#gotta admit he's really snuck up and slowly rose to number one in my heart in the weeks since I finished blade

[yo-yo-yoshiko]

Its 2004... I need someone to hook my guy up with a skype account NOW.

[lirlovesfic]

The Choice

A Doctor Who fanfic

Summary: After GitF, the TARDIS brings the Doctor, Rose, and Mickey back to the estate to solve a problem involving the TARDIS herself. But when they see a familiar face, the face of someone who should not exist, they realize the problem is deeper than they thought and could endanger the Doctor’s very existence. Primary characters: Ninth Doctor, Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, Jackie Tyler. Genres: Romance, mystery, adventure, drama, character study, HN AU, fobbed!Nine, sick TARDIS. Pairings: Nine/Rose, Ten/Rose Rating: Adult

Warning: none for this chaper

a/n: I am currently working on editing this chapter-by-chapter, with the hopes of completing a chapter a day until I catch up with myself. As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m doing it to try to get back into the swing of writing and to build some momentum in order to finish this. Also, there have been some tiny things nagging at me for a while (grammar, punctuation, etc.) so I’ll be correcting as many of them as I can find as I go. The story will not change. In fact, most of the changes are going to be so minor that I doubt anyone (besides myself) will notice. But to keep myself on target, I’ll be posting it all here as I go, with links to the other websites it’s on. I hope you enjoy it.

Catch up: on AO3, on TSP, on ffnet

This chapter: on AO3, on TSP, on ffnet

Chapter Fifteen—London, 15 July 2007

John absently let the cat out as he frowned at the sheet of paper in his hand. The likeliest writers of the crude note were of course Chuck and Jimmy, both of whom he'd had run-ins with the previous day.

On the other hand, there were at least half a dozen others on the Estate who hated him enough to write the note, and that didn't include a few of his former customers and possibly half his coworkers at the garage who didn't like him either. Well, it wasn't his job to be liked, and for the most part he didn't care one way or the other how they felt about him. Truth be told, he didn't like them either.

At the sound of Rose coming out of the kitchen, he hurriedly shoved the note in his pocket. She met him by the door.

"I gotta get going." She glanced down at herself. "I really need to change. Bananas in nightcaps is a bit much even for the Estate."

"Dunno," he said, trying to keep a straight face. He knew he wasn't doing a particularly good job of it. "I think it suits you, and I've seen people wear things around here that makes that look like formal evening wear."

She chuckled. "Still, gotta get home before my mum does. Don't ask."

He grinned. "I won't."

She reached for the door handle, and he stopped her.

"Rose, I've got a couple of things to do this afternoon, but… d'you wanna to do something later? We could go out, or maybe get takeaway and watch a movie?"

Her face lit up. "Yeah. Yeah, I'd like that."

"I'll pick you up. Which flat's yours again?"

She hesitated for a second, just long enough for John to wonder if she didn't want to tell him.

"Number 48," she said. Then she added quickly, "Where's your phone?" After searching the flat for a bit and finding it next to his computer, he handed it to her. She rapidly typed her phone number into his contacts list. "Just call me when you're done."

He nodded.

When she didn't immediately move to open the door, an awkward pause descended. She seemed reluctant to leave, or at least seemed to be waiting for him to do something, but he wasn't quite sure what it was. She'd just spent the better part of the night with him, albeit platonically, sort of, and then had made him breakfast. What was an appropriate way to say goodbye? Did he shake her hand? Kiss her on her forehead? His impulse was to snog her for all she was worth, but he immediately rejected that as an option.

Before he could decide what to do, she opened the door. Impulsively he stopped her again.

"Rose."

Her hand still on the doorknob, she looked up at him. With a small smile he cupped her cheek, lowered his head to hers and gently, gently kissed her. When he pulled away, her eyes were huge. "See you later," he told her.

She nodded dumbly and slipped out the door.

After the door had closed behind her and he knew for certain she was gone, he pulled in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. She hadn't kissed him back. She'd even looked a bit shocked.

Maybe he'd made a mistake, he thought, read her signals wrong. After all, he was old enough to be her father. Perhaps the age gap between them was just too much for her to handle. Maybe, despite the flirting, she just wanted to be friends with him.

But he'd been so sure…

But she did say she wanted to go out with him that night, so maybe he hadn't misread her, or at least not entirely. Was he moving too quickly?

Not quickly enough?

No, that didn't make any sense, not based on her reaction to his kiss.

He snorted and shook his head, amused at his train of thought. According to his ID he was forty, but around her he felt like a teenager, all pounding hearts and sweating palms. What was it about Rose Tyler that made him so nervous and unsure of himself? He didn't feel like that around anyone else on the planet.

When she had fallen asleep on him, it had briefly crossed his mind he should wake her, but he hadn't had the heart to do so. He had also considered laying her down on the sofa and allowing her to sleep while he returned to his own room. But it had felt so good having her in his arms. It had been literally the first time in his admittedly short memory that he had held someone like that. Moreover, it had been Rose, the person he had grown to care about far more than he wanted to admit, even to himself. Before he had realized he had done it, he had pulled the blanket to cover them both and had lain back on the armrest, pulling her tightly against his chest. He had been rewarded with a soft sigh from Rose.

He had fallen asleep with a smile on his face.

But then he had woken up and she hadn't been there. For a moment he had been scared she had left, had been uncomfortable at how the evening had ended and had snuck out without saying goodbye. He had immediately worried that he had read her signals wrong, had taken things too far by holding her in his arms as she slept.

And then he had heard her rustling in the kitchen. And realized she had stayed. The tension he hadn't even realized he'd been holding inside released in a rush, to be replaced with an overwhelming sense of relief.

What was it about Rose Tyler?

He sighed heavily, wondering how one young woman could turn his life upside down in the span of one week, and how already he couldn't imagine his life without her in it.

~oOo~

Rose crossed the courtyard and made her way up the stairwell to her mother's flat, barely noticing her surroundings, still in a daze over what had happened.

He had kissed her.

John had kissed her.

She had been surprised, thrilled even, to wake up in his arms, but as amazing as that had been, that was nothing compared to what had just happened.

He had kissed her.

He had actually kissed her.

And not with the almost parental kiss on the forehead her first Doctor had occasionally given her, and not in exuberance as her second Doctor had done once. True, it wasn't the snog Cassandra had given him while in control of her body, but it was a real kiss. On the lips.

And deliberate. Intentional.

She traced her fingertips over her still tingling lips.

Memories, forgotten, dreamlike memories of her time as Bad Wolf fought to rise to the surface. She barely remembered what had happened in the time between her looking into the Heart of the TARDIS and waking up to the Doctor regenerating, but one image had stayed with her. A vision of the Doctor, this Doctor, kissing her. It was a memory she had always discounted as false. A fantasy. No more than wishful thinking.

But this hadn't been a fantasy. No matter how brief, this had been an actual kiss.

With a smile spreading across her face, she ran up the rest of the stairs thinking about how she couldn't wait to see him later.

~oOo~

Jackie tiptoed down the hall, in part not to wake Rose, but mostly because any type of noise, including the sound of her own footfalls on the carpet, caused her head to pound. Once in the kitchen, she looked again at the scrap of paper in her hand. It wasn't the first time she had received a foul note like this one. Truth be told, she'd periodically received them for more than a decade, ever since she'd truly begun to date again after Pete's death. They tended to be from ex-boyfriends after bad breakups, or from the ex-girlfriends of whoever was her current boyfriend. Less often, they'd be from someone whom she'd turned down at the local. Occasionally, like this time, she wouldn't know who it was from. But in all the years she'd received them, she'd always hid them from Rose.

No reason to worry her. They always came to nothing.

She crumpled up the paper and shoved it deep into the bin, underneath old magazines and kitchen scraps before starting her morning tea.

She filled the electric kettle and turned it on. Normally she made a pot of tea the old-fashioned way, loose leaves in a pre-warmed pot. She prided herself that she was known on the Estate for her tea—she ignored the fact that she was known for other things as well. This morning however she didn't feel up to the trouble. She could do that later.

No, for this first cuppa, she was going to have to settle for a teabag. She retrieved a mug and the box of teabags from the cupboard and winced again as the cupboard door closed. She put the heels of her hands to her head and rubbed her temples.

Yes, she definitely needed the tea. And a couple of paracetamol.

As she opened a different cupboard in search of the jar of painkillers, Jackie heard the door to the flat quietly open and close. Puzzled, and wondering if her hangover extended into hearing things that weren't there, she stuck her head out of the kitchen and cautiously looked down the hall. Her eyebrows shot up. Rose was sneaking in. That wasn't unusual in itself, but her attire was. Usually when she snuck into the flat she wasn't wearing a nightgown.

And she had a big smile on her face.

"And where have you been?" Jackie demanded. She winced at the loudness of her own voice, ignoring the fact that she'd only gotten home minutes earlier, and wearing what she had worn the night before to boot. "You've been wi' him, haven't you?"

Rose's smile disappeared. "It's not what you think," she protested.

"And coming home in your nighty?" Jackie said in disbelief and then winced again. "Honestly, Rose, could you be more obvious?"

Rose sighed loudly. "It's not what it looks like."

Jackie crossed her arms in front of her in her scolding mother stance. "'We're not like that, Mum.' 'We're just friends, Mum.' I'll tell you, I've never come home in my nighty after a night with Bev. And not with a cat who ate the canary grin like you had when you came in." She pursed her lips. "Well, at least his nibs is human now. If you get up the duff, at least my grandchild won't have tentacles."

Rose rolled her eyes. "I'm gonna take a shower."

"Don't use all the hot water!" Jackie called after her.

~oOo~

Once she had escaped to the relative refuge of the bathroom and away from her mother's nagging, Rose's grin returned. She pulled off her nightclothes, including the bananas in nightcaps nightshirt that had ironically been given to her by a later version of the same Doctor she had just left, and got into the shower. As the hot water washed over her, she closed her eyes and allowed herself to be carried away by the memory of the kiss. It had been more than just a brush of the lips. It had been soft, slow, and absolutely lovely. And over far too soon. She would have loved it to have been longer, but she had been so surprised by it that it had been over before she could respond.

And she was kicking herself over that because she was sure that had she reacted more quickly, or at all actually, it would have turned into a proper snog.

But it was fantastic just the same.

After her shower, wearing a large, pink bath towel with another, smaller towel tightly wrapped around her hair, she went to her room to get dressed, still thinking about the extraordinary kiss.

Only the sight of her room brought her back to reality. The clothes she had worn the day before were lumped in a pile next to the bed, while other of her belongings from the TARDIS were scattered here and there around the room. More of her things erupted from her rucksack that she had dropped in the corner of her room a week earlier.

Part of the mess was simply a function of her personality and the way she had been brought up. Her mother had never been particularly concerned about neatness. Oh, the dishes were always washed, the laundry was always done, and the carpet was hoovered regularly. But the clean dishes sat next to the sink in the kitchen, never seeming to make their way back into the cupboards. Fashion magazines and romance novels competed for space with the post on the tables and chairs in the lounge while folded laundry was stacked haphazardly on any available surface in the flat.

Jackie's lackadaisical attitude towards order had been passed on to her daughter. Rose had always felt she had better things to do than tidy up her room. She wasn't bothered by it, telling herself that compared to her mother and Mickey, she was the very definition of organization.

The only time she even made an effort to be tidy was on the TARDIS, and that was more because she knew that the Doctor liked things in order and she didn't want him to think less of her, not out of any inner sense of neatness.

Rose sighed. This morning her room was even more of a disaster than usual, and that was saying something. To be fair, she told herself, the condition of the room was in part due to leaving the flat in a hurry in the middle of the night.

She rummaged through her clothes, looking for something to wear and wondering if she could get her mother to wash some of her laundry for her. After a bit of a search, she found a clean pair of jeans and a bright pink top. She pulled them on, shoved her mobile in her pocket, and then made a halfhearted effort to tidy her room, looking for dirty clothes to put in the wash.

She straightened her duvet and began to replace her pillows at the head of her bed. As she picked up a stray pillow that had somehow landed on the floor, she spotted the cube that held the Doctor's holographic message to her sitting on the bedside table.

With a rush Rose remembered the reason she was here in the first place. She felt a twinge of guilt. She hadn't been left on the Estate to flirt with John, and she certainly hadn't been left here to snog him. She'd been left here to make sure her first Doctor didn't get into trouble as a human.

Unconsciously she reached up and touched the key to the TARDIS that she always wore on a chain around her neck. She had more than a sneaking suspicion that to the Doctor, a cuddle and a kiss would fall under the classification of trouble.

The twinge of guilt grew, and she shoved the feeling aside. What was done was done, she told herself. If the Doctor ever remembered this, she'd just have to deal with the consequences, whatever they were. And from now on she'd just have to cool things down between them a bit, make sure nothing happened between them that the Doctor'd regret later.

But in the meantime, she had a job to do. After the difficulty she'd had trying to reach the Doctor on her mobile, it was obvious that the problems with the TARDIS were far worse than she had realized, far worse than just him not being able to return in ten seconds. Although the Doctor had told both her and Mickey that the TARDIS had also been affected by whatever had caused her to turn her first Doctor human, she hadn't understood the extent of the problem. The Doctor's magnificent, wonderful Time and Space ship was so powerful, so beyond her human understanding that she hadn't been able to imagine anything seriously hurting her.

But now it was clear the ship was hurt. Badly.

If she was badly hurt, what did that mean for the Doctor and Mickey? Would they even be able to get back?

She needed to figure out if there was something she could do to help them from here. And that involved a quick trip to the TARDIS. The one that was still here.

She frowned. Unfortunately, there was no direct way to get there. And she certainly didn't want to take a twenty-minute walk—one way—if she didn't have to. But she was broke until she got paid by the garage, and that wouldn't be for another week so she couldn't take the bus.

It wasn't a big deal, she told herself. She ran a lot further than that on a typical day with the Doctor. She was just being lazy. And if she was going to get there and get back before John was done with whatever he had to do, she had better get going.

As Rose walked out of her bedroom, she could hear the shower running. As much as she loved her mum, she was relieved because that meant she'd be able to avoid another lecture.

"Mum, I'm heading out," she called through the closed door. "Can you do some of my laundry while I'm gone?" There was no answer.

Inwardly shrugging, she walked into the lounge to leave her mother a note.

And spotted her mum's handbag.

She shouldn't, she thought. She really shouldn't. At least not without asking.

Rose returned to the bathroom door. "Mum, can I borrow ten quid and your Oyster card? I'll pay you back when I get paid."

She heard her mother say something. She thought.

"Well, that could have been a yes," Rose said aloud. She swiped the card and fifteen pounds, rather than ten, out of her mother's purse before quickly scribbling a note telling her she'd be back in an hour or two and heading out the door.

Taking the bus turned out to not be much quicker than walking, but at least it was cooler. July in London wasn't as hot as, say, Ancient Rome had been, but the day was warm. And uncomfortably humid. She was grateful for the transport.

And she would pay her mum back. Really.

Rose stared unseeing out the window, memories of the morning returning unbidden as the bus made its circuitous way through Peckham.

The warm, comforting weight of John's arm around her as they lay on the sofa under a blanket.

The softness of his T-shirt under her cheek.

His even softer lips on hers.

They were memories that would fuel her fantasies for months, if not longer.

Her thoughts took a decidedly naughty turn as she imagined his soft lips trailing down her throat, moving ever lower…

Rose shook off the fantasy as the bus neared her stop. She shouldn't be thinking about him like that. Nothing good could come of it, particularly after the Doctor and Mickey returned. Instead she should be thinking about what she'd do when she got to the TARDIS.

Her stop was a block away from the TARDIS, and as she got off the bus she got a nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach, one that grew the closer she got to the alley where she was parked.

What if the TARDIS didn't open for her?

What if she did?

If she managed to get inside, then what? She couldn't repair her. Maybe she could use the phone to call the Doctor and Mickey in the TARDIS in her proper time stream.

Would that even work?

Well, at the very least she'd be able to get the watch that held the Doctor's consciousness back, she told herself. But how would that help? She wasn't supposed to open it unless there was an emergency, and certainly there was no emergency right now. Or at least she didn't think so. Would she even know what constituted an emergency in the Doctor's mind? Short of a full out alien invasion or John being on the verge of death, she wasn't sure what one would be.

Rose rounded the corner of the alley—and there she was. The TARDIS. She closed the distance between herself and the Doctor's magnificent Time and Space ship at a jog.

"I missed you," Rose whispered when she reached her, and it wasn't until that moment that she realized how much. She'd known for a long time that she no longer belonged on the Estate, that the TARDIS was her home and would be her home for as long as the Doctor let her stay. She missed the Doctor, she missed traveling in the TARDIS, but she also missed the ship herself. She teased the Doctor about stroking random bits of the TARDIS, but now she did it herself, rubbing her hand over the ridges on the door.

"How you doin', girl?" she asked. She moved her hand to one of the side ridges. "Feelin' any better? Sorry I haven't been by to visit." She frowned as something occurred to her. "Do you even know who I am? I'm Rose, Rose Tyler, and I travel with you, or at least I will."

To her surprise, Rose felt a wave of warmth, something she interpreted as recognition, emanating from the TARDIS. She'd only rarely been able to feel anything from the TARDIS, and only since she'd looked into her Heart. That hadn't happened for this TARDIS yet though, so she couldn't understand why she'd feel anything.

But that wasn't important. What was important was getting inside. What she'd do once there she had no idea, but with her phone unable to reach the Doctor she knew that she had no chance of helping him or Mickey or even the TARDIS unless she was inside.

Rose pulled her key out from under her shirt and slipped its chain over her head. She started to put the key in the lock, and then she stopped herself.

"You're not going to shock me like you shocked the Doctor, are you?" she asked. She didn't really expect an answer so she wasn't surprised when she didn't get one.

After another moment's hesitation, Rose cautiously put the key in the lock.

It wouldn't turn.

She didn't get a shock, but the door didn't unlock either. She tried again, this time wiggling the key in the lock while pushing and then pulling on the door, but it didn't help. The door stayed firmly closed.

Rose let out a loud sigh of disappointment. "Damn. Now what?"

The TARDIS made a quiet, sickly sound that sounded a little like a queasy stomach. She patted the ship comfortingly.

"Don't worry," Rose said. "The Doctor'll get this sorted. You know him. He's brilliant. He can sort just about anything. Don't tell him I said that though. Don't want his head getting any bigger than it already is." She smiled when the light on the top of the tall blue box flashed weakly, as if in agreement.

Rose sat down on the ground and leaned back against the door while she thought.

The Doctor had said the TARDIS would lock him out while she healed herself and that that could potentially take months. It had only been a week. Hardly any time at all, really.

No, that wasn't right. Even though she'd only been here a week, John said he'd come to in an alley—and she knew it was this alley—with no memories on New Year's. That meant that this TARDIS had already been here over six months and still wasn't better.

Rose ran through their arrival back at the Powell Estate in her mind, from the Cloister bell ringing and their emergency landing, to watching the holographic record they'd seen of the TARDIS turning the Doctor human and forcing him out of the ship, to the Doctor's goodbye just before he and Mickey left. Looking back, she realized that the Doctor'd been worried that the reason their TARDIS had brought them here was because the ship couldn't heal herself at all without their help.

She could even die.

And of course the Doctor hadn't said, not directly at any rate. Typical. Why couldn't he just say things flat out? She felt a fleeting wave of anger at him—honestly, it would have been helpful to know that straight off—that was quickly replaced by worry for both him and the TARDIS.

And being stuck here there was nothing she could do. She couldn't call the Doctor, and with the TARDIS door still locked, there was no way she could help him. She couldn't even get the fob watch.

And that wasn't even the worst part.

The worst part was that although she didn't want the TARDIS to be hurt, and of course she didn't want the Doctor and Mickey to be in danger, there was a tiny little selfish part of herself that had been glad when the door wouldn't open, because it meant she'd have more time with John.