Chapter 1

"I look like him and I think like him. Same memories, same thoughts, same everything. Except I've only got one heart."

"Which means?"

"I'm part human. Specifically, the ageing part. I'll grow old and never regenerate. I've only got one life, Rose Tyler. I could spend it with you... if you want."

"You'll grow old at the same time as me?"

"Together."

Little white lies, those very human lies that are told in order to be polite or to stop someone from being upset by the truth.


Delivery Suite

Glendale Private Hospital

June 2011

Rose Tyler was sitting in the relatives room of the hospital, nursing a cup of hospital tea from the vending machine. 'Wow this stuff travels between universes' she thought to herself as she took a sip of the hot, brown fluid. It stuck to the roof of her mouth before making its way down her throat. In normal hours, you could get proper tea or coffee from the restaurant.

A young, red headed nurse sitting opposite giggled as she saw her flinch at the taste. "Pretty bad isn't it? What did you have, the tea or the coffee?" she asked.

"Tea, I think," Rose said with a grin.

She glanced at her Torchwood wrist computer to get the time. 05:30 it told her, hopefully it wouldn't be much longer. She was on a week of four 'til midnight shifts, and had only had a couple of hours of sleep when her mum knocked on her door and told her the contractions had started.

She could hear her Mum groaning now through the door. This was it then; 'it' was on the way out. She had to call the baby 'it' because they didn't know what sex 'it' was.

"It sounds like someone's close to giving birth," the nurse noted.

"Yeah, it's my mum. I'm about to have a brother or sister."

It was then that Rose really looked at the nurse, and saw how similar her features were to her own. "Excuse me, but do I know you?"

The nurse closed the magazine that she'd been browsing and then noticed the photograph on the front. "Oh my God, of course, Jackie Tyler, water birth in Delivery Room One... you're Rose Tyler, her daughter."

"Yeah," she said with a smile. She was getting used to the celebrity status she'd inherited from her famous father.

The nurse was grinning at her. "All my friends and colleagues here keep teasing me that I look like you, except for the red hair of course."

"I was just thinkin' that myself. The likeness is remarkable."

"So, how have you been coping since you arrived here?" The young nurse asked with concern.

That question threw her slightly, how did this woman know that she had been stranded in this universe? "Pardon?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry, only it must be difficult adjusting to all this publicity when you've been living abroad at boarding school."

Rose relaxed, it was the cover story invented by Torchwood that she'd been referring to.

"Yeah, it's been a tough couple of years."

The door to the birthing room opened and the midwife popped her head around the door.

"Miss Tyler? Rose?" she asked her.

"Er, yeah. Is everythin' okay?"

The woman smiled. "Everything is fine. Would you like to come in? There is someone waiting to meet you."

Rose stood and nodded at the red headed nurse. "Nice talkin' to ya. I think there's a brother or sister waitin' to say hello."

"It was a privilege to meet you Rose. I think you have a little brother, and you are going to love him to bits," the nurse said with a conviction that made Rose frown.

She went into the Delivery Room and saw her Mum lying back against her Dad in the pool. She looked tired, but Rose had never seen her look so happy. Pete looked as though he might explode with pride at any moment.

Lying on her Mum's chest was a little pink bundle of humanity. Pete's arms enveloped Jackie and he was gently stroking the baby's back.

"Hi Sweetheart," Jackie said, her voice heavy with exhaustion. "Come and meet your little brother."

Rose knelt down by the side of the pool with tears welling in her eyes. Her brother had his eyes closed, and his mouth looked as though he was sucking a lemon, his chin moving as his tongue sucked inside his mouth.

"Anthony, Stephen Tyler," Jackie breathed. "This is your sister Rose."

Rose hesitantly reached out and stroked his wet head.

"Oh God Mum," she whispered. "He's so gorgeous."

Pete and Jackie both noticed that for the first time since she had been stranded here in this 'other' world, her smile had returned. Not her public smile, but her private one, the one she used to give the Doctor.

"Would you like Rose to hold him while we get you out of the pool?" the midwife asked.

Jackie looked up and smiled at Rose. "Would you mind Sweetheart?"

"Yeah, sure. Oh wow, yeah, I'd love to."

The midwife lifted Tony off Jackie and wrapped him in a clean warm towel, giving his body a gentle rub before handing him to Rose who was now seated in a chair.

As Rose accepted the tiny bundle, something strange happened. A memory was reawakened in her. She was in a church with the Doctor. Her Dad takes a baby from her Mum and puts it in her arms.

It was a paradox, she was holding herself.

Back in the present, Rose's vision started to blur with tears as she thought about her own life, and the man she would love to have a child with. She started to slowly weep.

"Rose? Are you alright." She could hear echoing distant voices. "Rose Sweetheart, are you okay?" It was her Mum.

"Wha? Oh, Mum. Yeah, I'm fine. I was just carried away by the emotion." She wiped her eyes with her free hand.

Rose noticed that Jackie and Pete were wearing bathrobes now and she stood up as Jackie sat in one of the other chairs. She handed Tony over carefully, and holding back the tears she told them she was going to get some air.

She went through the relatives room and out into the corridor and began to sob. Holding her brother had made her realise that she would never be able to do that with her own child. Her true love was lost to her and she would never have a child with anyone but Him.

"Tears of sadness at the birth of new life?" an elderly voice said to her side. "Here, use this to dry your eyes," he said, as he saw her trying to wipe her tears away with her sleeve.

"Oh, thanks," she said, accepting the neatly folded, pale yellow handkerchief. "No, I'm happy about the birth, it's just that it's made me think about someone I've lost."

"Nah. Not on a day like this. Dry your eyes young lady, this is a day for lost things being found," the stranger said.

"Wha?" She'd heard those words before. And that voice. It was old and croaky, but the accent and the intonation… For the first time she turned to look at the stranger and take in his appearance. A wide brimmed, black Fedora hat partially obscured his face as he bowed his head. He wore a charcoal grey, pinstriped suit, with a long black coat over the top. A pale yellow scarf hung loosely around his shoulders. He was leaning on a silver headed cane with both hands, as though gravity might pull him to the floor, and on his feet he wore… red converse with white rubber toe caps and trim.

Rose's breath caught in her throat. It couldn't be… could it?

"Wh… who are you?" she whispered.

The stranger lifted his head to look at her, and she saw a familiar, if not old face. It was the eyes that did it for her, older than the face. Ancient eyes that had seen the turn of the universe and burned at the centre of time. And the smile, a youthful, cheeky grin, set in a face that had been etched and furrowed by time, and framed by a neatly trimmed white beard.

"You!?" she gasped. "But… I… Wha?" she tried to put sentences together and failed miserably. Had her yearning and sorrow finally pushed her over the edge?

"But it can't be me? I don't understand. What's going on?" he said for her helpfully. She just nodded, no words would come out. He lifted his right hand off his left, and waved his fingers. "Hello."

"Are you a hologram again, like on the beach?" she asked.

He nodded at the handkerchief she had accepted off him, and she looked down at it and squeezed it. It was real, which meant…

"Oh my God, it is you," she said as she hugged him around the neck. "But you look so old."

"Well thanks. I like to think I look distinguished," he replied with a smile.

"Sorry," she said sheepishly.

"Only joking, I am old. But you… you look so young," he said with a smile. She could see the love in his eyes. "I wanted to see you again, to give you a message and a gift," he told her.

"But you said the universes were closed forever, I thought I'd never see you again, not ever."

"Never say 'never ever'," he reminded her. "The breach will open one more time, and you must be ready, because it will be dangerous."

"Is that the message?"

"No, that's just a post script. The message is… I suppose, if it's one last chance to say it, Rose Tyler, I love you."

He gently took her face in his hands, and kissed her on the lips.

"Rose? Sweetheart, are ya comin'? We're goin' up to the ward now," Jackie called to her daughter, who was just standing in the corridor like a statue.

"Eh? Oh yeah, I was just… I don't know."

"Are you alright Sweetheart? Only ya seemed a bit upset back there," her mother asked.

She walked towards Jackie, who was in a wheelchair, cradling her newborn. "I'm fine Mum. I got a bit tearful holdin' Tony an' thinkin' about the Doctor an' me."

Jackie looked up at Pete, a worried expression on her face. The counsellors had helped her through her depression and her grief, but what if she was falling back into that black pit of despair?

Rose saw the look and smiled. "But suddenly, everythin's fine. I don't know why, or how, but I know everythin' is goin' to work out fine. There's somethin' in the air, somethin' comin'."

"Well, it's good to see that smile back on your face," Pete told her as she walked along side them down the corridor.

Rose tried to give him the handkerchief. "I don't need one sweetheart, I've got one of my own in my pocket."

"Isn't it yours? I thought you gave it to me to dry my eyes."

"Nope. Never seen it before."