Title: "Ask"
Author: Wish Wielder
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing / Character Focus: (Tenth) Doctor, Jackie Tyler; off-screen Doctor x Rose
Challenge / Series: N/A
Theme / Prompt: N/A
Word Count: 1,701
Rating: K Plus / PG
Summary: The world's about to end, and there's only one thing Jackie Tyler needs to know.
Notes / Spoilers: End of S4; casting/antagonist spoilers and episode speculation based on filming leaks. Speculation is mostly ambiguous and guessed at. Because I really needed to write something Doctor/Jackie.
Disclaimer: "Doctor Who" and all respective properties are © the BBC. Megan D. (Wish Wielder) does not, has never, nor will ever own "Doctor Who".
"Ask"
"You should be sleeping."
He nearly jumps at the voice, turning slightly to see Jackie Tyler standing in the doorway of the TARDIS. The soft glow of the console room can be seen behind her robed form, and it's a sight that, once upon a time, he'd never imagined he'd see. Confronted with it, it's also one that he can't really say he minds.
There was a time, so long ago, when he would have laughed at the concept of him with a family. That was the era PT, Pre-Tyler.
"So should you," he says, looking back over the Plaiss. It's so quiet, even for this late hour. Cardiff shouldn't be this quiet, a promise of the chaos yet to come. Calm before the storm, and here he is, right at the helm.
"Oy, let me do the mothering, now," she says, walking over to him. She leans against the railing beside him, letting her gaze drift over the empty city. "Almost like a ghost town. Never thought that'd happen here."
"I've doomed us all," he says, looking down again. He can't face her; somehow, she's become more than Rose's mother to him. She's almost become his mother, too. "I'm sorry, Jackie. I'm so sorry."
"Enough of that," she says, looking at him. "You haven't done anything, Doctor. A day ago we thought you were dead – that was doomed. But you're here now, yeah? You'll fix it. You always do."
"And if I can't?" he asks, looking at her. She smiles.
"Then my Rose will," she says. "Right along with Pete and Mickey and that Captain Jack and all those others inside that ship of yours at this very moment. You're not alone in this, Doctor. Those metal monsters may have numbers on their side, but so have you. You've got all of us, and we've got the heart to care about it. More than I can say for those Daleks."
"I never should have brought you all into this," he says, and she laughs. It carries away on the breeze, swirling with the leaves and rubbish down the pavement.
"You didn't," she says. "We came all on our own. Never thought I'd see the day I'd actually want to go with you."
"That's how we know the world is ending," he says, smiling at her. She laughs and nudges his arm.
"Oy, now," but she's smiling, and he knows it's all right. A hundred million Daleks that never should have been in the skies above them, waiting for daylight to destroy everything. Universal walls that were so close to collapsing, sucking up planets and boiling the worlds on either side. The multiverse was going to hell, but right now he's leaning on a rail and overlooking the Plaiss. Enjoying the quiet with Jackie Tyler, waiting while his hodgepodged family rests and prepares for the battle ahead.
Hodgepodged. That's them, all right. Dr. Martha Jones and Donna Noble, two women he's asked much too much of in the past. Captain Jack Harkness, the faithful soldier always willing to follow his Doctor to hell and back. Sarah Jane Smith, the journalist turned Earth-defender that had always given a shoulder for those left behind. Mickey Smith, the not-so-idiot that always surprised him and Jake Simmonds, the operative that skimmed through his life like a skipping stone but was always willing to help. The Tylers, nearly all of them: Pete, the father and Torchwood director who had trusted him from the start. Jackie, the mother he feared yet couldn't imagine life without. Rose, his...his. And then the children, Mattie and Luke and Maria and Clyde, out with Wilf in Chiswick in case it all goes pear-shaped. The lot below them in Torchwood 3, family by association but family all the same.
His hodgepodged family, Defenders of the Earth one and all.
It's strange, but he doesn't think he's scared of it anymore. They're not Time Lords, but he doesn't mind; they're more his family than anyone on Gallifrey had ever been, anyway.
"It really is all over, isn't it?" Jackie asks, and he's startled from his thoughts as her voice pierces the silence. He glances at her and finds she's watching the fountain, watching the water course down it and there, in her eyes, that quiet wish: wash away the danger with it. "Rose told me once you took her to the end of the world, in the year five billion. How will it end there if it ends here?"
"Because it won't," he says, and he turns to face her. He places his hands on her shoulders and turns her towards him, looking at her with all the promise he can muster at the moment. It isn't much, but somehow it has to be enough. "I swear to you, Jackie Tyler. The world will not end today. I don't know how, but I won't let it."
"I asked you once, Doctor," she says, staring him in the eye where he finds he can't turn away. "I asked you to promise me you'd take care of Rose."
"Jackie, I -" he starts, but she holds up a hand.
"She can take care of herself now," she says, smiling. "Always could. She's strong like that. But Doctor, you don't know what it's been like these past few years. She's stronger than ever, but so much more fragile."
"I don't..." he tries, but his words die away and he just shakes his head at her. She looks back at him, and he hates the tears he sees over her eyes.
"I don't want you to promise you'll protect her, because I know you will. You always have," she says. She hesitates only once, and he's suddenly afraid of whatever she wants to ask him. Afraid that he won't be able to do whatever it is she wants. "But she's not going to stay, Doctor. When this is all over."
His hands grip her shoulders a bit too tightly, and she smiles at him. He doesn't understand how she can; there's a knife in one hand and his hearts in the other, and she's smiling at him.
"She told me earlier, when you were showing everyone to their rooms," she says. "She said she's not going to stay because she has to come back with us, because of her responsibilities. Because of Pete and Mattie and Torchwood, and she said she can't stay here anymore. She can't just drop it all without another thought, because she's got responsibilities now."
"Jackie..." he gasps, and she shakes her head at him.
"So I need you to promise me you'll make her," she says, and it's like the air's been sucked from him and he can't breathe, respiratory bypass or no. His face scrunches as he shakes his head, so very confused, and still she smiles. It's resigned and heartbroken, yet so full of love – for Rose, for him. For everything they never had but still could, if only she'd stay.
"She doesn't belong with us anymore, Doctor. We had our time, and I thank you so much for it, but she's not happy there," she says, smiling. "I haven't seen her smile once in three years – not until she saw you. She doesn't belong on Earth, Doctor. She belongs with you, out there being fantastic. I'd never forgive myself if I kept her from the life she wants."
"There was a time when you would have done so gladly," he says, and his look is poignant and makes her turn away. Back to the Plaiss, to the lines of dusty blue just starting to streak the skies.
"People change, Doctor," she says, and he smiles.
"Not so much."
"Very much," she says, giving him a look that makes him pause. "You didn't see her, Doctor. You got your two minutes, and then you faded away. You didn't hear her crying all those nights, or hold her through it knowing you weren't the one she wanted. You didn't see her replace herself with this...woman, walking around in Rose's body – but she wasn't Rose. She wasn't happy. I just want her happy again, Doctor, and I know she won't be until she's with you again."
"If she doesn't want to stay I can't force her," he says, and Jackie smiles.
"She wants you to ask her," she says, and he frowns. "You've gone around this whole time glad to have her back, thinking she'll just come with you when the world doesn't end. But you can't do that, Doctor. She would, and you both know it, but she still wants you to ask her. Twice, if you must – she said that's how it works sometimes."
"Jackie, I...thank you," he says, and she raises an eyebrow at him. He grins, laughing as he holds his arms out to her. She smiles and accepts the hug, squeezing him as tightly as he does her. He has no words for the gift she's given him, and so he hopes the gesture is enough. "Thank you, Jackie Tyler. Just...thank you."
"Dunno what you're thanking me for, but all right," she says, laughing, and he laughs with her.
"Just...for you, because you...you are brilliant," he says, and he squeezes her again.
"Don't let me interrupt."
They pull apart and look to the TARDIS, where Rose has appeared at the door. Her smile fades as she looks at him, her face grim and determined and ready to face the end. He wants her smiling again, joking with him as they rush towards the battle; he wants her carefree spirit back, the one the Daleks and Cybermen took from her all those years ago. The one that, if he thinks about it hard enough, he took from her all those years ago.
"Rose," he says, and it seems to be enough. She bites down on her lips, quirking them up into a braved-face smile that doesn't seem to fit.
"The others are up and waiting, Doctor," she says, wrapping her arms about herself to block out a chill not caused by the wind. In the distance, the first rays of dawn break over the horizon. "It's time."