Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who

A/N: I've realised that the Christmas special throws a wrench in this series own continuity with regards to Hope still being a child when Eleven regenerated. I've gone back and edited 'Hope's First' and 'Connection' to fit with the shows continuity as much as possible.

A Second Chance

Chapter II

It felt strange, after the grittiness and the tragedy of their visit to the town, to walk across the pale white sand of the beach and hear nothing but the lapping of waves on the shore. Hope and Anthony stood at the door of their villa and looked out to the ocean. Anthony reached behind Hope to put his arm around her waist, only for her to thread the fingers of her right hand with his. "Shall we have some lunch?" she suggested, and his stomach agreed for him with a growl.

They made a fire right there on the beach, sheltered from the wind by the villa, and roasted bits of chicken and sweet peppers on spits. "So you gave our ice-creams to twins?" Hope said by way of making conversation. "Yeah, two girls; they looked so alike, it was uncanny really. If they'd been blonde instead of ginger it would've been like looking at miniature versions of you and Jenny" he laughed.

"They were children, then?"

"Um, yeah; I'd say they were about eight" Anthony replied, and Hope gazed pensively into the fire. "Louis was eight" she murmured quietly, "that's what the sonic showed, anyway". She laid her spit on a plate; there was still several pieces of food there, uneaten. Anthony hesitated, and then quietly said, "There was nothing you could have done".

Hope gave him a sharp glance. "Is that supposed to make me feel better?" she asked in an even sharper tone. "No- I mean yes – I didn't mean to upset you" Anthony said a little defensively. "Of course you didn't, I understand that. But really, it's a stupid phrase. Whoever thought that telling someone they couldn't have succeeded was a good way of consoling them was an idiot" she remarked. Now that he thought about it, Anthony realised the expression was quite strange.

"Anthony, if something bad happened, you'd try to fix it, right? Like, if you and I fell out, you'd try to reconcile" Hope suggested. "Of course!" he replied with fervour. "Louis died because of a stupid man and a stupid accident. No-one is safer or better off now; but so many people would be if my plan worked! Even if I only manage to cure, I don't know, cancer or something…imagine what people could do if I destroyed senescence!" she asked gleefully, a rather manic grin appearing on her features.

Anthony blinked. "Senescence…old age, yeah? Um, maybe instead of curing cancer and destroying senescence we could…start small? With the common cold, perhaps?" he suggested nervously, getting a mental image of Hope in a laboratory laughing maniacally. She pouted at him and said accusingly, "I saw that; and by the way, getting a cold doesn't kill you. Cancer and old age do".

"I thought you said you didn't want to stop death…Hope, I do understand why you want this, but I still can't help feeling like…this is wrong".

"How so?"

"Well, because death is a part of life; everything has to end sometime, and it hurts, but without the bad things in life, we wouldn't appreciate the good things, right?" Anthony reasoned. Hope looked at him and smiled. "Good point…I need to think about this more. Figure out exactly what it is that I want" she decided. Anthony suggested that they explore that island they'd spotted from the cliff.

It was much further away from their cove then it had appeared from their earlier vantage point. Anthony rowed whilst Hope leaned back in the little wooden dinghy, lazily trailing a hand in the water. Seeing her eyes closed, Anthony smirked mischievously and began humming the theme tune from Jaws. As he reached the climax, Hope splashed water at him. "Hey!"

She opened her eyes and blinked at him. "Why are you wet?" she asked innocently. Anthony scooped water at Hope with an oar; she shrieked and glared at him. "Oh, it is on" she grinned, splashing him once more. A fierce water fight broke out, punctuated on both sides with squeals of shock and laughter. At last, in their eagerness to thoroughly soak the other, both Hope and Anthony toppled the rowboat over.

Spluttering, giggling, they heaved the capsized vessel over and clambered back inside. "May…maybe we should stop" Anthony panted as he pushed his fringe from where it had plastered on his forehead. Hope peeled off her sodden t-shirt and sat there in her bikini wringing it out. "We're not too far from the island. Come on, if we've come this far we can go the rest of the way" she encouraged. Anthony picked up the oars once more. "Fine, but you're rowing us back" he replied.

Fifteen minutes later, they were dragging the boat up the beach. The bigger island that held their villa could be seen on the near horizon, a hulking mass of rock and trees. Hope looked around, selected a spot of sand just beyond the foliage of palm trees and stretched out upon it. "Don't you want to explore?" asked Anthony. "Sunbathing. Thinking. Shush" she replied bluntly.

Anthony shrugged and laid down next to her, absent mindedly playing with her fingers. He sat up about five minutes later and dragged his own t-shirt off; it was starting to chafe. He slung it over a nearby rock and lay back once more, shading his eyes from the glare of the sun as it beat down upon them. The hot sand scratched his skin and his mouth felt dry. There was a bottle of water in the bottom of the boat. "Do you want some water?"

"Hmm? Sure"

He got up and fetched the bottle out of the dinghy and took a long swig. His thirst slated, Anthony offered the bottle to Hope, who swallowed several gulps of the lukewarm water, pulled a face, and went back to sunbathing and thinking. Anthony set the bottle in the shade. Hope had her mental barriers up; he could still sense her presence in the back of his mind, but he couldn't reach her telepathically.

Sighing, Anthony wandered to the edge of the beach and let the cold water slosh around his ankles. Surely it couldn't hurt if I explored a little on my own he thought to himself, I'm sure Hope wouldn't mind. "Hey, I'm just going for a walk, okay?" he called to her. Hope murmured assent, sounding more like she was dozing off than in deep thought. Perhaps she was falling asleep; the sun was pretty warm. "Don't get sunburned" Anthony reminded her, before walking away across the beach.

He made it quite a way from Hope when he noticed a brightly coloured bird on a nearby branch. The yellow, red and green finch chirruped at him. "Hello. Aren't you pretty?" he cooed, slowly reaching out a hand so as not to frighten it away. To his surprise, the bird actually flew down and alighted on his outstretched fingers. "Well, how about that" Anthony murmured, stroking the bird's chest with a finger.

It chirruped again and flew to a branch a bit further away than the last. Then it hopped up and down, almost impatiently. "Are you…are you waiting for me?" Anthony asked in surprise. The bird chirped loudly and flew to another branch. Bemused, Anthony followed the bird into the undergrowth. Pretty soon he emerged into a clearing surrounded by other birds, all different colours.

"I wish Hope could see this. I wonder what sort of birds you are?" he smiled, looking around at them all. There were a lot of nests on the branches, he noticed; was this some sort of communal nesting place, then? Curious as to what would happen, Anthony spread his arms out. Instantly several birds swooped down and alighted on his arms. He laughed in delight. Hope! he called through the mental link, trying to reach her, Hope, you've got to come and see this!

What is it?

Birds! I followed one into the trees and now there are hundreds of them he explained. It felt good to hear her voice in his mind. One bird gave quite a high pitched whistle, and all of them suddenly dived back into the trees. Now there's none, Anthony frowned, they're all hiding from something. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a small striped cat stalking past the trees, it's ears folded down. Like the dogs, it had no nose.

Anthony, are you alright? asked Hope. Yeah, it's just a cat. They're hiding from it Anthony replied, watching warily as the cat moved away. He breathed a sigh of relief and began to edge away; he'd just made it to the edge of the clearing when the snap of a breaking twig rang out.

/

Hope was pulling on her now dry t-shirt when she heard a scream, coming from the direction Anthony had apparently gone in. She ran towards it, worried he was in trouble; and stopped short at the sight of Anthony, sprinting down the beach and flailing, yelling "Angry birds! Angry birds!" at the top of his lungs. Hope grinned in amusement, but Anthony failed to see any humour in the situation.

She chirped at the birds, who stopped dive bombing Anthony and hovered in front of her. A few more chirrups and chirps on both sides and the birds flew off. Anthony stared at her. "You speak bird?" he asked. "You don't?" she asked in turn, checking him over. There were a few scratches on him but nothing that wouldn't heal up. "What did you do to upset them so?"

He shrugged helplessly. "I don't know! One minute everything was fine, the next they were hiding from a cat, and I accidentally broke a twig, and they just went mental!"

"Well, you did give their hiding place away"

"I guess…but why didn't they attack the cat?"

"I'm sure you'll live. Anthony, I've…I've been thinking. You're right, death is a part of life. No one has the right to say when someone else should die, but there's nothing to say we can't choose when they live" she pointed out. "Once, my family and I landed in Africa, in a village called Matumaini; it means 'hope' in Swahili. Only they didn't have any; they were suffering from syphilis. Alien invasion, fine; dastardly villain, no problem…illness, the one thing we couldn't save them from.

"We did try, of course, but then they started worshipping us…there were a lot of sick children there. I just want to save them, Anthony. If I can just give that village a second chance, I'll put this whole business aside right afterwards" Hope promised. Anthony hesitated; she gave him a pleading look and he soon relented. He really needed to get better at saying 'no' to her…no, he didn't.

"Alright, let's go back to the villa. We have a lot of work to do" he decided, putting his arm around her waist as they walked back to the boat. Hope put her arm around his waist and they threaded their fingers together.