Moonlit Revelations

As it was already late in the day, the promised supper was sent down within the hour, then the trio retired to separate rooms to rest and clean up. Rose had followed Jackie into one of the rooms when they'd arrived with a quick, apologetic glance, leaving the other room for Jared. He understood. Down, boy. Slow, he told himself for the umpteenth time.

A couple of hours later, though, restless and bored, he knocked softly on their door. Jackie opened it with the news that Rose had slipped outside for a bit of fresh air a while before, promising not to go too far. He padded quietly down the stairs and out the side door after her, but there was no sign. Flipping a mental coin, he turned right and followed the walls around to the back side of the carriage house, out of sight from the main buildings. Turning the corner, he spied her leaning against the stone outer wall in a tiny alcove, arms wrapped around her torso, staring up at the quarter moon. Too dark for him to make out her expression, he halted a few feet away and whispered, "Rose?"

She jumped and shot a startled glance at him before turning abruptly away, sniffing hard and wiping at her face with one hand. When she didn't turn back or speak, he stepped closer, pleading, "Don't shut me out. Whatever you're thinking, or feeling, please tell me, even if it's hurtful. Please, Rose."

Finally, she looked back at him, her tragic eyes melting his heart. Then she sniffed again, and started talking to the stars, obviously struggling for a normal tone. "I was just wondering... which one of us was meant to be the consolation prize for the other. Me for the TARDIS, or you for..."

She stopped, and he supplied it, though the word was a dagger in his chest. "Him." Her gaze fell to the ground, and he went on, forcefully. "Well, if it has to be one of us, then it must be me, because you are not a consolation prize, you're the prize – and I don't mean that in a sexist way. You think he kicked me out? No, I jumped ship, because wherever you are, that's where I want to be, TARDIS be damned. Rose, I love you, more than anything."

Her head was already shaking no, and she stopped him with a look. "How can I believe you? If you're him... how can I trust you? … He dumped me, like a... a stray dog." Her emotions had pulled her around to face him fully, and she flung her arms out sideways, questioning. "Is that what he does? Is that how he operates? He picks us up and carries us along for a while, like... like pets, and then just dumps us off somewhere when we're no longer convenient?"

He tried to break in, "No!", but she rolled on, relentless. "And if one of us tries to get back on board, it's... 'oh, sorry, your ticket's already been punched, you're past your expiration date!'" She scoffed. "He'd already gone through two companions after me. Two! Including Miss 'Best Friends and Equals'! How many has he had? Did either one of them know my name?"

Finally he broke in. "Yes, Rose, they both did – and Martha left because of you. Because he couldn't see her for seeing your ghost."

She scoffed again, stopping him, then said quietly. "That's easy for you to say – and I'm not saying you're lying... but I'm still standing here – in the wrong world, no less." A beat, then she repeated, helplessly, "How can I trust you?"

He gazed sadly at her as the truth of her words washed over him. Finally, he shook his head. "You can't. You've got no reason to, not now. All I can do is ask you, beg you, to give me a chance. A chance to earn your trust, and win your love. Please, Rose. I swear... I'm not going anywhere, except where you lead. And I'll do anything to keep you safe, and make you happy. Even..." Reaching mentally for a memory, his mouth quirked at his catch. "Even get a job and a mortgage, and buy you a house with carpet – and doors."

If he had hoped to lighten the mood, it didn't work. Instead, her face twisted again, and she looked away. "You've really got all his memories, then?"

He considered a moment. "As far as I know. At least, I'm not sure I'd really know if there were any gaps, but I don't think there are. I'm quite sure I remember every moment he... I... ever spent with you, right up to the moment he diverted the excess energy into the hand. I don't know what happened to him after that – "

A thought suddenly struck him, and he broke off, gasping, gazing off past her head into the middle distance of memory and idea.

"What?" she asked sharply.

"I... was just thinking..."

"Well, think out loud, dammit! Don't shut me out, either! I need to hear it..." she pleaded.

He brought his attention back, hastily agreeing, "All right, I will..." His hands had reached automatically to soothe her, but he hesitated, not knowing if she'd welcome the touch. She noticed, her eyes flicking at his hands then back to his face, but said nothing. She didn't exactly encourage him, but neither did she flinch away, so he resumed the reach and gently touched her upper arms with just his fingertips.

"That last memory," he began haltingly, "was so full of emotion. The reason he diverted the energy was because he didn't want to change away from the body – the man – that you loved, that you'd come back to. But I wondered if somehow... without meaning to, I'm certain... if somehow he transferred all the love to the hand, to me, as well. And I ended up with the lion's share of it. And if he knew it, if he realized it after, that may have been part of why... he did what he did." He shrugged. "I don't know... it's just a crazy idea. All I know is... I love you, Rose. I love you so much. I'll follow you anywhere." His hands had slipped onto her arms, gripping gently. "Please, Rose. Please give me a chance? That's all I'm asking for. No commitment more than that."

Her eyes slowly filled with tears again as she stared into his, then finally, she simply nodded. "OK." He began to sag with relief, when suddenly she flung her arms around his shoulders, as she had done a thousand times before, and they held each other close, ignoring the tears streaking down each face.

He held her, so tightly, so close, so precious, as the moonlight slowly drifted across the nook, their pale shadows on the wall shifting several inches. Without conscious design, their heads shifted, and their lips met again for the first time since the beach. Slowly exploring these new sensations, they tasted each other again and again, and, liking what they found, pressed on, while the heat gradually rose within.

Suddenly he broke away, pulling his head back and gasping for air. No respiratory bypass system flittered irrelevantly through his mind. I'll have to remember that.

"Don't stop," she pleaded softly.

He looked back down into her eyes again, half afraid. "Rose... if I don't stop now, I won't stop," he warned huskily.

"Don't stop," she immediately repeated. She watched the realization of what she was asking reflect in his eyes. "I need this. I need to know..."

"What?"

"That I'm more than just a friend to you, a companion. I need to know that you see me as a woman, not a... a pet." She deliberately chose the shocking word she'd discovered earlier.

"I do..." His voice was raw, aching.

"Then prove it." Half challenge, half desperate plea.

He started to lean in to kiss her again, but then stopped cold. Very cold. "Against a freezing stone wall, outside in the cold night? I don't think so." Stepping back, he ran his hands down her arms and took both her hands in his. "Come here... Come inside..."

She let him pull her forward, then he turned with her, slipped his arm back around her, and led her to his room.

^..^

"Jared?" Her voice a few hours later was the softest whisper, more breath stirring the hair on his naked chest than sound waves reaching his ears. He pitched his voice to match.

"Yes?"

"I... I need you to promise me something."

He never hesitated. "Anything."

"About... the anger? The violence?" Her palm rested on his chest above his single heart, making her meaning clear. He took a breath to reply, but her fingers moved instantly to his lips, silencing him. "No.. let me finish." He nodded.

She spoke slowly, feeling her way. "I need to know that... whatever direction you go in after we get back... home..." He noted the shift in her wording, unspoken acknowledgment that Pete's World was home now. But she was continuing... "... that you'll hang on to them until then." He blinked, frowning. That was NOT what he'd been expecting.

"I need you to promise me that you'll do whatever is necessary to keep me – and Mum – from being captured by the Nazis."

He stared up at the ceiling, almost invisible in the darkness after moonset, utterly nonplussed. "Why does that scare you so much? You faced Daleks, Cybermen... you were their prisoner, and you never flinched."

She took several soft breaths before she was able to reply. "Daleks and Cybermen... don't routinely gang-rape their female prisoners." A beat, while that concept, completely out of left field, washed through his shocked brain. "That's what happened to the Jackie of this world. She and Pete were working for the Resistance. But they... they were betrayed by an informant, and captured. Pete escaped after a few days, rescued by the Resistance, but they couldn't get to Jackie. She..." Rose buried her face in his shoulder for a moment, then forced herself on, brokenly. "She died after... ten straight days... chained to a bed in an Army barracks. They didn't even feed her..."

Jared gasped slowly, icy horror swamping his skin. He tightened his arms around her torso, hugging her even closer, but she suddenly raised herself up on one elbow, her huge, solemn, frightened eyes staring into his in the gloom. "I need you to promise me that you'll do whatever it takes," she repeated, "to make sure that doesn't happen to me or Mum. Even if it means saving the last two bullets."

His head shook involuntarily. "I don't think I can kill you, Rose." Quickly, before she could speak, he put took her head in both his hands, tenderly. "But I promise... I swear... that I will not let them take you. Either of you. I swear it, Rose..."

She stared back, gauging his sincerity. Hating herself for asking, as much as she hated the necessity behind it, "And you'll fight them off if we're cornered? Instead of automatically surrendering, like y – like he always did?"

Another deep breath, as a hundred memories of frantically surrendering to overwhelming odds in hopes of finding a way to escape later crashed through his head. He nodded, knowing that even though that escape had always come before, it might not again here, and might not come in time for her or Jackie if it did. "I swear it. They'll never touch you. Never."

Accepting his anguished promise, she leaned over and kissed him deeply, tenderly. Gratefully. Then she settled back down on his chest again, listening to the single beat of his heart.

Suddenly another memory popped into his head, a more recent one. "Hang on... you said... you said the Rose of this world was a Nazi..."

He felt her flinch, felt her face crumple against his skin, felt the splash of a single tear. A long, silent sob, before the soul-chilling answer came, whispered into the dark.

"She was the informant who betrayed them..."