The Time of Change

Wants and Needs

The Doctor claps his hands together as he strides confidently over to the table, and I smile at him. "I'd say you've got a fair bit to talk about," he says to Eldane, who cocks his head to the side. "How so?" he inquires.

"You both want the planet. You both have a genuine claim to it."

"Are you authorized to negotiate on behalf of humanity?" Eldane sounds unconvinced but hopeful.

"Me?" the Doctor chuckles. "No. But they are." He smiles knowingly at Nasreen and me. We glance at each other, shocked. "What?" she exclaims at the same time I say, "No, we are not!"

"Of course you are," he says, sounding like this is the most obvious conclusion we could have arrived at. "Annalise Song and Nasreen Chaudhry speaking for the planet? Humanity couldn't have better ambassadors!" With a sly grin he moves closer to me and gently pokes his elbow into my rib. "Come on," he adds conspiratorially. "Who has more fun than us?"

I sigh, shaking my head. "I'll tell you what I told my almost-executioners," I reply. "I'm not human."

Nasreen starts and stares at me wide-eyed. "Sorry," she stutters, "what?"

"No, but you lived as one for twenty-six years," the Doctor counters.

"What right do I have to decide the fate of a race I don't even belong to?"

He gives me a crooked smile. "Sometimes you're too noble for your own good."

"Excuse me," Nasreen interjects, "before we get to any actual decision-making, let me have a second. I'm still trying to process the fact that you aren't human."

I point at my husband, who raises his eyebrows at me. "He isn't either," I tell her. She looks at him like she's only just seeing him, and true to his fashion, he chuckles. A brief silence passes between the three of us before I ask the Doctor unsteadily, "Is this what happens in the future: the planet gets shared? Is this what we need to do?"

Nasreen tunes back into the conversation. "Erm... What are you talking about?"

"Oh, Nasreen, sorry," says the Doctor. "Probably worth mentioning at this stage. Annalise and I time-travel a bit."

The woman nods, her beautifully dark hair bouncing on her shoulders. "So you two are alien time-travelers who are here to save the planet," she confirms exasperatedly. "Anything else?"

"We're also married," I answer with the smallest of smiles. "I think that about covers it."

The Doctor puts an encouraging hand on Nasreen's arm to reign in her attention. "There are fixed points through time where things must always stay the way they are," he says, an air of importance surrounding him. "This is not one of them. This is an opportunity, a temporal tipping point. Whatever happens today will change future events. It'll create its own timeline, its own reality. The future pivots around you, here, now. So do good, for humanity and for Earth."

"Right," I quip, shifting uneasily. "No pressure, then."

"We can't share the planet," Nasreen quietly argues. "Nobody on the surface is going to go for this idea. It's just too big a leap."

The Doctor leans toward her and whispers, "Come on. Be extraordinary." She sighs, looking down at her feet, which the Doctor seems to take as a sign of agreement because he claps again, victorious. I smile as he raises his eyebrows at Eldane, his inquisitive and confident blue eyes shining. "Okay. Bringing things to order," he announces. He grabs my hand and puts his other between Nasreen's shoulder blades, then leads us over to the giant table, pushing us down into chairs. "The first meeting of representatives of the human race and Homo Reptilia is now in session." Now he laughs, "Never said that before. That's fab."

Eldane meets my eye in confusion, and I shrug.

"Now, Mo," the Doctor adds, turning to where the man stands at the edge of the room. "Let's go and get your son. Oh, you know, humans and their predecessors shooting the breeze. Never thought I'd see it." Another great smile passes over his handsome face, and he plants a kiss on my cheek before striding to the doors. He and Malohkeh follow Mo out of the room, letting the doors fall shut behind them with a dull thud.

Nasreen, Eldane, and I all look at each other from our seats. The silence is deafening.