Disclaimer: am I the only one who's getting bored of saying that they don't own sh!t? blach, on with the fic….

He looked blankly out the window, a small glimmer of thought barely visible in his eyes. He was rigid and almost hadn't felt his wife's soft, petite hand cover his, he finally blinked and smiled at her, squeezing her hand tightly.

"They've found us, haven't they?" she asked quietly, nudging his shoulder with her chin affectionately. He nodded then glanced back out the window, narrowing his eyes. With his free hand he tapped the windowsill, but stopped abruptly and pulled his wife closer, as though warming her from a non-existent chill. "The Brig said that the tunnel would be cleared by now." He said suddenly, not looking at her.

Her head snapped up suddenly, "Did he?"

He nodded again, "I believe so." He paused. "Wake Matthew, the shaft is probably the only hope we have left."

She stood with him until he looked down and her and smiled reassuringly, regardless of their likely assassination that was zooming towards the house while they stood there, holding each other like nothing was wrong. She gave him a swift peck on the cheek then walked towards the sofa that bore her sleeping son.

"Matthew," she bent over him and shook his shoulder, not noticing her husband lean over the window frame and close his eyes, a beaten man. The Youngman rubbed his eyes and squinted to make out the figure of his mother in the darkness of the room.

"What is it, Mum?" he grumbled, sitting up sleepily, hair flat on one side from where he'd been resting his head.

"It's time to go sweetheart." She said pulling him up from the sofa. He towered over her and looked at her in disbelief. "Why? We just got here yesterday!"

"They've found us they'll be here soon."

His eyes widened but his jaw was tightly held shut.

"C'mon, love, 'round back." She took her son's hand and led him out of the room. Her husband followed, he was the only one who knew just how slim their chances were the moment he left the room. As soon as they turned the corner to the hallway, their steps quickened and before they knew it, they were running. They finally reached the broom closet. The older man reached to open it. Inside was the classic, 'spy movie' elevator…but lower budget as some would say- it was more a airshaft, to be frank. He quickly knocked the brooms and mop out of the way, and yanked the metal grating out of the wall, revealing an uncomfortable looking square tunnel.

"What's this doin' here?" Matthew asked, incredulously. His mother turned to him and explained while her husband programmed the destination into the small control inside. "It's a kind of elevator tunnel that goes sideways, bit like a train; it'll transport us somewhere safe. UNIT put it here while you were at University."

"But I thought we were safe now! You heard that thing about that Jones girl! Tomorrow everything will be alright! Why do we need to go?"

Before anyone could answer him, there was the sound of glass breaking coming from the room they'd been in. They all looked around, alarmed.

"There you go, there's your answer. Now get in Matthew." The man said, and tried to remain as calm as usual. Matthew clambered in and pulled his knees up to his chest to make room. His mother was about to take her husband's helping hand to get in when she noticed the problem, the shaft was too small, it had been built for two. She stared at her husband, terrified. Words failed her as she read his eyes. He'd known, known that it would only take two and he hadn't told her so that she wouldn't object to what he was about to do until it was too late.

"No!" she wailed, the sound of walls being smashed in the search for them only added to her state of hysteria. He placed a firm hand on her shoulder. "Dear, you are know that there is no other way. Now, don't waste time. Here, I'll give you a hand; it's a bit high for you…"

She couldn't breath. Why did he always have to do this? He was going to die and yet, he was so calm. "No! She repeated, screaming this time. His face hardened at her response. "I'm not leaving you again!" she continued "I'm not going to just let you stay here and die!"

Another wall was being blown out of the way, causing her husband to look away momentarily then back at her, his face determined. Swiftly, so as not to give her a chance to react, he swooped down and kissed her fiercely. The wanted effect took place, she was stunned. People had told her that marrying him wasn't a good idea, that compared to her previous husband, he was wooden, boring… bland. But she knew him for these moments, except, he wasn't the kind to usually show the depth of his emotions unless they were in the security of someplace private, which they hadn't been for the last year. She was so immersed, so happy for a moment amidst all the madness and chaos and destruction, that she didn't feel him lift her off her feet. She didn't notice Matthew trying to make as much room for her as possible as her husband placed her in there, next to her son. But she did feel him break the kiss, and watched him look away from her. She was dazed and confused as he pulled the grating back over the hole, without a word.

She was screaming again, even though she couldn't hear herself, she knew that she was. Her throat ripped with effort telling him to stop being an idiot, to get out, that she just barely heard him whisper to her;

"I love you, I always have. I told you I'd always take care of you and Matthew, please don't make me out to be a traitor again, especially not to my own words, stay safe."

Her mouth hung open as her body wracked with sobs, Matthew held her in the tight space and look out of the grating.

"I love you too…Dad."

He turned and looked Matthew right in the eye; his face the most obvious Matthew had ever seen it, aglow with the deepest happiness at this declaration. He was amazed that the boy who'd refused to call his step-father anything but Captain or even his first name for years, had just filled him up with the most fulfilling joy he could've ever felt, it was a cruel twisted fate that it had to take the impending death of one of them to bring them together like this. The shaft began to move slowly, Matthew held his mother who was screaming her husband's name at the top of her lungs as the wall behind the said man exploded. That was the last they saw of him before the shaft moved them into darkness and away from their home, and their Captain.

Matthew watched his mother helplessly from a distance while the old Brigadier tried to comfort her. He hated himself for not being able to say anything, let alone do anything.

"We're all like that when we get here." Matthew looked to his right, a girl a few years younger than him was looking at his mother thoughtfully, pity written all over her face. "You came in through the shafts, who works for UNIT in your family?" her tone hadn't changed as she said this, she merely stated it.

"My step…my Father." He said quietly, and it hurt saying it. He felt like a selfish self-centered bastard for not saying it before. He shut his eyes tightly, trying not to think of the look on his face before they lost sight of him. He hadn't screamed, Matthew noticed, even when the wall exploded behind him, he'd just barley jumped in response to the huge blast. "What about you?" he asked, trying to get his mind of it, though it was proving to be difficult with his mother crying not too far away. "How did you get here?"

"My Uncle," she said fondly, looking at him for the first time with her grey-blue eyes. "I was spending the weekend with him when they attacked. We'd been out buying groceries, to try to trick my mother into thinking that we'd been eating healthy while I was with him." She grinned at this. "Mum and Dad were already at his place to come and pick up, they were killed by the time we got there."

"I'm sorry," Matthew said, he wasn't very good at this kind of thing.

"Not your fault though, is it? So my uncle tried to get into his shaft, but the tunnel was blocked, so we had to run for it. It was hard, but he helped me a lot. Then we heard about Martha Jones, you've heard about that, yeah?" she asked. He nodded.

"Yeah, well, uncle was so happy I though he was gonna' burst! He kept telling me he knew the Doctor, and that the Doctor had gotten rid of the Master more than once, and that this time wasn't going to be any different! He even told me that he'd faced the Master himself a few times, along with the Brigadier over there," she nodded at old man who was now holding his mother while she bit into his sleeve in attempt to muffle her sobs." and a few other people… but that's when it happened."

"What?" Matthew asked, genuinely concerned now. She gulped and looked at the ground, Matthew took her hand instinctively. "They found us, a few days before I got here. My uncle got me to hide; he said he was too big and that they'd find him anyways. He wouldn't listen me when I told him… that was the first time he ever got cross with me. He told me to stay where I was and to be quite, he told me how to get here and to keep my head down." Her eyes were starting to get misty with tears, but her voice was steady, she squeezed on Matthew's hand. "He told me to trust the Doctor, no matter what…and then, then he smiled at me and…they came, they'd been looking for him and they found him. Then right before they…he just- closed his eyes, stood up straight and said "Doctor"…" now she was crying, not like his mother, but enough. Matthew pulled her towards him, seeking a mutual comfort from the loss they had both experienced. They were both exhausted and shaken, so they sat down on the dirt ground. Her crying stopped but he still held her and stroked her shoulder.

"Tomorrow morning?" she said quietly. He couldn't help but grin at the amount of hope in her voice and at himself. Under usual circumstances, he would never have held a girl this close without at least knowing her name first, but now wasn't normal. They were beyond that, names weren't important now, names just got you killed. Except the one name that could possibly save them…tomorrow. For now, Matthew would continue to hold her, while she squeezed one of his hands and easily placed her head on his shoulder, as relaxed as either of them could get at that moment.

"Tomorrow morning." He said firmly. Moments later, they were both asleep.

She shivered against the cold and buried herself farther into the wooly material of her husband's coat while he held her tighter to him beneath the large leafless tree. They could both just barely hear Matthew's breathing against the still night air while sleeping on the other side of the huge tree trunk. A cold teasing breeze made it's way to them, forcing her to curl her petite hands together and held them between herself and her husband, in the hopes that the combined heat from their bodies might help prevent the bitter cold winds from causing her to lose any more feeling in her body as it was. This gesture did not go unnoticed by him. He pursed his lips in anger. He hated seeing her like this, and him unable of lighting a simple fire to keep her warm. After all, they couldn't risk it. They had almost been caught near the borders of Amsterdam and just barely got away, with only a few minor injuries. They later found themselves near the outskirts of a town somewhere south and decided to rest.

Matthew had fallen asleep the moment he had his traveling sheet laid out on the ground as his now-familiar known bed. They, on the other hand, hadn't found sleep quite as easily. That had been the closest they had ever been to being captured while on their mission to help spread the word, and it worried them. Nothing was said for the longest time, both minds despairing at the thought of not complete ling the mission.

"Do you think we've made a difference?" she said quietly while carefully pulling his hand - that had been injured during the attack- towards her chest and gently rubbed where his hand was a painful dark shade of purple. He couldn't help but give a small smile at her gesture, "Of course we are why you don't think so?"

She shrugged in his arms and made a small noise of disbelief.

"Oh you know we are!" he reprimanded her, chuckling softly. "Even back in the old days, the Doc couldn't handle things all on his own, as much as he would have liked for us all to believe he could… he always needed the team to back him up, didn't he? Well it's just as true now as it ever was. I don't care if he has changed his face again by now; he's still the same old chap in the end. And we can't let that poor young woman do all the work alone, can we?"

"I know that!" she said in a defensive tone, jabbing his hand reproachfully. "I know why we decided to do this…I'm just worried that we haven't done enough…"

He smiled and kissed her head. "Now dear, if it hadn't been for us, do you think Ms Jones would've even known about that little village south of France?"

She shook her head, "No, they said they hadn't heard anything about the Doctor or Martha."

He pulled her away from him gently so that he could look at her while he spoke. "Exactly! You see? That's just the point! The poor girl won't be able to go everywhere within one year, it's impossible. And it's the smaller places, that no one knows about that need to be told, just as much as the rest of the world. There are always a fewer number of murders in those sorts of places which also leads to more people than would be expected at one place at a time like this. Just think of how many villages, towns and every underground hideout we've been able to inform that otherwise, would've been clueless when the time came for us all to come together."

He tried to smile at her again, urging her to believe that they had made a difference in the world. They both needed to feel it. They owed it to the Doctor. Reassured, she smiled widely at him and kissed him lightly before placing her head on his chest and falling asleep.

She wasn't crying anymore. She'd run out of tears, as the Brigadier's blouse would confirm. All was quite and dawn was approaching. The day had finally come. Soon, everyone would gather and call for the Doctor. He'd save them all, she knew he would…except…he hadn't. Her thoughts continued to wallow in the memory of leaving her husband behind. He'd been prepared to sacrifice himself many times before ("for the greater good" he would say) only this time, it was permanent. He was dying. Alone, after she'd promised him years ago that he wouldn't. Her body now shook in anger. She'd done her deed; she'd spread the word with husband whilst dragging her son along, she'd lived an honest life, she'd watched her son grow up to be a fine young man who she was sure would join UNIT when it was finally time…

She stood up slowly and maneuvered her way through the many sleeping bodies towards the transportation shaft. Right as she began to set the coordinates a hand grasped her wrist firmly, making her gasp in surprise. When she turned, the two usually mundane dark eyes of the Brigadier were flashing with anger as he looked at her. "What in God's name do you think you are doing?"

She held her chin up and matched his glare. "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm going back home."

"I don't think so, not now Jo."

"With all due respect Brig, I don't care what you think right now. I'm going back for him and that's that."

"You can't do that. There's nothing you can do for him now!" The Brig knew her to do many a reckless thing, but he wasn't going to let her commit another.

"That doesn't matter now, Brig! I can't just stay here in this basement, knowing that he's back there! Dying alone!" she whispered angrily. "You wouldn't understand!" she turned back to the controls only to be stopped by him again.

"I beg you're pardon Jo, but I wouldn't understand?" she had gone too far. "I- wouldn't understand. Do you honestly believe that I would rather be down here while knowing that my men are out there, some of them having to follow his orders? You think that I haven't had to hold myself down here with every ounce of self control I posses? After what happened to my family? Doris died while shopping! My son and daughter and grandchildren…right before my eyes and you think I'd rather just remain here?!" he was fuming but his voice had not been raised the entire time. She blinked back tears and spoke in a raspy hushed voice, "Brig, I'm sorry. And I know that you'd rather be out on the frontline of a battlefield any day rather than stay sheltered somewhere. And we both knew that, he and me, he always said "Brig would never ask us to do something he himself wouldn't do". But Brig…it was his idea that we go out and do what we did. We both owed it to the Doctor; he'd changed both our lives for the better. And the same night we got back home they attacked us and now… Brig, please, Matthew is fine. The rest of the world will be fine in a few hours…but I won't be. Please let me go back to him, please." Her large eyes, usually the happiest pairs of eyes he'd ever seen were now pleading and desperate. He slowly lessened his firm grip of her wrist and looked and the ground. "As you see fit." He said in his baritone. He helped her climb into the shaft and finished setting the coordinates for her. "Good Luck, Jo"

She smiled, "Thanks for everything Brig, tell Matthew I love him."

He nodded as the shaft began to creak into movement. As she started to get pulled away through the tunnel, The Brigadier saluted her.

After what seemed like ages, she finally stopped. She squinted through the daylight that was well risen by now. She shifted and managed to kick the metal grating out of place. She stumbled out of the shaft quickly and fell to the floor. A lump gathered in her throat, the rubble left from the explosion of the wall was everywhere. Her heart raced madly in her chest and she couldn't help but whimper at the sight of an arm protruding from underneath it all. "Oh!" she rushed to the ground and began throwing the bricks and bit's of singed wallpaper aside. Tears were flowing fast and her cries were shaky. "Oh please, oh please…" she cleared most of it off his torso and legs then finally reached his face. "no…" she slowly crawled so that she was sitting behind him and carefully pulled his upper body onto her lap. A shuddering breath escaped her while she gingerly touched his battered face. For moment, while sweeping the dust off of his face lightly, he looked just the way she had seen him when they'd first met. Young, calm and (dare she had thought it at the time) dashing. Even as he lay there in her arms, the reality of his grey hair, slightly wrinkled face and lack of life came crashing down on her. She cried softly into his hair and rocked her body, holding him tightly to her. She stayed like that for a while, even as the sound of a sickening mechanical beeping came closer and asked for her identification, even as it prepared to kill her… she rocked faster and pressed a kiss to her husband's forehead and whispered the name that they'd been speaking of for the longest time…

"Doctor…"

Author's Note: GAH! Yay! I finally finished this chapter! Sorry it took so long, I wanted to get it right. I love Jo, I really do and I never believed that she was going to be happy with that hippy, luckily Katy Manning (Jo) agreed, as she stated in an interview, saying that if she were to come back that there was no way jo would've stayed with Cliff so yay for me! Needless to say I liked Mike Yates too, I didn't think I would at first but I did. The back story of how her and Mike got together is from a story that I've had lingering in my mind for a while called "My cup of Tea" that will probably never be released here. I hope you all liked this chapter; I know it was kind of long but I'm quite proud of it. Please leave me a review with your thoughts!