PROLOGUE
“Dad…”
Her voice was broken, the voice of someone staring into the eyes of their death, and death giving her an unforgiving gaze in return. So many things, so little time to say it. Was this where life really ended up? A complete wasted experience, with everything meaningful rushed off, like the names of items on a shopping list, when it really, truly mattered.
“I guess… this is something I’ve been wanting to say for a long time. Because I’ve noticed it, since I was a kid, and it’s – well, it’s important for me to say, when… you know…”
And what a pain it was, to be so close to the end, and not even be able to put a name to the process that she was about to embark on. Death. She could only think about it. And even that made her gag.
Her father gave an acknowledging mumble, and so she continued.
“I don’t want this to change anything between us – because, I guess I just need you to know, that I don’t regret any of it. None at all. Every single moment was special, and even though I’m about to tell you what I’m about to tell you – just remember, that it doesn’t impact on any of it.”
A brief moment passed, because her father, who was sat behind her, and so she could not look him in the eye as she delivered this crushing revelation, was silent.
Finally, the moment had come. She had to destroy everything her own father thought of himself, perhaps even obliterate his self-esteem forever, as she delivered this crushing blow to his person. However, it had to come now, for this was not a conversation that could be had after death.
She braced herself, and she said the words.
“You’re a complete dick.”
…
“Seriously,” Iris continued, ready to pull as many punches as she could. Except not literal punches, because of course, she was tied to the chair, and so could not move. Her father was bound to her, sat on a chair facing the other way. “If you weren’t so awkward and admitted to the Archbishop that you weren’t actually Jesus from the off, we wouldn’t be in this… mess.”
“Intergalactic Evangelism, they take it far,” the Doctor grimaced, looking up at the giant crimson flags emblazoned with a jet-black cross, hanging between the mighty stained-glass windows. They were in a huge, church-like room, that jutted out of the side of the mountain-top castle. Beyond the majestic windows on either side of them was nothing but air, and air, and air, stretching down below them, a mighty drop the length equivalent to the diameter of a fairly large town.
As well as the windows, a few religious tapestries were hung upon the wall, and at the far end of the great hall, a dais had been erected, upon which a lectern had been positioned, so someone could stand and address the ralliers in the hall.
It was also notable that the entire floor around them was burning with an awe-inspiring vigour.
Yes, because following their brief awkward altercation, it was seen that as a fitting punishment for their lies that they should burn to death, just as they would burn eternally when they entered Hell. So, the floor had been dowsed in petrol, and the two of them marooned on their island of seating in the middle.
As the events leading towards the Doctor and Iris burning to death were unfolding, approximately 100 miles away, the Doctor’s TARDIS was thrashing its way through the sky, like a horse that had been agitated by a passing car and refusing to fly stably.
“For god’s sake, what a bother my dear hubbie’s got himself in,” Cioné cried, as she grabbed on to the controls she was meant to be controlling for dear life.
“Wait a sec! I have an idea,” Lizzie, who was also hanging onto the console, dashed away towards one of the corridors branching away from the main hub of the bigger-on-the-inside box, stumbling a few times as the TARDIS thundered its way through the snowy-white sky above the craggy mountain ranges below them. Not much later, she arrived back into the console room, with a rope bundled over her shoulder, upon which was attached a great big anchor. t was at this moment that Lizzie, realising she was going to have to use a lot of physical strength when embarking on her plan, decided she should probably do more exercise, though in her opinion, the sheer amount of corridor-running she had done with the Doctor was enough, and she would much rather a night in with a pizza.
Cioné’s face brightened, after its normal cheery outlook had wavered following her pulling off a button that she presumed her husband must’ve reattached with a small chunk of blue tack. “Lizzie darling, you’re a genius!”
Cioné then glanced at one of the screens, and checking her watch, concluded it should approximately be another two minutes before they flew over the sky chapel.
“Oh!” Cioné turned to Lizzie. “And send a text!”
As the chaos unfolded in the TARDIS above, a familiar tune began to float through the cobble rafters of the sky chapel.
It’s going down, I’m yelling timber
You better move, you better dance
Iris’ heard her phones text tone go, and initially thought nothing of it, because she didn’t care that O2 were informing her of the latest deals.
It’s going down, I’m telling timb –
Another message. It could’ve been important.
“Dad, you need to get my phone out my pocket.”
There were a few seconds of silence, presumably as the Doctor formulated his plan of action. “… right.”
Fumbling around to loosen the ropes binding his arms, he wriggled his arm slightly, so he could reach into her back pocket.
“Hold on,” the Doctor paused. “What if this is about O2’s latest –”
“You’re in my back pocket, just get my stupid phone.”
“Okay…,” he had to grab a few times, before eventually his fingers clasped the handset, and he withdrew it awkwardly, at one time, much to Iris’ loud and colourful protestations, nearly dropping it. He had, of course, told his daughter to have a little more respect for her father, but she had ignored him with an all-too-familiar rejection of authority. When the Doctor eventually negotiated his daughter’s phone into her hand, Iris checked it, and sighed and audible sigh, while the Doctor tried as hard as he could to retract his legs up from the floor, as he felt the flames lick at his feet. “What is it?” he asked her.
“It’s from Lizzie.”
“And?”
AwkwardCatLady – 14:56
Move to the window. Right side.
Iris ignored her dad, as she quickly typed her reply with teenage speed.
PlanetoftheLesbians – 14:57
Which one?
“We need to get to one of the windows,” Iris’ already passionate pessimism dipped further as she looked over to the choice of three windows.
“Which one?” her dad asked.
“I’m just finding out!” she exclaimed, exasperated at her dad’s irritatingness even though he couldn’t help it.
It’s going down, I’m yell –
A new message!
AwkwardCatLady – 14:57
Not sure
“Brilliant,” Iris mused aloud.
The Doctor clearly intercepted her train of thought. “Let’s just... try the middle one and hope for the best.”
“Good idea.”
And so the two of them, tied back to back on rather flimsy wooden seats, decided to wriggle as fast as they could over to the middle stained-glass window on the right side. There were a few spots where the flames were less roaring, and so the two of them lifted their legs to a reasonable height, and although the bottoms of their trouser legs became singed, they did not suffer any major burning.
“Iris, we need to coordinate movement, we can’t just –”
“Yes, thanks dad, I know that –”
“Good,” her dad said, in a typical fatherly mediatory tone, and they began their awkward wriggle. “So, you just need to…”
“Yeah…,” she muttered in response, trying to get her direction right.
“If you go to the left, you might…”
“Hmm, you’re probably right there…”
“No, left –”
“Yes, I know!”
And then they suddenly stopped, as the Doctor realised that they were not going to reach the windows alive if something about this didn’t stop soon.
“This isn’t going to work,” he literally put his foot down, before quickly retracting it as he felt the heat poke mockingly on the sole of his shoe. “Left,” he calmly instructed.
Trying very hard not to swear at him, and reluctant to listen to a word he was saying, Iris moved to the left, and the Doctor did the same.
“Right,” the Doctor continued.
“If you’re going to do this until we get to the window –”
“Look, it’s not far now, just keep going in this rhythm…”
Meanwhile, the sky chapel was in sight from the TARDIS. Another 30 seconds, and they would be there. Lizzie just hoped that the Doctor and Iris would be close enough to the window, and that Cioné’s piloting would be accurate enough for the plan to be enacted as she hoped.
“You think it’s alright if I get the doors?” Lizzie asked.
“Hmm, yes, probably best to go now, but do find something to hold on to.”
Lizzie hobbled over to the TARDIS doors, finding herself having to find her way over a great obstacle – the mass quaking of the TARDIS as it tore through the sky. As soon as she threw open the TARDIS doors – doors which were partially blown upon by the gale-force winds rushing outside, she nearly tumbled out, and had to grab onto a railing to prevent herself from falling into the abyss. She could see the sky chapel as they hurtled towards it, and a strange feeling of panic burst up in Lizzie’s stomach as she realised that all four of their lives depended upon Cioné’s ability to smash a very big and very expensive stained-glass window.
In the sky chapel, the Doctor and Iris had reached the window – and they could see the TARDIS speeding very quickly towards them, leading both of them to wonder how successful this was going to be, if it was a rescue mission. It was getting closer now, the TARDIS, rushing through the sky, getting closer and closer to the sky chapel below, which in the grand scheme of things, was still suspended higher above sea level than most normal people have ever been in their life. Nearer and nearer, it would be seconds, and if this did not go well, they would either be crushed by the box and the great magnitude of interdimensional technology, or they would be sent hurtling thousands of miles to the ground below.
Brilliant.
And suddenly, the box was upon them, and commotion erupted in the chamber, as above the current roar of the flames, the glass window beside them smashed completely, and the TARDIS came spinning through at an impossibly fast speed. The Doctor and Iris ducked their heads, before looking up at their saviour whizzing only millimetres above their respective hairlines.
The next few seconds encompassed a huge variety of actions, but due to the deft-defying speed with which they happened, they seemed to proceed in a silent slow motion, with every sound becoming muffled. Above their heads, the TARDIS flew past, and the anchor, that the Doctor noticed Lizzie had thrown out of the doors, latched onto the rope joining their chair-prison to the roof, and tore it from the ceiling.
In the milliseconds of the interval between the rope being slack and then becoming taut, they saw the great oak doors of the chamber were flung open, and a stern looking man in shabby crimson robes strode in with a furious look on his face.
Iris gave him a sarcastic smile and a mocking wave, as those seconds elapsed, and the commotion burst into life around them again. The TARDIS smashed through the opposite stained-glass window, and the rope immediately heaved into life, yanking the two chairs the Doctor and Iris were tied onto. They were thrown across the floor of the chapel, and then suddenly the floor dropped beneath them, and they felt the wind throw them upwards.
The TARDIS was flying through the sky, with a chair dangling by a rope from the doors, beneath an almighty drop that could’ve easily killed the two occupants of the chairs.
Iris gazed around her, at the world – she felt the wind rush through her hair, and she looked up – there was only the endless snowy sky, stretching on forever and ever, and below her were the mountains, dipped in mist, and she couldn’t see the ground, but it didn’t matter. It was like being on one of those fairground rides – those swings that hoisted you far into the air on a single swing – except normally those swings didn’t hoist you above certain-death, and also had safety precautions, unlike the rickety chair and rope which only seemed slightly hooked around the anchor. Lizzie poked her head out of the doors, and gave Iris a little wave.
Iris waved back, and then sat back, allowing herself to float whimsically through the sky, the feeling of being suspended above nothing utterly magical.
She was flying.
Her voice was broken, the voice of someone staring into the eyes of their death, and death giving her an unforgiving gaze in return. So many things, so little time to say it. Was this where life really ended up? A complete wasted experience, with everything meaningful rushed off, like the names of items on a shopping list, when it really, truly mattered.
“I guess… this is something I’ve been wanting to say for a long time. Because I’ve noticed it, since I was a kid, and it’s – well, it’s important for me to say, when… you know…”
And what a pain it was, to be so close to the end, and not even be able to put a name to the process that she was about to embark on. Death. She could only think about it. And even that made her gag.
Her father gave an acknowledging mumble, and so she continued.
“I don’t want this to change anything between us – because, I guess I just need you to know, that I don’t regret any of it. None at all. Every single moment was special, and even though I’m about to tell you what I’m about to tell you – just remember, that it doesn’t impact on any of it.”
A brief moment passed, because her father, who was sat behind her, and so she could not look him in the eye as she delivered this crushing revelation, was silent.
Finally, the moment had come. She had to destroy everything her own father thought of himself, perhaps even obliterate his self-esteem forever, as she delivered this crushing blow to his person. However, it had to come now, for this was not a conversation that could be had after death.
She braced herself, and she said the words.
“You’re a complete dick.”
…
“Seriously,” Iris continued, ready to pull as many punches as she could. Except not literal punches, because of course, she was tied to the chair, and so could not move. Her father was bound to her, sat on a chair facing the other way. “If you weren’t so awkward and admitted to the Archbishop that you weren’t actually Jesus from the off, we wouldn’t be in this… mess.”
“Intergalactic Evangelism, they take it far,” the Doctor grimaced, looking up at the giant crimson flags emblazoned with a jet-black cross, hanging between the mighty stained-glass windows. They were in a huge, church-like room, that jutted out of the side of the mountain-top castle. Beyond the majestic windows on either side of them was nothing but air, and air, and air, stretching down below them, a mighty drop the length equivalent to the diameter of a fairly large town.
As well as the windows, a few religious tapestries were hung upon the wall, and at the far end of the great hall, a dais had been erected, upon which a lectern had been positioned, so someone could stand and address the ralliers in the hall.
It was also notable that the entire floor around them was burning with an awe-inspiring vigour.
Yes, because following their brief awkward altercation, it was seen that as a fitting punishment for their lies that they should burn to death, just as they would burn eternally when they entered Hell. So, the floor had been dowsed in petrol, and the two of them marooned on their island of seating in the middle.
As the events leading towards the Doctor and Iris burning to death were unfolding, approximately 100 miles away, the Doctor’s TARDIS was thrashing its way through the sky, like a horse that had been agitated by a passing car and refusing to fly stably.
“For god’s sake, what a bother my dear hubbie’s got himself in,” Cioné cried, as she grabbed on to the controls she was meant to be controlling for dear life.
“Wait a sec! I have an idea,” Lizzie, who was also hanging onto the console, dashed away towards one of the corridors branching away from the main hub of the bigger-on-the-inside box, stumbling a few times as the TARDIS thundered its way through the snowy-white sky above the craggy mountain ranges below them. Not much later, she arrived back into the console room, with a rope bundled over her shoulder, upon which was attached a great big anchor. t was at this moment that Lizzie, realising she was going to have to use a lot of physical strength when embarking on her plan, decided she should probably do more exercise, though in her opinion, the sheer amount of corridor-running she had done with the Doctor was enough, and she would much rather a night in with a pizza.
Cioné’s face brightened, after its normal cheery outlook had wavered following her pulling off a button that she presumed her husband must’ve reattached with a small chunk of blue tack. “Lizzie darling, you’re a genius!”
Cioné then glanced at one of the screens, and checking her watch, concluded it should approximately be another two minutes before they flew over the sky chapel.
“Oh!” Cioné turned to Lizzie. “And send a text!”
As the chaos unfolded in the TARDIS above, a familiar tune began to float through the cobble rafters of the sky chapel.
It’s going down, I’m yelling timber
You better move, you better dance
Iris’ heard her phones text tone go, and initially thought nothing of it, because she didn’t care that O2 were informing her of the latest deals.
It’s going down, I’m telling timb –
Another message. It could’ve been important.
“Dad, you need to get my phone out my pocket.”
There were a few seconds of silence, presumably as the Doctor formulated his plan of action. “… right.”
Fumbling around to loosen the ropes binding his arms, he wriggled his arm slightly, so he could reach into her back pocket.
“Hold on,” the Doctor paused. “What if this is about O2’s latest –”
“You’re in my back pocket, just get my stupid phone.”
“Okay…,” he had to grab a few times, before eventually his fingers clasped the handset, and he withdrew it awkwardly, at one time, much to Iris’ loud and colourful protestations, nearly dropping it. He had, of course, told his daughter to have a little more respect for her father, but she had ignored him with an all-too-familiar rejection of authority. When the Doctor eventually negotiated his daughter’s phone into her hand, Iris checked it, and sighed and audible sigh, while the Doctor tried as hard as he could to retract his legs up from the floor, as he felt the flames lick at his feet. “What is it?” he asked her.
“It’s from Lizzie.”
“And?”
AwkwardCatLady – 14:56
Move to the window. Right side.
Iris ignored her dad, as she quickly typed her reply with teenage speed.
PlanetoftheLesbians – 14:57
Which one?
“We need to get to one of the windows,” Iris’ already passionate pessimism dipped further as she looked over to the choice of three windows.
“Which one?” her dad asked.
“I’m just finding out!” she exclaimed, exasperated at her dad’s irritatingness even though he couldn’t help it.
It’s going down, I’m yell –
A new message!
AwkwardCatLady – 14:57
Not sure
“Brilliant,” Iris mused aloud.
The Doctor clearly intercepted her train of thought. “Let’s just... try the middle one and hope for the best.”
“Good idea.”
And so the two of them, tied back to back on rather flimsy wooden seats, decided to wriggle as fast as they could over to the middle stained-glass window on the right side. There were a few spots where the flames were less roaring, and so the two of them lifted their legs to a reasonable height, and although the bottoms of their trouser legs became singed, they did not suffer any major burning.
“Iris, we need to coordinate movement, we can’t just –”
“Yes, thanks dad, I know that –”
“Good,” her dad said, in a typical fatherly mediatory tone, and they began their awkward wriggle. “So, you just need to…”
“Yeah…,” she muttered in response, trying to get her direction right.
“If you go to the left, you might…”
“Hmm, you’re probably right there…”
“No, left –”
“Yes, I know!”
And then they suddenly stopped, as the Doctor realised that they were not going to reach the windows alive if something about this didn’t stop soon.
“This isn’t going to work,” he literally put his foot down, before quickly retracting it as he felt the heat poke mockingly on the sole of his shoe. “Left,” he calmly instructed.
Trying very hard not to swear at him, and reluctant to listen to a word he was saying, Iris moved to the left, and the Doctor did the same.
“Right,” the Doctor continued.
“If you’re going to do this until we get to the window –”
“Look, it’s not far now, just keep going in this rhythm…”
Meanwhile, the sky chapel was in sight from the TARDIS. Another 30 seconds, and they would be there. Lizzie just hoped that the Doctor and Iris would be close enough to the window, and that Cioné’s piloting would be accurate enough for the plan to be enacted as she hoped.
“You think it’s alright if I get the doors?” Lizzie asked.
“Hmm, yes, probably best to go now, but do find something to hold on to.”
Lizzie hobbled over to the TARDIS doors, finding herself having to find her way over a great obstacle – the mass quaking of the TARDIS as it tore through the sky. As soon as she threw open the TARDIS doors – doors which were partially blown upon by the gale-force winds rushing outside, she nearly tumbled out, and had to grab onto a railing to prevent herself from falling into the abyss. She could see the sky chapel as they hurtled towards it, and a strange feeling of panic burst up in Lizzie’s stomach as she realised that all four of their lives depended upon Cioné’s ability to smash a very big and very expensive stained-glass window.
In the sky chapel, the Doctor and Iris had reached the window – and they could see the TARDIS speeding very quickly towards them, leading both of them to wonder how successful this was going to be, if it was a rescue mission. It was getting closer now, the TARDIS, rushing through the sky, getting closer and closer to the sky chapel below, which in the grand scheme of things, was still suspended higher above sea level than most normal people have ever been in their life. Nearer and nearer, it would be seconds, and if this did not go well, they would either be crushed by the box and the great magnitude of interdimensional technology, or they would be sent hurtling thousands of miles to the ground below.
Brilliant.
And suddenly, the box was upon them, and commotion erupted in the chamber, as above the current roar of the flames, the glass window beside them smashed completely, and the TARDIS came spinning through at an impossibly fast speed. The Doctor and Iris ducked their heads, before looking up at their saviour whizzing only millimetres above their respective hairlines.
The next few seconds encompassed a huge variety of actions, but due to the deft-defying speed with which they happened, they seemed to proceed in a silent slow motion, with every sound becoming muffled. Above their heads, the TARDIS flew past, and the anchor, that the Doctor noticed Lizzie had thrown out of the doors, latched onto the rope joining their chair-prison to the roof, and tore it from the ceiling.
In the milliseconds of the interval between the rope being slack and then becoming taut, they saw the great oak doors of the chamber were flung open, and a stern looking man in shabby crimson robes strode in with a furious look on his face.
Iris gave him a sarcastic smile and a mocking wave, as those seconds elapsed, and the commotion burst into life around them again. The TARDIS smashed through the opposite stained-glass window, and the rope immediately heaved into life, yanking the two chairs the Doctor and Iris were tied onto. They were thrown across the floor of the chapel, and then suddenly the floor dropped beneath them, and they felt the wind throw them upwards.
The TARDIS was flying through the sky, with a chair dangling by a rope from the doors, beneath an almighty drop that could’ve easily killed the two occupants of the chairs.
Iris gazed around her, at the world – she felt the wind rush through her hair, and she looked up – there was only the endless snowy sky, stretching on forever and ever, and below her were the mountains, dipped in mist, and she couldn’t see the ground, but it didn’t matter. It was like being on one of those fairground rides – those swings that hoisted you far into the air on a single swing – except normally those swings didn’t hoist you above certain-death, and also had safety precautions, unlike the rickety chair and rope which only seemed slightly hooked around the anchor. Lizzie poked her head out of the doors, and gave Iris a little wave.
Iris waved back, and then sat back, allowing herself to float whimsically through the sky, the feeling of being suspended above nothing utterly magical.
She was flying.
the eighth doctor adventures
the 2017/18 specials - x1
the naked truth
written by peter darwin
“Just… don’t talk to them again, okay? Jehovah’s Witnesses, they’re… weird like that,” Lizzie explained.
“I didn’t realise they weren’t some kind of folk band!” Iris defended herself. After all, they seemed kind of ridiculous in a folk band-y way.
Lizzie and Iris sat underneath a bus shelter – it was a crisp autumn day, with red and yellow and golden leaves floating melancholily down from the trees bordering the road, the sunlight flickering through them as they gently fell, painting pretty patterns on the road ahead of them. It wouldn’t be long before winter would truly settle in, and any warmth would be obliterated by its coldness. However, the two of them were not scared of that, for there seemed to be a warmth between the two of them. Occasionally a car would drive past them, and the two of them sat, watching them, wondering where all the different occupants of those vehicles were going – happy places, or sad places, or maybe nowhere in particular. There was a sort of lazy poignancy in the air, as they sat beneath that bus shelter. The two of them were embarking on an adventure, just for a few months, that was going to be a rather intriguing experience. Unlike most of the mad, bonkers stuff they got up to in the TARDIS, this was going to be a little bit more… static.
It had transpired that the Doctor and Cioné had some urgent business to attend to, regarding a misfired time-loop. They had suspected it was going to be a time-consuming business, and so Lizzie and Iris had agreed to be dropped off on Earth, where they were to live. A fairly simple task, on the surface of it – however, life on Earth, as Lizzie had discovered, was rather trickier than one would imagine. The Doctor, being the intergalactic weirdo he was, had got Lizzie and Iris this flat in London, where they were to live out their lives being normal humans. Lizzie would do ‘whatever’ (to quote the Doctor), while Iris would deal with the assignments she’d been set during the academy winter holidays.
Normal humans…
It was an unlikely prospect, but they were both determined to have the best crack at it that they could. Clearly it was getting off to a flying start – their temporary stopping point of Lizzie’s old Dunsworthian flat had been visited by Jehovah’s Witnesses – a group Iris had mistaken as a folk band.
“And just… never ask them when they’re next touring, because they’ll come back.”
No less than five times.
“Any other tips about Earth-living?” Iris asked. She was excited – of course she was. A natural adventurer, a curious mind, hence her desire to travel the universe, and her love of the physics behind the universe. Her father bleeding through, it seemed, alongside his blind optimism whenever it came to throwing themselves into insane situations. And yet, excited as she was, Iris just wanted to blend in – not to be noticed. As a traveller, she didn’t want to be the centre of attention – she’d much rather take it all in from the side-lines, an outsider, and watch the universe pass by in front of her. Of course, her individuality was desperately important – but Iris wanted to be that quirky girl seeing the universe – that was enough for her.
“Erm…,” Lizzie thought. “The government is terrible. Don’t be too flippant. Eat chips.”
Lots of chips.
A few moments of silence passed, before Iris let out the largest, longest groan she could possibly muster, to emphasise how fed up she was of having to wait for the keys.
“Urrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
Lizzie knew exactly what she was complaining about, and glanced at her watch for the time. The keys should materialise any minute now.
“It won’t be long,” Lizzie said, knowing that what she was saying was going to make no impact on Iris’ impatience.
Iris’ excitement was dwindling slightly amidst the wait. Patience, no thanks. “Is this what time on Earth is like? Eternally… torturous.”
If a little beautiful, Iris thought, watching the autumnal shades filtering through the trees and painting the street, a sign of time always passing – and, in fact, it looked quite beautiful.
“Yep,” Lizzie confirmed. It most definitely was.
Suddenly, Iris’ Pitbull ft. Kesha ringtone began to play, and Iris hoped that this would bring some relief to their wait.
NurseWho – 16:10
Keys arriving soon. Mum got tomato sauce in the detmat. circuits.
“… is that your dad?” Lizzie asked.
“Yeah,” Iris muttered with an air of half-concentration, as she tapped out her reply. A few seconds later, as expected, that iconic noise that usually accompanied the TARDIS’ arrival, began to echo through the bus shelter. Iris opened her hands, and found a set of house keys waiting for her, with markedly more patience than herself.
They both sat there for a few seconds more, perhaps because they were putting the future off, or perhaps because this was completely new to them and they had no idea what to do.
“It’ll be fiiine!” Iris jumped up, clearly noting the atmosphere of anticipation. She was seemingly quite excited out about the whole thing, and even if she was nervous, it didn’t show. With Iris’ blasé remark, she was trying to sideline any emotions that were perhaps creeping in. Not wanting to talk about it, masking it behind an air of relaxed calm and outrageous humour.
It wasn’t like Iris was going to be living alone. Lizzie, who had obviously done the whole ‘human’ thing before, had decided she would always look out for Iris – after all, they saw each other as sisters. Having said that, Lizzie was not completely certain that she had any more idea of how to function as a human than Iris did. Despite this, Lizzie would be there for her, whatever happened. Just as Iris had been there for her two weeks ago, when the two of them had made their journey to Palem Blue, where they met the mysterious private investigator Emma. So far, their meeting had led to no results, and they had heard nothing from Emma. But the encounter was there, at the back of Lizzie’s mind…
They entered the building, and Lizzie and Iris began the journey up the set of stairs, to their new flat. Each step was a step closer to their new life – the stairs in the building were steep, but that didn’t matter, Lizzie had climbed steeper to get to where she was then. There was, of course, the lift – but there was no way in hell Lizzie would ever succumb to the claustrophobia.
Iris was a good few steps ahead of her, bouncing up two steps at a time, nearly tripping over several of them, admiring the building, which wasn’t even that amazing.
“We’re going to have such a cool life here, Liz,” Iris gazed around her. “Even if it does smell of damp. A little bit.”
“Yeah…,” Lizzie agreed. Hopefully they were. Even if it did smell of damp.
The stairs seemed to take forever, but when they got to their floor, they realised that it had barely taken that long at all. Iris hesitated by the doors.
“What’s up?” Lizzie noticed Iris fumbling around in her pockets.
“Lost the keys…”
Off to a wonderful start.
“Oops, sorry, found them,” she chuckled, and pushed them into the lock, and after glancing at Lizzie, with a look of delight and excitement, Iris opened her new flat. “Arghh, this is exciting as hell,” Lizzie heard Iris mutter, as she bustled her way inside. Lizzie sighed, and smiled, as Iris bounded forth into their new life. Lizzie hung back, just for a bit. A little bit of uncertainty, that was all. It was mad that she could do so many terrifying things, and yet starting a new adventure on her home planet was what scared her the most.
But she’d done it – she was there. All while trying to heal – something she’d needed to do a lot of, after sinking back into a wave of depression. She was back on her anti-depressants, she was going to counselling. Lizzie wasn’t happy – but she was happier, and she was getting somewhere. Some days, though, she would wake up, and everything would be such a… slog to get through. And at every turn, the smallest things would haunt her, pestering her – that was it. A constant feeling of nagging emptiness, always on her back, and she’d just want nothing more than for it to go away.
Today wasn’t too bad – perhaps those feelings had been masked, mainly with anticipation and nervousness. Iris always helped too, bursting into her life like a complete whirlwind and shaking it all up. But there was always that fear, that tomorrow, or the next day, might be bad again.
However, before Lizzie had any further chance to worry about whether tomorrow she would be crushed with a complete feeling of dread and a fear that the entire world was going to fall down around her, she heard a voice.
“OH. MY. LORD. OF. LORDINGTONS.”
What.
Several things did not make sense at all – the main one being that that voice was not possible. The voice was a voice inside her head – the voice of someone who didn’t actually exist, the voice of someone who Lizzie Darwin had invented.
When she turned around, she saw Kym gazing at her, eyes as wide as saucers.
“Erm. Hi!” Lizzie muttered awkwardly, not sure whether Kym knew who she was. Lizzie then stopped, and had to catch up with her own mind – Kym was stood in front of her, dressed in a bright pink fluffy coat, a garish pom-pom scarf, and gigantic high-heels. Lizzie had invented her, a friend who didn’t care what people thought, who saw the greatest joy in the smallest of things. But that was the point – Lizzie had invented her, she did not exist.
But somehow she did.
“You must be my new neighbour!!!!!” Kym bounded up to her. Clearly, she didn’t know who Lizzie was, even though the only logical conclusion was that Kym was straight out of Lizzie’s head. Unless Kym was an actual person and Lizzie had created a dream around her, and then forgotten she was an actual person.
None of the particulars, however, stopped Kym pulling Lizzie into an enormous hug. Eventually, she backed off, and held Lizzie by her shoulders as if she were imparting some crucial information.
“I’m Kym, Kym Gomez, that’s ‘Kym’ with a ‘Y’ and ‘Gomez’ with a ‘G-O-M-E-Z’–”
“Oh, erm, thanks,” Lizzie murmured, not aware of any other spellings of the surname ‘Gomez’.
“And you are…?”
Lizzie spluttered a few syllables, while the person she’d invented in her head stood in front of her, just as vividly as she’d ever been imagined, squealing in delight and not seeming at all concerned that her new neighbour had forgotten her own name.
“I’m, er, Lizzie…”
“Fabidabidoo to meet you, Lizworth. Can I call you that? I’m gonna call you that. I live just opposite you,” Kym gestured to her own front door, the letters upon which had been decorated with glitter. “I lost the deposit,” Kym said, without much care at all, as she noticed Lizzie eying the sparkles.
“Yeah… yeah you can call me that…”
Kym plucked Lizzie’s phone out of her hands, and at a speed that would make light jealous, she typed in her number. “Call me any time, but not Thursdays and not every other Friday, because I do soulcycle on Thursdays and every other Friday I hit the town. Tbh, I hit the town most nights, but every other Friday I’m serious.”
“Erm, right, thanks,” Lizzie accepted her phone back – or, Kym placed Lizzie’s phone back into her immobile, shocked hands, while Lizzie stood watching, eyes agape, in a state of sheer confusion that normally, she’d be able to make great efforts to hide.
“Are you living alone?”
“No,” Lizzie made a bit of a rubbish attempt to regain myself. “I’m living with my sister, Iris.”
“Aww, that’s cute. I live on my own, but I’m a single pringle ready to mingle – every other Friday is when the mingling is serious, if you hadn’t guessed. Anyway, Lizzinous, I will see you around, I need to go, nails to paint – not my own, I’m a beautician – do you like mine, though? I did them last night…”
Lizzie zoned out as Kym began her nail-related diatribe, and she vaguely heard herself say ‘goodbye’ – and just as quickly as she’d arrived, and knocked Lizzie into a gigantic existential crisis, Kym was gone again, prancing down the stairs, away from her sparkly flat.
Lizzie looked at her flat, and then over at Kym’s flat. Kym actually existed. Someone she had invented, someone Lizzie had created for herself… existed. It made no sense at all, and as Lizzie entered her new flat for the first time, her mind was too distracted by the thought of Kym’s existence to take in the fact she actually had quite a nice new place. It wasn’t huge, but as Lizzie wandered into their living room, most of which was packed into boxes (boxes that had materialised in the flat – Time Lord removals), she knew that it would do just nicely.
Just nicely – with Kym living next door. It seemed that even when Lizzie was trying to live a normal life, the abnormal refused to leave her alone, with her fictional creations blazing into her own mind with enormous verve and vigour.
“You’re most certainly correct,” said the Black Cat perched on their sofa. “It does not make sense.”
Oh my god.
Lizzie checked herself, making sure that definitely wasn’t hallucinating, that she hadn’t become locked up in her own head – after all, in her travels with the Doctor she’d noticed such things to be a common appearance.
But no – Ulysses F. B. Higgensdale, the talking cat she’d invented for herself, because she loved cats, and she thought it would be wonderful if they’d be able to talk – was definitely looking up at her from the edge of the sofa, amber eyes gazing at her with all their posh, yet camp, glory.
“You came back too,” Lizzie muttered aloud, and yet, the black cat did not seem fazed as she addressed it. Then again – it was a talking cat, so perhaps it was used to the strange looks. It was not the fact she was faced with a talking animal, however, that was so befuddling. It was the fact Ulysses was so intrinsically linked to her, and there he was, sat on the sofa.
“I did,” Ulysses purred. It didn’t make sense, however – Ulysses seemed to recognise her, and yet Kym hadn’t. “I’ve always been a manifestation of your conscience, Elizabeth,” Ulysses explained, as if he could read her mind. Which apparently – he could. “Therefore, of course I know who you are… because in a way, I am partly you.”
“You know what I’m thinking?” Lizzie asked it, hoping the answer would be no, and also hoping that the answer would be yes. Talk to loved ones, said the counsellor. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they knew how she felt without her needing to explain?
“Don’t be silly,” Ulysses laughed. “Sometimes I can catch glimmers. But I am my own fabulous cat.”
Ulysses then went onto explain that although he was a construct of her mind, he had been born on Earth, to a horrendous family with several young children who had frequently pulled his tail. He had also engaged in several spats with their Great Dane.
“Anyway,” Ulysses finished his tale of hardship and… tails, a grimace etched upon his feline features, and perhaps the makings of a tear from his amber eyes. “I made a bid for freedom, climbing over the fence, using the mindless pooch as a paw-up. What followed was a bitter slog, trawling down the M40 – I pilfered an articulated lorry – and eventually, I made it.”
… right, Lizzie thought, as Ulysses wrapped up his tale. She was, admittedly, rather in awe of his brilliant escape. Also, she realised that if Ulysses knew who Lizzie was, then chances are, he would be aware of how he’d come into existence. And Kym as well.
“How do you exist, then?” Lizzie asked.
“Okay darling, let me explain,” Ulysses patted the sofa with his paw, gesturing for Lizzie to sit down. With a surprising amount of reluctance for a girl who was looking at an anthropomorphic cat who was a manifestation of her own conscience, Lizzie walked over and sat down beside it.
Ulysses’ explanation was simple.
“The force of your love for them was so strong, you brought them back.”
Lizzie hesitated – after all, normally it was much more complex than that. “I… loved them into existence?”
“Absolutely!” Ulysses placed a reassuring paw on Lizzie’s hand. “And for those idiots who thinks there’s a solid scientific explanation for everything, when you brought back the universe, you were powering the Memory Graveyard with your own mind. The force of the electrical impulses to the brain states holding those mental constructions meant that when you were plugged into the Memory Graveyard, you brought them back. But to any normal person, yes. You loved them back.”
Wow. It wasn’t often the world was so kind.
“Hey.”
Oops. Lizzie glanced over, and saw Iris staring, provoking an irritated sigh from Ulysses, who clearly wasn’t particularly up on explaining the fact he could talk
to someone else. Of course – when Ulysses had just been in her head, only she had been able to hear him speak. But now… now he existed.
Lizzie had brought a talking cat into existence.
Iris, with a burning excitement in her eyes, flew over to the sofa and sat in front of Ulysses. “You’re a talking cat.”
“Yes,” Ulysses spoke through gritted teeth.
Iris paused, and Lizzie could see her mind ticking. How could there possibly be a talking cat, surely that defied all the science Iris had ever learned, the science she’d pledged her life to investigate?
“Do you know a talking rabbit called Melvyn?” Iris asked, contrary to Lizzie’s expectations.
Ulysses thought for a moment, as if there were many talking animals and they all knew each other. “Top hat, broken watch, misogynist?”
“That’s the one!” Iris confirmed, quite giddy with excitement.
Lizzie looked at her, and then at Ulysses. “There’s a talking cat, and you’re okay with this?”
“Yeah, ‘course,” Iris shrugged it off, as Ulysses rested his head on his paw, posing elegantly in front of Lizzie and Iris. “This is so wonderful, I love new things,” Iris mused, a great big grin on her face. Her voice quickly changed into something of intrigue and curiosity. “How’d you exist, though?”
“I’m a construct of Lizzie’s imagination. She loved me into existence.”
“Huh?”
Ulysses sighed. “I was something in Lizzie’s mind, I came into existence when Lizzie was plugged into the memory graveyard. Your new next-door neighbour is the same.”
“Ooh, that’s cool,” Iris held out her hand as a form of greeting, and Ulysses placed his paw into it, and they shook. “Can you stay with us? You’re hella fascinating, and hilarious.”
“Well, erm,” Ulysses put his paw to his face, and if cats could blush, Ulysses would most certainly be blushing. “If it’s not too much trouble…”
“Of course not!” Iris jumped up and strode over to the window, becoming illuminated in the evening sunshine. “Is it, Lizzie?”
Lizzie was not paying much attention to the conversation, because her mind was elsewhere – while Iris and Ulysses had been making friends, Lizzie had been preoccupied with the very first thought that had entered her mind was soon as she’d set eyes upon Kym, and discovered that somehow the people she’d invented in her head were coming to life before her very eyes. If Lizzie had loved Kym into existence, and she’d loved Ulysses into existence, then surely, logic would dictate that the person she loved most of all would also come back into existence.
Except, the situation was already extremely far from logical, and Lizzie had no idea whether she was just making up excuses in her brain to give her some hope.
But, at that moment, Lizzie didn’t think there was anything wrong with blind, insane hope. After all, she’d been told to concentrate on happy thoughts, on good things, as part of her recovery – and that was a very happy thought, a comforting one. The perfect partner she’d created for herself, a… soul mate (a term that Lizzie actively despised) – but in this case, it seemed the term most apt, as he’d been created from her soul – someone she could love, someone who would understand her, and even when he didn’t, someone who would always accept her. Perhaps for once, the world would be kind to her.
So, as Lizzie looked at Iris and Ulysses, stood in the light of the setting sun, she knew that she had one job. And perhaps it was impossible, perhaps nothing would ever come of it. But at least, there was hope.
There was hope that Leo Akram, her imaginary boyfriend (which sounded ridiculous), was around, somewhere.
Hope that he was alive.
***
And so their life on Earth began.
Lizzie started work in a cute second-hand bookshop/tearoom – perhaps it was barely a change from her former employment in that terrible little café in Dunsworth, but Lizzie didn’t think so. She would sell books, she would make tea – she would even talk to people, and not hate every second of it. There was something about London – she never felt as if she were constantly being judged. Lizzie could live as herself, and that gave her true fulfilment. Occasionally she would smuggle Ulysses in, and he’d sit behind the counter and sip tea from a saucer (because it is a myth that cats like milk, apparently – in fact, Ulysses’ true poison was red wine). And whenever she got home at night, she would sit out on their balcony, and she would write, as the stars shone brightly above her.
Lizzie was happier than she’d been in a long time. She was content. Sometimes she would be bugged by anxious thoughts; that the days wouldn’t last forever, that she couldn’t just keep… hopping around the universe with her weird space-family. Some days were harder than others, some days her contentment was sullied by thoughts she’d rather bury – some days, the shop seemed tedious, Iris seemed irritating, cats couldn’t talk for a reason. But other days, it was so easy to put those thoughts behind her and focus on the happy moments. Even though she knew her depression was always haunting her, Lizzie was coping. As she sat in the shop, and looked around at the crammed, musty shelves, with the distinct aromas of various teas sneaking delightfully in from the next room, she felt as if she were looking around at her life – and in those moments, she was truly happy.
So, she held onto it – because she never knew when she’d slip back into the dark places she’d spent so long.
Occasionally her mind would drop back to Leo – her dreams of finding him. But she wasn’t desperate – hope burned vigorously inside her, and she dreamt that one day, they would meet again. One day.
Iris, meanwhile, was getting on with the assignments she was meant to be doing, even if the Doctor had to chivvy her along whenever he phoned. The majority of her time on Earth, however, was spent exploring… gaming. Already she’d convinced her father, with her usual, if slightly boisterous, charm, to buy them several games consoles, and so Iris spent the majority of the time sat in front of the television, eating lots of pizza and overdosing on Fanta. At night, Iris would travel into the city, and see if through all the night pollution, she could see the stars. And perhaps she would scribble a few notes for her lessons, but usually, Iris would just gaze at the 21st century night sky.
About a month into their life on Earth, something happened. Something that would change all of their lives,
It all began with a knock on their door – or several knocks, to be precise, notably to the rhythm of Despacito. And then it all really began with the words Kym spoke, when Lizzie opened the door to find her standing there.
“I have an idea.”
The words were quickly followed up by some expletives, which translated roughly as “your cat talks”, as Kym sidled past Lizzie and strode into the flat, where Iris was curled up on the sofa in a flamingo onesie with several bits of popcorn stuck to the fluff and lodged in her unwashed hair, an X-Box controller in her lap, and one in front of Ulysses, as Iris explained how it worked.
“Hi,” Iris muttered, her voice muffled under the massive mouthful of popcorn she’d just engulfed.
“Good morning,” Ulysses spoke with his usual eloquence.
Kym’s jaw dropped further than Iris’ dignity. “What the fu –”
“Okay, Kym, come and sit down,” Lizzie guided her over to one of the chairs in their kitchen, and not the sofa, considering it had been Iris’ domain for at least two weeks. Kym’s breathing was becoming extremely heavy and effortful, and Lizzie was a little bit concerned she was having a heart attack. “Deep breaths,” Lizzie reassured her, knowing from her past experiences (in her head), that Kym was prone to hyperventilating whenever she saw something weird.
And a talking cat was spectacularly weird.
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod,” Kym took a gigantic gasp of air, but even that failed to placate her lungs, as she rocked back and forth on the chair, and then pointed at Ulysses as if she were a witch-hunter and Ulysses had been busy using his dark magic to kill new-born babies. “That’s a talking cat.”
Ulysses grumbled. “Ah, humanity. Ever the unintelligent ones.”
“Sorry Ulysses,” Lizzie apologised on Kym’s behalf, as Kym continued to mutter to herself.
“That’s a talking cat, that’s a talking cat, that’s a talking cat, that’s a talking cat –”
“I will never be over the fact you invented her, Liz,” Iris laughed, as Kym continued to grapple for as much air as possible.
Lizzie glared at her, and then gave Ulysses a ‘please will you do this massive favour for me’ look.
Ulysses sighed as if he were a sulky teenage feline. “Do I have to?”
“Please,” Lizzie smiled. That swayed the cat, and with a heavy sigh and a heavy heart, Ulysses slipped off the sofa, and prowled across the floor to the kitchen chair where Kym sat suffocating in shock.
She glanced up when Ulysses held out his paw.
“My name is Ulysses F. B. Higgensdale esquire,” Ulysses hesitated before continuing – and even then, the sarcasm in his voice was notable. “Pleasure to meet you.”
Reluctantly, Kym took Ulysses’ paw in two fingers and gently shook it.
“Okay I’m pretty sure this is cat-ism now,” Iris gave Kym a look of contempt, as in her state of complete shock, Kym kept shaking Ulysses’ paw, over and over and over, while Ulysses glared at Lizzie and Iris, who both mouthed the word ‘sorry’, before retreating to the sofa to laugh at Ulysses’ misfortune from a distance.
“Can all cats talk,” Kym asked vacantly, making it sound like more of a vague statement than a question.
“No,” Ulysses informed her. “I am an exception. Elizabeth and Iris saved me during a very dark time.”
“And you… live with them.” Again – another vague question from Kym.
“Yes,” Ulysses spoke with a patronising slowness.
“Okay, I think I’m getting this now,” Kym said slowly, as she ran the idea of a talking cat over in her head.
“Anyone want drinks?” Lizzie interrupted. “Like, anyone? Erm, tea, coffee? Yep… I’ll just… I’ll just make some drinks…”
While Lizzie was making drinks, Kym embarked upon a rigorous interrogation of Ulysses.
“Do you drink milk?” Kym asked.
“Red wine,” Ulysses purred.
“Chase mice?”
“I chase dogs.” And irritating humans, he added to himself as an afterthought.
“Do you like music?”
“ABBA.”
“Oh!” Kym’s delight at recognising ABBA was completely over the top and clear from her outburst and giggles. “I know them! They’re the ones about the super troopers or whatever.”
Yep, Lizzie thought, glancing over from the kettle. They’re the ones.
When the tea was made, and Kym seemed quite accustomed to the idea of a talking cat, she stood up and declared:
“Okay, everyone, I need to go through my idea,” Kym shepherded them all over to the sofa in a blaze of pink fur and feather-boas. “Sit. And you too, Uly-whatsit, if you want.”
Awkwardly, Lizzie, Iris, and Ulysses sat down beside each other on the sofa, looking up at Kym as she stood imperiously ahead of them, an effect not reduced by the sheer height of her high-heels. It got even more nauseating when Kym began to pace back and forth, before elegantly turning to face them all.
It was her next word that truly set the incidents in motion. Her next scheme, which would stem all from that lone, singular word, would be an injection of excitement into their life on Earth – the plan would bring them trials and tribulations, but it would shower them in great joy and happiness as well – and all of it would originate from the one-syllable word about to be spoken by Kym Gomez. There was an ominous sense of anticipation before she said it, as if the room itself knew of the colossal effect of the upcoming word.
“Men,” Kym declared.
“Women,” Iris corrected straight away, already knowing exactly the direction of the conversation.
“Aww, you’re a lesbian?” Kym grinned. “That’s cute.”
“Yeah,” Iris mused. “Hella cute when I can feel society trying to straighten me at every turn.”
“I propose, ladies and cat,” Kym spoke as if she were addressing parliament. “– that we go out on the pull.”
Lizzie had never heard such a horrific idea ever before. She could barely function in most public places, let alone anywhere where her prime goal was to actually… meet someone. Of course, her mind drifted briefly over to Leo, whether he might actually exist, just as Kym did – but that had no weight on Lizzie’s sheer detestation of the idea (oh, who was she kidding, of course it did).
But the point still stood – the thought of going out to meet people was horrific, she would much rather stay in, in her bubble of a flat, far away from any of the night life.
“Lizzinator, don’t kill me,” Kym held up her hands in defence. “I can see this is an uncomfortable idea for you – I know you’re a shy, indoors-y person – but the only way to improve your crippling self-confidence issues is to go out and take the plunge.”
“I don’t have crippling self-confidence issues,” Lizzie protested futilely, knowing full well that she definitely had crippling self-confidence issues, but also knowing she had to put up as much of a fight as possible to escape the terrifying clutches of London’s night life.
“To be fair, Liz,” Iris sounded reluctant. “You do, and you know you do.”
Lizzie grumbled, and eventually, through gritted teeth, muttered “fine…”
“YAY!!!” Kym exclaimed, delighted to have some new friends to go out clubbing with.
“Count me in,” Iris muttered through another mouthful of popcorn. “We’re going to get Lizzie her life back.”
Before Lizzie could protest, she just sat back, and smiled. She had a life – but… what was wrong with going on a night-out? Everyone else did it, perhaps it would be a laugh. And maybe, she would find some fulfilment she’d been unknowingly lacking.
Even so – she was not delighted about everyone thinking she was so sad and needed an injection of excitement in her life. Was it a crime to want to muddle through it the way she wanted, without everyone wading in and trying to deal with her problems? It made her irritated, and she wanted even more to withdraw into her own bubble of isolation (a bubble that she knew would just make her feel worse). And so she was going to keep up her miserable looks, to make clear her apathy towards the current situation.
“YAAY!!” Kym yelled, causing Ulysses to recoil as she produced sounds so loud only a cat could hear them. “Right, I’m gonna be back here tomorrow night, we’re gonna go, I have a place in mind, it’s gonna be hillares. Uly, you’re –”
“Please don’t call me that,” Ulysses scowled, as Kym seemed to fly past the sofa in her excitement towards the flat’s door.
“– coming too,” she yelled back, ignoring Ulysses’ protests.
They heard the door slam behind them, and Lizzie, Iris, and Ulysses sat back on the sofa, completely spellbound by Kym’s ‘plan’.
“Why’d you all think I need a life?” Lizzie grumbled, as she stood up and shuffled over to the Radio Times to check what TV she’d be missing when their escapade took place.
“Because,” Iris turned back to the X-Box. “You’re depressed, and I love you, and I want you to be happy!”
“I don’t appreciate being hauled out of the flat.” Bugger. She’d miss the Corrie double-bill.
“I know. But, Liz, I can see it sometimes – you just stare into space, and you hide it and you pretend you’re fine, but you’re not. No amount of medication and no amount of counselling can ever give you a taste for life again – and so, that’s what we’re going to do.”
Lizzie skulked away from the Radio Times, and over to their balcony – and she opened the doors, and stepped out into the brisk, evening air. A taste for living. The words kept echoing in her mind, they did as she slumped into one of the deck chairs, listening to the kids playing in the park below, the sound of footballs kicking, of parents sat chattering nearby. She could see the tree-lined road, and the birds making their autumnal journey from one tree to the next. Some teenagers stomped past them, scaring the birds off in their loudness, their music echoing up the buildings to the block of flats – and she heard an agitated neighbour call down below. On the balcony below, she heard a champagne bottle burst open, a celebration in liquid form, flowing into the glasses – and she heard them laugh, and thought that something wonderful must have happened.
She heard life.
And perhaps it was true. Perhaps Iris was right. Lizzie could sit and enjoy a sunset, she could find comfort in her comfort-zone – but as to actual living? As to straying further outside those boundaries, to the highs, the lows, the laughter, the tears – it all left her cold. Lizzie was getting very little satisfaction, it all just left her cold. Suddenly, she felt lower than she’d done before – the medication, the doctors, the counselling, none of it was making any difference – she was the same as she’d been after the tower fell into the pit of fire, after the Memory Graveyard. And it made her feel terrible, because Lizzie was trying – she was trying so hard to get through it.
Suddenly, she felt Iris slump down next to Lizzie – in the same deckchair, a chair there was barely enough room for both of them on, so they were rather cooped up together, and a chair was creaking ominously under their weights.
“Don’t be a negative nelly, Elizabeth,” Iris sarcastically scolded her. “You’ve come so far. I remember the days when you were really bad, and you barely left the TARDIS. And now look! You’re… selling books, serving tea, looking at the stars with me. But I want you to see more! There’s so much cool stuff in the universe. There’s also Donald Trump, but even so. Cool stuff!”
Lizzie laughed, knowing Piers Morgan was a renegade Time Lord. Iris was just trying to help her cope, just trying to help her get through all of it. Iris was just loving her. In fact, Lizzie didn’t know where she’d be without her.
“So. Operation Lizzie’s life is a go,” Iris sat back, before noticing Lizzie’s sniffing – there was definitely a smell in the air. “Yeah, I need to shower. The X-Box called me for like, two weeks.”
“And you’re the one saying I need a life…”
They both laughed at that, as they sat back in the tiny deckchair to listen to the sound of life passing them by.
***
“Oh, Uly, babes, you look stunners –”
“Learn to speak properly,” Ulysses instructed Kym, who towered over him even more than usual, due to her heels which were higher than Kym herself. It turned out that Kym hadn’t been doing any drugs, though – Iris had run a cheeky medical scan and it transpired Kym was just crazy.
The four of them were ready to go, they were just waiting for Kym to put the finishing touches to her make-up. Kym looked as if several animals had died to make her leather trousers and fur coat, and as if she were dressed in half of the UK’s gold reserves. Iris was ready, and as Lizzie looked at her, she realised how much she’d changed, from the little girl she’d once known. Ulysses had brushed his silky black coat (and Lizzie was quite certain he was wearing contact lenses to enhance the yellow in his eyes). Meanwhile, Lizzie looking her normal, unassuming self – a self she was quite happy about, and would not change to anybody’s request. Yes, she would allow people to try and help her, but she was going to be her own person during that process.
“RIGHT LADIES!” Kym screamed, as if they were already in the club and shouting over the music. “LET’S GOOOOOOO.”
Oh god, Lizzie thought to herself, as Kym charged down the stairs at a speed too fast for high-heels. The adventure was beginning, and quite frankly, she was terrified.
***
“Like, apparently, it’s a massive deal, and just because I like tits I have to make a big deal of it,” Iris complained, as the four of them hovered on the escalators in the tube station – Kym leading the way, followed by Lizzie, followed by Iris, with Ulysses bringing up the rear.
“Well darling,” Ulysses purred, from the escalator step beneath Iris. “I think it is fabulous that you’re so… gay, quite frankly.”
Iris thought for a few moments – yes. It was definitely fabulous. Even so, she would never not be irritated by the fact straight people didn’t have to come out. Love did not have to be boxed in, and gay people did not have to be seen as… outside the box.
“Thank you, Uly,” Iris nodded, grateful for the Cat’s purrs of wisdom.
“You’re always welcome, Iris,” he ignored the use of Kym’s hideous pet-name ‘Uly’, and placed a reassuring paw upon Iris’ foot.
“EVERYONE!!!! SELFIE TIME.” Kym’s voice rang out in the tube station like a fire alarm, and before the whole escalator realised what they were doing, everyone, including those who had no part in their fateful clubbing adventure, was leaning into the centre for the most magnificent selfie (apart from Ulysses, who was lifted into shot by Iris). Kym took a reassuring glance at the photo, and then yelled down the escalator to all the selfie participants, “THANK YOU EVERYONE!”
***
“RIGHT GUYS, DRINKS ON ME!!!” Kym danced into the hellish throng, throwing her arms into the air and waving them vigorously.
As soon as Lizzie stepped into the club (Ulysses under her jumper, to ensure the bouncers didn’t mistake him for a stray), she had absolutely no idea what was going on. First of all, it was notable that she could barely see, and quickly she was fumbling through a huge swarm of people, all crammed into the tight can of the nightclub like dancing, sweating, sardines. Lizzie took a deep breath as she plunged through the mob, no idea where she was going, cramped aimlessly in the sheer number of people – all she could see was darkness, flickered with streaks of red and gold and blue light, occasionally illuminating the odd head, or arm, or leg, pressed right up close to her.
As she was so packed into the dense thicket of humans, Lizzie came up from the masses for breath, and the smell of alcohol and sweat crept up her nose, so strong it almost made her faint. The volume of the music was so powerful it tore right through her, making her very innards vibrate vigorously as the dropping base ripped through her existence. All of her senses were completely overwhelmed with a visceral confusion, and she tried to hold out a hand to guide herself, but it became fatefully lost in the darkness. There was no hope – Lizzie was never going to escape this ram-packed horde – so she allowed herself to be washed away by a crowd of shouty women on a hen night.
However, when Lizzie believed she was about to be engulfed forever by the crammed crowds, a familiar hand grabbed her, and pulled her to safety. When Lizzie blinked, she was in a small clearing amongst the horrific swarm, with Iris, Kym, and Ulysses (who had deftly navigated the crowds from the floor).
“WHAT WE ALL HAVING THEN?????” Kym bellowed. Lizzie suddenly realised they were beside the bar, a heavily tattooed and pierced man leaning over.
“Can I get a tea…?” Lizzie glanced aimlessly around at the chaos descending around her.
“We should have cocktails?” Ulysses suggested, which sent Kym into a rather excited daze.
“OH. MY. LOOOOOORD. OF COURSE, ULY DARLING YOU’RE A GENIUS.”
“Yes, I am rather,” Ulysses prowled after Kym to the bar, before hopping onto a barstool, displaying his amazing feline acrobatic skills. “Hi…,” Ulysses spoke to the bartender with a silky softness. After doing a quick double take and realising that he was, indeed, talking to a talking cat, the bartender whispered ‘hi’ in return, too mystified to make it audible over the music.
Five minutes later, Lizzie, Iris, Kym, and Ulysses were sat around a table, shouting at each other to be heard.
“I have never seen you so confused!” Iris said to Lizzie – and it was true. For once, Lizzie was looking like a genuine fish-out-of-water, with no idea, at all, what chaos had engulfed her life since she’d stepped into the club.
Lizzie scrunched up her face in disgust as she took the first sip of her cocktail. “What is this?” she grimaced.
“Tequila sunrise,” Iris downed hers in one, leading to gasps from the others, who also noticed Ulysses and the bartender eying each other up.
And so their night began, a night of crazy antics and chaos. Several cocktails later (not for Lizzie, who was more focussed on not fainting under the pressure of surviving in an environment so full of… people), Kym was ploughing into the centre of the club, throwing her arms violently in the air, in an act that was probably meant to be dancing. At one point, Kym seemed to meet a rather dashing gentleman who went by the name of Brent – a gentleman who Ulysses took an instant liking to, and he spent the rest of the night watching him above the rim of his wineglass. Iris seemed to be enjoying herself as well, dancing with a few different women – and when Lizzie came over to ask Iris if she wanted another drink, Iris seemed quite… engaged.
“Iris!” Lizzie had to shout over the music. However, when Lizzie caught sight of her, in a booth, crammed up between the seat and the wall, her lips firmly locked onto a woman, Lizzie stopped herself and realised that she probably shouldn’t intrude.
“Shall I just… yeah, I’m just gonna – I’ll just… just go…”
Several hours passed, and the four of them trekked through various different clubs, and Lizzie seemed to be experiencing life at its maddest and anarchic. It wasn’t to her taste, perhaps, but Lizzie was enjoying herself, in a peculiar way. There was something magic, about seeing life tick on around her. On their adventure, she’d seen love, she’d seen break-ups, she’d seen people dancing just for the hell of it. There was something strangely reassuring in that – seeing other happy people. At the same time, it made her jealous – but most of all, she was just happy for them, and that made her happy.
So, Lizzie sat back, and she decided not to worry about the bedlam, not to panic about the commotion. Because the thing that reassured her most of all about their night-out? Lizzie had discovered there was life after what she was going through – and that made her optimistic. Perhaps, one day, she would dance again, just as Kym had, with such beautiful disregard of what everyone thought.
The pinnacle of the night, however, came when they were in club #5, and Kym, Iris, and Ulysses were doing shots. Lizzie had done the first two round – but she was a terrible lightweight and was already feeling sick. Alcohol was clearly not for her.
Someone was observing their game, however. Observing Iris…
“Hey.”
The four of them turned around, to see a gigantic, muscly, tattooed man looming over their table. His leather jacket was torn, perhaps deliberately for him to display his enormous muscles, which were bulging imperiously through the tears in the material. He scowled at Iris, and then cracked his knuckles – for he had seen Iris drink the cocktail, and he decided that he had found a challenger to his throne.
As the man stood over them, Ulysses nudged Lizzie. “While this incident unfolds, I’m going to speak to Pierre,” The cat slipped away, and began his seductive prowl to the bar, leaving his seat empty as he eyed up a handsome looking gentleman.
It was not empty for long, however, as the huge, tattooed man, who they swiftly learned went by the name of Death-Spike, descended to sit opposite Iris (dwarfing her in the process). Iris’ was not intimidated by the gigantic man, however. Instead, she leaned forward on the table and squared up to him. Their eyes became locked in a standoff, as neither was determined to blink first.
Eventually, Death-Spike spoke, in a deep, gravelly, 20-a-day voice. “I will drink you under the table,” he declared, a blood-curdling look engraved on his menacing features. At that moment, two of Death-Spike’s thugs came striding from the crowds, each balancing a silver platter upon their hands – and on top of each, was set an identical collection of shot glasses.
“Pfft,” Iris giggled in his face – something Death-Spike never took kindly to. “Whatevs. Bring it on.”
“Oh my fishsticks,” Kym interjected, as she began fumbling in her clutch-bag, spilling various make-up products all over the table. Death-Spike’s dreaded look changed from pure anger to confusion, as Kym eventually presented her phone as if it were an ancient forgotten artefact. “Need to film this, put it on Insta, hold on.”
Iris, annoyed because she’d thought Kym was complaining about something serious (clearly she didn’t know Kym well enough), wasn’t sure why this drinking game was so significant. Thankfully, Kym was on hand to provide some context.
“Death-Spike has never lost a drinking game. Ever.”
“… shit.” Iris suddenly realised what she’d gotten herself into – but there was no backing out now. So, she turned back to Death-Spike, cracked her own knuckles, and prepared to fight, for there was no way she was going to let the idiot in front of her walk away from this victorious. Meanwhile, Death-Spike was smiling smugly as Kym had been describing his reputation, and he began to rub his hands together.
The two thugs elegantly placed the two platters down in front of the belligerents – for this game was a serious contest that came with a serious reputation. A skinny man with the most-almighty braided beard crept up to the side of the table, stop watch in hand. Several phone-cameras were also pointed in their direction, just in case any evidence needed to be faked to prove Death-Spike was the winner.
“3… 2… 1… BEGIN!”
And suddenly, they were off. Iris zoned out from the madness around her, as it seemed the entire club had flocked to watch this terrifying battle – and it seemed that all of them, barring Kym and Lizzie (who was watching this with great interest and intrigue), were screaming at the tops of their lungs,
“DEATH-SPIKE DEATH-SPIKE DEATH-SPIKE DEATH-SPIKE.”
Iris could not pay attention to the thunderous chants in favour of her opponent, however – so she zoomed out, for in this contest, there were two things. Herself, and the alcohol. And time seemed to pass in slow-motion, Death-Spike’s hymns becoming muffled background noise, as Iris, one my one, trawled her way through the shot glasses, tipping the alcohol down in one, the taste, the feel of it, everything, completely bypassing her, the liquid making a one-way no-stop trip to her stomach.
Of course, for everyone else in the room, Iris did this in seconds, whisking through the shots and guzzling the tequila before Death-Spike had even looked over the rim of his first glass.
And, knowing she had aeons to spare, with a vociferous smugness, Iris slammed the last shot glass down onto the table.
The crowds erupted into gasps, and then a deathly silence followed – for everyone became so captivated in this contest that the music had been turned off, and every single person in that building was watching the events unfold. The deafening, ear-splitting environment they’d entered had been shattered by this massive stunt – for this wasn’t what was meant to happen – Death-Spike was meant to ruin his competitor, and booming applause was meant to explode through the club.
Instead, the girl had completely annihilated him, and made Death-Spike look quite ridiculous.
A few rounds later, and the mood had changed.
“IRIS IRIS IRIS IRIS IRIS,” the crowds bellowed, louder than they’d ever screamed for Death-Spike. All chants were singing her praises, all eyes in the room were on her, all hands and feet were being drummed on the floor in her favour. And when she inevitably beat the burly, muscly giant in front of her, the masses detonated into rowdy, boisterous, chaotic shrapnel, all ringing for Iris and her lead-lined stomach.
It became clear this was not a fight Death-Spike could hope to win – and so, it wasn’t long before he eventually gave up the giant gold chain hanging around his beefy neck, and named Iris ‘queen’.
While this had been going on, Lizzie had decided to slip out. This wasn’t really her scene, not at all – and she was grateful that her friends had tried, but there wasn’t anything Lizzie was going to get out of this. So, taking one last look at Iris metaphorically bitch-slapping Death-Spike, Kym watching, eyes agog, Instagram-streaming, and Ulysses flirting with Pierre at the bar, Lizzie had left the club, and made her way out into the night.
The night was bracing, but after the pressing body-heat of the club, the cold, autumn-night air was exactly what Lizzie needed. She waved awkwardly at a group of men smoking something that probably wasn’t tobacco, and walked down the street. It was late, in fact – gone two in the morning, and the majority of the wild party-goers of were cooped up were either in their clubs and pubs and house-bashes, but there were a few huddled packs on the streets, often shouting at nothing, just because it was fun.
Lizzie had seen that, tonight. People living, just because they could. Just because they were alive. She missed that, she missed having a true… thirst for living. Happy, yes. Willing to die? Well… yes. Lizzie still hadn’t processed it properly, still hadn’t come to proper grips with the funny illness going on inside her funny head. And she’d tried, she’d tried so hard to come past that depression, to come past the scars left deep by Evangeline Cullengate – but no matter how hard, Lizzie could not find a way around it. It was rooted in her, and she wanted it to go – but it wouldn’t. Lizzie didn’t think it ever would, and all that she would have, was the hope that she could cope. The hope that she’d at least salvage some happiness from her complete wreck of a life.
One could cope, but that was not to be confused with being on top of the world. On top of the world. Maggie said that – Lizzie could remember, her childhood self, walking in the garden, and Maggie saying that she was on top of the world. And not even those memories would fill Lizzie with any kind of positivity. Most people thought longingly of their childhoods, but Lizzie didn’t. What did she even have to think longingly for?
Except… the people.
And at that moment, as Lizzie meandered along that night-time street, guided only by the warm, comforting glow of the streetlamps, she saw a bridge, stretching over the Thames. Lizzie had no idea where she was, she’d just… blundered away from the club, just… walking, as if subconsciously, she was going somewhere – but her awake self wasn’t sure where. Lizzie continued on her way, and she trudged onto the bridge, making her way to the centre.
She turned, and she saw the life she’d been missing. The river, churning viscerally beneath her feet and ahead of her, twisting and turning through the city, the beating heart of London – the reason the city existed. She saw some people, half of them drunk, half of them not, giving in to the night, and dancing in the light of the moon. All of them happy, to be alive at that moment.
And ahead of her, on both sides of the river, Lizzie saw the skyscrapers, humanity reaching up to the skies as far as they possibly could – there were people, buzzing around at the top, as if they could touch the stars burning brightly above their heads. But Lizzie knew, in her heart, that the people who stood on the ground and gazed, were closer to the stars than anyone else. If you could look up and dream, if you could love something, then perhaps you would be closer to it than anyone, even if they had it in their grasp.
And she saw the final frontier, the horizon, the blurring of the murky green river into the infinite night sky, the indigo and the blue and the navy, all rolled into a watercolour splashed across the heavens above, and speckled with yellow and crimson and green, the beacons of hope for the universe. She saw the end of the miserable Earth and the arrival of the joy and euphoria of space, displayed above her now like a map, perhaps showing her where she needed to go. These were the stars, as they were a million years ago – and Lizzie loved them, and she felt that love lasting a million years, as she watched them that night. For love was a powerful thing, love could last for an infinity, and it could join people, even when they were further apart than all of time. Lizzie loved the skies, and she loved them fully and intimately.
Lizzie had people she loved, people she loved more than anything else. People who would never leave her, even when they were gone. The only reason she’d ever bent the knee to Kym, and joined her on this excursion, was so she could spend time with those people – the people who cared about her, the people who wanted to see her happy. Lizzie understood what Iris had meant, when she’d declared she was going to get Lizzie’s life back – she’d meant she was going to get those people around Lizzie – the people who loved her.
Perhaps that was the point of life, the truth behind it – love. Across all of time and all the universes, love. And the stars, and the map they’d become – perhaps that was to guide her, to help her find that life again.
At the same time, Lizzie knew that the map would never truly be enough. There was no such thing as a perfect life... but at least it would help her live. At least, as she stood there alone, the magnificent forever above her, she had some hope inspired, somewhere within her. Not all wounds heal, but Lizzie had realised that she could relieve the pain, just a little bit. Tonight, she had seen humanity living their lives, just because they could, and she had seen the stars, and realised that there was more to living than just… trawling through her day to day existence – and through all that, Lizzie realised the most important thing.
Lizzie realised she could live with herself.
There would be hard days, and dark days, and sad days. There would be days when she hated herself and wanted it all to stop. But there would also be days when she’d be so happy, and so joyous, and she’d want those days to stop as well – but not in the same way. She could live for those days.
“Ow shitshitshiit!!” cried a voice from the far end of the bridge. Way to kill the mood, Lizzie thought – but not in a miserable way. Instead, she was happy, because people tumbled onto bridges, probably blind-drunk – that was life. Her life was happening, and above all, she felt alive.
Lizzie turned, to see if the stranger needed any help – he was just standing up, brushing the grit off himself, having landed face-first on the concrete.
“I’m not drunk, I promise, I just, I just – tripped over the lamppost.”
The stranger walked into the light – and that was the moment her life changed forever.
Leo.
He was there – stood in front of her, realised in full, awkward glory, hovering in the light of the lamppost, finishing the dirt-brushing, not quite sure how to stand or what to do with his arms. Leo Akram stood there, the love of her life who didn’t actually exist…
But he did.
Because Lizzie had loved him, and she’d brought him into existence. From the deepest, darkest parts of her mind, the most magnificent thing of all had happened. Love had won, bringing Leo Akram into the real world. Lizzie turned to the stars, and she blew them a kiss, thanking them for inspiring so much hope. And she thought of Iris, and Kym, and Ulysses, and she wanted to hug them tight, for showing her the most important thing of all.
“Are you okay?” Leo asked, stepping closer to her. “Yeah, you… you probably are, I’m just – yeah, I’ll go.”
Suddenly, Lizzie realised she was crying, and quickly she wiped the tear away, not wanting Leo to see her like this (as if he knew who she was).
“You’re not okay,” Leo corrected himself, coming up close to her. His eyes met hers, then, and for the first time, in the real world, they gazed into each other. Lizzie saw it, she saw the connection forge between them, the unbreakable bond, as their eyes and everything they’d both seen became locked in a magical permanence, their souls becoming part of each other’s. She had dreamed of this moment, but nothing she could think of in her head would ever compare to the astonishing power of the two of them in real life.
Because this time, Leo Akram wasn’t just someone she’d invented, he wasn’t just a story. Leo was a person, he’d lived a life, he was himself, and she had no control over him. She hadn’t brought back a fictional construct from her mind – she had brought someone real, close to her, with the power of her love. And as they looked at each other, the world suddenly felt so much more real, the ecstasy of living pulsing electrically around them.
“Sorry,” Lizzie shrugged off the fact she was crying. “I’m also not drunk. Well, like, I drank, but like, I’m not… not drunk, I just had the one – yeah, anyway. Yes. Hi.”
“Erm, hello,” Leo muttered awkwardly, breaking off his gaze, his looks flicking awkwardly between Lizzie and his shoes. Lizzie laughed awkwardly at their little encounter, and at that powerful, mesmerising moment between the two of them. Both of them had recognised the significance behind it, both of them knew, as they looked into each other’s eyes, that the person they were looking at, was not just someone random they would meet only once. No… the two of them would meet again, and again – the two of them were not just two random people. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude on your moment. I also like to randomly look at stars. And stuff.”
Lizzie laughed a painful, stilted laugh. “Yeah. I was just, with some people, I decided I needed some air. Clubbing is… not really my thing. And I guess I was just slightly overwhelmed by… stuff.”
“Same,” Leo nodded, turning to look out at the stars with Lizzie. The two of them seemed a little less-smaller when they faced the immensities of the universe side-by-side. “I mean, same, I don’t do clubbing, and I was also with some people.”
The following silence was awkward, but both of them tried to ignore it, by looking out over the bridge. Leo sighed. Lizzie sighed. Conversation, how to make it, who said humans were naturally sociable animals? If that were the case, surely such awkwardness would never have to be endured?
“Sorry, I don’t really do… talking, at all,” Leo tried to offer an explanation, and Lizzie nodded, telling him it was fine. Reality was an awkward place, nobody was ever going to be perfect.
“Neither,” Lizzie shrugged. At their respective confessions, there was a diffusion of tension. Now, neither of them expected anything, neither of them were waiting for any conversation. They were just two people, and at that night, it felt like they were on the edge of everything. Standing, admittedly, quite awkwardly, as Lizzie was too petrified to be casual in any way at all, in case she ended up getting it wrong. As if she could get it wrong, simply by standing and doing nothing.
Why couldn’t she just… say what she felt? What was there that prevented Lizzie from saying exactly what was going through her mind, why couldn’t she put that connection between her and Leo into words, and for Leo to say exactly the same, and for them to get along like old friends? There just… was. Humans weren’t sociable animals, they were difficult animals, too focussed on self-interest to ever be truly open.
“You feel it too, huh?” Leo looked over at her, although Lizzie didn’t look at him. “As if there’s stuff you need to say, but you can’t… just because… you can’t.”
Stuff that she needed to say to him that transcended all logic and scientific thought? Yeah. And she didn’t think there would ever be a way of putting those emotions into words.
“Yep,” was all she said. Simple, one word – but something powerful enough to reaffirm what they were both thinking about each other. Small words that could reaffirm the impossible. “And there are people who expect you to put it into words, but you have no idea?”
“All the time.”
“And you’d much rather just… be quiet?”
Leo laughed, and then looked longingly out in front of him at the city, shrouded in the darkness, and yet so alive. “Yep. This is my idea of heaven.”
He paused. “Although I would kill for some better social skills.”
And Lizzie knew it, then. She was truly, properly, falling love.
She turned to him, and he was still looking at her. Their eyes met again, and it was as if they were meeting for the first time. There was that… purity between the two of them, them seeing each other as they truly were. When they were talking, the cover of society masked both of them, restricting their true selves from showing. It was only in those moments of silence both felt comfortable – and that was when Lizzie knew she’d met Leo. Someone who could be in that silence, and who could understand it and feel something from it – who could look at silence and see the beauty and tranquillity of the world hiding behind it.
There was something truly mesmerising about meeting that person
“Hello,” he waved awkwardly. “My name is Leo, I’m a professional awkward human, and I just… do awkward things.”
“O.M.F.G, LIZZNORA, THERE YOU AREEEE OH SHit I’ve fallen over hold on.”
Apparently, Lizzie and Leo’s first meetings always ended with a drunk Kym. This time, she came stumbling across the bridge, her heels proving rather awkward to walk in. Iris trailed close behind her, Ulysses prowling miserably behind. Clearly, babysitting two very drunk women was not the cat’s idea of fun.
“Heeeeeeeeeeeeey,” Iris mumbled, tripping over, Lizzie catching her before she hit the ground in drunken collapse.
“Oh, god, okay, hold on,” Lizzie steadied herself. “Sorry.” She muttered to Leo.
“It’s fine,” he reassured her, laughing as Lizzie took Iris in her arm, and hobbled over to provide balance before Kym accidentally fell over the side of the bridge.
“Oh my god,” Lizzie suddenly realised, and backtracked uneasily, her tongue just tying itself in knots. “My name – my name’s not Lizznora, can I just… yeah, not Lizznora.”
That really would have killed the magic. Except, that was probably the moment Leo revealed his second-cousin who went by the name of Lizznora.
“I mean, no offence to anyone with the name Lizznora,” Lizzie elaborated, just to cover her tracks in case Lizznora Akram existed.
“I wouldn’t mind if your name was Lizznora,” Leo said, before he cringed at his own choice of words, scrunching up his face as if he’d eaten something disgustingly sour.
Lizzie looked at Iris and Kym, and then over at Leo, and then at Kym as she lurched forward and pushed herself up against Leo.
“You’re gorgeous,” Kym placed her hands on his chest and sighed a forlorn sigh. Completely staggered, Leo looked down at Kym, suddenly realising that Kym had dozed off in the brief seconds of her being pressed against his body – and was now drooling onto his jacket. It was at this moment that Lizzie realised she was going to have to do something – and fast.
“LIZ I KNOW ALL THESE STARS!!!!!!!!!” Iris screamed off the bridge, and then started listing the names of everything shining brightly above their heads at the top of her lungs.
“Hello,” Ulysses gazed up at Leo, fire and passion burning in those amber eyes. Thankfully, Leo did not notice the talking feline.
Yep – Lizzie really had to do something.
“Erm,” Lizzie attempted to prise Kym off Leo, taking the full brunt of the next wave of drool. “I’m – yeah, I should probably go. I think I need to get these two home.”
“Can I…?” Leo held up his phone, and Lizzie’s heart began to race.
“Oh, er, yeah, sure!” Lizzie fumbled for her phone, trying desperately not to drop it. Thankfully, she managed to safely exchange numbers with Leo Akram, with very few mishaps, barring the accidental typing of a 4 instead of a 3.
“I should probably go,” Leo smiled at the odd four, and then walked away, turning back a few times to look at Lizzie, while completely panicking that he’d said something stupid and potentially ruined everything. For there had been that moment between the two of them, that gazing of eyes, that… ecstatic magic – something that he desperately wanted again. Because for once, he wasn’t feeling something he’d spent so much time feeling.
For once, he didn’t feel alone.
And as Lizzie met his eyes, she felt the same.
Then Leo disappeared into the night-time haze of the city, and she was left with Iris laughing strangely maniacally off the front of the bridge, and Kym leaning against her, whispering affectionate words in Lizzie’s ear.
“You, Lizz-D, are the bestest, most bestinatous bestust friend to ever be best. You know that? YOU KNOW – oops sorry shouting.”
After clutching her eardrums in pain, Lizzie realised that hopefully, she would never feel alone, ever again.
***
Iris had never experienced a headache like it.
It pounded violently behind her eyes, forcing itself to the front of her temple, the cruel, sadistic, aftershock of alcohol hammering inside her head. Even the soft feather pillow beneath her head felt hard as iron, and when she turned over she felt it thump against her skull. When Iris tried to open her mouth, she realised she was hideously dehydrated, the inside of her mouth dryer than industrial-grade sandpaper, strings of saliva hanging sullenly from her teeth. Her eyes were glued shut, by sleep-dust stronger than superglue – and when eventually she gripped her sticky eyelids and forced them open, the light streaming in from the window stung, sending a heavy impulse to the back of her head, as if telling the headache to be even angrier than before.
How much had she drunk? Probably quite a lot, judging by her horrific state in the bed. She was still in the clothes from the night before, but they were clasped to her by a thick layer of sweat. In fact, she probably reeked of alcohol all over, considering she could smell the faint whiff from the bedsheets.
It was only then Iris realised the reason behind her awakening. Ulysses, in his true feline ways, had slunk into the room, and he was sat in front of her on the far end of the bed, looking like the sweet, innocent cat he wasn’t.
“Iris,” he whispered to her, gently rousing her with his paw. “Iris!”
“Wh… wht… whtfgrt,” she tried to speak, but considering her blood was probably completely diluted by alcohol, it proved a marked struggle.
“Shush darling,” he reassured her. “It’s November 2017.”
“Thnk… th….”
“It’s fine. Though you must awake! We have an important visitor.”
“Whtev,” she lolled her head back to the bed, and snoozed off to the better place she was in before.
“Normally, I would be 100% beside you,” Ulysses continued. “But today – well, I fear that this may be quite pressing. For you especially.”
There was no response from Iris.
“IRIS!” Ulysses growled.
“FIIIIIIIINE,” Iris bellowed, launching herself up at a speed which sent Ulysses diving for cover, and shook up the insides of her head, causing the brutality to rage louder than it already was. She winced at the agony, clutching her head and sitting back, waiting until the pain subsided.
“Apologies for the rude awakening,” Ulysses guided Iris over to the door. “But this is important.”
***
“Can’t we do this when I’m like… actually alive,” Iris blundered aimlessly out of the bedroom, her eyes half closed as to avoid looking at as much light as possible. Her hair was an untidy straggle, and she realised that she probably should’ve showered and changed. But Ulysses had proclaimed the importance of the situation, and so she had little choice. Lizzie was there, hovering in the kitchen. Kym sat at the kitchen table, looking less glamorous than usual – her eyes were sunken, she was make-up free, and she looked as if she were ready to be sick at any moment. Judging by the bucket beside her, Iris expected that vomit was likely.
And then Iris saw the other person sat at their kitchen table, and suddenly, the light seemed brighter than it had before.
“You?!” Iris exclaimed, slumping onto the sofa, because in her current state, she just couldn’t be bothered to deal with what was about to happen. She had no idea how the person at the table had found her, all she knew was that a great can of worms was about to be opened.
“Wait?” Lizzie looked at the woman at the table, and then over at Iris. “You and Jada know each other?”
Iris, in mystified, yet head-achey confusion, sat up, suddenly realising that the can of worms was larger than she’d even expected. “More to the point, you and Jada know each other?”
The woman sat opposite Kym at the kitchen table was none other than Jada Haruno – hunter of Artemis, who Lizzie had met back on New Earth. They’d taken Aldora Bagget down together… they’d solved the mystery of the faceless children.
To Iris, the woman sat at the kitchen table was none other than… well, she wasn’t actually sure of her name. She was just the random women she’d met in the club the night before, the woman she’d been kissing quite… intimately.
“We met last night,” Iris muttered sheepishly, noticing Jada looking down at the table in exactly the same sheepish way. Suddenly, it all fell into place for Lizzie - Jada had been the woman Iris had been with at the club, she just hadn’t realised, considering they were sort of… on each other. “So, hold on, you’re not from now?”
“No,” Jada held up her wrist, upon which was some kind of… teleportation bracelet.
“Oh, wonderful,” Iris muttered. “Only me.”
“Something is happening,” Jada explained, with a typical ominousness that just caused Iris to grumble and slump back down onto the sofa. She could see Lizzie in the kitchen trying not to laugh at Iris irritableness, before turning back to Jada.
“Okay, hold on babes, I am lost a.f.” Kym’s unusual silence until this point was most likely caused by that horrific hangover she was nursing – a hangover that seemed to have manifested itself in a similar force to Iris’. “How do you two know her, but not know that you both know her?”
“I met Lizzie a while ago in unrelated circumstances,” Jada said. “I met Iris last night when recceing the current situation –”
Iris gawked and then grinned. “That was only the recce?”
Jada tried to hide her embarrassment and reluctance to continue by putting on a steely expression, which Iris just found all-the-more adorable. Meanwhile, Lizzie shuffled a bit further to the corner, not sure whether she was interrupting something, and Kym continued her spell of out-of-character silence.
“Can we please get down to business?” Jada looked around at all of them, causing Kym to look up slightly, Lizzie to move further forward, and Iris to hoist an interested expression on her face, even though she didn’t really care about the situation at all, and was just interested in playing along in some kind of one-sided roleplay.
“What do you know of the Qlerics?” Jada said.
Lizzie could remember them well – a group of intergalactic clerics, the high-ranking members of a highly regimented, corrupt church. They also took the strange form of bulbous, frog-like creatures. Most recently, in fact, during an encounter involving a blazing floor, a broken window, and a TARDIS carrying a chandelier carrying a chair carrying Iris.
“Isn’t he that guy on the telly?” Kym asked, which was met by an incredulous look from Jada, who then looked at Lizzie with nothing short of a look of despair.
“Yeah… we met them a few times,” Lizzie stepped in. And she’d hated them, each of those times. They ruled worlds with their religious power, they took decent, good people for everything they had. They banned people from marrying who they loved, and they persecuted anyone who dared love anyone the Qlerics didn’t deem ‘appropriate’.
Jada’s look turned icy. “Then you will understand they are a highly corrupt, highly authoritarian, and highly prejudiced, group.”
Iris groaned, deliberately being difficult and over-the-top. “Yeah, the church are evil, we all know that.”
“I got banned from church when I was a kid,” Kym mused, gazing vacantly out of the window. “I stole the biscuit things they have at communion.”
“… right.” Iris scooped herself up and meandered haphazardly into the kitchen, where she began to pour herself a bowl of cereal.
Kym continued, a nostalgic smile on her face, a she reminisced over the good old days. “And I drank all the wine. I thought it was Ribena.”
“As I was saying,” Jada interrupted them before they wandered off into even inaner territory. “The Qlerics are active on Earth. They plan to evangelise the planet.”
Iris took a bite of the cereal, then looked at it with the same hungover look of contempt she’d given the church. Lizzie, meanwhile, was more concerned about the forced conversion of every human to a specific religion.
“How would they do such a terrible thing?” asked Ulysses, uncurling himself from Lizzie’s feet at the sheer horror of the thought.
“They have a mind-control device,” Jada explained, the very thought of it making her squirm. She’d seen the effects of the J35us-90, and the way it could immobilise whole worlds, oppressing them with the faith of the Qlerics. “They plan on activating it. However, thankfully, the device is easy to block. You simply have to… communicate to everyone on Earth that the Qlerics are telling lies.”
That was perhaps more concerning than Jada realised. “How do we do it?” Lizzie asked.
“We have no choice but to wait. The device has to be activated on the planet’s surface – when it begins, I’ll teleport us there. Lizzie – you understand humanity, so it will be your job to induce the thought.”
Wonderful. Having the fate of everyone’s free-will on her mind wasn’t exactly a comforting thought.
“I will return when it’s time.”
With that, Jada stood up and put on her coat, before she left. Iris side-lined her cereal, Kym was dozing on the table, Ulysses was watching a bird with interrogative eyes – and Lizzie looked around her as they all just returned to their lives. People were funny, even in the fate of impending doom they all just… carried on as if nothing was about to happen.
Suddenly, it looked as if Iris had suddenly realised something very, very important, and she rushed off. Lizzie was not surprised –
***
“Jada!” Iris called down the stairs. Jada did not stop – she kept her head down, looking at the floor. Iris could understand.
But then, she turned around. “Yes?”
“You can’t just… ignore what happened?” Iris protested, ploughing down the stairs at a speed too fast for the current state of her head. However, she did not care. She had experienced last night, and it was magical – and she couldn’t just let Jada go.
“Yes, Iris. I can.”
And Jada truly believed that she could. After all – Iris had just… left. Jada would never expect someone like that to ever show any interest again – and so the fact Iris was meeting her on the grubby little staircase stinking of alcohol and looking a complete wreck, lead to slightly mixed signals. Mixed signals that Jada did not need.
“But we…?”
“Yes?” Jada said it as if she were asking what the point was – for it seemed lost on her that there ever was any point to it, when Iris had just decided to run.
“Look, yes, I left, I’m sorry, I’m a bitch, can we just put it all behind us?” Iris gave Jada her best puppy-dog eyes, knowing that within seconds, Jada would be in her arms again. Those eyes, her charm – they always worked, and she was confident they would work again.
Jada, however, just looked bemused. “No. You can’t just say that and expect me to jump into bed with you. I don’t have time for games, Iris.”
“Look, okay…,” Iris hesitated, not at all sure how to go about saying what needed to be said. Opening her heart to people was hard – that was, after all, the whole reason she ran away. It was either running, or masking the actual talking stuff with jokes, and she didn’t think that would go down well. “I was… scared.”
“You’re not the first person, and you won’t be the last.”
“Just give me a bloody chance!” Iris protested. “I can’t be perfect.”
Jada looked at the girl in front of her. That was all she was. A girl, who the real world was waiting for – a real world that Iris seemed willing to forget about until it suited her.
“Time to grow up, Iris. It was nice meeting you.”
Remorselessly, Jada turned and walked away.
Iris tried to find words to shout after her, words to communicate how she felt, but there weren’t any. “You’re not perfect either!” was all she could find, but she wasn’t even sure if she said it loud enough to be properly heard. Because she was so shocked – and it wasn’t even as if their conversation had been long, or overly angry. In fact – that was the crushing thing – for once, there was nothing Iris could shout, nothing she could scream at Jada, to make her listen.
In fact, she would be half-tempted to say Jada was being no better than her, but Iris couldn’t bring herself to think it, when it would just be hypocrisy at its finest.
Iris backed away, back up the stairs – as if she were backing away from herself, knowing that something had to change.
***
“And like, someone will assume something about you, and you just go along with it because you can’t say otherwise?”
“Yep,” Lizzie laughed. Her all the time. And she could see the visible relief on Leo Akram’s face, when he realised he wasn’t alone in suffering such an awkward fate.
The two of them were sat in a nice little café, in comfy arm-chairs on either side of a coffee table. It reminded Lizzie of the café/bookshop she’d been working in, with its cramped shelves of books and other miscellaneous ornaments, and the paintings hung on the walls, and that warm cosiness that seemed to envelope you. It seemed even more prevalent, as the rain was lashing down outside. Lizzie and Leo looked out on the street, watching the passers-by, fumbling with umbrellas, dashing from place to place, whipping up their raincoat collars. They had been out together a few times since the bridge incident - various bars (quiet ones, on their own), and when they realised that it wasn't exactly their thing, smallish cafés.
It made Lizzie feel even safer, wrapped up in the arms of that cosy café, on the verge of something bleak, dark, and miserable. And as she watched Leo opposite her, she realised how on-the-verge she was with him as well. They were so close to something, even now, and yet… yet it wasn’t there. It felt as if there was something they both needed to talk about, but neither of them had. Lizzie was worried that the question was coming, and she could feel her heart pounding, her palms sweating, knowing that it was inevitably going to fall on them.
Leo was like her. Awkward and clumsy with words, and with the social skills of... well. With the social skills of a Lizzie Darwin. Except, unlike Lizzie, whose awkwardness was just stupid, Leo's was funny. He was funny, and charming, in his own weird way. He was an artist, who lived not far across town, working on comics at the moment, but always drifting from job to job, picking up anything that needed to be painted. And this Leo... he was his own Leo. Not like the one drawn straight out of her head, what might have been just a crude, cardboard cutout in comparison to the real object. This Leo had a family, proper likes and dislikes. Hatreds and passions, issues and problems - he had a life.
And Lizzie knew it was going to happen – that unavoidable question, that was inevitably going to rise at some point or another. The two of them had spotted something in each other, not long after they’d first met. Perhaps a sort of… recognition of their struggles, and she knew that one day, they would have to discuss it.
“Okay, look,” Leo began, and Lizzie instantly knew now was the moment. And she wanted to back out of it, it being the last thing that she wanted to talk about – but Leo’s insistence at proceeding was clear. “I… I’m… not great at relationships, because…”
He gestured to his head, deliberately avoiding saying the words. It was not an easy thing to talk about.
“Yeah… same, kind of, haha,” Lizzie muttered, looking down at her shoes and then out the window at life passing by. An escape from having to face what was going on in her head. Perhaps that was why she didn’t want to talk about it with Leo. It meant it was real, and she’d still barely accepted it. Half the time, she wasn’t even sure if she had accepted it.
“I guess, that if we… each understand what the other is going through…?” Leo suggested, broaching the subject carefully.
“Yeah, Leo, I’m… I’m not great at talking about it, so…”
“It helps, you know. And I can see it… I can see you want to talk about it, you just… can’t find the words.”
Lizzie was almost disconcerted with the amount Leo understood her. She wanted nothing more for everyone to just understand – but she knew that she’d have to find the words, and she knew how hard that would be. Lizzie wanted people to understand, to just… get how it felt, with a look, with a quick glance. And she knew that that was just as impossible as finding the words. Except… when they’d stood on that bridge, with the stars above them, Leo had gazed into her eyes and there had been that moment of mutual knowing. Lizzie wanted that moment back.
Now, she sat there, as far back in her chair as possible, her eyes refusing to meet his. The connection broken, that moment lost forever.
“I know you’re scared, Lizzie. Talking about this stuff, it helps.” Leo continued… because he could see it… she could see her bottling stuff up, desperate to just… get it off her chest, to have someone to listen to her. “I need someone to talk to about it.”
But Lizzie continued to suffer in silence.
“Lizzie… I am lost, and I think… I think I need you to help me through it.”
And as Leo looked at her, he was so confused. Why was she suddenly being so cold, so reluctant? She couldn’t even look at him, her eyes were wandering to every other part of the room.
“Lizzie… why won’t you talk to me about this?”
And then she snapped at him, the sum of all his words just getting a bit too much to bear.
“Because believe it or not, Leo, you’re not the first person to ever suffer from anxiety, or depression.”
A silence fell, partly because Lizzie was so shocked and taken aback by her own words. Leo looked up at her, bemused towards this new side of Lizzie.
“I thought you understood,” he said, looking out the window himself. “I thought you knew what it was like.”
“I do, Leo,” and for once, she dared to look him in the eyes, because it was the truth, and she needed him to know it. “I’ve suffered from depression, and perhaps it’s just made me bitter. Perhaps it’s changed me and made me into something I really, really hate, I don’t know. Perhaps I might as well not bother coping, because me coping is just me being a horrible person.”
She paused, taking in deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. But the tirade kept coming out of nothing, perhaps, but partly self-loathing, and partly anger towards Leo.
“But seriously – if you are looking for a therapist, I can’t do this. I can’t tell you everything is going to be fine, because I don’t know. And maybe you’re going to hate me but that’s… that’s just how I feel.”
And another spell of silence followed, as Leo began to grasp Lizzie’s words.
“… right. Well, if that’s… that’s how you feel,” he whispered, his voice choked.
It was how Lizzie felt – and she wouldn’t let it slide, she wouldn’t apologise to him. She could stand by him, without a shadow of a doubt, she could support him – but there was no way she could babysit him, she couldn’t have him reliant on her, when she could barely be reliant on herself. It wasn’t fair on him, and above all, it wasn’t fair on herself. She wouldn’t just be his… vehicle to a recovery.
“I think, Lizzie, you’re scared,” Leo began, as if scrambling for some justification. “You’re scared of getting close to someone, scared of… trusting them.”
“I am terrified,” she admitted, knowing that placing her trust in someone else was one of the things she found the hardest. “But Leo… if you want to do this, I can’t just be your rock.”
“We would support each other, Lizzie. That’s what people in relationships do.”
“Then…,” she thought about it. “Perhaps I’m not strong enough for a relationship, who knows.”
She most certainly didn’t. In fact, she wasn’t sure she knew herself anymore.
“Look,” she grabbed her stuff, and then stood up to leave. Leo made to say something, trying to find some words to use, but he couldn’t. “I can’t do this,” Lizzie admitted, and she knew it was the truth. “I… I need to go. I’m sorry.”
Lizzie made her way out into the rain, and Leo watched her from the windows as she walked quickly into the mist and the drizzle, before becoming lost in the misery of the outside world.
***
“The truth about love, mist-tress,” K9 sat on the sand, a pair of aviator sunglasses balanced precariously in his visual receptors (supposedly high quantities of sunlight could lead to distortion in the pixels). Iris had also placed a sunhat on his head, for no reason other than that it made her laugh. Ulysses was curled up in K9’s shade, dozing in the mid-day sunshine.
Paradise 5 went by that name, simply because it was renowned for being a… well, paradise. It wasn’t anymore, of course – it had become a location modified for tourism and money-making. Once upon a time, it had been a planet of beautiful beaches, jungles, tropics – now it was industrialised with shops selling tat, and buckets and spades, and piers. Of course, the beaches were what everyone came for, but above all, Paradise 5 was a prime holidaying location, with hotels, restaurants, amusement arcades, theme parks – stretching over the entire planet.
Lizzie, as an Earthling, would liken the transformation to a remote Bahamian outpost being turned into a British seaside town, with fish and chips. Except, there was no denying, Paradise 5 certainly had heart, and that was why the Doctor, Cioné, Lizzie, and Iris, along with K9 and Ulysses, had decided to come on a bit of a mini-break. Lizzie, who normally hated beaches, was willing to come along, still feeling dejected over Leo. Iris, meanwhile, was still hacked off about Jada. And so there they were, a family, a little more miserable than usual, upon the beach.
“Weirdly quiet,” Cioné had muttered, through the mouthful of a chip, when they’d set up their deckchairs and rug on the beach. The sun was beating down on them, and they were all lathered in sun-cream – especially Lizzie, who, with a complexion the same colour as milk, was required to use rather a lot.
“Suspiciously so…,” said the Doctor, as he plonked himself down in a deckchair, and erected his sunhat above his eyes, before he began to doze off to sleep. Lizzie took the other deckchair, where she read her book, while Cioné and Iris were embracing their inner children, and building sandcastles (because why not?).
“Mum, Dad, please be quiet while K9 laments the truth about why we all truly die alone, with no hope at all,” Iris sat with the bucket beside her, trying, and failing, to make her first construction. It was not going well.
K9 seemed to finish running his calculations. “Love originates from the human brain as a release of certain chemicals. Frequently this is linked with sexual attraction, occurring –”
“Thanks K9,” Iris shut the dog up, not sure that she wanted to hear anymore from whatever robot-dog-google K9 used.
“You are welcome, mistress Iris.”
Lizzie had long since decided that no matter who Iris consulted, she was not going to find any answers to her questions. The truth behind love. Lizzie had realised that the truth was, it never works out as it does in dreams. One can dream, one can write about a happy-ever-after, but getting there is much harder than one can ever comprehend. Since Lizzie had come to accept that as truth, she had abandoned the idea of Leo Akram. And she felt freer because of it. Occasionally she felt worse, but most of the time, she was certain that that was just a consequence of the freedom from her misguided optimism.
“I’ve just made a very, very bad mistake,” the Doctor gulped, using the voice he uses whenever the universe is about to come to an end. He was looking past the three of them, at something going on down the far end of the beach.
“Oh yes?” Cioné glanced up at him from the wreck of her sandcastles.
The Doctor, meanwhile, was glancing around urgently, a sheepish look on his face. He seemed to be looking for an exit. “This, er, isn’t the planet I promised to take you all.”
The three of them looked up at him. “Well, where are we?” Iris asked.
“It’s, a, er…,” the Doctor stuttered, trying to find the words that would explain their fate.
“Go on!” Cioné hurried him up.
“A, erm, colony,” the Doctor explained.
Cioné’s befuddled look explained what all of them were thinking. “What do you mean, a ‘colony’?”
“I mean,” the Doctor repeated. “It’s a… colony.”
They noticed the Doctor subtly pointing over at something, as if he were trying not to be noticed. When the three ladies turned to look, all in sync, their jaws dropped.
Six people, playing volleyball.
And they were stark, bollock, naked.
It was at this most unfortunate moment, Ulysses F. B. Higgensdale woke up, and he turned his whiskers to the nudist cause visible at the end of the beach. “Hello,” he purred.
Meanwhile, Iris raised her sunglasses, while the Doctor was already on his feet and folding up the deckchairs. Lizzie just sat, paralysed in a state of pure shock.
“How do we leave?” asked Cioné.
“We left the TARDIS on the other side of the beach,” Lizzie regained herself, shutting her book and preparing to leave.
“I think we should stick around,” Iris laughed, while the three others seemed insistent on leaving. Ulysses was on Iris’ side, while K9 sat around vacantly in the sand. Within a flash, their stuff was ready, and they made to leave. Grumbling, Iris sat up and began to follow them. It was at that moment they all had to stop and turn around, realising that K9 was ‘beached’, as it were – his wheels couldn’t trundle over the sand.
“Iris, pick him up,” the Doctor instructed, leaving Iris to miserably try and scoop up K9, carrying him uncomfortably under one arm. Then, the Doctor led the way, Cioné trailing behind him, with Lizzie and Iris bringing up the rear – a turn of phrase more appropriate for their current situation than any other.
“The truth behind love,” Iris gestured around her with her non-K9 carrying arm. “Being so miserable that you end up accidentally sunbathing on a nudist beach.”
“It’s not… that miserable,” Lizzie muttered to herself, waving awkwardly at a couple playing chess. “Not the nudity thing, I mean, the miserableness, it’s not that miserable.”
“… right,” Iris murmured, before laughing at Lizzie’s slight… communication mishap. “If you say so…”
Lizzie hesitated… what did Iris mean by that? Although, she was quite certain.
“Me and Leo, turns out, are…perhaps too similar,” Lizzie stated.
“Wroooong,” Iris groaned, sick and tired of Lizzie’s self-pity. “You two are perfect for each other, just get on with it, would you?”
Lizzie didn’t think they were as perfect for each other as everyone might think. “He wants different things to me –”
“– you’re completely terrified of any close relationship because it means opening up,” Iris interrupted sarcastically.
“– that as well,” Lizzie acknowledged. “Also…,” and this was something she hadn’t yet told anybody, but it was true, and she could feel the pressure hanging over her. “He’s a guy,” Lizzie said. “And like… I always feel judged when I go for like, guys.”
The two of them glanced ahead, to see the TARDIS glimmering in the distance. The distance – they still had a while to trek.
“The biphobia train in the universe is strong, Lizzie,” Iris declared. “Don’t listen to it.”
That was much easier said than done – but it was much easier to look past than Lizzie’s other qualms. She still wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to cope in a relationship with Leo.
“Leo is an… intimate guy, and I am not,” Lizzie admitted, knowing that their polarising views on being close to someone would not be easy. “An intimate person, I mean. And not a guy as well.”
“Exactly,” Iris shrugged, as if it were the most casual thing in the world. “You stop him being so needy, he makes you stop bottling it all up.”
When Iris said it, she made it sound so simple – simple enough that Lizzie perhaps found a faint glimmer of optimism in it. She knew it would not be so simple – but Lizzie also knew that Iris was right. They were good for each other… they could be, if Lizzie was brave enough to stick at it. Above all, if Leo was brave enough too.
“Well, if Leo and I can be together, so can you and Jada –”
Iris began to protest, having fully buried Jada in her memories. Sort of. Half. “Don’t change the subject.”
Lizzie had just confessed more of her inner thoughts then, than she had to anyone else in the last god-knows-how-long. It was Iris’ turn. “You were… very intimate, that time…”
“Yes, and I ruined it, because I ran away, because I am one hell of a commitment-phobe.” Iris set her sights firmly on the TARDIS, so she didn’t have to look at Lizzie being so… interrogative.
“Iris…,” Lizzie looked straight at her, and with total honesty and truth, said “Don’t get lack of self-confidence mixed up with being a commitment-phobe.”
Iris stopped, K9 nearly falling out of her arms as she did (K9 was feeling heavier, and causing their walk to feel rather ponderous). But Lizzie’s words hit home, they… touched on something Iris had perhaps been trying to keep hidden. Everyone seemed to think that people like Iris were bursting with self-confidence… but often it was the loudest people that doubted themselves the most, and Iris had learned that first hand. Masking her insecurities with noise and humour.
“You think?” Iris asked Lizzie, needing her to say it again, just to reassure her.
“Yes,” Lizzie said simply. And that was enough. Iris was young, she was nervous, only just coming out into the big wide universe. Mistakes were meant to happen, it was only natural she should have made them then – and even more natural that she’d made them out of fear.
Iris dropped K9 onto the sand, and as she listened to him land with a soft thud, she hugged Lizzie. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Lizzie smiled, aware that they probably looked completely ridiculous, two clothed people hugging in the centre of a nudist beach.
The TARDIS was not far away, now – but perhaps it would not be so open as that strange conversation on that naked beach.
***
Two Days Later
“Hey.”
Jada Haruno was in a coffee bar, somewhere in that rainy Earthen city of London. Her laptop was open in front of her, as she continued to track the Qleric’s latest scheme to brainwash the planet. It wouldn’t be long – she knew that. They had bided their time long enough, and Jada was ready to take them down, no matter what the cost. Enough people had been oppressed by them, and she was determined to prevent that from happening.
She heard the voice beside her – a familiar voice, and she knew it straight away. Jada had been thinking about the voice a lot.
“How’d you find me?” Jada turned to Iris, who’d sat herself down beside her, before glancing nervously around her as if she were expecting something terrible to happen.
“The TARDIS. I kind of tracked you here. Sorry.”
Even though Iris wasn’t sorry at all, she was just happy to have found Jada.
“Look. I was being childish. I am young. And also probably older than you, which is weird, but emotionally, I am young.”
Jada turned to look at her laptop, simply because it was easier than having to listen to Iris’ words. That was her, assuming that Iris had words to say. She wasn’t even sure what to say. But she braced herself, knowing that the conversation she was about to have, the speech she was about to make, was going to have to be the greatest set of words she’d ever strung together in all her life.
“Please, give me a chance.”
A bit rubbish, but it was a good starting point.
“I ran, because I was scared. I’ve not done this before, I doubted myself. I’m good at that, see.”
Perhaps the reason Iris had doubted herself, was because… well, she’d only just truly confessed it to herself, but she was in love. She thought Jada Haruno was the most beautiful woman she’d ever laid eyes on, and she wanted to be with her, and Iris was determined to do anything to make that happen.
Iris paused, not sure whether to say what she wanted to say. But she did, because perhaps it was what she needed to say.
“I know you’re scared too.”
And that was okay. Fear was normal, just another part of life. It made Jada hesitate.
“You’re a bit like Lizzie, you find relationships hard. Trust and all that. Solitary people who find being together difficult.”
Jada turned to her, and for the first time since their conversation on that grubby little staircase, their eyes met.
“Please, Jada. I want to understand.”
“I am an independent person,” Jada proceeded straight away, before bending the lid of her laptop so she was fully focused on Iris. Her heart was pounding – both of their hearts (three hearts in total), were pounding, as they both knew how they truly felt. They just needed to realise it. “And… I am withdrawn. I have spent my life alone, and so I am… used to that. And I hope… that you will understand that when I say, I can’t be with you, it’s because I would be no good for you.”
Iris was crying, now – she could feel Jada slipping away from her.
“You are a wonderful person, Iris. You deserve better than that.”
“Please,” Iris put her hand on Jada’s, but Jada pulled it away, as if it would make what she was saying any easier for her to comprehend. Jada looked Iris in the eye – because at least she had the decency to do what she was about to do, with honesty, and with truth.
“But,” Jada said, her icy features dissolving. “I can’t ignore how I feel.”
And she placed her palm on the side of Iris’ face, and leaned in, and kissed her. Iris kissed her back, and the sun streamed in the windows around them both, illuminating them in the happiest, warmest light. That kiss, its nervousness, its slight awkwardness – that didn’t matter, because the kiss still felt perfect. It was both of them, opening up who they truly were, Iris and her self-doubt, and Jada and her loneliness. That stuff, it didn’t go away, but it was there, out in the open, for both of them to deal with. Together.
Together… and speaking of which, Iris had some thoughts of her own.
“Marry me, Jada.”
Jada instantly backed away, not out of unwillingness, merely out of complete disbelief. When Iris mused back over it, perhaps it was a little bit impulsive, a little bit crazy. Perhaps it would all go terribly wrong – but they were young! Reckless decisions, that was what they were meant to be doing. Jada hesitated, completely uncertain of what to say, the shock draining her of all rational thinking – of all thinking in general. In her surprise, she didn’t flounder, she didn’t stumble, she merely sat back in complete silence. But she had to say something.
So, she spoke from her heart, with her brain having no idea the word about to leave her.
“Yes.”
They both laughed, and then kissed again, and then laughed – simply because it was probably a very stupid decision, and they were both in hysterics at their recklessness. But they were captivated in the moment, and at that moment, all that mattered was each other.
***
They met at Leo’s flat. It was small, just him living there… but it was bursting with life. A life, perhaps, that Leo Akram didn’t feel. But Lizzie glanced at the photos on the mantelpiece, of Leo’s family, of his friends. Of long-gone days, and memories to be treasured. There were posters on the wall, and all sorts of nerdy film and comic-book stuff on the bookshelves that Lizzie didn’t really understand or care about. Except – she did care. She cared because Leo cared.
“Star Wars fan, huh?” Lizzie asked, as he showed her in.
“Yep,” Leo muttered. “You like sci-fi?”
“Not really,” Lizzie admitted, nervously sitting down as Leo allowed her to. “I think it only works when it’s told around the characters.”
A bit like life, Lizzie had often thought. That revolved around the people, and so anything that didn’t always confused her. Ironic really, considering half the time, people confused her more than anything else. Especially during moments like her current situation – when she was sitting opposite someone, with an entire script planned in her head. Except, when arriving at the situation, and assessed what was going on, the script was useless. One couldn’t script life, it seemed, it just… happened, randomly and impulsively.
That was why Lizzie had always found life so hard to cope with.
“Look, I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have had a go at you,” Lizzie said. Personal conversations… she always found them slightly stilted, as if she rarely put any meaning behind any words. She always just said what she said, for the person she was talking to.
Lizzie stopped herself, knowing that she couldn’t do that for Leo. Leo deserved her… the truthful her. Not the stock-Lizzie she rolled out whenever she talked to any random person, because she wanted Leo to be so much more than just a random person.
“Well… I kind of am,” she muttered, realising that it might not be what Leo wanted to hear, but it was what she needed to tell him – especially if there was any chance of anything happening. “I shouldn’t have snapped, and yes, I am a bit too reserved, perhaps. But… I can’t take back what I said about not being your therapist. Because I can’t, and… I won’t try to be. I’ll stand with you, all the time. But if all you want is a counsellor, then… that’s not me.”
She had told him, now. Leo would have to try and live with that. Lizzie looked at him, and saw him for the beautiful person that he was. She wanted to love that person, she wanted to support him, but she did not want to be used by him.
“Look,” Leo said, because he had words of his own to say to Lizzie. “I’m clingy, I’m needy, I know – I don’t want sympathy. I am pitifully socially cringeworthy, and maybe I need sympathy for that.”
Lizzie laughed, and Leo smiled to himself. Seeing her laugh in that… sheepish, reserved way she did, it just made him happy.
“We can do it together. Living,” Leo said, and he meant it. He wouldn’t be reliant on her, he wouldn’t use her. They would do it all together. Lizzie could help him, he would help her. Perhaps, they would bring out the best in each other.
“I’d like that,” Lizzie smiled at him, as Leo took her hands and held them close. “I mean, look… I’ll trust you, I’m sorry I didn’t before. Trust, and stuff, it’s… hard.”
“I get it,” Leo scooched up on the sofa next to Lizzie, pulling her close. He was going to listen to her. He was going to wait for her, with an infinite amount of patience, until eventually, she found the words she needed.
That was when she looked up at him, and she felt a flicker of realisation. One might call it acceptance, but Lizzie wasn’t sure. Acknowledgement, perhaps. Or maybe it wasn’t acceptance. Maybe to accept something, you didn’t truly have to understand it. Perhaps she’d been getting it wrong. But now, Lizzie could speak with confidence – and it only occurred to her, that when they met, she hadn’t introduced herself properly to him.
“Hello. My name is Lizzie Darwin, and I have depression.”
Perhaps she didn’t understand it, but now, she was willing to talk. Wiling to be open, without being reserved, without being awkward. She was willing to be honest and truthful. She was sad, and she didn’t want to suffer that alone any longer. A lot of her life, she’d been so alone, but she didn’t feel that any longer, as she lay back on Leo’s suffer, the two of them nestled close together. She’d been so reluctant to trust, but now, Leo had heard words from her, more open and more honest words than she’d offered to anybody else.
And Lizzie glanced into his eyes, and there was that look between them, that connection, that understanding. Something so strong it had taken her attention away from the stars, because she’d discovered something even more beautiful.
For the first time in her life, Lizzie Darwin was willing to love.
***
The morning of the wedding came.
Due to the impulsiveness of the occasion, there weren’t going to be many guests. But that was what Iris and Jada both wanted – no fuss, just to have that… unity. As long as they were together, it didn’t matter how many people were there. At least, the people who mattered were there. And they waited, in the registry office, for the ceremony to begin. The Doctor and Cioné were there, of course, as parents of the bride. They’d been, admittedly, slightly taken aback when Iris told her she was getting married. But, they had decided to support her. Lizzie was there, with Leo, of course. Kym had come along, in the largest set of heels Lizzie had seen her in so far. Ulysses sat upright on a seat, a white bowtie around his neck, contrasting against the inky black of his silky fur.
However, the happy couple were yet to be seen. They thought they’d been about to appear, when they’d heard the doors to the registry office smash open.
“Oi, oi, Lizzie!” Chasya Tomkins, one of Jada’s fellow hunters of Artemis, strode into the room, her bow slung across her leather jacket. Neither Chasya, nor Fortuna, seemed dressed in wedding-like attire. In fact, they both seemed as if they were going to continue their usual business fighting injustice across the universe. Fortuna smiled at them, as they took up the seats on Jada’s side of the office.
“How’s things?” Fortuna asked her.
“Erm, yeah,” Lizzie nodded. “Pretty good.”
For once, Lizzie didn’t feel as if she were lying when she said that. She was pretty good. She wasn’t perfect, but Lizzie didn’t believe there was such thing. On that day, in that registry office, Lizzie was happy. Happy to see Iris get married, happy to be with Leo. Happy to be alive. It wouldn’t always be so straightforward, but for now… she would hold onto a day that it was.
“They’re taking their time…,” the Doctor glanced at his watch with a confused look on his brow.
“Well darling,” Cioné reassured him, putting her hand on his knee. “If Iris is anything like me.”
“Fashionably late,” the Doctor thought back to that wonderful day, even if the proceedings had been slightly delayed. Now, it was his own daughter about to tie the knot, and he felt rather bittersweet about it all. His little girl, all grown up. He thought back fondly to that funny day, with Ode to Joy, and the hospital. The day his family had been sealed forever, when he’d stepped out of whatever lonely, sad place he was in, and faced his responsibilities as a parent. He thought back to all those days, of Iris as a little girl, as she’d grown up. Their laughter, their tears, their moments of beautiful joy.
And all of it had led to now.
“Reminiscing as well?” Cioné asked him. After all… she’d been on exactly the same path down memory lane. Thinking of her beautiful daughter, and all those days they’d spent together. Cioné thought of the love, that bound her to her daughter. The different kind of love, that bounded her daughter to Jada. It had brought them all together, and it had made them all happy.
Today, was a happy day.
Suddenly, the doors smashed inwards again. And this time, it wasn’t two late guests.
“It’s the Qlerics, they’re here!” Jada yelled.
It also wasn’t just the happy couple. Iris ran down the aisle, closely followed by Jada who had readied her crossbow, and was steadily firing energy bolts at the monsters as they strode down the aisle after her.
The Qlerics were huge creatures, tall enough to just brush under the ceiling of the registry office. They were bulky, their flesh green, speckled and slimy, with blinking, frog-like eyes flickering around the room at the wedding guests. Their crimson robes trailed behind them as they stomped menacingly through the guests, driving a wedge of division as they prepared to indoctrinate the planet with their faith.
“Just to say!” Iris shouted at the intergalactic evangelical priests, forgetting that both of her parents were in the room. “We’re lesbians, we have shagged so much and we’re not even married yet, just letting you know…”
It all went so quickly, the giant, humanoid frogs briskly charging past the guests. Cioné leapt up from her seat, dashing over to Iris, and the Doctor followed soon after, grabbing his sonic screwdriver. Ulysses arched his back and readied his claws, and Kym subtly prepared her pepper spray to release on any toad that got too close. Lizzie looked up at the Qlerics, and Jada’s words echoed. Now was the time.
“YOU WILL DIE!” the head Qleric, denoted by the gold ribbons on his robes, roared in Jada’s face. “You are charged with attempting to pervert our evangelism. Our faith will become dominant on this planet, in mere seconds.”
“Lizzie!” Jada cried out, as one of the Qleric’s restrained her, pulling her close to its slippery skin that reeked of pondwater. “The machine is activated. They’ll ask you what the truth is as the brainwashing is happening, just to reinforce it. Don’t tell them what they want you to believe. Tell them something else.”
And suddenly, all eyes in the room were on her. The Doctor and Cioné gazed at her, a look of desperation on her face. Kym looked not only terrified, but completely confused. Iris gave her a reassuring look – and crucially, Leo was beside her. He gave her hand a comforting squeeze, and Lizzie knew, that whatever was about to happen, Leo would be beside her.
Lizzie stood up, and she walked to the front of the registry office, where Iris and Jada were due to be married. This was it. Somehow think of something strong enough to overwhelm the whole of humanity from being brainwashed by a load of evangelical frogs. A lot more than just another day at the office, it seemed. And quite frankly, Lizzie was terrified, and she had never doubted herself more.
But there was no choice. She had to confront them, and she had to be strong.
“You will give us the truth,” the lead Qleric declared.
Now was the moment. Lizzie Darwin had to offer the truth. And she panicked, just briefly, blind confusion engulfing her. Of course, she’d thought about this in advance, tried to think of something strong enough to capture all of humanity. But now… none of it seemed important. How could one communicate the truth behind life, to billions of people, all over the world? It was impossible, there was no one word that could do it.
But that impossibility had to be defied.
“Okay,” Lizzie shrugged. The Qlerics had asked for the truth, and so she might as well give it.
“Here’s the truth.”
All the eyes in the room were on her. All the minds on the planet were on her.
“I don’t know.”
She felt the awkward hesitation in the room, and for a few seconds, she panicked, worrying she’d messed it up. But Leo was looking at her, and he was supporting her. So, she continued.
“All of us here, we’re just… muddling through life with no idea what we’re actually doing. The truth is, there is no truth. This world is so weird, there are no absolutes, no nothing. It would be impossible to pick a truth, to pick something that reigns above all. Half the time, I’ve got no idea what I’m doing, no idea who I am, no idea what I’m feeling. I’m just trying. That’s what we’re all just doing, just… pulling ourselves through this strange enigma called life, something that none of us understand, but something that we all have to go through. All we can do, is cope with it. We might not understand it, but we just have to accept it.
“And so… that’s what I’m trying to do. So, this is me, coping. And I’m doing that by loving. I’ve seen that love can do amazing things. I’ve seen the power behind it, I’ve seen lost people come to life because of it. But that’s me. We all do it in different ways, we all cope with existence differently. Perhaps, that’s why it is so wonderful to be alive.”
Lizzie was crying, then, and she awkwardly apologised to everyone in the room. Everyone in the room, who now, was probably devoted to some faith that they’d once hated.
But the Doctor was there, and he looked so proud – he’d been her best friend, and she was so grateful to him. They were once the last two people in the universe, and through that, he had stuck by her, and he had always helped her. In fact, they had helped each other, during tough times. Both of them would always be bonded over that… over those dark days spent together. Now, the Doctor looked happy for her, as finally, Lizzie Darwin discovered some of the contentment he had.
And next to him, Cioné gave a little round of applause, before scattily looking around because nobody else was, due to the state of amazement that had descended upon the room. Cioné, someone who could do nothing but love the universe with all her hearts. And for once, Lizzie felt she perhaps shared some of that love. It was then, that the applause enveloped the whole room. Kym cheered rigorously, even though she didn’t know what was going on. That was okay… none of them truly knew what was going on, but they could all learn a thing or two from Kym – that enjoying it, even the smallest things, was important.
The next thing she knew, Iris was holding her close, as two sisters who had blundered through this strange new life on Earth together, with a shared confusion – and now, with a shared appreciation for existing. They had done it together – they had both discovered love together. Lizzie watched Iris as she stepped back and pulled Jada close, and she was beyond happy for them. Iris, so far from the little girl she’d known once, had bounded onto Earth with chaos, madness, loudness, and above all, with heart, and she had truly graced the planet with her presence.
Then, Lizzie turned to Leo, who was gazing at her from the audience. He didn’t applaud vigorously, or cheer as loudly – but Lizzie could see it in his eyes, that he loved her. And Lizzie loved him – after all, that speech hadn’t come from nothing. She breathed a sigh of relief, and Lizzie realised she was smiling too. She was happy.
She was loved.
That was what life was. The people, their love, their confusion – but all of them together.
And the Qlerics stumbled back, their machine defeated, the planet safe from their clutches. Within seconds, they had teleported away, humiliated as they realised that their mission was wrong. The quest for a truth was never going to produce results.
That was that. The Qlerics were gone. The registry office suddenly seemed a lot quieter. Lizzie was suddenly very aware of the fact she was still stood at the front of the room, and so she quickly made her way to sit with Leo. He held her close, and said, “God, Liz, you were… truly brilliant. Amazing. Seriously, I… I cried!”
Lizzie laughed at him, shrugging it off. “Thank you.”
This time, she kissed him.
“One day I’ll go to a normal wedding,” Cioné laughed. It was only then, that they all noticed the registrar gazing upon them with sheer bemusement. Weddings rarely went as planned, the registrar was probably quite certain of that – but even for her, this one was probably quite spectacular. All eyes turned to her – after all, this was still a wedding, and it was still definitely going ahead.
“Erm. Right,” the registrar gathered herself. Then, the ceremony began. It was not lengthy – after all, Iris and Jada were not people for sentimentality – and the wedding had already been sentimental enough. In fact, there were several moments during the wedding, where Iris looked like she was probably about to vomit. But, there was something truly wonderful, even if the couple would not admit it themselves – the love of two people, joined in front of everyone who loved them most of all.
Eventually, they came to the rings.
“I give you this ring, as a reminder of my love for you.”
“Iris, Jada – I now pronounce you spouses for life.”
The Doctor, Cioné, Lizzie, Leo, Kym, Ulysses (with his paws), Chasya, and Fortuna, stood up and applauded, and Iris and Jada kissed for the first time as a married couple.
The first, of many times to come.
***
“Oh shit buggering shit bugger, I’ve just sat on a button,” Iris sat back on the controls, and leaned back against the time rotor. Jada stood beside the console, pulling Iris close to her and kissing her. And as they kissed, the time machine began to breath, and the TARDIS, with that juxtaposition of humanity and machine, began to fly off into space.
The two of them had commandeered it, Iris spinning another one of her usual lies about driving lessons. And now, as impulsively as the wedding, they were flying off, anywhere in time and space. Neither of them could quite believe it – that they were married. But regrets? None at all. Life was weird, nobody knew what it was going to throw up next. So, they might as well do it together. They might as well do it as Mrs and Mrs. Ooh, Iris was a Mrs. That made her feel old.
Before, both of them had been scared, both of them had been tip-toeing around what they really wanted. Iris had been too pre-occupied with her self-doubts, Jada had been too scared of what it would mean to stop being alone. And so it had felt right, for both of them, to throw themselves straight in, impulsively and without thoughts of the consequences. After all, neither of them took half measures, and they both believed, that if you truly wanted something, then you should go as far as you could to try and get it.
Both of them, as the TARDIS went whizzing off into time and space, were certain of their love for each other. Neither of them felt scared anymore, feeling safe in the arms of the other. Life was hard, Iris had learned that – but she thought, that perhaps, there was nothing that would make it easier to deal with than Jada Haruno. Together, they could do it. Together, they could have it all.
That was the moment Iris knew she’d grown up. She understood something that she hadn’t done before, something mad, something completely inexplicable. Her true acceptance of Lizzie’s words – that life was not perfect, that life was strange. That… the universe was confusing as hell. That she would never be able to understand it, but she would be able to accept it. And that… she would do all of that, with Jada. Perhaps, that was what love was. Being able to face that, side by side, with someone. Or perhaps… love, like life, was however you decided to cope with it.
And as Iris and Jada kissed each other, and undressed each other, and then became entwined with each other, under the light of the stars blazing in the observatory above – they both felt alive. The cold touch of the TARDIS floor, and then the warm touch of each other, and they felt so small, and alone, with a gigantic infinity of everything above their heads. But as they kissed, and made love, that infinity seemed tiny.
They held onto love, and they held onto each other, before it faded away forever, as they both knew it would. But for now, it was wonderful.
The universe was waiting for them. The two of them. And perhaps it was weird, and twisted, and strange – but it was no match for the two of them.
***
It was, admittedly, a little bit awkward at first.
But Lizzie lay there, back on the bed, Leo tangled up with her in this strange web of existence. And he kissed her, and she kissed him. They were caught in that moment, somewhere a little bit away from the world, a place of complete ecstasy and wonder, where everything real felt just a little bit… distant. And they seemed to fall into each other, and they became one, and the whole world could go to hell and it wouldn’t matter, because they were together. Together, and alive.
So, so…
Alive.
They were there, together, as they truly were. They were in love, they were open, they were honest. And not even the awe and the wonder of the stars above could compete, not even all the heavens and all the universes could compete with those two people at that moment. For nothing was better than that… it wasn’t just sex, it wasn’t just a sensation, it meant something, something that neither of them would ever be able to find the words for.
And this was the truth.
The naked truth. The never-ending, infinite truth behind life – the fact that, there was no truth, for it was something more than anything that can be experienced on Earth. The sum total of all the impossibly incoherent parts of life cohering together, in a way that was just astonishing. It could not be described, it could not be explained. But it was anxiety, and the burning fear, that holds you back from being who you truly want. It was about fun, and joy, and living just for the sake of it, because there was no other point.
It was about coping, when life couldn’t be coped with. Holding on, just trying to survive every day, even when it took everything out of you.
It was growing up, the passing of time, the passing of life. It was the people around you, the people who loved you, and cared for you.
It was about love, and all the astonishing, mesmerising, magical forms that could take. Parents, and siblings, and lovers, and their devotion and loyalty and passion. The people who would always be beside you, even when they weren’t there in reality.
As Lizzie lay back, she couldn’t think of any word to describe it, apart from
Life.
“I didn’t realise they weren’t some kind of folk band!” Iris defended herself. After all, they seemed kind of ridiculous in a folk band-y way.
Lizzie and Iris sat underneath a bus shelter – it was a crisp autumn day, with red and yellow and golden leaves floating melancholily down from the trees bordering the road, the sunlight flickering through them as they gently fell, painting pretty patterns on the road ahead of them. It wouldn’t be long before winter would truly settle in, and any warmth would be obliterated by its coldness. However, the two of them were not scared of that, for there seemed to be a warmth between the two of them. Occasionally a car would drive past them, and the two of them sat, watching them, wondering where all the different occupants of those vehicles were going – happy places, or sad places, or maybe nowhere in particular. There was a sort of lazy poignancy in the air, as they sat beneath that bus shelter. The two of them were embarking on an adventure, just for a few months, that was going to be a rather intriguing experience. Unlike most of the mad, bonkers stuff they got up to in the TARDIS, this was going to be a little bit more… static.
It had transpired that the Doctor and Cioné had some urgent business to attend to, regarding a misfired time-loop. They had suspected it was going to be a time-consuming business, and so Lizzie and Iris had agreed to be dropped off on Earth, where they were to live. A fairly simple task, on the surface of it – however, life on Earth, as Lizzie had discovered, was rather trickier than one would imagine. The Doctor, being the intergalactic weirdo he was, had got Lizzie and Iris this flat in London, where they were to live out their lives being normal humans. Lizzie would do ‘whatever’ (to quote the Doctor), while Iris would deal with the assignments she’d been set during the academy winter holidays.
Normal humans…
It was an unlikely prospect, but they were both determined to have the best crack at it that they could. Clearly it was getting off to a flying start – their temporary stopping point of Lizzie’s old Dunsworthian flat had been visited by Jehovah’s Witnesses – a group Iris had mistaken as a folk band.
“And just… never ask them when they’re next touring, because they’ll come back.”
No less than five times.
“Any other tips about Earth-living?” Iris asked. She was excited – of course she was. A natural adventurer, a curious mind, hence her desire to travel the universe, and her love of the physics behind the universe. Her father bleeding through, it seemed, alongside his blind optimism whenever it came to throwing themselves into insane situations. And yet, excited as she was, Iris just wanted to blend in – not to be noticed. As a traveller, she didn’t want to be the centre of attention – she’d much rather take it all in from the side-lines, an outsider, and watch the universe pass by in front of her. Of course, her individuality was desperately important – but Iris wanted to be that quirky girl seeing the universe – that was enough for her.
“Erm…,” Lizzie thought. “The government is terrible. Don’t be too flippant. Eat chips.”
Lots of chips.
A few moments of silence passed, before Iris let out the largest, longest groan she could possibly muster, to emphasise how fed up she was of having to wait for the keys.
“Urrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
Lizzie knew exactly what she was complaining about, and glanced at her watch for the time. The keys should materialise any minute now.
“It won’t be long,” Lizzie said, knowing that what she was saying was going to make no impact on Iris’ impatience.
Iris’ excitement was dwindling slightly amidst the wait. Patience, no thanks. “Is this what time on Earth is like? Eternally… torturous.”
If a little beautiful, Iris thought, watching the autumnal shades filtering through the trees and painting the street, a sign of time always passing – and, in fact, it looked quite beautiful.
“Yep,” Lizzie confirmed. It most definitely was.
Suddenly, Iris’ Pitbull ft. Kesha ringtone began to play, and Iris hoped that this would bring some relief to their wait.
NurseWho – 16:10
Keys arriving soon. Mum got tomato sauce in the detmat. circuits.
“… is that your dad?” Lizzie asked.
“Yeah,” Iris muttered with an air of half-concentration, as she tapped out her reply. A few seconds later, as expected, that iconic noise that usually accompanied the TARDIS’ arrival, began to echo through the bus shelter. Iris opened her hands, and found a set of house keys waiting for her, with markedly more patience than herself.
They both sat there for a few seconds more, perhaps because they were putting the future off, or perhaps because this was completely new to them and they had no idea what to do.
“It’ll be fiiine!” Iris jumped up, clearly noting the atmosphere of anticipation. She was seemingly quite excited out about the whole thing, and even if she was nervous, it didn’t show. With Iris’ blasé remark, she was trying to sideline any emotions that were perhaps creeping in. Not wanting to talk about it, masking it behind an air of relaxed calm and outrageous humour.
It wasn’t like Iris was going to be living alone. Lizzie, who had obviously done the whole ‘human’ thing before, had decided she would always look out for Iris – after all, they saw each other as sisters. Having said that, Lizzie was not completely certain that she had any more idea of how to function as a human than Iris did. Despite this, Lizzie would be there for her, whatever happened. Just as Iris had been there for her two weeks ago, when the two of them had made their journey to Palem Blue, where they met the mysterious private investigator Emma. So far, their meeting had led to no results, and they had heard nothing from Emma. But the encounter was there, at the back of Lizzie’s mind…
They entered the building, and Lizzie and Iris began the journey up the set of stairs, to their new flat. Each step was a step closer to their new life – the stairs in the building were steep, but that didn’t matter, Lizzie had climbed steeper to get to where she was then. There was, of course, the lift – but there was no way in hell Lizzie would ever succumb to the claustrophobia.
Iris was a good few steps ahead of her, bouncing up two steps at a time, nearly tripping over several of them, admiring the building, which wasn’t even that amazing.
“We’re going to have such a cool life here, Liz,” Iris gazed around her. “Even if it does smell of damp. A little bit.”
“Yeah…,” Lizzie agreed. Hopefully they were. Even if it did smell of damp.
The stairs seemed to take forever, but when they got to their floor, they realised that it had barely taken that long at all. Iris hesitated by the doors.
“What’s up?” Lizzie noticed Iris fumbling around in her pockets.
“Lost the keys…”
Off to a wonderful start.
“Oops, sorry, found them,” she chuckled, and pushed them into the lock, and after glancing at Lizzie, with a look of delight and excitement, Iris opened her new flat. “Arghh, this is exciting as hell,” Lizzie heard Iris mutter, as she bustled her way inside. Lizzie sighed, and smiled, as Iris bounded forth into their new life. Lizzie hung back, just for a bit. A little bit of uncertainty, that was all. It was mad that she could do so many terrifying things, and yet starting a new adventure on her home planet was what scared her the most.
But she’d done it – she was there. All while trying to heal – something she’d needed to do a lot of, after sinking back into a wave of depression. She was back on her anti-depressants, she was going to counselling. Lizzie wasn’t happy – but she was happier, and she was getting somewhere. Some days, though, she would wake up, and everything would be such a… slog to get through. And at every turn, the smallest things would haunt her, pestering her – that was it. A constant feeling of nagging emptiness, always on her back, and she’d just want nothing more than for it to go away.
Today wasn’t too bad – perhaps those feelings had been masked, mainly with anticipation and nervousness. Iris always helped too, bursting into her life like a complete whirlwind and shaking it all up. But there was always that fear, that tomorrow, or the next day, might be bad again.
However, before Lizzie had any further chance to worry about whether tomorrow she would be crushed with a complete feeling of dread and a fear that the entire world was going to fall down around her, she heard a voice.
“OH. MY. LORD. OF. LORDINGTONS.”
What.
Several things did not make sense at all – the main one being that that voice was not possible. The voice was a voice inside her head – the voice of someone who didn’t actually exist, the voice of someone who Lizzie Darwin had invented.
When she turned around, she saw Kym gazing at her, eyes as wide as saucers.
“Erm. Hi!” Lizzie muttered awkwardly, not sure whether Kym knew who she was. Lizzie then stopped, and had to catch up with her own mind – Kym was stood in front of her, dressed in a bright pink fluffy coat, a garish pom-pom scarf, and gigantic high-heels. Lizzie had invented her, a friend who didn’t care what people thought, who saw the greatest joy in the smallest of things. But that was the point – Lizzie had invented her, she did not exist.
But somehow she did.
“You must be my new neighbour!!!!!” Kym bounded up to her. Clearly, she didn’t know who Lizzie was, even though the only logical conclusion was that Kym was straight out of Lizzie’s head. Unless Kym was an actual person and Lizzie had created a dream around her, and then forgotten she was an actual person.
None of the particulars, however, stopped Kym pulling Lizzie into an enormous hug. Eventually, she backed off, and held Lizzie by her shoulders as if she were imparting some crucial information.
“I’m Kym, Kym Gomez, that’s ‘Kym’ with a ‘Y’ and ‘Gomez’ with a ‘G-O-M-E-Z’–”
“Oh, erm, thanks,” Lizzie murmured, not aware of any other spellings of the surname ‘Gomez’.
“And you are…?”
Lizzie spluttered a few syllables, while the person she’d invented in her head stood in front of her, just as vividly as she’d ever been imagined, squealing in delight and not seeming at all concerned that her new neighbour had forgotten her own name.
“I’m, er, Lizzie…”
“Fabidabidoo to meet you, Lizworth. Can I call you that? I’m gonna call you that. I live just opposite you,” Kym gestured to her own front door, the letters upon which had been decorated with glitter. “I lost the deposit,” Kym said, without much care at all, as she noticed Lizzie eying the sparkles.
“Yeah… yeah you can call me that…”
Kym plucked Lizzie’s phone out of her hands, and at a speed that would make light jealous, she typed in her number. “Call me any time, but not Thursdays and not every other Friday, because I do soulcycle on Thursdays and every other Friday I hit the town. Tbh, I hit the town most nights, but every other Friday I’m serious.”
“Erm, right, thanks,” Lizzie accepted her phone back – or, Kym placed Lizzie’s phone back into her immobile, shocked hands, while Lizzie stood watching, eyes agape, in a state of sheer confusion that normally, she’d be able to make great efforts to hide.
“Are you living alone?”
“No,” Lizzie made a bit of a rubbish attempt to regain myself. “I’m living with my sister, Iris.”
“Aww, that’s cute. I live on my own, but I’m a single pringle ready to mingle – every other Friday is when the mingling is serious, if you hadn’t guessed. Anyway, Lizzinous, I will see you around, I need to go, nails to paint – not my own, I’m a beautician – do you like mine, though? I did them last night…”
Lizzie zoned out as Kym began her nail-related diatribe, and she vaguely heard herself say ‘goodbye’ – and just as quickly as she’d arrived, and knocked Lizzie into a gigantic existential crisis, Kym was gone again, prancing down the stairs, away from her sparkly flat.
Lizzie looked at her flat, and then over at Kym’s flat. Kym actually existed. Someone she had invented, someone Lizzie had created for herself… existed. It made no sense at all, and as Lizzie entered her new flat for the first time, her mind was too distracted by the thought of Kym’s existence to take in the fact she actually had quite a nice new place. It wasn’t huge, but as Lizzie wandered into their living room, most of which was packed into boxes (boxes that had materialised in the flat – Time Lord removals), she knew that it would do just nicely.
Just nicely – with Kym living next door. It seemed that even when Lizzie was trying to live a normal life, the abnormal refused to leave her alone, with her fictional creations blazing into her own mind with enormous verve and vigour.
“You’re most certainly correct,” said the Black Cat perched on their sofa. “It does not make sense.”
Oh my god.
Lizzie checked herself, making sure that definitely wasn’t hallucinating, that she hadn’t become locked up in her own head – after all, in her travels with the Doctor she’d noticed such things to be a common appearance.
But no – Ulysses F. B. Higgensdale, the talking cat she’d invented for herself, because she loved cats, and she thought it would be wonderful if they’d be able to talk – was definitely looking up at her from the edge of the sofa, amber eyes gazing at her with all their posh, yet camp, glory.
“You came back too,” Lizzie muttered aloud, and yet, the black cat did not seem fazed as she addressed it. Then again – it was a talking cat, so perhaps it was used to the strange looks. It was not the fact she was faced with a talking animal, however, that was so befuddling. It was the fact Ulysses was so intrinsically linked to her, and there he was, sat on the sofa.
“I did,” Ulysses purred. It didn’t make sense, however – Ulysses seemed to recognise her, and yet Kym hadn’t. “I’ve always been a manifestation of your conscience, Elizabeth,” Ulysses explained, as if he could read her mind. Which apparently – he could. “Therefore, of course I know who you are… because in a way, I am partly you.”
“You know what I’m thinking?” Lizzie asked it, hoping the answer would be no, and also hoping that the answer would be yes. Talk to loved ones, said the counsellor. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they knew how she felt without her needing to explain?
“Don’t be silly,” Ulysses laughed. “Sometimes I can catch glimmers. But I am my own fabulous cat.”
Ulysses then went onto explain that although he was a construct of her mind, he had been born on Earth, to a horrendous family with several young children who had frequently pulled his tail. He had also engaged in several spats with their Great Dane.
“Anyway,” Ulysses finished his tale of hardship and… tails, a grimace etched upon his feline features, and perhaps the makings of a tear from his amber eyes. “I made a bid for freedom, climbing over the fence, using the mindless pooch as a paw-up. What followed was a bitter slog, trawling down the M40 – I pilfered an articulated lorry – and eventually, I made it.”
… right, Lizzie thought, as Ulysses wrapped up his tale. She was, admittedly, rather in awe of his brilliant escape. Also, she realised that if Ulysses knew who Lizzie was, then chances are, he would be aware of how he’d come into existence. And Kym as well.
“How do you exist, then?” Lizzie asked.
“Okay darling, let me explain,” Ulysses patted the sofa with his paw, gesturing for Lizzie to sit down. With a surprising amount of reluctance for a girl who was looking at an anthropomorphic cat who was a manifestation of her own conscience, Lizzie walked over and sat down beside it.
Ulysses’ explanation was simple.
“The force of your love for them was so strong, you brought them back.”
Lizzie hesitated – after all, normally it was much more complex than that. “I… loved them into existence?”
“Absolutely!” Ulysses placed a reassuring paw on Lizzie’s hand. “And for those idiots who thinks there’s a solid scientific explanation for everything, when you brought back the universe, you were powering the Memory Graveyard with your own mind. The force of the electrical impulses to the brain states holding those mental constructions meant that when you were plugged into the Memory Graveyard, you brought them back. But to any normal person, yes. You loved them back.”
Wow. It wasn’t often the world was so kind.
“Hey.”
Oops. Lizzie glanced over, and saw Iris staring, provoking an irritated sigh from Ulysses, who clearly wasn’t particularly up on explaining the fact he could talk
to someone else. Of course – when Ulysses had just been in her head, only she had been able to hear him speak. But now… now he existed.
Lizzie had brought a talking cat into existence.
Iris, with a burning excitement in her eyes, flew over to the sofa and sat in front of Ulysses. “You’re a talking cat.”
“Yes,” Ulysses spoke through gritted teeth.
Iris paused, and Lizzie could see her mind ticking. How could there possibly be a talking cat, surely that defied all the science Iris had ever learned, the science she’d pledged her life to investigate?
“Do you know a talking rabbit called Melvyn?” Iris asked, contrary to Lizzie’s expectations.
Ulysses thought for a moment, as if there were many talking animals and they all knew each other. “Top hat, broken watch, misogynist?”
“That’s the one!” Iris confirmed, quite giddy with excitement.
Lizzie looked at her, and then at Ulysses. “There’s a talking cat, and you’re okay with this?”
“Yeah, ‘course,” Iris shrugged it off, as Ulysses rested his head on his paw, posing elegantly in front of Lizzie and Iris. “This is so wonderful, I love new things,” Iris mused, a great big grin on her face. Her voice quickly changed into something of intrigue and curiosity. “How’d you exist, though?”
“I’m a construct of Lizzie’s imagination. She loved me into existence.”
“Huh?”
Ulysses sighed. “I was something in Lizzie’s mind, I came into existence when Lizzie was plugged into the memory graveyard. Your new next-door neighbour is the same.”
“Ooh, that’s cool,” Iris held out her hand as a form of greeting, and Ulysses placed his paw into it, and they shook. “Can you stay with us? You’re hella fascinating, and hilarious.”
“Well, erm,” Ulysses put his paw to his face, and if cats could blush, Ulysses would most certainly be blushing. “If it’s not too much trouble…”
“Of course not!” Iris jumped up and strode over to the window, becoming illuminated in the evening sunshine. “Is it, Lizzie?”
Lizzie was not paying much attention to the conversation, because her mind was elsewhere – while Iris and Ulysses had been making friends, Lizzie had been preoccupied with the very first thought that had entered her mind was soon as she’d set eyes upon Kym, and discovered that somehow the people she’d invented in her head were coming to life before her very eyes. If Lizzie had loved Kym into existence, and she’d loved Ulysses into existence, then surely, logic would dictate that the person she loved most of all would also come back into existence.
Except, the situation was already extremely far from logical, and Lizzie had no idea whether she was just making up excuses in her brain to give her some hope.
But, at that moment, Lizzie didn’t think there was anything wrong with blind, insane hope. After all, she’d been told to concentrate on happy thoughts, on good things, as part of her recovery – and that was a very happy thought, a comforting one. The perfect partner she’d created for herself, a… soul mate (a term that Lizzie actively despised) – but in this case, it seemed the term most apt, as he’d been created from her soul – someone she could love, someone who would understand her, and even when he didn’t, someone who would always accept her. Perhaps for once, the world would be kind to her.
So, as Lizzie looked at Iris and Ulysses, stood in the light of the setting sun, she knew that she had one job. And perhaps it was impossible, perhaps nothing would ever come of it. But at least, there was hope.
There was hope that Leo Akram, her imaginary boyfriend (which sounded ridiculous), was around, somewhere.
Hope that he was alive.
***
And so their life on Earth began.
Lizzie started work in a cute second-hand bookshop/tearoom – perhaps it was barely a change from her former employment in that terrible little café in Dunsworth, but Lizzie didn’t think so. She would sell books, she would make tea – she would even talk to people, and not hate every second of it. There was something about London – she never felt as if she were constantly being judged. Lizzie could live as herself, and that gave her true fulfilment. Occasionally she would smuggle Ulysses in, and he’d sit behind the counter and sip tea from a saucer (because it is a myth that cats like milk, apparently – in fact, Ulysses’ true poison was red wine). And whenever she got home at night, she would sit out on their balcony, and she would write, as the stars shone brightly above her.
Lizzie was happier than she’d been in a long time. She was content. Sometimes she would be bugged by anxious thoughts; that the days wouldn’t last forever, that she couldn’t just keep… hopping around the universe with her weird space-family. Some days were harder than others, some days her contentment was sullied by thoughts she’d rather bury – some days, the shop seemed tedious, Iris seemed irritating, cats couldn’t talk for a reason. But other days, it was so easy to put those thoughts behind her and focus on the happy moments. Even though she knew her depression was always haunting her, Lizzie was coping. As she sat in the shop, and looked around at the crammed, musty shelves, with the distinct aromas of various teas sneaking delightfully in from the next room, she felt as if she were looking around at her life – and in those moments, she was truly happy.
So, she held onto it – because she never knew when she’d slip back into the dark places she’d spent so long.
Occasionally her mind would drop back to Leo – her dreams of finding him. But she wasn’t desperate – hope burned vigorously inside her, and she dreamt that one day, they would meet again. One day.
Iris, meanwhile, was getting on with the assignments she was meant to be doing, even if the Doctor had to chivvy her along whenever he phoned. The majority of her time on Earth, however, was spent exploring… gaming. Already she’d convinced her father, with her usual, if slightly boisterous, charm, to buy them several games consoles, and so Iris spent the majority of the time sat in front of the television, eating lots of pizza and overdosing on Fanta. At night, Iris would travel into the city, and see if through all the night pollution, she could see the stars. And perhaps she would scribble a few notes for her lessons, but usually, Iris would just gaze at the 21st century night sky.
About a month into their life on Earth, something happened. Something that would change all of their lives,
It all began with a knock on their door – or several knocks, to be precise, notably to the rhythm of Despacito. And then it all really began with the words Kym spoke, when Lizzie opened the door to find her standing there.
“I have an idea.”
The words were quickly followed up by some expletives, which translated roughly as “your cat talks”, as Kym sidled past Lizzie and strode into the flat, where Iris was curled up on the sofa in a flamingo onesie with several bits of popcorn stuck to the fluff and lodged in her unwashed hair, an X-Box controller in her lap, and one in front of Ulysses, as Iris explained how it worked.
“Hi,” Iris muttered, her voice muffled under the massive mouthful of popcorn she’d just engulfed.
“Good morning,” Ulysses spoke with his usual eloquence.
Kym’s jaw dropped further than Iris’ dignity. “What the fu –”
“Okay, Kym, come and sit down,” Lizzie guided her over to one of the chairs in their kitchen, and not the sofa, considering it had been Iris’ domain for at least two weeks. Kym’s breathing was becoming extremely heavy and effortful, and Lizzie was a little bit concerned she was having a heart attack. “Deep breaths,” Lizzie reassured her, knowing from her past experiences (in her head), that Kym was prone to hyperventilating whenever she saw something weird.
And a talking cat was spectacularly weird.
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod,” Kym took a gigantic gasp of air, but even that failed to placate her lungs, as she rocked back and forth on the chair, and then pointed at Ulysses as if she were a witch-hunter and Ulysses had been busy using his dark magic to kill new-born babies. “That’s a talking cat.”
Ulysses grumbled. “Ah, humanity. Ever the unintelligent ones.”
“Sorry Ulysses,” Lizzie apologised on Kym’s behalf, as Kym continued to mutter to herself.
“That’s a talking cat, that’s a talking cat, that’s a talking cat, that’s a talking cat –”
“I will never be over the fact you invented her, Liz,” Iris laughed, as Kym continued to grapple for as much air as possible.
Lizzie glared at her, and then gave Ulysses a ‘please will you do this massive favour for me’ look.
Ulysses sighed as if he were a sulky teenage feline. “Do I have to?”
“Please,” Lizzie smiled. That swayed the cat, and with a heavy sigh and a heavy heart, Ulysses slipped off the sofa, and prowled across the floor to the kitchen chair where Kym sat suffocating in shock.
She glanced up when Ulysses held out his paw.
“My name is Ulysses F. B. Higgensdale esquire,” Ulysses hesitated before continuing – and even then, the sarcasm in his voice was notable. “Pleasure to meet you.”
Reluctantly, Kym took Ulysses’ paw in two fingers and gently shook it.
“Okay I’m pretty sure this is cat-ism now,” Iris gave Kym a look of contempt, as in her state of complete shock, Kym kept shaking Ulysses’ paw, over and over and over, while Ulysses glared at Lizzie and Iris, who both mouthed the word ‘sorry’, before retreating to the sofa to laugh at Ulysses’ misfortune from a distance.
“Can all cats talk,” Kym asked vacantly, making it sound like more of a vague statement than a question.
“No,” Ulysses informed her. “I am an exception. Elizabeth and Iris saved me during a very dark time.”
“And you… live with them.” Again – another vague question from Kym.
“Yes,” Ulysses spoke with a patronising slowness.
“Okay, I think I’m getting this now,” Kym said slowly, as she ran the idea of a talking cat over in her head.
“Anyone want drinks?” Lizzie interrupted. “Like, anyone? Erm, tea, coffee? Yep… I’ll just… I’ll just make some drinks…”
While Lizzie was making drinks, Kym embarked upon a rigorous interrogation of Ulysses.
“Do you drink milk?” Kym asked.
“Red wine,” Ulysses purred.
“Chase mice?”
“I chase dogs.” And irritating humans, he added to himself as an afterthought.
“Do you like music?”
“ABBA.”
“Oh!” Kym’s delight at recognising ABBA was completely over the top and clear from her outburst and giggles. “I know them! They’re the ones about the super troopers or whatever.”
Yep, Lizzie thought, glancing over from the kettle. They’re the ones.
When the tea was made, and Kym seemed quite accustomed to the idea of a talking cat, she stood up and declared:
“Okay, everyone, I need to go through my idea,” Kym shepherded them all over to the sofa in a blaze of pink fur and feather-boas. “Sit. And you too, Uly-whatsit, if you want.”
Awkwardly, Lizzie, Iris, and Ulysses sat down beside each other on the sofa, looking up at Kym as she stood imperiously ahead of them, an effect not reduced by the sheer height of her high-heels. It got even more nauseating when Kym began to pace back and forth, before elegantly turning to face them all.
It was her next word that truly set the incidents in motion. Her next scheme, which would stem all from that lone, singular word, would be an injection of excitement into their life on Earth – the plan would bring them trials and tribulations, but it would shower them in great joy and happiness as well – and all of it would originate from the one-syllable word about to be spoken by Kym Gomez. There was an ominous sense of anticipation before she said it, as if the room itself knew of the colossal effect of the upcoming word.
“Men,” Kym declared.
“Women,” Iris corrected straight away, already knowing exactly the direction of the conversation.
“Aww, you’re a lesbian?” Kym grinned. “That’s cute.”
“Yeah,” Iris mused. “Hella cute when I can feel society trying to straighten me at every turn.”
“I propose, ladies and cat,” Kym spoke as if she were addressing parliament. “– that we go out on the pull.”
Lizzie had never heard such a horrific idea ever before. She could barely function in most public places, let alone anywhere where her prime goal was to actually… meet someone. Of course, her mind drifted briefly over to Leo, whether he might actually exist, just as Kym did – but that had no weight on Lizzie’s sheer detestation of the idea (oh, who was she kidding, of course it did).
But the point still stood – the thought of going out to meet people was horrific, she would much rather stay in, in her bubble of a flat, far away from any of the night life.
“Lizzinator, don’t kill me,” Kym held up her hands in defence. “I can see this is an uncomfortable idea for you – I know you’re a shy, indoors-y person – but the only way to improve your crippling self-confidence issues is to go out and take the plunge.”
“I don’t have crippling self-confidence issues,” Lizzie protested futilely, knowing full well that she definitely had crippling self-confidence issues, but also knowing she had to put up as much of a fight as possible to escape the terrifying clutches of London’s night life.
“To be fair, Liz,” Iris sounded reluctant. “You do, and you know you do.”
Lizzie grumbled, and eventually, through gritted teeth, muttered “fine…”
“YAY!!!” Kym exclaimed, delighted to have some new friends to go out clubbing with.
“Count me in,” Iris muttered through another mouthful of popcorn. “We’re going to get Lizzie her life back.”
Before Lizzie could protest, she just sat back, and smiled. She had a life – but… what was wrong with going on a night-out? Everyone else did it, perhaps it would be a laugh. And maybe, she would find some fulfilment she’d been unknowingly lacking.
Even so – she was not delighted about everyone thinking she was so sad and needed an injection of excitement in her life. Was it a crime to want to muddle through it the way she wanted, without everyone wading in and trying to deal with her problems? It made her irritated, and she wanted even more to withdraw into her own bubble of isolation (a bubble that she knew would just make her feel worse). And so she was going to keep up her miserable looks, to make clear her apathy towards the current situation.
“YAAY!!” Kym yelled, causing Ulysses to recoil as she produced sounds so loud only a cat could hear them. “Right, I’m gonna be back here tomorrow night, we’re gonna go, I have a place in mind, it’s gonna be hillares. Uly, you’re –”
“Please don’t call me that,” Ulysses scowled, as Kym seemed to fly past the sofa in her excitement towards the flat’s door.
“– coming too,” she yelled back, ignoring Ulysses’ protests.
They heard the door slam behind them, and Lizzie, Iris, and Ulysses sat back on the sofa, completely spellbound by Kym’s ‘plan’.
“Why’d you all think I need a life?” Lizzie grumbled, as she stood up and shuffled over to the Radio Times to check what TV she’d be missing when their escapade took place.
“Because,” Iris turned back to the X-Box. “You’re depressed, and I love you, and I want you to be happy!”
“I don’t appreciate being hauled out of the flat.” Bugger. She’d miss the Corrie double-bill.
“I know. But, Liz, I can see it sometimes – you just stare into space, and you hide it and you pretend you’re fine, but you’re not. No amount of medication and no amount of counselling can ever give you a taste for life again – and so, that’s what we’re going to do.”
Lizzie skulked away from the Radio Times, and over to their balcony – and she opened the doors, and stepped out into the brisk, evening air. A taste for living. The words kept echoing in her mind, they did as she slumped into one of the deck chairs, listening to the kids playing in the park below, the sound of footballs kicking, of parents sat chattering nearby. She could see the tree-lined road, and the birds making their autumnal journey from one tree to the next. Some teenagers stomped past them, scaring the birds off in their loudness, their music echoing up the buildings to the block of flats – and she heard an agitated neighbour call down below. On the balcony below, she heard a champagne bottle burst open, a celebration in liquid form, flowing into the glasses – and she heard them laugh, and thought that something wonderful must have happened.
She heard life.
And perhaps it was true. Perhaps Iris was right. Lizzie could sit and enjoy a sunset, she could find comfort in her comfort-zone – but as to actual living? As to straying further outside those boundaries, to the highs, the lows, the laughter, the tears – it all left her cold. Lizzie was getting very little satisfaction, it all just left her cold. Suddenly, she felt lower than she’d done before – the medication, the doctors, the counselling, none of it was making any difference – she was the same as she’d been after the tower fell into the pit of fire, after the Memory Graveyard. And it made her feel terrible, because Lizzie was trying – she was trying so hard to get through it.
Suddenly, she felt Iris slump down next to Lizzie – in the same deckchair, a chair there was barely enough room for both of them on, so they were rather cooped up together, and a chair was creaking ominously under their weights.
“Don’t be a negative nelly, Elizabeth,” Iris sarcastically scolded her. “You’ve come so far. I remember the days when you were really bad, and you barely left the TARDIS. And now look! You’re… selling books, serving tea, looking at the stars with me. But I want you to see more! There’s so much cool stuff in the universe. There’s also Donald Trump, but even so. Cool stuff!”
Lizzie laughed, knowing Piers Morgan was a renegade Time Lord. Iris was just trying to help her cope, just trying to help her get through all of it. Iris was just loving her. In fact, Lizzie didn’t know where she’d be without her.
“So. Operation Lizzie’s life is a go,” Iris sat back, before noticing Lizzie’s sniffing – there was definitely a smell in the air. “Yeah, I need to shower. The X-Box called me for like, two weeks.”
“And you’re the one saying I need a life…”
They both laughed at that, as they sat back in the tiny deckchair to listen to the sound of life passing them by.
***
“Oh, Uly, babes, you look stunners –”
“Learn to speak properly,” Ulysses instructed Kym, who towered over him even more than usual, due to her heels which were higher than Kym herself. It turned out that Kym hadn’t been doing any drugs, though – Iris had run a cheeky medical scan and it transpired Kym was just crazy.
The four of them were ready to go, they were just waiting for Kym to put the finishing touches to her make-up. Kym looked as if several animals had died to make her leather trousers and fur coat, and as if she were dressed in half of the UK’s gold reserves. Iris was ready, and as Lizzie looked at her, she realised how much she’d changed, from the little girl she’d once known. Ulysses had brushed his silky black coat (and Lizzie was quite certain he was wearing contact lenses to enhance the yellow in his eyes). Meanwhile, Lizzie looking her normal, unassuming self – a self she was quite happy about, and would not change to anybody’s request. Yes, she would allow people to try and help her, but she was going to be her own person during that process.
“RIGHT LADIES!” Kym screamed, as if they were already in the club and shouting over the music. “LET’S GOOOOOOO.”
Oh god, Lizzie thought to herself, as Kym charged down the stairs at a speed too fast for high-heels. The adventure was beginning, and quite frankly, she was terrified.
***
“Like, apparently, it’s a massive deal, and just because I like tits I have to make a big deal of it,” Iris complained, as the four of them hovered on the escalators in the tube station – Kym leading the way, followed by Lizzie, followed by Iris, with Ulysses bringing up the rear.
“Well darling,” Ulysses purred, from the escalator step beneath Iris. “I think it is fabulous that you’re so… gay, quite frankly.”
Iris thought for a few moments – yes. It was definitely fabulous. Even so, she would never not be irritated by the fact straight people didn’t have to come out. Love did not have to be boxed in, and gay people did not have to be seen as… outside the box.
“Thank you, Uly,” Iris nodded, grateful for the Cat’s purrs of wisdom.
“You’re always welcome, Iris,” he ignored the use of Kym’s hideous pet-name ‘Uly’, and placed a reassuring paw upon Iris’ foot.
“EVERYONE!!!! SELFIE TIME.” Kym’s voice rang out in the tube station like a fire alarm, and before the whole escalator realised what they were doing, everyone, including those who had no part in their fateful clubbing adventure, was leaning into the centre for the most magnificent selfie (apart from Ulysses, who was lifted into shot by Iris). Kym took a reassuring glance at the photo, and then yelled down the escalator to all the selfie participants, “THANK YOU EVERYONE!”
***
“RIGHT GUYS, DRINKS ON ME!!!” Kym danced into the hellish throng, throwing her arms into the air and waving them vigorously.
As soon as Lizzie stepped into the club (Ulysses under her jumper, to ensure the bouncers didn’t mistake him for a stray), she had absolutely no idea what was going on. First of all, it was notable that she could barely see, and quickly she was fumbling through a huge swarm of people, all crammed into the tight can of the nightclub like dancing, sweating, sardines. Lizzie took a deep breath as she plunged through the mob, no idea where she was going, cramped aimlessly in the sheer number of people – all she could see was darkness, flickered with streaks of red and gold and blue light, occasionally illuminating the odd head, or arm, or leg, pressed right up close to her.
As she was so packed into the dense thicket of humans, Lizzie came up from the masses for breath, and the smell of alcohol and sweat crept up her nose, so strong it almost made her faint. The volume of the music was so powerful it tore right through her, making her very innards vibrate vigorously as the dropping base ripped through her existence. All of her senses were completely overwhelmed with a visceral confusion, and she tried to hold out a hand to guide herself, but it became fatefully lost in the darkness. There was no hope – Lizzie was never going to escape this ram-packed horde – so she allowed herself to be washed away by a crowd of shouty women on a hen night.
However, when Lizzie believed she was about to be engulfed forever by the crammed crowds, a familiar hand grabbed her, and pulled her to safety. When Lizzie blinked, she was in a small clearing amongst the horrific swarm, with Iris, Kym, and Ulysses (who had deftly navigated the crowds from the floor).
“WHAT WE ALL HAVING THEN?????” Kym bellowed. Lizzie suddenly realised they were beside the bar, a heavily tattooed and pierced man leaning over.
“Can I get a tea…?” Lizzie glanced aimlessly around at the chaos descending around her.
“We should have cocktails?” Ulysses suggested, which sent Kym into a rather excited daze.
“OH. MY. LOOOOOORD. OF COURSE, ULY DARLING YOU’RE A GENIUS.”
“Yes, I am rather,” Ulysses prowled after Kym to the bar, before hopping onto a barstool, displaying his amazing feline acrobatic skills. “Hi…,” Ulysses spoke to the bartender with a silky softness. After doing a quick double take and realising that he was, indeed, talking to a talking cat, the bartender whispered ‘hi’ in return, too mystified to make it audible over the music.
Five minutes later, Lizzie, Iris, Kym, and Ulysses were sat around a table, shouting at each other to be heard.
“I have never seen you so confused!” Iris said to Lizzie – and it was true. For once, Lizzie was looking like a genuine fish-out-of-water, with no idea, at all, what chaos had engulfed her life since she’d stepped into the club.
Lizzie scrunched up her face in disgust as she took the first sip of her cocktail. “What is this?” she grimaced.
“Tequila sunrise,” Iris downed hers in one, leading to gasps from the others, who also noticed Ulysses and the bartender eying each other up.
And so their night began, a night of crazy antics and chaos. Several cocktails later (not for Lizzie, who was more focussed on not fainting under the pressure of surviving in an environment so full of… people), Kym was ploughing into the centre of the club, throwing her arms violently in the air, in an act that was probably meant to be dancing. At one point, Kym seemed to meet a rather dashing gentleman who went by the name of Brent – a gentleman who Ulysses took an instant liking to, and he spent the rest of the night watching him above the rim of his wineglass. Iris seemed to be enjoying herself as well, dancing with a few different women – and when Lizzie came over to ask Iris if she wanted another drink, Iris seemed quite… engaged.
“Iris!” Lizzie had to shout over the music. However, when Lizzie caught sight of her, in a booth, crammed up between the seat and the wall, her lips firmly locked onto a woman, Lizzie stopped herself and realised that she probably shouldn’t intrude.
“Shall I just… yeah, I’m just gonna – I’ll just… just go…”
Several hours passed, and the four of them trekked through various different clubs, and Lizzie seemed to be experiencing life at its maddest and anarchic. It wasn’t to her taste, perhaps, but Lizzie was enjoying herself, in a peculiar way. There was something magic, about seeing life tick on around her. On their adventure, she’d seen love, she’d seen break-ups, she’d seen people dancing just for the hell of it. There was something strangely reassuring in that – seeing other happy people. At the same time, it made her jealous – but most of all, she was just happy for them, and that made her happy.
So, Lizzie sat back, and she decided not to worry about the bedlam, not to panic about the commotion. Because the thing that reassured her most of all about their night-out? Lizzie had discovered there was life after what she was going through – and that made her optimistic. Perhaps, one day, she would dance again, just as Kym had, with such beautiful disregard of what everyone thought.
The pinnacle of the night, however, came when they were in club #5, and Kym, Iris, and Ulysses were doing shots. Lizzie had done the first two round – but she was a terrible lightweight and was already feeling sick. Alcohol was clearly not for her.
Someone was observing their game, however. Observing Iris…
“Hey.”
The four of them turned around, to see a gigantic, muscly, tattooed man looming over their table. His leather jacket was torn, perhaps deliberately for him to display his enormous muscles, which were bulging imperiously through the tears in the material. He scowled at Iris, and then cracked his knuckles – for he had seen Iris drink the cocktail, and he decided that he had found a challenger to his throne.
As the man stood over them, Ulysses nudged Lizzie. “While this incident unfolds, I’m going to speak to Pierre,” The cat slipped away, and began his seductive prowl to the bar, leaving his seat empty as he eyed up a handsome looking gentleman.
It was not empty for long, however, as the huge, tattooed man, who they swiftly learned went by the name of Death-Spike, descended to sit opposite Iris (dwarfing her in the process). Iris’ was not intimidated by the gigantic man, however. Instead, she leaned forward on the table and squared up to him. Their eyes became locked in a standoff, as neither was determined to blink first.
Eventually, Death-Spike spoke, in a deep, gravelly, 20-a-day voice. “I will drink you under the table,” he declared, a blood-curdling look engraved on his menacing features. At that moment, two of Death-Spike’s thugs came striding from the crowds, each balancing a silver platter upon their hands – and on top of each, was set an identical collection of shot glasses.
“Pfft,” Iris giggled in his face – something Death-Spike never took kindly to. “Whatevs. Bring it on.”
“Oh my fishsticks,” Kym interjected, as she began fumbling in her clutch-bag, spilling various make-up products all over the table. Death-Spike’s dreaded look changed from pure anger to confusion, as Kym eventually presented her phone as if it were an ancient forgotten artefact. “Need to film this, put it on Insta, hold on.”
Iris, annoyed because she’d thought Kym was complaining about something serious (clearly she didn’t know Kym well enough), wasn’t sure why this drinking game was so significant. Thankfully, Kym was on hand to provide some context.
“Death-Spike has never lost a drinking game. Ever.”
“… shit.” Iris suddenly realised what she’d gotten herself into – but there was no backing out now. So, she turned back to Death-Spike, cracked her own knuckles, and prepared to fight, for there was no way she was going to let the idiot in front of her walk away from this victorious. Meanwhile, Death-Spike was smiling smugly as Kym had been describing his reputation, and he began to rub his hands together.
The two thugs elegantly placed the two platters down in front of the belligerents – for this game was a serious contest that came with a serious reputation. A skinny man with the most-almighty braided beard crept up to the side of the table, stop watch in hand. Several phone-cameras were also pointed in their direction, just in case any evidence needed to be faked to prove Death-Spike was the winner.
“3… 2… 1… BEGIN!”
And suddenly, they were off. Iris zoned out from the madness around her, as it seemed the entire club had flocked to watch this terrifying battle – and it seemed that all of them, barring Kym and Lizzie (who was watching this with great interest and intrigue), were screaming at the tops of their lungs,
“DEATH-SPIKE DEATH-SPIKE DEATH-SPIKE DEATH-SPIKE.”
Iris could not pay attention to the thunderous chants in favour of her opponent, however – so she zoomed out, for in this contest, there were two things. Herself, and the alcohol. And time seemed to pass in slow-motion, Death-Spike’s hymns becoming muffled background noise, as Iris, one my one, trawled her way through the shot glasses, tipping the alcohol down in one, the taste, the feel of it, everything, completely bypassing her, the liquid making a one-way no-stop trip to her stomach.
Of course, for everyone else in the room, Iris did this in seconds, whisking through the shots and guzzling the tequila before Death-Spike had even looked over the rim of his first glass.
And, knowing she had aeons to spare, with a vociferous smugness, Iris slammed the last shot glass down onto the table.
The crowds erupted into gasps, and then a deathly silence followed – for everyone became so captivated in this contest that the music had been turned off, and every single person in that building was watching the events unfold. The deafening, ear-splitting environment they’d entered had been shattered by this massive stunt – for this wasn’t what was meant to happen – Death-Spike was meant to ruin his competitor, and booming applause was meant to explode through the club.
Instead, the girl had completely annihilated him, and made Death-Spike look quite ridiculous.
A few rounds later, and the mood had changed.
“IRIS IRIS IRIS IRIS IRIS,” the crowds bellowed, louder than they’d ever screamed for Death-Spike. All chants were singing her praises, all eyes in the room were on her, all hands and feet were being drummed on the floor in her favour. And when she inevitably beat the burly, muscly giant in front of her, the masses detonated into rowdy, boisterous, chaotic shrapnel, all ringing for Iris and her lead-lined stomach.
It became clear this was not a fight Death-Spike could hope to win – and so, it wasn’t long before he eventually gave up the giant gold chain hanging around his beefy neck, and named Iris ‘queen’.
While this had been going on, Lizzie had decided to slip out. This wasn’t really her scene, not at all – and she was grateful that her friends had tried, but there wasn’t anything Lizzie was going to get out of this. So, taking one last look at Iris metaphorically bitch-slapping Death-Spike, Kym watching, eyes agog, Instagram-streaming, and Ulysses flirting with Pierre at the bar, Lizzie had left the club, and made her way out into the night.
The night was bracing, but after the pressing body-heat of the club, the cold, autumn-night air was exactly what Lizzie needed. She waved awkwardly at a group of men smoking something that probably wasn’t tobacco, and walked down the street. It was late, in fact – gone two in the morning, and the majority of the wild party-goers of were cooped up were either in their clubs and pubs and house-bashes, but there were a few huddled packs on the streets, often shouting at nothing, just because it was fun.
Lizzie had seen that, tonight. People living, just because they could. Just because they were alive. She missed that, she missed having a true… thirst for living. Happy, yes. Willing to die? Well… yes. Lizzie still hadn’t processed it properly, still hadn’t come to proper grips with the funny illness going on inside her funny head. And she’d tried, she’d tried so hard to come past that depression, to come past the scars left deep by Evangeline Cullengate – but no matter how hard, Lizzie could not find a way around it. It was rooted in her, and she wanted it to go – but it wouldn’t. Lizzie didn’t think it ever would, and all that she would have, was the hope that she could cope. The hope that she’d at least salvage some happiness from her complete wreck of a life.
One could cope, but that was not to be confused with being on top of the world. On top of the world. Maggie said that – Lizzie could remember, her childhood self, walking in the garden, and Maggie saying that she was on top of the world. And not even those memories would fill Lizzie with any kind of positivity. Most people thought longingly of their childhoods, but Lizzie didn’t. What did she even have to think longingly for?
Except… the people.
And at that moment, as Lizzie meandered along that night-time street, guided only by the warm, comforting glow of the streetlamps, she saw a bridge, stretching over the Thames. Lizzie had no idea where she was, she’d just… blundered away from the club, just… walking, as if subconsciously, she was going somewhere – but her awake self wasn’t sure where. Lizzie continued on her way, and she trudged onto the bridge, making her way to the centre.
She turned, and she saw the life she’d been missing. The river, churning viscerally beneath her feet and ahead of her, twisting and turning through the city, the beating heart of London – the reason the city existed. She saw some people, half of them drunk, half of them not, giving in to the night, and dancing in the light of the moon. All of them happy, to be alive at that moment.
And ahead of her, on both sides of the river, Lizzie saw the skyscrapers, humanity reaching up to the skies as far as they possibly could – there were people, buzzing around at the top, as if they could touch the stars burning brightly above their heads. But Lizzie knew, in her heart, that the people who stood on the ground and gazed, were closer to the stars than anyone else. If you could look up and dream, if you could love something, then perhaps you would be closer to it than anyone, even if they had it in their grasp.
And she saw the final frontier, the horizon, the blurring of the murky green river into the infinite night sky, the indigo and the blue and the navy, all rolled into a watercolour splashed across the heavens above, and speckled with yellow and crimson and green, the beacons of hope for the universe. She saw the end of the miserable Earth and the arrival of the joy and euphoria of space, displayed above her now like a map, perhaps showing her where she needed to go. These were the stars, as they were a million years ago – and Lizzie loved them, and she felt that love lasting a million years, as she watched them that night. For love was a powerful thing, love could last for an infinity, and it could join people, even when they were further apart than all of time. Lizzie loved the skies, and she loved them fully and intimately.
Lizzie had people she loved, people she loved more than anything else. People who would never leave her, even when they were gone. The only reason she’d ever bent the knee to Kym, and joined her on this excursion, was so she could spend time with those people – the people who cared about her, the people who wanted to see her happy. Lizzie understood what Iris had meant, when she’d declared she was going to get Lizzie’s life back – she’d meant she was going to get those people around Lizzie – the people who loved her.
Perhaps that was the point of life, the truth behind it – love. Across all of time and all the universes, love. And the stars, and the map they’d become – perhaps that was to guide her, to help her find that life again.
At the same time, Lizzie knew that the map would never truly be enough. There was no such thing as a perfect life... but at least it would help her live. At least, as she stood there alone, the magnificent forever above her, she had some hope inspired, somewhere within her. Not all wounds heal, but Lizzie had realised that she could relieve the pain, just a little bit. Tonight, she had seen humanity living their lives, just because they could, and she had seen the stars, and realised that there was more to living than just… trawling through her day to day existence – and through all that, Lizzie realised the most important thing.
Lizzie realised she could live with herself.
There would be hard days, and dark days, and sad days. There would be days when she hated herself and wanted it all to stop. But there would also be days when she’d be so happy, and so joyous, and she’d want those days to stop as well – but not in the same way. She could live for those days.
“Ow shitshitshiit!!” cried a voice from the far end of the bridge. Way to kill the mood, Lizzie thought – but not in a miserable way. Instead, she was happy, because people tumbled onto bridges, probably blind-drunk – that was life. Her life was happening, and above all, she felt alive.
Lizzie turned, to see if the stranger needed any help – he was just standing up, brushing the grit off himself, having landed face-first on the concrete.
“I’m not drunk, I promise, I just, I just – tripped over the lamppost.”
The stranger walked into the light – and that was the moment her life changed forever.
Leo.
He was there – stood in front of her, realised in full, awkward glory, hovering in the light of the lamppost, finishing the dirt-brushing, not quite sure how to stand or what to do with his arms. Leo Akram stood there, the love of her life who didn’t actually exist…
But he did.
Because Lizzie had loved him, and she’d brought him into existence. From the deepest, darkest parts of her mind, the most magnificent thing of all had happened. Love had won, bringing Leo Akram into the real world. Lizzie turned to the stars, and she blew them a kiss, thanking them for inspiring so much hope. And she thought of Iris, and Kym, and Ulysses, and she wanted to hug them tight, for showing her the most important thing of all.
“Are you okay?” Leo asked, stepping closer to her. “Yeah, you… you probably are, I’m just – yeah, I’ll go.”
Suddenly, Lizzie realised she was crying, and quickly she wiped the tear away, not wanting Leo to see her like this (as if he knew who she was).
“You’re not okay,” Leo corrected himself, coming up close to her. His eyes met hers, then, and for the first time, in the real world, they gazed into each other. Lizzie saw it, she saw the connection forge between them, the unbreakable bond, as their eyes and everything they’d both seen became locked in a magical permanence, their souls becoming part of each other’s. She had dreamed of this moment, but nothing she could think of in her head would ever compare to the astonishing power of the two of them in real life.
Because this time, Leo Akram wasn’t just someone she’d invented, he wasn’t just a story. Leo was a person, he’d lived a life, he was himself, and she had no control over him. She hadn’t brought back a fictional construct from her mind – she had brought someone real, close to her, with the power of her love. And as they looked at each other, the world suddenly felt so much more real, the ecstasy of living pulsing electrically around them.
“Sorry,” Lizzie shrugged off the fact she was crying. “I’m also not drunk. Well, like, I drank, but like, I’m not… not drunk, I just had the one – yeah, anyway. Yes. Hi.”
“Erm, hello,” Leo muttered awkwardly, breaking off his gaze, his looks flicking awkwardly between Lizzie and his shoes. Lizzie laughed awkwardly at their little encounter, and at that powerful, mesmerising moment between the two of them. Both of them had recognised the significance behind it, both of them knew, as they looked into each other’s eyes, that the person they were looking at, was not just someone random they would meet only once. No… the two of them would meet again, and again – the two of them were not just two random people. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude on your moment. I also like to randomly look at stars. And stuff.”
Lizzie laughed a painful, stilted laugh. “Yeah. I was just, with some people, I decided I needed some air. Clubbing is… not really my thing. And I guess I was just slightly overwhelmed by… stuff.”
“Same,” Leo nodded, turning to look out at the stars with Lizzie. The two of them seemed a little less-smaller when they faced the immensities of the universe side-by-side. “I mean, same, I don’t do clubbing, and I was also with some people.”
The following silence was awkward, but both of them tried to ignore it, by looking out over the bridge. Leo sighed. Lizzie sighed. Conversation, how to make it, who said humans were naturally sociable animals? If that were the case, surely such awkwardness would never have to be endured?
“Sorry, I don’t really do… talking, at all,” Leo tried to offer an explanation, and Lizzie nodded, telling him it was fine. Reality was an awkward place, nobody was ever going to be perfect.
“Neither,” Lizzie shrugged. At their respective confessions, there was a diffusion of tension. Now, neither of them expected anything, neither of them were waiting for any conversation. They were just two people, and at that night, it felt like they were on the edge of everything. Standing, admittedly, quite awkwardly, as Lizzie was too petrified to be casual in any way at all, in case she ended up getting it wrong. As if she could get it wrong, simply by standing and doing nothing.
Why couldn’t she just… say what she felt? What was there that prevented Lizzie from saying exactly what was going through her mind, why couldn’t she put that connection between her and Leo into words, and for Leo to say exactly the same, and for them to get along like old friends? There just… was. Humans weren’t sociable animals, they were difficult animals, too focussed on self-interest to ever be truly open.
“You feel it too, huh?” Leo looked over at her, although Lizzie didn’t look at him. “As if there’s stuff you need to say, but you can’t… just because… you can’t.”
Stuff that she needed to say to him that transcended all logic and scientific thought? Yeah. And she didn’t think there would ever be a way of putting those emotions into words.
“Yep,” was all she said. Simple, one word – but something powerful enough to reaffirm what they were both thinking about each other. Small words that could reaffirm the impossible. “And there are people who expect you to put it into words, but you have no idea?”
“All the time.”
“And you’d much rather just… be quiet?”
Leo laughed, and then looked longingly out in front of him at the city, shrouded in the darkness, and yet so alive. “Yep. This is my idea of heaven.”
He paused. “Although I would kill for some better social skills.”
And Lizzie knew it, then. She was truly, properly, falling love.
She turned to him, and he was still looking at her. Their eyes met again, and it was as if they were meeting for the first time. There was that… purity between the two of them, them seeing each other as they truly were. When they were talking, the cover of society masked both of them, restricting their true selves from showing. It was only in those moments of silence both felt comfortable – and that was when Lizzie knew she’d met Leo. Someone who could be in that silence, and who could understand it and feel something from it – who could look at silence and see the beauty and tranquillity of the world hiding behind it.
There was something truly mesmerising about meeting that person
“Hello,” he waved awkwardly. “My name is Leo, I’m a professional awkward human, and I just… do awkward things.”
“O.M.F.G, LIZZNORA, THERE YOU AREEEE OH SHit I’ve fallen over hold on.”
Apparently, Lizzie and Leo’s first meetings always ended with a drunk Kym. This time, she came stumbling across the bridge, her heels proving rather awkward to walk in. Iris trailed close behind her, Ulysses prowling miserably behind. Clearly, babysitting two very drunk women was not the cat’s idea of fun.
“Heeeeeeeeeeeeey,” Iris mumbled, tripping over, Lizzie catching her before she hit the ground in drunken collapse.
“Oh, god, okay, hold on,” Lizzie steadied herself. “Sorry.” She muttered to Leo.
“It’s fine,” he reassured her, laughing as Lizzie took Iris in her arm, and hobbled over to provide balance before Kym accidentally fell over the side of the bridge.
“Oh my god,” Lizzie suddenly realised, and backtracked uneasily, her tongue just tying itself in knots. “My name – my name’s not Lizznora, can I just… yeah, not Lizznora.”
That really would have killed the magic. Except, that was probably the moment Leo revealed his second-cousin who went by the name of Lizznora.
“I mean, no offence to anyone with the name Lizznora,” Lizzie elaborated, just to cover her tracks in case Lizznora Akram existed.
“I wouldn’t mind if your name was Lizznora,” Leo said, before he cringed at his own choice of words, scrunching up his face as if he’d eaten something disgustingly sour.
Lizzie looked at Iris and Kym, and then over at Leo, and then at Kym as she lurched forward and pushed herself up against Leo.
“You’re gorgeous,” Kym placed her hands on his chest and sighed a forlorn sigh. Completely staggered, Leo looked down at Kym, suddenly realising that Kym had dozed off in the brief seconds of her being pressed against his body – and was now drooling onto his jacket. It was at this moment that Lizzie realised she was going to have to do something – and fast.
“LIZ I KNOW ALL THESE STARS!!!!!!!!!” Iris screamed off the bridge, and then started listing the names of everything shining brightly above their heads at the top of her lungs.
“Hello,” Ulysses gazed up at Leo, fire and passion burning in those amber eyes. Thankfully, Leo did not notice the talking feline.
Yep – Lizzie really had to do something.
“Erm,” Lizzie attempted to prise Kym off Leo, taking the full brunt of the next wave of drool. “I’m – yeah, I should probably go. I think I need to get these two home.”
“Can I…?” Leo held up his phone, and Lizzie’s heart began to race.
“Oh, er, yeah, sure!” Lizzie fumbled for her phone, trying desperately not to drop it. Thankfully, she managed to safely exchange numbers with Leo Akram, with very few mishaps, barring the accidental typing of a 4 instead of a 3.
“I should probably go,” Leo smiled at the odd four, and then walked away, turning back a few times to look at Lizzie, while completely panicking that he’d said something stupid and potentially ruined everything. For there had been that moment between the two of them, that gazing of eyes, that… ecstatic magic – something that he desperately wanted again. Because for once, he wasn’t feeling something he’d spent so much time feeling.
For once, he didn’t feel alone.
And as Lizzie met his eyes, she felt the same.
Then Leo disappeared into the night-time haze of the city, and she was left with Iris laughing strangely maniacally off the front of the bridge, and Kym leaning against her, whispering affectionate words in Lizzie’s ear.
“You, Lizz-D, are the bestest, most bestinatous bestust friend to ever be best. You know that? YOU KNOW – oops sorry shouting.”
After clutching her eardrums in pain, Lizzie realised that hopefully, she would never feel alone, ever again.
***
Iris had never experienced a headache like it.
It pounded violently behind her eyes, forcing itself to the front of her temple, the cruel, sadistic, aftershock of alcohol hammering inside her head. Even the soft feather pillow beneath her head felt hard as iron, and when she turned over she felt it thump against her skull. When Iris tried to open her mouth, she realised she was hideously dehydrated, the inside of her mouth dryer than industrial-grade sandpaper, strings of saliva hanging sullenly from her teeth. Her eyes were glued shut, by sleep-dust stronger than superglue – and when eventually she gripped her sticky eyelids and forced them open, the light streaming in from the window stung, sending a heavy impulse to the back of her head, as if telling the headache to be even angrier than before.
How much had she drunk? Probably quite a lot, judging by her horrific state in the bed. She was still in the clothes from the night before, but they were clasped to her by a thick layer of sweat. In fact, she probably reeked of alcohol all over, considering she could smell the faint whiff from the bedsheets.
It was only then Iris realised the reason behind her awakening. Ulysses, in his true feline ways, had slunk into the room, and he was sat in front of her on the far end of the bed, looking like the sweet, innocent cat he wasn’t.
“Iris,” he whispered to her, gently rousing her with his paw. “Iris!”
“Wh… wht… whtfgrt,” she tried to speak, but considering her blood was probably completely diluted by alcohol, it proved a marked struggle.
“Shush darling,” he reassured her. “It’s November 2017.”
“Thnk… th….”
“It’s fine. Though you must awake! We have an important visitor.”
“Whtev,” she lolled her head back to the bed, and snoozed off to the better place she was in before.
“Normally, I would be 100% beside you,” Ulysses continued. “But today – well, I fear that this may be quite pressing. For you especially.”
There was no response from Iris.
“IRIS!” Ulysses growled.
“FIIIIIIIINE,” Iris bellowed, launching herself up at a speed which sent Ulysses diving for cover, and shook up the insides of her head, causing the brutality to rage louder than it already was. She winced at the agony, clutching her head and sitting back, waiting until the pain subsided.
“Apologies for the rude awakening,” Ulysses guided Iris over to the door. “But this is important.”
***
“Can’t we do this when I’m like… actually alive,” Iris blundered aimlessly out of the bedroom, her eyes half closed as to avoid looking at as much light as possible. Her hair was an untidy straggle, and she realised that she probably should’ve showered and changed. But Ulysses had proclaimed the importance of the situation, and so she had little choice. Lizzie was there, hovering in the kitchen. Kym sat at the kitchen table, looking less glamorous than usual – her eyes were sunken, she was make-up free, and she looked as if she were ready to be sick at any moment. Judging by the bucket beside her, Iris expected that vomit was likely.
And then Iris saw the other person sat at their kitchen table, and suddenly, the light seemed brighter than it had before.
“You?!” Iris exclaimed, slumping onto the sofa, because in her current state, she just couldn’t be bothered to deal with what was about to happen. She had no idea how the person at the table had found her, all she knew was that a great can of worms was about to be opened.
“Wait?” Lizzie looked at the woman at the table, and then over at Iris. “You and Jada know each other?”
Iris, in mystified, yet head-achey confusion, sat up, suddenly realising that the can of worms was larger than she’d even expected. “More to the point, you and Jada know each other?”
The woman sat opposite Kym at the kitchen table was none other than Jada Haruno – hunter of Artemis, who Lizzie had met back on New Earth. They’d taken Aldora Bagget down together… they’d solved the mystery of the faceless children.
To Iris, the woman sat at the kitchen table was none other than… well, she wasn’t actually sure of her name. She was just the random women she’d met in the club the night before, the woman she’d been kissing quite… intimately.
“We met last night,” Iris muttered sheepishly, noticing Jada looking down at the table in exactly the same sheepish way. Suddenly, it all fell into place for Lizzie - Jada had been the woman Iris had been with at the club, she just hadn’t realised, considering they were sort of… on each other. “So, hold on, you’re not from now?”
“No,” Jada held up her wrist, upon which was some kind of… teleportation bracelet.
“Oh, wonderful,” Iris muttered. “Only me.”
“Something is happening,” Jada explained, with a typical ominousness that just caused Iris to grumble and slump back down onto the sofa. She could see Lizzie in the kitchen trying not to laugh at Iris irritableness, before turning back to Jada.
“Okay, hold on babes, I am lost a.f.” Kym’s unusual silence until this point was most likely caused by that horrific hangover she was nursing – a hangover that seemed to have manifested itself in a similar force to Iris’. “How do you two know her, but not know that you both know her?”
“I met Lizzie a while ago in unrelated circumstances,” Jada said. “I met Iris last night when recceing the current situation –”
Iris gawked and then grinned. “That was only the recce?”
Jada tried to hide her embarrassment and reluctance to continue by putting on a steely expression, which Iris just found all-the-more adorable. Meanwhile, Lizzie shuffled a bit further to the corner, not sure whether she was interrupting something, and Kym continued her spell of out-of-character silence.
“Can we please get down to business?” Jada looked around at all of them, causing Kym to look up slightly, Lizzie to move further forward, and Iris to hoist an interested expression on her face, even though she didn’t really care about the situation at all, and was just interested in playing along in some kind of one-sided roleplay.
“What do you know of the Qlerics?” Jada said.
Lizzie could remember them well – a group of intergalactic clerics, the high-ranking members of a highly regimented, corrupt church. They also took the strange form of bulbous, frog-like creatures. Most recently, in fact, during an encounter involving a blazing floor, a broken window, and a TARDIS carrying a chandelier carrying a chair carrying Iris.
“Isn’t he that guy on the telly?” Kym asked, which was met by an incredulous look from Jada, who then looked at Lizzie with nothing short of a look of despair.
“Yeah… we met them a few times,” Lizzie stepped in. And she’d hated them, each of those times. They ruled worlds with their religious power, they took decent, good people for everything they had. They banned people from marrying who they loved, and they persecuted anyone who dared love anyone the Qlerics didn’t deem ‘appropriate’.
Jada’s look turned icy. “Then you will understand they are a highly corrupt, highly authoritarian, and highly prejudiced, group.”
Iris groaned, deliberately being difficult and over-the-top. “Yeah, the church are evil, we all know that.”
“I got banned from church when I was a kid,” Kym mused, gazing vacantly out of the window. “I stole the biscuit things they have at communion.”
“… right.” Iris scooped herself up and meandered haphazardly into the kitchen, where she began to pour herself a bowl of cereal.
Kym continued, a nostalgic smile on her face, a she reminisced over the good old days. “And I drank all the wine. I thought it was Ribena.”
“As I was saying,” Jada interrupted them before they wandered off into even inaner territory. “The Qlerics are active on Earth. They plan to evangelise the planet.”
Iris took a bite of the cereal, then looked at it with the same hungover look of contempt she’d given the church. Lizzie, meanwhile, was more concerned about the forced conversion of every human to a specific religion.
“How would they do such a terrible thing?” asked Ulysses, uncurling himself from Lizzie’s feet at the sheer horror of the thought.
“They have a mind-control device,” Jada explained, the very thought of it making her squirm. She’d seen the effects of the J35us-90, and the way it could immobilise whole worlds, oppressing them with the faith of the Qlerics. “They plan on activating it. However, thankfully, the device is easy to block. You simply have to… communicate to everyone on Earth that the Qlerics are telling lies.”
That was perhaps more concerning than Jada realised. “How do we do it?” Lizzie asked.
“We have no choice but to wait. The device has to be activated on the planet’s surface – when it begins, I’ll teleport us there. Lizzie – you understand humanity, so it will be your job to induce the thought.”
Wonderful. Having the fate of everyone’s free-will on her mind wasn’t exactly a comforting thought.
“I will return when it’s time.”
With that, Jada stood up and put on her coat, before she left. Iris side-lined her cereal, Kym was dozing on the table, Ulysses was watching a bird with interrogative eyes – and Lizzie looked around her as they all just returned to their lives. People were funny, even in the fate of impending doom they all just… carried on as if nothing was about to happen.
Suddenly, it looked as if Iris had suddenly realised something very, very important, and she rushed off. Lizzie was not surprised –
***
“Jada!” Iris called down the stairs. Jada did not stop – she kept her head down, looking at the floor. Iris could understand.
But then, she turned around. “Yes?”
“You can’t just… ignore what happened?” Iris protested, ploughing down the stairs at a speed too fast for the current state of her head. However, she did not care. She had experienced last night, and it was magical – and she couldn’t just let Jada go.
“Yes, Iris. I can.”
And Jada truly believed that she could. After all – Iris had just… left. Jada would never expect someone like that to ever show any interest again – and so the fact Iris was meeting her on the grubby little staircase stinking of alcohol and looking a complete wreck, lead to slightly mixed signals. Mixed signals that Jada did not need.
“But we…?”
“Yes?” Jada said it as if she were asking what the point was – for it seemed lost on her that there ever was any point to it, when Iris had just decided to run.
“Look, yes, I left, I’m sorry, I’m a bitch, can we just put it all behind us?” Iris gave Jada her best puppy-dog eyes, knowing that within seconds, Jada would be in her arms again. Those eyes, her charm – they always worked, and she was confident they would work again.
Jada, however, just looked bemused. “No. You can’t just say that and expect me to jump into bed with you. I don’t have time for games, Iris.”
“Look, okay…,” Iris hesitated, not at all sure how to go about saying what needed to be said. Opening her heart to people was hard – that was, after all, the whole reason she ran away. It was either running, or masking the actual talking stuff with jokes, and she didn’t think that would go down well. “I was… scared.”
“You’re not the first person, and you won’t be the last.”
“Just give me a bloody chance!” Iris protested. “I can’t be perfect.”
Jada looked at the girl in front of her. That was all she was. A girl, who the real world was waiting for – a real world that Iris seemed willing to forget about until it suited her.
“Time to grow up, Iris. It was nice meeting you.”
Remorselessly, Jada turned and walked away.
Iris tried to find words to shout after her, words to communicate how she felt, but there weren’t any. “You’re not perfect either!” was all she could find, but she wasn’t even sure if she said it loud enough to be properly heard. Because she was so shocked – and it wasn’t even as if their conversation had been long, or overly angry. In fact – that was the crushing thing – for once, there was nothing Iris could shout, nothing she could scream at Jada, to make her listen.
In fact, she would be half-tempted to say Jada was being no better than her, but Iris couldn’t bring herself to think it, when it would just be hypocrisy at its finest.
Iris backed away, back up the stairs – as if she were backing away from herself, knowing that something had to change.
***
“And like, someone will assume something about you, and you just go along with it because you can’t say otherwise?”
“Yep,” Lizzie laughed. Her all the time. And she could see the visible relief on Leo Akram’s face, when he realised he wasn’t alone in suffering such an awkward fate.
The two of them were sat in a nice little café, in comfy arm-chairs on either side of a coffee table. It reminded Lizzie of the café/bookshop she’d been working in, with its cramped shelves of books and other miscellaneous ornaments, and the paintings hung on the walls, and that warm cosiness that seemed to envelope you. It seemed even more prevalent, as the rain was lashing down outside. Lizzie and Leo looked out on the street, watching the passers-by, fumbling with umbrellas, dashing from place to place, whipping up their raincoat collars. They had been out together a few times since the bridge incident - various bars (quiet ones, on their own), and when they realised that it wasn't exactly their thing, smallish cafés.
It made Lizzie feel even safer, wrapped up in the arms of that cosy café, on the verge of something bleak, dark, and miserable. And as she watched Leo opposite her, she realised how on-the-verge she was with him as well. They were so close to something, even now, and yet… yet it wasn’t there. It felt as if there was something they both needed to talk about, but neither of them had. Lizzie was worried that the question was coming, and she could feel her heart pounding, her palms sweating, knowing that it was inevitably going to fall on them.
Leo was like her. Awkward and clumsy with words, and with the social skills of... well. With the social skills of a Lizzie Darwin. Except, unlike Lizzie, whose awkwardness was just stupid, Leo's was funny. He was funny, and charming, in his own weird way. He was an artist, who lived not far across town, working on comics at the moment, but always drifting from job to job, picking up anything that needed to be painted. And this Leo... he was his own Leo. Not like the one drawn straight out of her head, what might have been just a crude, cardboard cutout in comparison to the real object. This Leo had a family, proper likes and dislikes. Hatreds and passions, issues and problems - he had a life.
And Lizzie knew it was going to happen – that unavoidable question, that was inevitably going to rise at some point or another. The two of them had spotted something in each other, not long after they’d first met. Perhaps a sort of… recognition of their struggles, and she knew that one day, they would have to discuss it.
“Okay, look,” Leo began, and Lizzie instantly knew now was the moment. And she wanted to back out of it, it being the last thing that she wanted to talk about – but Leo’s insistence at proceeding was clear. “I… I’m… not great at relationships, because…”
He gestured to his head, deliberately avoiding saying the words. It was not an easy thing to talk about.
“Yeah… same, kind of, haha,” Lizzie muttered, looking down at her shoes and then out the window at life passing by. An escape from having to face what was going on in her head. Perhaps that was why she didn’t want to talk about it with Leo. It meant it was real, and she’d still barely accepted it. Half the time, she wasn’t even sure if she had accepted it.
“I guess, that if we… each understand what the other is going through…?” Leo suggested, broaching the subject carefully.
“Yeah, Leo, I’m… I’m not great at talking about it, so…”
“It helps, you know. And I can see it… I can see you want to talk about it, you just… can’t find the words.”
Lizzie was almost disconcerted with the amount Leo understood her. She wanted nothing more for everyone to just understand – but she knew that she’d have to find the words, and she knew how hard that would be. Lizzie wanted people to understand, to just… get how it felt, with a look, with a quick glance. And she knew that that was just as impossible as finding the words. Except… when they’d stood on that bridge, with the stars above them, Leo had gazed into her eyes and there had been that moment of mutual knowing. Lizzie wanted that moment back.
Now, she sat there, as far back in her chair as possible, her eyes refusing to meet his. The connection broken, that moment lost forever.
“I know you’re scared, Lizzie. Talking about this stuff, it helps.” Leo continued… because he could see it… she could see her bottling stuff up, desperate to just… get it off her chest, to have someone to listen to her. “I need someone to talk to about it.”
But Lizzie continued to suffer in silence.
“Lizzie… I am lost, and I think… I think I need you to help me through it.”
And as Leo looked at her, he was so confused. Why was she suddenly being so cold, so reluctant? She couldn’t even look at him, her eyes were wandering to every other part of the room.
“Lizzie… why won’t you talk to me about this?”
And then she snapped at him, the sum of all his words just getting a bit too much to bear.
“Because believe it or not, Leo, you’re not the first person to ever suffer from anxiety, or depression.”
A silence fell, partly because Lizzie was so shocked and taken aback by her own words. Leo looked up at her, bemused towards this new side of Lizzie.
“I thought you understood,” he said, looking out the window himself. “I thought you knew what it was like.”
“I do, Leo,” and for once, she dared to look him in the eyes, because it was the truth, and she needed him to know it. “I’ve suffered from depression, and perhaps it’s just made me bitter. Perhaps it’s changed me and made me into something I really, really hate, I don’t know. Perhaps I might as well not bother coping, because me coping is just me being a horrible person.”
She paused, taking in deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. But the tirade kept coming out of nothing, perhaps, but partly self-loathing, and partly anger towards Leo.
“But seriously – if you are looking for a therapist, I can’t do this. I can’t tell you everything is going to be fine, because I don’t know. And maybe you’re going to hate me but that’s… that’s just how I feel.”
And another spell of silence followed, as Leo began to grasp Lizzie’s words.
“… right. Well, if that’s… that’s how you feel,” he whispered, his voice choked.
It was how Lizzie felt – and she wouldn’t let it slide, she wouldn’t apologise to him. She could stand by him, without a shadow of a doubt, she could support him – but there was no way she could babysit him, she couldn’t have him reliant on her, when she could barely be reliant on herself. It wasn’t fair on him, and above all, it wasn’t fair on herself. She wouldn’t just be his… vehicle to a recovery.
“I think, Lizzie, you’re scared,” Leo began, as if scrambling for some justification. “You’re scared of getting close to someone, scared of… trusting them.”
“I am terrified,” she admitted, knowing that placing her trust in someone else was one of the things she found the hardest. “But Leo… if you want to do this, I can’t just be your rock.”
“We would support each other, Lizzie. That’s what people in relationships do.”
“Then…,” she thought about it. “Perhaps I’m not strong enough for a relationship, who knows.”
She most certainly didn’t. In fact, she wasn’t sure she knew herself anymore.
“Look,” she grabbed her stuff, and then stood up to leave. Leo made to say something, trying to find some words to use, but he couldn’t. “I can’t do this,” Lizzie admitted, and she knew it was the truth. “I… I need to go. I’m sorry.”
Lizzie made her way out into the rain, and Leo watched her from the windows as she walked quickly into the mist and the drizzle, before becoming lost in the misery of the outside world.
***
“The truth about love, mist-tress,” K9 sat on the sand, a pair of aviator sunglasses balanced precariously in his visual receptors (supposedly high quantities of sunlight could lead to distortion in the pixels). Iris had also placed a sunhat on his head, for no reason other than that it made her laugh. Ulysses was curled up in K9’s shade, dozing in the mid-day sunshine.
Paradise 5 went by that name, simply because it was renowned for being a… well, paradise. It wasn’t anymore, of course – it had become a location modified for tourism and money-making. Once upon a time, it had been a planet of beautiful beaches, jungles, tropics – now it was industrialised with shops selling tat, and buckets and spades, and piers. Of course, the beaches were what everyone came for, but above all, Paradise 5 was a prime holidaying location, with hotels, restaurants, amusement arcades, theme parks – stretching over the entire planet.
Lizzie, as an Earthling, would liken the transformation to a remote Bahamian outpost being turned into a British seaside town, with fish and chips. Except, there was no denying, Paradise 5 certainly had heart, and that was why the Doctor, Cioné, Lizzie, and Iris, along with K9 and Ulysses, had decided to come on a bit of a mini-break. Lizzie, who normally hated beaches, was willing to come along, still feeling dejected over Leo. Iris, meanwhile, was still hacked off about Jada. And so there they were, a family, a little more miserable than usual, upon the beach.
“Weirdly quiet,” Cioné had muttered, through the mouthful of a chip, when they’d set up their deckchairs and rug on the beach. The sun was beating down on them, and they were all lathered in sun-cream – especially Lizzie, who, with a complexion the same colour as milk, was required to use rather a lot.
“Suspiciously so…,” said the Doctor, as he plonked himself down in a deckchair, and erected his sunhat above his eyes, before he began to doze off to sleep. Lizzie took the other deckchair, where she read her book, while Cioné and Iris were embracing their inner children, and building sandcastles (because why not?).
“Mum, Dad, please be quiet while K9 laments the truth about why we all truly die alone, with no hope at all,” Iris sat with the bucket beside her, trying, and failing, to make her first construction. It was not going well.
K9 seemed to finish running his calculations. “Love originates from the human brain as a release of certain chemicals. Frequently this is linked with sexual attraction, occurring –”
“Thanks K9,” Iris shut the dog up, not sure that she wanted to hear anymore from whatever robot-dog-google K9 used.
“You are welcome, mistress Iris.”
Lizzie had long since decided that no matter who Iris consulted, she was not going to find any answers to her questions. The truth behind love. Lizzie had realised that the truth was, it never works out as it does in dreams. One can dream, one can write about a happy-ever-after, but getting there is much harder than one can ever comprehend. Since Lizzie had come to accept that as truth, she had abandoned the idea of Leo Akram. And she felt freer because of it. Occasionally she felt worse, but most of the time, she was certain that that was just a consequence of the freedom from her misguided optimism.
“I’ve just made a very, very bad mistake,” the Doctor gulped, using the voice he uses whenever the universe is about to come to an end. He was looking past the three of them, at something going on down the far end of the beach.
“Oh yes?” Cioné glanced up at him from the wreck of her sandcastles.
The Doctor, meanwhile, was glancing around urgently, a sheepish look on his face. He seemed to be looking for an exit. “This, er, isn’t the planet I promised to take you all.”
The three of them looked up at him. “Well, where are we?” Iris asked.
“It’s, a, er…,” the Doctor stuttered, trying to find the words that would explain their fate.
“Go on!” Cioné hurried him up.
“A, erm, colony,” the Doctor explained.
Cioné’s befuddled look explained what all of them were thinking. “What do you mean, a ‘colony’?”
“I mean,” the Doctor repeated. “It’s a… colony.”
They noticed the Doctor subtly pointing over at something, as if he were trying not to be noticed. When the three ladies turned to look, all in sync, their jaws dropped.
Six people, playing volleyball.
And they were stark, bollock, naked.
It was at this most unfortunate moment, Ulysses F. B. Higgensdale woke up, and he turned his whiskers to the nudist cause visible at the end of the beach. “Hello,” he purred.
Meanwhile, Iris raised her sunglasses, while the Doctor was already on his feet and folding up the deckchairs. Lizzie just sat, paralysed in a state of pure shock.
“How do we leave?” asked Cioné.
“We left the TARDIS on the other side of the beach,” Lizzie regained herself, shutting her book and preparing to leave.
“I think we should stick around,” Iris laughed, while the three others seemed insistent on leaving. Ulysses was on Iris’ side, while K9 sat around vacantly in the sand. Within a flash, their stuff was ready, and they made to leave. Grumbling, Iris sat up and began to follow them. It was at that moment they all had to stop and turn around, realising that K9 was ‘beached’, as it were – his wheels couldn’t trundle over the sand.
“Iris, pick him up,” the Doctor instructed, leaving Iris to miserably try and scoop up K9, carrying him uncomfortably under one arm. Then, the Doctor led the way, Cioné trailing behind him, with Lizzie and Iris bringing up the rear – a turn of phrase more appropriate for their current situation than any other.
“The truth behind love,” Iris gestured around her with her non-K9 carrying arm. “Being so miserable that you end up accidentally sunbathing on a nudist beach.”
“It’s not… that miserable,” Lizzie muttered to herself, waving awkwardly at a couple playing chess. “Not the nudity thing, I mean, the miserableness, it’s not that miserable.”
“… right,” Iris murmured, before laughing at Lizzie’s slight… communication mishap. “If you say so…”
Lizzie hesitated… what did Iris mean by that? Although, she was quite certain.
“Me and Leo, turns out, are…perhaps too similar,” Lizzie stated.
“Wroooong,” Iris groaned, sick and tired of Lizzie’s self-pity. “You two are perfect for each other, just get on with it, would you?”
Lizzie didn’t think they were as perfect for each other as everyone might think. “He wants different things to me –”
“– you’re completely terrified of any close relationship because it means opening up,” Iris interrupted sarcastically.
“– that as well,” Lizzie acknowledged. “Also…,” and this was something she hadn’t yet told anybody, but it was true, and she could feel the pressure hanging over her. “He’s a guy,” Lizzie said. “And like… I always feel judged when I go for like, guys.”
The two of them glanced ahead, to see the TARDIS glimmering in the distance. The distance – they still had a while to trek.
“The biphobia train in the universe is strong, Lizzie,” Iris declared. “Don’t listen to it.”
That was much easier said than done – but it was much easier to look past than Lizzie’s other qualms. She still wasn’t sure whether she’d be able to cope in a relationship with Leo.
“Leo is an… intimate guy, and I am not,” Lizzie admitted, knowing that their polarising views on being close to someone would not be easy. “An intimate person, I mean. And not a guy as well.”
“Exactly,” Iris shrugged, as if it were the most casual thing in the world. “You stop him being so needy, he makes you stop bottling it all up.”
When Iris said it, she made it sound so simple – simple enough that Lizzie perhaps found a faint glimmer of optimism in it. She knew it would not be so simple – but Lizzie also knew that Iris was right. They were good for each other… they could be, if Lizzie was brave enough to stick at it. Above all, if Leo was brave enough too.
“Well, if Leo and I can be together, so can you and Jada –”
Iris began to protest, having fully buried Jada in her memories. Sort of. Half. “Don’t change the subject.”
Lizzie had just confessed more of her inner thoughts then, than she had to anyone else in the last god-knows-how-long. It was Iris’ turn. “You were… very intimate, that time…”
“Yes, and I ruined it, because I ran away, because I am one hell of a commitment-phobe.” Iris set her sights firmly on the TARDIS, so she didn’t have to look at Lizzie being so… interrogative.
“Iris…,” Lizzie looked straight at her, and with total honesty and truth, said “Don’t get lack of self-confidence mixed up with being a commitment-phobe.”
Iris stopped, K9 nearly falling out of her arms as she did (K9 was feeling heavier, and causing their walk to feel rather ponderous). But Lizzie’s words hit home, they… touched on something Iris had perhaps been trying to keep hidden. Everyone seemed to think that people like Iris were bursting with self-confidence… but often it was the loudest people that doubted themselves the most, and Iris had learned that first hand. Masking her insecurities with noise and humour.
“You think?” Iris asked Lizzie, needing her to say it again, just to reassure her.
“Yes,” Lizzie said simply. And that was enough. Iris was young, she was nervous, only just coming out into the big wide universe. Mistakes were meant to happen, it was only natural she should have made them then – and even more natural that she’d made them out of fear.
Iris dropped K9 onto the sand, and as she listened to him land with a soft thud, she hugged Lizzie. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Lizzie smiled, aware that they probably looked completely ridiculous, two clothed people hugging in the centre of a nudist beach.
The TARDIS was not far away, now – but perhaps it would not be so open as that strange conversation on that naked beach.
***
Two Days Later
“Hey.”
Jada Haruno was in a coffee bar, somewhere in that rainy Earthen city of London. Her laptop was open in front of her, as she continued to track the Qleric’s latest scheme to brainwash the planet. It wouldn’t be long – she knew that. They had bided their time long enough, and Jada was ready to take them down, no matter what the cost. Enough people had been oppressed by them, and she was determined to prevent that from happening.
She heard the voice beside her – a familiar voice, and she knew it straight away. Jada had been thinking about the voice a lot.
“How’d you find me?” Jada turned to Iris, who’d sat herself down beside her, before glancing nervously around her as if she were expecting something terrible to happen.
“The TARDIS. I kind of tracked you here. Sorry.”
Even though Iris wasn’t sorry at all, she was just happy to have found Jada.
“Look. I was being childish. I am young. And also probably older than you, which is weird, but emotionally, I am young.”
Jada turned to look at her laptop, simply because it was easier than having to listen to Iris’ words. That was her, assuming that Iris had words to say. She wasn’t even sure what to say. But she braced herself, knowing that the conversation she was about to have, the speech she was about to make, was going to have to be the greatest set of words she’d ever strung together in all her life.
“Please, give me a chance.”
A bit rubbish, but it was a good starting point.
“I ran, because I was scared. I’ve not done this before, I doubted myself. I’m good at that, see.”
Perhaps the reason Iris had doubted herself, was because… well, she’d only just truly confessed it to herself, but she was in love. She thought Jada Haruno was the most beautiful woman she’d ever laid eyes on, and she wanted to be with her, and Iris was determined to do anything to make that happen.
Iris paused, not sure whether to say what she wanted to say. But she did, because perhaps it was what she needed to say.
“I know you’re scared too.”
And that was okay. Fear was normal, just another part of life. It made Jada hesitate.
“You’re a bit like Lizzie, you find relationships hard. Trust and all that. Solitary people who find being together difficult.”
Jada turned to her, and for the first time since their conversation on that grubby little staircase, their eyes met.
“Please, Jada. I want to understand.”
“I am an independent person,” Jada proceeded straight away, before bending the lid of her laptop so she was fully focused on Iris. Her heart was pounding – both of their hearts (three hearts in total), were pounding, as they both knew how they truly felt. They just needed to realise it. “And… I am withdrawn. I have spent my life alone, and so I am… used to that. And I hope… that you will understand that when I say, I can’t be with you, it’s because I would be no good for you.”
Iris was crying, now – she could feel Jada slipping away from her.
“You are a wonderful person, Iris. You deserve better than that.”
“Please,” Iris put her hand on Jada’s, but Jada pulled it away, as if it would make what she was saying any easier for her to comprehend. Jada looked Iris in the eye – because at least she had the decency to do what she was about to do, with honesty, and with truth.
“But,” Jada said, her icy features dissolving. “I can’t ignore how I feel.”
And she placed her palm on the side of Iris’ face, and leaned in, and kissed her. Iris kissed her back, and the sun streamed in the windows around them both, illuminating them in the happiest, warmest light. That kiss, its nervousness, its slight awkwardness – that didn’t matter, because the kiss still felt perfect. It was both of them, opening up who they truly were, Iris and her self-doubt, and Jada and her loneliness. That stuff, it didn’t go away, but it was there, out in the open, for both of them to deal with. Together.
Together… and speaking of which, Iris had some thoughts of her own.
“Marry me, Jada.”
Jada instantly backed away, not out of unwillingness, merely out of complete disbelief. When Iris mused back over it, perhaps it was a little bit impulsive, a little bit crazy. Perhaps it would all go terribly wrong – but they were young! Reckless decisions, that was what they were meant to be doing. Jada hesitated, completely uncertain of what to say, the shock draining her of all rational thinking – of all thinking in general. In her surprise, she didn’t flounder, she didn’t stumble, she merely sat back in complete silence. But she had to say something.
So, she spoke from her heart, with her brain having no idea the word about to leave her.
“Yes.”
They both laughed, and then kissed again, and then laughed – simply because it was probably a very stupid decision, and they were both in hysterics at their recklessness. But they were captivated in the moment, and at that moment, all that mattered was each other.
***
They met at Leo’s flat. It was small, just him living there… but it was bursting with life. A life, perhaps, that Leo Akram didn’t feel. But Lizzie glanced at the photos on the mantelpiece, of Leo’s family, of his friends. Of long-gone days, and memories to be treasured. There were posters on the wall, and all sorts of nerdy film and comic-book stuff on the bookshelves that Lizzie didn’t really understand or care about. Except – she did care. She cared because Leo cared.
“Star Wars fan, huh?” Lizzie asked, as he showed her in.
“Yep,” Leo muttered. “You like sci-fi?”
“Not really,” Lizzie admitted, nervously sitting down as Leo allowed her to. “I think it only works when it’s told around the characters.”
A bit like life, Lizzie had often thought. That revolved around the people, and so anything that didn’t always confused her. Ironic really, considering half the time, people confused her more than anything else. Especially during moments like her current situation – when she was sitting opposite someone, with an entire script planned in her head. Except, when arriving at the situation, and assessed what was going on, the script was useless. One couldn’t script life, it seemed, it just… happened, randomly and impulsively.
That was why Lizzie had always found life so hard to cope with.
“Look, I’m sorry… I shouldn’t have had a go at you,” Lizzie said. Personal conversations… she always found them slightly stilted, as if she rarely put any meaning behind any words. She always just said what she said, for the person she was talking to.
Lizzie stopped herself, knowing that she couldn’t do that for Leo. Leo deserved her… the truthful her. Not the stock-Lizzie she rolled out whenever she talked to any random person, because she wanted Leo to be so much more than just a random person.
“Well… I kind of am,” she muttered, realising that it might not be what Leo wanted to hear, but it was what she needed to tell him – especially if there was any chance of anything happening. “I shouldn’t have snapped, and yes, I am a bit too reserved, perhaps. But… I can’t take back what I said about not being your therapist. Because I can’t, and… I won’t try to be. I’ll stand with you, all the time. But if all you want is a counsellor, then… that’s not me.”
She had told him, now. Leo would have to try and live with that. Lizzie looked at him, and saw him for the beautiful person that he was. She wanted to love that person, she wanted to support him, but she did not want to be used by him.
“Look,” Leo said, because he had words of his own to say to Lizzie. “I’m clingy, I’m needy, I know – I don’t want sympathy. I am pitifully socially cringeworthy, and maybe I need sympathy for that.”
Lizzie laughed, and Leo smiled to himself. Seeing her laugh in that… sheepish, reserved way she did, it just made him happy.
“We can do it together. Living,” Leo said, and he meant it. He wouldn’t be reliant on her, he wouldn’t use her. They would do it all together. Lizzie could help him, he would help her. Perhaps, they would bring out the best in each other.
“I’d like that,” Lizzie smiled at him, as Leo took her hands and held them close. “I mean, look… I’ll trust you, I’m sorry I didn’t before. Trust, and stuff, it’s… hard.”
“I get it,” Leo scooched up on the sofa next to Lizzie, pulling her close. He was going to listen to her. He was going to wait for her, with an infinite amount of patience, until eventually, she found the words she needed.
That was when she looked up at him, and she felt a flicker of realisation. One might call it acceptance, but Lizzie wasn’t sure. Acknowledgement, perhaps. Or maybe it wasn’t acceptance. Maybe to accept something, you didn’t truly have to understand it. Perhaps she’d been getting it wrong. But now, Lizzie could speak with confidence – and it only occurred to her, that when they met, she hadn’t introduced herself properly to him.
“Hello. My name is Lizzie Darwin, and I have depression.”
Perhaps she didn’t understand it, but now, she was willing to talk. Wiling to be open, without being reserved, without being awkward. She was willing to be honest and truthful. She was sad, and she didn’t want to suffer that alone any longer. A lot of her life, she’d been so alone, but she didn’t feel that any longer, as she lay back on Leo’s suffer, the two of them nestled close together. She’d been so reluctant to trust, but now, Leo had heard words from her, more open and more honest words than she’d offered to anybody else.
And Lizzie glanced into his eyes, and there was that look between them, that connection, that understanding. Something so strong it had taken her attention away from the stars, because she’d discovered something even more beautiful.
For the first time in her life, Lizzie Darwin was willing to love.
***
The morning of the wedding came.
Due to the impulsiveness of the occasion, there weren’t going to be many guests. But that was what Iris and Jada both wanted – no fuss, just to have that… unity. As long as they were together, it didn’t matter how many people were there. At least, the people who mattered were there. And they waited, in the registry office, for the ceremony to begin. The Doctor and Cioné were there, of course, as parents of the bride. They’d been, admittedly, slightly taken aback when Iris told her she was getting married. But, they had decided to support her. Lizzie was there, with Leo, of course. Kym had come along, in the largest set of heels Lizzie had seen her in so far. Ulysses sat upright on a seat, a white bowtie around his neck, contrasting against the inky black of his silky fur.
However, the happy couple were yet to be seen. They thought they’d been about to appear, when they’d heard the doors to the registry office smash open.
“Oi, oi, Lizzie!” Chasya Tomkins, one of Jada’s fellow hunters of Artemis, strode into the room, her bow slung across her leather jacket. Neither Chasya, nor Fortuna, seemed dressed in wedding-like attire. In fact, they both seemed as if they were going to continue their usual business fighting injustice across the universe. Fortuna smiled at them, as they took up the seats on Jada’s side of the office.
“How’s things?” Fortuna asked her.
“Erm, yeah,” Lizzie nodded. “Pretty good.”
For once, Lizzie didn’t feel as if she were lying when she said that. She was pretty good. She wasn’t perfect, but Lizzie didn’t believe there was such thing. On that day, in that registry office, Lizzie was happy. Happy to see Iris get married, happy to be with Leo. Happy to be alive. It wouldn’t always be so straightforward, but for now… she would hold onto a day that it was.
“They’re taking their time…,” the Doctor glanced at his watch with a confused look on his brow.
“Well darling,” Cioné reassured him, putting her hand on his knee. “If Iris is anything like me.”
“Fashionably late,” the Doctor thought back to that wonderful day, even if the proceedings had been slightly delayed. Now, it was his own daughter about to tie the knot, and he felt rather bittersweet about it all. His little girl, all grown up. He thought back fondly to that funny day, with Ode to Joy, and the hospital. The day his family had been sealed forever, when he’d stepped out of whatever lonely, sad place he was in, and faced his responsibilities as a parent. He thought back to all those days, of Iris as a little girl, as she’d grown up. Their laughter, their tears, their moments of beautiful joy.
And all of it had led to now.
“Reminiscing as well?” Cioné asked him. After all… she’d been on exactly the same path down memory lane. Thinking of her beautiful daughter, and all those days they’d spent together. Cioné thought of the love, that bound her to her daughter. The different kind of love, that bounded her daughter to Jada. It had brought them all together, and it had made them all happy.
Today, was a happy day.
Suddenly, the doors smashed inwards again. And this time, it wasn’t two late guests.
“It’s the Qlerics, they’re here!” Jada yelled.
It also wasn’t just the happy couple. Iris ran down the aisle, closely followed by Jada who had readied her crossbow, and was steadily firing energy bolts at the monsters as they strode down the aisle after her.
The Qlerics were huge creatures, tall enough to just brush under the ceiling of the registry office. They were bulky, their flesh green, speckled and slimy, with blinking, frog-like eyes flickering around the room at the wedding guests. Their crimson robes trailed behind them as they stomped menacingly through the guests, driving a wedge of division as they prepared to indoctrinate the planet with their faith.
“Just to say!” Iris shouted at the intergalactic evangelical priests, forgetting that both of her parents were in the room. “We’re lesbians, we have shagged so much and we’re not even married yet, just letting you know…”
It all went so quickly, the giant, humanoid frogs briskly charging past the guests. Cioné leapt up from her seat, dashing over to Iris, and the Doctor followed soon after, grabbing his sonic screwdriver. Ulysses arched his back and readied his claws, and Kym subtly prepared her pepper spray to release on any toad that got too close. Lizzie looked up at the Qlerics, and Jada’s words echoed. Now was the time.
“YOU WILL DIE!” the head Qleric, denoted by the gold ribbons on his robes, roared in Jada’s face. “You are charged with attempting to pervert our evangelism. Our faith will become dominant on this planet, in mere seconds.”
“Lizzie!” Jada cried out, as one of the Qleric’s restrained her, pulling her close to its slippery skin that reeked of pondwater. “The machine is activated. They’ll ask you what the truth is as the brainwashing is happening, just to reinforce it. Don’t tell them what they want you to believe. Tell them something else.”
And suddenly, all eyes in the room were on her. The Doctor and Cioné gazed at her, a look of desperation on her face. Kym looked not only terrified, but completely confused. Iris gave her a reassuring look – and crucially, Leo was beside her. He gave her hand a comforting squeeze, and Lizzie knew, that whatever was about to happen, Leo would be beside her.
Lizzie stood up, and she walked to the front of the registry office, where Iris and Jada were due to be married. This was it. Somehow think of something strong enough to overwhelm the whole of humanity from being brainwashed by a load of evangelical frogs. A lot more than just another day at the office, it seemed. And quite frankly, Lizzie was terrified, and she had never doubted herself more.
But there was no choice. She had to confront them, and she had to be strong.
“You will give us the truth,” the lead Qleric declared.
Now was the moment. Lizzie Darwin had to offer the truth. And she panicked, just briefly, blind confusion engulfing her. Of course, she’d thought about this in advance, tried to think of something strong enough to capture all of humanity. But now… none of it seemed important. How could one communicate the truth behind life, to billions of people, all over the world? It was impossible, there was no one word that could do it.
But that impossibility had to be defied.
“Okay,” Lizzie shrugged. The Qlerics had asked for the truth, and so she might as well give it.
“Here’s the truth.”
All the eyes in the room were on her. All the minds on the planet were on her.
“I don’t know.”
She felt the awkward hesitation in the room, and for a few seconds, she panicked, worrying she’d messed it up. But Leo was looking at her, and he was supporting her. So, she continued.
“All of us here, we’re just… muddling through life with no idea what we’re actually doing. The truth is, there is no truth. This world is so weird, there are no absolutes, no nothing. It would be impossible to pick a truth, to pick something that reigns above all. Half the time, I’ve got no idea what I’m doing, no idea who I am, no idea what I’m feeling. I’m just trying. That’s what we’re all just doing, just… pulling ourselves through this strange enigma called life, something that none of us understand, but something that we all have to go through. All we can do, is cope with it. We might not understand it, but we just have to accept it.
“And so… that’s what I’m trying to do. So, this is me, coping. And I’m doing that by loving. I’ve seen that love can do amazing things. I’ve seen the power behind it, I’ve seen lost people come to life because of it. But that’s me. We all do it in different ways, we all cope with existence differently. Perhaps, that’s why it is so wonderful to be alive.”
Lizzie was crying, then, and she awkwardly apologised to everyone in the room. Everyone in the room, who now, was probably devoted to some faith that they’d once hated.
But the Doctor was there, and he looked so proud – he’d been her best friend, and she was so grateful to him. They were once the last two people in the universe, and through that, he had stuck by her, and he had always helped her. In fact, they had helped each other, during tough times. Both of them would always be bonded over that… over those dark days spent together. Now, the Doctor looked happy for her, as finally, Lizzie Darwin discovered some of the contentment he had.
And next to him, Cioné gave a little round of applause, before scattily looking around because nobody else was, due to the state of amazement that had descended upon the room. Cioné, someone who could do nothing but love the universe with all her hearts. And for once, Lizzie felt she perhaps shared some of that love. It was then, that the applause enveloped the whole room. Kym cheered rigorously, even though she didn’t know what was going on. That was okay… none of them truly knew what was going on, but they could all learn a thing or two from Kym – that enjoying it, even the smallest things, was important.
The next thing she knew, Iris was holding her close, as two sisters who had blundered through this strange new life on Earth together, with a shared confusion – and now, with a shared appreciation for existing. They had done it together – they had both discovered love together. Lizzie watched Iris as she stepped back and pulled Jada close, and she was beyond happy for them. Iris, so far from the little girl she’d known once, had bounded onto Earth with chaos, madness, loudness, and above all, with heart, and she had truly graced the planet with her presence.
Then, Lizzie turned to Leo, who was gazing at her from the audience. He didn’t applaud vigorously, or cheer as loudly – but Lizzie could see it in his eyes, that he loved her. And Lizzie loved him – after all, that speech hadn’t come from nothing. She breathed a sigh of relief, and Lizzie realised she was smiling too. She was happy.
She was loved.
That was what life was. The people, their love, their confusion – but all of them together.
And the Qlerics stumbled back, their machine defeated, the planet safe from their clutches. Within seconds, they had teleported away, humiliated as they realised that their mission was wrong. The quest for a truth was never going to produce results.
That was that. The Qlerics were gone. The registry office suddenly seemed a lot quieter. Lizzie was suddenly very aware of the fact she was still stood at the front of the room, and so she quickly made her way to sit with Leo. He held her close, and said, “God, Liz, you were… truly brilliant. Amazing. Seriously, I… I cried!”
Lizzie laughed at him, shrugging it off. “Thank you.”
This time, she kissed him.
“One day I’ll go to a normal wedding,” Cioné laughed. It was only then, that they all noticed the registrar gazing upon them with sheer bemusement. Weddings rarely went as planned, the registrar was probably quite certain of that – but even for her, this one was probably quite spectacular. All eyes turned to her – after all, this was still a wedding, and it was still definitely going ahead.
“Erm. Right,” the registrar gathered herself. Then, the ceremony began. It was not lengthy – after all, Iris and Jada were not people for sentimentality – and the wedding had already been sentimental enough. In fact, there were several moments during the wedding, where Iris looked like she was probably about to vomit. But, there was something truly wonderful, even if the couple would not admit it themselves – the love of two people, joined in front of everyone who loved them most of all.
Eventually, they came to the rings.
“I give you this ring, as a reminder of my love for you.”
“Iris, Jada – I now pronounce you spouses for life.”
The Doctor, Cioné, Lizzie, Leo, Kym, Ulysses (with his paws), Chasya, and Fortuna, stood up and applauded, and Iris and Jada kissed for the first time as a married couple.
The first, of many times to come.
***
“Oh shit buggering shit bugger, I’ve just sat on a button,” Iris sat back on the controls, and leaned back against the time rotor. Jada stood beside the console, pulling Iris close to her and kissing her. And as they kissed, the time machine began to breath, and the TARDIS, with that juxtaposition of humanity and machine, began to fly off into space.
The two of them had commandeered it, Iris spinning another one of her usual lies about driving lessons. And now, as impulsively as the wedding, they were flying off, anywhere in time and space. Neither of them could quite believe it – that they were married. But regrets? None at all. Life was weird, nobody knew what it was going to throw up next. So, they might as well do it together. They might as well do it as Mrs and Mrs. Ooh, Iris was a Mrs. That made her feel old.
Before, both of them had been scared, both of them had been tip-toeing around what they really wanted. Iris had been too pre-occupied with her self-doubts, Jada had been too scared of what it would mean to stop being alone. And so it had felt right, for both of them, to throw themselves straight in, impulsively and without thoughts of the consequences. After all, neither of them took half measures, and they both believed, that if you truly wanted something, then you should go as far as you could to try and get it.
Both of them, as the TARDIS went whizzing off into time and space, were certain of their love for each other. Neither of them felt scared anymore, feeling safe in the arms of the other. Life was hard, Iris had learned that – but she thought, that perhaps, there was nothing that would make it easier to deal with than Jada Haruno. Together, they could do it. Together, they could have it all.
That was the moment Iris knew she’d grown up. She understood something that she hadn’t done before, something mad, something completely inexplicable. Her true acceptance of Lizzie’s words – that life was not perfect, that life was strange. That… the universe was confusing as hell. That she would never be able to understand it, but she would be able to accept it. And that… she would do all of that, with Jada. Perhaps, that was what love was. Being able to face that, side by side, with someone. Or perhaps… love, like life, was however you decided to cope with it.
And as Iris and Jada kissed each other, and undressed each other, and then became entwined with each other, under the light of the stars blazing in the observatory above – they both felt alive. The cold touch of the TARDIS floor, and then the warm touch of each other, and they felt so small, and alone, with a gigantic infinity of everything above their heads. But as they kissed, and made love, that infinity seemed tiny.
They held onto love, and they held onto each other, before it faded away forever, as they both knew it would. But for now, it was wonderful.
The universe was waiting for them. The two of them. And perhaps it was weird, and twisted, and strange – but it was no match for the two of them.
***
It was, admittedly, a little bit awkward at first.
But Lizzie lay there, back on the bed, Leo tangled up with her in this strange web of existence. And he kissed her, and she kissed him. They were caught in that moment, somewhere a little bit away from the world, a place of complete ecstasy and wonder, where everything real felt just a little bit… distant. And they seemed to fall into each other, and they became one, and the whole world could go to hell and it wouldn’t matter, because they were together. Together, and alive.
So, so…
Alive.
They were there, together, as they truly were. They were in love, they were open, they were honest. And not even the awe and the wonder of the stars above could compete, not even all the heavens and all the universes could compete with those two people at that moment. For nothing was better than that… it wasn’t just sex, it wasn’t just a sensation, it meant something, something that neither of them would ever be able to find the words for.
And this was the truth.
The naked truth. The never-ending, infinite truth behind life – the fact that, there was no truth, for it was something more than anything that can be experienced on Earth. The sum total of all the impossibly incoherent parts of life cohering together, in a way that was just astonishing. It could not be described, it could not be explained. But it was anxiety, and the burning fear, that holds you back from being who you truly want. It was about fun, and joy, and living just for the sake of it, because there was no other point.
It was about coping, when life couldn’t be coped with. Holding on, just trying to survive every day, even when it took everything out of you.
It was growing up, the passing of time, the passing of life. It was the people around you, the people who loved you, and cared for you.
It was about love, and all the astonishing, mesmerising, magical forms that could take. Parents, and siblings, and lovers, and their devotion and loyalty and passion. The people who would always be beside you, even when they weren’t there in reality.
As Lizzie lay back, she couldn’t think of any word to describe it, apart from
Life.
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next time - the danger mangerLizzie, Cioné and Iris are Christmas shopping, on the gigantic Christmas-shopping-centre that is 25-B3LHL3hem-12 (known as Bethlehem for short), while across the galaxy, the Doctor is flying to his family for Christmas.
But there is a hitch, when a very pregnant woman, Mary, materialises on board. With the due date approaching, and Christmas looming, the Doctor and Mary must quest to get to Bethlehem, before the baby is born, and so the Doctor can get home for Christmas... |