The New Word

Someone, a little girl, screamed. "Maebh!" Clara ran in the direction, the Time Lords following a moment later. They were forced to stop at a wrought iron fence, Maebh and three wolves on the other side. "Maebh! Doctor, give me a boost so I can pull her over." As Clara spoke, Maebh ran to the side. "Maebh? Maebh!" the girl went to a gate and hurried through it to their side.

"Maebh," the Doctor bent to be closer to her height. "You came looking for me. You didn't..." Maebh started to wave her hands in the air as though she were trying to swat insects no one else could see. "Maebh, Maebh, you didn't just stumble into the TARDIS. Tell me what you know."

"Doctor..." Clara called.

"This is important."

"Yes, but I think even Adelaide said that we should deal with the wolves first." As she said that, Adelaide did step up beside Clara.

"These are zoo wolves," the Doctor waved her off. "They're not even used to hunting."

"Doctor," Adelaide said, making him straighten as the wolves bared their teeth. "We need to look big."

He nodded. "So, stay still. Stay together. Look big. Look big like a big four-headed, eight-legged scary thing!" But the wolves, rather than continuing to growl, leaped over the fence and ran off into the woods behind them. "Ha ha! Told you they were rubbish. Those wolves are terrified."

Clara froze. "What are wolves frightened of?" The question was answered by a growl as a tiger walked up to the fence, roaring. The four of them started to back away, but then there was a light flashing the tiger's face, making it retreat. The group turned to see Danny, with the torch, and the rest of the students, who cheered.

"Mr. Pink!" Clara said, grinning. "Why, thank you very much."

Danny grinned too. "Ah, no problem. Just decided it was best not to leave you alone with them." He nodded at the students. "They've worked well together. Noticeable increase in confidence and energy levels."

As he spoke, Maebh started to wave her arms again, making both Time Lords look at her. "Well done," Clara said, not noticing yet. "And for saving us from a tiger, too."

Danny glanced at Maebh. "Er, has she had her medication yet?"

"Oh. No, I..."

The Doctor held out a hand. "No, no. Not her medication. We don't want to shut her up. We want to know what she knows." The Doctor knelt before the girl again. "Maebh, what's the..." he mimicked her hand motions. "Maebh, what is this? What is this?"

"Apart from being almost savaged by a tiger and abducted by a Scotsman, she's allowed any nervous tics she likes, okay?" Danny snapped.

"This is not a nervous tic," Adelaide told him. "This is react..."

"Please!" Ruby interrupted. "Just give her her tablets. She's been in a state since her sister went missing."

Maebh turned and ran, everyone hurrying after her. "Maebh! Maebh! Maebh!"

"You won't find your sister out there," Ruby called, though it did nothing to stop the girl.

They followed her to a clearing surrounded by cobweb covered trees, Maebh pausing in the center. "It's coming," Maebh mumbled. "It's coming for everyone, and I can't unthink it."

The Doctor knelt before her again, Adelaide standing beside him. "Maebh. Maebh, this forest is communicating. With you. Nobody else. No technology can hear what it's saying, but you can. Tell us what it wants. Where it came from. Just tell us who did this."

"It was me. I did this. I did the trees."

"No, Maebh. You didn't make a global forest appear overnight. How could you do that?"

"Thoughts come to me," Maebh told them. "Ever since Annabel went missing, I look for her everywhere. I don't find her, but I find thoughts. The big forest was one. I thought everyone would love it. The thoughts! The thoughts! They go so fast."

"This is stressing me now," one of the boys said. "When I get stressed, I forget my anger management."

Clara stepped forward, frowning. "Maebh, can you see something that we can't see?"

Maebh frowned. "Nearly. Too fast. Everywhere."

"Everything's subject to gravity," the Doctor said, pulling out his sonic. "If I can create a little local increase..."

Danny moved forward. "No. You're not experimenting on..."

But he soniced Maebh anyway, making small sparks of light appear around Maebh. She calmed. "They're lovely!" she frowned. "They don't like it when you're holding them. They want you to let them go."

"Who are they?" Adelaide asked.

"We are Here." Maebh's voice shifted, going deeper, as though it were someone else speaking. "Here, always, since the beginning and until the end."

"Here? That's it?"

The deeper voice overpowered Maebh's own. "We are the green shoots that grow between the cracks, the grass that grows over the mass graves. After your wars are over, we will still be Here. We are the life that prevails."

"Why now? Why are you here now?"

"We hear the call and we come, as we came before to the great North Forest, where we lie still in a great circle. As we came to the vast Southern Forest."

"Who is calling you now?"

"The sun that creates. The sun that destroys. You are hurting us. Let us go."

The Doctor frowned. "You sent for me. The girl came looking for me, and only me. Why? Why me?"

"We did not send. Pain. Did not send for you. We don't know you. We were here before you and will be here after you."

The Doctor flicked off the sonic, releasing the lights and letting Maebh fall to her knees, him immediately at her side. "Maebh, you came looking for the Doctor. Think. Who sent you for the Doctor?"

"It was just a thought. It was just a thought that came. I think it came from Miss." Danny looked at Clara for that. "They've gone. Why does everything have to go?"

The Doctor stood, moving in unison with Adelaide to the edge of the circle, and Clara joined them. "This really is going to happen, isn't it?"

"Stars implode," Adelaide reminded her. "Planets grow cold. Catastrophe is the metabolism of the universe."

"I can fight monsters," the Doctor nodded. "I can't fight physics."

"Why would trees want to kill us? We love trees."

"You've been chopping them down for furniture for centuries. If that's love, no wonder they're calling down fire from the heavens."

Clara shook her head. "But we saw the future. Lots of futures. Earth's futures."

"They're about to be erased."

She looked between the Time Lords. "If you can't save them all, save who you can. The TARDIS, it's a lifeboat, isn't it? Not everybody has to die." She didn't wait for the Time Lords to nod, turning back to address the students. "Everyone, back to Trafalgar Square, now!"

|C-S|

When they returned to where they'd left the TARDIS – Danny having led the students in a chant for the walk – they found it almost completely covered in ivy. "Right, come on, team," Danny said, bringing all of the students to help him remove the greenery.

But Clara grabbed both Time Lords arms and pulled them apart. "When they're done, you need to get in your box and go."

The Doctor nodded. "We're all going. We're taking the kids."

She shook her head. "Taking them where? What are you going to do with them? Leave them on an asteroid? Find a space academy for the gifted and talented? They just want their mums and dads, and they're never going to stop wanting them."

Adelaide's expression hardened in the way only her's could. "And Danny would never leave those children." Clara nodded. The children cheered as they uncovered the TARDIS. "We can save you."

"I don't want you to."

The Doctor frowned. "What, you don't want to live?"

"Of course I want to live. I just..."

"What?"

Clara closed her eyes. "Don't make me say it."

"Say what?"

"I don't want to be the last of my kind."

The Time Lords took each other's hands again. "Then why did you bring us all here?" he asked Clara.

"Because it's the only way to get you" Clara nodded at the Doctor "back to the TARDIS, make you think you're saving someone. Well, you know what, Doctor, Adelaide? This time, the human race is saving you." She strode to the TARDIS – which the children and Danny had all stepped away from – and unlocked the door. "Make it worthwhile."

"This is our world, too," the Doctor told her, speaking low, speaking for Adelaide even though he knew he shouldn't. "We walk your Earth, we breathe your air."

"You saved me from the Time War," Adelaide added. Earth and humans had never been a place of particular interest to her before, but after she'd been Caroline...she couldn't help but have the smallest amount of attachment.

"And on behalf of this world, you're very welcome. Now, go. Save the next one."

The Time Lords stepped back, looking to the side as Maebh still stood close by, though she looked far happier than when they'd first seen her. "Maebh," the Doctor said. "I'm sorry that we couldn't help you."

But Maebh smiled. "You helped me loads. I thought it was all my fault. I feel much better now. Are you going to get rid of the forest?"

Clara forced a smile, taking Maebh's hand. "Hard to get rid of a flame-proof forest, Maebh, eh? Come on." She led the girl away, leaving the Time Lords to enter the TARDIS.

"This can't be right," the Doctor said as they closed the door. "There has to be another way."

"They mentioned other forests," Adelaide mumbled, moving up to the scanner. "The Northern and the Southern forest. The Here have done this before."

He nodded, both of them pausing at the scanner which still showed the growing solar flare. "They said the sun was calling them."

"A flame-proof forest called by the sun." Adelaide paused. "A flame-proof forest."

His eyes widened. "A flame-proof forest!"

Oh, Adelaide had gotten slow, hadn't she?

The Doctor ran back out of the TARDIS, calling for Clara as Adelaide quickly checked points in Earth's history...and found they were right. "Clara! Come back here! Come back! Clara! Mr. Pink! Maebh! All of you! Quick, quick! Come back. Come back. Come on! Maebh, quick. Good girl, good girl. Come on!" he led them all into the TARDIS, depositing all the humans on the steps before stepping back up next to Adelaide. "It's there on the screen, look. Big solar flare headed this way. A thousand kilometers a second. Coronal mass ejection. Geomagnetic storm. It's huge. It's brewing up a solar wind big enough to blow this whole planet away." But the children looked back at him with blank faces. "We..."

"Just you, Doctor."

"I assumed your teachers have mentioned this?"

Clara crossed her arms, looking some combination of annoyed and curious about the fact the Time Lords had summoned them all back. "I thought it would spoil an otherwise enjoyable walk."

Adelaide touched the Doctor's shoulder. "Thankfully, almost this exact situation has occurred before, and Earth and humanity came out of it unharmed. The Tunguska Blast, 1908. It should have blown the planet off its axis, but it just knocked tens of thousands of trees over. Curuca in Brazil, the same situation. Now, what do all these have in common?"

"They're really, really scaring us?" Ruby said.

"Trees. Whenever there's been a planet-threatening, extra-terrestrial impact, there have been trees. Massive forests filling the atmosphere with oxygen. Filling it like a massive, highly inflammable airbag, so that when the danger arrives..."

"Everyone dies."

Adelaide pointed at him. "The opposite. The impact burns off the excess oxygen. I expect there are rather hectic weather and strange sunsets for a few days, but apart from that, everything is fine."

The Doctor nodded, Adelaide finally allowing him to speak. "We were wrong. The trees are not your enemy. They're your shield. They've been saving you since forever. Protecting you from everything that space can throw at you."

Clara stood. "The wide ring. The red ring. In the museum, Ruby saw a cross-section of a tree. One of the rings was wider than the others, and red."

Her turn to get pointed at by Adelaide. "Atmospheric dust, captured in the trees. The fingerprint of an asteroid."

The Doctor grinned. "Happy Red Ring Day."

Ruby shook her head. "I don't get it. If they're good, then why are we chopping them down?"

Danny stood too. "The Government are sending out defoliating teams. They're dropping chemicals on them right now."

The Time Lord sighed. "What is it with you people? You hear voices, you want to shut them up. The trees come to save you, you want to chop them down."

"Or you think you need to save the world when it's already saving itself."

He glanced at Clara. "We did admit that we were wrong." They turned to the console. "Excellent. Mobile networks are still operative." The Time Lords looked at each other, nodding. "We are going to call everyone on Earth and tell them to leave the trees alone."

Maebh stepped forward. "Can I do it? I started it. I should finish it."

Adelaide smiled. "Class project. Save the Earth."

So, the students sprawled on the floor as Maebh wrote her script, offering their suggestions. While they worked, the Time Lords ensured that the message would get through.

After a few minutes, Maebh stood. "Okay. And I think that's it." Adelaide gave the girl her phone and the Doctor flicked a switch, ringing every phone around the world. "Essential services have been disrupted due to an unexpected forest. We'd like to reassure you that the situation will be rectified very soon. Please don't be scared. And please don't chop, spray, or harm the trees. They're here to help. Be less scared. Be more trusting. Oh, and Annabel Arden, please come home." When she nodded, the Doctor flicked the switch again to end the transmission, rubbing his hands together.

"Okay, who would like to witness a once in a billion years solar event at close quarters?"

But Maebh spotted something on the scanner, which had switched to showing Trafalgar Square. "Mum! There's my mum!" she ran out of the ship, the rest of the children following and the two adults shortly after them.

It was only the Time Lords in the TARDIS, in the end.

"I hope we're right," the Doctor mumbled, leaning against the console. "We were going to leave Earth to burn."

"I was going to leave Earth to burn," Adelaide corrected.

"You were the one who realized what was happening."

"Because I wanted to solve the mystery." She crossed her arms. "Clara, humanity, had made a choice. If we'd already had an explanation for the trees, I would have left them."

"I don't think you would have." He looked to Adelaide. "Maybe you would have, in one of your earlier regenerations, but I don't think you would have now."

She smiled. "Maybe you're right."

"I'm always right." He took one of her hands, kissing it.

"You're the foolish one."

"But you're the clever one. And I'm the one who lo..." the Doctor caught himself before he finished the word, but Adelaide was well aware of what he'd been about to say.

Well aware of the fact that they'd never said that word to each other yet. Not really.

They'd said it about each other jokingly, to companions and people they encountered. The Doctor, in particular, enjoyed saying that various aspects about his personality were the reason Adelaide loved him, even if she'd never said it. They'd just known.

They'd always just known.

The Time Lords had always been extremely terrible about having talks when they needed to have talks, saying things that needed to be said.

They'd kissed and they'd held each other and they'd trusted each other beyond belief and they'd known, somehow, exactly how the other had always felt, but they'd never said it.

The Doctor had never said that he loved Adelaide – or Caroline, for that matter – but he'd always known it. Always known that was the thing that he kept deciding to feel for her, the thing he felt every single time he looked at her.

It was love, even if he'd never given it that word.

And Adelaide had always known. In each regeneration so far she'd had a time when she'd hated it, when she'd tried to deny her ability to feel love, but she'd always proven herself wrong. She'd always reminded herself that what she felt when the Doctor looked at her was right. It was good.

It was love, and it was good.

This was love, and this was good.

And even now, they didn't need to say it to know.

|C-S|

When Clara finally returned, the Time Lords brought the TARDIS to sit in space to watch the solar flare strike Earth, just wanting to see it to know that they were right.

If the human knew what had occurred between the Time Lords while she'd been off having her own moment of realization with Danny, she said nothing, though she did smile at them particularly widely.

This was a good day for all of them.

"I hope you're right," Clara mumbled, leaning in the doorway. "It would be slightly awkward if the world was destroyed at this point."

They watched as the flare reached Earth, igniting just the excess oxygen in the atmosphere and not harming the people or the planet below. "There goes the planet-sized airbag," the Doctor nodded. "That's the trees, harvesting the solar fire."

|C-S|

They brought Clara back to her living room, watching the forest vanish in golden sparkles from Earth's surface instead of above. "That is amazing," Clara said, shaking her head. "How will they explain this tomorrow?"

"You'll all forget it ever happened."

"We are not going to forget an overnight forest," she scoffed.

"You forgot the last times," Adelaide reminded her.

The Doctor nodded. "You remembered the fear and you put it into fairy stories. It's a human superpower, forgetting. If you remembered how things felt, you'd have stopped having wars. And stopped having babies."

The golden light continued to spread across the surface of the planet, restoring everything to how it had been before.

A/N: Aw, how sweet :) Now everything is happy and lovely and there's nothing terrible that could ever happen to split them apart ;)