Searching the Stars

by LizzeXX

12/OC -Time Lady- The Doctor and Mac, the Doctor's Chosen, have survived Trenzalore, and now there's a new Doctor rushing about. On top of that, Clara has officially become Mac's Companion, something she's never had before. As the Promise Land looms in the distance, overseen by the mysterious Missy, how will the Time Lords handle all that's to come? Sixth in the Time Lady Memoirs.

7. Kill the Moon

Kill the Moon

"Oh dear," Mac murmured, frowning at Clara as they gathered in the halls of Coal Hill, just outside the caretaker's storeroom, having been summoned there by a deeply concerned Clara who had just spent the last five minutes discussing something about one of her students who the Doctor had apparently insulted to such an extent Clara thought she might be negatively psychologically impacted by it, "What's she done exactly?"

She was no stranger to the fact that her Chosen could be rude, and that he seemed to have difficulty actually engaging with children in this body, compared to other hims she'd known, but she doubted he would have actually wished to upset a child, even if he seemed unaffected by it right now and more annoyed their trip to the Eye of Orion had been cut off the way it had. He seemed to think that the girl would either bounce back, that she was faking it to pull one over on Clara and get out of things, or that it was best she learn early about disappointment so as not to be hit too much by it later in life.

She honestly wasn't sure, he seemed to bounce back between the three. But SHE was very concerned, because Clara was concerned. She had only really interacted with this Courtney Woods girl as they were getting rid of the Blitzer, she trusted Clara would know better than them if the girl was having her on or genuinely upset.

Given Clara's reaction, it was clear Clara felt it was the latter.

"What's she done?" Clara scoffed, "She's gone crazy, she's uncontrollable! She took your psychic paper," she added to the Doctor, "She's been using it as fake ID."

"To get into museums?" the Doctor asked.

Even Mac gave him a look for that, she had never had a child that was a child, she had never been able to raise any of her three from infancy. But even she knew that the last thing a child would use a fake ID for would be to get into museums.

"No," Clara deadpanned, "To buy White Lightning or alcopops or whatever."

"Clara, I think that's taking it a bit far," Mac turned to her. Again, she'd never raised a child before, but she was pretty sure any decent liquor store salesperson would notice Courtney was far, far too young to be sold anything alcoholic despite the ID she presented. And, it seemed, Clara didn't even really know what Courtney was using it for either, "It's more likely she used it to sneak into a movie or something," that might be a bit more reasonable.

"Taking a step back," the Doctor cut in, "I've no idea what you're talking about. What is Courtney Woods?"

"She's one of my year tens," Clara huffed, "She was in the TARDIS."

"Doing what?"

"Throwing up, dear," Mac reminded him, "The girl we showed the Blitzer."

"Oh, her," he nodded, "Oh, that was ages ago."

Clara glanced at Mac for that, seeming unsure whether he was being serious that they might have gone on a few adventures in the meantime, or that he genuinely hadn't noticed who the girl was.

"We've gotten around," Mac offered, not wanting to tell her exactly HOW many adventures they'd had since they'd last seen her.

It had been…quite a few. The Doctor had been half angry with Clara about Danny even if he was mostly angry at Danny, especially after she'd defended Clara and told him what she'd said to the man. But he hadn't wanted to stop in as much, using the excuse that he was trying to give Clara more time with her boyfriend to 'work things out.' There were a few times they could have popped in on the Wednesday reserved for Clara, given they had a time machine, but he'd passed them up, dragging out their time since they saw Clara last.

She thought it was probably a good thing, in a way, now that Danny knew about them, there was always a chance they might accidently run into him when they came to see Clara and he'd needed more time to work through his anger with the man to the point he could be around him without being his normal rude self.

Truly it had only been the frantic nature of Clara's call that had pulled them back to Earth to see her before the Doctor was ready.

"Look," Clara sighed, turning to the Doctor, "She says you told her she wasn't special."

"What?" Mac blinked, because even in his current incarnation, she couldn't see him saying something like that.

"Rubbish," he scoffed, agreeing with his Chosen.

"She says that's what sent her off the rails," Clara added.

"Clara," Mac eyed her a moment, about to ask something when the Doctor reached out and took her hand to tug her into the storeroom, a silent plea to keep her question on hold till after they'd settled this.

"Doctor!" Clara called, following them into the room, "You say something like that to somebody, it hurts, especially somebody of her age, especially if you're you. Doctor, it can affect her whole life."

"Clara, did you…" Mac tried to ask again, but the Doctor tugged her into the TARDIS now, finger on his lips and a wink of his eye finally stalling the question.

He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead for her concession. He knew it was just her reaction to Clara scolding him the way she was, her reaction to Courtney, that had her on the defensive. And it warmed his hearts to know she wanted to challenge Clara's claims, that she trusted him and believed in him despite what Clara was accusing him of, despite how he was in this body. He appreciated it, but maybe the plan brewing in his head would help kill two birds with one stone.

Give Courtney something to stop complaining about.

Give Clara an adventure to prove the point Mac would make when it was over.

All in all, a good plan.

"Oi!" he called over to Courtney, who was sitting by the console, a pack on her back, and a roll of paper towels in her hand with a spray bottle in the other, "Give over!"

"I got stuff to clean up with!" Courtney announced as they reached the console.

"What?" Mac looked at her, amused.

"And I got these from the chemist," Courtney held out her wrist to show some black bands wrapped around them.

"Oh, yes, I've seen those before," Mac nodded, "Travel sickness."

"Good," the Doctor nodded, "Because I don't like people being sick in my TARDIS. No being sick."

"You didn't need more cleaning supplies, sweetheart," Mac told Courtney, "We have an entire room full of them."

Courtney just shrugged and put the supplies in her pack.

"Look, Courtney," Clara turned to the girl quickly, realizing what the Time Lords were planning to do and how, as the girl's teacher, she couldn't allow it, "You're not going to be needing those because you're not going to be doing any travelling. Doctor," she moved over to him, "Will you just tell her?!"

"Tell her what?" the Doctor asked.

Clara rubbed her head, feeling a migraine coming, "Tell her that she's special."

"Clara…" Mac sighed.

But that drew a frown from Courtney, the girl assuming she was agreeing with that, "Do you really think I'm not special? You can't just take me away like that. It's like you kicked a big hole in...in the side of my life. You really think it? I'm nothing? Not special?"

"Nothing like that at all, sweetie," Mac assured her, moving to smile at Courtney, "We just mean we can't tell you you're special just because Clara told us to. You'd never believe it. So we're going to prove it to you."

"Prove it how?"

"How'd you like to be the first woman on the moon?" the Doctor offered, "Is that special enough for you?"

Courtney grinned, "Yeah, alright."

"Ok," he nodded, "Now we can do something interesting!" he grinned, reaching out to pull a lever and send them off.

~8~

It surprised no one when the first words out of Courtney's mouth when she stepped out of the TARDIS in a small orange spacesuit was, "This isn't the moon."

It wasn't. The TARDIS had set down in the middle of a white room filled with various bits of equipment and boxes, a very packed set of shelves set up with other items stacked up against it. It was old in make, there was even still some dust on certain pieces, the walls with a bit of a yellow hue to show its age.

"Where are we?" Courtney continued, turning back to them as the three adults stepped out of the box after her, each in orange suits of their own.

"A recycled space shuttle," Mac answered, looking around, reaching up to take her helmet off, testing the oxygen, "2049, going by the Bennet Oscillator prototype over there."

"Where's the gravity coming from?" the Doctor wondered as he, too, took off his helmet, signaling to the others that it was safe to do so.

"Oh, yes, I see what you mean," Mac agreed, looking down at the floor as the Doctor did a little hop in place to test it. They weren't near enough the earth to still be affected by its gravity and, since they had landed inside the shuttle the TARDIS wouldn't need to expand its gravity shell for them.

Why weren't they floating about?

"What are they?" Clara asked, eyeing the stack of boxes, all marked with various warning labels.

"About 100 nuclear bombs," the Doctor stated.

"Oh, dear," Mac frowned at that, why would a space shuttle heading to the moon require THAT?

The Doctor didn't even flinch when an alarm began to sound above them, likely alerting whoever was flying the ship of their appearance as 'intruders.' He was used to those sorts of alarms, so he moved over to the window, checking something. This type of shuttle didn't have the capability to generate its own gravity, and if they weren't close enough to the earth then they had to be close to something with gravity…but all he saw out the window was the moon growing closer and closer, "Hmm, we're on our way to the moon."

"Very quickly, too," Mac noticed as she moved beside him to see they really were rapidly approaching.

"Check that," the Doctor reached out to grab her as the ship began to jostle, "We're about to crash into it!"

"Hold on!" Mac urged the other two, quickly moving to Clara and Courtney, urging them to hold onto a few straps hanging in a netting from the ceiling, "Hold on tight," she warned them, all of them managing to grab hold of the straps moments before the shuttle crashed into the surface of the moon.

Even as they were nearly thrown about, the Time Lords couldn't help but exchange a concerned look about it, it should have been impossible for a shuttle like this to crash into the moon, there shouldn't have been enough gravity, and the shuttle didn't have the thrust to be going that fast as to cause this.

Mac winced when one final jolt sent them all to the floor, pushing herself to sit up and look over at them, "Everyone alright?" she asked, making her way over to Clara and Courtney to check on them, "Hmm? Any injuries? Anything hurt?"

"We're fine," Clara reassured her, a bit winded as she'd made sure to grab Courtney before they fell, causing the girl to land on top of her instead of on the ground, but it was worth it if it meant Courtney would be alright.

A moment later, just as they got to their feet, the lights flickered on as the door opened, allowing three individuals, two men and a blonde woman, to enter, all three dressed in white traditional spacesuits.

"Who the hell do you think you are?" the woman, clearly in charge, demanded.

"Why have you got all these nuclear bombs?" the Doctor asked instead.

"I'm not going to give you another chance."

"Oh, well, you're just going to have to shoot us, the…" the Doctor began, only to wince as Mac elbowed him in the side.

"I'd rather not find out how many regenerations they actually gave you by someone repeatedly shooting you," Mac told him, unimpressed, before she turned to the three, "If we introduce ourselves, you'll return the favor, I'm sure?" she waited till the woman nodded, before smiling, "I'm Agent Mackenzie," she offered, pulling her ID card out of the pocket of her suit, "Of UNIT. And these are my associates, codename: the Doctor, and our…interns?" she tried to come up with a reasonable reason for two other young individuals to be with them, "Clara Oswald and Courtney Woods. We're here to assist."

"Assist with what?" Clara whispered to them, not wanting to blow the cover Mac was trying to make, but also concerned.

"Yes," the Doctor picked up, "The moon somehow develops gravity, would throw the Earth completely into chaos, you need to know why. All these nuclear bombs, you suspect something, but you aren't authorized to utilize them till you've investigated. And it's good we were assigned to this, we might just possibly be able to help you. You see, my associate here, also my wife," he had to throw in, which made Mac roll her eyes, "And myself are a super-intelligent. And you are?"

The blonde woman gave him a suspicious look, but studied Mac's ID, before seeing it was legit. UNIT had worked in tandem with the various world governments to orchestrate this mission, it would make sense they would send their own representation, "Captain Lundvik," she introduced, before gesturing to her two companions, "Henry, Duke."

The Doctor nodded, "Now, what do you know about what's the matter with the moon?"

"Nothing," Lundvik stated, "Nobody knows."

"Do you know what's wrong with the moon?" Clara sked them quietly.

"It's put on weight," the Doctor shrugged.

"How can the moon put on weight?" Lundvik scoffed.

"Gravity bombs," Mac began to list, "Axis alignment systems, planet shellers..."

"So it's alien?"

"Could be," Mac admitted, "Or it could be something happening internally. We need more data."

"Must be causing chaos on Earth," the Doctor repeated his earlier assessment, "The tides will be so high that they will drown whole cities!"

"Yeah," Lundvik confirmed.

"So what are you doing about it?"

Lundvik just gestured at the room as she moved over to the wall behind her, pulling a case from the holder and lifting it up for them to see, the controller, the button that would detonate the bombs.

"Really?" Mac couldn't help but give her a look.

"That's what you do with aliens, isn't it?" the woman shrugged, "Blow them up?"

"Always so complicated," Mac sighed, "Come on," she stepped forward, "Give us a rundown of the mission parameters and we'll work out a way to fix this without using nuclear weapons."

Clara could only shake her head as they followed the woman further into the shuttle, trying to guess what Mac would use to try and 'save the moon' this time, a paperclip, a rubber band, or a bit of gum?

~8~

It took some careful strategizing, but the Time Lords managed to work it out so that Courtney would be the first one to step foot on the Moon, allowing her to be the first female on it…as far as the humans knew. The first female human at least. The Time Lords had already been to the moon a few times now. The surface was as expansive as ever, littered with craters and hills and rocks, grey in the darkness of space. It was familiar to the aliens, but something that clearly inspired awe in Courtney.

"Wow…wow!" she exclaimed, jumping from the shuttle's ramp to the ground, "One small thing for a thing, one enormous thing for a thingy-thing!"

"So much for history," Lundvik muttered.

"Better she remember that much at least," Mac murmured, unable to help but think about the Silence, the message they'd left for the human race. It would be a very large cause of alarm if Courtney could remember their command to kill all the Silence on sight.

"This way," Duke called, starting to lead the way to the reason for their mission to the moon as the others followed Courtney to the surface of the moon, all their suits checked and helmets on.

"There was a mining survey," Lundvik began to explain as they walked, "Mexicans. Something happened up here, nobody knows what. That's when the trouble began back on Earth. High tide everywhere at once. The greatest natural disaster in history."

Without needing to combat the lack of gravity, it didn't take them long to reach a sort of research base a short distance away. It was like walking like normal. However the base itself was anything but. The doors to the airlock were open on one end, and there were bits of wispy white strands hanging everywhere.

"Cobwebs?" Clara frowned as Lundvik began to bat some away.

"How long has it been since the trouble began?" Mac had to wonder, tensing, if something had been able to make cobwebs that thick, it would have had to be a while that the moon was like this.

...and if it had been a long time, then perhaps the thing that made the original web was dead?

Hopefully.

"Henry," Lundvik didn't answer, instead turning to one of her fellow astronauts, "Go back and prime the bombs."

"Um, is there any instructions?" the man hesitated.

"There's a switch on each of them. The light goes red."

"They won't go off?"

"No, not till I've fiddled with this thing," Lundvik held up the control she'd taken with her.

The man half slumped, sighing, "Ok," before he reluctantly made his way away from the base.

"Shall we?" she turned to the others before leading the way into the base.

"Is that the best you could get?" the Doctor had to ask, glancing back at Henry, the fact that the man didn't even know how to utilize the weapons they brought with them was alarming.

"Second-hand Space Shuttle, third-hand astronauts," Lundvik sighed.

~8~

Mac couldn't help but frown as they fully entered the base to see it appeared utterly abandoned, filled with cobwebs and dust and debris. The only light to be found was from their torches, but it was enough to see the true disuse of the room around them.

"How many people?" she asked, because she was getting the sinking feeling that there was not going to be much left of them.

"Four," Lundvik stated, "Minera Luna San Pedro. It was privately financed. They where doing a mineral survey up here."

"And what did they send out?" she glanced at Lundvik who appeared startled at her knowledge, "You wouldn't have come here if there wasn't something wrong, you'd have needed proof that a mission was needed. SOS?" she guessed.

"Pretty much all the satellites had been whacked out of orbit by then," Duke spoke for his captain, "They managed to send back some...screams."

"Oh dear, dear, dear," Mac murmured, looking around as she made her way over to one of the controls.

"So, then you came up here to rescue them with your bombs?" the Doctor taunted.

"Not quite," Duke admitted.

Mac shook her head like she knew that was coming, turning back to them, "Again, how long has it been?"

"They disappeared ten years ago," Lundvik revealed.

"It took you ten years to mount a rescue operation?" it would hardly be a rescue after that long.

"We didn't have a shuttle," Lundvik defended, "The one we took was in a museum. They'd cut the back off it so kids could ride in it. We'd stopped going into space. Nobody cared. Not until..."

Courtney cut into the conversation when she screamed, the girl having wandered ahead into the room.

"Courtney!" Clara shouted, rushing to try and get to her student, but Mac and the Doctor were faster, both of them always on the alert and ready for any danger. Mac had already gotten an arm around the girl and was tugging her away from where a spacesuit was twisted up inside of a very large cocoon, the Doctor scanning it to check its readings while Mac kept Courtney back from it, "Oh, my God. Doctor, tell me there wasn't anyone inside that thing."

The Doctor grimaced, "I could, but it wouldn't make it true."

Mac winced at the fact that, apparently, at least one of the four that had needed help there had died within their suit…but what had actually killed it? And where were the others? She looked around, "We need more light…"

"I'll get some power back on," Duke offered, hurrying to try and do that.

"In the meantime," Mac shifted, keeping an arm around Courtney's shoulder in comfort even as she began to pat down her pockets, "Here we go."

Courtney frowned at her, "What are you going to do with a water bottle and a keychain?" she had to ask.

"This," Mac smiled at her, pushing a button on the keychain to reveal it was actually a small torch, that looked like the end of a normal touch, but without the handle. She took a piece of tape from her pocket and taped the lit keychain onto the bottom of the water bottle, illuminating much more of the room.

"Cool!" Courtney gushed, "It's like a lantern!"

Mac gave her a wink and handed it over to her by the cap of the bottle so she could use it, knowing she might feel better to be in control of their light source. She caught Clara's eye as Courtney fiddled with the light, the woman mouthing 'thank you' to her for distracting Courtney while the Doctor cut the body out of the cocoon and moved it away from them all.

"What did it?" Courtney asked when he came back over to them.

"Maybe something trying to find out how you're put together," the Doctor frowned, looking at the cocoon again, "Or maybe...how you tast…" he cut off when Mac elbowed him, "Or…um…trying to help you?" he tried to recover at the look she sent him and the silent warning not to frighten the girl more than she likely already was, "Maybe it thought you need the cocoon to be safe?"

"We have guns?" Courtney turned to the astronauts.

"Not unless you brought some," Lundvik muttered.

"It's alright, Courtney," Mac reassured her, "I've got plenty that can help us," she told her, patting her pocket.

She took on a Blitzer with pencils, rubber bands, and a clip, she could take on whatever made the cocoon.

The Doctor looked up when the power came back on, "Save the air," he called over, the six of them pulling their helmets off now that the air supply was back on in the room. He caught Mac's eye and nodded over to one of the computers, the two of them heading over to try and look up some of the information that the last crew might have had.

"They didn't find anything," Mac called to Lundvik after they went through the items rapidly, gesturing her over, "The crew didn't find any minerals on the moon at all."

The Doctor glanced over at Clara where she was sifting through a few photos on a desk and joined her, seeing if there was anything helpful there, "Oh..." he blinked, surprised that there actually WAS something useful.

"Hmm?" Mac glanced over before she joined him at the desk.

He handed her the photos that caught his attention, "Lines of tectonic stress."

"That's the Mare Fecunditatis," Lundvik recognized, "It's been there since the Apollo days. It's always been there."

"Oh, dear," Mac murmured, seeing what the Doctor had, "It may have been there, but it's gotten larger."

"Yes, see?" the Doctor began to point it out and trace the areas, "Sea of Tranquility. Sea of Nectar. Sea of Ingenuity. Sea of Crises. All of them much, much bigger."

"Meaning?" Clara shook her head, not quite following.

"Meaning, Clara," the Doctor glanced up as the lights flickered, "That the moon, this little planetoid that's been tagging along beside you for 100 million years, which gives you light at night and seas to sail on, is in the process of falling to bits."

Mac had just opened her mouth to tell him not to say things like that, given his luck, when the room suddenly began to shake, a rumbling noise sounding beneath them.

But that wasn't the only sound that rose up, in the middle of it all there was a screeching and skittering noise growing louder and louder.

"What the hell was that?" Courtney gasped as the shaking settled somewhat.

"Oi, language!" Mac chastised her.

"Duke, is that you?" Lundvik called into a comm., unsure if her associate had pressed the wrong button or activated some sort of machinery that had been so disused it caused the the room to shake.

"I don't sound anything like that," Duke defended.

Lundvik rolled her eyes and shook her head, that clearly wasn't what she meant, but as she'd said before third-hand astronauts, "Can you try and get the lights back on?"

"That's what I am doing."

"Lantern," the Doctor snapped his fingers at Courtney, making a gesture with his hands for her to hand over the makeshift lantern Mac had created to him so he could hold it up higher, "Whatever it is, it's in here."

He stepped forward, scanning the room, trying to see what was making the scuttling noise, until he came to an open doorway that led to a darkened passage, the light picking up something reflective down the end of it, rushing towards them, causing him to pull the sonic out and try to scan it...

"Is that…" Mac frowned, growing tense as she tried to make out what the thing was.

"I think we've found your alien," the Doctor stated.

Mac began to shake her head frantically, "Spiders!?" she gasped as the creature reached the edge of the light for a moment before scuttling back, "Was that a spider!? That had better not be a…ahh!" she screamed when it made a break for it, running into the light and revealing the enormous spider it was, causing her to jump into the air and towards the Doctor, "Kill it! Doctor! Doctor, kill it right now! Swat it! Or spray it or…or…just do something! Get rid of it!"

The Doctor sighed, one arm around her, trying not to drop her, the other frantically waving the lantern behind him for Clara to rush over and grab it from him, "I would love to, dear, but you've got to get off me first…"

Mac shook her head, looking around, "Door!" she gasped, pointing at something over his shoulder and nearly twisting his back as she scrambled off of him to race towards it, only to smack her hand against it when it refused to open, "Locked! No, no, no, don't be locked!"

"Come on, come on!" the Doctor hurried to try and help her, "There's no power to work it. Come on!"

Mac let out another small scream as the spider reached the room, pressing herself against the wall, genuinely terrified.

The Doctor gave up on the door, moving to Mac and reaching into the pockets of her suit, searching for what he knew would be in there. Many would think that she had infinite space in the pockets of all her clothing, but really there was only one pocket, all the rest utilized some Time Lord tech that would, when she reached into any of her pockets, allow her to reach into the original one. It was the easiest way to make sure all the things she picked up over their adventures were all there, without her having to keep taking them all out and moving them. So he was reasonably sure what he needed was in her pockets.

"Got it!" he called, turning around with a can of hairspray and a lighter.

Clara's eyes widened, not needing to be crafty like Mac to know what he was going to do with it. She reached out and pulled Courtney back towards her as the Doctor turned to the spider as it raced at them, holding up the items and flicking the lighter on, using the spray to make a bit of a fireball that had the spider screeching and turning back.

"Come on!" he called to them, "There's another door," he jerked his head to the side, "Go, go, go!"

Clara didn't hesitate to urge Courtney on, making sure to grab Mac as she passed the woman and yank her on, the Time Lady paralyzed in her fear and knowing she'd only relax once they were away from the source of it.

"Who made you the boss?" Lundvik demanded.

"When your wife is having a phobia induced attack you can call the shots," he snapped, the longer she stood there instead of doing what he said, the longer he'd be away from Mac, "GO!"

Lundvik shot him a glare but made her way to the door, the Doctor following, sending small balls of fire when the spider tried to follow. But they both stopped when there was a shuffling noise across the room and they looked up to see Duke in the doorway of the control room, "Duke!"

The Doctor winced, his face grim as the spider turned its attention on the man, lunging at him and nearly covering his body as it attacked.

"Duke!" Lundvik tried to rush past him, to try and get to her associate, but the Doctor grabbed her arm and hauled her back, half dragging her out of the room and through the second doorway, slamming it shut and grabbing whatever he could to barricade the door so the spider couldn't follow...

Only for the lights to come back on a moment later, the power restored enough that a flick of the sonic locked the door.

The Doctor only gave the door a moment's thought before he spun around and ran for Mac, knowing she wouldn't be in a good state. And she wasn't. She was pressed back against the wall, on the ground, with her knees to her chest, her head pressed into her knees, her hands in her hair, heaving. Clara was crouched before her, trying to calm her down while Courtney looked on, a frown of concern on her face for the woman. He hurried over to her, kneeling down, Clara getting up to let him speak to her.

"It's alright," he murmured to her, dropping into Gallifreyan, knowing she'd need something more familiar and comforting, something private. She hated to appear weak, and to freak out the way she had she'd be 'embarrassed' and need that comfort, "Naery, it's ok. You're safe, you're fine."

"…is it gone?" she asked, her voice muffled, but he could hear the pout in it which made him smile.

"Yes, it's gone," he promised, lifting her face enough to press a kiss to her forehead, "And if it comes back, you know I'd keep you safe," he gave her a look, a question in his eyes.

She took a deep breath and nodded her head, she knew he would, she knew that, "I hate spiders."

He chuckled lightly, pressing another kiss to her forehead, "The woman who can stare down a Dalek, go toe-to-toe with a Sontaran, take a Cyberman down with a paperclip…done in by a teeny tiny spider."

She huffed, shifting so she could whack his shoulder, "That was NOT a teeny tiny spider."

Though...he wasn't wrong, she had nearly blown up her lab in UNIT once because she saw a small spider barely the size of a sesame seed crawling on one of the beakers. And that was after the war when she'd seen much worse horrors, before the war…well, it hadn't been much different then either, she just was more likely to scream and run away than attack it on instinct.

"And I'd protect you from it even if it were ten feet tall," he promised.

She shuddered, "Don't jinx it," she warned him.

He gave her a smile and held out a hand for her, not letting on that he could feel how her hands were trembling as he helped her up.

"Alright?" Clara asked, pretending she didn't notice how Mac wiped under her eyes.

"Yeah," Mac took a breath and tried to clear her throat, "Sorry...about that."

"It's fine," Clara assured her.

"You don't like spiders?" Courtney guessed, with all the tact that only a child could muster.

"That's putting it lightly," Mac tried to joke, the Doctor squeezing her hand in support.

"I don't like flies," Courtney admitted, shifting her pack to her front so she could open it and show Mac the fly swatter she kept there, before she put it away but pulled something else out, "Here," she offered Mac the spray bottle, "It kills 99 percent of all known germs and spiders are small so it must work on them like 75 percent or something, right?"

"That's not how it works…" Clara began.

"Thank you," Mac cut in lightly, taking the spray from her, "I don't think anything likes being sprayed," she offered instead.

"Especially not those things," the Doctor stated, turning to Mac, "It's a prokaryotic," he told her, "Unicellular life form with non-chromosomal DNA. Which, as you and I know..."

Mac let out a breath, "It's a germ?" she asked, guessing that was what the sonic had picked up before.

"A big one," he nodded, "Size of a badger!"

"Still looks too much like a spider," Mac grumbled, but she clutched the spray to her chest, a little more assured that it would work if they encountered the 'spiders' again. Just because it was biologically a germ, didn't mean anything when it looked exactly like a giant spider.

"He'd just had a grand-daughter," Lundvik spoke quietly, pulling their attention over to where she was staring through a window in the door to Duke in the room, likely at his body, "Elina. She was his first. He was my teacher. He taught me how to fly. We were both given the sack on the same day."

The Doctor cleared his throat, "Which way to the Mare Fecunditatis?" he asked, glancing up and down the hall to see they were in another one, one direction should lead to the Moon's surface.

Lundvik shook her head at how he just ignored the fact a man had died, "This way," she turned to lead them off.

~8~

"Henry, come in," Lundvik was calling into the comm. as she led them across the Moon's surface, "If you don't mind, Henry, come in."

"Doctor," Clara spoke as she came up on the Doctor's side, him walking beside Mac, gripping her hand, while Courtney was between them and Lundvik, "This is dangerous now."

"It was dangerous before," the Doctor waved it off, "Everything's dangerous if you want it to be. Eating chips is dangerous. Crossing the road. It's no way to live your life."

"I want Courtney to stay in the TARDIS," Clara determined, "I have a duty of care, and I need to put Courtney's safety first."

"She's fine," the Doctor huffed.

"But Mac isn't," Clara reminded him quietly, the woman was still pale and trembling and jumpy after the close encounter with the spider, "I can't divide my attention between Courtney and Mac."

The Doctor glanced at her, "So you want the girl in the TARDIS so you can focus on Mac?" he asked, not fully sure if he was actually following along, Clara could be quite mixed-signals when she wanted to be.

"She's my pilot," Clara nodded, "I'm her companion. She's always taken care of me, kept me safe, made me feel better. Now it's my turn to return the favor."

The Doctor cracked a little smile at that, especially when Mac squeezed his hand, knowing they both seemed to want to keep the conversation 'private' even with her literally right there and able to hear them. He wasn't a fan of children in the TARDIS, even less of leaving one alone to do whatever she wanted in it, but if this was what Clara wanted, so she could be there more fully for Mac, he'd allow it.

~8~

"Don't touch anything!" the Doctor warned Courtney as she stood by the console, the Doctor and Mac in the doorway, about to leave her in the TARDIS like Clara wished.

Courtney wasn't pleased with the decision, but she was the child and Clara was her teacher and it wasn't like she had a choice. A small part of her was a little relieved to be back in the safety of the box though, seeing Mac breakdown over the spider-germ before, well…it was eye-opening. The aliens seemed so cool and larger than life, but they were like her, they were scared of things too and if Mac was on edge, maybe she wouldn't be able to take care of everyone the way she wanted to. Mac had to take care of herself now, and Courtney could step back if that meant the nice lady would get some extra support.

She'd been really kind to her, treating her like a child and not a disruptive influence, if this was a way she could help, she supposed she could sit around for a little while till they were done.

"You got any games?" she asked.

Mac chuckled weakly, still shaken, "Not in this room, no."

"Can I get reception up here?"

The Doctor just rolled his eyes and stepped out of the box with Mac, shutting the door behind them, and using the sonic to lock her in.

"Why are you shutting her in?" Clara frowned, not liking the idea of the girl being LOCKED in there.

"Can't risk her wandering off," Mac cleared her throat, taking a breath and turning to Clara, "Do you think a 15 year old girl would just sit around and not want to snoop?"

Clara opened her mouth to argue her student was better behaved than that, before she had to sigh and nod her head, admitting defeat, "So the moon," she began instead, "It doesn't actually break up right?"

"How do you know?" the Doctor challenged as they headed for the door to check on Lundvik, she'd gone to search the shuttle for Henry.

"Because I've been in the future," she said easily, "The moon is still there...I think. You know the moon is still there, right?"

Mac sighed, "It could be the moon, or it could be a replacement, put in place because the Moon disappeared and Earth needed it back for the tides."

"Could be a hologram or a big painting," the Doctor agreed, though his suggestions were far more outlandish, "Or a special effect. Maybe it's a completely different moon."

"But you two would know better than anyone," Clara argued.

Mac offered her a smile, "Would we?"

Clara gave her a look, "If the moon fell to bits in 2049, somebody would've mentioned it, it would have come up in conversation. So it doesn't break up, so the world doesn't end. Right?"

"Time can be rewritten," Mac reminded her, "And things can be forgotten. Like the Silence on the Papal Mainframe's ship," she added, "Something could have happened, something quick, so fast the human race isn't sure what they actually saw and came up with a reason to explain it."

"Could that actually happen?" Clara frowned.

"I suppose we're about to find out," the Doctor reasoned, "There are some moments in time that we simply can't see. Little eye-blinks like Mac said. They don't look the same as other things. They're not clear, they're fuzzy, they're grey. Little moments in which big things are decided. And this is one of them. Just now, I can't tell what happens to the moon, because whatever happens to the moon hasn't been decided yet. And it's going to be decided here and now. Which very much sounds as though...it's up to us."

~8~

Henry was nowhere to be found, which led them all to fear it could only mean one thing...that the spider-germs had gotten to him as well. According to Lundvik, the man hadn't even made it to the shuttle, there was no record on the ship's logs and nothing on the tech that said anyone had entered the ship but them.

Which, in a terrible way, had Mac breathing a sign of relief that there hadn't been any spiders IN the ship while they'd been there. But she felt horrible for it, because it meant the man had been attacked and likely lost his life the way Duke had.

Lundvik was on a warpath after that confirmation, leading them back through the moon's surface to a mining site the last group had set up. It was the only other place they could look for clues about what was happening. It was a small site, set up in a crater of the moon, looking as though it had been abandoned in the middle of a job, like something had attacked and the people had dropped what they were doing to escape.

"What is killing the moon?" the Doctor wondered.

"How can the moon die, though?" Clara asked, both she and the Doctor on either side of Mac to help her feel more comfortable that there were less sides the spiders could get to her on.

"Everything does," Mac murmured, "Sooner or later," she glanced at Clara, "The entire Universe will, one day," she reminded the girl of Orson Pink, of how they'd ended up on the very last planet left, which meant all the other ones died.

"And if not, when the Sun eventually does and expands it'll encompass the moon anyway," the Doctor shrugged.

"Well that's not set to happen for another billion years or so," Lundvik rolled her eyes at him, "Can we save it now?"

"That would depend on what's happening to it," Mac reasoned.

Lundvik glanced down at the site, frowning deeply when she caught sight of three more cocoons just feet away from various equipment, "There are the other three."

"Is it those germ things, then?" Clara wondered, "Is it...is it an infestation?"

"Is it?" Lundvik looked at the aliens.

"It could be," Mac conceded, "If there are enough of them, it could change the weight of the moon. They could have eaten into the rock…" she crossed her arms, nearly hugging herself at the thought that they could be standing on the spiders right now, that they could be everywhere under the surface, "But what ARE they? Where did they come from?"

"And we've only seen one of them," the Doctor added, absently wandering around, moving to a crack in the ground near the crater, Mac moving over to him as his attention caught on something, "It would take an awful lot more to cause the moon to put on 1.3 billion tons."

Mac gasped when one of the spiders appeared out of nowhere and launched itself at them from the crack. She jerked back, quickly spraying it with the solution Courtney had given her, needing to do something to keep it away from her. But it was a vacuum on the moon, so she untwisted the cap and turned it over, stabbing it into the thing, stumbling back and scrambling away even as the spider gave a screech and began go wither, before turning into goop.

The Doctor quickly grabbed the canister and the nozzle, twisting it back on top of it to preserve the rest of the solution should Mac need it later.

"Well," he murmured, standing and moving over to Mac where Clara was already helping the woman to her feet, "That makes two."

"You had to jinx it, didn't you?" Mac sighed, snatching the bottle back and clutching it to her chest.

"Where did that even come from?" Lundvik asked, looking around, frowning down at the crack but seeing nothing.

The Doctor moved over to her, "Shine your light down there," he told her, nodding at the torch on her utility belt, and so she did…revealing a fissure filled with spiders all crawling over each other.

"Oh dear, oh dear, dear, dear," Mac swallowed hard, actually turning green and taking a few steps back, enough where she couldn't see any of the spiders in there, Clara staying at her side, her arm around her shoulders in comfort.

"Where have they come from?" Lundvik breathed.

"Maybe they've been there all the time?" the Doctor tried to guess, "It's warmish. They're multiplying. Feeding. Evolving," he looked around, trying to find a wider fissure, and moved over to one a few feet away.

"Doctor, if the moon breaks up, it'll kill us all in about 45 minutes," Lundvik warned.

"A better question," Mac moved to follow her after the Doctor, "WHY is it happening NOW? If these things have been here the entire time…" she shuddered, thinking about the times she'd been to the moon with the Doctor and now internally freaking out to think the spiders had been there, lurking about, waiting, "What's made them multiply, WHY has the Moon gotten warmer suddenly?"

"Something else is going on," the Doctor agreed, moving to a small opening in the ground, what looked like it might have been a puddle or something, only to pull a yo-yo from his pocket and flicking it a bit.

"Turning into Mac now?" Clara tried to lighten the mood, Mac refused to get too near the 'puddle area.'

"Sometimes the simplest things work best," he defended, and flicked the yo-yo into the puddle of spiders…pulling it out a moment later to see it was dripping with some sort of thick liquid.

"There's no water on the moon," Lundvik frowned at it.

The Doctor frowned, sonicing it, and grimacing at the results, "It's not water. It's amniotic fluid."

"Oh my god, it's a giant spider, isn't it?" Mac began to wring her hands together, breathing a little faster, which probably wasn't helping her preserver her oxygen in her suit. Clara tried to comfort her by rubbing her arms.

"I'm sure it's not," Clara tried to argue, but…there wasn't any evidence it wasn't a giant spider, whatever the amniotic fluid was surrounding. Maybe these were baby spiders and would grow larger, "IS it Doctor?" she asked, sending him a pointed look to try and get him to say it was not.

"I've got to go down there," the Doctor decided.

"Doctor!"

"I need to know what it is," the Doctor defended, looking over at them, his gaze flicking to Mac as the woman appeared genuinely on the cusp of having some sort of attack over this. He turned to Lundvik, "Back to your shuttle. Get your bombs ready," and then to Clara, "You, get Mac back to the TARDIS. Get safe. Get Courtney safe. I will be back."

"What?" Mac demanded, no matter how frightened she might be, she wasn't going to abandon him.

"No..." Clara agreed, but then the Doctor just winked and jumped right into the opening, "Doctor!"

"Doctor!" Mac tried to run towards him, but ended up jerking back at the sight of the spiders within chittering happily, "Idiot. He's such an idiot. If he'd just stop using his mouth and start using his brain…"

"He'll be ok," Clara tried to reassure her.

"I know he will, but he didn't have to DO that," Mac sighed, "The TARDIS could run a scan of the fluid, identify the species. We'd be able to tell what's in the moon, we could scan from there."

If they'd known that something was infesting the moon, they would have scanned while they'd been in there with Courtney. But they'd thought the spider was just a one off or some odd event, not an infestation.

"Come on," Lundvik called, shaking her head, "We need to get the bombs ready."

The fact that she hadn't argued with the Doctor about how 'he wasn't in charge' worried both of them.

~8~

"Miss?" Courtney's voice rang out as they shuffled along the surface, trying to make their way back to the TARDIS, Clara having done her best to distract Mac both from the Doctor's quest and from the fact they were surrounded by the spiders by telling her more about Courtney and her other interesting students, "Come in."

Clara grabbed a comm. off her belt and answered quickly, "Courtney?"

"I'm bored. When are you coming back?"

"We're on our way. What are you doing?"

"Putting some pictures on Tumblr."

Mac snorted at that.

"No! Courtney, don't put any photos on Tumblr!"

"It's ok, Clara," Mac whispered to her, "There's a filter on the TARDIS wi-fi, the photos will come up as unavailable on her page."

"My granny used to put things on Tumblr," Lundvik remarked, before cutting off when, a moment later, the ground shook beneath them, the familiar rumbling sounded, throwing them to the ground.

"Oh, god," Mac mumbled, "Please don't be more spiders," she nearly begged, recalling how they'd seen their first spider after the ground had shaken and this one felt even larger.

Clara reached out to take her hand, squeezing it in an offer of comfort.

"Henry," Lundvik gasped, and they looked over to see a white spacesuit lying there, "There he is," she hurried over but jumped back when the only thing left of the man was his skeleton.

Mac looked away to try and give the woman a moment of privacy as she mourned the loss of her crew, and tensed, "Clara," she began, spotting something across a ravine that had opened up with the rumbling, putting her other hand on Clara's to squeeze it, "Don't be alarmed but…"

"What?" Clara tensed, twisting to look over her shoulder at what Mac had seen, her eyes widening when she saw the shuttle that they'd crashed in now balancing on the edge of the new ravine, "Was that where we landed?!" she asked, frantic and hoping it might just be a different shuttle than theirs, "It looks so different."

They nearly lost their footing again when the ground shook once more, the movement jostling the shuttle…causing it to fall right over the edge and into the ravine.

"It's going down!" Lundvik cried, silently cursing under her breath at the loss of their bombs now.

"Courtney!" Clara gasped.

"It's ok, Clara," Mac tugged her from trying to lunge after the shuttle, "She's in the TARDIS, that old box can withstand almost anything, a tumble off a cliff won't even scratch her, ok?"

Clara took a deep breath, reminding herself of that, remembering all the messes they'd gotten into over their adventures, the box would be fine, Courtney probably wouldn't even notice anything had happened.

"We're going to have to take cover," Lundvik looked around, back towards where the base was, knowing it was the only place they could get to that would give them a little more time and air, "We're running out of oxygen."

They had only taken a few steps towards it when the ground shook again, this time sending them to the ground, but then a shadow fell over them, the Doctor, drenched in the fluid, appeared before them with a grin.

"Today's the day, humankind!" he beamed, reaching out a hand to help Mac to her feet, "You're gonna love this."

~8~

The base was the only place they could talk openly, without worrying about depleting their oxygen, even if it wasn't a place Mac wanted to go near. But there were doors, they could keep the spiders out better than if they were in the open and surrounded by them. And it would be better to be inside walls when the TARDIS eventually reached them, less worrying for Clara in how far away Courtney would be.

Clara sighed, looking worried, "I thought the TARDIS would be here," she admitted quietly to Mac as the Doctor went through the room, examining it to make sure there were no spiders and using the sonic to shut the doors.

"She'll turn up," the Doctor called back to her, having heard it anyway.

Clara gave him a look, "Last time you said that, she turned up on the wrong side of the planet!"

"Courtney's safe," Mac said, knowing without Clara needing to say it that that was what she was worried about. She always felt the same about anyone who came travelling with them, worrying if they were alright, "Really, Clara, nowhere safer than the TARDIS."

"Unless it got damaged and is dying," Clara mumbled, knowing they were right but unable to help seeing the shuttle going over the cliff edge with her student inside.

Mac held out a hand to the Doctor, "Sonic, dear."

"What, can't manage it with a toothpick and gum?" he called, even though he gave her the sonic anyway.

"Could do it with a bobby pin and a laser pointer, but this is faster," Mac defended, turning to Clara, "Got your mobile?"

Clara nodded and reached into the top of her spacesuit to pull it out, handing it to her and watching as Mac flashed it with the sonic, before turning to 'Call the TARDIS', which she could see because the phone was now projecting the image of the screen onto the wall for a moment before it cleared and Courtney appeared, as though she were looking into a monitor on the console.

"Yeah?" the girl called.

"Are you ok?" Clara asked her.

Courtney gave her an odd look for how frantic she sounded, how nervous, "I'm fine. What's up?"

Clara let out a long breath of relief, Courtney really had no idea that anything had happened or was wrong. The TARDIS probably hadn't even jostled when it fell off the cliff. She knew Courtney wasn't the type of student to pay attention to much, but even SHE would have noticed a bump. Nothing had happened within the box and Courtney was fine.

Lundvik rolled her eyes, wanting to get back to her mission, "You said you know what the problem is."

"Yes," the Doctor nodded, "Yes! It's a rather big problem."

"They can't see into your head, dear," Mac reminded him, "You actually have to tell them what you've discovered.

"Ah, right, yes," he nodded, getting to it, "Well, I had a little hypothesis," he held out a hand to Mac for the sonic before he moved to the control panels, starting to power some up, "The seismic activity, the surface breaking up, the variable mass, the increase in gravity, the fluid, I scanned what's down there," he flicked the sonic at a piece of equipment and created a 3D holographic image of the moon, "The moon isn't breaking apart. Well, actually, it is breaking apart, and rather quickly. We've got about an hour and a half, but that isn't the problem. It's not infested."

"What are they, then, those things?" Courtney called.

"Germs," Mac said, "Very…spider-like germs," she shuddered.

The Doctor moved an arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss to her temple, before he continued, "Yes, they're bacteria. Tiny, tiny bacteria. Living on something very, very big. Something that weighs about 1.3 billion tons. Something that's living. Something growing."

"Growing?" Clara frowned.

The Doctor nodded, flicking the sonic once more to a projection of a creature curled up inside of the moon, like a baby chicken in an egg though, from the few features they could make out, it looked more like a scrawny dragon, "That."

"THAT lives under the moon?" Courtney gaped at the sight.

Mac shook her head, "It's not living under the moon, it IS the moon. The moon is its egg."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Lundvik demanded, there was no way the girl could know, she hadn't been the one in the fluid with the Doctor and he hadn't said a word about it.

She didn't know that the Time Lords had a connection in their minds and the Doctor had been rambling at rapid speed about what he'd learned below.

"The moon isn't breaking apart," the Doctor explained, "The moon is hatching!"

"The moon's an egg," Mac repeated.

Clara blinked, frowning as she thought on it, on all she knew about the moon and…all they must know about it, too, because the Doctor seemed far too excited about this for it to not be a revelation to him as well, "Has it, erm...has it always...been an egg?"

"Yes," he nodded, "For a hundred million years or so. Just growing, just getting ready to be born."

"Ok," Clara said slowly, "So the moon has never been the moon?"

"It's always been the moon," Mac assured her, "There's just more to it than we thought."

"Is it a chicken?" Courtney asked, eyeing the projection, unable to see it as clearly as they could.

"No," the Doctor said shortly.

"Cos, for a chicken to have laid an egg that big..."

"Courtney, don't spoil the moment."

"What species is that?" Clara had to wonder as she eyed the projection.

"We're not sure," Mac told her, with a small smile on her face, "That's new."

"It's unique," the Doctor remarked, "It could be the only one of its kind in the universe. And that is...utterly beautiful."

"How do we kill it?" was the jarring question from Lundvik.

The three looked over at her, to see the woman frowning at the creature instead of looking at it with the awe they felt.

"Why do you want to kill it?" Clara demanded, crossing her arms, offended on its behalf.

"It's a little baby!" Courtney agreed.

"It hasn't done anything to deserve that," Mac stood with them.

Lundvik scoffed, assuming it was a female weakness, a maternal sort of thought, and turned to the Doctor, who had been the more pragmatic of the lot, "Doctor, how do we kill it?"

But she was sorely disappointed when even he scoffed, "Kill the moon?" he clicked the projection off, "Kill the moon. Well, you have about 100 of the best man-made nuclear weapons, if they still work, if that's what you want to do."

"Will that do it?"

"100 nuclear bombs set off right where we are, right on top of a living, vulnerable creature," he reached out to take Mac's hand, knowing where her mind had gone, to the other 'vulnerable' babies she'd had and lost, "It'll never feel the sun on its back."

"And then what? Will the moon still break up? You said...you said we had an hour and a half?"

"If you kill that innocent creature," Mac frowned at her, "It won't be moving or trying to hatch, its dead body will provide enough gravity to keep the egg together."

"Of course, it won't be very pretty," the Doctor added, "You'd have an enormous corpse floating in the sky. You might have some very difficult conversations to have with your kids."

"I don't have any kids," Lundvik said, as though to defend her decision.

"Other people do," Mac shook her head at the woman, "And it won't fix anything, not for long."

"What do you mean? You just said…"

"The gravity will keep the egg together," Mac repeated, "But it won't change the weight of the moon, it'll still affect the tides, it will still be chaos on Earth for a very long time before it starts to rot. And when it does begin to decompose? It might lose some weight, but the shell will break apart and head to earth…and the baby might too. Then what?"

Clara shook her head, "We can't just kill it," she turned to Lundvik, knowing the Doctor and Mac were trying to appeal to her logic, but this was an attempt to reach her humanity, "This is a life. I mean, this must be the biggest life in the universe."

"It's not even been born!" Courtney added.

"It is killing people," Lundvik argued, "It is destroying the Earth!"

"And Mac just said it might keep doing!" Clara glared at her, "Killing it won't change its weight, and when it does decompose you'll have an even bigger problem. It is a baby, Lundvik, you cannot blame a baby for kicking."

"Let me tell you something," Lundvik sneered, "You want to know what I took back from being in space? Look at the edge of the Earth. The atmosphere, that is paper-thin. That is the only thing that saves us all from death. Everything else, the stars, the blackness, that's all dead. Sadly, that is the only life any of us will ever know."

"There's life HERE!" Courtney cut in, "There's life just next door."

"Look, when you've grown up a bit, you'll realize that everything doesn't have to be nice. Some things are just bad."

Mac's jaw set at the woman's ignorance, her shortsightedness, how she was looking at just the here and now and not what they were warning her about in the future. Granted there was no telling how long it would take the baby to decompose to the point it all fell apart or if it would happen that way at all. Most things needed oxygen to decompose, but this was an alien species and there was no telling how its body would handle death. There was a very high chance it WOULD happen, and Lundvik didn't care. She just saw this mission and the outcome she wanted…

Mac blinked, a thought striking her, and turned to the projection of Courtney, "Courtney, there are some DVDs on a blue book shelf, can you be a dear and stick one into the console?"

"Yeah," Courtney called, hopping off a chair and going to look for it.

"It'll bring you and the TARDIS here to us."

"Right."

"Why…why are we bringing her here?" Clara asked Mac quietly, "She'll be safest in the TARDIS."

"But if this goes bad, we need to be able to get off the planet," the Doctor murmured to Clara so Lundvik wouldn't hear them, "We can't risk someone getting trigger happy and us not having an escape."

"Make sure you hang on to the console," Mac added when Courtney returned with the DVD, "Or the TARDIS will leave you behind."

"So...what are we doing?" Clara asked them, "What do we do?"

"Lundvik isn't going to give this up unless we can prove the baby is harmless," Mac reasoned, "Unless we show her that leaving it alone would be better for Earth than destroying it."

"How do we do that?" Clara frowned.

"You're going to come with me and Courtney in the TARDIS, and we're gonna scan the moon, get an actual reading and confirmation about what this thing is."

And...if it was also a way to get away from the spiders for a moment or two, it was just an added bonus.

The Doctor, who had been nodding along to that plan, stopped and sputtered, "Hang on, you, Clara, and Courtney? What am I, chopped liver?"

Mac chuckled and patted his arm, "You're the only one I can think of who can talk her round in circles long enough for us to manage it," she told him, "And I don't trust your piloting enough to get back here and not overshoot and end up in 3049."

He let out a grumble that sounded remarkably like 'bring THAT up' to Clara, but he huffed, "One hour," he warned her, "I can't handle one-on-one with a pudding brain like her longer than that. I may just end up hypnotizing her to think she's a chicken if I have to go any longer.

Mac laughed and leaned in to press a kiss to his cheek, "Promise," she crossed her hearts just as the wheezing noise of the TARDIS sounded and the box slowly began to appear. Mac didn't even wait till the door was fully open, not allowing Courtney out before she was ushering the girl back in with Clara, "We'll be right back," she winked at them, before shutting the door and hurrying to the console.

"What are we doing?" Courtney frowned at them.

"We're gonna save an alien baby," Mac told her, "Now, how would you like to learn how to fly a spaceship?"

"Yeah," Courtney grinned and hurried over to the console, Clara following close behind.

"Ok, you stand here," she positioned Courtney, "And you keep this lever steady, match it to this reading, if it goes up or down by more than 2 points, shift the lever to bring it back, got it?"

"Yeah."

"Clara," Mac called her, "Over here, please," she moved Clara to a series of buttons, "Any of them turn red, just press them, ok?"

"Got it," Clara gave a firm nod.

"Now, we're going to need to float a good distance above the moon to scan it more thoroughly," she warned them, hurrying around the other side of the console, doing her best to pilot it without needing Clara or Courtney to do more than they were, knowing how complicated it could be to pilot the box.

It was doable though, difficult without the Doctor helping, but doable, a quick trek through the Vortex to get them to the right place, a little bit of a cheat, but something smoother than it would have been to try and 'launch' off of the moon.

"And…there we go!" she beamed, pulling a lever to keep them locked in that position, "Now, come here you two, let's see what we've got."

Courtney and Clara gathered around her by the monitor as she began to put in the commands for the deep scan, anxiously glancing at the monitor as it ran. It felt like it took ages, but the moon was remarkably large. Soon enough though there was a pinging noise and an image of the baby appeared, shifting to show it with what looked like wings expanded, and another image below it of what was likely it in its adult form.

"What's it say?" Courtney frowned as symbols appeared on the screen, circular things she couldn't make out but that Mac was staring at intently.

"The poor dear," Mac murmured, before pointing at a few symbols, "It says here it a Helion Wyvern."

"A what?" Clara shook her head.

"It's a space dragon, isn't it?" Courtney guessed.

Mac chuckled, "Basically, yes. They're part of a very endangered species. Even the TARDIS doesn't know how many of them are left, there's only a handful of records throughout the universe of them appearing, usually upon the event of their births because, like the Moon, it's usually near a planet and observable."

"So there's a record of it for Earth?" Clara realized.

Mac nodded, tapping another set of symbols, "It says here that 'in the mid-21st century, there were records of the moon crumbling away to reveal a winged creature, four winged with a tail and a dragon-like appearance, synonymous with the Helion Wyvern,'" she smiled a bit, "It's what inspired the human race to resume their various space programs and venture out to explore the stars."

"So it doesn't destroy the earth!" Courtney followed, "If they couldn't resume the space programs unless they were still there to do it."

"Very good," Mac nodded, her eyes searching the records before she laughed, "According to all the records, it lays another egg the second it hatches, just before it flies off."

"So it makes a 'new moon?'" Clara joked.

Mac nodded, "Replaced the old with new, it'll set the Earth back to rights…"

"Then that Lundvik lady doesn't need to kill it!" Courtney realized, "She just has to let it hatch!"

"We need to stop her!" Clara gasped, all of them aware the woman had been preparing the bombs while searching for Henry…and there was only so long the Doctor could distract her before she set them off just to shut him up.

"Already on it," Mac winked at her, "Right then, assume the positions!"

Clara and Courtney laughed, but ran back to their spots and controls to help.

~8~

The TARDIS set down, back on the moon smoothly…if an hour later than Mac had originally hoped as she'd wanted to be back within 10 seconds of when they took off but, well, the Doctor could do with some time around humans who did something other than laugh his head off. Maybe being around a human as mission-driven as Lundvik could be good for him. She was reasonable, pragmatic, tired, maybe being around someone so like himself might help him work out why he'd ended up with the face he had. He seemed so sure he'd seen it before, that there was a point that had to be made, but he didn't know what it was.

The doors were thrown open and the Doctor strode in, "Never again," he pointed at Mac as he moved to the console, "We're never doing that again."

"Doctor," Mac didn't even look over, "Lundvik?"

He glanced over his shoulder, seeing that she hadn't followed him and huffed, moving over to the doors, out them, and back in, dragging Lundvik with him, the woman looking absolutely murderous.

"Um…what happened?" Clara asked carefully, seeing the daggers she was shooting at him.

"The pudding brain tried to blow up the moon," the Doctor huffed, "Little flash of the sonic took care of that."

"You destroyed the trigger!" Lundvik snapped, "I gave you an hour to convince me not to, YOU went on a rant about species that lay eggs and then why eggs on toast were disgusting."

"Oh, dear," Mac shook her head at him, before turning to Lundvik, "I have just the thing to convince you."

"Yeah?" she scoffed, crossing her arms, not noticing the doors shutting behind her, "What's that?"

"Let's have a look," Mac smiled, pulling a lever and setting them off again, the Doctor now at her side, helping cover some of the console to make an even smoother ride back to Earth. She pulled a different lever to set the TARDIS down, and nodded at the door, "Go on," she gestured them off.

Where Lundvik seemed hesitant, Courtney was anything but, racing for the doors and throwing them open to rush out onto a beach, back on Earth, Clara close behind because the last thing she wanted was Courtney to get too excited and end up drowning in her spacesuit.

"Go," Mac urged her, waiting till Lundvik turned to stomp out before taking the Doctor's hand as they followed.

It was broad daylight, but the moon was full in the sky, allowing them the perfect look up at it as it began to crack apart. Much like a chicken in an egg, the Helion Wyvern emerged, like a tiny (gigantic) dragon in the sky.

"What's it doing?" Courtney wondered as it appeared to preen and stretch its wings.

"It's feeling the sun on itself," the Doctor shrugged, watching as it shook itself before beginning to move its wings and grow smaller and smaller as it began to leave, "It's getting warm. The chick flies away and the eggshell disintegrates. Harmless."

"What was it?" Lundvik stared up at it, at the missing moon and the creature growing distant.

"A Helion Wyvern," Mac told her, "A space dragon, basically. A very, very endangered species. So rarely seen that, when they are noticed, they're usually written off as a mirage or like when you catch a glimpse of something in the corner of your eye but then look again and see nothing out of the ordinary."

"And someone on earth wrote about it happening," Courtney informed the woman, pleased and smug as she crossed her arms, "After it happened, so Earth and people were still there."

"In the mid-21st century," Mac added, "Humans were reinvigorated to explore space again."

"And they do," the Doctor nodded, "They spread their way through the galaxy to the very edges of the universe. An effort that endures till the end of time."

"All because, one day, in 2049, something happened in the sky that was so new, so beautiful, and so curious, to them, that they had to look up and wonder what else was out there. They saw that," Mac gestured at the sky, "A Helion Wyvern being born."

"And in that one moment, the whole course of history was changed," he glanced at Clara and Courtney, "Not bad for a girl from Coal Hill School and her teacher."

Courtney gasped, turning to look back up at the sky, when she saw something else besides the blank space, "Oh, my gosh. It laid a new egg!" and there it was, a very, very new moon, smooth and beautiful, like a pearl in the sky, "It's beautiful. It's SO beautiful."

"That's what we call a new moon."

Courtney smirked at Lundvik, "You can be the first woman on that!"

Mac nodded, "Have to get back to NASA though," she remarked, "There's a whole new space program that has to be made."

"It's that way," the Doctor pointed to the side, "About 2,500 miles…" he trailed off when a jeep in camouflage pulled up, a dark black SUV in front of and behind it.

They paused, turning and watching as the door to the jeep opened and a lovely black woman stepped out, the door having been opened by a man in a black suit.

"Hello," she greeted as she approached, an English lilt to her words that indicated she wasn't entirely American, "I heard someone needed a lift back to NASA?"

"Madame President," Lundvik greeted, her eyes wide, "I can explain…er," she winced, "It's going to sound mad though…"

The woman chuckled, "Try me," she smiled, her hand absently coming up to touch a necklace she wore around her neck, drawing Courtney's attention to it. She watched the young girl as her eyes widened at the sight of it, her hand flying up to her neck where she knew the girl was wearing the same 'lucky' necklace she was under her spacesuit. A one of a kind necklace, because she had been the one to make it herself as a child.

She caught Courtney's eye and winked.

~8~

Once Lundvik had been taken care of, given a lift by the US Government, the Time Lords got to work getting Clara and Courtney back to the school. With some careful piloting, they managed to land with a minute or two to spare for Courtney's free period. They kept the journey as smooth as possible so Clara and Courtney could change back into their school clothing.

"Thank you," Courtney spoke to the Time Lords as they gathered by the door of the box, "That was so cool!"

"You're very welcome," Mac smiled at her.

"Come on, Courtney," Clara tried to get her going, the bell would be ringing any moment now, "Off you go...double Geography."

But Courtney wouldn't budge, "Can we do it again?"

The Doctor snorted, "Depends."

"On what?" Courtney perked up.

"Whether you're going to keep lying to your teacher," he gave her a pointed look.

"What?" Clara blinked, "Lie about what?"

"Oh, gee, look at the time," Courtney began to back away towards the doors, "Gotta go, double geography and all…bye!" she called, before dashing out of the box.

Clara frowned, "Lie about what?" she turned to the Time Lords, not following.

"Clara," Mac gave her a gentle smile, "Did you really, genuinely believe the Doctor would ever tell a child, any child, that they weren't important or special?"

She let the question hang in the air a moment as Clara thought on it, the Doctor moving his arm around Mac's shoulder. It was what she'd been trying to ask her before, when the Doctor kept interrupting her. Did she really think the Doctor would say such a thing? Did she ask Courtney WHEN he'd said it or what exactly he'd said, because it just seemed suspicious to her that a complete stranger saying it to the girl would mean anything compared to someone like a parent or a teacher. Courtney, from what she'd gleamed, didn't seem the sort to let a single negative comment send her THAT far 'off the rails' the way Clara described it. It seemed more like a child acting out to get attention and get what she wanted. Because she'd done a complete 180 in the TARDIS, she seemed prepared, like she KNEW she'd be able to go on a trip with them, so how would she know?

"Or, perhaps, did Courtney maybe think she could guilt you into taking her for a trip to 'prove him wrong?'"

"Yes," the Doctor huffed, "She knew you'd be offended on her behalf, as her teacher. You would, of course, demand I take it back or tell her she was special…"

"And we wouldn't be able to because she'd never believe it then, if we did it just cos you said to. We'd then have to prove it by SHOWING her she was special."

"Honestly finding out you're going to be the President of America after helping to save the Moon, that's right up there for a human, I imagine."

"Hold on," Clara cut in, shaking her head, "You…you never told her that, did you?" she realized now, but answered her own question, "No, no, of course you wouldn't. There's no version of you that could be that cruel to a kid."

Even if he was rude to adults or impatient with kids or thought humans in general were pudding brains, he wouldn't say something so horrible to a child.

"I am…so sorry," she turned to the Doctor, "I didn't mean…"

The Doctor just waved it off, "She's your student, and you're worried about her. You have a duty to care and you can't go around calling her a liar, it would just make it worse."

"It ended up alright in the end," Mac shrugged, neither of them worried about Clara's minor lapse in her faith in him.

Being a teacher meant putting the child first and giving a safe space for them to come to you with fears or concerns or things that upset them. Calling Courtney a liar could have led to a much larger problem, Courtney could have acted out more and then blamed Clara, Clara could have been fired for failing to put the child's wellbeing first and actually look into the claims. So many things could have gone wrong. It was actually very reassuring to them, that Clara had wanted to ensure Courtney was ok before she truly considered whether the Doctor had or hadn't said what Courtney said he had. This was her job, Courtney was her responsibility, if the lie was exposed at the end at least it was with Courtney non-verbally admitting it than to be called a liar to her face.

"Yeah," Clara nodded, smiling, "Yeah, it did."

"Go on," the Doctor ushered, "You've probably got some class to teach or some meeting to get to."

Clara glanced at her watch and winced, "Yeah, I do," she admitted, starting to head for the door, "Next Wednesday?" she asked them, hoping that she hadn't actually upset them with her actions before and that they were still on to keep travelling.

"Of course," Mac assured her, and she beamed, heading out of the box, though she spun on the Doctor the moment the doors were shut, "If there is any hint of a spider in the next ten trips we go on, I will kill you and I don't care if you might not regenerate after it," she pointed a warning finger at him.

He held up his arms, "It wasn't my fault!" he defended, "How was I to know there would be those things on the moon?"

"The next ten," she poked him in the chest, before turning to move to the stairs to the halls, "Until then," she paused and looked back at him, "You can make this one up to me."

He grinned and laughed before chasing after her as she bolted into the hall…

Until she mentally slapped him for even momentarily considering going somewhere he knew there MIGHT be spiders if it meant he could 'make it up to her' after.

A/N: Just have to put this here real quick, a little warning. The next few weeks/months the posting might be thrown off. My sister is having a really hard time right now, she literally called me in tears yesterday asking for the contact of my therapist because she feels she needs to talk to someone professionally about how she's feeling. For my sister to 1. be crying and 2. ask for mental health help...I know it's serious. Especially because she has, in the past, thrown my own mental health back at me like 'oh you're just going to go complain about this to your therapist instead of dealing with it' so for her to actually feel she needs the same help means something. I'm going to be keeping an eye on her for the next few weeks while she gets her therapy sorted so I just wanted to give a heads up that I don't know how it may affect posting. I'm hoping nothing bad will happen, that it's mostly just everything with Covid finally catching up with her (she's a very social person and very recently a lot of her friends have been getting married and having kids and she can't be there due to restrictions and all that, she's also been having some relationship ups and downs, and our mother probably isn't helping by commenting on how 'you look so good since you started your diet' every time she sees her which just comes across like saying she was fat before it, and it just makes my sister feel guilty because she's just so unhappy she hasn't had a big appetite and doesn't want to tell our mom that part of the 'looking good' is not eating as much because of how she feels which is worrying in and of itself :/), the fact that she reached out and is asking for help gives me hope, but I'm not going to risk her wellbeing on just hoping. So yeah, just putting a bit of a heads up that if I miss a day or something, it's not that I'm disappearing, it's just that my sister probably needed me that day.

On a more chapter related note...

I couldn't picture Mac, the mother hen she is, doing anything that would upset Clara or putting her in a situation where she'd be pushed to that limit like Danny warned, especially not after how Clara described her travels with Mac. I felt she'd be the one more likely to bring Clara along and get her into a safe space like the TARDIS than leave her on the moon. She'd probably 'punish' the Doctor a bit by leaving him with Lundvik after taking her somewhere that had 'spiders' around ;) And yup, made up the name for the alien in the moon, I figured Helios in reference to the sun/space, and wyvern for dragon-worm things ;)

I really feel like the writers just had Clara react that way she did in the show because of Danny, either her guilt over lying to him, looking for an excuse to not travel that wouldn't be HER 'fault,' or his words getting in her head, I mean she's been in that same position before. Don't blow up the planet, that had lives on it and risking the lives of the children in her care, she's known the Doctor was in the same position with his own planet, so she's aware of the choices and that the Doctor won't always be right by her side when the choices have to be made. It wasn't anything NEW to her, so why react that way? :/

Back to the point, with Mac there, I honestly couldn't see Clara being pushed. So this is going to be a new take on the series. Unlike Angel, where Angel was with her and Clara still decided to leave of her own free will, here it's not even a thought to Clara. Because she wasn't in that hard position in any way, shape, or form, she didn't have to make that choice, Mac didn't put that pressure on her. So there's no reason for her to feel like she needs to leave because of anything related to Danny, she has a different bond with Mac than she did with Angel or the Doctor, or that she had with Evy or Proffy.

Which brings up a question of how the Orient Express episode will play out :)

I hope you liked the bit of role reversal for Mac, when the spiders come around it's HER turn to be the one who needs to be fretted over and taken care of :)

Some notes on reviews...

Lol, I'm glad you liked the chapter :) I could see Mac's tendencies causing someone to blow up at her, if she treats them too much like a child or someone helpless, I could see them getting frustrated with her and being like 'I can HANDLE this thank you!' ;) I miss Teddy too, we'll have to wait and see if he might come back or not ;)

I never liked that part either, how quickly Clara seemed to turn on the Doctor just because of Danny. After all they've been through, all she went through FOR the Doctor, and she just sort of stabs him in the back for a boy :/ I feel like it could have been a really epic sort of plot for Clara, if the show built it up like Danny is her normal life and the Doctor is her adventures and she's at a point where she has to choose what life she wants and really played it as her pushing the Doctor away for Danny was her really trying to pick a normal life but just forcing it too much, but I feel like that would have only worked if Danny didn't die and she broke up with him at the end of the season as a sort of 'I need to make the choice that's best for ME not what others want me to do' sort of thing :/ Could have been a really good sort of existential crisis for Clara to face, but it just didn't happen :/

From what I understand there are reports from multiple women that Noel bullied, verbally abused, and sexually harassed them :(

Oh Mac has many more tricks still to come ;) And it's entirely possible that her fretting and care could be used against her, we'll have to wait and see if any of the Time Lord enemies come to learn about that part of her personality to use against her later }:)

You are very right ;) Mac would NOT just wander off and leave a child on any planet that's falling apart ;) It's one thing for Courtney to be IN the TARDIS because the box is a safe space, but it's another thing to expect her to leave her on the crumbling moon ;) Lol, those sound like epic characters :) I've actually been considering watching Teen Wolf again, I tried to a while ago when it first aired but also still wasn't big on anything related to vampires or werewolves after the hype of Twilight, but I've seen a few videos and clips on youtube and, somehow, and OC seems to be seriously considering that show so I may have to give it another go to see if she's really sure she wants in to that fandom lol ;)