Real Lisa: Howdy, there, faithful readers. All two of you…and one of ’em’s myself. *grin* I thought it’d be fun to comment on this story, so I brought in AL…
Alien Lisa: Hi.
RL: Doc…
Doc: Hello.
RL: And the Tenth Doctor.
Ten: Hello!
RL: To do so.
Doc: What about Martha?
Ten: She’s with her family.
RL: Now, for background, even though you can read everything in Trivia and In-Jokes. Anyways, V had read Doc’s Unencyclopedia entry, which stated that he was a Time Lord. She then had a plotbunny biting her about the Doctor being Doc’s father and asked me to give it a good home. While I planned on a crossover for a long time, I wasn’t sure how to write a relationship like that. The crossover ideas started in 2001, in which Doc and Marty somehow wind up on Skaro, the planet of the Daleks, before its destruction in “Remembrance of the Daleks”. My dad had given me the original storyline for that one. I’d called it The Eight Doctors, Plus One because it starred the then-eight incarnations of the Doctor (and, thereby, eight versions of AL).
Ten: I’m very glad you didn’t do that.
AL: Oh, I dunno…it’d’ve been nice to see your Fifth and Eighth selves again. *smile*
RL: After V told me about the plotbunny, I thought of an idea that Jules needed to do a project on a historical event from England. I’d picked the Silvertown explosion of 1917 after reading about it on Wiki. I was going to call it Blast from the Past. I was having problems, though, about landing the DeLorean and the TARDIS safely in the vicinity of a big-ass explosion.
Doc: Quite right, too.
AL: *hides a smile*
RL: So, my next idea was a Doctor Who monster wanting to get their hands on Doc’s time machine for their own nefarious purposes.
AL: And that’s the one you went with.
RL: Yeah. Now, I have this problem…I don’t like writing for anyone but AL and the Doctor.
AL: Don’t blame you.
RL: Right…anyways, choosing the monster would choose the Doctor, but I didn’t want to write for a companion. Unfortunately, the only times the Doctor was ever alone was Four between Sarah Jane and Leela, Nine before he met Rose – and I’d already established something between the regeneration and “Rose” – and Ten between “The Runaway Bride” and “Smith and Jones” and right after Martha left, however, that posed a problem with the end of “The Last of the Time Lords”.
AL: You ain’t just whistlin’…
RL: Right. So, now, I love Daleks.
Ten: I don’t know why.
RL: I just do. They’re my favorite Doctor Who monster in the history of the show. That’s why were to originally appear in The Eight Doctors, Plus One. Due to the events happening in Season Three, Daleks and the Doctor without Martha wouldn’t work. And, while using past Doctors was tempting, I was leaning towards Ten just…because I’ve been obsessing over him cuz of Season Three’s content.
Ten: *beam*
RL: So, if I chose Ten without Martha, I’d’ve had to use Cybermen. One night, while trying to fall asleep, the final idea bit me about 4AM one Wednesday.
AL: Did it leave a mark?
RL: Nearly. I decided that Dalek Caan, the last remaining member of the Cult of Skaro, after using his Emergency Temporal Shift from the end of “Evolution of the Daleks”, would wind up in Hill Valley 1994. He finds out there’s time travel technology around and wants to use it to rebuild the old Time Corridor and fix history. It wasn’t quite the Doctor-Fathering-Doc story V wanted, but it was fun nonetheless.
AL: I think you’ve rambled enough.
Ten: Oh, don’t start.
RL: Thank you, Doctor. Anyway, the title is a play-on of the title to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. “Caan” is pronounced the same way.

Chapter One: Reflections

It was late summer of 1994 in Hill Valley, California. A beautifully restored farmhouse sat in a lonely meadow, surrounded on all sides by trees. Its only neighbor was a large barn. The seclusion was necessary, for the inhabitants of the house did not want anybody to see the machinery kept within the barn. This house was the home of a pair of time machines.

Doc: I thought most fan fiction authors generally add in a “Day, date, time, location” mention at the start of every chapter?
RL: They do, but I did it for Here’s Hopping and found it extremely difficult and annoying to keep up with a workable timeline. So, I ditched it.
Doc: Ah.

Their inventor, Dr. Emmett Brown, was currently inside the barn, his laboratory, hunched over a desk covered with wires and computer circuits. His friend, Lisa, was eyeing a computer monitor, watching a scan of some programming that was going to be input into the DeLorean and, later, the train. She was supposed to tell him if any problems turned up, though she found her mind starting to wander.

AL: That happens when I get bored, you know.
Doc: I thought as much.

She thought about what had happened since last year and before. In August of 1993, she had returned to Doc Brown’s life after a very long absence, much to his delight. She had missed a lot from being away…Doc returning with his wife and two sons to the twentieth century, Marty McFly’s marriage to Jennifer Parker.

AL: Yeah, I was really upset that I didn’t see Marty’s wedding.
RL: Did you ever consider going back in time and seeing it?
Doc: I wouldn’t let her.
AL: I even said I’d go invisible for the duration.
Doc: It’s not that reliable. You know that.
AL: *sigh*

Lisa sighed her herself. While leaving wasn’t entirely her fault, staying away was her choice. She couldn’t help it, but when Doc had shown up in the time train on the tracks of Eastwood Ravine with Clara, Jules and Verne – his family – she’d felt extremely jealous of them and thought that Doc wouldn’t need her to be his family anymore.

Doc: Nothing could be further from the truth, Lisa.
AL: As you seem to keep telling me. Leaving not being my fault is because I was taken out of time before I could tell Doc and Marty goodbye.
Ten: She was brought back to me.
AL: In your Sixth incarnation, yeah. With Mel. And Glitz, but he doesn’t count. Heh.

She was wrong, of course, as Doc was constantly reminding her. In the past year, she had resumed her position in Doc’s family. She would help Clara around the house and help Doc test his new inventions and additions to the time machines. That took some of the strain off Marty, at any rate, who was busy with college.

RL: That’s my reason for not incorporating him into this story.
AL: You never mention why Jules, Verne and Clara aren’t here, either.
RL: I know. Can we pretend that Jules and Verne are in summer camp or something and Clara’s teaching summer school?

Jules and Verne were a little harder to please. They were old enough to not need a babysitter, so she didn’t have to do that. Luckily, fifteen-year-old Jules’ scientific mind was intrigued at studying her powers and planet of origin – Alnilam – and thirteen-year-old Verne had an interest in animals, so her ability to speak to them interested him greatly.

RL: This could be considered an homage to V’s BTTX series. Verne, there, has the ability to speak to animals.

She yawned, bringing her back to the task at hand. So far, as far as she knew, anyway, nothing had turned up amiss.

“You’re not falling asleep, are you?” Doc asked, amused, casting a side-long glance at her and noting the hunched, slumped-over way she was sitting with her chin in her hands, her wings hanging limply behind her.

RL: This image plays in my mind constantly. I drew it, too.
AL: You seem to have made Delphin-me’s legs a little short.
RL: I know, but I ran out of paper.

“Huh?” she said, jerking up. “Uh, no. Of course not.” She hid another yawn.

Doc smiled at her. “Is the scan finished?”

It did just then. “Yeah. Everything looks clear.”

“Good. Let’s take a break.”

“Good idea. Come on, Einie.”

The aging sheepdog mutt got up from his bed, located in a warm corner of the lab, and padded quietly to Lisa’s side, following her and Doc outside.

She spread her wings, allowing them to absorb a lot of the heat from the mid-afternoon sun, and leaned against the wall of the barn. She and Doc watched as the dog disappeared into some bushes.

You ever think of what’s going to happen when Einstein passes, Doc? Lisa asked her friend telepathically, opening up the special link they shared.

RL: AL doesn’t just become linked to people she’s involved with romantically. She gets a family connection, too. She had it with her father. Her link with Doc is similar.
AL: He was the only family I had for a long time.

Doc blinked and looked at her, catching that she didn’t want the dog to hear her talking of his eventual death. Occasionally, he replied. He is getting old. I’m sure it will be a tough time, especially on the boys.

Think you’ll get another dog?

Probably. He suddenly looked at her sharply. Why? Has he said something?

Doc: I’ll admit it: I was frightened that Einstein had told Lisa he was in pain or wasn’t feeling well.
AL: He hadn’t.
Doc: I know that, now.

Oh, no! she assured him, placing one hand on his arm. No, he’s fine. Eager to change the subject, she said aloud, “So, any chance of getting that system to work?”

“There’s always a chance. How big of one…that will depend on the next test.”

“I still say you should try to somehow make the inside of the De’ bigger.” “De’ ” was her nickname for the DeLorean. The car would seat three rather uncomfortably, and the train was too big and bulky for small trips.

“If I could find a way to fit a larger interior to a smaller exterior, I would.”

Lisa stared up at the big, puffy clouds, her mind elsewhere. Or, perhaps, elsewhen. “Right…”

AL: I was thinking of the Doctor, yes. Doc’s mentioning of something bigger on the inside than it is on the outside triggered the memories.
RL: Since this has all been established…how long had it been since you were with the Doctor?
AL: *glances at him* Too long. That’s all I’ll say. *remains stubbornly quiet*

End chapter one.

Back *~*~* Chapter Two