Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Doctor stood, uncomfortably close to the flames. Watching. He wasn't sure if he wanted to or not, but he stayed where he was planted. Watching as the flames made him the Last of the Time Lords all over again.
It was for the best, he knew. The Master would never have stayed contained. Whatever he tried, the Master would have been unleashed on the universe again. Most of the damage had been undone, this time. A couple hundred traumatized people on the Valiant, an assassination of a world leader, by another world leader, on live tv--he needed to keep an eye on that timeline, be sure he stopped the inevitable world war before it took hold--and a woman, once Married to a Time Lord, now devastated.
He refocused on the fire. Just as the public assassination was drastically better than what the world would never know the Master had done, no matter how horrific it was, so was watching every other Time Lord in the universe (even if it was just one) consumed in flame, again, better than thinking about blonde, human women destroyed for the crime of loving a Time Lord. Better this old pain, this new pain, than that endless one.
He had such hopes, even still, for who the Master could have been, if only he had chosen to be. If only the madness of the schism allowed him to. The pyre died, slowly. And when there was nothing left but a handful of embers, the Doctor whispered a final good bye and turned back toward the TARDIS, the only Galifreyan contact he would feel again in his needlessly long life. After a year of constant focus on his telepathy, disciplining it to tie itself to archangel with all the strength he could muster, he was even more receptive than he had been before. And as those muscles had spent a year hunched over, cramped in, working dedicatedly under the weight of a satellite network, he gave himself the small relief (and punishment) of stretching out his mind, far and wide, as far as it cared to go, simply to feel the freedom of his mind expanding... or perhaps the pain of it finding nothing but emptiness.

He walked back to the Tardis, mind stretched wide, feeling the yawning chasm where his people were meant to be, and stopped.
A flutter. Just the tiniest, little thing. Like a sigh in the next room. He froze in his tracks, unable to spare the thought to keep walking as his rather impressive mind turned exclusively to the task of listening, of seeking.
Curiosity
Surprise
Excitement

And the Doctor found himself collapsed straight onto his rear end, not 10 meters from his best friend and worst enemy's funeral pyre, unable to so much as maintain his ability to stand, as this tiny, gentle, precious little mind took up residence in the catacombs in his mind, space reserved for Time Lords, all dead now.
Except for him.
Except for this tiny, gentle whisper of a mind that carried only a few vague emotions, an impression of great distance and no great strength.
Only that and a familial bond, lighting up his mind no matter how distant and faint the connection, sending him into an undignified heap on the ground as this presence made itself a place in his mind.
As his child made itself a place.
And his memory replayed for him the words "there's five of us now...
...and the baby"

He sat in an undignified heap on the ground a meter from the TARDIS, staring blankly at her, for long, frozen moments in time, his time sense too outweighed by his telepathy and reeling memory to measure the seconds he spent there.

It was the Tardis who, at long last, broke through his mental paralysis with a very pointed nudge at the word drifting through his mind. Father.

Right. Father. Him. Well, that was... and the Tardis buzzed louder in his mind, pulling him back again.

He winced. Right. Not a good showing to be getting on with, even if perhaps he could have done with a bit of notice... never mind. With great effort, he pushed aside the overwhelming whirling in his mind and reached back with his telepathy, stretching over and wrapping this tiny mind, determined enough to be felt through dimensional walls, in his own presence, cementing their bond, anchoring the tiny mind in his own. Keeping his currently-numb feelings walled off and drawing on the kindness he would show any child to welcome this one.

"Well, hello there."
Happiness
"Yes, it's very nice to meet you, too, little one"
Excitement
"Do you know how far you had to reach to get to me? You should be quite proud of yourself"
Contentment. Tiredness.
"Yes, probably best we keep this short... not what I'm best at, but I can try. You're doing a lot of very hard work right now. You need rest."
Tiredness. Concern.
"Oh, I'm not going anywhere, little one. You rest your mind. I'll hold our link from here."
Tiredness growing, but concern unabated. Of course, the words didn't mean much right now, but the general sentiment should come through.
"Sleep, little one. I'll be here."
He felt the tiny mind drift off, going dormant, but resting in his mind .

Mechanically, he pulled himself up, into the TARDIS. Poor Old Girl needed some serious love and attention, so he set to work. This was concrete. This was familiar. This he could handle. Yes. Simple. Wiring, circuitry, making a fully functional TARDIS console. Maybe he should have asked Jack to stick around for more repairs... but he had his team to get back to. The Doctor respected that.

Jack. He could think about Jack. That seemed... well, nothing about Jack had ever been comfortable, but in his own way he had always been safe. Especially for Rose.
Rose.
And there she was, as ever in his mind, standing on a beach, tears streaming down her face, her heartbreak echoing in his mind through the tenuous connection he had fought to build, one last time, across the void. Trying to reassure him. That she had a family, that he didn't need to worry about her being alone... 5 of us now... the baby... the absolute mess of emotions those sentences had brought about in her, the joy, the devastation, the longing for him and the sorrow on his behalf. He had assumed she was upset he would miss out on his adopted family growing, sad about the future she wouldn't have with him, remembering their own difficult conversations about the options they didn't have for their future.

Well. She probably had been thinking all of those things, when it comes to that. Just not because of a sibling. Because she was...

He violently reconnected a cable that the Master hadn't even needed to take out to begin with and felt the TARDIS hum with relief. Poor Old Girl must have been in agony. He hadn't known to check for that--and she had been in too much pain to show him. She sounded so much clearer now.
"Now, then Old Girl. What other foolish thing did Koschei do to you? Where do you need me?"

A brief impression of shields flittered through his mind and he quickly slid out from under the console to turn them on for her. "Come on, Old Girl, that can't be the biggest thing, can it?" But the next request came as a swirling jumble that called to mind the vortex. She just wanted to rest, safe behind her shields, and regain some traction without having to think about maintaining a location in space-time.
"I would have remembered your shields first, Old Girl." He mumbled to himself as he dematerialized, setting her free to float as she liked.

He turned away with purpose, to check on things, to see what damage the Master had done outside the console room. He walked down the corridor and was concerned when it led nowhere at all... no doors, no labyrinth to wander, and now, 50 meters later, he was back in the console room. All that was left was a loop.
He had planned to leave the Tardis in peace but this merited a question, at least.
"What happened, Old Girl? Did he make you jettison everything? How did you survive being so small?"
To his surprise, she sent him a sense of... satisfaction? And a nudge to go back down the hall.
"Okay... what do you want to show me?" he asked her, walking back down the small loop he'd come from. A small panel caught his eye now, shimmering through a perception filter the Tardis had grown into her walls. He pressed his hand to it and watched as the corridor brightened, dissolving into a more familiar Tardis.
"You brilliant girl," he said, patting the wall as she hummed somewhat smugly. "You kept him out of everything didn't you? I'll just have a wander then... you do the same, I suppose."
The Doctor strode down the hall, into the small, pretend library created for Martha's benefit, only to find it gone--it was all just the library, now, no longer separating and concealing the apparent madness created by spending countless hours of frantic, desperate work.

He walked over to the table, hundreds of books strewn on it, dimensional readings, tests of the universes, charts and notes stuck up across bookshelves haphazardly, notes scrawled on them where they hung. His never-ending hunt for his wife. For Rose. He needed her, now more than ever after a year with the Master. And after what he had just discovered... well, she needed him, too, to be certain. They needed him. And oh, how he needed his family,

He needed the Eye of Harmony. He needed technology left on Gallifrey before it burned. He needed the Axis, dead, lost in the mind of the exterminated Overseer. The only thing that would ever console him since the Time War, and his way to her lost in the Time War. There was a morose poetry to that.
This incarnation did not care for morose. But it certainly drove home the justice of it. He deserved to be punished for his crimes. And his crime was punishing him so severely now he couldn't breathe.

No.

He was done with the time war. Done with the rules. Done with getting his due, and karma, and the void, while he was at it. He was the Doctor. He was a bondmate. He was a FATHER. And he was Getting. Them. Back.

What did he need? Some fancy Gallifreyan technology? Ha! He had a Tardis console that was at least 20% stolen from Jackie Tyler's kitchen. The Axis? Weeeell. It was helpful. Certainly. But helpful for what? Time Lordy nonsense, that's what. Science experiments and preventing the devastation they caused from leaking out to the rest of the worlds. He didn't need a nice, orderly hub to browse through for his ideal universe. He knew which one he wanted. And he had a beacon to get there. The bright, shining mind of his child.

His child.

Nope, not time to contemplate that yet.

But to stably open the void, for all he might manage to cobble together a transdimensional threshold erector from a few dumpster diving expeditions across the galaxies, he needed power. True power. And he couldn't draw on the Eye of Harmony.

He needed the Eye. A supernova and a bastardized transdimensional aperture generator had been enough for a hologram through an existing crack. But this was creating a stable hole, at least for transit. That meant far, far more power. Magnitudes beyond what he needed for a tiny device that couldn't be permitted to push too hard anyway, lest it destroy that precious, fragile universe sheltering his hearts, holding her safe from the void. Even if it did hold her away from him.
No, now he needed something real. Something strong. Forces best left to the Immortals and the Time Lords. But he would not be stopped. He just needed....
He needed the bloody Eye. And it was gone. And he had done that math a thousand times before, because needing to see his child was not a catalyst he was missing in his hunt for Rose. He had already been desperate.
It did make it somewhat possible to ignore the axis. It would be reckless, certainly. A danger, mostly to himself, on his way in. Going home would be simple. Easy. No trouble at all! There must be a million ways to find his home universe. He just needed to... fine tune one. Yes. That would be best.

Well, he thought, that's a better problem to tackle. His portal into Pete's World should be stable enough. But with no Axis, it would release him to the void. He'd need to be sure he could form a new gap into his own universe to come home, which meant a signal of some kind to follow.
Most reasonably, the same sort of signal that would lead him to his family. But for that, he would need a telepath. He could ask himself, though it might be wise not to bring complications of paradoxes in time into a situation where he was opening wounds in space already. He certainly had no family left in this universe to serve as a locator for him
...though he had just said farewell to someone who Rose thought of as family, who would become a telepath in time. One strong enough to send him messages on psychic paper across time and space.

Right, then. Step one, find the Face of Boe at his strongest. Allons-y.

Chapter Text

Lieutenant Rose Tyler stood up from her desk and stretched both hands over her head, reaching up on tip toe, before rolling her neck as she relaxed and walking across the tightly-woven carpet to the water cooler. She paused for a drink and a quiet voice sounded behind her.

"Agent, your ID is missing"

She stared contemplatively at the paper cup in her hand, the words taking her back, as they were meant to, to weeks beforehand.

*

Newly arrived in Pete's World, Rose could only handle enduring a weepy, mopey existence for so long. Before two weeks had gone by, she was waiting for Pete when he came home from work to discuss joining Torchwood, and he was bringing her in the next morning. Her fake identity--perhaps better to call it her new identity--had the basic job qualifications.
But there had been hiccups. There were bound to be, with her non-existence in this universe. Things Pete swore he had put in the system the day after the walls sealed were suddenly just gone. Access would be granted to her and then denied. She laughed it off to her new coworkers as a sign that it did not pay to be the boss's daughter after all, and they laughed, too, as she started making friends--even if those friends, used to their routine, forgot to wait for her a few days later. It was growing pains, and she honestly would have shrugged it all off... but something wasn't right.

Rose wasn't right. She could feel it to her bones. Her body seemed out of synch with this reality, just not quite feeling like her own. Her brain wasn't quite thinking the way she was used to. Everything felt a little... slow, a little loose, a little off. She couldn't eat any more--just the food from this world made her sick. She was trying, but every time she ate, she had to force herself to swallow, and it would, in all likelihood, be revisiting her shortly thereafter. The air wasn't quite right in her lungs; she felt just a bit short of breath no matter what she did. The global warming this universe experienced wasn't enough to explain the times she was left spinning, hot and dizzy, in the comfortable, air conditioned interior of Torchwood. The endless pounding in her mind that seemed to be peeling away the edges of the raw, wounded spot that belonged to the Doctor was enough to break her heart every time it came. Mickey and her mum had ready-made spots to slide into, but this universe had no place for a Rose Tyler, and it was at war with her. She hadn't said it out loud, but she knew it.

And when she stood by the water cooler, gagging down liquid, and heard a voice that should have known her comment on the lack of ID (it was getting re-keyed, again, because it had been deactivated, again), she had calmly replied she would fetch it, held her head high, and broken down completely the moment the door closed behind her in the stairwell.

Mickey had followed her. And been flabbergasted. Rose had cried when she had been trapped in this universe. She had cried when her first Doctor sent her home. And those were the only tears he had seen on her since the day she had refused to cry over Jimmy Stone, no matter how much she should, because she said he didn't deserve it. And here she was, sitting in a stairwell, crying because he ragged on her about her perpetually-glitchy ID.

*
In the present, she let out a dramatic sigh. "Micks. Your niece or nephew needs a frightening amount of hydration. But there's definitely still enough in this cooler for me to dump a cupful on your head."
He snorted. "I've been waiting for ages for you to leave it on your desk, just so I could tease you, and that's all I get? You're letting me down, babe."

She rolled her eyes and turned to smile at him. "Did you need something? Time to gear up for more weather balloons?"

It was adorable, really. That's what Torchwood did. Take down cybermen [mission accomplished], watch out for aliens, and reassure concerned citizens that they saw only weather balloons. And if they passed that message on every single time, no matter what anyone heard, in a world with a sky full of zeppelins, and it was still believed... well, it was possible she had been holding back a fondly exasperated "stupid apes" for some time now.

"Nah, its almost time to go home, anyway. Came over special, just for you."

She laughed, shortly. "Well thanks for that, then."

"Come on, babe. Closing time, yeah? Or will be by the time you've gathered all your bits and bobs. Wanna grab a--" a hand covered his mouth immediately and Mickey suddenly found himself staring into the angry and frantic eyes of a potentially vicious Rose Tyler.

"What's the rule?" She hissed out dangerously.

"No naming foods on pain of vomit-soaked shoes. Sorry, won't do it again. But. Do you want to?"

"Nah, I'm just gonna pop downstairs a mo. Check in on things."

The smile on Mickey's face fell into a more cautious expression.

"They know to call you, Rose. You gave them your number. Nothing has changed. You can't live on the 13th floor."

"I'm not obsessing! I just check in a couple times a week. Pop my head in, chat with a new friend, sounds like a healthy routine, yeah? Listen, I'll go in and say hi and we can go for dinner."

"Alright. Let me pack up and I'll come down with you."

"Nah, finish your paperwork," she demurred. "I'll be done by the time you are and meet you downstairs. I'm not going to break going by myself." She needed some space, and he needed what shielding he could get. She knew she couldn't stop the rumors headed his way, and he hadn't thought of it yet. She'd let him have his ignorant bliss for now.
Plans made and meeting agreed on, Rose walked back to her desk and gathered up her purse before taking the stairs down to the 13th floor.

14 flights was time enough to think about Mickey. He was a good friend--better than she deserved, it felt. And that day in the stairwell, he'd been the smart one, the counterpoint to her cluelessness.
*
He had stared for a good minute at his friend turned in to a wet, sniffling mess because of one lame joke.

"...Rose?" It took him a few tries to gather his courage to get the question out.

She looked up, surprised, wiping tears frantically and plastering on her best 'I'm-Always-Alright' smile. "Hey, Mickey. What'd you need?”

He slid down the wall to sit a few feet away. "Is it him? Hard being an agent in the building where... where it happened?"

"What? No, I'm fine, it's--"

"Rose. You're not going to lie to me, okay?" He held up a hand to stop her when she tried to speak again. "Not me. You can tell me to sod off, but don't lie."

Rose drew in a shuddering breath. "You didn't recognize me, just now. It's okay; it's not your fault; I'm not blaming you. I just wasn't ready for it, not from you or mum. Blimey, gonna haveta get ready for that, too, aren't I?"

Mickey shot her a look that said she was clearly losing her mind. "Rose... I was windin’ you up. I know who you are. Always have. Jus thought it was funny, s'all, Mickey the Idiot being your boss."

Rose's relieved and somewhat embarrassed laughter quickly devolved back into sobs. Out of ideas, Mickey had simply sat next to her, pulled her into his arms, and let her cry. At last, she drew in a few, shuddering breaths and cleaned her face on her sleeves.

"Right. Well. Back to work? Been in here wastin time long enough, yeah?"

But Mickey had absolutely no interest in letting her get away with that. "As Captain, I'm authorizing another 10 minutes at least. As your friend, I want to know what's wrong, Rose. Cus all those tears weren't cus I made a dumb joke." And it all came pouring out. Technical difficulties and being forgotten or overlooked, things that always happen when you're new, but then the more damning evidence she felt with every move and moment of each day.

"I didn't say anything; I didn't want Mum to worry, but Mickey, I'm exhausted and starving and I feel awful no matter what I do. And I feel like I'm losing my mind! When was the last time you saw me cry? And here I am having a break down over this, instead of solving the problem."

Mickey was quiet for a good, long moment.

"Alright, babe, first, we're gonna go to the 13th floor. 'S where they've been monitoring the signals from the dimension hoppers. Not to use them or do anything dangerous, just to watch them and make sure we know everything's alright. So we're gonna go down, introduce ya, tell 'em you've been assigned a potential mission across the way if trans-dimensional travel is ever safe again and need to be in the loop. Classified and all that. Then we're gonna go straight out the front door and across the street."

*

Rose opened the stairwell door to the lab on the 13th floor and was greeted cheerily by one of her very few true friends in this universe. "Lt. Tyler!"

"Malcom, come on, please, it's Rose. It's always been Rose."

Her exasperation was met with a smile. "Far be it from me to get too familiar with the boss's daughter. Got enough problems without that one!"

Her eyes rolled, but she was smiling. They'd done this more than a hundred times; she was sure they'd do it a hundred more if she was here that long. "So what's the word, then? Problems?"

"Nah, everything seems pretty solid on our end. Walls seem 'denser' every day, best I can tell. A few weak spots, A bit like the ozone layer, I think. But even those are stable."

Rose nodded, hiding any disappointment. She wanted her doctor back, but there was an entire universe of people here who needed that to be impossible in order for them to stay safe. Some days, her compassion for them was enough. Other days, like today, she pretended it was. She'd rail against the injustice of it all when she was home. So she stayed and chatted briefly, asking Malcom about his dog Zaza and neighbor down the hall, paging through the report he would send to Pete and making note of the readings. Solid, as Malcom had said, not that she doubted him, really.

Knowing that Mickey was waiting for her, she let this be a brief visit and headed for the stairs. She preferred them, as much as possible. She took the stairs, went the long way, did everything at a bit of a jog. When the doctor came for her, or she made it to him, she was going to be ready to run with him.

*

That day Mickey had taken her down in the elevator. As he'd told her, they went straight across the street, and then found a bench of the sidewalk a bit. He'd taken both her hands, then, scaring an already distraught Rose. He paused a long moment before he spoke.

"Babe, I believe you. About everything you're telling me. And if we have to figure out how to keep the universe from shoving you out, we will. But before we decide that's what's happening... I might have a different conclusion."

"You're scaring me, Micks, and I really didn't think this could get scarier."

He took a deep breath and blew it out. "We're always gonna be friends, Rose, the best. And we both know, when I stayed here, you had someone worth sticking around for in the Tardis.

“So I gotta ask, babe. You're tired, emotional, and queasy. Headaches and breathing, I dunno, but... any chance.." He looked uncomfortable and awkward, eyes darting away, before he pulled himself upright and looked her in the eye.

"Rose, is there any chance you've brought a little time lord with you to this universe?"

Rose remembered feeling the whole world slide out of focus.

"Time tot"

"Babe?"

"They're called Time Tots" Rose answered vaguely, without focusing her eyes.

"Right" Mickey shook his head. Not really an answer he'd been expecting.

Rose suddenly buried her face in her hands and laughed. "You must think I'm a complete idiot. I swear, Mickey, that stupid alien was convinced it was nearly impossible. Humans of our era and evolutionary state, we could do some testing and see if there's anything that could help, but... he was CONVINCED. I swear I'm not too stupid to think of it, Mickey."

Tentatively, since she was laughing for now and he was far more comfortable taking the mick than having a serious conversation about his ex-girlfriend's probable alien pregnancy, he put on a high-pitched voice and announced, "Oh, Mickey, the universe is murdering me! It's exactly like I'm pregnant, but that's as impossible as my boyfriend landing in the right time!" And on he went until Rose was roaring with laughter, and he was out of material. Finally calming, she wiped her eyes.

"Oh, Micks, ta for that. And for not laughing at me right away."

"So, shall we pop in to the chemist and find out?"

And reality hit. "No."

"What? Babe, it's a bit useful to know."

"No. The mysterious and suspicious Vitex heiress cannot walk into the chemist and buy a pregnancy test. Not with the handsome male friend of her father's, not alone, and definitely not a few weeks after mysteriously appearing in a very xenophobic and suspicious world. Especially not if her pregnancy might be unusual and her baby might have secrets to keep."

Mickey stilled. "So the best plan for now is hide, yeah?"

Rose nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, we hide, baby and I. In plain sight of all the paparazzi, for as long as I can. And then... then I'll need a decent cover."

Mickey nodded. "You still need a test, though. I'll wait a couple days, ask Sue. She's Married, so no one will care if she buys one, and she won't ask anything or think anything of it." Rose nodded, in shell shock as her world turned upside down, again.

"But, Rose? I'm gonna say it, cus it needs saying. There might be complications with the circumstances, but. Congratulations."

A smile bloomed on her face. "Yeah. Thanks, Micks." Her hand drifted down to her abdomen, a gesture that she couldn't afford to make a habit, and she smiled with quiet wonder. "S a little miracle, isn't it?"

*

At the bottom of the stairwell, she indulged herself in a moment's reflection and smiled again, gently reaching her mind towards the constant, soft flutter that had settled on the torn edges of her bond to her husband. Not exactly comfortable, but so worthwhile to have someone she loved in her mind again. "Your Daddy would be so excited right now, little one. Losing his mind, jumping around, scanning me with the sonic every 10 seconds, I'm sure. But oh, so happy. We'll just have to keep memories together, hm? I'll tell you bedtime stories about him til he gets here. And when he finds us, we'll tell him all the wonderful moments of your life so far."

Then she dropped her hand, straightened up, and strode into the lobby, where Mickey was impatiently waiting with a loud, dramatic greeting about how long he'd been waiting and how likely he was to starve to death. She gave him a playful shove and rolled her eyes before letting him steer her to the door. Not noticing that she had suggested that Daddy might just need a bit of help.

Chapter Text

Chapter Two

Dinner with Mickey had always been a comfortable and familiar thing, and that hadn't changed much. Pete's World and Torchwood had changed a lot for them, but dinner out was still usually someplace comfortable and casual, and their conversations as alien-free as they had been before the Doctor-- at least as far as anyone knew. No aliens, parallels, or secret alien pregnancies. The only tell was Mickey's slight, concerned wince when Rose quietly pushed most of her salad into her purse to provide an appearance of a healthy, if dainty, meal, and she spent most of dinner nibbling on one breadstick. He knew better than to comment in public. The conversation centered on tele, football, and anything mundane. Pure, dull, domestic conversation carried them through dinner, laughing occasionally.

"Babe? You in there?" Mickey's voice broke through her stupor.

"Hm? Oh, yeah. Jus thinkin." She gave a sad smile. "Old friend would've hated this, huh? Remember dinner on the warf? Whole different world, huh?"

He smiled softly and stopped just short of taking her hand. Instead he raised a glass toward her, "To old friends then, eh?"

She smiled, but she knew he could see the strain in it. "I'm headed out, Micks. Been a long one."

He nodded. "I'll walk you." She didn't bother arguing. It was ridiculously out of his way, but he would do it, anyway. And he was probably hoping to be isolated enough that they could talk before he went home. She knew he was concerned about her, about the hiding and what it did to her, the isolation of never speaking of the Doctor, not to mention the baby. And he would want to know how she was really doing. She hid everything now, as well as she possibly could, even from him, because she couldn’t afford to get caught. She had been right to be cautious. She was not having a normal pregnancy.

*

In the end, it had been 3 days before Mickey could corner Susan at her desk and ask for her for a few tests for the field kit, citing his familiarity with Pete and the occasional paparazzi following him as the reason he couldn’t. She laughed and came in the week after with what they were looking for. Rose got worse as the time went on, and when, almost two weeks after her meltdown in the stairwell, she went to Mickey’s apartment, armed with a gift of cookies to ease the odds of a “Vitex Vixen Booty Call” headline, she really wasn’t sure a test was necessary anymore. Mickey had been right, and the answer was obvious. She smiled widely and handed over the cookies and he welcomed her in, closing the door behind her. As soon as the lock was turned, she let out a breath, her shoulders slumped, and she buried her face in her hands.

“That good, huh, Rose?” Mickey asked as he put the cookies on the counter.

“Oh, so much worse. I’m so tired I could die just so I have the chance to sleep, Mickey. I’m starving, literally starving it feels like, and I absolutely cannot eat.” Rose collapsed into his arm chair, throwing her legs over one arm, her hands sweeping dramatically trying to illustrate her frustrations. “Yesterday, when I was late for work? I ate half a bagel and it made me pass out for half an hour. Mum thinks I’m eating on the way to work, Pete thinks he’s got a fake daughter working for him who's too stupid to feed herself, and I have no idea how to take care of this baby when I assume he needs things and I can’t eat. And… ugh. I nearly pass out taking the stairs, everything hurts, I can hardly think straight. And at all times I need to look perfect and healthy and not pregnant in case anyone is looking!”

“Did you already take a test, then?”

“No,” she had replied, “but it’s obvious you were right. And really, will it even be accurate anyway? I mean, who knows what Time Tot hormones are compared to a human baby!”

Mickey snorted. “Rose. You’ve been in this universe well over a month. Go pee on a stick and we’ll find out what Time Tot hormones look like. I’ve got a fiver for you if the stick turns blue and wooshes.”

And so she had rolled her eyes and gone to the bathroom, setting a timer on her phone and staring at the little stick, waiting for lines to emerge.

‘Well, this is a new experience,’ she thought to herself. It felt like she was doing it wrong. She wondered what this would have looked like if she hadn’t fallen through to Pete’s world. She pictured him sitting next to her, babbling on. She would still use a timer, he would splutter that he had excellent time sense, she would tease him about being too distractible to focus on the test, and the teasing and laughter would take up the necessary 5 minutes. Or maybe he would hold her hand, sit with her quietly, watch the dye race up the stick with the quiet intensity he gave to magical, beautiful moments. The timer rang.

Two lines.

Two lines.

Not even debatable. Not even faint. Just there, stark as anything. She was pregnant.

She was pregnant.

She was having the Doctor’s baby.

He wasn’t the last anymore. He was going to be a father. They were going to have a beautiful child and she was going to get to see him happier than he ever thought he could be. She was going to cuddle a baby on long nights and hum along to the Tardis to get him to sleep. The Doctor was going to find him chewing on the sonic screwdriver.

Oh, he was going to be thrilled! They’d talked about it, for ‘someday’, trying to chase down the remote possibility, but he was going to be thrilled to find out it was today, that it was a reality.

And she bounced out of the bathroom, running into Mickeys living room, laughing for joy with tears running down her face and threw her arms around him. He laughed, too, in surprise and amusement at her. “So, then, babe?”

“Look! Look, look, look!” And Mickey’s nose crinkled as he realized she was holding a stick full of pee in his face. “I’m pregnant, Mickey! We’re having a baby! He’s going to be a father and have a baby and he’s going to be so happy!”

Mickey had not been expecting this reaction. But he was not going to ruin it, either. This is how she should feel when she learned the news. “Congratulations, babe!” He cheered, hugging her again and swinging her in a circle. “You’re gonna be a great mum.”

“Oh, blimey” she laughed, “I’m gonna be a mum! Can you just see it? Ha, there I’ll be telling my little Time Tot child not to run out into the street while Daddy is running into another department store to blow it up.” She kept laughing, but Mickey braced himself. He saw it coming. This wasn’t going to last much longer. She was going to hit the wall. “He’s going to be so happy. This will mean the absolute world to him. The universe! I can’t wait to…

“Oh Micks. I’ll never even get to tell him, will I? He’ll never know.”

Mickey nodded, the embrace of wild celebration shifting and he braced her arms, supporting her as reality crashed down around her.

“And… and I’ll be on my own. Teaching a Time Tot not to cross the street. Trying to teach him how to cope when he can feel the Earth spinning under his feet. Hiding every weird thing about him and this pregnancy from Torchwood, the press, from everyone around us.

“Oh, Mickey. How am I ever going to do this?”

Mickey pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her. “I’m gonna be here, Rose. We all are. We’ll tell everyone he’s a prodigy, let him hang ‘round the scientists. We’ll keep an eye on Malcom and those walls, see if there's any chance of your mission going forward. We’ll do it, Rose. And until we do… I’m never gonna leave you on your own to handle this.”

Rose gave in, letting herself lean on Mickey and letting the tears come. This wasn’t the life she wanted for her baby. This wasn’t how she wanted him to live. Afraid of himself, never letting anyone close enough to feel his hearts. No Daddy to hold him close and love him, help him learn about the universe and all the things only the two of them could ever see or know. All he would have was her, and she was so very insufficient.

“Micks...” Rose brushed off tears and pulled herself upright. “Mickey, this isn’t your responsibility. I’m glad you’re my friend, but.. you can’t take this on like you’re sayin.”

“I’m not trying to step in where I don’t belong, Rose. You and I are old news. But Uncle Mickey is going to be there to watch your back at work. And I can’t promise to blow up any shops for you, but I’m sure we’ll get up to some mischief, baby and I.”

Rose smiled softly. “Thanks, Micks. You’re a good friend,”

“Obviously! Now, guessing you don’t want dinner?”

“Oh, not gonna happen! No, I’ll choke down a protein shake once I’m in bed so passing out isn’t so obvious.”

“Want to stick around so you can tell Jackie you ate here?”

“Absolute best, you are. I’m just gonna kick my feet up here then, yeah?”

Mickey had agreed, and shuffled over to the kitchen to make dinner for himself and, presumably, eat it. Far away from her.

Rose looked down at her completely normal-looking self, rested a hand on her not-bump, and spoke quietly. “Well, then, baby. It’s just you and me til we get together with Daddy. I can’t wait for you to meet him. When your Mum met him, he had these big ears everybody teased him about, but they were gorgeous. Pretty sure he always will be, no matter what. Used to have these amazing blue eyes, too. Your mum was working in a shop, and one night she was all alone, closing up, when suddenly this amazing man grabbed her hand and said ‘run’....”

*

In the present, Mickey walked her towards home, and Rose had the space to try and decide what to share on the walk over. She trusted Mickey, and she desperately needed someone to confide in. But she didn’t know how to let him in, how to share everything pressing in on her. And really, sometimes it was just easier this way. She had to hide everything that mattered. Sometimes that was suffocating, but sometimes it was helpful--if she couldn’t act like any of it was real, she didn’t have to face any of it, either.

And there was a lot to worry about. This pregnancy was getting tricky. Food had only been the beginning.

Chapter Text

Chapter Three

Carthusans. Rose could have choked when she recognized them. The warehouse near the landing site was full of them. She straightened up out of her crouch for cover only for Mickey to pull her back down.

"No, Rose. You're going to tell me what your idea is first, understand?"

She rolled her eyes. "They're Carthusians, Mickey. Peaceful. Goopy skin covering means you should never eat their cooking… lipid based or something, he said. Really great musicians. Can't keep up with em dancing. Make this special metal, really good for machine parts cus it never gets gummed up. Goo-resistant. Seriously, they're lovely people. Probably crash-landed."

"Well then maybe this lot are the outcasts, or maybe it's different here, but 6 people have gone missin’. I don't think it's cus they're dancing the night away in there."

Rose sighed. Sometimes alien races were different here. Sometimes humans were overly worried. Always, it was hard to say. Carthusians were some of her favorite aliens. The Doctor stopped over sometimes to get raw material for Tardis parts he was planning to make himself, or to make a connector between the Tardis and whatever little tool he had pilfered from her mum's house. She'd caught him tucking a few pounds here and there in the house, so she wasn't about to complain that he took souvenirs. She knew he liked having somewhere to belong again, family to needle and irritate and love.

He had liked it. Back when they were together. Before she fell through with the child he didn't know they had and the mother-in-law who didn't know she was one and left him alone, again, like she swore she never would. She wondered what he was using to repair the Old Girl now.

"Fine. How about this then. Surround the warehouse. Be ready. You and I go in and look for em, and--"

"Just where do you get off making the plans, then?"

"AND if we encounter any Carthusians, I'll do the whole traditional cultural thing and see if we can't have a decent conversation about things."

Mickey was quiet a moment. "Don't suppose you can teach me the greeting?"

Rose smiled. "Even if you listened to me say it, s'like Japanese back home… men and women don't speak it the same."

Mickey gave her a long look before nodding. "Fine." He turned to his team. "Surround the warehouse. Detain but do not harm any escapees."

And having watched them fan out, he and Rose went in. They searched three rooms, looking for a wrecked ship or human captives before they stumbled across a laboratory.

Rose took a few staggering steps backwards when she saw what was inside and what had become of the missing persons. Not peaceful, then. Probably not crash landed. Not one of those times when she got to be a Sarah Jane, helping those who needed a little hand. Today was a day to be the Doctor… always harder days, but she was glad of them. They made her feel closer to him.

And as she reeled backwards, she was found. Fine by her, she thought, letting herself plant her feet, shift back her shoulders, and stand tall. A joyless smile lit her face as she held eye contact, snapping her fingers a few times and letting out a somewhat lyrical greeting.

"Good day and friendship to you. Now. This is Earth. You will leave it, in accordance with the dictates of the Shadow Proclamation, and there will be no further suffering. Any questions?"

The somewhat ursan, gooey creature before her laughed coldy,and spoke with condescension in its voice. "You know the ways of my homeworld and a few words about galactic law. You must think yourself clever. Well, Congratulations, sweetheart."

And she dove and rolled out of the way of his thrown dagger.

*

It was about a week after that evening at Mickey's, at the end of another dinner she didn't eat, after Pete excused himself to do some paperwork, that Rose couldn't avoid it any more.

"Mum, I have to talk to you. And. And I really just need you to listen, yeah?"

Jackie's face had paled even as she plastered on an unconcerned expression. "Of course, luv."

"Can... can we sit down?"

"Yeah, go on. Cup of tea?"

Rise swallowed hard. "No, thanks Mum, but I...no"

In the mind of Jackie Tyler, there could be no worse sign. She followed her daughter towards the corner of the previously formal living room they had ruthlessly rearranged their first day there--dragging couches and chairs out of order and pilfering pillows from guest bedrooms until people could actually sit comfortably and casually somewhere. Pete had stood by, watching bemused as his kind-of-wife and not-daughter made scuff marks in a mahogany floor and complained about the lack of cushion on a $10,000 chez lounge. So much like the Jackie he had fallen in love with, so little like the one he had come to know. So in tune with this brave young woman he was proud to call friend and reluctant to call family.

Now they sat, Rose's feet tucked under her as she bit a nail. She took a deep breath, looked her mother in the eye, and seemed to find strength in it.

"Remember the bazoolium?"

Jackie blinked. "Yeah, still in a pocket upstairs I think."

"Right. Well, it was the Doctor's idea. Part of a Time Lord tradition... give a gift when you get a gift or something. Technically, he was supposed to give it to ya."

"What, was it Time Lord Christmas?"

"No, mum, it's..." Rose stopped and planted her face in both hands. "Sorry, Mum. I keep trying to find the best way to say it all."

Jackie looked at her overwhelmed, sickly, heartbroken daughter. "Just come out with it, then, sweetheart," she said kindly. "You don't have to get it all perfect with me, luv."

Rose sighed. "It's a Wedding tradition. In his culture. You bring your spouse's family something to thank them and honor their gift to your house next time you see them. That's what we were coming to talk to you about. Was gonna be a nice long chat about it, and about us, and how we wanted to handle things on Earth, and... we never got to tell you. It seemed wrong to say anything without him here. And... and hard. And a little pointless, maybe. I just... I dunno."

Jackie looked stricken. Rose was even younger than she had been when she lost her husband. Sure, she might get upset about secrecy and missed weddings and all that nonsense later, but she wasn't so selfish as to miss the big point: Her Rose hadn't lost a hero-worship, puppy-love-crushing friendship. Her baby was a widow, and that was a pain that consumed everything. Herself, she had never recovered. "Oh, Rose.."

"Wait, Mum. Just... I..." Rose took another breath. She looked down, biting the corner of her lip, finally breathing in again and raising steady eyes to her mother. "Mum, we're having a baby." Two things were immediately clear to Jackie. Rose was trying to tell her the way she would if things were right. She was trying to share it as good news. And one look at her face, a single syllable in her voice, made it clear she couldn't even quite get as far as 'impassive'. This was great news, and she was happy about it. But it devastated her. So Jackie crossed the room to sit on the arm of Rose's delicately carved chair, listening to it creak in protest and letting that sound make her feel at home, wrapped her arms around her daughter, kissed her hair, and whispered, "Congratulations, sweetheart."

*

Rose urgently breathed past the choked-up feeling in her chest as she bounced back to her feet, weapon on target, aimed for the switch next to the door.

"I'm serious, you know. Last chance. We'll get you back to your ship, you go back to the stars. Everyone's happy."

"Ha! Some threat you are, foolish child. You can't even aim a blaster."

"Your answer?"

He laughed, ooze dripping to the floor. "The planet will be ours. And you will be my pet, human girl."

Rose nodded. "Yeah, well an important part of pet care?" She double checked her aim, then looked back at him. "Regular baths."

She fired directly into the switch, dropping "pull for fire" to the ground, and starting the sprinkler system. His biology couldn't keep up with the water's effects, and without his natural ooze to protect him, he let out a scream, feeling the impact on his nerves directly of a substance toxic to his lipid-based biology.

A very soggy Mickey was at her side a moment later, checking her over, standing in the downpour. "Are you alright? Didn't land too hard or anything? Nothing hit ya?"

Rose quirked a smile. "Micks, this is where you do relaxed, cool banter. Pun about washing our trouble away or that alien down the drain. Solemnly remark about the importance of choice."

He looked her in the eye. "You be the Doctor your way, all clever and witty. For now, I'll act like 'im by obsessing over Rose Tyler's well being, yeah?"

"I'm fine, Mickey," she said smiling gently. Now come on, let's head out of here."

Rose led Mickey out of the building, fairly confident she was wetter than she would have been if she were actually underwater, focused on the next steps. The team would all need to dry off and clean up. If she hurried, she could sneak in a check up then. Any time she went alien fighting, she snuck away as soon as she could do so inconspicuously to check on the baby. The shower would do nicely this time.

*

She had let her mother sit with her, holding her through a few rounds of conflicting emotions. "Thanks, Mum," she had whispered. They sat another moment. "I don't really know what to say next. Hadn't thought past getting the news out."

"How long have you known, then?"

"Took a test about a week ago, but... Micks figured it out 3 weeks back... then we just had to get it into my hands without the press and all."

Blowing straight past wondering how her daughter's ex boyfriend could have clued in on her pregnancy before either herself or her mother, Jackie stayed with the important things. "How are you?"

Rose barked out a short, miserable laugh. "I lost my husband, my brain got torn in half, I'm pregnant with a baby who should be impossible and I have no idea what to do to take care of, and it's making me so sick and miserable I feel like I'm an inch from falling apart completely. And I don't care what Mickey says, I don't think the baby likes the time vortex in this universe. I'd kill to talk to the Doctor one last time, not even to spend time with him, just to get details on how to protect the baby! And oh, mum... he'll never even know about the baby! He would be so excited, and I think it's so unfair he'll never know, and then I think how devastated he would be to know he lost it all, again, and I think maybe it's better he doesn't, and then... I miss him, Mum. I just do. And I need him. I need to know how to protect the baby and take care of him and he has to be here to help me figure out how to eat ever again and for goodness sake, I need his help hiding it, but if he were here we could just take off and I wouldn't need to worry about how long or oddly I was pregnant with an alien baby; we'd just take off and be safe from anyone wanting to use my baby as a science experiment. Mum, I... Ugh. Mum, I don't know WHAT to feel. Everything is awful. And then sometimes I manage to remember we're having a baby, and I'm pregnant, and it's his, and it's a miracle, and I'm... happy and excited and scared, but in a good way... and then I'm mad because I should get to just feel that way." Rose groaned and dropped her head into her hands. "My heart can't keep up with it anymore."

Jackie laughed gently. "Everything else about this might be mad, love, but as long as you're working on the little one, emotions running wild is at least part of what's supposed to happen."

Rose laughed, then. And kept laughing, hard.

"Oi, don't laugh at your mum!"

Rose calmed to a giggle. “No, no, Mum, I just thought…” She took a moment to breathe. “Time Lords, they’re telepathic. Marriage is.. Well, it’s complicated. But it’s a telepathic bond. And I just pictured ‘im, all strong and powerful and ready to take down an evil dictator… and getting hit with my 47 crazy emotions and turning into a mess on the floor,” Rose took off laughing again, “Oh, Mum, he’d be in the middle of Tardis repairs and start sobbing all over her because he was nostalgic about the chameleon circuit and stupidly guilty for not fixing it… Sorry, Mum, I just can’t stop picturing him sobbing over the console because the coral theme is just so beautiful."

Jackie chuckled along. "Himself all overflowing with hormones and emotions? Yeah, I'd like to see that, myself."

Chapter Text

Showers taken, fetal doppler used in the stall where no one would notice, dressed, and out of the lockers, Rose pulled her hair out of a pony tail and immediately put it back up. Mickey was getting better. He didn’t look right at her while she did it, and, while she could see his shoulders relax at the sight, there was no audible sigh of relief. He was a good uncle. He was also a good team leader, and directed them all to spend 15 minutes running the stairs… exactly the time it took to run to the bottom, and nearly every minute remaining in the work day. Rose was exhausted, and her joints were getting wiggly lately. She still ran ahead, though she hung far enough back to be setting the pace for her teammates behind her. After a night out with Mickey the night before, she headed straight home.

Jackie greeted her with a hug and sent her upstairs, promising there was already a tray for her. Pete’s office door was closed, meaning he had beaten her home only to be waylaid by some other obligation.

Pete often got phone calls from leaders, whether they knew of his role or not, to ask him to weigh in as an advisor. Rose had been surprised, when she first arrived, how well-connected her pseudo-father was. Mickey had reminded her he was the only member of the old British glitterati to make it out alive. It hadn't been much of a leap before she realized how small the population of the rich and connected had become. Monarchies had done better; there were heirs ready to ascend to the throne who had been at least slightly prepared for the role, and old-world views meant fewer monarchs and heirs with ear buds in at all times. Presidents and aspiring elected officials wanted to stay with the times, keep up with the trends… they all had the newest ear buds on the market, and so did the next 3 or 8 people in line behind them. The population of the powerful had gotten very, very small, and it had happened in the blink of an eye. Pete argued it was good for democracy, that it cleared out the old guard of corrupt politicians and greedy billionaires and reset the world to make room for the everyman to participate in his own government and economy. While that was true, they needed some help learning the ropes, and had few people to lean on while they learned the ins and outs of upper echelon society. To Rose’s mind, that was a good thing. Leave the snobbish rules of how to be properly posh by the wayside, and just be a decent person--that was the whole benefit of bringing in an outsider. But people liked fitting in, and she was in no position to stick out and change things, now. She had had a vague notion of it, at first. Now, she needed to be the most typical, boring famous person in human history. In a world with no wealth of famous people to shield herself behind, she needed to disappear, a boring face that just happens to exist in the background of the society pages.

It was getting harder to hide the things that screamed ‘pregnancy’. She was doing okay, physically. Early on, the papers had run some uncomfortably zoomed-in photos to debate whether she’d had some…. enhancing surgery. Having her assets scrutinized by an entire nation, blown up on the front page of Wowza! next to speculations about an affair between the Duke of Latvia and the new President of the UK had been more than a bit violating. Mickey had shown up with ice cream (which she couldn’t eat) and a long, off-topic diatribe, never once mentioning what he was there to comfort her about. So far, that was the only area expanding, and it seemed to have reached an equilibrium. She hadn’t been around long enough for anyone to really be sure her sizes had changed, and without a bump, she didn’t look pregnant. Maybe how sick she was was helping moderate her size. Wowza! and Mmmhmm had both run the story on her apparent eating disorder, and how she must have been in treatment before she came into the spotlight, perhaps needed to go back. Some other less-than-flattering suppositions about the reasons she had been raised in seclusion has also been made. Pete had been furious, and the debate over whether or not to quash the story had raged for 3 days until they finally decided, by default, to do nothing. Rose had argued that it was a convenient excuse, and that when she started gaining, she could hide pregnancy longer as part of her ‘recovery’. Pete would have none of that--he wanted to rage, sue, hold a press conference. Finally, she had apologized for the embarrassment and shame she was bringing into his life, and he had actually raised his voice to yell back that no one got to slander his daughter.

The fight had stopped quickly. It was the first time he had called her that. It was the first time he realized that he was ready for her to be his daughter. Until the press dragged her through the mud, she had been Jackie’s daughter, and neither of them were sure she belonged at all. At best, she was a valued employee to him. She had cried, and so had he, and so had Jackie, hiding behind a door frame desperately trying to let them have a moment without running in and tackling them both.

She had known from the beginning she couldn’t indulge any of the gestures, thoughts, or instincts of a mother. She had fought to be a field agent, so she remained one. After her initial discovery, she didn't indulge in touching her belly. She avoided anything resembling nesting, and refrained from any window shopping or baby product research. For weeks, she avoided thinking of or to her baby at all. She felt guilty, and she knew he would hate it. So did she. But it was easier to pretend she wasn't pregnant if she didn't bond with the baby. A mother's first duty is to protect her child. This broke her heart, but hopefully the baby didn't know about it, yet. Her most burning question had become about telepathic development. She could only hope that she could live with the consequences of what she was doing to the baby as the cost of staying alive.

She was tired all the time, and was pretty clear that there was absolutely no way she could safely decide what alternate-universe drugs, including coffee blends, might or might not be safe for Fetal Time Tots. She wouldn’t even chance the herbal tea here, as apparently willow bark was a popular additive. She compensated by eliminating a social life as much as possible. She made appearances often enough to keep the paparazzi happy, but sometimes they were trips to Mickey’s, where she napped on his couch for 2 hours while he did laundry, and then she’d turn around and do the same at home. 8 hours at work, she was a machine. The rest of the day, she was a sloth. There was a solid routine--a kiss at the door from Jackie, a hug from Pete, dinner on her nightstand, and she ate what she could stomach while putting on her jim-jams and climbing into bed.

Bathroom breaks were becoming a problem, especially at work, where she needed coworkers not to think too carefully about her non-existent bulimia (anorexia? the press had never decided) making her weak and unreliable in the field, or how she hadn’t needed the bathroom so much when she first appeared. With great reluctance, she asked Jackie to send a member of staff out for some adult diapers. It was humiliating at first, but she had moved on to calling it convenient. Part of her wondered if she wouldn’t be well-served to keep on with them when she got back to the Doctor, as they were by far preferable to some of the facilities she’d availed herself of on various planets and in various prisons during their time together.

The tears were getting rough to hide, too. No one knew her here, so being a touch more emotional might be normal, for all they knew. That was always her saving grace. But when she teared up because she passed a billboard for "Brilliant!™" toothpaste and had to be rescued by her mother's heel landing squarely on her toe, it became clear she was headed for trouble. Jackie Tyler's quick thinking had the paparazzi reporting her mum was clumsy, rather than she was having suspicious emotional meltdowns, but only so many emergency injuries could be staged before someone noticed. She needed a way to disguise the trainwreck that was her heart.

Fear worked well. It was now the last thing Rose put on on her way out the door--a thick, heavy layer of fear, until all her emotions were locked away behind it. Then no one could touch her. Nothing could touch her. Fear kept her held rigidly, wrapped around her so tight that there was no part of Rose Tyler left exposed. If she never stopped waiting for the next threat, never let her guard down, they would be safe. She would be safe. And so long as she could keep running, she didn’t even have to feel that afraid. She could protect herself, keep her guard up, save the world, easy peasy.

*

When she had heard his voice in her head again, her world changed. It was like coming home. It was like coming back to life. It was a sudden lifeline of freedom and hope, reassurance that she had made it. She had stalled long enough. She had made it to the finish line. They would be safe. She was going home, and she could wake up from this nightmare, and she could be safe and tell him everything and he would be happy, and they would be happy. And it would be over. She didn’t have a second thought about missing her parents and Mickey. She barely even thought to say good-bye, and there wasn’t a single word spoken to try and convince her to stay. She stayed awake on pure euphoric relief all the way to Norway, pointing left and right and straight ahead, afraid to miss her meet up, thrilled with every moment she heard his voice calling to her, soaking in the feeling of his voice in her head, openly talking to her unborn child for the first time in weeks, not afraid to feel close, to feel in awe and in love. Telling her baby stories about his or her Daddy in her mind, not sure when the baby would hear her, but opening up as broadly as she could, trying to share the beautiful sound of her bondmate’s voice with the tiny miracle they had created together. She would never be able to step away from that beautiful little life again. But she certainly never wanted to do it to begin with, and she would never need to again. She was free. They were going to go see Daddy, the name her bondmate didn't know he had yet. He sounded desperate, a little sad, but she wasn’t worried. All he had to do was crack open a window, she would always go barreling through it. She did her best to broadcast back to him “I’m on my way, Doctor. We’ll be together soon.”

She wasn't worried. She couldn’t be. They were about to be together, and when they were together, they won. Every time. She didn't bat an eye throwing up down the freeway. Not a moment's bother that she was weeping tears of joy and laughing hysterically. She had left her impenetrable armor of fear at home (though she most definitely brought her special undies with her. She was not going to stop that car unless absolutely necessary.)

And then… and then he had said, right away, that this was goodbye. He wasn't coming for her. This was a funeral, a last visit and some fond words before they never saw each other again. He couldn't come get her. And then, the worst news… two minutes. Not enough time. Not enough time to problem solve, trouble shoot, to tell her anything at all, really, even if they skipped the goodbyes and I love yous. And realizing there was so little time threw her so much--realizing she would never see him again, and the last time, she would lie to her bondmate… it threw her off so badly, they didn't even manage the I love yous in time, after all. Their minds exchanged plenty, a mad, frantic drenching of love and loss and longing, desperation and a promise they would never be forgotten. In the end, she left the baby out of it. She couldn't force him to lose his child again. He was losing enough. He had lost enough. Their miracle wouldn't be a gift… just more sorrow, more guilt. She couldn't doom him to carry that.

*

She regretted it. She had never lied to him since their bonding, not really. She hated herself for ending things that way. And perhaps, just maybe, he would have remembered something without needing to research first. Anything, any little detail to help her protect herself and the baby. She had lied to spare his feelings, and it was stupid. Because he would hate missing his child's life, but he deserved to know his child was alive. She tried not to dwell on it, to think about how betrayed he would feel to realize she had lied, to let it go. Because unless her wildest hopes came true, she would never get the chance to even apologize. She pictured his face, wounded by the lies. Desperately hoped he would hold her close and forgive her. Feared she would be too slow to run with him, and he would leave her somewhere safe and not look back… no matter how much she knew he would never leave their child, no matter how angry he might be with her. And that distance like that wouldn’t change anything with a bond in place. “If you’re miserable, you’re miserable together.” He had said. “Hopefully just until you figure out how to be happy again.”

Just the memory of his words choked her up. She rolled over, frustrated. She needed sleep, and she wasn’t going to get it.

She missed him, simple as that, deep down to her soul. Sometimes, when she was busy, when she was running, she didn’t have to notice. She could put it aside. She could run and chase the adrenaline and solve the puzzle and believe for a moment that they had split up, and soon she would be running back to the TARDIS with him, hand-in-hand. And when she led a team back to the jeep so she didn’t have to see their faces, she always shifted her mind to some other distraction. Anything. Something.

The only way to survive was never to think.

Tonight she was thinking, and she wasn’t sure she could survive the pain of it. That raw, amputated feeling, like someone had skinned her soul with a hatchet, leaving an open, raw wound, a gaping hole where the Doctor belonged. She was lonely in a way she could never begin to describe. She was meant to spend her life with him, and here she was living everything that was theirs all alone, carrying with her the fact that she had to carry on for him, somehow. She didn’t need that added burden of somehow being amazing, of making him proud, so he could feel some peace. She wasn’t amazing; she was a train wreck. Just existing was asking far too much, honestly. But he wanted her to. And it wasn’t like she could stop. But tonight, at least, she was giving up on carrying on. She was standing still and she was hunkering in and sinking down into a pit that, honestly, was fast becoming her home, no matter what she pretended.

She sat alone in the center of her bed, arms wrapped around herself, paralyzed. The pain running through her as she acknowledged his loss was physical. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t here. And he was supposed to be here. He was supposed to kiss her good night and good morning. He was supposed to hold her while she slept and laugh with her over ridiculous things and hold her hand and walk with her at sunset. He was supposed to give her that look that made her heart skip 7 beats and stare into her eyes while he ran his thumb over her knuckles, and make her wonder how such a simple, innocent caress could make her feel so full of love for him that she might actually explode. He wasn’t here. He didn’t do those things. She was alone, forever alone no matter who was with her, and she couldn’t endure it.

She wanted to cry. To sob, and wail, and lose her mind with the pain of it all. She couldn’t. She had nothing left to give, even the energy to let her feelings out of where she had locked them up so no one ever had to know things weren’t alright. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Not in a ‘life isn’t fair’ kind of way, but in the sense that this was profoundly wrong. She wondered if this is how the Doctor felt around someone messing with a fixed point; just that everything is wrong, on a bone-deep level of what reality is meant to be like. That the very nature of it is disordered and backwards, and it made her feel sick.

Building up inside her heart was a temper tantrum the likes of which no one had ever seen from her. Yelling, screaming, throwing things, stomping and flinging herself on the floor, demanding her bondmate back. And yet…. She knew she couldn’t have him. And she knew she wouldn’t let it out, because she knew it would upset everyone around her. All she could do was what she was doing now. Sit, frozen, paralyzed by pain and fear and loneliness and grief, and silently drown in all those things.

He always believed in her. He thought she was “the best,” that she was clever and strong and brilliant. He expected her to live a fantastic life without him, to be the Defender of Earth, to carry on being all the incredible things he thought true of her… but she wasn’t even here anymore. She was hollow inside, empty and dead, and her body wasn’t strong enough to carry on forever without her in it, still being as good as he wanted her to be. So she drowned in guilt, too, and in sorrow. If he somehow made it back, he would be so very disappointed. She had failed him by doing none of what he wished for her. Rose Tyler was frozen in place, and, if her love could see her, he would be so very disappointed to find all of her dead.

And yet even if he looked at her with those disappointed eyes, angry at her for letting his love die inside… she needed him, even if he couldn't love her anymore, more than she needed her next breath. It was hard to even take a breath without him.

And how disappointed he would be in her for what she had allowed to happen to herself… it was nothing compared to what he would feel about her treatment of their child. The way she held herself away from the baby… he would hate her. It was her only way to protect the little time tot, to avoid acknowledging the baby's very existence outside the privacy of her room. And it was cruel. But she was beginning to sense she couldn’t do that anymore. She had begun to cheat during the days, talking to the baby, feeling the baby reply with feelings and affection. Rose suspected the baby needed it, needed the stimulation to grow and develop as he should. The carefully constructed boundaries she had developed, the normal she had established, needed to be readjusted… that would be a constant, she supposed. She’d find what worked for each moment and then readjust, again and again. She cracked her mind open a touch, trying to hold her pain back behind shields while still giving her baby some attention and closeness, and curled up in bed. She scrapped the blankets tightly around herself, pushing a pillow up close behind her back. Pretending it was him she had to lean on.

Chapter Text

Chapter Five

Rose sat at her desk, staring at her computer and twirling a pen between her fingers, staring blankly into space. She was. Not. Here. Her mind was on a million other things--whether she’d put laundry into the dryer or she needed to rerun the load she’d thrown into the wash yesterday morning. The Doctor. The itchy feeling of the healing burn on her shoulder. Her husband. Wondering at this bizarrely xenophobic world who were so aggressive about aliens ever since a human from earth used earth technology to try to kill them all. Her bondmate. Whether anyone would find out about her secret, which she tried to not even to think about at work, lest she gave herself away. The father of her child--who she wasn’t supposed to be thinking about. The 14 text messages from her mother she was currently ignoring. The Doctor. The fact that she was tired and wanted to let her mind drift to... sensitive topics… but she couldn’t go home until she finished this case report. Wondering if how useless and mentally shot she was becoming would embarrass the Doctor when she got back to him. If he could afford to keep her with him when she was so useless. Though she would likely find herself squirreled away in the TARDIS where her child would be safe… unlike here. Stuck doing fieldwork because she couldn't afford to raise any eyebrows by stopping. Risk her child running for her life or risk her child being known. Easy choice. They were good at running.

And running had never required any of this bloody paperwork, either.

"That report better be filed by morning, Tyler!" Rose waived vaguely at Morrison. She already knew, and he was already out the door. Her reports had never been late. But he always felt a need to nag her, because they were also never early. She supposed he didn't know his nagging wasn't necessary. She rarely got a report in before he left the day before they were due.

She took in a deep breath, and then sighed. “Go home, Mickey.”

“How’d you know I was even here? I didn’t make a sound!”

Rolling her neck before finally turning to look at him, she smiled wryly. “You ate bell pepper on that pizza at lunch. I can still smell it on your breath.”

“You can smell pizza from 4 hours ago on my breath from 6 feet away?”

“No. I can smell the bloody bell pepper, and it’s disgusting. Don’t get closer, kay?”

There was silence for a good minute.

“How did you know I was here, really?”

Rose snorted. “Not kidding, Micks. Must be the superior freaking biology.”

He cleared his throat and her eyes widened. She knew better. No hints, nothing, pretend it isn’t there. Not in the office, even after hours. She had never, not once, made that mistake. Stupid, stupid, stupid! She casually spun her chair around, checking for anyone on the floor. They were alone, except for the excessive and pervasive technology around them. “You stepped on the wobbly spot in the floor. Shakes my mouse. And it’s always you.” A cover, and a weak one, but he rolled his eyes and scoffed playfully like he believed her. Just in case.

“We have a desk week next week, rumor has it. Thought I’d warn you not to get too excited about getting your paperwork done.”

Rose groaned, dropping her forehead to her desk. “I don’t have a single brain cell left, Mickey. Pretty sure it’s leaked out my ears. I’ll take you out for dinner tomorrow if you do my case report for me.”

He laughed. “Rose, I had to write the corroborating report. And we’re doing the Vitex thing tomorrow night. You’re trapped. But I’ll get you a tea to get you through it.”

“Ta, Micks. Then go home. I’ll get through this.”

“Always late on Thursdays, lately, Rose. Go home and sleep soon, yeah?” He said it like he would to any other teammate, but she knew it was different. They both knew how desperately she needed it. Mickey didn’t know she was after something else she needed even more.

*

It hadn’t taken long, after the beach, to accept the changes. To accept that she had really opened herself up to her baby, had admitted that tiny little person was in there and needed her and counted on her, to accept that she loved her more than she could say. That she would still do whatever she could to protect her baby, but she couldn’t hold herself completely apart anymore. And that it was not going to be possible to just keep treading water trying to hide her pregnancy until an undefined whenever. There was no rescue coming. She would have to rescue herself--that was fine. She had learned how to do that in her time with the Doctor. She had waited her 5 and a half hours… time to make other plans.

She needed a plan for dealing with this baby once she couldn’t hide anymore. The story she would tell, what she would and wouldn’t say. How she would handle obviously needing medical care and refusing to get any. All of the lists began in her mind, endlessly rattling on with potentials and contingencies, but first things first. She trusted the Doctor beyond any other person. He would never let her down. But she knew something else--she would never leave him. Never, even if he thought things were beyond impossible. She’d proven it before, and now she was going to prove it again. So the next Thursday, she casually over-ordered for lunch, sat at her desk struggling to finish her paperwork, and announced she was going to stretch her legs.

14 flights of stairs later, she popped into the lab as Malcom was packing up and pasted a big smile on her face.

“Heya, Malcolm!”

“Lieutenant Tyler!” The surprise and cheer were both displayed clearly on his face. “Lovely to see you, though so late in the day. Just stopping by, ma’am?”

She rolled her eyes. “Rose, Malcolm. My name is Rose, has been for months. But I was wondering, actually, if you might have some time to help me with something?”

Malcolm hesitated, then put his folders down and invited her to sit. “Is it possible this might be not a very official favor, then? I can’t help but notice your timing. You’re very reliable on stopping by to check on the walls, but usually earlier on.”

Rose smiled at him. Malcolm was friendly, caring, very intelligent, and very loyal. The Doctor would love him, she thought, and wished they could meet. “It’s a bit of an early start, I spose you could say. Want to get started on what will be official business soon enough, I hope. But… might be best, is all, if it stays between us.” She resisted the urge to chew on her thumbnail, but couldn’t stop herself chewing on her bottom lip.

Malcolm nodded. “I’m going to help you, Rose. Don’t you think I won’t; you’ve been nothing but kind to me and I’m just a quiet little scientist. But I can’t help but wonder if you really want to be hiding even more from your father than you’re already hiding from everyone.”

She blinked, and worried this had been a deadly mistake. Malcolm was one of her few friends… and a genius. Perhaps he had already deduced her exact secret; she didn’t realize he even knew she had one. And he had, for the very first time, used her given name. She had been confident he never would, that he would always keep that bit of distance and deference. He was effusive and excitable and also had absolutes for respect and loyalty. Looking at him now, however, none of that seemed to have changed. Perhaps he felt concerned about a conflict of interest for himself, as well. The silence stretched out several moments as she debated and gathered herself.

“Malcolm. I… I don’t mean to put you in an awkward position. This is nothing I want you to have to keep from the Director. Just things that, the fewer people are involved, the better. If he asks, at all, in any way, I’m not asking you to keep anything from him. Just, beyond him, that it ought to be considered… eyes-only.”

He kept looking at her very steadily, staying unusually still for such an energetic person. “I don’t think you’d ask for secrecy if you didn’t need it. And I understand there’s a lot some people might not want to share. If you want things available to the Director but no reports sent, fair dues, secrets don’t need reports. Just make sure people you care about know enough to help you, alright Rose?”

She smiled, feeling touched. Malcolm was an absolute genius, the kind who could happily spend an hour or two chatting with her husband at high speed, the two of them leaving her in the dust catching one word in five. She had spent long enough around one of those to recognize that the opportunity to geek out was an easy way to hide from more complicated relationships and interactions that called for more than intellect and enthusiasm, but here he was sitting down, talking to her, being direct with her, in the interest of helping her, because he cared. She wouldn’t ask if he knew her secret--she wouldn’t confirm to him that she had one, and she wouldn’t put him in the position of admitting what it was if he did know. She would just bring him back to the science.

“These walls are still pretty porous, yeah?” Malcolm seemed to let out a relieved breath before smiling at her, glad to be back on his own turf, even if he was the one who took them away from it.

“If you look here, Lieutenant Tyler, you can see the wavelengths we use to measure the walls varying day to day, even minute to minute. There’s space between them, like they can’t make up their mind what density to be.” He pulled up graphs and charts on his computer screen and printouts from his files, trying to demonstrate everything he had been measuring for months as he spoke. “Here, these were all the same day a few months back, when Torchwood went chasing the cybermen. We didn’t know what I was seeing back then, but I told them I did, that every time they used those buttons of theirs it all got worse! Nobody listened, did they, until they all came back and announced the walls between the universes were breaking every time they hopped through, and then it was all ‘oh, Malcolm, why didn’t you know we were damaging things? Aren't you measuring all the unusual energies?' The director himself was sure I was overreacting, and then I suddenly get all the attention for having already known they were causing massive fluctuations. It finally settled down a bit just before you started here." Rose wondered if Malcolm knew she was from the other side of those walls. That seemed like a hint on his part. No matter. She promised herself to make sure he felt heard and respected by her--both because he deserved to have been all along, and because she had the feeling that alone would be enough to secure his loyalty.

"Right. Well, Mickey told you I had a mission if those walls looked passable again, yeah?"

"He did, of course he did, but pardon me saying, I don't think anything is going make that make any sense, Agent Tyler."

"Right, I know. Cus if they go back to how they were, I can't use the hoppers without sending the universe into a nervous breakdown again, and as it is now, they don't work at all. Not to mention, we can't control the walls enough to change it if we wanted to. Which we don't."

"Well, precisely." He seemed pleased she wasn't about to insist that he should make magic out of science, to make all of the consequences go away so she could do what she wanted without caring about them. She sighed, knowing he’d likely received many demands like that.

“So, the old hoppers. They work, what, like a sonic boom, just tearing through the barrier a bit devil-may-care, letting the shockwaves follow after them, yeah?”

“That’s fair comparison, I’d say.”

Rose took a deep breath. She Prayed her next sentence made any sense at all. The Doctor had always loved her asking just the right questions, having just the right idea when he needed it. All she could do was hope that Dr. Taylor would be able to run with her ill-conceived notions as well as the Doctor himself did.

“So, instead of a battering ram, knocking a big old hole out of the universe… In theory, could we find something a big more pin-point? Find the frequency of the universe, get on a wavelength that fits inside it, and just.., slip through? Like a needle, fit into the hole?”

Malcolm blinked at her a few times and she looked down, reminding herself it’s okay not to be as smart as a genius. Easier to do when the genius is a different species and in love with you, she thought. “Well, that’s a bit obvious, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Yes, of course we could! That’s a very exciting thing to consider! We can just hop straight through to the other side, slip through the natural holes caused by the wavelengths of the universe, if we simply operate at double the frequency, we don’t really need a wormhole, then, do we? We just work in literal harmony with the universe!”

Rose startled. “Is it really that simple, then?”

Malcolm shook his head, coming out of his excited tangential thoughts. “Oh, well, in theory, yes, of course. In practice, on the other hand, well. The hoppers blew a hole in space in front of our agents and then they followed through the hole. Horrible for space. Changing the frequency your own body exists in to squeeze it through the pores of the universe without hurting anything would have to change you into a bunch of atoms, I’d say. Not sure how to change you back on the other side. Or if we would know when you were on the other side to change back. Or if the other side has holes like our side, or if we need to find a frequency that’s a multiple of both wavelengths. But all you are, Agent Tyler, is atoms held together in an electrical field. Disrupt the field and you’re just dust. Don’t fancy that would help you any?”

Rose smiled, “Yeah, not so much. So is there any hope of fine-tuning it then? Sending me through in a little bubble of the right wavelength without turning me to goo?”

“I don’t rightly know. But I believe we can find out. And if we can’t quite send you through, maybe we can try and accomplish your mission via correspondence, hm?”

Rose smiled. Well, it’d be a very interesting letter to write, that’s for sure.

“So how can I help?”

*

And so it began. Thursday nights, Rose stayed late, finished her backlog of paperwork--case files, translations, informational supplements to the data banks--which was created in part by a wearying week and in part by deliberate intent to give her an alibi for Thursday, and spent a few hours in Malcolm’s lab, looks at the wavelengths of the universe, debating the frequencies that came up most often and which seemed to be becoming most prevalent, and, on the rare evening the universe was behaving and maintaining a stable frequency, sending a ping through to see what they could determine about the other side of the wall. They were careful, always, to only send through frequencies within the existing wavelengths, and only the shortest bursts, so as to damage neither their walls nor their neighbors’. It made for slow going, but it had the upside of not literally destroying the universe.

Tonight was one of the less-eventful evenings. Dimensional walls seemed to be favoring what they had labeled “Pattern Beta 7” when Rose refused to memorize the 14 digit sequence that Malcolm felt was sufficiently detailed to describe it. So far they had been holding constant for 20 minutes--they required a full 30 before sending a ping. While they waited, they flipped through previous results and debated what approach was best to try. In theory, a fast enough wavelength could go through anything. However that might be so effective they’d never learn anything, and there was no way they’d ever be able to send Rose through literal infinity, even if they could generate that frequency. In the end, Rose prevailed upon a sense of instinct for a preferred frequency set out of previous results, as suggested they try for compatibility with those. They recurred often, and seemed in concert with readings from the tears created by the hoppers. Of course, they also would eventually need to determine when those frequencies were nearby, so they could then plan when to cross through, so they could *then* do so if the wall on their side were stable, while hopping all the while what was on the other side was home, or at least survivable. And that she could get back if needed before things shifted again.

“What if we test with a plant first?” Rose asked idly, flipping through charts while Malcolm navigated their chosen test protocols.

“Can’t run away or take off the recall device. Might spread invasive species pollen all over some other ecosystem.” Malcolm countered.

“A peach? We could cut out the pit with an apple corer and we’d still be able to see bruises on it.”

“Already dead, though. Peaches wouldn’t mind lack of oxygen like, for example, the Director’s daughter might.”

Rose hummed in thought and idle agreement. They had yet to even attempt to build something to send anything through, anyway. The pros-and-cons debate had been going on for quite some time. “Could send over a camera. Leave it running. See what we see.”

“Lands in water, we get nothing back but a wet camera. Still, might be a good first step.”

Rose nodded, pulling down the schematics for the hoppers again, hoping there might be some part of them that was worth saving.

These long evenings with Malcolm made her feel closer to the Doctor. Spitballing ideas, making plans. No one talking about guns and target practice. Science and information everywhere. Not to mention she was headed back to him if she could get any of this to work.

“Right, what time is it?” Malcolm asked her.

“6:47:13. Just under three minutes to go” she murmured, not looking up. After a moment’s quiet, she glanced at him to see him studying her and realized she had done it again; she had told him the exact time without a clock. She smiled and held up her wristwatch, which she had begun wearing religiously to cover for the occasional mindless answer of a question based on timesense. She tried not to respond when asked, but it was instinct, like answering ‘what’s your name?’. Information she knew without thinking, and sometimes gave without even noticing she’d been asked a question. Blimey, it was hard being normal. No wonder the Doctor was so horrible at it.

Malcolm simply laughed. “Always prepared, eh Lt Tyler?”

She smiled. “I do my best.” She didn’t tell him to call her Rose. It was a once-per-day exchange. He didn’t want to, or he enjoyed his little routine, and she wasn’t going to hound him on it, either way. He was giving up hours of his life to help her, he deserved to be comfortable while doing it. And, honestly, lack of familiarity would hopefully prevent anyone from assuming they had a weekly scheduled affair. The paparazzi were going to assume she was carrying Mickey’s child. She could avoid it, but only if she avoided him, and he wasn’t having it. She didn’t need Torchwood assuming the baby was Malcolm’s on top of that.

She remembered to glance at her watch for the next two and a half minutes while they waited for enough time to have passed to give them enough confidence to send out a ping. It was one of many things she was hoping people would forget hadn’t always been true of Rose Tyler.

*

Debrief with Morrison was always a nightmare, but sometimes it couldn’t be helped. Generally, her paperwork went to Mickey, Mickey dropped them with Morrison and gave him the cliffnotes, and the reports got forwarded to Pete. Really, he was as much a secretary as he was a manager. Had no idea at all what went on in the field, and had, according to Mickey, never worked in it, despite it being functionally mandatory. He had skated through somehow, and now they were stuck with him. He scheduled shifts, read reports, signed off on budgets, and generally threw his non-existent weight around.

This was one of those times where it wasn’t avoidable. Rose had majorly breached protocol, and she and Mickey had to be called in together to determine whether her actions fell within the broader scope of priority of purpose within the agency or if she was behaving with reckless or negligent intent. Pete, of course, had the authority to be part of this at any time, but they avoided it as much as possible. Best not to show favoritism, or anything that hinted at it, and best not to involve him when it wasn’t needed. So when Mickey went in to hand off his reports, Rose was already done with what she had been working on, knowing she was about to be called in and that they wouldn’t be waiting for Pete.

“Rose?” Mickey called, sticking his head out the door frame.

“Yeah, right with ya.” She answered, marking her place in her review of the department’s weekly UnTranslated Communications And Unknown Devices report. She made her way into Morrison’s office and greeted him with a polite smile.

“‘Lo, Morrison.”

“Greetings, Lt. Tyler.” She sighed internally. Nobody cared that much for formalities around here. He was melodramatically making a point. She was ignoring it. “It’s my understanding the latest dramatics were entirely your doing.”

The bit back her first seven responses. She couldn’t swan off in the TARDIS after the confrontation was over. She had to survive in the here and now… she didn’t enjoy it. “I was acting under the strictures of our assignment, sir”

“Oh, you were, were you? Because it’s my understanding, Agent Tyler, that your Commander was not aware you were planning to run into the middle of the negotiation screaming. Literally.”

She had not been screaming. She had been speaking, at least, as it was done in Baranezic. “My assignment was to ensure the success of negotiations and the safety of the planet. Our translators had mis-identified the species we were working with, and they were getting frustrated at being talked down to, which was their perception of what we were saying. I waited and hoped either party would recalibrate, and I tried to get Mickey’s attention, but when their leader was offended by the device, I couldn’t exactly wait any longer, could I? I know I’m not authorized to negotiate for the Earth, and I didn’t. Mickey did. I just translated because the technology failed.”

“Oh? And for just how long, Agent Tyler, did you know the technology was failing and sit there waiting before you barged in where you don’t belong and tried to save us all by yelling at an insulted alien leader? How does that make things better and more efficient, hmm? You cost us, today, Tyler, and don’t think your Daddy running Torchwood will change that. We had a good, solid offer for them and they wouldn’t take it, and the only thing that didn’t go to plan was you. Are you happy? Did you satisfy your ego? Because I’m taking the extra jet fuel out of your pay to get them off-planet. So, how long did you try to actually help before you made it about you, hm? 30 seconds? Maybe 2 minutes?”

“Fourteen minutes and 37 seconds!” She yelled back, sick of the barrage of snide, demeaning commentary. “I waited fourteen minutes and 37 seconds before I saw one of the Baranezics take offense and stopped waiting before it got worse! What should I have done, stayed there until they were mortally offended and needed vengeance? Until their people were pulled into a war with us because of our tech failure? I should have stepped in earlier, nevermind the protocols!”

“Nevermind the protocols!” Morrison bellowed back at her. “Nevermind the protocols?! You, Agent Tyler, are only here because you’re the boss’s daughter and he spent so long investing in your education. How does it feel to know he’s raised you as his personal weapon? Is that why you’re so arrogantly insistent on treating aliens like they’re better than us, to punish Daddy? Who cares if they were involved in a war with us, we would have to go to war with them. The universe wouldn’t miss more of those things flying around, causing trouble on strange planets like drunken tourists acting like Americans in North Korea. So you can stop mocking me with your fourteen minutes and thirty seven seconds and take 2 days of desk duty to re-read the red files and remember which team you’re fighting for!”

Rose had left his office with a stiff "Sir," turned, and returned to her desk. She wasn't particularly upset about wasting 2 days on desk duty, or about Morrison going off like she was an idiot. He did that. But until he threw it back in her face, she hadn't realized she had quoted him a time that was far too precise for her to have actually known. She stayed at the desk the rest of the day with the assigned red files and a stack of post-it notes, annotating them with what had gone wrong to provoke hostility and filing supplemental informational reports on each one to the database, and left immediately at 5. The next morning, she came in wearing an understated watch and pretended as best she could it had always been there.

Chapter Text

Mickey Smith had known and loved Rose Tyler, in one sense or another, for most of his life. He had nervously watched her tear fearlessly through the streets on a bicycle for the first time one December 26th, in the freezing cold. She’d said it was like freedom, and he’d thought she was crazy.

He’d watched her fall in love with Jimmy Stone, leave school, leave her mum, leave her friends, and walk away. He’d watched her come back and relentlessly insist on pulling something of herself back together, of building back up and starting over, of never shedding a tear for a man she claimed didn’t deserve it. He’d told her she was worth crying for, and she could if she wanted. She hadn’t answered.

He’d watched himself fall in love with her determination and strength, and watched her use those same 2 things to refuse to go out with him just because she didn’t have better options. Watched her fall for him when he expended some effort on her. Watched himself be pretty inconsistent about it. Watched her stick around anyway.

He’d watched her kiss his cheek, thank him for nothing ('for what?' 'exactly'), and run into an impossible box and disappear for a couple days that lasted a year. Saw her come back different, more than a year could have made her. He’d tried to hold on, for a while. He knew how she felt--about him and about the Doctor. Knew they were over, because really, how could he not? She’d left for a year. He’d launched a missile at her. She’d left again. He made vague efforts at moving on, but it had taken a lot for him to admit what he’d already known. She wasn’t passing time waiting for him. He deserved more than that, as well. By the time he joined her adventuring across space and time, he was a different man than the one who thought he ever belonged with her.

Since he left, he’d missed her--his best friend, going back years, and the only one who had really seen more to him, who had believed in him. He missed having her to laugh with, especially when he ran into something completely bananas about the new dimension. He missed someone who accepted him and believed in him, who knew about his life and who shared a history with him. It was good to have his Gran back--she was just as he remembered, and every bit as wonderful. Some of their memories were the same, and he loved that she at least knew him… until the last few years, when she had come to expect some things from Rickey that Mickey didn’t really understand. He often caught himself listening for the TARDIS, excited to tell Rose about something on the off-chance she was stopping by, before remembering she never would again.

So when the cybermen faded through the universes and someone had to chase them, he went. He had three separate people swear they’d take care of his Gran, and off he went, looking for his best friend (who, apparently, he spoke of so frequently and in such glowing terms his coworkers had become as annoyed with him as he had once been with Rose and the Doctor). With her, looking for a way to save his home universe, and hopefully get some answers about the slow boil in the universe he lived in now.

Knowing Jackie was joining him in the newly-dubbed Pete’s World was wonderful. They’d been close for a long time, made a family of each other. Not to mention, he would finally have someone around who knew what he was talking about. And he could see her have the chance to really be happy, enjoy a second chance with the man she loved, and he could see Pete get that same chance. It really was a fairy tale ending.

And then Pete tried the hopper to be sure the walls were closed, and was back a second later with Rose in his arms. Rose was heartbroken, devastated, destroyed by it. While she pounded on a wall, sobbing, Mickey turned on Pete with fury in his eyes. Admittedly, he had held on to Rose longer than he should have. But even then, he had known--you do not separate Rose from the Doctor. You absolutely do not. They’d died for each other. They’d done impossible things to stay together. Whatever nonsense Pete had been thinking, Mickey wasn’t going to stand for it.

But Pete looked back at Mickey, and at Jackie who looked confused and betrayed. “She was falling into the void… crashed right in to me. I brought her back to get her out. There really wasn’t another choice.”

And then Rose had started screaming. It was horrifying--she curled up in a ball on the floor, pressed against that bloody wall, and clutching her head, and screamed. It sounded like pain, and anger, and sadness, and rage. Maybe a little madness, as it went on and on. Jackie had tried to hold her, but Rose shrank away, pushing herself further into the wall, behaving like a frightened, feral cat. It had lasted over an hour before she devolved into sobs and fell asleep.

Without a word spoken, they had taken her home. Jackie managed to wait until actually getting in to the car before she realized there wasn’t anywhere to go. Mickey offered both of them space at his Gran’s; there was a spare room. Pete had insisted, however, that Jackie come home with him, and followed up that he supposed Rose would want to be near her mum, and that she was welcome, as well. So they drove up to the mansion and settled Rose in a disused guest room, Jackie tucking her in and smoothing her hair. The screaming had lasted 4 days before it tapered off to occasional bouts. Jackie was convinced something was wrong, that Rose was hurt somehow. Pete was convinced he had never seen anyone be more melodramatic about missing someone. Mickey, on the other hand… he had come to expect more than meets the eye when it comes to Rose Tyler. He knew she was miserable, and he wanted her to feel better. Later, if she wanted, she could share the cause.

The first couple days in Pete’s World, Mickey stayed over at Pete’s house, catching up with Jackie when Rose slept, taking turns with her holding on to Rose when she didn’t. When he went back to work, he was immediately called up to Pete’s office, where he was directed to go over the files for Jackie and Rose and make sure their identities and paperwork were sufficiently established. Jackie’s were pretty easy, but Rose was complicated. They had to invent a massive backstory for her. Pete had been unimpressed to learn Rose had never completed school, but accepted Mickey’s assurances that what stopped her going back was finances, not a lack of ability. They granted Rose some decent credentials and a backstory of being privately educated in seclusion, and Mickey argued for and successfully convinced Pete to give her enough credit for her to be believable as a strong, brilliant, capable woman based on her paperwork.

A week after she had arrived, Mickey went over straight from work, like usual. She seemed better, ish. Like she was slowly coming back together. He thought he might see if she'd come out with him, run an errand, anything. After a bit of badgering, during which he debated guiltily her for not completing their last shopping trip, but decided against it, Rose admitted she needed to get out of the house long enough to buy a couple things. Jackie had gone right out their first morning there, armed with Pete's credit card, and bought a handful of basics for both of them. Rose wasn't picky, and she hoped wouldn't be here long, but some things weren’t fitting quite right. Different sizes here, maybe. So she caved and let Mickey take her to a nearby shop, and even cracked a weak smile when he caught her before she could try to pay with a credit stick. Mickey shook his head at her.

"Best you let me handle this part, Rose. I'll explain later, yeah?" Rose looked at him suspiciously, but this was not her first trip to a strange planet. She trusted Mickey, so she hung back and let him handle things at the counter before they headed back to Pete’s mansion. Inside, he sat with her in the rearranged living area she and her mum had readjusted.

“Right,” Mickey started, “there’s a few things you’re going to need to know about Pete’s World, Rose, if you’re gonna live here,” he raised his finger to silence her objection, “for however long you have to. We both know you’re gone as soon as he gets here. But till then…”

Rose nodded. “Right… lay of the land. Makes sense. I can do that. Helps to know the rules of every alien planet. " A deep breath, "Okay, go ahead,” she met his eyes, having talked herself into a mindset that could handle needing to know how to get by while she was here, now seeming confident and attentive if overwhelmingly… sad, and tired.

“Right, so, thing is, they haven’t got the metric system.”

“What, like at all?”

“Nope.”

“So, what, is it all still imperial units? Blimey, that’ll take some remembering…”

“Nah, don’t worry. They gave up on those ages ago.”

“So… do we use inches and miles and whatever, like in America?”

“Nah, America is with most of the world. Wanted a universal system.”

“So what is it, then?”

“Right, so there are 24 fingers in a cubit, three palms in a foot, one and a half feet to a cubit, five feet to a pace, and 1,500 paces to a league. It’s easy enough.”

Rose blinked at him. “Wut?”

Mickey laughed, and she swatted him. “You’re havin’ me on!”

“I’m not, I’m not, honest!” He protested, hands in the air both proclaiming his innocence and defending himself. “It’s completely bonkers, all of it. And instead of the States, it’s Canada who refuses to follow along with the rest of the world. They measure temperature in Kelvin! Absolutely mad; I’ve been dying to tell you.”

Rose laughed, “So what, no one in the world has a metere?”

“Oh, no, they do! That’s the best bit, you see. A metere is the volume of a wine barrel from the 1840s.”

“It is not!” Rose absently noted she sounded a bit like her mum gossiping with Bev.

“No joke! It’s the craziest thing you’ve ever heard.”

It was a relief to see her laugh again, to see her interest spark in something. It was nice, too, to share with a friend something that he had never had anyone around to empathize with. No one here had ever known any different, and he had to fathom exactly how far a league was without looking confused by it. Bonkers.

It started a new routine for them. Rose would meet him after work, and he could tell her something new. About money in Pete’s World, were she’d be able to pay with a pence, a P, which was worth 3.14 pence, or a paper E bill, which was 2.72 P. There was a 5 E and 10 E bill, too, like it was all normal to have the craziest math in history when you went to the grocer’s. Another day he told her about the American Pop/Country Star, GW Bush. Another was a lesson on Fahrenheit, and what numbers meant cold and hot now. Mickey thought it was the same system that Americans used back home, but couldn’t be certain. IT was the same name, but he'd never known the other numbers to be able to compare.

A couple days in, he was rushing out to Rose, thinking of which crazy tale to share with her, and was in his car when he realized he hadn't changed from the day's adventure--meaning he had a strange-looking burn on the back of his jacket still. He shrugged it off. Rose would hardly be surprised that the job was difficult at times, and she'd never cared what he looked like.

She greeted him with a hug, and he was happy to see she was starting to seem more like herself. She was still largely keeping to herself, but afternoons with Jackie and evenings with Mickey seemed to be helping, at least a bit. She pulled back from the hug suddenly, eye brows shooting up, and spun him around to look at the burn hit jacket had caught.

"What did you do to be marked an enemy of the empire, then?" She teased.

"What?" Mickey asked, confused.

"Malgrins." Rose said, poking her finger at his jacket. "Use a special gun to mark enemies of the empire, people who've insulted their emperor or species. Course, works better when you're a species who doesn’t wear clothes," she gave him a light grin. "Wear this jacket round that lot again and they'll know right-off you're a deviant exile… never got a clear answer on whether that was a kill-on-sight issue or not, though. Best not find out, yeah?"

He studied her carefully. He'd forgotten, possibly because for a long time he hadn't wanted to know, that she had literally lived with an alien for years, seen a different species and culture and planet nearly every day. And she seemed more herself than she had been for the last week just looking at a burn in his coat and making fun of him for getting on an alien’s bad side. Rose belonged with the Doctor, in the Tardis, exploring the stars, having adventures with aliens. Mickey wondered if he could tide her over with at least that last part. He reached into his pocket.

“Yeah, best not. Was a day though. Before the Mal...gats?”

“Malgrins,” she corrected.

“Right, Malgrins. Should add them to the database. But yeah, before them, we ran into these little green squirrel things. They didn’t really communicate any way we understood, but they looked like they’d crashed… they kinda skittered around and gathered pieces in their cheeks and then spit them out to try and rebuild… honestly they seemed pretty harmless. Really, we just crawled around and picked up pieces for them. Seemed like the decent thing anyway. One of them handed me this before they left, though.” He handed over a small wooden disc that the tech department had cleared as meaningless, and she turned it over in her hands. She seemed to squint at some squiggly triangle-ish scratches on one side.

“Well, that was thoughtful of them. ‘Friend of the… Narthans.’ Mickey, stuff like this is like a Medal of Honor out there! Hold onto it for sure.”

He was staring at her in shock. “You can read that?”

“Sure,” she looked back at him, confused. “I mean, it took me a second to make it out, but it’s there, plain as day. Can’t read this bit,” she indicated the scratches on the other side, “but I imagine it’s the same in their native language.”

“And.. what language is this that you’re reading, Rose?”

Rose seemed to have learned how to make the dribbled-on-your-shirt face from the Doctor during their time together. “Mickey. S’English. See? Right here.”

Mickey shook his head at her. “Rose, it’s all squiggles and triangley things. We weren’t even sure if it was writing or scratches.”

She cocked her head at it, squinting again. “Okay… yeah, I see it now. Squiggly stuff. I think it’s… Altairian. So that must be their local ‘universal’ language, must be somewhere in that system.”

“An… when did you learn Altairian?” Mickey asked her. “Thought the TARDIS jus’ translated for you. Not that you learned anythin’” There was a glint in his eye when he said that, and she gave a shove at his shoulder.

“Oi!” She was smiling at him, and it was nice to hear some version of her laugh. “Maybe I learned the ones I saw a lot of? And our bond got a lot closer after… after the game station. I dunno. Guess I held on to some of it. Nice to know there’s still something of my life left….”

“You know, babe, Torchwood… running around chasing aliens, huge piles of untranslated communications and weird artifacts… they’d be happy to have you there.”

She snorted. “Yeah, the girl who magically appeared, speaks alien, no qualifications at all except workin in a shop a few years back. Don’t think I’m a fit for anythin’ excitin’, Micks.”

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Rose, you already had to have your backstory built… which we should go over soon. But it’s just another piece. While you were growing up in privacy getting educated by all the best tutors, Pete, forward-thinkin’ man, had you educated in everythin’ beyond the stars. We’ll figure it out. But in this world, you graduated Uni with honors. You can have a life here, Rose, for however long you’re here. Whatever life you want.”

Rose had seemed thoughtful when she said goodbye, and two days later Pete drove in to Torchwood in the morning with Rose riding shotgun. He was unsurprised to see her assigned to his team, and didn’t hesitate to let them know he considered her start at ‘agent’ to be beneath her. From day one, she was improving their knowledge. The first time out, she was encouraging empathy for the terrifying monster aliens who were actually trying to buy some peaches to take back home. Every adventure proved Rose was priceless in the field, even if she was struggling to acclimate to a team and a subordinate role.

It was early days with Torchwood, when she had a secret only Mickey knew and that hadn't even been confirmed, when they had been called to a crash site. Sympathy welled up in her when she saw the craft, and sorrow when she saw the familiar markings on the hull for a people that the Doctor was rather fond of. One of the other agents had gone ahead and hollered out, "Cockpit is visible! Male and female, I'd guess, looks like he didn't make it." Mickey charged forward to offer any assistance, but Rose flung out an arm across his chest, pushing him back.

“No, Mickey, stay back”

“Why, what's going on?”

“I'm telling you, everyone, back off!”

Mickey motioned them back, but called after her “Rose, you've got to give me something!”

“Calphani. They're telepathic. And if he's dead, and she's… Mickey, I don't know exactly what this race is capable of, but if you provoke her we could lose the whole planet. Nothing, nothing will stop her. Fall. Back.”

“I'm not leaving you,” He said, and it was indistinguishable whether he was the mission commander or her best friend when he did.

“Out of sight, then, all of you, at least 50 paces, you hear me?”

Mickey nodded to the others, who rapidly turned away to conceal themselves at or beyond the prescribed distance. “Rose, I’m not leaving you undefended. Why are you the best one for this?”

Rose looked Mickey in the eye, directly, and tried to find an answer he would understand and she could justify, with only a moment to spare. “I’m the only one who likely isn’t at risk. On the planet. If you ever trusted me, trust me now and Get. Back.”

Gauntlet thrown, she took off running toward the cockpit. She didn’t have time to check on Mickey. She could only Pray he’d listen.

As she rounded the front of the ship, it became clear to everyone that the female had come round--that was when the screaming started, a long, horrific bellowing wail, accompanied quickly by the sound of rather violent banging from the cockpit. Rose ran faster, hurtling into her line of sight even as a chunk of spaceship flew past her, projecting empathy as strongly as she could. The Calphan bellowed and screamed, and Rose knelt in front of the ship, hands extended, tears streaming down her face. Wordless keening transformed rapidly into broken speech, English she was gathering from what remained of her ship or from Rose herself. “Dead, dead, you will die too! Everyone will die! Destroy you all before I go!”

Mickey watched Rose crying, something she had never done in the field, and hoped it was part of the plan. He was ready to go running to her aid, but she seemed to be very intentional about her posture and vulnerability--as though she was sad and suffering, but not broken or distracted. But she also wasn’t speaking, or interrupting at all.
“Tear you all apart. Death and Destroy, End of all. Pain, pain, everyone feel pain,” the infuriated Calphan was tearing her ship apart, pulling it open, throwing the pieces. A moment later, she reached her copilot, and with suddenly gentle movements, unbuckled him and pulled him into her lap. The screaming began again as she held him, rocking back and forth, stroking his leathery blue face with webbed fingers. Rose stayed where she was, visibly straining to do absolutely nothing, as far as anyone else could tell.

Mickey waited impatiently as the minutes stretched on, wondering what was so dangerous. By the same token, he had no excuse to go charging in over his agent’s intelligence just because he was antsy. The woman put her partner on the ground outside, lovingly, gently, and then let loose and fantastic roar of fury before suddenly turning to Rose, looking as heartbroken as Mickey had ever seen her.

“You. You know…”

“Yes,” Rose answered, clearly, patiently, painfully.

“You feel…”

“Yes.” The alien began lumbering toward her, and Mickey took careful aim. Nothing was going to happen to Rose.

“How?” She collapsed to the ground in front of Rose, and they leaned forwards, touching foreheads grasping elbows, as the woman sobbed and screamed by turns. Rose’s tears continued to pour down her face, the occasional whimper escaping her. After 10 minutes, during a lull in wailing, Mickey radio his team to stay put before stepping out from cover and inching forward. He put his weapon away, not seeing any particular crisis, and walked slowly. About 3 meters away, Rose raised a single finger from the grip she had on the mourning alien, and he stayed where he was.

He watched solemnly and sympathetically for almost twice as long as he had already, witnessing Rose seeming to fall towards agony as she held the other woman, trending towards something like despair.

“Gone”

“I know,” Rose’s voice was full of empathy.

“Alone”

“I know”

“Never alone”

“I know” Now Rose seemed to be choking on a sob.

“Done.” Rose nodded slightly, their foreheads still pressing together, and the woman’s tears slowed and quieted. Mickey thought Rose had finally, somehow, calmed her down, until Rose started crying again, the woman slumped against her as she laid her down gently. Rose reached up and closed her three eyes, choking out ‘I know. I know… me, too, sweetheart.’ A moment’s true sorrow, then Rose began to compose herself, wiping her eyes. She took a deep, shuddering breath, then pulled herself upright, replacing the strong set of her shoulders.

“Report two dead from natural causes in the crash, Micks. I’ll write an informational report for the general index next week.”

“Babe, I don’t want to ask anything of you right now, but I need an explanation of what the danger was, at least.”

She sighed, looking straight ahead, staring at the ground several feet in front of her. “Telepathic species. They had a Marriage bond--when broken, widows often go mad… destroy everyone in range, die of grief, kill anyone who ever threatened their spouse. Murder across all the stars and so on. Whatever they go with."

“How'd you stop her, then?”

Rose sighed. "I projected my own broken bond. She recognized I would never have killed her husband, that I understood what she was going through."

"And… and why'd she die?"

"Cus that's what most people do when their bond breaks and they run out of vengeance or madness. Micks, I need a shower." She walked away, and he let her go, watching her with agony in his eyes. Once she had collected herself, an extremely carefully-written report was filed with a very brief informational supplement from Rose, and she never spoke of it again.

He’d caught one of the guys taking cheap shots about the prissy heiress who killed aliens by crying at them. He’d been written up, demoted, and transferred to Jake’s team without hesitation. He’d’ve done the same for anyone else on his team who was being mocked for heroism, but when it was Rose, he didn’t feel a sliver of guilt about it.

Mickey was extremely certain of one thing. Rose was his best friend. He loved her. And no one, no one was allowed to mess with her. Not on his watch.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven

Rose was going to suffer for this so much. As much as possible, Pete had shifted Vitex events to Saturdays and Sundays, allowing her to sleep during the day to compensate for the late night, but sometimes, it was what it was. This was one of those times. One of the Vitex Board Members was announcing his run for Regional Chancellor, and the celebration needed to go off, on schedule, with the appropriate support. She had met Reginald a few times; he seemed like a reasonable choice, as much as anyone ever was. Pete had been apologetic when he told her about it, which she appreciated… it was a big change from how things had begun.

*
When they first arrived, Pete had been over the moon to have Jackie with him again. All he wanted to do was drag her away, spend hours comparing life stories, catch up on what they had missed, getting to know the slightly-different version of the person they had loved. And, he had clung to it with a desperation that was blinding, hoping to soon be fully and truly in love again, to replace the wife he had lost years before she died, to be happy again. Jackie had been all for that… as soon as she dealt with Rose. Rose, who was mourning and crying, sometimes holding her head and screaming, who seemed to have fallen completely apart.

After her initial first few days, the screaming became less frequent. The weeping didn’t stop for several days longer. Frankly, she had seemed catatonic. He wasn’t sure just what to do with this human blob living in his house, tucked into a bed Jackie had picked for her, being fretted over by his wife, back from the dead and barely looking at him. Resenting Rose was easy. He had seen her with the Doctor, the way they worked together and interacted. He understood they were best friends, that perhaps his wife’s daughter had feelings for the man, which was frankly ridiculous. The Doctor, according to Mickey, was an alien who had the ability to travel through time, who understood things beyond any human understanding, who was clever and brave and apparently ancient and possibly immortal. This pathetic carrying on and caterwauling needed to stop. They never would have been together. Jackie was a shining star, but Rose? She was a sniveling mess on her own, selfish and juvenile. She was never going to land the affections of that alien that humored her around space and time.

Pete and Rose were already awkward after their previous meeting, and now she was the obstacle between him and his happily ever after… he had always wanted children, but she wasn’t his, and they both knew it. He happily accepted her into Torchwood, glad to see her pick herself up a bit and trusting Mickey’s word and her experience, and he found himself justifying rapid advancement based on what she brought to the table daily. A brave, capable, semi-friendly employee was very welcome. Once she returned to the mansion, the burden of his sort-of-step-daughter wasn’t as desirable to keep company with. As a rule, at first, he simply chose not to. Jackie hadn’t tolerated that for long, demanding family meal times for dinner. Remembering years of eating separately, longing for just that, he could hardly say no.

He could tell Jackie was trying to help him feel more comfortable with Rose. They talked about the memories and life they had shared, and Rose occasionally smiled and laughed, and he appreciated her wit and the brightness of her personality. All of it served to underscore that they had a lifetime together he did not, that he did not fit in, and that that life was spent on the Estate, never bothering with the fussiness and propriety that had become an inherent part of his life. He didn’t fit with them. They didn’t fit with him. Jackie would always be the right woman for him… but Rose represented all the things they had to overcome. And the reason they didn’t seem to have enough time to do so.

*

These days, Pete was on-side. Not just nominally, but truly developing a relationship with her. It was one she wasn’t entirely certain they would have if not for the baby, and she was grateful for yet another chance to bond with the father she had never known. She wasn’t sure he was quite a father to her, but a somewhat awkward step-father, certainly. A man who hadn’t raised her and didn’t know all about her, didn’t hold her as the center of his universe as she was certain the Doctor would hold their little one, but who cared about her and for her. She felt the same, especially now that she could see how happy he was making her mum. She deserved to be happy. And the chance to dress up, to feel beautiful and treasured, and to feel important enough to be seen certainly did that for Jackie. She suspected Pete was rather sick of the pomp of his circumstances, but it was expected of him, so on he went with it.

Rose came home from Torchwood promptly Friday afternoon, but did not deviate from her routine, entering the house ahead of Pete, kissing her mum, and heading upstairs, nibbling on a tray while she collapsed into bed, setting an alarm. She had time for a nap, and really, whether she had time or not, she needed one.

A few hours later, the alarm woke a miserable Rose, who began to stumble groggily through the process of getting stupidly dressed up for a meaningless political event she didn’t even care about. Jackie sent someone up with a cup of tea, and Rose felt the whole world get much better and brighter as she sipped it and wandered toward the wardrobe, pulling a brush through her hair and looking at the options. It was full of things she’d never liked before. She didn’t really like them now, but she knew she’d need to establish her style early so that she could conceal changes as long as possible. The burnout and surplice style blouses she wore to work--close enough to her body to stay out of her way, nice enough to look professional, loose in convenient places--the peasant blouses and long duster cardigans she wore around town and around the house, and especially the array of loose, pleated A-line and Empire waisted cocktail and formal dresses. She glanced through them, trying to remember if there was a plan for tonight or if she had to make a completely independent choice.

She sighed. Reginald was running for Chancellor as a member of the Ecology Party. They represented themselves in green. She flipped through the dresses she'd yet to wear. She had a deep forest green empire waist and a bolder, brighter green A-line. Both tea length, both appropriate for the evening. Last week she'd worn an a-line. Empire it was, then. She threw it on the bed and grabbed appropriate shoes, throwing her hair up and missing ever getting dressed in something she liked and wearing it because she wanted to.

She and the Doctor had crashed enough parties--sometimes they'd had a ball, and she would dress up, and he would get all awkward and offer some ambivalent compliment. Other adventures they snuck in for intelligence as waitstaff or some other service role. And on a few memorable occasions after they admitted their feelings and began their journey toward bonding, they went very honestly just for fun, and she dressed up with even more enthusiasm, and he would say something very sweet, and loving, and tender, and she would be swept off her feet all over again by the romance of it all as he danced with her and spoiled her… until they were caught breaking rules about smiling, or hand holding, or not dancing with the prince, and then they ran laughing all the way back to the TARDIS. They’d slam the doors behind them, laughing like fools, and he’d sweep her up in his arms and kiss her, so full of the sheer delight of living and loving with her.

Rose went to wash her face before slapping on the safest, least toxic make up she'd been able to find, leaving the dress hung on the doors to the wardrobe. It wasn’t her style, but at least she could still run in it. That had remained a constant in her choice of clothing-- a small concession that, while aiding her profession, was done simply for the sake of connection to the life she wished she were living.

Foregoing a shower, as she now required supervision lest she overheat and get dizzy, Rose managed to get herself dressed, done up, and ready to go in plenty of time. It helped, she had come to realize, if you don’t really care about where you are going. A desire to impress the Doctor and she would be focusing intently on her preparations. Meeting political need was easier--she threw on what was needed to achieve her purpose and moved on.

*

A month of Rose at Torchwood had him admitting that at least the Doctor had taught Rose some things, and that her determination to avoid her problems saw her throw herself dedicatedly into her work. Pete was trying hard to find ways to like Rose. And he did--he really appreciated Agent Tyler’s work, and how much of a help she had been on the cases she was assigned. He was pleased to see her bridging gaps between departments and lending expertise where she had it to spare. She frequently intervened with species they were unfamiliar with, and he had created a supplemental information report just to organize the additions to the database she made regularly. He quickly added into her background that she had spent her higher education in confidential settings, then sat back and enjoyed the benefits of her knowledge, even as some of the case reports left him a bit off-footed

Yes, Agent Tyler was an asset. Rose, the invader on his home and the reason he and Jackie were still dancing around each other, was less likable. She seemed completely incapable of taking care of herself if she wasn’t doing something. He suspected what she was mourning so deeply was a life free of responsibility to anything other than adventure--she seemed very bad at living outside of work. While he was impressed by his new employee, he wondered how anyone raised by Jackie could have such little commitment to anything else. Rose seemed too incompetent to eat, too lazy to participate in family life, too dull to make friends outside work…. In the interest of making nice with his wife, and in attempting to find peace, he made an effort, as much as possible, to think of Agent Tyler more often than of Rose. It was working nicely.

It had been working nicely. The last several days, Jackie had been as anxious as when they first came home with him. She denied it, but it was obvious something had set her off, and the way she telegraphed her feelings--glancing at her daughter, fretting and making her favorite foods, suddenly catering to her whims--made it clear. Whatever was wrong was Rose’s fault. Again.

For the last few days over the dinner table, they’d exchanged glances. Jackie would look at Rose, and Rose would take a deep breath, and then she would close her mouth and look down, and shake her head, looking at Jackie pleadingly, and Jackie would get all sympathetic. She was an angel of mercy, his Jacks, but Rose was far too old to be playing on her feelings like this. It was unacceptable to put Jackie through all this stress and wondering. And he didn’t much like that continuing feeling of not belonging in his own home.

He had been working himself up to confront Rose himself, to tell him that whatever nonsense she was involving her mother in, she needed to stop and let her mother have the chance to be happy and get on with her life, when Rose found him in the Den. Lovely. Straight to it, then.

“D’you have a minute?” There she stood, looking sweet and vulnerable, and he tried, one last time, for Jackie, to think of what Agent Tyler might need to be in quite this state, instead of as strong and capable as she always was. So he would be kind. To Agent Tyler, who was just a friend of a friend who worked for him and did a good job, and never impacted his marriage. Relationship. Dating situation. Whatever.

He stepped out from behind his desk, closing the book he’d been ignoring and setting down the pen that had been making angry squiggles on the blotter next to it, and motioned for her to sit. “Yeah, of course.”

They sat, and he did his absolute best to be patient as, after asking to talk to him, she proceeded to not do so for long, long moments. After a few failed attempts, she managed a self-deprecating smile. “Sorry. I’ve been trying to figure out… I know I needed to tell you some things, I just. Well. Not easy, yeah?”

She seemed to be looking for reassurance. He didn’t have much for her in the way of patience, much less compassion. “I guess not. So. What is it, then, Rose?” Agent Tyler he tried to remind himself. It wasn’t working.

She looked a bit taken aback, which was somewhat rich, considering they both knew where they stood with each other. She must really need to feed off his support right now. Well, she was a big girl. She was already tormenting his Jackie for that. He wasn’t going to enable this.

She shook herself lightly, and drew herself upright. Now she looked a bit more like Agent Tyler. Finally trying to stand up on her own two feet, metaphorically, since she was still seated, and just handle this conversation instead of being led through it like a child.

“Right. I…” Rose took a deep breath, then looked him in the eye, being direct and clear and mostly calm. “I’m pregnant.”

Silence.

*

She was posted casually near the door, wearing her large, fake smile, where she could readily welcome everyone into the party, nodding them towards her parents, the power couple, and to the staff bearing gifts of champagne and the posh finger foods she quietly called ‘nibbles’ in her own mind. She’d been over her bullet points about Reginald and the party, mentioned whatever seemed appropriate if asked, and enthused about his ‘exciting news’ of running if she wasn’t. This was a fancy party, she was a woman. Her job was to smooze, not to have opinions people didn’t ask for. She might hate it, but it was one of the ways Pete’s World was no different. Those were the rules she needed to play by in her role here.

Violins played softly in the background, polite laughter echoed around the room, and it seemed largely successful. Pete held court with Jackie on his arm smiling brightly, but saying little. People were still getting used to a new, quieter Jackie, and there were always whispers about it. It helped, honestly, because it took attention from Rose and drew it to her mother, who had a more plausible cover story. Jackie Tyler had been found unconscious in the original London cyber converters, shut down just in the nick of time, by her daughter. She had been timid and afraid, especially of her home, and had spent years with her daughter before she was ready for them to go home, together. Rose had apparently left Pete to think they were dead all the while, or maybe hadn’t known how to reach him. Now she struggled on occasion to remember old acquaintances and didn’t speak up quite as readily as she caught back up with the social and political scene, but she hadn’t neglected them completely.

It worked, as cover stories went. The whispers were normal by now, and focused on how much better poor dear Jackie was doing, or even how much stronger she and Pete seemed coming out the other side of it. They’d become one of those love stories about tribulation and distance only making a couple stronger. Rose didn’t like those any more. She had concluded that a couple did not need those things to be stronger. They needed conversations--difficult ones--and shared convictions, and a determination to be on one another’s side in any conflict. The fact that hard times demanded those didn’t mean that hard times themselves were important. People just wanted an excuse to romanticize tragedy and rough patches.

Rose was living a tragedy. It was a rough patch she wasn’t sure would ever end. She was extremely certain that there was absolutely nothing romantic about it.

She turned to greet Martin Frobsdale, one of the most annoying men on the planet, with a fake smile, clinking her champagne glass with his and taking a sip to avoid having to hug him as she carried on celebrating the new candidacy.

*

Pregnant.

Pete took a deep breath. He found it did not help.

“Pete?” That small, insecure voice was back, “Did you hear me?” He tried counting to 10. It was also not effective.

Peter Tyler had always considered himself an agreeable man. Loving, friendly, principled. He got along with most anyone, and empathized with most everyone else. That had changed when he lost his wife, and again when he began leading a war to save the world. And again when he finally had some light brought back to his life, only to have this teenager stand in his way. So perhaps he needed to reassess himself. He was an agreeable man, but he had his limits. You can trust me on this.

“I’m--it’s--the baby, it’s” she started stammering out uselessly.

“No.”

She blinked at him. “Wha?”

“No,” he repeated, standing up. “Now you are going to listen to me, young lady, and you are going to do it well. You have been nothing but a melodramatic mess since you came here. You have driven your mother spare at every turn. You screamed for days on end like a complete lunatic, then you cried for days when you finally stopped, like some pathetic child having a temper tantrum that you are far too old to have and that you have no business dragging on for so long. You finally seemed to be getting your act together, behaving like an adult, coming to work, and at least at work you’re a decent employee. Then I come home, and here you are, too stupid to so much as feed yourself, your mother spending her every waking moment fretting over you and your mindless drama, your endless, selfish garbage, and it’s breaking your mother’s heart. Her heart that’s supposed to belong to me, but no, we can’t even get through a bloody date night without your caterwauling upsetting her, can we?”

He looked up to see her shrinking in on herself, tears trailing down her face. Oh, but this had been a long time coming. “Oh, and don’t you think those crocodile tears are going to get to me like they do your mum, Missy. You don’t have decades manipulating me to fall back on! No, you land here, destroy Jackie’s chances to settle in, and then here you are, went and got yourself up the bloody pole with some drunk idiot. While I applaud you finally trying to get over your absurd crush on the Doctor, did you really have to go out and get too plastered to see straight? Couldn’t have enough respect for your mum to behave out there in public, wound up crawling all over whoever would have you?”

She was on her feet, and he hadn’t quite noticed when that had happened. Her hands were balled into fists held straight down, by her side, her jaw clenched, her eyes burning rage into him. “Finished yet?” she bit out.

“No, I have not.” He stopped himself and closed his eyes. This wasn’t doing any good, even if it was oddly nice to vent his spleen for the first time in quite a while. He took a deep breath, holding up a finger, asking for a moment while he sought some calm. “Alright. You have to understand how important it is for you not to call attention to yourself. Jackie I could have covered for easily, but my mysterious grown up daughter is the most ridiculous cover story the world has ever seen. I thought that much at least you were going to succeed at. If you keep pulling in attention… you’re going to put Jackie at risk, and I won’t allow that. She’s my only priority.”

He crossed to his desk, perching on the edge and gesturing for Rose to sit, but she refused, crossing her arms and glaring, though with less fury than before.

“Alright,” he repeated. “All we can do is deal with what comes next. You were supposed to maintain your image as the heiress. I suppose you wouldn’t be the first one to humiliate her parents in the tabloids. Could’ve done without that, thanks. Now I get to defend my imaginary parenting choices in front of the board once a week when they have another good story on your many mystery lovers in the tabloids. I don’t appreciate that, nor the toll this is going to take on Jacks. And speaking of, Jackie already raised a baby alone. I’m never going to allow you to put her through it again, at her age, to raise your baby. You’re going to have to manage on your own. And Rose, between the press, the pressure, having to go from lovesick teenager to single mum in half a heartbeat,” he swallowed. He’d suggested a lot of things that might have made him feel ill since the cybermen came. He’d gone numb to it instead. He once told the Doctor an entire universe could be slaughtered if his stayed safe. And she wasn’t really his daughter. He could say it. “Perhaps it would be better if you didn’t do this. I--” he swallowed again. Told himself he was being kind, that he wasn’t manipulating her with financial blackmail. Knew it was a lie. “I’ll pay. If you… if you take care of it.”

And, to Pete’s utter astonishment, Rose snorted.

*

Rose, of course, wouldn’t touch champagne, but it was easier to have a designated glass of sparkling cider to fake-sip all night than it was to decide the heiress was an abolitionist and yet neither political nor fresh from rehab. So she stood by as elegantly as she could, smiling, laughing, continuing her standing policy of absolutely never accepting an invitation to dance from anyone but her father. It was a policy she was always particularly grateful of when Martin wanted her attention. He never quite crossed any lines, but he was always a touch… relentless. He stood one step closer than was polite. He asked to dance a few times too many. If she couldn’t escape a hug, he went for a real one, not a polite, somewhat distanced one. In short, he made her skin crawl. She’d brushed him off enough times for anyone to notice, and he was refusing to.

She was mourning her bondmate. She wasn’t in the market for a sniveling, gold-digging, stalkerish hanger-on. She particularly didn’t want one who looked down on her. And one who had no physical boundaries and was liable to notice her body changing the moment it did and he got close enough to feel it was the least welcome thing on the planet. Martin had not received the memo, however, so he continued drooling all over her. Tonight’s attempt was to stand next to her with his hand on the small of her back. She must have stepped over to greet someone, turned to look at him, or leaned forward five times in three minutes. He just followed and readjusted. Rose caught the eye of Susan, the nearest member of staff, and received a nod in return. A few more minutes of skin crawling and she’d be rescued. She could hang on that long without resorting to more drastic measures.

Probably.

“Rose!” Mickey’s ebullient voice cut through the crowd from where he was mingling behind her. She turned, her smile genuine for a change, and threw her arms around him.

“Mickey! How did I miss you coming in?” She hadn’t. They’d said hello ten minutes ago. He wrapped his arms around her and she wished they felt as safe and comforting as the Doctor’s did. Still, it helped.

“Well, let me see,” he pulled back, glancing at her, “lovely as always, Rose. And always in fashion!”

“Miss Tyler is the one setting the current fashion, Mister…” Martin snuck up behind her and sneered.

“Smith. And yeah, mate. That was the joke. But s’alright, we can find another joke around here somewhere, I’m sure,” Mickey replied coolly, looking Martin right in the eye. He let it sit just a half a beat, enough to nearly become too insulting for Rose to be allowed to let it pass, before he turned to her, all smiles. “Did your Dad replace the artwork by the East entrance? You have to show me…” and he dragged her away on his arm, yammering out another couple mindless sentences until they’d gotten some distance. “You okay, babe?”

“Yeah, fine,” she smiled resignedly. “Just wish I could take off running from guys like him and never look back, you know?” He smiled. He knew all too well what she meant.

“He’s starting to get too determined. You should have Pete reconsider his invitations.” Mickey had that best-mate look on his face, the one that meant he was just as happy to kick Martin in the teeth for her and tell him where to go.

“I will if it keeps up. But it's hard to exclude him; he’s too important. And besides… him on the pull isn’t the worst suggestion I’ve put up with in this house.”

*

Looking up at her, unsure of when he had started staring determinedly over her left shoulder, he was surprised to see derision perhaps even wry amusement on her face as she stood, arms crossed, eyebrow raised. “Ya done now?”

Her condescension, her pride, and her absolute lack of any willingness to be affected by his words irritated him… but he had said his bit. So perhaps it was time, then. “By all means,” he gestured for her to go ahead with no small amount of sarcasm.

Her mouth quirked up at the side, her gaze cool and powerful, and he suddenly felt like he imagined their extraterrestrial trespassers did when she stood in front of them, authoritatively holding all the cards.

“You have never been so lucky in your life.” she declared, calmly and clearly.

“Excuse me?” Could she at least opt to make more sense if she wasn’t going to start being cooperative?

“You have never, in a thousand lifetimes across all the universes, been as lucky as you are, right now, in this exact moment, that the Doctor isn't here.”

He rolled his eyes. "Not again, Rose. He's some distant fantasy and a friend who let you follow him around while he saves the universe for a while. You were never going to get together with him. You're not even the same species. And now you’ve gone and gotten up the duff here. He doesn’t miss you.”

She raised her chin in challenge, otherwise not moving, speaking as though she hadn’t heard him. "You are lucky he's not here, because that man, the best man I know: The man who had empathy for cybermen and mercy for a Dalek, that man would not be able to find a shred of concern for you. Not while you're belittling his wife and threatening his child. Now me? I'm going to fight to the death for my baby. Against you, if I have to. Say a single word about this baby, give a single hint something even might be off, and I will make sure the world knows you're a shape-shifter and it's your alien child I'm carrying. Everyone will know you murdered the hero, Pete Tyler, and tortured his family. I’ll play the victim so well they’ll come out for your blood before they’ve put their bloody shoes on. I'll take you down with me, and I'll see you go first. Goodnight."

And she turned and walked out of the room, looking strong, powerful, and in control… and completely more terrifying and intimidating than anyone at 5' 5" had any right to look. Agent Tyler… he really did like her, when she was pointed at someone else.

And Rose… it seemed maybe he needed to reevaluate his opinion of her, as well. Completely.

He sat staring straight ahead for a while, numb and overwhelmed, the words ‘wife and child’ ringing in his head until Jackie found him.

*

Mickey only stayed with Rose for a few minutes, long enough to remove her from the circumstance, but not long enough for their interaction to seem unusual or make the papers, she hoped. He quickly was brought into conversation with one of the Vitex boardmember’s daughters, and Rose was thrilled. They’d talk about soccer (not football, not here) for at least half an hour, both would be happy to escape all the unnecessary formality, and the tabloids would decide Mickey was probably more interested in her than in Rose and not bother printing anything. She noted the time, and realized new arrivals were unlikely now. Thank goodness. She stole away to the bathrooms a moment and took the excuse to sit for a good 10 minutes before return, a bright smile pasted on, to stand beside her parents.

Pete smiled over at her, tucking Jackie’s hand into his arm so he could let go of it without letting go of her. Rose smiled at the sentimentality. Even if it hurt her to be without the man she wanted to hold her hand, she was immeasurably glad to see Jackie have hers back. Pete took a fork and gently clinked his glass for attention, which he rapidly received. Rose tuned out most of his speech--thank you for coming; so glad to celebrate this momentous news; Reginald is a Prince among men, but since the Monarchy has been gone for centuries, we’ll have to elect him (polite laugh); etc etc. She’d heard him rehearsing it the other evening, and she’d read the cliffnotes yesterday. She focused on standing straight and proud, smiling politely, and watching her parents make eye contact at every bad joke in the speech. They were still flirting, still smiling, still so adorable and in love, and it made Rose’s heart swell. Her whole life, she’d seen her mother be alone, lonely, and never really meeting anyone who cared enough to try to be in her life and not just her bed. Seeing her mother happy was a wonderful change. It was everything she had desperately hoped for when she had told her mother to go, and to let her stay.

Love looked good on Jackie Tyler. She smiled brighter, she laughed longer, and she hugged better--which was saying something, as hugs had always been her specialty. Rose tuned in again as Pete gestured to Reginald, who waved as he walked over to take the non-existant stage. He shook Pete’s hand, kissed Jackie on the cheek, and surprised Rose by taking and kissing her hand. It would be a somewhat public statement of affection beyond what political courtesy really required. She wasn’t sure she really welcomed it, to be honest, especially because that was one of the things she most missed the Doctor doing. Still, she smiled and applauded, stepping back as her parents did. She didn’t have to like him filling the Doctor’s shoes to know that someone supposing the baby might be his, and him deciding to get defensive over a woman he had feelings for, would be a convenient extra layer of protection. She refused to encourage him… but she could tolerate not refusing him, at least for now. Her mother looked over at her and shook her head a little. Rose wasn’t the only one conflicted, it seemed. Pete just laid his hand over Jackie’s, still resting in the crook of his arm, and she seemed to forget the world immediately, as she and Pete took a moment to stare into one another’s eyes, losing track of the speech and all the rest of the world as they did so.

*

“Found” was pushing the description a bit. Jackie came storming in in a towering rage the likes of which he’d never seen. She was stalking towards him, and so Pete spoke up, to cut her off before she could say anything.

“So I guess Rose has chosen to come running to you with her story?”

Crack! Pete’s head whipped to the side. His ears rung. His head swum. He temporarily wondered what alien species had invaded his home (what were the Doctor’s people called? He supposed they had) until he caught up with what had happened. “You can jus shut up, an you stay that way! I heard enough meself without needin to be told! How dare you?!” Jackie punctuated the question by pointing her finger in his face before swinging her hands up in frustration as she continued, “Jus what do you think you were doing, talking to my Rose like that? I don’t ever want to hear another sound outta your mouth if that’s what you’ve learned to say in the last twenty years.”

Pete gaped at her, his mouth flapping confusedly, holding his throbbing cheek.

“Well? What’ve you got to say, then, ey? Cus you’re gonna say it now, or you’re not gonna be talkin at all!”

He desperately tried to stammer out some sounds. “I-Jacks, I- She just- I-”

Jackie was still pacing and gesticulating, a sure sign he was in trouble. “Yeah, you what? Blimey, you sound almost as much of a plonker as you did before! Have you any idea what you said to my daughter or have you completely lost your bleeding mind?”

“I don’t know what she’s told you, but--”

“Oh you just shut up! And I’ll tell you what she told me, free of charge. She’s told me we can’t pack our bags and walk out, because she can’t draw any attention to herself at all. She’s told me she wasn’t expecting to have any help or support from you, anyway, and that she’s bloody sorry she’s ruining my shot with you, which has got to be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. And she’s told me all the plans she’s made to keep the man who wants to be my husband again from having my daughter and grandchild killed. So you had better know, Peter Alan Tyler, that I’m not siding with the man who just threatened to kick her to the curb and bribe her to kill her baby.” She was pointing in his face again, in between gesturing to the ceiling where Rose’s guest room was.

“I didn’t know she was Married! Or that she’s the broodmare of some endangered species!” Pete sputtered back at her in a half-baked effort at defense, wondering if this tirade (which, he was sure, he didn’t deserve. Probably) was going to end soon

“Oh, I could slap you again. Like any of that matters! Like it could ever matter what you did or didn’t know when you said what you did. You decided that baby, my grandbaby was too inconvenient to live! Well, I’m sorry that Rose and I staying alive coming here has been so hard on you. I’m sure you’re just miserable having to live with us and talk about us and act like you have a family. So I’ll tell you what--you’ll never have to pretend that you’ve got one once you get home. We’re no family to you an I’ll give you no trouble on that. I sat with my daughter, who is a better, stronger person than you could ever be, til she fell asleep, and then I came back to tell ya. I was jus outside the door. I heard it all.”

Pete swallowed. Okay, he possibly wasn’t going to come out on top of this one. Jackie had warned him a couple times that Rose and the Doctor were something special, even if she hadn’t been sure if they were together. She’d heard his opinion on that. And his attitude with her daughter. And… yeah, this wasn’t going to go well at all, was it? Not if Jackie heard what he said and wasn’t going to let him play it off.

“So no, Pete, things haven't been easy between you an I. An maybe it's because I told you I'd gotten used to life without you and my priority was Rose before we ever came here, and you're still expecting me to jump straight into your arms when she needs me. She just lost her ‘Pete,’ you bleeding idiot! ‘Ow long did it take you, then, to get over losing your Jackie? I think it’s plenty reasonable to ask for a month of patience for her! We've got time again, we can get to us. But not if you're not even gonna try and notice my daughter comes first.”

Pete stared at the carpet for a long moment, opening his mouth a few times, closing it with nothing to say. He’d dedicated twenty years to building a business empire, and then lost his wife and focused himself on leading the war against the cybers. He had not spent much time practicing apologies or admitting when he was wrong. After a good minute of quiet, he tried again.

“Jacks, I… I didn’t….” think. I didn’t listen. I didn’t care. Nothing he could say was really going to help.

“I know I ain't your Jackie, that she had changed, a lot, in the last couple years. And I know you split up afore ya lost her, and ya still loved er, an I'm sorry. But Pete, I'm not her. I changed from who I was. I raised a daughter, alone, on the estate, an it wasn’ easy. An you and ‘er got to live the posh life and become a whole differen kind of person. An I think you need to consider tha maybe you've changed in the last 20 years, too, before you lost er and since, an maybe not all of it's good. Cus if you can watch Rose in pain and be mad that it's slowing down your schedule for us, which by the bloody way I've never been asked for an opinion on, and if you can see her in a crisis and complain about your image… If you can learn she's a Mum and decide that her baby should be killed because you don’t like the way it makes you look, and then try and bribe her to do it… ow many times did you see some pathetic wanker do the same on the estate, huh? If you can say, even think, any of that, you aren't my Pete anymore. An I don't want you back. So you do some real thinking about what you've gone and changed into while you wait for me to have time to deal with you proper. Cus right now, Pete Tyler, I'd rather be stuck with a bloody cyberman."

She threw him a final look of disgust, then walked out of the den as well, no hesitation, no glance behind, same as her daughter. What she lacked in power, authority, and control, she made up for in harshness, anger, and the simple fact that he had hung his every hope on her. He might have thought her breathtaking if he wasn't devastated. He tried to sink onto the sofa, only to miss and land in a heap on the floor, where he let himself begin to cry.

*
Reginald’s speech ended, and then applauded politely. Rose wondered if the strain behind her smile was showing. Pete kissed Jackie’s hand, but then left her with her glass of champagne, much to Rose’s surprise. They were inseparable, these days. Instead he approached her with a warm smile and an extended hand as the string quartet began to play again. “Would you like to dance, Rose?”

She smiled, brightly and somewhat more genuinely. “Thank you.”

Pete swept her out onto the floor to a peaceful, slow tune, holding her close enough that she didn’t have to worry about wobbling or keeping up well with the footwork. “You like Reginald’s speech?” he asked quietly.

She gave a small chuckle. “Dunno. You’ll have to tell me what he said in the morning. Caught the gist of yours, though. More jokes than I remember.”

He paused before admitting, “I may have decided to make a point, these days, of always including a good couple Dad jokes. I think it’s important.” She beamed at him, all genuine affection and love at how intentionally he was trying to fill up the holes in their relationship. She followed his lead in a small underarm spin, and he pulled her in and kissed her on the forehead.

“You look done in,” he commented, studying her a bit.

“I’ll be alright” she claimed in protest. “It’s tough, but it’s only a few more hours. But good luck getting me up tomorrow!”

Pete laughed with her, “I don’t think I can afford the hazard pay to get the staff to do it.” Rose grinned at him, genuinely. Pete’s smile faded a bit. “You need an out tonight, Rose. I know you’ve been struggling to sleep a couple times this week. Come with me.”

Song ended, he lead her off the floor, both applauding politely with the partygoers, and then took her to the back table. He put on his serious voice. “Something I set aside earlier. These are all copied and prepared. No one needs to do anything with them. Just walk purposefully out with them, leave them in the front hall and go to bed, okay, Rose?”

She was touched, both that he noticed the strain she was laboring under, and that he had prepared something ahead for her to use to get out if she needed it. It wasn’t a luxury they could afford often, but she agreed that she could probably afford it now that the speeches were done for the evening, and that frankly she needed it. She nodded seriously at Pete, picked up the files, and strode out purposefully, leaving them downstairs as directed and wearily climbing the stairs to her room, where she freed herself of her heels before giving up on the matter and falling directly into bed. It was nice, she thought, having a Dad to look out for you.

’Have to arrange for that to happen for you, too, little one,’ she thought groggily, her last thought before dropping off to sleep completely.
*

Thirty minutes after Jackie left him, he heard one of Rose’s many nightmares waking her, and likely Jackie, with a new round of the screaming that had plagued her since she was separated from the Doctor… her husband, apparently. The thought struck a chord with him, connected to a memory from a few weeks back.

He reached for his work phone. Mickey answered promptly, despite the late hour. "Yeah, boss?"

"Mickey, I was thinking about the Calphani. How important them being telepathic was to… everything about that situation. Think we've ever run into a similar race together?" He hoped he wasn't breaking a rule asking. That it wouldn’t be considered taking a risk, or being nosy. And that Mickey would understand what he was trying to ask. He suddenly found he needed to know. Now.

Mickey was quiet for a moment, like he was thinking how he wanted to answer. When he did reply, he sounded the tiniest bit angry, maybe defensive, underneath his casual tone. "Yeah, mate. Reckon it's nobody's business but theirs, o course. They can share if they want, or not. But I'm sure you ‘n I have seen it before."

He hung up the phone.

Jackie was right. He'd become a lot of things to succeed in business, to celebrate being allowed to be someone different than who he’d been born, to succeed against the cybermen, to avoid feeling too much about his wife’s death. Not all of those things were necessary, possibly even less of them were good. Maybe he needed to consider somewhere along the way he’d become… a bit heartless. And how could he expect Jackie to want anyone like that around? Pete stayed up a long time that night, listening to his not-daughter’s screams.

Chapter Text

No amount of nervous energy on his part could change the TARDIS’s need to rest. He had a plan of attack. A path forward. Find the Face of Boe so he could piggyback on Jack’s relationship with Rose and pull them home when he left Pete’s world. He was ready to do that. Now. Immediately. Yesterday. He had spent years trying to find a way to Rose. He didn’t want to wait another day.

At least, he comforted himself, it’s one of his days. He has a completely unbearable number ahead of him. Rose’s, though… every last one is priceless, precious, indispensable. His Rose Tyler. Early in his ninth life, he’d found himself unwilling to chance missing the time she had for him. If she wanted to stay with Jackie, he could spare a few of her hours… but he stayed, parked in the TARDIS, until she was ready to go. He rarely traveled in space, and never in time, while she wasn’t with him. To do so was to risk missing more of those precious seconds and hours and days. He had felt genuine sympathy (to which he would never admit) for Jackie, having missed out on that whole year of Rose--only a few days for Rose, but Jackie wouldn’t get that time back. Would miss a year’s worth of memories in the future. He was unwilling to chance doing the same to himself, so he sat by, like a bloke outside a dressing room holding a purse. Waiting for Rose to come back and free him from the domestic teedium, but entirely unwilling to not be nearby the instant she was ready to go.

He settled into the chair, attempting to find one of those moments of deep, quiet contemplation, cuddled up to the thought of her as he wished he were to her person. He had dedicated himself to compressing his timeline. Early in his search for a way back to Rose, after several agony-filled weeks in the vortex, he had recalled suddenly and with perfect clarity that it had been more than three years since they said goodbye to Mickey. While he and Rose hadn’t been exactly linear to Earth, especially when they were attempting a nice, romantic honeymoon, it hadn’t been nearly that long for them or the planet. That thought was absolutely terrifying. He could get back to her in a day for him, a week in linear time, and have lost a month or more with her. He had immediately cemented his retreat to the vortex, popping out for moments to scan and back in to analyze, preserving the timeline for as long as possible by taking himself out of it.

At long last, he had found a chance to at least speak to her… and was gutted to realize it had been months of her life he had missed, even to say goodbye. Because, if he ever found a way through… those months would be lost to him. Every precious second of Rose Tyler counted, and those were unrecoverable now. After he dropped Donna, he had fled--to the vortex, to the far side of the universe, doing the best he could to untether himself from linear time. He didn’t want to be trapped in events, locked into Christmas and afterward. Still searching for Rose, still hiding from time. He explored other galaxies, other worlds without her, wondering what clue in what time would lead him back to her. It was not particularly enjoyable. He was trapped in limbo. He had laid in contingencies when they had bonded, made promises to Rose, kept other things to himself. Plans to manage her loss without succumbing to madness. He didn’t want to execute them. It would be declaring her lost, would feel like executing her, and he could never do that. Ever. So he did none of the things he had prepared to protect himself from the pain, and the world from him. It helped, he imagined, that his broken bond could focus on finding his bondmate, instead of turning to avenging her. He could protect her by protecting time, save her and keep her alive by planning meticulously so he could retrieve her while she was still alive.

Martha had been a strategic choice. He had no intent of being on Earth, especially near Rose’s time, but he also knew he couldn’t avoid it forever. The TARDIS had insisted, and if he couldn’t trust her anymore, he truly had nothing left in the universe. Besides, she was bringing him pretty close, temporally, to that supernova. Linking him earlier in the timeline than Donna, closer to that no-confidence vote buried in the back pages of the paper he’d seen the ‘Ghost Weather Report’ in. After the hospital, Martha had seemed like a decent enough companion, and one who distinctly did not want to visit home. Her travels with him, a day or a year, would be a secret from the world around him. She’d keep him company for a bit and return the next morning, and he suspected Rose would sacrifice the few days Martha’s twelve hours would cost if it meant he had a distraction to keep him sane, to prevent him from lashing out at the walls between universes.

Having to chase the Master to Earth was always terrifying. Having to chase the Master into a timestream that would eat away time with Rose was a nightmare. The reversing of the year was a relief, one he very guiltily treasured most because it meant he hadn’t lost years and years with Rose. The discovery of his child only served to confirm he had, until now, managed to remove his timeline from the equation and keep Rose in sync with linear Earth time. Now.. now they were probably tied to him. His baby’s mind was resting in his, the dormancy of sleep augmented by the distance from the vortex. He wondered when last he slept, and knew his child didn’t need his madness as an early mental stimulation. Focusing on that sweet, warm light, he slowly, restlessly managed to drift off to sleep.

He awoke to his own relentless nervous energy, bouncing upright, immediately tacking up another post-it onto his never ending wall of ‘ideas to explore to get home to Rose’. Well. More a bookshelf than a wall. At least, it had been. It had become a bit of a wall. Or a pegboard, maybe. Yes, that’s the word. He’d made himself a lovely pegboard full of all the ideas and articles and charts and printouts that might help him get to his wife, and added to it relentlessly over the last…. Well. While. He didn’t particularly want to count how long he’d been without her (he knew; the clock never stopped ticking in the back of his mind), he just wanted to know she didn’t have to wait as long for him, and that he could get her back. He had kept expanding his make-shift pegboard until all of the thoughts he’d had, that might somehow pan out, were recorded. There was a reason he’d kept it private from Martha, aside from not wanting to be distracted from the work by having to explain it. She was a medical student. If she caught even the slightest glimpse of this, he wasn’t entirely certain he wouldn’t be on earth, locked up in facilities that replaced Bedlam with less improvement than he’d like. He knew how it looked.

He didn’t care. He’d take it down the moment Rose was here to help. She could sit in his chair and catch up on useless gossip rags while he reorganized his notes into something coherent and worth preserving. Or, his vision shifted, maybe they could discuss names while he worked. Names, for the… their… his…

His baby.

He sat down, hard, on the arm chair again. His baby. He focused his attention on that tiny little light in his mind, temporally out of sync but still so present and beautiful and alive. Tears sprung to his eyes and he refused to let them fall. He was going to be a father again. Him! A father! No ‘going to be’ about it, really. That was such an odd, human turn of speech. He was a father, right now. Again. Impossibly. Incredibly.

Undeservedly.

Oh, he was going to be rubbish at this. He was off to a horrible start. Telling Rose it wasn’t possible, for one. He wondered if she was angry. Well. Of course she was. She was trapped far, far away from him, never to see him again, pregnant with a baby she hadn’t planned or asked for, by now, experiencing side effects she didn’t know how to cope with or care for properly, all because he said they didn’t need to concern themselves with it. It was, of course, impossible that she was pregnant. Completely impossible. Weeeell, except that she was, so obviously it wasn’t, and he clearly should have scanned more and assumed less. But really, in his defense, how could he be expected to anticipate that Rose would be completely and utterly unique among her species? Except that he told her that she was. Regularly. Really, it was almost best she wasn’t here to listen to his ramblings. He couldn’t even win this fight against himself.

But it wasn’t best she wasn’t here. It was always best when she was here. He even somewhat enjoyed losing fights to her. Kind of. He liked that when he lost, it was because she was always there, being wise, and loving, and pushing him to be the best of men. The losing, well… winning was still more fun. He’d preen, and she’d tease, and he’d make grandiose claims, and she’d swoop in and take all the wind out of his sails with a laugh or a kiss or a clever remark, and… and everything was perfect, then. Every moment with her, even the ones he’d hated, were perfect. Because she was in them.

The moments she was in danger, and he couldn’t solve it in time to keep her safe. The moments she was imprisoned, which was no big deal to him, but so far beneath her, even though she seemed to find most of it amusing. The time he’d refused to go to dinner with Jackie and the TARDIS had promptly landed on a planet where Rose had to claim him as a slave… which he realized four or five miles from the TARDIS, when they had to take shelter for several hours from the midday heat. The time she’d decided she would prove he slept and painted his toenails when she found him in the library.

The moments she demanded he make a shopping trip because she needed new trainers, and somehow that meant window shopping across a whole planet, even though no nefarious deeds were occurring on the entire planet. He knew. He’d checked. Every planet. Every time. “You always have liked her better than me, haven’t you, old girl?” A fond, affectionate nudge in his mind, perhaps still a bit weak. Sleepy, almost. When he got her back, there’d be a shopping trip, he was sure. In fact….

He shuffled through his carefully-designed piles and found a new sheet of paper, stretching it over the nearest clear shelves, covering up ‘Haikus of V’toth’. He grabbed his marker and started writing, pressing holes through the paper in places, much as he had on the others.

Shopping. Maternity clothes shopping [30th century Paris?] Baby shopping [Vtrax? New Lictenstein? Kamfir?]
Spa day

He should remember where it was she liked to go for that. They’d ended up on relaxation planets a couple times, sometimes on purpose. Her favorites, though… there was that one with the xtonic sunlight… where was that again? Hm… oh, and she had adored Galvestron! 6-handed massuers. He was sure at least some of them were prenatal certified. He could check into that for her.

Spa day. Galvestron, if prenatal safe.
Villengard. Babies need potassium.
Doctors. Vet 21st century for quality and discretion. Consider 70th century--cross-species common, still kind of normal for Rose.
Kerichan 4. Nice hiking, not too steep or hot for Rose with baby.
Erdrios 3, ball of springtide. Pregnant women celebrated,
Portenia. Peaceful, telepathic immersion for baby.
Thank-you ball on Quarnar. First world saved after bonding.

He didn’t usually stay around to be thanked. But they had slipped him a note, saying they would plan an event in one year, and they hoped the happy couple would join them. Rose loved dressing up. He loved seeing her dressed up. And… it would be a rather nice way to look back, to start their lives together again.

He smiled. This was nice. The least crazy list he had in the library, and of course it was a list of things he could do for Rose. Wanted to do. Things Rose had loved, or would love, or would need. Things his baby would need. Well, he had rather a lot to do now, didn’t he? He whirled around, intent on running towards the far side of the library where he could find both biology and xenobiology, only to find the shelves he needed had been moved directly behind him. Right. Best not cover those with papers, then.

Theoretical Treatise on the Xenobiological Incubation of a Gallifreyan Fetus; The Glorious History of Gallifrey, Volume II (he expected that was the last time natural reproduction was wide-spread in the anthology); What to Expect When You’re Expecting (hm, the 2010 reprint. Should be close enough, though); Larsen’s Human Embryology; and Williams Obstetrics were quickly flung over his shoulder, landing haphazardly in his armchair. He couldn’t decide between pacing excitedly (this was His Baby! The best creature in all of existence! Who could ever avoid leaping for joy?!) or sitting with a legal pad and pen, far more intent than in all his days of academy combined (This was His Baby! There would never be another more important, more deserving of his attention! He absolutely could not make any mistakes here).

He compromised by carrying each book with him through the library, pen between his teeth, legal pad tucked by the back cover, pausing two or three times each minute to make notes leaning on walls, shelves, or his knee, and occasionally making a mad sprint across the library to retrieve a different volume to compare notes and compile theories. How her body’s desire to gestate would combine with the baby’s desire to develop, the order of how things would grow and change and develop, what aspects of human or Gallifreyan genetics would take the lead where (and, while she’d say he was insulting other species again, the fact was he did expect Gallifreyan genes to be dominant. Hers were simply less complex; easier to overrule), and what potential nutritional deficits and supplemental developmental supports Rose and the baby would need to have addressed.

All of those theories soon became their own sheet of easel paper hung up on the bookshelves, as well.

Right. That done, then. Now. Face of Boe, off we go.

No. Right. Healing Tardis. Lovely.

He dug out blueprints for a transdimensional threshold erector, and began shuffling through storage rooms from the parts he’d need. Another list started, going up over ‘Pre-Jonian Earth Biographies’, of what he needed, what he could make, what he had to find. What planets he should go looking on.

The Doctor was not normally a ‘list’ person. Though ‘crazy notes of half-formed ideas stuck up everywhere’ wasn’t unlike him, his self-imposed semi-exile into the vortex, his desperation, and the sheer volume of things he had to think about right now had left him not alternative but to create them. His manic energy needed an outlet, especially when he was using it to hide something from himself, so endless research and theorization and the desperate need to log every potential, half-formed, half-baked notion, lest it be the one that finally sparked his way home, had resulted in this semi-organized, endless collection of ideas, in a library turned… not office, never office, that was far too dreary. Think-tank, yes, that’s what it was! He was a one-man think tank, working his way back to his wife, his child, thinking all the way there, using the power of his mind, filling this particular tank to the brim with idea, notions, thoughts… apparent schizophrenic tendencies…

He was no good at waiting, at sitting around trying to make long, extensive plans. That was a Time Lord trait if ever there was one, and he had absolutely not received that gene. He wanted to be out there, running, making it happen, flying by the seat of his pants. The TARDIS had needed long periods of rest before, of course. It was hardly the first time she’d had to heal and rest and repair herself. Just, in the past… he had always had something to occupy him. She parked and he went and had an adventure. They stayed in the vortex and he tinkered and built and experimented and anything else he usually did while his companions slept. Now… as it had been for endless hours, he could do nothing but search for a way back to his wife. And finally, he had hope. He couldn’t focus on anything else, couldn’t even conceive of there being anything else to focus on. He wanted his wife, he wanted his child, and he wanted them now. His endless, endless lists sprawled in front of him. Books lay in heaps all over the floor and table, markers, pencils, and papers mixed in. There had to be more. There had to be.

So, more impatient than he had ever been in his life, he ran and fetched even more books, even more research to fill the time, all while he waited desperately for the TARDIS to heal. He had never, in centuries of life, ever, wanted to see another man as much as he wanted to see Jack Harkness right now.

And he had absolutely never imagined he would think something like that.

Chapter Text

Another day, another mission. Another night, unfortunately. Pete had tried, early on when he lived in a mansion with two other occupants and no one who would so much as glance at him, to avoid giving Mickey's team night calls. They were skipped over exactly once, and 4 people noticed--and Rose had immediately cornered him. No favoritism, no protecting. No one can know there's anything to protect. Don't ever do it again.

But thank you for caring. Just, only at home, okay?

That night, she and Jackie had shown up for dinner, for the first time in over two weeks since he’d been told the news.

So here she was, as always, on the job even though she had her very own plus one. The alert came after just a few hours' sleep, and she was hopeful she'd gotten enough to manage. But she categorically refused to do paperwork after tonight. No matter what. She might consent to a verbal debrief. Time would tell.

She continued her assigned patrol around an odd little foxhole--half trench, half steel walls with small, cut-out windows. A local had seen the dirt flying and the walls assembling themselves without anyone nearby just an hour ago, and now it was here, fully constructed as the team traced the perimeter, mapping and looking for any idea of who or what had come, and why they’d set down roots so quickly. So far, no one had seen anything--not a shadow or a single flicker of light--to report in about. Two AM, there might not be much to see in terms of detail, but Rose thought it seemed to be a fairly bright night. Must be a full moon, she thought, or maybe light pollution in this universe was worse.

Keeping her prescribed distance, 20 paces from the side of the building, she looked for anything noteworthy to assist in their intelligence-gathering. As far as she knew so far, this was a new species. She hadn’t seen this particular construction before, or the invasion technique. She had to admit, there was something to be said for their approach, showing up and setting down roots without batting an eye. No subterfuge, no power plays, just ‘hi, we live here now’. If they managed to get property rights, she personally saw no reason why they shouldn’t--but she was aware that argument rarely worked in Torchwood. Occasionally an alien was permitted to reside somewhere, temporarily, while they waited for pick up to their homeworld, with constant monitoring and plenty of threats. She didn’t care for the reputation they were making for themselves in the universe that way. It wasn’t going to end well when somewhere like Sontar heard about this planet of aggressive and war-loving locals.

She glanced over and saw the first marking on their wall. She clicked on her coms and whispered to the team.

“Sheet metal is local salvage. We’ve got a ‘made in the UK’ stamp on the side, here.” Clicks of acknowledgement in her ear were quickly disregarded as a small light appeared in the nearest cut-out, and she suddenly knew she had to move. Now.

She hit the ground, twisting herself so her back faced the building as she went, and white-hot fire blew across her shoulders. She froze there, biting her lip to keep in a scream, and watched several shots fly over her head. They didn’t see her--they had heard her. And soon her teammates were going to be running towards here, shouting threats--they were going to be slaughtered. Rose pulled her legs under her and screamed (they had heard her whisper, after all, so no need for silence) “They’re echolocating!” before launching herself behind a tree and letting herself roll somewhat downhill away from it, landing painfully on her back, panting. She was absolutely staying here a while, she thought-- before scrambling out of the way of the tree she had taken shelter behind, falling towards her. Secure behind a rock, she caught her breath. Listened for her team. Pleased when she heard nothing, she rolled onto her side, sheltering her child while taking pressure off her wounded shoulders. She was definitely staying right here until someone came for her. Maybe a little nepotism wouldn’t have been such a bed thing, really. Bad thing. It certainly would be a bed thing--that’s where she’d be right now. Might be nice. Would certainly hurt quite a bit less.

Her mental gripe session carried her through as the pain in her shoulders started to ease. It was a coping strategy she had learned a long, long time ago. As a woman, Rose could operate a razor blind. She had never seen a man do so, much less one who had apparently not even known the layout of his own face before the day they met. The Doctor did. Stubborn old man, he was vain enough to want to be clean-shaven (and if she appreciated the comfort provided by the lack of five-o-clock shadow when he held her close, she kept it to herself and perhaps quietly hoped it wasn’t coincidental) but too invested in his own self-loathing to be willing to look at himself in a mirror. And so she’d find him, when she wandered the corridors on sleepless nights, when she actually got up when he asked and made it to the console room before he expected her, any time her comings and goings coincided with his preparation. He’d be in the kitchen over the sink, or the console room with an old-fashioned mug and brush, or wandering the corridors while he shaved--and a man who had no idea what his own face looked like shaving blind while multi-tasking? Yes, it wasn’t at all uncommon for him to cut himself. And then she got to witness his approach to distracting himself while he waited for his superior physiology to heal him.

“Oh Monans! Much better at healing than Monans, too stupid to even know their little possession trick is just decaying their hosts. And you offer better transfer technology but do they want to hear it? No, they just want to take all the technology of the Time Lords for their own, the menaces. And what about Calphani? Oh, lovely people, very quaint, but they’d just wander around for weeks on end with a scab on their face! All their technology, all their intelligence, but they don’t heal any better than humans! You would think they’d be able to match at least some level of superiority aside from properly evolving telepathy, but no never. And then there’s the Autons! Oh, they can heal up just fine, but they’re just mindless idiots, aren’t they? Even the Nestene…” the slight lapse into silence that warned her he was thinking about the Time War, followed by the loud exclamations that she assumed were for his own benefit, since it certainly didn’t fool her, “The zygons! Completely daft. No idea what they’re thinking half the time--and of course, neither have they, since they’re using someone else’ brain for half of what they do,” and by the time he was done moaning and whining and listing off all the species that were below his standard, the bleeding would have stopped (and to her surprise, his skin closed nearly completely back to normal), he would be done shaving, and they would be ready for an adventure. She had picked up this habit along the way, griping and complaining and whinging on until she had bled off enough frustration to carry her pain better.

Eventually she saw a light flicker on, then off. On, then off. On, and sweep the building. Then off. Mickey was confirming they were blind. The light went on again, and an insistent clicking came across the radio. Flashlights came on from the rest of the team, and Rose set her own up, as well, dragging herself off the ground. Jordan reached her first, and she gave him a wan smile, assuring him silently that she was alright. Not one to waste an opportunity, she shone the light on the building, pointing out the manufacturing mark that caused her injury to begin with and scanning for anything she may have missed in the dimness, with Jordan next covering her, gun drawn and leveled at the structure. Never miss an opportunity to gather intel. The walls had been clear enough to see even without her flashlight, but she looked as carefully as she dared for more details--while sparing herself plenty of opportunity to watch her step, lest she make more noise. She didn’t really want to get shot again tonight. It was futile, anyway. She’d seen all there was to see already. Everyone else likely had, too. She gave it one last glace before following Jordan back to the jeep, 100 paces off, where Mickey quickly gave her a brief damage assessment and then swept her into a hug while the rest of the team watched over their shoulders. Professionalism in the field--at least, the ‘formality’ aspect of it--was not something anyone valued. Mickey opened his mouth to speak, then abruptly closed it and pulled her and the rest of the team behind a jeep.

“Just in case. Anyone know who we’re dealing with? Rose?” There was no point pretending the whole team didn’t know who ‘anyone’ might be, after all. But this time, she couldn’t help, and shook her head.

“Let’s assume they can still hear us and still want to shoot us, yeah?”

“Right. So, recapping here, people. What did we learn?”

“The windows are for shooting out of. Some kind of focused heat beam. Burns like you wouldn’t believe,” Rose threw out immediately.

Mickey bit his lip, and Rose wished she’d found a better way to describe things to the man who held himself responsible for her child’s life in the field.

“Rose told us they found her from sound, which panned out when we used lights on the building. They’ve got to be completely blind not to have noticed us all on the way back. Or maybe terrible night vision? Maybe the lights were too disorienting to do anything with,” Jordan tossed in, and Rose nodded. Valid point.

“And you said salvage, yeah? They didn’t come with parts for this little building of theirs,” Mickey checked in.

Rose nodded. “Only marking I saw was the Made in the UK stamp. We double checked in case there was something harder to see when we were headed back. No dice.”

“I was a small marking on my way back around,” Kiera put in, “I think it was a ‘this side up’... upside down. Very small though, like maybe they wanted their building to be as unmarked as possible. Couldn’t see anything before we broke out the flashlights, though.”

“The one on our side was pretty small, too,” Jordan put in. “Nice eyes spotting it in the dark.”

Rose quirked an eyebrow and nodded. It hadn’t been hard, but also not worth arguing. She’d ask Mickey later if Jordan needed to re-qualify on night vision.

“So, we’re thinking,” Mickey redirected, “that they came here unprepared, found anything they could to set up and fortify their positions, but also took the extra time to choose mostly-unmarked walls. Were they looking for a new home? Or did they crash and they just want to set up shop?”

The team nodded at each other. “Sums it up, yeah.”

“Right, here’s the plan. Shifts of three for the rest of the night, keep lights around the buildings so we’ll see anybody heading out and alert me to any changes. Rose, you’re going home and if I have to fight you on it, you’re going to medical first. We’re taking a rest shift tomorrow after we debrief the next team. I’ll be back to pop in and out of both shifts; Jordan, you’re heading up this one. John, you’ve got second shift. Pick teams and get some sleep when it’s your turn. Rose, let’s get you home.”

She was absolutely not gonna fight him. She was shot, figuratively and literally. Still, both because it was true and because it would excuse her immeditaely caving, she groused back at him, “threatening sending me to medical in the middle of the night is low, Micks.”

He smiled. “Car’s over here. Chop chop. You can explain to the director for me,” he added cheekily

“Oh no. Abso-freaking-lutely not. You’re team leader, you’re stuck talking to Pete in the middle of the night. I’m just a lowly Lieutenant; I get to go in, treat this burn and go to sleep.” The bickered the rest of the way to the car, then he drove her home in silence, letting her drift off. When they parked, he helped her down and pulled her aside before going in.

“You’re gonna need to claim the house behind you turned on a light, or a car drove by on the highway or something. It was way too dark for anyone to see that marking, Rose. Jordan has amazing night vision, and I went past it without seeing anything, either. That was small and dark gray on silver on a moonless night. So before we go in, pick your excuse.”

*

After their bonding, the Doctor spent nights with Rose in his arms, holding her, stroking her hair, rejoicing in her mere presence. She treasured those moments, and all the more so waking up to find herself still in his arms. All the same, she knew the man she loved. Her bondmate was endlessly energetic, never anything but busy. Him staying in bed with her for 8 hours would get boring quickly, she was sure. Maybe the first week, the novelty and freedom of that relationship would keep his interest, but she was wondering how long until she woke up alone before 3 days had passed. While waking up together was best, she had never meant to tie him down while she slept. Still, they had waited so long to be able to be together, she was sure he was simply… reveling. He certainly didn’t seem to mind staying, so she was content to enjoy it while it lasted.

Two weeks into their Marriage, she woke up to a sudden burst of enthusiasm and sat up, blindy reaching for a dressing gown as she was jumping out of bed, ready to run to the console room and find out what had captured her bondmate’s interest when she was suddenly caught by his arms around her, his voice shushing quietly in her ear, and his remorse in echoing in her mind.

“Sorry, love. It’s alright. I didn’t mean to wake you; everything’s fine. Just go back to sleep, love.”

She let him pull her back into his side and cuddle her close, relaxing back into bed and his arms. “What had you so excited? I was all set to head out on an adventure.”

It was too dark to make out his expression, but she felt the wry smile toying with his lips. “Weeeeell, it was an adventure, I suppose. Harry’s about to start the first task.”

She shifted back, propping herself up on an elbow to look at his face more directly in the dim light. “What, did you have the Tardis projecting the film in here?”

The absolute sense of indignation rolling off of him had her biting her lip not to laugh. “Rose Tyler! I would absolutely never watch those abominations! Absolutely no integrity to the nuances of the plot. They completely cannibalize the books! And anyway,” and here she heard and felt him shake off his defense of literary interpretations and take a far more tender turn, “I would never turn on all that light and sound where it might disturb you, love. I was reading.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Bit dark for that, Doctor. I can hardly see your face.”

She knew what was coming before he said it, feeling the smug playfulness rising up in him. “Superior Time Lord biology,” she echoed, half a moment behind him, and dissolved into giggles, resting on his chest again, enjoying the rumble of his own laughter. With a sigh, she snuggled back in as he wrapped his arm around her, holding her tightly.

“Read it to me?” She felt his smile as he lifted the book again, and fell asleep to the rumble of his voice.

She dearly missed the quiet ritual of falling asleep to Harry Potter, Agatha Christie, and Charles Dickens (always in a Northern accent that kept her awake longer in bittersweet nostalgia), and sometimes ‘An Investigation of Temporal Dynamics’ or ‘A Brief History of Time’ (“It’s horribly inaccurate, Rose. I mean, absolutely dismal. But it’s such a good try!”) or ‘Temporal Values of the Nakestani,” longing for his warmth, his presence, and his voice, wondering what he was reading now, and what he would have chosen if she were at her side.

*

She sighed. “Car driving by sounds like something the rest of the team would have noticed. Let’s blame the homeowner going to the bathroom or whatever. Thanks, Micks. Didn’t realize that was different.”

“Another gift from little one, huh?”

She nodded tiredly. “Not really clear on whether it’s his eyes or his brain that worked better than ours, but I guess mine are catching up, somehow. I’ll be more careful not to see things I shouldn’t.”

Mickey nodded. “Now let me see this burn, yeah?” He stepped behind her and found the back of her t-shirt missing completely across the top, the rest wet from where she had bled on it. He looked carefully, poking gently, and then explained. “It’s mostly healed, Rose. Just a little bit pink. But it looks like it was pretty nasty before.”

She nodded. “Felt like it burned right through a couple layers. Thank goodness little one is speeding up healing, too. Poor thing would probably take a beating trying to stay hidden out there.”

Mickey nodded. “Right. You’re taking the day tomorrow to recover from your injury so it’s a little more explicable when you walk in like nothing happened, yeah?”

Rose was exhausted. She wasn’t about to disagree--she just wanted to make it to her bed. “Sounds good. Be sure to tell the director when you update him--g’night!”

“Oi!” He shouted after her--but they both knew she had won that round. She wanted sleep, he wanted her to sleep, and they tried to keep the alterations in their official reports between them. Pete knew they were likely being made, but the more closely the secrets were kept, the better.

Rose sent Mickey a text message about 20 minutes later. “You win; I’ll take the day ff tomorrow.” He already knew that, of course. What was important was the missing vowel. Baby is okay.

Chapter Text

Mickey came over the next day to check on his wounded teammate, bringing with him what had become essential staples for Rose’s mornings. He knocked casually at the door and greeted Jackie and the flustered staff who continued to compete with her over whether she would be opening it herself.

“Ello, Jackie! How’re you doing?” he dropped a kiss on her cheek

“Oi! You’re lucky I let you in, you are. You dropped off Rose injured last night, and don’t think I don’t know all about it!”

Mickey rolled his eyes. “Yeah, and tell me exactly how many times you’ve ever been able to stop Rose doing what her mind’s made up to, then?” He was already moving past her towards the stairs.

“Oh, go on then. Tell her I said she’s to be resting today, will you?”

“Not unless you want her to go for a run to spite ya!” He hollered back over his shoulder, bounding up the stairs and down a hallway until he reached a familiar door.

He tapped gently on the door and was greeted with a groan.

He cracked it open. "Rose?"

"I. AM. ASLEEP!"

"If you're actually sleeping, I'll go. Otherwise… brought you something."

He could tell from the muffled sound that she had pulled the blankets over her head. "I refuse to do paperwork. Fire me. I got shot; I don't have to do paperwork for 48 hours."

He laughed, doing his very best not to let her hear it. "No paperwork. I stopped at that little place on Baker Street--"

"Oooh, gimme gimme gimme!" Well, now she sounded awake. He slipped through the door and handed over a concoction Rose had dubbed 'the elixir of life' a ways back.

*

Rose was exhausted. And scared. Which was something she wasn't used to feeling, not in this big, long-term, can’t-run-away kind of way. She was pregnant, and her baby needed her, and it was absolutely, make or break, all on her head. And she hadn't eaten in three days. Couldn't even walk past the break room. Everything just kept getting worse. She had been worried about managing the alien part of this pregnancy, but the basic, eat-enough-to-keep-you-both-alive part was seeming dangerously impossible, all by itself. Mickey promised he'd take her home today, and while she hated being looked after, she wasn't about to turn it down. On her own, she wasn't sure she could keep lifting her feet to move forward.

Mickey wasn't an idiot, undesirable nicknames notwithstanding. He knew how poorly Rose was feeling, even if she wasn't talking about it. He knew the paparazzi still liked to catch her any time they could, and he did his best to provide some form of interference. Today his only plan was to walk next to her, but not too close, and also look a bit low. She might stand out less.

When she couldn't manage any further, he dragged her into a small cafe. Everything on the menu seemed to have some kind of cultural reference for a name. Maybe trying to generate business by being niche, she supposed. It didn’t matter; she had no desire to eat an “Umami Therman Salad”

"No, Mickey, not food. Don't make me smell it," she protested.

"It's a tiny little coffee shop. Looks like pastries and fruit. Nothing cooking. Just sit for a bit, okay?"

Rose sighed, but nodded wearily and let him lead her into the shop and settle her into a comfortable seat, far from the counter.

"Water ok for me to order us?" He had learned. There were no rules that stayed rules. Last week she couldn't watch him drink water. Earlier this week she couldn't handle the smell of tea. Meat was almost universally a lost cause, these days.

"Maybe ice water? Or something fruity? Those sound… less bad, anyway," she replied with a weak smile. Mickey nodded and headed for the counter, and Rose leaned her head on her hand, hoping she could doze off for a moment or two, maybe get enough energy to go home.

She heard Mickey sit down across from her and set two glasses on the table, and debated just leaving her eyes closed another minute when a smell wafted up to her, and her eyes shot open.

"What do I smell?!"

Mickey winced, visibly. "Sorry, babe. Thought it might sound good. I'll get rid of it."

"No!" Her hand snatched out, latching onto his wrist. "What's in that?!"

Mickey's eyes took on the steady quality of a man diffusing a bomb he wasn't familiar with the mechanisms of. "Apricots, kale, and banana."

"No ginger? No unspecified herbal garbage?" Desperation. That tone in her voice was desperation.

Mickey handed her the menu on the table, pointing to the drink he'd chosen: B. Wolfe Smoothie.

She blinked. Read the ingredients. Took the name as the sign it had always been for her. "Give it"

He handed her the smoothie and watched as she tentatively took the world’s smallest sip through the straw. Then another. And one more. She pulled hte straw out, sucking every lawst drop from it, before drinking the rest right out of the glass, a relieved kind of ferocity in her eyes. She didn’t pause as she wiggled to get her wallet out of a pocket and blindly held a credit card out to Mickey, who took it with a laugh. “Yeah, babe, I’ll get you another.” She held up a hand, fingers splayed. “Okay, I’ll get you five!”

She could have asked him to do it a clown suit and his best Northern Doctor impression. He absolutely would have done anything to see Rose Tyler eat.

*
Mickey walked in with a bag of pastries in one hand and a cup-carrier of smoothies in his other, which he delivered to a suddenly ravenous Rose. She licked her lips and happily began pouring them down her throat while Mickey made himself comfortable in her chair, smirking.

“What?” she asked, eyebrow raised, as she reached for her second cup, which she drank with a bit more restraint.

“I just realized what you look like when you get your hands on these.”

“A pregnant woman who can finally bloody eat?!”

Mickey blinked. Most of their time together had a prospective audience. He didn’t hear the ‘p’ word very often. Still, no reason to let the joke die. He grinned widely. “Nope. A vampire. Sinking her teeth into a large to-go bag”

“Gross, Mickey!” She threw a throw pillow in his face and he laughed, helping himself to a pastry.

“Thanks for this, by the way. I’d be embarrassed about the intensity of my addiction but frankly…”

“Nah, you were getting pretty pitiful without it. Can’t believe it took us so long to realize what Tiny Dictator wanted.”

“Bananas are good!” Rose agreed, a giant smile greeting him as her second cup hit the trash can. “Did they have chocolate croissants today?”

“Do you want a Bacon sarnie or a meat pie first?”

“Hand over the chocolate and I might consider eating one later. And you can tell me what’s going on with our friends the space bats.”

“Rose, come on. Day off?” Mickey reminded, handing over the requested pastry.

“Oi, look at me! In bed, feet elevated, eating. I’m allowed to ask how my friends are.”

Conceding the point, Mickey started with the reassurances. “Nobody else got shot, for starters. Kiera got a bit bored, threw a rock or two. For research.”

“Course.”

“Course. So we reckon they aren’t properly echolocating, cus they just shot that general direction. Just that they had good hearing and maybe bad night vision or hurt their eyes in the crash. Aim wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great, either.”

“Thank goodness for that.”

“Yeah.” Mickey pulled a bag of donut holes out of his pocket. “They seem pretty violent, and not likely to chat. We traded out for the next shift, everybody’s home napping for a bit. I’m not optimistic we’re going to get anywhere on this one. They shot one of us unprovoked. They’re gonna want to eliminate them.”

Rose sighed. “Can we toss a phone at ‘em? Maybe see if they’ll pick up and talk? I don’t want to give up on negotiations with someone who was scared and stupid. Humans don’t have a complete monopoly on that, you know.”

Mickey smiled, though it didn’t touch his eyes. “We’ll give it a go. Maybe we can at least get them to send families home, leave us the soldiers to deal with or somethin.”

Rose hated this part. The Doctor would have run right up, shouting words of peace, called being shot rude, and brokered a peace by now. Possibly by smuggling them off-world. But Torchwood had a point. You don’t protect the planet by letting it be known there’s no consequences for shooting people. Scaring them? Those aliens were sent home, thank you very much Harriet Jones. Shooting? That was different.

“Micks? Do we know how bad their weapons are supposed to be? Maybe I got the full blast and would’ve been healed tomorrow, anyway. Maybe it was a warning shot.”

He winced. “One of Kiera’s rocks landed by a skunk. We are telling everyone you were caught by the edge of the energy beam only.”

So much for that theory. “You crashing here for a bit? Or headed home?”

Mickey smiled, popping another sugar ball into his mouth before setting it on Rose’s nightstand. “I’ll crash down the hall. Gotta go in for a meeting at 1, might as well stay and get more sleep.”

“Mickey!” Rose protested, “You should’ve just gone home to sleep.”

He scoffed. “What, and leave you without your morning addiction? You’re supposed to be resting, guilt-free, and taking a day to focus on growing that time tot. Need food for that, and we both know you can’t eat if you haven’t had your daily banana fix.”

“Thanks, Mick. You’re good to us. Dunno how I’ll ever make it up to you.”

“Course, babe. You know I’m here for you. Both of ya. Just name ‘im after me, will ya?”

He laughed as the pillow smacked into him as he headed out the door.

Chapter Text

She had been doing her best to care for him while she was recovering. She always had, but he had needed her more than ever since he lost his bondmate. She made sure he found texts to immerse himself in. She had made sure to move the xenobiology away from where they were usually shelved, leaving behind the compendiums of species hybridization experiments usually kept next to them, full of things that would distract him from joy and preparation with horror, fear, and anger that weren’t relevant right now. He knew what was in those texts already; reminding him would have been cruel. He just needed to forget, for a little while, that that section of the library exists.

She worked hard to heal necessary systems, to become functional again. It was complicated. She could heal enough to take him where he needed to go next. But taking him there would set her back. And he would need her stronger than that to get through to their growing family. So she diverted some energy she could have used healing to find ways to occupy her beloved little Time Lord, so that she could in turn use more time healing.

He was a particularly tricky specimen to care for, this Time Lord. Much more difficult than her previous resident, but also much more enjoyable. He certainly took her to more fun places and wasn’t as cranky about a need for routine. It was nice, as she got older, that she could make her own decisions about where she wanted to go and what she wanted to do, again. That he was old enough to understand the need for a randomizer, for a TARDIS to have some independence and autonomy at times. Or maybe he was simply so young that he didn’t even consider not having someone in charge of him. Either way, he was exhausting just as much as he was supportive. Here she was, trying to regrow half a helmic regulator, and she was also starting a new room for an occupant who wasn’t even in this universe and currently slept inside another person, so that he could find it and keep busy longer.

And now they were going to be a complete family, again. Well, she had been looking forward to this for a long time, to getting to have the present that this future would be. And it would be wonderful to have the Wolf back; she helped keep the Time Lord together, and was much better at following directions. And a Time Tot! Well, not many TARDISes got to raise a Time Lord from that age. No others would at this point in history, she thought, a bit melancholy. But her present was only ever slightly removed from all other presents. She missed her sisters, but she also was still with them in a present that was past--it was harder for her Time Lord. His past and present weren’t as flexible. But soon, it would be so, so very much better. She hummed, pleased with her arrangements. She was feeling much more herself as she rested in the vortex, all of time flowing through and around and in her, none of it doubling back, crippled and hunched. Simply breathing as time should, beautiful and uninjured, unimpeded. No more paradoxes suffocating her. Her Time Lord was occupied with the books she had given him, and--she expended a bit more energy--was now provided with some biscuits. As a bonus measure, she shifted a few books about fetal telepathic development and forced into existence a timer with a note on it about telepathic minds exposed to second-hand sleep deprivation. She should have a good chunk of time to get herself straightened out while he was busy, and she turned her attention to it.

The Doctor. Was. Bored. It had been days! Days upon days of reading and researching and getting reasonable, responsible amounts of sleep to the best of his ability, and it was absolutely tedious! Oh, sure, he was rested, properly, which was a bit of a change. That hadn’t happened in… well. He had hardly slept at all on the Valiant, and not much in the year before with Martha, especially in the 1960s, and certainly not in the endless uncounted months before that, searching for answers and cracks and a way back to Rose. Rose. Really, he hadn’t slept since Rose, and it was silly he thought he might need to contemplate anything since then. Though she would likely appreciate him being well-rested and ready to step up with the Time Tot so she could drift off a bit once the little one came along. He could imagine spending many happy hours rocking a restless daughter to the vision of a dreaming wife… and that itself was the one dream he held when he dropped off.

All the same, he hadn’t spent so long staying still in positively ages. So when, as he was perfecting the recipe for a third flavor of fully-nutritionally-supportive supplemental shake for Rose to drink while pregnant and nursing (Strawberry; banana and chocolate had come first), the Tardis sent him a quiet ‘ping’ from the console room, he spilled half-completed shake all over the floor in a mad dash to check the scanner.

Coordinates were entered, the time rotor shone with light, and the Tardis lit up and hummed happily to hear him enter.

“Is this it, girl? Are you ready?” Can we go already?, he thought, trying to keep it to himself. For all his impatience, he also loved the TARDIS very dearly, and he was not blind to the horrific things she had been through in the year the Master had forced her to make happen before Jack set her free to make it unhappen. No other living being in all of time and space could endure the biological equivalent of what she had been through. Needing time to heal and space to herself while she did it wasn’t asking much, and she had still found it in her to take care of him while she did. That thought, at least, seemed to have caught her attention, as she sent him a wash of affection and a happy prompting forward, encouraging him to pull the lever and send them hurtling through the vortex to wherever she had determined he needed to go.

“Alright, Old Girl. Let’s go see… a strongly telepathic, living, fixed point. The things we do for Rose...”

*

A blue box faded into, out of, into, out of, into existence on a private observation platform, the luxurious residence of the Face of Boe, the oldest known being in the universe, about three and a half billion years after the Doctor had last dematerialized. The door opened, then immediately slammed shut as the resident of the police box took note of the psychic ambiance and then rapidly rebuilt barriers he usually left open in his mind. Secure that he was more adequately prepared to tolerate some rather grating telepathic experiences, and that his child’s mind would not be subjected to second-hand trauma, he stepped out.

=Ah, Doctor. It is good to see this face of yours. You are not one to visit. Has your wonderful machine brought you here, or have you come of your own accord?=

The Doctor followed the ‘sound’ of the telepathic voice around a corner and stopped once he could look the floating head in the eye. “The Face of Boe. You think I never fancy a chat with someone older than me?”

A wam, telepathic rumble that signified laughter. =Time passes for us all. Your reputation precedes you; you do not mistake age for wisdom.=

Here, the Doctor twitched a lip slightly upwards, resisting a smile, before sliding his hands into his pockets. “Hello, Jack”

All the gravitas left the telepathic voice like a deflated balloon, and the tone became far more familiar. =Aw, Geez, Doc, you could’ve said! This whole ‘powerful, wise, and mysterious’ gag can be fun for a bit, but it gets old, you know. How the hell have you been? When are you coming from?=

“Ah, well, if I knew it annoyed you, I’d’ve kept it up longer. I’m alright, been better. Just left you, actually. You and Martha and the Master.”

=Not a good time for you. I wasn’t so sure about leaving you on your own then, you know. But… well, it wasn’t exactly me you were missing. Not that I mind stepping in for you, you know, if you want a little… telepathic stimulation.=

“Oh, Jack, come on! Do you know, a thousand years, a species of telepaths, and it wasn’t until right now that I even knew there was such a thing as a telepathic salacious wink?! And I could’ve gone right through my final regeneration without knowing that just fine, thank you!”

=Well, can’t blame a guy for tryin. So. What brings you to visit me now if it’s not a fetish for older men?=

“Rose”

That stopped Jack short. =Rosie? Is… is she here? Where is she?=

“No. She’s not here, and that’s the problem. I’m not sure what our timelines look like, yours and mine, and the less I know the better. If you haven’t seen her yet, tell me after we get her back and not til then. Or don’t, if you’d rather your timeline be rewritten; I don’t care. But Jack, I need her back, and you are going to help me get her.”

=Done. For Rosie? Anything. What do you need?=

The Doctor smiled. This, right here, was why he and Jack could never truly be at odds. When the chips were down, they knew what mattered, when to stop the jokes, and who they put first.

It was the same person they would then inevitably be allowing to steal a different kind of chips from their plates.

“Just… let me tell you everything, even if you already know, alright? I’m trying to keep as much flexibility in the time lines as possible.”

=I’m listening.=

“Before she was trapped… Rose and I, well….”

=Alright! finally! You realize I spent literal lifetimes hoping for that, right? So, come on, Doc. Don’t spare the details!=

“Jack. My wife. My bondmate.” He felt the levity drain from Jack with that word, “Is trapped in a parallel universe, pregnant with my child. The Time Tot made telepathic contact just after I saw you last. She… she didn’t tell me. When we said goodbye. Didn’t want to break my hearts any worse than being apart already had, I guess. Knew I couldn’t get to them anyway. But now… now that I can feel him, I can find him. I just have to be able to get back so I can close up whatever holes I make.”

=With you so far. What do you need from me?=

“Well, I thought, if I can follow familial telepathy there… probably best to get back the same way. Still working out the kinks of a power source, but at least we can plan on using you to tether navigation.” But the Face of Boe was shaking his head--that is, his whole self--in slow, regretful contradiction.

=Sorry, Doc. Can’t help you with that one.=

“Oh, come on. I don’t care how long it’s been, you and Rose will always count each other as family.”

Jack’s smile lit him up =Oh, undoubtedly. But the last time your Rosie and I were together was Satelite Five and Bad Wolf, right? Only telepath among us was you. Rosie and I didn’t have the hardware to create a chosen familial bond. She won’t have one for you to piggy back on. And the you in front of me certainly doesn’t have one with me, or you wouldn’t be worrying about Rosie’s.=

Hope dimmed, and the Doctor parked himself on a low bench. “Problems at every turn, then. As always. I just want my wife. Jack, I need her.”

=I know it, Doc. You always have, since I first met you both.=

“Truth is, it’s still hopeless. I needed a way to find them, the technology to get through, a power source, and a way home. I can cobble together the tech. I spent a long time going over the blueprints while the TARDIS was recovering. And now I can find my child, so I can find Rose. I still, honestly, don’t know how to power the trip. The Eye of Harmony isn’t exactly replaceable. And anyone I ever shared a telepathic bond with is long gone. My punishment for killing my people… losing my wife and child.” He rested his forehead on the heels of his hands and grabbed fists full of hair in frustration and hopelessness.

=Horse hockey. I’m here and I’m listening. I’ve spent literally billions of years learning about the universe. So tell me more about it all and we’ll see what we can figure out. We’re getting Rosie back.=

The Doctor offered a weak smile, leaned back, and began talking.

Chapter Text

“So what it comes down to,” the Doctor raved, pacing in front of the Face of Boe’s giant fishtank of a home, “is that I need the power and force of a black hole, held in perfect stasis, and then I need a beacon of some kind to follow home. Something that can cross dimensional boundaries, but apparently that isn’t a familial bond, and I’m really not quite sure how to do that without just leaving this universe wide open to the void so I can meander back in,”

=And I believe that’s been done.=

“Yeah. That’s how we lost Rose to begin with, giant gaping holes in reality letting things from a parallel world comfortably wander on in and make themselves at home.”

=You could argue it’s poetic, that you could get her back the same way.=

The Doctor snorted. “Frankly, I think she’d refuse to come if she knew she was bringing our baby back to a world that probably had cybermen and daleks and I don’t even want to know what else crawling into it out of the void, completely mad from soaking in non-existence.”

=She’s clever that way.=

He sighed. “She’s brilliant. She’d know what to do. About all of this.”

Jack sent him a wave of encouragement, the way his more linear self would slap him on the arm. =Alright. Let’s leave the way home for the moment. One more time, in tiiiiiiny words my admittedly bigger-than-yours but used-to-be-human brain can understand, explain the eye of harmony and why that has to be the power source.=

The Doctor quirked his lips a bit, “Your brain isn’t really bigger. My head is just bigger on the inside.”

Jack snorted and projected his opinion of that assertion rather loudly in words the TARDIS didn’t allow translation for.

The Doctor almost laughed at that. Almost, because while he sat here shooting the breeze with Jack, he wasn’t in the vortex, removed from his child’s time stream. He could feel her, moving and breathing and being, and it was wonderful, and it was terrifying because it meant that time was passing with every moment he spent sitting here re-thinking a plan he should have had finalized and perfected in the vortex, ensuring he spent minimal time within his family’s precious and irreversible time stream.

“Right. Eye of Harmony. So, it’s… you know the Weeping Angels? Ever met one of them?”

=Martha mentioned them. I’ve made a point of being extremely careful not to be touched. Didn’t really want to know how powerful they’d get off the displaced potential of all eternity.=

The Doctor blinked. “Oh. Well, I mean, always good not to get tossed about in time, but it’s not as bad as you think. Time travelers and long-lived species get back home, so we don’t really lose out on all the tomorrows typical humans do. Still. Good thinking.”

=I try. So. Weeping Angels?=

“Right, yes. They live on potential energy. On maybes and tomorrows. There’s an unbelievable amount of power in potential energy, and for most species, they unleash it into the kinetic realm, experience what is. Which, of course, makes plenty of sense when you only know about what is. But what might be? In the hands of a time-sensitive species, what might be is earth-shattering stuff, quite literally. The Eye of harmony isn’t quite a black hole. It’s a black hole that’s been paused, that’s had its ability to be a Black Hole frozen and harnessed, so that it can be funneled and unleashed across all of time at the will of the Time Lords. The explosion of a star, the collapse of it, the endless vacuum, all existing and waiting to exist in this endlessly approaching but never arriving fixed point. It’s a harmony that only a madman would try to create, but all of it in balance… That was the great secret of the Time Lords. That’s how we traveled through time and space.”

=You make that sound kinda beautiful, Doc.=

“Oh, it was. As beautiful as it was terrifying, if not more so. Absolute madness; why anyone thought Rassilon was in any way stable is beyond me. But it worked and it was gorgeous.”

=So how does the TARDIS get around now, without the Eye of Harmony?=

“Weeeeeeelll, it’s a bit complicated,” the Doctor replied, turning in his pacing and scratching at his side burn. “It’s a bit… she can because she might have been able to? Or… because she could before? She exists at all points in time, so she stays connected to the infinite potential of all timestreams. But for all that she can play in the time vortex and go exploring the universe, that’s a bit to do with potential energy she can access and a lot to do with the potential energy of her existence. She has always taken me where we’ll go next, and she will never take me there because I’m about to choose something slightly different, and she will soon take me on our first trip, and… potential and flux and rewriting time are all part of her basic biological nature. It’s easy for her to flux in and out of space and time because she was made to. But… but she’s of this universe. And the web of time had the eye at its center; she could flux through it to traverse the dimensions quite happily, but she does, technically, officially, belong here. So she can’t flux into infinite potential there, because her potential is limited to some extent based on the fact that her existence is tethered here.”

The Face stared, somewhat aimlessly, out over the galaxies through the open portal, before he began to nod himself vaguely.

=Okay. So, what you need is a lot of time in flux and an impossible black hole. That… I gotta admit, Doc, that does sound like something I can’t really find or make.=

But his words rang in the Doctor’s ears, and shock sent him reeling. The Doctor could find it. Had found it. Would always have been shown where to find it. His child expressed concern over this sudden, doused-in-ice-water frozen shock running through his system, but he gathered a pleasant sentiment, trying for comfort or hope or amusement at the turns of his fortune. The Eye of Harmony was a non-issue. He had a power source. He could go. Now, soon, immediately.

=I gather that I just said the right thing?=

“Oh, Jack, you said the perfect thing! I know exactly how to get them back!”

=And did we solve how to bring them home?=

The Doctor stilled. “No. No, we didn’t.”

=If potential and flux are beneficial, perhaps there once was someone whose telepathic signature you could follow? You could intersect with them after your last meeting to avoid too much paradox.=

“I opted not to send my previous selves because of the paradox. It wouldn’t change much to use them as an anchor, really.”

=And no one else has ever had a firm enough bond with you?=

The Doctor considered his list, settling on a probable target, if a painful one. “Blimey. That’ll take some doing, I’d say”

=But I suspect it can be done.=

“I’ve got to get back to the vortex, Jack. Time is passing for my family when I’m in the time stream. Thank you for everything.”

=Introduce younger me to my godchild and consider it nothing.=

“Ha! Like you’re going to fake-foreknowledge me into making you Godfather! But wish me luck!”

=All the luck in both universes, Doc.=

The sound of dematerialization soon echoed through the home of the Face of Boe, leaving him slightly melancholy. The days when he could hope to join them for an adventure had long passed, but the desire to do so never would.