CHAPTER 2
I do not own Doctor Who and I am making no profit off of this story.
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Author's Note: Obviously this story takes place after the end of the War of the Guardians.
Allison almost jumped out of her skin when suddenly a beautiful blonde woman appeared next to her out of nowhere while she stood alone in the console room of Lily's TARDIS.
"Hello, my name is Rose. I'm Lily's daughter. Sorry to scare you. I didn't know that she had anyone but Robin traveling with her," Rose Tyler said with a grimace on her face.
Allison took a moment to recover herself and then she said, "So you routinely just pop up in the middle of her ship without so much as a how do you do?"
Rose grinned a little now.
"Pretty much, yeah! Mum and Robin are used to it by now," Rose said.
"I'm not! This is all new to me. I'm just now getting used to spaceships that look like rocks driven by crazy aliens and fictional characters. Now, people popping up out of thin air too. It's all just insane," Allison said.
Rose noticed though that she had an ever widening smile on her face the whole time that she said it though. She was loving every minute of this!
"Yeah, I can tell that it bothers you so much!" Rose said sarcastically.
Allison just kept smiling as she said, "I don't know where your mum is. She and Robin went in the back of the ship about an hour ago. I don't want to think too much about what they might be doing back there."
"I don't either. Not if I don't want to have nightmares," Rose agreed with a frown on her face.
"Since when did you develop such a dirty mind! You've been hanging around Jack too long I think," Lily said from behind them. She had a wicked smile on her face.
"Mum, I just came to see how you were doing. Have you found out any more about what's causing the cracks? Maybe I could help," Rose suggested.
"You have enough to worry about, Rose. Don't worry. If I need you, you'll be the first one to know. I'll be the one screaming your name very, very loudly," Lily reassured her.
"Okay but I'm just worried about you. I don't want you to get sucked into a crack too," Rose said.
"No need to worry about me, Rose. I'm much smarter than that. You won't catch me being stupid enough to be swallowed by a crack," Lily said smugly.
"Hey!" Allison protested.
"No offense meant, dear. You didn't know what was going on after all. You're only human!" Lily said.
"Now I am offended!" Allison said pouting.
"What did I say?" Lily said confused.
"You just basically called her stupid, mum. The "only human" thing is not a compliment," Rose said.
Allison smiled. She liked Rose already. She understood what she was thinking when Lily often misinterpreted it.
"I didn't mean anything by it. It's just a statement of fact. Humans don't understand things like cracks in time. It's not a slam on their intelligence," Lily defended herself.
"It doesn't come off that way though. Besides I understood about all of this stuff when I was human," Rose said.
"That's different. You're my daughter. That automatically makes you smarter than the average person," Lily said proudly.
"You're not helping, mum!" Rose said as she shook her head. Lily was digging herself a huge hole here.
"I honestly didn't mean anything, Ally. I love humans. I lived with them for years. I think that humans are very intelligent, and you seem to be more intelligent than most," Lily said sincerely.
"That's better," Rose commented.
"I accept your apology. Don't call me Ally any more though. I don't like it!" Allison said.
"It could be worse. She could call you Al," Rose said with a snicker.
"I would never do that," Lily said with a grin on her face that suggested otherwise.
"Don't even think about it!" Allison said sharply.
Mother and daughter just laughed out loud together.
"I guess I'll leave now. Just remember that I'm always here if you need me, mum," Rose said as she dissolved in a golden flash of light.
Allison just blinked. She hadn't seen Rose appear before because she had had her back to her when she arrived. She was left staring at where Rose had been with her mouth hanging open.
"Close your mouth, Al! You're going to have something fly in there. Really! You act like you've never seen a girl appear and disappear in a flash of golden light before! It happens all of the time where I come from," Lily said with a wink.
"Don't call me Al, and really?!" Allison said with a disbelieving face.
"No, not really! Rose is a special case even for my world, Ally!" Lily admitted with a smile.
Allison started to tell her not to call her Ally but she decided that it was better than Al and just let it slide for now.
Lily chuckled to herself. She had gotten away with calling her Ally.
"So how did you and Robin Hood meet anyway?" Allison asked her, quickly changing the subject.
"I was kidnapped by a renegade member of my people and taken to the Land of Fiction while everyone else believed that I was dead. Robin found me there and took care of me. He kept me going when all I wanted to do was sink into a depression because I wasn't with Rose, and I didn't know how to get back home. He helped me escape too because he had his Merry Men and his other friends find the renegade Time Lord who captured me, and they forced him to reveal his TARDIS to us. That was the way back home, and it's the very TARDIS that you're traveling in now. I soon fell in love with Robin, and the rest is history. We decided to start traveling the universe together while I show him all of the wonder out there," Lily explained.
"Could you show me the universe too? Or is it just you two traveling alone?" Allison asked.
"You can come too for as long as you want, Ally. I like having people travel with me. It's so nice to show off time and space to newcomers. It makes me see things in a brand new way," Lily said.
"Thank you! I didn't know if you even liked me or not," Allison admitted.
"Why wouldn't I like you?" Lily asked.
"It's because I can come across as a little annoying and pushy sometimes. I did kind of just barge my way onto your crew. You wanted me to leave, and I wouldn't go. That could come across as a little bit rude," Allison admitted.
"Believe me, Ally, if I hadn't wanted you to stay, you wouldn't be here. I'm okay with you being here. So is Robin. Don't worry about not being welcome. You do have a valid point about wanting to not wind up stuck in a crack again if I took you back. For all I know, it might well have happened to you again. You see I have a personal theory about these cracks that I haven't confirmed yet. I believe that they are taking certain people out of their proper place in history on purpose. I believe that someone is trying to remove important people from the future so that they can change history," Lily said.
"I'm not important. I'm nobody. There's no way that I will ever do anything important in history," Allison said.
"Don't ever say you're not important, Allison! Everyone's important. You may be more important than you think," Lily said mysteriously.
"What do you mean?" Allison said. She hadn't even noticed that Lily had called her Allison when she was being serious with her.
"I can't tell you that. I'm not supposed to tell anyone about their own future," Lily said.
"You know my future? Do I do something important? I've always thought that I would die in obscurity. I mean I've never done anything of any meaning. All I do is go to college. Big deal!" Allison said with a shrug.
"Allison, stop putting yourself down! You are important. That's all I can say. I just need you to believe in yourself, okay? You do matter and your life does have meaning even if you don't believe that it does right now. Someday you'll understand exactly what I mean, but right now I can't tell you anything. I'm sorry! If I tell you, I might alter your future from what it must be," Lily said as she worded what she said carefully.
"Thank you for making me feel better about myself even if you can't really tell me why," Allison said.
"No problem. I like you, Ally. I think that we're going to be good friends someday," Lily said with a grin.
Suddenly a beeping sound came from the TARDIS console, and Lily said, "Looks like we've just found another crack. This one's coming just a few miles from where you were swallowed up."
Lily couldn't tell her the truth. She couldn't tell Allison that one day she would be very important indeed. The future Allison had told her that the two of them would meet one day in her past when she was young and insecure. She had told Lily that she would travel with her one day and develop the self confidence that she would need to someday be a great leader. She had also told Lily that the two of them became good friends, and that Lily would become a major influence on her life. She left out all of the important details of their lives together though at Lily's request.
Lily had known who Allison was the second she had spotted her. She really didn't look too different from the way that she looked now and the way that she had looked when she had met her in her 50s. She aged very well it seemed. Lily looked forward to seeing how Allison's story turned out. She already liked her from having known her in the past, and now she was going to get a chance to know her all over again. She was still amazed that this shy insecure girl would someday grow up to be so important and to have such power. That was the thing about history. You never knew what would happen. That was what she had always found so fascinating about it!
Next: Lily investigates the new crack and gets into trouble while exploring it. Here comes Robin to the rescue!