"Come on, Ellie, you can do it!" Clara encouraged, holding her arms out.

A few feet away, Sarah Jane was barely supporting Ellie, now approaching her first birthday. Sammy, Donna Noble, Rose, Amy, Narnia, and Gwen stood nearby holding their breath. Martha was the only one in the room calm enough to video the event.

"Go on, Ellie, go to Clara," Sarah Jane encouraged, letting go.

Ellie wobbled for a moment, then took two shaky steps in Clara's general direction. On her third step, she fell forward, and Clara caught her into a hug. Everyone erupted in cheers.

"Way to go, Ellie! What a big girl!" Clara cooed, kissing her forehead. "Oh, I can't wait to have kids."

Clapping, Sarah Jane looked like she was about to cry. Before she could say anything, the Doctor ran in from her kitchen, icing smeared all over his face.

"Did I miss it?!" he asked breathlessly.

"Don't worry, I got it on video," Martha said, grinning. "And she only took two steps."

"They were her first steps!" Sarah Jane, Sammy, and the Doctor said simultaneously.

"Danny, come look!" Clara called.

Reluctantly, Danny emerged from the kitchen, wearing an apron and still licking his fingers. Clara set Ellie on the ground and gave her a gentle nudge. Grinning, Danny quickly knelt and caught her after four quick steps.

"Aww, look at you!" he praised.

"She'll be grown up before you know it," Amy said.

Sarah Jane elbowed her in the ribs. "Stop it, I'm trying to live in the moment!"

"Who wants cake?" Rory asked, bringing the messy but edible cake from the kitchen.

Narnia ran to the door and stuck her head out. "Alonso, Tenor, it's time for cake!"

As the boys came running in, Danny set Ellie in her high chair right in front of the cake. She eyed it hungrily and reached out, but Clara grabbed her hands.

"Not yet, silly girl," she said.

"Let's get a picture," Sarah Jane said.

"But you've got to get in it," Clara protested.

"Get one of everyone else first," she said. The camera clicked before anyone else had time to move. "Sorry, this is new camera is very sensitive. Alright, squeeze in. Alonso, stop hiding behind Rory. Gwen, act natural, it's not a dramatic photoshoot. Ellie! Ellie look at me! Got it!"

"Good, let's eat!" Alonso said.

"No, we have to get one of Sarah Jane and Ellie first," Danny said, wrestling him away.

"And Sammy," Sarah Jane reminded him.

"I'll take it," Donna offered. "I can take good pictures, I just can't hold still long enough to video a baby's first steps!" she protested when everyone looked skeptical.

The doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," the Doctor said. "Get your picture, I'll be right back."

"Wait!" Rose said. She rubbed the icing off his face with her thumb and licked it. "Ok, now you can go."

"Thanks," he said, grabbing a napkin.

He checked a mirror to make sure he was clean before he opened the door. To his surprise, Christopher Lake, Donna Tyler's second boyfriend of almost a year, stood on Sarah Jane's doorstep. He looked excited and nervous and desperate at the same time.

"Christopher?" the Doctor exclaimed in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, well I went to your house and asked for Donna, and your mother said she was over here."

"No, you're thinking of Donna Noble. Your Donna is at college still."

Christopher's face fell. "Oh. I thought for sure she would be here for the baby's birthday. She told me all about her last time we talked."

"Ah..." the Doctor said, suddenly remembering he was supposed to pick Donna up in the TARDIS before he had gotten distracted with the cake. "Well...it's difficult to travel back and forth between America. Even we don't have that much money..."

Christopher studied him for a minute. "Where is her college?"

The Doctor stared back, uncomprehending. "Is this a trick question?"

"Maybe."

"Montana. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back..."

"No," Christopher said, staring back with a a resigned disappointment. "That's not what she told me. "She said it was in Oregon. And a few weeks ago Rose told me it was in Iowa."

He looked at the ground, upset. Signing, the Doctor stepped out and closed the door behind him. Cake would just have to wait a few minutes.

"Is she dating someone else?" Chris snapped. "Or does she just not like me anymore? Is this her way of breaking up with me?"

The Doctor inhaled very slowly. "No, of course not. I can explain, but I need to know one thing first, and this is very important. You're only her second boyfriend, although you have lasted longer than the first which is a good sign. How serious of a relationship is this between you and Donna? What happened between you?"

Christopher threw back his shoulders and looked him right in the eye. "Sir, I am deeply in love with your daughter. We'd been in the same school for years, of course, but it was only last year that I really started to realize how extraordinary she is. Somehow I didn't have the courage to tell her before graduation. But then I couldn't help thinking about all the time we had wasted, and how much time we would waste if we delayed it any longer. And what if something happened to her unexpectedly? I miss her like crazy. I looked into the university that she told me she attended to see if I could transfer there so I could be with her. And I know we're only 19, but one day I wish to marry her."

The Doctor had to look away for a minute before he could answer. Finally, he nodded.

"Now will you please explain why everyone is lying to me?"

He inhaled sharply through his nose as he realized what needed to happen. "If I explained, you wouldn't understand or believe me. So let me show you. It won't take long."

"I've got all day."

"Right. Follow me."

He led Christopher around to the back of the house, where he had parked the TARDIS away from prying eyes. Without any explanation, he snapped his fingers and the doors flew open. He nodded for Christopher to go inside. Eyes wide, Chris walked to the back, made sure there wasn't a secret door that led to another room, and stepped inside. The Doctor walked straight to the console and took off, sending Christopher crashing into the couch.

"What's happening?!" he yelled in a panic. "What is this place? Where are you taking me?"

The Doctor didn't answer, he was too focused on not crashing the TARDIS. Surprisingly, he managed a pretty good landing. He dragged Chris to his feet and marched him outside. They were nearly blinded from the Florana sun, but as soon as his eyes adjusted, Christopher took a step back in amazement, taking heaving gasps for air.

They were on a hill overlooking a marketplace, filled with strange, twisted architecture and bustling with aliens of all shapes and colors. There were humanoids, yes, but also Judoon, Raxacoricafalapatorians, whatever the people of Akhatan were called, and many others. The Doctor quickly grabbed him by the back of his neck and dragged him away to an exotic garden which was slightly less overwhelming. They found a bench and sat down.

"Are you ready to listen and believe anything I say now?" the Doctor asked.

"I'm ready to ask more questions and decide for myself if you're lying," Chris shot back. "But yes, I think I will believe more of your story."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, surprised that he had recovered from the shock so quickly.

"Alright, let's try that. Why don't you try to figure out what's going on and ask me questions to confirm it?"

"Ok. So, that box is bigger on the inside..."

"Oh, good observation. I was worried you might miss that."

"Excuse you, I wasn't finished. Please stop taking me for an idiot and let me speak. I suspect it's bigger on the inside because it's like a portal. And obviously it can travel through space. It's a spaceship with different dimensions, probably to disguise itself from the rest of our world."

The Doctor nodded approvingly. "Good. If you'll allow me to elaborate a little bit...?" Chris nodded. "It's called the TARDIS, short for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. We also call her Nanny. She's a slightly sentient creature, not merely a piece of technology. It took her sixteen years to grow in our basement with an accelerated growth program, but normally it would take thousands of years for a TARDIS to grow."

"So, she's an alien in her own way?"

"Yes. She's from Gallifrey, a planet that no longer exists. She's the last of her kind."

"Are you from Gallifrey?"

"That was a quick assumption."

"Well, I thought it was obvious. You own..."

"Oh, she owns me."

"Yes, alright, but you still travel with a TARDIS from that planet, and you looked sad when you said it didn't exist."

"You're very quick. As a matter of fact, yes I am. Well, sort of. Technically I'm half Time Lord."

"Time Lord? Wait, don't tell me..." He looked back at the TARDIS in amazement. "It can travel in time, too?!"

"We just don't know when to stop," the Doctor confessed.

"Ok, so go back to how your only part Time Lord. Was one of your parents from earth? Is that why you look human?"

"No. For one thing, Time Lords came first..."

"So humans look like Time Lords."

"Now you're getting it. But here's where it gets complicated. There are multiple alternate dimensions in this universe. Normally, Time Lords would help people cross those divides, but since they're all gone, it's nearly impossible. Nearly."

"You're from another alternate universe? Your whole family?"

"Me and Rose. Our children, including Donna, were born here."

"But time travel, space travel, and aliens are all real? Like C.S. Lewis' space trilogy, he wrote that as if it really happened. Did it really?"

"Yes. Well, the first two books were dramatized a bit, because I was the one who took him to Malacandra and Perelandra, but the third book was almost entirely accurate."

"Whoa. What about Star Wars?"

"Are you going to go through the whole Sci-Fi genre?"

"No, not right now. Sorry. You still haven't explained how you're part Time Lord."

"Ah. Even more complicated with lots of science. But I'll try. Back in our old dimension, I'm a full-blooded Time Lord. We have this fancy trick where if we die, we can regenerate and grow a new body."

"Like starfish?"

"Yes, but like our whole bodies. And we look different and have different personalities. It's almost like becoming a totally different person. Anyway, when I regenerated into this body back in that dimension, I lost a hand in a sword fight-long story I'll tell you later-and was able to grow a new hand. But my old hand was saved, and when it was in danger and touched by Donna's namesake Donna Noble, it grew me. So then there were two Doctors, one full-blood, and one half-human."

"You grew from a hand after a human touched it? Ok, that is complicated."

"Do you understand?"

"No, not really. But I'll have Donna explain it to me later. Continue."

"Right. Well, Donna Noble's DNA got mixed with my own, so now I'm mostly human with a Time Lord brain. I only have one heart and I can't regenerate anymore. I'll age normally, at the same rate as Rose."

"Ok," Chris said, nodding. "So I'm guessing because there were two of you, you had to be left in this world...I mean, universe, because there wasn't another of you here since the Time Lords were gone. And Rose stayed to keep you company."

"Um, actually yes," the Doctor said; again surprised. "That's exactly what happened, more or less."

"So, Donna is a quarter Time Lord. Is that why she's so smart?"

"Partly. Most of it is her own person and DNA, but I suppose a bit of Time Lord didn't hurt. But she is basically human if you were wondering."

"Why would that make a difference?"

The Doctor grinned. "You know, I think I like you, Christopher Lake."

"Thank you, I like you, too. Now for Donna. She's not in America, or England, or anywhere on planet Earth, is she?"

"Nope. She attends the University of Appalapachia, a different planet than this. I didn't want you running into her before you knew the whole story."

"Makes sense. But can we go see her now?"

"Absolutely. In fact, I was supposed to pick her up for Ellie's birthday party, but then I was enlisted to help decorate the cake and kind of forgot. But don't tell her that."

"Not a word as long as I get to see her."


Donna, Melody, and Aijalon, their new friend from Akhaten, were studying in the Waterfall Courtyard. It was Donna's favorite place in the University, other than the science lab and library. Because it the university was located in the mountains, they got a great overlook of the West city and the spectacular sunsets the planet offered. And thanks to the forty-foot waterfall, the whole courtyard was usually turned into a giant prism of rainbows. Aijalon was helping them with their History of the Armalayan Galaxy homework when the TARDIS materialized in the center of the courtyard, right under the waterfall.

"Dad!" Donna cried, jumping to her feet as the Doctor exited and was instantly soaked.

"Oh, I parked under the waterfall again!" he exclaimed, jumping forward. "Hey, careful when you come out, I parked under a waterfall!" he called back into the TARDIS. "Hallo Donna!"

"Dad, what happened? You promised to pick me up yesterday for Ellie's birthday party!"

"Was that yesterday for you? Sorry. Danny was really stressed over Rory's obsessiveness over decorating the cake, so I was roped into helping them. And then a friend of yours came to the house and demanded to see you so I got caught up in that."

"Friend?" Melody asked.

"What friend? Donna echoed.

At that moment, Christopher jumped out of the TARDIS and through the waterfall. Donna's eyes widened in shock.

"You brought Christopher?"

She was so surprised she accidentally shouted, and Chris, looking hurt, took a step backward and into the waterfall. Yelping, he quickly jumped out again.

"Is this a bad time?" he asked meekly.

"N-no," Donna stammered. She looked up at her father. "You told him?"

"Sorry, did you not want me to?" the Doctor asked, suddenly wracking his brain for ways to erase short term memory.

"No! No, I'm glad!"

Laughing, she ran over to Christopher and hugged him, ignoring the damp. Relieved, he kissed her, and the Doctor had to bite his lip and look away to resist the impulse to tear them apart.

"I missed you," Donna sighed. "And I hated not being able to tell you the truth, but we have a rule about not telling all my friends until..." She drew back slightly so she could look at him. "What did you tell him?"

Chris grinned. "I told him how much I loved you."

"And then I took him to Florana and explained the whole thing. Well, technically he worked out half of it for himself and he wasn't a bit overwhelmed. He's very smart. I like him, Donna. You have my blessing to keep him. Forever if you'd like."

Donna smiled and kissed him again. "Good."

Melody stood and clapped her hands. "Well done, Doctor. Mum all be so proud. She was worried about this."

"Mels?" Christopher asked. "You're here? Are your parents aliens too?"

"No, just old friends that travel with me," the Doctor said. "We have a lot of catching up to do with you. But not now. We've got a birthday party to get to!"