Rose turned to her Doctor, her Doctor born in fire and blood and war and gave him a hard shove awake. Just last week he'd cried out in alarm because he'd found a grey hair. Of course he knew he would age, she knew he'd age, they both were well aware of the fact he was part human, the ageing part.

But oh the shock and horror. How did one explain to three dozen Torchwood agents who were waiting for his guidance that sorry, "he can't come in today because he's found a grey hair and is waiting to dye it, please write it down as emotional trauma"?

His TARDIS had taken three months to grow and he'd been so impatient about it. But it was around before Tony was and she was glad of that. She couldn't cope with two screaming children at once, and oh the Doctor became just that when he started playing with his new toy.

They aged slower than normal people, it's what time travel did to a person- and time travel inside a creature who's heart was part of the time vortex itself. Still they aged, she was gone forty now, but she put it down to good genes and vortex exposure that she didn't look a day over thirty. Sometimes she speculated it was rather similar to Dunedain and compared the Timelords to the elves, a hundred years passing in the blink of an eye.

She supposed the vortex would have to have some effect on their lives because sometimes she'd lose track of time when they were travelling through time and space. She reckoned it was like other people's food didn't count.

This universe had Tolkien and she was quite glad of that because the Doctor had been gobsmacked that she'd never read them, had raced into the TARDIS to fetch a copy, remembered it was his newborn TARDIS and sighed deeply. Then her poor Dad had told him he could buy a copy from any good bookshop.

The Doctor decided this universe was very civilised as they'd made a trilogy of Lord of the Rings and a single film of the Hobbit released shortly before it.

"Always fancied myself as Aragorn. Lovely man John. Met him once. Not in this world, we could meet him if you like!"

It was funny to see his transition from angry old man to child so quickly, to what she called his teenage stage, from his tantrums to his wise moments. Some days she'd find him working on the TARDIS like a teenager, adding bits, learning to drive it.

They'd dealt with weeping angels, after a horrid encounter, and realising that anything taking the image of an angel became an angel- started off with two whom they trapped staring at one another, some idiot made a statue of them to put on display and others took pictures and bam, a few dozen more monsters on the lose. They'd found an interesting race called the Silence, but they only really became a problem when it became clear that they weren't black and white like the daleks, but some were far friendlier than others.

Then there'd been the Judoon who'd come and demanded a fugitive be handed over. A fugitive Brazil didn't have. Then there'd been the day the world got rewritten and the time when the questions began. Doctor Who? Doctor Who ?

They talked about what he did and what he'd done, more than they'd ever talked before. He was hurting and breaking, and she made him better. She understood now why he hadn't been able to bare speaking of Sarah Jane before they'd met, how he couldn't talk about his previous adventures all the time.

How regeneration wasn't just a new face, it didn't kill the previous mind, the previous memories, but damn it added a new layer.

Because this Doctor knew that eventually a peaceful (ish) end would come, a sleep- to rest and to die. He knew that he could sleep after a long day, he could wash away the blood.

There'd been fitful nightmares for what Rose reckoned was about a year or so. He talked about cracks, cracks chasing him. A question from somewhere that wasn't the other universe, but wasn't this one either. Doctor Who? Doctor Who? A woman telling him to run.

On those nights she did nothing but hold him tight and rock him until he cried no more.

He talked in his sleep. It hurt her a little when he said other names, names like Martha, Donna, because while there had been ones before her it hurt that there were ones after. But she knew he didn't feel the same way about them that he did about her. After all like he said to her once about the way they did things in France, they do things differently on Gallifrey.

He screamed in his sleep sometimes. When she'd travelled with him in her other world, she'd never seen him sleep, just assumed he did. But when he screamed he screamed of fire and blood and war. No more. Then he woke up in tears, covered in sweat, the sheets tangled around him.

He wanted to call their son Doctor jr. At first she was worried, him being conceived abord the TARDIS, possibly while it was in midflight- they crash-landed in the sea, the TARDIS (whom the Doctor announced was male and called Dumbledore- which Rose refused to call the bloody ship because good old JK also existed in this universe) was unimpressed.

She was incredibly worried when they told her they could hear two heartbeats when they said they were sure she wasn't having twins. But the couple accepted it and started planning children's names ruling out most of the Doctor's suggestions including the above and Severus Albus, Doctor Who ("because that way when they ask Doctor Who? He can say, "exactly"") Bad Wolf, Sherlock and Elizabeth ("it's not a boy's name!" "it could be").

But when little Matt wasn't born with a timehead or anything of the sort she thanked the Gods that he only had one heart. His twin sister Elizabeth was perfectly fine too but slightly more of a surprise after the insistence that there was only one child.

It was helpful having a husband who spoke baby though.

Then one day he announced he had to do something. Because the drums and the words and the sounds in his head hurt. Then he'd disappeared and she'd cried. She'd called her Mum and asked her if she'd come over. The tone of her voice had her Mum, Dad, Jake, Ryan (Jake's partner), Katie Louise Jones (whom the Doctor and Rose had secretly dubbed Sarah Jane Smith), and of course a few Torchwood agents on her doorstep in less than an hour.

"He's gone," she'd sobbed clutching her Mother as her Dad (who should have had enough practice with one of his own) had held Matt awkwardly comforting him as he cried for his Daddy. Jake had better luck with Elizabeth for she'd always loved him and refereed to him (according to the Doctor) as the man-who-smells-nice unlike even her own father whom she called the-one-who-tastes-like-time.

Then he'd returned, the TARDIS looked like it had been to hell and he seemed ready to drop. He spoke of a message, of timey-wimey- and wibbly-wobbly stuff. He mumbled about fourteen, fourteen TARDISes.

He spoke of Gallifrey and Rose was glad the children were at her Mum's who'd volunteered to have them for the night. She didn't know how much they understood and she never wanted them to remember their Dad like this.

"We...I...I saved Gallifrey," he'd whispered, clutching her tear stained face. "He...the other me...he thinks there were thirteen. But...to the rest of the world it's gone, but it's trapped, in a pocket world, safe as houses."

She'd murmured about it being time locked, begging him to be rational, he knew that couldn't happen. Gallifrey was gone, it wasn't his fault-he'd saved the rest of the universes. But he'd done his best to explain that it had happened, it was what always happened.

She pretended to understand for his sake. A flicker of hope had sparked in her heart, because if the other Doctor could get Gallifrey back from another universe then what if there was some way she-

Then she realised that she didn't want to go back to the other universe. There was nothing there for her any more.

"Thirteen wouldn't have been enough, it had to be more than that. Fourteen. I helped save Gallifrey. I helped...I saved..."

"I know darling...I know..."

She'd comforted him that night and they'd laughed and cried and it had been wonderful. She knew that it hurt him, that he knew he could never see his people again, because the couldn't come to both universes. And he had a new family, the other Doctor didn't. He saved Gallifrey, but not for him. He could never go home.

She wondered how he'd survived it, because of the bits she did understand of his technobabble she was pretty sure it should have killed him. His TARDIS shouldn't have survived it and by proxy neither should he have, a human amongst the Lords of Time.

"For a split second we were everything and nothing. I was there and everywhere, part of them and separate. I...the impossible girl. Clara. She helped me. I don't know how but she saved me."

They called their youngest daughter Clara Oswin.

Rose sighed and shoved him again. The sun crept through the crack in the curtains attacking her eyeballs. She made a mental note to wish Clara good luck, she was doing her last A Level exam that day. The arguments she'd had with that girl, Clara had it in her head that she'd be allowed to time travel during her exams. Rose absolutely forbade any adventures, every child of hers was going to finish school with GCSEs at least and they were going to do their best no advantages other than having a remarkable father as a tutor. She didn't mind study trips for subjects like History but nothing for pleasure and no danger until they were all sixteen plus.

Clara complained it wasn't fair that Matt got to go with Dad and Mum to 2120 and stop a dalek invasion. Rose pointed out that Matt was twenty four and not seventeen (which she was at the time) and they hadn't intended to be off saving the universe it was meant to be a happy little shopping trip.

Of course all the children, even Matt and Liz who'd left home, complained when their parents went time travelling. Free lance alien fighters. Clara complained the most, especially when they visited (normal style) a museum and found a sketch of a god that looked suspiciously like Rose in one of the displays.

There were the odd threats to her family and of course Rose hadn't wanted Liz to join Torchwood but couldn't stop her, and deep down she knew she could cope with that. Liz was currently dating a time agent, Rose had been fairly angry when she'd found out the girl had kept it a secret because they'd only found out when she and the Doctor had come across them in 1566, and given that there was no time travelling technology readily available in the twenty first century it was obvious she was dating a man from the future. But she was more annoyed that her daughter had hidden it from her than anything else.

It had probably been terrible for the poor boy the Doctor reasoned, Rose had chuckled and agreed. What a way to meet your in-laws but in the past fighting a fairy type creature that was trying to seduce the human race into surrender.

Matt was an archaeologist but he had something to do with a church as well, which had confused Rose when he came out of the closet, but he'd explained that the church didn't work that way any more.

Clara wanted to become an actress because she didn't want anything to do with the family business. As she put it even Matt did the whole earth saving thing. Then again Clara changed her mind on what she wanted to be each week and Rose promised it didn't matter what she wanted to do or be as long as she was happy.

That's all they wanted for all their children. She'd laughed when the Doctor hugged Matt and told him that fear should be reserved for daleks and cybermen and definitely definitely weeping angels, but never ever for telling his parents he was attracted to other men.

"Men, women, slitheen, it's all fine, even weeping angels. Actually no. Not them. Nothing that'll kill you, even nicely. The Silence are fine though, bit awkward though if you closed your eyes."

That had had all three of them spluttering. But the best stories almost always involved Captain Jack Harkness, and Rose was slightly sad they hadn't met an alternate version of him. But then again, maybe there was only one.

It was thinking about him in a few sleepless hours before dawn that had made her suddenly realise something. She'd call her Mum later for a cup of tea and a chat and see if she'd ever noticed it.

"You know Jack?" she laughed pushing herself up in bed so that she could stare down at the Doctor who hadn't moved his lazy body at all.

He cracked open an eyelid admiring the view. "Jack I'll shag an insect Harkness. Yes. I do."

"When I was little a strange man watched me playing. In the nineties. It freaked mum out, she called the cops. Never talked to me, but he was there. When I left school, got a job at that shop, I remember him. And on the first of January the year I met you? I met you."

"What on earth are you on about?"

She began to laugh and so did he. It didn't matter, she'd explain when he was awake. Being human did nothing for the Doctor, it made him lazy and he thought he could get away with it saying one heart had to do a lot of work because he was used to two.

"Come on, you'll be late. You said you'd drop Clara off at school and she says it's embarrassing that her parents act like a pair of teenagers."

The Doctor groaned then tumbled out of bed landing on the floor with a thump. He shoved himself upward and groggily reached for his sonic screwdriver, kept neatly on his bedside table. "I am never late, nor am I early, I arrive precisely when I mean to."

"Don't you quote things at me," snapped Rose. "It's an important exam for her, she's worried about it. It's hard enough being a kid without us as parents. We could go somewhere and die on a planet miles from here thirty thousand years in the past or fifty years in the future right next door."

"She'll do fine," he whispered plonking himself down on the bed to kiss her on the cheek.

Rose suddenly twigged. "Oh you didn't!" she hit him with a pillow. "What about timelines crossing and what not? You shouldn't have checked!"

He grinned. "Cheap tricks are allowed! No point being grown up if you can't be a little childish sometimes," he kissed her on the forehead. "I love you Rose Tyler."

She grinned up at him. "Quite right too. Now run along you clever boy and put the tea on."

The Doctor obliged.

Somewhere out in another universe Amy Pond waited, and if Rose had been there she would have told her that it would be ok. The Doctor would come back.

Somewhere in time and space the Doctor felt a rather odd contentment that lasted just a few moments. He likened it almost to the feeling an amputee might feel in part of them that is no longer attached to them. It was a sort of tingling that started in his spine and followed through to his fingers.

Grinning he called at Clara to hurry up in the kitchen because cooking during flight wasn't the most enjoyable past time.

DWDWDWDWDWDW

Turning to his impossible girl the Doctor grinned, shoving a piece of popcorn in his mouth he began to spin levers and jab at buttons.

"Be a dear and hold that down," he cried pointing to a spectacular blue thingymybob.

They had monsters to chase, worlds to defend and civilisations to explore.

AN: New style. New genre. New...category. Never written a Doctor Who fanfic before. Please don't slaughter me oh supreme fandom, I hope I haven't hurt your cannon too much. How'dja like it?