The first thing the Doctor knew when he awoke was that he had been asleep for six hours, twenty two minutes, and fifteen seconds.
Time sense functioning properly again, he thought as he sat up and swung his legs out of bed in one smooth motion, fully awake in an instant. He scrubbed his hands over his face, then over his close-cropped hair. He hadn't slept that long in years. How do humans do it, sleep away half their lives? he wondered for what seemed the thousandth time. He performed a swift internal scan – still humming with excess regeneration energy but otherwise all seemed fairly normal. He felt slightly hungry and very thirsty and desperately in need of a trip to the loo.
Five minutes and thirty five seconds later he was dressed, back in his familiar black jeans, green jumper, and boots. Reaching into his closet, his hand hovered near leather, wondering. He had always changed his attire after a regeneration, a new outfit to match a new appearance, a new personality – it seemed an appropriate compulsion. What should he do this time, when he was new but still the same? After a moment of internal debate, he shrugged on the battered leather and sighed. It still felt right, he thought with a hint of a smile. He was glad – this really was a great jacket.
Ok, he could definitely use some food and a cuppa, but first he needed to see the control room. Jack's words about damage still rang in his ears and, despite the ship's reassurances, he would feel better when he had assessed it with his own eyes. He stepped out of his room and smiled as he saw that Rose's room was next to his. Still worrying about me? He sent his amused thought out to his ship, and the TARDIS hummed with a slight note of sheepish apology. 'S ok, he reassured her silently. Pausing outside Rose's door, he asked, So, you're talkin' to her now? Wha's up with that, old girl? Apparently on this topic he was getting the silent treatment, for there was no reply forthcoming. Stubborn, he thought, but with fondness. Don't think you're getting' off that easy. Discussing this later, you an' I.
He began to walk down the corridor past her room when suddenly, without his conscious volition, he stopped and laid his hands on the smooth surface of Rose's door. Why he did this, he wasn't entirely sure. His fingers softly slid across the wood as his mind reached out toward her, feeling for the warmth of her presence. His hand was actually on the doorknob before he even realized it. He pulled back as if burned, alarmed and bewildered by the rush of emotion. He was baffled by this strange pull she seemed to be exerting on him. He had always had a special connection to her, had lately begun to feel things he didn't dare name, not even in his own mind, but never had his emotions felt so… raw, so out of his control. With rather more fear than he would ever have admitted, he hurried away.
"Hey, Doc – in here."
A voice he had not wanted to hear beckoned as he neared the control room. He hesitated instinctively at the sound and cursed silently - he could not now pretend he hadn't heard. With an inaudible sigh he turned to look into the kitchen and saw Jack sitting at the table, plate and mug in front of him, a welcoming smile on his face. A chill ran down his spine, raising gooseflesh on his arms. It was still a shock to look at him, to see the change in him. For a moment there resided in him a wild desire to throw this parody of a man, this anomaly, into the Void, or maybe take him back to the Gamestation and leave him, fly away and pretend he no longer existed, that he had actually died. He was promptly ashamed of his reaction.
"Jack," he said in greeting as he entered, pleased that his voice did not betray his tension.
"How're you feeling?" Jack asked
"Still a little unsettled," the Doctor answered. "Normal, that, after a regeneration. The sleep helped, though."
"Hungry?" Jack gestured toward his plate, on which food was heaped. "I just scrambled some eggs, and I've got plenty of toast."
"Just the toast, thanks. I'll grab a banana, too." He poured himself a cup of tea from the pot on the stove and, picking a banana from the counter, sat down opposite Jack, who had begun to eat.
"Always the bananas?" he asked with a grin.
"Bananas are always good," the Doctor replied, peeling and taking a bite of the fruit. He was relieved to find that he still liked them – sometimes his taste in foods changed drastically with regeneration, but a love of bananas seemed to be a constant.
"The TARDIS is going to need a thorough tune-up," Jack said between bites. "Rose really did a number on her. A lot of surface damage – easily fixed – but some of the wiring and components in the rotor were really fried, and the stabilizers were a complete mess. I did what I felt comfortable with to get her off the Gamestation."
"'M sure you did a fantastic job. You have a real feel for the old girl." Jack really was a natural with the TARDIS right from the start, thought the Doctor, enthusiastic to learn and a quick study. It had been a surprise for him to find that he enjoyed having another person, a man, to share the pleasurable task of keeping the ship running smoothly. Rose helped him where she could, passing tools and such, but she was usually reading a magazine or painting her toenails at the same time. His mouth twitched with amusement.
"Thanks – I'm just glad I paid attention to all your maintenance," Jack said, obviously gratified by the Doctor's vote of confidence. "I'll feel better after you check her out, though."
The Doctor wolfed down two slices of toast – his appetite was returning with a vengeance – then asked, "Did Rose tell you what she did after the TARDIS took her away?"
"Her memory's pretty sketchy, but she said she was trying to get the TARDIS to fly back to the Gamestation. After Mickey tried to help her, her mother got her hands on a tow truck, and they managed to pull open the console. I think the old girl must've put up a real fight."
"'M sure she did." The Doctor's tone was rueful. "She knew what I had done and why."
"But why did she break open the console?" Jack asked, puzzled. "How did she think that would help her?"
The Doctor was silent for a moment, thoughts whirring through his head, then responded. "I think… remember Cardiff and Blon – Margaret?"
"Yeah. You opened the console and she looked inside, then she changed into an egg. But what does that have to do with Rose getting back?"
"I think Rose remembered that Blon was granted her wish after she looked into the heart of the TARDIS – to be able to redo her life. She must've thought that the TARDIS would grant her wish to come back."
"Sounds like Rose," Jack decided, polishing off the last of his eggs. "Including the stubbornness. She wouldn't just accept being sent away."
"I knew she wouldn't be happy with it. Just didn't imagine she'd be able to do anything about it." His expression was grim as he absently drank his tea.
"But how did she fly the TARDIS – and by herself? She's never been one to be too interested in piloting."
"She doesn't remember that?"
"No." Jack watched the Doctor's face, waiting for his response.
"It wasn't Rose doin' the flying – it was the TARDIS herself," was the Doctor's eventual reply. "Rose was the – conduit, the channel her power flowed through."
"Power?"
"The power of the time vortex itself."
Jack's expression was frankly incredulous. "Wait – you're saying – the vortex was – inside Rose?"
"Yep," the Doctor answered, popping the "p". Well, that was new, he thought in mild surprise.
"But no one can hold that kind of power without burning up!" Amazement was written all over the former Time Agent's face.
"That's what I thought, too, until she did it. She does tend to do the impossible, Rose." There was a mixture of frustration and pride in his tone as he said this.
Jack was looking down into his mug, mulling over what he had learned, and the Doctor quickly decided to grab the opportunity to get away. He felt very fortunate that he had not had to deal with the giant elephant sitting squarely in the middle of the room, at least for the moment. Cowardly, he knew, but still… He placed his hands on the table top and pushed himself up.
"Well, I'm going to check out the damage for myself," he said with strained heartiness, heading for the door. "Why don't you take some time for yourself and I'll see you later…"
"Doctor."
Once again the Doctor was brought to a halt by Jack's voice. It was quiet but carrying, and again he could not pretend he hadn't heard. He closed his eyes in resignation, knowing what was coming, knowing he could not stop him from asking, knowing he had no right to keep the truth from him.
"There's something you're not telling me." It was a statement, not a question. "Something about me."
"Jack…" He did not turn around, could not face him.
"I know it's not just surprise that I'm alive," he interjected. "Rose may have bought that, but… I can see it in your face." The Doctor silently cursed Jack's perceptiveness. "Whatever it is, it can't be worse than wondering and guessing."
"Don't be too sure," he said with a sharp, humorless laugh.
"Doctor, please." The quiet determination in his friend's voice seemed to cut through him like a scalpel. "I need to know."
"Jack, I just don't know how to-"he began helplessly, unable to face him. Some things didn't change, he thought bitterly. Still the coward, every time.
"Try just spitting it out. You're usually pretty good at the blunt honesty thing."
"Don't ask Rose's opinion on that," he retorted dryly. There was no choice now – he knew there wasn't, and so he slowly turned around. Jack was still sitting at the table, eyes fixed steadily on him, pinning him. The Doctor had rarely seen him look so serious.
"OK," he finally said with a deep sigh and sat down heavily across from him. He met Jack's bright blue eyes unflinchingly – he owed his friend that much, he thought bleakly. "Earlier you were telling me what you remembered from Floor 500, when the Daleks cornered you and you tried to hold them off."
Jack nodded, so he continued, "You said one minute they were there and the next there was nothing but dust and you were lying on the ground, right?" Again a nod. "What do you think happened?"
"I don't know, Doc – that's why I'm asking you," he replied, raising his hands in a helpless gesture.
"You died, Jack. The Daleks killed you."
"I… died?" he repeated blankly.
"I could feel it, the moment you were killed, a sort of… absence." The Doctor remembered with a pang the hollow ache that had filled him the moment he heard the blasts.
"So, if I died," Jack said slowly, trying to reason through this information, "how did I end up here, alive? When I woke up there was no one around, no one who could have helped me."
"It was Rose," he answered without preamble.
"Rose?"
The Doctor nodded. Foolishly he hoped that the conversation, the revelation would end here, with Jack's amazement at being alive, alive because of Rose. I don't want to tell him, I can't tell him ran like a litany through his brain.
"Now that definitely doesn't make sense, Doc." Jack ran his hands through his dark hair, obviously confused. "Rose wasn't there, and she didn't have any way to-"
"It was the vortex," he interrupted. "She used the power of the vortex to kill all the Daleks and bring you back to life."
Now Jack laughed, a look of amused disbelief on his handsome face. "C'mon, Doc, are you sure you're thinking straight? Rose – our Rose destroyed the entire Dalek fleet singlehandedly and just for kicks brought me back? You're joking, right?"
"I've never been more serious, Jack," the Doctor said quietly, and Jack's laughter died away. "Rose became something different, infinitely powerful, with the vortex running through her." He paused, remembering. "She called herself Bad Wolf, said she had been scattering those words all over time and space to lead her back. Back to that moment. A closed time loop so she could destroy the Daleks and end the Time War."
"And save us." There was awe in Jack's voice and face.
"And save us," the Doctor repeated, feeling the same awe well up in him. His Rose, his determined, stubborn, amazing girl… she had done all that to save them.
Jack's voice broke into his thoughts. "But that's not all you have to tell me." It was not a question. "You wouldn't be looking at me like you've been if that was all it was."
"Looking at you how?" He was afraid of Jack's answer.
"Like it hurts."
The succinct reply made him wince. So perceptive, Jack was, behind that careless playboy exterior. He tried, failed to think of an easy way to tell him what he would have given so much to change.
"Rose didn't just bring you back," he said at last. "She brought you back permanently."
"Permanently? What does that mean, permanently?"
A deep, steadying breath, then the plain, bald truth. There was nothing left but that. "You can't die, Jack. She made you immortal."
Hearing his own voice state this incomprehensible yet inarguable fact and watching its effects was like a physical blow. He desperately wanted to take the words back, return the joyful twinkle to his friend's eyes. Pain – all he seemed capable of giving to those he cared about was pain, he thought bleakly.
The color was draining from Jack's face, leaving him ghostly pale. "That's… that's impossible."
"She wanted you alive." He stated it simply, without prevarication. "She overdid it. Too enthusiastic with her power."
"How do you know?" This was asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
"I can see it, feel it. You're – wrong. It does hurt me to look at you, because someone like you shouldn't exist." It was blunt, too blunt, but the Doctor didn't know how else to say it.
Jack rose abruptly from his chair and paced about the room, running his hands through his hair repeatedly. "Humans live a lot longer in the 51st century, over 200 years." He was grasping at straws, trying to make sense of this. "Maybe you're feeling that – "
"No, Jack." The Doctor cut him off deliberately, ruthlessly. He couldn't let him chase after illusions, kind as that might seem at the moment. "You're a fixed point." Jack's eyes were riveted to his face, bewildered, desperate. "A Time Lord can see all of time, spread out before him. What has been, what is, what could be." An image of Rose, golden and blazing. "I can see time lines shifting, in flux, some possibilities coming to fruition, others fading away. Most of time is fluid, but certain points, events affecting certain people's lives are fixed, unchangeable without catastrophic damage to the fabric of the future." He paused. "But not the people themselves. Never people. You are fixed."
He could see the truth dawning in Jack's eyes, the ramifications crashing down on him. He was a former Time Agent – he understood enough of time travel to comprehend the awful reality of what the Doctor told him. Only a time traveler knew that eternal existence was not the gift others imagined it was.
"So I'll never die. Ever." Five small words – how could such small words sum up the whole of Jack's future?
"No."
Jack fell back into his chair and covered his face with his hands for a long minute. The Doctor could think of nothing to say. He was rubbish with emotions, he thought in helpless frustration, complete rubbish. Rose was always the one who knew what to do, how to comfort – Gwyneth in Cardiff, her dad outside the church, himself in a bunker in Utah.
"Will I age?" The question was muffled.
"I don't know," he answered honestly. "Probably so slowly as to be imperceptible."
"What will happen if I get hurt?" Jack lifted his head and met the Doctor's eyes. "Say I jump off a hundred story building. Will I just – bounce when I hit the ground?"
The Doctor smiled slightly but without humor. "No, you'll die – then you'll come back to life."
Jack's eyes probed him searchingly. "You're… you're absolutely sure? There's no chance you're wrong?"
"I guess there's a chance," he answered cautiously. "Since I've never met anyone like you I could be wrong."
"But you don't think you are." Obviously what he had been looking for in the Doctor's face had not been found.
He couldn't lie, not now, not to him. "No, I don't." A pause, then he added, "I wouldn't advise you testing the theory, though, just in case. Not until I've analyzed you thoroughly."
"Don't worry – I won't try to block a bullet with my body or anything," Jack quipped with a weak attempt at a smile. Once again the Doctor was amazed. Humans were brilliant, he thought, so resilient even when facing the very worst.
"Rose was holding all that power," Jack continued. "You said it should have burned her up. Did anything happen to her?"
"It would have killed her if she had held it much longer than she did." He shuddered slightly as he remembered her fear and pain as the wild fury of the vortex blazed in her, consuming her. "It was killing her. I took it out of her and sent it back into the TARDIS. But the energy started destroying me – that's why I regenerated."
Jack lowered his head into his hands again, lost in his thoughts. As he waited, the Doctor closed his eyes and his own thoughts began to drift, back to Floor 500. Once again Rose was burning in front of him, tear tracks streaking her face.
His hearts breaking at her pain, he knew what he needed to do. It didn't matter the cost to him. She had saved him, his brilliant, beautiful girl, and now it was his turn to save her.
My head – it's killing me!
C'mere. You need a Doctor.
And, with that, the last missing piece of his memory fell into place. He now fully remembered what had happened, how he had removed the deadly energy from her.
He could just touch her temple, and the power would be sucked from her. But looking down into her eyes, brown and swirling gold, he realized what he wanted to do. Just this one time, he thought, in this body which would soon begin its change. He needed to tell her what he felt for her, the fantastic girl who had saved him in more ways than he could begin to count. But this man he was now, unlike his smooth-tongued predecessor, never seemed to have the right words. And so he placed his hands, not on her temples, but on her shoulders, drew her in and lowered his lips to hers. One slow, gentle kiss – he tried to put the whole of his ancient, broken soul into that simple touch. And as the burning energy left her and flowed into him and as her body fell softly into his arms, he felt a shock, like an electric current, run through his brain. He saw memories and felt emotions that were not his own. His mind, empty of all but his own lonely thoughts for so long, was suddenly filled, illuminated by another. He gasped, and his knees almost buckled under him.
His eyes flew open and stared, unseeing, at the wall before him, shock and amazement coursing through him in equal measure. His brain was making the connections at blinding speed. He now knew what else Rose had done while possessed by the vortex. Her statement, made with such sweetness – "I want you safe, my Doctor" – he now understood. My Doctor. That was the important word, "my". Rose didn't just save him – she saved him as he was, kept him from changing as he regenerated. He had literally been remade for her. Her heart's wish granted. Still the Doctor she knew.
And that was not all that had happened. Her longing for his presence and safety, combined with the power raging through her, had reached into his mind, past the mental barriers he had carelessly allowed to weaken since the destruction of his people, had forged a telepathic bond with him. Delicate yet strong as steel, she had wound herself into the fabric of his mind before he could even fully register the fact. This was the reason, like a plucked string on a harp, he seemed to vibrate in response to her presence and touch.
Oh, Rose, what have you done? he moaned silently, his brain reeling with the implications. It wasn't a full bond – probing, he could immediately sense this – but it was still something he had never intended and could not yet fully comprehend. What did this mean for their relationship? What were the consequences of a bond with a non-Time Lord, and how could he control the effects? He cursed himself for his weakness in kissing her, felt the all-too-familiar pangs of guilt begin to twine around him.
"We can't tell her what happened." The Doctor was brought back to the present with a jolt. Jack was gazing at him steadily. "Rose can't know what she did – it's not her fault, but she'd never forgive herself. I don't want that guilt on her – at least for as long as possible."
The Doctor stared back at him and, unbidden, came to his mind what he had said to the captain when he had first entered the TARDIS…
"It's bigger on the inside."
"You better be."
Despite the immensity of the news he had just been given, Jack thought about its effects on Rose. He truly was bigger on the inside, he marveled.
"I'm not just accepting this," he stated quietly and firmly. "If there's some way to change this, I'll find it."
"Thanks, Doc," Jack replied with a small smile and then, eyeing the man across from him closely, "Is it too hard for you to be around me? You can drop me off on Earth if it is -51st century. I can find my way from there."
The Doctor hesitated. When he had first walked into the kitchen, he had wanted nothing more than for Jack to be gone, as far away as possible. But now, after this conversation, to his great relief he could once again see his friend.
"No, Jack," he denied honestly. "It is hard, but it's getting easier. I don't want you to leave. Besides, it'd break Rose's heart."
"I'd do just about anything to avoid that," he agreed. "She's quite a girl, our Rosie."
I used to be jealous of him, he remembered with a flash of surprise. When had that stopped?
"'M sorry, Jack. So sorry for all of this." Such inadequate words.
Jack smiled with a touch of his old flash and charm. "Don't worry about me. Just think, with all the time in the universe, imagine the number of people I'll be able to – "
"I think I'll pass on that particular image, thanks," the Doctor interrupted with mock regret, and Jack laughed.
"Your loss." He stood up slowly. "I think I will take you up on your suggestion." Walking to a cupboard, he took down a glass and a bottle of hypervodka the Doctor didn't remember picking up. "I'm going to go to my room with this and get good and hammered. Then I'll sober up and face it all." Crossing over to the Doctor, he clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Thanks for your honesty, Doc, and your friendship."
Before the Doctor could answer him, he strode quickly out of the room.
"Complete and utter rubbish at this," he repeated aloud in exhaustion as he too rose and left the kitchen, heading for the control room. He needed to clear his head, and right now the only way to do it was with a spanner in his hands and grease under his nails. Let me hide for just a little while and pretend that nothing's changed, he requested, a hint of desperation in the thought he sent out to the TARDIS. She hummed soothingly in reply as he collected his tools.