Same disclaimer as before. I don't own them, never will.
xxx
He's aware of a coldness against his face. He's lying on something cold and hard. A mortuary slab? That regeneration was very messy. He tries to wriggle his fingers and they seem to respond. The surface isn't smooth, it's a grille. Like the Tardis floor. He bolts upright and promptly crumples into a heap. Oh God. Oh God, I've lost them. I've failed them. I'm sorry, so sorry, oh my beautiful Rose. He retches but his stomach is painfully empty. Food? He stands gingerly, grabbing at the console for support. Noting the way every bone in his hand is visible under the tightly stretched skin, he tries to imagine how long it has been since…the storm. Maybe a week? I'm in no fit state to search the whole of space and time. He'll alleviate the ache in his stomach first than see about trying to ease the pain in his hearts. Kitchen. He moves cautiously towards the door that leads deeper into the Tardis.
xxx
The kitchen is very hard to find. Impossible in fact. There is only one corridor leading from the door to the console room and it only leads to one door. He's walked up and down this corridor several times and the Tardis is still stubbornly showing this one door. He eventually puts his head round the door. Some sort of bedroom. He steps inside and is immediately aware of some form of time manipulation. Walking towards the centre of the disturbance, he finds a cot. A cot occupied by a small baby. A few tufts of brown hair, brown eyes screwed up in concentration as she attempts to slow time for herself. If she hadn't done that, she would have died. A small, detached part of the Doctor's brain manages to make itself heard as his hearts freeze for an instant in horror. Then he's moving faster than he should be able to in a slow-time bubble, scooping her up and holding her tight, so tight he can feel her hearts beating in time with his. I'm sorry, so sorry. The best thing left in his life and he nearly loses her through neglect, through chasing what he's lost. He tentatively reaches out to her mind, the first time he's tried to. Her concentration dissolves at his touch and he feels her exhaustion flood her mind as her body relaxes in his arms. He places her tenderly back in the cot. Jackie. His conscience prods him. He tries to ignore it. Jackie. He tries to override it with the instinct for self-preservation. Hello Jackie. This is your granddaughter. Her mother and brother have been swallowed by a time storm. But his conscience continues to insist: She needs to know. The last time they'd seen Jackie had been almost a year ago in their timeline.
xxx
The crack echoed around the room. Rose winced and the Doctor slowly brought a hand to his cheek. Jackie stood with her hands on her hips, breathing slightly heavily.
"If you hurt her in any way, I will kill you." She pronounced each word slowly and empathically. "I swear I will kill you dead. I don't care how long it takes, or how many times I have to do it, I will kill you."
A few years ago, younger regenerations of the Doctor, Doctors who had never encountered Jacqueline Suzette Anita Tyler, would have laughed at this human woman who believed she could threaten a Time Lord. And they would have regretted it. So he stayed quiet, not doubting her for a second.
"Is that clear?" she demanded. The Doctor wanted to allay her fears, to tell her that he would give up all his lives for Rose, that he would never dream of hurting her, that the only way she would be hurt would be over his dead body. But his cheek was still stinging. So he simply nodded his head slowly.
The next instant Jackie had thrown herself at them and was hugging as much of both of them as her arms could encircle.
"Congratulations."
xxx
It would be so easy to just disappear. There was the whole of time and space out there, he didn't need to go near London till the 22nd century when Jackie would be long gone. She could just-spend the rest of her life waiting, interrupts his conscience. The Doctor pales and yanks the lever.
A/N: If you want me to just quietly delete this, just say so.