Author's Note: And now, we get a little more information about what's going on...
By the way, I couldn't explain it before, but I will now. I began writing this story while rewriting Paradox (I'm sure you'll notice some similarities). I was rewatching Buffy episodes and enjoyed the way they combined the benign and the supernatural... and had this idea that it would be beautiful to have the Doctor and Buffy bond over math-tutoring. Meanwhile, I was wondering if I should actually rewrite Paradox with a totally different plot, or if I should create a brand new story that was separate. After all, I was thinking, if the plot of the new Paradox is so different from the old one, maybe it was just a new story!
So one day, I sat down, opened a new document, and started writing. My goal was to write the plot of New Paradox as its own story, and combine it with my math tutor idea. However, in the end... uh... well, I guess you can see the results. I got a completely different plot, yet again.
To summarize: I've now sat down to write Paradox 3 different times, and have (as a consequence) wound up with 3 very different plots.
I'm not sure what that says about me.
Anyways, enjoy!
Oxford, 2011
As far as Alison could gather from what Seo was continuing to explain to her while running — every single one of the zombies wandering about, here, were from Sunnydale.
"So where's everyone who's supposed to be in Oxford?" Alison asked, confused. "Why aren't they here?"
Seo scratched her head, like she was trying to scratch an itch inside her brain. "There's a sort of psychic signal, I think, telling people to stay home. Everyone else must have picked up on it."
Alison didn't know why she hadn't, but she figured that wasn't important. "Right. Fine. So why are people from Sunnydale being transported here — but as zombies?"
"No idea," Seo said, as she kept running. A gleam appeared in her eyes — as it always did, when she realized something was a mystery. "Let's find out!"
But it was only as they approached a storm drain and realized the lizards were running down into the sewer… that Alison's mobile rang.
She looked at the display, then answered it, with a sigh of relief. "Giles!"
"Yes, quite sorry," came Giles' voice, over the phone. "I was rather in the middle of something — and found both you and Buffy had rang me, in the meantime. Is anything the matter?"
Alison glanced about herself. "Silver lizards, zombies wandering about, psychic signals scaring people off, and Seo and Jenny say the Doctor's simply vanished into thin air."
A pause, from Giles. "I… see." The ruffle of paper and books, on the other end. "Well, nothing springs to mind off the top of my head, but I'll see what I can find."
That was odd. Alison had thought that Giles would remember this from Sunnydale, way back when. Why wasn't he?
"No," Alison insisted. She shook her head. "No, no, no! You didn't hear me properly. Silver lizards! Zombies! Vanishing people!" She gripped the mobile a bit tighter. "Doesn't that sound familiar?"
Giles paused a moment, thinking. "No," he admitted. "Not really."
"But they're from Sunnydale!" Alison cried. She swung her arm out, spinning about and staring at the zombies around her. "Seo says every one of the zombies is some person transported here from a twelve-years-ago Sunnydale! And we found Willow — but she's just a kid. Not even in uni, yet!"
This time, there was a much longer pause from Giles. "That's… troubling." There was a sound, as if he were closing a book. "I think, perhaps, I should ring Buffy. Angel said she might be in a bit of trouble."
Angel?
Alison's eyes went wide. Course! Angel! Buffy had mentioned something about Angel. And Seo said that Buffy shouldn't be here, right now.
"But Buffy's here!" Alison insisted. "She turned up out of nowhere and asked me to help fight off some alien lizards, and then Seo and Jenny turned up, and Buffy just… ran off!"
"I'm sorry?" Giles asked. He sounded perplexed. "Buffy is… in Oxford? Really?"
"Yes, she…!" Alison started.
Seo raced in and yanked the phone out of Alison's hands.
Alison spun around and tried — unsuccessfully — to grab it back. "Oi!"
Seo pressed the phone to her ear. "It's temporal, I think," she said. "That's why you can't remember. Jenny, myself, and Father must have landed back in Mom's past, and done something to muck about with…"
She trailed off, as Giles cut in.
Her eyes grew horrified, as she listened to what Giles had to say.
"But… but I don't remember… sending…" Seo began.
Giles said something else.
And the phone tumbled out of Seo's hands.
Alison swooped in and caught it, before it hit the ground. Why did everyone in Seo's family seem determined to break her iPhones and laptops and such? It was driving her mad!
"Me, again," Alison said into the mobile. "What did you…?"
The sound of books being thudded into a bag. "Alison, I want you to find someplace easy to defend, and lock Seo and yourself in there until I arrive. Do you understand? And whatever you do, do not let Seo run off to save her mum!"
"But…!" Alison said.
"I'll be there soon as I can," Giles insisted. "But this is horribly dangerous. Trust me, whatever you think you can do — you're wrong. And trying will only make things worse."
Then Giles hung up.
Alison turned on Seo, now more determined than ever to get some answers. "All right, Seo! What did Giles tell you?"
Seo swallowed, hard. Then planted a grin on her face, and grabbed Alison by the hand. "Come on! We have to find Mom and…!"
Alison dug in her heels. She'd been told by two different people, now, that she had to stop Seo from following Buffy. She was starting to get the idea that whole lizard thing was very different to what either of them had hypothesized.
"But Mom is…!" Seo started.
"Oi! You listen, here!" Alison snapped. She pointed towards her flat. "I've got a tutorial tomorrow. So either you tell me what's really going on, or this whole bloody alien invasion can get stuffed — because I'm going home to write a paper. Got that?"
Seo tugged her hand free from Alison's.
She hesitated. Then, finally, gave in.
"Giles told me that… three days ago," Seo said, quietly, "Angel received a hypercube message from me, intended for Mom." Seeing the blank look on Alison's face, Seo qualified, "A hypercube is a Time-Lordy way of sending messages through time."
Alison nodded, slowly.
"When Mom got the message, she told Angel that the Doctor was in very serious danger," said Seo, "that Jenny was probably already dead, and that I was running about, inside the TARDIS, frantically trying to hide — while barely fending off psychic attacks from something intent on ripping my mind to shreds. Mom said… I was opening up a temporal portal for her. And then she told Angel… what to do if she didn't come back."
Alison felt her head spin.
This wasn't at all what she'd expected. Not one little bit!
"But I don't remember doing any of that!" Seo insisted. She cradled her head in her hands, as if trying to force the memories back to her. "All I remember is — one moment, we were in the TARDIS, and the next…!"
Alison took a shaky breath, as she shoved her phone back into her pocket. She could remember that when Seo had first arrived, she'd been on the verge of a nervous breakdown — and it had taken the aggressive emotion-flattening of a cyberplanner to snap her out of it.
If something had gotten inside the TARDIS, some monster that could tear apart minds, and it had already gotten to the Doctor and Jenny, leaving Seo trapped and hiding and terrified, watching as everyone else was nearly killed around her, feeling as the monsters tried to do the same to her…
That might go a long way towards explaining the breakdown.
"Your mum rescued the Doctor, didn't she?" Alison guessed. "She defeated some big bad, but it had already hurt the Doctor very badly… badly enough that you thought he was gone for good. So your mum hid him here, in Oxford, 2011. Problem was, the big bad found him. So now, she's trying to fight it off."
Seo fixed Alison with a pointed stare — as if to say that, yes, obviously, and that was why they had to stop chatting and rescue the Doctor and Buffy, right now!
"Look, Giles said he was on his way," Alison insisted. "It's only an hour drive. We should wait until he…!"
"Mom could be dead in an hour!" Seo shouted. "Father, too!"
Alison didn't know what to say.
"Please, Alison," Seo begged her. "I need you to help me save my parents. Please!"