Doctor Who AU - The Doctor visits Pete’s World and finds out Rose and TenToo have had a baby
The Doctor wasn’t even sure how he knew it was the right house. The only thing he knew for sure was that he should not be here. He should not have found a way to slip through into Pete’s world, even if it could only be for a few hours, and he should not have flown the TARDIS to London, and he should definitely have not got the TARDIS to get a lock on his human self’s DNA.
Still, most of the Doctor’s life had been spent doing things that he should not be doing.
The back door was open, and the Doctor slipped into the deserted house. It was a reasonable size, with a garden and a car and a doorbell, and for a moment he was absolutely certain that they didn’t live here. Any version of him would never live in a house with a doorbell.He was sure that, no matter how human he was, he would never do something so…domestic.
He wasn’t sure what he was planning to do. Go in, say hi and leave? Admit that he was lonely, that since he had left Amy and Rory he had had no-one? Tell them that this could never happen again, that this was the last time he could ever see them, so he wanted to make sure they were happy?
There was no-one around, so the Doctor mounted the stairs, try to step as quietly as possible. Sneaking around their house seem somewhat wrong, but he needed to see them.
Sounds of movement were coming from an open door at the top of the stairs, and the Doctor carefully peeped around the door, not knowing which one of them he was going to find. He definitely did not expect what he actually found.
A room with white walls and wooden furniture, soft carpet covering the floor and a large window looking over the garden. It was clean and calm and so normal, but all the Doctor could focus on was the cot in the far corner. To be more precise, the baby in the cot in the far corner.
He doubled back for a moment, looking at the outside of the opened door. A little wooden plaque, painted a familiar dark blue, read “Jack”. The Doctor chuckled. He hoped the baby wouldn’t grow up to be too much like his namesake.
He approached the cot, twisting his hands together nervously. He might be able to speak baby, but that didn’t mean he could stop them crying every time. What if they came back and thought he was trying to kidnap their baby? After all, they wouldn’t know what he looked like now.
All these thoughts were banished when the Doctor looked into the cot. The baby lying there, probably about 9 months old, was looking up at him with such familiar eyes. They were brown, wide and bright and inquisitive. They were his eyes. Well, not him now, but him as he used to be. Jack stuck out his arms and gurgled, and the Doctor leaned down and picked him up, more out of instinct than anything else.
This was odd. Very odd. In a way this baby was related to him, though of course it wasn’t really. Well, sort of. Maybe. He couldn’t really figure it out himself, so he began to speak to little Jack.
The Doctor told Jack about how he used to be the same person as his dad, that he travelled around time and space with Jack’s mum and about the stars and the universe and how he had so many wonderful things to come.
“I wish I could take you for a trip, but I bet your parents wouldn’t let me,” he whispered, absentmindedly planting a kiss on the baby’s head.
“I don’t think a baby would fit with your lifestyle,” said a voice from behind the Doctor. He span around. Just inside the door stood a skinny man with unruly brown hair. He was dressed in blue suit trousers and a white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His eyes were the spitting image of the eyes in the face of the baby the Doctor was holding.
“How did you sneak up on me like that?” asked the Doctor, not quite able to think of anything better to say.
The other man stuck out one foot, and the Doctor looked down to see the battered converse boots that he knew so well. “Rubber soles - swear by ‘em.”
The Doctor smiled, not quite knowing what to say. How to explain himself. “I’m sorry I snuck in. I didn’t know if you would even be here. I wasn’t even sure this was your house. Or even if it was your house,” - he gestured at the other man with his head - “I didn’t know if it was…yourhouse.”
The other Doctor smiled. “Well if that’s the question you’re asking then yes, it is our house. The three of us. I see you’ve already met Jack.”
The Doctor just smiled, passing the baby over to the human Doctor, who took him in his arms with ease and pressed a kiss to Jack’s forehead.
“So this is what you look like now? Wow, and I though I was young!”
“Yeah. It is a bit weird, but you get used to it. Well, you know as well as I do that you get used to it.”
The Doctor sighed, looking away as he decided whether or not to tell the truth. “Doesn’t it always?”
The other Doctor didn’t answer this. “What are you doing here?”
The Doctor sighed again. “I can’t ever come back. This is it. I was alone and I needed to make sure you were happy. I wanted you to be happy.”
The human Doctor smiled. “Oh, we are.” His face had split into a grin that the Doctor knew very well - he could remember a time when that grin used to light up his face. He knew it well enough to know that the other Doctor was telling the truth. He really, truly meant it, and the Doctor felt a weight lift from his shoulders.
“Rose? Oh, she’s at work, she should be home any time soon.”
The other Doctor paused to examine the ring on his finger. “Yep. Did you really think it would go any other way? I mean, I know she said I wasn’t you, but after a little we both realised the truth. That, really deep down, I am exactly the same as I ever was. Only a bit more human. Human enough to be happy with a human life.”
The Doctor put his hands in his pockets and smiled. “That’s how I hoped it would happen.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” added the other Doctor, “she was mad at you. I mean really,reallymad at you. You left us both here without even asking.”
“I did what I thought was right, and I’m not going to apologise for that.”
The other Doctor grinned at him, lying Jack back down in the cot. “I knew you wouldn’t.” The noise of an opening door downstairs made them both look towards the door. “She’s back. If you don’t want to meet her, it’s not that far down the ground from that window. Take it from someone who knows.”
“It’s OK, said the Doctor, hoping that this wouldn’t be something he would regret doing.
“Doctor?” Rose’s voice came floating up the stairs, and the fact that Rose still called this other version of him ‘Doctor’ made the Doctor smile.
“We’re up here!” shouted his human clone, “we’ve got a visitor, and he was just saying hello to Jack.”
They heard footsteps bounding up the stairs, and before the Doctor really had time to think it through, Rose was standing in the doorway. She had stopped at the sight of him, clearly not recognising him.
Her eyes flickered back and forth between the two Doctors, and the Doctor saw the moment that she made the connection. She moved slowly forward to the other Doctor’s side, clasping his hand tightly and not keeping her eyes off the Doctor’s face.
“A bow tie?Really?”she said, her face breaking into that so familiar grin.
The Doctor smiled. “It’s cool.”
Rose raised an eyebrow, looking at her Doctor who mirrored her expression.
“No it’s not,” they said in unison, and the Doctor laughed.
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