Epilogue 1 : Sweet sweet intuition

Zoe woke with a start. But she did not remember to have snoozed off. Surprised by the darkness around here, she tried to stand up, looking for some light when something at her neck pulled her back. She felt a wire under her fingers, and plastic at her temples, and understood why she could not see anything. Alice's helmet was back. And she was turned off.

Confused, she raised the visor and was treated to the sight of the walls of her cupboard on the Wheel, disappearing behind the controls of Alice.

"Zoe? Zoe? Are you still there? You're late!"

The voice was familiar, but was neither Jamie's nor the Doctor's. Appalled to think she may have dreamt all this, she stumbled through her room and opened the door to the amiable figure of Tanya.

"Ah, Good morning Zoe, we need you at the lab for… Oh my! Are you still in your nightgown?!"

The young librarian looked at herself and gasped when she recognized the sparkly catsuit of her previous adventures.

"You look so pale all of a sudden! Are you sick?"

A hand on her mouth, Zoe took her chance and nodded timidly.

Tanya smiled kindly.

"Alright, Zoe, the Wheel can turn some days without you! I'll warn the chief of your absence today, rest well!"

Alone again, Zoe tried to figure out the course of events since she put on Alice for the first time. Looking at the device, she wondered if she was tangled in a new larger than life illusion when something fell with a whirring noise in the middle of the cushions and bubble wrap covering the floor of her cupboard.

It was a small tube of metal which seemed to have been ejected from a pipe following the wall and disappearing in the ceiling.

Zoe was pretty sure this pipe was not there before, but the moment she tried to take a closer look to it, it burst out, and disappeared without leaving any clue of its origin and purpose.

More and more puzzled, Zoe switched her focus to the small tube, and discovered it was in fact a container for several sheets of paper which, to her great surprise, displayed notes and plans for Alice. A letter was jointed to them, that Zoe began to read, leaning, curled into a ball, against Alice's control panel.

My dear Zoe,

Forgive me to send you a simple letter instead of coming to you with the Tardis, but I don't know how the old girl would react on contact with Alice. Besides, as I'm not completely sure of your exact coordinates, I'd rather rely on the homing device of this space-time pneumatic which can detect your temporal track as surely as a truffle pig once found the Venusian mushrooms I was keeping for Christmas' Eve.

Anyway, I think you need to know what happened to you, to me, and to Jamie.

Surely you must have seen him exit the Tardis, and found yourself anytime at home in the blink of one eye. I first thought he didn't know what he was doing, but when I crossed his gaze, just before the doors closed on him, I realized I was wrong.

He knew the phenomena were getting worse, that I couldn't do anything with my stranded Tardis, and that you couldn't use Alice anymore.

So, he did what was the most terribly logic thing to do to put an end to all this.

Read this well, Zoe.

Our Jamie is not dead.

He has literally gone out of reality.

Thus, as he was no more there to maintain the phenomena along with us, all had simply reverted to normal, like sewed pieces of cloth revert to their former aspect when you pull out the thread that keeps them together.

No physic principle can really be applied or describe what is on the other side of that door. Life and death are irrelevant here, as much as time and space, or reality and dream. When I came to see the McCrimmons and told them about his fate, they have been sad, of course, but also proud of him. They are convinced that Jamie has gone to some sort of Avalon, a land of fairies where all the bravest warriors are supposed to be carried away. And truth is, I think they are right in a way.

But whether Jamie is a story, a concept, or whatever, one thing you can be sure is that he's still looking after us, as he always did, and as he will always do.

Goodbye, my dear Zoe. I wish you and Alice a glorious life together, with the help of this last gift from your old Doctor. And don't forget: science without conscience is nothing but ruin to the soul.

The Doctor.

With a trembling hand, Zoe wiped her damp cheeks and put Alice on her eyes. For a moment, she stayed still, looking at the stars flowing through her visor until Alice purred gently at her neck. She raised a smile, which soon turned into breathless giggles when her companion began to tease her all over her body.

Shortly after, Zoe brushed aside her dishevelled hair and spread the notes left by the Doctor around her, examining them closely while nibbling playfully at the wire at her neck.

Then she set to work, eager but light hearted to think that this time, wherever they may go, they would be complete.