which haunted his sleep, enveloped that of his three-year-old child.
Gently gathering them, he pushed the images away, locking them safely in the back of her mind, behind a door that would not need to be opened again until she was ready.
The Doctor whispered words of reassurance to his baby, as he pulled her tighter into an embrace.
Bidding them goodnight with a soft pat on his arm, Jackie rose from her seat and left the room. There was more she wanted him to know, but it could wait. He wouldn’t be whisking Rose off the moment he saw her, that was for certain.
****
The soft steady breathing from the bed proved that Lily was now speaking peacefully, but the Doctor wasn’t quite prepared to leave her alone just yet. Who knew what other memories of his had embedded themselves into her psyche. Had he been with Rose the whole way through, he would have known the memories had been passed on to her. He could have stopped it. But now it was too late. What was done was done. All he could do now as let her have time. Time to grow and learn before she remembered what had haunted her earliest dreams.
He lifted the tiny jewelry box from the top of the chest of drawers and lifted the lid, before shutting it again as the little ballerina started to twirl, the music sounding like thunder in the other wise silent room.
Framed photographs of the family were scattered around the room. On the wall above the desk, a crayon sketch was messily hung, just hidden from view by the machine that resided on the wooden surface before it.
Delicately shifting the communicator to the side, he hunched over the desk to get a better look.
The bright blue of the box was nearly black in the dim light, but the Doctor could recognize the shape of the TARDIS even in the crudest of children’s drawings, and this was actually quite a well marked one, considering the age of the artist. Three figures stood beside the ship, and in scrawling handwriting, the words my family stood out starkly against the white paper.
He grinned at the stick figures of himself and Rose. Lily’s self portrait was actually rather cute. All pink and brown, while her mother was all blue and yellow.
Reaching into his pocket for his specs, the Doctor straightened back up. The sharp intake of breath from the doorway drew his attention.
Even in silhouette he would recognize her anywhere.
Rose.
She looked thinner. As he eyes adjusted to the light from the corridor, he noticed how different her face looked. But how it looked different, he couldn’t say. Older, sadder, maybe. The expression was that of surprise. Shock at seeing him here, but with the shadow of doubt at his presence.
She saw him, but she didn’t believe he was really there, her eyes said. Standing in the same room with him, she would pass him off as an illusion caused by her exhaustion.
Without a sound, he had crossed the room to stand before her. Arm reaching out to brush his fingers along her cheek. She leaned into his touch, savouring it.
Her eyes asking him if he were real.
His eyes pleading her to believe his touch. They had been given the impossible.
She wanted so much to believe, but she was afraid. Afraid of him being nothing more than a figment of her imagination.
It’s me. His fingers begged as they slipped into her hair, forehead resting against hers.
I’m here.
Tentatively, she reached around him, pulling him into an embrace, arms shaking him joy and disbelief. You can’t be here. Her mind was screaming at him. Happy and fearful at the same time.
Tears were running down both their faces as his pressed his lips to hers.
I’m never going to leave you.
*.*.*.*.*
Chapter Four >>
Characters: Ten, Rose, Martha, Jack, Mickey, and more Tylers than you can shake a stick at.
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Through Series Three.
Disclaimer: Only the story and a few characters belong to me. The rest belongs to these nice people.
Summary: Upon trying to return Jack to his team, the TARDIS falls through a crack in reality, taking her pilot to the woman he loves. But could his very arrival tear her world apart?
Previous Chapters
Chapter Three
Jackie dropped the pile of clothing in front of the washing machine. Why she offered to do his wash for him, she had no idea. Probably, so it wouldn’t stink, hanging wet in her daughter’s bathroom. Who knew how often he actually washed the damned thing. Lifting the trousers up for a better look, she realized something she hadn’t noticed before.
They were blue.
He was actually wearing a different suit. Raising an eyebrow at the bit of fabric, Jackie shrugged and shoved a hand into one of his pockets, God only knew what was in them. Just what she needed was a broken washing machine. Her arm disappeared nearly to elbow.
Great.
Bigger on the inside.
Three handfuls of paper and wires, two handfuls of jelly babies, one well worn copy of Persuasion and four bananas later, Jackie decided she’d just wash them as is and he could replace the machine if it broke.
Leaving the pile of debris on the top of the washer, she shoved the trousers in and grabbed for the jacket and shirt. Piling them in, she shut the door and switched it on.
With her back to the machine, Jackie gazed around the room. She didn’t come in here too often. Actually it had to have been quite some time since she’d done any washing by herself. Pete insisted she keep the maid. Benefits of being rich, she guessed, but it gave her far too much free time. Sometimes she wondered if she really fit in this new life.
Setting the basket out of the way, Jackie noticed a small packet on the floor near the humming machine. More crap from his pockets.
She bent down and picked it up. Something small was folded into the thick white envelope. When she unfolded the first bit, a gold ring fell into her palm. It was an odd sort of gold. A bit of an oil on water sheen. Some sort of alien material. But this wasn’t the first time she had seen a ring like this.
A smaller one had been hanging around Rose’s neck for some time--on the same chain as that damned silver key—but Jackie didn’t see it until two months after Canary Warf. That one now graced her daughter’s left hand on occasions it didn’t live on the chain.
So this was his wedding ring.
Kept in his pocket?
It wasn’t until the shock of realizing what the ring was, that Jackie noticed the paper the ring had been wrapped in wasn’t just paper. Unfolding it the rest of the way, she found the happiest photograph of her daughter she’d seen in years.
Rose was clad in little more than her bikini, wading waist deep in lavender surf. The bright sky above was also a purple hue. The wind was whipping at her hair as she smiled brightly at the photographer.
The photo itself was worn heavily at the edges and creased more than the few folds it had had when she found it.
Suddenly feeling guilty, Jackie folded the photo back around the ring and switched off the lights. She ought to return it to its owner.
The house was quiet and dark. Jack and Martha had been shown to guest bedrooms and lent pyjamas. Pete and Rose were still out on Torchwood business, and the children were all asleep.
On her way toward the back staircase, Jackie found the light on in the lounge.
The Doctor was hunched over the coffee table. His glasses perched precariously on the tip of his nose. Photo albums were piled before him, a sad smile on his face.
Snapshots of four years he’d missed.
He looked so pained, so broken, Jackie sighed in empathy. She’d seen what the separation had done to Rose. Never would she have imagined what it had so obviously done to the man before her.
Whipping off his specs, the Doctor turned toward the doorway. He didn’t say a word, just smiled at her. Slipping back on his glasses, he turned back to the photo albums.
Rubbing her thumb over the packet in her hand, Jackie stepped into the room.
“Budge up, you.”
The Doctor obediently scooted over as his mother-in-law moved to sit beside him. He didn’t offer to look at her this time. Long fingers simply turned to the next page.
He just looked so lost. The expression on his face was heart breaking. The way he gazed at this book was as if it held the answers to all his unvoiced questions. No matter how many times she said she hated this man, no matter how much he deserved a good slap, Jackie couldn’t help her heart going out to him. He obviously loved her daughter very much. She knew he would do anything to make Rose happy, even if it meant leaving her here and breaking his own heart again.
Gently turning the next page, the Doctor froze as a familiar package was set on the page before him. His head shot up, mouth open as if to say something.
“Fell out of your pocket while I was doing your wash.”
With the utmost care, he unfolded the photograph. Setting the ring aside, he smoothed the paper before folding it in half and tucking it into the breast pocket of his borrowed pyjamas as if it belonged there.
The ring he held longer, looking at it as if seeing it for the first time.
“One of the few things Rose had with her was that ring. She took to wearing hers on her hand after… That’s when she told me a bout Vegas.”
The Doctor shuffled the pages to one of Rose holding a grinning infant. In the gleaming sunlight, her left hand sparkled. So she’d actually kept it with her. Even after all the jokes she’d made about it, she was still wearing it. Not always on her hand. But she still wore it. Had she been wearing it on the beach? Her fingers were mostly covered by her hand warmers.
There was so much he didn’t know. So much he’d missed. Absently slipping the ring onto his own finger, the time lord turned to Jackie with a hopeful look in his eye.
“Jackie Tyler, may I ask for a favor?”
****
“So, you gonna stay with him?”
Jack comfortably leaned back against the headboard of Martha’s bed. He had changed his mind about what he thought he had wanted. It was only natural if she had as well. With all the new developments and all.
“I don’t think so.”
Martha buried her toes into the sheets as she drew her knees up against an imaginary cold. The pyjamas she’d been lent weren’t as cozy as her own comfortable broken in set. She cast her gaze over at the man on her right. “Will you?”
“No.” He sighed and looked up at the ceiling. “I’ve had a lot of time to think during that year that wasn’t. Kept thinking about that team of mine.”
Though he was right in there in the room with her, his thoughts were a world away. It was a feeling she had become quite accustomed to in the six months she’d spent in the TARDIS. It was a feeling she knew best to escape from. Because staying would be beyond hypocritical.
“I had this friend..”
Gaze clearing, Jack turned toward her again, head thumping lightly against the headboard.
“Vicky. She lived with this bloke, Sean. Student housing. All five of them packed in. She adored him. Never stopped talking about him.”
“And he never even looked at her twice.” He finished.
“Never.” Martha agreed. She’d told Vicky to get out. Stop pining for him and get out. It was time she took her own advice and got out.
Jack nodded. That was how it was with the Doctor. Not quite student housing. More adrenaline pumped, running for your life, flat share, but no matter how hard you fell for him, he never gave you a second look.
Unless you were blonde.
Stifling a dramatic yawn, the captain patted her knee and climbed out of the bed. “You know, I could always use someone like you on my team. If you ever feel like moving to Cardiff.”
Martha scoffed.
“Oi!” Jack gave her a look of mock indignation as he backed toward the door. “But if you changed your mind…” He winked and walked out.
Halfway to his room, the captain paused. He heard sniffling. Turing on heel and setting off in search of the sound, Jack found himself in front of a half opened door. The room was dark save the little light in the corner. A tiny figure sat in the center of the bed, shoulders shuddering as she cried.
“Hey, Gorgeous. What’s the matter?”
Lily sniffed and whipped her eyes. “I want my mummy.”
“She’s not home yet.” He crossed the room and sat on the edge of her bed. “You wanna tell Uncle Jack all about this?”
Biting her lip, she shook her head and rubbed her eyes. More tears falling into her lap. She looked so lost, as if she didn’t have a friend in the world. It was an expression that he had seen before on a larger more masculine version of this tiny tear stained face.
“Do you want me to find your Daddy?”
Sniffling again, Lily wiped her eyes on her sleeve and nodded.
****
The Doctor closed his eyes and pressed lightly on Jackie’s temples. The world around them faded and he felt his words bubble back at him. “If there is anything you don’t want me to see. Just imagine a door, and I won’t look.” Blocking his path into her mind was a heavy wooden door.
If she didn’t want him there, then why did she tell him it was alright?
Jackie Tyler was so frustrating at times.
About to pull back and ask what the problem was, the Doctor froze. Behind the door, he heard weeping, muffled by running water, but definitely weeping. He promised not to look behind a closed door, but there was no where else for him to go.
Why wouldn’t Jackie let him see his child?
He laid his head against the door, trying to hear better. A wave of fear washed through him. The sobbing had gone louder. It was a painful sound. Like a wounded animal. The sort of cry that could make your blood run cold.
The voice he called out with was not his own. It was lighter, feminine, and utterly terrified.
“Rose, open the door.”
He reached for the knob and shook it. The door was locked.
“Sweetheart, you’re scarin’ me.”
If anything, the crying was becoming more broken and desperate. It was not just Jackie’s fear he was feeling.
For that was where he was, Jackie’s memories. She’d taken his words about hiding things and reversed it. She was showing him something she wanted him to see.
The fists that slammed against the door were manicured, nails a lovely pink. He felt her thoughts.
Blood.
She kept seeing blood. Something had happened to the baby. Or Rose had taken her fate into her own hands. Terror drove her adrenaline up as she threw her body against the door, breaking into the bathroom.
Rose was a pitiful sight, crumbled in the corner of the shower stall. Hands over her head she rocked back and forth on her heels as the scalding water poured down on her.
“Rose.”
Jackie shut off the water and gathered her daughter into her arms. No blood. Just one heartsick girl.
The younger blonde buried her face into her mother’s shoulder. “It hurts, Mum. It hurts...” She sobbed.
“What hurts?” Pushing Rose back to arms length, Jackie looked her all over. Wrists were clean and smooth. The cut on her shoulder was healing. “What hurts, Sweetheart?”
Brown eyes shimmering with tears, looked blankly up at her. “The burning. It keeps burning.”
“What’s burning?” Tears ran down Jackie’s own face as she frantically searched her daughter for any sort of wound.
“Pictures.” The girl’s hollow eyes shut, as she scratched at her scalp, tearing at her head as though it would relieve the pain, the fire. “Pictures in my head.” She choked on her tears. “It all burned, Mum.”
Rose’s voice was shattered from her tears. She gasped at every syllable as she continued, crushed into her mother’s embrace. “His planet burned. His people. His family. His…” She suffocated on the word. It sounded more like it was ripped from her throat than spoken in words. “His children.”
Jackie rocked back and forth, shushing her hysterical child. They sat on the damp tile floor for what seemed and eternity. A gentle hum, vibrated from the older woman’s throat, as Rose’s tears slowed and her laboured breathing eased.
“What am I going to do, Mum?” She sniffed and looked up at her mother with clearer, more alert, if puffy, eyes. Her voice was hoarse and barely louder than a whisper.
Hugging her tighter, Jackie kissed her forehead. “You’re going to live.”
“But she’s an alien, Mum!” The squeaky gasp shot through her as she sobbed anew. “I might…I could… kill her and never know what I did wrong.”
“Should have thought of that before you slept with him.”
The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself. Now wasn’t exactly the best time for snide remarks. But Rose actually relaxed when she said it, a breathy laugh was muffled as she burrowed into her mother’s arms, her own comment, something about the Doctor being an idiot, was muffled by the fabric of her mother’s blouse.
The scene faded and the reality of the room around him reinstated itself. He felt the push of Jackie’s mind as it shoved him out of her head. He wasn’t going to be allowed to see his daughter in her memories tonight.
His chest was tight. Tears unshed shimmered in his eyes, when he finally looked at her. If anything, Jackie thought he couldn’t look more heartbroken.
“Oh, Jackie. What have I done?” He breathed, voice shaking.
The blonde shook her head, and rubbed her eyes. It was much later than she normally stayed awake. She wanted to tell him it wasn’t his fault, but she couldn’t find the words.
Because wasn’t it his fault?
Everything.
If he had never met her daughter, she would never have spent a year of her life fearing the worst had happened. She and Rose would never have been trapped in this other world. Rose would never have had those horrible nightmares and visions. And she might not be a grandmother.
No matter how much she hated what he had done, she still loved her son, William, and her granddaughter, Lily, and she could not imagine life without them.
She could have had a different life. She could have had another child with some other man. Rose could have married some other nice bloke and started a different family, but those children wouldn’t be the children she loved, now. So how could she wish that life have been any different?
“Doctor?”
Two heads shot up at the sound of the masculine voice in the doorway.
“I have some one who needs to see you.” Jack motioned to the little girl clinging to his index finger. Her other hand clutched a worn stuffed rabbit to her chest.
Dropping her grip on the captain’s hand, Lily scrambled across the carpet and launched herself into the Doctor’s lap. Her tears soaking through the thin fabric of his pyjama shirt as she buried her face in his chest.
“I think she had a nightmare. And I guessed Dad was the next best thing to Mom, since she wouldn’t talk to me.” He shrugged and scooted out of the room.
Lily clung to her father as if she would be torn away from him. Her finger nails cutting into his skin. The time lord felt his blood run cold as he reached out into her mind to find the root of his child’s nightmares.
Burning.
Rose’s words echoed in his head as he saw the images flash through his mind. “His planet burned. His people. His family. His…his children”
He gasped as he saw the full detail of the devastation he had been the sole witness to. His tiny daughter had been dreaming of the horrors that had terrified him, 900 years old. The nightmares, which haunted his sleep, enveloped that of his three-year-old child.
Gently gathering them, he pushed the images away, locking them safely in the back of her mind, behind a door that would not need to be opened again until she was ready.
The Doctor whispered words of reassurance to his baby, as he pulled her tighter into an embrace.
Bidding them goodnight with a soft pat on his arm, Jackie rose from her seat and left the room. There was more she wanted him to know, but it could wait. He wouldn’t be whisking Rose off the moment he saw her, that was for certain.
****
The soft steady breathing from the bed proved that Lily was now speaking peacefully, but the Doctor wasn’t quite prepared to leave her alone just yet. Who knew what other memories of his had embedded themselves into her psyche. Had he been with Rose the whole way through, he would have known the memories had been passed on to her. He could have stopped it. But now it was too late. What was done was done. All he could do now as let her have time. Time to grow and learn before she remembered what had haunted her earliest dreams.
He lifted the tiny jewelry box from the top of the chest of drawers and lifted the lid, before shutting it again as the little ballerina started to twirl, the music sounding like thunder in the other wise silent room.
Framed photographs of the family were scattered around the room. On the wall above the desk, a crayon sketch was messily hung, just hidden from view by the machine that resided on the wooden surface before it.
Delicately shifting the communicator to the side, he hunched over the desk to get a better look.
The bright blue of the box was nearly black in the dim light, but the Doctor could recognize the shape of the TARDIS even in the crudest of children’s drawings, and this was actually quite a well marked one, considering the age of the artist. Three figures stood beside the ship, and in scrawling handwriting, the words my family stood out starkly against the white paper.
He grinned at the stick figures of himself and Rose. Lily’s self portrait was actually rather cute. All pink and brown, while her mother was all blue and yellow.
Reaching into his pocket for his specs, the Doctor straightened back up. The sharp intake of breath from the doorway drew his attention.
Even in silhouette he would recognize her anywhere.
Rose.
She looked thinner. As he eyes adjusted to the light from the corridor, he noticed how different her face looked. But how it looked different, he couldn’t say. Older, sadder, maybe. The expression was that of surprise. Shock at seeing him here, but with the shadow of doubt at his presence.
She saw him, but she didn’t believe he was really there, her eyes said. Standing in the same room with him, she would pass him off as an illusion caused by her exhaustion.
Without a sound, he had crossed the room to stand before her. Arm reaching out to brush his fingers along her cheek. She leaned into his touch, savouring it.
Her eyes asking him if he were real.
His eyes pleading her to believe his touch. They had been given the impossible.
She wanted so much to believe, but she was afraid. Afraid of him being nothing more than a figment of her imagination.
It’s me. His fingers begged as they slipped into her hair, forehead resting against hers.
I’m here.
Tentatively, she reached around him, pulling him into an embrace, arms shaking him joy and disbelief. You can’t be here. Her mind was screaming at him. Happy and fearful at the same time.
Tears were running down both their faces as his pressed his lips to hers.
I’m never going to leave you.
*.*.*.*.*
Chapter Four >>
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Date: 2007-12-13 06:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-13 06:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-13 07:31 am (UTC)Crack? Yes. Anything I can believe actually could've/would've happened canonically? No.
But well-written and enjoyable. And that's the big thing. You write the characters very well, and you don't have them acting ridiculously out of character. ^_^ I like. A lot. Looking forward to the next chapter.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-13 11:52 pm (UTC)Yes, it is crack as far as being something that could have happened in canon.
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Date: 2007-12-14 12:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 05:26 pm (UTC)Ha! Fiona! Got to love a girl who can kick some ass.
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Date: 2007-12-13 10:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-13 04:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 05:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-13 11:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 05:23 pm (UTC)One of his happy memories, kept near his heart.
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Date: 2007-12-17 06:13 pm (UTC)Intense!
Please, please post more soon!
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Date: 2007-12-28 04:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-11 03:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-31 05:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-01 02:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-11-14 06:11 am (UTC)