Chapter 1

The Doctor's Diary.

Entry Date: Christmas 2017.

'Well, that's the third Christmas I've spent with Rose and Jackie now. I always remember the first one on the Powell estate in the old world. It was my first taste of doing domestic, and with Rose, it felt good. EJ knew something special was happening this year when the decorations went up and a tree appeared in the living room.'

'Rose gave me this diary as a present. I've never had a diary before. Come to think of it, if I had kept a diary for 900+ years, you'd need a library to keep them all in. Rose says that she started keeping a diary when she was stranded here in Pete's world. Alice told her it was a good way of recording her thoughts and feelings.'

'Rose liked the jumper dress that I bought for her and she wore it to the Christmas lunch at the Mansion and she looked a million dollars. The Mansion Christmas lunch is becoming a bit of a tradition now, which is good. Families should have traditions.'

'Rose and EJ enjoyed the New Year celebrations this year when I had the idea of travelling around the world to see each countries celebrations. EJ loved all the fireworks...'

Rose's diary.

Entry Date: Christmas 2017

'What a great Christmas. No kidnappings, no aliens (except John, LOL), and no imminent destruction of planet Earth. EJ's face was a picture when he saw the living room decorated and the tree with all the lights on. He got really excited on Christmas day when he saw his sack of presents.'

'Mum and Dad put on a brilliant Christmas lunch again this year and I think this will become a regular thing from now on. (It beats having to cook Christmas lunch ourselves) Every time I see John in a paper hat out of the cracker, it reminds me of our first Christmas together in the old world, and I get a bit maudlin about the Doctor and wonder how he's spending his Christmas.'

'I told John how Alice had suggested I keep a diary when I got stranded here, and how it helped me come to terms with being separated when I missed him so much. I bought him one as a Christmas present, and he said he had never thought of keeping a diary before. I don't know if he'll use it.'

'John bought me a TARDIS blue jumper dress for Christmas which fits beautifully and is really comfortable to wear. If John's grin is anything to go by, I think it suits me. Mind you, I swear he'd say that I'd look good in a bin liner.'

'New Year was brilliant. John had the genius idea of following the New Year as it went around the world. I then remembered watching the news from previous years when a channel would televise the celebrations from each country and had a wicked idea….'

Tyler Mansion.

Sunday 31st December 2017.

Around 10 p.m.

Jackie Tyler was throwing one of her famous 'society' parties for their friends. There were high profile politicians, business people, sports personalities, celebrities and Torchwood friends and colleagues, who were all into the full swing of the party.

Most of her friends had been 'inherited' from Pete's Jackie, which wasn't a problem because both she and Pete's Jackie were the same person and so would have similar tastes in friends.

A lot of the 'friends' were in fact just people she happened to know, wives and girlfriends of Pete's business acquaintances from Vitex and Cybus Industries. Some of them were even mistresses, and Jackie got on really well with them, what with being a gossip and all.

But her real friends were the Torchwood crew. They were the salt of the earth, depending on each other in their day to day execution of their duties and trusting each other with their lives. What you saw was what you got with them, honesty, integrity and a wicked sense of humour.

This was true except for one person, her best friend Sylvia Prentice, who happened to be the wife of a famous celebrity entrepreneur. They had a similar background to Pete and herself, (except for the jumping across universes. Oh, and the living with a dead partner) and they had hit it off from the start.

Sylvia had originally been a friend of Pete's Jackie, before she died in the 2007 Cybermen attacks, and when Jackie appeared three years later, Sylvia couldn't help but notice the difference from the original Jackie Tyler.

"What do you expect when a tin robot tries to take yer brains out and put it in one of them things," she had said, knowing the horror of that first hand, from her experience at Canary Wharf when Pete had shot two Cybermen to rescue her from an 'upgrade'.

Sylvia couldn't argue with that and started to laugh. There were subtle differences in her friend, but she could put them down to a mental breakdown. She accepted these differences and their friendship deepened, and Sylvia found that she actually preferred this new version.

She seemed happier now and more relaxed than before, and she was definitely in love with her husband. Young Tony was evidence of that, and Sylvia had actually burst into floods of tears when Jackie had told her that she was pregnant.

Her daughter Rose had been a complete surprise, and first thought that she was an illegitimate child from a romantic liaison in her past. But when Sylvia had met the sad, heart broken young lady, she could immediately see that she was Pete's daughter.

She had put Pete's initial emotional distance to his daughter, down to his awkwardness with dealing with some trauma that had caused her to become heart broken. But very quickly their relationship improved and she could see that he was devoted to her.

Then Rose was overjoyed and her heart mended when that odd boyfriend of hers appeared on the scene. Jackie loved to gossip about him and slag him off, but Sylvia could tell that she was very fond of him, even if she wouldn't admit it out loud.

They had been gossiping conspiratorially about the latest mistress of Geoffrey Hatfield, Secretary of State for Transport.

"I hear on the grape vine that Jessica has forgiven Geoffrey for his little 'indiscretion' and is willing to give it another go," Sylvia said conspiratorially.

"If he cheats on her again, she'll kill him," Jackie said.

"I wouldn't be surprised if it's a marriage of convenience now," Sylvia replied.

"Yeah. She conveniently has access to his credit card," Jackie said with a smirk. They both burst out laughing.

Jackie felt a tugging on her cocktail dress. She looked down to see her grandson giving her an excited, mischievous grin. He reached up and grabbed her hand.

"Gra'mar, Gra'mar. Got a surprise for you, come and see," EJ said, bouncing on his toes just like his father did when he was excited.

"Oh isn't he adorable," Sylvia said.

"He's been all excited since he arrived this evenin'. It's like he's got a big secret or somethin'," Jackie said with a laugh.

EJ gasped as though he'd been found out. "Come and see. Come and see Gra'mar," he repeated as he dragged her in the direction of the large plasma screen mounted on the wall.

Jackie gave a smile of apology to her friend as she let herself be guided away. John and Rose were waiting by the screen with glasses of wine in their hands. John was wearing a kilt, and Jackie had to admit that he cut a dashing figure in that get up.

Rose was the picture of elegance in a backless, silky green ball gown that accentuated her figure. Jackie often had to stop the tears from stinging her eyes when she saw her daughter all grown up, remembering how she used to dress in hoodies, jeans and trainers.

John and Rose had the same mischievous grin that their son had, and she suspected that they'd been up to some shenanigans. On the screen, a news reader was announcing the 10 o'clock review of the day's news, with the now traditional 'celebrate the New Year around the world' footage.

"Can I tell Gra'mar now?" EJ asked. "Can I, can I?" His parents laughed and nodded as Pete wandered over with Tony.

"What's happening?" he asked casually as he spotted the excited faces.

"We're on the news!" EJ announced proudly. "Watch."

'The celebrations started as usual in Samoa where revellers enjoyed fireworks and traditional festivities', the news reader said. The screen showed the fireworks and panned across the crowds. People in the foreground turned, cheering and waving their arms at the camera.

"THERE!" EJ shouted, pointing at a section of the screen. Sure enough, in the crowd were a family wearing traditional Samoan sarongs. A petite blond, a tall gangly man with unruly hair, and a young child riding on his shoulders.

'In Wellington, New Zealand, crowds got into the holiday spirit as a group performed the Haka.'

Their in the foreground again, were the same family waving at the camera with the other revellers. This time they were dressed in traditional Maori outfits.

It was the same for Kamchatka, Sydney, Papua New Guinea, and all the way to Moscow, which is as far as they had got in this news update. Each time they had managed to get in shot on the news wearing the traditional dress of the country they were in.

"Hang on," Jackie said. "Y'were always sayin' ya couldn't do that because it would cause a paradox thingy."

"Ooh, hark at you Jackie Tyler, talking all sciency," John teased.

Rose laughed and then explained. "Normally that's true Mum, but we knew that we would always be an hour ahead of ourselves and never in the same place. Where are we at the moment John?"

"Lets see. Just after ten. We've left Antananarivo in Madagascar, and are enjoying the fireworks in Kiev," he told them.

Jackie's face was a picture of stunned amazement. "Y'mean you're still out there travellin' at the moment?"

"Of course," John said. "We'll be in Paris at eleven and in Edinburgh at midnight for Hogmanay."

"It was there that John first wore the kilt," Rose said, giving him a look full of sexual desire. "I told him he just had to wear it to your party Mum." She leaned over and kissed his cheek.

"And very nice he looks too," Jack said with a grin as he wandered over to join them. "Sounds like a great way to celebrate New Year to me."

"That matching short kilt you wore was quite fetching as well," John said with a smirk, waggling his eyebrows.

"I wish I'd known about pleated skirts in the old days, they're so liberatin'. I reckon I could run and do kick boxing moves without the skirt ridin' up and showin' me knickers," she said with a saucy smile.

She'd gotten the idea when they watched reruns of Alias on a satellite channel, where the Sydney Bristow character had been running through the streets of Singapore.

"So where do you end up then?" Pete asked as the news summary moved onto another subject.

"American Samoa," John told him.

"After a fantastic stop off in Honolulu," Rose added. "Then we landed here, ready for your fantastic party,"

"Wha? My party?" Jackie said, surprised but also rather chuffed.

Rose enveloped her Mum in a hug. "Mum. Not even an army of old universe Daleks would keep us from one of your New Years parties."

"They're the stuff of legend," John said with a grin. "Ooh more nibbles. All this travelling has made me hungry." He helped himself to some horderves from a tray as it went past, handing a couple to Rose, who was also a bit peckish.

EJ on the other hand was full to bursting. Tony had organised his friends into a buffet raiding party that would have made Captain McNab proud. There was a reconnaissance team, a food capture team and an extraction team to lead them to safety. Well, to a covered table where they could sit underneath and stuff themselves silly.

Tony had recruited EJ into his unit as soon as he arrived and had a great time filling a paper plate with nibbles and cakes, and seeing how many bottles of Vitex he could get under each arm. The fact that the food was free and that they could happily help themselves to anything they wanted hadn't occurred to Tony, and anyway it was much more fun to appropriate it.

There were plenty of children at the party as Jackie wanted her parties to be family affairs. That was another difference that Sylvia had noticed about the 'new' Jackie. The 'old' Jackie had never been interested in children, which is why Rose was such a surprise.

Pete had hired an entertainer who did magic tricks, party games and made balloon animals that kept the children amused while the adults enjoyed themselves with conversations about sport, films, media and the like.

Eventually, the evening approached midnight and the news coverage started a minute countdown.

"Everyone on to the lawn for fireworks," Pete called out as the count got to 30 seconds. The guests filed out through the French Windows onto the lawn, where patio heaters had been placed to keep the revellers warm while they watched the display.

"Five… Four...Three." THUD. A mortar launched the first firework.

"Two... One." CRACK. The firework exploded in a magnificent ball of crackling light.

"Happy New Year," the revellers sang out as more fireworks lit up the sky to 'oohs' and 'aahs'.