Reconciliation
Prologue

My name is Ali Hardy. I'm 17 years old.
When I was ten, my life changed forever.

In 2006, I met the Doctor and his friend Rose Tyler. I helped them save my village and the world from reoccurring nightmares. But after that, they left. Like they had finished the job they came to complete and now they were free to leave.
But for all of us who were left behind, it was only the beginning.

o o o

Finally, one by one, each family packed up and moved on. There was nothing else to do.
If we stayed put, then we would only be haunted by what had happened. Whereas going somewhere different would mean a new start.

My family was the last to leave. My parents couldn't bear to leave the family business - the village pub called The Owl and Badger - but just like everyone else had shown, there was no real point in staying.

So we moved to London, which turned out to be the first major mistake in my life.
Because within weeks of settling down, it all went wrong.

The Battle of Canary Wharf came too soon. Cybermen and Daleks everywhere. It wasn't fair. Not after we thought we'd escaped it all. But it seemed we were not destined to be free.

The Battle of Canary Wharf took my mother.
She'd gone out shopping. Dad and I were in the house finishing chores and completing school work. The attack was all over the news and when she didn't return that night we feared the worst.

Now we couldn't bear to stay in London. So we packed up again and went back to Wales. The capital this time. Dad said he'd feel more at home in his own country and Cardiff was a lot more alive than a small, lonely village so we could blend in without any questions.
This time, everything seemed to work in our favour.
I enrolled in high school, made new friends and passed my GCSEs without interference. We actually managed to stay in the same place and live an almost normal life. For six years, it seemed our lives had been turned around for the better.

And then the Doctor returned. Alone this time.
It turned out that my high school was situated along the line of a time-space rift which was thought to have been permanently closed. Except that it had expanded and had only been dormant.
It was attacked by alien creatures.

It was a perfectly ordinary day, mid-June and the weather was fantastic. My friends and I spent as much time as possible outside and the majority of our lessons ended early due to lack of concentration.

In the afternoon everything was peaceful, what with all of the younger pupils cooped up inside, apart from the partly-rhythmic sound of traffic coming from the nearby motorway.

I had excused myself to visit the loo and was walking down a corridor near the science department when I heard three consecutive crashes and the deafening siren of the fire alarm. Shouts and screaming followed and then a stampede of pupils and teachers making for the exit at the end of the corridor onto the grounds. I was frozen to the spot in utter shock and confusion.

As the crowd disappeared, a man came charging through the double doors of the fire escape they had just ran through. A man dressed in a burgundy shirt, tweed jacket and a chocolate-brown bow tie.
I was puzzled by the fact that the fire escape was only operable from the inside until I heard the high-pitched sound and saw the flash of green coming from a thin, cylindrical instrument in his hand…

Impossible. I thought. Not now.
Yet it only made sense with the thunderous crashes and the terrified faces of the students. There were aliens in my school.

Upon instinct I ran after him, through another set of double doors and into a significantly wider corridor with the Hall straight ahead and two classrooms either side. Except there was smoke pouring out one of nearest classroom. I could only guess that something huge had crashed into that classroom from the outside.

Coughing, I crouched down and peered around the open doorway.

Amongst the wreckage of my old Physics classroom was most definitely a spacecraft, like something you'd see in Star Trek. It was about the height of a petrol tanker but twice as wide and oval-shaped, grey in colour and making bizarre beeping noises.

But the sight of the spaceship didn't shock me any more than the sight of the two aliens that stood in front of it. They were about seven feet tall and rather fat with long forearms. At the end of each forearm were three long, fat fingers with equally long claws. Their heads were abnormally too small for their bodies, with bulging black eyes, which sat on top of long necks - alarming like E.T.

And they were green.
When they spoke, it was clearly English, but it sounded like someone speaking into a glass of water.

That sort of gargle effect.

"We're here to invade your precious Planet Earth and colonise to reform our species." That was clearly a male voice, it was fast and deep but the gargle effect somehow distorted it so it was quite hard to distinguish what he was saying.

"Oh don't give me that, you know it won't work. There are less of you than there were last time and I stopped you then!" The Doctor replied.

It could only be the Doctor, with his sonic screwdriver and his passion for saving the world from aliens. But he was not how I remembered him. Sure his outfit was different but so was his voice...

"Actually, since we last saw you we've returned here several more times only to have been thwarted by Sarah-Jane Smith and her gang of pathetic children. A friend of yours?" The other alien said, this one had a more female voice.

Sarah-Jane Smith? What about Rose?
I concluded that the Doctor must have had several friends as he travelled far and wide.

The Doctor laughed darkly. "What you really must understand is that it does not matter how far away I go from this planet. It is always protected."

The male alien spoke with a chuckle. "But we'll keep returning Doctor. We want revenge for the many Slitheen your friend Miss Smith has killed."

Slitheen must be their species...
And yes, they had just confirmed that it was the Doctor I had followed.

The smoke was gradually getting thicker to the point where I had to sink to my knees to avoid it.
I was glad of it in a way though, as it concealed me from the sight of these 'Slitheen' which were facing the door.

"Well, if I'm totally honest with you. Picking a school to crash-land into really wasn't a good idea. One, because there are lots of witnesses around and-"

But he was cut off by a sudden explosion from the wrecked spaceship which sent him flying through the open doorway and sprawling into the opposite wall.

He sat there for a few moments, dazed, before fumbling in his jacket pocket for the screwdriver and leaping up again. I only just managed to move out of the way before he slammed the classroom door shut, trapping the two Slitheen inside.

He flicked the sonic device into life - the familiar sound bringing to light memories of a past that seemed so distant - and aimed it at the door. There was an unmistakeable sound of a lock clicking.

The Doctor then finally turned to me. "What were you sneaking around here for young lady? Your school's fire alarm is extremely hard to miss and yet here you are in an obvious danger zone." waving dramatically at the classroom he had just been thrown out of.

"Errrr..." was all I could manage before there was a loud BANG! on the door which seemed to snap him back to the urgency of the situation.

"Ahhh. Yes. Right. Where's your food storage?"

I just looked at him quizzically.

"You know, the food hall...no? Kitchen...no? Cafeteria!" he almost shouted, clicking his fingers when I showed the slightest understanding of what he was after. "Yes that's it. Take me to the cafeteria. I want some chips!"

"You think now is a good time to eat? There are two aliens in that classroom which you have just locked with that screwdriver and you want to eat?" I asked incredulously, however I started in the direction of the cafeteria which was the other side of the school.

I was already a few steps in front of him before he caught up.
"Screwdriver?" he asked.

"Yes, screwdriver. A sonic screwdriver actually, which can open and lock doors and all sorts of other impressive settings." I replied casually.

I had him. He was totally speechless.

"I'm sorry, I'm guessing I'm freaking you out a little... We've met before, a long time ago, and I used your sonic screwdriver to stop some kind of alien mind-control machine..."

There was another loud BANG! behind us and the classroom door was flung off it's hinges, the glass window shattering as it hit the opposite wall. The Slitheen were coming after us.

The Doctor grabbed my hand and we were running.

"Which way do we go? And what is your name?" He shouted.

"Next left, out of the door and straight across the netball courts into the opposite building!" I shouted back. "And it's Ali."

I glanced over my shoulder before we rounded the corner and just caught a glimpse of the two aliens waddling after us.

When we were inside the opposite building, the Doctor got out his screwdriver again and locked the door.

"Should buy us some time!" He said, panting. "I don't think I've ever stopped Slitheen like this before but right now I think it is the quickest way. We need vinegar!"

"What?"

"They're allergic to it. It'll sort of make them explode..." he trailed off, looking expectantly at me.

We reached the deserted cafeteria and I ran straight to the back where the bottles were stored. There were about twenty, each roughly thirty centimetres tall.

"Brilliant! Any buckets by any chance?"

There was a cleaner's mop and bucket in the corner. I tipped the contents down the nearest sink and I followed his lead as he rapidly started emptying the many bottles of vinegar into the bucket.

Seconds later, the Slitheen were in the room with us.

"There's not enough vinegar in the bucket!" The Doctor cried.

"So, what do we do?"

"Improvise. Ali, how good is your aim?"

After he'd thrown what little contents of the bucket there was at the male Slitheen which let out a frustrated cry, the Doctor had me hurl as many bottles of vinegar as I could into the air a few feet above the female. The Doctor used his sonic screwdriver to burst them so their contents rained down on both of the green invaders.

After only a few, both Slitheen seemed to swell and just as the Doctor predicted, exploded.
We were both covered from head to foot in thick, green slime.

"Haha!" The Doctor laughed in triumph.

o o o

After I managed to get my head around what I had just done, the Doctor quizzed me about the first time we'd met and what had happened afterwards.
I told him.
How he'd trusted me with his sonic screwdriver, how I had used it to switch a minor setting on a machine hidden in a lighthouse on the nearby island and how his friend Rose had helped me.
But I didn't mention London.

When he heard Rose's name, his face seemed sad but he smiled at the memory. I asked him about what they'd done after they left me but he wouldn't answer me. Instead he said he wanted to show me something.

He led back the way we had come and out to the front of the school. I had no idea how I would explain the damage - the wrecked classroom, several smashed doors and the green goo spattered up the walls of the cafeteria.

But those thoughts left me when I saw the blue police box.

"This is your spaceship isn't it?" I breathed. It was beautiful even for a telephone box. It looked newly built, the paintwork shining in the sun.

"Yes this sexy thing is the TARDIS. Time And Relative Dimension In Space. She can travel across space and through time, she can take you wherever you want to go!" he replied enthusiastically.

I picked up the hint. "You want me to come with you?"

"I'd love you to come with me. I must say I rather think I owe it to you. After. Everything..." he trailed off.

"But what about everything that's happened here? We've made a lot of mess!" I reasoned.

"Oh don't worry about that... I'm sure some of my good Cardiff friends can cover it up!" he said, beaming.

"Errrm right." I said, staring down at the TARDIS-blue dress I was wearing with my white converse which were heavily patched with lime-green slime.

"Oh never mind there's a whole wardrobe in there. And a laundry room!" He added as he inserted a key into the lock and stepped inside.

o o o

The places he took me. The creatures he showed me.
It was best time of my life.
It enabled me to forget anything that had ever happened to me which could have stirred up any hatred of him within.

When we returned, barely an hour had passed since we'd left.
Of course, I had to answer to my friends as I'd just taken off for an hour without telling them and without my bag or my phone which was reckless.

But I told my father everything.
What had really happened at school and where I went afterwards. I thought he would be angry at me. But he listened to me intently as I recalled everywhere we'd visited and everything we'd helped or defeated.

I also told him everything the Doctor had told me. About him and his friends.
What happened to Rose Tyler at the Battle of Canary Wharf.
How Sarah-Jane Smith kept on fighting to save the Earth without him.
About Captain Jack Harkness and the Doctor-Donna.
How Martha Jones joined UNIT and married Mickey Smith the idiot - unbelievably Rose's ex-boyfriend.
And about his future wife, River Song and how they kept meeting in the wrong order.

But he failed to warn me about Torchwood.
Joining Torchwood was the second major mistake in my life.