Chapter 1:
POV: Mara
Date: August 17, 2025
One trip quite easily turned into seven.
As Jenny had suspected, we were good at this. The TARDIS was just as motivated as we were to find the Gallifreyan refugees, and so far, we had managed to bring in all six of the groups that we'd been able to find. Today, we hoped to keep that an even seven of seven groups saved.
"Come on, all of you!" Dad shouted as he hurried us down exploding corridors through the underbelly of the space station we found ourselves in.
Jenny was running in the middle of the group helping to carry one of the children in tow. We had a total of five adults and three children all under the age of ten. Two were being carried by their parents, and one was in Jenny's arms crying loudly. One of the adults was an older woman in a red cloak, and even though she was keeping up with our group rather well, I knew she would never make it if I couldn't slow the Cybermasters down. They were so close we could hear the grating of their metal joints.
I turned as we ran through another bulkhead and stopped to point my sonic at the controls for the door. Down the hall, the Cybermasters began to shoot. "Resistance is futile! You will be upgraded!" their leader shouted. The door controls sparked, and I cried out as blaster fire caught me in the right shoulder as the doors to the bulkhead slid shut and locked.
"Mara!" Jenny cried.
I turned back and ran after our group with gritted teeth. The pain in my shoulder screamed for my attention, but I knew I couldn't afford to acknowledge it fully just yet. "I'm fine; just hurry! That won't hold them back for long."
We rounded a few more corners before the TARDIS came into view. Dad was far enough ahead of us that he managed to unlock it before we reached him and hurried us inside. "In, in, in!" he commanded, and widened his eyes as he caught the wound on my shoulder.
I rushed past him, and heard the doors slam behind me as Jenny and I ran for the console. We started up the flight sequence in a more frenzied dance than usual. Dad quickly joined us, and soon enough we were flying through the vortex heading for Earth.
I winced as our landing jostled my shoulder and gritted my teeth against the new round of searing pain. "What is it with me and the blaster fire?" I grumbled to myself as Jenny moved toward the doors and began herding the refugees out of the TARDIS.
Dad was suddenly at my side. "Let me look at that," he said quietly. I bristled but let him move aside my shirt a bit to get a better look at the damage.
I felt his surge of anger before he could clamp it down. I gave him a grim smile. "I guess I'd be horrible at dodge ball, huh?"
He tore his eyes away from my wound to meet my gaze. Despite the turmoil of emotions I could feel coiling out from him, he chuckled at my joke. "I'll have to remember that at the next neighborhood picnic."
I hissed when he let my shirt fall back onto my wound. "Med bay?"
Dad nodded and waved me toward the hallway. "Lead the way." He paused to look back at Jenny. "You've got this, yeah?"
She glanced back from leading the refugees out of the TARDIS. "Yeah, don't worry. Claire has already taken charge."
Dad nodded and turned back to follow me down the hallway. The TARDIS, sweet girl that she is, made sure that the door wasn't too far from the console room and soon enough I was situated on a bed. I watched my dad as he turned to one of the nearby drawers and pulled out what he needed. He was trying to keep his mix of worry and upset away from me, but I didn't need our link to see he had something he wanted to say.
"Come on, out with it," I said as he turned back to me with the dermal regenerator. "I don't need to read your emotions to know you're unhappy."
His eyes were dark as he paused to meet my gaze. "You put yourself at risk today."
I bit my lip but nodded. "We all did," I pointed out.
He let out a huff. "Yes, but you put yourself at unnecessary risk. We could have made it without closing the bulkhead."
I swallowed. "Not with the older woman in tow. We needed those extra seconds. And besides, they would have kept shooting if I hadn't blocked their way. More of us could have gotten hurt or worse."
Dad began using an alcohol swab to clean my shoulder before running the regenerator. I winced at the sensation of the skin being tugged. He sighed heavily. "Mara..."
I nodded. He didn't need to say anything more. He'd shared with both Jenny and I just how deeply us being in danger affects him on more than one occasion during our sessions with Donna, and then with Doctor Lochlan. It brought up many old wounds for him. "I know," I said softly, and reached up to take one of his hands. "I'm sorry. You know if I thought there had been another, safer, way I would have done that."
He swallowed, but nodded as he ran the regenerator over my wounded shoulder. I tried not to move as I felt the skin starting to knit back together. "I know. I wish that made it easier."
We sat in silence, then, while the regenerator did its work. Despite our progress, this was an ongoing point of contention between me, Jenny, and Dad. Though he had come a long way in accepting that Jenny and I would sometimes have to be in dangerous situations, and that we could handle ourselves, Dad continued to struggle with fully allowing us to do so. It was, in part, because we were all he had left of our mum. We knew that. He'd also lost a whole family before, and countless friends throughout his travels. Jenny and I could understand how that made it difficult for him to accept the idea that we would not always be safe.
We were no strangers to loss ourselves, and we knew the impact that had on existing relationships.
"There," Dad said as he turned the dermal regenerator off. I rolled my shoulder as he turned to set it down. "There's still some bruising. I wouldn't go around straining it anytime soon, but you'll be okay."
I hopped to my feet and grabbed one of his hands. I bit my lip as he turned back to level his eyes with mine again. "Are we okay?"
He smiled softly and pulled me in for a gentle hug. "Yeah, Cricket, course we are." He kissed my temple and turned to leave the med bay. "Come join us when you're ready?"
"Sure," I said, and turned to head down the hallway for my own room. I needed a change of shirt before I rejoined the group.
"Mara?" a voice behind me rasped.
I stopped in my tracks and turned to find the older Gallifreyan woman walking toward me. "Yes? Did Claire send you back here?"
"I didn't think we would find you," the woman continued as she stopped only a foot in front of me. "My sisters and I—we got separated after those Cyber creatures came for us. And we had thought your parents had sealed you and your mother away in a dimension we could no longer reach. We thought all hope was lost."
My hearts froze as I stared at her. I took a step back. "How do you know about that? Why would you want to find me or my mother?"
She smiled at me, and the coldness of it made me shiver. "Oh, my dear, I am lucky your father did not remember me. I'm sure your mother would have." She cackled. "We spent quite a lot of time together, she and I, after we secured her to us. Did you know, even after she became the Moment, it took centuries before we broke her spirit enough that she would obey a command? Of course, as the clever being that she is, she devised ways to still get back at us for using her power."
I hissed as I whipped out my screwdriver with another large step away from her. "You're one of the Pythia," I spat.
She cackled again. "That I am, my dear. And you are the last of your kind."
"What do you want of me?" I demanded.
"Your power," she said simply. "You could easily help us to take back Gallifrey."
I shook my head. "I don't know where everyone got this idea that I have anywhere near the power that my mum had, but I don't. My time senses are a bit sharper than most, but that's about all I inherited."
She arched an eyebrow at me. "You also were able to open a pocket of the vortex with the proper motivation."
I clenched my jaw. "I don't much care for the methods that were used to accomplish that." Silently, I sent out a call to both Jenny and Dad. They could both sense my fear, I knew, and would come running. "Now, give me one good reason I shouldn't rat you out to my dad."
"Because," the Pythia woman said before rushing forward to snap a wristband down over my arm, "It's far too late for that."
My eyes widened as she held up a sonic device of her own. She pressed a button, and then the world faded to black.
POV: Mara
Date: November 9, 2014
The first things I registered as I came to was the dryness of my mouth and the heaviness of my limbs. I groaned loudly and squeezed my eyelids together before opening them. My eyebrows immediately pulled down with confusion as I slowly sat up. I was in my bedroom on the TARDIS, but it looked…wrong. Many of the books and knick-knacks I had gathered from our most recent trips were missing, and it was messier than I remembered. It looked…well, it looked like it had not long before Jenny and I had been sealed off in Pete's world with Mum.
I blinked and stood up. I walked over to my ensuite and glanced into the mirror. My eyes narrowed even more as I looked down to my injured shoulder—only, it wasn't injured anymore. It wasn't even sore.
I flexed it a few times before letting the strap of the tank top I didn't remember putting on fall back onto my skin. I glanced up at the TARDIS' ceiling. "What's going on?" I asked.
The TARDIS hummed in my mind and flashed her lights. She didn't know either. I sighed, and closed my eyes to see if I could feel for my family. The last thing I remembered was that woman—the Pythia—grabbing me and putting that bracelet on my arm, though it was missing now. Maybe Jenny or Dad, or even Faeter—as I'm sure they called for him—would have answers.
I froze as I scanned my family's network. Both Jenny and Dad were there, humming in the back of my mind, but Faeter was gone and what's more there was a light shining that I'd thought I'd never feel again.
Tears came to my eyes as I heard my bedroom door open. "Mara?"
I took in a shaky breath as I walked back out into the main room. It was too cruel—whatever was going on here, whatever force was behind this, was too cruel to do this to me.
Mum's eyebrows pulled down with concern. "Mara, love? Sorry, I know you said you needed some sleep after everything that happened, but your dad was getting worried. We can feel how confused you are. What's happened?"
I felt a few tears fall down my cheeks as I shook my head. "No, this can't be. I shouldn't be able to feel you—this must be a trick. When are we?" That would tell me what was going on.
Mum—or at least, the creature that looked like her—blinked, and took a step forward. "What do you mean? Our timelines are synced, you can feel that. It's November 2014. We called you because your dad and I decided to use the crystal to make me corporeal, remember?"
My breath hitched, and I took a few frantic steps back as she tried to fully approach. "Don't come near me," I hissed. "I don't know who you are, but you can't be my mum. This can't be real." I reached into the pocket of my sleep shorts and pulled out my sonic. I waved it over her and looked at the readings.
Mum tipped her head to the side. I could feel her worry rolling over me in waves as she waited for me to say what she knew the sonic was telling me. "What's happened to you, love?"
My eyes stayed frozen on the sonic for a long time before I looked up at her with fresh tears. "You're real," I rasped, and stumbled forward. "You're her."
She nearly stumbled back as she let me all but fall into her arms. The tears flowed freely now as I squeezed her as closely as I could. Mum's hands came up to smooth my hair down as her mind reached out to soothe me. "Of course I'm real, Mara, what's going on with you? You need to tell me what's wrong."
I stepped back and shook my head. "We need to find Dad and Jenny first. Something is still very, very wrong and I'm going to need all of you to fix it."
She nodded and turned to leave the room. "Come with me, then. He's in the console room."
