Set during the Tenth Doctor episode 'Doomsday'. Assumes history from 'School Reunion' for Sarah Jane Smith and includes the plot from a BBC novel that had Tegan married to the son of Ian and Barbara.

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who. Sad me.

"You won't even think about coming home? What? AGAIN? You can't be bloody serious—WHAT? Oh, Dad, you're forty not twenty. I thought all that was behind you. WHAT did you say? Christ, Dad, you're pissed. Look, I love you, even if you did put a bun in the oven of some bint my age. Just make sure you sign a prenup, okay? And watch out for those ghosts."

Alice hung up the phone, chewed briefly on her lower lip, and then dialed another number.

"Mum? It's Alice. Yes, I got hold of him. No, he won't come home. He's in Vegas, getting married again. No, his fourth—I know, he's a serial husband. Mum, she's my age. It's disgusting, really. And she's American to boot. Look, are you sure about those ghosts? What? Are you mad? Who'll look after Gran—WHAT? Oh, hell. Look, I left a message for Aunt Sarah; you don't really need to come. I can go stay with her, I'm sure. Aunt Sarah's connected. Surely you'll both be safer up north." Alice was quiet for several minutes while her mum laid down the law.

"You're scaring me. All right, I'll pack up. See you soon. You've got my mobile number? Good. Love you, mum."

Alice Barbara Chesterton hung up the phone and looked out the window. It was almost time for the ghost shift. A ghost kept walking through her kitchen and she no longer felt excited over it. Her mother's words had chilled her: 'I think I've seen them before and they weren't friendly, Alice. And they're everywhere.' She made another phone call.

"Aunt Sarah, it's Alice again. Mum's coming down with Gran. We're meeting at your place, so I hope you're there. Oh, God, it's starting again." She hung up on Aunt Sarah's answering machine. Dodging the ghostly figure that stepped out of her kitchen, she hurried down the hall to start packing her things.

Tegan Jovanka finished hauling the suitcases to the car. Her former mother-in-law was as slim and straight as she'd ever been, but not as fast. She settled into the passenger seat and waited for Tegan to get behind the wheel. "Alice couldn't get hold of Sarah Jane?"

"No answer. Sarah is probably covering the story. I just hope she checks her messages. I've got a key to her flat. She's bound to come back or check in."

Barbara Chesterton, nee Wright, watched a ghost striding up the village street towards them.

"I wish Johnny would come home, but he's still putting off growing up. You'd think three marriages would settle a man. Maybe if you'd made him pay alimony he'd have been embittered enough to think twice before taking up with girls half his age."

"You know I wouldn't touch a penny of his money," Tegan said wearily. "I'd rather have eaten grass as long as Alice had everything she needed." She started the car and headed as fast as she could towards London.

"You're too proud, Tegan." Barbara surveyed the still attractive face of her former daughter-in-law and considered for the hundredth or so time that her son was really a fool.

"Johnny was too young and I was too hot-headed. I managed fine on my own. I always knew I would."

"You did a wonderful job with Alice."

"She's done us both proud, hasn't she?"

"Yes. Tegan, you're not doing this in hopes of seeing the Doctor, are you?"

"Barbara, really! From what Sarah said, he's also taken up with a girl Alice's age. I hope he's in the middle of this, figuring things out. I'm … it's been a long time since I was this scared. I want to be in London. I want to be where it's going to happen. I want to fight for my world. I want to protect Alice. She's everything to me."

"Why won't you tell me what you suspect about the ghosts?"

"I don't want to influence you. I want to show everyone at the same time I show K-9. Maybe I'm wrong. Oh, God, I hope I am."

If prayers could aid the Doctor, those who had known him, traveled with him, and loved him in one way or another were offering up many on his behalf. They had connected, some of these companions. Jo Grant Jones was running her husband's macrobiotic research farm, but she kept in touch; so did Liz Shaw. Sarah Jane Smith was a respected journalist and the one who had brought them all together. Barbara had married Ian Chesterton. Ian had died young, but they had a son, Johnny, a rock musician who had married Tegan Jovanka. Their short and fiery union had produced Alice Barbara, who had combined the genetic inheritance of her mother's husky voice with her father's musical talent to become a promising operatic contralto.

"Why aren't people more afraid? I don't understand, K-9. In the last couple of years, aliens have tried to start World War III, eaten schoolchildren, sent a third of the world's population up onto their rooftops, and blown up Downing Street. Now there are weird ghosts roaming around at suspiciously regular intervals, like they're practicing for something. What does it take to scare people?"

"Correction, Mistress. Doctor-Master blew up Downing Street."

"Oh, that was him? Well, he's an alien. I don't suppose you can detect the TARDIS anywhere, can you?"

"Negative, Mistress."

"Blast." Sarah Jane Smith started to pull into her driveway and found another car parked there. "That's Tegan's car. Looks like it's reunion time." She wrestled K-9 out of the back seat. He could have managed by himself, but she preferred her neighbors to think she was a nutter with a rubbishy tin dog. It kept them from bothering her.

Tegan, Barbara, and Alice were waiting for her inside. Sarah Jane glanced at her phone and was unsurprised to see double digits worth of messages. "I'm so popular today. Ladies, it's good to see you." She took in the gathering. It was like four generations of the Doctor's companions. Barbara was just shy of her seventieth birthday. Her hair was a shining silver helmet; her face showed few wrinkles and hinted at her keen intelligence and strong will. Sarah herself was next eldest, a graying pixie. Tegan was much the same as she had been when Sarah had met her as a war-weary TARDIS veteran in the 80s. She could have passed for a woman in her thirties with a good dye-job and makeover. Only her haunted eyes truly revealed her age. Alice resembled both her mother and grandmother and was a beautiful young woman with dark auburn hair and chocolate brown eyes. Sarah Jane wondered if Tegan's nightmares featured Alice walking into a certain odd blue box.

"We look like a witch coven," Barbara ventured, her words mirroring Sarah's thoughts.

Tegan clutched her portfolio. "I wish we could do magic. I wish we could banish troublesome spirits. Sarah, it was my idea to come to you. I have something I want to show K-9. I was hoping he could tell me if … if what I fear has any basis."

"Go ahead and show him, then, but explain it to us, too. K-9, help Tegan."

"Yes, Mistress." The little robot dog moved smoothly forward. He hovered now and was much more maneuverable than previous versions.

Tegan sat on the floor and started presenting sheets of drawing paper to K-9's scanner. She had been working for years as a professional illustrator. Sarah glimpsed images she'd seen often lately: the ghosts.

"I started drawing the ghosts as soon as they began appearing. I always thought they were trouble. You know me; I'm the suspicious sort. I thought if I drew them I would see fresh details each time. They're so indistinct. It's like your eyes don't focus on them but if you feel you looked longer that they would resolve into clear view."

"Then one night I dreamed that they did. And they turned into—" Tegan broke off with a catch in her voice. "Something I knew. Something that kills."

"Mum? You mean something you met with the Doctor, right?" Alice was trying not to sound excited. Of course she wanted to meet the Doctor. Ian, Barbara, Johnny and Tegan had not been able to keep from mentioning him. The girl had grown up on the stories, although Sarah Jane knew that Tegan had certainly emphasized the 'not bloody fun at all' side of TARDIS travel.

"Oh, yes. I saw a lot of death in his company. The ones I'm thinking of, that I dreamed of, he'd met more than once. Maybe you and Barbara have seen them too, Sarah. I might be only imagining the resemblance, so I don't want to influence you any more than what I've already said. Look at them." Tegan started passing around the drawings she'd already shown K-9. She had more for him that she concealed by leaning over him and blocking their view.

Sarah took hold of the drawings as they came her way. Instead of studying them closely as the others were doing, she let her unfocused gaze drift across the sheet of paper. It was a technique that had worked for her in examining unclear photographs. Sometimes a telling detail jumped out at you.

She knew what Tegan meant about influence. Sarah felt something both familiar and not right: some not-quite-remembered image was stirring in the back of her head and telling her to be very afraid.

"My analysis is ready, Mistress."

"Wait, K-9. Doesn't anyone else see it? Barbara? Sarah?"

"It's familiar. That's all I can say."

"I don't even have that much, Tegan," Barbara said regretfully.

Tegan stared at Sarah Jane.

"I think they look like Cybermen."

Sarah Jane shuddered. She and Tegan shared that particular nightmare.

"Yes, Mistress. This unit has identified several thousand points of resemblance between parallel universe Cybermen and the ghost drawings made by Mistress Tegan."

"Good dog," Sarah Jane said automatically.

It was Alice who said, "Parallel universe?"

"The file was in the download received from Doctor-Master when he last visited this time period."

Tegan's voice cracked, "You're in regular communication with the Doctor?"

"No, Mistress. He initiates communications. This unit cannot transmit to the TARDIS unless it is present in this time."

"Tegan, Sarah—what are the Cybermen?" Barbara asked quietly.

"They're killers," Tegan said, her voice bitter with memory.

"And they're all over the world. Oh, God. They're everywhere." Sarah's mind worked frantically. Who could she contact who might believe her? Most of the UNIT gang had scattered to the four winds. Harry Sullivan was dead and the Brigadier deserved his peaceful seclusion.

"I still want to know about this parallel universe," Alice complained.

The older women were deep in thought. When K-9 started to explain, she was the one who listened the most closely.

Tegan knew she should pay attention. She kept seeing Adric's face—the dark hair and eyes, the snub nose. He was so young. He was so young. He had died at the dawn of Earth's history in such a pivotal event that the Doctor could not intervene to save him. The Cybermen were poised to conquer the world.

She stared at her daughter's lovely, eager face and saw Adric bravely telling the Doctor he'd be all right if they left him behind. She'd never seen him again. A couple of years later Tegan Jovanka had fled the TARDIS as if it had been full of demons instead of a friendly Time Lord and a sarcastic alien schoolboy. Right now she'd fling Alice through its doors if that were the only way she could protect her daughter.

The worst thing was, it might be the only way.

To be continued…