The reception for Brook and Foreman's wedding wasn't really a reception at all. Although the newlyweds had gone out to get a cake, the conversations and actions very quickly turned back towards what had been going on before the wedding. Everyone was dressed up in their wedding attire, though, which of course made every movement just the slightest bit more difficult.

"Foreman is my last name now," Brook said to try the words out loud, tilting her head slightly as she looked over towards the Doctor and Clara. It was the first time she had ever said her new name, and she rather enjoyed the way it resonated in the air.

"Her name is Brook Foreman," Foreman added in, reinforcing what his wife had just said. He was always right there to back her up. "Just like mine is...well, Brook. You can go ahead and explain that for yourself. "

"No, you're much better at telling people what happened," Brook said, raising her nose into the air. Nevertheless, she couldn't pass up an opportunity for storytelling. After being raised on shelves stuffed to the brim with books and two parents who never ran out of adventures to tell her about, she always had something at the edge of her lips, ready to spill out to waiting ears.

"When I brought Foreman here to the first time, to this planet, I realized that his name wasn't going to work for me. I made the decision to give him a new one-but it would be a last name. I could easily use it as his first name."

"Oh?" Clara asked. "What's so wrong with your first name?"

"You can't forget that I'm from Gallifrey," Foreman laughed, pleased to be still getting attention in the situation. "Rechsamsayqueyer was my name back there."

"It's still far too difficult to pronounce," Brook added in, putting on a pout. A major sense of butterflies seemed to be settling into her, but she tried to cover it up with a smile.

"You know that if the dictionary girl thinks it's too difficult to pronounce, it really is," she laughed. 

"Never mind that," Foreman said. He looked over to Brook in playful anger, but his countenance soon softened. They started to make googly eyes at one another again, removing themselves from the conversation. But as far as the Doctor was concerned, it could be much, much worse. They could have been audibly flirting.

"You were saying earlier something about baby names," the Doctor brought up, trying to cut them out of their little staring contest of love. "I guess the baby would have the last name Foreman as well then, right?"

"Right on the nose, Daddy," Brook replied, tapping her nose as she said it. She shot a glance back towards her husband, who had developed a faint blush. With the topic of beginning a family brought up again, his difficultly coping with it popped up as well. The Doctor's presence was only part of the problem for him at the moment.

Despite her husband's evident embarrassment, Brook decided to press forwards with the subject. 

"Like I had been saying before, normal names would work out lovely. I especially like the name Susan, like Susan Pevensie from The Chronicles of Narnia...I could imagine myself raising a child with those books, being able to read about someone magical with the same name as her. That is, if the child would be a girl."

"Susan Foreman?" Clara exclaimed, trying the name out for herself.

"Yes, indeed," Brook replied happily. She gave a large nod of approval as Clara's face broke out into a smile. Realizing that Foreman had started to creep away from the conversation, she grabbed his arm and pulled him close to her. While shuffling over he nearly tripped on her tulle skirt, but he still made it nevertheless.

"It's got a nice ring to it. I like it," Clara said, nodding her head. Now, with nothing left to say, the room dissolved into a static silence. 

"Daddy, you look like you're about to be sick or something," Brook finally said, breaking the silence. She had looked over to the Doctor and noticed that he didn't look to be feeling all too well.

"Maybe he needs a doctor," Foreman joked, elbowing Brook in the side. Although she rolled her eyes at this, she couldn't prevent a laugh from escaping her lips.

"Oh, Doctor. What is it now?" Clara asked. She tried to help keep up the more humorous air that had been set up by the newlyweds, but she couldn't help but grow concerned. The Doctor's eyes had popped wide open and he had gone as pale as freshly powdered snow. Without a doubt, something was definitely wrong.

"Sorry. Just feelng a little bit under the weather...that is, if there is weather on this planet. I've just been thinking a little bit too much, you know?"

Brook continued her laughing from before as she said, "Yes, there is certainly weatehr here. I hated the thunderstorms. Just wait until you see me in the middle of one of those"

"I can't remember you getting upset during a storm," Foreman said, legitimately confused about it.

"That's because I was a little girl when I was afraid of them! I also hated shadows. The worst thing for me had to be shadows created by lightning. Then there was the whole jumping into water from large heights...it still makes me shudder."

The Doctor had a brief moment where he remembered River jumping off of a building and diving right into the TARDIS swimming pool. He couldn't help but find it a bit fascinating that Brook was actually fearful of this same thing. But he couldn't ask her anything more about it.

After sharing a look with Clara, he knew that she agreed that their conversation with Brook and Foreman had ended. The newlyweds had gone off on their own to continue speaking about their past, future, and whatever came to mind. 

"Are you feeling okay?" Clara asked the Doctor, biting her lip. "I've never seen you get sick before. It just doesn't seem right."

"Well, I'm not really sick. I'm just thinking, a bit suprised that I didn't really start thinking about this earlier. It's all very strange."

Clara felt like he was just about to say more, but the Time Lord's mouth had now shut. He didn't look to have any words waiting on his tongue, which bothered her. He seemed to be upset about Brook keeping secrets of sorts, but he was just as much of an offender. She now became rather desperate to know what thoughts were churning within that brain of his. It was going to take some pushing to get all of that out of him.

"Doctor, you're going to have to tell me what's going on. I'm afraid I can't figure it all out myself, you know."

"I'm sure you could," the Doctor laughed in response. "You're very clever, I'm sure you could figure it out."

"Well, maybe I've had a little too much cake to eat and am having trouble being clever. You're going to just have to go ahead and tell me, Doctor."

"Okay, fine, fine. It's all rather complicated. Not that I think you wouldn't understand, of course. It's just that I'm not sure how far I'd be able to go without poking a hole through the fabric of space. I've done it before, and it's quite a mess to clean up."

"You're skirting around the subject," Clara said, crossing her arms across her chest. "Come on, just give it up."

"Let's just say that Susan Foreman is a very familiar name to me. It was one I was fairly sure I would never hear again, and now it's coming back to me. I have a feeling that my future and past are about to intersect, which is never a good thing."

"Really?" Clara replied. "It actually sounds rather fun to me, getting to meet another version of yourself or that sort of thing."

"You'll see, one day. Paradoxes of any kind...well, actually, now that I think of it, they are rather fun. But that's not the point. They're also very dangerous."

"Well, I like dangerous," Clara laughed. The Doctor decided not to push any further on the subject, so he let his part of the conversation dissipate into the air. 

"Brook, you should tell him about it," Foreman murmured. Even as he attempted to keep his voice at a minimal volume, the Doctor and Clara were still able to make out what he said. This immediately caught their attention, causing them to took a step towards the couple.

"Brook, is there something you'd like to tell me?" 

Even though the Doctor and Brook looked to be only a few years apart in face, it became immediately evident that he was able to wield control over her. All at once she seemed to become a little girl who dressed up in a wedding gown for fun rather than to actually get married.

"No," she squeaked. "I don't believe there is."

But then Foreman took Brook's hand and gave it a hard squeeze, just enough so that he could get his point across without words and still avoid hurting her. She didn't even have to meet his gaze in order to know what he was trying to say.

"Okay, fine, yes," Brook admitted. "I'm just not sure how you're going to take this. I always assumed you had figured it out when I was a little girl, and that's how you knew about it my whole life." 

Right as the Doctor was about to tell her to get to the point, she put a hand up to interrupt him. "I'm getting to it, I swear. I just want to make sure you understand it first."

Now finally sharing a look with her husband, she prepared herself to explain everything. 

"You know how I'm a Child of the TARDIS. Squared. That sort of thing. Well, it's done a little bit more than just allow me to pilot her and not get lost in the hallways. You see, I can speak to her. Her consciousness."

"You can...talk to the TARDIS?" the Doctor asked in disbelief.

"I can," Brook replied, letting out a breathy laugh that shook from nerves. She couldn't tell which way this conversation was heading. 

"I hear her voice inside of my head, and then I can talk to her. It happened more when I was a child, but I can still do it just as easily now."

For a moment, the room was silent. Foreman and Clara met gazes, trying to interpret what was going on between their companions. 

"See, what I don't understand is why you feel the need to keep so much of this information away from us," the Doctor said.

"I'm not keeping the information away for you!" Brook protested. "It's called being twenty six years old and having a father and a friend who's futures are all in my past. There's just too many paradoxes involved in this."

"But what you just told me didn't cause a paradox," the Doctor countered. "There's probably plenty of things you're not telling me."

"Spoilers," Brook replied, her eyes firing up with the unseen knowledge just as her mother's did. "Just like Mum says, it's all a bunch of spoilers. Maybe some of it isn't really that dangerous, but you still have to be careful."

"She did at least give hints, though," the Doctor said, feeling himself moving off of the offensive. He was no longer forceful with his words, just saying them.

"She gave me some hints too," Brook responded, softening her voice just as he had. "She was talking about a planet that was literally an enormous library. The Library. She thought I would love it, and it sounds like something out of a dream."

"The..." the Doctor began. Before he could say anything more, he felt his voice cracking. The Time Lord's head was spinning again, but this time far violently. This time, he wasn't so sure that what he figured out was going to be a good thing. He was rather sure it wouldn't be. 

"Doctor, what is it?" Clara asked.

"What is what? What is what is what?" the Doctor asked, immediately deflecting what Clara was saying. 

"There's something wrong," Clara replied, folding her arms. "I know that look. You think that I can't tell what you're thinking but I'm certainly learning."

"What's all this chatter about?" Brook called out, looking over to the Doctor and Clara. Her eyes flickered between them as she tried to figure everything out just at a glance. But then she realized that she could glean no information. Her eyes bounced up to the Time Lord's eyes. He would be the one with the answer, of course.

Brook had learned over her twenty six years when something was wrong with the Doctor. It had become very apparent to her as she got older and older. Even though her time spent with the Time Lord had decreased over the years, her perception of him increased. She made sure to make every moment she had with him last, and that meant making sure she could understand him.

Right now, he had figured someething out. Whatever it was, it was not a good thing. Clara could see this as well, but hadn't been able to get any answers out of him. That made Brook truly start to wonder what was going on. Usually he would gladly share things with his companion. This strange behavior had been a staple of his in recent times.

But his move to be secretive was likely a smart one. It had just become fully apparent to the Doctor where exactly Brook was falling in her parent's timelines. The clues had been all around him, but it wasn't until that moment when everything fell into place. His discovery was not something that was meant to be shared, at least not in this place and time.

As a time traveler, timelines often got mixed up. He was usually at the core of these situations, of course. Different timelines would tangle up into knots, piling up like pieces of yarn dropped on the ground. Messing around with those was a risky business, and his discovery might destroy it all.

The Doctor had figured out that Brook was following her mother's timeline far closer than his own. The last event she had experienced with River Song had been a swan song.

Brook had entered in a portion of her timeline where River Song was dead. Everything made sense now that he put it together. The Doctor felt a fool to not have realized it earlier. She was never going to see her mother again, never going to have a new book added on the bookshelf from the visits. 

The worst part, at least in the Doctor's eyes, was the fact that Brook was completely oblivious to it. Evidently he had never shared with her River's fate when she had been growing up. That would make sense, he supposed. Why would you ever tell someone that their mother was going to die and disappear at a specific time? He had never come to grips with the situation himself, he had no idea how the child of River Song would take it.

But he was able to see a glimpse of what her reaction would be, just a fraction of what it most likely to be. Her eyes had already widened in her frightened state, her eyelids occasionally crashing together in a forced blink. With her hand in her husband's, she had begun to squeeze, getting his attention very quickly.

"Brook, what is it?" Foreman said, his voice soft. "Brook, please. Tell me what is going on."

"I'm just a bit scared, that's all," Brook replied, giving a soft smile. "I know, it's strange for me to be scared, but it's the truth."

"You're a person, which means you have emotions. Fear is an emotion, Brook. You don't have to apologize for feeling it."

Foreman placed a hand on the side of Brook's face, tilting her head up so that their eyes could meet. As they were still in their wedding outfits, they looked like a scene out of a romantic movie.

"Thank you," Brook whispered, placing a faint smile on her lips. As she leaned forwards to wrap her arms around Foreman, her dress crinkled and folded into a pile of tulle. 

Even if Foreman was a Time Lord, it would be nearly impossible for her to attempt to explain just why the Doctor's secret discovery frightened her so much. The timelines around him had woven themselves into intricate and tangled tapestries, and it was very possible that somewhere in there something horrible had just occurred. 

The fact that she had just been talking about her mother was the most frightening piece of it all. She knew just how messed up her family's timelines were, and the Doctor's reaction could mean a wide variety of things-and none of them were good things, that was for sure. The funny feeling in her stomach was bothering her, like inwardly she knew that a part of her life was about to go topsy-turvy.

"Brook, it's going to be okay," Foreman murmured into her ear. "Everything will be alright."

"Foreman, you better than anyone should know that there is never a time where everything is alright. But I'm going to be okay, I promise," Brook said before tossing herself into an embrace with her new husband. 

Clara had now dedicated herself to attempting to extract this information or even a hint about it out of the Doctor, knowing that he would have to give it up sooner or later. She didn't want to destroy the fragile balance that held time and space together, but she also didn't want to be left in the dark. She had already had well enough of that from the Doctor. 

"Sometimes time is the cruelest thing I've ever known," the Doctor explained. "It might be wonderful and wobbly, but it is also very cruel."

"I'm sorry," Clara replied, moving to comfort him. She still felt tempted to ask what was going on, but she fought against it. Right now she had to help him.

The mood, which had formerly been so cheerful after the wedding, had been crushed. Just the power of dread alone was enough to darken everything.

A/N Another chapter completed. I feel rather proud of myself...this is where I think things really start to get interesting. It's already much darker and drearier. I dunno. I like that sort of thing when it comes to my writing. If you like it as well, vote and comment! Can't thank a silent reader, of course.