Chapter Twenty-One

"Here now, love," said Jackie kindly as she shoved a plate and a cup in front of him, "... to wash those circles away under your eyes..."

The Doctor took the cup, waving his hand at whatever it was on the plate. He ran a hand through his hair, now a sweat-sticky mop of undead rabbit on steroids and uppers.

"I... can't tolerate the food right now, Jackie... I'm sorry. Just give me the tea."

Jackie Tyler's pink hoodie sank a bit; her shoulders drooped. But she removed the plate. And as she took away that white, simple plate of cheese and biscuits, she watched the Doctor stare those peridot eyes out over Creation on the rim of a teacup full of nice warm mint.

"I did give you the tea, love..." she whispered, knowing he wouldn't hear. So she bent down, took his freezing fingers and wrapped them around the warm white of the teacup, carefully bending them here, teasing them through there, until those eyes fled sideways like lightning, and bubbled up again.

"Oh, 'ello, Nut Loaf, didn't see you there."

"I know," she murmured, scruffing a hand through his hair, "...and you say I'm the nut loaf. Well you're the whole peanut, Doctor."

"Peanuts aren't really nuts, Jackie," he muttered back in mock disapproval, shrugging into himself like a schoolboy blushing in front of his mum, "...they're actually tubers, like potatoes, which don't usually grow on trees unless they're attached to a vine, but then you've got '...and I'm up now.' Beat that, eh?"

His gaze flicked like a hummingbird over the sun outside, glinting on the metal table in the dining room behind him where he sat in the breakfast nook. He noticed.

"Where's John?" he asked, rubbing the lines of his flat stomach and wondering about a great many more things than just how many days he'd been out and where the babies were and had they eaten yet and...

Only then did his gaze touch the abandoned plate on the counter behind Mrs. Tyler.

"...ah, I'm sorry. It looked lovely, but... I've things on my mind. I'm sor..."

Jackie's finger found his mouth mid apology, and shut it for him.

"Don't start that, sweetheart; you'll never stop..." she said, smiling down at the silly man, who smiled back at her and then went softly back to looking out the window again.

But his eyes finished it for him; they always did.

"I'm sorry!" he added happily, bouncing a little in the chair and a slightly straightened spine, "Oh, my... that's... rather embarrassing."

"What is?" Jackie asked, looking confusedly at the Time Lord, who was busy undoing his buttons.

The Doctor looked up at her then, and his eyes were wholly different; orbs instead of pebbles, jewels instead of stones. Melons instead of gooseberries.

"I'm lactating, Chiich," he breathed softly, his face suddenly smoother as a profound ancientness crept through his countenance like a bubbling brookwater, leaving lines around his eyes to dwarf the Llangernyw Yew.

Pointing to his shirt, the Doctor directed Jackie's gaze to the wet lines of damp sogging their way down the white cotton.

"Oh, take that off then; I'll go and get the twins, love- just sit right there," Jackie murmured, rubbing his head one more time before shoving off to the room where she'd tucked the babies in for a little nap.

When she was gone, he reached to touch his tight close pectorals with their cold papilla, caressing them with his palms. Awestruck yet again, he began pinching slightly to bring more milk to the teats, then idly smearing the heavy cream flow on his fingertips as it trickled and rushed across his bare chest.

Five minutes later after he'd fed the twins, Rose was watching him, the twins full and asleep in her arms. He was standing sort of shakily with his hands pressed against his breasts, desperately cupping himself as his milk still poured out of him, into his hands, and spilled out onto the floor.

"I'm sorry for the mess," he murmured, attempting to get up and swaying against the screen door that led to the side yard eating area, "...but I shouldn't waste this, hold on..."

The moment the milk hit the grass, the Doctor hit it too, bruising a small patch of green lawn as he blacked out, sprawling like a mendicant in a fit across the rain-soaked portico.

The creamy milk then seeped into a bare patch where the neighbor's dog had peed, and suddenly, there was a new patch of grass, poking up like little dancers in a stage show.

Jackie chose that moment, understandably, to call for her husband.