Wife

A/N: This is the first of thirteen completely unconnected stories I plan to write during the course of series three, all of which will be Doctor/Rose centric and probably rather shippy, lest the certain deluge of Martha eps and fics to come allows us to forget how wonderful the two of them were together. I'll post a new one a few days after each S3 episode is aired.

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"Is your wife a time traveller, too?"

It's the 1st of March, 1994. The park is full of happily screaming children, couples sharing picnic rugs and exhausted new mothers dozing in the sun. The Doctor is taking a few moments to lie back on a rare patch of grass in late-20th century London. He's spent the best part of the morning completing the rather tricky task of transporting a wayward Roman soldier back to his own time without the aid of the TARDIS and really feels that he rather deserves the rest.

Using the TARDIS, of course, would have been the simple solution, but when was anything ever simple around here? The soldier had, of course, proved to be so terrified of the bigger-on-the-inside blue box that he went for the console with his spear, and the Doctor decided that things would be a lot safer out on the street with the half-dressed populace of modern-day London and their ice cream. He eventually figured out a way of manipulating the vortex and erasing the soldier's memory using his sonic screwdriver and a little bit of jiggery-pokery in a back alley. But, again, when was anything ever that simple? He hadn't been counting on spectators, nor the twenty minutes of incessant questioning that were to come as a result of not being quite diligent enough when picking an empty alleyway.

Anyway. He had just been lying on the grass, completely minding his own business (he swears), when an inquisitive little blonde thing nearing her seventh birthday had accosted him, apparently having seen the whole thing and, for once, the Doctor decided to tell someone the truth. What could it hurt? She'd go back home, full of stories of aliens and spaceships and mysterious men with no names, indulge in it all for a while. Eventually, even she would pass it off as the product of an overactive childhood imagination, perhaps growing up to be just that little more accepting of anything slightly out of the ordinary.

As for her parents, or anyone else she'd babble to…well. Earth adults never believe a thing, even when their children come home swearing to have seen a man in full armour sent screaming back through a blue tunnel by an alien in a suit. You can stick a great big invasion right under their noses and they won't even notice; the Slitheen are living proof of that. Besides, if he told her that it was all very top-secret and thrilling and important, perhaps she'd keep quiet. Maybe, he had thought, this time, if he's lucky, he won't get a bunch of psychiatric doctors or irrational conspiracy theorists after his blood. He'd just have a nice, honest conversation with a rather too inquisitive Earthling for once, rather than having to make up a string of excuses and lies about who he really is (because, honestly, he's not entirely sure that anyone still believes that "someone spiked your drink" theory. Especially not at noon on a Monday).

Which is exactly how he found himself explaining wormholes and teleporting, time fractures and Roman history to a seven-year-old Londoner. And now…well, now he's just too relaxed to move. In his defence, capturing a genuine, not to mention terrified and armed, Roman soldier and trying to make sure no Latin-speakers are in the vicinity to translate his yells really takes it out of a person.

And that's how it all started.

"Is your wife a time traveller, too?"

"What makes you think I'm married?" the Doctor retorts, and the easy manner in which he can now utter words such as "wife" and "marriage" shocks him a little. In a good way, of course.

The Doctor looks across at the girl, sitting cross-legged and expectant in the grass, her bright pink shorts and shockingly orange tshirt clashing horribly. He reflects idly that children, small and obscure as they are, are amongst the most interesting people this planet has to offer, despite their utter lack of fashion sense. Fearless, reckless, full of the future and with next to no knowledge of the social barriers keeping their peers in place, they ask the questions that no-one else dares to, imagine fantasies that adults can't even dream of and believe in every inch of the impossible. Yes, he decides, he definitely likes children. He'll have to mention this to said wife when he returns to the TARDIS.

"You've got a ring," the child tells him, full of exuberant youth and uncomplicated honestly. Her tone is imperious with a hint of duh, that of a person stating the most obvious thing in the world, and now that he thinks about it, he supposes it is. He's not really used to any of this marriage malarkey yet. He forgets about things such as rings and shared surnames when he's never really had either – and often still doesn't, thanks to his lack of any surname to share and the amount of aliens who seem to think of gold bands around the fourth finger as food. He's lost count of the amount of times he's had to perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on a completely innocent, choking alien, unused to Earth customs and jewellery.

"Oh." He glances down at his hand, covered in dappled sunlight, fingers splayed into the grass, and realises she's right. The band glints in the sun, showing no signs of having spent most of its ownership being digested by one alien or another. "Yes. So I have."

She raises her eyebrows at him, an unusually frank expression crossing her miniature features and mingling with her giggles. He is reminded irresistibly of his wife, currently asleep in their bed in a place that defies the confines of space and time as boldly as this moment does.

"Well, you see, we're not exactly…well, I say we're not, but we really are – in several galaxies, too, all legal, you know – it's just a bit…complicated. I mean, I don't…do marriage. I'm not that sort of a man."

The girl's eyebrows move, if possible, even higher. It's clear she thinks him quite, quite mad. He sighs, running a hand over his face, and starts again.

"It all started on Corona Bor, when I took her to see that eclipse…"

It's a few minutes later before he realises that he's recounting large parts of his life to a child – a child with plaits, no less – and he wonders exactly why that is. The Doctor doesn't like stepping into people's lives in this way, not after what happened with Reinette, but this has been an accident, and he couldn't resist staying to talk. The girl clearly belongs to that horribly irritating and enviously talented group of people who somehow always manage to get everyone else to trust them instantly; the kind of people you can't help but tell your deepest fears and desires to. He has no doubt that she could make a German spy spill his lifetime secrets with a single look and still come up smelling of roses, utterly trustworthy despite all she knows.

He hates that.

He supposes it's why he even stopped to talk in the first place.

Besides, the child, utterly persistent, had deserved some sort of explanation of what she'd seen if he was to have a moment's peace before he left again. Cleaning up isn't his style, and he would never have stayed to explain to a grown-up (they are all too busy convincing themselves that anything remotely supernatural they come across is a trick of the light or an over-worked mind, anyway). Had she been a few years older, he would have just got back into the TARDIS and walked away, deserting a rare moment of sunshine and park that was to become almost extinct across the capital in the coming years, just to avoid the hassle.

But she's not older, and here he is, discussing his marriage with a primary school student (he'll have to wipe her memory, of course. Shame) who probably doesn't even know how to do long division yet. He has a sneaking suspicion that she never will.

What is the world coming to?

The girl sits up straighter and leans back on her hands, surveying him with a tilted head and wide eyes, biting her lip as she momentarily considers holding back a question and then decides against it, obviously finding no real reason as to why she shouldn't ask.

"Do you love her?" she pipes up, eventually, after a particular tale of his married exploits involving purple Martians and rock-monsters (slightly embellished, if he's being completely truthful, but who's going to know?).

The Doctor blinks. "Beg pardon?"

"Your wife. D'ya love her?"

Well. They – whoever they are – always say there's no such thing as a stupid question, and he's heard some humdingers in his time, but this really takes the biscuit (the thought of which immediately makes him hungry, and he frowns at himself for using a metaphor about food at such a moment). Why on Earth – why on any planet – would anyone ever marry someone they don't love? 20th-century divorce culture has really done for these kids.

He lets out a little incredulous snort, and the girl looks on patiently, apparently unperturbed that her question has been received in such a way. He admires her lack of embarrassment.

"There aren't many people," the Doctor begins, carefully, not quite wanting to admit something he hasn't even told his wife yet, "who could be persuaded into marrying someone they don't love in this day and age."

"Is that a yes or a no?"

He can't help but laugh at that, and he thinks, after a few moments of silence on her part, that his obvious amusement will save him from answering. He should have known better. The child fixes him with a knowing stare, and he suddenly remembers why children unnerve him so much. It's just weird that people with so little actual knowledge can tell so much about other humans.

Not that he's human. But the point still stands.

"Yes, I do," he concedes eventually, and is vaguely surprised to see that the world is still standing even though he's admitted to being capable of love. Though he has never told his wife, and probably never will (and that seems faintly ridiculous right now, laid back in the grass as he is, eyes squinting shut against the sun. They are married, after all, and by a contract legal on eleven planets. Is there a bigger formal declaration of feelings than that?), no harm can come from saying so in this way. Maybe it's time. "Very much."

While he can't stop the spread of a wide grin across his face, the girl looks a little wistful, all the bounce taken out of her blonde plaits. He briefly wonders why so many children start off blonde while so few stay that way. It's a funny quirk of nature. Perhaps, if the Time Lords had ever had the chance to grow up, they would have been the same.

"When I grow up," she tells him, the dreamy look in her eyes slightly obscured by her having to squint them shut against the bright light of early Spring, but her voice full of hopeful sincerity all the same, "I wanna marry a time traveller, an' all."

The Doctor chuckles, and she turns to him and frowns, evidently puzzled as to his source of amusement.

"What?!" she says indignantly, sitting up straight and apparently very offended in her opinion that he doesn't believe her. "I do!"

She expects some sort of lecture on the dangers of a time-travelling life, on how little girls from the South-East of London never grow up to be anything at all, let alone world-savers, but it doesn't come.

"Maybe you will, Rose," he says eventually, suppressing his laughter. "Maybe you will."