john_amend_all

This was going to be another drabble in primsong's series It Will Come For Your Children, but it grew a bit.

Title: Nominative Determinism
Author: john_elliott
Character/s: Proper Tenth Doctor, Other Tenth Doctor, Rose
Rating: All ages
Word count: ~550
Disclaimer: "Doctor Who" characters belong to the BBC.

"You want one of our children to be your companion?" Rose asked. "I mean, I know travelling with you's the best thing that can ever happen to you and so on, but now I've got children of my own I'm starting to see Mum's point of view. You know, about the risks and everything."

"Oh, come on, Rose," her husband said. "It'll be fine." He turned to the Doctor. "The kids are at school at the moment, but we'll ask them when they get home. D'you want to see some pictures of them?"

He produced a bulky album before the Doctor had time to do so much as open his mouth.

"Here they are," he said. "That's Omega, and that's little Morbius."

Rose started to speak, caught her husband's eye, and fell silent. For his part, the Doctor seemed to be struggling for words.

"You named your children after a maniac and a dictator?" he eventually managed.

"Well, time sensitivity, you know how it is. You get this idea of how they're going to turn out. Comes in really useful when picking names — and buying birthday presents, of course. Anyway, where was I? Oh. Yes." He turned over a page. "Here they all are. Omega, Morbius, Rassilon and Helena."

"Helena?"

"After Helen A — you remember? Fascist with pink hair?"

"I remember. And Rassilon? After everything he did, you named your child after him?"

"Oh, yes." The half-human Doctor leaned back in his chair. "You know, if he ended up travelling with you, I'd lay odds that you'll end up taking him into the past and he'd become the founder of Time Lord society. Wibbly-wobbly, timey wimey and so on. So — which one d'you want?"

The Doctor made a run for it, muttering "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," as he went.

"Oh, well, nice to see you anyway. Wasn't it, Rose?"

Rose put her finger to her lips. They waited until the wheezing and groaning noise outside had faded completely away.

"I was wondering what all that was about," she said. "'Cos our kids are called Joe and Dave and Hannah and Geoff. You couldn't get more normal if you tried."

"I did try," her husband reminded her.

"And then you said all this stuff about Rassilon. Who was Rassilon anyway?"

"King Arthur, for Time Lords. Or maybe Machiavelli. Depends who you ask."

"It's a nice name. Impressive-sounding."

"Yeah, that's why he chose it. Can't be a legendary hero if your name's Geoff, can you?"

"What?" Rose gave her husband a sharp look. Even after decades of married life, she couldn't always tell when he was winding her up. "You mean this Rassilon bloke was really called Geoff and all that stuff about time loops was true?"

"It'd be nice, but... no. His real name was James Bond."

Rose threw a cushion at him.

A short distance away, the Doctor stood before a large, impressive front door. His expression was unusually indecisive.

"Come on, Doctor," he muttered to himself. "What's the worst she can do to you?"

Abruptly, he rang the doorbell, and fidgeted until it was opened by a stately butler.

"Can I speak to Mrs Tyler, please?" he said. "I'm the Doctor. I'd like to have a word with her about her son Tony..."