Long after Alba's breathing had slowed and steadied with the rhythm of sleep, the Doctor laid awake staring at the ceiling, thinking of how foolish he was, even after everything that had happened. Had he learned nothing? After the circus riot of a business meeting in New London, the absolute last thing he should have done was come home and tried to play house with her. It was only going to make their inevitable parting down the line that much harder on him. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, and sat there contemplating for a moment. Quietly, he grabbed his dressing gown off the hook on the wall and crept down the marble steps to the antechamber. With the practiced ease of someone who is accustomed to sneaking about, he slipped out the door, down the stairs, and back into the hallway. She was asleep now, and he knew there was no chance of him finding sleep himself at that point, so instead he went to the library and poured himself a scotch.
When he'd gone to the slave exchange in search of a girl he could make disappear and then make into a temporary wife, he hadn't been looking for anyone extraordinary. In fact, he'd gone in with low expectations of girls who would likely be of only average intelligence, demure, but lacking in personality, broken and lacking in spirit. Imagine his surprise to find Alba, who was funny and feisty, clever and beautiful, and by some unlikely coincidence happened to resemble his dead wife a great deal more than he was comfortable admitting out loud, especially not after Alba had told him outright that she sometimes felt like he was looking right through her at times. He had denied it wholeheartedly, of course, but it had unsettled him to think that perhaps he was a bit more transparent than he realized at times. Why was he so smitten with her, anyway? Was he falling in love with Alba, or falling in love with the memory of his dead wife, whom he'd had ten years to elevate to a status of perfection? When Romana had died, the two of them had barely been on speaking terms, as much as that hurt to admit to himself even now.
The scotch glass was emptied and refilled several times before he thought to fumble his mobile out of his pocket and dial Jack Harkness's number. Jack was better with this stuff, always had been. He seemed to get it, make some of the connections that he himself was unable to at times.
"...hello?" Jack answered, his voice groggy.
"S'me...I'm back from New London. I'm afraid I've got some bad news," he slurred, setting his glass down roughly on the table beside him.
"Evidently. Can't imagine you'd be calling me at half past four in the morning pissed drunk because everything went swimmingly. What the hell even happened?" the other man asked, obviously aggravated at having been disturbed at this hour.
"Better ask what didn't happen. Probably easier to just show you, you won't believe me if I try to explain. Come over," he hiccupped.
"Now? Fuck off of it, I'm in bed with Alonso. And you should be in bed too, you drunk asshole. Wait...where is Rose?" Jack asked, his voice suddenly lucid and clear with concern.
"She's upstairs, asleep. In my bedroom. So no...I really shouldn't go back to bed, Jack, she's why I got out of bed in the first place. I didn't want her to see me like this...again. Come over," he hiccupped again. He heard the sigh and grumble from the other end, but knew that meant he'd probably already gotten his way.
"You let her see the Bat Cave? I've never even seen your bedroom, and we've been friends practically our whole lives!"
"Do you want to see my bedroom?" the Doctor asked, amused.
"Well, yeah, it's a secret lair. Can I?"
"No. Now come over."
"Alright, alright, just keep your shorts on, I'll be over as soon as I can. And leave Rose alone...she's had enough of your drunken antics to last a life already, I think."
"I won't bother Rose, I promise," he said solemnly
"I realize this second request might be futile, but please stop drinking. I don't want to go over there and just find that you drank yourself into a puddle of vomit of the floor, with absolutely no recollection of having disturbed me at an ungodly hour of the morning to come soothe your over inflated and damaged ego."
"Gee thanks Harkness, you're a true friend," he said sarcastically, but Jack didn't take the bait.
"I know. See you in thirty. Just stay put, you lush. But seriously...stop drinking!"
Jack looked the legal document in front of him over and over again, but a second and third reading still didn't help him believe what he was seeing there. Now, he understood why the Doctor was so despondent. All his carefully laid plans to protect the company from the megalomaniacal interests of his half-brother Harry and his crazed bitch of a sister-in-law Rani were for naught.
"I just can't believe they actually...I mean, shit! They're terrible people, they don't even like animals, let alone other people. This has got to be some kind of a joke, or a stunt," Jack exclaimed, rattling the papers in his hands frustratedly.
"Oh, I'm sure it is a stunt," the Doctor replied wearily. "But stunt or not, it's legally ironclad. My father's will was very specific about the conditions under which the company would change hands in the event that he became incapable of running it, and he was always very specific that he never wanted it to leave the family. When he wrote it, I'm sure he didn't realize I'd be the one who'd end up getting screwed by the legacy clause. I'm sure he never in his wildest dreams could have imagined that Harry and Rani would actually...yeah. It actually makes me physically ill talking about it, so I'm not going to. When my father made that will, he didn't even know about Harry, Romana was still alive, and Susanna hadn't even been born. He had no idea he had a bastard son...literally. He had no idea what would happen to any of us. He wrote the will before he became too senile to do so...it is what it is."
"Yeah, but...man, what the fuck? I'm just so livid on your behalf, and I'm disgusted that they could be so heartless and manipulative. And they're the older, more wise and responsible ones supposedly. Can't you try to fight fire with fire?" Jack asked him, still simmering with anger.
The Doctor laughed, bitterly. "How? I'm already the monster who took a girl from her mother...I won't be the monster that does that, too. The whole thing is a mess anyway...maybe it's just better if I sit back and let the pieces fall as they may."
"You can't honestly believe that. You know what Harry would do if he had control of the company. He will push through to get a license to produce the vortex manipulator commercially, because it's profitable. He doesn't care if some kid accidentally makes dinosaurs extinct or not, so long as he can make a buck while he does it. Never mind if he got his hands on those formulas you've been working on lately, which you've been using the work lab for… You can't give up now, there has to be another way."
"Don't you get it, Jack? There isn't another way. Well, maybe there is, but it doesn't matter because Harry is evil, and he's always one step ahead of the game. Don't ask me how, but he knew Rose came from one of the slave exchanges in New London. He confronted me about it over a week ago, after him and Rani came over for dinner that night. I denied it, of course, but I doubt he believed me. I don't know how he found out. The point is...they're on to me. And they're doing this because they know I won't try to compete with them. That part of my life is over, it ended a long time ago. I was willing to go through with a sham marriage to try and save my father's company...but I won't ask Rose to do this and I won't play at their game."
"How do you know Rose wouldn't do it? She grew up on a council estate, and she loves her mother to death. If she thought doing it would mean securing a better future for her and her mother, she probably would. Money talks, especially to those who've never had it before."
"Okay Jack, I'll bite. Pretend for a second I ask, and she does agree. What happens when it's time for her to go back to her own time, her own life? What the hell would I do then?" he asked, angrily.
"I've only just started to get to know her, but my gut feeling says that she wouldn't leave, she'd stay. Wouldn't that be a good thing?" Jack prodded gently.
"No, because there'd be outside factors forcing her hand. If she's going to stay, I want her to stay because it's a choice she made for herself, not one she made out of a sense of duty or obligation, and not one she made because she had financial motivation to do so," the Doctor grumbled.
Jack looked utterly gobsmacked. "You're falling for her, aren't you?"
"I'm not falling for her. I don't even know her, Jack. The only thing I do know is that she's too good for me, and she's somehow mine anyway. For now. I have some kind of responsibility not to completely sully her..."
"Oh my God, you are! You are totally falling for Rose! That was not part of the original plan…"
"Of course it wasn't part of the plan!" the Doctor snapped, pouring himself another inch of scotch. "But it's like..fuck, Jack. It's like the universe hand-delivered her to me. And she reminds me so much of my Romana in some ways, the good ways...it feels like I'm being given a second chance here."
"I know you aren't supposed to speak ill of the dead...but Romana and you weren't even talking when she died. If it wasn't for the accident...you probably would've ended up getting divorced, she would have asked you for one. It's been so long, you've built her up in your mind to be something she never was. Doctor...you were friends, teenagers, who accidentally got pregnant when you were still practically kids. You never should've gotten married, and the only reason you did was because your family's are both old-fashioned. Maybe you guys were best friends once upon a time, but you just weren't cut out for each other in love. Having a kid is hard on any marriage, let alone with you guys being so young and you already off working full time while she stayed home with the baby. What happened wasn't your fault. If you're going to give yourself a second chance, just give yourself permission to forgive yourself for Romana and Susanna, and actually really love the person this time."
"I loved my wife and daughter," the Doctor repeated, his voice steely, and Jack got the feeling he was saying it out loud more for his own benefit than anyone else's.
"I never said you didn't, but Doctor...things were going down hill. There's no point pining over what could've been in the past when you've got the future right in front of you to worry about. If you don't want Harry taking over the company, selling off your inventions, your formulas, and your father's legacy, than we've got to come up with some kind of plan. You should at least talk to Rose about it, see what she says. She's practical enough. If you frame it for her logically why it makes sense to do it, she might even agree."
"If Sus-if my daughter had lived...she would only be seven years younger than Rose," the Doctor said, a trace of revulsion and self-loathing hidden in his expression.
"That's not the point, and you know it. You could sit here and self-deprecate all night, but I won't let you. You paid the price for having Rose, you might as well attempt talking to her. I know she's a just for show wife, but maybe talking to her like a real wife would help."
"I'm not involving Rose," the Doctor said. "And that's final. I'll come up with some other solution. I always do."
Jack hoped the Doctor was right.
Jack didn't leave until the first rays of the dawn's early morning light were creeping over the horizon, and he was satisfied that the Doctor was soberish enough to return to bed without disturbing Rose. It felt a bit absurd, standing outside a closet door like it was the wardrobe that lead to Narnia, and bidding his best friend good night (good morning?)
"All I'm saying Doc, just think about trying to talk with her," Jack coaxed.
"Yes, I heard you the first two dozen times you suggested that. I get the point, now drop it. If I want to talk to Rose about it, I will. In my own time," the Doctor replied, pursing his lips.
"So never, in other words," Jack said with a sarcastic laugh. "For having that enormous, scientific brain all in there, you sure are a moron sometimes when it comes to figuring out other people."
"Get out of my house, you walking chlamydia culture," the Doctor replied with no malice in his voice.
"Love you too, Doc," Jack said, blowing an air kiss at him as he went. The Doctor ducked to the side, as if avoiding said air kiss and made an obscene gesture at Jack in response. Pushing through the coats to the code box, he wished again for perhaps the millionth time that Jack Harkness were his half-brother, instead of the smug, smarmy, arrogant prick Harry Saxon. He wished a lot of things were different, though. If he could rebuild the world all over again, what would it even look like? He didn't know, but he wondered to himself if that wasn't in fact what he was already trying to do.
Quietly, he crept back into bed with Rose (as even he was coming to think of her this way in private), draped his arms around her, and tried to will himself to find sleep, and to some relief from the restless stream of guilty, chattering voices that always seemed to inhabit his head at night. Eventually, his eyelids became too heavy to hold open, and he dropped off into an uneasy sleep, plagued with nightmares and dreams of the voices that haunted his head.
