By Maetel
Chapter 3
Well
I woke up today and your on the other side
Our time will never
come again
- Song For Ten, composed by Murray Gold
When Rose woke, she found herself back on the Game Station. Her head was tingling- Buzzing, though it was quickly growing worse. She could swear that she could feel every molecule of her head- skull, brain and nerves, moving. The friction was making her head feel like it was going to combust any moment, and she didn't know why. All she did know was that the most beautiful song as streaming through her mind, providing a background noise to the images that were going through her head.
They were numerous and few. The Doctor regenerating into the man she'd last seen. The Doctor not regenerating but they still continue on with the life they led. Her dying soon and the Doctor once again being alone, just as when she'd met him. The Doctor being-
Something erased that thought from her mind before it could finish working itself out, but there wasn't a moment for anything else to come to mind as she heard the booming voice of the Dalek Emperor fill her ears. She heard another voice, which she found rather disarming considering the voice was hers. She couldn't control what the voice is saying, but what it does…
The Doctor had scared her during her first encounter with a Dalek. The look in his eyes had been one of a mad passion. She almost wondered if her expression at that time had been the same as the one she saw on his face at that moment. He looked… Terrified. Is that what she'd inspi-
Had he just said something about the Time Vortex? She had… But the Doctor was the one who'd absorbed the Time Vortex. Not her… Right? This all had to be a bad dream then. She would have died if she'd absorbed it, and not sleeping.
Her sense of awareness shifted back to her surroundings as her gaze had moved from the Doctor to the Daleks, namely the hologram of the Dalek… The "God of all Daleks." She heard herself telling him how insignificant he truly was, and in that moment… He was. She was nothing and at the same time everything. She was seeing it all in her mind's eye, and never knew it. She could feel every bit of pain, every moment of ecstasy, and every gentle touch.
Now she wished she hadn't known it. She knew what was going to happen. The Doctor had told her that he'd sung a song and the Daleks ran away. She'd found the song, and now… He never told her the truth. Did he think she couldn't handle it?
Inside her mind, Rose screamed. In all truth, she couldn't handle it. She watched and felt as whatever was controlling her body was demolecularizing the entirety of the Dalek Fleet. It focused on their pain and used it as fuel, knowing that it was them or him. She wasn't going to lose him.
She could hear their screams throughout time and space. For the first time since ever encountering a Dalek, she pitied them. She wanted to cry for them. She kept trying to assert herself within her own mind, but whenever she tried, the song she heard grew louder until all she could hear was five little words that had shaped her life far too much: "I am the Bad Wolf."
And when the horrid chorale ended, Rose found that the task was done. Her head was burning all the more, feeling like something had set her mind aflame. She wanted it to stop, but she couldn't. But then, he did. The northern accent that made her feel so at home- so at peace with herself and everything. The one that she adored listening to before he'd- It was that thought that made her realize what was about to happen. She recalled nothing after finally managing to open the TARDIS' console and shortly before the Doctor regenerated. Now she knew why.
Bad Wolf. The two words that had haunted them throughout their journey, and now she knew what they were. They had been a message. She'd heard herself say that she'd sent the phrase throughout time and space, but never had she registered the significance of those words.
The power that she'd wielded. She controlled more than death. She wielded life like a brilliant weapon. Sparks of existence being returned to the dead. To Jack. It was too much. It was… She'd been the reason he'd absorbed the Time Vortex. She'd taken it as a part of herself in order to save him, though she was killing herself. Her head was… She was burning and she couldn't let go, despite how much she wanted to. Despite how much he urged her to. Was this why though? Was the reason she couldn't let go because she was watching it all happen?
She vaguely registered his words as she spoke. She was trying to regain control. To do something in order to keep the events she knew to have happened from taking place. She didn't want to let him die because of her. She felt her heart contract in her chest as he drew nearer, only for it to stop when she felt his lips on hers. She'd always wondered what it would have been like, and now that she knew, she almost hated herself for ever wondering.
As she felt him pulling back, she thought, 'I'm sorry…' before the world faded into blackness and soft sheets against her almost bare upper back and legs. Her head turned on one of the pillows as her eyes crept open, falling upon the door, through which a man stood half in and half out of the room. She heard the muffled sounds of voices and strained to make out what was being said.
"Don't worry. I'll contact you if anything happens," she heard Jack's voice say. He was the one standing in the door, probably trying to get everyone to leave her alone for the time being. She laid there, listening to him, but unmoving. The dream… vision? Whatever it was had left her shaken, and she wanted a bit of time to recover. To gather her thoughts and emotions. She sighed softly, but apparently it was enough to draw Jack's attention to her.
He turned his head and looked at her with a relieved smile on his face before closing the door behind him and walking up to her. "About time you woke up. I need to check on that wound of yours. See how well the belt did," he said, his tone playful and worried all at once. He sat down on the edge of the bed beside her, looking at her wound. He carefully pulled back the comforter and removed a piece of leather like material. Rose recognized it as a Diluran healing wrap, and wondered how Jack had gotten hold of it.
Once he seemed satisfied with how the belt had done, she all but lunged at him, wrapping her arms around his neck, clinging to him like a lost child to their parent. She felt him stiffen in response, as though unsure what had brought about this sort of reaction. She couldn't stop herself though, but this time she didn't want to stop. She felt tears fall from her eyes as images of her dream- vision? Images passed through her mind of him having died. He'd been like family to her in the end, and now she knew that he was all right. That he was safe and here, before her very eyes.
It took the peroxide blonde a moment to recollect herself. She wiped her eyes and sniffed softly. It was a little longer before she could look at him. She had to make sure that she was going to be able to look at him without bursting into tears at the memory of seeing him lifeless. But she had something that she needed to ask, and she couldn't let too long pass by.
Finally, she looked at him, a question in her eyes, but didn't know what to do when she saw that his attention was solely focused on her expression as well as just her. She looked down for a moment, avoiding the look in his eyes.
"I thought… Reports from after the attack on Canary Wharf had said that you died," he finally started, carefully pushing a strand of hair out of her eyes.
"I was trapped somewhere. They were opening a rift in space and time, and a lot of things went wrong-"
"Cybermen and Daleks," he interjected, letting her know that he had some idea as to what had gone on that day.
She nodded and cleared her throat. "Yeah. When the Doctor was trying to send them back through the rift, into the void, something went wrong with one of the switches. I was the closest person, so I had to try and fix it. I almost wound up being pulled through into Hell…"
"Almost? What happened?" Jack questioned. He could see that talking was hard for Rose, but he had to get some answers. The world didn't stop turning simply because someone was hurting. Dangers didn't stop coming through the rift because of one person.
"The other universe's version of my dad, the one who gave my mum and I a place to stay and work in my time there over the past couple of years, risked coming back through the rift in order to make sure nothing happened to me. He caught me before I fell through- Just as the rift was closing, and I was trapped in the other world," she said quickly, before her throat had the chance to close up too much.
She realized what being back in her world meant. No more seeing her family. No more mum, Pete, Mickey, or- Her little brother wouldn't be able to know his sister. She wouldn't be able to see him grow up. Mickey must be worrying sick about her. Last she'd told him was that she might have to go into hiding. That she might be in trouble and needed to get away from Torchwood for a while.
Jack saw the way her expression changed, felt a twinge of regret for making the woman before him cry. She'd been trapped away from everything for years, and now, if he understood correctly, she was denied of even her family.
"Jack," she said, drawing him from his thoughts. "Where is he? You told me we'd talk when I was stronger. I'm stronger, now please…"
Those pleading brown eyes. The eyes he'd managed to put to the back of his mind. Those gorgeous bedroom eyes that shone for the Doctor so often despite the attention he paid her during his time with them. He didn't have anything to distract him from their pull, and with a sigh, he gave in.
"I don't know," he told her. "Last time I saw either one of you was on the Game Station. The Doctor told me that he'd sent you home to where you'd be safe. The Daleks had over run the place and-"
"You'd been killed," she said, finishing his sentence for him. "You were dead, weren't you?"
"How did you… No body knows what happened except for maybe The Doctor," he told her. "You'd been sent home by that point."
She shook her head. "I… I don't know exactly what happened, but I found a way back to help him by using the power of the Time Vortex, or something like that. I… I did something stupid."
"Rose, what do you mean?" Jack asked, gently cupping her cheek, using his thumb to stroke away a stray tear that had managed to fall. "What happened? According to the Dalek Emperor, the Delta wave should have killed everything, but one moment, I'm fighting the Daleks with everything I have, and the next I'm alive all over again, and I hear the TARDIS leaving-"
"I'm so sorry about leaving you there. The Doctor… After he regenerated, he said that you were supposed to stay behind. Help rebuild Earth. After that, we discovered that something had gone wrong with his regeneration. At that point, I was scared out of my head and wanted nothing more than to go home, so we had to head back to Earth. We tried to go back for you, but by the time we had, you weren't there anymore, and we couldn't go back any earlier. It would have altered the time line too much. That's what he told me at-"
"It's all right, Rose. You don't have to explain anything. I figured that something major had happened. I put two and two together once I saw pictures of your traveling with another man, stepping out of the TARDIS." She was close to rambling, and Jack didn't want to worry about causing her any more stress than necessary.
The blonde sniffed a bit and looked down at her hands that were sitting on the comforter. She took a deep breath before lifting a hand to shove some hair behind her ear. "Do you know if the TARDIS has been seen anywhere else?"
"No. Well, not the Doctor you know. Previous incarnations are on the record, and they've been popping up every so often, but otherwise, I don't know. I'm sorry Rose." He placed a hand under her chin and lifted her head so that she was looking at him. "If you want, I'll help you find him. I have a few questions about what happened on Game Station, and I think only he might be able to answer them."
She nodded as much as his hand allowed her to, and tried to offer him a small smile. They both knew that it was the best that she could offer at the moment, all things considered.
"Look, how about I give you a bit of a tour of this place, since neither of us know how long you're going to be here?" he offered, trying to take her mind off of things.
"That sounds like it might be a good idea. I think it might be nice to see this world again. Hopefully it hasn't changed too much."
"Nah. Cardiff is the same as always," he assured her. "Shops and restaurants still all over the place. The only difference is one less group of cannibals and fewer aliens."
Rose shot him a strange look before he raised his hand. "I'll explain it later."
He walked over to the foot of the bed and opened a small trunk, or was it a foot locker? Either way, she hadn't noticed it before. Jack took a blue shirt out of it and brought it as well as her pants, which looked surprisingly clean over to her. He turned his head as she dressed, out of respect towards the woman, though he didn't leave in case she needed any sort of help with anything. He still figured her to be weak from the blood loss and didn't want to risk her falling.
When Rose was dressed, she walked up beside Jack and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Ready?"
"Yeah, come on," he told her, the smile once again on his face. He just hoped the mini tour would be enough to lift her spirits.
As they walked out of his quarters, they talked about some of the smaller changes that had taken place, like Harriet Jones being replaced as Prime Minister due to lack of faith in her health. She managed to keep the job, but many of the people of Britain didn't believe that she'd been well enough to carry on for one more term. Rose then went on to comment about how she had a feeling that the Doctor had something to do with it, recounting the events of the last Christmas she'd spent with her family in her proper world.
The memory brought down her spirits a bit, but her mind was quickly taken off the subject when she saw a haunting insignia on one of the glass panes of the room.
"Oh, God… I thought…I thought Torchwood had been-" A look of obvious horror crossed her features as Jack walked a few paces ahead of her.
"Destroyed in London. There are different branches of it, Rose. Welcome to Torchwood Cardiff," he told her, before finally turning around enough to see the look on her face.
Author's Note: I know I promised the Doctor Soon, and I still promise that, but I felt that if I tried that this chapter, it'd come out about ten pages longer than I had planned. The next chapter will herald his return though. I promise.
Anyways, please remember to comment if you liked. Thanks.