Constance found the TARDIS and was just about to enter it when she spotted the Doctor's coat.

She stepped away from it and went to greet them, accompanied by the Early Dorom beassi. They then noticed the Yssimarb, all of them, with the Doctor and Flip, they hid but kept their watch for Dark Hide, who seemed to be unharmed.

'Nobody fight! This is a mission of peace!' called the Doctor. 'Everyone is safe as long as we all play nice.'

'What happened?' asked Constance.

As the Doctor explained about Brian and the TARDIS being able to translate speech once they were phased into reality, the Early Dorom beassi came out from hiding. Poison Nose darted for Dark Hide and made gestures of attention and affection. Savage too for Dark Hide, but to a lesser extent.

Dark Hide searched for Sudden and Determined but was told they were left behind to look after Wiggle and the two Yssimarb.

Dark Hide then explained that for one moment, as the Doctor became wind, speaking without sense, the one holding the spear communed with Dark Hide. It was brief, of course, and Dark Hide relayed all that they could, however, they couldn't quite understand the spiritual development Brian quickly went through and so couldn't articulate it. All Dark Hide understood was that when they became like stone or trees rather than like the wind, they could talk, they could understand what it was to be… mortal. But of course, that concept, mortality, was just a little beyond reach. In the same way Savage's partner and Determined's parent weren't present anymore, so too had the Yssimarb finally understood that one day they, themselves might not be there.

'And they are safe?' asked Poison Nose, smelling the air.

'Yes. They come for peace and wish to be family. Outsider family.'

'Would we have to mate and make children with them?' asked Savage, not sure exactly how they felt about that.

Dark Hide looked at the Yssimarb and then to the Doctor and his friends. 'Doctor, do they need a union act?'

Constance just about managed to not make a noise, but Flip let out a strained giggle. The translator was culturally contextual. They understood the reference to reproducing. The Doctor, a Time Lord above such things (usually), a Time Lord born of genetic looms and such, understood it as a means of marriage or maybe just a handshake.

He looked to his companions: Constance couldn't meet his face and Flip was still making a weird noise.

'Once I get my TARDIS to translate, you should be able to discuss that yourselves.' He gave them a nod and let them return to their conversations. 'I expect we should stick around to make sure things stay their course.'

'Oh,' said Constance because the innuendo was very pointed.

'Doc… tah,' said Flip after a disapproving look from the Doctor. 'They… you know…' She didn't dare look to Constance for help in this, they both knew the Doctor was a little blind to these sorts of things (this one at least). 'They mean…' Flip made a discreet gesture with her hands.

'Oh… I see… Should I… Yes, I rather think I should.' The Doctor tapped Dark Hide on the shoulder. 'Dear chap, I seem to have misunderstood your very intimate and progressive proposition. You see they are a different species, there could be no offspring.'

'What?' asked Janet.

The Doctor tried to form an explanation, but Janet gave a wink and shrug, returning to the other Yssimarb with, 'We have been wrong about many things. Perhaps this is the way.'

'Janet,' said Brian, 'you have proven me wrong, but never in many seasons would I ever do that.'

'And you couldn't,' added the Doctor, 'it would be physically impossible. I have examined your physiology yet, but reproduction would be impossible. You're not only a different species, but an entirely different kingdom of origin.'

'Then how do we know them?' asked Poison Nose. 'This is what family is. Family is the only trust. There must always be someone who can say you trust someone else. That is why we have outsider families.'

'You'll have to learn to trust on mutually beneficial arrangements.'

The adults chatted amongst themselves to try and understand what this meant. It was there, just beyond reach for them, but it was as magic as a nano-bot medical pack, as magical as ginger root for stomach ache, as magical as micro-surgery, as magical as genetic engineering.

'I understand,' said Dreamer. They pawed forward to the Yssimarb. They stood and held out their tiny hand.

'What is this?' asked Brian.

'Take it. Trust that the young one will not attack, let them know you won't either,' prompted the Doctor.

'They'll take it away in time before you fade, and you won't fade into them,' said Constance, a little worried the Doctor was getting too optimistic to be clever, but just in that moment.

Janet took the hand and held it. They both let go before Janet faded out, they took hands again when Janet faded back into form.

'This is trust?' asked Poison Nose, uncertain of the concept.

Dreamer let go of Janet and told the adults, 'Wiggle and Determined will understand. Do you understand Sudden?'

Sudden shook their head and looked to the other Early Dorom beassi, some adults, some children, they did not understand. However, Sudden did see that thing Determined talked about in other people's faces when they knew something, the moments of knowing.

I know the word is realisation, but understand this is that they don't have a word for it. They are still a primitive peoples, but that does not mean they can't come to peace.

'And we definitely can't mate with them?' asked Poison Nose, very much determined that this be the best solution to peace.

'No.'

Although the Doctor knew about fifteen ways they could, with some third-party help.

'What are you doing?' Darren asked Wiggle.

Wiggle heard the tree-wind thing speak and watched to see if it would gesture to indicate something.

'Drawing?' asked Darren, looking at the shapes in the tree bark, rough and crude, they could not make a meaning of them. There was the same repeating shape and Darren wondered if it was a language.

It wasn't, it was practise. Wiggle was born a homemaker but decided to be a hunter, but because parents were always parents they made sure she knew how to be a homemaker in the event the hunting didn't work out. A complex tale will unfold out of her life, one of a hunter who thinks like a homemaker, one who doesn't just lead the hunt but can plan and strategise, and can create presentations of the land on wood to reference back to. One who is going to take note of the seasons and cycles of blood and moons.

Determined watched, softly pawing towards the body of Lisa. Darren was very intent on Wiggle's drawings and Determined thought them a fool because it was well known that homemakers have their ways that were not to be known, it would be foolish to understand them. Much in the same way people who can recite facts often insist feelings are lesser just because they have difficulty with them.

Wiggle met Determined's eye and returned to the tree bark, then made sure to move on to the ground, a clearing of dirt, with Darren's back facing Lisa.

Determined thought it lucky, but would, in some seasons, come to understand Wiggle was helping them.

Determined poked Lisa, but there was no reaction. Determined examined more thoroughly. The body was still and shrunken like the others who weren't there anymore, exactly where they were wouldn't develop for a while yet. Determined understood that breathing through the mouth was important, it brought energy and life, and if the mouth was covered for a long period that meant that breathing stopped.

Lisa wasn't breathing, wasn't moving, wasn't reacting. They were still fading in and out of reality. When they became solid, Determined stuck a finger into the flesh. It was waxy, but eventually gave in and leaked the clear blood.

Determined backed away before Darren grew bored with Wiggle's drawings.

'So this is your ship?' asked Brian. He approached the TARDIS and the bell rang out like a growl. He stepped back.

'It doesn't like us because we aren't here or there,' said Janet.

'It is alive?' asked Brian.

A Yssimarb stepped beyond Brian, pushing through the tolling, ignoring the sharp shriek, and reaching out a hand to touch the blue wooden exterior.

The Doctor barked at them, but they weren't listening. Nothing short of a slap on the wrist would stop them, but they were fading out, nothing could touch them.

The Early Dorom beassi, the hunters, stepped forward and shrieked and growled. They scattered themselves around the base of the TARDIS. Savage even dared to snap at the Yssimarb reaching out.

'I thought this was trust?' asked the Yssimarb.

'Can't you hear it screaming? This isn't trust.'

The Yssimarb ignored Brian's words, but not the spear. It shot out and went through the Yssimarb. It did not harm, as it was fading too, so was Brian.

They were syncing up.

The Yssimarb reaching out leapt away and apologised profusely to the Doctor and the others.

'Doctor, did you notice that?' asked Constance when they began their walk back to the hilltops. She made sure to pull the Doctor and Flip away from the groups.

'Yes. I did.'

'You noticed it earlier with the spear. When he let go it faded with the rest of the metal. When he touched it, he faded differently—they, sorry. They faded differently.'

'They? All of them?' asked Constance.

'No, they're like Calypso Jones. Remember? They-them, not he-him or she-her.'

'Oh, yes. I see. Asexual. Yes. I recall plants have both. Wouldn't that make them hermaphrodites?'

'A discussion for another time,' said the Doctor quietly. 'And yes, they have different frequencies of phasing. I noticed it earlier with the spear and metal fragments. They are still one thing, even separate.'

The two groups were beginning to mingle, like particle dispersal they moved into one another slowly. They avoided Brian with the spear, and there was a Yssimarb keeping themselves in the periphery.

Constance could see the uneasy tension, she remembered the village near Rouen, all the neighbours tensely watching one another, suspecting that luck or mercy from the Nazis was collaboration. She remembered the same vague tensions at bars, soldiers who survived the trenches hearing German accents. She looked at Flip, so young, so alien to her sometimes, so adamantly hopeful.

'Doctor,' began Constance, not even sure she was going to finish her sentence because it was too ridiculous, she was an adult, a serious-minded woman not prone to fantasy, but she said it anyway, 'do you think a game of football might ease tensions?'

'Missus Clarke, that is inspired,' he said with a great jolly laugh.

'You sure about that?' asked Flip, who grew up in the age of Football Hooligans.

'Or rounders?'

'Cricket even,' said the Doctor, with just a little piping in his voice that was not entirely this incarnation.

They talked on the merits of which games, something to give advantage to each group, the idea being to keep them separate until they've learned to play, then mix them up. The Yssimarb, being longer were not necessarily faster, but they probably had the more strategic ability, whereas the Early Dorom beassi were going to present a challenge with their various body types.

Jane, on their way to the hilltops, stood with Dark Hide and tried communicating with signs. It took a lot of attempts, but eventually, it was understood that Jane was asking permission to pet Dark Hide like Brian had. Dark Hide consented. Jane couldn't feel it as much as Brian had, but the matte, slightly shaggy texture was interesting. Very good for petting.

When are you? Do you know what's coming? Have you seen what becomes of the beassi? Would it break your linear and fragile heart to tell you? Don't think of me as cruel and teasing, I am beyond those things.

Equally, in turn, Dark Hide petted Jane. The Yssimarb had no hair to speak of, they were all bald and smooth-skinned. Dark Hide did not like the texture, it reminded them of when things are forever still (dead).

'I have observed social dynamics,' said Jane to the others, in the knowledge they could not be understood. 'I think this one, the smaller and slender adult,' Poison Nose, 'keeps avoiding the one we pet,' Dark Hide, 'I sense something between them. And this one,' Jane pointed to Sudden, who was very aware they were being talked about, 'see how it—they watch, but affect a bored expression.' Jane thought that any moment now the furry creature would look away to show how truly disinterested and unthreatening they were. Suddenly looked away, taking in who of their family was close by and who was on their own.

'You watch everything so closely, Jane, don't you?' asked a Yssimarb.

'Yes, of course.'

The Yssimarb gave Jane an appraising look, and said quite casually, 'I thought you were just making it up too.'

'Too?'

'Oh, well,' the Yssimarb shrugged and let Jane figure it out themselves.

Brian, they meant Brian and the others who wielded the spear and knowledge before. And not once did they voice their disbelief. Jane wondered if that was clever or foolish, and made sure to talk to the Doctor about it later.

Darren could hear the distant call of the others, something beyond TARDIS translation, it was their knowledge of the group and its distance. Darren knew they were close and had already practised the responses and questions and reactions.

Determined and Wiggle, and the others who were left behind, recognised the sound of their family too. Together they watched for the distinctive coat of the Doctor and remained quiet, shrinking back to the tree and hovels when they saw the many Yssimarb with them.

'Up here!' called Darren. 'We have a problem!'

'Problem is an understatement,' said the Doctor, dropping down beside Lisa to examine the body. He was not searching for a cause of death, like Brain who fell down beside him, but curious to see that the particles continued to phase even when the brain function stopped. It was not rare for some species to have a heart that continues to pump days after the brain stopped working, the Doctor has even met a species who lose their souls and the body just keeps ticking on for a good week sometimes.

He had long ago dismissed the possibility of psycho-somatic influence on the phasing, that wasn't how temporal physics worked, although that was how quantum physics worked.

'How did this happen?' asked Brian.

'They stopped breathing. I was looking at the drawings and when I turned around, they had stopped breathing,' said Darren. Not technically lying.

'What drawings?' asked Brian.

Darren pointed to the carvings in the tree Wiggle made. 'One of the children made them. I was curious.'

To avoid being seen as not disappointed, Jane went to the trees to examine the drawings. 'Fascinating. Is this a form of communication?' Jane looked at the drawings in the mud, they looked like they had a sequence.

'What happened to the face?' asked a Yssimarb.

'That was me,' admitted Darren. 'I thought Lisa was going to… well, attack me for not immediately wanting to kill the little creatures, so I tried to put them to sleep, but they turned and caught it full in the face.'

Brian shook their head. 'You know we are never that violent. We only attack in defence.'

'Well…' said the Yssimarb who admitted to Jane they believed Jane had made everything up. 'Lisa… when we were out… Lisa did have a want for that violence.'

'Really?'

'Yes. Well, no. More like she wanted to hurt the furry creatures, not violence on anyone.'

Brian looked to the Yssimarb, who all either nodded or kept still, there were no dissenting voices. This hurt Brian, who thought they knew Lisa well.

Constance looked at the body. She pointed to the mouth, crushed over with dried phylum. 'Doctor, we kept her—kept them on their side to stop this, but we moved them back because it was better for them to breathe.'

Determined sought the attention of the adults and pointed to Darren. 'That one watched the other one stop moving.'

'Yes. I am sure it did. Did you see it stop moving?'

'No. Only after. Wiggle was drawing. I know why it's not moving too—the front bit is too covered.'

'No, that's all of them.'

'No, I mean they are too covered.' Amongst the gestures of communication, Determined added their mouth being covered.

Back with the humans, Time Lord, and Yssimarb, Darren said, 'I'm so sorry. I assumed they had stopped bleeding. Should we… what do we do when they aren't?'

'Leave the body here. It will… disappear soon enough, I suspect. Though, you could always quicken it,' said the Doctor, nodding to the spear.

Brian stood and waited for Lisa's body to fade before stabbing the ground below them with the spear. When Brian let go of the spear it began to fade with its own timing, then synced with the body, or that Lisa's body synced with the spear.

In a few moments, the body and spear vanished.

'Lisa is the first of us to die without ascending. Will they still know the hereafter?' asked a Yssimarb.

'Of course Lisa will,' said Brian, with just a little insistence that being observed by the humans and Doctor, felt insecure.

Determined strode to the group surrounding where Lisa used to be, escaping the subtle and slightly desperate grabbing of their parents. They were about to be very difficult to the strangers at a difficult time. The adults knew what hung in the balance, so worried that a difficult child would not be received well.

'What are they going to do?' Determined asked the Doctor.

'Nothing. We have spoken peacefully. No more fighting.'

'About the one who wasn't moving and is now gone.' Determined pointed to the empty patch of grass for emphasis.

'Do you have funeral rites for remembering the dead?' asked the Doctor.

'Dead?'

'The ones who aren't here anymore.'

'I don't know what you mean,' said Determined, impatiently.

The Doctor, for his part, was unphased and remained sombre and kind. 'When the people stop moving, do you do anything?'

'Some people cry or shout because they aren't there anymore.'

Determined, being a gatherer, had no knowledge of the funeral rites and remembrances that were passed amongst the homemakers.

'And when they've been hurt and stop moving, we send kick them out of the family.

'Now why would you say that?' asked the Doctor.

'Because Darren said it was a good idea to move Lisa on their back,' said Constance, stone-cold fury silencing everyone else.

They all looked at Darren.

'I thought Lisa was going to be a problem.'

Brian laid Darren out with a punch to the face. The rest of the Yssimarb piled on and began kicking Darren, except Jane and the one who thought Jane was lying, we'll call them Isaac.

The Doctor and Flip immediately went to pull people off Darren. Flip shouting at them and pushing them away like she was back at school and the play-fighting between the boys got out of hand (she didn't think back to the times in the cold winter weeknights, half-cut on cider and the other half being vodka). The Doctor, once he had backed everyone away from Darren, put a calming hand on Flip's shoulder. She switched back to stoic and cold, like Constance. It was a façade, as it had been in the parks and at school.

My word, she and Rose would be an interesting crossover.

The Doctor made a speech about justice and whatnot, he was very vague on what justice was but was very clear it was not this. He told them all, even the Early Dorom beassi that they should be very careful to let that behaviour get the better of their judgement. And besides, he needed as many living specimens to make sure the correct in-phasing of reality.

Darren was thrown into the prison of spikes that once contained Jane. While this occurred, Flip and Constance explained to the Early Dorom beassi what happened.

Poison Nose looked over Determined, eventually giving them a gesture of affection. 'You were clever today. You understood the truth. A good gatherer needs to know the truth of the world.'

'I know.' A distinctive beat. 'Thank you.'

Dreamer was with Wiggle looking over the drawings. 'You understood it in the shapes.' A tree standing, two trees, the new tree reaches out to the first tree, and the first tree falls.

Dreamer paid close attention with the rest of the difficult children, Wiggle, Determined, and Sudden, to watch what the Yssimarb did to someone who transgressed. They inflicted pain, immediate and brutal pain, and it was clear that they felt whatever punishment had been brought was not enough.

Dreamer wondered if the out-casting of family/tribe members was better, even for such a serious transgression as making another stop being.

It was organised, by the Doctor of course, that all the Yssimarb, even Darren, should come with him and his companions to the TARDIS to make them all physical. In the meantime, the Early Dorom beassi are free to hunt and gather as much as they need, and if there should come a time for peace, they were all to meet back at the hilltops the next day. For the sun was setting and the Doctor was trying not to tempt fate by saying the sun will rise on a new season of peace. Constance had lived through wars, and Flip had lived through wars too, although she didn't fight in either, they both know how awkward and difficult the aftermath is.