Prologue
Natalie watched the man at the counter from her seat. He had behaved like an impatient nine year-old in the queue: complaining, sighing, tapping his feet. It was fair enough – there were a lot of busy men in London, and a lot of angry men, too. They had their reasons.
Except when he was finally served, he changed his mind about what he wanted to order. He then proceeded to fumble around for his wallet, get his PIN number wrong, and hold up all the far more patient customers behind him. There was always that one man: the one who complained about waiting before making everyone else do the exact same.
It was nearly eleven o’clock at night, but this café just off Piccadilly Circus was brimming. The waiters barely found the time to watch the clocks, and Natalie had to make sure that Tommy’s seat was reserved by resting her handbag on it, lest it ended up being taken by a very stressed, very sweaty businessman.
London was like that. Everything lasted longer, but went quicker. The cafes were open twice as long, but had four times as many customers eating at twice the speed they would anywhere else. Even the coffees seemed to cool quicker, and Natalie found herself working through far too many daily, cursed with headaches whenever she reverted back to her old diet of orange juice.
Back home, in Balcombe, the few cafes there were finished business before the evening even began. There was never anyone new; the only time the environment changed at all was when any of the customers died, which was frequent in a village so dull that people retired there just so that they didn’t put too much pressure on their hearts.
But sometimes the boredom got so bad that their hearts just stopped. Everything else had.
Here, in London, you could never learn the names of your regular customers even if they visited every hour, and everyone who entered through the door was fascinating in a way wholly exclusive to this city. With house prices soaring, no one just lived in London. Upping sticks and moving was impractical, and so everyone who did had a story instead of a life.
There were the tourists, armed with selfie sticks and free maps from the young woman outside the Tate Modern. Then there were those who lived here: those with boring but well-paid jobs, those with exciting jobs on slave labour, and those with no jobs and an inheritance the size and value of St Paul’s Cathedral. And there was ambition wherever she looked – the ambition of ordinary village people like her, who decided they wanted to go somewhere where people lived. They did not anticipate the future; they did not anticipate a city carrying the weight of a thousand deaths.
But that was life in this day and age. Or rather, not life. It got everywhere, and you had to either ignore it, or embrace it – which would have been a little bit strange.
She envied the people who lived in this city without worry, if indeed there were any. She rented a room, with a panoramic view of leaking drainpipes and a carpet that smelled of the vagrant who’d squatted there before. And it was still more than she could really afford.
I travel in time, Tommy had reminded her. Let me set you up somewhere nice, take away that burden. Then she reminded him of their promise.
Back in the socialist’s society at King's College London, where they had first met, they both made a vow that they expected they would never have to confront: if either of them ended up in a position of privilege or power, they would not help the other unless it was part of a wider action to help the rest of society. There would be no preferential treatment, no generous donations, nothing, unless the commitment was made to help others through the same problems.
Sort out my financial situation then, Natalie had told him after he offered. And sort out England’s economy while you’re at it, because you can’t do one without the other.
Tommy must have felt guilty now, living in that place of privilege he had always rejected, touring history with the aristocrat of the universe. Then again, they did the whole thing inside a little blue shed, so there was something significant in that.
The man at the counter had finally managed to pay for his drink, and walked out with it. Natalie’s coffee was nearly finished, but she did not plan to buy another until Tommy arrived. She hated paying for things. She remembered back when she was confident, the extrovert, the centre of attention, the life and soul of the party. Now she was put off by making a phone-call, knocking on a door, sending an email or buying a coffee.
She suspected it was because of how things had changed. She always paid by cash these days, living in constant paranoia that she would go to pay and her card would be rejected. An unattainable flat white coffee would be sitting on the counter, reminding her why it would never be hers.
“Natalie.”
Natalie looked up. Tommy was standing awkwardly at the table, and Natalie smiled and gestured for him to take a seat opposite.
He had aged again. He did that. Natalie could never tell if it was a conscious effort to look older, a sudden growth spurt, or whether he had lived the same week over and over again in the TARDIS and returned to her years later than he had left. He always looked years wiser anyway – but that was just Tommy.
He was complex, but she understood him. They were on equal terms, and being friends rather than anything else had allowed their mutual understanding to blossom, if anything.
“You okay?” asked Natalie.
“Um… not too bad,” lied Tommy, aware that no one ever answered that question honestly. “Yourself?”
“Not too bad,” lied Natalie. “Why did you ask to meet?”
“I decided to leave the TARDIS,” said Tommy. It was an important moment, but clearly unrehearsed. He placed a book on the table, a relatively short but thin-paged volume with a black, reflective cover.
“Oh. Okay. What’s the book?” Natalie enquired. “I don’t mean to steal your thunder… I just figured it was probably important.”
“It is important,” agreed Tommy, and stared down at it, making a conscious effort not to actually touch it. “I’ll get to that. I think I need to tell you a story first, because there’s a lot to take in. How much time have you got?”
“Enough,” assured Natalie. “Would you like to go from the start?”
Except when he was finally served, he changed his mind about what he wanted to order. He then proceeded to fumble around for his wallet, get his PIN number wrong, and hold up all the far more patient customers behind him. There was always that one man: the one who complained about waiting before making everyone else do the exact same.
It was nearly eleven o’clock at night, but this café just off Piccadilly Circus was brimming. The waiters barely found the time to watch the clocks, and Natalie had to make sure that Tommy’s seat was reserved by resting her handbag on it, lest it ended up being taken by a very stressed, very sweaty businessman.
London was like that. Everything lasted longer, but went quicker. The cafes were open twice as long, but had four times as many customers eating at twice the speed they would anywhere else. Even the coffees seemed to cool quicker, and Natalie found herself working through far too many daily, cursed with headaches whenever she reverted back to her old diet of orange juice.
Back home, in Balcombe, the few cafes there were finished business before the evening even began. There was never anyone new; the only time the environment changed at all was when any of the customers died, which was frequent in a village so dull that people retired there just so that they didn’t put too much pressure on their hearts.
But sometimes the boredom got so bad that their hearts just stopped. Everything else had.
Here, in London, you could never learn the names of your regular customers even if they visited every hour, and everyone who entered through the door was fascinating in a way wholly exclusive to this city. With house prices soaring, no one just lived in London. Upping sticks and moving was impractical, and so everyone who did had a story instead of a life.
There were the tourists, armed with selfie sticks and free maps from the young woman outside the Tate Modern. Then there were those who lived here: those with boring but well-paid jobs, those with exciting jobs on slave labour, and those with no jobs and an inheritance the size and value of St Paul’s Cathedral. And there was ambition wherever she looked – the ambition of ordinary village people like her, who decided they wanted to go somewhere where people lived. They did not anticipate the future; they did not anticipate a city carrying the weight of a thousand deaths.
But that was life in this day and age. Or rather, not life. It got everywhere, and you had to either ignore it, or embrace it – which would have been a little bit strange.
She envied the people who lived in this city without worry, if indeed there were any. She rented a room, with a panoramic view of leaking drainpipes and a carpet that smelled of the vagrant who’d squatted there before. And it was still more than she could really afford.
I travel in time, Tommy had reminded her. Let me set you up somewhere nice, take away that burden. Then she reminded him of their promise.
Back in the socialist’s society at King's College London, where they had first met, they both made a vow that they expected they would never have to confront: if either of them ended up in a position of privilege or power, they would not help the other unless it was part of a wider action to help the rest of society. There would be no preferential treatment, no generous donations, nothing, unless the commitment was made to help others through the same problems.
Sort out my financial situation then, Natalie had told him after he offered. And sort out England’s economy while you’re at it, because you can’t do one without the other.
Tommy must have felt guilty now, living in that place of privilege he had always rejected, touring history with the aristocrat of the universe. Then again, they did the whole thing inside a little blue shed, so there was something significant in that.
The man at the counter had finally managed to pay for his drink, and walked out with it. Natalie’s coffee was nearly finished, but she did not plan to buy another until Tommy arrived. She hated paying for things. She remembered back when she was confident, the extrovert, the centre of attention, the life and soul of the party. Now she was put off by making a phone-call, knocking on a door, sending an email or buying a coffee.
She suspected it was because of how things had changed. She always paid by cash these days, living in constant paranoia that she would go to pay and her card would be rejected. An unattainable flat white coffee would be sitting on the counter, reminding her why it would never be hers.
“Natalie.”
Natalie looked up. Tommy was standing awkwardly at the table, and Natalie smiled and gestured for him to take a seat opposite.
He had aged again. He did that. Natalie could never tell if it was a conscious effort to look older, a sudden growth spurt, or whether he had lived the same week over and over again in the TARDIS and returned to her years later than he had left. He always looked years wiser anyway – but that was just Tommy.
He was complex, but she understood him. They were on equal terms, and being friends rather than anything else had allowed their mutual understanding to blossom, if anything.
“You okay?” asked Natalie.
“Um… not too bad,” lied Tommy, aware that no one ever answered that question honestly. “Yourself?”
“Not too bad,” lied Natalie. “Why did you ask to meet?”
“I decided to leave the TARDIS,” said Tommy. It was an important moment, but clearly unrehearsed. He placed a book on the table, a relatively short but thin-paged volume with a black, reflective cover.
“Oh. Okay. What’s the book?” Natalie enquired. “I don’t mean to steal your thunder… I just figured it was probably important.”
“It is important,” agreed Tommy, and stared down at it, making a conscious effort not to actually touch it. “I’ll get to that. I think I need to tell you a story first, because there’s a lot to take in. How much time have you got?”
“Enough,” assured Natalie. “Would you like to go from the start?”
The Eighth Doctor Adventures
Series 4 - Episode 4
Breath of Life
Written by Janine Rivers
The Doctor looked over to the lowered section of the console room. Jasmine and Tommy were aware of nothing except each other, passionately involved in their activity: ping-pong.
Once (what felt to the Doctor like centuries ago) that staircase led down to what Autumn Rivers had taken over as her investigation room. She’d wiped the mathematical equations off the board and replaced them with notes on whatever little project she had at the time. She found a round, metal table, placed it in the centre of her work area, and quickly filled it up with assorted junk from all the cases she solved – often with Tommy – in the Doctor’s absence. That woman seemed to never sleep.
She kept the bar, because she enjoyed pouring herself a glass of lemonade, and needed somewhere to stash her biscuits. She also kept the Doctor’s painting of Gallifrey hanging there, understanding how much it meant to him even though he never once acknowledged its existence.
Now, the table was gone; Jasmine had swiftly replaced it with a ping-pong table, and used the blackboard as a leader-board for her games with Tommy. The Doctor, on the same day, had taken the painting of Gallifrey down, and replaced it with a photograph of Autumn Rivers.
“Oh, bugger!” Jasmine had been a moment too late, and the ping-pong ball missed her, bouncing off the blackboard behind her. She picked it up and chucked it back to Tommy. “You’re too good at this.”
“Really?” Tommy considered. “Well, I wasn’t bad at PE.”
“PE?” Jasmine scoffed. “You would not have been good at PE. I bet you were secretly terrified!”
“I… enjoyed cross-country!” protested Tommy, clearly embarrassed. “Can’t say football was very much up my street.”
Jasmine recalled her PE lessons. She was glad she never had to finish them. “I hated netball.”
“I’d have probably enjoyed netball.”
Jasmine raised an eyebrow. “Tommy Lindsay, am I going to have to find you a boyfriend?”
“It’s a bit lonely up here!” yelled the Doctor, as Tommy served. They took no notice of him. “Anyone think of joining me? We’ve got the whole universe to explore, and you two are just standing around here, playing literal and verbal ping-pong!”
“It’s your fault!” replied Jasmine, missing another one. “Let’s go somewhere new, he says. Oh, I can’t find any planets, because I’ve got access to the whole universe but everywhere just seems to be a dark and dusty vacuum, he says. I can’t fly my ship properly is, of course, what he means.”
“I can fly my ship just fine!” the Doctor argued. “Sometimes she just drifts, that’s all. Finds herself in a particularly quiet part of space. Takes us a while to get past it.”
“We haven’t found any new planets in two days,” recalled Tommy. “Ever since ‘Planet Doctor’. Do you think maybe you’ve broken the universe?”
“I did go to school, you know!” said the Doctor. Jasmine smirked. “I did learn how not to accidentally ‘break’ the cosmos. I even passed my theory test.”
“Driving theory?” asked Tommy, unimpressed. “That’s easy. It’s just multiple choice.”
“Well on Gallifrey, ‘multiple choice’ means the choice you make is dependent on the state of the causal nexus at the exact moment the question comes up. You didn’t sit your driving theory next to the Untempered Schism, Mr Lindsay!” The TARDIS jerked, and the Doctor jumped. “And just like that,” he uttered, satisfied that he had the upper-hand, “we’ve landed somewhere.”
“Sure it’s not just a lump of rock?” teased Tommy.
“Everywhere we visit is a lump of rock.” The Doctor headed over to the door, and Jasmine and Tommy finally rested their bats on the table and followed him over. “Perfectly habitable outside,” said the Doctor. “Literally – perfectly habitable. I’ve never seen such a balanced and unpolluted range of gasses. Spend your whole lives living here, you’d probably live to about a hundred and twenty.” He opened the door and walked out. “Oh, for heaven’s sake!”
“What is it?” called Jasmine. The Doctor re-entered, soaked from head to foot.
“We’ve landed in a waterfall.”
“How did the driving practical go, Doctor?” badgered Tommy. “As badly as the theory? I suppose you could have passed it, as long as the examiner didn’t ask you to park…”
“And just for that, I’m going to make you walk out through the waterfall.”
“No… what?” Tommy complained. “Oh come on!”
The Doctor grinned and went back outside. Jasmine followed, cautiously. Tommy was left with no other choice.
“The things I do to keep you two happy…”
“And I suppose the showering in PE was also a bit of a problem for you!” Jasmine called back. “Still, this could be Planet of the Boyfriends!”
“I really don’t want a boyfriend,” said Tommy, but neither of them heard him.
The water was freezing cold, and he tried not to yelp as it rushed down his neck. He moved through it as quickly as he could – the water went up to his knees, and it appeared the TARDIS had parked in the lake. He felt it getting into his shoes and wetting his socks. It was not a particularly nice feeling.
Once he was past the waterfall, he looked back, still knee-deep in water. The waterfall was very high – about thirty feet, he would have guessed. They were in some kind of forest: this was a small lake, and they were surrounded by overgrown plants and a seemingly endless huddle of tall, skinny trees, even skinnier than he was.
“I never thought I’d hear myself saying this,” started Tommy, “but I think I preferred the vast expanses of nothingness we’d spent the last two days in.”
“It’s not that bad!” said the Doctor. “Besides, this is an interesting planet. Can’t you smell it? It just smells interesting. Once we’re past the worst of it and reach civilisation, I’m sure you’ll realise how much better than eternal table tennis this really is.”
“How do you know there’s civilisation?” challenged Tommy. “Can you smell that too?”
“No, but with surroundings like this I struggle to believe there isn’t. Who wouldn’t want to live here?”
***
“So was there?” pressed Natalie. “Did you find a civilisation?”
“Yup,” said Tommy. “The Doctor was right.” It felt strange for him to hear himself say those words; paradoxical, even. “It took us about ten minutes and three nettle rashes, but we got through the forest. On the other side we found it – what looked like a small settlement. All the people there lived on the seafront, in little cottage houses, dotted all over the place. And then on the hill about half a mile away there was a different house. Bigger, stately, majestic. It was gated off, still built in the same style as the cottages, but massive and better looked-after. I kind of got a bad impression from it straight away, even though I admired the architecture.”
“What imaginative description,” said Natalie. “You should be a writer.”
“Hey! I am a writer.”
“You’re a blogger.”
“That’s… basically a writer.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Excuse me Natalie, I’m trying to push for electoral reform and raise awareness for social injustice, and now you’re critiquing my career choice?”
“Career?” Natalie laughed. “That’s a very grown-up word, isn’t it?”
“You’re just winding me up.” Tommy pretended to be offended. “May I go on, your highness? Or would you like me to employ more elaborate description, in order to further explore the, the, uh, previous account, section, thingy?”
“You were never cut out for Oxbridge Tommy, you’ve got the syntax knowledge of a dead duck.”
“I’d rather be a dead duck than go to Oxbridge anyway.”
“Yes,” said Natalie, suddenly. “Go on with your story, servant.”
Tommy smirked, and bowed his head in jest to his ‘superior’. “There were lots of people moving around. They looked… Victorian, I suppose? They were well-dressed, but not in an earthly way. The way they made their clothes was strange, but they had the same colour scheme as us; there were lots of blacks and whites and greys.”
Natalie shuddered. Grey. That was a fashion disaster she never quite forgave her father for.
“They didn’t seem that bothered by us. I wore what I’m wearing now.” He gestured down to his clothes, which Natalie too had failed to notice: a turquoise shirt, a pair of black trousers, and some golden cufflinks, probably from another planet. “The Doctor had his leather jacket on, and Jasmine was in a white V-neck shirt. We fit in, more or less.”
“You well clad bunch.”
“Well, we try our best. Also, the Doctor’s wardrobe goes on longer than the Queen’s speech.”
“So you carried on through the settlement. Did you stop and chat? Go back to the TARDIS?”
“We did stop,” said Tommy. “The Doctor was drawn to something – there was a gathering of people, so tightly-packed together that we couldn’t see what they were looking at. We decided to check it out, thinking there would be no harm in that. Natalie…” his face went serious, in a way that was powerful and hypnotic because it happened so rarely if ever. “I want you to promise me something.”
“Okay…”
“Don’t judge them.” His voice was shaking. He looked to the book. He had been reminded of the thing that scared him so much when he came in. “I’m going to tell you some things now, and they’re not pleasant. No… actually they’re terrible, Nat. You’re going to hear some terrible things. I need you to promise me that you’ll remember this. It’s not their fault. None of it – none of it is their fault.”
“I promise.”
“It’s ours.”
***
The Doctor, Tommy and Jasmine pushed to the front. They could see now that the crowd was gathered around a small stage. On the stage, a woman was sitting on a chair; she was not dressed like the others, but wore colourless, threadbare rags. She was crying, too; whimpering, shivering, and it was impossible to tell whether it was some kind of show, something real, or both.
Once (what felt to the Doctor like centuries ago) that staircase led down to what Autumn Rivers had taken over as her investigation room. She’d wiped the mathematical equations off the board and replaced them with notes on whatever little project she had at the time. She found a round, metal table, placed it in the centre of her work area, and quickly filled it up with assorted junk from all the cases she solved – often with Tommy – in the Doctor’s absence. That woman seemed to never sleep.
She kept the bar, because she enjoyed pouring herself a glass of lemonade, and needed somewhere to stash her biscuits. She also kept the Doctor’s painting of Gallifrey hanging there, understanding how much it meant to him even though he never once acknowledged its existence.
Now, the table was gone; Jasmine had swiftly replaced it with a ping-pong table, and used the blackboard as a leader-board for her games with Tommy. The Doctor, on the same day, had taken the painting of Gallifrey down, and replaced it with a photograph of Autumn Rivers.
“Oh, bugger!” Jasmine had been a moment too late, and the ping-pong ball missed her, bouncing off the blackboard behind her. She picked it up and chucked it back to Tommy. “You’re too good at this.”
“Really?” Tommy considered. “Well, I wasn’t bad at PE.”
“PE?” Jasmine scoffed. “You would not have been good at PE. I bet you were secretly terrified!”
“I… enjoyed cross-country!” protested Tommy, clearly embarrassed. “Can’t say football was very much up my street.”
Jasmine recalled her PE lessons. She was glad she never had to finish them. “I hated netball.”
“I’d have probably enjoyed netball.”
Jasmine raised an eyebrow. “Tommy Lindsay, am I going to have to find you a boyfriend?”
“It’s a bit lonely up here!” yelled the Doctor, as Tommy served. They took no notice of him. “Anyone think of joining me? We’ve got the whole universe to explore, and you two are just standing around here, playing literal and verbal ping-pong!”
“It’s your fault!” replied Jasmine, missing another one. “Let’s go somewhere new, he says. Oh, I can’t find any planets, because I’ve got access to the whole universe but everywhere just seems to be a dark and dusty vacuum, he says. I can’t fly my ship properly is, of course, what he means.”
“I can fly my ship just fine!” the Doctor argued. “Sometimes she just drifts, that’s all. Finds herself in a particularly quiet part of space. Takes us a while to get past it.”
“We haven’t found any new planets in two days,” recalled Tommy. “Ever since ‘Planet Doctor’. Do you think maybe you’ve broken the universe?”
“I did go to school, you know!” said the Doctor. Jasmine smirked. “I did learn how not to accidentally ‘break’ the cosmos. I even passed my theory test.”
“Driving theory?” asked Tommy, unimpressed. “That’s easy. It’s just multiple choice.”
“Well on Gallifrey, ‘multiple choice’ means the choice you make is dependent on the state of the causal nexus at the exact moment the question comes up. You didn’t sit your driving theory next to the Untempered Schism, Mr Lindsay!” The TARDIS jerked, and the Doctor jumped. “And just like that,” he uttered, satisfied that he had the upper-hand, “we’ve landed somewhere.”
“Sure it’s not just a lump of rock?” teased Tommy.
“Everywhere we visit is a lump of rock.” The Doctor headed over to the door, and Jasmine and Tommy finally rested their bats on the table and followed him over. “Perfectly habitable outside,” said the Doctor. “Literally – perfectly habitable. I’ve never seen such a balanced and unpolluted range of gasses. Spend your whole lives living here, you’d probably live to about a hundred and twenty.” He opened the door and walked out. “Oh, for heaven’s sake!”
“What is it?” called Jasmine. The Doctor re-entered, soaked from head to foot.
“We’ve landed in a waterfall.”
“How did the driving practical go, Doctor?” badgered Tommy. “As badly as the theory? I suppose you could have passed it, as long as the examiner didn’t ask you to park…”
“And just for that, I’m going to make you walk out through the waterfall.”
“No… what?” Tommy complained. “Oh come on!”
The Doctor grinned and went back outside. Jasmine followed, cautiously. Tommy was left with no other choice.
“The things I do to keep you two happy…”
“And I suppose the showering in PE was also a bit of a problem for you!” Jasmine called back. “Still, this could be Planet of the Boyfriends!”
“I really don’t want a boyfriend,” said Tommy, but neither of them heard him.
The water was freezing cold, and he tried not to yelp as it rushed down his neck. He moved through it as quickly as he could – the water went up to his knees, and it appeared the TARDIS had parked in the lake. He felt it getting into his shoes and wetting his socks. It was not a particularly nice feeling.
Once he was past the waterfall, he looked back, still knee-deep in water. The waterfall was very high – about thirty feet, he would have guessed. They were in some kind of forest: this was a small lake, and they were surrounded by overgrown plants and a seemingly endless huddle of tall, skinny trees, even skinnier than he was.
“I never thought I’d hear myself saying this,” started Tommy, “but I think I preferred the vast expanses of nothingness we’d spent the last two days in.”
“It’s not that bad!” said the Doctor. “Besides, this is an interesting planet. Can’t you smell it? It just smells interesting. Once we’re past the worst of it and reach civilisation, I’m sure you’ll realise how much better than eternal table tennis this really is.”
“How do you know there’s civilisation?” challenged Tommy. “Can you smell that too?”
“No, but with surroundings like this I struggle to believe there isn’t. Who wouldn’t want to live here?”
***
“So was there?” pressed Natalie. “Did you find a civilisation?”
“Yup,” said Tommy. “The Doctor was right.” It felt strange for him to hear himself say those words; paradoxical, even. “It took us about ten minutes and three nettle rashes, but we got through the forest. On the other side we found it – what looked like a small settlement. All the people there lived on the seafront, in little cottage houses, dotted all over the place. And then on the hill about half a mile away there was a different house. Bigger, stately, majestic. It was gated off, still built in the same style as the cottages, but massive and better looked-after. I kind of got a bad impression from it straight away, even though I admired the architecture.”
“What imaginative description,” said Natalie. “You should be a writer.”
“Hey! I am a writer.”
“You’re a blogger.”
“That’s… basically a writer.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Excuse me Natalie, I’m trying to push for electoral reform and raise awareness for social injustice, and now you’re critiquing my career choice?”
“Career?” Natalie laughed. “That’s a very grown-up word, isn’t it?”
“You’re just winding me up.” Tommy pretended to be offended. “May I go on, your highness? Or would you like me to employ more elaborate description, in order to further explore the, the, uh, previous account, section, thingy?”
“You were never cut out for Oxbridge Tommy, you’ve got the syntax knowledge of a dead duck.”
“I’d rather be a dead duck than go to Oxbridge anyway.”
“Yes,” said Natalie, suddenly. “Go on with your story, servant.”
Tommy smirked, and bowed his head in jest to his ‘superior’. “There were lots of people moving around. They looked… Victorian, I suppose? They were well-dressed, but not in an earthly way. The way they made their clothes was strange, but they had the same colour scheme as us; there were lots of blacks and whites and greys.”
Natalie shuddered. Grey. That was a fashion disaster she never quite forgave her father for.
“They didn’t seem that bothered by us. I wore what I’m wearing now.” He gestured down to his clothes, which Natalie too had failed to notice: a turquoise shirt, a pair of black trousers, and some golden cufflinks, probably from another planet. “The Doctor had his leather jacket on, and Jasmine was in a white V-neck shirt. We fit in, more or less.”
“You well clad bunch.”
“Well, we try our best. Also, the Doctor’s wardrobe goes on longer than the Queen’s speech.”
“So you carried on through the settlement. Did you stop and chat? Go back to the TARDIS?”
“We did stop,” said Tommy. “The Doctor was drawn to something – there was a gathering of people, so tightly-packed together that we couldn’t see what they were looking at. We decided to check it out, thinking there would be no harm in that. Natalie…” his face went serious, in a way that was powerful and hypnotic because it happened so rarely if ever. “I want you to promise me something.”
“Okay…”
“Don’t judge them.” His voice was shaking. He looked to the book. He had been reminded of the thing that scared him so much when he came in. “I’m going to tell you some things now, and they’re not pleasant. No… actually they’re terrible, Nat. You’re going to hear some terrible things. I need you to promise me that you’ll remember this. It’s not their fault. None of it – none of it is their fault.”
“I promise.”
“It’s ours.”
***
The Doctor, Tommy and Jasmine pushed to the front. They could see now that the crowd was gathered around a small stage. On the stage, a woman was sitting on a chair; she was not dressed like the others, but wore colourless, threadbare rags. She was crying, too; whimpering, shivering, and it was impossible to tell whether it was some kind of show, something real, or both.
“Astrea Dercorae,” announced a well-dressed, bearded man who stood behind her, “you are charged with attempting to leave the one true faith. Are there any grounds on which you dispute this charge?”
“This is a very unusual hearing,” murmured Jasmine. “Most planets are like Earth, legally-speaking. All big courtrooms and silly wigs”
“Yes, well-observed,” agreed the Doctor, “and there’s something else strange about this planet too. I’m very close to putting my finger on it…”
“No,” sobbed the woman. “No, there aren’t, but please… you can’t…”
Tommy frowned. This was just a hearing, and it sounded like a minor charge. Surely she was only crying over the possibility of community service, or some brief jail-time at most?
Before the TARDIS team could act, the man behind her swung a mallet at her head. It hit her instantly, killing her. Barely any blood was spilled. The crowd remained silent, but in a dull, normalized way, as if nothing was surprising about this at all.
“Oh my God,” cried Tommy, disgusted. “That’s… that’s…”
“I’ve just figured it out,” the Doctor uttered. He was shaking his head, and his voice was shaking. All of that charisma was gone, and he spoke to his friends like an introvert trying to deliver the jokes in a best man’s speech. “Tommy, Jasmine, I’m so sorry. Everything I’ve told you is wrong. I think I’ve just made the worst mistake of my life.”
The crowds were dissipating now, and the woman’s body was left laid out on the stage, her arm dangling off the edge. Her hand was open, and Tommy felt an urge to reach out, clasp it, tell her it would all soon be okay – but there was no point. It was too late, and however much justice was brought to the leader of this world, the pain she felt could never be undone. In a way, it was all going to be for nothing, whatever happened.
“What is it?” asked Tommy. “What could possibly be worse than this?”
“There’s a reason we haven’t been able to find any new worlds since I created that planet,” explained the Doctor. “I thought we’d left that universe, but we must have narrowly missed our exit.”
“You mean we’re stuck here?” exclaimed Jasmine.
“No, nothing like that. But don’t you see? I only created one world here: one sun, one civilisation. Which means this is it – in the the future. This is what my planet has become.”
Jasmine gasped, and felt suddenly sick. She exchanged a glance with Tommy, who was too in shock to even find a facial expression to use.
The Doctor took control again: all that charisma came back, and he stood up on the stage. The people who had just watched the execution turned to see what he had to say.
“Everyone,” he announced. “My name is the Doctor, and I am your god.”
The executioner walked forward, and Jasmine fought an urge not to gouge his eyeballs out.
“You will come with me,” he said, monotonously.
“Good!” replied the Doctor.
“All false prophets are to face condemnation from Enoch.”
“Ah.”
“Before execution in the Temple.”
***
“You’ve lost me here,” confessed Natalie. “So you’re saying the Doctor created this planet?”
“Yes,” answered Tommy. “I was there when he did it. It was all an accident; he created a new universe because he gave the wrong command to the TARDIS, and then… and then he made this world. I don’t even know why he did it. I think it was just an experiment, just like, ‘why the hell not?’ That was his logic anyway.”
“And yours?”
Tommy sighed, and shook his head sombrely. “I went along with it. I just went along with it even though I knew, I knew it was wrong. My gut was telling me from the start: he shouldn’t be doing this. He had too much power, he was too careless about this huge, impossible thing. But I kept my mouth shut.”
“That’s not like you.”
“No, it’s not. But I thought: he’s a Time Lord. He knows this stuff better than I do. I mean, it’s true, isn’t it? What do I know? What do either of us know, Nat, in comparison to someone like that? And Jasmine went along with it; she even seemed to be enjoying it, but I can’t blame her. It was so easy, so easy just to get whisked away in the moment without realising the consequences. We’re not gods. We’d make terrible gods. But we made ourselves gods--the Doctor made himself a god--and what do you think worshipping someone like that for centuries would do to a civilisation? Can you imagine?”
“I don’t really have to.”
Tommy nodded thoughtfully. Natalie always gave the best insights.
“And who even is Jasmine? Was she really Autumn?”
Tommy shrugged sadly. “I don’t know.” He shook his head again. “I don’t know. I never asked; she never said. She could be anyone. But she’s… oh, it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it?” Natalie’s voice was getting croaky.
“Maybe. So we started to walk with this guy, because we knew – we thought – the Doctor would have a plan. We saw a bit more of this planet and to be honest it was just like the rest. And I couldn’t be me, not the me you know, because I suddenly had no facts. I didn’t know anything. I couldn’t pass judgement; I couldn’t open my mouth and tell them the rules. It was the Doctor passing judgement and giving out the rules like that, and doing it so carelessly, that had made that society into what it was.” He stared at Natalie’s coffee cup. It was empty, and had been for a while judging by the rings at the bottom of it. “Can I get you another one?”
“No, you don’t have to…”
“Natalie,” said Tommy, more sternly than he had been expecting. “You sound really hoarse. Would you like another coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
Tommy got out his card, and Natalie felt a sudden pang of jealousy. He just did it – he probably didn’t even check how much he had on there. He just knew it was enough.
It must have felt good to know that.
***
“So it’s a few hundred years in the future?” whispered Jasmine, keeping her voice low so that she was not heard. They were not sure at this stage whether they were being guided or paraded through this civilisation, but they were met by two types of citizens as they walked on: those who refused to look them in the eye, and those who would not stop looking.
“Maybe,” said the Doctor. “We travelled quite a way, but it’s hard to tell how long. Besides, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how long the deed takes, as long as it’s done. And this time the deed was done, and we can’t undo it.”
“Enoch, then. I guess he’s the guy who lives in that big castle thing?”
“You’d guess correctly, I think. And I would guess that there’s a temple around the back, perhaps where I’m worshipped. Though they’re very dismissive, aren’t they? I told them I’d come back; you were both there. So why don’t they believe it now I have?”
Tommy rolled his eyes. The answer was obvious, but the Doctor appeared to understand nothing of any society.
“Because our god already came back,” said the executioner. He must have heard the whole conversation. “And who knows – maybe before you die he’ll have a word with you about who’s boss.”
Jasmine and Tommy exchanged raised eyebrows, while the Doctor looked straight on. A planet was always more enjoyable with a mystery to solve.
“Yes – I think I rather would like to meet him.”
***
Tommy placed the coffees on the table, and Natalie picked hers up straight away and took a sip.
“Cappuccino. You shouldn’t have.”
“It’s not a coffee without chocolate sprinkles.” He appeared, however, to have got himself a latte. “You’re very political, Natalie.”
“Good observation, but I wasn’t trying at a metaphor then.”
“No, I mean…” Tommy chuckled. “It doesn’t matter. Okay then, warm-up: try to picture the worst society imaginable. What sort of things does it do?”
Natalie considered, and stared into the depths of her cappuccino to find it. “Fundamentalist views, I guess. Rigid rules, I think – I don’t mean laws, I mean norms. So, fixed gender roles, fixed practises, ritualistic. Um… a justice system with a response disproportionate to the crime committed, so capital punishment for starters. Then there’s organised religion, which, okay, it has to exist, but I think maybe a link between church and state where the church is the governing authority, using that, or anything else, as an excuse to curtail free speech. Entrenched class divisions. Persecution of minorities. Look, it’s all obvious stuff.”
“I know it is; I just needed you to think about it.” Tommy pushed the book into the centre of the table, away from their drinks. “This world did all of it. All the worst things imaginable. Because a few centuries back, the Doctor had joked around and told a few kids a few rules. And they grew up and told their children, and they were passed on and translated on and on, and worst of all, taken both seriously and literally.” He paused. “The Doctor. His wisdom, his charisma, his humour, his sense of adventure. Each one of those factors led to the oppression of a whole new species the Doctor himself had created by accident, and to the deaths of potentially millions of people. All with mine and Jasmine's genetic templates, but after what he inflicted on them, you couldn't see even a trace of either of us left over. All of that... and, in large measure, because I went along with it.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is, indirectly. If you don’t express your opposition when you have the opportunity or authority to do so, you’re endorsing what’s happening. If it was anyone other than me we were talking about, that’s what you’d say.”
“True. So before we both go insane, I think you’d better tell me more.”
***
The Doctor was right about the Temple. As they entered the castle, he realised how spacious it was: if not bigger on the inside it was, at least, wider. A few tall beams jutted up to support the open spaces, and across the entrance hall he could see the Temple door, wide open. And the sun was casting light on the statue directly opposite.
Except it was not like looking at a statue, but into some sort of novelty mirror. It was of him: twenty feet tall and seated on a chair like some sort of mythological lawgiver, but in the same clothes he was wearing today. A few days ago, he had wandered the fields of an innocent world and entertained its children. Now, a statue of that encounter stood as a testament to the millions he had killed.
He could feel them, so much that he was almost moved to credit at least the theory of prayer. He could feel the weight of their worship: everything they poured into him, every gift they offered up--all undeserved, and given out of fear, unearned esteem, tradition, or something they did not even understand.
He wished he could make it stop. It was hurting him: each adoration was another blow, each sacrifice another paroxysm to his hearts. If only they understood that gods were to be challenged and held accountable; not held above all charges, but at the heart of them, as the first cause for every kind of evil comprehensible.
***
“Stop it! Atalo!”
Atalo laughed at how unconvincing Sileas was. She was so unconvincing that she had not even managed to persuade herself: seconds later she was sticking her tongue down Atalo’s throat as they switched places and she pressed him against the tree. As first kisses went, it was passionate.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this,” she said, stopping for breath. “You have no idea how many times I’ve thought about this.”
“I bet it’s not as many as I have. And besides…” Atalo reached to remove his garments. “It’s not like we’re going to get to do this again for a long time, not unseen like this. It’s a rare opportunity.”
“But we can’t…” Sileas glanced down and gestured. “You’re promised.”
“To a woman who thinks my purpose is to work the mill.”
“And I’m promised.”
“To the ugliest man in the land of the one true faith. Sileas, listen to me.” He stopped, and rested his hand on his lover’s cheek. She pressed her hand against his. “Just as we’re not perfect, neither are the others. Sometimes they make mistakes. The promises that were made… they were mistakes. The Doctor is calling us to be together, no one else.”
“But is he calling us to run off into the woods, like cowards?” challenged Sileas. “Is that the example he would have set?”
“Maybe there’s nothing wrong with running off. After all, he’s not here right…”
“What? What is it?” Atalo had stopped, and was staring at the space behind Sileas. She did not turn around out of fear. Last time he had stared like this, her father had caught them together.
“Please tell me I’m wrong about this.”
Sileas finally turned around and realised why he had reacted the way he did. Just behind the waterfall was a shape: a blue box, with a glowing light on the top. They could feel its hum. And it was exactly as it had originally been described, in the account of Amory and Letta.
The Bigger-on-the-Inside Temple.
“We’ve just broken the First Rule,” uttered Atalo.
“N… no, we haven’t,” stammered Sileas. “We came here by mistake.”
“Then we should have been more careful!” cried Atalo, and Sileas backed away from him. “We should have known! Do you not remember Amory and Letta’s punishment? Do you not recall the Doctor’s wrath? We have, against his instruction, and out of only our lust, entered the forbidden land and happened upon the box. No one is meant to see the box. We must…”
“Don’t say it,” begged Sileas. “Please don’t say it.”
“Don’t you believe? If you believe in the Doctor, Sileas, if you truly believe, then you must understand the weight of your sin and hope for mercy. For it is now our duty to volunteer ourselves for sacrifice at the Temple, to deliver the news that our god has returned, and to be the first sinners to face his wrath.”
***
“You must be the man who claimed to be our god, then.”
The Doctor turned to see the source of the voice. It was a short man; not light, but seemingly neither particularly overweight nor particularly muscular. Tommy noticed that his face aligned with the golden ratio, but he was not what any of the three would have described as a handsome man: his eyes, perhaps due to the way they stared at you, seemed bigger than they were, and he did not seem accustomed to smiling.
Still, he did smile, and offered a handshake to the Doctor, who was taken aback not only by the fact that this was a greeting rather than a violent outburst, but also by the fact that it was a level of Earth-like interaction hitherto unseen on this world.
“Please,” he said modestly, “don’t worry. I’m sure there’s been a dreadful misunderstanding.” He looked to Tommy and Jasmine, as if he had not yet noticed them; his eyes scanned them up and down. “Your clothes fascinate me. Sorry, I’m getting carried away. Come through.” He gestured for them to follow him into an enclosed room. “I’ve had a banquet prepared.”
Tommy and Jasmine shared a surprised expression; the day might just be starting to look up, even if they were both half-expecting to be poisoned.
It was a long table, longer than they needed, and the man sat himself down at the end of it. The hall was also exceedingly large, with elaborate decoration a good few decades ahead of what they had seen outside of the castle. The floor was coloured and patterned like a chess board, and the man watched his guards on either end, prepared to use them as his pawns.
Jasmine poked at the food. The only thing she could think of comparing it to was pasta, but it was somewhat mushier, with other different properties as well. It had all been covered in a thick, sweet brown sauce, which she subtly tested by dipping her little finger in before starting the meal. They did, however, eat with knives and forks.
“My name is Enoch,” began the man. They recognised the name from the executioner’s description. The Doctor wondered if this man was their supposed god, and if so, how they had ever mistaken him for the Doctor. “I am the leader of the land of the one true faith, a role passed on from my father. Everyone in the kingdom knows who I am, though I suppose I am something of an unknown to outsiders, especially judging by your reactions. Don’t be alarmed. What do you think of what you’ve seen of my people so far?”
“This thing you call a society,” replied Tommy without hesitation. “It’s disgusting.”
The man grimaced, but nodded all the same. “It’s a fair evaluation. I can see how you’d reach that conclusion by suddenly walking in. Certainly, some of our practises appear to be barbaric, but you must understand that we need this system to survive. We’ve relied on it for centuries, and it’s from a divine law.”
“Yet I don’t see the system at play here,” said the Doctor. “Surely claiming to be God is sacrilege? One of the single worst offenses? If one woman got her brains bashed out for attempting to leave, our punishment must be incomprehensible.”
“Ah, but there’s the point. Trying to leave isn’t unusual, and we know people try it. Infidelity happens because people who know the law let debased feelings of lust and selfishness take over. Killing happens because people think they can get away with it. But you…” he covered his mouth to stop himself choking as he laughed, sharing a joke with himself. He raised his arm back to the Doctor, still amused. “You stood up in the middle of a public place and fearlessly committed the single worst offense there is. Which means you mustn’t have known what you were doing – you must have been misinformed.”
The Doctor kept quiet. That was not exactly the case, but it seemed to be keeping him alive, so it was worth sticking with.
“And then,” continued Enoch, “I saw your clothes. Which means you must be outsiders. We don’t want to punish outsiders, don’t want to blame the unenlightened for their ignorance.”
“How lovely of you,” muttered Jasmine.
“I see it’s taking a while to win you over,” Enoch remarked. “You are the youngest of your friends, yes?”
“In a way, yes,” admitted Jasmine. “In another way, I’m the oldest.”
Only the Doctor seemed to understand what she was talking about.
“If you feel like our society is shutting you off, or that you cannot trust us, then I encourage you to wander around and see it for yourself.”
Jasmine shifted uncomfortably.
“Go ahead,” urged Enoch. “Leave the dining hall, explore the rest of the castle. No one will stop you. I do understand the youth, and their instinct to be constantly moving, exploring. I only want to allow you to feel at home here.”
“Okay,” said Jasmine, up for the test. The Doctor smirked, and she tucked her chair in and nodded politely to Enoch. “Thank you. I’ll take a look around.” She walked gracefully out of the dining hall and slammed the door a little bit too heavily behind her.
Enoch resumed speaking. “I am afraid, Doctor, that I will need you to leave after tonight. The sin you committed will not make you popular amongst my people, and it is generous of me to lift the punishment.”
“We’re not really addressing the matter at hand here, Enoch,” said the Doctor, and sat forward across the table. He pushed his dinner to the side. “You’re making an assumption about me. The truth is that I am your god.”
Enoch breathed in sharply, and Tommy thought he could hear a hiss as he breathed out. “That is not possible, unless our cultures have two radically different meanings of the word.”
“Why not?”
“Because I speak to our god every day. He resides in the Temple, at the back of this very castle. I grant you, you share a visual resemblance. The first time I saw you I was astonished at how well you reflected the statues and the texts, but most of all how you reflected him. But he came to me ten years ago, when I took my place as leader, and he has been continuing to advise and command me every day of my life.”
“Rubbish,” said the Doctor, and turned to Tommy. “What do you think? I think this man’s talking complete and utter nonsense, don’t you?”
“I do,” replied Tommy, playing along. “It’s not even possible that he’d speak to God. Why would it choose him and none of the other leaders in the past? It’s all a con.”
“I don’t believe him,” concluded the Doctor.
“Me neither.”
“ALL RIGHT!” interjected Enoch. “If it takes empirical evidence to secure your faith, then that will have to suffice. I will take you to meet our god. Please leave the rest of your meal – it is right that the Temple be entered on an empty stomach.” He stood up, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and threw it back on the table. He did not wait for his guests to leave, but began his march to the Temple almost instantly.
“Seems like a nice man,” the Doctor muttered to Tommy.
***
As Jasmine wandered through the castle, she found herself going nowhere. Clearly, Enoch had allowed her to explore because there was nothing to discover. This was like one of the museums she was used to back on Earth, or more aptly, one of those stately homes open to the public so they can flock to it and drool over it; except here, there were no barriers keeping her back from the furniture.
And none of it was interesting. Nice architecture and designer furnishings were all well and good, but here they were merely arrangements of atoms with different properties lumped together to serve a purpose. The building had no sense of history, no life or character – it was so detached, so devoid of stories, that it was the one place in the universe she suspected never could be a haunted house (or a true temple).
There was only one point of interest: a particular exhibit recurring through the place, from which everyone seemed to keep a distance, in the same way they kept their distance from her. At every corner and at the entrance to every room, was a small pillar or stand upon which rested a copy of the same book. It was relatively light, but hardback, with a thick black cover. Jasmine glanced around the hall. No one was up here. She took a chance and picked one up.
She turned the first page, and saw something she was not expecting, but which should really have been very obvious.
“Oh my…”
***
“That’s the book, isn’t it?” Natalie pointed to the book on the table.
Tommy nodded grimly. “You can read it all if you want – it’s a quick read, compared to the usual accounts of that sort. It’s… there’s no easy way of putting this. It’s the Bible.”
“But you said that was another universe. That they didn’t…”
“Their Bible. A Bible where everything we said is neatly organised so they can never forget. All the commands that those two original wanderers found on the TARDIS command log, ended up getting written out as a sort of Genesis account or creation story. And then they recorded the Doctor’s rules.” He opened it up and ran his finger down the page. “Here: ‘And the Doctor said ‘But the greatest offense of all is to trespass in the place where the bigger-on-the-inside box is kept, and to attempt to learn its secrets. The knowledge is not yours, but your God’s.’”
“He actually said that?”
“No, no. But he’d implied it. That’s the thing about translations. People think that stuff loses its details and its meaning over time, but it doesn’t. The meaning is all that’s left – things end up not as they were said, but as they were interpreted to mean.” He flicked through the pages. “It goes on and on. The Doctor says you should never lie to anyone, and suddenly there’s a whole new list of marriage laws. But if you introduce yourself as a god, that’s what you should expect. That’s what he should have known.”
“So Jasmine found the book,” said Natalie. “How did it get into your hands?”
“I’m getting to that,” said Tommy, and resumed his story. “Enoch took us into the Temple. There was this massive statue of the Doctor at its centre, and a few people worshipping it. Enoch kicked them out. There were writings on the wall, hieroglyphics – like the ones written all those centuries ago, obviously preserved. The Temple was now crumbling and very different, architecturally, from the rest of the buildings. A lot simpler and more practical. So I guess it was built just after we left. Anyway, none of the details matter. Soon none of it would really matter at all – that was when things really started to go wrong…”
***
Enoch finished his silent prayer and stood up. He stepped back, watching the statue, and then leapt backward, causing the Doctor and Tommy to shudder.
“There he is,” said Enoch. “The Doctor. You’re the only other people I’ve ever allowed this privilege, so count your blessings he arrived.”
“Um…” the Doctor looked around the room to check he wasn’t going mad, and back at the statue. “You mean that statue?”
“Do not mock in the Temple,” warned Enoch. “Greet our god.” He turned back and resumed staring at… nothing. “Your holiness, I apologise for bringing such disrespectfulness into your place of worship. Would you like the guests to leave?”
There was an awkward silence.
“Well…?”
“What do you mean well?!” retorted Enoch. “Did you not hear him? He said you can stay.”
“Enoch,” said Tommy, concerned. “You do realise there's no one else here with us?”
“What are you talking about?” Enoch shook his head, and looked at Tommy as if he had just proposed murdering a batch of kittens. “He’s right here. Can’t you see him?”
“He’s…”
“Tommy. Don’t bother,” interrupted the Doctor, towering over Enoch. The Doctor seemed to be able to do that when he wanted, as if everyone shrunk in his presence “This man is a liar.”
The door swung open before Enoch had a chance to respond, and the three of them turned to see the visitor. It was Jasmine, and she was carrying a book in her shaking hand, holding it up and parading it around like a new bestseller.
“What is it?” asked the Doctor.
“We already have one of these in here,” said Enoch, and gestured to a stand at the side of the Temple. The Doctor ran up to it and removed the copy, skimming through it in disbelief. Tommy read some of it over his shoulder, appalled, and was somewhat alarmed when the Doctor slammed it shut and laughed, of all things.
“You’re mad,” observed the Doctor, turning back to Enoch. “You’re insane, the whole lot of you. Tell me: is monstrousness hereditary?”
“These are the words of our god!”
“There is no God!” responded the Doctor. He was beginning to lose his patience. “There is just me! I’m the Doctor, I’m back, and I don’t very much like what you and your morally-bankrupt family have done to my planet!”
“If there’s anyone who’s morally-bankrupt on this planet, Doctor, it’s …,” Tommy tried to say as he was losing control of his voice, a lump in his throat catching and choking into silence the odd word before he could say it aloud. The Doctor had not heard Tommy. He clenched his fists.
“This is a very unusual hearing,” murmured Jasmine. “Most planets are like Earth, legally-speaking. All big courtrooms and silly wigs”
“Yes, well-observed,” agreed the Doctor, “and there’s something else strange about this planet too. I’m very close to putting my finger on it…”
“No,” sobbed the woman. “No, there aren’t, but please… you can’t…”
Tommy frowned. This was just a hearing, and it sounded like a minor charge. Surely she was only crying over the possibility of community service, or some brief jail-time at most?
Before the TARDIS team could act, the man behind her swung a mallet at her head. It hit her instantly, killing her. Barely any blood was spilled. The crowd remained silent, but in a dull, normalized way, as if nothing was surprising about this at all.
“Oh my God,” cried Tommy, disgusted. “That’s… that’s…”
“I’ve just figured it out,” the Doctor uttered. He was shaking his head, and his voice was shaking. All of that charisma was gone, and he spoke to his friends like an introvert trying to deliver the jokes in a best man’s speech. “Tommy, Jasmine, I’m so sorry. Everything I’ve told you is wrong. I think I’ve just made the worst mistake of my life.”
The crowds were dissipating now, and the woman’s body was left laid out on the stage, her arm dangling off the edge. Her hand was open, and Tommy felt an urge to reach out, clasp it, tell her it would all soon be okay – but there was no point. It was too late, and however much justice was brought to the leader of this world, the pain she felt could never be undone. In a way, it was all going to be for nothing, whatever happened.
“What is it?” asked Tommy. “What could possibly be worse than this?”
“There’s a reason we haven’t been able to find any new worlds since I created that planet,” explained the Doctor. “I thought we’d left that universe, but we must have narrowly missed our exit.”
“You mean we’re stuck here?” exclaimed Jasmine.
“No, nothing like that. But don’t you see? I only created one world here: one sun, one civilisation. Which means this is it – in the the future. This is what my planet has become.”
Jasmine gasped, and felt suddenly sick. She exchanged a glance with Tommy, who was too in shock to even find a facial expression to use.
The Doctor took control again: all that charisma came back, and he stood up on the stage. The people who had just watched the execution turned to see what he had to say.
“Everyone,” he announced. “My name is the Doctor, and I am your god.”
The executioner walked forward, and Jasmine fought an urge not to gouge his eyeballs out.
“You will come with me,” he said, monotonously.
“Good!” replied the Doctor.
“All false prophets are to face condemnation from Enoch.”
“Ah.”
“Before execution in the Temple.”
***
“You’ve lost me here,” confessed Natalie. “So you’re saying the Doctor created this planet?”
“Yes,” answered Tommy. “I was there when he did it. It was all an accident; he created a new universe because he gave the wrong command to the TARDIS, and then… and then he made this world. I don’t even know why he did it. I think it was just an experiment, just like, ‘why the hell not?’ That was his logic anyway.”
“And yours?”
Tommy sighed, and shook his head sombrely. “I went along with it. I just went along with it even though I knew, I knew it was wrong. My gut was telling me from the start: he shouldn’t be doing this. He had too much power, he was too careless about this huge, impossible thing. But I kept my mouth shut.”
“That’s not like you.”
“No, it’s not. But I thought: he’s a Time Lord. He knows this stuff better than I do. I mean, it’s true, isn’t it? What do I know? What do either of us know, Nat, in comparison to someone like that? And Jasmine went along with it; she even seemed to be enjoying it, but I can’t blame her. It was so easy, so easy just to get whisked away in the moment without realising the consequences. We’re not gods. We’d make terrible gods. But we made ourselves gods--the Doctor made himself a god--and what do you think worshipping someone like that for centuries would do to a civilisation? Can you imagine?”
“I don’t really have to.”
Tommy nodded thoughtfully. Natalie always gave the best insights.
“And who even is Jasmine? Was she really Autumn?”
Tommy shrugged sadly. “I don’t know.” He shook his head again. “I don’t know. I never asked; she never said. She could be anyone. But she’s… oh, it doesn’t matter.”
“Doesn’t it?” Natalie’s voice was getting croaky.
“Maybe. So we started to walk with this guy, because we knew – we thought – the Doctor would have a plan. We saw a bit more of this planet and to be honest it was just like the rest. And I couldn’t be me, not the me you know, because I suddenly had no facts. I didn’t know anything. I couldn’t pass judgement; I couldn’t open my mouth and tell them the rules. It was the Doctor passing judgement and giving out the rules like that, and doing it so carelessly, that had made that society into what it was.” He stared at Natalie’s coffee cup. It was empty, and had been for a while judging by the rings at the bottom of it. “Can I get you another one?”
“No, you don’t have to…”
“Natalie,” said Tommy, more sternly than he had been expecting. “You sound really hoarse. Would you like another coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
Tommy got out his card, and Natalie felt a sudden pang of jealousy. He just did it – he probably didn’t even check how much he had on there. He just knew it was enough.
It must have felt good to know that.
***
“So it’s a few hundred years in the future?” whispered Jasmine, keeping her voice low so that she was not heard. They were not sure at this stage whether they were being guided or paraded through this civilisation, but they were met by two types of citizens as they walked on: those who refused to look them in the eye, and those who would not stop looking.
“Maybe,” said the Doctor. “We travelled quite a way, but it’s hard to tell how long. Besides, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how long the deed takes, as long as it’s done. And this time the deed was done, and we can’t undo it.”
“Enoch, then. I guess he’s the guy who lives in that big castle thing?”
“You’d guess correctly, I think. And I would guess that there’s a temple around the back, perhaps where I’m worshipped. Though they’re very dismissive, aren’t they? I told them I’d come back; you were both there. So why don’t they believe it now I have?”
Tommy rolled his eyes. The answer was obvious, but the Doctor appeared to understand nothing of any society.
“Because our god already came back,” said the executioner. He must have heard the whole conversation. “And who knows – maybe before you die he’ll have a word with you about who’s boss.”
Jasmine and Tommy exchanged raised eyebrows, while the Doctor looked straight on. A planet was always more enjoyable with a mystery to solve.
“Yes – I think I rather would like to meet him.”
***
Tommy placed the coffees on the table, and Natalie picked hers up straight away and took a sip.
“Cappuccino. You shouldn’t have.”
“It’s not a coffee without chocolate sprinkles.” He appeared, however, to have got himself a latte. “You’re very political, Natalie.”
“Good observation, but I wasn’t trying at a metaphor then.”
“No, I mean…” Tommy chuckled. “It doesn’t matter. Okay then, warm-up: try to picture the worst society imaginable. What sort of things does it do?”
Natalie considered, and stared into the depths of her cappuccino to find it. “Fundamentalist views, I guess. Rigid rules, I think – I don’t mean laws, I mean norms. So, fixed gender roles, fixed practises, ritualistic. Um… a justice system with a response disproportionate to the crime committed, so capital punishment for starters. Then there’s organised religion, which, okay, it has to exist, but I think maybe a link between church and state where the church is the governing authority, using that, or anything else, as an excuse to curtail free speech. Entrenched class divisions. Persecution of minorities. Look, it’s all obvious stuff.”
“I know it is; I just needed you to think about it.” Tommy pushed the book into the centre of the table, away from their drinks. “This world did all of it. All the worst things imaginable. Because a few centuries back, the Doctor had joked around and told a few kids a few rules. And they grew up and told their children, and they were passed on and translated on and on, and worst of all, taken both seriously and literally.” He paused. “The Doctor. His wisdom, his charisma, his humour, his sense of adventure. Each one of those factors led to the oppression of a whole new species the Doctor himself had created by accident, and to the deaths of potentially millions of people. All with mine and Jasmine's genetic templates, but after what he inflicted on them, you couldn't see even a trace of either of us left over. All of that... and, in large measure, because I went along with it.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is, indirectly. If you don’t express your opposition when you have the opportunity or authority to do so, you’re endorsing what’s happening. If it was anyone other than me we were talking about, that’s what you’d say.”
“True. So before we both go insane, I think you’d better tell me more.”
***
The Doctor was right about the Temple. As they entered the castle, he realised how spacious it was: if not bigger on the inside it was, at least, wider. A few tall beams jutted up to support the open spaces, and across the entrance hall he could see the Temple door, wide open. And the sun was casting light on the statue directly opposite.
Except it was not like looking at a statue, but into some sort of novelty mirror. It was of him: twenty feet tall and seated on a chair like some sort of mythological lawgiver, but in the same clothes he was wearing today. A few days ago, he had wandered the fields of an innocent world and entertained its children. Now, a statue of that encounter stood as a testament to the millions he had killed.
He could feel them, so much that he was almost moved to credit at least the theory of prayer. He could feel the weight of their worship: everything they poured into him, every gift they offered up--all undeserved, and given out of fear, unearned esteem, tradition, or something they did not even understand.
He wished he could make it stop. It was hurting him: each adoration was another blow, each sacrifice another paroxysm to his hearts. If only they understood that gods were to be challenged and held accountable; not held above all charges, but at the heart of them, as the first cause for every kind of evil comprehensible.
***
“Stop it! Atalo!”
Atalo laughed at how unconvincing Sileas was. She was so unconvincing that she had not even managed to persuade herself: seconds later she was sticking her tongue down Atalo’s throat as they switched places and she pressed him against the tree. As first kisses went, it was passionate.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited for this,” she said, stopping for breath. “You have no idea how many times I’ve thought about this.”
“I bet it’s not as many as I have. And besides…” Atalo reached to remove his garments. “It’s not like we’re going to get to do this again for a long time, not unseen like this. It’s a rare opportunity.”
“But we can’t…” Sileas glanced down and gestured. “You’re promised.”
“To a woman who thinks my purpose is to work the mill.”
“And I’m promised.”
“To the ugliest man in the land of the one true faith. Sileas, listen to me.” He stopped, and rested his hand on his lover’s cheek. She pressed her hand against his. “Just as we’re not perfect, neither are the others. Sometimes they make mistakes. The promises that were made… they were mistakes. The Doctor is calling us to be together, no one else.”
“But is he calling us to run off into the woods, like cowards?” challenged Sileas. “Is that the example he would have set?”
“Maybe there’s nothing wrong with running off. After all, he’s not here right…”
“What? What is it?” Atalo had stopped, and was staring at the space behind Sileas. She did not turn around out of fear. Last time he had stared like this, her father had caught them together.
“Please tell me I’m wrong about this.”
Sileas finally turned around and realised why he had reacted the way he did. Just behind the waterfall was a shape: a blue box, with a glowing light on the top. They could feel its hum. And it was exactly as it had originally been described, in the account of Amory and Letta.
The Bigger-on-the-Inside Temple.
“We’ve just broken the First Rule,” uttered Atalo.
“N… no, we haven’t,” stammered Sileas. “We came here by mistake.”
“Then we should have been more careful!” cried Atalo, and Sileas backed away from him. “We should have known! Do you not remember Amory and Letta’s punishment? Do you not recall the Doctor’s wrath? We have, against his instruction, and out of only our lust, entered the forbidden land and happened upon the box. No one is meant to see the box. We must…”
“Don’t say it,” begged Sileas. “Please don’t say it.”
“Don’t you believe? If you believe in the Doctor, Sileas, if you truly believe, then you must understand the weight of your sin and hope for mercy. For it is now our duty to volunteer ourselves for sacrifice at the Temple, to deliver the news that our god has returned, and to be the first sinners to face his wrath.”
***
“You must be the man who claimed to be our god, then.”
The Doctor turned to see the source of the voice. It was a short man; not light, but seemingly neither particularly overweight nor particularly muscular. Tommy noticed that his face aligned with the golden ratio, but he was not what any of the three would have described as a handsome man: his eyes, perhaps due to the way they stared at you, seemed bigger than they were, and he did not seem accustomed to smiling.
Still, he did smile, and offered a handshake to the Doctor, who was taken aback not only by the fact that this was a greeting rather than a violent outburst, but also by the fact that it was a level of Earth-like interaction hitherto unseen on this world.
“Please,” he said modestly, “don’t worry. I’m sure there’s been a dreadful misunderstanding.” He looked to Tommy and Jasmine, as if he had not yet noticed them; his eyes scanned them up and down. “Your clothes fascinate me. Sorry, I’m getting carried away. Come through.” He gestured for them to follow him into an enclosed room. “I’ve had a banquet prepared.”
Tommy and Jasmine shared a surprised expression; the day might just be starting to look up, even if they were both half-expecting to be poisoned.
It was a long table, longer than they needed, and the man sat himself down at the end of it. The hall was also exceedingly large, with elaborate decoration a good few decades ahead of what they had seen outside of the castle. The floor was coloured and patterned like a chess board, and the man watched his guards on either end, prepared to use them as his pawns.
Jasmine poked at the food. The only thing she could think of comparing it to was pasta, but it was somewhat mushier, with other different properties as well. It had all been covered in a thick, sweet brown sauce, which she subtly tested by dipping her little finger in before starting the meal. They did, however, eat with knives and forks.
“My name is Enoch,” began the man. They recognised the name from the executioner’s description. The Doctor wondered if this man was their supposed god, and if so, how they had ever mistaken him for the Doctor. “I am the leader of the land of the one true faith, a role passed on from my father. Everyone in the kingdom knows who I am, though I suppose I am something of an unknown to outsiders, especially judging by your reactions. Don’t be alarmed. What do you think of what you’ve seen of my people so far?”
“This thing you call a society,” replied Tommy without hesitation. “It’s disgusting.”
The man grimaced, but nodded all the same. “It’s a fair evaluation. I can see how you’d reach that conclusion by suddenly walking in. Certainly, some of our practises appear to be barbaric, but you must understand that we need this system to survive. We’ve relied on it for centuries, and it’s from a divine law.”
“Yet I don’t see the system at play here,” said the Doctor. “Surely claiming to be God is sacrilege? One of the single worst offenses? If one woman got her brains bashed out for attempting to leave, our punishment must be incomprehensible.”
“Ah, but there’s the point. Trying to leave isn’t unusual, and we know people try it. Infidelity happens because people who know the law let debased feelings of lust and selfishness take over. Killing happens because people think they can get away with it. But you…” he covered his mouth to stop himself choking as he laughed, sharing a joke with himself. He raised his arm back to the Doctor, still amused. “You stood up in the middle of a public place and fearlessly committed the single worst offense there is. Which means you mustn’t have known what you were doing – you must have been misinformed.”
The Doctor kept quiet. That was not exactly the case, but it seemed to be keeping him alive, so it was worth sticking with.
“And then,” continued Enoch, “I saw your clothes. Which means you must be outsiders. We don’t want to punish outsiders, don’t want to blame the unenlightened for their ignorance.”
“How lovely of you,” muttered Jasmine.
“I see it’s taking a while to win you over,” Enoch remarked. “You are the youngest of your friends, yes?”
“In a way, yes,” admitted Jasmine. “In another way, I’m the oldest.”
Only the Doctor seemed to understand what she was talking about.
“If you feel like our society is shutting you off, or that you cannot trust us, then I encourage you to wander around and see it for yourself.”
Jasmine shifted uncomfortably.
“Go ahead,” urged Enoch. “Leave the dining hall, explore the rest of the castle. No one will stop you. I do understand the youth, and their instinct to be constantly moving, exploring. I only want to allow you to feel at home here.”
“Okay,” said Jasmine, up for the test. The Doctor smirked, and she tucked her chair in and nodded politely to Enoch. “Thank you. I’ll take a look around.” She walked gracefully out of the dining hall and slammed the door a little bit too heavily behind her.
Enoch resumed speaking. “I am afraid, Doctor, that I will need you to leave after tonight. The sin you committed will not make you popular amongst my people, and it is generous of me to lift the punishment.”
“We’re not really addressing the matter at hand here, Enoch,” said the Doctor, and sat forward across the table. He pushed his dinner to the side. “You’re making an assumption about me. The truth is that I am your god.”
Enoch breathed in sharply, and Tommy thought he could hear a hiss as he breathed out. “That is not possible, unless our cultures have two radically different meanings of the word.”
“Why not?”
“Because I speak to our god every day. He resides in the Temple, at the back of this very castle. I grant you, you share a visual resemblance. The first time I saw you I was astonished at how well you reflected the statues and the texts, but most of all how you reflected him. But he came to me ten years ago, when I took my place as leader, and he has been continuing to advise and command me every day of my life.”
“Rubbish,” said the Doctor, and turned to Tommy. “What do you think? I think this man’s talking complete and utter nonsense, don’t you?”
“I do,” replied Tommy, playing along. “It’s not even possible that he’d speak to God. Why would it choose him and none of the other leaders in the past? It’s all a con.”
“I don’t believe him,” concluded the Doctor.
“Me neither.”
“ALL RIGHT!” interjected Enoch. “If it takes empirical evidence to secure your faith, then that will have to suffice. I will take you to meet our god. Please leave the rest of your meal – it is right that the Temple be entered on an empty stomach.” He stood up, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and threw it back on the table. He did not wait for his guests to leave, but began his march to the Temple almost instantly.
“Seems like a nice man,” the Doctor muttered to Tommy.
***
As Jasmine wandered through the castle, she found herself going nowhere. Clearly, Enoch had allowed her to explore because there was nothing to discover. This was like one of the museums she was used to back on Earth, or more aptly, one of those stately homes open to the public so they can flock to it and drool over it; except here, there were no barriers keeping her back from the furniture.
And none of it was interesting. Nice architecture and designer furnishings were all well and good, but here they were merely arrangements of atoms with different properties lumped together to serve a purpose. The building had no sense of history, no life or character – it was so detached, so devoid of stories, that it was the one place in the universe she suspected never could be a haunted house (or a true temple).
There was only one point of interest: a particular exhibit recurring through the place, from which everyone seemed to keep a distance, in the same way they kept their distance from her. At every corner and at the entrance to every room, was a small pillar or stand upon which rested a copy of the same book. It was relatively light, but hardback, with a thick black cover. Jasmine glanced around the hall. No one was up here. She took a chance and picked one up.
She turned the first page, and saw something she was not expecting, but which should really have been very obvious.
“Oh my…”
***
“That’s the book, isn’t it?” Natalie pointed to the book on the table.
Tommy nodded grimly. “You can read it all if you want – it’s a quick read, compared to the usual accounts of that sort. It’s… there’s no easy way of putting this. It’s the Bible.”
“But you said that was another universe. That they didn’t…”
“Their Bible. A Bible where everything we said is neatly organised so they can never forget. All the commands that those two original wanderers found on the TARDIS command log, ended up getting written out as a sort of Genesis account or creation story. And then they recorded the Doctor’s rules.” He opened it up and ran his finger down the page. “Here: ‘And the Doctor said ‘But the greatest offense of all is to trespass in the place where the bigger-on-the-inside box is kept, and to attempt to learn its secrets. The knowledge is not yours, but your God’s.’”
“He actually said that?”
“No, no. But he’d implied it. That’s the thing about translations. People think that stuff loses its details and its meaning over time, but it doesn’t. The meaning is all that’s left – things end up not as they were said, but as they were interpreted to mean.” He flicked through the pages. “It goes on and on. The Doctor says you should never lie to anyone, and suddenly there’s a whole new list of marriage laws. But if you introduce yourself as a god, that’s what you should expect. That’s what he should have known.”
“So Jasmine found the book,” said Natalie. “How did it get into your hands?”
“I’m getting to that,” said Tommy, and resumed his story. “Enoch took us into the Temple. There was this massive statue of the Doctor at its centre, and a few people worshipping it. Enoch kicked them out. There were writings on the wall, hieroglyphics – like the ones written all those centuries ago, obviously preserved. The Temple was now crumbling and very different, architecturally, from the rest of the buildings. A lot simpler and more practical. So I guess it was built just after we left. Anyway, none of the details matter. Soon none of it would really matter at all – that was when things really started to go wrong…”
***
Enoch finished his silent prayer and stood up. He stepped back, watching the statue, and then leapt backward, causing the Doctor and Tommy to shudder.
“There he is,” said Enoch. “The Doctor. You’re the only other people I’ve ever allowed this privilege, so count your blessings he arrived.”
“Um…” the Doctor looked around the room to check he wasn’t going mad, and back at the statue. “You mean that statue?”
“Do not mock in the Temple,” warned Enoch. “Greet our god.” He turned back and resumed staring at… nothing. “Your holiness, I apologise for bringing such disrespectfulness into your place of worship. Would you like the guests to leave?”
There was an awkward silence.
“Well…?”
“What do you mean well?!” retorted Enoch. “Did you not hear him? He said you can stay.”
“Enoch,” said Tommy, concerned. “You do realise there's no one else here with us?”
“What are you talking about?” Enoch shook his head, and looked at Tommy as if he had just proposed murdering a batch of kittens. “He’s right here. Can’t you see him?”
“He’s…”
“Tommy. Don’t bother,” interrupted the Doctor, towering over Enoch. The Doctor seemed to be able to do that when he wanted, as if everyone shrunk in his presence “This man is a liar.”
The door swung open before Enoch had a chance to respond, and the three of them turned to see the visitor. It was Jasmine, and she was carrying a book in her shaking hand, holding it up and parading it around like a new bestseller.
“What is it?” asked the Doctor.
“We already have one of these in here,” said Enoch, and gestured to a stand at the side of the Temple. The Doctor ran up to it and removed the copy, skimming through it in disbelief. Tommy read some of it over his shoulder, appalled, and was somewhat alarmed when the Doctor slammed it shut and laughed, of all things.
“You’re mad,” observed the Doctor, turning back to Enoch. “You’re insane, the whole lot of you. Tell me: is monstrousness hereditary?”
“These are the words of our god!”
“There is no God!” responded the Doctor. He was beginning to lose his patience. “There is just me! I’m the Doctor, I’m back, and I don’t very much like what you and your morally-bankrupt family have done to my planet!”
“If there’s anyone who’s morally-bankrupt on this planet, Doctor, it’s …,” Tommy tried to say as he was losing control of his voice, a lump in his throat catching and choking into silence the odd word before he could say it aloud. The Doctor had not heard Tommy. He clenched his fists.
“It’s not true,” said Enoch, shaking his head. “It’s not true, it’s not, it’s not, he’s here, he’s right here, he’s, you’re, not…”
“Stop it,” hissed the Doctor. “He’s not here and you know it. And it’s all about to come to an end, Enoch…”
“This is sacrilege. It’s…”
“Stop it!”
“…you must be…”
“SHUT UP!”
The Doctor was a good two feet taller and a good deal louder than Enoch. He had decided to demonstrate each of these differences, now, up close and almost roaring.
Tommy was reminded of one of his old PE teachers, and of the real reason he had hated football.
“THERE’S NOTHING HERE!” The Doctor picked up the book again and tossed it across the room. The cover flew off the front, and the rest of the book smashed a statue of some strange animal by the door. “YOU’RE A DELUDED-”
“STOP!”
There was only one voice louder than the Doctor’s now, and it was a voice that had never previously had cause to be. Tommy never thought his voice could be that loud, but he knew it had come from him. He hated the sound of it; it wasn’t directed anger, but the sound of him losing control, and it appeared to have triggered a stream of tears, determined to run down his face and make him feel like a bloody idiot.
“Tommy, don’t you see what’s happening?”
“Oh, I see exactly what’s happening!” breathed Tommy. He was happier with his voice at this more familiar level, but could still hear it shaking. “Just look at yourself. Or maybe don’t – maybe look at that statue over there; that towering, godlike thing, because it’s terrifying and that’s what you look like right now, to him.”
“He’s mad!” cried the Doctor. “Do you know how many people this man has killed?”
“In your name! In your name, Doctor. How long will it take you to understand that? And yes, you’re right, he is mad, he’s suffering from, I don’t know, psychosis, schizophrenia, but whatever it is, he needs help; he needs to be somewhere safe. He doesn’t need to be intimidated, he doesn’t need to be scared into submission. What the hell are you, Doctor? A Dalek?”
“He knows exactly what he’s doing. Just look at him; he’s manipulated you!” The Doctor laughed again. “You! Tommy. Of all people. I thought you would have the sense…”
“Manipulated me, hmm? And who’s the one stood here telling me what to do?”
“I…”
“Get out.” Tommy’s voice wasn’t shaking now, or at least he was no longer conscious of it. All he heard were the words, and he knew they were the right words. He repeated them. “Get out.”
“Since when were you in charge, Tommy Lindsay?”
“Get out now,” said Tommy, “or I swear …” He looked around and remembered where he was. “Or I swear to you, I will kill you.”
The Doctor’s face fell, as he began to experience something other than disbelief. Was it disappointment? Frustration? Anger? Defeat? Tommy no longer cared, as long as the Doctor understood the implications.
It looked as if he did. He walked over to the Temple door and opened it. Unexpectedly, the weight of it slammed in his face as a mob of citizens flooded in, catching all of them off-guard. None of them had the chance to respond, and by the time they did, it was too late. The arrow had already pierced Enoch’s heart, and he collapsed, dead, in front of the statue.
“What on Earth are you doing?” asked the Doctor. “You’ve killed him.”
“For you,” explained the man at the front of the crowd; the executioner from earlier on. “Two of our citizens accidentally happened upon your box in the forest, breaking the oldest rule you set. We realised then that you were our god, the real Doctor, and that Enoch had lied and was a false prophet. We killed him so that we could proclaim you, your holiness, as our one true god.”
“All hail the Doctor,” agreed the congregation.
“And the couple who came upon the TARDIS?” enquired the Doctor.
“Dead,” said the executioner, plainly. “As you clearly outlined, it is the greatest sin to look upon the box. They volunteered themselves for sacrifice. Their bodies are laid out in the hall.”
Back when the Doctor was in the Academy, his mentor had said something to him which he would never forget. They were being taught more and more complex things, things which involved the web of time, the causal nexus, and the fate of all living beings. Time Lords were taught to treat time like an instrument; they learnt to gently pluck at its strings, ensure they were finely-tuned, and learn which combinations made a harmony. They must not be pulled too strongly or they would snap; the wrong strings must not be played together or else there would be discordance; and the whole object must be preserved, checked, even replaced if necessary.
You’re just a boy, his mentor had said. Remember that. Perhaps you feel like a man, but let me tell you that the more immortal you feel, the less immortal you are. Only those who understand how powerless, how unintelligent and how purposeless they are, have truly grown up because they are aware that there are things outside of their own knowledge.
You are a boy, he had repeated. And you are a Time Lord. Your toys are other planet’s histories; your games are their futures. If you fail to remember that, and if you treat the universe as a game rather than the dangerous and personal thing it is, you will hurt it. And you will hurt the people inside it.
He wished he had taken this to both his hearts, and heeded its wisdom.
The whole congregation were bowed down before him now, and he made out the tips of the bloody pitchforks they had carried with them.
“All hail our god,” they chanted. “All hail the blessed Doctor.”
***
“Stop it,” hissed the Doctor. “He’s not here and you know it. And it’s all about to come to an end, Enoch…”
“This is sacrilege. It’s…”
“Stop it!”
“…you must be…”
“SHUT UP!”
The Doctor was a good two feet taller and a good deal louder than Enoch. He had decided to demonstrate each of these differences, now, up close and almost roaring.
Tommy was reminded of one of his old PE teachers, and of the real reason he had hated football.
“THERE’S NOTHING HERE!” The Doctor picked up the book again and tossed it across the room. The cover flew off the front, and the rest of the book smashed a statue of some strange animal by the door. “YOU’RE A DELUDED-”
“STOP!”
There was only one voice louder than the Doctor’s now, and it was a voice that had never previously had cause to be. Tommy never thought his voice could be that loud, but he knew it had come from him. He hated the sound of it; it wasn’t directed anger, but the sound of him losing control, and it appeared to have triggered a stream of tears, determined to run down his face and make him feel like a bloody idiot.
“Tommy, don’t you see what’s happening?”
“Oh, I see exactly what’s happening!” breathed Tommy. He was happier with his voice at this more familiar level, but could still hear it shaking. “Just look at yourself. Or maybe don’t – maybe look at that statue over there; that towering, godlike thing, because it’s terrifying and that’s what you look like right now, to him.”
“He’s mad!” cried the Doctor. “Do you know how many people this man has killed?”
“In your name! In your name, Doctor. How long will it take you to understand that? And yes, you’re right, he is mad, he’s suffering from, I don’t know, psychosis, schizophrenia, but whatever it is, he needs help; he needs to be somewhere safe. He doesn’t need to be intimidated, he doesn’t need to be scared into submission. What the hell are you, Doctor? A Dalek?”
“He knows exactly what he’s doing. Just look at him; he’s manipulated you!” The Doctor laughed again. “You! Tommy. Of all people. I thought you would have the sense…”
“Manipulated me, hmm? And who’s the one stood here telling me what to do?”
“I…”
“Get out.” Tommy’s voice wasn’t shaking now, or at least he was no longer conscious of it. All he heard were the words, and he knew they were the right words. He repeated them. “Get out.”
“Since when were you in charge, Tommy Lindsay?”
“Get out now,” said Tommy, “or I swear …” He looked around and remembered where he was. “Or I swear to you, I will kill you.”
The Doctor’s face fell, as he began to experience something other than disbelief. Was it disappointment? Frustration? Anger? Defeat? Tommy no longer cared, as long as the Doctor understood the implications.
It looked as if he did. He walked over to the Temple door and opened it. Unexpectedly, the weight of it slammed in his face as a mob of citizens flooded in, catching all of them off-guard. None of them had the chance to respond, and by the time they did, it was too late. The arrow had already pierced Enoch’s heart, and he collapsed, dead, in front of the statue.
“What on Earth are you doing?” asked the Doctor. “You’ve killed him.”
“For you,” explained the man at the front of the crowd; the executioner from earlier on. “Two of our citizens accidentally happened upon your box in the forest, breaking the oldest rule you set. We realised then that you were our god, the real Doctor, and that Enoch had lied and was a false prophet. We killed him so that we could proclaim you, your holiness, as our one true god.”
“All hail the Doctor,” agreed the congregation.
“And the couple who came upon the TARDIS?” enquired the Doctor.
“Dead,” said the executioner, plainly. “As you clearly outlined, it is the greatest sin to look upon the box. They volunteered themselves for sacrifice. Their bodies are laid out in the hall.”
Back when the Doctor was in the Academy, his mentor had said something to him which he would never forget. They were being taught more and more complex things, things which involved the web of time, the causal nexus, and the fate of all living beings. Time Lords were taught to treat time like an instrument; they learnt to gently pluck at its strings, ensure they were finely-tuned, and learn which combinations made a harmony. They must not be pulled too strongly or they would snap; the wrong strings must not be played together or else there would be discordance; and the whole object must be preserved, checked, even replaced if necessary.
You’re just a boy, his mentor had said. Remember that. Perhaps you feel like a man, but let me tell you that the more immortal you feel, the less immortal you are. Only those who understand how powerless, how unintelligent and how purposeless they are, have truly grown up because they are aware that there are things outside of their own knowledge.
You are a boy, he had repeated. And you are a Time Lord. Your toys are other planet’s histories; your games are their futures. If you fail to remember that, and if you treat the universe as a game rather than the dangerous and personal thing it is, you will hurt it. And you will hurt the people inside it.
He wished he had taken this to both his hearts, and heeded its wisdom.
The whole congregation were bowed down before him now, and he made out the tips of the bloody pitchforks they had carried with them.
“All hail our god,” they chanted. “All hail the blessed Doctor.”
***
“So that’s it.” Tommy shut the book, as if that alone was his story. “That’s why I left. That moment then and there, I knew I couldn’t do it again. I couldn’t do the Where and When Are We Nows, the Let’s Go And Meet The Locals and Which One Is The Evil Monsters… the whole routine; I was just sick of it, because it had all led us to this, to this place where our carelessness, our recklessness, had created this universe full of fear and hatred and blame. And until that moment the Doctor just hadn’t seen it. He’d been looking for the monster, for the alien, for the villain, anything he could pin the blame on and make a speech about. He didn’t consider that he was all of those and that it was his fault that the consequence of all of his fun and carefree adventures would be… this.”
He sighed. He looked tired, Natalie thought. “Anyway, the Doctor had finally found himself in a situation from which there was no escape. The problems were too deep-rooted and serious just to have the Doctor fix them and walk off, but there was enough essential goodness and innocence in these people, too much of it, for him to do his usual departure and leave their civilisation in ruins, just to teach them a lesson.
I feel sorry for him,” he admitted. “I know it doesn’t sound like it, and at the time I think I really did want to kill him, but I do feel sorry for him. And I don’t blame him, not completely. He’s a Time Lord; they’re a destructive race. He’s done well considering that – you know, he’s done really well.”
He sounded like he was trying hard to convince her; perhaps he was trying to convince himself, and was trailing off into some bizarre internal monologue.
“I think he’s terrified at the moment,” Tommy elaborated, “and I think that fear, and all that it orders and organises, wakes you up and actually causes you to make more mistakes. He’s learnt that there’s a God with total control over him and the rest of the universe, one villain he just can’t fight, and that his home planet of Gallifrey is under dictatorship and going to war with the race that locked him up and tortured him for four years of his life. And sometimes he looks at us…” he fiddled with his napkin uneasily. “At me and Jasmine, and it’s like he’s trying to make the moment last. I think every day he gets closer to the point where he realises we have to go, whether we want to or not, because it’s gotten too dangerous and the museum has turned into a warzone.”
“The problem is,” he continued, “his being scared and stressed and his making mistakes, actually causes stuff like this. Then there are the things he does to other people, like me, because the way they’ve - we've - followed him, obeyed him, is scary, Nat. I hero-worshipped him when we first met him, and it seems stupid now, but I’m still in the routine of it. Every decision I make, I always think – what would the Doctor do? That’s how I endorsed this stuff, because however wrong it seemed, I asked myself that question and realised that the answer was: he was doing it, so it must be right. But it wasn’t. I… I don’t blame him, I don’t hate him, and in the end I feel really sorry for him. But the thought that he’s out there is scary in its own way. The thought of a universe with the Doctor in it… it’s only because he exists that we can sleep safely at night, but the thought of him out there stops us being able to sleep happily.”
“I understand,” said Natalie, and finished her second coffee. “So is that it? You left, and then you arranged to meet me?”
“Nearly. At that point, when they were all there, the Doctor told them the truth. He said he wasn’t their god or their messiah; he said they never should have worshipped him. It was all just a big mistake, a misunderstanding. And, to give him his due – not that it made me any less mad at the time – he told them everything. He didn’t leave a detail out. He told them who he was, who I was, how we got there, how this had all happened… the only thing he didn’t tell them was who Jasmine is, and frankly I’m still wondering myself.” He let the subject slide again. “Then we left for the TARDIS. The Doctor asked to take a moment outside, we let him, and we left the planet together. We didn’t look back, we didn’t try to fix it up. It was too late, and we were the last thing they needed.”
***
“You look angry,” remarked Jasmine. They went down the little staircase and sat in the lowered section, on the barstools. They could almost, but not quite pretend that they had never left the TARDIS, that the last day was spent playing ping-pong while the Doctor went outside and explored a world they needed to know nothing about.
“You don’t,” replied Tommy.
“I am,” rejoined Jasmine. “Inside I’m furious. I’m just very good at hiding it.”
“You’re very good at hiding things, I think. I don’t even know that much about you.”
Jasmine smiled, but offered nothing other than that frustratingly ambiguous emotional expression.
“I can’t go on,” said Tommy. He poured himself a glass of lemonade, and bit his lip as he was reminded of Autumn. “I just can’t.”
“I understand.” Jasmine put her arm around him. “I hate myself for not being able to give it up, because I think I was wrong about the Doctor all this time. But he’s changed me for the better in so many ways, and he’s offered so much, and… it’s not like any other problem, is it?” she mused. “Normally you weigh up the pros and cons and it’s like, the benefit of having an en-suite versus the problem of paying however much extra that would cost you a month.”
“Uni accommodation,” said Tommy. “Good analogy.”
“I never went to uni.”
Tommy frowned. That was surprising, for some reason.
“Anyway,” Jasmine continued. “With that stuff, it’s little pros and little cons, all gathering together. But this isn’t like that.” She looked at Tommy, and they sustained eye contact for longer than either were used to during conversation. “It’s like this. On the plus side, you get to see the most beautiful things in the universe and save whole civilisations. On the down side, you risk your life and you watch the ripples of your actions kill hundreds, thousands or even millions of people. How do you make a decision like that?”
“I guess you turn it into another question,” Tommy suggested. “Can you live with yourself?”
Jasmine thought about that.
“It’s the bad adventures,” added Tommy. “They pile up after a while, they infect the rest. I look back now and there are just too many of them. That bloody city underneath the sea. The time we found…” he looked up to the photograph of Autumn, unsure what to call Jasmine, and hoped for some enlightenment. You? Autumn? It gave him nothing. “…under the ice, dead,” he said, leaving out the noun altogether. “The slave workers on that spaceship. And now this. It’s all I can think about, wherever I go, and I hate it. And I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
He took a chance, and linked Jasmine and Autumn, but without needing to choose noun from pronoun. “I saw that look I got back with the whole apple thing, when it was just me and the Doctor left. Those eyes saying come with me, please. I felt awful, but I just wasn’t ready at the time. I hadn’t learnt everything I needed to, I hadn’t made up my mind. You’ll find that now. I don’t want to make you feel how I felt – just because I go doesn’t mean you have to. You need to leave the TARDIS when you’re ready. And you’ll know when that is, unless the Doctor tells you first.”
***
“You must have cared about her a lot,” said Natalie. Tommy did not respond.
“The Doctor came back in about five minutes later,” said Tommy.
“Where had he gone?”
“I don’t know.” Tommy frowned. “We didn’t ask.”
***
He sighed. He looked tired, Natalie thought. “Anyway, the Doctor had finally found himself in a situation from which there was no escape. The problems were too deep-rooted and serious just to have the Doctor fix them and walk off, but there was enough essential goodness and innocence in these people, too much of it, for him to do his usual departure and leave their civilisation in ruins, just to teach them a lesson.
I feel sorry for him,” he admitted. “I know it doesn’t sound like it, and at the time I think I really did want to kill him, but I do feel sorry for him. And I don’t blame him, not completely. He’s a Time Lord; they’re a destructive race. He’s done well considering that – you know, he’s done really well.”
He sounded like he was trying hard to convince her; perhaps he was trying to convince himself, and was trailing off into some bizarre internal monologue.
“I think he’s terrified at the moment,” Tommy elaborated, “and I think that fear, and all that it orders and organises, wakes you up and actually causes you to make more mistakes. He’s learnt that there’s a God with total control over him and the rest of the universe, one villain he just can’t fight, and that his home planet of Gallifrey is under dictatorship and going to war with the race that locked him up and tortured him for four years of his life. And sometimes he looks at us…” he fiddled with his napkin uneasily. “At me and Jasmine, and it’s like he’s trying to make the moment last. I think every day he gets closer to the point where he realises we have to go, whether we want to or not, because it’s gotten too dangerous and the museum has turned into a warzone.”
“The problem is,” he continued, “his being scared and stressed and his making mistakes, actually causes stuff like this. Then there are the things he does to other people, like me, because the way they’ve - we've - followed him, obeyed him, is scary, Nat. I hero-worshipped him when we first met him, and it seems stupid now, but I’m still in the routine of it. Every decision I make, I always think – what would the Doctor do? That’s how I endorsed this stuff, because however wrong it seemed, I asked myself that question and realised that the answer was: he was doing it, so it must be right. But it wasn’t. I… I don’t blame him, I don’t hate him, and in the end I feel really sorry for him. But the thought that he’s out there is scary in its own way. The thought of a universe with the Doctor in it… it’s only because he exists that we can sleep safely at night, but the thought of him out there stops us being able to sleep happily.”
“I understand,” said Natalie, and finished her second coffee. “So is that it? You left, and then you arranged to meet me?”
“Nearly. At that point, when they were all there, the Doctor told them the truth. He said he wasn’t their god or their messiah; he said they never should have worshipped him. It was all just a big mistake, a misunderstanding. And, to give him his due – not that it made me any less mad at the time – he told them everything. He didn’t leave a detail out. He told them who he was, who I was, how we got there, how this had all happened… the only thing he didn’t tell them was who Jasmine is, and frankly I’m still wondering myself.” He let the subject slide again. “Then we left for the TARDIS. The Doctor asked to take a moment outside, we let him, and we left the planet together. We didn’t look back, we didn’t try to fix it up. It was too late, and we were the last thing they needed.”
***
“You look angry,” remarked Jasmine. They went down the little staircase and sat in the lowered section, on the barstools. They could almost, but not quite pretend that they had never left the TARDIS, that the last day was spent playing ping-pong while the Doctor went outside and explored a world they needed to know nothing about.
“You don’t,” replied Tommy.
“I am,” rejoined Jasmine. “Inside I’m furious. I’m just very good at hiding it.”
“You’re very good at hiding things, I think. I don’t even know that much about you.”
Jasmine smiled, but offered nothing other than that frustratingly ambiguous emotional expression.
“I can’t go on,” said Tommy. He poured himself a glass of lemonade, and bit his lip as he was reminded of Autumn. “I just can’t.”
“I understand.” Jasmine put her arm around him. “I hate myself for not being able to give it up, because I think I was wrong about the Doctor all this time. But he’s changed me for the better in so many ways, and he’s offered so much, and… it’s not like any other problem, is it?” she mused. “Normally you weigh up the pros and cons and it’s like, the benefit of having an en-suite versus the problem of paying however much extra that would cost you a month.”
“Uni accommodation,” said Tommy. “Good analogy.”
“I never went to uni.”
Tommy frowned. That was surprising, for some reason.
“Anyway,” Jasmine continued. “With that stuff, it’s little pros and little cons, all gathering together. But this isn’t like that.” She looked at Tommy, and they sustained eye contact for longer than either were used to during conversation. “It’s like this. On the plus side, you get to see the most beautiful things in the universe and save whole civilisations. On the down side, you risk your life and you watch the ripples of your actions kill hundreds, thousands or even millions of people. How do you make a decision like that?”
“I guess you turn it into another question,” Tommy suggested. “Can you live with yourself?”
Jasmine thought about that.
“It’s the bad adventures,” added Tommy. “They pile up after a while, they infect the rest. I look back now and there are just too many of them. That bloody city underneath the sea. The time we found…” he looked up to the photograph of Autumn, unsure what to call Jasmine, and hoped for some enlightenment. You? Autumn? It gave him nothing. “…under the ice, dead,” he said, leaving out the noun altogether. “The slave workers on that spaceship. And now this. It’s all I can think about, wherever I go, and I hate it. And I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?”
He took a chance, and linked Jasmine and Autumn, but without needing to choose noun from pronoun. “I saw that look I got back with the whole apple thing, when it was just me and the Doctor left. Those eyes saying come with me, please. I felt awful, but I just wasn’t ready at the time. I hadn’t learnt everything I needed to, I hadn’t made up my mind. You’ll find that now. I don’t want to make you feel how I felt – just because I go doesn’t mean you have to. You need to leave the TARDIS when you’re ready. And you’ll know when that is, unless the Doctor tells you first.”
***
“You must have cared about her a lot,” said Natalie. Tommy did not respond.
“The Doctor came back in about five minutes later,” said Tommy.
“Where had he gone?”
“I don’t know.” Tommy frowned. “We didn’t ask.”
***
The Doctor continued on through the lake. His feet had been submerged for such a long time that he no longer felt that disgusting squelching feeling, but had become rather accustomed to the water as his natural habitat. The TARDIS was a distance away now, and he came to a wider body where the lake opened out in full. Night had fallen over his planet, and the moon reflected off the filthy water, turning it an ominous dark green.
The Doctor was reminded of… something. It may have been Rutans, or Sontarans, or… it was something slimy, he was sure of it.
But it all reminded him of something else. Back on Gallifrey, as a child, he used to run off to play every evening. He was given a slot--two hours--in which time he could go anywhere he pleased, either with or away from the other boys, but he had to be home at the end, in time for their meal. Every day he would run a little bit faster, so that he could get a little bit further and explore somewhere new.
One day, he found himself in a forest, not unlike this one. He checked his watch, alarmed. He had run, now, as fast as he was capable of, and was already five minutes late. He had to run all the way back; even then, he would still be ten minutes late. He turned to go, but found himself lost. He did not know which direction he had come from. He ran in what he thought was the right direction, and found himself at a farmhouse. The couple who lived there took pity on him and drove him back to the barn.
He was in for a lecture when he arrived home. Why can’t you be the like the other boys? Why do you never know when to stop running? Why don’t you know where you’re going? You’ll get yourself killed doing this one day, or worse, whoever’s with you.
The other children laughed at him. They said he did it to get away from the monsters. They were wrong: he did it so he could find them. The monsters always waited to prey on the last child left out in the cold, and the Doctor made sure that that child was him, determined that the other children would be safe because of his intervention. The monsters never came.
But here he was, finally, the last one outside in the cold, alone with the monsters. He now suddenly wished that he too could have been like the other boys.
I have waited… time. I have waited time for your return.
“The Second Meaning,” recalled the Doctor. “Who dwells in the rivers and the lakes, in the dark and the quiet places, and is awoken by thoughts in which you too can dwell. How long as it been for you?”
Time is only measured by the desperate and impatient. I am neither.
“It hardly matters, anyhow. Because I know,” uttered the Doctor, and stared at his reflection in the lake. “I know you sent Enoch insane. I figured it out as I was leaving. What did you do? Appear to him? Take my form?” He pushed on through the lake. Ripples were beginning to form around him, visible in the green light. “You said you would always live inside their hearts and minds, and you kept that promise. Have you any idea how many deaths you’ve caused, just by standing on the outside, and placing in them the element of doubt?”
None. I have done only one thing.
“Nonsense! You were singularly responsible for this, and you know it.”
I have done only one thing.
“Care to share your second meaning?”
I kept you here. That is all.
“It was you!” exclaimed the Doctor. “I was blaming myself, all this time. I thought I couldn’t fly my ship properly, but it was you keeping me from leaving this universe.”
I kept you here. That is all.
“What do you mean ‘that is all’? You’ve done a lot more than that.”
I did not plant the first doubt. I was not the voice in Amory’s head. The voice was a name he used to explain his madness. A Second Meaning. I am the Second Meaning.
“And the others?”
Enoch was unstable. I did not disturb him. I did not need to disturb him. He called his instability “the Doctor.” You are his Second Meaning.
“But you told me. The last time we met, you said you would always be there, always manipulating.”
Those words are your own. My words were thus: 'I will always live inside their hearts and minds'. I dwell within thoughts, I cannot be extinguished, but I have no influence. I merely observed.
“Then what do you want? Why all this? Why these encounters in the middle of the night?”
To show you. In the beginning I had to show you that I was the Serpent. It had to look how it always did. It had to seem simple. You… had to see good and evil. You had to believe in the dichotomy, in the First Meaning. I brought you back to show that is not how it is. I brought you back to show you the Second Meaning.
“Then what is the Second Meaning?” asked the Doctor, still unimpressed by the poetry. “What’s the hidden interpretation, the real truth behind the words, hmm?”
You are the Serpent. The one who makes the world is the one who curses it. I was cursed to remain here, just as the others were cursed to be born here. The words you spoke sent them mad. Your instructions to them placed the First Doubt, as yours was the first authority to challenge. You, yourself, brought the Fall upon them.
I dwell inside their hearts and minds, Doctor – that you created.
The Doctor stepped out of the lake, and the green light began to fade. You’re right. That was all he could think: the entity wanted nothing more than to show him, to make a point. Whether or not that was for its warped entertainment, the Doctor had given it all to the Second Meaning without it having to lift a finger to change a thing. He had become an agent of the monsters.
He looked back to that night: there were monsters everywhere, he was sure of it. For some reason they refused to come out and see him.
He wondered if the monsters were just like the people, and the bravest had waited until the last so that it could face the child alone. He wondered why it had run away from facing him.
***
The Doctor stepped back inside the TARDIS and closed the door quietly behind him. He walked up to the console with none of his usual enthusiasm, and quietly began to plot a course.
“I want you to take me home,” said Tommy.
“Okay.”
“Permanently.”
The Doctor turned around and finally looked his companion in the eye.
Both Jasmine and Tommy looked tired, leaning against the bookshelf, just a couple of inches closer together than he was used to. He was reminded of the mixed reactions of the citizens of his planet: Jasmine embodied those who could not look at him, Tommy the ones who would not stop.
“Tommy, please,” started the Doctor. “I made a mistake, I’m sorry. Let me fix it.”
“It’s not just one mistake. You really don’t understand, do you?” He realised he almost sounded like the Doctor in the Temple. “I am sick to death of your treatment of other people! Long after you realised you’d made that mistake, back in the Temple, you just carried on. The way you spoke to Enoch-- you were terrifying. You just stood there, taking it out on this mentally-ill man because he was aristocracy which, fair enough, I’d take it out on the aristocracy too, except you’re a Lord and were feeling so lordly that you identified yourself as their messiah and god! What kind of screwed-up ethics do you have?”
“I…” the Doctor hoped Tommy would interrupt him, but the young man was smart enough to wait for the Doctor to offer up a justification. There wasn’t one.
“When I was younger my parents used to tell me I’d understand when I was older," said Tommy. "I asked how long that would be, and they said ‘when you’re an adult, when you’re working, when you’ve had girlfriends’…”
Or boyfriends, thought Jasmine.
“…you’ll understand then. So I waited. And I don’t understand. Half that stuff they told me, I still don’t understand why they told me. And you do that to the whole universe – you tell us we don’t understand, us mortals, and that we should listen to you, but you don’t even know what you’re talking about! Does it never occur to you that having the decency just to tell your companions that you’re a learner would be enough to save at least some people’s lives? No, you only save lives when it’s convenient to you, when it makes you look or feel like a hero.” He walked up to the console, where the Doctor stood, not knowing which button to press. None of them would be able to fix this.
“It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact, Doctor, that you ruined Robin McKnight’s life, killed Autumn Rivers, and very nearly turned me into a monster."
“I’m sorry,” uttered the Doctor. “I’m so sorry, Tommy.”
“Believe it or not…” Tommy took one more step forward, and pulled the Doctor in for a hug. “…it’s okay. We all make mistakes.” He lowered his voice. “I just want you to promise me that you’ll do the best to make up for your mistakes with Jasmine, okay? Because she is one very special young woman.”
“I promise,” said the Doctor, and squeezed Tommy tighter. “And you, Tommy, you are a wonderful young man. Thank you for making me see, and for not holding back in doing so.”
“It’s what I’m here for, Doctor.” They finished the hug, and Tommy took the Doctor’s hand for a handshake. “Now, I would like to go home.”
***
“You did the right thing,” reassured Natalie. “I think you did the right thing.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
Tommy glanced over his shoulder, out of the window. There was something in his line of sight which the counter was blocking from Natalie’s view.
“I haven’t done it yet,” clarified Tommy. “I called you up just before the Doctor came in, and I told him to drop me off here. He’s waiting outside, in the TARDIS with Jasmine. I wanted to talk it over with you, before I…” he took a deep breath, “…before I, well… commit to the decision.”
Natalie smiled. She was moved that he would consider her opinion, and thought back to the night he had chosen to travel with the Doctor: they had met in a café then, too; he had told her that he would not be able to continue their relationship because it would not be fair to her. He had said that if she wanted him to stay, he would – he would never hold it against her. She told him that the relationship wasn’t working that well for her anyway. It was true: they were better as friends.
“I think…” Natalie was careful with her words, because it was like advising a friend on a breakup: if they didn’t take her advice to end it and actually ended up happy, their friendship might be ruined forever. “I think you need to be sure. And like Jasmine said, could you live with yourself if you spent the rest of your life in the TARDIS?”
“It’s not so much that,” said Tommy. “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t spend the rest of my life here. I have promises to keep.”
“You always were good at those. Then…” Natalie tried to see out of the window. It was no good. “What is it that’s holding you back?”
Tommy looked from his angle, and saw it again. “Just one thing. I need to go and sort it. Can you stay here? Just for a minute?”
“Sure.”
He passed her his card. “Buy yourself another coffee,” he said. “You know the PIN.” Before she could argue, he had walked out of the café.
The Doctor was reminded of… something. It may have been Rutans, or Sontarans, or… it was something slimy, he was sure of it.
But it all reminded him of something else. Back on Gallifrey, as a child, he used to run off to play every evening. He was given a slot--two hours--in which time he could go anywhere he pleased, either with or away from the other boys, but he had to be home at the end, in time for their meal. Every day he would run a little bit faster, so that he could get a little bit further and explore somewhere new.
One day, he found himself in a forest, not unlike this one. He checked his watch, alarmed. He had run, now, as fast as he was capable of, and was already five minutes late. He had to run all the way back; even then, he would still be ten minutes late. He turned to go, but found himself lost. He did not know which direction he had come from. He ran in what he thought was the right direction, and found himself at a farmhouse. The couple who lived there took pity on him and drove him back to the barn.
He was in for a lecture when he arrived home. Why can’t you be the like the other boys? Why do you never know when to stop running? Why don’t you know where you’re going? You’ll get yourself killed doing this one day, or worse, whoever’s with you.
The other children laughed at him. They said he did it to get away from the monsters. They were wrong: he did it so he could find them. The monsters always waited to prey on the last child left out in the cold, and the Doctor made sure that that child was him, determined that the other children would be safe because of his intervention. The monsters never came.
But here he was, finally, the last one outside in the cold, alone with the monsters. He now suddenly wished that he too could have been like the other boys.
I have waited… time. I have waited time for your return.
“The Second Meaning,” recalled the Doctor. “Who dwells in the rivers and the lakes, in the dark and the quiet places, and is awoken by thoughts in which you too can dwell. How long as it been for you?”
Time is only measured by the desperate and impatient. I am neither.
“It hardly matters, anyhow. Because I know,” uttered the Doctor, and stared at his reflection in the lake. “I know you sent Enoch insane. I figured it out as I was leaving. What did you do? Appear to him? Take my form?” He pushed on through the lake. Ripples were beginning to form around him, visible in the green light. “You said you would always live inside their hearts and minds, and you kept that promise. Have you any idea how many deaths you’ve caused, just by standing on the outside, and placing in them the element of doubt?”
None. I have done only one thing.
“Nonsense! You were singularly responsible for this, and you know it.”
I have done only one thing.
“Care to share your second meaning?”
I kept you here. That is all.
“It was you!” exclaimed the Doctor. “I was blaming myself, all this time. I thought I couldn’t fly my ship properly, but it was you keeping me from leaving this universe.”
I kept you here. That is all.
“What do you mean ‘that is all’? You’ve done a lot more than that.”
I did not plant the first doubt. I was not the voice in Amory’s head. The voice was a name he used to explain his madness. A Second Meaning. I am the Second Meaning.
“And the others?”
Enoch was unstable. I did not disturb him. I did not need to disturb him. He called his instability “the Doctor.” You are his Second Meaning.
“But you told me. The last time we met, you said you would always be there, always manipulating.”
Those words are your own. My words were thus: 'I will always live inside their hearts and minds'. I dwell within thoughts, I cannot be extinguished, but I have no influence. I merely observed.
“Then what do you want? Why all this? Why these encounters in the middle of the night?”
To show you. In the beginning I had to show you that I was the Serpent. It had to look how it always did. It had to seem simple. You… had to see good and evil. You had to believe in the dichotomy, in the First Meaning. I brought you back to show that is not how it is. I brought you back to show you the Second Meaning.
“Then what is the Second Meaning?” asked the Doctor, still unimpressed by the poetry. “What’s the hidden interpretation, the real truth behind the words, hmm?”
You are the Serpent. The one who makes the world is the one who curses it. I was cursed to remain here, just as the others were cursed to be born here. The words you spoke sent them mad. Your instructions to them placed the First Doubt, as yours was the first authority to challenge. You, yourself, brought the Fall upon them.
I dwell inside their hearts and minds, Doctor – that you created.
The Doctor stepped out of the lake, and the green light began to fade. You’re right. That was all he could think: the entity wanted nothing more than to show him, to make a point. Whether or not that was for its warped entertainment, the Doctor had given it all to the Second Meaning without it having to lift a finger to change a thing. He had become an agent of the monsters.
He looked back to that night: there were monsters everywhere, he was sure of it. For some reason they refused to come out and see him.
He wondered if the monsters were just like the people, and the bravest had waited until the last so that it could face the child alone. He wondered why it had run away from facing him.
***
The Doctor stepped back inside the TARDIS and closed the door quietly behind him. He walked up to the console with none of his usual enthusiasm, and quietly began to plot a course.
“I want you to take me home,” said Tommy.
“Okay.”
“Permanently.”
The Doctor turned around and finally looked his companion in the eye.
Both Jasmine and Tommy looked tired, leaning against the bookshelf, just a couple of inches closer together than he was used to. He was reminded of the mixed reactions of the citizens of his planet: Jasmine embodied those who could not look at him, Tommy the ones who would not stop.
“Tommy, please,” started the Doctor. “I made a mistake, I’m sorry. Let me fix it.”
“It’s not just one mistake. You really don’t understand, do you?” He realised he almost sounded like the Doctor in the Temple. “I am sick to death of your treatment of other people! Long after you realised you’d made that mistake, back in the Temple, you just carried on. The way you spoke to Enoch-- you were terrifying. You just stood there, taking it out on this mentally-ill man because he was aristocracy which, fair enough, I’d take it out on the aristocracy too, except you’re a Lord and were feeling so lordly that you identified yourself as their messiah and god! What kind of screwed-up ethics do you have?”
“I…” the Doctor hoped Tommy would interrupt him, but the young man was smart enough to wait for the Doctor to offer up a justification. There wasn’t one.
“When I was younger my parents used to tell me I’d understand when I was older," said Tommy. "I asked how long that would be, and they said ‘when you’re an adult, when you’re working, when you’ve had girlfriends’…”
Or boyfriends, thought Jasmine.
“…you’ll understand then. So I waited. And I don’t understand. Half that stuff they told me, I still don’t understand why they told me. And you do that to the whole universe – you tell us we don’t understand, us mortals, and that we should listen to you, but you don’t even know what you’re talking about! Does it never occur to you that having the decency just to tell your companions that you’re a learner would be enough to save at least some people’s lives? No, you only save lives when it’s convenient to you, when it makes you look or feel like a hero.” He walked up to the console, where the Doctor stood, not knowing which button to press. None of them would be able to fix this.
“It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact, Doctor, that you ruined Robin McKnight’s life, killed Autumn Rivers, and very nearly turned me into a monster."
“I’m sorry,” uttered the Doctor. “I’m so sorry, Tommy.”
“Believe it or not…” Tommy took one more step forward, and pulled the Doctor in for a hug. “…it’s okay. We all make mistakes.” He lowered his voice. “I just want you to promise me that you’ll do the best to make up for your mistakes with Jasmine, okay? Because she is one very special young woman.”
“I promise,” said the Doctor, and squeezed Tommy tighter. “And you, Tommy, you are a wonderful young man. Thank you for making me see, and for not holding back in doing so.”
“It’s what I’m here for, Doctor.” They finished the hug, and Tommy took the Doctor’s hand for a handshake. “Now, I would like to go home.”
***
“You did the right thing,” reassured Natalie. “I think you did the right thing.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
Tommy glanced over his shoulder, out of the window. There was something in his line of sight which the counter was blocking from Natalie’s view.
“I haven’t done it yet,” clarified Tommy. “I called you up just before the Doctor came in, and I told him to drop me off here. He’s waiting outside, in the TARDIS with Jasmine. I wanted to talk it over with you, before I…” he took a deep breath, “…before I, well… commit to the decision.”
Natalie smiled. She was moved that he would consider her opinion, and thought back to the night he had chosen to travel with the Doctor: they had met in a café then, too; he had told her that he would not be able to continue their relationship because it would not be fair to her. He had said that if she wanted him to stay, he would – he would never hold it against her. She told him that the relationship wasn’t working that well for her anyway. It was true: they were better as friends.
“I think…” Natalie was careful with her words, because it was like advising a friend on a breakup: if they didn’t take her advice to end it and actually ended up happy, their friendship might be ruined forever. “I think you need to be sure. And like Jasmine said, could you live with yourself if you spent the rest of your life in the TARDIS?”
“It’s not so much that,” said Tommy. “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t spend the rest of my life here. I have promises to keep.”
“You always were good at those. Then…” Natalie tried to see out of the window. It was no good. “What is it that’s holding you back?”
Tommy looked from his angle, and saw it again. “Just one thing. I need to go and sort it. Can you stay here? Just for a minute?”
“Sure.”
He passed her his card. “Buy yourself another coffee,” he said. “You know the PIN.” Before she could argue, he had walked out of the café.
A few tourists had gathered around one spot in Piccadilly Circus: the TARDIS, clearly, had materialised publicly, and been confused for a stunt, a cheap trick or something promotional. But the crowds of London were hard to please, and when they saw it was not followed by anything new or interesting, left to watch the break dancers on the other end of the street.
Now Jasmine stood, just a few yards away from the box, watching Tommy. She had changed, and was wearing a dress just a shade darker than Tommy’s shirt She looked more awake. For all Tommy knew, the Doctor had gone back in time and let her have a full night’s sleep before going to speak to Tommy.
“Have you made up your mind?”
“I think so. I’ve got to go.”
Jasmine took another step forward. “I understand.”
“Jasmine, there’s just one thing holding me back…” he looked down at the ground. “Who are you?”
“Would knowing really make a difference?” She put her hand out, lifting his chin up so he was forced to look up at her. “I don’t tell people because I want to be seen for who I am, here and now, not who I might be, or who I was.”
“You’re brilliant,” said Tommy. “You’re so good for him, and I just… I feel awful. For everything I said to him. I feel so guilty.”
“You had to say it. I agree with you, Tommy, he needed to hear it.”
“That doesn’t stop me feeling awful.”
“You were brave,” said Jasmine. “Brave to say it, brave to choose to stop. Brave to return to this planet. You have no idea how…” she stopped in her tracks and cursed herself. Where am I even going with this?
“I…”
If you’re not going to say it now, Tommy, you never will.
They were both thinking to themselves. Their tongues were betraying their hearts; and occasionally, were too truthful. So many words longed to escape. Tommy let a few go.
“I loved Autumn.”
“I know,” said Jasmine, instantly. “And I know that’s why you need to know who I am. I promise I’ll tell you, in the long run.” She raised her hand to his cheek. “But as I said, I need to know what you think of me first. You loved Autumn. But what about me?”
They needed no more words. Both pairs of eyes flashed and said it all. Tommy and Jasmine moved in closer, and kissed.
Their lips were locked together, passionately, and it seemed to last forever. Thoughts and questions passed within and between them, and were dismissed when they was realised that they were not important enough to be considered.
What have I just started?
Should I stay with her?
Should I go with him?
Is this the right thing to do?
Who is she?
What started this?
How can we say goodbye after this?
Against both of their wishes, they finally stopped. There were tears, and having been pressed together it was impossible to say whose tears they were.
“I don’t think you need to find me a boyfriend,” said Tommy.
Jasmine laughed. “Go,” she whispered. “You’re the most wonderful man I’ve ever met – and, for the record, a flipping good kisser. So go, and save this planet instead.”
***
“I loved her,” confessed Tommy. “Stupidly, without any reason, without even knowing her, I knew, I just knew… that I loved her.” He wiped his face with his hands. “And because of that, I knew I had to go. If I stayed out of love, I’d never leave. Whereas maybe she stands a chance. If she knows there’s something here for her when her time in the TARDIS comes to an end, maybe one day she’ll come back.”
“And how does it feel?” asked Natalie. “To be gone?”
“Good,” said Tommy. “And scary. And… I worry about Jasmine. I can’t help it. I worry that something will happen to her, that the Doctor will break his promise.”
“Then don’t,” she instructed him. “Don’t waste your time worrying about something you can’t change.”
“Yes,” agreed Tommy. “And, uh, on the subject of things that can’t be changed…” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cheque, handing it over to Natalie who rolled her eyes. “For you.”
“Our agreement, Tommy Lindsay,” she began. “If you do this, I believe you owe the rest of the county a debt.”
“Yes.”
Natalie gave Tommy a confused look. Surely he couldn’t be suggesting… that.
“I wasn’t completely honest with you,” revealed Tommy. “I haven’t come here directly. I did let the Doctor take me to a couple of other places first – just the near future, to check a few things out, make sure I had my facts and figures straight. No cheating, not strictly – but I mean, I wanted to see if I would have a fighting chance. I’m standing for MP.”
Natalie’s eyes widened. Her heart was beating faster and more excitedly than when he had asked her out on that first date – and that had been awkward. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“The Doctor said go for it,” said Tommy. “If he said that… I think I do stand a chance. I didn’t come back to live in this world. I came back to change it.”
***
Now Jasmine stood, just a few yards away from the box, watching Tommy. She had changed, and was wearing a dress just a shade darker than Tommy’s shirt She looked more awake. For all Tommy knew, the Doctor had gone back in time and let her have a full night’s sleep before going to speak to Tommy.
“Have you made up your mind?”
“I think so. I’ve got to go.”
Jasmine took another step forward. “I understand.”
“Jasmine, there’s just one thing holding me back…” he looked down at the ground. “Who are you?”
“Would knowing really make a difference?” She put her hand out, lifting his chin up so he was forced to look up at her. “I don’t tell people because I want to be seen for who I am, here and now, not who I might be, or who I was.”
“You’re brilliant,” said Tommy. “You’re so good for him, and I just… I feel awful. For everything I said to him. I feel so guilty.”
“You had to say it. I agree with you, Tommy, he needed to hear it.”
“That doesn’t stop me feeling awful.”
“You were brave,” said Jasmine. “Brave to say it, brave to choose to stop. Brave to return to this planet. You have no idea how…” she stopped in her tracks and cursed herself. Where am I even going with this?
“I…”
If you’re not going to say it now, Tommy, you never will.
They were both thinking to themselves. Their tongues were betraying their hearts; and occasionally, were too truthful. So many words longed to escape. Tommy let a few go.
“I loved Autumn.”
“I know,” said Jasmine, instantly. “And I know that’s why you need to know who I am. I promise I’ll tell you, in the long run.” She raised her hand to his cheek. “But as I said, I need to know what you think of me first. You loved Autumn. But what about me?”
They needed no more words. Both pairs of eyes flashed and said it all. Tommy and Jasmine moved in closer, and kissed.
Their lips were locked together, passionately, and it seemed to last forever. Thoughts and questions passed within and between them, and were dismissed when they was realised that they were not important enough to be considered.
What have I just started?
Should I stay with her?
Should I go with him?
Is this the right thing to do?
Who is she?
What started this?
How can we say goodbye after this?
Against both of their wishes, they finally stopped. There were tears, and having been pressed together it was impossible to say whose tears they were.
“I don’t think you need to find me a boyfriend,” said Tommy.
Jasmine laughed. “Go,” she whispered. “You’re the most wonderful man I’ve ever met – and, for the record, a flipping good kisser. So go, and save this planet instead.”
***
“I loved her,” confessed Tommy. “Stupidly, without any reason, without even knowing her, I knew, I just knew… that I loved her.” He wiped his face with his hands. “And because of that, I knew I had to go. If I stayed out of love, I’d never leave. Whereas maybe she stands a chance. If she knows there’s something here for her when her time in the TARDIS comes to an end, maybe one day she’ll come back.”
“And how does it feel?” asked Natalie. “To be gone?”
“Good,” said Tommy. “And scary. And… I worry about Jasmine. I can’t help it. I worry that something will happen to her, that the Doctor will break his promise.”
“Then don’t,” she instructed him. “Don’t waste your time worrying about something you can’t change.”
“Yes,” agreed Tommy. “And, uh, on the subject of things that can’t be changed…” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a cheque, handing it over to Natalie who rolled her eyes. “For you.”
“Our agreement, Tommy Lindsay,” she began. “If you do this, I believe you owe the rest of the county a debt.”
“Yes.”
Natalie gave Tommy a confused look. Surely he couldn’t be suggesting… that.
“I wasn’t completely honest with you,” revealed Tommy. “I haven’t come here directly. I did let the Doctor take me to a couple of other places first – just the near future, to check a few things out, make sure I had my facts and figures straight. No cheating, not strictly – but I mean, I wanted to see if I would have a fighting chance. I’m standing for MP.”
Natalie’s eyes widened. Her heart was beating faster and more excitedly than when he had asked her out on that first date – and that had been awkward. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“The Doctor said go for it,” said Tommy. “If he said that… I think I do stand a chance. I didn’t come back to live in this world. I came back to change it.”
***
“Are you okay?” the Doctor asked. Jasmine only seemed half-aware that she was even in the TARDIS, and upon realising that the Doctor was addressing her, she flinched and wiped her mouth.
“Fine,” she said, and gave a reassuring smile.
“I understand. I’ll miss him too, but he has a lot of work to do here.”
“I know.”
Of all the guilt the Doctor had experienced today, this was the worst. The sound of Jasmine’s voice, so close to breaking. Of all the people he had hurt…
“I thought I’d changed him,” said the Doctor. “I thought taking him with me would change him – make him a better person who’d see the world differently. But I didn’t need to. He was already that person. This time, he changed me.”
The Doctor was watching Tommy on the monitor, leaving the café and heading back out into Piccadilly Circus. He was preparing to watch the TARDIS depart.
“Don’t worry about him. This world is safer than it would have you believe – he’ll thrive here, believe me.”
Jasmine nodded, unconvinced.
“Okay, I owe you this one. The truth, Jasmine, just this once, to make up for my behaviour over the last few days.”
“The truth? I didn’t know you were hiding anything from me.”
“When I first met Tommy, it was when the TARDIS had created that forest. Most people moved away from it; no one else went inside, and even Tommy’s friend Natalie was put off when she saw it. But he was drawn to it. The TARDIS doesn’t just invite anyone along, you know.” He ran his hand along the console affectionately. “She’s a sensitive soul, this one. So of course, I just had to know!”
Jasmine smiled. He was back to being the Doctor she knew, enthusiastically leaping around the console, not knowing where he was going, either figuratively or literally.
“I looked him up, checked his history, and it all suddenly made sense.”
“Wait. What did?”
“Jasmine, I don’t mean to pry… I wasn’t watching you, I just happened to glance at the monitor…”
Jasmine scowled.
“I feel like you have the right to know that you’ve just kissed the future Prime Minister.”
“What?!”
Jasmine felt like the ground was about to give way and she was going to fall into the time vortex. Those three words on the end of that sentence… they belonged somewhere else. It was impossible. It was…
No, she told herself. It was perfect.
“And in the surprisingly near future, too,” the Doctor elaborated. “He becomes a Labour MP, does a lot of charity work, his blog gets really famous. He wins the party leadership race. Wins the next election. And here’s the crazy thing – he actually keeps all his promises!”
“Blimey.”
“University tuition fees? Abolished, eventually. Minimum wage, up three pounds. Country remains prosperous. Emissions are reduced. He appoints the first transgender minister for equality, and – well, let’s just say, progress would be an understatement. Diplomatic relations improve massively, and he begins the Lindsay Plan, the first step in tackling terrorism and radicalisation alongside Islamphobia. Oh, and one for you, Jasmine: educational reform. Schools have never been more fun. And then there’s the NHS…”
“Doctor,” interrupted Jasmine. “Are you making this crap up to cheer me up?”
“I’m seriously not. Go ahead.” He gestured to the monitor. “Look him up.”
Jasmine believed him. “But… all of that…”
“I know. And you kissed him!” He laughed to himself. Jasmine could not help but join in, beaming, as she watched Tommy witnessing his very last TARDIS dematerialisation.
“I wondered what to do with him.” The Doctor had started again. “That first time I abandoned him, back on Earth, it was because I…well, I don’t know… I blamed him for triggering the chain of events that would lead to the Eighth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. Which is just ridiculous really, because he stood for nothing the Empire stood for, but I was having a bad week. Then I had to be careful with you – making sure I didn’t take you to any human colonies that had erected statues of him. That would have made the conversation a bit more awkward. I did have a plan in case that happened. I was going to act completely surprised…”
Jasmine beamed, and let the Doctor’s words become white noise. She would see Tommy again – she was sure of it.
The Doctor sauntered down the steps, and hopefully prepared the tennis table for a rousing game of table tennis. He figured Jasmine would need entertaining for a while. It would do him good, too. He remembered a time back on Gallifrey, when…
No. He stopped himself. The memories were getting stronger now, his mind trying to block out the reality of what Gallifrey would become. He looked at his watch. The time was coming – eventually—when the clock would strike and Jasmine would have to go. He repeated that over in his head.
She’ll have to go eventually, Doctor. You can’t let her end up in danger. Unlike Tommy, you don't know how it ends for her.
He considered looking her up in the history books too, but decided against it. Something told him it would be better off not knowing.
***
Natalie finished her coffee, and fiddled with the cheque in her hand. Tommy had gone now, home to see his sister. Natalie did not plan on leaving, not yet. She would get one last coffee – she would risk using the card. Even if it was rejected, it wouldn’t matter. She would laugh. The man behind the counter would laugh. The people behind her would sigh, and she wouldn’t care.
She opened the book up on the last page. Tommy had left it here, and she didn’t know if that was on purpose or not. Still, it seemed a waste to leave a good read. She skimmed over the boring parts, and quickly found herself on the final paragraph. Reading the Bible had been a similar experience:
“I am very pleased,” spoke the Doctor. “I am proud of my children. My law must at all costs be obeyed, but do not forget your place as human beings and decision-makers. Do not forget your duties in this world. Listen to the part of you that speaks louder than the rest, but not the part you do not trust. My world will become paradise, after the work of its people.”
And then the people asked the Lord if he was coming back, and the Lord turned back one last time and said:
“One day. One day, I shall come back.”
“Fine,” she said, and gave a reassuring smile.
“I understand. I’ll miss him too, but he has a lot of work to do here.”
“I know.”
Of all the guilt the Doctor had experienced today, this was the worst. The sound of Jasmine’s voice, so close to breaking. Of all the people he had hurt…
“I thought I’d changed him,” said the Doctor. “I thought taking him with me would change him – make him a better person who’d see the world differently. But I didn’t need to. He was already that person. This time, he changed me.”
The Doctor was watching Tommy on the monitor, leaving the café and heading back out into Piccadilly Circus. He was preparing to watch the TARDIS depart.
“Don’t worry about him. This world is safer than it would have you believe – he’ll thrive here, believe me.”
Jasmine nodded, unconvinced.
“Okay, I owe you this one. The truth, Jasmine, just this once, to make up for my behaviour over the last few days.”
“The truth? I didn’t know you were hiding anything from me.”
“When I first met Tommy, it was when the TARDIS had created that forest. Most people moved away from it; no one else went inside, and even Tommy’s friend Natalie was put off when she saw it. But he was drawn to it. The TARDIS doesn’t just invite anyone along, you know.” He ran his hand along the console affectionately. “She’s a sensitive soul, this one. So of course, I just had to know!”
Jasmine smiled. He was back to being the Doctor she knew, enthusiastically leaping around the console, not knowing where he was going, either figuratively or literally.
“I looked him up, checked his history, and it all suddenly made sense.”
“Wait. What did?”
“Jasmine, I don’t mean to pry… I wasn’t watching you, I just happened to glance at the monitor…”
Jasmine scowled.
“I feel like you have the right to know that you’ve just kissed the future Prime Minister.”
“What?!”
Jasmine felt like the ground was about to give way and she was going to fall into the time vortex. Those three words on the end of that sentence… they belonged somewhere else. It was impossible. It was…
No, she told herself. It was perfect.
“And in the surprisingly near future, too,” the Doctor elaborated. “He becomes a Labour MP, does a lot of charity work, his blog gets really famous. He wins the party leadership race. Wins the next election. And here’s the crazy thing – he actually keeps all his promises!”
“Blimey.”
“University tuition fees? Abolished, eventually. Minimum wage, up three pounds. Country remains prosperous. Emissions are reduced. He appoints the first transgender minister for equality, and – well, let’s just say, progress would be an understatement. Diplomatic relations improve massively, and he begins the Lindsay Plan, the first step in tackling terrorism and radicalisation alongside Islamphobia. Oh, and one for you, Jasmine: educational reform. Schools have never been more fun. And then there’s the NHS…”
“Doctor,” interrupted Jasmine. “Are you making this crap up to cheer me up?”
“I’m seriously not. Go ahead.” He gestured to the monitor. “Look him up.”
Jasmine believed him. “But… all of that…”
“I know. And you kissed him!” He laughed to himself. Jasmine could not help but join in, beaming, as she watched Tommy witnessing his very last TARDIS dematerialisation.
“I wondered what to do with him.” The Doctor had started again. “That first time I abandoned him, back on Earth, it was because I…well, I don’t know… I blamed him for triggering the chain of events that would lead to the Eighth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. Which is just ridiculous really, because he stood for nothing the Empire stood for, but I was having a bad week. Then I had to be careful with you – making sure I didn’t take you to any human colonies that had erected statues of him. That would have made the conversation a bit more awkward. I did have a plan in case that happened. I was going to act completely surprised…”
Jasmine beamed, and let the Doctor’s words become white noise. She would see Tommy again – she was sure of it.
The Doctor sauntered down the steps, and hopefully prepared the tennis table for a rousing game of table tennis. He figured Jasmine would need entertaining for a while. It would do him good, too. He remembered a time back on Gallifrey, when…
No. He stopped himself. The memories were getting stronger now, his mind trying to block out the reality of what Gallifrey would become. He looked at his watch. The time was coming – eventually—when the clock would strike and Jasmine would have to go. He repeated that over in his head.
She’ll have to go eventually, Doctor. You can’t let her end up in danger. Unlike Tommy, you don't know how it ends for her.
He considered looking her up in the history books too, but decided against it. Something told him it would be better off not knowing.
***
Natalie finished her coffee, and fiddled with the cheque in her hand. Tommy had gone now, home to see his sister. Natalie did not plan on leaving, not yet. She would get one last coffee – she would risk using the card. Even if it was rejected, it wouldn’t matter. She would laugh. The man behind the counter would laugh. The people behind her would sigh, and she wouldn’t care.
She opened the book up on the last page. Tommy had left it here, and she didn’t know if that was on purpose or not. Still, it seemed a waste to leave a good read. She skimmed over the boring parts, and quickly found herself on the final paragraph. Reading the Bible had been a similar experience:
“I am very pleased,” spoke the Doctor. “I am proud of my children. My law must at all costs be obeyed, but do not forget your place as human beings and decision-makers. Do not forget your duties in this world. Listen to the part of you that speaks louder than the rest, but not the part you do not trust. My world will become paradise, after the work of its people.”
And then the people asked the Lord if he was coming back, and the Lord turned back one last time and said:
“One day. One day, I shall come back.”
Next Time:The Zygon Missile CrisisOperation Mosquito - a top-secret initiative during the Cold War which should never have been possible.
Mary - an ordinary young woman with a dark secret. A doomsday clock - about to strike twelve. The Zygon Missile Crisis will be published on Saturday 17th September. |
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