Sacrifice (1/6)

[amberfocus]

A/N:  All right, this is a bit of a precursor to Defunct, Rekindle, and Inflame.  It starts during Journey's End, after they've saved the world but before everyone has been dropped off.  They spend one last night all together in the TARDIS.  Rose has lots of thinky thoughts and Rose and Jack talk about what made him immortal.  The Doctor and the Doctor talk, too leading up to the events that play out in the last ten minutes of the episode.

 

                                                                                 ~Rose~

 

Looking back on it later she will realize she should have known that one would offer himself as sacrifice to the other, but it isn’t later, it’s now and in this moment there is no hindsight, no vision of any future that isn’t uncertain because Rose simply doesn’t know, despite the fact that she does know, what she means to the man, men, man standing beside her.  All she knows for certain is that the possibility of some kind of forever exists again, but will it be the right one?  Will it be the one she can live with?  Will the choice be hers or will he try to make it for her once again as he is so wont to do?

 

Rose feels absolute joy and unaccountable fear and knows it is impossible or at the very least contradictory to be feeling two such opposing emotions in this one moment and yet she does, feels it with an overwhelming awareness that overrides anything else in the vast universes she had once so blithely strode across in the search for her lost love.  And now she stands here in the console room thinking of that day on the beach so long ago that had broken her heart with the cruel part it had played in her loss of forever, knowing with full certainty that she’d never get it back and now inexplicably she has. 

 

Only she’s gotten it back two-fold and she really has no idea how to go on from this moment as she stands between the two men, the two identical men with all the same memories and all the same emotions, and the same exact look in their eyes, save one is dressed in brown and one in blue.  A decision is coming, it has to come, and all Rose knows is that even if she’s not quite sure anymore who he is or what he has become, she still doesn’t want to live without him.  She’s done that and it hurt so unbelievably much there were days she could only function on the most basic of levels.  That had eased with time, but it is a pain well remembered and one she never wants to live with again.  Even just the few minutes she’s had in his arms since finding each other again have proven that.

 

She knows deep inside of her that he will always do what he thinks best despite what she wants, hates him for that just the tiniest bit, and it’s almost like she knows how it will end before any of it plays out, like she’s seen it somewhere once upon a time written on the fabric of reality that this moment is coming, that it had already come down to this back when the words Bad Wolf spread themselves across eternity because she wanted to find a way back to her Doctor, to keep him safe no matter what, and more selfishly because she loved him and never wanted to live without him.  She still does not.

 

They both look at her and at each other and something silent passes between the two men so much the same and she isn’t sure she can handle their unspoken knowing, their reading of future timelines when she knows so little other than what she feels in her own heart.  She wants them both to somehow reintegrate into one man because she’s deathly afraid a choice is coming that will make her happy yet break her heart all in one go.  She doesn’t think she’ll be allowed to keep them both.  Rose may not read timelines, but no other outcome seems as assured to her as the one where someone’s heart will break again.  She is selfish enough to hope it is not hers, but deep down knows no one will escape unscathed.

 

“We need some time, Rose,” her Doctor says, the one in brown, and the look in his eyes is sad and scared and so very lost that she is afraid to meet it.

 

“Things to talk about, Time Lord things,” her other Doctor says heavily, the one in blue.  He doesn’t say ‘Rose things’ but it hangs unspoken in the air between the three of them.

 

“Can’t you talk to me?” she asks in a voice that is as lost as she feels right now.

 

The one in blue looks at her tenderly, reaches for her hand and squeezes it lightly.  “We will.  Give us time.”

 

The other Doctor touches her shoulder lightly.  “Rose, you know--.”  She shakes her head mutely because his eyes are closed off like he’s already protecting himself.  She can’t, not right now, because she’s suddenly pretty sure which way the deck is being stacked against her and she no longer wants to know because she is afraid.  That perfect possible future is slipping, slipping, slipping from her grasp.  And so she leaves them nearly at a run. 

 

The others have long since gone to bed and so she goes in search of her mum, who had taken one look at the impressive bath of her guest chamber and had shooed Rose away over an hour ago, but from the sounds of splashing coming from behind the bathroom door Jackie has no intention of coming out any time soon. 

 

Rose sighs.  She’s too tightly coiled to sleep and she could do with something to eat.  Saving the universe always makes her hungry.  And horny, but there’s nothing she’s ever been able to do about that.  She had kind of been hoping that would change when she found him again.  She had planned on making sure of it.  Then life happened.  That’s what came from making plans.

 

                                                                                 ~Jack~

 

Rose finds the kitchen occupied by a man she’d thought until recently was dead, despite the fact that long ago the Doctor had claimed he was simply busy off rebuilding the Earth.  A man she saw die again today and yet he hadn’t done or maybe he actually had.  Just another confusing thing in a confusing day and she damn well wishes things would start to make sense soon.

 

Rose watches his back as he stands there waiting for something to go ding and the strong familiarity, the realization that this is Jack and he’s here and real and alive washes over her so strongly that a small sob escapes her throat.  He whirls and has her in his arms instantly and it’s so comfortable, so right, so honest this merging of two people almost into one in this embrace of solace and friendship and need.

 

He presses his lips to the top of her hair and breathes out, “Rose,” and she sighs out, “Jack,” and then as quickly as they fell together they step apart, boundaries in place again, and she tries not to shake as she stares at him in wonder.

 

“How are you here?” she whispers to him.  The ding he’s been waiting for goes off and he moves to the cooker, pulling two mugs out of it and setting them down on the table.

 

“I’ve been waiting for you to show up,” he says simply.  She sits at the table and he nudges one of the mugs across to her and she looks inside it.  Hot chocolate.  Like old times.  She smiles as he heads to the counter and returns with whipping cream, nutmeg and cinnamon.

 

Rose busies her hands with adding things into her mug and then sips in deep appreciation.  Jack always could make the best cup of cocoa in the universe.  Universes, really and she should know.  She stares at him as he takes a drink and sets his mug back down.  “I can’t die, Rose,” he tells her simply.  The words hang heavy in the air between them and there is a deep sadness in his eyes.  “I’m not even sure how old I am anymore.  Centuries, perhaps millennia, and I’ve been killed so many times, but I don’t die.  I always come back.”

 

“Why?” she asks and the way he looks at her twists something deep inside her gut.  It’s clear he doesn’t want to answer her and equally clear that he’s going to and that the answer just might break her heart.

 

He sighs.  “Bad Wolf,” he says quietly.  “You bring life.  You didn’t want me dead, Rose, that day on the game station.  I died and you didn’t want me dead.  You brought me back.  Forever.”

 

Her heart clenches within her and tears come into her eyes.  “No, no, no, Rose,” he says.  His hands reach across the table and pick hers up.  “I love you for loving me that much.”

 

“I’m sorry,” she says.

 

“Thank you,” he whispers.

 

“I wish I could trade with you,” she says.  “Give you this normal life span and I could live forever next to my Doctor.”

 

“He won’t live forever, Rose.  I’ll outlive him by millennia.  You’d just be alone again, like I will be, someday,” Jack says matter-of-factly.  “You don’t want that kind of pain.”

 

“But I gave it to you,” she says looking down.

 

He lets go of one of her hands and tilts her chin up until she meets his gaze.  “Rose, I forgave you long ago.  You never meant me any harm.  How could you?  You’re Rose.”  His voice is infinitely tender.

 

“I missed you so much, Jack,” she says on a half-sob.  “I was so sure you were dead.  And then…and then on the—the Dalek,” she almost chokes on the word, “ship—.”

 

“Not something you’ll ever have to worry about again, sweetheart,” he says.

 

“I love you, Jack,” she says unsteadily.

 

“Enough to ditch this Doctor man and come be my girl?” he asks wistfully.

 

“Jack!”  And she’s smiling now through the tears.  “I thought you had a boyfriend.”

 

“I do,” he says.  He runs his hand through his hair.  “But you’re Rose.  And I’ve always loved you best.”

 

“I love him.  You know that,” Rose says.

 

“Yeah.”  He looks down then looks up impishly, the serious moment passing as he accepts this.  “I’ll share.”

 

“I won’t.  And neither will the Doctor,” she tells him.

 

“Not even with himself, I’d imagine.”

 

“No,” she agrees.  “Not even with himself.  I’m scared, Jack.  I’m so scared.  He’s going to do something stupid, something undoable, something he decides on his own the same way he always does without regard to what I want or what I need or—or—anything.”

 

“Have you talked to him about how you feel?”

 

“Right now he’s talking to himself.”  She runs her hands through her hair and then reaches out for the hot chocolate again, takes a sip.  “I thought I was getting back everything.  Now…what if he leaves me with…with…without a choice?”

 

“Talk to him, Rose,” Jack says firmly.

 

“I’m not sure he’ll listen.  I think he’s already made up his mind.”

 

“Don’t let him.  This is your life.  Don’t let him get away with not including you in the decision this time,” he says.  “Don’t let him sacrifice your happiness or his own.  Make him listen.”

 

Rose nods thoughtfully but she knows from past experience that is easier said than done.

 

                                                                              ~Blue~

 

“I know what you’re planning and I don’t think you should,” says the man in blue.

 

“We can’t all stay together.  You know that.  I can barely live with myself as it is.  How can I live with you?” replies the man in brown.

 

“We’ll work it out, we’ll figure a way.”

 

“You’re human.”

 

“Half.” 

 

“You’re reckless and dangerous.  You’re far too impulsive.  You’ll get yourself killed or worse yet, me.  I can’t trust you with the fate of this universe.  You remind me too much of the man we used to be,” he admits honestly.

 

The man in blue frowns darkly at his counterpart.  “He wasn’t a bad man, you know.  He was good to her.  He loved her.  And she loved him.  She fell in love with him.  She wouldn’t have done that if we’d been a bad man.  She needs us.  All of us.”

 

The brown man looks away.  “She needs her mum, her dad, her brother.  She needs…someone she can live her whole life with, not someone who she’ll leave behind.  She needs marriage and babies and--.”

 

“You just assume I want that?”

 

“You know we do,” he says and his voice cracks.  “We always have with her.”

 

“But what if she doesn’t want that?” he asks.  The brown man does not respond and the blue man is silent for a long time trying to think through possible outcomes but his grasp on the timelines seems to be fading.  “This ship is my home.  It’s the last thing I have left,” he finally says.  “I don’t want to leave her.”

 

“Prior claim,” says the brown Doctor.  “I was here first.  And I’ll be here long after you’re dead and in the ground.  The TARDIS is mine.”  His words are harsh and unyielding and so is his voice and the blue man sees the Oncoming Storm swirling in eyes that are no longer his own.

 

“And you want to make up for that by making Rose mine?” the blue man asks softly and his voice is anything but harsh because he knows accepting that fact will break the man in brown.

 

“It’s not what I want.  It’s what’s necessary.”

 

“And if she chooses otherwise?”  The brown Doctor is silent, does not answer the question.  He may be willing to force his will on Rose but the blue Doctor wants her to make that choice herself if it comes down to it.  He’s decided for her in the past, twice now, and he’s seen how hard she fought to get back to him and what it did to her when she couldn’t.  He won’t do that to her again.  He can’t.  He loves her too much.  He always has but it’s got a blinding immediacy to it now, one that tells him time is slipping through his fingers and he has to reach for this here and now before the chance is gone.

 

But he won’t force this on her because he wants to be the man she fought to get back to.  He can’t stand to be the one she doesn’t want.  He couldn’t bear it.  So it has to be her choice.  It has to be.  He can’t live with the results any other way, not if it’s against her will.

 

He can survive without the TARDIS and Rose, will do so if she chooses to stay with the man who is fully a Time Lord, but he will insist on being made completely human with the chameleon arch and having all of his memories overwritten.  He could live a life that way and never knowing what he gave up, he’ll never miss it.  It would be living with the knowing that would drive him slowly mad.

 

                                                                                ~Brown~

 

The brown Doctor is lost in thought, knowing what he has to face all too soon, when the blue Doctor jolts him out of it again.“I’d like the coat,” he says suddenly.

 

“No,” says the brown Doctor possessively.  “You get Rose.  I get the coat.”  It’s not the way he wants it.  He’d much rather have Rose, but that’s not the way he sees the future playing out.  He sees it clearly because it isn’t his.  It belongs to Rose and the man in blue.  So he’s damn well not giving up his coat to the man who gets everything he’s ever wanted.

 

“She has to choose me,” insists the man in blue stubbornly.  “I won’t be her consolation prize.”

 

“She’ll choose you,” the brown Doctor says.  He’ll make sure of it.  It’s clear enough in the other man’s eyes that he thinks he has a choice, that Rose gets one, too.  He has to be stubborn here.  He knows he is right.  It doesn’t matter what he thinks or what he feels because it’s about the ultimate fate of the universe and in the end it’s about Rose’s happiness.

 

He knows his other self thinks it should be about what Rose thinks, what Rose feels, what Rose wants right now.  But it can’t be.  It has to be about what will be the best for her in the long run, what will give her the most fantastic life.  Why can’t his other self see that?  Only hours have passed since his birth. Surely they can’t be that different yet.  It’s already killing him knowing he has to give Rose up again.  Can’t the other man just be happy with what he’s getting and let it go?  He realizes the stubborn git is speaking again.

 

“I understand you feel the need to punish me, send me away, banish me for what I did.  I won’t apologize for killing the Daleks.  It needed to be done and if I’d left it to you none of us would be here.  And you still think it was wrong, that I was wrong.  So yeah, I get it, I do.  You think I’m a danger to this universe, though why you think I wouldn’t be one to that universe…”  He shakes his head.  “But why do you want to punish Rose?  What’d she do?  All she wanted was to get back to us and stop the darkness.”

 

“I’m not punishing her.  I’m giving her you.  A life with you.”  He’s adamant in his conviction that he is right.  “Someone she can make better.”

 

“I don’t need fixing!  I’m not broken, thank you very much,” he growls at the brown-suited idiot.  “And even if I was, why the hell should she have to be the one fixing me?  She’s put in more than enough time healing us!  Shouldn’t she get time just to…just to love us?”

 

“Rose needs to be needed.  And you need her more than I do.  She’ll be the only thing you have!” the other man roars back.

 

“And you don’t need her?”

 

“I’m not broken.”

 

“You’re more broken than I am, you alien git!”  He realizes that’s Donna coming out in the man and blinks in bemusement.  Makes it hard to focus on what his twin is saying to him.  “And it’ll only be worse if you leave her behind again!” the blue Doctor insists.  “You need her, too!”

 

“It’s not about what I need.  It’s not about what I want.  I’m doing this for Rose.  I’m giving her up so she can be happy, so she has a chance at a normal life.” 

 

“I hope I was never truly as blind as you are!  You’re standing before me lying to yourself, lying to me!  Rose has never wanted a normal life, not since she met us.  She has always wanted the stars and the man who first took her to them.”

 

“She’ll have him.  She’ll have him in you,” the brown man insists.  "You're much more like that man than me."

 

“Oh, you stupid fool.  What if that's not what she wants?  What if what she wants is you?” the blue man asks.  He gives no answer.  It doesn’t matter.  They both know what it would be if he did.

Ch. 2:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/110256.html