Chapter Two

'Last one to the wardrobe's a rotten egg!' Amy crowed, hitching up her skirt and racing ahead of her husband with glee.

Rory watched her quickly retreating form with a look of mock surprise, then gave chase. 'Then I better get there first!'

The newlyweds raced down the corridors, deliberately taking the longest route that they could within the ancient time ship's halls. They weren't worried about getting lost, since they knew that she wouldn't let them get lost.

Not unless they wanted to.

Amy looked over her shoulder, realising that Rory was almost directly behind her, so she ducked into a side corridor, and waited until he was well and truly past her.

She was going to give him this one.

There'd be other opportunities to beat him, and there'd be time where he'd let her. With this thought in mind, she started off again, then stopped when she heard voices coming from a room to her left. A door had been left slightly ajar; a door which the figure of a rose carved into it. She forgot about Rory for a moment, then winced, realising what a stupid thing that was, and then approached the door to listen to what was being said.

The Doctor was in there, she realised, and so was Robyn, and they were talking about Rose.

The girl the Doctor had lost.

The girl the Doctor had loved.

She frowned, taking a step back gingerly, and inspecting the carving on the door. Had this been Rose's room? Must have been. So why was the Doctor in there? Why was Robyn in there? Was there something that connected the little girl to the Doctor's lost love?

She pressed herself against the wall again, listening by the door. Her eyes widened when she heard the Doctor tell Robyn that Rose was her mother.

And that he was Robyn's real father.

She'd only been joking when she'd said that the little girl could've easily be mistaken for his real daughter, so to be proven right was a big surprise. But it was still sad though. A little girl whose father didn't even know she existed until a mere fluke brought them together, and whose mother was trapped in a parallel universe...

Did Rose even know Robyn existed?

Did she?

The Bad Wolf certainly knew about Robyn, but did the real Rose Tyler know that the Bad Wolf had created a daughter for her with the Time Lord she'd loved?

'Amy?'

Amy looked up, and found Rory standing in front of her, looking at her with an expression of confusion on his face. 'Amy, what's wrong?'

Amy glanced at the rose on the door, then back at her husband. 'Nothing, Rory,' she murmured. 'It's nothing.' She smiled at him. 'I thought we were having a race to the wardrobe?'

'We were, but then you gave me the slip.'

'Okay, so we'll just start again.'

Rory didn't reply, for he was looking at the figure of the rose on the door. 'Who stayed in that room?' he asked instead.

'A friend of the Doctor's,' Amy replied sadly, and she felt slightly ashamed with herself for... reducing Rose's status to that of a mere friend, when she now knew that she had been so much more to him than that. She took Rory by the hand. 'Come on, let's go find the wardrobe.' She was about to lead him away, when the door opened slowly, and the Doctor and Robyn stepped out of the room.

'Amy? Rory? What are you doing here?' asked the Doctor, looking at them with mild surprise.

'We were... uh... just trying to find the wardrobe, Doctor,' said Rory, cutting in before Amy could say anything to the contrary.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. 'Well, if I remember correctly, the wardrobe is that way.' He pointed down the corrider back the way Rory had come from. 'There's nothing interesting down here.'

Amy felt the urge to correct him, but she held her tongue. Instead she smiled. 'In that case, last one to the wardrobe is a rotten egg!' she said once again, and ran down the corridor.

Robyn, Rory, and the Doctor, looked at each other in confusion for a moment, then the Doctor grinned. 'Well, you heard her, get a move on!' he said, and the three of them gave chase, laughing all the way.

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By the time they reached the wardrobe, Amy was already there, and looking rather pleased with herself. She waited in the doorway for her her husband, and her friends, until they reached her, and then gave a wheezing Rory an amused look. She sighed. 'Come on, let's find something to wear that won't have them giving us funny looks when we get to the Orient Express,' she said, taking her husband by the hand.

As she watched them enter the wardrobe, Robyn looked up at her father with an odd expression on her face, as if she wanted to ask him a question, but wasn't sure how to phrase it.

'You're wondering why Rory's out of breath, but we're not,' the Doctor murmured, taking in her expression. 'That's because you, that is to say we, have some things that humans, full humans, don't.'

'That's the part of me that's like you, isn't it?'

The Doctor nodded. 'Yes, that's the Time Lord part of you. You're human on your mother's side, and Time Lord... well, Gallifreyan, on my side. And there are things that come with being half Time Lord, or full Time Lord, that humans don't.' He knelt in front of her, and took her hand, holding it to the left side of his chest. 'Feel that?'

She nodded. 'It's your heart.' Her father moved her hand to the right, and Robyn's eyes widened. 'You have two hearts,' she murmured.

'That's right.'

'Do I have two hearts?'

'You might, given enough time. You're still a little girl, so your second heart hasn't started to grow yet, but it will, and when it does, you'll feel it. It won't be a strong as the one you've got now, but it'll be there.'

Robyn looked at him fearfully. 'Will it hurt?'

'No.'

The Doctor's answer was so short, and so precise, that for a moment she didn't believe him, but she had faith that he wouldn't lie to her.

Not about something as important as this.

'The other thing you've got, that Rory doesn't,' he went on, 'is a respiratory bypass. It kicks in when you need a bit of extra air, or you can use it to control your breathing. I've used mine countless times to fool people into thinking they've killed me.'

Robyn nodded. 'Would you teach me how to use it?'

'I'll teach you everything I can about the respiratory bypass, and your hearts, when the time is right.'

'Thanks Dad.'

'Now, we should see what Amy and Rory are getting up to. Can't have them getting lost in the wardrobe, now can we?'

The Doctor took his daughter's hand, and led her into the wardrobe, which was filled with rack upon rack of clothes from every time period imaginable, and even some not so imaginable. Robyn marvelled at the sight of it all, for this was the first time she'd been in there. The TARDIS had given her a small wardrobe of her own after she came aboard, so there'd been no reason for her to explore its slightly larger, and more easy to get lost in, older cousin.

'Do you wear all this?' Robyn asked in amazement. 'Or is it just for show?'

'I haven't worn everything in here,' the Doctor replied, but it's the first place I'll go after I've changed to choose something new to wear... well, usually if I don't get caught up somewhere else first. Here, I'll show you some of the things I used to wear.' The Doctor led her over to one of the racks at the side of the room, where eleven different sets of clothes hung in a row. He picked up a long woollen scarf, and looped it around himself. 'I used to wear this when I travelled with your Aunt Sarah... I should take you to meet her one of these days.'

'I've got an Aunt Sarah?'

The Doctor smiled. 'Oh, you've got more than an Aunt Sarah. You've got an Aunt Martha, and an Aunt Jo, and an Aunt Liz, and an Aunt Donna...' His smile faded. 'And I'm rambling again. You're supposed to stop me when I ramble.'

Robyn giggled. 'Am I?'

'Yes.' He unwound the scarf from his neck, then replaced it on the rack. 'Wait here,' he said, leading her to a chair. 'I'm going to change back into my other clothes. The TARDIS will be landing soon -'

'And we'll be on the Orient Express? In space?'

'And we'll be on the Orient Express. In space,' the Doctor echoed, a wry smile playing on his lips. 'Now wait here, and don't wander off.'

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Robyn managed to do as she was told for a good ten minutes, sitting patiently while she waited for her father. But she soon got bored. Why did she have to wait when she was in the biggest wardrobe ever? Taking a quick look around couldn't hurt, could it? She could always look for Amy and Rory, but then they might be busy, and probably wouldn't have time to spend with her.

She sighed, then jumped out of the chair. 'I know Dad told me not to wander off, but... I'm bored,' she murmured, addressing the TARDIS. 'He'll understand, won't he?' She paused, listening to the timeship humming away, and she smiled when she thought she heard a wavering response to her question.

She wandered through the huge wardrobe, looking at all the beautiful outfits and costumes that her father had accumulated over the years, and deciding that one day she'd have to spend a good several hours in here just playing dress-up. Hopefully with Amy, if she wanted to.

'Where are you off to?'

Robyn scowled, and turned to face her father, who was now back in his tweed jacket, red shirt and bow-tie, black trousers, and worn dusty boots. 'I was going to explore, but now you're back.'

The Doctor laughed, adjusting his jacket. 'Of course I'm back. I always come back.'

The scowl fell from Robyn's face, and was slowly replaced with a shy smile. 'Yeah, you do, at least for me you do.'

Before the Doctor could reply, there was a sudden jolt, and then everything went quiet. 'There you are, the TARDIS has landed,' he said brightly. 'Now all we need to do is find Amy and Rory, and then we'll go outside.'

'What do you think we'll find out there? Besides the Orient Express, I mean.'

'Well, there'll be an Egyptian Goddess running around, won't there?' The Doctor frowned. 'Unless we're early, and she hasn't gotten loose yet.'

'What, we might be early? What for?'

'The TARDIS can be a tricky old girl, and she doesn't always do what I tell her to. Sometimes she takes it upon herself to put us where she believes we're meant to be. Certainly makes things interesting. And if we are early, then we'll get a head start, and might even be able to do some preventative measures. This point in time isn't fixed, so it should be safe.'

Just then, Amy and Rory joined them, dressed in their regular clothes once again. 'We've landed, haven't we, Doctor?' asked Amy, smiling knowingly.

'We're about to,' the Doctor replied. 'The old girl's just letting me know we're wanted in the console room. Come on!'

There was a feeling of excitement in the air, as the Doctor took off, his daughter and companions scrambling to keep up with him as he took them back to the console room. But it was a familiar feeling, that small rush of joy that crept inside when you had no idea what you were going to find, yet still wanted to know anyway, and there was nothing that would take that feeling away.

Not that easily.

The Doctor danced around the console, giving out orders to Amy and Rory whenever he had the opportunity. Robyn watched him carefully, committing them to memory. She didn't want to forget a single thing about her father - not one word he'd said, or anything he did. After nearly losing him to the Neverspace, making sure that she had him deeply intrenched in her mind was her top priority.

Losing him once had been bad enough, but to lose him again would be too hard to bear.

As the Doctor flicked the last switches, and then pulled on the handbrake, he turned to Robyn and grinned. 'Well, here we are,' he announced, taking her by the hand and turning to face his companions. 'Outside those doors, we'll be inside the Orient Express. Coming?'

Three wide smiles greeted him in reply, and the quartet quickly made their way out of the ship. Exactly as the Doctor had said, they found themselves in a room made up to look like part of a old Earth train carriage. Robyn gazed at the room in awe, then let out a small gasp when she saw something move in the corner of her eye. 'Dad?' she said, tugging on his jacket. 'I think there's someone in here with us.'

The Doctor frowned, following his daughter's gaze, then smiled when he realised what she was talking about. 'Well, this feels familiar,' he murmured. 'Doesn't it, Amy?'

Amy looked at him in confusion. 'What do you mean?'

He pointed to the corner of the room, where a little girl was staring at the four of them, her eyes wide with surprise, and then back at Robyn, who had a similar expression on her face. 'Now, do you understand?'

'I think I do,' she murmured. She glanced at Robyn. 'You haven't got any sisters running about, have you?'

Robyn shook her head. She would've known if she had any sisters. She would've remembered having any sisters, and her father would've told her if she did... at least, she hoped he would've told her if she did... He wouldn't keep something like that a secret, would he?

Especially when it looked like they'd just found her identical twin.

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