Author's Note: Sorry it's taken me so long to get the second chapter up. I got a bit distracted writing Office fic instead. But I'm super psyched for "The Runaway Bride," now, and in a Doctor Who ficcing mood.
Sorry for any extreme Americanisms...or for trying to hard to not sound American. Brit-picking is welcome.
Breaking the Rules - chapter 2
It isn't him. Of course it isn't him, it couldn't possibly be him. After all, Jack is in a different universe! Jack is on platform 5!...Jack is dead! This is what Rose keeps telling herself as she re-reads the e-mail a second time, a third, a fourth. But the language: "Please tell Rose," not "Please tell Miss Tyler," and never mind that it's the twenty-first century! Even if this universe has a Captain Jack Harkness, why would he be gallivanting through the twenty-first century when he's a fifty-first century man?
She clicks out of the e-mail and shuts her eyes. There's that feeling again, different, odd, but achingly familiar at the same time. She hasn't had that feeling in almost eight years. Something is changing in the universe, and she's a part of it.
It isn't long before people start filing into the office. She can hear them outside her door, banging through the hallways, chatting away. The sound is a familiar hum, the music of her daily life. She pours over a map of a galaxy with a name she can't even pronounce and tries to forget about Captain Jack.
At quarter past eleven Rose is startled by a knock at her door. Her desk is littered with memos, diagrams of weapons and several maps. She's hunched so far forward that her bum isn't even touching the seat anymore and she hasn't moved in almost half an hour. "Come in!" she calls as she settles back into her seat.
"'s me," says Mickey, slipping into the tightly packed office. "You went swanning off this morning, 'fore I could ask where you were headed."
"Just coming into work early," she tells him and reaches for a heavy book on the far corner of the desk. "That a crime, now?"
"No, jus'…I wish you'd tell me these things. We're supposed to be a couple, Rose, and you're never…you're always swannin' off somewhere."
She sighs. "I couldn't sleep is all, and all this to-do with the Vlasychians…I figured I'd get some work done." She looks up from the page she's reading. "I promise I'll tell you next time."
"Alright," Mickey says. "I suppose I should go track down Jake…we've got to do some weapons inventory 'fore we face the Vlasychians. All this background checkin' you're doing won't be any good 'less we can fight them…or at leas' defend ourselves."
"Right, well, I'll be here." She looks back down at the paper.
"Right." Mickey nods. "Don't forget to eat something," he reminds her as he heads out the door.
Mickey hasn't been gone ten minutes when her phone rings. She digs through a pile of maps to find it and presses the speakerphone option. "Rose Tyler."
"Hello Miss Tyler. This is Gareth Charles down in the security booth. There's a man here askin' to see you, hasn' got an appointment."
It takes her a moment to answer. "What's his name, please?" she asks, trying to keep her voice level.
"Jack Harkness. Says he's a captain of some sort."
She takes a breath. "Alright, you can have someone escort him up to my office."
--
"THAT'S IT!"
The Doctor awakes with a start. He's been napping in the control room, his face pressed up against the screen on the console, his feet resting flat on the floor grates. Not the most comfortable position, but he'd been so very exhausted.
"What's it?" asks a voice from the other side of the room. Martha had fallen asleep on the bench, a much more logical choice, he has to admit.
"I've figured it out!"
"Figured what out?" She sits up, presses a hand to the red spot where her cheek had met the material of the bench.
"Rose! I've figured out how to get to Rose!"
"Oh."
He's dashing about the console, pressing buttons and pulling levers. She's never seen him pull a lever before, though the console is absolutely littered with them. When he yanks at a chain and spins a wheel the whole TARDIS shakes, and she grabs a hold of a nearby pole.
This isn't the first time he's announced that he's "figured it out." She's been traveling with the Doctor for five years, seen all corners of the universe and then some, but at least once a month he's announced with absolute certainty that he's found a way back to Rose.
She'd seen a picture once. A blond girl, laughing at something on a planet Martha's never visited. It had seemed like such a silly thing for a man like the Doctor to keep…a man of such brilliance holding on to something so sentimental. But she'd seen the look in his eye when he showed it to her…the loneliness she has never been able to destroy.
When the TARDIS comes to an abrupt stop she falls off her bench. Her knees scrape against the grating on the floor and tear a small hole in the knee of her jeans. The Doctor doesn't even notice as he races for the door. When he opens it she doesn't even bother to glance up.
She stands and watches his slow return to the console. His blue suit looks shabbier and baggier than ever and she makes a mental note to bake him something….biscuits, maybe…or a cake.
--
She waits for Jack at the elevator.
She thinks it might seem over-eager, like answering the phone on the first ring, but the knots in her stomach are so tight she thinks her organs might snap like rubber bands, so she stands by the tall metal doors with her arms crossed over her chest.
When the doors open it's Jack. Suspenders, great coat, a grin so wide she can see all his teeth. She waits a moment to pounce, waits for some assurance that this is her Jack, but he gives her that look, the one that tells her this could be no one else, and then she's in his arms.
"Oh, Jack!"
He doesn't say anything at first, just holds her tight. When he finally speaks it's as flirtatious as ever. "Someone's happy to see me," he grins in her ear and squeezes her a little tighter.
"You have no idea."
He finally sets her down and steps back to look at her. "Rose, Rose, Rose…how did you get here?"
She sighs. "It's a long story." She glances around the office and watches faces disappear behind cubicle walls. "Why don't we go back to my office?"
The room seems even smaller with Jack in it, but they really have no other place to talk. She squeezes her way behind the desk and offers him the folding chair on the other side. "Sorry it's such a tight fit in here."
"It's fine," he tells her. "Although our Torchwood generally offers it's star employees a decent view."
She grins at him. "I chose this office, thank you very much, and I'm no Yvonne Hartman."
He nods. "You most definitely are not." For a long moment they smile at each other. "So…you had a story for me. How'd you get here, Rose?"
"How did I get here? How did you get here? Last I saw you, you were…well, the Doctor told me you died on Platform 5."
"You don't remember it?" he asks. "You don't remember Platform 5?"
"No," Rose tells him. "Last thing I remember is Mum and Mickey helping me break into the TARDIS console back in the twenty-first century."
"You saved me, Rose," he says, his voice low and heavy. "I did die, killed by a Dalek, and you brought me back. And then you and the Doctor left before I could get to you."
"Oh, Jack. I'm so sorry!"
He nods. "I know…and I'm over it. It was…it was a lifetime ago…maybe two." He smiles at her, but she can't help but notice it isn't the same.
"So how did you get here? The 21st century in a completely different universe?"
"By accident, but I believe I asked you first."
Rose sighs. "I suppose it was an accident for me as well. The first time, anyway. We were travelin', Me, Mickey and the Doctor an'…we just ended up here. Had an unfortunate run-in with the Cybermen—do you know the Cybermen?"
"Yes. They were part of the Battle at Canary Wharf."
"You were there?"
Jack shakes his head. "No, I was in Cardiff at the time. Working for Torchwood 3."
"That's how you know who Yvonne Hartman is…was." Rose shakes her head in disbelief. "Anyway, we left…Mickey stayed behind, but the Doctor and I…we left. Traveled some more…and then we came home to visit Mum. That was during the ghost shifts."
Jack nods. "I take it the Doctor didn't like those too much?"
"No…thought they were barbaric." Rose smiles at the memory, the Doctor with his gadgetry, determined to figure out who was behind the "ghosts." "Anyway, we tracked 'em down to Torchwood, but Yvonne Hartman was there, waiting for us. She knew all about the Doctor, all about me…we were separated…that was how I found Mickey."
"He'd found a way back?"
Rose nods. "And that was when the Daleks and the Cybermen attacked. Both at the same time. I wasn't with the Doctor…Mickey and I were down with the Daleks an'…an' it was horrible. But we found each other again, and then the Doctor…he tried to send me here with Mum and Pete—"
"Pete?"
"My dad…from this universe. He's still alive here."
Jack nods and lets her continue.
"Anyway, he tried to send me here, but I wouldn't let him." Rose pauses, takes a deep breath. "I told him I wanted to stay with him, so…we tried to send the Cybermen and the Daleks into the void. We were clinging on for our lives and…I don't even know how to explain it, but…I lost my hold. Next thing I knew I was flying towards certain death…and then Pete was with me…the Doctor was screaming an'…well, then I was here. The tear between the worlds was sealed off…I couldn't get to him." Rose cries silently. "I'm sorry…I try not to relive it too often." She looks up at Jack and smiles weakly. "It's been eight years, but…it's still not very easy to think about it."
Jack nods and reaches across the desk to grab hold of her hand. "I know a thing or two about that."
--
"Have you seen my blue tie?" The Doctor calls from down the hall and Martha pokes her head out the door of her room.
"Which one?"
"The blue one!"
"They're all blue!"
The Doctor steps out into the hall, a look of annoyance written across his face. "They are not all blue. There's the violet one, the cerulean one, the spotted one…one has green stripes."
Martha nods. "Yes, but they're all mostly blue…even that horrible cheetah print you bought the last time we visited my folks had a light blue tint to it."
The Doctor sighs. "Fine, I'm looking for the solid blue tie…very dull. I wore it last week."
"The one that looks like it belongs to the host of a quiz show?"
The Doctor sighs again. "I suppose."
Martha nods. "No. Haven't seen it."
"Excellent," the Doctor says, a note of mild anger in his voice. "I was hoping to wear it when we dropped in on the prime minister of Heblargos 4."
"Sorry." Martha disappears back into her room.
The Doctor slowly returns to his own room, his head hung. He tries not to tell himself that Rose would know where his tie was…that Rose would have known which tie it was he was talking about in the first place.
That Rose would have been excited about tea with the prime minister.
--
"Anyway," Rose says, wiping away tears, "you haven't told me how it is that you got here. There aren't any tears in the universe, are there?"
Jack shrugs. "I honestly don't know. As I said, I got here by accident. I've been wandering through time for a while now…set up camp with Torchwood 3 in Cardiff. You remember the rift?"
Rose nods.
"Well, we deal with everything that gets washed up on its shores. Lots of Weevils and so on. Alien gadgetry, too. I guess this time I was the one that got swept through the rift."
Rose sits up a little straighter. "You can do that? Get washed through the rift?"
Jack nods. "I guess. It's never happened before, but I suppose it's possible…I mean, I'm here aren't I?"
Rose smiles. "How exactly—I mean…how'd you get through?"
He shakes his head. "I don't really know. If I did…well, I guess I wouldn't be here if I knew how to get back."
She nods and he can't miss the glint in her eye. "But you think there's a way back? A way into our world?"
He smiles. "Yeah, I think there is."