"But that's impossible!" Jackie sputtered, breaking into Rose's stunned silence. "She wasn't there a minute ago!"
"Rose, please go get my medical bag. It's in the hall," the Doctor said calmly without turning. Rose nodded and quickly ran from the room.
"How did she get here?!" Jackie demanded as the Doctor swiftly crossed the room to kneel down over the little girl. He whipped out his sonic screwdriver and did a quick preliminary scan of her body.
"Nothing broken," he announced. "Seems to be an ordinary child on the outside."
"What d'ya mean on the outside?! And how did she get in here?! Is this another of your damn alien invasions? Draw them in like a magnet, you do!" The Doctor turned and looked at Jackie.
"Jackie, I know we've grown much closer over the years since this me came to live in Pete's World. So please understand that I don't take nearly as much joy in this as I used to, but still, SHUT IT."
Laughing at her mother's expression, Rose flew to the Doctor's side with the requested medical bag. Jackie crossed her arms and flopped down onto the sofa.
"Who is she?" Rose asked. The Doctor pulled out his glasses and dug into the bag.
"Dunno," he replied, reaching his arm much further into the bag than should have been physically possible.
"Is... Is she human?" This question caused the Doctor to pause and stare at the child, grasping to articulate the vague swimming of thoughts and gut reactions.
"At least partially, I think," he finally said. His eyes widened. "AHA!" he crowed triumphantly, pulling out a tiny object that appeared to be a small stick of lip balm.
"Got chapped lips, does she?" Jackie called out, peering over at them from her stubborn perch on the sofa. The Doctor ignored her. He uncapped the item and began waving it gently under the girl's nose.
Without warning, the girl began to cough violently. Rose wrinkled her brow in concern and began scooting around to the other side. The Doctor grabbed Rose's arm, stopping her mid-motion.
"Do not go over there right now," he said calmly. "You too, Jackie," he called over his shoulder. "No one is to go to the other side of this room until I say so, got it?" Rose nodded and gently took the little girl's hand into her own.
The child sat straight up, gasping for air, as though she were drowning. She stared at Rose, her eyes wide, dark and wild.
"You were the same as me once, you know," the child said in a dark, low voice. Almost too low for a young girl. "Were. Are. Will be." She took a shaky breath and wrenched her hand from Rose's grasp.
The child looked wildly around the room, her eyes darting from place to place, moving constantly, slowly looking at everything from one end to the next. She stopped when she saw the Doctor. She reached out and grabbed the sleeve of his jacket tightly.
"Father, please, help me," she pleaded, staring up at the Doctor.
"FATHER?!" Jackie shrieked from the couch. The Doctor ignored her and looked into the girl's eyes. They were wide, frightened, desperate. The child was obviously terrified. But there was something about them...
He leaned a bit closer. The girl stared back, pleading. Her pupils so large that he couldn't even be certain of her eye color. It seemed to keep changing, flickering.
Then he saw the flash of gold blaze across them.
The Doctor wrenched out of the child's grip and moved back. He grabbed Rose's hand and moved her behind him.
"Who are you?" he asked in a low voice.
"Father, please," the girl repeated. "I can't... no one else can help me. I've run so far..."
"So ya already had a kid hidden away somewhere, huh?" Jackie had come to stand behind him. He could feel her anger.
"How old is that girl there anyway?" Jackie continued. "She can't be more than six or seven. An' you've been here longer than that! You little alien bastard! Did you run out on my Rose?!" Jackie was deep into her anger - in that moment when she could just feel the words washing over her, unstoppable.
"Mum, not now," Rose had moved back beside her mother and was trying to lead her away from the situation that had begun to unfold.
"Goin' on about grandchildren like that. I bet you have kids all over the universe! Knockin' up girls here and there and - "
"She's not my child, Jackie," the Doctor said in a very controlled voice. Rose knew that voice. That was the slow boil. He was barely controlling himself at this point.
"An' how do you know that?!" Jackie asked before Rose could stop her.
"Because all of my children are dead!" the Doctor yelled, turning from the little girl to face Jackie. Jackie recoiled without thought, moving several steps back. She became very fearful of the man before her. She had seen glimpses of his anger before, but never like this - never directed at her.
The Doctor swallowed hard and closed his eyes, taking a few deep breaths to regain his composure. He opened his eyes and looked into the fearful gaze of Jackie Tyler. He wanted to kick himself. The brave, passionate, angry, fiercely protective Jackie Tyler, finally completely terrified - and of him. He smiled lamely in apology.
"My children, my grandchildren - all of them are gone," he said at last. "It... it was a long time ago."
Jackie looked at Rose, who silently nodded and put her arms around her mum in a half hug.
"I - I'm sorry," Jackie said lamely.
"They're not," the little girl said quietly. The trio turned to focus on the strange child. Not all of them.
"You really do not want to push that button," the Doctor said in a low voice. The child stood and looked past them, her eyes unfocused.
"She was off-world," the child replied in a calm voice. "The lost child of Gallifrey. Abandoned, but loved. Never spoken of, but never forgotten."
Rose looked at the Doctor, waiting for his response, but none came. He was staring at this little girl, his expression unreadable even to her.
The girl jerked her head and stared at the Doctor.
"I will save her," she muttered quietly. "I am saving her. Have saved will will will save have have," her voice rose with each word, becoming more and more frantic. "am am am am am am saving now now have saved have will will am going to will go to have gone gone have am am save saving saved save save saving" the child was jerking and twitching as she spoke, panic in her eyes, as though she were possessed. In one swift motion, she reached out and roughly grabbed the Doctor's hands with a strength not matching her youth, and dragged him down next to her. She grasped his head in her hands, placing her fingers on his temples.
The Doctor's eyes snapped shut and head flew back for a split second before he audibly yelped and wrenched himself from the girl, leaping to his feet and taking a few steps back. He stared at her, breathing heavily.
"Help me," the child pleaded, sinking to the floor. The Doctor nodded.
"Rose Tyler! he exclaimed, jumping jarringly into his cheerful saving-the-world mode. Please grab the blue bottle and that handy dandy self-sterilizing needle out of my bag if you would!"
"...The blue? But that's - "
"Yup! Quickly now!" he said with a brilliant smile. He leaned over the child and smiled. "Ok, sweetheart, let's get you somewhere comfortable, ok? I need you to concentrate, though."
"I can't, it's coming again," the girl looked around helplessly.
"You can," the Doctor said calmly. "Look at the couch here, ok?" He leaned back and pointed at the couch. "Concentrate on the pattern. Those garish colours."
"Oi!" Jackie piped up, offended.
"I'm gonna move you there, ok?" The girl tensed up. "Relax," the Doctor continued in that same calm, pleasant voice. "I'll be careful. You won't be getting any interference."
He carefully picked up the girl, making sure to not touch any skin and walked over to the couch, passing Rose who was hilariously halfway inside the bag, digging around with only her bum and legs hanging wildly outside the small satchel. The Doctor laid the girl down on the couch and handed her a side pillow.
"Just look at the pattern. The slightly off centre flowers, the way none of it quite goes together."
"Got it!" a muffled voice yelled.
"Bring it here, quickly," the Doctor called over without ever breaking eye contact with the girl. He continued his calm, bizarrely critical description of Jackie's favourite sofa. "Feel the density of the cushions, how it's not quite soft enough to be comfortable, but not hard enough to complain about."
Rose hoisted her top half out of the bag and yanked the top of the blue bottle off with her teeth. She expertly grabbed the syringe and filled it with the pale blue liquid. She passed it into the Doctor's outreached hand like she'd done a thousand times before.
"I'm gonna use this to calm you down so I can see what's going on, ok?" the Doctor held up the syringe to show the little girl. She nodded. "And you want me to look inside to see how to help you, yeah?" The girl nodded again.
"You won't believe me otherwise," she replied.
"Well," the Doctor tilted his head with a grin. "You'd be surprised what I believe."
"No. I've seen it. You didn't believe me." The girl's definitive words sent a chill down the Doctor's spine and his face faltered for a split second. The girl smiled sadly.
"Right then!" he exclaimed cheerfully, brandishing the syringe with a disturbing amount of glee. "I haven't gotten to do this in years!" He swiftly injected the fluid into the girl's arm and watched as her eyes fluttered shut. As soon as she passed out, his manic expression dropped. He watched her for a few seconds, dragging his hand down his mouth and chin.
He turned back to the mother and daughter staring at him. He handed Rose the empty syringe with a grateful smile.
"What d'ya got against my sofa?" Jackie asked.
"What?" the Doctor asked distractedly. "Oh, nothing, I was just trying to keep her from going completely insane and possibly annihilating us all in the process."
"What?!" Rose and Jackie exclaimed. He waved their concerns off with a flick of his hand.
"Jackie, I need something very important from you," the Doctor put his hands on her shoulders.
"You need a nice cuppa?"
"Bless you, Jackie Tyler." Jackie patted his arm and left the room. The Doctor sank into the nearby armchair and sighed, staring over at the sedated girl.
"Doctor?" He could feel Rose's eyes on him, but hadn't processed the events enough yet to meet her gaze. He used to be able to somewhat ignore her questions, to dance around them and distract her enough to not say things he couldn't. But not now, not after everything they'd been through to get to this point, not in this body, not with this single heart that was undeniably hers.
"Yes?" He finally said, before she could get annoyed at the lack of response. He dreaded her questions. Who was that girl? Why did you flinch? Why did you have to sedate her? What do you mean annihilate us all?
But Rose Tyler, defender of the Earth, crosser of universes, former bringer of life and death, knew. If she had learned nothing else from their years together and the struggles to get there, she had learned when certain questions would be too much.
She walked over and sat on his lap, reaching down to entwine her fingers with his. With her free hand, she brushed an especially enthusiastic stray hair away from his eyes. She smiled softly and simply asked "Now what?"