Holiday Fic #3

[trinityvixen]

viridian's story is third out of the gate. It's a post Doctor Who, new series season 2, set-in-the-world of Torchwood story featuring Jack Harkness, an AU-Torchwood-employed Rose Tyler, and the prompt was "mirror." That last one makes a cameo instead of being central the way prompts ought to be, but hey, it's in there!



The Tension Between Mortality and Morbidity
by trinityvixen

*

The element of surprise supposedly worked in favor of the person doing the surprising. Unfortunately, when the person being surprised was carrying a gun and working on only a few hours of sleep, the common adage fell apart a little.

Jack clutched at the hole in his guts, keeping his eye on Rose. She’d dropped the gun and run to him, catching him as he fell and immediately applying pressure just under his ribcage.

“Ohshitohshitshitdoubleshit,” she hissed as blood seeped through her fingers.

Dizzily, he trailed a finger over her hands and looked at the dark stain that came away on the tip.

“It’s black,” he said, curiously detached. “It’s in my liver.” While Rose panicked and pleaded with him to keep focused on her—all standard procedure when dealing with someone rapidly going into shock like he was—he tried to remember if he’d ever been shot in the liver before. No, definitely not. Ouch.

“Jack, Jack, look at me, all right? Listen to me, stay with me.” She kept one hand on his torso and with her other she was fishing for his mobile in his coat. “Where’s your phone?” She freed her hand long enough to tap his cheek, get him to look at her. “Where’s your phone, Jack?”

“Leave it,” he wheezed. “Move your hand.” When she didn’t, he grabbed her wrist and jerked it away. Long as he had the strength, he’d fight her.

“What are you doing?” She shrieked, hysterical and dumbfounded, hands flighty in panic.

“Leave it,” he said again, with less force and more urgency. “Takes five minutes this way. You’d only prolong it.”

Rose’s lower lip trembled and she fluttered her eyelashes furiously to clear out the tears. “But I didn’t mean—I didn’t want you to die.”

He smiled as best he could, reached for her face. She flinched as he smeared blood on her cheek, but she could not look away. “Two minutes, Rose. Two minutes and thirty-two seconds.”

“What happens in two minutes and thirty-two seconds?” She caught on quick, dear Rose.

“You’ll find out,” he promised, surrendering himself to the pain. Life blurred at the edges, and Jack Harkness stopped.

*

Two minutes and thirty-three seconds later, he turned his head to catch Rose lurching away from him. Slowly, so as not to spook her any further, he sat up and shrugged out of his sodden coat. He unbuttoned his dress shirt and let it fall, too, and leaned back on them, his palms squelching in his not as yet dried blood. Thusly reclined, he could show her his unbroken abdomen, his beckoning expression hardly necessary to encourage her to believe he was all right.

Rose crept towards him, biting her lower lip, and reached out two fingers to touch him. He seized her hand and pressed it against his skin, letting her feel the solidity of the flesh beneath.

“What--” she started; he cut her off.

“Not the right question.”

Some shock fell away from her face, replaced by irritation. Provoked, scrutinizing him and his remarkably whole body, she asked, instead, “How?”

He nodded, approvingly, “Better.”

*

Rose kept rubbing at his skin. It was all sorts of distracting, and he wondered if that was her way of squaring things between them. He left her reeling with the news of his demises and subsequent resurrections, and she drove him half mad with her hands.

“Do you just heal up like that all the time? Doesn’t anyone notice?”

“No, I don’t heal. If you hit me, I stay hit. You should have seen the fat lip Ianto gave me a few weeks back. But if I die, everything just sort of resets. I don’t know how else to explain it.” He sighed, shifting to get more comfortable where he was slumped against the wall. “As for anyone noticing, yeah, sometimes.”

“The people you work with at Torchwood?”

“Only some of them.” She frowned at him, and he reached over and tugged playfully on her pouty lip. “Looks like those are why I don’t tell people, Rose.”

“Not the only reason,” she shot back.

“True,” he conceded. “It’s hard to explain when you don’t understand it yourself.”

“You explained to me.”

“You’re involved.”

Stunned, she sat back away from him, and he missed the contact with her already. So much of why he was angry with her before was in missing her, in believing she’d abandoned him. But it hadn’t been voluntary. This was, and it hurt worse than all those years alone and hating. Because she was there and pulling away.

Yet, in the midst of his misery, she extended a hand to him. “Come on,” she said, resolutely. “Tell me everything while I get us settled.”

Not following her meaning, he stood when she tugged on his arm. Without him sitting in the middle of it, the mess on the floor looked more like a crime scene.

“I don’t think the family’s going to appreciate our redecorating,” he said, dryly.

Rose waved him off. “Aren’t you Torchwood? If you can’t get a cleaner up here for a bit of discreet shampooing, who can?”

*

“Tea,” he commented as she reached a mug over to him. “How very English of you.”

“Can’t think straight without it sometimes,” she said. “Mind you, I’ve gotten very used to coffee. That’s what they drink in our world. Tea plant’s hard to get started in the soil most places, but cocoa beans grow all over.”

“Doesn’t matter to me. I like it hot, wet, and bitter, with just a bit of sweetness to take the edge off.” He winked at her, and she struggled to stay serious.

“That’s not very flattering,” she murmured, sipping from her own mug to hide a melancholic smile. “This is so odd.” She put the cup down and fiddled with her fingers, unable to look at him. “It’s not that I don’t believe in all this,” she waved her hands at him, her, the kitchen, maybe even the universe. “It’s just…”

“Impossible?” He suggested.

“Oo-er, now, nothing’s impossible,” she corrected him, her scant grin dying away. She squeezed her eyes shut and gripped her mug tightly, as if she needed it to stay standing. “I wish I could remember it, especially if it were impossible.”

“How could you forget?” Even now, each time he reset, he remembered it upon waking. It wasn’t the same, only his memory’s pale imitation of the celestial, divine song he remembered from his natural death; but it was there, leaving him with the impression of golden sunshine and Rose’s smile—two of the most beautiful inventions of God. “It doesn’t matter,” he said, after it seemed that she had no other answer to give him. “I know you’re part of this, Rose.”

She opened her eyes, scrutinizing him with some sympathy. “I can’t help you, Jack.”

“You could try. We’re both missing something, aren’t we?” He watched the barb catch and rip at her heart, ignoring how much it wounded her. This was the new him—cunning to the point of savagery. He wasn’t angry with her for running any more; he would have done the same. “You get something out of this, too.”

Narrowing her eyes at him, Rose tossed her head to get her hair out of her eyes. “Don’t you do that,” she warned, haughty and affronted. “Don’t you dare.”

“Bribe you, you mean?”

“Coerce, is the word, thanks.” She tightened her fist on the handle of her mug. “I don’t trust your motives, Jack. For all I know, you’d be doing this out of revenge ‘cause we left you. Maybe you actually like getting your bits blown up. Makes working for Torchwood a little less scary, doesn’t it?”

His smile was wide and a half-second too late to be convincing. She nodded. “Yeah, thought so.”

*

The absurdity peaked around four in the morning with a kiss. He kissed her, of course, but she wasn’t exactly protesting. When she started to giggle, he backed off, pretending to be insulted.

“Sorry,” she apologized, needlessly, “it’s just that we’re in somebody’s home. That I broke into. To get away from you. And here I am, snogging you on a stranger’s sofa. Is a bit weird, you have to admit.”

“What else can we do?” He waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively, prompting an exasperated snort.

“Jack, really. I still don’t trust you, you’re trying to use me to die, and final this time, and this is your solution?”

He made a show of thinking this over. “Would you come back with me to Torchwood? Willingly?”

“No,” she said, honestly. “Not on your life.”

“That leaves you with two options.”

“None, actually.” She shrugged, stretching her arms out over her head. “I can’t stop you from following me, and you’ve got my gear, so I can’t get back to my world. Those are my options—gone.” She snapped her fingers, vanishing the possibilities with a gesture.

Jack sulked, slouching back against the opposite side of the loveseat from her. Out of nowhere, he felt the urge to confess and did. “I’m not a good person, Rose.”

Her response was guarded. “I’m beginning to understand that.”

“I’ve thrown innocent people to the monsters because the balance was in my favor or because it was easier. Sometimes even because I wanted to.”

Rose said nothing to this, only nodded. It was hard to unnerve a time-traveler, he knew that well enough; people who’ve seen the fantastic are rarely impressed by anything as classic or clichéd as his pathetic story.

“I suppose I should say I’m not proud of it. I think it’s closer to the truth to say I just don’t care.”

“That’s a problem.” Rose reclined a bit further, draping her arms over the back of the sofa and kicking her legs out and over his. “Why bother doing this work, keeping people safe if you don’t care?”

“It was a way to get what I wanted.”

“Your missing bits,” she mused, grinning slightly. “Always looking out for yourself.”

“I’m pretty good at it.”

She sat up and tweaked his nose. “No, you’re rotten at it.” She leaned back once more, still smiling. “You know what I’d do in your case?”

He hadn’t a clue. “What?”

“Live.”

Frustrated, he threw his hands up and covered his eyes with his arms. “I think I’ve mastered that art. I’ve got medals enough to make a boy scout blush. Living is exhausting.”

She seemed about to argue, so he jumped to deny her the chance. “Listen to me, Rose. Living forever isn’t the same thing as living a long time. I could live two hundred years and not experience living enough. But I made a choice—I chose to die for a reason, and I didn’t get to. I don’t get to choose.”

Pathetic. “I’m trapped.”

Her hand moved up his thigh, braceleting his muscles and massaging tenderly. “I do understand,” she whispered, barely audible. “You’re bitter over being left behind. I’ve got badges if you want to sign up for the newsletter.”

For the first time in a long time, he laughed without pain. Not until Rose’s hands were on his cheeks and her body sprawled across his did he realize he wasn’t laughing; he was crying.

“Come on, Jack” she said, nuzzling at him, affectionately, “kit off.”

*

She slumped down on top of him, panting hotly over his neck. “I’m still not convinced,” she gasped between breaths.

“You’re a tough mark,” he said, supinely relaxed and not inclined to push at her any more just yet. They were naked, intimate, and tangled; she wasn’t about to disappear on him.

“What’s it like?”

“Could you be a little more specific?”

She punched him in the shoulder. “Coming back to life, I mean.”

He shifted to get a look at her earnest expression. She was serious. And completely clueless. There were a couple of metaphors he might have chosen had he wanted to be tactful, but he settled on the honest one. “It’s like vomiting in reverse.”

Rose grimaced, sticking her tongue out. “Ugh. Jack, that’s disgusting.”

“You asked,” he pointed out. “And it’s true. You know how, when you’re sick, you feel nauseated and if you could just blow your cookies, you’d feel a lot better?” She nodded. “Imagine you do. Then you get all that crap shoved back down your throat.”

“So, burning throat and vague stomach upset—that’s life?”

“That’s about it, yeah.”

She pulled a face, tongue stuck between her teeth. Kissing him once, she tucked herself back down against his body, scraping his throat with her teeth. “If that’s how you feel, no wonder you want to die.”

Sometimes he could be really dim, but he was both fortunate and gifted when it came to reading partners in bed. After two days she’d been in this universe, a couple of hours’ of banter, and two bullets, he hadn’t gotten anywhere. Now, two orgasms later, he could suddenly understand her language, translated through his thick skull.

He kissed the top of her head. “That’s it, isn’t it?” She shifted position, her hand twitching open and closed atop his chest. “It is,” he marveled, almost purring, halfway aroused by how very right he knew he was. “You don’t want to help me because you think I want to die.”

He brought her chin up with two fingers, finding her sleepy eyes and holding their gaze. “I don’t want to, Rose. I promise you I don’t.”

Her sorrowful expression made him ache to kiss her, to slap her, to do anything she asked and everything she feared if only to make her not hurt for him. He wasn’t worth it, and he hadn’t earned it.

“A man wants to die isn’t the right person to trust with your life. Or the life of a friend.”

He inhaled sharply, ready to argue the point, press his case. And let go the breath without saying anything. It took fully two minutes—maybe thirty-two seconds besides—for him to speak. “You are too brilliant, Rose Tyler.”

She sat up, disengaging herself from him to accept the faint praise of her damnation. “And you’re an idiot, Jack Harkness.”

When she would have swung off him completely, he grabbed at her waist. “Don’t get dressed yet.”

She raised an eyebrow at him, smirking naughtily as his hands crept up to massage her breasts. Appreciative, she rolled her hips against his, teeth bared in a victory smile as his hissed and rubbed back.

“What’s this? You want I should shag you to death?”

“No one’s ever tried.”

She feigned dismay. “Not like you mind trying, though, is it? Can’t believe it’s never happened.”

“Never,” he assured her. “Zapped, shot, poisoned, gassed, stabbed, hung—you name it, someone or something’s given it a go. But not this.”

“Probably because they’d die first,” she drawled, running one hand down her face. “I’m not sure I’ve got the stamina to try, either.”

He shot her a very giddy, gleeful look. “Please?”

She drummed her fingers on her hips. “I thought you said you didn’t want to die.”

Contented, he exhaled deeply, lacing his fingers together behind his head. “Wouldn’t be so bad, going out that way. Hell, if it works: take pictures.”

*

It had been so long since he’d slept without nightmares, he was unused to feeling so refreshed. There was more light, now; the horizon held off a freshly dawning day but only just barely. He fumbled for his watch. Two hours had gone by. He could go weeks without seeing the insides of his eyelids for that long. Rose was due a hearty thank—

He sat up suddenly. Ignoring his clothes, he jumped to his feet. Signs of their trespass on this anonymous home remained, but there was nothing of the woman who’d put him to sleep between her legs and snuck off once his guard was down.

“Son of a bitch,” he swore, no heat behind it. If anything, he was impressed. She’d been sleep-deprived, hunted, and physically exhausted, but she had kept awake long enough to steal out on him. Resourceful Rose, mystery singer in his dying dreams.

Jack gathered his things with difficulty—his coat and shirt had dried stiffly in the pool of blood and stuck to the floor. Fishing in his pockets came up empty save for his car keys. Rose had snatched his phone but left the earpiece, possibly a bit of her wicked humor. It didn’t matter; she had enough of a head start on him that, without being able to call ahead and warn the others she was coming, she’d be gone before he got back.

Not yet resigned to defeat, he dressed fast and bolted out the door for the SUV with TORCHWOOD imprinted on the side. He slid into the driver’s seat on the right hand side, threw the key in the ignition and did a quick check of the mirrors to make sure no one had noticed a stranger banging his way out of a resident’s home with a bloody set of clothes.

There was a piece of paper taped to the rearview mirror. He killed the engine and tore it off. Rose’s scrawl betrayed her haste.

There’s an emergency return beacon tucked behind the psychic paper in my wallet. One-way trip to see me if you are serious about needing my help. Fair warning: if it comes to that, it’ll be on my terms and you’ll agree or be stuck. Not sure that’s better than what you’ve got, but if you really need me, that’s how you get me.

The rest of the page was blank save for, where her name or initial might be at the end of a proper letter, a single commandment:

Live.


Fin



Notes:
1) The title is taken from something my father is always quoting. The missing words are "Life is..."

2) The tone of the piece was vastly softened by the last episode of Torchwood being so melancholic and romantic, but this is still a sequel, sort of, to Veritum dies aperit.