“What do you think it is?” Clara asked as the two stared at the huge pylon in the center of a circular metal room. In a lot of ways the room reminded her of the TARDIS cockpit but instead of the controls there was a pulsating, blue pillar.

“If I had to hazard a guess,” the Author leaped over one of the large cords that branched out from the pillar on all sides, “I would say that this is what’s making everything age quickly.”

The Author walked up to the pylon in the middle of the room and placed his palm against it. “Ouch!” He shouted and withdrew his hand immediately.

“What happened?” Clara asked and ran to the Author’s side. They both looked at his hand and instead of burn marks it was a much lighter complexion, “I don’t understand.”

“Stay back, Clara!” The Author shouted and she jumped at his sudden outburst, “Don’t touch it. If you do you will die.”

“What?” Clara looked at the Author inquisitively.

“This hand,” the Author showed her the strangely colored palm, “Is two regenerations prior to the current Author I am now. I don’t think this place is making things age faster Clara. I think it’s stealing their age. That’s why it registers as so young right here. It can’t possibly exist but it does.”

“What does that mean?” Clara shook her head exasperatedly.

“It means that we didn’t find a city of gold,” the Author stepped down beside Clara, “We found the fountain of youth.”

[}{]

The Doctor groaned and rolled over. His head was throbbing, but pain at least meant that he was still alive. He blinked the blurriness from his eyes and tried to figure out where he was. The room was dark but there was a faint, pinkish light coming from the wall opposite him.

He placed a hand on whatever he had been lying on. It was soft and cushioned, like a bed but it was much too short for him. He got to his feet and the world began to spin. “Alright,” the Doctor braced himself on the headstand of the bed, “How do I get out of here?”

The Doctor could only vaguely remember the events leading up to this moment. He remembered an old woman and that he needed to stop her. Then he was hit by something and he was caught up. “I wonder if Clara is having as tough a time as I am,” the Doctor sighed and walked toward the light, “What is that?”

He could tell that there was a glass case and that the pink light was shining from the bottom of the case. The Doctor checked his pockets and sure enough they had left him his sonic screwdriver. He pulled it from his jacket and pointed it at the light. “Let there be light,” he whispered to himself and the light grew brighter until it illuminated the entire room. The Doctor stared at the contents of the glass capsule, “Oh.”

“Now you understand, don’t you Doctor?” the old woman said and the Doctor turned around. She was sitting in a rocking chair beside the bed he had been placed on, “Why I must do this.”

The short bed made sense now, as did the rest of the room, it was made for a child. There were toys cast about on the floor. Glow-in-the-dark constellations were pasted on the ceiling. It could have been a human child’s room, but it wasn’t. The constellations were all wrong, because they were seen from a completely different place.

The Doctor turned back to the glass case and looked at the little girl inside of it. She had red hair and her skin was tinted a light green hue. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she looked like she almost could have been sleeping, but she wasn’t sleeping.

“She was diagnosed with a fatal disease upon birth,” the old woman explained to the Doctor, “The doctors gave her three years to live, four if we were lucky. So I devoted my life to researching the disease. Every moment since she was born I did not stop, in search for a cure. My work prolonged her life to six years, but I did not get to see any of it. I was so busy that I did not get to love my daughter for what few years I had her.”

The old woman got out of her chair and stood beside the Doctor, looking at the little girl. “You ask what is the point?” the old woman turned her eyes on the Time Lord, “She is the point, Doctor.”

“She is dead,” The Doctor stared at the corpse in the glass. She was just a little girl, but she wasn’t even really that anymore, “You can’t bring her back.”

“Eventually I will find a way,” the old woman shook her head and stared at the remains of her daughter, “I will continue to research and the universe will continue to push forward and someone will find a way to save her.”

“Save her?” the Doctor raised his eyebrows at the woman, “She cannot be saved. Let her rest in peace. Stop this pursuit. No matter how hard you try, you will not find what you are looking for. Let her go, for both of your sakes.”

“She deserves to live,” the old woman placed her fingers against the glass, desperately clinging to whatever shred of the little girl she could grasp, “She should have gone to school and gotten married and had children of her own.”

“Listen to me,” the Doctor looked down at the old woman, “It is not your choice who lives and who dies. In all of your work, in all of your research, how close have you really come to bringing her back?”

“I only need a little more information,” the woman’s voice rang with desperation.

“How long have you needed a little more information?” the Doctor asked, “How many years, how many worlds, have you destroyed just looking for a little more information? She should not have died and it is unfair, but she deserves to rest and so do you.”

“You don’t understand!” the woman shrieked.

“How long do you think I searched for my family?” the Doctor scowled at the mother beside him, “I understand more than you know. I know the pain of losing seemingly everything. Eventually I realized that I needed to let go.”

The Doctor realized he was not just talking to the old woman anymore. He looked back at the little girl and then touched his face. He turned away from the old woman and stared in confusion at the dampness on his fingertips.

[}{]

“What’s it going to do if we turn it off?” Clara asked as the Author scanned the cords that ran to the pillar with his sonic screwdriver, “Because if this thing is what’s stealing the time, won’t turning it off destroy whatever this place is?”

The Author looked up at Clara and then back at the cords. “You know,” the Author nodded, “You make a good point. What do you think we should do then?”

“I don’t know,” Clara sighed, “There must be a way to turn it off from a distance. I mean, in theory, wouldn’t there be a failsafe or something?”

The Author stood up and looked at the readings on his sonic screwdriver. “It looks like there is a control room,” the Author glanced up and pointed. Clara followed his finger to a glass partition that looked down into the room, “If we can get in there we should be able to start a delayed shut off with the sonic screwdriver.”

The door that the two of them had entered through opened and in stepped a man made of metal. “Cyberman,” the Author whispered and then looked at Clara. He tossed her his sonic screwdriver, “Good luck.”

“What are you going to do?” Clara asked.

“I’ll think of something,” the Author shrugged and then laughed, “Now go, I’ll be fine. I do this all the time.”

“You distract Cybermen while you’re completely defenseless?”

“Well, maybe not all the time,” the Author grinned and then leaped over one of the cords right in front of the Cyberman, “Hey, rustbucket, let’s dance.”

Clara turned in the other direction and found some stairs that led up to the control room. Her phone began ringing as she climbed the stairs. She pulled it from her pocket and it told her that Danny Pink was calling. She answered it.

“Hey,” she smiled as she reached the top of the steps and turned into the control room.

Hey yourself, Danny replied with a laugh, have you been running, you sound out of breath.

“No, I’m good,” Clara said looking over all of the controls in front of her.

Is this a bad time? Danny asked.

“It’s a great time,” Clara answered, frantically scanning for some way to shut off the pylon. The door to the control room opened again and another Cyberman entered, “Just maybe a little busy.”

Are you in trouble? Danny wondered.

“No,” Clara scoffed and finally found what she was looking for, “Why would you think that?”

You sound like you’re in trouble, Danny said skeptically.

The Cyberman was only a few steps away. “Nope,” Clara spoke hurriedly, “Anyway, gotta go, love you, bye.”

Clara hung up the phone and put it back in her pocket. Then she pointed the sonic screwdriver at the console and pressed the button. The lights changed from bright white to a dull, flashing red. The Cyberman stopped coming after her and instead started repeating, “Reactor shutdown imminent, recommend immediate evacuation.”

“Come on Clara,” the Author was suddenly beside her and dragging her out of the control room, “We’ve got to get out of here before the whole place goes to bits.”

“What about the Doctor?” Clara asked.

“Hopefully he has enough sense to get himself out,” the Author took his sonic screwdriver back, “Now let’s go.”

The two flew through the hallways that no longer looked anything like they had when the two had entered. They were the same metal paneling that had been in the pylon room. “This is some sort of ship isn’t it?” Clara asked.

“It certainly looks that way,” the Author replied, “the perception filter is off so we shouldn’t have a difficult time finding our way out now.”

The two continued to run through the hallways in silence until they reached the entrance. The pushed open the doors and tumbled outside. “I saw you were on your phone up there,” the Author said after a while, “Who were you talking to?”

“No one,” Clara replied.

“Oh,” the Author nodded and folded his arms over his chest, “Alright.”

The two stared at the entrance for a couple of minutes and then glanced at each other. “I’ll go in after him,” the Author sighed, “You just stay out here.”

“You’re kidding right?” Clara raised an eyebrow.

“Fine, come on.”