Decision

Joshua wandered down a hall in the TARDIS, stretching and yawning, in search of the kitchen and some breakfast. With coffee. Make that coffee with breakfast. After living in Earth's rhythms for the first fifteen years of his life, adjusting to the loss of those natural cycles was going to take some doing. He'd slept longer and harder than he'd expected to, but then, he and Jenny had been up for most of the preceding five days (at least it felt like that long, he couldn't be sure) exploring the TARDISes, mother and baby, and getting to know each other, while the Doctor and Rose remained holed up in his room – make that their room – renewing their Life Bond and having something of a second honeymoon. A few appearances in the kitchen when the couple decided they were hungry was all the pair of cousins (they decided 'cousins' worked better than 'siblings' for both of them) had seem of them. The 'kids' didn't begrudge them their privacy after they'd been ripped apart by Rose inadvertently following Joshua through the wormhole between universes and into the Time Lock around Gallifrey; the destruction of that lock five days before had brought about their reunion, leaving the four of them together in the TARDIS in the Doctor's original universe, forming their own – slightly odd – family of four.

No, wait. I'm turned around again. Or else the TARDIS has rearranged herself again. The kitchen's that way. He was several steps down the other hallway before he even realized he was following his nose, rather than any memory of the ship's layout: Jenny must have beaten him to the kitchen and started the coffee brewing. Joshua smiled. He'd taken an instant liking to her army-strong brew; just one of his cousin's many charms. He firmly stopped his racing mind before it went too far down that corridor, reminding himself she was a good twenty years his elder, having been 'born' an adult that many years before. I'm just a kid, I'm fifteen, she couldn't possibly be interested, he told himself for the umpteenth time.

Plastering a kid-brother's smile on his face, he stepped through the door and found he was correct: his pretty blonde cousin was already there, back turned, leaning against the counter near Coffee Central. The french press she insisted on using in lieu of the electric coffeemaker she'd firmly relegated to the back row was gently steaming, a cup low already, sending seductive promises of caffeinated goodness wafting through the air.

"Good morning!" he chirped at her (cringing a little at the nerdy-birdyness of it), and went to pour his own cup. He was doctoring it up to his taste with milk and sugar before he realized she hadn't replied – in fact, she'd turned her face away from him, hunching her shoulders a bit over her mug. Is she crying? He reached out with his senses, and found her till-now bright, happy song had turned dirgelike, mourning something lost and forlorn.

"Jenny?" He stepped closer, and put a tentative hand on her shoulder, finding it was shaking. "What's wrong?"

She crumpled sideways a little, her cup drifting down onto the counter – and then she suddenly turned and flung her arms around his neck, and tears came pouring out. Stunned, all he could do was hold her awkwardly back as she sobbed into his shoulder for several long minutes. Just the right height! came the irrepressibly hopeful voice in his head, before he quashed it.

"What the..." said the Doctor from the doorway. Joshua looked over at him, concerned bewilderment on his face, shrugging his confusion, and the Time Lord came quickly over to the pair, Rose at his shoulder. She stepped around both men and put her hand on Jenny's shoulder. "Jenny?"

The younger woman reacted to the touch and the sound of her voice, taking a deep, gasping breath and pulling her arms back, then turning a heartbroken face to Rose. "Oh, sweetheart, what is it?" Another deep, shuddering breath, and finally she made herself say it.

"I'm pregnant."

A trio of gasps met her announcement. It was Rose who pegged it first. "John?" she asked gently, remembering Jenny's closeness to her (Rose's) descendent during her brief time in Pete's World. Jenny nodded, miserable.

"Oh, sweetheart." The Doctor was astonished at the revelation; unlike his wife, he hadn't been aware of that development in Jenny's relationship with the eleventh Lord Gallifrey. "I... I don't know what to say."

Jenny shook her head. "There's nothing to say. I know the walls are closed. There's no way back. It's not..." She stopped, reaching for the words to explain. "It's not for me, so much, that I'm so sad. What we had... it was potential. But it wasn't..." Unwilling to say the L word, she rushed on. "No, it's the knowledge that my son will grow up without ever knowing his father. That maybe he'll never meet him." She looked at the Doctor. "I know how that feels."

He nodded, remembering her scanty tales of the nine long years she'd traveled all alone, before the TARDIS had called her across the stars to his hiding place on the jungle planet. Remembering, too, all the many times he'd found himself alone, all the centuries of life before he'd found his family. But there was nothing he could do to help her now. The walls between the universes were solidly closed.

Her words replayed in his mind, and he gave her a small grin. "'Son'?" he quoted back. "Are you sure?"

She stared, startled, then turned her gaze inward, focusing her Time Lord inner senses on the tiny new growth deep within, and a slow, surprisingly shy smile finally reached her lips. "Yeah..." she said slowly. "I didn't even realize before I said it. But yes, it's a boy."

Joshua was silent, rocked by the news, completely unsure what to think or feel about it. Who the hell is John? Well, somebody back in the other universe, obviously. Shit. He silently fought down the tide of confusion and jealousy, telling himself to concentrate on the here and now; he'd deal with his reactions later in private.

The Doctor finally reached out and pulled Jenny into a tight hug. "Congratulations, sweetheart. This is wonderful news. A new addition to our family already!" He pulled back an inch, looking into her eyes. "I know it's going to be hard, separated like this. But that just means that all of us will simply have to do our best to make up for that."

Sitting around the table a few minutes later, sipping their mugs of coffee, Rose turned to the Doctor. "I'm wildly curious about something, though. Sorry if this embarrasses you, Jenny, but... Doctor, how is this possible? Jenny's your clone, so she's a Time Lord, but John is human. He's my descendent, mine and Corin's. How could they have...?"

Her husband was thoughtful. "I've been wondering the same thing. I think... Corin isn't completely human, only half. Enough so that his genetics adapted to yours, and you could have children. But there must have been enough Gallifreyan left, passed down through your line, so that John's genetics could adapt back to Jenny's – or hers to his." He shrugged. "Without getting some samples from each of them to examine, that's as good an answer as I can figure." Realizing what was behind her query, he reached for her mind on their telepathic Life Bond link. *No. I'm still one-hundred-percent Time Lord, you're still one-hundred-percent human. It won't work for us. I'm sorry, love. I'm so sorry. I would have loved that, too.*

She smiled sadly, and reached for his hand, hiding her disappointment behind her coffee cup with her other hand. *We'll just have to be content with being grandparents to Jenny's baby, I guess.* He squeezed her hand back, agreeing.

*Speaking of which...* he realized something, and went vocal. "Well, people, it looks like we have a decision to make." All three of his audience looked at him, puzzled. "Where do we want to live for the next few years?"

Jenny blinked. "Here in the TARDIS?" her voice was full of the confusion they all felt.

The Doctor shook his head. "Constant time travel is NOT good for pregnant women, let alone young children – let alone the jolting this bucket sometimes gives us. It's dangerous, honey, and I won't put you or your child through it." He saw her start to protest, and spoke over her. "I'm not kidding, Jenny, or just being overly cautious. Back in the days of the Time Lords, pregnant women were fairly strictly prohibited from hopping about in the time stream. In the early days, there were some pretty horrific results. In my day, it was just accepted, as much as not smoking or drinking to excess." He grimaced. "Even just hanging around in the Void for several months – in addition to being excruciatingly boring – can have some pretty nasty effects on an unborn child."

"Oh. I hadn't thought of that. Then..."

"Then... Time Out!" He grinned at them all. "Where do we want to live? And when? We've got all of time and space to choose from!"

They discussed it at length over breakfast, and beyond, first nailing down what kind of society and how advanced they wanted it to be. Obviously, any place going through an armed conflict of any scale or type was out, as were the harsh dictatorships or other repressive regimes, huge natural disasters, societal upheavals from scarce resources, etc. There was still plenty to choose from.

"What about back on Earth, from my day, or near it?" Rose asked. "It would be kind of nice to see some of our old friends again."

The Doctor shook his head. "I'm sorry, love. I can't risk going back there for any length of time, not within a hundred years of your birth. I've been there just too much, too often, and done way too many things there. The chances of a paradox would be astronomical – almost inevitable. And I've no desire to see any more Reapers, thanks."

He sighed. "All I want is some place quiet, some peaceful little corner of the universe. Some place serene."

Jenny jerked her head up at that, and a slow, brilliant smile spread across her face. "Have you ever been to Serenity, Dad?"