Bittersweet

[preserved_ginger]

Title: Bittersweet
Setting: Utopia
Character(s): Ten. Mentions of Jack, Rose and Martha.
Pairing(s): Ten/Rose, implied Nine/Rose
Rating: PG
A/N: Inspired by the Doctor's reactions to Jack at the beginning of Utopia when they land on Malcassiro.
Disclaimer: Borrowed, without permission.
Summary: He's desperate to talk about Rose to anyone who'll listen; even Jack.

Jack is “wrong”, the Doctor knows, although the act that created that “wrongness” had been one of utter love. Rose – his mystical Rose, the Bad Wolf ... the wonderfully human girl he loved and missed so very, very much – was responsible for the last act of the Time War, and typically of her that action was done out of love. And although he'd run away from Jack, and would probably do so again (he was a creature of habit in some things, after all), he had never been able to be angry with Rose for what she'd done.

I don't want to talk to you, Jack. You remind me too much of everything I've lost. She's gone, my beautiful Rose is gone, and every time I look at you the pain cuts a little deeper. You remind me of her so much and it's not fair, it's not bloody fair that you're still here and she isn't. And I hate myself for thinking that of someone who is – or used to be – one of my dearest friends, but I can't help it.

He's sorry he left Jack, he thinks; sorrier that he's managed to find a way back to him. But he's sorriest by far about what he'll have to tell him (about Rose). He knows he deserves a decent explanation (not least about why he's there and Rose isn't), but he's so far from being able to find the right words to even begin to tell him it's not funny. He doesn't think he'll ever be able to talk about it properly, even to him. Even to Jack, the only one left in all the universe who knows what she is to him.

Oh, Jack, she's gone. I love her, I know I love her; I need her, and she's gone – gone where I can't follow her.

He'll not lie to Jack and tell him that he was fully truthful earlier, when they talked about the nightmare that still haunts him – the Battle of Canary Wharf. She is alive and with her family, though; that much is true (oh, God, Rose; it hurts). But Jack doesn't know about the parallel universe, doesn't know about those last two minutes where, given one infinitely precious final chance to verbalise to Rose what he felt about her, he managed to do the one thing he'd wanted not to do – he'd stuffed it up.

I didn't tell her, Jack; the last time I'd ever see her and I couldn't make myself choke out the bloody words. And now I travel with Martha – who is sweet and lovely and a credit to her parents; I like her immensely – who is a fine companion, but who just isn't Rose. And boy does she know it.

Jack doesn't know – and he doesn't know how to tell him – about how he's gone half-mad with grief. About how every single thing he does is done with the express aim of finding a way through to Rose. About how if he ever stopped believing that he'd been wrong, that there was a way back to Rose and all he had to do was find it, that the stopping would probably kill him.

I'll not stop looking. I can't stop looking. How could I live with myself if I ever gave up on her, on Rose? I love her, Jack; I couldn't ever do that to her.

I'll find her, one day.

I need to believe that I'll find her, or else I'm lost ...