Notes: Dr John Smith and his wife Rose have a newborn son. Rose starts wondering about the Doctor's family and his earlier life on Gallifrey. He decides that it's time she knew, and shows her.

Chapter 1

"Give us a long push there Rose," the midwife told Rose as she growled and panted. She was squeezing the Doctor's hand hard, determined that their son was coming out right now.

The midwife lifted a purplish-pink blob from under the water and placed it on Rose's chest. The blob's arms and legs shuddered as it let out a cry, suddenly ceasing to be a blob and becoming a beautiful baby, their beautiful baby.

"Oh Rose! Look what you've done. Look what we've produced," the Doctor said, nearly in tears.

Rose was in tears, elated and exhausted at the same time. She gently stroked her son's back and kissed his head.

"Oh my beautiful little boy," she said. "He's got your hair John," she laughed. The Doctor had taken the name John Smith when he arrived in this alternate world.

Sure enough, where the midwife had gently rubbed him with a towel, he had little, sticky-up tufts of hair.

"Do you have a name for him," the midwife asked them.

They looked at each other and smiled. "Eyulf Jackson," they said together.

"Eyulf, what a great name. I don't think I've heard that name before," the midwife said.

"It's Norwegian," Rose told her. "It means 'lucky wolf'."

John saw the questioning look on the midwife's face.

"Wolves have played an important part in our lives," he told her. "And Jackson is in honour of a very good friend of ours."

Rose's emotions were all over the place. She remembered when her brother was born and she had thought she would never hold her own child. All the trials and tribulations that led to this moment came flooding back, the lever room, the beach in Norway, her exile in this world.

All those jumps with the dimension cannon to find her love, only to see him shot by a Dalek. Seeing his despair at the accusation of Davros and their impending doom at the hands of the Daleks. And then the miracle happened. His twin saving them, his twin who wasn't a twin.

Her 'mirror man' who was the same man, definitely and absolutely the same man, the man that she loved. And against all the odds, this little bundle of Gallifreyan humanity on her chest was their forever that she had promised him all those years ago.

She reached up and stroked his cheek, turning her head to see his wonderful, contented smile. She showed him the smile that she saved only for him, the smile that lit up a room.

He leaned forwards and gave her a long, glorious, loving kiss.

"I love you Rose Tyler."

"I love you Doctor, forever."

The midwife had clamped off the umbilical cord and held out a pair of surgical scissors to John.

"Would 'Dad' like to cut the cord?" she asked them.

John's smile spread across his face. "Dad, that's me! I'm his Dad."

Rose gave a laugh at his realisation and watched him carefully cut through the 'rope' of tissue.

"If you get out of the pool now John and get dressed, you can hold him while I help Rose out," the midwife suggested.

He pushed himself up from behind Rose where she had been lying back against him and stepped out of the pool. He went into a small cubicle, removed his swimming trunks, dried himself off and put on his tracksuit.

When he returned to the small pool, baby Eyulf was wrapped in a white towel waiting for him. He sat in one of the comfortable chairs and cradled him in his elbow, watching Rose ease herself out of the pool.

She was wearing an oversized T-shirt that clung seductively to her body. There was a print of Homer Simpson holding his head saying 'DOH!' John grinned as he noticed that one of Homer's eyes was directly over one of Rose's nipples.

"Watcha grinnin' at?" she asked him as she noticed him oggling her body.

"Homer's got an eyeful," he laughed.

She looked down and started to laugh at the sight, as did the midwife.

"Come on Rose, let's get you dried off and in some pyjamas," the midwife said, still chuckling at the T-shirt.

Rose was sitting up in bed in her private room, nursing her newborn son. They had decided to call him 'EJ' for short, and he was noisily enjoying his breakfast with snuffling, slurping and um, um, um noises.

John was sat in a chair mesmerised by the scene of his beautiful wife feeding his beautiful son. There was a gentle tap on the door and a nurse popped her head around the door.

"How's it going Rose? Is he feeding well?" she asked.

Rose looked down as EJ was coming to the end of his feed and then looked up to the nurse, grinning. "He's doin' fine. Just gotta burp him now."

"Ooh, can I do it?" John asked, jumping up out of the chair.

Rose rolled her eyes and smiled at him. "Yeah, go on then. I'll make the most of this 'til the novelty wears off," she laughed.

The nurse gave a little laugh. "Your family are here Rose. Would you like me to show them in?"

"Oh yes please," she said as she buttoned up her fluffy yellow pyjamas.

There was a loud belch from EJ, who startled himself with the noise, as Pete, Jackie and Tony entered the room. Tony was holding a blue foil balloon that said 'Congratulations. It's a boy!'

"That's better out than in," Jackie said with a laugh.

Pete and Jackie went to the bed and kissed Rose on the cheek. They had a card and some flowers for her.

"How are ya sweetheart? Was it alright? Not too long was it?" Jackie asked her as they looked over at John patting EJ on the back as he rested over his shoulder.

"It was fine Mum. He came out quite quickly. Impatient like his father," she said with a smile aimed at John.

"Would you like to hold him?" John asked Jackie as he brought him back to the cradle of his elbow.

Jackie sat down in the chair and held out her hands to receive her one and only grandson.

"Eyulf Jack Smith, this is your Grandmother," John announced as he lowered him into the waiting arms.

"Oh Rose, he's gorgeous. Look at his hair," she cooed. EJ was scrutinising the face in front of him like newborns do.

Pete gently slapped John on the back and gave him a 'well done' smile.

"Eyulf Jack?" Pete said. "Good name for a Smith," he told him.

"It means 'lucky wolf' in Norwegian. We thought after all that the name 'bad wolf' has done for us, it was about time we changed it to 'lucky wolf'," John told them.

"And Jack Harkness was such a good friend to us that we wanted to remember him in the name Jackson," Rose added. John had walked over and sat on the bed, holding Rose's hand. Tony came over and climbed up next to John to give them the balloon.

"Is he my brother? Will I be able to play with him?" Tony asked. "I want to teach him how to play football."

John ruffled Tony's hair and Rose hugged him.

"You're his uncle really," Rose told him. "But I bet you'll be more like brothers. And when he grows up a bit, I bet he'll love for you to teach him football."

Pete had a cuddle as the proud granddad, and Tony laughed as EJ gripped his offered index finger.

They chatted and had a cup of tea off the trolley that was wheeled into the room. Rose was surprised that this tea didn't stick to the roof of her mouth. Tony chose a bottle of Vitex cherry drink off the trolley and proudly told the volunteer that his daddy made it.

"Oh, of course. Mr and Mrs. Tyler, it's a real pleasure to meet you," the woman said. "And this must be your grandson. You must be very proud."

"It's nice to meet you," Jackie said. "And we are very proud, yes. Oh, and a lovely cup of tea by the way," she added.

The look of pride on the woman's face filled the room. "Very nice of you to say so," she said as she left them to their celebrations.

"So when do you get to go home then?" Jackie asked Rose.

"The consultant will do his rounds after lunch, check EJ over and then if everythin's OK, we can go," she replied.

"We'll leave you to get some rest then and talk to ya later." Jackie had a final cuddle of her grandson, kissed his head and handed him back to Rose. After kissing and hugging, the Tylers left the room and John continued to sit, holding Rose's hand and stroking his son's back.

The Smith's residence was a stunning interior designed Victorian house in Northumberland Place, one of the prettiest tree lined streets in Notting Hill, situated at the heart of Artesian village.

It was a white fronted town house with black railings and columns either side of the door. Unusually, it had a space at the front for parking Delores the Delorian.

They had a bespoke Bulthaup kitchen/dining room which lead to a decked garden. The raised ground floor double reception room had the traditional high ceilings, with intricate ceiling roses and cornicing, feature fireplaces and traditional shutters on the windows. This was their living room where they watched TV and listened to music while cuddling on the comfy sofa.

The first floor had a master suite and two double bedrooms, one of which had been converted into the nursery. Naturally it had a time and space theme to it, with glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling which accurately depicted the constellations in the night sky. On the border around the room, John had drawn Gallifreyan symbols that told the story of their arrival in 'Pete's World'.

The studies on the ground and first floors were an office for Rose and John respectively and one of the three spacious storage vaults to the front of the house had been converted into a laboratory/workshop for John.

The whole house had a 'brain' like the Delorian and took care of security, lighting, heating, multimedia, robotic vacuum cleaners, etc, so as John and Rose walked up the steps, the security camera identified them and opened the door for them.

John had explained to Rose that like the TARDIS, the chapter houses on Gallifrey were grown and had sentience and personality. They had joked about creating a personality for their house. Rose suggested Jack Harkness and burst into fits of laughter when John said he would not live in a house that kept flirting with him every five minutes.

But really, there was only one choice for their house; they both agreed it was a fitting tribute.

"Welcome home," Donna Noble's voice said. "Would you like me to put the kettle on?"

"Ooh, that would be lovely," Rose said as she dropped her bag in the hall. John was carrying EJ in the baby car seat which converted into a carrycot, and set him down by the sofa.

"Make yourself comfortable love, I'll go and make the tea." He gave her a quick snog and went through to the kitchen.

"Mmmm," she said as he left the room. "TV, sky news please Donna."

Rose took EJ out of the carrycot and started to unwrap him from his outdoor all-in-one as the TV switched on.

"Is that the new arrival?" Donna-the-house asked.

Rose propped EJ on her knee, facing one of the discrete cameras in the room. "Yes Donna, this is EJ."

"Ooh, he's so cute. Welcome home EJ."

John came in from the kitchen and placed the mugs on the low table in front of the sofa before sitting on the sofa and cuddling up. After finishing their mugs of tea, Rose looked into John's eyes.

When she had gone into labour that morning, she told him she hadn't done this before and she was scared. He had absently said that he had and that she would be fine.

She asked him if he would ever tell her about him being a dad and he said he would, but now... It didn't seem important. He obviously didn't want to talk about it, and she didn't want to cause him any pain by remembering things and people long gone.

"John? you know when you said you had done this before, and I asked if you would tell me about it? Well, you don't have to. I'll understand if it's all too much for you."

He rested his head against hers and gave her shoulder a squeeze.

"Rose," he said quietly, his voice almost breaking. "I really don't deserve you. You are the most caring and compassionate person I think I have ever met. Single handedly, you alone have taught me what it is to be human. And you are my wife, you need to know my past, how it shaped me into the person you came to love."

"I need to explain some things first. Do you want a beer or a glass of wine?" he asked her.

"Y'know, I haven't had a drink for nine months. An ice cold beer would be brilliant," she said as she gently rocked the sleeping EJ.

John went to the fridge and poured a couple of beers into glasses and came back to cuddle Rose after handing her the beer.

'You know my Gallifreyan name translates as a promise {Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up, never give in.}?' he asked her.

Rose nodded; she got all that when he gave her his Gallifreyan name after their wedding.

"Well, my family name is Lungbarrow. For millennia, Gallifreyan's we were afflicted by a sort of 'curse', an inability to reproduce naturally. Rassilon, the founder of the Time Lord dynasty, instigated a genetic splicing technique that allowed parents to have their TNA combined in vitro and embryos to be nurtured in 'looms'. Each chapter house had its own loom."

They took a sip of their beers before he continued. Rose was silent, hanging on every word. It was the most he had ever told her about his life back home, and there was more to come.

"Now, the weird thing is, I seem to have had two childhoods," he told her in all seriousness. "One before the infertility, and one after."

Rose sputtered her beer. "Wha'? Two? How is that even possible?" she asked, and then said. "Don't tell me; let me guess, 'it's complicated'."

John grinned at her, his eyes sparkling. "It must have been, because I don't know why I have two lots of memories." He remembered a time when he was travelling with Martha and a young woman stopped him in the street.

"Do you remember me telling you about the 'weeping angels' that stole the TARDIS that once?" he asked her.

"Yeah, you said someone gave you a message to give back to them in the future, I think. What's that got to do with having two childhoods?"

"It was Sally Sparrow, I remember telling her 'look, sorry, I've got a bit of a complex life. Things don't always happen to me in quite the right order'," he explained.

"And do you think that's what happened to your childhood?"

"It could be, similar to your childhood really, when your Mum told you about the woman who held your Dad's hand when he died."

"Oh yeah, I see what you mean." It had been Rose that her Mum had seen.

"Well, I digress."

"As usual," she said with a grin.

"Let's start with my first memories. As my name suggests, I was a bit of a 'wild child', I got that from my father, Ulysses. My mother, Penelope, was a science lecturer and had infinite patience with me."

John sighed and had a sad look on his face. "I must have been a great disappointment to her."

Rose immediately squeezed his hand and kissed his cheek. "You stop that right now mister. Don't forget, I saw a world without you when Donna couldn't save you. It was a hell on Earth. OK, people died, but the civilisations, the worlds, even the universes you've saved, any mother would be proud of a son who had achieved all that."

Rose was referring to the time when she had met Donna Noble using the 'dimension cannon' and she had a 'time-beetle' on her back that was causing an alternate time line.

"Aw, there you go again Rose, seeing the best in people. But you haven't heard the whole of the story yet. By the way, are you going to be OK with me telling you about the 'other women' in my life?" he asked her.

Rose was curled up on the sofa, leaning against his chest. She looked up at him and smiled. "What, like Sarah Jane and Rennette?" she replied, sipping her beer.

He ran his hand through his hair. "Welll, sort of, but these were my first loves."

Rose stroked his cheek. "You know about Jimmy and Mickey, they were before I met you. Are you OK with that?"

"Actually, I feel a bit guilty about Mickey. I feel like I stole his girl from him," he told her, pulling his ear.

"NO! Don't go there," she told him. "Me an' Mickey had a good time an' all that, but it was comfortable, y'know convenient. We were never goin' to set the world on fire."

She gave him her tongue through the teeth smile. "You on the other hand, you set my whole universe on fire."

He leant forward and snogged her before continuing.

"Another chapter house on Gallifrey was Blyledge, it was an old family, one of the senior members of the Prydon Chapter. They were a bit snobbish and the Lungbarrows never really got on with them, except for a niece of old man Blyledge." He waggled his eyebrows at Rose.

"I saw our timelines, that they could converge, but I didn't seem to be able to attract her attention. I was a bit of a 'wet' teenager back then." John stopped talking and a grin started to spread across his face.

"Y'know Rose, rather than tell you about all this, why don't I show you?" he said.

"Show me? What d'ya mean?" she asked him.

"I can relive the events in my mind with you in there as well, it'll only take a couple of minutes and you can get all of the events, the dialogue and emotions," he told her.

"I don't know. Is it safe? Will EJ be alright while we're in there?" she asked.

"It's perfectly safe. You'll still be aware of everything going on in the room; it'll be just like watching a play on TV."

"Yeah, OK then, I'll give it a go."

They finished their beers and then, still cradling EJ, she sat facing John. He put his fingers on her temples and gently invited her into his mind.