Radiant: Return, Memories Never Known

Rose had woken up on the wrong side of the bed today. Oh, not literally because the Doctor doubted that she'd been sleeping during those hours that she wasn't at his side. She did that more often than she used to – wandered away to be on her own, have some time to herself. It wasn't enough to make him lonely or inspire him to long for how she used to be – but it was enough for him to notice and make note of it. When Rose wanted time to think, she went off by herself. That was just one more facet of the new her. A deeper facet, perhaps.

Problem was that whatever had prompted this latest thinking spell, had also upset her. Not tears and sadness upset, either. This was glinting eyes, thinly pressed lips, and glares. The Doctor did his best to ignore it, and when that failed, he'd put the central column between the two of them so that he, at least, couldn't i see /i her trying to kill him with her eyes.

He fiddled with the Tardis' controls, trying to look like he was busy. Rose wanted to say something to him so badly that he could almost taste the words in the air, but the Doctor was pretty sure – no, make that completely sure – that he didn't want to know what it was. So he did the cowardly thing and attempted to appear too busy to talk.

There was only one fatal flaw in that plan, which he realized the moment Rose rounded the controls, grabbed hold of his wrist, and held on until he met her eyes.

She knew how the Tardis worked now. Knew that he was just flipping levers and pushing buttons for the sake of acting like he was too busy to talk.

So much for that plan.

And then she said the words that knocked him on his – rather handsome, he had to admit – arse almost literally. The words that he should have known were coming, yet he'd never really given much thought to.

Those little words that told him that she i knew /i he hadn't really played things straight with her after he regenerated.

"How 'bout we go see Jack next, Doctor?"

The information in her head was a lot like a television. That was the closest analogy that Rose could come to for it, anyhow. All she had to do was find the right station, and she could see what she wanted – like tuning in for her favorite program, except this was the i past /i , i present /i , and i future /i . It was everything that ever was, could, or would be.

It was a moment of melancholy that led her to think about Jack. And in thinking about Jack, she unwittingly had opened herself up to a world of hurt unlike anything she had imagined was possible. Her mind opened and expanded, following threads of golden light. Time and space. History and future. Was and will be. She knew them now like she knew the back of her hand, could see facts and dates as clear as day. It was instinct, pure and simple, the navigation of it all. She could know or not know, choose to see or be blind to the possibilities.

She knew what had happened on the Game Station in that instant when all she'd really been looking to do was examine her own memories of the time that she had been lucky enough to have with Captain Jack Harkness. The way that he'd been able to make her smile and laugh. The flirting and teasing. Just… him.

And in that same instant, she knew that Jack was alive and well, if not much more bitter and cold than the last time she had seen him.

It made her head hurt, her heart ache.

But more than that – it made her i mad /I .

For at least an hour she sat there, in an unused room that she half-thought the Tardis probably made just for her to stew in, thinking about what she knew about Jack and what it meant.

The Doctor hadn't been completely honest with her. He'd made it seem like… well, she'd always assumed, anyway… that Jack was dead. And he hadn't done a single thing to indicate otherwise. Because if Jack had been alive, they would have gone for him, right?

Right?

It made her head hurt, the cover up and duplicity. She put a hand to her temple and massaged gently, trying to come up with any reasonable explanation why the Doctor would have done something as awful as this i seemed /i .

She couldn't. No ideas came to her at all – not even horribly contrived ones. She'd been on her death bed, and even then he hadn't told her that Jack was still alive and kicking. He hadn't eased any of the pain that he i had to have /i known she was feeling. Hadn't said a single bloody word to make things i right /i or i better /i .

And she hated him just a little for that. Hated him because he could have made her hurt i less /i , could have given her back some of the happiness she had known before the Game Stations and his regeneration – but he had done none of that.

The fact that she still loved him despite all of that didn't sit well with her, either. That he could hurt her and betray her like this was unthinkable.

But he probably didn't see it as a betrayal. Knowing him and his i I know better than you /i attitude, he probably thought he'd done the right thing, keeping this from her. Yes, Jack had a role to play right after the Game Station; she could see that. He had done good work, helping down on Earth after everything was over and done with, picking up the pieces that were left after the failed Dalek invasion.

She could see all of that, but she couldn't see why the Doctor wouldn't have told her and talked to her about it.

When she felt the anger begin to ebb enough that she wasn't shaking – wasn't fighting the urge to find the Doctor and do something violent, most likely of a slapping nature – she slipped out of the room. Almost as though the Tardis knew she wasn't quite ready to be in the Doctor's presence yet, the hallways were longer, more convoluted. The two minute walk to the control room took ten times that, and she couldn't say that she wasn't happy for the additional time.

Even with that added delay, she was still fuming when she reached the control room. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at the Doctor from the doorway, leaning against the doorframe. On some level she knew that this was different from how she would have acted in the past, before her regeneration. Rose version one would have stormed in there in a flurry of movement and noise, demanding answers. Not that she wasn't going to demand answers of the Doctor. She was.

Just not loudly or violently.

At least, that was what she kept telling herself as she pushed off of the doorframe and stalked over to the console. The Doctor looked up and gave her a smile. It faltered when she didn't smile back, and the way he turned his total and complete attention to the Tardis told her that he knew that she was upset with him. It wasn't like she was hiding it, though. She was being as open and honest with him as she could be without saying a word.

Those words were beating at the inside of her mouth, though. They wanted to be spoken, put out there in the open.

She just wasn't quite sure what form those words were going to take.

The Doctor's hands moved on the Tardis' controls. Switches, levers, buttons, and knobs. Things that had nothing to with anything right at this moment. Rose almost laughed.

The Doctor was trying to stall her.

Too bad for him, then, that she wasn't in the mood to be stalled. She had waited long enough to confront him about this. Longer than she would have i before /i .

Rounding the central column, she grabbed hold of his wrist with gentle pressure. She pulled his hand free of the lever it was on, only letting go when he met her eyes.

Rose licked her lips, and normally the way the Doctor's eyes followed her tongue would have amused that part of her that craved the attraction, the flirtation; right now it did nothing for her.

Nothing at all.

With a sarcastic smile that felt completely alien on her lips, she said, "How 'bout we go see Jack next, Doctor?"

END CHAPTER