Beyond Imagination

by MyLadyOfStories

I'm a hybrid of a human & a Stryx, faery like with thin, delicate wings & a sharp dragons tail, both of which I got from my father. Mum, Sarah Jane, said she loved my father, that she hadn't known she was pregnant when he left, but she couldn't tell him. So raised me alone. I'm Niara Andrea Smith, this is how I found out I was the Author of Fixed Points & I was Beyond Imagination.

1. Finding The Doctor

My second lesson of the day in my temporary school, while my normal one thought I was on holiday, was physics. I liked physics, all types of science really, but I prefered chemistry, and even then, I prefered Engineering and English. "Good morning class. Are we sitting comfortably?" Mr Smith asked with a smile, before he started to write physics on the board.

Then proceeded to say it several dozen times.

"OK, let's see what you know. Two identical strips of nylon are charged with static electricity and hung from a string so they can swing freely. What happens if they're brought near each other?" Myself and a boy with glasses put our hands up but he pointed to the boy. "Yes, er, what's your name?"

"Milo."

"Milo! Off you go."

The boy didn't hesitate. "They'd repel each other because they have the same charge."

Which Mr Smith loved. "Correctamundo! A word I have never used before and hopefully never will again." Weirdo. "Question two. I coil up a thin piece of microwire and place it into a glass of water. Then I turn on the electricity and measure the water to see if the water's temperature is affected. My question is this. How do I measure the electrical power going into the coil?" Just Milo and I again, so this time he pointed to me. "OK, love, what's your name?"

"Niara. Nia. You'd measure the current and PD's in an ammeter and a volt meter." I replied, not looking up from the book I was obviously reading. "Depending on the voltage and the speed of the current, the water would heat up roughly 2-3 degrees every 30 seconds maybe?"

"True of false, Nia, Milo, the greater the damping of a system, the quicker it loses it's energy to it's surroundings."

Easy and I spoke in time with Milo. "False."

"Mr Smith swapped to biology for a moment. "What is non-coding DNA?"

Please, up your game. "DNA that doesn't code for protein."

"65983x5."

I had to pause, just for a moment, adding in my head, so Milo managed to beat me. I was fast, inhumanly so, but he was like a calculator. "329015."

Then the game went too high for even me, not even Mr Smith could teach me the next question. "How do you travel faster than light?"

"By opening a quantum tunnel with an FTL factor of 36.7 recurring."

I grabbed a pen from my bag, walking over to the whiteboard and started to work out the equation he just said. "Holy... He's right. That makes sense and would work."

Even Mr Smith's jaw dropped, looking between the two of us, but then quickly dropped the subject, wiping my sums off the board and got on with the actual lesson. The Doppler Effect as I boredly read my book until lunch. Where I ended up sitting at the other end of the table from Mr SMith, the teacher, not the computer, while I texted mum. "Boy had super brain. Bigger than mine. Knew how to travel FTL."

"Nia, be careful, baby. You pushed to come with me, you're still young. Chips and pie OK for tea?"

"As long as you don't set off the fire alarm again. Good luck with Finch. Love you, mum."

Then I quickly put it away as Mr Smith moved in front of me. "Niara, right?" I nodded, looking at my book again. I was nearly always reading. "How long you been going to school here, Nia? Don't you sit with friends?"

I didn't even have friends at my normal school, I was perfectly happy reading by myself. "My first day. Besides, all my friends are fictional and I'm perfectly happy with that. You want to know why I'm smart, try looking at my files. I can check the equations, but not even I know how to travel FTL."

"Niara Smith. Something tells me you're going to be brilliant." He smiled brightly at me as the bell went for the end of lunch, my box of food untouched in my bag as I went to walk to PE, not looking away from my book. I had a note for PE, as I couldn't change in public changing rooms. "Oh, be careful. I broke my nose once, doing that."

I waved him off and spend the rest of the day bored out of my mind before going home. Until Mr Smith told mum and I that it was empty at Deffry Vale. Then headed back, me 'climbing' easily through a window and then helped her through. "Careful. There's a big drop."

"Thanks, baby." She smiled, righting herself before I then let her lead me through the corridors. It was awesome seeing a school at night, I'd never even done it at my proper one. "Did you see that?" And now we were running, reaching a set of doors to the gym before she turned to me. I so knew where this was going. "Stay here. Cover yourself behind the cupboards until I come back out, OK, Niara?"

"Mum-"

"No arguments! I'll just be a minute."

So I sighed and did as I was told, watching until some bloke went in and then went in a moment after. Only the dude turned around as I moved through the doors to go for him and he caught me. "Nia?"

Wait... I knew that voice. "Mr Smith? What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question. Sarah, why are you bringing along a kid?"

Only before mum could explain that I was her daughter, or that I could say I wasn't a kid, someone screamed and we all started to run towards it, the blonde dinner lady catching up with us. "Did you hear that?" Then she saw mum and I, me having trouble not moving too quickly. I was fast. "Who are they?"

"Rose, Sarah Jane and Niara. Sarah Jane and Niara, Rose."

Mum gave her a bitter smile because of the way she welcomed us. "Hi, nice to meet you. You can tell you're getting older, your assistants are getting younger."

"I'm not his assistant!"

Which made me laugh. "No? Get you, Mr Smith."

Then we found the source of the scream, some man covered in something from a cupboard. "Sorry! Sorry, it was only me. You told me to investigated, so I started to look through some of these cupboards and all of these fell on me."

"Oh, my God, they're rats." Rose breathed, looking at them all. "Dozens of rats. Vacuum packed rats."

"And you decided to scream." Mr Smith asked him. "Like a little girl?"

I folded my arms at him, still annoyed that I had no idea who this dude was. "Excuse me. Girl under the age of 15 here! Rat's aren't commonly dissected in schools any more. It's considered immoral and most kids just mess around. Mum, who the hell is this bloke?"

Mum put her arms around me as he stared, looking between us. "Niara, this is him. The man I told you stories of as a baby. This is the Doctor." My own eyes widened for a moment, feeling the hazelly brown I inherited from mum swap to the unnatural blue it was on occasion. "He's not just some bloke."

The Doctor saw Rose, who might have been his girlfriend, go to say something, so he started to do something else again. "Anyway. Moving on. Everything started when Mr Finch arrived. We should go and check his office."

We started walking, the two men behind us as I stood between mum and Rose. Which meant I was between a bitchfest. "I don't mean to be rude or anything," meaning the opposite, "but who exactly are you?"

"Sarah Jane Smith, this is my 14 year old Niara, Nia." Mum told her, holding my hand softly. "I used to travel with the Doctor."

"Oh, well he's never mentioned you."

The man in question tried to dig himself out. "Oh, I must have done. Sarah Jane. Mention her all the time."

She pretended to think. "Hold on. Sorry. Never."

Mum was having a great time trying to keep up with her in the heels I told her not to wear. Why go on a stealth mission wearing high heels? "What? Not even once? He didn't mention me one?" This was not going to end well.

I was left standing with Mickey and the Doctor as they walked off. "Did you have to upset her? Just because your misses doesn't like your ex, who isn't interested and has a daughter, doesn't mean you have to let them bitch it out." Then I followed my mother, my long light brown hair straight down my back, covering the marks I was born with.

They caught us up at the headmaster's office, the Doctor starting to use some weird blue thing to unlock the door. "Maybe those rats were food." Well what else were they going to be?

"Food for what?" Rose asked as mum made me stay behind her. Boring.

"Rose, you know how you used to think all the teachers slept in the school? Well they do."

I could just see over mums shoulder that there were 13 large bat creatures, more gothic versions of myself, hanging from the ceiling. Only then Mickey lost what little composure he had left from the scream and ran, leaving us to follow with a bit more dignity. "I am not going back in there. No way." Coward. I'd been doing things like this since I could walk.

"When Finch arrived, he brought with him 7 new teachers, 4 dinner ladies and a nurse. 13. 13 big bat people." The Doctor told us, like I hadn't already worked it out for myself. "Come on."

Mickey stared at him. "Come on? You've got to be kidding!"

He wasn't. "I need the TARDIS. I've got to analyse that oil from the kitchen." The TARDIS was actually real? Awesome!

"I might be able to help you there." Mum smiled, getting out her keys to unlock the car. "Niara and I have got something to show you." Could he fix him? Seriously?

His face lit up at the sight of my childhood best friend, from long before mum ever allowed me to leave the house. I was her precious baby faery, she wouldn't let me out of her sight. "K9! Rose Tyler, Mickey Smith, allow me to introduce K9. Well, K9 Mark Three."

"Why does he look so disco?" Excuse you?!

"Oi!" The Doctor complained. "Listen, in the year 5000, this was cutting edge. What's happened to him?"

Mum shrugged as I fondly placed a hand on the dogs side. "Oh, one day, when Nia was about 6, just nothing. Not even she could fix him." I liked fixing things. Why did they break if they couldn't be repaired? "It's not like getting parts for a mini metro." I also missed that car. Stupid pot holes. "Besides, the technology inside him, we couldn't show him to anyone."

"Oh, what's the nasty lady and her spawn done to you, eh?"

I went to kick him for that spawn comment, but mum sent me a warning look as Rose spoke again. Boring. "Look, no offence," which, again, meant the opposite, "but could you 3 stop petting for a minute? Never mind the tin dog, we're busy."

Mum drove us to the nearest late night coffee shop, me banished to the backseat as the Doctor sat at the front with her before we started to try and fix my friend. There was silence for a while as I got out my tool kit to help, before mum spoke. "I thought of you on Christmas Day. This Christmas just gone? Great big spaceship overhead. I thought, oh yeah, bet he's up there. Niara wanted to go and look." I would have done, but you wouldn't let me.

"Right on top of it, yeah. And how? It was defended underneath."

"And Rose?" She asked, swapping my name for the annoying blondes, taking the subject off my inhuman side.

He nodded, watching my perfectly steady hand hold the soldering iron as he directed me. "She was there too."

"Did I do something wrong?" Mum asked abruptly, looking more insecure than I had ever seen before. "Because you never came back. You just dumped me."

"I told you. I was called back home and in those days humans weren't allowed."

She looked right at him, but he was barely looking in her direction so I kicked him hard. My anger management sessions at school really didn't work very well. "Mum waited for you. She missed you. Every bedtime story she told me until I was 5 was about you so you can at least look at her!"

The Doctor finally did so, rubbing his chin. "You didn't need me. You were getting on with your life. You had your scary smart daughter, Niara."

"You were my life until I had Nia." She told him, his eyes fixed on her now. "You know what the most difficult thing was? Coping with what happens next, or what doesn't happen next. You took me to the furthest reaches of the galaxy, you showed me supernovas, intergalactic battles, and then you just dropped me back on Earth. How could anything compare those 17 years before Niara?"

"All those things, do you want me to apologise for that?"

Mum shook her head. "No, but we get a taste of that splendor, and then we have to go back." How many had there been like mum and Rose?

He was trying to dig himself out. "Look at you, investigating. Teaching Nia all the things you know. You found that school. You're doing what we always did."

"You could have come back. There were times..." Her hand drifted to my back, but I flinched and she moved it away again. I hated being touched, I avoided it if I could. "Nia couldn't have jabs or go to school until she was 7." But which point I was 4 times smarter anyway.

"I couldn't."

"Why not?" I asked him, my soldering iron sealing holes in K9's side but he didn't answer. "You didn't leave mum in Croydon, by the way. Where you dropped her off, it was Aberdeen."

Now he blinked, probably confused as to what I was. "Right. That's next to Croydon, isn't it?" Then K9 came back to life, making me beam. "Oh, hey. Now we're in business."

"Master. Mistress Niara."

He was getting very excited. "He recognises me, and you Nia!" K9 agreed. "Rose, give us the oil."

The bitchy blonde appeared next to us, making me glare at her, my eyes flashing blue. "I wouldn't touch it though. That dinner lady got all scorched."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "I'm no dinner lady." Oh, there was a pun and a half waiting there. "And I don't say that often." Then smeared the stuff on the probe. "Here we go. Come on boy. Here we go."

"Oil. Ex, ex, extract. Ana, ana, analysing."

"Listen to him, man." Mickey laughed, making my glare move to him. "That's a voice."

Mum stopped me from kicking him now. "Careful. That's our dog. Nia, count to 10 and stop kicking." Boring. Where was my book?

Then K9 came back with an answer. "Confirmation of analysis. Substance is Krillitane oil." Like that helped sans Mr Smith.

"They're Krillitanes."

Rose frowned at him. "Is that bad?"

He nodded. "Very. Think of how bad things could possibly be, and add another suitcase full of bad."

I rolled my eyes. "A, that only just made sense. B, what are Krillitanes?"

"They're a composite race. Just like your culture is a mixture of traditions from all sorts of countries, people you've invaded or have been invaded by. You've got bits of Viking, bits of France, bits of whatever" Well, everyone else here might have been. "The Krillitanes are the same. An amalgam of the races they've conquered. But they take physical aspects as well. They cherry pick the best bits from the people they destroy. That's why I didn't recognise them, the last I saw of them they looked just like us except they had really long necks."

Man he liked to keep talking. I prefered the written word.

"What're they doing here?"

Surely that was obvious, Rose? "They're doing something to the children."

We headed back to the car, Mickey giving me a hand to lift K9, not that I needed it, before we slid him into the boot. "So what's the deal with the metal dog?"

Shrugging, I fixed my hair, keeping it like a waterfall of melted chocolate down my back. "My mum said the Doctor likes travelling with an entourage. Sometimes they're human, like mum and Rose. Sometimes they're aliens. And sometimes they're tin dogs. What about you? Where do you fit in the picture?"

"Me? I'm their man in the van. I'm the technical support." Then it dawned on him. "I'm. Oh, my God, I'm the tin dog."

Only then something swooped down on at us, almost hitting me before mum rushed me out of the way, but then it moved on again. So I went to go after it, running to catch up but mum grabbed me. "Niara, no!"

"What was she going to do, free run like Assassin's Creed?" Rose scoffed, not looking impressed. I'd start by free running, but once I got high enough... It was more Legend of Zelda. "It didn't even touch her."

Now mum looked nervous as I gave her a small nod. We kinda needed to tell them. "Not here. we can't show you here."

Mickey frowned, but pointed somewhere in the distance. "My flat's just over there. We can go and talk out of the open."

To which I ended up standing under the bright lights of his living room, my hair pulled up and my shirt removed to show that under my bra straps were intricate, delicate wings I had slipped under the first few layers of my skin, the tail that did the same around my waist to stop people from seeing it. "That's what she could have done. Niara could have gone after it with those once she got high enough to glide."

"You're a Stryx." The Doctor realised, putting on a pair of glasses before touching the lines in my skin where they slipped through, then went under slightly. I hated people touching me, touching them. "This is incredible. You're kind are so rare." Wouldn't know. Mum was all I had."

"She's only half. Her father, Elijah, he got hurt crashing to Earth. I helped him recover and build his distress beacon to call home." Mum explained as I tried not to lash out in discomfort and anger. "We got, close, in that time, but I could never get the beacon to work again. When Niara was born with incredible wings and a tail... I knew that I couldn't tell anyone. She can almost fly for crying out loud!" Yeah, almost.

The Doctor's hands were still touching my wings, not noticing that my teeth were gritted and hands clenched. They were tender when they were like this, trapped beneath my skin and aching to be used. "Stryx are thought to be a myth. Barely anyone has ever seen one. Even I'd only met one or two myself, and you bedded one?!"

Only before mum could reply, my temper got the better of me and I pushed the Doctor back, my wings coming free to show that they weren't black, they were a pinkish purple with black through the middle, like a butterfly. They were also razor sharp when I wanted them to be.

My tail? My tail was always sharp and thin, breaking out and slicing through the air, catching the Doc's arm.

"Ow! Careful with that thing or you'll take an eye out, Nia!" He told me, not mad that I'd sliced him, but he was still bleeding. "Sorry. I didn't know it hurt you to have them touched like that. The Stryx I met always had them on show."

"It's fine." I muttered, my hair falling back down to sit between the delicate framework of thin, malleable bones and translucent skin. They were so thin, like paper but so strong that they were capable of keeping me off the ground. Just not enough to fly. "I just don't like people besides mum touching me in general. Or talking. I'm going to sit out on the balcony."

Then grabbed my bag to do just that, my wings retreating back into my skin and the tail going around my waist. I stayed out there for a while, my legs dangling over the edge of the 9 storey drop as I read my book. "Nia?" The Doctor asked a little while later, coming out to find me with a bandage on his own arm. "Nia, love, your mum sent me to come and get you, we're all staying with Mickey tonight."

I didn't look up from my book. "Tell her I'll be in when I've finished the chapter and that she should head to sleep first."

The man leaned over to look at the drop I was easily sitting out over and whistled. "Wow. Guess you're not afraid of heights?"

"I'm a girl with wings, what do you think?"

"Your mum said you couldn't quite fly yet though." He frowned, his dark brown eyes confused. "Have you not quite managed it yet?"

Shaking my head, I turned the page, not giving him my full attention. I never gave anyone my full attention. "She won't let me try. I think she's afraid that I'm going to leave her like my father did. Like you did."

The Doctor sighed and went to put a hand on my back, but then thought better of it. "It's complicated, Nia, it really is. But you do want to fly, I'm guessing? You want to use what you were born with?"

I finally put my book down, feeling my eyes turn blue again. Happened when I allowed myself to feel. "Of course I do. She named me after you, did you know that?" Which made him gape at me, like he was unsure what to say. "Not your real name, obviously, she doesn't know that, but Nia? Niara means Wanderer, like what you are. You wander through the stars, picking people up and then dropping them off like they never happened."

"That's not it at all. Look at you, 14 years old and you think you know how this all works." He shook his head, looking so sad now. All those years in his eyes, how old he must have been... "I'm the last of my kind, Nia. I make friends and keep them with me for whatever time I can. Some leave, some have died, and yes, some I have left behind, but only because it hurts too much to keep them with me as they slowly age towards death. I don't die. Just like there's a good chance that you won't."

But before I could question him, to ask him what the hell that meant, mum came out of the flat, and the subject was dropped like a stone in a lake.

The next morning we headed back to the school, mum driving us all before the Doctor started to tell us his plan. "Rose, Nia and Sarah, you go to the maths room. Crack open those computers. I need to see the hardware inside. Here, you might need this." And handed me the weird blue torch. "Mickey, surveillance. I want you outside."

"Just stand outside? The freaking faery child can go in but I can't?"

Mum tossed him the car keys. "Here, take these. You can keep K9 company."

This was far too tempting. "Don't forget to leave the window open a crack."

"But he's metal!"

"I didn't mean it for him! Mum and I have to drive home in there!"

Rose got us back on topic as we left Mickey behind. "What're you going to do?"

He shrugged. "It's time I had a work with Mr Finch."

We parted ways and went to the maths room, mum trying to work what I got told was the sonic screwdriver. It was a fairly easy thing to design, but it was done in a way that would just get you caught because it was obvious. You needed one like a pen, or a lipstick. Something inconspicuous. "It's not working." So Rose took it off her and did it herself as I started to read. I never did anything but read. "Used to work first time in my day."

"Well things used to be a lot simpler back then."

Mum sighed as I tried not to pay attention to the bitching about to commence. "Rose, can I give you a bit of advice?"

"I have a feeling you're about to."

She kept going anyway. "I know how intense a relationship with the Doctor can be, and I don't you to think we're intruding-"

"I don't feel threatened by you, if that's what you mean."

"Right, good. Because I'm not interested in picking up where we left off."

The blonde girl put down the sonic and faced my mother. "No? With the big sad eyes, the faery child and the robot dog?" Could people please stop calling me a faery? I'd rather be a dragon. "What else were you doing last night?"

"I was just saying how hard it was adjusting to life back on Earth."

Which made her worse and I stood up, ready to defend my mother, even if I wasn't supposed to let my emotions show and control me. "Thing is, when you two'd met, they'd only just gotten rid of rationing. Now wonder you couldn't handle all that space stuff."

It was mums turn to grit her teeth. "I had no problem with space stuff. I saw things you wouldn't believe, my daughter is half alien!"

"Try me."

"Mummies.

"I've met ghosts."

"Robots. Lots of robots."

"Slitheen. In Downing Street."

"Daleks."

"Met the Emperor." Mum met the creator, Davros.

"Anti-Matter Monsters."

"Gas masked Zombies."

"Real living dinosaurs."

"Real living werewolf." Ugh, bad literature like Twi-Shite.

Mum finally pulled out the trump card. "The Loch Ness Monster!"

"Seriously?" Then Rose laughed a little. "Listen to us. It's like me and my mate Shireen. The only we fell out was over a bloke and we're arguing over the Doctor." Was that was you were doing? I just thought you were having the female equivelant of a dick contest. "With you, did he do that thing where he'd explain something at like, 90mph, and you'd go what? and he'd look at you like you'd just dribbled on your shirt?"

Which made mum laugh a little too. "All the time. Does he still stroke bits of the TARDIS?"

"Yeah! Yeah, he does. I'm like, do you two want to be alone?"

As they both started to laugh, I went back to my reading, the man himself coming in to find them both in the early stages of hysterics. "How's it going?" They laughed harder at his timely entrance. "What? Listen, I need to find out whats programmed inside these." They were really off on one, and I could see that the Doctor was getting self conscious. "What? Stop it."

They snapped out of it as a tannoy told us break was over early, meaning Rose turned some students away. The Doctor was tangled up in wires as he tried to get into the computer himself, but it wasn't working. So I started to help, my fingers a blur on the keyboard. "I thought the sonic screwdriver could open anything?"

"Anything but a deadlock seal." Bit rubbish then, really. "There's got to be something inside here. What're they teaching those kids?"

Only as I started to click on things, a programmed started, my eyes fixing on the green light. "You wanted the programme? There it is."

"Some sort of code." Then it started to resolve, giving him what he needed to work it out. "No. No, that can't be. The Skasis Paradigm. They're trying to break the Skasis Paradigm."

"The Skasis what?"

"The God Maker." That really helped, thanks. "The universal theory. Crack that equation and you've got control of the building blocks of the universe. Time and space and matter, yours to control."

Oh, I was definitely happy to be going back to Park Vale at the beginning of the next week, that was saying something. "What, and the kids are like some giant computer?"

He nodded. "Yes. And the learning power is being accelerated by the oil. That oil from the kitchens, it works as a conducting agent. Makes the kids cleverer." Obviously didn't work for you. Cleverer wasn't a work, he should have said smarter.

Rose's eyes suddenly widened. "But that oils on the chips. I've been eating them."

"59x35?" I asked her, remembering Milo the day before.

"2065. Oh, my God." Not exactly a hard question, love.

Mum was holding me tight now, like she was scared that they were going to use me. Please, I was smart enough already. "Bit why use children? Can't they use adults?"

The Doctor shook his head, looking between mum and I. "No, it's got to be children. The God Maker needs imagination to crack it. They're not just using the children's brains to break the code. They're using their souls." I was safe then. On many an occasion I'd been told I was soulless.

"Let the lesson begin." We all turned to look at Mr Finch, who'd moved into the room as silently as, well, me. "Think of it, Doctor. With the Paradigm solved, reality becomes clay in our hands. We can shape the universe and improve it."

"Oh yeah? The whole of creation with the face of Mr Finch?" He asked, standing tall in front of us. Not exactly hard with mum and I, we were tiny. "Call me old fashioned, but I like things as they are."

Finch seemed bemused by that. "You act like such a radical, and yet all you want to do is preserve the old order? Think of the changes that could be made if the power was used for good."

"What, by someone like you?"

He shook his head, getting philosophical. I hated philosophy, all it did was make me think even more and I got stuck in my head. I was detached enough from reality as it was. "No, someone like you. The Paradigm gives us power, but you could give us wisdom. Become a God at my side. Imagine what you could do. Think of the civilisations you could save. Perganon, Assinta, Stryxa." What? Stryxa, my fathers world? "Your own people, Doctor, standing tall. The Time Lords reborn."

This was not going to end well. "Doctor, don't listen to him."

Only this drew his attention to mum, Rose and I. "And you could be with him through eternity. Young, fresh, never wither, never age, never die. You, young Stryx, you could find your father. Their lives are so fleeting. So many goodbyes. How lonely you must be, Doctor. How lonely you will become, young Niara. Join us."

"I could save everyone." The Doctor breathed, while I felt anger burning through me like nothing ever had before, my wings itching to come out and play while my tail was already thrashing through the air. "I could stop the War."

"No." I snapped, stepping next to him as I let my emotions win, just this once, my wings shimmering in the green light of the screens. "The universe has to move forward. Pain and loss, and anger, they define us as much as happiness, or love, or bliss. Whether it's a world or a relationship, and this may be a childish thing to say, but everyone has it their time, and everything ends."

There was a pause, before my words reached the Doctor and he threw a chair at the screen on the wall, smashing it. "Out!"

We started to run, making the stairs before I just jumped the balcony, my wings making me glide easily to the ground as Mickey and some random kid appeared. "What's going on?"

He ran into the canteen with us, the boy staring as we were followed in by a bunch of bats. "Are they my teachers?"

"Yeah." The Doctor told him. "Sorry."

"We need the Doctor and Niara alive." Finch yelled to his fellows. "As for the others, you can feast."

"Or not!" I yelled, grabbing a broom and started to whack at them, before taking a running start to get myself partly in the air and stab one through the wing with a butter knife. Then K9 started to help, everyone else just using chairs. "K9!"

My best friend was still covering us as mum grabbed my hand. Almost flying... I wanted to almost never land when I wasn't with her. "Suggest you engage running mode, Mistresses."

"Come one!" The Doctor called, ushering us through some doors. "K9, hold them back!" Then we were locked in the physics room, the Doctor pacing, but I was smiling. I hadn't smiled like this, properly enjoying myself, since I was about 7 years old. Since mum got me to always hide my wings and control my emotions. It was so incredible to feel... "It's the oil. Krillitane life forms can't handle the oil. That's it! They've changed their physiology so often, even their own oil is toxic to them." Now he looked at Rose. "How much was there in the kitchens?"

The girl had so much faith in him. "Barrels of it."

Krillitanes started to bang against the door. "OK, we need to get to the kitchens. Mickey."

"What now, hold the coats?"

Doctor Smith didn't hesitate. "Get all the children unplugged and out of the school. Now then, bats, bat, bats. How do we fight bats?"

So Kenny, who had probably wanted to do this his whole life, set off the fire alarm. K9 joined back up with us in the canteen, then Mickey went upstairs, before we went into the kitchens. We just couldn't open the barrels. "They've been deadlock sealed. Finch must have done it. I can't open them and it would take too long to get Nia's tail through."

"The vats would not withstand a direct hit from my laser. But my batteries are failing."

He looked at K9 as I worked out what was about to happen, but he spoke before I could. "Right, everyone out the back door. Nia, stay with your mum, K9, with me."

And mum dragged me with her, going too fast for me to tell her we were about to lose K9 all over again. Only I slipped out and started to run back, colliding with the Doctor as he came out the building. "We need to run, Nia."

"Where is K9?" I demanded, but he started to drag me as well. "What have you done?!"

The two of us made it into the school yard just as the school building exploded, taking my best friend with it. "I'm sorry."

Whatever. Not like he was the only thing I'd had as a friend for my entire life. "It's alright. He was just a daft, metal dog. It's fine, really."

Only I just started to cry for the first time since I was 4 years old and told that I wouldn't be going to school like all the other children I saw outside my bedroom window, playing and having fun. I 369was different, I'd learnt to accept that, but it didn't mean that at times it didn't hurt. Both mum and the Doctor tried to comfort me, my wings hiding themselves away as I clung to my mother, for once feeling as young as I was. 13, but how long was I going to live for?

I composed myself in the end, and pretty soon we were meeting him in Belle Vue park, where a blue box was parked. I didn't look up from my book as we approached, wanting to keep my mind submerged in the fictional world of fantasy over the reality around me. Too many distractions from my emotionless ways. "Cup of tea?"

We followed him in, and even I was gobsmacked by how big the interior was, transfixed by the corals and organic styling. This place was alive, you could hear her humming... "You've redecorated."

"Do you like it?"

"Oh, I, I do." Mum laughed, wrapping her arms around my to kiss my head. "Yeah, I prefered as i was, but, er, yeah. It'll do." It'll do?! This place was incredible!

Rose made herself known, reminding us of her claim over the Doctor. "I love it."

Mum just smiled at her, still holding me in case I wandered off and got lost. Please, I'd wander off and find the library in here. "Hey, you, what's 47x369?" Easy.

"No idea. It's gone now, the oils faded."

"17343."

"Yes, but you're just a show off." Rose told me, before looking to the driver of this vehicle. "Doctor?"

The man hesitated a little. "Er, we're about to head off, but you could both come with us. Find your dad, Nia."

Yes. A thousand times, yes. "No." Mum! "I can't do this anymore. I've got Niara to think of." Niara could look after herself. "Besides, we've got a much bigger adventure ahead. Time I stopped waiting for you and started to think just of my baby girl." Not a baby.

"Can I come." We all looked at Mickey in confusion. "No, not with you. I mean with you. Because I'm not the tin dog and I want to see what's out there."

Everyone deserved a chance at seeing other worlds. "Go on, Doctor. Sarah Jane and Niara Smith, a Mickey Smith. You need a Smith on board."

"OK then. I could do with a laugh." Because that was really a good way to help his self esteem.

"Rose, is that OK?"

It quite clearly wasn't, but she lied anyway. "No, great. Why not?"

"Well, we'd better go."

Only now she wanted mums advice. "What do I do? Do I stay with him?"

She nodded slowly. "Yes. Some things are worth getting your heart broken for. Find us, if you need to, one day. Find us." Then we walked out again, the Doctor smiling at us like he was hiding a surprise. "It's daft, but I haven't ever thanked you for that time. And like I said, I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

"Something to tell your grandkids, the little Fledglings when Niara has them." If I had them. I was still undecided, I mean, who could I trust me secret to? To let them see my wings and risk my razor sharp tail. "I meant to ask, there's not been, you know, anyone?"

"Well there was one guy. Long before Niara and Elijah. I travelled with him for a while, but him and Lijah were tough acts to follow. Goodbye, Doctor."

He shook his head, completely in denial. "Oh, it's not goodbye."

How could you ever know? Because even with time travel, you could never be completely sure what the next day held. "Say it this time. Please, Doctor, for mum." I told him, my finger gently holding the page open of Ill Wind, the book I was reading. "Say it."

"Goodbye, my Sarah Jane." Then he lifted her up with a giant hug and hugged me next, careful to avoid my wings. "Goodbye, little Wanderer."

Then as he went back into the TARDIS, I put my nose back into my book and went to turn away as the bright blue box left. Only mum stopped me with a laugh of joy and I put it down again to see my best friend where it had been. "K9!"

"Mistress Niara."

"But you were blown up."

The dog moved forwards so I could hug him. "The Master rebuilt me. My systems are improved with new undetectable hyperlink facilities."

Mum was still laughing. "Oh, he replaced you with a brand new model." K9 agreed. "Yeah, he does that. Come on, you two. We've got work to do, and you, baby, have a room to tidy."

Dammit.