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Tethered.
by Caroline Corken
Rose was finding this all a little hard to believe.
She watched as the Doctor worked at the controls of the TARDIS and felt a wave of despair wash over her as she looked on. She had to ask. She had to know before she could go any further with all this.
"Is he dead?" The Doctor looked at her, her hands still holding on tight to the support strut and for a moment Rose regretted the question. She could see the same compassion that lit her Doctor's eyes shine from eyes that somehow looked different yet where the same. But she had asked the question because she needed to hear an answer, because she honestly believed her future might depend on it. "The," She paused at the use of the word 'man' wondering if it's the correct thing to say to an alien, but she couldn't think of another word at the moment, so she ploughed on. "The Doctor I knew, I mean. Is he really gone for good?"
She watched as the Doctor looked down towards his hands which had stilled on the console, still and quiet as if really thinking about his answer. Finally, he walked around the console and to her and she struggled with the urge to back away from someone who looked like a stranger. The Doctor stopped in front of her, and held out his hand. Trust me?
She could feel the trust at the very least and put her hand in his and it does feel different. The hand is a little smaller than what she's used to, but the reasons why she took it feel the same.
"Rose." He smiled at her, and she can't help but smile through her sadness. "I know you're going to miss him, but he's still here. At my hearts, I'll never really change. I'll always love you and Jack."
Jack. She'd forgotten about Jack! "We've left Jack back at the station!" She ran to the console, tugging the Doctor along behind her, forgetting her own worries as she realised what had happened. "He's going to be so ticked off with us, I can't believe we."
But the Doctor isn't letting go of her hand. He wasn't rushing over to the console to reset the co-ordinates. Rose turned and she once again saw something familiar on the Doctor's face, something she didn't like one little bit. "No." No. Jack is part of her family now. The thought of him being dead is completely unacceptable to her.
"I'm so sorry Rose, really I am. He stood between me and the Dalek's. He gave his life to give me time to finish the Delta wave." Something undistinguishable flits across his face, so quickly that it's gone before she can decipher it. It almost looked like guilt. "Jack is dead."
"Jack's dead?" A new pain hit Rose and she pushed the Doctor away from her. "You knew and you didn't tell me?" Maybe she knows this Doctor after all, because she can see that she's right. She feels herself lose control. She lets herself lose control. "You were standing right at that very spot telling me how much I would love Barcelona! You wanted to take me on a bloody holiday when our best friend just lost his life?" She's so angry she feels like she could thump him one. She wants to but she is at the very least holding herself back from that. "What if it had've been me? What if I had died on that station? Would you have swanned off to some party planet with Jack?" She's screaming now, finding it hard to believe that her Doctor could have even suggested such a trip. "God! How could you!?!" Tears are running down her face unnoticed, trailing mascara down her cheeks. And just like that, all her energy was gone, but the hurt still remained. "I thought you said you loved us Doctor?" Not knowing what else she could do, Rose turned and ran away, out of the console room and as far away from him as she could. If Jack is dead, then she needs to find what little of him is left on this ship. She needs something that might offer her comfort and she somehow suspects that she's not going to get that from someone who had once been the man she thought she knew.
* * * * *
With heavy hearts, the Doctor watched Rose run from the console room. He understands how she feels. He's lost so many friends; if he was a different kind of person he could joke that he's lost count of how many people have died either because of or for him. But he is the Doctor and he remembers every single one of them with fondness, compassion and regret. Over the years he sometimes thinks he should lock himself away from the rest of the Universe, as if that would protect them all somehow from falling in his wake.
But he can't. The Doctor knows he can't, never mind that he still feels this indefinable urge to be out here. There is just so much to see and do and learn. To lock himself away from all that life has to offer, no matter how brief or how long you might have, seems selfish considering. The Doctor knows that he would rather be grieved for than simply forgotten and he takes the same view of others. It is better to grieve for Jack than to never have let him touch the Doctor's hearts.
He shivers as an alien chill runs down his spine. Pulling himself together, he goes to find Rose.
* * * * *
The Doctor treads a sure path to Jack's room.
On the bed lies the RAF uniform the young Captain Jack had looked so dashing in, the cap he wore cradled in Rose's hands. When she looks up at him, her eyes are red-rimmed and full of pain.
"I'm sorry Rose." He reaches for the hat in her lap and she says nothing. "I do miss Jack. I do. It's just."
"What?"
"Oh Rose," he sighs. "Of course I miss him. But-"
Rose suddenly felt angry at what he might be about to say. "Don't be giving me that old bollocks about how you know Jack wouldn't want us to mourn for him. I already know that, but you could at least have waited five minutes before announcing a weekend break in bloody Barcelona."
He bites his lip at that, stifling a laugh that he can see annoys her and reassures her all in one.
"Alright. I'll bite. But what?"
"Close your eyes." He tells her.
He sees the puzzlement there, but he smiles and nods his head reassuringly. "Go on, close your eyes." The Doctor closes his in example and can sense when she does the same.
"Now, listen. Listen to the TARDIS. Feel the life she carries through her." He opens his eyes again, watches as she fights against the notion that this is silly and a probably a waste of time.
But slowly her face relaxes and he sees a peace there that he finds captivating and he thinks to himself that if he could somehow bottle that peace, he'd be very rich and the universe would be a hell of a lot happier. He continues to watch her until sometime later, she opens her eyes and a smile twitches at her lips.
"What was that?" she asked, her voice full of wonder.
The Doctor wasn't sure if it would work or not, but Rose has touched the soul of the TARDIS. If this was going to work with anyone, it would be Rose. Of that much he is certain.
"The TARDIS is alive. She gets inside your head and does all this amazing stuff." The Doctor smiled and reached for her hand, taking it and squeezing it gently. "She translates for you. One language to another. But she's more than that. Does more than that. Wants more than that. She cares too. She touches the soul of everyone who comes onboard. We are her family, in a way."
Rose shook her head, not sure what that means.
"The TARDIS is a time machine, Rose. Time and space hold no borders for her. When someone she cares about is lost, she reaches across time and space and touches them again. Not in the same way, but with the same kind of love." He closes his eyes and lets himself become more deeply aware of the ship for a brief moment, thinking of Jack, feeling him out there somewhere, still alive in a way that would never die.
Soft lips press against his and the Doctor's eyes snap open and he looks at Rose in surprise. "Did you just kiss me?"
She shook her head at him. "No." A teasing smile now, "Do you want me to?"
He smiles back at her to hide the confusion he feels. He could have sworn she had just kissed him, but he couldn't think of any reason why she would lie about it. The Doctor shrugged it off and stood up, pulling Rose to her feet, showing off his new teeth with a dazzling grin aimed right at her. "Maybe later. Right now I think we need to get to Barcelona, raise a toast to Captain Jack Harkness and get absolutely smashed!"
The end