Author's Note: And this is, indeed, the last chapter, leading into new stories to come! This has been a pleasure to write and I'm totally overwhelmed by the response. Thank you guys so much for all the kindness you've shown me and I'm so glad that you've enjoyed the story. The poll will be open for a few more days so that you can voice your opinion on what's next! Again, thanks, everybody, and I hope that the story's been worth following. :)

September, 2008 (take two)

The new office was small, but it was large enough to suit her needs.

Really it was less an office than it was a desk, but Martha liked to think of it as her office. It made her feel all official, which made sense, because an official should have an office. But whatever it was, it was hers. Her new headquarters, here in the beginning of her new life.

Life away from the Doctor.

Away from Dean.

She pinched her arm, wincing, because she wasn't going to think of it that way. It wasn't her life without Dean. It was her life before Dean. After Dean, too, but that way lies wibbly-wobbliness and her head already ached a bit from moving her stuff in.

She'd asked the Doctor, before they parted ways, if it was okay that she kept a picture of Dean on her desk, given that in September, 2008, she hadn't met him yet. Not the Martha who lived 2008 the first time. Not that that Martha had lived 2008 sequentially, but...she'd been here, been now, before, or near enough, and she didn't want to cause some kind of mini-paradox.

"Yes," the Doctor had said, and there had been this strange expression on his face. "Yes, of course, Martha, you can keep the picture. After all you've been through it's the least you've earned. Just, if someone asks, tell them...tell them he's someone important. Don't give a name. Just someone important."

And the Doctor's face had gone dark and sad as he added, "One of the most important men in the world."

She hung the last calendar on the wall—a 2008 calendar, situated precariously above a thick stack of other calendars: 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012. She'd gotten them printed up specially, so they weren't decorated, just boxes and dates with months in good old reliable Times New Roman on the top of the page. But it wasn't important because she didn't need pictures of puppies or waterfalls. She just needed to be able to keep reminding herself of where she'd be in four years.

She let the calendar go, fingers brushing over the edges as she felt a strange reluctance to stop the contact entirely. Silly, sentimental, she admonished herself, but couldn't change how she felt. Those calendars were her countdown, and as much as she wanted to get started counting down, she didn't want to fathom how long it was until she'd hit the last calendar.

Her chair creaked as she sat heavily in it, spreading her fingers over the glass surface of her desk. She looked down and lifted her name plate, a smile tugging on the corners of her lips despite her wishes. Dr. Martha Jones, MD. She liked the way that looked. UNIT had expedited the end of her medical training, seeing as she had plenty of field experience from her travels with the Doctor.

(Mostly patching up one Time Lord and two Winchesters, but, details.)

So Dr. Martha Jones, MD, placed her name plate back on the desk, and picked up the picture she hadn't been sure wouldn't break time.

"Dean!"

Saxon grabbed Sam by the ankle and pulled hard, dragging him away just enough for him to lose contact with Castiel and stumble for just a moment before the angel disappeared with his brother. She stared in horror at Sam, because as soon as the Doctor told Castiel what he had to do, she'd understood.

Sam had survived one summer of 2008 without Dean. It killed her that he'd have to survive another.

"Everyone down!" the Doctor cried. "Time is reversing!"

The ship rocked and everybody fell to the ground, Martha facing the Doctor. And the Doctor locked eyes with her and he looked so sorry that it froze Martha's blood.

When the Doctor was sorry, people were dying. When the Doctor was sorry, things were anything but all right.

Martha understood why the Doctor had made Castiel take Dean away. She knew that it was an impossible thing to ask him to suffer through Hell twice, remembering the first time like it had happened—eighty years in the Pit. But it was so much better in that year. He'd recovered, he'd been better. He and Castiel weren't at each other's throats constantly. He'd learned how to trust and he'd remembered how to smile and he'd even believed in the Doctor, even if only for a moment.

And God she wished the Doctor hadn't made him go. She knew that now, no matter what happened, no matter how much alike or how different Dean's time line turned out compared to the one she'd lived, there would be this thing between them, separating them, this secret that she couldn't let him know...this year they'd both lived, but only she remembered.

After so long, Martha hated secrets.

Once the ship had stilled, Jack had grabbed Saxon and was asking what to do with him, but Martha went up to Sam. He met her eyes and said, "He's not going to remember, is he?"

"Nothing," Martha replied.

Sam's jaw worked for a second, but he set it and nodded once. "Good," he said. "No, good. He shouldn't have to...shouldn't have to know he had to do it twice."

Martha reached out to touch Sam's arm, but pulled back at the last moment, because no, this wasn't her Sam. This was some strange Sam, some alternate Sam. "It's not twice," she said softly, "because even though we remember it, that year never happened. It truly didn't, Sam. We're back in May 2008, and Dean...he just..."

She broke off.

"He just got there," Sam finished, monotone. Martha nodded. "Right." He ran his hands through his long, unkempt hair, and added dully, "I just have to wait for him again."

"You know he's coming back this time," Martha said softly.

"Yeah," Sam murmured. "But I had him back. And I let him get dragged to Hell again. That's a hard thing to forgive, Martha."

Martha hadn't spoken to anyone since May, except for one visit from the Doctor—a visit during which she'd asked about the picture, they'd sort of vaguely caught up, and then he'd left. She hadn't tried to call Sam, even though she knew he remembered. He didn't want to hear from her, and she couldn't blame him. It would do him no good to obsess more than he already was over things he couldn't control. And she'd only remind him of Dean.

And he'd remind her. The picture on her desk was a promise. Sam was knife-wound that she could either ignore or keep twisting the weapon into, at least until Dean was back.

This was how it had gone the first time, and Martha knew that. She knew that the Dean she'd fallen for was the Dean who'd been shattered in Hell, who picked himself up and put the pieces back together as best he could. She knew that the moment she realized how she felt, she'd been helping him fit one of those puzzle pieces back together. And none of her memories were changing, so she knew things were progressing the way they had last time.

This time.

Last time—

She rubbed the heels of her hands viciously into her eyes, trying to clear them of something that she wasn't going to admit were tears. She was exhausted. She was ready to stop moving and sit down and get some paperwork done, because she still had a ton of new-hire paperwork left to do, and if she didn't get to it she was going to lose the resolve.

She just wondered why they couldn't fix it. Castiel and the Doctor. The Doctor knew what happened to Dean, he knew, he'd been there, Dean had told her. And Castiel, of course Castiel knew. He'd been the one to dive into Hell and pull Dean out. So why couldn't they change it? It couldn't be that everything in Dean's and Sam's lives were fixed points. Time was in flux, the paradox machine was up, everything else was changing around them, why couldn't that, too?

Why couldn't they save him?

Lucy Saxon stood with the smoking gun in her hand, and the Doctor cradled the Master as he died, refusing to regenerate, refusing to keep the Doctor from being alone. Lucy shook, staring at the man who'd ruined her life, the man she'd just killed. And Martha sympathized, she did. Because Lucy...Lucy was basically a negative version of herself, Companion to a dark mirror of the Doctor, pulled along and manipulated and abused (it was obvious, her bruises weren't hidden, and even if they had been Martha knew the dullness in her eyes had come from something) and Lucy knew she was on the wrong side of history, so she'd tried to right it.

Martha understood that: being pulled to pieces by tides of history, by forces too big for you, by powers you hadn't imagined existed a year ago. Hers was benevolent; she couldn't imagine what it would be like, if the Doctor were otherwise. But as it was she didn't blame Lucy for pulling the trigger. The devastation in the Doctor's posture meant she wasn't glad for it; but she didn't blame her.

Sam was quiet, but there was a fire in his eyes that was alarmingly familiar. He watched the life leave the Master's eyes. And he...he looked glad.

Sam had been made victim by Harold Saxon. By the Master. He'd been forced to be complicit, or pretend he was, in the world-ending plans Saxon had made. Sam had been forced to be active, and it was an active hate, an active gladness, in his eyes. His eyes, which looked so sharp, so fierce in the strange light of a day they'd already lived.

Martha knew that look. The eyes of the Sam Winchester that Sammy Winchester always spent so much time and effort trying to hide, but who lived just beneath the surface.

The Sam Winchester who was so very, very much like the Doctor.

Martha put the picture down gently, fearing irrationally that if she wasn't careful with it, time would take it from her. The picture was taken in 2009; she was afraid that if she drew too much attention to it, if she handled it too roughly, 2008 might notice it and take it away. And she couldn't do that. That picture and a red ring around a date were all she had.

She'd said good-bye to the Doctor. She'd walked away from that fantastic life of traveling and adventure and seeing the stars, and she didn't regret it. UNIT was the right place for her. She'd seen enough; it was time to protect her own time, her own place, from the ravages of the cosmos. She'd gotten a good education out of it, and now she had a good job. A fulfilling job. An important job, although everything seemed a little less important, now. A nine-to-five. Paperwork. A bloody desk.

Dean never had a desk. He'd laugh to see her now.

At least, she hoped he'd laugh. Because the other option was him looking at her like she was a stranger. Again. The other option was light fading from his expression as he closed off to her because she wasn't in The Life anymore, and he didn't want to drag her back into it.

Because the Winchesters always protected everyone else first. And because Dean never understood that wanting to protect her didn't give him the right to make decisions for her.

"You won't remember, either," Sam said. Martha hugged her jacket tighter around her: the London air seemed biting, even though it was mid-May, but she hardly minded because being on solid ground once again just felt so amazing. The edge was dulled by the sickening resignation in Sam's voice.

"It'll be me and the Doctor from before any of this happened that you'll meet," she affirmed, and Sam nodded. "I'm so sorry, Sam."

"You did it," Sam replied. "I can do it."

"Doesn't mean you should have to," Martha said softly.

"That's never stopped my life from sucking before," said Sam, but he broke off when Martha grabbed his hand and held her other hand out towards the Doctor, making a 'gimme' motion.

"Pen," Martha ordered, and, startled, the Doctor obeyed. She took the pen, uncapped it with her teeth, and wrote a string of numbers on Sam's palm.

He watched her warily while she did it, not attempting to stop her. "What's, uh," he began, then gave her a moment to re-cap the pen and give it back to the Doctor. "What's this?"

"My phone number," Martha replied. "You call me, Sam Winchester. When it gets lonely. When it gets hard. I remember. This me remembers. You can't let anyone know you're doing it...you can't let me or the Doctor or Dean or anybody know you're doing it, but if it gets too hard, you call me."

"Martha—"

"I know you don't know me," she said, and she still hadn't let his hand go. "I know we're strangers. But I remember Harold Saxon. I remember work camps and Toclaphane and the end of the world we almost didn't avert. And other than the Doctor, Jack, and my family, I'm the only other person on the planet who does remember."

Sam's eyes flicked down to the numbers on his palm.

"So when you need me," she said, "call. Any time. Day or night. You can't ask me to tell you what happens, but I'll always be there to talk."

Sam nodded.

"And..." Martha began, then broke off, but Sam waited. "When...when he comes back. Will you call me? Will you let me know?"

There was an agonizingly long moment where Sam said nothing, but then he took a deep breath and nodded. "Of course," he said, in a way that meant the opposite of of course and meant only because I don't know how to tell you no.

But that was enough for Martha.

Her fingers were hovering over the picture again when the phone rang.

She jolted, almost falling out of her chair, and then scrambled for the phone on her desk before realizing that it was her personal cell phone that was ringing. She dug into the pockets of her jacket, hanging on the back of her chair, and fumbled the phone out of it.

The caller ID read Sam.

And the calendar said September, 2008.

Her heart was in her throat, but she flipped the phone open. "H-hello?" she murmured.

There was a long silence, and then a hitched intake of breath, before: "Martha."

"Sam, are you—are you all right?" Martha managed, though her words were strangled and it was a labor to get them out.

A pause, as though Sam had nodded and then remembered he was on the phone. "I'm—fine. I'm fine. But it's, uh. It's September."

Martha's pulse quickened, her heart thudding. "Is he—"

"He's back," Sam said quickly. "He's okay, Martha. He's back." Another pause. "Is he okay?"

"Sam," Martha admonished, although it killed her to do so. "I told you back in London—"

"That I can't ask you to tell me the future," Sam finished, his voice dull.

"How does he seem?" Martha asked.

"Off," Sam answered honestly. "Confused. Like everything's a little too bright. Castiel's not here yet...I thought he came back with Dean."

"Not the first time," Martha said, figuring that wasn't too much information. "He met Dean first thing last time because the Toclaphane would've found him, and Cas could tell he was in trouble. This time he doesn't have that to worry about."

"At least that's one thing we don't have to worry about," Sam muttered. "My brother's been in Hell for a year and the angel who pulled him out's a no-show, and I can't even tell him I know what it is that saved him, but at least the Spheres are gone."

Martha leaned back in her chair, passing a trembling hand over her face. "Hey, Martha?" Sam's voice came through the phone, sounding uncertain.

"Yeah?"

"Why did you want me to call, when he got back?" Sam asked, with the tone of somebody who knew he didn't want to hear the answer to the question he'd just posed. "I mean, didn't you know when he'd get back?"

Martha hesitated. "I just...I needed to know. To make sure. With the paradox machine, and time being so fragile, I just...I needed confirmation that—"

"Was there a chance it might've turned out differently?" Sam demanded, and Martha winced at the heat in his voice. When she didn't respond right away, he pressed. "Martha? Are you telling me that there was a chance Dean might not have come back?"

"I don't know, Sam," Martha snapped. "I'm not a Time Lord. I don't know what effects the paradox machine might have. The Doctor obviously thought he'd come back like he had before, but I just...I don't know. I'm as lost in this as you are."

Sam let out his breath in a hiss. "Look, I don't give a crap about the time line or paradoxes or any of that. What I care about is my brother. And if you let me sit here, useless, while there was a chance he wouldn't escape from Hell, then you can—"

A too-familiar voice interrupted Sam's threat, or whatever it was going to be. "Hey, Sammy!"

Martha's breath caught. "Oh, god," she whispered.

"Just a minute!" Sam hollered. His voice was quieter when he returned to the phone. "He's back, Martha. I called you. We're done."

"Fine," Martha bit out. "If you change your mind, I'll answer the call."

A faint click and silence were the only replies she received.

So Martha put her phone down on her desk, turned to her calendars, and reverently took them off one by one until she reached 2012. She turned to the middle of the year and ran her finger over the red circle she'd drawn over a date.

The latest date the Doctor had brought her to where she'd seen Dean and Sam.

The date until which she couldn't return to America, not where the Winchesters were.

The day on which she'd hop on a plane and go back to States, finally caught up with Dean's time line, finally able to experience time alongside him...linear, slow path, normal.

She steeled herself and hung 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008 on top of the red circle.

She'd promised him she could wait.

And she would.

Martha would wait.