A Little Captain in Your Life

On the other side of the door Jack was waiting, and Rose was terrified to step through. The smoothness of the door was cool under her hand, her fingers wrapped around the handle, poised to push it open and step outside. Since she was still recognizable as someone Jack knew, she'd be going out there alone to set the stage for his reintroduction to the Doctor.

She was nervous. Maybe even a little terrified. All of the confidence she had felt since assuming this new i her /I was nothing compared to the anxiety that she felt about seeing Jack for the first time since he'd kissed her goodbye, back before everything changed. The Doctor. i Her /i . There was no way that she could even begin to guess what Jack felt about being left behind. If she were him, she'd be angry and hurt. While she understood the Doctor's reasons, even more so now that had Time and Space and all that it meant running through her head. Sometimes you couldn't interfere with the timeline, even if you wanted to. She knew that before she'd regenerated with all of this information in her head.

The problem was whether or not Jack would understand. It wouldn't matter to her if she didn't care so very much about him. Love didn't go away over time if it was the real thing. This whole situation with Jack had proven that. She'd thought he was dead, gone from her life forever. She'd i mourned /i him, but had never stopped caring about him. Then she had found out that he was still alive, and after all of her hurt and confusion had faded, all of those old feelings she'd had for him had come to the surface.

Feelings didn't change. The Doctor had told her that after he regenerated. She'd experienced a taste of it after i she /I did the same thing. This, though? This was like the final proof. She might eat her chips different now, might not like heights, and she might feel the need to flirt more often, but she was still Rose Tyler. And Rose Tyler loved Jack Harkness. Maybe not as much as she loved the Doctor, but it had the possibility to get there.

Standing in front of the doors right at that moment, Rose felt like she was about to confront someone from a bad breakup rather than one of the closest friends she'd ever had.

This was even harder than it had been when she had to face her mother and Mickey.

Behind her, the Doctor was still standing at the console. She could feel him watching, offering up silent reassurance.

Except… wait. i Silent reassurance /i ? It was more than just a turn of phrase, Rose realized. She could actually feel reassurance in the back of her mind, hovering like a warm blanket waiting to sweep over her if she needed it. Telepathic, he'd told her once. She'd just never experienced it first hand. Without even thinking about it, Rose probed at the source of the feeling with a mental 'finger', gently prodding at it. He'd told her that he thought the telepathy, that bond that all of his people shared on some level, was instinctive, going on to further speculate that maybe it hadn't happened like that with her because she was still caught up in the limitations of her human mind. A mental block of sorts. He could feel her in his head, but she'd never been able to feel him.

Until right now. As she tested that feeling with a curious thought directed towards it, Rose felt something give way. That block that she hadn't even consciously realized was there just…crumbled. And then she could feel it. The Doctor, warm and solid in the back of her mind. Not overpowering at all. He was a presence, a sensation. A warm, blinking glow in the darkness of that deepest part of her mind. All that she hadn't been able to understand before was suddenly very clear. How he must have felt when he lost his people, when he lost i this /i . It was so companionable, having his presence as a part of her.

How had he managed to live without it after knowing it his entire life, when she was already wondering how sad it would be if she never felt this again?

She wasn't sure how he was projecting his reassurance at her, so she couldn't offer up anything back to him, but still Rose wanted to let him know just the same that she was i aware /i of his presence.

"You were right," she said, glancing over her shoulder at him. His eyebrows went up, and she grinned internally. Sometimes it was nice to drag out what she was going to say just so that she could see him slowly lose control trying to figure out what she meant. But best to put him out of his misery. There was something more important than this that she needed to get to. "The mental block. It was there. Now it's not."

And then, because she could see the questions in his eyes almost immediately, and knew that he'd delay her for hours asking her how she felt, what she felt, and so on, Rose put her hand again on the door and pushed it open.

Her first glimpse of Jack in person took Rose's breath away. There was looking good, and then there was looking great. Jack had always managed to look i great /i , and this was no exception. There was a leaner look to his face now than back when they'd first met. His hair was the same, though. His eyes still sparkled just like she'd remembered them. And his smile? Still about one of the most beautiful smiles she'd ever seen in her entire life.

Wait.

His smile?

Jack moved while she was still trying to make sense of the fact that he was grinning at her, and suddenly she was swept into his strong arms. If he'd noticed anything different about her appearance, it wasn't throwing him off. With a sigh of relief, Rose tightened her arms around Jack, returning his embrace. He was whispering her name into her ear, swinging her around in a great big hug that felt so warm and safe.

"Rose, god. You're really here," he was saying as he pulled back. His hands were on her shoulders, though. Big, warm hands. So familiar when they squeezed. He didn't let her go, just held on with the air of a man that wasn't sure that he wasn't in the middle of a hallucination.

"Yeah, 'm here," she agreed.

"How? No, wait – not important," he backtracked, the grin on his face so genuine that it made her heart ache with relief. Then he was hugging her again, and she was laughing.

"I missed you, too," she told him, and it was the complete and honest truth. "Oh, Jack. God, I missed you so much."

He still wasn't commenting on the more obvious changes to her looks, and Rose attributed it to what had to be some level of shock at seeing her again. Eventually he was going to realize that the woman he was holding was leaner and taller than the curvy girl he'd said goodbye to so long ago. Not to mention her eyes were a completely different color and, if she ever strung together enough words to make it apparent, her voice was different.

She should have known it wouldn't take him very long to notice, too, though Rose suspected that he'd probably been aware of it the entire time and was just waiting until the right moment to say something. After the first rush of reunion had passed them. Still, when he pulled back and held her at arms length again, giving her a long, slow look-over, Rose knew that he was going to ask.

"You've changed," he said.

"Good change? Bad change?" she couldn't resist teasing, remembering when the Doctor had once looked at her and asked something similar. i Good different? Bad different? /i

i Just different, /i she'd said then, already unable to compare the two Doctors even though, at the time, she'd only just really 'met' the second one. One wasn't better than the other, they'd always been equally loved in her heart.

"I like it," Jack nodded slowly. He was curious, but he wasn't asking questions yet. A suggestive smile toyed at his lips. "But you were beautiful before and you know it."

Rose laughed. All that time spent wondering and thinking about how bad this could go, how angry and hurt Jack would be, and it wasn't turning out anything like she'd expected it would go. Still – no looking a gift horse in the mouth, right? If he was prepared to be accepting of the history between them, then she wasn't going to question it. Not right now, anyway. The logical part of her knew that he had to have something to say on the matter, but that part of her could just wait until a later time. Right now she was with Jack and he had questions of his own now.

"How?" he asked. "I mean, you're not even the same height. Your voice is different… eyes…hair…body shape…" He trailed off, looking at her with confused wonder. "Still gorgeous, though. Don't get me wrong."

That was an explanation that would have to wait, however. The Doctor was still in the TARDIS and, if she knew him, he was getting antsy. Either she braced Jack for what had happened with him or she risked the Doctor getting impatient and coming out here before she said anything.

Since she'd personally firsthand experienced what it was like to get no warning that the man you once knew had changed, Rose gave Jack an apologetic smile and said, "I'll tell you 'bout that later, all right? Something more important right now. It's about the Doctor."

Jack's eyes immediately flew to the TARDIS, standing quiet only a few feet away. When he looked back at her, he was very clearly worried.

"Did something happen to him? Is he okay?" Jack took a step towards the TARDIS, only Rose's hand on his arm stopping him before he got too far.

"He's fine." She paused, collecting her thoughts. "Now, I mean. Now he's fine. Before he wasn't."

"What do you mean he wasn't okay i before /i ? What happened to him?" Jack looked again at the TARDIS. Rose could feel the muscles under her hand tense, knew that he wanted to go take a look in the TARDIS, see for himself that the Doctor was, in fact, still alive and well. If he did that, there was the definite chance that he would be just as freaked out by it as she had been. She didn't want that for Jack. If anything, he was going to go in there with his eyes wide open, understanding that the Doctor he had known was gone.

Jack turned his gaze back on her again. "Rose – is he okay? Did he regenerate again?"

Hold on.

What?

"Regenerate i again /i ?" The words came out choked, confused. How did Jack know about regeneration, much less that the Doctor had done it once since he last saw him? At least, that's what she was assuming the 'again' part of what he'd asked meant. "No. Not again. Just the once since…" Rose stopped, shook her head. This made no sense to her. "How did you know?"

"Rose, sweetheart," Jack began with a shake of his head and an ironic tilt of his lips. "Harriet Jones made a complete report to Torchwood after that little Christmas incident a few months back. I already knew about Time Lords and regeneration – it was one of the more popular parts of their mythology. I knew what had happened the second I read what she'd written."

Rose's brain was whirling away. Jack knew about regeneration. Jack knew that the Doctor had regenerated. That should have been a good thing, and maybe it was. That wasn't the part of everything that was bothering her, though.

"Torchwood?" she asked quietly. The Doctor had done his research after the incident with the Sycorax and had found out all about the super secret Torchwood. Had even gotten into their files, found out that he was mentioned in their mission statement, of all places. All of that had gotten pushed aside while she'd been sick, but lately she'd caught the Doctor going through what he knew, searching out more information on the mysterious organization.

She just hadn't thought that she'd hear that name come from Jack's lips, of all places.

"Yeah," Jack nodded, giving her a little grin. "That's who I work for."

Rose nodded, feeling a little overwhelmed. "Doctor'll definitely want to talk to you about that. They –"

"Don't really like the Doctor," Jack said with a nod. "Yeah, I know." He must have seen something on her face, because he quickly added, "I don't agree with that part of the creed, don't worry. The Doc might be an alien, but he's no threat. He never did anything to hurt me."

The last part was said with less conviction than anything he'd uttered thus far. i There /i was the pain that she knew had to be lurking somewhere beneath Jack's happy exterior.

"'Course not," she assured him. "Only ever did what was best for the both of us, he did. Wasn't always very nice or tactful about it. But that was just our Doctor." Now wasn't the time to point out that the new Doctor was different when it came to bits like that. Jack would find out soon enough.

She grabbed hold of his hand, squeezing it firmly.

"Yeah," Jack laughed after a moment "He certainly had some blunt moments. And, boy, could he go on about how superior he was."

"'e still does that sometimes," Rose rolled her eyes. "You going t'come in and see him?"

There was no pause, no hesitation. Just an emphatic nod of Jack's head and a blinding grin. "Of course." He looked around the room they were in and Rose followed his gaze. They were in a very tall room. Desks were nearby, a computer was on and there was something flashing on the screen. "He'll need to move the TARDIS, too. No one's around right now, but the rest of the staff should be coming in soon. I'm not ready to answer those kinds of questions from the others."

Rose nodded even though she didn't understand what he meant. She cleared her throat, looked pointedly around the room again, and asked. "Jack, where exactly i are /i we?"

He smirked, rocking back on his heels. "Welcome to Torchwood Three, Rose Tyler."

END CHAPTER