Ties Between Freedom and Love

✦36✦

Chapter Thirty-Six
Finding The Truth

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"You are the Weakest Link. Goodbye."

Emma looked away as Colleen was the next one to be disintegrated. She couldn't help them even if she wanted to because she couldn't even help herself. The voices of angel radio made it almost impossible to keep herself upright, let alone think, or even try and move.

Michael's voice the loudest; You'll all regret this! I'm the one you need. I'm the only one still loyal to the cause. Still loyal to our father. Other voices were mixed in. She could hear Raphael's, the second loudest. And after him, there was Balthazar and even the narcissistic retorts of her uncle Gabriel.

They calmed down miraculously, and she sighed in relief, looking around and feeling guilty for not paying more attention and helping Colleen. But she also couldn't go stopping and changing things in this timeline without the Doctor by her side.

"Going to the break," the floor manager announced. "Two minutes on the clock. Just a reminder; We've got solar flare activity coming up in ten, thanks, everyone."

Emma leaned over to Roderick. "Colleen was clever. She banked all our money, why the hell did you vote for her?" she growled out through her teeth, pushing the pain of her mind to the back of her head.

He looked at her as he rubbed his voting board out. "Cause I want to keep you in. You're stupid," he bluntly stated. "You don't even know the Princess Vossaheen's surname. When it comes to the final, I want to be up against you. So that you get disintegrated and I get a stack load of credits."Sorry to burst your bubble, but that's never going to happen, Emma thought. "Courtesy of the Bad Wolf Corporation.

"What do you mean? Who's Bad Wolf?" Emma asked, setting aside the fact that he just insulted her.

He looked at her like she'd gone mad. "They're in charge, they run the Game Station."

"Yeah," Emma said dismissing the useless information. "But why are they called Bad Wolf?"

"I don't know," Roderick shrugged. "It's just a name. It's like an old Earth nursery rhyme sort of thing. What does it matter?"

"I keep hearing those words wherever we go. Bad Wolf. . ."

Emma's mind went to what Gwenyth said to her. The first time she heard the words, Bad Wolf; The things you see. . . the darkness. The big, bad Wolf.

Emma remembered the helicopter that spotlighted her and the Doctor back in London, just before the Slitheen invasion. The second time she heard those words; Attention all personnel, Bad Wolf 1 descending.

And then again. The third and last time she heard it; "Blaidd Dwrg" the Doctor said reading the nuclear power station poster. Emma stood behind him and she remembered asking, "What's it mean?" He looked her in the eye and replied, "Bad Wolf."

Every other time, she either read it or saw it. Bad Wolf, spray-painted across the side of the TARDIS and Bad Wolf TV, showing the Face of Boe.

She thought it had something to do with Rose, at first. But now she wasn't so sure. The words weren't really surrounding her. Haven't been surrounding her for a while now. But surrounding Emma wherever she went and whenever she went.

"Different times, different places. Like it's written all over the universe."

"What are you going on about?" Roderick questioned from beside her.

"If the Bad Wolf is in charge of this quiz, then maybe I'm not here by mistake," Emma told him. "Someone's been planning this."

And, oh, did she want to know who.