The Family Man, Chapter 8
Author's Note: I'd like to blame school for my belayed updating!!! Nothing zaps your creativity faster! Thanks so much to all those who are following the story and leaving such wonderful feedback. :D
The Doctor woke up with Rose tucked under his arm and sleeping softly on his shoulder. Butterscotch was resting on his stomach, on top of a Monopoly board and a J.K. Rowling book. He leaned forward to glance over the rest of the bed, littered with crossword puzzles, a box of building blocks and a deck of scattered cards.
Rose shifted beside him, pushing her bangs back with one hand to survey the damage.
“Looks like last night got a little crazy,” the Doctor laughed. "I'm too exhausted to remember..."
“I thought they’d never go to sleep,” Rose yawned. “We had to try every trick in the book.”
The Doctor pulled Harry Potter from under the pile and glanced over the cover.
“Literally,” he sighed.
Rose laughed and snuggled in closer, tracing light patterns over the Doctor’s soft t-shirt.
“Mm. Don’t forget Donna and Lee are coming for dinner tonight,” she mumbled, “with Josh and Ella.”
The Doctor nodded. He was already becoming distracted with thoughts of the energy storm. By nightfall, he’d be able to calculate its effects on the outer planets and potentially, draw up a plan for how to reverse the time paradox.
“Are you listening?” Rose interrupted. “I was asking if you wanted steak? I know Lee will be excited to fire up the grill.”
“That’s perfect,” the Doctor answered dully.
“Great,” Rose replied as she drew back the covers and made her way to the bedroom door. “I’ll get the pool clean if you trim the yard.”
She disappeared, leaving the Doctor behind to lay a hand over the place she’d abandoned, still warm despite her absence. He sighed and shook his head, not understanding his incomprehensible apprehension. In the next several hours he would finally figure out how to get everything back to normal…so why was he suddenly feeling completely awful?
--
At six o’clock sharp, the Doctor opened his front door to find a tall, brawny man with green eyes on his doorstep.
“H-Hello Doctor!” the man said cheerfully as he clapped him on the shoulder. “Where’s the w-wife?”
The Doctor turned in a half-circle and was immediately crowded by Rose.
“Lee!” she said happily. “Good to see you!”
The two children from earlier that week appeared on either side of their father, smiling up excitedly at the Doctor.
“Hello Josh. Ella,” the Doctor said, looking from one to another.
Josh grinned, revealing a missing pair of front teeth, while Ella pulled on a blonde ponytail and blinked up hopefully.
“Can we swim in the pool Mr. Tyler?” she asked.
“Course!” the Doctor replied, pointing the way through the house. “Grab Wil and Sammy on your way.”
As soon as they disappeared, Lee walked inside immediately followed by Donna.
“We need to get a pool,” she said tiredly. “Nothing better for wearing them down quickly. How are you, space boy?”
Donna grabbed the Doctor and squeezed him briefly before turning to Rose.
“And you? Could you stop looking so effortlessly gorgeous every time I see you? You’re making me look bad.”
Rose blushed and fingered a strap on her white sundress. The Doctor glanced over the top of her tan shoulders, inadvertently letting his eyes linger down the front where the dress dipped down between her breasts.
“Right!” the Doctor said loudly and abruptly. “Let’s get those steaks going, shall we Lee?”
He pulled his friend toward the backyard, where the first cannonball splash could already be heard.
“Fish out of water!” Sammy screamed, clinging to a blow-up crocodile and bedecked in a pair of goggles, nose plug and arm waders.
"Not fair!" Josh protested. "I was getting supplies!"
Lee waltzed around his son, who had his arms full of foam noodles and was heading toward the pool.
“I need a drink!” Donna’s voice rang out from behind them. “Rose, mix me up one of your famous Cupa Libre’s. Extra cupa, por favor. What a day at the office…”
Their chatter was soon drowned out by the sound of meat sizzling on the grill, the clinking of beer bottles and the men’s riotous laughter. In under ten minutes, the Doctor had found a fast friend and an even better chef. He watched in admiration as Lee doused the steaks in a homemade marinade topped with fragrant spices.
“And t-that’s how you grill,” Lee said proudly. “Now if only you’ll teach me the secrets of poker I’ll have it all!”
The Doctor smiled and held up his ale while pointing at his friend.
“That’s right! Your tournament is this coming weekend!” the Doctor commented.
Lee groaned. “Don’t remind me! I’ve been trying to practice, but I’m rubbish. You know, honestly, I only started it to compete with Donna’s gardening club. They have so much fun…”
Lee frowned wistfully while the Doctor stifled a laugh.
“Don’t worry,” he promised. “I can show you all the basics after dinner. But more important than knowing the hands is learning how to bluff.”
“You should see me try to convince Donna I’ve done the laundry. I’ve no mind for l-lying,” Lee admitted. “My stuttering gets worse and my face gets red, it’s useless.”
“Well,” the Doctor sighed, “then we’ll reframe the concept altogether. Don’t think of it as lying so much as protecting yourself. Only you know the cards in your hand, and you have to hide them from everyone around you, or else you’ll give the game away.”
The Doctor froze after he finished speaking, feeling a sudden wave of déjà-vu. Is that what he was doing with Rose? Hiding vital information to protect himself? He shook his head, trying to remember what it was he needed protection from, exactly.
“Alright,” Lee responded distractedly. “I’ll rely on you to teach me the tricks of the trade. You seem to have a mind for it.”
“Yes, I suppose I have,” the Doctor said gravely.
They were interrupted by their wives, who sat down abruptly on the patio furniture.
“Ooh, can you fix a drink!” Donna cheered. “It’s all goin’ straight to my head!”
Rose bit her lower lip and shot a flirty look at the Doctor.
“Me too,” she replied. “I’m getting…hungry.”
The Doctor’s eyes widened and he nearly dropped his beer. Rose was looking at him like he was something to eat. He swallowed soundly and turned around to help Lee move the steaks to large platters.
“Here we are!” Lee announced. “Kids! Dinner’s ready!”
The children assembled around the table and the smell of chlorine mixed in with the scent of barbequed beef and nearby citronella candles. The group went silent for a few moments, punctuated occasionally by groans of appreciation or sighs of contentment as the early evening sun drifted lower on the horizon and the first fireflies began to appear in the yard.
“You can cook a steak,” the Doctor congratulated heartily as he leaned back in his heavy wooden deck chair.
Rose licked her fingers and nodded approvingly. “I haven’t had anything that good since the Rellabrax Belt journey. The inhabitants there actually threw social BBQ’s not unlike our own. Of course, they insisted on hunting their own game beforehand, a custom I’m glad we don’t emulate.”
She laughed and the Doctor joined her as he imagined Rose on top of a Rellabrax bison with a spear.
The children seemed to sense the conversation was about to turn to grownup (and therefore boring) topics, and so made their way back to the pool's ledge for splashing contests. After watching them for a few minutes, Donna turned her attention back to the Tylers.
“You two have shared a lot of amazing adventures,” Donna remarked with a smile upon her lips. “I love that you still travel, even after the kids. So many couples retire to their living rooms, as if there isn’t a whole world still out there to explore. Or in your case, I suppose, an entire galaxy.”
Rose smiled and stole the Doctor’s hand off his lap, squeezing it affectionately.
“I knew when I married the Doctor what I was signing up for. I mean sure, I imagined us getting a house and a yard, maybe a few kids and a dog…but never, NEVER did I expect us to stop doing what we loved. And we never did.”
“And you Doctor,” Donna prompted. “Did you think it was possible to balance both lifestyles? The reckless Time Lord with the faithful husband and father?”
“I didn’t,” the Doctor answered automatically. “But I was wrong.”
He stared out at the children splashing in the pool, and was overtaken by a joyful smile that seemed to emanate from his very being. Something inside of him was shifting, as if their wasn't room in his body for two full hearts anymore.
“He took some convincing,” Rose added quietly, barely discernible over the chorus of crickets singing in the grass. “He was worried about a lot of things…but above all protecting his family. But there’s not much point to life, however brief it is, if we don’t risk anything. I chose a life with the Doctor, and I’ve never regretted it.”
Lee tried to hide an errant tear by pulling his wife in closer. Donna looked back at him and rested her forehead gently on his neck.
“Sucker for a love story, you are,” she said wryly.
For his part, the Doctor seemed to have forgotten everything around him except the feeling of Rose’s hand in his own. He rubbed over her fingers, feeling the warmth between their palms and the soft scratching of her nails on the back of his hand. The band of her wedding ring brushed against his knuckles, and as he remembered the inscription, it struck him as a reminder of what a partner was there for in the first place. He stared into her hazel eyes and frowned slightly.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, tilting her head in concern as she checked his expression.
"Rose," he whispered roughly. "We need to talk.
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