Title: 1996
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: RTD owns Jackie and Rose, Steven Moffat owns Jack.
Thanks: To RTD for writing such a weirdly alluring line into "Utopia."
Spoilers: This is set between "The Parting of the Ways" and "Everything Changes" in Jack's universe.
1896 had been a fine year, Jack thought. Despite Britain being an Imperialist power, there were music halls. The first experiments in cinema. Telephones, electric lights, ocean liners . . .
1996, on the other hand . . . "Strolling" the aisles of the Powell Estate shop—stiffly stepping through fluorescent lighting and endless boxes of Jacob's Cream Crackers and packets of potato crisps. Not really the excitement of a lifetime, at least not to a man who'd seen the cosmos, fought and shagged his way across the universe, and was now pretty much un-killable. He wasn't there for fun, though. The feelings weren't fun. They were a bit morbid, prickly, a moral grey area he'd skirted plenty of times. Still, he liked that verb . . . "to skirt" . . .
"C'mon, Rose, we're going to be late!" Uttered at the same time the shop door dinged. He huddled behind six giant packets of salt and vinegar flavor crisps and listened to the steps, one pair loud and frenzied, the other soft and hesitant.
"Here, do something useful and hold these Cornish pasties while I go look for Typhoo. Won't be a moment."
"Oh, Mum." Trainers squeaking across the lino. A Backstreet Boys song on the muzak station. It was the first time he'd heard her voice in . . . well, how could he be sure? He risked a peek over the cereal boxes. A stringy preteen in pink, brunette, looking bored, holding the pasties at arm's length like they were going to attack her. Popping chewing gum.
Jack froze. It was like looking into a mortuary photograph—a weird, suitably Victorian obsession. Photos of dead children, mocked up so they looked like they were sleeping. Sleeping Beauties. It was her, unquestionably. The big brown eyes—Jack felt a twist of revulsion and tenderness, making him lightheaded and nauseous.
"Mum," Young Rose shouted. "You said we were going to be late!"
Jack pivoted to where Jackie Tyler was stuck in the tea and coffee aisle, giggling with a man Jack couldn't see. "Mum!" Young Rose cried again. "You're embarrassin' me!" With a whirlwind of childish pique that made Jack smile, Rose threw down the pasties and stomped out of the shop.
"Of all the stupid, pig-headed . . .!" Jackie snapped, rushing down the aisle and almost straight into Jack. "What are you laffin' at?" she said sourly, noticing him. She gave him a good once-over. "Lookin' at my daughter, were you? Are you some kind of a pervert?"
Jack had imagined Rose's mother based on descriptions from both the Doctor and Rose. She was basically as he had pictured her: garish, loud, literal-minded. Still, he could see Rose in her, too. He was instantly glad he had not already met her in 2005, which would have further complicated those timeline issues.
He flashed his most winning smile. "You must be Mrs. Tyler." He held out his hand. "My name's Jack. I'm a football coach, and we've been thinking of starting a girl's team on the Estate. I've met Rose before at school, and I think she's got potential."
Jackie's eyes narrowed, then she stared blankly. "A football coach?"
He simpered wickedly. "I also teach ball room dancing." He glided in to take her waist in one hand and her palm in the other. He waltzed her down the aisle, she still holding the box of Typhoo.
She almost allowed herself to be swept off her feet, then pushed him away. "Rose has got potential? Have you seen her run? She's all knees and elbows!"
Her had seen her run, and he had an unsavory comment to make about that. "Well, I didn't say she was a natural. But she could be a good keeper. Good reflexes." He was just bullshitting now.
"She did win the bronze in gymnastics."
"That's right, she did!" Jack exclaimed, rather too eagerly.
"You American?" Jackie asked. "What are you doing over here, then?"
"I like traveling, meeting new people . . ."
"It's a woman, I'll bet five quid it is," said Jackie, looking him up and down with renewed interest.
"Well . . ." he laughed, enjoying the irony at little too much.
"Oi! Is someone gonna buy these pasties or wot?" The booming shop owner's voice rang all the way from the till.
"All ri', all ri', be there in a second! Tell you what," said Jackie, "I'm gonna grab Rose and then maybe we can all go back to the flat for some tea? Discuss this girls' football thing an' ball room dancing? You do teach adults, don' you?"
"Oh, all ages."
"Stay ri' there," said Jackie, winking at him, "and I'll get Rose."
Jack nodded vigorously. "I'll be here, in the crisps and crackers aisle." As soon as she'd ducked out, though, he'd skidded to the back of the shop and hidden behind huge bags of mildewed dog food.
"Where 'as he gone?" Jackie asked.
"Who, Mum?" Rose sounding even more indifferent than before.
"The football coach. He'd said he'd met you at school, and that you were really good, had potential."
"What football coach? I've never played football in my life, Mum."
He could almost hear the shrug in Jackie Tyler's voice. "Then 'e lied to me! 'E really must have been a pervert after all." He thought he heard her sigh. "It's a shame, too, 'e was really quite fit."
He had to stifle a laugh as they bought the tea, a plastic tray of generic cream cakes, some birthday candles, and the pasties. He heard the door dinging on their way out, and he hazarded one look. "We really will be late to Mickey's birthday," Jackie said apologetically.
"His Gran'll be having words," Rose said drearily.
Jack made his way to the till with a can of pale ale in one hand and a prepackaged chicken curry sandwich in the other. The shop owner rang him up silently, morose and condemnatory at what he thought of his motives. Jack wanted to say, "That girl—I loved her. I don't know where she is now, where she'll be in the future or in the past. I've loved a lot of people, it's true, but without her I wouldn't be the man I am today. I should be dead. I should be dead many times over. But I'm not."
"Can I see some ID, sir?"
Jack would have liked to have kept his IDs from the last hundred years, but thought it too risky. Even keeping them in a box somewhere—might have been a bit hard to explain if someone ever chanced upon them. Here was his latest, another Jack Harkness, perpetual youth.
That was another thing about 1896. That was the year Jack had met Oscar Wilde. That had been interesting.
He made sure not to be seen in the vicinity of the Powell Estate shop again, though it wasn't the last time he saw Young Rose. He had to hide out on buses and in parks, reading a newspaper discreetly or walking a dog once, and now he couldn't be seen by Jackie either. When she was fifteen she bleached her hair for the first time. He saw her eating chips, could smell the vinegar, but managed to duck out of sight at the last second.
In 2004 he left London. The temptation was too great to be there when the TARDIS arrived for Rose. To hear the clanky, wheezy noise again . . . it would happen, it had to happen soon. Which Doctor would he get? And would Rose be with him?
With Canary Wharf, he knew not to expect to ever see her again.