Happy Birthday to Tardisistheonlywaytotravel! In celebration of that event and for other gifts, great and small, I present...
At the Pressing of the Button
Chapter 2
"You need to help them," she snapped. "They're just little kids."
"I'm sorry," the Doctor replied distractedly.
"Don't tell me that, tell them."
"They understood me," he said, shaking his head, looking out the window for something, apparently, that he was expecting to see.
"I know that, but they're still just little, little kids!!
He turned to her and bounced energetically on his toes. "They're Time Tots," he said. "Baby Time Lords. The boy... what'd you call him? He's got the Rassilon Imprinitur and everything. A baby Time Lord! I can't think... can't imagine... where did he come from?"
"His name is supposedly Jack. Did you look at him?" Rose demanded.
"Blue eyes, black hair," the Doctor agreed frantically. "You know, I'm sure I've seen him before."
"Ever look in a mirror?"
"What? No, no, no, not a mirror, he looks nothing like a mirror, don't be ridiculous. I'm sure I've seen him somewhere, though."
"Last you?" she offered, trying to prod a couple of those fabled bits of genius back into working condition.
"No... wait..." He frowned at her, tugged at his ear. "Bicycle?"
"Red bicycle when I was twelve?" she suggested, since he was making even less sense than usual. Mind, she had no idea what was less than no sense at all.
The Doctor waved her off and looked back out the window. "No, that's not it."
"What are you doing?" Rose demanded.
"Making sure there aren't Reapers."
Rose hip-checked the Doctor out of the way, climbed up on the counter, and stared out the window herself, shaking. "I don't see anything," she said, after a few minutes of checking around desperately.
"I do," he murmured, and Rose could have sworn she felt his hand on her bum. She yelped and her head whipped around to try to catch him in the act. Didn't know what she'd do if she did but... ouch.
She nearly fell off the counter, but the Doctor caught her and dragged her clear, holding her tightly to him, his eyes ablaze with joy and wonder. He looked like he was going to kiss her. She was almost certain. His eyes went darker, narrowed. Rose stared at him, licked her lip. His eyes darted down to it, then right back to hers. Nothing happened. Nothing moved.
"Wh-what?" she whispered.
"Your skirt," he murmured.
She wore one so rarely, she'd forgotten she'd put it on this morning so she could wash all her jeans before they left. "Oh," she breathed.
"I saw your knickers."
Normally, this sort of revelation would have been made incredulously, and would probably have been followed by a giddy history of the evolution of female underclothes, which diverted to the planets they were worn on, then the planets they were not, then the history of one planet that only wore them on special occasions or something, until it all got so muddled they both forgot how it had started in the first place. Not that this had happened before, not that she was aware of, anyway, but if it had, that was the way the Doctor usually handled things. This time, however, it came out in a low, husky growl, and was only followed by more staring and more darting of his eyes to her lips and back again.
"You're staring," Rose murmured.
"I am," the Doctor agreed.
Rose was about to break and either bolt and run or possibly, just possibly, drag her fingers through his completely wild hair, tug his head down, and finally, finally, seal this bizarre relationship with her kiss. The Doctor gave every indication of being about to beat her to it.
The sound of laughter from the other room completely dashed that idea.
"An' this is Rose when she was four."
"Was it her birthday?" Jack asked. "You took a lot of pictures."
"No..." Jackie frowned thoughtfully, then smiled as she apparently remembered. "She had a bit of an adventure that day was all." Rose tilted her head, curious. "We got separated. A very nice soldier brought her home - I was happy to have her back, even if she didn't invite her new fiance to tea." Jackie looked up at Rose and grinned wickedly while the kids both started laughing again and pointing at Rose.
The Doctor, who Rose was staring at now, ambled over and leaned on the back of the sofa, looking over Jack's head at the photo album Rose's mum had apparently opened in his lap. "I remember this," he said, completely delighted with his own brilliance.
Rose and Jackie both gaped at him. "What?" he said.
Jackie jumped up and started whacking him with a sofa cushion. "How long have you been stalking my daughter, you great alien pervert?" she shrieked. It was times like this that Rose knew exactly why her first Doctor had routinely referred to Jackie as "that harpy."
The Doctor eventually gave up on his protests of, "It wasn't like that!" and fled into the TARDIS, locking the door behind him before Jackie could follow. Huffing with annoyance, she turned to Rose. "Finish showing them the pictures," she said grumpily. "I'm gonna make tea, an' if himself decides to show his face, you tell 'im I still owe 'im a slap!"
"She doesn't understand yet," Jack observed.
"You honestly think she ever will? I'm sure she thinks we have a flat in Glasgow and just pretend to time travel."
Jack smiled his father's best mysterious smile and turned the page. Belle squealed with delight. "ME!!" she shouted, pointing at a particular picture.
Rose looked at Belle, looked at the picture, shook her head. The resemblance was so perfect that her hands started to tremble. It was impossible, utterly impossible. "No, Belle, sweetheart, that's me, on Halloween, when I was four. Had my hair all done up in curls like yours. I think Mum was usin' my hair for advertising."
Jack grinned, a full on manic, child's version of a grin that used to break Rose's heart to miss. "Now that," he said, "that is interesting."
"Textbook enigmatic," the Doctor called from the TARDIS doorway.
"Learned from the best," Jack replied smugly.
Good god, but the not knowing was gonna kill her.
After they'd finished looking at the pictures and Jackie had been appeased with tea, after the Doctor had assured her - from shouting range, not slapping range - that he hadn't even known he'd be running into Rose until he actually did so, they finally bustled the children back into the TARDIS to sort this whole thing out.
"I know I've seen you somewhere before," was the first proper thing the Doctor said to Jack, face to face.
Jack stared at him, utterly incredulous. Rose rolled her eyes and silently asked the TARDIS to call up just the hologram from Emergency Program One and stand it right beside Jack. The ship obligingly complied, but the Doctor only noticed it after about a seven minute ramble on the subject of tricky memory and wibbly wobbly things. The Time Lord stared at the picture of his past, looked down at Jack, and finally nodded. "Yeah, then," he said, and waved a hand through the hologram. It shot a piercing, blue-eyed stare at Rose, and vanished.
Rose stood there shaking and tried to tell herself that it didn't hurt, seeing him as he'd been then, because he was with her now, still. She tried so very hard. Jack, however, noticed her discomfiture and came over to hug her. Rose wrapped her arms around the boy and wished for just the briefest of moments that it was possible he was hers.
She was starting, she thought, to understand in her tiny way why the Doctor didn't want to get attached to people. She could easily love this child, but he had to go home, to his father's correct time-line and whoever his mother really was. She was dying inside to just ask him, but was afraid of the answer, and utterly unwilling to place on the child any more of his father's burden than he'd already inherited.
"I know," Jack whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
Rose knelt down in front of him. "No, don't you dare," she said. "Don't be sorry, Jack. I knew what I was doing when I signed on with your father. And even if he's being deliberately obtuse, I know he's completely ecstatic just knowing you exist. Or, I suppose, from his point of view, will exist."
"I really am impossible at the moment," Jack said softly. "And I really need to get back soon. And Belle, too, of course. She's so little, and I'm s'posed to be looking after her."
"How old are you?" Rose asked, utterly incredulous. She decided to blame the theoretical mother and some alien invaders, before she realized what she was doing - refusing to consider the slimmest possibility that the Doctor might be guilty of anything, even making one of his kids babysit - and sighed.
"Older than you are, I think," Jack said. "I mean, in my own time line. I'm... well, you know." He jerked his head at the Doctor.
"Oi, you two, what're you whispering about over there?" The Doctor strode over, looking stern. "You'll be bad influences on each other, I'm sure of it. Jack, come over here and show me what you did, so we can fix it."
Jack nodded ruefully. "Sorry, sir," he told the Doctor politely.
"Don't call me sir," the Doctor protested.
Jack grinned at the older Time Lord, and Rose was starting to wonder if the Doctor was wearing an invisible blind fold or something, especially when he suddenly said, "I'm absolutely certain I've seen you somewhere before."
She rolled her eyes. "Now I know what your problem was, last body."
"What's that s'posed to mean?" the Doctor demanded.
She couldn't explain how she was thinking that if he didn't recognize the juvenile near-duplicate, he must've never looked in a mirror except that one time, which went on to explain a lot of other things about their relationship back then. She didn't even want to attempt to discuss it, in fact. "Never mind," she said. "Let's take the kids home."
Rose looked around diligently for little Belle, who had been so quiet, she'd practically forgotten the child was around. When she found the little one sound asleep in the jump seat, Rose felt her heart clench and try to turn over. She pointed the sleeping baby out to the Doctor with a shushing gesture.
He smiled and reached over to stroke the baby curls out of the pretty little face, then gently tugged Belle's thumb from her mouth. Rose's heart decided to curl up into a very small ball and weep.
Rose tried to shake it off. She didn't even like kids, as she reminded herself firmly for the umpteenth time today. So why was this happening to her?
