Hi all! I've missed you! I've been working on something new, and it's been through five drafts now. I decided just to freakin' post it before I drive myself nuts!

It is a continuation of the story Things We Weren't Meant To Know. As always, I'm recommending that you read the first story if you haven't already (since it's one of my favorites). But in case you haven't read it and don't care to, here's a quick run-down of it, so you can hit the ground running with this story, without too much exposition:

Martha and the Tenth Doctor are trying to halt a deadly interplanetary plague, and follow a line of inquiry to the home of a man who has made great headway in researching the plague. Trouble is, he's already dead in the basement, his body having rotted to little more than a skeleton. Fortunately, he's left volumes upon volumes of research records and results, which help lead our heroes to the way to stop the plague.

But mixed in with his lab notes, the researcher has left fragmented portions of a memoir. Just about the time Martha and the Doctor are discovering that they truly love each other, and that they have an explosive physical connection, they also discover that the researcher is their son. He had been born to them in the early 21st century, and brought up, more or less, by Martha's sister Tish and her future husband. The two travelers, particularly Martha, have trouble coming to terms with the fact that though their child would live an extraordinary life, he would never have true love, and would ultimately have a solitary and painful death.

Several weeks after the discovery, Martha discovers that she can miraculously understand and "see" time and space, whereas she'd only had a tenuous, abstract grip on the concepts before (sort of like the rest of us). This means that her body is now host to a Time Lord consciousness - she is pregnant.

This is going to be an amalgam of two different ideas I've had bouncing around in my head for a while. I hope you like it. It might turn a little dark, so I hope you don't mind a little Twisted Who. Enjoy!

FIVE AND A HALF MONTHS BEFORE THE WEDDING, SATURDAY MORNING

A boisterous voice boomed through the cramped space, giving the advice that let locals and tourists alike know, unequivocally, that they were in London.

"Mind the gap!" it said, as part of the music of the city. And though she'd heard it at least a million times, she smiled a little. It was a tiny but inmistakable reminder that she was home. At least for a little while.

She heeded the advice and took a big step forward onto the platform. As she began to climb stairs, she took the paper napkin from her pocket, the one where she had jotted the information her sister had sent her via e-mail.

Audacious Attire. It was a retro dress shop that did most of its business online, and Tish had found her dream wedding dress on the website. She had recruited her mum, Martha and Dana Chin (the other bridesmaid) to come and watch her try it on, and give her their opinion. Though, Martha knew that all she really wanted was for them to ooh and aah over it, whether they liked it or not.

When Martha emerged from the tube station in Soho, she was ten minutes early. Time to spare, and yet, her mother still found ways of finding fault.

"Well, thanks for joining us, Miss Jet Set," Francine Jones said, while leaning cooly against the door frame in her sunglasses, drinking a lattè. Above her head, painted in pink 1950's-style calligraphy, was the name of the audacious dress shop.

But Martha had made it, in spite of having awakened that morning feeling like death warmed over, so what was with the thanks for joining us rubbish?

"Really, mum? I've been off the tube for exactly fifteen and a half seconds, and you're going to start now? Oh, hello to you too, by the way." Martha actually chuckled a bit.

"Don't you get glib with me."

She sighed. "Mum, I'm ten minutes early."

"Sure. Now," her mother said with an exasperated shrug and one hand on her hip.

Martha closed her eyes and put her index fingers to her temples. "I'm sure there will be many times over the next several months when I regret asking this, but… what are you on about?"

"Your sister calls and says she's found herself a wedding gown, and you're too busy to come?"

"I'm clearly not too busy to come. I'm here, am I not?"

"How many weddings do you think Tish is going to have?"

"Seriously, mum, I'm standing right here."

"Well, Tish said she had to talk you into coming."

"What?"

"You told her you weren't sure, and that she didn't know exactly why, that it was for you to say," her mother handed back to her. "Just what in God's name are the two of you doing, you and that Doctor, that you can't be here when your sister's getting married and needs you?"

"I've been sick, so yeah, I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make it," Martha protested loudly. She hated her voice raised like that with her mother – it made her feel like an insolent child. "It's not because I'm jet-setting, or whatever you think we're doing."

"Sick," Francine said sceptically. "With what?"

Martha opened her mouth, to speak, froze, then lost her nerve. She ended with, "Doesn't matter," and crossed her arms.

The evasive answer didn't sit well. "Well, was it a cold, or flu, what, Martha?"

"Mum, will you just leave it? You'd be the first to point out that this day is for Tish, so let's not fight, okay?"

"What's going on?" Tish said, walking up from Martha's right, with Dana in tow. Her face was scrunched up quizzically, with a bit of worry. Dana hung back, as she could sense tension in the air.

"Nothing," Martha said. "Let's just go inside."

"It's not nothing," Francine said. "You said you've been sick. Now honestly, Martha, if you're so ill you think you won't be able to make it to a family event, and you won't talk about it… you're really worrying me."

"This qualifies as a family event?" Martha asked.

"Ill?" asked Tish. "What's the matter?"

Martha shifted her arms to her sides and held her palms out, looking at Tish with wide eyes and a cocked head. Tish read her expression loud and clear.

But before she could stop herself, Tish said, "Ohhh. Wait, you haven't told her yet?"

"Told me what?" Francine demanded, tearing off her sunglasses.

"Thanks Tish," Martha snapped. "Very helpful."

"Sorry! I thought you'd have said something by now!"

"Great," Martha shot at her sister. "Why don't you tell her about the glass unicorn I broke when I was five, and that I blamed it on Leo?"

"Martha, what is wrong with your health? Tell me right now, young lady."

"Mum, honestly," Tish said, taking her mother's arm, trying to cover for Martha, and make up for her mistake. "She's fine. She lives with a doctor, and she's almost one herself. If they're not worried, why should you be?"

"I'm worried because my children are keeping secrets from me!" Francine's brow was bent with worry, her eyes betraying real fear.

Martha sighed heavily. "All right, mum," she said. "But not now. I will tell you at lunch. Anything you want to know. All right?"

Her mother flattened her lips, and regarded her daughter with steely eyes. "Swear to me?"

"Yes!"

"Promise you won't gloss it over with some half-truth, or try to distract me?"

"I promise, mother."

"Don't make promises you don't intend to keep, Martha Jones."

"I'll keep my promise. But you have to promise not to freak out."

Francine thought this over. She wasn't sure she could keep that promise, depending on what Martha had to tell her. But she said, "Fine."

"Brilliant!" Tish chirped sarcastically. "Now everything is peachy-keen for another two hours at least!"

Martha realised that her good friend Dana had been standing there through it all. She turned and said, "Hi Dana," and gave her friend a hug. "Sorry about all this. It appears we Joneses can't do anything without turning it into an international incident."

"It's okay," Dana said. "I grew up with you lot, remember?"

"Now listen," Tish said. "This is a happy day for me. There will be no discussion of this inside the store. No sicknesses, no secrets, no angry words or sarcasm, yeah?"

"Okay," Martha and Francine both grumbled.

When they got inside the store, a tall, pale woman with exaggerated, elongated features sauntered up and asked if she could help. She was brunette, and she wore clothes that were a shade too large for her thin frame. She was peculiar. She seemed shy, even though she had introduced herself as Fiona Hart, the store's owner. Martha would have pictured the owner of Audacious Attire to be someone more audacious herself. Instead, she was Sarah Plain and Tall, rather frumpy.

Tish pulled a piece of paper from her purse, with a picture she had printed from the website, and asked to try on the dress. She didn't want any of the other three to see it before she put it on, so that they could give their first impressions with her in it, so Martha, Francine and Dana browsed round the store and waited. Dana updated them on her new married life, and promised to show honeymoon photos as soon as she got the chance.

"Okay!" they heard Tish sing, eventually, from a far corner of the store. They made their way toward her, and found her wearing a vintage 1950's, ivory-coloured dress, and she was standing on a twelve-inch platform. The bodice was lace laid over satin, with tiny, subtle threads of gold lammé in the weave. It had a wide boat neck that extended out almost all the way to the tips of Tish's shoulders, long, dainty sleeves, and a wide tulle skirt.

Martha smiled. "I like it! It's very you."

"Yeah?" asked Tish, beaming, doing a little curtsy. She turned toward the myriad of mirrors against the wall and beamed even wider.

"It's lovely, sweetheart," Francine said. She walked up behind Tish and tugged at the zip. It pulled taut against Tish's thin frame. "We'll have to take it in a bit. Miss Hart, do you do alterations?"

"I'm afraid not," the strange woman reported. "But we do have several wonderful seamstresses we can refer you to."

"Are you going to shop around a bit more?" Dana asked.

"No, what's the point?" Tish exclaimed. "I think this is the one!"

"Are you sure, Tish?" asked Francine.

"Mum, when you know, you know," answered the ecstatic bride-to-be.

Fiona Hart chuckled. The four women looked at her, surprised to have heard her make noise out of turn.

"Sorry," she said. "It's just… you seem so excited. It's good to see. I mean, it makes me happy. It's good for me. For us all."

Tish didn't notice anything particularly weird about this, but Martha did. She and her mum looked at each other and shrugged.

As Tish and Francine were paying for the dress, Dana and Martha shopped nearby, gawking at the vintage ball gowns in all manner of chiffon and sea-foam green.

"If everything weren't so pricey, I'd say that this must be the local drag-queen hangout," Dana whispered, careful not to let Tish, or Miss Hart, hear.

"What do you think of this shopkeeper?" Martha asked her friend, ignoring the remark, becoming increasingly uneasy with the odd woman.

"She's weird," Dana shrugged.

"Did you hear what she said? Excitement is good for her, then she corrected herself and said for us all. Like… I don't know."

"She probably meant it's good for business, and then realised it made her sound greedy, so she changed her tack," Dana reasoned. "She's just not very face-to-face business savvy. No wonder she does so much business online."

"Yeah," Martha sighed, keeping an eye on the tall lady.

The two of them made their way to the counter. Francine had paid five hundred pounds for the dress, and Tish was now filling out a card, with her wedding date, her e-mail address, and other information so that the dress shop could get in touch with her for other bride-related events. Martha nudged Tish's arm as she filled out the card.

"Why are you giving her all that information?" she whispered.

"Because," Tish said. "We still don't have a caterer or a cake shop or a florist picked out. What better way to find out about the best stuff that's out there?"

"I don't like it."

"Why not?"

"Because," Martha said. "I have this feeling in my gut…"

"I know."

"No, it's not that," she protested, rolling her eyes. "Although… it's… no, I just mean, I get a bad feeling from this woman."

"Relax, Martha," said Tish. "Don't stress. It's not good for you."