A/N: So, I gave Kate some very strong words in the prior chapter and I've gotten some feedback around it. My apologies if any readers were caught off-guard, but please refresh yourself with my disclaimer at the end of chapter 50. I was told I was getting too political, which is kind of funny given the two shows this is a crossover of (a political satire and a show that took its stand on Brexit almost 50 years before Brexit even happened), and I've not been shy about characters having different opinions and taking stands. Am I faithfully writing how they'd react to this stuff? As close as I can manage, given the circumstances. I'm just the one trying to figure all this stuff out.

Fifty-Seven

It took what honestly felt like ages for Kate to cool down properly from her Geneva summons. She was able to work off some of it by taking turns with Malcolm, seeing which one of them could shag the anger out of her quicker, and she began to eventually sound more like her even-toned self. Sort of. There was still the fact that she was intensely livid about the entire situation, from what caused the summons to the potential fall-out, and it was enough to make her want to scream until her voice was gone. Her lividity and ire had simmered down to a severe disdain for the situation at-hand by the time she saw more consequences being floated about in other areas. Malcolm made the valiant attempt at keeping her distracted during the nights as he was best able to do, with tongue and lips and hands to make up for when his cock was stubbornly one-use, whilst Conall was a balm during the day as he would bring her crayon drawings and his favorite stuffed toys while she worked from home and would interrupt her day with video calls while she was in the Mainframe. Even Fiona knew how dire the situation was and made a conscious effort to cut back on her sass as she watched her mum attempt to navigate what was otherwise some shit situations.

"Mary Drake wise up and give you the time of day yet?" Fiona asked as she brought a tray into her mother's home office. It was an unexpected off day for her work, as the electricity was down for half the village, leading her to stay with her mum and baby brother for the day instead. She had just put together some sandwiches for lunch, knowing that Kate hadn't even gotten that far in her line of thinking.

"It's not like we're, technically-speaking, two of the most powerful women in the United Kingdom right now," Kate grumbled. "The least she can do is have an assistant send me a reply that she'll get back with me in due time, but no… absolute bupkis." She took one sip of the tea from the tray and felt the liquid give her strength. "That's a good cuppa, thanks."

"Too bad we can't just lure her over here with tea and the promise of an in at the UN," Fiona noted. She glanced at the television sitting against the wall—tuned to a news station yet placed on mute—and frowned. There was the aforementioned Mary Drake, giving a press conference on her direction for the nation. "I don't know how healthy it is to keep this shit on the telly, Mum."

"Geneva turned this into political squash, so I have to keep on it," Kate sighed. She noted that her daughter did not seem convinced. "What?"

"Have you thought about asking General Bambera for help?" Fiona wondered. "I hear she's willing to openly murder to keep Mainframe UK functioning and in its current location."

Kate's eyebrow rose just a bit. "Where did you hear a thing like that?"

"I have my sources," her daughter shrugged. "We'll get through this… you'll get through this. I know you will."

"Thanks for the words of confidence, but I doubt that shall be the case for long." She watched as Fiona simply left the office, presumably to get Conall ready for lunch, and slowly let out the breath she had just realized she was holding. Picking up the sandwich, she took a bite and slowly chewed as she stared at her computer screen—full of all the varying different treaties and agreements that would be null-and-void in a few years' time should nothing be walked back—disgusted by the work she was doing. It was something that she genuinely hated, not something that she could say was an unfortunate side of the job, but simply atrocious that it was even a thing that was in want of figuring. The stretch that the UNIT higher-ups was taking was likely overstepping several bounds, but with the precarious position that she was in… it was best to not test it.

Kate had just popped the remainder of the first half a sandwich into her mouth when Conall ran into the office, somehow starkers save for his training pants. The boy ran over to her and climbed into her lap, presenting his closed-up fist to her.

"Mam! Mam! Bug!" he declared. He opened his hand to show her a tiny housefly, which buzzed away at discovering it was free. Kate blinked as she watched it fly out the opened window—her other children at his age would have crushed a fly in their fist, if they could have even gotten a hold of one, that was. It was then that Fiona finally came into the room, glaring at her brother intensely.

"That wee shit," she huffed. She came over and plucked him from their mum's lap, hefting him atop her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "First he gets food all over himself, then he runs off when I try to clean him up. Gordy and Kanda are going to have another one of these?"

"Gohdee? Kanda?" Conall gasped, attempting to look around. "Where Gohdee end Kanda?"

"Glad to know you're not having children until you mean it and are going to be much more careful than your brother and me," Kate smirked. Fiona rolled her eyes and carried the squirming toddler out. Two minutes later and she could hear Conall stomping about upstairs as he attempted to run away from being clothed. It made Kate chuckle—she was wondering how long it would take before Fiona decided that being eternal big-sister-babysitter was simply bollocks.

Bambera.

Huh… speaking of Fiona, Kate mulled on her daughter's words from before—there wasn't any harm in attempting to contact General Bambera in regards to the Brexit situation. It actually was a rather good idea, being that she could give some insight as to what some of the other committee members might be looking for in contingent plans. She opened up her email and began to type away, finishing the correspondence before Fiona returned for the tray, Conall not far behind dragging his penguin stuffie as he crawled into her lap and promptly went to sleep. Naptime was Fiona's well-earned and more-than-deserved break, and she was glad to accommodate her son as her daughter decided to get in a walk into town to see how repairs to the transformer were coming along.

Kate continued working, going over her many treaties while staving off an exceptional headache, only pausing when she heard a mobile buzz. She glanced at her work phone—nothing—and instead took a peek at her personal one: Bambera. Huh… that was quick.

'i'm coming back home in a week. lunch?'

She grinned; yes.

Kate went over the checklist as she looked over everything in the kitchen. She had the sandwiches, crisps, and fruit done; tea was all ready to go at a moment's notice; nothing was a mess, including herself. Although she had known Bambera for longer than she had known most people within UNIT, there was still the fact they had not spent more than fifteen minutes together at a time in a work setting in well over a decade. It had been a while and she wanted to at least pretend that this was a special occasion and not anything at all related to work.

There was no more time to fuss over details, for as soon as she finished her thought, she heard the gravel of her driveway crunching underneath slow-moving tires. She stepped outside and saw Bambera getting out of the car almost as soon as her husband put it in park. It had been a long time since both of them had first visited, back when the house was her father's, and nearly as long since Ancelyn had last worked there, her father giving him a gardener's position while he was attempting to first adjust to living in this dimension. He looked at the house and grinned lopsidedly—not a change.

"Look at that, my dear Winifred—this is what we missed by needing to forgo the wedding," he said. "There has been not a change in all these years; how nostalgic is looks."

"It changed a lot, to be honest," Kate laughed. She gave them both a hug and raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said you were bringing Zuri with you."

"She's being overdramatic in the back seat again," Bambera said, rolling her eyes. She looked at her husband and frowned. "She gets it from you."

"Whatever do you mean by that, milady?" he chuckled. He then turned towards Kate. "Is Young Miss Fiona here? I know our daughter was excited at the prospect of seeing her dear schooling mate again."

"With my youngest out to the store for a moment for some more milk. It's good to see you both well, and you out of uniform, Winifred."

"Not until we're inside please," Bambera frowned. "I'm getting a bad feeling out here."

"Then come on in." Kate welcomed the adults of her guests into the house and led them into the sitting room. "It's really a shame that we're too busy to visit one another more often—I hear the scenery around the Lake is superb."

"It is, but it comes with the downside of other foreigners, some with a distinct lack of manners and regard for others," Bambera frowned. "For working in a very cosmopolitan city, I've run into more arseholes per capita than I have since my days as a squaddie."

"Unfortunately, more arseholes per capita is part of why we're here," Kate sighed. She saw Ancelyn shift in his seat and thought the better of it. "Do you wish to talk about it after we eat?"

"No—let's nip this now so that we can get to better topics later," Bambera said. "I don't keep many secrets from this idiot."

"I wish you would keep more of them at times," he admitted. "I have settled comfortably into our domestic life—it might be a kindness on yourself to settle a bit more as well."

"Brave talk for someone who still fences twice a week and volunteers for medieval tourney demonstrations," she scoffed. She rolled her eyes and turned back to Kate, both knowing full-well that her husband did not marry her for quiet domesticity. "There's about to be some serious backlash when it comes to our fellow countrymen and what they're doing... or what they believe they're doing. No matter what the reasoning behind the Leave vote, it's going to have some consequences that I don't think anyone's prepared to face."

"So then the mainframe's definitely in danger," Kate replied. Bambera nodded. "Meaning that we need a damn good plan to keep things the way they need to be."

"It could be Fate deciding the mainframe's future," Ancelyn shrugged. "There could be a mighty power sleeping under Ireland, to the point that you shall need to be there in-full should it be disturbed. If the Finn MacCool of this dimension is anything like my homeland, then it is possible we require backup once he wakes. We do not know until it happens."

"We know enough to be confident that's not it," Kate said.

"...and it doesn't change the fact that I've heard plenty of people grumble about how their support for us as a whole shall change if everything gets finalized. There will be plenty more conditional provisions for Mainframe UK to jump through if we wish to keep operating as normal." Bambera glanced out onto the back lawn, seeing much of the garden from her vantage point. "My position is sealed—there's no getting me out without a war crime tribunal—but I know this mainframe too well to think it can up and leave like that. I grew up in housing bursting with ant-people—what'll happen if one of them decides enough is enough and suddenly you have to deploy an entire squadron's worth of soldiers to Manchester of all places to go and stop the next Queen from being a bloody bug?"

"Absolute horror and chaos, I imagine," Ancelyn quipped. His wife backhanded his arm, at which he smirked. "To discover such oddities is part of life."

"...and I'd rather avoid finding as many as them as possible," Bambera replied. She stopped as she heard the kitchen door open and the sound of a small child stomping through the house. Conall zoomed into the room and stopped to stare at the newcomers. "Oh…? Is this the child you keep mentioning, Kate? Your youngest?"

"Yes," she nodded. "Conall, say hi to Miss Winifred and Mister Ancelyn."

"Hi!" the boy grinned. He pointed to Kate as though giving a presentation. "That Mam."

"We know that's your mummy; very good," Bambera said stiffly. She watched as her daughter and Fiona walked into the sitting room, both attempting to find the toddler. "I think you'll find him over here."

"You slippery wee devil," Fiona growled playfully, scooping up her baby brother. The boy tried to grab at Ancelyn, though was stopped by his sister, and he made do with making faces with the odd man. "Mum, Zuri and I are going upstairs with our lunch."

"Fine by me," Kate replied. "Are you finally feeling better, dear?"

"Meh," Zuri shrugged. Gone were her red-brown pigtails and diminutive stature from the last time Kate saw her five years prior; the teen was now nearly as tall as her father, looking as though she had gotten both her parents' athleticism and was developing her mother's hard-nosed demeanor. "I don't even know why we have to be here when you could have had your meeting in the mainframe. It is about work, yeah?"

"It is, but it is also something we'd rather keep as much to ourselves as possible, which would be at-risk if we were at the Mainframe," Kate reasoned gently. "You'll get it should you work in UNIT one day."

"Possibly… I don't know." Zuri shrugged and turned towards Conall, raising an eyebrow at the toddler. "He doesn't seem as fun in person as you described."

"He takes some getting used to, but you have to be careful in how to train him," Fiona admitted. "Let's get the kettle going and then we can haul our stuff upstairs." She maneuvered her brother so he sat atop her shoulders and they left the sitting room.

"When Winifred told me you and your husband acquired a young ward to adopt as your own, I did not think your foundling was a wee babe," Ancelyn said once he was certain their kids were out of earshot. "I was thinking a ward more ten or eleven years… not a child barely off the teat."

Kate stared at Ancelyn, while Bambera rubbed her forehead in frustration.

"I think…" Kate said flatly, "that this might be a secret that your wife successfully kept from you."

"What is the secret?" he wondered. "There is something special about that child, as he feels to be of an odd sort, but to say what is a most confusing task. Is he of Trion heritage?"

"Oh, shame, and here I thought you actually weren't that dense about something for once," Bambera groaned. "That's the Doctor's son." Ancelyn's eyes bugged.

"Merlin? Sired a child? Are you certain?"

"More certain than a lot of things," Kate deadpanned.

"Well by Camlann!" Ancelyn grinned, slapping his knee. "Did Nymue find her way over here or did she take another form in this dimension? It was not that by child he was with when I last saw him, was it…?"

"No, no, different woman; an adult woman; you've never met her," Bambera corrected. "Kate and much of her family knows, a few scattered others within Mainframe UK, Dr. Smith-Jones knows—you remember her…"

"...the woman who transferred to Canada? Such a spirited yet kind woman—her husband is wise to have courted her."

"Yes, Dr. Smith-Jones is one of the few who are aware," Kate affirmed. "Not many more, though I imagine that as long as the Doctor himself doesn't find out, we're safe."

"Why would Merlin need to be kept from his son?"

"He doesn't remember the woman he had the son with, and his realization of that—as well as the fact we kept the child from him to start—could mean disaster for us all."

Ancelyn scrunched his nose. "How does one forget such an act? I remember the night that begot Zuri, clear as can be. How do you know he has forgotten?"

"I've talked to him since then and, yes, he's forgotten, though we don't know why or how; it is part of how we theorize that him knowing what we do could be dangerous," Kate replied, immediately glossing over Ancelyn's claim. She heard the kids going upstairs and were glad that they were missing this.

"I do not know if I should feel honored or suspicious that you trust me with this knowledge," he shrugged. "Merlin and Nymue's son is something that the legends here do not hold. The students who sit my lectures all believe him to have died childless and with no other heir than the transfer of all his power and knowledge to Nymue herself. None of the legends that I have encountered on Earth mention a child betwixt them—she murders him before that can happen."

"When you met Merlin before coming to this dimension, was he traveling with someone?" Kate wondered.

"The sorceress Nymue," he said plainly. "She was the center of his universe and the reason he did anything. Their love was a powerful one—one that nearly did Morgaine in at Camlann. I was surprised to learn the legends from here made their relationship a farce of what it truly was, at least, comparatively."

This intrigued Kate greatly. "Does Arthurian legend usually differ from what you experienced?"

"It is a difficult matter to say," Ancelyn frowned. He knew his position was not exactly one that was easily understood, but the fact that he had lived through legends that were now hundreds of years old and the truth of which were corrupted by time… it was disorientating to say the least. "There is much that has been fabricated and much that has been lost and much that gives evidence that the truth was once well-known. My studies of the legends here have shown that the historical imbalances in literacy have aided the spread of lies. Did you know that I am often painted as an adulterer, who gave into throes of passion with his liege lady?"

"It's actually a very common legend," Kate said. "It's one of the more popular elements of the tales, in fact." She had to stifle a laugh as Ancelyn sank into his seat. "I'm just surprised that out of all the potential people who could have been an invention of our world, it was Lady Guinevere."

"Not so much an invention, but a corruption," he replied. "It was well-known that Lords Gwynhywar and Arthur were tender with one another behind closed doors. Much can be gleaned about those who first perpetuated the tales by their distortion of the facts. Even Arthur's official consort Gwenhwyfach remains a shell of what she was."

"Dare I ask…?"

"A shrewd politician and ruthless warrior, who was truly one of the most formidable people in all of Camelot," he offered. "Lady Gwenhwyfach and Lord Gwynhywar were cousins and milk-siblings; with her hand in marriage tied to the sword Excalibur, both trained from the time they were small to defend the weapon and its rightful owner—once it was revealed—and it was through them that—Winifred! What are you doing?!" He watched as his wife stood and went back towards the kitchen, completely bored with the conversation.

"If the girls are upstairs, then that means that tea's ready, and I can't listen to you blathering without some damned tea, knowing it's getting cold," she frowned. "Now that you've hijacked the meeting, I might as well get comfortable, considering you won't stop for anything."

"You are cruel," he pouted. Ancelyn then looked back at his quarry: the set of ears that had yet hear his critiques on Arthurian legend. Kate felt a shiver go down her spine and she had a feeling that she was going to be there for a long, long while. Something paralyzed her, making her realize there was no escape, no matter how firmly she would otherwise shut someone like Ancelyn down.

Well shit.

Malcolm came home fucking late that night. It wasn't late, which would have been a normal-ish time for dinner, but fucking late, which was around the time the sun was setting and everything was bathed in an eerie summer twilight. That was what he got, he supposed, for being at work during a scheduled, temporary, staggered power outage for most of the mainframe—cleaning up the confusing splatter was not the most fun thing he'd ever done, and that was including being in government. He pulled into the drive and saw Fiona sitting out on the patio with Zuri Bambera, the two allowing Conall to stomp around on the lawn in an attempt to catch fireflies. Getting out of the car, he caught his son's attention as the boy ran up to him giggling.

"Not that I'm disappointed in seeing you," Malcolm said, picking up Conall, "but is it that fucking bad? Manchester is still three hours away yet…"

"Dad got on a tangent," Zuri frowned.

"Several tangents," Fiona added. "Apparently, Morgaine killed Argante in order to consume her heart—and therefore her magical powers and sexual prowess—which also has something to do with the Mull of Kintyre."

"The Wings song, not the place," Zuri clarified. She watched Malcolm's eyebrow raise and shrugged. "You want to risk being bored to bloody death, then be my guest and go in there at your own risk. He's probably on figuring out how the Test Card Girl is actually Annowre reborn and the Questing Beast is just a really large monitor lizard with a toe deformity." Malcolm's face did not change and she knew she was talking to a brick wall. "Never sat lectures on the Matter of Britain?"

"I had more useful things to do."

"...and this my life; welcome." Zuri yawned widely and attempted to stretch some of the impending sleep from her limbs. "His being from another dimension means that he unconsciously has a sort of placating effect on most normal humans—once they're in, they're stuck. Oh, and before you ask: it has absolutely nothing to do with UNIT and how Mum and Missus Stewart plan on hamstringing Geneva and any attempt to shutter the mainframe."

"It might if Merlin was actually half-Silurian," Fiona theorized. "That'd explain the half-demon theory to his origins."

"Except we've already established that the Doctor is Merlin… besides, just because two species are sexually compatible doesn't mean that they are reproductively compatible… you're almost as bad as Dad…"

"I'm going inside," Malcolm dully announced. He took Conall with him as he left his daughter and her old schoolmate to talk about things he'd rather not hear out of anyone's mouths about Silurian anatomy. There was a sandwich set out for him on the kitchen counter, which he ate as he made his way through the house. He eventually stumbled upon what was a full-blown lecture in the sitting room, with a plain-clothes Winifred Bambera asleep in an upright position on the couch, whilst Kate looked so uncomfortable she could not move. The strange blond man with a short ponytail and chiseled features that he took to be Ancelyn Bambera had somehow procured a laptop computer with a presentation on it, which was currently on a slide in regards to Asterix and Obelix being the closest media depiction resembling the relationship between a pair of blokes named Balin and Balan.

"Ah!" the man grinned, "you must be Malcolm Lethbridge-Stewart. Our wives have told me tales of your wit and competence. Please, sit down; I am at a most intriguing part of my newest lecture and I would appreciate any feedback."

"Need to get the bairn to bed—sorry," Malcolm claimed, gesturing to the toddler wiggling on his shoulders. "Maybe some other time." The man looked ruffled as Malcolm slipped out of the room and up the stairs, up to the safety of the nursery. Conall yawned into his father's hair before he was lifted up and brought down to the changing table. The lad sat calmly, allowing himself to be changed from his day clothes into footed pajamas.

"Da sleeps?" he wondered.

"Aye, Da sleeps," Malcolm assured. "Conall sleeps too."

"Yes." Conall grunted groggily as he was set down on the floor and hobbled his way over to his bed. He crawled in without much protest and curled up under the blanket, his penguin toy in his grasp. "Read?"

"What do you say?"

"Peas."

"Alright," Malcolm said. He plucked a book from the shelf and knew that he didn't have long before the wean was sleeping. Perched on the edge of the bed, he only got a couple sentences in before Conall's eyes closed, and a page after that before he was snoring softly. No sooner had he replaced the book when the mobile in his pocket buzzed—it was Kate.

'fuck you'

'i hope you do. you're the one that invited them over,' he replied. He thought about it for a moment and fired off another text. 'i'll get the guest room ready.'

She didn't respond to that, which he took as a good thing. Malcolm deposited his jacket and tie in his bedroom and got going—it seemed like they were going to have to figure the Mainframe-related plotting in the morning.

A/N: A/N: Shout out to Ancelyn, who is a total kinky himbo babe who I have no problems imagining as a boring nerd after the Seven story Battlefront, but also to Bambera and her ability to just be very done on a variety of levels.