It's red brick and ivy hardly looked changed from the four years since he'd last stepped foot inside. But everything in Pete's life had changed in that time. Small wonder his heart lodged somewhere firmly in his throat as he pulled into the gravel drive in his SUV.

"Oh, Rose," Jackie breathed behind him. "This place is so big!"

"I know, Mum," Rose murmured, opening the door to step out, helping Jackie to bustle her way out of the vehicle, while Mickey hopped out of the passengers side of the front. Pete remained behind the wheel, staring across the lawn. Had it really only been four years ago that he'd made that mad dash across the lawn, Cybermen guns blasting, while he chased a then unknown couple, only to have them turn his world upside down? He glanced at Rose, who stood with her mother outside of the window. He wondered if she were thinking the same things.

"Let's go inside, then, see what is going on." Jackie had a large bag backed with her new clothing in it slung over her shoulder, as she trudged across the gravel. "Come on, everyone, stop standing there with your gobs open."

Rose and Mickey exchanged rueful glances as they followed in Jackie's wake. It was only when they had gotten inside that Pete decide exit. He felt his feet crunch in the gravel as he turned to regard the place he and his wife had called home once. It had always been the other Jackie's home more than his. Perhaps that was why it had been so easy to walk away from it at the end. He'd considered selling the hulk on more than one occasion. But the memory of that night and how much it meant to her always stopped him. He had so little of her left.

Now he was bringing another Jackie here, one for whom there were no bitter memories of a failed marriage or a Cyberman attack. He wasn't sure how he felt about this. He certainly wasn't sure what Jackie would make of it all, either. To be living in a home he had made with a dead woman, taking on her life, stepping into her shoes?

He clearly didn't have to wait long to figure out where her thoughts may lie.

"Pete, you coming in or are you going to stare at the place as if it's haunted?"

She stood at the front door, hands on her denim hips. Unlike his last wife, she watched him with amusement and empathy as he crossed the drive, shrugging sheepishly as he went.

"Just been a while."

"I know." She smiled tightly, taking his arm as she tugged him gently inside. "You never told me how huge this place was!"

He had, but he doubted she understood what he meant by that. "It once belonged to some lord or the other."

"I feel like royalty, here." She positively beamed as they entered the foyer, taking in it's golden paneling and polished floors. The last time he'd been here, his wife had yelled at him for bollocksing her age. This Jackie merely stared at it, shaking her head in marvel. "Must take a lot of people to keep this place up."

"It did. We had ten on staff back in the day, including a butler, a cook, a housekeeper, a groundsman, and general staff to see to things."

"And now who keeps up with it?"

Pete shrugged as he wandered into the front room, the one in which President Caine had died. "No one, really. Haven't bothered."

"So it's just us?" Jackie spun on the spot, staring up at the crystal chandelier, the fine objects in niches on the walls.

"I thought it best, for now," he hedged. "I mean, with everything going on, I didn't want gossiping wait staff to chatter to the press or anything. And I figured it would give you time to see...if you even liked the place. Maybe you'd hate it. Maybe you'd want to pick people you liked, I don't know."

He shuffled about, nervous, picking up some useless knick knack his wife had picked up somewhere. It was only when Jackie took his hand that he turned to her grateful smile.

"I think it's brilliant," she replied, squeezing his fingers. "I mean, at least till after the show has aired, yeah? We can see where this is going?"

"Sure," he nodded, his chest tightening as she slipped her hand out of his. She moved through the room, sizing it up. Somewhere in the distance, Pete thought he could hear Rose and Mickey calling to each other.

"So we got enough goods and everything for a while here?"

"I had Amanda stock the fridge. The electricity is on. The place was cleaned top to bottom. And I've placed extra security, to keep the press out. We are as safe and quiet here as a fortress."

"Is it going to be bad?" She stopped to run a finger along the keyboard of the fine, grand piano that neither Pete nor his wife could ever play. The keys struck and the sound of the strings inside let off a discordant sound. It needed retuning, badly.

"I imagine it will be all over the news by Monday, yeah. Tabs will want to find out about how Jackie Tyler survived in hiding all these years, and who this new mysterious daughter is. And then there are the Vitex shares, who knows how those will be effected."

Jackie clearly had forgotten the business part of all of this. "Will it make things bad at work, then?"

"Shouldn't," Pete shrugged. "I mean, maybe a bit of a hit, but nothing I've not had to deal with before. I mean, when the whole Lumic thing broke we weren't even sure that Vitex would survive or that I'd stay out of jail."

Clearly, the fact that he was the head of a major, soft drink company still hadn't sunk quite into Jackie's understanding. She merely stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. "Nearly went to jail?"

"Long story." He hadn't told Jackie the entire Lumic saga, not from his side of it anyway. "Vitex will be fine. And really, I have enough money to last this lifetime and beyond, even if they were to ask me to step down, and I doubt they will do that. I mean, this is the face that sold billions of bottles."

He flashed his broad, "trust me" smile that was plastered across adverts and telly. Jackie, however, laughed outright. "People actually bought that? I saw through that twenty years ago. Usually meant you were up to something."

"Who says I'm not," he smirked impishly. "Needless to say, I'm not worried, Jacks."

It was his nickname for her. He'd not used it much since the day she'd appeared in this world. She blushed as her arms wrapped around her middle, bracing herself. "So, this big pile is yours, then? You going to show me around?"

"Right!" A tour would keep the pair of them preoccupied, at least for an hour or so. Maybe the creeping feeling under his skin would abate as he confronted the ghosts of memories past. "So where would you like to start?"

"I don't know?" She shrugged as she wandered to the closest doorway and peeked around it. "What's in here?"

"The dining room." The long table that had sat as center piece remained pushed against the far wall, where it had been for the party so many years before.

"Kind of big for a dining room, don't you think?"

Already he could see one massive difference between this Jackie and his wife. And it made him want to laugh aloud. Rather than hurt this Jackie's feelings, however, he merely took her arm. "You think that's big, wait till I show you the swimming pool downstairs."

That caught her attention. For the next hour they wandered around the house, through the grounds as they toured the large garden and park beyond, with its man made pond that had at one time had it's own flock of geese, through the boathouse and back to the main veranda, with its furniture stacked and covered against the elements. Back into the house he took her through the sitting room and library, towards the kitchen with its informal dining area, and then up the grand staircase, to the west wing, which housed all the lavish guest rooms, and to the east wing, which had belonged to him and his wife. Now, the room they had once shared stood empty, stripped of all of his things long ago, but now cleared of his wife's as well.

He stopped in the doorway. He wasn't one to believe in silly things like deja vu, but he couldn't help but feel it as Jackie wandered in, heedlessly meandering from the elegant writing desk in the corner, to the vanity that had once been his wife's. "Nice, this is. Classy."

"Yeah," he managed around a lump in his throat, as he silently repeated "she's not your wife" over and over again like a mantra.

She spun about, glancing from the overly large bed to the doorway on the far side that lead into the voluminous walk-in closet, right next to the full sized, luxury bath. It didn't take her long to work out whose room it was. "So this was where you two stayed?"

"Yeah," he replied as evenly as he could manage.

Her lips pursed, but otherwise she said nothing as she wandered over to the bath, disappearing inside. Pete stood, unwilling to step inside. He'd had his last conversation with her there. They'd chatted about old times. He'd tried to seduce her, but she'd have none of it. She'd showed off those blasted ear pods.

"The tubs so huge you could have a pool party in here!"

He started at the sound of Jackie's amazed outburst, torn between annoyance and amusement. "Never got around to having one of those."

"You can float a yacht in one of these," she called out over the sound of the tap being turned. "You can use it like a jacuzzi?"

"Yeah." It was a feature that his wife had wanted, had begged for with a flirtatious grin. They'd actually never got around to using it that way. He'd been far too busy for romantic baths for two or anything much more than a shower in the morning. He knew she'd used it, and usually barred him from the bath when she did, telling him to use one of the others down the hall.

The tap shut off, and Jackie wandered out, wiping her damp hands on her jeans. "It's certainly fancy enough. You going to stay in here then?"

He'd planned on it, actually, more out of habit than anything, but now, confronted with it, he found that he couldn't. "Nah, you could have it, if you like."

"Oh, but it's so big! I couldn't." Self-conscious, she shook her head as she stared at the mattress, still bare without any bedding on it.

"Why not? You can have that lovely bath all to yourself."

The idea obviously sounded tempting, but she still bit her lip in worry. "This was your place, though, with your wife."

The woman she wasn't, she seemed to be saying. Pete sighed. "Look, Jackie, I've not lived in this room in...a while, long before my wife died. It hasn't been 'my' room. And it's nice. Got a good bed. Gives you plenty of space."

More than she had in her tiny council estate flat, that was for sure. Perhaps in the end that was what convinced her as she finally acquiesced. She sat gingerly on the edge of the mattress, before sinking into it with an appreciative sigh. "Oh, that is nice."

"Told you," he smiled. "I'll see if we can dig up some sheets for it."

"Take an army to make this," she muttered as she flopped back. "A girl could get used to this."

"Well, get used to it. This is your home for now. Enjoy it!"

"I'll be enjoying that bath," she called as he turned from the door. Down the hall somewhere he could hear Rose and Mickey talking. He thought he could hear Rose laughing, truly laughing, at some story from her friend. Perhaps he didn't feel comfortable in his own home, but at least the pair of them could find some joy in it.