ARGHH!!!! I BARELY HAVE TIME TO POST THIS OMG!!!! IT'S THE APOCOLPSYE!!!!
Not really. Don't freak out.
But I really am in a rush. I have to pull a Speed Racer and post this uber-fast or else... well, I dunno. Dinner's ready in like, now minutes, and I'm going to be killed if I don't get off. Cheers to the peeps and their major support, even as they wait on my ever-lasting wait-until-the-last-minute syndorme. It's not a fatal disease, but still just as irritating.
Disclaimer: Dude, plz. I don't own Doctor Who.
Upon hearing that the Doctor and Rose would be visiting the profound institute known as Torchwood, Jack had been utterly thrilled, or so it sounded on the phone. Upon hearing that she was with child, he'd been ecstatic. Rose spotted him waiting at the heart of the rift in Cardiff, the very same place he had once stood with her, the Doctor, and Mickey, back before the Doctor had regenerated and certainly before she was planning (or technically, not planning) on being a mother. Jack looked no different than how they had left him, and maybe he was even a bit happier than she remembered.
Then, for some reason, she began to wonder how many children he had fathered in the past.
Knowing Jack, this was not an inappropriate thing to question.
"Holy crap, Rose!" he shouted when he saw the trio of the Tardis approaching. "You're huge!"
"You really know how to treat a woman, don't you, Jack?" Rose shouted back but despite her sarcasm, she couldn't have been more pleased to see her old friend again. Even with her love for the Doctor, she could not deny the light swoon she felt from seeing the captain. Jack ran over to greet the three of them, excitedly patting the bulging baby bump.
"She likes you," Rose told him happily. The recent spurts of vitality from the pregnancy—Huzzah for the second trimester!—were a blessing in disguise of the slightly depressing fact that she could no longer see her feet. So far, she'd managed to draw a design for the baby room, read two novels of thick proportions, learn how to bake three cakes without the existence of fire (to her and the Doctor's surprise, the Master wasn't just called 'The Master' because of his aspirations for universal domination), and go on a shopping trip with her mother in London.
She had been awake for a while.
"All of that, and yet, you still can't park the Tardis correctly?" the Doctor had said just before landing in Cardiff.
"Don't hate the player, Doctor. In four months time, parking the Tardis will be pie compared to what I will have to go through."
"Oh, you can't wait to hate me, can you?"
She giggled, dancing around the console. "I'm only dreaming of it."
"And this must be the Master," Jack said, shaking the other Time Lord's hand. He studied the Master carefully, a sly grin on his face. "Really nice to meet you."
"Yeah, you too. I think." He flashed him a nervous smile.
"Don't worry, he doesn't bite," remarked the Doctor.
Jack smirked. "Not much, anyway."
The Master shrank behind the Doctor, who—along with Rose—had to keep from falling over with laughter at the poor Master's expense.
"We missed you so, so much," the Doctor chuckled to Jack as they were led to the invisible entrance to Torchwood, and Jack replied with a wink.
"Hey, why is it that when he says you look huge, you laugh it off, but when the Doctor or I say that you look huge, you slap us in the face?" whispered the Master.
"Because I take way more pleasure in hitting you than anything else." Clinging to his arm, Rose batted her eyelashes at him. As much as he may have wanted to scowl and shove her away, there was no denying that the Master's presence had made both Rose and the Doctor a little more cynical.
It was going to be a fun day, no matter what the Master would think.
After Owen had given Rose a checkup to make sure everything with the baby was okay, they, the Time Lords, and the other members of Torchwood gathered into a small room that reminded Rose slightly of a safe, just by the metal walls and high-tech equipment spread out before her eyes. She wondered how long it would take for the Master to have a heart attack.
"This may be the best tea I've ever had." Rose continued to praise Ianto's mad tea preparing skills.
"Oh, stop," Ianto said, blushing. "It's nothing."
"No, really! I thought my mum made good tea, but I think you finally beat her out. Think of the tea-ful explosion that'd occur if you swapped secrets. You two should meet."
"Rose, we like these people," said the Doctor. "Let's not send them to their deaths."
"Is your friend okay over there?" asked Toshiko, motioning to the Master. For the past fifteen minutes, he'd been fawning over a set of laser guns stacked on the wall. Every few seconds, he'd murmur the word, "Beautiful."
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Erm… more or less. No different than usual."
"I'm sure it was a huge mistake bringing him here, though," said Rose.
"Oh yeah. Gigantic mistake. We'll pay for it later. Hey, Master!"
The Master, barely caring, remained staring at the allegedly beautiful wall of weaponry. He raised a hand to let them all know that he was at least acknowledging them.
"Why don't you come over and surprise us all by acting civil?" the Doctor suggested.
"No, thanks! I'm good."
"Maybe I'm asking a really stupid question," Jack started, "but may I inquire why he's called 'The Master'?" He raised an eyebrow, grinning roguishly from ear to ear.
Rose snickered into her teacup. "You're too kinky for your own good, Jack."
"At least you don't have to work with him," Gwen commented. Jack stuck his tongue out at her, and she returned the favor wholeheartedly. "Oh, Rose, I nearly forgot! Tosh and I got you a couple of things before you came, for the baby."
"God bless you lot. The Doctor and I have no idea what we're doing when we shop for Little Alien Baby—and by 'The Doctor and I', I just mean…" She pointed conspicuously at the resident alien.
Mind you, I don't actually know how human Jack is, so the Doctor and Master might not be the only ones from out of this world.
"She's just mad because I didn't want to get the crib she wanted to get," the Doctor said.
"You were completely unreasonable! Especially compared to what you wanted, which was one that flew, which we wouldn't have gotten if Hell froze over on wheels."
"Why would Hell freeze over on wheels?" asked Owen.
"Why wouldn't Hell freeze over on wheel?" she replied, implying that the answer was entirely obvious. Slowly, she got to her feet. "Shall we, ladies?" She, with Gwen and Tosh by her side, left the boys to themselves. Once the door was shut, Jack, Ianto, and Owen burst out laughing.
"What's so hilarious?" inquired the Doctor suspiciously.
"Everything!" Jack spluttered, leaning against the table for support, because he would surely double over and possibly pass out if he didn't. "Doctor, Rose is having your kid! That's the funniest damn thing in the galaxy."
"From what we've heard," Ianto explained, "you are not the first person that comes to mind when it comes to the word 'commitment'."
"And you just made the biggest commitment you could ever make, Sparky," chuckled Owen. "Congrats."
"You make it sound like I don't want this," the Doctor scowled.
"Don't you?" challenged Jack. "Ianto's right, you don't even like to decide what kind of toothpaste to use. You switch every other day."
The Doctor frowned. "How could you possibly know that?"
"I was young when I first came aboard the Tardis, Doctor. Young and curious and apparently into guys with funny ears."
"Just guys with funny ears?" teased Ianto.
"Well, at the time, it was either that or the pink squid we met in that bar on that planet… I can't remember it's name—the planet, I mean. Come to think of it, I can't remember the squid's name either, but he bought me a drink, so that earned him points."
"Do you have a point, Captain Horniness?" said the Doctor.
"Clever, Doctor. Very clever, but sadly, unoriginal. And anyway, I do have a point." He leaned over the Doctor, staring him square in the eye, no trace of a joke on his face. "You are going to be a dad. Rose is going to be the child's mother. You have to let her know that you're in this completely, no backing out or taking time off to traverse around the galaxy or—"
"I love her, Jack. I'm in love with Rose Tyler, and you know that I'm not the type of person to run away from something like this. I've been a father before."
Jack blinked, surprised. "Does she know that?"
"She has a vague idea, but knows how the story ends."
"I meant about you loving her."
"Oh. Well, yes, I've told her."
"Have you proposed to her yet?" questioned Owen, but before the Doctor could even muster the breath to answer, the Master intervened, returning from his promised land of destruction.
"He hasn't even managed to ask her what she wants for Christmas, let alone, ask her to marry him," he snapped wryly, pulling up a seat.
The Doctor faced them all defiantly. What did they know about his love life?
Although you don't know much about your own love life either, the voice inside his head told him, and he used the other voice in his head (the one that could be controlled more properly) to tell the first voice to shut up.
"I have too asked her to marry me!" he exclaimed, folding his arms over his chest.
The Master's jaw dropped. "What? When was this? Where was I when this matter occurred?"
"I imagine running from the authorities, regardless of whatever you deny or continue to deny."
"And Rose said no?" Jack looked even more surprised than before.
That was when the defiance the Doctor's stature held decided to betray him and fade off into the sunset. He didn't meet any of their eyes when he mumbled, "Well, I never actually got the chance to ask her."
Although no actual clarification was being performed, Ianto still tried to clarify on his own. "So you asked her to marry you, but you didn't ask her to marry you?"
"Exactly."
"I'm lost," Owen stated.
"To put it simply, then, I attempted to ask her."
"Why didn't you dare to instead of taking the sissy route?" said the Master.
"Because the eggs caught fire and she bloody up and left me to put them out."
"Is that why you refuse to eat scrambled eggs anymore?"
"If I'm to ask her again—"
"You mean attempt." The Master smirked.
The Doctor ignored him, yet again. "—then I don't want any competition."
"From scrambled eggs," said Jack.
"Yes."
"You don't want competition from scrambled eggs."
"Yes."
Jack blinked. "Do you realize what you're saying? We're talking about a breakfast food that has no life of its own and cannot in any way prevent you from proposing to the mother of your child."
"It can and it will if Rose is cooking! And I never said it was the most brilliant strategy I've ever come up with."
The Master nodded. "He's right, though. She'd set the toaster on fire if we let her near it."
The Doctor smiled at this, because she had set the toaster on fire once. What a fun afternoon, at least when I wasn't almost being burned to death. My head in flames was not a high point. But he recalled how Rose had cared for him after a couple of centimeters of hair had singed on his head, and how later, she'd gone to the trouble of buying him a new toaster (because she'd first tried to fix it and that nearly wound up as bad as when the first one caught flame). The smile on her face still made his two hearts pound.
Owen slapped a hand to the Doctor's shoulder. "Mate, from one doctor to another, it sounds like you could use a bit of help. Lucky for you, I am a man who knows women quite well, and I would be honored to help you out of this rut of attempting."
"As would we, although I'm slightly more of a man's man myself," Jack said, wrapping an arm around Ianto's shoulder and, at the same time, glancing pleasantly at the Master, who caught this gaze and pushed himself further away from him.
"I could use all the help I can get. What did you have in mind?" The Doctor huddled in with the rest of them, the think tank for a man in desperate need, perhaps completely unaware that the previous conversation had been eavesdropped on by three giggling women in the next room.
"You'd think that geniuses like them would check to see if the door was shut all the way before diving into such a dire conversation," Gwen remarked, returning with Toshiko and Rose to Tosh's computer area.
"Geniuses or not, they're still men," Tosh said.
"I feel sort of bad about ruining the Doctor's first proposal," Rose admitted, though she didn't feel badly enough to wipe the beaming smile off of her face. "But it would have been bad to set the Tardis on fire, right?"
"Right. And anyway, fire plus Tardis would probably equal in a belated proposal until the ship was fixed up nice and pretty again."
Gwen glanced back at the room where the Doctor and his recruits were planning. "I don't like them in there all at once. It's unnerving."
"Especially with the Master in there as well," said Rose. "They could be planning an assassination, for all we know."
"But they're not. They're planning your marriage proposal." Tosh nodded wisely. "The Doctor is going to get down on one knee, but you can control when and where he does. You have the upper hand, my dear."
"Use your powers for good," Gwen said.
Rose bit down on her bottom lip, contemplating her new position. She could tell already that time in the Tardis was going to be more intriguing than she could have ever imagined.
Forty-five minutes later, Jack, Ianto, Owen, the Master, and the Doctor emerged discreetly (meaning, not discreetly—the Master even tripped over a cable and brought Ianto down with him) from their fortress of temporary solitude. Rose, Gwen, and Tosh kept in close quarters, giggling uncontrollably and covering it up quite badly as they and the boys left the confinements of the Torchwood building. It never dawned on them that, for a roomful of people so accustomed to dealing with aliens and life-threatening/planet-threatening situations, none of them was at all very subtle.
"Well, we should probably get going," the Doctor spoke, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Lots of things to do, people to see."
"People to do?" Jack asked brightly, looking over at the Master.
"In your dreams," he scoffed.
"Other than the regular checkup—which I haven't a clue about, since 'regular' in the Tardis doesn't exist—I guess we'll at least be seeing you on March 11th, then." Owen gave a hug to Rose and shook hands with the Doctor. The girls embraced each other fondly, still giggling to each other, and Jack and Ianto lifted the Doctor off of his feet. If the world were to end in the next minute, its rescue would have to be put on hold, because its rescuers were busy giving one another a proper sendoff.
And then there was the Master, who would most likely be the reason for the world ending in the first place.
"Oh, Carnation," the Master cleared his throat, his acting skills less than satisfactory, "you seem to have an untied shoelace."
"Let me get that," the Doctor suggested, and before Rose could say anything in response, he was down on one knee, tying her shoelace. She blushed furiously and was positive that everyone saw.
"Uh, Doctor?" she breathed.
"Hold on, Rose. Untied shoelaces are a worldwide epidemic. They must be stopped." After making a perfect bow (or so she assumed; she couldn't see her feet anymore), the Doctor finally looked up, pleased with his work. "Now then, Rose." He reached into his pocket for something…
Rose stood on the spot, an ice cube.
… He opened his hand…
She gasped.
In his palm was a rag.
She blinked as he begun to polish her shoe.
"What are you doing?" she asked in a quivering voice.
"Well, shining your shoes, obviously," he answered.
"Doctor, I'm wearing sneakers."
He stopped polishing. "Oh. So you are." With a shrug, he rose from one knee. "Oh well. Now you have very shiny sneakers."
Rose smiled weakly. So it's going to be like that, is it? Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gwen slap a hand to her forehead.
They all bid their farewells and Rose and her Time Lords returned to the comforts of the Tardis. Rose, suddenly craving a candy bar, entered the kitchen and sat at the table with the chocolate in her hands, thinking over how this whole proposal nonsense was going to be and how she could possibly concentrate on anything else with that in mind. Gwen and Tosh told her that she could control when the Doctor would pop the question, but how was she supposed to manage that and prepare herself for the arrival of her child? She took a large bite out of the candy bar and continued her worries, not realizing that all the while, the Doctor was at the console, thinking about how he was going to keep almost-proposing to her until he finally asked her for real.
Because unbeknownst to Rose and the women of Torchwood, he and the men had known all too well that the door had been left open.
Must leave now. Must go before the stampede.
By the way, the signifigance to March 11th, even though that was a few days ago, is that one of my best friends had her baby on that day (I'm assuming, 'cause I only found out Sunday and I haven't talked to her yet). So it's an homage. Congrats to mother and baby!!! I lurve you to the end of time.
Okay, now I really have to go. TTFN.
