Second Chances
so sorry I've not been around for a while, was on holiday and (trying) to study for exams.
here's the chapter - telling Jackie. and yes, before anyone says, i'm totally making up Rose's birthday,
including the year. I do know she was born in 1986, but that doesn't fit well in the story.
Rose's eyes met the bright, harsh light and she squinted. Is this what hell was like? She imagined it dark, not light. Or maybe God really did exist and took pity on her and sent her to heaven instead. She made a mental note to thank him. Or her. She'd much rather be here than the Void/Hell, constantly dodging five million Daleks and five million Cybermen all the time. That would be boring and very, very exhausting, she thought.
She flickered her eyes open at the light and found that she wasn't in hell. Or heaven, for that matter. She was in the TARDIS Infirmary. She gasped, and winced at a sharp pain slashed through her side.
The pain in her side brought it all back; she was zooming towards the wall, heading towards hell, the Doctor was screaming her name, the wind too strong for her to battle against ... and then she had hit something with a tremendous amount of force. That was explain the sore side and the dimly throbbing head, then. She remembered a long, stretch of white - a wall. That must have been what she had hit. Then something else went through her mind - if she hit that wall as hard as she though she had, was the baby okay?
Rose sprang upright, and rested a hand on her womb. She couldn't feel anything - was that right? Had she felt anything beforehand? Her head hurt when she tried to think back. She swung her legs over the side of the bed to go and find the Doctor, before she realised he hadn't left the room.
He was on the floor with what was looking like a very nasty cut on his head.
Rose took a moment to take in the silence, looking at the bed and then the Doctor, her slightly concussed brain taking longer than usual to sort out how the nasty cut on his head came to be there.
"Ouch," Rose muttered, jumping so she landed slightly to the right of him. She slid her arms underneath his armpits and tried to pull him up onto the bed. Tried was exactly the word - for such a skinny guy, he sure was heavy.
"Come on," she muttered again, managing to get in top half on the bed, and ran around to left his legs, which was slighly easier. Finally, after much groaning, panting and cursing, the Doctor was lying on the bed Rose had previously occupied; not even stirring as Rose dragged him around, pulling his arms left, right and centre. Rose had a thought - wasn't she not supposed to be doing any heavy-lifting whilst pregnant? That had gone zooming out the window, then. She looked around for some antiseptic and plasters for the Doctor's deep-looking cut when she noticed all the scanners on the floor. So the Doctor knew she was pregnant - that explains the fainting. Although she had hoped to tell him herself.
She tidied up the cut and stuck the Winnie-the-Pooh plaster on his forehead, giggling quietly in thanks at the TARDIS's choice of plaster. Now all there was for him to do was wake up. She considered waking him up herself, before deciding he was the one who'd gotten her pregnant, hormones, sleepless nights and cravings weren't going to cut it. Neither was the Winnie-the-Pooh plaster. Smirking at her plan, she grabbed a empty water bottle from the counter and filled it with freezing cold water, skipping back to the Infirmary where she wasted no time in squirting the water all over the Doctor's face.
He yelped loudly, looking disorentiated for a few moments. He then realised what had happened, and shot a dark look in Rose's direction. "You didn't have to go and do that, a simple shake would have woken me up!" he grumbled, running his hands over his face, before examining his soaking wet hair and shirt. "Honestly, throwing water all over me ... " he muttered, shaking his head to at least try and get rid of the droplets of water. They landed on Rose instead, who squealed as the water hit her. "Now you know how it feels," the Doctor said.
"You didn't have to go and do that, though," Rose pointed out, brushing the droplets away with her hand.
"How are you, anyway?" the Doctor asked, enveloping her in a hug. "You hit that wall pretty hard from what I can tell."
Rose rested her head on his chest and sighed. "I think I'll survive. My side might be bruised, though," she added, rubbing her side.
The Doctor rubbed it as she took her hand away. "Are you sure you don't want me to look it over?" he asked, leaning his cheek on top of hers.
"Nah, it's okay," she whispered. Neither of them was going to bring the baby up, and Rose decided she was going to be 'Bolshy Rose' (as her teenage friends had called her - as she was the one who'd always took the initative) and bring it up herself. "So ... judging by the scanners, I guess you found out my little ... em ... discovery," she said, keeping her eyes closed as she laid her head on his chest, so her voice was slightly muffled.
"Ah. Yeah, kinda," he said, silently deciding that sticking to one-word syllables would be a excellent - no, fantastic - plan for the time being.
"Are you angry? Upset?" Rose asked quietly, loosening her hold on him slightly. Inside, she was terrified he would run away. Run away as fast as he could, holding the hand of someone else and he saved them from shop dummies. All the while she'd be left bringing up their child, telling him or her stories about the times their parents would run for the lives. She'd decided as soon as she'd known that she was pregnant that she was keeping the baby. Getting rid of it was never an option. But she put up the emotional barrier she always put up in these situations - she was a Tyler and she could do this with or without him. Even though she'd be brokenhearted, devestated, and completely torn apart. Her mother had did it - albeit in totally different circumstances - and so could she.
The Doctor pulled back from her sharply, thinking she might be joking. Rose's eyes stayed closed, she didn't trust herself not to cry. She missed the Doctor's horrified look as he looked down at her face, white and slightly tear-stained from the morning's earlier banging-into-a-wall activites, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. He realised she wasn't joking in any shape, form or manner. He then reminded himself that this is what Rose was used to, people desterting her in her time of need. It was what she was brought up around, single parents and living off state benefits, council estates. He was slightly hurt that she thought that of him, but he kept expecting her to announce she was missing her mother too much and wanted to go home, so and eye for an eye as they say. He wanted her to banish that thought immediately - he would never leave her, could never leave her. She simply meant far too much to him, and that part of him that used to tell him off for getting so close to Rose had died when Rose had on Felspoon.
"No," he said firmly. Rose opened her eyes. "I'm not going to leave you, Rose. I wouldn't dream of it. In fact, I don't think I could leave you," he said, as Rose beamed, squeezing him tightly. He returned it, but didn't squeeze her quite as hard.
He rocked Rose gently from side to side. "We're going to have a baby, Rosie!" he sang, and she laughed.
"We're going to have a baby!" she sang back, before pulling back suddenly. "Oh. We'll have to tell Mum, won't we?" Her eyebrows formed to make a singular eyebrow in worry about what Jackie would say.
The Doctor pointed to his cut. Rose sighed in understanding. "You ... " she asked, gesturing with her hands that the Doctor was to complete the sentence.
"Fainted and hit my head off the bed, I think."
"You think?"
"I dunno. Could have been the Martians coming back for another round with The Doctor," he said, miming boxing little people, "but honestly, realistically, after discovering that your mother may castrate with a pair of very blunt eyebrow tweezers after she finds out about this, I may have reacted as any honourable man would do. I tried to block out the pain, and in the process of doing so I may have lost conciousness," he finished proudly.
"So you didn't faint, you 'lost conciousness'?" Rose asked, amused, marking the inverted commas with her fingers in the air.
The Doctor rubbed his ear. "I thought it sounded more manly," he said, as Rose roared with laughter.
"Whatever, you actual loser," she said, lightly shoving him with her hip. "What are we going to do about Mickey?"
"Mickey?" the Doctor asked, taking a moment. "Ah, Mickity-Mick-Mickey. I shall go retrieve him from ... wherever he is. Oh, Mickey the Idiot!" he said, finshing on a call into the ship. It took him ten minutes before he came back, no Mickey in tow.
"Our darling friend Mickey had decided that right now would be a delightful time to take a nap. So on his behalf, I have requested to myself that I let him sleep and we'll deal with him later."
"What's with the posh voice?" Rose asked, amused.
"I dunno, just felt like it," he said, shrugging. "We'll tell Mickey our news later. If he starts playing up, I can just punch him."
Rose snorted. "Ha! Sorry, Timey, but Mickey grew up on the Powell Estate. Notorious for being the roughest estate in South London. He's learnt to adapt, he could kick your arse. Sorry, but it's true."
"Oi!" he retorted, and Rose raised her eyebrows at him. "I don't like that nickname," he said, and Rose laughed loudly, as he didn't say anything about Mickey beating him in a fight.
By mutual agreement that was never said out loud, the Doctor set the coordinates for the Powell Estate, his and Rose's worried expressions identical as the TARDIS column beam rose and fell rhythemtically. Best get it over and done with.
The TARDIS made the ride to the Powell Estate as smooth as possible, sensing that two of her occupants were certainly not up for being thrown about today.
All too soon, the TARDIS materalised on the courtyard of the Estate, and the Doctor gluped, stepping out the door and wincing as a bitter winter wind washed over his face.
"Ready?" He said, extending his hand and Rose, who was currently exiting the TARDIS, grasped it tightly. Her hand was clammy, and slightly shaking. "Don't worry," he said, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles soothingly, "it's alright, she won't kill us. Well, she won't kill you, at least."
Rose smiled, but it looked more like a grimace. "Haha. I'm just trying to imagine what she'll say when I tell her I'm pregnant at twenty."
"It's better than the usual age around here ... what is it, fifteen, sixteen?" the Doctor said, before Rose's amused glare cut him off before his teenage-pregnancy ramble started. "And besides, you are going to be twenty years old forever, as well. So no point wondering whether it's going to be 2008 twenty, or 40,953 twenty. And you're actually nearly twenty-one, considering it's late November and your birthday's in Feburary."
Rose seemed to cheer up slightly, smiling as the Doctor shut the TARDIS door behind them. "I suppose. I'd rather she was around to see her grandchildren. And I'm sure she will apprecaite the gesture as well."
"So all this," the Doctor said, turning around and gesturing to Rose's womb, "was for Jackie's sake, then?"
"Oh, yeah. Didn't I tell you that?" Rose said, playing along.
The Doctor laughed loudly. "Nah, I think you forgot," he said, and done something he'd never done before; he slung an arm over Rose's shoulder, pulling her in close to his left side. Rose put her right arm around his waist - he really was very skinny, depsite eating three times what she did - and grasped his left hand, which was over her shoulder, with her free left one.
"Haven't you got any washing for your mother?" the Doctor asked, as they made their way to the flat, turning his head slightly to press a kiss to the blonde hair idling to the side of him.
"Yeah, but I'm going to wait and see if she's up for doing any washing after we tell her. Last time we came I said we'll see her at Christmas. We may have to run for our lives."
"Ah, nothing too different from usual, then?"
Rose giggled, and the Doctor pulled her up the stairs to the flat, their worries floating away ... for all of thirty seconds, at least.
Jackie had just got off the phone to Bev when she heard it.
The materialising whoosh sound, like brakes that needed a good oiling. She dropped the phone, it landing thankfully on the sofa, and was all ready to sprint to the door when she stopped at the window.
The Doctor was pale when he stepped out, but that was nothing compared to Rose's ashen pallor. She looked worse than when she'd come back after she 'died' on that alien planet. Jackie wondered what they were going to tell her now, as Rose's face had that 'I've got something to tell you that I don't really want to' face on, the type of face Jackie had been used to seeing before the Doctor had come. The face that had been on her daughter's face when she'd annouced that she was moving in with that terrible Jimmy Stone, and the face that she'd seen when Rose had come back on Jackie's doorstep, sans Jimmy Stone but avec £800 worth of debt.
What was Rose dropping on her now?
She could Rose saying something, and the Doctor soothing her, then he looked around and Rose seemed to look a little more lively. He then gestured to Rose's stomach - was she ill? - but he obviously said a joke as Rose laughed. They then slotted into a position that they'd obviously been in a million times before, or at least looked as though they had. Rose's coloured seemed to be improving, although she was still very pale and worried-looking. The Doctor kissed her hair, and to Jackie they didn't look like aliens, they just looked like any other couple in London. They were approaching the door now, and through the open window (she'd opened it earlier, after she'd been cooking fish for dinner) she could hear snippets of their conversation, although that wasn't hard at their decibel of talking. Bleedin' houses of Parliment could probably hear them.
" ... after we tell her. We may have to run for our lives." Jackie heard Rose say, before the Doctor chuckled at this statement.
"Ah, no different to usual ... " he had said, but she never caught the end as the went through the door that would take them to her flat. Jackie wondered what they had to tell her. Were they getting married? Moving to Ipswich? Maybe Glasgow - the Doctor did a really good Glaswegian accent. That would be good, Jackie could move near them so she could see her daughter every day.
Or maybe it was worse, maybe they decided to settle down in the year 5632, when Jackie was long gone and iPods were in museums classified as ancient artifacts. She didn't like that idea and Rose would be damned if she thought that moving away to Glasgow in 5632 and open up an iPod museum was a good idea. She would chain the pair of them to the railings. They were quite sturdy ones, Debbie along the corrider had proved that; she'd handcuffed her ex to them last January, clad in only boxers after he cheated on her. Poor guy had caught pneumonia after that.
She could hear them laughing now, just outside the door. She put the phone back in the cradle, put the kettle on. Turned the TV to the Coronation Street Omnibus, and checked what was on after that. Dancing on Ice, repeat of last night. Excellent - she had been at Bev's last night and hadn't heard or seen anything over her loud chattering. A knock at the door stopped her thoughts, and she braced herself for whatever her daughter was going to say.
"Come on, she'll get over it eventually. She has seven months to get over it," the Doctor said, currently in the process of pulling a relcutant Rose up the stairs.
"You don't know my mother. She will castrate you with very blunt eyebrow tweezers. That's not nice and I don't wanna be there to witness it."
"I'm sure I can use my charisma and excellent charm to get away with it," the Doctor said, tugging her hand. "Now, come on, it's not going to be that bad."
Rose scowled as she reached the top step. "It is so gonna be that bad," she said, and sighed. The Doctor joined her on the step and interlocked their fingers, giving her comfort.
"Right, here we go," the Doctor said, and rapped on the door. "Asta la vista, manhood," he added, and Rose couldn't help but roar with laughter, the Doctor soon joining in, and that's how Jackie found them; the Doctor leaning against the wall in fits of laughter, wiping away tears. Rose was lying on the top step, clearly unable to breathe for laughing, tears running down her cheeks.
"Okay, both of you, inside before someone sends you both to the looney bin," Jackie commanded, and the two hoisted themselves up with difficulty and dragged themselves into the flat. Apart from being slightly pale Rose seemed to be glowing, but Jackie thought nothing of it.
"Cuppa tea?" She asked, as the pair threw themselves down on the sofa, nodding in unison. Rose wiped tears away from her eyes, leaning into the Doctor as she kicked her shoes off and tucked her legs underneath her. The Doctor plonked his feet on the coffee table, draping an arm over Rose's shoulder. They both looked like they had no cares in the world, but inside both of them were hyperventilating.
"Don't worry," the Doctor said, squeezing Rose's shoulder lightly as Coronation Street cut to the advert breaks, an advertisement for Pampers Nappies coming on the screen. "I think the TV's trying to tell us something ... " he said, as Rose whitened.
"Let's get it over and done with," Rose whispered, as Jackie came back through with the tea.
"All right, spill it," she said, placing the cups down on the table, away from the Doctor's feet, and crossed her arms over her chest.
"What?" Rose said, acting innocent.
"I saw you comin' from the TARDIS. You didn't exactly look brilliant, you had that face on, the same as when you said you were movin' away with Jimmy, and when you came back," Jackie said, and Rose bit her lip, "And the way you two were talkin' the entire estate would'a heard you. Somethin' about 'after we tell 'er, we'll have to run for our lives'?" Jackie questioned, as Rose and the Doctor both looked sheepish.
"We have something to tell you Jackie," the Doctor started, but Jackie held up a hand to interrupt.
"You are NOT, under any circumstances, movin' away to Glasgow in 5632. Or openin' up at iPod muesum in Glasgow 5632."
Rose and the Doctor both looked flabbergasted. "Where on Earth did you get that idea from?" Rose asked incredulously.
"Oh, so you're only movin' away to Ipswich, then," Jackie said, placing a hand to her heart. "I gotta admit, I was worried for a moment. At least if you're gonna go to Ipswich I can go with you."
"We're not moving anywhere!" the Doctor said, still slightly in shock.
"You're not?" Jackie said, realising she'd put two and two together and gotten six hundred.
"No," Rose said, and bit her thumb in nervousness.
"Oh, the thumb. Now I'm really worried," Jackie said, a frown appearing in her forehead. "Please, Rose, just tell me what's wrong. It can't be that bad, can it?"
Rose shook her head, and took a deep breath. Jackie tensed. "Mum, I'm pregnant."
Jackie smiled, then it sunk it, and her face turned thunderous. "What?!"
"I'm having a baby!" Rose said, smiling, trying to make her mother see the good side of this.
"Really?" Jackie said, and Rose nodded. Something else sank into Jackie's mind. "It can't be Mickey's, 'coz he's away in another world, so that means it's his ... " she trailed off, and the Doctor eyes bugged out of his head before he made a run for it.
"You, you great, big, stupid, horny alien, got my daughter pregnant?!" Jackie said, as she chased him around the flat.
The Doctor jumped over the back of the sofa as Jackie ran to the kitchen and grabbed a frying pan. "Yes, but not exactly on purpose, this was a bit of a surprise ... "
"It's an accident?!" Jackie screeched. Obviously this little tidbit of information made the situation worse. "I'm goin' to kill you, Doctor. I will take a lot of pleasure from it." Her voice was dark and the Doctor was not altogether sure she was joking.
Jackie threw the frying pan at him, and the Doctor ducked as it hit the mirror, cracking it. The Doctor glanced at it then Jackie, glad that she wasn't superstitous. Seven years bad luck was all she needed. But Jackie had grabbed more ammunition to hurl at him, so it was time to find a new hiding place. Looking around the room, hiding places were sparse.
"Are you just goin' to leave Rose and the baby here, dump them with me? Run off into time and space, leave all the burdens behind?" Jackie said, a slight taunting edge to her voice. Rose sighed and leaned back against the recliner, now completely comforted. She had gotten away from the sofa as soon as she could. Rose knew that voice very well. Jackie would never hurt the Doctor seriously - she knew her daughter may just disown her for that - so she was going to get exactly everything from him using scare tactics. Hence the taunting voice - she had often used it with ex-boyfriends, so Rose knew what was going on. It would be interesting to see how the Doctor would fare in her mother's test.
"No!" the Doctor said venemously, shaking his head. "I would never leave Rose! And they aren't burdens, neither of them!" He said, angry, his eyes turning dark with rage.
By this time, Jackie had a heavy book poised in her hand, and was standing beside the coffee table. The Doctor was behind the sofa, his hands braced across the top of it, ready to duck if he needed to.
"But I remember you sayin', and correct me if I'm wrong, Doctor, that you 'don't do domestic'? Did you or did you not ever say that?" Jackie said, weighing the book in her hands.
"Yes I did say that. But that was a long, long time ago! I was different then, stupider, too wrapped up in my own misery to see the joy in anything at all! Now, I have the chance to have a family again!"
"Again?!" Jackie said. "You've got kids already?" She looked furious.
"I had kids." the Doctor said darkly. He looked at the floor, and Rose stood up. Time to intervene.
"Mum, don't - " she started, but was cut off by her mother, who seemed slightly softer somehow.
"What do you mean, you had kids?" Jackie said, the book falling from her grasp and tumbling to the floor, hitting the edge of the coffee table as it went down.
"There was a war. On my home planet," the Doctor said, keeping to short sentences. He'd never indulged this with anyone except Rose before, and he didn't like it. But since he was having a baby with Rose, Jackie deserved to know at least the basics.
"Like the World Wars here?" Jackie interrupted.
The Doctor laughed humourlessly. It wasn't a pleasant sound, as usually it held so much warmth, it sounded so cold and dark. "Much, much, much worse," he said. "Daleks verses Time Lords. It was called the Time War. I was a soldier. I had to fight. I lost my parents early on, and then my wife, and then my kids. Jackie, I'm nine hundred years old. You didn't expect that I had a life before Rose?"
"I thought you were just havin' me on when you said that," Jackie admitted, as Rose looked on warily, unsure as to where this was going.
"Well, I wasn't. I didn't think I would get a chance to do it all again. To do it all again and get it right," he said, his knuckles turning white he was gripping the sofa so hard. "So, when it boils down to the bare facts, Jackie, I don't really give a damn what you make it of it all. It's my second chance, and I'm grabbing it and running with it as fast as I can, for as long as I can."
"What do you mean?" Jackie said, her eyes still narrowed.
"I'm still partially convinced I'm dreaming. That I'll wake up one day and it'll be another day fighting the Daleks. Or, that it is real, and that Rose will suddenly come to her senses and leave me."
Rose moved to stand behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist and leaning against his back. "Never gonna happen," she whispered, so her mother couldn't hear.
Jackie eyes looked softer. "Sorry," she muttered, for his loss. She was upset by what he'd just said, but didn't want to show it.
"It's okay. It was a long time ago, now, and I've got so much in my life to be thankful for," he said, leaning into Rose slightly.
"I can't say I'm estatic about this," Jackie said, crossing her arms over her chest. "You're only twenty, Rose."
"But Mum, I'm going to be twenty forever, remember?" Rose said, and Jackie nodded. "I'd rather I had my child in 2008 than 64,388. But either or, I'm still going to be twenty. At least you can enjoy him or her before you get too old," Rose said, and Jackie seemed to agree.
"I suppose so," Jackie said, sitting down on the recliner. "It'll take me a while to get used to it, though."
Rose beamed, while the Doctor braced one hand against the top of the sofa and jumped over it, landing beside Rose.
"Stop jumpin' on the furniture. Jesus, you're more like a child than anyone else. I'mma look forward to watchin' you bein' a dad, that's gotta be hilarous."
The Doctor glared at Jackie, but the warmth was seeping back into his eyes. Rose was glad; a gloomy, sulky Doctor wasn't the best kind.
"You better start thinkin' of names, you two. What about Andrea? Or Suzanne? Suzanna ... or even ... " Jackie rambled, and the Doctor tuned her out. At least the whole telling people part was over, he thought, relieved. Now, the Doctor was just content to sit here, with Rose cuddled into his side, with Jackie spewing on about names.
"What are we say when we tell Mickey?" Rose whispered, Jackie still giving her view on whether Gretchen was a good name for a girl.
The Doctor groaned, throwing his head back against the sofa. No doubt Mickey-the-Idiot wasn't going to take the news well.
"I'll bet you a tenner he throws a hissy fit," the Doctor said to Rose quietly.
"No, because you know he will," Rose said, smiling. Telling her Mum was entertaining, but telling Mickey was going to be down right hilarious.