Lost In Time: A Doctor Who Fanfiction

Chapter 113 - A Dance With Fate

"Are you all right, love?" John asked with concern when Lyssa turned to look behind them for the fifth time that evening.

She flushed, the realization of just how much he really meant the word still all too fresh in her memory. "Yeah, I just... thought I heard something." She frowned, her cursory glance having revealed nothing wrong with the woods surrounding them as they journeyed to town for the dance.

And yet something just felt... off. The hair was raised on the back of her neck, and she had this niggling sensation that something was wrong, like an itch at the back of her mind that she couldn't scratch. And the more she focused on it, the more that feeling grew.

She shifted uncomfortably, biting her lip as she repressed the urge to once more turn around and look behind her. John had already taken notice, and if she kept doing it, he'd only ask more questions she couldn't risk answering without the watch on hand. Obviously noticing her distress anyway, John slowed them to a stop and tilted his head to the side, listening carefully. She did the same, but heard nothing suspicious, only the rustling of the wind as it blew through the branches.

"I don't hear anything, but that doesn't mean there isn't anything there," he admitted at last, watching her carefully. "Do you feel in danger? Or ill again? Should we return to the school?"

Lyssa shook her head. If she remembered correctly, the Family would be at the dance, hoping to find the Doctor, and if they weren't there to try and handle it, the Family would like as not try to kill everyone in an attempt to draw the Doctor out into the open. As it was, River was armed and already itching for a fight, and Martha was making a last-ditch attempt at finding the watch - or even Timothy Latimer, who could hopefully at least lead them to the watch - as well as keeping an eye out for the Family for advance warning.

Plus if they returned to the school, the Family would eventually follow them there, and there were too many innocent children, and too many unknowns, for her to feel comfortable with that. As it was, she felt bad for going to the dance, knowing people could die, even though they had little choice.

"I feel fine," she promised him as he reluctantly started walking again. "I just... I dunno. Something feels off." And that niggling sensation, which was oddly familiar in some way, only seemed to keep growing.

He shrugged, though she noticed he was keeping a more wary eye on their surroundings now. "Your instincts are obviously trying to tell you something, and I've found it best to trust them in the past. Keep listening, maybe you'll figure it out. Things have been... odd around here lately."

She wrinkled her nose. She didn't disagree with him, she just had no idea what it could possibly be. She hadn't gotten that sensation around either 'Jack' or 'Baines', so she doubted it had anything to do with the Family. She'd definitely felt a wariness, as was only sensible, but nothing quite like this. In fact the last time she'd felt something like this was...

At another dance almost two thousand years in the future, when someone had tried to break a fixed point in time.

Eleven had even used those exact words - the itching at the back of her mind, hair standing on end; both were signs of someone getting close to breaking a fixed point in time. Weakened, but not yet permanently damaged.

Clara had mentioned seeing someone who had an uncomfortable resemblance to the Master at the ball shortly before there was an assassination attempt on the Emperor, and Vina had confirmed that someone who matched his description was working with the group hunting them both.

There had been no mention of a fixed point in this episode on the show, and without the Doctor, she had no idea what it could be - or how it was being damaged. Was it someone? Something? It had only happened now, so it couldn't be Jack being taken by the family, or Lucy being saved, as both of those had happened earlier with no indication of possible consequences.