Landing the TARDIS that day was one of the most terrifying things Ganbri had done in his life. For a second he thought that it would be easier to go back to the chaos of Kahlia's ship than it would be to face his fathers.

"Do you think they'll notice we were gone?" he asked nervously. "We've only been gone for three hours."

"Well, if I wear my hair right, it might cover the spot where my head almost split open," Jack answered casually, running his fingers along his scalp. "And I don't think your dads really look at you too often, so they might not notice that your entire fucking body has changed."

"Thanks, J.J., that's really helpful," he answered with a scowl.

"Well, don't ask stupid questions then," Jack grumbled. "Now, I don't know what you guys are planning to do but I'm getting hell out of here before one of your dads show up to tear me in two and getting myself some smokes."

"Oh, don't!" Jenny protested quickly. "You've been so good!"

"Are you serious? Jenny, I held this part of my head," Jack said quickly, using his hand to gesture at the large, swollen portion of his scalp that had detached. "In my hand. I actually physically held it against the bone so that it didn't fall off. We literally just survived a war. If that's not an appropriate time for a god damn cigarette, I don't know what is." He grabbed his watch that he'd left in the TARDIS for safekeeping and slipped it on, pressing the button on the side to activate the shimmer. With an odd ripple of light, his teeth were just like anyone else's and his eyes had turned from shining gold to honeyed brown. He looked like any other young man on the street.

Jack had just turned around to leave when the TARDIS doors flew open. Banni was standing outside, his hair a terrible mess where he had clearly been running his hands through it non-stop and his cheeks a little flushed. He expected Banni to shout or to at the very least to put on that stern, intimidating look of his as he gave them all a talking to but that didn't happen. Banni took one sweeping look at the three of them and his hand shot up to cover his mouth.

"Hi, Dad," Jenny said weakly.

Banni pulled his hand away and revealed a face that was truly terrible to see. "Is anybody hurt?" he asked with a slight quiver to his voice. His eyes already had a bit of a glisten to them but no actual tears had formed. He knew exactly where they'd been and what had happened. Ganbri wished that he didn't know so that he could lie—make it sound like it wasn't as bad as it was.

"No," Ganbri answered him quickly. "Well, J.J. messed up his head a bit but Martha stitched him back together. Jenny and I are fine. Well, except . . ."

Except getting shot in the chest and regenerating. That had hurt. Really, he had died. But it didn't matter as long as they were okay now, right?

Banni swallowed hard and nodded his head, taking a moment to soak in the situation. "Uh . . . come and see me tomorrow, J.J." he muttered quietly, stepping in through the TARDIS doors. "I'll have a look at it and see how it's healing."

"Yes, sir," Jack answered with surprising enthusiasm as he reached out to shake Banni's hand. "And, can I just say something? I mean, no offense to you now, sir, but you were pretty badass back then."

"Yes, thank you, Jack," Banni answered with an immediate edge to his voice. "I think you should go home now."

"Oh, yeah, 'course," Jack answered, shifting his eyes a little. "I was just thinking that I might—"

"Go home. Now."

There was a moment's pause in which Jack looked a little awkward. Ganbri didn't hear a whisper of thought trickle out on its own but Banni must have gone looking for it because he very suddenly snapped at the unspoken argument.

"Don't make me repeat myself! Jack is worried sick about you so go home now!"

"Yes, sir." And with that, Jack sprinted through the TARDIS doors and vanished.

Jenny was lucky. She always got to skip the whole I-changed-your-diapers-and-watched-you-grow-up guilt trip routine and never got in much trouble because she had always been considered a capable adult. It seemed that Ganbri never got past eleven years old in Banni's eyes though.

She simply walked up to him in that way she did when she was pretending to be shy, placed a hand gently on each of his shoulders, and kissed him on the cheek. "I'm absolutely fine, Dad. I'll just go back to my flat then," she said calmly, giving him one of her best and well-practiced smiles. "Call me. Or I'll call you and I can come around later if you want. I just want to go home and shower real quick—maybe take a nap, alright?"

"Alright, love," Banni answered, giving her a strong hug and kissing her forehead twice before he let her go. "You call me when you get up."

"Will do."

And just like that, she was off the hook. She bounced past Banni to the doors and looked back to give Ganbri a supporting thumbs up and mouth the words 'good luck'. He supposed he could take some solace that at least J.J. was probably going to have his hide stripped off when he got home. Uncle Jack was not the sort of man that anybody wanted to get on the bad side of.

Although, after what he had seen it seemed that most of the people they had grown up with were not nearly as soft as he had once thought. He thought of Uncle Shaun, who helped Ganbri build his first engine when he was just a kid, and wasn't sure if he would ever forget the day he painted the walls red. He never would have dreamed before that Auntie Donna, whom Ganbri had rescued from spiders and beetles since he was just a boy, had ever pulled a trigger on someone.

Even Tokrah, whom he had always known was a dangerous man to cross, had stunned him. All the stories he'd heard, all the bragging he heard between Tokrah and Uncle Jack, all the looks of inspired fear when he went to a new planet and mentioned the name Master—none of it prepared him for what he had seen. Tokrah was unbelievably fast and terribly efficient. There was no hesitation, no real thought process, just instinct. He had always known that his Tokrah could kill, but he'd never known that it was as easy and natural to him as breathing. He'd cut down men as though he were simply cutting branches from his path and paid no more mind to the blood that splattered upon him than he would to a few raindrops.

That was the man who had read him bed time stories and checked the closet for monsters with a cricket bat in his hand. That was the man who put on music while he cooked and would launch into a solo dance until he could drag someone, anyone, into dancing with him. That was the man who had nearly turned green and had to look away when Ganbri broke his arm when he was nine years old.

And then there was Banni. Right there, in front of him, with the same face he'd had for Ganbri's entire life and yet . . . he just looked so different.

The scar on his forehead was not just an odd white line in his skin, but an open wound that bled—that was red with inflammation and purple with bruising. The curiously crooked fingers on his right hand suddenly looked miraculous after seeing nothing but bloody stumps there. The ring on his left hand was no longer something that he wore simply because all married people wore them, but something that meant so much more. And that darkness in his eyes . . .

Back on the ship, as they hurried to safety, they turned a corner and saw the light atop the TARDIS glowing like a beacon. The lights were all out, with only some very dim emergency lighting to show them where the walls were and nothing more. He noticed an odd smell and a coppery taste to the air but assumed that it must have just been either himself or someone else in the group, coated as they were. But when they ran towards that welcoming light, they travelled down the path of the Doctor.

Shaun had been the first to slip on the slick surface. A second later, J.J.'s foot tripped on something and he nearly fell. Jack fished out a flashlight from somewhere and turned it on, revealing what was before them. There were no real bodies, only parts. Limbs and torsos and insides . . . almost like they'd been dropped into a blender for a few seconds. And the floor was so coated in blood that they wouldn't be able to run down it without slipping. He'd never seen anything like it.

"The Doctor's been here," Jack announced without even needing to think about it. "Let's move."

That was the man who had been known as the only grown-up who was always willing to play hide-and-seek. That was the man who would put twigs in his hair and mud on his suit and pretend to be a giant while Ganbri and the other kids squealed and ran away. That was the man who would lift Ganbri off his feet for a random cuddle and took care of him when he was sick.

How was it possible that they were the same people?

He expected Banni to throw a right and proper fit. He expected to hear about being reckless and not thinking and that, no matter what the standards were on Earth, twenty-seven years did not make him an adult yet. Instead, his father just looked at him with those terribly burdened eyes. He saw the way those dark eyes were slightly watered, the way Banni pulled at his crooked fingers as he did often when he was uncomfortable, and finally the way that his lips twitched, trying to form words and losing strength the moment he tried.

He remembered that bloodied hallway that was left in the Doctor's wake and suddenly realized that his Banni was remembering it too.

"Come on, Dad," he said quickly, opening his arms. Banni didn't hesitate—he never did for hugs. "It's okay." Ganbri made sure to hug him tight so that Banni wouldn't sense any hesitation. There was a long moment in which neither of them said or did anything.

"You're so tall now," Banni chuckled a little. "Harry will sulk over it."

Usually when he gave his father a hug the top of his head would just reach Banni's nose. Now they were almost the same height and it did feel strange. He remembered being fifteen and realizing that he was actually strong enough to pick his parents up. It drove his Tokrah crazy and he kicked almost violently until Ganbri put him down again, but Banni was so tall that he would simply put his hands against the ceiling and plant his feet firmly on the floor so that he didn't budge. He then responded by picking Ganbri up, shushing him like he was a baby when he kicked and screamed to be put down, and carried him all the way to his bedroom and dropped him on his bed, declaring that it was nap time.

Yes, Banni was the man who left a trail of blood and body parts and burned entire planets from the sky. But that didn't mean that he wasn't just Dad as well.

"Any lingering effects from the regeneration?" Banni asked after a moment, pulling away and hurriedly wiping his eyes. "Pain? Headaches? Dizziness?"

"No, no, and no," Ganbri answered easily. "You told me what to look out and I've been paying attention. Everything is perfectly normal."

"How are you handling the memories?"

That was a bit tricky. He suddenly had the memories of two lives that were the same and yet very different. He remembered growing up with and without Grandfather. In one life, there was an old house a few blocks away that had been empty for years and years, while in another, it was occupied by the oldest man in the U.K. Grandfather was one hundred and nine and still pretty damn healthy—a fact that he explained away by telling people that his grandson was a doctor and good medical care did wonders. Technically it was true, though saying alien medical care might have been more accurate.

Holidays were different. Weekends were different. There were new adventures that hadn't happened before and some that hadn't happened now. He remembered some bad days in which he knew for certain that his parents were fighting with each other but some of those days hadn't happened now.

"It's a bit confusing," Ganbri admitted. "I don't think the regeneration helped. But I'm working it out. It's alright."

Banni looked at him with unconvinced eyes. "I don't want you going out anywhere by yourself for a couple of days," he said firmly. "Wait for your body to settle."

"Okay." He felt that was unnecessary but it wasn't worth an argument. Besides, he doubted that he would want to go anywhere for a little while. Even if he did, Annabelle was likely to be glued to his side once she found out what happened. That wouldn't be so bad.

"Do you want to talk?"

He did his best to smile. "No."

"Okay."

"So where's Tokrah?"

"Harry is at Grandfather's house," Banni said quietly, with a sudden serious tone to his voice. "The moment he realized that all three of you were gone, he worked it out and . . . We've all been dreading this day since you were a baby, Ganbri. He's already almost had an attack and he's very upset . . . maybe a little bit angry."

"Angry?" Ganbri repeated with surprise.

"I don't even know. He seems to be under the impression that you should have asked him to go back for you. You know how he gets," Banni sighed, running his crooked fingers through his hair. "I'll go talk to him and let him know you're back. I'll try to delay him a bit—say I promised to get you food or something."

He knew what was coming next. It was what Banni did whenever he had managed to upset Tokrah and it was what he instructed Ganbri to do whenever he had done the same.

"I can probably get an hour. That's enough time to get the kitchen and the sitting room done easily. And make sure you fold that basket of laundry before anything else. He asked you to do that yesterday and we'll both be hearing about it if it's still sitting there. And try to—"

"Clean everything," Ganbri interrupted. "I know, Banni."

Both his parents had very specific instructions on how to handle the other if they were upset and, for as long as Ganbri could remember, Banni's had always been to scrub the entire house down as though he were combatting some deadly disease. It did seem to work though.

Banni had clearly got a start on the house cleaning. He had an image in his head of Banni rushing Tokrah to Wilfred's the moment they realized the TARDIS was gone, then rushing home again to purge the house of all dust and grime. It definitely had a strong smell of cleaning chemicals to it.

His cell phone was sitting on the kitchen table where he'd left it. It was so bizarre to think that the last couple of weeks had been packed into three hours. He had four missed calls and about a dozen text messages from Annabelle.

'Your dad just called me looking for you. Where you hiding out?'

'Mum just got a call from your dad and she's FREAKING OUT! Where are you!?'

'Is everything okay? What's going on?'

'GANBRI! Call me, you idiot!'

They carried on, using more capital letters and exclamation points with each message. All Annie knew was that he was gone, everybody seemed to know something she didn't, and that it was something to be scared about.

At the end of them he had a message from J.J. that said very simply 'Jack's pissed'. It was very likely that they wouldn't see each other for a week or two.

He would call Annie later. He didn't feel up to explaining to her why his face was different or where he had been. Besides, he had cleaning to do.

It felt strange and yet comforting to sit down and do something as domestic as folding laundry. Scrubbing stubborn marks on the kitchen counter and struggling with a heavy vacuum cleaner seemed like the last thing to be worrying about after the things he'd seen. But he did it anyway. He supposed that's what everybody else did too.

He didn't like how skinny his new body was. This one may have had better teeth and lacked the annoying mole on his hip, but his limbs were too long and awkward and he kept overestimating his strength. He'd have to ask Uncle Jack to help him train up again to regain all the muscle that had vanished. His hair was weird too. It was too long and there was one annoying strand that kept falling into his eye. He'd just have to shave it when he got the chance. He'd just have to hope that his new face could pull off a buzz cut.

Regeneration was not all it was cracked up to be.

There were pictures in the house that weren't there before. In another life, his parents didn't have many photos of themselves and Banni didn't put any photos of Wilfred on display for fear of upsetting Tokrah. In this life, there was a group photo from their wedding day sitting proudly on a book shelf. The hallway was lined with photos from Ganbri's childhood that hadn't existed before. Grandfather always insisted on taking lots of photos.

He heard the car pulling into the driveway and he quickly made his way back to the living room. He sat down on one the sofas and quickly focused on opening his mind while keeping some of the more disturbing images tucked away safely. When the front door opened, he felt Tokrah's mind reaching out to his before they even laid eyes on each other.

He sensed some anger, yes, but fear more than anything else. Tokrah's mind was chaotic and disorganized in his stressful state and it grabbed hold of Ganbri's without caution. It was uncomfortable—too forceful and clumsy. He tried to push it back out but Tokrah was persistent.

"Why didn't you come to us?" Tokrah's voice barked as he entered the room. Definitely angry. "What were you thinking?! Charging off on your own without—"

"I wasn't alone," he answered quickly. He shouldn't have. The look Banni shot at him confirmed that immediately. When Tokrah was mad it was always best not to talk back until he finished his initial rant but Ganbri was tired and he didn't like the invasive feeling in his head.

"How old are you?" Tokrah growled next, physically grabbing him by the shoulder to get his full attention now. "You think three kids who haven't even passed their first century yet are qualified to be time travelling on their own? Let alone meddling with wars and battles!"

"Dad—" he tried pushing Tokrah's mind away again but it stubbornly pushed back, refusing to go anywhere.

"I don't want to hear about it! On Gallifrey, you'd still be in school and wouldn't even be dreaming of pulling a stunt like this! You are a Time Lord, Ganbri, and that means, no matter what your friends say, you are still under my authority. If we just let you live according to the standards of whatever century of whatever planet we happened to land on, you'd have a twelve year old wife and a household of human slaves."

"Dad!" he shouted, shoving away the hand that gripped his shoulder. "What the fuck?"

Tokrah's left hand shimmered gold ever so slightly. He was shaky, his voice unnatural. He was angry without knowing why or being able to contain it. Ganbri decided to just open his mind and let his father in, that they might communicate better.

He saw what he had seen in Banni. There were the remnants of his fear that Ganbri might not come home mixed with the overwhelming relief that he did. And then there was the shame. Tokrah's mind was sifting through images of the Nightmare's war, some of them were images that Ganbri hadn't even been there to witness. There were soldiers dying, Jack pointing his gun at the Prowler's head while awaiting instruction, Banni on his knees, looking like he was in crippling pain with blood streaming down his face. He saw the way Jenny tensed up when a shotgun was pointed at her spine and the look of betrayal in Banni's eyes. He saw the handle of an Astrosteel blade with a missing diamond, embedded in the pearly flesh of Kahlia.

He sent images back. He shared the relief of knowing that his Tokrah was protecting him when he was preparing to regenerate. He shared the comfort of bandages on scraped knees and the admiration for a teacher with true passion. He shared respect for a great warrior, once soaked in the blood and radiating power, who had chosen a peaceful life of early mornings and endless laundry.

Tokrah was quiet, his eyes staring at Ganbri through a thin, watery veil. His breathing had slowed, the golden light vanished. Ganbri made sure to show him the images of slaughter in his head, knowing that he would find them regardless, and let him feel that there was no evil attached to them.

"I don't think of you any differently," Ganbri assured him, thinking of the man that he first saw bloodied and bruised nearly twenty years ago, stubbornly facing pain and possible death in order to carry a small Alreesh boy to safety. "But I do understand you now. Better than ever before."

He reached into his father's mind and tucked away the anger there. He took the fear and uncertainty and put it back in its proper place. There was no room for such things now. His parents had suffered enough.

"I hoped you would be older," Tokrah said quietly, the anger deflating from quickly.

Ganbri smiled a little. "I don't think a few years would have made it any easier."

"Quite right," Banni answered, reaching out and grabbing Tokrah's hand. "But you're home and you're safe. That's all that matters."

He felt the warmth of Banni's consciousness pressing into Tokrah's, so he quickly withdrew. Banni had far more years of experience at comforting him and, besides, he was suddenly very tired. Tokrah took a few seconds to breathe and let Banni guide his mind and soon the shakiness in his hands had stopped.

Tokrah managed a small smile. "You hungry?"

Banni was standing just behind Tokrah, where he couldn't be seen, and began nodding his head vigorously.

"Yeah," Ganbri said, earning a wink from Banni.

Tokrah was always happiest with something to do. If he had something to focus his attention on, even something as simple as cooking, he was far less likely to have any sort of attack. Ganbri gave him a word of thanks, Banni kissed him on the cheek, and he hurried off to the kitchen.

"I told Annie you were safe," Banni said quietly, a small smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. "I told you that you were tired and needed rest. She won't come breaking the door down if you don't feel up to calling her today."

"Thank you."

". . . You just talk to us when you're ready, okay?"

"Okay."

He took a couple of days to be normal for a bit before he spoke of the war. He took Annie to the cinema and tried to tell her all the things he'd regretted not telling her, but the words didn't quite come out. He said something about worrying that he was never going to see her again when he got shot, but the rest was just a bunch of nonsensical half thoughts and awkward silences. Eventually Annie just took his hand in her own and smiled, giving him permission to stop talking.

J.J. was under house arrest for the first week but they were allowed to visit. He mostly just complained about the way his head ached and how frustrating Jack could be sometimes. It was easy to see that he hadn't quite adjusted to domestic life again and that his aggression was simply simmering beneath his skin. He always got that way after he had tasted blood and it always faded away with a little time.

Jenny slipped perfectly back into normal life. She was bouncy and cheerful as always, coming by in the afternoons to try to convince everyone to get out in the sun for a bit. The only thing that even suggested anything had happened to her was that she was slightly less friendly with Tokrah than before. She hugged him in greeting when she arrived at the house but didn't kiss him on the cheek the way she usually did and there were sometimes tense silences between them. But Jenny understood war and she was forgiving. Ganbri was sure the tension would pass soon enough.

After a couple of days, Ganbri began talking to his parents about what happened. They asked a lot of questions but they were good at not being too pushy. He didn't like the darkness in their eyes or the heaviness in their faces whenever they discussed the battle and he would put a stop to the conversation if he felt they were getting too emotional. He surprised himself a few times when he spoke because, though he felt perfectly calm and not upset, he would suddenly realize that his hands were shaking or that his voice had gone a bit odd. He tried to blame it on his new body and, though his parents were quick to agree, they didn't look the slightest bit convinced.

It had been nearly two weeks when Banni suggested that they go have a poke around the Haven. It had been locked and nobody had been inside since that Christmas Eve, when an alien voice threatened to burn the planet for the sake of the Star. Ganbri had never had a chance to even look at the room he both designed and was born in so he quickly agreed.

It was small but still a little bigger than he thought it might be. Tokrah hopped on the bed the moment they entered the room and quickly got himself comfortable.

"I punched the wall here," Tokrah said, pointing out a small dent near the bed.

"More like you flailed and the wall got in the way," Banni replied with a smirk.

Tokrah simply shrugged and folded his hands behind his head, looking as though he were going to take a nap. "Make your body do what mine did and we'll see how much you flail."

Banni raised the surgery table from the floor and told Ganbri about those frightening hours. He saw the signature he'd left on the back of the door of the Haephsian Sun with his name beneath it and felt an odd sense of pride. Tokrah began telling him about what a good baby he was and Banni joined in. His black hair was lovely, his cry was adorable—all the things they loved to say whenever someone would listen.

Banni joined Tokrah on the bed as they reminisced together about the bizarre two months they spent, holed up together and pretending not to be there. Ganbri only half listened to what they were saying as he poked around the room further. These were the tools that brought him into the world. This was the first basket he ever slept in. It felt a bit strange to stand in this room now. Until recently, it had always seemed like nothing more than a story—like it almost didn't exist.

His parents were talking about the way Banni would sneak off to train with the Beast while Ganbri entered the closet to have a look. He felt rather proud of himself as he observed his handiwork. Everything, down to the last detail, had been chosen specifically by him.

"Then, of course, I never told you," he could hear Banni's voice chattering from the main room. "But there was that one day that Shaun caught me on my way back."

It amused him to see that none of Tokrah's clothes were to be found anywhere except for either hanging up or in the hamper, while Banni's were strewn about carelessly.

"What are you talking about? No, he didn't." he heard Tokrah arguing.

"Yes, he did! I was bleeding quite a lot and he offered to help me. Then he said he'd keep the others away from the area for me."

He found a small stuffed giraffe on the floor of the closet and recalled one of his parents mentioning a giraffe he had when he was a baby. It was a cute little thing and, though he couldn't remember anything specific, he was sure that someone had told him a good story about it. He bent down to pick it up, deciding to take it with him, when he spotted a strange marking on the wall.

"He can't have," Tokrah was still arguing, a bit louder this time. "Your head must have been all jumbled up from you mucking about with your telepathy. It didn't happen."

"I'm telling you, it did. How would you know anyway?"

He picked up the prized giraffe and knelt closer to look at the odd marking. It hadn't been added; it was a part of the wall itself. Some kind of flower? He never put that there. He was sure of it. He'd programmed the room from scratch and he never told the ship to put that marking there. Perhaps it had happened when the ship glitched? It had done a couple of odd things while he programmed it, even going so far as to say that someone was already inside.

But that was impossible.

"Because we snuck off the TARDIS with Ganbri when the ship returned to Earth for Christmas," Tokrah's impatient voice drifted in through the doorway.

He reached his hand out to touch the marking to see if it was carved or not. To his surprise, the second his finger touched it, it sunk into the wall like a button and lit up.

"Shaun didn't join us until after Christmas. He wasn't even on the ship when we were in hiding!"

There was an odd silence as Ganbri watched a sliver of light cutting its way through the wall.

"What?" Banni's voice responded to Tokrah, almost argumentative but clearly confused. "But I . . ."

"You were off your rocker," Tokrah said hastily as the sliver of light began to widen like a doorway.

"No! No, no, I wasn't," Banni protested. "It really happened."

In a split second, the light had created an opening the size of a door and, on the other side of it, was a girl. Ganbri stared open mouthed at the sight of a young woman restrained with metal cuffs to a chair in some bizarre hidden compartment.

"Are you the Doctor? Did you change your face again?" she asked urgently, voice nothing more than a dry whisper. How long had she been in there?

Ganbri quickly shook his head. "No. But I, uh . . . I know where to find him."

"I need the Doctor," she said with even more urgency, pulling against her restraints with eyes darting wildly about for an escape. "I need to find him before it knows where I am! It's coming!"

He felt a little dumbstruck and not really sure what to do with this most unexpected of surprises. "Dad!" he shouted.

"What are you calling your dad for? Help me out of this thing and get me to the Doctor! You don't understand—"

"DAD!"

He heard a tumble of things falling over as both his fathers charged across the main room and into the closet. Tokrah instinctively grabbed Ganbri by the shoulders to pull him away while Banni stepped forward to see.

Banni had a look in his eyes that Ganbri had only seen on very rare occasions. It was a look of absolute surprise, fear, and happiness all at once. The look on the woman's face was very much the same.

She smiled up at Banni as though her heart was fit to burst with joy, though there were tears in her eyes. "Doctor."

The terrified look on Banni's face gave way to a grin and he sounded completely out of breath when he whispered back. "Rose."

End

And that's it! I definitely wanted to finish the story with the promise of another adventure as I feel it is Doctor Who tradition :) I most likely will write the sequel but, if I do, it won't be for a while. In the meantime, to help you all recover from the heavy emotions, I do intend to write some lighthearted (mostly domestic) fluff. I have quite a few little scenes in my head that I would like to write out. I may post them on this site but, as they would be scenes and not really proper stories, I may just post them on my tumblr (username nirah10 for those who want to follow).

Thank you all for sticking with me for so long! It's been a hell of a ride :)