A couple mistakes later... [THE END]

"So, I'm giving you one more shot on this, but afterwords, I'm driving, kay?" I cautioned Joan. The past four weeks worth of incredibly interesting and insightful adventures had been quite enjoyable, but it seemed like nobody could leave the machine for a snack without becoming embroiled in the hideous machinations of some alien who merely wanted to destroy the Earth, and England in Particular, with occasional changes of target to some little obscure city in Wales, for some reason.

"Sorry, remember, kinda depending on blind luck... Come on Big Dick..." She cheered, before slamming a switch down, and a sound like a broken piano string being repeatedly scraped began to echo through the room for the fourth time. "Ugh... Joan's memories are... damn... talk about ****. Sorry, just... lotta trauma here, and wow... you sure you want to get involved further here? Lotta threads to unravel."

"Was that a crack at me?" I laughed. "Or a couple, not sure there. Whatever we have to deal with, I'm sure it will come out when you're ready. No pressure. You don't have to get better instantly because you met me and had a couple fun weeks. I'm well aware it doesn't work like that."

"What the... ok, there's a wardrobe back there, Brent..." Kaila groaned. She had changed clothes at some point during the travel, gratefully shucking the expansive and overly ostentatious dress for a pair of jeans and a Union Jack t-shirt. "Just get the clippers out and put on the leather jacket NOW. I mean, you know... unless you'd like us to shoot you, and have you regenerate into David Tennant? You know I think I like that idea better. "

"Hey, you know that's not a bad idea, but ah lahk what we're workin' with. Ah'm sure ah can persuade 'im to stick around for moah than one season." Charlotte joked, She too had changed, since the Ballgown hadn't been at all helpful in the rocking and rollicking vehicle, which we had discovered on the first night.

"They have a sponsorship deal with Aero Leathers or somethin'?" I mumbled, looking around at the various outfits that women had selected from somewhere in the voluminous confines of the tiny police box. The concept of "Bigger on the Inside" was surprisingly easy to grasp for me after the Joan... no wait... Eris... argh... the concepts were running together in my brain and making things hard to concentrate. The two realities weren't incompatible, just had to work at it... had to make it gel...

"Pretty much. If you could find it in the Ellstree studios wardrobe department, it's back there. Even laundered and everything. Think I can scavenge up a Knights who Say Ni Helmet if you want a souvenir."

"Fantastic!" I grinned.

Helen laughed, self-consciously pulling on the heavily patch decorated jacket she had appropriated. "I mean, if you ever bothered to change style. You never do, you notice that? Somebody might think something."

"Wait a moment, I've seen that..."

"Hush, don't want to ruin the magic, now do we?" Helen grinned.

"All right, but the second one of you starts callin' yourself River, I'm droppin' you off and lettin' you find your own ride." I cautioned her.

"Don't panic, The only person who would do that is probably still posting bad selfies in a burning studio and wolfing down craft service." Carla smiled, taking a look at the small monitor Joan was trying to coax into some kind of sense. I guess.

I still didn't quite get it. The machine hadn't wanted to work for me, no matter how many times I'd tried. It seemed that there was some fundamental understanding that I just couldn't grasp. Helen and Joan had both sat me down with the sketch pad, and both had done doodles in explanation that resembled an M.C. Esher painting. I sort of got it... kinda. Maybe. It still rattled around my head, and caused headaches whenever I concentrated on it too hard. The idea that there was something that I couldn't understand, no matter how hard I tried, was maddening. Over the course of the weeks, every woman had been able to make it work, and not a single one had managed to get us back to where we started. Then Helen had gently reminded me that I was mortal, and I stopped worrying about it. Surprisingly good at curing headaches, I found.

"AAAAND... There..." Joan hit another switch, and the scraping, whirring noise came to a final halt. "Ok, so... if I'm right, RIGHT out that door is a little park in California. About... eh... maybe... uhm... eight hours after we left. Give or take. I THINK. Damn it. You know... that world changed while we were gone."

"It can't have changed that much in eight hours," I shrugged. "We all get back to our lives, leave this thing where somebody who wants it will find it... I'm thinkin' San Francisco maybe? Hell, we can even leave the keys in it if that's what you want... "

"You really don't want to spend the rest of our lives adventuring around? Well, I mean the next... uhm, six months or so... then it'll be too dangerous..." Nikki suggested.

"You got us lost on purpose, didn't you?" I looked at Joan sharply. "You just wanted to play around and have more fun on vacation!"

"Well, just until everybody could drive. There are certain conditions to being able to successfully operate a TARDIS. Number one is you have to have two heartbeats." Joan smiled happily, and placed her hand on her stomach.

THE END

Credit Music

Or

Credit Music (If you prefer to think of this all as Ninth Doctor Fanfic. Because that's what the critics are going to say anyway... so might as well let them have an easy target.)

Post Credit Teaser-

A shot of Brent Looking around a deserted city in California.

"What the heck just happened? It's only Been Eight Hours!" He mumbles as a concerned Kaila picks up a Newspaper. It clearly read's "Pandemic Lockdown" on the front page in big Bright scare print.

"That's ridiculous, that kind of thing doesn't just happen..." Helen comments, looking into the middle distance nervously.

"You sure you don't want to just get back in the machine?" Joan comments from the door of the TARDIS. "I can keep it running, you know."

The shot abruptly shifts to a nervous Nikki flipping through a hotel registry book.

"They all checked out. My whole family... sent home... checked out... nobody's here..."

"Yeah, absolutely. With what I've been through... clearly the work of aliens..." Brent nods, running his hand across his recently buzz cut hair.

A shot of Brent sitting dejectedly in a small apartment, while the rest of the party looks on with concern.

"I could have seen the Fall of Troy! World War Five! I could have pushed boxes at the Boston Tea Party! Now I'm gonna die in a quarantined apartment ... [disgustedly] in Carmel!"

[Author's Note: Yes, this is the last Discordian ending. (Ending FOUR of Five) I know folks would like more with Nikki and Joan, and SO DO I! However, this entire ending has just gotten to the point where I have to write more episodes if I want to explore from here. It was a LOT of fun, and thanks for sticking with it folks. I'm going to write a couple completely gratuitous sex scenes based off a few of these endings to say thank you to all my readers for sticking with it. For no reason other than I can, and I think that will be fun. And you deserve it after all the support. And it's very appropriate to have gratuitous sex scenes for no reason whatsoever.

Could I see this going further in this direction? Absolutely. But continuing on this path will turn it into PURE ninth Doctor fanfic, and I'd be already doing an AU, since there was NEVER a point at which Rose, Ace, Sarah Jane, Peri, Mel and Donna were all on the TARDIS at the same time... (Yes, I know those are characters other fans hate... my fantasies, dammit!)

Folks want the assertive and aggressive Brent, so that's what you're going to get next. Porn movie Is the last one. However, I'm also going to be working on NND at the same time, People want to know more about Nikki as a person, not goddesses? Don't worry, they'll be coming up in the assertive/aggressive Maledom ending. However, I will be slowing down a little. This honestly isn't something I LIKE writing most of the time, so I kinda have to be in the mood for it.

So, in the next couple weeks We'll be having pure smut, all day every day on ASH.

Thanks again for all the support folks, THis story isn't going away, and the updates AREN'T ending. Just keep in mind that as far as I'm concerned, the main "Meat" of the story is done. Everything else is going to be add ons to this framework, polishing, adding bits, other paths, revealing more motivations about characters, Etc.]