Tegan dived into the pool.
She understood now.
She was running, running through the cosmos, each foot pushing off a sun, a moon, a gas giant, sprinting through empty space, the solar winds pulling at her hair, her legs tireless, fleeting.
She had seen. Seen moments from always. Taken from forever. Lost for all but her eyes, her mind.
She'd seen the aliens, just like the one at the pools, do so many things throughout space and time. Black and obsidian. Slick like glass. Cold like rock.
A snap shot again, as she flung herself around a black hole, and broke away in an arcing curve, running faster than ever, of an alien on the bridge of the freighter, plucking Adric away at the last fatal moment before it slammed into ancient Earth and handing him over to the Cybermen, primitive, hulking, awkward.
Another snap shot: the aliens pressing her down, ripping out the Mara, her skin dripping off the scaly hide, the huge jaws devouring Earth with carnal, lusting thrusts.
But she knew now. They weren't aliens. They were totems. Left behind by the Homeworlders before they left, before they went away. Left scattered across the Universe, waiting for the moment, waiting for the Darkness. Waiting for the inevitable.
The stars were flashing past now, becoming streams of light as she sped through the emptiness, running, faster and faster, through space, faster and faster until she was flying through time, back into the depths of the Primeval, the images still dancing around her.
Of the Cybermen blossoming into the Horde with Adric's intellect, claiming Terminus, making it their own, nesting in the heart of Creation. Of Nyssa, enabling them to spread through rock itself, into cores, into suns, into everything that could be. Of Kamelion, slashing through the station, sending out the alarms, the distress beacon, bringing the Horde hurtling towards the time/space point.
Of the Mara, sniffing the cosmic dust, her nostrils thrilling with the scent of the power, the energy, the perverse cyber lifeforce, laced with the spice of the Master's TARDIS. Of the massive snake howling, throwing herself towards Terminus.
It was a matter of timing, she had to get it right. Only one shot, one try. So much was depending on her, so much; she'd been given a second chance, she couldn't waste it, not now.
For she knew, even as she felt the centuries fall about her shoulders, even as she rushed through eternity, she knew she'd died, died when the Mara burst out of her head.
Or perhaps she'd been dying for a long time before that, but hadn't wanted to admit it.
The TARDIS telepathic circuits had saved her mind, for a while, kept her in the oblivion that lay between the shell of the ship, caught between realities. But she'd dissipated again, her thoughts drifting into nothing. The alien had saved her then, the totem, left by the pools. The totem. And the Doctor who followed it to her.
He'd done it, once he realized what was happening. Joined with the TARDIS and dematerialized, rematerializing inside the telepathic circuits, around her, Tegan Jovanka, of all people. Solidifying around her, leaving her gasping on the edge of the pool, substantial and whole once more. The shell of the ship was her skin as she plummeted down, down into the depths, deep past the suns flaring into life for the first time and deeper still.
He was with her now, trapped with her, inside her, guiding the TARDIS, coaxing her deeper, faster.
Tegan had harbored the Ship once, long ago, in her belly, in her womb; now the ship harbored her, protecting against the scathing heat of a trillion suns and the blasting radiation of the fierce pulsars that burned her eyes. She was the TARDIS who was the Doctor who was Tegan. They three were one.
There. It was ahead, she could see it now, blazing in the distance, when it was young, when it was new.
She'd seen in before, withered and old, deadly and desperate for death. Hovering in space, pleading to follow it's builders.
It was older than legend, older than myth. It was a door way, it was a portal, sentient, lonely, wanting. It was Torus.
But here, in the beginnings, a region banned by all the laws of Time, Torus was open, brilliant, stunning.
They needed her, the Doctor and the TARDIS. For they trusted her. Her of all people. The Torus was swelling now as she neared, as she sprinted the last stretch.
This Universe, her home was lost, ruined, beyond saving.
There was only one way.
To save the Universe, they had to die. They had to kill themselves to save everything. But they couldn't do it alone. They needed her to help them. Assisted suicide
For the Doctor could never hurt his ship any more than it could hurt him. They needed her to do what they could not.
Tegan bent her head down and raced toward it.