"Branden, why're your shorts inside-out?" Rose didn't really want the answer to that question, but it probably needed to be asked anyway. They'd been crossing the lawn (why the Doctor couldn't have just materialised inside the house, she wasn't entirely sure), when he'd gotten ahead of her, and she'd noticed the seam running right down the middle.

He looked down at his tan shorts, like his mother was being unreasonable. "They work better that way."

She looked over the sleeping baby in the harness on her chest to the Doctor. "Fix him. That's just what I need, my mother seeing that." It had been bad enough that Rose had to change shirts before they'd even gotten out of the TARDIS. "Rom, put that rock down." She had even odds that he wanted to brain his little brother with it, or just wanted to collect it. Either way, it was dirty. "Don't wipe your hands on your shirt. You're killing me. You're all killing me slowly."

About four seconds after that, she realised the Doctor was not fixing Branden's bottom. "Well, what're you waiting for?"

He glanced over at her, like he'd heard her for the first time. "You to unlax. She's your mother. Its not like her love for you is somehow conditional on how well your children are behaved, and whether Branden's trousers are on his body in a socially accepted manner. She'll have them hopped up on sugar in fifteen minutes and we'll spend the next three days trying to get them to take a nap. So no, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter if they're dirty or whatever. Besides, I don't want to give her a false impression of what to expect from them. If they show up clean and well-behaved, she'll expect that all the time. Which is simply unrealistic. We'll be lucky if they only bring the house down around her ears."

She scowled at him. "You could have shaved."

Rubbing his cheek, he looked away, quite pleased with himself. "Consider it a slapping cushion. I'm sure she'll have something to go after me for."

In his sleep, Arten began moaning his displeasure. "You just always think of something, don't you?"

"I'm planning on finding some universal crisis to defuse in half an hour or so. So no, I really don't care if Branden shows up on her door step naked and covered in war paint."

Branden drew a breath to tell his mother how he thought that was an excellent idea when she glared at him. He went back to clomping across the immaculate summer-green lawn. The Doctor really could have parked closer.

Rose chuckled with a sarcastic sweetness. "You're not leaving me alone with them and my mother."

The Doctor put his hands on the two older boys arms and pushed them apart before they could start 'accidentally' ramming into each other, which would no doubt end with them in a scuffle in the grass. "YOU are the one who wanted to come here. I have my own universe to deal with. I've never seen you this worked up. So really, what's this all about?"

Readjusting the hat on the baby's head, she glanced over at the Doctor. "Can't we just have one day where nothing happens?"

The boys got too close to each other again and the Doctor stepped between them without a word about it. Sliding his hands into his pockets, he kept pace with them, making sure they didn't spontaneously start killing each other (it was just that time of day). "Probably not. I'm sure it's POSSIBLE. However, it's just…highly unlikely."

Finally making it to the front door in broad daylight without anyone being alerted, or anything like that, Rose pressed the doorbell. "Alright, kids." But she looked from Rom and Branden to the Doctor as well. He made a face. "Best behaviour. Just this once."

Branden dug his toe into the ground. "Like when we went to Bwenn, an' Rom 'sulted the 'basidor an' we spent the night in the dungeon?"

The Doctor put his hand on the boy's head. "Something like that'll happen, I suspect." He was looking at Rose when he said it, though, making it abundantly clear that he didn't understand why she was turning this into a life-or-death situation. "And Jackie'll make us all eat her cooking and then we'll be in heaps of trouble."

Just as the door opened, Rose's heel clipped him in the shin.

XYZ

There were days when Jack wanted to kick someone's teeth in. Violet, he wanted to just slap silly. She was a Time Lord. She grew up travelling with the Doctor. She should have known to steer clear of the Time Agency.

Mostly he wanted to rearrange the dental work of whoever had taken her memories. He knew the sting of having that part of yourself taken away, of not knowing what you'd done or who you'd become in that time. And whoever had done it… they either didn't know what they'd had in Violet, or had taken advantage of her ability to see timelines before tossing her back to her old life.

He just stood there, in Owen's autopsy room, arms folded across his chest, watching her sleep off what he'd just put her through. The constant rebooting the mind scrambler had initiated would take a bit to wear off, then he could begin again. Until then, he had to watch her, to make sure she didn't wake up and start wandering about, trying to remember. Trying to step backwards through her own mind would only cause her to reboot herself again, and they'd be right back where they started.

For a moment, he'd cursed the Doctor not being here. But it was only a moment. He and Violet weren't getting along (it was a relationship he still did not understand the complexities of), and whatever she'd been through, the Doctor would no doubt make it worse by trying to 'set her straight.' Jack had been where she was about to go…it'd be better if she didn't go it alone, but he wasn't sure the Doctor would be helpful to her.

Rose'd probably box the girl around the ears for being so stupid, but she'd be there for her. The Doctor… Well, he remembered the state of things when the whole bunch of them had left after the incident with the TARDISes. The Doctor…sometimes left Jack in awe. Other times…reminded Jack that the Time Lord was much more human than he liked to let on.

He heard Gwen come down the steps into the autopsy room, but he didn't acknowledge her until she was next to him. "What've we got?" he whispered, still looking at the curled and sleeping figure on the metal slab.

Gwen handed him a file folder. "The bad news, or the worse news?"

Without responding, Jack looked at what they had. No, they wouldn't be asking Greg what had become of her—he was dead, January 2008. And in one of the most mundane ways, if the police report was to be believed: a car with bad tyres and a patch of black ice. It must have burned Violet to no end. A whole universe trying to kill them, and he's taken down by a bit of bad weather and a car with two-wheel drive.

The other side of the folder contained Gwen's hand-written notes after talking to Violet's former landlord. She'd up and disappeared in late 2008 and had spent three years missing. Then one day she'd simply wandered into his bar and plopped herself back on the bar stool and picked up drinking again as if nothing had happened. She'd seemed dazed though, and he thought she might be on drugs. But she had money for rent and he had another spare room. That had been her life for the last month, the pathetic thing—a ghost, condemned to repeat a routine.

"And what she's been doing in the interim is anyone's guess," Gwen whispered as Jack closed the file. "Whatever it is, it's been hard living."

Even in sleep, she lacked the ease of the person he'd last seen four months ago. Back then, Violet had a look about her denoting a past she was trying to come to terms with. But this new…thing, whatever it was…it was etched around her eyes, like she'd given up trying. The sad part was that this was on top of a potential three-year gap where she could have done anything at all.

Jack thought she was stupid as all hell, getting herself mixed up with the Time Agency. But he pitied the poor creature. Even without hearing her version of things, he knew she was a mess. He couldn't help but note just how…human it all was.

Slowly, Violet started to come around again. He absolutely had to do this in the right order, otherwise they'd be right back where they started—she'd be wondering what the hell he was doing in 2008, her memory would reboot, and she'd pass out again. It was how that stuff worked. If you tried to fill in the blanks, it would wipe you out, until you eventually stopped trying.

She rubbed her eye and yawned, stretching a leg. Before she could look around, he put a hand soothingly on her hair, the way Rose always did with the boys, when she was comforting them after a bad dream, or a skinned knee. "Hey there. You're ok. You had a bit of an accident." That was putting it nicely.

When she tried to sit up, he kept a firm hand on her shoulder. "You're ok. You're at Torchwood. Do you remember what happened after you left here with the Doctor and your mum?"

Her contact-coloured eyes came to focus on him after a moment. "Mum wanted to know what we were disagreeing about. She got mad when we wouldn't tell her…" Rubbing the side of her head, she slowly came back to herself. "He actually got the date right-ish. About a week after we left. Can you believe, we didn't even have to tell his parents about the time travel? Apparently a little sex is enough to put hair on the chest of people in their family."

Violet looked past him as she spoke, something very distant about her memories, as if they had happened to someone else. At this point…they might as well have.

Jack rubbed her arm, trying to keep her as calm as possible. It was more progress than he'd have hoped for so quickly. He'd had to drag himself out of this, though. She at least had the benefit of his guidance. "What was his family like when you got there?"

"Crazy. Just constant chaos. He has four sisters and two brothers. Always in and out of the house." She closed her eyes and let out a long breath, and he was almost afraid she'd gone back to sleep. "His dad wanted to kill him. Even if I was an alleged heiress. His mum was heartbroken we eloped at first. Then she felt better that I'd 'done right' by her son. Then she started trying to feed me. All the time. Did you know food is love? It is, apparently. It's why his mum is so…wide. I didn't say that. He'll kill me. I've never seen such a mama's boy. Or anyone who paid his parents so much lip service. He's rather passive-aggressive, you know…"

Oh shit. He'd had her step back so far, she didn't remember he was dead. Which meant she was going to go through it all over again, when she remembered. Maybe he could try this again later? Maybe he'd get it right, then.

Leaning against the table, he rubbed her back in between stroking her hair and brushing her cheek with the back of his finger. God, what had she done to her hair? The long dark hair…suited her much better in this form. This blonde mess was fried and her roots were showing. It didn't look natural on her. In fact, when Owen had brought her in, at first he'd thought it was Rose, who also (coincidently) looked better as a brunette.

With his lips just above her cheek, he whispered, "why don't you rest now? We can talk about the rest later."

Within a few moments, she was out again. This time it was a light sleep, more of a nap than her brain rebelling against itself.

Stepping away from the table, Jack ran a hand through his hair. Damned stupid kids.

Of course, she wasn't a kid. She was at least twenty-nine now. Who knew how long the Time Agency had her. Then again, if the Doctor was around a thousand, that meant she was barely in Time Lord adolescence. Which meant there was much more dangerous stupidity to come.

Lucky him.

XYZ

The Doctor was certain Jackie's high-pitched squeal at seeing Rose and the children had punctured his eardrums. They HAD to be bleeding after that.

Of course, when she'd first come to the door, she'd thought it was Violet, and was scolding her granddaughter for leaving something a mess last Sunday before she even reached the door. There'd been a second of surprise—not so much disappointment as just…shock that it wasn't who she thought it should be…. And then the high-pitched howling had started.

Jackie had to be what? Sixty-some-ish? And she still looked the same as when he last saw her. Well, not exactly, the same. He could see the bits she'd had nipped and tucked and tugged. Modestly so, which made him admire her self-restraint. With the type of access Jackie Tyler had to cosmetic surgery in this universe, it was a wonder she wasn't a smooth and slightly freakish specimen ready for a travelling show more than a night in public.

She'd descended upon Rom and Branden without so much as a hello to Rose, or even acknowledging the Doctor's existence, which he was largely ok with. Every time Jackie noticed him, it ended badly. Or at least, that was his memory of their acquaintanceship.

Rassilon, it had been two whole lifetimes since the first time Jackie Tyler had slapped him silly. This was actually Rose's second go at motherhood. Hell, this was his own second chance (in recent memory) to warp little minds and make them hate him.

Well, Susan hadn't hated him. She'd actually done a fair bit of taking care of him, back in that first life when he'd been so damned certain of everything, including himself. Granted, he and Susan had gotten into some fantastic rows over everything from food replication to what he should do with her two snooping schoolteachers.

Ahh those were the days.

Back when you could just have a screaming match and a hug followed by some tea and all was well. He didn't have to worry about someone like Violet running around on the verge of creating a temporal anomaly to save someone whom history says cannot be saved.

It was why he'd left her and Greg without a TARDIS. It was an easy trick to retrieve her ship, but he'd be damned if he let her muck about in time and space while she was feeling the initial stings of grief. She'd get her ship back when she could contain herself better. Rose thought it made him a bit of a bastard…but she didn't understand how much relied upon Violet getting her head together and acting rationally. If anyone, Rose would understand it. But for some reason…he just couldn't bring himself to tell her of just what they'd gone through, digging through Violet's mind. Why trouble her with it?

"Well, aren't you going to answer me?"

The Doctor's head snapped up and he met Jackie's laser beam eyes. "Huh?"

Rose's elbow caught him in the chest. He was just taking all the abuse today, wasn't he? "Mum wants to know if you're taking care of me properly."

"Why would I do that? Rose can take care of herself." Then the Doctor saw the look in Jackie's eyes. "I mean—completely. She's only been hunted by aliens once this week--" he shut up abruptly. That wasn't making Jackie happy either, if those creases at the corners of her smoothed-out eyes were any indication. "That wasn't my fault. That was Jack's fault, and I'm not taking the blame for that. I'd like to point out how I rescued both of you…"

Branden let out a high-pitched howl at something his brother did. Digging both hands into Rom's big wavy hair, he grabbed hold and began pulling furiously. The older boystomped on Branden's foot, grinding his toes into the cement as he let out a howl of anguish at having the hair ripped from his head.

Without a word, the Doctor stuck his arms between them, put a hand on each of their faces and pushed them apart. He gave an innocent smile to Jackie, who was tsking as she grabbed the baby out of Rose's carrier.

Sighing, the Time Lord gave up. "I have a thing. Back at the ship."

Rose's eyes flicked between anger and desperation. What the hell had gotten into her? Maybe it was just Jackie. Maybe the older woman had an aura of making people angry and weird if you stepped into it. But it only worked on women.

He scratched the back of his neck. "You go on, you all catch up. I'm going to…repark the TARDIS. No sense in having it a million miles away when…" when they needed it for something. Like a quick escape. "I think I just sensed an anomaly in the time stream. Or something."

Without trying to improve upon the excuse, he took off across the lawn, as fast as his legs would take him. Rom informed him, in words he'd thank Jack for later, that he was a 'real douchebag.' Didn't stop him though. There was a time to stand and fight and there was a time to run with your tail between your legs.

Unfortunately it meant that Rose was probably going to follow through with that making him regenerate on the spot thing, when he dared show his face again.

TBC…