Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who

A/N: Welcome back! To the latest instalment of 'The Doctor's Wife AU', series 9; it's been a long time coming, but chapter one of 'Consequences' is finally here! I don't know how long it will be before chapter two emerges, or any other chapter, but I can say that I've planned out the majority of the story. Quite a lot is going to change, and be changed, and even I can't wait to see where it goes. Without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I give you…

The Magician's Apprentice – Part One

"A bookshop?" the Corsair asked incredulously, "We have access to the entirety of time and space, and you want to go find a bookshop. We do have a massive library, you know" he pointed out.

"We've also been knocking about for seven hundred and seventy three years, give or take. Hands up, who's read all of the books in the library? Except for the boring ones, obviously" the Doctor challenged, raising his own hand. One by one, the rest of them raised their own hands. "That's what I thought" the Time Lord nodded, satisfied. He gestured to the boxes of books that they'd heaved into the console room and explained, "Hence why we're decluttering".

"The Corsair might have a point" Flavia acknowledged, "You have to admit, there are plenty of other rooms that could use a declutter more than the library".

"See! Even Flavia agrees with me".

The Doctor gave a petulant frown. "What rooms?" he demanded, his Scottish burr becoming more pronounced when he became irritable.

"Well, your study, for one thing" Romana suggested with a hint of amusement. Her husband had the habit of spending hours in his study and never putting anything back where he found it when he was finished.

"No, no, no. That doesn't need decluttering, it's organised chaos. I know exactly where everything is in there" the Doctor insisted stubbornly, "I tell you what does need decluttering – your room" he declared, pointing at his teenage daughter.

Emily stared at her dad incredulously. "My room? Dad, I tidied my room last week".

"But it's full of stuff" he complained, "And not just furniture, your wardrobe is full of too short clothes and you have an iPad and a computer, I mean why do you need both, and on top of that you've plastered your walls with pictures of – of boys! Boys with stupid, spiky haircuts and unnaturally white teeth" the Doctor grumbled, as if he were railing against a crime against nature.

"Didn't you use to have a stupid spiky haircut?" the Corsair asked irreverently. The Doctor shot him a glare that could have melted lead.

"Don't worry, dear" Romana said soothingly, "Emily's just going through a phase".

"Mum" the teenager hissed.

"It'd better just be a phase" the Doctor muttered tetchily.

The TARDIS dematerialised at last, and Flavia moved to check the readings from the scanner. "It's not a bookshop" she called in a deadpan tone, not at all surprised that they hadn't gone where they intended to.

"So, where is it?" Emily asked curiously.

Flavia frowned at the readouts and twiddled a knob on the scanner. "I can't tell, there's something interfering with the TARDIS sensors. It almost looks like someone's trying to send a Morse code message with…with some kind of mobile device".

"A distress call?" the Doctor asked immediately, coming over to look at the reading himself.

"I doubt it, it's encoded" she replied, before shrugging, "But you never know".

"Wait, wait, shush!" the Corsair hissed suddenly, "Listen!"

They all fell silent and strained their ears…and then they heard it. "Help me! Someone, please, help me!"

Moving surprisingly fast considering his elderly body, the Doctor strode up to the doors before anyone could stop him. "Wait here, I'll be back in a minute" he assured the others, before stepping out into a smoky, muddied field. He could hear the distant sounds of battle; and more pressingly, there was a young boy surrounded by hand mines – a crude combination of bio-programming and genetic engineering – about fifty feet ahead of him.

"Help me!" the boy shouted desperately through the white smoke. A cylindrical device suddenly came flying towards him, spinning end over end, and landed at his feet. He heard a voice speaking somewhere ahead of him. "Your chances of survival are about one in a thousand. So here's what you do. You forget the thousand, and you concentrate on the one. Pick it up. I said, pick it up!"

Very carefully, he crouched down and picked up the device. "I'm straight ahead of you, about fifty feet" said the unfamiliar voice. "Can you see me?"

The smoke and mist cleared enough for him to see a tall, grey haired man and a strange blue box that he could have sworn hadn't been there before.

"The device in your hand is creating an acoustic corridor, so that we can talk. Do you understand?"

"Who are you?"

"Oh, I'm just a passer-by. I was looking for a bookshop. How do you think I'm doing?"

"This isn't a bookshop".

"No, this is a war. A very old one, going by the mix of technology. Which war is this? I get them all muddled up".

"It's just the war".

"Where am I? What planet is this?"

"Well, neither do I. I try never to understand. It's called an open mind. Now, you have got to make a choice".

"A choice?"

"Yes, you have got to decide that you're going to live. Survival is just a choice. Choose it now!"

"If I move, they'll get me!"

"I told you, you have one chance in a thousand. But one is all you ever need. What's your name? Come on, faith in the future. Introduce yourself! Tell me the name of the boy who isn't going to die today".

"Davros" the boy replied, and the Doctor's eyes widened in shock. "My name is Davros" the boy repeated, peering through the mist at the man, who was…going back inside the box? "Hello? Are you still there? Please, you've got to help me. You said I could survive. You said you'd help me. Help me!"

/

"Doctor, what's wrong?" Romana asked, concerned, as her husband darted back inside the TARDIS. He didn't answer, rushing up to the console and dematerialising. From the way his hands were shaking and how he was staring, something had obviously spooked him. "Dad, why are we leaving?" asked Emily, "What about the person outside, they need help!"

"No!" he snapped, shaking his head vehemently, "I can't – we, we can't…c-couldn't"- he stuttered. Romana could sense his fear, guilt and shame, but she couldn't tell what the catalyst was, he wasn't letting her see his memory of what had happened outside.

"You couldn't save them?" she guessed, laying a sympathetic hand on his arm. The Doctor pulled her into a sudden, tight hug, burying his face in her hair. Romana couldn't help but ask him, Theta, darling, what happened out there?

I can't…I don't want to think about it he replied, his hearts twisting with guilt; for abandoning a scared child, for lying to his family…part of him wanted to rush right back, save the younger version of Davros, try to put him on a better path and stop the Daleks from being created – but the darker part of him hoped, as terrible as it was to think it, that time might be in flux here, that Davros might die and never grow up to invent the Daleks…which meant the Time War would never happen either.

They went all the way across the universe, as far away from Skaro as possible, and saved an entire city from invaders. The Doctor's memories didn't change, and his fellow co-pilots gave no indication that theirs had either. Davros lived, the Daleks were still at large, and Gallifrey was still lost. So was his sonic screwdriver, actually…he dreaded to think that Davros had used it to help build the Dalek travel machines or grow the mutants themselves.

To make matters worse, he began to hear rumours that someone was looking for him on behalf of an old enemy, an enemy at the end of his life. The Doctor figured that Davros would remember their encounter and seek revenge eventually...but which of them would die first?

/

A small boy was dragged down into the mud by eyeballed hands, screaming…A withered, half-cyborg man ranted maniacally over his new, most deadly invention…a war of attrition ended with both sides annihilating the other in a desperate bid for peace…a crippled, mad scientist used a device he'd been 'given' as a child to perfect the travel casing for his abominations…

The Doctor moaned softly, asleep in a chair in the parlour, his eyes flickering back and forth under their lids.

A darkened chamber, pillars wreathed in glowing cables, mysterious figures gliding between them…converging on him, cornering him…warning him... "The Hybrid…two deadly warrior races…destruction and heartbreak…the Hybrid is"-

He jerked awake with a gasp. "Theta, are you alright?" asked Romana as she hurried into the room, having sensed her husband's distress. The Doctor got to his feet, wincing at the pins and needles, and pulled her into an embrace.

"I'm fine, love. I just had a nightmare, that's all".

Romana pulled back to look him in the eyes and asked sympathetically, "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Err, no, not right now. In fact, there's something I need to take care of…I won't be long" he promised, giving her a kiss and then leaving the room. Romana sighed; he didn't think she could tell, but she knew something was bothering him. She was his wife, for goodness sake. Why, she wondered, wouldn't he trust her with it?

/

Thunder rumbled in the skies above Karn. The Sisterhood stood vigil around a lake, burning torches illuminating the wild and rocky landscape. Their leader, Ohila, called a greeting to the robed, scale faced figure in their midst. "Welcome, Colony Sarff. We are the Sisterhood of Karn. If you do not leave our world immediately, we will take your skin". The way she spoke, it was not a threat so much as a statement.

"Where is the Doctor?" Sarff demanded. He had searched everywhere for the Time Lord, for any of them, but the Doctor in particular. He'd gone to the Maldovarium, the Shadow Proclamation, and now he'd come here.

"Where he always is" Ohila replied, almost tauntingly, "Right behind you, and one step ahead. Tread carefully when you seek the Doctor, Colony Sarff, or he will be the last thing you find" she warned.

"Davros, creator of the Daleks, dark Lord of Skaro" Sarff began.

"What of him?"

"Davros is dying".

"Davros is ancient. He should have been dust centuries ago".

"He has a message for the Doctor".

"Then you will give it to me" Ohila commanded. Sarff glared at her and writhed in his robes, as if trying to transform. "Your powers mean nothing here" Ohila informed him, "Give me the message and leave".

"Tell the Doctor, Davros knows. Davros remembers. Tell him he must face Davros one last time" Sarff replied. Thunder and lightning crashed as Sarff turned and glided away, his black robes dragging on the ground behind him. "Davros knows. Davros remembers…" he repeated.

When he was out of sight, Ohila turned and looked over her shoulder at some boulders. "Doctor?" she asked, "What have you done?"

The Doctor didn't answer, not until Ohila approached and stood staring pointedly at him. "Something I regret" he replied at last, grudgingly.

Ohila accepted the non-answer with grace. "He has asked to see you. His servants seek you everywhere. Will you go?" she asked; she was speaking, of course, of Davros. How the decrepit despot had survived the destruction of his Crucible, she didn't know nor care.

"No" the Doctor replied immediately, far too quickly. Ohila gave him a knowing stare and inquired, "Why do you always lie?"

"Why do you always assume I'm lying?"

"It saves time. The truth – will you go?"

"No" he repeated stubbornly.

"When?" she asked knowingly; a moment later, he grudgingly admitted, "…Soon".

"Why, did something happen?"

"No".

"Was it recent?"

"…Yes".

"Whatever it was, you owe that creature nothing".

"He and I've known each other a long time".

"You've been enemies for all of it".

"An enemy's just a friend you don't really know yet. Sorry. What, was that me being cynical again?"

"Aren't we friends, Doctor?"

"That's different, I don't like you!"

Ohila laughed. "Which means you can trust me" she pointed out.

"I can like and trust someone at the same time" the Doctor informed her. Ohila didn't need to guess who he was talking about.

"Do they know of this?" she inquired. The Doctor waited several moments before he answered.

"I haven't told them…I do have a plan, you know. Just not one they should know about yet".

"Is that why you came here?"

"I need a favour" said the Doctor, taking from his pocket a golden circular disc engraved with Gallifreyan writing. "Keep this safe – on your eternal lives, do not let it fall into the wrong hands. Don't try to open it either, you'll just be wasting your time". He handed her the disc and waited until she'd placed it in her robes, before he continued, "I won't go straight away. I'll hang out for a while. Take the gang on holiday, somewhere out of the way. Soften the blow a bit".

"You realise, if this plan of yours should fail, you will be embarking on an enterprise that will end in your destruction".

"You could say that about being born".

"Wherever you go, you will have people who care enough to stop you".

"It's them I'm doing this for. Look after them for me, if I don't make it" the Doctor requested. He stood up and walked away without a backwards glance, but Ohila had the last word in the end. "Anyone can hide from an enemy, Doctor" she called after him, "No one, from a friend…or their family".

/

Colony Sarff slithered into his master's chamber. In the centre of the room, Davros sat in his life-support, hooked up to a multitude of tubes keeping him alive. His head rested on one shrivelled hand, whilst the other clutched a sonic device, with a green light glowing dully at the tip. "Doctor" he murmured, "Doctor… Doctor…"

"You are dreaming, Lord Davros".

"No; I am anticipating".

"They cannot be found".

"Of course they can" Davros assured Sarff, "They all have the same weakness. If you seek the Time Quintet, first seek their friends".

/

Millions of lightyears and centuries away, Clara was busy teaching her English class. She'd had to postpone a discussion on Jane Austen (lovely woman) when she'd caught yet another student chewing gum. Normally, she wouldn't have minded, but it was important to be firm with these kids or they'd walk all over her. Goodness knew Courtney Woods had proven that.

She held the wastebasket in front of Ryan and looked at him pointedly. He spat the wad of gum into the basket, and then asked, "Will I get it back after school?"

His classmates all made noises of disgust. Clara raised an eyebrow and inquired, "How will you know which one's yours?"

Ryan blinked, feeling foolish, and the other children laughed. They soon stopped at the look their teacher was giving them. "Fine, then. Right" said Clara, putting the bin down. "Now, where was I? Jane Austen; amazing writer, brilliant comic observer, and strictly among ourselves, a phenomenal kisser…" she trailed off, staring out of the window. Something didn't look right…

"Miss?" prompted one of her other pupils, Alison, "Miss?"

"Miss?" asked Ryan.

"Is she okay?" Alison wondered.

The class watched in confusion as Clara hurried to her desk, picked up a marker pen and returned to the window. She drew a circle around the thing that had caught her attention - an aeroplane, hanging motionless in the sky. "Everybody, turn on their phones" she instructed suddenly; confused, the kids obeyed. "News websites and Twitter" Clara added, opening the window to get a better look.

"Twitter?" Ryan asked in surprise.

Clara simply replied, "Hashtag, #ThePlanesHaveStopped".