Chapter Text
“Oi, you two! Stop moonin’ at each other long enough to help me out!” Jackie demanded as she entered the lounge, precariously balancing two plastic totes. The Doctor rolled his eyes and hopped up to help her. He didn’t know why she was complaining. After all, he’d just stopped kissing Rose in front of her parents’ undecorated Christmas tree. He relieved her of the top box. Chuckling, Rose took the other box and immediately sat down to open it.
“Oh, Mum!’ she called out, holding out a teardrop shaped, pink ornament. “Look at this, Doctor.” She turned the ornament around to show the Doctor her name had been painted on it, along with her birthdate. He took it from her. Gazing at it, he gently traced the glitter that formed Rose’s name with his finger.
“When we lived in the old universe, we never had the money for anythin’ fancy, but one year, I splurged on a box of baubles and some craft paint. Rose painted some ornaments with me. We were tired of paper chains and snowflakes,” Jackie remininsed, beaming.
Rose smiled back. “My ornaments were a right mess, but we thought our tree was absolutely brilliant.”
“They were beautiful, sweetheart,” Jackie told her.
It was a sweet story, to be sure, but the Doctor’s eyebrow raised in question. “Surely this can’t be the same ornament from the prime universe, though,” he pointed out.
Jackie argued, “Yes, it is. I kept it in my pocket all year round.” Then she burst into laughter. The Doctor recognized that laugh. It was the one she used when she was amused at his expense. “Nah, you plum, I bought a similar one here. Now that’s a tale. So, it was our first Christmas here, and I was out shoppin’, all pregnant and emotional. Rose was off on one of those dimension hops, so I was all alone. I went into a shop, and there was this lovely shopgirl there. Name was Caitlin, I think… Or was is Caitriona? No, had to be Caitlin, Caitriona’s too unusual. I would have…”
The Doctor’s eyes glazed over as she debated Caitlin versus Caitriona, and Rose stepped in. “Anyway… Mum found this ornament on one of the shop Christmas trees. It’s fairly identical to the one we left behind…”
“And I burst into tears. Right there, in the middle of the shop. I was blubbin’. Well, I couldn’t tell her that I’d left all my Christmas decorations on a council estate in a different bloomin’ universe so I suppose I made up some hard-luck story on the spot or blamed it on my hormones… and we started chattin’. Such a sweet girl, she was. Got me tea and everything… And here’s the miracle. She had the rest of the set. That’s when I knew it’d be okay, livin’ here. I knew we’d get through all the changes. So, I bought ‘em. I painted the one for Rose, like it was before. I didn’t know if she’d survive all those bleedin’ dimension hops to see it, but she did.” Jackie’s voice broke a bit on the last.
The Doctor watched as Rose stood up and embraced her mother. With his own feelings threatening to overwhelm him, it quickly became difficult to witness the emotional scene. He diverted his attention to the pink bauble he still held. He had heard the certainty in Jackie’s words, and tried to take them to heart. But his Time Lord brain, which was every bit as brilliant and traitorous as it had been before the metacrisis, couldn’t stop ruminating on the fact that he was the reason they’d lost it all. If he’d just kept them away from Canary Wharf. If he’d been able to do more than just burn up that sun to say goodbye. If he’d…
“Doctor, you here with us?” Rose asked, her face lined with concern.
He startled, then smiled up at her. She raised an eyebrow and he knew his Rose well enough to understand that she knew the smile wasn’t real.
"Oh, look at this," Jackie announced, her voice diverting Rose's attention to the photo frame ornament of an infant she held up. "Tony's chubby little cheeks. P oor thing’s head was so big it took him forever to sit up on his own. Gets that from his father’s side, he does. This is one thing I do miss so much. I don’t have any of Rose’s baby pictures anymore. But, at least I have my baby.” She drew Rose in for another hug.
Jackie’s comment did nothing to raise the Doctor’s spirits.
They spent the rest of the afternoon listening to Jackie whitter away about their family Christmas traditions as Rose chimed in with her favorite memories. He heard about how they would ice skate and bake cookies and go caroling. And through it all, the Doctor wondered how he could ever recreate that for the woman he loved with all his heart.
After they’d decorated the tree and shared shepherd’s pie with the Tylers, Rose and the Doctor walked through the garden to their cottage at the other end of Pete and Jackie’s property. Rose had used the little cottage as a home base when she had been dimension hopping. She’d never expected to come back to it after finding the Doctor. But now, it was theirs. They had made it their cozy home, but their TARDIS was growing in a tank in the spare bedroom, and they both hoped that eventually, the cottage would become just a home base again.
Someday, the Doctor thought. It was easier for him to contemplate traveling than dwell on of everything that Rose had lost in the fall to this universe.
“Penny for ‘em,” Rose murmured as they walked through the cold darkness hand in hand.
“For what?”
“You were quiet tonight,” Rose pointed out.
“Well, you know how hard it is to get in a word edgewise when your mum is talking…”
Rose sighed, her breath visible in the frigid night air. “You know what I mean. So… was it too domestic tonight?” She mumbled the last. The Doctor stopped walking abruptly, and Rose followed suit a step later.
“Rose Tyler, I can’t believe you just said that! No , it was not too domestic . We have this one life together, and I can’t imagine anything better than to be domestic with you!” He took her other hand in his. “Surely you can’t still be worried about that.”
Rose averted her eyes. She shrugged, and finally said, “I’m not as worried as I was when we first got here. Really, I’m not. But there’s this nagging voice in my head that wonders sometimes…”
The Doctor let go of her hand and cupped her cheek. “Well, you don’t have to worry. Better with two, remember?”
Rose gave him a small smile and nodded. “Then why were you so quiet? There was something bothering you. I know it.”
It was the Doctor’s turn to avert his eyes. “I… was listening to you talk about all those wonderful Christmas memories… and all I could think of was that you would still have those traditions if you were back in the prime universe. If I hadn’t happened along to interfere…”
“Doctor,” Rose interrupted. “Now I can’t believe you just said that . Doctor, I love you. I don’t want to be anywhere that you, this you , isn’t. We can make our own Christmas traditions together. It can be better than ever. Were you not just saying better with two ?”
He locked eyes with her, and beamed. Her words had warmed him from head to toe and given him the most brilliant idea. He was fairly bursting with how brilliant it would be. “Oh, yes, Rose Tyler, I did say that! And you’re right, we can make our own brilliant traditions. It’ll be the best…” He was surprised by her fingers on his lips.
“Never say it’ll be the best–”
Around her fingers he asserted, “...Christmas ever!” He pulled her fingers away. “Why not?”
“Because if it’s not up to your lofty expectations, you’ll feel like you’ve failed. And also because they say it on every cheesy Christmas television special!” Rose laughed.
“There’s something to be said for cheese, Rose Tyler!” She squealed with laughter as he scooped her up and spun her around. “And this Christmas, my love, will be fantastic. The best ever!”