Sorry for the long update, you can blame that on homework, revision and sudden plot changes. But here is the next chapter at last!

At points this seems a bit Casanovaesque (which I now declare officially a word) with the Doctor and his daughter. When writing for something which also happens to have the same actor with a very similar character in the same situation in another show it can be hard not to make what you're writing disturbingling similar.

Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who. Or Casanova. How depressing.

xxx

People running screaming through the streets, crying and wailing as everything falls apart around them.

It's happening again. In the sky the flying robots, the bringers of death, are shooting lasers at the helpless people below. Dying screams are all that is heard against the metallic cries of 'exterminate!'

Running desperately through the crowded streets, jumping to avoid the deadly lasers, as people fall to their deaths from all around. Skidding to a stop, numbed by fear, looking into the deadly blue light, the cold voice shouting 'exterminate' the last thing heard before there is nothing but pain…

The Doctor woke with a start, gasping for breath. He shook his head, trying to ignore the dream as the dying cries of people echoed in his head. He'd endangered millions of lives, killed thousands of people, and why? To get back to Rose…

He felt her breathing against his body, her chest rising and falling against his. She slept peacefully, a small smile still on her face from the night before. Holding her tighter, he gently ran his hands over her back, their bare skin touching, hers hot against his. His hands came up to her face, where he gently rested his hand, lightly caressing her cheek. He watched her for a few more moments, as she slept soundly. Finally, he placed a kiss in her forehead, and shifted out of the bed.

Rose groaned quietly as her consciousness gradually returned, bringing with it memories of last night. She smiled to herself reaching out to the Doctor, but finding nothing. One eye fluttered open only just enough to see the empty bed. She rubbed here eyes and tried to sit up, her head spinning slightly.

"You're awake then," she heard a familiar voice say, and she noticed for the first time a figure next to the bed. Blinking, she tried to focus on him, and saw that he was getting dressed, pulling his trousers up but still topless.

"What're you doing?" she mumbled, glancing over at the clock next to the bed. When she saw the time, she pulled the covers over her head and buried herself in the bed. "It's 6:30!" she complained, her voice muffled through the sheets.

"You don't have to get up," the Doctor said, pulling his shirt on. She poked her head out from the covers, frowning at him.

"Why are you up?" she asked, trying to sit up again, holding the covers around her body.

"I have to go see if the TARDIS is working yet," he said as he began to button up his shirt, "I have to get back and stop the Daleks."

"But you said it would be 24 hours," Rose argued, wiping the hair from her face, "and you can't navigate through the void anyway so it doesn't matter when you leave." The Doctor looked over at her for a moment, then carried on doing up his shirt. "Come back to bed," she pleaded, patting the space next to her, "Please." He looked over at her again as she gave him puppy dog eyes, and he sighed. He could never say no to her when she did that.

She smiled as he walked over and sat on the bed, shifting over to him. As he sat down, she put a hand round the back of his neck and kissed him. She pulled away smiling, but he was staring downwards, looking solemn. "What's wrong?" she asked, "You're not still feeling guilty, are you?" he opened his mouth to say something, but couldn't seem to think of anything to say. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a hug. He lifted his arms to hug her back, but they were suddenly interrupted by a muffled crying.

Rose leant back, sighing. "That would be Aurora," she muttered, "her bedroom's next door." Rose pushed herself across and out of the bed and began to get dressed.

"Next door?" the Doctor muttered to himself, "hope she didn't hear us…" Rose sniggered as she pulled some clothes on, and the Doctor carried on getting dressed himself.

xxx

Rose sat at the kitchen table with a bottle in her hand feeding Aurora as the Doctor struggled to make breakfast. Cooking was never exactly his strong point.

He ran across the room to pull the burnt toast out of the toaster as the fried eggs spat and fizzled on the cooker. He leapt back across the room to turn the cooker off, knocking a carton of orange juice over in the process, which he then tried to pick up and managed to drop the toast while doing so.

Rose laughed out loud as he looked around at what was left of the kitchen.

"Why couldn't you just ask for cereal?" he complained, dropping the black toast on the side and searching for a towel to mop up the spilt juice.

"You'd probably be able to set cereal on fire somehow," Rose said through her laughs as the Doctor began to wipe up the juice. There was a splat as an egg rolled off the counter and hit the floor.

"Oh bloody hell," the Doctor muttered.

"Oi! Language in front of the baby," Rose warned, trying not to laugh. He walked across the room to grab some kitchen paper and knocked the frying pan, sending the fried eggs to the floor. He spun round to try and catch the frying pan, slipped on the egg he'd gone to clean up and went crashing to the floor himself.

Rose burst out laughing, shaking her head. Jackie came running into the room at the sound of the crash the Doctor made as he fell over, to find him sitting on the floor wiping fried egg from his face.

"What the hell are you doing?!" she gasped, looking at the wreck that used to be her kitchen.

"Making breakfast," the Doctor muttered, pushing himself to his feet.

"You're a disaster waiting to happen," Jackie muttered, grabbing a towel and kitchen paper and cleaning up the mess he'd made.

"I think it's already happened," Rose said as he walked towards the table and sat in the chair next to her.

"Told you not to ask me to cook," he muttered, pulling his converse off and wiping the egg off it with a piece of kitchen roll.

"It was worth it," she laughed. She lifted Aurora to her shoulder and put the empty bottle on the table.

"I'm much better at saving the world from aliens," the Doctor said dejectedly.

"You are very good at that, yes," Rose said, patting Aurora on the back, "but by 900 I would have expected you to be able to make egg on toast." He folded his arms.

"Can we go back to the TARDIS now?" he asked, watching Jackie clean up his mess.

"I suppose so," Rose replied, "better get out of here before mum kills you."

"I heard that!" Jackie's voice came from behind the counter. The Doctor laughed and jumped up, grabbing an apple as he passed the fruit bowl.

"Here Rose, have fruit for breakfast," he said, tossing it to her. He then noticed something. "Ooh, bananas," he said as he picked on off of the bunch and peeled it.

"You're obsessed," Rose muttered as she stood up, taking a bite of her apple. They headed for the door, but Jackie stopped them.

"Don't go wandering off again," she said, "at least tell me if you're going somewhere."

"Mum, I told you last time. We'll see you later, yeah?" she gave Jackie a quick hug, then waved bye as they walked out the room.

xxx

As they reached the TARDIS, Aurora looked at the blue box curiously. The Doctor smiled to himself as he opened the door and walked in.

Rose carried Aurora in, and as she did, Aurora looked around herself with wide eyes, gurgling and laughing to herself.

"Wow, she likes it in here," Rose commented, looking down at her daughter.

"Not surprised," the Doctor said as he walked up to the consol, "she feels right here. She's lived her whole life without the presence of the Time Lords, and while she never knew what it was like to have them there, it feels like there's something wrong. Something missing. That's why she was always crying, she never felt quite right." He looked at the screen, reading the information on it. Rose hugged her daughter slightly tighter, trying to say sorry for never knowing what was wrong.

"Right," the Doctor said, standing back from the screen, "follow me," he began to walk out of the room.

"Why? Where are you going?" Rose asked as she walked after him.

"I'm going to finally find out how you got pregnant," he said, walking out the door.

xxx

Rose sat on a bed in the med bay, as the Doctor scanned her with his sonic screwdriver. The last time they'd done this was just before they'd been separated… it seemed like so long ago now.

The Doctor stopped scanning her, and turned to Aurora who was sitting next to her. He ran the screwdriver over her, then over Rose again. He then went over to a computer and whirred the screwdriver at it, as the computer downloaded and analysed the data. He then stood up and pulled a machine over towards Rose.

"What is that?" Rose asked suspiciously as he pulled a small hand-held device off it.

"A scanner," he said, adjusting some of the dials on it, "it's slightly more powerful than the sonic screwdriver." He ran the device over Rose's body, frowning intensely. "Just before you got pregnant, were you exposed to any sort of radiation?" he asked as he ran the device round her stomach, "Anything out of the ordinary? Probably at Torchwood."

"Uum…" Rose tried to think back to what she was doing before she got pregnant, it seemed like so long ago now. "Oh!" she shouted suddenly as she remembered, and the Doctor looked at her eagerly, "Something had just fallen to Earth, some sort of alien machine. I was on the team that was to find out what it was and what it could be used for. But they started to detect it was emitting some sort of alien radiation, so it was locked up in a safe. Nothing happened to us and it was assumed the radiation was harmless." The Doctor watched her for a moment, thinking this through.

"Harmless maybe," he said thoughtfully, "But I think it was that radiation that made you pregnant."

"But… how?" the Doctor went back to the computer and Rose watched him.

"I think…" the typed on the futuristic keyboard, and it beeped. "Aha!" he announced, standing up and walking back to Rose, "that radiation was Phleroic, it's a certain type of radiation. But it reacted with your body, mixed the Time Lord DNA with human DNA and boom," he picked up Aurora and grinned, "one baby!" He looked at Aurora and smiled at her as she giggled. Rose jumped off the bed and stood next to the Doctor, watching with a smile as he played with Aurora.

xxx

The Doctor once again sat on the floor opposite Aurora in the TARDIS control room, as Rose sat watching on the seat. The Doctor had numerous TARDIS parts scattered around him, and was showing each of them to Aurora in turn.

"And this one…" he picked up a largish orange object that was shaped like a swirl, "is a time warp generator. It generates the time warps the TARDIS needs to travel through time." He explained, as Aurora watched him looking surprisingly interested. He put it to the side and picked up another object.

"This," he said, looking at the small black device in his hand, "is the internal power regulator, it distributes the TARDIS's power to different functions." He looked at it thoughtfully, turning it over in his hands. "We had a hell of a time trying to get hold of this thing, ended up nearly dying over it," he said, his mind lost in thought. "Gotta say, when I got it, I never quite thought I'd be showing it to my daughter." He and Rose chuckled as he put it back in the pile. He was about to find another one, when the lights began to flicker.

"What happened?" Rose asked, looking around the room. The Doctor sucked in through his teeth.

"The TARDIS probably isn't too happy about having half her parts missing," the Doctor muttered, then grinned, "I'll show Aurora how to connect them!" he said excitedly, picking her up and sitting her next to the consol where he'd removed the grating. He began to talk her through how to reconnect the parts, and Rose watched despite the fact that most of what he was saying meant very little to her.

A few minutes later, the Doctor had reconnected all the parts. "That's better," he said, replacing the grating. He then stood up and picked Aurora up with him. "Let's show you some of the controls, shall we?" he said, as he began to walk around the TARDIS. "That's the dimensional stabilizer, that's to activate and deactivate the buffers, that's the vortex tracker, that's the temporal destination input…" Rose watched as he pointed out each control and said what it was, all the way around the consol. Most of them meant very little or nothing to her, but she couldn't imagine they meant much more to Aurora, not at this stage in her life anyway.

Then she began to think. What were they going to do? When he got the TARDIS working, would they be able to go travelling again? They'd hardly be able to take Aurora with them, not at this age. A bit older perhaps, but what would they do until then? She could hardly imagine the Doctor settling down for a few years until she was old enough, and even then would it be safe enough to bring her as a child? And when he did get the TARDIS working, she'd have to decide which universe to stay in, they couldn't exactly pop from one to the other. Usually she'd stay with the Doctor without a second thought, but what about Aurora?

The Doctor seemed to notice Rose was troubled by something, and he stopped talking and sat next to her, with Aurora in his lap.

"What's wrong?" he asked, lifting a hand to her face. He lifted her chin to look at him.

"It's just… what are going to do?" she asked nervously, "When the TARDIS is working, then what? Are we going to take Aurora with us, are you going to settle down or what?" she watched the Doctor, as he looked down thoughtfully.

"I don't know," he answered finally.

xxx

Martha wandered through the TARDIS corridors in search of Jack. She'd dressed in jeans, a top and her leather jacket and had a sneaking suspicion that Jack probably wasn't even awake yet.

As she neared the consol room, she heard the Doctor's voice floating down the corridor, sounding excited as he spoke a load of technical gibberish. His voice became clearer as she got closer, and she could hear what he was saying.

"…That's the vortex tracker, that's the temporal destination input, this little button here is the time eddy locator, that lever makes the TARDIS go faster and can break the time limit… almost killed us doing that once, that's the year selector, that's…" he stopped talking as she reached the door, and she paused before she opened it. The next thing she heard him say held nothing of his former enthusiasm. "What's wrong?"

"It's just… what are we going to do?" she heard Rose ask nervously, "When the TARDIS is working, then what? Are we going to take Aurora with us, are you going to settle down or what?" There was a pause, and Martha knew that this wasn't a good time to go in. She knew she should probably walk away now, but she couldn't help curiosity get the better of her and she stood as still and silent as she could, listening to their conversation…

"I don't know," the Doctor answered finally. "We can't take her with us travelling, it's too dangerous."

"That's what I thought," said Rose, nodding, "so what are you going to do? Settle down or something?"

"I guess I'll have to," the Doctor answered, taking a deep breath.

"You'd do that?" Rose asked with a smile, "for us?" he looked at her.

"Of course I would!" he said with a laugh, "I'd do anything for you, you know that," he said sincerely. Rose smiled.

"Yeah," she said quietly. The Doctor smiled back, then looked down at Aurora.

"I don't know exactly how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to give her a good childhood, just like she deserves. I had a rubbish childhood, I was alone and abused and for the latter of it I had to fend for myself on the streets. But not her. I'm going to give her everything I didn't have – she's going to have parents and she's going to grow up loved and protected. And if that means I have to settle down then I don't care." Rose stared at him, as a smile crept onto her face. Then she pulled him into a kiss. "Well what did you expect?" he asked when they parted, "me to just go off and leave you?"

"Never," she said, kissing him again. The Doctor thought of something, and he turned to face her.

"How did you survive childbirth?" he asked, "I mean… Deb didn't."

"You're still calling her Deb."

"Of course I am what do you want me to call her?"

"She wanted you to call her mum."

Martha gasped, and quickly covered her mouth hoping she wasn't heard. Deb was the Doctor's mother? But didn't that make him… half human?

"I know she did. Now how did you survive childbirth?" Rose shook her head in defeat.

"I don't know. I guess it helps giving birth do a more human baby."

"Evidently," the Doctor said, pulling her into a hug, "or maybe it's 'cause you're so brilliant." She giggled as he pressed a kiss of her forehead.

They were interrupted by a beeping from the consol, which quickly stopped when they looked over at it. The Doctor frowned, and leant forward, pressing a button. The consol beeped again, but nothing came on screen. His frown intensified, and he handed Aurora to Rose and walked to the screen. He pressed a few buttons, but it beeped negative.

"That's really weird," he muttered, staring at the blank screen.

"Is it what you felt before?" Rose asked, "Last night, when you said it erased any information a computer held on it?" the Doctor watched the screen for a few seconds, deep in thought.

"Partly," he answered finally.

"What's the other part?" Rose asked nervously. The Doctor stared at the screen for a few moments as symbols appeared on it.

"That's not good," he said quietly, fiddling with some buttons, "not good at all."

"What? What is it?" Rose asked urgently, standing up and joining the Doctor by the consol.

"The TARDIS hasn't powered up any more at all since last night," he said, "it should have done… what's stopping it?" he jumped under the consol and started fiddling with some wires.

As he did so, Rose's phone went off. She looked at the screen that said 'one message received'. She pressed the open button, and read the one word on screen: Torchwood.

"I've got to go," she said quietly. The Doctor poked his head out from under the consol.

"Why?" he asked.

"Something's happening at Torchwood," Rose explained.

"They've probably noticed us here," the Doctor said, leaning back into the wires.

"Whatever it is I have to go," Rose said, putting Aurora on the seat.

"You can't just leave her there," the Doctor said as Rose walked to the door.

"Well I can't take her with me!" Rose complained. The Doctor looked up at Aurora as she began to crawl around the seat.

"I wonder if Martha's any good with babies…" he muttered, pulling himself out from the consol.

"I'll see ya later, yeah?" Rose said as she reached the door.

"Bye," the Doctor said as he waved to her, picking up Aurora. Rose waved back and walked outside. The Doctor began to walk to the door, unaware of the fact that Martha was quickly running down the corridor.

xxx

The Doctor walked through the corridors and found Martha walking round a corner. He called her name and ran up to her.

"Martha!" She turned to face him and he carried on not noticing her slightly breathless state, "You any good with babies?"

"Er…"

"Good!" he turned around and started to head back to the control room, "come on!"

xxx

Martha sat on the seat in the control room with Aurora in her lap, watching the Doctor work under the consol.

"What are you doing?" she asked after a few moments of silence.

"Trying to find out what's wrong with the TARDIS," he answered, "she's not powering up properly and I think she must be broken. Unless…" he stopped as a new though struck him, and he instantly jumped out from the wires and looked at the screen again.

"What?" Martha asked as he read through the information.

"Unless someone or something's stopping it," he said thoughtfully, "sucking the power…" he frowned as he thought through this possibility, "but if they wanted to suck the power, why not just take all of it? Why leave the TARDIS still alive? She's still powering up, just very slowly," he paused again, licking his lips, "unless it is just that the TARDIS is broken," he said, going back under the consol. Martha shifted in her seat. She was still thinking about what the Doctor had said about his childhood, and as much as she wanted to, she knew better than to ask about it. Instead she asked about something else she wasn't meant to know about.

"Where's Rose gone?"

"Torchwood," the Doctor answered, "She works there and apparently something's happened." Martha shifted again, ignoring Aurora as she played with her finger, and instead wondered what Rose was doing.

xxx

"It was falling to Earth, so we sent out gravitational waves and attracted it here," Yvonne explained as she led Rose up the stairs.

"Ok, great, but what exactly is it?" Rose asked, trying to sound professional as she always did at Torchwood.

"Well that's the point. We have no idea."

"You must have some idea. Is it a ship, a machine, what?"

"We don't know," Yvonne said slowly, pronouncing every word. "It's weird, we've never seen anything like it. Our computers pick it up and display its mass, heat, everything like that – then they just forget. Refuse to acknowledge its existence. Then, ten minutes later, they pick it up again, then forget it. But even the readings they were picking up can't possibly be correct. They say it's emitting some sort of radiation but we don't know what. They say its heat and mass are too high to be measured. But it's not hot – we can get near it and feel it's not hot. At least, it's not giving off heat."

"Has anyone touched it?"

"One person. But I wouldn't advise touching it, the person that did touch it… died." Rose stopped where she was walking.

"What? How?" Yvonne shrugged.

"He just sort of… disintegrated," she answered sadly, "he started glowing gold, then turned to dust. So don't touch it," she turned around and started walking again. Rose hesitantly followed her.

"Here we are," Yvonne said, stopping in front of a door. "Prepare yourself," she then pushed the door open, and Rose walking in after her.

When she saw what was in the room, her eyes widened and she gasped in sheer amazement.