I'm far enough ahead that I'll be adding a posting day, which will be Tuesdays. Also there is a small trigger warning for this chapter. During the back half dated for September there is a brief mention of suicide. Fair warning for those who may be sensitive to this topic. You can always PM me for a summary if needed.

Chapter 5:

POV: Mara

Date: November 9, 2014

Something had felt off for a long while now.

My vision was blinded for a moment by the sudden light of Gallifrey's suns as the Lord President paraded Jenny and I back out onto the wastelands. It felt like it had been ages since he'd captured us, though it had only really been a handful of days. We'd just been kept in darkness all that time.

Within the darkness—in between the General coming to interrogate me and the guards to check that my psychic dampeners were still attached so I would be unable to communicate with my family—I had slept. And when I slept, I dreamed.

I dreamed that I had done all of this before.

Not exactly as I was doing it now, but close. I saw myself waking in my old room on the TARDIS a dozen different times. Sometimes with a wound on my shoulder, sometimes not. Sometimes I could prevent my parents from bringing us to Gallifrey for a short time, and sometimes we came straight away. Sometimes I would be able to prevent the inevitable—the end of everything—for a short time, but sometimes the soldiers would shoot us down before there was anything I could do.

But every time. Everywhen. No matter what, I would die. I would die while hauntingly familiar blue eyes would stare into my own. He was always there, my devilish companion. He always brought about the end.

And yet, he hadn't come to see me in the darkness beyond my dreams.

I knew what this was as I stepped out onto the sand and my vision began to return. I was surprised Ohila had been able to send me here. I was a Time Lord, but not completely. From what Dad had told me before, no Quo had ever been in a confession dial before.

It had taken me a while to figure it out, of course. For a long time, I'd just thought I was stuck inside some sort of time loop, but then I'd seen something. Those equations on the wall with the notes written in English. They had been scrawled out so messily, and I had never looked very closely, so of course I hadn't seen it. But when I finally took the time to look at them, I'd noticed.

It was my own handwriting staring back at me.

After I'd seen that, everything else began to click into place, and I began leaving notes for myself in places only I would look. It had still taken a while—256-time loops through the dial to be exact—but I'd gotten there.

And now, I had a plan.

I stopped when instructed and watched my parents' determined faces as they stood behind that line in the sand. Behind me, I felt the Lord President step closer to us. "It is time to surrender, Doctor. We have your precious daughters, and we know that they have no knowledge we value. Give up now, or we will shoot them down where they stand."

Mum's eyes flashed gold and Dad's jaw clenched.

I couldn't help it, I let out a loud sigh and rolled my eyes. "Oh, come on, is this really the best that you've got?"

Everyone in the scene around me froze. I turned to find Rassilon staring at me with a dumbfounded look. "I'm sorry?"

I reached up and easily broke the fake psychic dampeners off my body. I gave them a wiggle in the air, and then let them drop to the sand. "None of this is real. Took me a while to figure it all out, granted, it's a fair illusion, but an illusion all the same." I looked up into the sky. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice that I was stuck in a Confession Dial?"

A deep, sinister laugh made me pause, and I lowered my eyes to meet familiar blue ones. We were still in the deserts of Gallifrey, but everyone else had gone. There was only him now. He clapped his hands together slowly as his laughter died down. "Very good, little miss Mara."

My shoulders stiffened. "Ozul."

Ozul smiled and gave me a bow with a flourish. "At your service."

I shook my head. "You're the only thing I don't understand. How could you be here?"

He clucked his tongue. "Have you forgotten the purpose of the dial so easily? While here, you're meant to face the worst of your fears. Apparently, that includes me. I'm flattered, really." He took a step forward, and I automatically stepped back. He let out another cold laugh. "Oh, Mara, your fear was so loud, it called to me across the universe, right to the very end where I reside. And so, I came. For you."

I shook my head. "You can't be real. None of this is real. This all comes from my own psyche—that's all you are. Just a memory."

Ozul's smile widened to expose his sharp canines. "Oh, my dear, that would be true, but there's never been someone like you in a place like this before. A place where memories can become very, very real." He took another step toward me. "There are many things at the edge of the universe, Mara dear. Many powerful—many old things that have been lost to shadows. You should be more careful when you dance at that edge. You called me into this universe, and now you've called me once again, and I'm never one to leave a call unanswered."

I blinked as tears came to my eyes. I shook my head. "No, no it can't be true. You're gone. You're banished—I saw it happen. I let her go so you would be banished back to the nothing at the end of the universe!"

Ozul continued to walk forward until we were toe-to-toe. "And how disappointed would fair Terry be now to see you like this?" He reached out with one cold hand to cup my cheek and swipe away a tear with his thumb. "You believe you've conquered your fears, do you? How wrong you are. Shall we see what else awaits you?"

I met his eyes, and moved to answer, but I never got the chance. He reached up and snapped his fingers, and everything went dark.

POV: Mara

Date: September 21, 2220

Terry was by no means my first companion, but she certainly had left a large impact from the moment I met her. It had been about a century and a half before the Time Lords had found Jenny and I in Pete's World. I had met her on a space station far from Earth. She'd never been to her own home world, though she was fully human. She had been born on that station. I'd run into her deep in the underbelly of the station while following some unusual readings, and she'd captured my interest from the first "Hello." Having taken on companions before, I'd noticed that always seemed to be the way.

And what fun we'd had traveling across the stars in what was then my TARDIS. Terry had the right temperament for traveling—she was fearless. She was loyal and honest, and most of all she was loving. Having been alone for so long at that point in my life, I had forgotten what it was to have someone close to you. To have someone know you. It had been terrifying and exhilarating and a relief.

And then came our fateful last trip. The one that brought all that rush of feeling to a hard stop. The one that had sent me hurtling back to Earth to find Jenny, and to take care of her family, and eventually to close off my hearts to taking on anymore companions.

Terry was by no means the first companion I'd lost, but she was the first to die while under my care.

Cold air forced itself into my lungs as my eyes shot open. Bright light made my vision blurry for a moment, and I squinted as the world came into focus around me.

"So?"

I blinked, and then my eyes landed on her. My hearts stopped as I took in her curly ashy blonde hair pulled back forcefully into a ponytail. Her brown eyes were staring at me expectantly.

"I'm sorry?"

Terry chuckled at me, and my hearts squeezed at the sound, as they always had. "Don't tell me you spaced out again. Where have we landed?"

"Oh." I smiled as the last bit of unease that had been plaguing my senses drifted away. I waved my hand toward the door. "Why don't we have a look?"

My companion squealed with joy as she rushed for the doors. "This should be good! I don't know how you could top the Singing Towers, but I'm excited to see what you've come up with." She thrust open the doors and ran a few steps outside.

I followed her more slowly and glanced around where we'd landed. It appeared to be some kind of storage closet—there were boxes of spare cables, tools, and what looked like dehydrated food packets all around us. Below me, I could feel the familiar hum of a space station.

Terry had already opened the door to the closet and was standing just outside. "So, where are we?" I asked.

"It looks like some kind of station," she said, and glanced back at me with confused eyes. "But…were there any life signs when we landed?"

I cocked my head to the side and joined her outside of the closet. Confusion washed over me. We were on what looked like the main bridge of the station, but there was nobody around. Not a soul at any of the monitoring stations, no commander at the center…no one.

"How odd," I said, and walked over to one of the computer consoles. Everything looked brand new. I pressed a few buttons and felt my brow furrow. "It's a space station alright, and a human one at that, but…there's no one here. According to the manifest, there should be about 5,000 crew onboard, but there's nobody."

Terry was at another station pressing buttons. "Mara, come see this." She pointed at the screen and waited until I joined her. Onscreen was a middle-aged woman in a uniform. "I think it's the commander's log." She tapped at the screen to get the video to play. "This first one's dated a couple of days ago."

We both watched with curiosity as the video began to play. The commander let out a weary sigh as she smoothed down her brown hair. "This is Commander Shay's log, star date…I couldn't even say. We lost another one today, lieutenant Jasmine Sunders. She was fine at morning shift today, and then…" The commander pulled in a shaky breath. "Then she sent herself out the airlock this morning. I don't understand what's happening. She was the tenth one this week. We've searched her log entries and her belongings—we've interrogated her friends and her colleagues—there was nothing to indicate that anything was wrong. Just like the others, as far as anyone could tell, lieutenant Sunders was a happy, healthy young woman. She was even planning a trip back to the Mars colony to see her family. Doctor Marx thinks it may have something to do with how far out we are. There's never been a space station this deep into the dark zone, we don't know what effect being this isolated will have, but my gut says there's something more going on."

The video ended there. Terry and I exchanged a glance. "The crew were…?" she trailed off.

"Evidently," I said. I then moved through the Commander's log until I found the last video she had recorded. I pressed play.

The previously tidy looking woman was now disheveled. Commander Shay's hair was loose about her face and her uniform was unbuttoned to reveal the undershirt beneath it. Her eyes were tired. "Commander's log—this will be my final entry. The crew is gone. They all—" She broke off with a strangled sound and tears pooled in her eyes. "I see it now. We should never have come here. We should never have danced on the edge of the universe." One of those tears broke free and slid down her cheek. The commander swiped it away furiously. "If anyone should find this log, please tell command that we are sorry. This mission is a failure. Anyone who finds this should go—run. Run away from here while you still can."

The video ended there, and I shivered. Terry turned to look at the viewscreen at the front of the bridge. It showed only distant stars. "What did she mean—the edge of the universe? Surely, we aren't that far out?"

I walked over to what I assumed was the navigation console and began pressing buttons. I grumbled with frustration when the computer glitched and pulled out my sonic. I pointed it at the broken station, but it sparked furiously at me. Terry let out a little shriek and covered her face.

I huffed as around us the lights turned out, only for the backup power to kick in. "I'm not sure where we are, but my gut is telling me we should take the Commander's advice and leave."

Terry's eyes shot to me with surprise. "What? It's a mystery—you never say no to a mystery."

The unease that I had felt earlier came rushing back coupled with something more. Dread. I backed away from the console. "Well, just this once, this feels like a mystery that should be left alone."

We both froze, when behind us, there came a deep dark laugh. "Oh, miss Mara, you don't know how right you are."