The Pain of a Mother
Jackie Tyler watched the blue box containing her daughter disappear. She looked down at her watch, counting. Seconds later, she looked up. "Ten seconds." The blue box wasn't back like Rose had promised. She walked back to her flat, wondering when she'd see Rose again, if ever.
Don't think like that, she instructed herself. Rose'll be back. She promised. So did the Doctor.
But it was weeks until Rose did come back, and even then she didn't come home, only stopped in Cardiff for a while. Jackie raged a bit when Mickey came back and told her what happened, but settled down after a while, glad, at least, that her daughter was alive.
When Mickey came and got her, saying that Rose was back, she almost hugged the man. But Rose was miserable. From the first look, Jackie knew the girl wanted to do anything to get back to the Doctor. Jackie knew, had known for a good long time, that Rose was in love with the Doctor, and this, his sending Rose back to Jackie, to safety, to home, showed Jackie just how in love the Doctor was with her daughter.
Jackie watched as Rose tired desperately, listened as she talked about meeting her father, and decided what she had to do. She cashed that favor Rodrigo owed her and borrowed a rescue truck.
She handed the keys over to Mickey and stood back. The truck did the trick, and the covering was torn off. There was a bright golden glow and the doors of the TARDIS slammed shut.
There's no pain like that of your children, Jackie thought, hoping that Rose would be happy now.
The next few months, however were agony. Christmas Eve, though, Jackie was thinking about Rose, wishing she would come home. And then she heard it. The noise of the TARDIS. She sprinted out into the alley, met Mickey, and watched for the TARDIS to appear.
When a man neither of them recognized stumbled out of the TARDIS and started babbling about needing to tell them something important, they were surprised. When he wished them a merry Christmas, and then fell flat on his face, they were shocked into silence.
Jackie helped Rose bring the man Rose claimed was the Doctor up to her flat. When Rose had finished checking to make sure both his hearts were working (Both? Jackie thought. Now that's weird.), Jackie tried to lighten the mood by asking whether there was anything else he had two of. The two of them walked to the kitchen, and Jackie tried to catch up with her daughter, but Rose didn't seem to want to.
Then things started getting weird. Really weird.
The Christmas tree attacked them, and the Doctor only stopped it just in time. Then, after scaring off odd-looking Santas, the Doctor passed out again.
Jackie watched her daughter trying to cure the Doctor, held her as she sobbed. No pain like your children's, she reminded herself, hugging Rose close.
The next morning, about one-third of their neighbors went out and stood on the roof, acting hypnotized. Rose insisted that they go hide in the TARDIS, then was being ridiculous about the food. Jackie went back to get a bag she had left behind, and when she got back, the TARDIS was gone. So she waited.
When it felt like they were never going to get back, she found Rose and Mickey. And with them, the Doctor, up and about, seemingly fully healed. And…the Prime Minister was there, too. Jackie watched as they celebrated, watched the gun go off, watched as the Doctor walked up to Harriet Jones's personal assistant and whispered something to him.
Jackie got Christmas dinner on the table, watched Mickey and Rose fill their plates, saw Rose's face light up as the Doctor, out of the pajamas and in a suit and overcoat, entered the room. She knew Rose would be going with the Doctor right then and there as she saw the Doctor grin back at Rose.
But that didn't stop her later comment after it was finalized.
"Well, I reckon you're mad, the pair of you," she told them, holding back a smile as the Doctor told her about how everything was new to him now, that he'd never seen it before, not with those eyes.
The next morning, (the Doctor still didn't see to like being planet-bound, as he called it, for long) she hugged Rose as the girl got ready to leave, wondering why Rose kissed Mickey. Those two were never going to work. They had ended so long before that, when Rose had shown up in Cardiff. Officially, anyway. They had probably been over since the Doctor first came into their lives.
Jackie tried to be happy for her daughter, but it was so hard when everything was so dangerous. She got to spend a little time with Rose when they came back to help Mickey with what had appeared to be an alien infestation in a local school, but it wasn't much.
And then the ghosts came. The ghosts came and the Doctor didn't. Eventually, the world settled down, and still there was no sign of the Doctor.
When he did show up, he turned everything technical. Typical of him to do that. Jackie wasn't too mad about it; it was just in his nature. But when he forgot to check if she was still on his ship, well, she meant it when she said she'd kill him if they ended up on Mars.
That feeling doubled at the way he talked about her to the people that seemed to have captured him.
I'll give him aged fifty years, she thought rebelliously as they were led away. I'll give it to him right up his smart-ass behind!
But that rebellion turned to awe, to indignation, and then to fear as events progressed. The fear calmed somewhat when the Doctor assured her that he would make sure that they all made it out of this, then she was terrified as the Cybermen took her and Yvonne Hartman off to be "upgraded," as they called it.
She watched in terror as Ms. Hartman was shoved over to be upgraded, heard her say her last words; "I did my duty for queen and country," saw her step into the small compartment, and heard her scream of pain.
Jackie was terrified of what would happen next, and then she saw it. A small opening in the guard, a back turned where it shouldn't be, and she exploited it, she got herself free. Maybe they would all make it out of this somehow.
In the stairs, her cell rang. The Doctor. He asked for an identification of where she was, and she couldn't find anything. In desperation, she cried, "A fire extinguisher!"
The Doctor sighed, and then she did find something. "It says 'N3,'" she told him.
"Right, got it. Hold on Jackie, we'll get there." The line went dead.
The next thing Jackie knew, she was face-to-face with two Cybermen. Suddenly, they exploded from behind. When the smoke cleared, there stood Pete. Her Pete. Or a man who looked identical to him, anyway.
The Doctor tried explaining it, to which she just said "Shut up."
After a very short conversation, and an even shorter period of denial, she found herself running to Pete and throwing herself into his arms.
They all went back up to the top floor, where the Doctor started being clever. She looked on as Rose protested, told the Doctor she was staying, tried to convince Jackie to leave, to go to the other universe, saw the Doctor slip the switch over Rose's head, and then Pete hit the button.
Rose looked around, realized what happened, and hit the button again, taking only herself back. Jackie was about to go back with her daughter when Pete ripped the switch off her neck, told her that all the jumping was ripping holes in the universes, that they couldn't go back.
She argued, said that Rose was his daughter. He yelled back that she wasn't, she was Jackie's daughter. Nothing had hurt Jackie more. But then, this really wasn't Rose's father. Just some man who looked like him. She sobbed to Mickey, not knowing why, wondering if Mickey would even care. He just confirmed what Pete had said.
"Please," Jackie begged Pete. "Please. I know something's gonna happen. I just know it. You have to go get her!"
And Pete listened, he went and got her. Jackie watched him leave, watched him come back with Rose in his arms, watched Rose break down, sobbing, begging to go back.
Jackie had been right. Rose would have fallen into the Void. She would have died if Pete hadn't gone back. Rose was grateful that her mother had saved her life, but she wanted to go back. Jackie knew Rose was heart-broken. She knew the young girl was in love with the Doctor, loved him maybe more than was healthy, and it broke Jackie's heart, to see this broken girl who had once been so alive, so full of fire. It broke her heart as Rose tried to adjust to life on the strange new world, where they were rich, where they were important, where there was no Doctor, where there was no inter-galactic travel, barely any inter-planetary travel.
The pain of your children hurts the most, she told herself again. Every time she thought that, reminded herself of it, it seemed to have some connection with the Doctor.
When Rose had the dream, Jackie knew that they would be going, that they would be following the voice wherever it led Rose. They all took turns driving, not stopping more than necessary, for gas, for food, for the occasional bed.
She waited patiently on the beach that Rose said the voice stopped at. She watched as her daughter looked for the Doctor. She hoped for her daughter's happiness when this encounter was over as the smoky image of the Doctor appeared. When Rose turned, two minutes later, her eyes full of tears, Jackie knew it hadn't happened. The Doctor hadn't managed to tell Rose that he loved her, and they would never get another chance.
Jackie sprinted across the beach to her daughter, held her as, once again, Rose cried because the Doctor was gone, and he was never coming back.
The heart-wrenching pain each child feels, Jackie thought, tears in her eyes for her daughter. That is the pain of a mother.