Author Note: Several of you have expressed some confusion about this story, so hopefully this chapter will clear it up.


Suddenly, the final piece of the puzzle clicked into place. He felt realisation dawn on him, an epiphany so obvious he couldn't believe that he didn't see it before.

"Octavian said you killed a man."

"Yes, I did. A good man. A very good man. The best man I've ever known."

Halfway to Wilfred, the Doctor skidded to a halt, turning back to see River's eyes filled with tears and the pistol raised. His eyes went wide. He screamed.

"NO!"

xxxxxxxxxx

The Doctor turned back in time to see Wilfred's limp body fall.

He rushed over to the man and scooped him into his arms, searching his face for any signs of life. "Wilfred! Wilfred, please!" He checked the man's pulse and felt nothing. He saw nothing. The human didn't move. Only the stain of blood on his shirt spread.

The Doctor's eyes filled with tears, clutching the man close to his hearts. He turned to glare at River in what was almost hatred. "Why did you kill him?" he demanded harshly.

She stood silently, gun hanging limply at her side. She finally spoke, as if testing her own voice. "Karutlil venom is painful." She began to walk toward him, but his glare intensified, warning her to not come any closer. She stopped and lowered her voice, speaking so softly that he could barely hear her from the distance between them. "He would have never wanted to live like that."

The Doctor turned his gaze back to the human in his arms, considering her words. After several moments, he came to the conclusion that she was correct. Wilfred would never have wanted to live life in a hospital bed. He loved his precious family and his star-gazing far too much for that. It would have been painful for all of them, especially Donna, though she was no longer the Donna that he knew.

The Doctor looked up once more at the woman. "Who are you?" It was a test of her memories, whether she could see herself in her mind with the name she was meant to have.

She thought for a moment, then said. "My name is..." She frowned, then turned her head slightly to the side, causing her waves of curls to move. "I... I am River Song." She shifted her gaze from the floor back to him, as if she wanted confirmation that she had answered his question correctly.

He did not confirm her statement, but watched as she suddenly became dizzy and swayed on her feet. "Sit down," he said.

She shook her head to clear it, but to no avail. In the end, she set the pistol down on the floor and sat beside it, massaging her temples in obvious pain. The Doctor finally stood from Wilfred's corpse and hefted the man into his arms, navigating the maze of metal crates before finding the TARDIS once again. The blue machine opened her doors for him, lights dimmed in reverence. She had liked the Old one. He had always been kind and giving. Much like her Thief.

The Doctor carried Wilfred's body to the medical bay, placing it gently on the only bed present. He reverently closed the man's eyes and placed his hands together on his stomach. The still-warm flesh caused more tears to spring to the Time Lord's eyes. "Oh Wilfred..." He carefully leaned over the bed to place a kiss on the human's forehead. "I'm so sorry."

He said his final goodbyes and turned away, now intent on dealing with the next order of business. He had a half Time Lady to talk to. She would likely be confused and possibly in pain for a period of time, but it would pass. He walked back through the console room and out the TARDIS doors, leaving her to care for Wilfred's body.

After squeezing through the same two containers as the first time, he came upon Melody-Donna-River, who had unceremoniously passed out on the warehouse floor. He wasn't surprised. She was having to cope with 900 years of information that was previously buried. It helped that her previous lives were mostly gone and that she was half Time Lord, but it would take a bit of time before everything was sorted out.

He carefully carried her back to the TARDIS as well, deciding to bring the pistol with him for Sylvia's sake more than anything else. The woman would be... well, devastated was not a strong enough word. He set River in the room that had temporarily become hers when she periodically visited the TARDIS. Her breathing was regular, so he felt comfortable leaving her there to rest. Before he left, however, he gently took a peek inside her mind, to discover if his theory about her memories was correct.

After several moments of silence, he lifted his hands from her face. He was right; years of the Silence forcing her to remember them plus his own meddling had weakened the girl's mind. Donna's memory had never been good, except with temp things, and now he knew why. Constant mind-erasing and memory-wiping had done her in. The copy of his mind had acted as an overwrite; it had replaced almost everything that she was, like re-installing a program on a computer. She still possessed ghosts of memories from the time she spent as Donna Noble, but those would likely fade with time. She possessed almost all of his memories, something that would have to be explained to her so that she didn't traipse around the universe and pretend to be him.

He left her to rest and slowly walked back to the control room. He leaned heavily against the metal. There was so much bad news to deliver. It was smothering him. He sighed, then set the TARDIS off into the vortex.

xxxxxxxxxx

The blue box appeared on Sylvia's lawn, much to the surprise of the few policemen who remained. They had been questioning her for longer than she wanted to remember. At the first whoosh of sound, she immediately crossed the lawn to the TARDIS. Shawn's body had been gathered up and transported to a morgue via ambulance. Sylvia wrung her hands anxiously, waiting for the Doctor to bound out of the machine and tell her that everything was okay.

That moment, however, never came.

Instead, the Doctor quietly opened the door and walked from the box, carrying the body of her father, pistol held in his cold hands. She screamed.

The police immediately swarmed the Time Lord, demanding facts and asking questions. He stayed silent, gently laying Wilfred on the ground. Sylvia fell to her knees next to him, crying hysterically. The Doctor frowned at all of the men and women who would not just let the woman mourn. He took a deep breath. "Quiet!"

They all fell silent almost immediately, though several of them were fiddling with handcuffs and the like, ready to arrest him for murder. He cleared his throat, daring to glance down at Wilfred. "This man was my dad, as much as that word could ever mean." He looked up to the group, who had stilled their movements. "UNIT is on their way. They will take care of his body." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a letter, handing it to the closest officer. "There will be a woman in the UNIT convoy, give this to her." The officer read the name on the letter and nodded.

"Sylvia," the Doctor said softly, kneeling next to her. She was in mourning for two good men now; a terrible, undeserved fate. "Sylvia, I have to tell you... Donna is alive."

Sylvia's gaze shifted to him. "Where is she? Where's my daughter?"

The Doctor ran a hand down his face. This might possibly be the hardest conversation he ever had with anyone. "She's... She's in the TARDIS. But she's not the same person anymore." He quickly explained Melody's origins, how he had taken her from Florida and how Sylvia had come to adopt her. He gave more details concerning her regeneration and how she had been the one to kill Wilfred, though it had been out of mercy and love rather than malice. Sylvia seemed to absorb little of it. "She doesn't remember anything about her old life anymore. But that doesn't mean that she won't want to. She needs time, but if at any point she wants to come back and meet you..."

Sylvia merely nodded her consent and the Doctor smiled sadly. Losing every family member she had in a single day was too much. She had to at least have the opportunity to see what her daughter had become.

The Doctor stood and nodded a goodbye to the police, who were still confused about whether to believe him or arrest him. He quickly stepped back into the TARDIS before they could make up their minds and ran up the steps, setting course for Leadworth.

xxxxxxxxxx

The UNIT convoy arrived mere minutes after the strange blue box had disappeared from the front yard. The black vehicles had pulled up and several people had piled out of them, including a very pregnant woman in civilian clothing and a UNIT badge. She slowly made her way up the sidewalk to the group of policemen, greeting them all and gathering preliminary facts.

During the conversation, one of the men stepped forward and handed her the letter that the man from the blue box had given him. "Here, ma'am. I believe this is for you."

Martha took the letter and looked it over carefully before opening it. She noted that the name on the front was 'Dr. Martha Jones' not 'Dr. Martha Smith'. She smiled and shook her head. Opening the letter, she came face to face with a sheet of paper and a rather short message.

Martha,

There is a body of a woman in an abandoned warehouse in Cardiff. She has an eyepatch on her right eye. Dispose of the body in whatever way you see fit.

The man here is named Wilfred Mott, Donna's grandfather. He is to be buried with the highest military honors.

The blond woman is Sylvia, his daughter and Donna's mother. Donna had quite a bit of lottery money in her possession, make sure Sylvia gets it. Thank you.

The Doctor

P.S. The sonograms were wrong – it's a girl. You have a week to re-paint the room. Tell Mickey that he is rubbish at baby names; Mariah is much better than Caroline.

Martha stared for a moment, then laughed despite the situation. She should have known something like that would happen to her. Several of her colleagues eyed her suspiciously. She waved them off and said something about her ankles hurting, then retreated to her car to make a phone call.

After a few rings, she heard the click and her husband's voice. "Have I got news for you..." With something like the Doctor's approval, their daughter would most certainly be named Mariah.

xxxxxxxxxx

The TARDIS touched down in Leadworth to the fading light of a summer day. It was mid-evening and bugs were, frankly, everywhere, but the Doctor chose to ignore them. He stepped from the time machine to find Amy and Rory standing precariously outside their front door. They were older now than before, judging by the gurgling baby in Rory's arms. The Doctor walked carefully down the short path to approach the couple and their son. "Hello Amy, Rory. And...?"

"We named him Vincent. Well, Amy named him Vincent..." Rory reached out to snatch his son's hand back from sticking his finger's in his ear.

The Doctor couldn't help but smile. "Vincent would have appreciated the gesture," he said to Amy, who nodded in response. The Time Lord swallowed nervously. "I found Melody."

Amy suddenly let go of the breath she was holding and wrapped the Doctor in a fierce hug. Rory's face was painted with relief until the Doctor spoke again. "But she's not here, with me."

Amy immediately pulled back, staring at him with accusing eyes. "Why not?"

He sighed softly. "Can we go inside? I'll explain everything."