The Doctor watched Kaylee struggle as she was led off, with obvious agitation on his face, but he turned away slowly anyway and hardened his expression. "What star are we talking about?", he asked, his voice nearly steady.

The Cyber-Controller responded, "In our catalog, it is H1K-413."

The Doctor walked to the console and typed in a few numbers. He glanced up and saw the monitor, then pushed it disgustedly out of his way. "Time displacement?"

"Fifty years hence."

The Doctor walked to another station and turned a dial. A display mounted just above it cycled through numbers with each click of the dial, until the Doctor moved on. He went back to the first station on the console. "Compensating for molecular drift...", he said to himself, then louder, but without looking over his shoulder, "How many did you say there were?"

"Forty-one Cybermen", the Cyber-Controller said, watching the Doctor closely. The Doctor walked to another station, pushed a button, then toggled a number of switches. He walked around to the big lever, dragging the monitor along its track with him. He glanced at it to be sure his calculations were correct and stood there for a moment with his fingers resting on the lever.

"There we have it", he said resignedly and looked up at the Cyber-controller. Then he smiled broadly and slammed the lever forward. The central column rose and fell once. "Goodbye!", the Doctor said with a little wave, and instantly the Cyber-Controller disappeared. The cables running from the console dropped heavily to the floor. At precisely the same moment, Cybermen doing alterations all over the console room disappeared, tools clanging to the floor.

The Doctor typed furiously, then looked at the monitor again. The screen was littered with green and red flashing dots and one purple. All but two of the green dots were clustered together, and all but one of the red were clustered in the opposite corner of the screen. The purple spot was dead center with the other two greens close by. One red dot was all on its own. "Hah!", the Doctor cried. "Too bad no one was around to see that", he said, looking around.

Then he sprinted down the stairs and soon caught up with Kaylee and Krans. "You two alright?", he called as he approached.

"We're fine", Kaylee called out, surprised. "Doctor, what just happened? The Cybermen just...", she trailed off.

The Doctor lifted her into a huge hug before answering. Then he put her back down on her feet and reached out to squeeze Krans' shoulder, giving him a look that expressed his concern. Then he looked Kaylee back in the eyes. "Pinpoint site-to-site transport. It's been ages since I used it, but I thought the Cybermen needed to cool down, so I dropped them off at the pool." He smiled manically. "Well, except for the Cyber-controller. Him, I stuck in the zero-room. Should take him a while to figure his way out of there." He looked off into the distance and said in a quieter tone, "Too bad I don't have a gold-room to send them to. Would have solved all our problems." Then he noticed that Kaylee and Krans were looking at his strangely and he felt the need to explain.

"Cybermen have a severe reaction to gold. It clogs up their-" He gestured toward his chest, then his face and finally he rotated his shoulders awkwardly. "well, their everything. Fatal really."

He seemed to come back to the moment then. "Still, they'll find their way out soon enough. We have to free their captives." With one last squeeze of Kaylee's shoulders, he ran past them. They looked at each other and shrugged, then ran after him.

He ran to a closed door and unlocked it by cranking a large lever from left to right, then he pulled it wide open. The room beyond was packed with people. "Everybody out! Follow Kaylee!", he yelled. He started ushering people through the doorway and pointing the way to the console room and out. Kaylee got the point and motioned the first group of people toward herself and backed toward the exit.

Once the group got some momentum and it was clear no one was going to get trampled, he moved on to a second door and repeated the process. "It's okay", he called out. "You're all safe now, but we've got to move now. Follow Krans here."

Krans started leading the group, mimicking what Kaylee had done with the first group, happy to finally be doing something useful. The Doctor ushered people out again for a short time, then he ran past them and up the stairs. "Excuse me", he called as he passed without looking. He excused himself a couple more times, then yelled out, "Make a hole!", as he ran toward the front of the swiftly moving line.

When he got to the console, the rest of the line continued left and out the doors of the Tardis, but he turned right and ran around the other side of the console. He dropped to his knees and ripped out the grating from below the console. He pulled out a wooden box and checked its contents, then pulled out a second box and opened it as well. Satisfied, he stood up with the second box and re-joined the end of the line.

Once they were outside he gathered them up. "Listen up all of you!", he called out. "Divide yourselves into groups of six to eight. There are rock formations to the North and East of here.

Spread out and find a place to hide amongst them." He handed the box to Krans and removes a walkie-talkie from it, holding it high above his head. "Each group, designate one person to get a walkie-talkie from Krans. Do not use it to send. The Cybermen can track you while you are sending. At the same time, do keep them on. When I fix this, I will call you all back. Alright?" He looked around at the group. Some of them were looking at each other, some leaders were emerging from the group, some were talking nervously, and some groups, mostly families, were already formed.

"Good. Now head for the hills. Each group go a separate way. Move, now!"

He handed his walkie-talkie to the leader of the closest group and watched them turn and walk quickly away. He watched as members of the other groups approached Krans and were handed a walkie-talkie. When all the groups had one and were heading out, he turned to Krans and Kaylee. "Krans, I want you to-", he started, but then he noticed that one of the women hadn't left with her group. She just stood there with her hands on the shoulder of a young boy around seven or eight years old. There were tears in her eyes and her mouth kept starting to form words, but stopped before any came out.

"Hey", he said gently. He walked up to her and put a finger under her chin, lifting it slightly. "It's okay. They're not going to hurt you now, you're safe. You can go, I promise. You're safe now."

"That's not it", she said through the tears. "I - we, I mean. We wanted to thank you. I couldn't leave without saying thank you."

"Och", he said, understanding and embarrassment showing on his face. He smiled and wiped a tear from her cheek. "It's sort of my job." He looked down at the boy and ruffled his blonde hair.

"But I don't get paid until this young man is safely hidden. Go on, catch up with the rest of your group." She stood there hesitantly and sniffled. "You're welcome", he finally said. With that, she smiled and the two of them ran to catch up to their group.

The Doctor watched them go for a few moments, then turned back to Kaylee and Krans. "Krans", he started again.

"I know what I should do", Krans broke in. "I'll get back to the communicator and tell the Nervans to send armed security forces. Our guns are effective, and we could easily outnumber them with some help from the Nervans."

The Doctor grabbed him by the shoulders. "You have to promise me you won't do that. When Erak took two of them out, they started analyzing everything about the encounter. By the time we arrived at the Tardis they would have developed a counter-measure. The same weapon won't work again. And anyway, the Nervans were asleep while your people were out there living and evolving. They are 500 years behind you technologically. No. You go back and get your gun, but then you find one of the groups and stay with them. Do not use the weapon unless absolutely necessary. Got it?" Krans looked as though he were trying to come up with an argument. Every instinct he had told him to fight instead of hide, but in the end he had to admit the Doctor was right. He nodded.

"Good", the Doctor said. "Go." He patted him on the shoulder and turned to Kaylee.

"Kaylee, I've got to go back in there. I can't ask you to go with me, but I won't lie. I could really use an extra pair of hands, and I couldn't ask for a better pair than yours. I don't know for sure that it will make a difference though. Going in there might mean marching to my death, and if you go-"

"Oh, there's no way I'm going back in there", she said. The Doctor stood there for a moment with his mouth open, and Kaylee reached out and closed it for him. "You've seen what they do to people. This is like the part in the zombie vid where the heroes find somewhere safe to hide but they bring someone with them who's been bit. Sentimental but dumb. I get it, that's your ship, and even if it wasn't, you feel responsible, so you are going. I want to help, but I'm not going in there." She grabbed the last walkie-talkie from the box. "I'm going back to the transmitter and see if I can get the receiver working or something. Call me if there's something I can do from there." And with that, she took off running.

The Doctor put his empty hands in his pockets and watched her go for a long time. "That's good", he said to himself. "No. That's good. I shouldn't have asked her anyw- I didn't want to ask her. I explicitly said I wasn't going to. This is good." He turned toward the Tardis and walked back, mind racing. When he got inside, he closed the door and took off his coat, hanging it over the stair railing. He pushed a button on the console and moved the monitor around to face him. The Cybermen had escaped the pool and were all over the place, but the Cyber-controller was still in the Zero Room. Good.

He slowly descended the stairs and walked out of the console room, pausing to examine a dangling cable. He tsked and moved on down corridor after corridor until he got to the Zero Room. He paused at the door, took a slow deep breath and let it out again. He opened the door and stepped inside.

The room was octagonal with a sloping ceiling. It glowed a bright white though there was no sign of a light source. There were large circular openings into squared-off alcoves that glowed faintly pink. The Cyber-Controller was suspended in mid-air in the precise center of the room until the Doctor entered, at which point it slowly descended to the floor. The Doctor stepped to the side just inside the door and leaned against the wall. "You know I had to, right? I couldn't let you convert all those people."

"I've had a very long time in here to think, Doctor", the Cyber-Controller replied, ignoring the Doctor's statement.

"Yeah...", the Doctor said, running a finger along a seam in the wall. "It's this room. It cuts out all external influences. No radio signals, no subspace communication, no telepathic influences, even space and time seem to dilate."

"Not just seem to, Doctor. I measure the passage of time via observations of a small quantity of cesium vapor within my armor. Its half-life is quite predictable, but between the time I found myself in this room and when you opened the door, not one particle decayed. Similarly, writing to my long term memory proved impossible. My biological components remembered thinking the same thing over and over, but my electronic components did not. I had to come up with a different way of storing my memories." The Cyber-Controller took a single step closer to the Doctor.

"Yeah... That was certainly a risk of sending you here, but I had to be sure you didn't reconnect to the Tardis, even wirelessly."

"Do you know how much information can be stored in a single photon, Doctor?", the Cyber-Controller asked, taking another step forward. He didn't wait for an answer, but continued on. "The answer is essentially infinite. It only depends upon how many colors you can split it into without interference. I found my means of long-term storage, I repurposed my visual sensors to storing memory. In the process, I upgraded my brain capacity billions of times."

The Doctor's jaw went a little slack at this. "Billions of times? Wait - you repurposed your visual sensors?"

The Cyber-controller took another two steps forward. "Yes Doctor. I am now blind. But it matters not. I understand now. I understand everything. All of time and space. I am become the first Cyber-Chronocontroller."

He turned slightly to the right, facing the Doctor directly. He reached out swiftly, before the Doctor could react and grabbed him by the tie. "I only need the parts, and I will get them from your ship."

Outside the open doorway, two Cybermen stomped into position. The Cyber-Chronocontroller pushed the Doctor toward them and they grabbed hold of one arm each. The two Cybermen turned and began marching the Doctor back toward the console room. The Cyber-Chronocontroller followed.

"You may think we've lost our bargaining position, Doctor", the Cyber-Chronocontroller continued, "but you would be wrong. You will help us."

"I only ask because I'm so curious", the Doctor said conversationally. "Why will I help you?"

"Because I intend to kill you, and deal with your next personality. Who do you think you'll be, Doctor?" He paused for effect. "My bet is that he will be someone more willing to cooperate. Tell me Doctor, how many more regenerations do you have left?"

The Doctor didn't respond. They marched on with only the echo of the Cybermen's footfalls as company.

When they got to the console, the Doctor said hurriedly, "But I won't be able to help you, not even the next me. The timelines are locked - your crew was moments away from destruction. By now we are too late to do anything."

"It is true, we are too late, but we haven't always been. You will send a message, Doctor, into the past. Something enticing. Something that if you were to receive it, you wouldn't be able to resist. Something you would certainly respond to."

Realization and horror began to dawn on the Doctor's face. The Cyber-Chronocontroller had discovered a way out of the closed loop the Doctor had put him in.

"I see you've caught up now", said the Cyber-Chronocontroller, bending down and feeling around for the cable lying at his feet, still connected to the Tardis console. He plugged it into one of the sockets in his chest armor. "Then it is time for you to die." He bent, reaching for another cable. One of the Cybermen approached and helped him plug this one in as well. "See you in the next life, Doctor", he said with apparent amusement. Then to the two Cybermen he said, "Kill him."

"I won't regenerate!", the Doctor yelled.

"Wait!", the Cyber-Chronocontroller called out. "What do you mean, Doctor? Are you saying this is your last regeneration?", he asked with a hint of amusement. "Desperate ploy, Doctor. It won't work."

"I will refuse!", the Doctor said quickly. "I will refuse to regenerate. I will just die. You will have nothing. And no one to help."

The Cyber-Chronocontroller paused for a moment with another cable in hand. Then he plugged it in. The Cyberman handed him the final cable, then marched back over to join the other. "We shall see, Doctor. I may have to be satisfied with just your Tardis. Kill him", he repeated.

The two Cybermen raised their right arms, pointed directly at the Doctor's chest. Their guns emerged from the compartment in their wrists.

Just then, the doors to the Tardis banged open. Both Cybermen turned to see Kaylee burst in. She was holding Erak's rifle, but there were obvious, hasty modifications. She fired the moment she saw them, and swept a beam of golden energy across the room, catching both in an arc through their chests. They both let out a mechanical scream and fell to the ground. Kaylee raised the rifle to her shoulder and took aim at the Cyber-Chronocontroller. She pulled the trigger hard and closed her eyes, screaming loudly.

The Cyber-Chronocontroller was hit full in the chest. He yelled, "Noooooooooooo!". Kaylee still had her eyes screwed tightly shut and was holding the beam level, screaming all the while, so she didn't see as the Cyber-Chronocontroller fell to his knees and his brain plate was caught in the beam. The clear casing shattered, and he fell forward, dead.

Kaylee was running out of breath, but continued to scream until there was none left in her. She continued to fire with her eyes shut until she felt the Doctor's hand on hers, and she knew it was over. She opened up her eyes as the Doctor gently took the gun from her hands.

"Kaylee", he said quietly, "how did you...?" He let the question trail off.

"Well", she said shakily, "you practically told me everything, I just put it together."

"Yeah", the Doctor said, turning the gun over and examining it. "That was pretty brilliant of me. Remind me - what did I tell you?"

Kaylee breathed out, then spoke more confidently. "You said that their guns won't work, that the Cybermen would have developed countermeasures against them." The Doctor nodded. "So I knew I had to modify them. You also said that they had a severe reaction to gold. That's when I remembered that the parts Krans and Erak were pulling out of the transceiver had precious metals in them. So I found Erak's gun and I did the same thing to it as we did to Serenity's engine. Wham! We have a Plasma Charged-Conduit, Gold Delivery Ray."

She looked down. "I'm still working on the name", she said quietly.

The Doctor put an arm around her and guided her to the console, then he set the rifle down and held both her arms in his. "You saved my life, you know. Thank you", he said. "But there is work still to be done. This isn't one of those, 'cut the head off the snake' type things. Another Cyberman will be promoted, and they'll just continue the work."

He brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. "You can head out to join the others, if you like. I'll take it from here."

"Right", she said. "The others. They should be told. But no, I don't think I could face them just now. Some of them are in mourning now, and with the Controller-guy gone, the loss of life seems so..."

The Doctor straightened up and put a hand to his head. "Stupid!", he yelled, making Kaylee jump with surprise.

"Doctor?", she asked.

He spun around in place, grabbing his hair in both hands. "Oh, I'm so thick!" He stopped and stared at Kaylee, his eyes darting back and forth between hers. "And he figured it all out so quickly! That's the embarrassing thing."

"Doctor, I'm lost. Figured out what?"

"The signal! The one we received before the Cybermen showed up! It was time shifted - from the near future!" She looked blankly back at him. "From now! And I said it was close. Within Earth orbit. Oh, it was a LOT closer than that! But the equipment wasn't sensitive enough to show us. It was coming from here! Right here! You see?"

She shook her head. She got what he was saying, but still trying to understand what he meant by it.

"The Cyber-Chronocontroller was trying to get me to send a signal back in time to where the ship could still be saved. That was the signal we got earlier! Don't you see, it's a causal loop! The only reason we got that signal was because the Cybermen were here to force me to send the signal back! It's a paradox!" He jumped up with excitement, barely able to contain himself.

"So many days; so many terrible days I get stuck watching events take place, unable to interfere because it's a fixed point in time! But not today! This is the day we save Pompeii! This is the day we get to kill Hitler!" The Doctor grabbed the monitor and ran a loop around the console, holding it and laughing manically. He came back face to face with Kaylee and sent the monitor sailing along its track.

Kaylee had never seen him like this and she feared for his sanity. "Doctor?" she said plaintively, willing him to calm down.

"We can literally do anything we want!", he carried on, oblivious to her concern. "None of it matters! The Cybermen poncing about in the bowels of the Tardis, Erak, the colonist who were converted, or even killed." He did another little turn then gripped her again by both arms. "None of it matters!"

Kaylee pulled away then slapped the Doctor hard across the face. "How dare you?", she asked angrily.

The Doctor was shocked, and for the moment, speechless.

"This has been just about the most horrible day of my life, Doctor. People have died at the hands of monsters. And you are celebrating?"

"But..." the Doctor said, taken aback. "None of it will have happened."

"It has happened. I saw it. I saw those colonists shot. I was there when Erak was murdered. I would have run to him if I didn't fear for my own life, and they were about to turn me into a metal monster too, so don't you dare tell me it didn't happen!"

The Doctor nodded, understanding where she was coming from. "I get it. I do. Sometimes I forget. I see so much death and destruction, each life weighs on me, and Kaylee -", he looked her in the eyes and shook his head very sadly, "it is so, so very much weight. Those lives today, I had already added them to the list. My celebration was because I could take them back off."

He walked over to the doors and gestured outside. "Right now Erak and Krans are dismantling Styre's transceiver, oblivious to what happened here. To what has now never happened, because I will never send that signal. Colonists are coming through the transmat right now. Joining loved ones and celebrating. Making plans to build Earth anew. The Cyber-Controller is with his full crew, stuck on a ship falling into a distant sun or melted to slag by now. Some part of him may know about, or even remember this aborted timeline before he is destroyed, but there is nothing he can do with that knowledge."

"Wait, if the world is resetting, or whatever, how is it that we remember the things-that-have-no-longer-happened?" Kaylee asked, not sure she was buying it.

"The Tardis", the Doctor said, as if that explained it all. Seeing that more explanation would be necessary, he added, "Well, I wouldn't get very far travelling through time, righting wrongs and whatnot if I couldn't remember what I've done. The Tardis manages the timelines for the people within her."

Kaylee still looked skeptical, so he went on. "Take Unification, for instance. I could never do anything about that. It's a fixed point in time. There'd be too much damage to the timelines even if I managed it. But say the Tardis landed in the middle of some battle, some atrocity where one side or the other tested out a new chemical weapon. We can do something about that, and in the larger scope it will never matter." Kaylee's face hardened and it looked like she was going to dig into him again, so he held up a finger. "No hero would emerge from that battle to rally support and go on to turn the tide of war and prevent Unification. But, a lot of people would survive that battle, and after the war they would go back to their lives, back to their families.

"Nothing big, but a lot of small. If you couldn't remember what would have happened without your involvement, it would seem like nothing. The Tardis lets you remember so you can keep going. Keep fighting the battles when you know you will never win the war."

Silence fell over the console room, and Kaylee sat in thought. She looked around at all the destruction then, the missing wall, the repurposed equipment. "What about all this? How are you ever going to clean up? Can it even still fly?"

"Ah", said the Doctor, brightening. "That's the best part." He grabbed his coat, closed the doors and took Kaylee by the hand. "Follow me", he said with a mischievous look.

He led her down the stairs and out of the room. They passed through corridor after identical corridor, with doors that all looked the same. A couple on the right were open, and she knew they led to the larders where the colonists had never been kept. Further on they passed another open door and Kaylee looked in to see a Baroque-style swimming pool. The Doctor continued on, giving Kaylee no time to stop and wonder. Finally, he stopped in front of another door. "Here we are!", he said.

As far as Kaylee could tell, this door was no different from any other that they had passed. What marked it as the one he was seeking was a mystery to her. He turned the crank and pulled the door open, stepping through.

Kaylee walked in, mounted a staircase, then stopped in awe. They were in the console room again, but there was no damage whatsoever! "How...?", was all she could manage.

"It's a back-up console room. There are a few of them about, but I remember this one well. He ran to the console and blew some dust off of it. He flipped a switch on the side of the monitor, and it came to life. "Just need to set it as the main console room...", he typed on a keyboard as he spoke, then flipped a couple toggles and pressed a red button. "... then jettison the old one. Who likes cleaning up messes anyway, eh?" He typed for a few moments more and flipped a large lever. Somewhere in the distance a deep bell sounded once. "Bob's your uncle."

He smiled and motioned for Kaylee to join him. Kaylee continued up the stairs and approached hesitantly. "Now this part is going to blow your mind", he said with a smile and ran to the door.

He opened the door and showed her the lush green hills of 26th century London.

Kaylee stepped outside and looked around, shaking her head in wonder. "Let's... just go see the colonists."

Soon they were cresting the hill with the circle of transmat receivers in sight, or at least they would have been in sight if not for the crowd of people surrounding them. Just then, a new crowd of people popped into existence in the center of the circle. There was the sound of joyous laughter wafting up the hill on the breeze, and hearing it helped to turn Kaylee's mood around. She turned to look at the Doctor, then hurried down the hill while the Doctor watched from afar.

Someone was apparently in charge, because as Kaylee approached the circle, a deep male voice called out, "Move away from the center of the circle! Wave three will be incoming shortly."

There were several men who pushed in to the center of the circle then and started herding the colonists out. For a moment, Kaylee saw them as Cybermen, herding the others toward conversion. The moment passed quickly though; they were merely humans and the others were being ushered toward safety. Kaylee deliberately looked elsewhere.

At the edge of the circle, people could stop and relax, notice the world around them. Kaylee could hear snippets of conversations. "... almost got used to the smell of recycled air ...", "... it's so green ...", "... that incredible smell ...", "... can't put that in a book, can you ..." Kaylee continued to walk around the circle.

She saw several people here and there just sitting in the grass or running their hands through it as if they'd never seen it before. One was even standing with a handful of grass and letting the wind catch it blade by blade and carry it into her face. Kaylee smiled as she watched, but then was surprised to bump into a small boy who came bursting out of the circle. She knelt to make sure he was okay and ruffled his hair a bit.

A second boy burst out between two adults, but came to a stop when he saw Kaylee with the boy he'd been chasing. Kaylee realized this was the boy from before, whose mother had thanked the Doctor.

He looked at her with no recognition in his eyes, then looked down at the other boy. "Come on Tomas", he said.

The younger boy looked at Kaylee for a moment longer, then ran off again. "Can't catch me!", he called.

"Krayse!", called a woman's voice, and Kaylee stood to see where it came from. "Krayse!", she called again, and Kaylee located the source. It was the boy's mother.

Kaylee called out, "He's over here", at which point Krayse took off running after Tomas. "Well, he was", she said to herself.

Krayse's mom emerged from the circle and looked at Kaylee expectantly. Kaylee pointed in the direction he disappeared and said, "He's playing with Tomas." Krayse's mom gave her a brief smile, then a searching expression as she looked Kaylee up and down. Kaylee suddenly felt quite conspicuous in her tan overalls and pink flowery shirt.

Whatever questions she had though, Krayse's mom kept them to herself and went off after her son and his friend.

Kaylee had wanted to be part of the happiness, but now she could see what an outsider she was. She looked up the hill to where the Doctor still stood, coat blowing in the wind, and couldn't help but think this is how he always feels. She took one look back at the colonists then walked up the hill to join the Doctor, not really feeling like she belonged either place. "C'mon", she said when she reached him. "They don't need us anymore."

They trudged back to the Tardis in silence. Kaylee stepped inside and the Doctor followed, closing the doors quietly behind them. He took off his coat and threw it over the railing, all the time watching Kaylee to see if she would speak first. When it became apparent that she wouldn't, he broke the silence. "So! Kaywinnit Lee Frye, where to next? Shall we see if there are any orange glow-y lakes out there?" He stepped over to the console and laid a single finger on the large lever. His eyebrows were raised in an expectant manner.

Kaylee's shoulders sank, and she let out a sigh. She turned, bracing herself with one hand on the railing. She had her eyes closed as she spoke. "Doctor, when we met, I thought you were brilliant and handsome and funny and brave, and of course I wanted to come away with you. But when I saw you earlier - I realized that was just a mask you can wear, and what I saw underneath scared me. Now, I'm not saying you aren't still a good man, just that I can't ever understand you and that means I can't feel safe with you."

Her eyes fluttered open, but she still wasn't looking at the Doctor, rather up and to the left. "The things I wanted from you, the reasons I came with you - I don't think you can, or at least will give me. And whatever you wanted from me, the reasons you asked me to join you -" She closed her eyes again. A single tear rolled down her cheek. When she opened her eyes again, she was looking straight into the Doctor's eyes. "I don't think I can help you anymore."

She swallowed hard.

The Doctor nodded. "Okay", he said. He spread his hands out along the console and lowered his head to where he was almost touching it. "I understand." He pushed himself back up to standing.

"Huáng Chóng City spaceport, Malchoir, then?"

"Mmm-hmm", Kaylee said, biting her lower lip.

The Doctor nodded again and walked around the console slowly, pushing buttons and flipping switches. With obvious reluctance, he flipped the big lever, and the engines started up with their familiar rasping sound. "Oh Kaylee. We could have done great things together. The sights I would have shown you...", he trailed off.

Then his demeanor changed entirely. He sniffed in deeply and clapped his hands. "Still, it's for the best, I suppose. You've got a ship to run, and it certainly isn't going to run itself." He approached her slowly and laid his hands comfortingly on her shoulders. "There is one thing though."

His right hand moved from her left shoulder up to the side of her face, then to her temple. "Those modifications we made to the engine. The same ones you made to the rifle. I wasn't fully myself when I shared them with you, and I never should have."

"Doctor, what are you doing?", Kaylee asked nervously.

"Shh", he said, concentrating. "This will only take a moment." Kaylee started feeling sleepy, and her eyes fluttered, when suddenly the engines stopped. "Ah!", the Doctor exclaimed, and dropped his hands. "We've arrived."

Kaylee shook her head to clear it, unsure what just happened. She looked up to see the Doctor standing at the door, holding it open. Yes, of course. They were landing at the spaceport. She walked to the door and stepped outside.

The spaceport wasn't busy at this time and there were few people about, but the unmistakable sounds of the crowded city could be heard in the distance. There was the shuttle parked amongst much larger transport vessels and even some of the smaller ships. Kaylee turned and looked back at the Doctor leaning in the doorway of the Tardis. "How much time has passed?", she asked him.

The Doctor pulled out a pocket watch and flipped it open. He smiled and looked up. "We should be just about opening up the Tardis in an alley over there", he said, pointing casually off to his left.

Kaylee looked down and scuffed at the tarmac with her shoe. "Look, I don't want us to part on bad terms, okay?" She walked back over to stand close to him and look him in the eyes. "I know you aren't happy that I'm not coming with you, but, please don't hate me. Okay?"

The Doctor smiled sadly. "Oh Kaylee. I could never hate you."

She leaned in and hugged him, and when he wrapped his arms around her as well, she melted into him a bit. When the hug was over a few moments later, she stood on tip-toe to kiss him on the cheek, then she turned and walked back toward the shuttle.

She turned around once more and asked, "Will I ever see you again?"

The Doctor just smiled again and raised one hand in a wave. He watched as Kaylee turned and walked to the shuttle, and several minutes later when the shuttle took off, he was still watching.

Finally, he turned and closed the door of his Tardis. "Yes, Kaylee", he said quietly to himself. "You will see me again. And this little trip was me trying to make up for it."

He walked up to the console and rested both hands on it while he stared into the distance.

He snapped himself out of his revere and said, "Where to now, old girl?" He waited several seconds with no audible reply from the old girl. "How about someplace they put umbrellas in your drink?", he said in answer to his own question and ran around the console flipping switches and turning dials.

Epilogue

Kaylee docked the shuttle with Serenity without incident and made her way to the mess. She was surrounded by the sound of her ship, the feel of her ship, and the familiar dingy clutter of her ship. She was home. By the time she got to the mess, she was in such a good mood that she felt she missed the rest of the crew; in fact, she loved them.

Wash, Zoe and Inara were there when she arrived, Zoe cooking something that smelled lovely, and Wash and Inara just talking. Wash looked up when Kaylee arrived, and Inara turned.

"Mustn't have been much of a ship if you are back so soon", Inara said with a surprised smile.

"Yeah, well", Kaylee responded. "It was tiny. Barely enough room for the two of us in there", she said, then thought, "and the rest of the universe..."

Jayne walked in just then, and Kaylee decided she even loved him at the moment. "Something strange going on here", he said, and Zoe stopped stirring to pay attention. "I was down in the hold", he continued, "securing the load to break orbit, but there were three crates and this old blue box I don't remember taking on."

Zoe put down the spoon and wiped her hands on a cloth that was draped over her shoulder. She came in from the galley.

"Blue box?", Kaylee repeated.

Jayne looked at her. "Yeah, a blue box about yay big." He held his hand up as high as he could reach. "So anyway, the crates weren't labled, so I pried them open. It turns out they're full of apples."

"Apples?", Kaylee repeated.

"Something wrong with your gorram hearing Kaylee?", Jayne said impatiently. "Yes, apples. Only there's no way we'll be able to sell 'em."

"How's that?", Zoe asked.

"Well one of the crates is fine, and another has yellow apples might still turn red, but some yúbèn de idiot picked all these ones while they was still green." He pulled a green apple out of his pocket to show them. It was large and round and shiny.

"Gimme that!" Kaylee demanded and ripped it out of Jayne's hand. She took a moment to turn it in her hands, viewing it from all sides, then closed her eyes and bit into it loudly. "Mmmmmmmmm", she said. It was tart, and firm and juicy. She wiped juice from her face with the back of her hand and laughed. "Inara, come with me to the hold. You have to try one of these before someone decides we are selling them." She paused to take another bite, then with her mouth full, she said, "And whatever you do, keep the seeds."

Inara stood up to join Kaylee, a look of curiosity on her face. Just then, all five of them cocked their head to the side as they heard an odd wheezing sound. It came and went over the course of about 10 seconds, then was gone.

"What was that?", Zoe asked.

"I've never heard Serenity make that noise before", said Wash.

"I didn't hear anything", Kaylee lied.