"Here we are. It should be empty," Joan said as they approached a whitewashed cottage. "Oh, it's been a long time since I've run that far," she admitted through her heavy breaths.

"But who lives here?" Martha questioned.

"If I'm right, no one." The ladies entered the home, John trailed after. "Hello?" Silence. "No one home. We should be safe here."

"Whose house is it, though?" Martha pressed for more information. John looked about the empty cottage in horror.

"The Cartwrights'. That little girl at the school, she's Lucy Cartwright, or she's taken Lucy Cartwright's form. If she came home this afternoon, and if the parents tried to stop their little girl, then… they were vanished." Joan reached into the tea kettle. "Stone cold. How easily I accept these ideas."

John sat, his body lowering with his mood. His heart ached for the people who lost their lives so far. "I must go to them before anyone else dies."

"You can't. Martha, there must be something that we can do."

"Not without the watch," she answered, detached. Her will was gone with the Doctor's consciousness.

"You're this Doctor's companion, can't you help? What exactly do you do for him? Why does he need you?" John shouted in anguish.

"Because he's lonely," Martha answered, realizing it herself.

"And that's what you want me to become?" There was a knock at the door. All three looked at the door.

"What if it's them?" Joan brought them back to the situation at hand.

"I'm not an expert, but I don't think scarecrows knock." Martha turned and slowly walked to the door. When she opened it, Tim was standing there.

"I brought you this," Tim said, holding the watch out to Martha. Once inside, Martha begged John to hold the watch, but he refused. "It told me to find you. It wants to be held," Tim explained.

"You've had this watch all this time? Why didn't you return it?" Joan inquired.

"Because it was waiting. Then because I was so scared… of… the Doctor."

"Why?" Joan asked softly.

"Because… I've seen him. He's… like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night and the storm and the heart of the sun."

"Stop it." John pleaded.

"He's ancient and forever. He burns at the centre of time, and he can see the turn of the universe."

"Stop it! I said stop it."

"And… he's wonderful." Those words made Martha smile.

"I've still got this, the journal." Joan pulled out the little leatherbound book.

"Those are just stories." John dismissed.

"Now we know that's not true. Perhaps there's something in here…" The matron was cut off by the sound of an explosion.

"What the hell?" The group peered out the window to witness balls of fire coming down from the sky and impacting the land and the village nearby.

"This will flush him out, this will do it! Super, super fun!" Not-Baines cheered from their green-glowing ship.

Angel missed the first missile, but the TARDIS understood and integrated the ship's controls with her thoughts as soon as they formed. They levitated up above the buildings, giving Angel a good view of the sky. The next hit came straight for the school. She made sure the shields were in place and flew the TARDIS into the path, hopefully shoving the missile off course. They barely budged the trajectory of the burning mass, but thankfully it landed in the woods.

More missiles continued to rain down on the village. Angel wondered if the TARDIS could help her amplify the shield's range, but there was no time. She was able to nudge a few more away from the village, but there were too many for her. She was still so unfamiliar with the controls. Again and again, the burning balls of death rained down. Angel and the TARDIS did their best in the moment to defend the people of Earth.

"They're destroying the village," Joan's heart broke as she witnessed from the window.

"The watch!" John pleaded.

"John, don't," Joan warned.

Closer.

"Can you hear it?" Tim asked.

"Like he's asleep. Waiting to waken." John confirmed.

"Why did he speak to me?"

"Oh, low level telepathic field, you were born with it. Just an extra synaptic engram, causing…" John stopped when he realized the words coming from him were not his own. "Is that how he talks?"

"That's him! All you have to do is open it, and he's back," Martha said softly. The cottage shook with another nearby explosion.

"You knew this all along and yet you watched while Miss Redfern and I…"

"I didn't know how to stop you. He gave me a list of things to watch out for, but that wasn't included."

"Falling in love? That didn't even occur to him?"

"No."

"Then what sort of man is that? And now you expect me to die."

"It was always going to end, though. The Doctor said the Family has got a limited life span, that's why they need to consume a Time Lord. Otherwise, three months and they die. Like mayflies, he said."

"So your job was to execute me?" John accused with a look of betrayal.

"People are dying out there. They need him, and I need him. 'Cause you've got no idea what he's like. I've only just met him, it wasn't even that long ago, but… He is everything. He's just everything to me, and he doesn't even look at me, but I don't care. 'Cause I love him to bits. And I hope to God he won't remember me saying this."

Another ball of fire came down. "It's getting closer," Tim warned.

"I should have thought of it before. I can give them this! Just the watch. Then they can leave and I stay as I am."

"You can't do that!"

"If they want the Doctor, they can have him."

"He'll never let you do it."

"And if they get what they want, then… then…"

"Then it all ends in destruction. I never read to the end. Those creatures will live forever, to breed and conquer. A war across the stars, for every child. Martha, Timothy, would you leave us alone, please?" Joan wanted to persuade John gently. He let out a few sobs.

Martha and Tim went to sit outside. Again and again balls of fire shot down, and the ground rumbled under their feet. Martha held Tim close.

Inside, Joan approached John. "If I could do this instead of you, then I would. I'd hoped…But my hopes aren't important."

"He won't love you." John argued.

"If he's not you, then I don't want him to. I had one husband and he died and I… I never thought, ever again… And then you. You're so…"

"And it was real, I wasn't… I really thought…"

"Let me see. Blasted thing." She turned the watch over in her hand. "Blasted, blasted thing. I can't even hear it, it says nothing to me."

John held Joan's hand and they shared a vision of what could be. The day they could marry. The day their child could be born. Their possible life with lots of children laughing and playing. The day it would eventually end and he would die, his last wish for the children's safety confirmed.

"Did you see?"

"The Time Lord has such adventures. But he could never have a life like that."

"And yet I could." A blast came down so close, they could feel its heat.

"What are you going to do?" John silently asked for her opinion with his eyes. Her gaze turned hard and serious. They knew what he had to do.

"We'll blast them into dust, then dust into glass, then shatter them all over again!"

John entered the green-glowing ship. "Just…" a rumble toppled him over and he pressed several buttons along the ship's wall. "Just stop the bombardment. That's all I'm asking. I'll do anything you want, just stop."

"Say please." Not-Baines gave his condition.

"Please." The ship made a sound indicating it's controls were deactivating.

"Wait a minute," Not-Jenny said, then sniffed. "Still human."

"Look, I can't pretend to understand, not for a second, but I want you to know, I'm innocent in all this. He made me John Smith. It's not like I had any control over it." Then he tripped, hands brushing more buttons down another set of buttons.

"He didn't just make himself human, he made himself an idiot." Not-Jenny commented to her family.

"Same thing, isn't it?" Not-Baines responded to the mother.

"I don't care about this Doctor and your family, I just want you to go! So I've made my choice. You can have him." He held out the watch. "Just take it, please, take him away!"

"At last!" Not-Baines grabbed the watch. "Don't think that's saved your life!" He grabbed John and shoved him at another wall, causing more buttons to press. "Family of mine, now we shall have the lives of a Time Lord." He opened the watch and they all sniffed in, long and deep. "It's empty!"

"Where's it gone?" John questioned, his face scrunched in confusion.

"You tell me!" Not-Baines threw the watch at John, who easily caught it.

"Oh, I think the explanation might be you've been fooled by a simple olfactory misdirection. A little bit like ventriloquism of the nose. It's an elementary trick in certain parts of the galaxy. But it has got to be said," the Doctor slipped on his spectacles. "I don't like the look of the hydrokinometer. It seems to be indicating you've got energy feedback all the way through the retrostabilisers, feeding back into the primary heat converters. Oh! 'Cause if there's one thing you shouldn't have done, you shouldn't have let me press all those buttons. But, in fairness, I will give you one word of advice. Run."

A red light started blinking and an alarm sounded. The Doctor ran out of the ship a few seconds before the family fully comprehended. "Get out! Get out!" The family evacuated the ship. The invisible ship blew up. The family looked at each other as they laid in the grass. The Doctor stood looking down at them.

He never raised his voice, that was the worst thing. The fury of the Time Lord. And then we discovered why, why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons, why he'd run away from us and hidden. He was being kind. He wrapped my father in unbreakable chains forged in the heart of a dwarf star. He tricked my mother into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy, to be imprisoned there forever. He still visits my sister, once a year, every year. I wonder if one day he might forgive her, but there she is, can you see? He trapped her inside a mirror. Every mirror. If ever you look at your reflection and see something move behind you, just for a second, that's her. That's always her. As for me, I was suspended in time, and the Doctor put me to work standing over the fields of England as their protector. We wanted to live forever. So the Doctor made sure that we did.

Joan waited in the cottage for word from the Doctor. When he finally entered, she was staring out a window. "Is it done?"

"It's done."

"The police and the army are at school. Parents have come to take the boys home. I should go. They'll have so many questions. I'm not sure what to say." She turned around and look at him, but quickly looked away. "Oh, you look the same. Goodness, you must forgive my rudeness. I… I find it difficult to look at you, Doctor, must call you Doctor. Where is he? John Smith."

"He's in here, somewhere."

"Like a story. Could you change back?"

"Yes."

"Will you?"

"No."

Her face fell. "I see. Well, then. He was braver than you, in the end. That ordinary man. You chose to change, he chose to die."

"Come with me."

"Sorry?"

"Travel with me."

"As what?"

"My companion."

"But that's not fair. What must I look like to you, Doctor? I must seem so very small."

"No. We could start again. I'd like that. You and me, we could try at least. 'Cause everything that John Smith is and was, I'm capable of that, too."

"I can't"

"Please come with me."

"I can't"

"Why not?"

"John Smith is dead, and you look like him."

"But he's here. Inside. If you look in my eyes."

"Answer me this, just one question , that's all. If the Doctor had never visited us, never chosen this place on a whim, would anyone here have died?" Guilt spread across the Doctor's face. "You can go," the matron whispered.

The Doctor walked back up to the hill where he had parked the TARDIS. The rain soaked him through. Martha stood in the rain outside the doors, greeting him upon his return.

"Right, then, molto bene."

"How was she?"

"Time we moved on."

"If you want, I could go and…"

"Time we moved on," he repeated.

"Erm, meant to say, back there last night, I would've said anything to get you to change."

"Oh, yeah, course you would."

"I wasn't really…"

"No, no, no."

"Good."

"Fine."

"So there we are, then."

"There we are, then, yes. And I never said. Thanks for looking after me." He threw his arms up and came in for a hug.

"Tim Timothy Tim!"

"I just wanted to say goodbye, and thank you. Because I've seen the future, and I now know what must be done. It's coming, isn't it? The biggest war ever."

"You don't have to fight."

"I think we do."

"But you could get hurt."

"Well, so could you, travelling around with him, but it's not going to stop you."

"Tim, I'd be honored if you'd take this." He handed him the fob watch that once held his consciousness.

"I can't hear anything."

"No, it's just a watch now. But keep it with you for good luck."

"Look after yourself." Martha went in for a hug, then kissed his cheek.

"You'll like this bit." The blue box vanished right before his eyes… and then reappeared.

Angel shoved the doors open and pulled Tim into a deep squeeze. "It was so nice to meet you Tim! I'll come back and visit sometime. You take care of yourself, and make sure to have a little adventure every now and then." She gave him a peck on the cheek and rushed back into the TARDIS.