End 10

AN: Sorry it took so long. My muse objected to the re-location. This is all a bit disjointed, but it just didn't want to flow prettily. Hopefully things will improve.

It was dark and Sandra's view was somehow distorted, as if she were looking at everything from low down. There was a crackle of light and a muted cheer and the lights reappeared more steadily. They were harsh electrical lights that made her flinch with their intensity. A moment later they dulled slightly to a soft blue colour. It was raining outside - the lights illuminated the drops as they dashed past the open door and the noise of the falling water was almost a waterfall as the torrents hit the ground. A small boy sat beside her, gripping the sides of his seat with wide-eyed fear, his knuckles pale. They sat on fold out chairs on the sides of the room they seemed to be in, closer to the still-open door than the more permanent-looking seats and panels that took up the other end of the room. There were two other people in the room, the one who had been under one of the panels - fixing something? - and one who sat on the chair nearest to them, seemingly typing something into a computer. Their faces had the strangely hazed quality that dreamscapes sometimes bring, but she saw as the man at the front got up from underneath the panel and took a seat in the foremost chair. Suddenly the picture resolved a little and, though the faces were still hidden from her, she saw the buttons and switches that the newly seated man was touching and the form the room around her took. It was a craft, she knew. And this was knowledge, not recognition. The woman turned to face her and though she couldn't make out the features of her face she was reassured and the boy beside her responded to the unseen gesture too, relaxing his death-grip on the chair marginally.

A face appeared in the rain, framed by the blue-lit droplets.

"Emma? Where is she!?" The new form shouted, the voice confirming it as male above the roar of the rain. Something in her heart fluttered. Mum why wasn't she here? She should be here.

"I thought she was with you!" Anger from the front of the craft.

"She must have gone back." The woman stood, revealing that she was heavily pregnant.

"I'll get her." The voice from outside called again. "We'll follow you in one of the cars. GO!" He disappeared.

They would never see him again after that terrible night, a cold knowledge settled over her heart.

The man at the controls hesitated for a moment before hitting the buttons to shut the door. With much shaking and groaning from the walls around them, the double helix struggled into the air.

The double helix where did that come from? The question, though subconscious, was enough to pull Sandra from her dreams and into the world of the waking. She tried to grasp at the dream as she surfaced, trying to fill in details, trying to continue the story that her mind created, but she felt it drag away from her and she opened her eyes. The sight of a strange ceiling above her momentarily disorientated her but further exploration revealed the neat hotel room that she had been allocated in Sanctuary. David's bed was empty and his scattered pyjamas told her that he had already made his way out into the world. Shaking her head to try and shift the strange feeling that there was something missing, Sandra got quickly out of bed and headed out into the main hall.

She was surprised to find that she had slept late, she was normally up long before anyone else, but this morning Sanctuary was full of the bustle that late morning brings to those on holiday. As the morning rush faded, Sandra sat alone in the breakfast room, thinking of her dream. Something big had happened that night - and she had no doubts that it had been a memory and not something her mind had made up as entertainment - but she didn't know what it was or why it was so important.

"We'll follow you in one of the cars..."

Where had they been going? Where were they planning on meeting him? Why hadn't he ever got to that meeting place with her mother? Why the big rush? Were they being attacked? Were they running from something?

Sandra remembered little of her childhood, memories lost in the blur of time, the fantastic and the real combining and contrasting - her life had been so full of both. At school she had learned not to talk of her unusual family. Learned not to object when Jesse claimed to be her father, even when she knew she had none. Why had this memory surfaced now?

"Mum?" Sandra looked up, jumping a little as her young daughter called her name. She met her eyes and frowned at the worry she saw mirrored there.

"What is it, are you ok?" She asked, wondering at her expression.

"I'm fine. How about you?" Liz replied, offering her a tissue. Sandra looked at the proffered object for a moment before realising that, in her daze, her grip on her cup had relaxed and a puddle of coffee was forming on the floor between her feet. She swore.

"I'm so out of it at the moment." She laughed, placing the cup carefully on the side and taking the tissue. "Anyway, what was it that you wanted, love?"

"I was wondering if you'd tell me about Grandad."

"Grandad?" Sandra asked, still lost in the past and momentarily confused. "Oh, right."

"I mean, we've never really talked about him before. I don't even know his name."

"You know. he died when I was young?" Liz nodded attentively. "Well, I don't really know much," Sandra continued, trying not to hesitate with every pronoun. "Mum had to bring me up on her own, with the help of Uncle Jesse and his wife. Adrian and Tammy were like brother and sister to me."

"Yes, I know." Liz interrupted impatiently. "But what about Grandad?"

"Well" Sandra searched her mind for something, anything she could say, "I know"

"Sandra." Sandra looked up at Jesse's call from across the room, grateful for the distraction, any distraction.

"What is it?" She asked, standing as he hurried towards her.

"It's Megan."