AN: Hey, peoples! So sorry for not updating yesterday, but it was really nice being able to spend some time with my friend, so I hope you understand. This chapter got away from me and turned into a bit of a monster (over 2,300 words, sweet lord). Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this, and I'm sorry in advance if Jack and Donna aren't in character. I've never written them and it's been a while since I've watched their episodes. Enjoy, and thank you to all those that have read, reviewed, followed, and/or favorited.

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Doctor Who or any of its characters. If I did, Donna and Rose would have never left, and K9 would have been their family pet. I also don't own Top Gear, in fact I've never watched it. Sorry to all Top Gear fans that are offended.


10ROSE 30-DAY OTP CHALLENGE

DAY 9- Hanging Out With Friends

*~*~PREVIOUSLY~*~*

It can't be Jack. Jack died at the Gamestation. It can't be him. It just can't be…

There was a knock at the door, and Jackie went to answer as Rose stayed on the couch, frozen in surprise and disbelief.

"Oh, Jack, it's you! And this must be your girlfriend you were tellin' me about. Oh, come in, come in. We were just about to have tea. Here, come meet my daughter and her friend."

Rose looked up and was met with the familiar face of Captain Jack, and a redheaded woman she hadn't met before. The Doctor walked into the room just as they did, and shock passed over his face as he almost dropped the tea.

"Hey, Doctor, Rosie. Long time no see."


ROSE couldn't move. She couldn't believe he was here. He-he died. I saw him die. The Doctor told me he died- oh, my lord. I forgot rule #1. "J-Jack?" She got up from the couch and walked over to him, afraid that he would disappear if she made any sudden movements. Jack saw her fear and met her halfway, conveniently right in front of the Doctor, who could only gape at the man he, too, had thought to be deceased. Rose, upon realizing that it wasn't a dream or a trick, pulled Jack into a tight hug and felt tears well up in her eyes. "Oh, my God. I thought you were dead!"

Jack chuckled slightly at that, and it reverberated a bit in his chest, tickling Rose. "I was."

She looked up at him in shock, the how? already forming on her lips, when the Doctor broke them apart and began scanning the captain with his sonic screwdriver. "How did you survive? Wait, you said you were dead. How were you resuscitated? How did you get off the Gamestation? Where have you been?"

Jack looked at the Doctor with an amused expression and looked over at the as-yet-unnamed redhead on the other side of the room. His expression to her said "see what I mean?". "Let me see here. My atoms were rearranged and I was resuscitated with the Time Vortex energy from the Bad Wolf; I got off the Gamestation by waiting for a rescue party from Earth and finding a new Time Vortex Manipulator; I've been all over, but I was working for Torchwood up until six months ago when I met that," and here he pointed to the ginger woman. "Lady right there. Say hello, Donna. Anyway, we've been investigating and have essentially gone vigilante, doing you two's job while you've been off exploring. We've been trying to do what Torchwood is supposed to be doing, i.e. alien protection sans murder. We've been living in Cheswick for a while but figured London would be more conductive to our work. Any more questions?" Jack looked around the room, waiting for anyone to continue their inquiries. Donna simply smirked and went to his side, and Rose and the Doctor tried to process everything that had transpired. Jackie looked more confused (big shocker, I know) but they all remained silent.

"Good. In that case, Doctor, Rosie, would you like to join Donna and me for lunch? We certainly have some catching up do."


"SO, basically, on the Gamestation some person called the Bad Wolf killed ya, brought ya back to life, and just… left ya? And now you can't die?" Rose was trying to remember what had happened that day, and who this "Bad Wolf" might be, but it was still like something forbidden, as if the memories were being repressed for her own good. She hated it.

Jack looked at the Doctor confusedly, and almost questioned Rose about why she forgot, but one subtle shake of the Doctor's head silenced that. "Uh, yeah. I wasn't entirely sure what was going on at first, and it took me a few decades to get used to it, but-"

"Wait," Rose interrupted. "Whadja mean 'decades'? We've only been gone a few months."

"Well, Rosie, it's been a lot longer for me, because I've been traveling and Vortex-jumping a lot. I just decided to come back around the time I left, and I've been following the real passing of time. For me it's been about, oh, 150 years? Something like that."

This silenced Rose once again, as she wondered how on Earth he had gone 150 years without aging a bit.

"Anyway, as I was saying, it took some time to get used to, but it's helped me out of some sticky situations, so I decided to just go with it. I met Miss Donna here when she was working as a temp back in Cheswick-"

"As the best temp in Cheswick."

"Er, right. How silly of me to forget. Anyway, as she was working as the best temp in Cheswick, I was investigating yet another alien trying to take over Earth. It was Donna's wedding day, but some temporal/spatial rift caused her to materialize right smack in the middle of my apartment. She was mad, gave me a smack that rivaled Jackie's, and stormed out. Of course, it turned out that her fiancé was actually a consort for the alien, so that relationship got a bit ruined, but it ended up working out for me. We parted ways, and that was when I started traveling again. We, of course, hadn't kept in contact, and I honestly thought we'd never see each other again. I'm really happy to say that I was wrong." He stopped now in order to shoot Donna a tender smile and gently squeezed her hand before facing the Doctor and Rose again and continuing.

"Anyhow, we did end up seeing each other again, about 62 years later for me and a couple months later for her. Turns out she had been snooping around anything and everything that was suspicious, and we ended up meeting again over some revolutionary weight-loss pill. Tell me, Doc, you ever heard of the Adipose?"

The Doctor chuckled a bit at that. "That was you two? You two are the reason that blobs of human fat evolved into Adipose? Thanks a lot for that, Rose and I had to deal with that over on Delta-Gamma-6 last week."

Jack smiled and winked before replying, "Hey, anything for you. Anyway, we met again investigating, ended up saving not only the Adipose babies but also the human race, and ended up having a date afterwards. The rest is history."

Donna had been silent up until this point, but decided that now was her time to launch an inquisition on the Doctor Jack had told her about. "What about you then, Doctor? First off, what kind of name is 'The Doctor'? Doctor Who?"

Rose started laughing at that, in earnest, and was only just able to gasp out something about the Doctor owing her ten quid. The Doctor mock scowled at her before replying to the blunt redhead. "Nothing else, actually. It's just 'The Doctor'."

Donna squinted disapprovingly before nodding a bit. "Hm. Well, what about this one? Are you two a couple, or do you even do that sort of thing? Jack told me you're an alien, but you're still a man, ain't cha?"

The Doctor blanched a bit, blinking stupidly and gaping. "Uh, no, you see, we're kind of- well, really we're- I mean- Rose, would you mind?" His voice had gotten progressively higher as the sentence continued, and he began to squeak towards the end. How in the world(s) am I supposed to explain my relationship with Rose to this complete stranger, when I don't even know how to explain it to myself?!

"Er, well, we are together. We've been in a, erm, romantic… -ish… relationship for about a month now."

"Hm. Well, I dunno how you put up with him. Jack said he was a right mess. Isn't that right, dear?"

Now it was Jack's turn to look scared. If I admit to it, I upset the Doctor. If I deny it, I upset Donna. What should I do? Do I want to risk making the Doctor mad, or Donna? "That's exactly right, babe. Then again, that was back when he had the ears, before he regenerated and all. He might be totally different now. What do you think about the new Doctor, Rose?"

Rose was getting more uncomfortable by the second, but this about did her in. "You know, Jack, I never really minded the Doctor before. I mean, sure he could be grumpy and brooding sometimes-"

"Oi!"

"Oh, shush, you know it's true. Anyway, even with the grumpiness, he wasn't all that bad. Sometimes, he was actually really… sweet." Her face turned wistful and a bit sad as she remembered her Doctor of leather and ears. He really was fantastic…

The Doctor noticed her look turning melancholy, and pulled her into as much of a hug as he could in their shared half of a booth. Meanwhile, Jack and Donna shared a look of their own, but theirs was more exasperated.

"Oh, I didn't even have to see you two together before to see that you two've been in love from the bleedin' start. How long after you two met did you fall? A month? A week? Or was it just a day?" Donna had definitely decided to avoid walking on eggshells with these two. How stupid did they have to be? It's so flippin' obvious they've been in love from the beginning, but they waited til a few weeks ago? Actin' like they've got all the time in the world. It's insane.

Rose began by saying, "No no no, we just started as friends-" just as the Doctor started with, "Oh it was about… three days?" They looked at each other in mutual shock, Rose because she hadn't expected anything like that from him, and the Doctor because he couldn't believe he'd said it out loud.

"You- you what, Doctor?" He loved me after three days. He loved me after three days. HE LOVED ME AFTER THREE DAYS!

"I- uh- well- Ifellinlovewithyouafterthreedays." The Doctor's face turned a brilliant shade of red, and his eyes became the size of saucers. I can't believe I told her that. I can't believe I told her that. I CAN'T BELIEVE I TOLD HER THAT!

Donna and Jack looked with amusement at the bombshell they'd helped along, and decided to leave off the questions for now. After all, at least two people in the party had forever.


AFTER another hour or so, the four new friends decided that it would be good to head back to Jackie's. The Doctor didn't think so, of course, but he was more than a bit outnumbered. They made it back fairly quickly, and Jack and Donna stopped by to say hello before retiring to their flat across the hall. Jackie, Rose, and the Doctor enjoyed a small dinner together before Jackie decided it was time for her to go to bed, and bid the two resident time travelers good night. This left Rose and the Doctor to clean up in the kitchen, and once they were done they settled in on the sofa in front of the telly.

Just as they started and episode of Top Gear, Rose decided that enough was enough, and muted it, before turning to the Doctor and waiting until he looked up at her to begin. "Doctor, why didn't you tell me before?"

The Doctor had been hoping beyond hope that this conversation could be avoided, but apparently fate was done being nice to him for now. Time for Plan B: act dumb and hope some more. "Didn't tell you what? I'm assuming you're talking about Jack, but I honestly didn't know about that myself. I had wondered what became of him, but the last I knew he had been, well, exterminated. I'm happy to have been wrong, really, and I think Jack will be much more enjoyable to be around now that he has Donna. Honestly, no matter how many times I took him aside and told him you were mine, but he just couldn't resist flirting. I even told him once 'hands off the blonde', and he had the nerve to ask if we could share! That was an obvious no, and I even threatened to toss him into the Vortex, but-"

"You told him that I was yours?"

The Doctor bit down on his tongue, hard, reprimanding himself for the second time that day for letting too much slip. "Well, you see, I was just, erm, trying to dissuade him. Yes, that's it. And, I thought he would end up hurting you, so I convinced him that you were spoken for so that he wouldn't get the chance. It was just made up, see."

One look from Rose told him that she could see right through the lies. And she was less amused than her Majesty, Queen Victoria.

"Oh, fine. Yes, I told him you were mine. I know that at the time it wasn't entirely true-" A pointed throat-clearing from Rose. "Right, I know it was a complete lie, but for me, well. It was… the truest thing I knew." Rose looked up at him with tears in her eyes, not used to the Doctor being so open. She opened her mouth to reply, but instead came a great, big yawn.

The Doctor laughed, and before Rose could say anything, he lifted her up and threw her over his shoulder. She threw a hand over her mouth to muffle her laughing as the Doctor trekked her to her room. "That's it. Time for the flimsy little human girl to go back to sleeping her life away. I guess this will have to continue in the morning." He put her down just as they reached her door, and he gave her a kiss goodnight before going back to the kitchen to make himself a cuppa. He settled down with his tea and watched telly, looking forward to his pink-and-yellow girl coming back. It was worth the wait. It always would be.


AN: Hey, quick question. Would anyone like to see Jack and Donna become companions, or have them stay home? I'd love to hear you guys' thoughts, but if I don't see anything before I write the next chapter I'm just going to go with what makes me happy. Anywho, I'd love to get your opinions.