Chapter 24 – Do or Die

Night fell over the city of Barratae.

Because of the two suns on either side of the planet of Barcelona, there were just three hours of darkness. The Doctor and Rose were taking advantage of the beautiful – but short-lived – atmosphere the night life afforded. They’d arrived at a secluded restaurant which floated over Neptune’s Harbour. Although it was a complex hydroelectric mechanism that kept the circular restaurant suspended over the water, it looked to Rose like thousands of lights were holding it up. The Doctor told her that the little lights fluttering under and over it were giant fireflies that they used to light the restaurant instead of conventional means. They gave it a magical, ethereal appearance that captivated Rose as she and the Doctor made their way over the boardwalk to the lift up to the restaurant.

“Annabelle would love this,” she murmured.

“I’ll take a scan with the screwdriver later. Snap a picture for her,” the Doctor said with a smile, as they ascended to the restaurant, which was aptly called The Floating Restaurant.

Rose clasped his arm and returned his smile.

The maitre d’ of The Floating Restaurant met them with a huge smile on his bright blue face. Rose was pleasantly surprised when she realised he was the same species of alien as some of those on Platform One. They were among the first aliens she’d ever met, on her first trip with the Doctor so many moons ago.

The restaurant was multi-tiered, and the Doctor and Rose were lucky enough to get a table on the very top tier, right by the railing, so they could see all the way across the harbour. Fittingly, for a planet with an Earth-theme, the band across the floor were playing golden oldies from hundreds of eras in human music. The dance floor in the middle of the tier was crowded with enthusiastic tourists, human and otherwise, enjoying the music.

“This is lovely,” Rose said happily.

The Doctor grinned proudly. “You deserve it. You’ve put in a lot of hours in that corset!”

Rose laughed heartily, clinking glasses with him. “I’ll drink to that anyway!”

The Doctor downed almost half of his glass of wine, feeling for some reason like he needed a large amount of Dutch courage. After they had ordered their meal, they fell into a companionable silence. Rose watched the people dancing and listened to the band playing, while the Doctor looked the opposite way, staring out over the water contemplatively. Rose glanced back at him and noticed the glazed look in his eyes. He wasn’t even blinking. She frowned at him over the flickering glow of the candles.

“Doctor?”

“What?” he said sharply, his reaction quick and defensive, like that of someone abruptly pulled out of sleep.

“Looked like you were far away,” she commented.

“No, just… away. But not too far,” he said with a shrug.

Rose gave him a half-hearted smile, and looked down, tracing a finger over the tablecloth.

“Did you want to say something?” he asked.

“No,” she said quickly.

“Because you look like you want to say something.”

“It’s just…” Rose’s forehead wrinkled and she stared hard at his face, like she’d find all her answers there. But she never did. Never. The band struck up “As Time Goes By” and she gestured across the dance floor. “I love this song.”

“That’s what you wanted to say? ‘I love this song’?” he asked in amusement.

This day and age we're living in
Gives cause for apprehension
With speed and new invention
And things like fourth dimension

Rose stared at the people swaying on the dance floor, avoiding his gaze. “It’s been so hectic lately. Everything with Cassandra and with the house… and with us at each other’s throats about it all.” She laughed sheepishly as he smiled in agreement. “We didn’t really get the chance to talk about— us. What’s happened with us. What’s been happening.”

It was the Doctor’s turn to be bashful. “Oh?”

Yet we get a trifle weary

With Mr. Einstein’s theory

So we must get down to earth at times

Relax, relieve the tension

A flush rose in her cheeks as she tried to grapple with how to phrase what she wanted to say. “So what… is it? What’s going on between us? I just… maybe I shouldn’t ask. Maybe I should just let it be.”

“Maybe. Maybe I should too,” he said reflectively, confusing her. He took a breath, and reached across the table. He didn’t take her hand, but put his beside hers, his fingertips drumming the table lightly. “I don’t know what this is. But maybe there’s method to our madness. Maybe we’re just… seizing the day. I don’t really have the answers, don’t really think I should either,” he said softly. And then he looked away, because he knew he had to get serious, he knew he had to tell the truth. “I mean— we both know how things are. We both know what can and can’t be. Especially what can’t be.”

It was almost indiscernible, the look that passed over Rose’s face at that. It came and went so fast, he barely saw it. Rose was quick though, she forced her expression to remain the same after that. Neutral. She felt anything but neutral though. She nodded at him, moving her hand back from his just a little. She didn’t even realise she’d done it.

“We do,” was all she said.

And no matter what the progress
Or what may yet be proved
The simple facts of life are such
They cannot be removed

“Rose,” he said simply, his eyes imploring.

“Doctor,” she returned.

You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by

He pursed his lips, knowing that something had changed between them. Something in the air, some kind of indescribable feeling – it was just different. Off balance. He sighed, resigned. What could he do but tell the truth? He forced a smile onto his face and offered his hand to her.

“Rose Tyler, would you like to dance with me?”

Rose looked at him. Her expression lightened, and she nodded. She didn’t smile though. She placed her hand in his and they slowly walked to the centre of the dance floor. Rose had dressed up in a floaty black dress, with lace and beading down the front, while the back dipped into a v-shape all the way down to the small of her back. He admired how it shimmered and shone in the twinkling light from the fireflies. He spun her round in front of him and then pulled her back to him.

The smile that had briefly ignited Rose’s face as he’d spun her fell as she placed her head on his shoulder. She looked at all of the other couples. All of them from far off places, so many different shapes and colours and species. All of them looked so happy, dancing together, enjoying one another. A part of Rose felt the same. But she hadn’t realised just how painful happiness really felt with the Doctor.

Moonlight and love songs
Never out of date
Hearts full of passion
Jealousy and hate
Woman needs man
And man must have his mate
That no one can deny

The Doctor stared over her head into the night, his mouth set in a grim line. Dancing, laughing, having fun. Tonight was the night for it. The Doctor suffered in the tomorrow, when tonight’s possibilities would be impossible in the harsh light of day.

It's still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die
The world will always welcome lovers
As time goes by

Time waited for no one, for nothing. Happiness, beauty, romance all cowered in the face of it. The Doctor knew this. A Lord of Time… it meant very little in the end. He couldn’t stay time’s wicked hand. He was at its’ mercy as much as the human, the mortal, he now held in his arms was. But that was the way of it, that was the way, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Oh yes, the world will always welcome lovers

As time goes by

-O-

Annabelle had always liked listening to songs.

They told a story, sometimes better than a book did. She sighed happily and lay her head down on the console of Prior’s ship, letting David Bowie’s “Starman” wash over her. It was her father’s favourite song. She remembered hot summer days when she’d be out playing in the grounds and hear it blasting from the open window of his study. More than once, she’d sneak upstairs and find him singing along loudly – more than once she’d joined him too, dancing madly around the study as he laughed at her. She missed him. She felt so young and tiny upon realising that. She was far from home, and she’d just found out how Richard had died, and she just missed her dad.

A snore resounded behind her, interrupting her contemplation. She looked around. Prior was fast asleep, sprawled across the sofa that was haphazardly squished into the cockpit of his ship. Annabelle suddenly felt very sure that Prior’s mother had made him bring it with him, and that he had gladly accepted this little piece of home. The rest of Prior’s ship was surprisingly spacious – though not as spacious as the TARDIS of course; it was still in this dimension after all.

Leaving the music playing, Annabelle wandered out of the cockpit to take yet another stroll around the ship. It was homey and comfortable, with a kitchen full of supplies, a living room with soft, old sofas like the one in the cockpit. There were a few bedrooms downstairs too, including Prior’s, with a bed so big it took up most of the small room.

What she really loved though were the walls of the ship. They were covered in pictures of Prior, his family, his friends at the Agency.

“Prior Mastafoi, this is your life,” Annabelle muttered laughingly.

Some pictures were in extravagant frames, some were simply tacked up. Some were posed, like the one of Prior looking extremely impressive as he stood tall and straight-faced in a dark military uniform – and some were candid, like the one that looked like it had been taken minutes after the first one, that showed Prior throwing his hat at a stuffy looking general.

Annabelle breathed in deeply, as if she could inhale the life and energy and warmth of all of this memorabilia from Prior Mastafoi’s short, but eventful life.

She could hear a vague tapping downstairs; it was Adam still working on the cracking the code on the file from the Acta Sanctorum. Adam. What was she going to do with him? There was no turning back now, no pretending that they didn’t have something between them. Here on the TARDIS, travelling with the Doctor, it was so easy for them to talk and laugh and fight, but what about when they got back home? At seventeen, she was legally still a child. She had no control over her life. Her parents could throw her back in Whitelaw and keep her away from Adam, just like they’d done already. Annabelle swallowed hard. They’d been parted before and she’d felt like one of her organs had been ripped from her body.

Annabelle went back to the cockpit and looked at the impressive array of surveillance screens, dozens of them all imbedded in one of the walls. Prior’s surveillance system was a lot better than the Doctor’s, it penetrated walls and floors, differentiated species and had a three mile reach. She suddenly felt an odd prickling on the back of her neck as her eyes went from one screen to the next, looking for movement. A stinging flush rose in her cheeks and her heart pounded in her ears. Something was wrong. Something was close. Something… someone…

“Prior,” she whispered in a strangled voice, not taking her eyes off of the screens. The Time Agent didn’t even stir, still asleep and totally oblivious.

The middle screen on the third row of them caught Annabelle’s eye. It showed the woods on the periphery of the estate. In fact, she could clearly see the opening and the little path the Doctor and Rose had always taken when the TARDIS had been hidden in the forest. A figure was stirring in the trees. The darkness prevented her from seeing anything clearly until whoever it was began to walk out of the clearing and onto the lawn. A tall man in a cloak. Mr. Thorne, perhaps? Rose had met him one night after an apparent secret rendezvous with the Duchess, maybe he was off to meet her again.

But Annabelle could not convince herself that it was Thorne stalking so slowly and purposefully across the grass. She had never met this Thorne fellow, she didn’t know what he looked like, but this figure, his stance, gait and manner, it all seemed very familiar to Annabelle.

“Prior,” she said again, louder, more panicked.

Annabelle was suddenly very afraid. A dream came rushing back to her. A memory. A dark night, long ago, she was alone and yet she wasn’t. She couldn’t be. She was never alone in Cloverleaf Manor. They were in her room with her. She could hear them. See them. And then they saw her. They saw her.

“Prior, wake up. Wake up now,” Annabelle said in a husky voice.

Prior still didn’t stir. The figure was moving closer. He was tall, so very tall. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a man so tall. But he wasn’t a man… He was heading directly for the ship – but it was invisible. Prior had the cloaking device on. He couldn’t see it, he couldn’t possibly… Annabelle was shaking from head to toe. She couldn’t see his face, she couldn’t see it, but she knew.

It was him. It was him.

Fire in his breath, a spring in his step, fire in his breath, a spring his step…

Springheel Jack.

He haunted her nightmares, he haunted her memories. And she’d learned today how she knew him – the time rift. He had been in Cloverleaf Manor at some point in time, and they had met each another because one or both had slipped through the rift. For some reason he wanted her dead, because of something she had seen, something she had heard. She didn’t know what. But he was here now, and the Doctor wasn’t, and she didn’t know what to do.

She could see his face now. That face. The eerily smiling mouth, blackened by flame. The blood red eyes, unblinking. The unnatural angle of his shoulders and the strangely long arms. And though he wasn’t speaking, she could hear his voice, in her head. Such words, such terrible words spoken in that cheerful and mischievous tone. It was horrifying, chilling.

“Prior! Wake up!” Annabelle screamed.

Prior grunted in fright. “Those turtles are huge… that ain’t normal…” he muttered faintly, shifting on the sofa.

Annabelle made an impatient noise and stalked over. She grabbed his shoulder and shook him hard. Prior’s eyes snapped open. He flailed defensively, knocking her away from him and rolling off of the sofa. He landed with a thump. His hand went to his waist for his gun, but he’d left his gun in its holster on a nearby table. Annabelle stood over him imperiously, and waited for him to realise that it was just her very non-threatening self – which he soon did.

“Are you always this trigger-happy?”

“Only when I’m attacked in my sleep,” Prior retorted, springing up off of the floor, rubbing his dented rear-end. “What’s with the unfriendly wake up call missy?”

“Springheel Jack. He’s outside right now!” she told him urgently.

Before she’d even gotten the sentence out, Prior was across the cockpit in a flash. He’d grabbed his gun holster, his hat and his coat before Annabelle had blinked. As he simultaneously shrugged into his coat and fastened his holster, he stared at the screen that Jack was on, swearing under his breath.

“Just what I need,” he spat.

Annabelle watched with wide eyes as he headed for the hatch door. “What? Where are you going? You’re not leaving me here!”

“Kid, I gotta get outside and face this villain ‘fore he slips away! This is my big chance!” Prior could feel her utter terror at the thought of being left alone. “I know. All right? I know you are damn afraid right now. But I got a job to do.” He tossed her his comm device. “Call Rose’s phone. Get the Doc back here quick smart, then go downstairs and stay with Adam. That bounty hunter won’t get nowhere near this ship, let alone inside it. Have no fear.”

Annabelle blankly clutched Prior’s comm and watched him unlocked the hatch and disappear into the night. The door slammed behind him and she flinched, her reverie broken. Feverishly, she fiddled with the comm, dialling Rose’s number.

“Prior?” The Doctor’s voice resounded through the cockpit on loudspeaker.

“It’s Annabelle. You have to come back! Springheel Jack’s here and Prior’s gone out to face him!”

There was a tense second of silence. “I’ll be there in two minutes.”

He ended the call abruptly and Annabelle threw the comm on the sofa and turned to look at the screens. She went right up to the one Springheel Jack was on. Prior strode into frame and Annabelle turned up the volume to hear. The sound was fractured and fuzzy and she strained to hear.

“I bid thee welcome, Mister Mastafoi!”

Prior’s gait shifted, his hands were on his hips, his left was poised for his gun. “… time to bid me farewell. Ain’t no place for you round these parts Kal.”

Springheel Jack, or Kalidrosta, as he was really called, tilted his head, his gory slashed mouth twisting into a smile. “… what friends you have. The Chief would not like it! No, no, no!” the assassin tutted in a sing-song voice.

Prior tipped his hat back off his forehead. “… ain’t got no say in Time Agency matters.”

“Not fair… not when you have a say in Acta Sanctorum matters, dear brother.”

Annabelle frowned. Dear brother? Kalidrosta was a twisted monster; he was throwing Prior off balance, lulling him into a false sense of security. She didn’t know when, but she’d seen this alien, she knew him and his ways. When he flexed his long fingers, tipped with razor sharp nails, she grimaced.

“… here for? Who’s your target?”

“Secrets are being whispered behind your back. Do you not know why I am here? My, my… Methinks you’re on your way out! Methinks they don’t trust you anymore! Methinks you’re for the gallows!” Kalidrosta held his hand above his head and dropped his head onto his shoulder, mimicking someone hanging by the neck from a rope.

“If anyone’s headed for a short stop and a long drop it’s you,” Prior retorted. “It’s time for you to flee these parts Kal. The Acta Sanctorum are done for. Time Agency’s catchin’ onto your tricks.”

Kalidrosta stared at him with his fire red eyes and smiled very slowly. “I think not, young soldier. Not this trick, no, no… not this one! The best is yet to come. Then all shall bow down, down, down, to the might of the Acta Sanctorum! We’ll all bask in the glory! You shall have to choose a side very soon. Everyone will!”

“It won’t be your side,” Prior said mildly.

The screen began to flicker and the sound cut out. Annabelle rapped the screen, confused. Then she realised what was happening – the TARDIS was interfering with the signal. The screeching of the TARDIS engine echoed and the familiar blue box appeared by the sofa. The cockpit looked smaller than ever now. The Doctor spilled out of the TARDIS doors, his eyes wild.

“They’re outside,” Annabelle directed him.

The Doctor nodded shortly, yanking open the hatch with one hand and dashing off. Rose slowly walked out of the TARDIS, looking a little dazed.

“Did you have a nice time?”

Rose looked up. “We took a picture for you – of the restaurant… it had fireflies,” she said vaguely.

Annabelle nodded in bewilderment and was about to ask her again if she’d had a nice time, when shouting was heard on the ship’s speakers. She ran back to the screen. An argument had broken out between the Doctor, Prior and Kalidrosta. Prior stood between the Doctor and the assassin. Both were snarling at one another as Prior acted as mediator, his arms held out.

Rose rubbed her neck. “He tried to slit my throat…” She watched the argument, wide eyed. “He’s gonna hurt the Doctor.”

“Prior won’t let that happen.”

“Look at him! He’s about three feet taller than Prior – the Doctor too. He could knock them both flying in a second!” Rose insisted. “I’ve seen this thing move. He’s like a phantom. He can just leap over people, over buildings…”

“I know he can,” Annabelle said distantly.

Prior pulled his gun and trained it on Kalidrosta. The alien didn’t seem the least bit bothered. To everyone’s surprise, he disappeared suddenly in a shimmer of blue particles just as the Doctor lunged at him. He fell on the gravel, looking around tensely for the assassin.

“Short range teleport!” Prior shouted. He grabbed the Doctor’s hand and pulled him up off the ground. He holstered his gun and ran off across the lawn. “He’s still nearby! I can feel him!”

The Doctor followed Prior closely and they disappeared from Annabelle and Rose’s view.

“No… don’t go after him,” Annabelle urged them.

“Why is here?” Rose fumed. “This has something to do with Cloverleaf – it’s obvious now. I bet it’s Vincent. He must have found out about Cassandra and Thorne’s affair! He’s employed Springheel Jack to kill her for him! Remember – he had a third wife. Cassandra was nowhere to be seen in the family crypt. That slimy git!”

“How would Vincent know about the Acta Sanctorum?”

“There’s a time rift here… all it needs is someone to have slipped back from the future. Maybe he even met Springheel Jack himself and found out all about the Acta Sanctorum and decided to use their ‘services’.”

That made sense to Annabelle. It might answer the question of why she’d seen him in the house herself.

Annabelle and Rose didn’t have to wait long for their friends to return. Prior and the Doctor appeared out of the murky darkness, both looking more than a little ticked off. They fell into Prior’s ship tiredly. Rose went to the Doctor, enquiring if he was okay, but he was distracted and irritable. He shook her off, and followed Prior over to the console, where Prior was informing his superiors at the Agency of what had happened.

As the Doctor and Prior communed urgently about their meeting with the assassin, Rose silently went back to the TARDIS to change out of her evening dress, and Annabelle went to see if Adam had even noticed that something was going on. He hadn’t. In fact – he’d fallen asleep. Annabelle moved his laptop, not daring to turn it off for fear of deleting his work. Then she tucked his covers around him, and gently placed her hand flat against his cheek. She was never this close to him, physically, while he was awake. She just watched him for a while, calming herself down, banishing her fears.

Adam wasn’t very good with words, he wasn’t very brave, he wasn’t very impressive, but his mere presence made her feel so much better. It always had. Annabelle smiled at his relaxed face. It seemed that she loved Adam most when he was asleep.

Later, she returned to the cockpit to find the Doctor talking to an important looking black man in military dress. He was so big and tall that he was crouching a bit as he stood by Prior’s console. The hatch was open and she looked out and saw that the grounds of Cloverleaf Manor were swarming with Time Agents. Annabelle gazed across the lawn, amazed, and then returned to the cockpit.

The Doctor didn’t look happy. His teeth were flashing as he shouted and he gestured wildly around him. “Commander Barosa, you cannot have these Agents wandering about out in the open like this! You are on the property of a Duke and Duchess in the 19th century! You know better than to have all these men from the future tramping all over the past like this!” His expression contorted sarcastically. “You might as well say, oooh shall I invite a paradox over for tea? Give it some watercress sandwiches and a fairy cake?”

Commander Barosa arched a disdainful eyebrow at the Doctor’s dramatic tone. “I don’t appreciate your attempt at wit,” he said sternly in his deep, accented voice. “A highly dangerous, highly sought after bounty hunter has been spotted here! We must to do everything necessary to contain and capture him!”

“He’s long gone by now! You won’t see him for dust!”

“Be that as it may, we might be able to pick up the traces of his time machine and determine his next destination.”

The Doctor snorted. “Like heck you will.”

“Ladies please, contain your hysteria!” Prior said dryly, entering the ship.

“Well connected, aren’t you Mastafoi?” the Commander noted contemptuously. He turned his back on the Doctor, abruptly ending their conversation. The Doctor, dwarfed by the large African man, peered up over his shoulder on tiptoes. Prior and Annabelle stifled laughter at the sight of the Doctor’s nose and eyes peeping from behind Barosa. “It must be a fine thing to be such good friends with the last known Time Lord in the universe. Won’t you kindly inform your friend then that he isn’t in charge of this operation and whether he’s a living legend or not – he’s got no jurisdiction on me and my squadron.”

Annabelle saw the Doctor’s eyebrows arch into points over Barosa’s shoulder. “Prior, won’t you kindly inform your Commander that I’m the only protector of time left, and if he’s causes a paradox, I won’t be the one taking responsibility for the Reapers that arrive to make nibbles out of his men!”

Prior sighed exaggeratedly. “Are you five years old or somethin’?” he said to both of them dismissively. “Doc, I’m sorry about these soldiers bein’ so exposed like this, but it is night out there – no one from this time can see them. The second a ray of sunlight hits that horizon they’ll be gone.”

Barosa grunted. “They will be gone when their job is done – and no sooner!” he intoned, stomping across the cockpit to the hatch. He paused and glared at Annabelle and Rose. “Mastafoi, we’re going to be having a very long talk about the presence of civilians on sensitive Time Agency missions.”

Prior cringed silently. “Yes sir,” he said resignedly.

“Isn’t he a laugh and a half?” the Doctor muttered as the Commander left.

“He’s doin’ his duty is all,” Prior sighed. He looked at the Doctor frankly. “He’s right about one thing though. Bringin’ civilians into this is just causin’ unnecessary hassle. You and me know what we’re doin’ in this – you were born to it, I was trained for it. But Belle, blondie and the boy… they’re just kids Doc. We can’t put ‘em in danger like this.”

The Doctor crossed his arms, his eyes resting briefly on Annabelle before he looked back at Prior. “Belle, blondie and the boy… nice alliteration!” he exclaimed. He lowered his voice, probably so the girls wouldn’t be able to listen in – but they both had exceptionally good eavesdropping skills. “But I agree… all of them have been through enough. This isn’t just another adventure – not anymore. You and me, we go and visit Emilius Nasbeth. You get some Agents to stay with the others. Agreed?”

“You betcha,” Prior agreed, slapping his hand into the Doctor’s and shaking it.

-O-

In his bedroom, Prior stood in the mirror as he undid the buttons of his rumpled shirt from the night before. Apart from his much too short nap on the sofa in the cockpit, he hadn’t slipped in any shut eye. What with Kalidrosta making an appearance and a disappearance, and the ensuing chaos with Barosa and his Agents, he’d been on the go all night. One of these days he’d get a full night’s sleep, one of these days…

Without breaking eye contact with his reflection, he slid his shirt off his shoulders and reached out for a new one. In the bottom corner of his eye he could see the scars that dotted his right side. He never could look at them directly. At twenty-two, he’d spent fifteen hours in enemy captivity. An intergalactic mobster, a kingpin, had seen fit to capture him in retaliation for Prior infiltrating a drug smuggling ring he headed. In those very long hours the mobster himself had tortured Prior mercilessly.

But he didn’t think about that much… no, of course he didn’t… Prior Mastafoi didn’t dwell on things, he didn’t grieve and he didn’t cry. He just got on with what had to be done. Besides, most of the scars he had would never be felt anywhere other than in his own memory.

He buttoned his new shirt and shook his jet black hair back off of his face. Grabbing his Stetson, he planted it on his head and nodded at his reflection.

“Lookin’ damn fine, Mastafoi,” he said decisively and sauntered out of his room. Mid-saunter, he was intercepted by a tiny figure that he almost toppled over onto. “Christ alive! Wear a cowbell or somethin’, would ya Annabelle?!”

Annabelle merely smiled up at him, innocent as you please. “Do you always talk to your reflection?”

Embarrassed, Prior opened his mouth, at a loss for words. “Yes!” he finally exclaimed. “A friendly pep talk to one’s self is always helpful.”

Annabelle was silently amused, staring at him with those huge round eyes; they were almost cartoonish in their eagerness and naivety.

“Aw, quit it, would ya?” Prior huffed, stomping down the narrow corridor to the cockpit.

She followed him. “Quit what?”

“Lookin’ at me with them eyes o’ yours!”

“I can’t help it!”

“Ain’t you supposed to be some place that’s elsewhere?” Prior said pointedly. “G’on, get! You, TARDIS, with Adam and Agent Greystaff. Now!”

“I heard your conversation with Springheel Jack… I mean, Kalidrosta,” Annabelle said, all levity and laughter leaving her face.

Prior froze briefly as he flicked his overcoat’s collar up. “Did you now?”

“You called him Kal. You talked to him like you knew him. Do you?”

Prior was silent. He turned, avoided her gaze. Those damn eyes… Prior was an Empath, he was usually the one to make people uneasy, but this little girl… she had some innate ability to put people on the spot.

“Prior?”

“Yes child, I know him!” he snapped. He let out a long stream of breath. “Ain’t no secret! The Agency and the Acta Sanctorum have a long history as friends and enemies. Right now, it’s enemies more so. But yeah… I know him.” He turned to her, gripping her upper arms. He looked down at her sincerely. “But don’t you fret now. He won’t never get to hurt any of us, and that’s a fact.”

Annabelle was sceptical. “I don’t think you can be so sure.”

“Why don’t you tell me how you’s so sure that I can’t be so sure?” Prior asked perceptively. He could feel it – that wave of nervous rush over her. He bent low to look her in the eyes. “You know somethin’, don’t ya?”

Annabelle looked down. “No more than anyone else.”

“No?” Prior said pointedly. “It’s just a mighty big coincidence that there happens to be a rift here at Cloverleaf – and Kalidrosta keeps hangin’ around it. You gotta tell all sweet cheeks. Now’s the time.”

“I don’t know why he’s here,” she told him.

They were interrupted by the Doctor and Rose, who came storming out of the TARDIS.

“So you’re just gonna leave me here with a babysitter?” Rose exclaimed.

“Agent Greystaff isn’t your babysitter, she’s your bodyguard. Kalidrosta could still be hanging around,” the Doctor said patiently.

“If we all go along, then you won’t need to worry about this assassin bloke killing us all in our sleep, will you?”

“Prior’s commanding officer isn’t pleased about all this civilian involvement as it is!” the Doctor replied. “It’s best all round this way.”

“Civilian involvement?” Rose screeched.

Prior patted Annabelle’s back. “Maybe you best go on inside the TARDIS now with Greystaff and Adam.”

Annabelle retreated into the TARDIS and Prior sat down at his ship’s main console and started to power up.

“So this is a Time Agency thing now? We came here to help our friends not chase assassins! This has got nothing to do with the bloody Time Agency and I’m not a civilian. I’ve got a name, Rose, remember? And once upon a time it was you and me doing all this stuff. Together!”

The Doctor looked at her reasonably. “That was before I found the Acta Sanctorum was involved! You know them – they’ve got a big scary temple where they like to sacrifice people! Now this is not up for discussion! I can’t risk anything happening to any of you, so you stay put! I didn’t go to a TimeAgent for help for nothing,” he explained. “Prior’s dealt with things like this before. He’s a pro.”

“So I’m not qualified enough to go?” Rose spat.

“You know that’s not what I meant. At all. But everything’s gotten too serious to pretend this is just another good ol’ adventure!” the Doctor said.

Rose crossed her arms, looking dark and stormy. “Fine. I’ll stay. For Cassandra’s sake. An assassin wasn’t wandering about on these grounds for the scenery. Cassandra’s good for nothing husband has gotten him here to kill her. If you wanna mess about with time rifts and mad scientists then great, but I’m gonna do what we’re actually here to do, I’m gonna help Cassandra.”

“I know you’re only thinking of Cassandra, and I want to help her too, but this is delicate stuff Rose. Lives are at stake.”

“Her life is at stake.”

“I don’t think it is,” the Doctor said bluntly. “I think there’s a lot we don’t know about the Duchess. Where does she come from? When did she come to England? How did she meet the Duke?”

Rose recoiled in irritation at his hard tone. “What does any of that matter? Annabelle knows! She knows that something horrible happens to the Duchess!”

“She knows a lot, yes, but she’s also a confused seventeen year old girl, whose mind has been addled by years of taking anti-psychotics. For a few minutes the other day she reverted straight back to the Annabelle she was when we met her,” he told her brusquely. He snapped his fingers. “That’s how easy she slips back into psychosis. We don’t know if everything she says is true.”

“You’re really not gonna listen to anyone but yourself on this, are you?” Rose asked softly, disappointment tingeing her words.

The Doctor looked down for a moment, but dodged the question. “Rose, I just don’t think you’re seeing the bigger picture here.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that Cassandra is one person out of hundreds who’ve suffered because of that house. We have to get to the root of the problem. The root.”

“And what about the bloody assassin after her?”

Prior spoke up. “In his defence darlin’… we don’t know why Kalidrosta’s here. It could well be because of the rift. This land is prime real estate for the Acta Sanctorum. That kind of rift is unbelievably powerful and valuable.”

“He’s right.”

Rose snorted. “Course he is.”

“Rose everything is going to be fine. We’re going to talk to this Emilius bloke, and sort everything out.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it’ll really be as simple as that,” she spat, stomping back into the TARDIS.

“Goodbye to you too!” The Doctor collapsed into the chair beside Prior. “Just go. Just get us out of here so we can finish this.”

On the TARDIS, Rose watched stonily on the surveillance screen as Prior’s ship dematerialised around the TARDIS leaving it sitting on the edge of the lawn under some trees. A part of her was furious at being left behind – but another part was glad to stay so that she could watch over the manor. She was certain that if Prior hadn’t intercepted Kalidrosta he would have killed Cassandra.

Agent Nyla Greystaff, the small, compact little woman that was guarding them was upstairs with Adam and Annabelle. Rose frowned thoughtfully and slipped a note out of her jeans. Cassandra had given it to her earlier before they’d all left the house. It simply said ‘Come to see me later’. Greystaff would never notice if Rose slipped out to check on Cassandra. She probably didn’t even know that the Doctor and Prior had gone yet. Rose bit her lip – she felt a little bad at the thought of sneaking out on Nyla, but she’d only be gone for a few minutes. And if the Doctor was going to leave her behind here, he couldn’t expect her to sit about and twiddle her thumbs.

That settled it for her – she was going to see her. Without another thought, Rose ran to the TARDIS doors and out into the night.

-O-

Emilius Nasbeth was sixty-five years old and in all his long years, there was one achievement that he was most proud of – Cloverleaf Manor. It had taken him thirty years to build it, finally finishing it just eleven years ago. Since then, he’d kept within its walls, becoming a hermit. Most of the farmers that lived and worked on the land they rented from him had never even met him. But he hadn’t stayed locked in his grand manor out of madness or senility – he did it for his work.

He needed to utmost secrecy and peace to carry it out. If anyone saw the things he saw, there would be terror and hysteria, for it was medieval England that he was living in and medieval England was not a kind place for scientists. Scientific advances were the work of heretics and devils. Emilius Nasbeth was neither a heretic nor a devil. He was a genius.

He sat in his study that night, torches flickering, the wind howling. His massive house was silent as the grave. His wife was fast asleep, his younger sons too. They were all knights of the realm, not one of them had the scientific inclinations he had. It didn’t bother him though. He felt no need for his work to continue after him. He hadn’t done it for the good of the world, but for the good of the unfortunate few. For the good of those caught in that web of time who found themselves lost. And that was why he kept The Passenger Log.

And so when he heard footfalls in the hall outside, he perked up excitedly. Grabbing a flaming torch, he limped across the room, his cane pounding on the floor.

“Who goes there?” he enquired cheerily.

Two figures stepped out of the darkness. Both men, tall and lean, each in long coats.

“It’s quite all right young fellows. Fear not, I am the kind guardian of this place you are wandering through. You shall not be trapped here too long, the tide shall wash you back soon enough,” he said to them in a friendly tone.

The two men looked at one another.

“Gentle sirs, if you could tell me your names and times of origin?”

The man with the fair complexion spoke up. “Emilius Nasbeth?”

Emilius stepped back, absolutely aghast. “How is it that you know my name?”

The man grinned. “I know all about you. Scientist, inventor, architect. Esteemed builder of Cloverleaf Manor.”

“You are of the future?” Emilius stammered. “You know of history?”

“We’re of the future, yeah, but we ain’t slipped through your rift accidental-like. We came here to see you,” the darker man said.

Emilius took a breath. “You’d better come into my study then.” They followed him back down the dark corridor. Once in his study, he slid the torch back into the sconce on the wall. “If you have not slipped through the rift, then how are you here?”

“We used a machine that can move through time. I’m the Doctor. This is Prior.”

“Honoured to make your acquaintance sirs,” Emilius said in his gruff old voice.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you surprised to hear about time machines? Don’t you want to know how we did it?”

“That is the business of future peoples,” Emilius said dismissively.

The Doctor feigned surprise. “Is it? Well, Prior and I, we’ve been in this house in the future. We know you’ve built this house a little… differently. We know that there’s something inside the walls, and that that something has trapped a time rift here.”

Emilius nodded. “You are wise then.”

“Oh we’re not wise, we’re just not stupid enough to think that a man in the 1600’s could possibly have the technology and resources to build and operate the kind of hardware needed to trap a hugely powerful rift in the time-space continuum.”

Emilius said nothing.

“You’re not from round these parts, are you?” Prior asked. “I’d say… the 29th century, give or take.”

Emilius looked at him sharply. “I was born in 1546.”

The Doctor snorted. “You weren’t born here at all! You were born in the future. You were born hundreds and hundreds of years from now! The 29th century is the first known time that the kind of technology you’ve wired into this house is available. Who are you?”

Emilius looked impossibly sad and defeated. “I was a Para-Scientist in the field of Temporal Anomalies. I was born in the Independent Nation-State of Scotland in 2921.”

The Doctor slowly smiled. “Now we’re getting to it.”

“In 2945, a massive rift in Cardiff fractured, ripping holes in time and space all across the Earth, including the rift here at Cloverleaf. My job was to locate and control the rifts wherever possible. I was flying my land cruiser here to investigate this rift, unaware that I had driven right through it. I ended up trapped here in the 1500’s. I decided to make my base right over the rift in the hope that I might one day slipped back through to my own time. But I never did. When I began to build this house, I used the technology I had on board my cruiser to trap the power of the rift, so that it was rendered useless – the rift was still there, in effect, but people could pass back and forth freely. I did it so that no other poor soul would fall through it and be stuck in a time that was not theirs.”

“Once you’d trapped the rift, why didn’t you ever try to get back?”

“By then I had a wife and children. Once I had them – I did not need the future.” Emilius smiled.

“You trapped the rift out of a desire to do good… but you’ve caused centuries of pain ‘n’ confusion for innocent people,” Prior said gravely.

“Bit heavy there Prior!” the Doctor chided him. “Look Nasbeth, you’ve saved lots of people from getting lost in the rift – but you built a house over it! People live here, your descendants live here, and they have no idea what they’re living on! People have gone mad in this house, people have killed themselves.”

Emilius was stunned. “For what reason?”

“Because they thought they were seeing ghosts,” the Doctor said softly. “Imagine walking through this house and seeing people appear and disappear! No one ever realised that they were simply seeing into the past or the future!”

Emilius stammered. “I never… I never thought— I mean, I see people all of the time. It is why I asked you your names. I keep a log of who passes through and from what time to see if there’s a pattern.”

“And is there a pattern?”

“No, no there is not.”

“Even when you try to control it, the rift in uncontrollable,” the Doctor commented.

“Did you invent the rift trap technology? Because I work for an organisation that regulates time travel, and we have never been able to trap a rift,” Prior said.

“Yes, it was an original invention of mine. It would not work on ones like that terror of a rift in Cardiff. But it would work quite well to contain smaller rifts, such as this one.”

Prior was so eager, he looked as if he might actually foam at the mouth. “Mr. Nasbeth, sir, would you do me the honour of passing on your plans for the rift trap, so that my organisation might use it?”

There was a silence. Prior’s heart virtually stalled as he stared at Emilius Nasbeth’s inscrutable face.

Emilius nodded decisively. “Why yes, young men, I don’t see why not.”

Prior shook his hand vigorously. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

The Doctor looked on, amused. “Mind you don’t drool on the poor fellow,” he teased Prior.

“Kind sirs, I wonder what it is that you came here for. Was it to so I could tell you how to deactivate the rift trap?” Emilius asked.

The Doctor scratched his ear. “Yeah, it was a bit… But come to think of it—”

“It ain’t such a good idea,” Prior finished for him, agreeing. “Mr. Nasbeth here set it up to stop people from slipping through and getting dumped at some random point in time. If we deactivate it – Annabelle, Cassandra, anyone who’ll live in this house… they could slip through and never be seen again. We gotta keep it activated.”

“We’ve got to keep it activated,” the Doctor said after him with repeated nods. “We should get back and break the news to everyone. I think some people are going to be less than pleased.”

“It is a prudent decision to make, whether people are pleased or not – it is for their own good,” Emilius spoke up. He handed Prior a big bundle of rolled up scrolls. “The blueprints for the rift trap.”

“You are a god among men,” Prior breathed,

“No… I’m a scientist,” Emilius corrected with a big smile.

The Doctor clasped his shoulder. “Same thing,” he laughed. “Thank you. The rift trap is inspired. Really. In hindsight, it’s probably done your descendants more favours than they’ll ever know.”

“How are they? My… descendants?”

The Doctor paused, thinking of one particular member of Emilius’ line. “There’s one girl… early 21st century she’s from. She’s a wonder. A credit to your line.”

“The 21st century? My line stretches that far?”

“And beyond, I should think,” the Doctor said kindly.

Emilius swallowed hard, happier than he could have believed. As his two time travelling visitors departed he called after them. “I say, young sirs, what time did you both come from, originally? Just so I can add it to the log,” he said laughingly.

Prior and the Doctor looked at one another.

“Agent Prior Mastafoi, 24th century,” Prior replied.

“And you Doctor?”

“Let’s just say it’s a lot further than that!” he quipped.

They retreated into the corridor, their laughter echoing after them, leaving Emilius Nasbeth to ponder one thing he thought a lot about – the future.

“No one’s gonna like this,” the Doctor said as Prior deactivated the security code to his ship.

“Would they rather get stuck back in the middle ages like old Emilius? I think seein’ a few people wandering through your house now and again is a fair price,” Prior said opening the hatch.

The Doctor followed him in. “But people’s lives have been made unbearable because of the rift trap. Annabelle thought she was mad. I don’t know if she’s going to appreciate this turn of events. I told them all that I’d fix it for them,” he said.

“Well they just didn’t realise that it was already fixed,” Prior said, sitting down.

“No. Neither did I,” the Doctor said contemplatively. “I tried to help and I failed. I was a bit rubbish with it all.”

Prior snorted. “That’s bull. You helped ‘em plenty. Just be bein’ there you helped ‘em. We can’t snap our fingers ‘n’ give people perfect solutions to everythin’. Sometimes they just gotta muddle through it all in the end.”

“Muddle through it. Story of my life,” the Doctor commented wryly.

Prior let out a guffaw. “Story of all our lives.”

As started up his ship’s engines, the radio crackled to life.

“Requesting immediate backup. One injured and one suspected fatality.”

“Wonder what that’s about,” Prior commented.

The Doctor frowned, listening to the voice on the radio. “Hang on a minute…”

Prior realised exactly what the Doctor had. “That Nyla’s voice.”

“Nyla Greystaff?” the Doctor snapped, his face white. “The same Nyla Greystaff that I left on the TARDIS? Did she say fatality?” he said in a high, barely controlled voice. “Prior, did she say there was a fatality??”

“Shush. They’re on again.”

“Transmission received Agent Greystaff. Coordinates?”

Nyla replied. “Coordinates: 15th of March 1838. Cloverleaf Manor, ten miles north of London town.”

“No… no, no, no,” the Doctor murmured.

Prior picked up his comm. “This is Agent Prior Mastafoi on the good ship ‘The Willowy Woman’. Requesting situation report on status of Agent Nyla Greystaff stationed in 1838.”

“Where have you been Mastafoi?” Nyla snapped. “I bounced an emergency signal to ‘The Willowy Woman’ before I made the call for backup!” she hollered over the line.

“What happened?” he demanded.

“Unconfirmed.”

“How is it unconfirmed? Who’s hurt?”

“I got there too late Mastafoi! When you told me to watch these civilians you didn’t tell me one of them didn’t want watching.”

“Rose,” the Doctor said, closing his eyes. “Rose left the TARDIS.”

“Where are you Greystaff?”

“Upper level of the manor, the room with the creepy mural.”

Prior landed haphazardly, hitting his ship off of the roof of Cloverleaf Manor, before colliding with the ground below. The Doctor already had the hatch open before they’d landed, jumping out when the ship was two feet from the ground.

“You tryin’ to get yourself run over?” Prior called after him.

The Doctor ran around the side of the house. Time seemed to slow for him, while the world around him sped past in bright flashes. Tiny white orbs of light were dancing somewhere behind his eyes, making him dizzy and disoriented. He sprinted up the manor’s steps. The two huge double doors were ajar; he reached out with both hands and pushed them open. He saw someone standing high above him at the top of the staircase.

He came to a grinding halt in the middle of the marble-floored foyer. The house was in darkness, only the moon glow gave any light, seeping in behind him from outside. A deafening silence burned his ears, the only sound came from within himself - his dual heartbeat was positively manic. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his chest heaved. He stared unblinkingly at the figure at the top of the stairs.

It was Annabelle. The Doctor couldn’t take his eyes off her. She slowly moved down the steps. Her long blue dress swept the floor; she seemed to glide. Her hips swayed in the shadowy dark, her hair moving across her shoulders. Her eyes glistened, thin rivers of tears flowed down her face. She stopped at the foot of the staircase, some ten feet from him. Their gaze was never broken.

Her eyes told him all he needed to know.

He barely reacted when blindingly bright torch lights flashed around the foyer. The pounding footfalls of heavy boots sounded behind him. Men shouted orders. Time Agents streamed inside the front door, around him, and up the stairs.

The Doctor dropped to his knees, his coat fanning out behind him. In a moment, Annabelle swept from the stairs to the floor in front of him. She took him into her arms, hugging his vastly larger frame against hers. The Doctor grasped at her, burying his head in her embrace. His loud sob reverberated through the empty foyer. Prior arrived at the front door just then. He stared at the two lone figures, terror choking his veins. He could feel it before anyone said anything. He could always feel it. At that moment, he hated himself for feeling it. He ran up to them, stopping briefly, before making a mad dash up the stairs to see for himself.

The Doctor clung to the tiny human being before him, feeling bewildered by the world. How had it come to this? Where had he strayed from the path, where had he gone wrong for this to happen? He thought he knew so much, but in the end, he understood so very little. Life came and went in a second, and he wished he had that second back, to tell her how much she’d done for him and how much she mattered. It was his fault. It was all his fault.

A few moments later, Prior ran back to the top of the stairs, skidding to a halt. “She’s not dead!”

The Doctor pulled out of Annabelle’s embrace with a sharp intake of breath. A sharp migraine pulled behind his eyes, shock and relief, and despair and grief mingling into one potent, adrenaline-fuelled emotion.

Annabelle shook her head. “But I saw—”

“You saw wrong kid. Get up here, c’mon, move it!”

The Doctor grabbed Annabelle’s hand and pulled her up, almost yanking her arm from the socket. Together they ran up the stairs to Cassandra’s parlour. The room was crowded with people, mostly in black army fatigues – the Time Agents. Adam sat in a far corner of the room, looking numb and blank. Cassandra lay on the floor, presumably unconscious. Edmund and Vincent and some paramedics crowded around her. Over by the fireplace the medics were crowded around someone.

The Doctor could hear his own ragged breaths grating in his ears.

Prior urgently walked over, leading the Doctor over to the fireplace. “On first glance, they thought she was dead because—”

“Her eyes are open,” the Doctor finished in a stunned voice. He didn’t push his way into the crowd of medics, he stayed on the edge, letting them do their work. “Why are her eyes open like that?” He frowned crookedly, taking out his glasses and putting them on.

Rose lay on her back, partly collapsed across the fireplace grate. Her head was tilted to the right, her eyes wide open and bloodshot. Blood streamed from both nostrils and from a gash on her temple. She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t reacting to any stimulus, whether it be light or smelling salts or a shot of reviving agent. Her limbs were lifeless and unresponsive. A medic announced that her pulse was barely discernible.

The Doctor merely stared, feeling maelstrom of emotions wrack him at the sight of her. He’d thought she was dead, and he’d been so quick to believe it, so quick to grieve, that he was almost ashamed. Rose wasn’t that weak. She would fight and cling onto life with her very fingernails. Happening upon this scene was like catching the end of a horror film – he had to fill in the blanks, wondering what terrors had gone before. Two prone bodies, broken furniture, blood splashed across white marble - Rose’s blood…

He didn’t know it then, but Rose had already received a warning on what would happen to her this night. A warning he had given to her – though of course, he didn’t know that either. Five little words. Just five. They could change the course of a life. And they just had.

Don’t go to see her.

If only she’d remembered them in time.

“What happened here?” the Doctor hissed harshly at Prior. He looked around the room. There had obviously been a struggle, tables and chairs were upturned. Ornaments were smashed. A window was also broken – from the outside.

“If Kalidrosta came back to do some killin’ then he did a bad job of it,” Prior told him. “Cassandra Nasbeth is alive, slightly dented, but alive. When she wakes up she’ll be able to give us more information.”

“And Rose? How does Rose wake up when her eyes are already open?” the Doctor spat. “Cassandra’s are shut and there’s no blood anywhere on her. Obviously two different things happened to each of them.”

The chief medic sat back and sighed. “All right, nothing’s working. We better remove her to the Agency infirmary.”

The Doctor felt incredibly helpless. He could fix so many things, machines, technology, hardware. The title ‘Doctor’ felt like it was mocking him now, because the one thing he couldn’t fix was a person. He was no doctor. He wasn’t sure what he was anymore.

Cassandra was left at Cloverleaf with a number of medics and detectives while Rose was moved to the Time Agency infirmary in the 55th century. The Earth had entered another cycle of the ice age by then, and the vast labyrinth of hospitals for all kinds of different maladies was located underground in Glasgow, protected by miles of hard frozen ice.

The night passed in a blur of shouting doctors, and white rooms, and the repetitive beep of life support machines. Annabelle and Adam refused to leave the Doctor alone, not even to sleep. Prior was their go-to guy for information and he kept them well informed. Tests. They were doing tests. And yet more tests. Medics kept walking past them talking in hushed whispers. Rose was moved to the neurological unit after a few hours.

The Doctor wasn’t happy. Neurological. That meant the problem wasn’t with her body, it was with her brain. Prior and the chief doctor in the Neurological Unit, Doctor Bellona, arrived in the waiting room. Adam and Annabelle were fast asleep on the squashy sofa. The Doctor stood silently, facing Doctor Bellona like he would face the firing squad.

“Tell me everything,” he stated.

Doctor Bellona nodded. “Rose has very minimal physical injuries. A few bruises mostly and a head wound from the fall against the marble fireplace. There’s a very small hairline fracture in the skull because of the fall as well, but nothing serious,” she explained.

“What is serious then?” the Doctor demanded.

“Something else. Something totally unrelated to the fractured skull. I’ve never seen anything like it. The kind of damage done to her brain couldn’t possibly have been caused by hitting her head against the marble. I have absolutely no diagnosis, sir. I can’t tell you what’s wrong with your friend, because… there’s no evident reason for there to be anything wrong with her.”

“So you have no idea what could have happened to her?”

Doctor Bellona shook her head. “None. I don’t know what the cause of her injury was, but I know the result… there is absolutely no neurological activity.” She held up two pictures. “This is of a normal brain, all of the red parts show the brain activity. This one is Rose’s brain… as you can see, there are no red parts. No red parts, means no activity… Sir, your friend is brain dead.”

The Doctor just stared at the scan of Rose’s brain. No activity.

“Sir, because of her rapidly declining neurological activity, everything else is shutting down as well. Agent Mastafoi tells me that all decisions about her should be relegated to you. Do you want us to put her on life support?”

Prior could feel the Doctor’s numbness. “Doc, I think you need to sit down,” he said, his face stark white.

“No, I think I need to see Rose,” the Doctor snarled.

Doctor Bellona frowned. “Sir? Do you want her kept on life support?”

“Yes! Do everything possible to keep her alive!” the Doctor ordered. “Now I want to see her.”

Bellona nodded. “Very well. Agent Mastafoi, if you will?”

Prior led the Doctor to Rose’s room. It was big and airy, cheerful even, decorated in bright colours. Rose lay in the bed. Her eyes were still open, staring unseeingly at the ceiling. Machines surrounded her. She wasn’t hooked up to them all yet, the Doctor supposed she would be in time though. Everything was shutting down, like Bellona said. Soon she wouldn’t even be able to breath for herself.

The Doctor sat down beside the bed silently. Every feeling of grief and horror and fear had long since passed. He felt nothing now but passive resignation. And for the rest of the night, the Doctor would just sit there and stare at the person who used to be Rose Tyler, for although her body remained… Rose herself was gone. Long gone.

-O-

Coming soon in Chapter 25 – A Life Once Lived

Prior’s face was thunderous. “None of us have any time. We’re all tryin’ to save her Doc. But some people just can’t be saved. You know that.”

The Doctor didn’t react as angrily to that as Prior had expected. Instead he felt gentle waves of resignation emanating from him. “I always promised that I’d save her no matter what. But what if I can’t? How do I tell her mother that her only child is gone because I didn’t get there in time?”