Chapter Text
The time window surged to life as Ruby and the UNIT guard accompanying her ran into its center. Their glass surroundings rapidly flickered into the bluescale CCTV footage of Ruby’s VHS tape. Snow whipped around their faces and brought to life the scene from December 24, 2004. Once again, the hologram of the cloaked woman buzzed to life, her presence emitting the soft hum of an old TV.
Ruby stared at her in shock. She could see her. She could see her face. The face of the woman who abandoned her at this church on this fateful night. Her mother’s face.
“Mum?!”
The woman softly cursed and pulled down the hood of her cloak, revealing blond hair framing kind features. Subconsciously, she pushed her shoulder length hair behind her ear. Glittering on her ear was a strange earring with a chain connected to an earring cuff.
“Hiya, love.” She spoke with a thick northern accent, sadness coloring her words.
“Mum,” Ruby repeated helplessly, tears blurring her vision, “I’ve been looking for you for so long.”
The woman smiled sorrowfully and shook her head. “I’m not here, love, this is just a window. I’m about as real as an interactive AI interface. Like Siri, almost.” She paused, looking around and gesturing wildly, “Do you know what Siri is yet? You must know. You lot should have iPhones at this point; you look about the right height. Wait, when are we?”
Ruby blinked and let out a choked laugh through her tears. “Um, 2024?”
“Oh right, okay, not bad. You’re what, 19, then?” She clapped her hands emphatically as she said this. “Look at you! You’ve done well for yourself, haven’t you, love?”
“Yeah. I’ve missed you so much. What happened? No, nevermind that, I’m so happy to meet you.” Ruby lurched forward with her arms outstretched. Her mum was here, finally. After all these years, all she wanted was a hug from her mother.
“No no no wait–”
The woman raised her hands to stop Ruby’s collision course a fraction too late. Ruby barreled into her mum with the force of 19 years of waiting combined. She grasped onto the woman’s cloak, burying her face in her mother’s neck.
“Oh, wow, okay, hello. Didn’t know I was corporeal.” Awkwardly, she patted Ruby’s back with one hand. “There, there, love.”
After a long moment, Ruby pulled back with a sniffle. Her mother held her at arm's length, hands firm and reassuring on her shoulders.
“So,” she cleared her throat, “what name are you going by these days, then?”
Ruby blanched. “I, uh, it’s- you don’t- well, I suppose you wouldn’t. My name’s Ruby. Ruby Sunday.”
“Oh, lovely name! Always love a good Sunday. Used to loathe the things, but now I have so many reasons to love them. Day of rest, something ice cream’s good in, and now you! You can’t go wrong with Sundays.”
Her mother grinned brightly, then her eyes focused somewhere to the left of Ruby’s face. Her grin faded, and she leaned precariously to the side to peer over her daughter’s shoulder.
“More importantly, though, Ruby, what is going on behind you? The TARDIS, it’s shrouded in something… awful. I don’t recognize the energy signatures, and it feels almost foreboding.”
Ruby blinked. “What? How do you know what the TARDIS is?” Her phone buzzed in her pocket, “Wait, hang on, getting a call, one sec.”
Ruby pulled out her phone. CALLER ID: Mel. Panicked and fearing the worst, she turned from her mother and quickly answered the call.
“Hello? Mel?”
“Ruby!” The Doctor’s voice was tinny and harried, “Thank the stars you’re alright. Are you in the time window?”
“Yes, but you need to get here right away. Something’s happening and we don’t know what’s going on. Is Sutekh still there? What’s happened with Susan? Is Mel okay?”
“Yes, Ruby, we’re fine.” The voice on the other end was out of breath. “We’ll be there as soon as we–”
A terrible crash sounded from the other end, and the call cut out.
“Oh no.” Ruby turned back to her mother. “That was my friend,” she said earnestly, taking hold of her mother’s hands, “He’s going to come help us.”
The woman frowned. “Your friend should stay away. I can’t do much from in here, and that creature, whatever it is, is no joke. He’s better off facing things where he is.”
Ruby shook her head. “No, no, he can help! I’ve been traveling with him for a while, and he’s always getting us out of situations like this.”
“Right,” her mother said, with a cheery, false smile, “Well, we might as well get a head start, then.”
With that, she pulled a strange device out of her cloak and bounded past Ruby. She began orbiting the TARDIS, shuffling sideways and pointing the device at the time machine. Scrambling after her, Ruby tried to get a good look at the object. She could have sworn the device looked similar to the Doctor’s more sophisticated sonic screwdriver, but her mother’s just looked like a jagged, metal stick with an orange, glowing crystal on the end.
“What’s that?” she asked, watching as her mother contorted her arm at an unusual angle.
“Screwdriver,” she said absentmindedly, bringing the device close to her face and grimacing.
“Doesn’t make any bloody sense,” her mother continued to mumble to herself, “Doesn’t match any known life form in the universe, and yet here it is, wrapped around the TARDIS like some sort of invisible parasite! Not that most parasites announce themselves like polite little life forms, but to find one so completely hidden from the naked eye—”
“Mum,” Ruby interrupted, “Now that you're here, I have so many questions. Like, why did you leave me? Where have you been all this time? Who are you?”
“Good question,” her mother absentmindedly commented, making no move to stop and address Ruby directly. “The better question is: what does this thing want with my TARDIS? Every living thing wants something – we all have basic needs after all. Even if those needs are extremely different from one species to another. Just the other day I met a bipedal cat who was literally allergic to water. Couldn’t have the stuff. They needed special order milk just to survive.”
“Wait, your TARDIS?” Ruby briefly halted before scrambling to catch up with the woman.
“Yes, and whatever this thing is, it’s hurting her. She’s being used for something by that parasite, and I can’t figure out what.” Her mother stopped in her tracks, causing Ruby to collide into her back. With a sudden intensity, she grabbed Ruby’s arms and looked directly into her eyes.
“Ruby, tell me everything you know about what’s happening here.”
Started by the switch in her mother’s attention, Ruby blinked before answering, “Well, you see, we were trying to find you through this time window thing, and the cloud around the TARDIS just appeared out of nowhere! We closed the window, but then the TARDIS in the control room had the same cloud around it, and a huge demon dog just materialized. I think it said its name was Sutekh? But by that point my friend told me to get in the time window again and—”
“And now you’re safe. And…with her?”
Ruby and her mother whirled around. The Doctor panted slightly as he entered the room. Quickly, he shut the doors behind him and bolted them shut.
“Doctor!” Ruby exclaimed.
“Doctor?” Her mother parroted with a look of dawning horror on her face.
“Ruby!” The Doctor rushed to envelop Ruby in a hug. After a tight squeeze, he turned his attention aside. “And, Doctor.”
“Hiya. Have we met? I don’t think we could have, but plenty of people are called the Doctor nowadays, aren’t they?” Ruby’s mother was rambling. She clutched her weird screwdriver in her hands and fiddled with the unfinished edges.
“Oh, we’ve met.” The Doctor’s face also changed to one of mild horror as he examined the woman in front of him. He turned again to Ruby, slowly this time. “Ruby, I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think I’m your mum.”
“Wait, what? Doctor, stop being stupid. This is my mum. Mum, this is the Doctor.”
The Doctor and her mother glanced at each other, and something passed between them.
“Oh, love, he hasn’t told you yet?” Ruby’s mother looked at her sadly.
“Told me what? What’s happened? Doctor, tell me.” Ruby looked back and forth between her mother and the Doctor, not understanding what either of them were saying.
“Ruby,” the Doctor took her hand and started gently, “remember how I said earlier that my people can change their faces – their bodies – in emergencies?”
Ruby nodded, hanging onto the Doctor’s words like a lifeline.
“Well, I’ve had a few faces before this one, and it turns out your mum was one of them.”
Her mother raised her hand in a sheepish wave. “Hiya, Ruby.”
“Now, what I don’t understand is, where exactly you came from, Doctor? I think I would remember having a child, let alone meeting her like this.”
“Ah, yes, well, I can explain that.” Her mother’s eyes brightened. “I’m technically in prison right now. And, well, you know how it always goes with–”
“The Trees of Cheem,” the Doctors say in unison.
“–but, anyway, I bargained for a transporter to bring Ruby somewhere safe. Which, apparently, is not only in the middle of a goblin mothership, but also connected to whatever you’ve let grow all over the TARDIS and somehow managed to summon Sutekh of all things.” Her gestures grew more wild as she spoke about the TARDIS.
“Well now, hang on! This is hardly my fault!” Ruby’s Doctor exclaimed indignantly. “You try stopping one of the Celestials from getting what it wants.”
Suddenly, the room shuddered. As if summoned, a distant howl tore through the air.
“Doctor,” Ruby turned her full attention to her Doctor, her eyes wide with fear, “it’s coming.”
An ominous bang, followed by another. Closer this time, a sound like nails on a chalkboard. Then, just outside the room, the sound of a massive body impacting the wall. Again and again it threw itself against the doors, trying to force its way inside.
With a final, clamorous thud, the thick metal doors gave way as Sutekh’s hound burst into the room. Its glowering red eyes locked onto the group, and the beast roared.
“Get behind me!” Ruby’s mother took a protective step in front of Ruby and grabbed her arm.
Suddenly, to the side of the Doctors and Ruby, seemingly forgotten until this moment, the UNIT guard yelled and opened fire without warning on the creature. The bullets did nothing more than disintegrate into dust as they made contact with the beast’s hellish form.
“No, don’t–” The Doctor shouted with his arm outstretched in warning.
Too quick, too strong, did the creature lash out its claws at the UNIT guard. She flew from the ground and thudded onto the back wall. Her body slumped, lifeless, her gun not far away.
As it did this, the hell hound’s paw shattered through the glass of the time window, causing the lights to surge then immediately flicker and shut down. Ruby’s mother doubled over as her body flickered with the screens.
“No! Mum!” Ruby raced to her mother’s side, hugging her hunched form. “Please, hold on! You can’t go yet.”
The corrugated blue light of her mother’s life stabilized. With a grunt, she stood again, examining her arms in fascination.
“Oh, mum, you’re still here!”
“It appears I am. I guess the strength of your memory and the timey-wimey nonsense that he–” she gestured at Ruby’s Doctor, “has brought has locked my presence into place.”
“Not to break up a beautiful moment,” the Doctor hazarded without looking towards the embracing women, “but we have more important things to worry about.”
The creature let out another blood-curdling howl. Black, acrid smoke billowed from its mouth and nostrils. A red glow from the beast’s body overwhelmed the room, softened only by the hopeful, blue glow of Ruby’s mother.