Chapter Fifty Two

After making a call to Sarah Jane, she agreed to come with the teens. The Doctor assured her they would come as soon as they changed into their regular clothes. After he ended the call, they went back up to the wardrobe room to change. Once they were back in their regular clothes, they went back down to the console room and the Doctor went to pick up Sarah Jane and the kids.

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"So…" the Doctor said when they were onboard and with the rest of them in the console room, "where do you wanna go? We have all of space and time to choose from. Except the Lincoln assassination, we just got back from viewing that."

"Really? You saw Lincoln get shot?" Clyde said.

"Yup, it was very sad but at the same time interesting to see," the Doctor said. "But on account of us running into ourselves, that's right out now."

"What about JFK?" Rani said.

"Getting assassinated, you mean?" the Doctor said.

They nodded.

"Erm, that's a bit problematic as well because I also saw that. By myself in my previous life but I was in the crowd and I'd rather my former self not see us, especially Rose. And the Titanic is out too. I was there as well in my ninth life."

The teens stared at him.

"You were on the Titanic?" Rani said.

"Yes, I was."

"Why? Did you want to see the wreck up close?" Clyde said.

Sarah Jane and the teens frowned when he noticed the way he shifted uncomfortably. They noticed his family giving him a sad look and Sarah Jane drew closer.

"Doctor, why were you on the Titanic?" she said to him.

The Doctor sighed.

"Sarah, you have to understand that this was just after the Time War and I didn't have a family like I do now so I wouldn't do what I did now but…I went onboard because I wanted to die."

Sarah Jane gasped. She walked over and hugged him tight while the teens stared at him in shock. He hugged her back.

"I never realized it was that bad for you," Sarah whispered in his ear. "I knew it was bad but not to the point you'd consider…"

"Well, luckily I snapped out of it," he said to her. "I came to my senses but I was on the ship by that time and I had to go through the whole thing. I ended up clinging to the iceberg until the Carpathian came to pick us up. When I got back to Southampton I went back to my TARDIS and never did that again."

Sarah hugged him tighter and he smiled while he hugged and rubbed her back.

"But…that's why the Titanic is a bad idea not to mention we would be sinking and I couldn't guarantee your safety," he said to them as Sarah Jane broke away and stood beside him. "So is there anything else you can think of?"

"A war?" Clyde said.

The Doctor raised his eyebrow.

"Which one? There are millions of wars I could take you to," he said while they laughed. "I need a bit more info than just "A war."

"Don't pick a war, Clyde," Sarah Jane said. "He's right. We need to be safe and it's too dangerous to be in the middle of something like that."

"Yeah," Awinita teased, "and we can't go to New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and stand there and stare at the neato weather. That's a bad idea too."

"Exactly," the Doctor said grinning while the others laughed.

"What about dinosaurs…seeing them from a distance, I mean," Luke said.

The Doctor considered that.

"If we did, we'd have to be extremely careful. Otherwise, we might end up in our own personal Jurassic Park if you know what I mean."

"Well, can we go see cavemen?" Rani said.

"Well, which is it?" the Doctor said. "Because contrary to some films, cavemen and dinosaurs didn't exist at the same time. So I could take you to one or the other."

"I'd rather you go see the cavemen than the dinosaurs," Sarah Jane said to them.

"Oh, come on, Sarah. You and me and dinosaurs, just like old times," the Doctor teased.

"No," she said as they laughed.

"Well, I could take you back to about 3.8 million ago to the time of Australopithecus. That's Lucy's species. They were still apelike but not so apelike that they didn't act a bit human. I don't wanna take you back too far otherwise you'd just have chimpanzees that stood upright for a few tics and then walked on all fours the rest of the time. So if you want to do that, I can take you there."

The teens looked at each other and nodded. The Doctor began to put in some coordinates and then had an idea.

"Wait a tic, I'll be right back," he said, running out of the room.

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"So these perception filters will hide us?" Luke said, looking at the modified TARDIS key hanging around his neck.

"Yup, as long as you don't draw attention to yourself. I had several made up awhile back just in case and we can all use them now. That way we can observe the Australopithecines up close, otherwise they'll run away as soon as they see us. Now," he said, going to the door while the others followed. "Prepare yourself to step out onto the African savannah approximately 3.8 million years in the past."

He opened the door and all of them walked out onto a vast savannah. Tall grasses swayed in the brisk breeze and there were several baobab trees scattered about. The TARDIS was parked next to a large one and about fifty feet away they could see another. In the other tree were ape-like humanoids who were resting in the branches and hooting and hollering to each other.

"Australopithecus," the Doctor said, pointing to them. "As you can see, they're still basically apes, just walking around on two legs. But this is the beginning of human evolution. Now we have to be cautious. We have the perception filters but there are still saber tooth cats that hunt here so be still and quiet and just observe our friends over there."

They nodded and watched. Occasionally a couple of the ape men and women would come down out of the trees and walk around in the grass picking bugs off the grass stalks and eating them while they grunted and hooted to each other. Occasionally a far off noise would cause all of them to freeze and they would stand and look around them for a few minutes before finally relaxing and going about their business.

"The reason they developed two leg walking was a matter of survival," the Doctor said to the teens. "A couple of million years before this, all this was rainforest and the apes could go from tree to tree without ever having to come down. Then the temperatures heated up and the rainforest turned into savannah and suddenly trees became scarcer and they had to go to ground to get from one tree to another so they began to stand upright to look for predators and that's how your evolution began."

"So if the world's temperatures didn't rise we might not have evolved," Clyde said.

He nodded.

"There were other factors of course but that was a big one," he said.

While a few of the apes walked around in front of the tree, a small female holding an infant began to venture away from the others in search of food. She and the others were about four feet tall and were covered with fur. She looked like an ape except she was walking upright. She was heading their way and they stood and quietly observed her. Her infant was sucking on her nipple while she held it with one hand and grabbed beetles and bugs off the grass stalks and ground with her free hand. She popped them in her mouth and chewed on them while she walked and looked around her. Slowly she came towards them until she was next to them. She stopped about three feet away from the Doctor and the others and stared down at a small anthill in fascination scratching her belly while she gazed at it. She looked around and looked at them but she didn't see them and looked behind her at the others who were foraging and resting. She paused a moment and sniffed the air but the Doctor and the others had made sure to stand downwind from her and grunting she relaxed and moved towards the tree. She searched around it and found a long thin stick. They watched, fascinated, while the mother sat her baby down beside her and stuck the end of the stick deep into the anthill. She kept it there for a couple of seconds and then pulled it back out with several ants climbing on it. She stuck the stick in her mouth eating the ants and then put the end of the stick back in the hole.

Meanwhile, the infant was walking on two legs and all fours searching his surroundings. They could see now it was a boy and occasionally he would stop and stare at the swaying grasses and touch them. The Doctor smiled when a small dragonfly alighted on one grass and the infant's gaze was drawn to it. He stood and stared at it for a moment before walking over slowly. He tried to touch it but it flew away and he let out a couple of grunts while he stared at the flying bug with a look of disappointment. The dragonfly landed a foot away and the infant watched it and began to go towards it again.

The mother then looked up and saw what he was doing and hooted to him. The infant looked at her and she hooted and grunted. The infant walked over to her side and she stuck the stick in the hole while the infant watched. She pulled it out and showed her infant the ants before she ate them. Then she did it again, pulled it out, showed the ants to the infant and ate them.

"Aw, she's teaching him," Rain whispered to the Doctor who nodded.

While she was teaching the infant how to get the ants, the Doctor and the others noticed a male near the other tree stop to look at her for a few minutes before he headed her way. They looked at the female who hadn't noticed him while the male walked across the grassy savannah towards her. After a minute, the infant noticed him and hooted at him causing the female to jerk around and shriek at him while she waved her free arm at him. The male stopped and stared at her, unsure what to do while she bared her teeth and hooted at him.

"Oops, I guess she doesn't fancy him," Alan whispered.

The male dropped down to all fours in a kind of submission posture and began to creep towards her while the female became more and more agitated.

"Buddy, I wouldn't do that if I were you," Jack muttered while he watched the female become angrier while she scooped up her baby with one hand and she slapped the ground with her other hand and bared her fangs at the male.

The male stopped a few feet away and hooted softly at her. He dropped his head and hooted softly at her. They looked at the female who had paused and was calming down although they could tell she was still a bit agitated. But once she was calmed down, the male began to slowly creep towards her, hooting softly while he kept his eyes down. He came up behind the female who was still watching him warily and he slowly put his hands up on her back and began to groom her, picking off the fleas and lice and eating them. The female calmed and went back to poking the ant hole with the stick while he continued to groom her. The male continued the grooming but they noticed he was getting an erection and nearing closer to her keeping his eyes on her while he tried to insert his manhood from behind. The female was still eating the ants, holding her baby with one hand but the moment he tried to insert his penis she instantly turned and smacked him with her free hand, hooting and shrieking and growling at him while the man stood up and ran backwards, shocked.

"That's what ya get for trying to shag a lady without permission, mate," Donna whispered.

Suddenly, the male became agitated and began to hoot and shriek. They gasped when he ran and barreled into the shocked female and grabbed her infant by its right arm. He held the wailing child by its right arm and then he raised it over his head and slammed the baby hard into the trunk of the tree killing it instantly. The male roared and slapped the ground and bared his fangs before he was chased away by the female. The female chased him on two legs for a few feet, hooting and waving her arms around while the other apes in the tree hooted in return. Then it quieted down while the male ran away and the female turned back to the tree, hooting mournfully at her dead baby. They watched with aching hearts while she scooped it up with her hand and hooted at it mournfully while she poked it with her finger trying to get it to stir. They could see the anguish on her face while she tried to get a response from the dead infant.

"Oh God, the poor thing," Awinita said softly.

Suddenly, there was terrified hooting from the other tree and the female stood up. They looked over and saw everyone else was in the trees and just below them a large saber tooth cat was trying to get up the tree after them. They looked at the female who climbed up the tree beside her with the infant still in her hand and hooted and shrieked at the cat who was trying to pick off a meal from the terrified ape men and women. Several of the apes jumped back down out of the trees and found some stones. They threw them and clumps of dirt at the cat. He hissed and growled at them but continued his upward climb. Several more jumped down but two climbed up higher and the cat pursued them while the other apes threw the rocks and dirt and shrieked at the beast.

Then the cat lunged forward and seized a female by the neck. The last ape fell out of the tree and the terrified apes ran shrieking towards the other tree while the cat kept his mouth on the ape's throat, suffocating her to death. She fell limp and the cat began to eat her while the other apes ran to the tree, hunched down in front of it and hooted and hollered at the cat who now completely ignored them while it ate its meal. After quieting down the apes climbed the tree and sat with the female who was still trying to get her dead child to respond to her prodding. The Doctor and the others observed them for a moment more before all of them decided to leave. The Doctor quietly opened the door of the TARDIS and they all went inside. The apes didn't notice them until the TARDIS began to wheeze and they shrieked with fear and jumped out of the tree while the TARDIS vanished into thin air.