Hunger Moon: Chapter Three

[amberfocus]

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A/N:  Finally, I know.  And I'm even about 1100 words into the next chapter, too.

The Rest of the Family

 

“And who’s this then?” Pete asked.  The Tyler women stared at Pete for a moment.

 

“You must be Rose’s step-father.  I’m the Doctor,” the Doctor said striding forward and holding out his hand.  Pete shook it, eying him steadily.

 

“I’ve met the Doctor and you look nothing like him,” Pete said.

 

“It’s him,” Jackie said keeping her eyes averted from everyone else in the room.

 

“He’s a different version, that’s all,” Rose said.  “One who hasn’t regenerated into the form you knew.  One stuck in this universe, like me.”  Rose moved forward and gave her step-dad an affectionate hug and a kiss on the cheek.  “It’s great to see you, Dad.”

 

“It’s great to see you, too, Rose,” Pete said returning the hug and dropping a kiss on her forehead.  “We were pretty sure we’d seen the last of you when Jackie saw those letters in your flat.”  He smiled softly at her.  “Glad to see it’s not so.” 

 

“Me, too.  Anyway, yes, this is the Doctor.  And Doctor, this is my step-dad Peter Tyler, but most people just call him Pete.”  Rose completed the introductions hoping to distract her step-dad.

 

“So you’re a duplicate of Rose’s biological father?” the Doctor asked.

 

Pete nodded.  “I don’t even think of it like that anymore.  She’s mine.  You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.  DNA tests state that she’s my daughter, which came in handy for setting up her identity here, since she wasn’t replacing an existing person like Jacks.  Money will do a lot of things but it can’t alter DNA.  Jacks and I wanted to make sure Rose was taken care of if anything should happen to us.”  He gave Rose a fond grin.

 

“I did try to tell them I could take care of myself but…”  Rose shrugged.

 

“You’re my daughter in every way that matters and that is what I wanted to do,” Pete said.

 

The door to the kitchen flew open and a screeching bundle of nine-year-old girl threw herself into the room.  “Mum!  Mum, come quickly!  Kyle’s set the playroom on fire!”

 

“That boy!”  Jackie dashed to the sink and pulled a fire extinguisher out from underneath it then rushed through the kitchen door and into the interior of the house.

 

The little girl paused as she saw Rose and then flung herself into her big sister’s arms.  “Rose!”

 

“Hello, Sarah,” Rose said laughing.

 

“Oh, I missed you.”

 

“I missed you, too, love!” she said.  She kissed her sister heartily and pushed her back a bit.  “I have someone I want you to meet.”

 

Sarah turned, suddenly realizing that her father was not the only other person in the room.  She looked up at the Doctor shyly, her hazel eyes taking him in from under thick lashes.  Her long medium blond hair fell below her shoulders and she had a little beauty mark on the lower left side of her face.  Staring at her for a long moment, the Doctor was suddenly overwhelmed with the idea that one day he and Rose might have a little girl that looked like the one now standing before him.

 

“Hello, Sarah,” the Doctor said.

 

“Hello,” she said non-committally, eyeing her sister warily.

 

“Sarah, this is the Doctor,” Rose said.  The child’s entire countenance changed as she looked up at the strange man and she broke into a beaming smile.

 

“You are?” she asked breathlessly.

 

“I am,” he said solemnly.

 

“I knew you’d come back for her one day!”  And the child unexpectedly flung herself at the Doctor, wrapping her arms around his waist and hugging him tightly.

 

“That’s true, she did,” Rose said laughing as the Doctor hesitantly hugged the little girl back.  It had been so long since he’d held a child and he was awkward but the girl didn’t seem to notice.  “Sarah told me to never give up on my dreams.  If you believe hard enough, they’ll come true.”

 

“Well, I’m not technically the same Doctor,” he told Sarah.

 

“Did you…generate again?” Sarah asked pushing back from him and looking up his tall, lanky frame to his face.

 

“Regenerate,” the Doctor corrected.  “Rose told you about regeneration?”

 

“I told her a lot of things.  My travels with the other Doctor were bedtime stories for the twins,” Rose said.  “Sarah believes them but Kyle never really did.  Probably just as well with the mouth that kid has on him.  He would have told the world.”

 

“Other Doctor?  Are you a doppelganger?” Sarah asked stumbling over the word a little.

 

“Sort of, yeah,” said the Doctor.

 

“He’s my second chance,” said Rose.  “And you know what?  He looks like my first Doctor did before the regeneration.”

 

Sarah stared up at him wide-eyed.  “The one you fell in love with?” Sarah asked on a breathy sigh.  “All ears and leather jacket?”

 

“Um hmm.”

 

“So where’s the leather jacket?” Sarah wanted to know.

 

“I left it in the TARDIS,” the Doctor said.  “I don’t have to wear it all the time.”

 

Sarah looked dubious.  “You sure he’s the Doctor?  You said he never took it off.”

 

“Yep,” said Rose.  “He’s the Doctor.  But this time it’s even better because we know we were meant for each other.  No hiding from it.”

 

“You’re wearing matching wrist bands,” Sarah said noticing the bracelets for the first time.  She ran her fingers over Rose’s then glanced at the Doctor’s.

 

“They show that we belong to each other,” the Doctor said softly.

 

Sarah smiled.  “That’s romantic.”

 

“We’re going to be having a wedding, too, for everyone.  But we’re already married.”  Sarah clapped her hands together and giggled and Rose swooped down and gave her sister another hug.

 

“Does Mum know?” Sarah whispered glancing at the door.

 

“I told her.  Haven’t had a chance to tell Dad, though,” Rose said glancing up at Pete.  Pete looked at her but didn’t say anything, his eyes drifting over to the Doctor a moment later.  The man was busy watching Rose and Sarah.

 

“And you know what?” Rose asked.

 

“What?”

 

“I want you to be my maid of honor,” Rose said.

 

Sarah’s eyes got huge.  “But I’m a kid,” she protested.  “Shouldn’t you ask one of your grown up friends?”

 

“I don’t care,” Rose said.  “There isn’t anyone else I’d rather have standing beside me.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Really!”  Sarah smiled in delight.

 

The kitchen door was flung open and Jackie returned holding the fire extinguisher in one hand and the back of the collar of a squirming nine-year-old boy in the other.  “Sit,” she barked at Kyle and returned the fire extinguisher to its position. 

 

“Rose!” Kyle exclaimed as he noticed his sister.  He made to get up out of his chair but Jackie whirled on him.

 

“Don’t you even think about moving, young man.  You can hug Rose when I’m done.  Pete, put refilling that on the list of things Alton needs to do this weekend,” she told her husband.  “Along with replacing one of the playroom chairs.”

 

“How bad is it?” Pete asked.

 

“You don’t want to know.”  Jackie reached up into the cupboard and pulled down a first aid kit, then found a bowl, and a clean cloth.  She sat down next to Kyle and said, “Hold out your hand.”  Jackie took a bottle of hydrogen peroxide out of the kit and poured it over her son’s hand.

 

Gently she cleaned the burn and as she was reaching to put ointment on it the Doctor said, “Jackie, I can heal that for him.”

 

Kyle’s head snapped around and he caught sight of the Doctor for the first time.  “Who the hell are you?” he asked belligerently.

 

“Kyle!  Language!” Jackie said.

 

“Sorry,” he muttered.

 

“I’m the Doctor.”

 

Kyle’s eyes narrowed.  “You’re not real.”

 

The Doctor spread his hands and looked at first the backs then the fronts before glancing back at the boy.  “I appear to be.”

 

The boy’s bright blue eyes narrowed further.  “You took Rose away,” he said flatly.  “Mum and Dad wouldn’t say what happened; just that she had to go away, but it was you.  You came back and you took her away!” he snapped.  The boy jerked away from Jackie and rose to his feet and advanced on the Doctor, then hauled back and kicked the Time Lord hard in the shin.

 

“Kyle Reese Tyler, you apologize to the Doctor this instant!” Rose said furiously giving her little brother such a glowering look that he gulped nervously and backed away from the Doctor, sitting back down in the chair.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said begrudgingly burying his good hand in his spiky strawberry blond hair.

 

The Doctor sat down in a chair next to him and said, “I wouldn’t like it either if someone took Rose away from me.”  He kept his voice calm and steady as he looked into the boy’s vivid eyes.  Kyle glared at him for a few more seconds before his shoulders slumped.

 

“You gonna bring her back for visits?” he asked dejectedly.

 

“I am,” said the Doctor.  “We’ll be travelling, but I’ll bring her back whenever she wants to come home.”

 

Kyle’s expression was still wary as he eyed the Doctor.  Finally making up his mind he said, “My hand hurts.”

 

The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and flicked it to the setting for dermal repair.  “Is that…is that the sonic screwdriver?” Kyle asked in wondering disbelief.

 

“It is.”  He held out his hand and Kyle put his injured one in it palm up.  A small blue light shot out and hit the burn.

 

“It tickles,” Kyle said watching in stunned amazement as the blister disappeared from his hand and the harsh redness faded back into a healthy pink.  The Doctor put the screwdriver away and Kyle took his hand back, looking at it like he couldn’t believe what had just happened.

 

“It’s gone,” he said.

 

“Yep.”

 

“Like magic,” Kyle breathed.

 

“Like science,” the Doctor corrected.  “It’s a very important distinction.”

 

“So, if the sonic screwdriver is real…”  Kyle trailed off and Sarah picked up where he left off.

 

“Then that means the TARDIS is real, too,” she said.

 

“Bigger on the inside,” said Kyle.

 

“Travels through time and space,” said Sarah.

 

“Can we see it?” they asked in unison.

 

“I don’t see why not,” said the Doctor.

 

“Sarah can go,” interrupted Pete, “but Kyle’s trip to see it can wait.”

 

“But, Dad!” Kyle protested.

 

“Did you forget that you just destroyed a chair by lighting it on fire?” Jackie asked.

 

“I didn’t light it on fire!” exclaimed Kyle.  At his mum’s glowering look he said.  “Well, I didn’t do it on purpose.  It was an experiment.  It just didn’t work right.”

 

“What were you trying to do?” asked Rose.

 

Kyle looked sheepish.  It was Sarah who answered when Pete turned to her and said, “Well, what did he do?” 

 

“He was launching a rocket,” she admitted reluctantly.

 

“Well, the playroom ceiling is two stories tall.  I thought there’d be enough clearance,” Kyle explained.

 

“There wasn’t,” said Sarah.  “And it set the chair on fire.”

 

“And you just watched him do this?” Pete demanded.

 

Sarah gave her father a steady look.  “You know as well as I do that there is no stopping my brother when he gets an idea in his head.”  She sounded so much like Rose when she said it, and looked like her, too, right down to the tilt of her head and the hands on her hips that the Doctor had to stifle a grin.

 

“And Sarah doesn’t tattle,” added Kyle loyally.

 

“Unless directly asked,” Sarah said, “or you put us in danger.”

 

“Anyway, you can see the ship tomorrow.  Tonight you’re grounded from everything.  No telly, no computer, no game machines, no phone, and if it takes a battery or electricity it’s off limits for a week.  And that does not include your toothbrush, so don’t even go there.  You may read a book or visit with Rose and the Doctor after dinner, but that’s it,” Pete laid down the law.

 

“Now on up to your room until dinner,” said Jackie.

 

With much reluctance and heaving sighs, Kyle dragged himself up out of the chair.  He headed towards the door but Rose stopped him to wrap her arms around him.  “I missed you,” she said quietly in his ear.

 

“I missed you, too,” he said in a whisper, his arms tightening around his big sister.  Then he let her go and trudged resolutely from the room.

 

Jackie turned to look at Sarah.  “So aren’t you going to make your big speech about if Kyle can’t do it, I’m not doing it until he can?”

 

Sarah looked at her mother as if she’d grown two heads.  “Are you kidding me, Mum?  It’s the TARDIS.”  Sarah was on her feet and looking hopefully at the Doctor and Rose.

 

The Doctor smiled and held his hand out to Sarah.  “Coming, Jackie?” he invited.  “Pete?”

 

“I’ll see it when Kyle does,” Pete said.  “It’ll make it easier for him to bear if he knows someone else waited, too.”

 

“All right, then,” said Rose.  She linked her arm through her mum’s.

“Come on then, ladies.”  And the Doctor led the way out of the house.

Ch. 4:  http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/29944.html