Chrístõ materialised his TARDIS in the staff car park of New Canberra High School, where it obligingly disguised itself as a two-seater sports car of indeterminate make. Technically, he wasn't a member of staff any more, but there was something familiar about the school car park, the school itself… a part of his recent past that felt comfortable.

A part of his life that was now well and truly over.

He turned away from the main building towards the gymnasium and slipped in through the side door.

There was a lesson in progress. A group of slender and agile fifteen year old girls were learning a complicated manoeuvre on the asymmetric bars. Some of them got it right first time, others were struggling.

"Let me show you," their teacher said, brushing her hands through the chalk and reaching up to the lower bar before propelling her body upwards onto the higher one. The students watched in undisguised admiration. Their teacher had an Olympic medal in this discipline, after all. How much they could learn from her demonstration was doubtful, though. She was so fast, her hands finding their holds instinctively. They could only dream of being that good.

Chrístõ had never quite understood how she did it. Even when he slowed time to watch her, it seemed impossible that a human body could twist and turn in that way. He had given up trying to understand it and was content to watch with bated breath and undisguised admiration.

As she landed neatly on the mat, the students applauded. Julia smiled warmly at them.

"I'm afraid somebody else will have to teach you the rest of it next term," she told them, glancing at the clock. "I'm officially finished as a teacher in fifteen minutes."

The girls knew that, of course. Miss Sommers's retirement from her post as gym mistress had been known for some time, now. The girls were ready for it. An assortment of gifts, cards and flowers were presented to her in that final fifteen minutes before they all headed to the changing room.

Chrístõ slipped back outside and waited for Julia to emerge into the late spring sunshine. When she did, her wistful smile widened into one of joy. He reached to take her gym bag, overstuffed with parting gifts, and embraced her lovingly.

"I'm here to take you away from all this," he told her.

"Not right now," she protested. "We've got a few more things to do. Dinner tonight with my aunt and uncle for a start.”

"I know," he answered. "Though I am quite tempted to whisk you off right now. It is spring on Gallifrey, too. The silvertrees are blossoming. The grass is carpeted with golden-red moonflowers…."

"And Valena is already knee deep in Alliance preparations."

"Wait till we get your aunt there, too. They'll be an unstoppable force."

Julia laughed. Chrístõ held her hand tightly as he brought her to the TARDIS. She was greeted enthusiastically by a jubilant Humphrey, who still hadn't learnt how to pronounce her name after all the years but trilled 'shoo-shoolia' happily.

A few minutes later they were 'home' at the Sommers house in the suburbs of New Canberra.

Marianna Sommers greeted Christo enthusiastically and plied him with coffee, cake and suburban domesticity while conducting two conversations at once, one with Chrístõ about his most recent visit to Earth, and one with Julia about wedding shoes.

It was a comfortable, pleasant interlude, though Chrístõ couldn’t fail to notice a slight glitter in Marianna’s eyes. Wedding plans brought the day of Julia’s departure from Beta Delta to mind. Marianna regretted that more than anyone. Julia had been like a daughter to her, and she was giving her up like mothers everywhere and in all times had to do.

In the midst of the talk, the younger son of the house, Cordell, came into the drawing room and switched on the television.

“Michal’s ship is on the news,” he said, holding the remote control as he found the channel and turned up the volume.

Marianna was briefly concerned, but quickly reassured herself that there was nothing wrong with the military cruiser her elder son was serving on. In fact, it was less than twenty-four hours away from the Beta Delta space dock.

“What’s going on?” Chrístõ asked as a series of rather confusing images flashed across the screen. One showed a very battered civilian ship being brought under ‘tow’ by the sleek military vessel. “Has there been some sort of accident?”

“No,” Cordell explained to him. “The SFS Endeavour intercepted this ship in the outer Van Angeles system. It was a Boreax slave ship, but the slaves had rebelled and killed their slave masters, and they were trying to reach an Earth Federation colony. The slaves… are all humans kidnapped from ships in deep space... OUR own Earth ships.”

“Boreax?” Chrístõ queried. “I’ve never come across them myself, but Penne told me the Ruby of Adano had chased a couple of their raiders out of the Ambrado system. They’re becoming something of a nuisance to intergalactic travel.”

“Michal told me the Earth President has ordered military escorts for all colony ships,” Cordell added. His eyes were shining with interest. This was better than any of the fictional space adventures he had watched in his childhood. His own brother was playing a part in this, even if it was the lowly one of a junior ensign.

“Are they bringing the former slaves to Beta Delta, then?” Marianna wondered. “How many did they say there were?”

“Over two hundred,” Cordell answered. “Men and women….”

“What a terrible time they must have had,” Julia commented. “They SHOULD come to Beta Delta. It will be paradise to them after being kept as slaves.”

“I don’t know where that many people will live,” Marianna remarked. “When the second and third waves of colony ships came out here the passengers were all sponsored by families already settled here. That’s how your family were coming here, Julia. Your father was going to work with Herrick and there was a house allocated for you all. But….”

Marianna stopped talking. Even after all these years it was still difficult for Julia to think of the disaster that overcame the Starship Aldous Huxley. Chrístõ knew that. So did her aunt and uncle who had shared her grief. This reminder brought a haunted look to both women.

Chrístõ let them work through those feelings. He watched the television screen and wondered what would be done for so many unexpected arrivals. He hoped it wouldn’t mean any sort of refugee camp that would leave them little better than they were as enslaved prisoners. He hoped, too, that their arrival wouldn’t cause resentments amongst the settled colonists who might feel that two hundred new people would put a strain on jobs, housing, health and education. That would be equally tragic for everyone.

“I’m sure it will all work out,” Marianna said quietly, almost as if she had read his thoughts. “For us… it will be good to have Michal home for a time… and we have a wedding to organise. So much to be thankful for.”

“Two weddings,” Julia said with a smile that banished solemn thoughts.

“One for me to organise,” Marianna acknowledged. “One for Chrístõ’s stepmother. And I think I’ve got the easy job from all I hear about Gallifreyan ceremonies.”

The idea had come from Chrístõ’s own father. It had surprised him to learn that his parents had been married twice, once in a church on Earth, by the usual human ceremonies, and again on Gallifrey by the solemn tradition of that world. Julia had liked the idea of a human wedding which all her friends on Beta Delta could attend. Her old school friends would be bridesmaids. Marianna got to organise the dresses, the cake, the flowers. Herrick as her closest male relative could walk her down the aisle. Chrístõ had asked Cal Lupus to be his best man. A nice, pretty, straightforward wedding.

After that, Marianna and Herrick would be guests of Chrístõ’s family on Gallifrey while the Solemn and Binding Alliance of an Oldblood heir was organised. It would be held in the Panopticon, with the Lord High President himself conducting the ceremony. Penne Dúre, a walking, talking headache for the Gallifreyan security services would be best man, and the Dragon Loge Marton would be present, too, as well as several other crowned heads and presidents of other worlds. The whole thing was going to be huge and more than a little terrifying.

Yes, the ordinary Human wedding was going to be a much easier introduction to married life for them both.

It was the preparations for the wedding that dominated the conversation through that pleasant evening and most of a blissfully happy weekend. The story of the freed slaves and their arrival in the Beta Delta system was a curious and unexpected background to it, something that was in all of the news bulletins, in the print newspapers of Beta Delta, in the conversations going on all around the city, but it didn’t touch them personally, and they didn’t think about it any more than they had to.

At least until Monday afternoon when Julia met Chrístõ in one of the many coffee shops in the retail heart of New Canberra. She had been to a dress fitting and smiled secretively as she sat down.

“Why is it that the suit I get to wear is of such low priority compared to your dress?” Chrístõ complained light-heartedly. “I thought men were the dominant gender in human relationships… Or is that only AFTER the wedding.”

He sat back and waited for Julia’s equally light-hearted response, but it never came. Her attention was distracted by three words said by the news anchor on the videos o screen dominating one wall of the coffee shop. It had been flickering mutely until the news came on and somebody turned up the volume. Even then, it had hardly intruded on their thoughts until now.

“Starship Aldous Huxley….” she repeated, her face turning pale and curiously immobile. “But….”

Chrístõ hadn’t been paying attention to the news item, but that didn’t mean the words hadn’t been unconsciously recorded in his mind. He replayed them carefully, now.

“The captured travellers were taken from several Earth Federation ships over a number of years. These include the Kobo Abe, Marek Oramus and the Aldous Huxley which had set off from Earth with more than two thousand souls aboard….”

“What?”

“What….”

They both uttered the one interrogative word together but felt incapable of completing the question in their heads.

“No… no… no!” Julia managed, at last. “No…. Everyone on the Aldous Huxley DIED. I KNOW…. I was THERE…. I saw most of them die.”

Chrístõ reached out and put his hands over hers. He felt her trembling with emotions she had not needed to give vent to for a long time.

“It’s all right,” he assured her. “It… is probably a mistake…. A really stupid mistake. Some news editor probably got a list of ships that had been attacked in deep space and didn’t check the rest of the facts.”

“Stupid…. Doesn’t begin to explain it,” Julia protested. “They KNOW what happened. Everyone knows. It was a huge sensation when the….” She swallowed hard, having trouble saying the name of the old Earth science fiction writer after whom the migrant vessel was named. “When the ship arrived in the Beta Delta system…. Even a year later when you brought me here to live… so many people wanted to hear about it from me… It was really hard work at first… telling them things I really didn’t want to talk about. But… there is nobody on Beta Delta who doesn’t know the story, one way or another. They KNOW I’m the only survivor. More to the point I know I’m the only survivor.”

Chrístõ squeezed her hands gently and bit back a question that he found himself asking.

Was she sure? Was she absolutely sure that she was the only human being to escape from that ship of death? He had always thought so. But was it possible….?

No. He dismissed the idea from his mind. He had been there, after all. He had walked the empty corridors. He had seen the evil creatures that had murdered everyone except the one child who had hidden from them and survived by her wits.

“It was a mistake,” he repeated. “A stupid mistake by sloppy journalists. Put it all out of your mind, sweetheart. It’s all in the past. We have a great future together, and it starts right here… right now.”

Julia smiled through the doubt and worry. Yes, they had every reason to look towards the future and forget entirely about the past.

But the past kept tripping them up in many subtle ways. The inclusion of the Starship Aldous Huxley in the list of Earth Federation vessels attacked by space pirates didn’t seem to be a single error by a journalist hurrying to get a story out. It persisted until Julia automatically turned off televisions and radios every time a news bulletin began. She still smiled when wedding plans were being discussed, but at other times, her expression could easily be described as ‘haunted’.

Chrístõ didn’t like to see her that way and liked even less that he was so powerless to help her. There WERE ways a Time Lord could manipulate the memory of a Human being so that they forgot even the most traumatic events, but they weren’t ways he was prepared to employ on anyone, let alone his own fiancée.

There were ways he could ease her anxiety – soothing, gentle ways he could reach into her mind and blur the edges of the pain. He found himself having to do it most night before she could sleep without unwelcome memories troubling her dreams.

“More wedding gifts,” Marianna said to Chrístõ as he let her into the house he was living in again until the wedding. She placed half a dozen beautifully wrapped boxes on the table and sat on the sofa in front of the huge painting of Gallifrey from its red moon that he planned to leave along with the house for Cal and Glenda to make their future in.

“Julia is having a luncheon meeting to plan her hen night,” Chrístõ said as he brought coffee for her. “Obviously a female only affair.”

“Yes.” Marianna sighed despite the excitement of wedding plans. “Chrístõ… is Julia all right? The things people are saying…. About the… the new arrivals…. Is she upset?”

“Just a little,” Chrístõ answered, then he, too, sighed. “Actually… quite a lot. She is having bad dreams most nights. It has brought back memories I never wanted her to dwell on. Even hen parties and dress fittings, and four different pairs of shoes for the big day don’t quite take away the worry.”

“Herrick is upset, too,” Marianna admitted. “Julia’s father… was his brother… his younger brother.”

“Yes….”

Chrístõ knew that, of course, but he hadn’t really thought about it affecting Herrick. He should have done, of course, but until Marianna mentioned it, he really hadn’t.

“He always felt it very deeply…. Because he was the one who persuaded Mark and Helena to apply for a migration visa. He….”

“He blamed himself?” Again, Chrístõ felt this was something he ought to have realised long ago.

“No… not… exactly. But… well… yes, I think he did. Though he never really said so out loud. Certainly not in Julia’s hearing. She was a comfort to him… to both of us. I don’t think we ever properly thanked you for bringing her to us.”

“And now I’m taking her away again.”

“With all of this… I almost wish you would take her straight away and forget the wedding. I wish she was well away from Beta Delta before somebody REALLY upsets her with some careless remark.”

Chrístõ didn’t reply to that, but his expression said everything.

“You and Julia are the only two people who really know what happened on that ship,” Marianna continued. “Everyone else… Deep space piracy was the story the authorities let out. I don’t think they wanted people dwelling on… on… the creatures that killed everyone.”

“I don’t want to dwell on them, either,” Chrístõ admitted. “They were foul. But I never realised there had been a cover up.”

“Not exactly a cover up… just an easier story to believe. Not that… for one minute… we… Herrick and I… never imagined either of you were lying. But….”

“Don’t breathe a word to Julia….” Chrístõ said. “But just for a moment… the other day… it did cross my mind… that maybe something else happened before I came aboard the ship…. Maybe the creatures DID… I don’t know… sell sone of the passengers and crew to slavers. Would Julia know if they did?”

“If she heard anyone say that… especially YOU… she’d be so hurt.”

“I know. That’s why I haven’t said anything like that. Besides…. I don’t think it is at all likely. Those creatures… they didn’t want to trade anything. They just wanted to murder people… for… for food.”

Marianna shuddered. It was a dreadful thing to put into words. So dreadful none of them had for over twelve years. Now they were facing the horror all over again.

“Another thing we never thanked you for was… was killing those monsters,” she said.

“I did what I had to do,” Chrístõ answered. He was about to say something else when the doorbell rang. He was puzzled. He wasn’t expecting any more visitors, today. Julia had her own key, and it was far too late in the afternoon for any wedding presents to come by parcel post.

He and Marianna were both startled to see Herrick Sommers accompanied by a man in a military uniform and a woman wearing a badly fitting dress and what were obviously second-hand shoes.

“Sorry to bother you,” Herrick said in a curiously diffident tone. He had a strained expression that Chrístõ recognised immediately. Julia had the same look just recently when she thought nobody was looking. “There have been… developments. These people need to talk to Julia.”

“She’s out,” Chrístõ answered. He didn’t mean to sound so ‘short’ about it, but his psychic nerves were stretching like elastic. He had no intention of trying to read Herrick’s mind, still less the two strangers, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong.

He brought them to the drawing room and poured more coffee out of courtesy. Herrick sat with his wife and took her hand firmly. The officer and the woman sat, too. An uneasy silence radiated from them.

“She will be back soon, I think,” Chrístõ added. “What do you mean by ‘developments’?”.

Herrick looked as if he wanted to explain, but the man in the military uniform cut him off.

“We really can’t discuss the matter with anyone other than Miss Sommers. You are....”

“I am her fiancé,” Chrístõ replied. “I am also, since she came of age, and no longer dependant on her uncle and aunt as guardians, her financial, legal and moral sponsor. Anything concerning her concerns me… and since you have come to my house to discuss these ‘developments’, I mean to know exactly what they are. However, for argument’s sake we shall wait until Julia is present.”

The woman had given a soft gasp at his words. Chrístõ looked at her with puzzled eyes. There was something about her that worried him deeply. He looked at Herrick, who gave him a look best described as apologetic.

The silence deepened and the minutes stretched uncomfortably. Chrístõ reminded himself that he had been trained as a diplomat, but nothing in that training prepared him for ‘developments’ in his own drawing room. He let the silence go on until he heard the doorkey rattle. Both Marianna and Herrick looked as if they might want to reach Julia first, but a glance from Chrístõ kept them in their seats. He went to the hall and brought her by the hand into the portentous company. He sat in an armchair and she sat on his knee, her petite frame hardly any weight upon him. She looked at her aunt and uncle, then to the two strangers.

“What’s going on?” she asked. Her expression was carefully composed as if, without a word being said, she was preparing herself for a shock.

She was right to be prepared. The uniformed man looked at her deeply and reached into his tunic pocket for a sheet of paper. He glanced at it uneasily then folded it twice and put it back.

“You ARE Miss Julia Sommers… born in the city of Cambridge, Earth, on….”

“Yes,” she answered to all of the questions that confirmed her identity. “Why? Who are you?”

“I am Lieutenant Anthony Gray. I have been tasked with liaising between the former slaves lately brought to Beta Delta and any blood relatives they may have within the colony.”

Julia’s brow crinkled in puzzlement. Her uncle half rose from the sofa then sank back down again, grasping his wife’s hand as if he were drowning and it was a lifeline.

“Julia… the authorities think… that this lady is my late brother’s wife… your mother.”

“What?” Julia recoiled from his words. She turned to look at the woman, then half turned to look at Chrístõ, who grasped her closely around the waist as if staking his claim to her body and soul.

Which he probably was. This was the last thing he had expected, but his earlier words about his financial, legal and moral position were more important than ever.

Julia looked at the woman again.

“No,” she said in a tremulous voice. “No. She can’t be. My mother is dead.”

“Julia....” The woman spoke for the first time. “I know this is hard for you… after all this time. It is hard for me…. Knowing I still have a daughter who survived the disaster. I...”

“No!” Julia repeated, her voice rising in tempo and shrillness. “No. You are NOT my mother. My mother is dead. Everyone is dead. I don’t know WHO you are… but you are NOT my mother.”

Julia turned her face away and pressed it against Chrístõ’s chest as bitter, painful tears fell unchecked. He held her in his arms as he looked at the other four people in the room and wondered what he ought to say to any of them.