Roses and Ghosts

by Lizzy Lovegood

It won't be easy but the best things never are. If it's easy, it won't mean anything, not when easy only means a quivery quiet, filled with things that should be said but aren't and things that shouldn't be said but need to be.

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, I just enjoy playing with the characters.

A/N: So remember that second reunion fic I mentioned in December? Yeah, here it is, but for Valentine's Day instead of Christmas. Enjoy!

Allons-y!

. . .

Roses and Ghosts

March 2007

Being rich, Jackie Tyler decides her first month in Pete's World, is overrated. Sure, it's nice, not having to worry if the check for the cable bill is going to bounce or if she'll have enough spare change to go down to the laundromat but at least it was something to worry about, something to talk over with Mo and the girls down at the pub on Thursday nights. A talking point is what this Pete would call it.

Everyone here - from the dry cleaner's to the massage parlor to her own bloody kitchen - is too worried about insulting Pete Tyler's long-lost wife for her to hear any good gossip. As for the shopping, something she thought she could never grow tired of, there's only so much you can do when your husband insists accompaniment by an armed escort and your personal stylist pays weekly visits with six months' worth of wardrobe choices. Don't they know that half the fun is elbowing the bitch who was reaching for the pair of half-off Jimmy Choos?

She misses Mo and the pub and Thursday nights. She misses the laundromat.

"Jax, don't be ridiculous," says Pete. "That's what we have staff for. I'll just ask one of the girls to. . . ."

"I don't want one of the girls to!"

"Alright." Pete sighs, rubbing at his temples. "Alright, fine. What if you come with them and make sure it's done right, done just how you like it. How's that?"

He's talking to her as if she is a child, someone to be coddled and lied to and handed the platinum credit card. Shoving back the covers of the bed, Jackie straightens against the headboard, looming over her husband.

"It's not about doing it right! It's about doing something!"

"You have plenty to do! Shopping and . . . well, there's the salon."

"Do you really think I'm that shallow? That you can just dress me up and let me play house and I'll be happy?"

Pete clenches his jaw and the comforter tautens under his grip. "Fine. Go. But Dimitri's coming with you."

"This isn't my life, Pete. I'm not her." She's already won but feels the need to say it anyway, to remind him that she is not the woman in that box of old photographs. The same but different woman who this Pete first fell in love with and who this Jackie is undoubtedly a feeble replacement for, a ghost like the ghosts-that-weren't, offering the barest hint of memory: the smell of her perfume and the taste of her kiss.

Pete rolls over in bed, his back to her, and shuts off the light.

. . .

April 2007

Under threat of holding hostage her new, monochromatic wardrobe, Jackie is able to drag Rose out of the house on her second trip to the laundromat, if only to have someone to talk to. Dimitri, it turns out, will remain mute and inscrutable even in the face of her most garish pair of knickers - bright pink with HOT MAMA printed across the butt, a gag gift from Mo for her fortieth - and is content to lean against the rumbling dryer like a large, foreboding statue, scaring away the blue-haired granny who attempts to approach with a tentative smile and a tin of chocolate biscuits.

Rose is hardly any better. In sweatpants and a baggy gray top, she looks like a ghost of her former self. This trip has been her first out of the house since they arrived - it's so much easier to be depressed when Pete's omnipresent staff will fetch Ben & Jerry's and takeout within a fifty-mile radius - and she brushes her hair, lank and unwashed, in front of her face, a veil to hide her from this world she has no wish to be in.

Jackie wants to cry and scream. She wants to take Rose by the shoulders and demand she get on with her life. She wants to join her in bed with a pint of ice-cream and binge-watch EastEnders. Most of all, she wants her daughter back even when she has no clue how to go about doing it.

"Sweetheart, I'm going to go get a pop. D'you want anything?"

"No."

"What about some crisps? You look hungry."

"I'm fine, Mum." She doesn't take her eyes off of the tumbling clothes, T-shirts and trousers and Jackie's pink knickers, a whirlwind of color.

"Alright. Be back in a sec." Squeezing Rose's shoulder, Jackie heads over to the vending machines, leans her forehead against the cool glass of one. Business cards and advertisements from the bulletin board reflect in it and one catches her eye: FOR LEASE.

"Mrs. Tyler. Mrs. Tyler, are you alright?" Dimitri's large hand lands on her shoulder and she suppresses the urge to flinch.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine, thanks." She spots his frowning reflection in the glass, a subtle deviation from his usual expressionless face.

"Would you like to go home?"

If she knew where home was, she'd be happy to.

"Nah. Still a half-hour left on the dryer, anyway. Why don't you go on back to Rose? Make sure she's not getting into too much trouble?" She smiles dryly.

"Mrs. Tyler. . . ."

"I'll be over in a minute. Can you please just give me one bloody minute?"

"Yes, ma'am." She hears him retreat, combat boots squeaking on the tile floor. Taking a last deep breath, she punches her selection into the machine and, not entirely knowing why, turns and stuffs the ad into her purse.

It is only once Rose has retreated to her bedroom and Dimitri has gone home for the day (where, Jackie can only suppose, he sits and waits for it to be morning again), once Pete has called to say he'll be working late so the kitchen can serve dinner without him and she sits at the long table with a place setting for one, that Jackie dares to dig the ad out again. It's written in bright pink font and, absurdly, this reassures her that she is doing the right thing.

Still, she waits to ensconce herself in her walk-in closet and presses her ear against the door and listening for any passing footsteps before dialing the number listed on the half-dozen tearaways, speaking in hushed tones to a woman named Dot and arranging a meeting for the next day in the manner a spy would arrange a drop-off. If Dot considers this odd at all she doesn't say, only wishes Jackie a good night and says she'll see her tomorrow bright and early.

Her old Pete always criticized her for jumping into things headfirst. (The first day they met she'd nearly cold-cocked him when he rushed in to hold her back in a brawl against the cabbie who'd rear-ended her.) He had also said it was what he loved about her. (Six months to the day, she'd screamed yes before he'd even gotten down on one knee.)

Jackie sticks her hastily scribbled note, explaining that she will be back tomorrow afternoon - I just need some space, she adds at the bottom, an addendum to I love you - into the book on Pete's bedside table. Slipping on her best pair of heels, she tucks a navy business suit (something she never would have picked out for herself, she'll have to remember to thank Maggie next time she sees her) and some toiletries into a bejeweled tote bag.

She wonders if her new Pete will feel the same.

. . .

There was a picture on the flyer but this could not have prepared Jackie for just how pink the building was. Brighter than a Pepto-Bismol bottle, it reminds her of Rose's old room. She loves it instantly.

The tantalizing scent wafting through the screen, used in lieu of the bright pink front door despite the unseasonable chill, isn't bad either and Jackie strides confidently in, glancing up at the little bell that tinkles at her arrival and then around at the rows and rows of glass cases, displaying all manner of sweets: cupcakes and cookies and the chocolate-dipped macaroons Rose likes so much. She's sure she must've gained a stone just by looking at them and is thankful when a woman comes striding out of the back room from which Jackie can feel heat radiating. There's an apron around her thick waist and her gray hair is coiled into a messy bun but a few sweaty strands stick to her forehead.

"You're Jackie?" Her tone is no-nonsense but her eyes are soft.

"Yes," says Jackie. "You're Dot?"

"That's me. Come, sit down. I have some chocolate-chip cookies just come out of the oven. We can have those while we talk."

"Oh, no, I. . . ."

"Don't go pretending you don't eat, love." Dot pulls out a chair, it and the table just as bright a pink as the rest of the shop, motioning for Jackie to sit in the one opposite. "We all do it. Some of us just take more pleasure from it than others."

"That's a good way to look at it," says Jackie diplomatically.

"And don't try to brownnose me, neither. I've seen a million of them. I want to talk woman-to-woman. You tell me what you want and I'll tell you if I can sell it you. And for God's sake, have a cookie."

Jackie does.

. . .

By the time she returns home, Pete is pacing a hole through the kitchen floor. Rose sits at the table, chewing on her thumbnail and, after a cursory glance to determine Jackie is alive and well, slopes out of the room again. leaving her sort of-husband to envelop her in a bone-crushing embrace.

By the time she's told him the whole story, a good twenty minutes between calls to Dimitri and the staff and the London police force, Pete is livid.

"Anything could have happened to you, Jax! Anything!" He runs a hand over his scalp, appearing to search for nonexistent hair to pull at, before rubbing at his temples instead. Jackie can't help but feel disappointed. (Her old Pete had hair.)

"But it didn't." She reaches for his left hand, hanging uselessly at his side, slightly hurt when he jerks away from her touch. She starts back, "Pete. . . ."

"And now you want to start some bloody boutique?"

"A flower shop!"

"Whatever." The hand rubbing at his temples flaps at the air in ambiguous exasperation. "Christ, Jackie. Do you know the first thing about running a business?"

"Yes, I do!" she retorts hotly, a half-lie. She'd taken a few night classes down at the community college and could balance the books and run expense reports. "And what I don't know, I can learn."

"Right," says Pete, mouth turning up scornfully at the corners. "And how much money are you going to spend learning before the place goes under, precisely?"

Jackie glares at him. "You didn't seem to mind when I was using it for shopping sprees."

"You weren't purposefully endangering yourself then! For God's sake, Jax, it's two hours away. You didn't tell anyone where you were going. You could have gotten mugged. Killed. Do you get that?"

She wants to shout at him, to remind him that yes, she does get that, thanks very much. In case he'd forgotten, she's spent twenty years on her own, avoiding being mugged and killed and worse, has raised a daughter that she'd had to protect from those same dangers and all without a man warming the other side of the bed, ready to arm himself with a baseball bat if need be. If this were her Old Pete she would have: their fights had shaken their tiny flat, and their marriage, down to its' foundation. (The only thing louder was the make-up sex, Bev would tease when she felt a bit bitchy but she was right for all that.) But here is her husband, her New Pete, who shouts with his silence and looks so shocked at the prospect of a real row that Jackie can't yell anymore and reaches out to touch his shoulder instead.

"What happened to you?"

At first she thinks he's not going to answer but then he sighs, deep and sad, so much tougher and so much more fragile than the first man she knew. "I lost my wife."

. . .

Lucy's set up the guest room for her - she insisted that Pete take the master bedroom, it's too weird to claim that place when she's lived here barely two months. A stack of DVDs and several pints of ice cream in hand, she knocks at her daughter's closed door, waits several moments before trying the knob only to find it open. Rose is sitting up in bed, knees tucked close to her chest; she looks up when Jackie enters the room.

"Hi."

"Hi," says Jackie. She waits for a second, then holds up one of the DVDs: Breakfast at Tiffany's. Whatever other feelings she may have toward her predecessor, the woman at least had good taste in films "D'you remember when you were little and couldn't sleep and we'd have slumber parties in your room?"

"Yeah," says Rose and smiles a little. Jackie wonders if she remembers confessing to the headmistress that she kept on falling asleep in class not due to a late bedtime (Jackie had been called in for a good half-dozen parent-teacher conferences by this point) but simply because class was boring with a capital B.

"D'you want to do that again?"

Rose nods. "Sure."

. . .

May 2007

"When were you going to tell me about this?"

It takes Jackie longer than she cares to admit for her to recognize the voice as belonging to her husband. Averting her eyes from his angry reflection, she makes a show of applying her lipstick - a bright scarlet today - smacking her lips together with relish before turning to face him. She raises her just-plucked eyebrows a fraction at the thin, white stick he is holding gingerly in one hand but offers no other visible sign of what she may or may not be feeling.

If she doesn't, she knows she'll start crying.

He's treated her with a distant courtesy the past few weeks, like a member of staff but with a higher credit limit. It's almost worse than after he died, when she could nearly feel his weight in bed next to her or hear one of his lullabies (to the tune of failed commercial jingles), that would soothe Rose when she cried and convinced herself he would be there, had to be there, if she just looked around slowly enough. (He never was.) Except this time his dirty dishes, uneaten food already congealing by the time Jackie's alarm goes off and his footsteps on the stairs, hours after she's tucked herself into the guest room or Rose's camp bed, are no grief-filled hallucination; he is there, in the corner of her eye, hovering in the doorway and opening his mouth to say something before sighing and leaving her line of vision again.

"About what?" she asks, just to make him say the words.

Pete sputters, face going red. It's the most animation she's seen from him in days; the last time was when he was running late and spilled coffee on himself on the way out the door.

"About - you know very well what, Jackie. This isn't something you can just - just hide from me!" He shakes the stick at her and a few unidentifiable droplets fly in Jackie's direction. She takes a step back to avoid them and Pete, misinterpreting her motion, falls back a few steps himself.

"Look," he continues, more gently and with that detached mask firmly in place again, "we need to deal with this."

"I'm not getting rid of it," Jackie snaps. She isn't deluded enough to think this baby can save them but she isn't about to get rid of this child for no other transgression than being conceived with a man she thought dead.

"I know you're not," he soothes. "I'm not talking about that. But it won't be long before people catch on. We have to discuss our approach." As if they're talking about installing new countertops instead of the birth of their child.

"To the media," says Jackie.

"To the media," he confirms, and Jackie wonders if he noticed the sarcasm in her voice or simply chose to ignore it.

That's all that's mattered to him lately: the media. The faceless, nameless monster who locks her in the cold comfort of the haunted mansion because think what the papers would say if he kicked his long-lost wife and daughter back onto the street barely two months after their miraculous return and it would be a journalist's field day if she accepted Dot's offer to live in the little flat above the shop that the three of them - she and Dot and Rose, who says little and works tirelessly - are refurbishing. She had cut the check for the deposit a week ago, after ensuring that her name was still listed on the joint checking account; Pete hadn't been happy but had shut up when Jackie idly mentioned what The Economist might think of the Vitex CEO's and Torchwood director's newly-imposed spending curtailments. If he was going to obsess over the bloody media, the least she could do was use it to her advantage.

"I'm having a baby, Pete. What else is there to tell?"

He rolls his eyes at her naivete. "Quite a bit if you're a newsman, believe me. How far along are you?"

"What? A month, barely that. Why would you. . . ." She gapes at him, a lump rising in her throat that she is quick to swallow down. "It's yours, Pete."

"I know," he repeats. "I believe that, but you have to think how the press is going to think."

"That I'm having a baby!"

"You're a woman, getting on in years. . . ."

"I'm forty!"

"Your only child was presumed dead," he continues doggedly, "and you've just recently been reunited with your husband. You've never gotten a real chance at motherhood so you seized one once it came within reach. You took a, I dunno, a foreign lover and. . . ."

"Yeah, real foreign. All the way from a parallel universe, that one."

"Jackie, I'm only saying what everyone's going to be thinking."

"Well, I'm lucky I have such a supportive husband, aren't I?" Jackie snarls.

"I am being supportive. That's why I'm trying to tell you how unbelievable this sounds."

"No," she says and again, louder, when he makes to interrupt. "No! You know what's so bloody unbelievable? That I've stayed with you this long." She snatches the little white stick from his hand, shoves past him to the door.

"Jackie. . . ." He's hot on her heels as she strides down the hall to the guest room, shoving a few trousers and tops into her bejeweled tote bag. She can sell the rest if she needs to, if the shop doesn't do well. It all falls apart in the wash anyway.

"Rose?" she calls. "Pack a bag - we're leaving!"

"Jackie, you can't. . . ." He touches her arm, the first time he's touched her in weeks, and she tears it from his grasp.

"Don't you touch me!"

Obediently, the hand drops to his side and Jackie tries not to let her surprise show as she throws the tote and her purse over one shoulder, still calling for Rose. She can feel his eyes on her as she flips open her phone and calls a cab - he hasn't offered her the town car and she doesn't want to give him any excuse to - hefts her bag further up on her shoulder and tries for a wan smile as Rose joins her in the foyer. Glancing between them both, Rose continues out onto the drive.

"Jax," he manages, voice croaky and constricted. Despite herself, she turns to look at him, expecting she doesn't know what. To say that he loves her - not the doppelganger of his dead wife, but her? To admit that he wants this baby as more than a way to prove to the public eye that he loves his wife? To charge down the grand staircase and sweep her up in a fierce embrace just like on her soaps?Any of these things?

But all he says is please and it's not enough even though she wishes it was.

. . .

There's only one bedroom in Dot's tiny flat which she insists Jackie and Rose take to which Rose insists right back that she's slept in much worse places than this, thanks and she'll do just fine on the couch. It's the most spark Jackie's seen from her in ages and, excited by the possibility of regaining even a fraction of what her daughter once was, makes an offhand comment about how it's too bad this place isn't bigger on the inside.

The blanket she's been helping to spread over the couch tautens suddenly as Rose tightens her hold, staring hard at the thick brown crochet before tucking it roughly into the cushions. She's pushed too hard, a rough shove when Rose is struggling to claw her way back from the void, and Jackie is overwhelmed with regret.

"Sweetheart, I'm. . . ."

"Night, Mum." Grabbing the pillow from the floor, Rose collapses on the sofa-bed, still fully dressed. Biting her tongue against a second attempt at apology - it won't help anything but to assuage her own guilty conscience - Jackie takes a second blanket and places it over her.

"Goodnight, sweetheart."

. . .

Jackie expects a backslide but, when she wakes the next morning, Rose is perfectly fine. Or as fine as she ever gets these days. Handing Jackie a warm banana-nut muffin and munching on her own, she makes polite conversation with the older women for a few minutes before disappearing to the loo, muttering something about taking a shower.

Only once the tap is turned on, steam seeping out from under the doorway, does Dot turn to Jackie.

"Right. What's this about her boyfriend being nine hundred?"

"She told you?" Jackie gapes, shocked and more than a little hurt. Rose wouldn't talk to her but a half-hour with a relative stranger and she was spilling her guts.

"We got to talking. And if you want to stay here, I think it's best we be truthful with one another."

Jackie wants to lie, to explain that Rose has been having delusions since their return, to exclaim that she's never been so offended in her life. She's Pete Tyler's wife; if she asks him, he'll be sure to put her up in something better than this dingy flat (god forbid what the media would say if he didn't). But it's been so long since she's been allowed to tell the truth.

"It's a long story," she says with a small, bitter smile. It's the same smile she used to use with the girls, talking about a bad breakup or what she heard the upstairs neighbors discussing, the smile that begs them to ask more.

Dot doesn't disappoint. "I've got time."

. . .

June 2007

When the first bouquet arrives, Jackie thinks it's a mistake. They're red roses and she hasn't ordered red roses. In her opinion, they don't seem like a summer flower and they also just so happen to nauseate her. Then again, most scents nauseate her these days. If it weren't for Dot, Jackie's sure she'd have lit the place on fire by now; while the baker may not have any children of her own, she's catered to enough desperate pregnant women to know what works and what doesn't.

Granted, they are still in the process of figuring out what exactly works for Jackie. (The saltines and ginger ale, hailed as the universal cure-all, are no help with this baby and she wonders if parallel-world morning sickness has a different remedy.) So she wrinkles her nose at the roses sitting on the stoop and shuts the door again. No delivery man, no receipt, not her problem.

Ironically, it's Rose who is the one to make them her problem. Putting the flowers down on the far side of the room, she slides a small, folded something from the petals and hands it to Jackie.

"What's this?"

"Dunno," she says, "but your name's on there."

It is, squeezed onto a scrap of paper barely half the size of an index card, as if it wants to be overlooked and tossed away. The lowercase i doesn't have a dot over it and the tail of the J is slightly stunted, like the writer didn't even try. She knows the g's and q's will be missing their loops as well and flips the card over to read the rest of the notes,just to prove her supposition correct.

I hope you like roses.

The y's aren't curly at the ends either, but she keeps the note anyway. The roses go into the bin.

. . .

The next note comes three days later, in a spray of purple tulips. It's a busy delivery day and they get lost in the scrum till Dot unearths them. Her lips twitch when Jackie takes them with a small, embarrassed smile and, from behind her, Rose raises her eyebrows.

I got these from the greenhouse, this one says. Don't want to create any undue competition for you.

Jackie searches the flat for a vase and, when she doesn't find one, settles for a wine glass instead. She hopes the next ones come in a pot, even if he does have to get it from the shop.

. . .

The dozen yellow roses which arrive ten days later - none too soon for any of the little shop's inhabitants and Dot smirks when Jackie all but tears the bouquet from her grasp while Rose heaves an exaggerated sigh of relief - are tied with a matching ribbon

Do you like Chinese? the card asks. Golden Dragon makes the best egg rolls . I haven't been there in ages. If you'd like to go, I'll be there at 6 on Thursday. Otherwise, here's their takeout menu. (This last is folded around the yellow ribbon and Jackie sticks it to the fridge.)

Jackie wants to go and, pregnancy hormones or not, hates herself for wanting to. He hurt her and he lost her and he is doing nothing more than attempting to make misguided amends by sending overpriced floral arrangements, hamming it up for the press. Worse, maybe he's only echoing what has worked in the past, when her echo got snitty with him. It's not like he knows how his echo proposed to her with those yellow flowers a promise as real as any ring (though Jackie still demanded one once his next paycheck cleared), how he would arm himself with them, along with several pints of ice cream (both procured from the gas station) and how, when their little girl was born with a fine fuzz of hair the same shade of yellow, what other choice was there than to make them her namesake? (By the time she reached the terrible twos, it had darkened to a light brown and Jackie took this as some sort of cosmic permission to move on.)

But quarter-to-six on Thursday still finds Jackie assessing her cleavage in the spotted bathroom mirror and, pecking Rose briefly on the cheek, heading the ten minutes down the road to the Golden Dragon. Pete is waiting at the table nearest the entrance and raises a hand in tentative greeting when the little bell over the door rings. She thought he might have more flowers or a box of chocolates in hand but both are missing. Ridiculous as it sounds, Jackie is glad of it; flowers and chocolates would imply a date, something sentimental, and while that's fine from the safety of Dot's cramped kitchen it is only uncomfortable sitting across from each other in the dim light.

Then again, having a Cadbury to munch on while they wait for their meals might not be so bad. She contemplates asking him to run across the street to Tesco's and is opening her mouth to ask him just as he opens his own to ask how the shop's doing.

"Fine. It's fine. We're not open for business yet, but. . . ."

Pete nods. "And Rose?"

"Better." She pauses. "She's talking more."

"That's good." He pauses, eyes traveling over her purple silk blouse (the top two buttons left open) and carefully-curled hair. "How have you been?"

Jackie shrugs. "Alright. Morning sickness isn't exactly a walk in the park," she adds, just to see him blanche and pin his gaze to the mahogany tabletop. It's less satisfying than she imagined it would be.

"We can go somewhere else," he offers, chastened.

"No, 's alright." On reflex she reaches to place her hand atop his but realizes her mistake halfway through and jerks it suddenly toward the teapot instead. "This baby isn't one for rule-following and God knows I've tried everything else under the sun."

"You're sure?"

"If I wasn't, 't would be a bit too late, wouldn't it?" she teases as several heaping plates are set down in front of them.

"Never too late," he says, a brave effort at nonchalance but his expression - caught somewhere between hope and contrition - is childishly easy to read all the same. It sounds like a bit of dialogue from one of her soaps and Jackie covers her laugh with a halfway-genuine smile, one that Pete returns as he passes her the platter of pork lo mein.

In the past fortnight Jackie's sampled all manner of food, outrageous and bland, but it's an order of General Tso's Chicken that really settles her stomach.

She insists on splitting the bill - even if it all comes from their joint account, she can at least mark it down as an IOU - and Pete pushes her receipt across the table with nary a word. He doesn't protest either when she strides across the street to the Tesco's and proceeds to raid the candy aisle for Cadburys and Kit-Kats.

"Bring chocolate next time," she orders, tearing one open with her teeth on the walk back to Dot's. "Not the fancy kind with the weird fillings, neither. Just . . ." She bites into the wafer with a contented hum, licks a smear of melted chocolate from her thumb.

He raises his brows. "There's going to be a next time?"

"The ultrasound's next Wednesday," she says. "I'll send you the information."

"Thanks." They stop at the door and Pete's hand moves spastically as if to grasp hers before he shuffles backward, shoving the offending appendage into his pocket. "Right, I - well, I guess I'll . . . see you then, then."

Jackie nods.

"Night, Jax."

Before she can lose her nerve, Jackie crosses the space between them and kisses him on the cheek, light as air. "Goodnight," she says and disappears into the house without looking back.

The flower shop nearest to Pete's place picks up at her fourth try and Jackie has to confirm her accompanying message - Royal Hope, Dr. Christine Perkins, 10:30 - with the confused florist several times before hanging up, a pleased smirk tugging at her lips.

And Pete thought she had competition.

. . .

July 2007

In this world, Pete's dad is named Anthony. He beams brightly up at her from the yellowed photograph, arms linked with his son and daughter-in-law's. His face is so much younger than Jackie remembers it, unravaged by cancer, but death finds him anyway - a hit-and-run six months later, dead on arrival.

"I hadn't made a cent yet," says Pete, tapping the picture. "He lent us the money for the wedding, said I could pay him back once I was rich and famous. He was always so proud of me and my stupid inventions."

"Yeah, was the same for us." Hesitantly, she adds, "You paid back half of it before you died. At least half."

Jaw tense, Pete nods and flips to the next page of the album. One of the Polaroids shows a little Scottie dog, nose and ears barely poking out from the top of a Gucci purse. This is her daughter's namesake.

"Said she didn't want to ruin her figure," Pete had told her the other day. His voice was shaky as he said it and Jackie had nodded along, not trusting herself to suppress a spiteful remark. Not only was this speaking ill of the dead but the speaking was being done by the woman who had superseded the dead. A parallel-world version who was and wasn't.

It feels like they've been walking a razor's edge the past two weeks, always about to plunge over one side or the other. Some days there are yellow roses and he pops her favorite film - hers and hers alone - into the player and she will want to shag him senseless, sometimes even give in to temptation with a long, lingering kiss but always retreats to her room in the end. (If the temptation is too much, her mobile is within arm's reach, to call Dot or, if Torchwood's recon team needs information on some new, unpronounceable alien race done yesterday, Agent Tyler, Rose.) On others she will spot a picture of them on their wedding day or at some fancy corporate function - dressed to the nines while Jackie was at home in her dressing gown - and when she confronts him, her heart is heavy with the knowledge that he is not reacting the way her Pete would, that she is not reacting the way his Jackie should.

They will be the first fights of many but at least they're having the fights now.

"Anthony's a good name for a little boy, I always thought," Jackie muses aloud, attempting nonchalance and, if Pete's perceptive look is any indication, failing miserably.

Pete nods again, makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. "And if it's a girl?"

"It'll be a boy," she says confidently. "They're easier anyway."

"Easier?" Pete echoes in disbelief. "They destroy everything they touch! Last Bring-Your-Kid to Work Day, we had two taken to the hospital after five minutes in the lab."

"Yes," Jackie explains, "but at least you know what to expect. You can prepare for it, yeah? We girls are sneakier. Rose was a little terror, I can tell ya. Used to go yes, Mummy and then turn around and do exactly what I'd just told her not to." She sighs an affectionate, put-upon sigh. "Hasn't stopped since."

Like giving Mickey Smith a black eye when he told the whole school she was his girlfriend because she didn't want cooties.

Like dropping out of school and moving in with Jimmy Stone only to return doorstep six months later, sporting a black eye of her own, the prodigal daughter returned.

Like running off with a mysterious man in a magical blue box and it's not for good, she comes for a visit (not home, but to Mum's) every couple weeks after that first accident - what the pair of them call it, like believing your daughter dead for a year is no more to cry over than a bit of spilled milk - but each time she's farther away, wrapped up in that world of faraway planets and farther-away times, changing into a woman who Jackie can hardly recognize because her daughter isn't content to just be a part of the world anymore, she wants to piece it back together. She sighs again and Pete indulges her, draping an arm loosely round her shoulders. She relaxes in his hold and he presses a chaste kiss to the corner of her mouth.

"If she comes out half as good as Rose, I think we'll be fine."

Jackie smiles up at him, tilting her head so that her lips fit over his.

Hurried footsteps sound on the stairs and a second later Rose bursts into the sitting room, barefoot and tousle-haired, trembling.

Pete has shot up from the sofa before Jackie can react, only to pull up short as she bypasses him to sink into a seat facing Jackie. In the end, the only father Rose had even known sacrificed his life for the universe and left it while she held his hand. She may have saved the world with this Pete but he had, in the process of saving her life, torn Rose away from hers. An unfair grudge it may be, but if love was fair Jackie wouldn't find her hunched over a cup of tea at two in the morning, breath rattling in her chest as she tried to suppress the sobs, wouldn't see the spark in her eyes and the curve of her lips as she tried to keep in the hope.

"It's the Doctor, Mum." She taps her temple and the shaky smile stretches still wider. (The last time Jackie had seen it, Rose had been pulling levers and pressing buttons, alongside a man whose smile was as broad as her own, laughing in the face of danger that wouldn't dare to tear them apart.) "He's calling me."

. . .

August 2007

Jackie swears up and down that if she ever sees that face-changing wanker of an alien again, it'll be too soon.

Rose cried the whole trip home: great, heaving sobs - interspersed with barely coherent sounds about two minutes and the same old life - that devolved into a steady stream of sniffles and hiccups, unceasing even when Jackie urged her to sleep and she curled up, head resting on Mickey's lap.

"I love you," Jackie reminded her, Rose's head pressed into her shoulder.

Rose snorted, snot leaking from her nose onto Jackie's coat, before laughter - hysterical and burbling and terrifying - began to mix with the sobs. When she finally got herself under control again, she could only reply,"Quite right, too."

If she ever gets so lucky as to see that pinstriped plum again, Jackie vows, she'll slap him so hard he'll bounce back to whatever Martian-esque place he came from.

Rose was gone before breakfast and returned after dinner, after the kitchen was scrubbed clean and the staff had left for the night. Jackie made up a plate for her anyway; slumped in her charcoal-gray suit she was too tired to protest and picked at her chicken and roast potatoes unresponsive to any of Jackie's chatter over her first bridezilla (the roses weren't the right shade of red and she demanded they be painted over) and the cute delivery man (he left his number for Rose last time and Jackie dutifully, hopefully, passed it along only to find it crumpled in the rubbish the next day). She had gone quiet again and that was worse, more frightening, than the crying.

When himself finds his way back again, Jackie promises, he'll get a talking-to the likes of which he's never heard before she'll drag him - by the ear, mind you, and not gentle at all - to the same room the harried-looking orderly did, point and say fix her. Capitalized or not, he's still a doctor; it's his job to make people better and if anyone's deserving of that service, it's the woman whose heart he broke.

Rose did the rest of the breaking on her own.

Gently, Jackie runs the pad of her thumb over Rose's cheek, bruised a mottled blue and purple that stretches from her jawline to just below her left eye, swollen-shut, but one of the few exposed bits of skin she can find.

She should never have been in that warehouse, shouldn't even have been in the office when the distress call came through.

But who ever listens to the mother? (We're swamped with work, Jax, you've got no idea; we need all hands on deck.) The pregnant mother at that, whose worries are illogical and unfounded, the byproduct of excess hormones and nothing more. (She's as stubborn as you are; besides, you and Dot can handle the shop on your own, can't you.) And the stupid, pregnant mother had listened. (I'll keep her from anything too dangerous, don't worry.)

"You promised me you'd keep her safe," she says when Pete's shaking hand lands on her shoulder. "You promised me, Pete."

Useless questions dying on his lips, Pete swallows hard. "I'm sorry," he says, a rote response by this point she is sure. Running back and forth between Jackie and the ICU, Jackie and the OR, Jackie and the grief-stricken families of his team of ten (seven now, one of them was a year younger than Rose, his name was Jeremy) who entered that warehouse, they've had very little chance to talk. Under any other circumstances it would have been admirable, but right now Jackie could care less. She doesn't want the director of Torchwood to come in and ask all the right questions and offer his condolences but needs her husband, Rose's father, to come in and hold her hand and tell her that everything will be alright and that Rose isn't Jeremy.

"I told you she was stretching herself too thin," she hisses, the sound mingling strangely with the soft beep of the heart monitor. "I told you to make her take a leave of absence."

"You know she wouldn't have listened."

"You're her father. Make her listen!"

"I'm also her boss," says Pete and, judging from his expression, this supersedes any tenuous blood relation he may have to his parallel daughter. "It's my job to make decisions for the good of the team. She saved two lives today, Jax. You should be. . . ." He reels back, cradling his cheek and Jackie raises her hand for a second slap.

"I don't care how many lives she saved! I care about her life!" She pauses, nostrils flaring before adding, "More than I can say for you."

Pete exhales hard, opens his mouth to retort just as, from the bed, Rose stirs feebly. Argument forgotten for the moment, they both rush to her side.

"How are you feeling, sweetheart?" Jackie reaches out to stroke her cheek again, but Rose flinches away.

"How bad is it?" Rose croaks. She lifts her unbandaged hand, still slathered with some futuristic healing cream, to run along her forehead and nose, her cheeks and chin, grimacing at the scaly skin under her fingertips.

"You'll be fine," Jackie assures her at the same time that Pete says, "It could've been worse." She glares at him across the bed. Rolling her open eye, Rose picks idly at a scab on the bridge of her nose.

"We'll talk about this later, alright?" Taking Rose's hand in her own, Jackie propels their clasped hands back to the cot. "Just rest for now."

"'M not leaving, Mum." The sedatives and painkillers she's pumped full of are already taking effect again. "I can't. I promised 'im I . . . and 's the only way back. . . ."

Unable to offer any argument - not when she's like this - Jackie pats her hand, summons a smile that she's sure doesn't reach her eyes. "Alright, love."

"Just rest," says Pete gently. And, missing the point spectacularly, "The doctors say you need it." Rose's lips twist into something between a smile and a sob and she turns her face into the pillow so that her next words come out muffled and groggy both.

"I've gotta get back to 'im, Mum." Rose blinks rapidly, grimacing in pain as a few tears slide down her abraded cheeks. "I can' just - I promised. . . . ."

"Alright," says Jackie again, "alright."

She loses track of how many times she says it, but her own eyes are burning by the time Pete helps her onto the adjoining cot and pulls a blanket over her.

. . .

September 2007

It's a boy. She's having a baby boy.

Dot, usually the embodiment of level-headedness, actually squeals when Jackie calls with the news and greets her and Rose with a fresh-baked batch of bright blue cupcakes waiting the next morning. She hands one out to every customer, bragging how she's going to be an aunt. Jackie receives hugs and congratulations and question after question about her due date (January sixteenth) and names (she's leaning toward Anthony same as Pete, his protests don't fool her for a second) and has she started a registry yet (a half-dozen different places). She helps herself to three cupcakes without the slightest smidgen of guilt.

Only Rose's remains uneaten; wrapper torn open and tipped carelessly on its' frosting-heavy side, a few blue sprinkles stick to the glass of the display case. Jackie pops one into her mouth but throws the rest of the pastry into the bin. Polishing it off will only mean that she's willing to accept this new-old Rose, rife with teenage cynicism, who rolls her eyes at every felicitation and disappears to the loo to text with Mickey over the goings-on at Torchwood, in favor of a few more sugar-coated calories.

For the fourteenth time since the appointment, Jackie reminds herself to laugh at Pete for thinking a girl would be easier.

"I don't care how sad she is, she shouldn't be treating you like that," says Dot once the bell has signaled the departure a satisfied bride-to-be. She glares at the crumbled remains of the cupcake and Jackie can't help but wonder if she considers this more of a slight against her culinary skills than anything.

"She's been through a lot, Dot. You know that." Jackie turns to straighten the neat rack of seeds and flower food, unable to meet Dot's eyes. She isn't entirely sure why she's defending such behavior - before she moved in with Jimmy, they used to row every other day over skipping school and snarky comments - but this isn't about Jimmy. This is about a man who left her daughter crying against a white wall for five-and-a-half hours (and in her bedroom and on a beach and in a zeppelin back from Norway for who knew how many more) because he is the polar opposite of Jimmy and promised he would always take her back home. (Or, at least, what Jackie considers home; for them, home will always be wherever the other is, a separation is nothing but a waystation and Torchwood the train that will take Rose away again.)

"I don't care," Dot repeats stubbornly. "You're still her mother. That job was killing her and we all knew it, no matter if it'll help her get back to her Medical Student."

"Doctor," Jackie corrects.

"Mmm. Thousand years old, that'd be a hell of a residency, wouldn't it?" Jackie snorts wetly into a potted hydrangea and Dot pats her shoulder. The bell jingles again and she calls for Rose who stumps back into the room, one leg still healing from the accident, looking ill-tempered at the call to action.

"So. Rose." Their newest customer props himself casually against the countertop, sweeping a few stray strands of dark hair off his brow, eying her up and down.

"Can I help you?"

"You wouldn't happen to be the Rose, would you?" He nods toward the picture window where the bright pink signage, advertising Jackie's Roses, is clearly visible.

"No."

"No?"

"No," she repeats. "That's my twin sister. Can I help you?"

"You and your twin sister are both called Rose?" His right brow and right side of his mouth quirk flirtatiously upward. "I find that rather hard to believe."

Rose shrugs. "These things happen."

"Still," says the man, "it must get confusing. I mean, suppose I wanted to take one of you out and ended up with two beautiful ladies on my arm?"

Rose clenches her fist, knuckles leaving smudges against the glass of the display case and Jackie and Dot share a wary look.

"Then I'd say you had a lot more problems than mixing up a couple of girls," she says after a hard swallow, voice surprisingly even.

"Would you?" asks the man, leaning further forward. "Too much of you to deal with, eh, love?"

"No," says Rose, perfectly deadpan, "because my sister and I are aliens from the planet Fidelius whose mission in life is to rid the world of all adulterous members of the male species. What's more, we are in possession of a rare genetic mutation that will mangle the genitalia of any man who may try to assault us."

Dot hides her snort of laughter with a well-placed coughing fit, heading swiftly for the loo. Looking more than a little discomfited himself, their customer still twists his mouth into something approaching a cock-sure grin.

"Nothing that a night with me wouldn't cure, sweetheart, I can tell you that."

"Want to chance that, do ya?" Jackie retorts, striding forward before Rose can formulate a reply. "'Cause I can tell you, her husband back on Fideli-whatsit won't be too happy. He's destroyed Daleks over this girl," she nods seriously, "you don't want to mess with him."

Blanching, the man glances between them and, acting on impulse, Jackie lunges forward, pulling a ridiculous face that sends him stumbling backward, out the door and into his armored Hummer that undoubtedly compensates for something while Jackie and Rose break out in giggles; tears of laughter drowning out, muting, the bitterness for just a few moments before Jackie wonders if Fidelius really is a real place. She bites her tongue against the question before turning back to the potted hydrangeas.

. . .

Jackie waves up at Joe when she and Rose arrive the next morning; several feet above them, the handyman waves back, brandishing an uppercase F in their direction, and has to clutch the ladder a second later as it wobbles.

"Morning, Jackie, Rose!"

Rose raises a hand in greeting but, morning cuppa only half-finished, doesn't pay Joe or the plastic pile of characters any attention. She makes a vague noise of approval when he inquires whether she likes it - seeing as it concerns her and all, the Jackie's Rose - and looks utterly nonplussed when a few scrub-dressed girls come in, asking if she's offering a discount for medical students.

"Bit thick that girl of yours, isn't she?" Dot teases over lunch and tips Rose an enormous wink when she glances up. "Look out the window, love."

Rose does and, unable to help herself, Jackie follows. There is the dumpster, overflowing with banana peels and broken beer bottles from the tenants next door and the auto body shop across the street. If she squints, it's possible to see the Golden Dragon - where she and Pete have their own table now - and Tesco's. All familiar sights, these pieces of her life, except for the placard not twenty feet from where they stand, bright white and brand-new, waving lazily in the light breeze.

IF YOUR NAME IS THE DOCTOR, COME IN FOR A FREE ROSE.

"So he'll know where to find you," says Jackie when Rose hasn't said anything for at least a minute, a whole litany of excuses bubbling just under her tongue. It's nerve-wracking, this gap between what can be done and what should be done, never sure which is which.

Rose takes a long, shuddering breath, shaking her head at the ground and, instinctively, Jackie reaches out to hold her.

That's when she runs: down the stairs and out the door and into the street, hand held out in front of her as if to hail a cab.

Jackie knows better than to call her back.

. . .

October 2007

It's company policy, Jackie asserts, that part-time employees don't have a say in the decorative decisions made on the shop, interior or otherwise.

"'S not like you're here enough to see it, anyway, sweetheart," she adds after the third Doctor of the day leaves his card - for Rose's twin sister; yes, funny how that works, isn't it? - in the suggestion box and Rose slams the till shut with unnecessary force. And, with a sly look, "Now, if you were willing to take just a few more hours. . . . "

"No, Mum."

The sign stays up.

. . .

"Not like it can actually be impossible, anyway," says Mickey, taking a large bite of marinara-drenched garlic bread. "We're talking a thousand-year-old alien who travels through time and space in a police box. That's the definition of impossibleright there."

"Yeah, 's like that line or something, innit," Jake agrees, slurping a long strand of spaghetti into his mouth. He and Mickey are regular dinner guests these days. "You know, believe in six impossible things before breakfast and all that. That's the Doctor alright."

Rose snorts. "Where'd you hear that, then? The man I knew was always telling me how impossible things were. Everywhere we went, everything we did, was always impossible, always the curse of the Time Lords and this and that, and could never just be. . . ." She cuts herself off, leveling a glare at Mickey instead."Was me who found the way back to him if you remember."

Mickey has the decency to look slightly shamefaced before insisting again, "He'd do anything for you, Rose."

"Not this." Her fingers tighten around the delicate stem of her glass. "He said it was impossible - why not let him believe it? I'm tired of doing the work."

The sign stays up.

. . .

"You know, I think you may be right," Pete muses from the en suite, voice slightly muffled around a mouthful of Listerine.

"Knew that, didn't I?" Jackie calls back. She crawls under the covers and begins the arduous process of finding a comfortable position, finally settling on her back before adding, "Right about what exactly?"

There's the sound of the water running and Pete spitting into the sink, then she hears him chuckle.

"Girls." He grabs a roll of floss from the medicine cabinet, sighing in mock-exasperation. "One of you's as stubborn as the other. And that's not a compliment." He narrows his eyes at her in the mirror when Jackie smiles proudly.

"Can't promise this one'll be much easier."

"He's a boy, isn't he?" Pete argues. "You said boys were easier."

"Boys who I'm not the mother of," Jackie corrects. "And who you're not the father of."

Pete rolls his eyes. "Not me you have to worry about. I am eminently logical."

"And," Jackie adds, not bothering to protest, "with Rose for a sister. Whole family of nuts, this one has. He'll be lucky to come out without a time head." She starts, hand flying to her suddenly-rippling belly. "See? He agrees with me!"

"Huh?" It takes a second for understanding to dawn but then he flies to her side, hand sliding beneath the covers to rest over hers. "He moved?"

"No, he spoke French. Of course he moved!"

"He isn't doing it now." Pete frowns. "Do you think he's alright?"

"I'm sure he's fine. Give him a sec." He moves again and they both laugh; Pete presses a minty kiss first to her lips and then, pulling the covers down, to her belly.

"Go on, Tony. Do it again for Daddy."

The sign stays up.

. . .

November 2007

Back on the Powell Estate, Jackie was well-used to finding naked men in her kitchen, and will take a moment to revel in the impressive arse that darts around her kitchen, making tea, and - if she's found a good one - eggs and toast as well. This bum, while equal to those in her first universe, is also equally unfamiliar and Jackie raps sharply at the door frame to capture its' owner's attention.

The man starts and swings around. "Oh. Morning," he greets in an American drawl, making no attempt to cover himself (though the front isn't nearly as impressive). "Didn't realize Rose had roommates." His face is vaguely familiar and, early as the hour is, it takes Jackie a second to place him as one of the Doctor impersonators who came in looking for his promised Rose.

Looks like he got her.

"I'm her mother."

"Her. . . ." The man - she thinks his name might be Justin or Jess or Jack, one of the J's - trails off and inches behind one of the kitchen chairs, too little too late. "Oh, that's right. I remember you! You work with her at the shop, don't you?"

"My shop," says Jackie. "Yes."

"Yours? Wow," he whistles, "that's impressive. I know my mom, she always wanted to start her own travel agency, never got it off the ground. She works in real estate. But good on you; it must be hard, starting a business and being - uh, being . . . well, you raised a great gal." He furrows his brow at his own word choice, runs a hand through his gelled blonde hair.

"Thank you." Jackie smiles tightly.

"Anyway, I'll just -I'll get going now."

"I think that's best."

"Yeah." He heads out the door and up the stairs, Jackie averting her eyes with difficulty, just as Pete heads down them.

"Hi," says Justin-Jess-Jack.

"Hi," says Pete back, a rote reply that he takes in a second later, stopping at the foot of the stairs to watch Jack-Jess-Justin slip into Rose's room again. Placing a hand on the small of Jackie's back, he propels her ahead of him into the kitchen.

"Why is there a naked man in my house?"

"Rose brought him home, I assume." Moving to the counter, Jackie grabs J-whoever's abandoned mug and puts it in the dishwasher.

"For what?"

Jackie rolls her eyes. "Don't be daft."

"Didn't you tell her about bringing boys home?"

"When she was sixteen. She's an adult now, Pete." She takes out two mugs and fills the kettle with water. And, loath as she is to admit it, adds, "Perfectly capable of making her own decisions."

"An adult living under our roof." Pete glares at the boiling kettle. "She should know better than to just sneak some boy into the house. Any number of pervs out there and she's the Vitex heiress. . . ." He runs a hand across his close-cropped hair, down his furrowed forehead to cover his mouth, making a pained noise.

"She's fine," says Jackie. "She's fine, Pete."

"And he just went back in - why did you let him go back in?"

"Wasn't about to kick him out on the street starkers, was I?" Jackie teases. "What would the media say to that, eh?"

Pete turns his glare on her now. "Better that than let them get up to - to. . . ." He trails off, unable to find a word befitting such a severe crime.

"He's getting dressed." Jackie hands him a mug of tea, making sure his tense fingers grasp the cool handle before taking hold of her own. She sighs when he slams it down on the table, a few drops sloshing over the rim.

"I'm going up there."

"No." Melodramatic as it may be, Jackie still hurries across the room to block the doorway, hot cuppa held out in front of her.

Pete sighs. "Move, Jax."

"No."

"This isn't acceptable. You can't act as if it is."

"She doesn't love him, Pete."

"I could care less how she feels about him." Pete wraps his hand around her upper arm, as though to pull her away from the doorway, and Jackie jerks herself out of his hold. "Bringing strange men into our house is - it's just. . . . You haven't seen any others, have you?" His eyes are wide in terror as if he might turn the corner to discover an infestation of naked men, eating at the floorboards and humping the air. Jackie's tempted to give him the number for the exterminator but settles for taking a light hold of his arm and leading him over to the table.

"She doesn't love him," she repeats emphatically. "She doesn't even know his last name. In a week, she'll have forgotten his first name."

"And that makes it alright, does it?"

"No," says Jackie, "but it's all she can do." She swallows hard, unable to meet his eyes because she knows the knowing look there will be too much to bear; she doesn't realize she's holding her breath till she lets it out, a sigh of relief when he cups her cheek.

There are footsteps on the stairs and the sound of the front door opening and then closing. A few minutes later there's a second set of footsteps and Rose shuffles into the kitchen in a stained sweatshirt and baggy pajama bottoms.

"Morning," she mutters.

"Morning," he mutters back, and hastily excuses himself.

Rose's cheeks are flushed, the same shade as her bloodshot eyes, and Jackie is grateful that her only flatmate in those days, concerned solely with nappy changes and midnight feedings, had no knowledge of the comings and goings of Jackie's own coital coping methods. Grief is an addiction, an amalgamation of sheer relief that there is something other than this numb, endless void and unadulterated terror at the depth of this feeling: the world fracturing under your fingertips, momentarily steadied by tasteless food that turns to sawdust in the stomach, meaningless sex with nameless men that leaves the thighs aching dully. Easy to become mired in but so much harder to escape, it is incomprehensible to anyone but the afflicted.

"Morning, sweetheart," says Jackie, as cheerfully as she can muster. "Did you want a cup of tea?"

. . .

The others, if there are others, at least have sense enough to steer clear of the kitchen and excuse themselves through the garden window rather than the front door. After that first awkward morning Rose, too, is quick to escape, gobbling down her eggs and toast in between upbeat quips about office politics (Karen in HR has a vendetta against Jake and has been messing with his holiday hours) and the latest obnoxious reporter (the last one did his best to corner her till Rose knocked him flat on his arse), before jetting off to the office or the gym.

It's easy to miss the faint red rims to the whites of her eyes or her slightly runny nose, tiny things that can be so easily explained away by a minor cold or the scalding-hot showers she's grown so fond of taking that Jackie doesn't push it. After all, Rose is smiling and Pete - back to his usual self after the absence of further naked male bodies - is smiling, too and Jackie, content in the knowledge that her family is content, smiles back at them both, ready with her own anecdotes over henpecked husbands and baby showers gone wrong. Pretense is easy when it becomes less and less so with each passing day and her smile feels genuine when Rose announces, somewhat shyly, that's she's met someone - his name is Ben, he's twenty-seven, he works at the labs in Torchwood, you've met him, Dad, remember? - and they're going on a date Saturday night.

She still catches herself sometimes, flipping open her mobile to text Mo or call Bev, before realizing she can't. Still, it's more of a fleeting pain now - there and gone as fast as Mo's crow's feet or Bev's hoarse laugh, flash across the fringes of her memory. It makes her feel guilty sometimes, but in the face of Dot and Joe, Pete and Rose and little Tony, something has to fall by the wayside.

They are the ghosts now.

. . .

December 2007

At Rose's invitation, Ben joins them for Christmas dinner. One hand shoved awkwardly into his pocket, he raises the other in tentative greeting, muttering a vague holiday greeting to his shoes. Taking pity on him, Rose crosses to the doorway to take his hand, leading him further into the room; she sends a smirking Mickey and Jake a quelling look and, following her daughter's lead, Jackie shifts herself on the couch and offers the new arrival a welcoming hug from which he retreats a moment later.

"Merry Christmas, sweetheart."

"You, too, Mrs. Tyler." Ben stuffs his other hand into his coat pocket, rummaging around for a second before pulling out a sloppily-wrapped gift. "Sorry about the wrapping - the kids, ehm. . . . But this is for you and Mr. Tyler."

"I told you, Ben, it's Pete." Joining them in the sitting room, the man himself extends his hand for Ben to shake. "Good to see you again, son." And, frowning down at Jackie, "You haven't been moving around too much, have you?"

She pretends to ponder. "Well, I have that marathon scheduled for three."

"Mmm," Pete hums, kissing her forehead. "As long as it's on telly. What's this?" He nods at the hardback Jackie holds in her lap, pieces of snowman-patterned wrapping paper still stuck to the pastel cover.

"A baby book," Ben hastens to explain. "It's . . . well, I know Lynn had one and she - it's a way to track the growth of the baby. Like, first handprint, first footprint, birth weight, first word, first steps, first - first. . . ." He trails off before turning his eyes to the floor again.

"It's lovely, sweetheart, thank you." Jackie smiles, placing the book on the side table with a decisive pat. "There's all sorts of firsts for mums, believe me. I remember the first time this one," she nods at Rose who adds her two cents with a good-natured eye roll, "slept through the night - bloody miracle, that was."

"Yeah," agrees Ben, "Lynn's the same way." His face flushes in sudden mortification and his gaze moves to flit across the far wall of shelving and photo frames (filled with books and art that bore her to tears) before coming to rest just over Jackie's head.

"Lynn's the kids' mum," Rose explains.

"We're divorced," Ben adds. "Separated three years ago. Amicably, of course. The kids are with her now. She has them for Christmas this year. Obviously. Otherwise, they'd be here, or - that is, I wouldn't be here, wouldn't want to impose. . . ." Again, he looks lost for words.

Jake snickers and Rose glares at him.

"Oh, they'd be no trouble at all, sweetheart," Jackie assures him. "It's been too long since I've had a little one to take care of."

Ben nods, his smile quick and terse, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet; Jackie can all but see the tension, a cloudy film around him that undulates with every movement. Were it not for an unwieldy belly, she's quite sure she would have leapt up and hugged Lucy when, ten minutes later, she announces dinner is ready. As it is, moving from the sofa to the table is a journey in and of itself - and the reasoning behind her forced bed rest the past two weeks (ten days but when every cathedral in a fifty-mile radius has ordered several tonnes of poinsettias and Pete, Rose, and Dot are working in collusion to keep even the slightest iota of stress from her life, every second counts) - and Pete asks no less than eight times how she's feeling.

She pats his hand across the table. "I'm fine."

"And you'll tell me if you have to have a lie-down?"

"I'm fine," is all she repeats and she reaches for the serving knife to scoop up another piece of trifle. While Dot was spending Christmas with her family up north, she had dropped several pounds of it off the night before and, eating for two or not, it was delicious.

Pete doesn't look convinced and insists they move back to the sitting room. Unconcerned, Jackie lets him guide her back to the sofa and pull a thick afghan up and over her distended belly, hand her a third helping of pudding, and settle down with her swollen ankles resting in his lap. Mickey flips on the telly and they spend a few uneventful hours watching various sitcom families engage in the usual wacky, laugh-track hijinks every holiday seems to bring.

To be honest, Jackie could do with a few hijinks. A killer evergreen and an alien invasion may be a bit much but the front lawn is frozen and bare and it would be nice to believe that they can get a white Christmas even if it's only ash and that the stars - arranged in the same constellations even in this parallel sky - will forever burn with the promises of daring and danger and dumbstruck awe, reflected in her daughter's eyes whenever she so much as glances as that daft alien.

Perched across from her, Rose smiles fondly at Ben when he babbles over the commercial breaks and relaxes into his hold when he rests his arm over the arch of the couch. They bump heads when he moves to kiss her goodnight and he flushes, embarrassed, but she laughs and stands on tiptoe to peck him lightly on the lips. And not once does that same look reach her eyes.

"Do you love him?" she asks, once Pete - after exacting a promise from Rose that she won't let Jackie move an inch without assistance - has disappeared into his study for a conference call with a few of the usual bigwigs, investors and stockholders the names of whom Jackie can't bother to keep track of.

Rose glances up from the screen, eyes flown wide. "What?"

"You heard me."

"It's been a month, Mum. Not even."

"Fine." From her reclined position it's rather difficult to look authoritative but Jackie gives it her best shot. "Can you see yourself loving him?"

Rose shrugs, tugging her hair forward to hide her face as she turns back to the telly where a rerun of Friends is playing. "I dunno."

"What's there not to know? Can you see this relationship going anywhere or are you just having fun?"

"Mum. . . ."

"No. Don't you Mum me. You like him, that's plain to see and I'm not judging you either way, sweetheart, but I don't want. . . ."

"I care about Ben, Mum. I'm not about to just leave him because we're not tearing each other's clothes off every chance we get."

"You're settling, then?" asks Jackie. "A month in and you've met the man you're going to spend the rest of your life with?"

"So what if I have?" Stubbornly, Rose tilts her chin up. "That's all you used to want me to do when I was with the Doctor."

A combination of hormones and sheer frustration sets her lower lip trembling and Jackie purses them together to stop it.

She doesn't know exactly when his name became alright to say again, when Rose stopped flinching and retreating into herself or when she started reminiscing with Mickey over drinks and dessert, those few syllables accompanied by a frown or, sometimes, a bittersweet smile. It's possible to stay detached because they're talking about the past, something that can't be changed even with a time-traveling phone box.

But what Jackie wants to talk about is the present and she knows what Rose's answer will be. The Doctor is gone and he isn't coming back, Jackie's sign is nothing but a pipedream and there's no reason why she shouldn't remain in this perfectly pleasant relationship. Ben is, after all, certainly a better choice than a man who would rather let time run out than admit to loving her.

What she settles for instead is, "I just want you to be happy, Rose."

"Yeah. I know." Rose grabs for the remote, turning up the volume so that it is impossible to continue their conversation around the canned laughter.

. . .

January 2008

Tony Tyler may not enter the world with a time head but timing will never be his strong suit. Between contractions and fielding Pete's frantic phone calls - because of course he had a meeting with investors and of course he's stuck in traffic today of all days - and Dot and Rose arguing with the GPS over the best route to Royal Hope, Jackie can't bring herself to be surprised. His sister, after all, considered twelve months a suitable substitute for twelve hours while his father bursts into the maternity ward an hour later, terrified that she has somehow birthed their son in the fifteen minutes since he spoke to her last.

"Still got a while to go, Dad," says Dot, taking hold of Pete's arm to guide it through the correct hole of the bright blue scrubs after his third unsuccessful attempt. Jackie's laugh turns into a grimace as another contraction hits and Pete rushes to the gurney, grabbing her hand tightly in his and murmuring a string of affirmations that he must have memorized in the birthing class they attended. She must squeeze hard enough to cut off circulation, but he doesn't complain once.

Really, in comparison, being a few days early can hardly be considered a fault. A virtue, more like. For all she knows, Tony has been crafted by the heavens to curb his family's habit of fashionable lateness. Breathing in the fresh scent of his full head of ginger hair, Jackie promises her son that she'll be early to everything from now on. Who is she, after all, to question such a mandate when it comes from this personification of all that is good in the world with his ten little fingers and ten little toes, his button nose and his ears that look too big for his head but are perfect all the same just like every last, perfect inch of him.

A mother knows these things.

Rivaling in adoration of their progeny is Pete who tears himself away only for the five minutes it takes to rush down to the gift shop for a bouquet of yellow roses which he places in the water glass on her night table. Lost in a haze of paternal pride, he doesn't notice that they're satin and Jackie doesn't have the heart to tell him and when Tony snuggles into his little blue receiving blanket, tilting his head just so, the thought is driven clear from her head.

When she and Tony begin a bout of synchronized yawning, she refuses to let the nurse take him but hands her precious bundle over to Rose instead. Eyes soft, Rose cradles her baby brother with all the gravitas of one handling the crown jewels and gifts him with a tongue-touched smile when he peers blearily up at her. Unfamiliar with this new environment, the luxurious expanse of the bassinet in the expansive suite Pete paid for six months in advance, Tony only blinks in surprise at the bright white walls and blankets, the equally bright uniform of the stoic-faced nurse and the dazzling faces of his family before he nods - never mind that he's barely three hours old - and lets his big, blue eyes drift shut.

Jackie could watch him sleep forever and, well-versed in motherhood, wants to enjoy the feeling while it lasts, while she doesn't equate five minutes of shut-eye in a stiff-backed rocking chair with a full night's sleep on five-thousand thread count sheets and wouldn't sell her soul for an IV drip of caffeine. Right now, the scent of baby infused with bliss is the only sustenance she needs and she turns, with Pete's help, to face the bassinet, extending one arm toward her sleeping son and nearly tipping over the makeshift vase in the process.

"Careful." Pete moves her arm back onto the bed. "You should rest," he reminds her and, whether it's because of the drugs or exhaustion or just pure, unadulterated happiness in this impossibly perfect moment, Jackie can only giggle as he bears her back down onto the soft white sheets. It's a tight fit but he manages to squeeze onto the cot next to her; he strokes the pad of his thumb across her cheek, tucking a sweaty strand of hair behind one ear. Averting her eyes, Rose mentions something about getting a bite to eat and calling Mickey and Jake with the good news before excusing herself from the room with a parting wave in their direction.

"Jax, that was - you were. . . ." Pete trails off, staring blankly at the door through which their daughter has just left. Even in her sleep-addled state, Jackie thinks he looks slightly misty-eyed. When he clears his throat and the thickness in his voice vanishes. "He's beautiful."

"Mmm," Jackie agrees. "He has my eyes, don't you think?"

Pete smiles, humoring her. "If you say so."

"I do say so." Repositioning herself on the bed, Jackie succeeds in elbowing him in the ribs. "All babies are born with blue eyes, aren't they? Then one day, 's gone." She nods, rubbing her cheek against the pillow. "Rose was the same. Biggest blue eyes you ever saw on a baby before they turned brown."

People used to stop her on the street, to coo over the delightful duo, mother pushing the pram with her miniature carbon-copy tucked safely away inside or clutching at her mother's sleeve. In later years, men trying to charm her would ask if she was Rose's sister. (Sometimes it worked.)

Sometimes Jackie wanted to believe it herself: that her daughter not only shared similar bone structure but the same thoughts and opinions as well. Jackie would never quit school at sixteen to move in with a talentless playboy, would never abandon her mother and devoted boyfriend to travel time and space with a madman who didn't understand the concept of a curfew. Jackie's Rose should have been happy with that simple life, but this Rose made herself better. She'd saved planets and fallen in love with an alien and then been torn away from that alien in the process of saving the planet. She'd done more than Jackie ever could and, no matter the smiles she puts on, she's meant for so much more than this.

Rose may believe that the Doctor's given up, but this is just another thing on which they disagree. Whether it's a week or a month or a year from now, he'll find his way back to her or she'll claw her way back to him - apparently pregnancy renders her incapable of handling any change whatsoever but Ben is still conspicuous by his absence at dinner and the hastily hushed conversations between Rose and Mickey about alternate dimensions are hard to turn a deaf ear to - and they'll be gone again, no unannounced visits to look forward to this time. The least she can do is give her son a legacy to live up to.

"His middle name," she says, burrowing further into the blankets.

"Yes?"

"What do you think about Doctor?"

"Doctor?" He pauses and, eyes closed, Jackie imagines him mouthing the word silently, eyebrows furrowed in disbelief.

"Not exactly traditional, is it?" he eventually settles on.

Jackie shrugs. "They'd make fun of 'im if it was Rose."

. . .

February 2008

Jackie reminds herself to thank Tony, once she gets home, for not being conceived a month later or she quite likely would have been timing contractions while handing out change. The entire month has been a mad house as it is - Dot has resorted to bribing the part-timers with pastry to keep them coming in for their shifts and Jackie out on maternity leave - but February fourteenth is something else altogether. It hurt to tear herself away from Tony but Valentine's Day, as she'd explained several times to an anxious Pete - who had practiced on a dummy but never changed a nappy on a real, squirming baby till thirty-four days ago - was an exception to the rules, doctor's orders notwithstanding.

The entire day was nothing but a flood of desperate husbands and boyfriends, clutching heart-shaped boxes of chocolate that looked large enough to fit inside a giant's chest cavity and flashing their Visas, so intent on buying the biggest, the best, the most expensive bouquet of them all - and couldn't they have the arrangement in the window there because surely it didn't matter that they hadn't called again and it was late, no one was coming for it but here they were, card in hand, that was just good business sense, what was she, stupid? - that it had reduced poor Jill to tears and Dot had ushered her upstairs for a plateful of chocolate-macadamia cookies.

Jackie's tempted to ask if he'd just like the receipt instead - it's for several hundred quid, if that doesn't prove his love then what else will? - but forces her face into the rictus of a smile till his footsteps have faded. If she fashioned paper bouquets, from receipts instead of neon tissue paper, she wonders how well they would sell.

For her part, she's happy with their usual bouquet of yellow roses (tied with a pink ribbon this time) that were sitting on the dressing table when she woke to Pete's snores. He was in the rocking chair, head tilted back and Tony resting on his chest, father and son blissfully oblivious to the floor-rattling sound, akin to rumbling thunder.

Leaving her gift to Pete - a modest-sized box of chocolates that they're both aware she's going to eat most of anyway - sitting on the bed, Jackie kissed them both, hugged Rose who was razzing Mickey for the cheesy candygram, and grabbed her keys. (Pete had wanted Dimitri to drive her in but, miracle of miracles, he had taken the day off to spend with his partner.) Besides, the sooner she could start her day, the sooner she'd be able to end it.

At least that was the theory.

Thoughts of foot rubs and back massages, a romantic meal of fish-and-chips and snuggling Tony in her arms, fantasies fragile as soap bubbles in the scented bath she so craved, are about all that's keeping her going now.

Her phone buzzes, inching its' way across the counter as her husband's name and number flash across the screen, and Jackie flips it open.

"Hello?"

"Hey." Pete sounded slightly harried. "Are you still at the shop?"

"Just finishing up." She shifts the mobile against her ear and a stack of pound notes slips from her hands. "Oh, bloody hell. . . ." Placing the phone on the counter, she bends to retrieve the cash; by the time she picks it up again, Pete is in full-fledged panic mode.

"Jax? Jax, are you alright? What's happened?"

She loves him for it and she's laughing as she picks up the phone. "Sorry, sorry. Just an accident."

His sigh rattles down the line, affectionately exasperated. "Christ, Jax, sake, don't scareme like that."

"Fifty pence."

"What?"

"The swear jar."

"He's asleep."

"Fifty pence," she insists. "It'll pay for university."

She cranes her neck to read the clock on the wall behind her. It's half-seven, a half-hour before she can head home and another two before she can collapse into bed, Tony cradled in her arms and Pete wrapped around both of them. It's late, anyway. Couples will be paired off for nights of dinner and dancing or maybe just skipping straight to the sex, its' quality dependent on the size of the chocolate box.

The little bell jingles again and she grits her teeth against a groan, offers her reflection in the till the shadow of a smile. "Hang on," she mutters to Pete who's formulating a flirtatious response and, to the customer, "How can I-" before her breath freezes in her chest.

Whatever dimension he came from, it must be raining because he's soaked to the bone and his suit - blue, now, and tighter than the brown, if that's possible - clings to every inch of him. A few inches less than last time she saw him; he's lost weight, his face is gaunter, his eyes are deeper-set. She wants him to crack a joke or say something rude and tactless about the decor, expects him to demand a cup of tea and unearth a tin of biscuits from one of his infinite pockets where Rose used to store her chapstick and spare change.

Instead, he just stares. His mouth forms a soundless O and he looks about to say something before he shuts it again. Jackie doesn't know whether to hug him or shake him and decides that rapping on the counter to get his attention, then beckoning him to her side, is a good compromise.

"You're here about the sign?"

He nods quickly, damp hair falling forward onto his forehead, dripping into the tip jar. She reaches beneath the counter and hands him a towel.

"Pete," she says in her best no-nonsense tone, "put Rose on the phone." From the corner of her eye, she sees his Adam's apple bob and his mouth opens then shuts again in a fruitless attempt to form words like Rose or I or love or you. At least he'd better be.

To his credit, Pete doesn't ask why and she hears him groan as he gets up from the couch, mounting the stairs to Rose's room, Tony's tiny head on his shoulder. She shoves the phone into his hand and, fingers trembling, he drops it to the floor. By some miracle on par with crossing dimensions for her daughter, it remains intact and Rose's voice comes through the speaker, tinny and tired.

"Hello? Hello - Mum?"

Knelt on the opposite side of the counter, he freezes instantly at the sound of her voice like he's playing a game of Statues. Jackie's only grateful that he didn't get here a few hours earlier when he would have been trampled into the floor by would-be holiday horticulturists.

"Say something!" she hisses and he looks up at her helplessly, white and shaking, expecting her to intercede on his behalf and take a metaphorical seat between them on the too-small sofa where they're sitting a bit too close.

She won't. This should have been settled years ago and she won't give them another excuse to metaphorically waggle their eyebrows behind her back or to sneak, giggling and shushing, into Rose's room or back to the ship when they think she's fast asleep. (The few times she caught them the act, he lay on top of the covers fully-clothed, spooning her.) She refuses to be their temporary fix, a clumsily-applied plaster ready to fall apart at the slightest sign of strain, to reveal the decay underneath.

Rose isn't much for giggling anymore; it must have been lost in the jumble when she split open and stitched herself back together. The man crouched in front of her, too, is missing a few crucial bits of stuffing.

It won't be easy but the best things never are. If it's easy, it won't mean anything, not when easy only means a quivery quiet, filled with things that should be said but aren't and things that shouldn't be said but need to be, a craving for an emotional purge rather than the chasm that lies between them. As some famous person once said, the path of true love isn't supposed to run smooth. Jane Austen, maybe.

There will be good days and there will be bad days but the former will grow to outweigh the latter. Slowly, the walls of the chasm will close, the gap shrinking with every fight and every tender moment, until they are ready - not to fall in love again, because they never stopped - but to fall in love with their new selves.

"Mum, are you there? Look, I think we got disconnected, I'll just. . . ."

In the end, they will find their own roses.

"Rose," says the Doctor.

. . .

A/N: Love it? Hate it? Let me know in a review!