"So tell me, Doctor…" Martha asked as she hung her new winter coat on the rail across from the main console, "when you said Grace helped you fix a problem over New Year's Eve…what year was that, exactly?"

"A rather auspicious one for you humans actually…at least Prince made it sound like it was…" he answered cheerfully as he began his usual piloting dance around the TARDIS, flipping switches and turning knobs.

"1999, was it?" she asked innocently as she walked up to him, her hands behind her back.

"Yes….that would be the…song…" he dwindled off as he looked at Martha's expression and had the odd feeling that he was in trouble. He cleared his throat before he asked meekly, "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, it's just…it's probably silly of me to ask," Martha began as she started walking around the console and gesturing with her hands, "but on New Year's Eve of 1999 I was on my way to a fancy dress party and get this…when I leaned against a fence to adjust my shoe strap I fell right through it!" She slapped her thighs with her hands and continued walking around the console. "I had a hell of a time trying to get out of there…ripped my dress climbing over the fence and even missed the dance." As she finished her story she walked up to the Doctor again and smiled sweetly at him. "So my question is…was that you, then?"

The Doctor hesitated to answer as he calculated his running speed compared to Martha's. "Did I cause the time/space anomaly that made everything go wibbly-wobbly on Earth?" He tugged at his ear nervously. "Not as such, no."

Martha's eyebrow shot up in surprise. "Not as such?"

"It wasn't my fault, honestly!" The Doctor complained as he scooted around the console away from Martha and programmed in the coordinates for New Year's Eve 2007 in San Francisco.

"Never is, is it?" she asked sarcastically before sighing and muttering, "I knew it…"

"Now I protest, Martha. It wasn't my choice to have to be on that escort mission, and when the TARDIS malfunctioned it caused me to have to make an emergency landing on Earth where I was almost instantly shot, by the way…lovely welcome. While I was dying under Grace's well-meaning but misguided care he had already escaped and caused more trouble than anyone could imagine."

With a warning beep the TARDIS landed and Martha let go of the railing to grab her coat again. "It's okay, Doctor…really," Martha said with a forgiving smile. "It's kind of funny, actually…you were ruining me for anyone else even before I met you."

"Well then," he said as he donned his coat and walked up to her to take her hands in his with a gentle squeeze, "Forgive me if I can't apologize for keeping the boys away from my Martha Jones."

She chuckled and reached up on her tip toes to kiss him on the cheek. "You're forgiven, Doctor."

"Good," he grinned as he turned to walk down the platform to the door, "because we've got another New Year's Eve waiting and I wouldn't want us to miss it." As he turned the handle to open the door, though, he froze as Martha spoke:

"Wait a minute….who had escaped?"

Martha fumed as they walked up the snowy sidewalk towards the hospital. "I should've known that…" she glanced up at his guarded expression and did her best to reign in her anger for the Doctor's sake, "…ex-Prime Minister… was to blame." She snorted in derision. "I wonder if I can blame him for anything else that happened to me when I was younger?"

The Doctor put his hands in his pockets and leaned over to whisper to Martha conspiratorially, "I have it on good faith that he was responsible for all your missing socks."

She laughed out loud at the sudden image in her head of the Master lurking at her Launderette. "One shudders to think what kind of super weapon he made with all the left socks of the world. Odor Intensifier, maybe?"

She looked at the Doctor, who was chuckling quietly. "More dangerous than you can imagine, Martha. I had to give it to the good people of Barcelona, the planet not the city, mind you, for safe keeping."

She looked at him questioningly and he grinned as he pulled his hand out of his pocket to tap his nose, "No noses."

Martha's giggles quickly subsided as they rounded the corner to see multiple ambulances pulled up at the ER with patients hurriedly being wheeled in on gurneys. "I know this show too well," she said to herself as she reached back to grab the Doctor's hand. "Come on…maybe we can help."

They ran up the walk and dodged ambulance drivers as they made their way through the sliding doors into the ER to be confronted with total chaos. Drivers were arguing with nurses as nearly two dozen people in various states of distress crowded around the space left in the waiting room that wasn't taken up by improvised examination rooms.

"We can't take any more patients," the nurse told the driver. "We're full up and understaffed as it is right now and calling in as many doctors as we can."

"This is nothing, lady!" the ambulance driver retorted. "We can't even get into the ER over at Mercy, it's so full up. Next time you better let the bridge know not to collapse on a holiday."

"Oh no…" Martha whispered as she anxiously stood in line to try to talk to the nurse. In front of her stood a hunched over blood spattered man about her age who also seemed to overhear the ambulance driver.

"No way, man…you guys aren't turning me away from this hospital, too," he began to shout to anyone that would listen.

"Martha…" the Doctor whispered a warning to her as he kept a close watch on the man, and she slowly reached her hand into her jacket for her screwdriver.

"Sir, please…" said the weary nurse at the station. "If you would just take a seat with the others, we're trying to get to everyone as soon as we can…"

"So I can wait for hours? Uh-uh, lady…you're going to help me now!" He reached into his jacket when suddenly the Doctor tapped him on the shoulder and spun him around.

"Couldn't help overhearing your problem there…we're doctors who can help you. Right, Martha?"

The man looked at them both in confusion and then in amazement as a white beam of energy flashed briefly around him and he fell to the ground unconscious. "Right, Doctor," she said as she knelt down to look in his jacket and see the gun he was grabbing for. "I just prefer to do it when they aren't armed."

Security finally arrived and helped move the man to a safer room to wait for his turn. Martha sighed deeply in relief and walked up to the nurse at the station to volunteer her help. As she opened her mouth to speak, however, she was interrupted by the Doctor's lament:

"Oh no…look at these shoes! These shoes were perfect, Martha, but he had to go and get blood all over them!" He gestured down to his yellow Chucks that were now decorated with red splotches.

As Martha was about to tell the Doctor what he could do with his shoes a rather harried red haired woman in a black cocktail dress and scrubs peeked out of one of the improvised examining rooms. "Perfect shoes…" she muttered to herself as she scanned the room to rest upon the upset Doctor who looked up at her and smiled.

"Grace! There you are…you wouldn't have any more shoes I could borrow, would you?" he grinned widely at her as she walked up to him and looked at him in amazement.

"That depends," she said with a questioning half smile as she looked him up and down. "You wouldn't have a doctor I could borrow, would you?"

"As a matter of fact…" he wrapped his arm around Martha's shoulders and hugged her to him. "Doctor Grace Holloway, meet Doctor Martha Jones!"

"Ooof! Nice to meet you!" Martha said as she pried herself from the Doctor's side.

Grace looked her up and down. "You're a doctor?" she asked, hope apparent in her face.

"Newly certified, but I did rounds in A&E and would be glad to help out," Martha offered with a smile. She glanced up at the Doctor to see if he'd stop her, but he merely winked at her and smiled.

"Oh, thank goodness!" Grace exclaimed in relief as she grabbed the Doctor's face between her hands and planted a big kiss on his lips. "You're a Godsend, Doctor!"

She grabbed Martha's hand and pulled the chuckling new doctor down the hallway. "Try not to get into trouble, eh?" she called back to the Doctor, who stood frozen with a look of surprise plastered on his face.

"You've no idea the kind of chaos we're going through right now…a section of the Bay Bridge collapsed tonight and there's been injuries filling up all the hospitals for miles around. Top that with most of us being short of staff over the holidays, and you've got one massive FUBAR situation," she explained to Martha as she showed her where to clean up and get a set of scrubs.

"What kind of injuries are we looking at first?" Martha said as she disinfected her hands under the hot water.

"Luckily we've been able to perform triage on the patients we've had so far." She pulled a chart off the wall and consulted it. "All the worst ones that we know of so far have already gone to surgery, thank God. It's all the painful yet currently non-fatal injuries that are piling up right now. " She ran a finger down the chart. "First up, Mr. George Lockwood. He's a mess of broken limbs from collarbone to ankle, but he's stable." She looked up from the chart and smiled at Martha as she donned her scrubs. "Ready to go to work, Doctor Jones?"

Martha snapped her gloves on and smiled. "Let's not keep Mr. Lockwood waiting!"

The Doctor grinned lopsidedly as he watched the doors close behind two of his favorite doctors. I should've introduced those two sooner. He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and looked around at the crowd of people waiting for a doctor. I might not have a human medical degree…but I know how to help people.

He pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his coat pocket and strolled through the waiting room until he came upon a weary early-teen boy holding his sleeping little sister, both of them scratched and bruised. "Well what do we have here, then?" he whispered to the boy as he crouched down in front of their chair and began scanning both of them.

The boy looked down at his sister and hugged her tighter to him before looking back up to the Doctor. "We're waiting for our Dad…he got hurt real bad. You a doctor?"

"As a matter of fact, I am," he said with a smile. "My friend Martha's a doctor too…and you can be sure that she's doing everything in her power to help." He finished his scan and looked at his readings on the screwdriver. "It looks like you could use my help…" he looked to the boy in anticipation.

"Jack," he answered.

The Doctor grinned wide. "Nice to meet you, Jack. My name's Doctor Smith, but you can just call me Doctor. Did you know that you have hairline fractures in your ribs, Jack?"

"My sister though…is she okay?" Jack asked worriedly as he looked down at her.

"Your sister is fine other than a few scrapes," he assured him. "Considering where the fractures are, I'm guessing that you protected her, yes?" The Doctor asked as he switched through the settings on his screwdriver until he came to the one for bone mending.

"That's what big brothers are supposed to do," Jack answered simply.

"Indeed they are, Jack." The Doctor agreed with a nod as he pointed the screwdriver at him and began mending the fractures.

The boy breathed in sharply. "That feels weird…"

"I know…I know…but it won't take long, I promise. Your bones have to knit back together again, so I need you to try and sit still while this works, okay? Did you know that one of my best friends is named Jack? Captain Jack, even. You remind me of him, actually, since you do your best to save others because it's the right thing to do. I wonder if he was saving little girls when he was your age? He was probably saving the little boys, too. I'll have to ask him…and there! All done!"

"You're funny, Doctor," Jack giggled and then looked at him in surprise. "Hey…it doesn't hurt!"

"Amazing what doctors can do these days," the Doctor said with a grin as he stood up and pocketed his screwdriver. He reached deep into one of his coat pockets and pulled out a small white teddy bear that he placed with the sleeping girl. "Keep up the good work, Jack." He patted the boy gently on the shoulder and moved on through the crowd.

"So…that's the Doctor?" Grace asked as they worked on cleaning up and closing the wounds of the unconscious Mr. Lockwood. They'd worked hard setting his collarbone, ribs, knee and ankle, and now Grace thought she could finally ask what's been on her mind since she saw them. "He's a bit…different than the last time I saw him."

Martha smiled in chagrin. "Apparently he does that a lot. From what he told me, he regenerates into a new body every time he dies. " Grace's eyes widened in amazement. "Freaky, I know. I've got so used to this one that I've been doing everything I can to make sure he keeps it. What did he look like when you met him?"

"So that's what…" she mumbled to herself and shook her head quickly as she leaned back over their patient. "At first he was short and older…with the worst taste in pants I'd ever seen. Other than that, I was kind of busy to notice much more."

"He told me about that, actually," Martha said as she used her sonic screwdriver to close some of the wounds. "He said you…caused him to regenerate?"

Grace snorted. "If you mean 'killed him,' then yes, I did. It was chaos that night…being pulled from an opera to operate on a man shot in the chest 4 times only to find out that you tried to operate on the wrong heart," she answered quietly. "When I found out with the X-rays afterwards that he had two hearts, I didn't know what to think! Then the hospital swept him under the carpet…till he showed up in the car park with a whole new body and pulling stents out of his chest in my car!"

"Wow…" Martha whispered. "I met him at my hospital too, actually. He wasn't shot, but he was still a patient." She smiled as she remembered his flirting when Dr. Stoker made her check his heart so long ago. "I didn't know what to think either when I heard his two hearts…I thought I was crazy!"

"At least you didn't kill him," Grace lamented as she finished closing up their patient. "You know, I've got to get one of those tools like you've got."

"He told me he liked his new body better anyway, so I wouldn't fret about it too much," Martha consoled. "Besides, I may not have had to operate on him, but we did get our hospital teleported to the Moon by a bunch of Judoon with no respect for people in their way. If it weren't for the Doctor being willing to sacrifice himself, we all might have died." She finished with her screwdriver and pocketed it. "I wish I could give every doctor one of these…but then the Doctor wouldn't feel so special anymore, and we wouldn't want that."

Grace laughed as she went to the cabinets and brought out the bandages necessary for creating the multiple casts their patient needed. "Hewas quite the looker…velvet jacket, long curly hair, British accent…the personality, though…enough to cause the makers of Ritalin to explode in joy."

Martha lost it and had to turn away from the patient as she laughed so hard that she had to catch her breath. "Oh God…he's even worse now, I'm sure! Still the looker, though."

Grace smiled ruefully as she bent over their patient and started wrapping his ankle. "So tell me…what's it like travelling with him?"

Martha thought hard about how to explain it as she wrapped the patient's knee. "It's like staring at the sun too long, I guess. Everything you know tells you that it's dangerous, that you shouldn't do it…but you just can't help it. It's so beautiful…so powerful…so amazing…so eternal…you can't stop. Some days it shines so bright that you feel like you're going to burn from it…and other days…" she sighed and stopped wrapping the cast as she looked up at Grace with moisture in her eyes. "…other days you wonder what you did to make the sun go away, you know?"

"Oh hon…" Grace said as she looked at Martha in sympathy. "I had a feeling that it might be like that."

"Is that why you didn't go with him? I've wondered ever since he told me about you…how you chose your career over…what he offered."

Grace sighed as she finished wrapping the ankle. "I can't say I didn't think about it…that I don't still think about it today, really. In the end, though…he made me realize what I had forgotten. I became a doctor because I wanted to turn back Death, Martha…and I don't need to go travelling in space to try and find it. There's plenty of it right here in San Francisco." She grinned a half smile. "So tell me, Martha…why did you choose to go with him?"

"I guess…" she gnawed at her bottom lip as she finished the cast around the patient's knee, "…because he's an enigma cloaked in answers, if that makes sense. All my life I've wanted to know things. I had to know the answers to everything…and when I met the Doctor, he seemed like he held the key to all of that."

"But?" Grace nudged gently.

"But…for all my wanting answers from him, sometimes it feels like he needs totell me just as much. I mean…what must it be like, being the last of your kind and living for so long? You've done and seen things that no one can imagine…what will happen to those experiences when you're gone? I think he has a driving need to share those experiences with someone so that they won't fade away. Add to that the fact that he's been so lonely for so long…even if he won't admit it sometimes, and he really needs someone by his side."

"Sounds like a win-win situation to me then," Grace said as they began working together to tightly wrap the patient's ribs.

Martha laughed to herself. "Yeah, I guess it is." She bent down and helped Grace move the patient slightly so that they could get the wrap around his back. When they finally finished they set him down gently and Martha smiled at Grace. "Thank you."

"For what? I'm the one who should be thanking you for the help," Grace said with a raised eyebrow as they walked to the nurses' station to see who was next.

"For reminding me why I chose my path. After everything that's gone on while travelling with the Doctor, a part of me couldn't help feeling guilty for not choosing to stay and work in a hospital somewhere," she answered as she leaned back against the station.

"Nonsense," Grace said matter-of-factly as she grabbed a chart off the wall. "Being a doctor is who you are and what you do, Martha…not where you do it. Besides…you seem to me the type who would be happier discovering new ways to help people instead of pulling 12-hour clinic duty." She tapped Martha's shoulder gently with the clip board. "Am I right?"

Martha thought back to all the different people and races they've helped since she met the Doctor. Haven't I been doing what I was trained to do? Sure, sometimes they had more than one heart…or head…and I've very rarely seen a hospital in our travels since we left the Royal Hope…but I'm still a doctor. She idly fingered the sonic screwdriver in her pocket that the Doctor gave her. There's so much he's taught me…so much I still have to learn…

"I'll take it by your silence and that smile on your face that I'm right," Grace said with a grin as Martha shook herself out of her reverie. Grace put an arm around her shoulders and escorted her down the hall. "Come on, Doctor Jones…we've got more patients waiting, and I plan on keeping you busy on Earth for as long as he lets me."

The Doctor ran his hand through his hair as he took a deep breath and looked around the much emptier waiting room in satisfaction. He'd helped as many people as he could while the doctors at the hospital got to the rest, and after a few hours new patients finally stopped coming in. He looked up at the clock over the nurses' station and noticed the time.

"11:30? That just won't do, will it?" he said in a huff. He walked up to the nurse at the station and said affably, "Hello there, so sorry to bother you after all the hard work you've been doing tonight…but if by chance a Doctor Grace Holloway or Doctor Martha Jones comes by looking for me, could you tell them that I'll be right back? I just have to hop out and get something."

The nurse rubbed the sleep out of her eyes with one hand as she reached for a pen with the other. "And you are?"

"Oh…the Doctor."

"You and 6 others here, mister. Doctor who?"

"Just 'The Doctor.' They'll know who you're talking about," he said with a wink and his best charming grin as he tapped the counter and strolled through the automatic doorway to the brisk winter air. He ran down the sidewalk and turned the corner to the familiar sight of his TARDIS by the entrance to the hospital parking garage. He pulled his key from his pocket and with a smile he opened the door to greet his ship again. "It looks like you and I have some dress shopping to do for our companion," he said with a gentle pat of the console as he walked up to it.

"God, I can't believe we're finally done!" Grace said in amazement as she looked at the triage chart. "What happened to that crowd of patients that were waiting out there earlier? Were they all helped?"

"Yes, Doctor Holloway. It's the most amazing thing, though…while many patients were admitted, a number of them suddenly claimed they were okay when we got to them. They said the doctor helped them, but I can't figure out who managed to treat them all!"

Martha chuckled to herself as she put two and two together. "At least he didn't get into any trouble, right?" she said to Grace.

A slow grin of realization spread across Grace's face. "I could kiss him all over again…"

"He does ellicit that reaction a lot…" Martha said. "Personally, I think it's the tight pants," she joked as they pushed through the double doors into the waiting room. She put her hands on her hips as she looked around the waiting room. "Great…now where is he?"

Grace started to scan the waiting room as well when she was interrupted by the attending nurse at the desk. "Doctor Holloway? A message was left for you by a guy who called himself 'The Doctor?' He said he'd be right back. What kind of name is that, anyway? Bit pretentious, isn't it?"

"I thought that too at first," Martha agreed with the nurse in a conspiratorial tone. "He earned it quick, though."

"Besides," said Grace, "It's a bit of a requirement to be a doctor these days." She suddenly spied the Doctor walking up the curb to the doors of the ER with a clothing bag slung over his shoulder and a grin plastered on his face. "Our friend's back," she whispered as she nudged Martha.

"Ah, there's two of my favorite doctors!" exclaimed the Doctor as he walked up to them with a smile. "I thought we could celebrate a night of being able to help people and hold back death by celebrating the birth of the new year. What do you say?"

It was then that Martha noticed that he'd changed into his tux under his coat instead of his usual blue suit. She looked up at the clock and noticed that it was 11:45. "Do you think we've got enough time, Doctor?"

He looked at her with a raised brow. "Martha Jones…you've been travelling with me for how long?"

She laughed to herself. "My mistake…chalk it up to long hours." She turned to Grace and smiled. "Would you care to join us?"

Grace smiled and shook her head gently. "I appreciate the offer…but all of us who got called in tonight are going to celebrate here at the hospital." She walked up to the Doctor and took his hand in hers as she grinned at him. "It was great seeing you again."

He grinned back. "You too, Grace. Keep fighting the good fight." He set the clothing bag on the nurses' desk and wrapped his arms around her in a bear hug. "Thank you for everything…and may your years continue to be new and fantastic."

Eventually he set her back down and Martha stepped up for her turn to say goodbye. "Thank you too, Grace…you really helped me out."

Grace chuckled as she pulled Martha into a friendly hug. "Least I could do, Doctor Jones…your help was invaluable tonight. Take care of yourself and him," she said with a poke at his side.

"Oi! Quite capable, thank you…" he said in mock disdain.

They both put their hands on their hips and looked at him with raised brow in silence.

"Um…most of the time…" he mumbled with a tug of his ear.

"Right…anyway," Grace said as she turned back to Martha, "Feel free to look me up if you ever find yourself in San Francisco again. You'll always be welcome. Until then, have a Happy New Year!" With a wave of her hand and a smile on her face she turned back to walk through the double doors and disappeared.

The Doctor sighed as he watched Grace go, and then turned to Martha who was looking at the clothing bag on the desk.

"Right…so what's this then?" she asked curiously.

"Well…after you told me about what happened to you over New Year's, I figured I'd try and make things up to you…"

Martha's eyes lit up and she quickly moved to unzip the bag. She peered inside to see a gold evening gown with a single shoulder strap and sequined bust that flowed down to flared fabric from the knee to the ground. From the shoulder hung a silk wrap also bordered with matching sequins, as well as a pair of strappy gold pumps. "Oh my God…" she whispered as she saw a replica of the dress that she last wore in 1999. "How did you…" she began as she turned to him in amazement.

"Time machine," he answered simply. "You looked so beautiful and happy when you left your parents' house to go to the party that night…" he took her hands in his and squeezed them gently. "I want you to have that night again that I kept you from…and I'd be honored if you'd greet the new year by my side." He bent down over her hands and brushed his lips against the backs of them reverently. As he made to stand up straight again, however, Martha surged forward and stood on her tip toes as she grabbed his lapels to kiss him hard on the lips.

Once he got over his initial surprise the Doctor's hands framed Martha's hips and lifted her up to fit against him as he slanted his head to deepen the kiss. She sighed in pleasure and slid her hands up to weave into his hair and caress the back of his neck as he moaned in reciprocation.

Suddenly around them they could hear people counting out loud. "10-9-8-7…"

Martha pulled back from the kiss in concern. "I guess we're going to miss the party after all…"

The Doctor gazed deeply into her dark eyes as he held her tightly to him. "I couldn't think of anywhere else I'd rather be, Martha Jones," he whispered.

"Me either," Martha answered with bright eyes as she brought her hand up to caress his cheek.

Around them the people still left at the hospital began to yell in joy. "Happy New Year!"