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A little boy of six and his mother were cuddled up on the couch. It was the middle of winter and snow was falling outside of their estate. The boy and his mother were watching a film they both weren’t paying attention to.
“Mum,” The little blonde boy piped up. His mother turned her head and looked at him.
“Yes, love?” She asked softly.
“Was my dad a good man?” The boy pondered. His mother inhaled sharply and repositioned herself on the couch. She didn’t know how to respond. It was so out of the blue. “I heard the girl down the hall say her dad left ‘cause her mum said he was a bad man.”
“No, darling,” The boy’s mother said with wide eyes. “Your dad was the best man in the universe.”
“Well, then, why’s he gone?” The boy said, clueless to the truth. The truth being his father wasn’t the one who’s gone, his mother was.
“Sometimes, life can do terrible things.”
The absolute last thing Rose wanted to think about in the middle of a snowstorm was the Doctor. Somehow, they always ended up in the snow. Whether they were stopping the Gelth with Charles Dickens or staring up at the stars deciding where to go next, it was snowing. Well, as the Doctor would say, the snow on the Christmas night technically wasn’t snow. It was the ashes of the Sycorax that fell through the atmosphere. Rose always hated it when he’d correct her on stupid things like that.
It was obvious her son was going to ask about his father at some point. Her parents always bugged her about whether she was going to tell him his father is actually an alien, but all of her son’s biology seemed normal. One heart, no regenerative healing, no extensive knowledge of the universe. Her son wasn’t completely human, but whatever Time Lord DNA that was in him was clearly hiding or dormant. When the time is right, she told them. When it matters, when he can understand. She wasn’t expecting it to be this soon.
Rose wondered if the Doctor had already outlived both her and their son, traveling around in the TARDIS. For all she knew, he could’ve aged a hundred years since Bad Wolf Bay. For all she knew, he could have regenerated. She wouldn’t care, though. He could have two heads and eight legs and she’d still be so in love with him.
Her biggest fear was time, ironically. Time running out for her and her son. The dimension cannon has failed time and time again and it’s not looking very good. She was able to go back to her old planet for just a moment to test it and she met that Earth’s version of Donna Noble, but the whole thing burned up when she got back. It’s too fragile; the walls are still too thick. It could be decades before it’s finished. There was a possibility she would never see the Doctor again, and a very real possibility her son would never meet his father.
Rose realized she went too long without speaking and cleared her throat. Her son still stared up at her with wide, untainted blue eyes – she had no idea where they came from. When he was born, he had brown eyes with a glint of green like her and the Doctor, but they’ve been blue for two years now. It was strange and maybe alien but she didn’t want to read too much into it. Overthinking would drive her mad.
“Listen, love, your father would have loved you, so much. There’s next to nothing that could make him stop running, but you would’ve been it. You would’ve been the thing that made him slow down.”
“Is he… is he dead?” Rose furrowed her eyebrows and fought back tears. She didn’t know how to answer honestly, because she didn’t know. It’s been six years since she’s seen him but possibly sixty since he’s seen her.
“No, of course not. We just… We got separated. Not by choice, mind you. If I had my way, I’d still be with him right now. Sometimes… Life isn’t fair.”
“Did you love him?” Rose scoffed in disbelief and watched her son’s eyes gleam. He was too intelligent for his age. Maybe it’s the Time Lord DNA, or maybe she just raised a bloody smart child. She kissed his head softly.
“So much. I never told him, ‘til it was too late. But one night, I went to him and I told him I could tell by his eyes he was in love with me. He didn’t say anything. I wasn’t really in my right mind, neither was he. Properly frightened me.”
Rose blinked slowly and remembered in a painful wave of flashes one of the many times they got drunk together. They were parked on Pluto, so even in the TARDIS, it was freezing, and the Doctor gave Rose a look like he was about to kiss her, but didn’t. So she told him that, and he just laid his head back on the floor. Most of the time, they drank too much. Usually, they didn’t need to in order to have fun, but when they were both bored and exhausted, they drank, and they happened to drink in rather large quantities. The Doctor tried to drive the TARDIS while drunk once, but she wasn’t having it. She locked her controls so neither of them could drive it. In fact, she took them to a dwarf planet in the Andromeda where it was completely green and habitable. They wandered around outside like toddlers in a meadow and the Doctor ended up pointing out constellations and planets and giving poorly recited trivia on them. They laughed at the stars and told each other nearly all of their secrets.
It angered Rose that she didn’t know the Doctor’s name. Of course, there were hundreds of things he probably never even thought to tell her, but his name? She’d never tell a soul. At the time, she supposed it was too dangerous, but now, what is she meant to tell her son? That his father’s name is “the Doctor”? If he were to tell his mates down at the playground or at school his dad is the Doctor, Rose would have a lot of confused parents asking which local medical man knocked her up.
Rose told him everything; he simply knew everything about her from the day she was born to the day she “died”. She was too young to realize it might not last forever, and too dumb to care. Their love made stars and the walls of reality collapse. It was perfect and incomparable to anything she’d ever experienced or seen in her life. There’s no one else; there’s never going to be anyone else.
More than she’d like, people around town would ask her to go have a drink with them or something, but she always found an excuse not to go. The closest she’s gotten to something of a relationship was with a professor at the uni she took classes at for a semester. Her son was only two at the time and although she never wanted to be away from him, her mum offered to watch him while she got out of the house for a bit. Rose found herself drawn to her English professor and easily fell for her. Clara, her name was. Clara Oswald.
Clara was the next best thing in Rose’s life, after her son. They did everything together. It was blissful, fun, exciting, and beautiful until Clara’s best mate and coworker, Danny something, died suddenly. Clara fell into a pit of depression and Rose just didn’t know how to help her. She herself was still only two years in recovery from Bad Wolf Bay, although she never really fully recovered from that horrible day. Rose tried everything, but Clara pushed her away. She had to leave London to get some clarity. The last time they spoke, Clara was about to go cliff diving in California. She had this little book with places to see, and as of a year ago, she’d seen about fifty of them.
Rose knew how Clara felt. If she could, Rose would travel, but her life is with Torchwood; her life is with her son, her brother, her parents, and Mickey. She had a bitter recollection of all of their lives before the Doctor and his big blue box, the Cybermen, the Daleks, and the war… but so much wouldn’t have happened if not for that chance encounter at Rose’s old job. For one thing, she wouldn’t have her son and Tony. Her mum wouldn’t have her dad. Her and Mickey might still be stuck in the rut of happy but not happy enough. The Doctor saved all of them, Rose most of all.
“Were you married?” Her son asked.
“Nah. Your dad wasn’t one for gestures like that. I knew I was planning to stay with him… forever, but sometimes, things just go wrong. Although, once, he got close. He asked me how long I was gonna stay with him and I told him forever. Oh, you should’ve seen the look on his face, love. It was like,” Rose grinned and made a silly, surprised face with her hands up in the air and her eyes wide with excitement. Her son giggled and Rose caressed his sandy hair. “He looked at me, your dad, and he told me I was the greatest thing that ever happened to him. Thought he was lying. He’d done a lot, met lots of people, you know, so of course, I couldn’t have been the best.”
“You’re the best to me, mum!” Rose gazed down at her child.
“Listen, when you grow up, you’re gonna fall in love. Or, maybe you’re not. Either way, it’s going to be hard. You have to always be prepared for bad things to happen, ‘cause that’s just how life works. Sometimes, it’s gonna feel like you’re flying, but other times, like you’re falling. The most important thing is to fight for what you believe in and do the right thing. Never give up, never give in.” Rose pursed her lips and felt tears welling. She let them fall. “That’s something your dad told me once. I’m never gonna forget it, and neither should you.” Rose sighed heavily. “I lost him, but I hope and pray that God shows you differently when you find the one.”
There was an abrupt few knocks on the door that tore her from reminiscing. She wiped her tears carelessly and changed the channel to something her son could watch. She walked to the door and answered it to Mickey. He had a smile on his face that quickly fell when he noticed Rose had just been crying. With a knowing expression, he pulled Rose into a hug and let her cry. She’d been so strong, she hadn’t cried in weeks, but it’s not like she was expecting her six year old to ask about the Doctor.
“Did somethin’ happen?” Mickey asked as he was led inside. Rose locked the door.
“No, I’m fine. He was asking about his dad.” Rose lowered her voice and got a bottle of wine out to pour for her and Mickey.
“Are you ever gonna tell him?”
“What, that his father is a Time Lord from Gallifrey with two hearts? And that his whole family was born in a different universe? Maybe on his tenth birthday, I’ll give him a sonic screwdriver and his first pinstripe suit.” Rose frowned and took a sip of her wine as she watched her son watch TV.
“I don’t need lip from you, not today.” Mickey said with slight humor.
“Why, what’s today?”
“It’s working.”
“I’m sorry?” Rose gasped and set her glass down. “It’s working?! How do you know?” Mickey reached into his backpack and tugged out a familiar t-shirt with a union jack on it. Rose held it gently and hugged it to her chest. “Oh, my God. How did you…?”
“I went into your old place and got a couple things. I knew you’d recognize it, ‘cause you were wearin’ it when you met Captain Snark.” Mickey smirked.
“Mickey! You went? You could’ve… you could’ve disintegrated, you could’ve exploded--”
“Don’t get all technical on me, now, babe. I’m just lettin’ you know that whenever you’re ready, you can make a quick trip. Torchwood is working on something portable and more permanent.” The two old friends hugged tightly and Mickey gestured to Rose’s son. “Hey, champ!”
“Hi, Mickey!” He said happily as Mickey lifted him up.
Whenever you’re ready, Mickey said. Oh, Rose had been ready for a long, long time.