CHAPTER 63

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THE RETURN OF OMEGA

Aishwana continued to look at me with great sadness in her eyes even as I tried to see if her hair sample was able to be cloned in the TARDIS' lab. So far I hadn't had much success in any of my attempts to gain any kind of genetic material from the hair. It was far too old it seemed to gain much from it.

I did notice that I gained a little more information about Aishwana's genetic code each time that I tried to find it though. So I just kept trying over and over again until I had a little over half of her TNA (which is what Time Lords have instead of DNA like humans).

I knew in order to gain the rest of her genetic code I would have to keep testing several more times and hope that I could somehow gain every last piece of it. That would take a lot of time, and I wasn't sure that I would ever regain it all no matter how much I tried.

I wasn't sure that I would ever be able to clone her now, and I really didn't look forward to telling her that. So I put it off as long as I could as I tried to think of a way how. Then I had a brilliant thought as a sudden burst of inspiration came to me. I compared what I had of her TNA to mine. The computer automatically filled in the gaps using information from my genetic material, and I smiled in triumph as I saw that it was finally complete.

I turned to Aishwana in triumph as I said, "We're going to Gallifrey. You can see it for the first time while I'm using this to give you a new home. Come on, sweetheart, let's grow you a body!"

"Gallifrey. I've wanted to see that for so long now. Thank you, Mum!" Aishwana said as a smile finally broke out on her face for the first time since she had taken over Holly's body.

We landed on Gallifrey minutes later. I took us to the middle of the wild lands first so that I could let her see the natural beauty of the planet before going to the Capitol, and Aishwana ran outside in excitement. She looked at the beautiful sky and out across the field of red grass and gasped in astonishment.

"It's so beautiful. It's even better then I imagined it would be," Aishwana said with pure joy in her voice.

"I'll take you here anytime you want from now on, sweetie. I have an ancestral house here after all. I never use it anymore but maybe I should start," I said.

"I would love to stay here sometimes. If that's what you want that is. I just want to be with you. That's all that matters to me. I don't care where I am as long as you're there. I've missed you so much!" Aishwana said in an emotional voice.

I hugged her as she struggled not to cry. I could tell that she was fighting it very hard. All of the pain and loneliness that she had been trying to contain for millennia were now threatening to burst forth, and it was all that she could do to keep all of those emotions bottled up inside of her.

"Let it out, Aishwana. It's okay. You don't have to hold it in. It's just us out here," I said.

"I can't. Once I start, I don't think I'll ever be able to stop," Aishwana said.

"It will come out sooner or later. It might as well be here where no one but your family will see it. It's okay. No one's going to judge you. Just let it go," I said gently.

She finally began to start crying and just like she said she couldn't stop. I held her for a long time as the sobs came gushing forward. Eventually her eyes ran out of tears, but she still couldn't stop her anguished sobbing. I just held her and quietly waited until she was finished. I think that it helped her to have me there for moral support.

Obviously the others could hear her even inside of the TARDIS as Allison came outside at one point with a questioning look on her face. I silently gestured to her to go back inside and mouthed 'It's okay.' to her. She nodded and no one else came outside until Aishwana was finished. I was so grateful to them for that.

"I'm sorry," Aishwana finally said about an hour later in a voice made hoarse from sobbing.

"It's okay. You had to let it out. It's not healthy to keep things hidden inside of you. Believe me I know," I said in a soft voice.

"You're so different now. You're much happier," Aishwana said with a smile.

"My life has gotten so much better since the last time that I saw you. Now it's almost perfect especially since I've gotten you back," I said as I kissed her forehead.

She smiled at me and said, "I guess we can go see about cloning me now. I don't want to take up any more of Holly's life. I'm really going to owe her big time for this. She must be a very close friend to do this for you."

"She is. She's just like another daughter to me," I admitted.

"Good. I like her," Aishwana said happily.

Then we went off to the Capitol in the TARDIS as I prepared to clone a brand new body for her. Little did I know at that moment that Holly's psyche had already been taken over by Omega who was just lying in wait to get his chance to return to Holly's body and claim it as his own.

Luckily for me though, Holly was much tougher than Omega thought that she was. She had not been completely taken over at all but had only allowed Omega to think so. She was bidding her time as well just waiting to make her move as soon as they were both returned to her body.

It didn't take me too long to clone the body once I had access to the proper facilities. Then I advanced the age of the body to match Aishwana's own when she died and made sure that she had a full life cycle with a complete set of regenerations. She had been too young to ever have used any of them so I wanted to make sure that she still had them.

I briefly considered giving her some of my blood in an attempt to make her immortal, but I decided against it. It was just too risky. I had Rose's friend Penny's genes to study if I wanted to do that later. She had been made immortal using my stolen blood and somehow the flaws in the process had been removed by someone to perfect it so that immortality was not gained at the cost of turning into a vampire or going insane. I still didn't know how they had done it yet, but I had hopes that maybe someday I would. I just hoped for Penny's sake that it was as flawless a process as it seemed to be so far. I still had my suspicions and misgivings about that personally.

As soon as the body was ready and I had tested it for any defects or diseases that it might have due to a faulty cloning process, I prepared Aishwana to receive it at last. Then it wasn't very long at all before I transferred Aishwana's mind to her new body.

Aishwana ran to the mirror to look at herself and smiled at me. I could tell that she was thrilled to be back in her own body once again.

"Are you sure that you didn't make me prettier? I don't remember looking this good before. I'm not bragging. I just think that I look better than I used to," Aishwana said as she continued to look in the mirror.

I smiled at her vanity as I said, "You always looked that way. I just don't think that you ever appreciated how beautiful that you were before. You seem to be making up for lost time though. You haven't torn yourself away from the mirror since you got your new body."

"Ha, ha! That's very funny. I just want to see what I look like. Everyone does that when they first regenerate, and this is kind of like a regeneration, isn't it?" Aishwana said with a frown.

"I think she's in love with herself," Allison teased.

"Yeah, like you haven't been checking yourself out in the mirror since you walked in here. I've seen you do it when you think that no one's looking," Aishwana accused.

"I do not!" Allison said outraged.

"Do too!" Aishwana said with a happy smile.

Allison started to smile too, and the two of them embraced each other even as they continued to 'fight'. I was so glad that they got along so well. I knew that Allison would like her. They are a lot alike after all.

I began to silently cry at seeing my child back with me alive and well and happy once again. I turned away so that the two of them couldn't see me. Robin, however, did see me. He had been standing right behind me the entire time, and I didn't even realize it. He smiled at me as he said, "I'm so happy for you. If anyone deserves such a thing to happen for them, you do. You've put up with much, much more than your fair share of suffering through the years."

"Thank you," I said as I hugged him.

Then I quickly composed myself and went to get the mini Matrix out of the TARDIS. I wanted to reunite Holly with her body as quickly as possible.

Even before I came out of the TARDIS though, I could tell that something was wrong. Holly's brainwaves had changed. I knew then that something had happened.

I quickly strapped Holly's body to a bed and secured it tightly before I replaced what I thought was just her mind back into her body. I then waited to see what she was like now as she regained consciousness. I thought that maybe her mind had been altered somehow or degraded by a fault in the Matrix, and I was extremely worried about her. I had absolutely no idea that it was Omega. That thought never even crossed my mind.

As soon as Holly regained consciousness, she automatically started struggling against the bonds as she said, "What is this? Who dares to hold me so?"

I knew right away that this was not the Holly that I knew. Now I knew for sure that something was wrong with her.

"Holly, I'm going to help you, okay? You're going to be alright. Whatever's happened to your mind can be fixed," I said to reassure her.

"There's nothing wrong with my mind, Sekhmet. It is the greatest mind that the Time Lord race has ever produced," Omega said in Holly's voice.

"Who are you? How did you get into the mini Matrix without being detected?" I asked even though I was sure that I already knew the answer to the first question.

"Who do you think I am? I am Omega! I was saved when my ring was destroyed and hidden inside of your mini Matrix by a woman who called herself Discord. I believe you call her the Black Guardian. I have complete control over this form now, and I will not relinquish it no matter what you do. Your friend is gone forever unless I release her. I will never free her mind if you don't untie me right now," Omega threatened.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Holly suddenly said in what sounded like her own voice as she smiled at me.

The voice changed back to what I now recognized as Omega's deeper voice as he said, "What? How is this possible?"

"I have a much stronger will then you thought, Mr. High and Mighty. I'm extremely stubborn when I want to be, and it practically takes an Act of Congress to change my mind about anything once I have it set. Just ask my Mum. Both of them," Holly said as she continued to smile at me.

"You're regaining control of your mind. How are you doing this?" Omega screamed.

"I told you. I'm stubborn. I've set my mind on getting my brain back from you, and that's exactly what I'm going to do. This is my mind not yours. Now get to the back of it and make room!" Holly shouted.

"This isn't possible!" Omega screamed before he just suddenly stopped talking.

Holly looked at me now with a wide grin and said, "I'm okay now. I've won."

"As much as I want to believe that, I have to make sure. I'm going to have to keep you strapped down until I've checked you out for myself," I said to her in an apologetic voice.

"It's okay. I understand," Holly said with a sympathetic look on her face.

I placed my hands on the sides of her head and felt Omega now trapped in the back of her mind struggling futilely to get back out. I could feel that her will was much stronger than I ever gave her credit for. Despite this, I placed a wall around Omega like the one that I had in my own mind to keep Sekhmet contained to help Holly maintain her own identity. I was already wondering what to do with Omega as I unstrapped Holly from the bed.

Holly quickly embraced me in gratitude as soon as she was freed and said, "Thank you. I could feel what you did to help me. Do you think that you can get him out of there soon? I really don't like having someone else in my brain. I can still sense him in there and can even tap into his thoughts and memories if I want to. I really don't like that."

"I'll do the best that I can. I don't think that it'll be safe to put him back in the mini Matrix or in the real Matrix. He could probably break loose or take them over. I think that the only reason that you overcame him was because you took him by surprise and his mind was weakened by first being almost destroyed when his ring was broken and then being trapped in the mini Matrix for however long he was in there. Otherwise, he would have had control over you forever. I need to get him out of your brain as soon as possible. I'll have to come up with something to trap him in that I know that he can't break back out of. I've had quite enough problems dealing with this guy lately, and I don't want any more," I said.

"I'll be glad when you do find a place to keep him. Maybe his consciousness could be dispersed into the Vortex or he could be placed into a time loop while he's inside of the mini Matrix. They're both harsh punishments I know, but he is extremely dangerous," Holly said.

I looked at her in astonishment as I said, "You really are able to tap into his memories, aren't you?"

"What?" Holly asked.

"Didn't you just hear yourself? You're talking about Time Lord concepts like you're an expert in them," Allison pointed out.

"Please get him out of me," Holly said in an upset voice as she finally realized this for herself.

"I will, sweetie. I promise," I said to her in a soothing voice.

"I'm sorry. This is my fault," Aishwana said.

"No, it's not. I did what I did of my own free will to help your Mum. I don't want you to feel guilty about it for a second, do you hear me? This is in no way your fault. I don't blame you in the slightest, okay?" Holly said.

Aishwana nodded but still looked guilty. I smiled at Holly for at least trying to make her feel better anyway.

At least for the moment, all was well. As I worked on coming up with a permanent solution to the problem of Omega in the back of my mind, I decided to go back to 1890 to help Jenny Flint through her first day on the job as my Teaching Assistant. I certainly wasn't going to leave her to do it all by herself.

At first she seemed to be very nervous and unsure of herself; but as the day went by, I could see her begin to smile and relax. I could tell that she was quickly settling in and adapting, and that she already felt as if she belonged there. I liked that.

"So, what do you think? Is it all that you hoped for?" I asked her at the end of the day.

"It's wonderful here, Miss. I like it already. I actually helped a girl with a problem that she said that she had been having all year. She said that she had been having a hard time understanding history class, and that it just felt so boring and stale to her. So I helped her understand different points in history better by telling her about my trips to them. I know that I shouldn't have, but she didn't believe me anyway. She thought that I was just making it all up to help her. She said that I taught history better than anyone that she'd ever met before and that I finally had made her make sense of it. She thanked me, Miss. She actually thanked me. That just made me feel so good to actually help someone to learn something new. I want that feeling every day. I'm definitely going to like it here. I can already tell that. Thank you so much for letting me have this job!" Jenny said in an extremely happy voice.

"Don't mention it. I'm not sure if you should be telling your time traveling experiences to the students, but I suppose it's okay as long as they just think that they're made up. I'm glad that you had a good first day on the job, Jenny, and I hope that you continue to enjoy it here. I can see that I made the right choice in picking you for the job. You're much better than Strax," I said with a shudder at the thought of his day at work here.

"Please don't judge Mr. Strax so harshly, Miss. He means well. He just doesn't understand our ways yet. He'll get better though given time. I'm sure that you didn't quite understand humans either at first when you first met them," Jenny said defending her friend.

"True but I never tried to blow them up," I said with a grin.

"It's just his way, Miss. He only knows what he learned from the Sontarans. All that they taught him was war so that's the only way that he knows how to interact with people. He is getting better though. I've actually seen him show great kindness to the local children, and they just simply adore him," Jenny said.

"Okay, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt then. As long as he doesn't try to blow me up anymore that is. I tend to frown on things like that, and I know that humans do. They can't regenerate so an explosion is much, much worse for them than it is for me," I said.

"I'll be sure to mention that explosions are a bad thing, but I'm not sure that he always listens to me," Jenny said with a warm smile.

"Why don't you go home early today and relax? I mean it's your first day after all so I think that you deserve a rest. You did good work today, Jenny," I said proudly.

"Oh, thank you, Miss! I'll be sure and be here bright and early tomorrow morning," Jenny said as she quickly left to go home.

I smiled at her as I watched her go. I was so glad that that was over with, and I had a new Teaching Assistant in place at last. I felt assured that all of my problems in 1890 at least were now over with.

I couldn't have been more wrong.

Next: Lily and Jenny tackle a mysterious new threat to the school together as several students begin to start mysteriously disappearing all at once out of the blue. What is going on here? Will Strax help or only make things worse? Maybe Madame Vastra can lend a hand.