“It stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space.”
The little girl, called Susan, smiled. She seemed terribly proud of this pronouncement which had just rolled off her tongue. Ian, not quite sure how to react, nodded and gave an anxious little chuckle.
“Go in!” urged the old man, under his breath. “Go inside. Go on!”
“Into this?” Ian stepped forward uneasily, but then decided to follow the man’s orders without further hesitation. Dr Who and Susan beamed at each other. Ian pulled open the door, and…
There he was, inside a room that shouldn’t have existed, but did. There were no words to describe what it was like: to believe oneself to be stepping into one place and then enter another and have the laws of physics swept away from under one’s feet as if they had only ever been there as mere decorations.
The sounds were equally unexpected: there were beeps and hums and strange sirens quite unlike those one usually hears, and not all that healthy-sounding.
“But it’s so big in here!” Ian exclaimed in disbelief, gesturing wildly with his arms. “And yet it’s so small from outside. How come?”
His voice had turned sceptical about half-way through the sentence, but Susan, bless her, was oblivious. Once more she began to use words he didn’t understand: “In electro-kinetic theory,” she began, “space expands to accommodate the time necessary to encompass its dimensions.”
“My little fellow scientist,” chuckled the old man, in response to Susan’s knowledge. “We’ve been working on TARDIS for many years… this is the final component.” He held up a metal box. “You are privileged, young man…” he started to lecture. “To be the first visitor to our time and space machine.” He plugged the device in, and huffed. “I can now set the controls for anywhere in time and space that we wish to go. When I push that lever, this room and everything in it will dissolve into their respective component electrical charges. They’re all made up then; these charges will then be transferred, in time and space, and reassembled in their proper order, and proper place.” The old man smiled, satisfied with his own explanation. Ian, however, seemed quite terrified.
“Well,” stammered Ian, “uh… I think I ought to be, uh…”
“I thought you’d all be in here!” Barbara entered, lighting up the room with her smile and her light blue jumper and her even lighter pink trousers, a subtle fusion of gender norms in fashion. “Hello, darling!” She embraced Ian.
In that moment he looked at her and breathed in the sweet scent of her perfume – a new one, apparently – Ian forgot almost entirely where he was. Embracing each other, Ian lost his balance and they both fell back into a switch topped off with a big red button, and the ship began to make a wheezing, groaning sound.
The old man hurried forward, but it was too late. White light filled the room, accompanied by a loud wheezing noise, and the four inhabitants shifted in position--not quite here but not quite there.
Dr Who’s TARDIS had taken flight.
Kathleen Brady switched off the television. She had lingered as long as she dare, until the end of that scene, but the clock on her mantle-piece warned her that she was already three minutes late.
It wasn’t just inconvenient. It was wrong to keep a patient waiting. So she didn’t.
She stood up, gave her hair a quick brush, gulped down the rest of her tea, and grabbed her keys off the table.
On her way out, she glanced one last time at the television. She saw her childhood there, for one brief moment, and wondered if that was sad. She saw herself back in the cinema in the centre of town, with her old daddy, in the earliest days of colour television.
She shrugged aside the thought, remembering that she could come back to the movie later For now, there were more important things than Dr Who.
The little girl, called Susan, smiled. She seemed terribly proud of this pronouncement which had just rolled off her tongue. Ian, not quite sure how to react, nodded and gave an anxious little chuckle.
“Go in!” urged the old man, under his breath. “Go inside. Go on!”
“Into this?” Ian stepped forward uneasily, but then decided to follow the man’s orders without further hesitation. Dr Who and Susan beamed at each other. Ian pulled open the door, and…
There he was, inside a room that shouldn’t have existed, but did. There were no words to describe what it was like: to believe oneself to be stepping into one place and then enter another and have the laws of physics swept away from under one’s feet as if they had only ever been there as mere decorations.
The sounds were equally unexpected: there were beeps and hums and strange sirens quite unlike those one usually hears, and not all that healthy-sounding.
“But it’s so big in here!” Ian exclaimed in disbelief, gesturing wildly with his arms. “And yet it’s so small from outside. How come?”
His voice had turned sceptical about half-way through the sentence, but Susan, bless her, was oblivious. Once more she began to use words he didn’t understand: “In electro-kinetic theory,” she began, “space expands to accommodate the time necessary to encompass its dimensions.”
“My little fellow scientist,” chuckled the old man, in response to Susan’s knowledge. “We’ve been working on TARDIS for many years… this is the final component.” He held up a metal box. “You are privileged, young man…” he started to lecture. “To be the first visitor to our time and space machine.” He plugged the device in, and huffed. “I can now set the controls for anywhere in time and space that we wish to go. When I push that lever, this room and everything in it will dissolve into their respective component electrical charges. They’re all made up then; these charges will then be transferred, in time and space, and reassembled in their proper order, and proper place.” The old man smiled, satisfied with his own explanation. Ian, however, seemed quite terrified.
“Well,” stammered Ian, “uh… I think I ought to be, uh…”
“I thought you’d all be in here!” Barbara entered, lighting up the room with her smile and her light blue jumper and her even lighter pink trousers, a subtle fusion of gender norms in fashion. “Hello, darling!” She embraced Ian.
In that moment he looked at her and breathed in the sweet scent of her perfume – a new one, apparently – Ian forgot almost entirely where he was. Embracing each other, Ian lost his balance and they both fell back into a switch topped off with a big red button, and the ship began to make a wheezing, groaning sound.
The old man hurried forward, but it was too late. White light filled the room, accompanied by a loud wheezing noise, and the four inhabitants shifted in position--not quite here but not quite there.
Dr Who’s TARDIS had taken flight.
Kathleen Brady switched off the television. She had lingered as long as she dare, until the end of that scene, but the clock on her mantle-piece warned her that she was already three minutes late.
It wasn’t just inconvenient. It was wrong to keep a patient waiting. So she didn’t.
She stood up, gave her hair a quick brush, gulped down the rest of her tea, and grabbed her keys off the table.
On her way out, she glanced one last time at the television. She saw her childhood there, for one brief moment, and wondered if that was sad. She saw herself back in the cinema in the centre of town, with her old daddy, in the earliest days of colour television.
She shrugged aside the thought, remembering that she could come back to the movie later For now, there were more important things than Dr Who.
1963
Written by Janine Rivers
Susan always loved the moment she stepped out of the TARDIS doors onto a new world. After all, she had followed her grandfather of her own accord, without even casting a second thought back to her friends, her home, or the locale she had come to love.
But why would she? No one would ever have understood her experience, but to Susan it kept her going. To step out of the TARDIS, to see the world change into something unrecognisable again… it was like being born again, every day, seeing the world for the first time; like a baby, kicking and screaming and crying, but taking it all in with wide, fascinated eyes.
New sights, new sounds, new smells. Unfamiliar accents, machinery, architecture. New ways of life, new ways of living, and just for a short while, a new life for her.
The last planet had been one of her favourites. There, the days lasted for what, back on Gallifrey, she would call two weeks. The locals would go about their lives, busying themselves for two weeks straight, apparently untiring the whole time. At the end, they would gather together on the hills, sing their native songs, and sleep under the starry sky, together, seemingly endlessly.
Her grandfather had huffed, and said that it was bad for Susan’s body-clock. Young Time Lords (or Ladies) could not adjust as well as those whose bodies had finished developing. So they had left. Again.
As Susan took in the scent of what she thought were alien fruits, and listened to the chatter of a whole new dialect, she came to remember why leaving was always, ultimately, worth it.
“Planet Earth,” said the Doctor. Susan recalled his fondness for this planet, and at last the TARDIS had decided that he would be allowed to return. “Though I do say it has changed a bit since my time. Now, let’s see, where are we…”
He took a few steps, stopped, and scratched his head.
“Dublin!” he chuckled. “In fact, I would say we are…” he turned around, getting his bearings. “Yes, yes, quite. Susan… With me…”
The old man led her around a corner, bringing them from a ramshackle side-street into an open, hectic marketplace jammed with crates and stalls full on both sides with fresh, ripe fruit and vegetables. The surrounding buildings were simple brick constructions, quite a bit less advanced than some of the previous civilisations Susan had visited, but a lot less intimidating. She felt welcomed, especially as the stall-owners offered her warm smiles and greetings which she’d not encountered before.
If the rest of Earth were like this, maybe the cons would finally outweigh the pros next time her grandfather decided it was time for them to migrate.
“Moore Street, child,” elaborated the Doctor. Susan was impressed with his recall, since he usually failed to name the planet, let alone their exact location on it. “The oldest market in Ireland, which is where we appear to have landed.” He noticed his granddaughter’s beam, and even smiled a little himself. “Yes, I thought you would like it here…”
***
Kathleen gently inserted the needle. It was routine now, and she had it down to a fine art. None of her patients even winced.
Most of them, of course, were well-accustomed to pain.
“How’ve you been feeling?” asked Kathleen, as if Orla’s fragile and skeletal figure, or her pale white face almost verging on blue, did not say it all.
“I’ve been feeling,” Orla answered philosophically. “That’s not something I’ll get to experience for much longer.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Kathleen finished the injection, and placed a hand warmly over Orla’s. “This must be so difficult for you, but try to think positive thoughts.”
Orla chuckled weakly. “There’s not much of that left in my life, Kathleen. What about you? How’s Sinead been?”
“Bright as a button.” Kathleen packed away the medication, disposing of what could not be reused, and made herself comfortable. “Very happy with her new lass.”
“Aw.” Orla smiled. “And you? You told me about that fella you found online the other week. What’s happening there?”
“Well…” Kathleen looked away shyly, used to having patients disclose details of their own lives, rather than asking for details about hers.
On the mantelpiece, she noticed an old and faded picture of Orla with another woman, a woman with the same face but a very different way of presenting it. Twins. Just something else she had kept quiet about.
“Well?” prompted Orla.
“Meeting him tonight.” Kathleen turned back, and found herself laughing. She always felt old, except around Orla. The woman was only about seven years older than Kathleen, but she had a way of making her feel young, like she had a whole life ahead of her.
Well, she did. More life than Orla, at least.
“Tonight?” Orla grinned excitedly. “Remember, if he acts all gentlemanly…”
“He’s a dirty bugger who only wants one thing?”
“You’ve got it!” Orla chuckled. “Good luck, Kathleen. I hope this works out for you.”
***
“Oh, I love it!” exclaimed Susan, becoming over-excited. All the vivid colours of this place were sending her into a trance, and after the long, cool night she had spent on the last planet, so was the heat. She found herself stumbling a little. She grabbed the Doctor’s arm, but he brushed her off like an irritating insect.
“Grandfather, this place is wonderful,” she continued, not the least bit put off by the Doctor. “I’ve never felt more at home anywhere, never felt more… and all the people look just like us! I could make friends, I could… we… we could blend in, like ordinary people! Oh, grandfather, let’s…”
She turned back to the Doctor and realised that he wasn’t even listening. Instead, he was gripping the lapels of his jacket, and frowning at something in the distance. He snapped out of it, and looked down at his granddaughter.
“What was that, my dear?”
“I was just…”
“Oh, do be quiet!” he snapped, and Susan did as instructed. “We haven’t much time here. No, no, I fear this is not the planet for us.”
Susan felt her heart sink.
“Yes, it’s far too…” the old man scratched his head. “Just look around you Susan, at all these people, and the noise they’re making. Quite a racket. I have plenty… plenty enough noise in that ship of ours and that music of yours blaring all over the place, day and night. To put you among others, and these people especially…?” He looked up, rather pompously, almost as if he stood above 'these people'. “Hmph!”
“But grandfather, I find it so interesting here.”
“Interesting, child? I find it quite boring, if you must know. Quite boring indeed… now, let’s not dawdle. Back to the ship, at once!”
The Doctor began a tenacious stroll back through the marketplace, in the direction of his ship. A woman swerved out of his way as he turned a sharp corner; a hospice nurse, carrying her things, and smiling in preparation for a date.
The Doctor ignored her.
***
Kathleen arrived home to the sound of soft piano music, and the aroma of scented candles. She breathed in their scent, felt calm and satisfied, then closed the door behind her.
Sinead had kept the curtains open, so that she could watch the sun set over the row of houses in front of her as she played. She smiled at her mother, but her multi-tasking skills let her down; she hit a duff note, stopped for a second and started playing again.
“That one sounds beautiful, love.” Kathleen squeezed her daughter softly on the shoulder, and squinted at the sheet she was reading from – not that it would make any sense to her. “What’s this one for?”
“Pleasure. Haven’t got any gigs lined up. Turn.”
Kathleen, used to her daughter’s sharp instructions by now, quickly turned to the next page for her.
“Ta.” Sinead got her bearings smoothly on the next page, and re-engaged in conversation. “It’s Ravel, by the way. Part two of the piano concerto.”
“It’s a very nice one.”
Kathleen began to amble into the kitchen. Her daughter called back again.
“There’s a tea for you out in the dining room, ma.”
“Thanks, love.”
“You’d best get ready for that date of yours.”
“So had you,” teased Kathleen. Sinead had already changed into a dark dress, longer than her usual choice. By her standards, that practically screamed special occasion.
“Wait until I finish this piece. Then I’ll come in and kill you…”
Kathleen laughed, and took a sip of her tea.
"Oh, there was a woman who popped by looking for you earlier," added Sinead. "Quite old, actually. Said her name was... ah, bugger, I can't remember it now. Some old name. Said she'd pop back round another time."
Kathleen wondered who the woman was. An old patient, perhaps? Somehow, she already knew it wasn't.
***
The Doctor returned to the TARDIS console, not looking back at Susan, who was protesting far more than usual.
“Please, grandfather!” she urged. “I’m so tired. We’ve been travelling all day. And the TARDIS deserves a break too…”
The old man turned round, his eyebrows raised in a disbelief that was very nearly amusement. “The TARDIS, child? This planet has made you hysterical! The ship can carry on for much… much longer journeys than either of us is capable of.”
“Grandfather…”
“Enough, child!”
The Doctor pulled a lever on the TARDIS console, and stared at the time rotor in awe. It was the one place that still impressed him. The sound never got old. It was the sound of his real home, not that place he hailed from, that planet which had somehow claimed that he belonged to it.
“Hmm…”
Suddenly, the time rotor stopped. The Doctor saw Susan’s face through it, momentarily, just as confused as his own. Then, the lights went out too.
A moment later, they flickered back on. But the time rotor did not return to its healthy rhythms. In fact, it was not moving at all.
“Oh dear…”
The Doctor was scrambling now, his hands searching for the right dials and buttons, not sure which one actually covered this sort of thing.
“No, no, this cannot be… this…”
“Grandfather?” Susan stepped forward. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s the ship, child!” He stopped trying at last, and took a step back, gazing almost beyond the walls of the ship. He raised a couple of fingers to his chin, and opened his eyes wide in terror. “It seems that we are trapped on his world!”
***
The singer in the bar was beginning to grow tired, and kept gesturing to the guitar case at her feet for generous donations. Paradoxically, she was singing about how unstoppable she was.
Most of the seats were around the bar, which was four times longer than the usual sort. The chairs, too, were four times comfier. Sinead saw Niamh sipping from a glass, staring on at nothing like every cliché ever.
She was adorable.
Sinead laughed to herself, sitting down, and Niamh looked around, startled.
“Sinead…” She became conscious of this woman before her, and ran her eyes up and down her quickly. “Wow, you look beautiful.”
***
Kathleen fiddled uneasily with her menu. In all her forty-eight years, she had never once dined alone, and now she realised why.
Everyone was staring at her, she was sure of it. Wondering who this woman was, and what she had done to deserve this. It must have been something pretty bad, surely.
Even Kathleen was beginning to wonder…
It was tempting to get up now, hand back her menu and apologise, or just discreetly head out, no looking back. But then, that would have been even more embarrassing.
A text came in, and she checked her phone.
Unknown
| Is this Kathleen Brady? I ran by your house earlier, but you weren't in. Would it be possible to speak?
Kathleen typed out a reply.
| Who are you?
With that, she put her phone away again, and picked up the menu.
Quattro formaggio, it read. It sounded delectable. The Italian musician audible on the speakers agreed, or sounded like he did. Kathleen briefly wondered whether she could get away with a meal for one, but was saved the risk when her date sat down opposite her.
Kathleen opened her mouth to speak, but in the heat of the moment, forgot his name.
“Nick!” she said, suddenly, louder than she had meant to, when she remembered.
“Kathleen.” The man, well-dressed, clean-shaven and a couple of years older than her, offered a handshake. Kathleen reciprocated, taken aback by the formality. A true gentleman.
Dirty bugger! Orla was chatting away inside her head.
“It’s lovely to meet you at last.” A waitress came past and gave Nick his own menu, which he effortlessly proceeded to open and examine. The Italian man’s song ended, and some smooth jazz began to play.
It was like the restaurant was doing everything Nick asked. Kathleen found herself jealous of his natural charm, but also drawn to it.
“I’m thinking of trying the quattro formaggio,” declared Nick, winning over Kathleen’s heart. He moved his finger down the list of dishes. “I hear the pizzas here are delectable.”
***
“How’s your ma?” asked Niamh. The barman passed by, and she gave him a wave. He returned to serve her, like a well-trained pet. “Another two glasses, please.”
The barman nodded. “Coming right up.”
“Ma’s not too bad,” answered Sinead. “Getting better.”
“Last time we spoke, it sounded pretty bad.”
“I over-exaggerate, you know what I’m like. She just seems to get very… taken away by it all.”
“You would too,” said Niamh. “In a job like hers.”
“True. Still, I think she needs to start looking for something else, before it eats her up.”
***
“That’s all, thanks.”
The waiter smiled at Kathleen and Nick, as if knowing something they didn’t, and swiftly left. Kathleen rested her arms back on the table.
“So,” began Nick. “You mentioned you had family. A daughter, was it?”
“Yes, Sinead. Good soul, she is. Twenty-five just a few days ago, though it hardly seems possible, when you look back through all the baby albums. She’s out tonight, too.”
“On a date? If she’s anything like her mother, he’s a lucky fella.”
“Lass,” corrected Kathleen, and Nick seemed unaffected. She added his response to her list of good things about him so far. “And she is. She’s a sweetheart. So’s her girlfriend. Popped over to see me earlier, just me, while Sinead was at work. Sinead’s…” Kathleen decided how much to say, and settled on an element of ambiguity. “Let’s just say, she’s in for a surprise.”
“A surprise?”
“As we speak.”
***
“Will you marry me?”
Sinead gasped, as did half the bar. They were waiting anxiously for Sinead’s response, and only one answer would do for them.
Bugger, thought Niamh and Sinead at once. Niamh had intended to say it quieter, and Sinead had intended to see something like this coming.
They both saw each other’s expression, and understood.
“No, you old cow,” said Sinead. There were a few groans from around the bar, and everyone resumed their business. Sinead winked at Niamh, and added, in a whisper: “Yes.”
Niamh laughed at the frenzy her girlfriend had caused around the bar. She remembered what it was about her that had made her want to ask the question in the first place.
***
“Exactly!” laughed Kathleen, taking another slice of pizza, the cheesiest she could find. “You’ve got to see the light in these things.”
“Well, that’s just it,” agreed Nick. “Otherwise, you only end up getting sad about them. And come on, it is funny. To think it was the milkman, of all people!” He stopped laughing, and seemed to ponder something. “Do they even have milkmen anymore?”
“We had one. Came at about midnight every night, we never saw him. By morning the stuff had gone off. What kind of milkman turns up at midnight?”
“The vampire milkman. That’s how they like their victims… semi-skinned.”
Nick cringed at his own joke. It was the worst thing he’d ever heard. Kathleen laughed, noticing his face.
“Oh, I love awkward people.”
“I’m not awkward!”
“You sure about that?” asked Kathleen, as Nick dropped his fork on the floor. His disguise was fading. The real clumsy nutter was beginning to surface, and Kathleen thought she liked him even better.
Her phone buzzed once, and she knew who it was at once.
Sinead
| You knew about this didn’t you? You rascal ma. Said yes anyway just to keep the mad cow happy xxx
Kathleen laughed softly at her daughter’s sense of humour. “Bless her.”
“Sorry?”
She realised she had cut Nick out.
“Oh, sorry.” She held up the phone for him to read. “That’s my daughter.”
“Oh, that’s great!” Nick beamed. As Kathleen began to turn the phone back her way, it started ringing. It was one her colleagues. She decided to answer.
“Won’t be a moment,” she murmured, and rushed to the toilet. “Christine,” she said, once the door was shut behind her. Another soft jazz track still sounded faintly from outside. “What’s up?”
“Kathleen.”
Kathleen sighed, and hit her head against the wall gently. She knew what that voice meant.
“Are you busy at the moment? I don’t want to interrupt anything…”
“I’m at home,” Kathleen lied. “On my own.”
“Okay, that’s good. Kathleen, it’s Orla, your patient. I thought I should ring to tell you. She passed away a couple of hours ago. I’m sorry, I know you were…”
“It’s fine,” said Kathleen, abruptly. She noticed her own voice getting sharper. “Just make sure her husband’s all right. Tell him I’ll be over tomorrow, that okay?”
“Yeah. If you need to talk…”
“I know where you are, yup. Thanks for letting me know about this, Christine.”
“No worries.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Kathleen ended the call, and ran some cool water in the washroom sink to calm her face. When she was happy with how she looked, she returned to her table, not sitting down, and went through her purse, passing Nick enough money for the whole meal.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and lifted her bag. “This was a mistake. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”
And with that, before Nick could make her hurt any more by putting up a fight, Kathleen left the restaurant.
***
The Doctor’s moment of fear and still contemplation had only lasted a heartbeat. He was already back at the controls, already searching and sighing and hmming until he found a way out of his situation, until he was free.
Singulotempaphobia, or the fear of being isolated in a single time-stream. Many Time Lords suffered from it, the Doctor more than most. To most of the rest of the universe, it was simply called life.
“Grandfather, you know as well as I do that the controls are jammed. The TARDIS will never fly again, or at least not as long as it’s stuck like this. What are you trying to do?”
“You’re quite right child,” said the Doctor, surprising her, “quite right. The TARDIS will never fly again, as long as it is stuck like this!” He crouched down, ducked under the console unit, and began to fiddle with some wires, or whatever it was he had found underneath.
“Which is why,” he continued, illustrating his point, “I am currently attempting to locate the source of the disturbance, so that I can locate the fault in the…” he realised he had stopped making sense. “I mean, so that I can locate the point of disturbance.”
“You mean you’re trying to find where the disturbance is coming from?”
“Precisely!” The Doctor let out a little giggle, as he did infrequently. “Though there is just one thing, child, that you are missing. You see, the – OW, YOU SILLY BUFFER!” He thumped the console unit, and the TARDIS wheezed a little. On his way up, he had hit the back of his head on the corner of the console. Susan tried to contain her laughter.
“Yes…” the Doctor stood up and frowned, before looking around the room sternly, trying unsuccessfully to regain his dignity. “As I was saying, we… sorry, what was it that I was saying again?”
Susan chuckled, and looked up lovingly at her grandfather. She loved him especially at times like this, when by trying to show his harsher side, his softer core only became more obvious. “We were talking about the point of disturbance.”
“Ah. Yes!” The Doctor pointed sharply upwards with one finger. “You see, child, the point of disturbance may be a place, but it may also be a time. Something has caused the TARDIS to become fixed in one particular time-stream, but not necessarily something within its immediate temporal proximity!”
“And you think you know how to find the time of the disturbance?”
“Think?” The Doctor gripped his lapels, and chuckled. “Hm-hm! I know I know how to find the time of the disturbance. It is the only other location the TARDIS is able to travel to, and it should be revealed to us any moment…” The screen flickered, and a set of coordinates flashed up on it. “…now.”
“Where is it?”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “I have no idea, no idea at all… no idea of why this time would cause a disturbance. Civilisation is practically prehistoric! And technology…”
“Grandfather….” Susan tried not to grow impatient with the old man. “Where is it?”
“This very planet’s recent past, Susan. To be precise… Shoreditch, on the 23rd of November, 1963.”
***
Kathleen walked across Ha’penny Bridge, miserably, as amorous couples and groups of students filed past her, preparing for long nights ahead.
For Kathleen, it was home from here, and even that would be insufficient. She felt unappreciative. But she also felt…
She tried not to think of it, as she passed under another lantern, and approached the end of the bridge. But she felt angry. Angry at the universe, at God, at bloody Cthulu, or whatever was responsible for the way sequences of events occurred, for why two things happened in the way they did on the same night, the good and the bad meeting at loggerheads and both turning their backs and giving up on their plans.
For one brief moment in Kathleen Brady’s life, there was no point to anything.
And then she saw it.
At the bottom of the bridge, by the entrance to an unlit side-street, a thing that had never been there before and shouldn’t have been there now.
A blue police telephone box, straight out of the 1950s. Or as she knew it today, a TARDIS.
It could have been a gimmick. They’d shown Dr. Who on television a couple of times recently, released an updated Blu-Ray version of it too, just for the middle-class die-hards. But it was a strange place to put it. If one in twenty people had seen Dr. Who, none of them would, in all likelihood, find it here.
Which made it particularly perplexing, intriguing, and a little bit frustrating. Considering those emotions, it really could have been a TARDIS.
She found herself raising her hand to it. The moment she touched it, felt what it had to say, she recoiled instantly, and took a step back, gasping in the bitter autumn air.
It’s alive.
And then she realised she was stepping forward and pushing the door, and not only that, it was moving. The old fool had left it unlocked.
Dr Who…
As she murmured his name under her breath, she found herself inside the TARDIS, a ship not unlike the one on her television, except paler and more symmetrical, with one hexagonal console in the centre of the room, and roundels rather than wires across the walls. She preferred it this way.
And there was an old man working at the console with his back to her, probably calling himself Dr Who, and a young woman next to him, probably calling herself Barbara.
It had to have been a joke. It was a good one; she would admit that much.
“What the hell is this?” Kathleen laughed, uncertainly. The two of them turned around, as if they weren’t expecting her.
“How did you get in here?” shouted the Doctor, immediately storming over, not to Kathleen, but to the door, and slamming it shut behind him.
“You left it unlocked.”
“I did not!” The Doctor stamped his foot defensively.
The woman who was probably Barbara stepped forward, cutting in awkwardly. “Um, grandfather, you sort of did…”
“Hmph!” The old man thought fleetingly about what to do next, and decided to confront the stranger. “Now listen here, just because my door is unlocked does not mean you have a right to take advantage of that! Creeping up on an old man, breaking into my home. You don’t strike me as an opportunistic thief, but who knows what the world breeds today!”
Kathleen took a moment to process that, looking from “Dr. Who” to “Barbara”, before cracking up in hysterical laughter.
“Oh, my God. This is brilliant.” The Doctor didn’t seem to agree, but Kathleen carried on anyway, and even started clapping. “Absolutely brilliant. Wait a minute…” She placed a hand on her hip. “Was this Sinead’s idea? Eh? Come on, I’m too smart for this.”
“Will you stop chattering?!” barked the Doctor. “This is becoming insufferable! What is your business with us, hmm?”
“Dr Who,” stated Kathleen. And, as she expected, the old man was left open-mouthed. “And Barbara.”
“Barbara?” exclaimed the young woman.
Kathleen bit her lip. “No…?”
“My name is Susan.”
“Susan?” chuckled Kathleen. “No, love, you’re too old to be Susan. The casting a bit of a last-minute job, was it?” The two were speechless. “You’ve gone for an interesting take on the TARDIS, though. Wonder what the take-off effects would be like… if I were you, though, I’d have gone for a bit more colour. But hey, I’m in a bad mood. This is brilliant.” She shook her head, incredulous. “Absolutely brilliant. Proper, old-fashioned Dr Who, I so nearly fell for it. Love how you’ve varied it, but kept the original premise intact.”
The Doctor shared a bemused look with Susan. “Perhaps the TARDIS translation circuits are playing up,” he muttered. “Or perhaps she’s just mad. Get behind me, child. She might be dangerous…”
“Okay, come on,” started Kathleen. “This was fun, but a friend of mine has just died. I want to go home now, and I want to sit down with a cup of tea and talk to my daughter. So who put you up to this?”
“Put us up to this?” inquired the Doctor.
“Yes.” Kathleen was apparently no longer amused. “Someone’s idea of a joke, and an expensive one at that.”
“This is no one’s joke but yours,” the Doctor said, accusingly. “And since you seem to think you know both our names and identities, the risk of letting you back into the world where you can share that information is too high! No…” he huffed, and turned back to the console. “I am afraid you will have to stay.”
“There’s a film called Dr Who and the Daleks, Kathleen stated, directly. “Dr Who is played by a guy called Peter Cushing, and Susan Foreman is played by a little girl. It’s one of my favourite movies because it was the first film I ever got to see in colour. And this is a parody.”
“A parody?!” exclaimed the Doctor, as if this were the worst thing Kathleen had said all night. “How dare you call this complex piece of machinery a parody of some, some… half-rate, money-grabbing piece of entertainment from your own civilisation. Hmph! A parody indeed!”
It wasn’t working, and the man was now bordering on the neurotic. Realising that he had locked the door behind him, Kathleen decided to change her tone.
“Okay,” she said, doubtfully. “Let’s say you’re Dr Who and this is your TARDIS.”
“Just the Doctor, thank you, but quite right! Though what concern that is of yours…”
“And,” interjected Kathleen, “let’s say I’m going to go along with that, not because I believe it but because you clearly…” she ran her eyes up and down the pair of them, judgementally. “…want me to. Then what’s the problem, 'doctor'? What are you doing here, and where are all the Daleks?”
“Daleks?” The Doctor seemed puzzled. His continuity apparently hadn’t gotten that far yet, which baffled Kathleen a bit. She failed to understand how someone had thought they could recreate Dr. Who without the Daleks.
“Okay, scratch that, don’t worry about the Daleks. What’s happening? TARDIS trapped on a dangerous alien world? Oh wait, we’re in Dublin. Well, close enough.” Kathleen started laughing to herself again, infuriating the Doctor and amusing Susan.
“Since you may well continue wittering on until I provide an explanation, the answer is that the TARDIS is trapped here – probably some fault of your own, I would think – and Susan and I are about to venture to the year 1963, though now that you are here, that changes our situation somewhat…”
“Does it?” Kathleen let that one hang in the air. She saw Susan’s eyes widen, and smiled at the fact that the young woman had worked it out herself, without her grandfather prodding and patronising her every step of the way. “Go on, Susan.”
“Well you said it yourself grandfather,” said Susan, nervously. “She knows too much, we can’t let her leave. So… if we’re going to the source of the disturbance, we have no choice but to take her with us.”
The Doctor exploded. “Take her with us?! This is… unthinkable, it’s… oh, very well! But remember, child, this was your decision. I gave you the freedom, and you will bear the consequences. Hmm!” He began to mutter to himself again, as he started to pilot the ship. “Take her with us indeed…”
The TARDIS hummed, and shook slightly. Kathleen’s heart skipped a beat, and she grabbed a roundel on the wall. “Blimey, this is a realistic simulator.”
“1963,” said the Doctor, simply. “Susan, fetch a bag. The lady here may want to breathe into one.” He laughed at his joke.
“My name is Kathleen. Whoever put you up to this should have told you that. But I suppose if you’d said it, you’d have given away the act, am I right?”
The Doctor was ignoring her now. Susan returned with a bag, fully aware that it existed not to give Kathleen some dignity, but to help inflate her grandfather’s lofty ego. The Doctor slowly opened the door, and Kathleen attempted to peer through, waiting in anticipation for the punchline.
Outside, she could see that they had moved, somehow, somewhere. Kathleen pushed past and took a step out, just to ascertain where they were.
She could almost make out the London skyline in the distance, or what little of it there was in 1963. Somehow, this wasn’t Dublin. It wasn’t even the present day.
The street in front of her was ancient and dilapidated, the kind that should have been demolished years back. There were fewer cars on the road, save for a couple of retro ones parked here and there.
Which weren’t retro. Not here. Not now.
“You can’t have…” Kathleen looked away from the houses, and back at the TARDIS, running her hand around the outside. It was parked a good few metres from the nearest building. There were no springs or mirrors. “We’ve… we’ve actually…”
“Travelled in time.” Susan laughed. “I know, it takes a long time to get your head around that.”
“November 1963, to be precise,” said the Doctor. He seemed to have softened a bit, set at ease by Kathleen’s awe, which had given him back his bit of superiority. “Far away, the Vietnam War rages on, with a coup d’état against the Dinh Nhu and Dinh Diem brothers, who are subsequently killed. There are the Omuta disasters in Japan… and the Beatles’ second album.” He delivered that last one as if it was the greatest tragedy of them all. “Last night, on November 22nd, President Kennedy was assassinated.”
“Next month,” murmured Kathleen, “my ma gets married…”
The Doctor chuckled. “Quite! You’re rather getting the hang of this now. We have travelled through the fourth dimension.”
“I’d say it’s a dream…” Kathleen ran a hand up the brickwork of a nearby house. “But I know my dreams, and this isn’t one of them. If this is a prank, I’ve fallen for it. And if it isn’t…”
There was no simple way to express what that would mean.
“You know a lot about this world,” Kathleen remarked, suddenly aware of the accuracy of the Doctor’s historical summary.
“Oh, do be quiet,” snapped the Doctor, back to being his old self.
Kathleen smirked. “You can tell which of us is the doctor, and which of us the nurse.”
“And what are you insinuating by that, hmm?”
“Bedside manner,” whispered Kathleen, looking at Susan. The girl giggled. It was unusual to be able to share an inside joke with anyone except her grandfather, who as a rule of thumb didn’t do jokes anyway.
“Hmm. We don’t have all night. Let us press on.”
The Doctor led them down a narrow straight, and through onto a busier thoroughfare. At this time in 2016, Kathleen thought, the streets would have been packed. Now, there were only a couple of people wandering in the night, two vagrants on the end of the street. The Doctor, Kathleen noticed, was navigating past them carefully, towards a larger, square building at the end of the road.
“That looks like a library,” observed Susan. She had seen enough of them in her time to know what one looked like.
“Very astute, child,” said the Doctor. “Yes, this is the exact source of the disturbance! I think it a wise idea that we split up at this stage, hmm? I shall go alone as I do not require either of your assistance; Susan, you may go with Charlene.”
“Kathleen,” sighed Kathleen.
“Hmm, yes. Very well.” The Doctor went to break in to the library, but the door moved to his touch, just as the TARDIS’s had to Kathleen’s. Perhaps, like the TARDIS, it had been left unlocked by its owner. Or perhaps there was another explanation…
They split up, as instructed.
***
“You’re a quiet one,” marvelled Kathleen, as she and Susan slowly explored the dimly-lit aisles of the first floor. “Full of intelligence, but you don’t speak much.”
“I speak when I need to,” replied Susan, with surprising truth. “Or when grandfather needs me to, even if he doesn’t always want me to.”
“And are you happy with your grandfather?”
“Yes.” Susan turned to Kathleen, perplexed, as if she had asked a ridiculous question. “He cares for me, and he’s one of my own kind. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“One day,” began Kathleen, “you’ll learn that your kind doesn’t mean your species, it just means people like you. Don’t you ever look at all those young people with faces and even minds like yours, and wish you were with them?”
“Well, I suppose, sometimes…”
“Don’t you want friends of your own age? Boyfriends or girlfriends? And teachers?”
Susan nodded, sadly.
“If you want to settle somewhere,” Kathleen finished, “your grandfather will have to let you. You have a right to ask him for that.”
“You mentioned a film,” said Susan, changing the topic quickly. “Doctor Who, was it?”
“Yes. Dr Who and the Daleks An actor called Peter Cushing played… well…” Kathleen looked behind her. “Your grandfather.”
Susan lowered her voice to a murmur. “Don’t tell him. Grandfather, I mean.”
“He already knows.”
“But he’ll forget.” Susan tapped her nose surreptitiously, like one who pretended to have more insight than she did. “So long as you don’t bring it up again. Considering I also supposedly feature in it, and I’m new to this world, the film is probably about events which haven’t happened yet. If grandfather finds out about them now, it could change the course of those events.”
Kathleen nodded. “I get it. Sci-fi logic. I’ve seen…”
She was about to say Dr Who, but stopped herself.
“Is it a good film?” asked Susan, a question so straightforward that Kathleen found herself faintly entertained by it.
“Yes,” Kathleen chuckled. “Yes, love, I suppose it is. Not the best, or the deepest. But it gave a lot of kids hope during a dark time, made a lot of people’s lives better. Sometimes that’s more important than being accurate or faithful to your source material, isn’t it?”
Susan nodded. By source material, she realised, Kathleen was talking about Susan, her grandfather, and their home. She had never seen her life that way: something to be watched and interpreted by others, changed until it became unrecognisable, except for its deepest essence. That would terrify grandfather, but Susan liked it. It was, after all, how Time Lords lived their lives.
***
The Doctor had found himself in an aisle filled with Earth’s classic literature. But he was also certain that there was something with them in the library now – a hunter, perhaps, that had lured them here to make mincemeat of them. Still, at least he would die in the company of Chaucer, Capote, Conan Doyle, Camus, Carroll, and everyone else important whose name began with a C.
On all the worlds he had visited, there had always been libraries. Libraries were one of the first signs of civilisation: the need to record, revisit, and remember. Some were entirely digital, accessed by a plug at the back of the neck (a surgical procedure the Doctor had nearly been executed for refusing). Others were like this. And on some worlds, those in their earlier days, libraries were not places, but people: those wise old members of the tribe who remembered, interpreted and shared their civilisation’s history and traditions in the form of their oldest stories.
There were libraries on Gallifrey, vast catalogues of all the great and terrible things that had happened, as well as those that hadn’t: events that took place in parallel universes on adjacent shelves.
One sweep along the aisle and becoming a time traveller looked easy. By the time the Doctor realised that it wasn’t, it was already too late to turn back.
The Doctor snapped out of his thoughts. He was sure he could hear footsteps nearby, and not Kathleen’s or Susan’s.
A louder noise silenced his suspicions, as the sound of gunfire rang out across the library.
***
It wasn’t just one gunshot, either.
“Get down!”
Kathleen pulled Susan to the floor. Bullets skimmed over their heads, and a graphic novel fell from its stand.
The pair made for a parallel aisle, crawling at a rate of knots on their knees. Some bullets bounced off the shelves, ricocheting up the staircase.
“Other way,” hissed Susan, and Kathleen agreed and followed her.
***
The Doctor lifted his arm to shield himself, and bent over as he ran, nearly doing in his back. He had lost track of where he was, but a quick glance told him that he’d now reached Orwell.
“Oh, do stop firing!” he complained, and used an ancient volume to swat a fly. The gunfire ceased, and then resumed, but this time, in his direction.
***
“There’s grandfather!” whispered Susan to Kathleen, watching the Doctor desperately running – or more like skipping – up an aisle.
“What in God’s name is he doing?” asked Kathleen, under her breath. “This is a bit different to the film.”
“I should go and help him,” Susan responded.
“Let me. You’re just a girl.”
Susan furrowed her brow in astonishment. “And you’re an old woman!”
“Less of the old, thank you very much. And besides, I’ve got what you might call…”
Kathleen stood up, surveyed her surroundings, and suddenly ducked down again as a bullet flew straight over her head. Once she had dodged it, she stood back up as quickly and smoothly as she had crouched down.
“…experience.”
As Susan still struggled to comprehend this woman’s transformation from hospice nurse to fighter, she watched Kathleen run up the Doctor’s aisle. When he saw this, Susan saw his eyes widen in alarm.
“Get down, wo-“
Kathleen jumped forward, knocking the Doctor to the floor. Several rounds of gunfire passed over them.
Kathleen Brady had saved the Doctor’s life. And, from what Susan could see, he didn’t know what to make of it.
She dashed forward to help them, and stopped in her tracks. She could hear the attacker’s movements, its footsteps moving closer, to their right. The Doctor and Kathleen hadn’t noticed, and Susan didn't have time to explain it.
Slowly, Susan lifted a sizable book from a shelf, and crept up to the end of the aisle, holding it up in front of her, cautiously. She counted the seconds, in synchrony with the footsteps, under her breath.
“Three…”
Tap tap tap…
“Two…”
Tap tap tap…
“One…”
Tap tap tap…
The Doctor turned, suddenly, realising what Susan was doing, and began to charge in her direction.
“NO, CHILD, D-.”
The attacker turned the corner, and Susan clobbered him with the book. There was a thwuck as the man and the volume made contact, and then he fell to the floor, unconscious.
The Doctor was in a state of shock, but Kathleen grinned.
“Susan Foreman, you are good!” She took the book from Susan, who was shaking slightly. “Saved our lives by clobbering a man over the head…” she examined the title, and smirked. “…with War and Peace. Well, there’s a classic example of irony, if ever I saw one."
With the care it deserved, Kathleen placed Tolstoy’s novel back on a shelf, albeit the wrong one.
“Was he firing at us?” asked Susan.
“I’m not so sure.” Cautiously, the Doctor edged closer to the soldier on the floor. He wore a black uniform, well-padded and a little too advanced for 1963. The Doctor crouched down. A word was written stylistically across the badge, like a company logo. “Destiny,” the Doctor read, and stroked his chin. “Hmmm…”
The travellers went quiet, and another sound became audible. A few aisles across from them, there was another intruder in the library. But judging by his whimpers, this one wasn’t a threat.
The three of them rushed over. The man was lying against a bookshelf, using it for support. He wore a simple brown jacket and trousers. A man of his time. Except…
Except for the extra eye on his forehead.
Kathleen knelt down, and checked his pulse. As she manoeuvred him into a more comfortable position, it occurred to her that there was no blood.
“Hang on a minute…” she unbuttoned the jacket, and the shirt underneath. His chest was unscathed. “He wasn’t shot. Why’s he like this…”
“I…” the man croaked. “The disturbance…”
The Doctor and Susan joined Kathleen in crouching over him.
“That monster!” exclaimed the Doctor. “That soldier, he was aiming at you.”
The man nodded gravely. “Creating… disturbance…”
“The soldier? Was the soldier causing the disturbance?”
This time, the man shook his head. Susan gasped.
“I think I know what he’s trying to tell us.”
“Ah, yes.” The Doctor patted Susan on the shoulder. “My granddaughter possesses some telepathic abilities!”
“No, I just worked it out.”
“Oh, I see. Very well…”
“He is causing the disturbance,” explained Susan, gesturing to the three-eyed man. “The soldier was trying to kill him, for that reason.”
“Susan!” cried the Doctor. “You’re right! I hardly recognised this fellow at first. He’s from the planet Time.”
“There’s a planet called Time?” asked Kathleen.
“Quite! It was created in, in… oh, child, you explain.”
“The planet Time was created during a major temporal incursion,” Susan elaborated. “Two times crossed together, and from the resulting cataclysm emerged a planet, called Time, full of time energy, or rather artron energy. All that planet’s species rely on that artron energy to survive. Sometimes tiny wormholes are generated on the planet’s surface, due to the intensity of this artron energy. And this poor man has obviously ended up trapped here, like…”
“…a fish out of water,” finished Kathleen, understanding.
“Except this fish is able to do something which other fish cannot!” interjected the Doctor. “In the absence of artron energy – his food – the man leached onto my ship, and began to consume the TARDIS’s artron energy, hence our inability to move. Except it’s taking too long for him to absorb enough of the energy he needs. This world is not right for him, and not even our ship is enough to keep him going in it. Yes. I fear… he is dying.”
“Can’t we save him?” begged Susan. “Grandfather, the TARDIS has a medical bay…”
“No!” snapped the Doctor. “We cannot risk it, child. If this man carries on living any longer, he will consume the ship’s artron energy completely. It will never be able to fly again!”
“But grandfather!”
“Enough, Susan!”
“Could you really do it?” asked Kathleen. “Kill a man from that rare planet?”
The Doctor considered this for a moment. “To save the ship… I fear we must allow him to perish.”
“Okay.” Kathleen swallowed, and took a deep breath. “Okay.” She then leant forward, brushing the man’s hair out of his eyes. She could see the third eye clearer, now: it was sea-blue, like the other two, and regarded her with fascination. “What’s your name?” Kathleen asked.
“Tarmijee,” wheezed the man.
Kathleen looked back over at the Doctor. “Could you kill Tarmijee?”
The Doctor bit his lip, and sighed. “No. I fear I cannot.”
“At the rate things are going, either Tarmijee dies, or the TARDIS dies.” Kathleen stood up. “Which means we need to get him back home – and soon.”
“The longer he spends in the ship, the quicker he draws its energy. It may not make the journey!”
“Well then,” said Kathleen. “We’d better be quick.”
***
“You’ll be okay. Just hang on in there for me.”
The Doctor had wheeled a bed into the console room, giving Tarmijee some comfort, in case he did not survive the journey. Kathleen sat by his side, reassuring him, in the voice of someone who had done it before, but never quite like this.
The alien was burning up, and the TARDIS wasn’t doing much better. It took ten whole minutes for the Doctor to pilot it to Tarmijee’s home-world, using the remaining residue of the wormhole which had brought him here in the first place.
Susan stood between them: the old man piloting his ship and the human woman, giving everything up for a man she didn’t even know. She was torn between them, and felt an empathy for both of them stir inside her.
The TARDIS landed. The Doctor rushed over to the door and opened it. Carefully, the two women helped Tarmijee off his bed, and carried him out.
“Thank you,” he breathed, as they lifted him out of their world and back into his own. “Thank you…”
The heat and humidity hit Kathleen straight away, as if she had stepped off a plane into a hot and steamy tropical country. They were parked in a green clearing, surrounded by clusters of trees. Large, heavy leaves swung from them, covered with fresh droplets of water. The Doctor reached up, and pulled a fruit from one of the trees.
Some small, azure-coloured birds were singing a song above him, flying in intricate patterns like a dance which mirrored their harmonies.
The Doctor bit into the fruit, and seemed excited. “Hmm! Quite delicious. Kathleen...”
Kathleen smiled. The old man had remembered her name. As a gesture of thanks, she took the fruit, and tried a bite herself. It was like a really good peach, the kind you’d only get on the hottest summer’s day, ripe and full of juice.
This was it. The planet Time.
“I’m just going to venture a little further on,” said the Doctor, walking on ahead. “I’d like to see the locals, ensure our friend is getting the best possible treatment…”
And then he was gone, disappearing into the shrubs.
“He has the capacity to be so kind,” remarked Susan. “But sometimes, he just isn’t. Why was he so willing to let Tarmijee die until you stopped him? Why couldn’t he just see this from the start?”
“Battle of the Falls, love,” replied Kathleen. Susan frowned, puzzled. Kathleen went on. “July, 1970. I was about three or four years old, I suppose, but I remember it like it was yesterday. My home, in the suburbs of Belfast.” She chuckled to herself. “You wouldn’t think it, would you? You can’t hear a bit of it in me now, I sound like born-and-bred Dublin, but I wasn’t even born in the country. Northern Irish, me. I just got out as soon as I could, that’s all.”
Susan didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, but was pulled in all the same. Something about the stories Kathleen told didn’t need to make sense to be worth listening to.
“There was a lot of conflict at the time,” Kathleen explained. “That was why my childhood was so rough. We just called it… ‘The Troubles’. You don’t need to know the ins and outs. We lived in this place called the Falls. There was a military operation, per se, and I guess… everyone just got fed up.” She sighed. Kathleen certainly sounded fed up. “Kids started attacking the soldiers, and I don’t mean the kind of thing you’re thinking about. We’re talking petrol bombs, stones, that kind of thing. The soldiers responded with tear gas. A conflict erupted, and they sealed us off. Curfew, they called it.” She shook her head.
“I’ve never seen a curfew like it,” she continued. “Soldiers marched into our homes. My daddy was beaten. I saw it all. And Christ, we were hungry. Then, couple of days later, people from Andersonstown turned up. Women and children, marching in with food, drink, everything we needed. They ended the curfew. Ordinary people… men, women. And it was then, Susan, that I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be like them. Ending wars with bags of groceries, helping children, because I could. And look at me now. Nearly fifty years old, and I’m a hospice nurse. These things stay with you. The doctor…”
She looked back to the shrubs. The Doctor was coming back; she could see the shape of him, in the distance.
“…maybe no one’s helped him like that before. Maybe no one’s ever shown him that kindness. But one day, someone will, I’m sure of it, and that will change him forever, like it did me. Anyway, shh. He’s coming back.”
Susan took a deep breath, and processed Kathleen’s narrative. The Doctor returned, a little out of breath, and opened the TARDIS doors again.
“Come on, then. Time to take our human friend here back home.”
***
“Dublin, 2016,” read the Doctor from the TARDIS scanner. “Quite fortunate. The effect our alien friend had on the craft was to tie it to the three times, you see… 2016, 1963, and the present of the planet Time. Which makes it easy for me to navigate amongst those three specific time-streams – if nowhere else!” He let out a giggle, and Susan and Kathleen exchanged a smirk. Kathleen may as well get rid of her old DVDs. This man was entertainment enough.
The Doctor landed his ship, and Kathleen hoped that he had gotten the year right.
“Kathleen,” said the Doctor, and actually looked at her, as in normal conversation, perhaps for the first time all night. “I would like to…” Some words were pushing their way out of his mouth, and he was having trouble letting them pass. “Thank you.”
“Oh.” Kathleen blinked, startled. “Well, you’re welcome. It was an honour to meet you, doctor.”
“I shan’t ask how you know my name, or how you knew of my ship… I saw your kindness today, Kathleen, and for that, I trust you. Besides, I have other things to be suspicious of. That soldier fellow we saw at the library, who had vanished by the time I looked back. ‘Destiny’, his label had read, and I cannot be sure of what he wanted with our alien friend. No, Kathleen, I was wrong about you. You may leave.”
“And what about you?” asked Kathleen, sounding genuinely concerned. “Are you just going to run again? Or are you going to stay?”
The Doctor had no answer. Susan glanced hopefully between them, praying that Kathleen’s persuasion would be as strong as it had been last time.
“Stay,” repeated Kathleen, this time as an imperative. “Stay on our planet. It’s a good world, you’ll fit in. Susan will be able to make friends her own age. There’s a place for you here.”
“Hmm…”
Susan felt butterflies in her stomach as the Doctor appeared, contrary to everything she had ever learnt about him, to consider the proposal. But seconds later, he waved his arm dismissively, and gestured at the door.
“I do appreciate your concern,” he said, “I really do. But this is not our world. No. We must go on…”
“Okay.” Kathleen nodded. There was no protesting. She shared a sad smile with Susan, and hoped that one day she would find a home, even if the people had three eyes, and lived in trees instead of houses.
Anywhere could be home, no matter how strange or how far away it was from the place you were born.
And on that, Kathleen stepped out of the TARDIS, and back onto the streets of Dublin.
Home.
***
Kathleen arrived to a happier tune this time. It was something modern, something Mumford and Sons probably, made a hundred times better by Sinead’s rendition of it. As soon as Kathleen closed the door behind her, the music stopped, and her daughter ran into the hallway and embraced her.
“Mum, I’m engaged!” She nearly knocked Kathleen off her feet. She had been expecting the revelation, but not the hug. “I’m getting married!” She stepped back quickly, and started to compulsively clear up the hall, as she always did when she was excited. “You’re invited, and all my school-friends, and maybe dad. And I’m already arguing with Niamh over whether it should be a church wedding. Oh! How was your date?”
Well, that was one question.
“It was an eventful night,” said Kathleen, not lying. “But I’m not going to do it again.”
Sinead nodded. “I understand. Ooh, and I forgot, the phone rang. It was that old woman again, but I still didn't get her name. Said she tried to call you earlier but couldn't get through. She left an address, anyway, says she wants you to come and visit her as soon as you get the chance. I left the note by the phone cradle.”
“I’ll grab it later,” said Kathleen. She smiled. “Congratulations, sweetheart.”
***
Kathleen closed the door behind her. Sinead had invited friends round, and from downstairs came the sounds of celebration. Music played, glasses clinked, people laughed. Life went on, as it should. Kathleen sat down on the edge of her bed, and took out her phone, scrolling through the photos.
They were all taken before life had gone wrong. No, not wrong – before it had just gone strange. She checked the time on the wall, to make sure she hadn’t just woken up, and the whole thing hadn’t been some bizarre, pre-menopausal dream.
Then she found it. It was a picture Orla had asked her to take; one last photo with her husband, in their home, in case he never had the chance to get another one. He’d thought it was just any old photo. Kathleen had recognised the look in Orla’s eyes, the look she had seen so many times before, that told her it wasn’t.
But there they were, smiling. It was always the thing that amazed her. After everything they’d lost, everything they’d faced, in the final days of their life together, these people always found a way to smile.
Kathleen held the phone to her heart, and began to cry.
***
The next day, Kathleen grabbed her daughter's note, and found the address. It was a little suburban house, twee and tucked away on a little street, made for old people and opportunist thieves, just as the Doctor had accused Kathleen of being. She chuckled at that as she strode along the street, lowering her umbrella when she reached the house. Her encounter with the Doctor was already becoming a distant memory, something she could look back at and laugh about with fondness – even understand.
No. Never quite understand.
She rang the bell. Someone came to the door: an old, grey-haired but beautiful woman, and her husband – the gentle, smiling, anything-for-an-easy-life sort.
“Kathleen Brady,” said the woman, with a perceptive smile. “Come in.”
Kathleen stepped in. The house smelt of freshly-baked pastries. The man led her through to the living room, a small and cosy place with an old carpet, three chairs, and a steaming teapot with three cups on the table. She had indeed been expected, but that did not worry her. She took a seat on the chair nearest the window, and the old couple sat down.
“I apologise for my appalling manners,” said the woman, as if she had not just served spontaneous afternoon tea to a stranger. “Let us introduce ourselves. My name is Barbara, and this is my husband, Ian. We were friends of the Doctor, and together, we wrote Dr Who.”
Kathleen found herself grinning, as she always did when she figured things out. “It was you!” She put her hands to her face. “Oh my God, I thought I was going mad.”
Ian laughed. “Oh, I think most of the Doctor’s friends spend half their lives thinking that.”
“Towards the end of our travels with the Doctor,” Barbara explained, “Susan told us about you. Something you said to him, or did, had changed him. She didn’t seem sure what it was. But it was only because of what you said that he decided to stay on Earth.”
Kathleen wanted to punch the air, not for her own victory, but for the young woman’s. You go on, Susan, her mind was saying. You live your life.
“It was only by staying on Earth that he met us,” added Ian. “And without taking all the credit, well… that did start something, didn’t it Barbara?”
Barbara nodded, agreeing resolutely. “We wanted to ensure that he met us, so as soon as we arrived back, we began to work on a plan for the films. We knew a couple of producers – the Doctor introduced us to all sorts of famous figures in his time, so we were able to name-drop a few historical personages. Only those within our time, of course. We didn’t want to confuse our employers any further!”
Kathleen laughed.
“Susan had told us about the films,” Ian elaborated. “Based on what you’d told her. We knew you were a fan, so we knew it was the film that must have drawn you to the TARDIS in the first place. So we made them. They were okay, weren’t they? Not the most accurate, mind…”
“I loved them,” admitted Barbara, “but my husband is a perfectionist. I always said… the films brought people closer to the Doctor. Everyone who enjoyed the film, they were thanking him, in a way. And that was wonderful. Seeing the Doctor anywhere… that’s a wonderful thing. And we just thought, well…”
“We thought,” finished Ian, “that as long as we kept Dr Who in the world, people would remember that there was more out there. If we played it right. In the end, people didn’t need Dr Who for the reasons we thought. They needed it because it just made the world that little bit better.”
“And little did they know…” Barbara rested her hand on Ian’s knee. “The whole thing was true. But then, I suppose the distinction between fiction and non-fiction is incidental really, isn’t it? The things that change the world are real, whatever they call themselves. And I like to think that Dr Who changed the world.”
“Well,” quipped Kathleen, “it was definitely the making of Peter Cushing.”
The old couple laughed, and poured some more tea.
Kathleen looked out of the window, and smiled again. Ian was right. Walking into the TARDIS had made the world that little bit better. The sun seemed to shine brighter, smiles seemed to last longer. It was almost as if the rest of them knew as well, in their hearts, that the story of the disappearing blue box was as real as any other.
***
Susan was the first to the console this time, hand resting on some trivial switch, unmoving. She was staring down, not even at the time rotor as she usually did when feeling pensive, but at her own feet.
She always liked it when her feet touched the ground, outside. To feel a part of something, a part of another world, another people… it was something the Doctor would never understand, somehow.
“Where to next then, grandfather?” she asked wearily. “We should head off soon.”
“Yes, quite.” The Doctor marched into the console room and pressed a button. “Quite right child, you can’t stay anywhere too long.”
Susan continued to look down. “Yes, grandfather.”
“Not even Earth.”
“Of course not, grandfather.”
The Doctor was waiting for Susan to make eye contact, now a little irritated. He decided to lose a layer of subtlety.
“Never. Not even so Susan Foreman can have a home, hmm?”
Susan looked up at last, unable to bear the tension. Her eyes met her grandfather’s. For a moment, he saw and understood how seething her desire was. Then she realised what his eyes were saying, what they had been trying to tell her from the start.
What she had said to Kathleen was right: he had such a capacity to be kind. And when he was, it made him beautiful, and it made her proud to call him her only family.
“I’m so sorry, Susan. I’ve been so old, so selfish, so stubborn! I wanted you to spend your whole childhood wandering, drifting, with just me to keep you company! And how could I? You’re a young woman, growing up. It’s time I grew up and understood that. Yes. It’s time we found somewhere to stay…”
“Grandfather,” stuttered Susan, “I don’t know what to say…”
“Oh, don’t thank me yet, child.” The Doctor waggled his finger. “I haven’t landed the ship. I’m going to try and take us back to 1963, which seems like an easier time for us to blend into, considering our culture and tastes. But I can’t get a fix on the location, what with Tarmijee’s influence wearing off. No, I fear we may be, er, a few months early… now, if I could get the, get the, er, the quantum… quantum…”
Forgetting his fragility altogether, Susan threw herself at the old man, nearly knocking him over, and trapping him in a hug.
“Oh, dear…” he was chuckling, nervously, a little uncomfortable with the situation. “Yes, well, I…”
“Grandfather?”
“Yes, child.”
“I think I love you very much.”
The Doctor smiled, and put his arm around his granddaughter, as they watched the time rotor move up and down, taking them somewhere they would stay.
“I love you too, child.”
But why would she? No one would ever have understood her experience, but to Susan it kept her going. To step out of the TARDIS, to see the world change into something unrecognisable again… it was like being born again, every day, seeing the world for the first time; like a baby, kicking and screaming and crying, but taking it all in with wide, fascinated eyes.
New sights, new sounds, new smells. Unfamiliar accents, machinery, architecture. New ways of life, new ways of living, and just for a short while, a new life for her.
The last planet had been one of her favourites. There, the days lasted for what, back on Gallifrey, she would call two weeks. The locals would go about their lives, busying themselves for two weeks straight, apparently untiring the whole time. At the end, they would gather together on the hills, sing their native songs, and sleep under the starry sky, together, seemingly endlessly.
Her grandfather had huffed, and said that it was bad for Susan’s body-clock. Young Time Lords (or Ladies) could not adjust as well as those whose bodies had finished developing. So they had left. Again.
As Susan took in the scent of what she thought were alien fruits, and listened to the chatter of a whole new dialect, she came to remember why leaving was always, ultimately, worth it.
“Planet Earth,” said the Doctor. Susan recalled his fondness for this planet, and at last the TARDIS had decided that he would be allowed to return. “Though I do say it has changed a bit since my time. Now, let’s see, where are we…”
He took a few steps, stopped, and scratched his head.
“Dublin!” he chuckled. “In fact, I would say we are…” he turned around, getting his bearings. “Yes, yes, quite. Susan… With me…”
The old man led her around a corner, bringing them from a ramshackle side-street into an open, hectic marketplace jammed with crates and stalls full on both sides with fresh, ripe fruit and vegetables. The surrounding buildings were simple brick constructions, quite a bit less advanced than some of the previous civilisations Susan had visited, but a lot less intimidating. She felt welcomed, especially as the stall-owners offered her warm smiles and greetings which she’d not encountered before.
If the rest of Earth were like this, maybe the cons would finally outweigh the pros next time her grandfather decided it was time for them to migrate.
“Moore Street, child,” elaborated the Doctor. Susan was impressed with his recall, since he usually failed to name the planet, let alone their exact location on it. “The oldest market in Ireland, which is where we appear to have landed.” He noticed his granddaughter’s beam, and even smiled a little himself. “Yes, I thought you would like it here…”
***
Kathleen gently inserted the needle. It was routine now, and she had it down to a fine art. None of her patients even winced.
Most of them, of course, were well-accustomed to pain.
“How’ve you been feeling?” asked Kathleen, as if Orla’s fragile and skeletal figure, or her pale white face almost verging on blue, did not say it all.
“I’ve been feeling,” Orla answered philosophically. “That’s not something I’ll get to experience for much longer.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Kathleen finished the injection, and placed a hand warmly over Orla’s. “This must be so difficult for you, but try to think positive thoughts.”
Orla chuckled weakly. “There’s not much of that left in my life, Kathleen. What about you? How’s Sinead been?”
“Bright as a button.” Kathleen packed away the medication, disposing of what could not be reused, and made herself comfortable. “Very happy with her new lass.”
“Aw.” Orla smiled. “And you? You told me about that fella you found online the other week. What’s happening there?”
“Well…” Kathleen looked away shyly, used to having patients disclose details of their own lives, rather than asking for details about hers.
On the mantelpiece, she noticed an old and faded picture of Orla with another woman, a woman with the same face but a very different way of presenting it. Twins. Just something else she had kept quiet about.
“Well?” prompted Orla.
“Meeting him tonight.” Kathleen turned back, and found herself laughing. She always felt old, except around Orla. The woman was only about seven years older than Kathleen, but she had a way of making her feel young, like she had a whole life ahead of her.
Well, she did. More life than Orla, at least.
“Tonight?” Orla grinned excitedly. “Remember, if he acts all gentlemanly…”
“He’s a dirty bugger who only wants one thing?”
“You’ve got it!” Orla chuckled. “Good luck, Kathleen. I hope this works out for you.”
***
“Oh, I love it!” exclaimed Susan, becoming over-excited. All the vivid colours of this place were sending her into a trance, and after the long, cool night she had spent on the last planet, so was the heat. She found herself stumbling a little. She grabbed the Doctor’s arm, but he brushed her off like an irritating insect.
“Grandfather, this place is wonderful,” she continued, not the least bit put off by the Doctor. “I’ve never felt more at home anywhere, never felt more… and all the people look just like us! I could make friends, I could… we… we could blend in, like ordinary people! Oh, grandfather, let’s…”
She turned back to the Doctor and realised that he wasn’t even listening. Instead, he was gripping the lapels of his jacket, and frowning at something in the distance. He snapped out of it, and looked down at his granddaughter.
“What was that, my dear?”
“I was just…”
“Oh, do be quiet!” he snapped, and Susan did as instructed. “We haven’t much time here. No, no, I fear this is not the planet for us.”
Susan felt her heart sink.
“Yes, it’s far too…” the old man scratched his head. “Just look around you Susan, at all these people, and the noise they’re making. Quite a racket. I have plenty… plenty enough noise in that ship of ours and that music of yours blaring all over the place, day and night. To put you among others, and these people especially…?” He looked up, rather pompously, almost as if he stood above 'these people'. “Hmph!”
“But grandfather, I find it so interesting here.”
“Interesting, child? I find it quite boring, if you must know. Quite boring indeed… now, let’s not dawdle. Back to the ship, at once!”
The Doctor began a tenacious stroll back through the marketplace, in the direction of his ship. A woman swerved out of his way as he turned a sharp corner; a hospice nurse, carrying her things, and smiling in preparation for a date.
The Doctor ignored her.
***
Kathleen arrived home to the sound of soft piano music, and the aroma of scented candles. She breathed in their scent, felt calm and satisfied, then closed the door behind her.
Sinead had kept the curtains open, so that she could watch the sun set over the row of houses in front of her as she played. She smiled at her mother, but her multi-tasking skills let her down; she hit a duff note, stopped for a second and started playing again.
“That one sounds beautiful, love.” Kathleen squeezed her daughter softly on the shoulder, and squinted at the sheet she was reading from – not that it would make any sense to her. “What’s this one for?”
“Pleasure. Haven’t got any gigs lined up. Turn.”
Kathleen, used to her daughter’s sharp instructions by now, quickly turned to the next page for her.
“Ta.” Sinead got her bearings smoothly on the next page, and re-engaged in conversation. “It’s Ravel, by the way. Part two of the piano concerto.”
“It’s a very nice one.”
Kathleen began to amble into the kitchen. Her daughter called back again.
“There’s a tea for you out in the dining room, ma.”
“Thanks, love.”
“You’d best get ready for that date of yours.”
“So had you,” teased Kathleen. Sinead had already changed into a dark dress, longer than her usual choice. By her standards, that practically screamed special occasion.
“Wait until I finish this piece. Then I’ll come in and kill you…”
Kathleen laughed, and took a sip of her tea.
"Oh, there was a woman who popped by looking for you earlier," added Sinead. "Quite old, actually. Said her name was... ah, bugger, I can't remember it now. Some old name. Said she'd pop back round another time."
Kathleen wondered who the woman was. An old patient, perhaps? Somehow, she already knew it wasn't.
***
The Doctor returned to the TARDIS console, not looking back at Susan, who was protesting far more than usual.
“Please, grandfather!” she urged. “I’m so tired. We’ve been travelling all day. And the TARDIS deserves a break too…”
The old man turned round, his eyebrows raised in a disbelief that was very nearly amusement. “The TARDIS, child? This planet has made you hysterical! The ship can carry on for much… much longer journeys than either of us is capable of.”
“Grandfather…”
“Enough, child!”
The Doctor pulled a lever on the TARDIS console, and stared at the time rotor in awe. It was the one place that still impressed him. The sound never got old. It was the sound of his real home, not that place he hailed from, that planet which had somehow claimed that he belonged to it.
“Hmm…”
Suddenly, the time rotor stopped. The Doctor saw Susan’s face through it, momentarily, just as confused as his own. Then, the lights went out too.
A moment later, they flickered back on. But the time rotor did not return to its healthy rhythms. In fact, it was not moving at all.
“Oh dear…”
The Doctor was scrambling now, his hands searching for the right dials and buttons, not sure which one actually covered this sort of thing.
“No, no, this cannot be… this…”
“Grandfather?” Susan stepped forward. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s the ship, child!” He stopped trying at last, and took a step back, gazing almost beyond the walls of the ship. He raised a couple of fingers to his chin, and opened his eyes wide in terror. “It seems that we are trapped on his world!”
***
The singer in the bar was beginning to grow tired, and kept gesturing to the guitar case at her feet for generous donations. Paradoxically, she was singing about how unstoppable she was.
Most of the seats were around the bar, which was four times longer than the usual sort. The chairs, too, were four times comfier. Sinead saw Niamh sipping from a glass, staring on at nothing like every cliché ever.
She was adorable.
Sinead laughed to herself, sitting down, and Niamh looked around, startled.
“Sinead…” She became conscious of this woman before her, and ran her eyes up and down her quickly. “Wow, you look beautiful.”
***
Kathleen fiddled uneasily with her menu. In all her forty-eight years, she had never once dined alone, and now she realised why.
Everyone was staring at her, she was sure of it. Wondering who this woman was, and what she had done to deserve this. It must have been something pretty bad, surely.
Even Kathleen was beginning to wonder…
It was tempting to get up now, hand back her menu and apologise, or just discreetly head out, no looking back. But then, that would have been even more embarrassing.
A text came in, and she checked her phone.
Unknown
| Is this Kathleen Brady? I ran by your house earlier, but you weren't in. Would it be possible to speak?
Kathleen typed out a reply.
| Who are you?
With that, she put her phone away again, and picked up the menu.
Quattro formaggio, it read. It sounded delectable. The Italian musician audible on the speakers agreed, or sounded like he did. Kathleen briefly wondered whether she could get away with a meal for one, but was saved the risk when her date sat down opposite her.
Kathleen opened her mouth to speak, but in the heat of the moment, forgot his name.
“Nick!” she said, suddenly, louder than she had meant to, when she remembered.
“Kathleen.” The man, well-dressed, clean-shaven and a couple of years older than her, offered a handshake. Kathleen reciprocated, taken aback by the formality. A true gentleman.
Dirty bugger! Orla was chatting away inside her head.
“It’s lovely to meet you at last.” A waitress came past and gave Nick his own menu, which he effortlessly proceeded to open and examine. The Italian man’s song ended, and some smooth jazz began to play.
It was like the restaurant was doing everything Nick asked. Kathleen found herself jealous of his natural charm, but also drawn to it.
“I’m thinking of trying the quattro formaggio,” declared Nick, winning over Kathleen’s heart. He moved his finger down the list of dishes. “I hear the pizzas here are delectable.”
***
“How’s your ma?” asked Niamh. The barman passed by, and she gave him a wave. He returned to serve her, like a well-trained pet. “Another two glasses, please.”
The barman nodded. “Coming right up.”
“Ma’s not too bad,” answered Sinead. “Getting better.”
“Last time we spoke, it sounded pretty bad.”
“I over-exaggerate, you know what I’m like. She just seems to get very… taken away by it all.”
“You would too,” said Niamh. “In a job like hers.”
“True. Still, I think she needs to start looking for something else, before it eats her up.”
***
“That’s all, thanks.”
The waiter smiled at Kathleen and Nick, as if knowing something they didn’t, and swiftly left. Kathleen rested her arms back on the table.
“So,” began Nick. “You mentioned you had family. A daughter, was it?”
“Yes, Sinead. Good soul, she is. Twenty-five just a few days ago, though it hardly seems possible, when you look back through all the baby albums. She’s out tonight, too.”
“On a date? If she’s anything like her mother, he’s a lucky fella.”
“Lass,” corrected Kathleen, and Nick seemed unaffected. She added his response to her list of good things about him so far. “And she is. She’s a sweetheart. So’s her girlfriend. Popped over to see me earlier, just me, while Sinead was at work. Sinead’s…” Kathleen decided how much to say, and settled on an element of ambiguity. “Let’s just say, she’s in for a surprise.”
“A surprise?”
“As we speak.”
***
“Will you marry me?”
Sinead gasped, as did half the bar. They were waiting anxiously for Sinead’s response, and only one answer would do for them.
Bugger, thought Niamh and Sinead at once. Niamh had intended to say it quieter, and Sinead had intended to see something like this coming.
They both saw each other’s expression, and understood.
“No, you old cow,” said Sinead. There were a few groans from around the bar, and everyone resumed their business. Sinead winked at Niamh, and added, in a whisper: “Yes.”
Niamh laughed at the frenzy her girlfriend had caused around the bar. She remembered what it was about her that had made her want to ask the question in the first place.
***
“Exactly!” laughed Kathleen, taking another slice of pizza, the cheesiest she could find. “You’ve got to see the light in these things.”
“Well, that’s just it,” agreed Nick. “Otherwise, you only end up getting sad about them. And come on, it is funny. To think it was the milkman, of all people!” He stopped laughing, and seemed to ponder something. “Do they even have milkmen anymore?”
“We had one. Came at about midnight every night, we never saw him. By morning the stuff had gone off. What kind of milkman turns up at midnight?”
“The vampire milkman. That’s how they like their victims… semi-skinned.”
Nick cringed at his own joke. It was the worst thing he’d ever heard. Kathleen laughed, noticing his face.
“Oh, I love awkward people.”
“I’m not awkward!”
“You sure about that?” asked Kathleen, as Nick dropped his fork on the floor. His disguise was fading. The real clumsy nutter was beginning to surface, and Kathleen thought she liked him even better.
Her phone buzzed once, and she knew who it was at once.
Sinead
| You knew about this didn’t you? You rascal ma. Said yes anyway just to keep the mad cow happy xxx
Kathleen laughed softly at her daughter’s sense of humour. “Bless her.”
“Sorry?”
She realised she had cut Nick out.
“Oh, sorry.” She held up the phone for him to read. “That’s my daughter.”
“Oh, that’s great!” Nick beamed. As Kathleen began to turn the phone back her way, it started ringing. It was one her colleagues. She decided to answer.
“Won’t be a moment,” she murmured, and rushed to the toilet. “Christine,” she said, once the door was shut behind her. Another soft jazz track still sounded faintly from outside. “What’s up?”
“Kathleen.”
Kathleen sighed, and hit her head against the wall gently. She knew what that voice meant.
“Are you busy at the moment? I don’t want to interrupt anything…”
“I’m at home,” Kathleen lied. “On my own.”
“Okay, that’s good. Kathleen, it’s Orla, your patient. I thought I should ring to tell you. She passed away a couple of hours ago. I’m sorry, I know you were…”
“It’s fine,” said Kathleen, abruptly. She noticed her own voice getting sharper. “Just make sure her husband’s all right. Tell him I’ll be over tomorrow, that okay?”
“Yeah. If you need to talk…”
“I know where you are, yup. Thanks for letting me know about this, Christine.”
“No worries.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Kathleen ended the call, and ran some cool water in the washroom sink to calm her face. When she was happy with how she looked, she returned to her table, not sitting down, and went through her purse, passing Nick enough money for the whole meal.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and lifted her bag. “This was a mistake. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”
And with that, before Nick could make her hurt any more by putting up a fight, Kathleen left the restaurant.
***
The Doctor’s moment of fear and still contemplation had only lasted a heartbeat. He was already back at the controls, already searching and sighing and hmming until he found a way out of his situation, until he was free.
Singulotempaphobia, or the fear of being isolated in a single time-stream. Many Time Lords suffered from it, the Doctor more than most. To most of the rest of the universe, it was simply called life.
“Grandfather, you know as well as I do that the controls are jammed. The TARDIS will never fly again, or at least not as long as it’s stuck like this. What are you trying to do?”
“You’re quite right child,” said the Doctor, surprising her, “quite right. The TARDIS will never fly again, as long as it is stuck like this!” He crouched down, ducked under the console unit, and began to fiddle with some wires, or whatever it was he had found underneath.
“Which is why,” he continued, illustrating his point, “I am currently attempting to locate the source of the disturbance, so that I can locate the fault in the…” he realised he had stopped making sense. “I mean, so that I can locate the point of disturbance.”
“You mean you’re trying to find where the disturbance is coming from?”
“Precisely!” The Doctor let out a little giggle, as he did infrequently. “Though there is just one thing, child, that you are missing. You see, the – OW, YOU SILLY BUFFER!” He thumped the console unit, and the TARDIS wheezed a little. On his way up, he had hit the back of his head on the corner of the console. Susan tried to contain her laughter.
“Yes…” the Doctor stood up and frowned, before looking around the room sternly, trying unsuccessfully to regain his dignity. “As I was saying, we… sorry, what was it that I was saying again?”
Susan chuckled, and looked up lovingly at her grandfather. She loved him especially at times like this, when by trying to show his harsher side, his softer core only became more obvious. “We were talking about the point of disturbance.”
“Ah. Yes!” The Doctor pointed sharply upwards with one finger. “You see, child, the point of disturbance may be a place, but it may also be a time. Something has caused the TARDIS to become fixed in one particular time-stream, but not necessarily something within its immediate temporal proximity!”
“And you think you know how to find the time of the disturbance?”
“Think?” The Doctor gripped his lapels, and chuckled. “Hm-hm! I know I know how to find the time of the disturbance. It is the only other location the TARDIS is able to travel to, and it should be revealed to us any moment…” The screen flickered, and a set of coordinates flashed up on it. “…now.”
“Where is it?”
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. “I have no idea, no idea at all… no idea of why this time would cause a disturbance. Civilisation is practically prehistoric! And technology…”
“Grandfather….” Susan tried not to grow impatient with the old man. “Where is it?”
“This very planet’s recent past, Susan. To be precise… Shoreditch, on the 23rd of November, 1963.”
***
Kathleen walked across Ha’penny Bridge, miserably, as amorous couples and groups of students filed past her, preparing for long nights ahead.
For Kathleen, it was home from here, and even that would be insufficient. She felt unappreciative. But she also felt…
She tried not to think of it, as she passed under another lantern, and approached the end of the bridge. But she felt angry. Angry at the universe, at God, at bloody Cthulu, or whatever was responsible for the way sequences of events occurred, for why two things happened in the way they did on the same night, the good and the bad meeting at loggerheads and both turning their backs and giving up on their plans.
For one brief moment in Kathleen Brady’s life, there was no point to anything.
And then she saw it.
At the bottom of the bridge, by the entrance to an unlit side-street, a thing that had never been there before and shouldn’t have been there now.
A blue police telephone box, straight out of the 1950s. Or as she knew it today, a TARDIS.
It could have been a gimmick. They’d shown Dr. Who on television a couple of times recently, released an updated Blu-Ray version of it too, just for the middle-class die-hards. But it was a strange place to put it. If one in twenty people had seen Dr. Who, none of them would, in all likelihood, find it here.
Which made it particularly perplexing, intriguing, and a little bit frustrating. Considering those emotions, it really could have been a TARDIS.
She found herself raising her hand to it. The moment she touched it, felt what it had to say, she recoiled instantly, and took a step back, gasping in the bitter autumn air.
It’s alive.
And then she realised she was stepping forward and pushing the door, and not only that, it was moving. The old fool had left it unlocked.
Dr Who…
As she murmured his name under her breath, she found herself inside the TARDIS, a ship not unlike the one on her television, except paler and more symmetrical, with one hexagonal console in the centre of the room, and roundels rather than wires across the walls. She preferred it this way.
And there was an old man working at the console with his back to her, probably calling himself Dr Who, and a young woman next to him, probably calling herself Barbara.
It had to have been a joke. It was a good one; she would admit that much.
“What the hell is this?” Kathleen laughed, uncertainly. The two of them turned around, as if they weren’t expecting her.
“How did you get in here?” shouted the Doctor, immediately storming over, not to Kathleen, but to the door, and slamming it shut behind him.
“You left it unlocked.”
“I did not!” The Doctor stamped his foot defensively.
The woman who was probably Barbara stepped forward, cutting in awkwardly. “Um, grandfather, you sort of did…”
“Hmph!” The old man thought fleetingly about what to do next, and decided to confront the stranger. “Now listen here, just because my door is unlocked does not mean you have a right to take advantage of that! Creeping up on an old man, breaking into my home. You don’t strike me as an opportunistic thief, but who knows what the world breeds today!”
Kathleen took a moment to process that, looking from “Dr. Who” to “Barbara”, before cracking up in hysterical laughter.
“Oh, my God. This is brilliant.” The Doctor didn’t seem to agree, but Kathleen carried on anyway, and even started clapping. “Absolutely brilliant. Wait a minute…” She placed a hand on her hip. “Was this Sinead’s idea? Eh? Come on, I’m too smart for this.”
“Will you stop chattering?!” barked the Doctor. “This is becoming insufferable! What is your business with us, hmm?”
“Dr Who,” stated Kathleen. And, as she expected, the old man was left open-mouthed. “And Barbara.”
“Barbara?” exclaimed the young woman.
Kathleen bit her lip. “No…?”
“My name is Susan.”
“Susan?” chuckled Kathleen. “No, love, you’re too old to be Susan. The casting a bit of a last-minute job, was it?” The two were speechless. “You’ve gone for an interesting take on the TARDIS, though. Wonder what the take-off effects would be like… if I were you, though, I’d have gone for a bit more colour. But hey, I’m in a bad mood. This is brilliant.” She shook her head, incredulous. “Absolutely brilliant. Proper, old-fashioned Dr Who, I so nearly fell for it. Love how you’ve varied it, but kept the original premise intact.”
The Doctor shared a bemused look with Susan. “Perhaps the TARDIS translation circuits are playing up,” he muttered. “Or perhaps she’s just mad. Get behind me, child. She might be dangerous…”
“Okay, come on,” started Kathleen. “This was fun, but a friend of mine has just died. I want to go home now, and I want to sit down with a cup of tea and talk to my daughter. So who put you up to this?”
“Put us up to this?” inquired the Doctor.
“Yes.” Kathleen was apparently no longer amused. “Someone’s idea of a joke, and an expensive one at that.”
“This is no one’s joke but yours,” the Doctor said, accusingly. “And since you seem to think you know both our names and identities, the risk of letting you back into the world where you can share that information is too high! No…” he huffed, and turned back to the console. “I am afraid you will have to stay.”
“There’s a film called Dr Who and the Daleks, Kathleen stated, directly. “Dr Who is played by a guy called Peter Cushing, and Susan Foreman is played by a little girl. It’s one of my favourite movies because it was the first film I ever got to see in colour. And this is a parody.”
“A parody?!” exclaimed the Doctor, as if this were the worst thing Kathleen had said all night. “How dare you call this complex piece of machinery a parody of some, some… half-rate, money-grabbing piece of entertainment from your own civilisation. Hmph! A parody indeed!”
It wasn’t working, and the man was now bordering on the neurotic. Realising that he had locked the door behind him, Kathleen decided to change her tone.
“Okay,” she said, doubtfully. “Let’s say you’re Dr Who and this is your TARDIS.”
“Just the Doctor, thank you, but quite right! Though what concern that is of yours…”
“And,” interjected Kathleen, “let’s say I’m going to go along with that, not because I believe it but because you clearly…” she ran her eyes up and down the pair of them, judgementally. “…want me to. Then what’s the problem, 'doctor'? What are you doing here, and where are all the Daleks?”
“Daleks?” The Doctor seemed puzzled. His continuity apparently hadn’t gotten that far yet, which baffled Kathleen a bit. She failed to understand how someone had thought they could recreate Dr. Who without the Daleks.
“Okay, scratch that, don’t worry about the Daleks. What’s happening? TARDIS trapped on a dangerous alien world? Oh wait, we’re in Dublin. Well, close enough.” Kathleen started laughing to herself again, infuriating the Doctor and amusing Susan.
“Since you may well continue wittering on until I provide an explanation, the answer is that the TARDIS is trapped here – probably some fault of your own, I would think – and Susan and I are about to venture to the year 1963, though now that you are here, that changes our situation somewhat…”
“Does it?” Kathleen let that one hang in the air. She saw Susan’s eyes widen, and smiled at the fact that the young woman had worked it out herself, without her grandfather prodding and patronising her every step of the way. “Go on, Susan.”
“Well you said it yourself grandfather,” said Susan, nervously. “She knows too much, we can’t let her leave. So… if we’re going to the source of the disturbance, we have no choice but to take her with us.”
The Doctor exploded. “Take her with us?! This is… unthinkable, it’s… oh, very well! But remember, child, this was your decision. I gave you the freedom, and you will bear the consequences. Hmm!” He began to mutter to himself again, as he started to pilot the ship. “Take her with us indeed…”
The TARDIS hummed, and shook slightly. Kathleen’s heart skipped a beat, and she grabbed a roundel on the wall. “Blimey, this is a realistic simulator.”
“1963,” said the Doctor, simply. “Susan, fetch a bag. The lady here may want to breathe into one.” He laughed at his joke.
“My name is Kathleen. Whoever put you up to this should have told you that. But I suppose if you’d said it, you’d have given away the act, am I right?”
The Doctor was ignoring her now. Susan returned with a bag, fully aware that it existed not to give Kathleen some dignity, but to help inflate her grandfather’s lofty ego. The Doctor slowly opened the door, and Kathleen attempted to peer through, waiting in anticipation for the punchline.
Outside, she could see that they had moved, somehow, somewhere. Kathleen pushed past and took a step out, just to ascertain where they were.
She could almost make out the London skyline in the distance, or what little of it there was in 1963. Somehow, this wasn’t Dublin. It wasn’t even the present day.
The street in front of her was ancient and dilapidated, the kind that should have been demolished years back. There were fewer cars on the road, save for a couple of retro ones parked here and there.
Which weren’t retro. Not here. Not now.
“You can’t have…” Kathleen looked away from the houses, and back at the TARDIS, running her hand around the outside. It was parked a good few metres from the nearest building. There were no springs or mirrors. “We’ve… we’ve actually…”
“Travelled in time.” Susan laughed. “I know, it takes a long time to get your head around that.”
“November 1963, to be precise,” said the Doctor. He seemed to have softened a bit, set at ease by Kathleen’s awe, which had given him back his bit of superiority. “Far away, the Vietnam War rages on, with a coup d’état against the Dinh Nhu and Dinh Diem brothers, who are subsequently killed. There are the Omuta disasters in Japan… and the Beatles’ second album.” He delivered that last one as if it was the greatest tragedy of them all. “Last night, on November 22nd, President Kennedy was assassinated.”
“Next month,” murmured Kathleen, “my ma gets married…”
The Doctor chuckled. “Quite! You’re rather getting the hang of this now. We have travelled through the fourth dimension.”
“I’d say it’s a dream…” Kathleen ran a hand up the brickwork of a nearby house. “But I know my dreams, and this isn’t one of them. If this is a prank, I’ve fallen for it. And if it isn’t…”
There was no simple way to express what that would mean.
“You know a lot about this world,” Kathleen remarked, suddenly aware of the accuracy of the Doctor’s historical summary.
“Oh, do be quiet,” snapped the Doctor, back to being his old self.
Kathleen smirked. “You can tell which of us is the doctor, and which of us the nurse.”
“And what are you insinuating by that, hmm?”
“Bedside manner,” whispered Kathleen, looking at Susan. The girl giggled. It was unusual to be able to share an inside joke with anyone except her grandfather, who as a rule of thumb didn’t do jokes anyway.
“Hmm. We don’t have all night. Let us press on.”
The Doctor led them down a narrow straight, and through onto a busier thoroughfare. At this time in 2016, Kathleen thought, the streets would have been packed. Now, there were only a couple of people wandering in the night, two vagrants on the end of the street. The Doctor, Kathleen noticed, was navigating past them carefully, towards a larger, square building at the end of the road.
“That looks like a library,” observed Susan. She had seen enough of them in her time to know what one looked like.
“Very astute, child,” said the Doctor. “Yes, this is the exact source of the disturbance! I think it a wise idea that we split up at this stage, hmm? I shall go alone as I do not require either of your assistance; Susan, you may go with Charlene.”
“Kathleen,” sighed Kathleen.
“Hmm, yes. Very well.” The Doctor went to break in to the library, but the door moved to his touch, just as the TARDIS’s had to Kathleen’s. Perhaps, like the TARDIS, it had been left unlocked by its owner. Or perhaps there was another explanation…
They split up, as instructed.
***
“You’re a quiet one,” marvelled Kathleen, as she and Susan slowly explored the dimly-lit aisles of the first floor. “Full of intelligence, but you don’t speak much.”
“I speak when I need to,” replied Susan, with surprising truth. “Or when grandfather needs me to, even if he doesn’t always want me to.”
“And are you happy with your grandfather?”
“Yes.” Susan turned to Kathleen, perplexed, as if she had asked a ridiculous question. “He cares for me, and he’s one of my own kind. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“One day,” began Kathleen, “you’ll learn that your kind doesn’t mean your species, it just means people like you. Don’t you ever look at all those young people with faces and even minds like yours, and wish you were with them?”
“Well, I suppose, sometimes…”
“Don’t you want friends of your own age? Boyfriends or girlfriends? And teachers?”
Susan nodded, sadly.
“If you want to settle somewhere,” Kathleen finished, “your grandfather will have to let you. You have a right to ask him for that.”
“You mentioned a film,” said Susan, changing the topic quickly. “Doctor Who, was it?”
“Yes. Dr Who and the Daleks An actor called Peter Cushing played… well…” Kathleen looked behind her. “Your grandfather.”
Susan lowered her voice to a murmur. “Don’t tell him. Grandfather, I mean.”
“He already knows.”
“But he’ll forget.” Susan tapped her nose surreptitiously, like one who pretended to have more insight than she did. “So long as you don’t bring it up again. Considering I also supposedly feature in it, and I’m new to this world, the film is probably about events which haven’t happened yet. If grandfather finds out about them now, it could change the course of those events.”
Kathleen nodded. “I get it. Sci-fi logic. I’ve seen…”
She was about to say Dr Who, but stopped herself.
“Is it a good film?” asked Susan, a question so straightforward that Kathleen found herself faintly entertained by it.
“Yes,” Kathleen chuckled. “Yes, love, I suppose it is. Not the best, or the deepest. But it gave a lot of kids hope during a dark time, made a lot of people’s lives better. Sometimes that’s more important than being accurate or faithful to your source material, isn’t it?”
Susan nodded. By source material, she realised, Kathleen was talking about Susan, her grandfather, and their home. She had never seen her life that way: something to be watched and interpreted by others, changed until it became unrecognisable, except for its deepest essence. That would terrify grandfather, but Susan liked it. It was, after all, how Time Lords lived their lives.
***
The Doctor had found himself in an aisle filled with Earth’s classic literature. But he was also certain that there was something with them in the library now – a hunter, perhaps, that had lured them here to make mincemeat of them. Still, at least he would die in the company of Chaucer, Capote, Conan Doyle, Camus, Carroll, and everyone else important whose name began with a C.
On all the worlds he had visited, there had always been libraries. Libraries were one of the first signs of civilisation: the need to record, revisit, and remember. Some were entirely digital, accessed by a plug at the back of the neck (a surgical procedure the Doctor had nearly been executed for refusing). Others were like this. And on some worlds, those in their earlier days, libraries were not places, but people: those wise old members of the tribe who remembered, interpreted and shared their civilisation’s history and traditions in the form of their oldest stories.
There were libraries on Gallifrey, vast catalogues of all the great and terrible things that had happened, as well as those that hadn’t: events that took place in parallel universes on adjacent shelves.
One sweep along the aisle and becoming a time traveller looked easy. By the time the Doctor realised that it wasn’t, it was already too late to turn back.
The Doctor snapped out of his thoughts. He was sure he could hear footsteps nearby, and not Kathleen’s or Susan’s.
A louder noise silenced his suspicions, as the sound of gunfire rang out across the library.
***
It wasn’t just one gunshot, either.
“Get down!”
Kathleen pulled Susan to the floor. Bullets skimmed over their heads, and a graphic novel fell from its stand.
The pair made for a parallel aisle, crawling at a rate of knots on their knees. Some bullets bounced off the shelves, ricocheting up the staircase.
“Other way,” hissed Susan, and Kathleen agreed and followed her.
***
The Doctor lifted his arm to shield himself, and bent over as he ran, nearly doing in his back. He had lost track of where he was, but a quick glance told him that he’d now reached Orwell.
“Oh, do stop firing!” he complained, and used an ancient volume to swat a fly. The gunfire ceased, and then resumed, but this time, in his direction.
***
“There’s grandfather!” whispered Susan to Kathleen, watching the Doctor desperately running – or more like skipping – up an aisle.
“What in God’s name is he doing?” asked Kathleen, under her breath. “This is a bit different to the film.”
“I should go and help him,” Susan responded.
“Let me. You’re just a girl.”
Susan furrowed her brow in astonishment. “And you’re an old woman!”
“Less of the old, thank you very much. And besides, I’ve got what you might call…”
Kathleen stood up, surveyed her surroundings, and suddenly ducked down again as a bullet flew straight over her head. Once she had dodged it, she stood back up as quickly and smoothly as she had crouched down.
“…experience.”
As Susan still struggled to comprehend this woman’s transformation from hospice nurse to fighter, she watched Kathleen run up the Doctor’s aisle. When he saw this, Susan saw his eyes widen in alarm.
“Get down, wo-“
Kathleen jumped forward, knocking the Doctor to the floor. Several rounds of gunfire passed over them.
Kathleen Brady had saved the Doctor’s life. And, from what Susan could see, he didn’t know what to make of it.
She dashed forward to help them, and stopped in her tracks. She could hear the attacker’s movements, its footsteps moving closer, to their right. The Doctor and Kathleen hadn’t noticed, and Susan didn't have time to explain it.
Slowly, Susan lifted a sizable book from a shelf, and crept up to the end of the aisle, holding it up in front of her, cautiously. She counted the seconds, in synchrony with the footsteps, under her breath.
“Three…”
Tap tap tap…
“Two…”
Tap tap tap…
“One…”
Tap tap tap…
The Doctor turned, suddenly, realising what Susan was doing, and began to charge in her direction.
“NO, CHILD, D-.”
The attacker turned the corner, and Susan clobbered him with the book. There was a thwuck as the man and the volume made contact, and then he fell to the floor, unconscious.
The Doctor was in a state of shock, but Kathleen grinned.
“Susan Foreman, you are good!” She took the book from Susan, who was shaking slightly. “Saved our lives by clobbering a man over the head…” she examined the title, and smirked. “…with War and Peace. Well, there’s a classic example of irony, if ever I saw one."
With the care it deserved, Kathleen placed Tolstoy’s novel back on a shelf, albeit the wrong one.
“Was he firing at us?” asked Susan.
“I’m not so sure.” Cautiously, the Doctor edged closer to the soldier on the floor. He wore a black uniform, well-padded and a little too advanced for 1963. The Doctor crouched down. A word was written stylistically across the badge, like a company logo. “Destiny,” the Doctor read, and stroked his chin. “Hmmm…”
The travellers went quiet, and another sound became audible. A few aisles across from them, there was another intruder in the library. But judging by his whimpers, this one wasn’t a threat.
The three of them rushed over. The man was lying against a bookshelf, using it for support. He wore a simple brown jacket and trousers. A man of his time. Except…
Except for the extra eye on his forehead.
Kathleen knelt down, and checked his pulse. As she manoeuvred him into a more comfortable position, it occurred to her that there was no blood.
“Hang on a minute…” she unbuttoned the jacket, and the shirt underneath. His chest was unscathed. “He wasn’t shot. Why’s he like this…”
“I…” the man croaked. “The disturbance…”
The Doctor and Susan joined Kathleen in crouching over him.
“That monster!” exclaimed the Doctor. “That soldier, he was aiming at you.”
The man nodded gravely. “Creating… disturbance…”
“The soldier? Was the soldier causing the disturbance?”
This time, the man shook his head. Susan gasped.
“I think I know what he’s trying to tell us.”
“Ah, yes.” The Doctor patted Susan on the shoulder. “My granddaughter possesses some telepathic abilities!”
“No, I just worked it out.”
“Oh, I see. Very well…”
“He is causing the disturbance,” explained Susan, gesturing to the three-eyed man. “The soldier was trying to kill him, for that reason.”
“Susan!” cried the Doctor. “You’re right! I hardly recognised this fellow at first. He’s from the planet Time.”
“There’s a planet called Time?” asked Kathleen.
“Quite! It was created in, in… oh, child, you explain.”
“The planet Time was created during a major temporal incursion,” Susan elaborated. “Two times crossed together, and from the resulting cataclysm emerged a planet, called Time, full of time energy, or rather artron energy. All that planet’s species rely on that artron energy to survive. Sometimes tiny wormholes are generated on the planet’s surface, due to the intensity of this artron energy. And this poor man has obviously ended up trapped here, like…”
“…a fish out of water,” finished Kathleen, understanding.
“Except this fish is able to do something which other fish cannot!” interjected the Doctor. “In the absence of artron energy – his food – the man leached onto my ship, and began to consume the TARDIS’s artron energy, hence our inability to move. Except it’s taking too long for him to absorb enough of the energy he needs. This world is not right for him, and not even our ship is enough to keep him going in it. Yes. I fear… he is dying.”
“Can’t we save him?” begged Susan. “Grandfather, the TARDIS has a medical bay…”
“No!” snapped the Doctor. “We cannot risk it, child. If this man carries on living any longer, he will consume the ship’s artron energy completely. It will never be able to fly again!”
“But grandfather!”
“Enough, Susan!”
“Could you really do it?” asked Kathleen. “Kill a man from that rare planet?”
The Doctor considered this for a moment. “To save the ship… I fear we must allow him to perish.”
“Okay.” Kathleen swallowed, and took a deep breath. “Okay.” She then leant forward, brushing the man’s hair out of his eyes. She could see the third eye clearer, now: it was sea-blue, like the other two, and regarded her with fascination. “What’s your name?” Kathleen asked.
“Tarmijee,” wheezed the man.
Kathleen looked back over at the Doctor. “Could you kill Tarmijee?”
The Doctor bit his lip, and sighed. “No. I fear I cannot.”
“At the rate things are going, either Tarmijee dies, or the TARDIS dies.” Kathleen stood up. “Which means we need to get him back home – and soon.”
“The longer he spends in the ship, the quicker he draws its energy. It may not make the journey!”
“Well then,” said Kathleen. “We’d better be quick.”
***
“You’ll be okay. Just hang on in there for me.”
The Doctor had wheeled a bed into the console room, giving Tarmijee some comfort, in case he did not survive the journey. Kathleen sat by his side, reassuring him, in the voice of someone who had done it before, but never quite like this.
The alien was burning up, and the TARDIS wasn’t doing much better. It took ten whole minutes for the Doctor to pilot it to Tarmijee’s home-world, using the remaining residue of the wormhole which had brought him here in the first place.
Susan stood between them: the old man piloting his ship and the human woman, giving everything up for a man she didn’t even know. She was torn between them, and felt an empathy for both of them stir inside her.
The TARDIS landed. The Doctor rushed over to the door and opened it. Carefully, the two women helped Tarmijee off his bed, and carried him out.
“Thank you,” he breathed, as they lifted him out of their world and back into his own. “Thank you…”
The heat and humidity hit Kathleen straight away, as if she had stepped off a plane into a hot and steamy tropical country. They were parked in a green clearing, surrounded by clusters of trees. Large, heavy leaves swung from them, covered with fresh droplets of water. The Doctor reached up, and pulled a fruit from one of the trees.
Some small, azure-coloured birds were singing a song above him, flying in intricate patterns like a dance which mirrored their harmonies.
The Doctor bit into the fruit, and seemed excited. “Hmm! Quite delicious. Kathleen...”
Kathleen smiled. The old man had remembered her name. As a gesture of thanks, she took the fruit, and tried a bite herself. It was like a really good peach, the kind you’d only get on the hottest summer’s day, ripe and full of juice.
This was it. The planet Time.
“I’m just going to venture a little further on,” said the Doctor, walking on ahead. “I’d like to see the locals, ensure our friend is getting the best possible treatment…”
And then he was gone, disappearing into the shrubs.
“He has the capacity to be so kind,” remarked Susan. “But sometimes, he just isn’t. Why was he so willing to let Tarmijee die until you stopped him? Why couldn’t he just see this from the start?”
“Battle of the Falls, love,” replied Kathleen. Susan frowned, puzzled. Kathleen went on. “July, 1970. I was about three or four years old, I suppose, but I remember it like it was yesterday. My home, in the suburbs of Belfast.” She chuckled to herself. “You wouldn’t think it, would you? You can’t hear a bit of it in me now, I sound like born-and-bred Dublin, but I wasn’t even born in the country. Northern Irish, me. I just got out as soon as I could, that’s all.”
Susan didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, but was pulled in all the same. Something about the stories Kathleen told didn’t need to make sense to be worth listening to.
“There was a lot of conflict at the time,” Kathleen explained. “That was why my childhood was so rough. We just called it… ‘The Troubles’. You don’t need to know the ins and outs. We lived in this place called the Falls. There was a military operation, per se, and I guess… everyone just got fed up.” She sighed. Kathleen certainly sounded fed up. “Kids started attacking the soldiers, and I don’t mean the kind of thing you’re thinking about. We’re talking petrol bombs, stones, that kind of thing. The soldiers responded with tear gas. A conflict erupted, and they sealed us off. Curfew, they called it.” She shook her head.
“I’ve never seen a curfew like it,” she continued. “Soldiers marched into our homes. My daddy was beaten. I saw it all. And Christ, we were hungry. Then, couple of days later, people from Andersonstown turned up. Women and children, marching in with food, drink, everything we needed. They ended the curfew. Ordinary people… men, women. And it was then, Susan, that I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be like them. Ending wars with bags of groceries, helping children, because I could. And look at me now. Nearly fifty years old, and I’m a hospice nurse. These things stay with you. The doctor…”
She looked back to the shrubs. The Doctor was coming back; she could see the shape of him, in the distance.
“…maybe no one’s helped him like that before. Maybe no one’s ever shown him that kindness. But one day, someone will, I’m sure of it, and that will change him forever, like it did me. Anyway, shh. He’s coming back.”
Susan took a deep breath, and processed Kathleen’s narrative. The Doctor returned, a little out of breath, and opened the TARDIS doors again.
“Come on, then. Time to take our human friend here back home.”
***
“Dublin, 2016,” read the Doctor from the TARDIS scanner. “Quite fortunate. The effect our alien friend had on the craft was to tie it to the three times, you see… 2016, 1963, and the present of the planet Time. Which makes it easy for me to navigate amongst those three specific time-streams – if nowhere else!” He let out a giggle, and Susan and Kathleen exchanged a smirk. Kathleen may as well get rid of her old DVDs. This man was entertainment enough.
The Doctor landed his ship, and Kathleen hoped that he had gotten the year right.
“Kathleen,” said the Doctor, and actually looked at her, as in normal conversation, perhaps for the first time all night. “I would like to…” Some words were pushing their way out of his mouth, and he was having trouble letting them pass. “Thank you.”
“Oh.” Kathleen blinked, startled. “Well, you’re welcome. It was an honour to meet you, doctor.”
“I shan’t ask how you know my name, or how you knew of my ship… I saw your kindness today, Kathleen, and for that, I trust you. Besides, I have other things to be suspicious of. That soldier fellow we saw at the library, who had vanished by the time I looked back. ‘Destiny’, his label had read, and I cannot be sure of what he wanted with our alien friend. No, Kathleen, I was wrong about you. You may leave.”
“And what about you?” asked Kathleen, sounding genuinely concerned. “Are you just going to run again? Or are you going to stay?”
The Doctor had no answer. Susan glanced hopefully between them, praying that Kathleen’s persuasion would be as strong as it had been last time.
“Stay,” repeated Kathleen, this time as an imperative. “Stay on our planet. It’s a good world, you’ll fit in. Susan will be able to make friends her own age. There’s a place for you here.”
“Hmm…”
Susan felt butterflies in her stomach as the Doctor appeared, contrary to everything she had ever learnt about him, to consider the proposal. But seconds later, he waved his arm dismissively, and gestured at the door.
“I do appreciate your concern,” he said, “I really do. But this is not our world. No. We must go on…”
“Okay.” Kathleen nodded. There was no protesting. She shared a sad smile with Susan, and hoped that one day she would find a home, even if the people had three eyes, and lived in trees instead of houses.
Anywhere could be home, no matter how strange or how far away it was from the place you were born.
And on that, Kathleen stepped out of the TARDIS, and back onto the streets of Dublin.
Home.
***
Kathleen arrived to a happier tune this time. It was something modern, something Mumford and Sons probably, made a hundred times better by Sinead’s rendition of it. As soon as Kathleen closed the door behind her, the music stopped, and her daughter ran into the hallway and embraced her.
“Mum, I’m engaged!” She nearly knocked Kathleen off her feet. She had been expecting the revelation, but not the hug. “I’m getting married!” She stepped back quickly, and started to compulsively clear up the hall, as she always did when she was excited. “You’re invited, and all my school-friends, and maybe dad. And I’m already arguing with Niamh over whether it should be a church wedding. Oh! How was your date?”
Well, that was one question.
“It was an eventful night,” said Kathleen, not lying. “But I’m not going to do it again.”
Sinead nodded. “I understand. Ooh, and I forgot, the phone rang. It was that old woman again, but I still didn't get her name. Said she tried to call you earlier but couldn't get through. She left an address, anyway, says she wants you to come and visit her as soon as you get the chance. I left the note by the phone cradle.”
“I’ll grab it later,” said Kathleen. She smiled. “Congratulations, sweetheart.”
***
Kathleen closed the door behind her. Sinead had invited friends round, and from downstairs came the sounds of celebration. Music played, glasses clinked, people laughed. Life went on, as it should. Kathleen sat down on the edge of her bed, and took out her phone, scrolling through the photos.
They were all taken before life had gone wrong. No, not wrong – before it had just gone strange. She checked the time on the wall, to make sure she hadn’t just woken up, and the whole thing hadn’t been some bizarre, pre-menopausal dream.
Then she found it. It was a picture Orla had asked her to take; one last photo with her husband, in their home, in case he never had the chance to get another one. He’d thought it was just any old photo. Kathleen had recognised the look in Orla’s eyes, the look she had seen so many times before, that told her it wasn’t.
But there they were, smiling. It was always the thing that amazed her. After everything they’d lost, everything they’d faced, in the final days of their life together, these people always found a way to smile.
Kathleen held the phone to her heart, and began to cry.
***
The next day, Kathleen grabbed her daughter's note, and found the address. It was a little suburban house, twee and tucked away on a little street, made for old people and opportunist thieves, just as the Doctor had accused Kathleen of being. She chuckled at that as she strode along the street, lowering her umbrella when she reached the house. Her encounter with the Doctor was already becoming a distant memory, something she could look back at and laugh about with fondness – even understand.
No. Never quite understand.
She rang the bell. Someone came to the door: an old, grey-haired but beautiful woman, and her husband – the gentle, smiling, anything-for-an-easy-life sort.
“Kathleen Brady,” said the woman, with a perceptive smile. “Come in.”
Kathleen stepped in. The house smelt of freshly-baked pastries. The man led her through to the living room, a small and cosy place with an old carpet, three chairs, and a steaming teapot with three cups on the table. She had indeed been expected, but that did not worry her. She took a seat on the chair nearest the window, and the old couple sat down.
“I apologise for my appalling manners,” said the woman, as if she had not just served spontaneous afternoon tea to a stranger. “Let us introduce ourselves. My name is Barbara, and this is my husband, Ian. We were friends of the Doctor, and together, we wrote Dr Who.”
Kathleen found herself grinning, as she always did when she figured things out. “It was you!” She put her hands to her face. “Oh my God, I thought I was going mad.”
Ian laughed. “Oh, I think most of the Doctor’s friends spend half their lives thinking that.”
“Towards the end of our travels with the Doctor,” Barbara explained, “Susan told us about you. Something you said to him, or did, had changed him. She didn’t seem sure what it was. But it was only because of what you said that he decided to stay on Earth.”
Kathleen wanted to punch the air, not for her own victory, but for the young woman’s. You go on, Susan, her mind was saying. You live your life.
“It was only by staying on Earth that he met us,” added Ian. “And without taking all the credit, well… that did start something, didn’t it Barbara?”
Barbara nodded, agreeing resolutely. “We wanted to ensure that he met us, so as soon as we arrived back, we began to work on a plan for the films. We knew a couple of producers – the Doctor introduced us to all sorts of famous figures in his time, so we were able to name-drop a few historical personages. Only those within our time, of course. We didn’t want to confuse our employers any further!”
Kathleen laughed.
“Susan had told us about the films,” Ian elaborated. “Based on what you’d told her. We knew you were a fan, so we knew it was the film that must have drawn you to the TARDIS in the first place. So we made them. They were okay, weren’t they? Not the most accurate, mind…”
“I loved them,” admitted Barbara, “but my husband is a perfectionist. I always said… the films brought people closer to the Doctor. Everyone who enjoyed the film, they were thanking him, in a way. And that was wonderful. Seeing the Doctor anywhere… that’s a wonderful thing. And we just thought, well…”
“We thought,” finished Ian, “that as long as we kept Dr Who in the world, people would remember that there was more out there. If we played it right. In the end, people didn’t need Dr Who for the reasons we thought. They needed it because it just made the world that little bit better.”
“And little did they know…” Barbara rested her hand on Ian’s knee. “The whole thing was true. But then, I suppose the distinction between fiction and non-fiction is incidental really, isn’t it? The things that change the world are real, whatever they call themselves. And I like to think that Dr Who changed the world.”
“Well,” quipped Kathleen, “it was definitely the making of Peter Cushing.”
The old couple laughed, and poured some more tea.
Kathleen looked out of the window, and smiled again. Ian was right. Walking into the TARDIS had made the world that little bit better. The sun seemed to shine brighter, smiles seemed to last longer. It was almost as if the rest of them knew as well, in their hearts, that the story of the disappearing blue box was as real as any other.
***
Susan was the first to the console this time, hand resting on some trivial switch, unmoving. She was staring down, not even at the time rotor as she usually did when feeling pensive, but at her own feet.
She always liked it when her feet touched the ground, outside. To feel a part of something, a part of another world, another people… it was something the Doctor would never understand, somehow.
“Where to next then, grandfather?” she asked wearily. “We should head off soon.”
“Yes, quite.” The Doctor marched into the console room and pressed a button. “Quite right child, you can’t stay anywhere too long.”
Susan continued to look down. “Yes, grandfather.”
“Not even Earth.”
“Of course not, grandfather.”
The Doctor was waiting for Susan to make eye contact, now a little irritated. He decided to lose a layer of subtlety.
“Never. Not even so Susan Foreman can have a home, hmm?”
Susan looked up at last, unable to bear the tension. Her eyes met her grandfather’s. For a moment, he saw and understood how seething her desire was. Then she realised what his eyes were saying, what they had been trying to tell her from the start.
What she had said to Kathleen was right: he had such a capacity to be kind. And when he was, it made him beautiful, and it made her proud to call him her only family.
“I’m so sorry, Susan. I’ve been so old, so selfish, so stubborn! I wanted you to spend your whole childhood wandering, drifting, with just me to keep you company! And how could I? You’re a young woman, growing up. It’s time I grew up and understood that. Yes. It’s time we found somewhere to stay…”
“Grandfather,” stuttered Susan, “I don’t know what to say…”
“Oh, don’t thank me yet, child.” The Doctor waggled his finger. “I haven’t landed the ship. I’m going to try and take us back to 1963, which seems like an easier time for us to blend into, considering our culture and tastes. But I can’t get a fix on the location, what with Tarmijee’s influence wearing off. No, I fear we may be, er, a few months early… now, if I could get the, get the, er, the quantum… quantum…”
Forgetting his fragility altogether, Susan threw herself at the old man, nearly knocking him over, and trapping him in a hug.
“Oh, dear…” he was chuckling, nervously, a little uncomfortable with the situation. “Yes, well, I…”
“Grandfather?”
“Yes, child.”
“I think I love you very much.”
The Doctor smiled, and put his arm around his granddaughter, as they watched the time rotor move up and down, taking them somewhere they would stay.
“I love you too, child.”
writer - JANINE RIVERS
cover art - JANINE RIVERS
story editor - JANINE RIVERS
producer - JANINE RIVERS
I never got around to finishing Kathleen's story, so the arc remains unresolved! However, if you want to read more of the character, you can read an unpublished adventure with the Fourth Doctor here.
cover art - JANINE RIVERS
story editor - JANINE RIVERS
producer - JANINE RIVERS
I never got around to finishing Kathleen's story, so the arc remains unresolved! However, if you want to read more of the character, you can read an unpublished adventure with the Fourth Doctor here.