Part 47 (2/2)

Benny let go of Jason's hand and wrapped her arms around her father. 'Do you forgive me?' he whispered.

'Yes,' she murmured back. 'Get on with your life.'

He held her tightly. 'Keep on grounding the lightning.'

When they let each other go, Isaac said, 'You'll visit soon?'

Jason raised his left hand. 'Via time ring,' he said. The band of exotic metal glittered on his ring finger.

Benny showed Isaac her matching wedding ring. 'We'll try to s.p.a.ce it out,' she said, 'so you don't see me getting old suddenly' or vice versa.'

'Very wise,' commented the Doctor.

Isaac shrugged off his jacket. 'I want you to have this,' he said.

Benny smiled, surprised and pleased, and put on the old s.p.a.cefleet jacket. It fit her reasonably well.

Her father reached into the pocket and extracted a handful of brightly coloured glittering patches. He pinned them to the jacket, over her heart.

While Benny was staring at the medals for conspicuous bravery, Jason seized Isaac's hand and shook it mightily. 'By the time we see you again,' he said, 'I might be a father as well. Get to use that crib, eh, Doctor?'

'Best of luck,' said Isaac. 'The very best of luck.'

'Five!' shouted Joel's radio. 'Four! Three! Two! One!

Happy New Year!'

Chris whispered something to Roz, who laughed and slapped him on the arm. Chris gave the Admiral a thumbs-up and they went into the TARDIS together.

'What was that about?' the Doctor asked Benny softly, as Jason and Isaac swapped quips about fatherhood.

'Oh' an old Earth tradition regarding New Year's Eve,'

she smiled. 'I think they're past the snog phase now, though.

I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friends.h.i.+p.'

She touched his arm. 'Thanks again. For everything.'

Jason took Benny's hand, smiling. As their time rings met, a soft field of sparkles erupted around them.

The Doctor looked at his feet, looked up at Benny, hesitated, folded his arms, unfolded them and put his hands in his pockets, looked up at the sky, took his hands back out of his pockets, stepped through the speckles of light and leant up and kissed Benny on the cheek.

She looked at him in astonishment, breaking into a beautiful smile. And vanished.

The Doctor, shy and puzzled and pleased, shook Isaac's hand one more time and bustled into his TARDIS. The Kapteynian buzzed about, squealing with jealousy, and shot inside. The door closed.

The Admiral watched the blue box disappear, its engines groaning as though they were held together with bits of string and chewing gum. From his window, Joel was watching too.

Isaac smiled to himself. Good lad.

He was about to go back into the warmth when he heard a shout from across the road. Old Tom, a bottle tucked under his arm' meandered over. 'Happy New Year!' he said. He smelt of soap powder and humanity. 'You ought to go inside before you catch your death. Sorry I'm late, I had to finish my stocktake. Haven't missed anything, have I?'

'Not at all,' said Isaac. 'Please, come inside.'

'I wanted to ask you if you'd seen anyone mucking around near the church,' said Tom, as they went into the coffee shop. 'One of the gravestones seems to have moved right across the graveyard. I can't fathom it.'

Isaac nodded. 'Stranger things have happened,' he said.

Epilogue.

I never did finish telling that story about the hermit, did I? The tale leaves an obvious question unanswered. What happens to the man when he's given away every last piece of his name?

The thing is, the only way he could give away a bit of his name was to take it out of that little inside pocket. So as he shared himself with more and more people, he got to see more and more of his own name.

Bit by bit, over the years, he learnt all the things about himself he'd kept locked away, realized what the name he'd been given so long ago really meant.

The more he gave away, the more he had.

Now tell me: what would you do if your name wasn't real? Say, if the man you got it from turned out to be a con artist (or at least, you thought thought he was)? And the fancy t.i.tles you'd fixed on the front were fakes? he was)? And the fancy t.i.tles you'd fixed on the front were fakes?

It's a long road from pretend to real. But if you walk the same path as that hermit took, you can put yourself back together, you can make those names ring true. Putting your husband's name in front of your father's. And finally earning the right to put 'Doctor' in front of your own.

Doctor. Bernice. Kane. Summerfield.

Their names fit really well together, don't you think?

Acknowledgements

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