Staking His Claim (1/2)--Belated Birthday Fic

[amberfocus]

Title:  Staking His Claim (1/2)
Author: amberfocus
Characters/Pairings:  Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Jack Harkness
Genre:  Angst, followed by Smut of the possessive sort
Betas:  amyo67, jeprdyfrndly
Rating:  Adult for part 2
Summary:  The alien moves his head closer again and then his lips find the side of Rose’s neck and something inside the Doctor snaps. Jealousy, and something else, possession, floods him in a way he hasn’t experienced since his last incarnation.
A/N:  Set after Journey's End, but in a universe where Ten2 never came to be because Rose used that big gun she was carrying on that blighted Dalek instead of the Doctor getting blasted.  Also Children of Earth never happened and Rose is immortal like Jack.  Well, crimedoc1, this is for you.  The fic with the cowboy hat and boots is still being difficult, but this one seemed to come along quite easily after being stalled for ages, so you get Ten instead of Ten2.  Happy belated birthday.

Chapter One

The Doctor is flirting again. Not only is he flirting again, he’s doing it blatantly and forwardly and obviously. And he’s doing it in front of her, not with her. Rose is more annoyed than she wants to be. She’s picked up her fair share of pretty boys along the way, she has to admit, but all of that stopped years ago when he told her that he danced. All of that stopped long before she ever lost him, before she ever made it back to him.

“You going to let that continue?” Jack asks from beside her.

Rose takes a sip of her drink, something with far too much fruit and not enough alcohol if she has to sit and watch the Doctor talk up some little floozy with too much cleavage and not enough brain cells.

“Don’t see as how I have much say in it, do I?” she asks. Jack stares at her like she has two heads and she says, “What?”

“You’ve done so much, Rose. You channeled the Time Vortex for him. You flew the bloody TARDIS on your own, just to come back and save him. You spent three years teaching yourself physics, and two more figuring out a way to get back to him after you were separated. You built a dimension cannon, shot yourself across universes, shot a Dalek at point blank range when he tried to kill the Doctor before you’d even had a chance to say hello and then helped him figure out a way to defeat Davros and his entire fleet. Nothing was going to stop you and now you’re just going to give up?” Jack asks. “That’s not the Rose Tyler I remember.”

She shifts in her seat. “Yeah, I did. I gave up everything for him. I nearly died the day I channeled the Vortex. I made myself immortal, Jack, so he’d never have to be alone again. I brought you back, I made you like me because I couldn’t control it, and I knew that he needed you, too. I saved his life and wiped out his mortal enemies with him three times. I told him I loved him twice now. I don’t think I can have been any clearer than that about how I feel. And he hasn’t said it back to me. I still don’t know what he’s thinking, how he feels. I think maybe he lets me stay out of gratitude, or guilt, but that’s all.”

“No, Rose, it’s not, he’s got feelings for you. When you were gone…it was bad when you were gone. He wasn’t the same man. He was miserable. His hearts ached for you. He was reckless, suicidal even. There’s no doubt in my mind. He’s in love with you. Any fool can see it.”

“Not this fool. I thought I’d be getting something different, something permanent, but all I really did was get my old life back. Except now I can’t die and you can’t die, and all I have to look forward to with him is holding hands and giggling our way across the universe as if we were still in junior school.”

“And that’s enough for you?”

“It’s gonna have to be, isn’t it?” she tells him. “If I’m gonna stay with him, this is all there is. I might want more, but…I don’t get to have it. He’s the Doctor. This is what he does. I just let myself forget.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “If I want to be in his life, I have to accept what he offers. I don’t have a choice. And anyway, I’ve got nowhere else to go. I gave up everything for him.”

Jack holds out his hand. “Dance with me?” he asks cajolingly. “It’ll cheer you up.”

“You’ve got a date,” Rose says nodding over to where a green-skinned young man in tight black suede trousers and no shirt is coming back to their table with a couple of pints.

“Timbral won’t mind,” Jack says. “He’s not the jealous sort.”

“Yeah, he is.”

“Yeah, he is, but he likes you, Rose. A lot. He won’t mind. And you can always join us. He really won’t mind that.”

“Neither would you,” she says dryly.

“Well, if you’re not getting it from him, why not Timbral or me? He’s already asked if you could join us and I’m more than happy to oblige with or without him,” Jack says with the full Harkness charm. “Any time you want, Rose. You know that.”

“I’m tempted, but it’s not coming from the right place, Jack,” she says softly. “I think if I did I’d regret it. I don’t love Timbral. And as for you…well, you know that I love you, right? You know that if my heart didn’t belong to the Doctor, that you’d—.”

“Be enough for you?”

“Don’t say that. Don’t say it like I’d be settling. Anyone would be happy to have you, Jack. You’re a wonderful man.”

“Then have me.”

“I can’t.”

“You sure? You know I’d make it good for you, sweetheart,” he says gently. His hand reaches out and his fingers stroke slowly across the inside of her palm.

“I know you would,” she says closing her eyes for a moment before leaning towards him and kissing him on the cheek. “And as good as it would make me feel for the moment, it wouldn’t change anything else.”

“It would change us,” Jack says.

“I’m just…I’m not that good at sharing,” she said. “And you’re not a one woman man.”

“I could be, for you,” he said.

“No, you couldn’t,” Rose said. “Anyway, it would devastate the Doctor even though he doesn’t want me like that. He’s not so good about sharing, either.”

“You can’t base your life around waiting for him. You’ve done that for years now and what has it got you?”

Rose bites her lip, looks back at the Doctor, and shakes her head no. Her smile is tender and sad. “I know, but it’s not that simple, Jack. I still love him with all my heart and I never want you to feel like you’re a second choice. It wouldn’t be fair to you. You should always be more than that.”

“I really don’t mind,” he says. “I’m here if you reconsider.”

“I know you are. Look, I’ll be fine. I’m just tired,” she tells him. “So tired of trying to figure out if it’s me he really wants. Of burying my feelings. Of all of it.” She stands up and shoves her chair under the table with more force than is needed. “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Where you going?”

“I’m borrowing your date,” she says just as Timbral puts the fresh round of ale down on the table. She grabs his hand and pulls the sexy young alien out onto the dance floor. There’s a line she won’t cross with Jack, she hasn’t been pushed that far yet, but this is different. Timbral doesn’t protest. Jealous he might be, but his attraction to both Jack and Rose has been clear from the day they met him a week ago. She shoves all thoughts of the Doctor out of her mind. For right now, she’s just going to dance.



The Doctor plops heavily into his chair, reaches out and snags an appetizer off the giant plate they’d ordered earlier. It’s some type of breaded, stuffed pepper that he pops whole into his mouth. He winces only slightly at the heat. He takes a long drink of his beverage, grabs a cracker filled with cheese that neutralizes the pepper, and then looks around. “Rose in the loo?” he asks.

“About time you noticed she was missing,” Jack says a little sharply.

“Missing?” he says snapping to attention.

“Not like that. She’s out there,” he nods to the dance floor filled with gyrating bodies.

“Oh.” He frowns, trying to find her in the crowd and failing.

“I think she might be regretting her decision to be here, Doc,” Jack says bluntly.

“What’s to regret?” asks the Doctor. “It’s one night off out at a club. She’s obviously enjoying herself or she wouldn’t be out there dancing.” He cranes his head, trying to pluck out the right shade of blonde in the mass of people.

“Not what I meant. I think she’s sorry she chose to come back to this universe.”

The Doctor’s eyes snap back to Jack and he goes very still. “Did she say something? I know she misses her family, but she knew staying with me was a permanent thing. We can’t just flit back and forth—.”

“Don’t be stupid. She knows that. No, it’s simpler than that. She wasn’t very happy about the fact that you were flirting with that pretty little blonde for the last half an hour,” Jack says.

“I wasn’t flirting,” the Doctor says offended.

“Rose thought you were.”

“I was acquiring information. Loyanna has a contact in the citadel who’s ready to talk about who’s really behind that cartel. We can meet with him tomorrow afternoon. And I wasn’t flirting,” he repeated

“Looked like flirting to me,” says Jack. “Worse yet, it looked like flirting to Rose.”

“But I…but I didn’t mean…” The Doctor runs his hand over his face. “She’s got to know that I’d never look at anyone, but her that way.”

“Why has she got to know?” Jack asks bluntly. “You don’t look at her that way. You’ve been very careful not to look at her that way. What have you done to make sure she knows? Have you told her? Because I know Rose told you she loves you.”

“That’s not any of your business, Jack,” the Doctor says in a half growl.

“It’s my business if she’s miserable because you’re too thick to tell her how you feel,” he says flatly. “It’d be one thing if you didn’t, but you do.”

“Jack, I can’t. Those words, they don’t…I’m not…”

“If you can’t say it, then by the love of all that you hold sacred, show her! Because if you don’t, you’re gonna lose her.”

“You don’t really think…” He trails off as he finally locates Rose and Timbral amongst the dancers, wound so tightly around each other that it’s nearly obscene. He watches as Timbral say something in her ear. Rose throws back her head and laughs. The alien moves his head closer again and then his lips find the side of Rose’s neck and something inside the Doctor snaps. Jealousy, and something else, possession, floods him in a way he hasn’t experienced since his last incarnation. He growls low in his throat.

“You’re a man of action, Doctor. Act. Go let that girl know that you want her before it’s too late,” Jack urges. “Oh, and don’t hurt my date,” he calls after the Doctor as the man stalks across the dance floor towards Rose.

The response barely reaches Jack in the din. “No promises."

Ch. 2: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/342375.html