By the time they were all seated around the oval-shaped dining room table, the intense summer storm had mostly spent itself. Booming thunder and fierce rushes of wind had ceased, giving way to nothing more than a weary drizzling splatter against the windowpanes; as if the evening was still quite unhappy but had run out of reasons for shouting about it.

Amy knew the feeling. When Jake had left a bit earlier, claiming exhaustion, Amy had wished that she could escape as well. Having the Doctor care for her ankle, her foot in his lap, as he ran the sonic's warm green light back and forth over it followed by his thumb's gentle caress, had been so nice that she'd only narrowly escaped breaking down. The always-in-control part of Amy had hated that. His concerned full attention had her anger fading faster than the soreness in her ankle, and without it she was powerless, drained, and far too emotional. Even her normally insatiable curiosity had long since gone, and she wanted everyone else to go away too. She dreaded the thought of another extended conversation with these people.

But now, with her pain finally eased and some food in her belly, Amy was beginning to feel like her own woman again. No one was making any attempt at conversation and the relaxed, quiet atmosphere acted as a soothing balm to her chaotic state of mind. Seated between Rory and her Doctor, she took slow breaths and basked in the peacefulness, chewing a bite of chicken curry and avoiding all eye contact in favor of allowing her gaze to wander about the room again. It was amazing how different it seemed now, seeing it as the home of a Time Lord rather than that of an heiress.

And now it made sense. Amy told herself that if her imagination had ever run wild enough to picture the Doctor living in a flat in London, it might look something like this. Large and open because it would make him feel the least like a caged lion. Sparsely and simply adorned, never too domestic. Yet, one important feature was quite noticeably absent from this Doctor's abode. Search as she might, Amy didn't see anything remotely, well, extraterrestrial.

She thoroughly surprised herself by being the first to break the extended silence. "Where's all your alien stuff?" she asked John, who was sitting directly across the table. "You must have some somewhere. Even if you don't have a TARDIS, Rose said you two work with aliens. If you're really the Doctor then there's no way you spend that much time with aliens without nicking some of their stuff."

John shot her a cheeky grin. "First of all, Rose and I don't work with aliens. We work with humans. We just catch aliens." He paused. "Welllll," he clarified, smirking, "sometimes we catch them. Sometimes they get away. And sometimes we give them clearance to move into a dingy flat in the West end and teach modern dance."

Amy pinched her lips together but failed to prevent a smile. "You know that's not what I meant."

John quirked an eyebrow and shoveled an enormous amount of Pad Thai into his mouth, then leaned so far back in his chair that the front legs came up off the floor. Amy reflexively held her breath. However, this version of the Doctor was apparently far more coordinated than the one she knew; he balanced there effortlessly while he chewed and his round brown eyes sparkled at her.

"Alright, I admit that I occasionally borrow a few items from Torchwood now and again," he admitted, once he was able to speak. "But most of the time they don't even miss it. Torchwood doesn't know the half of what they have, much less what to do with it. I hide most of that stuff away in my lab. I do have a few things here but it's too risky to leave them lying around, with all the ignorant, nosy humans we have tracking in and out."

The Doctor was listening to their exchange with interest. "Is that where you're keeping your TARDIS, then? Torchwood? Is she shielded or something? But how would you expect to bond properly with her if you can't keep the link open?"

John brought the front of his chair down to smack hard against the floor, his easy smile fading. "She's not at Torchwood. She's here."

"But I can't feel her."

John hesitated. "That's because she's still too small," he admitted in a quiet voice.

The Doctor frowned. "But you've been here for over three years. Surely she'd be- didn't you follow Donna's instructions? Shatterfry the plasmic shell-"

"Yes, yes, of course I did!" John threw an impatient hand up. "I did all that, plus everything else I could think of that might possibly help. But Donna forgot about one thing. One very important thing. That no matter how much diesel you put into a petrol engine, it's not going to run properly. Baby or not, the TARDIS is not from here. The energy's not potent enough to get her growing any faster than normal. Should be fine in a couple thousand years, though."

The Doctor was silent for a long minute. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah."

Rory was mystified. "You grow a TARDIS?"

"Yes, well, they're alive aren't they? How else would they begin?" said the Doctor shortly, dropping his chin onto his hand.

He was obviously done talking about it, so Amy seized the opportunity to change the subject to one she found far more intriguing. "Now that we're not hungry, or in pain, or imminent danger, can someone please tell me how this began?" she asked, waving a finger back and forth between the Doctor and John. "I knew you were capable of a lot of weird, insane, alien things, Doctor, but I must say that this whole splitting yourself in two is certainly a new one. So what's the deal? Don't tell me that Time Lords are like worms or something."

Rose and John shared a knowing grin. "Did I ever tell you that's exactly what Donna said?" John asked, turning to the Doctor. "Right after it happened?"

The Doctor laughed out loud. "Did she? Oh, that sounds like her. I'll bet she was annoyed as all get out, suddenly confronted with another one of me."

"You don't know the half of it-"

"Hello!" yelled Amy, and everyone jumped. "Question! I asked one! Several times now, if I remember correctly." She held two fingers together, then dramatically separated them. "One Doctor, then two! Explain!"

The two Doctors stared at each other. "Be my guest," said Amy's Doctor to the one sitting across from him. "Since you were there for more of it than I was."

"Not much more. And I'm pretty sure she'd rather hear it from you."

Amy agreed with a vehement nod and the Doctor sighed, fidgeting with his bow-tie. "Fine," he conceded reluctantly, poking his fork into his mostly untouched plate before dropping it with a clink, down on to the table. "I supposed it all started when I regenerated into number Ten over here," he said, waving a finger to John. "Went a bit wrong. I ended up in a healing coma, so imagine my surprise when I awoke and walked out of my TARDIS to find myself onboard a Sycorax ship. Rose, in true Rose character, was attempting peace negotiations." He grinned at her from across the table.

"The Sycorax are like these big, dodgy, bug-looking aliens," explained Rose.

"Bug-looking?" said John doubtfully, squinting at her. "Really?"

"Yes," said Rose firmly.

Amy cleared her throat. "Anyway..."

"Anyway, one of those big bug-looking aliens-" continued the Doctor, smiling at Rose and ignoring the loud, annoyed huff from John- "was foolish enough to challenge me to a sword fight. He cut off my hand."

"He was the foolish one?" quipped Rory.

"Oi! Shut up. I won, didn't I? Plus my hand grew back instantly. Poor chap, he didn't see that one coming."

"Neither did I," said Rose seriously.

Amy stared at him, half fascinated, half disgusted. "You can re-grow body parts?"

"It was only because it was within the first fifteen hours of my regeneration. Long story short, an old friend of mine later came across my severed hand and saved it for me."

"Not quite accurate," sing-songed Rose. "You took it away from him."

"Well, it was my hand, wasn't it?" retorted the Doctor, shooting her the same pleased sort of glare that a sixteen-year-old boy might give to a pretty girl.

John gave him a long, disbelieving look and shook his head.

"My turn," he said curtly. "This is taking too long."

Amy and Rory hung on every word as John, without too much interruption, spent the better part of an hour telling the enthralling story of how he and Rose had been separated, about his next two companions, how the planets had been stolen, and how throughout most of it his old hand had remained in its jar on the TARDIS. Until one day when Rose miraculously returned to him, and started a chain of events like no other.

"You see, I was in love with her," John stated candidly, and Amy watched the Doctor's cheeks turn pink as he immersed himself in tracing patterns on the tabletop with a finger. "And I'd believed she was gone forever. So when I saw her there at the end of that street, I completely lost my head. Forgot about the Daleks, forgot about Donna, forgot about everything- except running to Rose as fast as I could." He gave a sort of one-sided shrug. "Got shot by a Dalek before I ever reached her."

Amy gasped, from both what he'd said and the callous way he'd said it. Shot by a Dalek?

The Doctor seemed to share Amy's sentiments, judging by the dark look on his face when he lifted his head and spoke for the first time in an hour. "My fate was sealed from that moment," he said, "although I didn't know it then. I was dying. Again," the Doctor told them quietly. "I'd already regenerated on Rose once before. It was so hard on her. Here I'd just gotten her back- I couldn't do that to her again. So when I saw my opportunity to avoid it, I took it without thinking. As I began to regenerate, I used just enough of the energy to heal myself and poured the rest into my handy spare hand, as a kind of biological receptacle. When I saw that I had avoided changing, I was ecstatic. I couldn't have cared less that I'd spent yet another regeneration, I believed I'd just cheated the universe out of another victory over me. I was getting my second chance with Rose, and an opportunity to make right everything I'd done wrong the first time around."

Rose stared at him, wondering. "You'd never done anything wrong."

The Doctor locked eyes with her, his own deep and earnest. "Yes, well, I never did anything right, either," he said softly. Rose blushed and broke eye contact, looking rather off-balance.

Clearing his throat uncomfortably, the Doctor continued. "But of course, in the end all I'd accomplished was ensuring that none of it would ever happen. Donna was trapped on the TARDIS, which was about to be incinerated by the Daleks, when who knows what made her touch the jar with my hand inside it. It was still bursting with regeneration energy, and that one touch was all it took. Instantaneous biological meta-crisis. That hand became Doctor 2.0, if you will," he added, gesturing to John, who lifted said hand and wiggled his fingers. "He was me in every way, right down to the same Time Lord consciousness."

"But with a little dash of human," added John. "Of Donna. I've only got one heart. Human lifespan. No regenerating."

Rory began to question him on that but Amy tuned them out, her mind rapidly filling in the blanks. So this was why the Doctor had left Rose behind with this other version of himself. He loved her enough to give her up, to give her the normal human life he thought would be better for her than the one he could offer. Even though he must have known that Rose had intended to spend the rest of her life with him, on the TARDIS.

Well, regardless of what Rose had planned to do, she certainly seemed happy now, living on Earth, married to a part-human version of the man she loved. So the better question might be- had the full Time Lord ever regretted giving her up?

Amy thought back to the brief but terrible period of her life when she'd made the decision to give up Rory. It had ripped her apart, broken her heart, never for one second had she not regretted it. Even when she was so certain she was right in her actions.

Empathy swept over her, forcing out much of her own hurt. She glanced around the table. Rory and John were still engaged in intense conversation, Rose was smiling fondly at them, and the Doctor was watching Rose, his face a curious mix of emotions. Her heart suddenly ached for him. How must he be feeling, sitting here, right now? Amy may not understand all of the whys and hows yet, but for some reason, he still loved this woman. Probably always would. This situation had to be terribly painful for him. For as much as he and John had shared the same story, in the end, the Doctor was not the one who had got the girl.

Amy was brought out of her thoughts by a loud yawn from Rose. "Well, I don't know about the rest of you," she said, "but I'm about done in. We can talk more tomorrow, yeah?"

Rory instantly agreed, stretching his long arms. "Sounds good to me." He stood, offering a hand to Amy, and she accepted his help, mindful of her still tender ankle. She wasn't at all sorry to call it a night. She still had a million questions, but her head was full to bursting as it was. Sleep would help her sort it out.

After a brief but saddening visit to the small branch of TARDIS coral, tucked away snugly in her tank in his counterpart's office, the Doctor stood alone at a window in the great room, staring out at the city lights. He missed his own TARDIS, and although he'd been forbidden to leave this place he briefly considered taking off anyway. Spending the night alone in this room, with nothing to prevent some majorly disquieting thoughts, was not a pleasant prospect. But it was more than that. Time was just so wonky here, niggling in his head like a constant itch. Wondering how the Other possibly stood it, the Doctor rubbed his temples and turned his gaze toward the heavens, past the shadowy blobs that were zeppelins and their winking red and yellow lights. The clouds had cleared away some time ago and the stars had reappeared, and although heavy light pollution prevented him seeing their full number, they still seemed close. It could have been worse.

The Doctor in blue, the only other person still awake, appeared in his peripheral. Without turning his head, the Doctor watched his actions as he loosened and yanked off his tie, tossing it carelessly to the floor before he flung himself down in the nearest armchair with a loud sigh.

"So you're officially going by John Smith now, eh?" the Doctor asked him, still staring out the window.

"No. Yes. Well, legally. Didn't have much choice, since Pete insisted 'Doctor' wouldn't do for a driver's license and ID's and such. Never saw the like, a planet needing so much proof of a person's identity. Anyway, no one calls me John. At least not friends. Not that I've many of those."

"Does Rose go by Rose Smith, then?" The Doctor tried to sound casual, but the question had been nagging at him for hours.

Number Ten bolted upright in his chair and the Doctor snapped his gaze from the window to look at the outraged figure. "Are you joking?" he asked, voice pitched high, nose all scrunched up as if he'd just tasted a pear. "Why would she do that? Rose Smith? You know as well as I do that she is now, and forever will be, Rose Tyler. Brilliant name. Rolls off the tongue."

The smiles they shared were genuine, and the Doctor went back to his star-gazing with a feeling of profound relief. Not a speck of dust was impeding his view, he noticed suddenly, despite the heaviness of the rain earlier. Interesting. "Does this world have some sort of dirt-repellent glass or something?" he asked, pressing a fingertip against the glass, lifting it and marveling when it didn't leave a mark. "Brilliant."

"Nah," said the Other, slumping back in his chair and stretching his long legs out in front of him. "That's my doing. Had another run in with the Krillitanes, couple of years ago. I sent 'em packing, but this time I managed to have some of their oil sent back to my lab. Fascinating stuff. Not only does it make you smarter but it's the best bloody dirt repellent I've ever seen, anywhere."

"Better than the stuff we picked up on Xos? You know, that we use to keep dust off the console?"

"Yep," he replied, popping the p. "I wanted to coat all the furniture and surfaces with it, 'cos who wants to waste time cleaning, but Rose wouldn't have it. She was worked up enough about the windows." He looked thoughtful. "Although, that may have been because she was just a wee bit worried about my safety; climbing around out there. I'm fairly certain that she yelled at me." He shrugged. "Plus, she doesn't like the smell."

The Doctor pressed his nose against the glass and sniffed. The scent was odd, almost like chips, but a bit off. He decided he agreed with her.

"Anyway," said the Doctor in blue, "fun as this is, we both know you didn't come here to talk about cleaning supplies. So you're here to help us, eh? Thing is, as far as I know the Pete's World BBC nightly news doesn't broadcast to Prime. So-" his counterpart leaned forward and stared at him, eyebrows raised, elbows on knees. "I'm all ears. How could you possibly know we need help?"

The Doctor looked down, twisting a button on his jacket. Now that it was time to actually explain it, he suddenly realized how crazy he was going to sound. "If you want to know the truth, I kept having this- this dream."

Other Him tilted his head scornfully. "A dream? C'mon, really?" he said. "Is that all the better you can come up with? I've had some humdinger dreams in my time, but the most they've ever motivated me to do is to avoid going to bed for awhile. So you'll probably understand when I tell you that it's hard for me to imagine just how special this dream of yours must've been. After all, it made you risk your own life," he bounced to his feet and began to pace restlessly, ticking off his fingers, "not that you've ever valued it much, the TARDIS, your companion's lives, and last, but certainly not least, the entire bleeding multi-verse. Because of a dream? I can't wait to hear about it, actually."

He stopped pacing and looked the Doctor dead in the eye. "Or... maybe you meant dream as more of a goal, rather than a vision whilst sleeping? As in- you're here to achieve your dream of getting Rose back?"

"I've already told you several times that's not-"

"Or wait! I've got it! It was a literal dream, but wasn't that we, as in Rose and I, needed your help. It was just Rose, right? And I was dead."

("Oh, you think you're going to die, don't you?) There it was again, the same look that had prompted the Doctor to say those words to him earlier, surfacing in a set of eyes that were suddenly red-rimmed. A peculiar mix of hopelessness, desperation, and not a little bit of danger that was, for the Doctor, so eerily reminiscent of a time in his own life that he'd rather forget entirely. "Your song is ending." Though fleeting on his double, he'd once worn that look constantly; a symptom of how the dread of the prophecy's fulfillment had embedded in his hearts like an infection. But it seemed totally unwarranted in this context. Perhaps the man had just inherited a bit of Donna's flair for the dramatic.

"No," the Doctor stated slowly, "you weren't dead. Just injured. And Rose was very, very angry with you over it. Apparently you'd broken a promise you made her."

The human Doctor couldn't mask his shock. "What promise?"

"'Forever', was it? Oh, and that you were supposed to have 'let Torchwood take care of it.' Just what it is, well, so far you've refused to tell me, but fortunately, I'm very, very good at deducting. Let's see. For starters, you have an enormous telepathic disruptive field surrounding this building. That means whoever's been threatening you is alien, which is nothing new, and also telepathic, which is somewhat rarer. You've admitted the disruptor is the only thing preventing them from killing you, so keeping them from killing you means keeping them out. They must be clever, or else you'd have sorted this by now, far more dangerous than the usual, and quite ruthless.

"That's one word for it."

"Are they cleverer than you?"

His counterpart gaped at him. "What kind of a stupid question is that?" he asked, with deep offense. "My mind isn't part human!"

"Because the thing I can't figure out is why you haven't sorted this. Also why you've been so reluctant to discuss it."

The Other set his jaw in such a way that made the Doctor wonder if he would ever get his questions answered. "I didn't want to explain it in front of your companions."

"Why not?"

"Because...it's not pleasant. And they wouldn't understand."

Now, thought the Doctor, we're getting somewhere. "Well, here's your chance. Just the two of us."

Pinstripes resumed pacing, carding a hand through his hair. "So... what was wrong with me? In your dream?"

"Seriously?" He seemed to be changing the subject again, and the Doctor was getting tired of this game. He moved away from his place by the window to stand directly in front of the agitated man, forcing him to stop moving. "Terrible headache," he told him impatiently. "Sore, almost like I'd been fighting."

"That's it?"

"Yes! No! I don't know! Why does it matter?" The Doctor thought back and suddenly recalled his vision's most noteworthy feature. Aside from Rose in his lap, anyway. "I couldn't see. My eyes were bandaged."

The Other looked at him meaningfully and touched a finger to the side of his nose.

Brow furrowed, the Doctor stared back, until a wave of shock and realization pushed his eyebrows to his hairline. "No. You can't mean...telepathic assault?" he asked, in a whisper.

Younger him squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. "Yeah. They attempted to capture me first, so many times, but they couldn't. So they... they tried what works, I guess."

"But... that's just-" A horror. A violation. Highly illegal and punishable by death in every single galactic system, bar none.

"-so wrong."