The Third Jump

Malcolm finds out about the dimension canon on its third jump, and before he knows what he's doing he's at the top of Torchwood Tower. There are techies everywhere, scrambling over cables and loose wires, and Mickey is pretending he actually knows what the fuck he's doing with all that science jargon and giving orders. Rose is there too, in black boots and a blue leather bomber. She's changed her hair.

"Why are you here?" she asks, distractedly.

He tries not to wince. "If you're going to be disappearing to fuck knows where, I think I need to have some kind of handle on it. Hard to spin 'I didn't have a fucking clue' without looking as suspicious as a ten p prozzie. And don't go questioning me, you're the one who didn't think leaving the fucking universe was worth mentioning."

She shrugs, her thin shoulders tugging at her jacket, and he can't remember if she was this thin a week ago. He can't remember when he looked longer than a second at the curve of her jaw. "Lost or gone back, I'm out of your hair. I didn't think the why would matter."

His insides jolt so hard his skin prickles and his bones ache, and for one terrible second he thinks he's going to pass out. He wants to run away and he wants to kiss her, and it's not until he feels his cold wedding ring against his palm that he remembers why he can't. He takes a deep breath. He shakes out his clenched hands. He moves on.

"Next jump in ten," Rose says, securing a black watch around her wrist. She taps the face, moving to stand in the centre of the room. "I want ten minutes before you pull me back. Five isn't enough to properly ascertain my location."

"We might have problems if we leave it too long," a techie says.

"Then pull me back if it does, yeah? It'll be fine. I want to see what it can do."

A computer whirrs and a machine whines and all the air is sucked out of the room. When he can breathe, Rose is gone.

Sighing, he smacks Mickey on the arm. "Get me a fucking Irn Bru."

Nine minutes later there's a crumpled can in the waste bin and a dozen answered e-mails on his phone, everything silent and orderly and so competent it almost pisses him off. When the air charges everyone stares at the computer, muttering and making notes and grinning at a job well done. Everyone but him. Because Rose is lying on the ground, getting blood all over the floor.

In a second he's kneeling next to her, trying to find a clean bit of skin to check for warmth or a pulse, but everywhere there's dirt and blood and torn cloth. He touches her face, dragging away a lock of hair. She twitches and his heart breaks.

"Rose, darling, it's okay. You're home now, you're safe, it's okay," he murmurs.

"T-Tucker?" she rasps.

"I'm here darling, it's okay." He looks away. Everyone is staring at him. "What, are you waiting for fucking Davina McCall to introduce you? GET A FUCKING DOCTOR."

Mickey and the techies scurry out of the room, and Malcolm turns back to Rose. She's smiling.

"Like that?" he asks. "Hopefully they can find the fucking infirmary better than they can find a fucking clue. Do you not have to pass tests for these jobs?"

She laughs but it stutters, breaking in to a wheezing cough. He strokes her hair, rubbing her temple with his thumb.

"Can you tell me what happened?" he whispers.

"Was…in war." She takes a shaky breath. "Explosion."

He blinks, and it's then that he notices the dirt on her skin is darker in places, smoother, like the freckles on an egg. It's shrapnel.

"We'll fix it, yeah? You have to have some fancy medical shit here, and we'll fix it. I promise."

"'Kay."

"I'm fucking serious. You'll be good as new. I swear."

She grins and her eyelids flutter, her lashes sticking together with mud. He swipes at them, dragging his fingers all over her face; taking the grit from her mouth and the dirt from her nose and cleaning up the cut on her cheek. She keeps her eyes closed the whole time.

"Rose." She doesn't move. "Rose, look at me. Please, love, open your eyes."

She shivers awake but she doesn't stop, her whole body trembling against the floor. He can hear the minute movements of her clothes, rustling like leaves. It must be shock, he thinks. He shucks out of his suit jacket and rests it over her, tucking the collar against her ear.

"Sorry," she groans.

"Talk to me. Tell me about work. Tell me anything."

"I dunno."

"What about this cannon thing, eh? Tell me about that."

"Go to…dif'rent worlds."

"Yeah?"

"Wanted to…go back."

To the Doctor, he thinks. After all this time, everything is still about him. "Right."

"Would miss ev'ryone." She shifts, wincing, and he cards his fingers through her filthy hair. He wonders if she even wants him to. "Would miss you."

He stills, his nails against her scalp and his heart on his tongue and his eyes fixed to her own, held there like the flight before the fall. But he's already done that, hasn't he? He's already hit the ground.

"I…I'd miss you too."

"Yeah?"

Her eyes are shining, crinkling at the corners, and her quivering lips are smiling, and that's good. That's so, so good.

"Tucker," someone says, and he turns. Mickey's there with a man in a doctor's coat and a metal stretcher and they wheel it over. Beside him, Rose clenches her hands.

"Rose, I'm going to see if it's safe to move you, okay?" the doctor says, waiting for her to nod before he runs his hands over her head and side. He probes and massages and hums before finally sitting back. "It looks like you might have a broken rib, can you breathe easily?"

"Sort of," Rose mumbles.

"We're going to try and get you up as quickly as possible."

The doctor gets her legs while Malcolm gets her shoulders, cradling her between them as they move her to the stretcher. When she's finally settled, they take her straight to the elevator and the infirmary six floors below. Malcolm follows her the whole way there.

They kick Malcolm and Mickey in to the hall while they patch up Rose, and in a rare moment of common sense Mickey calls Jackie and Pete. They wait in awful silence, unable to see anything beyond the frosted glass doors, and Malcolm tries not to think about the wounds he couldn't see, the shredded skin that stained the floor. He never wants to go in to that room again.

When Jackie sees him she bursts in to tears. "Jesus, Tucker," Pete gasps, and Malcolm frowns. He looks down.

There's blood on his knees and on his hands; on his wrists where he pushed his sleeves up and on his shirt every place she touched, and he's sure there's blood raked through his hair. It's drying, rusting against his veins. He didn't notice, and he wonders if that's strange.

"There's a locker room on the fourth floor," Pete says. "I'll send someone to get you a new set of clothes."

He nods, staggering to the elevators and hitting the right buttons on sheer luck. There are goosebumps on his arms when he gets to the showers, cold sweat caking the back of his neck, and he turns the water as hot as it will go and scrubs and scrubs and scrubs until his skin starts to ache. He stands there, trying not to throw up.

Maybe he's going in to shock too, in sympathy or for some other fucked up reason, because it's not like he cares. It's not like she shook him to the marrow of his bones, like he can't still hear her buggered breathing because the shower won't drown it out or that he sees her lips turn blue every time he closes his eyes. He doesn't put his wedding ring back on, and it's because the blood won't come off. He wraps it in a square of toilet paper and stares at the white band on his skin, and tries to ignore how honest it feels. He drags his thumb across the empty space. He doesn't miss it. It's not, he thinks firmly, like he hasn't been fucking lying to himself for months—for thirty goddamn years.

There are socks waiting for him on a bench when he gets out, jeans and a t-shirt and someone's stretched-out cardigan, and they chafe when he puts them on. He scratches his chest, his legs and wrists, but it doesn't help. Tossing his suit in the trash does; he's never going to wear it again. He throws his shoes away. He pockets his wedding ring.

"There's no news," Pete says as Malcolm turns a corner, and something icy sloshes around in his gut. She'll be fine, he tells himself, because she always is. Because she always bounces back. Because he is finally, frighteningly willing to acknowledge that he needs her to be.

"What do we do?" Mickey asks.

"About what?" Pete says.

"The dimension cannon. I mean, we can't keep going, can we? With Rose like this."

Malcolm twitches towards them. "I'm sorry, did I mishear or are you actually thinking of sending her back out in that fucking thing?"

"That's not what I meant—" Mickey starts.

"Because that's what it fucking sounded like, and I'm no scholar—I'm no fucking Oxbridge expert—BUT THAT SOUNDS LIKE A DUMB FUCKING IDEA."

"I know—"

"SHUT IT DOWN. I don't care how long it takes, I don't care how it fucking inconveniences you, I don't care if you have to work through your own fucking funeral, SHUT IT DOWN NOW."

"You don't have the jurisdiction!"

"Don't I? The Vitex heiress is lucky to be fucking alive, and there isn't enough fucking spin in the world that will turn shrapnel in to a fucking drinks company accident. You want to run around having tea with aliens, be my fucking guest, but she is not fucking killing herself in this job, all right?"

Mickey's lip curls. "Of course; wouldn't want to give you more work to do."

Malcolm takes a step forward, ready to punch him despite the fact that Mickey has combat training and Pete could fire him for assault. Then, the doctor comes in to the hall.

"She's fine," he starts, and Malcolm's knees nearly give. "She has a broken rib and a nasty hole in her side, but she'll recover. We're working on getting that Andorian dermal regenerator working, and if we do there won't even be surface scars."

"Thank you," Pete says. Jackie nearly cries all over again.

"Mr Tucker, she's asking for you."

Mickey starts to protest but Malcolm ignores him, striding in to the infirmary and slamming the door behind him.

Her eyes are closed when he reaches her. They've put her in a hospital gown, pulled pink blankets up to her chest and hooked her right hand up to an IV full of something he can't read. Someone has washed her face. He can see every one of her cuts, scattered across her skin like stars.

"Rose."

She turns her head, half-opening her eyes. She hums, "You smell good."

"Are you on drugs?"

She laughs. "Sort of; they won't give me anymore. I've got concussion."

"You shouldn't be fucking napping, then."

"I wasn't."

"Sure."

She laughs again, and while it's not as big or long as it could be, she doesn't cough once. "I just…I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. I've messed things up, and I've ruined your suit, and I'm just really, really sorry."

"Rose, it's fine."

"But all the work you'll have to do."

"What?"

"I'm gonna have to leave Torchwood sometime, Tucker. I doubt even you can scare every photographer in Britain in to leaving me alone."

It's the last thing on his mind. It could be a work accident or a hiking spill or faulty gym equipment, he doesn't care, all that matters is that her skin clears. That her breath stops rasping and her side stops hurting and she can walk on her own. This is why doctors don't operate on the people they love; proper procedure becomes inconsequential. And anyway, Sam wouldn't be the first call he'd make.

"I'm surprised you're not calling someone now," Rose continues. "Where's your phone?"

"I don't know," he says, and it's true. He doesn't know where the hell it is. It wasn't in his suit when he tossed it.

"What?"

"I don't care. It doesn't matter."

"Tucker—"

"I'll get fucking Neville to do it, it doesn't matter, Rose."

"But…why?"

She doesn't get it, not that he's surprised; he's always been total shit at this. His insides shiver as he leans forward, pressing a kiss above her brows. He lingers there, feeling her warmth, letting it soak through to his soul before he moves, dragging his lips along her nose. When he opens his eyes, she's staring at him.

"Understand?" he asks.

Biting her lip, she takes his hand, lacing their fingers and feeling only skin. "Me too, yeah?"

It's not perfect, he thinks. She'll likely argue about the dimension cannon until he wants to duct tape her mouth shut, and he desperately needs to put his divorce back in to effect. Then there's her parents, who might castrate him for daring to touch their twenty-something daughter. But right now, she is smiling.

"So, what are you gonna do now?" Rose asks, swinging their hands a little.

"Well, I thought I'd stay here. Someone needs to make sure you don't slip in to a fucking coma."

Her smile widens and he pulls up a chair, sitting and kicking his legs up on the bed. Then she laughs and he feels it again: honesty, like a man renewed.

"Malcolm, where the hell are your shoes?"

Disclaimer

This is fanfic of a fanfic of two TV shows. I own absolutely nothing.

Author's Notes

This fic is set sometime after Chapter 29 in the "Stuck With You" universe created by gallifreyslostson and larxenethefirefly, which you can find on Tumblr and AO3. It's posted with their permission, and hopefully their enjoyment, despite it being a mess of sap and angst. :P I hope everyone is at least a little bit in character.