InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Butterflies turn into people."

Rose M. Tyler (jeopardysfriend) wrote in vas_captio_rpg,
@ 2009-08-18 23:40:00

Entry tags:

!shelved, day 19, jack harkness, location: gym, rose tyler

Who: Rose Tyler and Jack Harkness
What: Rose wants answers
When: Day 19, around 10:00pm
Where: The gymnasium (or just outside it)
Rating: Be safe, go with R
Status: Active

Rose read Jack's reply and closed her journal. It had been a long day. A good one, overall. Spending the day playing dragons and Ninja Turtles and Tag and reading stories and having snack time... She really had enjoyed the day surrounded by six year-olds. Each one so different, each one having fun in their own ways, depending on where they were from, and what time period.

Now, though, it was late, and nearly all the children had worn themselves out. Rose walked through the room, pausing at each cot and making sure if the child wasn't asleep, that they didn't need anything. From time to time she stopped, rubbing Dora's back gently or brushing back Andy's wild curls. With any luck at all, this would go like most experiments and in the morning, they'd wake to find the children had resumed their adult forms. But for now, she would make sure they were taken care of.

But her eyes kept drifting, and she stopped and watched the little boy from Gallifrey sleep. It was definitely John Smith's miniature. From his little brown trenchcoat to the itty bitty red Chucks on his feet, if he were any more John Smith she'd probably cry. But she couldn't disregard what she'd read in his journal, either. She couldn't detect the hearts beating beneath the tiny blue suit, no, but how many from Earth knew of TARDISes? And what were the chances that she'd learn more of Gallifrey from a six year-old than the man she'd traveled with so far?

She longed to touch him. To smooth back that lock of brown that fell into his face, or to soothe his sleep in some way or another. But she feared he might be a light sleeper, and there'd be far too many questions to answer. Questions Sarah Jane could apparently answer but she couldn't.

But there might be one person who could. The one other person besides the Doctor that she trusted. And she didn't trust herself to ask the Doctor. Not without exploding in temper, waking the children, and having even more questions to answer.

So she made her way outside and sat against the wall, close enough that she could hear if someone from inside called her, but far enough outside that she could breathe. And she waited.

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jeopardysfriend
2009-08-19 06:37 am UTC (link)

"Oh, please," she scoffed, though her voice was still weak. "You don't want to repeat what I already know? Don't kid with me. You're trying to get out of it." Her head shifted, her hand pulled away, and she crossed her legs, dropping her elbows to her knees and her chin to her hands. This was ridiculous. She should storm off. She should fume and rant and throw things around the museum until someone, anyone, told her what she wanted to know.

"I know that sometime in my life, I know him. John Smith. Sometime I don't know because it's in my future. I know that the Doctor can live thousands of years, by cheating death. I know that John Smith isn't John Smith. He's Sigma Theta, and he's from Gallifrey. Some day, when he answers all the Hermit's questions? He's going to be a Time Lord." Taking a deep breath, she plowed on. "And thanks to Remy, I know that he's not just any Time Lord."

If that wasn't what Jack needed to know Rose knew the majority of the truth behind their little secret, she didn't know what was.

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capt_harkness
2009-08-19 06:48 am UTC (link)

"No, no I don't. And I also don't want to be any more in trouble than I already am either. The Doctor can be fucking frightening when he's pissed." Not as bad as Jack could be, mind, but close enough. She pulled away and Jack shifted closer, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her in towards his body. Jack figured she was less likely to flail and hit if he was holding her close.

Well, she knew enough, so why not tell her the whole damn thing. "I'm from... approximately a hundred and twenty years into your future." Jack looked at Rose and sighed. "Of all the people to tell you, it shouldn't have been Remy. He had absolutely no right to tell you any of this. It was up to me, the Doctor or Sarah Jane... or even Ianto, though he doesn't know everything as well as we three do." Jack wouldn't tell her that the man she knew as John Smith was really the Doctor.

And time for the other bombshell.

"I haven't seen Alice in a long time because she wants it that way. Because she can't explain me to her son."

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jeopardysfriend
2009-08-19 06:54 am UTC (link)

At first, she resisted his hold. She didn't want to be held or comforted or cuddled. She wanted facts. Cold hard facts. But his body was so familiar and she so desperately needed someone to lean on that she molded into him, her tears dripping on to that famous greatcoat. Which, she had to add, looked a thousand times better on him than it ever could on anyone else.

"No, you're right," she agreed, her voice bitter despite their posture. "It shouldn't have been him. It shouldn't have been him making me feel like some science project of the Doctor's or telling me how he's taking my place and not giving it up... And it sure as hell shouldn't have been him telling me..." She couldn't say it. She could barely write it, what made her think she could speak it out loud? "Dammit, Jack, it should have been one of you. It should have been him!"

Oh, now she was just a wreck. Her fists clenched the fabric of his coat, grateful she couldn't stain it with mascara since she no longer had any with her. But his next words gave her pause and she looked up at him with a hiccup. "Why? What's to explain?" She didn't want to know. God, she didn't want to know.

But she really, really did.

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capt_harkness
2009-08-19 07:07 am UTC (link)

At first, Jack could feel her stiffen and not want to lean into his hold. But he didn't relax his grip, not until he felt her finally begin to soften. Jack turned, pulling her in close as if he could protect her from the world. Really, who he needed to protect her from was himself. Jack threaded his fingers through her hair, giving his hands something to do while she spoke.

No, it shouldn't have been Remy and the fact that it was pissed him off to no end. He knew there was an infatuation there, the Doctor had told him so much the day before. But this? Was this Remy's jealousy coming out which made him spill the beans to Rose? Jack had wanted to tell her, on more than one occasion, but it was his respect for the Doctor that kept his mouth shut.

So if Remy felt so strongly about the Doctor, why would he blurt these things out? It made no sense to Jack in the slightest. "He made us promise not to tell you. That it would fuck with time and the Agency side of me agreed with him. But it's clear that so many things here are from out of time that it shouldn't have mattered at all."

Jack pulled Rose into his lap, rocking back and forth with her in an attempt to soothe. He didn't want to tell her, he wanted to leave her in the dark forever on this point -- but then again, maybe it would help knowing that no matter what this place held, he would always be there to keep her safe.

"Why I look the same now as when he was born nine years ago." Jack held up a hand. "It's not because men age slower than women in a lot of cases. I look the same now as when Alice was born."

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jeopardysfriend
2009-08-19 12:00 pm UTC (link)

Whatever in her had thought that Jack would make a poor parent was put into its place right then and there. Because only someone with a loving instinct would hold her as close as he did and soothe her and make her feel like a four year-old, sobbing in the arms of the father she'd never known. Poor Alice. How any woman could not want this man in their life was beyond her.

"It shouldn't have mattered," she hiccoughed, burying her face into his chest. She should've been furious with him, but she needed this so badly. What Rose needed was the truth, and she was finally getting it, even if in tiny bits and pieces. She'd wanted to know why everyone seemed to tiptoe around her, around certain subjects. And like it or not, she was finding out.

She'd get back to that bit about him making people promise to leave her in the dark. In fact, once he was an adult again-all nine hundred and whatever years of adult-she'd tell him off and good. But he'd sparked her interest. Refusing to budge, refusing to look at those eyes that she knew looked so much older than when she'd first met him, she whispered, "How? I know you're good-looking and rot like that," finally, a tiny smile, "but that... Jack, that had to have been at least, what thirty years ago?" Assuming Alice was a young mum. Ugh, maths. She was done fighting with them.

Rose was about to learn knowledge that couldn't be given back once it was received. Learning her own power could possibly be dangerous for the entire city of Vas Captio. If she could ever stop crying, that was.

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