Author's Note: I really really hope this chapter makes sense. I tried to make it clear what had happened but POV is a thing and….yeah. :P

Chapter 10

The Doctor dashed forward after his past self. "No! You can't do that—" He disappeared in the door of the TARDIS, and then Rey was after him before she could stop herself.

She wasn't going to lose him again.

She skidded to a stop in the doorway, closing her eyes for a moment and steadying herself. It was wrong. The inside of the TARDIS was completely wrong. So wrong it made her dizzy just looking at it. Oh, it looked the same—but something about it was off.

And all around her, she could feel it crying out in pain.

Laila skidded to a stop in the door, just behind Rey. She squeezed her eyes shut and then turned away, pressing her fingers to her temples and shaking her head.

"What…." she managed, her voice sounding a bit faint. "What…."

And then the TARDIS twisted even more. Rey grabbed for her staff as if it was a lifeline, something solid as the floor seemed to spin like a cyclone beneath her feet. The two Doctors were both shouting at once, rushing for the console and then looking at each other, then running for the door. Rey felt something shoving at her, an inescapable, irresistible force pushing her backwards, and she grabbed for something, anything to hold onto. Her hand found what must have been Laila's and then they were tumbling backwards together, through blackness, the abandoned house flickering around them.

They landed with a crash, clouds of dust flying up around them. For a moment Rey just sat there, her head spinning, not quite daring to open her eyes. She sat slowly, rubbing her temples, and looked around.

The four of them lay as if they had been dropped in the little bedroom—and in the center was the TARDIS.

And it was the TARDIS. Fully, completely, the TARDIS.

Her Doctor jumped to his feet, and then he was laughing. He nearly slammed into her, grabbing her and spinning her in a circle, laughing wildly.

"Paradox!" He cried, setting her down with a thump. "It's a paradox! Oh you wonderful, glorious past version of me, you!" He grabbed the other Doctor by the shoulders and shook him, a wild grin spreading across his face. "It ejected us! Couldn't handle the paradox so it ejected everything! Don't you see—everything!"

"Including…." Rey's eyes went wide and she stared at the blue box. "Including the creature…."

"And the creature?" Laila's voice was small, and Rey turned to see her standing slowly, looking scared and overwhelmed and completely and utterly confused. "What about that—that thing that eats people's minds? What happened to it—"

"I think it's dead." The other Doctor scanned his sonic screwdriver around the room, turning in a slow circle. "It had gotten itself so wrapped up in the TARDIS that once it was ejected…."

"Doctor?" Laila stepped forward, seeming to pull into herself. "Doctor, Allison…." She looked around. "Allison…time energy….I don't know how this all works but…." Her voice trailed off and then she was running, flying out the door and down the steps. For a long moment Rey looked between her and the two Doctors, then followed her.

She was met at the door by Edward Wood.

Her hand flew to her mouth and she stumbled backwards. "Edward—"

He stared at her. "What happened?" His voice was a bit faint, and his face was pale as a ghost. "Did I black out? Where's—Rey! We found you…." He looked past her and she turned to see the two Doctors approaching.

"Oh, fantastic!" The other Doctor grinned and pushed past her, clapping Edward on the shoulder. "Thought that might have happened—"

"Brilliant!" A grin burst across the Doctor's face and he grabbed Edward and pulled him into an embrace. "You know what this means—this means it didn't just spit out the TARDIS! It spit out—oh. Oooh." He looked at the other Doctor, his eyes going wide. "The people. All the people. But not just the people. All that time energy that the TARDIS had sucked in….this could be bad. This could be very bad."

And before Rey could stop him, he was dashing back towards the TARDIS—the other Doctor following.

Laila turned in a slow circle, the dusky shadows closing in on her like fog. "Allison?" Her voice sounded somehow both small and very, very loud in the empty neighborhood, and sent little echoes bouncing off the houses and the alleys between them. She took a careful step forward, towards the sign. The sign where she had first seen Allison—

There had to be a way. There had to be a way to save her.

She took another determined step forward. "Allison? It's me. Laila. I'm going to…"

The Doctor had said something about streams of time energy. About getting caught in two steams of time energy, pulled in different directions—

Could—could one be pushed out of the time energy?

A plan flashed across her mind and she shivered. She didn't know what it was like, Allison's fate. What it was like being pulled across of all of history. But—

To my love, who died a hero's death.

A hero's death….

There was only one thing she could do. And that was try.

"Laila?" Allison's voice seemed to flicker in and out, to be speaking with more than one voice at once, all layered on top of each other and echoing just a bit. "Laila—"

She reached a hand forward, opening her mouth as if to speak again. She flickered—

She was fading—

Laila whirled, and then she was running. Running forward, her steps pounding across the concrete. She didn't dare hesitate, didn't dare think about what she was doing. She slammed into Allison, shoving her backwards.

A drowning flood of time engulfed her.