The Turning of the Tide (short story)

 was the twelfth short story in The Target Storybook.

Publisher's summary
to be added

Plot
Two years after defeating the Daleks, a heavily pregnant Rose Tyler is picking apples in her backyard orchard while the Meta-Crisis Doctor, now calling himself Corin, is asleep nearby. Rose is surprised when she bites into one of the apples to find a metal worm which begins talking to her and asks for the Doctor, who Rose says is no longer here, even if Corin looks like him.

In a flashback we see Rose telling Corin she wouldn't call him the Doctor and the pair then begin trying to pick out a new name for him. The Doctor suggests being named Cassiopeia but Rose fears it’ll only remind him that he can never travel like he used to or go back to their old universe and she rejects it. After a considerable amount of time trying to think of names, Rose asks the Doctor what his name is while heading home from a vacation and he responds with Corin which Rose says is solid and true. After Corin chooses his name Rose realises she’s fallen in love with someone entirely different from the original Doctor, but who she loves all the same.

In the past two years Corin has become a GP and Rose has applied for a diploma in Early Years care. Rose and Corin have also moved into a house at the end of a quiet lane in what was called Kent in their original universe but is now called Canticum.

In the present, the worm alerts Rose and Corin that aliens known as the Cask Men are coming to take Earth’s ocean to sell to other planets. Corin desperately tries to remember everything he can about the Cask Men but says most things are foggy now in his human brain. Rose asks the worm for his name and he says he has none, Rose suggests the name Clark, which he likes.

Not knowing what to do next, Rose and Corin go home and try to sleep. In the early morning Corin wakes up, having remembered something about the Cask Men and rushes off to a lighthouse followed by Rose. There they see some strange fog out in the ocean and sail out to it, where they find the Cask Men ship. Rose and Corin try to reason with the Cask Men but are thrown off the ship and rescued by the lighthouse keeper, Tam. Rose and Corin get in a fight at shore but are distracted by the Cask Men draining the ocean and after quickly making up, they head back out to sea.

Under the ship a whirlpool has formed and a naval warship has been sucked in which Rose and Corin climb aboard. Corin steals a helicopter with Clark to get back up to the Cask Men ship while Rose begins to go into labour on the warship.

Corin sends Clark to secretly send the water back to earth and disable the ship’s shields while he distracts the Cask Men, with the shields disabled the ship explodes as Corin and Clark escape. Back on the warship, Clark tries to get Corin to adopt him and the story ends as Rose gives birth to her and Corin’s child.

Characters

 * Corin
 * Rose Tyler
 * Clark
 * Tam
 * Festle
 * Captain
 * Helicopter pilot
 * Medic

Worldbuilding

 * Rose and Corin eat elderberries.
 * Corin's familiar scent is a mix of graphite, lime, and diesel.

Pete's World

 * Ice cream is considered a part of a person's five a day.
 * Canticum is the Pete's World equivalent of the N-Space Kent.
 * According to Corin, there are 7 billion people living on Earth.

Biology

 * Rose is pregnant, and later goes into labour.
 * Cask Men can go six weeks without water.

Animals

 * Rose likens choosing a name for the Meta-Crisis Doctor to naming a dog.

Names

 * Names that Rose considers for the new Doctor include "Benjie", "Rex", and "Fido".
 * The Doctor considers calling himself "Cassiopeia".

Individuals

 * Corin can name all of Kim Kardashian's husbands.

Vehicles

 * Corin and Rose own a Fiat.
 * Corin and Rose go onboard the HMS Fury.

Continuity

 * Rose recalls the Doctor's regeneration, and notes that he smelled the same afterwards, even with his new form. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
 * Rose's child would turn out to be a girl, who would be called Mia. (COMIC: Empire of the Wolf)