Notes: This little plot bunny attacked me the other night and I had to put it down. I hope you like it, brief as it is.
There was only one class left. The Doctor was almost finished with his school day. With the knowledge that Sarah Jane was on the case, and that Rose had discovered a few things about the kitchen staff, he had decided that they'd make their move tonight in searching the school. It was wonderful seeing that Sarah Jane was still investigating after all this time.
He was pulled from his musings by someone literally pulling him around a corner. "Jack?!" the Doctor gasped as he took in the sight of the man he had left behind on the Game Station several months ago.
"Doctor. Look, I'm a bit out of my timeline here, but you were the one that sent me. There's some things that you need to know and they are the most important things in the universe," Jack told him firmly.
"I sent you here? Jack, future knowledge is incredibly dangerous, you know that! You were a Time Agent," he argued.
"Look, Doctor, both you and I know that. We were very careful in deciding exactly what you need to be told to prevent catastrophe and what I absolutely could NOT tell you. So, please, let me keep to the list, alright?" Jack assured him.
"Alright," the Doctor gave in with a sigh.
Jack pulled a piece of paper out of the pocket of his long, grey coat and read his list aloud, "First, your interactions with Sarah Jane are going to remind you of Rose's mortality. Your own words to yourself are, 'don't be a moron and push her away.' Second, tell her what you've needed to tell her since before you regenerated. Third, under no circumstances are you to allow Mickey to travel with you. You are now allowed to ask me questions, but I have a list of things that I am not allowed to tell you, so keep that in mind."
"Without giving me details, can you tell me what the catastrophe is?" the Doctor asked.
"You gave me very careful wording for this one," Jack replied with a grin. "Rose no longer existing in the universe."
"Ok, you probably would have said that I'd lose her and since I always see that in my future, I can see why I'd insist on that phrasing. Did I really insist on telling her? Why would I do that?" he questioned incredulously.
"Look, Doctor, I can't give you details about the future. But, I know that you are aware of my immortality," Jack began. The Doctor looked at him guiltily and nodded. "So, having gone through more than a century myself and losing several wives and lovers in that time, let me tell you that the regrets will be worse than the pain of loss after making the most of your time with her. This is my personal advice and experience talking, not my knowledge of the future for you and Rose specifically. Besides, Doctor, I know for a fact that there are plenty of options in the future for extending her lifespan that just aren't available here."
"Anything else?" the Doctor asked curtly as he considered his friend's advice.
"You gave me this," Jack told him as he pulled an envelope from his pocket.
The instructions written on the front were in his own hand, in Gallifreyan, so there was no possibility of him thinking that the letter was from anyone else. The instructions stated that he could only open it after they had passed July 2007 in their visits to see Jackie. He had been keeping Rose's timeline concurrent with hers, so that Rose wouldn't age faster than her mother or they wouldn't accidentally visit Jackie out of order. He took the instructions to mean that if he made it past that date without the catastrophe occurring, that it had been safely averted. This letter likely told him what could have happened. He tucked the envelope safely in the inside pocket of his coat.
"Thank you, Jack. I'm sure I don't know just how grateful to you I am just yet, but thank you," the Doctor said sincerely.
"To save Rosie? Anything. See you later, Doc," Jack replied and disappeared in a flash of light as he pressed the button on his vortex manipulator.
The Doctor went back to his classroom to finish off the day, part of his mind swirling with all of the information that he had just been given. He had no idea just how long after July his future self had sent Jack from, but he had obviously decided that events surrounding this adventure were the flux point that set everything in motion. He also had to consider further the exact phrasing that he had given Jack about the catastrophe. He didn't say that Rose would die, but no longer exist in the universe. Would she be somehow erased? Obviously he would still remember her existence. There were too many possibilities to consider.
When they split up later that night and he saw Sarah Jane again, he paid careful attention to all of the details. Something important might happen other than just solving the current mystery. He was upset that Rose and Sarah didn't get along right away, but he was more intrigued by the fact that Rose seemed terribly insecure all of a sudden. Had he only been immersed in his excitement at reuniting with his old friend, he might not have noticed it. So, when they were leaving the café later that night, he pulled her aside to talk to her. After all, his future self told him to.
"How many of us have there been travelling with you?" Rose questioned accusingly.
The Doctor took a deep breath to calm himself. He needed to be very careful right now. "Rose, I can see that you're hurt. I've been travelling the universe for approximately seven hundred years. I try not to do it alone as much as possible. You saw what kind of grump I was when we met. The important thing for you to know right now," he began, but paused as he reached the point of telling her what he had never been able to before. He wrestled with himself internally as he considered how important it must be. That particular instruction had made the very short list that he had sent back for himself.
He took Rose's hands in his own as he restarted, "The important thing for you to know, is that what we have is closer and more special than what I've had with anyone before. I've had many friends in my many lives, and they were all brilliant. But you, Rose Tyler, are so very special to this broken Time Lord."
It wasn't everything, but it was a start. They looked into each other's eyes and he hoped that she could see his sincerity and the feelings he couldn't quite voice yet. Her eyes turned glassy for a moment, but they were suddenly startled out of their conversation by one of the large bat people swooping down on them.
Rose and Sarah Jane seemed to get along better the next day, and Rose seemed more confident after their little talk. He knew that Sarah wouldn't come along despite Rose suggesting that he invite her. So, he made sure to construct a replacement K9 for her before they left. It was difficult to say no to him, but he and Rose had managed to convince Mickey that it would be far too uncomfortable and awkward to have him travel with them.
Knowing that Mickey wanted to prove himself useful, however, the Doctor asked him to dig deeper into the blocks he had encountered while looking up the information on the school. He gave the young man a few programs from the future to help him hack into the more difficult places. The Doctor assured him that by keeping a close eye on things on Earth, he could keep Rose and her mother safe from the people who might be watching him.
The next place that he and Rose found themselves was on a mysterious space ship. The crew had all been killed by the repair droids and the robots had, for some unknown reason, thought that they needed to steal the brain of Madame de Pompadour to replace their main computer. He was still nervous about the warnings surrounding Rose, so he kept her close to him the whole time. Their usual teamwork got them through almost the whole adventure. He was terrified though, when he realized that they would need to break through the glass of a large mirror from their side in order sever the connection between the ship and the droids.
"Doctor? I know you said we don't have a truck, and I know we can't just travel back there in the TARDIS, but when you came to get me from the Dalek ship, I saw her flying through space on their view screen. Could we fly her through the mirror?" Rose suggested.
"Oh, Rose! You are brilliant!" he shouted excitedly and grasped her face, kissing her roughly. Her eyes widened in shock and she let out a small squeak. The Doctor grabbed her hand and pulled her back into the TARDIS as he started up the engines to physically crash the ship through the mirror and break the connection.
That one kiss seemed to be one more barrier between them breaking down. What used to be victory hugs, quickly became victory snogs, and their cuddles in the library seemed more like teenage make-out sessions.
He nearly lost all control when Rose lost her face to the Wire during the Coronation, but it was her brilliance that had led him to finding the key to the whole mess in Magpie's shop, even if she couldn't tell him directly. They nearly lost the TARDIS forever on an impossible planet orbiting a black hole, but his faith in her gave him the strength to destroy the Beast forever.
They visited Jackie and Mickey from time to time. Jackie, so that Rose could visit. Mickey, so that the Doctor could check on what he had found. Apparently, there had been a small group called LINDA that was sort of like a fan club looking for him, but he managed to convince them to give it a rest. The more interesting part was what he discovered about Torchwood.
Queen Victoria had been so upset with them after the werewolf incident, that she started an organization specifically to protect the British Empire from aliens, especially the Doctor, who was listed as their number one enemy. Between the two of them, Mickey and the Doctor managed to hack into their computer systems and plant a virus to delete all information about the Doctor, Rose and her family. While scouring the database, however, the Doctor came across the name of another man that Torchwood had been prosecuting. Jack Harkness was officially listed as working for them, but digging through the files, the Doctor found that it wasn't by choice, but blackmail. He decided then, that once they were past the date on the envelope, they would pay Jack a visit to see if he needed some help.
The date in Jackie's timeline was fast approaching and the Doctor desperately ran with Rose through the universe. They had grown even closer the last few months, kisses turning to far more. He had blissfully discovered that Rose's exposure to the heart of the TARDIS had given her some telepathic abilities. They had accidentally stumbled into each other's minds while in the throes of passion and couldn't prevent a light bond from forming between them. So, as they strolled together on an alien planet at sunset, they promised each other to stay together forever. They would overcome all obstacles, including her mortality, and battle the entire universe if that's what it took.
July passed uneventfully in London, which was almost terrifying in itself given how often the city usually faced some sort of disaster. And so, upon parking the TARDIS outside Jackie's flat on the first of August, he walked Rose to the library to tell her about his visit from Jack.
"Are you going to read the letter?" Rose asked him when he was finished, knowing that it would probably be painful to discover what might have happened.
"Yeah. Are you sure you want to know too? You don't have to," he offered, but did think that he might need to hold her tightly after reading how he could have lost her forever.
"If this is what finally convinced you to give in, I want to know everything, Doctor," she told him and snuggled into his side, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist. She tried to look at the paper he was unfolding to read it with him, but it was written in his language of circles and lines that the ship never translated, so she looked up at him to read it to her.
"Doctor, I hope with both of my hearts that this has worked and Rose is still in this universe. It was impossible to see the fork in the road when it happened, but should Mickey have travelled with you, there would have been an accident that made the TARDIS fall into a parallel universe temporarily.
Everything would have seemed fine and fixed at first, but the end result would have been both Cybermen and Daleks pushing through from the Void. I opened the breach to suck them all in, but our time in that parallel world meant that we were almost pulled in as well. The controls on Rose's side of things shut down and she let go of her only safe place in order to set things right. She fell, and while she was rescued at the last minute from eternity in the Void, she was trapped in a parallel universe where I could never reach her again.
While I have tried to go on without her, I've only brought more pain and misery to those around me. After spending one year of trying to go on without her, and another with my friends and I imprisoned and tortured, Jack and I came up with this plan. Find him. Just be careful the first time he comes back to the TARDIS and if you end up at the end of the universe, just leave, trust me.
If Rose is safe with you, as she should be, tell her how much I love her with both of my hearts, and how sorry I am every minute that I never had the courage to tell her before she was lost."
Both the Doctor and Rose had tears streaming down their cheeks as he finished reading.
They held each other tightly for several long minutes before either of them dared speak. Through the faint telepathic link they had formed, they could feel the other's pain at the thought of what might have happened.
"Oh, Doctor," Rose sobbed.
"Shh, it's alright. It didn't happen now, and it won't happen. We've past the critical points that led up to those events. That's why it's now safe for us to know about them. It was a terribly dangerous plan, but I understand now why the other Jack and I did it," the Doctor told her soothingly.
"Can we go see him now?" she asked, teary eyed.
"Of course, but first, I need to follow my own instructions. Rose Tyler, with both of my beating hearts, I love you," the Doctor said and pulled her into a tender kiss. He could feel the swirl of his timeline twisting tightly with hers in a way that would keep them together for longer than his time senses could reach.