Etched in History

The Mystery Deepens

"Jane, I need to speak to you."

A crackle, then the intercom finally replied. "Rynne? Oh… this isn't the…" There was a pause, leaving Rynne frowning into the metal contraption that relayed their messages. "Give me a moment." A buzz, and the outer door of the block of flats opened, allowing Rynne access. Literally running up three flights of stairs, the woman was greeted at the door by someone at least forty years her senior. Dark grey hair and old brown eyes told of many battles she had won and lost, Jane giving the younger woman a small smile and a brief hug. "You haven't visited me in so long, I thought that you didn't need me any more."

Rynne glanced behind the older woman, realising she had ever right to be angry with her. "Look, some of the things you told me were, um, a little hard to understand, but I really need to tell you something. Can I come in?"

Sighing sadly, Jane moved backwards, eyes darting behind her for a moment as she motioned with her arms that her younger friend should enter her home. Stopping for a moment, it was as if Jane wanted to tell Rynne something, but couldn't quite find the words. Finally giving up, the pair walked into the tired living room, sitting down on the old but comfortable seats. Without saying a word, the older woman then got up again, making excuses that she needed to make them both a cup of tea, and so Rynne was left on her own for a minute or so. This place had been like a second home to her as she had been growing up, Jane being the woman that had managed to give Rynne the fresh start in life she had needed when she was a baby. In fact, she had been the one that had stopped her mother from killing her, and gave her straight away to her adoptive parents. That was why Rynne had always looked at her as some kind of guardian angel, and now felt completely terrible that she had stopped coming to see her for quite a number of months now.

Coming back with a small tray, there was a forced smile on Jane's face, offering the student one of the cups. Taking it gladly, Rynne took a sip, not caring that it was hot enough to burn her mouth. All she wanted was some normalcy, and this was going to be as normal as it got. After all, she was preparing to tell her mentor something she wouldn't tell anyone else, and things could never be the same between them again. "Thanks, Jane. I… I'm sorry I haven't come to see you in so long, but-"

"But you were starting to think that I was going senile?" The words cut much more sharply than Rynne had thought they would, the woman even flinching at the correct assumption.

"If you were in my shoes, you would have thought exactly the same thing." Rynne wasn't about to deny how she had felt. Jane had watched intently when Rynne had come to her, terrified of the black outs that she was having up to two years ago, the student grateful that there was someone there to rely on. She had never told her parents, for fear of them forcing her to come home because of the mystery that surrounded the illness, but Jane was always there. Thank whatever was up there for Jane being there for her, or else Rynne would have had no idea what to do. "You were quiet for a while, then started blaming my seizures of aliens from another planet! What else was I supposed to do?"

Jane sipped her own tea, avoiding Rynne's gaze. "But then you started writing, didn't you? It was always the Time Lords and the Doctor." Putting her cup down on the saucer that had accompanied it, she stopped. "Have you changed your mind about what I've said? Is this what this is all about?"

Rynne rubbed her eyes, wishing suddenly that all of this were just some kind of terrible dream. "I… I saw them." A crash found Jane's cup and saucer shattered on the floor, shards of china all over the thin carpet beneath their feet. "Jane? Are you alright?"

She didn't even register that there was anything wrong. "You saw them? Saw who?"

The demanding voice of the older mentor brought reality crashing around the pair of them as surely as gravity had worked its way on the cup itself. Rynne swallowed, feeling like some kind of naughty schoolchild, forced to tell the headmistress something bad that she had done. "The Doctor and one of his companions. Martha Jones." Before Jane could comment, Rynne just wanted to get everything off her chest. "I had a seizure coming down one of the streets, and they were there, helping me up. They took me home, and were just how I wrote them!" Shaking her head, the aspiring writer continued. "They asked questions about everything, and I thought it was a joke at first, but no one could have possibly read the manuscript. No one! They were even shocked to hear what I was writing about, and… and the Doctor left this." Fishing into her pocket, Rynne produced the paper that she had picked up from her desk. "He told me to go to them if I needed anything, but…"

"Don't see them." Hard words were something that Rynne had not expected. "They're dangerous, Rynne, and you don't know what they can do. Just finish your work, and then everything will be fine."

"Look, Jane, are you okay? You're not even questioning their existence! Have you really changed that much since I saw you last?"

"Just listen to me! Get it finished, then come back to me, so we don't have to worry about this any more!" At Rynne's shock, Jane softened slightly. "Take this with you." Reaching underneath the sofa, the woman pulled out an unknown object. At the base, it was completely flat, and it could have been a polished, curved stone if there wasn't a strange metallic quality about it. "If you really need to go and see them, take this, and leave it inside the TARDIS."

This information just confused Rynne even more. "You're saying this as if you think it all had to be real!" The fact that she also knew the word 'TARDIS' was also just as worrying, but there were too many other questions to ask than be occupied by something much smaller like that. "Maybe this was all just a bad idea. I'd better be going." A lump in the girl's throat told of how sad she was that her beloved Jane had changed so much, and she couldn't bear to be around this new version of her.

Standing when Rynne did, Jane didn't even blink as she held out the object for Rynne to take. "Just do as I told you, and everything will be taken care of." Nervously, Rynne held out her hand and took it, running her thumb over the smooth surface, surprised at how heavy it was. Black shone from it, and her first thought was that it was some bizarre little paperweight. She wouldn't be surprised if Jane really had gone off the deep end, considering how strangely she was acting. Could it really be possible that someone could become mad in such a short space of time?

"Jane..."

"I think you should go." The words were so final, it physically stung the young woman, eyes questioning the mentor that had meant so much to her. Before now, she had always been the person that Rynne knew she could depend on, and it seemed that her rock had just crumbled. Tears welling in her eyes, Rynne just nodded, not wanting to answer for the break that she knew would enter her voice.

Squeezing a little more tightly on the black object in her hand, Rynne stood, walking out of the flat, running back down the stairs, and just breaking down into floods of tears when the open air of outside hit her. In a single day, almost everything that she had ever relied upon in her life was being destroyed, and there was too much confusion within her to even begin to logically think about. She couldn't turn and talk to Dina, and, quite frankly, there was too much fear to actually go to the address the Doctor gave her to figure this all out.

The only place she could go to now was her home, and hopefully regroup there, away from the rest of the world. Maybe she would lie down, and find that this was all just a terribly cruel dream, her subconscious wanting her to suffer for some unknown reason. The only thing at the moment the girl could rely on was the sensation of the object in her hand, neither hot nor cold, simply being. Looking down at her hand, trying to concentrate on something other than her own salty tears was just one thought. There was just something that didn't fit, and the Doctor was part of her puzzle.