Rose was so numb with shock as she walked home that she didn't quite realise how far she'd come before she suddenly found herself standing at her front door. She fumbled with the key in the lock several times before she finally got the door open. She chucked her keys on the side and, mooching through to the lounge, slowly sank into an armchair and sat staring at the blank screen of the TV. Her blood sample had gone away for testing and she would get the results in a few days, but still. It did all add up, didn't it? She couldn't believe that she hadn't thought of it before - but, then again, she really hadn't expected it.; it wasn't the first thing one thought about, especially when there was a chance that the man you loved might be dead right now.

She wiped a couple of tears from her eyes then chewed on her lip - what was she going to do? How was she going to explain this to her mum? She tried to play out the conversation in her head, but it ended up with her mum shouting at her every time. She wouldn't get off lightly on this one, if at all.

The hand on the clock moved round from eleven to twelve and still Rose remained sat in her armchair, staring at the TV. At a quarter to one, there was a knock at the door, and she ambled off to find Jack outside with a box of chocolates in his hand and a huge smile on his face.

"All right, sweetheart?" he said before he handed her the sweets and patted her lightly on the shoulder. "Just come off my shift and thought you deserved a treat."

Rose smiled at him and glanced at the box. "Thanks, Jack," she said, "Come on in."

"Your mum not home?"

"Nope. Out with Colleen again."

"Not getting broody, is she?"

`She'd better be' Rose almost retorted as she closed the door behind Jack and made her way into the kitchen. "Tea or coffee?" she asked, placing her chocolates on the side.

"How about `Jack-Flash' makes the tea," he said as he followed her, "whilst the young lady takes a seat?"

Rose gave him another small smile. "Fine by me," she said and walked back into the living room, sprawling herself across the sofa.

She listened to the chinking of mugs and the opening and closing of the fridge as the Captain made them both a cuppa, and she unconsciously twirled a finger in her hair, coiling and uncoiling it in turn as her thoughts wandered once again.

"So," Jack said as he came back into the room and handed a mug to Rose, "How'd it go at the quacks'?"

Rose took a sip from her mug and tried to think of how to break the news to Jack. No doubt he'd take things a lot calmer than her mum would, but still. Having a baby meant he'd work out the rest of the tale, too, and she wasn't sure how he'd take it. "It went okay," she said at last.

"What's wrong, then?" he pushed on, taking a seat, "You don't look too thrilled."

She exhaled heavily. "It's just a bit of a shock, that's all."

"What is?"

"I've got a... big problem."

"I thought you said it went all right?"

"It did, it's just --" Rose stopped and tried to think of what to say next whilst Jack's increasingly concerned countenance only seemed to make things more difficult for her. After a while she just sighed another time and looked down into her mug. "I don't know what to do."

"Spill it, Rose, or the Psychic Paper might have to come out."

She smiled weakly at him for a second then blurted, "Jack, I might be pregnant."

Jack looked stunned. "No way," he murmured before he slouched back in his seat and stared at her as the rest of the equation began to fall into place. "But how?"

Rose gave him a long, lingering look, watching his face until she could see he had come to the only possible conclusion.

"The Doctor?" he asked with a furrowed brow.

She nodded slowly then waited for Jack's reaction.

The Captain was, at first, just astonished, but he seemed to come to terms with the idea quite quickly and, with a smile that made Rose feel so much better, he just said, "I can't believe you didn't tell me!"

Rose laughed at him, a proper laugh, which cheered Jack up no end. "Hey, there's my Rose!" he chuckled, inclining his head toward her, "Never thought I'd see you smile again."

She smirked for a little longer before the good feeling faded and the harsh reality of things set back in. "But this isn't a laughing matter," she murmured, "What am I going to do?"

Jack gave her a long and thoughtful look before he said, in his most rational of tones, "Look, this is big stuff, and we'll need to do some serious talking and thinking later on, but right now there's only one thing you need to ask yourself, and that's what do you want?" He nodded at her, sat back, and finished off his tea.

Rose sat there for several minutes thinking on this, her hand unconsciously running over her flat belly as she did so.

"So tell me, when did this happen, this `consummation'?" Jack continued as he placed his empty mug by his feet and folded his arms behind his head. "I'm curious."

She ran her fingers through her hair. "That last night on the Dalek ship."

Jack tittered. "So you made out in a Dalek prison cell? God, why hadn't I been marshalled off with you? We could have had some fun."

Rose took up the nearest cushion and tossed it at him. "Jack!" she said in a feigned outrage.

He dodged the cushion and held his hands up. "Hey, I'm kidding! I'm glad I wasn't there or you two would never have got it on."

She sighed and shook her head. "Yeah, but now what? I might never see him again. And now I`ve got this" - here she tapped her belly - "to think about on top of worrying about him."

Jack paused and chewed on his tongue for a moment. "It's your life, Rose. You do what you want with it."

"Yeah, but I can't do what I want. I want to be back with him again, with both of you, travelling in the TARDIS." She angled her head backwards and stared at the ceiling. "I want to go

home."

"I know you do, and so do I, but we can't do any of that right now, can we? You've got to get your head back on your shoulders for the here and now, Rose, because we ain't going anywhere. You've got a rather major thing to think about, and you'd better make some decisions soon because it's going to change your life. And your mom's."

Rose breathed another great sigh and covered her face with her hands. "Oh my God, I can't even begin to think of how to tell her this. She's gonna go mad."

"Well, you're not a kid anymore, sweetheart."

"I know, but I'm only nineteen. Or twenty." She puzzled over this for a moment before she cast the thought aside. "Either way, it's far too young to start a family, don't you think?"

"Not judging by some of the girls 'round here."

"They've just got nothing better to do."

"Now Rose."

"I never wanted this, not now!"

"You don't have to go through with it. It was an accident."

She looked up and stared hard at Jack, who was probably being more understanding and helpful than she had thought he would be. And yet his remark hadn't been comforting to her in the slightest.

"It's your life," he reminded her again after a pause. "You call the shots."

She looked at him for a while longer before she felt her eyes well with tears. "I just miss him, Jack," she whispered. "I miss him so much."

Jack leapt off his chair and embraced her. "Hey, Easy there," he murmured.

"I wish he was here too."

"I know you do, but we're gonna have to do our best without him, aren't we?"

Jack held her for some time, stroking her back and trying to soothe her, right up until the moment Jackie entered the room with a couple of shopping bags and said, looking between them, "What on earth's going on now?"

Jack pulled away from Rose and then Jackie saw her daughter's tear-streaked face and cried, "Oh Rose! What's the matter, sweetheart? What did the doctor say? Is it bad?"

Jackie dropped her bags and rushed to her daughter's side, crouching before her while Rose tried to collect herself.

Rose found that her mum wasn't really helping matters as she began to fuss over her and rant about all sorts of random concerns. Rose hardly heard what she was saying, in truth, because she was too busy trying to formulate her explanation for the situation, but her mother's constant rambling wasn`t helping; she could barely hear herself think! Jack thankfully managed to silence Jackie a few moments later by saying, "Rose, I think your mom needs to know what's up."

Jackie's face, looking between Jack and her daughter now, was so full of horror that Rose felt far worse than she had to begin with. She could barely get her head round it all herself, never mind get her mum to understand.

"Talk to me, Rose," Jackie said, taking her hand.

Rose sniffled once again and wiped her eyes again. "Mum," she said quietly. "I think I might... might be..."

---

"PREGNANT?" Jackie screamed five seconds after her daughter had uttered the taboo word. She paced about the lounge in disbelief, flapping and flustered, and reacting just how Rose had feared she would.

"But after all we've talked about, all the precautions. Didn't you think? Didn't you use protection?"

Jack took a backseat, feeling thoroughly sorry for Rose, and kinda getting the hint that the worst was yet to come.

"Well, I just can't believe it. a daughter of mine being so stupid."

"I wasn't being stupid, mum!" Rose protested.

"You could have fooled me! Getting yourself pregnant at your age. There must be something loose in that head of yours! You should know better. You're too young!"

"I didn't plan this either, you know? It just `appened."

"That makes it worse!"

"Oh, does it?"

"You're no better than the other slappers around here --" Jack looked embarrassed to be here now; the whole situation was beginning to feel quite uncomfortable. "--a single mother with no job and no prospects. And do I need to ask who the father is?"

Rose was pretty agitated by now. "Yes mum, that's right - it's the Doctor's, okay?"

"So you were lying to me again when you said your relationship wasn't sexual!"

"No!"

"What's that man done to you, Rose? We used to be honest with each other."

"Nothing's changed. You're just overreacting."

"Overreacting? Rose, you're having a baby!"

Rose sighed and looked away. It still hadn't really hit her, how big this matter was. "It was our last night together, mum. He might even be dead by now--"

"Oh, a fine father he'll make, then, if he's not even going to be here!"

"Neither was dad!" she shouted. "It's not his fault."

"Then whose is it?"

"Let me see - maybe mine as well."

Jackie glowered at her. "Well, I hope it was worth it."

They then just stared at one another, quite worn out.

Jack was going to get up and offer everyone a cup of tea, but Jackie again opened her mouth and cut in first; "An alien." She gasped as the thought suddenly came to her. "My God, he wasn't even human, was he?"

Rose turned away. "That doesn't matter," she whispered.

"It will when the child's born - it could have two heads, or anything."

Rose gave her mum a severe glare at this, and was suddenly reminded, unwittingly, of some of the comments Cassandra, the `last human', had made, back on Platform One during her first adventure with the Doctor. She recalled all those snipes the bitchy trampoline had uttered about mongrels, the people who were the products of human and non-human liaisons; crossbreeds like the one she now carried in her womb.

Rose felt suddenly cold as she saw the terrible parallels between that human monstrosity and her mother. Her mum was right, though - she wasn't going to give birth to a `pure, human' child; but that didn't matter. Her child would be part of her and part of the Doctor, and nothing could be wrong with that.

"Have you finished insulting the Doctor and my unborn kid, yet?" she hissed with a strange intensity, something that threw both Jackie and the Captain off-guard in an instant.

Jackie looked more than a little distressed. "I just don't want you to ruin your life, sweetheart."

Rose only stared back at her mother with dark eyes. "My life was ruined the moment the Doctor sent me back here. What life?" She then got up and rushed off to her room.

Jackie exchanged glances with Jack as they heard Rose's door slam, but the Captain hardly knew what to do. "It'll be fine," he eventually opted to say.

Jackie didn't say anything in return, however; she just stormed off into the kitchen.

There was then a long, silent pause before Jack, now all alone in the Tyler's lounge, permitted himself to exhale noisily. He was confident that things would calm down in the end; it was in both Rose and Jackie's natures to get easily roused up – a face-off had been inevitable - but it was only because they loved each other, and they would both come around.

And, sure enough, by the end of the day, Rose was in her mother's arms, confused, tearful and uncertain, but at ease. Though the tension was still there between her and her mother, they were at least being civil to one another. After all, Rose needed her mother now more than ever. And Jackie knew it.