A/N: This is already completely written so expect BAAM BAAM updates! :D

Chapter 9 – The Last Rolo

"You did what?" Ulysses practically screamed at his son, who was sat there hunched over at the kitchen table staring at the floor. "You stupid, stupid boy!"

"Father..." the Doctor muttered with no strength behind it whatsoever, looking to Rose and Penelope like he was about to burst into tears.

"How could you even think of doing something like that?" Ulysses grabbed his hair and wrenched the Doctor's head up to meet his gaze, screaming in his face. "Let alone actually do it!"

"F-Father," the Doctor stammered, trying not to look at him. "At... At the end of the Time War the Time Lords..."

Ulysses cut straight over him, ignoring his protest. "You are a murderer, Theta! A cold-blooded murderer of billions of innocent people!"

"Excuse me..." Rose began quietly, but she was completely ignored.

"This is beyond sickening!" Ulysses continued to scream. "I would hand you over to the Celestial Intervention Agency right now if you hadn't killed them all, you little Staazula!"

Penelope decided she'd had enough. "Ulysses, please," she began, moving to her son. "All has been said and done, we cannot change it. We must accept it and move on."

"Oh, stop trying to defend him, Penelope!" Ulysses spat angrily. "This is utterly inexcusable!"

"I'm sure Theta had his reasons," Penelope replied, as calm as ever.

"There is no reason in the universe to justify killing most of his entire race!" Ulysses yelled, slamming his fist onto the table and making the plates jump in the air. "I told you he was a good-for-nothing little runt! Irving wasn't much better but I'd happily welcome him back to our family to replace this waste of DNA!"

"Maybe he'll walk through the door in a minute," the Doctor muttered.

"Is this merely a joke to you?" Ulysses screamed, infuriated. "All it ever was to you, was a joke. Wasn't it, Theta?"

"Ulysses!" Penelope interjected, stronger than last time. "Leave him alone!"

"You are always taking his side, Penelope!" Ulysses yelled, pointing an accusing finger. "By Rassilon's beard, grow a spine, woman, and face the reality that your darling son is a mass murderer!"

Penelope's eyebrows suddenly lowered, her expression hardening. "Ulysses, this is your son. I am your wife. This here is Rose, not that you have bothered to ask, who is your son's bonded partner. You have two grandchildren. Like it or not, this is your family, and if you wish to stay here with us you will be quiet," she grated dangerously.

That finally seemed to shut him up as he fell into silence, and resorted to just staring at her with narrowed eyes.

Penelope ignored him. "Theta," she began gently to the Doctor. "Are you okay?"

"Yes," the Doctor croaked unconvincingly.

"Rose," Penelope began, gesturing the woman over. "Take Theta and look after him."

Rose nodded, taking the Doctor's hand and leading him out the door he didn't say a word until they got to their bedroom, and Rose made sure the door was locked.

"He's right," the Doctor suddenly croaked, sitting on the bed staring at the wall.

"What?" Rose asked, dropping to sit next to him.

"I'm a mass murderer. A cold-blooded mass murderer."

"Seriously, you're listenin' to that guy?" Rose wondered with a raised eyebrow.

"He's my father," the Doctor said, as if it explained everything.

"I think he's a complete bastard with his head stuck so far up his own arse he could tell the dentist he'd missed a spot," Rose replied simply, rubbing his arm.

He looked at her, and smiled weakly at that.

"I mean bloody hell, if my Dad turned out to be like that, our trip back to his death day would've been a lot shorter," Rose continued, beginning to laugh.

He laughed at that and she smiled in return, reaching up to kiss his cheek.

"You are not a mass murderer, you saved trillions and trillions of life-forms," she told him gently. "You did what you had to do, sacrificin' all you had to save the entire Universe from the Daleks, yeah? He doesn't know anythin' about what you went through and he's really, really wrong about you."

He nodded slightly. He still didn't seem all that convinced by it, but Rose knew she would never, ever fully persuade him to be completely guiltless about it.

"Now come on, I still need to feed Alex," she said, slipping her hand into his and pulling him to stand up, leading him to the adjoining nursery where she quickly stopped dead, and sighed.

"He's gone again," she muttered.

A few hours later after Alex had been located in the living room trying to destroy the equipment, both Leah and Alex had been settled into bed - this time the Doctor had double-locked Alex's nursery door so at least they wouldn't be starting a Cardiff-wide search for him when they went to bed.

They sat in the kitchen having some tea and nibbling on some biscuits, talking about everything that didn't involve the Doctor's parents. The Doctor got up to make more tea, when suddenly Ulysses entered, marching as he always did towards the Doctor. He raised a hand to the cupboard just by the Doctor's head... And Rose watched as the Doctor flinched.

Ulysses looked at him, raising his eyebrows.

"S-sorry, Father," the Doctor muttered, checking himself before picking up the mugs and moving to the table dropping to the seat opposite Rose and not moving a muscle. After a few moments Ulysses got what he had come for then left, and the Doctor visibly relaxed.

"What was that about?" Rose asked seriously.

"Hmm?" he asked in a tone that meant he didn't want a conversation about it.

Rose ignored this. "You went all tense and you flinched," she told him patiently.

He looked at her and sighed. "I'm... I'm just a bit nervous around him."

"Why?"

"It's like..." he paused, thinking. "It's like Mrs Gail."

Rose raised an eyebrow. "My Year 7 secondary school English teacher?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, one, how the hell do you know about her and two, what's she got to do with it?"

"I may have access to one of two of your childhood diaries," the Doctor said casually.

"What?"

"Well after you and Jackie went to the parallel world you were both listed as dead... So the council took back the flat. But while they were clearing out I went back, pretended I was a relative and got all of your things that I could."

Rose stared at him. "... You went back to get our stuff when you thought you'd never see us again?"

The Doctor went a little red. "Umm... Yes."

"Oh, that's so cute!" Rose squeaked, grinning and leaning forward to kiss him. "Where is it all? Why didn't you tell me before?"

"In one of the storage rooms," the Doctor answered. "I've never really thought about it since I saw you again."

"Can I see it?"

He nodded, getting up. But Rose quickly stopped him.

"Don't think that distracted me, answer the second question first."

He sighed, dropping back down again and nursing his mug of tea. "Well... Why did you hate Mrs Gail?"

Rose snorted with laughter. "God, I don't think I ever hated her, I was too busy bein' terrified. She was so scary, if anyone in the class was late she'd scream at them in front of everyone then send us to stand outside even if it was torrential rain. If we handed in our homework late or even if we had one spellin' error or anythin' like that she'd rip it up and make us do it again over lunchtime. We were all so scared of her. She was really old, had this walking stick we all swore blind she would hit kids with who got into detention with her. There was this story that one time this kid in Year 10 got an after-school detention with her and he never came back to school ever again. We just did whatever she said because we were all too scared not to." She looked at him, and then as she realised, her face dropped. "... Oh."

"Yeah," the Doctor muttered.

Rose looked at him sadly, taking his hand. She understood his feelings completely now. "... Can I see our stuff?"

He nodded, obviously happy that she hadn't dwelled on it. He got up, pulling her towards the door.

"Oh my god!" Rose squeaked upon sight of the storage room, flooded with boxes. "Is this all ours?"

He nodded. "I missed a few things but I got most of it."

He watched with a grin as she ran over to the nearest box marked Bedroom 2-1 and instantly ripped it open like a kid attacking a Christmas present, before diving inside and pulling out a Barbie doll in a long pink dress, looking slightly tattered.

"Oh wow!" she squeaked, staring at it. "Granddad gave me this when I was four." She reached in an pulled out an Action Man doll. "And Mum got me this when I was five because I didn't like Barbie."

The Doctor grinned and took another box marked Bedroom 2-2, pulling out a handful of old schoolbooks which he began to flick through.

"Oh my god, my Dizzy Dinosaur board game!" was Rose's next cry, holding up the board game to the Doctor for him to see. "I think I lost the pieces, though... Wait a second, what are you doin'?"

He grinned up at her, settling on a page in one of her schoolbooks and began to read it out. "At the weekend Mummy took me to the zoo and I saw tigers and lions and zebras and elephants and rhino-ser-riz and monkeys and it was funny because they were silly and put their fingers up their noses..."

"Doctor!" she cried, going completely red as she scrambled over to him, trying to grab it out of his hands but he quickly dodged her and laughed.

"Wait, wait! It gets better," the Doctor insisted, beginning to read again. "Then we went home and Mummy got pizza and we watched Noel's House Party and it was funny because the man got gooed and I laughed and spat out my pizza and also Mr Blobby is funny because he looks funny..."

"Doctor!" she moaned, still utterly red and trying to grab the book but he held her back, still holding it away from her.

"Then Mummy let me stay up to watch Cas-sol-ty and it was in-tres-ding and then I went to bed."

"You finished?" Rose wondered seriously, diving for the book again.

"No, wait!" the Doctor said, holding up his hand. "Teacher's comments... Sounds like you had a really interesting weekend, Rose! Tick and smiley face. Oh, I love the smiley face."

She finally snatched it out of his hands. "Thank you!" she said sarcastically, throwing it over her shoulder, shoving the books back into the box and moving it away from him before going back to her own box, drawing out the next item. A black hoody.

She froze.

The Doctor looked at her. "Rose?"

"This was Jimmy's..." she muttered.

The Doctor's eyes widened instantly, scrambling over to her on all fours and taking the hoody out of her hand, throwing it behind them. "It's all right," he said quickly, taking her into a tight embrace.

"He's out of prison, now..." she realised in a croak.

"It's all right," the Doctor repeated, kissing her. "He's got no idea where you are, and if he did then he's gotta get past me first."

"Thank you," she said quietly into his chest.

"You're welcome," he replied with a winning smile.

After a moment she drew back from him, looking him up and down. "Oh, he could so beat you up," she giggled. "He's big and muscly and you're..."

"Very, very clever?" the Doctor finished for himself, still smiling. "I'll just tell him I'm an alien and I can suck out his brain through a straw," he continued casually. "Not that there'll be much of a brain to suck out, but you know."

She giggled again and kissed him. "You know, you always go on about how I mended you from the Time War, but I think you mended me too."

"I'm glad."

"Do you think we'll ever get bored of each other?"

The Doctor snorted with laughter. "What d'you mean exactly?"

"I always said when we were travellin' I was gonna stay with you forever. What if we end up like one of those old married couples that hate each other and are only stayin' together for the kids?"

He laughed again. "I don't really see that happening. When I first... When I first told you about how I felt, I didn't at all picture marriage and kids and changing nappies and going to friend's weddings and stuff... I was happy with it just being us, talking like we are now, all day, every day, saving a couple of planets whenever we felt like it. I just wanted to be able to express my feelings to you on a level that really wasn't anything to do with lust... I was just busy caring about you so much. I never really wanted sex, you know I don't really have those feelings very often because that's just the way I am... That's just something I do for you because I know it makes you happy. I know how you want me to act and I do that with pleasure. Now we've got Leah and Alex and they've been this beautiful bonus that's only made me happier, really. Yes, I've been so humanised during this process that my Ninth self would probably be vomiting into a bucket right now if he could see me but... I'm happy with myself. I'm happy with you. I'm happy with our kids. I'm just happy. The happiest I've been for a really long time."

She looked at him, smiling. "You're really sweet sometimes, you know?"

"Sometimes?" the Doctor scoffed. "I could be really sweet all the time if I wanted. Sweet and romantic and all-round perfect."

She giggled.

His eyes widened. "What?"

"Yeah, you're sweet sometimes but you're not very romantic."

"I'm always romantic!" he insisted with a mock frown.

"Name one romantic thing you've done for me in the past week."

The Doctor frowned, thinking. "I... umm... What about Thursday night? You know, after dinner?"

"Doctor, letting me have your last Rolo is not romance," she said as seriously as she could, trying not to giggle at his put-on expression.

"Is too!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is not!" Rose said loudly and clamped her hand over his mouth so he couldn't reply. He rolled his eyes and pulled it from his mouth, grinning at her before leaning forward to kiss her.

The kiss lingered for a moment, before he drew back and took her hand, looking down at her fingers and running a thumb over each and every one.

He finally looked up at her. "... Let's get married."

She blinked, staring at him... He wasn't joking. "What?"

"Let's get married," he repeated seriously.

"But I thought marriage was stupid and human and a well-rehearsed play with stupid outfits that cost too much and the whole thing means nothin'?"

"I've changed my mind," the Doctor said quickly. "Let's get married. Let's do it now."

"Now?" Rose repeated disbelievingly. "We can't get everyone here and everythin' ready now..."

"No," the Doctor said. "Just us. You and me. No one else."

She frowned. "You do know how a weddin' works, right?"

"Sure," the Doctor replied, grinning. "I'm just electing to do it originally. Just you and me, getting married at the TARDIS altar right now, no guests, no stupid outfits, no boring songs, just us as we are right now."

Rose looked at him again for a long moment, considering. Then her face broadened into a smile as she nodded. "... Okay."

He grinned and got up, pulling her to her feet to make out the door.

"Wait!" she suddenly said.

"What?"

"Have we got rings?"

The Doctor frowned for a moment, then let go of her hand to rummage through his pockets. He drew out a packet of Haribo and quickly found two gummy rings, putting one in her hand. "That okay?" he asked.

She just shrugged and grinned. "Fine by me. But let's at least have one custom."

"Which one?"

"Something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue."

The Doctor pursed his lips. "Well, the TARDIS is timey wimey so she's both old and new, I borrowed her and she's blue."

She laughed. "You're so resourceful."

"Yes, I am... Frequently," the Doctor replied with a charming smile, taking her hand again to run out of the door to get married.