It's so hard to say goodbye! And it was haaaaaard to know how to end this series! So, I decided not to try and go too big... some things, even the most emotional things, can go out with just a friendly smile. Mostly this final chapter just ties up loose ends and tries its hardest to look to the future with optimism, while still remaining realistic.

This has become such a labor of love, and has become something much more to me than just "fanfiction," that silly hobby I feed because it just won't die! Martha's pregnancy mirrored my own (at least at first, when she and I first got pregnant!). My experiences as a new mom were very similar to hers (minus the Time Lordy stuff with universe-shattering consequences of course). I have not been able to help but project my own child's qualities onto CJ, though CJ is very tiny just now. It has been very personal and very therapeutic, as it turns out.

Thank you to those of you (those very few) who have stuck with it! Thank you. Really. :-)

And now, the thrilling (but demure) conclusion...

Chapter 23

During what amounted to possibly the longest thirteen minutes of her life, Martha walked down the hall to the kitchen, mixed up some of CJ's formula in a bottle and gave it to Haruka. This made the little girl temporarily quiet, if not exactly happy. She returned to the console room and walked round in circles, numerous times, bouncing the infant, consoling, even singing. Haruka comforted herself with the bottle, but would, once in a while, suddenly remember she was terrified, and begin to cry again.

Martha was grateful to have something on which to focus her attention so that she wouldn't have to commit all energies to wondering what was taking the Doctor so long. She did tell herself that the Doctor knew as well as she did that the first priority was simply to get CJ outside the Citadel. Once he did that, then there would be no need to hurry, so perhaps he was just taking his time.

And just about the time when Martha was finishing her song about the animal fair for the fifth time (Haruka had watched her features animate, rapt each time), the door of the TARDIS opened, and the Doctor stepped through. The baby was cradled in his left arm, sitting almost upright, eyes wide with wonder.

"Oh, thank God," she sighed. "That was brilliant, you know? He thought the TARDIS was in some sort of internal rearranging security protocol until the very end."

He gave her a tired smile, and she crossed the room and they embraced as best they could without squishing the children. Martha made a mental note to give him a hug later that would cut off his circulation. They had earned at least that.

"Hi, little girl," the Doctor said with a smile, taking Haruka's hand. In spite of the fact that her fingers instinctively curled around his, she looked at him squarely, and her face melted into another full-pelt wail.

Martha sighed. "She's been like this since she woke up. Fifteen minutes or so. Tried giving her a bottle - only marginally helped. We just need to get her home."

The Doctor frowned. "Hold on," he said. With his free hand, he patted the pockets of his suit jacket.

"What?" Martha asked, over the crying.

"This is the same suit I was wearing the night we had sushi," he told her. "The night the Gesirg took her."

"Really?" she asked, looking him up and down sceptically. "How can you tell? You have, what, like twenty of the same brown?"

He ignored the question, and plunged his hand into his pocket. It emerged with a plastic sandwich bag containing five or six gummy sweets, in the shape of fish. He handed it to Martha.

Haruka saw them, and quieted immediately, except for an exasperated baby quack while making a grab for her favourite treat.

"Oh, lovely! Look, at that, Haruka," Martha said, dodging the grab and extracting a green gummy for her. Haruka dropped the bottle and began gnawing earnestly on the gummy. She was so concentrated, she stopped trying to wriggle free of Martha's grasp. "When did you get these?"

"I pocketed them when we were helping her parents pack up after the kidnapping," he said. "Good job we haven't had time to go to the dry cleaner's, eh?"

For the first time, at that point, Haruka seemed to notice the surprised little creature nestled in the crook of the Doctor's elbow. She chewed on her sweet and stared, and Martha and the Doctor realised that this was the first time the two infants had been introduced.

"Ah, yes, well," the Doctor said, clearing his throat formally. "CJ, this is Haruka. I know that you probably think girls are icky - or, you would, if you had any concept of what a girl is - but trust me, she will be important to you someday. Let's hope, anyway, or else what the hell did we just do?"

Martha smiled. "Haruka, this is CJ," she said. "I know he looks tiny, but he'll grow to be... what? About six-foot-one? And he'll be very handsome, so... you know, give him a chance, will you?" She had meant for it to sound whimsical, but it came out a bit more pleading than she intended.

The Doctor smiled at her softly. "That bothers you, doesn't it?"

"Of course! I can't help it. I think about how I felt reading the memoir, and his stories of her and how rejected he always felt because of that other guy, and how she led him on and..." Martha sighed. She ran her hand over Haruka's black, spiky hair and kissed her forehead. "I know how that feels, Doctor. And I know she's just a baby right now, and I'm trying really hard not to remember how much I hated the woman in the stories he told. Even before I knew who he was."

"Well, you're a good mum, Martha," he said with a smile. "I reckon you'll always remember."

"But she's innocent right now," Martha protested, holding Haruka close, in spite of herself. "How can I feel that way about an infant?"

"Time travel is weird, love," the Doctor said. He allowed a pause, and then, "Which is actually a nice segue-way into a topic I've been pondering. The whole time-travel thing, the Mandala... well, I'm meant to think about it a lot - it's part of who I am, like it or not. But all this doom and gloom about plagues and loneliness and death in basements, it has all made me look really hard at the implications of what we've just done. I think the story doesn't have to go completely as we know it."

"I tend to agree," someone said.

Their gazes followed the voice to the platform surrounding the console, where it seemed Francine Jones was standing, hands clasped in front of her, overseeing the situation.

"Hello there," the Doctor said. "Didn't think we'd see you again."

"You won't, after today," the interface told him. "Though you will have my protection, as promised. That's why I'm here. CJ and Haruka have twelve years. That's four-thousand, three-hundred, seventy-seven days, including today. That's when the cloak wears off. Until then, the Time Lords cannot find either one of them."

"We'll mark our calendars," the Doctor told it.

"I'd suggest you do just that," said the Francine-being. "Because you know as well as I do that as soon as that day comes, your TARDIS will be a big, loud beacon for their particular brand of detection technology, no matter where you are in Time and Space."

"History, such as it is, tells us that CJ is thirteen when we give him up," Martha said. "Does that mean that we are able to elude them for another whole year after your protection goes?"

"That I don't know, love," said the interface with a soft, indulgent smile. "I only know the situation insofar as I am programmed. If I had to guess, though, I would say that you and your Doctor will become quite adept at ducking, swerving, fleeing, hiding, even more so than you are now, in the interest of protecting your son. A year is a long time to outsmart a bunch of Time Lords." The interface smirked a bit, and it actually made Martha smile.

"What about the Fujikawas?" the Doctor asked, without the smile. "They'll need some kind of accommodation for when twelve years is up for them, as well."

"Keep in mind, Doctor, Haruka is not in as much demand as is CJ. She is a secondary target, at best. Also, she will not be travelling in a TARDIS, and will be more difficult to nail down on Earth, especially if she and her parents are no longer living near the restaurant where the Gesirg found them the first time. But I will leave that bit up to you. I am no expert in dealing with humans."

"Thanks for your help," Martha said. "Really."

"Again, don't thank me," said the interface in her mother's voice. "Someday you may curse me. Just be vigilant when that day comes."

It was early evening. The TARDIS was parked just outside the door of the sushi restaurant where the whole debacle began. The place was still cordoned off as a crime scene, and there was no-one in sight. Haruka's parents lived in the same building, and had been without their beloved daughter for just about a week.

As they climbed the stairs, it occurred to Martha that at some point, they ought to have got in touch with the Fujikawas to let them know that they were still "on the case." She knew she would want someone to do that for her, should her child ever be taken (she shuddered at the all-too-real possibility) and wondered what state they must be in after so many days of not knowing anything.

When Naoki Fujikawa opened the door and looked into the Doctor's face, his own eyes registered surprise, then alarm. Within seconds, though, his gaze wandered to Martha, then to the little girl in her arms, now chewing on an orange gummy fish.

"Oh! Oh!" he cried out, too overwhelmed to form words. His feet would not be still, and he did a little dance in-place before crying out once more, then reaching forward to take his daughter in his arms. Haruka's eyes lit up and she rested her head against his shoulder as he hugged her and cried.

Having heard the exclamations, his wife Miyeko, whose eyes looked dark and hollow, emerged from the kitchen. In spite of the happy occasion, Martha felt a pang when she saw her; she looked as though she had not properly slept since Haruka's disappearance.

When the mother realised what was happening, her reaction very much resembled that of when the kidnapping occurred. She fell to her knees and wept, not having the words to express what she felt. Naoki went to her, falling to his knees as well. He handed the baby to her, and the two of them cried and hugged each other, as Haruka responded with as much emotion as she could, nuzzling against her mother's chin, and sucking her thumb.

Martha couldn't help but let her own tears flow as well, and she took her own child from the Doctor's arms and held him close, in turtle position, against her chest. The Doctor stepped forward and placed his hand on Naoki's shoulder. He leaned down, and said, "We'll be waiting outside."

They pulled the door shut, and the Doctor leaned against the balcony, while Martha leaned against the wall beside the door. "What are we waiting for?" she asked.

"We're waiting to change history a bit," the Doctor told her. "Remember how I said that maybe his life can play out slightly differently?"

The two families had gone to a nearby park, one where Miyeko often took Haruka in her stroller. They found a secluded picnic table where they could talk.

And the Doctor and Martha, very carefully, told the Fujikawas the truth. Or, at least as much "truth" as was needed in order to keep them safe, and so as not to have to explain too much about the Doctor, his origins and time-travel.

Not surprisingly, the Fujikawas didn't freak out. They had already more or less accepted that something extraterrestrial had been responsible for Haruka's kidnapping. They had seen the Gesirg - it didn't take much of a leap. The fact that there was an alien race that wanted her as a consort to a messiah was a lot less horrible than what they had conjured in their minds, as far as conditions and reasons why their daughter was taken. They were happy to know that she had been cared for the entire time by someone specially-trained, that she had been comfortable, fed, played-with and given affection. They did ask how and why the Doctor and Martha knew all of this and were involved, but the Doctor told them that it was a question that could only be answered with time.

Later, after CJ had been fed and put to bed, and the Time Lord and his human companion had burned each other out, between cooling sheets, she asked him, "Okay, am I just thick? I don't understand why you told the Fujikawas that we're thinking of moving to Tokyo."

"I want them to think - know - that they have access to us, and that we want access to them," he said. "I'm trying to cultivate a friendship. Maybe we can set up a decoy flat there in the city soon, so that we can do more things with them, and the kids can grow up together."

"Aren't Haruka and CJ supposed to meet at Cambridge in about twenty years?"

"That's what the memoir said, but Martha, remember, some things are fixed, some things are in flux. How and when they meet is in flux."

"Okay. What good will it do?"

"It will completely change how Haruka feels about him."

"How?" she asked, her face crimped in scepticism.

"Well, it won't force her to fall in love with him, but it will change their relationship just enough," he said. "I foresee one of two things: one, the shared memories and childhood, and just knowing her before she meets and loses that Chinese insurgent boyfriend of hers, it will help him... well, crack the nut, so to speak. Meeting her after all of that happened to her was part of what made her freeze him out, don't you think?"

"Yeah, probably."

"Or, two, they will grow up close to each other and feel more like cousins, and it won't really occur to either one of them to think of each other as a romantic prospect."

"Hmm, interesting," she mused.

"Or, maybe we changed them just enough that a sequence of events occurs whereby she never meets the Chinese insurgent. That would also help things."

"Are you sure it's worth it to change all that?"

"None of it was ever fixed, Martha, not like CJ's birth and manner of death," he assured her. "Besides... we have to try something, and we can't force her to fall for him. We can't drug her, or give her subliminal messages her whole life. That definitely would be cheating."

"Yeah," she said sadly.

"In the context of one human life-span, which is all he has now, sixty years is quite a long time. I mean, to die at sixty isn't exactly what one would call a ripe old age, but for you lot, it's a long haul, waiting sixty years for something. Being mostly alone for that long haul..." he exhaled through pursed lips. "... well, I have some experience with that sort of thing, and it's so much easier when you have someone to share it with."

Martha smiled. "I can see that."

"Even if it's not perfect... well, what is? At least they get to be imperfect together."

"Okay," she shrugged happily. "So now what?

"So now, we get on with our imperfect lives. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, a few Ephraim cousins in the coming years."

At that prospect, Martha laughed.

"Sunday dinners?" he continued. "The occasional date night. And of course all the other usual stuff: time-travel, planet-saving, damage-control... maybe medical school?"

"Not maybe," she said adamantly. "Definitely."

"Good. And hopefully all of that, plus a nice Japanese family who can meet us for play-dates once a month or so."

"And to whom we will slowly mete out the truth, and give tools for dodging Time Lords in twelve years' time?"

"Yep."

Eight hours' rest (interrupted twice by crying/feeding/comforting) brought perspective, especially to Martha. In spite of her previous fear that perhaps the interface had been right about her simply bowing to the Doctor's will because she couldn't stop him, she did, ultimately, trust him. She was clever, and they were a partnership in more ways than one, but no-one could argue the fact that he had centuries of experience under his belt, and she did not. On the seas of fate, like the one they had just navigated, there was no better captain. She had absolutely nothing to say anymore about what CJ had called "The Mandala," the web of Time and Space, the threads that pull at all existence and make the universe whole. Like all humans, when she looked at a flower or a dog or a star, she saw it only for the beauty of what it was. Its implications throughout future history were a complete mystery to her, and she reckoned she would probably rather have it that way, all things considered. A fixed point in time was a big burden to carry, so she would leave it to the two of them, and try to bring as much to the table as she could.

Perspective brought both comfort and fear, but she and the Doctor both knew the fear would subside soon enough... at least for a while. They also knew that the everyday fear of parenthood was inevitable, though, and hoped that this was what they would be left with, once the stuff of "normal life," or what passed for "normal" with them, resumed, and took their minds off fate and the cosmos.

Paradoxically, though either of them said so - perhaps because they didn't have to - both were positively champing at the bit to get back out on the "open road" in the TARDIS. They were impatient to recommence the work that had brought them together, the work that would teach CJ that it was possible to save the universe... given the right tools and a Time Lord brain.

"Hi mum," Martha said as her mother picked up the phone.

"Martha! I've been worried! Where are you?"

"Erm, well... hard to explain," Martha riffed, before realising it was probably okay now to tell the truth. "We're in space. I'm not sure where or when, but my phone has universal roaming, so..."

"Well, come! Come round so I can see with my own eyes that the three of you are all right. I'll make room in the den so you can park that blue box inside, and you don't have to bring the baby out into the pouring rain. Is it raining where you are? No, no, of course it isn't."

"Oh," Martha said with surprise. "Okay. Just a moment - don't cut me off, okay?"

She crossed the console room and handed the Doctor her phone. "Can you get a lock on her time coordinates?"

"Yep," he said, pulling the sonic out of his pocket and tossing it into the air before digging in with a blue buzz. After a few seconds, he shoved the phone into a device on the console, and said, "Francine, are you there?"

"I'm here!"

"Are you ready for us now, or would you rather wait an hour or so?"

"Erm..." she contemplated. "Actually, give me two hours. I'll make a space for you in the den and I'll make tea. And I'll get Tish and Robert Oliver and Leo and everyone over. Even dad - how about that?"

The Doctor made a comical face that seemed to say yikes. But he said, "Okay, two hours it is!"

"And you can tell everyone about the adventure you've just had," Francine suggested, with no hint of sly, passive-aggressive cajoling. "Did you get the little girl to safety?"

"Yeah, we did, mum," Martha chimed in. "I guess we'll tell you everything when we get there."

"Wonderful! See you soon!" There was a click to indicate that Francine had cut off the call.

"Well, I guess she's had some time to get used to things," Martha shrugged, laughing a little.

"You knew she would," he told her. "So, are you ready? I've got a lock on her time, we'll just make the two-hour jump."

She took a deep breath. "Okay."

"Sure?"

"I think so."

"Ready to tell everyone what's going on? Giving up regenerations, twelve years' cloaking, Tish and Uncle Robbo inheriting a thirteen-year-old boy, and a Time Lord vendetta?"

"Yes. It's time."

The End

Thank you again! 3