Author's Notes:

Written in the form of thirteen sequential 100 word drabbles, in answer to challenges 351-363 at dw100 on LJ. Starts between 'Doomsday' and 'Journey's End'.

Challenge 351: Spike

Rose rolls her eyes when their Mum orders her to drag Tony to bed. She plonks herself on Tony's bunk with a heavy sigh when Tony refuses to go straight to sleep, hoping Rose will spend some time with him. What he gets is even better.

It's long after Rose embarks on a bedtime story about moving plastic people and 'the Doctor' that Tony drifts off to the welcome sight of Rose's too rare smile.

While his Mum has to threaten to spike him to the mattress to keep him there, Rose never has trouble putting him to bed again.

Challenge 352: Pedant

Tony secretly sort of wishes that Rose was his Mum. Maybe then she wouldn't run off on him to go find her Doctor. Or she might bring Tony along, since Tony can't imagine her not choosing to track down the Doctor he's heard so much about.

She gives him a necklace with a key hanging on it. Tony knows what it means to her. He knows she's giving him that reminder because she doesn't mean to come back.

Of course, then his Mum goes after Rose as well. Tony wonders whether he's got this whole 'family' idea a bit wrong.

Challenge 353: Carrot / Karat

Tony tells the other playgroup kids how his and Rose's Dads are the same man but from different worlds. He likes how they hang on his every word, as though his story is made of gold, just like Rose's. He doesn't like it as much that the other parents also listen in, since they then tell his Mum that he's 'peculiar' (whatever that means). He doesn't get taken back to that playgroup after that.

He misses having people treat him like he's the coolest person they know. He loves Rose and the Doctor, of course, but it's hard to compete.

Challenge 354: Quit

When Tony is six, in his very first show-and-tell at school he tells everyone that his sister's husband is a 'half-human-half-alien-mixture-thingy from another world who's actually really younger than us' (his exact words). His teacher holds him back after class and tells him that it's not fair for him to make something up when all the other kids have to tell something real about themselves. That's when he finally figures out that people are stupid and some things should stay secret.

He quits telling those kinds of stories after that. No one else gets how cool his family is anyway.

Challenge 355: Ward

"Babysitter?" Tony exclaims. "But I'm eight! I don't need one. Can't I just watch TV by myself?"

"I know you better than that, Tony Tyler," Mum says scornfully.

He thinks of complaining to his Dad, but he's under no illusions; his Mum calls the shots.

Tony protests right up until the babysitter in question flops onto the couch beside him.

"Behave," Mum orders. Tony gets the feeling she's talking to the Doctor as much as him.

When his parents return to a house that looks like a bomb's hit, Tony wonders if they'll maybe rethink the babysitter issue next time.

Challenge 356: Sand

When he hears that Rose and the Doctor have plans to go camping on a beach in Spain, Tony begsto be taken along.

"Um," the Doctor says uncomfortably. "Well, I really don't think... that is, there's only really room for just Rose and I..."

"But it's a ten-man tent!" Tony says, confused.

The Doctor looks over at Rose, who's smirking. Even Tony can tell that she's silently saying that the Doctor's on his own here.

In the end, his Mum agrees he can't go.

Tony sulks. He can't figure out what they could need all that room for, anyway.

Challenge 357: Mask

His Mum is surprised when he picks an outfit closer to pyjamas than the Doctor-like suit she's clearly been expecting him to wear for Halloween. She's completely nonplussed when he starts making the mask.

When Tony emerges, his Dad clearly has no idea what in the universe his son has dressed up as either.

Rose laughs and laughs and praises his choice.

The Doctor tells Tony that he's the best Ood he's ever seen, and Tony's glad he's put in all the effort. He might never really see the creatures of the Doctor's stories himself, but it's nice to pretend.

Challenge 358: Curls

"Tony!" the Doctor greets with a grin as he opens his front door.

For once Tony doesn't let the Doctor's enthusiasm draw him in. He has an important purpose from which he can't be distracted.

"There's this... girl. She's got curly hair, and these lips..."

"Ah," says the Doctor, closing the door. "Don't you think you should have this conversation with Pete?"

"And have to imagine him doin' everythin' we talk about with Mum?"

The Doctor cringes. "Good point. All right, then. Have a seat. But do me a favour, eh? Never mention this to Rose. She'd never stop laughing."

Challenge 359: Enclose

The media surrounding him outside school is the first Tony knows that there's been another alien invasion. If it isn't Pete Tyler the Vitex mogul they want inside information about, it's Rose the not-so-secret face of Torchwood.

Either way, he hates it. Even though his friends think it's kind of cool, it's still embarrassing.

"How should I know what's goin' on," he snaps at the reporters. "I'm no alien expert."

It's just as well they don't know anything about the Doctor beyond him being some random Torchwood employee and Rose's beau. None of them would ever get a moment's peace.

Challenge 360: Perfidy

It's been years since Tony last cried. He can't do so at school when Christine first shoves the gossip magazine under his nose and taunts him about it. He can't even when he runs home and confronts his Dad, because the hurt is too real to let either of his parents see.

He stumbles into the flat and Rose catches him. She doesn't ask. She's probably known for weeks.

His Dad's been having an affair. His parents are getting divorced. For all that his family's never been quite normal, he never expected it to be broken.

His tears finally come.

Challenge 361: Crack

For the first time, Tony wishes Rose had never given him a key to their flat.

He's become so used to barging in that it he doesn't stop to see that the bedroom door is barely cracked open.

"Woah!" he shouts.

It's a lot more of his sister than he's ever wanted to see, but it still takes him several seconds to look away.

He's sixteen and his brain is constantly stuck on sex anyway, he justifies.

Rose laughs afterward. The Doctor's face is so red that Tony doesn't think it'll ever go back to normal.

Tony's just plain mortified.

Challenge 362: Accent

With that distinctive accent and pure volume, Tony can hear his Mum above the hundreds of other parents at the graduation. He finds her with his Dad (it still hurts to see them together but not together), Rose and the Doctor.

The Doctor whips the mortarboard off Tony's head and ruffles Tony's hair the way he often does his own.

Tony notices the Doctor's other hand is entwined with Rose's. There's such a sense of ease and belonging there that he doubts they notice they're touching. It's certainly nothing like him and his girlfriends.

Tony hopes he'll have that someday.

Challenge 363: Circle

Tony stares through the engagement ring. He doesn't know how to do this.

"How'd the Doctor propose?" he calls out.

Rose laughs from the kitchen. "Who says we're married?"

Tony frowns. After 26 years, he realises he still barely knows his sister.

"You've got a ring."

"I wear it on that finger as a joke. The Doctor won't ever admit he's gone 'domestic'. Anyways, what would we write on the marriage certificate?"

For the first time, neither Rose nor the Doctor has the knowledge to guide Tony.

Maybe that's the best way to start this new phase in his life.

~FIN~