Thanks to najella, Sol3Bug, IsobelFrances, Avatar Rikki, and Vilinye for reviewingthe last chapter! It is very much appreciated. Here's the next chapter; things are starting to pick up. I just hope this story isn't being too glacially slow - the truth is that I tend to do character driven stuff better than plot, so this type of fic can be tricky. As always, all feedback/concrit very welcome!

Chapter Seven

'This is all a bad dream,' Al muttered to himself as the others in the car talked about stuff that made no sense, like pepperpots and time and Daleks. He pinched himself and yelped, attracting Clyde's attention.

'It's no dream,' the older boy told him over Sky's head. 'This is real – but it's all wrong. What are we gonna do, Sarah Jane?'

His gaze switched from Al to the woman driving the car, and Al unfolded himself from his foetal ball in order to sit up properly, pushing his glasses firmly into place as he did so. P'rhaps his sister was right and the world was coming to an end – even if it wasn't 2012 yet – and if that was the case he didn't want to miss it.

'What d'you mean, wrong?' he asked Clyde when no answer was forthcoming from Miss Smith – Sarah Jane.

'Something has thrown the timelines out of kilter,' Sarah Jane said, responding to both Clyde and Al in one go. She sounded as if she was talking more to herself than to them. 'Look at them, warriors from Britain's distant past and Daleks fighting in front of us, right here and right now. Daleks may be able to travel in time - but not even they could transfer the Wars of the Roses to London in 2011!'

'More history,' Clyde muttered in pretended disgust. 'Honestly, Sarah Jane, since hanging around with you I've learnt more history than I ever did from Mrs Pittman!'

'That's because you spent all of her lessons pulling faces, drawing cartoons and making stuff up,' Rani told him caustically. 'No wonder she said there was no way in heaven or hell she'd take you on for A'level.'

'Suited me just fine!' Clyde retorted, glaring at her. 'Seriously though, what can we do?'

There was a long silence, and then Sarah Jane said, very quietly, 'I'm not sure there's anything we can do.'

'But -' Clyde started, while Rani's eyes went very wide.

'Think about it!' Sarah Jane told them. 'This disruption of timelines is almost certainly linked to the Doctor. If something has happened to him, there's nothing we can do – at least, not alone. This isn't like the last time, when his death was faked. This is what the universe should be if the Doctor died. Wrong. And if he's dead – really dead – I don't know if we can fix it.'

'So you're just gonna give up?' Clyde pressed, disbelief permeating his tone. 'Just like that?'

'Clyde!' Rani hissed, glancing towards Sarah Jane, but the older woman hardly twitched.

'I'm not giving up,' Sarah Jane told him tonelessly after an endless moment. 'But everything ends, Clyde. There comes a time when everyone and everything just … stops. That's the nature of the universe, and no amount of complaining can change that.'

'It still sounds like giving up to me,' Clyde repeated stubbornly. 'We're not even home yet. We haven't got Luke with us, or K9, and there's always Mr Smith. Why not see what they come up with before talking about everything ending?'

His tone verged on hostile as he finished, and Al found himself waited tensely for Sarah Jane's response. Would she throw Clyde out, and leave him to fend for himself?

At that point Clyde was distracted by his phone, and he frowned as he pulled it out and stared at it. The frown deepened, and when he spoke again it was in his usual tone. 'Sarah Jane, have a look this,' and he passed it to her.

Al fully expected the older woman to tell him what he could do with his phone, but she accepted it without comment, her eyes meeting Clyde's as she did so.

'The message has changed,' she said after a pause, tilting the screen so that she could see better. 'Earlier it said 'The end is nigh'. Now it says "help". It says help!' she repeated, new purpose surging through her voice. 'You're right, Clyde. This isn't the time to give up... Sky? Sky, can you wake up?'

'I thought she was coming round a minute ago,' Clyde said, giving the little girl a gentle shake. 'But she's out of it again. What d'you want, her mobile?'

At Sarah Jane's nod, he dug around in the various layers surrounding Sky, and gave a small crow of triumph when he found it, flicking a thumb across the screen to activate it. 'The same,' he said, handing it to Sarah Jane.

She studied it carefully and returned it. 'Right,' she began decisively, 'I'm getting out. We're just around the corner from Bannerman Road I'm hoping that Luke is nearby. Once we're all together, we can plan.'

'Sarah Jane -' Rani protested just as Clyde exclaimed, 'You can't go by yourself! It's dangerous out there!'

'I'm not going alone,' she told them simply. 'You need to stay with Sky and Al, Clyde. Rani's with me.'

Clyde slumped back against the seat. 'Left holding the babies again!' he groaned, provoking Al into indignant response.

'I don't need to be babysat! I can look after myself!'

Sarah Jane paused as she prepared to get out of the car and looked at him. 'You're staying here,' she repeated flatly. 'As Clyde says, it's dangerous out there, and I'm not going to be responsible for something happening to you. So long as you stay inside the car, all three of you, you should be fine.'

'H'mmm.' Clyde managed to sound both disgusted and sceptical.

Sarah Jane tossed him another quick smile as she locked the door. 'Just lie low and don't attract attention – and you'll be fine. I promise.'

With Rani at her side, she began to walk purposefully away from them, and Clyde and Al watched as she disappeared around the corner.

Al turned to Clyde, who was making a sustained effort to rouse Sky. 'Is it always like this?'

The elder boy glanced up. 'What, danger and the threat of global destruction? Heh. Yeah. Welcome to Team Sarah Jane, mate, and don't forget that when we get out of this you'll still be expected to go home and do your homework.'

Al squeaked and fell back against his seat, still not entirely certain whether he was dreaming or not. Save the world and be home for dinner? Weird. Just … weird.

As they rounded the corner that took them onto Bannerman Road and the sounds of battle grew ever louder, Sarah Jane put a warning hand on Rani's arm, halting her.

'What is it?' Rani murmured.

Sarah Jane looked up from her watch. 'There's a fight going on in the garden,' she murmured back. 'We haven't got any means of defending ourselves, so we need to be very careful.'

'What about the sonic?' Rani whispered, pressing up close to Sarah Jane.

The older woman shook her head. 'It's of no use against the Daleks, we'd never get close enough to use it, and it's equally useless against non-mechanical weapons. No, this time we're depending on our wits and our speed. Ready?'

'Always,' Rani affirmed, and Sarah Jane squeezed her arm.

'Good, let's go!'

Sarah Jane hunched down a little, praying that they would be low enough to evade the Daleks' motion sensors, and started to run, one hand over her head and keeping close to the brick red wall. Behind her, easily matching her pace, was Rani, and Sarah Jane spared a moment – once again – to be grateful for her young companions. They never flinched from what she asked of them.

She gave cry, hastily suppressed, when the battle moved too close, a crowd of medieval warriors momentarily obsuring them from the Daleks and inadvertently acting as a human shield. She picked up her speed as the warriors began to fall before the Daleks' invincible rays, and flung herself through the (broken) gate into her back garden, Rani dropping beside her almost at once.

'That was close,' Rani whispered. 'Are we safe now?'

'No; the house should be safe enough,' Sarah Jane whispered back. 'I had Mr Smith erect a semi-permeable force-field that repels Dalek-style weapons several years ago, but the garden's fair game.'

'Surrender!' a high-pitched metallic voice insisted, unseen from their position but uncomfortably close, perhaps just on the other side of the wall. 'Surrender or you will be exterminated!'

They heard someone try to say something, and then there was a cry.

'Does "exterminate" mean what I think it does?' Rani whispered into Sarah Jane's ear.

'It means exactly what you think it does,' Sarah Jane responded grimly. 'Those poor people, there was no way they could have defended themselves against those – those abominations.'

'Where do you think everyone is?' Rani asked, panic threading her tone. 'I didn't have time to check my house, but it won't have Mr Smith's field and all I saw was those old fighters and the Daleks... d'you think everyone living here has been … exterminated?'

'Don't think about it,' Sarah Jane told her firmly. 'We need to focus on getting inside. The garden looks clear, and I think we'll be able to use the back door. I don't want to risk the front; the drive's too open.' Rani nodded, and Sarah Jane took a deep breath. 'Come on!'

They traced the line of the house to the last corner before turning into where the back door was, and Sarah Jane, who was in front, stopped dead, her hand going quickly to her mouth to choke her scream at birth.

'What is it?' Rani asked as Sarah Jane flung out an arm to keep her back. 'Why aren't we – oh...'

'That's why I didn't want you to look,' Sarah Jane told her tonelessly.

She did not turn to look at the girl; her eyes were fixated on the unfortunates in front of her, grotesquely splayed across her garden path. One of the two was a medieval soldier, a boy who looked as if he was not much older than Sky. The other … the other was the old man who lived three doors down. Sarah Jane had exchanged perhaps ten words with him in all her years on Bannerman Road, but he'd been polite in the old days, the days of loneliness, before the Doctor and Deffrey Vale.

Both were dead, almost certainly victims of the Daleks.

And both were also being slowly consumed by the pair of pterosaurs who perched on the bodies, clearly enjoying their impromptu feast.

One of those long narrow heads twitched in their direction, an action that was oddly birdlike, and Sarah Jane pushed Rani back and down.

'They mustn't see us,' she hissed to the younger woman. 'Either they'll kill us themselves, or they'd raise such a racket that they'd draw attention to us.'

Rani slumped into Sarah Jane's bushes, her head against the red brick of the house. 'We're screwed. Either way, we're done for.'

'Hey, enough of that. I'll admit,' Sarah Jane went on with a deep breath, 'that this isn't good, but we've been in sticky situations before, and we've come through. We'll manage this time too, you'll see!'

Rani said nothing, and Sarah Jane swallowed, realised that her young apprentice was no longer a child, was indeed almost an adult, and easy words were nothing more than a waste of breath.

'Have faith, Rani,' she said in a rather different tone. 'We're not alone out here.'

'We might as well be, with the others stuck in the car and Luke who-knows-where,' Rani responded glumly, but Sarah Jane took heart from the fact that the girl's dark eyes were intent, signifying deep thought.

Thinking, she could cope with. In fact, thinking sounded like a very good idea about now.

She leaned against the wall in her own turn, forcing tense muscles to relax. They might have to run again at any moment, and she couldn't afford to be delayed by a cramp. Her eyes closed - only to pop open again in shock as something grabbed her shoulder from behind and above, and pulled.

TBC