Chapter One – The Game

The Black Guardian looked down at the chessboard with a frown. The White Guardian was leaning back in his chair, studying him with an intent expression.

They were playing on a chessboard that was, at one and the same time, both quite small and vastly huge. To an outside observer, had there been one, it would have appeared to constantly shift and change, looking like an ordinary chessboard one moment and then like a field of stars, or a planet's surface the next. Dim figures moved through the varied landscapes and occasionally one or the other player would move a finger and stars would explode, or flowers begin to bloom. The sounds of armies, clashing somewhere in the distance, hung faintly in the air along with the stink of gunpowder and singed ozone, while a single butterfly danced across the field of battle, wings aflutter.

"So, you found a way to save their race, it will change nothing," the Black Guardian assured him, but the White Guardian merely smiled. "Your champion is more vulnerable now than he ever has been. So many more loved ones I can use against him."

"More vulnerable? You think so?" the White Guardian chuckled. "I see him as being far stronger now. He has so much more to fight for."

"We'll see," the Black Guardian replied with a grim smile. "Let's see how much stronger he really is. Let's see just how long he can run." Pieces moved across the board, driven forward by his will, and the White Guardian frowned.

"Is that your move?" he asked and the Black Guardian nodded.

"This is how I choose to begin it," he answered and his eyes were hard and filled with a roiling darkness. The White Guardian sighed and nodded his assent. "Your move," the Black Guardian told him, with a face of implacable resolve, and the White Guardian waved his hand.

The Doctor watched River leave the TARDIS and felt it like a wrenching pain in his chest. She was his wife and he loved her, but she never stayed. She never explained why, though he suspected it had to do with the way their timelines never seemed to run together, always flowing in the opposite directions. He slammed his fists down on the TARDIS console and then sighed.

"Sorry dear," he apologized to his sexy, wonderful girl. She hummed at him, a warm gentle feeling in his soul. "A boy and his box." Amy's words echoed through his mind and tears leaked out. "Oh Amy," he whispered. Why did they never stay? Why did they always break his hearts?

He closed his eyes and felt something cold and hard lodging itself in his chest. He was done with this. It wasn't worth the pain. Not anymore.

The Doctor bolted upright from the dream, with his hearts pounding and sweat beading his brow. He turned and saw Rose curled up asleep in the bed beside him and breathed out in relief. She stirred and woke, blinking sleepily up at him.

"Doctor?" she asked with a yawn.

"Bad dream," he told her and lay back down. Rose scooted closer and wrapped herself around him. The warmth and comfort of her touch, coupled with the gentle reassurance she sent him through their bond, eased his racing hearts and he relaxed back against the bed.

"Da? Mummy?" a tiny figure, rubbing her eyes and yawning, stumbled into the room and the Doctor reached out and drew her up and onto the bed.

"Bad dream, Jenny?" Rose asked their daughter, who nodded and burrowed into the covers between them. They cuddled close to her, Rose somewhat awkwardly, as her pregnant belly was growing too large for easy maneuvering.

The Doctor held his family close and prayed to all the gods of space and time that his other self was sent some joy and happiness soon.

Andred soothed Finn back to sleep. The three-year-old thrashed a bit and then calmed again. Arista looked up from her bed, watching her adopted father with large dark eyes. She was nine now and Andred moved over to give her a hug and a kiss, tucking her under the covers again.

"He has a lot of bad dreams," Arista sighed out and Andred nodded.

"He's gone through a lot, you both have," he agreed and Arista gave him a sweet smile.

"Good night, Dad," she yawned and he kissed her brow.

"Good night, Rissy," he answered and then waved at the dimmer to drop the lights lower, before he stepped through the arch into the bedroom he shared with Leela.

The dome house had been expanded to add an upstairs, so that Andred and Leela could sleep near to the kids. All thirty-five of the children that had been rescued from the destruction of Gallifrey were fragile and he had wanted his two to have the added security of parents as near as possible.

They hadn't had the training and shielding they would have needed to keep the deaths of their parents away from their fragile minds. The adults around them had shielded them as best they could, but then the Lady Professor had put them in cryo-freeze and sent them out to safety. They'd awoken with far too few telepathic adults who could help them with the terrible trauma and loss that they had gone through.

"They asleep?" Leela asked from the nest of blankets.

"Finn is, but Arista is still a bit tense," he answered and crawled into bed with her. She cuddled up to him and he held her tenderly against him. "They are still pretty delicate."

"It's only been eight months, Andred, give them time. Findarian is still so little, he's too young to really understand everything. Arista's a smart sensitive child; she sees everything and soaks it all up. This is going to take time, love," she reminded him and he nodded.

"I just worry about them, I want them to have a wonderful childhood," he sighed out.

"I think you will have to settle for them being loved, cared for, and given the space to be whatever they need to be," Leela teased him and he nodded against her.

"I do need to relax," he laughed and she kissed him softly, activating the privacy screen between the kids' bedroom and theirs.

"I can help with that," she replied with a suggestive smile and Andred grinned down at his wife.

"Do tell," he chuckled.

Susan was standing in the void looking around at galaxies as they spun and danced around her. Everywhere she looked, she saw life. It teemed out there in the dark, forcing its way into existence in an infinite variety. It pulsed and throbbed and danced with the joy of existence.

However, it occurred to her that she was alone. She looked out at the vastness of eternity and saw nothing that she could interact with. She was separate, apart, and unable to breach the distance between herself and all of that life.

She was lonely. Vast, bitter, sad, and desperately alone.

Rage overcame her and she sent a wave of fire and death at all those joyful worlds. She burnt them to ash and cinders, screaming her pain at them, unheard, unseen, unloved.

Everything died and she turned to look at the wasteland around her, no happier with it than she had been with the teeming life. She was still so very much alone.

Susan woke with a gasping sob and Koschei roused to look at her in dismay.

"Susan?" he asked and she shuddered.

"A dream, I think," she gasped out and tried to slow her hearts.

He sat up and pulled her into his lap, holding her as she shivered and panted.

"You think?"

"Might have been a Vision, I don't know," she sighed out and buried her face in his chest. It had seemed so incredibly real to her. The emotions had been so intense, so deep.

"Susan, talk to me," Shay whispered and she closed her eyes.

"I think it was the Arkytior. She was talking to me somehow in images. She's so angry and so alone," she whispered and he held her tightly against him.

They were both shaken by the inexplicable dream and fell into each other, seeking comfort in the intense closeness of their bond.

Darginian dragged himself out of bed and stepped over to the window. The day was just starting to dawn and the orange light of the first sun was peeking over the horizon. He'd been dreaming, but it was already fading away.

Hedia stirred in the bed and he looked back over his shoulder at her with a feeling of warm affection. He still wasn't sure if they were dating, if they were in love, or if they were just sleeping together, but it was nice, whatever it was.

He missed Geneva though. He'd felt better when she was around. She'd been utterly solid and there for him and their teasing banter had lightened his days. Hedia wasn't much of a talker, she had other ways of communicating, he thought with a pleased smirk. Still, he felt like something was missing.

Restless, he dressed and headed out to work. He didn't know why he couldn't just be content with what he had.

Wilfred Mott was climbing a hill on an alien world. It never failed to thrill him and he looked back at the group of children following him with a bright happy smile. He wasn't quite certain how it had happened, but he had gone from having only one grandchild, to having dozens of them. Human, Time Lord, Gallifreyan, and now a few children from races he'd never imagined before were all following him.

A red-eyed albino-looking girl slipped a hand in his and smiled shyly up at him.

"Wilf?" she asked tentatively.

"What is it, Biina?"

"Are we going to learn about the moons today?" she asked and he nodded. She clapped her hands together in excitement, a gesture she'd picked up from the human children and he grinned to see it. The settlers had come in slowly at first, then at a quicker pace. Several of the races were telepathic as well and they were also adopting Gallifreyan children and helping to rear them.

Biina's parents were from a time sensitive race that was being trained by Darginian and another Time Lord survivor, Maglen, who'd been a temporal engineer in the other universe. Wilf wasn't at all sure quite what they were working on, but a big dome in the Capital was being erected to house the embryonic Time Agency and Susan's husband was making all sorts of big machines for it.

He pointed to where he wanted the telescope set up and Davian smiled and set it down. The children began setting up the chairs and putting out the blankets, little squabbles breaking out, that he gently resolved, and finally they were all settled with minimal poking and shoving.

He settled down on a chair and Biina climbed into his lap. He glanced over the group of children to make certain that they were listening attentively, and then pulled out his notepad. The Doctor had put together the graphics and part of today's lesson plan, so Wilf was wary as he activated the slideshow.

"Gallifrey's moons were actually not formed at the same time as Gallifrey was, they are both captured meteors that hit the atmosphere at just the right angle to fall into an orbit, rather than to be destroyed on impact," Wilf explained, as the screen displayed images that the Doctor had taken from his TARDIS for the lesson.

"OOOOoooohhh!" the kids sighed out as they watched the first fiery meteor smash into the ocean of air around the red planet. The lightshow was pretty spectacular, Wilf knew, he'd been quite impressed by it himself. Hanging out the TARDIS door, with Donna clinging on to him, both of them laughing, as the Doctor ran the camera, had been an amazing experience.

These kids were going to get the most incredible education ever, he chuckled to himself and he was thrilled to be one of their teachers.

"We've found twenty-seven adults and thirty-six children, if you count Davian amongst the children," Romana sighed out, tossing her scarf on the table and slumping deeper into the couch.

"We haven't picked up any more signals, though," James added and his face was creased and lined with weariness.

Susan set the teacups down in front of them and went back into the kitchen to get them some food.

The Doctor watched his granddaughter thoughtfully and sipped his own tea, while he mulled it all over.

"It's still more than I was expecting," he confessed. "For all that I would have loved to find another few thousand of us tucked away somewhere, I'm amazed that my Mother was able to do even this much. I'm grateful for every one of the survivors we did find." He paused and took another sip of tea. "Well, except maybe for Ellasiira," he admitted and James barked a laugh, splashing some of the still hot tea on himself.

"Did you all manage to repair the damage she caused?" Romana asked and the Doctor shrugged.

"Which time? Despite the addition of a full time staff of 'baby sitters' she's managed to blow up the place three times in the last year. We've moved her to her own lab on the Southern Continent, using the ruined city down there as the R and D department. We had to remove anything flammable from a twenty mile radius, but it was worth it," he told them and Romana stared at him, trying to decide if he was joking or not.

"She's really that much trouble?" James asked, rather flabbergasted by the whole thing.

"Oh yes, if it wasn't for the fact that she really is a genius, truly and incredibly brilliant, and she's been able to work out the equations on three major problems that were stumping Koschei and myself, we'd have dumped her on another planet and fled by now," he sighed. "She's the most gifted theoretical physicist I've ever met, and that's saying something, mind you. But, never, ever, ever, let her anywhere near trying to do anything on the practical end. She can't solder a wire without starting a three alarm fire, and any attempt to build something invariably ends up with an explosion, or other major bits of property damage."

"Isn't there anything you can do?" Romana asked in horror and the Doctor grinned.

"I don't need to do anything, because Malcolm has it all in hand. He's found the perfect solution to our problem," he confided to her.

"Really? What solution is that?" James asked in deepest curiosity.

"He's marrying her," the Doctor answered with a huge grin.

Romana and James stared at him for a long moment and then burst into giggles.

"Genius!" Romana chortled.

"Brilliant!" James concurred.

"Apparently he's finally found his perfect woman and she thinks he's brilliant too, so it's a wonderful match for both of them," Susan murmured as she set down sandwiches for them. "Plus, once she discovered kissing, she stopped blowing things up," she added and they all burst into giggles again.