(no subject)
Looking After, AU Doctor/Rose, All Ages
Jackie Tyler had been shouting herself hoarse over that child every single day for what felt like ages. Even in her exasperation, she knew for sure it had only been a week, but honestly, time seemed to stretch on and on when there was nothing to do but look after a wild and clever little girl.
1,881 words
A/N: This is an AU of a not-AU, my ALH 'verse. I have to thank haveloved for her absolutely brilliant piece, The Stars are Brightly Shining. I read that, it's awesome, and then this piece walked into my head, all of it, fully formed. Her piece was just that inspiring - please go read it if you haven't already! There was no time for a beta, just a quick and dirty on my own - so PLEASE tell me if you see anything, THANKS!
Looking After
Jackie Tyler had been shouting herself hoarse over that child every single day for what felt like ages. Even in her exasperation, she knew for sure it had only been a week, but honestly, time seemed to stretch on and on when there was nothing to do but look after a wild and clever little girl.
She supposed she could have expected all this. Her own mum, wise in old tales and wild superstitions, had always said that April babies were wanderers by nature. But Jackie really just wanted her to stay little forever.
She'd grown so fast. It was hard - nearly impossible - to believe that she was almost twelve now. She was small for her age, of course, but she always seemed a bit younger than the rest of the kids, so you didn't notice it so much when she played in groups.
"Oh, where are you?" Jackie demanded, more to herself than with any consideration that she'd actually be heard.
"And I shall travel, I think..."
Jackie heard the voice faintly, at first, the lyric, haughty cadences she'd been affecting lately, her voice somehow managing posh and proper in a way her mother's never would. Jackie smiled and snuck in that direction.
"I shall have a little girl of my own, of course," she said sweetly.
"I want a boy!" came another small voice, as Cockney and Powell Estate as you could get. "I'll name 'im Brutus."
"You can't name a child Brutus, think of the implications!"
"Whassa impre...imper...implee..."
"Implication. Means, like... I dunno." She lapsed into the local dialect, which made Jackie grin as she crept along the wall, out of sight. "It's like definition, I s'pose. Like what it could mean?"
"That's weird." The other, tiny voice decided, almost belligerently. Sulky, he continued with, "What're you gonna name your kid, then?"
The haughty tone was back. "I shall call her Susan, for my mother, you know."
"Your mum's not Susan," the boy was quick to interrupt.
Jackie stepped around the corner then. "That's enough, now," she said. "Honestly, you two, I been calling you for hours. Where have you been?"
"Sorry!" the young boy said, cringing as he looked at the Mickey Mouse watch, bright red against his dark wrist.
The little girl shrugged. "'Hours' is a highly subjective term," she said.
"You been watchin' Star Trek again, have you?" Jackie decided.
The little one looked at her shoes, her hair falling all around her face like a cloud. "Sorta, yeah," she admitted.
"Get home," Jackie ordered the boy. "Your gran's nearly frantic." He nodded, and scampered off without another word.
"You can't keep runnin' away from me like this," Jackie said, urgently. "What if somethin' happened to you? Do you think of that, at all? What if you got hurt, what then?"
The child looked chastised and guilty for a moment, but only for a moment. "Daddy..." she started.
"Your father's not here, is he?" Jackie demanded.
There was an all too familiar sound, and Jackie rolled her eyes as the little girl laughed a gentle tease up at her. "Sorta, yeah," she said. Then, she took off for the play park at the edge of the Estate at a dead run. That child could run for England.
"Get back here!" Jackie shouted. "Verity Tyler, you get back here this instant!"
"Keep up, Gran!" the little girl called back, and she darted up to the opening doors of a bright blue box, her jet hair flying behind her, a dark banner against the blue London sky.
Jackie was more nervous than her grandchild. She couldn't even imagine... what if something had gone wrong. But then, Verity flung herself through the door, and Jackie had to dart over to check, just in case. What if it wasn't, what if, what the...
"Mum!"
There was Rose, shining in the sun, a bright star in the doorway of the alien home she'd made for herself eleven years ago. Jackie was wary but desperate, lonely in ways she'd never have believed without her little girl under foot all the time. (Sometimes, in her very secret heart, Jackie had to admit that Rose's leaving had forced her to grow up herself, and she was almost grateful for that, but only almost.)
And there was Rose's husband, the small, dark-haired, hawk-faced little man, his blue eyes laughing as he played a tickling game with his daughter on his arm, and covertly checking her over for god alone knew what. Jackie liked the alien prat well enough most of the time, but it was times like this that she identified with him completely.
She was checking Rose over automatically, and not even the fact that her daughter was an adult and a mother could stop her. Her eyes even flickered over the Doctor, checking to see what his enthusiasm and sense of justice might've got him into this time. They'd both been little more than babies when they met. No matter what, they needed looking after.
"Mum, I'm fine," Rose said patiently, and she stepped into her mother's hug.
"Group hug!" the Doctor yelled, and Verity giggled, and he wrapped his arms around Jackie and Rose, laughing as he went. Verity was wedged - but carefully - between them.
Jackie gave him a half-hearted glare around her granddaughter's hair, but she really didn't feel it. He was a darling boy, though she didn't like to say, fun and friendly, and so very good with his daughter. "What're you up to, then?" she grumped, anyway, because that was her job.
The Doctor gave her a smug look of satisfaction, and his eyes blazed in the sunlight. "Inside," Rose suggested, a calming hand on her husband's arm.
"You're no fun," the Doctor pouted.
"You're no fun," Rose shot back.
They practically fell over laughing. Jackie didn't get them sometimes. Nevertheless, she followed happily enough while the Doctor and Rose swung Verity between them as they headed toward her flat. "She's getting too big for that," she did complain. It was her job.
**
"Well?" Jackie demanded, while Rose bustled about making tea, and the Doctor took the treasure of the Sierra Madre - all of it - out of his coat pocket, one item at a time.
"I know they're in here, somewhere," he muttered.
"I'll help, Daddy," Verity exclaimed, and stuffed her hand in the opposite pocket. Jackie yelped in protest and dragged Verity back. She maintained that she absolutely could not help being afraid that the little girl would fall into those pockets and be lost forever one day.
The Doctor waved them all off, distractedly, and stepped over to the counter to start dumping things out on it as well. "Will you stop that?" Rose protested.
"Stop what?" he asked, blinking innocently at her, his big blue eyes all soulful and pleading. Jackie and Verity stifled a shared giggle.
Rose sighed, and shook her head. "Nothing," she said, then turned to her mother. Her dark eyes were shining, excited, a light like stars swirling and flowing and burning deep within them. "It worked," she almost whispered.
Jackie knew her daughter well, and knew that this was Rose, so delighted she couldn't believe it, so thrilled she couldn't keep it inside, and so afraid that she believed the whole wonderful thing would shatter if she breathed on it too hard. "What?" Jackie asked, afraid to hope and afraid to not hope, herself.
"It worked," Rose repeated, more strongly. It was then that Jackie remembered why she'd been watching her granddaughter in the first place.
"They've agreed," the Doctor said quietly. "It's not even difficult where Rose is concerned. She's almost perfect for a first candidate." He shook his head, almost laughing.
"First candidate?" Jackie wondered. "I thought it was only her..."
"There may be others," the Doctor said with a chuckle. "I may be the most obvious renegade on Gallifrey, but I'm apparently not the only one. Others have taken lovers, one a spouse even, and there's one old, old counselor who's adopted himself a son. Koschei met this girl called Lucy... long story. Anyway, point is, they've actually become convinced that this is what we need to do, that this will truly save us."
Rose grinned and kissed his cheek and he stopped digging through his pockets to snog her thoroughly while their daughter looked on and made gagging noises. She was just getting to that age, Jackie supposed.
The Doctor broke the kiss when his daughter shouted, not her usual, "Daddy!", but "Dad!" like an indignant teenager. Definitely getting to that age.
He snatched his daughter up and whirled her around, and she laughed while complaining that he and Rose were "gross". Jackie thought her daughter looked ridiculously happy, with her eyes shining like that.
"It's all down to this lovely lady right here," the Doctor explained, and kissed Verity's forehead before sitting her down. "She's almost completely Gallifreyan, a champion novice in all her classes, and able to have a real, happy life." The Doctor laid a hand in warm benediction on her head. "She's saving our world, thawing it out, Verity." He gave his daughter another proud look, then turned adoring blue eyes on his wife, reaching to take her hand, almost shyly still after all this time. "And my Rose, of course."
The couple drifted off into their own world for a moment, so in love it was almost painful to look at. Jackie tried to be happy for them, she did. But their world was nothing like hers, and Rose was really going to be going away from her, now, forever, even if she stayed right here, because they wouldn't even be the same species any more. Jackie blinked and fought tears.
"You, too," Rose said softly.
Jackie jerked her head up, confused. "What?"
"If you want, if you can, you can join us," the Doctor said. "What've you got here that you can't leave, anyway?"
Jackie looked around the flat and realized there were only three things she valued in it - her family. Well, maybe the photos, but that box of his was surely big enough... "I..."
"Think about it," Rose insisted. "Even if you don't go through with it. At least... please think about it."
Jackie sighed, and nodded, and wondered what it would be like to feel two hearts beating in her chest. She wondered how Borusa would take to her reappearance. She wondered if it was possible to have a heart attack with two of them.
"Prezzies!" the Doctor exclaimed, jerking Jackie out of her reverie, having finally, apparently, found what he was looking for in his pockets. Jackie gave him a look. "Sorry, Mum," he apologized. "I've been holed up with the stuffiest people in the history of stuffiness for a month."
Rose nodded adamantly. "You get the urge to break something, just to see something happen," she agreed.
The Doctor grinned and gabbled out a reply to that, but Jackie wasn't listening. She was looking at the pleading, excited eyes of her granddaughter. They really were perfect together, the Doctor and Rose, and this little girl, in all her incredible, impossible way, half him, half her, was all the proof of that that Jackie Tyler would ever need.
Jackie Tyler had been shouting herself hoarse over that child every single day for what felt like ages. Even in her exasperation, she knew for sure it had only been a week, but honestly, time seemed to stretch on and on when there was nothing to do but look after a wild and clever little girl.
1,881 words
A/N: This is an AU of a not-AU, my ALH 'verse. I have to thank haveloved for her absolutely brilliant piece, The Stars are Brightly Shining. I read that, it's awesome, and then this piece walked into my head, all of it, fully formed. Her piece was just that inspiring - please go read it if you haven't already! There was no time for a beta, just a quick and dirty on my own - so PLEASE tell me if you see anything, THANKS!
Looking After
Jackie Tyler had been shouting herself hoarse over that child every single day for what felt like ages. Even in her exasperation, she knew for sure it had only been a week, but honestly, time seemed to stretch on and on when there was nothing to do but look after a wild and clever little girl.
She supposed she could have expected all this. Her own mum, wise in old tales and wild superstitions, had always said that April babies were wanderers by nature. But Jackie really just wanted her to stay little forever.
She'd grown so fast. It was hard - nearly impossible - to believe that she was almost twelve now. She was small for her age, of course, but she always seemed a bit younger than the rest of the kids, so you didn't notice it so much when she played in groups.
"Oh, where are you?" Jackie demanded, more to herself than with any consideration that she'd actually be heard.
"And I shall travel, I think..."
Jackie heard the voice faintly, at first, the lyric, haughty cadences she'd been affecting lately, her voice somehow managing posh and proper in a way her mother's never would. Jackie smiled and snuck in that direction.
"I shall have a little girl of my own, of course," she said sweetly.
"I want a boy!" came another small voice, as Cockney and Powell Estate as you could get. "I'll name 'im Brutus."
"You can't name a child Brutus, think of the implications!"
"Whassa impre...imper...implee..."
"Implication. Means, like... I dunno." She lapsed into the local dialect, which made Jackie grin as she crept along the wall, out of sight. "It's like definition, I s'pose. Like what it could mean?"
"That's weird." The other, tiny voice decided, almost belligerently. Sulky, he continued with, "What're you gonna name your kid, then?"
The haughty tone was back. "I shall call her Susan, for my mother, you know."
"Your mum's not Susan," the boy was quick to interrupt.
Jackie stepped around the corner then. "That's enough, now," she said. "Honestly, you two, I been calling you for hours. Where have you been?"
"Sorry!" the young boy said, cringing as he looked at the Mickey Mouse watch, bright red against his dark wrist.
The little girl shrugged. "'Hours' is a highly subjective term," she said.
"You been watchin' Star Trek again, have you?" Jackie decided.
The little one looked at her shoes, her hair falling all around her face like a cloud. "Sorta, yeah," she admitted.
"Get home," Jackie ordered the boy. "Your gran's nearly frantic." He nodded, and scampered off without another word.
"You can't keep runnin' away from me like this," Jackie said, urgently. "What if somethin' happened to you? Do you think of that, at all? What if you got hurt, what then?"
The child looked chastised and guilty for a moment, but only for a moment. "Daddy..." she started.
"Your father's not here, is he?" Jackie demanded.
There was an all too familiar sound, and Jackie rolled her eyes as the little girl laughed a gentle tease up at her. "Sorta, yeah," she said. Then, she took off for the play park at the edge of the Estate at a dead run. That child could run for England.
"Get back here!" Jackie shouted. "Verity Tyler, you get back here this instant!"
"Keep up, Gran!" the little girl called back, and she darted up to the opening doors of a bright blue box, her jet hair flying behind her, a dark banner against the blue London sky.
Jackie was more nervous than her grandchild. She couldn't even imagine... what if something had gone wrong. But then, Verity flung herself through the door, and Jackie had to dart over to check, just in case. What if it wasn't, what if, what the...
"Mum!"
There was Rose, shining in the sun, a bright star in the doorway of the alien home she'd made for herself eleven years ago. Jackie was wary but desperate, lonely in ways she'd never have believed without her little girl under foot all the time. (Sometimes, in her very secret heart, Jackie had to admit that Rose's leaving had forced her to grow up herself, and she was almost grateful for that, but only almost.)
And there was Rose's husband, the small, dark-haired, hawk-faced little man, his blue eyes laughing as he played a tickling game with his daughter on his arm, and covertly checking her over for god alone knew what. Jackie liked the alien prat well enough most of the time, but it was times like this that she identified with him completely.
She was checking Rose over automatically, and not even the fact that her daughter was an adult and a mother could stop her. Her eyes even flickered over the Doctor, checking to see what his enthusiasm and sense of justice might've got him into this time. They'd both been little more than babies when they met. No matter what, they needed looking after.
"Mum, I'm fine," Rose said patiently, and she stepped into her mother's hug.
"Group hug!" the Doctor yelled, and Verity giggled, and he wrapped his arms around Jackie and Rose, laughing as he went. Verity was wedged - but carefully - between them.
Jackie gave him a half-hearted glare around her granddaughter's hair, but she really didn't feel it. He was a darling boy, though she didn't like to say, fun and friendly, and so very good with his daughter. "What're you up to, then?" she grumped, anyway, because that was her job.
The Doctor gave her a smug look of satisfaction, and his eyes blazed in the sunlight. "Inside," Rose suggested, a calming hand on her husband's arm.
"You're no fun," the Doctor pouted.
"You're no fun," Rose shot back.
They practically fell over laughing. Jackie didn't get them sometimes. Nevertheless, she followed happily enough while the Doctor and Rose swung Verity between them as they headed toward her flat. "She's getting too big for that," she did complain. It was her job.
**
"Well?" Jackie demanded, while Rose bustled about making tea, and the Doctor took the treasure of the Sierra Madre - all of it - out of his coat pocket, one item at a time.
"I know they're in here, somewhere," he muttered.
"I'll help, Daddy," Verity exclaimed, and stuffed her hand in the opposite pocket. Jackie yelped in protest and dragged Verity back. She maintained that she absolutely could not help being afraid that the little girl would fall into those pockets and be lost forever one day.
The Doctor waved them all off, distractedly, and stepped over to the counter to start dumping things out on it as well. "Will you stop that?" Rose protested.
"Stop what?" he asked, blinking innocently at her, his big blue eyes all soulful and pleading. Jackie and Verity stifled a shared giggle.
Rose sighed, and shook her head. "Nothing," she said, then turned to her mother. Her dark eyes were shining, excited, a light like stars swirling and flowing and burning deep within them. "It worked," she almost whispered.
Jackie knew her daughter well, and knew that this was Rose, so delighted she couldn't believe it, so thrilled she couldn't keep it inside, and so afraid that she believed the whole wonderful thing would shatter if she breathed on it too hard. "What?" Jackie asked, afraid to hope and afraid to not hope, herself.
"It worked," Rose repeated, more strongly. It was then that Jackie remembered why she'd been watching her granddaughter in the first place.
"They've agreed," the Doctor said quietly. "It's not even difficult where Rose is concerned. She's almost perfect for a first candidate." He shook his head, almost laughing.
"First candidate?" Jackie wondered. "I thought it was only her..."
"There may be others," the Doctor said with a chuckle. "I may be the most obvious renegade on Gallifrey, but I'm apparently not the only one. Others have taken lovers, one a spouse even, and there's one old, old counselor who's adopted himself a son. Koschei met this girl called Lucy... long story. Anyway, point is, they've actually become convinced that this is what we need to do, that this will truly save us."
Rose grinned and kissed his cheek and he stopped digging through his pockets to snog her thoroughly while their daughter looked on and made gagging noises. She was just getting to that age, Jackie supposed.
The Doctor broke the kiss when his daughter shouted, not her usual, "Daddy!", but "Dad!" like an indignant teenager. Definitely getting to that age.
He snatched his daughter up and whirled her around, and she laughed while complaining that he and Rose were "gross". Jackie thought her daughter looked ridiculously happy, with her eyes shining like that.
"It's all down to this lovely lady right here," the Doctor explained, and kissed Verity's forehead before sitting her down. "She's almost completely Gallifreyan, a champion novice in all her classes, and able to have a real, happy life." The Doctor laid a hand in warm benediction on her head. "She's saving our world, thawing it out, Verity." He gave his daughter another proud look, then turned adoring blue eyes on his wife, reaching to take her hand, almost shyly still after all this time. "And my Rose, of course."
The couple drifted off into their own world for a moment, so in love it was almost painful to look at. Jackie tried to be happy for them, she did. But their world was nothing like hers, and Rose was really going to be going away from her, now, forever, even if she stayed right here, because they wouldn't even be the same species any more. Jackie blinked and fought tears.
"You, too," Rose said softly.
Jackie jerked her head up, confused. "What?"
"If you want, if you can, you can join us," the Doctor said. "What've you got here that you can't leave, anyway?"
Jackie looked around the flat and realized there were only three things she valued in it - her family. Well, maybe the photos, but that box of his was surely big enough... "I..."
"Think about it," Rose insisted. "Even if you don't go through with it. At least... please think about it."
Jackie sighed, and nodded, and wondered what it would be like to feel two hearts beating in her chest. She wondered how Borusa would take to her reappearance. She wondered if it was possible to have a heart attack with two of them.
"Prezzies!" the Doctor exclaimed, jerking Jackie out of her reverie, having finally, apparently, found what he was looking for in his pockets. Jackie gave him a look. "Sorry, Mum," he apologized. "I've been holed up with the stuffiest people in the history of stuffiness for a month."
Rose nodded adamantly. "You get the urge to break something, just to see something happen," she agreed.
The Doctor grinned and gabbled out a reply to that, but Jackie wasn't listening. She was looking at the pleading, excited eyes of her granddaughter. They really were perfect together, the Doctor and Rose, and this little girl, in all her incredible, impossible way, half him, half her, was all the proof of that that Jackie Tyler would ever need.