You all are just burning up my email, I hope you know that. It makes me very happy. *glomps all the readers and reviewers* So, as you guessed by this chapter I'll be re-writing a few scenes here and there before we get to final reunion. Then...*chuckles* That's where it gets interesting!

Oh yeah! Disclaimer! I do not own Doctor Who, all affiliated Doctor Who associations belong to BBC. If you recognize something then it is probably not mine. XD See, if I owned the show...well... For one Rose wouldn't be gone. And River? Well...let's just say...

Spoilers.

Martha grinned as car 4-6-5-Diamond-6 touched down in front of the New, New York Senate and opened it's doors. Finally. She knew the Doctor would come through for her in the end but it had still been rather scary, being stuck down there on the fast lane with no clue as to what was going on and only knowing something down there was trying to kill them.

She half-wondered if former companions had ever been in such dangerous situations.

"Doctor?" Martha called out happily while leaping into the control room, happy to finally be able to see the man she had followed again. Seeing something out of the corner of her eye that she was all to familiar with she stopped dead, good mood quickly starting to flee. Skeletons were laying all around the room.

None of her medical training had prepared her for seeing all of the skeletons that were laying around the broken and falling apart room. She had thought seeing the future would be amazing...but this... She wondered if things like this went hand-in-hand with the Doctor. Beauty and destruction.

"Over here." Hearing the subdued voice of the Doctor Martha grinned and ran towards him. Destruction may have followed him but she still wouldn't have traded this traveling for anything.

"Doctor!" Running forward she saw the pinstripe suit and grinned, "What happened out there?" The rest of her questions died on her lips as she saw what was in front of her. The Doctor was kneeling along with what looked like a human version of a cat. Between the two of them was a large tan-colored head. Even at the pure alien of the scene in front of her though the medical student part of her saw just how sickly the head was looking. "What's that?"

"It's the Face of Boe," the Doctor replied quietly, as if he was at the sickbed of a dear friend of his. "It's all right. Come and say hello." Martha tentatively walked towards the three as the Doctor started talking again. "And this is Hame. She's a cat. Don't worry." As soon as he had finished he looked back towards the Face of Boe, a mixture of sadness and regret on his face. "Hes' the one that saved you, not me."

"My lord gave his life to save the city," the cat, Hame the Doctor had said, spoke. Martha noticed as she knelt beside her that her voice sounded reverent and respectful. "And now he's dying."

"No, don't say that. Not old Boe. Plenty of life left." Even as he spoke Martha knew he was grasping and struggling to believe his own words. She had seen it too many times when she had been working the hospital, family and friends saying the patient had their whole life left, even if they really didn't.

"It's good to breathe the air once more," the Face of Boe sighed, although to Martha it hadn't sounded like he had been talking. It was more as if she had heard his voice in her head...telepathic, maybe?

"Who is he?" Martha asked, curious to know who this person was that had saved all of the people trapped on the motorway, and who the Doctor seemed so worried about. She had seen the expression on his face now before, when he mentioned the person who had traveled with him before, Rose. Although this expression was less subdued than that one... It really hit her sometimes just how little of a chance she had with the man she was falling in love with.

"I don't even know," the Doctor replied, glancing up at her. "Legend says the Face of Boe has lived for billions of years. Isn't that right?" Martha couldn't help the small smile that crawled to her lips as he described him. He would have a made a wonderful storyteller. "And you're not about to give up now." The way he had said it sounded like a statement of fact more than a plea.

"Everything has it's time," the Face spoke once again into their minds, "You know that, old friend, better than most." Martha wasn't sure if Boe had been referring to his race, the Time Lords, the fact that he was older than what he seemed, or something else entirely. It seemed to be a mixture of all three.

"The legend says more," Hame shakily spoke up, the Doctor looking up at her sharply from the other side of the dying Face of Boe. Martha could see some of the alarm in his face as he spoke.

"Don't. There's no need for that." Even if his voice was quiet Martha could hear the swirl of emotions hidden within, even if she didn't know what half of them were. She looked back over to Hame as she spoke once again.

"It says the Face of Boe will speak his final secret to a traveler." As she spoke the human moved her gaze back to the dying alien in front of her. What would the final secret be of an alien who had lived for billions of years?

"Yeah, but not yet," the Doctor spoke in an assured tone. "Who needs secrets, eh?"

"I have seen so much. Perhaps too much. I am the last of my kind – as you are the last of yours, Doctor." Martha scrunched her brow and looked up in confusion at the Doctor. What did he mean by that? Last of his kind?

"That's why we have to survive." The young girl could feel the tears coming to her eyes at the tone in the Doctor's voice. It sounded so sad and full of grief, the tone that some of the older doctors had back at the hospital. The ones who had seen far too much death. "Both of us... Don't go." She could tell the Doctor didn't want this, not at all. How many more friends could he lose?

"I must. But there are two things you must know, Time Lord. You are not alone. The wolf is howling." Martha started as the last words were said out loud instead of into their minds. Chancing a glance up at the Doctor she saw that he looked shocked, by which part though she couldn't tell.

Slowly standing up Martha looked at the dead alien with respect while beside her Hame finally cried, the grief hitting her full force. The Doctor looked absent as he put an arm around her shoulders. There was too much said that didn't make sense to her. Boe had said he was the last of his kind but he wasn't alone? As for the last few words...

What did a wolf have to do with anything?

youtube com/watch?v=L28CnhmeAD4

*cackles*