"This," the Doctor says to himself, "is the strangest trip I've ever taken."
"Are you counting the time on Aurellion Prime? Because that got us three deaths sentences, as I recall."
Turning, the Doctor sees...him standing there. It's strange, feeling that connection. It's not as strong as it would be with another full-fledged Time Lord, but it's undeniably there.
Rose's husband looks around. "Where is everyone?"
"Your Torchwood coworkers are exploring. I think they're having a hard time accepting the whole "bigger on the inside" thing."
"Humans."
"You speak from experience?" The Doctor leans against the console and folds his arms.
"Years of observation. Rose is lying down," he says, answering an unspoken question.
"Is she feeling all right?"
"Just tired. Happens a lot when she's pregnant. I might have noticed something, if we hadn't been so busy lately."
The Doctor nods. "Parallel world travel will do that to you. I've closed down some breaches. They're incredibly stubborn."
"Can we get them all?" He goes to the computer monitor to see for himself.
"I think so. Have a look."
When Jack Harkness finds them, they're both wearing glasses, identical frowns of concentration on their faces.
"Find anything, Doctor?"
"No," they say together.
"Kids are getting restless. Tony's in charge now. Hope that's okay."
"They're fine," Rose's Doctor says absently, still focused on an equation. "Tony's a good kid most of the time."
"Rose is a good counter to Jackie, I bet," the Doctor says from the other side of the computer.
"Well, it's not just Rose," he says, slightly offended. "I've had some part in it, too."
"In what?" Tony asks.
"In raising you to be a normal boy."
"Yeah. You were pretty cool. Are we there yet?" the normal boy asks. "This is dead boring. What happened to all the field work and danger to life and limb that Mum's always talking about?"
"That's overrated. Where are Jack and Lily?"
"Watching a movie. This TARDIS seems to like them. It keeps playing the same thing over and over."
The Doctor can't quite suppress a smile. Those children are part Time Lord and therefore part of him. A slight part, but it's there, and the TARDIS is responding to it rather cheerfully. He can't help feeling cheerful about it as well.
"The TARDIS will do whatever they ask of her."
"Really?"
"I think so. Well, within reason."
Tony shakes his head. "What's going on?"
"We're closing up some breaches. Once enough are closed, we should be able to get you all home safely."
"How soon if we do it not-so-safely?"
Rose's Doctor taps him on the head. "Go away. Practice what you'll say to your mother."
"Before or after she finishes yelling?"
"Oh, after. Definitely after. We'll be home soon. Safely."
"That's what you always say."
"It's always true."
"You always come home. Not always safely."
He looks up, arrested. For the first time he sees that Tony has always known the truth, despite his young age. Torchwood is a dangerous place, and no matter how hard they tried to conceal it from him, he knows exactly what the risks are.
"It's the 'coming home' part that matters, Tony," he says finally. "And we always come home."
Jack takes a frantic call from his team and leaves the console room. He returns wearing his coat and carrying his gear.
"It's getting bad, Doctor. Bring me back to Cardiff. I need to hold off the chaos there. Take care of things here and close up whatever's causing all this."
"Jack -"
"Please." Jack holds his gaze for a long moment. "I want to stay and help you, Doctor, but I have to get back. We're the only thing down there preventing the bad guys from winning."
"All right," the Doctor says finally. He sets the controls, lands close enough to the Hub for Jack to meet his team.
Jack hesitates at the door. "I gotta go. Doctor - I'll see you soon. And Doctor - if you don't come back before you go home - thanks for naming your kid after me. Give Rose all my love."
And Jack Harkness is gone, heading off to save the world once more.
The Doctor stands there, staring after Jack. It's still hard to watch his friends head off into danger.
"He'll be all right."
The Doctor jerks back to attention. "I know. How do you hurt a man who can't die?"
"Make him human," comes the answer before he can stop it.
The Doctor stares at him.
"Sorry. Rose tells me I have some issues still, that's all."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize! You didn't cause it. I ought to thank you, anyway."
"What for?"
"For Rose."
After a pause, the Doctor feels compelled to point out the obvious. "You haven't thanked me."
"No," he agrees. "Shall we go?"
The TARDIS is very fond of the children. When Lily gets tired of the movie it obligingly switches to music. Pink and blue lights start to swirl around the room, making her laugh.
"Do red and green!" she cries. "We can pretend it's Christmas!"
"I don't think it matters what time or day it is in here," her brother says. "Things don't work the same here."
"I don't care. I like it here." Lights start to blink on the floor, and she starts to jump on them, hopping from light to light. "Where's Mummy?"
"Sleeping." Jack has found a book and is lying on his stomach, reading.
"Why's she sleeping? Let's go get her. She'd like to jump."
"Dad said to leave her alone for a while. Want to read with me? There's room for two," he offers.
"No, no, no," she chants, punctuating each no with a hop. "Is he the Doctor, really? The other one?"
"Mum said he was." Jack turns the page. "I don't think this is in English," he says thoughtfully.
Lily hops over. "It's in Venusian," she tells him. "The TARDIS wants you to think it's English."
"Why would it do that?"
"I don't know. It just does."
He looks carefully at the cover. "Weird sort of trick."
"It's not a trick," his father's voice says from behind them. "She's helping you to read it."
"The TARDIS does a lot of things to help. Sometimes even when you don't want help." The other Doctor is behind their father. Jack and Lily stare at him for a long moment.
The TARDIS greets his arrival with a new song. Lily stops hopping.
"What is that?" she demands.
"Ha! Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick." Her father says this with a great big grin and looks at her expectantly.
Lily stares at him. "What?"
"That's a silly title," Jack observes.
"No taste," the Doctor says sadly. "Your children are very human."
"Ian Dury's not so big in our world, at any point in time. Shame, really."
The TARDIS senses disapproval and starts up a new tune. The Doctor recognizes the melody as the one his counterpart has been humming off and on since his arrival. Lily starts to jump around the room again.
"Come on!" she says to Jack.
"No."
The music picks up speed, and finally he's forced to his feet. Soon he's jumping behind Lily.
"Mad as loons, both of them," their father says with a smile. His smile turns to a grin, and then turns to laughter. Yes, he's on the wrong world. But he has his children. Rose is here. They're having a baby. No matter what happens now, they're together.
He joins his children as they dance around the room. Lyrics start to play along with the music. The children immediately pick up the lyrics and start to sing.
"We'll go dancing
And then we'll do it again
Oh oh oh oh oh oh
Talking 'bout the same old things
I recall the simple whoa oh"
Jack punctuates this last line with hand gestures. Lily keeps moving, a look of serious determination on her face.
"You wore flowers
That's the funny thing
You don't even try
Hi hi hi hi hi
Whoa oh oh oh oh oh
Whoa uh oh oh oh ohoh"
Their father urges them on, clapping in time to the music.
"Who sent me roses
Who sent me flowers
Who said they saw me on the TV show
That just the way
Offer hospitality
Never mind the things you don't know"
Tony comes into the room. He hears the music and sighs.
Jack and Lily dance around, singing at the top of their lungs. They bounce into each other and then into the Doctors' legs. Both Time Lords stagger backwards.
Lily finishes up with a flourish of her arms. "Hi hi hi hi HI!"
She stands there as if waiting for applause. Her brother obliges.
"Our, er, song of choice lately."
The Doctor smiles. "Lovely."
No matter what happens next, he's happy. He meant to give Rose a fantastic life, and he did. He clearly succeeded. Part of him gets to share that with her, part of him gets to go on in these children. It wasn't the perfect plan, but it was close enough.
"I can feel your smugness from over here."
"You're welcome."
Rose finds them in the console room. Jack and Lily are lounging on the captains chair, right where she used to sit and watch the Doctor tinker.
The Doctor is underneath the grating, right where she expected him to be. Her husband is guiding something on the computer monitor.
"Hi, mum," Jack greets her. "Are you feeling better?"
"Yeah." Rose smoothes back his hair as he comes to give her a hug. "I am better, thanks." She marvels at how tall he's getting. He'll be as tall as his father someday, if not taller. "What are you doing?"
"Watching home movies," the Doctor tells her from the floor.
"Have you got home movies here?" she asks, confused. "What about?"
Her own Doctor holds up some wires. "Tony's. We're going to attach his recorder to here."
"Aren't there breaches to close?" she asks. "A world to save and all that?"
"We've tracked down five already. Once we have the kids occupied we'll go on."
"Where are the others?"
"Jack is gone. He went to help his team with something in Cardiff. Once we're done we'll go back and check on them. Simon and Riley are making sure their scanners and trackers are working."
"Jack's gone?" She can't help but be surprised. She thought he'd at least tell her goodbye.
"Something's happening back at his place. He wanted to go fix it."
"Where's Tony?"
"He'll be right back," her husband says carelessly.
"But he's here, yeah? He didn't walk off with Jack or anything?"
"I'm here, Rose. You don't have to act like my mother all the time."
"Someone has to," she retorts.
"This is the longest holiday ever," Simon complains as he and Riley come in. "We're trailing behind everyone, walking around this enormous ship, waiting for something to happen."
"It will happen very soon," the Doctor assures him. "Here we go."
They've rigged Tony's recording device to the TARDIS computers, allowing the images to appear life size and in 3-D.
"I ought to apologize in advance," Rose warns the others. "Tony's video captures tend towards his friends, and they're usually trying to see how many cheeseburgers they can eat at one go or something."
As the TARDIS heads towards the next breach, everyone watches the hologram-like images. The images are whirling by in a rapid blur, much to the appreciation of the children.
"That's Granny!" Lily cries happily. "There's me on my bike!"
"Can we play a game instead?" Jack wants to know. "We've seen all these."
People and places zip by, Pete and Jackie and people the Doctor doesn't recognize. Simon and Riley, Jake Simmonds and others. Rose, standing with her husband, holding a small infant. Rose with a small boy, clearly pregnant again. Her Doctor, wearing shorts and a t-shirt and waving a surfboard. Beside him, Jack is a miniature version of his father, wearing identical clothing and holding a smaller surfboard.
"That was a nice holiday," Jack says with satisfaction. "I almost drowned."
"Twice," his father agrees. "And then your mum taught you how to do it properly."
"What - you don't surfboard?" the Doctor asks him. "Seems easy enough - maintaining balance upon the water's surface."
"There were aliens in the water," Lily says seriously. "Big aliens that swim and eat up surfboards."
"They didn't eat the surfboards," her brother corrects her. "They wanted to eat the people on the surfboards. But dad stopped them."
"Merely a matter of disabling their breathing devices," their father says grandly. "Nothing to it. Although the town did throw us a very nice dinner as thanks."
The Doctor lifts his head as the TARDIS beeps a warning. "I think we're nearing another breach."
"We'll get our stuff," Riley says, and heads back to wherever she's keeping her supplies.
"Come on, guys," Simon tells the kids. He moves the recorder, his wires, and everything else to a room next to the console room. The children troop in without complaint.
Rose's Doctor stands beside her as she watches the Doctor track the next breach. "How do you feel?"
"Better, thanks." She wants badly to hold on to him, to feel his arms around her and reassure her that everything will be all right, even if it's a lie. She doesn't, because the Doctor is there and she doesn't want to hurt him. He left that beach in Norway as she was kissing his human counterpart, and she still doesn't know if he left because he wanted to or because he couldn't stand to see it.
She will never know, because she will never have the nerve to ask him.
Her husband knows what she is thinking. Not all the time, not by a long shot, because after all, he's a human male, Time Lord bits or not. He wraps his arm around her waist.
The Doctor is aiming for the breach. "Your children are charming," he says. "Very talkative."
"They're both very bright," Rose says eagerly, glad for an opening to talk about the family they'd been concealing. "They're human, but they have little Time Lord minds."
The Doctor looks up at this.
"In their case, it just means they can read and write earlier than normal," Rose's Doctor explains. "And walk and talk earlier. And multiply in their heads at the age of four. Well, Jack could. Lily's not four yet. She can only add and subtract six digit numbers in her head."
"It's a bit weird," Rose admits. "Not fun having kids who are smarter than you are."
The Doctor smiles. "I'm sure they're brilliant."
"One heart each." Rose's Doctor says, answering a thought in his head. "They're human."
"Then they're definitely brilliant." He pauses. "And beautiful."
He is happy for her. Rose smiles at him. "They're only here because of you."
"Well, I don't know that I'd go that far," her husband disagrees.
The TARDIS lurches and throws them all to the side. "Oh, no." The Doctor reaches for a lever.
The TARDIS shakes and then lands with a thump.
"What's happened?" Rose asks in alarm.
Her husband bends his head over the monitor. "We're on land. What planet is this?"
The Doctor shoulders him out of the way. "Is it Earth? Can't be - we were millions of miles away."
"Bloody hell. We're going to be pulled all around the universe for an eternity if we don't stop this."
"Well, only one way to fix this." The Doctor grabs his coat and heads for the door.
"I don't see anything," he says from the doorway.
Simon is suddenly there, weapon primed and ready. "Let me, Doctor. Ready?" he asks Riley.
"Ready," she confirms.
A quick scan of the outside turns up nothing.
"It's clear," Simon says to the others.
Rose and both Doctors come out. Jack and Lily follow, already knowing enough to stay close to an adult. Tony brings up the rear, slowly. He's eager for adventure, slightly unsure of what to do when that possibility suddenly presents itself.
Riley looks around. "Well. A whole lot of nothing."
Tony walks a few meters farther out, taking Riley's words at face value.
"It's quiet," he intones. "Too quiet."
Riley rolls her eyes.
"Surely there's a better cliche than that," Rose's Doctor complains.
Tony takes another step and then a dark shadow suddenly covers the space where they're all standing.
"Blimey, I take it back!" Tony says hastily.
A burst of laser fire hits near him, and Riley leaps forward to grab Tony's arm. "Don't move!"
Another burst hits even closer.
"Into the TARDIS!" the Doctor shouts.
"No, Riley!" Simon aims his gun up in the sky and he starts to fire at the ship above them.
"Don't move!" Rose yells. "Tony, don't move!" Her husband grabs her arm to yank her back to safety.
Simon moves closer to Riley, continuing his cover fire. Riley pulls out her dimension manipulator. The risk of travel right now is serious, but the threat of being hit by laser fire is even more serious.
"Go!" Simon and Rose scream at her, and she hugs Tony tight. A blast singes Simon's boots. Riley hits the dimension manipulator and a blast tears open the ground where they've been standing.
They vanish.
Abruptly, the ship vanishes, too.
Simon lowers his gun, staring up at the sky.
"It's gone," Rose says. "Are they connected? What just happened?"
The Doctor restrains Jack, who's about to follow his father.
Rose's Doctor moves out away from the others. Simon stands still, watching him.
"Nothing!" Rose's Doctor calls back.
A shiver runs down Rose's spine. "Come back," she says, starting to walk to him. She suddenly encounters a barrier, invisible but very solid. She bounces back and blinks in surprise.
He starts back, reaching for her. Rose has raised her hand to him, trying to reach past the barrier.
And then he vanishes.