AN: Well thank you guys, the few that reviewed, truly they were so APPRECIATED! Also a thank you to the follows and favs, it it's awesome to see, and too is appreciated.

I hope that you enjoy this second part, it's a bit...fluffy, just a warning.

Again reviews are so greatly appreciated, it encourages a bit :)


Part Two: ...To Be Fearful of the Night
(Galileo)

She was three, so clearly beautiful, vibrant ...and three. The Doctor found himself standing in front of his little girl but unable to cross some invisible line that would let him touch her.

She was his spitting image. She was a tall and slender child for being three, with his face, though her eyes were her mothers yet the penetrating gaze that seemed to burn into him and see his everything...that gaze was his. The wild brown hair was also his, though hers was long and she wore a bow. She was so clearly his and the fascination of that made him speechless in wonder.

"Daddy...?" she let go of Rose's hand and stepped toward the Doctor.

The Doctor smiled widely and opened his mouth to say 'oh yes'...but he stopped, he wasn't. He was, but he wasn't. Her daddy was dead. His smile fell and he stayed firmly in place.

"Eden..." Rose put a hand on her shoulder keeping her from advancing further, then looked to the Doctor, "She's my genius child, so exactly like..." Rose's voice broke, then she shook her head dismissing it "...she's three, but brilliant, nothing but fantastically brilliant..."

Eden turned to look at her mother, Rose scooped her into her up and slung her on hip, "Eden sweetheart...do you remember the stories that I used to tell you... About the wonderful man that traveled all up in the stars? The wonderful man in the blue box?"

Eden's bright eyes, her mother's eyes but a little lighter, a little bit more serious... Her mother's eyes were melted chocolate or hot coffee, Eden's were a strong cup of tea, the Doctor thought fleetingly.

"Yes mummy," Eden grinned, "That wonderful man is Daddy! You went with him too, didn't you mummy?"

The Doctor saw the tears starting in Rose's eyes, "Yes, I did. Well my darling...you know that this man isn't...well he isn't the Daddy that you know...you know that Daddy...that Daddy died..."

The Doctor watched Rose lose her composure and tears flood her cheeks. He wanted to do something but he very clearly had no idea what it was he could do.

Eden seemed to know though. The Doctor watched with curiosity and amazement at the little girl. Eden lifted a small hand and calmly laid it against her mother's cheek. The Doctor was so incredibly curious, it was his curiosity that compelled him to move to them.

His curiosity and the draw of the little girl's telepathic link.

"Brilliant...just brilliant," he found himself saying under his breath in wonder.

Eden was showing her mother...showing her all that her father, that John had apparently shared with her. The girl was simply amazing. So open, so pure...so human and so much Time Lord. She was so advanced for her age. If he knew anything about human children...and Time Lord children, and he did, little Eden was positively astonishing. Her intellect was so advanced... She was still very much a child, but still, extraordinary.

That she had such mastery over the telepathic link...sure, it was raw and largely driven by contact...but she could transmit and that was...that was bloody brilliant.

Rose's John...his clone, had shown Eden a beautiful little story. A story about a little girl that was so loved, so wonderful and so special that she needed two daddies to love her. That she was so special and wonderful and loved that her daddy was two people...but the same person.

He had to hand it to himself...well, to John, he had given her a simple, easy and child appropriate explanation. And brilliant little Eden completely understood it.

She was showing her mother that she knew that this man...this man from the blue box was her father just like her daddy was. Children were so amazing.

None more so than Eden, he was very certain of that. She was clearly incredible and the most brilliant child, ever. Obviously.

Eden and Rose shared a look, one that the Doctor didn't follow but Rose nodded and stood Eden back on the ground.

The Doctor watched in curiosity as Eden crossed the short distance between them holding Rose's hand. She was so clearly three, but the human eyes so like her mother had the far off, knowing look of a Time Lord. She knew and understood so much already.

The Doctor kneeled down, meeting his daughter for the first time face to face.

They just looked for a while. Looked with ancient and new eyes, respectively. Perhaps silently picking out the things they recognized, perhaps just breathing and getting acquainted with the newness of each other.

Eden thought that while he looked like her Daddy, felt like her Daddy...he thought a little...funny, but it sure felt just like her Daddy. He smelled different though. Not bad different, just...different. She liked his hair though, it did that funny sticking out thing hers did, just like her Daddy's. This was her Dad, she knew that, not her Daddy, but he was hers all the same.

The Doctor, for his part was simply...awed. All through time and space, through all the things he had seen, the glories of the a thousand galaxies and nothing came close to comparing to seeing his flesh and blood, seeing a little girl so himself, so Rose...so everything wonderful and beautiful and...perfect.

They continued to stare, and probably would have continued long into the night, but this was the Doctor, and his daughter, neither were terribly fond of being still for too long. Eden made the first move. The only move that was really needed.

It was the best move.

Father and daughter they were indeed.

They both loved hugs.

The Doctor was surprised by the little girl launching herself carefully at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing tight. Her warmth, her soft little body in his arms. It was a bit like a punch to the stomach.

Emotions rolled in waves around him.

She did transfer by touch, any touch. Pictures became clearer than they had been before. She was showing him her childhood so far. Every memory with her Daddy, he could already pick up that she though of them as the same, but different. Daddy...and Dad.

He was her father.

Her favorite color was blue...except on days when it was pink.

She also liked yellow an awful lot.

She liked to ride her rocking horse. She pretended it was magical unicorn that danced on rainbows.

Her mummy didn't like it when she drew on the walls, but the paper was just too small for all that she wanted to draw, all that she saw when she dreamed.

Her favorite food was bananas, they were yellow too.

She thought Saturn was the prettiest planet, her Daddy had shown her maps of the stars and in the pictures it was sort of pink...and had pretty rings.

She had a goldfish once, she named it Spotty...though it was more striped.

The Doctor found that he had unexplained tears in his eyes as the hug continued on. This was his little girl...she had lost her Daddy but she...she was embracing him, loving him anyway.

"...my name is Eden, I'm three...I love you Dad."

Eden was beaming as she pulled away from him.

The Doctor was quite a glorious mess as he looked at her. Tears were very freely falling and his face glowed, though it was splotchy from the tears.

"Hello, Eden...I'm...well," he drew out with a flicker of a look to Rose, who stood still behind Eden her own face full of tears, she gave a wondrous shrug, "I'm your Dad and I'm just thrilled to be meeting you."

Rose, Eden and the Doctor quietly went about the day. Whether it was quiet because none really knew what to say, or because there was too much to say they weren't quite sure. Rose had sent Sarah home quietly with her thanks and a promise to call then went about making tea and a few things for a late breakfast, well it was lunch now really, for herself and the Doctor, Sarah had taken care of Eden.

Rose busied herself in the kitchen after putting Eden down for a nap, for more distraction than actual duty. Though she had, over the years prided herself on being a wonderful hostess and housewife. She had wanted to take full advantage of the domestic path...since stars and adventures had been rather removed from her life.

Not that she regretted it. It hadn't been originally the life she had planned, had chosen, but it wasn't bad. Not at all.

The pictures that the Doctor was gazing at certainly proved that.

The walls were covered with so many pictures. Vacations. Birthday parties. So many pictures of Eden.

The wedding.

For some reason those ones made the Doctor's hearts clutch in an unfavorable way. It rather almost hurt looking at Rose in her wedding dress...she was, in a word, resplendent. He looked quizzically at the man, at himself, standing next to her...It was exactly like looking in the mirror, but so much more eerie. He looked happy. Nay, he looked blissful and in awe...and so very happy.

The Doctor wasn't sure he had ever looked that way.

So many years, so many memories, so many emotions and highs and lows.

This was the slow path. This was the domestic path. This was one timeline, lived sequentially. Lived obviously emphatically and wonderfully.

One life, one love...they had spent it together.

He remembered none of it...except, perhaps he did.

The longer he stared at the wedding picture, the newborn picture of Eden, he felt twinges, like there was something he remembered but didn't actually have the memory file to access. It was like remembering something he didn't know to begin with and it was maddening.

He remembered feeling pride, terror, hope, joy, overwhelming love...awe, on the day Eden was born.
Love, so much love, lust, all encompassing love, expectation, joy, fear, excitement..and awe, on the day he married Rose.

Except of course, he hadn't married Rose. John had. John had had these feelings, have lived this life, not him, but he had the feelings. Not the memories, not the life...oh, but he had the feelings.

"Bloody clone..." the Doctor muttered under his breath.

"I'm sorry?" Rose picked that moment to come in carrying a tray full of tea and biscuits.

"Nothing...nothing, never mind," the Doctor helped her situate the tray on the coffee table in the living room.

They fixed their tea and took biscuits, though neither was particularly hungry.

"Eden Victoria Egann... EVE," the Doctor finally broke the silence as he look down at the baby book that was stacked on the side table next to him.

Rose sipped at her tea, "Yeah, wasn't planned... I picked Eden... John," she hesitated again around the name with a hissing intake of breath, "John, liked Victoria which I liked too as it reminded me of..."

"Werewolf," the Doctor found an unbidden smile on his face, he was so secretly pleased to see Rose was smiling too around her cup.

"Yeah... Of course we didn't quite think though Eden Egann...that is going to plague her terribly in school I'm afraid," Rose sighed, "Her instals being EVE, while as I said, not on purpose is kind of...fitting. She's the first Time Lord / human child, at least ...John thought she was, unless..." Rose hesitated and let her sentence trail off.

If they were able to have figured out how to marry human and Time Lord DNA, who knew who else had.

"Yeah, it is fitting...and yes, Eden is the first Time Lord / human child. They still haven't, and won't figure out how to do that, at least not in the other universe. Though Rose, you're human but you've extraordinary genes...someone like you has never happened before. The odds, they are not only improbable but nearly impossible. I would be very interested in seeing the research."

Rose nodded silently and the Doctor got the distinct feeling he had said something wrong.

"She is rather impossible...isn't she. She's wonderful though..." Rose finally stated.

The Doctor quirked an eyebrow, "Oh yes, she is wonderful...so very wonderful."

Rose bit her lip, "It's so surreal to have you here...it's...it's unnerving actually. I keep catching you out of the corner of my eye and jumping, it's like..." well she didn't have to say what it was like.

"I'm sorry...am I making you uncomfortable?" the Doctor asked in genuine concern.

"No, no, not uncomfortable exactly...it's weird, I'll say that, but uncomfortable isn't the right word...I could never be uncomfortable with you Doctor."

The Doctor nodded, he believed that. In all things Rose was fair and just, she could accept impossible when it was presented to her as obvious fact. She wouldn't judge or blame, she understand and accepted. He was something impossible after all.

"How long will you stay?" she finally voiced the question he thought she might have been stewing on for some time.

Truth was, he had no idea. Now that he had seen Eden, had touched her...and seen how much she was indeed a part of him...now that he had Rose back...now that Rose had no one left really except him and Eden... She would need help with Eden obviously. It would be hard operating in a world where no one knew who were truly, and anyone that did would surely die and break her heart over and over again.

The Doctor knew that pain, knew it well...he would not wish that on anyone.

But what was the alternative?

He could stay? No, no he couldn't. That wasn't what a Time Lord was meant to do, disrupt an alternate universe where a Time Lord never existed before. No, he couldn't stay, this wasn't his place. This had been John's place, John's home...not his.

Rose and Eden could come with him... Yes, it would be dangerous and he was fairly certain that while the TARDIS wouldn't, well probably wouldn't, mind having a child on board again that it would, probably, be considered questionable parenting to raise a child in the Time Vortex.

But this child, his child, was part Time Lord. She was made of that stuff, of stars and time...she was made for it.

And Rose? His Rose loved adventures...she loved...well that was just it, she loved. She had been happy with him, in the stars once, perhaps she could be again. Perhaps she'd like to be back, back among the stars.

Maybe, maybe they could all three be together and happy...He was the last, Rose was the only...and Eden, she was the first. Maybe they could all be together.

The Doctor quietly thought in fractions of moments, how did he ask? How did he suggest? He was never one for tactful conversations, as Rose was well aware.

"I was just thinking..." he started to say but was cut off by a blood curdling scream.

Rose jumped, it was Eden, and like a shot she was rushing up the stairs.

Eden Victoria Egann had nightmares. Ones she couldn't always remember once awakened, and she didn't have them all the time, but when she did nothing but a fierce hug from her Daddy and his lulling back to sleep or rewarding her with a wonderful story if they happened during her nap, would calm her.

"Doctor...I might need you..." Rose called, hesitating at the top of the landing. The Doctor needed no further asking, he was at her side directly.

"Eden baby...it's a nightmare, it's okay mummy's here baby girl..." Rose gathered Eden up.

The little girl hugged her back, "I want Daddy! I need Daddy! Where's Daddy!" Eden cried voice thick and watery with her tears.

The Doctor for not the first time in his life felt helpless as he watched.

"Daddy's gone baby...you know that...remember, he's gone...up in the stars now and watching over us... It's okay though, he's watching over you right now, making sure nothing bad will ever happen... Isn't that right Doctor?" Rose looked pointedly at him.

The Doctor, with hands thrust deep in his pockets as he cleared his throat, "Quite right...you see Eden," he sat down on the other side of Rose and Eden, "Your daddy and me...and you," he used a finger to gently tip her face up to look at him from where it peeked out from her mothers chest, "Are Time Lords...we are made up of stars...and we travel the stars...all over the universe! And you can be very, very, very sure that your Daddy is looking out for you...and so is your Mummy..." he hesitated, eyes flicking up to me Rose's before dropping back to his little girl, "And so am I. We will never let anything bad happen to you and that is a promise."

Eden's tears had stopped and she now directed her embrace to the Doctor, "Daddy said we were goin' with you, up into the stars...that you comin' for us... Will I see my other Daddy up there?" she whispered.

The Doctor swallowed hard, "No I'm afraid not, your Daddy was a very wonderful person and I know a very, very, good Daddy...and he did make sure that I'd be here to help out and always take care of you...and your mummy but I'm sorry...you won't see him."

Eden nodded very solemnly for a three year old, very resigned, "But you'll be with us right? For forever and ever?" she lifted both her chubby, still baby, hands to frame his face and peered at him intently, intensely, she was looking directly into him.

The Doctor, looking back into eyes just like his Rose, so trusting and loving...so pure and genuine thought back to when this little girls mother had said what he was about to say to her. She had promised him, he would promise her back, promise their daughter. This time neither hell, nor time rifts or Dalek's would make him break it.

"Forever..." he caught Rose's gaze, it was her turn to cry, "and ever my darling, Eden. Forever and ever."


AN: Okay, so lately I've been in the interview process for a new job, blah, and it's seriously draining me so if you're reading any other stories besides this one I WILL be updating, I promise, just this New Year is beating the crap out of me so far! UGH! But I will be updating this story and my all others that are in progress...just probably not consistently :) Much Love! - RA