Title: New Friends in Strange Places

Prompt: Friendship.
Fandom/Characters: Doctor Who: Pete's world. John Smith (10.5), Rose Tyler, and an alternate Jack.
Medium: fic
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: None that I can think of.
Summary : Rose and John are living happily together in Pete's world, but one day the missing piece shows up.

Word count: 900 more or less.

Note: This challenge is taking me to very strange places. There will be three sequels to this fic. All written for Schmoop Bingo.

Beta: rabecka

…..

Rose stared at the boiling water. She was making tea for a man currently taking a shower. The man wasn't John. The man was in fact a perfect stranger, a stray she had picked up in the street.

This was December, a cold, rainy December evening. The man had been damp and shivering with cold, he'd looked miserable, but most of all, he looked like home, he looked like an old friend.

"What's going on?" John asked as he burst in.

Rose had called him earlier, and asked him to come home. She knew the project he was working on with Pete was important, but what she had to show him was important too. So she didn't answer him. She didn't need to. John had already spotted the man sitting across the kitchen table nursing his cup of tea like it was some treasure.

"Jack." John gaped. Of course this was not Jack, not their Jack, or at least not the man they both knew as Captain Jack Harkness. For one thing, this one was mortal, though unmistakably fifty-first century bred; John could smell the pheromones from where he stood.

The man glanced uncomfortably at John, then back at Rose, and finally decide he'd better carry on sipping his tea, while those two dealt with whatever was going on between them. Because, for the time being, he was at a complete loss.

"I found him in the street, shivering in the cold." Rose said.

John could have said "That is not Jack." But Rose already knew that, and he wasn't exactly the real thing either.

"You going to say you know me, too?" the lost time-traveller asked from behind his now empty cup.

John considered him. If anyone could hear their story and understand it, it would be this man. Even if he wasn't their Jack.

He turned to Rose. "Do you remember who Jack was the first time you met him?"

"Yes." Rose said. "And I remember what made him change." She added. "Do you?"

John looked at the man still sitting at the table, still waiting silently. Studying him more carefully, John noted the uncertainty, the gauntness. Even though he knew Jack mostly through someone else's memory, this man was nothing like the conman his former selves had known. This man looked miserable, and truly vulnerable. "He is a conman," John reminded himself, good at faking.

"Rose was very kind to me, but I should probably go now," the young man said, rearranging John's dressing gown around him as he got to his feet. "My clothes should be dry by now..."

"Someone's waiting for you?" John asked. "You look like you could do with a hot meal."

"I... I don't do charity. Don't need your pity."

The Human-Time-Lord could tell the man was fighting to keep his dignity but tears were threatening, something was wrong with him. "This isn't about pity, Jack, or whatever you call yourself here." John said taking out his screwdriver. "Rose and I would like to help you."

"And why would you do that? Because I look like someone you used to know? And what the hell is that? Some sort of scanner?"

"It's a sonic screwdriver." Rose replied. "Is there something wrong?" she asked the Doctor.

"Nope. Just pregnant, two months." John said.

This time it was Rose who gaped like a fish out of water. "What?"

"Looks like our Jack never mentioned that little bit," John said very pleased with his gaping audience, especially since the future mum was gaping as well. "In the future, the far future and only on some remote colonies, men will one day be able to get pregnant."

"Who the hell are you?"

"I go by John Smith, Doctor John Smith. This is Rose Tyler, and neither of us belong here. We're from a parallel universe."

"So, this Jack of yours was my counterpart, I guess?"

"Yes, and he was our friend." Rose added.

"But I'm not him."

"No you're not, and we know that." John said. "But you're going to need help." he added gesturing toward the man's belly.

"You don't know me. I don't know what kind of guy your Jack was-"

"He used to be a Time-Agent, a conman, and a very trustworthy friend." Rose said, cutting him off. "Where's the father? I mean, there must be a father, right?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Who the father is."

"Why should I be surprised?" John said. "Come over here, and make yourself comfortable. We've got a lot to talk about. But first, what's your name? Or the name you go by, if you prefer?"

"I think, I'm beginning to like it, being called Jack," he replied. "If it's okay with you, of course."

Stranded so far away from a home that didn't exist yet for them, and didn't exist anymore for him, the newly named Jack couldn't believe his luck. For some reason, Rose and John cared about him. They were compassionate and welcoming and somehow, they were making him begin to believe he could become a better man.

Next one: What's happening to me?