Okay you guys XD If you didn't get the memo, the original post of this chapter was a dummy and an April Fool's prank. And, yes, I know, I am a rude sadistic evil meanie little shit buttface (such a variety of adjectives, you guys) but I am NOT SORRY! :D And you can thank A Who Down in Whoville for it as well. (I see you, girl.)

Anyway, the beginning of this chapter is identical to the one you saw in the April Fools, up until the Dalek-Humans are ordered to shoot. So, if you'd like to just skip down to there, feel free. Or not.

"There ain't nothing more creepy than a theater in the dark." Tallulah muttered disdainfully.

Rose had to disagree.

Caves, the Sanctuary Base, the basement of the Torchwood Estate, the TARDIS that one time all the lights went out, the forest on Lua, the hospital during World War II, a cornfield maze, and several abandoned warehouses—now those places had been creepy in the dark, and rightfully so, too, as all of them had been occupied by one or more monsters or homicidal aliens. A dark theater ranked somewhere with a dark museum, a dark library, and Henricks after hours in terms of creepy. Still, it was freezing in there, and she knew that in a few minutes it would be filled with Dalek-humans, or possibly the Daleks themselves.

Laszlo groaned and slumped down into one of the chairs. Tallulah sat down next to him and they murmured to each other for a moment. "Doctor," the showgirl asked, "what's wrong with him?"

The Doctor was standing on the armrests of a seat, fiddling with his sonic, trying to find the right setting. "Not now, Tallulah. Sorry."

"What are you doing?" Martha asked.

The sonic screwdriver started to blip steadily and the Doctor lifted it high into the air. "If the Daleks are going to war, they'll want to find their number-one enemy," he explained. "I'm just telling them where I am."

"Well, that's just mad." Martha said. "Do you want them to kill you?"

"Better me than the entire planet," he told her. "You know what happens if they take over the planet now, don't you?"

"No."

"You two probably will never be born. That alone is enough to blow a sizeable whole in the universe. Time is fragile, Martha. If you saw it the way I do you would understand. All of time could unravel if we don't stop them now."

"Oh," she exhaled loudly. "Okay. No pressure."

"What are you even talkin' about?" Frank demanded. "You're making no sense."

The Doctor waved him off. "Time is complicated. They'll be here any minute," he told his two companions. "You all need to leave."

"No," Rose said instantly.

"Rose—"

"No! We are not doing this again!"

"Martha, make her go."

"No," Martha replied. "I'm not making her do anything."

"You stay here and you could get killed."

"And what the hell would we do if you died, Doctor? Go back home, get on with our lives like this never happened?" Rose folded her arms determinedly. "I don't know if you've forgotten, but I don't have a home to go back to. I'm. Staying."

Martha nodded in agreement. "Me too."

He exhaled angrily and glared down at his two companions, who glared resolutely right back at him. "I'm telling you to go," the Doctor barked, jumping down. "Frank can take you back to Hooverville."

"And I'm telling you I'm not going!" Martha retorted. "'Rule two: always do what the Doctor says—unless it'll involves him dying, then ignore him.' This is me ignoring you."

"Martha—"

The doors at the back of the theater slammed open, the light streaming in along with the sound of many footsteps marching in sync. The six of them watched in horror as, one by one, the Dalek-humans filed into the room. There were men and women, white, black, Asian, Hispanic, all of them armed with tommy guns fitted with Dalek blasters instead of barrels.

"Doctor! Oh my God!" Tallulah pulled Laszlo from the chair and they all backed into a group in the middle of the isle. "Well, I guess that's them, then, huh?"

"Humans," Martha muttered. "With Dalek DNA?"

Frank started towards one of them—perhaps he recognized him from Hooverville—but the Doctor held him back. "It's alright. All right? Just stay calm. Don't antagonize them."

"But what of the Dalek Masters?" Laszlo asked. "Where are they?"

"I dunno," the Doctor murmured.

Rose combed the theater with her eyes for any sign of a pure Dalek, or even Dalek Sec. A flash of metal or the blue gleam of an eyestalk—but except for the hybrids, they were alone.

Then the stage exploded in a flash of light and they all shrieked, ducking reflexively.

Slowly, carefully she lifted her head just enough that she could peek over the backs of the seats in front of her. Two Daleks rolled onto stage, their heads rotating back and forth, no doubt searching for them. Between them, Dalek Sec crawled weakly on his hands and knees with a shackle around his neck, chained to the one on the right.

She frowned. Wasn't he supposed to be the leader?

Her first Dalek had committed suicide for being even the slightest bit human. It was entirely possible they'd committed mutiny against their leader once he took on human DNA.

The Doctor slowly emerged from behind the chairs just before one of the Daleks ordered: "THE DOCTOR WILL STAND BEFORE THE DALEKS."

Everyone but Tallulah, who peered carefully over the chairs, was on their feet. When the Doctor lifted his leg to climb on top of the seat in front of him, Rose reached out and caught his arm. He looked back at her wordlessly and his eyes flicked over her head for just a moment and he pulled out of her grip. Trust me, he mouthed and climbed up and over the seat. She felt Frank's hands on her arms, holding firmly and she gritted her teeth in frustration. Like he'd be able to stop her.

The Doctor walked across the tops of the seats and stopped on the second row, balancing on the arm rests.

"YOU WILL DIE, DOCTOR. IT'S THE BEGINNING OF A NEW AGE."

"PLANET EARTH WILL BECOME NEW SKARO."

"Oh, and what a world. With anything just the slightest bit different ground into the dirt. That's Dalek Sec." He pointed at the disgraced figure between them who was watching the scene unfold silently. "Don't you remember? The cleverest Dalek ever and look what you've done to him. Is that your new empire? Hmm? Is that the foundation for a whole new civilization?"

His words seemed to have stirred something in Dalek Sec. He blinked quickly and leaned forward. "My Daleks…just understand this. If you choose death and destruction, then death and destruction will choose you."

Rose's jaw dropped. Talk about an epiphany. Whoever's body Sec had taken over, his genes must've done a serious number on the Dalek. Even her Dalek hadn't expressed that sort of sentiment.

"INCORRECT. WE ALWAYS SURVIVE."

"NOW WE DESTROY OUR GREATEST ENEMY: THE DOCTOR."

"But he can help you."

"THE DOCTOR MUST DIE!"

"No," Sec started to crawl in front of the one who'd spoken. "I beg you, don't!"

"EXTERMINATE!"

With a grunt, Sec lifted himself off the ground and intercepted the ray intended for the Doctor. He screamed and pain, finally knowing for the first and last time the pain he'd once inflicted upon others. Everyone flinched away from the light and his screams, except for the Dalek-humans who remained immobile and emotionless. Sec fell to the ground, dead.

"Your own leader." the Doctor said in disgust. "The only creature who might have led you out of the darkness and you destroyed him." He turned to the Dalek-humans and spoke quieter, almost as if prompting them. "Do you see what they did? Huh? You see what a Dalek really is?"

They didn't respond, but Rose thought she might've seen the barest hint of disgust ripple across their faces before settling back into the stoic mask.

"If I'm going to die, let's give the new boys a shot. What do you think, eh? The Dalek-humans, their first blood."

The Dalek on the right lifted his eyestalk up and down, like it was considering him.

"Go on," the Doctor invited, spreading his arms out wide. "Baptize them!"

Rose strained against Frank's grip but he held firm, surprisingly strong for such a skinny thing.

"DALEK-HUMANS, TAKE AIM!"

Moving as one, Dalek-humans lifted their guns, cocked them, and pointed them at the Doctor. Laszlo, Tallulah, Martha, Rose, and Frank huddled tightly together. The two men seemed to be ready to shield the women with their bodies and, briefly, Rose wondered if the effect of a Dalek's ray could be spread through contact.

"What are you waiting for? Give the command!" the Doctor challenged.

"EXTERMINATE!"

Martha whimpered and Rose gasped and they all flinched, waiting for the buzzing of Dalek death-rays that would mean the Doctor's end, and probably theirs as well.

Rose's eyes never left the Doctor.

One second passed, then two…and nothing happened. The Dalek-humans remained poised to fire, but they did not shoot.

"EXTERMINATE."

Rose looked between the two lines of hybrids. Not a single one of them moved. Not so much as a twitch.

"OBEY! DALEK-HUMANS WILL OBEY."

Still, they did not move.

"They're not firing," Martha noted quietly.

"Brilliant deduction, Sherlock," Rose said through her teeth.

The medical student ignored her. "What have you done?" she demanded. The Doctor didn't answer.

The Dalek seemed to be getting annoyed now. "YOU WILL OBEY! EXTERMINATE."

The man at the front asked, "Why?" And Rose felt her first true glimmer of hope all night.

The Dalek spun its eyestalk towards him. "DALEKS DO NOT QUESTION ORDERS."

"But why?"

"YOU WILL STOP THIS."

"But…why?" he looked at the Time Lord, still standing on the chairs, watching him.

"YOU MUST NOT QUESTION."

He looked back at the Dalek and said, "But you are not our master, and we—we are not Daleks."

"No you're not," the Doctor agreed quietly. "And you never will be. Sorry," he told the Daleks unapologetically. "I got in the way of the lightning strike. Time Lord DNA got all mixed up. Just that little bit of freedom."

"IF THEY WILL NOT OBEY, THEN THEY MUST DIE." With that, it fired at the man who'd spoken.

"GET DOWN!" the Doctor screamed, jumping down. They dropped to the ground, pressing themselves as low as they could go.

Before the man had even properly died, the Dalek-humans turned their guns on the pure Daleks and opened fire. The Daleks shouted and fired back at their rebellious troops. The hybrids screamed as they were shot, but the others didn't falter.

"EXTERMI—"

BANG! It exploded. One down.

"EXTERMINATE!" BANG and down went the other.

The Dalek-humans ceased fire and lowered their guns. The Doctor was on his feet quickly, moving to soothe the nearest hybrid. His companions slowly climbed to their feet and looked around at the survivors.

"Saved by a Dalek-hybrid," Rose muttered, looking at the smoking shells on stage "That's a new one."

The Doctor must've heard her because he turned and grinned, half proud, half relieved. A moment later, his delight vanished. The Dalek-humans started to scream in agony, their hands flying to their heads. The Doctor cried out in protest. They clutched at their temples, pressing against their ears as if trying to block out a horrible sound. They sank to the ground, some more quickly than others, and one by one, their screams died in their throats.

Martha sprinted around the seats and Rose tried to follow, but Frank held on. She elbowed him sharply. "Get off!"

"Ow! Alright, alright! Dang," he muttered, holding his chest.

Rose raced down the isle, stepping over the bodies of the hybrids, and kneeled next to Martha beside one of the Dalek-humans. "What happened?" she demanded.

"They killed them…" the Doctor said quietly, revolted and horrified. He looked at the bodies, at the rubble from the exploded stage. "An entire species. Genocide!" he spat through his teeth.

He turned to Rose, pain and anger shining in his eyes in equal measure. She reached across the body and curled her hand around his. He squeezed her fingers like his life depended on it.

"Only two of the Daleks have been destroyed." Laszlo pointed out. "One of the Dalek Masters must still be alive."

"Oh yes," the Doctor agreed, his voice dangerous and quiet. He let go of her hand and stood up. "In the whole universe…just one."

He stepped around them and walked up the isle, avoiding the bodies, and snagged his coat from where he'd discarded it. He put it on as he headed for the stage.

"What are you going to do?" Martha asked, on her feet now.

"One of the Daleks would've been designated as the coordinator for attack. He'll be in their base, all hooked up to the equipment. I'm going there. Stay here or come with me, I don't care. It's not like you'll listen to me either way."

He kicked the door open with his foot and it banged shut behind him. The four humans and the pig-hybrid flinched as the sound reverberated. It left behind a ringing silence, punctuated only by the hiss from the still-smoking Daleks. They looked at the death and destruction around them in despair.

"What do we do now?" Martha asked.

"I'm going after him." Rose decided. She looked up the isle at Laszlo, Tallulah, and Frank. "And you?"

"I…I should get back to Hooverville," Frank said. "Let 'em know it's all over now. Y'all make sure you come back before you head out or anything."

"Thank you for your help, Frank." Martha told him. He smiled and his ears reddened.

"Don't mention it."

The rest of them headed back to the sewer entrance in the storage room. The Doctor had been kind enough to leave the manhole open for them just in case. They descended into the sewers quickly, Rose grumbling the whole time about the stink. It was worse than it'd been just hours before. Laszlo guided them through the tunnels towards the Empire State Building and the lab beneath.

Almost immediately they came across the source of the new odor. The hordes of bodies sprawled across each other and on the ground: murdered Dalek-humans. All four of them stopped in their tracks, Martha with one foot still in the air, when they came across the first clump. Tears filled Rose's eyes, Tallulah threw up, and Martha had her hands pressed firmly to her face as if she might do one or both at any minute.

"Come on," Laszlo said quietly. He started down the tunnel with the bodies but Martha reached out to stop him.

"No! We can't!"

"We have to go this way."

"There's got to be another way."

"This is the quickest route," he argued. "It's the way he would've gone—if we try to go around we might not catch him in time."

"But the bodies…we can't just…"

Laszlo's voice dropped to a murmur. "I can smell them. They're all around us. Not every tunnel, but most of them, and probably all of the ones from here to the laboratory. We'll just have to step over them."

He went first, stepping carefully over the legs of a Hispanic woman, then over the waist of a white man. They followed him slowly, finding a path through the bodies and tried to avoid stepping on any limbs or guns. Some of the eyes were mercifully shut, but the others were wide and glassy and seemed to follow their every move, pleading, accusing.

Rose felt as if she herself was to blame for their deaths. If she'd called the TARDIS earlier…if she'd stopped the Daleks in Hooverville, then the army would've never been raised. She knew the Doctor would dismiss her guilt and tell her that it wasn't her fault because it really wasn't in the end. It had been the Daleks. All of it was their fault. They'd stolen these people, made them what they were. As much as she detested the thought of anyone dying in a place like this, she had to admit that it was better they'd died down here, because it meant they hadn't hurt anyone above.

About halfway there, Laszlo's legs gave out again and he dropped the torch. Tallulah helped him walk and Rose and Martha took point. Almost immediately it became clear that Laszlo didn't have the coordination to navigate the path through the bodies and the girls couldn't help him. Leaving Tallulah to hold Laszlo up, Rose and Martha worked together to push and pull the bodies out of the way, just enough to leave a trail wide enough to walk through. There was a brief respite each time the piles of bodies ended and they listened to his breathless directions of which tunnels to take next, but they never went far before they came across another row of corpses.

Eventually the army of the dead was left behind and there were no more bodies to shift. Around them the bricks became dry, transitioning into smooth stone. Laszlo groaned in pain and the more he moved, the more laborious his breathing became. Martha had to fall back and help Tallulah support him and Rose led the group with the torch in hand.

They sighed in relief when they passed through the metal door into the lowest area of the Empire State building. Except for Laszlo.

"Can't breathe…" he choked.

"Just you hang on, sweetheart." Tallulah soothed. "We're almost there. Martha, you're a doctor, can't you—"

"I don't know," Martha huffed. "Unless you want to drop him here and let me have a look. But if he goes down I don't think he's getting back up.

"I'll run ahead," Rose offered. "Make sure it's safe to bring him in."

"Be careful!"

"You need the torch?"

"We're fine, just go. We'll catch up."

Rose nodded and jogged away from them. The smell of the laboratory—pig stink, death and infection—smacked her in the face before she even heard the humming of the machines. Even after the journey here through the sewers the smell of the lab still made her gag. She wrinkled her nose and endured.

She slowed to a walk when she heard the Doctor's voice. Creeping through the entrance to the laboratory, she listened to the last Time Lord attempt to reason with the last Dalek.

"—seen one genocide. I won't cause another."

She carefully leaned her head around the column so she could see where they were. The Doctor was standing a perilous few feet from the Dalek, wired up into the nook in the back of the lab. "Caan…let me help you. What do you say?"

"EMERGENCY TEMPORAL SHIFT!"

The wires fizzed and dropped away from Dalek Caan as he was enveloped in a bright white light. Something slammed into Rose's head. Her temples throbbed and she gasped, squeezing her yes shut. The Doctor shouted angrily as his enemy vanished into time. When he was gone, Rose's body relaxed.

"Ah," she moaned, holding her head. She staggered out from behind the column. "What the hell was that?"

"He displaced himself to somewhere else in time," the Doctor explained. "It's how they got here. Oh, are you alright?"

"I will be."

"What did it feel like?"

"Like someone took a sledgehammer to my head. On every side. Oh, wait, never mind about me! Doctor, Laszlo's—"

"Is it safe?" Martha called tentatively. The three of them were lumbering through the doorway and Rose motioned them ahead.

"Doctor," Martha shouted. "Doctor, help! He's sick."

Rose hurried over to them and took Martha's place supporting Laszlo. The poor half-pigman was pale and covered in a thin sheen of sweat, his breathing shallow and wheezy. Together she and Tallulah pulled him around the corner towards the Doctor. Then his legs couldn't keep him up for another step and they eased him to the ground. Tallulah kneeled and pulled his torso into his lap, brushing his hair from his brow. Martha knelt and pressed her fingers to his neck.

The Doctor approached them somberly, his hands stuffed in his pockets. He crouched down next to them, folding his hands together.

"It's his heart," she told the Doctor. "It's racing like mad. I've never seen anything like it."

He knows. Rose could see it in his eyes. The kind of bleakness she saw whenever he had to look someone in the eye when he knew he couldn't save them, just before he smiled and lied.

"What is it, Doctor?" whimpered Tallulah. "What's the matter with him? He says he can't breathe! What is it?"

"It's time, sweetheart," he breathed.

"What do you mean 'time'? What are you talking about?"

"None of the slaves…survived for long. Most of them only lived for a few weeks. I was lucky. I held on because I had you." He smiled at her, his oh-so-human eyes filled with love. Tallulah shook her head. "But now…I'm dyin' Tallulah."

Her face twisted and tears leaked out of her eyes. "No you're not! Not now, after all this. Doctor, can't you do something?"

The Doctor slowly lifted his mouth away from his fists with just a bit of hope and more than a little determination glinting his eyes. "Oh, Tallulah with three L's and an 'H'…Just you watch me." He jumped to his feet and shucked his coat. "What do I need? Oh, I don't know, how about a great, big, genetic laboratory? Oh, look. I've got one.

"Laszlo! Just you hold on!" He pulled a table with beakers and supplies towards them. "There's been way too many deaths today." His expression was manic, his eyes completely livid, and he danced from cart to cart, from table to table. "Way too many people have died." Picking up beakers, graduated cylinders, and tubes, sniffing the contents, giving them a stir with a glass rod. He poured the contents of one cylinder into a beaker and it hissed and smoked.

"Brand new creatures, and wise old men, and age-old enemies. And I'm telling you, I'm telling you right now, I am not having one more death! You got that?" He pulled the screwdriver out of his pocket and lit the flame beneath a beaker. "Not one!"

Tallulah and Laszlo were staring at him, mouths agape, astonished and just a bit frightened of his sudden mania. Martha, who was used to the Doctor going into a state about some things, looked a bit apprehensive. Rose watched him, hands in her pockets, concerned, but enough so that she would try to calm him, not now. Not when Laszlo's life depended on this energy and madness and the ideas the Doctor was willing to try when he was desperate.

"Tallulah, out of the way!" He pulled a stethoscope from his pocket and hooked it around his neck. "The Doctor is in!"

Tallulah lowered Laszlo to the floor and stood back to let the Doctor try and save his life.

The following morning saw the city of New York free of Daleks and pigmen. The people here had enough problems to deal with. The Depression was only just beginning and they still had a long way to go before it was officially over. At least now they could struggle to survive without having to worry about the night swallowing them up. Well, any more than you had to in one of the largest cities in the world. But without merciless xenophobic aliens and their mutant slaves haunting the under ground, things would definitely be a bit easier.

Hooverville would keep on as it was, a place to shelter when there was nowhere else. Their numbers would swell as more people lost their jobs and homes and fled to join the masses they had once helped, or maybe turned their noses up at. But eventually their numbers would begin to diminish as people regained their feet and the country and the rest of the world picked up the pieces, just in time for World War II to begin. The next decade and a half would not be pleasant.

With that thought in mind, Rose leaned in close and murmured to the Doctor. "You can see people's timelines, yeah?"

"In a way. Why?"

"Frank will be more than old enough to fight in the War. He's gonna go, isn't he?"

The Doctor, Rose, Martha, Tallulah, and Laszlo watched Frank walk away from them back into Hooverville to make the proposition. The time travelers stood apart from Tallulah and Laszlo, who was bundled up in a thick trench coat with his ears hidden under a hat.

The Doctor lifted his head, his eyes fixed firmly on the boy's retreating form, and inhaled slowly. "More than half of his potential futures lead him there, yes. It's too far off to tell at this point. So many things could change."

"What about mine?" Martha asked, overhearing.

"You're a time traveller. Your timeline is, well… it's complicated. There's thousands of possibilities, hundreds of thousands. I've got so many places I want to take you and there are different sets of possible timelines for each place I take you. Even the order I take you to each place matters to determine how the timelines play out because with each day comes new experiences, new ideals, and they shape the way you react to certain situations. And from each of those possible paths stems a thousand other possible futures depending on where we go next. The most probable futures stick out prominently, but you have dozens of those."

Martha blinked several times quickly. "Oh. Wow."

"But right now, right now's fairly simple. You've got two probable futures: in the first one we catch a cab back to Battery Park; in the second we walk. They overlap with Rose's and mine but both eventually lead to us back in the TARDIS. Beyond that's where things get complicated, but I promise that in neither of those two futures do you fall down dead, so your fine."

"And me?" Rose asked curiously.

He fixed her with an unfathomable look. "Rose Tyler, you have the single most complicated batch of timelines I have ever seen. Yours make Martha's look like a child's puzzle. Whereas people like Frank, Tallulah, and Laszlo really only have a few possible futures. They've all been altered based on what's happened in the last twenty-four hours, but when I look at them, I can easily tell you where they'll most likely be in a week."

Frank returned ten minutes later, hands in his pockets. His expression wasn't downcast so that had to be a good sign. "Well, I talked to them, and I told them what Solomon would've said. And I reckon I shamed one or two of them."

"What did they say?" the Doctor asked.

Frank nodded and smiled. "They said yes."

Tallulah gasped in relief and hugged Laszlo. Rose smiled and rubbed the Doctor's arm.

"They'll give you a home, Laszlo. I mean, uh…don't imagine people ain't gonna stare. I can't promise you'll be at peace. But, in the end, that is what Hooverville is for—people who ain't got nowhere else."

"Thank you," Laszlo told him. "I—I can't thank you enough."

Tallulah smiled and hugged him. He may have looked different, but he was still the man she fell in love with—her Laszlo, just with a different face. Rose knew how that was.

"So, uh, what about you?" Frank asked the time travellers. "You gonna come?"

"Nah," the Doctor said. "It's time for us to move on."

"Well, if you're ever in the neighborhood, you're welcome to come back. You'll always have a place here. I just, uh, I have something I'd like to ask. I know you've done a lot already, but I wanna know somethin' before you go."

"Oh?" the Doctor arched one eyebrow.

Frank licked his lips. "You've fought them before, the Daleks. You talk about time and aliens and things that are impossible—or were impossible until last night. Who are you?"

The Doctor smiled, almost regretfully. "We're just travellers passing through."

"We're all travellers just passing through," Frank argued. "That doesn't define who we are, though. Now, I ain't a doctor or a lawyer, and I don't claim to be a genius or anything, but I ain't an idiot. Even the Dalek said so."

His smile shifted to one of pride. "No, no you're not"

"Are you…are you from…outer space, too?"

"Yes," the Doctor said. Tallulah gawked.

Frank lifted his eyebrows but, really, didn't seem all that surprised. "They, uh, they got jobs goin' out there?" he inquired, scratching at his ear.

"Oh, I'm sure on some planets, yeah. But I can't take you there. Or, well, I could, but I won't. I'm not just your everyday random visitor to Earth, and trust me when I say your place is here. I'm not saying your life is going to be easy, but it'll be worth it. There's something in your future, something important. If I take you with me, it will never happen, and it has to happen."

Frank's eyes narrowed a bit. "How can you know that?"

"I'm a Lord of Time, Frank. I was looking at your timelines a few minutes ago, you know, just to see if I could offer you a trip, but if I do that then…well, it's best if you just stay on Earth. Besides," he gestured to Laszlo. "It's not going to be easy on him in Hooverville. He'll need someone on his side from the get go. And people like you, Frank, they'll come around eventually."

The Tennessean boy looked disappointed but he didn't protest, accepting his fate with a nod. He opened his arms for a hug, looking at Martha hopefully.

"C'mere you." She motioned him forward and pulled him into a firm hug. He hugged Rose next, shook the Doctor's hand, and then the three of them hugged Tallulah and Laszlo. Rose, Martha, and the Doctor turned to leave, but the Doctor spun around suddenly.

"Oh, by the way, Tallulah. I had a chat with the manager of your revue earlier."

She blinked. "You wha?"

"Well, I had to explain to him why there's a bloody great hole in his stage and why the police were carrying about two dozen bodies out. Rose said your show got interrupted when you saw Laszlo in the wings. I, may have mentioned somewhere along the line that you were a key part in the investigation that had saved all of New York City, and if he had any sense at all, he shouldn't fire you."

Tallulah, with two L's and an 'H', smiled gratefully at him. "Thank you. Thank you, so much, Doctor."

They caught another cab and took it back to Batter Park, chatting politely with the cabbie on the way. They rode the first ferry of the day to Liberty Island, watching the Statue of Liberty get closer and closer, feeling a little more melancholy than when they had arrived.

"Why couldn't we bring Frank?" Rose asked. "What did you see?"

The Doctor swallowed. "He had two potential timelines then. The first one stretched out for years, the other one…nothing. That timeline cut off just a few days after joining us. He would've died and he can't die yet. I saw it when you had me analyzing his timelines—I can't tell you if he'll live or die in the war, but before he goes he has to start a family. He'll have a wife and two little girls and I recognized one of his daughter's names. She will go on to become a great mind, and in thirty nine years, when mankind first walks on the moon, she will have played a key part in getting you there."

Martha's eyes widened. "You're kidding me."

"No," he smiled. "Just goes to show you that the most amazing people can come from the most humble backgrounds."

And she didn't miss the way his eyes flicked down to Rose when he said that.

When they docked on Liberty Island, they split off from the main group as soon as they could and walked around the statue base.

"Do you reckon it's gonna work, those two?" Martha asked as they walked back up the hill towards the TARDIS.

"I don't know." The Doctor turned to look at Manhattan and the bay once more. "Anywhere else in the universe, I might worry about them, but New York, that's what this city's good at. 'Give me your tired, your poor, you're huddled masses.' And maybe the odd pig-slave-Dalek-mutant-hybrid." He said that all with a straight face, completely serious, but Martha laughed.

"The pig and the showgirl."

"Sounds like a musical title." Rose chortled.

"Just proves it, I suppose. There's someone for everyone." She glanced at them out of the corner of her eye.

The Doctor's smile softened just a bit. "Yeah."

He headed for the TARDIS with Rose's hand clasped in his, and pulled his key out of his jacket pocket.

"Meant to say…sorry."

"What for?" Rose asked.

"Just 'cause that Dalek got away. I know what that means to you both."

"Hmm," the Doctor muttered, opening the lock.

"Do you think you'll ever see it again?"

He pushed open the door for them. "Oh, yes. Of course we will. The last Time Lord and the last Dalek? Ooh, we won't be able to stay away from each other." He followed his companions inside and shut the door without looking back.

Rose caught the look in his eye as he ran up the ramp, tossing his coat aside, and moved to take them into the Vortex. She stepped up behind him when the rotor started to move up and down, signaling their take off, and put her hand on his shoulder. He turned and looked at her with eyes so deep and sad, filled with grief his lost planet, people, and all those who died to end a species that just wouldn't stay dead, for the thousands who'd died as hybrids and mutants, for Solomon, for Laszlo and Tallulah and the life they might've had, and for a thousand other things she'd never been able to name and may not ever. And something else, too, something like dark fire and it made her body feel warm.

Martha noticed them and cleared her throat. "Right, well, I'm about to fall over, so I'm just gonna go to bed now. Night." She edged around the opposite side of the console and disappeared into the depths of the TARDIS. They probably hadn't even heard her.

Rose slid her hand up the Doctor's arm, and slid it behind his shoulders, pulling him down into a firm hug. He wrapped his arms tightly around her and buried his face in her neck. She stroked up and down his back soothingly and held him.

By the way, there was a Spiderman joke in the last chapter. Props to the two of you who caught it. X)

You should review. No, really, you should because when I deleted the prank and replaced it with this, all your reviews got deleted. ...I think. That's what used to happen. But I'm almost to 400 reviews by chapter 25. MAKE MY DREAM HAPPEN GUYS PLZ.