#doing this event like nanowrimo on steroids

[writingithink]

The Doctor’s Domestic Nightmare Pairing: Ten x Rose Rated: G Wordcount: 2,542 Summary: They visit Jackie to do some Earth-wedding planning. Notes: This is for Day 5 of @timepetalsweek ! I used two of the prompts, the picture prompt and 'family'. A fair amount of the other fics in this series get referenced in this one, but I still don't think you'd be lost if you haven't read them. Extra special thanks to @hey-there-juliet , the best beta ever <3 All mistakes are mine. I own nothing.

READ IT ON AO3 -> copy/paste link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25478851

The Doctor landed the TARDIS outside the flat this time. Anything he could do to make this whole thing go easier (and hopefully quicker).

“How long are we staying?” He turned toward Rose, who was still sitting on the jumpseat, doing something on her phone.

“Thought we might stay the night,” she slowly replied, attention obviously otherwise involved. “Mum’s been lonely.”

“What are you doing?”

Normally she was out of the ship in a heartbeat when they landed at the Estates. This time she didn’t look like she’d be moving anytime soon. Their bond wasn’t providing him with anything useful, just a mix of concentration, mild frustration, and sympathy. They had agreed to both put their barriers up decently high shortly after she woke up, when they started to create a stress feedback-loop in each other's heads. He sat down next to her and leaned over her shoulder to see that she was texting Jackie.

“You know, you can talk to her in person right outside these doors,” the Doctor felt the need to point out.

“No, no, however my phone works now, the sonic or the TARDIS or whatever, it, like- it blocked my texts until I woke up this mornin’. But if you look at the little time stamps, it’s sendin’ my replies as if I didn’t wait a month to answer. I’m texting my mum three days ago,” Rose explained.

“Oh. Huh. Must be the TARDIS. Have you been doing this all morning?”

“Yeah. The first text came through as being from about, I dunno … an hour after we left last time?”

“Well, knowing your mother, she’ll be outside the door any minute. Doubt you’ll have time to finish the week,” he admitted with a frown. The Doctor hoped that all of the guilt he was feeling at keeping the two of them apart was safely behind the walls he’d erected in his mind. Of course, traveling, being away from her mother, that was Rose’s decision (and one that he was immensely, immensely glad for).

But still.

He and Rose had talked, back when they were at the Olympics, after the Isolus. About things, family things, Gallifrey things that he didn’t want to talk about. Thankfully, with the bond, he was able to show her more than tell her, because the words wouldn’t come half the time - a real shock, with his gob. And he’d admitted to her how much he wished things had been different with his children. That he’d been more like them, or they’d been more like him - but they had taken after their mother, who was a very respectable Time Lady, and fit right in. Whereas he never had. Things had brightened up a little when he told her about Susan, but overall the whole thing had made them both very sad, very ill timed conversation to have on a honeymoon.

And now he felt guilty, much more so than usual, at the thought of Jackie being lonely while they gallivanted about time and space.

“I need to change,” Rose announced, jostling him as she stood and bringing him back to the present.

“What?”

“She’s made some appointments at some very nice places and I have to change. Ahh, I don’t even know what to wear!” she exclaimed, quickly exiting the console room but pausing at the entrance to the main corridor. “If mum shows up, can you stall her?”

“ What?!”

But his wife was gone, apparently off to change out of her jeans and hoodie. The Doctor sighed, circling the console, mentally calculating what repairs he might be able to make some progress on in the time that he would be waiting on her. It really was a shame that humans tended not to pick an outfit and stick to it - things would be so much simpler. Not that he didn’t enjoy all the fun, different things Rose wore. And she did seem to really enjoy dressing up for all of the different places they went to.

Just as he was considering perhaps changing his tie, knocking started up on the TARDIS door.

Oh, bloody hell.

He flinched, expecting a mental zap, but it never came. Right, they were blocking most things out. Ehh … 

The benefits of mental privacy - today, at least. Well, it was obviously necessary but he really didn’t like it. What did it say about him that he preferred to be telepathically reprimanded than to not be telepathically noticed at all?

Probably nothing good.

The Doctor shook his head as the knocking continued, and then jogged down the ramp, grabbing his coat as he went. He opened the door just wide enough to slip out, slamming it closed with his back as soon as he’d cleared it.

“Hello, Jackie!” he greeted his mother-in-law with a wide grin.

“Doctor,” she responded, crossing her arms. Ohh, and he’d been hoping she would have warmed back up after last time. Then again, what had been a month and a half for them had only been a week for her. “Where’s Rose?”

“She’s still getting ready. I never can tell how long it’s going to take her, so I may have landed us a bit, er, prematurely.”

“You’re not lyin’, are ya? She’s not in there sick, or injured, or- or-“

“No no no no no,” he quickly interrupted, waving his hands about, “I would never lie to you about something like that! Rose is fine. She’s just- just- picking an outfit or doing her hair or something.”

“Alright then,” Jackie said, finally seeming to relax … a bit. “Maybe I can give her a hand.”

The Doctor knocked her arm away as she reached for the door, and that was quite rude, wasn’t it? Definitely not doing anything to get back into her good graces, but if Rose was still texting and Jackie had her mobile on her, he wasn’t sure it would still work if her mum entered the TARDIS.

“If you go in, it’ll take even longer!” he insisted, not knowing if that was necessarily true but assuming it was. Jackie had never been in the wardrobe room, so he could only imagine. “Why don’t we head inside? Otherwise we might be standing outside the TARDIS for ages.”

“ You want to sit around the flat with me, no Rose?” She seemed skeptical, and he really couldn’t blame her.

“Yeah! Of course!” The Doctor pasted on what he hoped was a winning smile.

The things he did for his wife.

“Riiiight. Okay, then. Fine. She better be quick about it, though, otherwise we’ll be late. You shoulda waited for her to land that box of yours,” she scolded him as they headed up to the flat. He took the time to really look at her, and realized that Jackie actually looked quite nice today, for once not wearing one of her velour tracksuits.

It was too bad he couldn’t tell her that of course he’d waited for Rose before landing.

“Won’t happen again,” he said instead, hoping that was true.

They entered the flat and the Doctor was sincerely at a loss as to how to proceed. He projected everything that had happened to Rose, just getting an ‘okay’ in response. Her mental presence was frenzied, and he wished he knew how to be more helpful. The fact was, he had wandered into something very human that he had never thought that he’d ever be a part of.

“So, how’s it been?” Jackie called out from the kitchen.

“Hmm?” He wandered into the room to see her moving about, fixing tea.

“I said, how’s it been, the two of you. With your first week or however long it’s been for ya, dating.”

“ Dating?!” the Doctor repeated, and now she was facing him, looking at him like he was an idiot for some reason, but excuse her, what?!

“My daughter?”

“No, I know your daughter, but we’re not dating! We’re married!”

“Right, sure, so you’ve been sayin’, but the fact is you two weren’t even properly together before your alien voodoo ended up accidentally getting you hitched. You can’t go from nothin’ to married like that, relationship-wise, no matter what ya got goin’ on with your shared brain whatever you call it.”

What?

“Bond,” he found himself mumbling, “it’s called a bond.”

“Though if you ask me, you two did go on about like you were together, even if Rose was constantly denying it. I’m not blind, y’know. And it wasn’t just me, either. Ask anyone around here, watchin’ you too making doe eyes at each other.”

“ Doe eyes?! I don’t make doe eyes,” the Doctor denied, though he still was trying to process the whole beginning of her speech. “Wait, did you say alien voodoo?!”

His words fell on deaf ears.

“And don’t get me started on the constant touching. The both of you had to realize that normal friends, platonic friends, don’t carry on like that, clingin’ to each other.”

“Clinging?” He didn’t even have it in him to scoff anymore. This was exhausting. Jackie pushed past him, handing him a cup of tea as she went. “Erm, thank you.”

“Use a coaster,” she told him, pointing at the couch.

Forget the beast in the pit, this was hell.

“Right, yes, of course,” he nodded, quickly sitting down and placing his mug on a coaster as ordered. Ugh.

Still, it was better than the interrogation she’d given him the last time they’d been here. And at least this time Jackie didn’t seem to expect him to say anything at all. Though she had asked him a question. And people called him rude!

His mother-in-law took a seat in the chair with her own mug, giving him the same skeptical look that she had after catching him modifying her toaster. Thankfully, before she could start up again the door opened and Rose walked in.

And she was breathless, panting, having obviously ran all the way from the TARDIS.

And from what little he could get from her over the bond he could tell that she was incredibly stressed and anxious.

But she looked gorgeous.

Her hair was done in soft curls, and she had on a TARDIS blue dress and the same little pink heels she’d worn when they’d failed to see Elvis. He really needed to get back around to that. Might not have time until their second honeymoon, though. Too many different plans. The Doctor couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“Mum!” she exclaimed, immediately wrapping Jackie in a hug.

“Finally! Thought we’d miss our first appointment! I told him, wait ’til you’re done before gettin’ you here, especially if he’s going to cut it so close. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t pass his test, you know, the way he lands willy nilly, and a year late, don’t think I’ll forget that! Who in their right mind woulda given him a time machine if they knew he’d be carryin’ on like that,” Jackie nattered on.

Not a word, he bit out to Rose across the bond and was actually quite pleased with the resulting mental laughter (despite the fact that it had really been a dire warning).

“Sorry for takin’ so long. I think we should still be fine. We’re getting a cab, right?” Rose asked, and they both began heading right back out of the flat.

The Doctor picked up his tea, blew on it, and put his legs up on the coffee table.

“What are you doin’?” Jackie asked him, holding the door open. “Shake a leg!”

“What?”

“You’re coming with us!”

He looked at Rose, who mouthed ‘sorry’, pointed at her phone and shrugged before remembering that they could speak telepathically.

Mum never said she expected you to come with us until the texts from yesterday, she explained, and I was in such a rush to get here by the time I got those ones that it slipped my mind to tell ya.

“Oh … right,” he tried to cover, “I just … thought we were having tea. And you know how great I think your tea is, Jackie. Saved the world, your tea did. Well, helped my regeneration sickness, which amounts to the same thing in that situation. Free radicals and tannins, have I properly explained the benefits to you? You see-”

“Wait a minute!” Jackie interrupted him, staring at Rose’s hands for some reason. “Where’s your ring?!”

Ring? Ring. Oh bloody, fucking hell.

“Oh, we haven’t-”

Her mother didn’t even give Rose a chance to speak. “We’re to go to all of these places, wedding planning, and he didn’t even have the decency to get you an engagement ring?!”

Exchanging rings. He knew that one! It was a human marriage custom so pervasive that it remained a part of their wedding ceremonies throughout time and space. And he’d forgotten.

“We just haven’t had a chance to go looking yet, that’s all,” Rose lied. “If anyone asks, we’ll just say it’s off gettin’ sized.”

Jackie huffed before stomping out of the flat, his wife trailing behind. The Doctor sat for another moment, positively baffled at how this day was going, then bounded out of the flat after them. When he caught up to Rose, he took her hand and pulled her to a stop.

“I’m so sorry,” he told her, and really, he didn’t even know where to start.

“Doctor, it’s fine, I don’t care about rings and stuff.”

“Not just that, though. But still, that too! I’m sorry for- for not doing this properly, not dating you, jumping straight into everything. I waited too long to tell you how I felt, and now I’m completely rubbish at doing all of these human courtship and marriage things, and you deserve-”

“Doctor,” Rose interrupted him, putting a hand over his mouth. “Y’need to stop listening to my mum. We’re fine. We were fine before you left the TARDIS, and we’re still fine. Better than fine, even. We’re fantastic. And let’s get this straight now, I’m the one who gets to decide what I deserve.”

“And what’s that?” he asked, words muffled by the hand she still hadn’t moved.

You, she declared over their bond, barriers dropped so that a tidal wave of love and affection poured into him.

And then he effortlessly nudged her hand out of the way, pulled her even closer, and kissed her.

The Universe was not kind. It owed him nothing. If anything, he owed it. Because it gave him her.

The hand not clutching her lower back tangled into her hair as he deepened the kiss, his own barriers crumbling as he tried to express everything he was feeling in that moment. Her arms wrapped around his neck and it was perfect. Everything was perfect, and the Doctor had no idea why he’d ever thought otherwise.

“OI!!”

They sprang apart as if a bucket of water had been poured over them.

“None of that!” Jackie yelled from across the way. “Get a move on! I swear, this is gonna be worse than all of the lovesick mooning.”

He was mortified.

Rose’s barriers had already locked back into place, her face red.

Tell your mum I’m off to get your ring, he projected before running back to the TARDIS as fast as he possibly could.

#timepetalsweek #ficandchips #ten x rose #dw fic #dw fanfiction #timepetals #tenrose #fandom: doctor who #pairing: rose x doctor #fic: the doctor's domestic nightmare #my fic #I THOUGHT I WOULD BE LATE BUT I'M NOT #and also no i do not know why i am #doing this event like nanowrimo on steroids #this is my life and these are my choices