Disclaimer: I will (not) own it someday, so (don't) send in your suggestions now. And I don't own the rights to Converse either (though I do own a pair).

A/N: Decision time for Alli... (And probably the longest chapter I've written yet!)


Bittersweet

The Doctor set the body alight on a distant planet in the constellation of Kasterborous. Martha, Jack and I remained in the TARDIS.

When he returned, I was still in my bedroom, gazing distantly in the mirror in a desperate attempt to recognise the person being reflected. There was a sandwich on the table, with a mere bite taken out of it, and a drained glass of water by its side.

My skin was pale, a deathly white. The whole left side of my face was littered with animalistic scratches and lines of blood. The heavy grooves I had felt in my skin looked worse than I had imagined. Covered with dried blood, the scars obscured my forehead and cheek, leaving an ugly trail of red down my face. On the right side, my cheek was swollen. A huge, almost cartoon-like lump was coursing pain through my nerves from my forehead, and my nose had bled so much it was pale white and scarred. My hands were still tarnished red with blood I had tried to stop flowing countless times. They were scorched and rough, like my arms and torso.

I stood half naked, feeling faint, as I observed my disfigured body. Jack entered with a tap on the door. I couldn't summon the energy to cover myself, but he draped a blanket over my shoulders and I wrapped it around myself gratefully. I swayed on the spot, and he wordlessly guided me over to my bed, where I sat close to him and didn't speak, still looking at myself in the mirror opposite the bed. He pulled me into him and I felt myself instantly more relaxed. We hadn't had a moment alone in over a year. It seemed impossible.

"It's not that bad." he muttered after a while. I almost laughed. "No, really." he added. "The Doctor can patch this up, no problem."

I nodded weakly, refusing to look at him. "But it still happened." I told him in an almost silent whisper, my voice sounding like someone else's. "I can still remember it."

Jack seemed to understand. He pressed a fatherly kiss to my head, though my hair was still disgustingly matted and greasy. I wanted nothing more than to wrench him away and scrub every trace of the Master's work from my face and body; but at the same time, I longed to sit here forever, curled up in Jack's arms, always protected, never alone. After a few moments, he seemed to sense my unease, and left my side. I felt at peace, but strangely empty.

"Are we tellin' him?" I asked, as Jack made for the door. "We never got round to it..."

Jack seemed to contemplate it. "Like I said, it's your choice." It seemed years ago that we'd last discussed the subject of our former engagement.

"Right. He doesn't know already then?" I ventured hopefully.

"Nope." answered Jack.

"In that case... I think he's got enough to worry about." I said, making my decision. Jack gave me a slight smile and headed towards the door again. A question popped into my head.

"Jack..." I began unsurely. "D'you think it'd be okay... I mean, if I don't stay with the Doctor... well, could I stay at Torchwood?" Jack hesitated. "Permanently?" I added, reasoning that I might as well make sure he knew what I meant.

Jack paused at the doorway, then smiled. "'Course you can." he replied cheerfully, then grinned and edged out of the room.

A few hours later, I left the confinement of my "private" corridor, and bean to walk towards the main consol area, where the others were sure to be. I looked relatively normal, dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a blue striped polo shirt, accompanied with my red converse - and, of course, a new TARDIS key hung on a length of string around my neck, to replace the key that was taken from me by the Master's soldiers. My blonde hair, now grease free and bouncing on my shoulders, was framing my still heavily injured face. I had done my best to cover up most of the damage, and it looked a lot better now that it wasn't caked in a year's worth of dirt and blood, but I knew that the second the Doctor saw me, he'd want to make sure I was okay.

And sure enough, as soon as I reached the console room, I was pushed out again towards the medic room. Jack and Martha followed us in, Martha no doubt hoping to be of some use, but the Doctor tended to my cuts and bruises delicately, always focused on his work, his eyes never straying from my injuries. When he came across something his vast selection of alien cures and remedies couldn't fix - such as a long, deep cut spanning from the top of my left ear to my collarbone - he beckoned Martha over for her expertise. She conducted her work more kindly than the Doctor, much more casually, more freely, while Jack merely watched in the corner, occasionally making comments. He had already washed and been tended to, and was back in his old outfit.

When we left the room a few hours later, I felt almost back to normal. The Doctor and Martha had managed to soothe most of the stinging, and a lot of the bruising and swelling had gone done as well. There were still several deep gashes on my face, but I at least looked human, and there were no tell-tale trails of blood pouring down my cheeks.

Martha and Jack left first, to get something to eat in the TARDIS kitchen, and the Doctor and I were left alone in the medic area to finish off and clean up. The Doctor said nothing; he didn't even look at me.

After a few moments, when he had just finished tidying away the bottles of antibiotics he had rifled through to find a bottle of Helapeon 'Slow-Swells Serum', I got tired of the tension. I walked up to him and wrapped my arms around his waist. If anything, it just felt good to have him close to me, safe again, after so long. He seemed to feel the same, and wrapped his arms around me in return, smoothing down my hair and pressing his mouth there in a similar way to Jack. The thought made me sad.

I'm not sure how long we stood there, but when we broke apart, his eyes looked slightly puffy. He was looking at the floor.

"The time to grieve's over." he told me with a sniff when I opened my mouth to speak. "Let's go." He held out his hand, and I took it gratefully. "You could do with something to eat. And then bed."

I grinned, then winced when my jaw stung with pain. "Sounds good to me." I said, smiling slightly, and we walked towards the kitchen together to see what delicious food awaited us after our grueling year of mush.

- - - - - - -

I didn't sleep well that night. After a gorgeous feast of roast pork, Yorkshire pudding, carrots, roast, boiled and mashed potatoes, and a large strawberry trifle whipped up by the TARDIS, I fell exhausted and content into bed, and drifted into a deep sleep in my pitch black room. But it didn't last long, and after a few hours, I woke up, screaming, writhing in my bed covers, and fell on the floor.

The Doctor (still in his pinstriped suit) rushed in and flicked on the light in a matter of seconds, shortly followed by Jack, in just a pair of boxers, and Martha, wrapped in a pink nightgown and yawning. Feeling disconcerted and yet still slightly embarrassed, I muttered my apologies, and crawled back into bed gingerly, wracking my brain to remember what had awoken me. I couldn't remember any dream or nightmare, and yet I had somehow been scared enough to scream myself awake.

Martha filed out of the room quickly, and Jack followed her out, albeit slightly reluctantly, but the Doctor remained at my side as I lay back down in bed. I saw him pull up a chair and watch my feet as the light faded into night. My night was not undisturbed, but when I was pulled out of sleep the next few times, I at least woke quietly enough to feint merely a brief movement, roll over and wait to fall asleep again, for the Doctor's sake. When I awoke in the morning, he was still there, his head buried in one of my own books, lifted from my bookshelf which stood at his side.

After a breakfast of assorted cereals and toast, the four of us moved to the console room, waiting for someone to make a decision about what was to happen next.

"I'd better get back to my team." Jack had said suddenly, amidst the lost laughter of a story the Doctor had been telling.

"What?" Martha had asked, clearly disappointed, but the Doctor merely nodded.

"You won't stay?" he offered, but Jack shook his head.

"They'll be waiting."

"Time machine." reminded the Doctor, and Jack chuckled.

"Still... I've got work to do."

I couldn't help notice something was being overlooked.

"Um... what about me?" I began uneasily. I'd had plenty of time in the past year to decide what I'd do at this point, and yet I had still managed not to come to a conclusion.

The Doctor and Jack studied each other, neither looking at me. Jack seemed to remember how angry the Doctor had been when he found out I was working for Torchwood, because he looked away first.

"It's your father's decision." he told me gently, then looked back at the Doctor, who still hadn't looked away. He hesitated.

He reached up and scratched his ear, contemplating, and Martha sensed that this was meant to be a private moment. She led Jack out the door, and before long their footsteps had become distant sounds in the never-ending corridors of the TARDIS.

"Well?" I asked, moving to stand opposite the Doctor, but he still refused to meet my eyes.

"I suppose... that's your choice." he said finally, nodding at a spot a few centimetres to the left of my ear as he pushed me away (metaphorically, not literally, of course).

I nodded once, unsure what was supposed to happen now. I still hadn't made my choice. Part of me was begging to get back to Torchwood, to see everyone again, to check they were all okay; part of me yearned to stay with my father and keep him company, sticking together as a family should; part of me wanted to run away, back to Jackie in 2022, to see my friends and live my human life.

"I'm sorry." the Doctor said abruptly.

"What?" I said, taken-aback. "Why?"

"For what happened to you." he explained, and he reached up and brushed a stray strand of hair out of my face, then winced slightly at the bruising it uncovered. He was still refusing to look me in the eye.

"Wel... 'snot your fault..." I muttered awkwardly.

"I was just trying to do what was best." he told my shoulder. "I never meant for you to get hurt."

"Obviously." I said, frowning. In my exhaustion after the previous night's disturbances, my impatience seemed to get the better of me. "Why won't you look at me?!" I demanded, when he once again refused to meet my eyes.

He swallowed but didn't reply. "Doctor?" I asked. "Why can't you look me in the eye?"

He looked to the door. "We should go and see the other two." he said shortly, and brushed past me to get to the door. This seemed to aggravate me to the point where I lost control.

"LOOK AT ME!" I bellowed. "Why won't you just look at me?!"

"Because it's hard, Alli!" the Doctor turned and said coldly, looking straight into my eyes, and I saw that his eyes seemed more hollow than ever before. It scared me, to say the least. He seemed scared himself. I was too shocked to reply to his abrupt answer. He had always been the one to tell me off, when him, Rose and I had been a proper family, but never had I seen him like this. I knew it was hard for him, acting the father when he'd lost all that so many decades before, but he'd never before spoken to me as distantly as he did now. "Because I saw you tortured, and beaten, and starved and abused, and I couldn't stop them!"

Tears sprung to my eyes, and I took a step back. He looked away again. "D'you think it's easy?" he asked me furiously. "Looking at you now, after seeing what he did to you? Seeing it now, on your face, in your eyes? This never used to happen! Not when we... not - it just didn't! I could stop it! But how can I look at you know? Knowing that it wouldn't have happened if I... If I hadn't...?"

I was momentarily stunned, unable to summon an appropriate response. I couldn't see how he was possibly blaming this on himself. But - and I don't know why it came to me - my thoughts suddenly found me the real answer.

"But that's not it..." started uneasily, waiting for another outburst. "That's not it at all, is it? You've seen me hurt before, it happens all the time. And yeah, okay, this is a lot more than I've been hurt before, but... That's not the real reason you won't look at me." The Doctor looked away again. I felt my tears blur my sight, much to my annoyance. "It's mum." The Doctor looked up at me then, right into my eyes, taken by surprise. I never called them 'mum' and 'dad'. I don't even know why I did then. "Isn't it? Whenever you look at me... you see her."

He didn't reply, but he didn't need to. It all seemed suddenly so clear. "I see it sometimes, in your eyes." I whispered, my voice only just audible. "When I say somethin' that could have been her, you look at me, an' it's like you're seein' her."

"I do love you Alli. You're my daughter. And I'll love you 'til the end of Time." he assured me, repeating the words he used to say every night before he tucked me into bed. As if he had to. He looked away and my eyes overflowed with memories.

"I miss her." I whispered, my voice cracking. And then, without further argument, without anything else needing to be said, we were father and daughter again, the discussion forgotten, and I was in his arms, and he was holding me again like he'd never let go.

"I know." he murmured, resting his chin on my head. "I miss her too. And I'm sorry."

Gritting my teeth, I pulled one hand away and punched his side softly. "Don't." I warned him, and he chuckled. "There's no way this was your fault."

As we parted, I wiped my eyes tenderly on my sleeve, carefully not to catch the material on one of my many cuts or scratches.

"Yeah, so I - I think I'm gonna go." I said, nodding. "I don't think this is gonna work. An'... I belong with Torchwood."

"Well, you don't - I mean, you could stay," the Doctor offered. "Please. I'd like that. You, me and Martha. You know, she isn't -"

"I know." I interrupted, and I did know, perfectly well, that Martha wasn't trying to replace Rose. "She's all right, Martha is. You hold on to her." I smiled. "But really, I can't. It'll be too much - it just won't be the same."

He nodded understandingly. "But -"

"I'll be fine!" I reassured him with a smile that stung the corners of my mouth. "Everyone leaves home one day. And Jack'll take care of me."

The Doctor snorted and I giggled reluctantly, but stopped myself when my skin stretched and stung. "You watch out for that one." he told me, and offered his hand. "Now, I reckon we should go and see what Mr Harkness thinks."

"Captain Harkness." I reminded him with a slight smile, and he grinned back. Hand in hand, we walked out of the console room, and followed the TARDIS' path to the kitchen, where we found Jack and Martha.

They were running around at the kitchen table wildly, though they froze, grins still etched on their faces, when we entered. Jack was running whilst holding a large mixing bowl, full to the brim with a dark brown gooey liquid, high above his head, and Martha, chasing him, appeared to be on the verge of whacking him with the wooden spoon (also covered in the brown substance) that she was waving madly at him - spraying tiny particles of chocolate all around the room as she did so.

The Doctor took one look at the pair of them and ducked behind a counter, just in time to avoid being splattered with chocolate (courtesy of Martha). When the two "adults" finally stopped dead, he emerged, looking stern.

"Wh-What the Hell's going on here?" he asked incredulously, indicating the chocolate-splattered table and walls, and Martha and Jack themselves, who seemed to be covered in little patches of the sweet, sticky food. Jack looked to Martha, trying to suppress a grin, then sheepishly to the Doctor, but didn't reply. The Doctor looked to Martha.

"We... wanted some melted chocolate." she said, shrugging.

God, I was going to miss this place.


A/N: Happy times... ish.

chibi!Alli: ... -blinks- Did I just... throw a hissy fit? At the Doctor?
Me: Um, yep, I think you did.
chibi!Alli: ... Oh ... -pause- ... I hate you.