Nothing whatsoever to do with my Alternatives series, or a continuation of my last story. This is a story just on its own, that goes into my Jackie table.

Sometimes

Rose was crying.

Not unheard of, sure, but it was the way she kept on saying that she was alive that got to her. Where in the world had they been? She had asked the Doctor when they had arrived, and that had been half an hour ago and Rose was still crying, though not as heavily as she was before. All she had gotten from an answer was 'Far Away'.

It took another half hour before the tears fully stopped, and by then Rose was exhausted and went to bed. She spent five minutes staring at the door, before she turned to where the Doctor was, still standing with his side against the TARDIS, though he wasn't looking at her. He was looking at something she wouldn't be able to see.

"We fell through a crack in the vortex. There isn't supposed to be any cracks, and I fixed it when we got back. We crashed into a parallel Earth. We found the alternate version of you and Pete. Rose over there was a dog." At that, the Doctor let out a sad small chuckle, and shook his head.

"Pete?" Jackie asked. Did he mean her Pete? He was alive on some parallel world?

"Yep. Same man as you had Jackie, but his Vitex ended up popular. Your other self and him were rich. But you didn't have children."

"Oh Rose..." There was something infinitely sad about thinking that somewhere another Jackie Tyler lived and had never had the daughter that she cherished.

"She tried to save the other Jackie but it was too late. When the emotional inhibitor on the Cybermen was cut off, she died with the rest."

Her hand flew to her mouth and she took a step towards the door that held her daughter, hoping that in some way she could cheer her up. "Did she...you know...see it happen?"

The Doctor fidgeted on the spot, but didn't leave his place against his ship. "She saw what happened when it was turned off, but not to the alternate Jackie, no."

"What were they?" She had to ask, even though she was definitely going to regret it, because she could see that whatever happened had shaken up the Doctor too.

"A metal body with a human brain grafted inside. With the brain still functional and each individuals identity still inside the suit, an emotional inhibitor, a device automatically included with the...upgrade so to speak, was used. It stopped emotion. All emotion. The Cybermen would remember who they used to be, their lives, but feel nothing of it. To destroy them and save the world, we had to destroy the inhibitor. They remembered then Jackie. How to feel, how to act, how to die. It drove them crazy, to the point of death. They were driven mad by the pain of their own existence. And Rose witnessed that."

"Oh god, Rose! No wonder she is so upset."

The Doctor took a deep breath and closed his eyes, as if to hide from her in some way. "There's more to it than that. Afterwards, the alternate Pete rejected Rose. Didn't accept her as a daughter he never had. And then Mickey. He stayed behind. He found a place he fit in, where he could make a difference in the world. He's out there now, Jackie, saving the parallel Earth from becoming overrun by Cybermen. He became a hero."

"Oh, Mickey..." It was at this point that Jackie herself started crying, and it was only then that the Doctor stepped away from his ship. He came over to her and hugged her, whispering over and over that he was sorry.

After a few minutes she stopped. She would miss Mickey, a lot, but right then Rose needed her more than she ever had before. And the first thought that went through her head when she calmed down was completely unrelated to her daughter. "Oh, sweetheart, I got your suit all wet."

She surprised a chuckle out of him, and it helped in making her shield herself against the hurt of losing Mickey.

"It'll dry, Jackie. Don't worry about it. And I really am sorry about Mickey staying behind, but it was his choice and there was no talking him out of it. He was important to you. Probably even more so than to Rose in the end, because he was here and was someone you could talk to."

Sniffing, straightening herself out and wriggling out of the Doctor's grasp, she made her way into the kitchen. "Tea?" she asked him, peeking through the door to watch as he sat down on the floor with his back against the TARDIS's doors.

"Please," he replied, closing his eyes and laying his head against the blue wooden outside of his ship.

He hadn't moved by the time she went back out there, two cups of tea in her hands. She handed him one, wondering just how close exactly he was with his ship. "Why don't you come and sit on a chair. It'd be much more comfortable than the floor."

He shook his head. "No, I'm fine here. The old girl's been through a lot. She almost died you know. Gave her ten years of my life to keep her going long enough to get back here."

Jackie blinked and looked at the blue box parked in her lounge room. "It's weird. You know, the TARDIS being a living ship. How'd she almost die then?"

He took a another deep breath and let it out slowly, shrugging slightly before answering her. "She draws her energy, her life force from this universe. She...feeds off of it. When we fell through the vortex, all that was just...gone. Only one tiny power cell managed to cling to life. But it was enough to get us home. She'll be fine, but needs to rest for a bit, regroup, and restore her energy. Thankfully the power she uses for fuel is a different kind, and she has plenty of that."

And Jackie smiled. "So until she's better, you're stuck here?"

He looked at her and grinned. "How'd I know that'd make you happy? Yep. Stuck. I hate being stuck. But it's not anyone's fault. It was just a freak one off accident. Thankfully."

They slipped into silence, drinking their cooling tea. It was comfortable, probably the one time she really had enjoyed just having the Doctor's presence around her. And now she had the TARDIS parked in her lounge room for god knew how many days, and what if someone came over for a visit?

She had only drank half her tea when the Doctor sat up straight and begun rubbing the wood in soothing circles, like one might do to someone that is upset. He begun to hum under his breath, low and steady and it was a rather beautiful sound. He kept it up for 15 minutes before the frown that had been on his face lifted into a smile.

"What was that about?" Jackie asked, when he let his hand fall back to his lap, and he gulped down his cold tea.

"She has feelings too you know. Think she might have been a bit...shocked from what happened. Glad we were landed just now. Nothing is as frightening as being in flight when a TARDIS has a panic attack."

She stared. "Your ship had a panic attack?"

The Doctor looked at her like she had grown another head. "Well she practically died, was brought back to life, and had just enough power for a jump to get us back in our own universe and to land here. She's old. Older than me by...quite a bit actually. She worried it might happen again because her power is very low at the moment."

"Will it?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No. She'll be fine. Just needed a bit of reassurance. She can feel that we are in the right place now. She'll settle."

Jackie nodded, because she didn't really know what else to do. Her life was getting more and more complicated the more she knew of the Doctor and his ship. And she knew barely anything. She wondered how much Rose knew of him, if he opened up to anyone or would prefer to stay the utter mystery he is to everyone else.

"Do you think soup would be good for dinner? I don't know if Rose would be up to eating much, but..."

He smiled at her and nodded. "You want to make her feel better Jackie, I get it. Soup will be fine. I don't think her appetite will be very big for a while. You can save a big dinner for when we leave again. Rose's favourite."

Jackie nodded again. "Yeah. Tomato or pumpkin, only two I got at the moment."

He shrugged. "I've got others in the kitchen. Pea and ham, chicken, beef, I got some chicken noodle soup too. Umm, others are in there, but I don't think you'd like them very much."

Just what she needed; alien soups for dinner.

She did know Rose though, and apart from chips, out of all of them she shook her head and smiled. "I think she'd like the chicken noodle."

The Doctor grinned back at her. "She eats them if she gets sick. Reason I got them in the first place. The common cold is very much common, and has billions of different varieties. Some worse than others, naturally, but as long as it doesn't turn into pneumonia, there's nothing to worry about, not with her immune system anyway. You humans are susceptible to quite a lot of them. There are even versions that can affect me."

"Hah! You, sick. I'd like to see that." It was rather sadistic of her, but she really would, because she had a feeling that was one of those see it to believe it things. Sort of like the inside of the TARDIS.

"Well, next time I feel bloody awful, I'll bring myself here and you'll wish you had changed your mind. I'm a terrible patient and I'm allergic to aspirin, so I'd be achy and feverish, may be nauseous and would moan a lot about the unfairness of life in general."

Allergies and sickness. She wouldn't believe it fully, but she knew right then that he was telling the truth because his face was so open, and not the normal way it looked when he was trying to lie his way past her anger.

She remembered the time he brought Rose home with an arm that was cut and bleeding all over the place from a trip onto a piece of glass, and the instrument he would have used to knit skin back into place was busted and needed fixing. For the life of her, she couldn't remember what that contraption was called, but it was a bit similar to his screwdriver.

He had said that she simply tripped and fell. It wasn't until the hospital they had taken her to had pulled out bits of glass that she knew the truth and she had raged at him for a full hour.

"Everyone's like that when they're sick."

The Doctor snorted. "Oh Rose hides it the best she can, but the TARDIS can pick up on illnesses and would tell me if one of us was coming down with something. And a cure for the common cold here, well in your future, might not work in other areas, because of differences in the molecular structure of the virus in other parts. There isn't a miracle cure for all of the different kinds. Some you just have to suffer through. Well, when it comes to a cold, simply put, the best thing is plenty of fluids and bed rest. I usually don't bother with a cure at all."

Jackie chuckled softly. "Not even when you catch it?"

He scowled in memory. "No. Strands I can catch are unaffected by those silly cures. If I have to suffer through it, everyone else does too."

"Ah, generous of you."

"Yep!"

"And modest too."

"Completely."

"Go get the noodles, Doctor."

He went inside his ship, and half an hour later returned with enough for three. He quietly handed them to her and took himself away from the TARDIS and sat on the couch, flipping on the television as he did so.

By the time Rose had come out, her eyes red and watery from crying again, the noodles were done, and the Doctor was watching the news. They ate around the television set. It was all very much normal and domestic, but the Doctor didn't complain once. For that matter, he hadn't done much complaining since he regenerated. Jackie liked this version of him much better than the other one.

She had found both of them lookers though. Nothing like that Jack fellow they had bought over once to introduce her to, but still nice enough on the eyes. Especially this version. Rose told her it was his pretty boy face. She never said it with the Doctor around.

Rose had gone back into her room after half a bowl. Jackie sighed, but knew that Rose would come out when she was ready for it. The Doctor looked like he was about to run after her to see if she was alright, which was a bit silly, since they both knew she wasn't.

"Leave her alone for a bit Doctor."

He looked at her and the look in those eyes of his made her squirm. "She only ate half..."

"Yeah and I think we already had that discussion."

He frowned. "I just...I don't like it when she's not feeling right. Even when she's sick, she'll eat the whole bowl."

"She's not sick at the moment."

She had never really noticed just how big his eyes could get when he was upset. She was noticing it now however. She folded her arms and looked away. "She needs time. You should know about that."

"Time? Yes I know about..." She could see when he got what she actually meant by knowing about it. "Ah. Yes. Sorry. That was a bit stupid of me."

She smiled at him. "As long as you know that."

He nodded. "Oh yes. I can be extremely thick about some things. And I'm not too good with emotions."

There was something hilariously funny about that, and she couldn't help but start laughing. Because it was true. Half the time, Jackie wondered if he knew what emotions were. Though he did feel them, perhaps even stronger than those around him, he was...such a man and kept everything to himself.

"You and every other male out there, Doctor."

He frowned at her and pouted. "That's a bit...general isn't it?"

"No."

"What about empathic males?"

She blinked. "What's that then?"

"Empathy? Oh, come on..."

Her hand twitched and he noticed. He sat back, almost like he was shying away from her and lifted a hand to rub absently at his left cheek. "Imagine someone who could feel your emotions, and those of everyone else around you? Empaths generally really don't like me."

Blinking, Jackie shrugged. "Alright then, take them out of the list."

"Thanks. The generalisation is still way too high. Most races have emotions. Especially the big ones. You know, joy, love, fear, sadness, anger, grief. The ability to laugh is always good. Oh, and cry. That's good too."

Jackie looked back to Rose's room and sighed. "Yeah. Not like I know much anyway, is it?"

"That's not fair on yourself, Jackie. You have the ability to know a lot of things, to learn quite a bit. You just do what most other humans at this period of time do and...don't. Easiest thing to do to change that is to go out there and do things, learn anyway."

"But I can't just go out there and do things like that."

He looked at her with his head tilted to one side. "Why not?"

"Well, school is for people younger than me, and it'd just be...weird to go back to learn new things now. I turn 40 in a few days you know?"

He grinned. "You're never too old to learn something new. You could go to college and get a degree or a certificate or whatever it is that you get from them. Come on, what do you think you'd enjoy?"

She looked at him, and saw that he was genuinely interested in knowing. The problem was that her life had been nothing but the odd job now and then without good pay for so long, and being stuck on the dole that she had no idea what she wanted to do. "I don't know. It's been ages since I even thought of it."

"Oh, that's it. Tomorrow, you and me Jackie. Rose too if she wants to come. We'll go out and see what there is in way of courses. There's more and more each year. Anything from learning to read and write for adults to high paying jobs. Do a course, get enough experience and you could go to university and get a good job. Well, if you wanted one. Suppose you could just spend your free time at home and just do courses. Some people enjoy that. Learn some things about a large range of subjects, instead of just a huge amount in one thing."

She smiled and shook her head at the endless babble that seemed to be coming out of his mouth. Well, at least she could understand what he was saying this time. Usually when he went off in tangents, she didn't know what the hell he was going on about. "That what you did?"

His good mood seemed to evaporate in seconds. "Well, no , and yes. I had to suffer through a lot of school that I didn't enjoy for a hundred years or so at...home. I wasn't exactly the most enthusiastic student back then. I found that I learnt things by the hands on approach, and anything else bored the hell out of me. I failed my exams the first time I took them, and only just passed another time."

She couldn't imagine him failing anything, because she knew he was extremely smart. Yet again, she had heard that people like him ran out of steam and patience for things too easy for them. "Was it too easy or just boring?"

He frowned and sniffed. "Well it wasn't that it was either really. I loved the sciences and math. It was the way they taught it. Stuffy, old, too scared of change, instructors. I wanted...more than they could give."

She smiled, punching him lightly on the arm. "You see, what if I get a teacher that I can't stand?"

He winked. "Play with it as much as you can. Do practical jokes. Put whatever goes in your brain into things that the teacher hates. You might find yourself failing, but regardless you will learn something."

"Oh really? And what's that? How to be a general nuisance?"

He poked out his tongue and laughed. "Valuable life experience. How to stick up for yourself in an environment where nothing and no one gets what you want. And, yeah, the ability to be a nuisance can be good too in certain situations. Hah! Sometimes it can actually get you out of trouble rather than put you in it."

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, with you anything is possible."

"See! You're learning already!"

"And you, mister, are having way too much fun with this whole conversation."

His wide smile fell a bit, into a much more comfortable looking grin and he shrugged his shoulders. "Like I said, ability to laugh is important."

"And ability to cry. Don't see you doing too much of that."

She had meant it as a joke, but the minute the words were out of her mouth he closed himself up tight. It was also the one time she had seen him look the way he did right now, like he was about to be beaten to an inch of his life. Odd really, he usually had a smile on his face in dangerous situations, unless Rose was in trouble.

"Oh, I can."

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Well, yeah. I figured that."

"I thought that we were going to be stuck there. We almost didn't...and she was dead, Jackie. I thought that she was dead. All I have left of home, gone. All alone...you have no idea what that feels like. You can moan and say that you have nothing because Rose is with me, but it isn't true. You have so much, you just don't realise it."

For the first time, after hearing the Doctor say that, she realised he was right. Now that Mickey was gone, she had lost more than she had wanted, lost more than even Rose going off with the Doctor into danger at all times of the day.

She had lost her sounding board. Her friend she could truly confide in.

She was now more alone than she had been.

But she still had friends, her family, her flat. She had weekends down the pub. She had her world, her people.

All the Doctor had was his machine and Rose.

He had almost lost the one that was probably more important to him. The one who was always with him. The one who managed to get him to different times and places. She was just now beginning to realise that to the Doctor, the TARDIS was much more than just a ship.

Without the TARDIS, she didn't think the Doctor would be able to survive for very long. He'd lose hope. Something she was amazed he still had, after everything he had lost.

She patted his knee and smiled. "You know what? I'm glad you survived. I think the universe needs you in it."

He looked at her for a while, just staring, until he nodded and a slow, true grin spread across his face. "Yeah. Sometimes I'm glad I survived too."

Jackie supposed that at times, sometimes was all you needed to get by.

Nodding she turned her gaze to the television and flicked on the news. Sometimes, she found herself glad that Rose was travelling with him. Sometimes she gets visits.

Sometimes would be enough for her, too.