Epilogue

Jessica looked to Jack, heart thundering in her ears, and found a slow, disbelieving grin spreading over his face. It didn't do much to settle her nerves.

"Oh, hello!" an unfamiliar voice called from the kitchen. British, fairly young-ish, way too cheerful for someone who was breaking and entering. "Wasn't sure when you'd be back, so I made some tea. Hope you don't mind."

Jack's grin widened. Jessica opened her mouth to start yelling - questions or curses or something in between, she wasn't sure - right as the owner of the voice emerged into the living room.

He was pretty young, as she'd guessed. Late twenties, maybe very early thirties. Big chin, floppy brown hair. Questionable fashion decisions. Jessica was confused and pissed, but not much more - incapable of feeling much more - before her eyes locked on the mug in his hand and she stopped cold in her tracks.

It was the same chipped, somehow-perpetually-stained mug Kilgrave - or, the Doctor - had always liked to use.

"Long time, no see, Jessica Jones," the stranger said, and leaned on the doorway. "I don't want to be rude. But you look a little off. Am I allowed to call you Jessica now? I should have asked before." He ducked his head a little, pretending to peer into the mug.

"No hello for me?" Jack asked.

The man smiled, looking up again with sparkling eyes. "Hello, Jack. I just saw you."

Jack beamed. "Did you."

Jessica blinked, tried to find something to say. Anything. She settled on, "what the fuck?"

"Eloquent," the man said. "Tea, anyone? There's still water left."

"I'm good," Jessica snapped. As she'd done to Kilgrave, time and time again. This whole thing felt surreal. She tried to will herself out of this dream, or whatever the hell it was. "Does anyone want to explain?"

"Yes!" the main exclaimed. "Hold on." He vanished into the kitchen again, and returned without the mug. "Proper introduction, as we should have had, hm?" A warm smile settled on his face as he extended a hand to her. "Hello, Jessica Jones. Nice to meet you. I'm the Doctor."

She ignored the greeting, too busy attempting to sort out her thoughts. "How?" was all she could come up with.

He dropped the hand, seemingly unbothered. "Time Lord trick," he explained, all too cheerfully. "Instead of dying, you can just whoosh, get a new body instead. Except not quite like that. Replace whoosh with a bit of screaming, maybe-"

"Why did you come back?" Jack asked. "It's been a pretty long time for you, hasn't it?"

The man who Jessica supposed was the Doctor shrugged, leaned against the doorway again. "I visited you, a few odd days ago for me, I think a few weeks for you, and it occurred to me that it was about that time that I met Jessica. And when I thought of that I, of course, gave you my psychic paper - which I want back, by the way - so you would get my message, and wind up here. Now. And, er, it sort of also occurred to me that we left off on a bit of a bad note. And I owed you a ride home, since that hunk of garbage you insist on keeping around stopped working." Another smile appeared, this one a little more hesitant despite its mischievous edge. "And maybe a bit more than a ride home."

It was impossible to miss how Jack straightened up. "Really?"

Back into the kitchen the man went, and when he came back this time he had the mug again, and took a sip. "Yeah, of course. I'm not unreasonable. And, y'know, you helped me out a bit. As always." He paused, sipped again. "For old time's sake," he said.

Jack's mouth quirked up. "You're sure?"

"If you're worried about the TARDIS, she'll be fine," the man claiming to be the Doctor said with a wave of his hand. "Despite everything, she's taken a fondness to you after all this time."

"It's hard not to," Jack teased. "I'm very charming."

"Ianto's invited, too," the man added. "Good man, Ianto is. Needs a bit more excitement in his life though, in my opinion."

"We have enough excitement," Jack said. "Promise to keep things relatively safe?"

"You say that as if I don't try!" the Doctor exclaimed, not quite sounding offended.

"I know you get bored," Jack countered. "None of that while he's on board. He's less, well-"

"Immortal, got it," the Doctor finished. "Fine, fine. We'll stick to mostly-safe places. I'll keep it mortal, normal-human friendly." He took another sip, and then turned expectant green eyes on Jessica. "What about you, Jessica Jones?"

She blinked at him. "What about me?"

"You can bring Trish, of course," the Doctor went on, "and Luke is welcome as well. Claire, if she's interested. I'd invite Malcolm, but I don't know him nearly as well. He might not be comfortable. But if you'd like him to come along I'd be open to that. He'd get along with Rory, I was just thinking of how similar they are."

"I mean," she interrupted, before he could babble on anymore, "what are you asking?"

He closed his mouth, and seemed to think for a moment, as if he himself wasn't quite sure. Or maybe he was just considering his word choice. His eyes roved the room, lingering for a moment on the paper-littered desk. "Would you fancy coming on a trip, Jessica?"

"Where?"

"Anywhere." He grinned, his attention snapping back to her. "Anywhen. Declar VII in the 34th century, Juno in 2057, America in 1776." He spread his free hand suggestively. "Wherever you'd like."

"Are you Kilgrave?" The words came of their own accord, unable to be restrained any longer.

The smile dropped. She thought, for a moment, he would drop his mug. The two of them stared at each other, Jack hovering uncertainly nearby. The longer the silence went on, the more Jessica was sure that she would throw up again, although she didn't have anything left in her stomach.

"No," he said. His eyes were glinting with what she thought might be tears. He smiled, just a little bit. "I'm not. Never was, never ended up…" he took a deep breath. "It haunted me until the day I died, Jessica Jones." He glanced at the desk again, and the fallen lamp, quickly, maybe attempting to be furtive. He turned his eyes down to peer at the contents of the mug as if looking for something inside it. "But I'm still sorry. I should have...I'm still a coward. I was, er, in a somewhat vulnerable place when we met. For several reasons, but one of them being that I was rather afraid of myself." He finally met her eyes again, still smiling that tiny smile. "Seeing a man with my face doing terrible things sort of aggravated that. I let fear control me, and that hurt you. And Trish, and Luke, and...er. Everyone, really. And I'm so terribly sorry."

Jessica was not one for crying, but her throat was suspiciously tight.

"That was the most coherent, real apology that I have ever heard come out of your mouth," Jack said. He sounded so genuinely impressed that Jessica almost laughed in disbelief, despite herself. "Any of your mouths."

The Doctor shot him a glare. "Shove off, Jack. You're as bad as River. You can't even let me give Jessica a nice apology without spoiling it by trying to be clever. I am trying, you know. Never let it be said that I can't learn from my mistakes!" He held a finger in the air to punctuate this point.

Jack grinned. He raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, fair enough. But I'll be expecting some more like that in the future. No more getting out of feelings talks."

"Jack," the Doctor complained. "Please."

He did seem genuinely uncomfortable, which only made Jessica's throat clench up again. It appeared that he really had made an effort. Maybe that shouldn't have meant much, and she still smarted with fury, but it did mean a little bit.

He was trying to make it right.

"Yes," she said.

Jack stopped in the middle of whatever he'd been saying (which Jessica had tuned out), and looked at her in surprise and a hopeful light in his eyes. "What?"

"Yes," she repeated. The Doctor was beaming. "I'll come on a trip."

Eyes sparkling, the Doctor cried, "Great! Lovely! Wonderful!" He set his mug down in the kitchen and practically danced out. And then, to her surprise, he hugged her.

"Sorry," he said, once he'd pulled back only a split second later. His eyes had gone wide. "Don't let me, er, do that. If you don't want me to."

Jessica nodded. He let go of her shoulders, and stepped back as if it had never happened.

"I'm sorry, too," she ground out, just as he was turning to talk to Jack. He paused in place, before slowly rotating himself back to face her.

"Don't be," he said.

"I should have paid more attention," she continued, despite his increasingly uncomfortable expression. "Instead of assuming. Or, I don't know. Something."

He almost smiled. "Don't be sorry," he repeated. "I won't even hear of it!"

She was all too relieved to let it slide, though something dark and unhappy settled itself in her stomach. She attempted a smile, and it must have come out well, because he just smiled back at her, wider than before.

"We're going to have a full house!" he exclaimed. "Who's all coming?"

"I think Luke and Trish," Jessica said. She could hardly believe this was happening. "It sounds like this might be dangerous."

The Doctor shrugged one shoulder. "It, er. Can be." He and Jack exchanged a look. "I'll keep the running to a minimum. Might be a lot of lazy days in the TARDIS for us. Not necessarily a bad thing, you know, I have a bit of cleaning to get done that I've been putting off."

"Still," Jessica said. "I've already involved Claire and Malcolm in enough."

Jack nodded. "If you ever want to invite them, we can," he said. Then, he smiled a little. "They don't even have to know you left without them, if you want. Or that you left at all."

"Time machine," the Doctor reminded. "You won't even miss any cases!"

Jessica couldn't help but grin a little. "I guess not."

The Doctor gestured grandly toward the blue box. "Well then, shall we head off? Trish's apartment next, I presume?"

"This is your time machine?" Jessica checked, stealing a glance at the box. "We're all supposed to fit in that?"

The Doctor smirked. "Looks can be deceiving."

Jessica supposed she had nothing to say to that. She looked at Jack, who was smiling with more genuine happiness than she'd seen on his face since she'd met him.

The Doctor opened the door, and the gray of the early morning that filled the living room was washed out by the warm glow of orange-tinted golden light.

to be continued...

I just want to thank you all again for being so great. I've had so much fun with this story, and I'm glad that you all seem to have liked it (at least up to this point). I can't express how grateful I am for your support and feedback over these past 20-ish weeks. It's been so awesome.

So...thank you! I've loved writing this story so, so much. I'm sad it's over. But it's not quite the end!

I hope you'll all join me in moving on to the next installment of this ongoing adventure in Gold, which I expect to start posting in a month or so. I have a bit of work left to do on it, but I'm hoping it won't be too long. When I have a better time estimate, I'll update my profile and let you know. :)

If you want to know more about Gold, here is some info:

The chapters will, generally speaking, tend to be a little longer. They'll be titled, and will have some new POVs that I haven't used before. It's a different setup than Gray, or any of my other stories for that matter. It'll kind of be a series of one-shots that interconnect into a larger story/story arc. So while most of the chapters generally connect to a main storyline, some of them take detours to explore different things that aren't necessarily integral to the story as a whole, but which will (hopefully) provide a break from the more intense parts of the story. Most of the chapters could be able to act as standalone one-shots, especially towards the beginning, hence the titles.

Gold in general will be more hopeful and positive than Gray, although there are some dark moments and a particularly depressing section of a few chapters toward the end. I don't want to give too much away.

But if you're looking for some cheesy space adventures, witty banter, good ol' h/c (with a bit more emphasis on the c this time), and the cautiously-forming friendships between a bunch of strange people, Gold is where you will find it.

Thank you all again. Your support means the world. I hope you're as excited for the sequel as I am. I hope this ending to Gray was a good one. Thank you.