CHAPTER 89
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A SHOCKING SURPRISE FROM THE PAST
Thank you for coming back, readers. I was half afraid that no one would show up this time around after the complete and utter disaster that was the last chapter. I'm so sorry that you had to suffer through that horrible woman last time around. Be assured that I've already taken steps to ensure that will never happen again. Namely I told River about it and had her deal with Prime accordingly.
Believe me when I say that this will definitely never ever be a problem in the future. Melody made sure of that.
Don't remind me. I still hurt in places that I didn't think that it was even possible to feel pain in. Can I help it that the Matriarch used my weakness for Clara against me? I'm only human.
Please stop whining, Prime. At least try to retain some kind of sense of dignity will you?
This is Lily again in case you were wondering. Yes, it really is me this time around and not the psychotic nanny. Well, I'm psychotic too to be honest but in my case it's the good lovable kind of psychotic instead of the extremely scary kind.
Plus I'm much taller and don't need to sit in a high chair in order to talk to the audience so that's always a plus.
So the Nanny left off with Daisy being born last time didn't she? I'll just pick it up from there then.
To say that I absolutely adored the baby was a complete understatement. I loved her so much that I just couldn't stay away from her. I was constantly making excuses to be around her to the point where I knew that I was driving both of her parents completely mad. After all they couldn't turn around without seeing me standing there with a huge dopey grin on my face in the first few days after Daisy's birth.
I just couldn't help it though. I really needed some good news at that time of my life, and Daisy cheered me up so much just by existing in the first place. She was living proof that I still had something to look forward to in life despite how dark everything seemed at that moment.
Now if I could only get Allison and Aishwana married and Rose back I'd be completely content.
I was certainly working hard on accomplishing that last one at the moment. Thanks to the Doctor's companion Polly Wright (no relation since that was her actual last name) I had managed to find partial coordinates for Rose and the Doctor's current location and narrowed down the search for them significantly. I had the Doctor's sister Emmy and Rose's other mother Jackie busily searching the multiverse in a TARDIS for them using those coordinates as a guide at that very moment in fact.
I was sure that they would find them very soon now with only a few hundred universes left to look through instead of all of time and space. Despite that and my encouraging talk with Calliope though, it still seemed like it would take an eternity when day after day passed with no word from them.
That's exactly why the baby was such a welcome diversion in that time. That may also be the only reason why Ron and Isabella didn't kill me for being so annoying. After all they probably wanted to spend some quality time alone with the baby without Gran being around twenty-four hours a day.
Thankfully for Ron and Izzy's sake that was all about to change soon when the baby's godmother Belle Tyler showed up to see her. I could tell that Belle instantly adored her as soon as she laid eyes upon her.
I could also tell that Belle was annoyed about something as well. Looking back now I can see that it was probably because thanks to me she could never get a chance to hold her. I was too busy doing it myself all of the time after all.
After an hour or so of this, Belle finally spoke up as she said, "Gran, I'd really like to see the baby if I could please."
I looked at her with confusion as I said, "You have been looking at her. You've been watching her for over an hour now."
Belle frowned as she said, "That's not what I mean. I want to get a chance to hold her too. I am her godmother after all. You've been hogging her all to yourself ever since I came."
"Don't feel too bad, Belle. The baby's own parents haven't gotten a chance to hold her either. I think I held her once for about five seconds after she was born before Mum grabbed her," Ron said.
"I'm actually doing a little bit better than you then. I held her for about ten seconds the other day I think," Isabella said with a chuckle.
"Mum must have had to go to the bathroom then," Allison joked.
"Very funny, Ally. I haven't been that bad," I protested.
"You went to sleep the other day holding the baby in your arms, Mum. It took three of us to pry her loose from the death grip that you had on her," Aishwana said.
"Fine. I'll just leave her alone then since I'm obviously not allowed to see her," I said in a hurt voice.
"No one's saying that, My Lady. They just want a chance to spend some time with her too. You're overdoing it . . . just a little," Robin said.
"A little? Way to walk on eggshells around her, Dad. That's like saying that the Daleks only hate the Doctor a little. She won't let any of us within ten feet of Daisy and you know it," Allison said.
"That's not . . ." I started to say.
"Name one time when you've left her side in the last few days for longer than a few minutes," Allison quickly said as she drowned me out.
I paused deep in thought for a moment and then sighed as I said in an apologetic tone, "I didn't mean anything by it. I just really needed this right now."
"We know, Lily. That's why none of us made a big fuss over it," Isabella said sympathetically as I finally gave the baby up to her at last.
Belle looked guilty as she said, "Until I did just now. Look. I didn't mean to cause any trouble. I just wanted a chance to hold her."
"Don't worry about it. It needed to be said. It's long past time that someone brought it up. None of us had the heart to though," Ron admitted.
"That makes me feel really good. Here I thought that my days as the bad guy were finally behind me," Belle said with a frown.
"No, don't feel that way. You didn't do anything wrong, okay? Don't worry about it. I needed someone to tell me that enough was enough after all. If it wasn't you, it would have been someone else eventually, and they probably wouldn't have been half as polite about it," I reassured her.
"That's for sure. I was starting to get annoyed. I haven't had a chance to hold her once since she was born. Not once," Allison said in an irritated voice.
"I'm sorry. Alright. I didn't mean to be that kind of grandmother," I said.
"It's alright, Lily. I'd rather you love the baby too much than not at all," Isabella said with a warm smile.
"It's not her fault. That's just who she is. Lily never does anything by halves. It's either all the way or not at all," Ivy said as she briefly spoke up from the back of the room.
"That's just a nice way of saying that we always have a tendency to go overboard about everything, isn't it, Ivy?" Violet said with a chuckle.
"You said it not me," Ivy said with a smirk.
"Who better to say it then me? I can admit my shortcomings without actually having to admit them since I'm not the original. It's the best of both worlds," Violet said with a smug smile.
"Just keep talking, Sis. You're only digging yourself in deeper and deeper," I said as I gave her an angry stare.
"Maybe I shouldn't have come here," Belle said looking upset.
"Don't do that. You didn't cause any trouble. Trust me. We always act this way," Allison reassured her.
"Yeah, completely and utterly mad," Aishwana said.
Belle began to smile as she said, "I finally get it now. So your group is just like Jenny's then. I thought that they were the only ones that were that goofy."
"Ha! Hardly. She's just been copying me. I'm the original lovable goofball with a heart of gold," I said proudly as I started to feel a little better about things for a while.
"I have no comment about this whatsoever on the grounds that my sister would kill me if I said anything," Violet said with a snicker.
Isabella laughed and deliberately changed the subject as she said, "Belle, do you want to hold the baby now? I think you've more than earned that right now by finally getting Lily to see what she was doing."
"Thank you. I promise that I won't keep her away from you for longer than thirty minutes or so. Probably," Belle said with a grin as Isabella gave Daisy to her.
"I'm not sure that we're actually any better off now, Izzy," Ron said with a chuckle.
"This kid is definitely not going to suffer from a lack of attention that's for sure. Her head's going to be as swelled as Sekh's if all of you don't stop fawning over her this way," Freya said.
"Sounds like someone may be getting just a tad bit jealous," I said teasing her.
"Well, you have been spending more time with her than me lately. I – I really need someone to talk to especially since Richard left," Freya admitted with a sad look in her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Freya. I'll make it up to you starting right now, okay? Name a place, any place, and we'll go there," I said as I put my arm around her.
"Well, I would like to see the Moons of Minas Sora. I remember that Mum once told me that they're one of the most beautiful places in the universe. I always meant to ask you to take me there," Freya said.
"I've never heard of them and I've memorized all of the information in the War Lords' universal database. They kept information on every major star system in order to prepare for the day when they would get an opportunity to conquer it," Belle said.
"They wouldn't have any information on this, Belle. These moons have been gone for longer than most civilizations' recorded history," I said with a knowing smile.
"They're gone?" Freya said in disappointment.
"Well, you did live a billion years ago, Freya. You have to expect that a few things may have changed in the universe since then," Allison pointed out.
"So I'll never see them now," Freya said with a sigh.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that. That's the beauty of the TARDIS. I can always see a place again no matter how long gone that it is. I just have to make sure not to cross my own timestream. I'll go back to a hundred years before I was there," I said as I made my way to the console and started to enter coordinates into it.
"You actually went there then?" Freya asked in surprise.
"Of course. Mum told me about it too after all. I figured that I'd go there for all of us so at least one member of the family would get to see them. Now you will too," I said with a warm smile as she began to immediately start cheering up once again at the prospect.
"What happened while you were there, Mum? Did they wind up getting blown up or something?" Aishwana joked.
I looked away from her as she said in shock, "Really? You mean I was right? I'm sorry, Mum. I was just winding you up."
"Your mother seems to have a bad habit of turning up at places just as trouble is about to start there," Robin said.
"You're thinking of the Doctor not me, Robbie," I said dismissively preferring not to talk about it.
"You're almost as bad at finding trouble as he is from what I've seen, Mum," Allison said with a grin.
"Hardly. This was the one and only time that I ever went to a place right before it was destroyed. Well, one of the only times anyway. I'd rather not talk about it except to say that I had nothing to do with it, and it was a complete coincidence that I happened to be there at the time that they were attacked and blown up," I said defensively.
"Attacked? By whom and for what reason, My Lady?" Robin asked curiously.
I sighed as painful memories were brought up that I really would have rather forgotten as I said, "It was one of the stupidest, most pointless things that I've ever seen. The natives of the Moons found a dead body floating in space and some of them began to worship it as a god. They thought that it fulfilled some prophecy of theirs or something since the body refused to decay even when it was exposed to the atmosphere despite it being estimated to be extremely old. Others on the planet objected to this and thought it was just a silly superstition. A large war broke out between the two groups over the body, and the idiots actually wound up blowing their home up over it. I was there at the very end and tried to talk them out of it, but they wouldn't listen. They were both too far gone. I barely got out of there alive before it happened."
"That's horrible. I should never have even brought it up," Freya said as she winced at my story.
"You didn't know. How could you?" I said as I gave her a reassuring smile.
"We're going there well before this happened though, right?" Aishwana asked with a worried look.
"Of course. There's no way that I want to get involved in that mess again. Believe me. Do you know that the survivors of the Moons still didn't give up even afterwards? Some of them even claimed that their god survived the destruction somehow and that they had seen it floating around in the debris. I never did see it though. I think it was just a bunch of complete nonsense from start to finish," I said with a frown as I dematerialized the ship.
"I wish you hadn't told me now. It's going to ruin the trip now that I know that it'll all be destroyed and how it happened," Freya said.
"That's why I didn't want to tell anyone about it. Don't worry. This is long before it happened. I made sure of that. Also we're not actually going there. We're going to look at them from space," I reassured her.
"Well, I guess that's not so bad then. I would like to see them," Freya relented.
The TARDIS soon materialized thousands of miles away from the moons where we could get a good view of them at a time over a hundred years before their destruction. I opened the doors to let everyone have a look, and they all gasped as they saw just how beautiful that they had once been.
"It's a horrible tragedy that such a place no longer exists," Robin said in a sad tone.
"Yes, it is. It's one of my greatest regrets that I couldn't save it," I admitted.
I hated that what had started out to be a trip to cheer both me and Freya up had turned into yet another reason to be depressed for me lately. I quickly decided to live in the now though and just enjoy the beauty before me and forget about how it no longer existed in my own time.
That was when I spotted a body floating in space nearby. I couldn't see it that well from where we were, but it immediately made me think of what caused this place's doom in the first place. Surely it couldn't be the same body though, right? This was a long time before that happened after all.
Then my time sense told me something that I really would have rather not known. This was indeed the 'god' that had started the war in the first place. It would take another hundred years before the body would drift close enough to the moons to be spotted.
Before the sinking feeling in my hearts had even had a chance to stop though, I suddenly saw back even further in the timestream and saw the body arriving in this area through a temporal rift. It was a rift that had been created by an enormous explosion that ripped a hole in time and space between the far future and this time.
A sudden sense of foreboding came over me as I mentally guided the TARDIS to take us closer to the body. I needed to see who it was because I suddenly got a sense that there was far more to this whole incident than I had ever realized.
"Mum, is that . . . ?" Allison asked in disbelief as she and the others now saw it as well while we drew closer.
"Yes, this is what will start the war in the future," I admitted.
"If only we could redirect it away from here and change all of that. We couldn't could we?" Freya asked hopefully.
I shook my head regretfully as I said, "No, it's a fixed point in time. Nothing could undo it now. Sorry, Freya."
"It was just a thought. Do we really have to see it closer? I'd rather not," Freya admitted with a shiver.
"I – I just need to see its face for a minute. Something is telling me that I need to take a closer look at it," I said in a faraway voice.
"Mum? Are you alright?" Ron asked in concern.
"Yes, I'm fine. I – Did you ever just have a premonition of something or a feeling that you couldn't explain just before something major happened in your life?" I asked as I tried to explain things to him.
"Yeah, sort of, Mum. The day before I first met you," Ron admitted with a fond smile.
I smiled back at him for a brief moment and then my smile faded as the TARDIS finally brought us close enough for me to make out some of the body's features at last. It was a woman dressed in a tattered outfit that had long ago been torn to shreds in what looked like an earlier explosion. I had had no idea that the god was a woman.
That wasn't my only surprise though as I finally got close enough to see its face. I gasped in shock as I realized that the woman was someone that I knew very well.
"I have to go forward into the future. I have to know if the legends are right and this body did survive the moons' destruction," I said in a panicked voice.
"What difference does it make even if it did? It's still dead. Who really cares at this point?" Allison asked in confusion.
"I do because I know who this is. It's Bella. This is Bella's original body. It's the one that was blown up when she sacrificed herself to save Rose from the Black Guardian. It shouldn't possibly exist but it does somehow. I have to find it in the future if it's still there and find out why it wasn't destroyed," I said in an anxious tone as I raced for the console to close the doors and to take us into the far future.
"Mum, you don't . . . you don't possibly think that she might still be alive do you? I mean Bella died along with Nightshade in an entirely different body back in our own time," Aishwana pointed out.
"Yes, I know but I never found her consciousness in the Matrix though. I never understood why that was either. Maybe this is why. Maybe Bella's consciousness returned back to this body after Nightshade died. What if it was still alive somehow?" I asked as I dematerialized.
"That's a far stretch even for us isn't it?" Ron asked.
"Possibly or possibly not. I have to know," I said in anticipation as the TARDIS traveled on ahead to the distant future of this area.
Just before I could get there though, time suddenly stopped all around me and froze. I knew right then that someone was about to pay me a visit, and I had a pretty good idea who.
"Haven't you interfered in my life enough lately? It isn't bad enough that you break into my retelling of my own life story, but now you're actually popping up in the middle of what might be one of the greatest discoveries in my life? You've really got a lot of gall," I said out loud in irritation.
"Well, I always say if you don't dare to do things then you never get anyway in life, Lil," The Matriarch said as she suddenly appeared in front of me.
"So what is this? Are you here to kill me or to keep me from finding out more about that body? Afraid that Bella might return and help us stop you somehow?" I asked.
"Hardly. Bella's no threat to me . . . if that is her. I'm not saying whether it is or it isn't of course. You'll have to find that out for yourself. Why spoil it for you? No, I'm here for an entirely different reason, Sekh. I'm here to make you an offer," The Matriarch said.
"What kind of an offer exactly? I'm not going to join you if that's what you're after. I'm definitely not interesting in taking over the universe," I said firmly.
"Are you interested in getting Rose back though maybe?" The Matriarch said with a smirk.
The Matriarch laughed at the look of surprise and sudden hope on my face as she said, "I'll take that as a yes."
"Is this about taunting me with knowledge of the future? Is that it? Calliope told me about that already even if she wasn't very specific. I think she was keeping the important details from me," I said.
"Or maybe the reason that she wasn't specific was because she didn't know exactly how it happened herself. Did you ever think about that? Maybe it happened because I helped you out," The Matriarch said.
"You're offering to bring the Doctor and Rose back? Is that it? I don't need your help. I'm already close to finding them already," I said.
"Yes, but not close enough are you? You've narrowed down the search area. That's true but it will still take you a long time to find their exact location, won't it? You'll find them in another few months maybe or perhaps it may even take another year or two? A lot can happen in a year, Lil. They could get sick, become captured by unfriendly elements, or worse. They could die long before you ever find them," The Matriarch said with an evil smile.
"Shut up. Just shut up," I said as I began to worry despite knowing that was exactly what she wanted me to do.
"Why? I'm only trying to help, Lil. I'll bring them both straight back here to your TARDIS . . . for a price," The Matriarch said.
I grimaced as I said, "I knew it. What is it you want? My help in something?"
"Sort of, yeah. I want you to keep them busy when I bring them back. Take them on a long trip somewhere for a few months and keep them from going back home. Lie to them and tell them that the TARDIS needs repairs before you can return if you have to but don't go back just yet. Do that and I'll bring them back today," The Matriarch offered.
"Why do you want them out of the way for so long for? What are you up to? Are you trying to do something against Cassiopeia? I'll never help you with that no matter what the cost," I said.
"No, it's nothing to hurt Cass. I swear," The Matriarch said with such intensity that I actually believed her.
"What then? Why do you want to keep them from going home just yet? What are you really up to?" I demanded.
"Just listen to me, okay? I'll even fix your old boyfriend Borusa's mind for you if you do this. He'll be whole again and Rose will be proud of him. You do want her to be proud of him when she finally finds out the truth, don't you?" The Matriarch said with a smirk.
"What do you know about Borusa?" I asked suspiciously.
"Everything. I know exactly who he is to Rose. I'm from the future, remember? I already know all about Borusa, about you, and about Bella too for that matter," The Matriarch bragged.
"Time can be rewritten though so you don't know all of that for sure," I said.
"Time will be rewritten if I have anything to say about it, and I can do it in a very beneficial way for you, Lily. I can bring them back to you today and fix Borusa all at the same time. I'll give you the happy ending that you deserve. Just keep them out of my way for a while. That's all I ask," The Matriarch said.
"Why? Because they'll stop you from doing something that you have planned in the near future? Is that it?" I asked.
"I'm not going to tell you that. All I'll say is that it won't hurt Cassiopeia and it will actually benefit and help you. Just work with me on this. I know that you don't have any reason to trust me but please just this once do it, okay?" The Matriarch asked in an almost pleading tone.
I briefly hesitated because I wanted to see Rose again so very much but then I finally shook my head as I said, "No. Jackie and Emmy will find them for me. I trust them. I don't trust you."
"What? I can't believe you! I'm trying to help you!" The Matriarch said in anger.
"Why? Out of the goodness of your heart? Yeah, right. I would believe that of the real Clara but never of you. I've seen too much of you to know that you don't operate that way," I said.
"I do though. Everything that I do is for the greater good. One day you'll see that for yourself. In order to carry out my plans though, I need your help. Please listen to me, Lily. If you don't, then . . . I might fail. I can't fail. Not this time! Please!" The Matriarch pleaded.
She seemed to be well and truly upset now about something. I wanted to believe her. I really did. I couldn't though. She had willingly worked with Missy and Nightshade so that proved that she couldn't be trusted.
"No. I won't do anything to help you. Now leave me alone or just kill me outright if that's what you've come here to do. Whatever it is, just get it over with. I'm busy!" I said in frustration.
"You might just end up regretting this someday. I tried to stop it and you refused to help me. Remember that if I fail. I just want you to remember that," The Matriarch said with tears in her eyes as she vanished.
Then time restarted once again and it was just as if nothing happened. The others hadn't even noticed it. I was now left alone to become lost in my thoughts as the TARDIS sped on ahead to the future.
Had I done the right thing? Was what the Matriarch so worked up about anyway? What had she meant by that last statement?
Then before I could think about things any further the TARDIS suddenly stopped and materialized at our destination. I temporarily set aside all of my worries as I opened the doors.
I watched in breathless anticipation as they slowly opened. Then I smiled as I saw that I was right.
Bella's body was still there floating around in the ruins of the moons in our time. It was still just as it was perfectly preserved in the vacuum of space.
Or was it something else that had preserved it instead?
That was what I was here to find out. I began to guide the TARDIS closer to the body now as I prepared to bring it inside. I had to know the truth once and for all.
Was Bella still alive somehow?
Next: We'll find out the answer to that next time. Even as we do though, we'll suddenly see Lily's entire world become completely changed right in front of her eyes. What is going on here and why? Can it be changed back again? More importantly will Lily even want to change it?