Thanks for all the reviews. I've taken everything you've said into consideration and the Doctor will certainly be dropping the 'drunken loser' routine, as one reviewer put it. I can see you're not impressed by it and, as you'll all have realized by now, I can't type drunken speech to save my life. So for the rest of his adventures, the Doctor will be drunk only on life. Also, the idea of Lilly traveling alone, getting a male companion and annoying her mum is great. I'll probably do that in a separate fic though.

Not sure how this fic will progress. I've got as far in my mind as the Doctor and Lilly getting into the TARDIS and heading off to see the universe and I know how the fic will end, so any ideas for a middle would be great. Thanks again. Also, this fic was started before the last few episodes of the 9th Doctor/Rose series so if parts of it clash, that's why. Also, I know I haven't a chance of living up to that ending so I'll just write my view on the Doctor, not the series' view. Hope I don't offend too many people from now on. :)

Note: I should have put this in Chapter 1, but this is a 9th Doctor/Rose fic and therefore AU as well. I've also done a tiny bit of research and thrown in a slight reference to the cybermen, the Master and the Daleks. Not sure how accurate the reference to the first two once, having only seen snippets on Doctor Who Confidential but I did my best. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: The Doctor and Rose belong to the BBC, everyone else is mine.

Spoilers: Same as the previous chapter, I think.

Plotline: Lilly learns of her father's past and goes off to travel the universe.

Rating: K+ for mild bad language.

Time Lady

"You pathetic, drunken loser!"

Lilly froze at the bottom of the stair as her mother's shout rang through the house, accompanied by a sharp crack with could only have been a slap. Creeping silently to the living room door, which was slightly ajar, she peeped around it.

"Was that really necessary, Rose?" asked the Doctor, rubbing his left cheek, where a handprint in red was beginning to show.

"Don't you even remember the sacrifices I made to keep your past a secret?" Rose yelled. "And you go and get pissed out of your head, again, and blurt it all out to her!"

"The sacrifices you made?" the Doctor yelled back, finally getting up out of his chair. "What about the sacrifices I made? I'm stuck here, in the middle of nowhere, can't even leave the village, let alone the planet, because I'm not 'normal' enough for you! Because you're scared someone'll realize I'm an alien and your ordinary, boring little life will come crashing down on you and you might have to acknowledge the truth! That I don't belong here, Rose. I belong out there," he said, gesturing at the sky through the living room window, "Out there, amongst the stars, exploring other worlds, getting into danger. Not stuck here in a poky little cottage in the middle of the country. It'd have been alright if we'd have stayed in London but no! The big-city woman is a country girl at heart. She wants a better start for her children than the one she had. What about their father? What about what he wants. You just don't care, do you? You just don't care that I'm wasting away in here. It feels like the walls are closing in on me. I need space, Rose. I need space and danger to help me forget." He paused for a second to draw breath, and then continued. "It used to be easy. Whenever I started getting a bit homesick, I'd fly off to some faraway world and get into trouble. Hard to feel homesick when you're fighting for your life. But when you had Lilly, I agreed to settle down. I didn't know it would be this hard, Rose. Like I told you, I don't do domestic. So I stayed here, day after day, looking after the kids while you worked. And seeing them grow up, it made me think of my family, the family they'll never know. And I couldn't fly off now. I had to stay and try to ignore how I felt. But it wouldn't go away. Week after week, month after month, year after year, that sick, painful feeling just twisting inside of me, eating me up from the inside out like some kind of cancer. I tried, Rose. I tried so hard to ignore it. And then I had a drink. And the pain started to go away. So whenever it came over me, I drank. Then the next day, my head'd hurt, I'd feel guilty and the feeling'd get worse. So I'd drink again. It was a vicious circle, Rose. The worse I felt, the more I drank. The more I drank, the worse I felt. On and on, over and over. I was trapped here day after day with nothing to do but drink and think about home and drink some more. It was like screwing down the safety vent on a boiler. Sooner or later, something had to blow. It just happened to be last night. I'm sorry, Rose, really I am."

"What now?" Rose asked.

"I think I should leave," the Doctor replied, "You know I've tried to make this work but it won't. I think it would be best for us all if I just disappeared."

"What do I tell the kids?" Rose replied, her head and voice lowering.

"Tell them I've gone out then when I don't come back, tell them I'm dead. I don't care how, just make it up. It should be easy for you now. Bet you want to kill me after the pain I've put you through," he ended with a faint laugh.

"Never…I love you," Rose said, choking back a tear.

"I love you too," replied the Doctor, "That's why I have to go. So I can't hurt you or the kids ever again. Rose, I'm so sorry." He held her in his arms and kissed her one last time before walking out of the patio door. Rose sat down in the chair he'd just vacated, put her head in her hands and wept.

Lilly crept out of the back door and silently followed her father towards the garden shed. For as long as she could remember, the shed had been out of bounds. None of the children were allowed to go near it. Her father unlocked the door and went inside. Waiting a moment to make sure he didn't come back out, she tiptoed to the door and looked inside. What she saw drew a sharp gasp from her young throat. A large blue box that touched the ceiling of the shed, labeled 'Police Public Call Box', with the door open and the inside stretching on to what seemed like forever to Lilly. Her father was fiddling with something near the central column of the ship; a tall white tube attached to a base that vaguely resembled coral. She crept in through the door and towards the column. Suddenly, the door slammed shut behind her and the ship started making a strange sound, a mixture between a lot of whirs and whistles and something else, something she couldn't put into words. It seemed almost like the ship was singing to her. The sound was familiar, one she'd heard in her dreams. Dreams filled with creatures in white suits, a man dressed in a long cloak and machines with domed heads and eyestalks. Machines but alive and the most evil out of the three. And women, lots of different women and this ship, but white on the inside. Different planets, aliens and death. She'd woken up screaming sometimes and her mum would come and sit with her and tell her it was just a nightmare. But it hadn't been. This ship was real which meant the dreams were real too!

"Lilly! What the f-?" Her father had noticed her standing there and cut himself off in mid sentence, only to launch off into the foulest curses of several billion languages as the ground pitched crazily and he struggled with the ship's controls, all of which the TARDIS, as Lilly had now realized this ship was, helpfully mentally translated for her. Only when he saw her eyes widen as he began a graphic description of exactly what he would do to the innards of the TARDIS if it didn't return them to Earth right this instant did he realize this and cut himself off once more.

"You better not say any of that in front of your mother," he said, as he continued to hit several control panels one after another with a small hammer he'd pulled out from under the base of the ship. "She's going to hit the roof as it is if she finds out you've sneaked on board."

"She doesn't have to know," Lilly replied, edging closer to the control panel as the ground she was standing on shook violently.

"You're right there," said the Doctor. "'Cause I'm taking you straight home."

"No!" yelled Lilly, surprising herself with her sudden fierceness. "I'm not just going home and staying there while you explore the universe and have adventures! You said you hated being stuck at home, well so do I! You can't just send me back now I know what's out there! I want to see the universe too! You gave me a TARDIS key! You can't just dump me at home when you've told me there's a whole universe I haven't seen! I won't let you! No!"

The Doctor stared, stunned, at her. It was as if he was looking at her for the first time. Those light blue eyes that seemed far older than her 10 years, those ears that stuck out behind her hair, her sudden defiance. She'd taken a stand, said no, not just let things happen to her. She was half Gallifreyan and right then, he saw that she deserved to finally be given her inheritance; time itself.

"Ok then, where do you want to go?" He paused for a second, then added, "Time lady."

What do you think? Better than the first chapter, I hope. R + R.