Georgia:

"What happened?" I asked, Clara coming back earlier than I expected, or was told. "Did something happen?"

She didn't reply as I stood up from where I'd been happily ironing all the clothes I'd washed. I liked the washing machine, it was really fast and spinny. Made all the clothes smell amazing as well. Only apparently the Doctor had snuck into the flat and parked the TARDIS in her room, so it was barely big enough for her. "You just have to squeeze through. Gee, you come in too."

"Doctor?"

"Why do you have three mirrors?" He asked, while I snuck in after Clara, who threw herself down onto her bed. "Why don't you just turn your head? Gee, you don't have three mirrors, do you?"

I shook my head as she just looked at him, ignoring me while I took a seat onto her ottoman. "What are you doing here? Why have you just left Georgia doing all the housework? She's like my maid!" What was a maid?

He shrugged. "You said you had a date and Gee was watching something on TV." I still hadn't worked out how to change the channel, I was watching some programme about orange aliens from the planet Essex. Apparently there was a lot of drama there and it was OK to just walk up to people and slap them, it was like a greeting. "I thought I'd better hide in the bedroom in case you brought him home." She told me she wouldn't, because it apparently wouldn't be fair on me, as I had nowhere else to go. "But early, aren't you? Did it all go wrong, or is this good by your standard?"

Clara shook her head. "It was a disaster, and I am extremely upset about it, since you didn't ask."

The Doctor nodded, patting my shoulder. "Fine. I need you both, for a thing."

"I can't."

He didn't understand. "Oh, of course you can. Come on. You're free. More than usually free in fact."

"No, it's just possible that I might get a phone call."

"From the date guy?" He asked, pulling me back up to my feet. "It's too late. You've taken your make up off."

She shook her head again, looking really upset so I went and hugged her. I didn't like people being upset. "No, I haven't. I'm still wearing my make up. Gee, you smell so nice, you've been doing all the washing again."

This made me smile, but it wasn't computing with the Doctor still. "Oh. Right. Well, you probably just missed a bit." And now we were being ushered into the TARDIS, though Clara was determined to not end up going. "You know sometimes when you talk to yourself, what if you're not?"

I frowned at him, my hair scraped back into some semblance of a ponytail to show the very beginnings of honey blonde roots. "Not what?"

"What if it's not you you're talking to? Proposition. What if no one is ever really alone? What if every single living being has a companion, a silent passenger, a shadow? What if the prickle on the back of your neck is the breath of someone close behind you?"

Clara just looked at him, while I didn't understand. "How long have you been travelling alone?"

"Perhaps I never have." Scary thought. What about when you were going to the bathroom or in the shower?

But we were shown to a chalkboard, saying the word 'Listen.' Apparently, he didn't write it. "That's your handwriting, Doctor."

He just looked at me. "Well, I couldn't have written it and forgotten, could I?"

"Have you met you?" Clara asked with a smile, before looking at the books all around the room. "What's all this?"

"Dreams. Accounts of dreams, by different people all through history." He explained, looking so into all of this. "You see, I have a theory." Why didn't I like where this was going? "I think everybody, at some point in their lives, has the exact same nightmare. You wake up, or you think you do, and there's someone the dark, someone close, or you think there might be. So you sit up, and turn on the light. And the room looks different at night. It ticks and creaks and breathes. And you tell yourself there's nobody watching, nobody listening, nobody there at all. And you very nearly believe it. You really, really try and then... There are accounts of that dream, the same dream. Now, Clara, Georgia, there is a very obvious question I'm about to ask you. Do you know what it is?"

Clara and I both knew. "Have you had that dream?"

"Exactly."

My flatmate shook her head. "No, that was us asking you. Have you had that dream?"

"I asked you two first. Georgia?"

"I, I, I don't know. I don't sleep, let alone dream."

He stared at me for a moment, like he didn't quite believe me. "What do you mean? We've had you awake for a month now, you should be dead if you haven't slept yet."

I shrugged, before Clara kept us on the right topic. I'd just slept for 4 years, what was a month of being awake? "Yes, I have, probably. But everyone dream about something under the bed."

"Why?" He asked her, forgetting my insomnia for a while before placing her hands into a spot on the TARDIS console. "Just hold on tight. If anything bites, let it."

"What is it?"

The Doctor glanced at me, like he was trying to distance himself from me. Did, did I do something wrong? "TARDIS telepathic circuit. Wouldn't work with you, Georgia, your mind is too fragmented, there is no memory there for it to latch on to. Clara, you are now in mental contact with the TARDIS, so don't think anything rude. Georgia is rather impressionable. Might come up on the screens."

"What does that mean, that I'm impressionable?"

They both just looked at me, before ignoring my question entirely with a small, knowing smile. "The TARDIS is extrapolating your entire timeline, from the moment of your birth to the moment of your death."

"Which I don't need a preview of."

He was pressing buttons on the console, not overly listening. "I'm turning off the safeguards and navigation, slaving the TARDIS to you. Focus on the dream. Focus on the details. Picture them, feel them. The TARDIS will track on your subconscious and extract the relevant information. It should be able to home in on the moment in your timeline when you first had that dream. And then, we'll see."

Clara frowned at him as I sat down. "What will we see?"

The Doctor shrugged. "What's under your bed." And set the blue box moving. "Okay, now don't get distracted. Remember, you are flying a time machine." At which point her phone started to ring, the Doctor walking around to her. "No. No. Don't you dare. No. Don't. Don't. Don't. Just ignore it." Then we landed. "Okay, that's good. That worked. We're here."

"Sorry. I think I got distracted."

"No, no, no, no, no." He told her, checking the monitor. "The dates find. Come on."

Now it was my turn to blink, not understanding. "Come on where?"

He gave me a smile, like he was giving up with staying separate from me, and offered his hand as he went for the door. "Clara's childhood. Clara, stay here, it's not safe to risk you meeting yourself." She didn't say anything, but we were already practically out of the TARDIS by this point, and then into the night time scene beyond. "The West Country Children's Home. Gloucester. By the ozone level and the drains, mid-nineties. Clara must have been here when she had the dream."

Um... Nope. "I've been listening to Clara as she spoke about her life. She's never been to Gloucester and she was never in a Children's Home."

"She's probably just forgotten." He shrugged as I shivered, finding it very cold. "Have you see the size of a human brain? They're hilarious. Little Clara must be in there somewhere with her little brain."

We now started to walk towards the house as I had a thought. Clara's phone rang... She had a bad date with Danny... "Doctor, if Clara had been distracted, what would have happened?"

"We probably would have ended up in the wrong place." The Doctor replied. "But I don't think we have, because the time zones right. Come on."

At which point we broke into the Children's Home, the Doctor scanning a corridor before a balding man stuck his head out of a door. "How did you two get in?"

"Your door must be faulty."

Then showed some paper that I swore was blank. "An inspection? It's 2 in the morning."

"When better?" I asked with a bright smile, taking his lead. "Do you always work nights here?"

"Most nights, yes."

My escort tilted his head to the side. "Do you ever end up talking to yourself?"

The man hesitated before nodding. "All the time. It's this place. You can't help it."

"What about your coffee?" This confused the bloke, who looked back at his mug on the table. "Sometimes, do you put it down and look around, and it's not there?"

"Everybody does that."

"Yes." The Doctor agreed seriously. "Everybody."

Now the TV turned off, the sudden absence of noise making me squeeze the Doctor's hand, still holding it. I'd learned one thing fast since waking up, I hated silence, but I also hated far too much noise. I needed a happy middle, like listening to the radio while sleeping, or using noise cancelling headphones while in a busy place like the supermarket. "Who turned your telly off?"

He shrugged. "It does that. It just goes off."

And he turned to look at it again, and we vanished out of his line of sight before the Doctor took a mouthful of his coffee. I didn't like coffee, but I did like tea. And energy drink, and anything else with a high caffeine content. Though, it actually made my heart really painful, beating far too hard. "So, a whole month of no sleep? Is this why Clara's clothes are always freshly pressed and ironed?"

"I need something to do, I just haven't been tired. I'll lie in bed for hours, my eyes closed, but I just get bored. I don't think I've ever been in a dream state either." I told him, keeping my voice low so I didn't wake the potentially baby Clara. "I don't feel tired, I don't feel any different. I slept for at least 4 years, a month or two won't be missed. Besides, how long has it been since you had a proper sleep?"

"What are you talking about?"

I looked at him carefully, my pale blue eyes looking at his whitish blue. "I don't know. I just... You're tired, but you don't sleep. Is it a dream thing? That you keep having bad dreams so you avoid sleep?"

The Doctor didn't say anything for a long moment, before stopping to look at me hard. "Why do you know nothing about yourself, yet you seem to memorise everything about everyone else? You seem very good at learning, yet you haven't learnt a thing regarding your past."

"Maybe, maybe I'm learning about others to try and compensate for my lack of identity." I smiled, not feeling fear or worry about any of this. I felt... Safe, so long as I was with the Doctor or Clara. But mostly the Doctor. "If I'm going to remember, I'm going to remember. There's no need to worry about something that's not harming me at the moment."

He nodded a little, his eyes moving to the door at the end of the corridor, where a familiar voice could be heard. "Why does she never listen?"

Only as I'd thought, it wasn't a baby Clara in the home, it was some little boy, so the Doctor, somehow, ninja'd into a chair at the far end of the room to look at a book as I hovered in the doorway, staring at the lump in the covers. Not good, something told me that was really very, truly, not good. "Where is he?"

"Doctor? Georgia?"

"I can't find him." He informed us as I crept around the edge of the room to get closer to him. "Can you find him?"

Clara was staring at him in disbelief. "Find who?"

"Wally." Why did he need to know where Wally was? Who the hell was Wally? "He's nowhere in this book."

"It's not a Where's Wally one."

"Well, how would you know?" He asked the little boy, sounding a little annoyed. "Maybe you just haven't found him yet."

The boy just looked at him. "He's not in every book."

This surprised the Doctor a little. "Really? Well, that's a few years on my life I'll be needing back. Are you scared?" He nodded. "The thing on your bed, whatever it is, are you scared?" The boy agreed. "Well, that's good. Want to know why that's good? Let me tell you about scared. Your heart is beating so hard, I can feel it through you hands. There's so much blood and oxygen pumping through to your brain, it's like rocket fuel. Right now, you could run faster and you could fight harder, you could jump higher than ever in your life. And you are so alert, it's like you can slow down time. What's wrong with scared? Scared is a super power. It's your super power. There is danger in this room and guess what? It's you. Do you feel it? Do you think he feels it? Do you think he's scared?" He shook his head. "Nah, loser. Turn your back on him."

"What?"

He did it himself, gesturing for us to do the same. "Yeah, turn your back on him. Come on. You too, Gee, Clara. Georgia, your back now. Do it now, turn your back. Lovely view out this window."

Clara and I stood with him, the little boy standing between her and the Doctor, who had taken my hand again. "Yeah. Come and see all the dark."

"The deep and lovely dark." I replied, fixing my eyes on that infinite blackness. "We'd never see the stars without it."

The Doctor nodded a little. "Now, there are two possibilities. Possibility one, it's just one of your friends standing there, and playing a joke on you. Possibility two, it isn't."

"So, plans? Plans are good." Clara smiled, trying to stay brace for our young friend."

"You on the bed, I'm talking to you now. Go in peace. We won't look." The Doctor told it, his eyes trying hard not to focus on the reflection on the dark glass. "Just go. If all you want to do is stay hidden, it's OK. Just leave."

"Is it gone?"

"Don't look round, Gee." He told me softly. "Not yet."

The boy didn't understand. "I can't hear anything."

"Don't look round." Though he started to do so anyway. "Look away! Look away now! Don't look at it! Don't look round. Don't look at the reflection."

He was getting more fearful. "What is it?"

Not a clue, but I didn't really want to have that as the last thing I learned. "Imagine a thing that must never be seen. What would it do if you saw it?"

"I don't know."

The Doctor sighed, most likely wishing that he did. "Neither do I. Close your eyes, Close your eyes. You too, Georgia, Clara." I did as I was told, just trusting him. He saved me before, he's save me again. "Give it what it wants. Prove to it that you're not going to look at it. Make a promise. A promise you're never going to look at it."

With a small shiver of fear, the boy agreed. "I promise never to look."

"The breath on the back of your neck, like your hair's standing one end. That means, don't look round." Then the door slammed shut as the creature, or the child, left. "Gone."

"He too my bedspread."

Which earnt him a withering look. "Oh, the human race. You're never happy, are you?"

He was still holding Clara's hand. "Am I safe now?"

So Clara started to do something with his army men, while the Doctor played with an orange robot. I was just cross legged on the floor, enjoying the soft hum of the room that replaced the eerie silence. Though the old man wasn't helping the small boy. "Nobodys safe, especially not at night, in the dark. Anything can get you. All the way up here, you're up here all alone." At which point Clara slapped him around the back of the head with a book. "What was that for?"

"Shut up. Leave this to me. Gee, keep him sat down." I nodded and she smiled at me and the boy. "Thanks, Georgia."

"People don't need to be lied to."

Clara shot him an annoyed look. "People don't need to be scared by a big grey haired stick insect, or a white Amnesiac Pixie, but you're both here. Georgia, keep him still and quiet." Then went back to what she had started with a boy. "See what I'm doing? This is your army."

The Doctor tried to stand again, but I kept him down by hugging him from behind and resting my head on his shoulder. "Plastic army. Gee, come on, not hugging."

"Sit."

"And they're going to guard under your bed." Clara continued. "You see this one? This is the boss one, the colonel. He's going to keep a special eye out."

He shook his head, not believing her. "It's broken, that one. It doesn't have a gun."

This only made her smile brighter. "That's why he's the boss. A soldier so brave he doesn't need a gun. He can keep the whole world safe. what she was call him?"

"Dan." She blinked at him. "Dan the Soldier Man. That's what I call him."

I could see the worry in her eyes, probably thinking of her failed date with Danny. "Good. Good name."

"Would you read me a story?" He asked, moving to sit on his bed. "It'll help me get to sleep."

"Once upon a time." The Doctor told him, just pulling me along with him instead of me weighing him down. Then touched the boys head and he fell backwards, asleep on the bed. "The end. Dad skills."

We headed back to the TARDIS, the Doctor not really saying anything to either of us until Clara asked a question. "So is it possible that we've just saved that kid from another kid in a bed spread?"

Nodding, he sat me down, scanned me with the sonic, then kept going with the console, a cup of tea appearing in my hand. Where did that come from? "Entirely possible, yes. The bigger question is, why did we end up with him and not you?"

Clara looked sheepish. "I got distracted."

"By why that particular boy?" He asked again. "You don't have any kind of connection with him, do you?"

"No, no, no. No. Of course not." At which point she completely refused to look at me as I gave her a raised eyebrow. That was so baby Danny Pink! "Why do you ask?" He was too busy doing something to the TARDIS. "Well, er, will he remember any of that?"

He smiled a little at that, looking pleased with himself. "Scrambled his memory. Gave him a big old dream about being Dan the Soldier Man." Only this made her start crying, so I went up and hugged her tight. "Are you alright?"

She shook her head, her eyes fixing on the Doctor who was now looking worried. "Doctor, I am so sorry to ask, and, you know, I realise this is probably against the laws of time, or summat. Er, could you do me a favour?" Which was to try and help her fix her practically ruined date before it was too late. "Is that what I look like from the back?"

"It's fine."

I raised my eyebrows. "I was thinking it looked good, actually. I told you those shoes were a good move."

That earnt me a hug before she headed into the restaurant, leaving the Doctor and I in the TARDIS together. "The TARDIS has no idea why you aren't sleeping. There's no block on your mind that should stop you sleeping, or to stop you at least entering a dream state. The part of you that's human at the very least should also be dead or dying, even if you're mostly something else."

Picking at my nails again, I didn't look at him, afraid of what he could be about to tell me. "What does that mean? Is it a bad thing?"

He shrugged. "I have no idea, beyond the fact that even though it should make it easier to track your family down, it's actually making it harder. But I'll still get you home, Gee, I promise."

"I trust you. I do, I swear." I smiled, making him give me a weak one in return. "I know that you'll manage it, you'll find my family."

The Doctor nodded once more before we started to look for this creature again, ending up in a ship at the end of the universe, a time traveller who had been thrown too far camping out. Which meant that he wanted to pick Clara back up, just as her date started to fail again. "I am trying to have a date. A real life, inter-human, actual date! It's a nice normal, every day, meeting up sort of thing. And what I would like to know, is there any way you two can make this any more surreal than it already is?"

At which point our spacey friend took off his helmet, looking like a slightly different version of Danny. I'd met him briefly, he's called on her for an emergency school meeting. According to her, I was her New Zealand cousin who had an accident and needed help. "Hello."

"Ah, Clara!" The Doctor beamed, coming out of the TARDIS to look at her. "Well done, you found her. Now, this is really a bit strange."

"Danny?"

He looked at her in confusion, putting an arm around my shoulder. "What's gone wrong with your face? It's all eyes! Why are you all eyes? Get them under control!"

Orson frowned at her, holding his helmet under his arm. "Er, who's Danny?"

I tried to help her a little. "This is Colonel Orson Pink, from about 100 years in your future."

"Orson Pink?"

Which obviously set the Doctor off laughing. "Yeah, I laughed too, but Gee glared at me. Sorry. Do you have any connection with him?"

"Connection?"

"Yes, maybe you're like a distant relative or something?"

She briefly looked at him, unable to take her eyes off of Orson for long. "How, how would I know?"

He now realised his mistake. "Right. Okay." and looked at Orson. "Er, well, do you have any old family photographs of her? You know, probably quite old and really fat looking?"

"I don't."

"How did you find him?"

I pointed at the Doctor. "Well, you left a trace in the telepathic circuits. The Doctor decided to fire them up again and they lead us straight to him. So he is something to do with your timeline." Clara nodded a little, starting to understand. "And you'll never guess where we found him."

We took her to the rocky planet and the capsule Orson had been stuck in for a very long time, my flatmate looking around it with a frown. Where are we?"

"The end of the road." The Doctor replied as I forced myself out of the TARDIS. It was wrong being here, it was utterly wrong and my whole body hated it. "This is it, the end of everything. The last planet."

She stared, eyes wide. "The end of the universe?"

"The TARDIS isn't supposed to come this far, but some idiot turned off the safeguards. Listen." Clara did so, not realising that the painful silence she heard was the whole point. "Nothing. There's nothing to hear. There's nothing anywhere. Not a breath, not a slither, not a clock or a tick. All the clocks have stopped. This is the silence at the end of time."

Clara looked back as Orson started to empty the contents of a locker into a bag, things clattering to the floor. "Then how did he get here? If he's from 100 years in my future."

The Doctor shrugged, frowning at me as I hugged my arms around myself, not liking that we were here. I'd been fine with time travel before, bit... This just felt horrible. "Pioneer time travel." Then he got something up, showing her the news feed of when he left. "Rode the first of the great first time shots. They were supposed to fire him itno the middle of next week."

"What happened?"

I shrugged, trying to fight the Doctor as he insisted in putting his jacket around me, taking my shivers for being cold. "He went a bit far. Doctor, I am fine."

He shook his head, not letting me take it back off. "Keep it on or you're going back into the TARDIS, Georgia. Look at him now though. Robinson Crusoe at the end of time itself. The last man standing in the universe. I always thought that would be me."

Clara just gave him a look. "It's not a competition."

"I know it's not a competition." Everything seemed to be with him, even just getting ready in the morning. "Course it isn't. Still time though."

"He looks like he's packing."

Duh. "He's been stranded for 6 months, just met time travellers. Of course he's packing."

Then Orson himself came in, holding all his belongings in a single bag. "You can do it then? You can get me home?"

"We just showed you, didn't we?" The Doctor pointed out. "A test flight to a restaurant?"

"Yes, but to my family, to my own time."

He nodded. "Easily. I can do that, can't I girls?"

Clara nodded, speaking before I could, my eyes staring out into the barren wasteland beyond. "He can, yes."

Orson frowned at her a little. "Is everything OK?"

"Yeah, find. I'm fine."

Chances were, she was his great grandmother or something. "No. Nope."

The Doctor glanced over from where he was messing with a console. "Is she doing the all eyes thing? It's because her face is so wide. She needs three mirrors." Which earned him a stern look from Clara, before he continued. "We can't leave immediately though. The TARDIS needs to recharge." Now Clara and I were just plain confused. "Overnight should do it. Right, Gee? Clara?"

Pioneer seemed terrified by the very idea. "Overnight?"

"One more night." He agreed. "That's, that's not a problem, is it?"

"No. No, no problem."

I hated liars. "It's a shame, isn't it? There's only 4 people left in the universe and you're lying to the other three. The universe is dead, everything that ever was is dead, and oh so long gone. There's nothing beyond this door but nothingness forevermore. So why is it locked?"

"Please, don't make me spend another night here."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Afraid of the dark? But the dark is empty now."

Orson just shook his head, his eyes heavy with all the things he'd seen just out of the corner of his vision. "No. No it isn't."

Clara took him back into the TARDIS as I sat beside the Doctor in deck chairs, just waiting for the night to fall and to finally get the Doctor his answer. "If the universe is practically dead, surely these creatures you're looking for would be too?"

"Maybe. But that's only one way of looking at it." I frowned a bit, silently asking him the next question. "That's a hell of a lot of ghost."

At which point the lights dimmed. Great.

"Do you have your own mood lighting?" The capsule creaked a little, before words appeared on the main hatch. Do NOT Open this Door. "Where did that come from?"

"It's always been there." He replied as I shrank down in his jacket, shivering again. "It's only visible in the night lights. Apparently at night, he needs a reminder. 6 Months stranded alone, I suppose it must be tempting. Company."

More creaking moved around the ship, my eyes following it to the door. "What's that?"

With a look, the Doctor just made me feel nervous. "What kind of explanation would you like?"

Surely that was obvious? "A reassuring one?"

"Well, the systems are switching to low power. There are temperature differentials all over this ship. It's like pipes banging when the heating goes off."

I knew the noisy pipes was something sinister. I didn't like them from the start. "I told Clara there was something in the pipes."

That got me another small smile. "Me too." Then a screaming noise made us both jump, my heart pounding so hard that I could feel it in my throat, my fingers and my toes. "Atmospheric pressure equalising."

This time... I was less inclined to believe him. "Or?"

"Company." Lovely.

"Why are we doing this?" I asked, really, truly, feeling scared now. "Why don't we just go?"

He shrugged. "Because I need to know."

I did not like where this was going. "Why? About a creature you think might exist?"

"What would they do if everyone was gone?" The Doctor asked me carefully. "When there was only one man left standing in the universe?"

Things started to bang around us, making me grab his arm in shock. "What's that?"

"Potentially, the hull cooling."

Not helping. "Potentially?"

"Believably." Things were still banging. "Someone knocking. Yes."

"You don't truly believe all this, do you? hiding creatures. Things under the bed."

"You don't truly believe all this, do you? Hiding creatures. Things under the bed?"

His eyes fixed on the front door. "What's that in the mirror, or the corner of your eyes-"

Wait... I knew that. Someone used to sing that to me, as a joke, knowing that it didn't scare me. "What's that footstep following, but never passing by? Did we come to the end of the universe because of a nursery rhyme?" The banging got worse, before the Doctor sonicked the hatch to unlocked and the mechanisms began to turn. "Please, lease tell me that's you turning it..."

"No." He replied quietly. "Get in the TARDIS with Clara, Georgia"

"Why?"

He wasn't looking at me. "I have to know." Please, please, don't do this... "The TARDIS, now!"

This wasn't going to end well. "Okay. Okay. Somebody is out we know, we can leave!" Only he wasn't moving. "Please, Doctor!"

"It's a pressure lock. Releasing it could have triggered the opening mechanism."

But that was only a theory! It was not worth risking your life if this wasn't 100% assured. "Is there even an atmosphere out there?"

"There is an air shell around the ship." Then he glanced back at me. "Why are you still here, Gee?"

"Because I am not going to leave you in danger!"

His eyes went furious for a moment, both worried about me and excited for what could be outside that door. "Then you will never travel with me again, because that is the deal! TARDIS, now! Do as you are told!"

So I just ran to the door, my mind playing that in my head before I stopped and looked back at him. "You're an idiot."

"What happening?" Clara asked as I got inside, still shaking in his jacket. "Gee?"

"He's opening the door." Then looked at him through the monitor, remembering the rest of the rhyme. "Perhaps they're all just waiting, perhaps when we're all dead, out they'll come a-slithering from underneath the bed." Once the airlock was open, air rushed out of the capsule, the scanner starting to flicker. "No! Please, no, please!"

A klaxon sounded as the TARDIS jolted, making Clara grab me before I toppled over. "That's the alarm." Orson told us. "The airshells breached. Stay here."

Orson went out there with his suit and helmet on, before bringing back a now unconscious Doctor, Clara and I rushing to his side, something getting pressed into my hand as his older friend tried to take over his care. "Is he OK?"

"He'll be fine, he's just out cold."

"Something hit him." I frowned, lightly touching the bump on his head.

He sounded a little uneasy. "Everything was flying out of that door."

That was one possibility, sure. "Could have been that."

Three sounds were still repeating in the background, Clara getting to her feet to look at Orson. "What was out there? What were you so afraid of?"

"I've been out there a long time. My own shadow probably."

At which point the TARDIS moved, ever so slightly. "That's probably just the last of the air escaping."

Clara and I exchanged looks. "You say probably a lot."

"We are safe?" He asked us, as the doors creaked once more. "Nothing can get in here, right?"

"Probably."

Air hissed around us, like it was escaping from the doors and a bell tolled further inside. "Have either of you got a plan?"

Probably. "Telepathic circuits. Maybe that can do a thing." I replied, sticking my fingers where Clara had before, thinking of the poem. The nursery rhyme that had made me laugh when I was younger, but now terrified me. It was the only memory I had, the only thing that I could focus on but it was better than staying where we were. Maybe I'd meet the person who told it to me. "Come on, come on, you can do it!"

The time spinny thing above us got up to speed as the Doctor wheezed behind me, my brain thinking that I wanted to keep him safe. So, maybe I got a little distracted from my destination.

With a thump, the TARDIS landing and the bell no longer tolled, no more banging could be heard either. "Is that it?"

"I don't know." I admitted. "I think so."

"Where are we?"

I headed for the door, shaking my head as they tried to follow me. If this was my past, I wanted to find things out alone. "Somewhere else, I hope. You two stay here and look after the Doctor."

Orson shook his head. "You can't go out there by yourself."

Why not? "It's my past, my timeline. If I can learn something..." I gave them a weak smile and then headed out the door.

The creaked slightly as I closed them, seeing a raised platform with a single bed on top. Where a child was lying curled on their side, sobbing under a blanket as silvery moonlight shone down on him. Unless I had once been a boy, I had no idea who this was. "Hello?"

The door into the barn I was in opened and two people came in, so I ducked under the bed to avoid them seeing me, listening to their conversation. "Why does he have to sleep out here?"

"He doesn't want the others to hear him crying."

"Why does he have to cry all the time?"

A woman sounded frustrated with the man with her. "You know why."

"There'll be no crying in the army." She tried to quiet the man but he wasn't listening. "Don't pretend you're not awake. We're not idiots."

The woman tried a much kinder approach. "Come and sleep in the house. You don't have to be alone. If you can hear me, you're very welcome in the house, with the other boys. I'll leave the door on the latch. Come in any time."

Both of them started to leave now, making my heart ache in more way than one, the poor boy alone above me. "He can't just run away crying all the time if he wants to join the army."

"He doesn't want to join the army." She shot back. "I keep telling you."

"Well, he's not going to the Academy is he, that boy? He'll never make a Time Lord."

My heart now stopped, remembering how I got distracted by thinking about the Doctor, and now they were talking about Time Lords, of which he was the Last Of. I accidentally went into the Doctor's childhood...

"Gee! Georgia!

"Hello?" The boy asked, slowly sitting up in bed. "Who's there? Hello?"

The kid sat on the edge of the bed, only I grabbed his ankle as if by reflex. Noooooooooooo. "It's ok. This is just a dream. Just like back again. Just lie back on the bed. It will all be OK if you just lie down and go to sleep. Just do that for me. Just sleep."

I let go of his ankle and he got back into bed, so I moved to sit beside him on there, stoking hair softly. "Listen. This is just a dream. But very clever people can hear dreams. So please, just listen. I know you're afraid, but being afraid is alright. Because didn't anyone ever tell you? Fear is a superpower. Fear can make you faster and cleverer and stronger. And one day, you might come back here to the barn, if you're ever so afraid that you can't breathe, that there's no where else you can turn.

"But that's OK. Because if you're very wise and very strong, fear does have to make you cruel or cowardly. Fear can make you kind. It doesn't matter if there's nothing under the bed or in the dark, so long as you know it's OK to be afraid of it.

"I'll show you, like how I think someone once must have shown me. So listen. If you listen to nothing else, listen to this. You're always going to be afraid, even if you learn to hide it. Fear is like a companion. A constant companion, always there. But that's OK, because fear can bring us together. Fear can bring you home when that is the one place you need to be, however far away it may be. I'm going to leave you something, just so you always remember. Fear makes companions of us all."

And left him the soldier man Clara had given me not long ago, when she dealt with the passed out Doctor. It stood guard over him as I headed back to the TARDIS, where a now awake Time Lord was just about to come and find me. "What if there was nothing? What if there was never anything? Nothing under the bed, ntohing at the door. What if the big bad time Lord doesn't want to admit he's afraid of the dark?"

"Where are we?" He asked. "Have we moved? Where have we landed?"

"Don't look." I told him softly with a small smile of my own this time. "Take off and promise me that you will never look where we've been."

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Why? Gee?"I just kept smiling. "Just take off. Don't ask questions."

"I don't take orders, Georgia."

Oh, well. "Do as you're told."

Which he did and we moved off, leaving the young boy who would one day grow up into the Doctor with the sound of the wheezing, groaning engines, strong and powerful, and to me, they meant so much hope was coming. We dropped off Orson, who hugged Clara, before leaving her with Danny, who could do no better.

"Where did we land, Georgia?"

"It doesn't matter." I smiled, before hugging him.

Which set him off fighting again, but I just clung on. "No, no, no. No to the hugging. No, no, no. I'm against the hugging. Please."