Epilogue 1

Devon and Danziger took a break from building the colony to walk along the beach. It was a conversation they had each expected, and they both knew what was coming.

"You know, Devon, I never thought I'd say this, but I really feel like this is home, now," Danziger said. "I want to stay here and build a life with you more than anything else."

Devon smiled. "Sure you can put up with me?"

He laughed that mischievous, deep laugh of his. "Well, if I can meet the Daleks and live, then-"

Devon's jaw dropped in mock astonishment. "John Danziger, if you're comparing me to a Dalek, I'll drop you in that water right now!"

"You will, huh?" he asked. "Really?"

"Yes," she nodded. "Really. I mean it. And you can't – John, put me down!"

Danziger just laughed and ran to the surf with Devon in his arms. "John, don't you dare drop me. Okay, okay, just not the hair. Not the hair! John-"

He tossed her right into an incoming wave. It drenched him, too, but he just laughed. Devon came up sputtering, looking at him with determination and breathing hard. "You have just bought yourself an Adair raid!" she yelled.

"Oh, good," he laughed. "I thought it might be something dangerous." Then, to his astonishment, she launched herself at him and tackled him under the waves.

 

Further up the beach stood a police box. The Doctor rested beside it in a lawn chair. He still wore his fancy Edwardian clothes, but his feet were bare and his trousers were rolled up to his knees. Beneath his chin was a curve of reflective metal, designed to help him tan all of his face evenly. On a small table beside him was a chess board with a game in progress.

Alonzo and Julia strolled up to him. "Are you finding everything all right?" Alonzo asked. "Can I get you a fruit drink and a masseuse? Perhaps later tonight you'd like to tango at the sushi bar with the other members of our resort?"

The Doctor smiled. "Yes, that would be lovely," he said.

They heard laughter and turned to find Devon and Danziger approaching from the opposite direction, sopping wet.

"What happened to you two?" Julia grinned.

"He threw me in the ocean," Devon said.

"She threw me in the ocean," Danziger said a split second later.

"I did not!" She turned to Julia. "It was his fault."

"No it wasn't," Danziger said. "No it wasn't. It was all your fault." He turned to look up the hilldside, shielding his eyes to see who was up there. While he wasn't looking, Devon looked at Julia again and silently mouthed the words, "It was his fault," and pointed at Danziger. Julia just nodded.

"Hey, who is that up there?" Danziger said. "And what are they doing?"

"That's Zero and K9," the Doctor said. "They're flying a kite."

"Oh," Danziger said, puzzled. Then he shrugged and activated his gear. "Hey Zero, we need the housing on A Block finished by tomorrow evening." A few seconds later his eyes grew wide. "What? Well, yeah...okay." He signed off.

"What's wrong?" Alonzo asked.

Danziger turned to them in amazement. "Zero just told me, 'When I'm ready!'" He shook his head in disbelief. "Since when did he have an attitude?"

"Sounds like he's been talking to K9," the Doctor said. "Don't worry. It'll be to your benefit in the long run."

"Not that I'm not pleased to see you, Doctor, but I thought you'd left us," Devon said.

"Well," the Doctor scratched behind his ear awkwardly. "There was one trip I needed to make in the TARDIS to clear up a little matter of my own. Something that couldn't wait."

They chatted for a few minutes more. K9 and and Zero eventually joined them (confessing that they'd lost the kite).

"Well, we'd better get back," Danziger said as the sun neared the horizon. "I'm getting hungry."

A Terrian suddenly popped out of the ground next to the Doctor. It slowly reached down and moved one of the chess pieces. The Doctor watched the move intently. "Queen to king's bishop three?" he asked, then looked up at the Terrian helplessly. The Terrian trilled a happy trill at him and sank back into the earth. "Queen to king's bishop three?" he asked again.

"The Terrians will mate in four moves," K9 announced.

"Hush, K9, hush, I'm thinking," the Doctor said, gazing fixedly at the chess game. "Queen to king's bishop three," he muttered. "Now why didn't I see that?"

"Are you coming, Doctor?" Alonzo asked.

The Doctor gave a small wave for them to go on, hardly hearing a word. They all just smiled at each other and strolled back to New Pacifica. K9 remained beside the Doctor. They were both so intent on the chess game that neither of them noticed the streak of light cross the sky far overhead.

Epilogue 2

The Dalek recon shuttle blasted its way through the atmosphere of G889 and came to rest several kilometers from New Pacifica. The door opened. "Advance!" the Dalek squad leader ordered. "This is the world which the Dalek Emperor's ally identified as the one from which the humans came, before he betrayed us. We are to investigate its defenses and report back."

The Daleks filed out of the ship and the door closed behind them. They rolled into the surrounding forest.

Terrians blasted up from the earth, several surrounding each Dalek. Before any of them could fire their weapons or scream another word of hatred and subjugation, the Terrians grabbed the Daleks and pulled them into the ground.

Deep into the ground.

And there they stayed, unable to move, unable to fire their weapons. They shouted until their power gave out, but no one could hear them.

The Dalek recon ship remained hidden in the forest, nestled in the hills above New Pacifica, for the rest of time. No one ever discovered it, and the Daleks never came to G889 again.

Epilogue 3

Susan expertly kept the skipper on course through the storm. She hated having to rely on the quarry's beacon for guidance as such things malfunctioned all too often, but the Earth Reclamation project could only do so much at a time, and, Time Lord eyesight or no, she couldn't see through the pouring rain.

She landed the skipper next to a small convoy of trucks which had seen better days. Workers heading to and from their shifts, huddled in their long gray coats, glanced briefly at her, but their curiosity wasn't stronger than the wind and they moved on.

She popped the hatch and grabbed the satchel from behind the seat, then slid down to land ankle-deep in mud. She sighed and tried to shake it off for a few seconds before giving up. She closed and locked the skipper and began making her way to the nearest building.

"Excuse me," she said, stopping one of the workers. "I'm looking for Maynard Klempt."

He turned and pointed at another building further on and off to the side, then continued without a word. She changed course and plodded through the mud to the building in question and stepped inside. She took off her muddy boots and left them beside the door. If someone stole them, well...she would make another pair.

"Hello?" she called, walking down a narrow, dimly lit corridor lined with pipes. It opened into a squalid room with a single light hanging from the ceiling. A fan set into the far wall spun lazily, a white light beyond it. An old man sat at a table.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Are you Maynard Klempt?"

He looked at her intently. "I am," he said. "And who are you?"

She stepped forward and held out her hand. "I'm Susan Foreman Campbell. My husband is David Campbell, perhaps you've heard of him?"

He looked down at her hand, noting it was a lot cleaner than his own. But she didn't seem to mind. He shook it. "What can I do for you, Mrs. Foreman Campbell?" he asked.

"Just call me 'Susan,' please." She sat down and opened the satchel. "You had put in a request to the Earth Reclamation Committee for several of the newly modified heating units. I've brought them."

"Really?" he asked. "I've been needing those for two months!"

"I know, and I'm dreadfully sorry. We are working as hard as we can."

"Hmm," he grunted. "Well, I suppose that's true. Thanks for bringing 'em."

"Well, that's not all," she said. "I've also brought some food, and...and news of your daughter."

He looked up sharply. "Bess? What could you know of Bess?"

"There's more to me than meets the eye," Susan replied. "I know it may be hard to believe, Mr. Klempt, but I am telling you the truth." She pulled an envelope out of her satchel and slid it across the table.

His hands shaking, Maynard opened it to find two hand-written letters. One was clearly from Bess, written in her long, beautiful scrawl. The other, written in a much different handwriting, was from her husband, Morgan.

His lip trembled as he looked over the letters, reading them twice. There could be no mistaking the fact that the letter from his daughter was real. The one from Morgan was a letter of apology, saying he regretted the fact that he'd been so distant from his father-in-law.

He looked up at Susan. "This...this says they've been on their new world a couple of years," he said. "But she only left four years ago. She's still in cryosleep. What is this?"

"As I said, there's more to me than meets the eye," Susan said. "It's hard to explain. But I had a visitor of my own recently, someone I care about very much. And he asked me to pass this message on to you. Bess just wanted you to know that she makes it to G889 perfectly safe, and that her life there is good. She says it's a beautiful place, a place where everyone can start over. She didn't want you to worry."

A single tear rolled down his cheek. "Bess is safe!" he whispered, more to himself than to her.

"And happy," Susan said. "She says she loves you very much. Here, I've brought some cheese, some bread and wine. Will you eat with me?"

Outside the old gray hut the storm raged on, but lessened just after midnight. Any workers passing by on the road would have noticed that their boss was staying up late, as there was a light in his window. The light stayed on long into the night, into the time when the rain lessened to a gentle mist and the cool breeze danced with the trees, laughing with the rolling, thunderous clouds above.