A/N: There's some quite mushy stuff in this chapter, and I make no apology for it at all. If you don't like touchy-feely-scenes of mush and drivel, then walk away right now ... Other than that... enjoy!

Next Chapter we reunite to long lost lovers...

~~oooOOOooo~~

To Rose Tyler, it really didn't seem to matter just how many changes the Doctor went through every time he regenerated. One thing that seemed to remain constant throughout all those she had ever met was the excited and seemingly uncoordinated dance that happened around the main console every time the TARDIS was in flight. She was quite used to the exuberant dance of the Doctor, and of his excited babble as he input his coordinates and looked up at the Time Rotor Column to discuss the intended flight plan with his beloved ship.

What she found unusual about their current trip, and his current dance around the opulent console – aside from the opulence that was his current console room – was that he performed this ritualistic dance wearing a baby strapped to his chest. Arkytior had her back nestled up against his chest and squealed with delight at the array of brightly coloured flashing lights that danced across the console with as much energy as her father danced around it.

Every once in a while, when his dance paused for just long enough to stop the bouncing, he dropped a kiss to her downy little curls.

"Are you enjoying this, little Kerfluffiedaw?" the Doctor asked her tenderly as he gently swatted her curious and soggy hands from touching a lever. "Do you want daddy to teach you how to fly our magnificent timeship?"

Jackie clucked with disapproval as she approached from his left; from a pair of antique chairs across the main console room where she'd been sharing a pot of tea with Pete. She held her arms out expectantly.

"This bipping and bopping that you're doing is no good for my little grandchild," she chided him gently. "Pass over little Kate and let me care for her while you try not to pilot us into the sun."

The expression that crossed the Doctor's face as he held an arm across the belly of his giggling infant and took a rather long stride backward, was most definitely from the affronted category. He looked positively outraged that she would suggest such a thing.

"I will have you know, Jackie, that not only am I one of the most accomplished pilots of a TARDIS-" He stopped at a cough that may or may not have been an argument to that assertion from Rose.

Jackie was the one to make an actual translatable remark, however. "Oh really? Twelve months, Doctor!"

He flicked his eyes to Jackie, but leaned down toward Rose. He kept his voice very quiet. "What did I do in those twelve months, Rose?"

"Piloting error," Rose answered simply. She gently brushed Arkytior's hand from reaching out for a lever. "Back when we first met."

He leaned down a little further, his eyes still locked on Jackie, and lowered his voice to a whisper. "Did I bring you home a little after curfew, perhaps?"

Rose hummed in the affirmative. "About twelve months or so."

The Doctor gave a nod and straightened himself up. He licked at his lip, lightly swatted Arkytior's hands off the helmut actuator lever, and then cleared his throat. "Time travel is a complicated mastery…"

"You're a Time Lord," Jackie added quickly. Her arms were folded across her chest, she had a light-yet-indignant slouch in her hip and she tapped the toes of her foot on the ground. "And I'd reckon if you go about giving yourself pompous titles like that, then you'd know a thing or two about being on time." She sniffed a derisive inhale. "Time Lord. More like Got-No-Concept-of-Time Lord."

"Mum!"

"Oh, don't go getting all techy with me, Madam," Jackie shot back with an actual smirk curling her upper lip. "You know as well as me that himself here is as time retarded as any man born on Earth."

"Before you think about calling offence on that," Pete called from his chair. "You can't exactly call her wrong on it. It's true. One hundred percent accurate, Doctor. And I'm pretty sure it's coded in the genes or something that if you're a bloke-"

"It would be a chromosomal anomaly," the Doctor corrected tiredly with a rub at his brows. "And one's tardiness or lack thereof is not a genetically coded defect."

"Isnt' it then?" Jackie snapped. "Then you tell me why it's always the men that are always running outside their own schedule."

"Probably because they are avoiding a nagging female, I suspect," the Doctor huffed impatiently.

Jackie took a controlled step forward. "The only reason I'm not clippin' you for that comment, Doctor, is because you're holding my grandbaby." She held up her arms again. "Now please give me little Kate so you can concentrate on not piloting us into a sun or crash land us in a swamp or somethin'."

The Doctor held his child firmly against his chest and shook his head.

Jackie flicked her fingers. "You can hold her all you want them we're save on Earth, you plum."

"You don't understand," he began softly, brokenly. "This could be the last time that I-" His words cut abruptly as the entire console room pitched to one side and a long howl erupted from the central column.

"Doctor!" Rose cried out with shock. "What's happening?"

The Doctor was already back to his chaotic dance around the terminals. He flicked lever after lever and turned dial after dial. "Non-responsive," he growled angrily. "Not a single control is responding!"

"What does that mean?" Jackie yelped with far more fear in her voice than anger. "Are we crashin'?"

The Doctor shook his head and settled his whimpering child with a stroke of his hand across her hair. "Quite the opposite in fact," he declared with anger lacing his words. "We've been lassoed."

Rose gripped at the edge of the console and leaned forward in the hope of trying to decipher at least one thing on the expansive panel. "What does that mean, Doctor?"

"We've been captured," he said with a growl in his voice. It was a growl that shifted into a chuckle. "You think you have me, do you? Well I still have a trick or two up my sleeve…"

"What-'re you talkin about?" Rose asked with rising panic. "Who's got us? Can you get us free of their control?"

"Trying to free myself from specialists in TARDISes and temporal physics?" he grinned. "Piece of cake, really. I've been doing it for quite some time."

Pete appeared at his left; in between Jackie and the Doctor. "What can I do to help?" His voice was calm and controlled, the Torchwood President in all his glory. "Just who has us, Doctor?"

The Doctor let out a light huff and flicked his hand in a nonchalant manner. "Who has us?" he asked with a laugh. "Oh. Noone has us, Pete. The Time Lords might think they have a capable tether on my ship, but between us, TARDIS and I can wriggle ourselves free." He petted the rotor column. "Won't we, Sweetheart?"

Rose caught her footing and held tight to the console edge. "The Time Lords? Why would they be trying to capture you, Doctor? What did you do?"

He stroked his hand down along Arkytior's arm. "Oh," he sang guiltily. "I may have evaded a rather specific order to remain on Gallifrey to fight in the Time War." He breathed out a breath as he worked his fingers across a small keyboard adorned with a series of glyphs that were obviously Gallifreyan. "The TARDIS and I broke free of the Transduction Barrier .." He inhaled. "Andin trying to escape Council reach, we fell into your parallel."

"And now that you're back in this universe," she breathed with realisation. "They're recalling the both of you."

"I have to go back to the war," he said brokenly.

Jackie whimpered softly from around Pete. "Oh. Sweetheart. I'm sorry."

He sniffed wetly and cleared his throat. "Don't be, Jackie." He chuckled at the headbutt he received on his chin from his daughter as she kicked and cooed against his chest. "I know now that I-" Again his words cut, only this time it was as a large monitor lowered quickly from the juncture of the towering structure above their heads and flickered noisily to life. "Oh. Really? And just who's calling me, now?"

The blonde-headed and child-like face of Gallifrey's Lord President Romanadvoratrelundar appeared on screen. …And she didn't look at all happy.

"Lord Doctor," she chided with all the authority she was never afforded when travelling within the TARDIS walls. "How have you been able to evade our monitors and prevent our council from being able to temporally tether your TARDIS and recall her back to Gallifrey?"

He gave the monitor his most innocent expression. "My dearest Romana."

"Don't you begin to attempt to try to wile your way around reprimand by being suave, Doctor," Romana growled darkly. "Your charms definitely don't work on me, regardless of how attractive your current incarnation. We are at war. All capsules have been recalled to Gallifrey and all citizens of Kasterborous have been called to arms to defend the universe against invasion by the Daleks."

He seemed nonplussed. "I'm aware of the current situation, thank you, Madam President."

"Then you will return to Gallifrey immediately." Her eyes dropped at the sound of gurgling and bubbling from the Doctor's chest. Her pallor blanched further. "What is that, Doctor?"

He heard the worry inside Romana's tone and smiled somewhat victoriously. Surely she was like all other females who went from Angry to cooing in less than a second in the presence of an infant. "This is little Arkytior," he beamed proudly as he wrapped the little girl's hands around the index finger of each hand and then bounced side to side in a little dance. "My daughter. Isn't she simply magnificent?"

Her delicate hands flew swiftly to cover her mouth with her fingers. "Oh please tell me that you're merely hoping to adopt that child and that you aren't her sire." When she received only a blink of his eyes at her question, Romana shook her head and let out a shaking breath. "Oh, Doctor. Her mother. Tell me. Is she Gallifreyan?"

"Human," he answered quickly as if it was a perfectly natural response to the question.

Romana slumped just lightly. Any authority she held fell with her slouch, and rather that being a proud and powerful Time Lady, she looked tired and drawn. "There are specific laws in place, Doctor. Laws that expressly prohibit the siring of children in a natural manner – whether your mate is Gallifreyan or not." She looked at him helplessly. "What were you thinking to allow this to happen?"

"I trust that I wasn't thinking," he offered with a shrug. He yipped when he received a slap on the shoulder from Rose.

"You're admitting that in front of my mum?"

Jackie moaned and shook her head. "Oh, Sweetheart. I'm fully aware of the lack of rational thought that a man has when he's-"

"Stop!" Rose yelped as she covered her ears with her hands. "There are things that I should never hear come out of my mum's mouth. That's on the list. High up on it!"

Romana cast her eyes toward Rose. Her look was one of curiosity and warmth when she returned her eyes to the Doctor. "Is this your mate?"

He gave her a nod and held onto the hands of his daughter. "She is, Romana. I care for her very deeply, both now and in my future, where I really need to get her."

Romana's eyes flared wide and her lips came together to form a small and perfect "O" shape. "Your daughter and your mate are from a future incarnation, then?"

"Three from now if I'm reading my timelines correctly," he answered softly.

"And you're together now for what reason?"

"We got trapped, ma'am," Rose answered for the Doctor in a voice of pleading. "There was an incident back on prime Earth. Me and the Doctor, when we fixed it, I was transported to another parallel, and he wasn't able to come through the walls." She swallowed thickly and looked toward the Doctor, lifting her hand to gently touch his shoulder. "This version of my Doctor, he fell into our dimension right when I needed him most…"

"When I needed you most," he corrected softly, but with passion in his whisper. He cupped his hand around the back of her neck and drew her close to him. He pressed his forehead against hers and inhaled a deep breath of her, holding onto her scent for a long moment, only to let it out when he spoke again. "When I'd lost it all, and lost my will to continue to fight. I found you." He sniffed a shaking inhale. "I found Arkytior. I found Jackie and Pete. I found my reason to want to live and fight again."

Rose blinked tears free from her eyes and breathed out a wet and sorrowful laugh. "I love you, you daft alien."

"And I, Rose," he replied with equal break in his voice. "My hearts beat for you as well, my precious girl." He looked down into the blue eyes of a gurgling infant and touched lovingly at her cheek with his fingertip. "And you, as well, Kerfluffiedaw. My beautiful Arkytior."

Romana felt her heart break at the scene inside the TARDIS, but she also felt a glimmer of an emotion she'd all but lost almost a century ago when bit-by-bit her planet succumbed to the battle to save time.

Hope.

…And by the Gods it felt good.

"Your daughter and your mate," Romana began gently. "If they're from your future, then that means we – or at the very least, you - have a future."

"The Time War," he asked Rose softly. "I don't want to know how it ends or the toll it takes upon the universe in her entirety, but when we meet…?"

"When we meet, Doctor. The war is over," Rose clarified for him. "And you return to your life of travel throughout all time and space. Saving civilizations and planets…"

"And falling in love," he finished with a smile.

The TARDIS gave a shudder and what felt like a long sigh of relief as the tether from Gallifrey released its hold on the weary time ship. The Doctor immediately looked up to the screen with question across his face. "Romana?"

"I've released the recall on your TARDIS," she answered for him without having to hear the question. "You need to keep both your mate and your child as far from here as possible," she warned quietly. "I can't hold off the battle forces for too long, and they will notice that your TARDIS is evading the call much sooner than they would later." She smiled weakly. "I can only provide you with about an hour, maybe two, to get your family to a safe haven out of the timeline of this war. Do it, Doctor. Save them, because when they find you, you won't have a choice but to return to what's left Gallifrey. Don't make them passengers on that trip."

"Romana…"

She raised her hand to ask that he say nothing further. "Doctor. If there is one Gallifreyan child that can be protected from all this, let it be her." She smiled down at Arkytior, who was happily giggling in complete obliviousness to the dangers surrounding her. "Tell me. What is her full name?"

"Arkytior Alleliah Tyler," he answered in a lyrical voice that was almost musical to the ear.

"How appropriate," Romana sang softly. "And you, did you chose that name specifically, Doctor?"

"She's a gift to me from the universe," he said with a smile as his eyes filled and then spilled free of tears. "My sliver of hope, and the most precious and wonderful reason across all of time and space for me to fight … and to win." He nodded. "Yes. I was very deliberate in what I named her."

Rose stroked their daughter's hair and looked up to the Doctor. "What does it mean?"

Romana answered for the Doctor. She could see by his closed eyes and controlled breathing that he wouldn't be able to voice it himself.

"It really doesn't translate well into your language," she began gently. "If I tried, the meaning would be lost to you. But the closest adjective I can find is that she is his hope. A beacon across the darkest night, and his way back home."

"That's a lot of meaning in two words," Rose mused quietly to herself.

The Doctor's eyes opened and he looked down at her with a warm smile. "And yet our names run for a mile and offer no meaning at all."

"You're running out of time," Romana warned gently. She cleared her throat at wiped at her eyes. "If you don't mind, I think I'll take the name of your daughter and use that to find my own way through this."

"It'd be an honour," he offered with a bow that – surprisingly – lacked the typical facetiousness. "Romana. Thank you."

"An hour. Two," she warned again. "Beyond that I can't help you, Doctor."

"That will be sufficient time," he acquiesced with a firm nod of his head. "I'll return before the War Council realises that they've lost me again."

"Thank you, Doctor."

Without any further discussion or sentiment, Romana Disappeared from the monitor, and it went dark. Silence filled the cavernous command deck of the TARDIS broken only by the happy gurgle of an infant.

"Well," the Doctor finally spluttered when the silence became too much. "I guess that our trip to Venusia-prime will have to wait until I'm in my Eleventh Body."

Jackie touched her fingers to the Doctor's arm. "Sweetheart. Are you alright?"

"Me?" he asked with forced joviality. "Oh, Jackie. I'm always alright."

"Except when you're not," Rose offered softly as she curled herself around his arm and pressed her forehead into his shoulder.

"I'll be fine, Rose," he promised her as he leaned forward to use a scroll wheel to doublecheck that the TARDIS was on a new course. "With you and Arkytior in my hearts, I'll always be fine."

"But –"

He touched his thumbtip and finger to her jaw. His lifted his brows and smiled in an attempt to draw her into smiling even just a little. "When I'm the man you need me to be, then younger me will bring you back home. And that, Rose, oh that is something for me to look forward to."

The TARDIS shuddered around them and the rotor stopped cold and silent in the middle of the console room. For the briefest of moments, Rose believed that the TARDIS may have been caught again, but the look in the Doctor's eyes as he stared at the main entrance to the time ship told her that beyond all doubt they'd landed where her Doctor was waiting for them to come home.

At least she hoped that he was waiting for them. "Where are we?" she queried softly.

"Woman's wept," he answered in a hoarse whisper. He sniffed sadly as he looked toward her, but he managed a smile. "You and Arkytior might want to pull on a coat. It gets pretty cold here."

"I know," Rose said with a smile. "You've brought me here before."

"I have?"

She nodded. "Here's where I promised you that I'd stay with you forever."

~~oooOOOooo~~

Donna Noble pulled on the lapel of her thick arctic jacket and looked across the cold and rocky landscape toward the lonely figure standing hopelessly alone underneath a towering wave of Ice. Once a week he brought her here; to this cold and desolate piece of the universe so that he could stand alone under the wave with his hands in his pockets and a posture of sorrow down along his back.

He never explained to her just what continually brought him here. Donna had asked him more than once just why this place was so important to him that he actively scheduled very time-specific visits here. The only answer he would ever give was a single word full of emotion.

Forever

Donna could argue the Chrome off a towbar with this alien in order to get her way and stop with his barmy ideas and self-imposed rules or Time Lordery. She wasn't shy in doing so, either.

But when it came to this place and to the shift from happy puppy to solemn and lonely god, she let him be. Anything else could wait, she supposed. He'd lost so much in his long life, and she knew he was in considerable emotional agony that it felt like only one name could be a balm for. But she was no Rose Tyler. She wouldn't be able to actually pull him out of any self-imposed funk, so it was best to give him a bit of alone time to wallow in misery when he needed to.

Cause she'd seen what happened to him when he gave in and let those emotions win. Here. Here, he could battle them. She knew that for sure…

A whining and wheezing sound slowly drew in from behind her, starting as a shrill long distance cry and then materializing into a heavy lung dragging whine and wheeze that seemed to echo off the cliffs that surrounded her.

She spun quickly toward the sound and held her hand against her heart as though to calm it. For the briefest moment, she considered calling for the Doctor, but when a blue box identical to the one her Time Lord travelled in started to materialize only feet in front of her, she thought better of it.

"What in the bleedin' Hell?"

Her head tipped to one side and her eyes flared horrifically wide when the doors opened and a man wearing a baby stepped out onto the rocky terrain. He leaned back in to take the hand of a woman and cautioned her to watch her step as he led her outside the TARDIS.

The man lifted his head to look up ahead of him and smiled a warm and friendly grin toward her. "Well. Hello. And who might you be?"

Defensiveness kicked in pretty quickly, and Donna braced herself as she lifted her nose and gave him an indignant look. "Who are you?" She shot back.

He grinned and shifted the pink blanket that he held over the baby strapped to his chest. "I asked you first," he sang cheekily. "And as you don't remember me, I'm going to assume that you aren't the Doctor in female form."

Her eyes flashed wide. "Pardon me?"

Rose gasped. "You can change into a girl?"

"Well. Yes," he answered on a careful drawl. "If I truly wanted to, which I absolutely do not because I have far too much respect for females to actually become one of them."

Donna shook her head with confusion. "What are you on about, and who are you?"

The Doctor grinned and stood tall. "I'm the Doctor. Can you please tell me where I might find myself in – oh – three hundred years into my future?"

"Wha?"

Rose shook her head and playfully punched the Doctor on the shoulder, chuckling when he moaned pathetically in pain. "You daft git. Knowin' you, you haven't explained to her regeneration yet, so she's got no idea what you're on about."

He rolled his eyes. "The topic never comes up until it becomes absolutely necessary."

"Change that, yeah?" Rose stepped up toward Donna and held out her hand in a friendly gesture of greeting. "I'm so sorry about him. The Doctor – no doubt you've already worked out – despite calling himself a Time Lord is anything but a refined kind of bloke."

"I take offence to that," he grumbled.

"Anyway," Rose continued. "I'm Rose. Rose Tyler, and I'm wondering if you can point out the Doctor to me." She held her hand up. "Hopefully right now he's about yay tall, wears a pinstrip suit with Chucks, has wild hair…"

"Hedgehog, I believe your mother describes it as," the Doctor said with a chuckle more toward his daughter, who had rolled her head enough that she was staring up at him with a wide open smile of thrill. "Yes, darling. Hedgehog. I become a humanoid hedgehog when I get older."

Rose chuckled and rolled her eyes. Before she could speak, however, Donna gasped in a breath and dipped to look Rose in the eyes. "You're Rose. Rose Tyler, as in the Doctor's Rose Tyler."

Rose smiled. "He mentioned me?"

Donne lifted her head and then pointed toward the frozen wave and to the solitary man standing underneath it. "Rose, he never stops mentioning you."

Rose looked across the rocky terrain toward where her Doctor stood. She was vaguely aware of Donna introducing herself, and even absently whispered that she was happy to meet her, but her eyes were locked on the figure in a long coat standing off in the distance. She could see his guarded-yet-casual stance underneath the crystalline wave that towered over him. His hands were tucked deeply into his trouser pockets and his head was raised high to gaze at the colours of the very peak of the wave.

He was power. He was isolation. He was a man standing up against the largest beast, and he would never back down.

He was her Doctor.