"Stars cannot shine without darkness"

As usual, the TARDIS was being uncooperative. The engines wheezed stubbornly and the ship bucked violently enough to send the Doctor sprawling onto the console room floor.

"Oh, that's very nice. Thanks dear." he grumbled as he climbed to his feet, steadying himself on the console and absently straightening his bow tie.

He tapped a few keys on the spatial location input and stamped his foot when, once more, the coordinates he'd entered immediately zeroed out. His repeated attempts to dematerialize were being thwarted.

"I don't know what is troubling you" the Doctor shouted above the din, "but for the record, you are being unreasonable!"

He adjusted the inertial dampers while simultaneously switching to manual nav. The TARDIS protested with some ugly grinding sounds and spewed a shower of sparks from the rotor. Barely hanging onto the console at this point, he just managed to activate the Gyroscopic Stabilizers. He blew out a sigh of relief. The shuddering ceased and once he had his footing, he tried once more to aim the blue box toward the distress beacon of a stranded spacecraft.

They'd picked up on the beacon's signal while the Doctor was servicing his ship's Hostile Action Displacement System. The HADS was a vital part of a TARDIS defense system and it was crucial that he always keep it in working order. The feature had saved his neck on more than one occasion and he was angry with himself that he'd neglected it this long. Being without a traveling companion, he had plenty of time for such repair work these days. So there were no excuses.

The Doctor had been away from Amy and Rory for nearly fifty years in his time stream. While he missed them greatly, he took comfort in the fact that he could return for a visit, and to them, he'd only have been gone a couple weeks. He was working on laying low. River had said he'd gotten too big, too known to the universe. These days he stuck to space exploration, experiencing beautiful cosmic events, rarely visiting earth, rarely interacting with people. It had been a long time (ten years for him) since he'd even gone to see River. The guilt he felt over the impact he'd had on her life's direction left his feelings for her clouded and complicated. Sensing this, she let him off the hook by having adventures of her own. And plenty of other men. Theirs was certainly not the typical marriage.

He had just finished tinkering in the wiring panel and was having a particularly hard time positioning the doxometer pin when he was interrupted by the distress signal. Welcoming the distraction and hungry for a bit of adventure, he homed in on the beacon and was almost immediately met with resistance by his stubborn ship. The Doctor and the TARDIS had been engaged in a battle of wills ever since. The doxometer pin sat forgotten on his tool case.

"Come on old girl. Someone's in trouble." he encouraged gently now that he'd regained some semblance of control. The engines still whined and sputtered a bit but at least she'd stopped with the pyrotechnics and convulsions. He rotated the steering mechanism and increased the space-time throttle, bringing the TARDIS back on course. "Lovely." he smiled, clearly pleased with himself. "And River says I'm rubbish with the manual controls."

Just as the source of the beacon- a tiny space capsule- came into view on the scanner, the Cloister Bell bonged ominously. The Doctor's conviction waned slightly at the sound and he nervously patted the navigation panel, his eyes darting nervously around the console room.

"There there. What about this has you so skittish?" He gingerly decreased the space-time throttle as the TARDIS spun gracefully through the cosmic dust of the Malum Star System. "We've been here once before, eh?" the Doctor prattled, mostly in an attempt to allay his own doubts, "I believe it was that time I bet Romana..."

A deafening alarm joined the Cloister Bell as a warning light began to blink on the console and the scanner suddenly displayed the detection of a pair of neutron stars. The Doctors eyes widened as he realized the stars were on a collision course. And within range of both the drifting space capsule he was meant to rescue... and his TARDIS.

"Oh no! No no no no..." He knew if he was going to make a rescue, he'd need to act immediately. Under normal circumstances, his go-to method would be to initiate the dematerialization sequence and rematerialize onboard the mystery craft. Muttering some creative Gallifreyan curse words under his breath, he spun the directional unit's mount around within his reach and tried again to enter destination coordinates into the spatial location input. Before the coordinates could zero out, he slammed down the dematerialize lever. Once again, the TARDIS jerked belligerently, spilling him to the floor as the rotor stuttered and released a puff of white smoke and the engines groaned. "SERIOUSLY!"

Not to be deterred, he jumped back to this feet, eyeing the scanner and calculating the logistics of a tow rescue. Scrambling to the other side of the console, he pulled a lever to release his tow line and attempted to make contact with the stranded craft's inhabitants via digital com.

The Doctor failed to keep the panic out his voice as he shouted, "Space capsule, this is the TARDIS calling. I picked up your beacon. Is there anyone still on board? Repeat, is there anyone on board!?"

His transmission was met with low level static and he kept glancing at the scanner's screen, watching as the neutron stars drifted closer and closer toward one another and the warning alarm sounded and the Cloister bell tolled. He bounced around the control room impatiently, checking gauges, adjusting knobs, getting things ready for a fast escape.

Then quickly back to the com panel. "Calling Space Capsule, this is the Doctor in the TARDIS. Can anyone hear me?"

Another glance at the scanner. Collision imminent. The Doctor sighed and swiped his disheveled hair back from his face. He punched a button on the scanner and the spacecraft appeared on the screen. He looked regretfully at the ship, realizing he might never know if someone onboard was hurt and unable to respond to his calls. He switched the scanner off and closed his eyes. He reluctantly flipped the Emergency Dematerialization Switch, knowing this was his last chance, not knowing quite where he'd end up. Nothing happened. His eyes popped open and he flailed around a bit before realizing his mistake. The tow rope. With the tow line panel open, the real-time envelope couldn't be sealed. He rushed around the console and pulled the lever to retract it but he knew he was too late. He, who could practically taste the passage of time knew he had run out of it. He had one last thought before he was engulfed in the silent, blinding explosion of a gamma ray burst: The doxometer pin!

She awoke to the sound of a rainstorm. Well, that and snoring. Sitting up half naked in a bed that was not her own, Dayle Moss decided she'd rather focus on the delicious melancholy of the rainstorm than the round, hairy man lying beside her. Blocking out her current reality, she closed her eyes as thunder sounded. She always had liked the rain- would choose a gray, cool day to a hot, sunny one any time. It was one of the few things she still had in common with her sister Lynette these days. A long, drawn out fart joined the symphony of downpour and sleep apnea and Dayle quickly found her feet.

"Fucking charming", she whispered to herself with disgust.

Wrapping herself in a sheet that had fallen to the floor, she made her way to the door of the cheap motel room. She opened the door and leaned against the jam, taking in the fresh scent of rain beating down over the parking lot. Despite the clouds, the moon peaked through brightly, shining a bright spotlight on her as she leaned there. Glancing back at the alarm clock on the bedside table, Dayle discovered it was nearly 4:00 am

How many motel rooms just like this had featured in her life? "SUGAR CREEK MOTEL" declared the sign near the road in sickly green lit letters. Of course, over half the bulbs were burned out so to Dayle's eye the establishment was simply "SUCK MOE". Seems more fitting somehow, she decided with a dirty little chuckle.

She closed the door softly so as not to awaken Shawn and flopped into the torn easy chair nearby. Shawn wasn't her boyfriend. Shawn was just a slightly older man (49 to her 33) who admired her looks and provided a place to stay.

It was a place to stay, more specifically, that wasn't filled with junkies constantly chasing their fix. It was a place that wasn't filled with her old brand of companion or temptation. Sure Shawn was a bit of a pig. He said embarrassing things after too much whiskey, he had a mudflap girl on the back of his Nissan, and he was pretty useless in bed. Oh, and there was that whole "being married" thing. Not a winner by any stretch, yet a vast improvement for her.

God, how many motel rooms JUST like this one? She lit up one of Shawn's Mavericks from the end table. How many men had she let use her body to get what she needed? How many bad choices had she made as a mother? How many chances to do the right thing had she squandered?

Too many. Damn near incalculable.

If Dayle had been a stupid woman, one with low expectations of herself or lacking in basic self awareness, being a fuck up wouldn't be nearly as painful. But despite being raised by an indifferent Aunt at the Sugar Creek trailer court, Dayle had always had promise and she was very, very intelligent. She was reading by the time she four and she never seemed to have stopped. She consumed books, everything from Stephen King to Jackie Collins to John Steinbeck. It opened the world for her. There was more to life than this shitty town in Ohio. The jerk rich kids who thought they were better than her. She knew she could be something more. Even after she had Savannah at 15, she held on to her goals of someday going to nursing school. But life had happened.

She dragged deeply on the cheap cigarette and thought of her kids. Automatically, the tears came. The profound shame Dayle felt over messing up as a mom had acted as a paralytic, an obstacle on the path to getting her shit together. One of life's cruel ironies: self hatred only helps to create more things for which to hate one's self. One bitch of a vicious cycle.

But she had been clean now for 141 days. And despite her self loathing and despite all evidence to the contrary she was determined to get it right.

She ground out her cigarette in a chipped ashtray and headed for the shower. She knew she wouldn't be getting back to sleep. All night long she had tossed and turned having a bizarre dream. Some weird sci fi shit about a spaceship drifting along and a man on a rescue mission. (Probably the result of having to endure old episodes of Star Trek with Shawn the evening before) There had been an ominous bell tolling and then a blinding explosion. The man was severely injured, perhaps dead? The strange man with the bow tie whom she'd never seen before in her life...

Oh well, it wouldn't hurt to get an early start anyway. Perhaps she could avoid interacting with Shawn before starting her shift at Waffle House.

She paused to study her tired reflection. Dayle had always been a looker with naturally curly blonde hair, grayish blue eyes and a dimpled smile that could persuade just about anyone to do just about anything. Her figure was somewhat softer around the middle these days. She had always been thin and ate whatever she wanted in her younger years. She'd jumped back into a size 5 jeans within weeks of having Savannah. Having Ember at 29 had not been so forgiving. She'd struggled with her much slower metabolism ever since.

At 33, there were lines around the eyes and mouth already. Could certainly be worse. Some of the meth heads she'd seen at her NA meetings looked twenty years older than they actually were. Dayle and her reflection rolled their eyes. Finding comfort in the fact that her drug of choice was a good match for her vanity was depressing as hell.

She turned from the mirror and jumped into a luke-warm shower with pathetic water pressure and questionable motel shower products. The dream had already begun to drift from her mind like vapor.