Don't Blink - 19/?
Title: Don't Blink - 19/?
Characters: Rose, Ten
Summary: AU. What if Rose had stayed through Doomsday and was the one to end up in 1969 with the Doctor? How would they get back to their proper time? Would they want to?
Rating: PG
Beta: nattieb
~ One~ Two~ Three~ Four~ Five~ Six~ Seven~ Eight~ Nine~ Ten
~ Eleven~ Twelve~ Thirteen~ Fourteen~ Fifteen~ Sixteen~
Seventeen~ Eighteen~
The Doctor caught her and held her tight.
“Hello! Everything all right?”
“Is everything-” Rose detached herself from his arms and gave him a good smack on the arm. “No, everything is not all right!”
“Ow!” He rubbed his arm and looked at her reproachfully. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong? What’s wrong is you were gone this morning and I didn’t know where you were! You didn’t even leave a note!”
He wavered between indignation at being expected to do such a mundane task and guilt that he had caused her worry. He chose guilt.
“Rose-”
“And don’t you dare say that leaving a note is too domestic,” she said wrathfully, “because it’s only common courtesy!”
“This is about more than a note, isn’t it?” He took her arm and drew her into the storefront of her shop, away from the passersby.
“I woke up and you were gone,” she tried to explain. “And then there was this red stuff on the stairs, and I thought it might be blood, and I started to worry that something had happened to you, and it was just paint, but I was still worried.”
“Oh, Rose. I’m sorry.” He was genuinely repentant. “I’m so sorry I worried you. I didn’t think.”
She sniffed, already annoyed with herself at acting so foolishly. “I know you didn’t think. I mean, you’re free to do what you want-”
“No. No I’m not. Not now. Not when you depend on me to keep you safe.” He raised a hand when she would have said something. “And don’t tell me that you’re perfectly capable of keeping yourself safe, and me, because I know it. But let me think that I’m responsible for you.”
He’d never talked like that before. Lots of complaints about humans and wandering off and being jeopardy-friendly, but he’d never come out and boldly announced that he was the one in charge. Rose didn’t know whether to be touched or insulted.
“Just let me think it,” the Doctor repeated. “There’s nothing you can’t do, Rose Tyler, but I promised your mother I’d take care of you.”
Rose sighed. “It’s okay. Forget it.” She looked at the object in his hand. “What is that?”
“Oh!” He held it up and grinned. “This is what I was working on! I’ve been testing it out today.”
“What is it?”
“Well, we have someone from Sally Sparrow’s time coming here in two days. Trouble is, I have the date but not the place. Sally couldn’t know where he’d land. So I created something that will help us find him.” He brandished the object. “I call it a timey-wimey detector.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.” He looked wounded. “Don’t you think it’s a good name?”
To avoid answering that she looked at it more closely. The main frame appeared to be constructed out of a red metal lunch box. There were various bits and bobs assembled around a circular piece of metal, and on the front of the lunchbox was a postcard featuring the rides at Blackpool with the words “Wish You Were Here” on it.
She looked at him in bemusement. “What does it do?”
He beamed at her proudly. “It detects artron energy. Anyone who travels in the Time Vortex-”
“Picks up artron energy,” she finished with a nod.
“Rose! You were paying attention!” He gave her a hug, as proud as if she’d just recited the Shadow Proclamation in its entirety in Venusian.
“Well, I do listen to you sometimes.” She nodded at the timey-wimey detector. “How does it work?”
“I spent the past few nights working on the design. I was out today testing it. If my theory holds, and it should because it’s a very plausible theory-”
“Does it work?” Rose interrupted, knowing that if she didn’t she would never find out the answer.
He sighed. “Well, I’ve spent all of today testing it out.”
“And?” she prompted.
He’d taken the detector out into London as soon as he’d finished with it. Rose had still been sleeping, as had most of the city. Hopping on the closest bus, he’d traveled out of London into the neighboring country, where he could work in privacy.
Without any sources of artron energy, it was hard to be precise about the functions of the machine, but he was fairly certain that it would work.
An unfortunate downside was that the energy he’d installed within the device appeared to have a negative effect on chickens. This was all in the name of getting them back home, so perhaps Rose would understand the unfortunate negative effect.
Rose was incredulous. “It does what to hens?”
Rose gave a decided pass to having dinner. The day had been stressful, and his extremely descriptive explanation of what his timey-wimey detector did to hens did nothing for her appetite.
“Not even for eggs?” the Doctor asked innocently as they walked home, and she fixed him with a stern glare.
“That’s not funny. The poor birds!”
He stowed the timey-wimey detector in his pocket. He was wearing his brown suit and long coat again, and Rose wondered briefly how he would ever come to terms with being where they were if he wouldn’t change his clothes.
“It was a rather long day, but at least we have a way to find our once and future friend.” He glanced down at her. “I’m very sorry I worried you, Rose.”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t just you. I mean, it was mostly you, because you had me so worried. But it was because of my mother, mostly.”
His voice was soft and sympathetic. “Did you have another dream?”
“Yeah. And then I thought, I’m in 1969! She’s in 1969! She’s here somewhere in London!”
The Doctor looked wary. “But in this time, she’s just a child, isn’t she?”
“Well, she’d be two or three, and my dad not much older, but she’s still here!” Rose dug around in her pocket. “I have the address where my grandparents are living.”
The Doctor felt a painful scene coming on. The last time they had gone back in time to see a parent, it had not gone well.
“Rose,” he began, but she cut him off.
“I don’t want to change anything, Doctor. Not a thing. I just want to see her. I want to know she’s still here.”
He’d given in when it came to going back in time to save Pete Tyler’s life. He’d given in when she’d wanted to find Pete in the parallel world. Why did he bother to ever throw up any opposition to Rose Tyler?
He reached for her lunchbox and tucked it under his arm. “All right. Let’s have that address.”
Rose’s grandparents didn’t live on an estate. They lived in a small house on a quiet street in London.
The Doctor looked around. Their current flat was in a semi-trendy part of London that would get more popular in a few years. This neighborhood was older and farther from the hub of London, but it was respectable.
“Is this where they lived when you were growing up?”
Looking around, Rose slowly shook her head. “No. They lived here when Mum was born, but they moved to a flat when the kids had all left home.”
The Doctor vaguely remembered some mentions of aunts and cousins over the past two years, but he hadn’t been paying close attention. He tried to make up for it now.
“How many kids did they have?”
Rose seemed pleased that he was asking, and he felt ashamed that he showed so little interest in her life. At the time, anything that he had to show her was by far more exciting than any family relationships she could have bored him with. He’d thought so, anyway.
“Well, there was my mum first. My aunt Lisa, two years later. And then my uncle Roger.”
“Yes, Uncle Roger,” the Doctor said absently. He was busy looking around.
There was no one around the small house. The Doctor still didn’t want to interfere too much, but with Rose not existing in this time yet, there was no fear of crossing her own timeline. As for his...well, he didn’t feel his earlier self, which meant that he was in no danger of bringing down the Reapers. Still, he was wary as he turned to Rose.
“Looks like no one’s here. I suppose you’ll insist on ringing the bell, making up some absurd cover story and force your way inside for tea?”
Rose smiled and shook her head. “Let’s just walk around. I haven’t been here for years.”
“Well, you won’t be here for years,” he couldn’t help pointing out, but he took the hand she held out to him and followed along.
“You know, that’s the weirdest thing about time travel.” Rose walked along the street, picking her way carefully over the pavement to avoid scratching her white shoes or catching a heel in a crack. “I’m here, right now, with you. But when I’m a kid, I’ll be right here. And you say that I can be here now, and be there - then - at the same time.”
“Time is complicated,” the Doctor agreed. “But you think that’s the weirdest thing about time travel? Even weirder than fire-breathing midgets, flying dinosaurs, and meeting yourself as an infant?”
“Well, a few things are weirder,” she allowed. She came to a stop. “Oh!”
“What is it?” The Doctor looked all around.
“Look!” Rose raised her free hand and pointed at a playground.
“It’s a park,” the Doctor stated.
“Yeah. But when I was little, this was a shopping center!” Rose looked all around in amazement. “I can’t believe they would get rid of this to put up a few buildings!”
“Humans love progress.”
The place that Rose would one day know as a shopping center was now a lovely, if somewhat small, park. Benches ran along the sides, and playground equipment was erected in the middle. There were two slides and some swings and even a small sandbox that was mostly empty. Two old men sat on one of the benches, smoking cigarettes and watching the birds.
“Oh my gosh,” Rose whispered.
“What?”
“Look.”
“At what?”
“Granny Prentice,” Rose said softly. “That’s my gran. Right there by the swings.”
Rose stared in awe. This stylish, pretty woman was her grandmother? She was wearing a bright green miniskirt and go-go boots, and she had on the best set of false eyelashes Rose had seen yet. She was tall and slender, and Rose was gobsmacked to recognize her.
“That’s never your granny!” The Doctor couldn’t take his eyes off the minidress.
“Oi!” Rose elbowed him in the side. “That’s my granny you’re staring at!”
“Well, she’s no granny right now!”
“She used to be all wrinkled and grey-haired!” Rose marveled. “And she smoked way too much.”
“Well, she’s looking fine right now,” the Doctor said, and got another elbow in the side for his trouble.
Rose looked from her grandmother to the child she was pushing on the swing. Jackie Prentice was a small child, with light brown hair and large blue eyes, gleefully pumping her legs on the swing.
Rose’s heart caught. She had seen that small face in family photos many times. “Mum.”
“That’s your mum.” The Doctor stared. “Amazing. Who would have thought that Jackie would have been such a cute child?”
She ignored him, all her attention focused on the little girl. “I can’t believe it. That’s my mother!”
The Doctor touched her arm. “Rose, I know that’s your mother, but in this time and place she is just a child. It will do you no good to try and have contact with her.”
“I don’t want contact,” she denied. “I just...want to see her.”
“Time’s up!” Rose’s grandmother announced. “Time to go home, love.”
Little Jackie instantly began to whine, causing the Doctor to remark, “Ah, that’s her, no doubt about it.”
“Time for supper, eh?” one of the old men called. “She’s been out too late.”
Rose’s grandmother rolled her eyes as she untangled Jackie from the swing. “She’s been a bear today.” She took Jackie’s hand and started off towards Rose and the Doctor. “Come on, love.”
Jackie continued to whine. Her mother ignored her, pausing to light up a cigarette.
“She smoked for years,” Rose said softly. “Years and years before she died.”
The Doctor looked at the woman more closely. “Rose, how much younger is your mother’s next sibling?”
“They’re two-” Rose stopped. “She’s pregnant!”
Her gran was definitely pregnant. Not far along, but the bump was visible.
“She’s smoking!” Rose said indignantly, and would have headed off to stop her grandmother if the Doctor hadn’t grabbed her arm.
“Now, Rose. It’s common in this time. Telling her to stop would be rude.”
“Rude! She’s having a baby and she’s smoking!” Rose wrenched her arm away from him and walked towards her grandmother.
The Doctor sighed, a familiar feeling coming over him. The feeling of inevitability. The feeling that Rose Tyler was about to rush headlong into something she shouldn’t.
“Excuse me!” Rose called. Her grandmother turned around. Rose was even more startled to see how pretty she was close-up. No frown lines, no wrinkles. Her hair was dyed a pale blonde and her eyeshadow was sea green. Rose was amazed that this was the same woman she would grow up with. The gran she had known had already aged.
“Can I help you, love?”
“You’re, you’re smoking.” Rose gestured towards the cigarette.
“Oh, do you want a light?” Her gran started to reach for her bag.
“No! No, I don’t. It’s just...” Rose faltered. “You’re having a baby, aren’t you? Smoking isn’t good for pregnant women. Or for small children,” she added, glancing down at the small girl who would grow up to be her mother.
Rose’s grandmother frowned. “Who are you to come and criticize me? I’m having a healthy baby, I am, and I don’t need some posh student coming round to tell me how to live.”
“No, I’m not a student,” Rose protested, but her grandmother had already swept away.
The Doctor sighed and moved up to her, standing shoulder to shoulder as they watched them walk away.
“She’s a grand temper, Mrs. Prentice,” one of the old men n the bench observed. “Lucky the little one was with her, else she would’ve let you have it.”
“She thought we were students,” Rose said numbly. “She called us posh.”
“Well, we do look rather nice,” the Doctor said cheerfully.
“I always do this, don’t I?” Rose wiped away a tear. “I try to fix things but it never works.”
The Doctor put his arm around her waist and gently turned her back in the direction of the flat.
“You know that the next baby comes out all right,” he assured her. “We can’t meddle. You can’t do anything that will change the past. It might affect your future.”
Rose sighed. “It’s not always so much fun, is it? Getting to see the past.”
“No,” he agreed. “Not always. But we have a lot more to look forward to, don’t we?”
She smiled up at him. “Yeah, we do.” She let him push her along down the street. Soon she was feeling good enough to take notice of shop windows. “Are you hungry?”
“Yeah.” He dropped a quick kiss on her forehead, one that startled him almost as much as it startled her. After a moment she smiled, a slow, shy smile, and blushed. He cleared his throat.
“Shall we go find something to eat? My treat.”
“Does ‘my treat’ mean you’re gonna use your alien tech to buy?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’ll choose the place.”
Twenty
Characters: Rose, Ten
Summary: AU. What if Rose had stayed through Doomsday and was the one to end up in 1969 with the Doctor? How would they get back to their proper time? Would they want to?
Rating: PG
Beta: nattieb
~ One~ Two~ Three~ Four~ Five~ Six~ Seven~ Eight~ Nine~ Ten
~ Eleven~ Twelve~ Thirteen~ Fourteen~ Fifteen~ Sixteen~
Seventeen~ Eighteen~
The Doctor caught her and held her tight.
“Hello! Everything all right?”
“Is everything-” Rose detached herself from his arms and gave him a good smack on the arm. “No, everything is not all right!”
“Ow!” He rubbed his arm and looked at her reproachfully. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong? What’s wrong is you were gone this morning and I didn’t know where you were! You didn’t even leave a note!”
He wavered between indignation at being expected to do such a mundane task and guilt that he had caused her worry. He chose guilt.
“Rose-”
“And don’t you dare say that leaving a note is too domestic,” she said wrathfully, “because it’s only common courtesy!”
“This is about more than a note, isn’t it?” He took her arm and drew her into the storefront of her shop, away from the passersby.
“I woke up and you were gone,” she tried to explain. “And then there was this red stuff on the stairs, and I thought it might be blood, and I started to worry that something had happened to you, and it was just paint, but I was still worried.”
“Oh, Rose. I’m sorry.” He was genuinely repentant. “I’m so sorry I worried you. I didn’t think.”
She sniffed, already annoyed with herself at acting so foolishly. “I know you didn’t think. I mean, you’re free to do what you want-”
“No. No I’m not. Not now. Not when you depend on me to keep you safe.” He raised a hand when she would have said something. “And don’t tell me that you’re perfectly capable of keeping yourself safe, and me, because I know it. But let me think that I’m responsible for you.”
He’d never talked like that before. Lots of complaints about humans and wandering off and being jeopardy-friendly, but he’d never come out and boldly announced that he was the one in charge. Rose didn’t know whether to be touched or insulted.
“Just let me think it,” the Doctor repeated. “There’s nothing you can’t do, Rose Tyler, but I promised your mother I’d take care of you.”
Rose sighed. “It’s okay. Forget it.” She looked at the object in his hand. “What is that?”
“Oh!” He held it up and grinned. “This is what I was working on! I’ve been testing it out today.”
“What is it?”
“Well, we have someone from Sally Sparrow’s time coming here in two days. Trouble is, I have the date but not the place. Sally couldn’t know where he’d land. So I created something that will help us find him.” He brandished the object. “I call it a timey-wimey detector.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, seriously.” He looked wounded. “Don’t you think it’s a good name?”
To avoid answering that she looked at it more closely. The main frame appeared to be constructed out of a red metal lunch box. There were various bits and bobs assembled around a circular piece of metal, and on the front of the lunchbox was a postcard featuring the rides at Blackpool with the words “Wish You Were Here” on it.
She looked at him in bemusement. “What does it do?”
He beamed at her proudly. “It detects artron energy. Anyone who travels in the Time Vortex-”
“Picks up artron energy,” she finished with a nod.
“Rose! You were paying attention!” He gave her a hug, as proud as if she’d just recited the Shadow Proclamation in its entirety in Venusian.
“Well, I do listen to you sometimes.” She nodded at the timey-wimey detector. “How does it work?”
“I spent the past few nights working on the design. I was out today testing it. If my theory holds, and it should because it’s a very plausible theory-”
“Does it work?” Rose interrupted, knowing that if she didn’t she would never find out the answer.
He sighed. “Well, I’ve spent all of today testing it out.”
“And?” she prompted.
He’d taken the detector out into London as soon as he’d finished with it. Rose had still been sleeping, as had most of the city. Hopping on the closest bus, he’d traveled out of London into the neighboring country, where he could work in privacy.
Without any sources of artron energy, it was hard to be precise about the functions of the machine, but he was fairly certain that it would work.
An unfortunate downside was that the energy he’d installed within the device appeared to have a negative effect on chickens. This was all in the name of getting them back home, so perhaps Rose would understand the unfortunate negative effect.
Rose was incredulous. “It does what to hens?”
Rose gave a decided pass to having dinner. The day had been stressful, and his extremely descriptive explanation of what his timey-wimey detector did to hens did nothing for her appetite.
“Not even for eggs?” the Doctor asked innocently as they walked home, and she fixed him with a stern glare.
“That’s not funny. The poor birds!”
He stowed the timey-wimey detector in his pocket. He was wearing his brown suit and long coat again, and Rose wondered briefly how he would ever come to terms with being where they were if he wouldn’t change his clothes.
“It was a rather long day, but at least we have a way to find our once and future friend.” He glanced down at her. “I’m very sorry I worried you, Rose.”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t just you. I mean, it was mostly you, because you had me so worried. But it was because of my mother, mostly.”
His voice was soft and sympathetic. “Did you have another dream?”
“Yeah. And then I thought, I’m in 1969! She’s in 1969! She’s here somewhere in London!”
The Doctor looked wary. “But in this time, she’s just a child, isn’t she?”
“Well, she’d be two or three, and my dad not much older, but she’s still here!” Rose dug around in her pocket. “I have the address where my grandparents are living.”
The Doctor felt a painful scene coming on. The last time they had gone back in time to see a parent, it had not gone well.
“Rose,” he began, but she cut him off.
“I don’t want to change anything, Doctor. Not a thing. I just want to see her. I want to know she’s still here.”
He’d given in when it came to going back in time to save Pete Tyler’s life. He’d given in when she’d wanted to find Pete in the parallel world. Why did he bother to ever throw up any opposition to Rose Tyler?
He reached for her lunchbox and tucked it under his arm. “All right. Let’s have that address.”
Rose’s grandparents didn’t live on an estate. They lived in a small house on a quiet street in London.
The Doctor looked around. Their current flat was in a semi-trendy part of London that would get more popular in a few years. This neighborhood was older and farther from the hub of London, but it was respectable.
“Is this where they lived when you were growing up?”
Looking around, Rose slowly shook her head. “No. They lived here when Mum was born, but they moved to a flat when the kids had all left home.”
The Doctor vaguely remembered some mentions of aunts and cousins over the past two years, but he hadn’t been paying close attention. He tried to make up for it now.
“How many kids did they have?”
Rose seemed pleased that he was asking, and he felt ashamed that he showed so little interest in her life. At the time, anything that he had to show her was by far more exciting than any family relationships she could have bored him with. He’d thought so, anyway.
“Well, there was my mum first. My aunt Lisa, two years later. And then my uncle Roger.”
“Yes, Uncle Roger,” the Doctor said absently. He was busy looking around.
There was no one around the small house. The Doctor still didn’t want to interfere too much, but with Rose not existing in this time yet, there was no fear of crossing her own timeline. As for his...well, he didn’t feel his earlier self, which meant that he was in no danger of bringing down the Reapers. Still, he was wary as he turned to Rose.
“Looks like no one’s here. I suppose you’ll insist on ringing the bell, making up some absurd cover story and force your way inside for tea?”
Rose smiled and shook her head. “Let’s just walk around. I haven’t been here for years.”
“Well, you won’t be here for years,” he couldn’t help pointing out, but he took the hand she held out to him and followed along.
“You know, that’s the weirdest thing about time travel.” Rose walked along the street, picking her way carefully over the pavement to avoid scratching her white shoes or catching a heel in a crack. “I’m here, right now, with you. But when I’m a kid, I’ll be right here. And you say that I can be here now, and be there - then - at the same time.”
“Time is complicated,” the Doctor agreed. “But you think that’s the weirdest thing about time travel? Even weirder than fire-breathing midgets, flying dinosaurs, and meeting yourself as an infant?”
“Well, a few things are weirder,” she allowed. She came to a stop. “Oh!”
“What is it?” The Doctor looked all around.
“Look!” Rose raised her free hand and pointed at a playground.
“It’s a park,” the Doctor stated.
“Yeah. But when I was little, this was a shopping center!” Rose looked all around in amazement. “I can’t believe they would get rid of this to put up a few buildings!”
“Humans love progress.”
The place that Rose would one day know as a shopping center was now a lovely, if somewhat small, park. Benches ran along the sides, and playground equipment was erected in the middle. There were two slides and some swings and even a small sandbox that was mostly empty. Two old men sat on one of the benches, smoking cigarettes and watching the birds.
“Oh my gosh,” Rose whispered.
“What?”
“Look.”
“At what?”
“Granny Prentice,” Rose said softly. “That’s my gran. Right there by the swings.”
Rose stared in awe. This stylish, pretty woman was her grandmother? She was wearing a bright green miniskirt and go-go boots, and she had on the best set of false eyelashes Rose had seen yet. She was tall and slender, and Rose was gobsmacked to recognize her.
“That’s never your granny!” The Doctor couldn’t take his eyes off the minidress.
“Oi!” Rose elbowed him in the side. “That’s my granny you’re staring at!”
“Well, she’s no granny right now!”
“She used to be all wrinkled and grey-haired!” Rose marveled. “And she smoked way too much.”
“Well, she’s looking fine right now,” the Doctor said, and got another elbow in the side for his trouble.
Rose looked from her grandmother to the child she was pushing on the swing. Jackie Prentice was a small child, with light brown hair and large blue eyes, gleefully pumping her legs on the swing.
Rose’s heart caught. She had seen that small face in family photos many times. “Mum.”
“That’s your mum.” The Doctor stared. “Amazing. Who would have thought that Jackie would have been such a cute child?”
She ignored him, all her attention focused on the little girl. “I can’t believe it. That’s my mother!”
The Doctor touched her arm. “Rose, I know that’s your mother, but in this time and place she is just a child. It will do you no good to try and have contact with her.”
“I don’t want contact,” she denied. “I just...want to see her.”
“Time’s up!” Rose’s grandmother announced. “Time to go home, love.”
Little Jackie instantly began to whine, causing the Doctor to remark, “Ah, that’s her, no doubt about it.”
“Time for supper, eh?” one of the old men called. “She’s been out too late.”
Rose’s grandmother rolled her eyes as she untangled Jackie from the swing. “She’s been a bear today.” She took Jackie’s hand and started off towards Rose and the Doctor. “Come on, love.”
Jackie continued to whine. Her mother ignored her, pausing to light up a cigarette.
“She smoked for years,” Rose said softly. “Years and years before she died.”
The Doctor looked at the woman more closely. “Rose, how much younger is your mother’s next sibling?”
“They’re two-” Rose stopped. “She’s pregnant!”
Her gran was definitely pregnant. Not far along, but the bump was visible.
“She’s smoking!” Rose said indignantly, and would have headed off to stop her grandmother if the Doctor hadn’t grabbed her arm.
“Now, Rose. It’s common in this time. Telling her to stop would be rude.”
“Rude! She’s having a baby and she’s smoking!” Rose wrenched her arm away from him and walked towards her grandmother.
The Doctor sighed, a familiar feeling coming over him. The feeling of inevitability. The feeling that Rose Tyler was about to rush headlong into something she shouldn’t.
“Excuse me!” Rose called. Her grandmother turned around. Rose was even more startled to see how pretty she was close-up. No frown lines, no wrinkles. Her hair was dyed a pale blonde and her eyeshadow was sea green. Rose was amazed that this was the same woman she would grow up with. The gran she had known had already aged.
“Can I help you, love?”
“You’re, you’re smoking.” Rose gestured towards the cigarette.
“Oh, do you want a light?” Her gran started to reach for her bag.
“No! No, I don’t. It’s just...” Rose faltered. “You’re having a baby, aren’t you? Smoking isn’t good for pregnant women. Or for small children,” she added, glancing down at the small girl who would grow up to be her mother.
Rose’s grandmother frowned. “Who are you to come and criticize me? I’m having a healthy baby, I am, and I don’t need some posh student coming round to tell me how to live.”
“No, I’m not a student,” Rose protested, but her grandmother had already swept away.
The Doctor sighed and moved up to her, standing shoulder to shoulder as they watched them walk away.
“She’s a grand temper, Mrs. Prentice,” one of the old men n the bench observed. “Lucky the little one was with her, else she would’ve let you have it.”
“She thought we were students,” Rose said numbly. “She called us posh.”
“Well, we do look rather nice,” the Doctor said cheerfully.
“I always do this, don’t I?” Rose wiped away a tear. “I try to fix things but it never works.”
The Doctor put his arm around her waist and gently turned her back in the direction of the flat.
“You know that the next baby comes out all right,” he assured her. “We can’t meddle. You can’t do anything that will change the past. It might affect your future.”
Rose sighed. “It’s not always so much fun, is it? Getting to see the past.”
“No,” he agreed. “Not always. But we have a lot more to look forward to, don’t we?”
She smiled up at him. “Yeah, we do.” She let him push her along down the street. Soon she was feeling good enough to take notice of shop windows. “Are you hungry?”
“Yeah.” He dropped a quick kiss on her forehead, one that startled him almost as much as it startled her. After a moment she smiled, a slow, shy smile, and blushed. He cleared his throat.
“Shall we go find something to eat? My treat.”
“Does ‘my treat’ mean you’re gonna use your alien tech to buy?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’ll choose the place.”
Twenty