The Fall of Arcadia (Book ONE)

Chapter 17

We were in the TARDIS, hurtling back to Earth to see if there was any signs of Rose Tyler here and I felt stinging pain in my abdomen again. Not wanting to worry the Doctor further, I kept it to myself, but Donna saw me wincing and took my hand, squeezing it and looking worried.

"It's because of the mirrors, isn't it? When you were helping me back in that other Universe, that's why the baby hurts."

I nodded silently, knowing the possible outcome of this, but not regretting it. I had sacrificed so much for the sake of the war, sacrifice meant practically nothing to me anymore. Donna looked sad, but didn't say anything else as the Doctor grabbed my free hand and pulled us out of the doors into a Leadworth street not far from Amy's.

"It's fine. Everything's fine. Nothing's wrong, all fine. Excuse me. What day is it?" He shouted to a nearby milkman who was looking at me with shock in his eyes. I looked down at my protruding stomach and remembered that he had only seen me a few weeks ago when I didn't have a baby bump.

"Saturday. Uh, Alice, does Amelia know about that?"

"No, but I'll go see her in a minute. Saturday, she'll be in bed still, recovering from whatever party she was at last night."

"So, we just met Rose Tyler?" Donna asked, talking to the Doctor as I started thinking of ways that I could possibly explain to Amy about how I've suddenly developed a baby bump the size of pluto in the space of the 3 weeks, or 5 months, since my party.

"Yeah."

"But she's locked away in a parallel world."

"Exactly. If she can cross from her parallel world to your parallel world, then that means the walls of the universe are breaking down, which puts everything in danger. Everything. But how? Seraphina, did you see anything coming? Anything at all, other than the Big Bad Wolf returns? What does the Darkness mean?"

"I knew the whole time she was trying to get back, but everything had to happen like this because of time. I don't know much, but that is what I can say." I sighed, not seeing the point in lying to him.

"You knew that Rose was coming back? How long?"

"A while."

"How long is a while, Writer?"

"Since when do you use that name for me? And a while is since Kremar. But if I had told you, it would have drastically changed the outcome of what is to happen. And that can't happen. I'm going to see Amy and Rory, come see me when you've decided to use my name instead of my title." And then I started to walk to the house I had re-grown up in.

I heard the door to the TARDIS slam shut and fought back tears as another wave of pain hit me. Then everything went dark and the planet shook. "That had to fucking happen now didn't it!" I cried, looking back to where my home had been parked and seeing the space empty.

"Alice? Alice, what are you doing here?" I heard a female voice ask behind me and I turned to see Mels walking towards me. She seemed unfazed by the fact that it was suddenly night time after it had only been 8 in the morning. Oh, and the 26 planets that were in the sky.

"MELS! Oh, ow, um, help me to mine?" I cringed, rubbing my stomach in a circular motion, tracing her name over and over.

"Sure. Um, put on a little weight, have we?" She laughed, putting my arm around her shoulder and helping me down the road.

"Shut up, Melody. Can you get Rory as well, he should be in the library, I can make it from here." I said, seeing something that was coming up and wanting my family safe as I went off to fight in the war.