I'm not sure whether everyone will agree with the Doctor's actions in this chapter, but... I felt this "solution," such as it is, was very Doctor. I know many of you will side with Linnea, and I can't blame you, but I'll ask you the same thing as the Doctor asks her: What would you have him do?

Okay... this is not quite the end yet! ONE MORE chapter!


OVER THE NEXT WEEK

The whole group (save for the Doctor and Martha) gasped when Windselt appeared in the console room. Like the rest of them, he had been the result of output by Robert Oliver's webcam and the Doctor's special Gallifreyan "language" interfacing with data in Robert Oliver's defunct hard drive. The wispy villain himself was far too surprised to speak with any sort of bravado, and eventually just set about asking what was going to happen to him. The Doctor simply told him to walk out the door.

Windselt walked over to the TARDIS' door, and peeked out.

"It's my planet," he said.

"Yep," the Doctor said. "Go home, Windselt. And for goodness' sake, mind your own business from now on, eh?"

"Pardon me?"

"Go home."

"That's it?" Tish cried out. "He brought havoc upon the lives of dozens of innocent people, tried to kill us all, including you and your little family, and that's all you have to say to him? Go home?"

Uncertain herself, Martha said, "Tish, I think…" then she looked at the Doctor. "It's better this way?"

"He was brought to our part of the universe by accident," the Doctor said. "And trapped there. I choose to believe he was doing what came naturally under unfortunate circumstances."

"Really?" asked Tish.

"I guess you have to want to see it," Martha offered her.

The Doctor added, "He'll keep his nose clean now," staring holes into Windselt's eyes. It wasn't a speculation – it was an order.

"Doctor, I don't think this is right," Linnea Mays piped up.

"Okay, then, Miss Mays, what would you like to do with him?" asked the weary Time Lord.

"I don't know! Punish him!"

"Punish him how?"

"Put him in jail! Kill him!"

Calmly, the Doctor said. "I don't kill. Besides, even if I could entertain the idea, he's non-corporeal. What weapon would you like to recommend? And for that matter, what jail would hold him?"

"Well then, just put him back in the big computer and let him bounce around as data," she said to the Doctor.

"If we send him home, the odds of him coming back to haunt us are very slim, consdering how he got there in the first place. Like I said – it was basically an accident. He's not as sophisticated as he'd have us all believe. It would take him ages to work out how to punch his way back through. And to what end? He's already got the message that he can't steal a Time Lord consciousness because there isn't a Time Lord alive who would allow it, is there? However, if we put him back into the computer… well, we know what he'll do if we send him back there."

"Then disperse him, like he did to Amanda!"

The Doctor got slightly wound up now. He gritted his teeth. "He killed her. What part of I don't kill don't you understand?"

Martha chimed in, "Haven't you ever heard the phrase an eye for an eye makes everyone blind?"

"Doctor, I must protest!" Miss Mays shouted.

He took two steps forward and stood quite close to her. In a low tone, he said, "Miss Mays, when you have your own spaceship, you can decide what happens to the non-corporeal beings on it. Until then, this is my turf. Okay?"

She put her hands on her hips and clicked her tongue at him.

"Now, Windselt," the Doctor said, he said, turning toward the nonplussed alien. "You so much as have a thought of the Earth, even contemplating making a phone call to the Earth, or visiting a ghost friend of yours at the bottom of the sea… I'll… well, I'll ring up Miss Mays and give her the keys to the red button. Are we understood?"

"Quite. Goodbye, Doctor. Robert Oliver." Then he added, with a haughty sniff and a sarcastic air, "Ladies, I hope there are no hard feelings."


Fourteen women, fourteen different homes. Fourteen families who were immensely glad to see them.

All except for one.

"I hate this part," the Doctor sighed, and he knocked on the door to the flat in front of them.

A man who had aged considerably over the past few months, and who likely would continue to age quickly, answered the door. He had been large when last the Doctor and Martha had seen him. Now, by comparison, he looked emaciated.

"Mr Fineran," the Doctor said.

The man's lips tightened, and he seemed to lose his breath. He had seen the two "detectives" before, and he knew why they were there.

"Yes," he managed meekly.

"May we come in?" asked the Doctor.

The man allowed them in, and called for the rest of the family. Once everyone was seated in the parlour, the Doctor delivered the bad news.

"I'm afraid we have confirmed that Amanda is dead," he said. After a long pause, he added, "We are very sorry for your loss."

Everyone – the grandmother, the father, the fiancé, the sister – they all nodded solemnly, and tears fell into silent air.

Only the mother wept openly. Her shoulders shook as her entire body was taken in sadness.

Martha couldn't look at her. For the millionth time in the past six months, she thought about motherhood, loss, the eternal, visceral need to protect one's child from harm and the eventual, crippling realisation that it is impossible to shelter them from everything. Mrs. Fineran had no idea, and would never know, what killed her daughter, because it was not feasible to explain it to her.

But Martha Jones knew what was out there, the myriad of strange phenomena and malevolent forces in the universe. She was only, as-yet, a mother-to-be, but she already felt she knew this woman's pain.

"Excuse me, please," she said, standing, leaving the room. She stepped out onto the front porch for some air.

The Doctor told the Fineran family, as planned, that a perpetrator had been identified and pursued, but that he had died in a relatively quiet standoff with law enforcement. He had kinapped a total of fifteen women and held them in a disused arsenal at an undisclosed location. There, some remains had been identified as their daughter, and because of some exposure to chemical radiation, had to be incinerated and "properly" disposed of. They would never be able to release the ashes to the family, unfortunately.

"What do you mean an undisclosed location?" the mother spat, between tears. "It sounds like a bloody cover-up!"

"Clarice, leave it," the father sighed. "Let's just have a nice memorial for her and move on with our lives, all right."

"Gerald, I…"

"Being pissed off at the police isn't going to bring her back. They did their job, can't you just…"

The Doctor sighed to himself as the parents of Amanda Fineran kicked off and began an unwinnable spat. "I'll just show myself out," he muttered awkwardly.


They walked down the front steps, hand-in-hand, toward the blue box parked across the street.

"Doctor," Martha asked cautiously. "Do you think there are others in that website that we didn't find? Who will be stuck in there forever?"

The Doctor sighed. "Based on who we were dealing with, the eight million e-mails and the number of rooms there were in there…"

"…yeah, I think so too."

"We can't always save everyone, you know that. Sometimes it comes down to just saving someone. We could probably spend years in that labyrinth looking for people and never find them all. Not to mention, I doubt he's the only 'autonomous' being on the internet who has found a way to do that."

"Bloody lovely," she said bitterly.

"Well, we'll just wait for one of them to mess up and make himself known, like this one did. No-one can attain as much power as Windselt wanted, without attracting attention."

"I hope you're right," she conceded. "And I hope I'm helpful to you."

"You're always helpful to me," he said. "What would make you say something like that?"

She looked pointedly at the bump which had re-claimed its residence below her ribcage. "He doesn't get to live in me forever. A couple more months, and I'll just be Charlie Gordon again."

"Charlie Gordon?" he asked, opening the door to the TARDIS, holding it ajar for her.

"Yeah, the mentally disabled bloke from Flowers for Algernon, who became a genius from some lab experiment," she elaborated, stepping through. "He discovered, as a genius, the experiment was flawed and his mental abilities couldn't last, and he would revert. He had to literally watch himself deteriorate."

"Deteriorate? Martha!" He let out an exasperated breath and came up the ramp. "You were never just Charlie Gordon, you know."

"So I'm not mentally disabled, okay," she shrugged. "But feeling that big slow-down a little while ago when I didn't have the Time Lord thing… that was hard. Really hard."

"You're missing the point. Twofold. First of all, it won't happen all in one shot like before. It will ebb away gradually and you'll hardly notice. Maybe you think that's worse, but you should look on the bright side: being a Time Lord can be… well, whatever the opposite of a load of giggles is. And, Martha… we're having a baby – trust me, nothing else will matter. Also, you should know, most new parents feel like idiots anyway, Time Lords or not."

"But you won't be a new parent," she pointed out.

"Near enough," he sighed, leaning against the controls.

He continued. "And you were never just anything. You're not just human, and you're not just a medical student, and you're not just really, really clever," he assured her. Then his tone changed to one of great enthusiasm. "You're human! And you're a medical student! And you're really, really clever! And you are Martha Jones!"

He was very childlike just now. She put her hands on her hips and stared at him with a suppressed laugh. "Are you patronizing me?"

"Maybe a little," he confessed." But don't you see? That Time Lord thing… it's a bit handy to have it about, but it's not why I need you. I need you."

"Okay," she said slowly, giving in like someone who is beaten, but with a smile.

"And, I should be asking myself, am I going to be helpful to you."

"Why is that?"

"I haven't changed a nappy in… well, centuries."


"Hello, can I… oh, hello," Fiona Hart said. "Martha, is it?"

"Yes," said Martha with a smile.

The shopkeeper looked at the Doctor. "And…?"

"Yeah, I'm the guy who helped with your computer," he said with a smirk, marvelling at the ironic understatement. He knew she was looking for a name, but…

"Come to make a final decision?" Miss Hart asked, looking Martha over. Martha became aware that she hadn't been in the shop in several months, and she must look a lot rounder than she had the last time. "Dear, I'm afraid that I can't guarantee we can accommodate you at the moment."

"No, not here to buy a dress," Martha said.

"I'm here to offer my services as your new web designer," the Doctor said.

"Excuse me?"

"I want to re-tool your website," he repeated. "New domain, new… ones and zeroes. Free of charge."

She attempted a smile. "I'm happy with my current set-up."

The Doctor made a face. "Aw, no you're not," he insisted, and pushed past her, making a beeline for her office.

"Erm, excuse me!" she protested, following him back through the now-familiar curtain, into the rough brick storage room and through to the office.

The Doctor pushily sat down in Fiona's leather swivel chair and began minimizing all of the boxes on her screen. "Just trust me," he said to her, basically ignoring her.

"Sir, this is highly improper! I'm afraid I'm going to have to…"

"Listen," he said, looking at her seriously. "I fixed your computer before, didn't I? Have you had any trouble since?"

"No, admittedly."

"Well, good. Now, believe me when I tell you that your website is corrupted and people who visit it are in danger."

"Of what?"

"Of… catching a virus. A nasty one."

Fiona Hart sighed. She looked away from the Doctor for a few moments, then she looked at him again. "Is that true?"

"Yep." It wasn't quite true, but he wanted that domain lost forever, to the ages. It would mean that anyone left trapped in it would die, but he reckoned that given the alternative of staying there for inifinity, possibly injured and mutilated like the girls Martha had found, this might actually be preferable.

"Fine. But what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to find a new domain for you set it up, and then I will give you an e-mail address for any kind of troubleshooting you may desire. Just drop me a line and I'll come running."

"But I liked the old system. I was used to it – the bank card reader, the order functions, all that."

"Well, then, sit here with me and tell me how it used to work. I'll set it up however you want."

"For free?" she asked, sceptically.

"Yeah."

"Why would you do that for free?"

He looked at her, surprised at the question. "I dunno. I guess I'm a nice guy, and I like you."


Meanwhile, Martha wandered back out to the TARDIS. She was not in the market for a wedding gown, nor a retro-chic garment of any kind, so she decided to get online and track the Doctor's progress. From the screen on the console, she watched as the new website for Audacious Attire was set up.

She smiled as she did so. The domain was one not of this planet. The digital language behind it was in Gallifreyan, which made it about ninety-nine per cent impervious to any virus, malware, spyware or energy-converting aliens that the current known universe could possibly want to throw at an independent website in planet Earth, even without any firewall or anti-virus protection. The embedded codes were simply too complex and incompatible with everything else. The Doctor would give Fiona a way into the site in order to post new information without it getting lost, but everything else, good and bad, would simply be swallowed up by the Gallifreyan code.

The Doctor said he was going to leave an e-mail address that would send Fiona's messages to the TARDIS, should she ever need his help with the site, but Martha could see that this was a digital fortress. Fiona would never have any issues with it – the Doctor was seeing to that.

As Martha watched, Fiona chose a new colour scheme and new display features for her site (trendy chocolate brown, baby pink and light turquoise, a vast improvement, Martha thought), the Doctor configured a user-friendly payment system, and before she knew it, the new site was "live." Just for good measure, she pulled her own sonic screwdriver from a compartment below the console and checked for encryptions. The site practically zapped her, shocked her even for trying to find encryption. Martha chuckled.

"Airtight," she commented.