Jace:

The Doctor, my dad, whoever he was opened the door, still in t-shirt and I had on the leather jacket. I could hear him talking to all of them, before collapsing and I ran out into Rose's arms, letting her hug me so tight. "What happened? Is he all right?" She held me at arms length. "Jace, Jacey, where's the Doctor?"

"That's him, right in front of you. That's the Doctor. That's my dad." I told her, looking down at the man, hugging the leather jacket to myself, smelling time and stories.

Jackie stared at me, before hugging me and looking down at him. "What do you mean, Jace, that's the Doctor? Doctor who?"

We got him back up to the flat, where I was dressed in some of Rose's hand me downs, though I refused to take the jacket off, which appeared to be slowly shrinking, fitting me better and better, and I changed dad into some pyjamas. And Jackie came back with a stethoscope. "Here we go. Tina the cleaner's got this lodger, a medical student, and she was fast asleep, so I just took it. Though I still say we should take him to hospital, and you Jace, your temperature is too low."

"We can't." Rose told her, sitting the other side of the bed as I checked his hearts, something I'd have too. We'd checked. "They'd lock them up. They'd dissect them. One bottle of his blood could change the future of the human race, and Jace is a little under half human." She made to protest but I was getting frustrated and Rose knew it. "No! Shush!"

I listened to both sides of dads chest, before smiling a little. "Both working."

"What do you mean, both?"

"Well, he's got two hearts." I shrugged, getting to my feet and putting the stethoscope around my neck. It was only a courtesy, I could easily turn on my colours and see his hearts, but I didn't want to. This hurt. My dad, the man who was really my dad, he was gone. He died to save me. "I have two as well."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, don't be stupid."

"They have, mum. Leave her alone."

I started digging through the fridge, just doing anything to fight back the tears and to not look at Rose or Jackie. "How can he go changing his face? Is that a different face or is he a different person?" The mum asked me, and I grabbed a banana, still trying not to think, but I remembered when we first met Jack, how I swapped a banana for his blaster. Villengard.

"How should I know? Sorry. The thing is I thought I knew him, Rose, Jackie.,. I thought me and him were, he was my dad, I had a dad. And then he goes and does this." I pressed the heel of my hand hard into my eyes to stop myself from crying "I keep forgetting he's not human, that I'm not human." Then I looked at Rose. "The big question is where'd you get a pair of men's pyjamas from?"

The girl blushed scarlet. "Mickey's been staying over."

That made me grin, eating a small bite of my banana. "How long's that been going on? He adores you, Rose.

"A month or so." She smiled, but then I walked into the living room.

"Why is Harriet Jones on the telly?"

Jackie smiled. "She's Prime Minister now. I'm eighteen quid a week better off. They're calling it Britain's Golden Age. I keep on saying my Rose and her Jace have met her."

Rose grinned, giving me a hug. "Did more than that. Stopped World War Three with her. Harriet Jones. " They were talking about a space probe that was about to go and see Mars. Meh, there were prettier planets.

Then it was just Jackie and I in the house, because I refused to go Christmas shopping with Rose and Mickey, because if dad woke up and I wasn't there he'd probably panic, so I just lay on the end of the bed with him, falling asleep.

That was until they all burst into the room, running from something. "No, leave him. Just leave him! Grab Jace and get out!" Jackie was shouting as I sat up, rubbing my eyes. "Jace, come on, run!"

"Get in here!" I shouted, just as the weird music hit me, all in the wrong key, but definitely not right in more than that why as the tree was trying to kill us. "Dad, wake up! I don't know how to stop this, you haven't taught me yet!" The tree smashed through the door and I yelped as splinters hit me. I got thrown back before moving to his ear. "Dad, I'm scared, please."

I'd barely got I'm scared out before he sat up, aiming the sonic he got from my newly size 14 jacket, and making it explode. "Remote control. But who's controlling it?" He then fussed over me, wiping away the small specks of blood before leading us out to the balcony. Down on the ground, three Santa's gazed up, one holding a radio controller.

"That's them." Mickey pointed. "What are they?" Rose shushed him as I raised a hand at them, making them back away before being teleported. "'They've just gone. What kind of rubbish were they? I mean, no offence, but they're not much cop if Jace raising a hand at them is going to scare them off."

I then showed him what I could do with my hands, aiming a sonic blast a skip that dented. "I'm capable of discharging a sonic pulse at the same level of breaking the sound barrier."

"Pilot fish."

We all looked at dad. "What?"

"They were just pilot fish." And then he was back in pain, making me grab him, helping lower him to the ground.

"Dad? What's wrong? Tell me, please..."

He stroked my face a little, letting me press my cheek into his softer, bigger hands. "You woke me up too soon, my Jace. I'm still regenerating. I'm bursting with energy." He exhaled golden energy that reminded me of his change. "You see? The pilot fish could smell it a million miles away. So they eliminate the defence, that's you lot, and they carry me off. They could run their batteries on me for a couple of ow!"

And then he was trying to get in a word around what Jackie was saying, which was pretty much everything under the sun in one breath, painkillers, food, and some other random stuff. "I need you to shut up."

"Oh, he hasn't changed that much, has he?"

Dad shook his head, cuddling me with what little strength he had. "We haven't got much time. If there's pilot fish, then." He pulled something out of his pocket. "Why's there an apple in my dressing gown?"

Mickey looked sheepish. "Oh, that's mine. Sorry."

"You keep apples in your dressing gown?"

"He gets hungry." Rose blushed, and this was really off topic

"What, he gets hungry in his sleep?"

Mickey shrugged. "Sometimes."

Then he cried out in pain again and I wanted to do something, to help him. "Argh! Brain collapsing. The pilot fish. The pilot fish mean that something, something, something is coming." And then he passed out again.

We put him back into bed and I still refused to leave his side, so Mickey physically dragged me to sit with them in the living room to sit with him as Rose sat with him for a while. "Jackie, I'm using the phone line. Is that all right?"

"Yeah. Keep a count of it." Like you could talk. "It's midnight. Christmas day."

Rose came out of his room and I looked at her. "Any change?"

"He's worse." She told me. "Just one heart beating." Oh god...

The news was talking about how they lost sight of their probe for a moment earlier, which was pretty boring, and all I wanted was my dad, the Doctor, the real Doctor, to take me home. But he couldn't. "Here we go, pilot fish." Mickey said after a moment. "Scavengers, like the Doctor said. Harmless. They're tiny. But the point is, the little fish swim alongside the big fish."

"Do you mean like sharks?"

He nodded. "Great big sharks. So, what the Doctor means is, we had them, now we get that."

"Something is coming." I agreed, trying to take control, to calm down, but I had already lost one family, I didn't want to lose this one. Where was Jack? "How close?"

Now he shrugged. "There's no way of telling, but the pilot fish don't swim far from their daddy."

And then Jackie got our attention. "Funny sort of rocks."

But I knew better. There was sound coming off those rocks, dark grey and red. "That's not rocks." It was an red-eyed ugly alien with a head like a goat's skull.

I grabbed Mickey's laptop and went hacking, using my sonic hands to get even further in than the Buffalo password did, before I found something. "Rose." She came up behind me. "Take a look. I've got access to the military. They're tracking a spaceship. It's big, it's fast, and it's coming this way."

"Coming for what, though? The Doctor? You?" God I hoped not.

"'I don't know. Maybe it's coming for all of us. The Doctor and I could just be the main event." I got up a clearer image as Mickey brought me some tea, and I gulped it, ignoring the heat. It was freezing. "Have you seen them before? Because I haven't."

She shook her head. "No." The alien leader was speaking a softer language than some other things, and I stared at the lips, willing it to translate for me. "I don't understand what they're saying. The TARDIS translates alien languages inside our heads, all the time, wherever we are."

"So, why isn't it doing it now?"

"I don't know. Must be the Doctor." I said, rubbing my eyes. "Like he's part of the circuit, and he's, he's broken. I'm not strong enough, I can feel it try to connect, but I have a piece missing or something."

I got up and went back to where dad was sleeping, seeing Jackie now asleep at his bedside and I sat on the bed next to him. "Dad... I know, I know I said I'd never call you it, but I am, because you are. I can barely remember my last dad, and you... you're here for me. Please, please don't leave me, you're all I have, the only one who can tell me about our race, about how we can do this. How we cheat death. So... Just please. Come back to me."

Then I kissed his head and stood up, before running to hug Rose who looked close to tears herself. But then we could hear shouting outside in the dawn, and we opened the door to see a blank faced man walking outside the Tyler's flat, a woman trying to get his attention. "Sandra?" Rose asked.

"He won't listen. He's just walking. He won't stop walking! There's this sort of light thing." She was close to tears. "Jason? Stop it right now! Please, Jason, just stop."

And it wasn't just him, there were lots of people walking through the estates like it, all heading to the roofs. But they didn't jump. "What do we do?"

"'Nothing. There's no one to save us. Not anymore." I said, and then walked back down. I couldn't do anything. Fat lot of good being the Seer was if I couldn't help all these people, not like the Doctor could. My real dad.

I sat back down in front of the TV, watching Harriet talking to the nation instead of the Queen. "Ladies and gentlemen, if I may take a moment during this terrible time. It's hardly the Queen's speech. I'm afraid that's been cancelled." She looked to the side. "Did we ask about the royal family? Oh. They're on the roof. But, ladies and gentlemen, this crisis is unique, and I'm afraid to say, it might get much worse. I would ask you all to remain calm. But I have one request. Doctor, Jaclyn, if you're out there, we need you. I don't know what to do. If you can hear me, Doctor. If anyone knows the Doctor, if anyone can find him, or even his Ward, a 15 year old called Jace Smith, the situation has never been more desperate. Help us. Please, Doctor, Jace. Help us. God help us."

"He's gone." I whispered, starting to cry and Jackie wrapped her arms around me, cuddling me like I was her own daughter. "My dads gone. He's left me, Jackie. He's left me, Jackie."

She rocked me back and forth, stroking my hair and tried to help. "It's all right. I'm sorry. I've got you."

I felt something coming then and pulled away, putting up a barrier around our flat as the glass everywhere else shattered, all over the city from a sonic blast that my barrier absorbed. Sonic, well, I wasn't a hedgehog, but hey.

Grabbing my leather jacket again, I started getting dad ready for transport, getting Rose to help. "Mickey, we're going to carry him. Mum, get your stuff, and get some food. We're going."

"Where to?" Mickey asked, helping to lift him.

Where else? "The TARDIS. It's the only safe place on Earth." Jackie didn't like that we were hiding. "Jackie, look in the sky. There's a great, big, alien invasion and I don't know what to do, all right? I've travelled with him, and I've seen all that stuff, but when I'm stuck on Earth, I'm useless, I'm just some little street girl again. Now, all we can do is run and hide, and I'm sorry. Now, move. Oh, lift him up."

Then we got a a move on to the TARDIS, Jackie struggling behind us with half a dozen carrier bags. "Mum, will you just leave that stuff and give us a hand?"

"It's food! Jace said we need food." That was actually a ploy to stop her dropping him down the stairs. I'd seen her try to carry things.

"Just leave it!"

We got inside and lay him carefully on the floor, meaning that he was close to the workings, which may have been what he needed. "No chance you could fly this thing?"

I shook my head, seeing the TARDIS not want to show me anything. "Not anymore, no."

"Well, you did it before. Took us to where Phoenix was, and back to the Game Station."

"I can't!" I snapped, my frustration hitting critical as I remembered I hadn't slept in days. "The TARDIS isn't telling me what to do, there's nothing!"

Mickey hugged me, letting me just shake as I calmed down. "So, what do we do? Just sit here?"

"That's as good as it gets."

Then Jackie came in, dumping a load of food. "Right, here we go. Nice cup of tea."

"Mmm, the solution to everything."

"Now, stop your moaning. I'll get the rest of the food."

She left again and then Micks smirked. "Tea. Like we're having a picnic while the world comes to an end. Very British." He spotted the scanner. "How does this thing work? If it picks up TV, maybe we could see what's going on out there. Maybe we've surrendered. What do you do to it?"

"I don't know." I sighed, reaching out to touch it and getting a strange feeling. "It sort of tunes itself. Dad tried to get me into Disney on here. Told him I'd rather boil my ears and eyes in acid than watch yet another Herbie film."

An odd pattern came on the scanner. "Maybe it's a distress signal."

"A fat lot of good that's going to do."

"Are you going to be a misery all the time, Rose?" She agreed. "You should look at it from my point of view, stuck in here with your mum's cooking." That was a good point.

And then I remembered. "Where is she? I'd better give her a hand. It might start raining missiles out there."

"Tell her anything from a tin, that's fine."

I laughed as I headed for the door. "Why don't you tell her yourself?"

"I'm not that brave."

I grinned back at him before leaving the TARDIS. "Oh, I don't know." And then something grabbed me, making me scream and the other two run after me. "Get off! Get off me!" They were close to being grabbed two, my dad lying on the floor, the doors wide open. "The door! Close the door!"

Mickey got there just before an alien, and they cheered as we were dragged out in front of a crowd. Where Harriet was. "Jace. Jace!" I ran to hug her, and she clung to me like I was the answer to her prayers. "I've got you. My Lord. Oh, my precious thing, you're looking so good now." Yeah, food and a shower did that. "The Doctor, is he with you?"

"No. My dads off world." Close. "We're on our own."

The Sycorax started speaking and a PA guy translated. "The girl of colours and ash. She has the clever blue box. Therefore, she speaks for your planet."

"But she can't." Harrie cried, trying to hold me back but I stepped forward.

"Yeah, I can."

Mickey and Rose stared. "Don't you dare."

"Someone's got to be the Doctor. Why not his daughter?"

"They'll kill you."

And? "Never stopped him." I looked at them all, high above me and made the room shake with a sonic blast to the floor. "My name is the Seer, known as both the Girl of Colours and the Bad Wolf. I am of two worlds, both this one and one long since burnt in the Last Great Time War. And as speaker for this planet, I demand that you leave this planet in peace, or I will be forced to use the same ability of sound waves to rip apart this ship. Now leave this planet!"

But they all burst into laughter. "You are very, very funny. And now you're going to die."

"Leave her alone!" Harriet cried, but I didn't flinch. I'd seen death, it didn't scare me.

"Don't touch her!"

They were held back as the leader walked towards me. "Did you think you were clever with your stolen words? We are the Sycorax, we stride the darkness. Next to us you are but a wailing child, even if you have your witch craft. If you are the best your planet can offer as a champion"

But then it started coming through as English. And we told him so. "I would never dirty my tongue with your primitive bile."

"That's English. Can you hear English?" The others agreed with me and that little part of my mind that was painfully trying to connect finally did. "If I can hear English, then it's being translated. Which means it's working. Which means-"

We all turned to look at the TARDIS, just as my dad opened the doors. "Did you miss me?" The Sycorax cracked his whip but he just caught the end and pullsed it out of his hand. "You could have someone's eye out with that. You hurt one hair on that little Princesses head, and I will have yours." They tried to protest so he broke a club over his knee. "You just can't get the staff. Now, you, just wait. I'm busy." He looked at all the people here. "Mickey, hello! And Harriet Jones MP for Flydale North. Blimey, it's like This Is Your Life." Then he grinned at me. "Tea! That's all I needed, a good cup of tea! Superheated infusion of free radicals and tannin. Just the thing for healing the synapses. Now, first thing's first. Be honest, how do I look, my Jacey Jacey Jay??"

"Er, different."

"Good different or bad different?" I was his daughter, how would I know?

"Just different."

He went incredibly serious for a moment. "Am I ginger?"

I shook my head. "No, you're just sort of brown."

And now he was upset. "I wanted to be ginger. I've never been ginger. And you, Calliope Smith, fat lot of good you were. You gave up on me. Oh, that's rude. That's the sort of man I am now, am I? Rude. Rude and not ginger."

"I'm sorry." Harriet interjected. "Who is this?"

"I'm the Doctor."

"He's the Doctor."

We were just confusing her further. "'But what happened to my Doctor? Or is it a title that's just passed on?"

"I'm him. I'm literally him. Same man, new face. Well, new everything." Why did he have to look at Rose then.

"But you can't be."

He lowered his voice a little, moving me in front of him so I could stay in his sight. "Harriet Jones, we were trapped in Downing Street and the one thing that scared you wasn't the aliens, it wasn't the war, it was the thought of your mother being on her own."

"Oh, my God."

Dad beamed at her. "Did you win the election?"

Harrie looked sheepish for a moment. "Landslide majority."

"If I might interrupt."

We all looked back at the Sycorax for a moment. "Yes, sorry. Hello, big fellow."

"Who exactly are you?"

He was still grinning. "Well, that's the question."

"I demand to know who you are!"

"I don't know!" He patronised, mimicking him. "See, there's the thing. I'm the Doctor, but beyond that, I just don't know. I literally do not know who I am. It's all untested. Am I funny? Am I sarcastic? Sexy? Right old misery? Life and soul? Right handed? Left handed? A gambler? A fighter? A coward? A traitor? A liar? A nervous wreck? I mean, judging by the evidence, I've certainly got a gob, that I will use to embarrass my little girl to no end." Oh, come on! "And how am I going to react when I see this, a great big threatening button." Uh oh. "A great big threatening button which must not be pressed under any circumstances, am I right?" Definitely not good. "'Let me guess. It's some sort of control matrix, hmm? Hold on, what's feeding it?" He opened the base of the pillar. "And what've we got here? Blood?" He proceeded to taste it, gross. "Yeah, definitely blood. Human blood. A Positive, with just a dash of iron. Ah, but that means blood control. Blood control! Oh, I haven't seen blood control for years. You're controlling all the A Positives. Which leaves us with a great big stinking problem. Because I really don't know who I am. I don't know when to stop. So if I see a great big threatening button which should never, ever, ever be pressed, then I just want to do this."

He hit the button and we all cried out no, but it was too late. "You killed them!"

"tWhat do you think, big fellow? Are they dead?"

The ugly creature looked grumpy. "We allow them to live."

"Allow?" Dad scoffed. "You've no choice. I mean, that's all blood control is. A cheap bit of voodoo. Scares the pants off you, but that's as far as it goes. It's like hypnosis. You can hypnotise someone to walk like a chicken or sing like Elvis. You can't hypnotise them to death. Survival instinct's too strong."

That made him angry again as dad moved over to me, making sure I was still OK, checking the scabs on my forehead from the splinters. "Blood control was just one form of conquest. I can summon the armada and take this world by force."

"Well, yeah, you could, yeah, you could do that, of course you could. But why? Look at these people. These human beings. Consider their potential. From the day they arrive on the planet and blinking step into the sun, there is more to see than can ever be seen. More to do than."' Come on! "No, hold on. Sorry, that's The Lion King. But the point still stands. Leave them alone!"

"Or what?"

"Or" He grabbed a sword and ran back towards the TARDIS. "I challenge you." They all laughed again. "Oh, that struck a chord. Am I right that the sanctified rules of combat still apply?"

The creature drew his own sword. "You stand as this world's champion."

Which he liked the sound of and I was very thankful to be out of the spotlight. "Thank you. I've no idea who I am, but you just summed me up." He threw me his dressing gown. "So, you accept my challenge? Or are you just a cranak pel casacree salvak?"

"For the planet?" He hissed, moving closer. I knew what that meant, it translated and it was not pretty.

Dad's eyes were hard. "For the planet." And then the swords clashed into a metallic black clang, and I felt like just taking apart this ship anyway, and leaving us with the TARDIS to escape. But I should probably give him the benefit of the doubt. They retreated outside, and we ran after them. The Doctor was driven back to the edge, and hit on the nose and I went to help. "stay back! Invalidate the challenge and he wins the planet, and I don't want him getting you, Jace!" Then he was knocked down and cut off his hand. "You cut my hand off."

"Ya! Sycorax!" God, that was as annoying as a Sontaran.

But dad just smiled. "And now I know what sort of man I am. I'm lucky. Because quite by chance I'm still within the first fifteen hours of my regeneration cycle, which means I've got just enough residual cellular energy to do this." He grew a new hand.

"Witchcraft."

"'Time Lord." I shouted, grabbing another sword and throwing it to him. "Dad!"

He gave me a wry grin. "Oh, so I'm still your dad, then?"

"No arguments from me!"

"Want to know the best bit?"' Dad grinned, holding up the new sword. "This new hand? It's a fighting hand!" They fought again and he disarmed the Sycorax, thumping both hilts into it's abdomen, twice. It fell, right on the edge, overlooking London. "I win."

"Then kill me." He glanced at me as I looked at the silver blade against the creatures throat. "Spill my blood in front of your child."

Dad didn't even glance this was. "I'll spare your life if you'll take this Champion's command. Leave this planet, and never return. What do you say?"

"Yes."

"Swear on the blood of your species."

"I swear."

And that was it, he just stood back up and walked over to us. "There we are, then. Thanks for that. Cheers, big fellow."

"Bravo!" Harriet cheered.

"That says it all." I laughed, glad that it was over, and that I had him back. "Bravo!"

I helped him put the dressing gown back on. "Ah, not bad for a man in his jim-jams." He caught me looking at his new hand and winked. "Very Arthur Dent. Now, there was a nice man." Dad reached into his pocket. "Hold on, what have I got in here? A satsuma. Ah, that friend of yours, Rose. He does like his snacks doesn't he? But doesn't that just sum up Christmas? You go through all those presents and right at the end, tucked away at the bottom, there's always one stupid old satsuma. Who wants a satsuma?"

Then the Sycorax leader got back up, and tried to go for dads back, but he just threw the fruit, getting a part of the wing to open and he fell. "No second chances. I'm that sort of a man." He said, then took my hand, leading me back into the main cavern. "By the ancient rites of combat, I forbid you to scavenge here for the rest of time. And when go you back to the stars and tell others of this planet, when you tell them of it's riches, it's people, it's potential. When you talk of the Earth, then make sure that you tell them this. It is defended."

And then we were back on Earth. "Where are we?"

"We're just off Bloxom Road." I laughed. "We're just round the corner, we did it!"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute." Dad said, and then the space ship zoomed off, and he hugged me tight. "Oh my Jace, I am so proud of you..."

"T, thanks dad." I smiled, and hugged back before Harriet came over.

She held her arms out for a hug from us both next. "My Doctor. And your Jace."

"Prime Minister."

She gave us a big smile. "Absolutely the same man, and you're even more of an amazing girl. Are there many more out there?"

We nodded. "Oh, not just Sycorax. Hundreds of species. Thousands of them. And the human race is drawing attention to itself. Every day you're sending out probes and messages and signals. This planet's so noisy. You're getting noticed more and more. You'd better get used to it."

At which point Jackie came back. "Oh, talking of trouble."

"Oh, my God! You did it, Rose! Oh!" She spotted Dad being up and about.

I ran to hug her, glad I had her in my life. "You did it too! It was the tea. Fixed his head."

" That was all I needed, cup of tea. That and one of Jace's hugs, they make anyone better." Oh, haha.

"Oh, my God, it's the bleeding Prime Minister!" We had a group hug, and everyone then mocked me, the Girl of Colour. Meh. " Are you better?"

Dad nodded, one arm around me, the other Rose. "I am, yeah."

I could hear something behind me though, hushed voices in a pale green before an even louder crashing noise light up green in the sky, so everyone could see it, blowing up the space ship. I knew right away what happened. "That was murder." I growled lowly to Harriet, dad looking just as angry.

"That was defence. It's adapted from alien technology. A ship that fell to Earth ten years ago."

"But they were leaving."

She didn't look ashamed. "You said yourself, Doctor, they'd go back to the stars and tell others about the Earth. I'm sorry, Doctor, Jace, but you're not here all the time. You come and go. It happened today. Mister Llewellyn and the Major, they were murdered. They died right in front of me while you were sleeping, your daughter mopping your brow. In which case we have to defend ourselves."

"Britain's Golden Age." I scoffed.

Harrie shrugged. "It comes with a price."

"I gave them the wrong warning." Dad told her, walking closer. "I should've told them to run as fast as they can, run and hide because the monsters are coming. The human race."

And that got her a little angry. "Those are the people I represent. I did it on their behalf."

"Then we should have stopped you."

"What does that make you, Doctor, Seer? Another alien threat?"

Dad narrowed his newly green eyes at her, his once dark green voice now a light purple, flecked with blue. "Don't challenge me, Harriet Jones, because I'm a completely new man, still willing to do anything for my little girl. I could bring down your Government with a single word."

Which didn't impress her. "You're the most remarkable man I've ever met, but I don't think you're quite capable of that."

"No, you're right." I agreed, knowing what to say. "Not a single word, just six. Six words." Now she was scared. We went over to Alex, and whispered her downfall in her ears before just walking away.

DW

Dad went off to the TARDIS for a while, getting dressed, while I helped the Tylers and Mickey make Christmas dinner, my first one in years, getting to carve the turkey just as he came back, in a brown pinstriped suit. And he looked amazing. We moved onto crackers, where I ended up with a multicoloured hat, and Rose a pink one, Dad with blue and Mickey and Jackie both with green.

They televised how Harriet was already suffering with what I said, before one of Jackie's friends phoned and said to go outside. "Why?"

"I don't know, just go outside and look. Come on, shift!"

We did so, and the ground was covered with white flakes falling from the sky. Streaks of light cris-crossing it like stars. If only. "Oh, it's beautiful. What are they, meteors?" Rose asked, putting a proper hat over my head as dad threw her one for me. Blue with fire works.

"It's the spaceship breaking up in the atmosphere. This isn't snow, it's ash."

"Okay, not so beautiful."

But he smiled a little, wrapping his arms around my from behind to keep me warm in his old jacket. "This is a brand new planet Earth. No denying the existence of aliens now. Everyone saw it. Everything's new."

"'And what about you? What are you going to do next?" Rose asked him, looking a little wary. Why should she be?

He shrugged. "Well, back to the TARDIS. Same old life. Got to get Jace learnt about our people, which was incredibly bad grammar."

She smiled a little. "On your own?" Oh, just kiss her.

"Why, don't you want to come?"

"Well, yeah."

Now dad looked wary. "I just thought, because I changed."

"Yeah, I thought, because you changed you might not want me anymore. You've got Jace, you're not on your own."

"Oh, I'd love you to come, I still need you for Jacey."

"Okay." I can look after myself you know.

Mickey felt left out. "You're never going to stay, are you? You say you love your daughter, but she nearly got electrocuted today."

"There's just so much out there." I told him, giving him a hug. "So much to see. I've got to go with my dad, and Rose... Shes pretty much the childminder"

Jackie just thought we were weird. "Well, I reckon you're mad, the pair of you. It's like you go looking for trouble."

"Trouble's just the bits in-between." Dad laughed, going over to her, so much more energetic now, and it was awesome. "It's all waiting out there, Jackie, and it's brand new to me. All those planets, and creatures and horizons. I haven't seem them yet! Not with these eyes." He looked back at us, holding out his hands for Rose and I, me getting the lopped off one. "And it is going to be fantastic."

"That hand of yours still gives me the creeps, dad. The fact that could happen to me." But I took it anyway, knowing I was going to learn all about it, about who I was, and my history. "So, where're we going to go first?"

And then we were off again. A special Christmas trip.