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Shortly after midnight, Rose is woken from a very sound sleep by a loud banging noise coming from down the hall.
This kind of thing is nothing new. After ten years with the Doctor – first as his companion; then as his lover; then as the mother of his two children and his wife – she’s grown rather accustomed to being woken in the middle of the night by crashes, bangs, and explosions.
When the noise doesn’t abate after a few moments, however – and when it’s then accompanied by a string of very loud, uncharacteristically filthy expletives from her husband – Rose decides she should probably get up and have a look.
Even though the Doctor is making enough noise at present to wake up the entire building, Rose tiptoes down the hall as noiselessly as can on the off chance the children are sleeping through this racket. The light in the kitchen is on, and she moves towards it on slippered feet.
Sure enough, the Doctor is lying flat on his back on the ground, pulling the wiring out of what, to Rose’s knowledge, had just this morning been their perfectly functional dishwasher and using his sonic to tinker with it.
“Damn it,” he mutters under his breath when one of the red wires doesn’t do whatever it is he wants it to do.
“Doctor,” she says, making him jump. Superior Time Lord biology and all that, but he apparently hadn’t heard her enter the room. "Why are you messing with the dishwasher in the middle of the night?“
The Doctor slowly tilts his head upwards so he’s looking at her. She sees, right away, that his eyes are rimmed with red.
“I just… I just wanted to make sure everything in the kitchen is in good working order, Rose,” he tells her. He has smears of grease all over his suit jacket and one big streak of it across his left cheek.
Rose looks around and sees that the dishwasher is not all he’s tinkered with tonight. Insides of what looks like most of their major kitchen appliances line every flat surface. Their toaster oven. Their electric teakettle. It looks like he even managed to get to their washing machine.
Rose raises one eyebrow at him skeptically.
“Doctor,” she says, shaking her head. “All this stuff was working perfectly earlier today.” She kneels down so that she’s eye-level with the Doctor, who’s still lying prone on the ground.
“Yeah,” he says. His eyes are on the ceiling. “I know, but…”
For as long as Rose has known him, the Doctor has coped with stressful or upsetting situations by tinkering with whatever gadgets happen to be on hand. When she was trapped in Pete’s world, after the battle at Canary Wharf, he apparently ripped apart the entire TARDIS engine, going weeks without sleep until he’d completely rewired her.
“What’s the matter, Doctor?” she asks gently, touching his knee.
He lets out a long sigh and covers his face with his hands. “I can’t do this, Rose,” he admits weakly. "I really can’t.“
“Oh,” she says, understanding, at last, what’s going on. “C’mere, you.” She motions for him to join her over at their small kitchen table. He obeys her silently.
She sits down in the chair facing his and waits until he’s ready to tell her about it.
"He’s just a baby,” the Doctor says. His voice is barely above a whisper. "And we never thought – or, well, I should say that I never thought, because I suppose I can’t speak for you – that he’d ever even be here in the first place.”
Rose reaches across the table and grasps one of his large, calloused hands in her much smaller one.
“I know,” she says. "But he’s five years old now, Doctor. And he’s ready. You know he is. He already knows and loves everyone in this neighbourhood, he knows all his letters – I mean, Doctor, he’s already memorised the entire periodic table of the elements.” Rose trails off, biting her lip. "If we keep him out of school any longer it would be for us, not for him.“
The Doctor nods. But his eyes are glassy, and Rose worries that his unshed tears are two heartbeats away from spilling over onto his cheeks.
He fixes her with those warm, brown eyes that still, after all these years, never fail to take her breath away.
“When we agreed to spend half the year in London and half the year on the TARDIS, we also agreed we’d send the children to school while we’re here,” she reminds him gently.
"Yeah,” he says, nodding, not meeting her eyes. “I know.”
She brushes the outside of his hand with her thumb. Gives it what she hopes is a reassuring squeeze.
“I guess I don’t understand why Fred’s first day of school’s got you so upset,” she says, trying to keep her voice gentle. “We’ve taken him all over the universe, Doctor. Been in loads of scrapes with both him and little Donna.” She shakes her head. “He’s just going to kindergarten. He’s not taking on a fleet of Daleks.”
The Doctor sighs again, and shakes his head. He reaches across the table for Rose’s other hand.
“I know,” he says. “But his whole live, I’ve always been right there to make sure he’s safe.” He shakes his head again. “I know it sounds daft but… but he’s going to be without us for an entireday and… it’s… I dunno.” He looks at her again and gives her a sad smile. “Maybe I’m just not ready for either of them to grow up just yet.” He closes his eyes. “I wish I could keep them small, and with us, forever.”
She squeezes his hands gently. Brings one of them up to her mouth and presses a gentle kiss to his palm.
“I know how you feel,” she whispers. Because she does.
The next morning they walk together hand in hand, very slowly, as little Freddie – more excited about today than he’s been about anything in his five years of life – bounds fifteen steps ahead of them.
“I can’t do this, Rose,” the Doctor murmurs under his breath, very quietly, so that none of the other parents milling around them will hear. The horrible feeling that’s been building in his chest for weeks now reminds him of being suffocated, of being pulled under water, and all he wants to do is pick his baby boy up, right here, right now, and whisk him away somewhere in the TARDIS.
Other people think them invincible: the stuff of legends; the couple that travels the stars, fights monsters, saves galaxies. Nobody would understand it if they knew just how terrified he is, still, always, that he could lose everything he loves in the blink of an eye.
Rose smiles at him patiently – because that’s how his Rose does everything; always so patient;, so loving; so kind – even though they’re about to have a conversation they just had less than nine hours ago.
“He’s ready, Doctor,” she tells him again. Gently, but firmly. “You know he is.”
The Doctor doesn’t say anything for a long moment. He looks up and sees his Freddie, already at the front steps of the school, already talking a mile a minute to the group of children that have begun to cluster around him.
“He’s so much like you, Doctor,” she says, a smile in her voice, leaning her head on his shoulder.
Even though the other children have only just met Freddie, they seem just as happy and excited to see him as he is to see them.
“He does have a certain charisma about him,” the Doctor admits.
Rose gently turns his face with her hands so that he’s looking at her. She closes the short distance between them and presses a gentle kiss to his lips. He shuts his eyes and revels in the short moment of sweet intimacy.
Freddie turns to face them, then, as if on cue.
“I love you, Mummy and Daddy!” he shouts at the top of her lungs, giving them a huge smile and a wave right before bounding happily into the school.
Rose pulls the Doctor into another hug before he has a chance to break down.
“’S going to be fine,” she tells him. Kisses him on the cheek. “I promise.”
“Okay,” the Doctor says, not really believing it.
Rose gives him a smile. “Come on,” she says, pulling away from him a little. “Jack’s watching Donna for us. God only knows what they’re getting up to right now. Our little girl needs us now.”
The Doctor allows Rose to tug him back home, hoping that Freddie will be all right, and thinking that maybe he’ll make Donna a special batch of his famous banana pancakes for breakfast today