"You're sure you won't stay?"

Katie smiled at Tosh. "After all your work at putting the chip together? No, my ride's here and it's time for me to be off. That thing won't be back, so there's one less worry for you. Speaking of the chip, did you manage to get it sent off?"

"I think it found its own way, actually," Tosh said. "We put the wallet together, stuck the chip in it, turned around not a minute later and it was gone."

Katie winked. "Time takes care of itself very well, doesn't it? How'd you manage with the money though? That motorcycle cost an awful lot, and computers aren't exactly cheap."

"We took it out of your salary," Jack said. Katie looked at him questioningly.

"My salary? Since when have you paid me?"

"Since I calculated the hours you spent shelving and writing programs," Ianto said. "I showed them to Jack and he agreed that you should be paid for what you did."

Katie wrinkled her nose. "Bummer. I was sort of hoping I was stealing it from Owen."

Owen held up his wallet. "It wasn't actually my wallet. Not sure why you thought it would be."

"You're the only one who seemed thick enough to take out that much money at one time. Oh, and speaking of you being thick, be careful when you dispose of those diseases. Don't try keeping any for future testing or use. Just treat it like any other deadly illness and you'll be fine."

Katie smiled at Tosh again, this time a little sadly, and gave her shoulder a quick squeeze, the closest Katie could ever really get to a hug.

"Well, TARDIS is primed and the Doctor is impatient. It's been fun. Okay, I went mad and nearly killed you all in that first week, but otherwise I've actually enjoyed it. We'll have to do it again sometime." She gave an American salute to the TORCHWOOD team. With good wishes ringing in her ears, Katie stepped into TARDIS, waving goodbye one last time.

The Doctor watched from the console as Katie closed the door. Once it was firmly shut, the Doctor started piloting TARDIS away. Katie sank down the door into a sitting position, her eyes nearly blank, and the usual fire barely a spark. She didn't even touch the transporter that she had reclaimed and was once again wearing. That last show for TORCHWOOD had completely drained her. Once in the vortex, the Doctor set TARDIS on auto pilot. He looked at Katie, still staying by the console.

"How are you feeling?"

Katie pondered the question before answering. "Tired," she said with a nod. "Very tired." The Doctor understood exactly what she meant by that. Sleep wouldn't do her much good. Doing that now would bring nightmares that only made it worse.

"Any place in particular to go next?"

"What would you suggest?" she asked with a smile.

"Oh, there's everywhere!" the Doctor answered with his usual bounce as he began to run around the controls again. "There's one planet, Haref, where the people actually have wings. Pleasant enough, but they've always got their heads in the clouds, in more ways than one. Oh, the Jutt Sea! The water's clear enough you can see all the way to the bottom! Or, what about 1969! Got the moon landing then, brilliant event. We could watch it from the moon!"

Katie nodded, considering. "Sounds good. We should go there sometime. Got any places with funny weather patterns?"

"Yeah, right in the middle of the Arsil system. The most fantastic weather, if you're a meteorologist. The nights are clear as anything, with a minimum of ten moons at any time of the year. The sun is so hot and the planet so wet that the sun evaporates the water into clouds before you can even see it. Every day, without fail, it rains hard and just stops at night. The multiple moons reflect and amplify the sunlight to such an extent that the plants grow by moonlight instead of sunlight. Sunrise is downright dull, but moonrise is always magnificent."

"Are there big fields and tall trees?"

"Yeah, think so."

"Can we go there? During the day?"

"Be a bit damp."

Katie laughed softly. "Oh, that doesn't matter. I always liked the rain."

The Doctor grinned at her. "Your wish is my command."

"The Arsil system, planet Groxi 9, earth year 80,678. It's just after dawn, and the year's biggest storm is going to be right on top of us in one minute and…ten seconds." He looked over at her, grinning again. "I've even arranged for lightening."

Katie hadn't moved from her place by the door. She smiled softly. "Sounds perfect." She pulled herself up, still in the same outfit she had faced Thought in. The Doctor interrupted her as she placed her hand on the door.

"Won't you need a coat?" She looked back at him over her shoulder, an enigmatic glimmer in her eyes, the previous faint spark starting to light a new fire, a stronger fire.

"Can't feel the rain if you have a coat, and if you can't feel the rain, how will you ever be able to tell the difference from the clear days?"

She flung open the doors and stepped out, not bothering to close them behind her. The Doctor walked to the threshold, but no further. For a moment, he wished he had someone nearby to paint the scene. Katie almost looked like she was built for this planet. Her dark blue jeans and black top were a sharp but pleasant contrast to her pale skin color, and the thick blue green grass and the redwood-like trees married perfectly with her waist-length dark red hair, and her slim feminine shape was a small, simple change to the straight lines of the plants and rain. The soft light that came through the thick clouds only helped the scene. The Doctor caught himself wondering if he'd have to fend off any potential suitors as their adventures continued, then decided she could do that job herself quite well.

She stopped about fifty yards out into the field. The purple-red lightning danced across the sky, and the white flash of Katie's teeth gave evidence of her wide smile as she began to spin about in the fierce rain, twirling in time with nature.

The Doctor smiled, starting to turn away in order to leave her to her thoughts. But just as he was about to close the door, a loud peal of thunder almost covered up a sound. Almost covered up the sound. A sound the Doctor would think of in his many remaining years as one of the best he had ever heard.

Katie had laughed. Not a laugh used to put a person at ease, or a release of tension, or a forced laugh, or a giggle. It was a laugh of pure joy and excitement, a laugh that was full of life, full of pain, full of memories. It was a laugh of survival and victory and defeat, a laugh that challenged death and destruction to try and overwhelm her again, a signal she was ready for it.

It was a human laugh.

Over the course of the day, which was about thirteen earth hours, the Doctor kept himself busy, fixing small things that didn't really need to be fixed, wandering the halls, even baking cookies just because. He would open the main doors to check on Katie every few hours. She was constantly moving, sometimes up a tree, sometimes dancing again, once sitting on the edge of the forest watching TARDIS.

Finally, the storm ended. The Doctor stepped out slightly after moonrise. Katie was lying on the grass, watching the stars. The Doctor walked over and sat down next to her, ignoring the wet ground. He dropped a bright silver key next to her. "Don't leave this behind again."

Katie picked it up, rubbing the TARDIS key between her fingers, obviously contemplating all that it stood for. After a pause, she smiled and she stuck it into her soggy jeans pocket. A comfortable silence hung between them. "You can ask if you want," Katie said after a while, her sharp Californian speech replaced by a soft Texas drawl.

"Ask what?"

"Any of the dozens of questions I know you have."

The Doctor leaned back on his elbows, considering that. It was true he always wondered about things, but that's just who he was.

"Where do you get the accent?"

"I used to live in Texas. I was born there, and lived under those skies until I was five. Went back every summer after we moved. The only reason I sound like a California child most of the time is because I couldn't take the teasen' anymore, so I learned to sound like the rest of them."

"Why'd you move?"

"Don't really remember. I only know I cried enough tears to flood the Rio Grande when we did." She glanced up at him. "Does the sound bother you?"

"Nah, just curious. I rather like it, actually. It suits you."

"Time can be re-written, yeah?" Katie asked, turning towards him.

The Doctor wondered if he should answer the question as he laid back, hands under his head. "If it isn't a fixed point. But it takes a lot of travel, a lot of experience, before you can tell the difference and know when history can be changed."

"But it can be re-written? Changed, like someone stepping in when it's someone else's time?"

"Kathryn—"

"Can it be re-written?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Katie turned back to the sky. "Because I need to know if I can."

A pause. "I almost watched you give up your life for me."

"I would have lived. I can't die, remember?"

"It would have been hell for you," the Doctor said. Neither of them looked at the other for fear of what they might see in the other's face. "Why would you even put yourself in such a spot?"

"Because I had to."

The sincerity in Katie's tone took the Doctor off guard. Did she still feel that she owed him something? Or was there something else that had brought on her actions?

Katie changed the subject, though it was really the same. "What do you think he meant, that stuff about the Rahki coming back and the universe tearing."

"Oh, probably just a last attempt at saving himself."

"You don't really believe that."

"Someone like you isn't made on a whim, Kathryn. It takes careful planning and a lot of tests. You're special in more ways than one, and some day they'll come searching for you."

"You know, you could just say, 'Yes Kathryn, I really do think the lying rattler wanted to cheat death.'"

"If you don't want the honest answer, don't press for it."

Katie wrinkled her nose at him. "Nine hundred three years old, and you still can't figure out a woman. No wonder you need female companions. Someone has to have the gentle side."

"I wouldn't exactly call your approach gentle."

Katie seemed as though she was going to say something, then changed the statement. "You do know that when I said that I loved you, I didn't mean I love love you."

"Of course not."

"It was more a family thing, father-daughter sort of."

"Yeah, course."

Katie narrowed her eyes at him playfully, scoffing before returning to the sky. "You are full of it, you know that? Every once in a while, a girl comes along that doesn't fall at your feet in worship."

"Why would they?" the Doctor asked, genuinely curious. Katie laughed again, a low one that was still full of humanity.

"Well, you have a magical box that goes through time and space, you wear tight suits and have spikey hair that most women would love to run their fingers through, for the most part you're a gentleman, you have large brown eyes full of mysteries, flirt as easily as you speak, you're completely brilliant, and really you're rather sort of marvelous."

The Doctor nodded, smiling, not protesting a single comment. Katie poked him gently in the side, grinning at him.

"But you're too skinny, completely insane, dangerous to a fault, and you are way too old for me. Even if you were the age you looked, you're still about twice my age. No, you make a good brother, a fantastic friend, and a great dad, but that's the end of that. I picture more of a guy a few years older than me, smart, with flesh on him. Not fat, but you can tell he's strong. Not a twig like you."

The Doctor went into a pensive silence. Brother, Dad. Words that used to mean so much so long ago, things he hadn't been called in even longer. Brother, Dad. He used to be both. Not anymore.

He studied Katie out of the corner of his eye. She had gone back to staring at the stars. Such a puzzle, so much messed up inside, so much she had never said. There might be more buried in her soul, more crimes to her name. She was violent, proud, smart, inspired confidence in all, and captured hearts of men and women she barely glanced at. She was passionate, loyal, brave, and strong, always ready to die for others, smiled easily, and showed no pain. She tried not to kill but it never seemed to work, and when she did kill it seemed so easy for her to do, and only afterwards would he notice the added weight of the blood that she would never speak of.

The Doctor looked away when he realized he might as well have been describing himself. They were the same, so alike she might as well be part of him. After the events of the day, he couldn't imagine losing her. Though he hadn't raised her, he was all she had, and she was all he had. She was indeed his daughter, adopted but no less loved.

A child in the TARDIS again, someone to teach and raise. Hadn't been one of those for several hundred years, at least nine regenerations. Could he handle it? Could she?

A heartbeat later, Katie turned to the Doctor, asking, "You'll always come back for me, yah?"

He looked back at her. He saw more than a request for travel in her eyes. She was asking him for a home, someplace safe to hide, and a safe friend—no, a family member to trust in. She was lost and searching for a firm hold in something. She was a lost child begging for direction from someone who could really care about what happened. Not just a friend and protector, but a father. Not a parent to replace the ones she had lost, but a person to count on to want her no matter what.

The Doctor smiled at her. "I'll always find you. Always."

Katie looked back up at the stars, a pleased smile on her face. She frowned slightly. "I need a phone."

"A phone?"

"Yeah, a phone with a speed dial to TARDIS, and then I'm going to memorize the number. I am not getting stuck on a planet for four months again. Do you have any idea how frustrating it was to be stuck in one time and place after running around the universe, yet be surrounded by extraterrestrial stuff? I nearly went off my rocker more than once."

"I was exiled for three years on earth once. TARDIS was sabotaged so she couldn't move at all."

"How could you bear it?"

"Oh, I kept busy. I worked for humans, actually. A group called UNIT. I imagine I'll meet them again someday. I wore rather fancy dress then; opera capes and velvet suits with lace cuffs and silk scarves. Very posh. But I had this beautiful yellow car. Named her Bessie. Still miss her."

"Bessie is a good name for a car." Katie shifted over a little closer to the Doctor, tilting her head so it touched his shoulder. The Doctor sensed that for the first time, she really felt safe with him, not just physically, but deep in her hearts. "So, Old Man of Time," she said teasing him lightly. "Show me where we're going next."

The Doctor smiled and pointed upwards. "I think that one right…there."

*Constructive critisisim welcome, praise happily accepted, flames not wanted*

I hope you enjoyed this two-part cross-over. I was able to get these last two stories out really fast, but don't expect anything nearly as speedy with my next ones. I was just really feeling it with these last one.

My next story should be out in a few days, no later than a week from now. The title? "Stuff of Legends." Let's see if any of you readers will venture a guess as to what it's about.