An Introduction to the family:

Alastair Steven Chesterton (The metacrisis Doctor)

Rose Marion Chesterton (Née Tyler)

Sarah Zoe Chesterton (14)

Benjamin Michael Chesterton (13)

James Adric Vislor Chesterton (10)

DISCLAIMER: I once tried to persuade the Doctor to land his TARDIS in my garden, but he said he works for the BBC.

Chapter 1 – Pack Animals

"Good morning ladies and gentleman, and welcome to another day here on planet Earth! It's eight o'clock, and the sun is shining over…"

"Sarah Zoë Chesterton, you are going to miss the bus!"

"I can't find my PE kit!"

"Just get out the door! Ben, your father's waiting!"

"I don't wanna go to the dentists!"

"Oh for god's sake just go! He'll drop you off at school afterwards. Jamie! Jamie? Where are you?"

James Adric Vislor Chesterton dragged himself down the stairs. He hated mornings, with all the noise and fuss, and he hated the days that followed, stuck in a class room learning drivel. He reached the bottom of the stairs and pulled his blazer on dejectedly. Why was life so slow?

"Oh come on Cub, you're going to be late!"

His mother smiled when she saw him. It was the smile he detested, the I know you hate it but you still have to go smile. It was the smile she wore when she thought she understood. She knew nothing, but he smiled half-heartedly back anyway. It wouldn't do to disobey the mother wolf.

It had started when he was very small, before his body had learned how to walk. Now it was a running joke in the family, that they were the wolf pack. James had an eidetic memory that went right back to when he was just a baby, and he could remember his father telling him the story as though it had been yesterday.

"…And then your mother looked into the heart of the TARDIS, and she took all of time into her head. And that is when she became the Big Bad Wolf."

"The Big Bad Wolf?" whispered Benjamin, spellbound.

"That's right. Be careful or she might bite your head off."

"Oi! I heard that!" called their mother from the kitchen.

Sarah giggled. "But if Mummy's a wolf aren't we ones too?"

"Oh yes," said their father. "She's the Mummy wolf, and we're her pack."

"Daddy wolf," said Sarah, pointing to her father. "Boy wolf, girl wolf, and…"

"Cub?" suggested their mother. They all laughed, except James. He hadn't learned how to laugh yet.

"Little Cub," said Sarah bossily. "It fits."

The girl and boy wolf nicknames faded within a few weeks. Unfortunately, Cub had stuck.

But James knew there was more to it than silly nicknames. The story was true, and all three of them carried a part of the wolf within them. In Sarah, it manifested as… tenacity, but James preferred to think she was just bossy. Then there was Benjamin, who was the creative one. And then there was James…

-DW-

Rose watched her son disappear into the school grounds looking particularly forlorn in his grey school uniform, his blonde hair shining in the morning sun. She sat for a moment, resting her chin on the steering wheel. James was a bit of an enigma within their family. He was just as intelligent as his older siblings, but lacked the outgoing nature of any of the others.

When James was born, he didn't cry. Not a squeak, or a mewl, not even a whimper. He lay there; blue and shivering, big blue eyes (God knows where he got them from) darting around the room. The doctors were huddled around him, checking his airways. Perfectly clear. Then they hooked him up to some machines, and Rose thought the world had ended. All movement in the room stopped as every eye turned to the screen. Her husband Alastair stared, his expression a mix of amazement and horror.

"He has two hearts," he whispered to Rose. He started forwards, and swept his son out of the plastic cot. He put an ear to the baby's chest. "Binary vascular system. Core body temperature… difficult to tell, we need to wait for him to settle a bit."

He set the boy back down, and badgered the medics to leave him alone, promising to call his private doctor as soon as possible.

It wasn't until hours later that they were finally alone.

"Al?" began Rose, struggling to stay awake. "What – is he a…"

"I don't know, Rose, I really don't," said Alastair. "I never expected any of our children to inherit anything from, from him. This is completely unexpected. His temperature seems to have settled at fifteen degrees Celsius, normal for his physiology. If we're lucky that's all he'll have…"

"And if we're not?"

He didn't answer her. She decided to change the subject.

"So, Al, what shall we name him this time?"

He smiled up at her. They had a tradition of naming their children after old companions of The Doctor. He thought for a moment, seeming to be struggling with some kind of internal battle.

"List them, their names."

He took a deep breath.

"Okay, ones we haven't already used… well there was Ian, but then I took his surname. That leaves us with… Gordon?"

"No," she said firmly. "Alastair was enough."

"Vislor," he laughed. "Nope, definitely not."

"He needs something special," mused Rose. "In case he does turn out to be a Time Lord. Vislor could work as a middle name."

"Adric? No," said Alastair, turning pale.

"You said that last time. What happened to him? You didn't say."

"He died," said her husband quietly. Rose sighed.

"Another option for a middle name. Any more ideas?"

"What about Jamie?"

Rose looked up. "Jamie? Who was he?"

"James Robert Mcrimmon. He was one of the best. Fiercely loyal, quick to learn, and so brave."

"James it is," she agreed. "So, the middle name?"

"Hmm," he said in mock thought. "Adric or Vislor? Which shall we torment him with?"

Rose laughed. "How about both?"

It was only now, ten years later, that Rose realised that they had managed to give him a name that was longer than he was. He was small and skinny, proportioned differently to the other children. Even as a baby his body was never childlike, even if he was the smallest one in the nursery. Alastair remained confident that he would grow; they just needed to give it time. The Time Lord biology would have affected his growth rate. He may have been ten, but right now, he could have passed for five. And yet, he always had such intelligence burning in his eyes, she shivered to look at them. Such an icy blue that they seemed to burn right down into your soul.

But in every assessment, in every school test, he scored no more than average.

-DW-

At two forty-five, Alastair Steven Chesterton clocked himself out of Torchwood HQ, and set off towards his youngest son's school. It was a warm summer afternoon, and his thoughts drifted forwards to September, when Jamie would be at secondary school with his siblings, and would be able to get the bus home… not that he minded the walk home with his son, it's just that sometimes ducking out in the middle of an alien chase doesn't always make you the most popular person in the office.

He reached the school just as the children were coming out, and hung back to wait for James to emerge. When he did, all hell broke loose.

Jamie burst out the gates like the hounds were chasing after him. Time seemed to slow down as he ran out into the road. There was a screech of tortured breaks. A dull thud as Jamie hit the bonnet, and went flying over the roof of the car.

"JAMIE!" he screamed, running. The traffic had ground to a halt, but his son was lying limp and lifeless on the ground. He knelt on the tarmac. "Jamie…"

"Dad," he moaned weakly back. A crowd had gathered now, all crying out. Somebody was yelling down the phone for an ambulance, but Alastair knew it was too late for that.

"Dad, it… it hurts."

"Sh," he whispered, tears running down his face. "Help is coming."

"Dad, I'm going to… oh, God."

The boy cried out in pain, as something orange flashed across his stomach. Alastair's eyes widened.

"No… it can't be! NO!"

"Get BACK Dad!"

He jerked backwards as Jamie leapt to his feet.

And then the golden, molten orange energy was flowing out of him, and people were running away, screaming.

His son was regenerating, and all he could do was watch.