The sun streams into our living room; it's bright and airy and reminds me oddly of Reinette, I'm not sure why, maybe it's the seventeenth century sideboard that's probably not seventeenth century because it feel out of space when the Nessnajab clan left. I walk over to my wife, I put my arms around her and lean down and kiss her. Even after sixteen years she amazes me, she's still in her pyjamas and her hair is a mess but she is the most beautiful woman in the universe. In all the universe's.
As she pulls out of our embrace I push some of her hair out of her face and smile. For a few seconds we just stare content that we have forever. And then she walks over to the computer,
"I'm just going to try getting through to Jack again," she explains, even though I already know what she's doing, we've been going through this routine for just over a year.
I walk over and put my hands on her neck hoping for what must be the millionth time that this will work. Hating myself for knowing that it won't.
"This is Rose Tyler calling the Torchwood hub, Cardiff, are you receiving?" Rose says into the microphone while looking at an empty screen she looked up at me as I rub her neck; we exchange a sad look when we get no reply.
"Come on, let's get some breakfast, for all we know Jack's just being lazy and none of them have got there yet, we'll try again tonight." I say as we walk in to the kitchen and see our sixteen year old daughter fixing herself a banana smoothie,
"Or maybe they're all dead," our daughter says taking a huge slurp giving herself a moustache
"So cheerful Donna. Get some proper breakfast, you've got your exams today." I say taking on the role of protective father.
"I can't eat anything else dad, if I do I'll be sick I'm so nervous." My daughter says. I still like thinking that even after sixteen years and five children I still like thinking 'My Daughter' or 'My Son' and not have to worry about them being killed by alien's or something like that. Well of course we still do get the occasional alien invasion, but what with me and Rose working for Torchwood, there is always somewhere safe for them to go.
Now all I have to worry about is perverts, thief's, murderers, rapist's, car accidents, boyfriends, girlfriends, teenage pregnancy's, exams, nappies, illness, broken bones, drugs, anorexia, suicide, depression, self-harming, alcohol poisoning, contraception, obesity, education, cancer, violence on video games, violence in real life, traffic, food poisoning, economy, mortgages, vaccinations, road accidents, mugging's. Oh my god why did we have children.
Rose comes over to me holding toast out to me, I think she's been saying something to me, should I answer her, what should I say, oh no now she's going to know I wasn't listening. I start eating the toast as a distraction. Oh now she's talking to Donna, oh that's okay. I do that a lot, start thinking about something totally random while having a conversation.
Just then Mickey comes in, our fourteen year old son, grabbing a piece of toast off the pile and starting on his French homework.
"Why haven't you done that yet Mickey, when I signed your planner you said you'd done it?" Rose says taking on the role of angry mother, although she's not really angry.
"Umm," Mickey mutters then stuffs toast in his mouth so he doesn't have to answer.
We all laugh and Rose leaves to get Jack, Sarah-Jane and Harriet ready for school. Jack is eight and can do most things himself, Sarah-Jane is six and still needs help not getting herself in a twist when she is trying to get her t-shirt on and Harriet is four and can barely get a pare of trousers on with out getting in a mess.
"Dad," Mickey says through his toast, "How do you say, what colour is the umbrella?"
"I'm not supposed to help you with your homework, you do to well and then the teacher knows it wasn't you who did it. Donna you help him, I'm going to go see if your mother needs any help."
Donna laughs as Mickey groans and I step in the hallway and lean my back on the door. I think back to the day when the doctor left us in this world. I stopped thinking of myself of the doctor when Donna was born, she was born just over nine months after we were left here and Rose and I were married a month later. After that I became Doctor John Tyler, works for Torchwood, has a wife plus five kids, and am living the happy ever after story. I guess that is true, we still save the world on a regular bases but I wouldn't say we have a normal family life. All of the children but Harriet have been bungee jumping, we still get a thrill factor, even if it doesn't involve running from aliens every day.
Rose was so distant that first day, after he shut the doors and we were left on the beach I was sure she didn't want me, but she came up to me, raised her hand to my cheek, "Forever, right?" she asked me and I all I could do was nod, I hugged her and kissed her and I didn't want to put her down. And then Jackie comes and reminds us that although we might be warm she's bloody freezing and that we do have forever so let's get the hell out of there.
Rose comes down the stairs with Harriet, Sarah-Jane and Jack trailing behind her.
"You alright?" she asks as she passes me,
"Yeah, just thinking," I say, still distant
"Oh, never a good idea with you." She says grinning as I follow her into the kitchen again.
Jack, Sarah and Harriet are tucking into bowls of cereal and plates of toast just as Donna and Mickey have finished and they are all mucking about. I hear stories about brothers and sisters who hate each other and don't get along at all, but this lot are great.
"Right you two," Rose says to Mickey and Donna "You better get off, your dads driving you today."
"Am I? I thought you were taking them today, and I was doing the primary school run?"
"Does it look like I'm taking them today," she gestures at her pyjamas and I get her point.
"Right you are love, I'll see at lunch, Rocci's right?" I say as I lean down and kiss her tasting the jam on toast she's eating. She nods and turns to help Harriet with her cereal.
"Right you horrible lot, I'll see you all later, lets get going you two," I direct the later to Donna and Mickey while leaning down and giving a kiss to the others.
They stand up and get their bags together and we go out to the car waving hello to Mrs. Davis as we pass and I wonder at the Domesticity of it all. I remember repeatedly saying to Rose "I Don't Do Domestic" and here I am driving our kids to school and taking the rubbish out as I go.
The day passes quickly, I go into work, greeting Arian the receptionist on my way past and I go up to the weekly meeting with my department head. I work in the, well what we basically do is fiddle with stuff that we have found, try to make it work, and try to make it safe. I think the higher ups get a bit annoyed with us sometimes, we don't like making weapons and we don't often make anything useful, if my father-in-law wasn't head of Torchwood I think I'd be working else where.
At lunch I rush to meet Rose and we have a nice lunch at the Italian restaurant round the corner from torchwood, before we go back to work. I'm not quite sure what she does, something to do with other universe's, that's how we got the computer link with the other universes torchwood, they wouldn't let her work on it there so she brought it home.
We drive home at three o'clock, taking most of our work with us, we like being home when the kids get out of school and it's mostly only paper work or a bit of tinkering by now.
Me and Rose start working on the link with Torchwood in the Doctors universe. She goes through the "This is Rose Tyler" Business as I start tinkering with the sonic screwdriver I made from bits and pieces that have fallen to earth over the years.
"Hey hey we've got a picture," Rose shouts just as Donna and Mickey walk through the door with Sarah-Jane, Jack and Harriet in tow. They all rush into the living room as we start screaming at the computer screen. They know about our past life, we never kept it a secret and they ask questions about our adventures all the time, they definitely got the best bed time stories. Everyone is screaming at the computer screen. Hoping against hope that someone will come.
"Just a minute, every one be quiet, lets try and hear if there's any one there" I say loudly and we all shut up as Mickey turns the speakers up. We can hear talking in the background and we all start yelling again.
Finally we hear someone fiddling with the microphone on the other side and Jack comes into view
"Rose, Doctor, what the hell?"