The Clan Plus Two

River was still gaping at Mike, looking confusedly back and forth between him and the Doctor. "Excuse me... but who are you?" she finally managed to ask.

Mike took a deep breath and held it for a second. "Long story!" he began, but then his twin cut him off.

"No, no, no, just wait a minute. I am NOT doing this six times. Is everybody here?" The Doctor looked around the breezeway, quickly counting heads. Everyone was there, attracted by Donna's scream a few minutes before, even Hannah and all four kids. Most of the others glanced around, as well, and Wilf tossed the Doctor a jaunty salute. "All present and accounted for, Sir!"

After shooting him an exasperated glare, the Doctor swept his hands towards the couches on one side. "Right, then, let's all sit down, and we'll go through the introductions and explanations just once. Okay?"

"Uh, no, not quite," Donna put in, to his surprise. "Slight change of plans. Dinner's ready, and I'm not about to let it go to waste." She smiled at the two newcomers. "And yes, there's plenty to share. Everybody go through the kitchen first and grab a plate of food, then bring it back here and sit." She shooed them all towards the kitchen door, then stabbed a finger at her husband and his twin, adding, "You and you; skinny boys in suits. Come help me move this furniture around!"

Her two draftees shared a put-upon glance. "But I haven't worn a suit in years!" Mike muttered as he went to grab a chair and add it to the expanding circle.

Rose tapped the Doctor on the shoulder as she went by with Davey, and when he looked around at her, she cleared her throat, dipping her head towards their son and then glancing at Mike. "Right!" he said softly. He waited till they went through the door at the tail end of the line, and then called Mike and Donna over to him in a low voice.

"Need to let you two know something." He paused, and blew out a puff of air. "It's been a busy day... Davey knows the truth, that you're his biological father. He was well on his way to figuring it out himself; we just confirmed it. Sorry we didn't have time to let you know first, but there it is. Thought you should know now, before he says anything, if he does."

Mike's eyebrows were raised. He hadn't ever forgotten that fact, but somehow, over the years, had managed to push it into a back corner of his mind where it almost never saw daylight. "How did he take it?"

The Doctor looked iffy, then shrugged. "Okay, I guess. I think he's still processing it all. Too early to tell if there are going to be any big changes. Oh, but there is one: he also told us he wants to stay here and go to school – with the twins, if possible. I guess after this month is over, we're going to look around and see what we can do on that score."

"You mean you'll all be staying here, on Earth?" Donna wanted to know.

"Looks that way. No definite plans yet."

Mike was still on the previous step. Another thought struck him, and he gasped slightly. "What's he going to think about Jenny?" He tipped his head towards his twin. "Be careful there, brother."

The Doctor hadn't thought of that. "Blimey."

Suddenly Mike chuckled again. "I know that look. That's the one that says 'I'd rather be facing an entire squadron of Daleks than the people about to come back out that door.'"

The Doctor fixed him with a baleful glare. "I'd be laughing, Skinnyboy, if I weren't afraid you just jinxed us, and called them down on our heads."

^..^

A few minutes later, everyone was seated in a large circle on the breezeway, balancing plates on their knees – everyone except the Doctor, that is; true to form, he couldn't sit still with all the subterranean currents swirling around. He spent the next hour pacing back and forth, both inside the circle and around behind, grabbing occasional bites from the plate he'd left on the side table.

"Right, then," he began. "Introductions. Jenny, we may as well start with you." He turned to the others, but found himself talking directly to Davey, wanting him to understand more than anyone. "Jenny is a force-grown clone, created on the planet Messaline – " he took a deep breath and spit it out " – from my DNA. She's my daughter. And until ten minutes ago, I thought she was dead." As those who didn't know the story gaped at him, he quickly told the tale of her creation from his unwilling 'donation' to the progenation machine, then her death such a short time later. "Not long after that, Donna, Martha and I left Messaline and returned to Earth." He turned back to Jenny. "But you revived after that?"

She nodded past the tears that had unexpectedly threatened as she recalled the last time she'd seen her father, fading out in his arms. "How long ago was that?" he asked.

"I'm not sure exactly; I think about sixteen years? I haven't really been keeping track."

"And you met up with River a few months ago, you said?" She nodded again. "Then how in the nine hells of Ballanzoo did you get here?"

"You sent us," River answered. "I took Jenny to meet you, a future you, and you gave us these precise space-time coordinates."

"I did?" he asked, nonplussed. River nodded. "Blimey. How extraordinary of me." He turned and shared a long look with Mike.

"Time echo," was Mike's cryptic comment.

"Yeah."

Hannah had been staring at Jenny during the story, her plate forgotten. Now she put it aside and rose to her feet, crossing over to the young woman and reaching an unsteady hand to touch her cheek, to Jenny's puzzlement. "You're a Time Lord?" She turned to the Doctor. "She's a Time Lord? There's another Time Lord alive and you didn't tell me?"

He stared at her for a moment before answering. "One, I thought she was dead. Two... I don't think she's actually a Time Lord. Not yet, anyway. I can't be sure without dragging her into the TARDIS and running scans, but I doubt she has the Imprimatur, and I'm quite certain she's never looked into the Vortex. She didn't regenerate after she was shot, she only revived. I think the most you could say right now is that she's Gallifreyan." He shot an apologetic glance at his daughter. "No offense intended. It's just that there's a whole lot more to being a Time Lord than DNA."

"But those are things that can be changed, right?" Jenny asked.

He sucked in a deep breath. "Possibly. Again... TARDIS, scans. Answers to come." He waved a vague hand at the blue box in the corner, and she nodded, understanding, and content to wait.

The Doctor turned back to find Hannah staring at him, imperious. He sighed, and bit the bullet. "Jenny, River... This is Time Lady Toshana, also known as Hannah Smith here on Earth." Not meeting anyone's eyes, he added, delicately, "My mother."

River simply blinked in slow motion, then gaped at the Doctor, dumbfounded, while an utterly delighted smile lit Jenny's face, and she put her own plate aside and stood, throwing her arms around Hannah. Unaccustomed to such demonstrations, Hannah hesitated, then hugged her back.

Rose took the opportunity to turn to Davey beside her on the couch and quietly ask, "You OK?"

He tore his eyes away from the man he called Dad, and looked mutely at his Mum, pain and confusion spilling out of his eyes and cutting across her heart. She put her arm around his shoulders, quickly acknowledging and then putting away the relief she felt when he didn't flinch away, and whispered, "It's a lot to process. I know that. Take the time you need. Just please, honey... don't shut us out in the meantime. OK? We'll talk about it later, yeah? Tomorrow, you and me, OK?" Realizing she was babbling, she shut up and waited, and after a moment he nodded.

The Doctor had caught their byplay out of the corner of his eye, but didn't turn to look directly, not wanting to draw attention to them. When Rose turned back to him and caught his quick side glance, she nodded, and he relaxed slightly, letting out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. OK for now.

Hannah and Jenny drew apart slightly, beaming at each other. "We have so much to talk about," Hannah told her.

"Later," the Doctor interjected. "Hannah, Jenny, please... we have more introductions to make." He motioned each of them back to their seats, and they gave each other a last smile and complied, albeit a bit stiffly on Hannah's part.

"River..." he went on. "Everyone, this is River Song, archeologist, time traveler, and adventurer. I've only met her once before at this point, but apparently she's met me many times. And that's really all I can tell you..." he turned to her, eyebrows raised in invitation.

At first River merely smiled, saying "Spoilers!", but then she relented. "Yes, I've met you many times, though this is the first time I've seen this face of yours. And we've had many adventures. But that's really all I can tell you..." She shrugged, and then turned to Mike, obviously changing the subject. "But I want to know about you. What's this long story?"

Mike glanced at the Doctor, who shrugged, accepting the continuing lack of forthcoming information from River, and then walked back to his plate, giving Mike the floor.

"I was a clone of the Doctor's, too, but an actual duplicate, complete with his memories up to that point. I was created in a freak accident – "

River interrupted, leaning forward abruptly. "Oh! You're the metacrisis twin!"

Everybody stared at her. "Yeah..." Mike answered finally. "Uh.. how much do you know about that?"

"Nothing beyond the word, actually; I don't know what it means. Please go on," she answered.

"Right... Well..." Mike turned back to the Doctor, who nodded and took it up.

"Back about eighteen years ago, during my last regeneration, into this face, I..."

"Excuse me," Jenny interrupted. "Regeneration? 'This face'? What do you mean?"

He took a deep breath. "Time Lords have a way of cheating death – beyond what you went through. When our bodies are damaged so badly that death is imminent, we can use the Vortex energy to rebuild ourselves from the inside out, repairing cells and all. But it also changes our appearance, completely. Even our personality."

Eyes wide, Jenny turned to River. "That... really was him, then, in the greenhouse."

"Yes. A future him. But the same man inside. The same memories, the same personal timeline. Just a different point on it."

Jenny turned back to the Doctor. "How many..." She faltered.

"How many faces have I worn? This is my tenth. I'm over nine hundred years old – at this point in my timeline." He glanced at River, ironically. For some reason, he never wanted to believe her, but every time she opened her mouth she proved how well she knew him.

Rose felt Davey gasp slowly beside her, and turned to look at his devastated face. "Hey," she said softly. "You knew all this."

"Yeah..." he whispered. "But I guess... it never really sunk in."

The Doctor heard, and this time couldn't ignore it to give his son the privacy of his reactions. He walked swiftly over and knelt in front of Davey, putting a hand on his shoulder, but once there, he didn't know what to say.

Davey stared at him. "We're just... ants to you..."

"No!" came the intense reply. "You're the people I love, my beloved family, and I cherish every moment I spend with you. 'Cause every moment lasts a lifetime..."

Davey stared a moment longer, then began slowly shaking his head, then suddenly he sprang to his feet, almost knocking the Doctor over backwards, and walked swiftly and stiffly to the door into the house. Both of his parents leapt to their feet, the impulse to follow obvious, and called his name at the same moment, but then, glancing at each other, they realized they had to let him go. He needed to be alone.

"Thirteen..." Wilf commented to no one in particular. "Tough age, for any species."

"Yeah..." the Doctor agreed. He turned and gathered Rose up, holding her close while his ultra-sensitive hearing tracked Davey's progress to his bedroom upstairs.

Mike stood up then and took up the story, giving the couple cover. As briefly and succinctly as he could condense it, he told how the Doctor had lost his hand, regrowing it due to the fifteen-hour window, but kept the hand in a jar (skipping over all of Jack's part in the story), then used it to hold the excess energy the next time he regenerated, not wanting to change at that point. Then, with Donna trapped in the TARDIS as it was being destroyed, she touched the jar, and the remaining Vortex energy combined her DNA with the Doctor's and created himself. "So I'm half human, half Time Lord. A short time later, Donna and I realized we were quite literally made for each other, and were married. Those three ragamuffins there are our kids." He named them off. "And this is Sylvia Noble, Donna's mum, and her grandad, Wilf Mott. And I think that's everybody."

"And this is your house?" River asked.

"Oh, no-no-no-no-no. We're just staying here on holiday. We live in London, actually."

"Where is this?"

He grinned. "North Carolina, in the US. On one of the barrier islands on the coast."

River gave him her driest look. "You realize, of course, that I have NO idea what you're talking about. No knowledge of Earth geography at all."

"Different country, different continent. Let's just leave it at that."

While the others continued to chat idly as they finished their dinner, the Doctor sat in Davey's spot on the couch, pulling Rose gently down beside him. They continued to sit close together, the Doctor hiding his face in her hair. After a bit, she realized that's what he was doing, and she pulled back slightly to gaze into his eyes. "Doctor?" she whispered, as worried about him as she was about Davey.

He sighed heavily, though almost silently. "I wanted more than anything just to be a good father. And I failed, twice."

She was incredulous. "You haven't failed. Why do you think that?"

"I left Jenny there on Messaline, for starters. Just left her. Sixteen years she's been on her own."

"You didn't know she'd survived. How could you?"

"I should have." He sighed again. "And now Davey. He may never speak to me again." Unable to go on, he just shook his head, looking away over the back of the couch.

She put her hands on either cheek, holding his face still and forcing him to look at her. "Hey. You with the god complex. You don't have to be perfect to be a good father. So you made some mistakes. So what? Everybody does. Everybody. Even the best fathers in the universe. And you, mister, are one of the best. Don't you ever forget that." She pulled his head down and planted a kiss on his forehead. "Just give him some time, love. Just give him some time."