Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or any of its preexisting characters. I'm just playing with them.^^

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Never Alone, Chapter 03: The Darkness

Athena was the first on Earth to notice.

It was Rose's birthday, and while the family's celebrations (including Mickey and Jake, both of whom were Athena's honorary uncles) had been rather quiet, they were now gathered together in the backyard for the fireworks show that Athena had demanded on her mother's behalf. The little girl's bedtime had even been extended for the night as a result, and she had been happily watching the bursts of colour in the night sky from her mother's lap, wearing her newest costume from Grandmum Jackie (Princess Irene, from the movie The Princess and the Goblin) when she saw it.

"Mum?" the little girl suddenly asked, shifting in Rose's arms so that she could tug on the woman's jacket sleeve to get her attention. She had interrupted her mother in the middle of a conversation with Uncle Mickey, but the alarm in Athena's voice was enough that no one even bothered to correct her manners. "Mum, the stars are going out!"

"What d'you mean, sweetheart?" Rose asked patiently, giving her daughter her full attention; when you had a daughter like Athena, you really couldn't afford to give her anything less.

"Six stars just went out!" the child exclaimed; she had everyone's full attention now. "Look – there go five more!"

All five adults quickly looked to the sky, where she was pointing – just in time to see a few more blink out of existence. Mickey had his phone out and was placing a call to Torchwood before Jackie could even turn to Pete for some sort of explanation as to how that was even possible.

"THE STARS ARE GOING OUT!" Athena could be heard screaming over everyone else's wonderings, now in a full-blown panic as she had to watch yet more of them disappear. Someone was messing with the timelines of hundreds of worlds – she could feel it! – and there was nothing she could do. So she responded as any almost-five year old must – she began to cry, and Rose desperately tried to comfort her.

"Rose." Mickey suddenly interrupted her attempts to calm her daughter, cell phone still held to his ear, with an intent look upon his face that could only mean one thing. "The dimension cannon's working."

"Reality is collapsing," the little Time Lady declared from her mother's arms, sounding as though she was in shock. "The walls between the universes are breaking down."

And with that statement, the dimension cannon ceased to be about simply getting back to the Doctor; it was now the only way Rose could save her daughter from the collapse of reality.

"We're going to Torchwood," Rose announced, quickly getting to her feet even as she continued to cling to the little girl in her arms. Predictably, Jackie opened her mouth to object, but Rose cut her off. "Mum, just this once, please do as I say!" Surprisingly, the older woman actually fell silent, and Rose was able to turn her attention to the others. "Mickey, you and Jake head over first, let them know we're coming – we'll be right behind you." With a quick nod, the two young men obediently took off for Mickey's car. "Dad?"

"Yes, sweetheart?" Pete asked, by now more than used to having a daughter – and one with a tendency to give orders during a crisis, at that.

"Take mum with you, and get the car – Athena and I will meet you out front," Rose instructed, and the moment her parents had turned to follow Mickey and Jake, she took off back to the house with Athena to grab a few of the little girl's things. No matter what happened when she found the Doctor, they were coming back for their daughter, after all, and there were some things the little girl would refuse to leave without.

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Poor little Athena was not at all happy. While all the other grown-ups were busy playing around with the dimension cannon, she was stuck sitting around with her Grandmum Jackie – and their coordinates were wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG! And did they listen to her when she tried to tell them that? Of course not! So now they were all scrambling about, trying to figure out why her mum kept ending up stuck in video screens in the other universe, even though she'd already told them.

Honestly, sometimes she hated grown-ups. They thought they knew everything, but they could be so stupid! Ignoring her, just because she was little...

And now mum kept ending up in another alternate universe – a whole universe that had been created around one woman, named Donna (Athena liked that name, "Donna"). She didn't seem to mind it so much, though; said it was wrong, that she had to fix it, so they stopped trying to fix the coordinates for a while. But Rose sorted everything out (sometimes, Athena thought her mum could fix anything), and was finally there long enough to hear her daughter's objections to the coordinates for the dimension cannon, so Athena finally got her chance at the controls.

"There! Now it'll work right," the little girl announced with more than a little pride, stepping away from the controls 46 seconds later to go stand with her mother. The next words out of her mouth, however, were entirely serious. "I'm going with you."

"No, you most certainly are not," Rose informed her sternly. "It's too dangerous – you're too little."

"But-"

"No! You are going to stay here until I get back. Promise me!" the young mother demanded, unable to keep all the fear from her voice. There was no way of knowing what was waiting for her back in her old universe.

Athena didn't answer, fully displaying the stubbornness she'd inherited from both of her parents, but she did step back to let her mother go. This time, Rose took a weapon with her.

It was about an hour later that everyone decided to take a short break. Someone was sent out for take-away, some took a bathroom break, others headed to the kitchen for tea or coffee... and Athena was left alone with the dimension cannon.

Sometimes, Athena loved grown-ups. They never took her seriously, just because she was still a little girl – it never occurred to them that she shouldn't be left alone with that technology. But she was a Time Lady, and she wasn't about to sit back while the fate of reality itself was decided. She was going to help.

A few more tweaks to the coordinates, and she was gone.