jalec as ten and rose = journey's end
(confirmed that you meant doomsday)
Happy birthday, dear! I still don’t know whether to hate you or love you for this prompt, because tenrose and jalec??? my otps, a perfect match!
But the feels, man…
Basically, you know who to blame for this angst fest ;) (and i might’ve expanded it a bit, i hope you don’t mind!)
This Is The Story of How I Died
The breach wasfinally open, and Dalek after Cyberman after Dalek were being sucked right intoit.
Alec, foras long as he had been the Doctor, had known that celebrating victory before duetime could only end up in crushing disappointment…and yet, this time he trulyfelt that they had done it.
As him andJace held on for dear life onto their magnetic clamps, everything was about tobe over so very soon. And they couldgo back to their adventures in all of space and time.
The Doctorand Jace Herondale, together, in the Tardis. As it should be.
…Of course,of course, fate had other plans forthem.
One of thelevers that kept the breach open had shifted from its place; the portal wouldclose before they had gotten rid of all their enemies!
Jace, ohJace, brave, brilliant Jace, he leapt from the safety of his hold, managing tograb the lever and struggling to put it back in place at the same time that theforce of the pull from the breach was so strong.Alec could only watch him with widened eyes, his two hearts pumping with astaccato beat that had nothing graceful about it, as he hoped, prayed to ahigher being that he knew didn’t exist, for his companion to succeed. For thingsto work in his favor, for once!
Jace did it, the lever was back in its place,the breach would remain until it had enclosed every last…
Alec’s armstwitched around his hold, as his eyes almost popped out of his head, becauseJace’s fingers were slipping.
“JACE! HOLDON!!” he shouted, desperately, over the noise of the magnetic force.
Had he everbeen more desperate in his life? He must’ve been, right, but…
Sounds of strainand fatigue were coming out of Jace as he fought against the pull drawing himtowards certain death.
“HOLD ON!”Alec could only repeat.
His andJace’s eyes met amidst the madness, and time seemed to slow down. Jace – thefirst face this face saw, his companion, his lover, his everything…
A shout hadbuilt deep in him even before Alec saw Jace lose his hold, but when it came out, it was like never before, histhroat burning around it, as Jace’s own scream mirrored his own…
“NOOOOO!”
It wasover, he had killed another one, Jace was going to be stuck in the Void forever,and Alec was never going to see him again!
A darkfigure appeared. Stephen Herondale, as alive as he was in the parallel universethey had visited, was right in front of the breach, and he grabbed Jace a splitsecond before he teleported them both away. As soon as they had vanished, Alec’sscream finished its course just as the last Dalek was pulled in, and the breachclosed after it. Forever.
Jace wasalive. He’d live a full life, with a bit of luck.
Alec shouldfeel at least partially happy, as heslumped down on the ground, completely spent. But he felt only…empty.
Entirely,utterly void.
Alec gotup, his movements slow, as if he had no energy to do more, and he approachedthe white wall. It was just a simplewhite wall…but it hid behind it everything that he had lost. Alec pressed ahand, then his face against it, listening in to nothing that he could everhear.
The Doctorand Jace Herondale, together, in the Tardis, was no more.
“TAKE MEBACK! TAKE ME BACK! TAKE ME BACK!”
Jace wasreduced to those three words, as he pounded against a plain white wall and screamedhis lungs out. Tears were running down his face, but he was past the point ofcaring…about anything.
“It’sstopped working. He did it. He closed the breach,” Jace heard his father saybehind him, and that only twisted the knife in his gut.
“No!” hesobbed, leaning his forehead against the wall, as his entire body shook andcrumbled in of itself.
The lastyear had been the best of his life. He had seen wanders, he had done wanders, he had met the most wonderfullycrazy man in the whole universe, who had opened Jace’s eyes to a whole newworld of possibilities!
It couldnot be over…it could not…
Jace couldn’tbreathe, as he pressed his hands against the wall, and then his head. Listeningintently, as if he could actually hearthe other world that was behind it.
But therewas nothing. Nothing at all.
It wasn’tover, though…not yet.
Jace.
He dreamed of a voice, night after night, callinghis name. His father, mother, and Clary couldn’t help but listen to him, becausethey had met the Doctor. They all knew it meantsomething, so they listened to the dream, and followed the voice.
They droveand drove, until they crossed water, then they kept driving, hundreds andhundreds of miles.
Because he was calling.
Here I am, at last, Jace thought.
And therehe was. Alec. His Doctor. Standing in the middle of a beach in Norway.
“Where areyou?” Jace asked him, the sound of his own voice surprising him.
“Inside theTardis.” But it was nothing like hisvoice, as Jace finally heard it again. Because it reached not Jace’s ears, butsomething far deeper than that. “There’s one tiny little gap in the universeleft, just about to close. And it takes a lot of power to send this projection- I’m in orbit around a supernova. I’m burning up a sun, just to say goodbye.” Therewas an unmistakable catch behind Alec’s attempt at levity.
And thatwas, strangely, the most romantic thing Jace had ever heard, or seen done for him. Still, he couldn’thelp his own neediness. “You look like a ghost.”
He couldn’t look one last time at him like that.
“Hold on.”
Alecpointed his sonic screwdriver forward, at the Tardis’s console for sure, andsuddenly he looked solid.
Jacestretched a hand forward before he could stop himself, his fingers twitching painfully.“Can I…t-”
“I’m stilljust an image. No touch,” Alec said back, as reluctant to spell it out as Jacewas to hear it.
At least,Alec was staring at him fixedly, with his big, deep, sad eyes drinking him in,just as Jace was doing to him.
“Can’t youcome through properly?” Jace begged.
“The wholething would fracture. Two universes would collapse.”
“So?” Jace brokeout into a laugh between the tears that, cursedly, were already pooling in hiseyes, and Alec did that, too.
But Jaceknew that they were both serious. What were two universes collapsing…to this? To them?
Alecshrugged himself off; Jace knew that he was forcing himself to act casual, tochange the subject. They, after all, had never done this. They had never laid out in the open what they were to each other, and what each of them thought theother to be, or felt for him.
“Where arewe? Where did the gap come out?” Alec asked.
“We’re inNorway,” Jace responded, almost toneless.
“Norway!Right.” Alec’s chirpiness was almost successful. Almost.
“About 50miles out of Bergen,” Jace went on, never taking his eyes off Alec. “It’scalled Darlig Ulv Stranden.”
“Dalek?”Alec shot back, confused.
“Darlig,”Jace clarified. “It’s Norwegian for bad.” A new shaken kind of laugh came outof Jace. “This translates as Bad Wolf Bay.”
Alec’s eyeswidened, before his surprise turned into another laugh, too. And Jace knew thatthe true irony wasn’t lost on eitherof them; this had always been their destiny. Everything had led them to end up on two different sides of theuniverse.
Jace feltthe first tears slide down his cheeks. “How long have we got?” he croaked out.
Alec’s neckbobbed up and down as he swallowed. “About two minutes.”
They keptstaring, just staring, as the clock ticked, and their time together slippedfrom their fingers. Jace brought a hand to rub at his eyes.
“I can’tthink of…what to say,” Jace admitted brokenly.
Alec smiledhis kind smile, and Jace could swear his lower lip was wobbling. He averted hiseyes, though, and looked behind Jace, at the people waiting for him there. “You’vestill got Miss Clary, then.”
Jace noddedlightly. “There’s five of us now - Mum, Dad, Clary…and the baby.”
Jace knewthat that was petty of him, but he still couldn’t help but want to see what Alec’s reaction would be.
It didn’tdisappoint. Alec paused for a long moment, his eyebrows shooting up to his hairline,clearly taken aback. “Is Clary…?”
Jacesnorted, satisfied by the clear jealousy he could hear in Alec’s tone. He justwanted…to be remembered, to be held dear for a while longer after everythingwas said and done, was that too much to ask? “No. It’s Mum. She’s three months gone. More Herondales on the way.”
Alec’s shouldersvisibly sagged in relief, and Jace’s heart rose even more.
“And whatabout you, what are you…?” Alec was still deflecting, and Jace chose to indulgehim a little more.
“Yeah, I’mback working in the shop.”
“Oh, goodfor you,” Alec said.
Jace rolledhis eyes. “Shut up! Nah, I’m not. The Torchwood on this planet’s still open forbusiness. I think I know a thing or two about aliens.”
He smirked,and was pleased to see the same expression mirrored on Alec’s face.
“JaceHerondale. Defender of the Earth,” Alec stated, the pride he could hear in hisvoice warming something inside of Jace…only for one moment, until the nextwords, “You’re dead, officially, back home. So many people died that day, andyou’ve gone missing. You’re on a list of the dead.”
Jacenodded, lowering his eyes to the ground.
“Yet hereyou are.” Jace’s bleary eyes shot back up, and Alec’s face was nothing short ofa shiny vision. How could…how wouldhe let go? “Living a life, day after day. The one adventure I can never have.”
“Am I evergoing to see you again?” Jace finally blurted out, giving up on any pretense ashis chest was now fully shaken with sobs that he couldn’t keep in.
Alec’ssmile was fond, but so deeply sad. “You can’t.”
“What areyou going to do?”
“I’ve gotthe Tardis. Same old life. Last of the Time Lords.”
Thatthought alone was enough to dig a giant whole in Jace’s chest. He thought hecould see the same happening in Alec. “On your own?”
Alec noddedmutely.
That wasit. Their last moments. Fading away one after the other. It was now, or never.
“I-” Jace’svoice didn’t know how to come out of him anymore, and he had to force it. Notbecause he didn’t want to say it…but because he doubted any other words hadever been more important. “I love you.”
And therethey were. Out in the open. Jace kept trying to swallow down his tears, aseverything crumbled down all around him. Alec was the only real thing he would ever feel, and Jace loved him. There wasno other truth.
Jacethought he could almost see tears in Alec’s eyes, too, as his mouth opened upin one last smile.
“Quiteright, too,” Alec said, his voice low and hoarse.
Jace’sheart was thumping wildly in his chest.
“And Isuppose…” Alec continued.
Jace didn’tthink he was breathing.
“If it’s my last chance to say it…”
Jace knew italready, yes, but he didn’t think that he could ever live another day havingnever heard those words coming from that mouth, in that voice that had become as familiar as his own, and directed at him and only him. He needed that confirmation of everythingthat he – they – had been feeling forso long.
“JaceHerondale, -”
Alecvanished.
One blinkof an eye, and he wasn’t there anymore.
Jace staredat empty space.
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