"Along the way, you find sisters, and they find you."

- Adriana Trigiani

Title from a quote by Carrie Latet

Chapter 1

She was at the door. Just like that. No grand adventurous entrance on his part like the first time. No chaos surrounding them. The Doctor just opened the Tardis doors after the Old Girl landed and there she was.

"Doctor?"

"Rose Tyler."

She looked just the same. For a thousandth of a second, she looked just the same. Then he became conscious of what he had already noticed. Her smile brought out the lines forming around her mouth and eyes. Her clothes style had changed with her and she had just a couple extra pounds here and there. Sunlight caught the few bits of silver in her hair cut shorter around her face. She looked wonderful.

The biggest surprise stunned him: he didn't hurt when he looked at her. It was the opposite. He shot forward and hugged her hard and she squeezed him back. He waited for the pain and longing to return then, but it didn't.

He let go and she frowned as her eyes searched his face. "You changed again."

He smiled. "I do that. Remember? Still me, though."

A man took a step into sight. The lines in his face and the few strands of silver in his no-longer cockatoo hair matched Rose's. She gave him a look of relief and the Doctor knew it was because that face would never change.

Brown eyes looked him up and down before he grinned. "Still not ginger and that chin is a whopper."

"Oi!"

His metacrisis duplicate: the human version of the Doctor's previous incarnation plus Donna Noble. "You went back to a bowtie."

He shrugged. "It was time."

"Looks like you raided the Second's wardrobe. Except for the tweed."

"And before the checkered pants."

In their matching grins - his duplicate's and Rose's - was the reason why he had run from her. Why she had chosen this man over him. His duplicate could give her everything he couldn't and they could live a lifetime together.

She had moved on and glowed with happiness and contentment. He was happy for them. Truly happy for them and that made him happy for himself too.

"Using John Smith or still the Doctor?" he asked his duplicate.

The man shook his head. "Well, I got a new life. I kept the John but I made the rest different. Tyler. John Tyler."

The Doctor shared a smile and slipped his hands in his pockets. "That's how it should be." Then his brain screeched to a halt at what was right in front of him. "You crossed the Void! The cannon wasn't supposed to work anymore! Do you know what could have happened!"

"Hey!" Rose yelled.

"We were pulled!" John Tyler argued back. "Pulled! Not crossed."

The Doctor snapped his sonic screwdriver into the air. Something so powerful to pull them through had to leave traces, but nothing showed in the readings. Only the Tardis herself with ratings running higher than normal, her artron energy reaching unusual peaks. He knew that already though. The Old Girl had quivered ever since she neared this landing; he knew it had to be special for her to be that excited. Even now, her thrill grew until the energy of it tickled the hairs on his neck.

He looked at John Tyler and Rose. Of course the Tardis was excited.

He scanned around them with his eyes this time: nothing but a small English town. A few people milling about, not many; a few houses, a couple phone boxes with a pillar post box between them, and some shops further down. He must have landed in an age where their mobiles grew dominant; Pond would have been pleased. The phone boxes had been turned into mini-libraries. The books showed through the glass of the one closest to them.

A ginger woman and a man with light brown hair pushed a pram down the lane. They were bent over to look inside and were enough of a distance away that he couldn't get a good look at them.

Pretty boring as far as great big scary forces pulling people from another universe went. Which had to mean something else was under the surface.

"You thought we hadn't looked already," John Tyler accused and showed his own sonic. The Doctor snatched it up and turned it over in his hands.

"You used a different design." He could see the reflection of his old screwdriver in it, but with enhancements such as a large black grip and a longer, clear power conduit with bracing bars running alongside. He held it right before his eyes and caught a small trigger right before the conduit. It most likely activated additional coils and power cells for a greater potency.

"Yes, I did and thanks for asking before you snatched it. You can see on the display that I already scanned it all and you got no more than me."

"Work on wood?"

John sniffed. "I bet yours doesn't either."

Rose interrupted with raised brows. "If you two are done measuring."

They both sent her matching glares before John held out his hand. The Doctor looked down at it. "What? Oh, yes right."

He slapped the sonic into the other's hand. They both did an awkward fumbling of where to place the screwdrivers under Rose's teasing eyes. Slipping them into their trouser pockets seemed – suggestive and leaving them in the hand wasn't any better. They finally settled on jacket pockets, different jacket pockets.

So the screwdrivers couldn't pick up anything, but the Tardis scanners would. They must. He looked over his shoulder and as he opened his mouth ready to call out, he stopped. He snuck a glance back at his duplicate and Rose. Not that anyone was in sight inside the console room, but once she was, what would they have to say?

"We got here hours before you," John said. "We've looked around. Nothing. Whatever pulled us here closed up like it never existed."

"You're certain it wasn't Torchwood?"

"Definitely not," Rose insisted. "The cannon's been dismantled for years and we would know if they rebuilt it."

"And this one had something else to it," John said. "A shield, something like a bubble. The dimension cannon didn't have that."

Rose asked, "What about Torchwood here?"

"But why?" the Doctor returned. "And how? We could be in a time period where Torchwood still exists, perhaps even Torchwood One." He snapped open the sonic again. "Close enough. We still don't know why they would do it and they'd have to know where you were exactly to pull you through. And a shield?"

"What do you mean, a time when Torchwood may exist?"

The couple with the pram, the ginger and her light brown haired husband, had gotten closer. The Doctor had forgotten about them. He didn't get a chance for a good look though because he heard a noise behind him that was difficult to name. It joined a moan, a happy one, with utter joy, surprise, eagerness - he couldn't pick out all of its layers. Then her curves and her hair, her warmth and her vitality where already there pressed at his side. He blushed. River never was shy but even so. Really? She had to see a little decorum was needed here, with this audience especially.

She burst the bubble made of his male ego. "Move. Honestly, sweetie."

She was trying to open the right hand door and he blocked it a bit with his shoulder. He leaned out of the way and she yanked it open, already starting to run out. The waves coming off of her flowed with the same feeling as the Tardis. She stopped, hard, and her headlong rush outside was aborted. She had seen who was standing on the other side of the doors just as she started across the threshold.

Her eyes met his and her hand laid on his arm. Everything about her had switched even though she clearly itched to get out there. Something she had seen on the scanners drew her and it had to be immediate and incredible. She hadn't been in the console room when he had looked back because she had been dressing into the casual jeans and deep purple jumper she wore now. She wouldn't have had much time to do full scans after that. So whatever it was had shown instantly on the scanner and with importance. She looked as she had at her first sight of the fairy-tale-turned-real Pandorica. Not that she had lived that moment yet.

She smiled at Rose and John and held out a hand. "You're Rose Tyler, aren't you? The Doctor has spoken so much about you. And this is?"

"My husband," Rose replied and clasped his hand. "Doctor John Tyler."

"Of course. I should have guessed. He's talked about you both. It's a pleasure." She reached for John's hand but he was slow to hold out his. The Doctor knew exactly why. "River Song," she introduced herself as she shook his hand. "So that's how you looked the last time," she said to her husband.

He wiggled his bowtie. "Yes, but look at me now!"

She didn't fool him. She had a picture already of him in that body. She had pictures of all his bodies since she had a habit of running into them when they crossed paths through Time. Although he always suspected she put herself in those paths.

More importantly, she had a ferocious protectiveness where he, Amy, and Rory were concerned, including protecting him from himself. She acted casual, but she wasn't going to leave him, not with what could come back from his painful past. He smiled at her, letting her know he was fine. Not fine like he said when he wasn't, but fine as in "I'm good, River. No Rule One." He hoped she could see it and that a big reason why he was so good was because of her. Just as Rose was fine because of the man next to her. And vice versa.

River's eyes questioned and he smiled as he nodded out towards the lane. Whatever there was to be found, she knew it. So he let her go to her discovery. They would all benefit from it anyway.

"She's found something," the Doctor interjected. "She needs to investigate it."

"It's not quite like that, really. It can wait."

He put his hand in the small of her back and gave her a warm, "Geronimo."

She finally tore her eyes from his, believing in what he said with them, and raced out.

"Geronimo?" Rose repeated. "Not allons-y? Or fantastic?"

"I tend to change it with each face," he said in a verbal shrug. "Although I'm using 'Come along' again from my first incarnation. Come along, Pond! Like that. I don't think 'Oh my giddy aunt' will be coming back. Not Jehoshaphat either but I also did say 'Steady on' back then which was good. 'Would you like a Jelly Baby' is rather definitive to that face. 'Brave heart!' now-"

"River Song," John whispered in a hushed breath. He hadn't been fooled by the Time Lord rambling through catch phrases in an effort to distract him from those memories. "It is her."

Rose's brow furrowed first with confusion and then with something a little darker. "You know her? How do you-" She turned to the Doctor. "She must be your new companion."

"No, that would be the Ponds. Amy and Rory. River's parents. Song and a Pond, that's her. But they're not onboard at the moment. Amy and Rory, that is. Asked to be left alone at some boring spot, so it's just me and River. Brilliant that, but the Roman gave me a hard look and a lecture. It's insulting, really."

"A family travels with you?" His family, he thought as he listened to Rose. "Then she is a companion."

He smiled gently. "River's not a companion."

"Then what is she- and how," Rose rounded on her husband, "do you know her? She came after us."

The mood was interrupted - or perhaps punctuated - by a squeal coming from River. River Song squealed. Her hands clasped the sides around the door of the farther red box as she cried loud enough for them to hear her. "I know! I know! I just - I had no idea! I never thought - she told me about you but to see you!"

The couple with the pram hurried from the mad woman talking to a phone box.

"No." John Tyler was still hushed although he had turned wide eyed about River's parents. "Not at first. I met her because he did. Before I was created. She said I - he would see her again. River Song. Professor River Song."

"Doctor River Song. Younger version," the Time Lord explained. He understood what his duplicate was going through. He had gone through it too when he first saw River again in those those despondent, lonely three years after Donna... after Donna and before he regenerated again. It became easier and he had found himself looking forward to seeing her. But she made him feel. He started grabbing her hand first when they ran and it had scared the hell out of him. He had run away wrapped in the misery he couldn't manage to abandon and the next time he saw her, he had been Mr. Grumpy Face. The grumpy hadn't lasted long.

"Oh. Of course. Everything just like she said." John stared at the Doctor. "All of it? It was true?"

"You know it was. Because I did."

"Have you told her parents?"

The Doctor shifted his feet and looked down at them while Rose asked, "Told them what?"

"He knows something about her future."

"No, I didn't tell them," River's husband finally answered. "I couldn't decide if they'd want to know or not. Would you?"

He meant his own children and grandchildren, but John looked at Rose. The question applied to them just as much. How would he and Rose end? Dementia where they'd not know who the other was? Would he have to watch helplessly as he lost her? They could repeat his time with Jenny, his daughter. Should they choose to be in blissful ignorance until the unknown day when the end suddenly struck and found they had squandered too much time? Or know the end - although not necessarily the day - and actually understand that each moment must be seized.

The Library had taught John not to be naive with endings. The fact that he took this risk to be with her anyway, to have those years in between, was exactly the lesson the Doctor had learned about why to stop running from River.

John had learned it a lot quicker than he had. It had taught the Doctor. In Berlin he had pulled River to him and whispered in her ear just as John had, making Rose see she should choose him.

"Hello!" Rose nearly waved her hand between their faces. She could have no idea what they remembered. "Who is she, you said she's not a companion."

John answered, "No, she wouldn't be. He'd never tell a companion his name."

"You told her your name? Your real name?"

"What? No. Not mine anymore. His. He told her his name." It sounded like a backpedal, but it wasn't. John recognized with respect what was not his to give anymore. "Does she know it now?"

The Doctor nodded.

Rose wasn't nearly as calm. "You told her your real name?!"

Still gently. "Yes I did."

"Why her! And if she's not your companion, who is she? You said you couldn't spend your life with someone, that we were gone too quickly, so you had to be alone."

He took her hands in between his and hoped she would understand. "She's my John Tyler." We both married doctors, Rose.

River bounced in front of the red phone box. "Me? Look at you!"

The Doctor couldn't stop the little laugh that came out on its own. "She's like Tigger!"

Rose stared at him. "What?"

"You know. Bouncy trouncy," and he bounced a bit in his shoes. "It helps that her hair is down. Shows the bounce. Ha! He gets it!" Because John was grinning too.

"Hold on! Phone box!" Now he watched with as much reverence at River talking animatedly into the glass as his duplicate had done earlier. "I gave you that piece of coral. Is that her?"

"Yes, it is." Rose shook off the bad moment and looked fondly at both men. "She - how did you put it? - she became aware a little while ago. Earlier this year."

"A brand new Tardis," the Doctor breathed. "You lucky man."

John Tyler smiled and slipped an arm around Rose. "I know."

Rose laughed and hugged him around his middle. "He still explains at ninety miles per hour and stroke bits of the Tardis. I bet you haven't changed either."

"Amy and Rory make comments about it." John gave him a pointed look over Rose's head. He had caught on that the Doctor didn't say River had a problem. She didn't, not with that brain of hers, and stroked parts of the Tardis too when the Old Girl needed comforting or wanted that feeling of it. She ran around in bare feet too which he never understood until she told him the Tardis loved it.

He felt it was best left unsaid though. He didn't want to make it sound like a competition. Rose after all had taken in the heart of the Tardis after breaking it open. He didn't minimize her doing it.

"The first new Tardis in how many centuries. No wonder you were so excited." He said this to his ship and put his hand on the door. "That's why you came here. You came where you were needed. Where you wanted." He leaned once more against the jam so he could feel that quiver down his back as a direct sensation. The Old Girl and her girl. Sexy and her daughter. "Both of your daughters! Right here! How long?" he suddenly asked John and Rose. "How long has it been for you? You said she became aware earlier this year."

"It's been twenty-seven years for us," John answered. "How long for you?"

"Two hundred and fourteen."

Rose mouthed the words silently but her husband focused on, "You said daughters?"

"Yes, plural. A new Tardis grew to full awareness in only twenty-seven years!" Donna's trick must have worked. Good old Donna; taking care of her spaceman again. "I've got to see her."

The Tardis pinched the doors shut on her Time Lord making him stumble and glare at her. "What was that for!"

The young ship made some rude noise that he hoped had nothing to do with him.

Rose was appalled. "Was that our Tardis?"

River gave a full, throw-her-head-back happy laugh that he knew was not at him but for what the red box must have said. The Tardis gave off an expanding tone, echoed by her new daughter.

"Oh, right. River has a sister. Got to give them a mo." He spun back to his blue box with his arms whirling over his head. "River has a sister! Ha! That's new!"

"Right then!" He clapped his hands. He knew he was staring but who wouldn't. A new Tardis. His wife was talking to a new Tardis. And Sexy herself. "Can't be right to just stare at them like this. Rather disturbing probably. Best get back to whoever it is could have used a cannon which means they're here - RIVER!"

She crashed to the ground on to her knees. Her head lolled about before falling forward to press against the red door.

"River!" He had been too stunned to move before but now he actually felt his feet digging into the ground to launch himself into a pelting run to get to her.

She stopped him with an upheld hand. "I'm all right, Doctor! Please, I'm fine." She got to her feet as if she never fell at all. She was already talking again to the phone booth.

"Stubborn, infuriating woman!" He nearly went over there anyway. It would be just like River to ignore being hurt because she was too excited to think twice about it. But then the Tardis yelled at him again so he turned on her. "It's you, you know! She gets it from you, you and Amy! Roranicus wouldn't treat me like this! Well, yes he would, but it'd be in a totally different way!"

He could feel Rose's eyes on him and he didn't blame her. "If you two - or three - are done," she said, "you were saying about whoever's behind this could be here. I'd like to find out because we have a family to get back to."

He looked at her and especially into those eyes that were completely sincere. She meant it. She wanted to go back; she had a life there she wasn't going to abandon. It made him smile. "Thank you, Rose."

"Oh you're still an absolute git for leaving us behind," John said. His voice was light and casual. "Just because it all worked out doesn't mean you were any less of a prat."

"Noted! So!" The Doctor scanned the area again with his sonic screwdriver and when it gave him nothing more than the last time, he gave it a full arm shake like he wished he was whacking it against a hard surface. "It's times like this that I think about building K-9 Mark V, you know! He'd tell me what's out here! He worked on wood too!"

Rose remarked with a pointed look at the red phone box. "It'd be nice to get into our ship. We could use the sensors. I know you said it's a family moment but she's broken your record for how long you can talk to the Tardis in one go."

The police box behind them opened her doors just so could slam them close again so no one had any doubt that she wouldn't be moved or distracted from her children, not even by the duplicate of her Thief and Rose Tyler. But in a second, the Doctor's sonic chirped and his eyes dropped down to the readout. "She sent her scan results. Thanking you," he told her. "Still no residue from a dimension cannon. Even if they shut it down, we should see a residual."

River's attention was on nothing but the two boxes so she didn't hear this. "I bet you do!" she was saying.

"The hair is good," John Tyler remarked after an awkward moment. "It was restrained when I first saw it."

The Doctor wondered if John was trying to divert him from what had just happened. His duplicate knew what life was like with such a partner. He was distracted, but answered John as he still watched River. "You should have seen her regenerate into this body. She didn't morph. She just did this head snap and there she was. Except the hair. The braids stayed behind - not that the braids weren't cool because they were, really cool - but then it just went poof! Hair!" He clapped his hands in a rapid rub. "The Tardis might have pictures. She was there."

Rose and John stared.

"Oh! Yes of course. You didn't - yes, regenerated."

"Then she's-" John looked back at River.

"Pretty much. Child of the Tardis," the Doctor answered. "Human shot up to Time Lord." He could almost feel the tender, besotted look on his face. Finding out River was Melody Pond and as close to another Time Lord as she could get had removed the last barrier between them. He may not have forever with River, but they had centuries instead of decades and the truth was he had used his last regeneration. He might spend the rest of his life with her and end not long after the Library.

"What? No, wait. So she was human and then what? The Tardis jumped in?"

The Doctor sniffed. "You were made from a severed hand. So non-standard beginnings all around. But your Tardis, she's just a baby! That crossing, was she hurt?"

"We were terrified she would be," John answered. "That shield protected her though."

The great ship's claxon sounded. "Oh!" he heard River say. "Mum's calling!"

"Both the Old Girl's girls," he repeated. "The Tardis and the Pond. Oh that'd be a brilliant title for a book series." He turned towards his ship and pointed to River and the red box with a huge grin on his face. He had no idea that he repeated what he had done with Amy and baby Melody. He gave a little laugh. "It's so cool!"

Rose interrupted this either out of exasperation or not understanding it anyway. "We were talking about Torchwood. And didn't you say if someone brought us here, wouldn't they have to be here too?"

The Time Lord started walking with his eyes on the homes and shops. "Yes, of course. Torchwood's still our best bet if we find nothing here."

Rose nodded her head towards River. "Is she coming?"

"We'll give her another minute and see where she is. Scans show no one but humans. Which doesn't mean they're all friendly. Like I told Leela, humanity can spread out like pioneers or a disease."

John finished it. "When they get together in great numbers other lifeforms sometimes suffer."

"Doctor!" Rose shouted and stopped dead in the road. She saw their confusion. "You, Doctor!" She pointed at her husband. "You're human!"

He shrugged. "Which means I know it even better now. It doesn't make us blind to the bad in anyone, Rose. He loves humans but he's not ignorant."

"Back the point," the Doctor said. "If we find nothing here, we'll go talk with Torchwood. Best to call Jack or go over there to ask. We'd have to find a point so we don't cross our timelines. River!"

She looked over.

"Ask them if they think it's Torchwood. The ones here!" She nodded.

"What's she going to do?" Rose asked. "Get a scan or something?"

"Or something."

River yelled back, "No, Doctor, but can't be sure!"

The Doctor didn't take notice of John and Rose's confusion. "All right, we do a search here. Did you get through the buildings?"

"The shops," Rose answered. "That leaves the houses and the library."

Library. He clenched his hands into fists and his jaw until a muscle twitched.

They noticed. No one could have missed that reaction. "What is it?" Rose asked.

"I hate libraries," he bit out.

"Since when? You used to sit in the Tardis library for entire nights."

"The Tardis is fine. I hate all the others."

John cut in. "We'll take the library." The Doctor flicked his eyes over. He and his duplicate were no longer were their own men with their own thoughts, but they couldn't help understanding each other. "Yeah, I know, but I don't have to see her all the time. It'll be easier for us."

The Time Lord clapped a hand on John's shoulder and then pulled back into the moment. "If we don't find the answer here, it's back to asking Jack. But River - and Jack? Meeting?" He gritted his teeth. He didn't think he could handle it.

Notes:

The next chapter is River's POV as well as The Tardis and the new ship.

I need to acknowledge several people who have inspired me. I waited until the end to hopefully surprise you on who the sister is. First, madis hartte's lovely a href=" s/8170438/1/Melody-Williams"Melody Williams/a series. Ever since I read her Braveheart meeting River's counterpart and being overjoyed at meeting her sister only to find this wasn't Melody/River - I craved to see that meeting. In fact, the upcoming line "Sister! Sister! Sister!" is hers. I tried making my little ship different than her Braveheart but there might be some bleed over.

Then came "The Tardis" from the Doctor's "Life and Times" were the Tardis tells us about her love for her Thief and her River. One part said, "One day I would like to teach her to wheeze-groan without me." Like River was a baby Tardis she could teach to fly outside of her. These two ideas cemented themselves together.

I'd also have to thank Oparu and her lovely a href=" /works/213504""She nudged the water, she's sure of it"/a. For me, it is one of the definitive works on the Tardis as well as her love for River. You'll find references to her story in mine. I just wish I could have captured her voice for the Tardis even more in homage to her work.

Last but not at all least, thank you Ciardha for helping with my Rose research including insight on how Rose and River meet companions.

And now, on to the Tardis and her girls.