Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Doctor could only stare. The world was tilting. No, yes, no. Perhaps. He could feel her in his veins. She was thrumming in the back of his mind. Was he falling? Something wasn’t right. This had to be a dream.

“Dad!” she screamed again, a wide smile on her lips and her arms flung wide. “I never thought I’d find you!”

She threw herself into his arms and he instinctively wrapped his arms around her to keep her from rebounding off his body like a bouncy ball thrown against a wall. She felt real enough, as did the sudden ache in his ribs. She continued tightly hugging him and he felt his shirtfront becoming wet. Oh, pain! This wasn’t a dream.

“Jenny,” he breathed. The Doctor brushed the tousled hair off his daughter’s face and looked down at her in wonder. “You’re alive?”

“He missed the other heart,” she said through happy tears. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. It started to feel like a really unfun game of tag. I kept showing up right after you left. Sometimes I’d even see your ship disappear.”

“I thought you died. You’re…” He couldn’t decide which emotion to focus on at the moment. “I wanted you to come with us. I thought…”

“I know.”

The Doctor held onto her, ignoring the tears and mascara he knew was seeping into the fabric of his button up, and looked around the street in front of the Powell Estate.

“How did you know to find me here specifically, though? No alien activity has happened here in months.”

“I met someone. She knew you and told me to look here. She thought you’d be here. Said you and the guy you were before always stopped here every few weeks. Actually, she said she’d seen me before, too, which was weird.”

His breath caught. It couldn’t be.

“What did this woman look like?”

“She was really pretty, blond.” Jenny shrugged. “I don’t really know how to describe her. She had on a weird chest machine thing.”

As quickly as hope built in his chest, it was destroyed. The Doctor sighed deeply, heart sinking back to his toes. He should have known.

“Did she say something about the stars?”

“No, she was looking for her daughter.”

“How long ago did…”

“It’s been a while. I had other leads I wanted to follow up on.” His daughter sniffed and shuddered. “I should have just come here first.”

That was interesting. He hadn’t realized that prior to the events leading up to leaving his metacrisis with the love of his life in an alternate dimension that Jackie had also been jumping around looking for her. Gods, he missed them.

“We should… er, that is, you…”

“You’re not gonna leave me again, are you?” Jenny asked, watery eyes meeting his. Guilt squeezed at him like a vice. When he focused on it, he could feel her sadness, anxiety, fear of abandonment pulsing through their connection. “I thought you wanted me to come with you.”

“I do, but…” he began and withdrew his mind, unable to continue feeling the emotions she was projecting. “Is that your decision? You could have your own life, Jenny. One that’s not so fraught with danger.”

“I want to be with my dad.”

The Doctor nodded, trying to ignore the blond hairs tickling his nose. Jenny finally let go of him and he felt oddly hollow inside.

He wanted his daughter back in his arms. She was his second chance at fatherhood (oh, his beloved children…). He needed to get her to the TARDIS where it was safe, where he wouldn’t have to worry he would lose her, too. He’d already lost so much. He couldn’t lose her, too.

After taking one last look at the windows of Rose’s old flat, a flat now inhabited by a young woman with two small boys and a fat cat, the Doctor turned and led his daughter – HIS DAUGHTER – home.

A joyful smile played across his lips and he cast a glance at his miracle of a daughter. He can remember how he first treated her when she was created. The man that had stepped on to Messaline that day was not the same man that had left. Oh, why had he not waited? Why had he not doublechecked her hearts?

It didn’t matter now. There was nothing he could do about his actions in the past. He could only give her a better future than the past she’d had.

His daughter was alive!

Chapter Text

It took just one month for the Doctor to come to the unfortunate conclusion that his daughter was a bloody teenager and apparently having Gallifreyan blood meant nothing to her.

It certainly didn’t stop her from throwing a fit or copping an attitude over the stupidest things. Granted, those little spells never lasted long, but they were incredibly undignified and tested his patience, something he didn’t have much of to begin with.

“Why couldn’t you have been a girl? I want a mom!” ended with a foot stamp and him lifting his hands up to show his exasperation. He had no control of his gender when he regenerated. Would Rose have liked him as much as a woman?

“Quit hovering. I just want some privacy to read about Gallifrey, Dad. Jeez, not like I'm gonna disappear off the ship,” was followed by his – HIS – bedroom door being closed in his face and him just staring at the door for several long seconds spent counting in his head in order to remember patience was something he really needed to work on.

“He was really cute and I just wanted to go for a burger! If I had a mom, she wouldn’t be so annoying!” preceded Jenny refusing to speak to him for three days, which actually hadn’t been too terrible for him considering what he gained and what she didn’t gain (or lose) in return.

“Why do we never go anywhere fun? It’s always where you want to go,” carried back to him as his daughter stomped out of the control room and he pinched the bridge of his nose. Counting for patience had stopped working.

“I'm not saying she’s not really cool, but for as much work as you put into this ship, you could probably build an actual house that wouldn’t try to burn your man parts all the time,” inevitably led to sulking on Jenny’s part after the stern talk he gave her and, unbelievably, the TARDIS showing HIM her displeasure when he hadn’t done anything wrong!

“I wish you’d just get a girlfriend already and leave me alone. Maybe you wouldn’t be so mean!” led to her glaring at him for an hour as he tried to ignore thoughts of Rose while refusing to budge on yet another attempt at her dating some Neanderthal.

“If you're not gonna give me a family, I'm gonna pick my own,” was repeatedly yelled at him over the course of three days anytime he tried to tell her she was being ridiculous and juvenile and led to the severely upsetting knowledge that his daughter had apparently chosen Jack Harkness out of EVERYONE in the ENTIRE UNIVERSE to be her Uncle Jack (much to Jack’s great amusement) and nothing he said would change her mind. He rather thought it was having the opposite effect.

“I don’t even like bananas!” always led to Jenny giving him a nasty look while calling Jack to inform him she was starving to death and always, always left him confused, because bananas are good.

Despite the attitude he got from his daughter, he was still so happy to be a father again and really, there were just as many good times as bad.

“If I had to choose a dad, I would still pick you. You’re a great dad,” had been followed by Jenny giving him a kiss on the cheek and him swallowing around a lump in his throat. “Even if you’re the most annoying person in the universe.”

“I feel really bad for yelling at you last night because you don’t deserve that. I just wanted to make you a pie, because you said you always asked your Rose for one and she never had the time to make it,” was said with a sad frown on Jenny’s face as he ran around trying to douse the flames in the galley. He hadn’t even been able to pay attention to his aching chest. Not when his ship was trying to go up in flames.

“Dad, will you tell me a story that makes you happy?” was asked every night after Jenny’s bath and always brought a smile to his face, especially because it would lead to being able to read next to his daughter while she snuck in a nap she really didn’t need.

“No, that guy was nothing like you, Dad. I told him to keep his number,” was said so flippantly, but it had warmed his hearts for hours.

“You saved everyone! We saved everyone! I love you!” had been followed by Jenny dancing back to the TARDIS while he vowed to remember this conversation the next time she told him he was smothering her.

“I think I want an Earth wedding like your friend, Donna, when I grow up just so you can give me away,” was probably Jenny’s idea of a sweet thought, even if he swore one of his hearts had stopped and shriveled in his chest. Still, it was oddly touching.

“I made you a peanut butter, jelly, and banana sandwich like the one Rose used to make you. The banana stinks,” had been said with a sweet smile and earned her a hug (even though he did briefly wonder how she could be his daughter and not like bananas, because HONESTLY).

“I'm so happy I'm your daughter and I guess it’s okay I don’t have a mom. You sort of make up for it sometimes,” was good enough for him after dealing with all those hissy fits about her not having a mother. After all, it wasn’t his fault she’d been created in a machine instead of by one of the normal ways such things occur.

As much of a pain as she can be when she gets in a mood, he still wouldn’t change anything for the world. He just couldn’t wait until she grew out of her teenage years. With her Gallifreyan blood, it would only take, oh, a couple hundred years.

May the Gods help him.