Author's Note: Hello again, everyone! I am so sorry for how long it took to update this story. I was hit with a serious case of writer's block and it took me ages to put together a decent chapter. Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed, followed or added this story to your favorites! I honestly never expected this kind of feedback and it all means so much to me. I hope the latest installment was worth the wait.

Special thanks to CoriOreo, who helped me get past the writer's block!

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or any related characters. Katherine and Miranda Smith belong to me.

Even though Jenny was stiff as a board in his arms, the Doctor didn't let her go. He didn't know how this was possible, and he knew that he should be very concerned about the potential collapse of the universe, but at that moment he honestly didn't care. All he knew was that his daughter was alive in his arms, and that her two hearts were beating loudly on the monitor. He clung to the sound almost as much as he clung to Jenny, marveling at the fact that this was real. Only once before had he experienced this kind of bittersweet euphoria, and this time, mercifully, there were no Daleks around to ruin the moment.

Rose cleared her throat in the doorway, startling the Doctor back into reality. He reluctantly drew away from Jenny but couldn't bring himself to let her go completely. He grasped her arms and studied her face, cataloguing every detail: her long blonde hair, her dark blue eyes, the curve of her nose. He'd done his best to lock those features into the corner of his mind, along with those of her dead siblings. Now that he was looking at them again, it was overwhelming. But a good kind of overwhelming.

"You're alive," he said again. Oh, he loved the sound of that. Jenny is alive. Jenny is here and she is alive.

The Doctor was suddenly aware of the grin on his face, especially now that it was fading. Jenny was here and alive. Despite her earlier claim, this went beyond "just a bit unlikely." This was impossible of the highest order.

"How are you alive?" he asked, his voice at a slightly higher pitch than usual. "How did you get off Messaline? Did you even leave Messaline? And you look the same—if you're alive, why haven't you regenerated?"

This last question earned a snort from Jenny. She stared at him incredulously. "I think I should be asking you the same thing."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "What? What are you talking about?"

"Did I travel back in time or something? Is that what happened?" Jenny's eyes briefly flickered to Rose before returning to the Doctor. "I must have. You look completely different."

"Not exactly," Rose answered, abandoning her post in the corner to sit on the edge of Jenny's bed, adjacent to the Doctor. "You crashed into a parallel world, Jenny. It's similar to the one you came from, but not exactly the same. Does that make sense?"

"You said that already," Jenny said, a flare of impatience breaking through her stoic demeanor. "What does that mean, a parallel world? How did I get here?"

"Well…were sort of hoping you could tell us," the Doctor said. He anxiously pulled at his right ear, keeping one hand gently resting on Jenny's forearm. "How are you here, Jenny? You died! You died in my arms!"

Jenny stared at him evenly, without a trace of emotion. "Only one of my hearts stopped. I was comatose, not dead. My heart repaired itself, I woke up, and you were gone."

The Doctor stared at her, gaping in shock. That was it? That was all she had to say about the fact that she came back to life? "What do you mean, your heart repaired itself? That's impossible! It doesn't work like that, you should have regenerated!"

"I wasn't quite fifteen hours old when I was shot," Jenny said shortly. "I've been told that you grew back a hand. Why can't I grow back a heart?"

The Doctor's single heart skipped a beat. Oh, he thought incredulously. She was never really dead at all. He thought back to his last regeneration, out cold in Rose's flat on Christmas. He thought of his trusty right hand, severed by a Sycorax and regrown seconds later because he was still within the first fifteen hours of his regeneration cycle. This was beyond idiocy on his part. He wasn't even thinking on Messaline. Of course she wasn't dead. She'd only thought she was dying because she didn't know any better. The whole time Jenny was perfectly fine…and he ran off in his TARDIS and never looked back.

Self-loathing gnawed at him from the inside out. "Jenny…" the Doctor whispered. "Jenny, I…I'm sorry. I am so, so sorry." It was painfully inadequate.

She blinked once. "I know." There was a beat of silence before she continued, "You never answered my question. How did I get here?"

The Doctor cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter. He wanted to properly apologize. He wanted to ask forgiveness, even though he didn't deserve it. But he did none of this. Instead, he asked monotonously, "How much do you remember before the crash?"

Jenny frowned and leaned back, her arm sliding out of the Doctor's grip. He resisted the urge to take her hand and ran his fingers through his hair just to keep them occupied. He had so much to stay that he couldn't figure out where to start, but he knew he needed to let Jenny talk. As difficult as it was, he held his tongue. Nearly a full minute passed before the silence was broken. "We were flying away from a planet," Jenny said slowly. She stared at her lap intently. "There was a creature there, attacking the planet. Dad got a distress call on the psychic paper."

Dad. The word was a swift punch in a gut. The Doctor swallowed and put on his best poker face. He couldn't dwell on that, not yet. As soon as he got the full story, he could dwell on it as much as he liked. He could ask her about her travels later. Not now.

"They were taking the civilians. Apparently the civilians were a means of sustenance, or something," Jenny continued. "We didn't get to investigate them properly—it all happened so fast. But they were only taking children. That's how Dad got the distress call. A mother telepathically sent the message after her children were taken."

"What planet was it?" Rose asked.

Jenny raised her eyes, mouth open to speak, but she quickly clamped it shut with a look of alarm. The Doctor sat up again, watching her closely. What was wrong? Why did she stop speaking? He quickly scanned her over in search of some injury that the Torchwood medical staff might have overlooked. No, she looked perfectly fine. A glance at Jenny's heart monitor affirmed that both organs were fully functional.

"Jenny?" the Doctor said, reaching for her hand, but she began to speak before he could take it.

"They had orange skin," Jenny exclaimed as the heart monitor briefly accelerated. The words tumbled out of her mouth so quickly that even the Doctor struggled to keep up. "They were short with orange skin. The adults didn't even reach my waist. They were telepathic and their planet looked like a giant forest, but it didn't have any grass, and their sky was dark purple."

"They sound like Oompa Loompas," Rose murmured, shooting the Doctor a look of confusion. "We haven't encountered anyone like that in this universe."

The Doctor frowned and ran his hand through his hair again. "They sound like Chenteroi. Natives of Khrelir Four," he clarified, seeing Rose's look of confusion. "It's a small planet in the Triangulum Galaxy, fairly close to Earth—well, in our home universe, anyway. I'd have liked to take you there, Rose, the Chenteroi are a charming lot…Right, anyway," the Doctor said, turning back to his daughter. "Does that ring any bells, Jenny? Chenteroi, Khrelir Four…?"

She didn't look up from her lap, but she gave a small nod. "Yes, that sounds right. Khrelir Four. Right." Her voice was just shaky enough to be noticed. "We were flying away from Khrelir Four. The attacking creatures were after us…actually, they were after me. They didn't seem interested in the TARDIS at all."

The Doctor quietly inhaled at the mention of his beloved ship. After six years, his longing for the TARDIS had subdued to the point of tolerability. He always missed it, yes, but Rose and the kids were usually enough to compensate for its loss. Besides, it wasn't gone forever—in a few years he'd have another one. But for the first time in ages, he had news of his TARDIS, the one still flying around in another universe with his Time Lord self at the helm. He wasn't quite sure what to make of that.

Focus, he thought sharply. He forced himself to concentrate on Jenny. The knowledge of her existence in this universe was every bit as daunting as the knowledge of his TARDIS, but at least the former was manageable. Focus on the matter at hand. Well, there were several aspects of Jenny's story that already didn't make sense. Best to tackle those first.

"Rose told me about your ship," the Doctor said, with a brief glance at Rose. "I didn't actually see it for myself, but I can guarantee that it's not Chenteroi. By the sixty-first century they'd have just barely figured out how to use petrol, they couldn't have possibly built it. Where did it come from? Why weren't you in the TARDIS?"

Jenny visibly relaxed and held her head high. "I stole it from Messaline," she answered confidently.

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, but a quiet chuckle from Rose interrupted him. "What?" he said, turning to Rose with narrowed eyes.

Rose shook her head and smiled. "She stole her ship," she said. "My god, she is so your daughter."

The Doctor felt a pang in his single heart as his face split into a grin. She is so your daughter. Oh, he would never get tired of this. It was akin to hearing others discussing the strong resemblance between he and Katherine, or noticing a light smatter of freckles across Miranda's nose, not unlike his own. But this time, it was different. He never really got the chance to hear those things about Jenny. Sure, Donna had mentioned their similar physiologies, but that was so impersonal.

But to hear someone refer to Jenny as his daughter, to know that she had somehow taken after him…well. That was just incredible.

His thoughts came to a screeching halt when he turned back to Jenny. Her impassive expression had returned and her body was rigid. The Doctor could feel the grin fading from his own face. Clearly she wasn't entirely pleased with the comparison, but why? She had been asking for him, hadn't she? No, she wanted the other him, the Time Lord him. Perhaps…perhaps his other self had undergone a drastic change. The Doctor knew that his Time Lord self had regenerated years ago (he quickly pushed away those thoughts—now was absolutely not the time to revisit that awful occasion), but maybe that man had changed more than just his face. Maybe they were two completely different people now. Maybe Jenny didn't even recognize him. But what had happened? Why wouldn't Jenny be happy with the similarity? She seemed so happy to be with him on Messaline…

Rose must have noticed their mutual discomfort. She asked the next question with an unusually calm demeanor, not unlike the one she used when breaking up a squabble between Katherine and Tony. "Why weren't you in the TARDIS, Jenny? Why keep your ship if you were traveling with your dad?"

Jenny sized them both up. After a moment's hesitation she responded, "I wasn't ready to give it up. We agreed that we would leave it behind as soon as we found a planet that could put it to good use, and I would go with my dad in the TARDIS."

"So you just followed the TARDIS in your ship?" the Doctor exclaimed. "How did you manage that? You can't fly through the time vortex like that!"

"Dad found a way," Jenny said in a clipped tone.

"How?" the Doctor pressed.

Jenny regarded he and Rose for a moment before glancing up at the heart monitor. She said nothing.

"All right then, so, back to Khrelir Four…" the Doctor said slowly. "What was chasing you? Why were they chasing you? Did they cause all of this?"

Jenny folded her arms and glanced back at the heart monitor.

"You're done talking now, aren't you?" the Doctor said. He ignored his brewing sense of disappointment.

This time Jenny did not turn away from him, but her eyes flickered from his face, to the heart monitor, and back again.

The Doctor exhaled heavily and shifted his weight. "All right, if that's what you want. Rose?" he looked to her for a second opinion.

Rose nodded. "I don't see why not. Just let me find Martha and she'll disconnect the monitor, yeah?" She climbed off the hospital bed and jogged out of the room.

Once the door swung closed with a small electronic ping, the room was unnaturally quiet. The heart monitor's steady beep was a small comfort, but there was a certain level of awkwardness now that Rose was not there to be a conduit. The Doctor sat uncomfortably on the edge of the bed, torn between the urge to envelop Jenny in another hug and the urge to break the silence.

Naturally, his gob won out in the end.

"So, what's he like, the Parallel Me? Do I really wear a bowtie now? Oh, I hope I misheard you there, I had a bowtie phase once when I was younger, a lot younger, and I was a crotchety old man back then…well, I guess you could still say I'm pretty old, but hey! At least I look pretty good for my age, now. You know, according to my papers here, I'm only thirty-eight!" He barked out a laugh. "Imagine: me, thirty-eight years old. Now that, that is young. I'm practically a kid all over again! You never really do get used to it, all those changing faces, looking like an old man when you're in the prime of your life and looking like a kid when you're nine hundred. I mean, look at you—you were born looking, what, sixteen, seventeen? I'd put you at seventeen if I didn't know any better. But you're really…wait, how old are you, Jenny? How much time has passed in the other universe? You're staring at me."

Throughout his whole monologue, Jenny's eyebrows had been steadily creeping closer and closer to her hairline. Now she was staring at him with wide eyes.

"What, what is it?" the Doctor said. He looked to the right, checking to see if anyone was looking through the window. There was a blurry outline of Pete Tyler, but he was too far away to be watching them. "Something wrong?"

The corners of Jenny's mouth twitched upward.

"Is that a smile?" the Doctor tried. Excitement was building in his chest.

Jenny narrowed her eyes and turned to the heart monitor. Her lips were pursed now.

"You smiled," the Doctor said. He was no stranger to déjà vu, but the parallel was not lost on him. He'd had this exact conversation with Rose all those years ago, when he regenerated after leaving the Game Station. "I saw you smile."

This time she didn't look at him. She somehow managed to fold her arms even more tightly than before and she stared intently into her lap. The Doctor sighed and anxiously fidgeted. It was clear that she wasn't going to interact with anyone until the heart monitor was off. He stared at the door in the corner, willing Rose and Martha to appear in order to get the bloody thing off. The sooner that happened, the better.

Rose found Martha several minutes later in the intensive care ward of the Torchwood medical facility. The place was busier than usual, with several earthquake victims being airlifted in from all over the city, as well as Glasgow and Cardiff. So far the number of injuries extraterrestrial in nature were surprisingly low, but according to Martha, they liked to look over anyone with even the faintest trace of alien contact just to be safe.

"Martha," Rose said, once she finally navigated through the crowd and made it safely to the nurse's station, where Martha was speaking with an intern. "Martha, sorry, but the Doctor and I need you. Have you got a minute?"

Martha glanced up with a fleeting smile. "Take this to Dr. Williams," she said to the intern, handing her a clipboard. Once the intern was on her way, Martha turned to face Rose. "Everything okay?"

Rose quickly checked to make sure that nobody was listening. At the moment, fourteen people in the entire universe knew of Jenny's existence, and she wasn't going to let some eavesdropper change that status before the press conference scheduled for tonight. Once sure that the coast was clear, Rose began to walk away and gestured for Martha to follow. "Jenny's refusing to talk until we take her heart monitor off," Rose said when they reached an empty hallway. "Could you do that?"

Martha raised her eyebrows. "I wouldn't. We almost lost her in the helicopter. I don't know if her hearts are stable yet, and I definitely don't want to let her go before I figure out how her binary cardiovascular system works."

"I think she has a problem with that," Rose said. "When the Doctor and I were traveling, back in our home universe, we got captured. A lot. And whenever that happened, the Doctor never liked it when someone tried to work out his physiology. I have a feeling Jenny has the same issue. She won't tell us anything if she's attached to the monitor."

She turned to Martha and saw that she was deep in thought. Despite the maddening circumstances, Rose was grateful. She couldn't blame Martha for wanting to study Gallifreyan biology in closer detail. For years, healthcare for the Doctor and their children was essentially a glorified guessing game. Martha was the only physician they trusted with the Doctor's unique biology and medical records, and she'd been Katherine and Miranda's pediatrician for the same reason. But nobody knew for sure how their bodies would react to various medications, or how their bodies would even function in the long run. Until now, the Doctor's memories and half-Gallifreyan DNA were all they had to go on. And now they had Jenny, the first known Gallifreyan in this universe. She was the best chance they had at giving the Doctor and the girls a complete medical background of sorts.

But as much as they needed this information, Rose was more than willing to wait. Taking notes on Jenny's physiology would do nothing to win her trust, and at the moment, her trust was a little more important than her hearts.

They rounded a corner and entered the isolated care facility, where living extraterrestrials were treated upon their arrival to the planet (or eventual discovery, whichever came first). Martha hesitated before speaking. "I'll take her off the monitor for now, but I do want to examine her more closely as soon as she's willing. If something happens I want to know how to treat her."

"Thanks," Rose said with a smile as they passed through a set of doors. Halfway down the corridor, Pete was keeping watch over Jenny's room, and he had company.

Rose had just enough time to stop and process what was happening before a small child ran full-force her knees. "Mummy!" Katherine shouted, wrapping her skinny arms around Rose's leg. "Mummy, you're here! You're here!"

Rose heavily exhaled as she scooped Katherine into her arms. She'd known for hours that the kids were safe, but having them physically present was an unexpected relief. She stood back up and hugged Katherine as tightly as she dared, breathing in the scent of shampoo and freshly cut grass. She was playing outside, Rose realized with a start. Just this morning, Katherine was playing outside while the world was on the brink of collapse. She thought back to the episode in the storage unit, when the canon malfunctioned. She'd been so close to falling into the Void, so close to never seeing this little girl again…and at the exact same time, Katherine was playing. Rose didn't know why the juxtaposition unsettled her so much. All she knew was that it hit her like a ton of bricks, and suddenly she never wanted to let Katherine go. "I'm here," she affirmed quietly, pressing a kiss into Katherine's thick brown hair. "I'm here. Oh, I missed you…"

"Mummy, everything shaked!" Katherine squealed, completely oblivious. Her tiny hands flew about as she spoke. "Everything shaked and things got broke at Nana's house! An' Nana was real scared an' made me go under the door, an' 'Randa was crying so loud she broke my ears! But I wasn't scared. 'Cause I'm a big girl an' big girls don't get scared, right?"

Rose grinned and gave her another squeeze. She felt Katherine reflexively melt into the hug and stroked her hair. I missed you, I missed you, I missed you, she thought. Better try to make up for lost time. With everything that happened today, she couldn't have afforded to stop and truly think about the kids. At the moment she wasn't capable of doing anything else. "You," Rose said, accentuating the word with a kiss, "are a very brave girl."

"I know," Katherine said nonchalantly.

Still clutching her daughter, Rose looked ahead. Martha had disappeared into the room, and through the window Rose could see her and the Doctor removing the heart monitor from Jenny's chest.

Rose glanced down at Katherine (who was now chattering away about broken dishes) and back at Jenny. For the first time it occurred to her that she was a stepmother…sort of. So what did that make Jenny to the girls? Sisters? Half-sisters? Somehow Rose doubted there was a term that could comfortably define their relationship.

Fortunately she didn't have to dwell on that for long. Jackie Tyler was making her way towards Rose, and she didn't look happy.

"Of all days for you to leave me babysitting," Jackie said impatiently. Miranda was quietly gurgling in her arms, wrapped in a purple blanket. "He drops the kids off, and two hours later there's a bloody earthquake! I'm left with two screaming kids, a son in school all the way across the city, and a daughter who can't give me more than two minutes on the phone to let me know she's all right!"

"I wasn't screaming! I only screamed, 'cause 'Randa screamed!" Katherine exclaimed, whirling around indignantly.

"I was suiting up to go to Cardiff, Mum!" Rose said. "I couldn't be on the phone for any longer than that!"

Jackie shifted the baby to her shoulder and made a face. "Well, excuse me for wanting to know whether or not you were blown up in the earthquake. Meanwhile I had to drive all over London trying to find a road that wasn't torn to bits. Between picking up Tony—" she nodded over her shoulder towards nine-year-old Tony, who was laying on the floor playing with a tablet computer, "—and getting all the way here, I was in the car for almost three hours! And then I find out you and your husband are babysitting some alien that crashed in Cardiff!"

"Aliens?!" Katherine craned her neck to look in every possible direction. "You got aliens, Mummy? I wanna see aliens!"

"Katherine, go play with Tony for a bit, yeah?" Rose said absently, setting Katherine back on the ground.

"I wanna see aliens!"

"Go play with Tony," Rose repeated firmly. Once Katherine was (sulkily) seated down the hall with the tablet computer, Rose turned to face her mother. "Mum, I'm sorry, okay? None of this was our fault. We didn't expect any of this."

Jackie frowned. "Well, I'm glad you're all safe. That's what matters." She paused to bounce Miranda, whose gurgles were starting to sound suspiciously like cries. "So what's all this I'm hearing about an alien? Your father said that was that girl in the window. What is she? She looks human enough."

"Here, I'll take her," Rose murmured, reaching over and taking Miranda into her arms. She shifted the baby to her shoulder and kissed her fuzzy little head, gently rocking. I missed you, I missed you, I missed you. "You're probably hungry, aren't you? It's been a while since you ate."

With Jackie trailing behind her, Rose turned and rounded the nearest corner. They entered a different corridor, which was completely deserted but still within earshot of their family. Rose walked down the fluorescent hall in silence until she located a small bench. It wouldn't be the most comfortable thing in the world, but it would work for now. She settled into the bench cushion and, with Jackie acting as a privacy screen, singlehandedly unbuttoned her blouse. After a moment of expert maneuvering, Rose latched Miranda onto her breast and leaned against the wall. Nobody spoke; the silence was only broken by Miranda's quiet suckling and the occasional hiccup.

I missed you, I missed you, I missed you, Rose thought. She took Miranda's tiny wrinkled hand and kissed it.

"What's happening, sweetheart?" Jackie asked quietly.

Rose sighed and rested her head on the wall, looking up at her mother. "The girl's name is Jenny. We found her in the wreckage of a spaceship in Cardiff this morning."

"So she's not human," Jackie said warily. She sat down on the bench.

Rose slowly ran her thumb over Miranda's head, which was just starting to sprout golden peach fuzz. "She's a Time Lord, Mum. She's the Doctor's daughter, from our home universe. It's a long story—"

But Jackie had evidently stopped listening. Her eyes were wide with anger. "What the hell do you mean, she's his daughter? With who? She's got to be, what, sixteen? All this time he had a daughter and he never bothered to tell us?!"

The outburst had startled Miranda; she let go of Rose's breast and began to cry. "Shh, shh, it's all right," Rose cooed, gently guiding Miranda back to the nipple. Once reattached, she immediately quieted and went back to suckling. Really, Mum, can't you just listen for once? Rose thought angrily. Just once it would be nice to fully explain something before Jackie prematurely chimed in. "Jenny was born after we got stuck here, after Canary Wharf. She was born out of a cloning machine, or something, but there was an accident and up until now the Doctor thought she was dead."

It was a tremendously abbreviated version of what really happened, but Rose was too tired and too irritated to go into detail. Besides, it wasn't her story to tell. She was the only one who knew about the Doctor's dead children, and the Doctor would probably prefer to keep it that way. If Jackie wanted more information…well, she'd have to go to the Doctor.

Rose closed her eyes and prepared herself for the inevitable onslaught of questions, but there was only silence. Well. Today was full of surprises, wasn't it? She cautiously glanced at her mother. Jackie was staring at Rose with disbelieving eyes, mouth opening to speak, but she was interrupted by echoing footsteps down the corridor. Both turned to see Katherine running towards them with Pete watching from the end of the hall.

"I found you!" Katherine said, skidding to a halt between Rose and Jackie. She curiously peeked at Miranda, but got bored and leaned on Jackie's lap. "Grandpa says we're goin' someplace else now, 'cause Daddy's friend gotta take a test with Dr. Martha. Is Dr. Martha gonna give her a shot?"

"Who's Daddy's friend, sweetheart?" Jackie asked, standing up and giving Pete a questioning stare.

"Jenny," Katherine said impatiently, as if this was common knowledge. Well, that temporarily resolved the issue around their relationship, then. Until further notice, it seemed that Jenny would simply be "Daddy's friend." Rose sat up straighter as Katherine continued speaking. "Daddy an' Jenny went with Dr. Martha, 'cause Jenny's gotta take a test, an' Grandpa says we gotta go with them. But I don't wanna go. Can I see the aliens now? Wanna talk to aliens, Mummy."

Test? What kind of test? Had something gone wrong? Rose carefully removed Miranda from her breast, murmuring apologies when she cried in protest. She hastily buttoned her blouse and stood up, using one hand to cradle Miranda and taking Katherine's hand with the other. "No, I think we have to go follow Daddy and Grandpa," she said, leading her mother and children down the hallway as quickly as she could.

What sort of test could they possibly need? They'd done everything they could as soon as Jenny arrived; as far as they could tell, she was perfectly healthy. Had something come up? Nothing could go wrong, if something happened to Jenny…what would happen to the Doctor, then? He wouldn't take it well. He might not be able to take it at all. He'd lost too many children before, if something happened to Jenny now…

Calm down, Rose thought sharply as they joined her father at the end of the corridor. It can't be too serious. Dad sent Katherine to tell us, it can't be too urgent if he didn't tell us himself. Still, the sooner she figured out what was going on, the better.

Earlier that day...

It was nearing ten o'clock in the morning, and nine-year-old Tom MacDonald was riding his skateboard through the suburbs of Glasgow. School was out for the day on account of parent-teacher conferences, and he wanted to finally show Jack the new board he'd gotten for his birthday. It was red and yellow and faster than anything Tom had ever ridden before, and certainly the best gift he'd gotten all year.

It would be nice to finally have a skateboard. For a long time he thought he'd never get one and that the guys would all leave him behind like always, but now he had a skateboard just like them. Except his was faster and definitely a lot cooler. His mum had made a big fuss about it and kept nagging him to wear a helmet, but Tom didn't care. He wasn't going to wear a stupid helmet when he showed off his brand-new board to his mates.

Without any warning, Tom was thrown from his skateboard and landed flat on his face. It came out of nowhere. Suddenly everything was violently shaking. The ground was shaking. Car horns erupted left and right, and glass was breaking everywhere, and house alarms were screeching, and crashes were heard in every possible direction. Tom didn't know what was going on, but he knew that he was bloody well scared, and he covered his head the best he could. Something could fall on his head at any second, maybe a brick or an anvil like in those stupid cartoons his brother watched. Maybe it would fall on him and crush his skull, and the very thought of it made Tom's heart skip a beat. For once, he thought his mum was right about wearing a helmet.

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to cry, because his dad said that men didn't cry, but he was so scared and he just wanted his mum even though he'd never say that again in his life, but it was true and let me live, God, please let me live let me live let me live.

And suddenly, it all stopped. The shaking came to an abrupt halt, and there was a curious silence behind all of the sirens. Tom slowly lifted his head and looked around. Broken glass was all over the road and the windshield of a nearby car was cracked like a spider-web. What was that? Tom thought. His heart was beating at a million miles per hour, thumping painfully against his ribs. He carefully climbed to his feet and examined his surroundings. There was nobody on the street, but he could hear people rummaging around in their houses, throwing open windows and screaming for someone to dial 999. He clutched at his curly red hair and stared in bewilderment. He'd just survived a bloody earthquake! Now, that would make a good story for his friends.

Tom breathed deeply dropped his hands. He wondered if his mum and brother were all right. He definitely ought to check on them, first. Besides, his mum would be furious if he didn't tell her that everything was fine. With a sigh and another look around, Tom picked up his skateboard and ran back the way he came.

A shadow fell over the street, and Tom looked up. Perhaps it was a rescue zeppelin from the city. But to his surprise, the sky was totally clear. Not a cloud in sight, as if there'd never been an earthquake. Nothing that could cause a shadow. Tom looked at the dark ground and back at the sky. A low-pitched hum worked its way through his ears all the way down to his toes, and his body felt all prickly and tingly, as if somebody had stuck him full of pins and jolted him with electricity at the same time.

His gut twisted and he broke into a run. As soon as he went home and found his mum, everything would be all right. Everything would be all right as soon as he found his mum. Everything would be all right.

He ran for about twenty seconds before he vanished from sight. His skateboard fell to the ground with a clatter, lost amongst the debris from the earthquake. Tom MacDonald, nine years old, was never seen again.

Author's Note: I had a very hard time putting this chapter together, and I definitely feel like it's not quite up to par. I would love to hear ANY constructive criticism you may have! Reviews keep me motivated to write!