"What the hell's it doing?" Donna yelled, clinging onto the console for dear life.
Alice laughed "The consoles not working"
I shouted back "How is this funny Princess?"
"I don't know, it just is!" I fell over and ended up staring at my severed hand for a moment.
"I don't know where we're going, but my old hand's very excited"
That calmed her down. "I thought that was some weird alien thing. You're telling me it's yours?"
"Well"
"It got cut off. He grew another one." Martha answered for me.
"You are completely impossible!" Donna gasped.
"Not impossible, just a bit unlikely." I grinned, running out of the doors as soon as we landed, Ali just behind me.
"Why would the TARDIS bring us here then?" Alice asked, her green eyes glinting in the low lighting. Here, was a junk yard type area, except we were underground.
"I love this bit" Martha said, coming out of the doors with Donna.
"I thought you wanted to go home" Al asked, eyebrows raised.
"I know, but all the same, it's that feeling you get!"
"Like you swallowed a hamster?" Donna giggled. Then soldiers arrived.
"Don't move! Stay where you are! Drop your weapons" the lead one shouted. We all put our hands up, even Alice which surprised me considering the guns.
"We're unarmed. Look no weapons. Never any weapons. We're safe" I insisted, hoping they wouldn't shoot first, ask questions later.
"Look at their hands, they're clean" another soldier pointed out.
"All right, process them. Those two first" he indicated to Al and I as we were the closest together. We got dragged over to a large machine and had our arms shoved into it
"Leave them alone!" Donna shouted, trying to get away from the armed guards, but they kept a tight grip on her. Something grabbed us.
"Something tells me this isn't about to take our blood pressure. Argh!" Alice cried out as it ripped skin from our hands.
"It's taken a skin sample. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow, ow. And exptrapolated it. Some kind of accelerator?" I questioned as we were released.
"Are you alright?" Martha asked as we stumbled over to them with grazes on our hands.
"What on Earth? That's just..." Alice started, but stopped when the machine doors opened and a woman stepped out. She was skinny, small with blonde hair that had a firey red streak through it. One of her eyes was blue, the other a bright emerald.
"Arm yourself" the lead soldier told her, giving her a rifle.
"Where did she come from?" Martha asked us.
"From us" Ali breathed, her eyes not leaving the girl.
"From you two? How? Who is she?" Donna asked, looking at the two of us and then the girl.
"Well, she's well, she's our daughter." Alice muttered, rubbing the back of her hand. At this, the girl looked up at us and grinned.
"Hello mum and dad"
"Are you primed to take orders? Ready to fight?" the soldier asked, distracting her. She listed things that had automatically been uploaded into her head and took a place next to him.
"Did you say daughter?" Donna gasped.
"Mmm, techincally" I murmured.
"Technically how?"
"Progenation. Reproduction from two single organisms. Means one of us is mum, the other dad. That's all I can make sense of" Alice whispered, looking in disgust at how easily our daughter handled a gun.
"Somethings coming!" she shouted, looking at the shadows on the wall. As soon as they came into view, they open fired.
"It's the Hath!" The Hath returned fire, narrowly missing Alice's head.
"Get down!" the girl yelled at us. We hid by the TARDIS and waited for the shooting to stop.
"We have to blow the tunnel. Get the detonator!" the lead soldier shouted to us.
"We aren't detonating anything!" Alice screamed back, working her way over to an injured soldier. Donna and I followed, not seeing Martha get dragged off by a Hath soldier. Our daughter then grabbed the detonator.
"Blow it up! Blow it up!" Then we saw Martha.
"Martha! No, don't!" I shouted at her, but she hit the button anyway. A klaxon sounded and we all took cover before the explosion.
"You sealed off the tunnel, why did you do that?" Alice demanded once it was stable.
"They were trying to kill us!" she replied indignantly. Definitely our daughter.
"But they've got our friend!"
"Collateral damage. At least you've still got those 2, he lost both his men. I'd say you came out ahead."
"Her names Martha. And she's not collateral damage, not for anyone, got that G I Jane?" Donna snapped.
"I'm going to find her" I said, heading for the TARDIS.
"You're going no where. You don't make sense you three. No guns, no marks, no fight in you. I'm taking you to General Cobb. Now move" the lead soldier demanded, pointing the gun again.
So, one of these days then.
Alice:
I was a mum. I'd always wanted to be one, but not like this. Not with my daughter willing to kill people.
"I'm Donna, what's your name?" Donna asked our daughter as we walked to the camp.
"Don't know, it's not been assigned." she replied.
"Well, if you don't know that, what do you know?"
"How to fight."
"Nothing else?"
"The machine must embed military history and tactics but no name" the Doc explained, as far away from our daughter and I.
"She's a generated anomaly" I added.
"Generated anomaly" Donna repeated. "Generated. Well, what about that? Jenny?"
"Jenny. Yeah, I like that, Jenny" she grinned.
"What do you think, mum and dad?" Donna nudged my side playfully.
I sighed. "Good as anything I suppose."
"Not what you'd call natural parents, are you?"
The Doctor retorted "They stole a tissue sample at gunpoint and processed it. It's not what I'd call natural parenting" he didn't look at me as he said this.
"Rubbish. My friend Nerys fathered twins with a turkey baster. Don't bother her"
I pointed out, "You can't extrapolate a maternal relationship from a biological mistake"
"Er, Child Support agency can"
"Look, just because I share physiological traits with simian primates doesn't make me a monkeys uncle" the Doc cried, his frustration hitting critical.
Jenny got annoyed now. "I'm not a monkey. Or a child" No one looked at her, just kept walking. We eventually reached a large room with more machines.
"So where are we, what planet is this?"
"Messeline. Well, what's left of it" the lead soldier, who's name we'd learn was Cline, replied, heading off to find this General Cobb.
"But this is a theatre" Donna realised, seeing the red curtain.
"Maybe they're doing Miss Saigon" I joked, earning a look from the Doc. I'd been getting a lot of those.
"It's like an underground city or town. But why?" A guy came up to us with a neatly pressed uniform and a formal manor.
"General Cobb, I presume" the Doc smiled, holding out his hand in a charm offensive. He withdrew when the man didn't shake.
"Found in the western tunnels, I'm told, with no marks. There was an outbreak of pacifism 3 generations back, before we lost contact. Is that where you came from?" he asked, getting straight to the point.
"Eastern zone, yeah, that's us. I'm the Doctor, this is Alice and Donna"
"And I'm Jenny" Jenny added.
Cobb gave us an annoyed look. "Don't think you can infect us with your peacemaking. We're committed to the fight until the very end"
I smiled trying to get away from the gun at his hip. "Well, that's alright. We can't stay anyway. We've got to go and find our friend."
"That's not possible. All movement is regulated. We are at war."
"Yes, I noticed. With the Hath. But tell me, because we got a bit out of circulation, eastern zone and all that. So who exactly are the Hath?"
Cobb explained his history to us, of how they had dreamt of a colony of humans and Hath. But the Hath had brokent the agreement apparently.
"They used the machines to produce soldiers instead of colonists and began this battle for survival."
"There's nothing but eath outside, why is that? And what does this mean?" Donna asked, indicating to the numbers on the wall.
"The surface is too dangerous. And they're the rites and symbols of our ancestors. The meanings lost in time" he said solemnly, though I had a hunch of what they were.
"How longs this war gone on for?" I asked, looking around.
"Longer than anyone can remember. Countless generations marked by the dead."
"What, fighting all this time?"
Jenny spoke up now. "Because we must. Every child of the machine is born with this knowledge. It's our inheritance. It's all we know. How to fight and how to die. The fight of soldier, a brave girls walk to death."
The Docs and my heads snapped up at the ending and our eyes met for the first time since the machine. With all that knowledge of fighting, she still had my curse.
The Doctor:
Cobb showed us a map of the city that included the Hath zones.
"Why?" he asked as I started scanning it.
"Well, it'll help us find Martha"
"We've got more important things to do. The progenation machines are powered down for the night, but soon as they're active, we could breed a whole platoon from you three." Cline said.
"I'm not having sons and daughters by some great flipping machine! Not with him. Sorry, no offence, but you're not, well, I mean you're not real" Donna cried, stepping away from the male members of our mismatched party.
"Yeah, thanks Donna"
"You're no better than them. i have a body, I have a mind, I have independent thought. How am i not real?" Jenny demanded, sounding so much like Alice and Sera.
"Well said soldier. We need more like you if were ever going to find the Source" Alice growled when Cobb called Jenny a solider and Donna had to calm her down.
"Ooo, the Source. What's that then? I like a good Source" I asked, rambling as usual.
"The Breath of Life" Cobb said mysteriously.
"And that would be?" Alice prompted.
"In the beginning, the Great One breathed life into the universe. And then she look at what she had done and sighed"
"She, I like that" Jenny grinned.
"Right, so it's a creation myth" I concluded, making Ali laugh.
"It's not a myth, it's real. That sigh. From the beginning of time it was caught and kept as the Source. It was lost when the war started. But it's here, somewhere. Whoever hold the Source controls the destiny of the planet."
i played with the map again, making it buzz. "Ah! I thought so. There's a suppressed layer of information in the map. If I can just..." I pointed the sonic at it again and it became 3D, showing us more tunnels.
"What is it? What does that mean?" Donna asked.
"See, a whole complex of tunnels hidden from sight" Ali explained.
"That must be the lost temple, the Source will be inside. Tell them to prepare to move out. We'll progenate more soldiers on the morning shift, then we march. Once we reach the temple, peace will be restored at last" Cobb shouted.
"Call me old fashioned, but if you really wanted peace, couldn't you just stop the fighting?"
"Only when we have the Source. It'll give us the power to erase every last stinking Hath from this planet"
I pointed out "Hang on, hang on. A second ago it was peace in our time, now you're talking about genocide!"
Cobb just shrugged. "For us it means the same thing"
"Then you need to get a better dictionary, and when you do, look up genocide. You'll see a picture of me there and the caption will read over my dead body" Alice growled, her voice so strongly scottish it was hard to understand.
"And you're with the one who showed us the path to victory. But you can consider the irony from your prison cell. Cline, at arms" Cline cocked his gun at us and I automatically put Alice out of sight behind me.
"Oi, oi, oi. Cool the beans, Rambo!" Donna exclaimed, putting her hands up.
"Take them, I won't have them spreading treason. And if you do anything, Doctor, I'll see that your woman dies first"
"Come on, this way"
"We are going to stop you, Cobb. You need to know that" I warned, keeping my arm protectively around Alice.
"I have an army and the breath of God on my side, Doctor. What will you have?"
"These" I tapped my head and then of my Princess'.
"Lock them up and guard them" Cobb ordered.
Alice:
"More numbers. They've got to mean something" Donna said as Cline locked us into the cage.
"Makes just as much sense as the Breath of Life story" I sighed, wishing i had my lucky Sharpie.
"You mean that's not true?" Jenny asked me, her mismatched eyes confused.
"No, it's a myth. Isn't it Doc?"
"Doctor! And yes, it's a myth. But there could still be something real in that temple. A piece of technology, a weapon" he explained, still not really looking at me or our daughter.
"So the Source could be a weapon and we've just given directions to Captain Nutjob?" I reason. "Ok, not really what we needed right now"
"Oh, no"
"Not good is it?" Donna sighed.
"That's why we need to get out of here and stop Cobb from slaughtering the Hath. The death of the girl is the last in the fight." I added, unable to write it. "What, what are you, what are you, what are you staring at?" I asked my daughter who was looking at me in awe.
"You keep insisting you aren't a soldier, but look at you, drawing up strategies like a proper general." she laughed.
"No, no. She's trying to stop the fighting" the Doc defended.
"isn't every soldier?"
"Well, i suppose that's, that's. Technically we haven't got time for this. Donna, give me your phone, time for an upgrade" he sighed, taking out the sonic.
"And now you've got a weapon!"
"It's not a weapon" I growled.
"But he's using it to fight back! I'm going to learn so much from you, you are such soldiers"
"Donna, will you tell her?" I insisted, my frustration getting the better of me.
"Oh, you are speechless! I'm loving this. You keep on Jenny" she laughed, no help at all. The Doc rang Martha and discovered that the Hath now too had the route to the temple, but Martha's phone died before we could get much more information.
"They're getting ready to move out . We need to get past that guard." I muttered, hearing Cobbs victory speech.
"I can deal with him" Jenny said, getting to her feet.
"No, no, no, no, no, no, You're not going anywhere" the Doctor said, stopping her.
"What?"
"You belong here with them" I admitted, though I'd begun to get attached to my unexpected daughter. But she was born to fight and I couldn't deal with that.
"She belongs with us. With you two. She's your daughter!" Donna cried, putting her arm around the petite blonde.
"She's a soldier. She came out of that machine"
"Oh, yes, I know that bit. Have you got that stethoscope? Give it to me. Come one"
"What are you doing?" Jenny asked.
"It's alright. Just hold still" Donna carefully placed the end over her heart and then to the left. "Come here" she indicated to the Doc. "Listen, and then tell me where she belongs. Where they both belong"
The Doctor mindlessly went through the same thing. "Two hearts"
"What's going on?" Jenny and I asked together.
"Does that means she's a, what do you call a female Time Lord?" Time Lords. The race I was when I fought in the Battle of Arcadia. Does that mean I was really one of them?
"What's a Time Lord?"
"It's who I am. It's where I'm from" the Doctor said sadly.
"And I'm from you. Both of you. The Lost Wanderers who will run so far" she blinked, not knowing what she was doing.
"I'm not like him. At least I'm human at the moment, though I have a feeling he's lying" I said angrily.
"You're an echo, that's all. A Time Lord is so much more. A sum of knowledge, a code, a shared suffering. Only it's gone now, all of it, gone forever" he said bitterly, looking reproachfully at me.
"What happened?"
"There was a war"
"Like this one?"
"Bigger much bigger" I said, my mind on the Daleks and the dead that lay around them as they killed hundreds more.
"And you fought and killed?" Jenny asked, looking between us.
"Yes" we replied together, my mind made up on what was real and fake.
"Then how are we different? The girl born from the Lost, becomes another name on a list"
"Doctor, what's she doing?" Donna asked.
"Speaking riddles. It's a curse I was born with, and Jenny somehow inherited it. Though I normally write it, I just don't have a pen"
"I'm not doing anything" she insisted.
"But you are. You're seeing tiny parts of the future and the only way your brain can cope with the knowledge is to turn it into words, Jenny. A daughter like her mother, a witch they both are, dying and living as the old story goes"
We looked at each other, then Jenny turned to the bars and got Clines attention. "Hey"
"I'm not supposed to talk to you, I'm on duty"
"I know, guarding me. So, does that mean I'm dangerous, or that I need protecting?"
"Protecting from what?" Then I realised what she was doing. I had done it so many times to get Mels out of prison.
"Oh, I don't know, men like you?" Jenny pulled Cline closer to her and kissed him, taking his pistol. "Keep quiet and open the door"
"I'd like to see you 2 try that" Donna smirked.
"Who do you think she got it from?" I muttered, walking out of the cell. We reached the stairs then stopped when we saw the guard.
"That's the way out" the Doc whispered, gesturing. Jenny raised the pistol. "Don't you dare"
"Let me get this one. I have picked up a few womanly whiles over the years" Donna smiled.
"Let's leave your whiles for later. In case of, emergency." The Doctor fished out a clockwork mouse that wheeled over to him. Then Jenny karate chopped him on a knock out point.
"We wanted to distract him, not clobber him!" I complained, checking his pulse.
"Well, it worked, didn't it?"
"They all must have a copy of that new map. Just stay here, don't let her hurt anyone!" this was directed at me, as Donna was playing the role of push over aunt.
The Doctor:
I checked the map again as we reached a dead end tunnel. "There must be a control panel" I muttered, getting out the sonic.
"It's another one of those numbers. They're everywhere" Donna remarked, looking at another plaque.
"The original builders must have left them. Some old cataloging system" Ali said, standing as far away from Jenny as possible.
"You got a pen, bit of paper?" I patted down my pockets and handed her a pen and notepad.
"You've had a pen all this time and you've been letting me ramble on in riddles?!" Alice complained. To shut her up, I handed her a TARDIS blue Sharpie.
"Always thinking, all 3 of you. Who are you people?" Jenny asked.
"We've told you, I'm the Doctor, she's Alice."
"The Doctor, that's it?"
"That's all he ever says" Donna shrugged.
"So you don't have name either? Are you an anomaly too?"
"No"
"Oh, come off it, you're the most anomalous bloke I've ever met" Donna laughed as I caught sight of Alice scribbling on the wall.
"What are you writing?"
"A chosen name that hides the Warrior class. Never cruel or cowardly, never giving up and never giving in. It's about you" she sighed, rubbing her eyes. We never worked out the cause of those migraines.
Then I got the door open.
"Got it!" I heard Cobb behind us. "What were you telling Jenny about running?" I grinned to Donna, taking both gingers hands.
We ended up in a corridor not much further along because of lasers criss-crossing the path.
"That's not mood lighting is it?" Alice muttered. I threw the mouse into them and watched it get disintegrated. "No, didn't think so"
"Arming device" Donna got distracted with more numbers while Alice and I worked on the lasers. Then Cobb started catching up again.
"Where are you going?" I asked Jenny as she started back up the corridor.
"I can hold them up"
"No, we don't need anymore dead" Alice insisted, grabbing her small hand in her own.
"But it's them or us" she cried, trying to pull away.
"It doesn't mean you have to kill them"
"I'm trying to save your lives! A girl born too soon must die the same"
"Listen to me. The killing. After a while, it infects you. Once it does, you're never rid of it" I promised, not wanting her to make the same mistakes I did.
"We don't have a choice"
"We always have a choice" Alice whispered.
"I'm sorry" she shouted, running up to the corner.
"We told you. Nothing but a soldier." I snarled, furiously working on the mechanism. We we got it off, we shouted for Jenny.
"Jenny, leave it let's go!" Donna and I ran to the end, but Alice waited for her. A moment later Jenny ran towards us, but the circuit switched back.
"Zap it back again!" Donna shouted.
"The controls are back there"
"They're coming!" Ali shouted, taking our daughters hand.
"Wait. Just, there isn't. Jenny, Princess, I can't I cried, desperately looking for a way to save them.
"We'll have to manage on our own then. Watch and learn, hubby" Alice grinned. We stared in disbelief as Jenny threw away her gun and hey both started somersaulting through the beams.
"No way! But that was impossible!" Donna breathed, catching Jenny.
"Not impossible, just a bit unlikely. Brilliant. You were brilliant. Brilliant!" I laughed, catching her mother as she stumbled. "You ok?"
"Blood. it's on my hands" i hugged her close, realising that she was starting to remember.
"I didn't kill him. General Cobb, I could have killed him but I didn't. You were both right, I had a choice." Jenny laughed, hugging us both.
"At arms!" Cobb shouted as they reached the lasers. Donna took Jenny out of the firing line but Ali and I just stood there.
"We warned you Cobb. If the Source is a weapon, we're going to make sure you never use it!" Alice shouted, taking my hand.
"One of us is going to die today and it won't be me!" he growled and we ducked away as they open fired.
Alice slumped to the ground, her hand over her shoulder. "Did one hit you?" I demanded. She moved her hand away, showing me the crimson blood and the wound.
"Wasn't quick enough. I'm fine, no permanent damage." she replied through gritted teeth.
"Come here." I helped her to her feet and put my trench coat on her so that Donna and Jenny wouldn't see it.
"Thanks. Now lets go and catch up with Donna and our daughter" she smiled.
"So you travel together, but you and mum aren't really together?" Jenny asked as we reached them.
"I was only supposed to be here for one trip. I never expected to end up having a daughter with him" Alice laughed uneasily, her face paler than usual.
"And what's it like, the travelling?"
"Oh, never a dull moment. It can be terrifying, brilliant and funny all at the same time. I've seen some amazing things though. Whole new worlds" Donna explained, giving me and I told you so look. I blushed and took a tighter grip on Alice's hand.
"Oh, I'd love to see new worlds" Jenny laughed.
"Do you think Jenny will see any new worlds? Or 'Princess'?" she mocked.
"I suppose so" i admitted, squeezing Ali's hand.
"You mean you'll take me with you?" Jenny asked, her green and blue eyes glinting hopefully.
"Well, I won't let him leave you here" Alice laughed as she hugged us.
"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Come on, let's get a move on" she cried, running off.
"Careful, there might be traps!" we shouted together. She just waved us off and kept running.
"Kids! They never listen. Oh, I know that look. I see it a lot round our way. Women and blokes with push chairs and frowns. you've got parent shock" Donna sighed, seeing our dark expressions.
"Parent shock?"
"Sudden unexpected parenthood"
"No, it's not that. Donna, I've been a father before" I said, my mind on my twins and Danny.
"What?" Ali asked, freezing.
"I lost them a long time ago, as well as everything else"
"I'm sorry. I didn't know. Why didn't you tell us? You talk all the time but never say anything"
"I know, I'm just. When I look at her, I see them. The hole they left and the pain that filled it. I don't know if I can face that every day" i sighed, wishing that I could love Jenny the same way as I'd loved them.
"It won't stay like that. She'll help you. We all will" Alice smiled, squeezing my hand weakly.
"What about Alpha Sigma,or whatever her name was?" Donna asked, not realising that Alice half knew about her Time Lord self. "Did she ever have children?"
"Donna, I know about my old self. Kind of hard to stay in the dark when douche bag here keeps hinting. So I know that Seraphina Dark, Alpha Sigma and the Writer are all me" Alice answered before i could.
"So, Writer, did you ever have any kids?" Donna asked again, a huge smile on her face.
"Starfall, my daughter. I saved her from being killed in the 1700's. She died long before the war. Starfall was human"
"I'm sorry"
"Don't be. Star lived a good long life. Where's Jenny?" As if on cue, she ran back, a goofy grin similar to my own plastered on her face.
"They've blasted through the lasers. Time to run again. Love the running, yeah?"
"Love the running" I grinned back. "Come on Princess, think you can manage it?" I asked her.
"One last run of a girl so brave. Her blood will spare so many more. Yes, I can run" she whispered, though her eyes said otherwise. We ran anyway, my thoughts on the riddles both my girls had been saying. Someone was going to die.
Alice:
We got momentarily stuck at a hidden door, but got through it just as Cobb started shooting again.
"That was close" Jenny laughed.
"No fun otherwise"
"It's not what I'd call a temple" Donna said, looking around.
"It looks more like" Jenny started.
"Fusion drive transport. It's a space ship! And I have no idea how I know that" I giggled.
"Memories leaking through, I'll explain later. The power cells should have run down by now, but it's still running. Come on" the Doctor said said, leading us. My shoulder was still throbbing, but my mind was trying to distract me.
We headed up a flight of stairs to see someone cutting through another door. "It's the Hath, it's not going to last much longer. And if General Cobb gets through that door wars going to break out." Jenny realised.
"Look, look, look, look. Ships log" the Doctor grinned, as excited as Amy at Christmas. He explained a load of stuff to us, mostly about how this was the original ship and how the Mission Commander died. No one could agree on a leader so Hath and humans split into factions. Starting the war.
"Look at that" Donna said, pointing to more numbers on the screen above us.
"it's like the numbers in the tunnel." i said, leaning on the Doc for support.
"Listen , I spent 6 months working as a temp in a library, and I mastered the Dewey Decimal system in 2 days flat. I'm good with numbers. It's staring us in the face" Donna cried, confirming my suspicion.
"It's the date. if you assume the first two numbers and some big space date, then you've got year, month, day. It's backwards like in America!" I laughed, dots appearing in my vision.
"Oh, it's the New Byzantine Calendar!" the Doc realised, face palming.
"Self harm never did anyone any good you know" I giggled again, taking his hand.
"The codes are completion dates for each section. They finish it, stamp it on. So the numbers aren't counting down, they're going out from here, day by day as the city got built." Donna added, connecting the fianl dot.
"Seven days" I muttered.
"Seven days, that's it" Donna smiled.
"just 7 days" the Doctor repeated.
"What do you mean, 7 days?" Jenny asked.
"This war started a week ago."
"They said years"
"No, they said generations. And if they're all like you, they're products of those machines."
"They could have 20 generations a day. Each generation gets killed, passes on the legend. Oh, Donna, you're a genius" We kept walking and found Martha wandering around.
"Doctor!" she cried, throwing her arms around him, and me as he was still my support.
"Martha! Oh, I should have know you wouldn't stay away from the excitement." he laughed.
"Donna, Alice" she nodded to us.
"Oh, you're filthy. What happened?" I asked, seeing the mud and smelling the ammonia.
"I, er, took the surface route." she explained. We heard the General break through the door.
"We haven't got much time" i said, trying to stand straighter and look less weak.
"We don't even know what we're looking for" Donna pointed out.
"Is it me, or can you smell flowers?" Martha asked suddenly.
"Yeah, Bougainvillea. I say we follow our noses." I smiled, trying to take a step towards the smell. And nearly fell flat on my face
"Nice one Princess. Come on, you need me as a crutch still" the Doctor laughed, catching me. I stuck my tongue out at him, but still did as he told. We found a large area filled with plants and a large globe filled with gases. "Oh, yes. Yes. Isn't this brilliant!"
"is that the Source?" Donna asked as we walked, or hobbled in my case, over to it.
"It's beautiful" Jenny breathed.
"What is it?" Martha asked.
"Terraforming. it's a 3rd generation terraforming device" I explained, watching the gases spin inside the glass sphere.
"So why are we suddenly in Kew Gardens?"
i snorted, then continued. "Because this is what it does. All this, only bigger, much bigger. It's in a transit state. Producing this must help keep it stable" Then the soldiers ran in from all sides.
"Stop! Hold your fire!" the Doctor shouted.
"What is this, some kind of trap?" Cobb demanded.
"You said you wanted this war over."
"I want this war won!" he corrected, making me take over.
" You can't win. No one can. You don't even know why you're here. Your whole history, it's just Chinese whispers, getting more distorted the more it's passed on. This is the Source. This is what you're fighting over. A device to rejuvenate a planet's ecosystem. It's nothing mystical. It's from a laboratory, not some creator. It's a bubble of gases. A cocktail of stuff for accelerated evolution. Methane, hydrogen, ammonia, amino acids, proteins, nucleic acids. It's used to make barren planets habitable. Look around you. It's not for killing, it's bringing life. If you allow it, it can lift you out of these dark tunnels and into the bright, bright sunlight. No more fighting, no more killing." I lifted up the globe. "I'm the Writer and I declare this war is over!"
I threw the globe onto the ground and grinned as the gases were released. Soldiers from both camps laid down there weapons. "What's happening?" Jenny asked, taking my blood stained hand.
"The gases will escape and trigger the terraforming process." The Doctor smiled, putting his arms around both of us. I remember in my dreams that there was always a man staring at me, Theta Sigma his name was, I wonder if that was the Doctor?
"What does that mean?"
"It means a new world" I smiled at my daughter, not prepared for what happened next.
"No!" Jenny shouted, stepping in front of me as Cobb shot a bullet at my heart. I quickly laid her on the ground and cradled her head.
"Jenny? Jenny. Talk to me, Jenny" I whispered, my eyes filling with tears.
"Is she going to be all right?" Donna asked. Of course she will, two hearts, just like her dad and I. Except I was human at the moment. Martha checked her pulse and shook her head sadly.
"A new world. It's beautiful. The sun and the soil, the children, real children playing games. You're wrong, mum. Seeing the future isn't a curse, it's a gift" Jenny whispered, her mouth forming a weak smile.
"Jenny, be strong now. You need to hold on now, do you hear me? We've got things to do, you, me and your mother, hey? Hey? We can go anywhere. Anywhere. You choose" The Doctor cried, and his heart break made me sob.
"That sounds good"
"You're our daughter, and we've only just got started. You're going to be great. You're going to be more than great. You're going to be amazing. You hear me? Jenny?" her eye's closed and her body stilled in our arms. The girl so brave died for the sake of us all. We were seeing her death.
"Two hearts. Two hearts. She's like us. If we wait. If we just wait" the Doctor chanted, desperately holding us.
"There's no sign my Darling. There's no regeneration. I'm human, she's not enough like you." I cried, burying my head in his shoulder.
"No, too much. That's the truth of it, Princess. She was too much like the both of us" His kissed me softly and then Jenny's forehead. He got up and pointed Cline's gun at Cobb's head. he held it there for a long time, before putting the safety back on. "I never would. Have you got that? I never would. When you start this new world, this world of Human and Hath, remember that. Make the foundation of this society a man who never would." He threw the gun away and it landed at my feet. I clicked the trigger into place.
"I would. I've just lost a daughter, again. All day I've been seeing her death and I couldn't have stopped it. I could kill you" I said emotionlessly. This wasn't me, this was the Warrior inside me that felt nothing as she slaughtered her way through the Last Great Time War.
"Alice, don't" the Doctor said.
"Why not? I've already got blood on my hands, my own included. All day, Theta, all day I've been seeing her die and I still didn't stop it.. I didn't stop our daughter from dying in my place."
"Because you aren't her. You aren't that warrior that fought alongside him anymore. The Master is dead, Seraphina, and so is the warrior." he whispered, taking the gun from my hands and throwing it far away from us. He just held me as I cried, then everything went black.
The Doctor:
She remembered. Alice truly was my Seraphina Dark and knew me. But then Jenny... I couldn't think of her, not right now, not when I still had hope.
"it's happening, the terraforming" Martha whispered, looking at the windows.
"Built a city, nice and safe underground, strip away the top soils and there it is." Donna smiled, but then saw me sitting in between Alice's and Jenny's gurneys. "What about Jenny?"
"Let us give her a proper ceremony. I think it'd help us. Please" Cline said, a Hath next to him nodding. i let them have that honour, only because I couldn't bring myself to bury another child, and I needed to tend to Alice.
I carried her back to the TARDIS and laid her down on the jump seat as I programmed the flight to Martha's house. "Jenny was the reason for the TARDIS bringing us here. It just got here too soon, which created Jenny in the first place. Paradox. An endless paradox. Time to go home?" I asked Martha once the doors were closed.
"Yeah, home" she agreed.
"Are you sure about this?" Donna asked
"Yeah, positive. I can't do this anymore. You'll be the same one day"
"Not me, never. How could I ever go back to normal life after seeing all this? I'm going to travel with that man forever, and I'm going to make sure that girl does too" she grinned, indicating to Alice.
"Good luck."
"And you. I expect an invitation" I walked out of the doors with Martha and Donna stayed to keep an eye on the other ginger for me as we talked.
"We're making a habit of this" I commented.
" Yeah. And you'd think it'd get easier. All those things you've been ready to die for. I thought for a moment there you'd finally found something worth living for. But you still have. Alice. Something you said, about the Master. Are they related?"
"Alice is the Masters younger sister, yes. But her Time Lord self is hidden in here" I said, holding the watch out for her to see.
"It's broken" she frowned, seeing the missing part.
"Yup. So for a little while longer i'm the last Time Lord still. But there's always something worth living for, Martha." I hugged her tight, glad that I had my friends around me.
"Bye, Doctor"
"Goodbye. Doctor Jones" I grinned, then walked back into the TARDIS, where the only other survivor of the Time War was sleeping.
All done :) Obviously we already know that Jenny survives, but I'm thinking I might find a way to bring her back into the story at some point, what do you think? Thanks for reading! Izzi xx
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