Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own Doctor Who. Even more sadly, Moffat does.

A/N: I originally planned for this to be a one-shot but the plot kinda got away from me so it's going to be a two- or three-shot instead.

Allons-y!

. . .

Stuck With You

Part One: Goodbye

"Doctor."

Starting at the unexpected intrusion – and striking his head on the underside of the control panel in the process – the Doctor peeked out from under the console to meet the fierce glare of Jackie Tyler. Arms folded across her chest, a stance familiar from his and Rose's past arguments, she stood just inside the TARDIS entryway. Glare fixed firmly on the Doctor she appeared supremely unimpressed by the inner dimensions of the time ship. Oh, he was not looking forward to this.

The Doctor smiled sheepishly – not entirely sure what he had to feel sheepish about but Jackie had a way of making him feel like he had done something wrong – and, rubbing the bump on his head with one hand, offered a little wave with the other – one which Jackie did not return. Oh yes, this was going to be bad.

"Go on, then, get your arse out here," she ordered, retreating to the sitting room with the confidence that he would follow. The Doctor did.

"What is it?" he asked rather impatiently, bouncing in his seat. "I'll have you know you interrupted me while I was busy fixing this – you know what, I won't waste my time explaining, it'd only confuse you . . . but it's very important and unless you want to have to call the fire department again. . . . But the toaster really wasn't my fault, the twenty-first century models are just so primitive."

Jackie only glared.

"Oh, come on, Jackie. You can't still be holding a grudge about that. And I haven't even done anything this time, just been in the TARDIS, fixing a few things up. She's a bit busted up after the trip the parallel world but. . . ."

"Parallel world?" Jackie echoed. "What parallel world?"

"Rose didn't tell you about that?" The Doctor arched an eyebrow in surprise. "Huh."

"Huh?" Jackie hissed and, though her voice was barely above a whisper, her trembling hands belied her true anger. "That's all you have to say – huh? You bring my Rose back more upset than I've seen her in years and she won't tell me squat about it. At least when Jimmy. . . ."

"Jimmy?"

"You mean she hasn't told you. . . . Well, I guess that's something I know and you don't, Mr. Time Lord. 'Sides, I'm not mad at him right now, am I? I'm mad at you" - the Doctor winced - "you, who disappear into your ship for two days – two bloody days, Doctor – and leave me to deal with a daughter who can't get a decent sleep without having nightmares – and won't tell me a damn thing about them." Jackie's voice broke and she buried her face in her hands for a second; at a loss for words, the Doctor leaned forward to place a tentative hand on her shoulder, but she batted it away.

"You told me you'd protect her, Doctor," she managed finally, sniffing deeply.

"I know, Jackie. I – I tried. . . ." It was a sorry excuse and they both knew it; he didn't even flinch when her hand flew out to slap him across the face.

"You tried? Here you are, a Lord of Time, and all you did was try?"

"I couldn't. . . ."

"What couldn't you do, Doctor? What?"

"Well. . . ." The Doctor ran an agitated hand through his hair, wondering why he hadn't locked the TARDIS door. He winced at the second slap.

"Don't you well me! And don't you tell me I'm not smart enough to understand your complicated alien explanation either. I know enough. I know that you drop Rose off every week or every month or every six months – whenever you feel like it, anyway – an' that sometimes you hang around an' sometimes you don't. S'pose I'm funny to you, with my daytime telly and my microwave meals. . . . Doesn't matter. I know you make my Rose smile, not that fake just-for-pictures smile but smile, and that's what's important.

"But this – I can't take this anymore . . . because when you lot come home I know, I know, when something's gone on you don't wanna tell me about 'cause it's not some weird alien food or shop or somethin' where you bring me back a souvenir. All I ever hear of the dangerous stuff is when it's knocking on my own front door and when you go off again I'm stuck worrying that maybe next time you won't come back at all, maybe nex' time I'll just be stuck wondering, never knowing for sure one way or t'other. And this time . . . I don't know where you were, I don't know what happened to Mickey, I don't know how close you two came and I'm not even sure I want to, but I need to, alright? Because right now, she isn't smiling; right now, she is more upset than I thought you ever had the right to make her and I need to know why." Jackie paused in her spiel to take a deep breath, appearing to steel herself for something, and that scared the Doctor more than any threat she could have made.

"And if you can't tell me – won't tell me – then you go disappear back into your blue box again 'cause she won't be going with you."

The Doctor swallowed thickly, made an attempt at a scornful scoff. "Jackie, Rose is a grown woman. She is more than capable. . . ."

"And I am her mother." Her tone left no room for argument and the Doctor didn't try to. He knew she was right (though he would never admit to it in so many words), knew she deserved to know all of it, every last detail of the parallel world and pre-revolutionary France and Queen Victoria's possible lycanthropy because she was Rose's mother and she was oh, so human and there was that ever-present, so human, so amazing bond that parents and children on this wonderfully insane world shared. She deserved to know that he was keeping his promise even when he wasn't.

Because he couldn't always protect her. That was the problem. And there were only so many pleasure planets they could visit before Rose began to get suspicious; she missed the running as much as he did. No matter that it felt like a betrayal every time they raced down ancient, echoing halls or across strangely-colored sands, some dangerous creature in hot pursuit; it was so easy to ignore when Rose was grinning at him, hair blowing in her face, and he couldn't help but grin back. He convinced himself that her happiness and her safety did not have to be mutually exclusive, convinced himself that they could go on like this forever.

But no matter how hard he tried – no matter how many times he warned her not to wander off, no matter how tightly he held to her hand – there was always something. He couldn't protect her from his own idiocy and arrogance, couldn't protect her from the heartache of losing first her faux-family in that other world and one of the closest things she had had to family in this. She wasn't always safe with him and what if, when he told – told, it sounded like such an infantile term, a child tattling on their friend, but when Jackie gave him that look, it made him feel like one – it turned out that Rose's happiness and safety were not mutually exclusive only in those radiant moments of running but back in this very flat at the Powell Estate, working in the shop and eating beans on toast?

It was easier to bury himself in TARDIS repairs and technical tomes than to even consider such a possibility yet here it was anyway, staring him in the face, impossible to brush off with another trip to the universe's largest shopping mall or spa. Not when there might not be any such trips again, leisurely or otherwise, if the look Jackie was fixing him with was any indication.

With that ultimatum, what choice did he really have?

The words spilled from the Doctor's lips as an altogether separate sense of betrayal overwhelmed him. Rose would hate him for this. Part of him, the strictly selfish part, hated himself and wanted to shout and storm out – Rose gathered in his arms – when Jackie told him she wanted him gone in the morning.

But this is what's best for her, even if she doesn't realize it yet. She deserves a normal life, a fantastic life, with a fantastic bloke, the kind who will remember all the holidays and birthdays and anniversaries, the kind with whom happiness and safety are one and the same and who she will smile as radiantly at as she once smiled at that strange man – his faces, both of them, fading in her memory now – who took her hand and called himself the Doctor.

He missed that smile and, when he crept down the corridor later that night – careful not to wake Jackie, snoring in the next room – he told himself it was just to see if he could catch one last glimpse of it, tugging at the corners of her lips as she slept.

It was a feeble hope. All that was to be found were wadded tissues scattered across the bedspread and dried tear-tracks on her cheeks. The Doctor hovered at the foot of the bed, shifting his weight awkwardly from foot to foot, knowing full well that he needed to touch her – tuck a strand of hair behind her ear, brush a hand across her cheek, wrap his arms around her, his own Rose-sized teddy bear – or he would go crazy and knowing full well that he couldn't. Because if he touched her she would wake – such a thing was inevitable in situations such as this – and if she woke, he would have to tell her goodbye, and if he had to tell her goodbye, he wouldn't be able to resist hinting that maybe this wasn't goodbye for good, that he might come back, and that was not good – very, very not good – not when it would give them both false hope. No, goodbyes made things too difficult.

The Doctor sighed and turned to leave – if he didn't now, he never would – wincing as the floorboards creaked under his feet and the sleeping form on the bed stirred under the coverlet. Self-sabotage – his prayers for her to sense him, for her to cry out for him in the throes of a nightmare, for something, anything to stop him from leaving this room, leaving her life forever – or just plain coincidence, as was inevitable in situations such as these, he wasn't sure. (He thanked any deities that might be listening nonetheless.)

Still as a statue, he watched her rub her hands into her eyes – red and puffy from tears – and sit up slightly, searching for the catalyst of the creak and spotting his familiar form.

"Doctor?"

He should let her think this was just another dream – another nightmare where the Doctor didn't answer her call – and when she fell back to sleep, he would sneak out again, more quietly this time. If he said something now, he would have to make conversation – no matter that it was two in the morning, they had debated Disney movies at quarter of three before – prolong this torture with his witty quips and anecdotes, all in the knowledge that when he said goodnight it meant goodbye. He couldn't lie to her and he couldn't tell her the truth: goodbyes made things too difficult. He shouldn't say anything, really.

"Rose."

. . .

A/N: Let me know what you thought in a review! I'm kinda nervous about how I wrote Jackie and the Doctor's interaction, so I'd love to hear your opinions on it. :)

I will be updating Domestics with another chapter or two before this because those have been bugging me to be written. Unfortunately, I've had the flu for the past week-and-a-half so I'm just getting to them now. Ick.