Thanks so much for the feedback on the last chapter! Heard from more of you than usual which was super nice because I was starting to think some of you had lost interest.
But now, after some patient waiting, you guys will get to meet the Daliya baby and see who is on the rescue team for Demon's Run!
The Doctor was left alone in the TARDIS console room with only a white puddle of decommissioned Flesh for company. He knew he wouldn't be able to think clearly until it was gone, so he put himself on automatic and cleaned up the mess that a minute ago had been his best friend.
When he was done, he sat on the steps by the console and buried his head in his hands.
Aliya being somewhere out of his reach was something he had had two months to come to grips with. He knew that he would be able to find her if only because of his faith in his own refusal to give up. But now…
The baby.
It had completely blindsided him, to say nothing of Aliya. It was the last thing either of them could ever have expected. There was a reason that the majority of Time Lord society conceived through science. Gallifreyan fertility was so laughably low – thanks to an old 'curse' of sterility (or close enough) - that most Gallifreyans considered themselves practically blessed if they were able to conceive a child even if they had been actively trying. If Gallifreyans believed in blessings, which they didn't.
And he and Aliya hadn't been actively trying. Babies had been the furthest thing from their minds, though it had to be said that they may have been a little, well, over-enthusiastic. But even with that taken into consideration, it was still a near-enough miracle in itself when one looked at the probability.
"I was always one to beat the odds," he muttered. I should have seen this coming.
Because now Aliya was in even more danger than ever. And not necessarily from to her kidnappers. If she survived, though – no, when she survived, because he couldn't bring himself to consider the alternative – that would mean that they had a baby. A child. Their child.
The thought was too much. These people, whoever they were, had his best friend, his partner in everything, and now they had his child too. It was time to learn just who the hell they thought they were, and where he could find them. They needed to be taught a lesson.
With solemnity in his hearts, the Doctor got to his feet and went to the console. There was much to do and it had to be done as soon as possible.
The worst physical pain she could ever remember experiencing seared through her lower body. Then a snap, followed by a sharper sort of pain.
"The pelvis is broken!" Medics. All around her, shouting, but she couldn't be sure how many because her eyes were squeezed shut while she screamed her head off.
"She's going into shock, we're losing her!"
It was easily the most horrific and traumatic experience of her life, trying to get another being outside of her body when she firmly believed it should never have been there in the first place. But of course there was no one around who would understand that. Just people who weren't even bothering to offer her a single word of reassurance. They were clinical in the sense that they were only concerned with getting the job done.
It was agony in every sense of the word. She was alone. She felt like she was being ripped apart. And she knew nothing about how any of it was supposed to work. Not knowing made everything a hundred times worse.
In a state of half-awareness, she could feel herself fading. The pain clouded everything else, every sense or thought, and she was too weak to care.
Until the cry of a baby filled the room.
Aliya's consciousness was dimming, because as she had predicted, her body had not been in any way prepared for such an ordeal. But before she passed or died or gave into whatever was happening to her, something else had to come first.
"Let me see!" She yelled. Or rather, she tried. Whether it came out as a command or just a croak, she would never know. Luckily, it worked either way and one of the medics brought the baby up into her line of sight.
It was rather disgusting, covered in bodily fluids she didn't want to think too much about, but…
"A girl," the medic holding the child said. His words changed the baby from a bizarre parasite into a beloved daughter in the space of a second.
"Then her name is Mariaka," Aliya managed to say. She took one more look at her daughter and smiled before everything went black.
When Aliya woke, her first thought was a wordless wondering of where the hell she was. Then the sterile white of her surroundings brought back memories of waking up in the pod and of every horrific thing that had happened after. It took all the strength she had to not burst into tears just at the thought of it.
Mariaka. Where is she?
Her reflex was to get up and find her baby, but when she went to get out of the bizarre bed she was in, she found that her body didn't cooperate in the slightest and nothing below her waist moved. Considering everything that had happened, it actually wasn't particularly surprising.
A more in-depth investigation had her realising that her bed was hovering. Also that she was in a white room with symmetrical staircases that led to the same door, and a table of medical instruments between the stairs. The table also had a bassinet, but it was empty.
There was only one sensible course of action left to her.
"If someone doesn't bring me my daughter in less than five minutes, there will be hell to pay!" She yelled at the top of her lungs to the empty room. If they were using half the sense she knew they possessed, they would be monitoring her and someone would pass along the message.
She found some controls on the side of her hovering bed that allowed her to change the angle of the back of it. This meant she could sit up properly and not lose the support the bed offered her weak and aching body, which was definitely a plus.
A few agonisingly slow minutes passed. Finally, the doors at the top of the room opened. A medic came in; a petite brunette who hurried down the stairs to hand the baby she was carrying over to her mother.
Aliya let Mariaka be placed in her arms. Euphoria flared in her at being able to hold her because she was tiny and soft and warm and swaddled in comfy white blankets. Tears welled up in her eyes, but for the first time since she had woken up in this strange place, they were happy ones.
"Hey," she whispered, brushing her fingers over Mariaka's head and smiling widely, "Look at you." Something occurred to her and she tore her gaze away from her child to look at the medic woman who was rummaging in a compartment underneath the table of medical instruments. "How long was I out?"
"A week and a half," came the hesitant reply. The woman came back to her with a small bottle. "You might as well feed her. We had to make an optimal lactic solution when we realised your body wasn't producing any milk."
Aliya nearly thanked her when she took the bottle with her free hand, but remembered that everyone in this place by all logic was her enemy. So she grabbed it and offered only a nod in return, resisting the urge to berate her for assuming her body would produce milk in the first place.
The woman walked out and Aliya glanced between the bottle and Mariaka. She frowned and held her baby closer.
"Why would I have mammary glands?" She said to her, making it clear how absurd she thought the idea was. "I'm not a dog."
Mariaka gurgled in response, but it sounded almost like a laugh, and Aliya found herself her smile growing even larger until it practically hurt.
"At least we're probably agreed on that point." She touched Mariaka's cheek. "Oh, look at you. You're so beautiful. I think you might have your father's eyes. That would be lovely." She offered the child the bottle, and her tiny mouth clamped onto the tip eagerly. "Well, at least that was easy."
As she watched her daughter drink from the bottle, she found herself relaxing a little, having been panicked and tensed since her waking. The baby's tiny and perfect face had her hearts swelling with more love than she had thought possible. Love that warmed her chest from the inside out.
Of course, that didn't stop her brain from considering all the factors it needed to.
"Mariaka's not a full name, you know," she said, thinking on it hard, "I'm going to need to think of the rest. My mother was a nerolundar. We could work with that. But I'm not so sure I want to go completely traditional either. An adjustment or two might be called for."
By the time Mariaka was done with the bottle, Aliya had decided on her daughter's full name.
"Mariakanerolunar," she whispered, kissing her head gently, "I don't know why we're here, but I promise that I'll fight for you with everything I have."
Mariaka's minuscule fist reached out and grabbed onto a dangling strand of Aliya's hair, making her laugh. She just jiggled her in place, making Mariaka laugh in turn. Aliya started singing her favourite lullaby from Gallifrey, the one she had taught Jenny and the one the Doctor had used to calm her in that tunnel on New Earth when her phobia had first seized her.
Singing softly all the while, she clutched her baby tighter to her chest and hoped to never have to let go.
Dorium Maldovar pushed through a beaded curtain to get into the back room of his Emporium. Two Headless Monks were waiting for him, their backs turned.
"Gentlemen! Good news," he announced, "My agents have procured the exact security software requested, the very latest upgrade." The monks turned around, but as was the norm for their kind, the darkness provided by their large hoods masked any hint of a face. "I extracted it from the memory of a Judoon trooper." Dorium made a face. "Well, I say extracted. It was quicker to take the whole brain. And to be honest, I don't think he's going to miss it." He held up the tiny silver box and smirked.
One of the Headless Monks reached out for the box.
"Uh uh uh!" Dorium said, keeping the box just out of his reach. "Small matter of payment, I think." A bag was handed to him and he took it. "Delightful." The contents of the bag squirmed underneath his fat blue fingers and he brightened. "Ooh! I do enjoy sentiment money. The way it wriggles." He chuckled happily and handed the silver box over. "You'll find it in the frontal lobe," he told them, "It should be quite easy – there's not a lot in there."
The Headless Monks turned to go, but Dorium wasn't quite done. He had to say his bit. It was his way to criticise the stupidity of others.
"But all this, just to imprison one child," he said sceptically, and the monks turned back in what was likely the closest they could come to conveying curiosity or a raised eyebrow. "Oh, I know what you're up to, I hear everything in this place. I even hear rumours about whose child you've taken…are you mad?!"
The monks, clearly not interested in letting him know anything else or receiving a lecture, turned and made to leave. He just stared after them, worried for their sake and for the sake of the universe itself.
"You know the stories about the Doctor, the things that man has done – god help us if you've made him angry!"
The Doctor was furious.
He was also desperate. And manic. And scared as all hell. He was experiencing almost every emotion he could think of all at once, because this situation was nothing he could ever have prepared for and the stakes were too high for him to be able to afford a single mistake.
But one thing was certain, and it was possibly the only course of action he knew would not be a mistake.
He needed help.
The logical place to start was with the one other person who would definitely join him in getting Aliya back. The good thing was that she happened to be with a few others who would quite possibly also want to help.
The TARDIS landed in the Torchwood Hub with even worse wheezing than usual. When it came to actually leaving the box, though, the Doctor hesitated. He had been scouring the universe for a week, and the only thing he had managed to trace from the signal that had been maintaining Aliya had been the year and general galactic region. The 52nd century, and a quadrant big enough that it would still take him years to search. It was a start, but it wasn't nearly enough. Finding so little in a whole week, a week he had spent on his own agonising over it all, meant that he wasn't sure how he was going to explain what was going on to Jenny and the others.
How could he get the words out? It was all so impossible and in so many ways his worst nightmare.
He took a deep breath, and stepped out of the box.
Around him, the Hub was bustling with activity as all of the Torchwood members yelled out instructions and requests to one another, all of them actually seeming busy and on task for the first time since the Doctor had begun visiting the Hub.
It was, of course, Jenny who eventually noticed his presence.
"Dad!" She squealed, running to hug him. He hugged her back, but his lack of energy must have been obvious because she let go quickly and frowned at him. "You okay?"
"Er, no, not really," he answered truthfully, "I need to talk to Jack. And you."
Concern etched itself over her young face, and a moment later she clicked onto the crucial piece of the puzzle. "Where's Aliya?"
The Doctor just sighed, his exhaustion revealing itself. "Tell Jack that I need him. I'll be in his office." He made his way there while Jenny ran off in the opposite direction with surprisingly few questions. He supposed it was that soldier side of her that had never entirely left, and right now it was likely to serve as an asset.
When he got to Jack's office – after ignoring a curious Marion, Gwen and Esther who had eyed him on his journey but wisely said nothing to him – he sat himself at the head of the table, steepled his fingers, and waited.
Sure enough, it only took a minute to get Jack rushing into the room with Jenny and Hart on his heels.
"Doctor?" He asked, frowning at his old friend. "What's going on? Where's Aliya?"
"She's been taken," the Doctor replied seriously.
"Taken?" Hart repeated, lifting an eyebrow.
"I need your help getting her back, both of you," the Time Lord continued, "Because these people, they're very clever, and very powerful, and I need a whole team. Naturally, this is my first stop."
"But taken how?" Jack asked, very quickly becoming just as serious. "And by who?"
"She was kidnapped and replaced with a Flesh doppelganger, meaning even she wasn't initially aware of her own kidnapping," the Doctor explained. The others all pulled faces of disgust and shock. "Of course, she's clever and quickly realised something was wrong. We figured out what they had done, and reversed it so that her mind returned to her real body. Wherever that may be. 52nd century, that's about all I know so far."
"I know Flesh technology," Hart said, frowning, "It's weird stuff. But you've got a sodding time machine, if they were able to project their signal into it wherever you went-"
"Like I say," the Doctor interrupted, not even blinking, "Very clever, very powerful."
"Why would they kidnap her?" Jenny asked, horrified.
Jack shrugged. "She's one of the last two Time Lords in existence, they might want her for her biology-"
"Or?" The Doctor prompted. Jack held his gaze, but hesitated, like he wasn't sure if the Doctor wanted him to say whatever it was he was thinking.
"Or they've done it to get to you."
"Given the other major variable of the situation, I'd consider that theory more likely."
Hart crossed his arms. "And what would that other major variable be, Bowtie?"
The Doctor inhaled deeply, needing to be sure he could keep his voice steady when he told them about the thing he had barely managed to accept himself despite seeing the scanner's evidence with his own eyes. He didn't quite succeed.
"Aliya's pregnant."
The three people in front of him all gaped. But only one of them seemed to truly grasp the true weight of the statement, and that was his daughter.
"But, she told us that the odds were so low, it was practically impossible," Jenny said.
The Doctor chuckled, but there was no humour in it. "And when haven't I beaten the odds?" When it became apparent that none of them really knew how to respond, he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Minor correction to my previous statement – she was pregnant. By the time I cut the signal off, she was having contractions. She'll have given birth by now. Or died trying."
"Died?!" All three yelped.
"Time Lords don't reproduce the way you lot do, we used Looms that spun the genetic material into a baby after conception, we practically evolved out of it," the Doctor told them.
Jenny nodded. "Aliya said as much."
"Her body isn't built to withstand the process. It'll be half a miracle if she's survived."
"But wouldn't you be able to tell?"
"I can't be sure. I think they might have dampened her psychic presence somehow, to keep her hidden from me."
Hart narrowed his eyes. "You seem to be taking it all rather well, considering. Bit too calm for someone who just found he likely has a kid in the hands of lunatics and the mother might be dead."
The Doctor leaned back in his chair and met his gaze evenly. "Rage doesn't promote rational thought. Anything short of rational thought won't get either of them back. Do not mistake my calm for apathy." Hart, apparently appeased, just nodded.
Jack's eyes were hard to read, but a hint of a smile played on his lips. "He's the Oncoming Storm. The calm just comes first. I wouldn't want to be them when it's gone."
"So, you're coming, then?"
"I'd follow you anywhere, Doctor," his old companion replied, "Besides – she's my friend too."
"Me too, she's my mum, and that's my little brother or sister," Jenny said, nodding firmly.
Hart nodded as well. "I'm in too." Everyone else looked at him with surprise. "What? I like a good fight. This one ought to be a nice change from everything that goes on around here. And I like old Eyecandy. Let's go and get her back."
The group left the room, with Jack and John heading to grab themselves extra weapons while the Doctor and Jenny moved more slowly.
"Do you really think she might be dead?" His daughter asked him quietly.
He hugged her to his body with one arm. "No. She's strong. But-"
"What's with all the gloomy faces?" A familiar voice asked from nearby. "I thought that was my job." Sure enough, they both turned their heads to see Marion eyeing them curiously.
"Aliya's in trouble, and we're going with Dad to help," Jenny explained, "But we'll be back soon."
"If Hart is going with you, please don't hurry back," the brunette retorted, making Jenny chuckle a little, "But...best of luck with your venture, I suppose."
"Thank you," the Doctor said, nodding at her.
Jenny took something out of her pocket and held it up. It was a pill bottle. "I spotted this in the bin by your desk." Marion rolled her eyes but caught the small container when it was tossed her way.
"You're not my mother, little princess," she said, popping one of the pills in her mouth before slipping the bottle into her lab coat pocket. Under Jenny's lifted eyebrow, she reluctantly added, "But thanks."
"You guys coming or not?" A somewhat overly enthusiastic Hart asked them from beside the TARDIS. He was sporting samurai swords as well as dual blasters.
"On our way," the Doctor called back before glancing at Marion. "Well, if all goes well, we'll be back soon and you and Aliya can annoy each other to your heart's content."
Marion rolled her eyes again. He and Jenny turned away from her and headed towards the TARDIS. When he heard the Torchwood doctor coughing from behind them, he glanced at his daughter, who was surprisingly quiet.
"Is she okay?" He asked her. "Marion?"
"It's up for debate," Jenny replied, not looking happy, "But we're got other things to worry about at the moment. What do you think our first move is going to be in finding Aliya?"
As they reached the TARDIS and followed Jack and John inside, the Doctor shrugged. "I have a few ideas."
The Twelfth Cyber Region were in a spot of trouble.
The entire command ship shook, very nearly throwing its far from nimble occupants off balance completely. There were intruders on board, ones who had already breached level nine and managed to escape onto the next level despite level nine being sealed. The group of cybermen in the main control room were about as close to worried as their emotionally-inhibited brains were capable of.
"Intruders level eleven," a cyberman reported.
"Seal levels twelve, thirteen and fourteen," the cyberleader commanded.
"Intruders, level fifteen."
"Prepare to engage."
The door to the control room slid open to reveal a blonde who was of small stature but carried a rather large gun. Behind her was a taller masculine figure with samurai swords in his hands.
"I have a message, and a question," the female said as she entered the room. Her tone was almost casual, but her young eyes were serious enough to command their attention, "A message from the Doctor, and a question from me. Where. Is. My. Mum?" When they didn't respond, she just polished her gun with her olive green sleeve. "You can give me those blank looks all you like, but I've been informed by a rather reliable source that the Twelfth Cyber Legion monitors this entire quadrant."
"We know you hear everything, so I'd tell her what she needs to know, and we'll be on our way without anyone needing to lose an arm," the male continued, flipping one of his swords over in his hand with practised ease.
The cyberleader eyed them cautiously. "What is the Doctor's message?"
In the view of the window behind the intruders, the entirety of the Twelfth Cyber Legion was blown to pieces. The command ship was the only one left untouched.
The blonde girl lifted an eyebrow at them. "Would you like me to repeat the question?"
Since waking up a week previously, Aliya had learned a number of things about her current situation. She was on a base called Demon's Run that was built into an asteroid. During her time as a Flesh avatar, her real body had been given a brain inhibitor that had slowed her cognitive function so that the four months of her ganger's life could be fed to her real self across the ten months she had been here. They had also slapped a psychic inhibitor bracelet on her so that the Doctor would have no way of sensing her. No matter how hard she tried to remove it, the damned thing wasn't coming off.
The woman with the eyepatch was called Madame Kovarian. She was the coldest bitch Aliya had ever had the misfortune to meet. And she had never thought that anyone would be able to challenge Marion for the title, let alone win it from her without even trying.
Whenever Kovarian was in the room, Aliya tended to hold Mariaka all the tighter by pure reflex alone.
Still, at least the bizarre religious military that these people seemed to be had been accommodating about the baby's name. The bassinet had 'Mariakanerolunar' printed on the side now.
"There are so many things I wish I could promise you, Ria," Aliya told her daughter quietly, doing her best to ignore the gaze of the soldiers and Madame Kovarian. "Constant love and safety and protection. The first I can promise in the sense that even if you've been taken from me and raised to not know it, I will always love you. But I can promise that you'll be brave. Bravery is in your blood, which is good because you're going to need it." Mariaka grabbed her finger and Aliya smiled at her before looking up at Madame Kovarian.
"Two minutes," the eyepatch-wearing woman said.
Aliya's next words were very much intended as a threat, even if she was still technically speaking to her baby. "But they'll need to be braver, because a storm is coming for them. A man feared by the darkest of creatures, who can do more than whole armies with just his words. And he's coming for us, and he'll never give up so long as he's still breathing. His name is the Doctor. He's mad, and wonderful, but the absolute last man that anyone in the universe would want to cross. And he's your father. So know that wherever they might take you, Mariaka, we'll only be one step behind."
Kovarian moved in to take the baby.
"Fuck off," Aliya snapped, only holding her tighter, "You'd better be a long way from here when the Doctor gets here because as soon as I get the chance I'm going to put you through the same hell you've given me."
The baby was eventually taken after the soldiers held her mother down. Still weak from the damage done to her body during the birth, Aliya was unfortunately not difficult to overpower, especially while in a hovering bed/chair.
"Whatever you're trying to do," she told Kovarian, "You're going to fail. I'll personally see to it."
Kovarian just smirked and took Mariaka from the room in the large white basket.
"So what now?"
Jenny's question hung in the air of the TARDIS console room. Hart was comfortably sitting on the jump seat while the other three stood around the console, the Doctor himself at the scanner.
"I mean, we know where they are," she continued, "An asteroid base. Called Demon's Run. We even have the coordinates."
"Demon's run when a good man goes to war," Hart said quietly, earning curious looks from his comrades, "It's that old saying innit?" The Doctor frowned. "Sort of fitting."
Jack tilted his head thoughtfully. "Wasn't there a whole poem?"
"Demon's run when a good man goes to war," Hart recited, "Night will fall and drown the sun, when a good man goes to war. Friendship dies and true love lies, night will fall and the dark will rise, when a good man goes to war-"
"Stop it," the Doctor snapped, his fist clenching where it sat on the TARDIS console.
It was Jack who finished the poem. "Demon's run, but count the cost, the battle's won but the child is lost." The Doctor glared at him. "Doesn't exactly bode well."
"It's just a poem, it means nothing," the Time Lord said firmly, "We have more important things to be doing. That base is fortified, the four of us aren't getting near it on our own. We need reinforcements. And I know just who to start with."
He got Jenny's help in piloting the TARDIS to Paternoster Road, or more specifically, directly inside Vastra's drawing room. He knew that if he remained parked there, Vastra would know that something was up and come to his aid, because she had told him as much.
If a time comes, my friend, when you need me to fight alongside you, park your magic box and wait.
He had thanked her at the time, but not taken her too seriously because he had never thought he would be knowingly entering any sort of battle where he would risk others. How wrong he had been.
Once landed, the Doctor explained who Vastra and Jenny were and why he was recruiting them, before going on to mention who else he was intending to pick up afterwards. By the time he was done, there was a knock at the door.
"Come in," he called, turning around just in time to see the Silurian and her maid enter. They were dressed for action, Vastra in a free flowing skirt, corset and blouse while Jenny Flint was in a fashionable waistcoat and trousers combination. Both carried swords similar to Hart's. "Vastra, Jenny. Glad you could join us."
"Glad to be of service," Vastra replied as she and Jenny came to join them on the console platform. The latter was quietly regarding the console room with wonder, having never been inside the box before.
"Vastra, Jenny, I'd like you to meet my Jenny," the Doctor said, smiling as he put his arm around his small blonde counterpart, "My daughter. Jenny, this is Madame Vastra and her companion Miss Jenny Flint."
"Nice to meet you," Jenny said brightly, holding her hand out to both of them in turn.
"Delighted," Vastra replied.
"So, when you say companion, just how disappointed should I be?" Hart drawled, giving them both once overs before holding his hand out to Jenny. "Captain John Hart." Vastra tensed, sniffed at him, and glared. He just chuckled. "Guess that answers that."
"Captain Jack Harkness," Jack interjected, taking Vastra's hand and kissing it, "Apologies for my friend. He's kind of an asshole."
"Boyfriend," Hart corrected.
"Debatable," Jack retorted.
Vastra just smirked. "I should have known, Doctor, that you would only keep interesting company. Now, what exactly is the problem?"
"Aliya's in trouble," the Doctor said, "But I'm waiting until we've got the others before I explain."
Their next stop was to recruit a Sontaran called Strax, one the Doctor had condemned to serving penance through being a nurse a good while back when their paths had first crossed. The Doctor had saved his life, and due to abhorring the idea of owing an enemy of the Sontaran Empire, Strax had forced him to promise to collect on the life debt should he ever need it repaid.
Once the Sontaran was inside the TARDIS, convincing him to stay complacent while they collected Dorium was a little difficult, but Vastra and her samurai sword helped considerably.
"You can't need me!" Dorium exclaimed when the Doctor opened the door on him.
"That's denial talking," the Time Lord replied, smiling at him.
The large blue man sighed heavily and pushed past him to enter the box. "Good lord. So these are your debtors."
"I prefer the word friends."
"I am not your friend, sir," Strax protested.
"Sorry, Strax," the Doctor apologised, "Friends…and Strax."
"You know, I'm feeling quite loved all of a sudden," Hart exclaimed, grinning. Several people told him to shut up, which only led to an argument punctuated by multiple death threats. Dorium sighed again.
"Gods help us all."
When everyone was quiet and mostly amiable, the Doctor explained just why he required their help to the newer arrivals. Vastra and Jenny Flint expressed distress at hearing about Aliya being in danger and how the kidnapping had occurred during the Scotland Yard attack. Strax meanwhile cared only about the fight to come.
The Doctor had deliberately left one detail out, however. The crucial one.
"And the child?" Dorium asked, lifting an eyebrow at the Time Lord, who was surprised to realise that he knew about the one thing he had been avoiding mentioning.
"The child?" Vastra repeated curiously. "What child?" The Doctor bit his lip and sat on the jump seat. He didn't think he could even talk about it. Doing so got him thinking, and the thinking led to the debilitating fear which was the opposite of what he currently needed. "Doctor?"
"Their child," Jenny said, her voice quiet, "His and Aliya's. She was pregnant when they took her. Assuming the birth didn't kill her, these people have Aliya and her baby."
Vastra's eyes were wide as she looked at the Doctor. "You told me about your people. The curse of sterility, how you had to use Looms for the child to survive…how could this be possible?"
"It shouldn't be," he replied, "But I've always had a knack for managing the impossible."
"Well, you did tell us that you two were drifting in space for four months because you couldn't stop shagging-ow!" Hart rubbed where Jenny had hit him on the arm just as Marion would have done if she had been present.
Vastra and Jenny Flint, in a perfectly synchronised movement, turned their heads and lifted their eyebrows at the Doctor, who had gone very pink. Dorium chuckled deeply.
"Someone's been busy, apparently."
"We're not talking about this," the Time Lord said, shaking his head.
"Why?" Hart asked. This was very much the wrong thing to say, because the other man's mood shifted in an instant.
"Because every second we waste is another second that Aliya and my child are in that place, and in danger!" The Doctor shouted, jumping to his feet and glaring at him. "So stop with the jokes, and just listen. Here's what's going to happen."
It had been two and a half weeks since Aliya had woken and gotten to hold her baby for the first time. Meaning she had officially been at Demon's Run for a month since her ganger had melted in the TARDIS. Her faith in a rescue had not wavered, but she was beginning to wish the Doctor would hurry up a bit. Especially with this military lot being more and more concerning every day.
There was some sort of rally or group address happening on the ground floor. The window of the room that had become her prison gave her a good view of what was going on, though whether this was a good thing was hard to say.
"He is not the Devil," Colonel Manton was telling his troops. Manton was a dark skinned man with an impressive presence and the voice of a commander. Now that she heard what he was saying, Aliya was glad to have never had to hold a conversation with him. "He is not a goblin, or a phantom or a trickster. The Doctor is a living, breathing man, and as I look around this room I know one thing. We're sure as hell going to fix that."
Aliya, feeling sick, turned her head away from the window. She was still weak enough to be confined to her hovering bed, but it was on an incline that made it more like a comfy chair these days. That didn't make it much less frustrating, unfortunately. Time Lords did not do well with confinement or coddling of this sort.
The door at the top of the room slid open and a soldier girl entered that Aliya vaguely recognised from some of the guard rotations. She was beautiful, with light olive skin and a long dark braid of hair. But most importantly, she had kind eyes, and it was her eyes that Aliya remembered.
"Sorry," she said hesitantly, "I shouldn't be here. I'm meant to be at the thing."
Aliya eyed her with a great deal of curiosity. "Then why aren't you?"
The girl flushed. "I brought you something. Your child's name wouldn't fit on here, and I don't know what it means anyway, but…your daughter is a child of time. So that's what it says. Time Child, in the language of my people. It's a prayer leaf and we believe, if you keep this with you, your child will always come home to you."
The Time Lady touched the controls of her chair to move it a little closer to the soldier girl. "Thank you." She took the offering and turned it over in her hands. It was a beautiful gift, and she even thought she recognised the writing. "Is this the language of the Gamma Forest?"
The girl nodded, a little more enthusiasm in her eyes.
"It really is wonderful," Aliya told her, "Thank you. It's a nice change from the things they're saying."
"Like what?"
"Like he's famous." The blonde frowned. "It's too weird."
"He meets a lot of people," the girl said, shrugging, "Some of them…remember. He's sort of like a - I don't know. A dark legend."
"A dark legend?" Aliya snorted. "If you'd ever met him, you would know how far from reality that is."
The soldier bristled. "I have met him, actually, when I was a little girl." She crossed her arms. "I met you too, but you obviously don't remember."
The rejection in her voice was obvious, and any annoyance in the Gallifreyan woman deflated. "What's your name?"
"Lorna. Lorna Bucket."
Aliya looked her right in the eye. "Well, Lorna, I've never met anyone by that name. And I don't forget. And I've never been to the Gamma Forest, but I've always wanted to go. So I can almost guarantee that I will meet you, but the reason I don't remember is because it hasn't happened for me yet. The same will go for the Doctor."
Lorna considered this and nodded. "Okay. Thank you."
"And with that being considered, please make sure you're on the right side when he gets here, because I might not be around to vouch for you."
Lorna nodded again and hurried from the room to get to the rally. Aliya, having had Mariaka taken from her for good that morning, clutched the prayer leaf in her hand and wished for nothing more than her baby back in her arms. Unfortunately, all she got was Colonel Manton's disgusting speech.
"On this day, in this place, the Doctor will fall," he promised his troops, who cheered. "The man who talks, the man who reasons, the man who lies, will meet the perfect answer." They cheered again. "Some of you have wondered why we have allied ourselves with the Headless Monks. Perhaps you should have wondered why we call them Headless. It's time you knew what these guys have sacrificed for faith. As you all know, it is a Level One Heresy, punishable by death, to lower the hood of a Headless Monk. But by the divine grant of the Papal Mainframe herself, on this one and only occasion, I can show you the truth."
Now, that was a fairly bold statement. It really showed how determined they were to bring the Doctor down, if they were getting exceptions for heresies normally punishable by death. Aliya herself was curious to see what was under the hoods of these Headless Monks. She had seen several around over the previous couple of weeks and had found them wholly disturbing.
Manton approached the first in a line of three Headless Monks on his small stage. "Because these guys never can be persuaded…" He lowered the hood to reveal the top of a torso that had no head attached, only a knot tied in the skin of what had once been the neck.
Aliya's stomach turned. Below her and in front of Manton, many of the troops shifted on their feet with similar unease.
"They can never be afraid," Manton continued, lowering the second hood to reveal the same atrocity as the first, "And they can never, ever be-"
"Surprised!" The third figure pushed their hood back to reveal their face.
It was the Doctor.
Aliya's hearts leapt in her chest and she pressed her hand against the window so that she could get a better look at the face she had so sorely missed. An outrageously huge grin of pure relief had taken over her face and before she knew it she was laughing out loud and unable to stop. "Ha ha!" The Doctor smiled at all of the soldiers like they all didn't want to kill him. "Hello, everyone. Guess who. Please, point a gun at me if it helps you relax." The army did just that, with the Headless Monks preparing their charged swords. "You're only human."
"Doctor, you will come with me right now," Colonel Manton commanded, but the Doctor paid his words no mind.
"Three minutes forty seconds," he said offhandedly before lifting his voice to the ceiling. "Aliyanadevoralundar! Get your jacket!" The lights went off, giving the Doctor time to disappear by the time they came back on a few seconds later. He taunted the army, resulting in utter chaos between the factions. Aliya lay back in her chair and continued to grin and giggle, giddy with the joy of knowing that her rescue was upon them.
The Colonel sounded like he managed to gain control by getting everyone to disarm their weapon backs, which would have been a good move if an entire force of Silurians hadn't beamed in, assisted by a few Judoon and a single Sontaran.
"This base is now under our command," the Sontaran told Manton.
Aliya, by that point back at the window, watched with wide eyes, realising that this entire force had been assembled for the sake of rescuing her and Mariaka. It was bizarre, yet utterly incredible.
I knew he would come. I just didn't think he'd raise a small army first.
Most of you guys worked out that the baby had to be a girl for the sake of some of the already established plot. Apologies to anyone who wanted a boy though. :P
For those who might be wondering, Mariaka's full name is pronounced: mah-ree-ah-kah-neer-oh-loon-ar
Sorry that you don't get the nice family reunion in this chapter, but with the way the size of the whole storyline worked out, I had to make the cut where I did. But it just means there's even more to look forward to next chapter, I guess! (Because let's be honest, Eleven with babies is the absolute best thing, and seeing with him with his OWN baby is going a new level of adorable.)
I love hearing from you guys, your feedback is really appreciated!
Til the next time (aka like 4 or 5 days, guaranteed because I've already finished the next chapter),
-MayFairy :)
Anonymous Review Replies:
Guest - Thanks for the review! I haven't read enough other fics involving Timebabies to know what the norm gender is, haha, but unfortunately this one was always going to be a girl. Of course, we're far from the end of the Doctor and Aliya's story, so you never know what might happen. ;)
Guest(s) - Thanks to the few of you that just commented with some general surprise and support, it was really great!