A/N: So sorry for the delay in updating! It won't happen again! (And won't really have the chance to, since there's only one chapter left after this one, actually)

Chapter Ten

Hey, they found a body
Not sure it was his, still they're using his name
And she gave him shelter
Somewhere I know she knows
Somewhere I know she knows
Some things only she knows.
Past the mission, behind the prison tower…
 - Tori Amos, Past The Mission

"I'd realized something as I was standing there talking to her," the Doctor explained to Amy and Rory. "The cloister bells hadn't gone off. There wasn't any sign anywhere of something wrong as a result of what I'd done. Whether dead, or just whisked off to somewhere in the future, the Grand Duchess Anastasia was taken out of the timeline when she was supposed to be. So, as it turned out, maybe there was a reason for all those survivor legends and people pretending to be her – because it had really happened. And maybe it was supposed to happen. Maybe the great mystery of the lost Grand Duchess was me all along."

Amy met the Doctor's triumphant smirk with skepticism. "So you risked altering history for a hunch?"

"Hey, I'll have you know I have some pretty good hunches," the Doctor protested.

Amy rolled her eyes. "And apparently I wasn't the first person to enter the TARDIS in a nightie," she commented.

Anastasia giggled at this comment.

"Anyway," Amy continued, "If you rescuing Anastasia was part of the timeline all along, then why don't I remember seeing anything in the history books about a blue box whisking her away?"

"Well, by all accounts, the guards' handling of the family's execution was terrible. Nothing was done correctly," the Doctor informed. "Some people in the room survived the initial firing squad. There are stories from people who claimed they'd seen soldiers searching trains for one of the Grand Duchesses in the days following the murder. It's not too much of a stretch that one of the family members might have escaped before it even happened. But, that would have put those soldiers in quite a terrible position. So, maybe to avoid looking totally incompetent when they reported to the Kremlin, they all agreed to state that Anastasia had been there."

"Alright," Amy agreed. "But putting that all aside, you said there were two bodies missing from the grave. But they found those bodies a few years ago, like I told you. Everyone's accounted for. Explain how that happens, Raggedy Man."

"Ooh, 'Raggedy Man,' I quite like that," Anastasia commented. "Though, Doctor, she does have a point. How is that possible?"

The Doctor paused. "That I'm still not sure of myself, Grand Duchess," he answered.

The room was silent for a few moments. Amy, feeling a bit guilty for calling the Doctor out, was the one to break the ice again. She turned to Anastasia. "So, where was the first place you went?"

Anastasia shrugged. "Back home, actually."

…

Anastasia clasped her arms around herself as if she was cold, trying but failing to understand the TARDIS as the Doctor piloted it. "I don't belong here," she stated simply. "You have to take me back."

The Doctor stopped what he was doing and looked over at her. "You heard what your mother said to me," he reminded. "If I return you into the hands of those executioners, it will break her heart."

"Not there," Anastasia corrected. "Take me home. To the palace."

"Anastasia, it's not safe there," the Doctor reminded. "With all of the political upheaval, and you supposed to be in Ekaterinberg, you'd be imprisoned again in no time."

"Then take me to a year when it is safe," Anastasia protested. "We always had nicer winters when I was a girl anyway."

"Grand Duchess, I can't take you back on your own timeline either," the Doctor informed.

"You can't do what?" Anastasia asked, confused.

"Can you imagine how everyone would react if a second Anastasia showed up?" the Doctor explained. "And even if you promised you wouldn't, it would be difficult to resist telling your family about what was going to happen and trying to save them. Which, in turn, would create a paradox."

"Paradox?" the Grand Duchess asked. She was learning more in this short conversation than she had from her tutors in years.

"Say you tell your family what's going to happen, and so they escape to England just before the Revolution starts," the Doctor began. "Then, everyone survives. But then how did you ever experience the Revolution and house arrest that you came back to warn them about if you spent the rest of your life quietly in the countryside? Your family would be saved by something that never existed."

"I'm… not quite sure I understand all that," Anastasia admitted.

"Exactly," the Doctor concluded. "If that messes up your head, just think of what it'll do to the universe. Paradoxes are extremely unstable and should be avoided at all times."

"So… I can't go home," Anastasia concluded.

"Afraid not," the Doctor said as he flipped some switches on the console.

"But what am I supposed to do then?" the Grand Duchess asked hopelessly. "I'm only seventeen! I can't just go out on my own, not yet."

"Age is overrated," the Doctor commented. "I'm 749."

Anastasia glared at him. "You know what, this day has been strange enough already that I'm not even going to question that one," she gave up.

"And you won't be on your own," the Doctor reassured. "You've got me," he said, flashing one of his huge grins. "And we've got all of time and space to go see."

"But I don't know how to do anything!" Anastasia worried. "I'm a royal – we always had people to do things for us. Did you know for my last birthday I learned how to bake bread, and I was so excited by the novelty of it?" she asked. "I don't even know how money works, for God's sake."

"I don't either, really," the Doctor said enthusiastically. "Just making it up as I go along."

Anastasia turned to face him. "Really?" she asked. The Doctor nodded. Despite all of the grief she was feeling, Anastasia couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of her friend's comment. "I knew there was a reason I liked you," she said. "Oh, and if we do run into any money problems…" She bent down and grabbed the hem of her nightgown, which she proceeded to rip apart.

"What's your strategy, look poor and beg?" the Doctor asked.

"Not quite," Anastasia answered. She opened her hand to reveal a small cluster of jewels that she'd retrieved from the lining of her clothing. "Mother had us sew all of our jewelry into our outfits so the guards couldn't steal it from us. It's too bad I wasn't wearing my day dress – it weighed a ton from how many were in there."

"Might want to put those away for now," the Doctor advised. "We've landed."

"Landed?" Anastasia asked. "Landed where?"

"Where you wanted," the Doctor answered. "Your home. Outside of your own timeline, and I tried to pick a time where it was as deserted as possible so that hopefully no one will notice us."

Anastasia smiled warmly at the Doctor. "Thank you," she said gratefully.

"Though I must warn you," the Doctor admonished. "Deserted means the palace will not be in good shape when you see it."

Anastasia looked slightly taken aback, but retained her optimism as she headed to the door. "Well, how bad can it be?" she asked as she opened it.

Anastasia was completely silent as she stepped out onto the rotted, debris-ridden carpet in a room which was once one of her favorites. The Doctor followed her cautiously. She looked around to see that it was mostly empty of its former priceless décor, and what was left had either been smashed or was in terrible shape. A few empty wine bottles lay scattered on the floor, and picture frames hung empty on the walls, their canvas works of art ripped out.

"What happened?" was all the Grand Duchess could ask.

"Well, if I landed where I was aiming for, World War II," the Doctor replied. "The Nazi troops occupied this palace while trying to take the capital city."

"World War II?" Anastasia asked.

"Oh, right," the Doctor realized. "The war Russia was fighting under your father will later come to be known as World War I," he explained. "Because in the 1930s, another war started which was called World War II."

Anastasia nearly scoffed in surprise. "So… it happened again?" she asked. "After all of that fighting, all of those soldiers that died… just twenty years later?"

The Doctor nodded solemnly. "I'm afraid so, Anastasia," he answered. "If there's one thing I've learned from all of my travels, it's that while mankind is admirable, it is also very prone to folly."

"But what they've done to this place," she said in disbelief. "It's destroyed. This was my home!"

"I know, Grand Duchess," the Doctor commented. "But it does get fixed up eventually. A hundred years from now, it'll be a nice little museum."

Anastasia turned to him, her eyes full of pain. "A nice little museum?" she asked. "This was my life, Doctor. First they destroy it, then they're going to put it on display?"

The Doctor instantly realized he'd made the same mistake with her as he had with the Empress a few months prior. Even though he now knew the Imperial family personally, he still fell into the trap of thinking of them as objects or case studies, while in front of him stood a living, breathing girl he had just risked the stability of time and space to rescue. Whether historically necessary or not, Anastasia's loss made no sense to her, and he was making it worse.

"Anastasia, I…" he began. Before he could finish, however, she took off for the staircase. "Where are you going?" the Doctor asked as he followed.

The Grand Duchess didn't stop until she reached the door of her old bedroom and went inside. Unlike the bottom floor of the palace, these rooms had been relatively untouched.

"They can turn my home into a museum, but they won't put everything on display," Anastasia said firmly. She walked over to a dresser and pulled out the bottom drawer, then pulled up what revealed to be a false bottom. "Mama wanted us to hide whatever could be used to make us seem unpatriotic," she explained. "Photos of trips to other countries, letters to German relatives…" She began pulling out large photo albums as she talked, stuffing them with loose letters that had been lying in the drawer. "We had to leave so many things behind before. I'm not leaving them again."

"Grand Duchess, we really should go," the Doctor admonished. He wasn't sure if any sort of security staff worked in the palace, and he thought he heard footsteps in the distance.

Anastasia nodded. She had now snatched a pillowcase from one of the beds and was proceeding to stuff books and photographs into it. She turned to look at her bedroom one last time, scanning from her windows, to her icons, to her and Maria's beds. "So much time has passed since I was last here. So much has changed," she mused. "And yet it's also somehow been less than a year."

"I'm sorry you didn't get to leave it on your own terms," the Doctor said.

Anastasia gave him a weak smile. "I do now." She turned once again to run over to a trunk in the corner. Rummaging quickly, she picked out the small cloth doll with the Russian costume. "Let's go," she said as she gathered her things in her hands.

As they walked out into the hall, however, the Doctor soon discovered that he had been right about footsteps. An elderly groundskeeper stood at the far end of the hall. The Doctor thought of making an excuse for why they were inside the palace, but the man's expression stopped him. He looked directly at Anastasia and made the sign of the cross.

"Right," the Doctor commented. "I think I can see where some of those survival rumors started. Back to the TARDIS."

Anastasia was still gazing out at the long, dilapidated halls of the palace when the Doctor shut the doors of the police box again. She sighed and looked down at her photo albums and diaries. "I still don't know how to be anything but a princess," she reminded.

"Oh, that's nonsense," the Doctor contradicted. "You know how to ride a horse, chop firewood, address soldiers, sew, play instruments… and don't forget how to make a young boy in pain forget how miserable he feels." Anastasia felt a little better at the Doctor's words. "And, of course, this new skill of bread-baking!" the Doctor reminded. "You may not believe it, Anastasia, but you have plenty of talents. And for everything else you don't know, you have all of time and space to learn."

Now Anastasia was smiling, comforted by the Doctor's encouragement. "Take me away from here," she said.