A short but sweet end to this story!

Although, I have to admit, one of the reasons why the previous chapter took so long was that I had other ideas that would have taken up more and more chapters... ideas that could have become another story. So this saga may not actually be over. Just this episode of it, for now!

Thanks for reading! Please leave a final review. :-)


IX: EPILOGUE

For the first time ever, these two occupants of the TARDIS awoke together, dressed together, and headed to the console room together. Though, not before the Doctor tinkered with the sensors around the bed (one of them now amusingly askew), and sent the data to the TARDIS' data banks.

Before ringing the Oracles' Abode, they decided to watch the sequence of pixilated "aura" images on the screen. What they had both more or less known, proved true: the purplish-red bit that represented the Doctor's energy, harboured within Martha, remained constant. It snaked through her aura, interacting with other colours, but it not unnaturally gather nor dissipate in any way. In fact, it may have grown stronger. And Martha even felt she could see the "deeper colours" that the Oracle had discussed, the ones that represented a much more pervasive and irreplaceable presence of the Doctor within her being.

In her mind, it begged a question: if they repeated this "experiment" over a longer period (and based on this morning's easy interactions, the smiles, the teases, the bouts of brief snogging, the holding of hands, she felt very hopeful that the experiment would continue), could those colours eventually take her over? Would his energy grow stronger within her, and just continue to expand and expand? And if so, what were the consequences? And was something similar happening to the Doctor, and the colours of Martha's humanness?

She made a mental note to, someday soon, ask these questions. For now, though, she felt satisfied that what they saw on the screen reinforced the fact that parts of their energies had been exchanged, that she did indeed harbour something that had come from the Doctor himself. That was beautiful to her, and it made her feel, if only temporarily, content. She also took comfort in the fact that the purplish-red in her aura remained "unused," as it were, even when, as the Doctor had specifically wondered, she couldn't actually see him. She needed nothing but him to feel sated and quenched - no more drawing from within.

Which was excellent for her - one might even say vindicating - after all these months of pining, fantasising, and waiting.

The benefits to the Doctor, she hoped, could be considered twofold: not only would he get his time-perceptive abilities back (soon, if not today), but she fancied that he might actually find their new relationship as satisfying as she. She vowed to be vigilant, and keep it so.

After discussing their findings, and celebrating them in their own developing, cutely amourous way, they rang the Oracles' Abode. It felt almost like a victory lap, but also as a way to confirm what they, admittedly, merely suspected or surmised.

Martha remembered that the Oracle had put in strict orders to patch the Doctor straight through to her with no fuss nor circumstance. She had been sufficiently fascinated by their dilemma to allow them to flout the proper channels.

"Is that the Doctor?" asked a clearly annoyed voice.

"Indeed, it is," he answered with that whimsical tinge to his voice. "How are things?"

The voice sighed. "Whatever. Please hold for your Oracle."

After only a few seconds, the familiar Oracle's voice came through. "Doctor! Martha! Lovely to hear from you!"

"Hello," Martha said sprightly.

"Hello yourself," said the Oracle. "Well, Martha, you sound much more chipper than the last time we spoke."

"Yeah, well, we may have good news," the Doctor said.

"Do you have data to send me?"

"We do," he answered. "Let me just..." he began, as he sent the sensors' findings into the ship's psychic channels.

"I have it," the Oracle said almost immediately.

"What do you think?" asked the Doctor. "Will I be back up and running as an actual Time Lord anytime soon?"

"Based on this, love, I would definitely say so," the Oracle reported, with a laugh. "Congratulations! You solved the problem without selling out your friend."

"Selling out my..." he sputtered. "What? You're the one who tried to talk me into it! Interrogations and probative observations and whatnot..."

"Well, clearly, I was wrong," she admitted. "I did not comprehend the full nature of things. Of your friend Martha, and for some reason, I missed certain... aspects of your 'friendship'. At least until today."

The two in the console room looked at each other shyly and smiled, both blushing fiercely knowing that the Oracle could see their goings-on in the mess of cloudy data they'd sent.

"But I must remind you both," the Oracle said, her tone changing to a slightly more serious one. "That the damage, if that's what we're going to call it, that occurred in unnatural genetic manipulation is permanent."

"What unnatural genetic manipulation would that be?" Martha asked, looking up at the Doctor.

"The Lazarus machine."

"Ah," she said, nodding.

"And as long as Martha is living, she will carry a piece of you, Doctor," the Oracle continued. "As long as she harbours... feelings for you, you will face this problem."

"Understood," the Doctor answered.

"So I must ask: is this a sustainable solution, you have found?"

He looked at Martha and found her looking back, with a small tint of worry in her eyes.

He smiled reassuringly, and sighed, "Oh, yes."