Wanderer of Time: Silence Begins (doctor who)

Chapter 37: The Family

Alice stared out the window, looking out to the setting sun. The day was slowly turning into a cold night filled with dread. Though, only she and Martha could sense the foreboding feeling in the air. Alice held the fob watch tightly in hand as she watched the last rays of the sun beginning to disappear over the horizon.

"So, John and I are not who we think we are," Alice spoke quietly. "We are truly otherworldly beings from beyond the stars, of which we transport upon this advanced machinery of space and time. . . . . . It seems John's journal of impossible things are not as impossible as them seem."

"Yes," Martha said, anxious about how Alice would take all this information. Though it seemed that the woman was handling it rather well. Much better than Martha would have ever assumed.

"And these watches, they hold the real us within their workings," Alice whispered. She thumbed at the watch slowly as she gazed upon it. "This means neither me nor John are even real. We are simply . . . a fairy tale." She closed her eyes, seeing everything slowly begin to piece together.

She understood everything now. Why all these strange events happened around her and John. Why the watch always spoke to her. Why she always felt off about whom she was and the way her life around her felt wrong. Why her memories seemed to be lacking so greatly. She felt they had always seemed . . . mistaken in some ways. Her family, living on the small island of Baker's apart of Langstone Harbour. How her mother was a florist and her father a carpenter. How they had both died when she was merely eight-years-old, and had been living on her own ever since. Then the memories of how she, John, and Martha met seemed incorrect. Very much mistaken from what her heart kept telling her.

"The Doctor and the Wanderer . . . they must mean a lot to you for having to put up with the two of us," Alice joked lightly, chuckling some at the sadness of the entire situation. Oh, how she stricken felt.

"It wasn't all so bad. I had you and Jenny," Martha said kindly. She stood up from the table, going over to give Alice a small soft squeeze on her shoulder. "You really are a good friend to me, Alice."

"Oh, but not a real friend," Alice replied, patting the girl's hand warmly. "Remember, I'm not real."

"You're real to me," Martha stated firmly.

"Only because I'm so very much still the Wanderer." Alice turned to her, giving a strained smile. "I still have much of her personality. The only difference I think is our memories and that I actually like dresses." Alice laughed lightly before she blinked at what she said. She remembered not liking dresses. She never recalled that before. She never recalled anything before. But things seemed to be slowly piecing together within her mind. As if the puzzle that had its pieces scattered was finally being put back in place.

"You're your own person, Alice. You're not just a story . . . not to me anyway," Martha said quietly.

"Though John has always seemed to be a story to you," Alice countered. "The only reason you feel any sort of attachment to me is because of how close we've become." Martha went to argue against this, to say how she saw John as his own person as well. But she slowly closed her mouth, knowing deep down she had never seen John as anything more than fiction.

"It seems I'm correct," Alice noted, watching the way Martha's argument faded. She looked out to the evening, some light from the sun still alive for the day. "Martha, something is coming. Something dreadful. I think we need to act fast and start preparing for the worst."

"What should we do, then?" Martha asked, feeling as though Alice were right. Wanda was still very much within her. Alice must also see things to come; still have the ability to see danger.