Post-Apocalypse: 'Cause I Have To

Rating: Teen

Pairing: Nine/Rose

Other tags: Song: Apocalypse AU, Human AU, No Dialogue, Established Relationship, Sad Ending, Sick Child, Child Death (off-page)

Warnings: Major Character Death, Child Death

Summary: Jason remembered a time, not that long ago, when the medicine she needed was an arm's reach away. He was a doctor, it's his job to help people. Yet he'd never felt this helpless. He was powerless in saving those he cared about the most.

Day 5/Song 11

Warning: this one is going to get dark. It's a Post-Apocalypse AU based off of "Soon You'll Get Better," I don't think you can expect anything else. Read the tags for warnings.

I was going to make the one-shot for SYGB be a Graham and Ryan thing, but I don't really know their characters that well. I still need to see Series 12.

Song of the fic: "Soon You'll Get Better" by Taylor Swift ft. The Chicks

Word Count: 1,080

This won't go back to normal, if it ever was
It's been years of hoping, and I keep saying it because
'Cause I have to

Moving along the maze of empty buildings, Jason couldn't help but let the feelings of dread and panic begin to take hold. Ever since the pandemic had wiped out most of the world's population, his position as a doctor became exponentially harder. Hospitals were overrun, understaffed and running at full capacity. Supplies became scarce, making even mild illnesses and injuries potentially life threatening.

Once country leaders started dying, the world turned from society into anarchy. The destruction of structures rendered many forms of technology useless, including most forms of communication. Radio was the most reliable these days. It's funny how that happens. Disease may have been the catalyst, but humanity was what turned the world into the wasteland that it was.

He ducked into one of the only buildings in London not ruined by looters, nodding a greeting to Jack Harkness on the way in. Normally he'd stop and have a chat, but he was too desperate to get back. Jack understood. He'd lost Ianto just three months ago. He knew what it was like to watch someone you love die. At this point, everyone did. It was a large community (or what passed as large anymore), but everyone knew what Jason was going through. Everyone had lost a loved one. There wasn't a family that had remained untouched.

Being one of the few doctors left gave him some privileges, including a living area on the first floor that was well insulated. He pushed aside the privacy sheets and stepped inside, careful to not wake his family. However, Rose had always seemed to have a sixth sense of where he was, and sleepily raised her head from the mattress, the only piece of furniture they had other than storage bins. He took off his leather jacket before kneeling next to his wife and pulled back the thin blanket. Their 10-year-old daughter slept curled next to her mother, and Jason put his hand to her forehead. He couldn't help but wince at how hot it was. Rose looked at him, asking with her eyes about their daughter's condition. He could tell she didn't want to know, but had to.

He wanted to lie, both to himself and to Rose. He wanted to say that Jenny would be perfectly fine. That there was no chance that she wouldn't get better soon. Five years ago, he wouldn't have had to convince either of them. He would've made a run to the chemist's for antibiotics and a few weeks later you wouldn't even know that she'd been ill. It wasn't even the virus, which had finally died out months ago. It was just a cut that had gotten infected.

Jenny had tripped and fallen into some sharp rubble and had gotten badly scraped up. In total, she had needed twenty stitches, but if she'd been able to keep it clean she would've been fine. But without medicine to prevent, and later fight, the infection that had settled in, there was little that could be done. Even if he managed to get his hands on any medicine, the infection had spread too far for it to do much good. He'd known what was going to happen the moment he saw the skin around the cut get red and swollen.

Jason ran a hand over his cropped hair before looking at Rose, thankful for her ability to know what he wasn't saying. He didn't think he'd be able to say it out loud. For her credit, she didn't scream or cry. She just nodded and swallowed thickly as tears started running down her face. Fighting back his own, Jason went around the mattress to his wife's side, pulling her into him. He wasn't a religious man, but he thanked every deity out there that Jenny was a heavy sleeper. The last thing he wanted was his daughter seeing her parents upset. Jason held Rose tighter and rested his cheek on her head. Even after she cried herself back to sleep, he continued to hold her.

Jason sometimes wondered who suffered more: those who'd died from the virus or those who survived.

There were so few people left.

Two thirds of the population had died from the first wave of the virus, including both his and Rose's families. Others died from a lack of available medical care or other necessities. The last news report he heard had estimated that, at best, only a fourth of the planet's original population remained, most of them adults. Jason didn't find that hard to believe. With the exception of his daughter, no one in the building was younger than thirteen, and they were among the largest communities left. Everyone had seen Jenny as hope for the future, though none of them said so. They had to hold onto that hope. When she got ill, everyone knew what was most likely going to happen. A sense of melancholy had fallen over the entire building, seemingly overnight.

They tried to be as upbeat as possible, but Jason knew that his daughter could tell something was wrong. She repeatedly asked her parents why they seemed worried. She was only a toddler when everything went to hell, so to her they had always been a little tense. He and Rose did their best to reassure Jenny that everything would be ok, that things would go back to the way they used to be soon. But Jason knew they were trying to convince themselves as well as their daughter.

They had to stay strong, or at least give the appearance of it. They had to, for Jenny's sake. But she was a smart girl, and she'd seen far more death than anyone her age should. Jason could tell she wasn't fully convinced by her parents' words. He could tell by her eyes. But like everyone else left, she pretended things would be alright. That it would go back to normal, the way it was before. Because they had to.

~~~~~DW~~~~~

Three days later, Jason and Rose buried their daughter next to both of their parents and their brothers, in a plot on her family's old land. Their closest friends came with them to pay their respects to the little girl who'd given them all hope. But neither parent seemed to be able to acknowledge that they were even there. They stood stone-faced, staring at the small wooden casket as it was lowered in the ground. It was only after Jack left that they let themselves break down.

I surprised myself with how dark that story got… My brain can be a scary place.

Ok, I hinted at this in the one-shot for "The Archer." I cried the first time I heard this song. I stayed up until midnight to listen to this album, and midway through this one it hit me like a train: she wrote this about her mom. As someone who has had several chronically ill family members, let me just say this hits home. I still can't listen to it without tearing up.

Also, I love folklore! It's not my usual style of music, but it suits Taylor so well! I'm not planning to do a series on it, as the songs tell stories in and of themselves, but never say never.