The Time of Change

Brave

"You aren't going to hurt him?" I skeptically inquire of the group of daleks.

The one that restrained my husband replies, "There is always time to destroy the Doctor. The same cannot be said for the Teacher."

Goosebumps erupt on my arms. "Tell me," I say, folding them over my chest, "why has it taken you lot so long to figure out who I am? I've encountered you before. One of you shot me in my last life, for goodness' sake. For such a brilliant species, you're awfully slow."

"You dare insult the da—?"

"Have I ever not dared? Just answer the question." I wait, my eyebrows raised as I look at each one in turn, but none respond. I count out a full thirty seconds of fiery silence before I suddenly become very aware of the origin of the intensity. "You don't know," I state. "You were just as much in the dark as I was. That's why you haven't killed me yet," I muse aloud. "You want answers, too."

They do not deny it. Instead, a dalek to my direct right buzzes, "All previous scans of your DNA have been inconclusive. This regeneration cleared the fog."

"But you knew my name," I point out. Filled with a powerful desperation to understand, I shift so I can face the robot that spoke. "As soon as you—well, whoever it was—scanned me, you knew me. Why? How?"

"We have been searching for you for thousands of years," another near the Doctor informs me.

I furrow my eyebrows. "But why? I know what I was supposed to do, but I broke away from my programming. I'd never hurt a hair on the Doctor's head, so you never had to worry about me stealing the fun of killing him from you." I pause, then add curiously, "Unless that wasn't it. Unless that's exactly what you were afraid of—me not killing him—because then he became a problem for you."

"You understand very little about our intentions, Teacher," a dalek behind me says. Its voice is the same as the others, but somewhere deep inside the words, I imagine I hear the same incredulity that I feel. "You did what has never been done. Your fate was sealed. There was never free will; it was preplanned from the Doctor's birth. You should have had no choice."

"But you made one," inserts the dalek that froze my husband.

I cast a glance toward the Doctor, my lips slightly parted in shock. His wide eyes stare at me unblinkingly, and I can almost hear him saying something encouraging to me. Don't fear them—remember they fear you. I always told you that you were braver than you knew. 'Impossible girl' is a rather fitting name, don't you think?

Now I really do hear his voice, and as it enters my mind, warm and familiar, it causes me to stand stock-still in surprise.

If you changed that, you can change this.

"Do not communicate with the Doctor!" the same dalek asserts, forcefully dragging me back to the plane of reality. "The Teacher will regenerate no more. Your lives are spent."

"I'm aware," I reply jadedly as I return my gaze to it. "No need to be so rude about it."

After a momentary beat, a dalek that has remained quiet until now asks, "Do you have further questions?"

I stare at it, stunned. "Why?" I whisper. "Why are you being so considerate of me? Why are you treating me like I matter to you? If your plan is to kill me, why not just do it? What's the point in explaining these things to me?"

The robot that spoke exchanges a mechanical look with the one on its right before answering. "We wish to understand you just as you wish to understand yourself. You are not violent, yet you are a threat to the daleks, Slitheen, Ood—all species. You forfeited a secure, prosperous future to save someone you did not know. We know you belong to the Timelord race, but you are unlike any we have ever seen."

"I've never known daleks to be the scientific type," I quip. "Why study me? I'm going to die today anyway."

The Doctor's face twitches ever so slightly, as if in resistance of my statement. I swallow hard but keep my eyes on the daleks as another replies, "When you are exterminated, we automatically have the right to examine your cadaver."

My blood runs ice cold as my husband releases a strangled growl through immovable lips. I wrap my arms around myself, shivering in disgust, and allow my mind to run free for the briefest of moments. My thoughts travel down to my cells on a molecular level, deciphering what they are composed of and what makes them do what they do. I attempt to talk to them within myself, to beg them to do what I ask just this one time here at the end. In a nanosecond, they gather every last shred of the tiny reserve of regenerative energy I possess. I feel it migrate into my fingertips; the burning warmth that floods them is pleasant but invigorating. It feels like danger. It feels like power.

"No one," I say, my voice low and firm, "has 'the right' to do anything with me when I'm dead other than my husband. Make no mistake—I appreciate your responsiveness, but you still eradicated everything we held dear. A few minutes of moderate civility does not erase that."

"You will listen to th—"

"No, you will listen to me!" I snap. All at once everything becomes deathly quiet. "I lost a child today. I am in the process of losing myself. Then I will lose the man who means everything to me. If you think I'm in the state of mind to be ordered around, think again. You may kill me, but I will win. I can promise you that. The days of me bowing down to whatever frightens me are over. Now's the time of change, and you do not want to underestimate what change can do for a girl like me."

On instinct, I glance at the Doctor just as a tear drips from his eye, rolling steadily down his cheek.

There is a minute-long silence in which all ten of the robots stare me down, but still the fear does not come. I straighten my spine, flicking my eyes to each in turn, and lay a light hand on my stomach, inwardly apologizing to the stone-still child. Sudden tears of regret threaten to choke the life from me when I think about who the baby might have been if things were different. If I'd been a little smarter, a little braver, a little more cunning, perhaps I would not be in this situation right now: having to choose between my own ultimate sacrifice and the safety of the man I love. Thoughts like this only bring pain, which I know, but I can't stop myself from thinking them. As the seconds tick on, I wonder if it was a boy or girl, a son or a daughter of the last of the Timelords. I wonder whether it would have had porcelain skin like mine or peachy skin like his, whether it would have inherited my single dimple, whether we would have made good parents. All my life I've wanted to be two things: a writer and a mother. I became one, but the other is being taken from me. I hope with every fiber of my being that on another path, I would have been the epitome of maternal wisdom and love. I hope that our child would have never gone a single day thinking it was not cherished beyond its comprehension. I hope I would have been the mother I never got to have.

A tremulous breath escapes me as I turn to the Doctor for the last time. Smiling shakily, I whisper, "I love you, spaceman."

Unprompted, I'm reminded of how he used to tear the final pages out of books when we were children. Because of my years spent studying him, I know he did it on Gallifrey, too, as a random habit that no one could explain or talk him out of. The deepest corners of my hearts present me with a new hope: that he is holding this last page in his hands, beaming down at its love-soaked and laughter-laden pen strokes, and that he will never want to throw it away. I hope he causes the crisp paper to become worn and soft after touching it so often, and I hope he reads it over and over when he feels lost or afraid. I pray to who-knows-what that he will always remember sometimes endings can be beginnings, as well.

I set my jaw, staring straight ahead, and close my eyes as a tear slides down my cheek.

"EXTERMINATE!"