Author's Note: And the end.

Can I just take a moment to express how much I love Dawn, in this chapter? I think Dawn, between Adventures of A Line Hopper and the Child of Balime, has really come into her own. To think she started out as just Buffy's bratty little sister, and now, she's solving mysteries, defeating alien monsters, and even facing down the Doctor!

Go Dawn!

Anyways, hope you all enjoyed the story! Next up, "Sunglasses". And then... we'll get back to Dawn and Seo, as they try to get at the Silence.

(For all you who've seen the Christmas Special, I'll just point out that Seo, not knowing Kovarian was using time travel, would naturally assume (erroneously) that the furthest point back in time that she could find a group calling itself "the Silence" would be its beginnings. See? It's a character flaw! It definitely had nothing to do with me needing to race back and rewrite much of the Season after watching the Christmas special. Nope! Nothing at all.)

(...grumble grumble grumble...)

Enjoy!

"Oh, brilliant! You're awake!" Seo cried, racing into the room with a tray filled with food, and laying it down beside the Doctor. "Look! See? I baked you cookies. And made you tea. And fish fingers and custard. You like that, right? Or is that a different you?" She straightened his blanket, and adjusted some of his bandages. "I always get confused. With changed taste buds and all that. I know one of you really hates pears, but I can never remember which one. Although — I could get you a pear, if you want! Or I could not, if you don't! Anything you'd like, just say, and I'll zip right off, and get—"

"Seo," the Doctor interrupted, looking down at himself. Taking in that he was now lying on a couch in the library, nicely bandaged, a bouquet of flowers in a vase right beside him. The tray of home-cooked food. "Are you trying to nurse me back to health?"

Seo stepped back, a little uneasily. "I… might be."

The Doctor sat up, undoing the bandages to reveal completely undamaged skin. "You do realize that healing comas don't require any of this," he said. "And that, in all likelihood, the injuries were already healed even while you were bandaging them up?"

Seo shuffled a little, in place. "Well… it's just… I just… wanted to feel like I was helping. A little." Her eyes lit up, and she raced off, rushing back into the room while fluffing up a pillow. "I can make you more comfy! Or I could get you a book. Or make you more food, or refresh the flower, or…"

She caught the look on the Doctor's face — a sort of detached whimsy — and froze.

"What?" Seo asked.

"Nothing," the Doctor said, looking away. A small smile on his lips. "You just… have no idea how much you look like your mum, when you do that."

A horrible dread welled up inside of Seo.

Mom.

"I don't want to talk about her," Seo whispered. Hands clenching around the pillow.

Oh, she hadn't even thought about Mom! Mom was going to kill her for this! And then Mom was going to tell Jack, and Jack was going to kill her for this! And she was never going to be able to go home, ever again, and she'd be on the run the rest of her life, and…

Home.

She loved going home.

Loved see Mom and Alison and Jack. And Martha's family. Loved hearing the hum of the Torchwood hub and smelling the charcoal smell of Mom burning dinner because she was trying to both cook and chase a Graske at the same time. Loved the pleasant little humming Giles made when they went over to his place to do research, and he flipped through books that smelled of old and dust and time…

That was home.

And — like Glory — sometimes Seo thought she'd do anything to be able to go back there, again.

"Aunt Dawn said that… you thought… I was always Glory," said Seo, very quietly. "Even when I was normal."

The Doctor sat up on the couch, continuing to unwrap unnecessary bandages from his head. "Well, you are. To a certain extent. Always Glory." The Doctor glanced up at her. "But you're also always you. And you balance her out well."

Seo bit her lower lip. Staring at the ground.

"Except," she whispered, "when I turn into an evil killing machine that can't stop myself from beating you up."

The Doctor paused, a moment, hand on his bandage. Noticing Seo's expression. "Ah," he said. He scooted over on the couch. Pat the area beside him. "I think it's time we had a little chat about that, actually."

Dawn stared at the date on the view-screen. The date of the Doctor's death.

She kicked the central console.

"Change, damn it!" she demanded. Kicked it again, just to make sure it got the message. "I didn't tell him! I was good! I made sure he wouldn't reunite with Buffy or anything!"

It kept on projecting that date.

"So what the hell is wrong with you?" Dawn shouted. She grabbed up the monitor, and shook it with both hands. "The Doctor doesn't have to die! He doesn't know, this isn't going to happen, so… so… stop with the melodramatic doomsayer already!"

Still nothing.

Dawn wanted to smash the TARDIS with a pickaxe. "Is it the Daleks?" she shouted. "Some great big lightning bolt dropping out of the sky? Another Seo freak-out?!" She shook the monitor, again. "Too many people have died today! I'm not letting anyone else die!"

"Everyone has to die, sometime," the Doctor announced, walking into the console room. He tried to make it look light and cheerful, like it didn't bother him at all. Maybe, if he hadn't tried so hard to brush it off, it wouldn't have seemed so forced. "Well. Maybe not Jack. But everyone else."

Seo followed him in. Still looking seriously guilty, but maybe a little wiser.

"Had a bit of a chat," the Doctor continued, patting Seo on the back. "Got her a bit more enlightened on what's going on with this 'weapon-mode' of hers, and how she can more effectively combat it. And your ship… your 'Oliver'… is working, again. Just try to keep Seo away from Daleks for a few weeks, and everything will be right as rain!"

Dawn gave him a huge smile. "That's great!" she said. The smile turned into a determined stare. "We're not leaving."

The Doctor blinked. "Sorry?"

Dawn shoved the monitor at him. "This says you're gonna die," she said. "And if you think the two of us are just going to zoom off somewhere and ignore that, then you've got a date with the Oncoming Dawn!"

The Doctor sighed. "Dawn," he said. "It's a fixed point in time. There's nothing you can…"

"Oh, yeah?" said Dawn. She gestured at Seo. "She's part Glory. I'm the Key. You've already told us we're the most dangerous people in the universe. And the Daleks thought so, too. So I'm thinking, if Seo and I are that powerful together, let's take this TARDIS to Utah, 2012, right now, so Seo and I can kick some serious evil-guy butt, before…"

"Aunt Dawn," said Seo, quietly. "We can't."

Then Seo turned, head down, and made her way back to Oliver.

Dawn chased after her, shocked. "But there's no way we can just leave and let—"

"He says it's a fixed point in time," said Seo, trudging out of the console room and towards her ship. "So we can't change it. That's against the rules."

"Since when do you care about breaking the rules?" said Dawn. "You're the one always telling me that we can just fudge the time travel guidelines and hope nobody notices!"

Seo took out her key, and unlocked her ship. Glancing over Dawn's shoulder, at her father.

"I learned my lesson," she said.

And slipped inside.

"Look, Seo," Dawn insisted, as Oliver launched back into the Vortex. "That whole Doctor-dying-thing is my fault! I almost told the Doctor something I shouldn't have, and now, as a result, he's doomed! I've got to save…!"

"Of course we do!" Seo hissed, tapping frantically at a screen on the console, as it hooked up to different galactic networks. "But we don't say we're going to break the rules in front of the person who made them!"

Dawn stopped.

Oh.

Grinned.

"So we are going to try to stop the Doctor from dying?" Dawn asked. She rushed over to where Seo was still tapping away. "And we're going to be sneaky and strategic so we don't make the universe fall apart, right?"

"Naturally," said Seo. She turned on Dawn. "Look, it's simple. If my theory's correct, that spot's only fixed because my father's gotten his timelines all muddled together and mucked about with. He must have interfered with his own past, thus setting up a situation that would result in his own death. Or… something like that."

Dawn had no idea what that meant.

But she was liking the whole making-sure-the-Doctor-didn't-die thing.

"So where are we going?" asked Dawn.

Seo slammed down a lever. "To where it all began, before it ever started. Hopefully, before my father ever even got involved." Her eyes twinkled, as she gestured at the console screen she'd been using. "Time to find the group calling itself 'the Silence'."