Kill the Moon
A few days later, us three Time Lords and Clara were walking down the halls of Coal Hill School, "Courtney Woods. Teddy, she has gone crazy. She's uncontrollable. She took Annabelle's psychic paper. She's been using it as fake ID."
"To get into museums?" asked The Doctor.
"No, no, no. To buy White Lightning or alcopops or whatever."
"I wondered what happened to my psychic paper," said Annabelle.
"I've no idea what you're talking about. What, what is Courtney Woods?" asked The Doctor.
"She's one of Clara's students," I said, "She was in the TARDIS."
"Doing what?"
"Throwing up," said Annabelle.
"Oh, her. Oh, that was ages ago."
"Look, she says that The Doctor told her that she wasn't special," said Clara.
"Rubbish," said The Doctor.
"She says that's what sent her off the rails."
"Pffff."
We walked into a supply closest where we landed the TARDIS, "Doctor. I know, I know. But, you say something like that to somebody, it hurts. Especially if you're somebody of her age, especially if you're you. Doctor, it can affect her whole life."
"Bah," said The Doctor as we walked into the TARDIS.
When we got inside we saw Courtney standing by the console, "Oi! Give over!" said The Doctor as he ran over to her.
"I got stuff to clean up with," said Courtney as she held up a bottle of cleaner and a roll of paper towels.
"What?" said The Doctor.
"And I got these from the chemist," as she pointed to some magnetic bracelets on her wrists.
"Vortex manipulators?" asked The Doctor.
"Travel sickness."
"Good. Because we don't like people being sick in our TARDIS," said Annabelle.
"No being sick. And no hanky-panky," said The Doctor.
"Doctor!" said Clara.
"Sorry, that's the rules," said The Doctor.
"Look, Courtney, you're not going to be needing those because you're not going to be doing any traveling. Doctor, will you just, just tell her?"
"Tell her what?"
"Tell her that she's special."
"Have you gone bananas?"
"Do you really think I'm not special?" said Courtney, "You can't just take me away like that. It's like you kicked a big hole in in the side of my life. You really think it? I'm nothing? I'm not special?"
All four of us females stood there and looked at The Doctor waiting for an answer, "Pfft. God," said The Doctor softly. Then he walked up to Courtney, "How'd you like to be the first woman on the moon? Is that special enough for you?"
"Yeah, all right," she said.
"Okay. Now we can do something interesting," said The Doctor as he started the TARDIS.
"Hey, Doctor!" said Clara.
We changed to full spacesuits. Then once the TARDIS finished dematerializing, we stepped out. But instead of landing on the moon we were in a storage area of some kind. There were racks of cylindrical objects. Some had U.S. flags on them and some had Cyrillic writing.
"This isn't the moon. Where are we?" asked Courtney.
"On a recycled space shuttle. 2049, judging by that prototype version of the Bennett oscillator," said The Doctor, as we took our helmets off.
"Where's the gravity coming from?" I asked, as we looked around at where we were.
"What are they?" Clara looked at the cylindrical objects.
"About a hundred nuclear bombs," said Annabelle.
Just then an alarm sounded. The Doctor looked out a window, "Ah. We're on our way to the moon… Check that. We're about to crash into it! Hold on! Hold on!"
We all grabbed a hold of some cargo nets, "Why didn't you just tell her you didn't mean it?" shouted Clara.
We felt the shuttle land on the lunar surface and skid to a halt. Once the shuttle landed. Three people walked into the cargo bay led by a woman, "Who the hell do you think you are?" she asked.
"Why have you got all these nuclear bombs?" asked Annabelle.
"I'm not going to give you another chance." asked the woman.
"Oh? Well, you're just going to have to shoot us, then. Shoot the little girl first."
"What?" asked Courtney.
"She doesn't want to stand there watching us getting shot, does she? She'll be terrified. Girl first, then her teacher, then me, then my mom and my uncle. You'll have to spend a lot of time shooting three of us," said Annabelle as she pointed at me, herself and The Doctor, "because we will keep on regenerating."
"In fact, I'm not entirely sure that I won't keep on regenerating for ever," said The Doctor as he started hopping around the cargo hold.
"Doctor, what are you doing?" asked Clara.
" Gravity test. So, it'll be very time-consuming and messy, and rather wasteful, because I think I might just possibly be able to help you. You see, My nieces and I are super-intelligent alien beings who fly in time and space. Are you going to shoot us?"
"No." said the woman.
"Good. Why have you got all these nuclear bombs?" I asked.
"No, no, no. Easier question. What's wrong with my yo-yo?" said The Doctor as he used a yo-yo with no problems.
"Doctor, it goes up and down," said Clara.
"Bingo." He said.
"Ah," said Clara, as she figured out what was going on.
"Ah ha," I said, "We should be bouncing around this cargo hold like it was a bounce house. But we're not. What is wrong with the moon?"
"Nobody knows," asked the woman.
"Do you know what's wrong with the moon?" asked Clara.
"It's put on weight," said The Doctor.
"How can the moon put on weight?" asked the woman.
"Oh, lots of ways," said Annabelle, "Gravity bombs."
"Axis alignment systems," I said.
"Planet shellers," said The Doctor.
"So it's alien," said the woman.
"It must be causing chaos on Earth," I said, "The tides will be so high that they will drown whole cities."
"Yeah."
"So what are you doing about it?" asked The Doctor. The woman took a case off the wall, "This?"
"That's what you do with aliens, isn't it? Blow them up?"
A short time later we all had our helmets on and the airlock was opened. We looked out onto the lunar surface as Courtney went first, "Wow. Wow! One small thing for a thing. One enormous thing for a thingy thing."
"So much for history," said the female astronaut. That we learned was Captain Lundvik. We walked out of the space shuttle and walked to a moon base in a nearby crater. Courtney took some pictures with her cell phone, "There was a mining survey, Mexicans," said Lundvik, "Something happened up here. Nobody knows what. That's when the trouble began back on Earth. High tide everywhere at once. The greatest natural disaster in history."
We walked up to the base and saw the airlock wide open, "Cobwebs?" asked Clara.
"Henry, go back and prime the bombs," said Lunvik to one of her fellow astronauts.
"Er, is there any instructions?" asked Henry.
"There's a switch on each of them. The light goes red."
"They won't go off?"
"No, not till I fiddle with this thing," she said a she held up the case she picked up from the wall.
Henry then turned and started back to the shuttle, "Okay."
"Shall we?" asked Lundvik.
"Is that the best you could get?" asked The Doctor.
"Second-hand space shuttle, third-hand astronauts."
We headed into the base and there was a lot of cobwebs as we walked inside. We walked down a corridor and into a room. The male astronaut who was with us, his name was Duke. He closed the door and I asked, "How many people were here?" I asked.
"Four," said Lundvik, "Minera Luna San Pedro. It was privately financed. They where doing a mineral survey up here."
"Messages? Mayday? SOS?" asked The Doctor.
"Pretty much all the satellites had been whacked out of orbit," said Duke, "They managed to send back some screams."
"So then you came up here to rescue them with bombs?" asked Annabelle.
"Not quite."
"They disappeared ten years ago," said Lundvik.
"Nobody came?" I asked.
"There was no shuttle."
"You had one," said The Doctor.
"It was in a museum. They'd cut the back off it so kids could ride in it. We'd stopped going into space. Nobody cared. Not until…"
Just then Courtney screamed, "Courtney!" called Clara.
Courtney went a little bit a head of us and we saw what she saw a spacesuit hanging in a cocoon of cobwebs, "Oh, my God. Doctor, tell me there wasn't anyone inside that thing."
The Doctor scanned it with his sonic screwdriver, "I could, but it wouldn't make it true."
"I'll get some power back on," said Duke as he moved forward to find the power supply.
"Come on," said Clara as she took Courtney out of the corridor, "Now, Courtney, come here. Don't look. You all right?"
"I'm okay."
The Doctor cut down the corpse. Clara stood in front of Courtney to keep her from seeing what was going on, "Hey. Look. Look at me. Look. It's all right if you're not."
"I'm fine. What did it?"
"Maybe something trying to find out how you're put together," said The Doctor, "Or maybe how you tasted."
"Do we have guns?" asked Courtney.
"Not unless you brought some," said Lundvick
"Chicken, apparently," said The Doctor. The lights came on in the room, "Save the air."
We all took off our helmets. I walked over to a computer console and turned it on. I looked at the survey records, "They didn't find anything."
"Eh?" asked Lundvik.
"The Mexicans. They didn't find any minerals on the moon at all. None."
The Doctor was looking at some pictures of the moon on a table, "Oh." he said.
"Oh?" said Clara.
"Lines of tectonic stress."
"That's the Mare Fecunditatis," said Lundvik, "It's been there since the Apollo days. It's always been there."
"No, no, no," said The Doctor, "These are much, much bigger." he started flipping through pictures, "Sea of Tranquillity. Sea of Nectar. Sea of Ingenuity. Sea of Crises."
The lights started to flicker. "Meaning?" asked Clara.
"Meaning, Clara, that the moon, this little planetoid that's been tagging along beside you for a hundred million years, which gives you light at night and seas to sail on, is in the process of falling to bits," said The Doctor
There was a bang and the room shook for a couple of moments. A couple of moments later they heard a high-pitched sound and a scuttling noise, "What the hell was that?" asked Courtney.
"Duke, is that you?" asked Lundvik.
"I don't sound anything like that." he answered on the comm.
"Can you try and get the lights back on?"
"That's what I'm doing."
"Torch. Give me your torch. Whatever it is, it's in here.," said The Doctor. We could hear the sound of running claws around us.
"I think we've found your alien," said Annabelle.
We started to look around and down a corridor we saw a giant spider looking creature with red knees, "Back, back, back!" I said, as it came toward us, "We need a door. A door, a door!"
"Here! Here!" said Clara, as she went to a door, "The door's locked."
"Come on, come on!" said The Doctor, "There's no power to work it. Come on!"
"Doctor."
We all ducked down behind a table, "Stay still," I said, "It's sensing movement. It can't see you, if you stay still. So no fast movements. There must be another exit through there." I said as I shined my light down a corridor, " We need to slowly head to that exit." We inch our way to the door, "When I say run, run."
"Who made you the boss?" asked Lundvik.
I rolled my eyes, "Well, you say run, then!"
Just then Duke came in the room, "Duke!"
The creature leaped at Duke as he came in the room, "Argh!" he screamed.
"Duke!" shouted Lundvik.
Just then the Locked door opened, "Run!" I shouted, "We have power. Run!"
We all ran to the door, "Quick, it's shutting." said Clara. We all made it in the room except
Courtney. The reason she didn't make it in was because she started to float in mid air, "Miss!" she shouted.
"Courtney! Courtney!" called Clara.
"Miss!"
"Courtney! The power's gone again."
"It's killed him. It's coming in here! Doctor, it's coming in here!"
"You'll be okay!" I said to her as The Doctor and Annabelle worked on getting the pane of glass out of the door with their sonics.
"Henry? Henry?" called Lundvik over her communicator.
"Courtney, look at me. Look at me! Courtney!" I called to Courtney. I could see the creature walking across the ceiling, "Try and get to the door! Try and get yourself down here."
The Doctor and Annabelle got the pane of glass out of the door. "Courtney, grab my yo-yo!" He throws it at her. She grabbed it just as gravity returned and she fell to the floor. The creature leaped at her and screamed
"Courtney!" I shouted. She reached for something in her back pack. She pulled out the bottle of cleaner she brought and sprayed it at the creature and it screamed in pain.
We went back in the room and Clara said, "Courtney."
Courtney had a big smile on her face, "Kills ninety nine percent of all known germs."
"Good work, Courtney," I said, "Just don't try that at home, okay?"
"You all right?" asked Clara.
"Why did I just fly?" asked Courtney, "This is nuts."
The Doctor scanned the now dead creature with his sonic, "Did you say germs? Oh, God, this is incredible. Look at the size of it. It's the size of a badger."
"Doctor" said Clara.
"It's a prokaryotic unicellular life form, with non-chromosomal DNA. Which, as you and me know. Well, not you and me. Well, you, certainly not. You and me, yes, scientists know, this is a germ. You flew because that one point three billion tons shifted. It moved. It's an unstable mass."
"I'm scared, Miss," said Courtney.
"Okay," said Clara.
Lundvik looked at what was left of Duke, "He'd just had a grand-daughter. Elina. She was his first. He was my teacher. He taught me how to fly. We were both given the sack on the same day."
"Which way to the Mare Fecunditatis?" asked The Doctor, as he ran to the door.
"Please can I go home now?" Courtney asked, "I'm really. I'm really sorry, but I'd like to go home."
A little while later, we were back on the moon, "Henry, come in," said Lundvik, "If you don't mind, Henry, come in"
Clara walked up to The Doctor who was leading us, "Doctor, this is dangerous now."
"It was dangerous before," said Annabelle, as she stepped forward.
"Everything's dangerous if you want it to be," said The Doctor, "Eating chips is dangerous. Crossing the road. It's no way to live your life. Tell her. You're supposed to be teaching her."
"Look, I have a duty of care, okay? You know what that is?" asked Clara.
"Course I know what a duty of care is. What are you suggesting?" He looked at Courtney, "She's fine. What are you, thirty five?"
"Fifteen," she said.
I shook my head.
We made it back to the shuttle, and I opened the door to the TARDIS, "Now, don't touch anything," I told Courtney.
"You got any games?" she asked.
"Oh, don't be so stupid!" said The Doctor.
"Can I get reception up here?"
"Get in," said The Doctor, as he closed the door.
"Why are you shutting her in?" asked Clara, "We don't need to stay, do we?"
"Eh?"
"It's obvious, isn't it? The moon doesn't break up."
"How do you know?" asked Annabelle, as the Doctor, her and I headed back toward the airlock.
Clara followed us, "Because I've been in the future, and the moon is still there. I think. You know the moon is still there, right?"
"Maybe it isn't the moon," I said, "Maybe it's a hologram or a big painting, or a special effect. Maybe it's a completely different moon."
"But you three would know."
"We would?" asked The Doctor.
"If the moon fell to bits in 2049, somebody would've mentioned it," said Clara, "It would have come up in conversation. So it doesn't break up. So the world doesn't end. So, let's just get in the TARDIS and go."
"Clara, there are some moments in time that we simply can't see," I said, "Little eye-blinks. They don't look the same as other things. They're not clear. They're fuzzy, they're grey. Little moments in which big things are decided. And this is one of them."
"We can't tell what happens to the moon, because whatever happens to the moon hasn't been decided yet," said Annabelle, "And it's going to be decided here and now. Which sounds like it's up to us."
"None of you are going anywhere," said Lundvik, "I've lost my crew. We were the last astronauts. This is the last shuttle. These are the last nuclear bombs. We're the last chance for Earth, and you're staying to help me."
"Decision made," said The Doctor.
"Yeah," said Clara.
We headed back out onto the lunar surface and found the area where the Mexicans were doing their survey. Their equipment was still there, "What is killing the moon?" asked The Doctor.
"How can the moon die, though?" asked Clara.
"Everything does, sooner or later," said Annabelle.
"Can we save it?" asked Lundvik.
"Depends what's killing it," I said.
She looked down, "There are the other three."
We made our way down and walked up to three spacesuits in cobwebs near some cracks in the crust. The Doctor started looking over the spacesuits, "Is it those germ things, then?" asked Clara, "Are they like cockroaches? Is it, is it an infestation?"
"Is it?" asked Lundvik as she looked over at the Doctor.
"Well, I've only seen one of them," said The Doctor, "It would take an awful lot more to cause the moon to put on 1.3 billion tons."
Just then one of the germs came out and jumped on the Doctor, "Doctor!" shouted Clara, as she tried to spray it with the disinfectant.
"It's a vacuum. It won't work."
We grabbed at its legs and pulled it off the Doctor and then it rushed back into its lair, "Well, that makes two," said The Doctor.
"Sunlight," said Clara.
"Sunlight?" asked Lundvik.
"If they're germs. My nan says it's the best disinfectant there is."
"Shine your light down there," said The Doctor.
Lundvik took her light out and shined it down in the lair. There were a lot of germs in the hole. "Where have they come from?" asked Lundvik
"Maybe they've been there all the time," said Annabelle, "It's kind of warm. They're multiplying, feeding, evolving."
Then, we started back to the shuttle. Then, Lundvik said, "Doctor, if the moon breaks up, it'll kill us all in about 45 minutes."
"I agree," said The Doctor, "Unless something else is going on." He dropped his yo-yo down into another fissure, and a few moments later it came back wet.
"There's no water on the moon," said Lundvik.
"It's not water," said The Doctor, "It's amniotic fluid. The stuff that life comes from. I've got to go down there."
"Doctor."
The Doctor looked at Lundvik, "Back to your shuttle. Get your bombs ready." Then, he looked at Clara, Annabelle and me "You three, get to the TARDIS. Get safe. Get Courtney safe. I will be back." He took the disinfectant spray from Clara and ran to the fissure.
"What?" said Clara, "No. Doctor. Doctor!" Then, he jumped in the fissure, "Doctor!"
"Will he?" asked Lundvik, "Will he be back?"
"If he says so, I suppose he will," said Clara.
"Oh, he will be," I said, "Because if he doesn't come back, I'm going to kill him…"
"Then, after he finishes his regeneration cycle, I'm going to kill him," said Annabelle.
Just then we heard Courtney's voice, "Miss? Come in."
"Courtney?" asked Clara.
"I'm bored. When are you coming back?"
"We're on our way. What you doing?"
"Putting some pictures on Tumblr."
"No!" I said, "Courtney, don't put any pictures on Tumblr."
"Yeah," said Annabelle, "use Instagram… It's much better."
I smacked Annabelle upside the helmet, "You've been hanging around your uncle too much."
Lundvik laughed, "My granny used to put things on Tumblr." Just then there was a small moonquake that made us stop, for a moment. Nearby there was a spacesuit, "There he is." The glass was smashed and there was just a skeleton inside.
Just then Clara said, "Was that where we landed? It looks so different."
I turned and looked and the shuttle was now on the edge of a ravine. There was another moonquake and the shuttle started to fall into the ravine, "It's going down," said Lundvik.
"Courtney! Doctor!" shouted Clara.
"We going to have to take cover. We're running out of oxygen."
"Doctor!" I shouted.
Then, he appeared behind us, "Today's the day, humankind," said The Doctor.
We went back to the base and once we were inside Clara asked, "Where's the TARDIS?"
"She's in the shuttle, isn't she?" said The Doctor, "She'll turn up."
"Last time you said that, she turned up on the wrong side of the planet."
"You two have never gotten on, have you?"
"Look, we need to know where Courtney is."
"Don't worry," I said, "Courtney is safe." Clara gave me a look, then I said, "Well, do you have her phone number?"
"No, no, no. Of course I don't have her phone number."
"Well, what about the school?" asked Annabelle, "Does the school secretary have her number?"
"I can't," said Clara, "The secretary hates me. She thinks I gave her a packet of TENA Lady for Secret Santa," Clara looked at her phone, "Look. Courtney's posting stuff on Tumblr," she looked at Lundvik, "Doesn't that know where you are?"
"I don't know. I'm not a historian," said Lundvik.
"Phone," said The Doctor. Clara handed it to him, "I know what the problem is." He looked at the phone and said, "Oh, she can't post that. She can't put pictures of me online." He pointed his sonic at Clara's phone and then he pointed it at a monitor on the wall.
Courtney's face appeared on the screen, "Yeah?"
"You can't put pictures of me online," said The Doctor.
"Are you okay?" asked Clara.
"Er, I'm fine. What's up?" asked Courtney.
Lundvik looked at The Doctor, "You said you know what the problem is."
"Yes, yes. It's a rather big problem," said The Doctor, as he walked over to a computer console.
"Okay, do you want to share it with the class?" asked Clara.
"Well, I had a little hypothesis," said The Doctor as he turned on the console, "The seismic activity, the surface breaking up, the variable mass, the increase in gravity, the fluid. I scanned what's down there." He pressed some buttons then he scanned the console with his sonic and then he used his sonic to create a 3D image of the moon in the middle of the room, "The moon isn't breaking apart. Well, actually, it is breaking apart, and rather quickly. We've got about an hour and a half. But that isn't the problem. It's not infested."
"What are they, then, those things?" asked Courtney.
"Bacteria. Tiny, tiny bacteria living on something very, very big. Something that weighs about one point three billion tons. Something that's living. Something growing."
"Growing?" I asked.
He used his sonic on the image, "That." The images change to show what looked like a baby dragon curled up inside the moon.
"That lives under the moon?" asked Courtney.
"No." said The Doctor.
"What?" asked Annabelle.
"That doesn't live under the moon. That is the moon."
"What the hell are you talking about?" asked Lundvik.
I understood what was going on, "The moon isn't breaking apart," I said, "The moon is hatching."
"Huh?" asked Clara.
"The moon's an egg," said Annabelle.
"Has it, er, has it always been an egg?"
"Yes, for a hundred million years or so," said The Doctor, "Just, just growing. Just getting ready to be born."
"Okay. So the moon has never been the moon?" asked Clara.
"No, no, no, no. It's never been dead. It's just taking a long time to come alive."
"Is it a chicken?" asked Courtney.
"No!" I said.
"Cos, for a chicken to have laid an egg that big…"
"Courtney, don't spoil the moment."
"Doctor, what is it?" asked Clara.
"I think that it's unique. I think that's the only one of its kind in the universe. I think that that is utterly beautiful.
"How do we kill it?" asked Lundvik
"Why'd you want to kill it?" asked Clara.
"It's a little baby," said Courtney.
"Doctor, how do we kill it?" asked Lundvik.
"Kill the moon?" asked The Doctor. He turned off the hologram, "Kill the moon. Well, you have about a hundred of the best man-made nuclear weapons, if they still work. If that's what you want to do."
"Doctor, wait," said Clara.
"Will that do it?" asked Lundvik.
"A hundred nuclear bombs set off right where we are, right on top of a living, vulnerable creature?" I asked, "It'll never feel the sun on its back."
"And then what? Will the moon still break up? The Doctor said we had an hour and a half?"
"Well, there'll be nothing to make it break up," said The Doctor, "There will be nothing trying to force its way out. The gravity of the little dead baby will pull all the pieces back together again."
"Of course, it won't be very pretty," said Annabelle, "You'd have an enormous corpse floating in the sky. You might have some very difficult conversations to have with your kids."
"I don't have any kids," said Lundvik.
"Stop," said Clara, "Right, listen. This is a, this is a life. I mean, this must be the biggest life in the universe."
"It's not even been born," said Courtney.
"It is killing people," said Lundvik, "It is destroying the Earth."
"You cannot blame a baby for kicking," said Clara.
"Let me tell you something. You want to know what I took back from being in space? Look at the edge of the Earth. The atmosphere, that is paper thin. That is the only thing that saves us all from death. Everything else, the stars, the blackness. That's all dead. Sadly, that is the only life any of us will ever know.
"There's life here. There's life just next door,' said Courtney.
"Look, when you've grown up a bit, you'll realize that everything doesn't have to be nice," said Lundvik, "Some things are just bad. Anyway, you ran away. It's none of your business." Then, Lundvik opened the control panel on the arming device and entered the arming code.
"Doctor, I want to come back."
"Courtney, you'll be safer where you are," said Clara.
"Doctor, I'm sorry," said Courtney, "I want to come back, okay? I want to help."
"Ah, there's some DVDs on the blue book shelf," said The Doctor, "Just stick one into the TARDIS console. That'll bring you to me."
"Right," said Courtney.
"And make sure you hang on to the console," I said, "otherwise the TARDIS will leave you behind."
"So what do we do?" asked Clara, "Doctor? Huh? Teddy, what do we do?"
"Nothing," I said.
"What?" asked Clara.
"We don't do anything. I'm sorry, Clara," said Annabelle, "We can't help you."
"Of course you can help."
"The Earth isn't our home," said The Doctor, "The moon's not our moon. Sorry."
"Come on. Hey." Said Clara.
"Listen," I said, "there are moments in every civilization's history in which the whole path of that civilization is decided. The whole future path."
"Whatever future humanity might have depends upon the choice that is made right here and right now," said The Doctor, "Now, you've got the tools to kill it. You made them. You brought them up here all on your own, with your own ingenuity."
"You don't need Time Lords," said Annabelle, "Kill it. Or let it live. We can't make this decision for you."
"Yeah, well, I can't make it," said Clara.
"Well, there's two of you here," said The Doctor.
"Well, yeah. A school teacher and an astronaut."
"Who's better qualified?" I said.
"I don't know! The President of America," said Clara.
"Oh, take something off his plate. He makes far too many decisions anyway," said The Doctor.
"She," said Lundvik
"She. Sorry. She hasn't even been into space. She hasn't been to another planet. How would she even know what to do?"
"I am asking you three for help," said Clara
"Listen, we went to dinner in Berlin in 1937, right?" I asked, "We didn't go out after dessert and kill Hitler."
"We've never killed Hitler," said The Doctor, "And you wouldn't expect us to kill Hitler. The future is no more malleable than the past."
"Okay, don't you do this to make some kind of point," said Clara.
"Sorry. Well, actually, no, I'm not sorry. It's time to take the stabilizers off your bike. It's your moon, womankind. It's your choice."
"And you three are just going to stand there?"
"Absolutely not,"
Just then, the TARDIS arrived. The Doctor, Annabelle and I headed to the TARDIS while Courtney came out.
"Doctor?" said Clara.
"A teenager, an astronaut and a schoolteacher," said The Doctor.
"Hang on a minute," said Lundvik, "We can get in there, can't we? You can sort it out with that thing."
"No," I said, "Some decisions are too important not to make on your own."
"Annabelle," called Clara, "Teddy? Doctor!"
We just ignored her and got into the TARDIS. We set the controls for just before the egg hatched, "Are you sure we are doing the right thing?" I asked.
"No," said The Doctor, "But, this decision is too big for us. They have to make for themselves."
We landed again and the Doctor ran to the door, "One, two, three, into the TARDIS."
"What's happening?" asked Lundvik.
"Let's go and have a look, shall we?"
Clara, Courtney and Lundvik entered the TARDIS and I started her back up, "Bloody idiots," said Lundvik. "Bloody irresponsible idiots."
I walked over to her, "Mind your language, please, there are children present."
"You three should have left me there, let me die. I wanted to die up there with the universe in front of me, not being crushed to death on Earth."
"Nobody's going to die," said Annabelle.
"Could you please let us see what's happening?"
The Doctor stopped the TARDIS and we all got out. We landed on a beach. There was a full moon and a bright blue sky. We watched the moon disintegrate and all that was left was the baby space dragon.
"What's it doing?" asked Courtney.
"It's feeling the sun on itself," I said, "It's getting warm. The chick flies away and the eggshell disintegrates. Harmless."
"Did you know?" asked Clara.
"You made your decision," said The Doctor, "Humanity made its choice."
"No, we ignored humanity," said Lundvik.
"Well, there you go," said Annabelle.
"So what happens now, then? Tell me what happens now."
The Doctor, Annabelle and I took a few steps forward and thought for a moment, Then The Doctor said, "In the mid-twenty first century humankind starts creeping off into the stars, spreads its way through the galaxy to the very edges of the universe. And it endures till the end of time."
We turned back to the others and I said, "And it does all that because one day in the year 2049, when it had stopped thinking about going to the stars, something occurred that make it look up, not down. It looked out there into the blackness and it saw something beautiful, something wonderful, that for once it didn't want to destroy."
We walked over to Courtney and Annabelle aid, "And in that one moment, the whole course of history was changed. Not bad for a girl from Coal Hill School," Annabelle looked over at Clara, "and her teacher."
Courtney looked up in the sky, "Oh, my gosh. It laid a new egg," We turned and looked and sure enough there was new white moon in the sky, "It's beautiful. Doctor, it's beautiful."
"That's what we call a new moon," said The Doctor.
"You can be the first woman on that."
"I think that somebody deserves a thank you."
"Yeah, probably," said Lundvik. She looked at Clara, "Thank you. Thank you for stopping me. Thank you for giving me the moon back."
"Okay, Captain," said The Doctor, "Well, you've got a whole new space program to get together. NASA is er, it's that way. About two and a half thousand miles." He turned to Courtney, "You still got your vortex manipulators? I'll give you a run home." Then, we rushed back to the TARDIS.
We got Courtney and Clara back to Coal Hill and changed out of our spacesuits. The Doctor was dropping books on the steps to the gallery when Clara and Courtney came up from the changing room, "Not that it's any of my business, but I think you did the right thing," said The Doctor.
"Yeah, you're right. It's none of your business," said Clara. She turned to Courtney, "Come on, Courtney, off you go. Double Geography."
"Can we do it again?" asked Courtney.
"Go. Go, go. Chop chop," said Clara as she escorted Courtney out. Once Courtney was out The Doctor started the TARDIS but Clara stopped it, "Tell me what you three knew."
"Nothing," said The Doctor, "I told you, we've got grey areas."
"Yeah. I noticed. Tell me what you three knew, or else I'll smack you lot so hard all three of you'll regenerate."
"We knew that eggs are not bombs," said Annabelle.
"We knew they don't usually destroy their nests," I said.
"Essentially, what we knew was that you would always make the best choice," said The Doctor, "we had faith that you would always make the right choice." Then he smiled at her.
"Honestly, do you have music playing in your head when you say rubbish like that?" asked Clara.
"It wasn't our decision to make," I said, "we told you."
"Well, why did you do it?" she looked at The Doctor, "Was it for Courtney, was that it?"
"Well, she really is something special now, isn't she?" asked The Doctor, as he walked up the stairs to the gallery, "First woman on the moon, saved the Earth from itself, and, rather bizarrely, she becomes the President of the United States. She met this bloke called Blinovitch…"
"Do you know what?" asked Clara, on the verge of tears, "Shut up! I am so sick of listening to you!"
"Well, I didn't do it for Courtney," said The Doctor, "I didn't know what was going to happen. None of us did… Do you think we're lying?"
"I don't know," said Clara, "I don't know. If you didn't do it for her, I mean. Do you know what? It was, it was cheap, it was pathetic. No, no, no. It was patronizing. That was you patting us on the back, saying, you're big enough to go to the shops by yourself now. Go on, toddle along."
"No, that was us allowing you to make a choice about your own future," I said, "That was us respecting you."
"Oh, my God, really? Was it? Yeah, well, respected is not how I feel."
"Right," said Annabelle, "Okay…"
"I nearly didn't press that button. I nearly got it wrong. That was you three, my friends, making me scared. Making me feel like a bloody idiot.
"Language," said The Doctor.
"Oh, don't you ever tell me to mind my language," said Clara., "Don't you ever tell me to take the stabilizers off my bike. And don't you dare lump me in with the rest of all the little humans that you think are so tiny and silly and predictable. You walk our Earth, Doctor, you breathe our air. You make us your friend, and that is your moon too. And you can damn well help us when we need it." Then Clara looked at me, "Honestly… I could kind of expect this from him… But not you. You should have been there with me. You spent 18 years as human. You have human adoptive parents. Earth is a much your home as it is mine. You should have been there to help me."
"I was helping you," I said.
"What, by clearing off?"
"Yes."
"Yeah, well, clear off! Go on. You and your daughter and your uncle can clear off. Get back in your bloody TARDIS and you don't come back." Then, she headed for the door.
"Clara" I said, "Clara."
"You go away," said Clara, "Okay? You go a long way away." Then Clara left.
I looked over at The Doctor. I walked over to him and I slapped him hard across the face, "OW! What was that for?"
"That was for Clara… I agree that we shouldn't have made that decision. That was a choice that the humans had to make for themselves. But, Clara shouldn't have been forced to make that choice in the first place. We have never put a companion in that position before and as long as I'm here we will never do that again. Do I make myself clear?"
"Crystal…" said The Doctor.
"Good…" Then I walked out of the console room and down to my room.
AN: Hey there… Long time, no see… I've been working on another story of mine and it kind of had my attention. Right now my plan is to keep working on this story for a while and then go back to my Once Upon a Time story, when that show finishes its current season. But, I've got an idea for another Once Upon a Time, that I might start once I work some kinks out. If you like this story, Review, Favorite and Follow. It gives me motivation to keep going.