Why Did You Leave?

9. The End

A young girl, no older than 28, ran through the busy maze of streets in London, the pouring rain soaking her to the bone. The fringe of her dark brown, wet hair was plastered to her forehead, her hot tears mixing with the salty, cold rain water that fell on her cheeks. Along the way, she bumped shoulders with strangers, not caring what happened. Few of them were as bold to comment on her rudeness, but she didn't hear them, for if she did, she would've socked them right in the nose.

A small sob escaped her throat as her fast feet took her closer and closer to the destination she most urgently needed to be. Her heavy, black boots against the wet concrete grew quicker and quicker until she was gasping for air, until her lungs felt like they would burst, until her heartbeat felt like a non-stop buzz. That didn't stop her, it only spurred her on to increase her speed.

Finally, after at least ten minutes of running, she had arrived outside the home she urgently needed to be at. She flung the huge, brown front door open and galloped up the stairs, into a room zwhere a display of people stood.

"Mum!" The girl gasped, pushing past the people and dropping to her knees as she knelt beside the old woman in her bed.

"There you are, Mar," the woman quietly croaked, unable to raise her voice from sheer weakness. "I though you would never come, my darling."

The girl, still soaking wet, took her mothers hand and pressed a kiss to the old scar, the one with back to front letters, on her wrinkling hand. "I'll always be here for you, Mum. Sometimes I'm late, and impatient, but I'll always be here to save you, you know that."

"That, I do know, sweetheart," her mother chuckled, before coughing dreadfully. "Exactly like your dad, you are. Oh, if there's one thing in this life that I don't regret, it's the fact that you're more like him than you are, me."

"Don't be daft, mum," she shook her head, a tear falling from her dark, emerald green eyes.

"I'm not being daft, my darling. I'm dying and we both know it." She punctuated her sentence with a throaty cough. "There's something I need to tell you, Martha-Rose. All those years ago, when I told you about your dad ... I forgot to mention a few things. Things that will effect you and your life, as of now ... Help me sit up, would you, Jack?"

A young man smiled charmingly at her, sitting up from his place in a chair in the corner of the room and gently helping her as she requested. "Anything for a lady as beautiful as yourself," the American said, winking before resuming his actions and sitting back down.

"Oh, Harkness, you old flirt," a dark skinned older woman with greying hair tutted disapprovingly, a smirk playing on her lips. "Her daughters here!"

Martha-Rose laughed coyly, before turning back to her dying mother to listen to what she had to say.

"When you were younger, my beautiful girl, I told you stories about your dear old dad. About how he was an alien, with two hearts and a time machine ..."

"I remember, you told me every night before you tucked me in." Martha-Rose wiped a tear from her eye with the back of her sleeve. "What's that got to do with things?"

"Well, those stories were true ..."

True?

Martha-Rose turned to the dark-skinned woman with the same name as her with disbelief. "How much of that pain relief did you give her? She's talking nonsense -"

"What she's saying is true, Mar," she replied. "Me, your uncle Mickey, uncle Jack, auntie Rose ... We all used to travel with your dad. Other people did, n'all, but they either hated your mum or couldn't physically be in your life the way we had." She smiled wistfully is she recalled. "They weren't half passionate, though. Stood for everything they believed. 'Specially Donna ..."