Dancing Lessons

Jive: A fast, high-spirited dance involving a lot of kicks, fast-stepping, and acrobatic tricks (flips, lifts, leaps, etc.) Also archaic American slang for talk that’s not entirely believable.

[Jack and Rose tear up the floor. Nine wants to cut in.]

CHAPTER ONE: JIVE

HARLEM, June 30, 1941: The Savoy

The Doctor is losing Rose. Not all at once, mind. Not in some cataclysmic and spectacular way. No, this is much more sinister. More inevitable too: like the erosion of a star’s orbit around a black hole. Every day, Rose drifts just a bit farther toward that moment when she’ll wink out of his life and be gone forever. An event horizon of the heart.

“You are so full of shite!” Rose is laughing across the table at Jack. She has to shout to be heard above the raucous big band that’s struck up at the far end of the dance hall. On the block-long dance floor, couples swing and sway and sweat in the haze of a summer evening in Manhattan. Bobby soxers and zoot suits and shirt sleeves and very high hair surround them. (Though they’re in the fast-beating heart of Harlem, the Doctor and his Companions blend in to the largely integrated crowd.)

“No! There I was...!” And the captain, ever his dashing and handsome self, launches anew into the tale of another of his impossible cons. The boy’s walked the straight and narrow since becoming a Companion -- the Doctor has better things to do with his time than shelter an unreformed felon -- but Jack delights in telling Rose of his less reputable days. “Any guards worth their salt wouldn’t have left it out in plain sight.”

He spreads his hands wide. (He has lovely and expressive hands.) “Honestly,” the Captain continues, all easygoing charm. “It’s like they wanted me to steal it.”

“And, being the accommodating kind of guy you are...” Rose rolls her eyes, still laughing. “Doctor, would you please tell Jack he’s full of shite?”

“You’re full of shite, Jack,” says the Doctor obligingly. He hides behind his bland mask of polite interest. Snatches Jack’s tumbler from the slightly sticky table. Steals a sip of Jack’s scotch and soda.

“Hey!” Jack snatches the glass back, laughing. “Get your own!” A dazzling smile summons a beautiful light-skinned waitress. (Who tugs a bit at her neckline, unconsciously drawing both men’s eyes to her ample bust.)

A kiss on the back of the hand, a few melting words and within moments, a glass of scotch and soda appears in the Doctor’s hand.

He glowers at it. Charming. The boy’s entirely too charming for his own good. A glorious cad. A beautiful catastrophe waiting to descend on him. No, not just on him, on THEM.

Rose shakes her head, though she’s not upset. She’s almost never upset with Jack. No, he makes her smile. Laugh. The Doctor can’t STAND how well the two of them get on.

He’s losing his Rose to Jack. It’s just a matter of time before the boy lures her into his bed. The Doctor takes a bitter sip of the very mediocre scotch and savours the burn. (With his metabolism, alcohol is little more than a distraction, but a drink like this suits his morose mood. Not to mention the humans of this time and place drink excessively even by British standards. And it’s a damn good thing the Savoy’s very nearly the only joint in 1941 that prohibits smoking or the same lethal amount of nicotine and tar would saturate the dance hall in the same bloody blue haze that covers just about every other place in Manhattan. He should really devise some sort of bronchial filtration for jaunts to the early twentieth century. And Jack seems to have such an irritating proclivity for this era -- how DID the Doctor let himself get talked into this?)

“All right, liar,” says Rose to Jack. “So you snatched it right out from under the noses of the Time Agent guards...”

The Doctor tips the amber liquid in his tumbler, trying to fixate on the way the light reflects and refracts through the ice as a means to ignore the way Jack effuses his way through the rest of the story. He doesn’t really have the right to object to whatever happens between Jack and Rose. There’s no law prohibiting one Companion from shagging another. (If the somewhat fuzzy memories of his past regenerations serve, this certainly wouldn’t be the first match he’s unwittingly made.) But he’s known too many men like Jack to rejoice in the thought of handing over his Rose to him.

Men like Jack leave. Suddenly. Without warning. And the only thing worse than when they take the girl with them is when they leave her behind. Suddenly. Without warning.

The last thing the Doctor wants right now is to pick up the pieces when Jack leaves Rose. He doesn’t do Domestic in the best of circumstances. A broken-hearted Rose would be the very worst of circumstances.

He wouldn’t know where to begin.

The Doctor takes another sip of the scotch. Grimaces at the bitter burn. When Jack breaks Rose’s heart, he may have to very seriously rethink his vow of nonviolence.

And what makes this all the more intolerable is the Doctor has enjoyed them both. They’re a matched set, they are. Daring. Adaptable. Courageous. Innovative. And above all, fun. And that’s the problem. He’s had the time of his life with them. They’re all he could ask for in terms of company. (Well, with one very notable exception, but the Doctor has a strict Don’t Get Overly Involved policy when it comes to Companions. Lovely as the two of them might be, there are some lines he simply will not cross. Shagging is one of them.)

“...Doctor!” Startled, he looks up. Rose’s eyes sparkle with amusement at his expense. “Music’s not that loud.”

“Sorry?” He sets down his very mediocre scotch. (What one wouldn’t give for a shot of Episilarus Septima, fifty-third century.)

She steals a sip of his drink. Pulls a face. “I asked you three times now if you fancied a dance.”

The thought brings an embarrassingly immediate rush of heat to his whole body. Dance? Yes. He fancies a dance with Rose. If he were a less honourable man, he’d dance with her all night. In every rhythm she can imagine and even a few she’s probably never heard of. It’s all he can do not to imagine how lovely a partner she’d make. The heat of her. The softness of her mouth. The sweet give of her body beneath his. If only they could dance... Alone... In the privacy of his room...

“Mark your calendar, Rose,” Jack says over the rim of his tumbler. (The Doctor wishes he were immune to that devilish blue sparkle.) “You’ve rendered His Verboseness speechless.”

The Doctor glares.

Jack sets his tumbler down, his fingers a temptingly short few centimetres from the Doctor’s. “It’s a simple question, Doctor: Do you fancy a dance?” He waves a hand in the direction of the floor, where couples sway and swing and move in time to the band’s exertions. “Because you were nice enough to bring us here, I bribed the band leader to play ‘Swing, Swing, Swing’.”

Rose’s jaw drops in delight. “You didn’t!” At Jack’s nod, she throws her arms around him. “Oh, I love you for that, Jack!” She kisses his temple. (The Doctor’s fingers tighten on the tumbler.) Smiles at the Doctor. “C’mon, then, you. What do you say?”

As much as he enjoys them, moments like this make the Doctor feel every one of his nine hundred years. This latest regeneration is a strong enough bloke, but inside this lie of a body, he wonders how so young and beautiful a girl as Rose can ask him with a straight face to dance with her.

Rose clicks her fingers in front of his face. “Oi! Doctor? This song’s almost over and Jack’s pretty sure the next one’s ‘Swing, Swing, Swing’. Yes or no? Will you dance with me?”

Will he dance with her? Spin her around the floor? Pull her tight against him? Let their bodies move toa common rhythm? Have an excuse to put his hands all over her with impunity? Feel her trust as he lifts and flips and catches her?

He shakes his head no. Fortunately, his voice doesn’t betray him. “I can waltz with the best of them, me, but I’m rubbish at fast dances like this.”

“Now you’re full of shite,” says Rose. “You did well enough in the TARDIS.”

“That was just us.” He waves the praise away. (Though he’s privately pleased she enjoyed it as much as he.) “Jive is a young person’s dance. You’re young and so’s Jack. So. Off you go.”

(Please let her say no. If she loves him even slightly, she’ll insist on staying here.)

Rose glances at Jack, who gives the kind of grin would make a movie star idol die of envy. “You want me to dance with Jack?” she says, uncertain.

“And why not?” His voice is entirely too calm. (And what the hell is he doing? Her dancing with Jack will be the beginning of the end.) “He’s fit and willing.” The Doctor cocks an eyebrow at Jack. “And I’ll wager he knows all the moves.”

“You know I do,” says Jack. (Damn that twinkle.)

The band -- traitors, the lot of them -- strike up the raucous opening bars to “Swing, Swing, Swing”. Jack seizes his chance. Stands. Offers Rose a hand.

To the Doctor’s horror, Rose stands and takes the hand. (Just because he told her to go doesn’t mean he wants her to leave!)

“I’ll save you a dance,” she promises.

The Doctor’s smile is a mask of pleasant indifference. “Slow dance,” he says.

“Slow dance,” she agrees. The sweet shyness of that smile brings a genuine smile to his lips.

But Jack’s wary look tells the Doctor that the captain isn’t so easily fooled by this seemingly innocent exchange. When Rose looks Jack’s way, wary calculation vanishes into another dazzling grin. Jack kisses her hand. Leads her out onto the floor at a run.

The Doctor could kill them both. Beautiful, they are, the monsters. He hates them both and yet he can’t take his eyes off them. Nimble. Quick. Lovely. Perfectly matched. (It’s so bloody unfair. Especially considering how good he’s been in the face of temptation.) Jack twirls Rose. Leads her in some of the fast-kickingest moves the Doctor has ever seen. The floor clears a bit around them. Dancers cheer and applaud as Jack vaults over Rose’s shoulders. Flips her into the air. Catches her so her legs splay on either side of his hips.

(And the Doctor tries not to imagine too vividly how good such groin-to-groin contact must feel... with either of them.)

Rose laughs. Real, genuine shrieks of merriment. Jack basks in that smile, just as the Doctor would in his place. So beautiful together. His Companions.

Surely he’s lived long enough to be generous. Let it happen. Stand aside. Smile and be grateful for the handful of days before both Rose and Jack disappear from his life forever. (It’s not like he deserves them anyway.)

He downs the very mediocre scotch and soda in one gulp. It burns, but not enough. He snatches Jack’s glass. Finds the spot where the captain’s lips last touched the rim. Tips it to his own lips. Pretends for a moment the burning in his mouth is from a very different kind of intoxication.

The song ends. On the dance floor, a breathless Jack hugs an even more breathless Rose. She’s beautifully dishevelled. Jack has a high flush of exertion on his cheeks. Couples around them whistle and clap at their athleticism. Jack takes a graceful, sweeping bow, then indicates Rose. She bobs a curtsey. Happy. She’s so happy with him.

He should just let it happen. (But how will he live with himself when Jack breaks her heart?)

The smaller band on the other wall strikes up a slow tune while the big band relaxes. Jack hugs Rose tightly.

An elegantly coifed woman (Ella, the Doctor believes her name is) steps to the mike. “You go to my head.... And you linger like a haunting refrain...”

Jack’s hand slips down to Rose’s waist. He holds her hand in his.

“And I find you spinning round in my brain...”

Jack presses Rose’s hips to his. Looks deeply into her eyes. (Dear God, the Doctor’s seen that look before!)

“Like the bubbles in a glass of champagne.”

The Doctor wishes he has something stronger to drink. A hip flask of Kartusite brandy maybe. (Rose and Jack are only Companions. Only human. Dammit, it shouldn’t bother him.)

“You go to my head...” sings the sodding silken-voiced siren at the microphone, “Like a sip of sparkling burgundy brew... And I find the very mention of you... Like the kicker in a julep or two.”

And just then, he feels Rose’s eyes on him. Looking. She’s looking at him.

“The thrill of the thought... That you might give a thought... To my plea casts a spell over me... ”

Rose’s brown-eyed stare strikes him to the core. One heart stops beating, the other races. (Bloody painful, that.) She might fancy Jack. She might be dancing with him. But unless the Doctor is very wrong, what she really wants is...

“You go to my head... With smile that makes my temperature rise...”

Jack watches him through half-hooded eyes. Blue eyes, brighter than the Doctor’s own. Jack twinkles where the Doctor glowers. And the offer in those eyes tempts him again. (The sweat that runs down his spine suddenly has nothing to do with a very hot summer night in a very crowded dance hall.)

The captain bends to whisper in Rose’s ear.

“Like a summer with a thousand Julys... You intoxicate my soul with your eyes...”

Rose smiles. Grins. Blushes. Nods.

“Tho I'm certain that this heart of mine... Hasn't a ghost of a chance in this crazy romance,...”

Jack pulls Rose a little closer. Turns her away.

“You go to my head...”

The Doctor stands so quickly he knocks his chair over. And he’s just pissed enough not to care about the stares from the tables beside his. (Two shots of scotch was too many, in twenty-twenty hindsight.) If he doesn’t stop him, Jack is going to kiss his Rose. (And bollocks to that!)

Feeling every inch the Oncoming Storm, the Doctor cuts through the crowd. Taps Jack on the shoulder. (Perhaps a bit more roughly than he intended.)

Jack turns, looking slightly guilty.

“Fast song’s over,” says the Doctor with perfect calm. He gives Rose his best melting smile. “Mind if I cut in?”