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Fic commentary: The Less Than Perfect Daughter
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livii.
If there is one crackfic setup I love, it's weddingfic. I hate weddingfic involving the Doctor if it's handled seriously – it's not quite as horrifying to me as babyfic, but it's close – but played for laughs (and done well), I am all over it. So the![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
churchontime ficathon was definitely my idea of a good time, enough that I ended up participating twice (this story, and Without a Hitch).
As with any crackfic I write, I can't really get started without knowing the final punchline. All the buildup in the world won't matter if I screw things up at the end, and I've abandoned more than one comedy fic because I couldn't come up with the final gag.
This one, though, came to me within 24 hours of finding the prompt, and amused me so much I remember laughing to myself during nearly the entire drive to my afternoon meeting. (Okay, I was only 15 minutes away from the client's office, but still.)
Anyway, let's get started. Below, the traditional Disney opening. It's okay to imagine "Morning Mood" from Peer Gynt playing in the background here; lord knows I was when I wrote it.
It was a beautiful day outside the TARDIS: sunshine streaming through the clouds, springtime flowers bursting loose their first buds, charming large-eyed baby animals gambolling in the nearby fields. Birds warbling mating calls in an ancient ritual of attraction. Colourful butterflies flitting from blossom to blossom, delicately sucking nectar for their breakfast.
While inside the TARDIS, Rose was shrieking "You slag!" at Martha, who ducked to avoid the fast-flitting crockery Rose was flinging at her in the kitchen.
He should have never taken them to Alviya, the Doctor realised.
* * *
The trouble had started a month ago. Strictly speaking, the trouble had started months ago, when Rose had returned from the parallel universe and run into the Doctor and Martha while tracking something mutant, amphibious, and squid-shaped she claimed had eaten most of Torchwood on her world, retreating only after their pterodactyl had pecked out an eyeball. With the Doctor and Martha's help, Rose eventually located the creature near the London Eye, which it seemed to think was a lazy susan filled with delightfully crunchy tourist-shaped treats. Rose dispatched it with the aid of a harpoon and a remarkable facility for tying tentacles into square knots.
The original ending to the previous paragraph referenced Rose's remarkable ability to call seagulls on command. However, this was a) a non-obvious way of saying seagulls would eat the squid, and b) not funny, so I went with something else.
The Doctor had expected a celebratory hug from his long-lost lover, and he got one – but Martha's hug lasted longer and seemed to include what might have been nuzzling. He chalked that up to Rose bonding with a new friend and thought nothing more of it until a few days later, when he sneaked into her room hoping for an intimate welcome-back party – surely Rose would know that nothing says "I missed you while I was stuck in an alternate universe" like oral sex Well, nothing does, right? – and discovered that festivities were already in progress. Without him, and with Martha.
Usually I am quite careful with rare pairings to give a reasonable explanation why the characters would be attracted to each other. I didn't even bother here; it seemed unnecessary, and besides, when writing comedy, anything that interferes with the flow of a joke has to go.
Since that night, Rose and Martha had been inseparable, immediately moving into a larger room together, holding hands constantly, and mooning over each other during movie night. I contemplated the traditional U-Haul joke here, but decided against it. There were declarations of love, and snogging in the console room, and enough giggling and obviously private jokes that for the first time, the Doctor understood how Mickey must have felt when he'd been on board. Besides, tweaking Ten about how he'd treated Mickey was funnier and more appropriate anyway.
The Doctor tried to tell himself this was normal jealousy and resentment at his best friend finding a new, extra-special best friend, but in his more honest moments, he knew he was jealous and resentful because he hadn't been asked to join in. Patience, he reminded himself nightly, imagining how the women would coo and fawn over him, their limbs wrapping around his body as he plunged into their soft and gently yielding spaces. This did little to actually assuage the jealousy, but at least was ultimately relaxing, if a bit messy.
He's such a pervert.
And then last month they'd stopped for a brief holiday on Alviya, a former Earth colony now doing brisk business as a pleasure moon. The Doctor caught up with Rose and Martha as they emerged from a velvet-curtained shop, bright pink bags in their hands and mischievous smiles on their lips. Strangely, though Rose usually found shopping invigourating, both she and Martha had claimed to be unusually tired and in need of an extended nap. The Doctor pointed them in the direction of their hotel, but by the time he'd finished stammering out a hint about needing a nap himself, his companions had gone.
Had he known that one of the pink bags contained an unmarked tin of Mistress Coco's Chocolate Conception Cream, Alliteration: almost always amusing. he would have warned Rose and Martha before they left. But they didn't invite the Doctor along to their afternoon tryst, and he didn't get to see the contents of the bag until four weeks later, and by then, Martha was pregnant.
* * *
"You slag!" shrieked Rose. "Have you been shagging the Doctor behind my back? Or did you pick up some bloke when I fell asleep by the pool?"
I have some problems with Rose's character, but on balance, I like her. It was surprisingly hard to walk the line between making her believably (or believably enough for crack) jealous and bitchy here and outright bashing her, and obviously, I didn't want to do the latter.
"I swear, I haven't cheated on you," Martha pleaded. "The Doctor says it's that chocolate body paint we bought."
"Not unless you painted it on someone's dick while I was out, it wasn't."
"That wasn't ordinary body paint, Rose," the Doctor said. "Alviya caters to many female partnerships. Once absorbed by human skin, the cream penetrates to the reproductive system, softening the exterior membranes on any oocytes released during ovulation, assuming the, um, paintee – is that a word? Quite a good coinage, though it sounds a bit like 'panties,' which, ha! I suppose is related, at least in this context. Isn't that clever? Anyway, as one woman, er, removes the paint ... er ... with her tongue ... it encapsulates the chromosomal material in her saliva and delivers it into the oocyte, much like a sperm ..."
elliptic_eye deserves the credit here for coming up with a way for Rose and Martha to get pregnant. (Other friends supplied alternate options, but this was the one I decided to go with, since it actively involved both women.) I love science, but my strengths are more on the chemistry and quantum mechanics sides of things, not biology, which I stopped studying after the 8th grade. Dissection *shudder*
Rose covered his mouth with her hand. "Stop. Just stop." She turned to Martha. "Is this true? All that nonsense he was just spouting?"
"I'm afraid it is," Martha said. "The Doctor showed me how the cream works – under a microscope, Rose, settle down! – and it's the only explanation. Rose, sweetheart, we're going to have a baby."
"You may be having a baby," Rose replied. "But we're not." She stalked out of the kitchen, leaving the Doctor and Martha to clean up the broken plates left behind.
* * *
The Doctor found Rose in the control room jumpseat, scowling and picking at her nails.
"Rose, you can't just run away from your responsibilities. It took two of you to make that baby, and you can't just dump everything on Martha."
"Why not? She didn't ask me first whether I wanted to be a mother, did she?"
"Martha needs you more than ever now, Rose. The right thing to do would be to marry her."
This setup is completely ridiculous, and I love it. There's no reason for the Doctor to suggest Rose marry Martha other than that this is what would happen in an Afterschool Special. I can't tell you how happy I was to find an actual episode title that matched this story so perfectly. (Not an episode I've seen, but I've seen plenty of other ones. Ah, the 1970s.)
Rose started to laugh. "You're joking, yeah? This isn't the 19th century, Doctor. Martha can raise that child on her own, and no one will blink an eye."
"Okay," he sighed. "I'd hoped I wouldn't have to do this, but I will." The Doctor switched on the sonic screwdriver and inserted it into a slot on the console. "I scanned Martha's foetus earlier, so I can track your daughter through time." He flipped a few switches to set the TARDIS in motion, then frowned. "I probably wasn't supposed to tell you you're having a little girl, was I? Never mind, just pretend you're surprised when it happens. So, Rose: we're going on a little trip to your future."
"Going to show me being all lovey-dovey with Martha and the baby, are you? Look, I told you I don't want to be a mother. It's over between me and Martha."
"And that's why I can show you what I need to show you. As long as you're resolved not to do what's right by Martha, your child's future is in jeopardy. I can see all the possible timelines, Rose –"
"Blah, blah, blah, timelines. You know, if I learned one thing while we were travelling together, it's that you're making it up as you go along. How do I know the timeline you're showing me isn't what's really supposed to happen?"
Rose so has his number here.
Rose crossed her arms over her chest, stubborn as ever. How had she turned into her mother without him noticing? Maybe it was for the best Rose had gone off men, because contemplating a lifetime with Jackie Tyler terrified him.
"I'm showing you what's going to happen if you continue on your present selfish and reckless course, Rose," said the Doctor.
"Whatever. Wake me if any Daleks show up; I could do with a laugh."
* * *
The TARDIS materialised in a neatly tended garden in front of a brick townhouse with a bay window. "If that's Martha's place, she's doing all right for herself," Rose said. "Doesn't need me after all, does she?"
"Wrong," the Doctor said, and pointed at the bay window, where they could see a woman passed out on the sofa, empty bottles of lager scattered nearby on the carpet. A few feet away in the kitchen, a child about two years old was standing on tiptoe, her small brown hand feeling around on the counter, tipping over glassware and dropping a long chef's knife to the floor. The girl laughed to herself, sat down, and started playing with the knife. You want to know how dense I am sometimes? I hate babyfic/kidfic so much that it never even occurred to me until months later that I'd written it myself, despite the obvious presence of a child in this story.
"It's a busy life, working at UNIT and trying to care for a toddler," the Doctor said. "Martha hired a nanny with good recommendations, but she couldn't have known the woman would develop a drinking problem."
"Mum raised me on her own just fine," Rose replied. "Aren't we going to go take that knife away? Or are you trying out for Irresponsible Parent of the Year, too?" I have to think the Doctor would have won that award multiple times. Maybe even gotten the lifetime achievement version.
"My parenting skills are superlative, you know. I never let my children play with knives. Fusion microbombs, yes, but knives are dangerous. In any case, Olivia's timeline persists, so she must survive. We can't interfere."
"Olivia, is it?" Rose raised an eyebrow. "I was thinking maybe 'Ginger' or 'Posh' myself."
"Very funny. Well, if you're going to be difficult, I suppose we're off to the next stop." The Doctor rubbed at his temples. This was going to be a very, very long day.
* * *
"Oh, good, Boots! I'm out of mascara."
There's a line missing here.platypus suggested cutting it because it was a little too mean, and she was right. But since this is the commentary version, here's what got cut: "As if that could ever happen, the Doctor thought, but decided it was safer to keep that to himself."
"We're not here on a shopping trip, Rose. We're here to see what sort of trouble your daughter's getting into without your stabilising influence." The Doctor suddenly stopped dead in the middle of the street, nearly causing an estate car to collide with a transport van, and turned to look at Rose. "Did I really just say that? Because all things considered, I've met gelatine desserts with more stabilising power." I wasn't sure about keeping this last line either, since it rides that edge between snarky and mean, but I eventually kept it because there's at least a grain of truth in it, as Rose herself admits in response.
The van driver honked his horn, and the Doctor jumped forward, startled. Rose waved an apology to the driver and dragged the Doctor to the kerb.
She shrugged. "No argument here. You always did say I was jeopardy-friendly."
"Definitional problems aside, it's still in Olivia's best interest for you and Martha to get married. Come on, the TARDIS says she's inside."
They spotted Olivia, now thirteen years old and dressed in clothes the Doctor considered at least one size too small for her, gossiping with four other similarly attired girls. The store was crowded, and no one but the Doctor and Rose noticed Olivia palming two lipsticks and sliding them into a pocket.
"Shoplifting!" cried the Doctor. "Rose, without you around to help Martha keep an eye on her, your daughter becomes a criminal."
"Says the man who told me once how he stole his spaceship. How many years d'ya get for TARDIS theft?" The original line here referred to "grand theft TARDIS," a phrase that still makes me giggle. Unfortunately, when I researched the specific British criminal charge associated with auto theft, it wasn't "grand theft auto," so out went the joke. (Of course, now that I Google for that phrase again, I see that the original game developers were based in the UK, so I probably could have kept the joke. Oh well.)
"Whether my parents were a stabilising influence on me is completely irrelevant."
"Oh, of course," Rose said, rolling her eyes. "Look, it's just a couple of lipsticks. Shareen and I swiped some nail varnish and a couple packs of crisps once after we failed a maths quiz. It's just something kids do."
"Fine," the Doctor harrumphed. "We'll give it another go. And if we find her in the dock this time, remember, it's your fault."
* * *
Three trips later, the Doctor was beginning to doubt his foolproof plan, not to mention Rose's maternal instincts.
Look! It's the part of the story where I got tired of writing exposition!
Spying on a party: "She's a teenager. She's just experimenting. A little pot smoke won't kill her ..."
Watching Olivia nick a Mercedes: "She's lost her car keys, that's all. And she's got a wire hanger because she came from the dry cleaners, yeah? You always assume the worst ..."
Outside the Bell in Hand: "We've all had a bad night down the pub. Well, I have; not sure about you. Sometimes you don't make it home before you ..."
It was enough to drive a responsible man, or even the Doctor, completely mad. This line still makes me laugh.
"One more trip," he said, gritting his teeth. And then perhaps a serious discussion with Martha about adoption.
* * *
And now, the punchline. For your reference, the part of the Eleventh Doctor will be played this evening by David Thewlis in a really cheap suit. (Some other fan, I forget who, once suggested Thewlis would make a great Eleven; I also wrote him into one of my drabbles forlifeonmartha's 1,000 Drabbles of Awesome Project, Time Was.)
They landed in a park, the TARDIS selecting a spot shrouded by tall hemlock shrubs. Peeking between the branches, Rose and the Doctor could just make out Olivia, who was walking hand-in-hand with a tall, moustached man in a rumpled corduroy blazer and apple-green trousers. They spoke to each other in low voices, and Olivia leaned in close, smiling up at him with adoring eyes.
"See?" Rose said. "She's fine. She's happy! Bloke's a bit old for her, but that never stopped me, did it?" She grinned and elbowed the Doctor.
"I'm telling you, Rose, if you're not there for this girl, it'll all go wrong. I can't sense her entire timeline, but what I can sense right now isn't good."
"Well, unless you mean that bad bleach job she's got, I'm gonna have to disagree with you."
It may be too subtle to be noticeable, but I deliberately wrote Rose a little more like Jackie in this scene. Considering how testy Rose got with Ten (understandably so) when he rescued her after partying it up in GitF, as well as his remark about her sounding just like her mother, writing a bit of Jackie's attitude into this part seemed to make sense.
The Doctor shoved hemlock branches aside to take a closer look. Maybe Olivia had turned to prostitution, and this older gent with the questionable fashion sense was her customer. Yes, that'd finally do it, Rose's daughter whoring herself out. "Give it a minute, Rose," he said. "I've got a feeling about this."
"And I've got a feeling you're still wasting my time."
On the other side of the hemlock, things were starting to heat up. Olivia slid her fingers over the man's face, then leaned in and kissed him, pulling him tight against her and wriggling her lower body. The man twisted one hand in Olivia's newly blonde hair and cupped her bum with the other, then started walking her backwards along the path running parallel to the shrubs.
Rose coughed quietly and said, "Okay, can't say I needed to see my little girl getting felt up, but like I said, she's – why are you looking at me like that? Something big and toothy sneaking up behind me?" She turned to look, then returned her attention to the view through the shrubbery, where the Doctor was making indignant squeaking sounds and gesturing wildly toward something in the distance.
I did briefly wonder why Ten couldn't sense Eleven's presence. Then I decided that logic was mostly irrelevant in this story, especially when it would ruin a good joke.
Olivia and the man, now almost too far away to discern but clearly still attached at the mouth, legs, and possibly other body parts, were propped against a blue telephone box. The man reached into his pocket, withdrew a key, and dragged Olivia inside as she giggled and called out a familiar name.
"Oh my God," Rose hissed. "It's not. She's not." She looked over at the Doctor, whose mouth still hung open in speechless shock. "You're not. I am not seeing this."
"Rose," the Doctor began, quickly finishing with a yowl of pain as his companion hauled off and slapped him.
"You pervert! That's my daughter you were snogging! That's my daughter you're probably shagging right now! In the same room where you and I have –"
Like I said: Jackie.
"She started it! You saw that, plain as day!"
"I thought you said it takes two, Doctor."
"Well, technically, yes. But ... but ... you saw her! She'd dyed her hair blonde! You of all people should know that I can't be held responsible for my actions when a nubile young blonde sticks her tongue down my throat!"
Oh, Doctor. Don't you know by now that telling the truth never helps your case?
"No more slapping," Rose said, and pushed up her sleeve. "Moving on to punching now."
I should probably have cut that "now" at the end of the previous sentence, because I think removing it improves the rhythm, but eh, too late.
The Doctor leapt backwards out of range and stretched out one hand to block Rose while the other protected his more valuable organs. Rose's fists were clenched, but so far, they were still a little too far away to cause any damage, and fortunately, so were her knees. "Now, Rose ...," the Doctor started.
"Don't you 'now, Rose' me," she growled, but eventually dropped her fists, moving close enough to start poking the Doctor hard in the chest instead. "I thought Mum was overreacting when she slapped you that day. But I was wrong. Nine hundred years old and you're still thinking with your dick? Well, you won't be after I cut it off because you've been messing with my daughter. Got it?"
The Doctor nodded, his eyes wide with fear.
"Good," Rose said. "Then take me back. I've got a wedding to plan."
And thus Rose has a completely plausible change of heart. Or something like that.
* * *
Rose and Martha were married the following month in a traditional Alviyan ceremony, during which the brides wore matching veils and lacy thongs, and the best man, to his delight, was required by law to participate in the wedding night.
"Don't get any ideas," Martha told the Doctor as he lay quivering and tied-up on the bed. "This is a one-time thing. I love Rose, but she is one jealous bitch. Now, are these knots good for you?"
This paragraph may be one of my favorite things I've ever written, just because it's so damned silly.
* * *
Years later, long after Rose and Martha had settled down on Earth with the daughter they named after her planet of conception, the Doctor died in a tragic and improbable accident involving a weasel, two badgers, and a kilo of salad cream. And speaking of silly ... well, anyway, I mostly wanted an excuse to work the salad cream in there, because for some reason I thought a mayonnaise-based accident would be hilarious. Also, I think the word "badger" is funny. My sense of humor mystifies me sometimes. Upon his recovery, he made his traditional pilgrimage to the wardrobe room and selected a corduroy jacket and apple-green trousers for his new uniform. Checking the jacket pockets for stray jelly babies, he discovered a note:
Dear Doctor,
Thank you for helping me do the right thing for Martha and Olivia. I love them both very much, and I know the three of us will be really happy together.
Since you went a bit funny the last time you regenerated, I wanted to write this down for you in case you forget:
If you ever lay a finger on my daughter, I'm coming after you with a rusty carving knife.
xoxoxoxoxo,
Rose
The Doctor carefully folded the note and replaced it in his pocket. Time for a sixty- or seventy-year holiday a long way from Earth, he thought. A very, very long way away.
Of course, the Doctor avoiding Earth for Olivia's lifespan doesn't really mean he couldn't go back and seduce her, but like I said before, logic isn't all that relevant for most of this story.
And so, dear reader, the commentary for my one and only kidfic comes to a close. Unlike kidfic, however, I may yet write more cracky weddingfic. Someday.
livii.If there is one crackfic setup I love, it's weddingfic. I hate weddingfic involving the Doctor if it's handled seriously – it's not quite as horrifying to me as babyfic, but it's close – but played for laughs (and done well), I am all over it. So the
churchontime ficathon was definitely my idea of a good time, enough that I ended up participating twice (this story, and Without a Hitch).As with any crackfic I write, I can't really get started without knowing the final punchline. All the buildup in the world won't matter if I screw things up at the end, and I've abandoned more than one comedy fic because I couldn't come up with the final gag.
This one, though, came to me within 24 hours of finding the prompt, and amused me so much I remember laughing to myself during nearly the entire drive to my afternoon meeting. (Okay, I was only 15 minutes away from the client's office, but still.)
Anyway, let's get started. Below, the traditional Disney opening. It's okay to imagine "Morning Mood" from Peer Gynt playing in the background here; lord knows I was when I wrote it.
It was a beautiful day outside the TARDIS: sunshine streaming through the clouds, springtime flowers bursting loose their first buds, charming large-eyed baby animals gambolling in the nearby fields. Birds warbling mating calls in an ancient ritual of attraction. Colourful butterflies flitting from blossom to blossom, delicately sucking nectar for their breakfast.
While inside the TARDIS, Rose was shrieking "You slag!" at Martha, who ducked to avoid the fast-flitting crockery Rose was flinging at her in the kitchen.
He should have never taken them to Alviya, the Doctor realised.
The trouble had started a month ago. Strictly speaking, the trouble had started months ago, when Rose had returned from the parallel universe and run into the Doctor and Martha while tracking something mutant, amphibious, and squid-shaped she claimed had eaten most of Torchwood on her world, retreating only after their pterodactyl had pecked out an eyeball. With the Doctor and Martha's help, Rose eventually located the creature near the London Eye, which it seemed to think was a lazy susan filled with delightfully crunchy tourist-shaped treats. Rose dispatched it with the aid of a harpoon and a remarkable facility for tying tentacles into square knots.
The original ending to the previous paragraph referenced Rose's remarkable ability to call seagulls on command. However, this was a) a non-obvious way of saying seagulls would eat the squid, and b) not funny, so I went with something else.
The Doctor had expected a celebratory hug from his long-lost lover, and he got one – but Martha's hug lasted longer and seemed to include what might have been nuzzling. He chalked that up to Rose bonding with a new friend and thought nothing more of it until a few days later, when he sneaked into her room hoping for an intimate welcome-back party – surely Rose would know that nothing says "I missed you while I was stuck in an alternate universe" like oral sex Well, nothing does, right? – and discovered that festivities were already in progress. Without him, and with Martha.
Usually I am quite careful with rare pairings to give a reasonable explanation why the characters would be attracted to each other. I didn't even bother here; it seemed unnecessary, and besides, when writing comedy, anything that interferes with the flow of a joke has to go.
Since that night, Rose and Martha had been inseparable, immediately moving into a larger room together, holding hands constantly, and mooning over each other during movie night. I contemplated the traditional U-Haul joke here, but decided against it. There were declarations of love, and snogging in the console room, and enough giggling and obviously private jokes that for the first time, the Doctor understood how Mickey must have felt when he'd been on board. Besides, tweaking Ten about how he'd treated Mickey was funnier and more appropriate anyway.
The Doctor tried to tell himself this was normal jealousy and resentment at his best friend finding a new, extra-special best friend, but in his more honest moments, he knew he was jealous and resentful because he hadn't been asked to join in. Patience, he reminded himself nightly, imagining how the women would coo and fawn over him, their limbs wrapping around his body as he plunged into their soft and gently yielding spaces. This did little to actually assuage the jealousy, but at least was ultimately relaxing, if a bit messy.
He's such a pervert.
And then last month they'd stopped for a brief holiday on Alviya, a former Earth colony now doing brisk business as a pleasure moon. The Doctor caught up with Rose and Martha as they emerged from a velvet-curtained shop, bright pink bags in their hands and mischievous smiles on their lips. Strangely, though Rose usually found shopping invigourating, both she and Martha had claimed to be unusually tired and in need of an extended nap. The Doctor pointed them in the direction of their hotel, but by the time he'd finished stammering out a hint about needing a nap himself, his companions had gone.
Had he known that one of the pink bags contained an unmarked tin of Mistress Coco's Chocolate Conception Cream, Alliteration: almost always amusing. he would have warned Rose and Martha before they left. But they didn't invite the Doctor along to their afternoon tryst, and he didn't get to see the contents of the bag until four weeks later, and by then, Martha was pregnant.
"You slag!" shrieked Rose. "Have you been shagging the Doctor behind my back? Or did you pick up some bloke when I fell asleep by the pool?"
I have some problems with Rose's character, but on balance, I like her. It was surprisingly hard to walk the line between making her believably (or believably enough for crack) jealous and bitchy here and outright bashing her, and obviously, I didn't want to do the latter.
"I swear, I haven't cheated on you," Martha pleaded. "The Doctor says it's that chocolate body paint we bought."
"Not unless you painted it on someone's dick while I was out, it wasn't."
"That wasn't ordinary body paint, Rose," the Doctor said. "Alviya caters to many female partnerships. Once absorbed by human skin, the cream penetrates to the reproductive system, softening the exterior membranes on any oocytes released during ovulation, assuming the, um, paintee – is that a word? Quite a good coinage, though it sounds a bit like 'panties,' which, ha! I suppose is related, at least in this context. Isn't that clever? Anyway, as one woman, er, removes the paint ... er ... with her tongue ... it encapsulates the chromosomal material in her saliva and delivers it into the oocyte, much like a sperm ..."
elliptic_eye deserves the credit here for coming up with a way for Rose and Martha to get pregnant. (Other friends supplied alternate options, but this was the one I decided to go with, since it actively involved both women.) I love science, but my strengths are more on the chemistry and quantum mechanics sides of things, not biology, which I stopped studying after the 8th grade. Dissection *shudder*Rose covered his mouth with her hand. "Stop. Just stop." She turned to Martha. "Is this true? All that nonsense he was just spouting?"
"I'm afraid it is," Martha said. "The Doctor showed me how the cream works – under a microscope, Rose, settle down! – and it's the only explanation. Rose, sweetheart, we're going to have a baby."
"You may be having a baby," Rose replied. "But we're not." She stalked out of the kitchen, leaving the Doctor and Martha to clean up the broken plates left behind.
The Doctor found Rose in the control room jumpseat, scowling and picking at her nails.
"Rose, you can't just run away from your responsibilities. It took two of you to make that baby, and you can't just dump everything on Martha."
"Why not? She didn't ask me first whether I wanted to be a mother, did she?"
"Martha needs you more than ever now, Rose. The right thing to do would be to marry her."
This setup is completely ridiculous, and I love it. There's no reason for the Doctor to suggest Rose marry Martha other than that this is what would happen in an Afterschool Special. I can't tell you how happy I was to find an actual episode title that matched this story so perfectly. (Not an episode I've seen, but I've seen plenty of other ones. Ah, the 1970s.)
Rose started to laugh. "You're joking, yeah? This isn't the 19th century, Doctor. Martha can raise that child on her own, and no one will blink an eye."
"Okay," he sighed. "I'd hoped I wouldn't have to do this, but I will." The Doctor switched on the sonic screwdriver and inserted it into a slot on the console. "I scanned Martha's foetus earlier, so I can track your daughter through time." He flipped a few switches to set the TARDIS in motion, then frowned. "I probably wasn't supposed to tell you you're having a little girl, was I? Never mind, just pretend you're surprised when it happens. So, Rose: we're going on a little trip to your future."
"Going to show me being all lovey-dovey with Martha and the baby, are you? Look, I told you I don't want to be a mother. It's over between me and Martha."
"And that's why I can show you what I need to show you. As long as you're resolved not to do what's right by Martha, your child's future is in jeopardy. I can see all the possible timelines, Rose –"
"Blah, blah, blah, timelines. You know, if I learned one thing while we were travelling together, it's that you're making it up as you go along. How do I know the timeline you're showing me isn't what's really supposed to happen?"
Rose so has his number here.
Rose crossed her arms over her chest, stubborn as ever. How had she turned into her mother without him noticing? Maybe it was for the best Rose had gone off men, because contemplating a lifetime with Jackie Tyler terrified him.
"I'm showing you what's going to happen if you continue on your present selfish and reckless course, Rose," said the Doctor.
"Whatever. Wake me if any Daleks show up; I could do with a laugh."
The TARDIS materialised in a neatly tended garden in front of a brick townhouse with a bay window. "If that's Martha's place, she's doing all right for herself," Rose said. "Doesn't need me after all, does she?"
"Wrong," the Doctor said, and pointed at the bay window, where they could see a woman passed out on the sofa, empty bottles of lager scattered nearby on the carpet. A few feet away in the kitchen, a child about two years old was standing on tiptoe, her small brown hand feeling around on the counter, tipping over glassware and dropping a long chef's knife to the floor. The girl laughed to herself, sat down, and started playing with the knife. You want to know how dense I am sometimes? I hate babyfic/kidfic so much that it never even occurred to me until months later that I'd written it myself, despite the obvious presence of a child in this story.
"It's a busy life, working at UNIT and trying to care for a toddler," the Doctor said. "Martha hired a nanny with good recommendations, but she couldn't have known the woman would develop a drinking problem."
"Mum raised me on her own just fine," Rose replied. "Aren't we going to go take that knife away? Or are you trying out for Irresponsible Parent of the Year, too?" I have to think the Doctor would have won that award multiple times. Maybe even gotten the lifetime achievement version.
"My parenting skills are superlative, you know. I never let my children play with knives. Fusion microbombs, yes, but knives are dangerous. In any case, Olivia's timeline persists, so she must survive. We can't interfere."
"Olivia, is it?" Rose raised an eyebrow. "I was thinking maybe 'Ginger' or 'Posh' myself."
"Very funny. Well, if you're going to be difficult, I suppose we're off to the next stop." The Doctor rubbed at his temples. This was going to be a very, very long day.
"Oh, good, Boots! I'm out of mascara."
There's a line missing here.
platypus suggested cutting it because it was a little too mean, and she was right. But since this is the commentary version, here's what got cut: "As if that could ever happen, the Doctor thought, but decided it was safer to keep that to himself.""We're not here on a shopping trip, Rose. We're here to see what sort of trouble your daughter's getting into without your stabilising influence." The Doctor suddenly stopped dead in the middle of the street, nearly causing an estate car to collide with a transport van, and turned to look at Rose. "Did I really just say that? Because all things considered, I've met gelatine desserts with more stabilising power." I wasn't sure about keeping this last line either, since it rides that edge between snarky and mean, but I eventually kept it because there's at least a grain of truth in it, as Rose herself admits in response.
The van driver honked his horn, and the Doctor jumped forward, startled. Rose waved an apology to the driver and dragged the Doctor to the kerb.
She shrugged. "No argument here. You always did say I was jeopardy-friendly."
"Definitional problems aside, it's still in Olivia's best interest for you and Martha to get married. Come on, the TARDIS says she's inside."
They spotted Olivia, now thirteen years old and dressed in clothes the Doctor considered at least one size too small for her, gossiping with four other similarly attired girls. The store was crowded, and no one but the Doctor and Rose noticed Olivia palming two lipsticks and sliding them into a pocket.
"Shoplifting!" cried the Doctor. "Rose, without you around to help Martha keep an eye on her, your daughter becomes a criminal."
"Says the man who told me once how he stole his spaceship. How many years d'ya get for TARDIS theft?" The original line here referred to "grand theft TARDIS," a phrase that still makes me giggle. Unfortunately, when I researched the specific British criminal charge associated with auto theft, it wasn't "grand theft auto," so out went the joke. (Of course, now that I Google for that phrase again, I see that the original game developers were based in the UK, so I probably could have kept the joke. Oh well.)
"Whether my parents were a stabilising influence on me is completely irrelevant."
"Oh, of course," Rose said, rolling her eyes. "Look, it's just a couple of lipsticks. Shareen and I swiped some nail varnish and a couple packs of crisps once after we failed a maths quiz. It's just something kids do."
"Fine," the Doctor harrumphed. "We'll give it another go. And if we find her in the dock this time, remember, it's your fault."
Three trips later, the Doctor was beginning to doubt his foolproof plan, not to mention Rose's maternal instincts.
Look! It's the part of the story where I got tired of writing exposition!
Spying on a party: "She's a teenager. She's just experimenting. A little pot smoke won't kill her ..."
Watching Olivia nick a Mercedes: "She's lost her car keys, that's all. And she's got a wire hanger because she came from the dry cleaners, yeah? You always assume the worst ..."
Outside the Bell in Hand: "We've all had a bad night down the pub. Well, I have; not sure about you. Sometimes you don't make it home before you ..."
It was enough to drive a responsible man, or even the Doctor, completely mad. This line still makes me laugh.
"One more trip," he said, gritting his teeth. And then perhaps a serious discussion with Martha about adoption.
And now, the punchline. For your reference, the part of the Eleventh Doctor will be played this evening by David Thewlis in a really cheap suit. (Some other fan, I forget who, once suggested Thewlis would make a great Eleven; I also wrote him into one of my drabbles for
lifeonmartha's 1,000 Drabbles of Awesome Project, Time Was.)They landed in a park, the TARDIS selecting a spot shrouded by tall hemlock shrubs. Peeking between the branches, Rose and the Doctor could just make out Olivia, who was walking hand-in-hand with a tall, moustached man in a rumpled corduroy blazer and apple-green trousers. They spoke to each other in low voices, and Olivia leaned in close, smiling up at him with adoring eyes.
"See?" Rose said. "She's fine. She's happy! Bloke's a bit old for her, but that never stopped me, did it?" She grinned and elbowed the Doctor.
"I'm telling you, Rose, if you're not there for this girl, it'll all go wrong. I can't sense her entire timeline, but what I can sense right now isn't good."
"Well, unless you mean that bad bleach job she's got, I'm gonna have to disagree with you."
It may be too subtle to be noticeable, but I deliberately wrote Rose a little more like Jackie in this scene. Considering how testy Rose got with Ten (understandably so) when he rescued her after partying it up in GitF, as well as his remark about her sounding just like her mother, writing a bit of Jackie's attitude into this part seemed to make sense.
The Doctor shoved hemlock branches aside to take a closer look. Maybe Olivia had turned to prostitution, and this older gent with the questionable fashion sense was her customer. Yes, that'd finally do it, Rose's daughter whoring herself out. "Give it a minute, Rose," he said. "I've got a feeling about this."
"And I've got a feeling you're still wasting my time."
On the other side of the hemlock, things were starting to heat up. Olivia slid her fingers over the man's face, then leaned in and kissed him, pulling him tight against her and wriggling her lower body. The man twisted one hand in Olivia's newly blonde hair and cupped her bum with the other, then started walking her backwards along the path running parallel to the shrubs.
Rose coughed quietly and said, "Okay, can't say I needed to see my little girl getting felt up, but like I said, she's – why are you looking at me like that? Something big and toothy sneaking up behind me?" She turned to look, then returned her attention to the view through the shrubbery, where the Doctor was making indignant squeaking sounds and gesturing wildly toward something in the distance.
I did briefly wonder why Ten couldn't sense Eleven's presence. Then I decided that logic was mostly irrelevant in this story, especially when it would ruin a good joke.
Olivia and the man, now almost too far away to discern but clearly still attached at the mouth, legs, and possibly other body parts, were propped against a blue telephone box. The man reached into his pocket, withdrew a key, and dragged Olivia inside as she giggled and called out a familiar name.
"Oh my God," Rose hissed. "It's not. She's not." She looked over at the Doctor, whose mouth still hung open in speechless shock. "You're not. I am not seeing this."
"Rose," the Doctor began, quickly finishing with a yowl of pain as his companion hauled off and slapped him.
"You pervert! That's my daughter you were snogging! That's my daughter you're probably shagging right now! In the same room where you and I have –"
Like I said: Jackie.
"She started it! You saw that, plain as day!"
"I thought you said it takes two, Doctor."
"Well, technically, yes. But ... but ... you saw her! She'd dyed her hair blonde! You of all people should know that I can't be held responsible for my actions when a nubile young blonde sticks her tongue down my throat!"
Oh, Doctor. Don't you know by now that telling the truth never helps your case?
"No more slapping," Rose said, and pushed up her sleeve. "Moving on to punching now."
I should probably have cut that "now" at the end of the previous sentence, because I think removing it improves the rhythm, but eh, too late.
The Doctor leapt backwards out of range and stretched out one hand to block Rose while the other protected his more valuable organs. Rose's fists were clenched, but so far, they were still a little too far away to cause any damage, and fortunately, so were her knees. "Now, Rose ...," the Doctor started.
"Don't you 'now, Rose' me," she growled, but eventually dropped her fists, moving close enough to start poking the Doctor hard in the chest instead. "I thought Mum was overreacting when she slapped you that day. But I was wrong. Nine hundred years old and you're still thinking with your dick? Well, you won't be after I cut it off because you've been messing with my daughter. Got it?"
The Doctor nodded, his eyes wide with fear.
"Good," Rose said. "Then take me back. I've got a wedding to plan."
And thus Rose has a completely plausible change of heart. Or something like that.
Rose and Martha were married the following month in a traditional Alviyan ceremony, during which the brides wore matching veils and lacy thongs, and the best man, to his delight, was required by law to participate in the wedding night.
"Don't get any ideas," Martha told the Doctor as he lay quivering and tied-up on the bed. "This is a one-time thing. I love Rose, but she is one jealous bitch. Now, are these knots good for you?"
This paragraph may be one of my favorite things I've ever written, just because it's so damned silly.
Years later, long after Rose and Martha had settled down on Earth with the daughter they named after her planet of conception, the Doctor died in a tragic and improbable accident involving a weasel, two badgers, and a kilo of salad cream. And speaking of silly ... well, anyway, I mostly wanted an excuse to work the salad cream in there, because for some reason I thought a mayonnaise-based accident would be hilarious. Also, I think the word "badger" is funny. My sense of humor mystifies me sometimes. Upon his recovery, he made his traditional pilgrimage to the wardrobe room and selected a corduroy jacket and apple-green trousers for his new uniform. Checking the jacket pockets for stray jelly babies, he discovered a note:
Dear Doctor,
Thank you for helping me do the right thing for Martha and Olivia. I love them both very much, and I know the three of us will be really happy together.
Since you went a bit funny the last time you regenerated, I wanted to write this down for you in case you forget:
If you ever lay a finger on my daughter, I'm coming after you with a rusty carving knife.
xoxoxoxoxo,
Rose
The Doctor carefully folded the note and replaced it in his pocket. Time for a sixty- or seventy-year holiday a long way from Earth, he thought. A very, very long way away.
Of course, the Doctor avoiding Earth for Olivia's lifespan doesn't really mean he couldn't go back and seduce her, but like I said before, logic isn't all that relevant for most of this story.
And so, dear reader, the commentary for my one and only kidfic comes to a close. Unlike kidfic, however, I may yet write more cracky weddingfic. Someday.