Today. Finch.

This time Finch did not ask after Martha. He'd learned his lesson last time. He only let this even more enthusiastic Doctor hug him, again. The first Doctor had never hugged him. But when he touched the TARDIS, she seemed to hug him too, with a golden light in his mind that was rather less painful than the young Doctor's enthusiasm. He stuck his nose inside and found she was almost as different as the Doctor, but still the TARDIS, as he was still the Doctor, despite a new look and a very, very different manner.

He missed Martha, but he knew why she wasn't there, and the Doctor seemed to like his two new Companions. He seemed to be closer to them than he had been to Martha, like family rather than friends. The girl with the red hair wandered around looking at and touching everything and keeping up a running commentary, and her intelligent-looking young husband read the titles of books to himself and kept glancing over at Finch, Reese, and the chattering Doctor.

"Only four months? I think it's been two centuries for me. Didn't we have fun? How's the shoulder, then?"

"As promised, it was as good as…new, within a week. Very impressive, for a gunshot wound, Mr. Reese tells me."

"You were shot, Mr. Finch?" Rory came over to them. After a certain amount of squabbling over names, he had insisted Finch call him Rory, and his wife had given Finch a bright-eyed smile and said, "You can call me Amelia," like one conferring a special boon. Since he didn't know whether to call them Mr. and Mrs. Williams or Pond, he did. But he did not offer to let them call him Harold. "Sorry, don't mean to be nosy. It's just I'm a nurse, in between mad bouts of adventuring and getting killed."

"You've only died like seven times, idiot!" Amelia called.

"And that's more times than anyone in this room," he said, "including the Doctor, who only regenerates."

"Only?" the Doctor said indignantly. "Still, I think there must be some unalterable law of the universe that says you can't ever die permanently, Rory."

"That's fine with me," Amelia said, wandering over to them and putting her long hand on Rory's head. She called him names and adored him. He seemed to go still and lost in wonderment whenever she came near him. Finch wondered if Martha had ever found someone like that, if Susan had. He remembered feeling that way about Grace. Why should a beautiful, vivacious, red-haired woman choose to love such an odd, quiet, plain man? He knew Rory wondered that, as he had often. He hoped Rory would never find out what it was like to lose her but that he would live to a ripe old age with her. If I can't have that, at least maybe you can.

At Amelia's insistence, Reese consented to conduct a tour of the library. "I love old buildings," she said. "Was it always a library?"

"I believe at one point it housed a publishing house," Finch told her. "Primarily a library, however, and I'm certain it is not as old as some buildings you have seen."

"No, but it's beautiful."

"And the TARDIS likes it too," the Doctor said.

Finch didn't go on the tour. He had just received the telltale signal of another number for him to interpret. He sat down to his work, occasionally glancing over at the blue time machine, even getting up to go touch her. He had forgiven her for blowing all the papers on his desk into utter chaos.

Only a moment later, Rory came back. "I just have to ask you something, Mr. Finch. It's just—you kept looking so familiar, and I couldn't figure it out until just a minute ago. Do you have any relatives in England?"

Finch eyed him warily. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's just—my dad had this old friend—I think they worked together years ago. He lived just outside Cirencester most of my life—I'm from a village called Leadworth, just about halfway between Cirencester and Gloucester, so we used to see him occasionally. He kept bees and wrote papers about German literature, but I got the impression that he used to be a spy. Odd thing to think, because he didn't look like a spy, but that would be an asset, I'd think, if you were one. No one would ever believe you were. Mr. Reese looks like one."

Finch smiled slightly. It was true. "You speak in the past tense."

"Oh, he was really old, and he died—oh, about ten years ago, I should think. Maybe more. I was at nursing school, but I came back for his funeral. George Smiley, his name was. Only he looked so much like you. Could be a coincidence, but I thought I'd ask."

"George Smiley," Finch repeated softly. "I believe I may have had a distant relative of that name." He gripped his hands together under the edge of his desk.

"That's so weird. It really is a small world."

"So it is. What did your father do when they worked together?"

"Well, he wasn't a spy! No one's less like a spy than my dad!" He jerked to a halt. "Well—"

Finch tilted his head. "You were saying?"

"I only meant my dad worked in some government building under him once, before I was born. My dad's one of those kinds of men who doesn't do anything exciting ever. Nicest man in the world, but you wouldn't ever really look at him—" He stopped abruptly again. "So was Mr. Smiley," he whispered.

"Two men of similar appearance need not have the same job," Finch said. "You say I resemble your Mr. Smiley, but I'm a computer programmer, not a spy."

"No? What is it exactly that you do, Mr. Finch? According to the Doctor, you're the brains of an operation that occupies a former CIA agent."

"Guilty."

"First thing I'm doing when I get home is asking my dad if he was a spy."

Finch smiled at him. "He'll say of course he wasn't, and don't be ridiculous."

Rory laughed. "That's exactly what he'll say."

When Reese, the Doctor, and Amelia returned, Finch told Reese regretfully, "We have a new number, Mr. Reese."

"Oh, good," the Doctor said, dropping his armful of books. "An actual human this time? We'll help. We can fix the problem, can't we?"

Rory was picking up the books. "No, Doctor. You promised Amy a picnic in Central Park and a tour of the city, and Mr. Finch and Mr. Reese have an actual investigation to conduct without you complicating it."

Reese grinned slightly. "That's actually true."

The Doctor sighed. "I suppose."

"What are all the books for?" Rory demanded.

"You have to have something to read on a picnic!"

"Well, you're not supposed to steal them from a library."

"It's a library! I'm checking them out!"

"It's Mr. Finch's personal library!"

"You know, for the first time I actually believe you're his father-in-law," Reese smirked.

"Well, let's go, then," the Doctor said mournfully. He leaned down from his height and hugged Finch again. "Goodbye, Harold. Don't hesitate to call if you ever need help."

"I will," Finch said softly, then mentally chastised himself for his ambiguous grammar. Amelia was leaning down and kissing his cheek. Far too many beautiful young ladies were inclined to kiss him. Clearly he wasn't reclusive enough.

Rory shook his hand (no kissing from him, thank goodness), and while he did, Finch saw the Doctor hugging Reese and Reese slipping the horrid paperback into the Doctor's jacket pocket. Amelia told Reese, "Don't hesitate to come rescue us any time you want, Mr. CIA Agent."

"Don't think I won't," he said.

"And you have a standing invitation to come meet my dad in Leadworth, Mr. Finch," Rory said.

"Thank you, Rory." Finch purposefully made no definite accepting noises. He touched the side of the TARDIS and said goodbye to her in his mind. He wondered if he would ever see her again, or the Doctor. Reese's friend had given him a program to track the TARDIS any time she was headed for New York City. He wondered if he would see Rory and Amelia again. Maybe next time it would be a later Doctor yet again, or even an earlier one. If there was a next time.

Later the same day, when the program from River Song detected the TARDIS leaving New York, coming back, leaving again, and coming back again, he was away from his computer doing research at a morgue on their Irrelevant and didn't see it.

Author's note: This chapter constitutes a three-way crossover and also a second sequel, to my story "Finch's People" ( www . fanfiction s/8386588/1/Finch-s-People"). You'll have to read it to find out precisely what relationship Harold Finch had to the old British spymaster George Smiley.

It was sheer fortuitousness that set Leadworth very close to the Cotswolds, where Smiley once expressed a desire to retire.