Hello all! And goodbye all! This is the final chapter! I began this story a year ago, almost to the day, and it has been one of the most frustrating and difficult writing endeavors. Thank you to everyone who got involved and stayed with me, and to those of you who gave me advice and lingo over the miles!

As you probably will notice, there is potential for another continuation, but for the moment I'm not making any promises. I hope you like the way this ends, even though there is a bit of doom and gloom. It was inevitable, what with the way their child's life is to go, I felt. It seemed right to end with a foot forward into the next great adventure in their lives, but also I wanted to have at least something of a high note...

Anyway, here's the end of one of my own personal great adventures - though as always, I do have a few other ideas on the horizon. Thanks again, and enjoy!

ON THE DAY OF THE WEDDING: EPILOGUE

Francine Jones was having quite a bit of trouble holding back the tears as she adjusted the veil on her daughter's head. Tish simply stared into the mirror, half in bliss and half in disbelief. She almost couldn't fathom that the day was here – partly because after the internet debacle had begun, she didn't really think she'd survive long enough to get married.

"You look beautiful," Francine sniffed.

Tish smiled. "Thanks, mum."

"The dress is perfect."

"Mostly, yeah," Tish agreed, keeping in mind that choosing this dress had almost got her killed.

"Only thing missing is the bouquet. Where is it?"

"Some of the flowers started to wilt, so I sent Martha back down to the florists' lorry to get a few new daisies, and some to spare," she told her mother.

As if scripted, Martha walked through the door at that point, wearing her taupe bridesmaid dress, and carrying Tish's refurbished bouquet in one hand, and a small black plastic bucket of daisies in the other hand. "Here you go," she said. "If you run out of daisies now, it will be your own fault."

Behind her, a man with a priestly collar stuck his head in the door. "Letitia, your first guests are being seated," he said. "We have about a half hour."

"Thank you, Father O'Hanlon," Tish answered.

The priest closed the door lightly, and Francine piped up. "Martha, that reminds me. I've spoken to Father O'Hanlon about a christening."

Martha sighed. On any other day, she might have taken that exception and run with it, but today was not the day for it. She wondered if her mother had chosen now to bring it up, because she'd known that Martha would never protest hard enough to ruin Tish's wedding day.

"Okay, mum, we'll talk about it later," Martha said.

"I mean… I don't know what the Doctor's beliefs are. I don't suppose he's Catholic…" Francine said, trailing off coyly.

Martha laughed. "No, I don't suppose he is," she said, thinking how interesting it was that her mother hadn't set foot in a church for anything other than weddings or funerals in at least ten years, and never talked about God or anything remotely spiritual, but now she was all about it.

Something occurred to Martha at that moment. She turned to her sister, who was admiring herself in profile in the mirror. "What do you think, Tish?"

"About what?"

"About christening our baby?"

Tish reacted with predictable surprise. "Why should it matter what I think?"

"Mum," Martha said. "Will you give us a little sisterly alone time?"

"Er, okay," Francine said, suspiciously. "I'll be next door helping Leo with his bowtie if you need me." She left the room reluctantly, frowning.

Tish turned excitedly and hugged her sister. "I can't believe I'm here!" she exclaimed. "Thanks to you, and I mean it. Thank you, honestly. I'd be lost to the internet if it weren't for you and that non-Catholic Doctor of yours."

Distractedly, Martha said, "You're welcome, Tish. Listen, I know you have a million things on your mind today, but it's such an important day, and… well, you know, it's a wedding. It's all about family – you and Robert Oliver joining each other's families, becoming family to one another."

Tish smiled. "Sure."

"So I have a family thing to bring up, and it seems like a good… Tish, I need to ask you something," Martha said.

"Okay, clearly. What is it?"

Martha gulped. "We'd like you and Robert Oliver to be godparents to our son."

Tish's face melted, and she took Martha's hands. "Oh, Martha," she whispered. "That's… amazing. And it means so much to me that you would trust us with this."

"Take some time, think on it, talk it over with Robert Oliver after the honeymoon, and let us know," Martha told her. "Just know that… well, you've seen what our lives are like. You may wind up…" Martha choked on her words.

You may wind up taking him in, Martha wanted to say. But she had choked because she knew the ugly truth of it: there was no may about it. Tish and Robert Oliver would wind up taking in and raising her son through his most formative years.

She took a deep breath. "So, if our son someday needs your help - something happens to us, and he has to come live with you, it's going to matter what you think. About a christening or whatever else."

"Martha, you're talking about a one-in-a-million chance," Tish reasoned, though incorrectly. "This is a big 'if.' Raise your son how you see fit, do what you think is best for him – you're his mum. The odds of anything happening…"

"Tish, you know that we can travel in time, right?"

Tish seemed confused. "Er, yeah. I guess."

"Well, sometimes time travellers… we know things."

"What does that mean?"

"It means we find things out, sometimes things we weren't meant to know."

"I see."

"And sometimes, we have to take precautions, either to make history take the course that it's supposed to, or to avoid certain disasters."

"Are you trying to make history take its course right now? Or avoid a disaster?"

With a big sigh, Martha answered, "It's one of those. Maybe both."

"Okay. Are you telling me you know…" Tish began.

"I'm not telling you anything," Martha interjected. "I wish I hadn't said anything about... time. Just know that it's not one-in-a-million that something bad will happen to me and the Doctor. You have seen what we do every day. You have seen the kind of rubbish we get into. You have seen that the chances are not exactly remote that we both get eaten by something, or incinerated in an interdimensional fire prison or..."

She had stopped talking because the look on Tish's face indicated that she was totally appalled.

And Tish stared at her for a long while. "Okay," she said at last, holding up both hands in disarmed fashion. "I'm going to choose to take what you just said at face value. I'm going to remember that what the two of you do is dangerous, and that something may well happen to you, because it's common sense to keep this in mind. That's right – common sense, that's the answer. I'm going to forget that you said anything about time travel, and try to remain convinced that this is simply a common sense thing. Like if you were a police officer."

"Good," Martha said. "And don't worry, it doesn't necessarily mean I'm going to die in battle or something. There are other reasons why… you know what? I'm talking too much again. Just… try not to worry."

Tish chuckled. "I hope you're more convincing than that when you tell your child not to worry."

"I'm sorry I put this on you today. I didn't mean for the conversation to go this far. I just wanted to ask you a favour and for you to be happy that I asked, and for everyone to feel all warm inside."

"Well, you almost accomplished it. I do feel warm inside – it's still quite nice that you trust me with your son's life."

Martha was relieved that Tish's tone was remaining light, because she would be well within her rights to be angry with Martha just now.

"Incidentally," Tish added. "Do you happen to know when common sense tells us something will happen?"

"Yes," Martha said. "Do you really want to know?"

Upon quick reflection Tish answered, "No. No, I really don't."

By the one-hour mark of the wedding reception, Martha reckoned she had already answered at least three thousand questions about her pregnancy. "Do you know whether it's a boy or a girl? Have you thought of a name yet? Are you going to continue with medical school? What colour is your nursery?" Martha didn't mind these, the innocuous questions so much, but she stopped short of commenting on whether she would breastfeed, deliver naturally or have her son circumcised. She felt that questions about people's private parts were really not appropriate for casual acquaintances to ask in the receiving line of a wedding. What was it about a pregnant woman that made everyone forget friendly conversational boundaries? It's like "the bump" caused everyone in the room, not just the mother, to lose their minds.

Dancing with her tall, tuxedo-clad partner, she mused over these questions. The Doctor reported that he'd received much of the same, and that he'd learnt the hard way that "these days" a man can't just plead ignorance on anything.

"I don't understand why it's such a big deal if I say I don't know," he said. "I mean, yeah, sure, sometimes the truth is just too weird to pass on, but sometimes, I really don't know!"

"It's funny, the truth about our life is often just too weird to pass on, and only now is it becoming a problem."

"It's because people think that the well-being of a baby is everyone's business," said the Doctor. "Maybe they're right, in a way."

"That reminds me," she said. "I asked Tish the big question. I hope you don't mind I did it without you. It just felt like the right moment."

"The big question? You mean about being godparents?"

"Yeah," she answered. "Are you upset that I didn't include you?"

"Well… it doesn't matter," he said gravely. "Because that reminds me: we have bigger problems."

"Aw," Martha whined. "Now what?"

The Doctor stared off into space for a few moments, and then his eyes suddenly began darting round the room. He fixated on an elderly couple in the corner who were being interviewed by the man hired to make the wedding video. The guests were speaking into a microphone, offering their best wishes to the newlyweds.

"Come on," the Doctor said to Martha, taking her hand and dragging her off the dance floor.

They crossed to the elderly couple and arrived just as the "interview" was finishing.

"Hi," said the Doctor to the cameraman. "They got you working hard, eh?"

"Yeah, it's a living," the man said with a smile.

"Have you had a break yet? Had a drink, tried the cake?"

"Er, no," said the cameraman. "I'm on the clock – not supposed to drink or eat."

"Have you had a break at all?"

"Well no, but…"

"Well, give me that thing, then," said the Doctor. "I know how to run it! I'll carry on talking to people, and you can just take five minutes and go to the loo. You've been on your feet – you drink a lot of water, I'm sure."

He didn't wait for the man to hand off the camera, he just started taking it off his hands.

"I do need to use the facilities," the man said, relenting.

"See? Just take a quick load off, and I'll be here when you come back."

"Arg!" the camera man exclaimed, as if torn.

"It's okay," the Doctor assured him. "You won't be gone long enough for me to do any damage, right?"

"Okay, sure," the man said, now suddenly desperate to use the toilet. "I'll be back in two minutes!"

"Fine," said the Doctor.

When the man was out of earshot, Martha asked, "What the hell are you doing?"

"Getting an energy signature from the bride and groom," he said.

"What? No, not now, Doctor. Why?"

"Because if we wait, then they'll be off on their honeymoon, and if we wait until after that, it might be too late."

"Too late for what?"

"I'll show you later."

He dashed off to find Tish and Robert Oliver, who were standing near the cake, talking to one of his aunts.

"Tish, Tish, Tish," the Doctor said boisterously. "Robert Oliver! We must have you on camera giving your two cents! What's a wedding video when everyone weighs in except the bride and groom?"

"Oh, er… okay," Tish said. "What are you doing with the camera? Where's Paul?"

"Paul? The cameraman? Oh, he went to the loo," he said quickly. "Now then, Tish, what would you like to say to Robert Oliver on this happy occasion?"

He fired up the camera and pointed it at Tish, and handed the microphone to Martha. Martha held it in front of Tish's face and they waited for her to speak.

Tish didn't know what to say. "Well," she began. After a pause, she blushed and said, "Doctor, I think I'd like to save this sort of thing for later. It's something that my husband and I should share privately, if you don't mind."

"Oh, sure, no problem," said the Doctor, having got what he needed. "Robert Oliver, what would you like to say to your new lovely wife?"

The groom opened his mouth to speak, surprised at the Doctor's audacity, and then he paused. Then he said, "I'd like to echo my wife's sentiments, Doctor. We'll have this moment later, together."

"Gotcha. Thanks for your time," said the Doctor. With that, he turned and stalked back toward the corner where he'd met the cameraman, and Martha followed, still a bit puzzled.

She didn't ask any questions, though. Partly because she didn't want to know just now, but mostly because she knew the Doctor well enough to know that she wasn't going to get an answer at this time.

"Er, Doctor," she said, looking across the room toward the door opposite. "Paul is on his way back."

"Okay," said the Doctor. He pulled the sonic from his pocket and pressed it against the stem of the microphone, two separate times. He quickly checked the readings of the sonic, and then stuffed it back in his pocket. Then he happily gave the equipment back to Paul the cameraman, and asked Martha if she'd like to resume dancing.

"You're so strange," she commented, once they were swaying together once again.

"Yeah, but you're the one who chooses to live with me," he retorted with a childish grin.

Back in the console room after the champagne had been drained (though not by Martha… nor the Doctor, as it happened), the last dance had been danced and caterer and DJ had been sent home, the two travellers stood before the computer screen and waited for information to be imparted.

Martha was nervous. The Doctor had been true to form, more or less, during the reception, but on the walk back to the TARDIS he had been unusually sullen. This was a demeanour he normally reserved for rather grave situations, or at least times when he was reluctant to tell Martha the truth.

Finally, the Gallifreyan letters came up on the screen, confirming for the Doctor, once again, his worst suspicion.

"Look," he told her.

What she saw was a line of code and/or an energy signature from the Phlotigo Galaxy, from the planet where Windselt was from. Though, the signature was just different enough to let Martha know that the perpetrator this time was not Windselt – just someone genetically similar. The TARDIS, after the showdown with the wispy fellow, and the interface with the Doctor at the CPU and all the different beings floating about inside her heart, had become unusually sensitive to certain energy signatures. She had picked this one up from various places around London.

They were all places where Martha had been in the past week: the tailor, the church, the reception site, her mother's house, her father's house, Tish and Robert Oliver's flat, her favourite coffee shop… And this ncluded inside the TARDIS itself, which had been parked in the same spot all week. There were traces in the kitchen, the library, the nursery, and the signature was strongest in their bedroom.

"I'm being stalked," Martha whispered.

The Doctor nodded. "Subtly," he said.

"How did this happen?" she asked, trying very hard not to let her voice climb. She felt panic on the inside, knowing she was being stalked by a being who wanted her for its own omnipotence, but that it didn't really want her.

"Well, near as I can tell, either Windselt went home and boasted about what he did, and it gave someone else an idea," the Doctor said. "Or, just as likely, they are non-corporeal, and they can become data, they can become thoughts…"

"…the thoughts can mingle with one another."

"You've got it, clever girl," he reported gravely. "I'd never thought about it before, never thought about the implications of an entire population of unconstituted, sentient ectoplasm, all living in close quarters. But now that I'm thinking about it… yeah, I think that they must be telepathic in a way. Maybe they can't even control it – the thoughts just, you know… float."

Martha sighed heavily and sat down on the leather seat. "So the word is out."

"I'm afraid so."

"There's a Time Lord still living, and you can't get him… but there's also a little one about to be born, and he'll be easy to mess with."

"Yep."

"How long have you known about this?" she asked.

"Since this morning," he replied.

"But…" she said, pointing vaguely at the screen. "The TARDIS doesn't say that the Phlotigo energy stalked me at the wedding."

"No, because I cloaked you."

"You cloaked me."

He said, "Mm. I still have various remnants of your energy signature in the TARDIS' processor. I copied it and sent it back out onto the internet."

She raised her eyebrows as realisation struck her. "Ohhhh," she said slowly, nodding. "Did you disperse it just enough?"

"Yes I did," he told her. "I disassembled it, so that it would look like you died in there. But something of you remains intact, so that they'll be able to recognise you if they go looking. And they will. Once they lost track of you on Earth, in this dimension I mean, that's where they would have searched next."

Martha was nodding with understanding, her eyes wide, and her face alight with relief.

"But there's bad news," said the Doctor.

"I knew you'd say that," her face falling.

"I tried cloaking myself as well. Didn't work."

"How do you know?"

"Because look." He tapped a few keys, and Martha was able to see that the Doctor was now being stalked.

"Shit."

"Well, yeah. I think, though, that once we get out on the open road, they won't be able to catch me. It takes quite a while to get a lock on someone enough to move them about, as Windselt showed us with the girls, and you and I never stay in one place long enough. I think I'll be okay, at least for a while."

"What do you mean, at least for a while?" she asked, her voice rising.

He sighed. "Martha, you know what I mean."

She held her breath. She did know. "This is why we have to give him up."

The Doctor nodded sadly.

"When he's thirteen, they'll get a lock on us from the Phlotigo, and we'll have to leave him with Tish and Robert Oliver."

The Doctor nodded again.

Martha thought about it. She could feel her artificial Time Lord-ness working in her brain now. She asked, "But if we're zooming about time and space, Doctor, it would take these bastards longer than thirteen years to lock onto us."

"Not if we want to slow down for a year and live, say, in London," he shrugged with a kind of resigned sadness.

"Why the hell would we do that?"

"Wouldn't you like to finish medical school?"

"Not if this is the cost!"

"You know it has to happen," he reminded her. "We know how this plays out, Martha."

"We know that he has to…" she gulped. "Die in a basement on some God-forsaken planet in order to save large parts of the known universe from a plague. He can still do that, even if we raise him."

He cocked his head to one said and waited.

Even as she was speaking, the realisation was dawning on her. Their son, the man who would become The Researcher, C.J. Ephraim, would not become that man without his time with his surrogate parents. His research and fate hinged on too many smaller things, many of which hinged on Tish and Robert Oliver becoming his stable guardians. The continuum of time is not simply dependent on events, as it were, but circumstances, setting the scene for events, the whole picture. The Mandala. It was what the Time Lord in her was great at seeing, but what the mother in her found so hard to accept.

Eventually she seemed to lose her impetus and her shoulders slumped. She stared at the floor for a long while.

When she looked up, she stared at the screen and seemed to scrutinise the information. Martha's essence, her human essence, could be cloaked, even with the little Time Lord inside. But the Doctor could not be cloaked – why? Why would the internet allow the baby's lines of code to go by the wayside along with her own, but not the father's?

"It's your regenerative qualities," she realised. Their son, as they knew all too well, would not regenerate. He had one life only – it was one of the things that made him tragically human.

"That was my first thought, too."

"Blimey, you can't even be virtually dead?"

"Apparently not. Regeneration is in my DNA, it's going to be embedded in anything that has my energy signature, so of course my lines of code would be reconstituted if they were dispersed. I didn't realise it at the time, but Windselt couldn't have killed me in that room, even if he'd tried."

"That's nice, but it's bad news for us in the long-run."

"Right. I'm stuck being alive, in every sense of the word," he said flippantly.

"But wait, Doctor. Why can't we just cloak the baby once he's born? Why do we have to run, and eventually dump him on my sister?" she wanted to know. There was no urgency in her voice, only an inquisitiveness.

"Oh yeah, you're right," he said. "Because… he'll be with me, and I can't be cloaked?"

"I guess," she said, thinking still.

After a few moments, their eyes met, and each knew what the other was thinking.

"If he can be cloaked and you can't, and it's you who can be found, then he's safe if he's not with you. Which means he can be safe with me."

"Yes," he said, his eyes closing momentarily.

"Which means that when the time comes, you and I could just…" she whispered. She made a gesture, putting her hands together and then breaking them apart, dissolving their union.

"It's an option," he conceded, looking miserable.

"But it's not a good option," she said, a cry rising in her voice. "Frankly, Doctor, it doesn't bode any better for our little family than giving up our child when he's thirteen! I don't know if I can be away from you any more than I can be away from him!"

"I agree," he said. "And either way… I have to let go of him."

"So we stay together, you and I?"

"That's what 'history' tells us. Future history."

"Can we really do that?" she asked, a cry and a muffled whisper combining to make a rasp of a sound. "Can we really choose each other over him?"

"I don't think it will be a question of that. Martha, you're forgetting, once they get a lock on us, on me, then it will be much easier for us to get a lock on them. And I'm guessing that thirteen years from now, it won't just be one Phlotigo being trying to track us down, it will be… well, a lot. If you knew that, and knew what they were capable of, wouldn't you want to stop them?"

"Yes. But it means I'm going to die trying."

He sighed. This had occurred to him a while back, but he wasn't sure how to bring it up.

"Because," Martha continued. "If we dispatched the bad guy and I was left alive, I'd sure as hell go back for my son, and we know that I don't."

"Neither do I," he reminded her.

"True," she said. "But what if we're not successful? What if we go into battle and I die, and you are forced to retreat for some reason… and the Phlotigos are still out to get you? You wouldn't go back for him because he's not safe with you."

He ran his hand down over his face and let out an angry, cathartic "Argh!" as he began to pace.

"Doctor, I don't want to be able to see the big picture anymore," she said softly. "Take it away now, okay?"

"Yeah, welcome to my world," he snapped.

She wasn't offended. She just felt immeasurably sad.

He had left the sonic screwdriver on the console. She picked it up and examined it. She realised then why the Doctor had asked Tish and Robert Oliver to speak into the microphone, and then zapped it with the sonic. "You're going to disperse Tish and Robert Oliver's energy signatures on the internet as well?"

"Yeah," he said. "If the Phlotigos are telepathic, then it's likely they'll know about them – Mr. and Mrs. Ephraim – since Windselt had contact with them. We'll make it look like they died, so no-one will go looking for them, either."

Martha nodded, and set the screwdriver down.

She watched him pace. She thought back over the events that had brought them to this place. She remembered their first meeting in the hospital with him in pyjamas and her in a lab coat, and the immediate spark she had felt, the unexpected surge of lust. She remembered how much it had hurt being told outright that she was not a replacement for the Doctor's previous companion, and how angry with herself she was when she realised a couple weeks later that she was helplessly in love with him. She remembered the horrible three months in 1913, watching him fall for someone else.

She thought about the journey to the planet Third From Pluto where they had discovered the remains of C.J. Ephraim in a basement, and the frisson of wonder they had both felt while reading the man's diaries. She thought about how ecstatic she had been on the day when she realised that he loved her in return and it wasn't just a fevered dream. They kissed in a field, they talked, they made love, and nothing had ever felt so right.

And then the unravelling had begun, revelations about their child, the utterly cruel knowledge showed itself. Such a fantastic high followed by a cruel and painful low.

The love and lust she felt was still alive in her, the electric shock of being touched by him for the first time, even now as he paced across the floor with the weight of worlds in his brain. At that moment, she felt, not for the first, or even the thousandth time, that she would rather die than be without him, and that whatever the fates threw at them, they could wrangle it together.

She smiled a little, and felt warm, in spite of herself.

He stopped pacing and turned to look at her, his hands on his hips in an annoyed stance. "Well, blimey! Gotta love the doom and gloom." His voice was tight and angry.

"Let me help," she said. She picked up the sonic and plugged it into the console, performing the manoeuvre the Doctor had had in mind: she copied her sister and new brother-in-law's data codes, so as not to actually engage their persons, and then set about dispersing their data just enough. When she was done, anyone who searched for Tish as a sentient entity, as energy to be attracted, not as a human being with a life, would assume she was dead. Same went for Robert Oliver.

The Doctor watched over her shoulder, and was glad to let her do the work this time.

"And now that all the wedding chaos is over with, let's do what we do best," Martha said, flirtatously. "Something we haven't done in way too long. I'll take the lead."

He raised his eyebrows.

She flipped a few switches on the console and sent the TARDIS out into open space, open time, in search of their next adventure.

THE END