Title: Bearing Bad News
By: d60kit
Pairing: gen
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Note: This was written ages ago so it doesn't fit with the new series of Doctor Who.
Summary: The Doctor stops by Cardiff after making a promise to a friend.

***

It had been about seven when he had arrived and people were just starting to appear on the streets. Obviously he realised that this wasn't exactly a '9 till 5' job, but he was arrogant enough to assume that if something important was going down in the city he would have known about it by now, and so he supposed he had a perfectly good chance this morning. He'd settled onto a bench across the street from the building, feeling strangely calm, and started pretending to read his newspaper.

Just after nine and still no sign of the one he was looking for. So he wandered into the gift shop he'd heard about. Exchanging pleasantries with the man behind the counter was harder than he would like to admit. He picked up a few token purchases, a few postcards, a key ring and some kind of triangular thing that might have been a doorstop, and idly wondered if he was the first customer this shop had ever had. As the man in the suit turned round to get him a bag, he slipped the letter into a stack of papers on the desk and asked himself again exactly how cowardly this method was. Still, it was easier. He'd be long gone by the time they found his message and that way he had avoided all the inevitable questions that he would not be able to answer. It was not as though the answers would change anything.

"Cardiff 2007. I left on the 16th March. The base is hidden behind a gift shop by the Millennium Centre. Just in case...'

Jack's tone is light hearted and he does not even look up from the file in his hand but the impact of his words is not lost on the Doctor. He glances at his companion out of the corner of his eye but decides that this unusual sentimentality is simply a side effect of newly-regained mortality. There may seem to be a strange, choking heaviness in the air but this should not be too difficult for them. After all, they have just spent several weeks searching through time and space to find a way to reverse the after effects of the time vortex, getting distracted by a few minor crises along the way. By comparison this should be nothing.

He saw her just before ten. He is not sure how he recognises this woman he has never met but somehow he just knows and he steps forward, calling her name. She spins round and does not even attempt to hide the suspicion on her face.

"Who are you?" He notes the Welsh accent and wonders if she has lived in Cardiff all her life, then wonders why that matters.

"Perhaps we could talk about that over coffee somewhere?" Not here. Not in the middle of the street. And he wouldn't put it past Torchwood to monitor the CCTV cameras outside their base. No matter how much the organisation may have changed since his last meeting with them, he would still rather stay off their radar.

"I'm late for work." She looks tired he notes. Tired but somehow expectant. And despite the hostility in her voice she does not looked surprised to see him. All the same, he gives up trying to move her from this spot. This will just have to do. The words catch in his throat, and he realises, with mingled horror and relief, that he is not quite as in control as he thought.

"He wanted you to know..." He's done this before and yet he cannot find the words. All he can manage is a clichéd, utterly useless, 'I'm so sorry.'

"Gwen."

It's not long before Jack breaks the silence again, but this time he turns to face the Doctor.

"Gwen Cooper. I'd rather she heard it from you."

The other man nods, a silent promise. Outside the screaming starts and both men turn towards the door.

"How?"

He's bought her that coffee now and they are sitting in the back of a little café some streets away. She had walked away from the building without looking back and he sensed that it would be a long time before she would be ready to walk through those doors again. The sobs have quietened and now she is calm she has started with the questions.

He gives her its name but she looks blank of course and he is glad she has never heard of the creature - he would not want those claws haunting her dreams. As he starts the explanation he's been rehearsing in his head for the last however many days the words (' hundreds of people in danger' 'hero' 'quick' 'no other way') just start to blur together and the lack of meaning scares him. That familiar crushing guilt is settling over him, replacing the numbness; this is one more name on a long list of people who would probably have been better off if they had never met him.

"Where?"

"Does that really matter?" This is more complicated than it sounds because he is not sure how much she knows. Did not bother to ask because he never expected it to come to this.

"Not really... it's just... I'd like to see...it sounds so silly...but if I just....'

He studies her for a moment and instinctively understands what she cannot put into words, the need to see and understand and make it real.

"Another galaxy three thousand years into the future" She does not look surprised but her face falls slightly and he cannot help thinking how unfair it is, that a war in a time and place so far removed from her own life is having this consequence on her.

Later he will wonder what it is about that moment, what prompts his next words which most definitely were not the ones he had rehearsed. Is it guilt? Or is it the way the mixture of vulnerability and quiet strength make her look so human and so achingly familiar? Or maybe it's simply the knowledge that he himself made a detour on his way here, a few hours in London just letting himself drown in the past.

" I could take you there."

He is not sure if she is conscious of her hand reaching out to grasp his.

"So you're seriously telling me that this... phone box thing can travel through time?"

"Yes that's exactly what I'm telling you." He tries to force a smile but lately it just gets harder.

"And we're going to a planet called what again?"

He catches a flicker of wonder in her eyes, in the midst of the pain, and for some reason it gives him hope, not just for her but for himself too. He unlocks the door of the Tardis.

"Yes. And if you like we could stop somewhere on the way home?" She turns to face him and he thinks he knows exactly what he has just done and it scares him, but he pushes on regardless,

"Pick a time. Pick a place. Pick a planet!" He feels a bittersweet but genuine smile tug at the corners of his mouth as she stares around the Tardis before carefully, deliberately stepping inside.

***