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Some things she never told the Doctor. He was the strongest person she knew, but the most fragile at the same time. Knowing what she did could only hurt him.
The first time their son visited was only three days after she’d started traveling with him. He was so young and bright eyed – a little boy who if he’d been human Rose would have estimated him to be around 6. He claimed to be 23. Whatever his age he still had that high tone of young children, and an openness Rose suspected she’d already had chipped away by 6, let alone 23.
“I miss you.” He’d said softly. “I know I’m not supposed to do this, to cross timelines, but… it’s been hard mum.”
He’d found her in her room on the TARDIS and crawled into bed with her. Some part of her, some part she hesitated to even name, had known who and what he was the moment his little hand had touched her cheek and woken her.
Rose pulled him close. “I just started traveling here with him, in my time. I don’t mind you being here but you can’t tell me too much, little one.” She kissed the top of his head. “Not even your name, okay?”
The little boy laughed. “You’ve always been good at this then, this knowing time stuff. I’m horrible at it.”
“Well you managed to get here.” Rose reminded him with a little bit of a tickle. He giggled slightly, but the sad look still lingered in his eyes. “How long can you stay?”
“Can’t let dad find me. Auntie TARDIS helped me get here. This is my room too you know.” He cuddled in so tight Rose wanted to cry herself. “You smell the same, like… like wind and green things and Time, even though you’re littler than me.”
“Younger, not littler.” Rose corrected. “I hope you know that whatever made you miss me, I couldn’t have left you because I wanted to. You know that right? Tylers don’t leave their kids behind by choice.”
His little eyes were deep and full of pain. “Daddy cries all the time when he doesn’t think I’m watching. He holds my sister like she’s the most precious thing in the universe and he hugs me so hard sometimes I think he might crack a rib. But he’s falling apart, mum, and I don’t know how to fix him.”
“Hug him back.” Rose advised softly, thinking about her own mother and all the times when she was really little and she hadn’t understood her mother’s pain. “Hug him back and remind him you love him.” Rose thought for a moment. “Did I ever teach you to make pancakes?”
“Banana pancakes?” The little boy perked up. “You used to make them all the time but I never thought to ask how.”
“Well,” Rose stood up and pulled down her pajama top as if it was an official uniform. “Let’s go to the kitchen and I’ll teach you how. You can go back, hug ‘em, and make him pancakes.”
The little boy jumped up excited but hesitated with his hand on the door. “What if he sees me?”
Rose eyed the glowing rundle on the wall behind her bed. “Something tells me Auntie TARDIS has your back, kid. You’ll keep the Doctor occupied won’t you, you beautiful ship you?”
The TARDIS hummed and the little boy’s expression looked wistful. “She always liked you best.”
Rose held out her hand. “We girls have an understanding.” Rose wasn’t so sure about that, she’d only just started to forgive the ship and the Doctor for being in her head without telling her. But something about the entire situation felt right.
Pancake lesson completed they’d eaten their creation, leaving an extra plate on some kind of futuristic warmer that the little boy knew exactly which cabinet to find it in, for the Doctor to discover later. All evidence that two had cooked and not one was cleaned up and then they made their way back to her room, both their feet dragging as they neared it.
“I have to go back.” He said softly. “I can’t stay here forever.”
“I know.” Rose admitted just as softly. “But I needed this, today. I almost lost him, in Cardiff of all places. He’s supposed to take me home tomorrow. I wasn’t sure if he’d still want to travel with me…”
“He’ll always want you, mum. No matter what.” The little boy advised. “We will all always want you around. Never doubt that.”
“Is it weird that I know you? Even though I haven’t … you know?” Rose asked. “That I love you already?”
“It’s a Time Lord thing.” He explained with a shrug. “We can always recognize each other even out of order.”
“Yeah but I’m not one of you.” Rose eyed her future son critically. “And if I’m your mum you aren’t exactly 100 percent yourself.”
“TNA is dominate.” He gave a little smirk, looking just like his father for a second. “And you shouldn’t sell yourself short.”
Before Rose could comment he’d opened the bedroom door. There was a flash of light and when Rose stepped forward her room was empty.
The next morning when she got up the Doctor was eating her pancakes, all smiles and goofy grins. He tried to come up with something to distract her from visiting her mother but he relented easily enough.
The next hours were full of anger, pain, and fear. Once the dust settled over the rubble of Downing Street and she was alone with her mum having tea (I need an hour, Doctor. You can wait that long. Mum’s waited a year.) Rose let some of her fear out.
“Mum, I… Something weird happened.”
“Weird, you mean weirder than fake aliens crashing into Big Ben and government blowing up?” Jackie collapsed into her chair. “I don’t need tea, I need bathtub full of gin.”
“My son visited me.” Rose said softly, staring at her fingers. “He wasn’t supposed to, broke a lot of rules I think.”
“Son?” Jackie sat up straight. “What are you talking about Rose?”
“From the future.” Rose looked up and let some of her agitation show finally. “He was scared, mum, and he said he missed me.” Tears were in her eyes now, tears she couldn’t stop. “I didn’t dream it. We made pancakes, I thought him how to make ‘em so he could keep doing it for his dad… Mum I think I died.”
Jackie’s arms were around her instantly, holding her daughter up as she cried. “You sure it wasn’t a dream?”
“I’m positive.” Rose managed to say, face pressed into her mother’s track suited shoulder. “The TARDIS travels in time, mum, and he said the ship helped him to see me. He was… he was like the Doctor.”
“I thought it wasn’t like that with you two?” Jackie pulled away slightly to look in her daughter’s eyes.
“It isn’t, not yet anyway.” Rose wiped at her eyes with her hand. “I don’t know how far in my future he came from.” She paused. “He said he had a little sister, a baby it sounded like.” Rose fought to keep the tears back. “Mum, I die and leave them all alone!”
“You don’t know that, ya?” Jackie reasoned. “He said he missed you. Maybe you’re… maybe you took a trip? Or maybe you had to stay behind for some reason and they’ll be back for you.”
The way he’d described the Doctor, Rose doubted it was that simple.
“What are you going to do?” Jackie asked finally, eyes bright.
“It’s stupid but I love him.” Rose admitted. “I love that little boy and I haven’t even had him. I’m not even sure if I love the Doctor yet, but I know… I know I can’t do anything to risk that little boy not coming into being. So I can’t tell the Doctor, neither can you. If we tell him he’ll get angry and he’ll try and protect me and then…”
“You sound like a mum.” Jackie said with a sniff. “Putting your babies before yourself, even though you haven’t even had the fun that made ‘em yet.”
“Mum!” Rose blushed. “I’m trying not to think about that.”
“Well, be better to think about that than whatever made my grandson so upset.” Jackie advised, her own face pale. “In the mean time, you don’t do anything with that Doctor you aren’t ready for. You’re too young to be a mum, no matter what future children pop in on you.”
“I’m not in a rush.” Rose didn’t tell her mum the little boy was 23, but Rose knew that someday, when she and the Doctor did find each other, that 23 years later would loom like the sward of Damocles over her head. “We’ve got a time machine after all.”
The second time he brought his baby sister. Rose woke up to find the little girl screaming at the top of her lungs, wrapped in a pink blanket and her son looking scared. “I can’t get her to stop.” He pleaded, holding her out like a bomb as she wiggled in his too-strong-for-what-he-looked-like aged hands.
Rose took the wiggling bundle and as soon as she touched a finger to one red and puffy cheek the little girl stopped. She stared up, with honey colored eyes and then gave a slight hiccup before her little face burst into a wide grin. “Where’s your dad?” Rose asked, moving to walk the room, swaying side to side a small bit. It was how she’d comforted babies on the estate when she’d been a teen and trying to earn pocket money babysitting, and the trick evidently worked on Time Lord babies as well as human.
“I don’t know.” The little boy looked truly scared now. “He left three days ago and locked us in the TARDIS. Something bad was happening and he had to fix it. But he’s never been gone this long before. I can’t pilot her by myself and Sarah wouldn’t stop crying…” he blushed as he realized he’d given too much away.
“It’s alright.” Rose assured him. “You did the right thing. Has she eaten?”
“I tried to give her a bottle but she wouldn’t take it.” He ran a hand through his hair, standing it up on end in agitation. “I tried walking her in the gardens, and reading to her in the library, and bouncing her in the anti-gravity room… nothing worked. I don’t know what to do. She just wants her mum and dad.” Unsaid was that he too needed them, and apparently they were both gone. Rose hoped, prayed, the Doctor wasn’t gone from them for good.
“Can the TARDIS tell you when you can go back, when he comes back? In your time?”
He held up a little version of the sonic screwdriver. “I set an alert. I’m not stupid.” He sat down on the bed and hugged his knees. “I’m just a kid and I’m scared, mum. I know I’m 23 but on Gallifrey that would be like, be like being a month old or something. It’s confusing.” He tugged his hair again. “I know so much stuff, way more than kids on Earth, but it’s like… it’s like I’m an adult with a kid brain or something. I can’t… I can’t process, or whatever, like an adult.” He looked up with an apology in his eyes. “You probably have no clue what I’m saying.”
“I think I do a little.” Rose bounced baby Sarah on hip. “And you don’t have to apologize to me. I’m your mum, even if I’m not.” Rose shrugged. “You’re safe here with me, I’ll make sure of it. You can stay until he gets back.”
It took five days her time before her son’s alert went off. Five days of lying to the Doctor and sneaking food into her room, of making up excuses for what she was doing. The Doctor was so busy he barely seemed to notice. A large chunk of wiring had caught fire and exploded in the console room and he was trying to fix it so they could take off. He spent the majority of his time buried under the grating which, Rose sent a silent thank you to the TARDIS, made her mission possible.
Little baby Sarah slept most of the time, which her son insisted was normal for a 1.5 year old Time Tot. She didn’t look 1.5, more like she was only a few weeks old, but Rose believed him. She had to.
They didn’t talk about much while they waited. Just watched movies together and she taught him to play poker. Something she’d apparently promised she’d do one day, with a twinkle, that her son only now understood.
“Time loops are messy.” He admitted finally, when his sensor went off. “Messy and dangerous and very very bad. But I’m glad I made them, am making them.” He looked up with large eyes. “I love you mum. And don’t worry too much about what you tell him, when I leave. He’ll probably figure it out eventually. The console room was my fault and it’ll be obvious once he thinks of it.”
“I love you too. All of you.” Rose kissed his head and then her sleeping daughter’s. “Now get back to your dad and make sure he’s okay. Knowing him he needs to see you.”
Her son nodded, clutching his sister. “Goodbye mum.”
Another flash of light and they were gone.
The Doctor when she found him was stuffed under the console once again, cursing in multiple languages. “We fried out half the…” He trailed off at the look on her face. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t care about the grease, or that he had no idea and couldn’t know, she needed him and when she crashed into him he hugged her like his life depended on it. “Rose, what happened?” He asked, nose buried in her hair. “You smell like…” He pulled away and eyed her carefully. “you smell like a Time disturbance was close to you.”
“We had visitors.” Rose admitted, quietly. “They’re gone now but they were here for long enough…” Rose bit her lip and blinked back tears. “I got a little attached.”
He eyed the console, likely wanting to check something, but he didn’t let her go enough to move to do so. “Were they dangerous?”
“No.” Rose laughed softly. “At least not to you and I. The universe – probably.” She dropped her eyes. “He was just scared, terrified actually, and didn’t know what else to do.”
“And who was he?”
Rose sagged into his shoulder. “I can’t tell you. He said he knew I’d tell you after he left, but I can’t risk saying to much. He sends his apologies for the mess by the way. He tired to explain what he did to get here but I think I only understood about every fifth word. I guess he accidently miscalculated something or other and caused the feedback. He’s back in the future TARDIS now, anyway.”
The Doctor looked confused, and worried, and torn between her and the console. “If two TARDIS’ were that close, in two timestreams, that someone could slip from one to other… if they forgot the… that explains it!” The Doctor grinned widely then stiffened. “But why would I forget to do that? And why would I come into my own past TARDIS?”
“You didn’t.” Rose admitted. “But the one who did was not a threat, Doctor. So… can I help fix this? And we can forget about it, until, well until it happens from the other side? You can ask me all about it then.”
Or could if I wasn’t dead. Rose thought to herself.
“You know them then too?” He looked doubly curious. “This is not something to play with Rose. You’d better tell me…”
She pulled out a note. “He left this for you.”
Whatever the circular spirals said it made the Doctor stop asking questions. And stop meeting her eye for the three more days it took to fix the TARDIS.
The third time he was older, a lot older. Rose didn’t ask how much, but he looked to be in his 40s or so so he was probably 200 or something ridiculous. There was a weight to his eyes that reminded her of people who had lived through too much, and seen too much. He was tired.
“Mum,” He said with a hitch in his voice. “Your granddaughter was born today. I’d have brought her but she’s too young to go through a time stream…”
Rose smiled and patted the bed. “What you name her?”
“Jackie.” He smiled and pulled out a little photograph. In it a redheaded woman smiled at the camera, clutching a little wiggling bundle in her arms. In the background her own mother stood, grey and very very elderly, but with a happy expression on her face. “After her great-grandmother of course.” Her son added.
Rose touched the photo with a finger gently. “She’s beautiful.”
“Dad complained for hours about how we needed to give her a Gallifreyan naming day.” Her son shrugged. “I told him that I didn’t care how dominate TNA was, Jackie’s mostly human and she should have a human name. To honor you.”
“You don’t have to defend me. It’s not like your dad has a lot left of his people.” Rose didn’t catch the fleeting look of disgust on her son’s face, but his tone did catch her attention.
“They don’t deserve to know Jackie.” He rubbed a hand tiredly over his face. “They don’t deserve any respect at all as far as I’m concerned.”
“We can’t chose where we come from.” Rose advised softly. “Are you having a good life? It looks like it.”
He smiled, honesty in his eyes. “Yeah, it’s good mum. Sometimes it’s hard but it’s…it’s good. We miss you though.”
“I’m sure I miss you.” In the afterlife, she added silently. She handed the photo back. “Tell your dad I love him, will you? That I love him even now when he’s being an idiot.”
“Jack here then?” Her son laughed. “Right – I’ll tell him.” He put the photo back into a pocket. “Mum, I can’t come again. But I wanted you to know that Sarah and I are fine. Dad’s… he’s mostly fine. Fine-ish. Alive.” He finally settled on, eyes a little haunted.
“I love you and your sister.” Rose took a deep steadying breath. “I’m sorry I died…”
Her son looked up, shock on his face. “Died? You think you…” understanding washed over him. “Dear Maker I let you think…” he grabbed her hands. “Mum you aren’t dead, you’re just… you… you change? Okay? And it’s not bad, it’s not… it wasn’t something you chose but it’s good ya? Great actually. It’s just… really hard, because we couldn’t follow you. And we can’t talk to you, or hold you…” he squeezed her hands. “But you aren’t dead. Just out of reach. You’ll come back, someday, but we’ve got to wait it out.”
“That made no sense at all.” Rose frowned at him. “But that’s okay. No body likes spoilers.”
Her son chuckled. “Now you sound like River and that is not something I ever thought I’d say.”
“I don’t suppose you can give me a hint how long it will be till I meet you?” Rose asked, trying desperately to memorize this adult version of her son while she could.
“Your timeline, or mine?” he winked. Cheeky bugger. “Sorry, mum. I’ve given you too many hints already.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “Have another note for your dad then? You made him insufferable for a week you know.”
“Yeah.” He pulled out a similar note. “It’s mostly Gallifreyan poetry. He knows he’s got a kid whose been visiting but not much else. Told me in the future to tell you and I quote “we raise a bunch of lunatics, Rose, insane monkeys. And I wouldn’t change a thing.”
“Well tell him if his younger self doesn’t get a move on we won’t have any monkeys insane or not.” Rose smiled and hugged her son. “Now you stop causing time loops and get out of here before himself shows up.”
He gave a mock solute. “Love you, mum.”
Rose found the Doctor in the kitchen and slipped him the note. He read it, tucked it into his jacket, and then turned to her.
“You and I have a son.” He stated it as fact and waited to see her reaction.
“You and I will have a son.” Rose corrected with a slight smirk. “And a daughter. So I think you can stop acting like Jack’s gonna swan off with me. You already have – or will – or something.”
“Verb tenses in English weren’t designed for time loops.” He huffed, seeming to be more angry than startled. “And apparently our son is an idiot – causing time loops.”
“Well he is ours.” Rose shrugged. “We aren’t exactly sane sometimes. Probably dropped him on his head too much when we couldn’t stick a landing.”
That made a slight smile tweak the edges of the Doctor’s mouth. “Or maybe exposed him too much radiation.”
“Mum’s cooking- had to be that.” Rose grinned unrepentantly. “He’s really not that bad, Doctor. Just, a kid, you know? Or he was. Lot older this time.”
“I know.” The Doctor’s hand twitched towards the pocket that held the note. “He’s mastered circular Gallifreyan this time, which usually takes at least a century to learn properly. Last time it was half garbled.”
“We was cuter when he was 23.” Rose admitted, eyes falling to the ground. “All brown curls and dimples.”
“Time tots are usually cute.” The Doctor pulled out a chair and sat down across from her. “Tell me he at least had your ears.”
Rose snickered, glancing up to catch his gaze. “I was too busy looking at your eyes to notice.”
When Brix was born Rose recognized him instantly.
What shocked her was that he wasn’t their first child. That was Peter.
Or their second, who they named Adric.
He was in fact their third son.
If she hadn’t known he was meant to be they would have stopped with Adric. Two sons born, two sons died before they could walk.
Time tots, it turned out, had a low survival rate even in perfect conditions. And their lives were not perfect.
But Brix was different, they both knew it as soon as they held him.
And when Brix was followed by a little Jack who never drew a breath… and Jamie, and Joanne, and Rommana…. It was thoughts of Sarah that kept Rose going.
And dread. When Sarah was born Rose knew. But the Doctor did not. He was happy they had the promised second child – that they could stop putting Rose through the grief and the strain.
Rose didn’t have the heart to tell him.
One year and four days after Sarah was born Rose felt a little off. They’d stopped for supplies on a little space station market and she’d thought she’d gotten a little bit of a cold. Happened now and then. She took a couple doses of cold medicine from a frowning Doctor and went to bed.
She never woke up.
At least, Rose never woke up as Rose. She woke up to find where eyes had been there was swirling golden light. Where arms and limbs had been there was eternity. Rose woke in the vortex and as her awareness manifested she knew what had happened.
Auntie TARDIS hadn’t just looked into her heart so long ago – she’d laid a bridge from one to other.
Rose wanted to hold her children, her husband, but TARDIS’s don’t have arms and she now knew what her son had meant. She was gone but not gone – and she could no more comfort them than the ship had ever been able to. Lights, and sounds, and wisps of air…
And a time looped bedroom was the best she could do.