Penultimate chapter!

Seeds get planted here for one more ruse from the Doctor... the final chapter will tie up that particular loose end. Stay tuned for a few more notes at the end of this chapter. :-) Enjoy!

Oh, and leave a review!

WELCOME BACK

The TARDIS' escape from the Ti'urb was a simple matter - all the Doctor had to do was dematerialize.

But as he prepared to make the blue box disappear from the planet made of sound, Martha said, "Doctor, when they were getting ready to 'exalt' me, they were talking about their history with you - with us. From what they were saying about their motives and their by-laws and whatnot, I don't think they're ever going to leave us alone. They have been persistent since our first encounter with them - there is no reason to think they will ever stop. This certainly won't stop them. If anything it'll just piss them off!"

As she said this, her eyes were pleading. Do something, she seemed to tell him.

"Martha, I can't destroy this planet," he told her, amid the pounding outside, now accompanied by shouting. "I mean, I won't."

"I know that," she told him. "But you scared them once... can't you do that again?"

"Scare them into doing something else that's completely mental, and taking more extreme measures to keep out of my reach?"

She let out a tut of frustration, and said, "I don't know what to say... maybe a truce? Could that work?"

"Maybe, but we'd have to do it from afar, and it would take a few generations," he said. "And in the meantime, who knows what they would do?"

"Well, we can't keep dodging them - we will never have any peace. And now that we know they can find us and get inside my mind, or my molecules, or whatever the hell they did... it's terrifying to me!"

At that moment, the TARDIS began to vibrate. The entire console room felt as though a bass-line from a rap song were being played through giant speakers with no other instruments.

"Oh, blimey," he sighed.

"What the hell is that?" she wondered, just a bit frantic.

He smiled. "An hour ago, you'd have been the one to tell me."

"Well it's not an hour ago!"

"They're using the only real weapon they have. They're using sonic waves to try and dismantle the TARDIS and leave us vulnerable."

"Isn't that what you do all the time?"

"Yep," he said. "Which is why it won't work. In the first place, sonic waves don't do wood, which is one of the reason that the TARDIS' exterior makeup is quite fortuitous. In the second place, the entire TARDIS is safeguarded against sonic blasts, in the event of... well, a Time Lord not knowing what he's doing with his screwdriver. Or, a rogue Time Lord, or civil war, like..."

"Okay, okay," she said. "But should we really be standing here, just listening to it?" She held her hands over her ears now. It actually was starting to hurt.

He took the hint, and went to the console and began pressing buttons and flipping switches. "Will you go to the bedroom and find my screwdriver?"

He was obliged to repeat it because Martha hadn't heard, but she readily agreed, once she understood. She ran down the hall and easily found the device on the night table beside the bed. She ran back to the console room and handed it to him.

There were alarming red lights flashing all over the panel where the Doctor was working. "What did you do?" she asked.

"I amped up the sound system," he said. "Almost to the point of overload." Then he pulled a microphone from a compartment she had never noticed, and aimed the sonic at it. The sound started out as it normally did, but the Doctor adjusted something so that the pitch went up and up, until they could hear shouts of pain from outside. The pounding ceased, as did the vibrations coming from the Ti'urb.

He reduced the pitch of the sonic, and then said into the microphone, in a super-low voice that did not sound like him at all, "Time Rotor engaging." Then he went back to sending high-pitched, painful reverbs of sonic pulses at them.

Martha knew that he was bluffing as always, but her jaw dropped, and she covered her mouth with both hands. And when the TARDIS' gears began to churn and she knew he was now moving them away from the planet, she began to laugh. "That was kind of mean."

"Yeah," he admitted.

"But won't they work out the fact that you're not serious, once they realise their planet isn't exploding?"

"I've already thought of that," he said, winking at her.

She felt as though she hadn't slept in days. And in fact, she hadn't.

The Doctor assured her that he needed to complete the next phase of his "plan" more or less alone, given the fact that it included a lot of Time Lord language and technology with which she wouldn't really be able to assist.

And so, she lay down and was out as soon as her head hit the pillow.

And as these things do, it felt like a split second later that she was awakened out of her sleep by her telephone. Groggily, she picked it up, and said, "Hello?" without looking to see who it was.

"So you finally decided to answer your phone," the voice said.

"Hi mum," she said, trying to shake off the shadow of sleep. "It's good to hear your voice." And after what she'd been through, she meant it.

Though, what followed was a conversation that completely confused them both.

"Doctor?" her voice said from behind him, just before her hand came down on his shoulder.

She startled him out of his concentrated work. He had been sitting at what looked like a super-advanced computer terminal in a room into which Martha had never before thought to venture. She didn't like it - she understood literally nothing about it. It was like someone had taken a piece of the TARDIS console and wallpapered the room with it, but took out the roundels, the seat, the soft lighting and everything else that made the console feel like home to her.

He jumped a little.

"Sorry," she said softly. "Didn't mean to frighten you."

"No, it's okay," he assured her, pulling his hand down tiredly over his face. "I just didn't even know you were awake."

"Yeah," she said, almost in singsong fashion. "About that."

"About what?"

"Why does my mother think I'm pregnant?"

He pulled a face, that was almost a wince. "Oh, damn. I'm sorry - I completely forgot about that. I was just so happy to have you back..."

"Mum is losing her mind!" Martha said, with almost a laugh. "She says she heard it from Tish, who heard it from you, and that everyone, including you, is all upset because I'm not discussing it with anyone."

"Yeah..."

"Do you know something I don't?"

"No," he told her. "Don't be ridiculous! I just told Tish so that she would tell the rest of the family, so that they would call you and offer... whatever it is that they offer. I needed them to be emotive about you, about your life choices and whatnot. You know, 'cause you're so irresponsible."

"To bring out my human side."

"Yep. And I actually thought it was preferable to tell this lie, rather than let them know what was actually going on," he said. "I reckoned if your mum knew about the real circumstances, she wouldn't just ring you up and start scolding you about Gallifreyan contraception, she would properly panic, and so would everyone else. For your humanity to be touched, your mum and dad, and Leo and Tish, they all needed to sound more normal. Emotional, but normal. Which is exactly what they are, really."

"Gallifreyan contraception?" she asked flatly.

"Yeah, I'll let you listen to the whole rant if you want - I cut it down to suit our needs at the time on Ti'urb. There was a whole thing where she speculates over whether anyone used condoms on my planet."

"Oh. What a weird thing to say."

"Yeah."

"Did they?"

"Use condoms? No, we didn't have rubber. There is this cerebral barrier thing, but it only works if both parties can do it. It's kind of like meditation, you see... wait, why are we talking about this? The point is, a pregnant daughter is a much smaller crisis than one whose very biology has been infiltrated and transformed into some other malevolent species, and whose person has been effectively removed from the planet and brainwashed into never returning. Wouldn't you say?"

"With my mum? Meh," she shrugged. "Maybe. At least being kidnapped and brainwashed would mean that I was victimised, and not just, you know... sleeping with some handsome guy in a suit without thinking of the consequences."

"Well, I'll talk to her if you want, and I will apologise," he offered. "And to you, I apologise now. For not warning you, especially. I really meant to let you know, and give you some tools for damage-control, before this happened."

She sighed. "Okay. You're forgiven."

"Really?"

"Yes, of course," she said, manoeuvring herself between him and the desk, sitting upon his lap, arms draped around his shoulders. "What am I going to do? Walk away forever because you a told a lie to save my life?"

"It was a pretty big lie. I thought you'd be more upset."

"Well, it was incendiary," she conceded. "And it obliged me to have to cut off my mum and promise to ring back after speaking to you. Now she's going to be more angry with me than ever... but at least I'm human again. Do we tell her what really happened?"

"I will leave that entirely up to you. But, you'd better ring her soon."

"I'm going to do it here, because she's going to want to give you an earful," Martha chuckled, pulling her phone from her pocket. "And I'm going to let her."

He sighed. "Okay. Bring it on."

Later that day, they were back in the console room, and the TARDIS was headed somewhere undoubtedly important.

"Where are we going?" she wondered.

He didn't answer, but he fluttered his eyebrows at her, took her hand, picked up some kind of flat device from the console, and led her to the door.

When they stepped out, the Doctor's old friend Carax was standing just outside the TARDIS to greet them. They were in the rocky room, looking over the balcony at the vast Barcelona book shop, once more.

"Welcome once again to España, my friends," said the man.

A/N: As far as the rant from Francine Jones, it will not be included. I imagine that she protests a lot as the Doctor tries to explain the situation and why he lied to Tish (a story we do not need to hear again). She says some things that hurt, Martha does as well, but eventually Francine comes around because she either a) realizes that the Doctor is not, in fact, evil, and she has witnessed him saving the world, so perhaps he deserves the benefit of the doubt after all, or b) sees that she's not going to win this battle, so if she wants to keep her daughter in her sights, she might as well play the game. But I also imagine that however much she concedes to the truth, necessity and non-malevolence of the situation, she still gives Martha another private earful later. I think that the couple's struggles with Francine will be ongoing as long as they are together. In any case, I couldn't see how this conversation would occur without rehashing old territory... in fact, I started writing it, and scrapped it!

So now... what the heck are they doing back in Barcelona, and how will they fend off further attacks from the Ti'urb?