There were stars in the sky the night everything went to hell. There were stars, and no clouds, just the echoing silence that darkness brought only rarely.
It was too beautiful to last.
And it was ironic, really, because Susan's grandfather had thought he was giving her a life when he chose to make her stay with David, not taking it away.
Things had been perfect for a while. She'd thrown herself in to rebuilding the planet with all the youthful enthusiasm she possessed, happy to be the person who did as she was told, went where she was directed and just did the best she could.
They even spoke of starting a family, her and David: new life to go some way to replacing what had been lost. At night, they lay together on their makeshift bed and dreamed of a better future.
They were just that. Dreams, destined to fade away in to the light of things to come. Because on that beautiful night, they came back.
The Daleks.
They came back, and even as she ran to the weapons store to arm herself, Susan knew this was it.
She was, after all, a child of Gallifrey, and young as she was, even she could sense the wrongness that surrounded these Daleks. It was as if Time itself was unravelling around them, constantly reweaving itself in to a new pattern before falling apart again.
Underneath the stars, crouched behind the barricades as the streets lit up with the distinctive glow of Dalek weaponry, she knew she was going to die.
Couldn't the others feel it?
Could no-one else see their enemies fading in and out of existence as time rewrote itself over and over again?
And oh... could no-one else hear the screaming?
All she could see was Time, changing around her. It felt wrong.
And then a bright, sharp pain blossomed in her head – in the head of every child of Gallifrey that was, ever had been and ever would be.
She screamed with them.
The Universe exploded inside her. Somewhere out of Time, barely existing, Susan smiled.
This was right.