Chapter Twenty
When Donna was eight years old, Nerys had dared her to climb to the top of a set of scaffolding on the business estate near them. At the time, she and Nerys were best friends and the Unfortunate Incident that saw an end to their friendly relationship and the beginning of their cold war that entered a detente when they both needed it hadn't happened yet. As such, Donna didn't think twice about scrambling up the rickety metal frame, swinging from one level to the other without too many bruises or scraped palms. As soon as she got to the top, her confidence and courage faltered. It was higher up than she imagined and after an experience when she was five when she was positive she could fly, she knew that it was going to hurt if she fell.
Nerys called up to her, her own doubt slipping in as though suddenly imagining her best friend squashed like a fly on the concrete, and tried to encourage her back down. Not one to turn her back on a challenge, Donna turned her back so that she faced the metal rail and gripped it beneath her. Taking a deep breath, she tipped herself backwards and the world upended itself. With extreme caution and her red hair falling down like a waterfall, she released the bar and let herself hang off the edge of the scaffolding.
All the blood rushed to her head and her fingers prickled with pins and needles but she laughed, excited at the thrill that ran through her. Her exhilaration lasted all of seven seconds before she slipped, hitting the stand of the scaffolding and grabbing herself before she fell towards the ground. Nerys screamed so loudly that a flock of birds was sent into flight, the flapping of wings deafening Donna as her heart hammered in her chest and her first true near-death experience made itself known in the bottoming out of her stomach.
A sensation that she felt some thirty years later when she regained consciousness from the chloroform that had invaded her lungs. The gaping hole below her yawned like a giant's maw and she stared into the black abyss, certain she was in the midst of a nightmare she wasn't able to escape from. Her arms and legs were trapped at her side, and she was only able to move her head back and forth. Panic at being restrained and so high up caused the air in her to expand and rush out of her in a scream filled with terror and an anger that was threaded through it.
How dare the Racnoss imprison her?
It was her wedding day.
Or at least it was supposed to be.
Although she hadn't understood most of what Zoe and Jack had been talking about before they started arguing, she remembered them talking about what was potentially at the bottom of the hole the Racnoss had been drilling. The thought of baby, planet-eating spiders below her filled her with more terror than hanging over a black chasm might normally do. Her body automatically twisted against her twined restraints before common sense kicked in that maybe freeing herself when there was a long fall below her wasn't the best idea. Instead, she dragged in a deep breath and hollered.
"ZOE!"
"Will you shut the fuck up?" A painfully familiar voice hissed. "No one's coming!"
Donna's head turned slowly, eyes wide and mouth wrapped around Zoe's name, she found Lance caught in the Racnoss's disgustingly sticky web next to her. He looked furious and clammy, the collar of his shirt damp and an annoyed expression buried beneath all the other emotions he felt. At the sight of him, her heart gave a funny jerk; pain bloomed out from its centre.
Ignoring him, she screamed again. "LET ME DOWN!"
"Oh, yeah, that's going to work," Lance mocked, exasperation filling him. "She's going to come right over now and just let you down with an apology. Good thinking."
Cheeks flaming red, her chest heaving with exertion, her eyes darted about the parts of the room she was able to see but nowhere did she see Zoe or Jack. A new source of fear unearthed itself in her: she hoped that the things that had taken her hadn't killed them.
She felt sick at the thought of them being hurt: a strange protectiveness niggled at her when she thought of Zoe no longer breathing and Jack's smile never to be seen again. She was positive that the strange woman, who seemed to be in the midst of a tangled personal life, was clearly competent and more than a little odd, but it was as though her nerves were open to the elements, and it made Donna want to mother her in a way she never normally felt. The idea that the two of them might be lying dead somewhere dragged a sob up her throat; she swallowed it down before she gave Lance the satisfaction of seeing how frightened she was, both for herself and her new friends.
"This is all your fault," Donna hissed around the thick fear in her throat. "You got us into this."
"Give it a rest," he complained as though she was nagging him to do the washing up again. "What was I supposed to do? She needed someone to use, and you were the easiest choice."
She bristled. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You were all over me from the first time I looked in your direction," he said, cruel. "It was pathetic."
Donna's throat moved with a pained swallow, her lips wobbling as she tried not to cry as how deep his words cut. She thought of her grandfather and his soft, loving hands and the scratch of his beard against her skin when he rubbed their cheeks together. And she thought of her father who let her curl up against him even as her mother clucked her tongue and chided her for being too old for that, who tucked her hand into his arm when they were out as though he couldn't bear to be parted from her even for a moment. She let their love strengthen her, a reminder that even if Lance thought she was stupid and her own mother felt she was a disappointment, there remained Wilfred Mott and Geoffrey Noble to remind her that there were two men in the world who were decent and kind.
"Did you really think she was going to take you with her?" Donna asked, proud that her emotion didn't get the better of her and she sounded as strong as she hoped she one day would be. "Zoe's right, she'd have eaten you on day one."
Lance scowled. "Still better than spending another night with you."
A flinch ran through her: all the diets she had done, every exercise programme with Nerys, the hour every morning she spent carefully applying make up before he woke up felt worthless and humiliating now.
"No one forced you," she snapped. "You didn't have to do it like this. We could've just been mates."
"Why would I be friends with you?" The insult sliced through her. "At least I got a shag every now and then, even if I had to close my eyes."
To her humiliation, Donna felt tears burn their way into her eyes and thicken her throat. Every single moment she remembered feeling bad about her body – catching her reflection in a shop window, sucking her stomach in when she was seven and wearing a swimsuit, her mother's constant comments – slammed back into her. She felt the fat hang off her, weighing her down, and she wanted gravity to grab hold of her and pull her into the chasm so that she didn't have to feel awful any more.
She dug her nails into the flesh of her palm, thinking of Zoe and Jack who had to be coming for her if they weren't dead: two people who had been nothing but kind and lovely even while in the middle of a tense reunion that she didn't understand. We're made of star stuff, Zoe's voice murmured in her ear, and Donna breathed. The ghost weight of Jack's arm around her shoulder, the splendour of the universe before her, and strength seeped back into her.
"I hate you," she said, calmly: hate sank into her bones. "I really do."
"We are well beyond that now," Lance scoffed. "Just do us both a favour and keep your mouth shut, yeah? I'm trying to think."
She snorted. "What're you going to do, Indiana Jones it?"
"I might if I can think of something," he hissed.
"Please, you couldn't think your way out of a box," Donna shot at him. "This wasn't your plan. This was hers. You just follow orders, you don't think for yourself, you never have. I always had to make our plans – where to go to dinner, what you should wear. You're not capable of thinking for yourself."
"You're one to talk," Lance snapped. "All you ever think about is getting what everyone else has. You're so desperate to get married and have kids that you didn't care I didn't want to marry you, you just kept pushing and pushing."
Her stomach twisted, humiliation prepared to consume her once more. "What's wrong with wanting a husband and kids?"
"Everything!" The exclamation echoed around the room. "It's so normal and boring, which sums you up, doesn't it? You're the most boring person I've ever met. Having to fake an interest in bloody Eastenders, Big Brother, whatever Nerys was doing, what your granddad was talking about – it was all it took for me not to drown myself in booze every night."
"You hated every second?" Memories of their time together that Donna thought were fun and some of the best she ever had, soured under his words. "We've been together for six months. We live together. How can you –?"
"Because you forced it," he interrupted before laughing, cold and hurtful, thrilled at the chance to finally make his true feelings known. "Made it easier to give you the huon energy though. Those little coffees in bed that you gabbed on to Nerys about, you had no idea."
Donna felt lightheaded for a whole new reason, part of her almost welcoming the threat of the Racnoss's children.
"But why me?" She asked, desperate to know. "It can't just be because I was the only one making it easy for you. Nina down in Accounts was all over you, so why me?"
Lance stared at her and, for a moment, Donna let herself believe that somewhere in the cruelty that wrapped around him he felt guilty for what he had done. The brief moment passed and his face twisted again.
"You were stupid enough and desperate enough to want it," he said, giving a strange half shrug in the web. "All I had to do was show you just enough interest and you took it the rest of the way." He snorted and shook his head. "Pathetic, like I said."
If it were possible to feel all the pain she had ever experienced in her life from being rejected by the first person she tried to kiss, Nerys's red face as she screamed at her upon the Unfortunate Incident, and every single moment since then, Donna was certain it didn't come close to what she felt that. Being told that she was pathetic by someone she loved, had hoped to marry and have children with, it took what little dignity she had left and turned it to dust with simple words. In the moment she knew that she was always going to hear his voice. It didn't matter what happened next, whether they survived and lived on opposite sides of the globe or if they died, his voice was always going to be there, haunting her.
There was nothing to say to him, her soul scraped hollow, but not having something to say had never stopped her in the past. She opened her mouth to lambast him again, hoping to cover her pain with her anger, when there was a loud electronic sound followed by a brilliant flash of light. When her vision cleared, Donna's mouth dried out at the sight of the Racnoss's Empress.
The light glimmered off her skin, her multiple eyes blinking up at them, lipless mouth spreading in a wide, unpleasant smile.
"My golden couple," she hissed up at them, enjoying herself. "Together at last."
Her sharp tongue clacked against the roof of her mouth, the roiling hiss of laughter tumbling from her.
"Let me go!" Donna yelled, wriggling again. "Just let me go!"
"But you're going to be together for you awful wedded life." The Empress laughed, pleased with her joke. "Tell me properly, do you want to be released?"
She gritted her teeth. "YES!"
"You're supposed to say, I do," the Empress complained.
"You're alien, what d'you care about that?" Donna asked, bewildered. "What are you doing up there? Watching bloody rom-coms and soap operas?"
All of the Racnoss's eyes narrowed. "Say it!"
"Huh." The sound Lance made was a mix of fear and derision. "Not a chance."
"Say it!"
Always one to do as he was told since Donna believed he lacked any ability to truly think for himself and, as she would later tell the therapist Zoe was going to introduce her to in a couple of years, that was possibly why she liked him so much to begin with, he reluctantly forced out, "I do."
And although it was far from how she imagined she would be saying those words that day, Donna wanted to live more than she cared about scuppering the Empress's petty triumph that would last only as long as her attention did.
"I do," Donna said, quickly.
Not that it made any difference as the Empress laughed. "Well, I don't! Activate the particles. Purge every last one!"
Bracing for the pain that Zoe had hinted at, it never came. From the corner of her eye, she saw a golden glow and she looked to Lance, horrified to find the huon energy wrapped around him and peeling itself from deep within his marrow. A horrible, contorted expression of pain washed over his face, and she struggled against the web in an effort to help him. She didn't know how she could, all she knew was that she needed to as he was in pain and she couldn't bear to watch it.
"Why would you drink it, you idiot?"
Lance groaned, the tendons in his neck straining as the huon energy turned bright and blinding. "You stupid cow...she did it!"
Donna whipped her head around to the Racnoss who was watching the entire process with a hungry, gleeful look on her face.
"Stop it!" The cry burst free from her. "Stop it, please! He was helping you! Don't do this!"
The Empress ignored her. "And release!"
Blooming from Lance like a golden cloud, the huon energy left his body and flew straight down into the hole where the power of it kept it visible for far longer than something normally would. At her side, Lance slumped in his restraints, groaning faintly, sweat dripping from the end of her nose. She tried to reach him, rocking in the web, but she was unable to come close to touching him.
"Lance," she hissed. "Lance, are you okay? For Christ's sake, are you okay?"
He groaned again, working his mouth as a full-body shudder shook through him. "Fucking – shut up, you loud bitch."
Donna released the breath she was holding, relief giving way to anger. "Serves you bloody right, you prat. This is karma for you."
He groaned for a final time, blinking slowly as he regained feeling back to his limbs, twitching his fingers against the web.
"The secret heart unlocks," the Empress cried, delight suffusing her words. "They will waken from their Sleep of Ages."
Donna struggled harder: if Zoe and Jack were dead, she was the last person able to stop the children from rising up and feasting on the Earth. She had no plan and absolutely no idea of where to start, but she figured if she was able to blow something up then she might make a difference. Someone needed to do something and she was the only someone there to do it.
What would Zoe do? She thought, attempting to gnaw herself free.
The answer was obvious based on what she had seen of her: bullshit her way into a solution.
"That's not a good idea!" Donna shouted, teeth aching from the strength of the web. "Your children will be killed when they come up here!"
Lance managed to slide his eyes towards her. "What're you doing?"
"No one will touch my children," the Empress replied, clicking her tongue and snapping her teeth. "My children are the long lost Racnoss, now reborn to feast on the flesh on humans. My babies will be hungry. Your pitiful race won't stand a chance."
"We stood a chance against the Daleks!" She flung the words down to her, hoping they might mean something but the Empress simply tracked the progress of her spaceship as it slipped into the atmosphere and began to descend. She searched her mind for the other races Zoe and Jack might have mentioned. "And the Sycorax!" Nothing. Her mind threw up one other name, overheard between Zoe and Jack when she was sitting quietly. "And – and the Time Lords!"
That landed.
The Empress turned so sharply that something cracked, her constellation of eyes staring up at her, fearful and furious.
"What?"
"That's right," Donna replied, full of a bravado that kept her going. "The Time Lords. The big bad ugly Time Lords. Yeah, that's right. They came here looking for a fight too, and we gave them a fucking kick up the ass. Damn right we did. Didn't we, Lance?"
In hindsight, she considered that she probably shouldn't have trusted her would-be husband to support her lie when he had proven himself to be a cretin of the highest order.
"She's lying, there are no Time Lords!" Lance yelled. "Let me go, and I'll help you like I have been."
"You are the worst person to ever exist," Donna hissed, cheeks slashed red. "God, I could bloody kill you!"
"Now there's an idea," the Empress laughed, relief rolling her many limbs. "My sweet children need food for the long climb up. Good bye, funny little Lance. You've been awfully helpful."
Donna's eyes flew wide as she understood a split second before it happened. "No, don't!"
The web on Lance's side weakened, the weight of his body fraying at the edges as the Empress loosened the strands. He gave a desperate, terrified sound of pain that started low in his throat and promised to reverberate through Donna's life before the web snapped and he plummeted. Arms and legs spinning, his horrified scream growing fainter and fainter until the chasm swallowed him whole, Donna stared after him, numb and shocked.
"There now," the Empress said, pleased. "It's just us girls."
"Do you ever think that people are right about us?"
Zoe tore her eyes away from the spot where Donna was supposed to be and looked at Jack, shame coiling through her at her careless, hurtful words. He looked much as he ever did: calm and unruffled but she had known him since she was a teenage girl and saw the tightness beneath his mask. Taking in the way his mouth turned down ever-so-slightly at the corners, she rubbed her chest and tried not to worry about Donna. It was a hard thing to do since the woman was supposed to be under her protection and she had allowed herself to be distracted by an argument. It was different when it was just the two of them. When they were all together, they could argue, gossip, or simply grow distracted as much as they liked, confident someone else would pick up the slack.
They had forgotten in their hurt and anger that they were alone.
Remembering that he had asked her a question, she dropped her hand. "What do you mean?"
"That we talk too much during these things," he replied. "Zach, Scooti, and the others mentioned when we were on Krop Tor, though I suppose you missed most of the complaining since you went for tea with the Devil." Her eyes rolled before she was able to stop herself. "Ricky, Jake, and Mrs Moore had the same thing to say."
"Queen Victoria had a similar complaint if I remember right," Zoe agreed. "I mean, maybe there's something to it, but it's not like someone's been kidnapped before today. We're generally good at making sure that doesn't happen."
"Weren't you knocked unconscious once?"
"What, in Rome or on Saturn's Rings?"
"I was thinking of Saturn."
Zoe remembered their afternoon at the shopping complex orbited just above the rings of Saturn where she had, in fact, been rendered unconscious. Not through negligence on their part but rather an enthusiastic toddler the Doctor had purloined from its mother had taken his sonic screwdriver and accidentally compressed the air around Zoe's ears, knocking her out for a few minutes. Later she discovered that no one had actually noticed her past out on the ground until Rose turned around to ask for her opinion on a jacket she was trying on and found her slumped in the rails of clothing.
"That wasn't exactly the middle of a situation," she pointed out. "And the Doctor more than made up for it later."
The downturned corners of his mouth threatened to lift upwards. "Oh?"
"He bought me a few new books."
His mouth drooped again. "Figures even your sex life would be boring."
"I think we've said enough hurtful things to each other today," Zoe said, "we don't need to add more."
That drew a smile from him. "You're right. In hindsight with Donna now missing, maybe that wasn't the best time to have that argument. I'm sorry for picking it."
"I'm sorry for what I said," she added. "You know we don't actually think you did what Raphio accused you of, right? Not a single one of us believes it. The Doctor thinks it's a load of hogwash – his exact words, by the way – and that anyone who thinks you're capable of something like that is either a liar or certifiably insane. We all agree with him."
A sigh rolled through him. "I wish I had your confidence."
"Never thought I'd Captain Jack Harkness say that," she teased with a hint of hesitance about her. He shook his head and gave her a gentle nudge, putting aside their argument to focus on the present. "I think Donna's probably safe for the immediate present. I don't want to risk leaving her with the Empress for too long. We're going to have to sort this sooner rather than later."
"Agreed."He pulled out of his phone and removed the small, portable battery he had taken from the TARDIS when changing his clothes and pressed the two together, charging it. "I'm going to call UNIT and fill them in. I think flooding this place might be a good idea to deal with the children but Mum's going to jump to the ship to escape this. That makes it Rose's problem."
Zoe touched his elbow to start him walking forward, the two of them moving at a quick pace to head back to the main laboratory where it was safe to assume that Donna was going to be there. She hated the thought of handing the problem of the spaceship off to Rose who she was positive would be able to deal with it, but the urge to take care of everything herself and handle the situation in isolation surged through her. She knew what Yatta would say if she was there but she also knew what Yatta was going to say when Zoe told her about how her first trip back to Earth in two years had gone.
"Rosie, hey." Jack's change of tone from serious to cheerful made Zoe turn her head. "So, we've got a small problem."
"Just one?" Rose asked. "That makes a change. What is it?"
"Donna's been kidnapped, and we're going to have to flood the base," he said without missing a beat. "Can you get Ianto ready to remotely detonate the charges on my mark? Things are going to get hot here once we get going."
There was the sound of a small conversation happening out of the range of the microphone before Rose came back. "Ianto's pretty excited about blowin' up some stuff. Y'know, for Ianto."
Zoe frowned while Jack laughed, a reminder that she had missed things that the rest of her family experienced: a sharp reminder that her actions had consequences.
"Good man," Jack said. "We think that when we start kicking everything off down here, the Empress is going to jump to her ship. Rose, she can't be allowed to escape."
"Agreed," Rose replied. "You'll give her a chance though, right?"
Zoe and Jack exchanged a look, communicating silently before he responded, "of course."
"Okay, I'll have it covered up here," she promised them. "Just be careful okay, both of you. I don't want to be explainin' to Mickey why his boyfriend drowned."
Jack snorted. "I can hold my breath for ages. Just ask him."
"Gross!" Zoe's face wrinkled as Rose gagged on the other end. "Why would you even tell us that?"
"To see that expression on your face," he said, winking. "Rosie, I'm going to keep the line open but I don't know if it'll stay open. I'm not sure how long this portable charger will keep it topped up for so tell Ianto to not prematurely blow us up."
There was another muffled conversation before Ianto's Welsh tones flowed down the line. "Your continued survival, sir, is rather relevant to my own plans, so rest assured I will do my best to keep you and Ms Tyler alive and well."
"Thanks," Jack said, amused.
He dropped his phone into his pocket and cupped his hand around Zoe's elbow, pulling her low and to the side of a desk. The Racnoss was holding forth in what they assumed was a grandiose final monologue, their eyes drawn to both Donna and Lance trapped high above their heads in a web. Donna looked furious, which comforted Zoe: angry was better than scared any day. Anger meant that she would respond well to instructions and not freeze during their rescue attempt; scared generally meant being knocked unconscious, which made rescuing a person much more complicated.
"Still afraid of heights?" Jack asked under his breath, assessing their options.
"Only when I'm up high," she said.
He grinned. "I'll rescue Donna then. Can you deal with the robots?"
"Easy peasy." Zoe had already clocked a functioning computer close to the wall behind the Racnoss that shouldn't be too difficult to hack since the Empress clearly hadn't expected anyone to find her lair; at least no one she hadn't been able to eat, that was. "She's going to be a lot harder to reason with though."
He made a sound of agreement in his throat. "We should offer because that's the right thing to do and Rose asked us to, but we both know where this is going, right?"
"We do," she agreed. "I don't like it but I like the idea of her out in the universe with her kids even less. Can you imagine what she'd do to Níphikân if she ended up there?"
Jack shuddered. "I don't want to think about –"
Donna's sudden scream ripped through them, Lance crying out in horror. They both froze and stared at the sight of Lance falling from the web, plummeting into the chasm beneath him, his screams fading until they were gone. Zoe's eyes locked on Donna: her face pale and frightened but also tight with anger. Her heart went out to her as it was never easy watching someone die, especially when months had been spent loving that person, no matter how he turned out.
"Go now," Zoe encouraged. "Before she gets sick of Donna."
"Good luck," Jack said.
"You too."
He pressed a fleeting kiss to the top of her head, dipping off in low, hunched strides that took him through the shadows of the room to circle around. Rolling her neck and shoulders, Zoe took the alternate path where, as predicted, the computer system wasn't difficult to dig into. She tapped into the robots operating system and set them to permanent sleep mode in five minutes so as not to alert the Empress to their presence before Jack was ready to rescue Donna. She felt the pulse of her blood strongest in her throat, her veins pumping harder as she silently clambered up the metal steps and waited, just out of sight, watching Jack.
As he slipped around the back of various machinery and lifted himself up, Zoe tried to focus on her breathing. Her trip home wasn't unfolding the way she hoped it would though, she considered, perhaps dealing with a world-threatening situation was the best way to come home as it meant she was distracted from the inevitable tears and anger that she knew were coming her way. She wouldn't have wished such a bad day on anyone, let alone Donna who definitely didn't deserve the pain that she was in, and she almost missed Jack's signal so lost as she was in her own mind.
One furious gesture from Jack later and she flung herself out of the shadows, catching hold of the railing to stop from falling over the edge. "Empress!"
"Zoe!" The relief in Donna's voice reminded her of the seriousness of the situation. "You're alive!"
"Sorry about this," Zoe apologised, grimacing. "We kind of dropped the ball there a bit."
"Stop your prattling," the Empress ordered, the top half of her body twisted to look up at her, annoyance evident on her face. "You are being quite annoying, human!"
"Yeah, you'd be surprised how much I hear that," she admitted, Jack swiftly climbing up the side of the wall with sticky grips that came from his ever-useful bag of tricks. From the hole in the ground, scuttling noises of the Racnoss's children climbing the sides started to reach her ears. "Seriously, ask anyone. I am deeply annoying."
The Empress hissed. "I believe it."
"I'm sure you do," Zoe said, straightening her spine and looking down on her. She drew on Reinette's strength and the Doctor's generosity of kindness, funnelling the characteristics of the people she loved into this moment. "I'm asking you politely to leave this planet. You can't have it."
"It's already mine." Her tongue clicked and her lipless mouth pulled back over her sharp teeth, black-red gums bared. "My children formed it. I'm taking it back."
She shook her head, refusing to give into the urge to check on Jack and Donna to make sure they were getting along well. "That's not going to happen."
"And what are you going to do about it, little human?"
"What I have to," Zoe said, gripping the rail in front of her so as not to let her doubt show. As she had told Yatta, she didn't trust herself fully after everything but she did trust Jack and he agreed with what had to happen next. "This planet is protected, not just by me but by others too who, if you kill me, won't let you accomplish this. We're not going to stand by and let you hurt it. I understand that you want your children, so take them. Go. Let me help you find somewhere that you can live and not harm anyone ever again, a place where you can feast and never grow hungry."
In the silence, Zoe risked a glance up: so quick she only saw flashes of Jack hanging from the web as he cut Donna free, her hands wrapped tightly around a thick strand of webbing. Her stomach clenched, frightened that he was going to fall, wishing she hadn't looked after all.
The Empress snapped her pincers, furious. "I'll tear the flesh from you and use your bones to pick my teeth."
Vivid, the Doctor's voice murmured in her ear.
"Then I'm sorry for what's to come."
Everything seemed to happen all at once. The Empress called out for her robots to attack Zoe who waited, unafraid, as they took a step forward and raised their weapons only to still, the timing even more perfect than she had hoped. At the same moment, Donna was screaming, terrified, as she swung through the air towards solid ground, and Jack was falling, twisting mid-air to activate the Vortex Manipulator as he shouted loud enough for Ianto to hear –
"Now, do it now!"
He disappeared in a whirl of light and burning ozone before he disappeared into the abyss, and Donna crashed into the wall with a groan. Throughout the building, the foundation rocked. Zoe tipped to one side, catching herself before she jumped over the edge of the railing and hurried to Donna, helping her to her feet and looping her arm around her waist, holding her upright.
"Are you okay?" Zoe asked, tightly.
Out of breath, Donna nodded. "What's happening?"
"We're saving the planet," she said. "Just hold on tight to me."
In front of them, the Empress reared back on her hind legs and kicked out at the air, a look of confusion, heartbreak, and panic on her face. "No! No! What's happening?"
"I told you," Zoe said loudly over the deafening sound of water crashing through the building towards them. "This planet's protected by more than just me. I gave you the chance to start a new life elsewhere but you turned me down. This was your choice, not mine!"
Donna cried out as the water battered into them. They would have been swept off their feet had Zoe not reached above them and wove her fingers through the grating of the metal staircase above her. Her muscles strained, and she grunted against the force of the River Thames flooding the base. Frozen, filthy water swamped her knees and calves, Donna's arms tightening around her neck.
"We're trapped," she panicked.
"Jack's coming with the TARDIS, just like before," Zoe promised. "Whatever you do, don't let go."
"As if," Donna scoffed, grip growing even stronger. "You keep saving my life."
The water slammed past them and rushed down the hole to the centre of the planet like it was draining through a plug, and the Empress scream with such grief and despair that it sliced through Zoe like a hot knife.
"No! No! Don't! No!" The Empress slipped on the ground, all of her knees buckling as she tried to save her children whose screams were heard, for the briefest of moments, above the rush of water. " No! No! My children! No! My children! My children!"
Donna lost her footing, hands sinking in the back of Zoe's top 's wet, frightened of being swept away. "Zoe!"
"Jack's coming," Zoe repeated, unable to tear her eyes away from the Empress who was caught in a grief she had seen in both Reinette and the Doctor: the pain of losing a child, let alone children, never left a person and she felt sick. To her relief, the whine of a transmat beam was lost beneath the noise as something in the building cracked and broke in two, the Empress disappearing with her mouth gaping wide in a grief. "He's coming."
As if on cue, the TARDIS materialised into existence close to where they were, the water providing no issue to her appearance. Unable to let go as they would be swept away if she did, Zoe grit her teeth and waited for Jack to open the door. The second he did, she squeezed Donna's waist.
"Let go," she ordered. "Jack's going to catch you."
It was a sign of the trust they had been able to build in Donna over their time together that she let go without a moment's hesitation. The water carried her swiftly past the TARDIS where Jack caught her arms easily, dragging her inside. Moments later, he pulled Zoe inside too and shut the doors swiftly.
"Right," he breathed, eyes wide and a grin on his face. "Let's get out of here!"
There was a moment when Kate Stewart gave the order to open fire before the tanks began to unleash their ammunition on the ship in the sky when Rose worried how badly the Doctor was going to judge her for not doing more to stop the death of the Racnoss. It lasted long enough that the first impact of one of the new missiles developed under Harry's new defence bill took her by surprise and she jerked at the sound of it echoing down the open line from the field to her. On the screen, the ship jerked, bits of it falling free and tumbling towards the drained Thames where mud and silt were thrown up from the riverbed.
It attempted to escape, rising high in the sky, unable to fully escape the missiles that did what they promised and more. Rose stood still and silent in a room full of still and silent people, Harry's presence at her side a comforting one as his hand rested on her shoulder while they waited. When the ship finally exploded, it did so with such an explosion that the shockwave of it shattered the glass of a 10km area and made the ground shake with such force it affected even them. She found herself on the ground, hands pressed against the flagstone, Harry's body curved over her head and shoulders in protection. Huge plumes of dust burst free of the Tower of London that was going to worry architects for days about the stability of the building before it was determined that all was well.
In the silence that followed, all that could be heard was Ross Jenkins breathing over the open line. Their man on the ground for the final push, he was overseeing everything personally and they all knew better than to react without visual confirmation from him: early celebration had no place at UNIT.
There was a crackle and a distant whoop before Jenkins spoke in that calm and steady way he had.
"Target neutralised,"
Mabel took off her head set and punched her fists in the air. "Yes!"
Celebrations echoed around the room, hands clapping on colleagues' backs, and Rose peeled herself out from under Harry's torso. She leaned against him as she stood up, looking around and trying to find some of the joy that the others were able to enjoy. She swallowed and pulled her phone out, glancing at Ianto who signalled that both Zoe and Jack were alive and well. A knot of tension eased in her chest, her fingers shaking as adrenaline started to drain out of her, a strange buzzing sound pressing against her ears.
"Ianto, have a team ready to go and check the wreckage," Kate ordered, not missing a beat. "Take Dr Taylor with you. I want this cleaned up as soon as possible so we don't have a repeat of opportunists stealing something they can sell on the black market."
He nodded, reaching for his coat. "Yes, ma'am."
Kate turned to look at Rose, the smile dimming slightly on her face at the sight of her. "Rose, are you okay? You look a little stunned."
"I'm fine," she lied, managing a smile. "Good job. You did great. Not bad for your first time doin' this, right?"
"We'll see how the review goes later," Kate laughed, lightly. "Thank your sister and Jack for me when you see them?"
The thought that she was finally going to see Zoe struck her, and the trembling her her hands increased so she crossed her arms over herself and nodded. "Of course."
"And Mr Saxon." Kate's eyes flicked over him. Despite the lack of warmth that often greeted him when he arrived at UNIT, Harry didn't let it bother him, and he smiled sunnily at her. "Thank you for your assistance."
"My pleasure, Dr Stewart," Harry said, hand resting on Rose's back. "Do you need Rose for anything else, or can she go home for much overdue family reunion?"
"I wouldn't dare keep her from her sister."
"In that case, we'll see ourselves out," he decided, not giving Rose a say in the matter, and she found herself grateful for the lack of choice as it meant she didn't have to think about whether or not she actually wanted to see Zoe despite the hunger she had been experiencing for months for exactly that. "My wife will be pleased I'll be home before midnight. She does enjoy her traditions does Mrs Saxon, and champagne and grapes at midnight is a small thing but it makes her happy."
"I'm sure it does," Kate said, not sounding the least bit interested at the insight into his marriage, her eyes fixed on Rose. "I don't want to see you here until after New Year's at the earliest. Let other people deal with this. Take some time at home with your family. Heaven knows you deserve it after the last few months."
Rose hesitated: while the allure of time off was strong, she felt guilty at leaving everyone else stuck with the clean up before nodding, deciding that she could slip in earlier if she wanted to, certain no one would actually say anything against it. "All right."
After a fleeting hug from Mabel, who twisted herself over the back of her chair to say her goodbyes, and a kiss on the cheek from Ianto, who seemed happy to be working over his first Christmas without Lisa, Rose left UNIT with Harry. They were silent as they signed out of the building and broke out into the freezing night. She felt off kilter, the adrenaline of being called in to deal with the situation, Zoe's return, and then the death of the Racnoss hit her all at once; she stumbled, reaching out to stop herself, and Harry caught her, keeping her on her feet.
She swayed, lightheaded, and he caught her again. Arm around her waist, he guided her to the bench they had earlier sat on and had grown covered in a fresh pillow of snow. He swept it clean and sat her down on it. A sense of floating high above her body wrapped around her, and she shivered, his hands clasping hers as he crouched down in front of her and gazed up into her face, concerned. She tried to focus on his face, blinking as the Doctor's old face swam in her mind, pressing tears into her eyes.
She missed him. That him. And the suddenness of it caused the tears to spill over.
It had been a year, more or less, since his regeneration, and she began to find it increasingly difficult to draw breath.
Harry rubbed his hands over hers, warming her fingers, and when he spoke, his voice was pitched low and comforting."What's wrong?"
"I don't know." He put his fingers beneath her chin and tilted her face up so that she could look at him. Her mouth wobbled. "Harry –"
"It's okay," he said, soft and comforting like Lucy had taught him. "You're okay."
Her laugh sounded hollow even to her ears. "Am I?"
"It's been a hard day."
"I've had harder."
"That's just sad."
It drew a small smile from her, and she wiped at her eyes, sniffing. "I don't know – it's just...there were children on that ship. Babies that hadn't been born, an' I just stood there an' let them die. The Doctor –"
"The Doctor isn't here," he said with enough bite that he worried he had gone too far, pleased that she was distracted enough by her wet storm of emotions to notice. "And they were children that would grow up to eat planets. Apparently."
"I know." She sniffed again, and he reached into his pocket in order to stop her making that sound again. He held out his handkerchief and her trembling fingers took it, pressing it to her eyes and drying her cheeks. "I don't know what's goin' on with me right now. I'm sorry."
"It's okay," he told her even though humans that leaked disgusted him. Lucy, fortunately, didn't. He thought she was incapable of it, glazing over and getting lost inside of herself instead, which he thought was much better. "You'll feel better once you've had some time to rest."
She shrugged. "Maybe."
"And once you've seen your sister," Harry said. "You've been waiting for her and she's home now. You'll get to see her before the night's over."
"Yeah."
He raised his eyebrows. "Anticlimactic?"
"A bit," she admitted.
"Come on, scooch." Harry stood, stretching his knees out, and she stared up at him, confused. Seizing the opportunity to push things between them a little further along, he slipped his hand under her thighs and put his arm around her shoulders before picking her up. She yelped, startled, skin flushing red when he sat down with her in her lap. "I wasn't about to sit in snow now, was I?"
"You did earlier!"
"Well, now I've decided I don't like it," he said.
"Harry!"
"Yes?"
"You're –" she struggled to find the right word and settled on the one she knew would annoy Zoe the most if she was there to hear it. "Impossible."
"Thank you."
"Wasn't a compliment."
"Still..." he leaned back, hand coaxing her with him until she rested against his chest, forehead close to his. When he turned to look at her, their faces were barely centimetres apart and it was easy to track the becoming flush that spread across her pale skin: humans had such easy tells. "I've been told that sometimes all that is needed is to be held."
Rose huffed, stomach fizzing with discomfort and excitement. "What if someone takes a picture?"
"I think we're the last thing on people's minds today," he assured her, smoothing a hand down her back. "You don't have to go home. You can come back with me. Lucy would be delighted."
She hummed at the thought. "Temptin'."
"The guest room is always yours," he told her.
The thing that Harry liked about Rose – putting aside how delightful furious the Doctor was going to be when he realised how entangled in Rose's life he had situated himself – was how easy she was to manipulate. It hadn't taken him long to discover that affection and kindness were her drug of choice and, once he figured that out, he was able to hook her and reel her in without a problem. As long as he moved slowly and calmly so as not to spook her, he doubted it would take much longer to have her pliable in his hands.
For so many years he had wanted to get his hands on one of the Doctor's twittering human companions and break them, both for the pleasure of doing and for the thrill of watching the Doctor's face when he realised what had been done.
It really was, at the end of the day, the small things in life that brought him the most joy.
"It does have a comfortable bed," she agreed, relaxing into him. "I'm thinkin' of runnin' away."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, to Mexico or somewhere," Rose said. "Zoe ran away so I reckon it's my turn."
"Choose somewhere better than Mexico," Harry told her. "You could take the TARDIS from her. Who says that it belongs to her now?"
"She, not it."
He resisted rolling his eyes: the Doctor's insistence on personifying his TARDIS was almost as disgusting as his physical relationship a human. "Of course."
"An' I don't know, I guess it's because she's Zoe an' she's datin' the Doctor an' everythin'," Rose continued with a shrug. "I wouldn't mind runnin' away with the TARDIS though. We'd have fun."
He rubbed her back again, and the soft fall of her hair was gentle against his neck when she tucked it there. "Where would you go?"
"Somewhere peaceful," she sighed. "Where stupid sisters can't bother me."
He smiled. "Stay here then. She'll leave eventually."
"Don't say that." The quick flip-flop of her emotions threatened to send him deeper into the madness the Time Lords always thought he had possessed. "I don't want her to leave."
I don't see why, he thought as Zoe Tyler was incredibly boring and somewhat predictable for a human who had spent long enough around the Doctor to pick up his mannerisms. Rose, at least, surprised him every now and then.
"People like her never stay put for long," Harry said instead. "But she'll come back."
She sighed again. "I hope so."
He turned and pressed his nose into her hair, breathing it in. She didn't smell bad for a human, though her shampoo was overpowering in its fragrance. All of humankind tended to drown themselves in scent. He didn't know how the Doctor handled it, remembering the first time he had smelt the aftershave Arkytior bought for him on the Doctor's skin, a joke gift that he kept using. He didn't know how he was supposed to deal with the constant olfactory assaults, headaches threatening to blind him if he spent too long with humans who weren't Lucy. He was lucky that Rose didn't smell that bad even with her fragranced hair.
"How do you feel now?"
"Better."
"Good." He wanted to go back to the manor and see Lucy. The two of them had a trip planned: he had, after all, promised to show her the stars and it was about time he lived up to his word. "Would you like a lift back?"
"No, I'll be all right," she said, beginning the process of unfurling herself from him. "There's goin' to be a car knockin' around for me. There always is."
"One of the benefits of being a VIP," he agreed, rising from the bench a moment after her, the seat of his pants unpleasantly damp. "Let me walk you to your car at least."
As Rose predicted, a car was waiting for her near the entrance to the Tower of London. Crowds were moving down the street near them as they clamoured for a look at the empty River Thames and the destroyed spaceship, crunching over the broken glass under their feet. It delighted him that he was going to get public credit for his handling of the situation while Harriet Jones was going to have to deal with the fallout. The thought of it put a small bounce in his step, waving Rose's driver off to open the door for her. He reached around and opened it, blinking when she turned to face him, eyes intent.
"Thanks," Rose said, as though steadying herself for something. "For everything."
Once again, she surprised him.
She rolled up onto the balls of her toes and pressed her lips to his cheek. She hadn't done that before, and he couldn't wait to tell Lucy that he was inching closer in his plan to draw Rose into his web. His hand caught her shoulder, holding her in place, mind racing as he tried to determine whether turning his head to catch her mouth was worth it when she stepped back, a nervous smile pressing into her mouth that he suddenly, and much to his surprise, found himself intently focused on.
He remembered their night at the gala not too long ago and the slash of red lipstick she had worn. He wanted to see it smeared across her face as he kissed it off her. He blinked again, taken aback by the desire.
"See you at your New Year's party," Rose said before disappearing into the car.
He stared at the tinted window, positive she was looking back at him as the car pulled away from the side, the spot on his cheek burning from her light kiss, and he felt a grin pull across his face.
Perfect.
With a gentleness that belied everything they had been through over the last few hours, Jack deftly landed the TARDIS at the end of Donna's parents' street in Chiswick. The TARDIS yawned widely through their minds, letting them know that she was quite content to sit and rest for a day or two and making it perfectly clear to Zoe that she wasn't leaving Earth until she was good and ready. Zoe brushed her hand over the console, a silent thank you for coming through for them as she always did, before she looked to Donna who had a white-knuckled grip on the safety rail.
"Is that it?" Donna asked, shaken. "It's over?"
"Yep." Zoe flicked one of the switches on the TARDIS and smiled. Behind her, Jack ran his fingers through his hair and stretched his jaw out, looking the slightest bit tired and ready for a whiskey. "Everything's been taken care of. The Racnoss are gone, the threat has been dealt with, you're no longer in danger, and all the huon energy has been sucked up by that little device there." She pointed under the console but Donna didn't look. "I know it's not the wedding day you expected –"
Donna snorted and released the rail. "You don't say."
"But you're back home safe and sound now," she continued. "And I think that makes today a fantastic day, don't you?"
"Home?"
Jack stretched his arms high above his head, something popping in his spine, and he smiled around a yawn. "Go have a look. You'll find Chiswick right outside that door if I'm not mistaken, and I very rarely am – oof."
Zoe poked him in his exposed abdomen and grinned.
Forgetting to be pleased that whatever bad feelings had precipitated their earlier argument no longer seemed to be a problem, Donna let her feet carry her to the door. All day she had worried that she wasn't going to see her parents again, squashing it down deep inside of her, and she didn't dare hope that home was right outside. Grabbing the handle, she opened the door to the TARDIS and stepped outside, relief flooding her at the sight of her parents' home just down the street. There was Mr Faisal's ugly Christmas decorations and Old Pat's Hallowe'en pumpkin rotting beneath the snow, and Lexie's awkwardly parked Peugeot that had, impressively, three wheels on the pavement instead of the usual four.
She hurried towards her parents' home and paused, looking through the lacy curtains that her mother argued were fancy but had only been bought because they allowed her to spy on the neighbours more discreetly. She saw her parents sitting in front of the TV as they watched the news, bodies pressed together in fear. Nerys was there too, her twins presumably asleep somewhere upstairs, as she moved back and forth in the bridesmaid dress she described ugly than Donna's attempt at a perm. She had a phone clasped to her ear, calling anyone who might have seen Donna, and she felt a pang of great fondness for her friend.
"I'm home," Donna breathed, eyes closing and her hands pressing to her stomach. "I'm really home."
"Safe and sound, just like I promised," Zoe said.
Donna looked back at her. It was on the tip of her tongue to chastise Zoe for stepping outside without a coat on when Jack emerged, draping one around her bare shoulders. Instead of saying anything else, she nodded to the TARDIS.
"She's a strong ship," she said. "A lot stronger than she looks. Kind of like you."
Zoe's mouth twitched. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You might want to try eating a hamburger or two every now and then," Donna recommended. "You've got some muscle to you but you look like a stiff breeze is going to knock you over if you're not careful."
"Don't worry, I'll feed her up over Christmas," Jack promised. "Or at least my boyfriend will. Besides, the TARDIS was never in any danger. She survives everything."
"Lucky thing," she said, acutely aware of everything she now lacked. "More than I've done at any rate."
"Don't sell yourself short," Zoe replied. "You're on your feet. After everything that's happened today, you're still standing. Yeah, okay, you've taken a bit of a beating emotionally, and you're going to need time to recover, but you're alive and breathing and standing up right. Trust me when I say that you've survived."
"I suppose," she said with a heavy sigh, letting her words sink into her to play at a later date when she was feeling weak and vulnerable. "But I still missed my wedding, lost my job because we blew it up, and became a widow all on the same day. It doesn't feel like I've come out of this well."
Jack nodded, sympathetic and kind. "I'm sorry about Lance. He might've hurt you but he was still someone you loved. How're you feeling about him right now?"
"Hatred." The word slipped out before she had a chance to think about it. "A lot of anger, but a lot of grief too. I didn't actually want him to die."
"We know," he assured her. "We heard you trying to talk your way out of the situation. You asked for him to be spared. That's a lot more than what many people would've done in your place, considering. When you're trying to get over this, remember that you did everything you could, and you were braver than you should've ever had to be."
"Jack's right," Zoe agreed. "And it's going to be so hard to work through this. Really hard. But you will work through it. And I know it doesn't seem like it now but there's going to come a day when you look back on what happened and realise that nothing you could've done would've changed what happened. So try not to beat yourself up about it, yeah? Give yourself a bit of grace as you start to recover."
Donna wanted to beg them to stay with her. Their words and their kindness and their gentle way of being were exactly what she wanted but she saw the way they leaned against each other, united by something stronger and more painful than what had happened that day, and she knew they would never stay. The thought of going with them wouldn't occur to her until weeks later when she was standing barefoot in the sands of Egypt, looking up at the night's sky and wondering where they were at that exact moment.
"I'd better get inside," she said, reluctant to say goodbye but eager to feel her father's arms around her and her mother's food in her stomach. "Everyone'll be worried."
"You safe is going to be the best Christmas present they've ever had," Zoe said, smiling. "Even if you do hate Christmas."
Jack started, offended. "You hate Christmas? How can anyone hate Christmas?"
"It's boring," Donna said with a shrug. "All that fake festive cheer, having to be happy? It's awful. Like Bridget Jones."
He blinked. "Who's that?"
"You haven't seen Bridget Jones?"
"He's from the future," Zoe explained, and it was a testament to how her day had been that Donna didn't even question it, though she did think that it explained an awful lot about Jack's appearance: no modern man could ever be as physically attractive as he was, even with cosmetic surgery. "We're still catching him up on films, music, and all stuff."
Donna bobbed her head in understand. "You should watch it. It's good."
"It's going on the list," Jack promised before she was under the full force of his attention. "Are you going to be okay?"
"Like you said, I'm still alive." To her surprise, she honestly felt that she was actually going to be okay. She knew it wasn't going to be easy but there was something about Zoe and Jack that let her know that it was possible to survive something awful and flourish. "That's something. It's a good place to start."
"It's more than something," Zoe agreed. "But what do you think you'll do now?"
"Not get married, that's for sure." She knew that she needed to do a lot of self-reflection and try to figure out why she had let herself fall for Lance when the warning signs were so clear in hindsight. Before she even thought about another relationship, she had to focus on herself first and put everything else second. "And I'm not sure. Maybe I'll go travelling. See a bit more of planet Earth. Walk in the dust I saw."
"I highly recommend Jamaica," Jack said. "It's a gorgeous place."
"Nah, France is the way to go," Zoe replied. "Go to the Louvre and you'll see yours truly in a painting there."
"What, seriously?"
"My wife liked to paint, and I was indulgent."
"I bet you were." A smile slipped onto her face before it dimmed, just a little, as she took Zoe in. "What about you? What are you going to do?"
"She is coming home with me," Jack said, arm going around Zoe's shoulders before she had a chance to answer for herself. "She has a family to see and apologise to. And then we're going to eat all the food that my boyfriend has made."
"He's right even though I can speak for myself." She dug her elbow lightly into his chest, and Jack twisted away from her with a laugh. "I'm going to go home for a bit. More than a bit probably. I have a lot of important relationships to start mending. Apologies to make. That sort of thing."
"Good, I think you need that," Donna said, seriously. "Because whatever you've been through, whatever it is that you two were fighting about earlier, even I know that life is short. You shouldn't argue with the people you love. Not when spiders could kidnap you and try to eat you."
She watched as Zoe and Jack looked at each other. Zoe's eyes closed when she rested her forehead against Jack's chin, the peace that exuded from them made Donna ache with jealousy.
"She's a wise woman," Jack said to Zoe's forehead. "We should listen to her."
"Life is short."
"Even for you."
Donna twisted her fingers into the hem of her borrowed shirt before asking the question at the forefront of her mind. "Am I every going to see the two of you two again?"
"Oh god, I hope so," Zoe said, gratifyingly quickly. "I really, really hope we do. Come here."
She stepped out from under Jack's arms and hugged Donna who hugged her back just as tightly. Donna found herself laughing when Jack came up behind her and wrapped his arms around the two of them, the warm press of being in the middle of them filling her with comfort and safety. When they let her go, she missed them immediately.
"Merry Christmas, you two," she said.
"Merry Christmas, Donna," Zoe replied.
Mickey sprayed the disinfectant on the last countertop in the kitchen and applied elbow grease to his damp cloth as he cleaned away the remnants of pastry, dough, flour, melted chocolate, ice cream, and some of the stew that had splashed onto the faux marble top. Behind him, his friends were sitting with cups of tea and freshly made chocolate cake with the frosting melting off the sides as he had applied it too early so that it was ready for when Rose came home. He was listening to Rose detail her experience even as he kept himself busy, knowing that he wasn't going to relax until Jack walked in through the front door and he could see for himself that his boyfriend was alive, healthy, and with all limbs exactly where they should be.
"And that was it really," Rose said, finishing her tea. "We were lucky that Torchwood were paranoid enough to put bombs in the walls of the buildin' otherwise it might've gone differently, but it worked out in the end."
Leia burbled tiredly against her aunt's chest, exhausted from her sugar high but unwilling to sleep without a story from her Uncle Jack.
"The life you lead," Sabrina said, shaking her head in disbelief. "What's going to happen now?"
"Clean up," she said as Mickey poured her a fresh cup from his gran's Christmas teapot that had Jesus's face stretched wide across the china in a way that everyone found deeply disturbing but ignored because it was Rita Smith's Christmas teapot and tradition demanded they used it. "UNIT's goin' to be busy over Christmas."
"You're not goin' to be there though, right?" Mickey asked, unscrewing the top of Jack's whiskey and adding a small splash to the liquid. "You're supposed to have Christmas off. We agreed."
"I'm not expected in until after New Year's," she said. "I promise."
He gave her extra whiskey for that. "Good."
"Thanks, babe." She sipped her tea and let the alcohol warm her through. "You should sit down. I'm tellin' you, Jack's fine. Ianto was in touch with him right up until the end when they took Donna home. He's good. He an' Zoe are probably on their way home now as long as they don't get distracted by anythin'."
"It's the by anythin' I'm worried about," he admitted. "You know what they're like. An' the TARDIS for that matter. She'll probably take them somewhere an' get them in trouble because she's bored."
"Don't go blamin' the TARDIS for Zoe's bad pilotin'," Rose replied, clicking her tongue. "They'll be here."
He grumbled his assent and, behind his back, all four women exchanged a fond look of amusement at his behalf. Mickey fussing and worrying wasn't a new thing to Rose but the others were entertained by how much of a mother hen and worrywart he really was. Letting him clean the kitchen back into its usual pristine state, Rose turned the conversation away from aliens and onto Sarah Jane. She was due to start working again in the New Year having secured a project to write the biography of the former secretary general of the United Nations and it was clear that she was eager to get back to work instead of simply lounging around the house in recovery.
"I wouldn't exactly call it loungin'," Trisha said, stroking Leia's cheek as the little girl released a frustrated whine. "You've been recoverin' from a pretty severe spine injury."
"Po-tay-toh, po-tah-toh," Sarah Jane dismissed with a wave of her hand. "My hands haven't exactly been injured, have they?"
"Most people enjoy not having to work no matter what the reason," Sabrina pointed out. "And didn't you write a few articles anyway about the human cost of the attacks. I read somewhere that there's talk of a Pulitzer."
"There's always talk," she replied. "I'll believe it when it actually happens. The closest I ever came was my reporting on the Iran Hostage Crisis and that was in 1979."
"I've seen your Wiki page," Rose disagreed. "You're a dirty liar."
Trisha snorted into her tea. "She's overly modest, not a dirty liar."
"Po-tay-toh, po-tah-toh," she shrugged to a wave of laughter that, when it died down, had her head tilting to one side, her heart jumping. "D'you hear that?"
Mickey paused and Sarah Jane's face lit up. Through the windows and the walls of the house, the sound of the universe reached them, growing louder and louder and louder until it seemed to swallow them hole. Rose kissed Leia's head and pressed her into Trisha's arms, jumping out of her seat and nearly knocking Mickey over who caught her, steadied her, and then pushed in front of her. There was a chaotic rush out of the door as they tripped over each other, Sabrina helping Sarah Jane up and out of the house while Trisha wrapped Leia in her soft blanket to keep her warm, following behind all of them as while she knew Zoe, it was very much a distant relationship that hadn't had the chance to develop into something more like her friendship with Rose.
She emerged from the house just in time for her jaw to drop. It wasn't that she hadn't believed Rose and Mickey when they spoke about travelling through time and space – it was difficult not to believe when Jack existed every day in front of her – but the sight of the TARDIS breathing itself into existence was something that she could never have prepared for.
Her breath was stolen but her state of stupefaction was missed in Mickey and Rose's nervous excitement.
The TARDIS finished its materialisation process, settling comfortable on the pavement opposite them, and there was a long moment of shivering expectation as the snow fell before the door opened and Jack stepped out.
"Thank fuck." Mickey closed the distance between them in a heartbeat, arms around him and a kiss that bordered on indecent and inappropriate. He melted into Jack's arms and breathed in deeply when he released him. "I was worried sick."
"I'll always come home," Jack murmured his promise, forehead resting against his. "I'm fine though. Sorry for worrying you. How bad has the baking been?"
"We've got way too much food," he confessed, and Jack laughed before pulling back and patting his pocket. "I've got the milk you wanted. I didn't bother about the wine because of the TARDIS."
Mickey laughed, relieved and shaky. "You absolute tosser."
Jack grinned, kissing him once more, before looking over his shoulder to smile at Rose who had a tight, unblinking stare on her face. He twisted back and rolled his eyes at the empty door behind him. "Zoe Tyler, get out of here right now or I'll come in there and drag you out!"
Later, in the hazy days between Christmas and New Year's, with a stomach full of food and enough alcohol in his system to make things easier, it struck him as funny the way that Zoe tentatively stuck her head around the door. Her hair was absolutely everywhere, and she looked terrified at what sort of greeting she was going to receive. All the anger he had felt at her over the last few months drained at the sight of her.
His sister was home.
Nothing – nothing – else mattered.
Behind him, Rose released a strangled sound and she staggered forward, her knees weakening but she didn't hit the ground. She just stared, silent and unmoving. Jack clicked his fingers at Zoe as though summoning a misbehaving puppy, and Zoe's body followed her head around the side of the door. He immediately took in how skinny she was, how tired she looked, how alone she seemed without the Doctor at her side, his fingers threaded through hers and his mouth running away from him at a hundred miles per hour.
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.
"Hi."
The single, unimpressive word fell into the space between them. Mickey didn't know how to react but, fortunately, Rose had no such problem. Gone was the shock of actually seeing Zoe again after five months was gone and, in its place, was the hot, encompassing Tyler rage that whipped out of her shrouded in tears.
"Hi?" The way Rose repeated the word highlighted the lack of suitability of it, and Zoe looked down at her feet. "You took off an' all you have to say to us is hi?"
Zoe looked uncertain. "Hello?"
"Don't be cute!" Rose's fingers curled into fists at her side. "You left us! You left me! An' now you come back an' just –" words falling her, she stomped her foot into the snow on the ground, pressing her footprint deep. "I hate you. I really fuckin' hate you."
Zoe's face crumbled. "Okay."
No one moved. It was Rose's move to make, and they waited in silence and growing awkwardness before Rose sniffed and was moving so swiftly that Mickey was certain she was going to strike her sister across the face. Instead, she slammed into Zoe, who who rocked on impact, and broke into deep, gasping sobs that tore through the air and the hearts of all those who heard them. Zoe's face rolled through a series of painful emotions before her face cleaved in two and she started sobbing as she hadn't done since the Doctor and Jackie were torn away from them: marrow deep and torn straight from her soul. The two Tyler sisters sank to the ground in front of the warm orange light of the TARDIS, clutching at each other, sobbing so loudly that nothing else was audible.
Jack coughed lightly, rubbing a hand across his face, and the balloon of anger in Mickey's chest burst, relief flooding him. His family was still incomplete: the Doctor and Jackie were still lost to them for now but one member of his family was exactly where she belonged, back in the arms of her sister and ready to be swept up into the hearth of Mickey's home.
"Not a bad Christmas present, yeah?" Jack asked, nose bumping against Mickey's cheek. "Merry Christmas, love."
Mickey closed his eyes and smiled.
For now, this was enough.
To be continued in part four of the series
To be released in late 2023