Osha had been married twice. The first time she had only been seventeen. Two kids by twenty-two. She'd stayed until her husband's alcoholism had gotten so bad that she was afraid he'd hurt the children. He wouldn't even believe her when she told him how drunk he could get, how she'd find him night after night crawling along the floor of their kitchen naked, his unconscious face pressed into the bottom drawer of the fridge. Or the passed out beside the oven that had been left on since two a.m. with a frozen pizza inside it. Osha'd found him, and the smouldering corpse of the pizza, four hours later.

Nyssa strode through Camp Meerkat, a glass of iced tea in her hands.

Tegan was reclining in her sun chair with two meerkats perched up on her shoulders, their tiny faces anxiously surveying the surroundings for predators. The students and volunteers were packing up their belongings, awaiting the land rovers that held the next team of workers. Of the Doctor, there was no sign. He hadn't been seen for days. They knew he was in the TARDIS somewhere. Mourning. Sulking.

'Thanks,' said Tegan quietly as Nyssa passed her the cold drink.

Because Osha'd loved her husband, she'd wanted him to stop, to change, to believe her at the very least, one night when he came home drunk she had a camera ready. She came down to the living room and found him urinating into the couch, speaking a nonsense language to himself, laughing maniacally. Disgusted, she took the picture but in the days that followed things got very much worse and she forgot to get the film developed. She didn't find the film until three years later, hidden at the back of a drawer along with some other unmarked rolls. She sent it off to be developed, unaware of what was in it.

'How are you feeling?' Nyssa asked.

Tegan only grunted.

'The Doctor said we'd be leaving soon... Assuming the TARDIS is fully recovered...'

No grunt. No response. Only silence.

'Will you come with us?'

Tegan sat up slightly and pulled down her sunglasses a notch to stare at her friend. 'Of course! I'm certainly not going to stay here!'

Nyssa considered, phrasing her words carefully. 'It's just that you seemed... you seemed not to trust...'

'I am concerned,' Tegan said pointedly, 'about the Doctor's behaviour. Near the end he acted like he knew what he was doing, like he had somehow planned everything- nearly everything anyway.' Tegan sat back in her chair and stared up at the sky. 'And look what happened.'

'Oh, Tegan, I always have a plan... or at the very least, I'll always have my celery. And besides, planning in depth takes... practice.' Osha had heard the Doctor say those peculiar words when they arrived back at camp.

And in that moment Osha saw the Look on Tegan's face.

When Osha got the pictures developed, she was startled to see the image of her husband. Felt the familiar wash of fear and shame of her lack of ability to stand up to him... She also noticed that the camera had captured her reflection in the living room mirror. A revealing freeze frame, but of her, not of him. In the reflection she could see herself, holding the camera outstretched as if it was tainted, as if it could bite her, and the look on her own face shocked and repelled her.

It was the same expression she saw now on Tegan's face: disgust at what her best friend had turned into and fear at what he might someday still yet become.

Osha saw this now. She saw everything now. Now that she had joined with the tower's spirit.

At least, she supposed, Tegan's reactions to events was a success in itself, a reaction. Tegan was slipping out, slowly, of the cocoon she'd encased herself in, even if it was in an unexpected, and unpleasant, way. Nyssa seemed detached, as if she had already moved on and all that was happening around her was soon about to become someone else's problem.

Osha turned away from the camp and her furry little friends, and turned her gaze to the sun and the invisible stars above, contemplating the planet that held her. Even now she wasn't one hundred percent sure of what happened or who she was. One moment she had been inside the cave with Ian, then there was an explosion of light, and then she felt... a presence, an ethereal beautiful presence, bind with her, and she was one with the Tower, with the world, with Earth.

Osha could see everything:

From long ago and far away, she could see the games laid out and played: Fenric's and the Doctor and the Other's. Saw the flask survive the molten seas and the heaving masses of continental drift, saw it wash ashore, and saw the game continue. On and on, over and over. All the broken toys strewn across the world, across space and time. When Fenric would finally be released was long past even her now extended life span and the Doctor's too.

The Tower was indeed destroyed, fading into oblivion. Vast, infinitely complex, interstitial causalities stitched into the very fabric of the Earth, however, take a very long time to fade away. It would be many millions of years for the Tower to collapse completely, and when it did the surface of the Earth would long be void of life and smouldering in the boiling embrace of the sun that had once given birth to it, and had returned to devour it. From within the world, within the crumbling tower, she could see her children, all her children, play, mate, and quarrel and, perhaps most importantly, live.

Afterward

Chicago, IL 1989

Dr. Oshadegea Cavanaugh was tired. Wealthy, yes. Overworked, yes. Suicidal... perhaps. Osha's husband had passed away three months ago. Her daughters, who had moved back in after the funeral, had left nearly six weeks ago. Osha had tried to throw herself back into her work, but dealing with petty office dramas, boardroom jousting and overpaid, emotionally vacant business executives no longer held any sense of challenge. She was supposed to be with a client now, but she'd cancelled and gone down to the park in order to munch on a butterscotch brownie. Once she'd gotten here though, she didn't even have the appetite to even do that. Sitting on a bench, she broke the treat into sticky fragments and tossed it to the birds.

She wondered if birds could get diabetes.

Decided that she didn't care.

About anything.

'Interesting things, pigeons,' said a rumbled dwarf of a man beside her. Osha didn't want to talk, didn't want to even look at the stranger. The handle of his umbrella caught her eye though. It was bright red, in the shape of a question mark. 'I wonder,' the accent was heavy with Scottish r's and thick, syrupy vowels, 'have you ever considered how complex animal societies can be? I know this wonderful place in the Kalahari that has the most delightful creatures...'

Aberystwyth, 1992

The woman, still bundled up in a checked coat and paisley scarf, watched the soft cough of smoke waft out from the mouth of the North Tower. She shook her head in disgust. She'd gone to so much trouble to plant the device in Ian's satchel. Without the delta wave booster, Fenric never would have been able alter the pilot's mind, nudged Ian to afix the tunnel to the proper, or rather incorrect, coordinates. And now the Watchtower was fading away, everything was ruined again.

Never mind.

The nice thing about working for Fenric was job security. There were so many plans, so many traps to set that she'd long ago lost track. She let out a sigh and stomped down the hill back to town. Next on the list, conjure up a time storm in some girl's living room. Then she had to make twelve clones. Clara Oswin Oswald pulled her coat tighter about her, and shrugged. As with all of Fenric's wolves, she was going to have a busy day.

Author's note: Thanks to all for your kind comments. This is my first stab at writing again after a break of several years, so thank you for overlooking my blunders, typos and rushed scenes. I very much missed being a part of such a kind, supportive community of writers. If you're interested in a much (much) high calibre of storytelling in regards to Fenric, Ian Brigg's novelization of the TV story is quite well done, as is the Big Finish audio tale, Gods and Monsters with Sophie Aldred and Sylvester McCoy.