Hola, Robin here!
Sorry it's so long...but I hope you enjoy!!!!!
Special thanks to Lacey, our wonderful beta reader!!
Forbidden Tomorrow
By
doodlegirll and Little Bat
***
Chapter Four: The Broken Clock
The Doctor stood at the front of the church, jumping from foot to foot lightly, his hands shoved down into his pockets nervously. His bowtie suddenly felt very tight, his tux very hot, as he waited for the ceremony to begin.
Today was the day he would marry Rose Tyler.
Pete placed his hand on the Doctor's shoulder, smiling encouragingly.
"Stop your bouncin'." He said. "It'll be alright."
The Doctor sighed. "I know." He said. "But I'm rubbish at weddings. Especially my own."
Pete laughed. "Between you and me, so am I."
Just then, the organ started, and everyone in attendance rose to their feet. The Doctor turned back to face the front, and waited on baited breath as the procession started, and Rose Tyler, his Rose Tyler, appeared through the doors at the other end.
Oh, she was beautiful.
The smile that was already plastered on his face gained what seemed like a few inches as she finally reached him. He held out his hand, and she took it, smiling back at him.
"Ready?" He whispered.
"Ready." She said back. "Forever."
***
"Doctor?"
"Yeah?"
Rose fidgeted slightly as she faced her husband. She chewed her bottom lip, unsure where to go from here.
"Something wrong, Rose?" The Doctor asked, sipping his coffee. He peered at her from over the top of the cup.
Rose shook her head. "No, nothing's…wrong." She said.
The Doctor sat his cup down on the counter and kitchen to where his wife stood. They were both still clad in their pajamas, and the Doctor had yet to run a brush through his hair (though, even when he did do it, it was still as wild as it had ever been). Rose swallowed and closed her eyes.
"I'm pregnant."
When she opened her eyes, she found the Doctor staring at her, his brown eyes wide. Then, suddenly, she was in his arms, and he was swinging her around in circles around their kitchen. She laughed and clung to him until he sat her back down on the floor, grinning ear to ear.
"How long?"
Rose smiled. "About six weeks." She said. "I would have told you sooner, but…I wanted to be sure first."
"That's brilliant!" The Doctor said. His gaze softened and he looked at Rose's still flat stomach. "I'm going to be a dad."
Rose took his hand and placed it on her stomach where their child was slowly growing inside her.
"And I'm gonna be a mum." She said. She looked up at him and smiled. "Daddy Doctor."
He looked up at her, and then, slowly, she saw worry fill his eyes. Then, suddenly, without warning, he fainted, right there in the middle of the kitchen.
***
He sat, huddled, in the corner, hoping against hope that Rose wouldn't find him.
"DOCTOR!!" She screamed as she stomped down the hall, past the room in which the Doctor was hiding. She continued on down the hall, searching for her missing husband.
"One heart, and no chance of regeneration." He muttered. "How do human males do this?!"
A few moments later, the Doctor heard Jackie following her daughter down the hall. She paused when she heard soft shuffling coming from the room next to her, and she walked inside, flipping on the light.
"Doctor?" She asked, walking over to where the Doctor sat in the darkest corner of the room. "What are you doing here? Rose is lookin' all over the place for ya!"
"I know." He said.
"Then what are you doing in here?"
He looked up at her.
"She's pregnant."
Jackie slapped him.
***
Rose's fingers curled around his, and he winced, trying to hold in the cry of pain. Another contraction hit her, and Rose's grip on his hand tightened even more, and the Doctor could have sworn he heard a few bones crack.
"Alright, Rose, we're almost there." The alternate Dr. Martha Jones said. "Just one more push."
Rose screamed, and so did the Doctor as she pushed one last time, her grip on his hand becoming a lock that not even the sonic screwdriver could get open.
And then, suddenly, it was all over. A new voice filled the small room, this one high and shrill. Rose's grip slackened, and the Doctor let out a sigh of relief.
"It's a girl!" Dr. Jones announced. Rose's head lolled back on the pillow and the Doctor lightly pushed back her hair and kissed her sweaty forehead.
"You did it. It's over, you can relax, you did it." He whispered.
Dr. Jones carried a small, pink blanket towards them and placed it gently in Rose's arms. Rose smiled and looked up at the Doctor, who blinked at the little baby girl in her arms in wonder.
Their daughter. His daughter.
"She's beautiful." He murmured. "Just like her mum."
"She's got your nose." Rose said. "Do you want to hold her?"
He nodded, and Rose carefully handed him the tiny bundle. He held the now sleeping little girl in his arms, and he gently tugged at the blanket wrapped around her. A tiny, honey-brown curl peeked out, and she suddenly opened her eyes, and he saw that they were a brilliant blue.
He knew those eyes.
Memories flooded through him, and tears pricked at his eyes. He knew this little girl. He knew exactly who she was, and he knew exactly who she would be, his daughter. His brilliant, beautiful daughter.
"We need to name her." Rose said. Her husband nodded.
"River." He said softly. "River Song Smith."
***
He smiled as Rose gently laid their sleeping child in her crib. She stepped back, and he wrapped his arm around her, hugging her close.
"We're parents." He whispered.
"We're parents." Rose whispered back.
***
"I can't believe this!" The Doctor said, running his hand through his hair as he stared at the small fragments on the table in front of him.
Rose smirked. "I told you she was as brilliant as her dad!"
"Brilliant?!" The Doctor said, spinning around to face her. "The child's an evil genius! She took apart my sonic screwdriver! And she's two!"
Rose laughed.
***
"Can't catch me, Daddy!" River giggled as she ducked behind a tree in the park.
"Oh, I bet I can!" The Doctor said, diving for his daughter. River squealed and ran around him, running as fast as her little legs would carry her. The Doctor spun around and chased after her, scooping her up in his arms and tickling her as she laughed and begged him to stop.
"Daddy!" She said. "Lemme go!"
"Not until you give me my sonic screwdriver back!" The Doctor said. "I need that, you know."
River laughed again. "Nuh uh!" She said defiantly.
"Doctor!"
The Doctor stopped tickling River and sat her back down, turning to the sound of his name being called. Rose ran across the park towards them, worry etched across her face.
"Doctor, you and River need to come home. Now." Rose said, stopping in front of them.
"Why?" The Doctor asked. "What's wrong?"
"Mum called." Rose said. "Torchwood's reported an alien attack."
***
"Doctor, what are they?" Rose whispered.
The Doctor looked away from the television screen, fear evident in his eyes.
"I don't know."
***
"Run!"
***
"I made my choice a long time ago and I'm never gonna leave you."
***
"Her name was Rose."
***
"Why do they survive while I lose everything?"
***
"You know my name."
***
"Does it need saying?"
***
Old memories and new mingled, and the Doctor's headache intensified. The new memories of his human life weaved their way through his brain, nestling themselves in just the right places, alongside the memories of the year that correlated with the four years of the parallel world. The Doctor wished desperately that the memories would just find their place and settle already.
He groaned as he drifted back towards consciousness, and when he blinked open his eyes, he found himself in a comfortably dim room. He was lying on a cot, with Rose Tyler hovering above him. His head was lying lightly in her lap, and as his vision came back into clear focus he saw that she was leaned back against the wall, sitting upright on the cot. Her head was leaned back, her eyes closed, fast asleep. Tucked into a mushroom of blankets and pillows nearby was River, also sleeping, and even from where he was, the Doctor could see her eyelids twitching, which had to mean the child was dreaming. He hoped it was something good, after all the hard nights of restless sleep she had had in the past two months…
The Doctor smiled at the memory that was now his, forever, and slowly sat up so as to not disturb the sleeping Rose. Standing to his feet, he realized he was still a little disorientated, and sat back down on the cot. A dull pain still throbbed in his head, and the Doctor pressed two fingers to each temple to try and ease the pain, if only just a little. After a couple minutes, he stood back up, slower this time, and stretched. The clock on the wall told him it was around eleven o'clock in the evening, which meant he had definitely been out a lot longer than he had previously anticipated.
He looked back at Rose and smiled softly. She was exhausted, he could tell. She had puffy bags under her eyes, and her make up was smeared, obviously from not only the day's rough events, but the Doctor could also see dry tearstains running down her face, and he wondered, vaguely, why she had been crying.
Carefully, he reached out and helped her to lay down flat on the cot, laying her head on the small pillow. He found a blanket on the floor near the door and draped it over her. He lightly kissed her forehead and smiled at her sleeping form.
Then he saw that, like their daughter before, was clenching something tightly in her fist. The Doctor reached out and took it from her and saw that it was the fob watch with the crude Gallifreyan on the front. He ran his thumb over the engraved writing.
A broken clock is a comfort. It read. It stops tomorrow from stealing all your time.
The Doctor smirked lightly at the statement. He opened the fob watch and found that the inside held no more of the golden glow it had before, when he had accepted the memories of his clone; the hands were frozen, and there was no longer a faint ticking from inside.
The watch was broken.
Sighing, he pocketed the watch and tiptoed to the door, opening it. He slipped out and clicked the door shut silently before turning and walking back down the hall.
He was just about to turn the corner when a loud, American accented voice called out to him.
"Doctor!"
The Doctor turned, grinning.
"Jack!" He said.
Captain Jack Harkness strode up to the Doctor, and the two men hugged. Jack grinned at the Doctor.
"Nice to see you awake." He said. "We were getting a little worried there."
The Doctor rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, sorry." He said. "Didn't think I'd be out for, ooh…six hours?"
Jack slapped him on the back. "What exactly did you do?"
"I opened a fob watch my clone sent with Rose and River." The Doctor explained. "Inside were all the memories of my life as a human on the parallel world with Rose."
"How did you manage to pull that off?" Jack said. "I mean, Martha once told me how you hid your Time Lord identity in a fob watch once…"
A memory flashed in front of him, and the Doctor winced as it flared the pain in his head again.
He was at Torchwood, the lights in the laboratory flickering. The sounds of destruction could be heard in the background from outside.
In front of him stood a machine not entirely unlike the Chameleon Arch. The silver fob watch was hooked securely into a grooved metal clamp.
He swallowed and placed the helmet on his head, snapping the straps together securely under his chin. He took a deep breath and flipped a small switch on the side of the machine.
He was surprised to find that while it still hurt, it was nothing compared to the intensity of the Chameleon Arch. He did not feel as though his entire body were being ripped apart, limb from limb, while on fire, but instead felt like he did when he regenerated: like something was changing.
The memories swirled in the form of golden light into the fob watch next to him. When it was over, the gold light faded from the air, and the watch began to tick in a constant, strong rhythm.
He removed the helmet and placed it on the peg on the side of the machine. He flipped the machine off again, and walked, a little woozily, to the watch. He picked it up out of the grooved space and snapped it closed solemnly.
He turned and walked out of the room, ready to head back to his family.
"I used a Memory Manipulator." The Doctor said, the words slipping from the tip of his tongue. "We used it at Torchwood in the parallel world to erase the memories of some of our clients, if they wished. Never forcibly." He remembered Donna and shuddered.
Jack noted his shudder and patted his shoulder.
"Donna Noble is fine, Doctor." He said. "We have someone check up on her about once a month. She's got another job, and she and her mother are getting along now. She's fine."
"She doesn't remember me, then?"
Jack shook his head. "Not at all."
The Doctor smiled sadly. "Good." He said. "I hated to do that to her, Jack. I hated myself for it. But I had to. She would have died otherwise." He swallowed hard. "Francine Jones was right. I am dangerous. I waltz into peoples' lives and destroy them. I destroyed your life, and Martha's, and Donna's, and Rose's. And lives are things very few people get back."
Jack shook his head. "You didn't destroy my life, Doctor." He said. "You helped make it. And you know damn well everyone that you've ever traveled with would say the same thing. You help them find themselves, Doctor. Look at Rose. When you first picked her up, she was just a nineteen year old shopgirl in London who felt like she would never be able to do anything with her life. But you found her, and you showed her a world she never could have imagined, showed her who she could be, and that's why she loves you so much." He looked at him intensely. "And she got her life back. She got you back, and you her. Martha is about to marry Tom in a few months, and Donna is happy. Me, well, I can't die, but I have the best team I could ever ask for, and I'm happy. So stop beating yourself up over things you cannot change."
The Doctor let Jack's words sink it. It was true. Everything Jack had said was true. He smiled.
"Thanks, Jack." He said.
"You're welcome, Doctor." Jack said back. "Now c'mon; I think we could both use some coffee."
***
Back in London, Donna Noble suddenly awoke from yet another one of her strange dreams about a mysterious man called the Doctor, and a pretty blonde girl called Rose, and their equally mysterious blue box.
She had been having these dreams for a while now, almost a year. Ever since everyone had started talking about planets in the sky…
Donna sighed and lay back down.
She knew that couple, but she just didn't know where. A fuzzy, annoying feeling played at the back of her mind every time she thought of them, and who in the world they could be.
Maybe they only existed in her dreams. Maybe they were just figments of her imagination. Whatever the reason and whoever this Doctor and Rose were, Donna Noble knew them.
And they knew her.
They called her brilliant.
They took her on amazing journeys through time and space in their blue box, called the TARDIS.
And yet, she could not, no matter how hard she tried, remember who they were in reality.
Donna closed her eyes, and tried to go back to sleep. She had never spoken of her dreams to her mother or grandfather, believing that they would find her mad, and tell her to stop dreaming about silly things like time traveling police boxes and running from aliens. Her grandfather might not have called them silly, per se, but would rather have told her she had always had a vivid imagination, and go about his business while her mother would brood and fuss about how she should grow up and stop imagining such outrageous ideas.
But something, something deep inside her – in her heart? – told her that the Doctor and Rose were not of her imagination, but a big piece of her life, of her past.
But…who were they, and why did she keep having dreams about them?
And…why did she always get the feeling that something was coming, something bad, and that she would have to help this couple that only seemed to live in the farthest reaches of her memory?
If anyone caught the song references in there, you get a cookie!!
EDIT: Sorry about the delete then reupload. I forgot to change the mistake on Martha's mother's name. Hehe, silly Robin. :)