-Epilogue-

Matilda Smith-Jones

Eight Months Later…

At 10:38 in the morning on Saturday, the 16th of August 2014, planet Earth was introduced to Matilda, and so were Mickey and Martha. The labour had lasted for around ten hours and, to their great relief, had gone off without any complications. It was now the morning of the 17th, and Mickey had gone home only briefly the previous night – after Martha had awoken from a very long and well-deserved sleep – so that he could fetch a change of clothes for both of them and have a quick shower. Aside from that, he'd been right there for the duration, hadn't missed a single moment of his daughter's first day in the world. She was fast asleep, the tiniest thing he had ever seen, warm in his arms in a private room on the postnatal ward. Martha, too, was asleep again for the time being.

He was glad to have some quiet. Not from Martha or the baby, but Francine had become quite a headache. As soon as she heard the news she had driven down to the rural, Devonshire coast and it had taken all of Martha's powers of persuasion to get her to leave yesterday, after a good few hours on the ward with them where she'd taken to dishing out advice about the best way to take care of a newborn. She meant well, of course she did, and Mickey understood why she would be overbearing – he couldn't imagine ever willingly being apart from the child in his arms – but he did also appreciate getting a break from his mother-in-law. Nobody else had been in to visit yet, not even Jack or Rose. They'd been calling and texting incessantly, desperate to meet the baby, but he'd managed to fight them off for the moment. They could wait another day.

"Hey…" Martha mumbled from the bed. Mickey looked up.

"Morning," he said, smiling.

"How is she?"

"She's fine, she's sleeping," he said. "Are you sure she's mine? She looks so much like you, it's hard to tell."

"Shut up," she told him off. He laughed a little.

"She really does, though."

"I don't know how you can tell. I've never been able to tell much who babies look like. Has the midwife been in?"

"An hour ago, she said we should be able to check out once you've woken up and you're ready."

"What about my mother?"

"Won't stop ringing, just like everybody else. Every time I check my missed calls, I get about half a dozen more," he sighed, "Just let me put an announcement on Facebook so they get off my back."

"No, I'm not gonna be one of those mums who chronicles the entire life of their child on the internet," she insisted for the umpteenth time – they'd had this discussion frequently while she was pregnant. "She'll hate me for it when she's old enough to know what social media is."

"You won't even let me post that picture I took yesterday? Or I could take another one now, when she's not covered in blood. Your mum's put a picture up and a big paragraph, but we haven't."

"Everyone close to us already knows, and everybody who isn't close to us is will have seen whatever mum put," she said. Matilda wriggled and made a coughing noise, then began to cry. "See? She's fighting back, she agrees with me."

"Oh, no…" Mickey cooed, "What's all this? What's the matter?" He bounced her a little.

"She's probably just hungry," said Martha, sitting up and holding out her arms. Mickey carefully passed Matilda over so Martha could breastfeed. "There you go…" She stopped crying shortly. Arms free, Mickey checked his phone and found he'd only received another dozen calls from all sorts of people. Rose had rung the most while Francine was a close second, but again, he didn't call them back. The signal was pretty poor inside the hospital anyway.

"Let me take another picture."

"No," said Martha, but he was already doing it. She glared at him as he took it. "I hate you." He smiled. "Don't put that on Facebook."

"I won't. I'm gonna print these out, make a photo album," he decided, "At least then we don't have to worry about them being wiped or something."

"Or judged."

"Judged? Who's judging your baby photos?" Martha didn't answer. "Is this about Tish and her filters?"

"It's just – she spends more time taking pictures of Gabby than…" Martha stopped talking when Matilda squirmed a little. "I told you. She's on my side."

"Okay, I believe you," he relented. "I've got you some clean clothes, by the way."

"I know, you told me last night. Is there anything to eat, though? I'm starving. I'd actually kill someone for a McDonald's."

"I've heard that a bad diet can make breastmilk turn bad."

"Well, that's not true. Maybe if I was binge-drinking, but a Big Mac? Won't change a thing. Aside from making me less hungry. And a McFlurry, that'd be great… where's the nearest one? We could go on the way home, and I'll put it on Facebook and everything."

"What?"

"It would be funny." He didn't say anything. "Come on, you know it would be."

"…We can go to McDonald's if you let me make a proper, sappy, over-the-top baby announcement. Those are my terms."

"Mm…" she thought about this, "Fine. But you're not allowed to put up anything with a black-and-white filter. And I want a McFlurry."

"You can have ten McFlurries."

"I reckon I could eat ten McFlurries."

"How do you feel today, then?" he asked, leaning forward in his chair at the bedside, "Apart from being hungry."

"Sore, mainly. Glad I've got you, though."

"I'm not going anywhere," he assured her. Martha was on paid maternity leave from the hospital – the very hospital they were in, in fact, where she worked in the ER – while living rent-free, courtesy of Adam Mitchell's newfound sense of charity, meant there was no question about Mickey's plan to be a stay-at-home dad. "To think, only a few months ago you insisted on calling her 'the embryo.'"

"Don't start with that. Unplanned pregnancies are big things to adjust to."

"It's funny."

"What is?"

"That you say it's such a big thing, and now she's here she's so small. Just a tiny person."

"Yes, that is what babies are," she told him sarcastically. "How's my mum?"

"You already asked that."

"Sorry, my head's all over the place."

"She's at the house, I gave her your keys. I think she's been cleaning."

"It wasn't dirty."

"You know how she is. You're gonna have a hard time getting her to leave, though."

She smiled a little, "She can stay. It'll be good to have her around. Probably."

There was a knock at the door and the midwife came in, an older woman called Grace whom Martha knew quite well both in and outside of work.

"I heard talking and thought I'd check how you're doing before you buzzed," she said.

"We're doing great, aren't we, Matilda?" Martha said, looking down at the baby, still feeding quite happily. "Are you here to turf us out?"

"Yes. We're sick of you." Martha laughed. "I'll just run some last checks and then you'll be alright to leave. You'll need to make an appointment with a GP to have her looked over again tomorrow, though. Or you could bring her back in here, I'll be happy to do it." Martha knew what checks they had to do and was capable of doing them herself, but she didn't want to get in the way of due process. Not to mention she wasn't exactly objective when it came to the wellbeing of her daughter.

"Really? You wouldn't mind?"

"Just call ahead, ring the ward," Grace assured her, "I'll come back in a few minutes when she's done."

"Erm… I think she's just finished, actually." Matilda was making noises again, so she must have let go. Grace swept across the room to take Matilda and do whatever it was that needed to be done before they left. Mickey wasn't sure but assumed it was just the usual things: taking her temperature, checking her breathing, and so on. "I'm going to go to the toilet, then. You'll be alright, won't you?"

"Course," said Mickey, helping Martha get out of bed. She was very shaky on her feet, and using the toilet was quite a challenge. "Shout me if you need anything."

"I will, I will," she assured him as she ambled across to get to the small bathroom, which contained only a toilet and a sink. She left the door slightly ajar.

"Are you excited to go home?" Grace asked Mickey.

"My mother-in-law is staying."

"So no?" He laughed.

"I wouldn't want to say."

"Very diplomatic. Everything seems fine for the moment, but as I said, she'll need another once-over tomorrow," Grace explained, holding Matilda out towards Mickey so he could take her. "I'll let you get ready to leave. Just buzz if you need anything." She left the room, closing the door behind her.

"Did you hear that? You're healthy as a horse," he rocked her back and forth gently. She made another noise and he fell in love all over again. The minutes melted by with the baby in his arms, and he didn't notice how much time had passed when Martha came back, now dressed in the clothes he'd brought; the most loose-fitting garments he could find in her whole wardrobe. He checked the clock on the wall and saw it had been a whole twenty minutes and he hadn't felt them at all.

"You're a natural," she told him fondly.

"She's my whole world."

"No room left for me?"

"Who are you, again?"

"Ha, ha."

"I love you. Both of you."

"I love you, too. And if she's anything like me, she does as well. But I'm dying to get out of this room and have a long bath."

"And get something to eat."

"That first," she nodded.

"You're ready to leave?"

"More or less. We'll be back tomorrow, anyway."

"Well then, Mattie," he spoke to the baby, "Looks like it's time to go out and meet the world. Let's bounce."

"Just so you know," Martha added, "There's not a chance in hell you're calling her 'Mattie.'"

He smirked, "We'll see."

AN: I have rewritten chapter 1158 ("Another Girl Another Planet XXIV"), which is the chapter where Ravenwood finally proposes to Jenny, because someone once told me it sounded too insincere and more like something Oswin would say. So now it is more sincere. Also on the cards for rewrites, if anybody is interested, are some of the "Regenderation" chapters because I think the subplot about aliens in the library is very messy and poorly done, and the chapters where Missy harasses Clarenny with the Danny Pink hologram because, while I still don't like Danny, I feel like I did him dirty.