This chapter partially finishes off the finale storyline, but there's a whole lot of aftermath for the next two chapters. Still, we have some great Mari and Aliya interaction in this chapter that I had such a good time writing.

Enjoy!

Note: the site is playing up with the reviews, so I haven't been able to reply to any, so I'll just say a big thank you here instead and hope they fix the glitch soon because I like you guys to know that your comments really are cherished.

If it hadn't been so utterly horrific, the Doctor might have been vaguely impressed by the pantemporal world his daughter had created through her foolhardy stubbornness.

But it was horrific, all of history happening at once but simultaneously disintegrating. It was always two minutes past five in the afternoon on the twenty second of April and the whole thing disrupted his time sense so badly that it made him rather nauseous.

The Holy Roman Emperor, Winston Churchill, had thrown him in the Tower of London for talking about how time had gone wrong, but he knew that he was slowly getting through to his old friend, and that he too could sense the problem of the world they inhabited.

He was brought to Churchill's office for the fifth time that he could recall, and thrown to the floor.

"Tick tock goes the clock, as the old song says," the large man said, "But they don't, do they? The clocks never tick. Something has happened to time. That's what you say. What you never stop saying. All of history is happening at once. But what does that mean? What happened? Explain to me, in terms that I can understand, what happened to time."

The Doctor lifted his head. "A girl." When Churchill just lifted an eyebrow, the Time Lord launched into his story, talking about hunting down members of the Silence, about finding Dorium.

"This is absurd," Churchill interrupted, "Other worlds, carnivorous skulls, talking heads. I don't know why I'm listening to you."

"Because in another reality, you and I are friends. And you sense that. Just as you sense there is something wrong with time."

"You mentioned a girl."

"Well, she's more of a woman, actually, but yes. I'm getting to her."

"What's she like? Attractive, I assume."

"It's not like that," the Doctor told him, making a face, "And if you could refrain from any such future comments, it would be much appreciated."

"Alright, alright. Tell me more, then."

So the Doctor kept on, and they ended up in the Senate room without being entirely sure of how that had happened. Churchill meanwhile inquired as to why the Question meant the Doctor's death, as that was where he had gotten to in the story before pausing and wondering about their new surroundings.

But eventually the story continued, all the way up until the lakeside.

"Why would you do this?" Churchill asked him. "Of all the things you've told me, this I find hardest to believe. Why would you invite the two women you loved to see your death?"

"I had to die," the Doctor said simply, "I didn't have to die alone. River Song and Aliyanadevoralundar. The impossible, infuriating enigma of a wife and my best friend of old returned to me against all odds. However dark it got, I'd turn around, and there they'd be. If it's time to go, remember what you're leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me."

While Winston asked more unhelpful questions, the Doctor was more interested in the three tally marks on his arm.

"This other woman you spoke of. The one that caused all this. Did you invite her?"

"No, but I knew that she was going to be there," he replied. "When it came to the person who was going to kill me, it was never going to be anyone else. I went to the lakeside, to die, but she didn't want to kill me. She was refusing. I'd never seen her so emotional or so adamant before."

"Why was she so adamant?"

"Because she's my daughter," the Doctor explained, and Winston's eyebrows shot up, "And despite everything that has happened to make our relationship infinitely complicated, she didn't want to kill her father. And so she changed a fixed point."

"And what happened?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Nothing happened. And then it kept happening. Or, if you'd prefer, everything happened at once, and it won't ever stop. Time is dying. It's going to be five oh two in the afternoon for all eternity. A needle stuck on a record."

"A record? Good lord, man, have you never heard of downloads?"

"Said Winston Churchill," the Doctor muttered.

Winston picked up on the fact that they were apparently defending themselves, and the Doctor found more tally marks all over his arm. Sure enough, there was a mass of the memory proof creatures hanging from the ceiling in a large cluster.

A grenade rolled in near their feet, surprising them, and the Doctor had just enough time to knock Churchill to the floor before it went off. As the smoke cleared, soldiers piled into the room.

"Go, go, go!" One of them shouted. "Keep the Silence in sight at all times, keep your eyedrives active."

"Who the devil are you?" Winston demanded, outraged. "Identify yourselves."

"Aliyanadevoralundar," a familiar voice replied as its figure appeared through the still clearing smoke, dressed in a dark skirt and blazer, "Lady Aliyanadevoralundar."

Winston lifted his gun, but the Doctor stopped him.

"No, she's on our side, it's okay," he said quickly, only to see that Aliya was wearing an eyepatch and looking at him with a hard expression. "No, no, Aliya. Aliya, why are you wearing that?"

Without saying a word, she lifted a blaster and shot him.

When the Doctor woke, he was on a couch and a ceiling fan was above him. Based on the shaky motion around him, he would guess that he was on a train. The whistle that went off confirmed his theory.

"Aliya?" He murmured groggily.

"You need to get up, we'll be in Cairo soon," her voice said. He sat up and turned around to see her sitting at a nearby desk, that awful eyepatch obscuring the bluer of her two eyes.

"Aliyanadevoralundar, Aliya, please, listen to me," he pleaded as he got to his feet, "I shouldn't have to tell you this, but apparently I do. I know it probably seems impossible, but you know me. In another version of reality you and I, we're…"

Her eyebrow lifted. "We're what?"

He swallowed. "Best friends. The closest people to each other, and a part of you should sense that. We travelled around, we fought and made up, we had adventures, we ran together...we ran so far. Aliya, you're a Time Lady of Gallifrey, you have time sense, you should be able to feel how wrong this is, remember the truth, and if you really try, you'll be able to-"

There was a warmth in her eye, a glint, that was as unmistakable as the curl of amusement in her lips.

"Oh," he breathed. "Oh."

Aliya grinned. "You're an idiot."

"Yes."

"A bit more faith in me wouldn't go amiss, you know," she said as she got up from her chair and came around her desk, "I'm every bit as sensitive to this sort of thing as you. And I was never going to forget you, you ridiculous man."

That was when she pursed her lips and hit him hard on the arm.

"Ow!" He yelped. "What was that for?"

"Handcuffing me and knocking me out!" She told him, scowling. "It took me a while to work out what had happened, and let me just tell you that you're lucky I got to get you with that stun gun to make it more even. It's still not even, for the record, the stun gun just helped me vent my frustration."

"I really am sorry." Apparently he really was showing that he meant it, because she relaxed a fraction and nodded, only for her eyes to flick over him critically.

"You look terrible."

"You look wonderful," he countered. "Actually, hang on-" His eyes narrowed as he examined her more closely. Specifically, the central point of her face. "Is your nose broken? It's crooked."

Her cheeks flushed with colour. "That's not massively important."

"I have to disagree, I'd quite like to know who hit you," he said, frowning, "I have a few words for them, and possible a few vague threaty things for if they ever think about-"

"Doctor, I told you, it's not important, and we have much bigger things to worry about than my crooked nose, however silly it might look."

The Doctor reluctantly let it go, and gave her another look over. "It doesn't look silly."

"It does."

"...alright, it does, but you still look wonderful."

She smirked. "Flattery will get you everywhere, even with obvious bias."

It turned out that she had found his exact favourite outfit, tweed and all, and he was able to get changed and even have a shave, though it was easier to leave his hair long for the present. Once done, he spun around for her.

"How do I look?"

"Brilliant."

"Really?"

"Of course."

He smiled, pleased. His eyes flicked around the room. "Cool office. Why do you have an office? Are you a special agent boss lady? What's that mean? Not sure about the eye patch, though."

"It's not an eye patch," Aliya said, "And time's gone wrong, some people have noticed. There's a whole team working on it. You'll see."

"And you've got an office on a train, that is so cool." He grinned. "Can I have an office? Never had an office before. Or a train. Or a train slash office."

"Oh, shut up you ridiculous idiot," she muttered, grabbing his lapels and pulling him in for brief but forceful kiss.

"Definitely glad I shaved now," he said once she let go of him, and she just snorted.

"So, after all that about having to handcuff me inside the TARDIS, Mari managed to ruin your plan anyway," she said thoughtfully, fixing him with a look that told him how unimpressed she was. "Figures."

The Doctor coughed. "Er, yes. Probably should have factored her genes for unpredictability into the equation."

"Probably. Lord, it's good to see you. Even though it all has to snap back into place," Aliya said, her voice and eyes now sad, "It's like false hope."

"It's just the way things are. I shouldn't still be alive. Is she around? Mari?"

"She's in the pyramid."

"Good, because she and I need to have a serious talk about the nature of risking entire realities on sheer stubbornness alone."

"Oh, believe me, I've already tried."

The same day, April 22nd, many weeks earlier:

To call going from thrashing in the Doctor's arms to waking up in a Parisian alley disorientating would be one of the biggest understatements of Aliya's life.

It really didn't help that her time sense was so skewed that her head ached and her stomach revolted. After dry gagging while bent over double for a good half minute, she managed to get upright and lean against the alley wall with her eyes shut.

"Doctor, what the fuck did you do?" She whispered.

Two memories of the evening at Silencio clashed in her mind, starting the same but one ending with the Doctor dead and her crying and the other...not. The question was, had the Doctor done something, or had Mari? Had she earned the title Impossible Astronaut, as the rhymes later would name her?

Aliya moved out of the alley and into the bustling street. A single look around at the horse drawn carriages and teenagers zipping past on hoverboards confirmed what her gut already knew - an alternative pantemporal reality.

"Fuck," was all she was able to say. With that, she stepped back into the alley to get away from all the humans bustling around her. Being alone among large numbers of any kind of alien made her uncomfortable.

Working out her next move was tricky. Obviously she needed to find the Doctor, but where to start was impossible to know. Was this reality the same spacially? Did she have to search the whole globe for him?

Her best bet was probably London - if this reality had a London. The Doctor always ended up there eventually.

It turned out that finding the Doctor wasn't a plan that was going to stick. The moment she got to London, she found herself apprehended at the airport by agents wearing eyepatches identical to the one worn by Madame Kovarian.

"Where are you taking me?" She demanded, trying not to completely panic as the stony-faced men marched her outside. It seemed like absolutely rotten luck that the Silence apparently existed in this reality, and that they had been waiting to find her.

But...it had only been two days since this reality had 'begun'. How had they organised themselves so fast? Was their purpose even the same here?

"Let go of me!" Aliya told the man holding her fast by the elbow.

He ignored her and just threw her into the back of a car. No one else was in the back, and the front was a separate compartment, meaning that she was alone but for a driver she couldn't reach. The doors were locked and likely controlled by the driver since nothing she did had any effect.

With a sigh, she lay down across the seat and waited, staring at the plain ceiling of the car. As per usual, her thoughts drifted to what had happened between the TARDIS and now, and why she couldn't remember anything. It was rather troubling, as were her theories as to why that was.

Finally, after at least half an hour, the car came to a stop and she heard the driver get out. The door opened.

"Follow me," the man said, and Aliya was confused by the fact that he had a friendly manner, which wasn't something she could reconcile with the eyepatch on his face even a little bit, "I promise you, you're not in any danger. You'll understand in a minute."

She couldn't do much but take his word for it, and be led into a non-descript skyscraper. Curious glances and a few murmurings followed her as they crossed the foyer.

Every single person was wearing an eyepatch.

Forcing down a shiver, Aliya lifted her chin and did her best to ignore them as she was taken into an elevator and up several floors. They finally came to a stop outside a door down the fifth floor corridor. It was held open for her, and she stepped inside.

Waiting for her at an antique desk, wearing an eyepatch, was Mari.

Aliya was so completely taken aback that she could only stare. How could Mari be affiliated with the Silence? For all her faults, they had been on the same 'side' since she had saved the Doctor.

"I never thought I would say this," Mari said, her hazel eyes resting on Aliya but giving nothing away, "But it's actually good to see you." In response to that, there were a thousand things that could have left Aliya's mouth, but only one came out.

"What are you wearing?"

Mari stood up and smoothed her hands over her black blazer and matching skirt. "What? I thought it looked rather good."

"I mean the eyepatch," Aliya said flatly, scowling, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't march over there and rip it off your face."

Mari smirked. "Because you'd be on the floor with fresh bruises before you could get near me. And because it's not an eyepatch."

Aliya crossed her arms. "Explain."

"It's called an eyedrive," Mari told her, "It acts as external storage. Kovarian and her people are here in this world. So are her monsters. With these, it's possible to remember them."

"So you're not working for them?" She hadn't truly thought so, but it was a relief all the same.

Mari frowned at her. "Of course not. I would sooner slit my own throat. How could you-" She trailed off. "Ah. The eyedrives. Understandable, I suppose. No, we're working against her. She's still intent on killing the Doctor, although at this point I am fairly certain she doesn't actually have a clue how to do so. Besides, she would have to find him first. Which seems unlikely."

"Why, do you have him hidden?"

"No, but I've been trying to locate him as well, as I imagine you have, and it's proving difficult. I don't believe he wants to be found."

"Hold on, stop," Aliya said, lifting her hand and shutting her eyes as she tried to process the hundreds of thoughts racing around her head. "How can you have done all this?"

"How do you mean?"

"It's been what, two days? How could you have found all this out and gotten yourself a building and workers and eyedrives in two days?"

"It's been two days for you? Since you found yourself here?"

"Yes…" Aliya tilted her head. "How long has it been for you?"

"Close to a month," Mari answered, "When I saw Kovarian six days ago, she had only been active for a week. How could our arrivals, or our awareness here, be so staggered?"

"I can't answer that without knowing what happened at the lake."

"I was supposed to kill him. I refused, draining my weapons system so it was useless. And then the universe turned inside out, and all of us with it."

Aliya felt the blood drain from her face. "You changed the fixed point."

"Yes."

"That means you did this!"

"I know!"

That made Aliya stop and frown at the redhead. "You do?"

"Of course," Mari said, as if they were discussing something as trivial as the weather, one of her hands delicately pushing a curl of hair out of her face, "I may not be a graduate of a fancy Time Academy but I'm no idiot."

"If that were true, you would never have done it," the blonde snapped.

"I don't need your approval, you're not my-" Mari's retort stopped short and she clamped her mouth shut, her gaze falling to the floor.

"Not your what?" Aliya asked quietly, a bitterness in her tone as the question dared Mari to finish her sentence.

Her eyes snapped back up, newly hardened. "Don't."

As she remained silent, the Time Lady was quietly relieved. She didn't want that word spoken aloud between them anymore than Mari did. Besides, there was a more pressing question at hand.

"Why did you do it, Mari?" Aliya's voice was soft, her expression open with curiosity.

The walls that had gone up around the redhead remained in place. Hazel eyes held hers but gave away nothing. "My reasons are just that. Mine."

"Seriously?"

"No, because I'm really the joking sort," Mari said sarcastically.

"You know, for someone who needs me, you're quick to make me want to walk out of here."

"Who says I need you?"

"We're in a pantemporal alternative reality. In a state of temporal anomaly or crisis, it can occasionally be slightly helpful to have a Time Lord around. Funnily enough." Aliya's sarcasm was even more potent than Mari's.

"You are not the only Time Lord."

"You can't go after the Doctor."

"Whyever not?"

"Because assuming that the purpose of your idiotic actions was to save him, finding him here would achieve the opposite."

Mari blinked and frowned. "Explain."

Aliya crossed her arms. "He's the object of the fixed point and you're the one who changed it. You're the polar ends of the disruption, and bringing you together would mend it."

"And I would be back on that beach, killing him," Mari guessed slowly.

"Yes, which would make this little stunt of yours redundant," Aliya said with a mock sweetness that wasn't half condescending, "So it's a helpful thing to know."

Mari pursed her lips. "I suppose," she said reluctantly.

Aliya put her hands on her hips, entirely exasperated and more than a bit annoyed. "No, you don't suppose, it is. Because this is the problem, Mari."

"The problem with what?"

"With you," Aliya retorted, advancing on her, "You think that you're so clever, and you are, but that isn't enough. Intelligence isn't anything without knowledge-" As she stepped closer, Mari stood her ground, refusing to be intimidated. "And when it comes to time, and all of its complexities, you are a child, and you know nothing."

They were far enough into each other's personal space for the atmosphere to be tense even without the cutting words. Mari's heels gave her the height advantage, but they both knew Aliya had just gained the upper hand in the conversation.

"I am not a child," Mari said through gritted teeth.

"No?" Aliya asked, her tone full of scorn, "With this...refusal? To what? Do as you're told? Or have you actually learnt to care about someone other than your girlfriend or your sister, because frankly that would be astounding-"

Blinding pain flared through Aliya's nervous system as Mari's fist collided with her nose with such a force that she ended up on the floor with all the breath knocked out of her.

Aliya's hand went to her now broken nose, and came away wet with blood. Dazed, she tried to remember the last time someone had punched her. Time Lords weren't exactly prone to getting into fist fights, and she was no expectation, even with the irregular lifestyle she led with the Doctor.

"Wow, petty physical violence, now that's a great way to prove your maturity," Aliya said, voice dripping with sarcasm as she slowly got back to her feet.

Mari scowled at her. "Have I mentioned that I truly hate you?"

"As if I could forget," Aliya said, glaring right back as she wiped the blood off her top lip, "But unfortunately we're stuck with each other if you want to keep on with this ridiculous attempt at changing a fixed point, which for the record I haven't necessarily decided I am going to help with-"

"Haven't necessarily decided?" Mari repeated incredulously, voice dangerously low. "What the hell is wrong with you? I am trying to save the love of your life from certain death, you should be on your knees thanking me-"

"I will not thank you for turning a domain core to my existence into a kaleidoscope," Aliya said flatly, "Or after a month have you managed to ignore how your very insides feel like they've been in a blender? How you feel like you want to be sick only you can't because it's not physical, it's time sense, and it might be untrained but you have one, don't you?"

Mari bit her lip. "Yes. It would seem so. It was hardly the most ideal way for me to find out - only I had no name for it until now."

"But you still knew what it was. That it was because of what you did."

"Yes."

"Because this is wrong," Aliya said, more quietly but still with an authority that couldn't be ignored, "You must be able to see, that for all your intentions, this reality is an abomination that shouldn't exist."

"I didn't know what else to do!"

"You shouldn't have done anything!"

"He would have died!"

"I know!" Aliya shouted. "Mari, the last memory I have before finding myself here is being handcuffed to the TARDIS console railing, because the Doctor knew that only physically restraining me would stop me from fighting til my last breath to stop him from going to Utah!"

Mari stared at her. "Honestly?"

"Honestly."

"Then how is that any different to what I'm attempting?"

The blonde sighed. "Wanting more stolen time is one thing. What you did was something else altogether, as the reality around us proves."

"...so, help me."

The words - so reluctantly said - were so foreign coming from Mari's mouth that for several moments Aliya could only stare at her. "Help you do what?" She asked carefully.

"Help me find a different way to save him. You're the only other Time Lord in the universe - if anyone can orchestrate an alternative that wouldn't rip the universe apart, it would be you. Time is frozen here, we could take as long as we needed-"

"Mari, time isn't frozen, it's disintegrating. We don't have forever."

That made Mari frown fractionally, only to lift an eyebrow upon sensing that Aliya wasn't done. "...but?"

Aliya bit her lip. "But, it's not crumbling at a critical rate, we have some room to manoeuvre."

"So you'll help."

"I'll help look for an alternative. If I'm not satisfied by any we come up with, I will bring the Doctor to you or vice versa and I will end this."

"If you're not satisfied?"

"If I'm not absolutely sure that our chosen course of action won't irreparably damage the Web of Time, it won't be happening."

Mari huffed. "I don't care about the Web of Time!"

"You should! Every being in the universe should, but you especially, it's in your blood!"

"And you should be even more hell bent on saving him than I am!" Mari's confusion was plain. "Why aren't you? If it were Esther, I would destroy every star in the sky if it meant that-"

"Exactly! Do you even hear yourself?" Aliya, despite her horror, also felt a strange sympathy for the woman opposite her. "You're so young. And don't give me that look, because I know you don't feel young, which is fair enough, but you are. You just admitted you would destroy most of the known universe to save your girlfriend of what? Four months? That you've known less than two years? Then it's a damn good thing she's immortal because she wouldn't thank you for that."

"I love her."

"I know you do. But you've known her less than two years. Do you have any idea how long the Doctor and I have known each other?"

Mari sat back on the edge of her desk, arms crossed. "How long?"

"Twelve centuries. Can you even comprehend that? Knowing and loving someone for over a thousand years?" Before the redhead could even open her mouth, Aliya shook her head. "No, you can't. How could you? He's my best friend in the universe and has been all that time. He wasn't always there and he wasn't always the one I cared about the most, but he was always someone I cared about deeply and has always been the person who knows me better than any other living being in existence."

"You love him a lot," Mari said, her face unfathomable.

Aliya laughed, oddly. "I love him so much it makes me breathless, and giddy, and cruel and reckless and ecstatic and fierce and stupid. Incredibly, incredibly stupid. But never so stupid that I would rip apart the universe to save him!"

Mari barely flinched. "So we'll be sure to find a solution that doesn't do that."

Aliya let out a heavy sigh and gave her a tiny, tired smile. "If it were that easy, Mari, River Song would still be alive. I've let one person I love die because it was what had to happen, and it killed me, but I will do it again if I have to because I'm the last Time Lady of Gallifrey and preserving the Web of Time is my responsibility now. I won't let it be destroyed because a petulant child is refusing to kill her-"

The word vanished from her mouth before it could be spoken, like matter in a vacuum. She abruptly turned away to hide how her face had crumbled.

"...her father," Mari murmured.

Aliya stiffened, only to spin around. "What did you just say?"

Mari's eyes were even, surprisingly so, as they met hers. "I'm trying to save my father. And if you want me to do it without fracturing your Web of Time, you should probably help me."

The older of the two swallowed. "Alright," she whispered, "Where do we start?"

Mari smiled. "I believe subduing Kovarian and her creatures will need to come first if we are to attempt something on this scale." Her hand went to her desk and picked up an eyedrive. "You'll need this."

Aliya caught it when it was thrown to her, and nodded as she turned it over in her hands. "Taking down Kovarian? Now that's something I can get behind."

A few weeks later (but not actually later at all) Kovarian was tied up in the building's basement and more of her memory proof creatures were being brought in by the day. Aliya and Mari retired to the latter's office.

"You never explained how I was active here weeks before you were," Mari said as she looked out at London from her window.

"Oh, no, I didn't, did I?" Aliya remarked, surprised, looking up from some papers on the desk she had been examining. "Well, it was a long conversation, and you broke my nose."

Mari glanced over her shoulder to glimpse said nose, which was now noticeably crooked. She smirked.

"You had it coming."

"Debatable," Aliya retorted, glaring but only half meaning it. "But the reason for the delays is simple enough. You're half of the center of the disruption, so you were here first. The Doctor, wherever he is, would have been the same. I was miles off in the TARDIS, away from the center, so it took longer to reach me. But you know what it tells us?"

Mari's eyes flashed, her realisation coming with a speed that quietly impressed Aliya. "That Kovarian was watching the lake. She had to have been close by to be active here before you."

Aliya nodded. "Exactly. It's something we need to keep in mind with this insane ploy of ours. Speaking of which, I'm going to need to work somewhere much bigger and more isolated than a London skyscraper."

Mari grinned. "How do you feel about pyramids?"

April 22nd, present:

However apprehensive the Doctor had seemed of the eyedrives, once Aliya explained their function he had been willing enough to put his on, even though he was plainly still about as comfortable with it as Aliya herself was with hers.

She got the captain of the guard checking the seals on the tanks containing the memory proof creatures before they headed for the control room. As they walked, it was hard for Aliya to not get distracted by the Doctor's presence, as she had missed him terribly and was all too aware of the possibility of losing him again very soon.

"She was right, just his presence in the building caused the loop to extend by nearly four chronons," a female scientist called Kent said from nearby, to the redheaded figure facing away from them and looking at the large digital clock display on the front all of the room.

"Sorry if I took a while to get here," the Doctor said, "Had a date with Winston Churchill and he threw me in a tower for a few weeks."

Mari turned around, eyebrow up. "That's what they all say."

"This isn't the time for banter," Aliya told them, frowning, "Since when did you two even do banter? Because, yeah, you picked a terrible time for it."

"Not a terrible time, the death of time," said Kovarian from where she was tied to a chair behind Mari, "The end of time. The end of us all." She glared at the Doctor. "Oh, why couldn't you just die?"

"Did my best, I showed up," the Doctor told her, shrugging, "You just can't get the psychopaths these days." He spun around, fixing his gaze back onto Mari and Aliya. "How did you score all this?"

"It turns out that Kennedy and Cleopatra both like eloquent redheads," Mari said, smirking, "Which one might not have seen coming with the former, but the latter-"

"Has tried to hit on several of my companions, most of them the gingers, it figures," the Doctor replied, sighing. "Mari, reality is fatally compromised. Tell me you understand that. Tell me Aliya has tried to make you understand that."

"Of course I have, give me some credit."

"Ice cream?" Mari asked him with mock pleasantry, ignoring their more serious words. "Since we were unable to go before-"

"We don't have the time, nobody has the time, because as long as I'm alive, time is dying. Because of you." Despite his accusing words, the Doctor's expression was softer, more disappointed and concerned than anything else.

"Because I refuse to kill one of the three people in the universe I actually care about."

"Oh, you care about me?" He repeated, lifting an eyebrow. "Really?" He darted out to try and get closer to her, but she barked for him to be seized and soldiers stopped him before he could properly invade her space.

"I know what happens if we touch," Mari told him.

"Yeah, I wonder how that happened," he muttered, his gaze shifting to Aliya, "How have you two managed to actually work together, anyway? Hang on, were you the one that broke her nose?" When silence served as his answer, he snorted. "Of course you were."

Kovarian sniggered at that while Aliya's eyes just went to the floor. The Doctor used their being distracted to wrestle out of the hold of the soldiers and grab Mari by the arm.

"Let go of me!" Mari snapped, trying to yank her hand out of his grip.

"It's moving, time's moving!" Kent exclaimed, and sure enough the clock had moved to three past five, those precious few seconds enough to change the minute status. Aliya's consciousness flashed to pure black. It lasted only a second, and when it was over everyone around her looked similarly dazed.

Mari's free hand balled into a fist and collided with the Doctor's face, knocking him away from her. "Cuff him," she commanded, her eyes hard.

"It's the only way, Mari," the Doctor told her desperately, wincing as he clutched his face until his hands were handcuffed behind him, "We're the opposite poles of the disruption. If we touch, we short out the differential. Time can begin again."

"And I will be at a lakeside, killing you."

"And time won't fall apart. The clocks will tick. Reality will continue. There isn't another way."

"I never said there was."

Something hit the top of Aliya's head. It felt like a drop of water, and she lifted her head to look at the ceiling. It was covered in drips that were steadily starting to fall. "Um...what's that?" She asked the others.

The Doctor followed her gaze. "The pyramid above us. How many Silence do you have trapped inside it?"

"None," Kovarian said, surprising them all and making Aliya's blood run cold, "They're not trapped, they never have been. They've been waiting for this, Doctor. For you."

The captain of the guard burst in. "They're out! All of them." He hurried to bar the door. "No one gets in here. Ma'ams, my men out there should be able to lock this down. We have them outnumbered."

"And you're wearing eye drives based on mine, I think," Kovarian noted, smiling with malice, "Oops."

"What do you mean?" The Doctor asked her. Near him, Doctor Kent's eyedrive surged with electricity, making her scream. "Help her!" Aliya rushed to her side, even as some of the soldiers were electrocuted too, but for Kent it was too late.

"She's dead."

The Doctor's eyedrive started to zap him, and Aliya hurried to help him get it off. "Eyedrives off now," he told the room, "Remove them." Aliya was about to get rid of her own when Mari's flared, and she hurried to help the other woman get it off, even though the redhead was silently stoic in her pain.

"Thank you," Mari told her quietly once the eyedrive was on the floor, and she yanked Aliya's off with little delicacy, ignoring how the blonde winced.

"The Silence would never allow an advantage without taking one themselves," Kovarian continued to brag, "The effects will vary from person to person. Either death, or deliberating agony." She was plainly enjoying herself too much. "But they will take you all, one by one-"

The smirk dropped off her face.

"What are you doing?" She asked as her own eyedrive started to crackle. "No, it's me. Don't be stupid. You need me. Stop it. Stop that! Get it off me!"

The Doctor paid her no attention and turned to Mari instead. "We could stop this right now, you and I. Aliya, tell her!"

"I have!" Aliya said. "But we've been working on something. Let us at least show you."

"There's no point, there's nothing you can do, my time is up-"

"We're doing this for you-"

"Then people are dying for me - I won't thank you for that, Aliyanadevoralundar," the Doctor snapped at Aliya, who flinched but stood her ground all the same.

"Just let us show you. Captain, how long do we-" She turned around to see that he along with the others was dead, and winced but knew she didn't have time to be upset about it. "Shit. We probably have a few minutes, at a guess."

"That's enough," Mari said resolutely, and looked at the Doctor, "We're going to the Receptor Room right at the top of the pyramid. Aliya will take you."

He sighed and nodded, and Aliya walked him down the corridor and towards the stairs, only to quickly realise that Mari wasn't following. She gave him some quick directions, made sure he was intending to follow them, and doubled back. Mari was re-entering the control room from the passage, a machine gun in hand. Aliya came back into the room behind her at the same time that the creatures burst in.

With a hard, unforgiving look in her eye, Mari gunned every single one of them down without so much as flinching. Once they had all fallen, the sound of the other soldiers fighting the other creatures could be heard in the distance.

"We need to go, Mari," Aliya told her, and Mari jumped, for once actually taken by surprise. She just nodded and they began to leave just as a tiny moan could be heard behind them.

"Aliya," Kovarian called out weakly, her eyedrive dangling by a thread, "Help me."

The two alien women halted in unison and turned back to look at her. Aliya stared unblinkingly at the monster who had taken her and held her prisoner, before stealing her baby and hurting her until she had turned into someone Aliya had hated.

"Why should I?" She asked the human.

"Because he would. And you'd never do anything to disappoint your precious Doctor."

"It's entirely inconsequential," Mari said, stepping forward, her fists clenched, "Because I wouldn't let her get near you."

Aliya could only glimpse the new and cold hatred that had taken up in the redhead's eyes, but Kovarian had the full brunt of it and the brunette's face had drained of colour.

"I raised you," she told Mari desperately, "Everything you are, is of my making."

"And what is that?" Mari snarled. "A murderer? A psychopath?" She advanced until she was bent over and they were on the same level, inches apart. "You took away my childhood. You turned me against my family and made me a killer. You royally messed me up and made me bitter."

She briefly glanced back at Aliya, who was just standing frozen. Their eyes met, just for moment, and she could see Mari realise that whatever she intended to do, Aliya wasn't going to stop her. Mari turned back around and grabbed Kovarian's eyedrive so that she could press it firmly into the woman's eye socket, deeper than necessary so that it cut the skin and made her scream as a small trickle of blood leaked down the side of her nose.

"Does it hurt?" Mari sounded triumphant. Almost joyous, and Aliya could see the corner of her chilling grin. "You made this, Kovarian. You made me. And when the electricity is coursing through you, you can consider what a truly fantastic job you did."

"Aliya, please!" Kovarian sobbed. "Think of the Doctor."

"You took away my baby and hurt her until I couldn't recognise her," Aliya said, her voice quiet but no less hard, eyes narrowed, "I'll never get her back. I don't have anything left to say to you." She looked to the redhead who was backing away from her handiwork. "Come on, Mari."

They left the control room and hurried to the top of the pyramid, where the Doctor was waiting, still handcuffed and looking even more annoyed than before.

"A timey wimey distress beacon," he commented, frowning at it, "I imagine you built this, Aliya."

"Of course."

"But that's all you've got, a distress beacon."

"We've been sending out a message," Aliya told him, intently, "Well, actually it's more of a distress call. We might be living in this anomaly, but outside of it, the universe still stands, for now, and the message has gone everywhere. Future, past, every corner of the universe and every horizon of time."

"What message?"

"The Doctor is dying," she said softly, "Please, please help."

His face twisted with disbelief. "Aliya, this is ridiculous. That would mean nothing to anyone. It's insane, worse, it's stupid. You embarrass me."

She scowled. "I don't care about your embarrassment, you moron, I care about you being alive. And after all you've done, how could you think people don't care?"

Mari came to stand partway between them. "I barricaded the door. We have a few minutes, but no more. Aliya, tell him."

"I imagine you've seen the reports of the sunspots and solar flares," Aliya said quickly, before he could keep arguing, "But that's not what they are at all. It's you. They're millions of voices in the sky saying yes, of course we'll help. You've touched the lives of so many people, why did we never think to just ask some of them for help? You might think that the universe is better off without you - and I know you think that, I've been in your head - but the universe doesn't agree and I certainly don't."

"And neither do I," Mari added, more quietly.

"Aliya, you should know better than anyone, no one can help me-"

"We thought you might know a way to use all the help that's being offered," Aliya continued, her voice shaking, "There are a few that definitely seem promising, and anything's worth a try-"

"A fixed point has been altered, time is disintegrating!"

"I know. But...I had to ask," she whispered, tearing up, "Is there really nothing? Really no way that this helps at all?"

"I think deep down you know there isn't," he told her, and her head dropped. "Now, Mari-"

"I will not let you die," the youngest of the trio said firmly, crossing her arms, "We've been through this before and my stance has not changed."

"But I have to die."

"Shut up. We wanted you to see this, all those voices in the sky," Mari said, glancing up before bringing her eyes to properly meet his, "We couldn't let you die without knowing you are loved by so many and so much, Aliya especially to a degree I'm not entirely sure I could ever fully comprehend…and even…" She swallowed, her eyes wet now too. "And even by me."

The Doctor stared at her, visibly overwhelmed by emotion that he didn't have the time to be experiencing. "Mari, you know what this means," he managed to say, "Aliya's told you. We are ground zero of an explosion that will engulf all reality. Billions upon billions will suffer and die."

"I don't care about billions on billions, I care about you!" Mari shouted, her face twisting. "And I will suffer, if I am forced to kill you."

"More than every living thing in the universe?"

"Of course not," she snapped, "But as I just said, I couldn't care less about them."

"Not even Esther?" He asked incredulously. "She's part of the universe, Mari, she's one of the people who lives in it. Her immortality can't save her from the disintegration of the entire fourth dimension!"

Mari winced, and said nothing.

"Aliya, uncuff me, now," the Doctor said, more calmly, but with an edge in his voice that had Aliya obey without question. Besides, there wasn't anything more for her to do. They had tried and failed.

"I'm sorry," she said, and he just brushed aside a strand of her hair.

"I know," he replied, giving her a tiny, sad smile, "Now, I've said my goodbyes to you, I'm not doing it again."

She nodded and let him approach Mari, whose entire body had tensed. The redhead backed into the corner of the top of the pyramid as he came closer, until there was nowhere else for her to go.

"Mari," he said, so softly and his eyes holding the affection and love he had been restraining out of practicality until now, "Mari, I need you to come closer, and to listen to me."

"You're the only person who can make me feel safe," Mari whispered as she shook her head, staring at him with shining eyes and looking every bit the scared child she was in this moment, "I'm not sure I can let go of that feeling when I've only just found it. You're ridiculous and annoying and wonderful and I won't kill you, I won't-"

"Shh," he murmured, his fingers brushing against her hair for a moment, "Mari, I understand, I really do, and I'm sorry. But I need you to listen to me. I need to tell you something private. Something very, very important."

She said nothing, though her eyes dropped to where his hand touched her hair. When he leaned in closer, she stiffened but didn't back away even as his mouth came to rest at her ear.

Aliya, standing some way away from them, couldn't make out what he whispered because she was on the wrong of Mari to attempt lip reading. But whatever it was, it made Mari sharply look at him in the eye as he pulled away.

Something in her face shifted, her hazel eyes widening a fraction and starting to shine with an unfathomable emotion.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, "I should have-"

"None of that," he said, firmly but not unkindly. "Now, Mari..." His voice became softer, and his eyes even more tender. "My Mariaka. My daughter. I have a request. This world is dying and it's my fault, and I can't bear it another day. Please, help me. There isn't another way."

Mari swallowed thickly and just nodded. He gave her a small smile, then cupped the side of her face so that he could lean in and press a kiss to her forehead, so slow and so sweet that Aliya felt her hearts pang as she watched them. Tears rolled down Mari's cheeks as she and the Doctor began to glow with burning white chronon energy, and Aliya had to shield her eyes as it got brighter and brighter.

The world righted itself in a blinding flash of light.

Hopefully that made you feel some feelings. I swear I did not go into this chapter intending for Mari to break Aliya's nose, that just happened. I blame them, not me.

Thanks for reading! Let me know what you thought!

-MayFairy :)

Guest Review Replies:

EvenEth13 - Yeah this series is only going to cover events up to the end of Series 8 so I saw no harm in using a bit of the Hell Bent dialogue when it fit so perfectly! Glad you liked it! Hope this one was enjoyable too :)

Guest - well, I've updated, so hopefully you're happy! So glad you love this story!