Ch 22

At dinner, Pete seemed distracted. Rose would catch him stealing glances at her, but when she met his eye he quickly looked away. As dessert was being served, one of Rose's favourites mint ice cream with chocolate chunks, Pete cleared his throat to get everyone's attention.

"As you know, our household has been graced with the addition of a fine young man recently," he announced as if he were addressing a company board meeting instead his family, "and we've welcomed him with open arms."

John looked at Rose with a puzzled expression on his face and then back at Pete with a frown.

Pete pressed on, "and we've accepted him as one of the family," he took a sip of water, "but the fact remains that since he is a completely new life form, one that until his creation has never existed we owe it to not only our household, but to the whole of Earth to be sure he is safe."

Rose started to protest, her face as red as her mum's lipstick, but John held up his hands silencing her, "I think it's a good idea," he said, "I would feel better knowing that I'm no danger to you or anyone else."

Jackie looked up from her ice cream, with a visibly relieved expression on her face. It was painfully obvious that Pete had warned her he would approach this subject again and she was expecting another knock down fight over it. She smiled at John gratefully, "nice to see there is at least one reasonable person, or part person?" she corrected herself, "around here."

Rose clearly was not ready to let the matter drop, "you take him to Torchwood and start a file on him, you could be putting him in danger!"

Pete shook his head, "I will keep any findings, any test results off the grid," he assured his stepdaughter, "this is for your own good sweetheart," then as almost an after thought he smiled thinly at John, "and for yours."

Suddenly the ice cream in front of her held no appeal and Rose shoved the dish aside, "if you do anything to harm him," she hissed, pushing herself away from the table, and standing up hands clenched into fists, "you'll regret it."

John made to get up and follow her but Pete gestured for him to stay put, "you need to learn to let the ladies cool off for a bit before you go running after 'em," he advised scooping up a big helping of the dessert, "save you a lot of trouble if you do that," he winked at John.

Despite his every instinct to the contrary, John didn't go looking for Rose after dinner was over. Instead he retreated to his room, not bothering to turn on the lights he opened a window and stared out into the rapidly darkening night.

He saw the stars twinkling into view and wondered where the TARDIS was right now. Was she just hanging out in the Vortex or had she taken The Doctor to a new world, a place where no Time Lord had even set foot upon?

He recalled the thrill of exploration, that tingling moment when meeting a new race, wondering if they would be friendly or...

He shook his head, that wasn't his life, he admonished himself. Those were second hand memories, a picture book of someone else's existence, not his. This, he looked around the room, was it. This room, this house, the woman he loved and her family, that was his life.

And, he tried to convince himself, it was better than always being alone.

Making his way over to the huge four poster bed he kicked off his shoes and stretched out on top of the covers.