amberfocus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amberfocus) wrote2008-05-28 04:39 pm
amberfocus) wrote2008-05-28 04:39 pm
Entry tags:
Repercussions (45-48 of 55)
Banner by Megz33
Chapter Forty-five: Cardiff
When the TARDIS materializes in Cardiff it does so in an alley behind some sort of travel agency. The Doctor turns on the view screen and carefully scans the area. “I wonder why she landed here,” he muses. “I was aiming for the Millennium Center.”
“Does it matter?” asks Martha.
“Well, that’s where the Rift is. In front of the Millennium Center,” I explain. “The TARDIS usually lands there so it can soak up Rift energy. Sort of a refueling stop.”
“Well, she must not have deemed it safe. Wish I could see…” he says. “Well, there’s nothing for it.” He turns off the view screen. “We’ll just have to go and look.”
“Doctor, maybe you should give Martha a spare key, in case we get separated,” I suggest.
“Ah, good idea.” He reaches into his capacious pockets and pulls out several items before he finds a key ring. Carefully he pries one free. “If something happens and you need to run for your life, come back here and hide in the TARDIS. An armored tank couldn’t get through those doors. One tried.”
“No, Doctor, an armored tank couldn’t, but a certain Captain with his own key could,” comes a voice from behind us. I whirl around and then I am flying across the room and into his arms.
“Jack!” I squeal. “Jack. Oh, Jack. Jack, Jack, Jack!” I hug him so tightly he reaches down and loosens me a bit.
“Hello, Rosie. Been a long time, sweetheart.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Not lately,” he says. I let go of him and smile happily up at his face. Still the same gorgeous face. “Hello, Doctor,” he says a little stiffly.
“Hello,” the Doctor answers awkwardly. “Been a while.”
“Hasn’t it just?” He turns his eyes to Martha. “And who are you?” he asks in his flirtiest voice while he throws his most charming smile in her direction.
“Martha Jones,” she says breathlessly.
“Hello, Martha Jones.”
“Stop it,” says the Doctor warningly.
“And I’m--.”
“Let me guess,” Martha says, a sparkle in her eyes as she recites totally deadpan, “You’re Jack, oh, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack?”
“That’s Captain Jack, oh, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack Harkness, ma’am,” he grins, tipping an imaginary hat to her. Martha giggles.
“Don’t encourage him or he’ll never stop,” the Doctor warns Martha.
“So who wants him to stop?” Martha asks.
“A girl after my own heart,” he says, eyeing her up and down.
“Who says it’s your heart I’m after,” Martha fires back, eyeing his body just as closely in return.
“As much as I hate to break up the mutual admiration society, may I remind you that we’re on a mission here?” the Doctor asks.
Martha immediately sobers. “What are you doing here?” Jack asks.
“I could ask you the same thing,” the Doctor says.
“I work here. Torchwood 3, Cardiff. I run it,” Jack says.
“Torchwood,” says Martha. “Aren’t they the ones who--?”
“Messed with the Void and let the Cybermen through? Yeah. That was Torchwood London. Tried to stop them but a certain Ms. Yvonne Hartman wasn’t as bright as her hair. Not sure how she ended up running that place. Loyalty to the crown maybe. Anyway, someone shut them down--.”
“That’d be us,” I say waving my hand around.
“And things were quiet for months. Then a few days ago Cybermen started coming out of the Rift. They came out in ones or twos and now, I don’t know, there’s got to be several squadrons. Cardiff’s mostly deserted. Those who didn’t die in the first war turned tail and ran as soon as the first ones hit the streets. All that remain are the sick, the old, and the crippled.”
Jack’s voice hitches a little. “My team does what it can to move them into the hub, that’s where I work, but some of them refuse to leave their homes. We’ve tried taking out as many Cybermen as possible but they keep coming. They just keep coming through. Thought the nightmare was over but…they don’t stop. They never stop.” He rubs at his face.
“Tell me you can help us, Doc.”
“I’ll do whatever I can,” the Doctor says quietly.
“Hope it’s enough,” Jack replies.
“Well, take me to your headquarters,” the Doctor says finally. “Let’s see what we have to work with.” Jack leads us into the back door of a travel agency and releases a switch that opens a steel door. We walk through it and then through a rounded door that pulls back. The hub, and I can see why he calls it that, opens up before us and I can see various work stations, and lots of people and sleeping bags. The smell is fairly ripe.
“I’ve got some good people. They’re a little stir crazy right now, but they’re smart and they know what they’re doing. Tell me, Martha, do you have any weapons experience?” he asks her.
Martha rattles off a surprisingly long list of weapons she is proficient in. Jack’s impressed. I can tell. Martha shrugs. “My grandfather lives in the states. He takes his right to bear arms seriously. And he made sure when we spent summers in Louisiana that we all knew how to use them. Run us up against some old tin cans and I’m your girl.”
“That’s pretty much what Cybermen are. Tin cans. And we’ll be shooting EMP bombs at them. Rose, do you remember what I taught you?” Jack asks.
“Oh, no,” says the Doctor before I can say anything. “Rose isn’t doing anything like what you have in mind, Jack.”
“Why not? I know you don’t believe in using deadly weapons, Doctor but we need every person we have. Rose can shoot straight. Now’s not the time to stand on your morals,” Jack complains.
“It’s not that,” I tell Jack. “He just wants to keep me safe.”
Jack frowns. “Not sure we have the liberty of safe, Rose.”
“I’m not risking her,” the Doctor says.
“Why not? What’s so important that she can’t fight?” he demands.
“I’m pregnant, Jack.” His eyes widen in surprise.
“And I don’t want to do anything that will put my child at risk,” the Doctor says.
Jack’s mouth drops open in shock.
Chapter Forty-six: Jack Reacts
I can tell Jack’s mind has come to a screeching halt. He blinks, once, twice, three times. “Your child?” Jack says when he can finally think in a forward direction again. “Your child? You have got to be kidding me.”
The Doctor comes up behind me, wraps his arms around me and puts his hands possessively over my abdomen. I tilt my head and the Doctor leans down and kisses the exposed part of my neck. “My child,” the Doctor says. He looks up at Jack determinedly and adds, so there is no mistaking it, “My Rose.”
Jack’s eyes widen at the clear and strong message that is being sent to him. “But…I don’t understand, Doc. Is this part of the new body thing? Because you and Rose, you were never like that. Best mates, yeah. But nothing more. She was always…with me.” The Doctor’s hands tighten on me.
“Not with you, with you,” I say, to be clear. I crane my neck to glance up at the Doctor. “I never slept with him.”
Jack looks irritated. “Not for lack of trying,” he mutters under his breath, but loud enough for all of us to hear. “Running for our lives always got in the way. When he didn’t. For all his not wanting you, he sure managed to block my having you.”
“Jack.”
“No, Rose. I don’t get it. He didn’t want you. You were mine, Rose. You and I, we were…almost lovers. Then I’m left for dead--.”
“You were dead!” I protest. “As far as I knew you were dead, Jack. I never dreamed you survived.”
“So you run into the nearest available arms? I suppose it doesn’t hurt that he got so pretty--.”
“Look who’s talking,” snaps the Doctor.
“That’s not it anyway. Jack…Jack, the Doctor you knew died. This isn’t him,” I say.
“What the hell are you talking about Rose?” Jack’s angry. I can see it behind his eyes, sapphires turn to ice as they lose their usual warmth.
“I’m from a parallel world,” the Doctor says trying to keep the sharpness out of his voice. “I’ve had most of the same experiences as the one from this world had. I had a Rose that I lost, and a Jack that was killed by a Slitheen family member. Somehow, there was a girl, another Rose with enormous power, who opened the gateways between worlds and she pulled me into this world, put me with this Rose, and gave her back to me. And I haven’t let go since. I love her, Jack. I loved my first Rose but not like this.”
“We’re getting married, Jack. I’m sorry to hurt you. But I love him. I’ve always loved him. From the day he arrived here, I’ve loved him. There’s no going back for any of us,” I tell him.
"But you were mine."
"Now I'm his."
Jack walks away from us and slams his fist into a partition so hard he nearly knocks it over. “Jack? Do you mind? Trying to do a job here.”
“Shut it, Suzie,” he says harshly, ramming his fist into the false wall a second time.
It’s Martha who moves forward and grabs onto his arm before he can hit it again. She pulls his closed fist towards her, opens the fingers, and turns it over. “You’re bleeding,” she says. She looks up at him with her wide, sympathetic brown eyes and then says, “Is there a medical bay around here somewhere? Let me take care of you.”
It’s interesting the change that comes over Jack at her soft words. The tension slowly leaves his body. Martha has locked her eyes on his and is not dropping her gaze. He lowers his head, looks a bit ashamed of his temper and then nods. “It’s this way,” he says.
Martha shoots a look over her shoulder at me that says volumes. I’ll take care of him. He’s my problem now. I nod and smile at her. I think that she might even be able to handle him. She leads him away in the direction he had indicated to her. "Well, that went well," the Doctor says sarcastically.
“He’ll be okay,” I tell the Doctor.
“Did you ever love him, Rose?” he asks me.
“Yes,” I tell him honestly. “I did. But it was on the surface. It never went deeper than that. I grieved when he died, but he was never a soul mate. He was never you.”
I turn around in his arms and put mine around his neck. “He could never be you. No one could ever be you.” I kiss him softly.
“Oi, you there. Can’t you read?” says a man in a white lab coat. He indicates a sign above our heads. “No snogging zone.”
The woman Jack had called Suzie wheels her office chair out into the walkway. “You know Jack only put that up there for you, Owen,” she said with a grin.
“There was mistletoe!” the man named Owen protested.
Suzie rolls her eyes. “No there wasn’t. It was an ivy plant. In June.” She smiles at us. “I’m Suzie Costello,” she says. “That’s Owen Harper.”
“Dr. Owen Harper,” the man interrupts.
“Dr. Harper,” Suzie repeats with another eye roll. “We’re part of Jack’s team.”
“I’m the Doctor and this is Rose Tyler.”
Suzie scoots forward and shakes hands. “Doctor?” she asks expecting him to supply a name.
“Yes, that’s right,” he says.
“So you knew Jack from the old days?” she asks.
“You could say that.”
“He doesn’t talk about himself much.”
“That's a change.”
“You’ll find a lot of things about me have changed,” Jack says, his mood much improved. He must have circled around and come up from the stairs behind us. I note his hand is bandaged. I also note that his hair is very rumpled, his shirt is untucked, and his fly is down. I look around for Martha, but she’s as calmly put together as she usually is. She looks at me innocently before waiting until everyone has turned away and then she gives me a saucy wink.
“Really, I am happy for the two of you,” he says. “Congratulations. On the baby. On the engagement." He hugs us both at the same time and I almost believe he means it. “Now, let’s get to work.”
Chapter Forty-seven: Naming
Jack’s idea of getting to work is quite a serious one. He introduces us around to the other members of his team. Some, like Ianto Jones are refugees from Torchwood One. Toshiko Sato the Doctor recognizes from the time the Slitheen faked an alien spaceship hitting Big Ben and crashing into the Thames. She had been in charge of examining the fake alien. And then there are a few police officers who had stayed behind to fight when most of their lot had fled the city along with most of the able-bodied men and women.
We are introduced to a woman named Gwen Cooper, her boyfriend RhysWilliams, and her former partner PC Andy Satterly. More names and more faces begin to blur together. Once we are sorted into what we are most useful at, Jack takes Martha down to the shooting range to ‘test her skills,’ and only Jack can make that sound dirty. The Doctor and I are put to work assembling electromagnetic pulse bombs. Although there are many steps to the process they were surprisingly simple to assemble.
“What do you think about Rebecca?” I ask him suddenly.
“Which one was that? The electronics specialist or the weapons tech?” he replies.
“No, for the baby,” I tell him. “What do you think of calling her Rebecca?”
The Doctor frowns, considering it for a moment. “That’s kind of…” He breaks off.
“Kind of what?” I wonder.
“Well, it’s kind of human, isn’t it?” he wonders.
I roll my eyes. “Well, she will be kind of human, won’t she? Half human.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a traditional Gallifreyan name,” he said.
“I thought you hated the traditions of your people,” I say.
“They’re all gone now, Rose. There’s only me. I think I’d like to pass on something of my heritage to her,” he answers slowly.
“Well, we’re not giving her a title for a name. Not the Accountant or the Dentist or the Claims Processor,” I tell him, only half teasing. He rolls his eyes at me and I respond with a grin I know is sheer cheekiness
“That would be foolish,” he says.
“And I’m not calling her a Greek symbol, either, like Theta” I add, whispering his name. “Although, come to think of it, Delta I wouldn’t mind.”
“Delta Sigma?” He muses.
“Delta Rebecca Sigma Tyler,” I say.
“You know, Rose that might work. Let’s sit with it awhile. We don’t have to make up our minds just yet, but I do like it.”
“Okay,” I agree. I put the cap on the last of the EMP bombs and the Doctor takes the basket of completed canisters over to the weapons tech.
“Come on,” he says, “Let’s go find something to eat and then check up on where Martha’s got to.”
“I’m sure Martha’s fine. She’s with Jack.” I smirk behind his back because I think he is completely oblivious to the chemistry the pair of them were radiating when they disappeared to test weapons.
We find the kitchen and dish up food out of the electric slow cookers that are kept on all day. “I think I might help out on food prep after this,” I say after noticing how low the levels are. “I think there are enough bombs. At least our group seems to have assembled whatever supplies were available.”
“Good idea,” he said. “An army marches on its stomach. And I’m going to have a look at the machinery around here. If they have something useful enough I might be able to adapt it to seal the Rift. Then we’d only have to deal with the Cybermen that have already come through and not have to worry about any further troops.”
With our plans made we go our separate ways. It will be awhile before I see the Doctor again.
Chapter Forty-eight: Behind Locked Doors
I am unsettled as the hub locks down, protecting those of us within it as I watch the man I love, a man I once loved and still sort of do, my dear friend and a unit of barely trained civilians armed with weapons bigger than anything I’ve ever seen outside of films, venture out onto the streets of Cardiff.
Most of the CCTV cameras are still working and the woman beside me, Toshiko Sato, is a whiz at operating them remotely. I watch as the battle begins and it frightens me. Even my semi-pacifistic Doctor is willing to take down Cybermen. I know he remembers as clearly as I do what they were responsible for. Not the damaging of a world, but the death of my original Doctor, my own death plummet, and the loss of his original Rose.
I wonder if it is selfish of me to think first of what it meant to me on a personal level, before I think of what it did to people like my father, to so many others destroyed or maimed or suffering in the depths of severe post traumatic stress. Only it’s not so post with the Cybermen reappearing through the Rift.
I can see more and more Cybermen appearing from the surrounding streets as the ones under attack call for reinforcements. Tosh calls frantically to Jack that his troops are being outflanked. I can see the desperation on Martha’s face as she raises her rocket launcher and fires an EMP bomb at the nearest metal man.
It clings to his frame and detonates, leaving the creature dead and immobile. She does not see the one behind her as it raises its arm and fires. I gasp in horror but I did not reckon on Jack, who flings himself on top of Martha, his body twisting around her to absorb the blow. Together they fall to the ground, Jack unmoving with a laser wound going through the back of his head, Martha trapped beneath him.
I turn my eyes away, knowing there is nothing I can do for him. Jack had escaped death once somehow back on the game station. But here, I can see there would be no escape for him. I bite down hard on my lip. Losing Jack again after just finding out he was alive gnaws at my heart. I can’t help the little sob that breaks out and my fingers reach forward and touch the screen, resting over the image of Jack.
Tosh spares me a glance and then frowns. “Give him a minute,” she tells me. “He’ll be fine.”
“He’s dead!” I say harshly.
“I know that,” she says quietly. She nods at the screen. “Give him a minute.”
I look at her like she’s insane but she simply tilts her head at the screen again. I turn back to the screen trying to catch sight of the Doctor, see that he’s all right, that I haven’t lost him, too. So it’s only out of my peripheral vision that I catch the movement where Jack and Martha have fallen.
I focus sharply and watch as Jack takes in a breath and sits up, the head wound knitting itself back together as he rises and offers an awed Martha a hand up. He chucks her gently under the chin and then picks up her weapon, putting it back in her hands. He retrieves his own and they rejoin the battle.
Then the woman who had been introduced to me as Gwen Cooper darts forward and straddles the energy emerging from the ground with her feet, raises her hands skyward and then throws something down violently with both hands into the ground. She is flung to the side, caught neatly by the Doctor. I watch as the opening in the Rift gets smaller and smaller and suddenly disappears, half a Cyberman emerging and being ripped apart as it does so.
Though there is no sound from the CCTV cameras I can still hear the death cry of a Cyberman in my head. But the Rift has been closed if I understand correctly what Gwen has done. And that leaves only the Cybermen that have already come through to deal with. But that is still far too many to be walking on this world.
The sound of hydraulics fills the hub. “I thought the hub was locked down,” I say.
“It is,” says Tosh, leaping to her feet. She is joined by Suzie as they race towards the center. “Something’s overridden the platform.” I follow but an arm reaches out and pulls me back. Owen.
“The doors have been overridden from the outside, Rose.” He presses a weapon into my hands. “Try to stay behind me,” he says. “I’ll do my best to keep you safe, but you best be armed." He hustles me to cover behind a desk he quickly turns on its side. “Stay down. We’ll only fight if we have to. Jack told me to keep you safe no matter what. I reckon he’ll kill me if I don’t. And I don’t come back like he does.”
“About that,” I say. “How is that possible?”
“Not the time, Rose. And it’s for him to tell you. Now get down. And stay down." He settles in beside me as I hear the sound of cyber lasers being fired within the hub.
“Well, that’s where the Rift is. In front of the Millennium Center,” I explain. “The TARDIS usually lands there so it can soak up Rift energy. Sort of a refueling stop.”
“Well, she must not have deemed it safe. Wish I could see…” he says. “Well, there’s nothing for it.” He turns off the view screen. “We’ll just have to go and look.”
“Doctor, maybe you should give Martha a spare key, in case we get separated,” I suggest.
“Ah, good idea.” He reaches into his capacious pockets and pulls out several items before he finds a key ring. Carefully he pries one free. “If something happens and you need to run for your life, come back here and hide in the TARDIS. An armored tank couldn’t get through those doors. One tried.”
“No, Doctor, an armored tank couldn’t, but a certain Captain with his own key could,” comes a voice from behind us. I whirl around and then I am flying across the room and into his arms.
“Jack!” I squeal. “Jack. Oh, Jack. Jack, Jack, Jack!” I hug him so tightly he reaches down and loosens me a bit.
“Hello, Rosie. Been a long time, sweetheart.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“Not lately,” he says. I let go of him and smile happily up at his face. Still the same gorgeous face. “Hello, Doctor,” he says a little stiffly.
“Hello,” the Doctor answers awkwardly. “Been a while.”
“Hasn’t it just?” He turns his eyes to Martha. “And who are you?” he asks in his flirtiest voice while he throws his most charming smile in her direction.
“Martha Jones,” she says breathlessly.
“Hello, Martha Jones.”
“Stop it,” says the Doctor warningly.
“And I’m--.”
“Let me guess,” Martha says, a sparkle in her eyes as she recites totally deadpan, “You’re Jack, oh, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack?”
“That’s Captain Jack, oh, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack Harkness, ma’am,” he grins, tipping an imaginary hat to her. Martha giggles.
“Don’t encourage him or he’ll never stop,” the Doctor warns Martha.
“So who wants him to stop?” Martha asks.
“A girl after my own heart,” he says, eyeing her up and down.
“Who says it’s your heart I’m after,” Martha fires back, eyeing his body just as closely in return.
“As much as I hate to break up the mutual admiration society, may I remind you that we’re on a mission here?” the Doctor asks.
Martha immediately sobers. “What are you doing here?” Jack asks.
“I could ask you the same thing,” the Doctor says.
“I work here. Torchwood 3, Cardiff. I run it,” Jack says.
“Torchwood,” says Martha. “Aren’t they the ones who--?”
“Messed with the Void and let the Cybermen through? Yeah. That was Torchwood London. Tried to stop them but a certain Ms. Yvonne Hartman wasn’t as bright as her hair. Not sure how she ended up running that place. Loyalty to the crown maybe. Anyway, someone shut them down--.”
“That’d be us,” I say waving my hand around.
“And things were quiet for months. Then a few days ago Cybermen started coming out of the Rift. They came out in ones or twos and now, I don’t know, there’s got to be several squadrons. Cardiff’s mostly deserted. Those who didn’t die in the first war turned tail and ran as soon as the first ones hit the streets. All that remain are the sick, the old, and the crippled.”
Jack’s voice hitches a little. “My team does what it can to move them into the hub, that’s where I work, but some of them refuse to leave their homes. We’ve tried taking out as many Cybermen as possible but they keep coming. They just keep coming through. Thought the nightmare was over but…they don’t stop. They never stop.” He rubs at his face.
“Tell me you can help us, Doc.”
“I’ll do whatever I can,” the Doctor says quietly.
“Hope it’s enough,” Jack replies.
“Well, take me to your headquarters,” the Doctor says finally. “Let’s see what we have to work with.” Jack leads us into the back door of a travel agency and releases a switch that opens a steel door. We walk through it and then through a rounded door that pulls back. The hub, and I can see why he calls it that, opens up before us and I can see various work stations, and lots of people and sleeping bags. The smell is fairly ripe.
“I’ve got some good people. They’re a little stir crazy right now, but they’re smart and they know what they’re doing. Tell me, Martha, do you have any weapons experience?” he asks her.
Martha rattles off a surprisingly long list of weapons she is proficient in. Jack’s impressed. I can tell. Martha shrugs. “My grandfather lives in the states. He takes his right to bear arms seriously. And he made sure when we spent summers in Louisiana that we all knew how to use them. Run us up against some old tin cans and I’m your girl.”
“That’s pretty much what Cybermen are. Tin cans. And we’ll be shooting EMP bombs at them. Rose, do you remember what I taught you?” Jack asks.
“Oh, no,” says the Doctor before I can say anything. “Rose isn’t doing anything like what you have in mind, Jack.”
“Why not? I know you don’t believe in using deadly weapons, Doctor but we need every person we have. Rose can shoot straight. Now’s not the time to stand on your morals,” Jack complains.
“It’s not that,” I tell Jack. “He just wants to keep me safe.”
Jack frowns. “Not sure we have the liberty of safe, Rose.”
“I’m not risking her,” the Doctor says.
“Why not? What’s so important that she can’t fight?” he demands.
“I’m pregnant, Jack.” His eyes widen in surprise.
“And I don’t want to do anything that will put my child at risk,” the Doctor says.
Jack’s mouth drops open in shock.
Chapter Forty-six: Jack Reacts
I can tell Jack’s mind has come to a screeching halt. He blinks, once, twice, three times. “Your child?” Jack says when he can finally think in a forward direction again. “Your child? You have got to be kidding me.”
The Doctor comes up behind me, wraps his arms around me and puts his hands possessively over my abdomen. I tilt my head and the Doctor leans down and kisses the exposed part of my neck. “My child,” the Doctor says. He looks up at Jack determinedly and adds, so there is no mistaking it, “My Rose.”
Jack’s eyes widen at the clear and strong message that is being sent to him. “But…I don’t understand, Doc. Is this part of the new body thing? Because you and Rose, you were never like that. Best mates, yeah. But nothing more. She was always…with me.” The Doctor’s hands tighten on me.
“Not with you, with you,” I say, to be clear. I crane my neck to glance up at the Doctor. “I never slept with him.”
Jack looks irritated. “Not for lack of trying,” he mutters under his breath, but loud enough for all of us to hear. “Running for our lives always got in the way. When he didn’t. For all his not wanting you, he sure managed to block my having you.”
“Jack.”
“No, Rose. I don’t get it. He didn’t want you. You were mine, Rose. You and I, we were…almost lovers. Then I’m left for dead--.”
“You were dead!” I protest. “As far as I knew you were dead, Jack. I never dreamed you survived.”
“So you run into the nearest available arms? I suppose it doesn’t hurt that he got so pretty--.”
“Look who’s talking,” snaps the Doctor.
“That’s not it anyway. Jack…Jack, the Doctor you knew died. This isn’t him,” I say.
“What the hell are you talking about Rose?” Jack’s angry. I can see it behind his eyes, sapphires turn to ice as they lose their usual warmth.
“I’m from a parallel world,” the Doctor says trying to keep the sharpness out of his voice. “I’ve had most of the same experiences as the one from this world had. I had a Rose that I lost, and a Jack that was killed by a Slitheen family member. Somehow, there was a girl, another Rose with enormous power, who opened the gateways between worlds and she pulled me into this world, put me with this Rose, and gave her back to me. And I haven’t let go since. I love her, Jack. I loved my first Rose but not like this.”
“We’re getting married, Jack. I’m sorry to hurt you. But I love him. I’ve always loved him. From the day he arrived here, I’ve loved him. There’s no going back for any of us,” I tell him.
"But you were mine."
"Now I'm his."
Jack walks away from us and slams his fist into a partition so hard he nearly knocks it over. “Jack? Do you mind? Trying to do a job here.”
“Shut it, Suzie,” he says harshly, ramming his fist into the false wall a second time.
It’s Martha who moves forward and grabs onto his arm before he can hit it again. She pulls his closed fist towards her, opens the fingers, and turns it over. “You’re bleeding,” she says. She looks up at him with her wide, sympathetic brown eyes and then says, “Is there a medical bay around here somewhere? Let me take care of you.”
It’s interesting the change that comes over Jack at her soft words. The tension slowly leaves his body. Martha has locked her eyes on his and is not dropping her gaze. He lowers his head, looks a bit ashamed of his temper and then nods. “It’s this way,” he says.
Martha shoots a look over her shoulder at me that says volumes. I’ll take care of him. He’s my problem now. I nod and smile at her. I think that she might even be able to handle him. She leads him away in the direction he had indicated to her. "Well, that went well," the Doctor says sarcastically.
“He’ll be okay,” I tell the Doctor.
“Did you ever love him, Rose?” he asks me.
“Yes,” I tell him honestly. “I did. But it was on the surface. It never went deeper than that. I grieved when he died, but he was never a soul mate. He was never you.”
I turn around in his arms and put mine around his neck. “He could never be you. No one could ever be you.” I kiss him softly.
“Oi, you there. Can’t you read?” says a man in a white lab coat. He indicates a sign above our heads. “No snogging zone.”
The woman Jack had called Suzie wheels her office chair out into the walkway. “You know Jack only put that up there for you, Owen,” she said with a grin.
“There was mistletoe!” the man named Owen protested.
Suzie rolls her eyes. “No there wasn’t. It was an ivy plant. In June.” She smiles at us. “I’m Suzie Costello,” she says. “That’s Owen Harper.”
“Dr. Owen Harper,” the man interrupts.
“Dr. Harper,” Suzie repeats with another eye roll. “We’re part of Jack’s team.”
“I’m the Doctor and this is Rose Tyler.”
Suzie scoots forward and shakes hands. “Doctor?” she asks expecting him to supply a name.
“Yes, that’s right,” he says.
“So you knew Jack from the old days?” she asks.
“You could say that.”
“He doesn’t talk about himself much.”
“That's a change.”
“You’ll find a lot of things about me have changed,” Jack says, his mood much improved. He must have circled around and come up from the stairs behind us. I note his hand is bandaged. I also note that his hair is very rumpled, his shirt is untucked, and his fly is down. I look around for Martha, but she’s as calmly put together as she usually is. She looks at me innocently before waiting until everyone has turned away and then she gives me a saucy wink.
“Really, I am happy for the two of you,” he says. “Congratulations. On the baby. On the engagement." He hugs us both at the same time and I almost believe he means it. “Now, let’s get to work.”
Chapter Forty-seven: Naming
Jack’s idea of getting to work is quite a serious one. He introduces us around to the other members of his team. Some, like Ianto Jones are refugees from Torchwood One. Toshiko Sato the Doctor recognizes from the time the Slitheen faked an alien spaceship hitting Big Ben and crashing into the Thames. She had been in charge of examining the fake alien. And then there are a few police officers who had stayed behind to fight when most of their lot had fled the city along with most of the able-bodied men and women.
We are introduced to a woman named Gwen Cooper, her boyfriend RhysWilliams, and her former partner PC Andy Satterly. More names and more faces begin to blur together. Once we are sorted into what we are most useful at, Jack takes Martha down to the shooting range to ‘test her skills,’ and only Jack can make that sound dirty. The Doctor and I are put to work assembling electromagnetic pulse bombs. Although there are many steps to the process they were surprisingly simple to assemble.
“What do you think about Rebecca?” I ask him suddenly.
“Which one was that? The electronics specialist or the weapons tech?” he replies.
“No, for the baby,” I tell him. “What do you think of calling her Rebecca?”
The Doctor frowns, considering it for a moment. “That’s kind of…” He breaks off.
“Kind of what?” I wonder.
“Well, it’s kind of human, isn’t it?” he wonders.
I roll my eyes. “Well, she will be kind of human, won’t she? Half human.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of a traditional Gallifreyan name,” he said.
“I thought you hated the traditions of your people,” I say.
“They’re all gone now, Rose. There’s only me. I think I’d like to pass on something of my heritage to her,” he answers slowly.
“Well, we’re not giving her a title for a name. Not the Accountant or the Dentist or the Claims Processor,” I tell him, only half teasing. He rolls his eyes at me and I respond with a grin I know is sheer cheekiness
“That would be foolish,” he says.
“And I’m not calling her a Greek symbol, either, like Theta” I add, whispering his name. “Although, come to think of it, Delta I wouldn’t mind.”
“Delta Sigma?” He muses.
“Delta Rebecca Sigma Tyler,” I say.
“You know, Rose that might work. Let’s sit with it awhile. We don’t have to make up our minds just yet, but I do like it.”
“Okay,” I agree. I put the cap on the last of the EMP bombs and the Doctor takes the basket of completed canisters over to the weapons tech.
“Come on,” he says, “Let’s go find something to eat and then check up on where Martha’s got to.”
“I’m sure Martha’s fine. She’s with Jack.” I smirk behind his back because I think he is completely oblivious to the chemistry the pair of them were radiating when they disappeared to test weapons.
We find the kitchen and dish up food out of the electric slow cookers that are kept on all day. “I think I might help out on food prep after this,” I say after noticing how low the levels are. “I think there are enough bombs. At least our group seems to have assembled whatever supplies were available.”
“Good idea,” he said. “An army marches on its stomach. And I’m going to have a look at the machinery around here. If they have something useful enough I might be able to adapt it to seal the Rift. Then we’d only have to deal with the Cybermen that have already come through and not have to worry about any further troops.”
With our plans made we go our separate ways. It will be awhile before I see the Doctor again.
Chapter Forty-eight: Behind Locked Doors
I am unsettled as the hub locks down, protecting those of us within it as I watch the man I love, a man I once loved and still sort of do, my dear friend and a unit of barely trained civilians armed with weapons bigger than anything I’ve ever seen outside of films, venture out onto the streets of Cardiff.
Most of the CCTV cameras are still working and the woman beside me, Toshiko Sato, is a whiz at operating them remotely. I watch as the battle begins and it frightens me. Even my semi-pacifistic Doctor is willing to take down Cybermen. I know he remembers as clearly as I do what they were responsible for. Not the damaging of a world, but the death of my original Doctor, my own death plummet, and the loss of his original Rose.
I wonder if it is selfish of me to think first of what it meant to me on a personal level, before I think of what it did to people like my father, to so many others destroyed or maimed or suffering in the depths of severe post traumatic stress. Only it’s not so post with the Cybermen reappearing through the Rift.
I can see more and more Cybermen appearing from the surrounding streets as the ones under attack call for reinforcements. Tosh calls frantically to Jack that his troops are being outflanked. I can see the desperation on Martha’s face as she raises her rocket launcher and fires an EMP bomb at the nearest metal man.
It clings to his frame and detonates, leaving the creature dead and immobile. She does not see the one behind her as it raises its arm and fires. I gasp in horror but I did not reckon on Jack, who flings himself on top of Martha, his body twisting around her to absorb the blow. Together they fall to the ground, Jack unmoving with a laser wound going through the back of his head, Martha trapped beneath him.
I turn my eyes away, knowing there is nothing I can do for him. Jack had escaped death once somehow back on the game station. But here, I can see there would be no escape for him. I bite down hard on my lip. Losing Jack again after just finding out he was alive gnaws at my heart. I can’t help the little sob that breaks out and my fingers reach forward and touch the screen, resting over the image of Jack.
Tosh spares me a glance and then frowns. “Give him a minute,” she tells me. “He’ll be fine.”
“He’s dead!” I say harshly.
“I know that,” she says quietly. She nods at the screen. “Give him a minute.”
I look at her like she’s insane but she simply tilts her head at the screen again. I turn back to the screen trying to catch sight of the Doctor, see that he’s all right, that I haven’t lost him, too. So it’s only out of my peripheral vision that I catch the movement where Jack and Martha have fallen.
I focus sharply and watch as Jack takes in a breath and sits up, the head wound knitting itself back together as he rises and offers an awed Martha a hand up. He chucks her gently under the chin and then picks up her weapon, putting it back in her hands. He retrieves his own and they rejoin the battle.
Then the woman who had been introduced to me as Gwen Cooper darts forward and straddles the energy emerging from the ground with her feet, raises her hands skyward and then throws something down violently with both hands into the ground. She is flung to the side, caught neatly by the Doctor. I watch as the opening in the Rift gets smaller and smaller and suddenly disappears, half a Cyberman emerging and being ripped apart as it does so.
Though there is no sound from the CCTV cameras I can still hear the death cry of a Cyberman in my head. But the Rift has been closed if I understand correctly what Gwen has done. And that leaves only the Cybermen that have already come through to deal with. But that is still far too many to be walking on this world.
The sound of hydraulics fills the hub. “I thought the hub was locked down,” I say.
“It is,” says Tosh, leaping to her feet. She is joined by Suzie as they race towards the center. “Something’s overridden the platform.” I follow but an arm reaches out and pulls me back. Owen.
“The doors have been overridden from the outside, Rose.” He presses a weapon into my hands. “Try to stay behind me,” he says. “I’ll do my best to keep you safe, but you best be armed." He hustles me to cover behind a desk he quickly turns on its side. “Stay down. We’ll only fight if we have to. Jack told me to keep you safe no matter what. I reckon he’ll kill me if I don’t. And I don’t come back like he does.”
“About that,” I say. “How is that possible?”
“Not the time, Rose. And it’s for him to tell you. Now get down. And stay down." He settles in beside me as I hear the sound of cyber lasers being fired within the hub.