The Road to Shalka Part 5: Out of the Dark

[Soldeed]

Deep in the power core, the Doctor was making fast progress. He had finished work negating the emissions which had warped the genetic structure of the crew and was well ahead of schedule reprogramming the core to produce a curative signal to undo the damage.

"Oh yes," he muttered brightly, his fingers flying across the keys. "I love this plan. Neat, safe, simple... Why can't all plans be like this one?"

"Where are they?"

His start at the booming voice crashing into the silence of the chamber made his fingers slip, and he whirled round in annoyance to find Carstairs standing in the doorway, shotgun clenched in both hands.

"What... you made me lose my place you old fool. What are you doing here?"

"Quiet!" In a jolting movement that made the Doctor's eyes narrow, Carstairs swung the gun down to train it on his stomach. "Where are the creatures? I know you know where they are! Tell me!"

The Doctor stood perfectly still, watching Carstairs' red, sweating face.

"And just what do you think you're going to do if you find them?"

"I'm going to kill them," Carstairs breathed. "All of them. For what they did to my son."

"Clown. I already told you, your son is not dead, he's become one of them. If you'll just leave me to work in peace I can give him back to you."

"You think I believe that story?" steamed Carstairs. "That my George, the Honourable George Carstairs, the finest son a man could ask for, could turn into an evil, wizened nightmare like those things out there. You think I'm so stupid, don't you? You've ridiculed me, humiliated me, excluded me..."

"And you lied to me!" the Doctor's voice whipped back. "You almost got Alison killed. What makes you think you've earned my respect?"

"Enough!" Carstairs wrapped his finger tight about the trigger. "Where are they?"

The Doctor glanced disdainfully at the twin black holes of the gun's barrels, but answered with a shrug.

"They're safely locked away in that blue box you'll have seen outside. They can't get out and you can't get in. Everybody happy."

"In the box. Excellent." Carstairs nodded spasmodically as if in agreement to some unseen voice. "Just where I want them. Give me the key."

"There's no point, you wouldn't be able to open it. Now, if you'll just give me a few more minutes to work here I'll be very happy to open it for you."

"No!" His voice rising in pitch, Carstairs jabbed the gun forward like a spear. "You'll open it now. Move!"

The Doctor sighed heavily and looked up at the ceiling.

"Look, you've got two shots in that gun. What are you going to do when a couple of dozen of those creatures come at you?"

Carstairs smiled with a look of cunning.

"Oh, I've come better prepared than that."

He drew aside his coat to display the revolver tucked into his belt. The Doctor's smile was a twisted, contemptuous thing.

"Oh, you've brought your little popgun along as well, have you? So now you've got eight shots. Still haven't done the maths, have you?"

"Shut up!"

Watching Carstairs' eyes closely, this time the Doctor obeyed.

"Now move! I want that box opened. Right now."

The Doctor contemplated him for a few seconds in silence, then with weary resignation pushed his hands into his pockets.

"No. They'd kill us both. I won't do it."

The muzzle shook wildly, exaggerating the trembling of Carstairs' hands.

"Do you think I'm scared, Doctor? You think I'm scared to blow a hole right through you?"

"Yes, you're scared," the Doctor said levelly. "Very scared. But that doesn't mean you won't do it. You're upset, angry, and borderline unbalanced, so I'm finding it difficult to be certain what you'll do. Still, I've made my choice now, and that means you just have to make yours. Kill me. Or not. As you see fit."

Carstairs' mouth gaped open in disbelief and outrage. His grip tightened till the tendons in his hands threatened to pop out through the skin, the sweat dripped from ears and nose, the trigger clicked against the hammer, the Doctor closed his eyes...

"Doctor!"

Alison came charging into the room, only to be immediately brought up short by the muzzle of the shotgun swinging round towards her. She raised her hands instinctively.

The Doctor's eyes flicked open. He looked annoyed. Distracted.

"Alison, we were in the middle of something here."

His face shining with perspiration, Carstairs looked ready to flop limply to the ground in sheer relief at this turn of events.

"You! Of course, you must know how to open the blue box, don't you?"

"Well..."

Alison cursed herself for allowing her eyes to slide over to the Doctor in search of guidance. Of course she'd now given Carstairs his answer.

"Excellent." Gun levelled, Carstairs advanced on the Doctor. "So it looks as if you're suddenly unnecessary, doesn't it?"

The Doctor was opening his mouth for some reply, and was too late in spotting the other man's movement. The butt of the shotgun flailed around and smacked sickeningly into his skull just above the left ear.

"Doctor!"

Alison lunged forward as he toppled heavily to the floor, but again found herself running straight into the sights of Carstairs' gun. In agonies from her need to run to the Doctor's fallen body, she stood frozen on the balls of her feet, unable to move forward or back.

"All right, Princess," Carstairs rasped out. "Though I'm starting to doubt whether you're a princess at all. You're going to open that blue box for me."

"I..."

"Unless you want me to finish the job on your friend here!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, and she didn't doubt him.

With a gasp of defeat, Alison forced herself to turn her back on the Doctor and lead the way out of the room, her spine tingling with the knowledge of the shotgun constantly trained upon her.

The Doctor lay face down where he had fallen, limbs twisted, deathly still, the blood soaking into his hair and dripping down onto the floor.

[Soldeed]

Marched along at gunpoint, Alison sullenly approached the Tardis doors and delved into her pocket for the key.

"This is stupid," she protested, turning to face Carstairs. "The Doctor reckons there's twenty or thirty of those things. They'll kill us both."

"Quiet!" ordered Carstairs, wide-eyed, standing well back to keep her safely in his sights. "Open it."

She turned away bitterly, then with a surge of frustration turned back for one last try.

"For pity's sake! Think! You're supposed to be Lord of the Manor, Justice of the Peace and all that rubbish. And you're standing there swaying on your feet, dripping with sweat, aiming a gun at a woman. Look at yourself!"

"I..." Just for an instant he seemed to be listening to her. His staring eyes flickered and came alive. Then he was screaming again. "Shut up! Shut up! Do as I say!"

Despairingly, she brought out the key and inserted it into the lock. Made the subtle twist the Doctor had taught her and with deep foreboding pushed open the door.

The console room was dark and still. Nobody here. She had a second's relief before she was pushed roughly forward.

"Where are they?" demanded Carstairs, following her in. "Where..."

He stared open-mouthed for a moment at the impossible dimensions of the Tardis' interior. For a second it seemed that his mind had closed down completely. Then with a kind of mental click he was back, as if nothing here was out of the ordinary.

"Where are they?" he asked again.

"How should I know?" she replied ill-temperedly. "Off exploring the corridors somewhere I suppose."

"Good. Fine." He nodded quickly. "Then they're trapped in here with me. Close the doors."

She did as she was told, and turned from the console to find him advancing upon her.

"So..." he gritted out. "Now I don't need you any more, either."

Her eyes widened and she flung up her hands to protect herself from the butt of the gun swinging at her head.

The clublike weapon smacked into the palm of a pale, well manicured hand.

"Really, now," came the Master's sepulchral voice. "Is that the act of a gentleman?"

He emerged out of the darkness as if he had been a part of it, retrieved the shotgun from Carstairs as if taking a toy from a child, and while he cracked it open and emptied out the shells onto the floor, turned his attention to Alison.

"I wouldn't recommend staying here, Miss Cheney. Our visitors will find your warm blood a tempting proposition."

"I know that," she said impatiently. "I'm only... look out!"

She had seen Carstairs grabbing for the revolver concealed beneath his coat. The Master followed her gaze and in the same smooth motion swung the shotgun in a wide arc and... stopped. Just inches from impact with Carstairs' head. The restrictions of his programming held him as securely as bands of steel.

"Oh, come on." He glanced over at Alison, looking mildly vexed. "Just because I would have enjoyed it a little."

Three bullets from the revolver smashed into him, blowing scorched holes in his chest and sending him staggering back to crumple into a corner. Carstairs turned with a triumphant clenching of his teeth, in time to see Alison haring off down the passage and vanishing around a corner.

"Damn it!" he hissed out. He took a step in pursuit, but then restrained himself. "Ah, it's all right, she doesn't matter now. Finally I have those little monsters where I want... them?"

He hesitated. A sibilant hissing, as of a whole nest of snakes, and a drumming of many feet, was approaching at daunting speed. He looked down at the revolver, down to three shots, and the shotgun discarded and empty on the floor, and a terrible sense of reality threaded its way into his tormented mind.

Sharply he dug down into his pockets for spare cartridges, came up with a handful, and clicked out the drum of the revolver. Fingers fumbling in his haste, he pushed one bullet into place and with a cry of dismay watched the other three slide out of their chambers and rattle onto the floor. He dropped desperately onto his knees, scrabbled for them in the dark, and with a lurch of his heart found himself staring at a highly polished black shoe. From his kneeling position, he stared up in fearful awe at the Master's bearded, satanic features.

"You have made holes in my only tunic," the Master said softly. "And I think you may have dented my chest."

The vampire horde came pouring into the console room, and Carstairs could only scream and flail uselessly as they crashed into him. Their scrawny bodies piled onto him and pinned him down. Their outsized hands knotted about his limbs and held him still. Their chitinous, puckered mouths sought exposed flesh to tear and suck.

The Master took a step back, folded his arms, and watched.

[Soldeed]

The Doctor's eyelids twitched and rolled weakly open. He found his head supported on something soft, a cool hand on his brow, and squinted at the fuzzy image of a face framed by dark hair above him.

"J-Jenny?" He closed his eyes again and rested his head on her lap. "I was hoping you at least might do as I told you and stay at the house."

"I think I may be fired," she said. "I said a few things to Her Ladyship after Miss Alison left."

"Really? Oh well, if you're going to go..." His eyes snapped open. "Alison! Where... have you seen her?"

"Well, no. You're the only person I've seen here. Doctor, you'd better rest for a while. It looks like something hit you terribly hard..."

"Have I changed my appearance completely and do my clothes not fit properly?"

"Er, no."

"Then it can't be as bad as all that."

Limbs uncoordinated, he managed to roll off her lap and onto his front, but his attempt to push himself upright had him staggering helplessly forward and almost colliding head-on with the power core itself. Crouched, clinging on to the floor as if it were a sheer wall, he felt Jenny's hands on his shoulders.

"Let me help you."

"All right," he mumbled nauseously. "Can you get me into that chair?"

She stretched his arm about her shoulders, her small, wiry frame supporting his weight, and manoeuvred him into the chair. Caught him before he could topple off the other side and held him balanced in place while he stared blearily at the screen.

"Urgh. I was doing something. I was almost finished, I think. If I can just..." He reached out for the controls, but his fingers just rested motionless on the panels. His head sagged down onto his chest. "Someday, Jenny, I'll explain why it's so ironic that I'm attempting to do this with what feels like a world class hangover."

"Where is Alison?" she asked quietly, guilty at the thought of adding other problems to his list. "Should I go and try to find her?"

"No." Hesitantly, painfully, he began to press buttons. "Finishing this is the only way to help her now."

* * * * *

Out in the open, the Tardis stood silent. Minutes passed, and then the door was torn open and Alison came diving out, dragging it shut behind her. Her shirt was torn at the shoulder and a dark bruise was swelling on her temple, but somehow, through hard running and blind luck more than anything else, she had got out in one piece. She leaned back against the secured door, panting for breath, eyes closed.

"Miss Alison!"

Jenny's voice brought her to her senses when she had been on the point of drifting into an exhausted doze. The maid was patiently assisting the shambling, concussed Doctor to climb up through the hatch out of the saucer.

"Doctor!" Alison ran towards them. "Are you all right?"

He fell forward onto his knees, raising his fingers to the sticky, clotted blood matting his hair.

"Just... just make up something sarcastic and pretend I said it."

"You're all right!" she smiled in relief. "So how are we doing?"

"Well, now. The three of us are alive, which is good." He stretched out his left hand to her and she took it, helping him up while Jenny supported him on the other side. "I think I've reconfigured the power core correctly so it'll cure the victims of their vampirism. Unfortunately the Tardis will be shielding them from its effects so the only way to test it is to open up the doors and see what comes out."

"Well..." She glanced uneasily at the dark, inscrutable form of the police box. "Since they're safely locked up in there, there's no hurry, is there? Why don't we just wait till you're feeling better and you can check to make sure you did it right."

"Where's Carstairs?"

"He..." Her voice faded guiltily and she looked over at the Tardis. She could feel the Doctor's vivid eyes upon her.

"Then we have to open it up now, don't we?"

In her mind, Alison heard herself attempting to argue with this.

"Yes," she said. But she thought of something else. "Doctor. After we open the doors, how long till your friendly radiation cures them?"

"Ah." He nodded slowly. "I was afraid someone would ask that. It'll be a couple of minutes before it starts to have an effect. Things might get a little bit fraught in the interim. You two had better take cover in the rocks while I do it."

"Don't be stupid. You're in no shape to run around dodging vampires. I'll do it."

She watched him try to muster a protest. Try to belittle her selflessness and send her flouncing away, leaving him to face the danger on his own. But he looked so tired. He reached out and trailed one of her braids between his fingertips.

"If you get yourself killed..."

"Then I'll come back and haunt you."

He smiled weakly and allowed Jenny to support him on a halting journey towards the cover of the rocks, moving like an old man. Alison walked up to the Tardis doors, her key held tightly in her fingertips, and swallowed.

Well, it wasn't as if she hadn't volunteered, but she was remembering the scuttling, seething, spitting creatures hard on her heels when she had escaped them just moments ago. Their hiss of fury when she slammed the door in their faces and thought herself safe. There would be no silent, empty console room this time. She pressed the key into the lock.

* * * * *

From their vantage point amongst the rocks, Jenny and the Doctor watched the vampires come boiling out of the Tardis, scrambling and galloping, tumbling over one another as they dragged the doors open the instant Alison unlocked them and set off after her speeding form like a pack of hounds after a fox. The Doctor looked away.

"Let's go."

Jenny took his arm, still transfixed by the fast diminishing scene of the pursuit.

"She will be all right, won't she?"

The Doctor answered with a steely tonelessness.

"I've really no idea."

* * * * *

Alison tore along the grass, her mind filled with nothing but the thunder of feet and flattened hands hammering against the ground behind her, the murderous hissing that seemed to rise up from all sides. Tiredness forgotten, cold, clean panic flowing through her veins, she pumped her arms like an Olympian, pounded along till the breath rasped in her throat and her teeth rattled from the jarring impact of every step. Something clipped the back of her knee and she stumbled, flinging her arms out to the sides for balance and somehow managing to hold her forward momentum without crashing to the earth. But a half step had been lost. From the corner of her eye she saw something. Something which a couple of days ago she might have thought the product of macabre imagination. Its scrawny frame hurtled along at her side and its great curled hand flailed sideways at her shins.

She was floating in the air. Just for a second, the grass beneath her seemed to rush past of its own accord as if she was hovering, remote, while the planet span beneath her. Then she crunched down onto the solid turf, taking the impact agonisingly on her shoulder. She was up right away, rolling to her feet, ignoring the throbbing pain of the fresh bruise on her arm and with a swift change of direction she sent the creatures steaming past her straight ahead. For a wild moment she thought she was in the clear again, then a pair of great feet struck her heavily in the back and a sticklike arm wrapped about her throat. Other hands seized her limbs and struck her body and she was tumbling down, struggling, into the dust.

She lashed out desperately. The heel of her boot connected sharply with a creature's jawbone and sent it rolling away, curled up in pain. But they were piling onto her now, pinning her down flat onto the ground, pressing forward with the twitching black holes of their mouths questing for exposed flesh. She flailed and strained uselessly as one of them forced itself down onto her jugular...

"I say. What the devil's going on?"

The puzzled, slightly resentful tone brought her to her senses and she focussed on the face which still loomed just inches from her own. It was that of a young man, quite handsome really, with scruffily tousled fair hair, blue eyes and rounded, amiable features. He looked back at her in bemusement, then sudden grasp of the position.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry." He pulled back smartly, leaving her still flattened to the ground but at least now able to breathe. "I... I'm not quite sure what happened there. Did I fall on you? You'll think me the most dreadful fool, but I can't exactly seem to remember... oh my God!"

This was the moment when he realised he was naked. Alison sat up, blinking in the afternoon sun, and laughed helplessly at the sight of the Honourable George Carstairs hopping frantically about the field, searching for some means of covering his entire body with his hands. A couple of dozen elegantly slender blue-skinned aliens scattered around her, all exhibiting their own version of the same distress.

* * * * *

The Doctor turned up the lights in the darkened console room and saw, unsurprised, the Master standing in the corner leaning against the wall with his arms folded.

"Ah, Doctor, there you are. I was going to tell you that something went slightly wrong with your great plan, but from the rather flattened condition of your skull I'm guessing you already knew that."

The Doctor straightened, unwilling to show weakness, with just one hand resting surreptitiously on the console.

"Where's Carstairs?"

"His noble lordship?" The Master smiled and let the silence hang for an instant. "I've got him here in this cupboard."

He stepped forward and the closet door against which he had been leaning swung open, allowing Carstairs' limp form to flop out onto the console room floor. His clothing was ripped and a dozen wounds had been torn in his flesh, but his sagging mouth took in and released great gulps of air.

"I believe he'll live," the Master said. "No doubt to inflict tedium and annoyance on future generations."

The Doctor looked down at the weakened, injured man on the floor and said half to himself, with an air of wonder.

"You saved him."

A slight crease touched the Master's brow as if he had been reminded of some embarassing youthful indiscretion.

"No need to rub it in."

"You did a good thing."

The Master blinked, and it took him a moment's consideration to come up with an answer.

"Well, technically speaking I suppose but he's not really much of a catch, is he? Hardly worth saving."

"That's the point!"

"That's the point."

"Yes."

"The point is..." The Master frowned and concentrated. "Not to save him because he deserves it, but to save him even though he doesn't deserve it."

"Exactly."

"I see." The Master pondered this and ruefully raised his eyebrows. "Being good is more complicated than it looks."

The Doctor nodded slowly.

"It really is."

For the first time in longer than either of them could remember, they both smiled at the same time.

[Soldeed]

After being provided with a suit of clothes from the Tardis wardrobe, George Carstairs had done most of the work of lugging his father back to the house on the promise that he would soon receive a full explanation of what had just happened. The Doctor's companions doubted this would ever take place, just as they doubted that a clown suit had been the only thing he had been able to find in the right size. The young aristocrat's reunion with his wife and mother had been touching and the alacrity with which he and Charlotte had disappeared upstairs to "rest" impressive. There was a lively gleam in the elegant blonde's eye that nobody could recall ever seeing before.

The Doctor had lied shamelessly to the aliens about the reason for the malfunction in their ship's power core, and gravely accepted on behalf of Earth their apologies for all the trouble they had caused. They guaranteed to have the necessary minor repairs completed by the following afternoon and be on their way.

And so after a night of rest so total that no one could even remember how they managed to get into bed, the Doctor encountered Jenny in the main hall. He had his coat on.

"Would you like breakfast, sir?" she enquired. "There's bacon, kidneys, eggs..."

"You're not fired then?" he observed, casting a glance at her dowdy maid's uniform.

"No, sir," she said, bobbing an automatic curtsey. He cocked his head quizzically on one side at her humble, head down pose and moved towards the door.

"Tell you what." He pulled the door open and with an exaggerated hop from one foot to the other jumped over the threshold. "There. Now I'm not a guest in your master's home any more and you don't have to treat me with respect if you don't want to."

Jenny's eyes flickered from side to side and she twitched a smile.

"It's just that, with things being back to normal now, I thought I should probably try to get back into the habit." She glanced down at the uniform. "And no, I'm not fired. I think we're going to pretend none of it ever happened. That means whatever I might have said gets forgotten as well."

"Well, that's fine." The Doctor half turned away. "Er, Alison should be up soon. When you see her, can you tell her to head back to the Tardis and wait for me there? I just have a short errand to run."

"So you're leaving, then?" asked Jenny, unable to keep the regret from her voice.

"Yes. Mystery solved, monsters gone, lives saved. No place for me here any more."

"And I won't see you again?"

"No." He was poised to leave but then paused, looking like a man who'd just realised he'd forgotten his keys. "Or, I mean, you could, you know..." He shrugged. "Come with us."

Jenny looked blank for a moment before the meaning of the offer permeated her mind. She started.

"Oh! Come with you?"

Cautiously she smiled in appreciation of the joke, but the Doctor's gaunt features were unmoving. His eyes were on her.

"It's not an invitation I make often."

"I..." The reality of this choice sent a shiver through her bones.

"See the world," he pressed her gently. "See other worlds. Open your mind, find out what you can be."

"No."

She silenced him with that one word.

"No?" he repeated a little forlornly, and she felt a pang of guilt at having made him unhappy. Uncertainly, she grappled with the unfamiliar concept of finding the words to express what was hidden away in her mind.

"Doctor, I would love to come and travel round the universe with you in your magic cupboard." This, at least, brought a smile, and he ducked his head as if to hide it. "But I have my job here, my parents, my home town. My life's a boring little thing, I know, but I think I want to see what I can do with it before I throw it away completely."

He nodded mournfully, and she relaxed at seeing there would be no argument.

"And then there's the Master," he added.

"Yes," she admitted. "There's him too."

"I'm a Time Lord," he whispered half under his breath. "I wish that meant I could see how this was going to come out." Briskly he shook the thought off and looked at Jenny as if he was going to be seeing her again tomorrow. "Well. It's been a privilege."

She took his formally extended hand, felt the chill of his pale skin.

"One other thing," he said seriously before he turned to go. "Remember, whenever you're fetching his lordship's slippers or scrubbing the front step, all the money and titles in the world won't change the fact that you're worth more than everyone else in this house put together. Ask me how you'll know this."

"How will I..."

He looked her in the eye.

"Because the Doctor said so."

* * * * *

Alison pushed open the Tardis doors and found the Master circling the console. He glanced up incuriously at her arrival.

"Solo, Miss Cheney? Surely the Doctor hasn't decided to stay and take the job as butler?"

She shrugged irritably.

"I didn't see him this morning. Apparently he said he had to run an errand. I don't get it, what errands could he be running round here?"

"I couldn't say." After pondering the question for a second, he leaned forward over the console. "Exactly where and when are we, anyway?"

He ran his fingertips over the controls and breathed a soft "Ah" at the displays which lit up.

"What?" asked Alison, drawing closer to look over his shoulder. He looked round.

"I think I've just worked out why the Doctor couldn't face landing here, all those years ago."

* * * * *

It was a longer walk than Alison had anticipated. All the way along the main road to the coast, then left along the ridge which gave her the view down the bracken-covered slope, a hundred paces to the clifftop track, and beyond that to the sea far below. When she found him he was sitting alone just below the head of the ridge, half hidden by the bracken, his hands clasped about his drawn up knees.

Perfectly still and quiet, his white-streaked hair ruffled by the ocean breeze, he was watching two figures who sat with their backs to him, looking out at the sea from a stone bench by the track. Little detail could be made out from this distance, but one was a hunched old man in a black hat and coat, his walking stick clasped in front of him. The other was a little girl in a white dress with a mass of dark curly hair. Her legs were too short to bend at the knee over the bench, and her feet stuck straight out in front of her.

The Doctor looked up at Alison's approach and she tensed for a hostile reaction, but his expression on recognising her barely seemed to shift.

"How did you find me?"

"The Master. He said you'd be here."

"I see." He returned to his steady contemplation of the people on the bench. "And did he tell you who they are?"

"The old man is you, and..." There was one thing you didn't talk to the Doctor about. One name you didn't say. Alison had found this out very quickly and the habit was difficult to break now. But he had asked. "And the little girl is her. Jasmine."

There was only a slight twitch of the muscles around his eyes at the mention of her name.

"The Master knows a lot of things," was his sole comment.

Alison sat down beside him and for a few seconds shared the silence, watching the old man and the child on the bench, their words inaudible, lost on the wind.

"Are you okay?"

The question was impertinent, but he nodded slowly.

"Surprisingly so. I really only came down here to wallow in self pity."

He said it as if it were a joke and Alison took the easy way out, with a brief smile before she spoke again.

"So are you going down there?"

He looked round at her, and there was an ironic twist at the corner of his mouth.

"Are you going to make me explain the First Law of Time to you?"

Quickly she held up her hands.

"No! No!"

Satisfied, he looked away, and seemed to drift contentedly away from her, as if he would be happy to sit there all day, just watching. Watching a former version of himself and a long lost friend pass unhurriedly the time of day, their time together limitless, their future a story still to be written. Alison thought of the Doctor, her Doctor, and of how in those rare unguarded moments the vivid dark blue of his eyes, bright with life and the force of his own certainties, would slide away like steel shutters to unveil darkened windows to a world of tears and loss and loneliness. Caught unawares, she found herself swallowing hard against the lump rising in her throat, and the words coming of their own accord.

"I've never told you," she said haltingly, "How sorry I am."

As soon as it was out she regretted it, this intrusion into his privacy, and was ready for him to withdraw from her and be sarcastic, or clam up altogether. But he sat quite still for a moment, gazing on unblinkingly, and then spoke so quietly it seemed he was hoping his words would go unheard:

"No one ever has. There was no one to mourn her but me."

He shifted and sat back, supporting himself on his palms pressed against the ground behind him. The sigh he gave while shifting his focus up to the sky was mild and wistful.

"But I am okay. I really am. Apparently missing her isn't something that's going to go away by itself. I suppose I'll always have the feeling she ought to be here, with me. If I think too much about what happened..." He pressed his palm to the centre of his chest, fingers spread. "... It gets hard to breathe." He hesitated for an instant, lips parted, face still, as if trying to recall what he had been saying. "But there was a time when I would have written her whole existence out of history if I could, just so I wouldn't have to feel that way any more. Now..." A gust of wind brought a peal of happy laughter to their ears. The old man was enlivened, gesticulating with his hands in describing something, and the girl wriggled energetically in her seat, her dark curls bouncing with the tossing of her head. The Doctor smiled softly. "The past isn't gone, what we're seeing here will always exist. Nothing can change that. How could I say I'd be better off never having met her?"

Alison didn't attempt to think of something to say in reply. They sat there quietly together for a bit longer. At last the Doctor placed his hands on his knees with a sudden air of decision and pushed himself upright.

"Right, come on. Worlds in peril don't just save themselves, do they? I'm sure we're needed somewhere."

Alison jumped up to join him and they walked away up the slope side by side. The Doctor looked back just once, and something glimmered in the corner of his eye. Then he blinked it away and mustered a strong, confident stride away, and onward.

THE END