This one is definitely one of my favourite chapters to date. Probably because it has extremes at the fluff AND angst ends of the scale, which is how I like my fics haha.
Thanks for all the comments and feedback so far, you're all wonderful!
Enjoy!
Kovarian walked with her guards towards the docking bay for her ship. They carried the baby in the large white basket while she adjusted the take-off settings on the docking bay's control panel.
"Get back in there with the rest of them," she told her guards, who put the basket on the floor at her feet, "Remember, the Doctor must think he's winning, right until the trap closes. I'll take my ship from here."
What she didn't know was that a certain young soldier had overheard her and decided to run off and find the Doctor's lieutenants to tell them everything.
"Airlock engaged. Shuttle ready for boarding."
"I don't think so," a voice from the shadows said, and Kovarian turned to see Jenny standing only a few feet away, a large gun pointed in her direction. Even closer were Jack and John, the latter of whom had one of his swords only two inches from Madame Kovarian's throat.
She barely blinked and instead sneered at them. "I have a crew of twenty. How do you expect to gain control of my ship?"
The airlock opened to reveal Captain Avery and his son Toby, with their crew behind them.
"This ship is ours, milady."
The Doctor waited in the main control room of the base. The first phase had gone incredibly well, with no major hitches to speak of. It was far from pleasant to be so close to Aliya and yet unable to go to her, like an itch he wasn't allowed to scratch, but he had to wait just a little longer.
Finally, Strax marched Manton in at gunpoint.
"All airlocks sealed," Strax reported, "Resistance neutralised."
The Doctor spun around in his chair to smile at Manton. "Sorry, Colonel Manton, I lied. Three minutes forty two seconds."
"Colonel Manton, you will give the order for your men to withdraw," Strax commanded the black man.
"No," the Doctor said, already knowing exactly what he wanted to happen, "Colonel Manton, I want you to tell your men to run away."
Manton narrowed his eyes. "You what?"
"Those words," the Doctor replied, his voice flat, "Run away. I want you to be famous for those exact words." The rage he had been so carefully holding back now rose in him like a boiling poison. "I want people to call you Colonel Run Away, I want children laughing outside your door, because they've found the house of Colonel Run away-" He got up from his seat and came to stand directly in front of him so that Manton could look in his eyes and understand the gravity of his mistake, "And, when people come to you, and ask if trying to get to me through THE PEOPLE I LOVE-" His voice had risen to yelling. He caught himself and took a deep breath, speaking much more softly when he continued. "Is in anyway a good idea…I want you to tell them your name."
Manton just stared, clearly unsure what to think but afraid in his own way. The Doctor just inwardly pursed his lips as he tried to discard the tears that had gathered in his eyes.
"Oh look, I'm angry," he said, holding his gaze despite being entirely emotionally off balance, "That's new. I'm really not sure what's going to happen now."
From behind him, a new voice joined the conversation. One that sent a shiver down his spine.
"The anger of a good man is not a problem. Good men have too many rules."
The Doctor turned on his heel to stare at Madame Kovarian, who was being escorted in by Jack and John Hart. Finally seeing the driving force behind the people who had dared to cross him was both satisfying and oddly disappointing. She was just a woman. A woman with an eyepatch, dark lipstick, and a smirk he would soon wipe off her face if he had anything to say about it.
"Good men don't need rules," he told him, narrowing his eyes at her, "Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."
Kovarian apparently accepted this answer and instead looked to Manton. "Give the order. Give the order, Colonel Run Away."
Although she knew there was probably a lot involved in staging a rescue on this scale, Aliya was not one for waiting any more than the Doctor was. Surely they could spare someone to come and get her?
Still, she tried to keep positive and patient. It wasn't particularly successful, because she kept thinking about how she'd lost Mariaka and had no idea if her baby was still on Demon's Run or not.
A knock at the door made her jump.
"Who is it?" Aliya called.
"Mum! It's Jenny!"
A whole new wave of relief flooded every inch of Aliya's body and she laughed with pure joy, her hands flying to her mouth. "Jenny! You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice. I've been going mad in here."
"I bet," came the reply, "I'll be in soon, the sonic is just a bit fiddly and I've not really had any practice."
Part of Aliya's good mood dimmed. "Jenny, they took your sister. They took her away and I don't know where she is."
The door opened to reveal Jenny, holding a very familiar bundle to her chest. The blonde girl grinned. "Luckily, I do."
Tears welled up in Aliya's eyes as Jenny hurried down the stairs so that she could be hugged tightly by her mother, with the baby stuck between them before they let go of each other and Aliya took her properly into her arms.
"What's her name?" Jenny asked, reaching out to grab her sister's tiny hand. Both of them were smiling uncontrollably.
"Her name is Mariakanerolunar," Aliya said proudly, kissing all of Mariaka's fingers in turn because she had been so afraid she was never going to see her again.
"Now that's a beautiful mouthful if I ever heard one."
Their heads snapped to look to where the Doctor was standing in the doorway with a large smile on his face. A new wave of tears pricked at Aliya's eyes as she beamed at him.
"Took you bloody long enough," she said. He half leapt down the steps to get to the other side of her chair and hug her, as tightly as he was able given the slightly awkward angle that came with her not being on her feet.
"I came as fast as I could," he promised, kissing the top of her head.
"I know." They found themselves looking down at the baby in her arms. Aliya smiled. "Do you want to hold her?"
He blinked, and swallowed thickly as new emotion appeared in his already watery eyes. "Er, alright. Yes. Very much." She gently held Mariaka out for him to take, and thankfully he held her like an expert in the crook of his arm. He gave his daughter a tiny smile. "Hello, Mariaka. It's very nice to meet you. I'm the Doctor." Mariaka made a noise that almost sounded like it could have been a greeting and he beamed. "Ah, she's told you about me, good. I would say that I hope it's all good things, but this is your mum we're talking about, I bet it was nothing but complaining. No? Well, that's a first."
Aliya and Jenny laughed, but also eyed him with matching curiosity.
"Doctor, what are you doing?" Aliya asked.
"I speak baby," he said, as if it were obvious.
"No you don't," Jenny said automatically, only to frown when Aliya didn't say the same. "Wait, can he?"
"I don't know," Aliya said, frowning, "He said he could speak horse too, but I've never been sure if he was bluffing."
The Doctor just ignored them and continued to have a conversation with his younger daughter. "No, it's my hair, and it's very real, promise. This is a bowtie, and it's very cool, don't let anyone tell you otherwise."
Aliya just decided that for now she didn't care, and gripped Jenny's hand while smiling at the fact that her family had been reunited. Everything had seemed so dismal, but true to his word, the Doctor had saved the day and found her.
"Why nerolunar?" He asked after about a minute of contently cuddling and making faces at the baby. "What's wrong with lundar?"
"I didn't want her name to be just bits of her two grandmother's ones combined, not entirely," Aliya said, shrugging, "She needed something for herself. And she wasn't born on Gallifrey, she was born in space. Lunar seemed appropriate under the circumstances."
He considered this, and then smiled at Mariaka. "Yes, I think it rather is, isn't it?" He tickled her chin and made her giggle. "My little space baby. Or space lady. Or both. Up to you, Mariaka."
Vastra came in not long after and planted her hands on the railing opposite the door. "Doctor? Take a look." They all looked out of the window, where Kovarian and her army were being escorted off the base by the Silurian warriors. "They're leaving. Demon's Run is ours without a drop of blood spilled. My friend, you have never risen higher."
The Doctor, still holding Mariaka, just nodded absently and then looked to Aliya. "Are you alright? The chair…"
"I did nearly die," Aliya said, sitting up a little straighter, "That little charmer in your arms broke my pelvis." Jenny and the Doctor pulled matching faces of distaste. "She's lucky she's cute."
"She's related to Jenny, of course she's cute," the Doctor replied, and Jenny grinned. "What do you think, big sis? Ready to hold your sister?" He transferred the baby to her so that he could grab his sonic back and use it to scan Aliya. "Ah. Yes, you took a real battering, didn't you? Bed ridden this whole time?"
"Yeah."
"I think you should be okay to walk, you just might need to take it easy. Jenny can hold onto Mariaka for now. What's that on your wrist?"
"Psychic inhibitor. I can't get it off."
He made a face. "That explains a lot."
One short burst of the sonic had the small bracelet falling off Aliya's arm. Instantaneously, Aliya could feel the Doctor's presence in the background of her mind, like a blanket she had been sorely missing. The smile he gave her told her that he was similarly glad to be able to sense her again.
"Good, now, time to get going."
Clad in her white shirt, pants and boots, Aliya was assisted by the Doctor in slowly getting down to the ground floor where the TARDIS was, and sat down on a crate once there so that the baby could be handed back to her.
"Jenny!" Jenny Flint called as she and Strax approached them. The Doctor was still in the TARDIS. "The Judoon have escorted the Clerics out of the quadrant. Spitfires have returned to their own time. Captain Avery and his men are going."
Mariaka started crying very loudly. Aliya tried jostling her up and down and murmuring soothing words, but it didn't help.
"Is she alright?" The Victorian brunette asked.
"Just crying," Aliya replied, shrugging. She smiled at her friend. "It's good to see you."
Jenny smiled back. "Good to see you too."
"Thanks for being here. And helping."
"Not a problem. Really."
Mariaka continued crying, which led to Strax trying to give nursing advice and then offering to feed the baby with his own supply of lactic fluid. Aliya was somewhat impressed, but saved from having to decide if that was a good idea by the Doctor coming out of the TARDIS at just the right moment. A small wooden cot was in his hands.
"She's not hungry, she's tired," he told them, as if they were all idiots, "Sorry, Mariaka, they're just not listening." He took his daughter from Aliya, gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, and laid her down in the cot.
"What's this?" Aliya asked, getting up to carefully walk to them. "There's Gallifreyan on the side, but this doesn't look like any Gallifreyan cot I've ever seen." It was rustic, the wood faded yet beautiful, with a small mobile over where Mariaka was lying. The mobile was decorated with roughly carved stars and planets.
"It's very pretty, according to our daughter," the Doctor said, smiling down at the baby.
"Our daughter," Aliya breathed. She could still barely believe it. He glanced up and gave her a tender smile at the same time that he wound his arm around her waist to pull her close.
"I knew you could do it," he told her, kissing the side of her head while she smiled slightly, "I told you that you were strong."
"Never again," Aliya replied, making him laugh.
"I don't think that's going to be a problem."
Aliya took another look at the cot. "Seriously, though. Whose cot was this?"
He blushed a little. "It was mine." She lifted an eyebrow. "I was born off world, remember?" He tickled his daughter's tummy, making her giggle. "Your grandmother and namesake had to improvise. I reckon she did alright, don't you?"
Vastra's voice came in over the intercom. "Doctor, we need you in the main control room."
"Be right there!" He called up towards the ceiling. He loosened his grip on Aliya and gave her an apologetic look. "Sorry, things to do. Still got to work out what this base is for. We can't leave until we know."
"That's okay, it's important," Aliya said, "Because they seemed to be more interested in Mariaka than me, and we need to be sure why. What sort of parents would we be if we didn't find out?"
"Exactly." The Doctor's hands cupped her face and he just stared at her with a sort of ecstatic relief for a moment before daftly kissing her all over her face and making her laugh. "I've missed that laugh."
"And I've missed my best friend being his usual idiot self," she said, finally taking it upon herself to bat him away, but only half-heartedly. "Go on, get upstairs."
He first stooped to kiss Mariaka on the nose, then headed for the lifts.
The Doctor entered the control room to see Dorium sitting at the desk and successfully sifting through the system files.
"You've hacked their software, then?" He asked the large blue man.
"I believe I sold it to them," Dorium bragged.
"Ooh, so what have we learned?"
Vastra eyed him with a level of unease that surprised him, her bright blue eyes concerned. "That anger is always the shortest distance to a mistake."
He frowned. "I'm sorry?"
The Silurian lifted an eyebrow. "The words of an old friend who once found me in the London Underground, attempting to avenge my sisters on perfectly innocent tunnel diggers."
The Doctor shrugged. "Well, you were very cross at the time."
"As you were today, old friend," she said, nodding at him, "Point taken, I hope." He nodded, internally admitting that she was likely far from wrong. She had been of good judgement in the past. "Now, how different are Time Lord children to, say, human or humanoid ones?"
His frown returned. "Why?"
Dorium brought up the information on the large screen in the wall. "They've been scanning her since she was born. Taking note of every detail of her biology. And possibly even altering it."
"Altering it?" The thought was highly disturbing.
"They seem to have been particularly interested in her ability to regenerate," Vastra told him, "And finding ways to make it possible for her earlier."
"Time Lords in their original bodies can't regenerate until they're fully grown," the Doctor said.
"I think I might have the answer," Dorium announced, "They seem to have altered her growth pattern, making it so that her point of full growth is much earlier."
The Doctor felt queasy in his stomach. The idea that these people had been doing all this to his daughter was horrific. "Why do any of that?"
"All this work, yet they gave in so easily," Dorium said, worry in his voice, "Does this not bother anyone else?" They paid him no attention.
"Well, think it through," Vastra told him, "if they were trying to make her into a weapon, a child is much easier to control than an adult, if you could keep your weapon a child indefinitely or until she regenerates for the first time-"
"A weapon? Why would she be a weapon?" He asked her sharply.
Vastra shrugged helplessly. "Well, they've seen you."
That one word cut into him, and the Doctor felt like he had been doused with ice water. "Me?" He repeated, physically taking a step back.
Vastra glanced at Dorium. "Mr Maldovar, you're right. This was too easy. We should get back to the others." They left the room, and the Doctor sat down on the chair by the controls, his mind still numb.
"Me?"
He knew he was far from perfect. For sanity's sake, he detested himself more than half the time because of the numerous faults he possessed and the things he had done. But he had never considered that people might see him as a weapon. Was all of this his fault? Had his own behaviour put his daughter in danger? Of nearly being kidnapped, of possibly having her body tampered with from the moment she had been born?
No child of mine will ever be a weapon. I won't allow it.
Jack and John finally joined the group on the ground floor, and Aliya was quick to give them hugs, though needed them to come to her because running was not currently something she could manage.
"Where have you two been, anyway?" She asked.
"The Doctor said there was a chance that they might have taken biological samples from you while you were unconscious all that time," Jack explained, "Said your biology was too valuable to be allowed in the hands of just anyone. So we've been going through their storage and destroying any samples we found."
Aliya made a face at the thought of Kovarian having taken biological samples from her without her knowledge or consent. "Were there many?"
"Enough," Hart answered, "Good to see you alive and kicking, Eyecandy."
"Didn't expect to see you here," she said, smiling at him, "Thanks for coming."
He shrugged, looking a bit pleased. "Thought there would be a bit more of a fight, truth be told. But there was a pretty damsel to rescue, wasn't there?" She hit his arm and he just grinned.
"Drop your weapons. State your rank and intent," Strax's voice barked, making them all turn to see what was going on, "I found it listening at the door."
The "it" being held by him was Lorna Bucket. She gave Aliya a scared smile.
"Lorna," Aliya said, using Jack as support so that she could walk towards her, "What are you doing here?"
"Kovarian was planning something," Lorna told them. "Something bad."
"And why the hell would we believe you?" Hart asked her, frowning.
"I heard her talking. This is a trap. Why would I lie to you?"
"Might want to take a look at your uniform," Jenny said to her, crossing her arms and making the soldier girl blush as she realised that she had a point.
"The only reason I joined the clerics was so I could meet the Doctor again," Lorna explained, which Aliya was fairly sure she believed, based on their conversation just before the Doctor had turned up.
The others weren't so convinced. Jenny Flint narrowed her eyes at the other brunette. "You wanted to meet him, so you joined an army to fight him?"
Lorna shrugged. "Well, how else do you meet a great warrior?"
"He's not a warrior," Aliya said automatically, "Not really."
"Then why is he called the Doctor?"
The lights went out, sending them into partial darkness that had Aliya gripping onto Jack for dear life and stifling a scream. It wasn't completely black, which was a godsend because Aliya knew she didn't have the mental or physical strength to be faced with her nyctophobia in the middle of all of this. It was just enough to take her by surprise and severely unsettle her.
"It's starting," Lorna said, "Please, listen to me."
"I believe her," Aliya told the others, her voice quiet, "I believe her, so look into it, check for traps, check for anything that doesn't ring true and do it now."
They did as they were told, but found nothing.
"Confirmed," Strax informed them, "No life forms registering on this base, except us and the Silurians."
Lorna was clearly getting frustrated. "The Headless Monks aren't alive. They don't register as life forms."
Vastra and Dorium then joined them, saying that the Doctor would be along in a minute. The duo were not particularly surprised to be informed about the likely imminent trap. They had apparently come to the conclusion that their victory had come too easily.
Aliya wished she had realised the same thing sooner. But she had been so relieved about being rescued and reunited with Mariaka that she hadn't paid it a moment's thought.
A white forcefield appeared around the TARDIS, cutting them off from what was both a sanctuary and means of escape. Things could only go downhill from there, as the deep clicking sounds around them proved.
"Those are the doors," Lorna said flatly, "Locking."
"Apparently we're not leaving," Vastra agreed. Everyone had ended up forming a close knit circle by instinct alone, though Aliya made a detour to grab Mariaka from the crib and hold her tight.
An eerie sound filled the air, a low chorus of voices that were only getting closer.
"Is that the monks?" Jenny asked, automatically stepping closer to Aliya.
"Oh dear god," Dorium exclaimed, "That's the attack prayer."
"You two, with me," Hart said to Jenny and Aliya, and he ushered them off around a corner to hide behind some boxes, "Stay here, keeping you two safe is the entire point."
"I'm not hiding!" Jenny protested hotly.
The ex-Time Agent shook his head fondly. "I meant her and the baby, little princess. You're the advance guard. The last line of defence in case they get through the rest of us."
"Oh," the small ex-soldier said, letting out a long breath, "Yeah, I can do that."
"When did it come to you looking after me and not the other way around?" Aliya asked her as Hart left to re-join the others.
"Let's just call it my turn," Jenny replied, smiling at her, "You can have another go some other time."
Aliya had to smile at that. "Alright." She also had to admit that she was glad for the chance to sit down for a while. Her lower body had been running out of the strength to keep her vertical for much longer.
They could still hear the voices of the others faintly, but it was better for both of their nerves if they talked quietly to distract themselves from what was going on around them. Aliya held one daughter close to her chest while talking to the other, and tried to tell herself that everything was going to turn out alright, if only because it had to.
The Doctor had been about to get up when the screen came back to life to show Madame Kovarian staring right back at him with her one visible eye.
"I see you accessed our files," she said, not sounding remotely concerned, "Do you understand yet? Oh, don't worry, I'm a long way away. But I like to keep tabs on you." He didn't know how to reply to that, so he didn't. Given enough time, she continued to talk. "The child, then. What do you think of our…improvements?"
"What is she to you?" He asked, his voice dangerously low.
"Hope," she said simply, "Hope in this endless, bitter war."
"What war? Against who?"
She sneered. "Against you, Doctor." She practically spat his name. The confirmation of Vastra's idea, that Mariaka was intended to be a weapon, and to make it even worse, against him…it unleashed the rage that Colonel Manton had only witnessed a flash of.
"My child…IS NOT A WEAPON!" He yelled at her, slamming his hands on the controls.
Kovarian smirked. "Oh, give us time. She can be. She will be."
"Except you've already lost her," the Doctor reminded her, letting that small fact calm him down a little, "And I swear I will never let you anywhere near her again."
"Oh, Doctor," she said, and the confidence in her voice made him falter, "Fooling you once was a joy. But fooling you twice, the same way? It's a privilege."
The entire world stopped. No.
"Aliya!" He yelled as despair came crashing down on him in tsunami waves of how could I have been so stupid and gone gone gone she's gone we lost her and Aliya doesn't know. He ran from the room as fast as his long legs could carry him, desperate to get back down to the ground level because Dorium had been right, it had been too easy and now they had paid the ultimate price for their overconfidence and their underestimating of Madame Kovarian.
Gone. Gone, gone, gone…and it's all my fault.
Talking couldn't drown out the sounds of the battle that was raging so close to Aliya and Jenny. So many shots fired and cries of pain could be heard that there was nothing they could do but sit tight and hope for the best.
The Doctor's presence in her mind since the removal of the bracelet had been quiet up until that point. But now a burst of something powerful and devastating hammered at her mind.
Was he trying to tell her something? It was gone as abruptly as it had come, and she had to hope she had perhaps imagined it because she didn't want to consider alternatives, even if her more rational side knew it had been in no way a figment of her imagination.
It wasn't until she felt her baby turn to liquid Flesh in her arms that she realised exactly what the Doctor had been trying to warn her about.
It was a trick, I never got her back, Kovarian has my baby and I have no idea where she is, my baby, my baby is gone…
The sound of despair that escaped her throat was raw and deafening, but drowned out by loud and ugly sobs a few moments later as she wrestled with her shirt in her desperation to get it off. Because it was covered with the Flesh and she wanted it off she didn't want the lie anywhere near her. Once down to her white bra and rudimentary trousers, she fought off an alarmed Jenny who had arrived at her side and was trying to calm her down.
Her shouting was in hoarse Gallifreyan that was likely too frantic for Jenny to be able to follow, but eventually the girl left her adoptive mother alone and allowed her to curl up on the floor to bawl her eyes out.
The Doctor couldn't get in. He was stuck behind a deadlocked door and no matter how hard he sonicked or pounded on the door with his fists, he couldn't get through. When the mental scream rang through his head, he knew he was already too late and Aliya had found out about Kovarian's trick the hard way.
Finally, the door let him through and he dashed inside.
"Aliya-" He began, and Jack and Hart just looked at him.
"Yeah, we know," they said. A nod of their heads directed him to where Aliya was being scooped off the floor by Vastra and brought to sit with her on one of the crates.
The Time Lady was in a state like nothing he had ever seen. Not even going into the mystery of where her shirt was, she was sobbing into Vastra's shoulder and babbling in Gallifreyan that even the Doctor couldn't translate because it was so fast and nonsensical.
He rushed to get on his knees on the floor in front of her. "Aliya-"
The moment he said her name, her eyes snapped to his and she launched herself onto the floor and into his arms, where she shuddered and continued to babble nonsense. Surprisingly, her sobs had come to an end the moment she saw him.
"I know, I know," he murmured in Gallifreyan, "I'm so sorry, I didn't know. We'll find her, we'll find her."
Vastra called her Jenny over to sit with Aliya. "Doctor, there's someone who wants to speak to you. Her name is Lorna. She came to warn us."
The Doctor didn't want to leave Aliya on her own, but anyone who had helped his friends was worthy of a moment of his time. He helped Aliya back onto the crate, took off his jacket and helped her into it so that she wasn't just sitting there in her bra, and promised he could be back in a second. Aliya, thankfully, had finally quieted down. She just leant against Jenny Flint and gripped the maid's hand tightly.
The girl Lorna was slumped against some stairs, clearly weak and not in a good state. A quick scan of her with the sonic confirmed that she was dying.
"Hey, hello," he said to her softly, crouching down in front of her.
"Doctor," she breathed, smiling as she saw him.
"You helped my friends…thank you."
"I met you once, in the Gamma Forests," Lorna said, and he lifted his eyebrows in surprise, "But I met Aliya too and she said she remembers everyone, so it just must not have happened for you yet."
"Then I look forward to meeting you, Lorna," the Doctor told her, kissing her hand, "Hey, I bet we'll run, won't we? Didn't we run, Lorna?"
Lorna smiled one last time before she was gone.
"She was very brave," Vastra told him.
"They're always brave," he replied, rubbing his face tiredly, "They're always brave."
He returned to the others and assessed the damage. Strax was fine, though suffering from a small injury, while Hart had a rather nasty abdominal wound but wasn't acting as if it were anything serious. Good old Bitch On Legs can stitch it up for me when we get back to Cardiff, he had told the Doctor cheerfully when the Time Lord had asked him about it.
"So what now?" Vastra asked. "They'd have almost certainly taken her to Earth, or anywhere else. Raise her in the correct environment-"
"Yes, they did, and it's already too late," he said, having realised that the child they had met in 1960's America so long ago had to have been their Mariaka, grown up and being terrorised by those memory-proof creatures. The idea that he had been so close to his own flesh and blood and not known was a whole new level of distressing.
"You're giving up? You never do that."
"Yeah, and don't you sometimes wish I did?" He snapped.
"No," Aliya said, looking up at him and making everyone else go quiet. "The day you give up is the day that everything you care about will be taken away from you, and I'm not going to let that happen. You found me, we can find her. They are not better than us and we are not beaten."
The Doctor wasn't sure if he wanted to kiss her and tell her that of course she was right, or just shake his head and tell her that this time he just wasn't so sure everything was going to work out.
When he didn't answer, she continued to speak, eyeing him with a strangeness he couldn't understand.
"You know you did all of this?" She asked, making him gape at her.
"What? I didn't do this! This, this wasn't me!" He protested.
"You've scared the hell out of them!" Aliya argued right back. "What the hell have you done to warrant this kind of fear? What would that grumpy old man you started out as think of you now? I'm not so sure that he would recognise the man who had inspired armies to rise up out of fear. Fear of the name Doctor. It's supposed to be the name for healers and wise men, and you know it probably came from you in the first place, because you're so bloody meddlesome. But the meaning of that word is changing, because you're changing."
Her words were an assault he had not expected. And it wasn't an attack on him, not exactly. She wasn't trying to hurt him. But he wasn't sure what she was trying to do.
"Lorna signed up to this army just to meet you again," Aliya told him, "Because to her people, Doctor means mighty warrior, so what else was she going to try? The universe thinks that you're so dangerous that they've taken your child – our baby -to try and make her a weapon to hurt you." He blinked at her with surprise and she sighed. "Vastra told me. It makes sense, even if I wish it didn't. And all of this, is because they're afraid."
The Doctor approached her and sat on her right, taking her hand in his. "Tell me you're not afraid of me."
"I'm not afraid of you," she answered easily, offering him a small smile, "How could I be?"
"Then why are you saying this?"
She leant her head against his shoulder. "I don't know. It just…feels like the truth, and like you needed to hear it. You're different, and it's like you haven't realised."
"I'll fix this."
She let out an odd sob of a laugh. "How?"
Next to them, Jenny Flint went rigid, her entire body freezing a moment before her eyes widened and her hand flew to her chest.
"Jenny?" Vastra asked with great alarm, and everyone turned to look at the brunette in the waistcoat.
"I think it's now," the young woman murmured to herself, "I'd forgotten. Completely forgotten all about it. But it is. It's now."
"What are you talking about?" The other Jenny asked her, speaking for all of them.
Jenny's hand went into her shirt and pulled out an envelope. "Few months ago," she began slowly, taking a deep breath, "I was on my way 'ome when I ran into someone. A woman. She knew 'oo I was somehow. But she mentioned you, Doctor. Said she 'ad a message she needed me to deliver. To you."
"But why now?" The Doctor asked her sharply. "Why not give it to me when you first got on the TARDIS?"
Jenny gave him an apologetic smile. "I'd mostly forgotten about it. She said I 'ad to wait. That I 'ad to give it to you when everything seemed lost and for nothin'. Seems to me that it's gotta be now."
Aliya's eyes widened. "You don't think-"
The Doctor took the envelope from Jenny and gingerly pulled out the letter inside. He unfolded it with shaking hands and went to read it aloud.
"Dear Father," he began, and his voice choked on the words. He needed a few seconds to compose himself before continuing. "If Miss Flint has done as I asked of her, then Kovarian has just taken me. Sadly, this is the way things must be, because they have already happened as such. As I write this, I have already lived through our reunion. You may take my word for it that although the future looks bleak now, you shall find me again, after months of searching (I can tell you that the 43rd century is where you need to look, but nothing more). So do not despair."
He paused to grin triumphantly at Aliya and the others. The relief of knowing that he would find his daughter was so great that it took a prod from Aliya to make him keep reading. But the next lines of the letter sobered him quickly, and had his throat tightening again.
"What I do ask of you, however, is to not expect anything from me, no matter how much you might wish for your little girl. When you found me, I was so very lost and alone and believed in lies so horrific it still chokes me to think of them now."
"Oh Rassilon," Aliya breathed, her hand covering her mouth, "If she's meant to be a weapon against you, imagine all the lies they'll tell her about you, they'll want to make her hate you-"
"By the sounds of it, they might have succeeded," Hart said, frowning from where he stood a few feet away, "This is a right mess you two have landed in."
"I'm almost done," the Doctor said, indicating for them to be quiet so that he could finish off the letter. "I imagine my mother is with you." Aliya's head jerked up and he took a deep breath. "Tell her that I am sorry for what has just befallen her but especially for what is yet to come."
Aliya shut her eyes with a sort of defeat. "I really don't like the sound of that."
The Doctor couldn't bring himself to say anything other than the rest of what was in the letter. "And Jenny, sweet sister...keep faith." His Jenny stared, her eyes watery as well, but the confusion in her was one they all shared. "Yours, eventually...Mariaka."
There was a long silence as everyone processed the contents of the letter for themselves.
"Why was it only addressed to you?" Aliya asked, frowning. "I mean, I know she mentioned me, but only for a single line. In her situation, I'd have addressed it to both of us."
"Well, the Doctor's more well known, she probably just figured it would be easier to get it to him that way," Jack considered.
"The letter could have still included me," she replied.
"Maybe she likes him better," Hart offered, getting an elbow from Jack and some very unamused looks from everyone else.
"I'm not in the mood, Hart," Aliya warned, glaring.
"None of us are, love," he reminded her, "I'm in need of stitching up here because I got injured fighting for you. Now, not to be any more insensitive, but are we done here?"
"Yes, I rather think we are," the Doctor said, getting up and folding the letter away into his trouser pocket. "Come on, everyone. Time to get you all home."
Aliya glanced at Jenny Flint as they all stood up and headed for the TARDIS. "Jenny, what did she look like? We've got an entire century to search. Being able to give people a description could be a game changer."
"You're assuming that the woman who delivered it is her," Jack pointed out.
"She said if Miss Flint has done what I asked of her," Aliya replied, "Meaning that it had to be."
"Well, it was dark, see, so I didn't get the best look," the brunette said, frowning, "But her 'air was red, and there was a lot of it. Can't be sure about the eyes, but they weren't too dark or too light, I don't think."
"So likely a more middling colour, like green or hazel," the Doctor deducted, joining their conversation as they stepped inside the box, "Thank you, Jenny. You've been a world of help."
"It must've been her," Jenny added, "Cause her clothes weren't like anything I'd seen."
"Well, time travelling runs in the family," he said, grinning.
"As does questionable fashion sense," Aliya muttered.
"But red hair!" He abruptly seemed very put out. "She's ginger. My daughter is ginger, and I've got nearly a whole regeneration cycle on her and I've still not managed it!"
Aliya blinked at him. "Is now really the time to be complaining about this?"
Vastra meanwhile approached her companion and touched her lightly on the shoulder. "Jenny, why didn't you tell me about this letter?"
"I…I don't know," she said, turning a bit pink, "I didn't deliberately keep it a secret, ma'am. I just forgot. It was a long day."
The Silurian snorted. "Apparently." When she saw that her Jenny still looked worried, she pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth and lingered there for a moment. "I'm not angry, dear."
"Good."
Aliya watched them with delight. "Are you-"
"Yes," Vastra answered, lifting an eyebrow, "And if I hear a single I told you so coming from your direction I'll sting you."
The Time Lady could only grin. "I wouldn't dream of it. I just…I just think I really needed some good news after the day I've had."
Vastra softened a little. "Yes, I imagine you did." She linked her arm through Jenny's and they moved to join the others on the console platform.
The other Jenny, the blonde anomaly, remained with Aliya by the door. "Do you want me to stay?" She asked, hugging her mother automatically and not protesting when Aliya didn't let go. "We could look for her together. She's my sister, I'd like to help."
"There will be some places that it might be best we search on our own," Aliya told her, thinking of her knowledge of the 43rd century and cringing a little, "But if we don't have any luck, we'll come back to Torchwood and get you right away. I promise."
"Sounds like a plan."
Strax ended up leaving with Vastra and Jenny, of all the mad things to happen that day. The three of them discussed it while the Torchwood group were being dropped off, and the two women had convinced Strax of the work to be done in Victoria London by the time the TARDIS landed there, going to show that the day really had been full of all sorts of surprises.
When everyone was gone, Aliya and the Doctor stared at each other from opposite sides of the console platform, for once completely unsure of what to say to one another or how to proceed.
"I want to find her as soon as possible," the Doctor eventually said, "But I haven't slept since before we went to the monastery."
Aliya gaped. "Well that was idiotic of you!"
He gave her a bashful smile. "I wanted you back with me. I knew I wouldn't be able to rest until you were."
She moved forward – as quickly as she could under the circumstances – and hugged him tightly around the middle, burying her face in the comforting smell and feel of his shirt. His arms wrapped around her.
"You're still an idiot," she muttered, "Just a sentimental and rather sweet idiot."
He chuckled. "Yeah, I am."
Eventually they went to his bedroom and curled up in the bed despite still being fully dressed. Or rather, the Doctor was mostly fully dressed and Aliya was in flimsy white trousers and his jacket.
"We're going to find her," he told her when he saw that her face was sporting fresh tears.
"I know, but-" Aliya only curled into his body all the more. "You heard what she said. Our little girl is going to be gone."
"Maybe, but that doesn't mean our daughter will be."
"I really, really hope so."
The words from the letter hung in the air between them, unsaid.
When you found me, I was so very lost and alone and believed in lies so horrific it still chokes me to think of them now.
All they could do was hold onto the knowledge that their daughter would one day call them her parents and write them a letter to assure them of a future together. That had to mean that everything was going to work out.
Didn't it?
I really am sorry for the end of this and all the angst because wow. This chapter actually made me feel so bad writing it that I wanted to change my entire plot just so I wouldn't hurt them all like this. I don't usually feel guilty for my angst but this time, wow, yeah I really do.
I'd love to know what you thought of this chapter, so let me know in a review if you can (also it's my birthday in 20 minutes so it would definitely make my day to hear from a few more of you)!
Love you all,
-MayFairy :)