The Third Doctor (and his crew)

[velvetdoc]

The Doctor had turned his communicator off while he was finishing his book. He'd found the endless chatter distracting. So it's not surprise that he was unaware of the way the situation had changed

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[unit_girl]

Jo's communicator was... somewhere. That was the best way of describing it.

"I'm here, Doctor?" Where else would she be?

[velvetdoc]

"Could you come into the console room? Something seems to have gone very wrong and I'd like to talk to all three of you."

The Doctor wondered why the other two hadn't answered, and was starting to worry. After their adventure on Florana, he'd assumed they'd have a quiet trip back to Earth. Now it sounded like it had all gone terribly wrong.

[drelizabethshaw]

Liz hadn't answered because she'd been browsing the ship's rather remarkable library. But, more due to luck that anything else, her communicator was in her pocket at the time.

Thoroughly confused, and a little scared, by what she heard, she hurried out of the library, finally finding Jo and the Doctor in the console room.

"What happened, Doctor?"

[unit_girl]

"What do you mean, 'very wrong'"? Jo was scared by his words and tone of voice.

[velvetdoc]

"i'm not sure of all of the details, but it looks like whatever we were sent here to prevent, has all gone horribly wrong." He gave them both a worried glance. "Have either of you seen Sarah?" He started to say something else, but the TARDIS landed with a thump and a wheeze, and he had to grab the console to keep to his feet.

[drelizabethshaw]

Liz had never quite understood what they'd been there to prevent in the first place, but she didn't need to ask how bad it was. The expression on the Doctor's face spoke for itself. She'd never seen him so worried.

"No, I haven't," she said, grabbing the Doctor's arm to stop herself toppling over when the TARDIS landed. She'd never get used to that.

[unit_girl]

Jo took hold of the console herself without thinking. "I haven't," she replied. "Can't you use the scanner to find her?" If they had to search through the TARDIS it would take days.

[velvetdoc]

"That might work." Sarah's biodata was in the TARDIS databank. It was only a matter of flipping a switch and waiting. "This might take a while, the TARDIS is larger than it looks."

[drelizabethshaw]

Liz straightened up with as much dignity as possible. The idea of getting lost, even in what she now thought of as 'the safety of the TARDIS', was disquieting.

"Poor Sarah Jane," she said, "Not too long, I hope, Doctor?"

[unit_girl]

"Nothing can have happened to her inside the TARDIS, can it?" If something had gone horribly wrong and it had affected Sarah too, then what was stopping it from affecting her too? Or Liz or the Doctor?

[velvetdoc]

"I felt a ripple in the space-time continuum. It may be that her reality no longer exists or has changed. If so she never would have been brought here." The scanner showed nothing and he wasn't very surprised.

"I think our best bet is to assess the situation on the spot. We seem to have landed back on Earth. Perhaps my other selves will know something."

[drelizabethshaw]

"No longer exists?" Liz felt suddenly sick. The idea was too horrible to contemplate. Sarah Jane, who they'd traveled with and talked with and laughed with, simply no longer existing?

She looked at Jo, hoping she wasn't - and very much doubting that she was - the only one to feel that way.

[unit_girl]

"But she must exist, she was here, we remember her." Jo looked between the Doctor and Liz wondering that if Sarah could suddenly stop existing, then could the same happen to them too? "We exist, don't we, Doctor?"

[velvetdoc]

"Of course you exist and she did too. But her past has been rewritten so that she was never in a position to come and help us." Timelines blinked into and out of existence so quickly, that he forgot that humans viewed such things differently. "We remember because we were in the eye of the storm. And I'm sure there are Sarah's out there, even if they're not exactly the one you remember."

[drelizabethshaw]

Liz listened carefully to the Doctor's words. Indeed, she even understood them. But that didn't make her feel any calmer.

If the Doctor wasn't worried, then she and Jo shouldn't be worried. But if universes - and people, as they knew them - could blink in and out of existence so easily, who knew when it would happen to one of them?

"So, what now?" she said, "I don't suppose we shouldn't mourn her, if she's still alive and well somewhere? And I suppose we should have bigger concerns at the moment too, shouldn't we?"

[unit_girl]

Jo frowned, not understanding how Sarah could not have ever existed, even though she was there. But if Liz understood it then she wouldn't admit that she didn't.

"You never did tell us what was so wrong, Doctor."