Sorry this took so long we all know that RL is a real bitch Thanks for the kind words, you are all so great.

He was a desperate man.

A phone call from his lawyer had sent him into a panic. Not over anything remotely serious. But Jamie was informed that if he wanted to maintain all rights to Winnie, he had better show up to court to sign the last round of papers.

Today.

But, with Pete and Jackie away in France for a much needed vacation, and Donna off with Gregory to visit his family for the last few days of the sabbatical, Jamie was hard pressed to find anyone to watch Winnie for him in a pinch.

"Well, can't you just courier them over and I will sign them and messenger them back." He offered, making a valiant effort to get his daughter to at least try the mashed peas.

"No can do James." Pete seemed to have a penchant for Americans, first Oliver his therapist, (right now on the short list of someone to take the Muffin long enough for him to show up in court) and then the lawyer Pete arranged to handle the messier parts of Jamie's life. Jamie wondered if his friend was trying to tell him something.

Jamie sighed and felt no joy in Winifred's brief acceptance of the peas. Smart girl she was, she held them in her mouth long enough for her father to look the other way before letting them dribble onto her bib.

Ignoring her open defiance, and smartly realizing that this would be the first in a long string of rebellions, Jamie opted to agree to meet Armand at the court and to have a suitable babysitter for Winifred.

He called the one person he knew he could count on.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Everything is in here." He nodded showing her the room that he had set up for Winnie. Jamie had spent an entire week moving things around in the sunny room with the slanted roof. He even painted it yellow to make it as bright as possible.

"I really like what you have done with everything Jamie." She smiled as she wandered around the room.

"Thanks, I never thought I would get everything moved in."

Jamie showed her the bottles, the nappies, and toys. Everything she would need for her over the course of a year instead of three or four hours. "Is she allergic to anything? Are there medications she needs to take while you are out?"

"She gets her AZT and the inhibiter in the mornings. I already gave her the shot for this week. The doctors are very cautions with her right now. She is still negative, but they like to remind me of that possibly changing."

Martha nodded and listened to his warnings about universal precautions and rubber gloves during changing. "Its just better to be safe than sorry right now, Martha. They don't know anything except that her mother was only HIV positive, not full blown AIDS. It is possible that she dodged the bullet on this one, but…"

Martha nodded and snuggled Winnie closer to her. She kissed her on her forehead and made a waving motion with the baby's hand.

"Yeah, yeah I get it, need to go. Important stuff at work here." He nodded and leaned over to kiss Winnie. Jamie was perplexed at his actions as he leaned in to kiss Martha's cheek. "Thank You" he whispered near her ear.

"I told you, I really wanted this." She whispered back, leaning into his brief touch. "Maybe we can talk when you get back?"

He nodded absently, no really committing to anything. Jamie was not ready at that moment to be anything more than a man in a hurry to get to court.

"I like the beard." She offered with a grin.

He rubbed his face and smiled. "I just wanted something different,"

"I know the feeling," Martha agreed.

Jamie quickly grabbed his paperwork and left the house.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Six hours and a very tired train ride later, he was home. He had signed, initialed and thumb printed in triplicate, his eyes hurt, but he was clearly a happy man.

Winifred Donna Noble was finally completely his. She could never be taken away, or returned to anyone. Her birth certificate bore his name. She was finally home.

Jamie found them in the kitchen when he got home. He had come in and left his coat on the rack, struck by the happy feeling in his heart at knowing she and Winnie were there waiting for him.

He crept into the room to find her dancing around with Winnie to one of his favorite songs.

"Gonna close my eyes

Girl and watch you go

Running through this life darling

Like a field of snow."

She sang in a soft voice, Winnie gurgling as Martha dipped and moved with her, Jamie stood in the doorway watching the interchange. Martha had not spent much time with Winnie, she was not allowed, he had kept the two away from each other, but any casual observer would believe that Martha had given birth to Winnie. She held the child as a mother would. Winnie seemed happy to be sung to, gurgling along to Martha's soft voice.

"….there's things I might have said

Only wish I could

Now I'm leaking life faster

Than I'm leaking blood.

She did not see him, and for that he was glad, for he felt as if he had intruded onto a private moment between the two of them. Despite all of his meddling, Martha was bonding to Winnie, and it scared him in so many ways that he was dizzy enough to slump into his couch.

She had said she wanted this, but she had no idea what it was like to live every day wondering how long you have with someone. He was protecting so many people from pain that he wasn't sure if he could anymore. He was keeping himself form Martha so that she did not hurt him, keeping Martha away from Winnie to avoid her hurting Winnie, and to avoid from Martha getting hurt at Winnie's possibly inevitable death.

The song started over again, and that was when it hit him. He was behaving like the Doctor. E was assuming that no one could handle pain and loss but him, and that everyone else was so fragile that he had to protect even those that needed no protecting.

Whether they wanted it or not.

It was a slap in the face to his carefully constructed personality. All of this time, he thought he had overcome so much of what the Doctor was, but in truth, he had done exactly what the Doctor would have done. In the face of Martha admitting everything to him, he had turned off to her, cold, indifferent, and sent her away.

He had treated his Martha no better than the Doctor had treated his; and the realization made him sick to his stomach.

It was not fair to anyone, not even himself that he attempt to hold those at bay who want to care for each other. Jamie had worked hard to become his own person, but he realized that this trait of control ran deep in his DNA. He did not want to keep them apart anymore. He wanted a chance to walk into this house every day with their smiles and laughter, he wanted to live, not just dodge the memories of someone else.

She had been the only person to come when he needed, she was always there. Perhaps there were some frailties, but who didn't have them? Would she run if things go bad? Maybe. But she was here, and maybe the now was more important than the what if.

The song began again, and Jamie knew. He just plain knew. He rose from the couch, and entered the kitchen.

Martha smiled at him and gave Winnie the "Where's Daddy." Nudge. Winnie gurgled and smiled at his silly grin.

Martha tugged at the shirt she wore, it was his Pi shirt solved to the ten thousandth place. "I hope you don't mind I had to borrow one of your shirts." She smiled shyly. "She really does hate mashed peas."

Jamie nodded sagely. "And she has fantastic aim. And, that is the shirt that I wore when we met." He grinned again.

Martha smiled along with him, he could see her shoulders relax with is easy manner. "She is a good baby Jamie. I don't think she cried once."

"Sure, show off for company," he waggled at the infant. "The moment I get you alone its scream your bloody head off innit?"

He kissed his daughter, "I am going to put her to bed, and then we are going to talk." He nodded and made for the stairs.

He had settled into the rocking chair with a bottle and a freshly changed daughter when he heard her call or him. Jamie sighed heavily and placed the bottle on the dresser.

"Well, it would be a lot easier to get her to sleep if you weren't screaming like a Cartholian Banshee." He grumbled.

He jammed his mouth shut at the sight in front of him, just at the bottom of the front stairs stood Rose Tyler.

"Hey," she offered making a funny movement with her head.

Ignoring her prompt, Jamie instead felt it necessary to remind her of the rules they had installed after his last visit to see her. "I thought we agreed that you would call before you dropped by Rose." Jamie insisted. It was not a question for the blond girl fidgeting in his yard, more of an open threat.

"Yeah, well" again the funny tic, and that was when Jamie noticed someone was with her. Jamie felt a small gasp emanate from his mouth, whether it was surprise or annoyance he was not sure.

Someone familiar.

Jamie and the Doctor stood eyeing each other with the same moniker of disdain and disbelief. He no more wanted to see the thing in front of him, than he was sure the thing wanted to be seen by hin.

Yet there they were, together, occupying nearly the same space and time.

In the briefest of moments he was glad to see the two of them together, he hoped that the Doctor would take rose, and her nutty behavior and be gone from their existence. No more midnight raids to her labs, no more desperate calls from Pete, no more fear of the very fabric of reality being ripped out from underneath him.

But, Jamie Noble knew the Doctor, almost as well as he now knew himself. One year ago, he would not have been able to delineate the two. But oh, what a difference a year had made. The man in the blue suit was no longer him, he was staring at the man in the blue suit, and he was sure of the differences as sure as he was of his love for his daughter.

"Martha, can you take Winnie into the kitchen?" he asked, surprised at the steadiness of his voice.

Without another word, she silently took the baby from his arms and slipped into the house.

"I need your help." The Doctor asked.

Jamie nodded, and motioned the two of them into the house and closed the door behind them. It was shaping up to be a long day.