"You trying to stare a hole into that window?"
"Hmm?" the Doctor looked up, startled from his thoughts.
Jackie stood in the doorway to her flat's tiny kitchen, working her way through yet another cup of tea and eyeing the Doctor over the rim of her cup knowingly. She stared him down for a moment, eyes like blue ice.
The Doctor wasn't ashamed to admit that he was a little frightened of that look.
"Well?" she asked him in slight irritation.
He continued to stare at her, his eyebrows slowly lowering into a confused expression. "Hmm?" he inquired again.
She rolled her eyes at him, throwing her hand (thankfully the one not holding her tea) in the air. "My god, how alien are you?!" she exploded loudly, causing him to start once more, "I'm trying to ask you what's wrong and you just gape at me like some kind of fish!"
And he continued to do exactly that.
Had she asked him what was wrong? He could have sworn she hadn't. In fact, he thought as he ran through the past two hours in his head, she hadn't said much to him at all of late. Not in her inside voice, at least. Not pertaining to his feelings. He distinctly remembered being bundled into the flat and immediately thereafter being bombarded by her issues and worries on the topic of Jimmy Stone.
Jimmy Stone.
Rose had told him to trust her, and he did. Really, really did. But it also hadn't escaped his notice that Jimmy, drug dealing and all, was by far a better match for her than he was.
Age appropriate? Check. Life of normalcy and safety? Potential check.
Love?
Nothing of the exchange he'd witnessed between them had truly spoken of it, but after, when she'd sent him away to talk to Jimmy alone, a certain look had passed between them. It hadn't been a look that spoke of deep caring or affection, but it had spoken volumes about history. Shared history.
Shared circumstances, shared experiences, shared life.
It had been a problem he'd encountered already with Mickey way-back-when; the compulsion to be with someone who shared your roots. That person who not only understood your way of life, but had experienced it themselves as well.
Mickey had known her better than him in the end. Looking back now he could admit it freely. He'd been a bigger man than him, too, willingly stepping back and letting Rose go when he realised that she didn't want him like he wanted her. He'd earned the respect that the Doctor now held for him.
But the problem with Jimmy was the fact that the Doctor had no idea whether Rose wanted him like that or not. It ate away at his brain and his hearts in equal measure to think of what she was even capable of hypothetically feeling for him.
Because, when it came down to it, Jimmy was the one who'd been her first love. He'd been her first adventure. And did a person ever really forget that completely?
"Oi."
He blinked, realising that Jackie had moved closer and had placed a comforting hand on his arm. It was odd, to say the least. When she wasn't running her mouth off over some trivial thing, she could be so very motherly.
She looked at him imploringly. "What's wrong?" she asked in softer tones.
He found himself compelled to answer honestly. He didn't know why, but it felt as though Jackie would actually be understanding towards the situation.
He stopped himself not a moment too soon, however, realising that she would most likely still go just a little mad at the news of their current predicament. Maternal aura or not, she was still Jackie Tyler.
But Jackie was the one who finally hit the nail on the head either way.
"You spent the night together, didn't you?"
She wasn't accusing him, which was even more strange. If anything, she looked a little sad, a little hopeless and maybe—just maybe—a little amused.
Overall, surely not a reaction to her statement he would have ever expected.
When still no answer came, she took it as quiet affirmation. Which was what it was, in a way.
She nodded her head wryly, even giving a small smile and soliciting a deeply disturbed frown from the Doctor.
"Well that's that, then," she announced resignedly, that same amusement holding.
"That's what?" he asked.
"Was an inevitability, I suppose," she mused, "What with the way you are around each other. Longing stares from day one, I'm telling you. Now I'm never gonna get rid of your poncey arse."
He kept on surveying her with a mounting sense of incredulity.
"So what you're telling me is that you're alright with all this? Just like that? With not even one, tiny slap in my direction on your mind?"
She snapped back into Jackie-mode at that, signalling the shift by putting down her cup on the dining room table and with the firm movement of her hands to her hips. "You asking for one?" she inquired dangerously, "'Cause if you're taking, I'm dealing."
"No!" the Doctor protested quickly, lifting shielding hands to his face almost as a reflex, "No, it's just— it isn't like you, being fine with this. Usually I get a slap for bringing her home a little late."
"Twelve months is a hell of a lot more than a little late!" she snapped at him.
Then she suddenly dropped her hands with a sigh, the fight retreating from her body.
"But I saw how she was with you that day," she continued quietly, "When she came running up to the flat all mussed up and crying and shouting about how you'd gotten hurt. I saw her, heard what she was telling me, and I thought—" she stopped speaking, squeezing her eyes shut.
The Doctor was about to ask if she was alright when she continued, "I thought that you'd gotten into a jam you couldn't get yourself out of for once. Thought seeing you like that had finally broken her."
She rubbed furiously at her eyes. "And when I followed her into that box of yours to help, she knew exactly where your room was. Not like someone who'd passed a certain point once or twice and had an idea of where it might be. She knew. Could've just as well asked her to take me there blind, she'd still have found it just as fast. And right there and then, as she'd opened the door and rushed to your side and didn't give me a sparing glance for—days after that, I realised there was just no going back."
"No going back…" the Doctor murmured to himself.
Jackie had no idea how true that statement really was.
There was a knock at the door then. The Doctor thought that it may have been a godsend. The opportunity to beat a hasty retreat to the TARDIS was within reach. Just in time, too. He was quietly dreading the moment when Jackie decided that she wanted more information about his and Rose's altered relationship. Discussing private details like that with his—gulp—mother-in-law was right up there with kissing a Zygon on the list of things he absolutely never wanted to do.
"I'll get it!" he said in an overly cheerful kind of tone, practically shoving Jackie out of the way as he tried to reach the door before her.
He flung the barrier open in just such a flash, and was met by a startled intake of breath from the person waiting outside.
Finally the Doctor forced himself to take it a little slower. He wasn't much one for courtesy, but he didn't want to make a habit of bowling people over out of the blue, either.
Well. Certainly not if he could help it.
"Um," he cleared his throat, "Sorry 'bout that. Can I help you?"
Jackie's new guest was a young girl. Rose's age, he noted. Not as pretty as Rose, obviously, but certainly not plain. Her chestnut-brown hair had been done up in a loose bun and her wide, bright-green eyes were set in an expression of surprise. Light freckles dusted her nose like a sprinkling of cinnamon. It wasn't unlike his own.
The girl shook herself from her startled stupor. Her eyes turned curious and inquisitive as she looked at him in another light.
"That's alright," she answered before falling quiet again. For what felt like a full minute she continued to stare at him as though he were some sort of mathematical equation.
"Can I help you?" he repeated slowly.
She then proceeded to grin at him unabashedly. "Oh!" she exclaimed, giving herself a light slap to the forehead, "'Course! How thick am I?" She gave a short laugh, looking as though she pitted endless joy in his mere presence. "You two figure out your issues, then?" she asked belatedly.
"I'm—sorry?" For all the cleverness he harboured, he couldn't for the life of him discern what was going on.
"I'm looking for Rose, actually," she switched gears, craning her neck to see past him into the flat, "She in?"
The Doctor continued to stare at her quizzically. Now that he came to think of it, she seemed quite familiar to him as well. Where had he seen her before? Certainly not in person. He remembered everyone he'd met in person. Maybe a photo? Yes, that was it. Something he'd found in Rose's room, he recalled. She'd provided a running commentary, but it seemed that he hadn't been listening at the time. Perhaps it had been the one in which Rose had worn that very skimpy, red mini-dress…
"Oh, budge up, you plum!" Jackie said at his back, forcefully manoeuvring him out of the way. She smiled at the girl. "Shareen, love, what a nice surprise! You wanna come in for a cuppa?"
"Nah, just came 'round to ask Rose if she wanted to come out to the chippy with me."
"Sorry sweetheart, but she's not here at the moment." Jackie leaned in, eyes stretching wide and betraying her status as an insufferable gossip, "Did you hear Jimmy Stone's back in town? Don't even know how long. What I do know, though, is he's still just as much of a prat as always. Not five minutes he's around Rose again and he's whisked her off with no word as to where!"
"Oh," the Doctor caught Shareen's almost imperceptible flinch and her accompanying forced smile.
"Yeah—that Jimmy Stone's a real character," she finished lamely. She pulled up her shoulders and gave a more genuine smile, "Oh well, I'll just make my own way then. Or—" she seemed to decide on something which she apparently thought a very good idea. Her eyes fell on the Doctor, "You wanna come keep me some company, Doctor? I reckon it's time you received the compulsory best-mate chat anyway."
The Doctor looked between Jackie and Shareen as they waited for an answer, feeling a bit like a trapped animal.
Finally he heaved a resigned sigh. "Oh, alright then."
Shareen grinned at him amusedly. "Brilliant," she announced before heading off.
"See you, Mrs. Tyler!" she called over her shoulder as she made for the Estate's exit with the Doctor in tow.
"Have a nice time, you two!" Jackie called back.
Shareen led the two of them down the several flights of stairs that led to the Estate's ground floor in silence. It was only when the massive building was a sufficient distance behind their backs that she started up the conversation once again. She moved to walk beside him, matching her pace with his large strides.
"She never tells me anything these days, you know," she told him, her eyes on the road ahead of her, "Last thing I hear she's done with you, wholly and completely, and now I find you visiting her mother."
She sighed, "Never was like this before she went missing. Time was, we texted each other every single detail as it happened."
They arrived at the chip shop and entered. Shareen nodded at a small table with two chairs, seating herself neatly in one. The Doctor followed suit.
"I'm sorry that I've been keeping her away," he told her sincerely.
He really was sorry for that one bit. Not for taking her with him, of course. He'd never be sorry for that. But he knew full well that all his companions, Rose included, had had their own lives before him. All of them had people they loved and who loved them; friends and family and boyfriends and pets and all those very domestic things. He also knew that with every single one of his companions, once again Rose included, he'd been the one to take them away from it all. Been the factor that disrupted and, yes, sometimes destroyed those carefully constructed and surprisingly fragile webs of life that they'd weaved for themselves.
At times he'd wondered if they resented him for that.
Now he wondered if Rose would.
"S'not your fault," she said with a shake of her head, "It was her choice to go with you in the end as much as it was your choice to ask her." She gave a wry smile, "And I don't think either of you planned on falling in love at the time."
Reflexively he flinched away from the word. The "l" one. He'd been confronted with that word far too much in the course of the last while. Even been prompted to say it—not that he was ever planning to rehash that painful experience again. So instead, he made for a subject change.
"So how'd you and Rose come to be friends, anyway? She never got around to telling me."
That was good question, he decided. It would keep her talking without him having to give much more than a "hmm" or a "ha" in the right place.
She smiled softly. "Oh, that's such a long story," she said.
"We've got time," he assured her, putting up a hand and signalling a lady behind the counter to bring them two helpings.
"And chips," he added as the woman made her way to them and placed the steaming, golden, greasy food items before them.
Shareen laughed as she watched the Doctor pop a chip in his mouth and smile contentedly while he chewed.
"I see Rose's irrational love for chips has been rubbing off on you," she remarked.
"Nothing wrong with a good batch of chips," he said around a second.
She gave another laugh, but it quickly died down. The Doctor nodded for her to go ahead with her story, and she abruptly got a faraway look in her eye.
"Me and Rose and Mickey grew up on the Estate together," she started, "Dirt poor, the three of us were. And we looked it, too. But happy, yeah? That's what counted." Her eyes fell to the uneaten chips on the table in front of her. "My dad wasn't much in the way of a man from the start. He liked bullying people, see. Hitting them and the like. Especially when he'd had a drink or two. Mum and I got the brunt of it all through the time he was alive. Then he decided to go driving one night after he'd had one drink too many. I was just starting up secondary when it happened."
Her face was carefully blank as she paused.
Compartmentalisation. The Doctor knew it well.
"Mum wasn't coping with it well," she continued levelly, "Despite everything he'd done to us, she'd still loved him. I suppose love is like that. She started drinking herself, started sleeping around and skipping out on work at the grocer's. And by the time we were fifteen, I'd gotten myself a job at Henrik's so we wouldn't lose the flat."
A flash of affection appeared in her eyes. "Rose stuck with me all through that. Sat with me in the evenings when I waited up for mum 'til she got home. Helped me tuck mum into bed when she was too pissed to do it herself—" she took a deep breath. "Held me while I cried after I'd told Mum to move out."
She lifted her eyes slightly, her voice gaining some strength. "Rose is like my sister, but even sisters fight. Our big fallout turned out to be over a bloke, stupid as that sounds. About Jimmy, actually."
The Doctor's eyes snapped up to meet hers, interest sparking within.
Her mouth quirked up at one corner, but there lay no amusement on her face. "Yeah, not that hard to believe, is it? Charming, handsome and clever bloke Jimmy is, me and Rose, sixteen years old, both fancied him quite a bit. Rose won out in the end, though. I was all elbows and knees at the time and Rose was—well—she was Rose. Jimmy never even spared me a glance."
She shook her head. "He was such an arse back then," she muttered angrily, "Never thought I'd actually be glad I hadn't been with him at the time. She'd never been much for school as it was, but with Jimmy Rose stopped going altogether. When she decided she was dropping out, me and her mum were furious. Told her that love was blinding her. Told her to stop seeing Jimmy."
She gave a humourless laugh. "And what did stubborn Rose Tyler do? She stopped seeing us. Basically told us to stuff it and moved in with Jimmy. We only saw her again when she turned up heartbroken on her mum's doorstep six months later."
The Doctor gave a flinch at the all-too-familiar mental image, but if Shareen noticed she didn't mention it. She was too immersed in the past.
"I got to finish my A-levels, she didn't. Of course, Rose being Rose she never held that against me. I got into university on a scholarship after school. Temporal physics, if you can believe it. And through it all Rose was the one supported me most. She'd taken over my old job at Henrik's when I started studying. I told her I'd get another one somewhere else to pay my flat rent, but she refused. Told me I was gonna be the one who got myself off the Estate one day and that I needed to focus on studying."
She gave a disbelieving smile. "Rose and her mum paid my rent every month 'til I became lab assistant at the university."
The Doctor stared in awe at the words. Then his hearts filled with an unfathomable amount of warmth. If it was at all possible, he felt for Rose even more deeply. She was truly the most compassionate person he'd ever come across. She was amazing.
Shareen cast her gaze to the ceiling, her expression turning wry. "And despite all of that," she said, "I have no idea how I'm gonna tell her my news." She gave a breathy chuckle, "I'm completely terrified, to be honest."
The Doctor nodded knowingly at that. He already knew what the news was. The mix of hormones he'd smelt around her since he'd first laid eyes on her was unmistakable. He caught it even now; the strong concentrations of estrogen and progesterone her body was putting out.
"You're pregnant," he stated.