The Protector turned to look at Adam as he stepped inside the TARDIS. "Let's get one thing straight," she said. "Ranking in the TARDIS. I'm at the top, my daughter Star (yes she's changed, get over it), my sister Rose. Then it's the Monkey Bats in the library, the Spider Rats in the basement and the bacteria in the toilet." The TARDIS gave a bit of an indignant hum at that. "Lastly it's you. Got that?"
"Y-yes Ma'am..."
And then he passed out.
"We have to bring him along?" Rose complained.
Star shrugged.
~8~
Looking in a mirror, Star tried to take in every part of her new body. She was still wearing the same clothes as before, but they were too short on her now. She was taller. Not by much, but enough to be noticeable. She was paler as well, her hair blonde. Her eyes were a dark blue-green.
The Protector walked up behind her daughter and out a hand on her shoulder. "I'm proud of you," she murmured, rubbing her shoulder. She crouched down beside Star, so that they were level, looking in the mirror. "You look like me," she added. "You did before. You have the blonde hair from my fourth regeneration, the eyes from my second. You're a midget," she teased, Star poking her tongue out at her. "Just like my first. Your first was a midget too."
Star pouted at her. The Protector laughed. "Just because you've changed," she said quietly, lacing her fingers through Star's, "doesn't mean you're not still my little girl." She knew her daughter and she knew she was worried about her mother's reaction. "I'm not happy that you regenerated, of course I'm not. But that doesn't mean I don't still love you." Star sniffed and wiped away a few tears that had fallen. "I will always love you Karatelicia, always. Unconditionally." She pulled her daughter into a tight hug. "I love you to the end of the universe, round every star and every moon a billion times, through a supernova and to a black hole, through every room in the TARDIS and back again. Always."
"I love you too Mummy," Star whispered through her tears. "Always."
Neither of them saw Rose leaning against the doorway with a fond smile as she watched the mother-daughter hug, until Star pulled away and looked over.
"Explanation time?" She beamed with a grin. "Yay!"
~8~
"Can't you go back in time and change it?" Rose asked as they walked down a corridor, heading deeper and deeper into the TARDIS.
"No," the Protector said automatically. "It's a fixed point."
"If Mummy were to change it, then I wouldn't regenerate," Star began to explain. "Then she wouldn't have a reason to go back and change it. So then I would regenerate. Then she'd go back and change it. It's a never ending paradox and the last thing we need is reapers eating us."
"We can't change it, no matter how much I want to. Nobody is allowed to change the deaths of people we know for sure died. Nobody. Not even me."
~8~
Rose gaped around at the hologram images of nine different women, one being the Protector, the last Star and the current Star as well as eight different men, all getting younger.
"Mummy always seems to be quite young in her regenerations," Star explained, gesturing to the women. "Daddy...he got younger." She giggled. "But me...I don't know. I mean, I look older, but I'm one of the youngest Time Lords to ever regenerate and the only reason I was actually able is probably because of prolonged exposure to the Time Vortex. Travelling through time and space is good for some stuff," she grinned. "It's why I was so scared," she added. "I didn't think I'd be able to do it, but...I did."
Star shrugged lightly. "That was first Mummy," she pointed to a woman with dark brown hair. "That's second Mummy," she continued, pointing at a black haired woman with dark blue-green eyes and pale skin. "That's third Mummy," she pointed to the next hologram woman, a korean woman with dark hair. "Mummy always said that she was the odd one out, but now she's regerated again, so three isn't odd anymore."
"That was my fourth self," the Protector took over, gesturing to a blonde girl with green eyes and tanned skin. "My fifth self," she nodded to a woman with hair so black it was almost blue and striking blue eyes. "My sixth and seventh," she gestured to the next two, who were both blonde with blue eyes, however six was pale and seven was tanned.
"And then my first Mummy," Star cheered. "Eigth Mummy," she pointed to a tanned woman with brown eyes and long red hair.
The Protector took one look at Rose, laughed and leant over to use a finger to close her jaw. "B-but," Rose shook her head. "How do you change?"
"Regeneration," the Protector told her. "When a Time Lord is very close to death or dying they can rewrite their entire body clock. It makes them look completely different and with a different personality, but they're still the same person. Same memories, same person inside."
"I'm still me Auntie Rose," Star said softly. "Honest."
"I know," Rose said calmly, not hesitating. A sly grin came over her face as she added, "Blondie."
Star poked her tongue out. "You are too!" She retorted.
"I know," Rose repeated. "If only Tori was blonde, then we could really pass off as siblings," she mused.
Star giggled. "That'd be fun," she commented.
"Yeah it would," Rose agreed with a smile. She lifted Star up easily, the little girl resting on her hip. "I know you're Star, you'll always be Star."
"You're taking this really well," the Protector noted. "I'd've thought you'd be freaking out."
"Oh I want to," Rose said, still grinning. "I just didn't want to upset Madame Butterfly over here, so I filed that under 'freak out about later'."
Star yawned and rested her head on Rose's shoulder, her eyes closed. "Right," the Protector said and took her sleepy daughter out of Rose's arms. "You've had a long day as well as regenerating. Bed time."
"Awww," Star grumbled.
The Protector shook her head and carried her daughter out of the room and into a room next door, thanking the TARDIS silently for moving her room. Star was out like a light as she lay her head on her pillow, her blonde hair spread out. "Love you babygirl," the Protector whispered, kissing her forehead softly. "Always."
~8~
It didn't take long for Rose to find the Protector later that...evening? Night? Whatever.
The brunette woman was sat in the library, her back to where Rose stood, a book in her hands, though in the five minutes Rose had been standing there, she hadn't turned a page and Rose knew she could read very fast. She moved and plucked a random book off the shelf, sitting across from the Protector in silence.
She wasn't reading the book she had picked up, what even was the book she had picked up? Twilight. Ugh. She hated Twilight.
After a moment of simply sitting in silence, the Protector began to speak. "It's my fault," she said quietly, though loud in the otherwise silent library. "I know you'll say it's not, but it is. I should've protected her, it's my name. I knew that Dalek had killed her father." Rose gasped at the new information. "I knew it had tried to kill her before, I recognised it. I should've shot it on sight. I should've killed it in it's cage."
"Van Statten wouldn't let you. All he wanted was to keep it alive, Goddard told me all about it. If it's anyone's fault, it's his. If he had let you... destroy... it, then it wouldn't have escaped. You warned him and he didn't listen. If he had listened, then the vault wouldn't have had to be sealed off. Then Star wouldn't have got trapped with the Dalek and it wouldn't have tricked her. If it hadn't tricked her, she wouldn't have stopped you shooting it and then it wouldn't have shot her.
"There's so many ifs Tori." She stood and moved to sit beside her sister, taking the book from her and placing it down. "Too many ifs," she added, looking the woman right in the eye. "You can't change it. You said it earlier. It was a fixed point, it couldn't be stopped." She reached out and grabbed the Protector's hands, making her look at her. "It's not your fault. And I know you'll still blame yourself but there's nothing you could have done.
"So don't think about how you could have changed it," Rose said softly, not just talking to the Protector now, but to herself as well. "Don't think about what would have happened if you had stopped it. It happened and there's nothing you can do about it. Instead think about that little girl, sleeping in her bed, alive. Different yes, but alive. Remember her? She needs you, Tori. She's there and she's fine. Don't think about what you've lost, think about what you've gained. She might be different but she's still Star, she's still your daughter and she still needs you, she always will. You've got a little girl to protect. So do your job. Be the Protector."
The Protector pulled Rose into a tight hug, crying, but smiling at the same time. "Thank you sissy," she whispered.
Rose hugged her tighter.
~8~
That night as Rose lay down to go to sleep, she found herself thinking over her words and smiled. She had been going to ask Tori if she could go back and see her Dad, maybe save him, after Adam left. But she didn't need to. Because although she may have lost a father, she had gained a sister and a niece.
And she couldn't have been happier.
A.N: An insult to Adam, no reapers eating the Protector, some cute fluff, what could be better? Maybe... some reviews? Is it good? Is it bad? I just want to know what people think.
