Fic: A Rose in Winter (Doctor Who; Doctor/Jack, D/Rose, sequel to 'Red Orchid')

[butterfly]

Title: A Rose in Winter
Author: butterfly
Series: the 'Flowers' series.
Summary: Jack gets a guest.
Pairing: Eleven/Jack (plus implied past Ten/Rose, sort of Eleven/Rose, slight Jack/Everyone in Sight)
Rating: PG-13.
Warning: Definitely post-"Journey's End" at this point.


A Rose in Winter
The first hint was the new alarm going off – Mickey had been pretty useful in that department. Jack was half-way out of his bunk before the first chime was over. He didn't bother rushing about quite as much as he had that long-hoped-for time that he'd heard the sound, but by the time he was in the central Hub, he could hear it.

The vrum-vrum that could redefine the universe.

It was a Saturday and he was nearly alone – Martha was having dinner with her soon-to-be-husband and Mickey was doing some arcane male-bonding exercise with Ianto that Jack had laughed off, which meant that he had Gwen on duty with him and no one else.

“Is that what I think it is?” she asked him, tilting her head to the side. Her hair was loose again today, cascading down around her shoulders enticingly. She was in dark red, a shade that always looked spectacular on her, setting off her skin and hair beautifully. “That's what your friend's ship sounds like, then?”

“Best sound in the universe,” Jack said, leaning up against the pole next to her desk. They both glanced at the monitor – he saw her blink a bit, probably trying to get the TARDIS to come into focus for her. That would be a lot easier if she went ahead and touched the thing. And it would be nice for her to personally meet a helpful alien, for a change. “Wanna come meet them? You didn't really get to, last time.”

“All of you were a bit busy saving... what was it?... all of creation,” Gwen said, in a half-lilting, teasing voice. He loved living in this city. The Welsh accent had to be one of the prettiest that he'd yet run across. “I'd love to meet them, yeah.”

“Let's pick up the pace a bit,” Jack said, straightening up and strolling over to the lift – the Doctor had parked in a slightly different location this time, which was either consideration or completely random. It was sometimes hard to tell with the Doctor. Depending on how much he and Rose had talked after he'd left, she might have known about the situation here and asked him to change things accordingly. “If he's just here to refuel off the Rift, he might leave before we get up there.”

Gwen obligingly join him on the platform.

“So, the man is the Doctor that you used to be searching for,” she said. “And the blonde... she's the 'Rose' that Mickey's brought up on occasion.”

“That's right.”

“I've got to admit, I'm almost looking forward to meeting her more,” Gwen confessed. Jack glanced at her and she shrugged. “He's this... ancient and powerful alien. Of course, he's done impressive things. But she started off as just another London girl and, if we can believe Mickey, she's come so far and done so much for everyone. It's almost... more admirable, if that makes sense. Because it had to be harder.”

“I see what you mean,” Jack said. The lift reached the level of the pavement and the pair of them stepped off. He could see the TARDIS, just a few feet away now. “I... I think that you'll like Rose a lot. In fact, the two of you have more than a little in common.”

“Flattery won't get you out of your turn at the paperwork,” Gwen said, slipping her arm through his. He grinned over at her, so so glad that she'd stayed, even after all the tragedy. He couldn't have lost her, not so soon after losing Tosh and Owen. “Shall we beard the dragons in their lair?”

“You know, I actually did beard a dragon once,” Jack said, hoping – and receiving – a coveted Cooper double-take. He waited to see if she was going to ask him to translate that bit of 46th century slang. He was just about to tell her anyway, when the door to the TARDIS sprung open.

In the doorway was a young girl – fifteen... sixteen at the most – dark hair pulled back into a ponytail and striking brown eyes. She was wearing jeans and a pale blue top that read 'I visited Alpha Centauri and all I got was this lousy t-shirt'. She also seemed more than a little nervous.

“He told me to tell you that now isn't the best time,” she said.

“We're old friends,” Jack said.

“I think that might be the problem,” she ventured. She looked at him, then looked at Gwen, and then looked back at him. Her mouth turned up in a hopeful smile. “But maybe I could come and get to know you better...”

“Oh, stop that,” Rose said.

Except... her voice didn't sound quite right. He knew what Rose sounded like when she was irritated and it wasn't like that.

“Are you sure that-” the girl started.

“He'll find out sooner or later,” Rose said. Jack and Gwen made their way inside and Rose was standing by the main computer monitor, chewing on a fingernail. She glanced over at them and...

that wasn't Rose. Something in the eyes was just wrong. The body might look right, but the soul most definitely was not.

“Okay, what the hell is going on here?” Jack said, dropping Gwen's arm and placing his hand on his sidearm. He remembered, belatedly, that the gun wouldn't work in the TARDIS, but it might still serve as a club.

“Oh, for pity's... Lizzie, shut the door. Jack and... what was your name? Well, whoever you are, you might as well sit down,” Rose-not-Rose said, her words sharp and clipped. The girl – Lizzie – closed the door and Gwen stared a bit and then went to go sit down on the bench. Jack stayed where he was, gaze fixed on the woman who wasn't Rose. She'd placed a hand to her forehead and was muttering softly to herself; Jack couldn't make out her words. She sighed, softly, and leaned back against the console. Then she looked up, fixing those gorgeous-but-not-right eyes on him. “It's me, Jack.”

“You're not Rose,” he said.

“Of course, he's not Rose, whoever she is,” Lizzie said. Jack started at the word 'he', an odd suspicion forming in his mind. He took a step forward, dragging his gaze slowly up and down Not-Rose's body. Every curve was the same as it had been when he'd seen her, ever so briefly, in the most recent fight against the Daleks. The skin was the right shade, she was wearing the right sort of clothes, her make-up was in place, but... her eyebrows were paler, closer to what he would expect out of a natural blonde. This wasn't a woman who dyed her hair.

Then he got back to the eyes. And those eyes... he knew them. They'd been the same, whether clear blue or dark brown or... the lighter shade they were currently sporting.

“Doctor?” Jack whispered. The faintest curve of a smile and he had his confirmation. “What... what happened to Rose?”

“She's fine,” the Doctor said, more solemnly. “She's happy.”

“Is she trapped?” he asked. The Doctor's smile grew, if only by the smallest of margins. More telling, however, was the softness and the glimmer of contentment that lit up her eyes.

“Not as much as before,” she said, almost reverently, as if talking about a dream. “Less and less by the minute, I would expect. He'll make it his priority to make her as happy as he can and I gave him a bit of the TARDIS. They'll manage. Together, they can do anything.”

“He... the other Doctor,” Jack said. “The one that arrived with Donna in the last battle.”

This... this changed everything. He'd thought... he'd assumed that the Doctor had taken care of the copy of himself and that he and Rose had been travelling on their own again. He'd got the news from Wilf not to contact Donna under any circumstances and the reasons why, but Wilf hadn't said anything about Rose. Well, why would he? Which meant that...

Rose was gone.

“You bastard,” Jack said, softly. The Doctor looked at him steadily – it felt like they were the only two people in the universe right now. “I didn't even get to say good-bye. I loved her, too.”

“You were always a braver man than I was, Jack,” the Doctor said. Then she chuckled, looking down at her very female body. Jack took the opportunity to look some more, too. This was... all he'd ever see of Rose.

“So... you're the Doctor,” Gwen said, breaking the tension slightly. Both he and the Doctor shifted a bit to look at her. “The same Doctor as the skinny brown-haired bloke that I saw a couple of months ago, but now you look like Rose, the woman that broke through the barriers of the universe to find you again. And, to make it that extra step weirder, you left her with another version of yourself?”

The Doctor laughed – and it was Rose's laugh, so perfectly Rose's laugh.

“That sums it up,” she said, her nose wrinkling up slightly, just as Rose's had. How much of her was the same as Rose, how much was the same as the Doctor, and how much was all new? Jack's knowledge of regeneration was still mostly theoretical – more, possibly more accurately, mythical, as none of his teachers had believed Time Lords to be more than a fable to delight children – but he already knew that some personality quirks changed between regenerations. How much change had occurred in this particular instance? The Doctor looked at him again, her eyebrow lifting in a way that reminded him distinctly of the brown-haired Doctor. “Oi! Stop looking at me like you're picturing me without my clothes.”

“But that's how I always looked at Rose,” Jack said, lightly.

“That's how you always look at everyone,” Gwen added.

“He does that to everyone?” Lizzie asked, sounding disappointed. Jack was about to turn to reassure her when the Doctor narrowed her eyes warningly.

“Gwen, did you want to show Lizzie around the Hub?” he asked instead. The Doctor gave him an approving look and he winked in return. Gwen watched the interplay between them with obvious interest and amusement, but was quick to hustle young Lizzie out of the TARDIS where she would be safe from Jack's apparently wicked and irresistible good looks.

“I don't know what it is you have against me flirting-” Jack started, when they were all alone.

“It's not the flirting in general,” the Doctor said. Her tongue darted out to wet her lower lip, leaving a sheen of wet pink. “It's either the when of being in danger or the who. In this case...” she paused for a moment, pulling in a deep breath that did wonderful things for her chest. “Lizzie reminds me a little bit of my granddaughter.”

At that, Jack nodded, softly. He'd never had children, but he was well-aware of the deep ties that family relationships came with – he still hoped that, one day, he might be able to defrost Grey, but he knew that the possibility was slim. The Doctor was playing with her fingernails, nerves being displayed more openly than Jack remembered from before.

“Maybe I'm not ready for Lizzie to grow up,” the Doctor admitted.

“And in the case of Rose?” Jack teased, hoping to lighten the mood. The Doctor coughed, looking a bit guilty. “Different reasons, I'm guessing.”

“Oh, yes,” the Doctor said. “Very different.”

“Speaking of different, what do you think are the chanc-”

“Jack, if I didn't sleep with you before and I wasn't keen on the notion of Rose fancying you, why would I decide that it would be a good idea to sleep with you because I look like Rose?” She looked delightfully baffled and utterly kissable.

“You have no proof that I was going to ask that,” Jack said.

“Except for the small fact of having met you,” the Doctor said.

“Still, if you haven't been a woman before – have you? no? – well, you might want to consider breaking in the equipment. And who better to ask than a dear friend?”

“That... almost sounds reasonable,” the Doctor said. “And yet, notice how all of my clothes are still on.”

Her cheeks, though, were slightly pink.

“What would it hurt?” Jack asked. The Doctor shook her head slightly, lips parting in confusion. “Before... you were jealous, so you didn't want Rose to have sex with me. And... you have all these emotional hang-ups, I know that and I respect it, but you wouldn't have to worry that I would confuse sex with anything else or think that I was replacing Rose. Without her here, sleeping with me doesn't hurt anyone. You said that she's happy – is he really another you, then? really you? – well, if that's true, who does it hurt? Not you and certainly not her. She would want you to be happy. You know that.”

The Doctor stared at him for a moment.

“That could be taken as quite self-serving, Jack,” she said, in a breathy voice that Jack had never heard Rose use. He wondered if the Doctor ever had – how far along had the two of them progressed in their relationship between leaving him behind and the Battle of Canary Wharf? “And, yes, the metacrisis version of me is me, in every way that really matters. He has a human heart, so he'll age along with Rose. He has a bit more insight into the human head, because he's facing that same sort of lifespan. He can take risks that I'm afraid to take and refrain from going into danger that I wouldn't think about twice. And he would do anything and everything required to make Rose Tyler the happiest human in the entirety of creation.”

Jack took another small, testing step forward. The Doctor's eyes widened slightly but, other than that, she didn't move. She certainly didn't move away.

“Then what's the harm?” he asked again.

“Oh, Jack,” she said, sounding slightly exasperated but a lot fond. “In some ways, you don't ever change.”

“You don't mess with perfection,” he said, moving forward again, until he was just a handsbreadth away from her. “That's how you felt when you didn't regenerate that once, as I recall.”

“Well, I also had a handy spare hand,” she murmured, reaching out and running her hand up the center of his shirt, gently snagging each button. “You loved her.” This was said in that low, breathy tone, the one that spoke of late nights with coffee and falling into bed together or early mornings before anyone escapes to brush teeth. “You love me, but you loved her, too.”

“Yes.”

The Doctor smiled again, luminous. She reached up and cupped the side of Jack's face, her fingers so soft and unused. How new is this regeneration, Jack wondered to himself. Touching her wouldn't be like touching anyone else in the universe.

“All right,” she said, with that cocky smile that he remembered so well from both versions that he'd known before. “Let's do this thing.”

And she kissed him.

~The End~