Life on Earth after the dalek defeat in 2150 had been hard. Very hard. Most of the population dead, cities reduced to rubble, famine, disease... Susan had not expected it to be quite so gruelling, but she had been young, and naive. But not any more. She had a good life, with a good man, and her knowledge of scientific techniques far beyond those of contemporary Earth had helped her become a leading figure in the rebuilding work. Now, three decades on, the planet was getting by, although it was still quite difficult for some. But the invasion had been a wake up call, and now petty disputes and prejudices had been put aside. This was a planet that worked together as one, old rivalries forgotten.

But... something was wrong. She was in the garden, tending the vegetables. Many people had turned to growing their own food, as the capacity to mass produce crops was more or less destroyed by the daleks, and even when the planet was functional again, it had become a habit. And there was something satisfying about growing one's own dinner. Of course, she had been unable to resist the temptation to experiment, and the size of her carrots was the envy of the neighbourhood. She had not revealed to others that she was not human, nor told them how she achieved the huge vegetables. She did not want to out herself as alien, as that would make her - understandably - very unpopular. She had used a lot of care selecting clothes and cosmetics to ensure people did not suspect she was not aging at the rate they were used to. She was Gallifreyan. Earth was absolutely not ready for that sort of technology and experience. Not yet.

She placed the carrots in a basket and called out to her husband. He had been on the other side of the garden, mending a fence. But... he was not there. Nor was the fence. And the house looked... different. The windows he had replaced ten years ago were gone, and the old battered panes back in their place. What was going on?

And then a swirling white vortex appeared, blowing the plants around alarmingly. Susan was a Time Lord - well, genetically. She had never been given the chance to go through the Academy, but she still had all their sensitivity to temporal effects. That vortex was most definitely emitting an alarming quantity of Artron energy. It made the hairs on the back of her neck practically quiver!

"David?" Susan called out again. "Are you having a-no..." The Time Vortex and the seeming rewind of her home to the way it had looked some 10 years ago was not him having a go but something else entirely.

"Really?" She called out. "I thought I was done with this already. Where is my husband?" She called out to the vortex, not expecting an answer.

She had made a good life for herself as her Grandfather had wanted. She had stayed behind and was helping to rebuild a devastated. She loved her husband, had friends and family, and was highly regarded for her contributions to rebuilding.

"So I don't need this!" She said, raising her voice to truly express her displeasure. "I want to get these carrots inside for the stew I was going to make so go away. Return me to when I was, put David back and push off."

The swirling vortex did not look especially apologetic. You know how vortices can be. Such party poopers. However, a very refined female voice spoke from within it. "Oh, I am terribly sorry about all of this, but I really can't do that. It's probably for your own good, you know. We've had a terrible crisis here... oh, I am sorry, I didn't really do that very well. I'm on Gallifrey. The whole place is in uproar, and the timelines are flapping about like a... well. I can't think of an analogy. It's just that bad. It is Susan, isn't it? I can see the resemblance." To what, it was not clear. "I'm afraid that something very unpleasant has happened to your grandfather. You might want to step in here before the universe notices you and wipes you out from your current location along with everybody else."

Well, as introductions go, that left a great deal to be desired. Talk about not holding back the bad news!
This message was last edited by the GM at 22:03, Fri 30 Sept 2022.

"Really? I've been here, minding my own business since my grandfather left and yes, this is Susan and yes, the Doctor is my grandfather," she said, setting down the basket of carrots to rest her hands on her hips.

"Where is David? And when the hell did you pull me to, hmm? And what do you expect me to do about what is clearly an issue my grandfather had left so others could resolve? And what's this about the universe wiping me and everyone else from our current location?"

"Well, it is not quite that simple," the vortex lady said, rather ruefully. "We haven't taken you anywhere. The universe did that. I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but someone has removed your grandfather from time. Gone! And slowly, the timelines are starting to notice. All the things he did will start to unravel one by one, until they reach a critical mass, and then, well... poof, as it were!"

Poof. Given how many people he helped, and how many worlds he saved, that would be a fairly catastrophic poof...

"I suspect that is what just happened to your husband. I really am very sorry. But there is a chance we can stop this before it gets too far along to reverse. We should be able to bring everybody back. Honestly, we wouldn't have chosen to bother you with all this, but we need the people he knows best to try to work out what happened. And of course, you are just about the closest to him of anybody..." Blood relations being what they were, and all that... But it was a double edged sword. That degree of connection also meant that she was probably going to be one of the first to have her life completely written out from existence. Indeed, the changes to her home and husband were very worrying symptoms that this was already underway.

"That's a load of rub-wait, what? Someone removed...everything he's done? Across all time and space? That's catastrophic! The repercussions of that-"

Unthinkable. That's what the repercussions would be and not just for her. Not just this world. This is a crisis of cosmic proportions. The exact thing her grandfather would have jumped in to fix. The kind of thing she would have jumped in to fix.

The kind of thing she had to jump in to fix and not just for the sake of her husband.

"Right, coming. When and where am I going?" She asked just before stepping into the vortex.

"The portal will bring you to Gallifrey. We've set up as much as we can to slow down the universal collapse, but we can't be sure how long we really have. The President has requested that we assemble as many people as we can to help. So some of the Doctor's other friends should be arriving soon." The portal glowed a little brighter. "Don't worry, the vortex is stable. It wouldn't do to have our people vanish completely before they could even help!"

Gallifrey. Once that had been home. Before David she would have called it home but now it was a word for a place she remembered but had little connection to beyond being the place of her birth. If she had to go to get her grandfather back, restore David, and keep the universe from doing away with her and everything she knew then it was there she would go.

"All right. Be right there," she said with a sigh before walking into the vortex.

The vortex did pretty much what it was supposed to do. It swirled. And Susan was swirled inside it. It was not the best way to travel across time and space, but it was pretty hard to beat the comfort of a TARDIS, even one as knackered as the one she had traveled in all those years ago.

When the swirling stopped, she was in a featureless room. The walls were a pale pinkish grey, and there was one very basic door. The air had the smell of food in it, and perhaps a hint of roses. Harp music could be heard.

It did not remotely resemble a place in utter turmoil. It was quite peaceful, but had all the interestingness of an airport washroom.

OOC: Please move to IC: HQ Zero