A/N: I don't own the Doctor, or Pete, or Rose. Even the dog, Rose.

Stepfather's Day

Him, Pete Tyler, a dad at last. At his age. At her age. Twenty years old; too old to put over his knee, even if he dared. It would be wise for him to think of Rose as his daughter as hard as he could. It would help if he forgot he'd ever seen her in a maid's outfit. What he should remember from that night was not his vague thoughts of hitting on a pretty blonde, but the look in her eyes. It hadn't been sexual interest. No one had ever looked at him like that before, so it really wasn't that surprising he'd misinterpreted it.

And later, when Jackie was dead and the immediate danger was over and there was a world to rebuild…

At that moment, she tried it again, to connect with him daughter to father.

He couldn't handle it. He'd been more brutal than he intended. Once the TARDIS was gone, once he'd buried Jackie and tackled the responsibility of finishing off the Cybermen threat, he had time to regret that.

What could it have been like, if he'd had time to get to know her, this daughter of a Jackie who had married a Pete and lost him? He wished there'd been time, when he realized how alone he was: on top of his world and no one to share it with.

That had all changed now. He had Jackie back. Strictly speaking, she wasn't his Jackie, but she felt like Jackie in his arms and in his bed: impossible, stubborn, frivolous, temperamental, annoying Jackie. He could have divorced her and had some pretty young thing, but no matter her flaws, Jackie fit him like the other half of his soul. What that said about him , he wasn't sure, but he was happy. They'd both learned what it was like to lose each other, and having got back what they'd lost, they appreciated it.

And with Jackie, came Rose. He'd seen it in her face, the absolute uncompromising determination not to abandon her daughter, no matter what universe stood in the way.

Privately, never to be mentioned to Rose, Pete thought that if the Doctor had really loved her, he'd have found a way here. He couldn't claim any desert of Jackie, but her love of Rose had been unstoppable.

Jackie had stared him down, eyes blazing, and demanded he get her daughter back, or she'd have none of him. Jackie had a temper, and often said things she didn't mean, but this was no idle threat. His Jackie had had a dog, Rose. This Jackie had a daughter, and her daughter was not only her life, Rose was their life. The life that Jackie and her Pete Tyler should have had together.

It was the first moment Pete started to think of Rose as his daughter. The new family was the three of them or it was no family at all.

He'd gone back for Rose into the teeth of the storm. She'd slammed into him, the Doctor screaming her name, and Pete had just time enough to take them both back to the other side.

Rose hadn't been grateful. She hadn't been ungrateful either, once the first shock was over. No one knew if an unprotected human could survive the void, or if even the Doctor could have retrieved her from that place that was no-place.

In a sense, he'd given her life as if he'd been her father. There was an old principle that to save a life was to take responsibility for that life, analogous to giving birth. He had brought Rose Tyler into this world, and he was responsible for the consequences. It had taken Jackie getting pregnant for Pete Tyler, now one of the most important men on the planet, to recognize this obligation.

He found Rose out in the garden, behind a hedge where she couldn't be seen even from the upper story windows. "Mind if I join you?"

"No, have a seat. I was just sitting. And thinking."

Pete sat down on his expensively tailored arse and rested his forearms on his knees. "The test result came back. Do you want to know?"

"Wouldn't Mum rather tell me herself?"

"Maybe. You could go ask her."

"Tell me."

She looked at him with those big serious hazel eyes. He didn't know how she'd managed to come out better looking than him or Jackie, but he hoped the same would hold true this time. "It's a boy."

"Right. Mum's having a boy and I'm a dog." She wrinkled her nose and looked away from him.

"Jackie miscarried." Pete watched Rose out of the corner of his eye. "Shortly after we married. It just happened—she didn't fall, or get sick. She was about two months pregnant. She was wild, carried on, drank, cursed… I thought she was going to dump me. I had a few thoughts about divorce myself. Then my investments started to work out and she got a dog. That wasn't Rose, Rose came later."

"The two of you… never tried again?"

"Jackie kept saying she didn't want it to interfere with my work. I was pretty busy then. I neglected her, and I think she was worried she'd lose me if she got pregnant. You know, that she'd have a baby, lose her figure, and I'd run off with my executive assistant with the breast implants."

"Was that likely?" Rose's sideway glance met Pete's sideways glance.

"I wasn't a perfect husband, no. But you see… " Pete felt a pain that had nothing and everything to do with the Jackie Tyler who was back in the house looking at catalogues of expensive baby furniture. "I knew she was scared. Not about the assistant, really. Scared that she'd miscarry again. She was so happy when she found out she was pregnant. Just like she is now."

"I know. You haven't told her about the miscarriage, have you?"

"No, I don't want her to worry about that. Sometimes it just happens, you know. Lumic could turn human beings into cyborgs, but there's not much doctors can do to guarantee that a pregnancy will turn out happy. And if it happens… she has you."

"Yeah."

Pete regarded Rose's wistful profile. He hadn't become the powerful man he was today by not having some idea when to shut up. He didn't know if Rose had had it out with Jackie about her sending Pete to retrieve her daughter. He didn't know if any man could unravel the tangle of feelings between a mother and a daughter. "So I'm your stepfather, at least, now. I'm sort of getting used to the idea of being a dad. Sorry I mucked it up so bad at the beginning."

"Not your fault. I didn't have the right to push myself on you."

"That's all behind us. Rose, I have a favor to ask you."

She smiled suddenly, and it was like the sun coming out, Rose Tyler's megawatt smile. Pete still couldn't figure out how his genes and Jackie's could produce this. "You want to practice being a dad on me, right?"

"Yeah. That okay?"

"It's fine, just so long as you remember I've not had much experience at being a daughter to a dad before."

"If we both make mistakes, is that so bad?"

"It's probably too late to give me a complex. Mum handled all that ages ago. So what have you got in mind, dad-wise? To start out with."

"You need a job."

"Plunging in the deep end of the pond, I see. I've not got qualifications, you know, even back there. I left school for a boy."

"Rose Tyler, you've got qualifications no one on this world does, because you left home for an alien time traveler. How would you like to work for the revamped Torchwood? And if you're worried about your education, you can always get that, if you're willing to do the work."

Rose was staring at him. "You're serious."

"Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth. I like the sound of that." He did. It gave him a warm glow. He'd seen Rose Tyler in action without knowing she was his daughter, and he knew she could handle it.

"You're starting to sound like a dad already."

"So you'll take it?"

"How could I turn down working in the family business? Pete Tyler, defender of the Earth. I like the sound of that. My dad in the other universe, he saved the Earth, too. I'll tell you about it." Her face grew serious. "I do know things that would help, no matter how different it is here."

Rose Tyler thought about those things, and Pete Tyler watched her do it. Other-Pete's little girl was all grown up. He was incredibly lucky to be the Pete who was here to see it.

The End