CHAPTER 33
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A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY UP THE AISLE PART 3
Just before the Rani's hands reached the Master's head however her force field was instantly shattered as it fell before the combined attack of both Marion and Rose at once. The Rani was now taken by complete surprise as Rose flung her into the nearest wall with a single gesture while Marion teleported both the staser and the miniature version of the Dalek weapon to her hand from the Rani's pocket and instantly destroyed them with a powerful burst of energy a second later.
"No! You can't do this!" The Rani shouted in outrage as the Moment went straight to her TARDIS' console.
"Sorry to disappoint you, mate, but I'm afraid I can and I will. There's nothing that I won't do to protect my family and that's exactly what everyone here has become to me. They mean everything to me and I won't, I repeat won't, allow you to muck about with their lives anymore. Not on my watch," Marion said with a stern look as she held a glowing hand over the console.
"You're erasing all of the information on the Dalek weapon from my TARDIS' memory banks aren't you? Do you really think that will stop me? It'll barely even slow me down. I still have all of that information right up here," The Rani said as she pointed to her brain with a smug look on her face.
"Then it's a good thing that I'm here, isn't it?" Clara said as she suddenly regained consciousness and looked at the Rani with glowing eyes.
The Rani gasped in surprise now as she immediately felt a foreign presence invading her mind. As soon as all of her memories of the weapon began to be slowly erased, she instantly realized that Clara was behind it.
"Get out of my head, Alura!" The Rani screamed as she fought with Clara for control of her memories.
"I'm sorry for invading your privacy this way, Ushas. I truly am and I want you to know that I'd never do this if there was any other way. I can't let you go through with this though. You could wind up wiping us all out if you succeed in what you have planned because there's no way that even you could take into account all of the changes that the ripple effects for undoing your father's death might make to Time. I'm not about to let anyone that I love be erased from history just because you feel guilty over something that's not your fault," Clara said as she began to use her full power against The Rani in an attempt to quickly win their mental struggle.
That was when The Rani realized to her horror that her knowledge of the Dalek weapon wasn't the only thing that Clara was trying to get rid of at that moment.
The Rani now gave Clara a look of shocked betrayal as she said in a voice filled with disbelief and outrage, "No! Don't! Leave me alone. Just . . . stop it."
"I can't. I have to end this somehow and this is the most peaceful way that I know how. Forgive me, Ushas, but I can't let this go on any longer," Clara said as she looked at her with pleading eyes.
"I can't believe that you would do this to me. You . . . You're trying to erase my memory of what I did to my father! How dare you? How dare you?!" The Rani shrieked as she continued to resist Clara with every fiber of her being.
"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Clara said in tears as she continued to do her best to erase the Rani's memory.
"You won't stop me, Alura. I don't care how powerful that you've become. I will never give up especially not when I'm this close to succeeding. Do you hear me, Alura? I. Will. Save. Him!" The Rani said in an obstinate voice as she fought back with every bit of her willpower to retain her memories.
"Ushas, stop this. You're killing yourself. Do you understand what you're doing? If you continue to fight back against me like this, you could burn your brain out . . . or even die," Clara warned.
"Worth it," The Rani said in an unconcerned tone as she continued to hold onto her memories with every bit of willpower that she could muster.
Then she smiled as she heard her TARDIS beginning to materialize. She knew that if she could just hold on for a few more moments, she could finally win this at last.
"Where are we landing?" Jenny asked in alarm as she knocked out a full grown Raptor with one well-placed punch to the top of its head while holding on for dear life to its back.
"Wherever it is it's definitely not good, Little Sister, and we can't afford to let Old Stone Face get there if we still want to win this thing," Ace warned as she knocked out several Raptors at once with a well-placed canister of Nitro-9.
"Unfortunately we're hardly in a position to stop it right now, Dorothy, since we're currently up to our ears in rabid dinosaurs that would really, really like to make a meal out of all of us. That means it'll have to be left up to the two Roses won't it? They're the closest ones to the console right now," Tish said as she just avoided having to go through a premature regeneration when a Raptor came within seconds of taking a huge bite out of her neck.
"And yet they seem just as helpless as the rest of us are at the moment," The Seventh Doctor noted as he briefly saw Rose and Marion looking at the console with growing concern even as he stuffed the tip of his umbrella in a hungry Raptor's mouth.
"Yes, well the reason for that is obvious isn't it, young man? The Rani has encased her TARDIS' navigational controls in Vortex shielding in order to protect them from temporal storms. That's a very good idea actually. I should try it myself sometime. Unfortunately for us however it will also have the unintentional side effect of protecting the controls against their Vortex powers as well because it means that they can't affect them no matter how hard that they try. We'll just have to try another way to reverse our course while we still have time," The First Doctor explained.
"Everyone just stand back then. I know exactly what to do. I'll just reverse the polarity of the neutron flow in her console's navigational controls. That ought to do it," The Third Doctor said as he aimed his sonic screwdriver at the console while deftly throwing a Raptor over his shoulder with his other arm using his expert knowledge of Venusian Aikido.
He immediately frowned however when he realized that the screwdriver wasn't working on it.
"Blast!" The Third Doctor said in immediate frustration.
"Having a spot of trouble, old chap? Why don't you just stand back and let a real expert handle this, hmm?" The Second Doctor said in a smug voice.
The Third Doctor instantly glared at him as he said in a frustrated tone, "By all means, go right ahead . . . if you want to completely waste what little time that we still have left that is. You won't do any better than I did I'm afraid. The Rani's brilliant mind has already thought of a way to combat every possible means of sabotage it seems. The whole console is deadlock sealed."
"Oh, crumbs! We'll just have to come up with some other way then won't we? Any of the rest of me have any good ideas?" The Second Doctor said in disappointment.
"Perhaps it needs a more old-fashioned approach," The Fourth Doctor said with a grin as he used his long scarf to hopelessly tie up several of the Raptors near him in knots and then slipped out of it so that he could race toward the console.
He quickly rushed past Rose and Marion and doffed his hat to them as he said, "Ladies."
And then he thumped the console as hard as he could with his fist.
To everyone's surprise, the TARDIS instantly stalled in mid-dematerialization and was quickly thrown back into the Vortex as the Fourth Doctor smiled in triumph and ate a jelly baby.
"How in the world did you do that then?" Rose asked in amazement.
"It's relatively simple, my dear. Sometimes all you need to do to have the right effect on a piece of machinery is to hit it in exactly the right spot. That can do wonders to either fix or foul up even the most sophisticated piece of machinery. Would you like a jelly baby?" The Fourth Doctor said as he offered her one with a warm smile.
Rose eagerly ate one and then returned his smile as she said, "Mmmm! Now I see why you like these so much. Tastes wonderful, yeah? Not as good as some freshly made chips of course but then what is?"
"Yeah, but a good banana's much better than either of them though, Rose," The Ninth Doctor said as he gave his fourth self a clearly jealous look.
"Well, that just goes without saying doesn't it?" Rose said as she winked at him.
"A banana daiquiri is still better than any of them though, right?" The Metacrisis said in a hopeful tone as he gave both Four and Nine dirty looks.
"It's the best," Rose said as she gave him a reassuring kiss.
"I'm afraid . . . that won't do you . . . any good, Doctor," The Rani said with a furious look as she ignored Rose and the others and glared in defiance at the Fourth Doctor even while she continued to fight back against Clara's withering mental assault.
With shaking hands, The Rani used her last vestiges of strength to pull a Stattenheim Remote Control to her TARDIS out of her pocket.
"Oh, no you don't! Drop it, Ushas," Clara commanded even as she wrestled with The Rani for the remote physically as well as mentally.
It seemed as if all was lost now as The Rani could already feel herself starting to give way before Clara's continued mental and physical assault. She could already see her last hope of righting the horrible mistake that she had made fading away right before her eyes as she began to rapidly lose consciousness.
Then, impossibly, she actually seemed to gain a sudden burst of renewed strength somehow and finally won at last!
"Too late . . . Alura," The Rani said in a strained voice as she weakly smiled in triumph.
Despite all of Clara's best efforts to stop her, The Rani still managed to hit the right button to land the TARDIS once more. As soon as the ship materialized, she quickly hit another button on the remote control just a moment before Clara finally successfully pulled it out of her hand.
"It's too late now, Alura. Do you feel it? It's already done now. I've finally succeeded at last," The Rani said with a smug grin.
"What's happening? I feel . . . strange," Jenny said as she held her head while a sudden bout of dizziness overcame her.
"The Rani's released some more of that sleeping gas that she used on Alura earlier, my dear, and it's filling the entire room. We have to stop her quickly while we still can because even my superior endurance won't be able to last long against such a concentrated dose," The Sixth Doctor said in a concerned voice.
"It's too late now, Doctors. Too late for anything! I've finally returned to my home base on Miasimia Goria at last and now none of you can stop me," The Rani said in triumph as everyone quickly began to fall to the floor unconscious all around her even Clara.
As soon as Clara fell once more to the gas, The Rani slowly started regaining her strength as she looked down at her now motionless friend and said in a sad voice, "Even though you were in my mind you were still far too busy trying to erase my memories to bother seeing what I had planned weren't you? You never even realized that I had a larger version of the Dalek's weapon here that none of you had managed to destroy just yet. Unfortunately I could only use it to affect time on this world . . . until now."
Now with no one left to stop her she quickly stole the secrets that she needed from the Master's mind and smiled to herself with glee. Then she quickly set to work at rapidly recalibrating and improving her weapon's range before any of her enemies could wake up in time to stop her.
In almost no time at all it seemed, The Rani had finally done it at last. She had the weapon ready to activate at last and only hesitated a brief moment as she looked back in the direction of her TARDIS.
"You'll see, Alura. It's better this way. Everything will be fine now and best of all you'll never even remember any of this. We can finally be friends again now. I've missed that so much," The Rani said with a sad smile just before she finally pushed the button at last.
Time immediately warped and changed all around her as she undid her father's death as if it had never happened. Before she even realized what had happened, she suddenly found herself not on Miasimia Goria but back on Gallifrey once more in the life that she would have had in the present day if only things had turned out differently.
The Dalek weapon was now gone as if it had never even existed, and she was left with only memories of that other timeline now. Memories that she hoped would soon become long forgotten if she had succeeded.
Had she succeeded though?
She found herself hoping beyond hope that she had gotten it all right somehow because she knew that she wouldn't get a second chance if she didn't.
Then she instantly smiled with joy as she recognized her father, who was much older now than he had been when he had died, coming out of his house to greet her. Apparently she had been on her way to see him in this new timeline of hers.
"Ushas, what a welcome surprise! Where are the children though? Didn't you bring them with you?" The Rani's father asked with a warm smile.
"I . . . I . . ." The Rani started to say in an emotional voice as she briefly tried to speak.
Then she finally gave up on any pretense of speech whatsoever as she rushed forward to hug her father tightly while tears of joy flowed freely from her eyes. Now she could finally allow herself to feel again at last with him back once more. She could finally allow herself to live for the first time in so very long now that her greatest mistake had been undone at last.
"What's wrong, Ushas? You act as if you haven't seen me in years. Is something wrong?" The Rani's father said with concern as she refused to let him go.
"No, everything's right, Father. Everything's so wonderfully right," The Rani said in a tone of pure bliss.
"I'm glad to hear it. I thought maybe you might have been upset because of what day it is. You always get so depressed at this time of year," The Rani's father said as he softly stroked her hair.
"I do? Why is that then?" The Rani asked in confusion even as some gut instinct warned her that she wouldn't like the answer.
Her father looked at her oddly now as he said, "Are you sure that you're alright? I don't see how you could ever forget what today is. You were always so close to her. The two of you were almost like sisters."
"Father, what are you saying?" The Rani said as her hearts turned cold and a blind panic threatened to overcome her at any moment if what she suspected was true.
"Ushas, don't you remember? It's the anniversary of Alura's death today. This is the day that she gave up all of her regenerations to save my life when I was dying from a heart attack. She discovered me when I was dying and only had seconds left to act if she wanted to save me. She did it without hesitation, Ushas. I'll always remember that. She loved you so much," The Rani's father said with a forlorn expression.
"No, it can't be. It can't be," The Rani said in a devastated voice.
"Ushas, are you sure you're alright? You're acting as if you didn't even remember," The Rani's father said in a concerned voice.
"I . . . I can't let this happen. I'm sorry, Father, but I can't. I can't!" The Rani screamed as she rushed away from her extremely confused father.
She had never thought for one moment that something like this would happen. She finally realized far too late that Clara and the Doctor had been right after all. She couldn't change a fixed point without serious consequences resulting to the rest of her timestream. She should have known better but she just hadn't wanted to listen.
She couldn't let things stay this way. She knew that she had to do something to fix this but what? There was no way to undo the weapon's effects that she knew of which meant that she was now stuck in this new reality forever.
She would now have to live the rest of her lives in a reality where she had just killed her best friend.
As soon as that horrible revelation fully hit her for the first time, The Rani immediately screamed in soul numbing anguish as she shouted, "Alura, I never wanted this. You have to believe me. I never wanted you to die instead. Someone help me! Please help me!"
Then she suddenly fell over face down on the ground as she passed out cold from shock.
What seemed like only a moment later, as if by magic, she felt herself back in the middle of her struggle with Clara for control of her TARDIS remote. It was just as if her earlier triumph against her had never happened.
And now she would make sure that it never would.
"Alura, stop! I give up," The Rani said as she immediately stopped fighting and dropped the remote to the floor.
Then she raised her hands in the air as Clara looked at her in surprise and then quickly read her mind to see that she really did mean it. It was finally over at last.
Clara smiled now as she said, "Well, nice to see that you finally grew a brain again, Stone Face. I thought one or both of us were going to have our minds turning to goo before you ever gave in."
The Rani immediately looked at her with an overwhelming sense of regret as she hugged a shocked Clara tightly and said in a voice filled with emotion, "I'm sorry, Clara. I'm so sorry for everything."
Clara eagerly returned her hug as she said, "I don't know what's going on but I forgive you, Ushas. Everything's alright as far as I'm concerned."
"Uh, if everything's so alright then can someone please do something about these Raptors before I wind up losing a couple of limbs to them?" Ace said in an anxious voice as she barely kept herself from being bitten by a stray Raptor who had somehow snuck up behind her.
"Speaking of losing things what about these handcuffs?" The now fully conscious Master said as he worriedly eyed the countdown on his handcuffs which now only had less than two minutes left on them.
"Don't worry. I'll handle all of it," The Rani said eagerly as she quickly sprang into action.
With the push of a button on her bracelets, gas began to spew forth from them that quickly put the Raptors to sleep due to it being a special brand she had developed that only affected them. Then she immediately released the Master's handcuffs from his hands and stopped their countdown with the quick press of a second button on them.
"I wish I'd have known about that. I could have saved us all a lot of trouble. I really should have done more exploring when I was inside your head," Clara said to Ushas with a groan.
"You think?" The Master said in an annoyed voice.
"Hey, I was just a little preoccupied trying to keep her from wiping out the Web of Time, Blondie," Clara protested.
"It wasn't wiped out. The Web and my father were just fine," The Rani said in an emotionless voice.
"You mean you actually did it?" Clara asked in disbelief.
The Rani nodded which caused Clara to say, "Why are we back here again then?"
The Rani shrugged as she said, "I honestly don't know but I'm so glad that whatever happened to fix everything happened."
"Why? I thought that was what you wanted," Clara asked in confusion.
The haunted look on The Rani's face as she gave her a pointed look told Clara everything that she needed to know. Clara immediately shuddered as The Rani eagerly hugged her and apologized to her once again while she fought back happy tears.
"Interesting," Ten said as he stared intently at Marion.
"What is?" Marion asked as she studied his face intently.
"The Rani actually succeeded in changing history with no possible way of fixing it back once more. Then suddenly Time corrects itself and she's back here once again. Things like that don't just happen, Marion. Something had to have caused it," Ten said as he gave her an accusing look.
Marion smiled enigmatically as she said, "I don't know what to tell you, Doctor. I suppose the Universe just didn't want to lose Clara any more than The Rani did."
"The Universe. Right," Ten said with a skeptical look.
"Or maybe The Rani never actually succeeded at all but only thought that she did for some reason. Then maybe she snapped out of this hallucination or whatever it was once it caused her to realize what could have happened to Clara because of her and made her understand just how much that she really loved her. That could have happened too, yeah? Does it really matter what happened as long as everything's alright again?" Marion asked as she gave him a warm smile.
Ten eagerly returned her smile as he said, "No, I suppose not."
Then he gave her a tender kiss as he said, "Thank you, Marion."
"You're welcome," Marion said as she returned his kiss.
"She did it again. That's another one that I owe you, Cosmic Girl," Clara said with a grateful smile as she overheard them.
"What?" The Rani said because she had been far too grateful to have Clara back alive and well to pay attention to anything else.
"Nothing, Ushas. It's not important right now. So are we friends again? Did you finally stop being the Queen of the Loons at last?" Clara asked in a hopeful voice.
The Rani laughed, truly laughed, now as she said, "Yes, we are as far as I'm concerned and I promise that I won't be so distant anymore. I'm . . . I'm going to try to be like I used to be again, Clara. I promise."
Clara looked at her in surprise as she said, "You called me Clara."
"Well, that's the name in your head now isn't it? I just thought that I'd get it right for once," The Rani said as she kissed Clara's cheek.
Then her face fell as she said, "I need to turn myself into the High Council to answer for what I've done, Clara. I only hope that I get to see you again someday once they've decided what to do with me."
"Don't worry. You'll see me much sooner than that, Ushas. I'm going to tell them that you had a change of heart at the end and do my best to get them to be a little more lenient on you. Do you have to go see them so quickly though? I really would like you to be at the wedding you know? I wasn't just saying that before," Clara said in a heartfelt voice.
The Rani smiled from ear to ear now as she said, "I'd love to be there. Thank you, Clara . . . for everything."
"I'm just so glad to have my friend back. I guess wishes really do come true after all," Clara said as she hugged The Rani once more.
"What do you mean?" The Rani asked.
"It's nothing," Clara said dismissively.
"No, tell me," The Rani insisted.
"It's just that every year on my birthday ever since our friendship broke up I always wished for one thing and one thing only. I just wanted you to finally forgive yourself and to be like you were before again. I just wanted my friend back. I never thought that it would actually happen, but I never gave up the hope that it would either," Clara admitted causing The Rani to smile at her gratefully.
"I wish I had been more like you, Clara. I was so busy trying to hold onto the past that I never once realized that it had caused me to give up any hope for a future. All I could think of was getting back what I had lost and it caused me to completely stop caring about what life still had in store for me in the present. I'm never doing that again, Clara. I promise," The Rani said in an earnest tone.
"Well . . . better late than never I suppose and you certainly can't beat the timing, can you? I definitely wanted you at my wedding most of all, Ushas. It just wouldn't have been the same without you," Clara said with a wide grin.
"It's the strangest feeling. For the first time in a long time, I'm actually looking forward to something," The Rani admitted.
"Good. I hope it's the start of a trend then. Welcome back to the Land of the Living, Ushas," Clara said as she struggled to hold back her tears.
"It's good to be back, Clara. It really is," The Rani said as she finally stopped struggling to hold back her own.
Next: Yes, The Rani is just in time to be a special guest at the long-awaited wedding of Clara and The Doctor. Next chapter the blessed day is finally here at last in all of its glory as all thirteen Doctors attend and so does everyone else that Clara loves. Clara also gets an unexpected visitor that she never counted on but don't worry it's not a wedding crasher. This time it's a very good thing I promise. What will the Time Lords decide to do to The Rani immediately afterwards though? Will they mar an otherwise happy occasion?