The Fall of Arcadia (Book ONE)

Chapter 35

The 11th Doctor:

"I don't care what she said! She is my sister and I am coming with you!" Amy tried to shout at me as I pulled on my boots, making for the TARDIS door. "Doctor!"

"Amelia, she sounded scared, and lonely! There is only one thing that would make her that afraid other than water. I think, I think your sister has regenerated." It scared my myself to think about the fact that the one constant in my life could now be someone else. "Stay here, or I will take you both home."

"She is my sister! She is the only family I have had other than Rory, and he never leaves my side. Doctor, Sera, she's my only reason for still being here."

Rory spoke up now, holding his fiancé close as she came close to tears. "Doctor, she has a point. Not that we don't love being with just you, its, its Seraphina is our family, the family that made us revise, that put kids in hospital when they bullied us, broke us out if detention, or put us in it if we snuck out ourselves."

I shook my head at them, my fear getting greater as they told me things about the old her, the her that would wake up mere seconds after me, then kiss me till my eyes opened, or the girl who could speak even faster than I could, and had the ability to make even better cakes than Mary Berry herself.

"That girl could be gone, Ponds. The Seraphina, or Alice, you knew, may have become a completely different person, just like I did. I am nothing like how I was as Dave. And she may be nothing like how she was before. So stay here!"

They stayed, probably because they were now scared about the fact the girl who raised them may be someone else, but maybe also because of how scared I sounded about this prospect. San Francisco. Why we were here I didn't know, but it was January 1st, 1999. I would have just said goodbye to Grace and Lee. And there was only one bridge she could be talking about.

It was New Year, so the bridge was packed with the masses, all drinking and celebrating, but there were people starting to trail off as well, now the fireworks had stopped and they needed to drink off the alcohol.

There were no gingers around, no one in 2010 running gear, or people with bright green eyes either. It had happened, after 700 years of that voice, that smell and feel, she had changed. She was someone new.

I knew that it had been inevitable, that some day I would lose her to something, be it a Dalek, Judoon, her brother or just old age. I knew she would die and have to regenerate. I just thought I had more time.

No one screamed Time Lord to me, or came to greet me. I tried to call her phone again, but it went straight to voice mail. And then I got a text. Check your pockets, my Angel. Looking up, there was no one around holding a phone.

Patting down my pockets, I found many things, including a hair brush of Lillian's, three yoyos, a can of hair spray, that belonged to Sera, a mobile phone charger, a small generator for the charger and my trusty UV light.

Then I moved to the other pockets, finding similar things, until I found a small lump under my sonic screwdriver. I carried it always, I never knew why, and I never looked at it, or even knew why I had to carry it, I just did. But taking it out now, I saw that it was a small chunk of remembria. For the first moment when it hit the street lights, it was a bright emerald green. But then, then it turned in the blink of an eye. To a beautiful tigers eye brown.

I looked up again, looking for the girl with eyes that matched the gem, seeing her watching me out of the corner of her eye, facing the open water, barefoot, and tense as she watched the waves.

Her eyes were like molten bronze, flecked with gold, rimmed with thick dark lashes, nothing like how they used to be, and set in a tan face, younger looking and more feline than before. Her hair, it was long, silky and had loose curls in it, reaching down to her waist. A far cry from the small ginger girl I had fallen for nearly 900 years ago.