Chaos Theory in Vortex Orbits in Relative Dimensions in Time and Space (9/27)
Title - Chaos Theory in Vortex Orbits in Relative Dimensions in Time and Space (9/27)
Author --
earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters -- Ten, Rose, Jackie, OC
Spoilers: Through the end of S2.
Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for Brem. He's all mine.)
Summary - And then there came a day when Rose said she was having a baby. Hijinks ensue from there.
Author’s Notes - The icon was created by
punkinart , commissioned by
aibhinn , who graciously offered it to me for my use.
jlrpuck is my way cool beta, who has also promised to drink wine with me tomorrow night. Also thanks to Kristin-who-won't-get-an-LJ, who brainstormed this fic with me endlessly, and
bouncy_castle79 , who gave it the first major outside-eyes read-through.
Ch.1 - Ch. 2 - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 - Ch. 6 - Ch. 7 - Ch. 8
Chapter Nine
It took a bit for her to become pregnant a second time. At least, longer than she expected, when she thought of how easily, effortlessly, accidentally, without even trying, that she had become pregnant with Brem. The Doctor said that she had to be patient, that her body was still fairly exhausted from Brem. She was not pregnant by the time they celebrated Brem’s first birthday. The Doctor complained a bit about ime being complicated and non-linear and timey-wimey and they couldn’t accurately say to the day when Brem turned one, but they went back to London and let Jackie throw a big first birthday party for her grandson, to which all of her friends came to ooh and ahh over Brem and to gawk at the Doctor. They had never met him before, and they were eager to pass judgment.
The Doctor passed. He was good-looking and a doctor, in their eyes, so that was pretty much enough. Plus, his adoration of Brem was much in evidence, which went a long way to adding to their good impression of him. He was, as was his wont, impatient and patronizing to them, but they interpreted it as importance and it only made him seem more impressive. He did not take kindly to one of them criticizing him for giving the baby iced tea, though, and launched into a stern lecture about free radicals until Rose managed to distract him.
Brem was, as she would have thought, contrary. Mostly because, now that he sensed that his mother would prefer for him not to be an obviously remarkable baby, he decided to make an effort to be as remarkable as possible. Where normally he seldom spoke, he now made a point of talking to everyone who cooed at him. He showed off by running around the flat, making everyone comment on how advanced he was. Rose sighed.
The Doctor gave Brem his sonic screwdriver for his first birthday. Disabled, so Brem couldn’t actually use it, but Brem loved it, carrying it everywhere with him, aiming it whenever his father aimed his own. Brem adored his father. Rose knew he adored her as well, but it was different from the adoration he directed toward his father, somehow lacked the hero worship, the complete admiration. Brem followed him everywhere, clutching sonic screwdriver and blue blanket-he was still inordinately fond of his blue blanket; “What do you expect?” drawled the Doctor. “You insist on changing his clothes every day, he’s got to have something constant”-studying with intense concentration everything he did. Amusingly enough, Brem pretended indifference most of the time, affected offended airs when the Doctor gathered him up and dragged him to view some phenomenon or other, but cried most fervently if Rose attempted to “rescue” him. Even more amusingly, the Doctor couldn’t seem to see through the act, and kept berating Brem for not showing himself to be suitably excited by the places he took him.
It was, all in all, a surprisingly normal life, if one discounted the fact that Brem was being raised in all different timelines in all different galaxies and that sometimes he was not allowed to leave the TARDIS because his father was out attempting to save the entire universe.
Rose found out she was pregnant as Brem was approaching the anniversary of eighteen months of life and they decided to share the news with him.
She sat on the floor across from him in his nursery, where he was working on a complicated mechanical sort-of puzzle. “He’s a tinkerer!” the Doctor had exclaimed, in delight, showering him with such toys. She watched him grasp his sonic screwdriver in one chubby hand, aim it at his contraption, and make a buzzing noise that was a fair approximation of what the screwdriver sounded like.
“Your father and I are having a baby,” she told him, enthusiastically.
Brem looked up from his toy. “A baby what?” he asked, sounding intrigued.
Rose was a bit taken aback. “Well, a baby human.”
“Time Lord,” added the Doctor. “It’s a human/Time Lord hybrid.”
Rose looked up at him. “That sounds clinical.”
The Doctor looked surprised. “Does it? But it’s true.”
“I think,” said Brem, thoughtfully, “that we should have a baby flubbertyfigturom. Dad says they have three tongues when they’re babies, isn’t that right, Dad?”
“You would know about tongues,” muttered Rose. “You and your oral fixation.”
“What’s an oral fixation?” asked Brem, watching her raptly.
“It’s not important. We’re not going to get a baby flubbertyfigturom. Dad will take you to see one, but we’re not going to get one, we’re going to get a normal little baby like you.” Rose grinned at him winningly.
Brem narrowed his eyes. “We don’t need another baby like me,” he pointed out, logically. “We have me.” He turned back to his toy, clearly viewing this conversation as concluded.
“Yeah, but wouldn’t you like to have a little brother or sister?” coaxed Rose. “To play with?”
Brem shook his head and pointed his sonic screwdriver again.
The Doctor frowned. All those years of being so tired of being so lonely, and here they were offering Brem a guaranteed best friend and he was turning it down. “Well, you’re getting one, and you’ll love him or her,” he said, flatly.
It was a tone of voice he never used with Brem, and he felt Rose turn to stare at him as Brem lifted his head up, eyes wide and startled and mouth open in astonishment.
“Your mother is having a baby,” the Doctor informed him, sternly. “You should hug her and say, ‘That’s wonderful, Mummy, how do you feel?’”
“He’s barely a year old,” Rose hissed at him, as Brem’s eyes welled with tears and his lower lip trembled.
The Doctor felt bad. He could not handle the lower lip tremble. He shifted uncomfortably. He could not handle Brem crying under normal circumstances, to know that he caused it was far worse.
“I don’t want to have a baby!” wailed Brem.
“Brem, I didn’t mean-” began the Doctor, crouching and reaching for him.
Brem jerked away from him and launched himself at his mother melodramatically. The Doctor dropped his hand, speechless.
Rose shook her head a bit, as if to say, It’s nothing, while she cuddled Brem.
“Brem-”
“Give us a second,” said Rose, cutting him off and gesturing toward the door, while Brem sobbed and snuffled against her.
The Doctor would have argued against leaving except that he didn’t like to hear Brem cry, so he left and went to the library, where he found himself a book and settled trying to read it. When Rose showed up, he pretended to be engrossed. “Did you settle him?” he asked, as indifferently as possible.
“Yeah.” Rose looked at him curiously. “Where did that come from?”
“What?”
“Yelling at him.”
“I didn’t yell.”
“You were a bit sharp with him.” She sat on the couch next to him, very close to him, regarding him. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re happy about the baby, right?”
“I’m thrilled about the baby. I wish Brem were.”
“He’s only a baby himself. He doesn’t understand. He’s happy the way things are, why should he want to change things? Plus, he might not be able to put it into words but he’s probably worried you’ll love the new baby more.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous.”
Rose thought of being jealous of Brem when she had been pregnant with him. “Not so much.”
He sighed. “I didn’t mean to make him cry.”
She combed through the hair on the nape of his neck. “Go read him a story.”
“You think?”
“Yes.”
The Doctor stood, tucking the book he’d been reading against his chest as he walked down to Brem’s nursery. And when she checked on them, ten minutes later, he was sprawled on his stomach on the floor with Brem, specs on and tongue out in concentration, Brem kneeling and looking closely at his father’s fingers as they attempted to coax some toy to do something or other. And she smiled and settled her hand against her abdomen, thinking of her second human/Time Lord hybrid baby forcing its way to life.
**********************
Brem never seemed to get used to the idea of the new baby. He kept asking why they couldn’t have a flubbertyfigturom instead. He seemed to think it was merely a matter of time before his parents acquiesced to his request. Rose tried to get him interested, letting him touch her abdomen while the baby kicked. This only appeared to alarm Brem. The Doctor tried to get him to sense the baby’s consciousness, but Brem couldn’t. That didn’t really surprise the Doctor. Brem was used to a Time Lord presence that was strong, even when shielded. He wouldn’t register the whisper touch of what turned out to be his baby sister’s consciousness. Brem was not convinced by any of it that this new baby was a good idea.
He was even less convinced when his father explained that they had to stop travelling and stay with Grandma for a bit while Mum had the baby. He threw a full-blown tantrum, throwing himself on the floor and beating his fists and kicking his feet and wailing. The Doctor stared at him and rubbed the back of his neck. Jackie lifted her eyebrows at him and he admitted, “We may have spoiled him. A bit.”
The Doctor, second time around, had the whole birth thing down to a routine: sonic screwdriver and on-the-fly Caesarean. Even Jackie let him just get to it, occupying Brem in the adjoining nursery, although Brem just wanted to be in the other room, and asked a million questions about what his dad was working on, and the Doctor said to let him come in.
“I don’t think he should-”
But Brem, hearing his father’s blessing, immediately escaped her grasp and raced over to him, peering closely at what his father was doing.
“Oh, don’t let him watch,” Jackie complained.
“Why not?” asked the Doctor. “Look, Brem, here comes your sister.”
“Rose,” Jackie begged.
“Oh, it’s fine,” said Rose, who was once again bored by this entire process. “He’s not quite normal, Mum.”
“The Doctor?”
“Him, too.”
The baby squalled suddenly, her first cry on the planet, and the Doctor said, “There you are, Jackie, could you cut the cord?” and Jackie, the disagreement forgotten, moved over immediately to cradle the new baby, to clean her off. Brem tagged along behind her.
The Doctor did his sonic screwdriver thing over her, as he had last time, then perched next to her on the bed, swinging his legs up even though there was barely enough room there. “Gets to be routine, that,” he said, smugly.
“What’s she look like?”
“Wait to see her for yourself.” He nodded toward where Jackie was now emerging, the baby wrapped in pink. Brem was hopping alongside, trying to catch glimpses of her.
“She’s gorgeous, Rose,” Jackie beamed, transferring the baby over.
And she was. Smaller and redder than Brem had been, her features far more delicate and tiny and rather pushed together, giving her an almost fragile appearance, although she was certainly crying loud enough to wake the dead. But the features were still stubborn mirrors of the Doctor, and the hair on her head, although not as long or thick as Brem’s had been, was her father’s dark brown. Her skin was relatively free of freckles but Rose knew better than to think that would last: Brem seemed to have more freckles every day.
Rose smiled at down at her, melting with adoration. She offered her pinkie, and the baby grabbed it and began to catch her breath, her dark eyes widening a bit as she calmed herself down and thought to look around her. “Your DNA,” she murmured to the Doctor, drawing her thumb along the baby’s cheek gently, “is bloody strong.”
“Well, of course,” he breathed, leaning over to look at her closely, an expression of wonderment on his face.
Rose glanced at him. “Routine, is it?”
“Oh, never,” he said, and then glanced at Brem, who had scrambled up on the bed and was also examining his new sister. “What do you think of her, then, Brem?”
Brem looked unimpressed. He wrinkled his nose. “Has she got three tongues?”
“She’s got one tongue like you,” Rose told him.
Brem looked down at the baby, who looked back at him steadily, with polite interest.
“She’s a bit dull.” Brem sat back, satisfied with his pronouncement. “We ought to trade her for a flubbertyfigturom.”
“A what?” asked Jackie.
The Doctor sighed in exasperation. “We aren’t going to. Look, Brem, she’s brilliant, don’t you think?”
Brem looked thoughtful. “Well.” He brightened suddenly. “She’s a girl!”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, grinning a bit, thinking they’d turned a corner.
“She’s for Mum to play with, then!”
“No, she’s for both of us to play with. All three of us to play with.”
Brem looked sceptical.
The Doctor sighed. “Come along, then, Bremsstrahlung.” The Doctor slid off the bed, walking around to gather Brem up. “Mum’s going to feed her, and you and I are going to figure out how much sugar she takes in her iced tea.”
“Can’t we gauge the metricsometer instead?” asked Brem, as they exited the room.
“He could be a bit more delighted, couldn’t he?” commented Jackie.
“Oh,” said Rose, smiling at the baby in delight as she latched onto her breast. “He’s like his father is the problem. He’s scared of being alone. The Doctor thinks, Ooh, more babies, more splendid company in the TARDIS. But Brem thinks, Ooh, more babies, maybe everyone will forget about me. Brem’ll come ‘round, once he realizes it’s not true. She’s perfect, isn’t she, Mum?” Rose looked up, her eyes shining with tears. “Look at my two perfect children.”
“They are perfect,” Jackie agreed, sniffling herself. “She’s beautiful. What ridiculous name are you giving her?”
“Oh.” Rose smiled. “Athena. It’s fairly normal, isn’t it? Well done, me, don’t you think?”
“Did you convince him of that?”
“He was taken with it. Babbled about mythology and goddesses and such. So her name is Athena.”
“Athena Tyler. It’s pretty, Rose.”
“Athena Rose Tyler,” said the Doctor, re-entering with Brem and a bottle. Brem had his own bottle, was sucking from it enthusiastically.
“Oh, yes,” Rose sighed. “He keeps insisting on that.”
“It’s a nice name,” Jackie told him.
“Oh, dear,” said the Doctor. “Maybe we ought to change it.”
Brem crawled onto the bed, and Rose lifted her free arm so he could curl under it. “You like that name?” she asked him, kissing his cowlicked hair. “Athena?”
Brem shrugged.
“Are you tired?” asked Jackie, studying Rose.
“I am a bit, actually,” she admitted.
“Here. Let me take her. Come here, Theenie.”
“Her name’s Athena!” protested the Doctor, appalled.
“’s a bit of a mouthful, innit?”
“No, it’s not a ‘mouthful!’ Not at all! It’s three syllables!”
Jackie rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Brem, your mum needs a bit of rest.”
“Leave him,” said Rose. “We’re okay.”
Jackie looked at her for a second, the baby warm and content in her arms, and wondered when her daughter had grown up. When had that happened? Where had the time gone?
“Okay,” she said.
“Let’s try the iced tea.” The Doctor bounced in Jackie’s wake out of the room. “I’ve started her with five, and we’ll move up from there-”
Rose smiled wearily and snuggled a bit into the covers. She was sore now, and really quite exhausted. Brem was watching her with his huge Doctor eyes.
“I’ve got to sleep a bit, Brem,” she told him. “D’you want to stay here and be quiet or go with your dad and grandma?”
He removed the bottle from his mouth. “Stay here,” he said.
“Let’s take a nap, then,” she said, and, although she knew he wasn’t tired, he obediently settled against her.
**********************
It took Brem longer than she had estimated to come around to Athena. She was an easy-going baby, who barely ever cried and did not object to being jostled when her brother crashed enthusiastically into whichever parent was holding her. She was perfectly content to lie wherever she happened to be, wide eyes drinking everything in, slight knowing smile on her face. She didn’t even cry when she was hungry, or uncomfortable, or needed something. She was astonishingly easy. In fact, her moods barely registered on Rose’s pendant, which remained swamped by Brem’s noisy emotions.
And still Brem did not like her. Maybe, Rose reflected, Brem would like her better if she were more like him-brash and demanding. She suspected Brem did not understand this strangely silent little creature who did little other than gaze at him. Because Athena was not prone to crying, but neither was she prone to the giggling that punctuated Brem’s life. Brem was a loud, extroverted little boy; Athena could not have been more different.
And she was keeping them in one place. Brem loved travelling. He complained and fretted and sulked and whined, begging to be taken places. The Doctor kept suggesting to Rose that he take Brem somewhere, anywhere, to silence him, but Rose was steadfast in refusing it. She didn’t want Brem being allowed to run away from Athena. She wanted him to get used to her.
This was not a situation improved by the Doctor leaving to check up on the status of the universe. Brem sniffled miserably the entire time he was gone, demanding to know why he had not been allowed to go with his father. Even the Doctor had been stern about his staying behind, which had confused Brem. But both Rose and the Doctor were vague on the dangerous, universe-saving implications of their lives. If Brem-too quick and clever for his own good-suspected how much his mother worried when his father left the TARDIS on his own, he was also perceptive enough not to probe the issue.
Eventually, however, Brem came to adore Athena--and it happened for the simplest of reasons, really. Because it turned out that, no matter how disdainfully he stared at this tiny, quiet baby, Athena worshiped her older brother. When he was in the room, her wide brown eyes never left him. When Rose could persuade Brem to shake a rattle at her, or play peek-a-boo with her, Athena burst into delighted smiles and threatened to overpower Rose’s pendant with her sunny yellow glow. The few times Athena fussed were when she wanted Brem. It was confusing to Rose, why Athena should be so taken with him, but it was true. So that when Athena, at the age of 15 weeks, spoke her first word, it was Brem.
And Brem was thrilled with it. Now that Athena knew how to speak, and could shout for him, Brem seemed to find her far more interesting. He launched into long, babbling lectures that reminded Rose so strongly of the Doctor that she never knew whether she wanted to burst into tears or laughter. The Doctor, of course, didn’t think there was anything remarkable at all in Brem’s verbosity. He didn’t even think he was especially verbose.
“Talk a lot?” he echoed, blinking at Rose over the top of his specs, while he leaned over the console fixing something. “Brem? You think so?”
Rose shook her head and held up her pendant and trapped her tongue between her teeth as she grinned. “Make this pendant scarlet.”
Next Chapter
Author --
earlgreytea68
Rating - Teen
Characters -- Ten, Rose, Jackie, OC
Spoilers: Through the end of S2.
Disclaimer: I don't own them and I don't make money off of them, but I don't like to dwell on that, so let's move on. (Except for Brem. He's all mine.)
Summary - And then there came a day when Rose said she was having a baby. Hijinks ensue from there.
Author’s Notes - The icon was created by
punkinart , commissioned by
aibhinn , who graciously offered it to me for my use.
jlrpuck is my way cool beta, who has also promised to drink wine with me tomorrow night. Also thanks to Kristin-who-won't-get-an-LJ, who brainstormed this fic with me endlessly, and
bouncy_castle79 , who gave it the first major outside-eyes read-through.
Ch.1 - Ch. 2 - Ch. 3 - Ch. 4 - Ch. 5 - Ch. 6 - Ch. 7 - Ch. 8
Chapter Nine
It took a bit for her to become pregnant a second time. At least, longer than she expected, when she thought of how easily, effortlessly, accidentally, without even trying, that she had become pregnant with Brem. The Doctor said that she had to be patient, that her body was still fairly exhausted from Brem. She was not pregnant by the time they celebrated Brem’s first birthday. The Doctor complained a bit about ime being complicated and non-linear and timey-wimey and they couldn’t accurately say to the day when Brem turned one, but they went back to London and let Jackie throw a big first birthday party for her grandson, to which all of her friends came to ooh and ahh over Brem and to gawk at the Doctor. They had never met him before, and they were eager to pass judgment.
The Doctor passed. He was good-looking and a doctor, in their eyes, so that was pretty much enough. Plus, his adoration of Brem was much in evidence, which went a long way to adding to their good impression of him. He was, as was his wont, impatient and patronizing to them, but they interpreted it as importance and it only made him seem more impressive. He did not take kindly to one of them criticizing him for giving the baby iced tea, though, and launched into a stern lecture about free radicals until Rose managed to distract him.
Brem was, as she would have thought, contrary. Mostly because, now that he sensed that his mother would prefer for him not to be an obviously remarkable baby, he decided to make an effort to be as remarkable as possible. Where normally he seldom spoke, he now made a point of talking to everyone who cooed at him. He showed off by running around the flat, making everyone comment on how advanced he was. Rose sighed.
The Doctor gave Brem his sonic screwdriver for his first birthday. Disabled, so Brem couldn’t actually use it, but Brem loved it, carrying it everywhere with him, aiming it whenever his father aimed his own. Brem adored his father. Rose knew he adored her as well, but it was different from the adoration he directed toward his father, somehow lacked the hero worship, the complete admiration. Brem followed him everywhere, clutching sonic screwdriver and blue blanket-he was still inordinately fond of his blue blanket; “What do you expect?” drawled the Doctor. “You insist on changing his clothes every day, he’s got to have something constant”-studying with intense concentration everything he did. Amusingly enough, Brem pretended indifference most of the time, affected offended airs when the Doctor gathered him up and dragged him to view some phenomenon or other, but cried most fervently if Rose attempted to “rescue” him. Even more amusingly, the Doctor couldn’t seem to see through the act, and kept berating Brem for not showing himself to be suitably excited by the places he took him.
It was, all in all, a surprisingly normal life, if one discounted the fact that Brem was being raised in all different timelines in all different galaxies and that sometimes he was not allowed to leave the TARDIS because his father was out attempting to save the entire universe.
Rose found out she was pregnant as Brem was approaching the anniversary of eighteen months of life and they decided to share the news with him.
She sat on the floor across from him in his nursery, where he was working on a complicated mechanical sort-of puzzle. “He’s a tinkerer!” the Doctor had exclaimed, in delight, showering him with such toys. She watched him grasp his sonic screwdriver in one chubby hand, aim it at his contraption, and make a buzzing noise that was a fair approximation of what the screwdriver sounded like.
“Your father and I are having a baby,” she told him, enthusiastically.
Brem looked up from his toy. “A baby what?” he asked, sounding intrigued.
Rose was a bit taken aback. “Well, a baby human.”
“Time Lord,” added the Doctor. “It’s a human/Time Lord hybrid.”
Rose looked up at him. “That sounds clinical.”
The Doctor looked surprised. “Does it? But it’s true.”
“I think,” said Brem, thoughtfully, “that we should have a baby flubbertyfigturom. Dad says they have three tongues when they’re babies, isn’t that right, Dad?”
“You would know about tongues,” muttered Rose. “You and your oral fixation.”
“What’s an oral fixation?” asked Brem, watching her raptly.
“It’s not important. We’re not going to get a baby flubbertyfigturom. Dad will take you to see one, but we’re not going to get one, we’re going to get a normal little baby like you.” Rose grinned at him winningly.
Brem narrowed his eyes. “We don’t need another baby like me,” he pointed out, logically. “We have me.” He turned back to his toy, clearly viewing this conversation as concluded.
“Yeah, but wouldn’t you like to have a little brother or sister?” coaxed Rose. “To play with?”
Brem shook his head and pointed his sonic screwdriver again.
The Doctor frowned. All those years of being so tired of being so lonely, and here they were offering Brem a guaranteed best friend and he was turning it down. “Well, you’re getting one, and you’ll love him or her,” he said, flatly.
It was a tone of voice he never used with Brem, and he felt Rose turn to stare at him as Brem lifted his head up, eyes wide and startled and mouth open in astonishment.
“Your mother is having a baby,” the Doctor informed him, sternly. “You should hug her and say, ‘That’s wonderful, Mummy, how do you feel?’”
“He’s barely a year old,” Rose hissed at him, as Brem’s eyes welled with tears and his lower lip trembled.
The Doctor felt bad. He could not handle the lower lip tremble. He shifted uncomfortably. He could not handle Brem crying under normal circumstances, to know that he caused it was far worse.
“I don’t want to have a baby!” wailed Brem.
“Brem, I didn’t mean-” began the Doctor, crouching and reaching for him.
Brem jerked away from him and launched himself at his mother melodramatically. The Doctor dropped his hand, speechless.
Rose shook her head a bit, as if to say, It’s nothing, while she cuddled Brem.
“Brem-”
“Give us a second,” said Rose, cutting him off and gesturing toward the door, while Brem sobbed and snuffled against her.
The Doctor would have argued against leaving except that he didn’t like to hear Brem cry, so he left and went to the library, where he found himself a book and settled trying to read it. When Rose showed up, he pretended to be engrossed. “Did you settle him?” he asked, as indifferently as possible.
“Yeah.” Rose looked at him curiously. “Where did that come from?”
“What?”
“Yelling at him.”
“I didn’t yell.”
“You were a bit sharp with him.” She sat on the couch next to him, very close to him, regarding him. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re happy about the baby, right?”
“I’m thrilled about the baby. I wish Brem were.”
“He’s only a baby himself. He doesn’t understand. He’s happy the way things are, why should he want to change things? Plus, he might not be able to put it into words but he’s probably worried you’ll love the new baby more.”
“Well, that’s ridiculous.”
Rose thought of being jealous of Brem when she had been pregnant with him. “Not so much.”
He sighed. “I didn’t mean to make him cry.”
She combed through the hair on the nape of his neck. “Go read him a story.”
“You think?”
“Yes.”
The Doctor stood, tucking the book he’d been reading against his chest as he walked down to Brem’s nursery. And when she checked on them, ten minutes later, he was sprawled on his stomach on the floor with Brem, specs on and tongue out in concentration, Brem kneeling and looking closely at his father’s fingers as they attempted to coax some toy to do something or other. And she smiled and settled her hand against her abdomen, thinking of her second human/Time Lord hybrid baby forcing its way to life.
**********************
Brem never seemed to get used to the idea of the new baby. He kept asking why they couldn’t have a flubbertyfigturom instead. He seemed to think it was merely a matter of time before his parents acquiesced to his request. Rose tried to get him interested, letting him touch her abdomen while the baby kicked. This only appeared to alarm Brem. The Doctor tried to get him to sense the baby’s consciousness, but Brem couldn’t. That didn’t really surprise the Doctor. Brem was used to a Time Lord presence that was strong, even when shielded. He wouldn’t register the whisper touch of what turned out to be his baby sister’s consciousness. Brem was not convinced by any of it that this new baby was a good idea.
He was even less convinced when his father explained that they had to stop travelling and stay with Grandma for a bit while Mum had the baby. He threw a full-blown tantrum, throwing himself on the floor and beating his fists and kicking his feet and wailing. The Doctor stared at him and rubbed the back of his neck. Jackie lifted her eyebrows at him and he admitted, “We may have spoiled him. A bit.”
The Doctor, second time around, had the whole birth thing down to a routine: sonic screwdriver and on-the-fly Caesarean. Even Jackie let him just get to it, occupying Brem in the adjoining nursery, although Brem just wanted to be in the other room, and asked a million questions about what his dad was working on, and the Doctor said to let him come in.
“I don’t think he should-”
But Brem, hearing his father’s blessing, immediately escaped her grasp and raced over to him, peering closely at what his father was doing.
“Oh, don’t let him watch,” Jackie complained.
“Why not?” asked the Doctor. “Look, Brem, here comes your sister.”
“Rose,” Jackie begged.
“Oh, it’s fine,” said Rose, who was once again bored by this entire process. “He’s not quite normal, Mum.”
“The Doctor?”
“Him, too.”
The baby squalled suddenly, her first cry on the planet, and the Doctor said, “There you are, Jackie, could you cut the cord?” and Jackie, the disagreement forgotten, moved over immediately to cradle the new baby, to clean her off. Brem tagged along behind her.
The Doctor did his sonic screwdriver thing over her, as he had last time, then perched next to her on the bed, swinging his legs up even though there was barely enough room there. “Gets to be routine, that,” he said, smugly.
“What’s she look like?”
“Wait to see her for yourself.” He nodded toward where Jackie was now emerging, the baby wrapped in pink. Brem was hopping alongside, trying to catch glimpses of her.
“She’s gorgeous, Rose,” Jackie beamed, transferring the baby over.
And she was. Smaller and redder than Brem had been, her features far more delicate and tiny and rather pushed together, giving her an almost fragile appearance, although she was certainly crying loud enough to wake the dead. But the features were still stubborn mirrors of the Doctor, and the hair on her head, although not as long or thick as Brem’s had been, was her father’s dark brown. Her skin was relatively free of freckles but Rose knew better than to think that would last: Brem seemed to have more freckles every day.
Rose smiled at down at her, melting with adoration. She offered her pinkie, and the baby grabbed it and began to catch her breath, her dark eyes widening a bit as she calmed herself down and thought to look around her. “Your DNA,” she murmured to the Doctor, drawing her thumb along the baby’s cheek gently, “is bloody strong.”
“Well, of course,” he breathed, leaning over to look at her closely, an expression of wonderment on his face.
Rose glanced at him. “Routine, is it?”
“Oh, never,” he said, and then glanced at Brem, who had scrambled up on the bed and was also examining his new sister. “What do you think of her, then, Brem?”
Brem looked unimpressed. He wrinkled his nose. “Has she got three tongues?”
“She’s got one tongue like you,” Rose told him.
Brem looked down at the baby, who looked back at him steadily, with polite interest.
“She’s a bit dull.” Brem sat back, satisfied with his pronouncement. “We ought to trade her for a flubbertyfigturom.”
“A what?” asked Jackie.
The Doctor sighed in exasperation. “We aren’t going to. Look, Brem, she’s brilliant, don’t you think?”
Brem looked thoughtful. “Well.” He brightened suddenly. “She’s a girl!”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, grinning a bit, thinking they’d turned a corner.
“She’s for Mum to play with, then!”
“No, she’s for both of us to play with. All three of us to play with.”
Brem looked sceptical.
The Doctor sighed. “Come along, then, Bremsstrahlung.” The Doctor slid off the bed, walking around to gather Brem up. “Mum’s going to feed her, and you and I are going to figure out how much sugar she takes in her iced tea.”
“Can’t we gauge the metricsometer instead?” asked Brem, as they exited the room.
“He could be a bit more delighted, couldn’t he?” commented Jackie.
“Oh,” said Rose, smiling at the baby in delight as she latched onto her breast. “He’s like his father is the problem. He’s scared of being alone. The Doctor thinks, Ooh, more babies, more splendid company in the TARDIS. But Brem thinks, Ooh, more babies, maybe everyone will forget about me. Brem’ll come ‘round, once he realizes it’s not true. She’s perfect, isn’t she, Mum?” Rose looked up, her eyes shining with tears. “Look at my two perfect children.”
“They are perfect,” Jackie agreed, sniffling herself. “She’s beautiful. What ridiculous name are you giving her?”
“Oh.” Rose smiled. “Athena. It’s fairly normal, isn’t it? Well done, me, don’t you think?”
“Did you convince him of that?”
“He was taken with it. Babbled about mythology and goddesses and such. So her name is Athena.”
“Athena Tyler. It’s pretty, Rose.”
“Athena Rose Tyler,” said the Doctor, re-entering with Brem and a bottle. Brem had his own bottle, was sucking from it enthusiastically.
“Oh, yes,” Rose sighed. “He keeps insisting on that.”
“It’s a nice name,” Jackie told him.
“Oh, dear,” said the Doctor. “Maybe we ought to change it.”
Brem crawled onto the bed, and Rose lifted her free arm so he could curl under it. “You like that name?” she asked him, kissing his cowlicked hair. “Athena?”
Brem shrugged.
“Are you tired?” asked Jackie, studying Rose.
“I am a bit, actually,” she admitted.
“Here. Let me take her. Come here, Theenie.”
“Her name’s Athena!” protested the Doctor, appalled.
“’s a bit of a mouthful, innit?”
“No, it’s not a ‘mouthful!’ Not at all! It’s three syllables!”
Jackie rolled her eyes. “C’mon, Brem, your mum needs a bit of rest.”
“Leave him,” said Rose. “We’re okay.”
Jackie looked at her for a second, the baby warm and content in her arms, and wondered when her daughter had grown up. When had that happened? Where had the time gone?
“Okay,” she said.
“Let’s try the iced tea.” The Doctor bounced in Jackie’s wake out of the room. “I’ve started her with five, and we’ll move up from there-”
Rose smiled wearily and snuggled a bit into the covers. She was sore now, and really quite exhausted. Brem was watching her with his huge Doctor eyes.
“I’ve got to sleep a bit, Brem,” she told him. “D’you want to stay here and be quiet or go with your dad and grandma?”
He removed the bottle from his mouth. “Stay here,” he said.
“Let’s take a nap, then,” she said, and, although she knew he wasn’t tired, he obediently settled against her.
**********************
It took Brem longer than she had estimated to come around to Athena. She was an easy-going baby, who barely ever cried and did not object to being jostled when her brother crashed enthusiastically into whichever parent was holding her. She was perfectly content to lie wherever she happened to be, wide eyes drinking everything in, slight knowing smile on her face. She didn’t even cry when she was hungry, or uncomfortable, or needed something. She was astonishingly easy. In fact, her moods barely registered on Rose’s pendant, which remained swamped by Brem’s noisy emotions.
And still Brem did not like her. Maybe, Rose reflected, Brem would like her better if she were more like him-brash and demanding. She suspected Brem did not understand this strangely silent little creature who did little other than gaze at him. Because Athena was not prone to crying, but neither was she prone to the giggling that punctuated Brem’s life. Brem was a loud, extroverted little boy; Athena could not have been more different.
And she was keeping them in one place. Brem loved travelling. He complained and fretted and sulked and whined, begging to be taken places. The Doctor kept suggesting to Rose that he take Brem somewhere, anywhere, to silence him, but Rose was steadfast in refusing it. She didn’t want Brem being allowed to run away from Athena. She wanted him to get used to her.
This was not a situation improved by the Doctor leaving to check up on the status of the universe. Brem sniffled miserably the entire time he was gone, demanding to know why he had not been allowed to go with his father. Even the Doctor had been stern about his staying behind, which had confused Brem. But both Rose and the Doctor were vague on the dangerous, universe-saving implications of their lives. If Brem-too quick and clever for his own good-suspected how much his mother worried when his father left the TARDIS on his own, he was also perceptive enough not to probe the issue.
Eventually, however, Brem came to adore Athena--and it happened for the simplest of reasons, really. Because it turned out that, no matter how disdainfully he stared at this tiny, quiet baby, Athena worshiped her older brother. When he was in the room, her wide brown eyes never left him. When Rose could persuade Brem to shake a rattle at her, or play peek-a-boo with her, Athena burst into delighted smiles and threatened to overpower Rose’s pendant with her sunny yellow glow. The few times Athena fussed were when she wanted Brem. It was confusing to Rose, why Athena should be so taken with him, but it was true. So that when Athena, at the age of 15 weeks, spoke her first word, it was Brem.
And Brem was thrilled with it. Now that Athena knew how to speak, and could shout for him, Brem seemed to find her far more interesting. He launched into long, babbling lectures that reminded Rose so strongly of the Doctor that she never knew whether she wanted to burst into tears or laughter. The Doctor, of course, didn’t think there was anything remarkable at all in Brem’s verbosity. He didn’t even think he was especially verbose.
“Talk a lot?” he echoed, blinking at Rose over the top of his specs, while he leaned over the console fixing something. “Brem? You think so?”
Rose shook her head and held up her pendant and trapped her tongue between her teeth as she grinned. “Make this pendant scarlet.”
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