Title: 31 days of ficmas - "Family".
Number of parts: 1/1.
Pairing: Twelfth Doctor/Rose Tyler.
Synopsis: "He didn't do families, he had said it over and over again to his past companions."
A/N: The characters and universe don't belong to me. All rights go to Russell T. Davies, Phil Collinson, Susie Liggat, Steven Moffat and to the BBC. Everything else belongs to my imagination.
A/N2: All the shots of this collection have been written for the 2017 ficmas challenge organised by doctorroseprompts on Tumblr.
He didn't do families, he had said it over and over again to his past companions. No families, no domestics. That was the rules when it came to travelling with him. The companions usually followed those rules. They never followed the 'don't wander off' one though, but it was when they disobeyed that the real adventure was beginning, when the fun was coming. However, dealing with families never was fun. It was all about weird questions, angry answers, painful slaps and awkward situations. He had lived it with all his companions. All those awkward moments where he had to explain what he was doing in life and what he was employing their family member or friend for, and immediately followed by the unavoidable slap when he mumbled a vague answer. He was a traveller. He never stopped, he never stayed. He came, helped and flew away.
It had always been that way and he never thought that could change. Except it did. As he was running away from the Autons in a basement in London, he had met that blonde girl. Rose Tyler. Beautiful, charming, loving Rose. Love at first sight almost. Surprisingly, that young human had been what he desperately needed after the war. Compassion, absolution. Rose's presence was like applying a balm on his wound that was slowly healing. Every day, he was finding a new reason to keep living, to keep fighting, and soon enough, the feeling of happiness lightened the guilt and the weight of his loss without removing it from his shoulders. He could forgive himself, not totally, but just enough to keep going, just enough to allow himself to love that blonde human that was giving so much to him, never expecting him to give as much back.
The curse of the Time Lords didn't allow him to tell her so though. He didn't want to be the powerless witness of her decaying and dying. That would be unbearable for him. It would destroy the small fragile bubble of happiness and well-being he had built around them both. Nevertheless, after he almost lost her during the battle of Canary Wharf; he had been unable to keep his feelings for himself anymore. She was the first one to confess her love for him, and he just had to tell her that it was mutual. She had loved the broken soldier from the start and had loved the pretty boy he had become. She had loved the big kid that followed and she now loved the grumpy man he was. Loving her was easy, and she was making loving him easy too, when he was the most unlovable man ever seen. He had stopped hating on himself thanks to her though.
Rose Tyler had domesticated him and loving her wasn't the hardest thing to do. Being a part of every family reunion she was forcing him to go to was. Jackie and him had never been good friends. She had flirted with him, threatening him, slapped him and insulting him. She was the worst mother-in-law he could have dreamt of. She was always judging his regenerations – as if he could choose what he was ending up with! – and nit-picking. He was being nice and never replied to any of her reproaches or cutting remarks by anything else but sarcasm. Which was making her angry most of the time. Every meeting with her was hell, and he sometimes was trying to convince Rose to change her mind or to go alone. It never worked. Since they were a married couple – according the Time Lords' laws – he was forced to go with her. And Christmas was a family tradition he couldn't flee from.
That Christmas wasn't as awful as it could have been in the past. Rose had prepared something for him this year. Something he hadn't expected. Everything was so normal at first that he hadn't suspected anything. Jackie was cooking and he was placing the gifts under the Christmas tree – not that he liked it, but who would do it properly if it wasn't him? – while Rose was in town for the last errands. She had sent him away when she came back and when he was called back, there was no one in Jackie's flat, but the TARDIS finally let him in. Rose had been waiting for him, and when she grabbed his hand and led him through the corridors, he could feel her excitement, an excitement he only understood when she made him enter a room where all his friends were gathered: Sarah Jane, Mickey, Jack, Martha, Wilf, Clara and many others he hadn't seen in decades were here. They had travelled all the way to here so they could spend this Christmas together. And for once, just this once, he could love families, because his whole family was here for him.