"Is this the best you can do?"

Tegan picked her way through the field, just to the side of the road, keeping her eyes out for any tall blue boxes. There was a house up ahead, tall and white, with an obligatory picket fence, although the paint was peeling and the pickets bent and baring limp splinters.

Tegan edged her way round the back, remembering more and more of her dream as she stepped through a gap in the fence and onto the lawn, between randomly placed trees and topiaries. Remembering…

…the dismay, the hurt, the sadness, the frustration, the anger…

There was a wishing well in the back yard of the house, the wall made of cobbles of white, red and orange, sagging in their bonds of crumbling cement. The tiny wooden braces held a slim, rusted bar from which dangled a twisted rope, frayed and gray.

Tegan peered over the lip and into the murky depths of the well below, looking for her reflection in the water, while her mind searched for the rest of the dream, remembering the anger, the anger…

She'd grasped it, embraced it and lashed back, three years of fear and annoyance wound tight, wrapped up then unleashed in nine simple words: "Just who the hell do you think you are?"

Her other self raised an eyebrow, the dress shimmering in alarm.

"What's wrong with this?" Tegan threw her arms up in the air, the airplane walls beginning to re-solidify around her. "There's nothing wrong with my dream nothing!" She was shouting now, the passengers began to twist round and stare as they grew new torsos and legs. "So what if I'm just some dumb human from some tiny planet? I did the best I could with what I had and that's a damn sight more than most people do!" She was confident now, her nostrils flaring, staring herself down, staring down every condescending alien, every maniacal robot, every self-serving bastard that had tried to kill her and her friends. "So what if I do talk back to people… All I'm asking is for people to be polite and show some respect? Is that too much to ask? Yes, this is the best I can do, all right? I got out of my lousy town and worked hard to get a job so I could see the world, become a better person and help others, so if you've got a problem with that then just kill me know cause I'm sick to death of being judged by murderers, criminals and trans-temporal cretins!"

The passengers had broken out in applause when she finished, her other self vanished into thin air and that peculiar redheaded woman was smiling at her from her seat by the window who was-

standing next to the well beside her, looking into the dark depths, a sad, yet non committal expression on her freckled face.

"Who are you?" Tegan was too confused to be afraid. Behind the woman, the gap in the fence was gone.

The woman smiled. "No one. Not anymore. Not really. But I'm not important," the woman stepped to the side and revealed an ancient woman, bowed and bent, her long gray hair reaching to brush the edge of the well, her eyes blue and watery, peering out from folds of skin, loose and sagging. "I'm not here," the young woman continued, "officially, just returning a favor. I'm here for her."

Tegan stared at the old woman and gaped. She smelt the earth, fresh in the morning, moisture and dryness on her face, the scent of meat, of death, the musky sweetness of sex, the tang of blood, the coarseness of tree bark, the chill of moonlight on her back…

Tegan gasped as her senses were flooded with every sensation she'd ever known, every touch, every smell, every sensation and a million others she'd never known or ever know and instinctively she knew who the old woman was and how impossible it was that she could exist. "She's… she's real?" Tegan whispered.

"Only just." The young woman looked up at the gathering clouds. "The instability is growing, the world is falling apart, even maintaining this form is sapping both our strengths."

Tegan's mind stuttered with a thousand questions but the biggest slipped out: "Why?"

"She has been abused for centuries," the woman explained as she helped the old crone step closer to Tegan. "Raped, tortured, scarred and used as a pawn in a game that's spanned a thousand years…" The woman smiled as the small, hunched woman by her side before she looked back to Tegan. "And she's mad as hell and she's not going to take it any more."

Tegan stared in amazement, still not quite comprehending.

"This isn't my fight," the woman said as she held up the old woman's hand. "We're in the last stable area of reality right now, and you're the only human in it. The Doctor can't win this one; he's already lost and deep down you know it." She motioned for Tegan to take the wrinkled and veined hand. "Well," she asked. "Shall you be Mother?"

Her mouth dry, Tegan found herself reaching for the trembling hand, not letting herself think, not letting the bravado she'd found in her dream desert her, not thinking, not thinking of anything, just… just…

Turlough was leaning against the gate as the Doctor strode up, the fence head high and imposing. He held out the tracking tablet. "Dead center," he said pointing a finger at the white house.

The Doctor peered at the readings. "The sign said Allen Road… Any sign of Tegan?"

Turlough shook his head.

The Doctor sniffed at the air. "Mmm… bourgenvilla." He licked a finger and poked it into the air above the gate. "Temporal stasis field… this house is nailed to the center of the planet, anchored in time and space. Never understood why they insisted on scenting the field."

"Timelords?" Turlough asked.

"Very probably. Possibly even me," the Doctor conceded sheepishly. "I'm not exactly sure… it does seem terribly familiar…"

"Doctor…" Turlough pointed to the gate lock, ornate and peculiar for a picket fence. Dangling from the keyhole was a fake, pink rabbit foot, swaying gently in the breeze; up the short path to the house, the main door stood open, darkness hiding the hallway within.