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The Doctor didn’t usually wake up slow. After the very few hours he’d set aside for the bare minimum amount of rest a Time Lord required, he’d be on his feet in a flash, halfway through pulling on his shoes and heading for the nearest door to start the day. One cup of tea later and he was convinced he’d never have to sleep again. He'd become energy incarnate, much to the dismay of Rose who was definitely not a morning person. She’d need twenty minutes and a cup of tea before she could even think about talking to him.
But this morning was different.
The haze of it buzzed through relative quiet as sunlight seeped under the door and the Doctor’s eyelids fluttered open, heavy and thick. The first thing he registered was the color of the ceiling. He frowned. Not the dark blue he was expecting. He blinked a few times, slower than usual, thoroughly confused by the pleasant fog that tried to lull him back to sleep.
The second thing he registered was the pressure draped across his chest. Soft and warm and breathing, in and out, in a slow steady loop that he could feel pressing against him with each rise and fall. Golden hair spilled over his shoulder and fingers fisted loosely in the rumpled fabric of his Oxford. One of her arms was thrown across his torso and one of his wrapped tightly around her waist, holding her to him. Their legs were a tangled mess, knotted together in the throes of sleep. It would likely take some effort to extract them from one another.
Rose let out a deep, contented sigh in her sleep and turned further into him. The Doctor wondered if he was dreaming.
He tasted time on the back of his teeth and ascertained that it was just past eight in the morning and he had slept over seven hours. He couldn’t remember the last time he had slept five hours, let alone seven. An eighth was starting to sound like a tempting prospect with the drowsy weight of Rose over him and the surprising comfort of her mattress with broken springs. Maybe it was just because it was her old room, full of all her old things and here he was now, oldest among all of them.
Memories from the night and day before trickled in and his hearts picked up their even pace just enough for him to worry about waking her. Unbelievably, he’d stepped over the line in the sand and the world hadn’t ended. She was still here. For all the exhilaration and giddy disbelief it brought him, there was still the looming feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop. That self-doubt plucked the thread of tentative hope he’d spent the night slowly weaving, curled around her and her around him.
Seven hours of sleep. It was so human.
And as lovely as falling asleep again sounded - something he never thought he’d even come close to thinking - it was a softer comfort to watch Rose instead. He was drawn in by how gentle her face looked in the dim, any worries soothed simply by blissful unconsciousness. For the first time, he truly understood the feeling. Carefully, he brought a hand up to brush the strands of hair from her face and clear her sleeping features.
The Doctor froze when she unconsciously responded, tilting her head into his touch. His fingers brushed her temple and he tasted utter contentment in a starburst of morning-glow gold. It rustled through his bones, honey mixing with marrow, and he inhaled sharply.
Rose stirred as he pulled his hand away. She stretched, arching the length of her body against his as she came to. The Doctor responded by shuffling down a few inches, bringing his face level with hers so half-lidded whiskey brown eyes met his darker ones. And she smiled, soft and lazy, her eyes doing that lovely thing where they went gentle at the corners. The Doctor fell right in.
“Morning,” Rose muttered, voice thick with sleep.
“Good morning,” he said back, just above a whisper and positively brimming with glee.
Rose giggled at this, at them tucked under blankets in her childhood bedroom and grinning at each other like idiots. Like the Doctor, she too wondered if she was dreaming and any second now, she’d wake up back on the TARDIS. But he was cool and real, all tangled up in her and she could still hardly believe it.
“You stayed,” she whispered.
His grin softened to a closed-lipped smile. “Of course I did. You asked.”
Her breath caught and her smile brightened in a new way, a bit disbelieving and so brilliantly Rose. For a moment, they just took each other in. Still them. Still wonderfully them, all trust and laced fingers and beaming grins, but with the gloss of something new and blossoming.
“Did you sleep alright?” the Doctor asked just to have something to say, to keep them there as long as he could. He found he didn’t want to move.
“Yeah,” Rose said, but there was a note of hesitance to it.
The Doctor encouraged her with a raised brow.
“Only one bad dream, that’s it,” she admitted.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked quietly. Their hands had knit together, as they had a penchant of doing, and he felt her fingers tense.
Rose took a deep breath before continuing. “It wasn’t about the cybermen or mum or anythin’ like that just… I woke up and you weren’t here.” She shrugged as she said it, affecting nonchalance the Doctor knew she didn’t feel. “That’s all it was. A bit silly now that I’m sayin’ it outloud, but I woke up for real soon after. Once I saw you were still here, didn’t take long for me to fall back asleep.”
The Doctor furrowed his brow and ran a thumb over her knuckles. “You could’ve woken me up, Rose. I wouldn’t have minded.”
She chuckled. “No, ‘s alright. I think I just needed to see your face.” Her eyes slowly traced his features one by one with a faint smile, like she was remembering something pleasant. Skating over his eyes, his brow, his lips - drawn in a gentle grin - and resting somewhere in the midst of his freckles. Perhaps recalling how it all looked completely at rest, how he’d looked at her in the quiet dark of morning before she’d begun to stir.
His smile turned sweetly teasing. “Good face, isn’t it?”
“God, you’re so vain!” she giggled. “Told you yesterday, and I’m tellin’ you now: I like this face. So make sure you keep it for a while, yeah?”
“Yes sir.”
She beamed at him and he couldn’t help leaning in to press a kiss to the tip of her nose. When it elicited another laugh from Rose, he decided it was his new favorite way to coax that sound from her and pressed a couple more feather-light kisses to the bridge of her nose, the center of her brows, the apples of her cheeks, smiling every time he lifted his lips from her skin.
She was laughing, bright. He could feel it in the base of his skull somehow and, blimey, was it possible to be drunk off of a laugh? Drunk off of a person? Apparently so, he deemed as he pulled back to take in her kiss speckled, flushed face. Swept him off his feet despite the fact that he was lying down, pressed deep into a mattress that didn’t belong to him, but it belonged to her and that was so, so much better.
Not even a day in their new phase of together and he had been turned into a complete, utter sap. She’d ruined him, truly, in so many ways.
Once her giggles subsided, Rose pressed her lips together in contemplation. “That’s different,” she mused, referring to his outpouring of clear affection. She wasn’t used to it and, frankly, neither was he.
“Good different or bad different?” he teased.
“Good different. Definitely good different.”
As if testing the waters in her own way - or just because she could, really - Rose pressed a kiss to his lips. Quick and delicate, but when their eyes met again, they both decided it wasn’t quite enough. Another kiss, then. Maybe another. The Doctor hummed against her lips on the fourth and he felt her answering smile. Rosy cheeked and grinning, he cupped her face with a cool hand and almost melted when her eyes fluttered shut at his touch. When she opened them again, they were only for him.
“An’ for the record,” she murmured. “I liked your old face too. A lot. And I’ll like every one that comes after if… if I get to see any of them.”
The allusion to the “if”, to the very real fact that she wouldn’t likely see another face of his after this one, should’ve been cold water. It should’ve doused him with a healthy dose of reality, a reminder that this couldn’t possibly be forever. But he was too focused on what she meant. No matter the face, the body, the shell, Rose Tyler would always see the same person underneath. The Doctor. Her Doctor, he thought, and that was cold water. The good kind, the icy cold shock of belonging that sent a shiver down his spine.
The Doctor watched a slight furrow form in her brow, her smile turning softer by the second as she watched his expression fall into something tender.
“You alright?” she whispered on an exhale.
His head spun a bit. He needed to lie down. Was he already? He was, wasn’t he? And she was there. There she was. He grinned and ran a thumb over the swell of her cheek.
“More than.”
Time granted them a blissful few seconds of silence. They could stay locked there forever in a warm shell against the world with only the company of tangled limbs and aching smiles, and be completely sated.
Unfortunately, time wasn’t so kind and they weren’t so lucky.
They were yanked out of their reverie by the clatter of a dropped pan and quiet cursing drifting from beyond the door.
The Doctor’s eyes widened and his hand on Rose’s face fell to the mattress with a soft thud. “No. I lied. Not alright. Not alright at all.” He inhaled sharply. “Because your mother is awake and I’m still in your bed.”
It hit Rose then, and her eyes widened to match his. “Oh no,” she muttered. “Oh, you’re so dead.”
“You don’t need to tell me that.”
Another thud from the kitchen and the Doctor winced like it was his own personal omen of death. It might as well have been. There was no hope of cheeky hiding spots half under the bed or quickly drawn up lies about tinkering on the TARDIS because he had to leave the room and there was only one door. It wouldn’t take a genius to piece together that the sleep tousled Doctor - lacking a jacket, tie, and shoes - had been nowhere near the TARDIS at any point in the night. Especially not if he was on Rose’s heels, leaving her bloody bedroom.
He groaned and rolled over to bury his face in the pillows.
“Well, what’re our options?” Rose asked, always the optimist.
The Doctor flopped back to look at her. “Write a will.”
“I’m bein’ serious,” she said, fighting a laugh.
“So am I! Write a will, name a next of kin…” He grabbed her face with both of his hands, eyes wild and intense. “I leave everything to you. The TARDIS, my sonic screwdriver, that mug from Scolotrovik that’s either mauve or turquoise and we never know which it’s going to be…”
“That’s really sweet of you, Doctor, but I’m not going to let my mum kill you.” She thought for a moment and took a deep breath. “Look, there’s only one way out of this and you’re not going to like it.”
“Rose, I’ll take anything at this point. Literally anything.”
She gently covered his hands with her own and removed them from her face, enfolding them carefully. “We walk out there and act like everything is completely normal.”
“...What?”
“You heard me.”
“Did I? Rose, what part of ‘your mother will ensure I’ll never see the sunrise again if she knows I spent the night with her daughter’ do you not understand? Are we speaking the same language? Is the translation matrix working alright?”
She huffed a laugh, rolled her eyes and - to the Doctor’s great dismay - slowly began to unknit herself from him. It took a second to find where her legs started and his ended, but Rose sorted it and swung her legs over the side of her bed, sitting upright. The Doctor, still splayed under the sheets, watched as she sorted through a pile of discarded jackets on the floor and picked out a soft brown cardigan to pull over her camisole. It matched with the gentle blue of her pajama bottoms which the Doctor noticed were the same shade as a couple of his Oxfords. His cool skin flushed warm and he continued tracing her movements with a contented smile.
Until he noticed she was headed for the door.
He bolted to block her path and nearly fell flat on his face when the comforter got tangled up in his long legs. He managed to stop right in front of Rose, bracing himself against the doorframe.
“Wait, hold on,” he breathed, consciously keeping his voice at a whisper. “Let’s not be hasty.”
“You’re always hasty,” Rose reminded him, eyebrows raised.
“Yes, but not when my life is on the line.”
She peered up at him, crossing her arms. Her golden hair was frizzy from sleep, her mascara-less eyes slightly puffy and pulled into drowsy stupor, but her frown was clear as day. The Doctor had the wayward thought that she still looked absolutely beautiful.
“Especially when your life's on the line,” Rose said.
She had a point. Damn. The Doctor cursed under his breath and shot her one last pleading look. When he was met with a pointed stare, an open invitation for suggestions, he heaved a reluctant sigh.
“So what then?” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “We just walk out there like nothing’s different?”
“Like it’s completely normal.”
He nodded, but his anxious, pained expression told a different story. It drew a smile from Rose and she uncrossed her arms.
“It’ll be fine, Doctor.” She reached out and slowly began adjusting his shirt, smoothing the wrinkled front and re-doing buttons that had been undone in the night. His breath hitched as her fingers brushed his chest.
“Completely normal,” he managed, hoarse.
Rose leaned up on the tips of her toes, hands pressed to his hearts, and kissed him in lieu of words. He was pleased with that and very tempted to deepen the kiss, but they had more pressing (and terrifying) matters to address. She dropped back down on the heels of her feet with a huff.
“Right. I’ll go first. And, if she does kill you, the TARDIS is in good hands.”
His hum of agreement turned into a frightened squeak and he cleared his throat. “Good to know.”
Before he could steel himself further, Rose was already opening the door and stepping out into the central area of the Tyler flat.
Sure enough, Jackie was bustling about the kitchen, busying herself with one thing or another, her dressing gown wrapped tightly about her and slippers padding on tile. When she heard the ridiculously squeaky hinges of Rose’s bedroom door, she poked her head around the doorframe to see her daughter slip out of her room. And who followed right behind - her slim shadow - but the Doctor, looking for all the world like he’d rather just sink into the carpet right then and there. Rose was a bit better at hiding it, but she still didn’t meet her mother’s gaze when she managed a smile.
“Morning, mum.”
The Doctor didn’t say anything, hand coming up to the back of his neck instead. His shirt may have been in a slightly better state than it was when he woke, but his hair stood on end every which way. Symbol of a solid night’s sleep or a sound snogging; either way was anybody’s guess.
Jackie just stared at them for a moment, arms folded and eyebrow arched as high as it could go.
Then, to the Doctor and Rose’s surprise, she shook her head and nodded towards the kitchen. “About time you got up! Tea’s gonna get cold.”
Without another word, Jackie went and retrieved her own cuppa, then made for the sitting room and curled into an armchair. The Doctor’s coat and tie were still clearly visible, crumpled in a heap on the floor. The guilty pair exchanged a look, confusion and relief mixing in equal measure, before they muttered their thanks and ducked into the kitchen.
Jackie shook her head and took a long sip of her tea. For all the grief they put her through, they deserved the classic walk of shame.
The Doctor and Rose breathed a deep sigh of relief in tandem once they entered the kitchen. That relief only deepened when they saw two mugs of steaming tea, ready and waiting.
“Sometimes your mother isn’t the worst,” the Doctor muttered, picking up one and testing it. Sickeningly sweet. His.
Rose gladly claimed the other. “That’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard you say about her.”
He frowned. “Surely I’ve said nicer.”
“Nope,” she said, popping the ‘p’. Funny little habit she’d picked up from him and his hearts glowed hearing it. “Pass the bread would ya? I’m starving.”
They made breakfast side-by-side, keeping their conversation to gentle hum as they sipped their tea. Jackie occasionally glimpsed back and caught snippets of them through the tiny kitchen window. This included the not-so-subtle kiss the Doctor pressed to Rose’s cheek when she handed him the jam and the way her face lit up when he whispered something sweet in the shell of her ear. It was a stark contrast to their somber mood from the day prior, haunted by the metal monsters of another world.
Against her will, Jackie smiled.
After they’d finished toast and tea, the awkward air in the flat lifting to the happy drone of a typical morning, the Doctor snatched up his things from the floor and pulled on his trainers. He lost his balance and nearly hopped into a wall, Rose watching with a fond smile and Jackie with an exasperated eye roll.
“Won’t be more than a minute!” he said, finally shrugging on his long tan coat. “Just need to slip into fresh clothes and I’ll be back before you can say Raxicoricofallipatorius.”
He was out the door before Rose could even think about repeating the lengthy planet name and she chuckled, shaking her head.
“While he’s running about, you can help me clean up the dishes, yeah?” Jackie said, snapping her daughter from her haze.
“Alright, mum,” she sighed. She dutifully followed the older Tyler woman into the kitchen and picked up the Doctor’s mug from the counter. She took a sip of the dredges and wrinkled her nose. “Blimey, that’s sweet. I dunno how he does it, really.”
Jackie watched her daughter for a moment. Her Rose, older now but still carrying the shadows of the little girl she raised, rinsed the mug out before placing it in the dishwasher. Still pajama clad and glowing at the edges, the happy haze that had only grown the longer her and Doctor spent together lingering around her like a golden cloud. Jackie crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter. As happy as she was for her daughter - and truly she was, even if she wasn’t terribly pleased with her taste in men - she had to do her duties as a mother hen.
“Rose…”
She looked towards Jackie, questioning.
“Are you being safe?” she asked quietly.
Rose’s smile softened and she nodded, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Course we are mum, as much as we can be. I mean- travelling can be dangerous, yeah, that’s just part of this life. But the Doctor looks out for me an’ I look out for him-”
Jackie waved her hand. “That’s lovely, really. An’ I’m glad to hear that. But that’s not what I was asking…. Are you being safe?”
For a second, Rose just looked at her mother with confusion. The strange stress on the last word perplexed her. “Mum, what’re you…”
Oh.
Oh.
Oh no.
Her face went flush in record time, pink burning the tips of her ears as she gaped at her mother. “I can’t believe you just asked me if-”
“Well it’s a valid question, Rose!” Jackie squawked, jumping to defend herself. “He’s a bleeding alien, for Christ’s sake! What if he gets you pregnant -”
“Mum!”
“-and, I dunno, what if his people lay eggs to give birth? What if you end up with alien eggs?”
Rose Tyler had faced so much of the universe but nothing, nothing, could’ve prepared her for whatever was spilling out of her mother’s mouth at the moment. She buried her burning face in her hands and willed herself to become one with the kitchen counter. “Oh my God, I can’t believe you just said that.”
“You could get an alien STD, Rose, an’ I don’t think our insurance covers that.”
Rose smacked her palms on the counter and stared at Jackie, jaw hanging open in utter disbelief. She kept thinking it couldn’t get worse and her mother just kept talking.
Before Jackie could open her mouth and say something atrocious again, Rose grabbed her hands in reassurance. “Mum, he’s a Time Lord. Not a Martian. Time Lords are a lot like humans biologically so I’m pretty sure that means normal, mammalian birth and no alien STDs, yeah?”
“Well, how can you know for sure?” she asked with genuine concern.
Rose took a deep breath, trying to steady herself before continuing. “Look, mum, it doesn’t matter right now anyway because him and me we’re not… That is to say, we aren’t…”
Jackie’s eyebrows shot to her hairline in utter disbelief. “Then what was last night?”
“Just sleeping in the same bed! That’s all, swear.”
Her mother’s narrowed eyed stare screamed that she believed her about as much as she believed the average politician or the bloke down the street who ran the shady laundromat.
Rose sighed. “Things are different between us now, yeah.” Her eyes brightened at the thought alone and Jackie felt her heart clench for her little girl. “Good different. But we’re taking it slow, so we haven’t…” She raised her eyebrows pointedly.
Jackie huffed. “Alright, alright,” she muttered, drawing Rose into a tight hug. After a moment, she couldn’t help adding, “Could’ve had me fooled with the way he’s always lookin’ at you.”
Rose pulled back with a fresh blush painting her cheeks. “Mum!”
“What!? It’s true, Rose. He’s been at it since leather and big ears, giving you eyes. Can’t blame a mother for thinkin’ things.”
Rose turned her eyes to the ceiling in a silent, obvious plea for the conversation to end and soon. Jackie decided to have some pity on her with a pat on the cheek.
“But as long as he treats you right and you’re happy, love.”
Exasperation turned back to glee and Rose grinned, wide. “I am.”
“Good. And if he ever does you wrong, lemme know and I’ll smack him into next week.”
“Thanks, mum.”
Rose hugged her mother again as the front door opened and slammed shut.
“What’d I say? Quick as quick can be,” the Doctor chirped, swinging back into the kitchen. He caught Rose and Jackie at the tail end of their embrace, both turning to look at him simultaneously.
He’d exchanged the pinstripes for another set of pinstripes - because of course he did - but the Oxford had been replaced with a dark blue t-shirt and a green henley, the top couple of buttons lazily undone. Possibly the most dressed down he’d been in a while.
Rose certainly noticed.
Her eyes shamelessly darted up and down his form as a new blush bloomed at the tips of her ears. The Doctor, oh-so observant, grinned. Jackie just scoffed and rolled her eyes. She gave her daughter a light shove.
“You go get ready too, unless you’re planning on stayin’ another day.”
Rose blinked, hard, and shook her head. “No, sorry. Yeah, I’ll just…” She thumbed over her shoulder, already leaving the kitchen. “Go then.” Squeezing past the Doctor, the pair traded another long look filled with poorly concealed want before she managed to tear herself away and dart into her room.
The Doctor made a happy little hum in the top of his throat, eyes still on her closed door, and Jackie tossed a tea towel at him.
“Oi!”
“Since Rose isn’t here, your turn to clean up.”
He grumbled something about being an ancient alien and keeper of time and space, but the look Jackie shot him was nothing if not convincing; a reminder that she knew exactly where he was last night and would weaponize the hell out of that information if he dared cross her. The Doctor begrudgingly tackled dish duty in Rose’s absence under the weight of Jackie’s judgemental stare.
When they heard squeaky hinges once again, the Doctor’s eyes lit up, but Jackie stopped him before he could dart to Rose.
Her glare was intense, but it softened at the edges to deep concern. The Doctor shoved aside his initial frustration and waited for Jackie to speak.
“Just…” She sighed and patted his arm. “Take care of her, alright? Bring her home safe.”
The Doctor smiled. “I will. Promise.”
Jackie didn’t believe it, not really, because he couldn’t truly promise that at the end of the day. But he was so earnest and she was so willing to take whatever comfort she could get, so she answered him with a surprisingly kind smile and a nod as Rose rounded the corner, smoothing down her maroon zip-up hoodie.
“Ready?” she said, smiling at the Doctor.
He grinned back. “Always.”
“Hold on a minute,” Jackie said, crossing her arms. She waited until they were both looking at her before letting out a somber sigh. “Mickey’s flat.”
Rose curled in on herself, guilt pressing heavy on her shoulders as her arms snaked around her stomach. “Oh. Almost forgot,” she mumbled.
The Doctor lay a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “What’s today’s date?”
“May 20, 2006,” Jackie answered without looking at the calendar. Almost twenty-five days since their last visit.
Before, she didn’t even bother with the day of the week. Now, she always knew, right down to the hour.
“Right,” the Doctor said firmly. “We’ll be back tomorrow and… we’ll clear Mickey’s flat. Together.”
Rose snapped her head up to look at him, shoving tears back with the heel of her palm. “What?”
Jackie was equally confused, but the Doctor just smiled.
“Time machine! Rose and I can pop out, see half the galaxy and be back before you know it. So we’ll be back tomorrow, to help clear the flat. Unless…” He tugged nervously at his ear and glanced between the two women. “...you needed us to stay. Which we can do that too, I suppose.”
It was a very rare occasion when Jackie Tyler found herself truly speechless. Very rare. So when the best she could manage was a half choked sob before grabbing the Doctor and yanking him into a hug, it spoke more volumes than words ever could. And the Doctor, for all his initial tensing and awkwardly raised hands as Jackie latched onto him like a leech, did end up patting her back in reassurance. Rose took pity on him with a watery smile and eased her mother away from the Doctor, pulling Jackie into her arms instead.
“‘S alright, mum,” she muttered. “We’re here, if you need us.”
“Oh sweetheart,” Jackie choked out, pulling away to cup her daughter’s face. “I always need you. That’s the problem with being a mum. I’ll always need you, but you won’t always need me.” She flicked her gaze over Rose’s shoulder to the Doctor and gave him a grateful nod.
He returned it, a soft smile reiterating his promise from before.
Jackie gave her daughter a kiss on the forehead. “Go on, then. I’ll see you both tomorrow. Take care of yourselves in the meantime and don’t go fallin’ into any more parallel universes, yeah?”
“We’ll do our best,” Rose promised with another choked grin.
Last hugs and goodbyes were shared and Jackie watched them leave arm in arm before the clock turned over to ten. Out to their great blue box sitting primly in the graffiti-laden courtyard of the Powell Estates. She couldn’t help flitting out to the balcony to watch them properly leave, watch that weird space ship go disappearing off to who knows when and where. The strange screeching, grinding howl echoing off of metal garages until it drifted into nothing.
When she looked out, she wasn’t surprised by what she saw instead: the Doctor and Rose snogging like bloody teenagers in broad daylight.
“OI!” she shouted down.
They jumped apart.
“AT LEAST WAIT UNTIL YOU GET IN THE BOX! WHAT’LL THE NEIGHBORS THINK!?”
The Doctor muttered something Jackie couldn’t make out and Rose smacked him on the arm. She gave her mother a weak thumbs up and grabbed her alien by the coat, dragging him back into the TARDIS. The dematerialization sequence started up mere seconds after the double doors slammed shut and Jackie huffed a sigh. Seriously, they’d be the talk of the Estates for a whole week and then some.
Oh well. As long as they were safe. And safe.
As if on cue, her phone rang, vibrating in the cradle. Jackie picked it up as quickly as she could.
“Bev? Yeah. Yeah, that was Rose… Oh trust me, I told her.”