A nod to Margaret Atwood that I hope some of you will pick up on... Hehe.
That did it. Rose was going to talk to Jack. Talking to him in person about this would probably be best. Besides, seeing him again was way overdue. The tricky part was getting the Doctor to take her there without rousing his suspicions. No, not the Doctor... The Tardis! Rose had never asked the ship to take her somewhere specific before and she wasn't entirely sure how to go about doing so.
Her bedroom was significantly more comfortable than the jail cell on Corteffia, but it had the downfall of being bereft of Time Lords. Tonight though, she would use her isolation to her advantage. Rose sat on her bed with her legs crossed and did her best to clear her mind. She focused herself on the comforting, omnipresent humming of the Tardis at the back of her consciousness. Reaching out to it mentally, she filled her thoughts with feelings of concern for their Doctor. The pulse she felt in response conveyed the impression of sympathy and the desire to help. Ok, this was a good start. Next, Rose imagined Jack Harkness in Cardiff, at Torchwood, preferably in the correct time line of their phone conversations.
"If I can get the Doctor to take me to 21st century London, is it possible for you to 'accidentally' miss the landing by a couple hundred kilometers? I hate being so deceptive, but I'm terribly worried about him."
After a pause of a few seconds, Rose felt a mischievous affirmative hum. Did the Doctor know that she could feel the Tardis so clearly? Over the course of her time traveling with him, the mental presence of the Tardis had become more and more defined. Was that normal, or was it somehow associated with Bad Wolf? That was a question for a later date. One problem at a time, Rose conceded. She snuggled down into her pink duvet, pleased but anxious about her determined course of action for the next day.
...
The next morning, Rose found the Doctor in the kitchen struggling to open an oddly colored jar of jam. She put a kettle on and sat back to watch, amused.
"Bloody Rifulatans and their jars... Stickiest jam jars in the galaxy, I'll have you know... And I'm not just saying that because I can't seem to... Grrr." He was hopping up and down, gritting his teeth.
Rose took the jar and ran it under some hot water for a moment before handing it back to her somewhat emasculated companion. With one final twist from the Doctor, the jar lid relented.
"Fancy a cuppa to go with your jam and toast?" She gave him a tongue touched smile, and he grinned widely back at her.
"Mmmmm...yeshh pleash..." He had already stuffed a jam smeared piece of toast into his mouth, and was licking the residual sweet stickiness from his fingers.
Rose watched him sucking on his digits and smacking his lips after each bite with wide eyes. She shook off the unbidden images of other things he could do with his clever tongue. "So Doctor, I was thinking we could stop by 21st century Britain today. I have a few errands to run."
He swallowed audibly. "You mean visit Jackie? We were just there last week!"
"Nah, we don't have to see my mum... unless you want to of course..." With exaggerated animation, the Doctor shook his head no. "Suit yourself. I just want to pop out to the shop and get some necessities like shampoo and feminine products. The Tardis is almost out of the brands I use."
It took all of his Time Lord finesse to keep from choking on his tea. Rose knew that if she were doing anything other than shopping for 'feminine products' he would insist on joining her. "Right, yes, by all means... Think you can handle that on your own, jeopardy friendly as you are?"
"I think I'll survive. How 'bout I bring back some chips for the both of us, yeah?"
"Rose Tyler, I think that is a wonderful idea. I should do some recalibrating on the relative dimensional stabilizer while you're gone. Nothing worse than an unstable dimension, relatively speaking."
When they had finished breakfast, the pair adjourned to the console room. The Doctor punched in the coordinates in time and space, flipped some levers, pressed some buttons, hit something with a mallet and they were off. The ship's exit from the Time Vortex was even less smooth than usual, and her landing jarred both of her passengers. Rose was sure that if she weren't seated on the jump seat, she would have face planted magnificently. She wondered if the added jolt was the result of her request. Pretending that he was sprawled on the floor to remove some grating, (and not from the rough landing) the Doctor set to work tinkering with the Tardis's inner workings.
"Back soon!"
"Mmmm Hmm… Remember the chips!" He called from under the console, over the buzz of the sonic screwdriver.
Rose exited the Tardis and breathed a sigh of relief. They had landed a mere 6 blocks from the Cardiff water feature (secret entrance to Torchwood), perfect. She pushed a wave of gratitude back to the ship and took up a brisk walk. She knew she would have to hurry in order for this plan to work. Perhaps she should have phoned Jack ahead of time to make sure he was in his office, but she hoped the Tardis had picked a time when that would be the case.
Surprisingly, she had very little trouble entering the Torchwood facility. No additional questions from security after she mentioned being an old friend of Jack's. They simply gave her directions on where to find the infamous Captain, and sent her on her way. When she stepped into his office, Jack turned around in his chair and leapt up to meet her, blue eyes sparkling.
"Rose? Is it really you?" Jack picked her up and spun her around before giving her a massive bear hug. "I was so thrilled when you started calling me! I missed you kid!"
"I missed you too!"
"Where's the Doctor?"
"It's just me this time… I had to see you."
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" Jack watched as Rose's smile soured into a concerned frown. "What's wrong?"
"I'm really worried about the Doctor… I need your help figuring out what's going on."
"Anything."
Jack gestured her toward a chair, and sat across from her patiently. Launching into a retelling of the Doctor's behavior the last few weeks, Rose began to let her emotions get the best of her. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes, as she told Jack that she thought he was holding back a regeneration because of her.
"What makes you think he's regenerating?" Asked Jack, sincerely.
"He keeps having these episodes where his abdomen glows gold. The same way his last body glowed all over as he died."
Jack's lips twisted up into a wicked smile. "You're joking right? Please tell me you're not joking."
"Of course I'm not joking, he could be dying! He could be having trouble maintaining this body or something!" Jack snorted and practically fell out of his chair laughing. Rose was yelling now. "This is serious Jack!"
Unable to catch his breath to speak, he nodded and opened one of his cabinets to remove a large, well-worn tome. He wiped a tear from his eye and flipped through the book to one of the many dog-eared pages before sliding it over to Rose.
"'The Complete Compendium of Compatible Inter-species Mating Rituals'?" Her gaze was completely without mirth as she stared him down. "What does this have to do with anything?"
Jack regained enough composure to elaborate. "By the 52nd Century… Humans, filthy species that we are, will have published many such books about 'coupling' with various compatible alien species. This is a particular favorite of mine, because it is the only one I know of to reference Gallifreyans."
Rose raised one eyebrow curiously. "Ok… and?"
"Read for yourself." The Captain pointed to a small easily overlooked footnote. At least, it would have been easily overlooked if it weren't thoroughly highlighted and underlined.
If by some unlikely circumstance you find yourself in the company of a Gallifreyan whom, even more unlikely, seems to willing to entertain your amorous advances, please be advised of the following: According to the sparse ancient sources available on the subject, Time Lords evolved a way to spare their immense intellects from being consumed by questions of sexual intent. When two Gallifreyans desired each other physically, their respective reproductive organs took on a golden glow; thus eliminating unrequited sexual tension in their species and allowing them to focus their brain power on pondering the dynamics of time and space instead. Unfortunately for the readers of this book, over time all base desires were systematically repressed among the Time Lord elite through unparalleled mental control of their bodies. The glow of arousal became something shameful, and was often concealed if it was allowed to happen at all. That being the case, Gallifreyan mating was exceedingly rare, even between married couples. Children were often loomed, rather than produced sexually.
Rose had been unconsciously chewing on her bottom lip as she read. The metallic taste of her own blood brought her back into reality. "So, I've been freaking out this whole time because the Doctor had a stiffy?!"
Jack chuckled and elbowed her in the side. "So how'd you do it Rosie? What finally pushed his timey-wimey buttons?"
"Even if I knew for sure, I wouldn't tell you... ta!"
"Awwww... You're no fun."
"Apparently the Doctor thinks I'm fun." Rose stuck her tongue out at the wry Captain.
"So what're you gonna do now? Seduce him?"
"I dunno. Gimme a chance to figure this out first... I really should be getting back before he gets suspicious. I'll ring ya."
"You'd better, I want details! Feel free to stop by with any other alien boner questions."
"Yeah, I can see you've studied up on the matter." She flipped through the book, to illustrate her point. "The only race in here without notes and highlighting is the... Vogons? Those are real?"
"Douglas Adams knew more than he let on... And for some reason Vogons insist on including poetry in their courtship rituals... Yeesh." He shivered at the thought before reassuming his smug smile. "You should check out the rest of this book though, interesting read. I distinctly remember leaving a copy in the Tardis library."
"Hah! I'll think about it." Rose kissed him on the cheek, before leaving the Torchwood facility. "G'bye Jack. Thanks for your help."
The purchases that the Doctor expected her to be making were taken care of quickly at the closest shop. After doing so, she had been more or less skipping back to the Tardis, hot chips in hand, feeling as if an enormous weight had been lifted off her shoulders. The weight was replaced by an anxious swooping in her stomach, but she could reflect more on that later. Rose was happy, that is until she rounded the corner and caught sight of a very angry Doctor waiting for her in front of the police box with his arms crossed. His eyes flashed with the dark of the Oncoming Storm.
"How was the Captain?" He hissed. The words were meant to be cruel and filled with disdain. Rose walked straight past him into the Tardis, but not before rolling her eyes dramatically. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice that we were in Cardiff instead of London?"
"Possessive much? Call down Doctor, you're going to strain something."
His face turned beet red. "This is the thanks I get for letting you flirt with him all night? Oh yes! I know about all your little phone calls."
"Letting me? Letting me?! I have the right to choose my own mates, ya know... While we're on the subject, how could you not tell me that he was alright?"
"He's not alright! It's not natural, his existence that is. Gives me the willies."
"Fine, I didn't say he had to travel with us again. But you still should have said something, anything! Given some indication he was alive... Unless… unless you were the one who mysteriously put his number into my mobile, and not the Tardis?"
"No, I most certainly did not."
"Then how did you even know I was talking to him?"
He sighed. "I heard you up late one night giggling and talking. Curious, I wanted to go see what you were up to, but the Tardis didn't seem to want to let me find you. I thought that maybe you had another pretty boy bloke that you were chatting up, but the Tardis confessed to giving you Jack's number. She was adamant that you needed someone else to talk to, what with Mickey gone." The Tardis hummed in the background, proudly, indignantly, as if to say she still felt that to be the case.
"Smart girl."
"I was starting to think so too... Until you tricked me into bringing you here to meet with him… Alone!" His hands were balled into fists at his sides.
"You... You're jealous! Jack and I, we're not… And even if we were, you've never made any indication that we, you and I… UGH!... So you can swan off after some French tart for 5 hours, but I can't have 40 minutes alone with an old friend? Egotistical git!"
"48.551 minutes." He muttered under his breath. "Then why were you secretly meeting with Jack? Why not just tell me... hmmmmm?"
"Because!… Because I misinterpreted your weird alien light-up hard-ons as an indication that you were dying!" She blurted out before she could stop herself.
Every last bit of color drained spectacularly out of his face in that moment. His mouth, still hanging open as if he had an entire lecture planned, slammed shut. He stood as the definition of gobsmacked.