Many of you know the reasons behind my absence. Suffice it to say that while I haven't been posting like I should have been, I have thought about you all and all I can do is promise to try my hardest to finish this story in the upcoming weeks.

Disclaimer: I own no one and nothing, yada yada, including CE. Him, I'm just borrowing without permission. But he doesn't mind...

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Jack wasn't half-amazed at the lack of Christmas spirit this still-new-to-him-Rose seemed to have. He remembered, fondly (though at the time he'd typically been annoyed), how she'd bounced and caroled with glee, driving everyone within a 20 foot radius out of their wits.

But this one… in fact, he'd teased her for being slow on the shopping uptake and she'd replied with "oh…is it Christmas?" He'd been so shocked he'd been speechless and he certainly couldn't recall the last time that had happened.

Really, it was a bit of a strange arrangement between them. He still, even after nearly two weeks, couldn't be sure if it was a good thing or bad thing that he had found her.

And didn't that make him an asshole.

As much as he loved Rose, not just the idea of Rose, but Rose herself, he couldn't help but dislike whoever this woman was. It was like she'd been to a planet of doppelgangers with the Doctor and he'd brought the wrong one home.

Ahh, the Doctor.

Therein lies the crux of the whole problem, he thought, and not for the first time. The Doctor managed to make a bloody mess of things even when he didn't exist.

Oh, not that he was dead. Jack believed that as much as he believed…well, that his own hair was green, or something equally stupid. He felt that the Doctor was very much alive, it was only a matter of finding him.

"Only" a matter, Jack snorted to himself. As if it were so trivial. Rose's very life depended on finding the rude, temperamental, insolent alien and as much as they didn't get along, Jack still felt the oh-so-familiar urge to indulge Rose with her heart's desire.

Currently, her heart's desire was knitting.

Knitting.

Knitting.

"Why are you doing that?"

"It relaxes me," came the canned, half-hearted reply. "Besides," she went on, "Mum needs some booties for little Graham or Lisa."

"Booties. Don't you have stores in this century?" It took all the personal resolve and will he had to not flinch at the scathing look she shot at him.

"I like doing this, Jack. I'm sorry that I'm not exciting or thrilling enough for you. If you dislike it here so much, just go home."

For the second time that week, he was speechless. A new record.

"I never asked you to stay, you know. You took it upon yourself."

Had he? Pity that.

"But you don't have to be a git, you don't have to give those long-suffering sighs every five minutes, just leave." She spoke her monologue over the rhythmic clacking of her knitting needles.

"Rose—"

"Don't be patronizing." He looked up and studied her, really studied her. She sat in corner, her tiny body curled into the overstuffed chair she kept there. Her glossy, dark chocolate hair was pulled up into a messy topknot, a festive red sweater was tucked around her, the sleeves pushed up, just a bit. When he looked at her, when he saw how absolutely vulnerable she really was, he saw his Rose again.

"I'm sorry, it's just…you've changed, you know."

"I know. I had to. I like who I am, Jack."

"Do you? I wonder."

"It isn't for you to wonder, you know. As long as I like who I am, it's all that matters, sod you." He was shocked when she threw her precious knitting down on the coffee table, but not shocked that she refused to meet his eye. She crossed her arms and tucked her legs more firmly underneath her.

Jack sighed. However he managed to keep screwing things up, he wasn't sure, but he was doing a very good job at it.

"The Rose I met during the London Blitz was a completely different person," he started.

"I know that, I already to—"

"Shut up, Rose." Her jaw went slack, one raven brow winged up. "You were fiery, you were full of questions and full of even more answers. You had…life, you had…I dunno," he muttered, running a hand through his unkempt hair. "Zest," he decided. "You had zest."

"If you call me bubbly—"

"I won't. But you were. Maybe it's because you were with the Doctor"—he missed the flinch she gave, since his eyes were solidly connected with his boots—"and you could bounce your personality and maybe it's not. But whatever it is, whatever made you my friend, the person you were then, is gone. Not changed, not different. Not adapted. Gone."

"Jack—" Rose sighed, rubbed a hand over her brow. "Maybe I've not been fair. No, I know I haven't."

"Tell me something," she said quietly, after a pause. "How old are you?"

"Chronologically? 48 Earth years. 42 Earth years, in your time frame."

"Right. Well, whatever. Ask a stupid question." She shook her head. "In your 48…or 42…years, have you ever loved someone so much, so inescapably, that when you lost them—not grew apart, or separated, or fought—but actually lost them, right when you began to realize how absolutely much you loved them, without a choice—a decision he made for me, without respecting me enough for my input—"

"He was trying to—"

"Shut up." He raised his eyebrows.

"Fair enough."

"He didn't respect me enough. He should have known that I would rather have died there fighting with him than be sent back. He knew how much I hated my life, how much I—" She shook her head. "That's not the point. The point is that he was part of me. When he did that, when I realized I had no way, literally no way to not only ever see him again, but to even know he was all right—I was destroyed, Jack. It shattered me. D'you understand? I had to rebuild myself from that and it's taken years."

"Maybe I didn't do it right. Maybe I got the pattern a bit cocked-up. But I did it is what matters. D'you know something, Jack? The day I met you again was the first day in six years I woke up and my first thought wasn't him. Wasn't where he was, what he'd done. You brought it all back. You brought back memories and feelings that I've tamped down over the last six years. So I'm struggling with that, too."

"Rose, I'm so sorry," he whispered. He couldn't speak any louder past the lump in his throat. "I'm sorry I've been horrible to you."

"You've not been," she countered, picking up her knitting again. She paused as the clacking started up again. "You just haven't bothered to understand."

"It's not that I don't still love him, Jack, I do. It's not that I don't think of him, constantly. It's just that I can't be put through that wringer again. And you know as well as I that if the situation fell the same way it did before, he'd do it all over again. And I just can't do that."

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Jack shut the door behind him quietly and buttoned up his jacket as he headed down the stairwell. When he reached the ground floor, he pushed through the rusted door with a creak. The cold air hit with a shock and he gulped hard to get his breath back.

Rose was attempting to make supper again. He glanced over his shoulder at what he knew was her kitchen window, even though the curtains were drawn. He was thankful for her effort, but his stomach tended to disagree rather loudly.

He flipped up the collar of his jacket to protect his ears from the wind and headed down the sidewalk. He didn't have a particular destination; he'd just needed to escape the awkwardness after completely dismantling Rose's pride for her.

"Shit, what an asshole," he muttered to himself. "No wonder she doesn't talk to you anymore."

He wasn't sure what to make of what had become the emotional mess that was his life.

He couldn't say it was entirely bad. He got to see, spend time with, experience Rose and that was worth a million lifetimes, in his book.

And he'd already gone on, for days and days in his own head, how different she was.

Now he had to stop complaining and actually do something. 10 years earlier…or three thousand in the future, however you looked at it, he was a man of action. If you'd told him before that he'd spend two months moping over something he couldn't control, he would've laughed and rather heartily. Then he would've found the solution and done something about it.

So, he said to himself, because who else was there, shoring up his resolve, that's what I'll do.

Tell her.

The nagging voice in his head made the back of his neck itch but he ignored it. He owed it to Rose to clue her in, especially after what the Doctor had done.

His eyebrows narrowed. Boy, was the Doctor going to be sorry when Jack found him.

Starting to shiver, he spun on his heel and headed back toward Rose's flat. A few flakes were beginning to drift to the ground, covering the dirty snow with fresh white powder.

He headed up to the fifth floor and let himself in with the key Rose had given him. He wasn't sure if she'd done it while consciously thinking of what it implied, but he wasn't going to bring it up.

Just in case she took it back.

The scents that assaulted him as he hung up his jacket on the hook by the door and headed back toward the kitchen amazed him. For once the flat didn't have the acrid smell of burnt food or the overheated smell of food rapidly cooked in the atomic oven.

It was spicy and tangy and made his far-too-empty stomach growl and churn in pleasure. Rose was just setting plates out on the table and looked up and smiled at him.

Not for the first time, his heart jerked in his chest. She looked so very much like the old Rose, the…previous Rose when she smiled.

He tore his gaze from her melted chocolate one and studied the heaping, steaming bowls on the table.

His stomach churned, but this time not so pleasantly.

Should he risk curry that Rose made?

After a minute, Rose rolled her eyes.

"I didn't cook it, you git. I started, but the mix just looked nasty, so I called in curry."

The relief on his face must have been obvious because she gave a short laugh as she sat at the table.

"I should be insulted, if I didn't know I was such a bad cook."

"It's not that you're a bad cook," he started, sitting across from her. She rolled her eyes and tucked her napkin into her lap.

"Yes, I am. Who are you kidding?" She picked up a bowl of rice and started dishing it onto her plate and he followed suit.

"Okay, fine. I didn't want to upset you."

"Can't get upset at the truth," she commented. He nodded as he shoved in a mouthful of curry.

And wasn't that prophetic?

Truth was, he'd loved her since day one.

No, scratch that. He was going to ignore that.

Truth was, the Doctor was missing and he—he was pretty sure—knew how to find him.

Truth was, he couldn't tell Rose what he was planning.

Truth was, he was going to break her heart.

Again.