***Ok So I was trying to write the next chapter for LNTCB but I just couldn't. I thought it was moving awkwardly and it was hard to understand and I wasn unhappy so here a re-write, please give it a go and if oyu hate it I will re-upload and continue the old story.
A long time ago Rose learned how lonely the world, the Universe can be without the person you love most. A little less long ago she learned just how lonely the world was without the person you loved most.
She and John Tyler-Noble-Smith work well together because of this. Because he can still remember how badly he wanted her, or rather how badly the Doctor wanted her, and she can still remember how lonely she was without her Doctor and they meet each other half way. They fall in love eventually, and once that happens it's all about marriage and soon thereafter babies. For years it's about babies and tests and empty nurseries. It's horribly ironic, for how compatible the human race is with any other species, this particular human, Rose, is not compatible with her half-alien husband. Tests and checks and test tubes all say the same thing: Their bits are fine, there is no reason why John Tyler-Noble-Smith and Rose Tyler cannot have children, yet they cannot.
The mere knowledge scathes them. There are tears and arguments and apologies and frustration. There are forgotten birthdays and workdays and nights where one of them doesn't come home, and then finally John builds the Loom.
He's tinkered with the idea. Toyed with it. He's thought it through ten times by twelve times, and finally he caves. Many long nights and careful construction soon create the Loom, and after he's checked it and rechecked it and taken it apart and put it bat together, he presents it to Rose.
"It's a Loom." He explains softly, "the Timeslords used them to create the next generation, that is via asexual mass-production. It creates people. Timelords. Well that one created Timelords, this one should just help us in our family department."
She looks at him torn and confused, so he continues quickly.
"I know we can't do in vitro fertilization, well because on me mostly, can't have medical tests showing the non-human variations of my DNA so I thought, well I thought we could give it a go."
She doesn't say anything, and John's heart pounds painfully against his ribs. He feels time slip by making him all the antsier. "If you don't want….I can destroy it, if you'd prefer."
Rose jerks up to look at him. Her gaze is consternating, as though she's trying to decipher the meaning of the universe from just his face. Her hazel eyes are tired and bright, but terrified and the slight laugh lines about her mouth are tight from her pursed lips.
He counts to seventy-two before she smiles a little unsure but hopeful. "Let's have a crack at it then." She says and he beams flooded with relief he didn't realize had piled on.
He throws his arms around her and they hug tight then kiss, which escalates, so that when they find themselves in front of the machine again, they are both completely disheveled and up with nervous anticipation in the middle of the night.
"So how do we do this?" Rose asks rubbing her arms. "Do I have to like….I mean DNA wise…Do I like…have to give it one of my eggs or somethin'?" She asks and John grins slightly.
"Nah, just prick your finger, and I'll prick mine. One drop of blood each should do it."
She looks at him incredulous. "Really? Just a drop? You sure? Seems like an awful little for a baby maker."
"Yes well, that's all that was really used on Gallifrey besides I made it, genius me, what could go wrong?"
Rose purses her lips but decides against mentioning the toaster, dishwasher and vacuum he had tinkered with. Instead she turns back to the Loom tensely and pricks her finger.
John does the same and they scamper back up to bed.
Needless to say, the next day when they comes down stairs in the morning to find a strapping young thirteen year old boy making breakfast they are a bit more than shocked. He hears their footsteps and looks up at their gaping shock. "Morning Mum, Dad," He smiles, "I made breakfast."
Rose glances at John then back at the boy. He looks a bit much like her first Doctor. He's got the nose and gangly form but the odd mix of blonde hair instead of the shaved black fuzz. He's wearing an old baggy night shirt and gym shorts he must have found in the clean laundry down stairs.
"Sorry who are you?" Rose asks dazed.
The boy frown, "I'm your son."
"We don't have a son." John says slowly, but Rose can see his eyes drift back towards their living room, where the Loom was left.
"You didn't have a son. I gained consciousness early this morning I thought, however it would be prudent to let you sleep and then greet you with breakfast." The moments that pass make the boy's face fall harder and harder into a serious mien of hidden hurt and something like anger.
Rose is the first to break the silences with a startling exasperate huff-almost-laugh. "John…."she makes that noise again shaking her head, and then looks at the boy.
"Well c'mere you. Let your mum have a good look at ya'." He looks at her sharply, and takes slow deliberate steps towards her, unease but hiding it well. Rose herself has no idea what she's doing, no idea what to feel about this half grown sprout, but she holds her arms out, and he approaches, and right when her left forefinger grazes his cheek, she knows.
She pulls him hard against her, and tucks his head under her chin as best she can, murmuring and petting his soft blond hair. "My boy," she whispers, "I have a son."
John from behind her is shaking, she can just feel it , but gingerly he reaches out to, and touches the boy. He trembles as he pulls them both into a hug, and Rose knows she should feel more trepidation over this, but there is just something so entirely right about the boy and him being theirs that makes everything seems so wonderfully ok.
"James," she says suddenly, and both her boys look at her. "You haven't got a name have you?"
Her son shakes his head. "I was waiting."
"You like the sound of James?"
"Yes."
"Well, alright then James." She says pulling him against her again. John stokes the boys hair again and kisses her cheek then suddenly makes a mad dash upstairs and comes tumbling down with a camera shooting off photos like a lunatic. "Perfect first moment, Rose, Mother and Son."
They almost don't make it into work, almost don't go at all, but an emergency call that sets them on edge ends up tearing them from their new son.
"You have to go." James says, "I'll be here safe and sound when you get back, but there's no time to explain my existence and save the world. I've already figured out most of the appliances, I'll just continue on further education."
"We can't just leave you." John frowns. "I haven't figured out why you turned out the way you did. Not that you're not brilliant, and all, but we sort of were planning on baby you."
"I'll figure it out and tell you, but today isn't a day you should dilly-dally. I can just feel it." James says rushing them out the door. They are torn really, between arguing that with him and going but in the end they go, mostly because their neighbor's car gets vaporized, but also because they need something they are used to shock them back from the surreal morning into reality.
In the end, James was right. Something was horribly wrong, and if they had waited any longer London might have been lost. Rose gets hurt, not too badly, but a telepathic invasion can have serious disorientating qualities. She groans as John helps her inside the next day in the wee hours of the morning, but their worry is torn between their own injuries and their new found son, James.
James. There are half a dozen shopping bags on the floor and neither of them really understands why as they scramble to the kitchen, James is sitting at the kitchen , but he is no longer the boy the left yesterday morning. He's tall and imposing, with all the rough features of the ninth Doctor, save for, once again the blonde hair, and general youth of his face. "Hello, Mother, Hello Father. I was growing but there weren't any clothes my size, so I did some shopping." He says unconcerned as he hand them both mugs of tea.
"But you were a little boy earlier, just thirteen, not, not all grown up." Rose rasps quietly.
"Mother please, try to rest, you were injured, don't strain yourself getting upset, it's the Loom. It's built to accelerate life to adulthood, Father just made it much to efficient. That's all."
"That's all? That's all?!" Rose says in frustration. "But we missed nappies and birthdays, and late nights and homework! We've missed firsts Christmases and trips to the Zoo and Sundays in bed. We've missed all the good things, what sort of parents are we then?"
Fat tears run down her face in frustration, and John grasps her hands in apology and comfort. They collapse together into kitchen chairs and James kneels in front of them readily. "You're my parents." He says quietly. "From the moment my pulse began to my first breath, and the awakening of my conscious mind, I have felt loved. I could feel it right down to my bones, because it was there in your blood. You loved each other and me without even knowing who I was yet. That makes you more my parents than time and birthdays. That is what makes me love you."
Rose stares at him in tears still then lunges to clutch at him crying and sobbing, and John pulls them into him as well. They all hold each other tight.
James pulls away first. "Now that that's settled I should introduce you to my brother. He was loomed in the late afternoon yesterday." Again he says this nonchalantly and again Rose and John are faced with the shock of seeing another gangly boy in their house, blonde too, but with floppier hair, and a broadness to his shoulders he smiles at them tentatively. Rose automatically opens her arms and he grins unsurely before flying at them, hugging them excitedly.
"Johnny." Rose murmurs, running her hands through his hair.
The answering grin he gives here is brilliant and bright, and tells her that she got it just right.
James, Johnny and John turn off the Loom after tea that night. John says it's on a continuum, to create as many people from the blood samples as possible, and sheepishly rubbing his neck, he adds that he had forgotten entirely that the aging process had been built into the Gallifreyan machines he based his off of. He frowns and mutters that it must work faster because the boys were human; aging them into adulthood rapidly, but stopping as soon and puberty was passed.
Rose sees them exchange looks but can't bring herself out of shock to call them on it.
It takes a while, and a lot of explaining at Torchwood, but eventually, they become a real family. The boys take positions at Torchwood as scientists- honestly for being only a few months old they are geniuses beyond compare, and John just loves to brag, or at least look smug about it- and they go home together and have dinner and talk about the TARDIS and adventures. It doesn't take long for James and Johnny to claim a space in John's workshop either.
By the time the year is out the three are thick as thieves, and Rose feels a jealous ache in her belly. She can't teach them quantum physics or work on inter dimensional pockets, or talk long about histories of places light-years away. Oh course the boys try to do things with her that she likes, but Rise has so few hobbies beyond what her husband has shown her that its hard, and as much as she loves them, she can't stop wishing for a baby of her own.
The Loom doesn't get turned on, but a year after the boys come, Rose is at her physical with the doctor when they tell her at the clinic.
She's pregnant.
And that's when the trouble starts.
