Hey there! I'm back! Sorry I've been away, I got Assassins Creed II on friday and have just spent who knows how long playing it. I think I'm beginning to get hedaches...

Anywho on with the chapter!

Allons-y!

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Part V - Memories

"Dad," Rose called, turning to her father and her stunned mother. "Get the glove." Pete left the extravagant dining room at once and John noted he turned left towards his office.

"Rose," Jonathan immediately protested, "I don't think that's wise. You don't know-"

"Exactly, I intend to find out," Rose cut him off and folded her arms. "Everyone ready?" she asked the humans present. Jackie nodded and Pete inclined his head as he moved behind John, much to John's annoyance.

"What exactly is the glov-" He never finished because as he spoke he felt had hand covered in something cold touch the back of his head gently. His vision swam and everything went dark, horribly dark. For a second he was floating in a sea of nothingness, no light or sound or movement. Gradually, however, sounds came to him. The familiar clunk language of the TARDIS, whispers of the songs of his father and sister. Familiar every day things he heard all the time at home.

But he wasn't at home.

Abruptly there was metal grill plating beneath his feet and he was bathed in the light blue light of the Time Rotor. He shook his head to clear it and glanced around. His father wasn't with him so he wasn't waking up from a dream. This place also echoed with compressed song, like his Memory Room. This was part of his mind. Or so he guessed. Sort of like a default setting.

"This is the TARDIS," an incredulous voice said loudly and he whirled around to find himself confronted with the Tylers. It was Jackie Tyler who spoke of course.

"What did you do?" he shouted, a bit of anger in his voice.

"The glove tunes into the minds of beings which a higher psychic value than basic seven," Rose told him coolly. "It projects memories, thoughts and knowledge to those around them. Now you can't lie to us." She suddenly flickered, melding with the memories of her John had from his father, he shook his head to make it stop.

"So you do know me," she said, eyes cold. It appears she didn't like the fact he'd lied.

"Yes," he admitted looking down. He realised that in his mind he'd automatically clothed himself in what he wore every day. Great, he looked even more like his father.

"How do you know me?" she asked, coming closer and almost reaching out to touch his face, tracing his freckles.

"It's complicated," he supplied happily. He rubbed his tufty hair and put his hands in his pockets. He rocked back on his heels. "Very hard to explain."

"Then how do you know the TARDIS?"

"This is my brain's default setting. Like the background you have on a computer. My mind associates this with home and so my mindscape will always look like this."

"This is your home?"

"Well it is the only home I've ever known."

Rose pulled something out of her pocket, a weird sort of remote, and looked at her father out of the corner of her eye. "This is the remote for the glove, using this I can extract certain memories related to specific words," she told him.

"Oh?"

"Yes, it may hurt." This worried John and he was more than a little apprehensive but, before he could protest, she had pressed a small button on the small disc and said a single word. "Father" she intoned.

The TARDIS around this shook and suddenly was filled with a million voices talking at once. John gripped the sides of his head, growling in pain. He could feel his memories sifting, the device forcing him to search for one of his earliest and fondest memories. He cried out as if was forced into the forefront.

The room around them shimmered and changed shape. It became somewhat different. The TARDIS now contained a cradle. All eyes turned, dumbstruck to it as the sound of a baby crying filled the room. John gazed soundlessly as Rose approached the cradle formed of coral and looked in. She gasped, "It's a baby," she told them.

"Well of course, this is sort of my memory," he said impatiently, tapping his foot and scuffing the ground.

"This is you?" Jackie asked, peering over Rose's shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm only fifteen hours old," he replied easily, also approaching. He looked into his own eyes, which was a bit weird, and waited for what he knew was coming next. This was his memory after all.

"Fifteen hours?" Jackie asked incredulously as a man came sprinting into the room from a door that had materialised at the side. They all recognised the skinny man in a suit with his dark hair and unsteady gait.

The Doctor reached in the cradle, going through Rose like a ghost to do so, and scooped the baby out. Holding him as if he'd done it a thousand times and rocking him against his shoulder. "See," he shushed the baby, "daddy's back, I'm here." The tone was gentle but not patronising.

The Doctor proceeded to pace away around the TARDIS, still rocking his son, and twiddled a few knobs and buttons. He spoke gently to the baby, the words muffled as John couldn't quite recall them. He grinned at the baby and it laughed, waving its arms happily. Gradually the image faded.

There was a flickering before it was replaced by a new image or set of images. The lights in the TARDIS grew brighter and there was suddenly the laughter of a child in the air. John, a two year old John anyway, suddenly shifted into being running on small legs around the TARDIS's control hub. His young self whooped as he was lifted from behind by the Doctor, who'd been chasing him, and tossed into the air. Those long familiar arms caught the toddler and held him close to the Doctor as they both grinned happily.

There was then another image of John and his father at a piano. Then another of Martha teaching him about human medicine as the Doctor explained his own unique biology. Images of Sarah Jane also swirled, smoke like, around them. His third birthday and Christmas flashed into existence briefly as well, times of laughter and happiness. In another image Donna stood over him, punishing him because his dad hadn't the heart to. In another memory she hugged him close, telling him everything would be alright – there was nothing to fear. In a blink all his memories of his father rippled before them. That glove truly did not allow him any secrets.

"The Doctor is your father?" Rose asked after a long moment, looking at him.

"Yes," he said simply, shoving his hands in his pockets. "When I said I didn't know Gallifrey I was sort of lying. I've never actually been there, I was born mid-flight, but I guess I am from there." He looked away guiltily.

"And you're from the parallel world, I take it?" Pete inquired, still trying to get over the shock.

"Yeah, sorry about that. Had a bit of an accident with the rift in Cardiff," John muttered, trying to edge away and not appear at all responsible.

"You said you didn't have a mother," Rose continued, looking at the floor. "Who was she?"

"What?" John's head snapped up, they'd lost his attention as he gazed around the room.

"You said to me that you had a father and a sister - an older sister even - but you said your mother was gone," she repeated, eyes narrowed on him.

"That's a bit hard to explain-" he started but abruptly stopped. "It's impossible to explain. I don't have a mother in the traditional sense of the word."

Rose could tell he was keeping something from her and she hadn't even started to interrogate her husband. She held up the remote and her husband's hand suddenly covered hers. "Don't," he pleased, looking into her eyes. "Please don't."

Slowly, still looking at him, she pressed the button and said "mother."

The room shuddered again and John's hands were once more tearing at his hair in pain. Panels of the TARDIS around them flew up and wires sprawled out as it recreated an early memory. Lights dimmed and clattered, there was a snatch of song. John almost fell to his knees.

"Daddy?" a high voice asked from behind them.

They turned to see the cot formed of coral once more. The baby was not crying any more, he was a little larger and a lot more alert. A few months John thought, at least nine. He was sitting up and fiddling with his dark hair in a contemplatory manner. John smiled as he noted he was wearing a blue baby grow with TARDISes on it.

"Yes?" the Doctor replied from where he was half concealed in the TARDIS floor, obviously fixing something. To John he was in a familiar state of disarray, hair messy and clothes slightly dirty. There were parts everywhere as usual.

Baby John chewed on his lip for a second. "Who my mummy?" he asked after a second.

The Doctor's head jerked up and his hands stopped. A pained expression came on his face. "It's complicated, John," he said finally.

"You explain?" Baby John cocked his head in a very Doctor-like fashion.

"Well," the Doctor hedged and slowly got out the great. He moved to lean against the TARDIS panel next to the cot and look at the ceiling. "As you know we, Time Lords, are Loomed by TARDISes, that's how you were born. And me in fact! Usually the DNA of two Time Lords would be woven but, until you, I was the last of our kind."

"So how happen?" John asked, concentration on his little brow. He knew his smaller self just about understood, just. Not very much though.

"Well the TARDIS sort of did it without telling me," the Doctor told him and his son smiled in recognition of the TARDIS's attitude. "She used mostly my DNA, nine hundred and ninety nine thousandths! But that would've made you a clone, she's not designed for DNA recombination after all, so she used a thousandth she had stored in her little data banks."

"Oh," the baby replied, still thinking hard. "So who my mummy?"

The Doctor looked down at the floor, "well the definition of 'mother' is a secondary caring parent and we don't' have one of those but you do have a biological mother. Sort of. She contributed to your make up after all, even if it was on a minute scale. She was a human actually. Don't look like that," he laughed at the look of distaste on John's face. "Her name was Rose."

"Where she now?"

The curiosity of children can be cruel and this was John's first lesson in things not to ask around his father. "She's gone," the Doctor said shortly and John frowned. Then a familiar grin set over the Doctor's worn features and he reached over to scoop out the toddle and hold him close. "All this standing still is making me itch," he mused, rubbing his chin with one hand while he held his son in the other. "What say you to Penhaxico II?" The image dissolved into smoke as the memory shattered.

There was a very awkward silence.

"Yeah," John muttered, looking away and folding his arms.

"You're my son?" she asked incredulously.

"Sort of, the relation is more like a distant relative but yeah," he shrugged, still not meeting their shocked gaze.

"When were you born?" she asked, stepping forward. Jackie and Pete followed her.

John could see a begging in her eyes. She was hoping he was born after the Daleks returned, hoping that she hadn't been lied to. They were busted, well and truly. He looked over her shoulder into his human-dad's eyes. His human-dad, Jonathan Tyler, nodded. He sighed, "Just after the fall of Torchwood when you fell through the Void. Not long after my dad met Donna for the first time," he told her quietly.

"And when I returned, when the Daleks came back, how old were you then?" she pressed.

John closed one eyes as he thought back. He hadn't considered those times in ears. A decision is a decision after all. "I was six," he replied easily, looking into her eyes.

She rounded on Jonathan, "and you never told me?" she growled angrily.

"I couldn't," he replied simply, looking away. "We decided it was better you didn't know." He coughed uncomfortably.

Rose's eyes, not to mention Jackie's, bulged with rage. "Who decided?" she exclaimed.

"I can show you if you like, no remote needed?"

She turned like an angry wolverine back to John , he'd faced his sister's wrath many times and he was not afraid. "Do it," she commanded.

It wasn't painful when he willed it. The room around them was suddenly filled with people and they all recognised it as their victory flight away from the remains of the Dalek Crucible. But there was no sound, everything was on mute and the faces of Donna, the Doctor and Jonathan in the crowd were very serious.

A sort of focusing took place and suddenly it was just those three standing in an endless plain of whiteness, gazing at each other but not speaking. "Where are we?" Pete asked, looking around quickly.

"This is a sort of in-between space where telepathic conversations are held," Jonathan told them, glancing around lazily. "It's quite common."

There was a shimmering and a six year old boy appeared before them. John was very young here, he was wearing dinosaur pyjamas and his face was child-solemn.

Jonathan chuckled and they all turned to look at him, "when I see this," he said, gesturing to John, "I remember how small you were. You've grown very tall," he explained.

John laughed, "Yeah. I had good genes for that."

Donna, the Doctor, Jonathan and John were clearly talking about something but the words were muffled. They couldn't be heard properly. The conversation was clearly heated because on Jonathan's face there was a look of desperation.

"What's going on? Why can't we hear them?" Jackie asked, moving closer as if that would help.

"Because I don't want you to," John replied, "there are some things that it is better you don't hear but I will tell you the general gist. This is when it was decided."

"What was decided?" This was from Rose.

"That I stay with Dad and don't go with you."

"You did that even as we celebrated?" she asked.

"Of course, it was important," Jonathan told her, taking her hand.

"And you just decided that I should never know, that he should leave with the Doctor?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes," he replied looking down.

"Why?"

"Because, as a human in a parallel universe, you couldn't offer me anything." They all turned to John wide eyed at his blunt statement. "Point one: I am one of the last of my kind and I have a duty to uphold, a legacy if you will. Point B, or two: You two are human and I would outlive you by at least one thousand years, is it fair that I watch you die? No. Point C, or three, or III: Dad would've been left alone and I would never have that." He looked away and swallowed for the hardest point, "lastly, point four: you aren't my mother. You are a mother but not mine."

"What?" she had tears in her eyes now.

"Don't cry, I didn't mean to make you cry," he said desperately. "Look, I've had to justify this for years okay? For years I had to tell myself that it was okay; I didn't need a mother. I was fine. It was hard not having a mother of my own and it was just me and dad for ages. But then I met Sarah Jane and Martha Jones and the marvellous Donna Noble and I had a mother. Hell I had three! I needed you when I was two or four but not now."

"The Doctor wanted you to be happy," Jonathan added, "and that meant getting over him. John would've been a constant reminder of him, would've held us apart."

"So you just said nothing," Rose asked, tears drying.

"It was better that way. I had a duty to my species and my culture, I had a legacy to continue," John shrugged and looked to his younger self. The smaller image of him moved to stand next to his father, the Doctor, and slowly took the man's hand, smiling up at him. The Doctor smiled back. The image faded.

"You said you have an older sister," Rose said after a moment, still struggling with the information. "How was she born?"

"Well, technically she's not my older sister, just more physically mature. She's only four or five really, I think," he hummed as he thought, rubbing his chin. "Same story as me except on another planet, genetic recombination and grow, except she was birthed at adolescent stage by a machine designed for that purpose and not the TARDIS hashing bits together," he laughed. "Dad was ecstatic after we found her again."

"Jenny's alive?" Jonathan asked, a grin on his face.

"Delayed regeneration, she's a-kicking. Literally," John replied with an identical expression. "Dad couldn't believe it! I don't think he thought he'd have more than one kid again."

"Again?" Jackie asked, her expression dark. She didn't like this situation, John could tell.

"Dad's had kids before, back on Gallifrey," John supplied, expression quieter. He looked down at the floor, "we dream them sometimes."

"He had children?" Rose asked, shocked. He'd never told her that. Mentioned it in passing once but she'd thought he was only joking.

"Yeah, he was married. He was even a grandfather. They burned with Gallifrey," John continued as Jonathan looked away uncomfortably. "It was hard for him to be a father again, painful."

"You 'dream' them?'"

John looked at Pete expressionlessly. "All Time Lords are telepathic and when we sleep, two hours a week usually, we can share our dreams and memories. Mostly we do it on a subconscious level." As John spoke suddenly there were three figures sprawled on the seats of the TARDIS. The Doctor was there, head back and mouth slightly open in sleep. Jenny was leaning against his left side with her head on his shoulder, also snoozing. John was across their laps with one arm over his eyes. All of them were clearly not awake.

"What's this?" Pete asked, moving closer to examine them.

"A memory."

"But you're asleep," he argued, "you don't remember what happens when you sleep do you?"

"No, this is a collective memory derived from the TARDIS," John replied, smiling at the Time Rotor fondly.

"The ship?"

"She is alive you know, we share memories when we sleep." Suddenly the world around them became a blur as they left the TARDIS again and red grass was beneath their feet. A burnt orange sky rolled overhead and wind chimes were on the air, just on the edge of the wind they could hear laughter. They were surrounded by towering mountains capped with snow and beautiful silver trees.

"Where are we?" Jackie asked, swivelling quickly and gripping Pete's arm.

"This is Gallifrey," Jonathan told her, looking around.

There were voices behind them speaking a language they couldn't quite understand and they turned to see a group of people standing off to one side, all of them were smiling and looked quite different. There were three men and five women that they somehow knew were siblings and spouses, a subtle psychic suggestion from John, as well as what could be assumed to be spouses. Four children ran around them in circles. Slightly in front of them looking directly at John and the Tylers stood the Doctor in a dress down form of his suit, shirt and slacks only. He was also smiling. Next to him, laughing and waving, was Jenny.

"That's my family," John told them. "My dad had three sons, one daughter, one wife and four grandchildren. All of them burned in the Cataclysm." He looked directly at them. "You may judge what dad and I chose but here-" he looked around as he broke off choked.

John felt tears in his eyes; it was much harder to hide emotions in the mind after all. "Here," he continued, "I can at least see them and know that I am not alone. I will never be able to touch them, to love them, laugh with them or hug them. But here I can know them. I can know that once, a very long time ago, I had a family. Once I would've have been John Smith, fourth son of the Doctor and child of Gallifrey." He shuffled his shoes.

He suddenly smiled, "This is my favourite dream," he told Rose leaning in and grinning like a Time Lord she knew so well.

He waved back at the image as it vanished and they returned, regular as clockwork, to the TARDIS in his mind. "Now we've examined the inside of my head and my rather questionable mental health can we please go back to the dining room? I'm getting tired."

"Oh, sorry," Rose replied guiltily and suddenly there they were.

They stared at him.

He sighed. "Please don't give me pity looks. You didn't give the Doctor any! Especially you, Jackie Tyler!" he laughed at the looks on their faces. "We're fine and we always will be."

A strange beeping suddenly filled the room and John began to rifle through his pockets excitedly. He pulled out what looked like a mobile phone covered in wires, the canabalised remains of the electronics in the guest room fused with the work of the entire morning. The device beeped and sputtered, the pattern of which was regular and repeating.

"What is that?" Pete asked staring at it.

"Interdimensional wave emitter on a krexiconian wavelength," John replied, holding it up to his ear and twiddling it.

"A what now?" Jackie sighed.

"An outer-space walkie-talkie," John told her rolling his eyes. "It's finally working!"

"What does it do?" Rose asked.

"It transmits his position across the Void to the Doctor using the fracture in the Torchwood building," Jonathan said, examining it from afar. "That really is beautiful work," he praised John.

John grinned and scratched the back of his neck with embarrassment, "thanks," he mumbled.

"So the Doctor knows where you are?" Pete leaned over the boy's shoulder to look at the machine closely.

"Better than that, he's actually coming. That's a coded keta reply, he's going to travel the Void," John said gleefully, looking up at him and literally dancing on the spot.

"I thought travel between parallel worlds was impossible?" Rose asked, he could tell she was feeling cheated.

"It is, or was. Without the original core stabilisation you need two identical situations and rifts, Time Lord this side and Time Lord that side you see? He didn't have that before. I don't think it'll work when I'm gone either," he put the object back in his pocket. "Does also help that I built a rift stabiliser to help him through. No idea where he'll come out though..."

"So you just need to activate and he can come back?"

"Please," John snorted. "I turned in on this morning while we were talking."

They all stared at him.

"It did help that Pete carried a remote rift stabiliser to feed the code back to it to work this morning, allowing me to synchronise with the rift. I had to improvise you see."

"When will he get here?" Rose was holding in emotion.

"He's already on his way."

"How do you know?"

John tapped his temple knowingly.

"Where will he appear?"

"Hard to know," John mused, rubbing his chin and looking very like the Doctor. "Probably where he came out last time. Where was that? Where did the hole come through?" He looked at the curiously.

"Norway," Jackie blurted. "Dalig Ulf Stranden."

John roared with laughter, "Bad Wolf Bay!" He paused, hands in his pockets and smile on his face. "Well, I guess I'll be off them. It was nice meeting all of you!" He moved to stride though the door.

"Hold on, mister," Rose commanded, he froze of course. "You're just going to go to Norway by yourself?"

"That's the plan."

"Any idea how you're getting there?"

"Not really...just thought I'd make it up as I go along. What?" John asked as Rose rolled her eyes and dragged him out the room by his collar.

She sighed, "come on, alien boy, we'll give you a lift." She swore the boy was just as bad as his father. She felt her heart clench. Her time with the Doctor was over and she could be cruel and make this true for John as well. The Doctor shouldn't have hidden this from her! Yet looking at him she could not complain, he had grown tall and proud. He didn't need her. Her children, however, did.

She smiled. The Doctor had made her happy ending. It was time for her to make his. Behind her Jonathan Tyler grinned. Everything was going to be alright.

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Love ya all!

- D