Title: Choices

Status: WIP

Rating: 12

Pairing: Nine/Rose

Notes: Sorry for the wait! XD Thank Torchwood for the update.

Part 14 - The Dalek Invasion of Earth

There was a faint humming sound coming from outside. It woke Rose from her slumber and she turned to see the Doctor also awake and staring at the ceiling. It was still dark, in the early hours of the morning, and the invasion was at hand.

Rose ran her hand up over the Doctor's chest, happy to find him still here this time round, and watched him turn to look at her.

"What is that?" she asked. "That noise?"

"The Dalek ships," he replied. "They're here, searching for me. They've found out too much, but they still need my help. Now they're locking onto anything that has two hearts. That means me or our child."

Rose felt a shudder of fear run through her as he said this. "They would invade this planet just for two people?"

"They'd destroy a planet for nothing. An invasion might seem merciful in comparison."

Rose held him tighter. "What do they want from you?"

"Our lives."

She couldn't help but be gripped by terror as he said this. She didn't want to think about what fate might befall her child if she didn't do something to protect her. "Then take Hope away," she said, sitting up. "Take her in the TARDIS, to somewhere safe."

The Doctor smiled sadly at her brave resolve and sat up to face her. "No, Rose," he whispered frankly. "I can't keep running. They will always follow me - they have the ability to, now - and…" He paused for a solemn breather. "I can't leave you behind with them. You know I can't."

Rose stared at him for a moment longer before she made a slight nod and turned her eyes down.

"Rose?" the Doctor said next.

Rose met his gaze and listened.

"She's beautiful," he said.

Rose smiled - he was talking about Hope.

"I don't know why I didn't see it before," he went on, staring into the middle distance. "Her nose and her ears are just like yours. Which is fortunate."

"But she's so much like you, too," Rose insisted, clasping his hands and tapping her fingers against them. "She has your eyes. And you'll have to watch her at play - she's just so spontaneous, and she can flick her moods on-and-off like a switch."

His brow creased. "Do I 'flick' my moods on-and-off like a switch?"

"Yes."

He made a face that said he'd never realised it before, only to make a prime example of such behaviour and say, suddenly sombre, "Oh Rose… do I deserve so much? Or you so little?"

She watched him carefully and all the while remembered the Doctor she had first met all that time ago, that seemingly untroubled and independent man who had done what he could, wherever it was he had landed. And when his job had been done, he had just moved on, breaking all ties he had made to the people he had saved, and leaving them all to their own devices. She had been an exception to his rule, a person he had met and taken on board - even grown a bond to - and he had paid the price for it; with love came a certain amount of responsibility, and he was now trapped and bogged down. There was no doubt that he loved her, and she could see he was fascinated by the miracle of creation that had brought him a daughter, but he was unsure how he felt about it all. 'I don't do families' he had once said to her.

"Being 'domestic' isn't that bad," she insisted.

He didn't say anything, and eventually his mood-switch just flicked again and he flashed her one of his manic grins. "Up and at 'em!" he said, patting her leg, "We've got a planet to save."

---

It wasn't quite four o'clock in the morning, yet Jackie was up with the rest of them. (She hadn't realised until now that there even were two four o'clocks in the day.) She sat in her dressing gown at the table in the lounge whilst the Doctor and Rose bustled about like they were preparing for a day at the office, not a day saving the world.

It was Rose's decision that the Doctor should take charge of Hope this morning and spend some time getting to know her; after his run-out last night, she was unsure as to how Hope must now feel about her father, but it was incredible to see just how smoothly both Hope and the Doctor settled into the parent-child routine; they simply held no apprehensions toward one-another at all. All it had taken was a little chat at the start of the morning, and thereafter they had bonded incredibly quickly. In fact, Rose had felt more than a little moved as she watched the Doctor ensure Hope ate all her Ricycles and brushed her teeth. He seemed to be a natural.

When team-Tyler was all set, the next task was to call on Jack. Rose elected to go upstairs and fetch the Captain, which gave her a chance to see the scale of the invasion at hand, the sheer size and of the ships making her feel very small indeed. As she reached Jack's flat, she gave the door a knock but was a little disconcerted when she saw how glum he looked when he answered.

"It's Eugene," Jack explained. "He's not come home."

Rose glanced again at the Dalek fleet that was so thickly gathered in the skies, creating such a shadow over the earth that one might wonder whether it was truly dawn or not. Was Eugene's disappearance related to the situation at hand…?

Rose and Jack returned to the Tyler's flat together and everyone assembled in the living room, where the Doctor was listening to the news on the radio with Hope sat on his knee. (Since the electricity was still out all across London, the battery-powered radio was all they had.) The Brits were already starting to panic, the armed forces were being called in, and a curfew had been instigated nationwide. The rest of the world was, in the meantime, watching the situation with "great interest". And no doubt with great fear, as well.

"Eugene's not come home," Rose reported, perching on the arm of the Doctor's chair.

"Who?" he asked, concentrating on the news report.

"Eugene," Jack filled in. "My flatmate?"

The Doctor glanced at him, then turned to Rose. "You think it's connected?"

She gave him a look which said 'wouldn't it surprise you?'.

"If they've hurt him…" Jack growled.

"Easy Captain," the Doctor cautioned.

"Well, what's the plan?" Rose asked.

"I'm trying to think," the Doctor rallied. "But we have to keep Hope away from them, at all costs."

Hope exchanged glances with her father before she began to fiddle with his jacket. He didn't seem to mind.

"Why?" Jack asked.

"Because she's my daughter," the Doctor replied. "They want us both."

"Then it follows that we need to keep you away from them, too, Doc'," Jack surmised.

The Doctor gave him a dark frown. "It doesn't matter about me."

"Oh yes it does," Jack argued.

The Doctor opened his mouth to counter, but Hope interrupted. "I want to come," she said.

The Doctor smiled sorrowfully at her. "It's too dangerous for you."

"But I'm a Time Lord."

Rose frowned, sure no one had called Hope a 'Time Lord' before, or ever even mentioned the words to her - yet she seemed to know, as if the words had been ingrained into her mind since before her birth.

The Doctor smirked at her another time. "It's dangerous for teeny time travellers, as well," he insisted, tapping her on the nose, "They've come for you, you know, which makes it even more dangerous."

Hope looked a bit put-out, as children who are refused things always tend to be, but she said no more about the matter, and just began to search out her father's pockets whilst he looked out of the nearest window and mused on things.

"Why now?" Rose asked. "Why have they come now?"

The Doctor's frown told her that he didn't understand what she was asking, so she elaborated. "Hope's five years old. Why didn't they come when she was six, or when she was an adult, or when she was born?" She shook her head gently, her eyes resting on her child. "Why now?"

"Good point," Jack agreed, "Why have they come now? It would have been easier to abduct Hope as a baby, wouldn't it?"

The Doctor looked between them and said, "You're thinking like humans."

Rose and Jack exchanged a pair of glances which unmistakably said 'well what did you expect?'

"Time travel's a difficult art," the Doctor explained, glancing at Hope as she pulled a banana from his pocket. "It's hard to get it right all the time."

"Don't I know," Rose murmured.

"And," the Doctor continued, pretending to ignore that remark, "since the Daleks are a tad inexperienced in the art, then they're hardly gonna get it spot-on, are they? It's enough to be able to trace someone through time, never mind arrive at the exact instant you want on top of that."

"Okay, you win!" Rose said with a mock cynicism, "Point to the Doctor."

The Doctor offered her one of his 'told you so' grins.

"Moving on," Jack said. "The next question is what are they waiting for? The storm's stopped now, so…?"

All eyes were on the Doctor for his next smart aleck response.

The Doctor's face froze as he pondered on this until a wave of realisation overcame him. "It's for the same reason," he deduced, "The Daleks aren't good at time travel. It'd take more than a storm to keep them up there – they actually need the time to recover."

"Recover?" Rose echoed.

The Doctor looked at her and nodded. "Yes. They get sick, you see, like you might when you travel on a ship or plane."

Jack laughed, but bitterly. "Daleks get travel sickness?"

"Time sickness," the Doctor corrected him. "They haven't got used to it yet. They've managed to copy the technology but they've yet to perfect it to suit them. Or they've yet to find a way to evolve so that they suit it."

"So they're getting over their sickness right now?" Rose murmured. "Just sitting there, defenceless?"

"Then let's attack now!" Jack resolved.

"Don't be foolish," the Doctor retorted, "a sick Dalek's a dangerous one."

"Don't I know…" Rose muttered again.

"But still a vulnerable one," Jack pushed on. "Let's take the fight to them."

"I'm not dropping the TARDIS into their hands for a second time. It's too dangerous."

"What use is she to them now, though? They've got their time travelling technology."

"Exactly, which will give them every reason to destroy the master copy. I won't have that."

Rose glanced out the window and a thought suddenly hit her. "Doctor, where is the TARDIS?"

The Doctor pointed upwards whilst Hope pulled a broken compass out of his pocket. "She's on the roof," he said.

"You left a big, blue box on the roof?" Jack exclaimed. "My God, Doc', why not just put neon flashing lights round it saying 'Here's the TARDIS - come and get it'?"

"She's well protected," he assured them. "I'm not that stupid. So long as I don't use her, they might not even notice she's there."

Jack and Rose exchanged glances, really hoping that that was the case, whilst Hope found a seven-sided dice in the Doctor's coat next. She began to roll it over and over in her hands, and looked with enthusiasm at the pretty alien digits carved into it.

"C'mon, we need a plan!" Jack enthused.

"Right, let's recount the facts - throw 'em at me," the Doctor said.

"There's a giant fleet in the skies," Rose began.

"Okay."

"About 200 ships," Jack estimated.

"With more than two thousand soldiers aboard each one," the Doctor added.

"Two thousand?" Rose gasped.

"Yup," the Doctor nodded, "so we have our problem: how to get rid of half a million Daleks, with the minimum amount of effort and bloodshed. Any thoughts?"

Everyone exchanged vacant glances.

"We could barely manage one before," Rose stuttered, "and there are thousands out there. What're we gonna do?"

"Not hang around here chin-wagging, presumably," the Doctor riposted.

"But what do they want with us?" Jackie asked from her corner of the room, completely confused by it all and sick of being left-out. "Why have they come here?"

The Doctor turned on her. "Pay attention. They don't want you, they want me, or my daughter. That's all they're interested in." He gave Hope a glance and ran his hand over the back of her head, before continuing. "They tracked Hope here from the future, but I escaped from them and tracked them here before they even arrived - after tracking me of course. They made a blip in the Time Vortex, y' see, that had never been there before, which I traced, thus tracking them before they arrived tracking me."

Everyone blinked, dumbfound.

The Doctor ignored the awkward silence and continued regardless. "I was then hoping to find the two hearts before they did so I that could sort out this mess… Now I've found them and haven't a clue what to do."

"Don't tell me you're making up your 'plan' as you go?" Jack asked.

The Doctor smirked. "As per usual."

"Well won't the army hold them off?" Jackie queried. "Surely they'll do some good?"

The Doctor laughed bitterly. "Your amateurish soldiers against that? Fat chance."

Jackie made a face at him whilst Jack spoke up again. "It may be a fat chance but it's all we've got right now. Perhaps I can help them out, and give you guys more time."

The Doctor gave him a long, serious stare then nodded in concurrence. "Yeah. They could use a guy like you. Hop to it, see if they'll take you onboard."

There was a slight darkness about Jack right now that Rose had never seen before and it intimidated her - this was Jack the soldier, the former Time Agent void of two years' memory, whose flat-mate had possibly been taken from him by the threat above, and who was not in the mood to party.

"Well if the Psychic Paper doesn't work," Jack murmured, half to himself, "I've got another trick up my sleeve." He nodded his farewells to the group, waved Hope goodbye, and then departed.

Rose and the Doctor then stared at one another.

"Just you and me," she said.

He nodded, but his face was bland and full of concern. He didn't have a plan, and he was lost without one.

Jackie made a loud sigh after a while. "Well, if you two are off saving the world, you'd best leave Hope with me. I'll not have you being a bad influence on her."

The Doctor pulled a face, partially because of the 'bad influence' claim, but more because he wondered at Jackie's ability to take care of his daughter. Rose gave him an admonishing little push before her mum could see him, though, and said quickly, "Sounds like a good idea. All we need now is a plan."

The Doctor again stared into space and racked his brains for some inkling of a strategy, but he could find nothing to inspire him.

After a while, though, he heard Jackie mutter, "First shop window dummies, now this…" And suddenly something clicked in his head! His thoughts raced, twisting, turning and calculating until they followed through to conclusion and he laughed out loud in disbelief.

As Hope pulled a final item out of the Doctor's jacket, he leapt to his feet and lifted his girl into the air, swinging her around in his arms. He then set her down and stared at Jackie with an air of total incredulity. "Jackie Tyler," he said, "You are a genius!"

Jackie looked bemused - more because of the compliment than anything - but in the end, she could only exchange a smile with Rose and hope that the Doctor did have an idea. Hope, meanwhile, just giggled and hugged her father as he took her back up in his arms, having every faith in him.

She also kept her most recently acquired item held securely in her fist…

TBC…