A/N: Hi y'all! No, I didn't die, and I'm so sorry for not updating! NaNoWriMo and my Merlin fanfic interfered (and plain laziness, but we're not dscussing that ^^). Almost 2,000 words for you to love or hate, so review and tell me what you think.
Also; should I bring in Donna now, or wait a little longer? And how would she react to little Cassie?

Rose POV

"So tell me about your family, how are they?" the Doctor asked quietly.

The pair has wandered back toward Rose's bedroom to check on Cassie when their laughter had quieted down. Rose had been amazed at how much younger her daughter looked now that her gifts were blocked. Cassie now looked like she was a year and a half at most. The Doctor had gently pulled Rose toward the big bed where they now lay comfortably.

"Mum had her baby; it's a boy called Tony. Dad's ecstatic about it, and tries to be home as much as he can. Have I told you he's head of Torchwood UK?" Rose asked, lifting her head to look at the Doctor.

He grinned at her. "Really?"

Rose nodded. "He loves every second of it. And mum's proud of him, which makes him even happier. Yep, one big happy family…" Rose trailed off. She knew she'd been a mess her first two months there, and even after that, she distanced herself as much as she could from them, working all the time… She'd hurt them, but they'd understood, and had stood by her. In some strange way, that had only made it worse.

"So what about Mickey the idiot?" the Doctor asked with a grin. Like always, he'd read her like a book, and knew she didn't want to talk about it.

Rose smiled. "He's doing well for himself. He was the second in command of my team… First now, I suppose, since I'm here. And he got himself a boyfriend," she said with a huge smile.

The Doctor's eyes widened, and Rose could tell he was working hard not to start laughing. "A boyfriend? Really? Who?"

"I don't know if you remember Jake…?"

The Doctor couldn't hold it in anymore, he doubled up.

"Stop it, you'll wake Cassie!" Rose admonished him, though, she was grinning as well. He quieted down some. "Jake and Mickey, ha! I should've seen that coming."

Rose lay back down and stared at the star pattern on the ceiling. "Mickey was so uncomfortable with it all the time, which frustrated Jake, but they're working on it. When I left they were still keeping it a secret, which, of course, meant that everyone knew about it," she explained.

The Doctor hummed, done laughing for now.

Rose wanted to talk to him about them, about the kiss they'd shared, but he'd been skirting around the issue all night, whether consciously or not, she couldn't tell.

Just as she opened my mouth to bring it up, he got up and stretched. "You're probably tired, I should let you sleep. Goodnight," he said, and walked to the door.

"Doctor," Rose called, making him pause and turn back around.

She got up and walked up to him. He looked calm, but she knew him; she hadn't travelled with him for nearly two years not to know him. For a nearly thousand year old alien, he had amazingly expressive eyes in this incarnation, and she could read the sheer terror in his eyes. He was afraid of what she might say, of what judgement she might cast on him, and he couldn't deal with it right now. "Goodnight, Doctor," she said, giving him the escape he needed.

/*/

The Doctor was at the console, pushing buttons, pulling levers and turning knobs, trying to figure out what had happened.

Time Lords and humans couldn't procreate. It was a fact, one that had even been investigated quite a few times back when there were still Time Lords around.

Ignoring the slight stab at the reminder of the unfortunate fate of his race, he stared at the words on the screen. What it said couldn't be true. He had pulled a hair from both Rose and Cassie's shirts and had put it into the computer to analyze. The TARDIS analyzed Cassie as half human and Time Lord, which was what he had expected, even though it was impossible. But according to the computer, Rose's DNA wasn't entirely human.

'Half human, half unidentified species', it said. But that was impossible as well, because the TARDIS's database contained every species and sub-species that ever existed. The Doctor leaned back in the jump seat and ran a hand through his hair. Somehow, something or someone had changed Rose's very DNA. It shouldn't be possible, but then again, Rose had never been one to keep to traditional expectations. The thought pulled a small smile from him.

Rose, his Rose, was back. Normally, he wasn't one to believe in superstition or greater beings, but this time he felt like the universe was giving them another chance.

Well, sort of. Something was a bit… off. Not that there was anything wrong with Rose. Or Cassie for that matter. This made the Doctor frown again. He had a daughter, a child, again, and he wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that. More often than not, he'd found himself thinking of the little girl as 'Rose's daughter', not his own. To be honest, it scared him to death, so to speak.

He barely finished the thought when a small tug on his trousers drew his attention. Said little girl was now standing next to him, one little hand hanging on to the hem of his pants.

"I'm thirsty," she said in a surprisingly childlike voice. When he had heard her earlier she had sounded so much older.

The Doctor felt a little uncomfortable being alone with the child – his child. "Where's your mother?" he asked, making no attempt of moving.

"She's sleeping, she had another nightmare, but I took it away," the girl, Cassie, said calmly. Her brown eyes – brown eyes that were now clearly his – staring solemnly into his own. No child should ever have that look in her eyes.

But the Doctor had picked up on something else besides her strange expression. "So where did the nightmare go?" he asked, having a suspicion. While normally not a question posed by most people, he Doctor wasn't most people.

Cassie looked down at her bare feet, clearly ashamed. She put an index finger to her temple in answer to his question.

The Doctor lowered himself to the floor until he was level with the girl and forced her to look in his eyes. "Does your mum know you've been doing this?"

The girl shook her head.

"And why haven't you told her?" he asked patiently, already knowing the answer but needing her to understand.

"'Cause she'd be angry."

He shook his head. "No, she wouldn't be angry, she'd be worried. You're too young for that kind of pressure, and you shouldn't have tried it in the first place. What if you'd gotten stuck in her nightmare instead of taking it away?" he reasoned, trying to teach this girl – his daughter – what the implications of her actions were.

"But you weren't there to take them away, and I don't want mummy to be sad. She cries a lot, especially when she doesn't think I can hear her." Cassie's eyes watered. "And I tried to make her better, but it wouldn't work. Nothing worked." By the end of her tale, she was crying softly, letting only the occasional sob get through. That took a lot of practise, and no child had any right to have so much practise crying.

The Doctor sighed and picked the girl up. "It's okay, I'm here now, and I can take her nightmares away. You have to promise me never to try it again until I say you're ready, okay?"

She nodded.

"Good. Now how about a cup of hot chocolate?" he asked, already carrying her to the kitchen.

Somewhere deep within him an instinct had reawakened. He might still feel uncomfortable, and he might not know what his feelings toward the little girl – or Rose for that matter – were, but that didn't mean he couldn't make her a cup of cocoa when she was hurting.

/*/

Rose awoke with a start, having the distinct feeling something was missing. It took her a moment to remember that she was inside the TARDIS. Then it registered with her that the thing that was missing was the sound of her daughter's breathing. She hadn't slept in a separate room from Cassie, let alone a separate bed, since she was born.

Rose shot out of bed and raced out the door. Once in the corridor, she stopped, having absolutely no clue where to look first. Thankfully, the TARDIS seemed to still like her, and rearranged itself so there was only one way to go. Rose ran, and found herself in the hallway leading to the kitchen when she heard sounds; the scraping of a chair, the clink of cutlery against china… She slowed to a walk and went inside.

The Doctor was standing at the stove, a mug in hand and a distant expression on his face. And there, in one of the chairs at the table, sat Cassiopeia, stirring calmly in her own mug of hot cocoa. She was absently adding small pieces of marshmallows to her drink, and only looked up after a minute or so. "I didn't mean to wake you," she said in her high, girly voice. The way she spoke so contradicted her youthful face and voice that Rose was almost ready to cry again.

It was unfair that her daughter had had to grow up so soon, unfair to both of them.

"That's alright, sweetheart, I was just worried, is all," I replied, and sat down on one of the other chairs. The Doctor was staring at me now, a curious expression on his face; I briefly nodded, as if to say We'll talk later. When Cassie had finished her hot chocolate, I put her back to bed and, remarkably, she didn't protest.

As I shut her door, I looked back at the Doctor. "We need to talk," I said softly.

A look of resignation crossed the Doctor's face as he led me to the console room. "I knew this

was coming…" he sighed, running a hand through his hair, leaving it looking wonderfully dishevelled.

"Of course you knew. You're the Doctor."

He grinned at me from where he sat in the jump seat next to the console. "True."

Even though he was smiling, I could tell he still didn't want to talk about it, and it frustrated me. This is what the Doctor always did; he goes through life expecting nothing actually needs to be said just because he thinks he already knows what you're about to say. Not that I was bitter or anything… Okay, so maybe I was a little bitter, but I had just spent the better part of a year in a different universe, with a lot of time to think about both his good and bad sides.

And of course, Mickey really liked talking about the Doctor's bad sides.

So, the only logical course of action was to snog him senseless, right?

I stepped closer – the grin vanished in the face of my determination – took hold of his head and crushed my lips to his.

A/N: Tell me what you think!

QUIZQUESTION: I'm going to start quizzing the whovians out there, and though I know it's not much, you can ask me any question about any of my fanfics if you get it right. Today's question:
Who are also known as 'The Lonely Assassins'? (this comes from one of my favorite epsodes ^^

Good luck!