Notes: I kept listening to the Ten/Rose farewell scenes to pump up the sad emotional energy I needed to write these last few parts. Imagining all this with Nine when he has a child to leave behind, as well as a beloved companion, is quite something.

Part 21 - Life and Death

Jackie and Mickey looked up as they heard the sound of feet coming through the front door, and they rushed from the lounge into the hallway to see Jack charge in with a very pale Rose in his arms.

Jackie suppressed a shriek and threw her arms round her daughter, holding her tight, until she then set eyes upon the Doctor as he stumbled in next, carrying Hope, the child both unconscious and equally pallid.

Jackie let out another gasp. "What have you done?" she cried, "What in Christ's name have you done now?"

The Doctor's eyes were red and heavy with fatigue, and he could do nought but give Jackie a long, lingering stare. Once upon a time he would have told her that it was she who had failed to keep his daughter safe, and that she was as incompetent an ape as the rest of her race, but he just wasn't that man any more. He thus walked past her without a word and went quickly into the lounge, where he lay his inert child across the sofa.

Jackie watched him go and then turned back to Rose, everyone's silence unnerving her. "Rose," she said, brushing her daughter's hair out of her eyes, whilst trying her best to hold back the tears. "What's happened, sweetheart? Have those aliens gone? Did they do this to you?"

Rose was disorientated and confused, but, like any caring mother, was more concerned about her daughter than anything else. "Is she all right?" she asked plainly. "Is Hope okay…?" She then swayed a little and passed out again against Jack.

Jack caught her and lifted her carefully into his arms. "She's had a rough time," he muttered.

Jackie bit her lip and nodded in response. "Come quick and get her into her room," she said, leading the Captain to Rose's room. Mickey followed them, too, and then both he and Jackie took over her care, whilst Jack took the opportunity to go quickly and check on the Doctor and Hope.

When the Captain walked into the lounge, he found the Doctor knelt on the floor beside his little girl. The man was very still and his posture seemed almost deathly. It was unnerving.

"Doctor?" he asked.

"There are a lot of injured people out there, Captain," the Doctor's tired voice replied. "They need your help."

"But what about you?"

The Doctor slowly rose his eyes and gave him a feeble smile. "I can handle this."

"You're not well."

"No, I'm not."

Jack sighed and glanced down at Hope. "Will she be okay?"

"Yeah. She'll be fine."

"Well… that's good."

There was a silence, until Jack attempted a smile and said, "I wish I'd never met you Doctor. I was much better off as a coward."

The Doctor gave him another limp smile and nodded. "Go back to your people, Captain. Help tidy up this mess. And goodbye."

Jack nodded, half of him wishing he could say more in what he knew was his final farewell to this man. "See you in Hell," he settled with, smirking jadedly, before he turned and slowly trudged away. He bid Jackie, Mickey and the unconscious Rose goodbye on his way out, then was gone.

Once Rose was comfortable, Jackie left her in Mickey's care, and came the Doctor's way, confronting him in the gloomy living room. She watched him as he sat there, huddled over Hope, stroking her brow with weak motions of his hand.

"They could have both died," she said.

The Doctor didn't lift his head. He only continued to stroke Hope's brow.

"When will you stop, Doctor?" Jackie continued. "Bringing all these alien threats here, and putting not just my daughter in danger, but your own, as well!"

The Doctor cringed, feeling a sharp pain building up inside of him whilst Jackie's voice grated on in the background.

"I'm talking to you, mister!" she ranted on, "Don't you ignore me!"

The Doctor felt his body convulse and he ground his teeth together, trying to keep the pain under control. He hadn't had the time to even get his head round what had happened, nor what it was he had done to save Hope, but it was all quickly catching up with him.

Jackie seemed oblivious to his plight, however, as she walked over in his direction, lowered herself by his side, and put her own hand to Hope's head. "She's got a temperature," she said with a sigh. "She's just like you, you know? Just goes walking off into danger, looking for trouble."

Her voice then paled as she felt a slight inkling of guilt filter into her mind again. "And I just couldn't stop her," she said, stroking Hope's face and clasping her little hand. "I said to Rose, before she was even born, that that Doctor of hers would make no child a good father, and look what's happened. My point's been proven."

But the Doctor made no reply; he was too preoccupied with what was happening inside his own body, and before Jackie even realised something was amiss, he had shot to his feet and stumbled backwards across the room, hurtling straight into the fireplace, where he knocked several ornaments astray. It was the smash as one hit the floor that finally got Jackie's attention.

"What are you--?" she began to shout until she looked at him properly and saw that he was in real agony. His face was white, sweat was pouring down his brow, and he was shaking so badly it frightened her.

She hesitated and took a step back rather than forwards. "Are you all right?" she asked.

The Doctor took several deep breaths before he managed to compose himself enough to say, "I'm dying, Jackie."

The breath caught in Jackie's throat as he said this and she didn't quite know what to do. She hazarded a faint laugh and said, "Don't be daft," trying to lighten the aura. "Come and sit down, I'll get you a drink of tea or something, and --"

"Oh, Jackie Tyler…" the Doctor interrupted, smiling despite himself, "so domestic, even now."

She quietened and was shaken a little as the man looked her straight in the eyes for once, and thus found herself saying, as if she knew she wouldn't have another chance, "I just want them safe, Doctor. I want to know that they're going to come home again. Maybe you don't know what that's like, or don't remember…"

"But don't you see, Jackie?" he countered, not breaking their stare for a second, "We're never safe. Not really. It doesn't matter whether you live day-in and day-out in a London suburb or you travel out to the fringes of the universe, you can never be certain of what's coming round that corner next. You might fall under a bus tomorrow or live to be a hundred - no one ever knows for sure. That's why we can't live our lives in fear, or try to prevent the mildly probable when there's so much more that's plain possible." He took a breather and closed his eyes as another surge of pain shot through his limbs. "That's what I've wanted to show Rose, Jackie. That life is for living. It's wasted on so many of you."

"Oh, you can say all that fancy stuff," Jackie returned tetchily, "but some of us live ordinary lives and are happy that way. I know Rose is besotted with you, but she's wasted a lot of time waiting for you to come back, raising this lovely little girl on her own, and when you finally do turn up, this is what happens. You've put all their lives in danger! People have died, half of London's burning, and I hate it - I hate never knowing whether you or Rose, or Hope, are ever going to come back again!"

He made a strained smirk, knowing that half of her words were very true. "Well, at least you won't have to worry about me much longer," he muttered. "I'm not going to be here."

"But you've got a daughter now!" Jackie protested. "You have a responsibility toward her. You can't just leave her to grow up without a father. Not like Rose had to."

The Doctor smiled weakly once more. "She'll have a father. Trust me."

"And what about Rose?"

He glanced downwards and sighed. "Jackie," he said at last. "Can you tell her…?"

Jackie watched as the man framed his mouth around the beginning of a word, but no sound emerged.

"What?" she asked, trying to urge him on with several steady nods.

The Doctor closed his mouth and rallied himself for another shot. "Tell her--" he whispered, but the words that should have followed fell silent on his tongue. He tried to force them out, but they just wouldn't come. He then jumped in surprise as he suddenly felt Jackie's hand on his arm, splintering his concentration.

She smiled at him and said, "I'll tell her."

The Doctor frowned, searching her eyes until he realised she understood him completely. He smiled in return, before he closed his eyes as a nauseating spasm traversed his frame, a sure-fire sign that his body was breaking from within. He then lowered himself to his daughter's side one last time and planted a farewell kiss on her brow, then got up and rushed out of the flat without a single look back.

He stumbled out of the door, hurtled down the colonnade, and found himself half running, half falling down the flights of steps, his unwieldy legs buckling beneath him and making him crash into the barriers and ricochet of the walls. Out of the door he ran, the pain overcoming him to such a point that he saw little but a storm of white dots littering his vision. He was thankful that he made it to his faithful TARDIS in time, the blessed cocoon in which he would shield himself until this slow and painful death had transpired, and yet another resurrection would begin.

The metal grating clattered as he rushed through the door and collapsed onto the floor, and he then finally allowed himself, in this private sanctum, where no one but his faithful ship could bear witness, to cry out in anguish. He curled his body into a ball and ground his teeth together again, willing the pain to stop as, slowly, his every cell gave up on him, and opened themselves up to that unique miracle of the Time Lords: regeneration.

TBC…