The Wizard's Guide to Timelords and Other Demons Book 1: The Forgotten War

An Old Friend But Older

Gasping and coughing, Captain Jack snapped back into the world of the living. Despite the thousands of such "awakenings" he had experienced throughout his mercilessly long life, Jack still felt horribly uneasy every time he had returned from death.

Normally it took only a few seconds for his mind to clear and his vision to be restored, but this time it was different. His brain was still hazy as he struggled to look around. He was barely able make out dark shapes suspended in the great, nebulous void he seemed to be floating in.

A ghostly form materialized in the distance from across the void and approached him, stopping when it had reached Jack's side. A muffled, distorted voice emanated from the ghost as if it were speaking to him. To his relief, he was able to make out what it was saying with only a little difficulty.

"Welcome back Captain Jack," the ghost said in a female voice.

Her voice was familiar and somewhat flirty, and the rhythm of her sentence suggested she was rather pleased with the rhyme she had just made. Jack's vision began to clear more rapidly now and he could see that he was lying on a table in the Torchwood examination room.

The apparition that had addressed him resolved into a woman with blond hair, sitting in a chair beside his bed. Recognition came in an instant, and Jack was very pleased that this one was not pointing a gun at him.

"Rose?" he exclaimed in delight, "Rose Tyler?" He tried to sit up, but an intense bout of vertigo reminded him that he had been dead only less than a minute ago.

"Easy Jack," she counseled in a warm, soft voice as she arose and placed her arm across his shoulders to help support him. "Yes, it's me, and you need to give it a few minutes."

The spinning room started to slow down, and he was soon able to sit up on his own.

"Things work differently here Jack," Rose explained, "and it may take you a bit longer to fully reanimate."

"Reanimate?" Jack teased groggily. "That's a pretty big word for you, isn't it?" He teased.

His vision nearly restored, Jack was able to take a good look at Rose and was taken aback by what he saw. She looked older than he expected, by many years in fact. Her face was much thinner than he had remembered and there were slight wrinkles forming on her brow and around her eyes and lips. Her short blond hair was peppered thin streaks of gray. Despite appearing as a woman in her late forties, she was still quite beautiful.

"I look old don't I Jack?" She said unabashed with a smile.

Jack tried to object but his fuzzy brain would barely allow him to stutter out a few incoherent sounds that only made Rose giggle.

She gazed more closely at his face as she stroked it gently, and then continued, "It's very hard to judge age with you Jack, but by your eyes, I'd guess it hasn't been long since we were together with the Doctor—or rather Doctors—in the Medusa Cascade, about 2008 I believe?"

Jack stared dreamily at Rose and nodded. Maybe it was the lingering effects if his reanimation, as she had put it, but seeing her like this and listening to her speak was truly mesmerizing. When he had met her all those years ago in London during World War 2, she had been a child—albeit a very pretty one. Now she seemed so wise—seasoned even—and far more attractive.

"Knock it off, Jack," she snapped suddenly, a feigned expression of seriousness on her face. "I know what you're thinking!"

Jack smiled innocently. "Who? Me?"

Her expression softened back into a grin. "John and I have been married for almost twenty-five years now," she said proudly. "We have a beautiful daughter, Mia, with whom you are forbidden to flirt," she added in a voice that sounded much more like the coquettish Rose Jack remembered, even if it was only spoken in jest.