A wail sounded through the night, piercing everyone in the house's ears. Not that the wailing was anything new.

She grumbled and pulled off her sleep mask. "It's your turn," she drowsily ordered her husband, who faked being asleep still. She saw right through it and smacked him on the shoulder. "Oi. I know you're awake."

"Wha—oh, hello, darling," he said. " G'morning…is that our son keeping us awake at all hours?"

"It's your turn."

"Rose, I got him last time."

"That was yesterday. I got him an hour ago."

He grumbled, stretched, and swung his legs over the bed. "You owe me a snog."

"I don't owe you nothin'. Hop to it," she giggled, smacking him on the backside. "And hurry back."

He grinned cheekily at her and left the room for the nursery to fetch their infant son. Rose watched him go, feeling her wide smile spread all over her body, deep in her heart.

It really couldn't be much better. Rose got off the bed as well and went to the desk, watching the tiny piece of TARDIS coral bloom absurdly slowly. It wouldn't be ready for another five years, but even the smallest chance of getting to travel again was the most beautiful dream she had left.

Besides the traveling, however, Rose Tyler had literally everything she could possibly ask for. She'd thought her world was over when she was banished here, but she'd made a home for herself. Her father was alive and married to her mother, and Pete and Jackie couldn't be happier. She had a little brother and a calling. She wasn't just a shop girl anymore—she was one of the foremost alien hunters and experts at Torchwood.

The greatest expert, of course, was her husband John. They'd decided to call him John Smith in public, keeping with his pseudonym, but after their marriage, he'd switched it to John Tyler. "It sounds spiffier," he'd told her with a loving smile.

Rose had been so worried, in secret, that she wouldn't be able to love John the way she loved the Doctor. Sure, they looked exactly the same and had the same sort of memories, but there was an element to the Metacrisis Doctor that wasn't the same. It was darker, more emotional, and much more frightening. But Rose had been patient and helped him turn from the battle-born alien into the caring and loving man she could claim as her husband, with pride.

They'd made a good life together. She could honestly say she loved him, and not just because he was a duplicate of the Doctor. She loved John Tyler for all the human nuances that differentiated him from his Time Lord self, and she was grateful for the chance she'd gotten to be with him for the rest of her life. And now they had a proper family.

She missed the traveling, and she knew he itched for it. It was something insatiable in him—he worked as a professor at Oxford and taught night classes at Cambridge while leading the Torchwood team and even correcting physics textbooks "for fun" just to keep moving. He had to keep busy to forget the fact that they were both grounded until the TARDIS coral grew, and while it made schedules tough, they'd made it through. Together.

She still called him the Doctor. Most of her family and friends did, despite the birth certificate and passport that addressed him as John. Some things never go away.

He walked in after a few minutes, magically rocking their son to sleep almost immediately, and followed Rose's gaze. "Five more years, Rose. We can take Bo with us and show him castles and knights and the Calderon Galaxy."

She grinned and turned to him. "I love you."

He took her hands in his and kissed her forehead. "And I love you. Do you know how liberating it is to say it? I could say it every day."

"You do say it every day. As loudly as possible," she laughed.

As if to prove her wrong, he pressed a warm kiss to each temple and whispered as softly as possible, "I love you, I love you, I love you…"

"You're completely daft, Doctor."

"At least I'm still foxy."

"We'll see about that, luv," she said, teasing the streaks of grey already lining his hairline. "We're getting older. My eyes are starting to crinkle at the edges."

"They always do that," he insisted, examining her face. "When you laugh."

"You know what I mean. We're getting older. I'm turning thirty in a few months."

"Big deal. I was still in primary school when I was thirty."

"Shut up."

"You shut up." She sighed, still laughing. "I only mean…I'm worried. I want to make sure this is okay for you, since the coral probably won't be ready for a long time, if ever…and you're giving up all this adventure just to live day-to-day life with me."

He shook his head. "I chose a long time ago that this is the life I want to have. And between you and me, the whole running-for-your-life thing was getting pretty boring. Terribly tiring."

"Liar."

"Rose, please just believe me when I say that I might miss it, just like you do, but you happen to be my biggest adventure. Going to the grocery store and making sure I get enough packages of pasta is a daunting mission indeed."

She playfully smacked his upper arm and slid back into bed, preparing for a long day of paperwork at Torchwood tomorrow. "Remind me to drop Bo off at Jackie's."

"I wrote it down on a Post-It for you. Did you know I invented the Post-It?"

"Get out! You did not."

"I did to. I did a lot of fun things when you weren't with me in the TARDIS. I wrote the song 'Fly Me to the Moon'."

"I refuse to believe this."

"You should—I wrote it for you."

She smiled warmly and thanked him with a kiss. "Have I ever told you how lucky I am that I landed a bloke like you?"

"Oh, go on."

The couple in wedded bliss giggled and quickly dozed off, thinking that the distance grinding sound they heard was only the dreamy echo of the TARDIS in their memories.

"Rose…" the Doctor said from downstairs in the kitchen. "Rose, could you come down here for a moment?"

She'd been finishing her morning routine upstairs, braiding her hair into two pigtails and grabbing Bo from his play-mat on the floor. Their son had been cooing at the star mobile that his father had made for him before he was born. "Come on, Bo, let's go see what your daddy destroyed this time," she said soothingly, picking him up and walking him down the stairs on her hip.

What she saw in the kitchen made her jaw drop.

A frenetic young man in a bowtie, tweed jacket, and apron was whirling around their kitchen and juggling two frying pans, one with simmering chocolate and the other with a full array of bacon. On their countertop, a slim man with dark curly hair and a blue scarf was sitting cross-legged with his hands folded under his chin. He almost looked like he was meditating, or ignoring the ruckus the energetic man was making. Beside him, a familiar-looking man in a black leather jacket was shifting his weight from foot to foot, and her husband was watching them all with wide, horrified eyes.

Most surprising of all, in the living room a few yards away, almost glowing in the rays of morning sun, was a very familiar blue box.

"Doctor?" she asked her husband, stepping back to protect Bo.

Unbelievably, three faces turned to look at her—the Doctor in his trainers and trench coat, the wild cook, and the man in the leather jacket.

The cook turned from his bacon and chocolate and faced Rose, and the only sound in the room was the simmering stove as he broke into a slow but enormous smile. "Rose."

Something about him struck a chord in her, something in the way he said her name. It sounded like he knew her, and while she knew she'd never seen him before in her life, there was something about the grey-green of his eyes, and how soft and sad they looked. Too old for a young face.

A smile crept onto her face, disbelieving and incandescent, and she knew exactly who it was.

"It's you." She laughed. "Blimey, it's you!"

He opened his arms to her, despite the greasy apron. "Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth. I've come home."

She gave Bo to her husband and ran to him with him a rib-crunching hug, breathing in the familiar scent of…whatever time and space smelled like. Somehow old and new, and completely safe. "Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor, Doctor!" She pulled away for just a second to examine him, running fingers through his hair, taking in the fact that he had no eyebrows at this point, tugging on his ears and re-learning this new smile. "You've changed. You need a haircut."

"No, my hair's cool this way," he argued before hugging her tightly again. "Brilliant, brilliant Rose. I've missed you!"

The other Doctor cleared his throat. "Oi. Big shot. Let go of my wife."

The tweed-jacket Doctor was unfazed, waving to his human counterpart. "Oh, hello, Handy! You got married! And you got granite countertops! I love granite! Did I ever tell you about the time I worked on Apuciopuch when they were making the Granite Hotel? I developed a healthy appreciation for granite that week."

Rose laughed out loud, buzzing on the high of the moment. None of it really made any sense, but she didn't want it to. She turned to notice the man in the leather jacket. "Dr. Watson!"

He recognized her with surprise. "Rose Tyler! You're the Rose we're here for?"

"Here for?" the trench-coat Doctor said with a protective growl.

"Doctor," Rose said, trying to calm them all down. John and the two Doctors all simultaneously said yes.

"Now I have a headache," Sherlock whined.

Rose shook her head, looking to her husband. "John, then."

John Watson and the trench-coat Doctor both answered her, eliciting more groans from them all.

"Well, what am I supposed to call you all?" she complained. "We have three Doctors, two Johns, and one new bloke!"
Sherlock extended a hand to her. "The name's Sherlock Holmes."

"Not the Sherlock Holmes? As in, Arthur Conan Doyle's?"

"Arthur Conan Doyle?"

"Spoilers, Rose," the tweed-coat Doctor warned her.

"Spoilers?" repeated the human Doctor. "A woman I met at the Library used to say that. Have you met her yet?"

"Handy, you have no idea."

"Sorry, but what exactly is going on?" John whinged, clutching at his temples. "How exactly does everyone know each other?"

They all remained silent for a moment.

Sherlock spoke first. "Well, no one seems to want to explain themselves, so I'll do it all for you. The man in the tweed jacket is the real, Time Lord Doctor. We came by the TARDIS through a hole in the fabric of time and space originally made by our adversary, Jim Moriarty, who has led us on a sick wild goose chase through the universe to rescue the Doctor's wife and child. No, not you," he said, shaking his head as the human Doctor clutched Rose and Bo protectively. "The Doctor met and married someone else about a hundred years after leaving Rose in Pete's World. We believe that part of our enemy's game involves the Doctor's previous attachment to Rose and we've come to take preemptive action while searching for his wife. You're Rose Tyler, you're 29 and you've been married to the human copy of the Doctor for either 4 or 5 years—oh, it's been five, you blinked when I said five—and you have a complicated relationship with both Doctors since you feel like you left things in the open when the alien Doctor left you, but you're worried what your husband thinks of you for thinking so, or else you wouldn't be holding his hand so tightly right now. You know John because you went to him before you traveled with the Doctor, probably for something negligible like a cold or a sore throat, and he asked you out on a date after that. You went out for coffee—no, drinks—but it fizzled out after one date due to…age difference. Which meant that there must have been a significant one. You were 18, then, so legal but only barely. It's why you called him Dr. Watson but happened to recognize him after one glance—you wouldn't have recognized a doctor you met once when he was on call, but you don't feel comfortable enough calling him John after only one date."

Everyone blinked in surprise. "Blimey, is he always like that?" Rose whispered.

John suggested they come up with better names to address each other with.

"Well, Sherlock's Sherlock," the tweed-Doctor decided, "and John Watson is John, and Rose is Rose. That leaves us Doctors, eh, old chap?" He offered a high five to the human Doctor, who refused him. "Come on, Handy!"

"You're not calling me 'Handy'."

"How about 10 and 11? You're the 10th version of me, and I'm the latest model."

Sherlock made the decision for them. "We don't have all day, gents. Let's try and get past this pedestrian name confusion and move on. 10, Mrs. Tyler, and the child—if you please, sit down. We have a lot to discuss."

"Actually, Sherlock, perhaps we should handle this with a little more sensitivity," 11 said. "If you don't mind, I'm going to talk to Handy—er, 10, and Rose alone. I owe them a lot of explanations." He opened the TARDIS doors with a snap of his fingers. "How would you two like to be in the TARDIS again?"

10's reluctance to go along with the newly returned 11 almost immediately vanished. "The TARDIS?"

"Well, it's been in your living room, mate. Didn't you notice?"

"Obviously, it's just…we haven't been in a while. Clearly."

11 smiled. "Come on. Don't you miss it?"

"I'm not comfortable leaving Bo with these people."

"You can trust them, 10—I do. And if you trust them in the future, why can't you now?"

He didn't want to argue with the logic, and he'd been itching to get in the TARDIS as soon as he'd seen it that morning. "Come on, Rose."

11 ushered them in the TARDIS, which hummed happily to have them back. "Have fun with Bo, boys! Be good daddies, eh?"

Sherlock gulped as the TARDIS disappeared. "John. Does he expect us to watch this child?"

"It would seem so."

"…I'll be on the computer."

"Oh, no, you don't!" John pulled him by the scarf and brought him dangerously close. Sherlock could feel his breathing get a little faster, for some reason. He would have to examine this piece of data later. "The Doctor left us in charge of Bo, and I'm not going to let you run away. We're both watching him."

Sherlock gulped again. "Very well. But if he defecates, I am leaving."

Rose took in the new TARDIS interior with a hushed exultation. "I can't tell you how much I've missed this. But it looks different."

"Things change," 11 explained, allowing 10 to mess around with the controls. "Pick a place for us to go, old boy. You've waited long enough."

10 grumbled in his general direction, but he picked somewhere and set them off for it. "How exactly did you get back, then? And why? I know what Sherlock said, but I want to hear it from you."

"I'd love to tell you, as soon as you stop panicking that I'm here for Rose. I have no intention of breaking up your marriage—when I left you and Rose here, I wanted you two to find happiness together. Nothing's changed."

10 looked at his eyes as he said it and nodded. "All right. I believe you. But you're going to have a tough time explaining it to her. She thought she'd never see you again."

Rose crossed her arms expectantly, waiting for an answer. "You can say that again, mister."

"The universe was closing up again. I was positive I'd never open it again, even to see you. I wasn't lying about that," 11 continued. "Someone else has opened a hole, and I need your help to close it and fix everything I've messed up."

10 rolled his eyes. "Why are you always getting yourself into trouble?"
"Oi, I think you mean 'we', 10," 11 said defensively. "We are the ones who always get into trouble. And I've really messed up this time."

"We'll help you," Rose reassured him. "Both of us." And she squeezed 10's hand to prompt him to agree.

"Yeah, all right, we'll help. I suppose we have no choice in the matter. Besides, I do love a good mystery," 10 said.

11 gave them an appreciative smile. "I was hoping you'd say that. But it's kind of a long story. D'you mind if we talk about your lives first? I'd really like to see if there's some lives I haven't screwed up yet."

10 landed the TARDIS. "Let's do it here, shall we?"

The trio exited the TARDIS onto a grey seascape, with wet sand and craggy rocks outlining the water.

Rose smiled. "Bad Wolf Bay. Of all places, Doctor, honestly." She shook her head. "Sorry, I mean 10. This is hard to get used to."

11 mirrored her smile and ran around the beach. "It's really not a very cheery place to be, but I'll take it. So, tell me everything! What happened after I left?"

"Well, it wasn't easy," 10 said, sitting down and stretching against the humming TARDIS. "We were both pretty mentally damaged after everything that happened. I mean, I was a genocidal half-alien with some serious brooding problems, in love with a girl still in love with you. But we learned how to be together, like you two used to be. Though, I daresay we're a lot more fun."

Rose nodded. "It was definitely hard at first. He's not you, like I said. But that's actually a good thing—he's his own person in so many ways. And I fell in love with him—you—both of you, I guess, all over again."

11's smile could have rivaled the sun. "You love him. That's good. I was worried, but I knew it just needed time. And you got married!"

Rose flashed the ring at him. "Yeah, we did. Big affair, Jackie and Pete controlled it all…but it was really nice. Very tasteful. And we did a big tour of the world as a honeymoon, and when we came back I was pregnant with Bo."

"Blimey, 10—that's great, but how do you keep from getting bored? The coral isn't grown yet."

"Through lots of work—Torchwood, Oxford, teaching, writing, investigating… But you'd be surprised how interesting family life is. It's an acquired taste for Time Lords, but I realize the gift you were trying to give us. You were giving me the life you couldn't have." 10 gave him an appreciative look. "Thanks, for that."

"My pleasure. How're Jackie and Pete? What's Torchwood like? How is this world different? What's Bo like? Is he brilliant?"

"We're happy to answer your questions, Doctor, but don't you think you need to explain a bit?" Rose reached out a supportive hand. "Sherlock said you got married."

"Er…right." 11 sat down in the sand with them, making a strange triangle indeed. "I suppose I should get to that."

"Doctor, what's wrong?" Rose frowned in concern. "Sorry, 11. This is getting weird."

"You have new companions," 10 noted. "Donna…you had to do a memory wipe, didn't you?"

"How'd you guess?"

"I have your brain, remember? Same memories. I knew she couldn't survive unless you wiped her mind."

"Well, I did. I suppose I should tell you from the beginning, then." 11 leaned onto his back and looked at the sky, still wearing the greasy apron. He started to look less happy and more…lost, in a way. Like a little boy searching the sky for old friends. "I had to save Donna, so I let her go. She doesn't remember me, but she got married and had a nice life. And there was this whole thing with the Master and her granddad Wilf and drums and a load of rubbish, and I regenerated into this body."

"The Master?" 10 said, instantly alert.

"Don't worry, he's gone now. Not coming back." 11's face darkened. "I sort of went on a farewell tour after that, since I'd absorbed radiation energy and I was dying. That bloke you met on New Year's, Rose, all those years ago..."

Rose gasped. "I knew it must have been you—I thought about it years later. There was something about that night that made me sad, and I couldn't figure out why. That usually means you're involved."

"Well, then I regenerated into this hot body—"

"Not as hot as mine."

"Definitely debatable."

"Boys."

"Well, I regenerated into my 11th form and got a new TARDIS look, which is pretty sexy, by the way, and I got new companions—the Ponds! Brilliant Ponds, Fabulous Amy and Rory. They traveled with me after I regenerated, and oh, what fun we had. Amy loved getting into trouble, and Rory loved chasing after her."

"Did they fall in love?"

"Did they fall in love? They have one of the greatest love stories in the universe!"

"I thought WE had one of the greatest love stories in the universe," Rose laughed.

"Easy, Tyler. You're a married woman. I don't go around cheating—not on myself."

Rose nodded, enjoying the jokes. "So, Amy and Rory. What happened to them?"

11 scowled and looked away. "They died."

Rose felt the uneasy silence settle in, so she put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "We don't have to talk about it. Was there anyone else?"

"Yes, there was. That's sort of the reason why I'm here."

"Let's hear it," 10 said. "Sherlock said…you got married."

"I did. You both have to understand, I didn't think I'd ever…not after Rose. I'm not exactly cut out for loving people that way. But she was different. She was the daughter of the Ponds, to start with…"

"You shagged your companions' daughter?"

"Oi, wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey!" yelled 11. "She was older by the time I met her. We're both time travelers, so we travel in different directions. When I meet her, I don't know how much she knows about us. It's a constant mystery."

It dawned on 10 first. "River Song."

"How did you know?"

"In the Library. She already knew me, she expected me. I just didn't know how she knew so much about me. And she knew my name."

"I know your name, 10," Rose said. "What's the big deal with Time Lords and names, anyway?"

"Well, it's not really a big deal for you to know mine, since I'm not actually a full Time Lord. But for Time Lords themselves, they're completely guarded secrets. Only a few people get to know them, since some, especially 11's, could destroy the universe. So the fact that River knew meant that she was there when 11 revealed it, and that she was close enough to him for him to actually tell her."

"What's supposed to happen, that he tells his name?"

"Spoilers," both Doctors said. Rose groaned.

"I already hate that word."