i'm so sorry that it's taken me this long to update! seirously, somebody needs to PM/email me at least one week after i post the lastest chapter so that i remember to update! it's cause i've already got this story posted elsewhere that i forget to put the next chapter up here. well, what are you doing reading this!
let's get this road on the show!
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"Come on, I know you can say it. Please, just this once for me."
Alex stared at his father with his big, black eyes.
"It so simple to say. It's only two syllables. Just say 'Dada'."
Alex titled his head to the side and watched the Doctor with amusement.
"Please," the Doctor begged. Alex laughed at him.
The Doctor sighed and sat up from where he lay on the floor. He was in the playroom which the TARDIS had created when Alex began to crawl after turning three months old. The Doctor had been trying to get Alex to say certain words, and 'Dada' had been one which he was intent on Alex speaking. He knew Alex understood what he wanted. He knew Alex could say it.
What frustrated him was that Alex didn't.
"Are you still trying to get him to speak?" Rose asked as she walked in to the room.
"Rose!" Alex cried when he saw her.
"You see!" the Doctor complained. Alex held out his arms and Rose obligingly lifted him up. "He can say your name perfectly fine! What's stopping him from saying mine?"
"Doctor, you're putting too much pressure on him," Rose said, cooing over the child in her arms. "When he wants to say it, he will."
The Doctor watched Rose cuddle him. "He's doing it on purpose, you know…"
Rose rolled her eyes. "Don't start this again, Doctor," she said, as she sat on the floor next to the Doctor, with Alex on her lap. "He's not doing it to annoy you-"
She was interrupted by the ringing of a telephone which the TARDIS amplified in to the playroom.
"I'll get it," the Doctor said, and he ran out of the room and headed towards the control room to answer the phone.
Rose shook her head at his retreating back. She was struck by a sudden thought, and she looked suspiciously at Alex.
"You aren't just doing this to annoy him, are you?" she asked him. Alex looked blankly at Rose for a while before smiling innocently; a smile she knew all too well that he had inherited from his father. "Ugh…he's gonna flip when he finds out."
Alex giggled.
"Rose!" came the Doctor's voice from the corridors. "Get down here!"
Sighing, Rose got off the floor. "C'mon, little man, let's go see what's wrong."
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"Yes. No, I know! Just- what? But-!"
Rose walked in to the control room to find the Doctor struggling with whoever it was on the other end of the phone.
"Just keep quiet a minute!" he yelled in to the receiver. "How the hell did you get this number?"
"Doctor?" Rose said cautiously as she walked towards him.
"Here's Rose. Bye!" The Doctor thrust the receiver in to Rose's hand and took Alex off her. "Come on, Alex, let's move away before fire starts coming out of the phone…"
Rose looked at the phone for a moment before carefully bringing it to her ear. "…hello?"
"Rose!" came the excited cry of her mother's voice. "It's been so long since I last heard from you! What's been going on? I was worried sick that you'd gotten yourself killed or kidnapped or something. It can't be too much for a mother to ask for one call a month from her little girl, can it? I bet you haven't even thought of me once since you last left and-"
"Mum!" Rose shouted over her mother's ongoing question-rant. "Why did you call? What's wrong?"
Jackie calmed down enough to answer Rose's question. "It's been ages since you last visited."
"I thought I told you that this number was only to be used in emergencies," Rose said, while the Doctor gave her a look of death from the other side of the console.
"But it is an emergency!" Jackie said, dramatically. "I haven't heard from you in months!"
"I'm sorry, mum, but the Doctor and I have been, er…busy for the past few weeks," Rose said, wondering if it would even been wise to mention Alex.
"Well, you can tell that man that I want to see the both of you back here for Halloween. It's in one week. Okay?" Jackie demanded.
Rose looked over to the Doctor. He seemed to be having some sort of internal battle inside. After a few seconds, he gave in and nodded his head. "Yeah, mum, we'll be there," Rose told Jackie.
"Good!" Jackie said happily. "And I want you to be on time, not a year later."
"Don't worry, we'll be there next week. Bye, mum."
"Bye, sweetheart. Take care," Jackie said before she hung up.
Rose put the receiver back down on the console. She looked up at the Doctor and met his eyes. Simultaneously, they looked down at Alex, who blinked his black eyes in confusion.
The Doctor was the first to speak.
"This isn't going to be good."
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The TARDIS landed with a gentle bump outside the Powell estate on 30th October 2007 at 10:33am. Outside, it was a bright autumn day with fallen leaves littering the ground. Inside the TARDIS, the tension was so strong it could be cut with a blunt axe.
The Doctor and Rose stood staring at the TARDIS doors for a while. The Doctor was holding Alex (who was wrapped up warm, at Rose's request) in his arms and was looking very queasy.
Rose cleared her throat. "Well…I suppose we should go up…"
"…yeah," the Doctor said, his voice strained. "Wait a moment," he continued, looking down at Alex, "won't people get suspicious if they see a green baby?"
"It's Halloween, Doctor," Rose said, walking towards the doors. The Doctor followed her. "People won't notice anything unusual at this time of year."
"Why's that?" the Doctor asked.
Rose turned around and stared at him. "Doctor…you do know what Halloween is, don't you?"
"Well…"
"Seriously?" Rose asked. The Doctor shook his head. "Well, um, Halloween is basically a time when people get in to fancy dress, kids go trick-or-treating…it's meant to be a scary time of year, but it's become over-commercialized."
"Ah," said the Doctor.
"You still don't understand, do you?"
"Nope," the Doctor said, cheerfully. "But I'll Wikipedia it when we get back!" He opened the TARDIS doors and stepped out in to the crisp air. "But Alex won't get noticed too much, will he?"
"No," said Rose, and she too stepped outside. "There'll be people walking down the street dressed as the Grim Reaper. Don't worry, he'll fit in."
"Poor fellow," the Doctor said as he passed Alex to Rose so that he could lock the door.
"Who?"
"The Grim Reaper," the Doctor told her. "He's just misunderstood. It's not like he enjoys taking people away from their life; but he has to do it or he can't feed the family. He's great company, mind you. Really down-to-earth."
Rose stared disbelievingly at the Doctor as he took Alex and walked towards the estate stairs.
"Come on, Rose!" he shouted back at her. "Best to get this part over and done with!"
Fifteen minutes and several flights of stairs later, the Doctor and Rose arrived in front of Jackie's flat.
"Maybe I should wait outside," the Doctor said, nervously, as Rose put her old key into the door.
"Don't be stupid, you're coming in," she said, and she opened the door and pulled the Doctor in with her.
"Mum!" Rose called out, once she got in. "Mum? You home?"
"Rose!" Jackie came out of the kitchen and ran into her daughter's arms. "Rose, it's so good to see you!"
"You too, mum," she said, squeezing her mother back. She let go and looked carefully at Jackie. "Mum? Are you okay? You look a little thinner?"
"I'm fine, I'm fine," Jackie said, waving it off. "But what about you? You've gotten paler, Rose. Are you sick?"
Rose shook her head. "No, we just haven't been out of the TARDIS for a while."
"Not enough fresh air," Jackie said, shaking her head disappointedly. "He's not been looking after you." She looked behind her daughter. "Where is he?"
Rose looked behind her. The Doctor was gone.
"I dunno," Rose said, confused. "He was here when I walked in…"
"Yoohoo," came a voice from the living room. Jackie and Rose walked in to see the Doctor sitting on one of the sofas. "I came in here while you two were hugging each other to death," he said, grinning.
"I never even felt him go past us," Jackie said, looking the Doctor over. "You're unhealthily thin, y'know, and-" she stopped when she saw the baby shaped bundle in his arms. "What's that?"
"Ah," the Doctor said looking down. He couldn't think of anything to say, so he held Alex up for Jackie to see. "Say 'hello', Alex."
"Hi," Alex said.
Jackie took one look at the green child and fainted.
Alex looked down at the passed out woman. "…oops."
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voila, as they say in france! hope you enjoyed that chapter, seeing as it took me so long to get it up here --' sorry, again.
read and review? pretty please?