Author's Note: Finally, the chapter I know you've been waiting for: the Powell Estates! Enjoy!

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It's been about two weeks since that first night. Ten days since that day in the control room. Four since the ice cream incident.

And not once over the span of two weeks has Rose approached with even a glimmer of that 'Doctor, I think we need to talk' look in her eye. I'm starting to think I need to amend reason twenty-seven:

Snogging companions will always led to an awkward conversation. Shagging companions will just led to more shagging… which is bad.

I only mention this as a way to keep my mind off of what I just agreed to do. At breakfast, Rose absently mentioned that it had been quite some time since we had visited her mum. She doesn't just come right out and say things like, "Hey, let's go visit mum" too often, she just hints at it. And, like the fool I am, I don't throw out some exciting story about a meteor storm or a super nova or something that might have distracted her. Nope, instead I said, "Oi, then what are we waiting for? London, it is!"

See, any other time in my experience with Rose, I would have said that without pause. Today, I reacted like I would have any other day. It wasn't until about seven minutes ago that it hit me.

Rose's mum. Rose's mum is a mum. Mums know things. They know everything. Jackie probably knows missile codes and secret passwords for who knows what just because she's a mum with weird, mum powers.

Jackie's going to know the minute we walk through the door that I've slept with Rose. I'm dead. I'm beyond dead. I'm dead and regenerated until I'm actually dead and then she'll cut me up into little pieces and feed me to the stray cats.

"You coming, Doctor?"

"Right. Yeah. Coming."

Jackie's always too excited about hearing us land to really notice me. She'll rush after Rose, hugging and chattering excitedly about something or other that someone or other did. And, after a bit, she'll smile my way and offer us tea up in her flat. I'm safe, for a while. Safe until we sit down to start drinking tea. That's when she'll noticed. That's when she'll be relaxed enough to sense it.

Which is right about now. I'm smiling up at her as she hands me my tea and silently I'm praying that the entire story isn't playing through my eyes. She just sits down, oblivious.

"So what have you too be up to recently?" Oh god, I hope she didn't notice that I nearly burnt myself with my tea.

Rose certainly managed to keep her cool. She just blathered on about some of the planets we'd been off to and the adventures- mind you, edited. She even had the gull to talk about Earth in the twenty-seventh century, which I'll remind you led to the control room shag. I really hope neither of them have been paying attention to me.

I manage to make it all the way through tea without Jackie ripping out my guts. Good start.

"Oh, bollocks! I just realizes that I haven't been to the store recently. Didn't know to expect company. Honestly, why do you have that mobile of yours, I'll never understand. I'll have to run down and get something for supper tonight."

"Want me to go, mum?"

"No, no, you stay and relax. I'll be back in a tick. How does pasta sound?"

"Good."

"Doctor, pasta all right?"

I just nod. Nodding's good. Nodding doesn't involve talking, during which I might blurt out something stupid like, oh I don't know, 'I shagged your daughter on the TARDIS control panel' or 'I ate her out in the kitchen because it was just too tempting' or something like that. Yeah, nodding's good.

"You okay, Doctor?" Rose asks just as the door closes behind her mother. "You seem kind of… nervous?"

Oi, she's smirking at me. The cheek! She knows exactly what I've been feeling this entire time. "Yes, I'm nervous. Do you know what you're mother'll do if she ever finds out?" She just laughs at that and I have the urge to reach out and shut her up. But that would be bad, because kissing her is the only option I'm coming up with. Kissing in Jackie's flat is definitely not a good idea. No, it's a very, very bad idea.

Her hand's in my hair, running through it and messing it up. I spent a lot of time this morning fixing it. My hair is very testy now. Although, it is very ruffle-able, I'll give her that.

"Have I ever mentioned that I really like your new hair?"

"What? I had old hair?"

At least she's smirking at that and shaking her head. I can't help it now- I need to kiss her. Just once, just lightly. Just enough to taste the lingering flavour of tea on her lips.

But she's got her own opinions on the matter and she wants to taste more. I love that she racks a hand through my hair and pulls me closer. I love the feel of her hip beneath my hand. I love the slight pain her teeth cause as she nips at my lower lip.

I might hate myself in a few minutes when my brain gets a bit more oxygen, but I need her closer and pulling her into my lap is the only way I know how to do that. She chuckles against my lips and scraps her nails along my neck. They're trailing lower, playing with my jacket, and I know that's the reason why I should stop this.

But now she's sighing against my lips, shifting more comfortably into my lap and maybe this doesn't have to stop. Maybe we can make this fast, before her mother gets here-

Oh, shit, Jackie. She'll be home soon. Actually I'm not sure how long ago she left.

Hmm, curious, when did Rose's lips leave mine? Oh who cares? She's found that spot behind my ear-

No, wait, there was a reason why we should stop.

"Rose." Thankfully, she stops teasing my earlobe at the sound of her name and I use that as an opportunity to pull her face back to where I can see her eyes. "We really should talk about this."

"I thought we had."

Oi, the cheek! But I'm pretty much past that now seeing as she's poking her tongue out from behind her teeth and her eyebrows are raised just slightly. She can't begin to imagine how sexy she looks when she does that- on second thought, she probably does know, that's why she does it.

"Not very well. And that was before…"

"Before?"

"Before." When did she learn to be such a tease?

"Ah, yes, before when you said that you don't feel lust."

"I said I rarely feel lust."

"Mmhmm… well, if the past two weeks have told me anything, you don't rarely feel lust at all. It's quite a frequent occurrence, actually."

"Not my fault you've been provoking it with those clothes of yours and that poor ice cream cone."

"Poor ice cream cone?"

"Okay, it was a lucky bastard. Can we get back to the topic?"

"You, staying on topic?"

The cheek is just on full blast today, isn't it? Did I teach her that?

"As I recall, one of your main arguments was that you can't keep up with a human's needs. I think you're doing quite well at that. Keeping up with my needs." I've never heard her do that before, accent a word by rolling it around her mouth, stringing it out in such a way that triggers the impulse to dive into her mouth and feel the word resonating in there.

"That wasn't-" Is that really my voice? Those hoarse, over-sexed sounding words? "That wasn't the only reason. We can start with your mum and certain death."

"You're overreacting. She'll just smack you a bit."

"Thanks. Comforting. Rose, seriously though," she sobers a bit at that and I can't help but raise a hand to brush a lock of hair behind her ear. "With the life I lead, I can't offer you the kind of future you'll want. I can't settle down, get married, and have the two point three children. I can't."

"I don't want that."

"You don't want it now. You're young. But eventually. You're human, after all."

"I want you." She's stroking my cheek and there's such an intensity in her eyes that I have to close mine and lean into her touch, letting it soothe me into believing her.

"I know."

"I told you: you're stuck with me forever."

"Never say forever."

"Well, I'm saying it. I'm with you 'til my last breath."

"And then you'll leave me. My forever is so much longer than yours. I don't-" She's so human. Thinking that as long as I don't say it, as long as she pushes the thought far enough into the back of her mind, it won't mean anything. It won't be looming just off in our future.

But, I guess, some aspects of humanity aren't that bad. And maybe she's worth it. Maybe she's worth the pain and the heartbreak and the hardships. Maybe sixties years of memories are worth the three hundred years of grief.

And maybe I shouldn't be letting her kiss me, letting her silence me, letting this conversation fade into the furthest recess of our minds where we'll let it sit and stew and perhaps die out until it can jump out and scream 'I told you so!'.

But there are a lot of things I shouldn't do and we all know how well that's been going over for me.

"Oi! I really don't care what the two of you get up to in that box of yours, but you could at least restrain yourselves when you're sitting on my couch!"

I'm quite positive that nothing in this universe- not invading Cybermen or the entire Dalek fleet- could terrify me any more than Jackie Tyler just did in that moment.

Oh my god, Jackie just saw me snogging her daughter. Jackie knows. She knows what Rose and I have been up to. She knows! Oh I am so fucked. I am beyond fucked. I'm-

And she's laughing! She actually has the audacity to laugh about this! We're snogging in her mum's flat and Jackie is standing there, gawking at us, and what does she do in the face of my ultimate death- she laughs!

See, that's why I made reason twenty-three: in-laws. Nothing worse than that.