Summary: "What was Rose like as a child, Jack?" He asks and Jack cannot answer.

This is dedicated to HesMines and puzzledpieces for being awesome in their reviews and love! Thanks so much, guys!


His eyes are mournful and sunken behind the veil of long-lost love's and forgotten hopes and dreams when he asks. His smile is lost with the feel of a warm hand slotted in his own and his true grin is fallen, tumbled with the petals of a flower that can never be named lest he drown in its sound and lose himself.

"What was Rose like as a child, Jack?" He asks and Jack cannot answer. Cannot fathom the words to spin to describe the Rose he saw as a little girl. All soft skin and warm eyes and stars in her dreams.

Oh, what can he say? To this man, this alien, that had and lost and will never have again, to soothe him. To tell him that Rose never truly changed.

Could he tell him that Rose was brave?

(Rose Tyler, standing up to a boy twice her size for a boy half her age, telling him to "stop being such a meanie! he ain't ever done nothin' to ya!" and bracing herself for a hit even though she did nothing to deserve it.)

Could he tell him that Rose was proud?

(no matter what she did, Rose Tyler walked away straight-backed and head held high; even if she was wrong, even if she was so wrong that it ached in his teeth, because she believed in herself almost as much as she would believe in the Doctor years in the future.)

Could he tell him that Rose was beautiful?

(her crooked teeth, her honey hair – too stick straight to be luxurious, or her eyes covered in dirt and gunk from her playing with Shireen and Mickey, her skin so dull and pale, but oh when she smiled, when she lifted the corner of that mouth and revealed those beautifully crooked teeth she absolutely glowed.)

Could he mention how Rose was intense?

(every emotion on her face, every thing she'd ever thought whispered to the sky or screamed to the person – she hates like it's a fire, but loves like the world will fall apart and this is her last chance to hold that person close.)

Could he say that she was happy?

(looking at the stars and wishing daddy would come home, wishing that she could reach up and hold the moon in her hand, craving a hand to hold because mommy's wasn't always there and she was a big girl and big girls don't cry – so Rose Tyler is happy, because she doesn't really have the option otherwise.)

Could he tell him that she was flawed?

(too loud, too needy, too weak and reckless and too much in love with the thought of being in love, trying to give it all up for Jimmy bloody Stone and she got her heart beaten for that, now didn't she; but it didn't stop her, not Rose, she just pushed on and fell into the arms of a total stranger and maybe that was her biggest flaw – running off without a second thought – but it paid off, didn't it?)

But the Doctor knows all this. Knows Rose better than Jack ever could and ever wanted to, because, frankly, Rose was the Doctor's and somehow every time he looked at her all the switches slammed on and said mine in a way no one had before.

But the Doctor is still waiting for his answer and his shattered heart is still beating in that ribcage of his but Jack can't tell because his own thoughts and mouth betray him.

"She was always there when someone needed her." He answers because it was true. Rose was always there.

(and the fact that she isn't now tastes bitter on Jack's tongue.)


Now then, please review, and tell me if you don't like it - HesMines and puzzledpieces - and I'll write you something else!

Aimlessly Unknown.