disclaimer: i own nothing, i'm just playing.

a/n: This has been floating around on my hard drive for quite some time and in an effort to kick my muse into gear i'm posting it. thoughts and opinions are always welcome.

Tear Stained Cheeks

She has no idea what makes her do it. She can never pinpoint exactly what it was that made her decide but she's lived with the choice everyday for as long as they can remember and it makes her happy.

She tells them it's a fairy tale, one day when it's wet and miserable and they've watched every Disney movie in their collection for the hundredth time. It starts as a joke, a reference to a past her husband and family know nothing about. They beg for her to tell them a story and she laughs and says that the only ones she knows have aliens and running for your life.

Her husband remembers way back to one night of drinks at a pub where she'd laughingly told him why she'd put her studies on hold. He encourages them, joins in until suddenly she's got not two but three pouting and pleading looks directed at her.

So she talks. At first her intention is to tell them the simple story of a young London girl who met a mysterious man in a hospital. And she does, and they gasp in all the right places and beg for more when she announces the way the mysterious double hearted alien sacrificed himself. It's fun and it kills the time and for the first time in so very long she remembers without wanting to cry or scream in frustration.

She sends them off to bed, heads filled with rhinoceros-like alien police and blood sucking old ladies. She knows her daughter is dreaming of the handsome mystery man who will one day sweep her off her feet and she has to fake a smile. But they're excited so she doesn't bring them down.

In bed, that night, her husband asks her where she heard the story because it sounds a bit familiar. She says she read it online one day, back when she was pregnant and learning what she could for her future child. He's too tired from a day spent entertaining kids to question the clarity of her story.

It's three weeks later and this time, they're snowed in. They've watched The Little Mermaid twice and they're fast running out of ideas. The woman on the news tells them it's going to be a while, that there's plenty more snow on the horizon. It annoys her a little but there isn't much she can do.

Then her little girl looks up from her colouring book with a dazzling smile and asks for a story, one about aliens and running. So she tells them about the time she met Shakespeare and witches and forms her memories into the thrilling tale in which the ordinary girl is whisked away by the amazing man to far off places.

They're snowed in for the whole weekend and Monday as well. Three days in which she told them that one story and another and one more because they begged her. She doesn't realise how telling her memories and her stories are until she's tucking her little girl in and her sleepy voice echoes out of the darkness.

'Why's he so sad?'

She stills in the doorway and moves back into her daughter's room. Her husband leans against the doorframe unseen as she rearranges her daughter's blankets.

'Why is who sad, sweetheart?'

'The man.'

'What man?'

'The man with two hearts.'

Her daughter, six years old and cuddling a stuffed frog, saw it in a simple children's tale. She saw what it took her almost a year to see. But still, she's young and doesn't need to know how cruel the world can be just yet. So she lies, fakes confusion and tries to fix it with simple words and the love of a mother.

'He's not sad, Megan,' she assures her gently and as honestly as she can while knowing otherwise. 'He's got his friend and his ship and the whole universe to see.'

'He is,' she insists stubbornly, hugging her frog tighter and staring at her with eyes stained with silent unshed tears. 'He hasn't got her.'

The words hit her like a slap to the face but Megan's asleep before she can ask. She denies it the next morning but she got no sleep that night. Just lying awake for hours on end thinking about her daughter's words. She'd painted a picture of friendship and happiness, of laughter and adventure with lots of running in between. She'd made the story as much of a happily ever after affair as she could.

Megan shows no sign of remembering the conversation and she doesn't bring it up for fear of what she'll hear. Eventually it fades into the background and she forgets all about it. There are school and class projects and another few days of sleet and snow but she doesn't tell anymore stories and the kids don't ask.

It's almost a month later when Megan brings it up again and it's only after they've read a book about princes and princesses that Megan makes another comment. They're all four of them snuggled on the couch and Megan takes the book right out of her hands and makes her brother hold it open.

'That's what he's missing,' she explains, her tone almost patronising as she explains to her parents and brother what's wrong with her mother's stories. 'The man with two hearts doesn't have a princess.'

'Yes, he does,' Sean insists, unknowingly defending his mother of all those years ago. 'He's got the ordinary girl from the hospital.'

It probably says a lot about her, that she's never given her past self any other title.

Megan rolls her eyes and gives her brother a look that is much too old for her age and quite clearly says that all boys are idiots. 'She's not his princess.'

Megan's words are calm and clear and she's so certain of the fact that, for just a moment, the world stops. So she tells the story of New Earth in an attempt to distract Megan, never realising until it's too late that she's not telling a story anymore, she's telling them her life. The message of Boe slips out without thought as she weaves her tale of rescue and new beginnings.

Megan nods very seriously and translates the message with the heart of a romantic who has read one too many fairy tales and has never had reason nor cause to give up on love. 'See! There's a girl and she's coming back.'

She cries in the shower that night, heartache from years ago churning inside. They don't speak about her past (their fairy tales) for nearly a year until another wet night with the fire roaring and Tish is visiting.

Megan brings it up, she's seven now, and demands to know the true story. She stands in front of them, pyjama clad and clutching her frog and refuses to go to bed until her mother tells the real story.

She makes the decision then, not that its conscious or that she truly wanted to, but because for the first time she felt she could. She's surrounded by family and they've been telling stories and for the first time in fifteen years she realises she's the lucky one.

He's cursed to wander alone and she has this. Family. Unconditional love.

It's early enough, and Megan is old enough, that she's okay telling the story. This time, she doesn't paint a picture of near constant laughter and fun, she doesn't sugar coat it. She wraps her body in a warm blanket and she speaks in an almost whisper that carries despite the storm raging outside. She gives him a name and she tells the true story.

She speaks of a young med student named Martha who met a broken man in a hospital that was transported to the moon. She speaks about his sorrow, his sleepless nights and all the times he hid it behind laughter and joy as he showed her the universe. She told her little family about the messages and his refusal to give up. She told them about the girl, the golden angel.

When she's done Megan is crying, quiet fat tears rolling down her cheeks as her little heart breaks for the lonely Doctor and his lost Rose. She clutches her frog as tightly as she can and asks to go to bed.

Her husband holds her as she cries herself to sleep and he doesn't say a word about her past because he knows now that's what it is. He never asks for an explanation and doesn't complain when he has to wash away her tears from the sheets the next morning.

It becomes a rule in the house never to talk about her past, about the lonely man with two hearts. She finds it easier every day; she finds the memories no longer weigh on her. She's lighter and happier and the only sorrow she feels is that her daughter refuses to read fairy tales anymore.

Megan is sixteen the day she scares the life out of her friends. They're walking home from school passed the corner shops when she notices it. Something on her face causes them all to pause. She tells her friends she'll see them at school in the morning and waits until they're well out of sight before she turns to look.

On the street across from the shops there is a blue box parked in the mouth of a small lane. She still dreams about the box sometimes, not that she ever tells her mother that. She is sixteen now and that sort of thing went out with Barbies and fairy tales.

She doesn't know how long she stands there but it's long enough that she starts to get cold and the sun is going down. She knows she's being stupid and that it was just a stupid story her mother once told her but she has to know. Because she remembers the lonely man with two hearts and wants to cry for the twenty odd years he's been alone.

It's the cold wind on her wet cheeks that pushes her forward. She barely remembers to check for traffic before crossing the road. She's nothing but resolute determination when she finally reaches the lane and the blue box. She takes a deep breath and goes to knock but pauses to press her palm against the wooden door. It's oddly warm beneath her palm and it gives her the courage to knock.

The first knock goes unanswered but she gives it a few moments and then knocks again. This time the silence stretches on longer and she's really starting to feel the biting cold and thinking she should really just head home. That's when the door opens inward and a tall skinny man in a brown suit and long brown coat leans against the doorframe.

'Hello!' he greets her cheerfully and she bursts into sobs.

She's shaking with tears and the cold and she can't get control of any of her emotions. Suddenly a gentle grip is pulling her inside where it's warm and she's being pushed gently down into a chair. The room around her is blurred by tears but it's exactly as her mother described it. It's all so alien and beautiful and it only makes her cry harder.

'What's this then,' the man, no, the Doctor asks her with a worried frown and a light hand on her shoulder.

She tries to answer but it's just more tears he gets in response and then he does something so completely unexpected that she almost chokes mid-sob.

'Rose!'

And then she's there, the girl her mother never met, the one causing most of her tears. All Megan can do is gasp and grab hold of the corner of her chair to keep from slipping right off onto the grating in her surprise.

'Oh.'

Her exclamation is soft and surprised and so many more things but her head is full of questions and answers and a horrible concern that the fear of loneliness that so touched her as a child hasn't happened yet. So she chooses something simple like giving her name.

'I'm Megan, Martha Jones' daughter.'

After that, it's noisy and light and she tells her story and they fill in the blanks, the bits her mother never knew. They offer her cookies from the future human colony Cookie Monster and tell her more about their life and travels than her mother ever did.

He offers to walk her home and she accepts. They wander the streets arm in arm and he natters on a mile a minute about all of the things he loved about travelling with her mother. She loves hearing about the adventurous woman her mum used to be and asks if he wants to come in and say hello. He declines and he's gone from her life as suddenly as he came.

She never mentions the meeting to her family, just goes about her life like normal.

Nine months later she's the only one not surprised when a family of sonic screwdriver-wielding travellers of time and space tumbled through the open front door spouting off about alien invasion and talking over the top of one another.