DISCLAIMER: I don not own the doctor Jack or Rose. Russel rules us all and I worship at this feet!
NOTES: Just a little drabble now that Rose is coming back…
Dichotomy
She sits in the dark. For all the world looking almost like a child. Her whispered words feared across galaxies. Armies raised, empires rising and crumbling to dust by the meaning of her whispers. She looks so young, so fragile …so very much like nothing but a frail girl with ink-black hair and eyes like arctic ice. She smiles at you, watching you walk across the cavern towards her …the barest curling of lips. It's enough to send grown men scramble for safety.
But you don't scary easy.
You are not afraid of a girl clothed in rags, crouching on a rock like some hungry animal.
You travelled across the universe to find her.
To have her help you find your way …
The oracle they call her here on this dark, cold planet …where nothing grows, hardy anything lives. There is nothing here but black deserts and death. And her ….the girl, the maiden. You've already been there …to see the mother on Caronit, in the black tower upon white cliffs. To see the crone in some backwater fisher's town on the shores of the raging red seas on Aromet. No answers there.
So this is where all roads led you. To a teenage girl, hiding in a cave on a desert planet.
"Captain Jack Harkness." She whispers …her voice like a caress, drawing you closer.
"You haven't lost your good looks…yet. Still that pretty face …"
"I need your help"
"No….you need an answer. That is the only help I can give. Everything has gone wrong. You feel it in your bones, in your breath …in your skin. The path never travelled is the one this universe has missed…forsaken. And now everything is dying, the light and the stars and now…they hurt even you."
Even if those eyes were blind they could see through you. She cocks her head like a bird and stares at you, her eyes hungry, washing over you almost as though you could be her prey.
"I have the answer you seek." She says slowly, rising from her crouch, her limbs moving gracefully like reeds in the wind. The threadbare rags bare more than they conceal, her skin is ghostly white, shining like a star in the musty darkness of the cave. She wears those rags like a queen.
"I have not asked you anything yet." You say, your hand unconsciously reaching for your weapon. She watches it with amusement, shaking her head.
"The question is still the same, you already asked my kin, those who come after me. Now I'm the only one left. They sent you here. You travelled far, so very far, but the question is in every breath you draw…" She points at you, sinking back into her crouch while all that ink-black hair slides over her shoulders, hiding part of her face. Her laughter sounds harsh in your ears, like shattering glass.
"The question that haunts you, the question that eats away at you at night …it is in your heart, in every beat, your blood hums with it….chanting desperately over and over …You want to know. You need to know."
"How do I stop it?"
She takes a deep breath and it comes out in a gasp. Her glittering eyes fixated on you. She knows what you mean. Knows it probably better than you do. No need to explain, no need to elucidate. There is nothing but silence for the space of several heartbeats.
"What you want is to change …everything, but you cannot find the right place to begin. You need to go back Jack…all the way back. You were not there, but you need to be. You have to change places. To erase this dark future, you must change history. You can't bring her back…so you have to make sure she does not fall into the black before the walls close forever. To save this universe you must give her back to him."
You wish she would speak in riddles, but in your heart you know what she means. You know it with a surety that borders on madness. In your soul you know she is right. And some heavy burden lifts from your heart. Because she told you, what you really needed to know…that there is a way. That things CAN be changed. No need to worry about the how now. You'll do that later. As long as there is a way, you'll find it. The rest is details. Still you don't trust yourself. Still there is a part of you that needs to hear it, that needs to hear another being say it out loud.
"Who?"
She smiles as though she understands, cocking her head again.
"The one. The one who is both. The girl in the fairy-tale and the beast that stalks the dark. The one and only, the flower that could quiet the oncoming storm, the one he believed in when everything had come to dust…the girl who can heal the hearts of a lonely god. The one he could not leave behind. So many others come and gone. But her name still makes time sing … You need to find her, Jack. You need to find little red riding hood and keep her out of the wilderness. You need to find the bad wolf."