Chaos Theory in Vortex Orbits in Relative Dimensions in Time and Space (7/27)
Title - Chaos Theory in Vortex Orbits in Relative Dimensions in Time and Space (7/27)
Author --
earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters -- Ten, Rose, Jackie, OC
Spoilers: Through the end of S2.
Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for Brem. He's all mine.)
Summary - And then there came a day when Rose said she was having a baby. Hijinks ensue from there.
Author’s Notes - Because I think I'm busy the rest of the weekend, here you go.
The icon was created by
punkinart , commissioned by
aibhinn , who graciously offered it to me for my use.
jlrpuck , who at the moment is busy being all glamorous on a train, is my remarkable beta. Also thanks to Kristin-who-won't-get-an-LJ, who brainstormed this fic with me endlessly, and
bouncy_castle79 , who gave it the first major outside-eyes read-through.
Ch.1 - Ch. 2 - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 - Ch. 6
Chapter Seven
In the beginning, she wouldn’t let Brem leave the TARDIS. Now that she knew how he was thinking, she was worried that the Doctor would dematerialize as soon as he could, leaving Brem behind to that happy life he thought was waiting for him. She wouldn’t even let her mother take Brem off while she stayed on, for fear the Doctor would simply whisk the both of them away and not bring them back until Brem was 30. There were some things, she thought, not even constant whining from her could convince him of. She even worried about leaving the TARDIS herself, for fear the Doctor would deposit Brem in a playpen in her mother’s flat, where she would find him in the TARDIS-less living room upon her return.
And then she realized that she couldn’t live their lives this way.
She woke one morning to find the Doctor in bed with her, sleeping. The rarity of this was almost astonishing, like catching sight of the Loch Ness Monster (when you didn’t have the TARDIS to help you find her). She knew he slept some, but normally after they had made love, and they would both drift off to sleep together. She could not remember the last time she’d woken to him sleeping.
But there he was, lying on his back because Brem was sprawled on his chest, also sleeping, tucked up in his adored blue blanket. Rose smiled at the pair of them, her two Time Lords, sound asleep, and enjoyed watching them sleep until the Doctor shifted and blinked himself awake.
She grinned at him. “Tired?” she asked, keeping her voice low for Brem’s sake.
“Everyone was sleeping,” he said, brushing his hands over his son’s hair. “Figured I might as well take advantage of the peace and quiet.”
“You’re not getting sick, are you?”
He had been sick only once before, a strange, violent, alien cold that had made him as fussy and irritable as a small child, and had been the only time she had ever seen him sleep with any regularity.
He shook his head.
Reassured, she reached out and traced her finger delicately over Brem’s hands, balled into tiny fists. Brem let out a fluttering little sigh that made her smile. And then she said it.
“You can go.”
“What?” asked the Doctor.
She shifted her eyes to him. “You can go. I know it’s…bothering you, being here.”
“Not because-”
“I know.” She cut him off. She knew he didn’t want to leave for the sake of leaving. But she also knew no one felt guilt more keenly than her Doctor. “So you can go, check up on the universe, make sure it’s okay. Brem and I will wait here.” She was of the opinion that it was still too early for Brem to be skipping about through the Vortex. She knew he was a Time Lord, but she also thought he should be a bit older before his first journey.
The Doctor was silent a second. Rose watched her fingers continue tracing over Brem’s fist.
“You’re sure?” said the Doctor, finally.
She looked back at him. “Yes. I trust you,” she told him, firmly.
He shifted, as much as he could without disturbing Brem, and cupped her cheek.
“You will come back,” she said. “And not twelve months from now, either.”
He looked down at Brem. “I will. I’ll be back before you have time to register I’m gone.”
“And you’ll call me-us-on the SuperPhone all the time.”
“Yes.” He sent her a lopsided smile. “I’ll miss you. It’s been a while since I travelled…on my own.” It was amazing for him to say. He had spent so much time travelling on his own. When had he gotten so used to Rose’s company?
“I’ll miss you,” she replied. “My mum’ll have us visiting all her friends, showing Brem off.”
“Welllllll, he should be shown off.”
“We’ll have to do the visiting again when you get back.”
“Oh, not on my account,” he drawled. “I’m quite alright with missing it.”
She grinned at him. “Yeah, but I’d like to show you off, too.”
“Welllllll, yes, I can see that. That’s where Brem gets it from, you know, his show-off-ability: Me.”
Rose laughed, shifting to rub her nose against his. “You are show-off-y,” she agreed.
“Not show-off-y,” he argued. “Show-off-able. Huge difference, Rose.” He strained his head up to try to capture her lips in a kiss.
She allowed him the merest brush before drawing back. “Why don’t you,” she murmured, leaning forward a whisper to kiss him ever so lightly, “show off-” she kissed him a bit harder-”what a good kisser you are?”
“Oh, with pleasure,” he said against her lips, as she parted them for him and he swept his tongue inside, his hand holding her head in place.
She was positioned awkwardly, so as not to disturb Brem, and it still didn’t work because Brem had apparently woken, and let out a short, offended cry at finding himself not to be the centre of attention.
“Just a second, Brem,” she said, against the Doctor. “I’m trying to get your father to snog me senseless.”
The Doctor’s lips curved into a smile she felt, as Brem let out another offended squeal. And then the Doctor moved, so quickly she couldn’t guess his intention, juggling both of them until the three of them were curled into a cohesive whole on the bed. Rose stretched like a contented cat and settled into his warmth as Brem, pleased to once again be The Most Important Thing in the Universe, blessed her with that smile that looked just like his father’s.
“We spoil him,” she noted.
“Oh, no doubt,” said the Doctor, carelessly, adjusting the blankets around them in a gesture that surprised her.
“You’re sure you feel well?” she asked again, looking at him as well as she could in their current cuddle positions.
“I’m fine, I just…Let’s just spend a little while doing nothing. Is that alright?”
It was very unlike him. “You are coming back,” she said, shakily.
“Oh, absolutely.” He kissed behind her ear. “Absolutely.”
She curled into him, holding Brem to her, and breathed him in. If he wasn’t, she thought, then she wanted to enjoy this moment he was giving her. Brem squirmed against her, protesting being held so tightly, and she loosened her grip on him and tried to gather herself. “Let’s play peek-a-boo with Brem,” she said, grabbing the corner of the blanket.
“Brem doesn’t want to play peek-a-boo.”
“Sure he does.” Rose raised the blanket in front of the baby’s face then pulled it away, exclaiming, “Peek-a-boo!” in an exaggerated voice.
Brem, after a moment of wearing a shocked expression, broke into gales of delighted laughter and kicked his little feet with glee. Rose, charmed by the reaction, repeated the game. Brem laughed even harder the second time.
The Doctor sighed. “How can he think that’s funny?”
“Because he’s a baby,” she said, and shifted to grab the blanket to cover the Doctor’s face. “Peek-a-boo!” she cooed at Brem, dropping the blanket.
Brem giggled as if his father playing peek-a-boo was the funniest thing in the universe.
“Look, he loves it,” said Rose, repeating the hiding away of the Doctor.
“How can he love it? It’s the silliest…” The Doctor sighed in exasperation as the blanket appeared in front of his face again, then dropped to the accompaniment of Rose’s “Peek-a-boo!” Brem was by now laughing so hard that he was practically rolling about.
The Doctor knew defeat when he saw it. He batted the blanket away, as Rose threatened to obscure him again, and lifted it instead in front of Rose’s face, holding it for a moment longer than Rose had been holding it. Brem’s eyes widened in sudden alarm, and the Doctor dropped the blanket, and said, and feeling strangely not foolish as he said it, “Peek-a-boo!”
Brem blinked at his mother’s grinning face, and then burst into more laughter, looking back at his dad, as if to say, Oh, that was a good one.
Jackie found them, still curled up in the bed together, an hour later, collapsed into gales of laughter.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, pulled into a smile herself without knowing why.
“Watch,” said Rose, ducking exaggeratedly under the blanket and then popping up with a comical, “Peek-a-boo!”
Both Brem and the Doctor dissolved into fits. Jackie raised her eyebrows. She would have expected Brem to react that way, but the Doctor? Who was she kidding? she thought. The Doctor’s reactions to things were always impossible to predict.
“Brem’s a humorist of the top order,” gasped the Doctor. “Who knew how hilarious peek-a-boo is?”
“It’s very funny,” Rose told her, gravely, a twinkle in her eye.
Brem made a few half-hearted cries, to win himself another peek-a-boo.
“Look,” said the Doctor, suddenly tossing Brem’s blue blanket at Jackie. “Watch Grandma.”
It was the first time he had ever called her that, and it stopped her in her tracks, as she blinked at him. Rose turned to stare at him as well.
“Well, go on,” said the Doctor, as Brem mewled impatiently. “There’s nothing to it, you just lift the blanket over your face, honestly, Jackie…”
Jackie recovered. “I know how to play peek-a-boo,” she assured him, affronted, and disappeared behind the blanket before popping out with a “Peek-a-boo!”
Brem rewarded her with a giggle.
“Now if only we could make that disappearance permanent, eh, Brem?” said the Doctor, but he said it good-naturedly, eyes sparkling with humour.
“Oi,” said Jackie, matching his tone and coming to perch on the edge of their bed. “You’d better not inherit your father’s cheek,” she told the baby.
“Or your grandmother’s cooking skills,” said the Doctor.
“See what I’m saying, Brem?” she asked, and Rose watched them and listened to them and thought that this, more than the day she’d found out she was pregnant, more than the day Brem had been born, felt like the first day of the rest of her life, like they’d finally turned a corner. The Doctor looked up at her from where Jackie was now tickling Brem, and winked.
And Rose smiled.
He’d come back.
**********************
Since being back on Earth, Rose had managed to get on a pretty standard sleeping schedule, but she woke very early the following morning to the baby crying. This was unusual enough that her stomach clenched with fear. Brem was not much of a crier. If he was crying, something was probably wrong, with either him or the Doctor.
She ran to the control room, not bothering to grab her robe, breathless with worry.
Brem was swinging in his swing, crying energetically. When he caught sight of her, he cried even harder and beat his tiny fists furiously. The Doctor was stuffing things into two small knapsacks, in a pell-mell, manic fashion that frightened her.
“What’s the matter with him?” she exclaimed, rushing to Brem to pick him up.
Brem curled into her and wailed heartbrokenly.
“Did he wake you?” asked the Doctor, distracted, running his hands through his hair and then aiming the sonic screwdriver. “Sorry. There’s nothing really wrong with him, I’ve just been paying attention to something else for a change. He doesn’t like that.”
Brem, apparently taking offense to this description, wailed even louder. Rose looked at him in bewilderment. “Shhh,” she said, kissing his tear-streaked cheeks. “Shhh. You’re fine, Brem. It’s okay.” She looked back up at the Doctor. The baby was hiccupping now, burrowing into her. She wasn’t sure, actually, that Brem was spoiled when he cried to be held. There was something about the action that reminded her of how much this Doctor craved physical contact, was always anxious for a hug or a hand-holding. “What are you doing?” she asked the Doctor.
He didn’t look up. “I’m leaving. Today.”
Her breath stalled in her lungs. Brem, who had been growing quiet, gave another cry, and she was convinced again that he knew everything that was going on. She soothed him automatically, even as she stared at the Doctor. “What?”
“I’m leaving.”
“But-”
“Here.” He stood, handed her the two knapsacks. “You’re not dressed.”
“No, I-” She gaped at him, juggling baby and knapsacks. “What are you talking about?”
“Rose, if I don’t leave now, like this, I’m going to end up doing it under far more traumatic circumstances. So. Here. Bags for you and Brem. Don’t worry, they’re bigger on the inside. It should be everything he needs. Except for…” The Doctor walked over to the swing, retrieved Brem’s blanket and settled it around him.
Brem stared up at him with accusatory eyes.
“I’m sorry, Brem,” he said, softening, and wiping at the baby’s tears with the corner of the soft, blue blanket.
“You can’t leave like this,” Rose protested, feeling dazed.
“Don’t ask me not to go,” he said. “Because I won’t. And that wouldn’t…Don’t ask me not to go.”
They gazed at each other seriously for a moment. Then she swallowed and accepted it. “Okay. I rather don’t like you packing for us, though. You’re, er…” She tried to put it as delicately as possible. “Not very practical. Sometimes,” she amended, hastily, when he looked a bit offended.
“You’ll be fine. Anything you don’t need, you can buy.”
She arched an eyebrow. “With what money?”
“Here.” He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out the sonic screwdriver. “Take this.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you mad? Absolutely not! You’re going to need that! You’ll get yourself regenerated without that!”
He shook his head, pulled another sonic screwdriver out. “That’s not mine. It’s his.” He nodded toward Brem.
“His?” repeated Rose.
“I made it for him. I know he’s too young to use it, so I’ve just kind of been keeping it for him. But. The setting it’s on right now. Take it to a cash point, it’ll get you as much cash as you need.”
“It doesn’t seem legal,” said Rose, suspiciously.
“Consider it payment for saving the bloody planet several dozen times.”
“Fair enough,” allowed Rose, accepting the sonic screwdriver.
“Okay. So. Off we go, then. Allons-y.”
“I’m not even dressed!” Rose protested.
“You’ve clothes in the knapsack there.”
“Yeah, and plenty of clothes back in the wardrobe, too. Just give me a second to-”
“Rose, you’ve got to go,” he begged. “Every moment you stand there is another moment I’m given to convince myself to just stay here. Please go. Please?”
She sighed. “This is madness.”
“I know.” He tugged her off the TARDIS, then stood for a moment uncertainly. “Quite something you’ve signed up for here.” He tugged at his earlobe.
“And I would not trade it for the world,” she assured him, and leaned up to kiss him. “I need my mobile.”
“Packed.”
“Hang on.” She thrust Brem at him, now snuffling softly to himself, and searched through the knapsacks. They were much bigger on the inside, and it took forever for her to locate her mobile and its charger. “I’m calling you,” she warned him.
“Of course.”
“And you’re calling us.”
“Absolutely.” He lifted Brem to rest his head against his shoulder and murmured into his ear in a language that sounded foreign. Rose frowned briefly, wondering what language the TARDIS would refuse to translate, and then realized abruptly that it must be Gallifreyan. The Doctor kissed Brem’s tousled hair, then handed him across to Rose and stuck his hands in his trousers. “Wellllllll,” he said.
She waited for him to continue, but he stayed silent.
She stepped forward and adjusted his tie needlessly. “Be safe. Come back to me in this body, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said, taking a deep breath. He gave her an almost chaste kiss on her forehead then smoothed his hand over her hair. “You are…very beautiful,” he said.
“Thanks,” she replied, with a smile.
He winked as he stepped onto the TARDIS and closed the door.
Rose, holding Brem and her two knapsacks, watched as the TARDIS de-materialized. Brem stared, eyes wide with amazement. As the noise faded, her mother came rushing into the room and gaped at the two of them.
“What happened?” she asked. “Did you quarrel?”
Rose shook her head. “No, he-”
Brem burst into sobs suddenly. Loud, wracking sobs. He squirmed, inconsolable. “Shh,” said Rose. “Shh. It’s alright, Brem. Can you make him some iced tea?” she asked her mother.
“Yeah.” Jackie looked disapproving. “I think we could all use a cuppa.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
Rose sighed, guessing that she was in for a talking-to. “You’d think I’d be done getting yelled at by my mum now that I’m a mum myself,” she said to Brem.
Brem cried, apparently not interested in the irony of that.
“Alright,” she breathed, nuzzling at his cheek. “Alright. It’ll be okay, Brem. We’ll have a cuppa, and he’ll be back before you know it.”
Brem wailed, clearly frustrated at his mother’s lack of comprehension at the enormity of the issues he was having.
“Have you got a bottle for him?” asked Jackie, appearing back in the living room.
“Somewhere in one of those bags.” Rose pointed with her chin, as she walked Brem, bouncing him up and down.
Jackie opened one and let out a short scream.
“Oh,” said Rose, as an afterthought. “They’re bigger on the inside.”
“Bloody hell,” muttered Jackie, as she searched through them. She found the bottle just as the kettle began whistling, and disappeared back into the kitchen.
Rose, after a second, followed her into the kitchen, not relishing the conversation. Brem was still crying but half-heartedly now, as if he were doing it as a matter of principle. Her mother was pouring the tea over ice, preparing it for Brem, and Rose watched her as she then shifted it to a bottle and handed it silently across to Rose. Rose offered it to Brem, who stared at her in disbelief.
“C’mon, sweetheart,” she coaxed. “It’s a peace offering, huh?”
Brem sighed enormously, but reluctantly began sucking on the bottle with the attitude that he was doing her a favour.
Rose took a deep breath and smiled at her mother. “Can we have a cuppa?”
“What is going on, Rose?” demanded Jackie, pouring tea into a mug. “Yesterday the two of you were as giddy as teenagers, and today he’s pushing you off the TARDIS in your pyjamas? What happened?”
“He didn’t-He-” Rose sugared her tea. “He had to go.”
“I knew it.” Jackie sat angrily in the chair opposite. “I knew he’d never be able to stay in one place.”
“He wants to, Mum. You don’t understand. There are things he has to do. We discussed this. He’s coming back.”
“Great. And how are you and I going to manage to take care of a baby that doesn’t sleep in the meantime?”
Brem, still slurping at his iced tea, cut his eyes over to his grandmother.
“Shifts, I suppose. I’ll try to just nap a bit in the evenings, and take care of him the rest of the time.”
“I don’t know who he thinks he is,” grumbled Jackie. “That he can just swan in and out of being a father.”
“He isn’t a father first. That’s his issue. He’s never going to be a father first, and that’s not his fault. He would if he could, huh, Brem?”
“Well, if you ask me, it’s not half selfish of him-”
“Stop it,” bit out Rose, her voice dangerously quiet, and Jackie looked at her as if she’d never seen him before. “Stop it. It’s the least selfish thing he does. And I’ll not have you try to make Brem think anything different about it, do you understand me?”
“Rose-”
“He left me with a sonic screwdriver. I’ve got unlimited cash at my disposal. And I will not hesitate to go somewhere else with Brem if you can’t follow the simple rule of not insulting his dad.”
Jackie’s eyes flickered to the baby, who looked serene now, eyes closed as he concentrated on his iced tea. She opened her mouth. And she said, flatly, “Fine.”
**********************
Brem did not cry constantly--but he was fussy, which was decidedly unlike him. He wanted to be held all the time. Rose tried what she could to keep him calm; she played the music she thought he’d associate with the Doctor, and then didn’t know why that would make Brem feel better as it didn’t make her feel better. She remembered that the lights at Christmastime emitted a low buzz that approximated the comforting hum of the TARDIS and pulled them out and plugged them in.
Brem did seem to like visiting. He appeared to be endlessly fascinated by new people. The first few months of his life had been so isolated that his curiosity for the world outside the TARDIS was all-consuming. It was the only time her pendant glowed anywhere close to yellow anymore, when she and Brem went for walks. She took him, methodically, to every different area of London and watched him, overflowing with love, while he gaped at pigeons and buses and other little children. Brem had been born at the height of summer; it was now swiftly becoming fall, and he looked adorable, his thick hair hidden under a hat and his hands burdened by mittens and his cheeks flushed with the cold.
He liked visiting, but he did not like new people touching him or holding him or cooing over him. In fact, he didn’t like to have his mother out of his sight. He grudgingly accepted his grandmother, when forced to, but he let Rose know he didn’t much like it. Jackie said he insisted on being brought to check on his sleeping mother every few minutes, so that she began automatically bringing him into Rose’s bedroom to reassure him every time there was a commercial break. Jackie started to say something about separation anxiety, but shut up when Rose glared at her.
The Doctor did call, for the first time on the second day after he’d left. Rose had been waiting for the call, sleeping with the mobile by the bed, but the Doctor finally called when she and Brem were in Trafalgar Square. She told him that, and he launched into some sort of long monologue about the history of the Square or maybe the geological features of the ground underneath it or something. She didn’t pay that much attention to his rambling, preferring just to enjoy the sound of his voice. He called again a couple of days later, just as her mother had woken her up for the overnight shift.
Jackie watched her daughter’s entire face light up as she stretched out on the couch, holding Brem. “He’s fine,” Rose said, into the phone, combing at Brem’s hair. Brem was working contentedly on a bottle of iced tea, and looked about to be dozing into one of his naps. “He’s wonderful.”
Jackie sighed and shook her head and went to bed, but, when she woke briefly an hour later, she could hear Rose laughing in the other room, apparently still on the phone.
The following morning, when they met over the kitchen table, Jackie asked, neutrally, “Is he doing well?”
“Yes,” replied Rose.
“You should have told him about Brem.”
“Told him what?”
“That he’s cranky.”
“Mum, of course he’s cranky.”
Jackie let a moment of silence fall. “When will he be back?”
“He didn’t say. He hopes very soon.”
“I don’t know how much longer you can go on holding that baby eighteen hours a day.”
“As long as I need to,” said Rose, concentrating on the jam she was spreading, one-handed, over her toast.
Jackie frowned, and as soon as it was her turn to watch Brem, waited for Rose to fall asleep and snuck into her bedroom. The mobile was on her nightstand, and she grabbed it and walked back out to the living room and called the last number received, a bit amused when it called up as “TARDIS.”
“Rose?” came the Doctor’s voice after a few rings, sounding curious.
“It’s Jackie,” she corrected.
The Doctor blinked in the TARDIS. “What’s wrong?” he asked, swiftly.
“Nothing. Everyone’s fine. But I wanted you to know.”
“Know?” he repeated.
“Brem misses you. He’s cranky, he cries whenever he’s not being held, he’s running Rose ragged. And she won’t tell you because she doesn’t want you to feel guilty. But it’s true. I thought someone should tell you.”
The Doctor was silent for a second. “Is Brem there?”
“Yes, he’s here.” Jackie looked down at Brem, who was curled against her stomach, watching television raptly.
“Let me talk to him.”
Jackie huffed in frustration. “He’s still only three months old, you know.”
“Doesn’t matter, Jackie. Let me talk to him.”
Shaking her head in disgust, Jackie held the phone up to Brem’s ear. Brem suddenly grew more alert. And, to Jackie’s amazement, delight flashed over his tiny face. He giggled and squirmed with happiness against her.
Jackie, curious, put the phone back to her own ear. The Doctor was speaking, in a language she didn’t recognize.
“What are you sayin’ to him?” Jackie asked.
“I’m telling him to behave himself for the two of you,” the Doctor answered, switching back to English.
“Do you lot even know how to behave?”
“When we’re young,” drawled the Doctor, “before we’ve learned all our bad habits. Look, I’m sorry about this. It was my fault.”
“Too right it’s your fault,” retorted Jackie. “You should come home.”
“I can’t. Not right now. Soon. I promise. But for now I’ve…When we’re on the TARDIS, even when I’m shielding myself, he can still feel that I’m there. I’d forgotten that. It scared him not to feel me. That’s why he’s been…not himself. I’m not shielding myself as much, he’ll be able to feel me, he’ll be better.”
Jackie didn’t really understand a word of that, but she understood the sentiment. “Thanks.”
The Doctor hesitated. “How’s Rose?”
“She’s tired. And she misses you.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I know. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
And he ended the call.
“Well,” Jackie said to Brem, who tipped his head as much as he could to look up at her. “At least he seems to think this place is ‘home.’”
Next Chapter
Author --
earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters -- Ten, Rose, Jackie, OC
Spoilers: Through the end of S2.
Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for Brem. He's all mine.)
Summary - And then there came a day when Rose said she was having a baby. Hijinks ensue from there.
Author’s Notes - Because I think I'm busy the rest of the weekend, here you go.
The icon was created by
punkinart , commissioned by
aibhinn , who graciously offered it to me for my use.
jlrpuck , who at the moment is busy being all glamorous on a train, is my remarkable beta. Also thanks to Kristin-who-won't-get-an-LJ, who brainstormed this fic with me endlessly, and
bouncy_castle79 , who gave it the first major outside-eyes read-through.
Ch.1 - Ch. 2 - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 - Ch. 6
Chapter Seven
In the beginning, she wouldn’t let Brem leave the TARDIS. Now that she knew how he was thinking, she was worried that the Doctor would dematerialize as soon as he could, leaving Brem behind to that happy life he thought was waiting for him. She wouldn’t even let her mother take Brem off while she stayed on, for fear the Doctor would simply whisk the both of them away and not bring them back until Brem was 30. There were some things, she thought, not even constant whining from her could convince him of. She even worried about leaving the TARDIS herself, for fear the Doctor would deposit Brem in a playpen in her mother’s flat, where she would find him in the TARDIS-less living room upon her return.
And then she realized that she couldn’t live their lives this way.
She woke one morning to find the Doctor in bed with her, sleeping. The rarity of this was almost astonishing, like catching sight of the Loch Ness Monster (when you didn’t have the TARDIS to help you find her). She knew he slept some, but normally after they had made love, and they would both drift off to sleep together. She could not remember the last time she’d woken to him sleeping.
But there he was, lying on his back because Brem was sprawled on his chest, also sleeping, tucked up in his adored blue blanket. Rose smiled at the pair of them, her two Time Lords, sound asleep, and enjoyed watching them sleep until the Doctor shifted and blinked himself awake.
She grinned at him. “Tired?” she asked, keeping her voice low for Brem’s sake.
“Everyone was sleeping,” he said, brushing his hands over his son’s hair. “Figured I might as well take advantage of the peace and quiet.”
“You’re not getting sick, are you?”
He had been sick only once before, a strange, violent, alien cold that had made him as fussy and irritable as a small child, and had been the only time she had ever seen him sleep with any regularity.
He shook his head.
Reassured, she reached out and traced her finger delicately over Brem’s hands, balled into tiny fists. Brem let out a fluttering little sigh that made her smile. And then she said it.
“You can go.”
“What?” asked the Doctor.
She shifted her eyes to him. “You can go. I know it’s…bothering you, being here.”
“Not because-”
“I know.” She cut him off. She knew he didn’t want to leave for the sake of leaving. But she also knew no one felt guilt more keenly than her Doctor. “So you can go, check up on the universe, make sure it’s okay. Brem and I will wait here.” She was of the opinion that it was still too early for Brem to be skipping about through the Vortex. She knew he was a Time Lord, but she also thought he should be a bit older before his first journey.
The Doctor was silent a second. Rose watched her fingers continue tracing over Brem’s fist.
“You’re sure?” said the Doctor, finally.
She looked back at him. “Yes. I trust you,” she told him, firmly.
He shifted, as much as he could without disturbing Brem, and cupped her cheek.
“You will come back,” she said. “And not twelve months from now, either.”
He looked down at Brem. “I will. I’ll be back before you have time to register I’m gone.”
“And you’ll call me-us-on the SuperPhone all the time.”
“Yes.” He sent her a lopsided smile. “I’ll miss you. It’s been a while since I travelled…on my own.” It was amazing for him to say. He had spent so much time travelling on his own. When had he gotten so used to Rose’s company?
“I’ll miss you,” she replied. “My mum’ll have us visiting all her friends, showing Brem off.”
“Welllllll, he should be shown off.”
“We’ll have to do the visiting again when you get back.”
“Oh, not on my account,” he drawled. “I’m quite alright with missing it.”
She grinned at him. “Yeah, but I’d like to show you off, too.”
“Welllllll, yes, I can see that. That’s where Brem gets it from, you know, his show-off-ability: Me.”
Rose laughed, shifting to rub her nose against his. “You are show-off-y,” she agreed.
“Not show-off-y,” he argued. “Show-off-able. Huge difference, Rose.” He strained his head up to try to capture her lips in a kiss.
She allowed him the merest brush before drawing back. “Why don’t you,” she murmured, leaning forward a whisper to kiss him ever so lightly, “show off-” she kissed him a bit harder-”what a good kisser you are?”
“Oh, with pleasure,” he said against her lips, as she parted them for him and he swept his tongue inside, his hand holding her head in place.
She was positioned awkwardly, so as not to disturb Brem, and it still didn’t work because Brem had apparently woken, and let out a short, offended cry at finding himself not to be the centre of attention.
“Just a second, Brem,” she said, against the Doctor. “I’m trying to get your father to snog me senseless.”
The Doctor’s lips curved into a smile she felt, as Brem let out another offended squeal. And then the Doctor moved, so quickly she couldn’t guess his intention, juggling both of them until the three of them were curled into a cohesive whole on the bed. Rose stretched like a contented cat and settled into his warmth as Brem, pleased to once again be The Most Important Thing in the Universe, blessed her with that smile that looked just like his father’s.
“We spoil him,” she noted.
“Oh, no doubt,” said the Doctor, carelessly, adjusting the blankets around them in a gesture that surprised her.
“You’re sure you feel well?” she asked again, looking at him as well as she could in their current cuddle positions.
“I’m fine, I just…Let’s just spend a little while doing nothing. Is that alright?”
It was very unlike him. “You are coming back,” she said, shakily.
“Oh, absolutely.” He kissed behind her ear. “Absolutely.”
She curled into him, holding Brem to her, and breathed him in. If he wasn’t, she thought, then she wanted to enjoy this moment he was giving her. Brem squirmed against her, protesting being held so tightly, and she loosened her grip on him and tried to gather herself. “Let’s play peek-a-boo with Brem,” she said, grabbing the corner of the blanket.
“Brem doesn’t want to play peek-a-boo.”
“Sure he does.” Rose raised the blanket in front of the baby’s face then pulled it away, exclaiming, “Peek-a-boo!” in an exaggerated voice.
Brem, after a moment of wearing a shocked expression, broke into gales of delighted laughter and kicked his little feet with glee. Rose, charmed by the reaction, repeated the game. Brem laughed even harder the second time.
The Doctor sighed. “How can he think that’s funny?”
“Because he’s a baby,” she said, and shifted to grab the blanket to cover the Doctor’s face. “Peek-a-boo!” she cooed at Brem, dropping the blanket.
Brem giggled as if his father playing peek-a-boo was the funniest thing in the universe.
“Look, he loves it,” said Rose, repeating the hiding away of the Doctor.
“How can he love it? It’s the silliest…” The Doctor sighed in exasperation as the blanket appeared in front of his face again, then dropped to the accompaniment of Rose’s “Peek-a-boo!” Brem was by now laughing so hard that he was practically rolling about.
The Doctor knew defeat when he saw it. He batted the blanket away, as Rose threatened to obscure him again, and lifted it instead in front of Rose’s face, holding it for a moment longer than Rose had been holding it. Brem’s eyes widened in sudden alarm, and the Doctor dropped the blanket, and said, and feeling strangely not foolish as he said it, “Peek-a-boo!”
Brem blinked at his mother’s grinning face, and then burst into more laughter, looking back at his dad, as if to say, Oh, that was a good one.
Jackie found them, still curled up in the bed together, an hour later, collapsed into gales of laughter.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, pulled into a smile herself without knowing why.
“Watch,” said Rose, ducking exaggeratedly under the blanket and then popping up with a comical, “Peek-a-boo!”
Both Brem and the Doctor dissolved into fits. Jackie raised her eyebrows. She would have expected Brem to react that way, but the Doctor? Who was she kidding? she thought. The Doctor’s reactions to things were always impossible to predict.
“Brem’s a humorist of the top order,” gasped the Doctor. “Who knew how hilarious peek-a-boo is?”
“It’s very funny,” Rose told her, gravely, a twinkle in her eye.
Brem made a few half-hearted cries, to win himself another peek-a-boo.
“Look,” said the Doctor, suddenly tossing Brem’s blue blanket at Jackie. “Watch Grandma.”
It was the first time he had ever called her that, and it stopped her in her tracks, as she blinked at him. Rose turned to stare at him as well.
“Well, go on,” said the Doctor, as Brem mewled impatiently. “There’s nothing to it, you just lift the blanket over your face, honestly, Jackie…”
Jackie recovered. “I know how to play peek-a-boo,” she assured him, affronted, and disappeared behind the blanket before popping out with a “Peek-a-boo!”
Brem rewarded her with a giggle.
“Now if only we could make that disappearance permanent, eh, Brem?” said the Doctor, but he said it good-naturedly, eyes sparkling with humour.
“Oi,” said Jackie, matching his tone and coming to perch on the edge of their bed. “You’d better not inherit your father’s cheek,” she told the baby.
“Or your grandmother’s cooking skills,” said the Doctor.
“See what I’m saying, Brem?” she asked, and Rose watched them and listened to them and thought that this, more than the day she’d found out she was pregnant, more than the day Brem had been born, felt like the first day of the rest of her life, like they’d finally turned a corner. The Doctor looked up at her from where Jackie was now tickling Brem, and winked.
And Rose smiled.
He’d come back.
**********************
Since being back on Earth, Rose had managed to get on a pretty standard sleeping schedule, but she woke very early the following morning to the baby crying. This was unusual enough that her stomach clenched with fear. Brem was not much of a crier. If he was crying, something was probably wrong, with either him or the Doctor.
She ran to the control room, not bothering to grab her robe, breathless with worry.
Brem was swinging in his swing, crying energetically. When he caught sight of her, he cried even harder and beat his tiny fists furiously. The Doctor was stuffing things into two small knapsacks, in a pell-mell, manic fashion that frightened her.
“What’s the matter with him?” she exclaimed, rushing to Brem to pick him up.
Brem curled into her and wailed heartbrokenly.
“Did he wake you?” asked the Doctor, distracted, running his hands through his hair and then aiming the sonic screwdriver. “Sorry. There’s nothing really wrong with him, I’ve just been paying attention to something else for a change. He doesn’t like that.”
Brem, apparently taking offense to this description, wailed even louder. Rose looked at him in bewilderment. “Shhh,” she said, kissing his tear-streaked cheeks. “Shhh. You’re fine, Brem. It’s okay.” She looked back up at the Doctor. The baby was hiccupping now, burrowing into her. She wasn’t sure, actually, that Brem was spoiled when he cried to be held. There was something about the action that reminded her of how much this Doctor craved physical contact, was always anxious for a hug or a hand-holding. “What are you doing?” she asked the Doctor.
He didn’t look up. “I’m leaving. Today.”
Her breath stalled in her lungs. Brem, who had been growing quiet, gave another cry, and she was convinced again that he knew everything that was going on. She soothed him automatically, even as she stared at the Doctor. “What?”
“I’m leaving.”
“But-”
“Here.” He stood, handed her the two knapsacks. “You’re not dressed.”
“No, I-” She gaped at him, juggling baby and knapsacks. “What are you talking about?”
“Rose, if I don’t leave now, like this, I’m going to end up doing it under far more traumatic circumstances. So. Here. Bags for you and Brem. Don’t worry, they’re bigger on the inside. It should be everything he needs. Except for…” The Doctor walked over to the swing, retrieved Brem’s blanket and settled it around him.
Brem stared up at him with accusatory eyes.
“I’m sorry, Brem,” he said, softening, and wiping at the baby’s tears with the corner of the soft, blue blanket.
“You can’t leave like this,” Rose protested, feeling dazed.
“Don’t ask me not to go,” he said. “Because I won’t. And that wouldn’t…Don’t ask me not to go.”
They gazed at each other seriously for a moment. Then she swallowed and accepted it. “Okay. I rather don’t like you packing for us, though. You’re, er…” She tried to put it as delicately as possible. “Not very practical. Sometimes,” she amended, hastily, when he looked a bit offended.
“You’ll be fine. Anything you don’t need, you can buy.”
She arched an eyebrow. “With what money?”
“Here.” He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out the sonic screwdriver. “Take this.”
Her eyes widened. “Are you mad? Absolutely not! You’re going to need that! You’ll get yourself regenerated without that!”
He shook his head, pulled another sonic screwdriver out. “That’s not mine. It’s his.” He nodded toward Brem.
“His?” repeated Rose.
“I made it for him. I know he’s too young to use it, so I’ve just kind of been keeping it for him. But. The setting it’s on right now. Take it to a cash point, it’ll get you as much cash as you need.”
“It doesn’t seem legal,” said Rose, suspiciously.
“Consider it payment for saving the bloody planet several dozen times.”
“Fair enough,” allowed Rose, accepting the sonic screwdriver.
“Okay. So. Off we go, then. Allons-y.”
“I’m not even dressed!” Rose protested.
“You’ve clothes in the knapsack there.”
“Yeah, and plenty of clothes back in the wardrobe, too. Just give me a second to-”
“Rose, you’ve got to go,” he begged. “Every moment you stand there is another moment I’m given to convince myself to just stay here. Please go. Please?”
She sighed. “This is madness.”
“I know.” He tugged her off the TARDIS, then stood for a moment uncertainly. “Quite something you’ve signed up for here.” He tugged at his earlobe.
“And I would not trade it for the world,” she assured him, and leaned up to kiss him. “I need my mobile.”
“Packed.”
“Hang on.” She thrust Brem at him, now snuffling softly to himself, and searched through the knapsacks. They were much bigger on the inside, and it took forever for her to locate her mobile and its charger. “I’m calling you,” she warned him.
“Of course.”
“And you’re calling us.”
“Absolutely.” He lifted Brem to rest his head against his shoulder and murmured into his ear in a language that sounded foreign. Rose frowned briefly, wondering what language the TARDIS would refuse to translate, and then realized abruptly that it must be Gallifreyan. The Doctor kissed Brem’s tousled hair, then handed him across to Rose and stuck his hands in his trousers. “Wellllllll,” he said.
She waited for him to continue, but he stayed silent.
She stepped forward and adjusted his tie needlessly. “Be safe. Come back to me in this body, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said, taking a deep breath. He gave her an almost chaste kiss on her forehead then smoothed his hand over her hair. “You are…very beautiful,” he said.
“Thanks,” she replied, with a smile.
He winked as he stepped onto the TARDIS and closed the door.
Rose, holding Brem and her two knapsacks, watched as the TARDIS de-materialized. Brem stared, eyes wide with amazement. As the noise faded, her mother came rushing into the room and gaped at the two of them.
“What happened?” she asked. “Did you quarrel?”
Rose shook her head. “No, he-”
Brem burst into sobs suddenly. Loud, wracking sobs. He squirmed, inconsolable. “Shh,” said Rose. “Shh. It’s alright, Brem. Can you make him some iced tea?” she asked her mother.
“Yeah.” Jackie looked disapproving. “I think we could all use a cuppa.” She disappeared into the kitchen.
Rose sighed, guessing that she was in for a talking-to. “You’d think I’d be done getting yelled at by my mum now that I’m a mum myself,” she said to Brem.
Brem cried, apparently not interested in the irony of that.
“Alright,” she breathed, nuzzling at his cheek. “Alright. It’ll be okay, Brem. We’ll have a cuppa, and he’ll be back before you know it.”
Brem wailed, clearly frustrated at his mother’s lack of comprehension at the enormity of the issues he was having.
“Have you got a bottle for him?” asked Jackie, appearing back in the living room.
“Somewhere in one of those bags.” Rose pointed with her chin, as she walked Brem, bouncing him up and down.
Jackie opened one and let out a short scream.
“Oh,” said Rose, as an afterthought. “They’re bigger on the inside.”
“Bloody hell,” muttered Jackie, as she searched through them. She found the bottle just as the kettle began whistling, and disappeared back into the kitchen.
Rose, after a second, followed her into the kitchen, not relishing the conversation. Brem was still crying but half-heartedly now, as if he were doing it as a matter of principle. Her mother was pouring the tea over ice, preparing it for Brem, and Rose watched her as she then shifted it to a bottle and handed it silently across to Rose. Rose offered it to Brem, who stared at her in disbelief.
“C’mon, sweetheart,” she coaxed. “It’s a peace offering, huh?”
Brem sighed enormously, but reluctantly began sucking on the bottle with the attitude that he was doing her a favour.
Rose took a deep breath and smiled at her mother. “Can we have a cuppa?”
“What is going on, Rose?” demanded Jackie, pouring tea into a mug. “Yesterday the two of you were as giddy as teenagers, and today he’s pushing you off the TARDIS in your pyjamas? What happened?”
“He didn’t-He-” Rose sugared her tea. “He had to go.”
“I knew it.” Jackie sat angrily in the chair opposite. “I knew he’d never be able to stay in one place.”
“He wants to, Mum. You don’t understand. There are things he has to do. We discussed this. He’s coming back.”
“Great. And how are you and I going to manage to take care of a baby that doesn’t sleep in the meantime?”
Brem, still slurping at his iced tea, cut his eyes over to his grandmother.
“Shifts, I suppose. I’ll try to just nap a bit in the evenings, and take care of him the rest of the time.”
“I don’t know who he thinks he is,” grumbled Jackie. “That he can just swan in and out of being a father.”
“He isn’t a father first. That’s his issue. He’s never going to be a father first, and that’s not his fault. He would if he could, huh, Brem?”
“Well, if you ask me, it’s not half selfish of him-”
“Stop it,” bit out Rose, her voice dangerously quiet, and Jackie looked at her as if she’d never seen him before. “Stop it. It’s the least selfish thing he does. And I’ll not have you try to make Brem think anything different about it, do you understand me?”
“Rose-”
“He left me with a sonic screwdriver. I’ve got unlimited cash at my disposal. And I will not hesitate to go somewhere else with Brem if you can’t follow the simple rule of not insulting his dad.”
Jackie’s eyes flickered to the baby, who looked serene now, eyes closed as he concentrated on his iced tea. She opened her mouth. And she said, flatly, “Fine.”
**********************
Brem did not cry constantly--but he was fussy, which was decidedly unlike him. He wanted to be held all the time. Rose tried what she could to keep him calm; she played the music she thought he’d associate with the Doctor, and then didn’t know why that would make Brem feel better as it didn’t make her feel better. She remembered that the lights at Christmastime emitted a low buzz that approximated the comforting hum of the TARDIS and pulled them out and plugged them in.
Brem did seem to like visiting. He appeared to be endlessly fascinated by new people. The first few months of his life had been so isolated that his curiosity for the world outside the TARDIS was all-consuming. It was the only time her pendant glowed anywhere close to yellow anymore, when she and Brem went for walks. She took him, methodically, to every different area of London and watched him, overflowing with love, while he gaped at pigeons and buses and other little children. Brem had been born at the height of summer; it was now swiftly becoming fall, and he looked adorable, his thick hair hidden under a hat and his hands burdened by mittens and his cheeks flushed with the cold.
He liked visiting, but he did not like new people touching him or holding him or cooing over him. In fact, he didn’t like to have his mother out of his sight. He grudgingly accepted his grandmother, when forced to, but he let Rose know he didn’t much like it. Jackie said he insisted on being brought to check on his sleeping mother every few minutes, so that she began automatically bringing him into Rose’s bedroom to reassure him every time there was a commercial break. Jackie started to say something about separation anxiety, but shut up when Rose glared at her.
The Doctor did call, for the first time on the second day after he’d left. Rose had been waiting for the call, sleeping with the mobile by the bed, but the Doctor finally called when she and Brem were in Trafalgar Square. She told him that, and he launched into some sort of long monologue about the history of the Square or maybe the geological features of the ground underneath it or something. She didn’t pay that much attention to his rambling, preferring just to enjoy the sound of his voice. He called again a couple of days later, just as her mother had woken her up for the overnight shift.
Jackie watched her daughter’s entire face light up as she stretched out on the couch, holding Brem. “He’s fine,” Rose said, into the phone, combing at Brem’s hair. Brem was working contentedly on a bottle of iced tea, and looked about to be dozing into one of his naps. “He’s wonderful.”
Jackie sighed and shook her head and went to bed, but, when she woke briefly an hour later, she could hear Rose laughing in the other room, apparently still on the phone.
The following morning, when they met over the kitchen table, Jackie asked, neutrally, “Is he doing well?”
“Yes,” replied Rose.
“You should have told him about Brem.”
“Told him what?”
“That he’s cranky.”
“Mum, of course he’s cranky.”
Jackie let a moment of silence fall. “When will he be back?”
“He didn’t say. He hopes very soon.”
“I don’t know how much longer you can go on holding that baby eighteen hours a day.”
“As long as I need to,” said Rose, concentrating on the jam she was spreading, one-handed, over her toast.
Jackie frowned, and as soon as it was her turn to watch Brem, waited for Rose to fall asleep and snuck into her bedroom. The mobile was on her nightstand, and she grabbed it and walked back out to the living room and called the last number received, a bit amused when it called up as “TARDIS.”
“Rose?” came the Doctor’s voice after a few rings, sounding curious.
“It’s Jackie,” she corrected.
The Doctor blinked in the TARDIS. “What’s wrong?” he asked, swiftly.
“Nothing. Everyone’s fine. But I wanted you to know.”
“Know?” he repeated.
“Brem misses you. He’s cranky, he cries whenever he’s not being held, he’s running Rose ragged. And she won’t tell you because she doesn’t want you to feel guilty. But it’s true. I thought someone should tell you.”
The Doctor was silent for a second. “Is Brem there?”
“Yes, he’s here.” Jackie looked down at Brem, who was curled against her stomach, watching television raptly.
“Let me talk to him.”
Jackie huffed in frustration. “He’s still only three months old, you know.”
“Doesn’t matter, Jackie. Let me talk to him.”
Shaking her head in disgust, Jackie held the phone up to Brem’s ear. Brem suddenly grew more alert. And, to Jackie’s amazement, delight flashed over his tiny face. He giggled and squirmed with happiness against her.
Jackie, curious, put the phone back to her own ear. The Doctor was speaking, in a language she didn’t recognize.
“What are you sayin’ to him?” Jackie asked.
“I’m telling him to behave himself for the two of you,” the Doctor answered, switching back to English.
“Do you lot even know how to behave?”
“When we’re young,” drawled the Doctor, “before we’ve learned all our bad habits. Look, I’m sorry about this. It was my fault.”
“Too right it’s your fault,” retorted Jackie. “You should come home.”
“I can’t. Not right now. Soon. I promise. But for now I’ve…When we’re on the TARDIS, even when I’m shielding myself, he can still feel that I’m there. I’d forgotten that. It scared him not to feel me. That’s why he’s been…not himself. I’m not shielding myself as much, he’ll be able to feel me, he’ll be better.”
Jackie didn’t really understand a word of that, but she understood the sentiment. “Thanks.”
The Doctor hesitated. “How’s Rose?”
“She’s tired. And she misses you.”
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I know. I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
And he ended the call.
“Well,” Jackie said to Brem, who tipped his head as much as he could to look up at her. “At least he seems to think this place is ‘home.’”
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