A/N: After several attempts to write happy Rose/Ten fics that all turned angsty, I switched to Tentoo and suddenly it fell together without anyone being too sad.
Disclaimer: I'm not the BBC, RTD or anyone remotely interesting with recognisable initials.
Jackie Tyler closed the kitchen cupboard with a sigh of relief. With the last of the washing up put away she could enjoy the rest of what had been a thoroughly normal day.
Well, a day as normal as any could be in a parallel universe with a parallel version of her dead husband and son who lived with her in a mansion where the main kitchen was the size of her old council flat. It was normal for her and if anybody wanted to judge then good luck to them. She had two universes worth of comebacks, insults and put downs, mixed with working class grit and upper class authority. She'd like to see them try.
Just as she was about to join Pete and Tony in the sitting room, her phone rang and she had the feeling her evening was about to take a turn for the bloody weird. The feeling was put on hold for a moment when she saw her daughter's name on the screen.
"Hiya, darling!" she said loudly enough for Pete to hear. "How's yourself?"
"Great, I-"
"Did you see Emmerdale last night? I know we've been here for ages but I still can't get over seeing Gail marrying Alfie!"
"Mum-"
"It's weird how it all works out, innit?" she pondered. "You have to wonder if she just ran out of northern blokes or-"
"Mum!" Rose shouted. "It's crazy. Parallel worlds. Who knew? Can I ask a question?"
Jackie bristled. Why did she ring if she was going to interrupt her? "What is it, sweetheart? Has he been playing with the TV again? I told you - I won't let him touch ours-"
"Mum, everything is fine," Rose cut in. She sounded a bit breathless, but in an excited kind of way, rather than a dire emergency one. As a mother, and Rose Tyler's mother more importantly, she knew the difference. "I just wanted to ask if you knew where a phone box was?"
"Phone box? But you've got your mobile."
"Yeah," Rose sighed, "but do you know where one is? One of the old red ones?"
"But, Rose, you're using your phone now."
"I know, but I need a phone box."
Jackie sat on one of the high chairs at the breakfast bar. Her Rose had always been a smart one, but spending too much time with that not-alien-but-still-bloody-abnormal Doctor had meant the smart had mixed with his weirdness and she occasionally ended up on the phone discussing other phones.
"Isn't there one down by the shops near you?" she said, casting her mind back to the last time she had visited the flat. "By the bus stop?"
"Nah, that's one of the normal ones."
"What's wrong with that?"
"Gotta be a red one."
"Have you tried the touristy bits of London?"
"Probably not one in a well populated area."
Jackie had long since learnt that comments like that should always be ignored for her own sanity. "Oh, I dunno, love, I'll have to ask Pete. PETE!"
"Yes, love?" came the reply from the sitting room.
"D'you know where a phone box is?"
She heard the TV pause and Tony's protest before Pete stuck his head around the door. "What d'you need one for? Got your mobile, ain't you?"
She rolled her eyes. "It's for Rose," she explained, gesturing to the phone in her hand.
"Ain't she got a mobile?"
"Pete, if you're gonna ask stupid questions and not help-"
Jackie was pleased to see he recognised her tone and walked into the kitchen with his hands up. "All right, hang on..." He rubbed a hand over his head. "There's one by their house, ain't there?"
"Nah, they need a red one."
"Are they the London tourist board now?"
Jackie shrugged. It was entirely possible. Last month the Doctor had accidentally spent two days as a tour guide at the President Churchill Gallery until someone realised no one had hired him and he'd been putting his tips in the donation box.
Pete exhaled slowly. "There's one in the village here. Outside Tony's school."
"Thanks, love," Jackie smiled. Pete waited for an explanation but was disappointed when she turned her back to him and put the phone to her ear. "Rose? It's your mum."
"I know."
"Don't take that tone. There's one of them phone boxes outside Tony's school. You know the one? Stuck-up arses everywhere? In telling you - they say private's better but-"
"Thanks, mum, bye!" And without another word, she hung up.
Jackie had barely finished her rant about manners and how she definitely hadn't dragged Rose up, Pete nodding along loyally, when she heard a noise she hadn't heard in years. It took her a couple of seconds to realise that she wasn't imaging the strange groaning coming from the kitchen.
It was one of the few things in life that had ever made her speechless. Pete, however, had jumped up, Torchwood training spurring him into action. All the reflexes in the world couldn't have beaten Tony who had apparently developed the ability the teleport at his school of stuck-up arses.
"Daddy, Daddy, is it aliens? Can we fight the aliens? Can we call the Doctor to fight aliens? Daddy? There's aliens!"
By the time Jackie had joined them in the kitchen, Pete had picked Tony up as he continued squealing excitedly. She wondered where on earth her son had inherited his talent for talking without breathing.
"Are they green? Can aliens play football? Can I play football with the aliens and the Doctor? It's aliens, I know it's aliens, it's-"
The noise died down and the three Tylers stared at the new arrival in the kitchen.
"It's a phone box," moaned Tony as though his birthday had been cancelled.
"It's red," Jackie pointed out with a frown.
"A phone box appears in our kitchen," Pete said, "and you're worried about the colour?"
Further explanation was cut short by the door cracking open and a familiar flash of blonde hair.
"ROSE IS AN ALIEN!" roared Tony. He squirmed out of his father's arms and ran up to his sister as she stepped into the kitchen. "Rose, why didn't you tell me?"
"Never mind that," injected Jackie, hands on hips, "what the bloody hell is that?"
Rose smiled widely. She was a little breathless and the sinking feeling returned to Jackie as the shock faded. "Can't you guess? It's the new TARDIS, mum!"
"Thought it was blue?" asked Pete.
"Oh it will be!" called a voice from inside the phone box. It had more of an echo than it should have done. The Doctor bounced out and closed the door lovingly. If Jackie hadn't given up hope for him long ago, the sight of him looking at a phone box as though it were a newborn would have done the trick. "The red will do for now."
"It's ready!" enthused Rose, jostling Tony. "Well, almost."
"It does space, but not time at the minute," filled in the Doctor.
"We just need to wait for temporal whatsits-"
"Stabilizers."
"Stabilizers and then it will be a proper TARDIS!"
Despite the shock and knowing there was no hope of getting Tony to sleep tonight, Jackie couldn't bring herself to be angry, not even with the Doctor. For years she had seen her daughter coasting through life, smiling when she felt she had to and crying when she thought no one could see. The woman in front of her was almost glowing. Even the prospect of her disappearing literally off the face of the Earth again wasn't enough for her to begrudge her true happiness.
"So why isn't it like the last one?" Jackie asked, hoping she wouldn't regret doing so.
"The original TARDIS was only a police box because I landed in the early sixties and the cloaking device broke," explained the Doctor. "This TARDIS has never been to the early Sixties. She's never seen a police box."
"She was still clever enough to know that we sort of wanted a police box so she turned into a phone box instead," Rose picked up. Jackie noticed with a sinking feeling that Rose was giving the phone box doe eyes as well. What happened to her little girl?
"Obviously something as magnificent as a TARDIS can't spend her life as a one-on-every-corner phone box," the Doctor laughed as though this should have been common knowledge. "So we took her to a proper phone box to copy."
"So it'll always be like this, then?" asked Pete. His brow was furrowed so Jackie hoped he was following because she had lost track as soon as the Doctor started speaking.
"Nah," the Doctor grinned. "Once she can we'll be going back to the Fifties. Once she's a police box I'll break the Chameleon Circuit. On purpose this time," he added, leaning against the TARDIS and folding his arms.
"It's the perfect blend of Gallifrey and England," finished Rose. "If you're old enough to remember the Fifties anyway."
"Oi! I'm technically only three years old!"
Deciding to ignore the confusing age gap between her daughter and her pet alien/boyfriend, Jackie took the squirming Tony from Rose and tried to drag the conversation somewhere she understood. "So you can't do time travel?"
"Nope," the Doctor replied, heading towards the other side of the kitchen as though already bored of the conversation. Even now he was scared of her, something Jackie was immensely proud of.
"But you can move around places?"
"Yep," he said. He spun around with that manic grin of his. "Hey, Rose! We can sell your car and just use the TARDIS now!"
"It might be worth keeping the car," Rose replied diplomatically. Jackie was pleased to see she hadn't completely lost her mind.
"But the TARDIS can-"
"Not necessarily on time, it can't," Rose pointed out.
"And what would the press say, you two showing up in phone box?" Jackie added in what she felt was a tactful way. "They already think he's a whack-job."
Rose nodded while Pete did his best to keep his face neutral. The Doctor looked thoroughly dejected and picked up the biscuit tin.
"Hey! Hands off my biscuits, Handy!" Jackie shot at him. "I don't know where that thing's been."
The Doctor glanced at his left hand and back up at Jackie. "That's not even the jar hand! And stop calling me Handy! Rose, tell her to-" He gave up and put the biscuits down when he saw Rose was screwing her face up to hold back the giggles.
"Rose?"
Everyone looked down at Tony who had been staring, transfixed at the TARDIS while the grownups were speaking. Rose knelt in front of him and he tore his eyes away and onto her.
"What's a TARDIS do?"
Well," she smiled, "it's a time travelling space ship. But don't tell anyone," she finished in a conspiring whisper.
"But how's it work?"
At the this, the Doctor jumped in. Quite literally. He skidded on his knees next to Tony. "It's all very complicated and boring," he explained. "The important bit is it makes the loud noise, disappears and shows up somewhere else. Except when he have to fly it. Then it floats. Well... sort of."
He wiggled his eyebrows but Tony appeared unimpressed. Jackie was thankful. At least she'd raised one of her kids to not have the desire to run off with strangers with magic space boxes.
"It's a phone box," Tony said, nodding at the phone box.
The Doctor glanced over his shoulder and then back at Tony. "Well... Yes."
"Does it have a phone?"
"Um... Not yet. It will do eventually. But no."
Tony frowned. "So it's not a phone box."
The Doctor looked like he did when Rose told him Charles Dickens had never existed in this universe. Thanks to being physically and occasionally mentally nearly the same age as Tony, the pair had developed a kinship. Being Tony's hero was something that came naturally to the Doctor and he hated upsetting him.
"Hang on." Tony scampered away into the sitting room and returned a few seconds later with his Action Man walkie talkies. He held one out to the Doctor. "Here. Now you can have a phone. When you see aliens you can tell me about it!"
"Brilliant," the Doctor grinned, giving Tony a hug. "How did we nearly forget a phone, Rose?"
"The same way we nearly forgot a washing machine, wardrobe, blender, a sofa -"
"Thank you, Tony Tyler."
Tony smiled so that you could see both his missing teeth.
"So is that it then?" asked Jackie. "You off to planet Zog?" Try as she might, Jackie couldn't keep the waver out of her voice and Rose pulled her into a hug.
"Not yet," she said. "Got to road test her a bit. Gonna stick to Earth for while."
"We haven't even left Greater London yet," the Doctor said.
Jackie nodded, her throat too tight for speech. She knew this day was coming, had done for years, but she had hoped it would have the decency to give her some warning of its arrival. Even with a dangerous job and an arguably more dangerous boyfriend, at least Rose had been on the same planet as her the last few years.
"We'll let you know when we go anywhere else," Rose told her quietly.
"Can I go to the moon?" asked Tony.
"Of cou- er - not until you're older," the Doctor corrected after seeing Jackie's expression. "At least fifty." He spoilt the effect by winking.
"Where you going now?" Jackie asked.
"We should try going over a body of water," the Doctor replied thoughtfully. "Nothing too big, just in case?"
"What? Like the Isle of Wight or something?" suggested Rose with a shrug.
The Doctor's face lit up the same way it did when he discussed magical, far off worlds. "Yes! The Isle of Wight! Perfect!" Without so much as a glance at anyone else, he pressed a kiss to Rose's temple and bounded into the phone box. Jackie tried to ignore how she couldn't see him through the glass panels though she knew he was there.
"Bye, then, love," Pete said as Rose hugged him. She returned the sentiment before telling Tony to be good. Unfortunately his face was alight with mischief as he nodded.
"Watch how you go, sweetheart," Jackie said as Rose kissed her cheek. "Bring me back some rock."
"Of course," Rose chuckled. "We'll be back before you know it."
"Heard that one before," she muttered as Rose gave them all a wave and closed the door behind her.
The unearthly wheezing and groaning filled the small kitchen, almost smothering Tony's gasps, and the phone box was gone.
"Y'know, Jacks," began Pete with a shake of his head, "you ain't half brought some strange stuff into my life."
"Oh hush."
Pete smiled at her warmly. He wasn't exactly wrong but he'd never been anything less than accepting of every obstacle that came their way. It was a very weird life at times, but it was theirs.
The tender moment was ruined by Jackie's phone ringing. This time the worry that things were going to get weird didn't abate after seeing the caller ID. Her phone proudly stated that 'Me' was calling her and Jackie, as she did every time, wondered why she let the Doctor put his own number into her phone.
"Hello?"
"Jackie!" He sounded happy and she breathed a sigh of relief. At least he hadn't managed to land in the Solent. "Bad news on the stick of rock, I'm afraid, but can I interest you in an Eiffel Tower keyring?"
Thanks for reading!