Title Mercurial Rhythm

Chapter Seven

Rating T

Summary The Doctor, Rose and Jack stop on a planet for little bit of shopping but what starts out as an innocent expedition ends up being a trip full of a lot of interesting conversations…okay, someone else write my summary for me.

Pairings/Spoilers The Doctor(9)/Rose and takes place just after The Doctor Dances

A/N Thanks to saganamidreams for the betaing. Thanks to everyone for reviews, its been great

Chapter Seven

Shortly after the Doctor's somewhat gloomy departure, Jack poked his head around her door. Jack never knocked, just opened the door and looked in.

"Hi."

He didn't wait for an invitation, just wandered in to stand beside her bed. Rose noticed Jack looked cheekier than he had any right to look and suddenly it dawned on her that he must have been the one to leave the book on her bed.

She threw a pillow at him as hard as she could; he caught it and perched on her bed, sticking his hand out, grabbing the book and reopening the hologram. "Ginfies?" he asked.

"Yeah," she answered curtly. "Beyond your time."

He scanned back to the pictures. "Yeah, but I can understand the interest." Rose just sighed, "So how far does this go?" Jack asked.

"I dunno, four hundred thousand, I think."

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "But you've got the point now?"

"What point? It's very interesting, but I don't really see the point." Even then she could feel herself lying, a little to Jack, a lot to herself.

He just sighed, frustrated, and changed topic, "The Doc says you're not coming out today? Too interested in your little book, not that he knows that, he thinks you're bored with him. Rather horrible of you though, looks like he's just been told someone died."

She huffed. "How could I ever get bored of him?"

Dropping the book carelessly on the floor, she stood, intending to kick Jack out and get changed to go with them. Her interest in the book was quickly diminishing as she began to realize just why she'd been given it, and that her fascination with it was likely caused by the same reason.

Jack had no intention of letting her avoid the subject, and he grabbed her wrist, holding her immobile She made a half-hearted attempt to pull away, but gave up when he showed no sign of letting go.

"If someone with a better space ship turned up and offered to take you with him on better adventures, would you go?" he asked seriously, intent on her reply.

Rose looked incredulous and refused to answer.

Jack just upped the intensity, eyes locked with hers Uncomfortable, she quickly replied, "No, of course not."

"How come?"

"I dunno, 'cause I'd have no idea who he was."

"As far as I can tell, you had no idea who the Doctor was and you went with him."

Rose pouted, "That was different." Jack raised an eyebrow. "Well, he had just saved the world."

He just shook his head. "Okay," he said, changing tact. "What's more important: the adventures, or the man you have them with?"

This was quickly turning into the conversation she'd escaped from the day before. "It's about the adventures, seeing the universe, but, I mean, obviously I have to like him, and I have to trust him. But, the adventures would still be just as fantastic with someone else, provided they were reasonable people and I trusted them too." She was babbling now, figuring if she just kept talking Jack would give up.

Jack just grinned, and that could only be bad for Rose. "But you do admit that he's probably completely unique in the universe?"

Rose's half smile faded. "He is unique," she said quietly. "He's the last of his species. The rest are all dead." She looked up at Jack, whose grin faded at the sorrow in her eyes, and he unconsciously brushed his thumb across her wrist, offering comfort.

"Not what I meant." And it wasn't; he didn't want her to be sad, he just wanted her to admit to what she felt. If he'd had any doubts, the wounded expression in her eyes would have erased them. "As a person, you'd say he was unique."

"Everyone's unique," she replied stubbornly.

"And another thing, before you said you couldn't ever get bored of him, shouldn't that have been you could never get bored of the adventures, if the man who takes you doesn't actually matter?" he feigned confusion, deliberately lightening the mood.

"I did not say that," she protested, letting a smile show through, but she wasn't sure, and his grip wasn't getting any looser.

Suddenly needing to move, to shake loose the emotions Jack was setting off in her, she grabbed another pillow and hit him hard on the side. He flinched and laughed but still didn't let her go. "Oi," she yelled and tried to wrench herself free, only succeeding in pulling him down on top of her.

He erupted into gleeful laughter as he kept hold of her wrist and did nothing to remove himself. He was heavier and just let himself become a dead weight, half on top of her and half hanging off the end of her bed.

She yelped and wedged a leg between them in the hope of either kicking him off or kicking him somewhere that would make him move. He wormed his other hand between them and tickled her side, Much to his amusement, he found that she was incredibly ticklish. She screamed and giggled, begging for him to stop and still trying to somehow kick him off.

Suddenly he stopped laughing and tickling and her head fell back in exhaustion. She glimpsed the Doctor's shocked look, a mumbled, "Sorry, heard screaming," and watched as he walked off.

Jack was off her in a second. "Oh, shit," was all he could say.

"What?"

"He's gonna kill me." Jack's voice was quiet, tinged with despair and just a touch of fear.

"Why is he going to kill you, I might kill you, but I don't see why he would." Rose rolled over and sat up, pulling her camisole back down and blushing a shade darker.

"Are you kidding?" Jack turned on her. "You really don't see those, 'don't touch her cause she's mine' looks he gives to everything within fifty feet of you? And now he thinks we were…"

His voice trailed off as he imagined all the possible inferences the Doctor could have made and all the ways he could end up dead as a result of them. "Oh fuck."

He started pacing while Rose just sat there looking shocked. "He didn't think we were doing anything. That'd just be stupid."

Jack glared at her again. "Rose, for a man that possessive, we could have been i holding hands /i and he would have decided there was a steamy, mad affair going on."

He blinked, suddenly struck by a thought. "Then again, having seen you two holding hands and I can sort of understand why he'd think that." Rose blushed and he paused. "But that's not the point. He's going to kill me."

"He didn't think that, and, even if he did, it's not really his business."

"Oh god, no, Rose." He waited until she was looking at him. "Rose, you have to go and explain exactly what was going on."

She considered for a moment, staring at him hard. "Fine, on one condition, you stop talking about," she searched for the right words, "this thing that's between me and him. Okay?"

Jack didn't really have to think about it for long, choosing between his life and setting her up for some good sex, he knew exactly where his priorities lay. "Fine, fine, no more talk about you and the Doctor, just make sure he understands that there is nothing sexual between us."

She smiled, got up off the bed, found a pair of tracksuit pants and pulled them on over her shorts. She pushed Jack out the door in front of her and, walking a lot slower than Jack would have liked, went off in search of the Doctor.

Jack, still feeling rather disgruntled, ran off to his room where he hoped he would still find his gun.

Just in case.

See how quickly I update when i get pretty comments...hint hint.