Magella plucked a chip from the proffered bag as they meandered down the street. "So I get that you're from the future or another universe, or whatever. Let's say for a minute I believed you were my daughter, which I don't… " Rose began, swallowing a mouthful of vinegary wonderfulness "you act like we've never met before."

It took Magella a half a beat to respond, "Well, we haven't… not exactly."

"But you're convinced I'm your mother."

"Oh, you are, Uncle Jack has told me about you of course, and you're exactly how I imagined you."

"Uncle Jack?" Rose echoed faintly. The name striking a chord deep within her that twanged painfully, but not more so than the figure that caught her attention. Her eyes focused on something just beyond her shoulder. Maggie cast a glance back, following her line of vision to the end of the street. The Doctor was there, his lips pressed into a grim line.

"Look, I have to go, but I'll be back. Promise." Maggie intoned urgently, turning back to her mother.

"Maggie." Rose caught the sleeve of the young girl before she could get very far, "Tell me one more thing, what could possibly separate us?"

The younger girl hesitated, her lip catching in her teeth, "We're working on it, we're going to find a way to save you." She curled her fingers into her mother's hand. "We can all be together, we'll be a family." Magella moved to leave again, but she could feel tears prick her eyes, and on a whim she wrapped her arms tightly around the woman's shoulders. "I love you mom."

Her grin faded as she closed the distance between her and the Doctor.

"Go inside." His tone was low.

"I just-"

"Go inside." His words were separated, enunciated. The door barely shut when he

"I should have left you there!" He shoved her roughly, and she stumbled backwards over the threshold, trying and failing to catch herself on the railing. "You stupid, stupid girl."

"I found her! We can be a family." She couldn't understand why he was so angry. "You told Jack you would have saved her if there had been a way! You said you loved her!"

"Well, I lied, didn't I?" His tone held a touch of a sneer under the anger, and if one was listening for it, dashes of hurt and despair.

"But you said-"

"Oh, stop it, you daft, dull, little thing. Do you honestly think that there wasn't a way? With all my cleverness and everything else, d'you honestly think that had I wanted to, I couldn't have gotten her back? I left her there because that was exactly where I needed her, and I had to keep putting her back. It had nothing to do with collapsing the universe, if that was a concern, this universe would have been gone long ago.

I've seen more of this universe than you could ever hope to understand with your pathetic little brain. I see the way you look at me, as if I'm your savior." Disdain dripped from his voice like venom on that final word, he walked towards her, and she was eyelevel with his shins, "'You call my name as shelter, not realizing I am the storm,' she was the exact same way, your mother, and I used her the same way I used you.

I've seen fake gods and bad gods, but I'm the Doctor, I'm a Time Lord, I'm the winner. That's who I am. I am the oncoming storm, The Time Lord Victorious, the laws of time are mine. I used to have so much mercy, a long time ago. Lifetimes. I was a different man, but not anymore." His voice had softened at the end after the furious and dramatic build, become almost a familiar balm, and he crouched, "No." That single word ached, "Have you got that?" His voice remained soft, though what was behind them kept her still, staring wide eyed at him even as his hand came up to caress her face. "I lied to you because I liked it. I trapped her there because it hurt. Don't you understand? It was my design all along." His fingers tightened before he suddenly let go.

His coat whipped around his ankles as he stood and spun, stalking away from her, "I created a paradox, don't you see?" He sounded excited like all the times he had taught her about the universe. He even bounced on his toes, a grin playing about his lips, "I piled the paradoxes together! Maybe once I had thought I would take her back. I thought that when Jackie had little Tony that that would be enough, but it wasn't, so I gave Rose the metacrisis, born from a time lord and a human, created inside a living TARDIS, and I gave him a coral, and then they had you, the greatest paradox of them all. You aren't special, you're nothing, but your birth… That was something. That was the something I had been waiting for. I could open the time lock without any consequences."

Magella found her voice, "You taught me that there are always consequences for our actions, what about the people in that universe?"

He was leaning heavily on the console, arms bracing him, "Tough." The iciness of his tone was chilling.

"You could have stopped it, my mother-"

He cut across her, voice thundering, "Your mother is the reason I didn't. I would have given her the world, I offered to save them, to save everyone, but she didn't want me anymore, she wanted him. A mere, pale copy, and I let her have him and their spoils. I let them watch as their world burned as I watched mine."

Magella had curled herself against the wall, pressing herself against it "You're a monster." She whispered in horror fighting her shaking legs to stand.

He laughed darkly, "She said that too, after years, she finally realized the truth, and those were her last words."

"Did you lie to me too? All the times you've said you loved me, were those all just lies?"

"You were a mistake."

And that was what he left her with, that cold sinking feeling, that she hadn't been good enough for either one of them.