Warnings: mention of rape
Chapter 9
"You're going to have to come with me."
James felt torn with indecision. He knew the extended stress and lack of sleep and food were affecting his ability to think. There was a woman out there who needed his help. A woman who had tried to help Rose. A woman Harry Saxon had hurt. However, Rose wasn't exactly well enough to be going on the run. But she was in worse danger if what Jack said about Harry was true. That was it. He would not let Harry hurt Rose. That meant going with Jack. "Okay. But we need to eat, so either we take the food with us or you get us something to eat when we get there. I'll need equipment to deal with a gunshot wound, and I need Rose to be safe, so you'd better get that back-up here, soon." He saw Rose's look before he registered what he had said. 'I need Rose to be safe.' He didn't care. His gob was bound to give him away sooner or later but it was the truth, and there was something in the look that made that hope shoot through his veins again. He ruthlessly squashed the thought. She was injured and she was still in danger, and he needed to be a physician right now, not a love-struck fool.
"River already called in the back-up. There's a manhunt on for Saxon as we speak. We have food and medical equipment at the safe house. I brought a van, we'll take that. Let's go, I'd rather not be the agent that lost the legendary River Song, if it's all the same to you."
At Jack's safe house they found a very angry woman with curly hair and a bandage wrapped around her thigh. The bandage was soaked through with blood. Fortunately, the body of Jimmy Stone was not readily visible. He didn't want Rose to see the body of her husband even if the man had deserved it. She and Jackie had remained silent since Jack had pronounced Stone dead back at the house. The angry woman seemed to disregard her injury in favor of yelling at Jack when they entered the house. "Are you kidding me Harkness? You say you're bringing me a doctor and you bring James bloody Noble? Did you read any part of the file when they put you on this case? There's a team heading to his house to hide him as we speak!"
All four of them stopped at the injured woman's angry outburst. The only response James could muster to her bewildering statement was, "What?"
Jack did a little better. "What do you mean? I told you a friend of mine might have offered Mrs. Stone shelter and I was right. I went to see them and that's where I was when you called. James is a doctor."
"I know he's a doctor, Jack." She closed her eyes and sighed before she opened them and continued. "We'll have to get a security detail here. You really should read your bloody case files, Harkness." She grimaced, and James didn't know if it was from pain or frustration. He also had no idea why he would be in their case file. The injured woman, River, looked right at him then. "Saxon is obsessed with this man. We don't know why. But we know he's been responsible for a number of events in his life that were labelled as accidents. They were not."
James' confusion grew, and now there was anxiety and a deep sense of foreboding. He was afraid he didn't want to know, but he had to ask. "What do you mean? He… He raped my wife when we were teenagers and I haven't seen him since. He's never faced justice for that but it certainly wasn't an accident. Nor was it ever labelled as such."
He heard twin gasps from Rose and Jackie as well as Jack's muttered "Christ, James!" but his attention was focused on River Song as he waited for her answer. She looked at him sadly. "There was a fire. Eight and a half years ago. That was labelled a wiring malfunction. There was a hit and run accident. Four and a half years ago. No one was ever able to identify the driver. Saxon was responsible for both incidents. I'm sorry, James."
It was curious that one could find the sensation of blank white noise familiar. But he couldn't afford to fall into the same state of shock that he had four and a half years ago. The woman who had just delivered the unbelievable, earth-shattering news still needed his help, and more importantly, Rose was still in danger. He took a deep breath and gathered every ounce of his focus. He looked at Jack and saw that his friend understood the meaning of what she had said. He was pushing through the numbness when a terrible though occurred to him. Harry had burned down his parents' house, with them inside. He had had Romana and their unborn child run down. All out of some twisted sense of revenge because Romana had loved James instead of Harry. James hadn't even known that she loved him until after his parents were dead. What was to stop Harry from going after Donna to cause James pain? "Jack. What about Donna? If he just wants to hurt me, she's not safe."
River spoke up again. "There's a security team on their way to her as well. Jack, you need to call the team they sent to his place, so they don't panic."
"Right. Thank you." He looked back at Rose and Jackie finally. They still looked scared, but there was something else. He knew that they didn't understand what River had said. Well, Rose might understand the part about the hit and run, but they were both looking at him with compassion. Once again Rose's eyes held that thing that made that spark of hope jump in his chest. "Jack, please help Rose and Jackie, while I examine Miss Song's leg. Then I'll let you know what I need." For now he was going to be a doctor. Then he would do everything in his power to protect the women in his life from the monster who had once been his friend.
Rose sat in a state of shock on the twin bed that was the only thing, aside from the wheelchair she had arrived in, in the small bedroom she had been given at the safe house. Her mum had gone to sleep in the identical room next to hers an hour ago. There were two others rooms across the hallway, just the same. Rose knew that she needed to get as much sleep as she could while she could, but she couldn't shut down. The last twenty-four hours – had it really been only twenty-four hours? – had been far too much for her to process. Now her brain was moving in circles trying to decide what to focus on. She wasn't completely numb, but her emotions didn't match what she thought she should be feeling.
It wasn't quite midnight, so less than twenty-four hours ago Jimmy had beaten her and killed the child that she had been carrying. It was confusing to suddenly no longer be pregnant, even though she'd only know for a few weeks. There was sorrow for her child, and guilt that she had allowed Jimmy to do as he had done. She could have told him at the club and things might have been different. But there was also relief, and if she allowed herself to dwell on that there was crippling guilt that she could feel any relief from the death of her baby. She couldn't, couldn't think about that. Not yet.
But that wasn't the only life-changing, confusing, unbelievable thing. James' friend, the new bartender who wasn't a bartender, had said Jimmy was dead. Mr. Saxon had killed him before shooting River and escaping. As far as Rose knew, his body might be somewhere in this very building. She had had time, after the abuse began, to examine the decisions that had led to her marriage and she knew they hadn't been good ones. Looking back, Jimmy had always been contemptuous, and condescending, but she had been blinded by the attention, and the gifts, and the money. The thought of getting her mum off the estate. She wasn't sure if she'd ever really loved him, but she was sure he'd never loved her. To think that she was suddenly widowed… There was no denying the relief of knowing she was truly free of Jimmy. Some part of her felt that she should be sad that her husband was dead. She should be grieving him. But she couldn't, so there was guilt over that as well.
Mr. Saxon had always made her uncomfortable, and the thought that he might be actively hunting her, well, that terrified her. She had already been afraid of him before she found out he was some kind of evil criminal mastermind. Who had killed her husband. Who thought Rose herself was a threat to him. Who apparently had some life-long grudge against James. He'd raped James' wife? When they were just teenagers? The hit and run River had mentioned must have been her accident, so that meant he had killed her as well. She didn't know the significance of the fire River had spoken of, but she knew it meant Mr. Saxon had been torturing James from afar for a long time. It was a different type of abuse than what Jimmy had put her through, but her heart ached for the kind doctor's losses.
That brought her mental circle to the thing that was perhaps most confusing of all. James Noble. She was so confused by him. He had been unfailingly kind and supportive, from the first time she had met him. Asking about her black eye. Offering pain medication, even after she'd refused, but never ignoring her choice. Asking her repeatedly not to go back to Jimmy. Offering to hide her. Sharing the story of his wife's accident and the loss of his own child. She couldn't understand why he card so much, but she was so, so glad he did. She would have thought it was her pregnancy that had moved him, except that he had offered to hide her before she had told him she was pregnant. And there was that emotion in his eyes when he looked at her. No one had ever looked at her like that. Definitely not Jimmy, or any other boyfriend she had ever had. She desperately wanted to know what that look meant, but she was afraid she could never be anything but a burden to him.
She looked up when the door opened and James' head appeared. "Oh. Sorry. Thought this was an empty bedroom. I'll just-"His head started to disappear again.
"Wait." He stopped his retreat and leaned back into the room. "I just, I couldn't sleep. Can't shut my brain off, and anyway I'm pretty sure I'll have nightmares again. I thought I'd let Mum get a few hours before I go ruining her sleep with my dreams. Would you, um, would you just sit with me for a bit?" She looked around the plain room before returning her eyes to his. "This place is… I don't really want to be alone if I don't have to… But I understand if you want to get some sleep… Sorry, I shouldn't-"
"Of course." He entered the room fully and closed the door behind himself. There was a small amount of blood on his shirt, but his arms and hands were clean. That look was in his eyes again, and for a moment she wondered… No, that was an impossible thought. He wanted to be her friend that was all. She was lucky he wanted to be that. Anything else was an illusion, concocted by her emotionally starved and stunted brain. He was a doctor, and she was nobody, widow of a criminal, mother of a dead child she couldn't protect, a liability. She was broken, and she couldn't ask him to fix her.
He crossed the small room and sat next to her on the bed. He left a small gap of space between them, but his weight dipped the mattress, and gravity pushed her until she was leaning against his side. She looked up at his face and that look was still there. She could not look away from his eyes as she whispered, "I'm so, so sorry about what Mr. Saxon did to your wife." The grief of everything that had happened, everything that she had learned began to overwhelm her, and her shoulders began shaking with the sobs before the first tears fell.
His arms wrapped around her and she sobbed harder when he whispered into her hair, "Shhh. It's okay. Well, no it's not, but it will be." Then he just held her and let her cry. She cried for the child she had lost, and her failed marriage. She cried for the guilt of dragging her mother into her nightmare. But she also cried for the loss of James' wife and child, and for the unknown horrors that Mr. Saxon had inflicted on him. All of it hurt, so badly, but for the first time in a long time she felt safe in the moment. She felt safe in this man's arms while she cried for all the pain and guilt and loss. Finally, finally her tears were spent and still he held her. He must be exhausted, and still he stayed to offer her what comfort he could give. It was such a foreign experience. Jimmy had never been one for comfort, even in the early days. Then later it had been all pain. She had never had any man offer her so much and ask for nothing in return.
He was still holding her, and while she had cried, she had wrapped her arms around him as well. Eventually she looked up at him. She intended to thank him, and let him find an empty room for the night. They both really did need more sleep, and they expected to have to move in the morning, once a security plan had been made. But she found him looking down at her with such tenderness on his face, and their faces were so close when she looked up at him. Her words died in her throat. With the tiniest of movements, she pressed her lips to his. She let her eyes flutter closed at the soft touch, and for a moment, she felt a gentle return pressure.
Then he sat back from her with a slight gasp. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have… You've just been through… And I've…" He looked horrified, and she felt the sting of rejection at his reaction. He pulled back and stood. He crossed to the door before he looked at her again. Now there was pain and sorrow in his eyes, and she hated herself for putting it there. "I'm so sorry, Rose. Please believe I would never take advantage of you. Get some sleep, yeah?" Then he was gone.