Author's Note: Sunglasses' story. I absolutely love this.

So I'm giving you a treat, with a 4,000 word chapter, today. And a good one, at that.

(If you're confused about why the Doctor appears to have died on Trenzalore, just keep reading. Everything will make sense, in a few stories' time.)

And yes, "Guest", I do enjoy timey-whimey rather more than I should! I think this story proves it. Actually... possibly this whole Season... or maybe everything I've ever written, come to think of it...

Enjoy!


So they sat down, again, in Leah's living room. The sunglasses woman in the armchair, Leah curled up on the couch.

And the woman told her story.


This is the story of two sisters, after their father, the Doctor, died.

He had died in a battle against great evil. Been buried with the war heroes on Trenzalore Fields. Many came to mourn him. Including these two daughters.

One of these daughters, as you've probably deduced by now, was Seo.


"And the other?" said Leah.

"Will remain nameless."

Leah rolled her eyes. Three guesses as to who that was. And how the woman in front of Leah actually knew about all this stuff.

Sunglasses-Sister.


Seo and her sister were, naturally, distraught over the Doctor's loss. But the sister had an idea for how to deal with it. A ritual she'd been taught, when she was younger, to help people cope with their loss.

"It's called 'the Falls'," the sister said. "Because it takes place when the sun falls, and day turns to night. Symbolic of the passage from one journey to the next."

Seo was intrigued.

And so they gathered, that evening. The sister had brought a handful of empathy beads, and they stood before their father's graveside, and began to remember.

"The time he took us to Ergolop Beta," said the sister, with a small smile, "and I wound up betrothed to the Prime Stantioner's son. Remember that?"

Seo recalled the time when he'd been feeling down, and they'd decided to declare him a birthday so they could throw him a surprise birthday party. Which wound up being invaded by evil beetle looking things that were trying to take over the world — whom they'd defeated.

And so they continued. Remembering and recalling all they'd loved about him, all they'd lost. Allowing their deepest emotions and love to filter through the empathy beads, then placing the beads down beside the TARDIS, to allow their emotions to seep into the ground.


"Wait, people actually do this?" Leah cut in.

The woman smiled. "The planet Yazidios," she said. "Every grave is full of empathy beads. Walk through the graveyards of Yazidios, and you can feel the emotions pouring through the air. So much love and sorrow. So much life, in a place of death."


"The sun's set, now," the sister said, at last. "Time to conclude the ritual."

She stepped forwards. Took the last bead, and set it upon the ground.

"As day falls to night," the sister said, "as one year falls to the next, one decade to the next, one century or one millennia to the one that supersedes it, we remember you. All people, all eras, all life must fall — but your memory endures forever."

She pat the ground one last time. Got up.

"So ends the Fall of the First," she announced.


"That was the First Fall," said the woman. "Of course, they say 'Fall of the First' instead of 'First Fall', because back when the tradition started, at the end of every Fall, they'd literally cut down a—"

"I don't get it," Leah interrupted. "What was the catch, for the ritual thing?"

The woman raised an eyebrow. "Catch?"

"Yeah," said Leah. "I mean, what was the ritual supposed to do? Where does all the magic and craziness and crimes-against-nature stuff come in?"

The woman gave a small laugh. "It's just something to help you remember the dead," she said. "It's not supposed to 'do' anything."

Leah slumped. "Oh."

She'd been expecting space-magic or something.

"But the sisters continued it," said the woman. "Meeting up after a pre-assigned interval of time—"

"Like, every month?" Leah said. "Every year?"

The woman remained silent.

"Every… decade?" Leah tried.

"I think it's better if I didn't say," the woman replied. Winked. "A lady doesn't want to give away her age, after all."


They kept returning.

And every time they did, their empathy beads from the last Fall were gone. Neither could explain it. But they carried on, regardless.

During the Fall of the Fifth, Seo stepped forwards. Tentatively.

"Can I… tell him something?" Seo asked her sister. "About my life? Something I wish I could tell him for real?"

"Of course," said the sister. "Tell him anything you like, so long as it's from your hearts." She gave a small smile. "It's said that, during the Falls, none can speak falsely or tell a lie."

"I just wanted to say…" Seo began to tell the grave. Then stopped. Turned back to her sister. "Wait, really? Never tell a lie?"

"So they say."

Seo raised an eyebrow. "I'm a pumpkin!" she announced. Paused. Frowned. Then whispered to her sister, "I don't think this not-able-to-lie thing is working."

"It's not meant to be taken literally, Seo."


"So what did Seo want to tell him?" asked Leah.

The woman shrugged. "It's not important," she said. "I don't even remember, now."


During the Fall of the Eighth, Seo was having a moment of moral crisis. She'd been speaking to her sister about it, just before they'd begun the ritual. And now, at the Doctor's graveside, Seo realized the person she really wanted to ask.

So she asked him what she should do.

Put the empathy bead down.

And then gave a small laugh.

"I guess that'll be the least useful thing I do to figure this out," Seo said. "He's dead. It's not like he can answer."

"He can," said the sister. "And he will. It's said that during the Falls, no question can go unanswered."

"Can't tell lies, have to answer all questions," Seo reflected. "You know, these dead people sure have to follow a lot of rules."

"The rules aren't for the dead, Seo. They're for the living. Your memory of him helps you think about a problem the way he'd have done. The empathy beads focus your thoughts. At some point, soon, you'll know his answer. Because you will have answered it."

"Being dead sounds exhausting."

"I said the rules aren't for the — oh, never mind."


"Is this going somewhere?" Leah demanded.

"By the Eleventh Fall, yes," said the woman. "That's when it happened."


The Fall of the Eleventh was when Seo discovered the truth.

About the empathy beads that had disappeared, from one Fall to the next.

It began in the middle of the ritual, when Seo had discovered one of their old beads. One that hadn't been taken. She'd nudged it, and then discovered it had fused to the edge of the TARDIS. The ship was slowly dissolving it, absorbing the empathy the bead contained.

"It's the TARDIS!" Seo cried. "The TARDIS is taking the empathy beads!"

"Maybe it's how she's been keeping herself alive this long," the sister proposed. "Living off his memory."

But Seo wasn't thinking along those lines.

"We've been pouring out all sorts of memories and tales about who he really was," Seo said. "At his essence. We've been weaving an elaborate blueprint of him, and giving it to the TARDIS to digest. And the TARDIS is a living thing, able to regenerate any part of herself when she's injured. So long as she gets the right blueprint."

"Seo…"

Seo spun around. "He planned this!" she cried. "Before he died! He must have! He knew he was going to die, he knew we'd use the empathy beads, and he knew what the TARDIS would do with them!" She raced to the door of the TARDIS, and tried to yank it open. "He wanted to live through it! He wanted us to get him back!"

The sister raced over, and pulled Seo away.

"It wouldn't work, Seo," the sister said. "At full power, Dad's TARDIS wouldn't have enough energy to do what you're talking about. And with the TARDIS slowly dying, now that Dad's gone… it'll never even come close. Nothing that knows him like that would ever come close."

"Nothing… except me!" Seo said. Grabbing her sister by the shoulders. "I'm the Key, remember! Enough energy to destroy whole universes!"

Her sister stared. "What?!"

"We can filter any energy we need through me!" Seo said, turning back to yank on the TARDIS doors again. "Send it into his TARDIS! Bring him back! A new regeneration, a new—"

"Are you mad?" the sister shouted. "You could kill yourself!"

"Or I could not!" Seo replied. Yanked on the TARDIS doors, even harder. "I'll never know which if I don't try!"

The doors didn't budge.

"Come on," Seo said. Pulling hard as she could. "Open. Open up!"

"Seo…"

"Open!" Seo shouted.

But the doors still wouldn't open.

Seo stepped away, a look of utter hopelessness crashing across her. "But I could always open the doors before," she said. "TARDIS key or no. Why…?"

"He must have locked it some other way," said the sister. "Made it Seo-proof."

Seo didn't say a word.

"I guess… he did know this would happen," the sister said. "He didn't want to be revived. He locked you out, and hid whatever he used to lock the TARDIS. Hid it somewhere you'd never find it."

Seo bunched her hands into fists. Then punched at the TARDIS door, furious. "How?" she demanded of the ship. "How do I get in? There has to be a key somewhere. So where is it?"


"I guess not all questions get answered, then, huh?" said Leah. "I mean, no one's going to be able to answer how to get into the TARDIS. Except the Doctor, and he's dead."

The woman raised her eyebrows. "But you see… Seo did get an answer. The Doctor gave it to her."


The answer came as the sister had just begun to talk Seo down. Had put a hand around Seo's shoulders, lead her away, reminding her to, "Think of your mum. What damage her resurrection caused. She never wanted it. Maybe he doesn't, either." And as the sister lead Seo off, away from the TARDIS and the empathy beads and the Doctor's final resting place, that was when Seo looked up.

And saw it.

A gravestone. For someone who wasn't buried here.

A gravestone the Doctor had placed in that graveyard, before he'd died. On purpose. To send a message.

"River Song," Seo breathed. "That's the answer. That's how to open the TARDIS — by using something only she knows." She broke free from her sister, and began running back to her own ship. "His real name!"


"And so, on the fields of Trenzalore," the woman concluded, "when no living creature could speak falsely or fail to answer, a question was asked. And answered."

"What was so bad about that question?" said Leah. "It seems harmless enough."

"It's not the question that had power, it was the answer," the woman replied. "The Doctor had provided her with an answer to her question. So Seo knew she was right to try to bring him back. Seo knew she had to do whatever it took to make sure she succeeded."

Leah bit her lower lip.

Oh.

"And the sister didn't want him back?" Leah said.

"Everyone wants the Doctor alive," the woman replied. "That wasn't the sister's problem. It was how Seo chose to go about it that upset the sister."

"And upset the Silence, too?"

The woman shrugged.

"So what happened?" Leah asked.

"The whole thing started innocently enough," the woman replied. "Seo tried to get the Doctor's real name from River Song, at the Library. And after almost being eaten by Vashta Nerada several times, her sister dragged her away, sat her down in a private spot on 21st century Earth, and gave her a stern talking-to."

"Sounds like the sister cared about her a lot."

"But it's that talking-to which caused all the problems," said the woman. "The sisters thought they were speaking in private. That no one could overhear. But… they were sitting in a wi-fi hot spot."

"So?"

"Unbeknownst to either of them, at the time, there was a monster lurking in the wi-fi. A monster who hated the Doctor."


"I have to," Seo insisted. "You saw! On Trenzalore, he answered my question! That means he wanted to be resurrected."

"But not at the expense of your life!" the sister argued. "If he'd known how many stupid risks you'd take to do it, he'd never have put that gravestone there in the first place."

Seo slammed down her fists on the table. "Would you stop thinking of yourself for once?!" she demanded. "This is greater than you or me! Bringing him back would make the whole universe a better place. We both know it!"

"And I want Dad alive as much as you!" the sister countered. "But do you really think the first thing he wants to see, when he revives, is your dead body?!"

"I might not die bringing him back. My plan might work."

The sister folded her arms. "And is that what River Song thinks?"

Seo didn't answer.

Her silence spoke volumes.

"I was right, then," the sister said. "River Song doesn't approve of what you're doing, either. That's why she won't tell you his real name."

"Give me enough time," Seo countered, "and I'll convince her she's wrong."

The sister grabbed Seo by the arm. "Not if that means you're going to throw yourself back into the midst of the Vashta Nerada again," she said. "Dad might be dead. But you're not. And I'm not letting you kill yourself."

"I'm going to unlock that tomb on Trenzalore," Seo gritted through her teeth. "It's his final wish. And you can't stop me."

The sister sighed. Then let go of Seo, stepped back.

"Just… think this all through, before you jump into it," the sister said, a little calmer. "Even after you get into the TARDIS, how are you planning to revive him? What's your plan?"

"I'm going to open a tunnel to the vortex," said Seo. "Engage the TARDIS' telepathic circuits, filtered through my mind, to get the blueprints. Then I'll filter the vortex energy through the Key part of me. Combine it all in his… remains."

"His remains," the sister clarified, "meaning the scar he left on reality. His entire time-stream, laid out before us?"

"Yes."

"But don't you see how dangerous that is?" the sister argued. "Not just to you, but to him? Get it wrong, and you could unwrite him from history. Destroy his own past. Turn all his victories into defeats!"

Seo hesitated, now. She hadn't thought of that.

"Maybe it's better to let him remain dead," the sister said.

"No," Seo insisted. "He answered my question on Trenzalore. That means he wanted me to do this. I won't give up."

"But you could destroy him!" her sister said.

Seo turned, headed out to her ship. "Not if I find records throughout history, explaining exactly what his time-stream should be. Make sure I know what it looks like, before I bring him back. That way, when I filter it all through my head — I won't change anything."


"But this monster overheard them, right?" said Leah.

"Yes," the woman agreed. "And sought out the Doctor, in his eleventh incarnation. Tried to break into the tomb on Trenzalore, invade the Doctor's time-stream, and seek revenge on the man who'd ruined all the monster's plans. By turning all the Doctor's victories into defeats."

"Yikes," said Leah.

"And so one Fall of the Eleventh leads to the next," said the woman. "And the next. And back to the first. Rippling across time."

"Did Seo save the Doctor from the wi-fi monster, in the end?"

"No," said the woman. "Someone else did that. At the time, Seo knew nothing about the monster in the wi-fi. But she did notice that something was wrong when she began to uncover records of his time-stream. That she'd already affected something in the Doctor's history."

"But that wasn't her fault."

"No, but she still knew she had to fix it," said the woman. "So she went from looking at records to sneaking through the Doctor's own past. Lingering in the shadows, trying to figure out what had changed."

Leah felt her head hurt. "Isn't that dangerous?" she said. "I mean, for her, the Doctor's already dead."

"It was a danger she felt she had to risk," said the woman. "If she'd messed something up, she had to fix it. Take responsibility for her actions. Can you fault her for that?"

"I dunno," said Leah, with a shrug. "It depends if the danger caused by fixing the mistake is bigger than the danger caused by leaving it where it is."

The woman didn't answer.

"I mean, she almost unwrote the Doctor's whole history with one mistake," said Leah. "Where's there to go, after that? Almost destroying the universe?"

"She fixed that one," the woman replied.

Leah stared. "You mean she actually almost destroyed…?"

"Seo is… impulsive," said the woman. "She forgets to look before she leaps. Even she knows that. But she never wants to hurt anyone. Even if she cracked open the universe, she always tries to put things right."

"Cracked open…" Leah thought, hard. "You mentioned something about cracks being what killed the Doctor, in the end."

"Yes."

"The cracks that Seo created," said Leah, "trying to save the Doctor's life? They killed him?"

"Yes," said the woman. "From the evidence I've seen."

"A paradox."

"I'm working on that."

"So… so… is this your job?" said Leah. "Following Seo around, saving her from her impulsive mistakes, making sure she actually does put things right when she tries?"

The woman shrugged. "If you say so."

Leah thought she was getting this a little bit better, now. "And that's why you're here," she realized. "Because the Silence are trying to prevent the Doctor from being on Trenzalore — except they don't get why he was there, in the first place. You know it's Seo's fault. And since they already have the younger-Seo, you're worried they'll figure out her role, and kill younger-Seo to stop future-Seo from bringing the Doctor to Trenzalore in the first place."

"Yes."

Leah nodded, slowly. Then gave a long sigh. "You know, if you'd told me this at the beginning, instead of wiping my memory and trying to trick me, I'd probably have come along willingly."

"I shouldn't have told you any of it," said the woman.

"Why not?" said Leah. "Afraid I'd tell Dawn and the past-version of Seo?"

The woman said nothing for a very long time. Then got up, brushed some hair behind her ear, and stood by the window. Looking out at the blacked-out city below them.

"Leah DeGrout," she said. "How long have you been living here?"

"Five years," said Leah. "Why?"

The woman waved her hand, gesturing at all the furniture around her. "Does any of this look five years old?"

Leah frowned. Got up off the couch, for the first time digesting her surroundings. The brand new couch. The brand new kitchen area. The brand new armchairs and bed and curtains.

"I don't…" Leah shook her head. "That doesn't make sense."

"At work," said the woman, softly, "your datapad has seven days worth of data on it. Not five years. Just seven days."

"No," said Leah. "That's not possible."

"Who were your parents?" said the woman, turning back to Leah. "Where did you grow up? Did you have any siblings?"

Leah couldn't remember that, either. It was all just a blank. A nothing, where she knew there should be something.

"What did you do to me?" Leah said, shrinking back, hands on her head.

The woman looked on, sadly. "It was all I could think of, at the time," she said. "To hide you. Make sure you were safe." She shook her head. "I'm so sorry, Dawn."

And that was when it struck.

The memories that had been locked away. All flooding back, overwhelming her. When she'd been with Seo, fleeing from the Silence — there hadn't been anyone else there. Just her.

Just…

"Oh, my God," said Leah, her hands still clutching her head. "I'm Dawn. I'm Dawn Summers!"

It was all so clear, now.

She could remember! Sunnydale. Her sister, Buffy. Her days fighting off monsters with Ria in Cleveland. Her days running around with Seo.

Seo…

Who hadn't been able to see the Silents at all.

Who'd been so crippled and handicapped, against them, on her own.

Dawn had left her like that.

Dawn, in the apartment that wasn't really hers, spun on the woman. "But… why?" she demanded. "Why'd you wipe my memory? Because of that, Seo's been with those Silence maniacs for seven whole days! Who knows what they've been doing to her in there?!"

This didn't seem to bother the woman at all. "She won't remember any of it."

"I don't care if she remembers it!" shouted Dawn. "It should never have happened in the first place."

"Maybe she deserves it." With a shrug. "Maybe it should have been for longer."

Okay, this woman deserved a serious beating.

Dawn stormed over, narrowing her eyes. "I've seen you before, haven't I? I remember you. You were around Sunnydale."

"I dropped by, yes."

"And screwed with my head again, I'll bet," said Dawn.

"Conditioned you not to want to tell anyone you could remember the Silents," the woman explained. "To pretend you couldn't remember them, either. Maybe a few other things. No harm done."

"So you did mess with my head!" Dawn crossed her arms. "Who are you, really? Was any of that prophecy-story true, or were you just spinning me a line?"

"It's true enough."

"Really?" said Dawn. "Because I happen to know Seo doesn't have a sister. And won't. It's impossible, because Buffy got jinxed by a bunch of higher powers."

"Buffy didn't have a sister, either," the woman pointed out. "Until you showed up."

Dawn glared at the woman. Then grabbed her up by the wrist, and tried to drag her from the apartment. "I don't have time for this," she decided. "I'm getting Seo out of there. And you're going to help me."

The woman pulled her arm free. "I can't."

"You sure as hell can!" Dawn snapped, turning on her. "Whoever you are, whatever time you're from, you're involved in this, now. You got yourself involved, the moment you started messing around with me." She reached out to grab the woman. "You know more about the Silence than anyone, and that means… you're coming with me!"

The woman dodged, gritting her teeth in frustration. "I've told you, I can't!" she said. "Don't you understand, Dawn? I can't do it!"

"Because you think Seo 'deserves this'?" Dawn said, making exaggerated air-quotations.

"She does. She caused this to happen. She should feel pain for that."

"She hasn't done anything, yet!" Dawn spat, getting right in the woman's face. "That's all in her future! You're condemning her for a crime that she hasn't committed."

The woman didn't answer.

"So come on," said Dawn. "Get her out."

"No."

"I said—!"

"And I said I can't!" shouted the woman. "I remember how this went. How it has to go. You were the only one who went into the building with the Silence. You got me out. No one else. Just you!"

Dawn froze. Stared.

"I got… you… out?" Dawn repeated.

The woman shifted, uncomfortably.

Dawn stepped back. As it all came together.

"Oh, my God," Dawn breathed. "You're… you're…"

The woman gave a guilty little smile, shuffling in place. "Hello, again," she said, awkwardly. "Aunt Dawn."