"She died before I really got to know her," I explain quietly to the Doctor one morning after she asks me where I want to go. "Everyone says she was a brilliant woman – did a lot of charity work despite having very little herself and her door was always open to those who needed it. She was a qualified home economics teacher as well, and I've always wished she could have taught me to sew." I sigh, unable to meet the Doctor's eye. "Dad and I were talking about her the other day and he brought up that it had been fifteen years since she died, but I knew that wasn't right. I can quite vividly remember her walking me to school on my first day and talking my picture outside our house. But by the time I started school, she'd already been dead for two years. Dad could have sworn she was there too, and when we asked mum after she came back from work, she said she remembered Nanny Gill being there too." I bring myself to look at the Doctor and see her staring back at me curiously. "How could she have been there, Doctor?"

"I don't know," she frowns. "You sure you've got the right year? 2003?"

"Yeah, Grandad has it marked on his calendar," I reply. "Would we able to go back? To my first dad of school I mean – see if she's there?"

"I don't know, Alice," the Doctor admits. "It's very risky. Probably shouldn't – there's tonnes that could go wrong, especially as your younger self is going to be there."

"Okay," I nod. "I guess some things we never find out."

I meet the Doctor's eye and she looks at me for a long moment before sighing and moving around to the control panel. She gestures to a textured part of the control panel. "Slip your hands in there." I look back at her wide-eyed. "We're not staying long. We'll watch from a distance."

I hold my hands out and slide them carefully into the gloopy section of the console. "What is this?"

"The TARDIS telepathic interface," she answers, flicking a few switches. "Hold still and try to hold onto a memory of your Nan."

I do as she says and close my eyes as I hold the image of my Nan playing with me in her house, and I can feel the TARDIS take off. Something pulls at the memory, so I hold it tight. A few moments later, I feel a hand on my shoulder, and the memory falls away.

"We're here," she says softly, and I follow her outside into the garden outside my Nan and Grandad's house.

"What do I say?" I ask her, looking back as I approach the slightly ajar front door.

"The truth," the Doctor says softly. "It's January 2003. She doesn't have long left."

I smile and knock the door as I move inside, and the Doctor follows me in. "Hello?!" I call into the house.

"I'm in the living room," she calls back, and I step into the room on my right.

She has her back to me as she fixes her wig, then turns to me with a wide smile. "Oh hello Emma darling, I wasn't expecting you this morning!"

"It's not Emma," I say gently, walking through the living room to sit beside her on her bed. By now she's too weak to walk up the stairs, so her and Grandad sleep downstairs. "It's Alice – Carl and Di's daughter."

"It can't be!" she gasps. "But you're so grown up!"

I look back at the Doctor who stands at the door. "I came back from the future, Nanny," I say, beginning to tear up. "I wanted to say hello."

"Oh my darling girl, come here," she says, and we both sob as we hug. She holds me tight and I can feel her frail body beneath her clothes. "Look how beautiful you are." She pulls away and looks at me steadily. "I'm assuming the reason you're here is because I don't have long?" I smile sadly and she pulls me in again. "It's one of my deepest regrets that I'll never see you grow up. Tell me a bit about you."

"Well I've just started studying Law and Media at University, but I met someone with a time machine and we've been travelling for a while. Oh, and mum and dad had two more daughters: Charlotte and Emily. Emily's actually named after you – Emily Gillian."

"Oh bless them, that's lovely," she says with a smile. "Do I live long enough to see your first day at school? I've been there for all my other grandchildren."

I look at the Doctor again, and she gives a reluctant nod.

"No, but I can take you now, if you want?"

A short while later, the TARDIS stops outside my old primary school on September 1st 2005. The Doctor and I wait by the doors as Nan goes out and greets a younger me at the door, my mum and dad looking on in stunned disbelief.

My younger self looks past her family and curiously over at me, smiling. Suddenly I remember seeing a strange blue box outside my school with two young women standing outside watching on. I give her a small wave, then look back at the Doctor.

"Thank you, Doctor."