Disclaimer: I own nothing you recognize. The animals, Adrianna, and Jayden are mine, however.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TWINNY! My best friend in the whole world, Ella (matt-smiths), celebrates her birthday on June 13th and this is ridiculously long and generally ridiculous fic is all hers for being awesome :) I started working on it in, like, April, and I got the plot bunny sometime in January/February, so I hope you all enjoy the fruits of my labor.

Warning: I apologize in advance if nothing makes sense to you - it doesn't really make sense to me, either, but hopefully it entertains you!

It happens, really, far too quickly for her to remember the order of events properly, but for the rest of her life, Lucy will never fail to remember the night of her graduation party and the instant when the stars exploded and her world spun in a different direction, changing her life forever.

Everything starts slowly, a lullaby of cheer shimmering in the air between the scent of strawberries and firewhiskey and the sound of laughter, of congratulations, of happiness. Her night is dreary, spent leaning against a lemon tree while she watches her friends dance in delight and celebrate their graduation of Hogwarts. It gets easier to pretend she doesn't care that they don't care about her the more alcohol she pours down her throat

Oh, there's Scorpius, kissing Rose under the starlight. One shot. Never did notice her, did he? Not little Lucy with the sketchpad and the paintbrush and the complete lack of allure. Two shots. And oh, look, there's Teddy, not giving a damn about Victoire as he flirts shamelessly with a girl ten years his junior. Three shots. Of all her cousins, Lucy can tolerate Victoire the best, and seeing her hurting because he has chosen Lily, the queen of fake friendships, is more frustrating than she can bear. Not to mention Molly standing there, the image of the perfect daughter, giggling and egging Lily on. Wonderful. Four shots.

Hey, there's James. Albus. Dominique. Louis. Roxanne. Fred. Hugo. Cousins, family, flesh and blood. None of whom care one whit about little Lucy, the baby of the family, the one who wasn't special enough to be in Slytherin or intelligent enough to be in Ravenclaw or friendly enough to be in Hufflepuff. Just Lucy, illegitimately born and understandably ignored. Five shots.

And then there is a bang, a boom, a burst. And a box falls out of the sky.

-:-

Screams, startled and horrified, mingle in the air as everyone's attention is diverted to the white creature that launches itself out of the box and starts galloping through the crowds, causing chaos and havoc wherever it goes. Lucy's gaze is quick enough to track its path, but not everyone is so easily able to catch the little thing, and so it goes running around legs and skirts and tables, inciting more shouts of panic as people evacuate the dance floor.

Lucy's lips quirk. She doesn't smile, because she's Lucy and that's not what she does, but watching Lily shriek and stumble backwards onto her butt in her attempt to leap into Teddy's arms for protection is as amusing as it gets.

The creature's reign of pandemonium lasts unchallenged for only a few minutes before wands are drawn and the doors to the box explode open. A man steps out, tall, dark, and bright-eyed. Handsome, perhaps in a more unconventional way. Lucy has to admit, she prefers blondes, but there is something hypnotizing about this man, something almost magnetic, perhaps because of his stature or his hazelly-blue eyes or the glowing stick in his hands.

She pauses, frowns, peers closer. What the hell is that thing he's aiming at the creature? It's not any kind of wand she's ever seen. He twists his wrist and the creature goes flying by some invisible force straight into the refreshments table.

Naturally, this only causes more panic and more screams, and the man starts chasing the creature, which has by now gotten to its feet and is running away, as if afraid of the man. Lucy's not sure why; attractive he may be, but threatening he is not. Though perhaps to whatever alien species the creature is, he might be.

In the midst of the chaos and confusion, she notices that everyone seems to have forgotten the blue box. She doesn't quite understand how – it's huge, it's got something glowing on its head, and it's the brightest, bluest shade of blue she has ever seen in her life. And yet, everyone at the party would much rather dither around and be completely useless whilst watching the man chase the creature.

Lucy spares a moment to wonder at why even Uncle Harry and the other war veterans are watching the chase, completely confounded, before she inhales, exhales, and decides to live up to her supposedly inherent Gryffindor bravery.

Because there is something about that damn box that's practically screaming her name. And Lucy doesn't often listen to others, but she can understand when she needs to do just that.

-:-

Inside, she finds…well, she's not entirely sure what she's found, but it's something special, she's sure of that. Everything glows inside the blue box, and there is some kind of console with enough buttons to make her head spin. Beyond the freaky console are doors that lead to who knows where.

The only thing she's sure of is that she should absolutely not be here, and that the box is bigger on the inside.

Beyond the doorway that led her into the box, she hears another scream, an "Aha!", and then a thump. Curious, but not curious enough to risk going outside where she'll probably get in trouble for entering the mysterious box, Lucy creeps closer to the door so she can better hear what's happening outside. There is someone talking, someone male, over the babble of worried whispers and bewildering rumors, speaking comfortingly, if a little oddly.

"No worries, everybody calm down! Terribly sorry to have interrupted your party! Won't happen again, I promise. You won't be getting anymore visits from this little thing. Not to worry, I'll just be leaving now –"

Here the doors to the box are flung open, and Lucy finds herself staring at the strange man who is now carrying the strange creature in his arms and wanting nothing more than to not have to step back outside into the mass of Lily-and-Rose-and-Molly and every other person in her entire fucking family and yet never Lucy.

The feeling of wanting to run away has never been more overwhelming to her than it is in this moment, surrounded by stars and magic and chaos, looking into the man's surprised gaze and silently begging him to not loudly inform anyone that she's in his box.

"Hi," she breathes, composing herself minutely, "I – I'm Lucy," and there she stops. For some reason, her mind is refusing to work and formulating coherent sentences requires more willpower than she has at the moment.

A smile breaks across the man's face. "Hello, Lucy," he says, his voice far more chipper than she would have expected from someone greeting a trespasser. "I'm the Doctor."

She blinks. "What kind of a name is that?"

"What kind of a name is Lucy?" he retorts, and just like that, she decides she rather likes this funny Doctor fellow.

-:-

"Do you want to come with me?"

Heartbeat.

"Yes."

-:-

It takes half an hour of flying around in space before she confesses, "That was my graduation party I ran out of," and he just looks at her kind of sadly, kind of wistfully, seeming a lot wiser than he looks, age-wise.

"Of course it was," he tells her matter-of-factly, pushing a button that seems to make the box – no, TARDIS – slow down, just a bit. "Who runs out of somebody else's graduation party?"

A laugh escapes her mouth without her permission. "Well, it was Lily's, too. And Lorcan's, and Lysander's. But they – they won't notice. Not for a while. So it's okay. I mean, I suppose. I don't know how long we've got –"

Two warm hands cover her own. "Lucy," smiles the Doctor. "What part of time and space did you not understand when you asked to come with me? We've got as long as you'd like, Lucy. We can go back in time, forward in time, upside down in time, if you like."

Lucy stares at him for a moment, trying to judge if he's sincere or just crazy. She's been playing with different theories – a madman, a Dark Wizard, an asylum escapee – since he started talking to her, but nothing quite fits this man with the bright eyes and the bowtie.

Finally she says, "How does one go upside down in time, anyway?"

The Doctor grins. "Would you like to find out?"

She hesitates. Breathes. Decides to believe.

"Yes."

-:-

He shows her magic. Not waving wands, stirring potions kind of magic. Real magic, true magic, the kind of magic that fills her up inside and dances on her skin and makes her sparkle under the lights of the universe because here she is, little Lucy Weasley, always forgotten, always ignored – until now.

Until she ran away with a boy and his box and watched stars blaze above planets that gleam golden in the twilight and silver in the sunshine. Until she realized that happiness wasn't what she'd been told it was –popularity and perfect grades and fashion – but rather simply being and breathing and dancing upon stars so bright they burn her feet till she collapses back in the TARDIS and the Doctor lulls her to sleep by reading poetry and fairytales and myths from all the planets they visited that day.

Happiness is here and now, she finds; it is when her heart beats too fast to count and the winds of a planet light years beyond Earth ruffle her hair and when she's running from a monster or talking to an alien child or eating food in King Arthur's palace. It is in the Doctor's eyes and the rhythm of the TARDIS as it spins through the universe and in the starlight that shimmers in her palms. It is everywhere, out here, far away from home. And all she has to do is look.

-:-

"Lucy?"

"Hm?"

"Have you ever thought of what you'd like to be one day? You told me you didn't want to go into the Ministry like your father, right?"

"Yeah, I don't. I – I'm not sure, really. I'm good at art, but not the kind of abstract art that's in style these days in the wizard world. Mostly, I draw buildings and animals and stuff."

"Nothing wrong with buildings, is there?"

"No, but it's not really the sort of stuff people tend to buy. Besides, my buildings are more like…blueprints, of a sort. Not good blueprints but just…places I'd like to live in."

"Like where?"

"Everywhere. Island huts and beach houses and big city apartments and small townhouses. My favorite place to draw is the dragon reservation where Uncle Charlie works. I visited him once, and it was so incredible. That's why I started drawing animals, too."

"Would you show me?"

"…Why?"

"I want to see your art, Lucy. If you want me to see it, that is."

"It's not that – I don't not want you – it's just the only person who's ever seen it before is Scorpius, and he…I don't know."

"Didn't end well?"

"Didn't start well. But I – you know what, wait right there. I'll go get my sketchbook."

-:-

The Doctor tells her stories. Late at night or day or whenever she feels sleepy, she'll sit on the edge of the TARDIS, her feet dangling into the mass of stars and space that the TARDIS is swirling through, in only her nightgown, with him at her side.

And she will lean into his shoulder, curls splayed over his coat, as he weaves magic with his words, detailing stories of planets overtaken by evil creatures, of the heroes that had valiantly fought them off, of the companions who had stayed loyal at the side of the heroes and been instrumental in the defeat of evil, and finally of the people who had been saved, whose traditions could live on another day, whom she could even visit, if she wanted.

She learns about his past, as much of it as he will tell her. A time-traveler, a space adventurer, a madman with a box, he claims. 900 years old and the savior of about a thousand different planets. Born in Gallifrey, goes by the name John Smith when he must, the man responsible for Earth remaining safe for as long as she has. He tells her of past plots for world domination he'd had to foil with the help of his companions, of other planets that also needed his help, of how she could save the world, too, should she only dare.

Lucy always dares.

-:-

"I could see you living here," he says with a smile, thumbing through her sketchbook. "You seem like an animal person."

Lucy laughs, only a little. "That's because I'm not a people person. But I don't think I could manage the stress of a reservation like Uncle Charlie…not on my own."

"What if you weren't on your own?" the Doctor asks, turning to face her with a grin on his face. "What if you had friends?"

"I don't have many friends," she tells him, her voice light and as casual as she can make it. "I doubt the animals would even like me."

The Doctor chuckles, wrapping an arm around her shoulder. "Oh, Lucy, I know animals would like you. You're just the kind of person they like. Come on, I'll prove it. We'll go to a planet that's populated with only animals."

"That sounds terrifying," she says, but she's smiling.

"You'll love it," he promises, dropping his hand to hers and twining their fingers so he can tug her over to the console room. "If you weren't in the TARDIS, let's face it, Lucy, you'd probably be with animals."

-:-

She has her own stories to tell. None quite as exciting or as breathtaking, but she tells him of her Uncle Charlie and the dragons, and of Victoire and her dreams of New York. Stories of the Scamander family and their work with animals, as well as her exaggerated tales of old Hogwarts teen drama spill from her lips easily, and the Doctor soaks up every one of her stories without ever once looking bored.

Lucy's positive he's heard millions, billions, galaxies of stories before, but he listens anyway. She asks him why, and he laughs.

"There are always more stories to be told," he tells her, tucking a stray curl of hers behind her ear. "The entire universe is full of them. And I never get tired of a good one."

-:-

"Tell me," he asks her one breezy day on the planet Diadem, strolling across a serene meadow, "why did you run away, Lucy?"

She frowns, her old paranoia kicking in. Because nobody cares about her, nobody actually wants to know the answer to the questions they ask; they're only trying to be polite. At least, that's all she knows.

"Why?"

The Doctor stops, sighs, and looks at her. Really looks at her. His eyes are greyer in this light, backlit by a magnificent dusk that glitters blood-red and honey-gold over the horizon. Lucy steps back. She'd let him save her from Daleks in the last two planets they'd visited, but she's not ready to be saved from her own personal demons.

"Everyone has a reason," he tells her softly, "for wanting an escape."

Lucy watches his smile crinkle his eyes and thinks that, for someone who is 900 years old and so terribly wise, he sure does look young for his age. Young enough to be considered handsome, to make butterflies dance around in her stomach in a way they only had with Scorpius before. Young enough to mean it when he smiles.

"Lucy," he says, and her name sounds so pretty on his tongue, far prettier than when everyone else says it, as if she is someone to be revered, to be admired, rather than to be forgotten and ignored. It's a strange sensation, she realizes, to be spoken of as a friend, instead of as someone to be merely tolerated and overlooked in favor of others.

A friend, she realizes, is something she's never had before.

And so she breaks.

-:-

There is a letter stuffed in the drawers beside her bed, long buried but never quite forgotten. It is written on muggle paper, with muggle ink, in pretty cursive handwriting that, despite her best efforts, she has never been able to duplicate.

The letter is addressed to her.

Dear Lucy,

I'm so sorry, my love. I'm sorry that I cannot raise you. I'm sorry that you were born the way you were, from a night of passion that should have never happened. I should have known better. And I'm sorry you have to pay for my mistakes.

You don't know how much I've wished things could be different. That you could be a legitimate child, the daughter of a happily-married couple. That you could be raised as part of a family without feeling the burden of others' stares and judgments. Without the paparazzi hounding you because you are the Minister's illegitimate child. That you could be raised by your mother, by your real mother.

I'm sure Audrey is a wonderful mother, though. Her little girl – your sister, Molly – seems to be a bright, spirited young girl. And Percy dearly loves both of them. I'm sure you will be in good hands. I'm positive of it, Lucy. Percy loves you, even if it won't seem like it at times. He loved me, and he will love you just as well.

I wish it didn't have to end this way. I've spent countless days and nights holding you, whispering prayers into your hair, hoping against hope for a god, any god, to help me out of this. But, Lucy, my little angel, you were one miracle. No god could grant me another. By the time you read this, I will be dead of cancer, and you will be living in your father's mansion, with your sister and your stepmother.

Hopefully, by the time you read this, you will also be old enough to understand the mistake we made in conceiving you. I don't regret it. I don't regret you. But I do regret leaving you to a life like this. I can only hope that one day, even further in the future, you will find it in your heart to forgive me my sins.

Please be happy. Please live well.

Love always,

Mum

Within a week of writing that letter, Penelope Clearwater had died in the hospital.

-:-

Camelot, of all the places they've visited, is still her favorite. He takes her there, to the coziest village in the kingdom, finds one of his old friends who lets them stay in his house, and gently lays her down on a bed that's not quite as luxurious as her four-poster canopy at home but far more warm and comforting.

The Doctor sits with her, holds her hand as she speaks. She tells him softly of growing up in a household where nobody quite understand her only because they didn't want to, of trying to learn about the world when nobody cared enough to teach her, of trying to make friends when the only ones she could make were her cousins who were only friends with her out of familial obligations.

"You must have been lonely," he says softly, squeezing her hand.

"Aren't we all?" she murmurs thinking how, beyond these walls, King Arthur is preparing for war.

The Doctor sighs. "You're special, Lucy."

She looks at him sharply, glass-green into hazel-blue, and in his eyes she can visualize the galaxies he's traveled and the stars he's shown her and the innocents he's saved. She can see the TARDIS, blue and bright and glittering, and his companions, her predecessors, the people who've shaped the man in front of her today.

"Aren't we all?"

Outside, the battle begins.

"Lucy," says the Doctor, "there's someone I want you to meet."

-:-

Her name is Amy, he tells her, Amelia Pond. The name brings up images he's shown her – a pretty redhead with a smile that shines, a sweet brunette man at her side, and all the adventures they had with the Doctor, written in the stars for them to remember.

Lucy has to remind herself to smile when the door to the house swings open and Amy Pond is standing there, beaming in delight.

"Doctor!" she cries and flings herself forward into his arms. "Why are you already back? It's only been a couple of months since Christmas; you usually take years and, oh, Rory is at wor—"

"Amy," interrupts the Doctor, laughing. "This is Lucy."

Hazel-green eyes snap over towards Lucy, and a different kind of smile crosses Amy's face. This one is less delighted and more compassionate, if Lucy's reading her right. Not that Lucy tends to read people wrong in the first place. She prides herself on that ability, as a matter of fact, so when Amy extends her arms, not for a handshake but for a hug, she accepts.

(Because the Doctor trusts her, so Lucy buries her jealousy and decides to take a chance.)

"Are you his new companion?" Amy asks, pulling back with a smile. "You remind me a little of me, you know, Lucy – what's your last name?"

"Weasley," she answers, fiddling with the fabric of her sundress. "I – I've heard a lot about you."

"Nothing true, I bet," Amy laughs, raising an eyebrow at the Doctor, who grins indolently. "Well, come on in, both of you; Rory will be home soon, and I've got some snacks saved from our last party."

The Doctor gestures grandly for Lucy to walk through the doorway, so she does, finding herself inside a brightly-lit foyer that leads to a cozy-looking living room through an open archway. Following Amy's lead, she steps into the living room and gingerly takes a seat on one of the couches, across from Amy and next to the Doctor.

"So, Lucy," begins Amy conversationally, "do you prefer gingerbread or chocolate chip?"

Amy is as easily likeable as the Doctor is, Lucy realizes, and so she smiles and says, "Gingerbread. Chocolate chip is overrated."

-:-

Over the course of two hours, Lucy and Amy converse about various cookie flavors, ice cream flavors, and pizza toppings, before moving onto regaling each other with stories of their adventures with the Doctor, who sits there quietly, fiddling with his screwdriver, and offers both of them encouraging grins when necessary. Amy's husband, Rory, arrives home about half an hour after Lucy and the Doctor had arrived and is quickly introduced to Lucy, reunited with the Doctor, and then shuffled off to another room with the Doctor so that Lucy and Amy can continue their chat.

At one point, the fact that she is a witch slips out of her mouth and Amy gasps in delight.

"Oh – oh, my gosh, you're a witch! Like, with a wand and potions and a broomstick and everything?" she asks, wide-eyed, seeming more like a child than a grown woman.

Lucy smiles, as genuinely as she has ever smiled for the Doctor. "Yeah, basically. I come from a whole family of wizards and witches. Did you ever go to the Wizarding World?"

Amy laughs. "The Wizarding World? No, I wish. You're in a whole separate realm from us normal people. The Doctor says it causes the TARDIS a lot of hassle to have to jump dimensions into a magical world like yours. She'll only do it in extreme circumstances."

Lucy thinks back to the night the Doctor appeared in the Burrow's backyard. "Like…an alien creature escaping from the TARDIS into the Wizarding World?"

"Yes, exactly like that," Amy says, winking at her. "But it's a good thing the creature escaped, isn't it? Or you might not be sitting here."

Lucy exhales a sigh. "Thank Merlin I am."

Amy's eyes soften. "Problems at home?"

"You could say that," Lucy says wryly.

Amy offers her another cup of tea. "Wanna talk about it?"

"Not really," Lucy says honestly, accepting the tea. "It's just…complicated."

"Most of us are," Amy agrees. "Did I tell you that the night I ran away with the Doctor was the night before my wedding?"

Lucy's eyes widen. "You left Rory for the Doctor?"

Amy laughs. "I would have left anyone for the Doctor at that point in my life, Lucy. Wouldn't you?"

It's hard to deny that the answer is yes, so Lucy stays silent and sips her tea, and Amy starts to tell her the story of Amelia Pond, the girl who waited.

-:-

Between the tea and the cookies and the laughter of Rory and the Doctor in the next room, Lucy begins to talk. Not eloquently, not quickly, and not loudly, but she talks. Amy listens in encouraging silence, offering her whatever snacks she needs and a smile or sound at appropriate points.

She tells her about Lily, and how Uncle Harry had implored his daughter to watch out for Lucy. Uncle Harry knew quite a bit about being left out and overlooked, but Lily didn't. And so, Lucy's days at Hogwarts passed with a group of friends who never even knew her favorite color, who invited her to sit with them at lunch and in the common room, but never bothered to talk to her.

"It's sad," she muses, "but not as bad as it could have been, I suppose."

Amy smiles and offers her hand a comforting squeeze. "Things are never as bad as they seem," she tells her warmly. "You've always got a silver lining."

Lucy glances into the other room, where the Doctor is busily trying to convince Rory that bowties are cool and he should invest in them. "Yeah, I guess I found mine."

"Or he found you," Amy amends.

"Me?" Lucy blinks. "What do you mean? He didn't pick me up on purpose. I basically barged into the TARDIS and refused to leave."

Amy laughs. "Oh, Lucy. You still don't believe you're a lot more special than the girl on the sidelines, do you?"

Lucy inhales. "I'm not," she insists, but looking into Amy's bright gaze and thinking of the Doctor in the next room and all the adventures they've had together traveling time and space…the idea that she's more than just Lily's forgotten friend and Molly's illegitimate sister starts to feel less like a lie.

"Except," Amy says, raising her eyebrows, "you're the only girl the TARDIS has hopped dimensions for. I bet he can count on one hand the amount of times he's been to the magical world, and I don't think he's ever found a companion there. But the TARDIS went and found you, for him."

"The TARDIS didn't find me," Lucy protested. "There was this creature in it and it escaped and…" Her voice trails off. Now that she thinks about, it's getting harder and harder to make sense of what had happened the night of her graduation party. The Doctor had never even told her what kind of a creature it was that he had been chasing.

"A creature in the TARDIS," Amy muses, "and the TARDIS transported itself to the magical world just to get rid of it. That doesn't quite add up, now, does it? Oi, Doctor!"

"Yes, Amy?" the Doctor pipes up from the next room almost immediately.

"Would you happen to remember what creature was in the TARDIS the night you found Lucy in the magical world?" she asks innocently, offering Lucy a wink.

"Of course," says the Doctor, seemingly completely bewildered at the implication that he might have forgotten. "It was a malformed centaur baby. Born with a birth defect, left alone to die in the woods, as far as I can gather. Accidentally found – or perhaps he opened – a portal to our dimension and ended up in the TARDIS."

Lucy stares, tempted to disbelieve but knowing that he's telling the truth. "…A malformed centaur? It didn't look like a centaur!"

"Well, yes, because it was malformed," says the Doctor matter-of-factly. "Keep up, Lucy."

Rory snorts from behind him. "It's hard to keep up with you, Doctor," he says with a certain type of fondness that only old friends can convey in his tone.

"That's hardly my problem," the Doctor sniffs. "What about the centaur?"

"What happened to it?" Lucy asks after Amy sends her an encouraging glance. "I mean…you brought it back into the TARDIS, right?"

"Yes, of course. I was hardly going to leave it to die in your world. The TARDIS worked some magic, I bought some potions during our travels, healed him up from the injuries he'd gained in the woods where he was abandoned, and sent him through a portal back to your world. Why?"

Lucy finds herself rather speechless. Amy hides her laughter with a cough.

"So, what else have you been doing without telling me?" she demands at last. "Where was the centaur staying in the TARDIS?"

The Doctor raises an eyebrow. "Gave it one of the spare rooms."

Lucy blinks. "One of the spare rooms."

Rory claps her on the back. "You'll get used to it."

-:-

"I got it out of him," Amy says proudly after placing a plate of dinner in front of Lucy and informing her that Rory and the Doctor have gone to rent movies, as apparently this is turning into an extended stay because Amy insists.

"Got what out of him?" Lucy asks absently, admiring the plate of roast beef and potatoes so deliciously prepared, they make her mouth water.

"The centaur story," Amy beams, sitting down across from her with her own plate. "You know how centaurs can predict the future?"

"Yeah," Lucy answers around a mouthful of roast beef. "They read the stars to figure it out. Only, they refuse to tell anyone who isn't in their special centaur club, so it's kind of a waste of time."

Amy chuckles. "Maybe. But this centaur was different. And I'd imagine he didn't have much reverence for the tribe that abandoned him. Because of his birth defects, his magic was altered. He could see the future without having to read the stars."

Lucy pauses, her spoonful of potatoes in midair, unable to help thinking that Aunt Hermione would have loved hearing about this. "Really? How did he see the future, then, if not with stars?"

Amy shrugs. "I think it simply played out in his mind like a movie. Or, that's the impression I gathered from the Doctor's babble about centaur magic. But anyway, the point is, the centaur specifically made the TARDIS enter that portal to get the Doctor to your house that evening."

"He…it…what?" Lucy asks in disbelief. "How does that even work?"

"The Doctor poked around the TARDIS's inner controls later to figure it out," Amy explains, taking a sip of wine. "Turns out the centaur used its funny magic to open a portal and then somehow convinced the TARDIS to barrel straight into your world without telling the Doctor. Current theory is that the centaur showed the TARDIS the future it had seen of you and the Doctor traveling the world so the TARDIS would willingly go to your house that night."

"It wasn't my house, technically," Lucy protests without really paying attention. Her mind is whirling with information and questions and she's starting to feel rather dizzy, so she gulps down some of her own wine.

Amy waves her comment away. "Doesn't matter. The point is, you would be there. I told you, Lucy – you're special. You're the girl the TARDIS traveled through dimensions for. It would hardly do that for just anybody."

A frown furrows her brow. "How do you know that?" she asks insistently, knowing she's being annoying but not really caring.

Amy sighs. "I think we need to go on a trip."

-:-

"New York? In modern times? Really, Amy, what did I tell you about going someplace amazing when you travel in the TARDIS?"

"New York is amazing, thank you very much, but that's beside the point. She told me that the one cousin she's ever liked lives there now, attending university. I think we should go talk to her. Get an inside perspective on what's been going on in their family since Lucy left. It might help her realize that she ended up your companion for a reason."

"The TARDIS would have to hop dimensions again. I'm not sure how much she'd like that."

"She did it for Lucy once, didn't she?"

"She did it for Lucy because the centaur showed her the future. She could see how important Lucy would be to both this realm and her own. But if it's just for fun –"

"It's not for fun. It's helping Lucy realize her destiny. Besides, all your companions are important in this realm. It's the magical realm that's unique to Lucy, out of all of us."

"All right, fine. But you've got to explain this plan to the TARDIS."

"Fine. You go get Rory and Lucy. If you need me, I'll be in the console room. And Doctor?"

"Yes, Amy?"

"You did the right thing taking her with you."

(Lucy ducks out of earshot before she can hear the Doctor's response.)

-:-

New York is gorgeous this time of year. Almost summer, somewhat spring, and always bursting with lights and energy and music. Lucy breathes in the fragrance of the city, all rustling leaves and laughter on the streets, and marvels on how easily she can feel a part of a family now, walking surrounded by Amy and Rory holding hands on one side and the Doctor on the other with his hands in his pockets and whistling as he walks.

"Now, where are we going, exactly?" she questions, glancing around the bustling sidewalk and inhaling the scent of city lights.

"Well, Lucy, my dear," grins the Doctor, nudging her with his shoulder, "you see, there's a penthouse in New York where a certain blonde lives, and we thought you might like to see her."

Lucy ponders on that for a moment, and then her eyes widen. "Victoire? She actually did it? She moved to New York?"

"Looks like it," pipes up Rory, tilting the rather unhelpful map they'd received earlier to the side. "Now, er, what was her address again?"

Lucy whirls to face the Doctor. "How long has it been since I left?" she demands.

The Doctor shrugs nonchalantly. "Oh, a couple of months. Things have happened. I'm sure Victoire can fill you in better than I can."

She crosses her arms, noting that Amy is watching them in amusement. "Have you been keeping an eye on my family?"

"Of course not," denies the Doctor, grinning lightly. "Why would I do that? You hate them all."

"Well." It's hard to deny the truth in that statement. "I don't hate Victoire."

"Which is exactly why we're going to go see her," smiles Amy, dropping her arm around Lucy's shoulders and wheeling her away from the chuckling Doctor. "Rory, figured out that map yet?"

"…No."

-:-

Finding Victoire's penthouse takes a rather absurdly long time, but find it they do. Lucy has to force them all to sit in the nearby café so they don't scare her cousin before she goes and knocks on Victoire's door, though.

Funnily enough, when the door opens, it's not her pretty cousin standing there but a rather handsome young man, about Victoire's age, with ruffled brown hair and bright blue-grey eyes, dressed in a half-unbuttoned shirt and unzipped jeans and looking rather like he'd just come from the bedroom.

Lucy takes a step back. "Um. Does Victoire Weasley live here?"

The man offers her a sheepish grin. "Yeah, she does. I'm, uh, I'm a friend of hers. Are you one of her cousins?"

"Yes." She levels him as unimpressed a look as she can manage, though she can't deny that he's very attractive. "I'm Lucy. Who are you?"

"Mike," he says, his flushing red. "Mike Montgomery. Er, she's a bit busy at the moment, but I'm sure if you come back in –"

Lucy rolls her eyes and shoves her way past him, ignoring his "Hey!" of protest.

The penthouse is ridiculously impressive in terms of luxury. She wanders around aimlessly for a moment just to appreciate the velvet couches and glass tables and the beautiful paintings placed on the creamy orange walls before her eyes land on a door that must lead to the bedroom.

Lucy enters without knocking, despite Mike's calls for her to please sit down in the living room and not go into the bedroom. Inside, she finds pretty much exactly what she expects, and is rather glad she made sure the Doctor hadn't come with her.

"Mike, why – Lucy!" Victoire gasps, half in delight, half in startlement, sitting up in bed and clutching the bed sheets around herself to protect her modesty. "What are you doing here?"

Lucy feels a smile cross her face. "I came to visit?" she offers gingerly.

Victoire grins and opens one arm for a hug. "I'll take it."

-:-

"So, are you two dating?" Lucy asks bluntly once Victoire has dressed and all three of them are sitting in the kitchen, drinking the delicious coffee Mike has made for them. "Or just sleeping together?"

Both Mike and Victoire turn red.

"No, um, we're dating," Mike clarifies, coughing as he glances sidelong at Victoire. "Well…"

"We're dating," Victoire confirms, smiling warmly at him. "Have been for a couple of months. Did you not get my letters?"

Lucy blinks. "Erm, it's rather hard to get letters where I've been."

"And where is exactly is that?" Victoire jumps on that immediately, propping her chin on her palm as a curious gleam that Lucy remembers somewhat fondly from her days at Hogwarts materializes in Victoire's eyes. There's no doubting the Sorting Hat's decision of placing Victoire in Ravenclaw.

"It's…a little complicated," Lucy laughs, glancing sidelong at Mike. "Uh, has he, well, met our family?" she asks, hoping Victoire picks up on the underlying question of Mike's knowledge of magic.

Victoire laughs. "He kind of accidentally stumbled into our world while visiting me one day, so yes," she says, raising an eyebrow at Mike, who grins sheepishly.

"It's a little weird, but you get used to," he shrugs.

Lucy gives him a once-over and then blurts out, "I've been traveling across time and space in a big blue box with a man who calls himself the Doctor."

Judging by the look on Victoire's face, that's going to take a bit of explaining.

-:-

Introducing Victoire to the Doctor takes the edge off a bit, though Lucy's certain she's spent far too long going over the whole 'I-saved-Camelot' thing for Mike and Victoire's skeptical amusement. Either way, Victoire seems to like the Doctor to the point of making Mike jealous, so she decides it was a good thing in the end.

"How're things at home?" Lucy finally gets a chance to ask her cousin after Amy and Rory and the Doctor have been properly introduced and properly shuffled into the living room to terrorize poor Mike with their eccentricity.

Victoire sits down on her bed, still unmade from the activities Lucy walked in on in the morning, and smiles a little wistfully at her. "Different," she says bluntly. "Really different."

Lucy tilts her head. "How, exactly? Don't tell me everyone's all shaken up about me disappearing," she scoffs.

Victoire shrugs. "You'd be surprised, Luce. Between you vanishing at your graduation party, and then me leaving for New York literally the next week, well, the family's rather shaken up. I've only visited a few times, but Dominique keeps me updated on the grapevine."

Here, she hesitates, and Lucy begins to wonder exactly how much has changed. "Er, and?" she prompts, settling down on the couch in the side of the room.

"Scorpius broke up with Rose," Victoire announces, and her words linger oddly in the silence that follows. Lucy gapes for a moment, trying to comprehend her statement.

Of all the couples of their generation, she'd always pegged Scorpius and Rose as the one certain to last well beyond Hogwarts. It was more than just her own pessimism that Scorpius would never notice her, because those two had everything going for them. Both were attractive, intelligent, had a fairytale romance throughout school, both working in the Ministry –

"What went wrong?" she asks finally, her eyes still wide.

Victoire smiles. "You. Or, more specifically, your disappearance. It freaked everyone out, but it really drove Scorpius crazy. I don't think he realized how much he liked having you in his life until you were gone."

A sudden, intense anger bubbles up inside Lucy. "Well, that's just fucking terrific," she says, and then she collapses in Victoire's arms.

-:-

How long has she wanted this? How long has she secretly hoped for Scorpius to stop following Rose around like a puppy and notice her? Beyond just asking her help in drawing the buildings he makes for his job, beyond flirting with her during their once-a-week art lessons, beyond sharing a quick smile across the room before returning to Rose?

She's dreamed of the day, dreamed of a kiss, dreamed of finally being happy.

And now that's it happened, now that she knows Scorpius and Rose are over…all she can think is that's it's too late. For him, for her, for them.

She's Lucy, but she's not the Lucy he knows, not the one he remembers, not the one he misses so terribly, according to Victoire.

She's grown. She's changed. She's saved the world.

She thinks of the sword she sleeps with at night, bestowed upon her by King Arthur; she thinks of the smile on the Doctor's face when they've cracked the puzzle to save a planet from mass destruction; she thinks of the adrenaline that courses through her veins as he takes her hand and races away from the Daleks pursuing them, both utterly terrified and utterly happy.

"There's a lot more out there than Ottery St. Catchpole, Vic," she murmurs as Victoire gently combs her hair like she had when Lucy was little and innocent and full of hope.

"I know, Luce," she replies, and the two of them sit there, far away from the confines of their family and lost love and all their regrets, an ocean and a million stars separating them from their past.

-:-

"I want to go home," she says the next morning, and the Doctor drops his glass.

-:-

The TARDIS speeds through space. Lucy sits, back against the door, inhaling, exhaling, imprinting the memory of the magic and the wonder and the stars onto her skin.

"Not forever," she promises, watching the Doctor as he fiddles with the controls. "I just need to take care of some things."

The Doctor turns and smiles at her. It's different, a little sadder, a little older, a little wiser than usual. But it's a smile.

"It's never forever, Lucy," he tells her, and she wonders if he's talking about her or Amy or Rose or someone else or everyone else.

"I love you."

"I love you, too, Lucy."

-:-

"Lucy," breathes Scorpius, and she decides then that she doesn't like the way anyone else besides the Doctor says her name.

But he's several miles away, waiting in the TARDIS, and the only people around to say her name are those who've helped make her life miserable for her first seventeen years. Lucy takes a breath and steels herself and slowly, carefully takes a step forward.

She's saved the world, she reminds herself. She's traveled through time and space. She's fought alongside King Arthur. She's slain monsters. She's battled Daleks. She's restored happiness to numerous planets. She has friends, in Scotland, in New York, in Diadem and Camelot and seventeen other planets.

She's Lucy Weasley, and she's not going to be intimidated by the whispers and murmurs and rumors sprouting up all around her by her family.

So she smiles. "Hello."

And Rose's plate falls to the ground with a crash.

-:-

By the time order has been restored in the Burrow, Lucy has been bombarded with at least forty different questions, most of them relating to the strange man she ran away with that fateful night.

"Who was he?"

"What's his name?"

"Why did you run away with him?"

"Did you know him?"

"Are you sleeping with him?"

(She admits to accidentally trodding on Roxanne's toe for that remark.)

Only Percy asks the most important question. "Lucy…why did you run away?"

She looks her father dead in the eye. He flinches. She has her mother's eyes, after all.

"Because someone…" Lucy pauses and images rush through her mind – the Doctor and the centaur and Amy and Rory and Victoire. "…someone believed in me."

-:-

"Will you come home?" asks Molly quietly, a strange tenderness to her voice that is out-of-place on Audrey's daughter, on the girl who never bothered to spare Lucy a glance or a helping hand, too caught up in her perfect little life to care about her illegitimate sister.

But Lucy doesn't misread people. Molly is scared of losing her. Perhaps they all are, perhaps she's woven herself so firmly into the Weasley family dynamic that they simply need her to be there, in the background, ever-present and always quiet, there when they need her and easily ignored when they don't. Because that's always been her function.

"Lucy," Molly says, bringing her back to Earth. Lucy turns and smiles at her sister.

"No."

-:-

Percy takes her aside soon after the initial bombardment of questions. His grip on her arm is tight and the look in her blue eyes is anything but happy, but Lucy finds herself unable to really care.

"Lucy…you need to come home," he insists, running his free hand through his hair. "I don't know where you've been, but if you've been traveling with a strange man –"

"I'm seventeen," she reminds him gently. "I can travel with whomever I want to and you can't stop me. And…I'm fine. Look. I'm in one piece, I'm alive, and I'm healthy. I'm even happy now, Dad. Can't you be happy for me?"

Percy heaves a sigh. "You have no idea what your disappearance has done to the family."

"And you have no idea what your family has done to me," she shoots back, gaze hardening. "Because you never bothered to notice. No one did. I had such deep-seated issues from childhood, and it took a so-called strange man and a malformed centaur to help me realize that I was better than I thought. Better than what I'd been told I was."

"Lucy," he begins pleadingly, but there are stars dancing behind him and Lucy isn't in the mood for a lecture, not when there are more adventures to be had and life to be lived away from the constraints of the Burrow and her father and her family.

"I'm happy, Dad," she tells him softly. "That's all Mum ever wanted for me."

Percy jerks back as if slapped, but she holds her ground. It's true and she's right and somewhere, she hopes, Penelope is watching over her from heaven and maybe, just maybe, she's actually proud of the woman Lucy has become.

"I love you, Lucy," he murmurs, and then he draws her in for the warmest hug she can ever remember receiving from him.

"I love you, too, Dad," she breathes and this time, she means it.

-:-

"Things were different with you gone," Scorpius tells her lightly when he meets her under the porch lights after the party has dwindled and everyone has gotten to greet Lucy and things seem to be almost peaceful in her life for the moment.

She looks at Scorpius, really looks at him, taking in the sharp, aristocratic features of his face, the brightness of his grey eyes, the quirk of his lips, the muscles of his arm. He is strong, handsome, and kind. There was a reason she'd fallen in love with him in the first place.

But she's not entirely sure that reason still exists.

"Were they?" she asks, just as nonchalantly, stirring the glass of mint lemonade someone had passed into her hand earlier that evening.

He leans against the porch railing next to her. Absently, his gaze flicks over the group of girls gathered a few feet away, where both Lily and Rose are standing. His eyes don't linger, but hers do. What must they be thinking, when Scorpius Malfoy is talking to her without even the pretense of art lessons? What does it even mean that he is?

"Yeah," he says honestly. "Everyone was – look, Lucy, I don't know if you realize, but you're important. You're our friend."

She raises an eyebrow. "If you treated me like a friend, I wouldn't have felt the need to run away," she reminds him as gently as possible.

Scorpius cringes. "I know. I know and – we're sorry."

"We?" Lucy asks, more than a little skeptical.

"Well, I'm sorry, at any rate," he amends hastily. "I just – I didn't realize how much I was used to having you around until you were gone."

"Yeah, funny how that works."

His hand is suddenly warm on her arm, and his face is surprisingly close to her own. "Lucy, I – I wanted to tell you…"

Lucy's eyes widen. It only takes a split second for her to realize that this is wrong. She's been waiting years, hopelessly in love, but now that it's finally happening –

She steps back. Because she's Lucy Weasley, the girl who's fought dragons, armies, Daleks, lizards, and her own fears. She's not the girl who was so desperately in love with Scorpius Malfoy anymore. She hasn't been for a long time.

"I'm sorry," she says honestly, and it kind of feels like being free again.

-:-

When she leaves the party after saying her goodbyes and heads out to meet the Doctor, she finds him leaning against the TARDIS talking to a rather familiar blond.

"Lysander?" she asks in surprise, walking towards the two of them. As she gets closer, she realizes there's something in between the two of them – a creature, white and tiny, but still strong, a creature that sparks memories of a night that seems so long ago…

"Hey, Lucy," Lysander grins just as she remembers that this creature is the centaur that had escaped the TARDIS the night she ran away with the Doctor.

"Lucy, he found the centaur again!" the Doctor says in delight. "Look! Its name is Ilian. According to Lysander."

Lucy raises her eyebrows. "Ilian?"

Lysander shrugs, smiling sheepishly at her as he shoves his hands into his pockets. "He didn't have a name when I found him, so I gave him one."

"Yes, but…Ilian?" she demands, finding it hard to smother her giggles. "Wasn't that the name of your stuffed jaguar back in school?"

Lysander turns red. "Shut up, Lucy."

The Doctor interrupts them before she can retort. "Lucy, do you want to talk to Ilian?"

Lucy hesitates. Does she want to talk to the creature that changed her life for the better in every possible way?

She takes a breath and kneels down. Ilian is sitting quietly on the ground, looking amused as he glances up at her. His smile is warm and his eyes are kind, and Lucy allows herself to relax.

"Hello, Lucy," he says softly. "I think you have a question for me, am I wrong?"

"No," she swallows. "Why – why did you lead him to me?"

Ilian shifts his gaze to the dewy grass below them, tracing absent patterns in the green blades. "Because, Lucy, you're special. Not just to the Doctor, not just to his universe. But to this universe. And to people and animals like me."

She blinks, bewildered. "What do you mean?"

Ilian chuckles. "Lucy, I was left for dead in the forest by my family because of my shape and size. There are others like me. Animals that don't get noticed, who die alone. Our magic dies with us. You've seen the effects of this in several of your adventures in the other world."

"I don't understand," Lucy says, shaking her head. "What does this have to do with me?"

"I picked you because you're the one who could change it, Lucy," Ilian says, looking into her eyes with a gaze so intense, she swears she can see lights in his eyes. "You know how to. You've traveled enough, seen the galaxies, lived amongst the stars. You'll know, soon enough, what you were meant to do. And that's what makes you so special, Lucy. I knew you were the one who'd make the choice."

Lucy's brows furrow. Chancing a glance up at Lysander and the Doctor, she finds the former watching her and Ilian with a thoughtful look on his face and the latter humming a Gallifreyan song to himself. With a fond sigh, she turns back to Ilian.

"What choice?" she presses, beginning to get irritated. "What do you want me to do?"

Ilian smiles. "The Doctor will show you."

And then he bounds away, leaving her with a confusingly handsome human and a handsomely confusing alien for company.

"Well," the Doctor says cheerfully, breaking her out of her reverie, "you should say your goodbyes for now, Lucy. We're going on a trip."

-:-

It's funny, because when Lysander says goodbye to her, it almost seems like he likes her.

-:-

He takes her to a meadow. It's huge, green grass and small flowers stretching in every direction, circled by tall, leafy trees. Near one edge sits a rustic old manor, obviously having been abandoned for quite some time. It's got an ancient sort of charm, but it's not really the kind of place she'd like to live in, Lucy thinks.

"What do you think?" asks the Doctor brightly, standing directly in the center of the meadow and spinning in a circle. "Beautiful place, isn't it?"

"Sure," Lucy says, still a little bewildered as she wanders through the grass. "What is this place, anyway? And why'd you bring me here?"

The Doctor glances over at her with a grin. "Why, Lucy, I thought you'd have recognized your ancestral home."

Lucy stares at him. "Pardon?"

The Doctor points at the manor. "This is where your mother used to live when she was a child. Of course, she bought her own flat in the Wizarding part of London when she came of age and your grandparents…"

"Were killed," Lucy finishes bluntly, regarding the manor with a fresh gaze. Suddenly, it doesn't seem quite as unwelcoming. "I didn't know they were rich enough to afford a place like this."

He waves a hand. "It's been in your family for generations. It's currently owned by your uncle, but he lives in Spain with his family, so nobody's using it."

Lucy turns to him, frowning thoughtfully. "How, exactly, do you know so much about my maternal family when even I didn't know this stuff?"

The Doctor winks at her. "The centaur told me. Prophetic vision, and all that."

"Of course," she drawls. "But what was the point of bringing me here?"

There's a pause for quite some time, until the Doctor finally speaks, looking away from the manor and towards the trees on the right side of the meadow.

"Look," he says softly, taking her hand and guiding her over to the tree he's noticed. "Look closely, Lucy."

She glances sidelong at him, more than a bit confused. The Doctor smiles at her, the same warm smile that she trusts above any other in the world, in the galaxy, in the universe, and she looks.

-:-

The unicorn, she decides, is named Maelle. She's small and shy and her horn is only half-grown, but her eyes are as bright a blue as the TARDIS itself, and Lucy rather thinks that makes up for the lack of a full horn and a leg.

"She's beautiful," Lucy breathes, stroking Maelle's soft white mane as the Doctor watches on with a smile. "What is she doing here?"

The Doctor hesitates, then places his palm on Maelle's back. She nickers but stays put under his touch. "She was abandoned, because –"

"She's malformed," Lucy interrupts, an epiphany lighting her eyes. "Like Ilian. How many more are there like them?"

"Too many to count, to be honest," says the Doctor sadly. "I wouldn't even know where to start or what to do with them if I even found them."

Lucy drums her fingers on Maelle's back, making her whinny. "What they need is something like a reservation. Like where Uncle Charlie works, except for malformed animals instead of dragons."

"And where would this reservation be?" the Doctor prompts.

Her eyes widen as she whirls to look at him. "Is this why Ilian picked me? To – to champion animal rights or –"

The Doctor reaches forward, catching her hands in his and holding them tightly. "Lucy," he says, his voice full of soothing calm. "He picked you because he believed in you. You're special. Your future, above your cousins, above most people, to be honest, is open. You've got something in you that would make the TARDIS – would make me – hop dimensions to find you. That's why he picked you."

Lucy stays silent, comprehending his words and inhaling the scent of galaxies and grass around her. Then she smiles.

"We have a lot of work to do."

-:-

About a month into the building process, after having exchanged letters with her uncle so she could have legal ownership of the manor, Lucy opens the door to find an actual visitor, instead of a delivery man or construction worker standing there.

"Hi, Lucy," smiles Lysander, and it takes a moment, but she smiles back. "My parents heard you were making this place a reservation, so they sent me to check it out. They're interested in helping."

"Oh," Lucy says, and then quickly gathers her composure. "That's terrific. How come they aren't here?"

Lysander chuckles, stepping through the door she holds open for him. "They're in Argentina to track the Long-Nailed Dobhorn," he says matter-of-factly.

She has to smile at this. "Of course. And your brother?"

He hesitates, shrugging. "I dunno…probably shagging Lily somewhere. That's about all he does lately."

Her eyebrows rise almost to the top of her forehead. "Pardon? Isn't Lily with Teddy?"

Lysander glances over at her. "Nah, Luce, you've been gone for a while. Teddy and Lily broke up not long after you left. I think – I mean, don't quote me on this, but…I think he realized he was still in love with Victoire after she left for New York."

Lucy scoffs. "Typical. She's dating someone else, though, isn't she?"

"I…wouldn't know," Lysander admits, looking around at the living room which she has redecorated with the Doctor's help with admiration that induces a burst of pride inside her. "Nobody's heard much from her lately. All her letters just say she's doing fine and school's going well."

"Not surprising," Lucy remarks, reaching back to tighten her ponytail. "I wouldn't want to come back either, not if my boyfriend left me for my cousin."

Lysander's gaze is suddenly intense. "You didn't," he points out softly.

Lucy stills. "Right," she says, then, quickly – "Want to check out the actual reservation?"

He pauses, then flashes her a smile. "I'd love to, Lucy."

-:-

Somehow, the way he says her name doesn't sound half-bad.

-:-

With Lysander's help and the friends from all over the world he coaxes into joining, the project is sped up significantly. Less than a year after coming home to her dimension, Lucy finds herself standing at the edge of a complete reservation, already home to many injured, deformed, or magically volatile animals that've made a place for themselves in the spacious meadow.

"This is amazing," says Lysander, his voice breathless and awestruck as he takes in the magnitude of the reservation.

"I know," Lucy beams, clasping her hands and gazing over the reservation with pride. The animals, a mixture of about twenty dozen different magical species gathered by the Doctor, wander happily through their homes, eating the food laid out and happily conversing with each other in various languages.

"You're amazing," Lysander adds, glancing sidelong at her. Lucy feels herself blush under his warm blue gaze.

"I'm not. You helped. The Doctor –" she begins to say, but a voice interrupts her from behind.

"– should go."

Lucy pivots on her heels, dread bubbling in her stomach. "What?"

The Doctor stands there, adjusting his blue bowtie, and looks at her with that smile that had always made her feel like she was on top of the world, the galaxy, the entire universe.

"You've found it," he tells her, striding forward and taking her hands in his. Lucy feels her fingers curl, desperately holding onto him. "This is what you were meant to do."

"I'm meant to fly with you!" she insists, her eyes widening. "That's – I didn't know this project would mean – I want to stay with you!"

The Doctor glances behind her at where Lysander is standing, now feeding a baby hippogriff that wandered from its area. "No, I don't think you do."

She opens her mouth to protest, then closes. Above them, the sky is darkening, stars beginning to twinkle, and Lucy finds herself remembering the first night she danced upon those same stars, so many days ago.

It feels like a different lifetime. A memory, or a dream. A memory inside a dream.

Lucy takes a breath and lets go.

"I love you, Lucy," he murmurs, drawing her in for a hug. "Stay happy, all right? For me."

"I will," she says, squeezing her eyes shut to stop the tears. "I promise. I love you, too."

The Doctor presses a kiss onto her temple and then he leaves.

-:-

"Did you plan this?" she demands of Ilian when he wanders through the reservation the week after the TARDIS has faded out of her life for the last time. "Our meeting, the adventures, the reservation – everything?"

Ilian looks up at her with a smile in his gaze. "No, Lucy. I have magic, but I do not control your life or your choices. All I did was direct the Doctor to you in the hopes that one day, everything you learned with him would lead you to make the choice that would help me and other animals of my kind."

"Oh, it sounds just lovely when you put it that way," she snaps, crossing her arms.

"Did you love traveling with the Doctor, Lucy?" Ilian asks her gently, cutting into her thoughts before she can formulate another retort.

"Of course I did," she says, dumbfounded that anyone would even need to ask.

"And do you love the reservation?"

Lucy bites her lip, glancing around them. Animals run happily across the meadow, pausing only to eat and play with each other or with the workers she's hired. Her uncle Charlie, visiting the dragons he'd sent to her reservation, waves at her with one hand as he feeds a tiny, olive-green dragon that has no wings. Inside the house, she can hear shrieks of laughter as Lysander's toddler cousins wreak havoc while he chases them around trying to keep them away from the animals.

"I do," she says finally. "It feels like –"

"Home," finishes Ilian with a warm smile. "Just as it is to me and all the other animals. Lucy, the Doctor has many companions. All of them find homes in the TARDIS. But all of them have other homes, too. I took a chance on you, hoping you would find this to be your home in the end."

"Well," Lucy takes a moment to mull that over. "Good job on that chance, then."

Ilian chuckles. "Yes, I do believe I did a very good job in finding you, both for your sake and the Doctor's."

"How did you find me?" she asks him, genuinely curious.

"Magic," Ilian says, winking. "Just because I'm not the right shape and size for a centaur doesn't mean I don't have centaur magic. I know when someone is a friend. And I know when someone is special."

Lucy inhales, exhales, and finally smiles, allowing herself to truly relax for the first time since the Doctor left, breathing in the scents of the animals and the grass and the trees all around her.

"I –" she begins to say, but just then Lysander materializes at her side, his five-year-old cousin Adrianna squealing as she tries to escape his tight grasp.

"Lucy," he says, out of breath, "sorry to interrupt, but will you please, please grab Jayden so we can all go get ice cream? Or else these two will never leave me alone."

She laughs, ruffling Adrianna's hair, feeling a little overwhelmed at the realization that she finally considers this place her home.

"I would love to," she tells him with a smile, and though she tries not to admit it, Lysander's answering grin sends butterflies racing through her stomach.

"Goodbye, Lucy," Ilian says, a slight laugh in his voice as he prepares to walk off.

"Oh, Ilian, wait!" Lucy calls, stepping towards him before he can get out of earshot. "Thank you," she says sincerely. "For everything. And…you always have a home here."

Ilian tips his head, a smile on his face, and then he walks off, leaving her alone with Lysander and Adrianna and the job of catching a hyperactive six-year-old boy.

Lucy smiles. "So, where is Jayden hiding?" she asks, and Lysander points the way.

-:-

The ice cream is pretty good. Lucy gets banana, Lysander gets pistachio, and Adrianna and Jayden share a banana split. The discussion over the ice cream – and over the kids' babble – is better than good.

Watching the kids is kind of exhausting. As soon as they're home, Lucy helps Lysander put them to sleep so they can nap the afternoon away. No matter how much she adores his cousins, they're kind of exhausting.

And staying up late with Lysander outside on the balcony to watch the stars and tell him stories about her time with the Doctor is maybe her favorite part of the day.

-:-

After all, there are always stories to be told.

Author's Notes: Again, I apologize for the lack of sense-making, I was kind of just spilling words onto a document buuut I hope you enjoyed the ridiculous crossover goodness. Kudos to any of you who recognize where Mike is from!

Also, bonus points if anyone can tell me what color Lucy's hair is (hint: you probably can't, but good luck trying!) :P

Oh, and I imagine Adrianna and Jayden to be Lysander's cousins from his father's side, if that wasn't obvious :)

Anyway, please, please, please leave me a review so I know this wasn't complete crap! It would absolutely make my day! And please don't favorite without reviewing; it annoys me to no end and I'd really love your opinions in a review!

Thank you for reading/putting up with my insane brain and thanks in advance for reviewing! :)