Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or profit from this fanfic.

A/N: I can't believe how long this has taken to finish! I started this in 2006!! I blame it partly on the messed up ending of series 4...

Chapter 3: Future Perfect

Rose:

I still think about it, of course. It was the last time I was completely happy. Completely, because I had no sense of the future stretching out before me, empty. Without him. We never talked about it, afterwards. Never had the opportunity, really, because after that was Torchwood and the Daleks and all that followed and we lost each other forever. Remembrance of those few brief hours of passion was all that kept me going at times.

I dunno if it got harder or easier when I found out I was expecting. A bit of both, I suppose. I didn’t tell him. How could I? How could I give and take away a child all at once in that one short meeting? I couldn’t. But I thought about it, afterwards, how he might have reacted, if we had still been together, how he would have jumped about and said things like ‘fantastic’. I could picture him on the day she was born, holding her and saying how fantastic she was.

I called her Hope, because she was my hope. My hope that I could learn to live again, without him, to be happy. And I have been. Her smile – his smile – lights up my world. This wrong world. My baby; how could I not want to live for her? And she’s clever, like him, inquisitive, excited by everything around her. My only wish is that we could be together. A proper family. But sometimes even as I’m wishing it I get a chill down my spine. Would he want that? Would he choose it? He doesn’t do domestic. Maybe it was the right thing not to tell him, not to have to make him make that choice. But I try not to think about that too much. He’s never coming back, we have to carry on without him. And as long as I have her, I have hope, that it really will be ok.

Rose, Pete, Jackie and Lily were watching Hope unwrap her presents, pink paper littering the floor, when the doorbell rang.

“’S probably Mickey,” Rose said, “He said he might drop by.”

“But Uncle Mickey already gave me a present,” Hope said.

“Maybe he’s got cake,” Lily said hopefully.

“I’ll get it,” Jackie said and rose to her feet.

Jackie stared as she opened the door to see the Doctor standing there, a silvery parcel in his arms and a nervous expression on his face.

“Jackie Tyler speechless, I never thought I’d see the day,” he said after three minutes of stunned silence on her part.

“You!” she said eventually in a shocked whisper.

“Me,” he confirmed with a grin. Jackie shut the door behind her and crossed her arms over her chest.

“What the hell do you think you’re playing at!” Jackie said crossly. The Doctor’s grin faded.

“What do you mean?”

“You turn up here after seven years – seven years! – and act like nothing’s happened! What do you want?” she demanded. The Doctor swallowed. It had been a long time since he’d been on the receiving end of Jackie Tyler’s sharp tongue. He remembered the first time he’d met her. And the first time he’d met her in his new body. After meeting her, he suddenly understood all those Earth mother-in-law jokes.

“I want to see Rose,” he said simply. “And –“

“You broke her heart!” Jackie interrupted.

“I didn’t mean to! It wasn’t my fault!”

“If it wasn’t for Hope…”

“Hope, is she…” He left he question unfinished.

“Oh, she’s yours. ‘Course she is. Rose ain’t the type to go flitting about, not like you, leavin’ her to go running after Marie Antoinette.”

“It wasn’t Marie Antoinette, it was…not the point, sorry. So can I see her? Them?”

“No.”

“No?”

“Can you promise not to ever hurt her again? Can you promise that if you walk through that door you would stay forever? Because if you can’t, I’m not letting you come in just to break her heart all over again. And don’t even think that you’d take them with you. How could you take my granddaughter away from everything and everyone who’s ever loved her and been there for her to get kidnapped or killed on some alien planet. Over my dead body.” Jackie glared down at him defiantly from the top step.

“I…” He stopped. Supposing Jackie was right? Could he give up everything to stay here with them? Could he promise never to hurt Rose again, even as unintentionally as he’d done it the last time? Would it be wrong to take them with him? Suppose they didn’t want to come? Maybe the past was best left alone. “Will…will you at least give this to Hope?” he said, holding out the silver package. “It’s a birthday present.”

Jackie regarded it suspiciously for several seconds before taking it reluctantly and going back inside the house, closing the door behind her. The Doctor walked away with two heavy hearts.

“Who was it?” Rose asked when her mother re-entered the room.

“Oh, just Bev from next door, someone left a present for Hope while we were out.” She handed her granddaughter the package. Hope unwrapped it excitedly.

“Pink rollerskates! Oh wow, just what I wanted!”

“Cool!” interjected Lily. “Who are they from?”

“Doesn’t say,” Hope said, wrinkling her nose as she read the card.

2 out of 3 isn’t bad.

Hope stared at it, as the significance of the words dawned on her.

“Hope, you alright, love?” her mother asked her.

“Fine. I’m just going to get some more cake,” she announced and left the room. Carefully, the girl opened the front door and sneaked out into the night, breaking into a run as soon as the door clicked shut behind her. She knew where she was going, the park, it just had to be.

The Doctor stood in the doorway, looking sadly around him at the world he’d never thought to see again. As he stood there, breath making patterns in the cold air, he was arrested by a voice.

“Oi!” He turned to see the girl, his daughter, looking crossly at him from across the park. She’s got a mouth on her, just like her mother and grandmother, he thought fondly.

“Hello Hope,” he said, more calmly than he felt.

“I’m seven,” she said, “I’m not stupid. I can count to 2 out of 3. One, the roller skates. Two…my dad. Right? Unless there’s a bully turned into a frog hopping around here somewhere?”

Oh, she was clever. He knew she would be.

“I…” He found himself speechless, again. It was not a position he usually found himself in, but how could he explain to his daughter why he was seeing her for the first time on her seventh birthday, still less why he was leaving again.

“You really were just going to leave?” she said, her eyes stinging with tears. “Is it me? Were you disappointed? You never wanted me,” she looked down at the ground dejectedly and the Doctor felt at least one of his hearts crack.

“No, not that, never that, don’t even think it,” he reassured her. “You are beautiful and clever and…fantastic. I could never be disappointed in you. I’m so proud of you. And your mum. I never even knew about you until today…”

“But you were going to leave. Without even saying ‘hello’?”

“It’s not as simple as that.”

“Why not?”

Why not? Why couldn’t it be as simple as a seven year old saw it?

“Hope!” A voice called from across the park. Rose’s voice. The Doctor felt paralysed as he stared at her. All grown up and just as beautiful as he remembered. He knew the instant he saw her that he could never leave her again. It would break him. “Hope, what do you think you’re…” she stopped as she saw first the blue box and then the man standing in front of it.

“Rose…” It was little more than a whisper.

“You! It can’t be. You said it was impossible!” She walked towards him, eyes never leaving his.

“I thought it was impossible. Hope brought me here.”

“Hope? How?” Rose looked confusedly at her daughter.

“I wished it,” Hope said simply.

“You wished it?” Rose said incredulously. “I don’t understand…Oh, I don’t care how! You’re here, you’re really here?” she looked up at him fearfully, then something registered. The Tardis. “You’re leaving again? How could you!” She slapped him across the face. “After all this time…”

“Ow! You have got more like your mother…” Rose glared at him furiously. “It was Jackie, she said I couldn’t see you, it wouldn’t be fair…”

“This isn’t fair!” Rose exploded, “Being without you for seven years and then you about to leave without even…” Her voice cracked and he could tell she was fighting back tears. He felt his own eyes begin to water as he stepped forward and took her into his arms.

“I won’t leave,” he promised her, “I’m not leaving you again Rose, I’ll never leave you again,” he kissed her hair as she sobbed against his shoulder. “I need you,” he confessed, “I haven’t been human without you. Oh Rose…”

She pulled back and looked up at him. Then his mouth was on hers, his arms tightening around her. They kissed as if the world was ending when really, for them, it was just beginning.

A small, disapproving cough interrupted them and they turned to look at their daughter, her nose wrinkled in disgust as she regarded them.

“Do you have to?” she demanded. Looking at each other, Rose and her Doctor burst out laughing. The Doctor slung one arm around each of his girls.

“So you’re coming with me, then?”

“Don’t even try to stop us,” Rose grinned.

“But your family…” Her grin faded.

“I know. Mum won’t be happy. But I’ll get through to her, eventually. I can’t be without you again. And Hope needs her father.”

“We’re going with him?” Hope asked, “What about school?”

“Who needs school when you’ve got the whole of history?” the Doctor said, waving his arms expansively. “You did tell her I travel in time?”

“You travel in time? No way!”

“Guess not…Wait!” the Doctor stopped suddenly. Rose frowned up at him, suddenly worried. “I promised myself, all this time, that if I ever saw you again I wouldn’t waste any time in saying it…”

“Saying what?”

“Rose Tyler, I love you,” he said seriously. Rose grabbed him and kissed him again, much to Hope’s disgust.

The End