Author's Notes: I do not own Doctor Who as usual, which is really starting to be frustrating. Thank you so much for your reads and reviews and favorites and follows. I'm glad you're liking it. A disclaimer, I am going to try my best with my London geography and United Kingdom facts, but I recognize that I may get something wrong, so I apologies in advance if I do. So, please enjoy this one and let me know what you think of it. Happy reading!
"I found the Doctor," Rose said to Mickey.
Mickey nearly choked on his chip. Rose looked so bright, so hopeful, no wonder she had offered to buy and no wonder she had wanted to come to the shop instead of staying in front of Jackie back at the flat.
Four words. Four words that Mickey Smith had not wanted to hear. The three months since the Doctor had left Rose had not gone well. Jackie and Mickey had briefly held out hope that Rose would be able to move on. It had only served to make her more of a pain and frankly, he was about through with the whole thing. He had thought about officially breaking up with her earlier- if they were even together anymore- but it seemed like kicking Rose when she was already down. Now, though, if the Doctor was back...
"Why aren't you gone then?," asked Mickey.
Roae didn't pick up on Mickey's bitterness. "He's playing some game. He acted like he didn't recognize me."
"Maybe he was busy saving the planet."
"No, he was just at the restaurant with this woman and these kids. They were acting like they were a family or something."
Mickey raised an eyebrow. "The Doctor was at your restaurant with his family?"
"Not his family, can't be. Just some family. Amyway, I got the name of the reservation off one of my mates at work. There was a phone number, you know how to find the address, don't you?"
Mickey refrained from rolling his eyes, but just barely. All she had to do was go on any search engine online, but he supposed you missed out on things like that when you travelled in a big blue box. Rose handed him a slip of paper with the number.
"I need to give it to one of my mates," lied Mickey.
"You can't do it on your own?," she asked disappointedly.
"No. Should just take a few days."
Mickey had intended to just lose the bit of paper or say his friend couldn't find anything, but Rose's description had sounded strange. He hadn't figured the Doctor to be the sort of person to just pretend he didn't know someone. He figured he would just tell Rose off again. He might like to see that given the miserable three months he had just suffered, but he knew it would be better if he figured out what was happening on his own.
So, he drove to the address he had found on the reverse directory. It was a decent drive, the edge of Ealing bordering Chiswick. He parked just down the street, waiting to see if there was anyone he recognized.
Still, the Doctor. In a house? That seemed weird.
"Jack!," Donna exclaimed as she answered the door.
Jack Harkness entered with a big grin as he and Donna hugged. "How have you been, gorgeous?"
"Oh, fine. John's not in, you know, he's at work."
"That's alright. I came by to visit you."
Donna raised an eyebrow at him. "Don't get any ideas."
They walked in the sitting room where Zoe was playing with her Barbies on the tea table.
"Zoe, I thought you were going to put these things away," said Donna.
"I'm playing with them."
"Well, you weren't ten minutes ago. Say hello to Cousin Jack."
"Hi, Jack."
"Hello, beautiful," he said giving her a peck on the cheek.
Donna looked around. "Where's Jamie?"
"I don't know," Zoe said plaintively.
Donna looked at Jack. "That boy has been getting into positively everything. Would you keep an eye on her while I find him? Usually I find one and I've lost the other," she said with a laugh.
"No problem," said Jack, sitting on the sofa.
Jamie Smith was the youngest member of the family, officially five minutes younger than Zoe and a year younger than the dog. He was also the most troublesome, ahead of the dog and she had killed a bird in the garden. He, like most youngest children, thought there was definitely something going on in his house when he was sent to naptime or bed while everyone else got to stay up. There was so much he wasn't aloud to do. He wasn't aloud to touch anything in the kitchen since that one time he tried to make his own breakfast. He couldn't go outdoors on his own since the time he tried to get the bus to the zoo because his mum wouldn't take him that day. He had gotten to ride in a police car, though and thought that was just as good as an outing to the zoo.
He also wasn't meant to be where he was now: the eaves storage on the top floor of the house where his sister's bedroom was. He always found great things his parents seemed to have forgotten about: old trophies, souvenirs from holidays, Christmas decorations. His mum was always cross when he brought it all out.
Today he had found something really exciting: his dad's old things in a box. There was a journal full of drawings of strange creatures and people. There were words to go with it, but he could only read some of them. His dad said he would finish learning to read when he started big kids' school in the autumn and went for the whole day. There was also some sort of old-fashioned watch...
"James Wilfred Smith, what do you think you're doing?"
Jamie looked up to see his mum had arrived. She had her hands on her hips and was staring him down. It was never good when she did that.
"How many times do I have to tell you not to rummage through what's not yours?"
"But nobody's using it," he protested.
"Come on. Out of there."
Jamie got up and shut the doors.
"I had better not find you up here again, young man," said Donna. "Come downstairs, your cousin Jack's come to visit."
"Jamie! Zoe!," said Donna as she came in with two cups of tea. "Stop bothering Jack!"
Jack Harkness smiled as Jamie and Zoe climbed all over him on the sofa. "I don't mind. I missed these guys."
"Jamie, Zoe, off."
The twins got off the sofa resignedly. Donna handed Jack his cup. She looked at the twins. "Why don't you two go draw some pictures for Cousin Jack? Would you like that, Jack?"
"I would," said Jack.
"Would you put them up?," asked Zoe.
"I sure would, gorgeous," said Jack.
"Where?," asked Jamie.
"Their dad hangs all their drawings in his office," Donna said with a smile.
"Then so will I," said Jack.
The twins grinned and rushed off.
"Color on the paper!," Donna called after them.
"Sorry I missed the birthday dinner. It's been crazy at work," said Jack.
Donna smiled. "You didn't miss much. It was just us and the kids and that didn't even last long."
Jack raised an eyebrow.
Donna shook her head. "It was stupid, there was this waitress. She acted like she knew John, like, really knew him."
"What do you mean?," asked Jack.
Donna sighed. "She said he showed her the stars and she called him 'Doctor.' What is that? Do people call each other 'Doctor' now? Am I that out of the loop?"
"That's a specific kink," said Jack.
"Stop it," said Donna with a smile. "Anyway, I lost it and stormed out. I ended up taking the kids to McDonald's. John never even got to eat."
"Bet you made it up to him, though," said Jack.
"You're incorrigible," said Donna.
Mickey was just about to give up when a woman knocked on the window of his car.
He rolled down the window just as she pointed a gun at him.
"Out of the car, nice and easy."
She and some other goons hustled him into the back of a van, not allowing him to ask drove for a while and then they rushed him inside some nondescript building and into some kind of holding cell where he waited for hours.
"You have got to be kidding me!," said Jack. "Mickey Mouse!"
"Oh, God, Captain Cheesecake, how could this get any worse?"
Jack sat down at the table. "This could get a lot worse. What were you doing at that house?"
"What are you doing here? Rose said you were in the year two hundred thousand or something."
"I found my way back. I work for the government now."
"What's the government got to do with any of this?"
"You did a reverse directory lookup on a phone number, Mickey. That particular number is under government surveillance meaning an alarm goes off every time someone looks it up. What were you doing there?"
"Nothing," said Mickey.
Jack sighed. "Did Rose give you the number?"
Mickey didn't answer. Jack took that as confirmation.
"Okay, now we have a problem," said Jack.
Donna was curled up in a corner of the church's children's room, her wedding dress in a heap around her.
How the hell had she gotten here? The time had just flown by. It was just last summer she had first agreed to go out with John. The first date had lasted most of the evening. They had followed up with a series of dates, John usually came up with some plan. He was always taking her to some museum or other, first with plans of helping her with the Great Barrier Reef trip. They had gone to the zoo, to cafes and bookshops. Then John had finally started sharing some of his interests. She had been to the matches for his cricket club, which would have bored her to tears if he hadn't been so cute in the outfit. Then he took her running, which had been a huge mistake. She hadn't realized he wasn't just some casual jogger, he was training for the marathon and he was really quite quick. She had lost track of him about three minutes after they had started down the path and collapsed on the grass. John came back around four minutes later, asking where she'd gone and suggested that they probably should have stretched first.
Then he had taken up scuba diving because he wanted to go to Australia with her. He said he couldn't bear the idea of her being gone three weeks. She called him daft but she was secretly flummoxed. She had never had a relationship get this far, not a real one anyway. He was perfect. He didn't just meet Donna's basic qualifications for a potential husband- emplyed, no criminal history, straight- she actually liked him. She really liked him. She thought he would be all boring and intellectual, but he was interesting, probably, no definitely, the most interesting man she had ever known. Her father and grandfather adored John, in spite of his not knowing much about football. They could all chat for hours. John had especially bonded with Wilfred over astronomy, they had all even gone for an excursion to the planetarium where they had nearly been tossed out when John began correcting the person giving the talk who, as it turned out, had been wrong.
Her mother was pessimistic as usual. She made no secret of her opinion that John would be on to someone else, even cautioning her husband and father against getting too attached to him. Sylvia constantly reminded Donna that the only thing city executives needed secretaries for was practice, a refrain Donna had been hearing since her first temp job. There was no way gorgeous, clever John Smith could be serious about Donna.
Not that his side was helping matters. The first full family meeting had included John's sister and a family friend, Alistair Gordon Lethbridge Stewart. He was friendly enough in that stiff, upper class way, but she didn't know what Sarah Jane was after. She asked a thousand questions, practically everything but the color of Donna's knickers. Sylvia had decided that Sarah Jane thought they were too posh for the Nobles. She thought her mother was completely off base until she saw a cash machine receipt John had left lying around. He had lots of money and he lived in a one bedroom flat that wasn't even that great and he didn't even have a car. It seemed like he could at least afford to eat something besides bananas. It did however cement the idea in Donna's head that Sarah Jane didn't think she was good enough for her brother.
Which was why she was crying in the corner of a church play room.
There was a knock at the door. "Donna?," asked John.
"Go away!," she spat.
There was a pause. "Sorry, do you really want me to go away or do you want me to come in anyway?"
"I mean go away!"
There was another long pause. "It's just Veena said I should come back here and now I'm back here and you're saying not to come in."
Donna rolled her eyes. "Do what you want!"
There was a long pause. John carefully opened the door and walked in.
"Hello," he said.
Donna didn't say anything. He looked perfect in his morning suit, he could always wear a waistcoat. He walked over and sat down next to her on the floor. She tried not to look him straight on or she was going to completely lose it.
"You're beautiful," he said after a long silence.
She shook her head. "This whole thing's a mess."
"What do you mean? The church looks lovely, you look lovely, you've planned the wedding breakfast."
"Your sister hates me."
"She doesn't hate you-"
"She had someone do a background check on me, John. She thinks I'm some sort of gold digger."
"Did she say that?"
"Why else would she have had it done?"
"I don't know, Donna. Sarah Jane's a journalist, she always asks questions and I think she doesn't know how to keep her work at work. You ought to hear the way she interrogates me."
"She thought I was awful before and now with the baby..."
"What about the baby?"
Donna shrugged. "She'll think I tried to trap you."
"Donna, you're being ridiculous-"
"Don't tell me I'm being ridiculous!"
"Do you want to get married?"
"What? Are you backing out?"
John took a breath and ran his hand through his hair. Donna could be exhausting when she was like this. "On the holiday, to Australia, I was going to ask you to marry me anyway."
"What?," asked Donna. "That's sort of-"
"It was hard to not ask you to marry me the day I met you, believe me, it had been ages. If you don't want to get married, that's fine, though. If you want to run out of here and get married at the registrar's office, that's fine. If you want to go to Las Vegas, that's fine. I'll do whatever you want. I just want to be with you."
Donna paused. "I didn't realize Las Vegas was an option."
"Donna, whatever you want is an option."
Donna held his hand and looked into his eyes. "You have really nice eyes."
John let a grin spread across his face. "Thanks."
She swallowed, readying herself to take the leap. "I want to get married."
"Well, what a coincidence, there's a wedding out there," he happily remarked.
Sarah Jane had been pacing the church garden since she arrived, ever since she had a row with John over what was really one of UNIT's investigators that he had pinned on her. She had been pacing so long that the vicar asked her to change routes because he was concerned she'd tear out the grass. She had changed to a cobbled path and was relieved to see that the Brigadier had finally arrived.
"Alistair! Where have you been?"
"Something came up."
"This whole thing is a disaster. One Donna's friends told her about one of the investigators you sent round to question her and now she thinks I think she's some kind of fortune hunter. I don't! i actually like her, but now I'm going to be the bitch sister-in-law!" She finally noticed the man standing next to Alistair, wearing a great coat and smiling. "Who is he?"
"Captain Jack Harkness," he said kissing her hand.
"Yes, Captain Harkness filled the same position that you did with the Doctor."
Sarah Jane looked at him in amazement. "You travelled with him as well?"
"Yes."
"Well, do you-"
"No, I don't know this new face. I don't know any better than you if he's some poor schmoe that just wandered out of the TARDIS or if he's the Doctor."
Sarah Jane looked at the Brigadier. "I told you about the Jelly Babies."
"Mine liked bananas," said Jack.
"Sarah Jane, we cannot base our conclusions on Jelly Babies," the Brigadier practically spat.
Sarah Jane looked again to Jack. "Well, do you have any idea what happened? Why he is like this?"
Jack looked to the Brigadier, waiting for approval.
"You can tell her."
Jack turned to face Sarah Jane straight on. "The Time Lords are gone."
Sarah Jane's face dropped. "What? Gone? How could they be gone?"
"There was a war with the Daleks. They're all dead, even Gallifrey burned. There's nothing left. The Doctor- if that is him- is the last of the Time Lords. There's no one to tell us what happened to him and no one to help him."
"So, even if we sort him out," Sarah Jane said slowly, "he's got nothing to look forward to except being totally alone."
Just then, John came out. "Alright, everyone, come on, getting married." He looked to Sarah Jane. "You know, in spite of you. What were you thinking sending an investigator?"
Sarah Jane wanted to scream. She had done it all to protect him and she had been trying to protect him in spite of himself for the past year. She couldn't say so, though, so she settled on a sheepish shrug. "Sorry. I already said I was sorry."
John nodded. "Well, you're forgiven. I think I sort of have to, you are my sister. What are you lot standing around for? Wedding! Happening! Right here, right now!"
"John," said the Brigadier, he motioned at Jack, "you remember this fellow, don't you?"
John looked at Jack and gave him a once over. "Yeah, Alistair, I think I'd remember my own cousin. How have you been, Jack?"
Jack was taken aback. "Fine, mostly."
"Great, let's all go, then."
John walked away.
"How does he-" asked Jack.
"We're not sure," said the Brigadier. "Some sort of imprinting. He seems to decide what people are to him. He decided Sarah Jane was his sister and that I was some sort of friend of his parents."
Jack rolled his eyes. "He had to make me a relative."
"What's wrong with that?," asked Sarah Jane.
John poked his head out of the church. "Sorry. Wedding!"
"Coming," said Sarah Jane as they started inside.