A/N: Greeting, readers! Welcome to my new story, When the Darkness Comes, a sequel to Whispers in the Dark and the second story in my Arie for the Daughter of Time series! It is not necessary to read the first story to understand what will be going on, but you can go ahead and do that before reading this one, as it will clear up confusion later on.

Before we begin, I would like to apologize to the old readers for the delay in uploading, as I was patiently waiting for my beta to finish up the second part of the episode so that I could upload them together, and now that it is done (a big kiss to InTheTARDISJustAsItShouldBe!) the sequel is finally yours! To be fair, I did decide to split the big chapters up in smaller ones to see how that goes at the last moment, but you're getting a chapter nonetheless!

Small introduction, for those who forgot or missed it: this is a rewrite of series 3 of Doctor Who, featuring my OC, the Time Lady Alexandra (or Valyria, as her actual Gallifreyan name is). Currently on her second body, she thought she was 21 years old last time we saw her, though the Doctor discovered she was actually 356. She is not yet part of the TARDIS crew, but she will gradually become one as this story goes on. For your convenience and mine, I'll be using actual actresses to portray each incarnation or other OCs, so the faceclaim of this incarnation is Anna Popplewell. For help with visualization of her clothes, you can find all her outfits gathered in a collection on my Polyvore account - along with a moodboard for this story! Both a list of her incarnations and my username can be found in my profile.

Continuing my naming the stories after songs (though they are not songfics), I borrowed the title of Colbie Caillat's song, as the title on its own really suits the feel of this story and where I want to go with it and the lyrics mirror what will be going on with the Doctor and Alexandra during this installment. So on you go, and don't forget to leave a review!


The grey clouds in the sky outside the Royal Hope Hospital complemented Mr. B. Stoker's unchanging mood as he led his medical students inside another ward, as their routine was every morning. Every day he would take them on a tour around the hospital to check on. After visiting an older woman, he then led them to a new patient, a man in pyjamas, with brown hair that stood almost on end.

''Now then, Mr. Smith, a very good morning to you,'' he greeted the patient, earning a wide smile. ''How are you today?''

''Aw, not so bad,'' he replied. ''Still, a bit, you know, blah.''

Mr. Stoker addressed his students. ''John Smith, admitted yesterday with severe abdominal pains. Jones,'' he turned to a young black woman with straight black hair, ''why don't you see what you can find? Amaze me.''

The woman, Martha Jones, stepped up, placing a stethoscope around her neck. ''That wasn't very clever,'' she told the patient, ''running around outside, was it?''

Mr. Smith looked at her in confusion. ''Sorry?''

''On Chancellor Street this morning,'' Martha explained. ''You came up to me and took your tie off.''

''Really? What did I do that for?''

''I don't know, you just did,'' she shrugged.

The man shook his head. ''Not me. I was here, in bed. Ask the nurses.''

It was Martha's turn to be confused. ''Well, that's weird, cause it looked like you. Have you got a brother?''

He shook his head yet again. ''No, not any more. Just me.''

''As time passes and I grow ever more infirm and weary, Miss Jones,'' Mr. Stoker broke their conversation irritably.

Martha looked up at him. ''Sorry. Right.'' She placed the tip of the stethoscope on the left side of his chest to listen to his heartbeat, the man watching her intently. She could hear a strong heartbeat, but something seemed to echo that sound. Turning her eyes to the man, she saw him smirking at her. Moving the stethoscope to the right, she found another heartbeat, equally as strong as the first one. Mr. Smith simply winked at her.

Mr. Stoker, watching the scene, sighed. ''I weep for future generations. Are you having trouble locating the heart, Miss Jones?''

Martha raised herself up, removing the stethoscope from her ears. ''Um… I don't know,'' she laughed, dismissing the thought. ''Stomach cramps?''

''That is a symptom, not a diagnosis. And you rather failed basic techniques by not consulting first with the patient's chart.'' Their overseer picked a chart up from the end of Mr. Smith's bed, but dropped it as soon as a small electric shock struck his hand.

''That happened to me this morning,'' said Martha.

''I had the same thing on the door handle,'' a male student, Morgenstern, added.

''And me,'' Swales, a friend of Martha's among the group, pointed out, ''in the lift.''

''That's only to be expected,'' Mr. Stoker explained. ''There's a thunderstorm moving in and lightning is a form of static electricity, as was first proven by – anyone?'' he addressed his audience.

''Benjamin Franklin,'' he was surprised to hear Mr. Smith answer.

''Correct!''

''My mate Ben; that was a day and a half,'' he started rambling, ''I got rope burns off that kite, and then I got soaked…''

''Quite-''

''... and then I got electrocuted!'' he finished, looking around the group with a smile.

''Moving on.'' Mr. Stoker took a male nurse aside. ''I think perhaps a visit from psychiatric,'' he told him, and then addressed his students again, ''and next we have…''

John Smith watched them go with a wide smile, earning one back from Martha Jones as she left with the rest of the small group.

~\8/~

''Here we are, then,'' Mr. Stoker said, leading them to a bed in another ward. Lying on it was a woman in her early twenties with straight chestnut hair and icy blue eyes, her cheeks and nose adorned with freckles, wearing a white gown and reading a magazine. Her left hand was being fed by an IV bag. ''An early admittance, Andrea Harkness came in the early hours of the morning with a severe headache and dizziness. How, are you, miss Harkness?''

She put her magazine down on her lap. ''Tiny bit better, actually. Still got a headache, though, and I'm a tiny bit nauseous.''

He smiled at her and turned to the group. ''Any suggestions? Jones?'' he addressed the woman. ''Maybe something to make up for your previous errors?''

Martha nodded. ''Dizziness and nausea could be symptoms of pregnancy,'' she suggested, and Miss Harkness' mouth dropped in the shape of an O.

''I can assure you I'm not pregnant,'' she said indignantly.

Mr. Stoker pursed his lips. ''Now, you're making the same mistake again. Miss Harkness, what have you been doing for the past days? Taken good care of yourself?''

She cocked her head to the side. ''No, actually. I barely had time to eat or drink this week, been very busy. You think this has something to do with it?''

''Just simple dehydration, that's all,'' he assured her. ''And you ate a whole meal in one go right after waking up, can't blame you for feeling nauseous. See?'' he said to the group. ''Sometimes the solution is fairly simple.''

''But sometimes it's not.'' Everyone's heads turned in Miss Harkness' direction. ''It might be even more complicated than you thought.'' Her tone was so ominous that Martha shivered.

Mr. Stoker cleared his throat. ''Alright, time to move on again…'' He led the group outside once more, away from her piercing blue eyes that followed them till they were gone.

~\8/~

Alexandra was woken up two hours later by loud thunder.

She blearily opened her eyes and stared out of the window to see rain pouring heavily outside. Most of the inhabitants of the ward were awake, unlike her, who had dozed off right after the medical students had left. Faking various conditions had become quite an expertise of hers the past years, seeing that she wasn't remotely human. It had been a surprise when she had found out she could manipulate her own internal organs to create various medical conditions (an ability that had even pushed her towards her chosen profession), and when she saw the plasma coils outside the hospital, she had seized the opportunity to use said ability to get in. And good thing she did.

Because that didn't sound like normal thunder.

Her assumptions were further affirmed when the rain started going up.

She immediately tugged at the tape securing the needle in her arm to get a closer look, but it wouldn't come off, no matter how hard she scratched at it. ''Come off, come off…'' she mumbled under her breath. Just as she found a free corner of tape to pull, a bright light filled the room and a strong quake knocked everyone on the floor, including her. The moment she fell, a stinging pain travelled through her arm as the needle was violently ripped out of it, but she didn't have time to address the problem; she was far too busy cowering in the middle of the floor, covering her head with her hands till the quake stopped.

Once it did, Alexandra slowly raised her head up to look around. Curtains were ripped off their rings, tables had travelled across the room, medical equipment had scattered across the floor. A small trail of blood ran down her arm.

All people currently in the room gathered around the window to look outside at the sudden change from day to night, and she joined them. ''Excuse me, sorry,'' she mumbled, sliding next to a young woman to look properly and her eyes widened.

The hospital was standing on the surface of the moon, the Earth visible in the distance.

''Oh, my world," she breathed.

Meanwhile, the room had erupted into chaos. People were screaming and running around like the Apocalypse had come. The medical staff tried to contain the situation, but to no avail; the patients wouldn't listen.

Alexandra went back to her bed and took her clothes from a cupboard next to it. She had to do something, and if the tugging at the back of her mind was anything to go by, she knew exactly who to look for to help.

~\8/~

Martha rushed inside one of the wards, followed by a sobbing Swales. ''All right, everyone back to bed,'' she called as she strode towards the window. ''We've got an emergency but we'll sort it out. Don't worry!''

The Doctor, who had admitted himself as John Smith, watched her intently before shutting his bed curtain.

The young woman looked outside, having a hard time believing they were actually where they were. But there it was: the surface of the moon, and the Earth suspended in the horizon. ''It's real! It's really real! Hold on.'' She reached for the window latch.

''Don't!'' Swales caught her hand to stop her. ''We'll lose all the air!''

''But they're not exactly air tight,'' Martha reasoned. ''If the air was going to get sucked out, it would have happened straightaway, but it didn't. So how come?''

The curtain was pulled aside and the Doctor, in a tight blue suit, emerged. ''Very good point! Brilliant, in fact. What was your name?'' he asked.

''Martha.''

''And it was Jones, wasn't it?'' She nodded. ''Well then, Martha Jones, the question is, how are we still breathing?'' He came to the window as well, looking outside.

''We can't be!'' Swales sobbed.

''Obviously we are, so don't waste my time,'' he dismissed her.

''And here I thought that you would be less rude!'' a voice called behind them.

The Doctor whirled around at the familiar (though now seemingly a bit deeper) voice and could only stare as none other than Alexandra strode into the room, looking very different from what he remembered. Last time he had seen her, she was walking towards a UNIT truck, about to be taken away per her request. And back then it had been his fault that she had left, not being able to cope with the news of her parentage weighing down on him. According to her, she had done them both a favour by leaving the TARDIS, and even now, a few months after the incident for him (though he doubted it had been that short a time for her) he still wasn't sure if he had decided what she was to him.

It wasn't her sudden entrance that had startled him the most; it was her aging. The last time he had seen her she had had the appearance of a 14-year-old girl, and now she had matured to a young and beautiful woman, nothing like the teenager he had met a few months ago from his perspective. And it wasn't just that; this Alexandra had a very strong mental presence in his mind, as if her own mind was a beacon signalling that she was, indeed, standing in front of him, that she wasn't a person to be ignored. For a moment, he had to consider the repercussions of such a presence and what it would mean to similarly telepathic species like themselves.

Her style had matured, as well: she was wearing a black sleeveless dress with a lace neckline and a train in a similar fashion to the skirts she preferred to wear when she was younger, though that was the only similarity she had with her human self in sense of style. She wore it along with a pair of black military boots, obviously preferring them over coloured sneakers now, a leather jacket in one hand; her cloak wouldn't have spared her a visit to a psych ward, he guessed. Her hair fell over her right shoulder, the left side held up by the barrette she had been wearing when she had left the TARDIS. A heavy fob watch, THE fob watch, in fact, was still hanging around her neck, while a brown leather bracer was tied around her left wrist.

''Whoa, what year is this?'' he only managed to get out, his thoughts having difficulty arranging themselves into spoken words.

She was rummaging through a cupboard by the door. ''The same as before'', she said. ''Don't worry; it was me who travelled. Miss Jones?'' she called. ''Where do you keep sticker bandages?''

Martha blinked. ''The cupboard next to you.''

Alexandra nodded and opened it, pulling out what she was looking for. As she applied it over the small hole the IV tube had left behind, she kept coming towards them. ''Right after you left, I reverse engineered a vortex manipulator and did some travelling of my own; living up to the title, you know? Took me very long, though; should have come back earlier. Come here!'' She threw her arms around his neck and gave him a tight hug, and he hugged her back with a laugh, earning a confused glance from Martha.

Once he let her go, he looked at her arm. ''What's wrong with your hand?''

''Nothing; we're on the moon!'' Alexandra cheered and he smiled.

''I know! And we're breathing!''

''I love it when that happens!'' She giggled slightly at her own excitement and then she let go to stare outside the window. ''How do you reckon we should proceed?''

As much as the shock was getting to him, he couldn't let it stall him, so the Doctor turned to Martha. ''Martha, what have we got? Is there a balcony on this floor, or a veranda, or...?''

After a short moment of breaking away the confusion, she replied. ''By the patients' lounge, yeah.''

''Fancy going out for a moon walk, Martha Jones?'' Alexandra asked her.

''Okay,'' she said in a heartbeat.

''We might die,'' the Doctor warned her.

''We might not,'' she countered.

Both aliens smiled. ''Good, c'mon,'' the Doctor said, then glanced at Swales. ''Not her, she'd hold us up.'' The intern sobbed once as they ran out of the room, Martha behind Alexandra.

''I love the way you think, Martha Jones,'' she called over her shoulder at the medical student as she tied her jacket around her waist, and Martha smiled at the comment.

Martha led the two of them down the hallway and in front of the glass doors leading outside. The Time Lords took hold of the door handles and, after a subtle nod from her, opened it and stepped outside.

Martha took in a sharp breath. ''We've got air! How does that work?''

''Just be glad it does'', the Doctor commented as they stepped closer to the edge of it. Alexandra kept back a bit, staring up at the Earth looming in the horizon.

''I've got a party tonight,'' Martha mumbled and Alexandra turned her eyes on her. ''It's my brother's twenty-first. My mother's going to be really... really…'' Her voice broke at the end, as if she was about to cry.

''You okay?'' she asked her, taking a step closer to her.

''Yeah.''

''Sure?'' the Doctor asked in return.

''Yeah!''

''Want to go back in?''

Martha shook her head. ''No way! I mean, we could die any minute, but all the same - it's beautiful.''

''You think?'' he stared up at the Earth.

''How many people want to go to the moon?'' she wondered. ''And here we are!''

''Standing in the earthlight,'' Alexandra mumbled as she came to stand next to her, resting her elbows on the balcony the same moment the Doctor did.

After a moment of silence, Martha addressed the Doctor. ''What do you think happened?''

''What do you think?'' he asked her back. The woman had shown promise so far. She was intelligent and able to keep her calm in situations as stressful as the one they were in right now. Not that he was looking for companions, of course not. That position was reserved for Alexandra, if she would have it. But Martha Jones was a very interesting human being.

''Extraterrestrial,'' she replied firmly. ''It's got to be. I don't know, a few years ago that would have sounded mad, but these days? That spaceship flying into Big Ben, Christmas, those Cybermen things...'' Her eyes drifted out into the horizon. ''I had a cousin. Adeola. She worked at Canary Wharf. She never came home.''

Alexandra looked at the Doctor as she placed a hand over Martha's in an attempt to offer her some comfort.

''I'm sorry,'' he told her.

''Yeah.''

''I was there,'' he mumbled. ''In the battle…'' His eyes were filled with sorrow and he got lost in his own thoughts, and Alexandra immediately knew why he was like that. She remembered when he had told her about Rose, the woman she had taken a glimpse of in his mind, the one who got lost in a parallel universe during the battle of Canary Wharf. It was still raw for him, a wound wide open, because she knew the man loved Rose very much, she had figured that much out, even though she didn't know how much, and it hurt to even bring her in his mind, let alone remember the day she was ripped from his grasp.

And she wanted to do something, she really did, but what could she do? What did she know about love? She barely remembered her own mother! She was too young – by her species' standards – to understand what he needed, and she hadn't even experienced the feeling for herself to begin with (her sisters weren't a very expressive lot when it came to emotions). And, of course, she didn't want to force her way into the Doctor's life and become his new project to take his mind off Rose, or replace the children he had lost. That's why she had stopped him from helping her when she was apprehended by UNIT. She wanted to figure out her new life by herself.

Though she couldn't lie to herself; there was the... other matter that held her back from accepting his offer, as well... A matter more personal than the rest...

''I promise you, Mr. Smith,'' Martha broke her reverie, ''Miss Harkness, we will find a way out. If we can travel to the moon, then we can travel back. There's got to be a way.''

Meanwhile, the Doctor was examining the space around the balcony. ''It's not Smith, that's not my real name,'' he told her. Alexandra, guessing what he was thinking, looked over the balcony as well. ''And hers is not Harkness – where did you pick up Harkness, anyway?''

''Long story, wouldn't know where to start'', Alexandra replied, focusing on examining the base of the hospital. ''Won't keep it, though.''

''Who are you, then?'' Martha asked, looking at the pair's odd actions.

''My name's Alexandra.''

''And I'm the Doctor.''

''Me too, if I can pass my exams,'' she laughed. ''What is it, then? Doctor Smith?''

''Just the Doctor,'' both Time Lords said, looking over the same side.

With every passing remark, she grew even more confused. ''How do you mean, just the Doctor?''

''Just... the Doctor,'' he looked at her.

''What, people call you 'the Doctor'? And don't you have a surname?'' she turned to Alexandra, as well.

''No, I don't,'' Alexandra picked up a pebble from the balcony and started tossing it in the air, ''and yeah, we do call him that.''

''Well, I'm not,'' Martha said. ''As far as I'm concerned, you've got to earn that title.''

''Well, I'd better make a start, then. Let's have a look.'' The Doctor took the pebble from Alexandra mid-air, earning an annoyed yelp, and threw it forward with force. ''There must be some sort of…'' The pebble hit an invisible wall, causing ripples in the air.

''…force field,'' Alexandra finished for him, ''to keep the air in.''

''If that's like a bubble sealing us in,'' Martha realized, ''that means this is the only air we've got.'' She looked to the pair, who were looking at the place where the pebble had hit the force field. ''What happens when it runs out?''

''How many people in this hospital?'' the Doctor asked.

She shrugged. ''I don't know, a thousand?''

''One thousand people,'' he mumbled, ''suffocated.''

Alexandra let out a shuddering breath. ''Oh, my world,'' she whispered.

''Why would anyone do that?!'' Martha asked them in alarm.

Suddenly a rumbling noise like an engine filled the night. ''Head's up! Ask them yourself.'' The Doctor looked up just as three huge black ships flew overhead and came to land in front of the hospital, outside the force field. Latches opened at their bottom and what seemed like platoons upon platoons of armour-clad aliens with huge black helmets emerged and started marching across the surface of the moon towards the hospital.

''Aliens,'' Martha breathed. ''That's aliens. Real, proper aliens!''

Alexandra chuckled. ''I take offence in that statement,'' she remarked quietly to the Doctor, almost hanging from the balcony to get a better look.

''Judoon,'' he identified the aliens, smirking just a little bit at her remark.