nonelvis | Fic I'd never write: Pete's World babyfic

karenor might have had a hard time coming up with something I wouldn't write, but she sure as heck figured it out eventually: Pete's World babyfic. Babyfic is one of my least favorite genres (tied with Caveman!Nine), and the one time I wrote it, it was pure crack, because hell if I could have written serious babyfic.

So this is about as close as I can get: a half-serious/half-comic snippet of babyfic I'd never normally write.

The Doctor considered himself lucky that it took Jackie Tyler two full Christmases to begin needling Rose about grandchildren. Admittedly, during the first Christmas, he and Rose had still been tiptoeing round something neither was ready to call a relationship, shyly watching each other open their presents and lingering awkwardly under the mistletoe, waiting for a quiet moment to steal a kiss.

By the time the second Christmas rolled around, he found himself hastily zipping up his trousers and helping Rose off the pantry shelving while Jackie pounded on the locked door, telling them the staff needed in to get the chestnuts, and did they want her to get the spare key and a camera, because you better believe she wasn't afraid to see some half-alien bits, and wouldn't The Sun love to see them, too?

She at least had the kindness to wait until after dinner to bring it up, when they were all logy from roast turkey and spiced wine, and the Doctor was sneaking meringue mushrooms off the bûche de Noël and hoping no one would notice.

"So, you two," she started. "It's been more than a year now. When are you going to give me some grandchildren?"

"Mum!"

"I'm just saying, you two are practically married, and you're not getting any younger, sweetheart. And himself, who knows whether he can even be a proper father."

The Doctor swigged more wine, the better to dislodge the mushroom fragment that had somehow got lodged in his throat around the word grandchildren. "I'm right here, Jackie," he said, finishing with a cough, and noticing with more than a little appreciation how quietly Pete had managed to slip away from the table.

"I mean, you're half-alien. Who knows what those little wrigglers look like? Can you even make a human baby? I don't want Rose giving birth to something with three heads."

"Mum, if we have a baby, it's not going to have three heads." Rose was glaring at the tablecloth now. He knew that glare. He knew it well, and Jackie probably did, too, but it deterred her even less than it did him.

"Are you sure?"

"I swear, Jackie," he said, "my people never had more than two heads each. Two and a half on an off day."

"Now you're being stupid."

"No, now I'm avoiding a question Rose and I aren't prepared to answer."

Rose finally looked up. "We'll let you know when we're ready, Mum. If we're ready," she added, meeting the Doctor's gaze across the table.

Jackie sighed. "All right, sweetheart. But think how wonderful it'd be to have a baby of your own. Don't you want one? An adorable little baby?"

"Babies grow up, mum. They're a lot of trouble."

"Don't I know it," Jackie said, and poured herself another glass.

* * *

Rose greeted him at their front door four weeks later with a white plastic stick in one hand and the other hand clamped tight over her midriff.

"One of us forgot our pill last month," she said. "Could have been you."

"Pill? What sort of …" He glanced at the stick: a small, tapered wand, otherwise mysterious except for an indentation at the centre and dark blue embossing reading Home Pregnancy Test. "Oh. That pill. The one I'm really not supposed to forget until we agree I'm supposed to forget it, which was supposed to be quite soon but not quite this soon, am I right?"

"Promise me you were joking about two and a half heads," she said.

He took the plastic stick from her, examined the tiny pink plus sign in its centre. A square centimetre of meaning there, the most important square centimetre in the world. Rose looked up at him, waiting, her face nearly as pale as the stick.

"I was," he said. "And I want you to know, our child will most definitely have three heads."

"Shut up," she said, wrapping herself round him. "You're the worst sometimes, you really are."

He kissed the top of her head. "Yeah, but you love me."

"You'd better hope so."

"And I love you, and little … what should we call it, Rose?"

"I don't know! It's just … it's just a lump of stuff right now, isn't it? We don't even know if it's a boy or a girl."

"'Lump' it is, then," he said. "Well, Lump; Lump, Jr.; and Lumpetta. One name per head."

She tugged him inside, pushed him down on the couch, and draped herself over him. She poked his shoulder. Hard. "Just for that, I'm making you tell Mum."

"You're a harsh woman, Rose Tyler. Where'd you get that mean streak? Be nice, or our little Lumps might inherit it."

"You're going to be the worst dad ever, aren't you?"

"Only if by 'worst,' you mean 'best,'" he said, tilting his head towards her, leaning in for a kiss. "Did that change your mind at all?"

"It's a start," she said. "Better try again to be sure."