Chapter Eight; Clara Learns The Truth

Angel raced through the door with something caught in her paw. "What happened to the cat?" Mickey wondered.

"It looks like she's bleeding." Martha said.

"Hold on, I'll take a look at her." I said as I bent down and picked her up. "Looks like she's been messing around with a prickerbush." I said as she tried to break free of my arms. "It's alright, I'm not going to hurt you. Just stay still a moment and I'll get it." I told her before I pulled it out. "There you go, now that's better isn't it?" I questioned before I set her back down on the floor.

"Shouldn't you bandage her up first?" Martha asked.

"Nah, the blood's practically dried up. I'm just starting to worry about the kids. I mean it feels like it's been forever and I wonder what could be taking them so long." I said.

"You don't think that the machine shrunk all of them do you?" Martha questioned.

"I dunno, I hope not." I said.

"Well it sort of fits since none of them has come back yet." Mickey pointed out.

"Oh my God, what if we accidentally stepped on them?" Martha wondered as I thought for a moment.

"No, I don't think we have. I don't think that they're inside this house anymore." I began.

"Why do you think that?" Mickey asked me.

"The very first thing I told Peter is that the TARDIS recognizes DNA, I'll bet you anything that's where they're going." I told him.

"Well, what are we going to do about it then?" Mickey questioned.

"The only thing we can do, which is hope and pray that they make it."

Meanwhile Cassie felt as though she was slowing the rest of the group down. "Hold on." Peter began as he stopped and turned to look behind him. "We're stopping." He said.

"Again?" Jane questioned.

"I'm sorry, it's just that I am so tired and I want to go to bed." She said.

"She has a point, we have a busy day ahead of us so we should probably rest up so that we can have enough energy tomorrow. I want to make it by Sunday so that we'll be able to go back to school the next day." Peter said.

"Uh are you sick? You hate school." Jane said.

"I know, but Dad's going to be our new basketball coach and I'm really looking forward to it. We'll camp here for the night." He said.

"How can we when there's nothing to sleep in?" Jane wondered.

"Of course there is, you just got to use your imagination. Look, the answer's right in front of you." He told her as he picked a leaf up off the ground. "You see, there's our sleeping bags." He said before he set it back down.

"What about my nightlight? I never go to sleep without it." Cassie said worriedly.

"We'll make a fire. Jane come with me and we'll gather up some wood. Nathan stay here with Maggie and Cassie." Peter told them.

"Why do I have to come with you?" Jane questioned.

"Because I've spent the first decade of my rather long life with you and I know you enough to know that I can't trust you not to go wandering off." He told her. "Now c'mon." he said.

"Okay, okay, I'm coming!" she cried. "But if we run into any cryptics I'm blaming you." She told him.

"Fair enough, now let's go." He told her.

…..

I laid awake inside my bed realizing that I couldn't get to sleep if I tried. I was too worried about my children. What was worse was that I didn't get a chance to tell them that I was going out with Clara again tomorrow night so that I could tell her about the coaching position, but when she showed up on my doorstep the next morning saying that she couldn't go because her brother was ill, I couldn't say that I was disappointed.

"Oh gee, umm,.. that's horrible." I told her as I held the door open for her. "I'm so sorry."

"Yeah well maybe we can go tomorrow night instead." She suggested.

"Uh wouldn't you rather wait until he was out of the hospital?" I questioned her.

"Well I suppose so,.." she began. "is everything alright? You look kind of pale." She said. "And it seems rather quiet around here." She realized as she strained her neck inside to see. "Where are the kids?" she asked me.

"Uh, I dunno. They're probably just playing out in the yard." I said with a shrug.

"No they're not. I don't see them." She told me.

"Well then maybe they're in the woods who knows?"

"Well shouldn't you know where your own children are?" she questioned me. "Why do I have a feeling that you're hiding something from me?" she asked.

"Do you really want to know?" I questioned her.

"Yes, I want the truth!" she snapped.

"Alright fine, Cassie built a shrinking machine for her science class but she accidentally shrunk herself and the rest of the kids in the process." I told her.

"Ha! That's a good one." She told me as she stifled a laugh. "You'd make a good comedian."

"I'm not joking, it's true. Listen Clara, there's something that I have to tell you. I'm an alien, and so is Peter, and Jane and Cassie. I came from the planet Gallifrey in my spaceship the TARDIS and I'm almost a thousand years old." I told her.

"But that's impossible." She said. "Space aliens don't exist."

"Oh really? Then what do you call that?" I asked her as I pointed over to the blue box a crossed the street. She quickly spun around and gave a small gasp.

"That's a phone booth isn't it?" she wondered.

"No, it's the TARDIS, or to put it simply,.. a time machine."