Chapter Thirty-Five

Rose stared at the closed door, the grain of the wood blurring in front of her ears, blood rushing through her ears, and she rested her palm against the cool surface. Fingers splayed, her mind burned with the imagine of the Doctor standing between Zoe's legs moving. Sounds filtered out from behind the door, and she imagined Zoe pushing the Doctor away from her – out of her – in an attempt to make herself decent again. The Doctor needed to dress too. He had been half naked, his pale, freckled back a long expanse of white broken only by Zoe's hand curled around his shoulder, holding on as he –

Some things are worth getting your heart broken for.

Weeks had passed since the night Sarah Jane had come into her life, blowing in on a wind that brought with it harsh truths and a necessary awakening from the dream she had let herself live in for so long, too long. The Doctor wasn't like other men because he wasn't a man. He was an alien from another planet and another culture who espoused on the inferiority of humans almost as frequently as he delighted in their superiority. Meeting Sarah Jane had been the push Rose needed to wrestle her feelings for him under control, the occasional urge to grab him by the ears and snog him senseless understandable when he was funny and handsome. Forcing herself not to love him the way she wanted him to love her had been difficult and was an ongoing process made easier by the fact that he didn't dance with humans.

They all laughed and joked about Cleopatra but Rose quietly believed him when he said that nothing had happened between them. He wasn't the type to have a woman on every planet and in every century, and if Cleopatra herself wasn't enough to turn his head then Rose felt better about not being the one to break through and be the exception. That knowledge made coming to terms with reality easier – it wasn't her, it was the Doctor, he wasn't the sort to have those relationships with aliens. When she struggled to keep herself under control, when she wanted his hand to leave hers and slide over her waist to pull her closer, she remembered Cleopatra and Sarah Jane and comforted herself that she was in excellent company.

Your sister's interesting, the Doctor had said to her once back when he had big ears and a leather jacket and eyes that looked at her with interest even though she was only a human. Big brain, tiny body, lots of spirit.

Rose remembered that conversation, the clarity making her shake.

It had taken place after Downing Street, after twelve months away, after everything changing; they had left in the TARDIS leaving Mickey, Jackie, and Zoe changed behind them, a promise to return for Zoe in the air around them, making their solitude electric as though they were both aware that things would change when she arrived. They had been on Eternal Hope sitting on a bench that overlooked the glittering park as dawn swept across the land, apple turnovers crumbling in their hand, when he mentioned Zoe for the first time since their departure six days earlier.

With the benefit of over a year's friendship with the Doctor, she knew now that he had spent those six days preparing himself to mention Zoe, building up the courage to get information about the thing that was playing on his mind. Not that Rose had realised it at the time as she liked talking about Zoe, her sister being one of her favourite subjects, and she had rattled away about her all through sunrise and all the way back to the TARDIS, the Doctor gently prodding her in the direction of information he wanted rather than ask her outright. He was gathering as much knowledge about her as possible before she joined the TARDIS though why he hadn't waited, Rose still didn't know.

Not that it mattered.

A year's worth of Zoe and the Doctor interacting filled her mind and was viewed under the light of the new information. She had come across them numerous times in the library, sitting far too close together to be simply friendly but passed off as obliviousness in the face of intellectual curiosity; the mornings she came upon them in the kitchen, clearly having been up and about for hours, deep in conversation that slid between the serious and the ridiculous; the way the Doctor's eyes found Zoe's from across the room, a small smile that was only for her/

And then, most damning of all –

Love.

Take us to the main city, love.

Rose's fingers curled against the door, a fist forming as the truth crashed into her. The signs had been there for weeks, possibly months, and she had ignored them, pushed them away because the thought of it was too ridiculous to comprehend. Two days ago she had spoken to Drew about her thoughts and dismissed them as her being stupid.

That was how she felt in that moment, a door the only thing between her and two people that had been lying to her for whoever long.

Stupid.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Embarrassment washed over her, anger, bitterness, and jealousy quick on its tail.

Turning on her heels, she vomited into the base of a fake plant, dropping to her knees as her hands grasped hold of the pot. Alcohol combined with the sight of her sister and the Doctor having sex pushed everything she had eaten that evening out of her stomach and up through her oesophagus, the burn hurting. Jackie's hands settled on her back, scooping up her fallen hair, her shoulders heaving until her stomach was empty and her nose dripped with bile.

"Fuck," she said, emphatically.

"Here." Jackie removed a pack of tissues from her small clasp and handed her a tissue. "Blow your nose. Was it the alcohol or –?"

"Both," Rose interrupted, not wanting to hear her mother vocalise what they had seen. "Definitely both. Did you know?"

"No," Jackie said, and Rose's eyes flicked to her face, stomach twisting at the sight of the anger that lay beneath her perfect make up, a brief flare of sympathy for the Doctor filling her. "I did not. Come on, on your feet. I know you fancied that idiot but you're goin' to have a bit of dignity right now an' then deal with everythin' later, understood?"

The thought of them finding her on the floor, physically sick at the sight of them together, had her climbing to her feet. The Doctor might not understand why she was upset but she knew Zoe would, and Rose didn't want to give her the knowledge that she was hurt by it.

As she stood, the door to the cupboard opened and Zoe stepped out. Had Rose not known what she had been doing in there, she wouldn't have thought anything was amiss. Her hair was perfectly styled despite the fact that Rose had seen one of the Doctor's hands buried in it; her lipstick remained perfect; and her dress fell neatly over her legs. Behind her, the Doctor was in a deeper state of disrepair, shirt on his shoulders but wide open, hair flying in each direction, and skin stained red at having been caught in the act.

"Mum. Rose." Zoe's hands spread in front of her before clenching into fists. "About what you just saw. I – Mum!"

Rose watched Jackie lunge past Zoe and storm the cupboard, scraping her fist against the side of the door before she hit the Doctor. It was an odd angle – his body twisted and his height an inconvenience – but she drew a pained oof from him when her fist collided with his ribs, sending him into the mop bucket that clattered, his limbs flailing. The second punch got him across his chest before the third broke on the sharp edge of his jaw, his arms rising to protect his face as Jackie rained punches down on him.

"For the love of – get off him!" Zoe stepped into the cupboard and grabbed Jackie around the waist, hauling her back, an annoyed look thrown in Rose's direction. "A little help would be nice!"

Rose stared at her. "Why would I help?"

"Let me go," Jackie demanded, cheeks flushed and the split in her dress rising higher. "That man has been –"

"Doing nothing I haven't welcomed," Zoe finished loudly, interrupting her before she said something crude and uninformed. "Doctor, you okay?"

"Oh, just great, really, I'm lying in mop water."

"You're fine," she said, relief tingeing her words. She let go of Jackie and placed herself between the door and her mother, one hand extending as though placating a wild animal. "Mum, I know that was a surprise right now, and I'm sorry. That's not how we planned on you finding out."

"Hello, hello, we all look serious." The door to the men's bathroom opened and Jack emerged in his wheelchair, Mickey at his back. Jack looked up at them, eyes taking in the scene with a cheerfulness that indicated he had taken another dose of pain medication. "What's going on? Where's the Doctor?"

The Doctor examined his sodden shirt with a shudder, ribs a littler tender and blood pooling on his split lip. "In the closet."

"Why?" Mickey asked, fingers tightening on Jack's wheelchair as he slid his eyes from Rose to Jackie to Zoe. "Have we missed somethin'?"

"Every time," Jack complained. "Every time I go to the bathroom, I miss something. This is why my injuries are a pain in the ass, it's because I miss everything."

"You needed to pee," Mickey reminded him. "An' unless you want the Doctor to put a catheter in, you'll make do with missin' somethin' every now an' then."

"I do not want a catheter," he said, firmly. "I just want to be there when things happen. So, what's happened? What did the Doctor do? Did he piss someone off? Was it Deirdre? Oh, no, it wasn't her, was it? I like her, by the way, she's a lot of fun and –"

"You're babblin'." Mickey's hand came around to cover his mouth, glancing at the others who were frozen in the middle of an argument. "Sorry, I had to give him another injection for the pain. You know how it makes him ramble for a bit. But, seriously, what happened? You all look like you've –"

"Zoe an' the Doctor were havin' sex in the closet," Rose said, calmly. "Mum an' I walked in on them. That's what you've missed."

Jack and Mickey fell silent, shock rendering them speechless, and their eyes turned as one to Zoe who stiffened under their regard, grateful when the Doctor finally stepped out of the cupboard with his filthy shirt buttoned up his chest and tucked into his trousers. Rose pressed her fingers over her eyes and turned away, the sight of them standing so close together, his hand automatically finding hers, made her ache. Jackie made a move towards him, stilling only when Zoe stepped directly in front of the Doctor, her back pressed to his chest.

"I'm sorry," Jack said after a moment. "This might be the drugs talking but did Rose just say that you –" he pointed at Zoe. "And you –" his finger shifted to the Doctor. "Were having sex? With each other?"

"Okay." The Doctor's arms came around Zoe, hands gesturing. "I understand that this is all a little confusing for people right now, but if we could just take a second and discuss this without any violence, then we'll all be better for it."

"Oh – my – god." Mickey stared at them, horror growing as all the small bits and pieces he had noticed over the last few months started to click into place. "This is disgusting. This is gross."

Zoe's eyes sharpened in his direction. "Hey, I'm right here."

"Yeah, I know, an' I don't want to think about you havin' sex with anyone," he said, squeezing his eyes shut in the hope it would erase the knowledge from his mind. "Especially the Doctor. God, Zoe, are you drunk? Is this a drunk thing that you thought'd be a good idea?"

"No, it's not," Rose said, a numb feeling spreading through her fingers and up her arms. "It's not a one night thing, is it? You two've been doing this for what, months? Years? How long have you been lying to us?"

"We haven't been lying." Zoe's calm and steady voice infuriated Rose. "And this is not at all how we planned on telling you. We had a whole thing lined up for after the party where we'd sit you down and tell you that we're...together. This – you guys walking in on us? Not exactly part of the plan, right, Doctor?"

"Definitely not part of the plan," the Doctor agreed, hands resting on Zoe's arms before catching sight of Jackie's expression and shoving them into his pockets instead. "Really not part of any plan, in fact. Now that I think about it, we probably should've locked the door. That was an oversight."

Jack's head tilted. "You two have been doing this for a while? Since when?"

Rose watched the Doctor and Zoe exchange a look that carried an entire conversation. It was a look she had seen them share hundreds of times before in all sorts of situations and yet it held new meaning for her now; the intimacy contained within it, the fact they knew each other well enough to share a glance and understand perfectly what the other meant made anger and jealousy surge up within her. Her jaw ached from the humiliation of not having seen what was in front of her eyes, for having all the pieces of the puzzle in her hand and forming the image only to push it away despite the obvious.

She hated them.

In that moment, she hated them.

"Right." Zoe coughed, fingers laced with the Doctor's behind her back, eyeing Jackie with a lifetime's worth of caution. "I'm just going to put it out there since it's pretty clear anyway, but me and the Doctor are together. Romantically. We're romantically together, and we've been like that since –" a small hesitation tripped her speech. "Since Christmas. Just before the Sycorax arrived to be specific."

Rose thought back to that day and tried to remember if she had noticed anything different about Zoe and the Doctor, failing as she had simply been overwhelmed at having the Doctor and Jack back. She rubbed the pressure from between her eyes, staring at the faded carpet they were standing on, wanting to laugh at the fact that her world was shifting in the back of the recreation centre she had had all of her birthday parties in.

"That was months ago," Jackie accused. "You've been hidin' this from us for months?"

"Not hiding," Zoe said, quickly. "More...keeping it quiet."

"That's hidin'."

"This explains so much," Mickey said, pushing Jack further into the hall so the bathroom door was able to finally shut. "All the looks an' the conversations an' the weird closeness. I thought you were just really close mates, I didn't realise you were shaggin' each other. Not that I thought about it a lot because it's Zoe an' sex an' that's just –"

He shuddered.

"Hot," Jack finished for him. "It's hot. Confusing but hot. Can I watch?"

"No," the Doctor and Zoe said together.

"I said, she wasn't for you." Jackie glared, her voice cold and firm in a way that made everyone turn to her, her face set like stone as her eyes fixed on the Doctor. "In Cardiff, I told you to leave her alone, to let her live her life."

"And I said it was up to her to choose," the Doctor replied. "Jackie –"

"Of course she was going to choose you, of course she was," she snapped. "How could she not? You're everythin' she's ever wanted. Someone's who smart, handsome, an' who can give her adventure an' respect her. But you know better. Dammit, Doctor, you know better."

Rose watched the Doctor dip his head, a brief flash of shame lining his face before he was gone behind Zoe's head, hidden from view for the few seconds it took to absorb Jackie's anger.

"Mum," Zoe said, squeezing his hand. "I'm happy. He makes me happy."

"For now," Jackie argued. "He makes you happy now, but what about in ten years? Twenty? Thirty? Don't you want someone to grow old with, love? Someone you can have babies with an' a house? Somethin' more than what you've got now?"

Zoe's face shuttered. "That was never me, Mum. Not really. Besides, I love what I've got now. Yeah, it's mad and sometimes dangerous, but I love it. And if I want kids then we can make it work somewhere down the line but that's never been a priority for me."

"You're so young," she said, hand pressing against her chest to ease the ache there. "Sweetheart, you're still so young. You throw your lot in with him an' you'll be like Sarah Jane before you know it. I like that woman a lot but she spent her life pinin' for him an' she's got no family to show for it. I don't want you makin' her mistakes."

"If I become half the woman Sarah Jane is then I'll be very fortunate," Zoe replied. "And she doesn't have nothing. She has a career, a life, adventures to tell. It's a good life."

"You think she doesn't regret not havin' a family?" Jackie asked, sharply. "You ask her about it, see what she says."

"It doesn't even matter." Irritation began to creep into her voice, and the Doctor squeezed her hand with a gentle warning that had her wrestling it back under control. "I'm with the Doctor. We're dating, or whatever you want to call it, and I don't need your permission to do that. We'd like you to be happy about it, at very least tolerate it, but I'm not asking for your permission or opening this up to debate. I'm telling you how it is."

Jackie's eyebrows lifted. "You are, are you?"

"Yeah, I am."

"Well, then, I guess that's that." She dropped her hand to the split in her dress, holding the pieces together. "But you're makin' a mistake, sweetheart. An' he's not welcome in the flat while you are."

"Mum –"

"No, it's fine." The Doctor settled a hand on Zoe's shoulder, thumb sweeping a small path across her skin to settle her. "It's her home. She's free to keep me from it if she wants. But, Jackie, you have to know that I wouldn't do anything to hurt Zoe. After all this time, that's something that shouldn't be in question."

"I know you won't," Jackie told him, jaw tense from clenching it. "I know you love her, I've seen it for months now. Doesn't change the fact that this is wrong an' you know it's wrong. You're stealin' her life from her. You're takin' the years she could have with someone who can give her all those human things you can't. It's selfish."

"Maybe we should pause here," Jack suggested, a knot in his chest tightening at the argument. "This is a heated moment full of surprises, and I think things might be said now that'll be regretted later, so we should all take a break right now. Don't you agree, Mickey?"

Startled at being looked to for support, Mickey nodded. "Absolutely, yeah. 'S a good idea."

Rose pushed away from the wall, the bitter taste of vomit lingering in her throat, and she made her way towards the door. The cool, firm grip of her sister's hand around her arm stopped her in her tracks. The anger that passed through her at the motion Zoe had done thousands of times before surprised her. She looked at Zoe and watched her expression faltered at whatever was being displayed on her face, fingers loosening.

"Rose..." her painted red lips parted and all Rose was able to think was that the Doctor had kissed that mouth. "Can we –?"

"No."

Yanking her arm back, she strode away, ignoring the flash of hurt and sadness that appeared on Zoe's face. She pushed her way through the crowd and reached the bar, gesturing for whichever drink was closest to hand, the image of the Doctor and Zoe tangled together pressing against her mind – her legs parted, his hands on her, the gasps of pleasure as he moved his hips. Vodka burnt its way down her throat, washing away the remnants of her disgust, and she took the bottle from the bartender's hand, pouring herself another glass.

"Rose, hey!"

Drew French appeared at her side, jostling her elbow and sending her drink across the bar, his face opening in surprise. A stream of words left him, apologetic and chagrinned, as he reached across her for some napkins that he wadded up to deal with the spillage. Leaning over her, she smelt his cologne – something generic and fairly inexpensive unlike the Doctor's subtle, distinctive cologne that she suspected cost a significant amount of money – and her eyes fell onto his jaw that was shaped differently to the Doctor's.

"Hey," Rose said, letting her fingers drop to the back of his hand, taking note of the way he jerked under her touch, eyes wide and surprised. "D'you want to get out of here?"

"I – er – what?"

"You an' me," she said, keeping her eyes on his face even as her fingers slipped around his wrist, lightly holding him in place. "There's too many people here, an' you can tell me more about what it's like workin' for UNIT."

His skin turned various shades of red as his mouth moved. "You – you're thinking of coming to work with us?"

"Maybe." Rose angled her body so his eyes fell to her breasts. "Figured I should probably ask a UNIT soldier for advice first. So, what d'you say? D'you want to find somewhere else where we can talk, just the two of us?"

The hope and surprise that leapt into his expression made guilt begin to lay a foundation in her stomach. He was a nice man who clearly fancied her, and she was using that to get rid of the memory of the Doctor and Zoe. She opened her mouth to tell him to forget about it, play it off as a joke stemming from too much alcohol, when his hand turned beneath fingers and his palm slid against hers.

"Yeah, I'd like that," Drew said, his delight shaming her. "I know just the place."

Rose set the vodka down and let him pull her through the crowd, mind swirling with worry and anger, eyes meeting Mickey's on the way out. The pinched expression of disapproval forced her to focus on the back of Drew's head, clasping his hand tighter as they burst out of the building and into the cold night air.

"Should we do something about that?" Jack asked, pointing after Rose. "I'm all for sexual freedom, but is she really in the right frame of mind to be sleeping with someone right now?"

"Probably not," Mickey said, pushing him through the crowd. "But d'you want to be the one that goes after her? She'll shag that bloke, regret it in the mornin', an' then find another way to deal with everythin'."

"It is a little surprising," he admitted. "I'm trying to think if there was anything I missed and it's like I haven't been paying attention since Christmas. The two of them were clearly all over each other. Do you remember the dinosaurs?"

"The picnic before Jula?"

"That's the one." Jack reached out and snatched a bottle of wine from a nearby table, wiping the rim clean before putting it to his mouth. "I'm now pretty sure they had sex while we were sleeping. Her dress was on inside out and –"

Mickey grimaced. "Please stop."

"They could've avoided a whole lot of trouble by telling us about it," he said, rubbing at the label on the bottle, disappointed in his friends. "Jackie's pissed. Rose is heartbroken. You're –" he tipped his head back and squinted. "How are you doing?"

"Fine," he grunted, twitching his hand away when Jack flicked it. "All right, not fine. Weirded out because Zoe's havin' sex in closets and it was only five minutes ago she couldn't hold someone's hand without freakin' out but here we are."

"Oh, dear." Amusement wrapped around Jack, and he grinned. "Are you only just now realising Zoe is a sexual creature?"

"Stop it."

"A woman in the prime of her life with sexual needs?"

"Stop. It."

"Someone who apparently enjoys a good shag in a closet?"

"I'll leave you in the middle of this room, don't think I won't," Mickey threatened, refusing to smile even though the Jack's laughter was infectious. "You don't seem too put out. Don't you fancy the Doctor as well?"

Jack waved a dismissive hand. "I fancy everyone. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have minded a go around with him but I'm not cut up about the fact I didn't. Why would I be? I found someone much better suited for me."

Colour heated Mickey's cheeks, eyes darting around, the music and conversation too loud for anyone to hear them. "Shut up."

"Want to have a try at making me?"

Mickey wished Jack was more circumspect when in public. He had told no one outside of the few who knew about the existence of the Doctor, the TARDIS, and aliens that he and Jack were together; though, he hadn't actually told them, the news filtering its way down to them as most gossip usually did – through the Tylers. And he didn't mind them knowing. They were good people with open minds and an ability to understand that certain things were more flexible than most people thought they were. His friends on the estate – the same ones who turned against him when he was accused of murder – were a different group of people entirely, and he knew that the second they found out, he wouldn't be able to continue living and working on the Powell Estate.

Murder was acceptable.

Homosexuality was not.

He opened his mouth to tell Jack to shut his only to falter at the sight of his face. Asking Jack not to fill his conversation with flirtation was akin to asking him to stop breathing; flirting was how he let people know he loved them, even if it had taken Mickey a bout of seething jealousy and a midnight revelation to figure that out. More than that, he didn't want Jack to stop. He liked the flirtation and the innuendo and the heated glances that made him squirm with want. Not for the first time, he wished he was as brave as Zoe who had embraced her bisexuality with a firmness that left no room for comment or abuse. Shareen had made one ill-advised comment at New Year's only to be left reeling when Zoe devastated her with a single, cutting remark that let everyone else know her sexuality wasn't up for discussion.

He wasn't brave like Zoe, he was only brave like himself, and he touched his fingers to the skin of Jack's neck that was visible above his collar.

"I reckon I do," Mickey said, electricity darting through him. "Unless you want to stay for a bit longer."

"Let's go, right now." Jack grabbed the wheels and attempted to move faster, the enthusiasm gratifying. "Why are there so many people here?"

Mickey laughed, batting his hands away from the wheels and directing him towards the exit, giving a small raised hand to Jackie who nodded at them from the bar. Watching them leave, she envied their ability to disappear together, finding that she missed Pete with an ache that increased the more she looked around the room and found no one there who she could talk to about what she had seen. Most days she didn't notice the absence of her husband, nearly twenty years having passed since his death, but some days the lack of his presence by her side was a noticeable, painful thing.

Lifting her drink to her mouth, she swallowed it down and fixed her eyes to the door where the Doctor and Zoe had yet to emerge from. Anger pulsed in her, fist aching from where it had connected with the Doctor's jaw, and she swallowed back the urge to go yell at them some more.

I'm telling you how it is.

I'm telling you how it is.

I'm telling you how it is.

Rose was the stubborn daughter, the one who dug her feet in and screamed her head off if she didn't get what she wanted; Zoe was the easygoing daughter who went with the flow and did what she was told with a cheerfulness that was sometimes off putting.

She longed for the days when Zoe was small and was easily distracted with a new book shoved into her hands as Jackie doubted all the books in the world would be enough to distract her from the Doctor. She had made her decision and, for better or worse, she was going to have to live with the consequences. Jackie rubbed her eyes, make up remaining in place with a setting spray that worked like magic, and she looked into her glass of wine, the memory of Zoe weeping over Reinette's picture coming to mind. Losing Reinette had been agony, Jackie didn't want to imagine how much Zoe was going to hurt when the Doctor inevitably left her.

"You look like you've got some heavy thoughts," Alistair said, appearing at her side and making her start. "Surely the birthday girl should be in better spirits."

Jackie huffed. "Should've told the Doctor that then."

"Oh, dear." He leaned heavily on his cane and gripped the bar, strength not what it used to be. "What's the old fool done now?"

"My daughter."

Alistair stared at her, mouth opening and closing before he blinked. "I see. I take it you discovered him and Zoe in a situation you'd rather not see your daughter in."

"Shaggin' in the closet," she said, missing the way Alistair hid his sudden grin. "Wait, how did you know it was Zoe? D'you already know about them?"

Alistair hesitated before deciding that honesty was the only way to go. "Yes."

"Since when?" Jackie demanded.

"The Doctor mentioned it to me during the Sycorax incident," he said. "Forgive me for not using the media's phrasing but the Christmas Invasion is too Hollywood for my tastes and I'd prefer not to encourage it."

"He told you?" She asked. "He told you straight away?"

Alistair wished for Doris to appear and save him from digging the Doctor's grave. "Well, it's important to remember that we are old, old friends. Best friends, some might say, though certainly not me or him, we are gentlemen after all. It's only natural for certain news to be shared amongst friends that's a little slower to be given to the parent of one person involved, I'm sure."

Jackie poured herself another glass of wine, anger boiling beneath her skin. "Who else knows?"

"That I can't tell you," he said, gratefully. "Though I'm sure they've been discreet."

"Discreet is havin' sex in a closet now, is it?"

"For some, I'm sure," Alistair replied, catching sight of Zoe and the Doctor stepping out of a set of double doors. Manoeuvring his body so that Jackie was forced to look at him instead of them, he shrugged out of his jacket and held it out to her. "Here, you should put this on. I don't know if you're aware but your dress is splitting."

Helping her put the jacket on, his watched Zoe and the Doctor make a quiet exit through the front of the building and sighed at their idiocy.

"I don't see her anywhere," Zoe said, breath forming a white mist in front of her face as she looked for Rose. "Where do you think she's gone? Back to the TARDIS or –"

"Zo," the Doctor interrupted. "She didn't look like she wanted to talk right now. Give her a little bit of space."

"If I give her space, she'll just get angrier and angrier," she said, heels clicking against the concrete, pushing through the crowd of partygoers who were smoking cigarettes and snorting cocaine, Maurice dipping into the shadows when he saw the Doctor. "It's best we have it out now before we both have the chance to get more annoyed with each other."

"Is she really going to be that angry?" He asked, draping his jacket over her shoulders and helping her make her way through the crowd. "She seemed upset but I'd be upset if I walked in Brax having sex, so I get it. Some things a person just shouldn't see their sibling doing, but angry?"

"You don't get it," Zoe said. "It's not that I was having sex, it's that –" she caught herself before she finished, unwilling to divulge this one piece of information that Rose hadn't even told her but was obvious to anyone with eyes. "Never mind. Forget about it. Oi, Deano!"

"All right, Zo?" Deano ambled towards her dressed as a dishevelled gangster, his suit a little too large for his body, cigarette hanging out of his mouth. "You look fuckin' gorgeous tonight, fancy a quickie?"

"Not in this or any other lifetime," she said, dryly. "Have you seen Rose?"

"She got in a car with some posh bloke," he said with a shrug, eyes flicking over the Doctor who stood a few feet behind Zoe. "The twat that's been pickin' her up every mornin' this week."

"Drew? She's gone off with Drew?"

"Don't know his name." Deano exhaled a plume of smoke that she waved out of her face. "C'mon, babe. Leave John an' come hang out with me. You won't regret it."

"I'm certain I would." She batted his hand away and turned her back on him, ignoring the muttered dyke aimed at her back, eyes sharp when the Doctor opened his mouth to snap back. She slipped her hand into his and pulled him away. "I don't need you squaring up to people like Deano for me. He's a prat and not worth your time."

"He shouldn't talk to you like that," the Doctor complained. "Nor that drug dealer from earlier. I thought there was a little more respect here."

"Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't," Zoe said, pausing on the edge of the crowd and looking up at him. "My family's upset with me." His face softened. "And you're back to square one with Mum. I can't believe she's banned you from the flat. What does she think that's going to accomplish anyway? We can just hang out at Mickey's."

"It's about exerting what control she can over a situation she can't control," he told her. "It's not as though we weren't expecting her to be unhappy. Really wish she hadn't seen us having sex, though. That's made everything a thousand times worse, but this wasn't news she was going to be happy about."

She sighed and rested her forehead against his chest. "I know."

"Do you want to stay at the party or go home?" His arms wrapped around her, holding her close and breathing her in, body keyed up from their interrupted sex, "Or get some fish and chips? That always cheers you up."

"Definitely home," Zoe said, huffing a laugh before wrinkling her nose and looking up at him. "You smell like mop water."

"Yeah, I need a shower, c'mon." He took her hand and set a quick pace across the courtyard towards the TARDIS. "If I ask nicely, can we finish what we started?"

"As long as we lock every single door between the entrance and our bedroom," Zoe said. "The family walking in on us once is enough for one lifetime."

"Agreed."


Rose woke to a pounding headache and a mouth that tasted as though something had died in it. Cold air washed over her bare back and she shivered, huddling beneath the thick blankets, pressing her eyes into the pillow as the world swam around her. Struggling to free her foot from the covers, she searched for the ground to anchor herself, following the Jackie Tyler method of avoiding motion sickness. Every part of her hurt, pain pressing in from all sides to make her body throb, the light slicing through the curtains not helping the headache that begged for her attention.

Breathing deep, unfamiliar cologne and detergent assaulting her senses, she tried to make sense of where she was. She definitely wasn't in the flat because everything smelt wrong and the TARDIS had a distinctive feel to it that was noticeable even when hungover. Flashes of the night before came back to her in the shape of the Doctor and Zoe pressed together followed by Drew leading her into his flat, playfully shushing her even though his flatmates were awake and in the living room, eyebrows rising as Rose Tyler entered the flat and Drew's bedroom.

Regret beginning to trickle through her, and she carefully lifted her head, swallowing back a groan at the sight of the naked man sleeping next to her. Drew's hair remained fairly neat and tidy, his eyelashes a dark smudge against his cheekbones, lips parted as he slept, the blankets tangled in his arms.

"Shit," Rose breathed, eyes shuttering as she assessed the situation. "Shit, shit, shit."

Anger, alcohol, and jealousy had led her into Drew's bed, and she was ashamed for herself for using a good, kind man who fancied her as a means of exorcising her feelings about the Doctor and Zoe. Mickey's look of disapproval on her way out of the party had annoyed her at the time but she understood it now, mortified that she would have to face him and Jack at some point and talk about everything. Rolling onto her back, clutching the covers to her naked chest, she stared up at the ceiling and internally berated herself for another bad sexual choice. With the exception of Mickey, she hadn't made good choices as far as men were concerned and while Drew was attentive and kind, the fact that he felt more for her than she did for him put their encounter firmly in the box labelled mistakes.

Glancing at Drew to make sure he remained asleep, she reached for her clasp purse on the bedside table and took out her phone to check the time. At 7.38 it was still early, which meant that she might be able to get back to the flat before anyone noticed she was missing; Mickey and Jack weren't the type of people to gossip about her sex life, such as it was, and she could rely on them to help her keep her dignity in tact when dealing with the mess the Doctor and Zoe had made of everything.

Opening her messages, she sent a quick text to Muhammad, the local taxi driver she had known for years, to pick her up outside Drew's – the location conveniently shown at the top of her screen, an app put in by the Doctor after Mickey had got himself lost in Hund on Torahl. Grateful for how responsive Muhammad was – a quick ok pinging softly – she began the laborious process of removing herself from bed without waking Drew. She was halfway out and reaching for her discarded dress when –

"Morning."

She froze, one foot on the floor, the covers tightening around her body at the sound of his sleep heavy voice that rumbled with satisfaction. His eyes opened only to squeeze shut when a yawn stretched his mouth wide open, a small smile making him look lovely and rumpled.

"Mornin'," Rose said, awkwardly balanced on one foot.

He rubbed his cheek against his pillow and squinted at her, hangover and a lack of sleep making him tired. "Are you leaving?"

"I need to pee," she said, searching the ground for something – anything – to conceal her nakedness quickly. Snagging his shirt with her foot, she pulled it towards her and shimmied into it, phone clutched in her hand. "I'll be back."

Escaping from his bedroom led her straight into the living room where his flatmates were getting ready for the day with cups of tea, breakfast, and BBC news playing on low in the background. Their conversation stopped when they saw her, interested eyes taking her in, and she felt herself start to blush when she recognised them as being members of UNIT that she had seen earlier in the week. She gave them a small, stiff nod before making her way to what she hoped was the bathroom. After a wrong stop at the airing cupboard, she hurried into the bathroom and shut the door behind her, turning the lock and resting her forehead against the door.

"You idiot."

A long sigh left her, and she pushed away to look at herself in the mirror. Her make up remained perfect, Jack's setting spray making her look as beautiful as she had the night before, and she exhaled, relieved that she didn't look as bad as she felt. Quickly peeing and stealing an unopened toothbrush from beneath the sink to clean the taste of regret from her mouth, she held her gaze in the mirror and tried to stop thinking about the Doctor and Zoe tangled together.

Her hand tightened on the toothbrush and she spat into the sink.

"Rose?" There was a small knock at the door and Drew's voice slipped through, stopping her anger in its tracks. "Do you want a cup of tea or coffee? I have juice as well if you fancy that, and some toast."

His kindness made her feel worse. Rinsing the toothpaste from her mouth, she braced herself and opened the door, smiling into into his lovely face.

"I have to go," Rose said.

He blinked, disappointment flashing in his eyes. "Oh. Really? I – why?"

"TARDIS stuff," she lied. "It's really complicated, an' I don't even get it but if I'm not there then the Doctor starts complainin' an' it's a whole thing. Best to avoid it when I can so..." she swallowed, uncomfortable under his gaze. "I've got to go."

"Let me put some trousers on and I'll drive you back," he offered, the skin on his shoulders and chest bearing the lingering marks of her attention. "It's too cold to be walking around in your dress, and it's hardly chivalrous to let you go alone. My mother would kill me."

Her eyebrows lifted. "You're goin' to tell her about this?"

"Well, maybe not everything," Drew said, cheeks pink. "But I think I'll definitely tell her that I met someone amazing."

"Drew." Her tone carried a light chastisement drowned in embarrassment, her skin flaring with colour. "Stop it."

"Too much?"

"Yeah, a little."

"Sorry," Drew apologised. "It's just – I can't believe you even looked twice at me. You're you and I'm not exactly the type of person someone like you would go for."

Rose had no idea what he meant by that. "Someone like me?"

"You're amazing," he said, his sincerity embarrassing her. "You're brave, funny, unbelievably beautiful, and you've saved the world what, twice now? Downing Street and Christmas, right?"

"Three times," she heard herself say. "The Nestene Consciousness too."

"That's right, three times." Drew glanced over his shoulder, checking on his flatmates, before stepping into her space. His hand slid over her waist, the other resting on her cheek, and she made a small sound of surprise as he kissed her. "You're amazing."

Rose felt her chest constrict. "So you've said."

"It's something worth repeating." His smile made his whole face come alive and, under normal circumstances, Rose would have been flattered by his obvious crush. As it stood, guilt gnawed at her for using him to forget, however briefly, about the Doctor and Zoe. "Do you want a shower first, or maybe a shower together?"

She managed a laugh, patting his chest nervously. "No, I really should – the Doctor gets impatient when he waits an' I don't want to listen to a lecture on humans' inability to be on time, so I'll just –"

Easing herself from his loose embrace, she walked quickly back to his bedroom. By the time he was framed in the doorway, her dress was halfway up her body and her eyes were scanning the room for her underwear. Looking back at him, tall and handsome in the doorway, dressed only in a pair of dark boxers, the urge to apologise pushed its way up her throat.

"I'm sorry about all of this," she said, adjusting her straps.

"Why?" He moved forwards. The tips of his fingers froze her in place as he brushed her hair over one shoulder, taking hold of the tiny zipper on her back and pulling her dress closed, knuckles dragging against her spine as he went. "I'm not. Last night was really great. I've fancied you from the moment I saw you, so last night was great for me. Was it – was it not great for you?"

"What? No, of course it was, don't be daft." Her hands trembled lightly as she fussed with her hair, smoothing it down and twisting it so that it looked as neat as it could without running a hairbrush through it. Having never had a one-night stand before, she found herself wishing Jack was there to talk her through it. "I had a great time."

Drew's face brightened. "Yeah? Good, that's good. I wanted it to be – that is, I'd thought about it – not in a weird, creepy way, but I hoped that – I mean –"

His rambling nervousness was cute though so sharply reminiscent of how the Doctor babbled that it made her anger and humiliation ache. Taking a leaf out of Jack's book, she cupped the back of his head and kissed him, knowing in her bones it wasn't fair to raise his hopes further than she already had. Breaking the kiss, she stepped back from him and grabbed the rest of her belongings, deciding that as long as she had her phone and wallet, her missing underwear didn't matter.

"Thanks for last night," Rose said, not sure if thanking someone for sex was what people did after a one-night stand but deciding it was better to err on the side of politeness. "It was – I needed the company, thank you."

"Any time," Drew said. "Seriously, any time. I know you're not around a lot because of your life but maybe when you're in London, or even on Earth, you can let me know and I can buy you dinner?"

Rose hesitated, wanting to draw a line under the poor decisions that had led her to having a sweet man asking her out to dinner. It was on the tip of her tongue to let him down gently, to tell him that she didn't think it was a good idea, but common sense pushed through her hangover and reminded her that Zoe knew Drew through their book club. It wasn't as though he was completely separate from her life, a stranger she had picked up in a bar, and if she wanted to work at UNIT in the future then she would probably cross paths with him more than once.

"Sure, sounds great," Rose said with a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "But I really have to go now. Thanks again."

Slipping out of his flat and hurrying out onto the cold street, she threw herself into the back of Muhammed's taxi before he had finished pulling up to the curb. He glanced at her in the rearview mirror, a knowing look on his face that she scowled at before telling him to take her back to the estate.

By the time she got home, her hangover had increased. Knowing there was a hangover cure in the TARDIS made her hesitate but the thought of running into the Doctor and Zoe when she was clearly coming back from a one-night stand was horrifying. Choosing to avoid her second home for now, she entered the flat where her cousin Sabrina was snoring in the bedroom Rose and Zoe used to share, her daughter sitting in her highchair being fed by Jackie.

Rose looked around. "Are they –?"

"TARDIS," Jackie answered, scooping up a spoonful of scrambled eggs that she extended towards Leia, who smacked her fists against her plastic table. "Where did you get to last night? I went lookin' for you an' you'd disappeared."

She sighed, running a hand over the top of Leia's head, finger curling against her soft, chubby cheek. "I needed to get out of there. Went off with a friend for some drinks."

Jackie's eyes flicked over her. "Just drinks?"

"Mum," she complained. "D'you really want to hear about my sex life too?"

"Not really." She took advantage of Leia's open mouth and spooned cereal into it. "You were safe though?"

"Jesus."

"I've got enough to worry about with Zoe right now that I don't even want to think about you turnin' up pregnant in a couple of months time," Jackie said. "Although, I s'pose it's for the best himself can't really get her pregnant."

"It really happened, didn't it?" Rose sat down at the table and eased her shoes from her feet, rubbing the soreness from them and stealing Jackie's cup of tea to help chase the hangover away. "It wasn't some nightmare. Zoe an' the Doctor were – they're together?"

Jackie wiped dribbled milk from Leia's chin. "Yeah. An' apparently Alistair knew. Doctor told him at Christmas. Sarah Jane an' Harriet too, they both know."

"So we're the last to know?" Fresh anger spooled through her. "They've been tellin' everyone else but us?"

"Seems so," Jackie said. "Did you see anythin'?"

"Yeah, way too much," Rose said, picking up Leia's toy that she had thrown off the table and brushing the stray hairs from it. "Thank God his trousers were still up. It would've been so much worse if his ass was on display."

"Not that." Jackie grimaced at the thought. "On the TARDIS when you were travellin'. This has been goin' on since Christmas an' you spend more time with them than I do. What've you seen?"

Rose's fingers tightened around her stolen tea.

"I don't know," she admitted. "They've always been close because they're both huge science nerds, an' he's always been able to talk to her about all sorts of things. I used to be a bit jealous of that actually. Back at the beginnin', he sort of glommed onto her an' I'd find them havin' these cosy little chats but I didn't think anythin' of it because he still –" her heart ached, her hand rising to rub it from her chest. "He still flirted with me then. He hasn't done that in ages though. Not since – not since Zoe ended up in France, I guess. It was all different when they came to get me an' Jack from the dance festival. I thought it was just because of everythin', y'know. I didn't think..."

"He's fancied her since then," Jackie told her, setting the spoon down and passing Leia her toy. "Definitely since her brain nearly exploded. I told him to keep his distance from her, an' thought he'd actually listened because I'd watch them together but it seemed so normal."

"You knew?" Rose demanded. "You knew an' didn't tell me?"

"I didn't think there was anythin' to tell," she said. "Zoe didn't even know at the time an' I thought he was just lonely. An' Zoe's beautiful an' she's got a big heart, an' I thought he was attachin' himself to that, I didn't realise it went deeper."

"Well, clearly it does," Rose said, bitterness seeping into her tone. "God, I feel like such an idiot."

"Sweetheart –"

"I was fallin' for him, Mum, I really was," she said, tears wetting her cheeks. "An' I thought he felt the same but he doesn't. He chose Zoe, an' I don't get it because Sarah Jane said – she said –"

Jackie reached across the table and took Rose's hand in hers, squeezing. "Oh, sweetheart, I'm sorry."

"No, no." She cleared her throat, shaking the jealousy and regret from her. "I'm not doin' this. I'm not this person any more, I'm not. I'm not goin' to sit here an' cry about a boy. That's not who I am." Her mind whirled, latching onto Drew's words as though they meant something. "I'm Rose Tyler. I saved Charles Dickens from ghosts, I saved an entire planet from inside a computer system, an' I saved the Earth three times already. There are people alive an' happy in the universe because of me, so I'm not goin' to sit here an' cry because the Doctor doesn't love me. I'm not that pathetic little girl any more. I'm not."

Pride lodged itself in Jackie's throat, marvelling at how far Rose had come from the bruised, trembling mess Jimmy Stone had made of her. "Of course you're not."

"What I'm goin' to do is go for a shower because I stink of alcohol an' other stuff," Rose said, standing up and brushing her fingers across Leia's cheeks again, smiling down at her. "Then I'm goin' to do somethin' that isn't here. I'm not ready to speak to them yet. They lied to me, to us, an' I don't want to look at them, not right now."

"Okay," Jackie nodded. "You do that."

"I'm goin' to," she said, striding away, and Jackie watched her leave, worried.

"Was that Rose I heard?" Having forgotten Sabrina was in the flat, Jackie jumped as her niece entered the living room with smeared make up and a shirt that hung around her knees, making a beeline for her daughter who let out happy gurgling noises at the sight of her mother. "What was she crying about?"

"She wasn't cryin'."

"Boy trouble?" Sabrina asked, hefting Leia into her arms and kissing her cheeks. "She dating someone new now or what?"

"She's not seein' anyone an' stop your gossipin'," Jackie chastised. "You're as bad as your mum."

Sabrina grinned on her way into the kitchen. "The way she tells it, I'm bad like you."

Jackie rolled her eyes. There was no love lost between her and her sister. Caroline was three years her senior and felt herself superior in every way. She had married the accountant while Jackie had married a street trader who passed himself off as a businessman; she had a house on a suburban street in Essex, Jackie lived in a council flat in Peckham on benefits. For a long time, Jackie had felt resentful of her sister and how Caroline would rub each and every success in her face and had sworn never to allow that to happen with her daughters. She had been successful for nearly twenty years only for the Doctor to step between them and create problems where there had been none.

"Have you seen Zoe yet?" Sabrina asked, stepping out of the kitchen with Leia in one arm and a cup of tea in her hand. "She said she'd look after Leia for me today. There's this thing I want to do and it's a no babies allowed thing."

"What's that then?"

"Promise you won't tell Mum?"

"Course," Jackie said. "What is it?"

"There's this workshop for single mothers who want to have a career," Sabrina said. "It's free and I got a spot in it. Now that Leia's getting a little older, I want to start working. Mum'll say it's stupid but it's – I need to work. I need to show Leia that she can work even with –" her eyes dropped to her daughter's flattened nose and slanted eyes, a signal that she had an extra chromosome that defined her Down's Syndrome. "This workshop might help, it might not, but I need to give it a shot. Zoe said she'd look after Leia because of it."

"You're best off textin' her," Jackie told her. "She's probably still sleepin' somewhere, but if she said she'd look after Leia, she'll look after her. An' I think it's great what you're doin'. Don't mind your mum, you know she means well in her own way."

"Just wish she'd mean well without the nagging and judgement, y'know?" She kissed the side of Leia's head. "C'mon then, you. Thank Aunt Jackie for giving you breakfast." Leia blew a wet raspberry. "We're going to go clean up."

Jackie listened to her leave, chatting merrily to Leia who still wasn't able to speak yet, and glanced over to her phone. All she had to do was pick it up and call Zoe, tell her that she wanted to talk, and it would end the cool stalemate between them – I'm telling you how it is – but she shied away from it. The hurt at being lied to and the anger at the foolishness of both the Doctor and Zoe kept her from reaching for her phone, turning her attention onto cleaning up the mess Leia had made instead.


Mickey stared up at his ceiling, listening to the sound of his shower running. Jack was singing to himself under the spray, his rich baritone slipping out from under the door, drifting through the hallway towards him, and a shiver ran through him.

The last two weeks had been eye opening.

The fear and panic that had come with witnessing Jack's abduction and the aftermath of his torture had kicked everything up a gear for him, forcing himself to confront his feelings in a way that would have taken him longer. His decision that life was too short to deny himself the things that made him happy had led him to a revelatory night, the news of the Doctor and Zoe feeling years old in the cold light of morning where his body ached in new and interesting ways, thoroughly spent and deliciously satisfied.

"Look at you," Jack said from the doorway, towel draped around his neck, balancing on crutches, his body gloriously naked. "You look smug."

Mickey rolled his eyes. "Sit down before you fall down. You know the Doctor said not to stay on those things for long."

"I'm pretty sure he said no strenuous activity either but we ignored that last night." He swung himself from the doorway and onto the bed, water soaking into the covers as he climbed his way up, drying himself off as he did so. Sitting up, he rubbed the towel over his head and managed to fight his way back under the duvet. "How are you feeling? Any existential crises I should be worried about?"

"You're good but you're not that good," Mickey said, dryly.

Jack laughed. "Liar."

"Shut up." The heaviness and worry of the past two weeks had lifted from him, and he rolled onto his side to face Jack, pulling the covers further up their shoulders as it was cool in the flat. "What about you? Regrettin' this?"

"Yeah, that's right, the four times we had sex was me being polite rather than enthusiastic," Jack said. "Don't take this the wrong way but you're an idiot."

Mickey laughed and pulled him closer, kissing him as he marvelled at how something he had been raised to believe was wrong felt so right. Jack's shower-warmed hand touched his face, fingers ghosting over his neck only to settle on his shoulder.

"Are you in any pain?" Jack asked, softly. "I know the first time can be a little...uncomfortable."

"A little sore," he said. "Nothin' to worry about. Not like we haven't done other things."

Jack's grin was wolfish against Mickey's skin. "That we have. Hold on for one second though."

"Hey, no, where are you goin'?" Jack rolled over Mickey, careful not to put weight on his knees that had proved a hindrance during sex, and reached for his Vortex Manipulator. "What's that for?"

"Roll over and find out," he said.

Excited and curious, Mickey did as Jack instructed and settled on his front, head pillowed on his arms, muscles clenching in anticipation. The mattress shifted as Jack attempted to get comfortable without putting pressure on his knees, before the light touch of fingers ran down his spine made goosebumps erupt his skin. Jack's touch lingered on the firm curve of his buttock, and Mickey breathed in, not sure what to expect as Jack was hardly predictable at the best of times let alone when doing something sexual. He wasn't prepared for a flash of warmth and an immediate easing of the soreness that hadn't hurt but wasn't entirely comfortable either. Lifting his head from his arms and peering over his shoulder, he watched Jack slid something back into the wrist band on his Vortex Manipulator.

"What was that?"

"Something to help with the aches," Jack said, leaning over and laying wet kisses up his spine, damp body pressing his into the bed, weight resting on his arms. He dragged his teeth over the soft patch of skin beneath Mickey's ear and felt him shudder. "Can't have you limping back to the TARDIS. Everyone'll know what we've been up to."

Mickey huffed into the pillow. "Reckon the news is already out on that one."

"Mmm." Jack caught his earlobe between his teeth and tugged before reluctantly rolling off him. "You might be right. Still, we're not the only couple on the TARDIS any more."

Grabbing the pillow from under his head, he whacked Jack with it. "Don't remind me."

Jack laughed, stealing the pillow to put it behind his head, opening his arm for Mickey to rest against his chest. "Don't be sore. It's cute and a little bit sexy."

"You're not weirded out by it?" Mickey asked, settling against his chest, splaying his hand across Jack's flat stomach that held a few lingering bruises from his torture, the Doctor unable to fix them when there was so much else wrong with him. "It's Zoe an' the Doctor. The Doctor an' Zoe."

"It was weird for about ten minutes," he admitted. "I honestly didn't see it coming, which is a touch embarrassing, but they make sense when you think about it. They're both clever, they both like the same things, they both respect each other...relationships have been built on worse things. Besides, it's not like she's a kid any more."

Mickey tapped the side of his head. "Up here she is. It was only a year ago that she was seventeen. Hell, this time last year, Rose was still missin'. Things have changed a lot since then an' this is one thing too many for me."

"They'll be good together," Jack said, bowing his head to press a kiss to the top of Mickey's. "It might be difficult to get used to it but they've been together since Christmas and things haven't changed too much."

He sighed. "I s'pose. I'm goin' to try an' actively not think about it though. At least we didn't walk in on them like Rose an' Jackie. I know I wouldn't be up for dealin' with that."

"Poor Rose." Jack shook his head. "Having to walk in on the guy you're in love with getting in on with your sister? That can't have been easy. Has she text you back yet?"

"Not yet," he said, having checked his messages while Jack was in the shower. "You're best tryin' her. She'll think I'm bein' overprotective if I text too many times, an' she's not likely to yell at you what with you bein' you an' all."

"I can't help it that people feel comfortable around me," Jack said, sounding pleased. "It's part of my natural charm."

Mickey snorted and earned himself a small pinch for his troubles.

"They'll be okay though, right?" He asked, a thread of worry creeping into his words. "Her and Zoe? This isn't going to break anything, is it?"

"Not those two," Mickey said. "It might be rough for a while but they'll come back together in the end. Rose just needs to get over her disappointment an' the feelin' of coming in second. She's always felt a little second best when it comes to Zo."

Jack looked down at him, surprised. "Way Zoe tells it, she's always felt second best to Rose."

"Sisters," Mickey shrugged. "Zoe's been jealous of how easy Rose finds makin' friends because she doesn't really have any here, not any that weren't Rose's first. An' Rose has always been jealous of how easy school came to Zoe. The school bumped Zo up a year an' I know they wanted to do it again because she was gettin' through stuff quicker than the teachers could teach her, but Jackie had a quiet word because she knew Rose would hate havin' Zoe in the same class showin' her up. The two of them get quietly jealous of what the other's best at but they still love each other."

Jack drummed his fingers against Mickey's arm. "It feels like things are changing, and I'm not sure whether it's for better or for worse. And now I'm worried about Rose being the only one on the TARDIS without a partner. I don't want her to feel like a fifth wheel."

Mickey reached out and stilled his hand. "Guess we'll just have to be careful then."

"Yeah." Jack's eyes flicked over him, and Mickey felt his blood heat, already recognising that look on his face. "Do you fancy –?"

"Mickey! Jack!"

"For fuck's sake," Jack sighed, falling back against the bed. "He has the worst timing."

"At least it wasn't half an hour ago," Mickey said, tugging the covers up quickly as the Doctor didn't seem to realise that a closed bedroom door meant stay out. Sure enough, the bedroom door opened after a perfunctory knock and he appeared in the doorway. Mickey scowled at him. "How did you get in?"

"Your lock's rubbish," the Doctor said, eyes sweeping over them. "I'm not interrupting, am I?"

"Would it matter if you were?" Jack asked.

The Doctor thought about it for a second. "No."

He laughed, rubbing his face. "Then what's up?"

"We're leaving before dinner," he said. "Anchor's away and all that. Make sure you're on the TARDIS by 5pm local time at the latest because I will leave without you – actually, I won't, that's a lie, but be there anyway. Do any shopping and what not now because the way Jackie's ignoring me, we won't be coming back for a while."

"She still not talkin' to you then?" Mickey asked, lifting himself from Jack's chest and sitting up against the headboard.

"Talking to me would require her to acknowledge that I exist," he said with a long suffering sigh. "And she's not willing to do that right now. Zoe's looking after Leia today and –"

"Sabrina's daughter?" Jack interrupted. "She's a sweet little thing, isn't she? She fell asleep on me the other day and I wanted to keep her, Mickey said no."

Mickey smiled. "Sabrina's kind of attached to her."

"So?"

"Guys," the Doctor said, gesturing to himself. "We're dealing with me right now."

"Right, sorry," Jack said, unapologetically. "Zoe's looking after Leia today and what?"

"And I was waiting outside the flat because of the current ban," he continued, and if he was put out by not being allowed into the flat, it didn't show. "Jackie left with Sabrina who was perfectly lovely but Jackie just ignored me. I might as well not even have been there for the amount of attention she gave me. I've been ignored before but she seems to be able to really drive home that she's ignoring someone. It'd be impressive if she wasn't doing it to me."

"That's Jackie for you," Mickey said, grunting when the Doctor sat down on the bed and fell back, staring up at the ceiling. "She's capable of holdin' a grudge until the sun explodes, so good luck with that."

"Thanks," the Doctor said, missing the sarcasm. "See, I thought it wasn't going to bother me because I understand where she's coming from, but now that I've experienced it, it does bother. I can't have her hate me for the rest of her life."

"You have been sneaking around with Zoe behind everyone's back," Jack pointed out. "I think she's allowed to hate you for a little bit."

"Sneaking around?" The Doctor repeated, incredulously. "We have not been sneaking around. What are we, horny teenagers?"

"Please don't use the word horny when you're talkin' about Zoe," Mickey requested, pained. "It's bad enough I know she has sex." He stared at the top of the Doctor's head. "It's bad enough I know you have sex. That was information I could've lived without."

"Yeah, yeah, I have sex, turns out I'm just like every other man," he said, waving a dismissive hand and making Jack grin widely. "That's not the problem here."

"Seems to be the cause of the problem," Jack said.

"You're not helping."

"Are we supposed to be helping?" He asked, lightly, winking at Mickey. "Good to know."

"You –" he pointed at Jack. "Be quiet. Mickey –" rolling over, his knees sliding off the bed to the floor, the Doctor propped himself up on his elbows, resting his chin on his fists. "You know Jackie better than either of us. What can I do to get her to tolerate me again?"

"Tolerate," Jack repeated, amusement etched into his face. "I like that you're realistic in your goals."

The Doctor threw him a filthy look before refocusing on Mickey. "Well? What can I do?"

Mickey dragged his hand across his unshaven jaw, wishing he had invested in a better lock for his front door. "Probably stop datin' Zoe."

He shook his head. "Not going to happen, next."

"That's it, sorry," Mickey said. "Jackie can't be bribed or whatever into likin' you. Jimmy Stone tried it once with her when Rose brought him 'round before everythin' kicked off an' I honestly thought she was goin' to pitch him over the side of the buildin' when he gave her flowers. She doesn't like suck ups."

"I'm not Jimmy bloody Stone," the Doctor exclaimed. "Or a suck up for that matter."

Jack looked between them. "Who's Jimmy Stone?"

"Rose's ex," they said together.

"An' course you're not," Mickey continued. "You're about as far from Jimmy Stone as it's possible to be. But it's not like the Tyler women have great luck with men, an' none of us ever met Reinette so it's not like we've got a baseline to judge Zoe's choices by. You're the first person she's brought home to the family, an' even though Jackie knows you, she's goin' to be suspicious because you're a man. In her book, men aren't to be trusted, not really. She wants to trust them but she's also ready to believe the worst of them. Hell, she turned on me fairly quickly when Rose went missin' an' she's known me most of my life. But she'll come 'round once she sees that you make Zoe happy, it's just goin' to take a while."

The Doctor sighed and dropped his face into the bed. "I hate that you're making sense right now."

"It does happen sometimes," he said.

"I don't like doing it from this side," the Doctor complained, voice muffled before he lifted his head. "It was so much easier and a lot more fun when I was terrifying the partners of my kids. I really don't like experiencing it the other way around."

"I'm sorry, what?" Jack said, exchanging a startled glance with Mickey. "Kids? You had kids?"

"Everyone's always so surprised," he complained. "Yes, I had kids. What did you think I was doing with myself before I left Gallifrey?"

"Honestly, I assumed you were getting into trouble or something," Jack shrugged.

The Doctor grinned. "Nah, my wife was the troublemaker. I was much more by the book towards the middle of my first body. A bit of a wild youth and all that, but I settled down after I married and my children were loomed. I was quite respectable for a time."

Mickey snorted. "That I don't believe."

"Hey," he laughed. "I was a productive and useful member of society, thank you very much."

"That'll be the day," Jack said, yelping when the Doctor reached out and caught hold of one foot beneath the blanket, tickling it. "I take it back, I take it back!" Moving his feet out of reach of the Doctor, he threaded his fingers with Mickey's. "If you want my opinion –"

"Oddly enough, I do."

Jack ignored him. "Just give Jackie time and space to accept that Zoe's chosen you and things will get back to normal soon enough."

"He's right," Mickey agreed. "They're family. This won't last forever."

"I hope so," the Doctor sighed. "I told Zoe it'd be okay and I meant it, I just hate that it bothers her. She was tossing and turning all night until she got up to go for a run, and I want to fix it and make it better so she's not worrying about her mum and sister and waking me up in the process. Oh, and there's another thing!" Mickey and Jack rolled their eyes. "What the hell's going on with Rose at the moment? Why's she acting strangely? I figured she'd be like you, asking inappropriate questions about the sex –"

"Which I still don't have answers to, by the way," Jack reminded him.

"And you won't," he said. "I don't know why she's gone all –" his twisted his fingers before him in a complicated gesture. "Swirly. Zoe started to tell me last night but told me to forget about it, which only makes me more curious. What's going on with her?"

Mickey dragged a hand over his face, torn between amusement and exasperation. "How is it that you're 900 years old, been married, datin' Zoe, an' you still know fuck all about women?"

The Doctor peered at him. "I feel like that's a trick question."

He turned to look at Jack. "This is goin' to be a long conversation."

"I'll put the kettle on then."

Jack kissed Mickey before throwing the covers off his body, the Doctor's hand covering his eyes at the sight of him naked from the waist down. Skin flushed, he listened to Jack pull on a pair of boxers and wrangle his crutches under control before he left, the sound of him fading as he headed towards the kitchen. Hand clasped over his eyes, he was beginning to realise what he had walked in on.

"Mickey?"

"Yeah, mate?"

"You're naked under there too, aren't you?"

Mickey grinned. "Yeah."

The Doctor leapt up from the bed as though burned and hurried out of the door. Watching him go, Mickey laughed to himself and pushed the covers back to start his day properly, mentally preparing himself for what he was sure was to be an awkward conversation regarding Rose's feelings for him.

Mickey the idiot, he thought, amused. Bloody hypocrite.


Zoe spread the picnic blanket on the ground and glanced over towards the Doctor, pausing in setting up their afternoon lunch, enraptured by the sight of him holding Leia by her tiny hands and introducing her to the frogs that were in the garden. He looked so natural with his body contorted to fit around a child's, holding her on his feet and keeping her upright as he pointed to one frog after another, telling her their names and attempting to get her to say them. It was no surprise that the Doctor had taken to Leia – babies stole his hearts on a near daily basis – but there was something different about seeing him interact with a baby who happened to be a family member. The sight of it spoke to something inside of her that warmed at the thought of him being a father.

She imagined a small child with her dusky skin and his everything, toddling up to him saying daddy.

"Stop it," she muttered, ripping her eyes from them. "Just stop it."

Focusing on unpacking the picnic, she ignored the thought that she could make him a father again if he wanted and set up their lunch. Leia had helped her in the kitchen to make cupcakes, though her help took a similar form to the Doctor's in that it was more interference than actual assistance, but she had enjoyed decorating the cupcakes and that was all that mattered. While she and Leia had been baking, the Doctor had put together lunch for them and she was surprised that there was a decent selection of foods rather than the random assortment that they occasionally ended up with when he was in a whimsical mood.

"Lunch is served," Zoe called over to them. "Come and get it while it's cold!"

The Doctor scooped Leia up and held her upside down, her small legs pushing against his shoulder as she giggled, and he jogged to close the distance. Dressed casually in his suit trousers and a simple T-shirt, Zoe thought he looked like any dad that might be found at the park with his kids. He placed Leia on her stomach on the blanket and dropped next to Zoe, leaning in to kiss her cheek.

"The frogs officially like her," he said. "I think we're in the clear if we want to kidnap her."

"We're not kidnapping her," she told him, pouring him a glass of ice cold lemonade. "Sabrina wants to keep her and you've done enough kidnapping of my family, thank you."

"Not a kidnapping," the Doctor said behind his glass, eyes smiling when she rolled her eyes. "Leia, do you want lemonade? Aunt Zoe's packed you the boring non-sugary kind." Leia burbled at him. "She wants the good kind."

"She's not having the good kind," Zoe said, finding Leia's sippy cup and decanting the child friendly version of her lemonade into it. Lifting her up, she placed Leia the fold of her legs and handed her the cup. "Drink up. Listening to the Doctor talk is exhausting."

"Is it now?" He asked, archly, immediately distracted by the chicken sandwiches he had made, pushing one into his mouth and grinning at her faintly disgusted expression. "No' as bad as you an' eclairs."

"Don't speak with your mouth full." She assembled a small plate of food for Leia to pick at and squash between her fingers. "And, as I've told you before, I eat eclairs in a perfectly sensible manner."

"I find it sexy if slightly horrifying," the Doctor replied. "It's definitely not perfectly sensible though. Leia here agrees with me, don't you?" He reached out and tickled her stomach before picking up a grape that had been split into quarters to avoid Leia choking and feeding it to her. "Good girl. Heard anything from Rose yet?"

Zoe sighed. "No. Mum said she's off with Sarah Jane but I think that's code for my sister hates me and is avoiding me."

"Strange code," he said, distracted by Leia showing him her toy for the sixth time that day. "I like this, this is a nice monkey. What's its name again?" Incoherent noises left Leia. "Monkey? That's a good name, excellent choice."

Fondness consumed her as she watched him. "You're an idiot."

"Says the person who can't speak baby," he said, smile curving his mouth. "And Rose doesn't hate you, she loves you. Are you going to tell the rest of your family?"

"Pretty sure Mum'll take care of that for me," Zoe said. "Nana'll be happy what with you being a doctor and all, and Aunt Caroline's going to be sick with envy, so that's going to be fun. I'm actually looking forward to that because Joel's wife is medical receptionist but Aunt Caroline goes around telling people she's a nurse. It really pisses Mel off."

"Joel being your cousin, Sabrina's brother," the Doctor remembered, forming an extended family tree in his mind. "Your Aunt Caroline's a bit of a snob, by the way."

"Most of the Prentice lot are," she replied, catching Leia's monkey before it fell into the food. "I haven't really missed them because we don't normally get together a lot but seeing Nana and Sabrina again has been nice. She did say I'd put on weight though – Nana, that is, not Sabrina – and that was less nice."

The Doctor's eyes skimmed over her. "You have not. And trust me, I'd know. Your body is something that –"

"No dirty talk in front of the baby," she interrupted, quickly, hands covering Leia's ears as her cousin smeared cupcake frosting over her face. "I don't trust Leia to keep her mouth shut. One bowl of ice cream and our secrets will be everywhere."

"Is that right?" The Doctor leaned down until he was eye level with her. "Are you a snitch?"

"Careful, she'll –" her eyes went wide and she covered her mouth with her hand. "Do that."

Stretching out his tongue, the Doctor attempted to lick the smeared icing from his cheek. Laughing, she slipped her fingers beneath the collar of his T-shirt and tugged him up, kissing the frosting from him, smiling when he turned his mouth into hers.

"I always forget how messy kids are," he said, brushing his nose over hers. "Mine used to be covered in all sorts of stuff at the end of the day. Couldn't keep them clean for a minute if our backs were turned."

"Troublemakers like their parents then?"

"Of course." Removing Leia from Zoe's lap, he set about cleaning the frosting from her chubby hands and fed her pieces of cupcake instead. Zoe reached out for a miniature sausage roll and he frowned, catching hold of her hand and bringing it to his eyes. "Where's your wedding ring? Did you lose it?"

She reached beneath her jumper and removed the chain on which her wedding ring hung. "Uncle Ben wouldn't stop mentioning on it, so I've taken it off until we leave. He was getting really weird about it."

"He's married to Aunt Caroline, right? The one Rose called Ben the Bore?" Leia gurgled, Monkey's ear going back in her mouth, even as Zoe grinned. "I'm not sure I like Ben the Bore. He seems like a bit of a –" catching the insult before it left his mouth, conscious he had the man's granddaughter in his lap, he tapped Leia's flat nose with the tip of his finger. "Not very nice man."

"Smooth," Zoe grinned. "And no one really likes Uncle Ben, least of all Aunt Caroline. She's only with him because he's got money and she feels that she can't look after herself. Bullshit in my opinion, she's got all sorts of skills but it is what it is. I think she's learnt to tune him out now."

"That sounds an awful way to live your life," he said with a frown that morphed into a silly face when Leia looked up at him. "It is, isn't it? Look, Leia agrees with me."

She rolled her eyes and popped a grape into his mouth. "Does Rose know we're leaving tonight?"

"I asked Jack and Mickey to let her know," the Doctor said. "We won't leave without her."

Zoe picked the grapes off the stem until she had a small handful. "Do you think she'll want to come with us?"

"Of course she will," he said even though he wasn't sure now that Jack and Mickey had filled him in on Rose's feelings for him, his stomach squirming with discomfort. "Stop borrowing worry. We'll all be together on the TARDIS and you and Rose will be able to talk. If it gets really bad, we can just look the two of you in the kitchen and keep you there until you work it out."

She laughed. "Think we can do that with Mum?"

"I kind of don't want to get within punching distance of Jackie any time soon," he admitted, the bruise on his jaw having come and gone overnight. "But I'd absolutely do that for you if you wanted."

"I know you would," Zoe said, smiling at him. "Sorry, I'm going to be like this until everything sorts itself out. You've got a lot of repetitive conversations coming your way in the near future. You're going to have to learn to tune me out."

"Sorry, what was that?"

She bounced a grape off his forehead. "You're a comedian."

"There's something I haven't tried yet, stand-up comedy." The thought filled Zoe with horror that reflected itself on her face. "That's a no then?"

"I think you're very funny," she said. "But stand up is always a little –" she see-sawed her hand back and forth. "I find it cringey."

"Duly noted," the Doctor said, Leia's fist bumping his jaw. "Oof, what was that for? Huh? What did I do to deserve that?" She held a raspberry in her fingers, her grip too tight and crushing half of it, but he patiently let her feed it to him. "Thank you very much."

"You're so good with her," Zoe told him, heart threatening to burst with love for him. "You're good with all kids. It's one of your more attractive qualities."

He clucked his tongue, looking pleased. "Women and babies, you're living up to stereotype right now."

"I can't help it," she laughed. "The sight of you with Leia is doing strange things to me. I've never felt broody before but I'm beginning to feel it now. I feel I should tell you to put down the baby and step away for my own good."

"And here I was thinking you didn't like children," he teased. "You're nothing but a fraud. Look at how good you are with Leia, you think that's not affecting me?" She looked at him, surprised. "Come on, the beautiful woman I'm in love with playing with the cutest baby on Earth? I'm going to have thoughts."

She watched him bop Leia lightly on the nose, trailing his finger to the middle of her forehead, smiling when her eyes crossed. The night they had decided to try a relationship, he had told her that he wouldn't be able to give her children and despite what she had told Jackie the night before, it wasn't something they had discussed in any depth. She knew his love for children was endless, and he knew that she was mildly uncomfortable around them, although Leia was the exception because she was sweet and easy to handle.

"Do you want to do that again?" Zoe asked, brushing crumbs from her lap. "Be a parent, I mean?"

His long finger traced the light shadows of Leia's eyebrows before brushing down her nose, letting her use his finger as a teething ring.

"Having children was the best thing I ever did," the Doctor said, honestly. "It was expected of me, as it was of all good Time Lords, but I enjoyed them a lot more than I was supposed to. Most bonded couples have one of two like my parents did, Lev and I had four and would have had more if we could. They were such a source of joy from the moment they were placed in my arms, and losing them was a pain far worse than the loss of Gallifrey and everyone else. Their deaths cut me apart in ways I haven't fully recovered from, but, when I think about it, I think that maybe, yes. I wouldn't mind doing it again."

"Even knowing how it might end?" She asked, careful as she always was when touching on the subject of his family.

"We never know how any of it's going to end," the Doctor said. "And even though it ended the way it did, I'd do it all over again in a heartsbeat knowing what I do."

Her finger fluttered at her neck, pulling her necklace out to twirl her wedding ring around the chain. "I don't know if I want kids."

His eyes flicked to her. "Zo –"

"Even when I was a kid, I wasn't sure. Rose was always the one who was good with them and understood them, I was just awkward and in the corner." Her mouth felt dry and, for the first time in his presence, she felt nervous. "Teaching them is different – I like teaching. I don't know if I ever want to be a mother though."

"That's okay," he said, reaching out to pry her hand from her wedding ring, stroking her knuckles with his thumb. "Like I said when we started this, us having kids would be difficult. There's all sorts of poking and prodding I'd have to do to get it to work, and even then there's no guarantee that it would. My people never reproduced outside of our species before so it's hard to tell what would happen. Although, thinking about it, I imagine my genes would sort of overwhelm yours so any kids of ours would end up more Time Lord than human, which isn't bad really."

She squeezed his hand and scrunched her nose at him.

"I said I wouldn't mind doing it again, but I also wouldn't mind not doing it." Leia resting in the cradle of his lap, he reached across and brushed her hair from her face as an excuse to touch her. "We'd make beautiful children but you're all I want."

She turned her head and kissed the inside of his wrist. "And if I change my mind?"

"Then we can talk about it," he promised her.

She worried her bottom lip, and he reached out and tugged it from her teeth. "I don't hate the idea of there being something left of me for you once I'm gone." He stilled, the only reaction to her words. "If a child would really be more Time Lord than human, I can be sure that you wouldn't be alone after I die. You'd have something to remember me by."

His thumb pressed against her lips, pain buried deep in his eyes.

"I don't need a child to remember you. You're seared into me, Zoe Tyler, body and soul." She closed her eyes and kissed the pad of his thumb. "Now, enough of this, we have a small human to entertain and we're not doing a very good job. Did you bring the stuff I asked for?"

"The painting stuff, yeah."

"Good, because we're going to paint something for your mum to put on her fridge," the Doctor said, tickling Leia lightly. "And we're going to get nice and messy in the process."

Zoe swallowed, wondering if one day it would be their child he would be holding, and got to her feet to fetch the bag she had left by the bench. ""I'll get the paint out. I hope you don't mind losing that shirt – she splashes."

"What a coincidence," he beamed. "So do I."