Chapter 2 of the third part of the never ending plot bunny...enjoy!


Time understands.

The Doctor sat at Rose's kitchen table, slurping on the cup of tea Rose had handed him before disappearing upstairs with their daughter.

His daughter.

Question was, and one he was certainly interested in finding the answer to, was how did he have a four year-old daughter when he hadn't seen Rose in twice that?

He set his empty mug on the table as Rose came back into the kitchen and she silently took it, preparing him another cup. She handed it back to him and sat across from him, nervously worrying her lower lip.

"It's awkward, yeah?" She spoke up suddenly. He looked at her over the rim of his mug and set it down again. "I didn't expect it to be awkward."

"We've been apart longer than we were together. You had a life, a whole life without me, since I last saw you."

"So've you," she replied. She played with his mug a little and he rested his chin on his hand as he watched her.

"Never stopped thinking about you, though." He watched the smile flit across her face and she looked up at him.

"Yeah?" He nodded and she frowned a little. "You're so different, Doctor."

"8 years without you. Missed you." She smiled again. He'd have to get used to seeing her face again, her voice, her accent, her smell, her mannerisms. He had to learn them all again. He cleared his throat, dragged a hand across his face before looking at her again. "Can you tell me about your daughter?"

"Ours," Rose said. "Do you remember Cathica?"

"Cathica." He was surprised. "From Satellite 5? Is that her name?" Rose nodded and he smiled. "Good name."

"I thought so, too. She…she's four, this last spring. She looks just like you." Something flickered across Rose's face and she looked down at his mug again. He'd have to relearn her looks, too.

"What is it, Rose?"

"I just…how, Doctor? How did I have her? The last man I'd been with had been you, years before and I—"

"Honestly? I don't know. I just don't know. Maybe my library might have—"

"I've looked in everything I could find about Gallifrey, about Gallifreyan babies. Did you know typical pregnancies can last up to 18 months?"

"You didn't…"

"No, thank God. Only 15 months and…" Rose trailed off, frowning. "Doctor, there's something I have to tell you."

This time he stood to refill his mug of tea, silently asking Rose if she wanted one, but she shook her head. He was different? He couldn't even begin to count the ways Rose had changed.

"Do you remember, Doctor, when I told you about Mum being pregnant?"

"Yeah." He looked up, looking out the window over the sink, picturing that day. The pain that had ripped through his chest, his belly, at the thought of her being pregnant and without him. He cleared his throat. "Yeah, of course."

"I lied." Rose's voice was small, quiet and if he'd been breathing any heavier, he'd have missed her comment. With a furrowed brow, he turned round to face her, but she still sat staring at the table.

"What do you mean 'you lied,' Rose?"

"Mum wasn't pregnant. Not for a few months after that, anyway." His amazing, complex brain wasn't functioning right, he didn't think.

"What are you saying?"

"Do you remember the night before…before Torchwood? Before we…I…left?" Rose glanced up at him but looked away quickly and he sighed, setting the mug on the counter.

"Of course I do, Rose," he said softly. "How do you think I could forget it?"

"I was pregnant, I was three months pregnant. His name is Jack, he's just turned 7." She said it in a rush, hurriedly, and the tears quickly followed suit, her thin shoulders shaking with the effort of taming her tears.

"Jack…but Cathica…" Something was tickling the back of his mind, but he ignored it, watching her. "You…we…have two…?" Rose nodded and he moved over to her, lifting her to her feet and gripping her upper arms. He kissed her temple before leaning his forehead against hers. "Why are you crying, Rose?"

"I lied to you!" He chuckled softly and let her arms come around his waist, wrapping his tight around her.

"I know, but I understand why you did it. It's noble that you did it."

"Really?" She sniffled, her voice still small and weak. "I'm sorry I'm crying all over you like this, probably hardly the homecoming you expected." He pulled back from her slightly and looked down at her.

"I didn't expect anything, Rose. I never expected to find you again." She shook her head and pulled away.

"Don't say that, you'll set me off again." He watched as she gave herself busy work, fluttering around the kitchen, cleaning things she didn't need to clean when the tickling he'd felt earlier slammed into the forefront of his mind so quickly it was almost painful.

"You had Jack. You were pregnant." She looked at him over her shoulder, eyebrows raised.

"I already told you that."

"I know, I know…" he trailed off, running his hands through his hair, trying desperately to remember years of schooling he'd long since suppressed. "I need…" He stopped his frantic passing and turned to look at her. "Do you still have any of those books?"

"I have a couple, yeah." She blushed a bit and he frowned.

"What's wrong?" She shrugged a shoulder and mumbled, but he heard her. A huge grin split his face.

"You don't have to have the books anymore to keep me around. I'm here."

Time grows.

"I want you to know I care for him," Martha said quietly, studying Rose. Rose nodded.

"I'm glad." She glanced back over her shoulder at her little house, a small smile crossing her face. "I was so worried he would be alone."

"You really are amazing, you know that?" Martha let out a small laugh, tucked a blowing strand of hair back. "For two years, I've been trying to live up to the ideal that was Rose Tyler and knew I never would. You're a goddess in his mind and he's spent I don't even know how long looking for a way to get here…" She went on, but Rose's mind wandered off and she felt her first twinge of jealousy.

Two years? She'd barely been with him more than a year but this girl had spent two years with him. And still he came.

"But he loves you. Always has done, even if he's never come out and said it."

"Yeah, that sounds like him." After a few more trivialities, Jackie finally noticed Rose cornered by Martha and made her way over. Rose made an apology and went back into her house. She'd left the Doctor in the kitchen to go to the main house and hadn't been gone more than ten minutes, even after getting waylaid by Martha. So where had he gone?

After thoroughly inspecting the ground floor, she headed upstairs and followed the soft murmur of the Doctor's voice to Cathica's room. He stood in the centre of the room, holding Cathica to his chest, rubbing her back as her head rested on his shoulder. He was singing to her softly, but it was in a language Rose didn't understand.

A small smile on her face, she crossed her arms and leaned against the doorjamb.

"If this isn't domestic, I don't know what is." The Doctor turned to see her and cracked a wry grin at her words, setting Cathica down in her bed, covering her with the light pink throw.

"Yeah, well." He cleared his throat. "Maybe if I'd spent more time being domestic and less time worrying about not being, we would be in an entirely different situation."

"Don't blame yourself, Doctor. It wasn't you. It was Torchwood."

The Doctor moved around the end of Cathica's bed and went to the window, staring out at the water, hands tucked into his pockets.

"It wasn't your fault; I don't blame you."

"I should've took better care of you, Rose Tyler."

"You did. You tried to save my life. Remember, you put the…the…that thing, around my neck, you and Pete tried to keep me and Mum safe. It was my own stupid head that came back."

"You're always sacrificing for me. If you hadn't been there to fix that lever, the breach would've closed and I would've been stuck with all those Daleks and Cybermen, on my own. You died for me."

"Returned favour."

He ran a hand into his hair, messing it up even more before turning to face her again.

"Do you have those books? I think I know the answers."

Time learns.

"Gallifreyans used to be produced in Looms."

"Looms?"

"Looms," the Doctor confirmed. "But then things started happening, infections and things, entire pods of Looms being taken offline. So they decided to make it more natural."

"Natural," Rose repeated.

The Doctor picked up a book from the table and sat next to her, opening it. He reached into the pocket of his suit coat where it hung over the back of the chair and pulled out his glasses, perching them on his nose. He flipped the book open to a page he'd marked and ran down the column with his finger until he found what he was looking for. He nudged the book toward Rose, keeping his finger in place until she started reading.

"This was thousands of years before I was born."

"You were born natural," Rose confirmed, glancing at him.

"Well, yeah. Well, I would've been anyway, my mum was human, but I—"

"You never told me that!" The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her outburst.

"Would it have changed anything? Does it matter?"

"Well, no, of course not," Rose reasoned. "But…it's one of those things. You know, my favourite colour is blue, I like extra salt on my chips, my mum's a human…" The Doctor just shook his head before he went on.

"Anyway, they did this natural thing for a few hundred years, but of course, the numbers were nowhere near what they'd been with the Looms. Only a small percentage of the Gallifreyan women were capable of bearing children. That number grew as generations went on, but the growth was abysmally slow." He reached over and took a book off the counter, turning back to the table and flipping through it until he found the passage he wanted, showing it to her.

"Then the Wars started—"

"The Time War?" Rose asked sharply, looking up.

"No. Well. Not the one you're thinking of. I suppose, if it were written in a book, it would be called the Last Great Time War. No, there was a period of—what?" He stopped at the look on her face.

"There should be a book." He took a sip of his tea, shaking his head.

"No," he replied. "Shortest book in existence. The Daleks attack, millions killed, President takes a solider from the front lines and puts the weight of his own world on his shoulders and then he kills himself. The End. No book."

"Killed yourself?"

"Not on purpose. Anyway, Rose. The point is, there was a series of small wars leading up to the one you know about…over a few thousand years. Gallifreyan males are shipped off to the front lines on different planets, dying left and right. The males leave, guess what happens."

"No babies."

"Exactly right. So, they developed a way for a male to…continuously impregnate his mate."

"Continuously impregnate? Mate?" Rose looked dubious and the Doctor sighed.

"You have to trust me on this. Basically, we have sex. Your body is receptive to procreating, so you get pregnant. Go through the gestation period and if you're healthy, however they did it, my sperm," The Doctor glared at Rose when she grinned at the pink tinge on his cheeks and did his best to ignore her, "knows that hey, she likes us, let's stick around until she wants to use us again."

"Which is what happened with Cathica."

"Which is what happened with Cathica. Only, it shouldn't have happened, because you're human."

"Your mum was human."

"Right…and no using that against me…but right, but it wouldn't work in her. She and Dad went to specialist after specialist, but because she was human, her body wouldn't store the…"

"Sperm," Rose supplied. The Doctor made a face at her.

"So, it shouldn't have worked with you. I don't know why it did."

"So basically, what you're telling me, is that even if we never have sex again, I could have 50 more babies."

"I don't know if there's any sort of time limit," he said. "But yeah, basically." He glanced back down at the book, skimming through the pages.

"And you knew this and didn't bother telling me?"

"I didn't think of it, to be honest. Was concerned with more pressing matters, for one. And being human, I didn't think you'd get pregnant. What I was told, my parents had a bugger of a time trying."

"Maybe the Vortex thing," Rose tried, but she only received a non-committal sound in return. She was silent for a minute as he read through a section. "Nice working for it, though."

"Hmm?" Rubbing his aching head, he looked up at her, letting his glasses slide down a bit so he could see her clearly.

"If you can keep getting me pregnant without all the work, where's the fun in it?"

"Oh." He smiled. "Yeah, I agree." She got up to get them each a fresh cup of tea and her voice was soft when she asked her next question.

"You said you'd been a dad before. When?" He tried not to sigh and he took his glasses off, setting them on the book before leaning back in the chair, crossing his arms.

"A long time ago, love. Hundreds of years before you were born."

"I know, it's just…" she trailed off as she handed his cup to him before sitting next to him again. "Does it hurt? Seeing Cathica, knowing about Jack?"

"I wouldn't say hurt. It makes me miss what I had, yeah. But it was a long time ago and I've managed to work past a lot of that grief." He looked up at her, smiled. "You helped me with that."

"I know," she smiled back. "But—I guess what I'm saying is…well. When you decided…I'm assuming you decided…" she glanced at him, "to come here, you didn't know about them. And…well, like I said, domesticity."

"I think maybe this is an adventure I need to try for awhile." The Doctor studied her profile as she sipped at her tea.

"But what if you get bored, Doctor? What if you get itchy or restless? I can't go off on adventures like that anymore. Not with the kids. What if something happened to me?"

"Get bored, Rose Tyler? I travelled through Hell to get to you, I hardly think you qualify as boring." He laid his arm across her shoulders, pulling her close and squeezing her tight. At the look on her face, he raised his eyebrows again. "What?"

"I can hardly believe you're here," she whispered. "That I'm hearing your voice again. Do you know, I had nothing? Not a note or a picture, nothing. You've lived in my memory for 8 years and now you've come to life. A bit like a dream, that."

He brought his hand up to cup her face, brushing his thumb across her cheek.

"I've missed you so much, Rose." She studied his face, looking into his eyes for a long time before she let the little smile cross her face.

"I know," she whispered back. His lips were a breath away from hers when the knock on the door pounded. She looked toward the door and sighing, he leaned his forehead against the side of her head before leaning back when she went to answer.

Time hurts.

Rose Tyler got exactly what she wanted, but she couldn't tell why it made her uncomfortable. She thought of the Doctor, back at her house, sitting with Cathica as he buried himself in the books she gave him and she still wanted to cry.

Even now she wanted to cry.

Clearing her throat, she glanced at her mum, sitting on the couch next to her, watching telly.

"So, where'd Martha run off to, then?" Maybe it came out a bit snarkier than it should've but Rose couldn't help it.

She didn't care, either.

"I called Mickey. He took her off for chips. She'll hear his version." Rose felt Jackie's eyes on her, but shrugged. Jackie sighed.

"What is it, Rose? What's wrong?"

"He's just…" Rose pressed her fingers to her lips in an attempt to hold back her tears, barely succeeding. "He's so different. He's so different. He's quiet and he's…he's not as hyper, he's not as…all over the place. It's like he's regenerated all over again, only he kept the body. He seems resigned to the fact of staying here, not like he wants to and I'm just…I just…" Rose couldn't keep the tears back this time, gripping Jackie's arms when they came around her. "I'm just waiting for him to decide this is wrong. To get sick of me and get sick of them, after they learn to love him and to just take off for the stars and leave us behind and I can't handle that again, Mum, I can't."

"Rose…"

Rose looked up and saw the Doctor in the doorway, Cathica on his hip, and covered her mouth, sobbing. He stepped toward her and Rose just shook her head, clambering off the couch and disappearing through the back door onto the balcony.

"Jackie." She turned from watching Rose run from the room to him, standing sure and straight in the doorway.

"It's not your fault, Doctor. Not entirely." Jackie stood and took Cathica when she held her arms out to her and the Doctor ran his hands through his hair, lacing them behind his head.

"It can't be anything but my fault."

"You know, Doctor. You need to get over yourself, you honestly do," she snapped. Cathica whimpered a bit at her tone and Jackie rubbed her back, setting her on the floor to play with the ever-present variety of toys. She saw the Doctor's shocked expression and rolled her eyes.

"She's having a hard time adjusting, yeah? She's had a lifetime without you, had to do everything on her own when you should've been there—"

"I couldn't—" Jackie held her hand up, effectively cutting off his yell and he began to pace.

"It's new again, Doctor. Don't you see that? You can't just come back and expect everything the same. She changed, we changed, you changed. God bless you, you saved all of our lives, not to mention billions of others, but that doesn't mean we didn't suffer at all." Rose would probably kill her, but at this point Jackie was willing to risk it.

"She spent weeks sobbing after we were left here, Doctor. Weeks. Did you think that crying she did, when you talked to her, did you think that was new? She was like that forever. Then Jack came and she had something to focus her attention on, only Jack looks like you, exactly like you and I'd like to know how that's possible with you changing your look every other week and she has to suffer, seeing you smiling back at her everyday, only it's not you, not really. And then she gets a little better. And then Cathica comes and it's the same damned, bloody thing all over again. You think Rose is more mature? Grown up? Motherhood helped her settle down? Ha!"

He jumped a bit at her outburst, she was pleased to see, but he'd stopped stock still, looking shell-shocked when she started her rant.

"She's broken, Doctor. She's beaten. She was finally getting around to accepting that yeah, maybe you were actually dead, because that's what she's been trying to make the rest of us think she believes for years. You were gone, done and buried and it was time for her to move on, only she couldn't. You took my daughter from me, Doctor, you took her from me!"

She began to thump her clenched fists against his chest as her tirade went on, but he just gripped her arms and let her do it, without her even noticing.

"Not just the first time, I could forgive that because you brought her back. And every time after that, you always brought her back. But the minute she let go of that lever, she was gone from me, stuck with you back there, only I was stuck with the shell. I had to look at her every day and know that she wasn't really there."

"So, you come back and I'm sure we're all happy about it, we love you, we're your family, but you can't waltz in here expecting everyone to be okay with it and you, you just can't, it's not fair!"

"I know it's not, Jackie. I know." Jackie's head ached and she barely registered as his arms came around her, holding her close, leaning his cheek against the top of her head.

"Truth is, I almost didn't try. I let myself believe that she'd settled down with Mickey, for a long, long time, But then I had to try and I probably should've died and that would've been okay, because then maybe Rose could move on. But I didn't die and I'm here and I'd like to think I'm meant to be here. But we all have to try, we all have to work at it."

"It's so easy for you, Doctor." Jackie whispered. "To move in and out of a person's life, not realizing the impact you have on them. It's so easy for you and so hard for the rest of us."

But she was wrong. It wasn't very easy at all.


TBC...probably one more part. Please read/review. Thanks!