T/W: This story contains references to suicide and self-harm
PROLOGUE
“Anyway, there we were, putting the bins out, and I said to Karen, of course I defrosted the freezer, it was starting to smell funny. So Karen thinks to herself, what a good idea, and apparently she hadn’t defrosted hers for 10 years! Mad! Then, I don’t know, three quarters of an hour, maybe an hour later, I get this text message – it was from Karen, saying she needed to buy a new freezer. Apparently, she’d been using these scissors to scrape away at the back, and she’s stabbed right through the casing into the electronics. Blew the whole thing out. Absolutely batty, that woman. Mad as a box of frogs.”
Maggie, who had just finished regaling her most recent account of Karen’s escapades, flopped down on Lizzie’s slightly crummy and suspiciously sticky sofa. Lizzie, meanwhile, continued to traipse around and futilely pick at a few of the packets and wrappers and plastic cups that had been left behind. She knew this was going to be a much bigger clean-up operation than originally planned – and half-past one in the morning was certainly not the best time to be starting on such a quest.
“Leave that, love,” Maggie glanced around at Lizzie’s flat. It was unfathomably messy. Plastic cups and plates were scattered all over the room, on the kitchen surfaces and the coffee table and stuffed down the side of the chairs. A few stray pizza boxes lay neglected across the flat, and empty cans of beer were visible wherever one would care to look. One of the curtains lay limply off its rail, and drawings of phallic objects adorned the windows in whipped-cream medium. Photo frames lay morbidly on the floor, the cracked glass a field of deadly spikes. Lizzie had taken a quick glance out of the balcony at the plant pots, to see a flower floating dejectedly in a lake of vomit, as well as a rather… candidly worded banner streaming from the railing like a patriotic flag held high. After taking a quick look at a half-eaten pizza slice stuffed into a mug, Lizzie decided to take heed of Maggie’s advice, and take it easy for the evening.
So, Lizzie flopped down on the sofa.
Although, the flat did have a faint odour of beer and vomit, which Lizzie was quite certain would not wait – so she did a quick air-freshener detox of the property, and then flopped down on the sofa.
“You should make whatsnername do it,” Maggie mused, taking a quick sip from the midnight cup of tea she’d just made for herself. “The one with heels taller than every pair I’ve owned in my life put together.”
“The amount of complaining, it’s probably easier for me to do it myself,” Lizzie took a melancholy sip of her own mug.
“I mean, whipped-cream penises, that’s quite funny,” Maggie chuckled. “But gluing a condom to the showerhead with superglue –”
“They’ve done what to the showerhead?” Lizzie spluttered, trying hard not to choke on her tea.
“– that’s just bloody ridiculous,” Maggie continued. “Who even thinks of doing that? Back in my day, we used to just… drink and get kicked out of pubs!”
Lizzie sighed a heavy sigh, and sat back in the sofa. But – what was done was done. And… the consequences of it would have to be dealt with. “I hate parties,” Lizzie grumbled.
“I used to be a right party girl, me,” Maggie chirped, as her mind drifted back to those chaotic days of her youth.
“Really? Never had you down for one.”
“That’s because I try and pretend some of it never happened…”
Lizzie looked over at Maggie, who looked down at her tea, and then out of the whipped-cream covered windows, as if trying to sideline what she’d just said.
“I don’t know why you even agreed to have the party here,” Maggie said, quickly brushing away her previous remark.
“There was only ever meant to be… what? 50 people? And then… I blinked and there was… what? 500, all crammed into the flat.”
“Your worst nightmare,” Maggie chuckled away to herself.
“It actually is…,” Lizzie shook her head almost in desperation. “I’ve had to put my bedsheets in the wash.”
Maggie gasped, and turned to Lizzie agape. “Are you serious?”
“Yep.”
“Jesus Christ…”
“Yep…”
“Next time they want an anniversary do,” Maggie complained. “Tell them to have it somewhere else.”
“It wasn’t even their fault. But… god,” Lizzie took one, long sip of her tea, and let her eyes shut. She was absolutely shattered. It had been quite a night. “It’s been a long day. It was nice, though. Well – the earlier bit. Wasn’t right without the Doctor around.”
“That man was always lingering around in his box,” Maggie thought back to the incident with the broken garden gnome. “I never really understood where he’d gone.”
Maggie thought to herself, and then suddenly, a shocking thought came to her head.
“He wasn’t having an affair, was he?!” Maggie gasped.
“No!” Lizzie laughed it off. “But he had been stupid. And that’s why he was doing what he was doing…”
Maggie, who had just finished regaling her most recent account of Karen’s escapades, flopped down on Lizzie’s slightly crummy and suspiciously sticky sofa. Lizzie, meanwhile, continued to traipse around and futilely pick at a few of the packets and wrappers and plastic cups that had been left behind. She knew this was going to be a much bigger clean-up operation than originally planned – and half-past one in the morning was certainly not the best time to be starting on such a quest.
“Leave that, love,” Maggie glanced around at Lizzie’s flat. It was unfathomably messy. Plastic cups and plates were scattered all over the room, on the kitchen surfaces and the coffee table and stuffed down the side of the chairs. A few stray pizza boxes lay neglected across the flat, and empty cans of beer were visible wherever one would care to look. One of the curtains lay limply off its rail, and drawings of phallic objects adorned the windows in whipped-cream medium. Photo frames lay morbidly on the floor, the cracked glass a field of deadly spikes. Lizzie had taken a quick glance out of the balcony at the plant pots, to see a flower floating dejectedly in a lake of vomit, as well as a rather… candidly worded banner streaming from the railing like a patriotic flag held high. After taking a quick look at a half-eaten pizza slice stuffed into a mug, Lizzie decided to take heed of Maggie’s advice, and take it easy for the evening.
So, Lizzie flopped down on the sofa.
Although, the flat did have a faint odour of beer and vomit, which Lizzie was quite certain would not wait – so she did a quick air-freshener detox of the property, and then flopped down on the sofa.
“You should make whatsnername do it,” Maggie mused, taking a quick sip from the midnight cup of tea she’d just made for herself. “The one with heels taller than every pair I’ve owned in my life put together.”
“The amount of complaining, it’s probably easier for me to do it myself,” Lizzie took a melancholy sip of her own mug.
“I mean, whipped-cream penises, that’s quite funny,” Maggie chuckled. “But gluing a condom to the showerhead with superglue –”
“They’ve done what to the showerhead?” Lizzie spluttered, trying hard not to choke on her tea.
“– that’s just bloody ridiculous,” Maggie continued. “Who even thinks of doing that? Back in my day, we used to just… drink and get kicked out of pubs!”
Lizzie sighed a heavy sigh, and sat back in the sofa. But – what was done was done. And… the consequences of it would have to be dealt with. “I hate parties,” Lizzie grumbled.
“I used to be a right party girl, me,” Maggie chirped, as her mind drifted back to those chaotic days of her youth.
“Really? Never had you down for one.”
“That’s because I try and pretend some of it never happened…”
Lizzie looked over at Maggie, who looked down at her tea, and then out of the whipped-cream covered windows, as if trying to sideline what she’d just said.
“I don’t know why you even agreed to have the party here,” Maggie said, quickly brushing away her previous remark.
“There was only ever meant to be… what? 50 people? And then… I blinked and there was… what? 500, all crammed into the flat.”
“Your worst nightmare,” Maggie chuckled away to herself.
“It actually is…,” Lizzie shook her head almost in desperation. “I’ve had to put my bedsheets in the wash.”
Maggie gasped, and turned to Lizzie agape. “Are you serious?”
“Yep.”
“Jesus Christ…”
“Yep…”
“Next time they want an anniversary do,” Maggie complained. “Tell them to have it somewhere else.”
“It wasn’t even their fault. But… god,” Lizzie took one, long sip of her tea, and let her eyes shut. She was absolutely shattered. It had been quite a night. “It’s been a long day. It was nice, though. Well – the earlier bit. Wasn’t right without the Doctor around.”
“That man was always lingering around in his box,” Maggie thought back to the incident with the broken garden gnome. “I never really understood where he’d gone.”
Maggie thought to herself, and then suddenly, a shocking thought came to her head.
“He wasn’t having an affair, was he?!” Maggie gasped.
“No!” Lizzie laughed it off. “But he had been stupid. And that’s why he was doing what he was doing…”
the eighth doctor adventures
the 2017/18 specials - x4
on my way
written by Peter Darwin
TWO WEEKS EARLIER
(3033 years later – approx. universal time)
All was quiet in Thea’s little room.
Room… it was like being a kid again. She was anything but. 80-years-old and living in a room. Not even a flat, not even a house. The official forms called it a residence, but Thea ridiculed it and thought, well, not bloody likely. She was alive, yes. But was she living? Not by any stretch of the imagination.
It was lunchtime, and Thea sat over her crossword, nibbling away at a cheese sandwich. Again, cheese sandwich – loose terminology. The bread was thin, and the cheese felt plastic and rubbery. But, it was food – and that was a positive. Spaceships Under the Spanner played on the TV set mounted beside her sole table, as nothing more than background noise. Thea couldn’t stand that show, but she hated the silence more. And so, she tended to keep the device on all day, whether she was watching it or not. Always made it feel as if there were people around.
But, it was still quiet. Yes, the TV made noise, her biro scribbled against her Perplexing Puzzles – issue 278976.E (she chose the books she did because they came with little pens) and occasionally, she would become acutely aware of her breath. But the room still felt empty, as if… there was a strange absence of life in there. It was like a bubble, isolated from everything else going on in the world, as if… everything that happened, she watched it from a distance on a TV set, while she herself sat sealed away, alone and unaffected by whatever happened outside.
Thea couldn’t even remember the last time she’d stepped outside.
But, there was nothing to be done. She probably couldn’t even get down the stairs! Though, she took comfort in the fact her room was in decent order. The double bed (although she’d have rather had a single), the writing table opposite, the small holo-TV embedded into the wall placed just to the side of it. Beside the bed sat a bedside table, with a flickering light, an old glass of water from the night before, and several plastic tubs with her medication. Medication doing nothing but prolonging her existence. Medication that just… made her survive.It never made her better, it never did anything positive – it just kept her going.
There was a small kitchenette in the corner, upon which she cooked her meals. They came around with the food packages once a week. And she scraped through – she always would. The only other little bit of her ‘room’ that wasn’t technically in the same room was a little bathroom tucked away. A shower, and a toilet. No sink, she had to use the kitchen one.
But… again, she survived. She would make do. A fighter, Thea was. Even when she didn’t want to be. For some reason, she just… kept on going.
And so, Thea rose to take another bite of her rubbery cheese sandwich.
Until her Perplexing Puzzles – issue 278976.E was blown about by the sudden gust of wind.
The pages flickered and flapped against each other, dancing around as if in a strange kind of jubilation. Thea couldn’t think why – there wasn’t much to be jubilant about. But after those brief few seconds of psychoanalysing her puzzle book (and Thea had learned, in her long years, of how one undertakes funny activities when something peculiar is occurring), it truly dawned on her. There could be no gust of wind. This wasn’t like the days of old, when her and her John had raised their children in that funny old terraced house, crammed in amongst a million others. Bloody tiny, it was, but it was home. Thea had also realised that come old age, memories were funny. They merged, with experiences – including those in the present – skulking across one’s personal timeline, never quite sure where to settle. Lives were funny like that. How they divided into epochs, and yet, was just one, long existence, dragged out until breaking point over a series of clear signifiers.
Thea was quite certain she was close to breaking point.
However, Thea had quite surely come to her senses. Her room was not by a window, as it had been once. She regained herself, and finally realised that her room was entirely indoors, and surrounded by other rooms, meaning one thing.
There couldn’t be a gust of wind.
It was when she turned around, however, that Thea began to wonder whether her long years were finally catching up with her. Maybe this was it – madness! Old age, and the chaos it brings. Oh, never grow old, she’d told John, as they’d both been growing old. It was just the whim of someone desperate to clutch onto forgotten memories, before they drifted into the mishmash of her former years. Devoid of realism, Thea knew her claim was futile. For time stopped for nobody. Not her.
She’d learned that all too hard, the last few years.
The gust kept blowing through her room, reaching further past her puzzles and now flattening photos of Kitty and Marco. It wasn’t just time, apparently. Even the environment wanted to cut down as many bittersweet memories as possible. It made the curtains (only of the holo-window, of course) flutter, and for the briefest of seconds, Thea was quite sure the light fitting (empty of shade) was dancing about to the wind’s merry tune. Because… it was making a noise. Quite a lovely noise, actually, and not only was it enough to drown out the dulcet tones of Martin Ro-bots drifting from her television, it was also enough to drown out the silence. That was good – she didn’t feel alone anymore. Maybe there was something good left.
But the wind was getting louder, and – and there was something appearing in her room. Thea had resigned herself to insanity – because there was nothing about this that was sane, in any way at all.
However, in all that Thea had heard over her many years, she had never heard that insanity manifested as a blue box.
The wind stopped, and suddenly, there was a great big blue box stood in her room.
Not quite as majestic a claim as it sounds, in reality. For the room was small, and so the strange box took up half of it. In fact, if Thea needed the loo, she’d have to pop next door and ask Lacey, because whatever in the Emperor’s name had just dropped out of the sky had just decided to park itself right in front of her tiny bathroom. It was only then that she realised – the box had parked right on top of her buggering vase. Best bloody vase she owned, that. Cheap as muck, but it was from John – so she couldn’t do anything but cherish it.
And if Thea’s day couldn’t get weirder, the doors to the box were flung open.
“Hello!” came the voice of the individual who strode out, carrying her vase in his arms.
“Oi, you, give me back my vase, right now,” Thea hobbled over to the man and plucked her best possession from his hands. “Goodness, this is valuable!”
“Terribly sorry. I didn’t expect this room to be so tight.”
The man was an interesting fellow, it could not be denied. He was well dressed, certainly – a frock coat went down to his knees, and a scarf was tied firmly beneath it. He wore quite lovely boots, reminding Thea of the riding boots Kitty used to wear. Always wanted to do horse-riding, that one. They’d never been able to afford it, but John had an ancient pair of riding boots. He’d given them to Kitty, and she loved them! Wore them throughout half her teenage years. Didn’t care they were men’s – she was just content.
Thea wobbled over to her desk, and placed her vase on top of it.
“You’re a useless criminal, you know. Parking a great big box in my bedroom.”
“Sorry, I’m – I’m not a criminal, if that’s what you thought?”
“I don’t know what to think! That box turns up, and I thought it was my cataracts playing up,” Thea took the seat in front of her desk, because even if he was a criminal, she couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. She had a ‘senior citizen’s panic button’ beneath her desk, so that should do the trick if he should make another move for her vase.
“Ah,” he muttered sheepishly, running a hand through his short locks of hair.
“Honestly,” Thea continued, determined to make certain this strange man knew what was what. “I don’t know why you have that thing fade in, I thought I was going blind! If it was instant, I’d be much happier.”
“Right, er, thank you for the, er… advice…,” the man looked around awkwardly. He was very uncertain about where he’d ended up – an old lady’s house had not been on the agenda.
“Sorry, where am I? I don’t quite know, and my TARDIS – sorry, the box – it’s broken down.”
“My John never drove for that very reason. Vehicles, they always fall flat! Living in the city as well, you’d only risk the traffic if you had a death wish…”
Thea could remember those days like they were yesterday. John’s foul-mouthed rants about how he was never going to own an effing car, they do eff all and I’ll be effed if I’m ever going to effing buy one. Oh. Those were the days.
“Where am I?” the man asked again.
“Are you being serious?” Thea was entirely bemused.
“Oh, deadly…”
“Blue Rocket Street’s HMOs. Why?”
“HMOs?” he questioned, as if he truly was thick.
“Houses in Multiple Occupation, what kind of privileged life have you been leading?”
“Sorry. We’re the middle class, we deserve to be toppled,” the man muttered, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the most peculiar torch.
“What in the name of Vortis is that?”
“It’s a sonic screwdriver, don’t mind me. Is that where we are? The Empire?” the man dashed over to the window – only to realise that it was only a holo-window. He seemed noticeably more agitated after that, as if he’d been desperately hoping that the outside world would be within touching distance. Welcome to my world, Thea thought sadistically to herself.
“Blimey, how drunk were you when you got off the border shuttles?”
“I didn’t, this box brought me here,” he gestured to his big crate thing. It wouldn’t be the most ridiculous thing Thea had seen in her life. But even so – if he’d come here in that box, she needed him to go. Now.
“If you didn’t go through border control, they’ll find you, and – well, I don’t know what they’ll do to you, but I wouldn’t want to find out. 0 tolerance policy, that’s what Mrs Cullengate said. You don’t come down on a border shuttle, and you’ll be taken. She’s got eyes everywhere, that woman. So, anyway, you’ve got to go.”
Thea had heard the stories. People who have got no contact with suspects, who are dragged away simply for exchanging a few early-morning pleasantries. And – if she was found communicating with someone who had slipped through border control at such close range – well, it’d be the camps for her. If they were true, of course – which everyone knew they were. But Thea felt compelled to add the afterthought – as she’d said, Mrs Cullengate had eyes everywhere, and Thea wouldn’t be surprised if she was psychic.
“Why?”
“Because if I’m here talking to you, they’ll have me too! Blimey, don’t you know anything?”
“So…,” the man cycled through the information in his head. “This is the Empire, Evangeline Cullengate is Prime Minister… yes. I think I have the right time.”
“Right time? For what?!”
“What’s your name?” he asked, a sense of urgency prevalent in his voice. At this rate, he genuinely was a border-skiver, or he was some idiot from the IPA (intergalactic patrol agency) they’d sent to test random citizens for their loyalty. She’d heard that was a thing.
“Er, what’s your name, young man?” She wouldn’t be taking any cheek from him, no matter how urgent the situation was.
“The Doctor.”
Doctors, all holier-than-thou, Thea thought.
“Doctor Who?!”
“Just the Doctor, your name, please.”
So, sounding mildly hacked off, Thea begrudgingly offered her name. “Thea. Thea Everett.”
“Okay, thank you, Thea Everett. I’m sorry for crashing in on you like this,” the Doctor gestured to his funny blue box.
“So you goodness well should be,” Thea scowled. “What are you even doing?”
“That’s a rather complex question…”
“Well I’m not going anywhere!” Thea grumbled, knowing full well that this funny little room was where she was going to die. No point hiding from the truth of it – so, the Doctor might as well have got on with it.
He paused, then, as if her words had triggered something inside him, had set him back and made him think. It seemed that he was going to tell her – such a hesitation, in her experience, led to little but that. However, clearly he was trying to find the right words. Clearly, it was a complex question. And clearly, he was being truthful, and honest. One couldn’t ask for much more than that.
So, she was generous to him. She allowed the Doctor to take the time he needed. Thea knew full well that saying something difficult was often the hardest thing of all. To make it quick and concise was to make it honest – and clearly, quickness and conciseness was what the Doctor was looking for, although perhaps not for honesty. However – it seemed that honesty was the one way for him, if he wanted to plough on at what seemed like a very speedy way of living.
And then, he said it.
“Because… I’m trying to make amends. I’ve made mistakes, and this time… I’m trying to do something good.”
***
Two Weeks Later
(3033 years earlier – approx. universal time)
“So, hold on a sec, he was… what?” Maggie exclaimed, eyes agape over her cup of tea, enthralled by Lizzie’s tale. And yes – Maggie was going to take no shame in being excited by this strange soap-opera of a life that Lizzie Darwin led. It was 90% of the time better than half the rubbish she saw in TV. So, a glimpse into this mysterious time travelling doctor’s life was always a welcomed change from the usual monotony of the TV schedule.
“Yeah… trying to make amends. Trying to… get it right, after what had happened with Emma.”
“Hold on a sec, you did explain Emma to me,” Maggie trawled back through her head, trying to track down who. “Isn’t she the daughter of his… oldest friend, or something?”
“More like… sibling. It’s a kind of… love/hate thing.”
“Ah,” Maggie observed knowingly. “I understand. Christ, you lot, you’re like Coronation Street…”
“What’s happening in that at the moment?” Lizzie hadn’t seen Corrie for a good few years – and the only time she’d ever properly sat down to watch it was a few late-night cups of tea with Maggie. That was another wonderful thing about Maggie – she, like Lizzie, did not sleep. Except unlike Lizzie, it was not because Maggie was an insomniac, it was simply because Maggie Shepherd, with the sheer amount of work she did, had learned to tank every single day on the back of a lot of caffeine – while still remaining a regular viewer of her favourite soaps.
“Well,” Maggie prepared herself to launch into a Corrie-related discourse. “The police think Anna Windass pushed her daughter Faye’s boyfriend, Seb, off a ladder…”
“Oh, er, right…”
“And…, oh, yeah. Sally Webster is mayor now.”
“Blimey. I bet she’s a Tory…” From what Lizzie could remember, Sally Webster was always a snob. And vaguely reminiscent to her old computing teacher from Year 8.
“Oh, Sally Webster is as Tory as they come,” Maggie confirmed. “Oh, but the most moving story recently was Rita.”
“Oh my god,” Lizzie exclaimed, suddenly fearing for Rita’s life. She’d seen the tabloid reports and hoped it wasn’t true. “Is she dead?”
“No, thank Christ,” Maggie sounded genuinely relieved. After all, Maggie was quite certain that if Rita Tanner died, the whole of the UK would fall. Or something like that. “No, but she had a brain tumour. Turned out to be benign, but even so. It was… god, I was close to tears, and you know me, I’m bloody rock-hard resilient against half the over-dramatic unrealistic shit they stick on the telly nowadays. But it was really quite well done. There’s this one moment, where Rita looks back over the street, and it’s her, looking back across her life. Because that street, it’s her life, you know.”
“Yeah.”
“So, Rita’s looking back over the street, and I’m just thinking. Right. Blimey. That’s, wow, that’s powerful. Because… that’s all it is. A woman facing the end of her life. A woman who is coming to the realisation that actually, maybe, in the grand scheme of existence and all that shebang, she didn’t achieve much. But… at the same time, she achieved so much, because she made people smile. And it just made me think, you never know when your number’s up, so that’s what it’s just best to do. Make people smile. And there we go, good on you, Rita Tanner.”
Lizzie nodded slowly.
She liked that idea.
“Sorry,” Maggie declared. “You were saying. The Doctor pitches up in this old lady’s flat. Blimey. Already we’re off to a problematic start…”
***
TWO WEEKS EARLIER
(3033 years later – approx. universal time)
“Good?” Thea exclaimed, bustling over to this ‘Doctor’ chap, wagging a finger at him as she went. He stood beside her desk, looking nervously around the small bedsit as she hobbled over, scolding him. She had no time for time-wasting house-breakers. Honestly! The cheek of some. Breaking into her house and dragging in a big blue box, before embarking on a string of patronising and demeaning comments. “What d’you mean by that?”
The Doctor looked at her, dead in the eyes, and replied.
“I’m going to take down the government.”
Thea gasped.
He was going to do what.
She watched him, entirely incredulously. Then she looked away, before turning back to him. Just to make sure he was joking.
The Doctor was not joking.
This confirmed the worst of her suspicions she had a terrorist in her house. Oh, bloody hell, 80-years-old and she was harbouring a terrorist. For a few seconds, she didn’t even know what to say. She simply looked at him, agape, entirely astonished that anyone would dare utter such absurd words.
Then Thea realised. He had uttered the words.
So, she hobbled up to him, and gave him a clip around the shoulder. “Don’t you say things like that!” she looked up at him. He looked down at her, entirely bemused. She did not understand why he was looking so confused at her actions – if he was planning on doing something so reckless, then it was highly likely that Mrs Cullengate would be listening in – and the last thing that Thea wanted was to be spending her last years in a concentration camp, even if the conditions would be better than her current situation.
The Doctor backed away from Thea, but she relentlessly continued after him, continually clobbering him.
“You can’t bloody say things like that, you stupid, stupid –”
“Thea, please –”
“I’ve got to report you, where’s my bleedin’ phone…” she turned, and began fumbling through the disorganised, eclectic set of goods upon her writing table. It was all a mess – chargers, stationery, the TV remote – all of it got lost. She couldn’t be bothered to organise it all. However – the last 156 editions of Perplexing Puzzles were in perfect chronology, such was the nature of her boredom during the long days spent alone.
“Don’t report me, Thea, please –”
She found the phone – an old, 2D device. Nothing like the sort they had nowadays. Quickly she pressed some buttons on the side, trying to figure out how to switch it on. Eventually, the screen glowed into life.
“Oh bugger,” she scowled, needing to squint without her glasses. “I’m out of credit –”
“Thank god…”
“Don’t thank god!” Thea exclaimed, tossing the phone back into its next of chargers. “At this rate, we’ll both be in a camp, not just you!”
“Thanks,” the Doctor muttered.
“You’re welcome…,” Thea replied, pacing wearily up and down the bedsit – a task which, due to the size of the room, meant rather a lot of turning around. “Well! I might as well pack my stuff. They’ll be hauling me out before Casualty.”
“Casualty still runs?” the Doctor mused. He remembered Lizzie watching it – he was oblivious to the fact it still remained so popular. “Is Charlie still in it?”
Thea stopped, and strode right up to the Doctor, jabbing a finger right into his chest. “You can’t go around saying things like that, you know!”
“Like what?”
“About…,” Thea looked around from left to right, ensuring that the coast was clear. Then, she mouthed. “About… the government. She’s got spies everywhere, that woman. And yes.”
“Yes?”
“Charlie is still in it. They resurrected him as a Nestene duplicate two years back, when there was all that business with the plastic doctors on Savroven-5.”
“Oh…”
The Doctor grimaced, then peered out of the curtained windows, at the beautiful, floral meadows outside, stretching on for as far as the eye could see. The sun shone gently over them, like a lantern casting its rays of hope across the world, and the flowers themselves gently rocked in the light summer breeze, all gazing up at a blue sky, patterned with gentle wisps of white like bunting.
Then he realised. They were holo-windows – and in truth, outside lay a grim, grey city. Houses and apartments crammed close together, full to bursting of people who just wanted somewhere to live and would take anywhere so long as it provided a roof and four walls. Half the time, places didn’t even have a proper roof.
“Which part of the Empire am I in, Thea?
“Blue Rocket Street, as I said,” Thea sighed loudly, mildly hacked off at this gentleman’s inability to listen to a word she’d said. “Lower district B7842.”
That intrigued the Doctor. By that logic, then… he wasn’t far from Downing Tower. He knew he hadn’t entirely lost his touch with the TARDIS just yet.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Thea observed, like she could see the cogs in his brain ticking away.
“You… do?” the Doctor said, thinking of how awkward it would be if she didn’t.
“About four levels below,” she said, quieter than normal. They could be listening in.
The Doctor couldn’t help but smile at that revelation. Not far, then. He was in more luck than he’d been expecting.
Thea, meanwhile, watched that grin dance across the Doctor’s features, and with great scepticism, though great intrigue as well (for she was yet to meet anyone so insane in her life), she asked him.
“Are you… being serious?”
Thea mouthed the ‘being’ and ‘serious’, much to the Doctor’s exasperation.
“Yes,” he said, sheepishly. It came out almost like the murmurings of a disgruntled child sulking after being told they couldn’t do something. He sounded pathetic – petulant, and immature. However, the Doctor was aware that against Mrs Cullengate’s regime, that’s all he was. A disgruntled child, whose demands could so easily be quashed. In truth, he knew he did not stand a chance, and that against the might of Evangeline’s Empire, he was almost certain to fail.
But, he would die trying.
Thea watched him – beady, scrutinising eyes piercing him, on the listen-out for tall tales. With a great many years behind her, Thea had become quite adept at spotting lies and half-truths. She’d noticed them plaguing the contract for this place – she’d only signed because there was no other choice.
Eventually, she settled on her next question.
“Are you a spy?”
The Doctor watched her, astounded. She did not waver. She kept watching him – she just moved a bit closer to her walking stick. When her fingers gripped the handle, he realised he should probably answer her.
“… no,” he spoke slowly, more out of confusion than anything else.
“You look like a spy,” said, uncertainty weighing heavily on her voice. She wasn’t going to take any chances. For all she knew, this man could be a trap. She’d heard all sorts, about the Cullengate administration sending individuals into the homes of random individuals to test their loyalty to the government.
The Doctor, however, quickly shut her down.
“I’m – I’m really not a spy.”
Shut her down – like any good spy would.
“Honestly,” she hissed, walking shakily towards the door, her arm outstretched, waiting for the handle. So many years on this planet, she wasn’t fit for so much excitement, her bones so rickety that Thea was quite terrified she could fall apart at any moment. Though, in a way, she did not care. Everything else had fallen apart long, long ago. “…if you put me in prison because my phone ain’t got credit, I’ll be pissed off! It’s your fault I ain’t got any credit in the first place.”
She would call Kev from upstairs. He could put a call through to the guard, and all this would be sorted out
“Thea,” the Doctor zoomed over to her, desperation in his voice. “I’m not a spy, honestly.”
Thea stopped by the door, her hand only millimetres from the handle – millimetres from reporting this silly fool in her bedsit and ending all this sorry business for good.
But she heard him breathing behind her, and it made her pause. He was desperate, his breaths deep, engulfing as much air as he could. Maybe he was a very good actor. Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe, for once, she’d come across someone insane enough to actually try and take down the Cullengate empire. Even thinking the thought astounded her. Could someone really dare do that?
The man behind her, just for a few seconds, made her think that someone could.
And what was the alternative? Slogging through her final days with Intergalactic Loose Women and another 250 issues of Perplexing Puzzles, before she finally bit the dust, only to have her body hauled away like a slab of meat and burned in some mass oven? Gone, forgotten, like she’d never even been alive. Her stuff would be burned too, her bedsit given to another occupant.
Thea Everett would be just as pointless in death as she was in life.
She spun on her heels and began advancing on the Edwardian gentleman before her.
“So, what on earth possessed you to try and take down Cullengate’s empire?"
The Doctor’s shock was evident on his features, and as Thea prowled towards him he backed away from her beady finger, nearly stumbling as he went.
“That was a change of heart.”
It was. But if she was going to go, she might as well go out in a blaze of glory. How many 80-year-olds were involved in a super-secret plot to take down the government? For a few seconds, Thea could see a way out of her monotonous existence. An end to this one-room accommodation, this miserable cycle of living day after day with puzzle books and rubbery cheese sandwiches and daytime TV.
And for the briefest of seconds, she saw the tiniest, most minute glimmer of hope. It was so minute, it was almost impossible to grasp – but she could see it. Still impossible, but at least somewhat thinkable.
Ending the regime that had crushed so many.
“Well, I hate the bitch,” she shrugged, with a tongue so loose that should ‘the bitch’ be listening in, she would be far from please. The Doctor’s face was a picture of bemusement at Thea’s sudden change of heart. In fact, Thea herself was so astounded with her change of heart – however, now she looked back, it had always been something building inside her. “And if I die in a camp, so be bloody it. How’re you going to do it?”
It suddenly came to the Doctor. There was a pretty substantial flaw in his plan. He hesitated, as Thea stopped, looking up at him with great expectations.
“I… don’t know.”
Thea blinked, as it dawned on her that this man was definitely not a spy. This man was serious. 100%, deadly serious in his madness. Only one with such emotional flare would have such diminishing logic, and willingness to conduct a ridiculous action. Her eyes perhaps widened in wonder, before she then realised.
“Huh,” she said.
The Doctor looked around sheepishly, then dashed off to the door. He wanted to get a sense of this peculiar abode – this accommodation Cullengate offered. “It was a fairly off-the-cuff decision…”
“Who risks their whole life ‘off-the-cuff’?!” Thea exclaimed, as he tried the handle. It opened.
“My life to a tee…,” the Doctor murmured, turning away from the door. “Mrs Everett, let me explain…”
While it may have been a rather spur-of-the-moment decision, to do this specifically, it, like Thea’s newfound revolutionary appetite, had been brewing for a long time. He had been waiting, knowing he had to do something about the Cullengate, at some point, when she went too far. It just so happened, that the other day, the moment had come. He had decided – it was time to act. And, he knew it was time to give something back to a universe he had wronged. Even if he could not fix things, he could, at least, try and do something good, and hope that might somehow make him a better person.
Thea would not, however, let him explain.
“You must have… weapons, or something –”
The Doctor fumbled around in his jacket. Ah!
“I have a screwdriver.”
“Right!” she said, forcing a smile. At least it would not be an operation constructed entirely on the foundations of lunacy – so she clung on to that, admittedly shaky, pillar of optimism. “Well. It’s a… a start.”
The Doctor took the screwdriver out of his pocket and proudly held it up. Thea’s face fell.
“There’s a disappointment if I ever saw one,” she muttered.
The Doctor looked dejectedly at the screwdriver. “Way to boost my self-confidence…”
He turned back to the door and stepped out into the corridor, arriving on the landing of a stairwell, gripping onto the wrought railing and peering over the edge (after removing his hands, due to the conspicuous stickiness of a lump of chewing gum stuck like a limpet onto the metal). The stairwell was huge, plummeting so far below him that it seemed to collapse in on itself. When he looked up, the very same sight befell him. Wherever he was, then, the stairwell went on almost ad infinitum, a snake twisting and turning so far up and down the building.
“How many floors are there in this building?” the Doctor asked, squinting futilely down the abyss below.
Thea shrugged. She’d no idea. She’d never even dared trying those stairs – with her arthritis and her heart, she’d drop dead a few floors below them.
So, the Doctor decided there was only one way to find out. One by one, he trotted off down the stairs.
“What’re you doing?” Thea spluttered, as he began to make his descent. Thea shuffled nervously up to the edge of the top step, grabbing onto the gummy railing for dear life.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” the Doctor said, like it was entirely obvious. Thea gave him a glare for his patronising attitude, and instantly he shut up.
“Can’t you… fly your portaloo in there?”
“TARDIS, please. Don’t make it sound any less elegant than it already is… and no,” he declared. “Evangeline has TARDIS-proofed her tower. I’m stuck out here. Only one way in.”
The Doctor and Thea shared a look of mutual understanding. The front door. It was a grim thought, but with Evangeline weirdly on-top of the whole ‘preventing Time Lord imposters’ thing, the Doctor had no other alternatives.
So, he continued down the stairs.
This time, Thea began a slow descend herself. With her bones not what they used to be, and one arm clutching her hip (Thea was quite terrified of it popping from its socket), she followed, not entirely sure what possessed her. Maybe it was again the fact that she no longer cared. If she died, so be it.
“How long have you lived here for?” the Doctor asked, as he reached the next landing. He stopped, and waited for Thea, who had to traverse the dangerous terrain by placing two feet on each stair.
“20 years,” she heaved in a gulp of breath, and the Doctor was beginning to realise that he had truly gone mad – taking down a dictatorship with a little old lady who could barely get down the stairs. That being said, Thea was a fighter, and while she was clearly struggling, she would not be defeated by a staircase. So, she continued, without complaining. Resilience and grit flared up inside her, and slowly, she dragged herself on, unyielding and undefeatable.
“Wow. And… d’you like it?”
“No,” she spat, reaching the landing, before looking up at the Doctor. “It’s shit,” she proclaimed bluntly.
“Oh…,” the Doctor began the next set of stairs.
“Well. Least it’s not a portaloo.”
“The TARDIS, it’s really not a porta – are you alright with that step?” He stopped, as he could see Thea rocking unstably on her slippered legs, having to take a few seconds to steady herself.
“Yes,” she spoke, resolution cutting through her voice. Again – she was unyielding.
“Good…”
“How does it work, then? The –,” Thea stopped for a breath. “The portaloo…”
“Ah,” a smile drifted over the Doctor’s face, and as he looked up at Thea, his eyes danced with delight. “Magic.”
Thea looked at him incredulously, as she continued downwards. “I’m 80, not 8.”
“Nobody is ever too old for magic,” the Doctor said, truly believing it.
Thea looked around her at the stairwell – grotty and dirty, seemingly an infinite labyrinthine structure capable of gobbling up the unassuming. Grime built up like a thick sandwich spread in the nooks between the stairs, and on each landing there was a clutter of plastic bottles and cans, tossed haphazardly by anyone unwilling to use a bin – and the few bins that were present throughout the building lay with great irony – empty and bag-less. The paintwork peeled off the doors, and the brass numbers hanging from them were either missing, leaving faint marks behind, like their presence remained in a ghostly formed, or the letters hung sullenly off, dejected and miserable. The plaster crumbled from the walls, breezeblocks leering menacingly underneath, and the incandescent bulbs were fizzling out, or lay shattered in crystalline fragments kicked coldly aside.
And all this was exciting to her. The dirt, the doors, the broken building – keeping her on her toes, in a way she hadn’t felt for so many years. For once, Thea felt alive, like she’d escaped the constraints of death and her room.
“I think I am,” she muttered, feeling her age as she stumbled down the next step. It wasn’t just alive that she felt. She felt 80 as well. “Oh well,” she proclaimed, grabbing onto the bannister for dear life. It wasn’t just her bones that ached – she was fearful of her breathing too. Slow and shallow – to go from not having left the same room once in twenty years to traipsing down the largest flight of stairs she had ever seen, was quite a taxing activity. And she felt it – she heaved in as much air as she could, but it never felt like enough. “People get old,” she shrugged. “Apart from Bob Wilkins two floors up.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I see him sometimes. They don’t bring my shopping to the door, so he brings it up the stairs. Hasn’t aged in 20-years…”
And Thea suddenly felt her chest too – it ached, all around her ribs. Oh well. If she died going down those steps, it’d be an exciting way to go.
“I don’t get old,” the Doctor muttered absent-mindedly.
Thea glared at him jealously. “Wow. What do you want? A medal?”
“Sorry,” the Doctor turned, a gentle smile turning into a look of concern as Thea ambled down onto the next landing. “Didn’t mean for it to sound like a boast. It wasn’t one. Far from it.”
They continued in silence for a while, like this was some great adventure. In a way, it felt like one – for both of them. It felt like, at least, both were enjoying themselves. Learning more and accomplishing more than either had in a while.
“What’s it like then?” Thea eventually asked, making conversation to fill the awkward silence. “Not aging?”
The Doctor thought about it.
“I save a lot on face-cream.”
“Clearly immortality dries the well of jokes.”
“Jokes, sanity – it all goes at 200…”
“Well,” Thea declared. “I hope you put it all to good use.”
“Hmm?”
“The age. No point knocking about forever if you’re going to do nothing.”
The Doctor did not reply – not intentionally, at first. Originally, he had been so struck by the remarks, that he was so busy thinking about them, he did not say anything. Eventually, when he thought of something to say, the time had gone – and so the statement remained unanswered.
They continued on, for what felt like an age – and it was not because Thea was, understandably, slow on the stairs. It was simply an enormous staircase, snaking downwards for what felt like an eternity. The Doctor observed this a few times, and Thea simply shrugged, citing it as these sets of HMOs being huge, so as to deal with the Empire’s housing crisis. Supposedly, they were the latest invention of Mrs Cullengate – a shining example of her brilliance and innovation.
Thea did not think them so brilliant and innovative, as she dragged herself down the stairs. No elevator, no stairlift – just stairs, twisting and turning forever.
In fact, it must have been an hour before they finally got to the ground – it took them a ridiculously long time, and they had to take breaks. But they only paused briefly, and they did not pause often – so it was still baffling to the Doctor that it had taken them so long to reach the bottom.
However, he put the thought out of his mind. There were more important things to worry about.
The room at the bottom was small, with a vending machine, and a lone, fold-up chair.
“Blimey. I ain’t been down here since I first moved in,” Thea’s eyes widened at the sight of the miserable chamber.
The Doctor took his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and pointed it towards the door. Thea thought the room was cool? Well – she hadn’t seen anything yet. Her adventure was about to double in excitement – the Doctor was quite sure of that.
The screwdriver activated – but only for a few seconds.
But it was enough to make the solid, dingy door slid open, grinding on rusty, metal wheels against their rusty, metal rollers. The sound it produced was that of an ear-piercing, cringe-worthy, eye-watering screech. Thea shuddered at the noise, and the Doctor grimaced too – but steadily, it dragged open. That shudder and that grimace quickly turned into a look of intrigue for the Doctor, and a look of astonishment for Thea – as steadily, the outside world revealed itself.
“Bloody hell…,” Thea’s eyes widened as steadily the world came into view, like a super-powered HD television had just whirred into life, allowing her to witness the real world in the most perfect quality. In fact, she had to turn away from the Doctor, blinking tears away. She wouldn’t let him see her cry – even though she wasn’t sure why she cried herself. Whether it was the cold air against her eyes, or a sudden flair of emotion at the sight of such a world, she wasn’t sure.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” the Doctor smiled at her, watching Thea look bravely out at the world, akin to the Doctor when he gazed out of the TARDIS doors.
“Yeah…”
“Come on,” the Doctor said, striding forward into the world outside. The house opened onto a dingy back alley, cluttered by rotting binbags, their putrid stench filling the air. The stone floor was damp, puddled by a persistent dribble of precipitation from the sky, most of which caught in the gutters of the arching grey buildings above, but some trickled dismally onto the grimy, cobblestone pavement in front of them. It was enclosed tightly, with slate-grey houses and apartment blocks – and the Doctor thought that if he reached out, he might be able to touch the muddy brickwork of the wall opposite. A flickering, faint, white streetlamp provided useless illumination, most of the light coming from the dirtied pane of a window opposite.
Thea stopped at the threshold, not quite letting her slippers out into the puddles – not quite taking the plunge. It was only then, when she looked down at her scruffy, tartan slippers, and looked out at the grey world, then back at her stick-thin legs and baggy, threadbare cardigan, that Thea finally understood. The air outside, which was nearly as circulated and ventilated as the stuffy oxygen within her room, caught in her throat, but was still a sweet release from the impenetrable metal prison enclosing her every-day. While she stopped, and looked at the world ahead, she realised she wanted nothing more to go out. To leave. But the walls behind her – the hallway she stood in – for some reason, it just wouldn’t let her go.
“Are you alright?” the Doctor asked. When the Doctor craned his neck out, he could see Downing Tower, an immense glass construction towering into space, and looming imperiously over the alley, like a shard of crystal, sleek, expensive, and indulgent. As he saw it, he knew that it was time to go.
Thea stood in the doorway, lingering in a gap between worlds.
Her eyes gazed emptily forwards, wandering over some sort of nothingness. She spoke, finding that the words left her, without her even thinking about them.
“I haven’t left that room in 20 years.”
Thea didn’t move – she kept staring forwards unwaveringly, trying to take in the magnitude of all that was going on around her. The outside world – proof that it existed, in a way unchanging to how it had been 20 years ago. And yet, the eyes looking at it were so much older and more tired, that it looked different too. It was beautiful – and this was only the dingy alleyway crawling outside her house. But to her, the dirt and the grime that gathered was everything – and she watched it, sadly and lonelily, pained that she had missed so much.
“I can’t go,” she shrugged. It was a ludicrous plan. Her and this magic Doctor, going to take down the government. Maybe he could. If he had a vanishing portaloo, then he could do anything. But with her? A silly 80-year-old woman, who had not left that same room for 20 years?
It would never have worked.
She’d been riding on a dream – the tantalising thought that she might have finally found a way out, an adventure to go on. That was all it was – nothing more than a story, one she could escape to, but too brilliant to ever truly live.
However, Thea was happy.
At least, for once, she’d had a dream.
The Doctor watched from the door, as sadly, she slunk back into the jaws of her house. The look on his face suggested he knew too – that it would never have worked, him taking down the Prime Minister with an 80-year-old woman. Thea couldn’t help but wonder – how would he have let her go? Would he have given her false hope, proclaiming of the great things they’d do together, only to stab her in the back at the last minute? Locking her back in her flat, or running away from her on the street?
How would he have left her, like everyone else did?
“Thea – I – I’m sorry,” he said, his voice pained, as slowly he followed her back into the belly of the building. She shook her head dismissively. It didn’t matter.
But clearly, it did. She shuffled around aimlessly, entirely unsure what to do with herself. Back to her old existence of drifting with nothing to do.
The Doctor stood, and watched Thea hovering in the middle of the room. She couldn’t look at him, focusing on anything else other than this false hope stood only a few feet away from her. The Doctor sidled over to the vending machine, and keeping one eye on Thea, he gave it a quick buzz of the sonic screwdriver.
Two Mars Bars began to slide steadily from their position behind the thick glass. However, they became lodged firmly in the mechanism, and despite their willpower to budge, they would not.
“Give it a whack,” Thea called over, not looking up at him, her eyes trailing a woodlouse scuttling desolately across the floor.
The Doctor gave the machine a gentle rock. It did not work.
“Oh for…,” Thea turned on her heels, and began shambling over towards the Doctor, hand raised, as if she were about to give him a clip around the ear. Instead, she continued passed him, and stood firmly by the machine, giving it a forceful slam with her palm. Thea could remember it, from a good many years back – there was a technique to it – these things often got so jammed that it took an immense deal of force to fix them.
Upon the force of the blow, the machine clattered, ricocheting off the crumbling wall, and following a spell of suspenseful silence, as the Doctor watched on in anticipation, the machine chugged back into life, delivering the promised Mars Bars along with a dislodged Bounty for good measure.
The Doctor knelt down, and scooped the goods from the machine.
“Mars Bar or Bounty? Or both?”
“Just the Mars Bar, ta. I may be old, but I’ve not lost my marbles yet…”
The Doctor gave her one of the Mars Bars, and steadily she fumbled around with the wrapper, her fingers struggling to find the coordination within them to do it deftly. She swore quietly under her breath at the difficulty of the task.
“Oh, it’s no use…,” she muttered eventually.
“Look,” the Doctor said, gently placing one of his hands on hers. She was, unsurprisingly, tense. In fact, Thea felt it like a stab to the heart – that she had been so close on going on this epic adventure, and now, she could not even open a chocolate bar. “It’s okay. Don’t worry.”
He tore a small tear in the top of the packet – nothing much, just a helping hand. Thea perhaps muttered a ‘thank you’ under her breath, but she felt too embarrassed, and too dejected, to say anything more. She wanted the old days back. The simpler days, where she could open chocolate and not get into an argument with the wrapper. And yet, the sickening irony was evident – there was nothing simple about those days. It was her life then that was the simple, repeating monotony – but amid the constant complexities of her previous life, she hadn’t ever been alone with her thoughts.
God. Thea hated her thoughts.
Her trembling hands finished opening the Mars Bar, and she took a nibble at the chocolate at the end. Even the tiniest fragment was divine, breaking gently away and melting gloriously on the tip of her tongue. It was the first proper chocolate she’d tasted in 20-years, and it was beautiful. That made her feel a little better, at least. Maybe this whole trip had not been in vain.
“I’m so bloody useless,” she muttered sheepishly to the ground, before taking another bite. The ground did not initiate a response. Silent, sullen disagreement, perhaps. However, the Doctor’s face fell, as Thea so mercilessly put herself down, and quickly she interrupted, determined to put a stop to it.
“Thea… you’re strong.”
“Nah,” Thea shrugged it off with another bite of chocolate. Oh, that caramel. Sensational stuff.
“Enviably so,” the Doctor spoke slowly and softly, a quiet sense of awe underpinning his voice, as he watched the uncaring Thea.
For someone like him, at least. Someone like Thea, with so much determination, and the willpower that she found within herself to live the life that she did, day in, day out – that sort of resilience was something that he found himself aspiring desperately to.
Thea drifted over to the rusted fold-up chair in the corner of the room, and gently lowered herself down, steadying herself as the chair rocked precariously beneath her, like no stability could be found anywhere.
“I’d be a liability –”
The Doctor clambered down onto the floor beside her, and took her hand, holding it gently. “Don’t think of yourself like that.”
“And it makes me so upset, ‘cause – oh, goodness me,” she sniffled, blinking away tears, looking away from the Doctor again – a sudden tsunami of emotion washing through her, like pressure had been building up for so long, and finally it had found its release.
The Doctor squeezed her hand and let her talk.
She spoke proudly and resolutely, blocking all emotion off. “‘Cause my John always said, he would go straight down to that bloody tower and give Mrs Cullengate hell.”
But he wasn’t there – and the days they dreamt of destroying a regime were now gone. They had grown old, and as age so often did, the dreams had faded until they were no more than ghosts.
“And I’d be right beside him, if I could afford to get my ruddy hip done.”
She had grown old.
Life had moved on.
Thea’s eyes were big, and sad. Gazing lost, and confused in front of her, like she couldn’t understand it. In truth, there were days that she couldn’t make sense of the fact somehow, she remained, while everything else she’d ever known had crumbled around her. The Doctor watched her staring into space in front of her, as if she were caught in a moment slipping away from her. He understood what it was like – he had seen those eyes before, usually when looking in a mirror.
“I’m sorry, Thea. When did you lose him?”
“Twenty years back,” she said, not looking at him, but for once, feeling at ease on the common ground they had discovered in unspoken acknowledgement. “Lung cancer.”
Both heavy smokers in their youths, Thea often mused that those days had finally caught up with them. Him and his cancer. Her in her arthritis – supposedly caused by smoking.
And yet, she’d never stopped. She’d got worse since John had died.
“I had to practically crawl to the funeral,” Thea explained, remembering the trial it had been to drag herself to the crematorium. “Rheumatoid arthritis, see. No way in hell I was missing it, though. Even if I ended up in the oven beside him.”
Thea paused, like she suddenly realised something – or at least, suddenly understood something she’d been feeling for a long time.
“Sometimes I wish I had ended up in the oven.”
She missed him every day. 20 years down the line, Thea understood that although the specifics might change, grief was persistent. When it was raw, she found herself finding the glimmers of hope in the fact that one day, she might be over it. But, she had learned that would never be the case. She still always wanted him beside her – wanted to hear his voice, hear his laugh. Hear words of comfort when she looked around at her tiny little room, and breathed the ventilated, metallic air. Feel him next to her – his breathing, the trueness and reality of his existence.
But it was all just silence and nothing.
Except, she would find that sometimes, there would be something. Not a ghost – but she’d close her eyes for a second, and she might just hear his laugh, or feel him beside her, as if somehow she’d fallen back in time – and she would dream about how it would be, if she could keep those eyes closed forever. That was what it was like, when one had loved someone for a long time. To feel, so long after they’re gone, that they’re always with you. It was terrifying. But magic, too.
But then Thea would open her eyes.
He’d be gone again.
But at least they’d had those seconds. Those beautiful, beautiful seconds.
“That’s why I really wanted it,” Thea muttered, gutted by the fact that time had to move on. “To fight Evangeline with you – because it’s what John always wanted to do. So… I thought, maybe, if I wished really hard, I could do what was right by him.”
How she wished it would be that easy. But it hurt – that she would never be able to do what was right by him. That she was too dead herself.
“I know it doesn’t make it easier… but he would be proud of you.”
Thea quickly interrupted him. They both knew that nobody could ever know what the lost would think “But I’ve always believed it, for so many years. If you love someone, you don’t do what’s right by your own feelings. You do what’s right by them. And now I can’t, and that hurts, Doctor. It hurts.”
Her voice cracked, and she sniffled, trying to stifle more tears. The Doctor squeezed her hand.
“Hey, look,” he said, as Thea deliberately looked away. “Thea, look at me.”
She took a slow, shaky breath. And when she exhaled, that was just as tremulous, her attempts to steady herself proving entirely futile. Then, she looked to the Doctor. Her eyes were fading, the whites around them darkening, the pupils dulling. Lines and wrinkles were etched deep around them, and her lips and hair had thinned – and she was old. Fragile. But she told herself, that she would not be broken. She forced herself to look at the Doctor.
She was strong. She held onto that.
“I understand,” the Doctor said.
Thea knew he did, and suddenly she began to cry again, the tears streaming and dampening the aged parchmentlike skin beneath her eyes. She whispered several shaky apologies under her breath and wiped a hand across her nose.
“I’m going to go over to that tower,” the Doctor continued, as she old woman beside him sobbed. “And I am going to stop Evangeline Cullengate. And I am going to do it in your name, and in John’s name, yes?”
Thea nodded, desperately grateful. The Doctor wished she’d stopped. She should not be thanking him – if anything, it should be the other way around. Then, the emotion spread to him, and he himself tripped up over the words.
“I… I won’t rest until I’ve done it, okay? This will all end, and it’ll be because of you. Because… because you and John had the spirit and love to get through everything you did. And that’s what I’ll do, Thea, I’ll take that love to them, and – and it’ll all be okay, yes? It’ll all be fine.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you, so, so much –”
“Please, there’s – there’s no need,” the Doctor balanced himself on the balls of his feet, and held Thea close to him – on the small chair and because of her small stature, they were of a similar enough height for the Doctor to wrap an arm around her.
“You’re a good man…”
No, he told himself. He was just doing what was right.
“I’ll give Evangeline hell, Thea. I truly will.”
“You do that,” Thea said, stifling the next sob, and regaining herself. She sat upright, away from the Doctor, and grabbed her voice, holding it steady. “And then, you go back to your family, and be with them, yes?”
“I – I –”
“You have too, yes? You shouldn’t be without them. Not for long.”
The Doctor forced a smile. Things weren’t ever so simple. He shook his head sullenly and gave her a pained look.
“You said you’ve always got to do right by the people you love. Well…,” the Doctor said, finally understanding what he’d been missing for so long. After everything with Emma, something hadn’t felt right. Whenever he’d been with them all, and looked his wife and daughter in the face, there was something that he couldn’t understand. But finally, it made sense.
“I don’t know if I can,” he said.
Thea did not seem satisfied.
“You always can.”
“I can’t, Thea.”
She interrupted him quickly. “There’s always one more thing you can do.”
He knew what she was going to say. It had been preying on his own mind for a while – maybe, after everything that had happened, there was one last thing he could try to make things right.
“I don’t know what you’ve done,” Thea admitted. For all she knew, the nice gentleman promising to live out a legacy for her and her husband might have done all sorts. She dreaded to think – so she tried not to. “And maybe, if it’s… awful, maybe leaving them is right.”
The Doctor nodded slowly, understanding.
But then Thea continued.
“Or maybe it isn’t.”
He looked up at her, surprise pricking his ears. She watched him wisely, smiling a mischievous grin, and a glimmer of hope glinting in her eye. She chuckled knowingly, but the Doctor didn’t understand. He watched her blankly, waiting for her to continue.
“Do what’s right by them, yes?” she explained. It was simple. She’d said it all already. “Their decision.”
The Doctor let a light smile drift across his face, and he understood, finally. After everything he’d done, there was only one way out of this. Out of all of it – stopping Evangeline, making amends with his family, trying to do something good in the universe. This was what he’d been working towards, for so long – making up for his mistakes, trying to do something kind in the hope that somehow, it would change some lives for the better. He didn’t care about what sort of person he was, so long as he helped people, and kept people safe.
“Thank you,” the Doctor spoke quietly, treasuring Thea’s words.
He stood slowly, steadying himself on his feet. Ready to go. Ready to get to work.
Thea watched him stand, knowing this was the end. She tried to hide the disappointment flickering across her face. He had made her feel special again. For once in her life, even if it was just down to the bottom of the stairs for a Mars Bar, she had gone on an adventure – and her life had felt worth something. She had hope, and for once, she thought it was worth dreaming.
It had been the longest 45 minutes of Thea’s life – but every second had been brilliant.
But, like everything, it had to come to an end.
She had faith, however. The Doctor stood, straightening his jacket, fixing his cravat, smoothing his collar. His gaze fixed intently on the outside world, and with his rough old boots and grubby trousers, and patchwork jacket with pocket watch hanging, Thea knew that he was ready for business. A grim look spread across his face, perhaps as the task truly began to settle in. He grimaced for a few seconds, and then wiped it off his face. That would get nobody anywhere.
So, he smiled.
“Thea,” he waltzed over to her, and held out his hand. “It is a shame you can’t join me – but I shall accompany you back upstairs?”
Thea looked up, admittedly a bit shocked. She wanted to stay. Somewhere else, just for a bit longer, before she confined herself back to her little room.
“I’ll wait for you here,” she said.
The Doctor did not seem sure, and she clocked his unnerved look.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, the determination in her voice verging on terrifying. “Bugger off and kill her, would you? I can get up the stairs…”
He hid his uncertainty, then. He remembered what she said.
“Thank you, Thea,” he knelt down, and kissed Thea’s hand. Then, he let it go, and turned to the door.
To the outside world.
He left, and as Thea watched him go, it felt like all might just be okay. That seemed to be what the Doctor did. Fly around in that strange blue box, and make things okay again. She watched him disappear, sad, but content too. Say that day ended up as the last day of her life, she would be happy that it had been the best day ever – and that for once, she could sleep easy.
The Doctor, however, was not so hopeful. When he exited the property, and looked up at the building, a sickening feeling grew in his stomach.
It was just a normal building. A normal-sized terraced house.
But that was why. It was a normal-sized terraced house, with the longest staircase the Doctor had ever seen in his life.
Somehow, Blue Rocket Street HMOs were bigger on the inside.
Somebody was using Time Lord science.
***
Downing Tower loomed high above him. In fact, looking up gave the Doctor vertigo, as the almighty structure was so, impossibly tall, that it almost seemed to bend over before his eyes, as if it were close to toppling, a whole Empire crashing and shattering like a tsunami, a tidal wave of broken glass that would break over a city, and cut Mrs Cullengate’s Empire into ribbons of flesh and blood.
The Doctor stood opposite the immense structure alone. No family, no TARDIS. In fact, in the sprawling shadow of the massive tower, the thought of his TARDIS didn’t seem so much bigger on the inside. In fact, the Doctor knew, deep down, that his spacecraft was 10-times the size of Cullengate’s offices – but it made no difference, because Downing Tower was not only enormous in structure, but also chilling in its intimidation. Not many buildings made the Doctor so unnerved – but there was something about this one that just put him on edge. Perhaps it was Cullengate’s power itself.
And as for his family? In a way, he felt better that they did not stand beside him. Nobody to get hurt, after all. But at the same time, he was so alone, and he needed them, to make him smile, make him laugh, and give him hope. No matter how many times he told himself that they were safe, it didn’t change anything. They weren’t there, with him. They had changed him, so much for the better. Without them… he would be a shadow of himself.
Evangeline Cullengate wasn’t a mystery. Perhaps she did have an odd aura, perhaps the Doctor was unnerved by the fact she struck him as unusual. But he had learned to look past that. He had realised the truth – that Mrs Cullengate was not a mystery, and she had shown her true colours. The truth behind Mrs Cullengate was surrounding him, in this cutting, cold Empire she had assembled.
The factories pumped their smog into the air, and the fumes caught in his throat, and the rain lashed down and made his clothes heavy and sodden, like the planet itself was trying to stop him, informing him that it was a bad idea. But he ignored it, and strode through the puddles, letting them wet the seams of his trousers and the tops of his socks, as he made his way to the tall, wrought iron gates, sturdy and standing tall and imperious above him. Nothing could get through those gates.
Thankfully, he had come prepared – and he knew how to break into the most secure office in the universe.
He walked up to the gates and held his hands above his head. He knew that, in time, they would recognise him. He must have been at the top of the most-wanted list for quite a long time. In fairness, however, he was at the top of a lot of ‘most-wanted’ lists. Something he was, in fact, rather proud of. Especially in situations like this. It reassured him, to know that power feared him.
A few seconds passed, and as expected, he heard the sound of a gun – or several guns – click into action behind him. Slowly, he spun on his feet, to realise he was staring down the barrels of at least 7 different weapons. They looked like living shadows, her guards, armoured in black plates and leathers, the slate-grey skies pouring vicious on them all, their guns glinting menacingly in the waters. The Doctor flicked his straggled hair from his eyes like that of a bedraggled dog and faced the great symbol of power backing against the ornate gates.
One of the guards gestured, and the Doctor nodded slowly.
He stepped back, and slowly the gates to hell swung heavily on their hinges.
Cullengate’s Empire lay before him.
With a gun to his head, the Doctor made his way in.
***
Evangeline took a sip of her earl grey and turned back to her paperwork.
It was a quiet evening, like any other. Forms to read, things to sign. The general running of her kingdom – just another day at the office. And she was quite content, as she sat in her spacious office. Hugo and Edwin snoozed in their luxury leather dog-baskets in the far corner, the lights were dimmed, the sole light in the room came from the harsh whiteness of the desk lamp. The city around her remained busy – work never stopped, and there was always business to be getting on with.
When she needed to rest her eyes from the sheer enormity of the files and information to be consumed, she would take a glance at the skyscrapers around, poking up at the skyline. She would watch the tiny people, buzzing about like drones in a beehive, working hard to produce their honey. It was terribly satisfying, and always reminded Evangeline of what she’d set out to do. The sky was the limit, after all. She had reached it with Downing Tower – now, she could watch everyone else trying desperately to reach the same glorious heights.
Otherwise, it was dark. Occasionally, one could see space in all its glory, from that glass office at the top of Downing Tower, and at the roof of the world. So high up, Evangeline liked to think that she owned them. After all, she was closest to them. Oh, that made her feel truly… amazing. To think that she owned all of the stars and all the space above their heads. Her magnificence had reached unbridled levels – she practically owned the universe.
Her worth was priceless.
She smiled contently to herself, then plucked her fountain pen from beside her. Her glass desk was exquisitely ordered – six fountain pens lay in perfect formation to her right, to minimise the time necessitated to take one, and use it. To her left, lay her carefully ordered sheath of papers. In front of her, lay her current task. And, as a sturdy border to her glass table, there lay a few ornaments, aligned perfectly, all straight and at right-angles. A metronome, a small globe, a bronze model of a golden retriever – all spaced at equal intervals.
Perfect.
She took her fountain pen to the sheet in front of her. Just some proposals about what to do with illegal aliens. All sounded in order.
She eloquently scribed her signature.
But then, something most unusual happened.
Evangeline’s head darted upwards, and her eyes glanced desperately around the office. It was almost as if they were motivated by fear. No… she told herself. Fear. Evangeline Cullengate did not fear. She was a queen, after all.
But something had changed. Something was wrong. She knew the measure of everything in this tower, and she could feel when it wasn’t quite working. And at that moment, there had been a noise. A clunking, of some sorts. Of what, Evangeline was not quite sure. And was why she remained so unnerved – because every bump in the night, the timings of every possible noise – Evangeline knew them all. The inner workings of her household, of its staff and of the very building, were all stored firmly in her head.
That’s how she knew.
There was someone else there.
An intruder.
Calmly, and with clean, precise motion, she scooted backwards on her chair, and elegantly rose to a standing position. Well. This would be exciting. Thankfully, she was dressed smartly. A sleek, navy business suit, and a pearl necklace – Evangeline could not bear scruffiness. She waited, behind her desk, perfectly still – though her eyes jumped around, looking for where on earth her visitor might be.
If she were irrational – which, of course, was a ridiculous notion – Evangeline would have felt like there was someone all around her. An omnipresent demon, lurking in every shadow, waiting to leap out and kill her. As her eyes batted around the room, she swore she saw things move, and leer, and prowl, and hiss, and run in front of her, and maybe even scream.
But it was just the dark, and the silence.
And besides. Evangeline was not irrational.
That being said, even Mrs Cullengate had to try very, very hard to stifle her shock, and horror, when she saw the person stepping through into her office – emerging from the shadows, like this meeting had always been inevitable.
“I wasn’t expecting… this,” Evangeline said, her shock swiftly turning to a grin. While Evangeline did not possess many faults, she was always partial to be a little too proud in her achievements. The evidence was in front of her – in a way, Evangeline felt this might be what it was like to be a mother, and to see one’s grown-up child walking in front of you.
“Yes, you were.”
Emma strode slowly in, her skin bone-white, and her lips blood-red, with nails in the same shade tapping against the trigger of the gun she held. Her boots clicked on the floor, and the buckles on her long, black leather coat swung and rattled, as she walked with exquisite grace into the chamber. Evangeline was quite surprised. For a little girl who had been raised feral – this was remarkable.
“When I heard that you escaped…” Evangeline mused. “I wondered whether you would eventually find me.”
In fact, Evangeline had been certain Emma would one day come for her. Monitoring the little girl growing up, Evangeline had come to realise the sort of girl they had raised. It had simply been a matter of time. So, she slowly walked around the desk, and positioned herself not far from the young woman. Evangeline was unfazed by the weapon.
“I know you funded the scheme,” Emma cut straight to the chase. There was no need to delay – she had been waiting for this conversation for so many years. Ever since she promised to find those who had taken away her freedom for so many years, Emma had been desperate to look them in the eye. Now, one of them stood in front of her.
“I own the planet.”
“Sorry. I set it on fire,” Emma retorted uncaringly.
Evangeline smiled faintly, almost a little bit pleased. At least her investment hadn’t amounted to nothing. “I saw. The whole thing, if I recall. Up in smoke.”
Emma weighed her gun up in her hands. “That’s what you get, I guess, if you’re thick enough to buy a planet with gasoline for rain.”
“Land, Emma,” Evangeline ignored her, talking to her like she was a disobedient, ignorant child. In fact, as far as Evangeline was concerned, she was. “However deprived, is not cheap.”
Emma paused, as if waiting for some great revelation. Evangeline knew she was being mocked, and she sighed, folding her arms and looking up in silent irritation.
“Cool?” Emma jibed, not caring one little bit. Land meant nothing. The cost of it meant nothing. Not to her, anyway. All that mattered was that she did what she needed to do. She swore that she would take action on those who had wronged her – and Evangeline was one of the main candidates. “What do you want? A shoulder to cry on?”
Evangeline gently began to stride over to Emma, unconcerned by the gun. Emma watched her approach, unchanging. But, when Mrs Cullengate reached out an arm, Emma held the gun just a little bit tighter, aiming it just a little bit more accurate, and her finger moved just a little bit closer to the trigger.
“Emma –”
“Sad that I burned your whole planet?” This time, Emma was the one approaching Evangeline. This was her situation to control – after so many years of being manipulated at the hands of others, now it was her turn. She walked closer, backing the old woman away, her finger hovering right on the trigger, like it was tempted itself to fire the gun.
“Emma, look –”
“It was fun, I think. I only had half a face at the time.” She could still feel it – the scar, on one side of her head, from where she’d carved out the Monitor robot. It had been utter agony – but she had escaped it. But the scar would never leave her.
“Should you really be mocking me, Emma?”
Emma shrugged, as she herded Evangeline to her glass desk. Relishing in it, she strode closer to the old witch, driving her with the weapon, forcing her to lean backwards, and forcing her face to scrunch up in terror. It felt good. Emma liked it. A lot. Like finally, she was enjoying the moment she’d been waiting for her entire life. Watching them suffer. “Why not?”
“Because you have no idea how this is going to end.”
“Hopefully with you on a slab,” Emma remarked, smiling wryly.
Evangeline signed at Emma’s petty behaviour. Still, in so many ways, such a child. Vengeful. Bitter. Blinded by passion. It was no way to think, as it was so easy to lose focus of the truth. Of reality. At moments like this, Evangeline was quite happy to be an adult, and to no longer be subject to the ever-ephemeral passions of the youth. Perhaps her delight was evident, as a smug smile crawled onto her lips.
“How did you get in?” she questioned. It had suddenly struck her, as she’d been far too distracted at the surreal scene playing in front of her. But, it did not make sense. The security of her palatial skyscraper was absolute. Nobody could get in, unless she gave permission. And it meant her security was compromised. She made a mental note – when this situation was all over, and the stupid girl resided in a body bag, she would have her security rechecked. Couldn’t risk anything like this happening again.
Emma shrugged like it meant nothing. “I killed the guards,” she declared dismissively.
“How?”
“Murder.”
Evangeline smiled patronisingly. “I mean, how did you kill them? It’s moments like this where I remember your upbringing. How sometimes, you don’t understand the… simple quirks of our language. Can’t be helped, I suppose.”
“Stop treating me like a test subject.”
“No… you’re an investment,” Evangeline spoke wistfully, pride tugging at her lips. Her greatest ever – and she had poured millions into the scheme. Bought the planet, funded the Monitor robot technology. Seeing the returns in front of her was satisfying.
“And you are a hag with two fleabag dogs and a hairpiece. I’ve had enough of this.”
She prepared herself to shoot, her finger nestled gently on the trigger of a gun, like the two were familiar – old friends. Her eyes watched Evangeline, fixated. She was going to enjoy this. So many long nights, building up to this moment – and finally, they were going to be satisfied.
But then she blinked, and she stopped.
She was staring down the barrel of a gun herself.
“No, Emma,” Evangeline hissed, her own gun held precisely in her hands. This was not new to her either. “I don’t think you have.”
Emma couldn’t help but smile herself, then. It seemed she could not be so hasty when killing Mrs Cullengate. Painful as that brute fact was, it gave her mild hope that, when the time eventually came to put a bullet through the woman opposite, it would be doubly satisfying. And, she could deny, Emma had taken quite a liking to games like this. Who would shoot first?
It made things interesting – especially when, like herself and Evangeline, they were experienced with firearms. And that in itself was a pleasant surprise to Emma – she hadn’t expected Mrs Cullengate to be so deft with a gun. She was mildly intrigued as to why, as she had thought Evangeline to be born into privilege, and to have had private militias to do her dirty work. But, the woman opposite held the weapon confidently, and calmly. She aimed it precisely. She kept her cool. A formidable opponent, certainly.
“It’s a sweet story,” Evangeline snorted like an individual with seven houses and a holding of horses. Which was actually true, in Evangeline’s case. The tables turned, again – Evangeline prowled back, forcing Emma to retreat, until both of them stood in the centre of the room on mutual ground. “Girl breaks away from her ‘captors’ and swears to bring about justice. Unfortunately – it’s not that simple. These things rarely get a happy ending, hmm?”
Emma’s finger hovered over her trigger, and Evangeline’s finger over her own.
One of them would die. But who had the nerve? Well – neither of them were scared, and both were capable of doing the deed. If it were down to reaction times, then Emma would have the edge. She was a hunter, raised by wolves, her senses sharper than the knives she was also so adept at using – any slight movement, and Emma could kill Evangeline before Evangeline blinked. But, if it were down to expectations, then perhaps it would be Mrs Cullengate – already the woman had proved to have multiple surprises up her sleeve, and Emma was reluctant to take too many risks, quite sure that Evangeline would throw another curveball by putting a bullet straight in her brain.
Both women circled each other, training their guns on the other. The game could go to either of them – but who? Who was going to be brave enough? Who was going to dare to do it?
Who was going to shoot first?
Unfortunately, they were interrupted by an awkward cough.
Both women turned, to see the Doctor.
Emma sighed. Evangeline’s jaw dropped.
He awkwardly shuffled into Evangeline’s office, his hands in his jacket pockets. The Doctor offered Emma a smile and a sort of half-wave. “Ah – Emma, hello,” he shuffled into the room, gently shutting the door behind him. Always trying to be polite.
“Not long enough,” Emma said, her head at a 90-degree angle to her arm, as she gave the Doctor an icy glare, and continued to point her gun straight at Evangeline’s head.
“How did you get in?” Evangeline asked the Doctor, astounded by the Doctor’s presence. Though, when she thought about it, if anybody was going to have the audacity to go sneaking around her offices, then the Doctor was the number one candidate.
“I let them take me. My plan was to get caught, and be brought straight up to you –”
“That’s a terrible plan,” Emma snidely cut in.
“Thank you, Emma,” the Doctor continued, gracefully brushing over her remarks. “They got me as far as reception, but it’s carnage downstairs. Slit throats are usually a good distraction.”
He glared at Emma. Emma did not move.
“And seriously, Evangeline,” the Doctor looked at her forebodingly. “Those guards of yours, multitasking isn’t their forte. I managed to sneak away with ease. Anyway. I got upstairs, felt like having a look around. I found this.”
He reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out the crystal orb, which he then proceeded to drop on the floor. It landed with a thud, and while one would look at an object of such a material and expect it to shatter, the orb simply dropped to the ground, defying all that was expected of it, like a cannonball landing with a thwack against the ground.
Emma and Evangeline both gave into their reflexes, with Evangeline instantly stepping back, and Emma turning her gun on the Doctor. The Doctor, meanwhile, leapt out of his awkward shuffle, and began to stride slowly across the room, over to Evangeline’s desk, watching both Emma and Evangeline panic with a strange delight.
Emma had regained herself in an instant, and pointed her gun at the Doctor, and had also, somehow during the cuffuffle, unsheathed a hunting knife, which she now held outstretched, with enough confidence in her grip to tell both the Doctor and Evangeline that she was quite adept at using it. The blade was curved slightly, and glinted softly in the sliver of moonlight darting through the glass office, suspended high in the night. The knife shone silver, and like the moon, looked as if it could slice through even the toughest of material.
Evangeline, however, looked down at the orb, a look of something akin to horror on her face. The Doctor had thought it would shock her, that he’d managed to find the device. She scooped it up, as quickly as possible, and then fumbled around with her gun, now not quite sure who to point it at. She slowed the situation down in front of her – thought it through, every little piece of the puzzle. Evangeline was good at that. Analysing the whole thing, every bit of it, working how it fitted together, and how that complex chain of cause and effect could unfold from every action.
She opted for Emma. The Doctor looked unarmed.
“I don’t know what you’re going to do with that,” Emma shrugged. “You fire at me, I can slit your throat.”
“Even with your ego, Emma,” Evangeline giggled. Since the Doctor had pulled out that orb, there had been a look of her – of being somewhat… undone. “Faster than bullets is a little optimistic, hmm?”
“Ego?” Emma watched Evangeline incredulously. Clearly, Evangeline was out of her depth. It was no surprise. In Emma’s experience, such people always were. They could control people in their ivory towers, but in practise? They were nothing. “Evangeline, it is a stretch to find me arrogant, even for someone so ignorant they have eight cheeseboards –”
“Eight cheeseboards?” the Doctor gawked, as he strode over to Evangeline’s desk. “Goodness. That’s one for each of my regenerations…”
“This is typical,” Evangeline sighed. “Both of you, trying to change the subject. I presume you are both working together?”
“Him?” Emma spat, like Evangeline’s very notion was poisonous. “I have no need for him. Just like I have no need to be a narcissist.”
The Doctor nodded slowly, as he slumped down in Evangeline’s swivel chair. He loved swivel chairs. They always made remarkably stressful situations a little bit less terrifying. But, as he watched Emma speak, he knew she was being truthful. If there was one thing Emma did not want, or care for, it was attention and admiration. She had no need for anything like that – as the Doctor had witnessed, Emma simply… did. She had her goals, and no matter what ruthless lengths she would have to go to – Emma would stop at nothing to reach them.
“Having said that, Evangeline,” Emma spoke slowly, looking as Evangeline gripped the strange, crystalline orb as tightly as possible. “I can read people like books. And I can see that you are trying to divert attention away from yourself and that orb.”
“That’s because,” the Doctor interrupted, as both Evangeline and Emma turned to look at him. Evangeline’s face fell when she saw him sat in her chair. “That’s a dimension translator.”
Emma looked at him obliviously. Evangeline looked sheepishly to the floor.
“What does it do?” Emma asked, looking at the Doctor but keeping her eye on Evangeline (and her knife).
“The whole ‘bigger-on-the-inside’ thing,” the Doctor said, pointing to Evangeline. “Take my TARDIS. It has one of these. Basically, it creates the new dimension. Sorry – no, that doesn’t make sense. My TARDIS, it’s a big room inside a small room. The orb creates the big room, and keeps it in the small room. Very clever. Good for fridges, and – well, TARDISes…”
“What significance does it have?” Emma spoke plainly, for if it meant nothing then she would not care for it.
The Doctor shrugged. “Well – there’s a house down the road. Normal sized terrace property, but with more stairs, and rooms, than I’ve ever seen in my life. Somehow, Evangeline has got hold of some Time Lord science, and is using it to try and… what? Solve the housing crisis?”
Evangeline did not look willing to offer an answer.
“But basically,” the Doctor continued. “It’s typical Time Lord technology, it’s very dull. Like stellar manipulators. Which is, er, awkward, because I found one of those too.”
Suddenly he grabbed a strange, oblong device from his pocket, like that of a television remote, but empty apart from two buttons spaced evenly along it. Immediately Evangeline turned her gun on the Doctor, and Emma’s finger hovered just a little bit closer to the trigger. She knew of stellar manipulators, and their immense power. A device, used to manipulate the energy of stars. One could use it to tear down solar systems, if one wanted. The Doctor plonked the device down on Evangeline’s glass desk, where it landed with a clatter. Both Emma and Evangeline backed away.
“You wouldn’t dare use that, Doctor…,” Evangeline watched him, her eyes narrowing. The Doctor was meant to be predictable, to be understandable through his compassion. Though as she watched his nonchalance with such a powerful weapon, she was not so sure.
“Clearly, Evangeline,” the Doctor held the remote. Emma and Evangeline were waving weapons around – he might as well join in. “Bigger-on-the-inside orbs, stellar manipulators. You are in league with the Time Lords.”
A silence fell.
Emma did not seem shocked. Evangeline looked at him unfazed. Perhaps confused, in fact.
“Oh,” the Doctor said, admittedly a little disappointed that his revelation hadn’t had more impact. He still had two guns trained on him – though he did have a superweapon pointing at them, so it could have been worse. “Well, er, forget that, then…”
Clearly not a talking point.
The Doctor looked up. He was still staring down the barrels of two guns.
“I had a professor, back at the Academy,” he began to explain. He was terrible at going off on tangents at important moments. “He used one a stellar manipulator as a coaster. It was funny, actually, he teaches Iris now. Always awkward when that happens, honestly, parents’ evening last –”
“Stop talking nonsense,” Evangeline hissed, waving her gun as if it was going to scare him. “And give me that device.”
The Doctor leaned back in the chair. “He’s got a moustache now and everything –”
Evangeline repeated it, forcefully. Loudly. He could see her – the fear rising through her. He had a superweapon – one that could kill all of them, if he wanted to. “Doctor, give me that device. Stop treating this like a game!”
“And breath that smells like coffee…”
She understood now. His unpredictability. His fingers getting closer to the buttons on the stellar manipulator, the way he toyed with it like it was just a bit of plastic, when in truth it could destroy her whole empire. This time, she stepped closer, her gun not so steady in her hands, and she shouted – a desperate cry, for him to stop.
“Doctor!”
“No!” the Doctor roared, his voice cutting through the room. Evangeline stumbled backwards, and she lowered her gun. She steadied herself, taking shaky breaths. Emma remained, unmoving, as if the Doctor’s shout had just passed over her – but in her eyes, was a look of being almost, slightly… scared. “I’ll stop treating this like a game, Evangeline, when you stop treating this as a game.”
He gestured to the room around her. To the whole city. Glass and metal reaching high into the skyscrapers. Though they stood alone in that strange, transparent bubble in the sky, the city around them was buzzing – workers, still in their buildings. Ground down to the bone, milking the city for as much money as it possibly could. And yet – no matter how much they did, it was all a failure. There were still people like Thea. The people in the streets below them, who had nothing – who were victims of that failed and corrupt system.
“That’s the thing with you, Evangeline. There’s no big plan. You just want to govern – to run this place like you run a business. You’re an ideologue, Mrs Cullengate – you and your sky-high blue thinking, but you don’t know what it’s like for everyone else. It’s a game to you. Make as much cash as you can. But do you actually care about the little people?”
He waited for answer. Evangeline did not say anything. No programmed, automatic response.
“You don’t. You don’t care. And that’s why I won’t stop – that’s why I came here, to this planet. To stop you. Because I was going to before, and I didn’t. But now? Now, I’m trying to get it right, to do good for people.”
“Do you possibly think you can win?”
“That’s how I’ve spent my whole life, Evangeline. Staring into the eyes of dragons, and watching them fall. And I will stop you.”
The Doctor had seen it – in her records’ room. Plans for concentration camps. Cullengate’s private militias. Shutting down arms of the government, turning the whole planet into her regime. That was where things would go, if nobody did anything to stop her.
“You would die trying?” Evangeline snarled.
The Doctor nodded slowly, but confidently, in confirmation. He had never been surer of anything. “I would die to make things better, yes. This planet. And Emma.”
“You can’t possibly fix what happened with me,” Emma pointed the gun at the Doctor, the grip tightening just a little bit…
“No,” the Doctor agreed. “I agree. You owe me nothing. Nothing at all. All I can say, is that I apologise. But as Cioné says – even if I can’t, I can try, somehow, to make amends.”
Emma looked at him, like he was simply talking rubbish. He probably was. She was so used to having people doing that. Simply… speaking. Their words meaning nothing, entirely superfluous. So she gave him a wry smile, and felt her finger close closer to the trigger of her gun. These would be the words. The words that decided what she would do.
“So?” she shrugged. “You keep going on about it– what are you going to do?”
The three of them stood in the moonlight. The corrupt businesswoman. The neglected girl. The Doctor.
Emma and Evangeline pointed their guns at the Doctor. Maybe this was the moment that he died – somehow trying to fix two impossible situations – the fate of Evangeline Cullengate’s brutal Empire, and the way that Emma had suffered. The way that he had been part of that. Maybe he would die, trying to make this happen – but if it was this that killed him, then so be it.
Evangeline, meanwhile, loosened the grip on her weapon, pointing it casually at the bumbling idiot sat in her chair. The Doctor was too kind. He’d stop that stupid little girl with all her fancy weapons and toys from killing her. Turn the other cheek, and all that. For him, then, an impossible problem – for if he let Evangeline live, then her Empire would reign strong. And she felt safe. Knew that the Doctor’s compassion would keep her alive. That was why Evangeline always won. She was ruthless. She was better.
But Emma was not so sure. She had spent her whole life being lied to. Being manipulated. The Doctor was part of them – that ruthless group lording it over her, suppressing her. She would expect nothing good from him, until it actually happened. And even then, Emma would not trust it. The group he had been part of had messed her up, and it was something that she would never recover from. So, she watched the Doctor. Trying to read him – as she did with everyone. But for once… there was something about him that she couldn’t quite decipher.
The Doctor tossed Emma the control to the stellar manipulator. She caught it.
Then he shrugged.
“Nothing.”
Suddenly a look of horror spread on Evangeline’s face.
“What do you mean?” Emma asked.
“Nothing,” the Doctor repeated.
“No – you –,” Evangeline spluttered. The Doctor looked at her with contempt. Of course. Evangeline had thought the Doctor would save her.
“I spent a hundred years complicit to a plan that controlled you,” the Doctor looked to Emma, and with nothing but pain, and honesty, and self-detestation, he spoke to her. “Part of that plan. Controlled you, took away your power, everything you were. I won’t do that anymore – I won’t do anything – I won’t stop you, Emma. Now, it is your choice. Your power, your freedom. To deal with me as you see fit. To deal with Evangeline as you see fit.”
“Who do you think you are?” Evangeline waved a dismissive hand, then turned her gun on him. “You’re a fool!”
The Doctor spoke, as if reassuring himself. Content in the knowledge of who he was – that what he was doing was right.
“I – I am the Doctor –”
“You’re nothing of the –,” Evangeline shook her head, as suddenly, she realised.
The Doctor would not let compassion save his enemy. Instead… he would let kindness save the girl he had wronged.
“Because now,” the Doctor explained, as he walked over to the two women, striding in the face of their guns. “When I’ve got it wrong, I work hard to try and make it right. Since meeting Cioné and Lizzie, and having Iris, that’s what they do. Make me accountable. Hold me to the mark. But that doesn’t mean always getting it right – nobody can do that, nobody can… get 100%. It means that when I get it wrong, I work hard to make amends. To always, always make amends, and try to get it right. And, Evangeline, that’s what I’ll do.”
Evangeline and Emma looked at him, entirely bemused.
“Because in giving Emma the freedom, and the power, and the agency, everything you ever stood for, Evangeline, is gone. You suppressed all of those things, for so many people, but by giving them back to Emma, you can’t suppress them anymore. And now, you, and me, and all the others who were complicit in that disgusting experiment, can’t suppress that lonely woman.”
“So that’s your gamble? You let the stupid girl do what she wants, in the hope that somehow, she’ll topple my Empire?”
“Maybe she will. Maybe she won’t. She might kill us both and walk away, leave your regime intact. But that will start it off. If we’re gone – the people who kept the birds caged – then they will start to fly. And this Empire will fall. Cioné, Lizzie, Iris – they’ll work at it. So many people on the surface below – they’ll work at it.”
And then, both the Doctor and Evangeline looked to Emma.
The Doctor smiled to her, a little bit awkwardly. “Time to fly, Emma.”
For once, she looked as if she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to do. All her life, she had been dictated to – and now was the moment.
Emma regained herself.
Now was the moment.
And she could do it. She could win.
“Stop being so sentimental,” Emma turned, looking at the Doctor in the corner of her eye, like she was almost embarrassed to be looking at him straight on. She was grateful for what he had said – for what he had agreed to do. Like the future might just be a little bit better, and that, to an extent, she had won. Though at the same time, that did not change the past; Emma knew she was not obliged to him, that there were no debts to be paid. She looked to the Doctor, and then to Evangeline. The Doctor could wait.
“You,” Emma looked to Evangeline, and found she was short of knowing what to say. Well. She’d never planned out what she was going to say. Never truly believed it was ever a feasible possibility. So, she simply looked to Evangeline and said the words that came naturally to her. “You have ruined my life.”
“I did what I did to make you magnificent.”
“But you were never the problem.”
Emma watched her with contempt. In fact, to her, Evangeline had always meant nothing. She was just the multi-billionaire, simple, easy to deconstruct. Same as all the others. And Emma knew what she was going to do. There had never been any other fate awaiting Evangeline Cullengate.
So, Emma took her gun, and she shot Evangeline in the chest.
The science meant that Evangeline saw the flash before she heard the sound and had any kind of comprehension of what was happening. That was okay. Evangeline had never cared much for science anyway, if it got in the way of her cash flow. Before she even knew what was going on, then, the bullet had pierced Evangeline’s flesh, and shattered her ribcage, and then ruptured her heart. The first sign of something being wrong was the moment she suddenly felt the shockwave ripple through her body.
Then her legs gave way, and that was when Evangeline truly understood. She heard the noise of the gunshot, and it was at that moment, it fell into place, and she understood. It wasn’t even that exciting. In fact, on the outside, it was as if nothing was wrong. There was no explosion of blood, no great primal scream of pain. Instead, a sullen dribble, like a baby’s dribble, trickled down her blouse and stained it red. Inside her, of course, fragments of bone and bullet ricocheted around inside her like confetti at a deathly wedding, and her heart was futilely trying to pump blood around her body, as if trying to compensate for the fact there was a hole in it.
Evangeline landed with a thud on the floor, and rather unfortunately for her, lay splayed out sideways, her limbs floppy and scattered all over the place. Like a leaky tap, the blood seeped out of the wound and drip-dropped onto the floor, forming a little puddle right beside where Evangeline lay.
And she lay there, and gasped. Like a fish taken out of water, desperate for air. Except, she was too sluggish to panic. To slow. There was just one, hoarse, empty gasp. Then a few seconds. Then another.
That was the great Evangeline Cullengate. Who had risen to power, and won it in a glorious election victory. To many, the messiah, ready to save the Empire from liberal destitution, a diversion from its great imperial beginnings, and the dream of an imperial future. To just as many, a witch who would bring nothing but division and hurt to everyone, and would plunge the universe into a very dark low. After a few years in office, Evangeline had certainly created an upper city that was the envy of the universe – while the other 99% of the population of the Empire lay crushed beneath her feet.
Border shuttles to bring people down to the surface, her rigorous control over the planet’s industry and the lives of everyone, and a climb-down in minority rights. But so many stayed silent. A secret police, forced from Cullengate’s party and business, roamed the streets, with the rumours that if they came for you, then you would never see the light of day. Not because you’d be dead, but because they would imprison you.
Many on the streets had colloquially taken to knowing her as Queen Cullengate, because she had an impossibly tight grip on that planet. Already her regime sprawled over the entire surface, with resistance crushed, and propaganda forced down the throats of many. The whole world, centralised for Mrs Cullengate’s dreams, the ultimate Empire. A proud Empire, that would stand tall above inferior worlds all across the star systems.
And that was what they were getting ready for. Ready to expand over the universe.
One day, Evangeline would govern over everyone, and she would own everyone, and everything.
Glory to it. Glory to her.
But now, she lay on the floor, pathetic. Floundering, and gasping. The colour drained from Evangeline’s face entirely, and her eyes were beady and flickering like those of an insect. Gradually, her movement was failing, and she could feel her brain, slowly going into shutdown, and Evangeline knew that within seconds, she would be nothing more than a vegetable. Then, she would die. And in the end, Evangeline Cullengate would be no different to anybody.
Emma walked over to her, and with a heeled boot, stepped on Evangeline’s wound. It was only then that the monstrous pain that pulsated though Evangeline caused an almost non-existent, throaty scream to erupt from inside her, so skin-crawling like fingers on a blackboard.
“This was where you were always heading,” Emma talked down to her, full of contempt. “Your greatest investment would kill you.”
Evangeline coughed. Words. Somehow, she tried to find them. String them together, make a sentence, but it was like with every passing seconds, those words drifted further away. Evangeline grabbed for them, desperate for them, but she could not reach. No matter how much she was repulsed by the idea of Emma’s victory, the words would just not come. There was something, though. From somewhere. Words, coming from a part of her almost unrecognisable. Ah yes. That was it. Words of the truth.
Evangeline spat them out, in almost a spluttered whisper.
“I don’t – don’t want to die –”
“Arrogance,” Emma shrugged. It does that.”
The Doctor drifted back towards Evangeline’s desk. He saw her chair. A chair from which she had made so many decisions – but now, they had all accounted to nothing. Such was the way when one ran everything like a business. Everything just ended up crumbling.
But, Evangeline was of dogged determination. She reached into herself, and forced the words out. Pushed them out, as if they were the only words that her breath would ever be able to take again. Turns out, they actually were.
“Th – th – the –”
Emma stuck her boot into Evangeline’s chest again.
Like she was desperate for one last victory against the stupid little girl who had put a bullet in her chest, Evangeline mustered up all of the energy she could possibly find.
“The Queen is dead.”
That was Evangeline’s final whisper.
She could hold her head up no longer, and it landed on the floor with a sullen thud. Then, Evangeline Cullengate’s body almost seemed to seize up, and her eyes set still in their sockets, as finally, she was dead.
Emma watched it all, not setting her eyes off Evangeline. Savouring every moment of it, for she had been waiting for that moment for years, and finally, Emma had been blessed with witnessing it. The life of her tormenter, finally bleeding out of her. It was almost painful to take her eyes away from Evangeline’s body, as that was the moment Emma had invested so much energy into, and finally, it had materialised. She was victorious, and Evangeline Cullengate was dead.
The Doctor’s heart pounded. He watched Emma, and the way she looked at Evangeline so nonchalantly towards Mrs Cullengate’s lifeless form on the ground. Except, at the same time, there was nothing nonchalant about it, as he could see the kick that Emma had got from it. It was that paradox that scared him so much – and it was not often that he found himself truly terrified. But, as he watched Emma over the body of her oppressor, he was.
And above all that, he was sad. He had been part of a terrible plan that had caused uncountable amounts of damage to an innocent little girl. This was where all of it had led.
This was the end.
“Vile woman,” Emma turned her nose up at Evangeline and strode away to the centre of the room, where she gazed out of the glass ceiling at the stars above. Stars that seemed so much more reachable than they’d ever done before.
The Doctor did not know what to say. Eventually he decided on something. “You knew you were going to do that.”
Emma nodded, still holding her gun at her side. Not even needing to look at it. She had become so adept to using it that it felt a natural part of her. “For so long.”
The Doctor stayed quiet, watching Emma stood in the moonlight, seeming even paler and ghostlier than ever. Perhaps, now, there was hope that life would return to her.
“She has exploited the vulnerability of so many, not just me. And all that time, she got all of this,” Emma gestured at the skyscraping luxury they were stood in. The enormous bank balance, the dense thicket of security, the lack of fear and worry. Utter contentment, that Emma would never be able to have. “In so many ways…,” she continued. “… I was too kind. But, at the same time, she did not deserve anything extravagant”
Both knew what would come next. The two of them stood, in the office alone, other than the corpse of Evangeline, a chilling reminder of so many things for Emma and the Doctor. The tension between the two of them was tangible, the fear and the suspense and the uncertainty hung in the air. The loneliness and the isolation were felt so deeply by both, as not only were they were the only two in the room, but it felt like they were the only two in the city – so high up above everyone else, like they were trapped in a bubble in the sky, so far away from everyone else.
What would happen in that cold chamber in the sky would be between the two of them.
Each could hear the breathing of the other. Each could distinctly feel the presence of the other, and was acutely aware of the fact that they both in the room together. Neither of them had spoken, and if it was any quieter, they would both have been able to hear the thoughts of the other, ticking over, weighing up the situation, trying to somehow know what was going to happen next.
The Doctor gently took himself to the window opposite Emma, and looked out of it at the city below. Not so beautiful from high-up. He couldn’t see the life, the happiness of it lasting, the sadness of it moving on its way. Well. He did not deserve a comfort blanket. But he moved there, like a guilty man taking his place at a firing squad. The Doctor would place himself there, ready to stand and be tried. He knew he had done wrong, and he would let Emma judge him as she saw fit.
Emma turned and faced the Doctor.
Now was the time.
But she did not know.
“I was looking forward to killing you more than anyone else,” Emma admitted, as she watched the Doctor, nervously paralysed in fear, his eyes wide at the revelation and in the suspense of what was about to come. Emma’s useful, perfect composure was rocked, just slightly. She was on edge.
She took a deep breath, and she continued.
“Because you had a heart.”
The Doctor felt them. Both his hearts, beating in his chest, pumping blood around him. He felt them, every day, and understood what it meant to have two. That he had an extra responsibility, to get it right. To make sure that he helped.
“All of the others,” Emma continued, shrugging, for they had meant nothing. “They were cruel, and they were cold, and they did what bad people do. But you. You’re a good person. And that’s why I hated you more than anybody else.”
She watched the Doctor, and the way he stood against the night sky. Yes – he had hurt her, more than anyone else. While he flew around the universe, doing good, saving people and helping anyone who needed it – he was a link in the chains that kept her shackled. Why was she any different? Why didn’t she deserve his help? Why, of everyone in the universe, was she the girl that the Doctor left out in the cold?
In fact, it was not a question Emma needed to ask herself, for she knew the answer. In fact, Emma would have done it herself. It had made her realise that she and the Doctor were not so different. He had done what he’d done to protect his own, he had gone to impossible, despicable lengths and violated all of his principles. While he had not done anything like Evangeline, or any of the others who had experimented on her, the Doctor had been complicit. While he had not done the bad things himself, he had let them happen – and that felt just as bad. All of it, to ruin the life of another to protect his family. And she hated him for doing that. He was wrong to do it.
But Emma would have done the same. She would kill to protect the people she loved. That was another reason why the Doctor hurt Emma more than any of the others who had done what they’d done. Because when Emma looked into his eyes, and saw the motivations of self-interest behind his complacence, she could relate to it. And that sickened her.
Emma pulled herself together. She was nothing like any of them. Because unlike them, Emma was willing to speak out against it, and determined to obliterate a sickening culture once and for all. She would not be an oppressor, like Evangeline. And she definitely would not be complacent like the Doctor.
The Doctor would get what he deserved. In fact, for his willingness to overlook, Emma would make sure that he suffered more.
“Get out.”
Her words were monotone, and cold, and cut further into the Doctor than a bullet ever would have done.
The Doctor was about to say something, but silence caught in his throat. He stepped away from the wall, and stumbled a bit closer to Emma, while still ensuring he stood well away from her. Emma watched him, with a brutal look in her eyes. It was like the one she had set upon Evangeline Cullengate, but even harsher.
“Why – wh – why are you going to let me live?” the Doctor spluttered, as he looked around, and he gazed at the stars above and looked at the city below them, and felt his feet on the floor and his arms hanging loosely beside him, and his sonic screwdriver in his pocket, ready to fix anything. He felt his hearts beating. He felt what it meant to be alive, and what it meant to be the Doctor. But above everything else, he felt guilty.
“You feel things deeply,” Emma said, her eyes pouring icily at him. She had thought about this. If Evangeline had lived, she’d have never repented. If the Doctor had died, he’d never have repented. “One day, you will come to realise that for you, death would be the easy way out. You have to suffer the guilty, and let it eat away at you.”
The Doctor took a breath, and he gulped. He was alive, but it not feel any better than the lingering thought of death.
“Also?” Emma spoke again, and perhaps these were the words that hurt the Doctor most. “If I kill you, that will leave someone remarkable without a parent. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”
The Doctor watched Emma slowly, as her eyes slowly turned to the ceiling above them. All done, now. She had won. Ruined two of her tormenters. And for the briefest of seconds, the ceiling disappeared, and the night sky looked so beautiful in its frozen blueness. But, Emma reminded herself. She was not done yet. For now, however? She had done well.
The Doctor knew that there was nothing for him to say. This was right, and that was okay. It was about time that something right happened for once. It felt almost awkward, now, as he gently walked towards the door. After everything, this is how it had all ended. He had lost, and Emma had won. He would take himself back to Lizzie and Iris’ flat, to the second attempt at the anniversary party that they were planning, and he would see Cioné, and Iris, and Lizzie, and the guilt would plague him. He would live out his punishment. It would not be enough for Emma, and in that respect, it was never truly fair.
But, that was what he would have to live with. It was cruel, but that was right.
He walked slowly to the door, glancing over at Emma, who still stood in the moonlight, and watched as he made his way out of the room. Her eyes were heavy, but she was sure of herself. Certain that this was the way it should have been. It was cold, up in that skyscraper, and even with the whole city below them, nothing felt as immense as what had just gone on between the two of them.
The two of them stood together for the last time in Mrs Cullengate’s office, floating high in the air, in the cold and the darkness of space, far away from anything else. It was freezing, and there was no light, and both the Doctor and Emma still felt scared and alone, suspended in the empty infinity of the sky and the universe, encased in nothing but glass. Stood apart from each other, the guilt still impossibly heavy on the Doctor’s shoulders, and the pain still impossibly heavy in Emma’s eyes.
“Thank you for giving me the choice,” Emma said, knowing that the Doctor owed her nothing.
“Thank you for letting me live,” the Doctor said, knowing that he had got what he deserved.
He opened the door to the office, and he walked out, biting his lip as he went. Trying to stop himself from crying.
Emma watched him go. Unfazed, her eyes followed him. Like Evangeline, when she’d been savouring the moment. And yet, no matter what Emma did, none of it would ever be enough for her. This was where she would always remain. Alone, stuck high up, away from anyone else, trapped in glass with nothing but cold and moonlight and corpses around her.
But at least she might be able to make it better for other people.
***
“Blimey,” Maggie gulped down a mouthful of tea, then sat there, looking over the rim of the mug, absent-mindedly at the drawings on the windows in front of them. She took another sip of tea, just to try and reassure herself that she wasn’t going insane. Nope. She was definitely hearing things correctly. Maybe Lizzie was just going insane. “You lot, you’re like something out of a drama.”
“Yeah, it’s… mad,” Lizzie still sat slumped beside Maggie, looking miserably over the rim of the mug. Not as if she had anything much to be miserable about, she just… felt down, in general.
“I just – I can’t get over it! Any of it. I mean, that Evangeline woman, what an utter bastard! Honestly. Sounds like a vile, vile woman.”
“She is,” Lizzie nodded in confirmation.
“And she funded for this little girl to be raised in total isolation?”
“Yeah.”
“And the Doctor was involved?”
“Yeah. Gun to his head sort of thing, but even so. Should’ve done something.”
“Blimey.”
“Yeah.”
“Blimey,” Maggie repeated, still entirely spellbound, no matter how many times she ran it over in her head. Well. From what she’d heard about this Evangeline Cullen-thingy woman in the past, that part of the tale was of no great surprise. But the Doctor being involved? Maggie could not deny that it made her very concerned for Lizzie’s safety. In fact, the whole story did. But, it wasn’t as if she’d ever do anything to tell Lizzie to stop. The universe was always a dark place. It wouldn’t change if Lizzie was stuck on Earth, or seeing beautiful things in space.
Maggie thought that she might as well see some beautiful things in space.
Retelling the whole story had made Lizzie stop and think as well. Good on Emma. Breaking free, at long last. Making sure that in a situation where nobody had managed to get it right, she would change that. And, to an extent, good on the Doctor as well. She felt much better, then, about knowing the Doctor – that he had tried hard to make amends. And, whether he succeeded or not, at least he tried. And Evangeline… who knew where the universe would end up without her? Probably something better, though.
That was the end of it all.
Except, it wasn’t really, and all of them knew it.
“Toughest thing is, she’ll never be able to find peace,” Maggie reached over to the jam sandwich creams, and pulled another out of the plastic packaging. Bloody thing was a nightmare to get out.
“Maybe she’ll at least find just a bit of contentment, one day,” Lizzie said, out of hope more than anything else. Of course, she’d never lose the scars, but perhaps, at some point, life would treat Emma kindly. Lizzie knew that – and it was, in this situation, that Lizzie saw a lot of herself in Emma. While they had turned out completely differently, both had spent their lives trying to cope in whatever ways they would.
One had ended up as a kick-ass dictator-murdering assassin, and the other an entirely awkward tea-drinking TV-watching hermit. But such was the way of life.
“We can hope,” Maggie shrugged, though was not so entirely optimistic as Lizzie.
“How did you manage it?”
“Manage what?” Maggie said, entirely avoiding Lizzie’s question, even though they both knew that Maggie Shepherd understood what Lizzie meant.
“Er, don’t worry, I – I shouldn’t have asked, it’s fine,” Lizzie sat up, and was about to stand and drift over to the kitchen to put her mug in the sink even though it sill had tea in the bottom of it.
Maggie quickly made her protestations clear. “Hey! Come on love, sit down.”
Lizzie hovered in a sort of half-sitting half-standing position, still unsure whether to stay or whether to go. Maggie was getting increasingly exasperated beside her, and took a dejected sip of her tea, before going in for another jam-sandwich cream. “Sit back down, for god’s sake!”
Eventually, Lizzie did as she was told, and sat back beside Maggie, just a few inches further away from before, and a good deal more self-conscious than what she’d been previously. Maggie shook her head, and laughed to herself. “You’re mad, you are.”
Lizzie looked at Maggie, confused, and then turned back to her tea, scowling. Maggie kept laughing, especially at the way Lizzie looked resentfully into the mug.
“What?” Lizzie spoke entirely seriously, and Maggie kept laughing, now creasing. It was verging into full-on howling territory. “Can you keep it down, Iris is asleep?”
Maggie had to stop mid-laugh, to breathe, and to reply. “Iris drank more last night than me at the millennium, she won’t be awake for anyone.” Then, she returned to hysterics. “Sorry,” Maggie said, regaining herself, and looking forward at the window, and the catastrophically untidy state of Lizzie’s flat, and then the whipped-cream penises on the panes. She looked down into her mug, in the hope that Lizzie wouldn’t notice, which she obviously did.
When Lizzie looked at her again, Maggie simply spoke honestly.
“This life, it’s mad.”
Lizzie nodded. “And shit.”
“Yeah. And shit.”
“And beautiful.”
Maggie paused, and turned to Lizzie, who was sat gazing forwards, her eyes as if they were entirely lost in space, and the words had just come from somewhere inside her that she hadn’t even consciously been aware of. Lizzie didn’t even realise that the words had just… happened, as she was entirely captivated in the moment, and for once, not even caring what she said, not speaking for anyone, not speaking with any self-conscious, filter of anxiety over her words. Just speaking.
“Where’d that come from?” Maggie asked, a little bit amazed.
“Oh, er, I dunno –”
“You’re right, though.”
Maggie’s words seemed to help Lizzie settle, and instantly, she seemed more at ease on the sofa again, sitting back in the chair and looking at Maggie, waiting for her to say something
else. It wasn’t like Maggie had anything else to say, or that she was planning on continuing. Lizzie’s words had struck her in their trueness, that was all.
But, maybe that’s where her words had come from as well. The truth.
She thought, perhaps, she should talk. And explain. Take her own bloody advice for once.
“Right, well, I’m guessing that ‘manage’ doesn’t mean how I manage the bloody bloke behind the deli in Tesco.”
“Is it still that Frank guy?”
“Yeah,” Maggie grimaced. “And he still goes on about his bloody goats, and the fact he’s entirely self-sufficient. Twat.”
Lizzie smirked. Dunsworth never changed. Some things just didn’t, and while time moved on around them, it was like some things just stayed perfectly still… but it was never the nice things. Never the things that she wanted to go back to.
“Anyway. I had a friend once,” Maggie started, sitting back in the sofa. Readying herself. Dredging up a story from somewhere inside her. One that she’d kept buried, and hadn’t told anyone before. Not because she was worried of being judged by anyone else, but because keeping it inside meant she could judge herself, and she thought that might be just as painful.
Maggie took a breath, and continued.
“Rachel, she were called. Came out the secondary-modern together, and just mucked about for six years solid. We sort of… drifted in and out of various jobs, but nothing proper, y’know. Anyway, she were depressed, Rachel, and I tell you, we used to get so drunk, I’m surprised I even have a liver. I was an idiot, didn’t realise that actually, she was just trying to drink the pain away.”
Maggie stopped, then. Unexpectedly. Normally, she was fine, and it took a lot to stop her in her tracks. But this… she took a breath. A sip of tea. She wished it was something stronger, for a few seconds, and then was really happy that it wasn’t.
“And she killed herself.”
The words came out, like it was the simplest thing in the world. The incoherence struck her, for while the worlds made it seem simple, it had been so difficult and complex and massive it sometimes felt as if it had been tying her down, all of her life.
“There I was, 22 years old without a clue what I wanted to do with myself, wasting each day because I was a complete bloody idiot. And then that comes along. And I tell you what, if I was lost before, my entire life was then derailed in two hours flat. That’s the thing. You never know when the world is just going to… do something. It were the same for Rachel. Yeah, she decided to go and do what she did, but she never sat down and decided she was going to be so troubled that she’d eventually tie a belt around her neck and hang herself –”
Maggie felt Lizzie wince beside her, and she instantly regretted it. Quickly, she backtracked, and she couldn’t believe herself. Stupid woman. This is exactly the sort of thing Maggie was meant to be careful about, doing the job that she did. She’d just got so into it, involved in telling a story that she’d held so close to her for so many years, giving repressed feelings life for once, that she’d been an idiot.
“I am so sorry, love, I am a complete moron, I really am.”
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it…”
Maggie still looked sheepish, and suddenly, it had hit her. The magnitude of what she was going. Telling someone… this.
“So,” Lizzie said, pulling Maggie back on subject. This was exactly what Maggie had always done with her. “Is… is that why you do what you do?”
Maggie had never told Lizzie before. Always kept it to herself, and Lizzie had never wanted to ask. But the whole lack of any hint had led Lizzie to think it must be something quite significant.
“Yeah. What Rachel did, it made me decide I had to do something for people like her. To get so lost, and so upset, and so scared, that you decide to do that – god, I was naïve, and that was when I suddenly realised, Christ. Life can be brutal.”
Lizzie and Maggie sat there in silence. Not an awkward one, the sort that Lizzie was usually so good at creating – instead, it was more a period of realisation, as they both understood.
“Point is,” Maggie said, trying to move past it. “That won’t ever leave me. But I’ve worked hard at coping in my way, and at helping young people, so they don’t make the same… stupid mistakes as me. If I can’t help myself, I might as well… help make it better for other people.”
Lizzie looked at Maggie, and her eyes were dark, and heavy. She had seen lot, not even in her own life, but mainly in her work. Things that Lizzie couldn’t bear thinking about, and things that Maggie herself couldn’t bear to dwell on either. She’d go mad if she did. Nope. Maggie had to up sticks, move on. Time passed, and she had to move on with it. She never looked back to the past – well. She did, to make sure she didn’t make the same mistakes. But Maggie would never get stuck there. Instead, she would move with time, and somehow, in some way, try to cope.
Lizzie understood. Both Maggie, and Emma.
“You’re… actually brilliant,” Lizzie turned to Maggie, and smiled. And when Lizzie paid people complements, they never really sounded genuine, instead just a bit… stilted. But this felt real.
“I’m not, really,” Maggie reached forward for another biscuit, and made a mental note to stop. This was, what? Her third? Fourth? “None of us are. See, look at me, I’ve eaten all your biccies…”
“Ulysses’ll be fuming, those are his favourites…”
***
The Doctor clambered melancholily up the stairs. One at a time, he dragged himself up.
The door to Thea’s flat hung open.
Immediately, the panic surged through him, and he threw himself up the last few sets of stairs, scrambling to reach the top as quickly as possible. He hated it, that he couldn’t get up quicker – that sometimes, things were impossible to change. No matter how much he might be able to make a positive difference, some things would stay there, hanging over him, and they would be impossible to shift. He flung himself onto the landing outside Thea’s property, and stopped.
Stopped.
It was like the world moved on around him, and he remained stuck in that same position – his jaw dropped to the ground in devastation, and then he felt a tear crawl softly from his eye. He wiped it, not wanting Thea to see him cry. She would tell him not to. She would tell him to keep buggering on, to get over it and keep on living.
But she couldn’t tell him.
Thea was gone.
Two men in white overalls, with a red cross printed on the back, grabbed hold of the stretcher, hauling the sides up with a clatter. Thea’s body lay slumped on top of it, her skin greying, her hand hanging lethargically off the edge. One of the paramedics gave the stretcher a shove as the wheel jammed on the fraying carpet, but it did not move – so he kicked at the wheel, determined to get it to shift.
“Bloody thing,” he hissed. “Always gets stuck on carpets.”
They glanced at the Doctor, stood in the door. But they didn’t stop doing what they were doing – making Thea’s last journey as bumpy and uncomfortable as possible.
“What happened?” the Doctor asked, his voice cracking unexpectedly. He hadn’t even known Thea a day – but the fact she was gone felt so wrong. She should have been there – she should have known that her legacy – her and her husband’s legacy – was finally lived out.
Not by the Doctor – but by a better person than him.
“Heart attack,” droned the paramedic, as the Doctor stepped out of the way to let the stretcher pass. That hit the Doctor like a punch to the gut. Thea had been a woman with more heart than most.
He could see the paramedics approaching the stairs, ready to attempt to wheel the trolley down. The Doctor called out to them, wiling them to stop.
“Treat her kindly,” he said. His words came across cold, and angry. But at the same time, they were fuelled with passion. Determination. “Promise me?”
The paramedics looked at each other, and then at the Doctor, and then at the dead body in front of them. Neither of them looked like they cared – about Thea, or about what the Doctor had said.
One of them tried to explain – as if there were some kind of explanation. “Her credit payments to the funeral bureau were non-exi –.”
The Doctor raised a hand. He spoke insistently, and resolutely, and firmly.
“Kindly, yes?”
The paramedic hesitated, then looked up at his colleague, and then looked down at Thea. Shame etched upon their faces, perhaps the Doctor had managed something, as both paramedics realised the stupidity of the system around them.
“Yes, sir,” he agreed, nodding guiltily to the Doctor. The Doctor gave a confirming look, as each paramedic picked up an end of the stretcher, and gently began to take Thea down the stairs.
The Doctor stood at the top, as she began her final journey. He raised a hand – perhaps it was a wave, or some sort of salute, or a toast – or something. He wasn’t even sure. Maybe it was stupid – she was dead anyway. Not like she’d ever know. But Thea deserved to be honoured, and the Doctor was determined to do so in any way possible.
She looked so small on the stretcher as she disappeared around the corner. So lonely.
She shouldn’t have had to be alone. He should’ve been there.
But he would honour her. The Doctor had ended up in her flat, trying to make amends for some of the stuff he’d done – and Thea had given him the heart that he needed to manage that. Although she was marooned in that horrid old bedsit at 80-years-old, she had a better grasp on certain things than the Doctor. And, she had taught him. Off she’d gone, to end Cullengate’s terror, in the name of the principles Thea had taught him. He’d realised, when he got there, that it wasn’t his fight to end – that it was the responsibility of another, who also understood what Thea meant.
It did not have to end there, however. As the Doctor now prepared to embark on his sentence, he knew that to try and make things better, he would have to live like Thea Everett.
The strange man at the top of the stairs vanished, and soon the unearthly, beautiful sound of that blue box echoed throughout the whole building. It was like he had never been there.
But the Doctor left, to continue Thea’s legacy. She had made him smile.
And the Doctor decided, that from that day on, he too would try and make people smile.
***
Cioné sat on the bench, just outside Lizzie and Iris’ apartment block. She sat with a miserable look etched on her face, and she pulled her coat and baggy cardigan tighter around her. Now that the night had settled in, the chill had blown away the faint hope of spring that might have hung nonchalantly in the air that afternoon, and replaced it with something that felt bitter, and cruel. The clouds were thick in the sky above, and Cioné looked up, as if she could let them swallow them up from the cold and the dark that she was subjected to, sat down on Earth. But, with their grey disposition, she was not hopeful that they would be any less punishing than the conditions on Earth.
Waiting for what? An anniversary party that she already knew about? A farce, on so many levels.
She could not get over the fact that she was actually sat outside the venue of her surprise anniversary party, waiting for her daughter to text her to tell her it was alright to come in and be surprised. Yes. It was truly that ridiculous. So, Cioné had flopped down on the bench, and had let the world pass her by for the last half an hour. As if there was much to pass her by. In fact, everything seemed very still, and very tranquil. Nobody had walked down the street, and instead, Cioné had been alone but for the company of the night – which was a soothing feeling, and she let it wash over her, sitting back and letting the navy blanket above her head engulf her.
It should have been nice. With the work that she did, chaos seemed to reign, and so the night-time of serenity should have been a window of escapism. But instead, her brain was going crazy, as desperately she worried for her husband. That was the most notable cock-up of this whole anniversary fiasco – that at the moment, Cioné was waiting for her own anniversary party, by herself. But, he had disappeared, just after the glowfly incident. And she had not seen him since, and she was deeply concerned. Occasionally, she told herself that she shouldn’t be. He’d been stupid and awful and Cioné was deeply, deeply ashamed. And yet, she still loved him. Still felt so worried for him.
Why was it all so bloody complicated? Couldn’t things just be easy for once? Love was a nightmare, and of course it was impossible to ignore a man who had meant more to her than any partner previously? Someone who had forgiven her, someone who had loved her, and someone who had not only accepted her eccentricities, but valued them above anything else.
This was it. The hardest thing of all. The Doctor, and Emma.
And she hated it. All Cioné wanted was to sit on that bench, and let the darkness swallow her, as some respite from the tumult she endured every day. Throwing herself to some of the most terrifying fronts in the Time War, where Daleks and Time Lords alike had gutted whole communities out of their vicious appetites for destruction. And these were only the early days. With some of the horrific sights that Cioné had already set eyes upon, she dreaded to think about what state the Time War might one-day reach. If, already, sleeping came as a challenge, or she could close her eyes and see the images of the devastation she had walked into, desperate to patch it back up again, then what would it be like as the war descended further into the deepest, darkest depths of hell? For it showed no signs of stopping – and Cioné was quite sure it was only ever going to get worse.
But she would never give up being a doctor. Not ever. It meant too much to her, and most importantly, it meant too much to the people she helped. That was why she did it. To help. Even in some of the most futile efforts, maybe it would just be possible to give some people some good dreams for once.
To help. And Cioné did not like being the centre of everything. She was quite happy to busy herself away, quietly keeping everyone together. That was, for so long, how she’d managed to make it work. But now it felt impossible, like her whole world was collapsing in around her, and she couldn’t hold her family together anymore. Couldn’t hold her own marriage together anymore. Didn’t help that her husband was basically a walking ‘look at me!’ neon sign, and seemed to attract a heck of a lot of trouble, half of it of his own doing.
She sighed, and sat back on the bench, and grimly turned back to the night-sky – the calmest thing she’d set eyes upon in a long, long time. With her own life imploding, and the planets she helped in the Time Lord exploding, it felt like nothing was still. Nothing would last. But at that moment, it did, and she felt a little bit of hope.
At that moment, the Doctor’s TARDIS began to materialise just a bit further down the road. She barely looked up. People waxed lyrical about that box, about the way it slowly faded into existence, like a dream being drawn to life in front of their eyes, with the sound of the engines, that breath of hope bringing it to life. Cioné had heard it so many times that it didn’t even feel that remarkable. The box appeared, as it always did. Blue police box. Again. Never understated.
Her husband gently stepped out onto the road, and shut the doors behind them, locking them. He had seen Cioné sitting there, and was trying to delay having to face any tension. It was as he slowly turned the key in the lock that he realised he was being an idiot.
“Are you alright?” he murmured confusedly, looking down at Cioné, sat on the bench.
“Yes,” Cioné replied bluntly.
“Good.”
The Doctor meandered away from the TARDIS, gently strolling a few feet from the box, and a few feet from Cioné, in the way that one does when they are simply waiting for conversation to materialise out of thin air, without actually having the intention of making it, and knowing that the other participant did not have any similar intention either.
A pause.
A very awkward pause.
But, they had been in a foul mood with each other, ever since the whole Emma business took off. When they had exchanged words, the words had been brief – and any long sentences had simply been bogged down in a sea of permeable tension. Therefore, the pause between them now was of no significant surprise, and Cioné had become so accustomed to such pauses that she had almost come to terms of the fact that she might never hold a normal conversation with her husband again. And yet, it had not bothered her. She’d been… so preoccupied in her own head that she hadn’t even dared broach the subject of what might happen if they did not speak on good terms again.
“So… why are you sat out here?” the Doctor asked gently, doing that typical blokey thing where a man thinks he is navigating the territory around a hornets’ nest, even though he is simply overestimating the thinness of the ice he is on, almost in a way that makes him more annoying than he would be otherwise.
Cioné did not speak as if it was obvious and he was an idiot, partly because she could not be bothered. “Our surprise anniversary party.”
She noticed the Doctor register the contradictory nature of what his wife had said.
“I turned up here,” Cioné explained effortfully. “Iris told me to clear off for 10 minutes and shut me out. I needed to clear my head, so I came down here. Except it’s been half an hour and I’m bloody freezing.”
The Doctor nodded, understanding the tale. He did not make an effort to reply.
Oh well. If he kept being an arse, she could become a spinster, get some cats. Maybe even talking ones, like Ulysses. She did not need a partner, she could survive without the Doctor, with ease. Cioné was strong like that, and she had done so with ease before. Having said, he was making her miserable, in his current state – and, vice versa, she believed. And, it had become an almost toxic cycle of crap that none of them were enjoying.
However – while Cioné was certain of her ability to live without the Doctor, she did not want to live without him. She would miss him terribly.
The Doctor, ever the gentleman (her incarnation, at least), slipped off his jacket, and walked over to Cioné, not solely planning on offering it to him, but also planning on helping her into it. “Oh, no, no. Come on now, you know I hate anything like this.”
“Please –”
“No! Bugger off!”
“Pl –”
She glared at him, and he buggered off.
The concrete seemed quite a fascination to him, and he stood, watching it intently, occasionally taking a nervous glance over to his wife, who was watching him with despair. Eventually, she decided to broach the question that was quite necessary upon the Doctor’s return from anywhere.
“Where were you?”
This was a question that, in the past, had attracted quite a number of answers. 80s-themes spaceship, etc. All sorts of places. And, she trusted them. If there was one thing that she could be quite sure of her husband, it was that he was honest. Even if he had lied to her for a good hundred years about being complicit to a scheme that raised a little girl to be the perfect killer. Okay. She suddenly wasn’t so convinced.
“I – I went to deal with the Emma stuff.”
Cioné looked up, intrigued.
“Evangeline is dead –”
“What?!” Cioné exclaimed, her face turning into the picture of shock as she firstly tried to get her head around the fact that Evangeline had somehow been present at whatever the Doctor’s altercation with Emma, and secondly, because she tried to truly comprehend the reality that fascistic Mrs Cullengate had finally bitten the dust. Was it true? Could anything remotely positive have happened? “Dead? As in, actually, dead?”
“Yes, by the looks of it. Bullet wound to the chest. Should’ve ruptured her heart, I think.”
“Wow,” Cioné raised an eyebrow in disbelieving approval. “I always doubted she even had a heart...”
“Emma killed her. Evangeline bankrolled the scheme that raised her, essentially.”
“Good lord…”
Cioné’s voice trailed off, as she waited for the inevitable next part of the Doctor’s tale. What had Emma said, or done, to him? She could see her husband knew that now was when he would have to explain. Quickly, he decided to cut to the chase. No point drawing it out.
“Emma wanted to… destroy the institution that… did what it did to her.”
Cioné scoffed at the obviousness of the revelation. “Good!”
“She… she let me live.”
That made Cioné stop, and she suddenly found herself, staring at thin air in front of her. Her husband’s life had been in question, which was a strange experience – she was so used to always counting on him coming back, and vice versa. He never expected her be hurt in the Time War, and she never thought he would be hurt on any of his mad adventures. And yet… it was so obvious. Such a likelihood, that both of them tried to shun, perhaps out of fear that it was such a tangible possibility.
“She said I was… complicit, and so I must suffer. The guilt of everything.”
Cioné slowly nodded in approval at the Doctor’s admittedly thin, almost lacklustre sentence. Though, it was nearly an impossible thing to vocalise.
“She let you live, because she knows it’ll hurt you. It’ll really, really hurt.” Cioné found the words for him. Absent minded, she stared forwards, not looking at anything in particular.
“And it’s what you deserve,” she said. This time, it was the Doctor’s turn to nod slowly. Neither of them looked at each other, but Cioné’s words a shock to neither of them. She had said from the start, that it was not something she could simply overlook. And, the Doctor had almost got to the point of willing some kind of retribution. He needed it, after so many years of raising Emma in that terrible place, as the thought of that – which haunted him, even during the most menial of tasks – was beginning to eat away at him. How he had hurt her. That wasn’t something he had ever been able to get away from. And even now that he had finally been convicted by Emma, he still could not get away from it.
Though, that had been the whole point of it all.
Cioné was glad of it. Was that a weird thing? She wasn’t quite sure. But she was not comfortable with her husband not having faced the girl he’d wronged so terribly, to show that it was a thing that could just be… gotten away with. No… it was only right that he had been held to account for everything, and finally, she could rest easy because of it.
The Doctor spoke. His voice was heavy. Miserable, and sullen, like it took so much energy even to speak. “And I am being punished, Cioné. I am suffering through my guilt.”
Immediately, Cioné raised her head and glared at him. “Please, don’t turn this into your male angst project. Don’t… sit on your arse and enjoy being… dark and gritty. Let it hurt you… but let that hurt lead you to do something good. Let it make you brilliant.”
Honestly. The thought of him wallowing in guilt and misery, simply building another plot point in his life. To Cioné, that took away the point of everything. And her husband seemed to agree, as he turned to her, and smiled.
“Of course,” he said, a look of sincerity upon his face. There it was. The exact sort of thing that Cioné could notice on her husband a mile off. Maybe he could lie to her, but when he was being truthful, that was always impossible for him to hide.
They sat in silence for a few seconds, both of them perhaps more content than either of them had been in a while. On a platform of mutual understanding, and a feeling that things had be reconciled – even if it would be impossible to bury things from the past entirely, at least those things would now only be ghosts, and would not emerge as living demons. Both of them sat on the bench in that newfound restoration of balance, eyes drifting into space, nowhere in particular.
“Also,” a smile tugged at Cioné’s lips, as she thought about her husband being all dark and brooding. It didn’t really work., Not at all. “You might be able to vanquish the parliament of the Daleks but you can’t put up a shelf.”
The Doctor didn’t turn to her, but he could tell she was smiling. Somehow, he always could.
“True,” he said, smiling as well.
A period of silence passed, and neither of them said anything. The faint tension still lingered, but it seemed to creep back, the occasional smiles wavering across the faces of both of them being able to dissolve it.
The Doctor looked away, and when he looked back, Cioné was staring right at him, an angry, fierce look boring deep into the Doctor’s soul. “Why the bloody hell did you do all this without telling me?! You stupid, stupid man!”
He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound emerged. “Er –”
“You could’ve died!”
“That’s not a rare –”
“I don’t care! And even if we are in a rubbish place because you were a… a complete spoon –”
“– that’s a, er, new one –”
“– I’d at least like to know if there’s the slightest chance you might just not come back, and if I’m going to have to deal with Iris on my own, and sometimes Lizzie, and even Kym, who I swear is either on something or eating too much sugar, because good god, she’s like a hare on – on speed, and if you are going to go and die, then I might just want to do a bit of preparation. You know. Go to a counsellor! Buy a bigger wine rack, I don’t know –”
The Doctor was laughing, then.
“Stop it!” though a grin began to spread across her face. “I’m being serious, ish. I absolutely wanted you to go and… see Emma, definitely, but it’d have been nice to know.”
“Sorry,” he smiled.
“I sound like a right nagging… windbag,” Cioné grumbled, feeling as if she’d done nothing but been miserable towards everyone. She sighed and sat back on the bench in a dejected huff.
“It’s fine,” the Doctor admitted. “I’ve sounded like a complete… miserable… spoon, as you put it. So…”
“Yes, well…”
He could see Cioné looking guiltily to the floor, even though she had nothing to feel guilty about. Sometimes, the Doctor wished she would stop taking everything so close to her heart, as he hated to see the pain that came to her because of it. But then, it was the fact that she cared so much that made her all the more wonderful.
“You’re only going on at me, Cioné, because you want to keep everyone together. You are so… dedicated, like that. I didn’t tell you, because I thought I needed to make this better of my own accord.”
To be fair, she could see his reasoning for that.
“I get it,” he continued, and turn to her, smiling gently. She looked sheepishly away, but he continued. “I really, truly do. You keep all of us together, all of us ticking over. I don’t know where we’d be without you. We’re all just… really grumpy at the moment.”
Both of them. All of them, in fact. They were all so bogged down in what felt like perpetual chaos, like it was constantly strangling them. Though, they both sat there, and for once, both of them felt relaxed – like the noose around their necks had finally been removed, even if it was only for a short amount of time. The Doctor turned and looked at his wife. She had been under so much strain – not only did she keep them all together, but she held the Doctor to the mark. And he loved her, for her warmth, and her eccentricity, and general craziness, and humour, and… her total lack of self-centredness. It had all taken its toll.
But, it was quiet on the road. Quiet, and cold, and refreshing.
They sat there, zoning out, for what perhaps felt like a duration of time longer than it truly was, letting the night pass them by. After a time, the Doctor began to speak.
“I’m –”
“Okay, look,” Cioné interrupted him, and despite the fact her husband looked as if he too were about to interject, she raised a hand to shush him. It worked with surprising aplomb.
“Look – I hate arguing with you, you know it’s not very ‘me’, and I just – I don’t do grudges –”
“I get it, I really –”
“But you must understand, darling, that I can’t just – I can’t look past something like –”
That was it. The one thing that had stopped her being able to… end this awful tension between the two of them. The fact that she could not forget. It was impossible to shift from her mind, like it had anchored itself in there – and rightfully so.
“Yes,” the Doctor said. He understood. “Just, let me –”
“You can’t make a big speech to win me around.”
The Doctor stopped and held back his big speech to win her around. It was a change from the status quo, that could not be denied – usually, he could make some sort of… impassioned plea, somehow put words to his emotions to show Cioné how he truly felt, or to show the universe what he believed and thought. But, Cioné stopped him, cutting in, with a sentence that for once shut him up. The Doctor watched her, and clearly the confusion was evident on his face. So, she elaborated.
“I won’t be told, or – or inspired. You can’t just…walk out of this, make a heroic speech, and expect me to be overjoyed and forgive you entirely. This is my decision, and I will make it without you being all… epic.”
There was a hesitation, as the Doctor seemed to toy with the word. The ever-charming lack of cohesion in it being spoken by Cioné. “… epic.”
“You know,” Cioné shrugged, trying to seem casual, and hip, and trendy, and all the things she felt she wasn’t, but was, in fact, quite content not to be. “…As the youths say.”
“Do they?” the Doctor chuckled to himself, almost lightly to tease her than anything else.
Cioné sat back dismissively and let out a small laugh. “I don’t know!” It had been something she’d heard Iris say. Probably. Anyway. It was distracting her from what she was trying to say. She was very tired of it – the man making a big, heroic speech, and suddenly being the icon of ages of to whom they should all not only pity, but above all, forgive. “But look,” she said, immediately returning to her former severity. “I’m sick of how these things always work. I don’t want that… status quo to remain. It’s not fair.”
The Doctor nodded as slowly, the words settled in his head. As he began to piece them together, to decipher some sort of interpretation from them. It was funny, how everyone always tried to jump to conclusions, with burning impatience – people desperate to know things, but never willing to let the other party understand how they felt. But, he stopped himself. Drew the process to an immediate halt. Kindly, he spoke.
“I understand.”
Simple words, but they meant a lot.
“Having said that…”
Cioné began, almost impulsively. It was only as she’d been speaking that things were beginning to make a bit more sense.
“… and this is not me saying that this is all water under the bridge…”
Not a thing that she should be expected to do, but simply the thing that she knew was right for her, in her situation.
“It is days like this where I realise why I married you.”
The Doctor looked at her, caught in a state of almost astonishment – dazed, entirely. Though, he was not, perhaps, astonished by his luck. More in a state of gratitude so heavy, that it caught him unawares, keeping him stuck in a moment – and before he knew it, he wiped a solitary tear off his face – a reminder of the loneliness that he had been saved from, and the feeling of knowing he caused such tears to so many people.
Cioné had thought it through. He had made amends, even in the direst of situations – one which was the creation of his own doing.
“It takes a lot to… do what you did,” Cioné, speaking not straight to her husband. The Doctor watched her intently, taking note of everything. He let Cioné continue. But, she turned to him, then, and he saw the pained look carved into her features.
“You were complicit to something… truly awful with Emma, and that isn’t something I will just forget.”
“No – no, I understand –,” he said quickly.
“And if you ever do anything like it again, you’ll have the divorce papers in the post –”
“Yes,” the Doctor agreed wholeheartedly. “Absolutely. 100%.”
“And…,” Cioné began, not quite sure where she was going. The words seemed more disjointed, and broken, and haphazardly strung together – though, the most honest words always were, and these were the most honest words that Cioné had to offer him. With the impossible situation she had put him in, all she could do was try and do the right thing, and also do what she wanted. “If you weren’t suffering because of it, and you didn’t care, then I’d leave you in an instant. But… that’s another thing. You do care. You are suffering. And ultimately, you have a heart, and you want what’s best. So, look. Let’s just… not forget it, because I can’t do that – but, for now, we’ll… look to the future, yes?”
She looked at him, but not as if he was waiting for an answer, or confirmation. Her decision. And he watched her as she made it, his eyes wide and sad, and tearless – and he wanted to cry more, but found himself unable. All it did was make him feel worse, but the tears just would not come. Instead, his eyes were sore and dry from the tiredness that drove right through him, and all he wanted to do was stay there, sat with Cioné. She scooted up to him on the bench, and gently, rested her head on his shoulder.
Cioné did not smile, and instead tried to hide the faint look of grimness on her face. There had been people before, who had said that it must be mad being married to the Doctor. But in truth, it was just as chaotic and more complicated and messier than any other relationship. He was a normal guy. He made mistakes, he tried to make up for them. He was probably a good person – and he made her smile. And maybe, that was what mattered.
“Let’s go on holiday,” the Doctor said, a proclamation that came entirely out of the blue.
Cioné’s brow furrowed in surprise. “… why?” She said, trying to hide her eagerness in the fact it sounded like a brilliant idea. It was hard, and she smirked as she said it.
“Because… you’re stressed, and tired.”
“The cheek! You look bloody knackered, by the way.”
“Busy day.”
Cioné couldn’t help but smile at the Doctor’s equivocation.
“So?” he pressed. “Fancy it?”
Yes, Cioné thought to herself. She really, completely did. But she wasn’t all sure yet. There was something nagging at her. “Why, though? Suddenly out of the blue. It’s not a ‘I’ve messed up’ holiday, is it?”
“No. Honestly, I’ve been meaning to ask for a while. You’ve had it in the neck.”
Understatement. Cioné always had it in the neck. But, she was the walking embodiment of the ‘keep calm, carry on’ philosophy. Not that she minded – in truth, that was how she liked it. Making sure everyone was alright, quietly from behind the scenes. And, she didn’t begrudge doing it. Having said that – it would be nice to get away from it all.
“Loads of stress,” the Doctor continued. “But you just… keep going. In the face of treacherous husbands, fascist presidents, anniversary parties, Time Wars, DIY that I can’t do –”
“Dishwasher’s gone by the way,” Cioné said suddenly. She’d been meaning to tell him, and in the midst of apologies, she hadn’t gotten around to it.
“Broken already?!” the Doctor exclaimed, visibly annoyed at his daughter’s inability to possess anything witout breaking it. “I only bought it for them last week…”
“Yeah. Ulysses got stuck in there, or something.”
“Wow…”
“I know.”
“Then,” the Doctor continued, grinning like an idiot, getting all optimistic and hopeful and joyous in the way he did, when he thought that things were going his way. “Dishwashers too! All of it, you deal with it so brilliantly. So, let’s go! Let’s… fly off somewhere. Have a break.”
Cioné paused.
“I… I didn’t know you noticed. Me. And stress.”
“Cioné,” he said, taking her hand, pained that she’d said it. As if there was any doubt. “I always notice.”
She turned to look at him, his face caught in the moonlight, shining gently. The moon and the stars reflected in his eyes, and he looked beautiful, sat there. She leant in, and gently kissed him.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.”
He meant it truthfully, for he knew he did not deserve it.
“Well,” Cioné proclaimed. “Good. It was about time we did that especially with our surprise anniversary party approaching.”
“Oh,” the Doctor’s face fell, almost immediately. The party. That thing. He had been hoping that, following the disaster of the first attempt, they would forget it. Unfortunately, it seemed like everyone was quite insistent on it happening – and he had forgotten about it, only to be reminded of it with sudden, crushing disappointment.
“Sorry,” Cioné apologised for no reason.
“It isn’t your fault… it’s almost like our sprog are determined to drive us insane…”
“Mmm…”
The Doctor was, in fact, quite willing to sit there and watch the stars.
“The night’s beautiful,” he observed absent-mindedly, gazing wistfully off into space.
Yes. There. That was her husband. Empathetic, who would keep an eye on her when she got stressed, and who would understand her. Know what was important to her, and know exactly what to do for help, and he would do so for the right reasons. He would know when she wasn’t well, and he would always be there to help her. And someone who saw beauty in the universe around him. Who tried to make amends, and who tried to help.
“Oh, my, god, Dad, there you are.”
Iris was bounding out of the house, dashing towards them at a speed north of a hundred miles an hour – it was so fast, the front door did not slam until the Doctor had jumped up, and taken his daughter into a hug. They paused there, for a few seconds, in the most unusual spell of mutual adoration and confusion. Neither of them really knew why they were hugging – but they were both very happy to go along with it.
Eventually, Iris broke away, and looked up at him, smiling sheepishly, and then glancing awkwardly down to the floor.
“It’s, er, too late to cancel the party,” she joked, offering a half-smile.
“Why do you always assume I want something?” he mocked.
“Because it’s what I always do,” Iris scrutinised him, eyes narrowing as she took in the sight of her father. Something was not right. “The hugging. Playing me at my own game, huh?”
“No,” the Doctor held up his hands in his defence. He was technically being honest. “I missed you. That was all.”
“Why? Been doing anything nice?”
“Broke an old lady out of her flat, went on an adventure for a Mars Bar, watched Evangeline Cullengate get shot, and get put in my place by Emma.”
Iris’s jaw dropped to the concrete below, and her eyes widened.
“Emma?”
“Yeah. She really likes you.”
“Did you tell her I’m married?” Iris joked, blushing.
The Doctor quickly changed the subject. Iris seemed rather flattered, and he did not want to tell her that that wasn’t what Emma meant, and that Emma probably did not care about anything of the sort. “Anyway. Thought I’d tell you that I missed you.”
“Well. I missed you too,” Iris said, before realising that it hadn’t actually been that long, from her perspective, since they last saw each other, and that it sounded weird her saying it. However, as she stood there, with her mum and dad, something did feel different – finally, there seemed to be hope, that things between them all might get better. There was less tension between all of them – things felt so much more relaxed, and Iris had missed it terribly.
“Oh,” came a quieter, more timid voice from the end of the path leading up to the flats. “Hi!”
None of them had even heard Lizzie exit the building – but she stood there, pulling her baggy jumper tight around her. It was freezing out, but for once, she did not feel so cold. She hopped down the step, and shuffled over to the Doctor, Cioné, and Iris.
“You… alright?” Lizzie looked up at the Doctor, noticeably older than the last time she’d seen him. Well – noticeable for her. She was always picking up on various quirks that nobody else really cared about.
“All good,” he smiled warmly, like he had finally found some contentment. Lizzie smiled too. The Doctor was back home. They were together again.
“Erm, Iris?” Lizzie turned to Iris, who was spinning a fidget spinner in her hands. Another Earth trait that she had quite taken to. “There are people upstairs getting kind of grumpy? Like, I don’t want to be annoying but I just had this guy who looked like a mole with sunglasses spit in my face…”
“Oh!” the Doctor’s face brightened, a look of unbridled delight spreading across his face, as he dashed over to Lizzie to enquire about the spitting individual. “You’ve managed to get Mac to come?”
“Er, yeah, I… guess,” Lizzie said, a little confused, and not at all knowing whether the spitting mole had been Mac. Whoever Mac was.
The Doctor sighed wistfully, as reminiscing individuals often do. “That takes me back. Lovely guy, Mac. Met him in a cocktail bar on the rings surrounding Talpidous.”
“Dad?!” Iris exclaimed, disgusted. “He spat at Lizzie?”
“Yes. Basically the Talpidoid equivalent of hugging.”
“Oh…,” Lizzie looked guiltily at the ground. “Well! I’m sure… sure he’s lovely…”
Before anyone could say anything else, however, the door to the apartment block swung open again, this time so loudly and forcefully that as the Doctor spun around and saw it smash against the wall, he was quite worried it had spun off its hinges, and he would have to indulge in some DIY.
“OH. MY. GOD. W. T. H,” Kym screamed, blazing down the garden path like a tornado. “YOU’RE HERE?!?!?!”
She stopped on the vicinity of the property, eyes with their ‘on-fleek brows’ (as Lizzie had recently discovered) piercing all of them with a strange, menacing quality.
“Evening,” the Doctor offered a half-hearted wave.
“Seriously ladies,” Kym began, pacing up and down the road, her massive heels clicking as she did so. “We need to get going like, ASOS –”
“You mean ASAP?” Iris observed, but Kym talked over her.
“Some dude has started drinking the punch, apparently it’s snazzalicious, like I wouldn’t know, I, er, haven’t had any – but SERIOUSLY, can we PLEASE start, it took me like, seven trillion years to get my make-up this fleeky, and it’s feeling hella wasted r.n.”
“Oh my,” came a new voice. Lizzie glanced over her shoulder, to see Ulyssses prowling out around the fence, and meandering woozily up to them. “I tried to keep her away, I promise.”
“He did!” said Leo, as he too came nervously scuttering from the property. He took a quick glance at the door as he went. Some of the hinges had broken, somehow. “But she’s…,” his voice trailed off, as he walked out into the road and saw Kym’s eyes like knives driving deep into him.
“Leo!” said someone else. This time, it was Jada, stood at the limp door. “Tell them to – oh,” she exclaimed, noticing everyone conglomerating in the middle of the road.
“Well,” Cioné resolutely placed her hands on her knees, and sat up, deciding that, as lovely as it was to watch the ensuing chaos around her, it was perhaps time to move on. But she held onto it – the surrounding madness – like she was trying to take a photo, to remember it forever. Life would move on and leave them all behind – it always did. But for now? They were alive. All of them, in their own, weird ways. Cioné wanted it never to stop – so she had sat there, just watching. And at the same time… feeling. Loved, and blessed, that she had all of this. The laughter, the bickering, the talking cats, the heels, the awkwardness – the magic of all of it. “Shall we go in?”
“YAS,” Kym screamed, boogying off to the path.
“Huh,” Iris mused. “Didn’t think you’d be the first to volunteer…”
“Well darling,” Cioné leaned over her daughter and kissed the top of her head. “I’m going to stomach it. Get it over and done with.”
Iris grinned with a mock pride. But, as she glanced at her mum and dad, slowly drifting into the building the rest of their chaotic and eclectic throng, she was happy. Even if they hated anything like a good party, she was pleased that they knew that she loved them. It was not an easy thing for Iris to say – but, she hoped that they would understand.
She followed them in.
***
The party began.
Well. It began twice.
The gang had traipsed noisily up the stairs like a brass band on steroids, and Kym and Iris had clattered nosily into the flat. As they stumbled through the hallway and into the abode, everyone was conspicuous in their absence. Darkness had driven heavily through the flat, and nobody was around. The silence was eerie, and the absence of life chilling – it was like death had struck the building, and as Iris took in the terrifying sight before her, she felt a shiver run down her back.
“SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Suddenly the lights exploded above their heads, and life burst into… well, life, around them. People leapt up from behind chairs, party poppers popped confetti at them, people cheered, and screamed, and everyone gave as much oomph as they possibly good to that great proclamation of celebration. It was a great bubble of euphoria, rising, and then bursting, as Iris entered the room. However, it was swiftly followed by a dejected wave of disappointment and sheepish guilt passing over the room.
Awkward glances were exchanged, apologies were muttered, and Iris gave an exasperated sigh. Very swiftly, at the young woman’s irritation, positions were regained – people hid back behind chairs and furniture, the party popper ‘gun-salute’ was rearmed, and the roars of celebration and delight were re-prepared. Iris ushered Kym, Lizzie, Leo, Jada, and Ulysses into the flat, and they too set up camp behind the sofa. Shushes were exchanged in hushed whispers, and then it was time to go.
“Lights!” someone hissed.
Iris quickly dashed back out again to switch the lights off.
Then behind the sofa.
Then she was ready.
A tense few seconds passed (the tension stemming largely from the fact silence was not one of Kym’s strengths), before finally, the Doctor and Cioné strolled into the room, like they expected nobody to be there.
Then, they underwent the same treatment that the rest of them had mistakenly experienced.
“SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Chaos descended on the Doctor and Cioné – put on the spot as the lights were turned on, party poppers were detonated, and screams were screamed, all in the name of the two individuals who had just entered the room. It felt, for a few seconds, rather like the whole room was collapsing in on them – or that they had just walked into a giant, celebratory wall of people and alcohol and nibbles. All the attention in the room turned to the two of them, and a great cheer erupted, and then a tidal wave of clapping, and finally, a jovial, if slightly intoxicated, chorus of For They are Jolly Good Fellows.
Then, silence descended, as if every individual in the room was waiting for a reaction for the focus of their cheer. It was rather like, the Doctor thought, blundering onto the stage at a concert, and being expected to play. Everyone watched them with looks of a strange combination of anticipation and delight, clearly waiting for some sort of recognition of how excited they were.
“Oh!” Cioné chirped, nodding slowly and looking at the chaos around her. There were people. So many people, all crammed into the one flat. Cioné didn’t even know they knew this many people – and other than one or two individuals Kym had dragged along to fill out the room slightly, everyone else she was quite certain either herself, or the Doctor, were pals with. Most of them were from other planets, she thought. And, they had all done an exceptional job at erecting a table for great platters of food and a huge font of punch, and stringing a web of paperchains above them, and setting up a rather bulky set of speakers in the corner of the room. “This… this is a surprise!”
The Doctor nodded alongside her. “Very… very surprising,” he forced a grin, looking more like he was in utter agony than his surprise birthday party. In truth, there was little to distinguish between the two.
“Thank you, everyone,” Cioné said, having to force the words out of herself like she was making herself sick. The Doctor confirmed his appreciation, trying not to sound too begrudging, before Iris stepped in, having noticed their torment.
The party had definitely begun, then. Music was played, dances were danced, mingling was… mingled. Nibbles were nibbled, and drinks were drunk. The Doctor slowly floated around the room, talking to so many people he hadn’t seen for many years. In a way, although he had been dreading this surprise party, he was pleasantly surprised, as he had many chances to become reacquainted with old friends. And there were so many of them, so many different species, from all across the universe, from all across his lifetimes, crammed into that room.
Their lives may have moved on, that could not be denied – but the Doctor was suddenly struck by the fact that so many people he and Cioné knew were in that one room, and that such an occasion would probably never happen again. Time would move on, and one day, they would all be dead.
But for now, they were alive.
Eventually, there came the calls for something all of them had been dreading.
A speech.
There was debate amongst them all, for a second – who would sacrifice themselves for the greater good, and stand and say some words that nobody, in the end, would really care about? A few choice words were exchanged, bickering and snide comments too. Thankfully for Lizzie, she was very quickly declared as not being a potential candidate – so she sunk away, back to the corners of the room, where she felt most at home amongst the claustrophobia of this hullaballoo. At this point, the demands for a speech were getting increasingly harder to ignore – and so, Iris begrudgingly said she’d do it.
A karaoke microphone was tossed over to her, and it was like the whole room had been on tenterhooks for this one, specific moment – for as soon as her hands clasped the device, the whole world collapsed into a blanket of silence, and bated breath, and anticipation.
Shit, Iris thought, looking at a million and one pairs (and some triplets. And even some single) eyes trained upon her person. Suddenly, she realised she was going to have to find some words. Ugh, she grumbled to herself. Some people would find it so easy, to stand on a stage and wax lyrical about their everlasting love for their nearest and dearest. However, Iris, surprising for someone who was, without a doubt, blunt, and according to some, brash, suddenly felt sick to the stomach. Yes, of course, she loved both of her parents – but, to quote Lizzie, she could not heave her heart into her mouth.
And she was pretty sure Lizzie had quoted someone really famous, like Shakespeare, or something.
Time, she realised, was ticking on. People were waiting, and she still hadn’t spoken.
“Y’know, none of us want to be here,” Iris shrugged.
Everyone looked at her, and the silence suddenly felt all the quieter. Perhaps she had shocked everyone into a state of spellbound captivation with that proclamation – perhaps it was so outlandish, that the breath of everyone had just caught in their throats. Nobody really knew how to react – so everyone watched Iris, entirely still.
Iris continued.
“Seriously. I hate speeches. Mum and Dad hate parties. Lizzie over there is allergic to people.”
Iris gave Lizzie a thumbs-up. Lizzie just about managed the same, drowning nervously in a thicket of people and clawing to the walls for dear life.
“All of you probably want to be at home, watching Antiques Roadshow or digesting your second-born children. Yes, Deborah. I see you over there.”
Deborah opened her blobby, bulbous mouth in a sullen gurgle to indicate the affirmative.
“But we’re all here,” Iris said, looking at everyone. All of them, who had, for some strange, alien reason, decided to come and celebrate her parents’ marriage. “And I don’t really know why.”
There was a faint gasp, then, as nobody was quite sure whether they were being insulted or complemented. A general buzz of awkward uncertainty connected everyone in the room, and one could have heard a pin drop. Except they couldn’t have done, because there were so many people crammed into that tiny flat, that it probably wouldn’t have dropped.
“But, to quote Lilo and Stitch – which Liz used to show me when I was a kid – ‘family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten’.”
Iris looked around at the room around her, and although she didn’t know half of them, they were all people that her parents had come across, at some point in their lives. She thought, perhaps, that was why people met up, and why people had parties. To have those strange moments of intersection, where people’s random journeys throughout life were lucky enough to cross paths.
“And Mum and Dad were there to make sure I never got left behind or forgotten,” Iris continued, thinking she sounded stupid and sentimental. “Sometimes a bit too literally. Honestly, the amount of times I’ve told them to get off my back…”
Iris realised, then, that this moment would never happen again. That this day, that moment, would all be gone, as they all continued on their own journeys. She glanced over at her mum, and dad (who looked too proud, so she looked away from them before she cringed while on stage in front of everyone), and then over at Lizzie, and then Jada – whether it was for support, or whether it was simply to hold onto the moment, Iris wasn’t quite sure.
“But the thing about Mum and Dad, is that although all of us, in this room, are… doing our own thing. Whether it’s like Kym who exists just to scream at people in fluent chav –”
“YAS SISTA!” screamed Kym, before dabbing, or something like that. Iris thought that was dabbing.
“Or if it’s Mr and Mrs Polonius, who taught me back in junior-2 at the academy, and who I always thought it was really weird they got on so well with my parents… or even if it’s Thunder, who I know does so much amazing work with Mum on the war front – although all of us are doing our own stuff, Mum and Dad are always there for us. All of us. To make sure that we’re okay.”
She let the words hang in the air – not just because she wanted them to have maximum impact (because she did, because she wanted her parents to know how much she loved them), but also because she was truly realising it herself. How far the Doctor and Cioné would go for their weird little family. How lucky she was, to have that.
“One day,” Iris said. “We will all be dead. Sorry. Miserable I know, but it’s true. And in the grand scheme of things, we’re so tiny we’re not even equivalent to a bacterium in a body – shit, I hope there aren’t any religious people here. And I hope none of you mind swearing. Oops. Anyway.”
Thankfully, people laughed, so she didn’t feel like such an idiot. Or like she’d offended anyone. Though she wasn’t sure she really cared.
“But, no matter how little any of us matter, Mum and Dad are always there to make us smile.”
Iris smiled, then. Like it was her parents’ legacy, and she wanted to bring it to people herself. They inspired her, like that. Gave her the heart to make her want to do good things in their name. They weren’t perfect, but at least they held their mistakes close, and tried to make amends on them – even if all they could do was some random, good deed for someone, like making them smile.
“I am so lucky to have them. Every second, while I know that I am steadily decaying – sorry, my inner scientist – I would like to say, that I am very happy that Mum and Dad are here. That they have been here, for me. To make sure I’m not left behind. They’re pretty cool parents. Seriously.”
Iris glanced quickly upwards at the whole room, before turning away, like they were all too much.
“And to all of you?”
Iris saw Lizzie, a look of admiration evident on her face, no longer drowning under the people around her – she could ignore them, as it felt like Iris was the only person in the room. Lizzie was so proud of her – the girl she’d watched grow up, who stood a fine, magnificent young woman in front of her.
Cioné and the Doctor felt the same – and seeing their little girl on stage, somehow not making a tit of herself with a karaoke microphone, made their hearts hurt with pride. Iris, the astronomer who could, when she thought about it, write poetry from the stars, and speak it to them all. In some moments, it felt like only yesterday that she was tiny – a couple of hours old and sat in that funny hospital chair in Lizzie’s arms. Other days, it felt like an age had passed. But all the time, they were thankful, for the joy and the laughter and the love that Iris had brought them.
Jada’s face was stony, in the way it so often was – her emotional control was exceptional, but for once, it seemed to waver, and her features softened. Iris’s words cut right through them – she was not a perfect person, and she had never been lucky enough to have a mum and dad. But for once, Jada understood – family meant nobody was left behind, and no longer was she left behind. Instead, Jada was alive, and lucky enough that, in that one, stray, ludicrous moment, she was with Iris.
None of them wanted the moment to stop.
But it would.
However, Iris was content that she was there to see it.
“Thank you, everyone, for making me smile.”
And she was done. Nervously, she looked up from the microphone, and at all the people around her. There was silence again, and this time, none of them were quite sure why. Iris looked desperately for a quick exit, but due to the sheer number of people in the room, it was impossible. They cornered her, a strange, awestruck barricade, keeping her there, stuck in that one point in time.
But then someone clapped.
And someone else. And someone else. And people kept clapping, and clapping, and clapping, and soon applause rushed through everyone, cascading at the front of the room where Iris stood, feeling wholly out of place, with that stupid karaoke microphone. Some of them were cheering, too.
Iris ignored it all – she didn’t care for it. Instead, she looked to see her mum, standing there, at the edge of the room. Cioné gave Iris a sad, but proud smile.
And, in fact, Cioné had to hold herself together. She was biting her lip, but a lone tear escaped and hung caught on her cheek. She didn’t wipe it – she let it stay, stuck there, knowing that soon it would fall from her face, and fade forever. As the cheering and applause to continue, Cioné watched her daughter not really knowing what to do – Iris was, sometimes, insecure. Everyone was – Iris just tried to hide it more than most others. A bit like her dad, in that respect.
In fact, at that moment, Cioné put an arm around her husband, and pulled him close, not wanting to let him, or her daughter go, ever again. They were there – a family. A peculiar family, perhaps, but a family nonetheless. One who never left anyone behind, and one who, above all, made her smile.
Cioné smiled.
The tear fell.
***
Over the sound of thumping speakers, and chatter, and laughter, and over the constant sensation of bodies packed into her flat, Lizzie peered nervously at the clock. It had only been five minutes since she last checked the time – and therefore, five minutes since she last thought about how dire this whole ‘partying’ affair was. However, she smiled her way through it. As Iris had said – she did not want to be there. And yet, she felt she had a strange obligation… in a way, she felt as if this was the right place for her to be.
That did not change the fact that she was looking forward to it being over. She had decided that after taking one sip of a cocktail and thinking it tasted like cleaning fluid.
However – the party showed no signs of stopping, the celebrations almost seeming like they wanted to drag on for all eternity. So, Lizzie stood, in the corner of the kitchen, conveniently jammed beside the cupboard with the teabags, just in case she needed to resort to her contingency plan – a cup of tea might have provided the relief from all of this. Nevertheless – ‘all of this’ had reminded her about some important things.
It was, at that moment, she looked up, and saw Leo grinning mischievously from the far end of the kitchen.
“You look like you’re having such a good time,” he laughed, as he manoeuvred his way past a cyborg smoking something that didn’t smell like tobacco. Lizzie chuckled hysterically, as he hugged her.
“Help,” she whispered nervously. As her gaze drifted over him, he was stood, in the dimmed lights of the flat, his face occasionally sinking into the gentle illumination of a warm, orange lamp. His smiled at her – gently, and lazily, and his eyes were almost uncertain, stuck between vulnerability and naivety, and self-assuredness. Those eyes watched her, and she wanted to keep him that way. That way… there were no other words to describe it, apart from adorable. That’s how he looked at her – adorably, naively, innocently – and she didn’t want him to change.
He made her feel like things were normal – that both of them were young and ridiculously optimistic, and that they might have beautiful days waiting for them, somewhere. But all the time, that same look, and that same feel, was a stab to her heart. Things wouldn’t ever be normal, for so many reasons. Her life was crazy. Most importantly… she was far from normal.
“You okay?” Leo asked her, catching her eyes drift vacantly over the room before them. “You look… I dunno.”
Aimless – maybe that was the word he was looking for. He had been worried about her for a while – occasionally, he would catch her looking somewhere, and he would see a look of utter lostness as her eyes passed uncertain over everything, like she didn’t know where she was going, or who she was, or what she wanted.
“I’m… in a party,” she gestured around herself. “Of course I’m gonna look weird…”
He gave her an incredulous look. “You don’t look weird.”
“Leo, weirdness is like… my thing, like –”
“Like Donald Trump and misogyny?”
“Yeah. Exactly. I think…”
“Sorry. That was weird.”
“Yeah. It was,” Lizzie mused, though she secretly loved the fact Leo was far from a wordsmith. He could do art, though. His art was beautiful. It was like he could look at a moment and somehow capture everything about it – the life breathing through it, the colour bringing it to life, every slight action and movement, and the emotion, and how all of those things united and function in unison, to somehow create the world. Leo could see it, and it was like he wrote it – but he did it all with his eyes.
And yet, sometimes he didn’t understand. He could transform a scene into the most vivid and real work of art, but when it came to talk to her? To understanding how she felt? Sometimes, it was like he was an alien, and that’s how she felt. Alienated. But again – sometimes she liked it. She felt like the complicated stuff going on inside her wasn’t really that complicated – like it was just as simple as Leo would like to liken it to.
But sometimes she hated it.
Maybe it was because he was innocent. And naïve, and vulnerable, and… unsullied. She knew he’d ‘downloaded the anxiety expansion pack’ as he so eloquently worded it, but that was it. He was nervous of the world’s darkness, simply because he’d never seen it before.
She shrugged it off. “I’m just… mopey this evening.”
What was it Iris had said? Bitchy as heck, or something like that. Iris had also said that she was enjoying seeing Lizzie so grumpy. It was, apparently, nice to see her being snappy and… angry for a change.
Lizzie, however, did not find it nice. And she hated that she felt it so often – ever since the Memory Graveyard, and since she’d admitted to herself her depression, and since she’d started counselling and mediation and somehow trying to come to terms with it – Lizzie had felt like she was doing a lot of snapping. She hated herself for it.
“It’s fine,” Leo waved it off nonchalantly, like it didn’t matter. It mattered to her. And she wasn’t fine with it.
“Iris can… make a beautiful speech about smiling, and I’ve got a face like a slapped arse.”
“It’s… a nice arse?” Leo only realised mid-sentence the ridiculousness of what he was saying.
Hearing him say it, however, made her smile. And then, like some cycle of smiling, Lizzie’s smile made Leo smile even more.
“God,” she muttered, laughing. “We need lessons on how to act like functioning human beings.”
Leo wasn’t convinced. “I think that’s part of our charm. The fact we can’t.”
“Charm? Leo, I actually walked out of Tesco’s earlier without getting what I needed because I saw someone I recognised from work.”
Leo found that markedly more hilarious than Lizzie, and he laughed, as she watched him stonily. But her face softened, as she realised it was a bit stupid.
Though none of it changed the fact she felt like a failure. As she listened to him laugh, and saw him smile, she felt even worse. Lizzie could never be the normal person he deserved, and the guilt plagued her. But it went further than that – she felt like she couldn’t do anything, and that she was spinning so many plates, all of them were dropping. Her mind was so tangled and stupid that when she tried to do something useful, she couldn’t. If she tried to write, she couldn’t find the words. She’d dug out her old electric keyboard the other day, but the music wouldn’t fit around her fingers, and it wouldn’t play.
No matter how hard she tried, or how long she spent, she couldn’t do anything. It all felt rubbish, and fake, and nothing felt genuine anymore. At least once upon a time, even when she’d felt terrible, she could grimly browse Tumblr at three o’clock in the morning and feel mildly satisfied. But now, it was like the well of creativity and content and life within her had dried, and she had nothing left to offer. Her mind would wander distractedly, her brain would lose focus, and she would never accomplish anything – and when something was accomplished, it was forced, and it wasn’t truly her.
She was failing. At everything.
She had lost herself. And now, her life was cold, and empty of music, and devoid of life and joy and contentment, and the things that made her happy.
“Yeah but… Tesco’s-gate –”
Lizzie shuddered at the name, knowing that then, it would live onto haunt her. “Oh god, please don’t name it…”
“I like the name. It means I’ll remember it.”
“Why would you want to remember it?” Lizzie grimaced. “It’s a hallmark of my hideous awkwardness.”
“Exactly. I like your hideous awkwardness.”
“That’s like saying you like… shingles, or something.”
He didn’t reply, so he looked up at her. He watched her like he was somehow… admiring her. Loving her. Loving the weird quirks about her that made her who she was. He watched her, like he was holding onto her with his eyes – like he was going to paint her, and was capturing everything about her, and treasuring it.
“All I’m saying,” he continued. “Is that some of the things you hate about yourself probably aren’t that bad.”
Lizzie screwed up her face in disgust. Hmm. Maybe he was a bit right, about some things. Not all things, though. She still felt a complete failure. But at least she felt like she was a loved failure.
“That was a bit more poetic than the whole Trump thing,” Lizzie muttered, coyly looking away from him.
“Still no Shakespeare, though…”
“Afraid not.”
She embraced him, and looked up at his face. The orange lamps, on their constant cycle of brightness, dimmed, so his face sunk slowly into the dark, like the sun setting slowly. And, in lieu of the music coming from the speakers, now something noticeably slower, they began swaying, rocking back and forth, like they were dancing. No – they were dancing. It was a strange feeling – Lizzie had thrown caution to the wind once before, back on the iCruiser – but that wasn’t like this. This was slow, and intimate. This was two people, close together, connected in a slow, gentle, set of movements. Lazy, slow movements, but at the same time beautiful and mesmerising with the delicacy of them.
Something struck Lizzie, then. This was all weird – and not just because it was new. It was weird because it promised so much – things that had previously seemed alien to her. They were at the beginning of something, and neither were sure what. It was their four-month anniversary. Yes. Four months. They laughed about that the other day – about the stupid new couples who celebrated monthly anniversaries like they’d been married for 60 years. Both Lizzie and Leo thought it was pointless. But as she hung loosely on Leo, her arms around his neck, holding him, she realised something. The early anniversaries, while not worth celebrating, stood shadowed in ominousness – foreboding of what the future might hold, whether it be good or bad.
And it scared her, for she had no idea what those things were.
Sometimes, she would look at Leo, and think things were going to be brilliant. That they would make their way through life together in an awkward muddle, and always be there for each other, to listen with, to laugh with. Maybe they would have years together – maybe the rest of their lives. Perhaps, after so many years of drifting lostly through the world, Leo was finally going to help anchor her to the ground. To show her that she was normal, and to make her feel like she could face the dark things in the world.
But there were days when she would look at him and think that it was too wrong. Leo wouldn’t ever understand her, and she wouldn’t be right for him, in his normal, everyday existence. They were similar, but maybe too similar – and perhaps it was a blissful thought, that they would always be there for each other. Both couldn’t deal with other people well. Lizzie was a good liar. Leo was so tetchy with his emotions. Both of them were deeply flawed, and sometimes it would send a chill through Lizzie, to think about how those flaws could drive the two of them to dark places.
She didn’t know.
Couldn’t know.
But for now, things were okay.
“OHMYGOD, GALS!!!” came a sudden yell. Lizzie broke off from Leo immediately, to see Kym stood on the sofa. She looked precarious, stood up there with those tall heels, and Lizzie was not sure what she was most concerned about – Kym injuring herself, or the impending announcement. She gulped loudly.
“I’M JUST GONNA INVITE SOME MORE PEEPS, ADD SOME MORE SPARKLE!!”
Lizzie immediately gravitated towards Kym like a missile towards its target, sheer terror rising through her. It was chaotic enough without needing half of Kym’s friends list descending upon them and ravishing the place like a plague of locusts.
“No, no, Kym,” Lizzie spoke up to Kym, grabbing her arm to hold her steady, as she stumbled over the soft furnishings. “Please, don’t, it’s fine as it is –”
“Oh shit,” Kym exclaimed, putting a hand to her mouth. Lizzie’s face went white as a sheet. “I’ve already put it on Facebook.”
Ohmygod.
Lizzie turned to make an urgent tea. She caught Iris’s eye, who turned to make an urgent g & t. Lizzie took a deep breath, as she realised the magnitude of what was about to descend upon them. The party she was currently subject to – that was nothing, in comparison to the tsunami about to engulf the flat. She wondered whether there was any way out of this – but there was nowhere to go. Lizzie would have to grit her teeth, and ride this one out.
Only seconds later, there was the first knock at the door.
She braced herself.
***
Five Hours Later
They had left their mark. The flat was a picture of devastation. Now, Lizzie and Maggie sat back amidst the aftermath of the carnage. The partygoers had gone – and it was not even that late, by some of their standards. Thankfully, Kym had managed to haul them off over the road. Not before, however, making the whole flat look an entire wreck. If Lizzie had thought it was hard enough to cram everyone else in the flat before, as Kym’s 2,304 friends began to file into the place, it suddenly felt like they were defying all laws of physics, even though only a fraction of that number turned up.
And ‘turned up’ made it sound like a quiet, unassuming affair – a decision, just to pop along for a quick drink as a bit of a laugh. However, it was nothing of the sort – they had ploughed into the room, shouting, screaming and singing, dragging crates of alcohol and appetites for destruction. They drew on the windows with whipped cream, they hid the ornaments on the mantlepiece, they put food in the X-Box (Iris would be fuming when she found out). They’d got up to all sorts of antics in the bedrooms and the bathroom, and they had, in general, swept through the building like a drunk, made-up, chavvy tornado.
“Anyway, she met him on Whambam, and then she sees him in Greggs with half a pasty and a decaf cappuccino!” Maggie exclaimed, almost astounding herself at the dramatic retelling of her tale. “Mad, I know…”
Lizzie laughed quietly. It was certainly an amusing tale – though she was almost too tired to properly care. Tired, and yet unable to sleep. Such was the problem of insomnia. But, now that all the guests had gone – including the sort-of uninvited ones, Lizzie felt a strange, sudden release of pent-up energy, and she was quite happy just to sit on the sofa and enjoy her cup of tea.
“Best things always are always mad,” Lizzie mused, believing it fully. After all – the best days of her life had happened since she’d met a wizard in a magic box. That was pretty mad.
“Exactly,” Maggie shrugged. “Like your life.”
“I know,” Lizzie murmured, glancing at the chaos around her. If you’d asked her 12 months ago whether all of this would have been possible, she would have laughed in your face. Well – she’d have awkwardly shrugged it off and then shuffled off to somewhere to hide. Sometimes, Lizzie wasn’t sure what shocked her more – the fact she had travelled all through time, from places lost in the past to the far-flung future, to places on the furthest reaches of the universe – or the fact she had all of this. A family, and a flat, and… parties. Parties. That would have been the most shocking thing. That would truly have made her hide.
She wouldn’t hide now, though.
She was still a quiet soul, and a quiet soul she would stay. Lots of people, it just wasn’t her thing. By herself with a cup of tea and Coronation Street, and she’d be sorted. But, at the same time, Lizzie no longer felt the need to isolate herself from everyone. She was brave enough, now, to greet the world with open arms, and no longer be scared of it.
“It’ll end, though,” she murmured, the words coming out of the blue, but bogged down with dejection. Sometimes, Lizzie thought it was already ending – she’d look at the Doctor and Cioné and see them happy. And then she’d see Iris, all grown up, and married. What need was there for her? She just sort of… hung around, feeling like a spare part. Such was the nature of her life.
“Everything does,” Maggie admitted solemnly and briskly, like she wanted to move on from it. Maggie did not like endings – but at least she had come to terms with it.
“I… I don’t know how to deal with that.”
It was a sudden realisation for Lizzie. She was old, to only just be understanding that. She felt like a child. She felt like an idiot. Most people learned to cope when they were teenagers – that was probably why adolescence was so hard for so many. But, Lizzie hadn’t ever had to worry about it before – this was the first time in her life she’d ever had something so worth hanging onto, that the thought of it ending was so painful. It was only now, then, that when she thought about the dark, impending endings, that she realised she had no idea how to cope.
“Sorry,” she shook her head, grimacing. “That was a stupid thing to say. I sound like a complete wallower. God… I can’t be wallowing, what have I become…”
Maggie laughed, and Lizzie sat there miserably.
“Look,” Maggie said, being her usual diplomatic self. She did not think Lizzie was a wallower – if anything, Lizzie had done quite remarkably at keeping going, with everything she had gone for. Maggie had infinite respect for the woman sat beside her – it took a lot to go through what Lizzie had gone through, and be such a kind, conscientious individual. “‘Course you don’t know how to deal with it. You’ve never had to deal with it before… and we learn by experiencing things.”
Lizzie turned to Maggie, desperate to take in her wisdom. Sometimes she just really wished Maggie would write a handbook or something to life. It would make everything so much easier. Instead, she was left to wander this earth, blundering through and giving Maggie a ridiculous phone call at ridiculous o’clock in the morning.
“And, Lizzie,” she continued. “I’ve known you all your life, basically. And it’s in this last year, that I’ve seen you start to live.”
Gone was the awkward girl stood behind the café counter at Dunsworth, serving Mrs Smith and her dogs. Instead, stood a confident young woman, ready to show the universe her goodness, kindness and warmth, and be a gentle force of nature in every situation she faced. The universe was so much better because of it – and so was Lizzie. Maggie looked at Lizzie and saw a bravery that she had never noticed before – and, although in a way, the dark days were darker, at least the bright days were brighter too.
Lizzie had a stupid question. And she wasn’t sure how she was going to ask it – but she was going to try. “So how’d you deal with knowing the best days of your life are over?”
Maggie thought about it for a few seconds, wrestling with this seemingly impossible problem – one that she hadn’t, and nobody else, had ever managed to find an answer for.
“I remember,” Maggie reminisced, thinking back years ago. “When I first met you, you had this Snoopy tee-shirt on – and on the back, it had this quote. Can’t remember it exactly, but it had Charlie Brown saying one day we will die, etc. Then Snoopy, saying this: but the other days, we will not. And that’s always stuck with me, for some reason.”
Lizzie looked up at her, confused. The girl who could read any situation, apart from her own. Typical Lizzie.
“You’ve got other days!” Maggie explained, unable to hide the hope and optimism in her voice – for she was hugely hopeful and optimistic for Lizzie. She knew that her surrogate-daughter could be truly brilliant, if she tried. “Go on crazy little adventures. Have a laugh. Take down a government. Smile. Make stupid speeches and invite all your Facebook friends to a random party. Live, basically.”
Lizzie slowly nodded in approval. She liked that.
Maggie decided to speak honestly. When Lizzie was a kid, she used to complain about not being told things honestly, just because she was younger, and people thought she needed to hear a diluted, censored version. Funny, how things changed, Maggie had never stopped thinking about that, and had always endeavoured to tell children things as honestly as possible.
“And maybe those other days won’t compare. Or maybe, you’ll get to a point where you can’t do what you’ve dreamt of. But you’ll never be useless. I know you, Lizzie – you’ll always be fixing someone.”
Lizzie liked to think so. There was something gloriously ironic, she always thought, of how she worked so hard to keep everyone together – and yet, she was the least experienced at this whole ‘family’ thing of all of them. Maybe that was why, though – she understood how important it was, and so was willing to put her neck on the line for it.
“Just got to keep going, on our way, through life. Because it doesn’t stop.”
It’s a bit rubbish like that, Lizzie thought.
“And if I did try and stop it, and Rachel were here, she’d bollock me to high heaven. So, there we go.”
Lizzie nodded. “She sounds brilliant.”
“She was. I miss her. So much.”
Lizzie knew how it felt.
“Do you regret it?”
Was that a stupidly obvious question? Lizzie wasn’t sure. She wasn’t even sure what she meant. Regret what?
Maggie understood, it though. And she thought about it, for what felt like the first time ever. It probably was. Whenever thinking about those events, she tried to gloss over it. Her own involvement preyed heavily on her mind, and for a few years, she hated herself. Sometimes, there were still moments when she hated herself – why didn’t they stop? Why didn’t she screw her head on the right way, and know when they’d gone too far? If she did, then her best friend wouldn’t be gone.
But she was gone. And no matter how much Maggie tried to block out that thought, for so many years, it had always been there. Her best friend was dead. There, at the back of her mind – that grief, eating away at her, constantly. The regret of not doing something about it, there too. But she had hidden it – kept calm, and carried on. Tried not to be sad about the fact she wanted nobody more than her best friend, and yet that person was the one she could never see.
“Yeah,” she said.
It was only then that she dared to lift the taboo, and thought about it.
Maggie hesitated, doing a very good job at holding herself together. Oh well. So many years in her job, she’d got very good at it. “Some of it, of course. But whoever said je regret rien or whatever, was a complete moron. Because of course I regret things, but if you didn’t regret anything then chances are, you haven’t lived.”
“And…,” Lizzie began nervously, suddenly feeling the silence of the flat. The ticking clock. The random noises that buildings made in the middle of the night. In the end, this was what they were all left with. Silence. Honest conversation. Truth. “If you could change it?”
Maggie quickly had an answer for this. She had thought about it a lot. “And whoever started talking about changing the past was also an idiot, because… it’s a question that can’t be answered. If Rachel was alive, maybe I’d be a very different woman. Who knows?”
Again – Lizzie could understand. She didn’t ask anything else of Maggie. It felt wholly inappropriate, and she just wanted Maggie to talk, and for her to listen. For so often, it had been the other way around – now it was nice that the tables had turned. And Lizzie would be quite content if Maggie decided that she didn’t want to talk anymore – it would only involve Lizzie granting Maggie the same respect that Maggie had always been generous enough to grant her.
“You’ve been hanging around with that Doctor too much,” Maggie said, deciding to change the subject. “Changing time and all that…”
Lizzie smirked. She knew well enough that it was impossible to change some things. They just had to live with them, and move on, and try and do something right, making amends.
“Hey,” Maggie turned to her, suddenly intrigued. She’d been meaning to ask this for a while, and hadn’t ever gotten around to it “Can he go forward in time and tell me how they’re going to rumble Pat Phelan?”
Lizzie couldn’t help but smile. Never change, she thought, knowing that one, sad day, she would.
“I just can’t see how they’re all going to find out!” Maggie continued. “It’s a great storyline, though. Entirely unrealistic, but gripping, I’ll give it that.”
But for now, her and Maggie were there, in that flat that smelt slightly of vomit.
Lizzie finished the dredges of her tea.
“What you up to tomorrow, love?” Maggie asked, as Lizzie leant forwards and placed her mug on the coffee table, before slumping back on the sofa. Maggie would often ask her questions like that – to remind her that there was a tomorrow. Lizzie had often thought, as an insomniac, it was so easy to forget that the night didn’t last forever, and that life would resume again – ever since she’d told Maggie, Maggie would always try and ask.
Lizzie shrugged. Keeping going. Not stopping. That was her only answer. Sometimes it was hell. Sometimes it was okay. She’d have to see in the morning.
“Actually,” Lizzie suddenly realised, knowing that nobody else would do it. “I’ll be cleaning this disaster up, I suppose.” With every passing second, she felt the task grow ever more daunting in her head. Perhaps that was why she’d put off going to bed and trying futilely to get some sleep. She often found herself doing that – feeling that if there was something to confront, it was always much better to just… not sleep.
Maggie smiled. “Again. Always you, holding everything together.”
Lizzie glanced over at the plant pot. “I might draw my Samaritan line at the plant pot vomit, though.”
“Yeah. I don’t blame you.”
Lizzie stood up, then, and took her mug off to the sink. As she placed it in, ready to wash it up tomorrow, she glanced up on the windowsill – a set of keys sat there. Iris’s, she thought. There were keyrings, and pressed into them, family pictures. Memories, held in Perspex, to carry around with oneself constantly – to give comfort, when feeling most alone. There was one image, with herself and Iris – both in sunglasses, sat on some beach somewhere, probably hating the hot weather. Lizzie held it, gazing at it in strange captivation for a few seconds, before gently placing it back down on the surface, like some remnant of a time now lost to the past.
Lizzie turned back to the sofa, and stopped, looking at Maggie sat there, her feet lazily up on the coffee table.
“Thank you,” Lizzie said.
Maggie looked confused. “What for?”
“Not leaving me behind.”
Oh, Maggie understood. The thought hadn’t even crossed her mind, it had simply become what she did with Lizzie. Maggie was a bit useless at everything – but if there was one thing she could do, it was keep Lizzie safe, and always be there for her.
“I’d never leave you behind. Even if you’re… in space fighting bug-eyed Nigel Farage monsters or whatever.”
“I worry sometimes –”
“You don’t say…,” Maggie mocked, knowing that Lizzie worried more than anyone else she’d ever met in her life. Lizzie gave her a stern look, and Maggie chuckled away to herself.
“I worry about how I go off into space and leave you here.”
Maggie shrugged dismissively. “Lizzie, you’re allowed to leave home,” Maggie grinned, hopeful, optimistic – while she missed Lizzie dearly, she secretly loved watching Lizzie fly off into the stars – living a story that she could only have ever dreamed of. “And I’ll always be there, for a cup of tea and a hug whenever you fancy coming back. You’ll never be left behind.”
Lizzie looked at the old woman huddled on the sofa. She couldn’t bear to think of a day when Maggie wouldn’t be there.
Slowly, she drifted over to her bedroom. “I’m… gonna try and sleep. Well. Sleep. You know me, I probably won’t.”
“I’m sure I’m still be out here if you can’t. They’ve got the Silent Witnesses with the sign language playing at ridiculous o’clock at the moment. I’ve been watching them all again.”
Lizzie felt reassured then. But for once, she felt like she might be able to doze off. Even if it was just a bit.
In the end, this would all be gone. The moment would fade, like it had never existed, as they all went on their journey.
But for now, it was there.
Lizzie hesitated by the bedroom door.
“You alright, love?” Maggie asked.
“Yep,” Lizzie said, honestly and genuinely.
“Good good,” Maggie acknowledged. “Sleep well.”
(3033 years later – approx. universal time)
All was quiet in Thea’s little room.
Room… it was like being a kid again. She was anything but. 80-years-old and living in a room. Not even a flat, not even a house. The official forms called it a residence, but Thea ridiculed it and thought, well, not bloody likely. She was alive, yes. But was she living? Not by any stretch of the imagination.
It was lunchtime, and Thea sat over her crossword, nibbling away at a cheese sandwich. Again, cheese sandwich – loose terminology. The bread was thin, and the cheese felt plastic and rubbery. But, it was food – and that was a positive. Spaceships Under the Spanner played on the TV set mounted beside her sole table, as nothing more than background noise. Thea couldn’t stand that show, but she hated the silence more. And so, she tended to keep the device on all day, whether she was watching it or not. Always made it feel as if there were people around.
But, it was still quiet. Yes, the TV made noise, her biro scribbled against her Perplexing Puzzles – issue 278976.E (she chose the books she did because they came with little pens) and occasionally, she would become acutely aware of her breath. But the room still felt empty, as if… there was a strange absence of life in there. It was like a bubble, isolated from everything else going on in the world, as if… everything that happened, she watched it from a distance on a TV set, while she herself sat sealed away, alone and unaffected by whatever happened outside.
Thea couldn’t even remember the last time she’d stepped outside.
But, there was nothing to be done. She probably couldn’t even get down the stairs! Though, she took comfort in the fact her room was in decent order. The double bed (although she’d have rather had a single), the writing table opposite, the small holo-TV embedded into the wall placed just to the side of it. Beside the bed sat a bedside table, with a flickering light, an old glass of water from the night before, and several plastic tubs with her medication. Medication doing nothing but prolonging her existence. Medication that just… made her survive.It never made her better, it never did anything positive – it just kept her going.
There was a small kitchenette in the corner, upon which she cooked her meals. They came around with the food packages once a week. And she scraped through – she always would. The only other little bit of her ‘room’ that wasn’t technically in the same room was a little bathroom tucked away. A shower, and a toilet. No sink, she had to use the kitchen one.
But… again, she survived. She would make do. A fighter, Thea was. Even when she didn’t want to be. For some reason, she just… kept on going.
And so, Thea rose to take another bite of her rubbery cheese sandwich.
Until her Perplexing Puzzles – issue 278976.E was blown about by the sudden gust of wind.
The pages flickered and flapped against each other, dancing around as if in a strange kind of jubilation. Thea couldn’t think why – there wasn’t much to be jubilant about. But after those brief few seconds of psychoanalysing her puzzle book (and Thea had learned, in her long years, of how one undertakes funny activities when something peculiar is occurring), it truly dawned on her. There could be no gust of wind. This wasn’t like the days of old, when her and her John had raised their children in that funny old terraced house, crammed in amongst a million others. Bloody tiny, it was, but it was home. Thea had also realised that come old age, memories were funny. They merged, with experiences – including those in the present – skulking across one’s personal timeline, never quite sure where to settle. Lives were funny like that. How they divided into epochs, and yet, was just one, long existence, dragged out until breaking point over a series of clear signifiers.
Thea was quite certain she was close to breaking point.
However, Thea had quite surely come to her senses. Her room was not by a window, as it had been once. She regained herself, and finally realised that her room was entirely indoors, and surrounded by other rooms, meaning one thing.
There couldn’t be a gust of wind.
It was when she turned around, however, that Thea began to wonder whether her long years were finally catching up with her. Maybe this was it – madness! Old age, and the chaos it brings. Oh, never grow old, she’d told John, as they’d both been growing old. It was just the whim of someone desperate to clutch onto forgotten memories, before they drifted into the mishmash of her former years. Devoid of realism, Thea knew her claim was futile. For time stopped for nobody. Not her.
She’d learned that all too hard, the last few years.
The gust kept blowing through her room, reaching further past her puzzles and now flattening photos of Kitty and Marco. It wasn’t just time, apparently. Even the environment wanted to cut down as many bittersweet memories as possible. It made the curtains (only of the holo-window, of course) flutter, and for the briefest of seconds, Thea was quite sure the light fitting (empty of shade) was dancing about to the wind’s merry tune. Because… it was making a noise. Quite a lovely noise, actually, and not only was it enough to drown out the dulcet tones of Martin Ro-bots drifting from her television, it was also enough to drown out the silence. That was good – she didn’t feel alone anymore. Maybe there was something good left.
But the wind was getting louder, and – and there was something appearing in her room. Thea had resigned herself to insanity – because there was nothing about this that was sane, in any way at all.
However, in all that Thea had heard over her many years, she had never heard that insanity manifested as a blue box.
The wind stopped, and suddenly, there was a great big blue box stood in her room.
Not quite as majestic a claim as it sounds, in reality. For the room was small, and so the strange box took up half of it. In fact, if Thea needed the loo, she’d have to pop next door and ask Lacey, because whatever in the Emperor’s name had just dropped out of the sky had just decided to park itself right in front of her tiny bathroom. It was only then that she realised – the box had parked right on top of her buggering vase. Best bloody vase she owned, that. Cheap as muck, but it was from John – so she couldn’t do anything but cherish it.
And if Thea’s day couldn’t get weirder, the doors to the box were flung open.
“Hello!” came the voice of the individual who strode out, carrying her vase in his arms.
“Oi, you, give me back my vase, right now,” Thea hobbled over to the man and plucked her best possession from his hands. “Goodness, this is valuable!”
“Terribly sorry. I didn’t expect this room to be so tight.”
The man was an interesting fellow, it could not be denied. He was well dressed, certainly – a frock coat went down to his knees, and a scarf was tied firmly beneath it. He wore quite lovely boots, reminding Thea of the riding boots Kitty used to wear. Always wanted to do horse-riding, that one. They’d never been able to afford it, but John had an ancient pair of riding boots. He’d given them to Kitty, and she loved them! Wore them throughout half her teenage years. Didn’t care they were men’s – she was just content.
Thea wobbled over to her desk, and placed her vase on top of it.
“You’re a useless criminal, you know. Parking a great big box in my bedroom.”
“Sorry, I’m – I’m not a criminal, if that’s what you thought?”
“I don’t know what to think! That box turns up, and I thought it was my cataracts playing up,” Thea took the seat in front of her desk, because even if he was a criminal, she couldn’t be bothered to do anything about it. She had a ‘senior citizen’s panic button’ beneath her desk, so that should do the trick if he should make another move for her vase.
“Ah,” he muttered sheepishly, running a hand through his short locks of hair.
“Honestly,” Thea continued, determined to make certain this strange man knew what was what. “I don’t know why you have that thing fade in, I thought I was going blind! If it was instant, I’d be much happier.”
“Right, er, thank you for the, er… advice…,” the man looked around awkwardly. He was very uncertain about where he’d ended up – an old lady’s house had not been on the agenda.
“Sorry, where am I? I don’t quite know, and my TARDIS – sorry, the box – it’s broken down.”
“My John never drove for that very reason. Vehicles, they always fall flat! Living in the city as well, you’d only risk the traffic if you had a death wish…”
Thea could remember those days like they were yesterday. John’s foul-mouthed rants about how he was never going to own an effing car, they do eff all and I’ll be effed if I’m ever going to effing buy one. Oh. Those were the days.
“Where am I?” the man asked again.
“Are you being serious?” Thea was entirely bemused.
“Oh, deadly…”
“Blue Rocket Street’s HMOs. Why?”
“HMOs?” he questioned, as if he truly was thick.
“Houses in Multiple Occupation, what kind of privileged life have you been leading?”
“Sorry. We’re the middle class, we deserve to be toppled,” the man muttered, as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the most peculiar torch.
“What in the name of Vortis is that?”
“It’s a sonic screwdriver, don’t mind me. Is that where we are? The Empire?” the man dashed over to the window – only to realise that it was only a holo-window. He seemed noticeably more agitated after that, as if he’d been desperately hoping that the outside world would be within touching distance. Welcome to my world, Thea thought sadistically to herself.
“Blimey, how drunk were you when you got off the border shuttles?”
“I didn’t, this box brought me here,” he gestured to his big crate thing. It wouldn’t be the most ridiculous thing Thea had seen in her life. But even so – if he’d come here in that box, she needed him to go. Now.
“If you didn’t go through border control, they’ll find you, and – well, I don’t know what they’ll do to you, but I wouldn’t want to find out. 0 tolerance policy, that’s what Mrs Cullengate said. You don’t come down on a border shuttle, and you’ll be taken. She’s got eyes everywhere, that woman. So, anyway, you’ve got to go.”
Thea had heard the stories. People who have got no contact with suspects, who are dragged away simply for exchanging a few early-morning pleasantries. And – if she was found communicating with someone who had slipped through border control at such close range – well, it’d be the camps for her. If they were true, of course – which everyone knew they were. But Thea felt compelled to add the afterthought – as she’d said, Mrs Cullengate had eyes everywhere, and Thea wouldn’t be surprised if she was psychic.
“Why?”
“Because if I’m here talking to you, they’ll have me too! Blimey, don’t you know anything?”
“So…,” the man cycled through the information in his head. “This is the Empire, Evangeline Cullengate is Prime Minister… yes. I think I have the right time.”
“Right time? For what?!”
“What’s your name?” he asked, a sense of urgency prevalent in his voice. At this rate, he genuinely was a border-skiver, or he was some idiot from the IPA (intergalactic patrol agency) they’d sent to test random citizens for their loyalty. She’d heard that was a thing.
“Er, what’s your name, young man?” She wouldn’t be taking any cheek from him, no matter how urgent the situation was.
“The Doctor.”
Doctors, all holier-than-thou, Thea thought.
“Doctor Who?!”
“Just the Doctor, your name, please.”
So, sounding mildly hacked off, Thea begrudgingly offered her name. “Thea. Thea Everett.”
“Okay, thank you, Thea Everett. I’m sorry for crashing in on you like this,” the Doctor gestured to his funny blue box.
“So you goodness well should be,” Thea scowled. “What are you even doing?”
“That’s a rather complex question…”
“Well I’m not going anywhere!” Thea grumbled, knowing full well that this funny little room was where she was going to die. No point hiding from the truth of it – so, the Doctor might as well have got on with it.
He paused, then, as if her words had triggered something inside him, had set him back and made him think. It seemed that he was going to tell her – such a hesitation, in her experience, led to little but that. However, clearly he was trying to find the right words. Clearly, it was a complex question. And clearly, he was being truthful, and honest. One couldn’t ask for much more than that.
So, she was generous to him. She allowed the Doctor to take the time he needed. Thea knew full well that saying something difficult was often the hardest thing of all. To make it quick and concise was to make it honest – and clearly, quickness and conciseness was what the Doctor was looking for, although perhaps not for honesty. However – it seemed that honesty was the one way for him, if he wanted to plough on at what seemed like a very speedy way of living.
And then, he said it.
“Because… I’m trying to make amends. I’ve made mistakes, and this time… I’m trying to do something good.”
***
Two Weeks Later
(3033 years earlier – approx. universal time)
“So, hold on a sec, he was… what?” Maggie exclaimed, eyes agape over her cup of tea, enthralled by Lizzie’s tale. And yes – Maggie was going to take no shame in being excited by this strange soap-opera of a life that Lizzie Darwin led. It was 90% of the time better than half the rubbish she saw in TV. So, a glimpse into this mysterious time travelling doctor’s life was always a welcomed change from the usual monotony of the TV schedule.
“Yeah… trying to make amends. Trying to… get it right, after what had happened with Emma.”
“Hold on a sec, you did explain Emma to me,” Maggie trawled back through her head, trying to track down who. “Isn’t she the daughter of his… oldest friend, or something?”
“More like… sibling. It’s a kind of… love/hate thing.”
“Ah,” Maggie observed knowingly. “I understand. Christ, you lot, you’re like Coronation Street…”
“What’s happening in that at the moment?” Lizzie hadn’t seen Corrie for a good few years – and the only time she’d ever properly sat down to watch it was a few late-night cups of tea with Maggie. That was another wonderful thing about Maggie – she, like Lizzie, did not sleep. Except unlike Lizzie, it was not because Maggie was an insomniac, it was simply because Maggie Shepherd, with the sheer amount of work she did, had learned to tank every single day on the back of a lot of caffeine – while still remaining a regular viewer of her favourite soaps.
“Well,” Maggie prepared herself to launch into a Corrie-related discourse. “The police think Anna Windass pushed her daughter Faye’s boyfriend, Seb, off a ladder…”
“Oh, er, right…”
“And…, oh, yeah. Sally Webster is mayor now.”
“Blimey. I bet she’s a Tory…” From what Lizzie could remember, Sally Webster was always a snob. And vaguely reminiscent to her old computing teacher from Year 8.
“Oh, Sally Webster is as Tory as they come,” Maggie confirmed. “Oh, but the most moving story recently was Rita.”
“Oh my god,” Lizzie exclaimed, suddenly fearing for Rita’s life. She’d seen the tabloid reports and hoped it wasn’t true. “Is she dead?”
“No, thank Christ,” Maggie sounded genuinely relieved. After all, Maggie was quite certain that if Rita Tanner died, the whole of the UK would fall. Or something like that. “No, but she had a brain tumour. Turned out to be benign, but even so. It was… god, I was close to tears, and you know me, I’m bloody rock-hard resilient against half the over-dramatic unrealistic shit they stick on the telly nowadays. But it was really quite well done. There’s this one moment, where Rita looks back over the street, and it’s her, looking back across her life. Because that street, it’s her life, you know.”
“Yeah.”
“So, Rita’s looking back over the street, and I’m just thinking. Right. Blimey. That’s, wow, that’s powerful. Because… that’s all it is. A woman facing the end of her life. A woman who is coming to the realisation that actually, maybe, in the grand scheme of existence and all that shebang, she didn’t achieve much. But… at the same time, she achieved so much, because she made people smile. And it just made me think, you never know when your number’s up, so that’s what it’s just best to do. Make people smile. And there we go, good on you, Rita Tanner.”
Lizzie nodded slowly.
She liked that idea.
“Sorry,” Maggie declared. “You were saying. The Doctor pitches up in this old lady’s flat. Blimey. Already we’re off to a problematic start…”
***
TWO WEEKS EARLIER
(3033 years later – approx. universal time)
“Good?” Thea exclaimed, bustling over to this ‘Doctor’ chap, wagging a finger at him as she went. He stood beside her desk, looking nervously around the small bedsit as she hobbled over, scolding him. She had no time for time-wasting house-breakers. Honestly! The cheek of some. Breaking into her house and dragging in a big blue box, before embarking on a string of patronising and demeaning comments. “What d’you mean by that?”
The Doctor looked at her, dead in the eyes, and replied.
“I’m going to take down the government.”
Thea gasped.
He was going to do what.
She watched him, entirely incredulously. Then she looked away, before turning back to him. Just to make sure he was joking.
The Doctor was not joking.
This confirmed the worst of her suspicions she had a terrorist in her house. Oh, bloody hell, 80-years-old and she was harbouring a terrorist. For a few seconds, she didn’t even know what to say. She simply looked at him, agape, entirely astonished that anyone would dare utter such absurd words.
Then Thea realised. He had uttered the words.
So, she hobbled up to him, and gave him a clip around the shoulder. “Don’t you say things like that!” she looked up at him. He looked down at her, entirely bemused. She did not understand why he was looking so confused at her actions – if he was planning on doing something so reckless, then it was highly likely that Mrs Cullengate would be listening in – and the last thing that Thea wanted was to be spending her last years in a concentration camp, even if the conditions would be better than her current situation.
The Doctor backed away from Thea, but she relentlessly continued after him, continually clobbering him.
“You can’t bloody say things like that, you stupid, stupid –”
“Thea, please –”
“I’ve got to report you, where’s my bleedin’ phone…” she turned, and began fumbling through the disorganised, eclectic set of goods upon her writing table. It was all a mess – chargers, stationery, the TV remote – all of it got lost. She couldn’t be bothered to organise it all. However – the last 156 editions of Perplexing Puzzles were in perfect chronology, such was the nature of her boredom during the long days spent alone.
“Don’t report me, Thea, please –”
She found the phone – an old, 2D device. Nothing like the sort they had nowadays. Quickly she pressed some buttons on the side, trying to figure out how to switch it on. Eventually, the screen glowed into life.
“Oh bugger,” she scowled, needing to squint without her glasses. “I’m out of credit –”
“Thank god…”
“Don’t thank god!” Thea exclaimed, tossing the phone back into its next of chargers. “At this rate, we’ll both be in a camp, not just you!”
“Thanks,” the Doctor muttered.
“You’re welcome…,” Thea replied, pacing wearily up and down the bedsit – a task which, due to the size of the room, meant rather a lot of turning around. “Well! I might as well pack my stuff. They’ll be hauling me out before Casualty.”
“Casualty still runs?” the Doctor mused. He remembered Lizzie watching it – he was oblivious to the fact it still remained so popular. “Is Charlie still in it?”
Thea stopped, and strode right up to the Doctor, jabbing a finger right into his chest. “You can’t go around saying things like that, you know!”
“Like what?”
“About…,” Thea looked around from left to right, ensuring that the coast was clear. Then, she mouthed. “About… the government. She’s got spies everywhere, that woman. And yes.”
“Yes?”
“Charlie is still in it. They resurrected him as a Nestene duplicate two years back, when there was all that business with the plastic doctors on Savroven-5.”
“Oh…”
The Doctor grimaced, then peered out of the curtained windows, at the beautiful, floral meadows outside, stretching on for as far as the eye could see. The sun shone gently over them, like a lantern casting its rays of hope across the world, and the flowers themselves gently rocked in the light summer breeze, all gazing up at a blue sky, patterned with gentle wisps of white like bunting.
Then he realised. They were holo-windows – and in truth, outside lay a grim, grey city. Houses and apartments crammed close together, full to bursting of people who just wanted somewhere to live and would take anywhere so long as it provided a roof and four walls. Half the time, places didn’t even have a proper roof.
“Which part of the Empire am I in, Thea?
“Blue Rocket Street, as I said,” Thea sighed loudly, mildly hacked off at this gentleman’s inability to listen to a word she’d said. “Lower district B7842.”
That intrigued the Doctor. By that logic, then… he wasn’t far from Downing Tower. He knew he hadn’t entirely lost his touch with the TARDIS just yet.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Thea observed, like she could see the cogs in his brain ticking away.
“You… do?” the Doctor said, thinking of how awkward it would be if she didn’t.
“About four levels below,” she said, quieter than normal. They could be listening in.
The Doctor couldn’t help but smile at that revelation. Not far, then. He was in more luck than he’d been expecting.
Thea, meanwhile, watched that grin dance across the Doctor’s features, and with great scepticism, though great intrigue as well (for she was yet to meet anyone so insane in her life), she asked him.
“Are you… being serious?”
Thea mouthed the ‘being’ and ‘serious’, much to the Doctor’s exasperation.
“Yes,” he said, sheepishly. It came out almost like the murmurings of a disgruntled child sulking after being told they couldn’t do something. He sounded pathetic – petulant, and immature. However, the Doctor was aware that against Mrs Cullengate’s regime, that’s all he was. A disgruntled child, whose demands could so easily be quashed. In truth, he knew he did not stand a chance, and that against the might of Evangeline’s Empire, he was almost certain to fail.
But, he would die trying.
Thea watched him – beady, scrutinising eyes piercing him, on the listen-out for tall tales. With a great many years behind her, Thea had become quite adept at spotting lies and half-truths. She’d noticed them plaguing the contract for this place – she’d only signed because there was no other choice.
Eventually, she settled on her next question.
“Are you a spy?”
The Doctor watched her, astounded. She did not waver. She kept watching him – she just moved a bit closer to her walking stick. When her fingers gripped the handle, he realised he should probably answer her.
“… no,” he spoke slowly, more out of confusion than anything else.
“You look like a spy,” said, uncertainty weighing heavily on her voice. She wasn’t going to take any chances. For all she knew, this man could be a trap. She’d heard all sorts, about the Cullengate administration sending individuals into the homes of random individuals to test their loyalty to the government.
The Doctor, however, quickly shut her down.
“I’m – I’m really not a spy.”
Shut her down – like any good spy would.
“Honestly,” she hissed, walking shakily towards the door, her arm outstretched, waiting for the handle. So many years on this planet, she wasn’t fit for so much excitement, her bones so rickety that Thea was quite terrified she could fall apart at any moment. Though, in a way, she did not care. Everything else had fallen apart long, long ago. “…if you put me in prison because my phone ain’t got credit, I’ll be pissed off! It’s your fault I ain’t got any credit in the first place.”
She would call Kev from upstairs. He could put a call through to the guard, and all this would be sorted out
“Thea,” the Doctor zoomed over to her, desperation in his voice. “I’m not a spy, honestly.”
Thea stopped by the door, her hand only millimetres from the handle – millimetres from reporting this silly fool in her bedsit and ending all this sorry business for good.
But she heard him breathing behind her, and it made her pause. He was desperate, his breaths deep, engulfing as much air as he could. Maybe he was a very good actor. Or maybe he wasn’t. Maybe, for once, she’d come across someone insane enough to actually try and take down the Cullengate empire. Even thinking the thought astounded her. Could someone really dare do that?
The man behind her, just for a few seconds, made her think that someone could.
And what was the alternative? Slogging through her final days with Intergalactic Loose Women and another 250 issues of Perplexing Puzzles, before she finally bit the dust, only to have her body hauled away like a slab of meat and burned in some mass oven? Gone, forgotten, like she’d never even been alive. Her stuff would be burned too, her bedsit given to another occupant.
Thea Everett would be just as pointless in death as she was in life.
She spun on her heels and began advancing on the Edwardian gentleman before her.
“So, what on earth possessed you to try and take down Cullengate’s empire?"
The Doctor’s shock was evident on his features, and as Thea prowled towards him he backed away from her beady finger, nearly stumbling as he went.
“That was a change of heart.”
It was. But if she was going to go, she might as well go out in a blaze of glory. How many 80-year-olds were involved in a super-secret plot to take down the government? For a few seconds, Thea could see a way out of her monotonous existence. An end to this one-room accommodation, this miserable cycle of living day after day with puzzle books and rubbery cheese sandwiches and daytime TV.
And for the briefest of seconds, she saw the tiniest, most minute glimmer of hope. It was so minute, it was almost impossible to grasp – but she could see it. Still impossible, but at least somewhat thinkable.
Ending the regime that had crushed so many.
“Well, I hate the bitch,” she shrugged, with a tongue so loose that should ‘the bitch’ be listening in, she would be far from please. The Doctor’s face was a picture of bemusement at Thea’s sudden change of heart. In fact, Thea herself was so astounded with her change of heart – however, now she looked back, it had always been something building inside her. “And if I die in a camp, so be bloody it. How’re you going to do it?”
It suddenly came to the Doctor. There was a pretty substantial flaw in his plan. He hesitated, as Thea stopped, looking up at him with great expectations.
“I… don’t know.”
Thea blinked, as it dawned on her that this man was definitely not a spy. This man was serious. 100%, deadly serious in his madness. Only one with such emotional flare would have such diminishing logic, and willingness to conduct a ridiculous action. Her eyes perhaps widened in wonder, before she then realised.
“Huh,” she said.
The Doctor looked around sheepishly, then dashed off to the door. He wanted to get a sense of this peculiar abode – this accommodation Cullengate offered. “It was a fairly off-the-cuff decision…”
“Who risks their whole life ‘off-the-cuff’?!” Thea exclaimed, as he tried the handle. It opened.
“My life to a tee…,” the Doctor murmured, turning away from the door. “Mrs Everett, let me explain…”
While it may have been a rather spur-of-the-moment decision, to do this specifically, it, like Thea’s newfound revolutionary appetite, had been brewing for a long time. He had been waiting, knowing he had to do something about the Cullengate, at some point, when she went too far. It just so happened, that the other day, the moment had come. He had decided – it was time to act. And, he knew it was time to give something back to a universe he had wronged. Even if he could not fix things, he could, at least, try and do something good, and hope that might somehow make him a better person.
Thea would not, however, let him explain.
“You must have… weapons, or something –”
The Doctor fumbled around in his jacket. Ah!
“I have a screwdriver.”
“Right!” she said, forcing a smile. At least it would not be an operation constructed entirely on the foundations of lunacy – so she clung on to that, admittedly shaky, pillar of optimism. “Well. It’s a… a start.”
The Doctor took the screwdriver out of his pocket and proudly held it up. Thea’s face fell.
“There’s a disappointment if I ever saw one,” she muttered.
The Doctor looked dejectedly at the screwdriver. “Way to boost my self-confidence…”
He turned back to the door and stepped out into the corridor, arriving on the landing of a stairwell, gripping onto the wrought railing and peering over the edge (after removing his hands, due to the conspicuous stickiness of a lump of chewing gum stuck like a limpet onto the metal). The stairwell was huge, plummeting so far below him that it seemed to collapse in on itself. When he looked up, the very same sight befell him. Wherever he was, then, the stairwell went on almost ad infinitum, a snake twisting and turning so far up and down the building.
“How many floors are there in this building?” the Doctor asked, squinting futilely down the abyss below.
Thea shrugged. She’d no idea. She’d never even dared trying those stairs – with her arthritis and her heart, she’d drop dead a few floors below them.
So, the Doctor decided there was only one way to find out. One by one, he trotted off down the stairs.
“What’re you doing?” Thea spluttered, as he began to make his descent. Thea shuffled nervously up to the edge of the top step, grabbing onto the gummy railing for dear life.
“I’ve got to get out of here,” the Doctor said, like it was entirely obvious. Thea gave him a glare for his patronising attitude, and instantly he shut up.
“Can’t you… fly your portaloo in there?”
“TARDIS, please. Don’t make it sound any less elegant than it already is… and no,” he declared. “Evangeline has TARDIS-proofed her tower. I’m stuck out here. Only one way in.”
The Doctor and Thea shared a look of mutual understanding. The front door. It was a grim thought, but with Evangeline weirdly on-top of the whole ‘preventing Time Lord imposters’ thing, the Doctor had no other alternatives.
So, he continued down the stairs.
This time, Thea began a slow descend herself. With her bones not what they used to be, and one arm clutching her hip (Thea was quite terrified of it popping from its socket), she followed, not entirely sure what possessed her. Maybe it was again the fact that she no longer cared. If she died, so be it.
“How long have you lived here for?” the Doctor asked, as he reached the next landing. He stopped, and waited for Thea, who had to traverse the dangerous terrain by placing two feet on each stair.
“20 years,” she heaved in a gulp of breath, and the Doctor was beginning to realise that he had truly gone mad – taking down a dictatorship with a little old lady who could barely get down the stairs. That being said, Thea was a fighter, and while she was clearly struggling, she would not be defeated by a staircase. So, she continued, without complaining. Resilience and grit flared up inside her, and slowly, she dragged herself on, unyielding and undefeatable.
“Wow. And… d’you like it?”
“No,” she spat, reaching the landing, before looking up at the Doctor. “It’s shit,” she proclaimed bluntly.
“Oh…,” the Doctor began the next set of stairs.
“Well. Least it’s not a portaloo.”
“The TARDIS, it’s really not a porta – are you alright with that step?” He stopped, as he could see Thea rocking unstably on her slippered legs, having to take a few seconds to steady herself.
“Yes,” she spoke, resolution cutting through her voice. Again – she was unyielding.
“Good…”
“How does it work, then? The –,” Thea stopped for a breath. “The portaloo…”
“Ah,” a smile drifted over the Doctor’s face, and as he looked up at Thea, his eyes danced with delight. “Magic.”
Thea looked at him incredulously, as she continued downwards. “I’m 80, not 8.”
“Nobody is ever too old for magic,” the Doctor said, truly believing it.
Thea looked around her at the stairwell – grotty and dirty, seemingly an infinite labyrinthine structure capable of gobbling up the unassuming. Grime built up like a thick sandwich spread in the nooks between the stairs, and on each landing there was a clutter of plastic bottles and cans, tossed haphazardly by anyone unwilling to use a bin – and the few bins that were present throughout the building lay with great irony – empty and bag-less. The paintwork peeled off the doors, and the brass numbers hanging from them were either missing, leaving faint marks behind, like their presence remained in a ghostly formed, or the letters hung sullenly off, dejected and miserable. The plaster crumbled from the walls, breezeblocks leering menacingly underneath, and the incandescent bulbs were fizzling out, or lay shattered in crystalline fragments kicked coldly aside.
And all this was exciting to her. The dirt, the doors, the broken building – keeping her on her toes, in a way she hadn’t felt for so many years. For once, Thea felt alive, like she’d escaped the constraints of death and her room.
“I think I am,” she muttered, feeling her age as she stumbled down the next step. It wasn’t just alive that she felt. She felt 80 as well. “Oh well,” she proclaimed, grabbing onto the bannister for dear life. It wasn’t just her bones that ached – she was fearful of her breathing too. Slow and shallow – to go from not having left the same room once in twenty years to traipsing down the largest flight of stairs she had ever seen, was quite a taxing activity. And she felt it – she heaved in as much air as she could, but it never felt like enough. “People get old,” she shrugged. “Apart from Bob Wilkins two floors up.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I see him sometimes. They don’t bring my shopping to the door, so he brings it up the stairs. Hasn’t aged in 20-years…”
And Thea suddenly felt her chest too – it ached, all around her ribs. Oh well. If she died going down those steps, it’d be an exciting way to go.
“I don’t get old,” the Doctor muttered absent-mindedly.
Thea glared at him jealously. “Wow. What do you want? A medal?”
“Sorry,” the Doctor turned, a gentle smile turning into a look of concern as Thea ambled down onto the next landing. “Didn’t mean for it to sound like a boast. It wasn’t one. Far from it.”
They continued in silence for a while, like this was some great adventure. In a way, it felt like one – for both of them. It felt like, at least, both were enjoying themselves. Learning more and accomplishing more than either had in a while.
“What’s it like then?” Thea eventually asked, making conversation to fill the awkward silence. “Not aging?”
The Doctor thought about it.
“I save a lot on face-cream.”
“Clearly immortality dries the well of jokes.”
“Jokes, sanity – it all goes at 200…”
“Well,” Thea declared. “I hope you put it all to good use.”
“Hmm?”
“The age. No point knocking about forever if you’re going to do nothing.”
The Doctor did not reply – not intentionally, at first. Originally, he had been so struck by the remarks, that he was so busy thinking about them, he did not say anything. Eventually, when he thought of something to say, the time had gone – and so the statement remained unanswered.
They continued on, for what felt like an age – and it was not because Thea was, understandably, slow on the stairs. It was simply an enormous staircase, snaking downwards for what felt like an eternity. The Doctor observed this a few times, and Thea simply shrugged, citing it as these sets of HMOs being huge, so as to deal with the Empire’s housing crisis. Supposedly, they were the latest invention of Mrs Cullengate – a shining example of her brilliance and innovation.
Thea did not think them so brilliant and innovative, as she dragged herself down the stairs. No elevator, no stairlift – just stairs, twisting and turning forever.
In fact, it must have been an hour before they finally got to the ground – it took them a ridiculously long time, and they had to take breaks. But they only paused briefly, and they did not pause often – so it was still baffling to the Doctor that it had taken them so long to reach the bottom.
However, he put the thought out of his mind. There were more important things to worry about.
The room at the bottom was small, with a vending machine, and a lone, fold-up chair.
“Blimey. I ain’t been down here since I first moved in,” Thea’s eyes widened at the sight of the miserable chamber.
The Doctor took his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and pointed it towards the door. Thea thought the room was cool? Well – she hadn’t seen anything yet. Her adventure was about to double in excitement – the Doctor was quite sure of that.
The screwdriver activated – but only for a few seconds.
But it was enough to make the solid, dingy door slid open, grinding on rusty, metal wheels against their rusty, metal rollers. The sound it produced was that of an ear-piercing, cringe-worthy, eye-watering screech. Thea shuddered at the noise, and the Doctor grimaced too – but steadily, it dragged open. That shudder and that grimace quickly turned into a look of intrigue for the Doctor, and a look of astonishment for Thea – as steadily, the outside world revealed itself.
“Bloody hell…,” Thea’s eyes widened as steadily the world came into view, like a super-powered HD television had just whirred into life, allowing her to witness the real world in the most perfect quality. In fact, she had to turn away from the Doctor, blinking tears away. She wouldn’t let him see her cry – even though she wasn’t sure why she cried herself. Whether it was the cold air against her eyes, or a sudden flair of emotion at the sight of such a world, she wasn’t sure.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” the Doctor smiled at her, watching Thea look bravely out at the world, akin to the Doctor when he gazed out of the TARDIS doors.
“Yeah…”
“Come on,” the Doctor said, striding forward into the world outside. The house opened onto a dingy back alley, cluttered by rotting binbags, their putrid stench filling the air. The stone floor was damp, puddled by a persistent dribble of precipitation from the sky, most of which caught in the gutters of the arching grey buildings above, but some trickled dismally onto the grimy, cobblestone pavement in front of them. It was enclosed tightly, with slate-grey houses and apartment blocks – and the Doctor thought that if he reached out, he might be able to touch the muddy brickwork of the wall opposite. A flickering, faint, white streetlamp provided useless illumination, most of the light coming from the dirtied pane of a window opposite.
Thea stopped at the threshold, not quite letting her slippers out into the puddles – not quite taking the plunge. It was only then, when she looked down at her scruffy, tartan slippers, and looked out at the grey world, then back at her stick-thin legs and baggy, threadbare cardigan, that Thea finally understood. The air outside, which was nearly as circulated and ventilated as the stuffy oxygen within her room, caught in her throat, but was still a sweet release from the impenetrable metal prison enclosing her every-day. While she stopped, and looked at the world ahead, she realised she wanted nothing more to go out. To leave. But the walls behind her – the hallway she stood in – for some reason, it just wouldn’t let her go.
“Are you alright?” the Doctor asked. When the Doctor craned his neck out, he could see Downing Tower, an immense glass construction towering into space, and looming imperiously over the alley, like a shard of crystal, sleek, expensive, and indulgent. As he saw it, he knew that it was time to go.
Thea stood in the doorway, lingering in a gap between worlds.
Her eyes gazed emptily forwards, wandering over some sort of nothingness. She spoke, finding that the words left her, without her even thinking about them.
“I haven’t left that room in 20 years.”
Thea didn’t move – she kept staring forwards unwaveringly, trying to take in the magnitude of all that was going on around her. The outside world – proof that it existed, in a way unchanging to how it had been 20 years ago. And yet, the eyes looking at it were so much older and more tired, that it looked different too. It was beautiful – and this was only the dingy alleyway crawling outside her house. But to her, the dirt and the grime that gathered was everything – and she watched it, sadly and lonelily, pained that she had missed so much.
“I can’t go,” she shrugged. It was a ludicrous plan. Her and this magic Doctor, going to take down the government. Maybe he could. If he had a vanishing portaloo, then he could do anything. But with her? A silly 80-year-old woman, who had not left that same room for 20 years?
It would never have worked.
She’d been riding on a dream – the tantalising thought that she might have finally found a way out, an adventure to go on. That was all it was – nothing more than a story, one she could escape to, but too brilliant to ever truly live.
However, Thea was happy.
At least, for once, she’d had a dream.
The Doctor watched from the door, as sadly, she slunk back into the jaws of her house. The look on his face suggested he knew too – that it would never have worked, him taking down the Prime Minister with an 80-year-old woman. Thea couldn’t help but wonder – how would he have let her go? Would he have given her false hope, proclaiming of the great things they’d do together, only to stab her in the back at the last minute? Locking her back in her flat, or running away from her on the street?
How would he have left her, like everyone else did?
“Thea – I – I’m sorry,” he said, his voice pained, as slowly he followed her back into the belly of the building. She shook her head dismissively. It didn’t matter.
But clearly, it did. She shuffled around aimlessly, entirely unsure what to do with herself. Back to her old existence of drifting with nothing to do.
The Doctor stood, and watched Thea hovering in the middle of the room. She couldn’t look at him, focusing on anything else other than this false hope stood only a few feet away from her. The Doctor sidled over to the vending machine, and keeping one eye on Thea, he gave it a quick buzz of the sonic screwdriver.
Two Mars Bars began to slide steadily from their position behind the thick glass. However, they became lodged firmly in the mechanism, and despite their willpower to budge, they would not.
“Give it a whack,” Thea called over, not looking up at him, her eyes trailing a woodlouse scuttling desolately across the floor.
The Doctor gave the machine a gentle rock. It did not work.
“Oh for…,” Thea turned on her heels, and began shambling over towards the Doctor, hand raised, as if she were about to give him a clip around the ear. Instead, she continued passed him, and stood firmly by the machine, giving it a forceful slam with her palm. Thea could remember it, from a good many years back – there was a technique to it – these things often got so jammed that it took an immense deal of force to fix them.
Upon the force of the blow, the machine clattered, ricocheting off the crumbling wall, and following a spell of suspenseful silence, as the Doctor watched on in anticipation, the machine chugged back into life, delivering the promised Mars Bars along with a dislodged Bounty for good measure.
The Doctor knelt down, and scooped the goods from the machine.
“Mars Bar or Bounty? Or both?”
“Just the Mars Bar, ta. I may be old, but I’ve not lost my marbles yet…”
The Doctor gave her one of the Mars Bars, and steadily she fumbled around with the wrapper, her fingers struggling to find the coordination within them to do it deftly. She swore quietly under her breath at the difficulty of the task.
“Oh, it’s no use…,” she muttered eventually.
“Look,” the Doctor said, gently placing one of his hands on hers. She was, unsurprisingly, tense. In fact, Thea felt it like a stab to the heart – that she had been so close on going on this epic adventure, and now, she could not even open a chocolate bar. “It’s okay. Don’t worry.”
He tore a small tear in the top of the packet – nothing much, just a helping hand. Thea perhaps muttered a ‘thank you’ under her breath, but she felt too embarrassed, and too dejected, to say anything more. She wanted the old days back. The simpler days, where she could open chocolate and not get into an argument with the wrapper. And yet, the sickening irony was evident – there was nothing simple about those days. It was her life then that was the simple, repeating monotony – but amid the constant complexities of her previous life, she hadn’t ever been alone with her thoughts.
God. Thea hated her thoughts.
Her trembling hands finished opening the Mars Bar, and she took a nibble at the chocolate at the end. Even the tiniest fragment was divine, breaking gently away and melting gloriously on the tip of her tongue. It was the first proper chocolate she’d tasted in 20-years, and it was beautiful. That made her feel a little better, at least. Maybe this whole trip had not been in vain.
“I’m so bloody useless,” she muttered sheepishly to the ground, before taking another bite. The ground did not initiate a response. Silent, sullen disagreement, perhaps. However, the Doctor’s face fell, as Thea so mercilessly put herself down, and quickly she interrupted, determined to put a stop to it.
“Thea… you’re strong.”
“Nah,” Thea shrugged it off with another bite of chocolate. Oh, that caramel. Sensational stuff.
“Enviably so,” the Doctor spoke slowly and softly, a quiet sense of awe underpinning his voice, as he watched the uncaring Thea.
For someone like him, at least. Someone like Thea, with so much determination, and the willpower that she found within herself to live the life that she did, day in, day out – that sort of resilience was something that he found himself aspiring desperately to.
Thea drifted over to the rusted fold-up chair in the corner of the room, and gently lowered herself down, steadying herself as the chair rocked precariously beneath her, like no stability could be found anywhere.
“I’d be a liability –”
The Doctor clambered down onto the floor beside her, and took her hand, holding it gently. “Don’t think of yourself like that.”
“And it makes me so upset, ‘cause – oh, goodness me,” she sniffled, blinking away tears, looking away from the Doctor again – a sudden tsunami of emotion washing through her, like pressure had been building up for so long, and finally it had found its release.
The Doctor squeezed her hand and let her talk.
She spoke proudly and resolutely, blocking all emotion off. “‘Cause my John always said, he would go straight down to that bloody tower and give Mrs Cullengate hell.”
But he wasn’t there – and the days they dreamt of destroying a regime were now gone. They had grown old, and as age so often did, the dreams had faded until they were no more than ghosts.
“And I’d be right beside him, if I could afford to get my ruddy hip done.”
She had grown old.
Life had moved on.
Thea’s eyes were big, and sad. Gazing lost, and confused in front of her, like she couldn’t understand it. In truth, there were days that she couldn’t make sense of the fact somehow, she remained, while everything else she’d ever known had crumbled around her. The Doctor watched her staring into space in front of her, as if she were caught in a moment slipping away from her. He understood what it was like – he had seen those eyes before, usually when looking in a mirror.
“I’m sorry, Thea. When did you lose him?”
“Twenty years back,” she said, not looking at him, but for once, feeling at ease on the common ground they had discovered in unspoken acknowledgement. “Lung cancer.”
Both heavy smokers in their youths, Thea often mused that those days had finally caught up with them. Him and his cancer. Her in her arthritis – supposedly caused by smoking.
And yet, she’d never stopped. She’d got worse since John had died.
“I had to practically crawl to the funeral,” Thea explained, remembering the trial it had been to drag herself to the crematorium. “Rheumatoid arthritis, see. No way in hell I was missing it, though. Even if I ended up in the oven beside him.”
Thea paused, like she suddenly realised something – or at least, suddenly understood something she’d been feeling for a long time.
“Sometimes I wish I had ended up in the oven.”
She missed him every day. 20 years down the line, Thea understood that although the specifics might change, grief was persistent. When it was raw, she found herself finding the glimmers of hope in the fact that one day, she might be over it. But, she had learned that would never be the case. She still always wanted him beside her – wanted to hear his voice, hear his laugh. Hear words of comfort when she looked around at her tiny little room, and breathed the ventilated, metallic air. Feel him next to her – his breathing, the trueness and reality of his existence.
But it was all just silence and nothing.
Except, she would find that sometimes, there would be something. Not a ghost – but she’d close her eyes for a second, and she might just hear his laugh, or feel him beside her, as if somehow she’d fallen back in time – and she would dream about how it would be, if she could keep those eyes closed forever. That was what it was like, when one had loved someone for a long time. To feel, so long after they’re gone, that they’re always with you. It was terrifying. But magic, too.
But then Thea would open her eyes.
He’d be gone again.
But at least they’d had those seconds. Those beautiful, beautiful seconds.
“That’s why I really wanted it,” Thea muttered, gutted by the fact that time had to move on. “To fight Evangeline with you – because it’s what John always wanted to do. So… I thought, maybe, if I wished really hard, I could do what was right by him.”
How she wished it would be that easy. But it hurt – that she would never be able to do what was right by him. That she was too dead herself.
“I know it doesn’t make it easier… but he would be proud of you.”
Thea quickly interrupted him. They both knew that nobody could ever know what the lost would think “But I’ve always believed it, for so many years. If you love someone, you don’t do what’s right by your own feelings. You do what’s right by them. And now I can’t, and that hurts, Doctor. It hurts.”
Her voice cracked, and she sniffled, trying to stifle more tears. The Doctor squeezed her hand.
“Hey, look,” he said, as Thea deliberately looked away. “Thea, look at me.”
She took a slow, shaky breath. And when she exhaled, that was just as tremulous, her attempts to steady herself proving entirely futile. Then, she looked to the Doctor. Her eyes were fading, the whites around them darkening, the pupils dulling. Lines and wrinkles were etched deep around them, and her lips and hair had thinned – and she was old. Fragile. But she told herself, that she would not be broken. She forced herself to look at the Doctor.
She was strong. She held onto that.
“I understand,” the Doctor said.
Thea knew he did, and suddenly she began to cry again, the tears streaming and dampening the aged parchmentlike skin beneath her eyes. She whispered several shaky apologies under her breath and wiped a hand across her nose.
“I’m going to go over to that tower,” the Doctor continued, as she old woman beside him sobbed. “And I am going to stop Evangeline Cullengate. And I am going to do it in your name, and in John’s name, yes?”
Thea nodded, desperately grateful. The Doctor wished she’d stopped. She should not be thanking him – if anything, it should be the other way around. Then, the emotion spread to him, and he himself tripped up over the words.
“I… I won’t rest until I’ve done it, okay? This will all end, and it’ll be because of you. Because… because you and John had the spirit and love to get through everything you did. And that’s what I’ll do, Thea, I’ll take that love to them, and – and it’ll all be okay, yes? It’ll all be fine.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you, so, so much –”
“Please, there’s – there’s no need,” the Doctor balanced himself on the balls of his feet, and held Thea close to him – on the small chair and because of her small stature, they were of a similar enough height for the Doctor to wrap an arm around her.
“You’re a good man…”
No, he told himself. He was just doing what was right.
“I’ll give Evangeline hell, Thea. I truly will.”
“You do that,” Thea said, stifling the next sob, and regaining herself. She sat upright, away from the Doctor, and grabbed her voice, holding it steady. “And then, you go back to your family, and be with them, yes?”
“I – I –”
“You have too, yes? You shouldn’t be without them. Not for long.”
The Doctor forced a smile. Things weren’t ever so simple. He shook his head sullenly and gave her a pained look.
“You said you’ve always got to do right by the people you love. Well…,” the Doctor said, finally understanding what he’d been missing for so long. After everything with Emma, something hadn’t felt right. Whenever he’d been with them all, and looked his wife and daughter in the face, there was something that he couldn’t understand. But finally, it made sense.
“I don’t know if I can,” he said.
Thea did not seem satisfied.
“You always can.”
“I can’t, Thea.”
She interrupted him quickly. “There’s always one more thing you can do.”
He knew what she was going to say. It had been preying on his own mind for a while – maybe, after everything that had happened, there was one last thing he could try to make things right.
“I don’t know what you’ve done,” Thea admitted. For all she knew, the nice gentleman promising to live out a legacy for her and her husband might have done all sorts. She dreaded to think – so she tried not to. “And maybe, if it’s… awful, maybe leaving them is right.”
The Doctor nodded slowly, understanding.
But then Thea continued.
“Or maybe it isn’t.”
He looked up at her, surprise pricking his ears. She watched him wisely, smiling a mischievous grin, and a glimmer of hope glinting in her eye. She chuckled knowingly, but the Doctor didn’t understand. He watched her blankly, waiting for her to continue.
“Do what’s right by them, yes?” she explained. It was simple. She’d said it all already. “Their decision.”
The Doctor let a light smile drift across his face, and he understood, finally. After everything he’d done, there was only one way out of this. Out of all of it – stopping Evangeline, making amends with his family, trying to do something good in the universe. This was what he’d been working towards, for so long – making up for his mistakes, trying to do something kind in the hope that somehow, it would change some lives for the better. He didn’t care about what sort of person he was, so long as he helped people, and kept people safe.
“Thank you,” the Doctor spoke quietly, treasuring Thea’s words.
He stood slowly, steadying himself on his feet. Ready to go. Ready to get to work.
Thea watched him stand, knowing this was the end. She tried to hide the disappointment flickering across her face. He had made her feel special again. For once in her life, even if it was just down to the bottom of the stairs for a Mars Bar, she had gone on an adventure – and her life had felt worth something. She had hope, and for once, she thought it was worth dreaming.
It had been the longest 45 minutes of Thea’s life – but every second had been brilliant.
But, like everything, it had to come to an end.
She had faith, however. The Doctor stood, straightening his jacket, fixing his cravat, smoothing his collar. His gaze fixed intently on the outside world, and with his rough old boots and grubby trousers, and patchwork jacket with pocket watch hanging, Thea knew that he was ready for business. A grim look spread across his face, perhaps as the task truly began to settle in. He grimaced for a few seconds, and then wiped it off his face. That would get nobody anywhere.
So, he smiled.
“Thea,” he waltzed over to her, and held out his hand. “It is a shame you can’t join me – but I shall accompany you back upstairs?”
Thea looked up, admittedly a bit shocked. She wanted to stay. Somewhere else, just for a bit longer, before she confined herself back to her little room.
“I’ll wait for you here,” she said.
The Doctor did not seem sure, and she clocked his unnerved look.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, the determination in her voice verging on terrifying. “Bugger off and kill her, would you? I can get up the stairs…”
He hid his uncertainty, then. He remembered what she said.
“Thank you, Thea,” he knelt down, and kissed Thea’s hand. Then, he let it go, and turned to the door.
To the outside world.
He left, and as Thea watched him go, it felt like all might just be okay. That seemed to be what the Doctor did. Fly around in that strange blue box, and make things okay again. She watched him disappear, sad, but content too. Say that day ended up as the last day of her life, she would be happy that it had been the best day ever – and that for once, she could sleep easy.
The Doctor, however, was not so hopeful. When he exited the property, and looked up at the building, a sickening feeling grew in his stomach.
It was just a normal building. A normal-sized terraced house.
But that was why. It was a normal-sized terraced house, with the longest staircase the Doctor had ever seen in his life.
Somehow, Blue Rocket Street HMOs were bigger on the inside.
Somebody was using Time Lord science.
***
Downing Tower loomed high above him. In fact, looking up gave the Doctor vertigo, as the almighty structure was so, impossibly tall, that it almost seemed to bend over before his eyes, as if it were close to toppling, a whole Empire crashing and shattering like a tsunami, a tidal wave of broken glass that would break over a city, and cut Mrs Cullengate’s Empire into ribbons of flesh and blood.
The Doctor stood opposite the immense structure alone. No family, no TARDIS. In fact, in the sprawling shadow of the massive tower, the thought of his TARDIS didn’t seem so much bigger on the inside. In fact, the Doctor knew, deep down, that his spacecraft was 10-times the size of Cullengate’s offices – but it made no difference, because Downing Tower was not only enormous in structure, but also chilling in its intimidation. Not many buildings made the Doctor so unnerved – but there was something about this one that just put him on edge. Perhaps it was Cullengate’s power itself.
And as for his family? In a way, he felt better that they did not stand beside him. Nobody to get hurt, after all. But at the same time, he was so alone, and he needed them, to make him smile, make him laugh, and give him hope. No matter how many times he told himself that they were safe, it didn’t change anything. They weren’t there, with him. They had changed him, so much for the better. Without them… he would be a shadow of himself.
Evangeline Cullengate wasn’t a mystery. Perhaps she did have an odd aura, perhaps the Doctor was unnerved by the fact she struck him as unusual. But he had learned to look past that. He had realised the truth – that Mrs Cullengate was not a mystery, and she had shown her true colours. The truth behind Mrs Cullengate was surrounding him, in this cutting, cold Empire she had assembled.
The factories pumped their smog into the air, and the fumes caught in his throat, and the rain lashed down and made his clothes heavy and sodden, like the planet itself was trying to stop him, informing him that it was a bad idea. But he ignored it, and strode through the puddles, letting them wet the seams of his trousers and the tops of his socks, as he made his way to the tall, wrought iron gates, sturdy and standing tall and imperious above him. Nothing could get through those gates.
Thankfully, he had come prepared – and he knew how to break into the most secure office in the universe.
He walked up to the gates and held his hands above his head. He knew that, in time, they would recognise him. He must have been at the top of the most-wanted list for quite a long time. In fairness, however, he was at the top of a lot of ‘most-wanted’ lists. Something he was, in fact, rather proud of. Especially in situations like this. It reassured him, to know that power feared him.
A few seconds passed, and as expected, he heard the sound of a gun – or several guns – click into action behind him. Slowly, he spun on his feet, to realise he was staring down the barrels of at least 7 different weapons. They looked like living shadows, her guards, armoured in black plates and leathers, the slate-grey skies pouring vicious on them all, their guns glinting menacingly in the waters. The Doctor flicked his straggled hair from his eyes like that of a bedraggled dog and faced the great symbol of power backing against the ornate gates.
One of the guards gestured, and the Doctor nodded slowly.
He stepped back, and slowly the gates to hell swung heavily on their hinges.
Cullengate’s Empire lay before him.
With a gun to his head, the Doctor made his way in.
***
Evangeline took a sip of her earl grey and turned back to her paperwork.
It was a quiet evening, like any other. Forms to read, things to sign. The general running of her kingdom – just another day at the office. And she was quite content, as she sat in her spacious office. Hugo and Edwin snoozed in their luxury leather dog-baskets in the far corner, the lights were dimmed, the sole light in the room came from the harsh whiteness of the desk lamp. The city around her remained busy – work never stopped, and there was always business to be getting on with.
When she needed to rest her eyes from the sheer enormity of the files and information to be consumed, she would take a glance at the skyscrapers around, poking up at the skyline. She would watch the tiny people, buzzing about like drones in a beehive, working hard to produce their honey. It was terribly satisfying, and always reminded Evangeline of what she’d set out to do. The sky was the limit, after all. She had reached it with Downing Tower – now, she could watch everyone else trying desperately to reach the same glorious heights.
Otherwise, it was dark. Occasionally, one could see space in all its glory, from that glass office at the top of Downing Tower, and at the roof of the world. So high up, Evangeline liked to think that she owned them. After all, she was closest to them. Oh, that made her feel truly… amazing. To think that she owned all of the stars and all the space above their heads. Her magnificence had reached unbridled levels – she practically owned the universe.
Her worth was priceless.
She smiled contently to herself, then plucked her fountain pen from beside her. Her glass desk was exquisitely ordered – six fountain pens lay in perfect formation to her right, to minimise the time necessitated to take one, and use it. To her left, lay her carefully ordered sheath of papers. In front of her, lay her current task. And, as a sturdy border to her glass table, there lay a few ornaments, aligned perfectly, all straight and at right-angles. A metronome, a small globe, a bronze model of a golden retriever – all spaced at equal intervals.
Perfect.
She took her fountain pen to the sheet in front of her. Just some proposals about what to do with illegal aliens. All sounded in order.
She eloquently scribed her signature.
But then, something most unusual happened.
Evangeline’s head darted upwards, and her eyes glanced desperately around the office. It was almost as if they were motivated by fear. No… she told herself. Fear. Evangeline Cullengate did not fear. She was a queen, after all.
But something had changed. Something was wrong. She knew the measure of everything in this tower, and she could feel when it wasn’t quite working. And at that moment, there had been a noise. A clunking, of some sorts. Of what, Evangeline was not quite sure. And was why she remained so unnerved – because every bump in the night, the timings of every possible noise – Evangeline knew them all. The inner workings of her household, of its staff and of the very building, were all stored firmly in her head.
That’s how she knew.
There was someone else there.
An intruder.
Calmly, and with clean, precise motion, she scooted backwards on her chair, and elegantly rose to a standing position. Well. This would be exciting. Thankfully, she was dressed smartly. A sleek, navy business suit, and a pearl necklace – Evangeline could not bear scruffiness. She waited, behind her desk, perfectly still – though her eyes jumped around, looking for where on earth her visitor might be.
If she were irrational – which, of course, was a ridiculous notion – Evangeline would have felt like there was someone all around her. An omnipresent demon, lurking in every shadow, waiting to leap out and kill her. As her eyes batted around the room, she swore she saw things move, and leer, and prowl, and hiss, and run in front of her, and maybe even scream.
But it was just the dark, and the silence.
And besides. Evangeline was not irrational.
That being said, even Mrs Cullengate had to try very, very hard to stifle her shock, and horror, when she saw the person stepping through into her office – emerging from the shadows, like this meeting had always been inevitable.
“I wasn’t expecting… this,” Evangeline said, her shock swiftly turning to a grin. While Evangeline did not possess many faults, she was always partial to be a little too proud in her achievements. The evidence was in front of her – in a way, Evangeline felt this might be what it was like to be a mother, and to see one’s grown-up child walking in front of you.
“Yes, you were.”
Emma strode slowly in, her skin bone-white, and her lips blood-red, with nails in the same shade tapping against the trigger of the gun she held. Her boots clicked on the floor, and the buckles on her long, black leather coat swung and rattled, as she walked with exquisite grace into the chamber. Evangeline was quite surprised. For a little girl who had been raised feral – this was remarkable.
“When I heard that you escaped…” Evangeline mused. “I wondered whether you would eventually find me.”
In fact, Evangeline had been certain Emma would one day come for her. Monitoring the little girl growing up, Evangeline had come to realise the sort of girl they had raised. It had simply been a matter of time. So, she slowly walked around the desk, and positioned herself not far from the young woman. Evangeline was unfazed by the weapon.
“I know you funded the scheme,” Emma cut straight to the chase. There was no need to delay – she had been waiting for this conversation for so many years. Ever since she promised to find those who had taken away her freedom for so many years, Emma had been desperate to look them in the eye. Now, one of them stood in front of her.
“I own the planet.”
“Sorry. I set it on fire,” Emma retorted uncaringly.
Evangeline smiled faintly, almost a little bit pleased. At least her investment hadn’t amounted to nothing. “I saw. The whole thing, if I recall. Up in smoke.”
Emma weighed her gun up in her hands. “That’s what you get, I guess, if you’re thick enough to buy a planet with gasoline for rain.”
“Land, Emma,” Evangeline ignored her, talking to her like she was a disobedient, ignorant child. In fact, as far as Evangeline was concerned, she was. “However deprived, is not cheap.”
Emma paused, as if waiting for some great revelation. Evangeline knew she was being mocked, and she sighed, folding her arms and looking up in silent irritation.
“Cool?” Emma jibed, not caring one little bit. Land meant nothing. The cost of it meant nothing. Not to her, anyway. All that mattered was that she did what she needed to do. She swore that she would take action on those who had wronged her – and Evangeline was one of the main candidates. “What do you want? A shoulder to cry on?”
Evangeline gently began to stride over to Emma, unconcerned by the gun. Emma watched her approach, unchanging. But, when Mrs Cullengate reached out an arm, Emma held the gun just a little bit tighter, aiming it just a little bit more accurate, and her finger moved just a little bit closer to the trigger.
“Emma –”
“Sad that I burned your whole planet?” This time, Emma was the one approaching Evangeline. This was her situation to control – after so many years of being manipulated at the hands of others, now it was her turn. She walked closer, backing the old woman away, her finger hovering right on the trigger, like it was tempted itself to fire the gun.
“Emma, look –”
“It was fun, I think. I only had half a face at the time.” She could still feel it – the scar, on one side of her head, from where she’d carved out the Monitor robot. It had been utter agony – but she had escaped it. But the scar would never leave her.
“Should you really be mocking me, Emma?”
Emma shrugged, as she herded Evangeline to her glass desk. Relishing in it, she strode closer to the old witch, driving her with the weapon, forcing her to lean backwards, and forcing her face to scrunch up in terror. It felt good. Emma liked it. A lot. Like finally, she was enjoying the moment she’d been waiting for her entire life. Watching them suffer. “Why not?”
“Because you have no idea how this is going to end.”
“Hopefully with you on a slab,” Emma remarked, smiling wryly.
Evangeline signed at Emma’s petty behaviour. Still, in so many ways, such a child. Vengeful. Bitter. Blinded by passion. It was no way to think, as it was so easy to lose focus of the truth. Of reality. At moments like this, Evangeline was quite happy to be an adult, and to no longer be subject to the ever-ephemeral passions of the youth. Perhaps her delight was evident, as a smug smile crawled onto her lips.
“How did you get in?” she questioned. It had suddenly struck her, as she’d been far too distracted at the surreal scene playing in front of her. But, it did not make sense. The security of her palatial skyscraper was absolute. Nobody could get in, unless she gave permission. And it meant her security was compromised. She made a mental note – when this situation was all over, and the stupid girl resided in a body bag, she would have her security rechecked. Couldn’t risk anything like this happening again.
Emma shrugged like it meant nothing. “I killed the guards,” she declared dismissively.
“How?”
“Murder.”
Evangeline smiled patronisingly. “I mean, how did you kill them? It’s moments like this where I remember your upbringing. How sometimes, you don’t understand the… simple quirks of our language. Can’t be helped, I suppose.”
“Stop treating me like a test subject.”
“No… you’re an investment,” Evangeline spoke wistfully, pride tugging at her lips. Her greatest ever – and she had poured millions into the scheme. Bought the planet, funded the Monitor robot technology. Seeing the returns in front of her was satisfying.
“And you are a hag with two fleabag dogs and a hairpiece. I’ve had enough of this.”
She prepared herself to shoot, her finger nestled gently on the trigger of a gun, like the two were familiar – old friends. Her eyes watched Evangeline, fixated. She was going to enjoy this. So many long nights, building up to this moment – and finally, they were going to be satisfied.
But then she blinked, and she stopped.
She was staring down the barrel of a gun herself.
“No, Emma,” Evangeline hissed, her own gun held precisely in her hands. This was not new to her either. “I don’t think you have.”
Emma couldn’t help but smile herself, then. It seemed she could not be so hasty when killing Mrs Cullengate. Painful as that brute fact was, it gave her mild hope that, when the time eventually came to put a bullet through the woman opposite, it would be doubly satisfying. And, she could deny, Emma had taken quite a liking to games like this. Who would shoot first?
It made things interesting – especially when, like herself and Evangeline, they were experienced with firearms. And that in itself was a pleasant surprise to Emma – she hadn’t expected Mrs Cullengate to be so deft with a gun. She was mildly intrigued as to why, as she had thought Evangeline to be born into privilege, and to have had private militias to do her dirty work. But, the woman opposite held the weapon confidently, and calmly. She aimed it precisely. She kept her cool. A formidable opponent, certainly.
“It’s a sweet story,” Evangeline snorted like an individual with seven houses and a holding of horses. Which was actually true, in Evangeline’s case. The tables turned, again – Evangeline prowled back, forcing Emma to retreat, until both of them stood in the centre of the room on mutual ground. “Girl breaks away from her ‘captors’ and swears to bring about justice. Unfortunately – it’s not that simple. These things rarely get a happy ending, hmm?”
Emma’s finger hovered over her trigger, and Evangeline’s finger over her own.
One of them would die. But who had the nerve? Well – neither of them were scared, and both were capable of doing the deed. If it were down to reaction times, then Emma would have the edge. She was a hunter, raised by wolves, her senses sharper than the knives she was also so adept at using – any slight movement, and Emma could kill Evangeline before Evangeline blinked. But, if it were down to expectations, then perhaps it would be Mrs Cullengate – already the woman had proved to have multiple surprises up her sleeve, and Emma was reluctant to take too many risks, quite sure that Evangeline would throw another curveball by putting a bullet straight in her brain.
Both women circled each other, training their guns on the other. The game could go to either of them – but who? Who was going to be brave enough? Who was going to dare to do it?
Who was going to shoot first?
Unfortunately, they were interrupted by an awkward cough.
Both women turned, to see the Doctor.
Emma sighed. Evangeline’s jaw dropped.
He awkwardly shuffled into Evangeline’s office, his hands in his jacket pockets. The Doctor offered Emma a smile and a sort of half-wave. “Ah – Emma, hello,” he shuffled into the room, gently shutting the door behind him. Always trying to be polite.
“Not long enough,” Emma said, her head at a 90-degree angle to her arm, as she gave the Doctor an icy glare, and continued to point her gun straight at Evangeline’s head.
“How did you get in?” Evangeline asked the Doctor, astounded by the Doctor’s presence. Though, when she thought about it, if anybody was going to have the audacity to go sneaking around her offices, then the Doctor was the number one candidate.
“I let them take me. My plan was to get caught, and be brought straight up to you –”
“That’s a terrible plan,” Emma snidely cut in.
“Thank you, Emma,” the Doctor continued, gracefully brushing over her remarks. “They got me as far as reception, but it’s carnage downstairs. Slit throats are usually a good distraction.”
He glared at Emma. Emma did not move.
“And seriously, Evangeline,” the Doctor looked at her forebodingly. “Those guards of yours, multitasking isn’t their forte. I managed to sneak away with ease. Anyway. I got upstairs, felt like having a look around. I found this.”
He reached into his jacket pocket, and pulled out the crystal orb, which he then proceeded to drop on the floor. It landed with a thud, and while one would look at an object of such a material and expect it to shatter, the orb simply dropped to the ground, defying all that was expected of it, like a cannonball landing with a thwack against the ground.
Emma and Evangeline both gave into their reflexes, with Evangeline instantly stepping back, and Emma turning her gun on the Doctor. The Doctor, meanwhile, leapt out of his awkward shuffle, and began to stride slowly across the room, over to Evangeline’s desk, watching both Emma and Evangeline panic with a strange delight.
Emma had regained herself in an instant, and pointed her gun at the Doctor, and had also, somehow during the cuffuffle, unsheathed a hunting knife, which she now held outstretched, with enough confidence in her grip to tell both the Doctor and Evangeline that she was quite adept at using it. The blade was curved slightly, and glinted softly in the sliver of moonlight darting through the glass office, suspended high in the night. The knife shone silver, and like the moon, looked as if it could slice through even the toughest of material.
Evangeline, however, looked down at the orb, a look of something akin to horror on her face. The Doctor had thought it would shock her, that he’d managed to find the device. She scooped it up, as quickly as possible, and then fumbled around with her gun, now not quite sure who to point it at. She slowed the situation down in front of her – thought it through, every little piece of the puzzle. Evangeline was good at that. Analysing the whole thing, every bit of it, working how it fitted together, and how that complex chain of cause and effect could unfold from every action.
She opted for Emma. The Doctor looked unarmed.
“I don’t know what you’re going to do with that,” Emma shrugged. “You fire at me, I can slit your throat.”
“Even with your ego, Emma,” Evangeline giggled. Since the Doctor had pulled out that orb, there had been a look of her – of being somewhat… undone. “Faster than bullets is a little optimistic, hmm?”
“Ego?” Emma watched Evangeline incredulously. Clearly, Evangeline was out of her depth. It was no surprise. In Emma’s experience, such people always were. They could control people in their ivory towers, but in practise? They were nothing. “Evangeline, it is a stretch to find me arrogant, even for someone so ignorant they have eight cheeseboards –”
“Eight cheeseboards?” the Doctor gawked, as he strode over to Evangeline’s desk. “Goodness. That’s one for each of my regenerations…”
“This is typical,” Evangeline sighed. “Both of you, trying to change the subject. I presume you are both working together?”
“Him?” Emma spat, like Evangeline’s very notion was poisonous. “I have no need for him. Just like I have no need to be a narcissist.”
The Doctor nodded slowly, as he slumped down in Evangeline’s swivel chair. He loved swivel chairs. They always made remarkably stressful situations a little bit less terrifying. But, as he watched Emma speak, he knew she was being truthful. If there was one thing Emma did not want, or care for, it was attention and admiration. She had no need for anything like that – as the Doctor had witnessed, Emma simply… did. She had her goals, and no matter what ruthless lengths she would have to go to – Emma would stop at nothing to reach them.
“Having said that, Evangeline,” Emma spoke slowly, looking as Evangeline gripped the strange, crystalline orb as tightly as possible. “I can read people like books. And I can see that you are trying to divert attention away from yourself and that orb.”
“That’s because,” the Doctor interrupted, as both Evangeline and Emma turned to look at him. Evangeline’s face fell when she saw him sat in her chair. “That’s a dimension translator.”
Emma looked at him obliviously. Evangeline looked sheepishly to the floor.
“What does it do?” Emma asked, looking at the Doctor but keeping her eye on Evangeline (and her knife).
“The whole ‘bigger-on-the-inside’ thing,” the Doctor said, pointing to Evangeline. “Take my TARDIS. It has one of these. Basically, it creates the new dimension. Sorry – no, that doesn’t make sense. My TARDIS, it’s a big room inside a small room. The orb creates the big room, and keeps it in the small room. Very clever. Good for fridges, and – well, TARDISes…”
“What significance does it have?” Emma spoke plainly, for if it meant nothing then she would not care for it.
The Doctor shrugged. “Well – there’s a house down the road. Normal sized terrace property, but with more stairs, and rooms, than I’ve ever seen in my life. Somehow, Evangeline has got hold of some Time Lord science, and is using it to try and… what? Solve the housing crisis?”
Evangeline did not look willing to offer an answer.
“But basically,” the Doctor continued. “It’s typical Time Lord technology, it’s very dull. Like stellar manipulators. Which is, er, awkward, because I found one of those too.”
Suddenly he grabbed a strange, oblong device from his pocket, like that of a television remote, but empty apart from two buttons spaced evenly along it. Immediately Evangeline turned her gun on the Doctor, and Emma’s finger hovered just a little bit closer to the trigger. She knew of stellar manipulators, and their immense power. A device, used to manipulate the energy of stars. One could use it to tear down solar systems, if one wanted. The Doctor plonked the device down on Evangeline’s glass desk, where it landed with a clatter. Both Emma and Evangeline backed away.
“You wouldn’t dare use that, Doctor…,” Evangeline watched him, her eyes narrowing. The Doctor was meant to be predictable, to be understandable through his compassion. Though as she watched his nonchalance with such a powerful weapon, she was not so sure.
“Clearly, Evangeline,” the Doctor held the remote. Emma and Evangeline were waving weapons around – he might as well join in. “Bigger-on-the-inside orbs, stellar manipulators. You are in league with the Time Lords.”
A silence fell.
Emma did not seem shocked. Evangeline looked at him unfazed. Perhaps confused, in fact.
“Oh,” the Doctor said, admittedly a little disappointed that his revelation hadn’t had more impact. He still had two guns trained on him – though he did have a superweapon pointing at them, so it could have been worse. “Well, er, forget that, then…”
Clearly not a talking point.
The Doctor looked up. He was still staring down the barrels of two guns.
“I had a professor, back at the Academy,” he began to explain. He was terrible at going off on tangents at important moments. “He used one a stellar manipulator as a coaster. It was funny, actually, he teaches Iris now. Always awkward when that happens, honestly, parents’ evening last –”
“Stop talking nonsense,” Evangeline hissed, waving her gun as if it was going to scare him. “And give me that device.”
The Doctor leaned back in the chair. “He’s got a moustache now and everything –”
Evangeline repeated it, forcefully. Loudly. He could see her – the fear rising through her. He had a superweapon – one that could kill all of them, if he wanted to. “Doctor, give me that device. Stop treating this like a game!”
“And breath that smells like coffee…”
She understood now. His unpredictability. His fingers getting closer to the buttons on the stellar manipulator, the way he toyed with it like it was just a bit of plastic, when in truth it could destroy her whole empire. This time, she stepped closer, her gun not so steady in her hands, and she shouted – a desperate cry, for him to stop.
“Doctor!”
“No!” the Doctor roared, his voice cutting through the room. Evangeline stumbled backwards, and she lowered her gun. She steadied herself, taking shaky breaths. Emma remained, unmoving, as if the Doctor’s shout had just passed over her – but in her eyes, was a look of being almost, slightly… scared. “I’ll stop treating this like a game, Evangeline, when you stop treating this as a game.”
He gestured to the room around her. To the whole city. Glass and metal reaching high into the skyscrapers. Though they stood alone in that strange, transparent bubble in the sky, the city around them was buzzing – workers, still in their buildings. Ground down to the bone, milking the city for as much money as it possibly could. And yet – no matter how much they did, it was all a failure. There were still people like Thea. The people in the streets below them, who had nothing – who were victims of that failed and corrupt system.
“That’s the thing with you, Evangeline. There’s no big plan. You just want to govern – to run this place like you run a business. You’re an ideologue, Mrs Cullengate – you and your sky-high blue thinking, but you don’t know what it’s like for everyone else. It’s a game to you. Make as much cash as you can. But do you actually care about the little people?”
He waited for answer. Evangeline did not say anything. No programmed, automatic response.
“You don’t. You don’t care. And that’s why I won’t stop – that’s why I came here, to this planet. To stop you. Because I was going to before, and I didn’t. But now? Now, I’m trying to get it right, to do good for people.”
“Do you possibly think you can win?”
“That’s how I’ve spent my whole life, Evangeline. Staring into the eyes of dragons, and watching them fall. And I will stop you.”
The Doctor had seen it – in her records’ room. Plans for concentration camps. Cullengate’s private militias. Shutting down arms of the government, turning the whole planet into her regime. That was where things would go, if nobody did anything to stop her.
“You would die trying?” Evangeline snarled.
The Doctor nodded slowly, but confidently, in confirmation. He had never been surer of anything. “I would die to make things better, yes. This planet. And Emma.”
“You can’t possibly fix what happened with me,” Emma pointed the gun at the Doctor, the grip tightening just a little bit…
“No,” the Doctor agreed. “I agree. You owe me nothing. Nothing at all. All I can say, is that I apologise. But as Cioné says – even if I can’t, I can try, somehow, to make amends.”
Emma looked at him, like he was simply talking rubbish. He probably was. She was so used to having people doing that. Simply… speaking. Their words meaning nothing, entirely superfluous. So she gave him a wry smile, and felt her finger close closer to the trigger of her gun. These would be the words. The words that decided what she would do.
“So?” she shrugged. “You keep going on about it– what are you going to do?”
The three of them stood in the moonlight. The corrupt businesswoman. The neglected girl. The Doctor.
Emma and Evangeline pointed their guns at the Doctor. Maybe this was the moment that he died – somehow trying to fix two impossible situations – the fate of Evangeline Cullengate’s brutal Empire, and the way that Emma had suffered. The way that he had been part of that. Maybe he would die, trying to make this happen – but if it was this that killed him, then so be it.
Evangeline, meanwhile, loosened the grip on her weapon, pointing it casually at the bumbling idiot sat in her chair. The Doctor was too kind. He’d stop that stupid little girl with all her fancy weapons and toys from killing her. Turn the other cheek, and all that. For him, then, an impossible problem – for if he let Evangeline live, then her Empire would reign strong. And she felt safe. Knew that the Doctor’s compassion would keep her alive. That was why Evangeline always won. She was ruthless. She was better.
But Emma was not so sure. She had spent her whole life being lied to. Being manipulated. The Doctor was part of them – that ruthless group lording it over her, suppressing her. She would expect nothing good from him, until it actually happened. And even then, Emma would not trust it. The group he had been part of had messed her up, and it was something that she would never recover from. So, she watched the Doctor. Trying to read him – as she did with everyone. But for once… there was something about him that she couldn’t quite decipher.
The Doctor tossed Emma the control to the stellar manipulator. She caught it.
Then he shrugged.
“Nothing.”
Suddenly a look of horror spread on Evangeline’s face.
“What do you mean?” Emma asked.
“Nothing,” the Doctor repeated.
“No – you –,” Evangeline spluttered. The Doctor looked at her with contempt. Of course. Evangeline had thought the Doctor would save her.
“I spent a hundred years complicit to a plan that controlled you,” the Doctor looked to Emma, and with nothing but pain, and honesty, and self-detestation, he spoke to her. “Part of that plan. Controlled you, took away your power, everything you were. I won’t do that anymore – I won’t do anything – I won’t stop you, Emma. Now, it is your choice. Your power, your freedom. To deal with me as you see fit. To deal with Evangeline as you see fit.”
“Who do you think you are?” Evangeline waved a dismissive hand, then turned her gun on him. “You’re a fool!”
The Doctor spoke, as if reassuring himself. Content in the knowledge of who he was – that what he was doing was right.
“I – I am the Doctor –”
“You’re nothing of the –,” Evangeline shook her head, as suddenly, she realised.
The Doctor would not let compassion save his enemy. Instead… he would let kindness save the girl he had wronged.
“Because now,” the Doctor explained, as he walked over to the two women, striding in the face of their guns. “When I’ve got it wrong, I work hard to try and make it right. Since meeting Cioné and Lizzie, and having Iris, that’s what they do. Make me accountable. Hold me to the mark. But that doesn’t mean always getting it right – nobody can do that, nobody can… get 100%. It means that when I get it wrong, I work hard to make amends. To always, always make amends, and try to get it right. And, Evangeline, that’s what I’ll do.”
Evangeline and Emma looked at him, entirely bemused.
“Because in giving Emma the freedom, and the power, and the agency, everything you ever stood for, Evangeline, is gone. You suppressed all of those things, for so many people, but by giving them back to Emma, you can’t suppress them anymore. And now, you, and me, and all the others who were complicit in that disgusting experiment, can’t suppress that lonely woman.”
“So that’s your gamble? You let the stupid girl do what she wants, in the hope that somehow, she’ll topple my Empire?”
“Maybe she will. Maybe she won’t. She might kill us both and walk away, leave your regime intact. But that will start it off. If we’re gone – the people who kept the birds caged – then they will start to fly. And this Empire will fall. Cioné, Lizzie, Iris – they’ll work at it. So many people on the surface below – they’ll work at it.”
And then, both the Doctor and Evangeline looked to Emma.
The Doctor smiled to her, a little bit awkwardly. “Time to fly, Emma.”
For once, she looked as if she wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to do. All her life, she had been dictated to – and now was the moment.
Emma regained herself.
Now was the moment.
And she could do it. She could win.
“Stop being so sentimental,” Emma turned, looking at the Doctor in the corner of her eye, like she was almost embarrassed to be looking at him straight on. She was grateful for what he had said – for what he had agreed to do. Like the future might just be a little bit better, and that, to an extent, she had won. Though at the same time, that did not change the past; Emma knew she was not obliged to him, that there were no debts to be paid. She looked to the Doctor, and then to Evangeline. The Doctor could wait.
“You,” Emma looked to Evangeline, and found she was short of knowing what to say. Well. She’d never planned out what she was going to say. Never truly believed it was ever a feasible possibility. So, she simply looked to Evangeline and said the words that came naturally to her. “You have ruined my life.”
“I did what I did to make you magnificent.”
“But you were never the problem.”
Emma watched her with contempt. In fact, to her, Evangeline had always meant nothing. She was just the multi-billionaire, simple, easy to deconstruct. Same as all the others. And Emma knew what she was going to do. There had never been any other fate awaiting Evangeline Cullengate.
So, Emma took her gun, and she shot Evangeline in the chest.
The science meant that Evangeline saw the flash before she heard the sound and had any kind of comprehension of what was happening. That was okay. Evangeline had never cared much for science anyway, if it got in the way of her cash flow. Before she even knew what was going on, then, the bullet had pierced Evangeline’s flesh, and shattered her ribcage, and then ruptured her heart. The first sign of something being wrong was the moment she suddenly felt the shockwave ripple through her body.
Then her legs gave way, and that was when Evangeline truly understood. She heard the noise of the gunshot, and it was at that moment, it fell into place, and she understood. It wasn’t even that exciting. In fact, on the outside, it was as if nothing was wrong. There was no explosion of blood, no great primal scream of pain. Instead, a sullen dribble, like a baby’s dribble, trickled down her blouse and stained it red. Inside her, of course, fragments of bone and bullet ricocheted around inside her like confetti at a deathly wedding, and her heart was futilely trying to pump blood around her body, as if trying to compensate for the fact there was a hole in it.
Evangeline landed with a thud on the floor, and rather unfortunately for her, lay splayed out sideways, her limbs floppy and scattered all over the place. Like a leaky tap, the blood seeped out of the wound and drip-dropped onto the floor, forming a little puddle right beside where Evangeline lay.
And she lay there, and gasped. Like a fish taken out of water, desperate for air. Except, she was too sluggish to panic. To slow. There was just one, hoarse, empty gasp. Then a few seconds. Then another.
That was the great Evangeline Cullengate. Who had risen to power, and won it in a glorious election victory. To many, the messiah, ready to save the Empire from liberal destitution, a diversion from its great imperial beginnings, and the dream of an imperial future. To just as many, a witch who would bring nothing but division and hurt to everyone, and would plunge the universe into a very dark low. After a few years in office, Evangeline had certainly created an upper city that was the envy of the universe – while the other 99% of the population of the Empire lay crushed beneath her feet.
Border shuttles to bring people down to the surface, her rigorous control over the planet’s industry and the lives of everyone, and a climb-down in minority rights. But so many stayed silent. A secret police, forced from Cullengate’s party and business, roamed the streets, with the rumours that if they came for you, then you would never see the light of day. Not because you’d be dead, but because they would imprison you.
Many on the streets had colloquially taken to knowing her as Queen Cullengate, because she had an impossibly tight grip on that planet. Already her regime sprawled over the entire surface, with resistance crushed, and propaganda forced down the throats of many. The whole world, centralised for Mrs Cullengate’s dreams, the ultimate Empire. A proud Empire, that would stand tall above inferior worlds all across the star systems.
And that was what they were getting ready for. Ready to expand over the universe.
One day, Evangeline would govern over everyone, and she would own everyone, and everything.
Glory to it. Glory to her.
But now, she lay on the floor, pathetic. Floundering, and gasping. The colour drained from Evangeline’s face entirely, and her eyes were beady and flickering like those of an insect. Gradually, her movement was failing, and she could feel her brain, slowly going into shutdown, and Evangeline knew that within seconds, she would be nothing more than a vegetable. Then, she would die. And in the end, Evangeline Cullengate would be no different to anybody.
Emma walked over to her, and with a heeled boot, stepped on Evangeline’s wound. It was only then that the monstrous pain that pulsated though Evangeline caused an almost non-existent, throaty scream to erupt from inside her, so skin-crawling like fingers on a blackboard.
“This was where you were always heading,” Emma talked down to her, full of contempt. “Your greatest investment would kill you.”
Evangeline coughed. Words. Somehow, she tried to find them. String them together, make a sentence, but it was like with every passing seconds, those words drifted further away. Evangeline grabbed for them, desperate for them, but she could not reach. No matter how much she was repulsed by the idea of Emma’s victory, the words would just not come. There was something, though. From somewhere. Words, coming from a part of her almost unrecognisable. Ah yes. That was it. Words of the truth.
Evangeline spat them out, in almost a spluttered whisper.
“I don’t – don’t want to die –”
“Arrogance,” Emma shrugged. It does that.”
The Doctor drifted back towards Evangeline’s desk. He saw her chair. A chair from which she had made so many decisions – but now, they had all accounted to nothing. Such was the way when one ran everything like a business. Everything just ended up crumbling.
But, Evangeline was of dogged determination. She reached into herself, and forced the words out. Pushed them out, as if they were the only words that her breath would ever be able to take again. Turns out, they actually were.
“Th – th – the –”
Emma stuck her boot into Evangeline’s chest again.
Like she was desperate for one last victory against the stupid little girl who had put a bullet in her chest, Evangeline mustered up all of the energy she could possibly find.
“The Queen is dead.”
That was Evangeline’s final whisper.
She could hold her head up no longer, and it landed on the floor with a sullen thud. Then, Evangeline Cullengate’s body almost seemed to seize up, and her eyes set still in their sockets, as finally, she was dead.
Emma watched it all, not setting her eyes off Evangeline. Savouring every moment of it, for she had been waiting for that moment for years, and finally, Emma had been blessed with witnessing it. The life of her tormenter, finally bleeding out of her. It was almost painful to take her eyes away from Evangeline’s body, as that was the moment Emma had invested so much energy into, and finally, it had materialised. She was victorious, and Evangeline Cullengate was dead.
The Doctor’s heart pounded. He watched Emma, and the way she looked at Evangeline so nonchalantly towards Mrs Cullengate’s lifeless form on the ground. Except, at the same time, there was nothing nonchalant about it, as he could see the kick that Emma had got from it. It was that paradox that scared him so much – and it was not often that he found himself truly terrified. But, as he watched Emma over the body of her oppressor, he was.
And above all that, he was sad. He had been part of a terrible plan that had caused uncountable amounts of damage to an innocent little girl. This was where all of it had led.
This was the end.
“Vile woman,” Emma turned her nose up at Evangeline and strode away to the centre of the room, where she gazed out of the glass ceiling at the stars above. Stars that seemed so much more reachable than they’d ever done before.
The Doctor did not know what to say. Eventually he decided on something. “You knew you were going to do that.”
Emma nodded, still holding her gun at her side. Not even needing to look at it. She had become so adept to using it that it felt a natural part of her. “For so long.”
The Doctor stayed quiet, watching Emma stood in the moonlight, seeming even paler and ghostlier than ever. Perhaps, now, there was hope that life would return to her.
“She has exploited the vulnerability of so many, not just me. And all that time, she got all of this,” Emma gestured at the skyscraping luxury they were stood in. The enormous bank balance, the dense thicket of security, the lack of fear and worry. Utter contentment, that Emma would never be able to have. “In so many ways…,” she continued. “… I was too kind. But, at the same time, she did not deserve anything extravagant”
Both knew what would come next. The two of them stood, in the office alone, other than the corpse of Evangeline, a chilling reminder of so many things for Emma and the Doctor. The tension between the two of them was tangible, the fear and the suspense and the uncertainty hung in the air. The loneliness and the isolation were felt so deeply by both, as not only were they were the only two in the room, but it felt like they were the only two in the city – so high up above everyone else, like they were trapped in a bubble in the sky, so far away from everyone else.
What would happen in that cold chamber in the sky would be between the two of them.
Each could hear the breathing of the other. Each could distinctly feel the presence of the other, and was acutely aware of the fact that they both in the room together. Neither of them had spoken, and if it was any quieter, they would both have been able to hear the thoughts of the other, ticking over, weighing up the situation, trying to somehow know what was going to happen next.
The Doctor gently took himself to the window opposite Emma, and looked out of it at the city below. Not so beautiful from high-up. He couldn’t see the life, the happiness of it lasting, the sadness of it moving on its way. Well. He did not deserve a comfort blanket. But he moved there, like a guilty man taking his place at a firing squad. The Doctor would place himself there, ready to stand and be tried. He knew he had done wrong, and he would let Emma judge him as she saw fit.
Emma turned and faced the Doctor.
Now was the time.
But she did not know.
“I was looking forward to killing you more than anyone else,” Emma admitted, as she watched the Doctor, nervously paralysed in fear, his eyes wide at the revelation and in the suspense of what was about to come. Emma’s useful, perfect composure was rocked, just slightly. She was on edge.
She took a deep breath, and she continued.
“Because you had a heart.”
The Doctor felt them. Both his hearts, beating in his chest, pumping blood around him. He felt them, every day, and understood what it meant to have two. That he had an extra responsibility, to get it right. To make sure that he helped.
“All of the others,” Emma continued, shrugging, for they had meant nothing. “They were cruel, and they were cold, and they did what bad people do. But you. You’re a good person. And that’s why I hated you more than anybody else.”
She watched the Doctor, and the way he stood against the night sky. Yes – he had hurt her, more than anyone else. While he flew around the universe, doing good, saving people and helping anyone who needed it – he was a link in the chains that kept her shackled. Why was she any different? Why didn’t she deserve his help? Why, of everyone in the universe, was she the girl that the Doctor left out in the cold?
In fact, it was not a question Emma needed to ask herself, for she knew the answer. In fact, Emma would have done it herself. It had made her realise that she and the Doctor were not so different. He had done what he’d done to protect his own, he had gone to impossible, despicable lengths and violated all of his principles. While he had not done anything like Evangeline, or any of the others who had experimented on her, the Doctor had been complicit. While he had not done the bad things himself, he had let them happen – and that felt just as bad. All of it, to ruin the life of another to protect his family. And she hated him for doing that. He was wrong to do it.
But Emma would have done the same. She would kill to protect the people she loved. That was another reason why the Doctor hurt Emma more than any of the others who had done what they’d done. Because when Emma looked into his eyes, and saw the motivations of self-interest behind his complacence, she could relate to it. And that sickened her.
Emma pulled herself together. She was nothing like any of them. Because unlike them, Emma was willing to speak out against it, and determined to obliterate a sickening culture once and for all. She would not be an oppressor, like Evangeline. And she definitely would not be complacent like the Doctor.
The Doctor would get what he deserved. In fact, for his willingness to overlook, Emma would make sure that he suffered more.
“Get out.”
Her words were monotone, and cold, and cut further into the Doctor than a bullet ever would have done.
The Doctor was about to say something, but silence caught in his throat. He stepped away from the wall, and stumbled a bit closer to Emma, while still ensuring he stood well away from her. Emma watched him, with a brutal look in her eyes. It was like the one she had set upon Evangeline Cullengate, but even harsher.
“Why – wh – why are you going to let me live?” the Doctor spluttered, as he looked around, and he gazed at the stars above and looked at the city below them, and felt his feet on the floor and his arms hanging loosely beside him, and his sonic screwdriver in his pocket, ready to fix anything. He felt his hearts beating. He felt what it meant to be alive, and what it meant to be the Doctor. But above everything else, he felt guilty.
“You feel things deeply,” Emma said, her eyes pouring icily at him. She had thought about this. If Evangeline had lived, she’d have never repented. If the Doctor had died, he’d never have repented. “One day, you will come to realise that for you, death would be the easy way out. You have to suffer the guilty, and let it eat away at you.”
The Doctor took a breath, and he gulped. He was alive, but it not feel any better than the lingering thought of death.
“Also?” Emma spoke again, and perhaps these were the words that hurt the Doctor most. “If I kill you, that will leave someone remarkable without a parent. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”
The Doctor watched Emma slowly, as her eyes slowly turned to the ceiling above them. All done, now. She had won. Ruined two of her tormenters. And for the briefest of seconds, the ceiling disappeared, and the night sky looked so beautiful in its frozen blueness. But, Emma reminded herself. She was not done yet. For now, however? She had done well.
The Doctor knew that there was nothing for him to say. This was right, and that was okay. It was about time that something right happened for once. It felt almost awkward, now, as he gently walked towards the door. After everything, this is how it had all ended. He had lost, and Emma had won. He would take himself back to Lizzie and Iris’ flat, to the second attempt at the anniversary party that they were planning, and he would see Cioné, and Iris, and Lizzie, and the guilt would plague him. He would live out his punishment. It would not be enough for Emma, and in that respect, it was never truly fair.
But, that was what he would have to live with. It was cruel, but that was right.
He walked slowly to the door, glancing over at Emma, who still stood in the moonlight, and watched as he made his way out of the room. Her eyes were heavy, but she was sure of herself. Certain that this was the way it should have been. It was cold, up in that skyscraper, and even with the whole city below them, nothing felt as immense as what had just gone on between the two of them.
The two of them stood together for the last time in Mrs Cullengate’s office, floating high in the air, in the cold and the darkness of space, far away from anything else. It was freezing, and there was no light, and both the Doctor and Emma still felt scared and alone, suspended in the empty infinity of the sky and the universe, encased in nothing but glass. Stood apart from each other, the guilt still impossibly heavy on the Doctor’s shoulders, and the pain still impossibly heavy in Emma’s eyes.
“Thank you for giving me the choice,” Emma said, knowing that the Doctor owed her nothing.
“Thank you for letting me live,” the Doctor said, knowing that he had got what he deserved.
He opened the door to the office, and he walked out, biting his lip as he went. Trying to stop himself from crying.
Emma watched him go. Unfazed, her eyes followed him. Like Evangeline, when she’d been savouring the moment. And yet, no matter what Emma did, none of it would ever be enough for her. This was where she would always remain. Alone, stuck high up, away from anyone else, trapped in glass with nothing but cold and moonlight and corpses around her.
But at least she might be able to make it better for other people.
***
“Blimey,” Maggie gulped down a mouthful of tea, then sat there, looking over the rim of the mug, absent-mindedly at the drawings on the windows in front of them. She took another sip of tea, just to try and reassure herself that she wasn’t going insane. Nope. She was definitely hearing things correctly. Maybe Lizzie was just going insane. “You lot, you’re like something out of a drama.”
“Yeah, it’s… mad,” Lizzie still sat slumped beside Maggie, looking miserably over the rim of the mug. Not as if she had anything much to be miserable about, she just… felt down, in general.
“I just – I can’t get over it! Any of it. I mean, that Evangeline woman, what an utter bastard! Honestly. Sounds like a vile, vile woman.”
“She is,” Lizzie nodded in confirmation.
“And she funded for this little girl to be raised in total isolation?”
“Yeah.”
“And the Doctor was involved?”
“Yeah. Gun to his head sort of thing, but even so. Should’ve done something.”
“Blimey.”
“Yeah.”
“Blimey,” Maggie repeated, still entirely spellbound, no matter how many times she ran it over in her head. Well. From what she’d heard about this Evangeline Cullen-thingy woman in the past, that part of the tale was of no great surprise. But the Doctor being involved? Maggie could not deny that it made her very concerned for Lizzie’s safety. In fact, the whole story did. But, it wasn’t as if she’d ever do anything to tell Lizzie to stop. The universe was always a dark place. It wouldn’t change if Lizzie was stuck on Earth, or seeing beautiful things in space.
Maggie thought that she might as well see some beautiful things in space.
Retelling the whole story had made Lizzie stop and think as well. Good on Emma. Breaking free, at long last. Making sure that in a situation where nobody had managed to get it right, she would change that. And, to an extent, good on the Doctor as well. She felt much better, then, about knowing the Doctor – that he had tried hard to make amends. And, whether he succeeded or not, at least he tried. And Evangeline… who knew where the universe would end up without her? Probably something better, though.
That was the end of it all.
Except, it wasn’t really, and all of them knew it.
“Toughest thing is, she’ll never be able to find peace,” Maggie reached over to the jam sandwich creams, and pulled another out of the plastic packaging. Bloody thing was a nightmare to get out.
“Maybe she’ll at least find just a bit of contentment, one day,” Lizzie said, out of hope more than anything else. Of course, she’d never lose the scars, but perhaps, at some point, life would treat Emma kindly. Lizzie knew that – and it was, in this situation, that Lizzie saw a lot of herself in Emma. While they had turned out completely differently, both had spent their lives trying to cope in whatever ways they would.
One had ended up as a kick-ass dictator-murdering assassin, and the other an entirely awkward tea-drinking TV-watching hermit. But such was the way of life.
“We can hope,” Maggie shrugged, though was not so entirely optimistic as Lizzie.
“How did you manage it?”
“Manage what?” Maggie said, entirely avoiding Lizzie’s question, even though they both knew that Maggie Shepherd understood what Lizzie meant.
“Er, don’t worry, I – I shouldn’t have asked, it’s fine,” Lizzie sat up, and was about to stand and drift over to the kitchen to put her mug in the sink even though it sill had tea in the bottom of it.
Maggie quickly made her protestations clear. “Hey! Come on love, sit down.”
Lizzie hovered in a sort of half-sitting half-standing position, still unsure whether to stay or whether to go. Maggie was getting increasingly exasperated beside her, and took a dejected sip of her tea, before going in for another jam-sandwich cream. “Sit back down, for god’s sake!”
Eventually, Lizzie did as she was told, and sat back beside Maggie, just a few inches further away from before, and a good deal more self-conscious than what she’d been previously. Maggie shook her head, and laughed to herself. “You’re mad, you are.”
Lizzie looked at Maggie, confused, and then turned back to her tea, scowling. Maggie kept laughing, especially at the way Lizzie looked resentfully into the mug.
“What?” Lizzie spoke entirely seriously, and Maggie kept laughing, now creasing. It was verging into full-on howling territory. “Can you keep it down, Iris is asleep?”
Maggie had to stop mid-laugh, to breathe, and to reply. “Iris drank more last night than me at the millennium, she won’t be awake for anyone.” Then, she returned to hysterics. “Sorry,” Maggie said, regaining herself, and looking forward at the window, and the catastrophically untidy state of Lizzie’s flat, and then the whipped-cream penises on the panes. She looked down into her mug, in the hope that Lizzie wouldn’t notice, which she obviously did.
When Lizzie looked at her again, Maggie simply spoke honestly.
“This life, it’s mad.”
Lizzie nodded. “And shit.”
“Yeah. And shit.”
“And beautiful.”
Maggie paused, and turned to Lizzie, who was sat gazing forwards, her eyes as if they were entirely lost in space, and the words had just come from somewhere inside her that she hadn’t even consciously been aware of. Lizzie didn’t even realise that the words had just… happened, as she was entirely captivated in the moment, and for once, not even caring what she said, not speaking for anyone, not speaking with any self-conscious, filter of anxiety over her words. Just speaking.
“Where’d that come from?” Maggie asked, a little bit amazed.
“Oh, er, I dunno –”
“You’re right, though.”
Maggie’s words seemed to help Lizzie settle, and instantly, she seemed more at ease on the sofa again, sitting back in the chair and looking at Maggie, waiting for her to say something
else. It wasn’t like Maggie had anything else to say, or that she was planning on continuing. Lizzie’s words had struck her in their trueness, that was all.
But, maybe that’s where her words had come from as well. The truth.
She thought, perhaps, she should talk. And explain. Take her own bloody advice for once.
“Right, well, I’m guessing that ‘manage’ doesn’t mean how I manage the bloody bloke behind the deli in Tesco.”
“Is it still that Frank guy?”
“Yeah,” Maggie grimaced. “And he still goes on about his bloody goats, and the fact he’s entirely self-sufficient. Twat.”
Lizzie smirked. Dunsworth never changed. Some things just didn’t, and while time moved on around them, it was like some things just stayed perfectly still… but it was never the nice things. Never the things that she wanted to go back to.
“Anyway. I had a friend once,” Maggie started, sitting back in the sofa. Readying herself. Dredging up a story from somewhere inside her. One that she’d kept buried, and hadn’t told anyone before. Not because she was worried of being judged by anyone else, but because keeping it inside meant she could judge herself, and she thought that might be just as painful.
Maggie took a breath, and continued.
“Rachel, she were called. Came out the secondary-modern together, and just mucked about for six years solid. We sort of… drifted in and out of various jobs, but nothing proper, y’know. Anyway, she were depressed, Rachel, and I tell you, we used to get so drunk, I’m surprised I even have a liver. I was an idiot, didn’t realise that actually, she was just trying to drink the pain away.”
Maggie stopped, then. Unexpectedly. Normally, she was fine, and it took a lot to stop her in her tracks. But this… she took a breath. A sip of tea. She wished it was something stronger, for a few seconds, and then was really happy that it wasn’t.
“And she killed herself.”
The words came out, like it was the simplest thing in the world. The incoherence struck her, for while the worlds made it seem simple, it had been so difficult and complex and massive it sometimes felt as if it had been tying her down, all of her life.
“There I was, 22 years old without a clue what I wanted to do with myself, wasting each day because I was a complete bloody idiot. And then that comes along. And I tell you what, if I was lost before, my entire life was then derailed in two hours flat. That’s the thing. You never know when the world is just going to… do something. It were the same for Rachel. Yeah, she decided to go and do what she did, but she never sat down and decided she was going to be so troubled that she’d eventually tie a belt around her neck and hang herself –”
Maggie felt Lizzie wince beside her, and she instantly regretted it. Quickly, she backtracked, and she couldn’t believe herself. Stupid woman. This is exactly the sort of thing Maggie was meant to be careful about, doing the job that she did. She’d just got so into it, involved in telling a story that she’d held so close to her for so many years, giving repressed feelings life for once, that she’d been an idiot.
“I am so sorry, love, I am a complete moron, I really am.”
“It’s fine, don’t worry about it…”
Maggie still looked sheepish, and suddenly, it had hit her. The magnitude of what she was going. Telling someone… this.
“So,” Lizzie said, pulling Maggie back on subject. This was exactly what Maggie had always done with her. “Is… is that why you do what you do?”
Maggie had never told Lizzie before. Always kept it to herself, and Lizzie had never wanted to ask. But the whole lack of any hint had led Lizzie to think it must be something quite significant.
“Yeah. What Rachel did, it made me decide I had to do something for people like her. To get so lost, and so upset, and so scared, that you decide to do that – god, I was naïve, and that was when I suddenly realised, Christ. Life can be brutal.”
Lizzie and Maggie sat there in silence. Not an awkward one, the sort that Lizzie was usually so good at creating – instead, it was more a period of realisation, as they both understood.
“Point is,” Maggie said, trying to move past it. “That won’t ever leave me. But I’ve worked hard at coping in my way, and at helping young people, so they don’t make the same… stupid mistakes as me. If I can’t help myself, I might as well… help make it better for other people.”
Lizzie looked at Maggie, and her eyes were dark, and heavy. She had seen lot, not even in her own life, but mainly in her work. Things that Lizzie couldn’t bear thinking about, and things that Maggie herself couldn’t bear to dwell on either. She’d go mad if she did. Nope. Maggie had to up sticks, move on. Time passed, and she had to move on with it. She never looked back to the past – well. She did, to make sure she didn’t make the same mistakes. But Maggie would never get stuck there. Instead, she would move with time, and somehow, in some way, try to cope.
Lizzie understood. Both Maggie, and Emma.
“You’re… actually brilliant,” Lizzie turned to Maggie, and smiled. And when Lizzie paid people complements, they never really sounded genuine, instead just a bit… stilted. But this felt real.
“I’m not, really,” Maggie reached forward for another biscuit, and made a mental note to stop. This was, what? Her third? Fourth? “None of us are. See, look at me, I’ve eaten all your biccies…”
“Ulysses’ll be fuming, those are his favourites…”
***
The Doctor clambered melancholily up the stairs. One at a time, he dragged himself up.
The door to Thea’s flat hung open.
Immediately, the panic surged through him, and he threw himself up the last few sets of stairs, scrambling to reach the top as quickly as possible. He hated it, that he couldn’t get up quicker – that sometimes, things were impossible to change. No matter how much he might be able to make a positive difference, some things would stay there, hanging over him, and they would be impossible to shift. He flung himself onto the landing outside Thea’s property, and stopped.
Stopped.
It was like the world moved on around him, and he remained stuck in that same position – his jaw dropped to the ground in devastation, and then he felt a tear crawl softly from his eye. He wiped it, not wanting Thea to see him cry. She would tell him not to. She would tell him to keep buggering on, to get over it and keep on living.
But she couldn’t tell him.
Thea was gone.
Two men in white overalls, with a red cross printed on the back, grabbed hold of the stretcher, hauling the sides up with a clatter. Thea’s body lay slumped on top of it, her skin greying, her hand hanging lethargically off the edge. One of the paramedics gave the stretcher a shove as the wheel jammed on the fraying carpet, but it did not move – so he kicked at the wheel, determined to get it to shift.
“Bloody thing,” he hissed. “Always gets stuck on carpets.”
They glanced at the Doctor, stood in the door. But they didn’t stop doing what they were doing – making Thea’s last journey as bumpy and uncomfortable as possible.
“What happened?” the Doctor asked, his voice cracking unexpectedly. He hadn’t even known Thea a day – but the fact she was gone felt so wrong. She should have been there – she should have known that her legacy – her and her husband’s legacy – was finally lived out.
Not by the Doctor – but by a better person than him.
“Heart attack,” droned the paramedic, as the Doctor stepped out of the way to let the stretcher pass. That hit the Doctor like a punch to the gut. Thea had been a woman with more heart than most.
He could see the paramedics approaching the stairs, ready to attempt to wheel the trolley down. The Doctor called out to them, wiling them to stop.
“Treat her kindly,” he said. His words came across cold, and angry. But at the same time, they were fuelled with passion. Determination. “Promise me?”
The paramedics looked at each other, and then at the Doctor, and then at the dead body in front of them. Neither of them looked like they cared – about Thea, or about what the Doctor had said.
One of them tried to explain – as if there were some kind of explanation. “Her credit payments to the funeral bureau were non-exi –.”
The Doctor raised a hand. He spoke insistently, and resolutely, and firmly.
“Kindly, yes?”
The paramedic hesitated, then looked up at his colleague, and then looked down at Thea. Shame etched upon their faces, perhaps the Doctor had managed something, as both paramedics realised the stupidity of the system around them.
“Yes, sir,” he agreed, nodding guiltily to the Doctor. The Doctor gave a confirming look, as each paramedic picked up an end of the stretcher, and gently began to take Thea down the stairs.
The Doctor stood at the top, as she began her final journey. He raised a hand – perhaps it was a wave, or some sort of salute, or a toast – or something. He wasn’t even sure. Maybe it was stupid – she was dead anyway. Not like she’d ever know. But Thea deserved to be honoured, and the Doctor was determined to do so in any way possible.
She looked so small on the stretcher as she disappeared around the corner. So lonely.
She shouldn’t have had to be alone. He should’ve been there.
But he would honour her. The Doctor had ended up in her flat, trying to make amends for some of the stuff he’d done – and Thea had given him the heart that he needed to manage that. Although she was marooned in that horrid old bedsit at 80-years-old, she had a better grasp on certain things than the Doctor. And, she had taught him. Off she’d gone, to end Cullengate’s terror, in the name of the principles Thea had taught him. He’d realised, when he got there, that it wasn’t his fight to end – that it was the responsibility of another, who also understood what Thea meant.
It did not have to end there, however. As the Doctor now prepared to embark on his sentence, he knew that to try and make things better, he would have to live like Thea Everett.
The strange man at the top of the stairs vanished, and soon the unearthly, beautiful sound of that blue box echoed throughout the whole building. It was like he had never been there.
But the Doctor left, to continue Thea’s legacy. She had made him smile.
And the Doctor decided, that from that day on, he too would try and make people smile.
***
Cioné sat on the bench, just outside Lizzie and Iris’ apartment block. She sat with a miserable look etched on her face, and she pulled her coat and baggy cardigan tighter around her. Now that the night had settled in, the chill had blown away the faint hope of spring that might have hung nonchalantly in the air that afternoon, and replaced it with something that felt bitter, and cruel. The clouds were thick in the sky above, and Cioné looked up, as if she could let them swallow them up from the cold and the dark that she was subjected to, sat down on Earth. But, with their grey disposition, she was not hopeful that they would be any less punishing than the conditions on Earth.
Waiting for what? An anniversary party that she already knew about? A farce, on so many levels.
She could not get over the fact that she was actually sat outside the venue of her surprise anniversary party, waiting for her daughter to text her to tell her it was alright to come in and be surprised. Yes. It was truly that ridiculous. So, Cioné had flopped down on the bench, and had let the world pass her by for the last half an hour. As if there was much to pass her by. In fact, everything seemed very still, and very tranquil. Nobody had walked down the street, and instead, Cioné had been alone but for the company of the night – which was a soothing feeling, and she let it wash over her, sitting back and letting the navy blanket above her head engulf her.
It should have been nice. With the work that she did, chaos seemed to reign, and so the night-time of serenity should have been a window of escapism. But instead, her brain was going crazy, as desperately she worried for her husband. That was the most notable cock-up of this whole anniversary fiasco – that at the moment, Cioné was waiting for her own anniversary party, by herself. But, he had disappeared, just after the glowfly incident. And she had not seen him since, and she was deeply concerned. Occasionally, she told herself that she shouldn’t be. He’d been stupid and awful and Cioné was deeply, deeply ashamed. And yet, she still loved him. Still felt so worried for him.
Why was it all so bloody complicated? Couldn’t things just be easy for once? Love was a nightmare, and of course it was impossible to ignore a man who had meant more to her than any partner previously? Someone who had forgiven her, someone who had loved her, and someone who had not only accepted her eccentricities, but valued them above anything else.
This was it. The hardest thing of all. The Doctor, and Emma.
And she hated it. All Cioné wanted was to sit on that bench, and let the darkness swallow her, as some respite from the tumult she endured every day. Throwing herself to some of the most terrifying fronts in the Time War, where Daleks and Time Lords alike had gutted whole communities out of their vicious appetites for destruction. And these were only the early days. With some of the horrific sights that Cioné had already set eyes upon, she dreaded to think about what state the Time War might one-day reach. If, already, sleeping came as a challenge, or she could close her eyes and see the images of the devastation she had walked into, desperate to patch it back up again, then what would it be like as the war descended further into the deepest, darkest depths of hell? For it showed no signs of stopping – and Cioné was quite sure it was only ever going to get worse.
But she would never give up being a doctor. Not ever. It meant too much to her, and most importantly, it meant too much to the people she helped. That was why she did it. To help. Even in some of the most futile efforts, maybe it would just be possible to give some people some good dreams for once.
To help. And Cioné did not like being the centre of everything. She was quite happy to busy herself away, quietly keeping everyone together. That was, for so long, how she’d managed to make it work. But now it felt impossible, like her whole world was collapsing in around her, and she couldn’t hold her family together anymore. Couldn’t hold her own marriage together anymore. Didn’t help that her husband was basically a walking ‘look at me!’ neon sign, and seemed to attract a heck of a lot of trouble, half of it of his own doing.
She sighed, and sat back on the bench, and grimly turned back to the night-sky – the calmest thing she’d set eyes upon in a long, long time. With her own life imploding, and the planets she helped in the Time Lord exploding, it felt like nothing was still. Nothing would last. But at that moment, it did, and she felt a little bit of hope.
At that moment, the Doctor’s TARDIS began to materialise just a bit further down the road. She barely looked up. People waxed lyrical about that box, about the way it slowly faded into existence, like a dream being drawn to life in front of their eyes, with the sound of the engines, that breath of hope bringing it to life. Cioné had heard it so many times that it didn’t even feel that remarkable. The box appeared, as it always did. Blue police box. Again. Never understated.
Her husband gently stepped out onto the road, and shut the doors behind them, locking them. He had seen Cioné sitting there, and was trying to delay having to face any tension. It was as he slowly turned the key in the lock that he realised he was being an idiot.
“Are you alright?” he murmured confusedly, looking down at Cioné, sat on the bench.
“Yes,” Cioné replied bluntly.
“Good.”
The Doctor meandered away from the TARDIS, gently strolling a few feet from the box, and a few feet from Cioné, in the way that one does when they are simply waiting for conversation to materialise out of thin air, without actually having the intention of making it, and knowing that the other participant did not have any similar intention either.
A pause.
A very awkward pause.
But, they had been in a foul mood with each other, ever since the whole Emma business took off. When they had exchanged words, the words had been brief – and any long sentences had simply been bogged down in a sea of permeable tension. Therefore, the pause between them now was of no significant surprise, and Cioné had become so accustomed to such pauses that she had almost come to terms of the fact that she might never hold a normal conversation with her husband again. And yet, it had not bothered her. She’d been… so preoccupied in her own head that she hadn’t even dared broach the subject of what might happen if they did not speak on good terms again.
“So… why are you sat out here?” the Doctor asked gently, doing that typical blokey thing where a man thinks he is navigating the territory around a hornets’ nest, even though he is simply overestimating the thinness of the ice he is on, almost in a way that makes him more annoying than he would be otherwise.
Cioné did not speak as if it was obvious and he was an idiot, partly because she could not be bothered. “Our surprise anniversary party.”
She noticed the Doctor register the contradictory nature of what his wife had said.
“I turned up here,” Cioné explained effortfully. “Iris told me to clear off for 10 minutes and shut me out. I needed to clear my head, so I came down here. Except it’s been half an hour and I’m bloody freezing.”
The Doctor nodded, understanding the tale. He did not make an effort to reply.
Oh well. If he kept being an arse, she could become a spinster, get some cats. Maybe even talking ones, like Ulysses. She did not need a partner, she could survive without the Doctor, with ease. Cioné was strong like that, and she had done so with ease before. Having said, he was making her miserable, in his current state – and, vice versa, she believed. And, it had become an almost toxic cycle of crap that none of them were enjoying.
However – while Cioné was certain of her ability to live without the Doctor, she did not want to live without him. She would miss him terribly.
The Doctor, ever the gentleman (her incarnation, at least), slipped off his jacket, and walked over to Cioné, not solely planning on offering it to him, but also planning on helping her into it. “Oh, no, no. Come on now, you know I hate anything like this.”
“Please –”
“No! Bugger off!”
“Pl –”
She glared at him, and he buggered off.
The concrete seemed quite a fascination to him, and he stood, watching it intently, occasionally taking a nervous glance over to his wife, who was watching him with despair. Eventually, she decided to broach the question that was quite necessary upon the Doctor’s return from anywhere.
“Where were you?”
This was a question that, in the past, had attracted quite a number of answers. 80s-themes spaceship, etc. All sorts of places. And, she trusted them. If there was one thing that she could be quite sure of her husband, it was that he was honest. Even if he had lied to her for a good hundred years about being complicit to a scheme that raised a little girl to be the perfect killer. Okay. She suddenly wasn’t so convinced.
“I – I went to deal with the Emma stuff.”
Cioné looked up, intrigued.
“Evangeline is dead –”
“What?!” Cioné exclaimed, her face turning into the picture of shock as she firstly tried to get her head around the fact that Evangeline had somehow been present at whatever the Doctor’s altercation with Emma, and secondly, because she tried to truly comprehend the reality that fascistic Mrs Cullengate had finally bitten the dust. Was it true? Could anything remotely positive have happened? “Dead? As in, actually, dead?”
“Yes, by the looks of it. Bullet wound to the chest. Should’ve ruptured her heart, I think.”
“Wow,” Cioné raised an eyebrow in disbelieving approval. “I always doubted she even had a heart...”
“Emma killed her. Evangeline bankrolled the scheme that raised her, essentially.”
“Good lord…”
Cioné’s voice trailed off, as she waited for the inevitable next part of the Doctor’s tale. What had Emma said, or done, to him? She could see her husband knew that now was when he would have to explain. Quickly, he decided to cut to the chase. No point drawing it out.
“Emma wanted to… destroy the institution that… did what it did to her.”
Cioné scoffed at the obviousness of the revelation. “Good!”
“She… she let me live.”
That made Cioné stop, and she suddenly found herself, staring at thin air in front of her. Her husband’s life had been in question, which was a strange experience – she was so used to always counting on him coming back, and vice versa. He never expected her be hurt in the Time War, and she never thought he would be hurt on any of his mad adventures. And yet… it was so obvious. Such a likelihood, that both of them tried to shun, perhaps out of fear that it was such a tangible possibility.
“She said I was… complicit, and so I must suffer. The guilt of everything.”
Cioné slowly nodded in approval at the Doctor’s admittedly thin, almost lacklustre sentence. Though, it was nearly an impossible thing to vocalise.
“She let you live, because she knows it’ll hurt you. It’ll really, really hurt.” Cioné found the words for him. Absent minded, she stared forwards, not looking at anything in particular.
“And it’s what you deserve,” she said. This time, it was the Doctor’s turn to nod slowly. Neither of them looked at each other, but Cioné’s words a shock to neither of them. She had said from the start, that it was not something she could simply overlook. And, the Doctor had almost got to the point of willing some kind of retribution. He needed it, after so many years of raising Emma in that terrible place, as the thought of that – which haunted him, even during the most menial of tasks – was beginning to eat away at him. How he had hurt her. That wasn’t something he had ever been able to get away from. And even now that he had finally been convicted by Emma, he still could not get away from it.
Though, that had been the whole point of it all.
Cioné was glad of it. Was that a weird thing? She wasn’t quite sure. But she was not comfortable with her husband not having faced the girl he’d wronged so terribly, to show that it was a thing that could just be… gotten away with. No… it was only right that he had been held to account for everything, and finally, she could rest easy because of it.
The Doctor spoke. His voice was heavy. Miserable, and sullen, like it took so much energy even to speak. “And I am being punished, Cioné. I am suffering through my guilt.”
Immediately, Cioné raised her head and glared at him. “Please, don’t turn this into your male angst project. Don’t… sit on your arse and enjoy being… dark and gritty. Let it hurt you… but let that hurt lead you to do something good. Let it make you brilliant.”
Honestly. The thought of him wallowing in guilt and misery, simply building another plot point in his life. To Cioné, that took away the point of everything. And her husband seemed to agree, as he turned to her, and smiled.
“Of course,” he said, a look of sincerity upon his face. There it was. The exact sort of thing that Cioné could notice on her husband a mile off. Maybe he could lie to her, but when he was being truthful, that was always impossible for him to hide.
They sat in silence for a few seconds, both of them perhaps more content than either of them had been in a while. On a platform of mutual understanding, and a feeling that things had be reconciled – even if it would be impossible to bury things from the past entirely, at least those things would now only be ghosts, and would not emerge as living demons. Both of them sat on the bench in that newfound restoration of balance, eyes drifting into space, nowhere in particular.
“Also,” a smile tugged at Cioné’s lips, as she thought about her husband being all dark and brooding. It didn’t really work., Not at all. “You might be able to vanquish the parliament of the Daleks but you can’t put up a shelf.”
The Doctor didn’t turn to her, but he could tell she was smiling. Somehow, he always could.
“True,” he said, smiling as well.
A period of silence passed, and neither of them said anything. The faint tension still lingered, but it seemed to creep back, the occasional smiles wavering across the faces of both of them being able to dissolve it.
The Doctor looked away, and when he looked back, Cioné was staring right at him, an angry, fierce look boring deep into the Doctor’s soul. “Why the bloody hell did you do all this without telling me?! You stupid, stupid man!”
He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound emerged. “Er –”
“You could’ve died!”
“That’s not a rare –”
“I don’t care! And even if we are in a rubbish place because you were a… a complete spoon –”
“– that’s a, er, new one –”
“– I’d at least like to know if there’s the slightest chance you might just not come back, and if I’m going to have to deal with Iris on my own, and sometimes Lizzie, and even Kym, who I swear is either on something or eating too much sugar, because good god, she’s like a hare on – on speed, and if you are going to go and die, then I might just want to do a bit of preparation. You know. Go to a counsellor! Buy a bigger wine rack, I don’t know –”
The Doctor was laughing, then.
“Stop it!” though a grin began to spread across her face. “I’m being serious, ish. I absolutely wanted you to go and… see Emma, definitely, but it’d have been nice to know.”
“Sorry,” he smiled.
“I sound like a right nagging… windbag,” Cioné grumbled, feeling as if she’d done nothing but been miserable towards everyone. She sighed and sat back on the bench in a dejected huff.
“It’s fine,” the Doctor admitted. “I’ve sounded like a complete… miserable… spoon, as you put it. So…”
“Yes, well…”
He could see Cioné looking guiltily to the floor, even though she had nothing to feel guilty about. Sometimes, the Doctor wished she would stop taking everything so close to her heart, as he hated to see the pain that came to her because of it. But then, it was the fact that she cared so much that made her all the more wonderful.
“You’re only going on at me, Cioné, because you want to keep everyone together. You are so… dedicated, like that. I didn’t tell you, because I thought I needed to make this better of my own accord.”
To be fair, she could see his reasoning for that.
“I get it,” he continued, and turn to her, smiling gently. She looked sheepishly away, but he continued. “I really, truly do. You keep all of us together, all of us ticking over. I don’t know where we’d be without you. We’re all just… really grumpy at the moment.”
Both of them. All of them, in fact. They were all so bogged down in what felt like perpetual chaos, like it was constantly strangling them. Though, they both sat there, and for once, both of them felt relaxed – like the noose around their necks had finally been removed, even if it was only for a short amount of time. The Doctor turned and looked at his wife. She had been under so much strain – not only did she keep them all together, but she held the Doctor to the mark. And he loved her, for her warmth, and her eccentricity, and general craziness, and humour, and… her total lack of self-centredness. It had all taken its toll.
But, it was quiet on the road. Quiet, and cold, and refreshing.
They sat there, zoning out, for what perhaps felt like a duration of time longer than it truly was, letting the night pass them by. After a time, the Doctor began to speak.
“I’m –”
“Okay, look,” Cioné interrupted him, and despite the fact her husband looked as if he too were about to interject, she raised a hand to shush him. It worked with surprising aplomb.
“Look – I hate arguing with you, you know it’s not very ‘me’, and I just – I don’t do grudges –”
“I get it, I really –”
“But you must understand, darling, that I can’t just – I can’t look past something like –”
That was it. The one thing that had stopped her being able to… end this awful tension between the two of them. The fact that she could not forget. It was impossible to shift from her mind, like it had anchored itself in there – and rightfully so.
“Yes,” the Doctor said. He understood. “Just, let me –”
“You can’t make a big speech to win me around.”
The Doctor stopped and held back his big speech to win her around. It was a change from the status quo, that could not be denied – usually, he could make some sort of… impassioned plea, somehow put words to his emotions to show Cioné how he truly felt, or to show the universe what he believed and thought. But, Cioné stopped him, cutting in, with a sentence that for once shut him up. The Doctor watched her, and clearly the confusion was evident on his face. So, she elaborated.
“I won’t be told, or – or inspired. You can’t just…walk out of this, make a heroic speech, and expect me to be overjoyed and forgive you entirely. This is my decision, and I will make it without you being all… epic.”
There was a hesitation, as the Doctor seemed to toy with the word. The ever-charming lack of cohesion in it being spoken by Cioné. “… epic.”
“You know,” Cioné shrugged, trying to seem casual, and hip, and trendy, and all the things she felt she wasn’t, but was, in fact, quite content not to be. “…As the youths say.”
“Do they?” the Doctor chuckled to himself, almost lightly to tease her than anything else.
Cioné sat back dismissively and let out a small laugh. “I don’t know!” It had been something she’d heard Iris say. Probably. Anyway. It was distracting her from what she was trying to say. She was very tired of it – the man making a big, heroic speech, and suddenly being the icon of ages of to whom they should all not only pity, but above all, forgive. “But look,” she said, immediately returning to her former severity. “I’m sick of how these things always work. I don’t want that… status quo to remain. It’s not fair.”
The Doctor nodded as slowly, the words settled in his head. As he began to piece them together, to decipher some sort of interpretation from them. It was funny, how everyone always tried to jump to conclusions, with burning impatience – people desperate to know things, but never willing to let the other party understand how they felt. But, he stopped himself. Drew the process to an immediate halt. Kindly, he spoke.
“I understand.”
Simple words, but they meant a lot.
“Having said that…”
Cioné began, almost impulsively. It was only as she’d been speaking that things were beginning to make a bit more sense.
“… and this is not me saying that this is all water under the bridge…”
Not a thing that she should be expected to do, but simply the thing that she knew was right for her, in her situation.
“It is days like this where I realise why I married you.”
The Doctor looked at her, caught in a state of almost astonishment – dazed, entirely. Though, he was not, perhaps, astonished by his luck. More in a state of gratitude so heavy, that it caught him unawares, keeping him stuck in a moment – and before he knew it, he wiped a solitary tear off his face – a reminder of the loneliness that he had been saved from, and the feeling of knowing he caused such tears to so many people.
Cioné had thought it through. He had made amends, even in the direst of situations – one which was the creation of his own doing.
“It takes a lot to… do what you did,” Cioné, speaking not straight to her husband. The Doctor watched her intently, taking note of everything. He let Cioné continue. But, she turned to him, then, and he saw the pained look carved into her features.
“You were complicit to something… truly awful with Emma, and that isn’t something I will just forget.”
“No – no, I understand –,” he said quickly.
“And if you ever do anything like it again, you’ll have the divorce papers in the post –”
“Yes,” the Doctor agreed wholeheartedly. “Absolutely. 100%.”
“And…,” Cioné began, not quite sure where she was going. The words seemed more disjointed, and broken, and haphazardly strung together – though, the most honest words always were, and these were the most honest words that Cioné had to offer him. With the impossible situation she had put him in, all she could do was try and do the right thing, and also do what she wanted. “If you weren’t suffering because of it, and you didn’t care, then I’d leave you in an instant. But… that’s another thing. You do care. You are suffering. And ultimately, you have a heart, and you want what’s best. So, look. Let’s just… not forget it, because I can’t do that – but, for now, we’ll… look to the future, yes?”
She looked at him, but not as if he was waiting for an answer, or confirmation. Her decision. And he watched her as she made it, his eyes wide and sad, and tearless – and he wanted to cry more, but found himself unable. All it did was make him feel worse, but the tears just would not come. Instead, his eyes were sore and dry from the tiredness that drove right through him, and all he wanted to do was stay there, sat with Cioné. She scooted up to him on the bench, and gently, rested her head on his shoulder.
Cioné did not smile, and instead tried to hide the faint look of grimness on her face. There had been people before, who had said that it must be mad being married to the Doctor. But in truth, it was just as chaotic and more complicated and messier than any other relationship. He was a normal guy. He made mistakes, he tried to make up for them. He was probably a good person – and he made her smile. And maybe, that was what mattered.
“Let’s go on holiday,” the Doctor said, a proclamation that came entirely out of the blue.
Cioné’s brow furrowed in surprise. “… why?” She said, trying to hide her eagerness in the fact it sounded like a brilliant idea. It was hard, and she smirked as she said it.
“Because… you’re stressed, and tired.”
“The cheek! You look bloody knackered, by the way.”
“Busy day.”
Cioné couldn’t help but smile at the Doctor’s equivocation.
“So?” he pressed. “Fancy it?”
Yes, Cioné thought to herself. She really, completely did. But she wasn’t all sure yet. There was something nagging at her. “Why, though? Suddenly out of the blue. It’s not a ‘I’ve messed up’ holiday, is it?”
“No. Honestly, I’ve been meaning to ask for a while. You’ve had it in the neck.”
Understatement. Cioné always had it in the neck. But, she was the walking embodiment of the ‘keep calm, carry on’ philosophy. Not that she minded – in truth, that was how she liked it. Making sure everyone was alright, quietly from behind the scenes. And, she didn’t begrudge doing it. Having said that – it would be nice to get away from it all.
“Loads of stress,” the Doctor continued. “But you just… keep going. In the face of treacherous husbands, fascist presidents, anniversary parties, Time Wars, DIY that I can’t do –”
“Dishwasher’s gone by the way,” Cioné said suddenly. She’d been meaning to tell him, and in the midst of apologies, she hadn’t gotten around to it.
“Broken already?!” the Doctor exclaimed, visibly annoyed at his daughter’s inability to possess anything witout breaking it. “I only bought it for them last week…”
“Yeah. Ulysses got stuck in there, or something.”
“Wow…”
“I know.”
“Then,” the Doctor continued, grinning like an idiot, getting all optimistic and hopeful and joyous in the way he did, when he thought that things were going his way. “Dishwashers too! All of it, you deal with it so brilliantly. So, let’s go! Let’s… fly off somewhere. Have a break.”
Cioné paused.
“I… I didn’t know you noticed. Me. And stress.”
“Cioné,” he said, taking her hand, pained that she’d said it. As if there was any doubt. “I always notice.”
She turned to look at him, his face caught in the moonlight, shining gently. The moon and the stars reflected in his eyes, and he looked beautiful, sat there. She leant in, and gently kissed him.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.”
He meant it truthfully, for he knew he did not deserve it.
“Well,” Cioné proclaimed. “Good. It was about time we did that especially with our surprise anniversary party approaching.”
“Oh,” the Doctor’s face fell, almost immediately. The party. That thing. He had been hoping that, following the disaster of the first attempt, they would forget it. Unfortunately, it seemed like everyone was quite insistent on it happening – and he had forgotten about it, only to be reminded of it with sudden, crushing disappointment.
“Sorry,” Cioné apologised for no reason.
“It isn’t your fault… it’s almost like our sprog are determined to drive us insane…”
“Mmm…”
The Doctor was, in fact, quite willing to sit there and watch the stars.
“The night’s beautiful,” he observed absent-mindedly, gazing wistfully off into space.
Yes. There. That was her husband. Empathetic, who would keep an eye on her when she got stressed, and who would understand her. Know what was important to her, and know exactly what to do for help, and he would do so for the right reasons. He would know when she wasn’t well, and he would always be there to help her. And someone who saw beauty in the universe around him. Who tried to make amends, and who tried to help.
“Oh, my, god, Dad, there you are.”
Iris was bounding out of the house, dashing towards them at a speed north of a hundred miles an hour – it was so fast, the front door did not slam until the Doctor had jumped up, and taken his daughter into a hug. They paused there, for a few seconds, in the most unusual spell of mutual adoration and confusion. Neither of them really knew why they were hugging – but they were both very happy to go along with it.
Eventually, Iris broke away, and looked up at him, smiling sheepishly, and then glancing awkwardly down to the floor.
“It’s, er, too late to cancel the party,” she joked, offering a half-smile.
“Why do you always assume I want something?” he mocked.
“Because it’s what I always do,” Iris scrutinised him, eyes narrowing as she took in the sight of her father. Something was not right. “The hugging. Playing me at my own game, huh?”
“No,” the Doctor held up his hands in his defence. He was technically being honest. “I missed you. That was all.”
“Why? Been doing anything nice?”
“Broke an old lady out of her flat, went on an adventure for a Mars Bar, watched Evangeline Cullengate get shot, and get put in my place by Emma.”
Iris’s jaw dropped to the concrete below, and her eyes widened.
“Emma?”
“Yeah. She really likes you.”
“Did you tell her I’m married?” Iris joked, blushing.
The Doctor quickly changed the subject. Iris seemed rather flattered, and he did not want to tell her that that wasn’t what Emma meant, and that Emma probably did not care about anything of the sort. “Anyway. Thought I’d tell you that I missed you.”
“Well. I missed you too,” Iris said, before realising that it hadn’t actually been that long, from her perspective, since they last saw each other, and that it sounded weird her saying it. However, as she stood there, with her mum and dad, something did feel different – finally, there seemed to be hope, that things between them all might get better. There was less tension between all of them – things felt so much more relaxed, and Iris had missed it terribly.
“Oh,” came a quieter, more timid voice from the end of the path leading up to the flats. “Hi!”
None of them had even heard Lizzie exit the building – but she stood there, pulling her baggy jumper tight around her. It was freezing out, but for once, she did not feel so cold. She hopped down the step, and shuffled over to the Doctor, Cioné, and Iris.
“You… alright?” Lizzie looked up at the Doctor, noticeably older than the last time she’d seen him. Well – noticeable for her. She was always picking up on various quirks that nobody else really cared about.
“All good,” he smiled warmly, like he had finally found some contentment. Lizzie smiled too. The Doctor was back home. They were together again.
“Erm, Iris?” Lizzie turned to Iris, who was spinning a fidget spinner in her hands. Another Earth trait that she had quite taken to. “There are people upstairs getting kind of grumpy? Like, I don’t want to be annoying but I just had this guy who looked like a mole with sunglasses spit in my face…”
“Oh!” the Doctor’s face brightened, a look of unbridled delight spreading across his face, as he dashed over to Lizzie to enquire about the spitting individual. “You’ve managed to get Mac to come?”
“Er, yeah, I… guess,” Lizzie said, a little confused, and not at all knowing whether the spitting mole had been Mac. Whoever Mac was.
The Doctor sighed wistfully, as reminiscing individuals often do. “That takes me back. Lovely guy, Mac. Met him in a cocktail bar on the rings surrounding Talpidous.”
“Dad?!” Iris exclaimed, disgusted. “He spat at Lizzie?”
“Yes. Basically the Talpidoid equivalent of hugging.”
“Oh…,” Lizzie looked guiltily at the ground. “Well! I’m sure… sure he’s lovely…”
Before anyone could say anything else, however, the door to the apartment block swung open again, this time so loudly and forcefully that as the Doctor spun around and saw it smash against the wall, he was quite worried it had spun off its hinges, and he would have to indulge in some DIY.
“OH. MY. GOD. W. T. H,” Kym screamed, blazing down the garden path like a tornado. “YOU’RE HERE?!?!?!”
She stopped on the vicinity of the property, eyes with their ‘on-fleek brows’ (as Lizzie had recently discovered) piercing all of them with a strange, menacing quality.
“Evening,” the Doctor offered a half-hearted wave.
“Seriously ladies,” Kym began, pacing up and down the road, her massive heels clicking as she did so. “We need to get going like, ASOS –”
“You mean ASAP?” Iris observed, but Kym talked over her.
“Some dude has started drinking the punch, apparently it’s snazzalicious, like I wouldn’t know, I, er, haven’t had any – but SERIOUSLY, can we PLEASE start, it took me like, seven trillion years to get my make-up this fleeky, and it’s feeling hella wasted r.n.”
“Oh my,” came a new voice. Lizzie glanced over her shoulder, to see Ulyssses prowling out around the fence, and meandering woozily up to them. “I tried to keep her away, I promise.”
“He did!” said Leo, as he too came nervously scuttering from the property. He took a quick glance at the door as he went. Some of the hinges had broken, somehow. “But she’s…,” his voice trailed off, as he walked out into the road and saw Kym’s eyes like knives driving deep into him.
“Leo!” said someone else. This time, it was Jada, stood at the limp door. “Tell them to – oh,” she exclaimed, noticing everyone conglomerating in the middle of the road.
“Well,” Cioné resolutely placed her hands on her knees, and sat up, deciding that, as lovely as it was to watch the ensuing chaos around her, it was perhaps time to move on. But she held onto it – the surrounding madness – like she was trying to take a photo, to remember it forever. Life would move on and leave them all behind – it always did. But for now? They were alive. All of them, in their own, weird ways. Cioné wanted it never to stop – so she had sat there, just watching. And at the same time… feeling. Loved, and blessed, that she had all of this. The laughter, the bickering, the talking cats, the heels, the awkwardness – the magic of all of it. “Shall we go in?”
“YAS,” Kym screamed, boogying off to the path.
“Huh,” Iris mused. “Didn’t think you’d be the first to volunteer…”
“Well darling,” Cioné leaned over her daughter and kissed the top of her head. “I’m going to stomach it. Get it over and done with.”
Iris grinned with a mock pride. But, as she glanced at her mum and dad, slowly drifting into the building the rest of their chaotic and eclectic throng, she was happy. Even if they hated anything like a good party, she was pleased that they knew that she loved them. It was not an easy thing for Iris to say – but, she hoped that they would understand.
She followed them in.
***
The party began.
Well. It began twice.
The gang had traipsed noisily up the stairs like a brass band on steroids, and Kym and Iris had clattered nosily into the flat. As they stumbled through the hallway and into the abode, everyone was conspicuous in their absence. Darkness had driven heavily through the flat, and nobody was around. The silence was eerie, and the absence of life chilling – it was like death had struck the building, and as Iris took in the terrifying sight before her, she felt a shiver run down her back.
“SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Suddenly the lights exploded above their heads, and life burst into… well, life, around them. People leapt up from behind chairs, party poppers popped confetti at them, people cheered, and screamed, and everyone gave as much oomph as they possibly good to that great proclamation of celebration. It was a great bubble of euphoria, rising, and then bursting, as Iris entered the room. However, it was swiftly followed by a dejected wave of disappointment and sheepish guilt passing over the room.
Awkward glances were exchanged, apologies were muttered, and Iris gave an exasperated sigh. Very swiftly, at the young woman’s irritation, positions were regained – people hid back behind chairs and furniture, the party popper ‘gun-salute’ was rearmed, and the roars of celebration and delight were re-prepared. Iris ushered Kym, Lizzie, Leo, Jada, and Ulysses into the flat, and they too set up camp behind the sofa. Shushes were exchanged in hushed whispers, and then it was time to go.
“Lights!” someone hissed.
Iris quickly dashed back out again to switch the lights off.
Then behind the sofa.
Then she was ready.
A tense few seconds passed (the tension stemming largely from the fact silence was not one of Kym’s strengths), before finally, the Doctor and Cioné strolled into the room, like they expected nobody to be there.
Then, they underwent the same treatment that the rest of them had mistakenly experienced.
“SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
Chaos descended on the Doctor and Cioné – put on the spot as the lights were turned on, party poppers were detonated, and screams were screamed, all in the name of the two individuals who had just entered the room. It felt, for a few seconds, rather like the whole room was collapsing in on them – or that they had just walked into a giant, celebratory wall of people and alcohol and nibbles. All the attention in the room turned to the two of them, and a great cheer erupted, and then a tidal wave of clapping, and finally, a jovial, if slightly intoxicated, chorus of For They are Jolly Good Fellows.
Then, silence descended, as if every individual in the room was waiting for a reaction for the focus of their cheer. It was rather like, the Doctor thought, blundering onto the stage at a concert, and being expected to play. Everyone watched them with looks of a strange combination of anticipation and delight, clearly waiting for some sort of recognition of how excited they were.
“Oh!” Cioné chirped, nodding slowly and looking at the chaos around her. There were people. So many people, all crammed into the one flat. Cioné didn’t even know they knew this many people – and other than one or two individuals Kym had dragged along to fill out the room slightly, everyone else she was quite certain either herself, or the Doctor, were pals with. Most of them were from other planets, she thought. And, they had all done an exceptional job at erecting a table for great platters of food and a huge font of punch, and stringing a web of paperchains above them, and setting up a rather bulky set of speakers in the corner of the room. “This… this is a surprise!”
The Doctor nodded alongside her. “Very… very surprising,” he forced a grin, looking more like he was in utter agony than his surprise birthday party. In truth, there was little to distinguish between the two.
“Thank you, everyone,” Cioné said, having to force the words out of herself like she was making herself sick. The Doctor confirmed his appreciation, trying not to sound too begrudging, before Iris stepped in, having noticed their torment.
The party had definitely begun, then. Music was played, dances were danced, mingling was… mingled. Nibbles were nibbled, and drinks were drunk. The Doctor slowly floated around the room, talking to so many people he hadn’t seen for many years. In a way, although he had been dreading this surprise party, he was pleasantly surprised, as he had many chances to become reacquainted with old friends. And there were so many of them, so many different species, from all across the universe, from all across his lifetimes, crammed into that room.
Their lives may have moved on, that could not be denied – but the Doctor was suddenly struck by the fact that so many people he and Cioné knew were in that one room, and that such an occasion would probably never happen again. Time would move on, and one day, they would all be dead.
But for now, they were alive.
Eventually, there came the calls for something all of them had been dreading.
A speech.
There was debate amongst them all, for a second – who would sacrifice themselves for the greater good, and stand and say some words that nobody, in the end, would really care about? A few choice words were exchanged, bickering and snide comments too. Thankfully for Lizzie, she was very quickly declared as not being a potential candidate – so she sunk away, back to the corners of the room, where she felt most at home amongst the claustrophobia of this hullaballoo. At this point, the demands for a speech were getting increasingly harder to ignore – and so, Iris begrudgingly said she’d do it.
A karaoke microphone was tossed over to her, and it was like the whole room had been on tenterhooks for this one, specific moment – for as soon as her hands clasped the device, the whole world collapsed into a blanket of silence, and bated breath, and anticipation.
Shit, Iris thought, looking at a million and one pairs (and some triplets. And even some single) eyes trained upon her person. Suddenly, she realised she was going to have to find some words. Ugh, she grumbled to herself. Some people would find it so easy, to stand on a stage and wax lyrical about their everlasting love for their nearest and dearest. However, Iris, surprising for someone who was, without a doubt, blunt, and according to some, brash, suddenly felt sick to the stomach. Yes, of course, she loved both of her parents – but, to quote Lizzie, she could not heave her heart into her mouth.
And she was pretty sure Lizzie had quoted someone really famous, like Shakespeare, or something.
Time, she realised, was ticking on. People were waiting, and she still hadn’t spoken.
“Y’know, none of us want to be here,” Iris shrugged.
Everyone looked at her, and the silence suddenly felt all the quieter. Perhaps she had shocked everyone into a state of spellbound captivation with that proclamation – perhaps it was so outlandish, that the breath of everyone had just caught in their throats. Nobody really knew how to react – so everyone watched Iris, entirely still.
Iris continued.
“Seriously. I hate speeches. Mum and Dad hate parties. Lizzie over there is allergic to people.”
Iris gave Lizzie a thumbs-up. Lizzie just about managed the same, drowning nervously in a thicket of people and clawing to the walls for dear life.
“All of you probably want to be at home, watching Antiques Roadshow or digesting your second-born children. Yes, Deborah. I see you over there.”
Deborah opened her blobby, bulbous mouth in a sullen gurgle to indicate the affirmative.
“But we’re all here,” Iris said, looking at everyone. All of them, who had, for some strange, alien reason, decided to come and celebrate her parents’ marriage. “And I don’t really know why.”
There was a faint gasp, then, as nobody was quite sure whether they were being insulted or complemented. A general buzz of awkward uncertainty connected everyone in the room, and one could have heard a pin drop. Except they couldn’t have done, because there were so many people crammed into that tiny flat, that it probably wouldn’t have dropped.
“But, to quote Lilo and Stitch – which Liz used to show me when I was a kid – ‘family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten’.”
Iris looked around at the room around her, and although she didn’t know half of them, they were all people that her parents had come across, at some point in their lives. She thought, perhaps, that was why people met up, and why people had parties. To have those strange moments of intersection, where people’s random journeys throughout life were lucky enough to cross paths.
“And Mum and Dad were there to make sure I never got left behind or forgotten,” Iris continued, thinking she sounded stupid and sentimental. “Sometimes a bit too literally. Honestly, the amount of times I’ve told them to get off my back…”
Iris realised, then, that this moment would never happen again. That this day, that moment, would all be gone, as they all continued on their own journeys. She glanced over at her mum, and dad (who looked too proud, so she looked away from them before she cringed while on stage in front of everyone), and then over at Lizzie, and then Jada – whether it was for support, or whether it was simply to hold onto the moment, Iris wasn’t quite sure.
“But the thing about Mum and Dad, is that although all of us, in this room, are… doing our own thing. Whether it’s like Kym who exists just to scream at people in fluent chav –”
“YAS SISTA!” screamed Kym, before dabbing, or something like that. Iris thought that was dabbing.
“Or if it’s Mr and Mrs Polonius, who taught me back in junior-2 at the academy, and who I always thought it was really weird they got on so well with my parents… or even if it’s Thunder, who I know does so much amazing work with Mum on the war front – although all of us are doing our own stuff, Mum and Dad are always there for us. All of us. To make sure that we’re okay.”
She let the words hang in the air – not just because she wanted them to have maximum impact (because she did, because she wanted her parents to know how much she loved them), but also because she was truly realising it herself. How far the Doctor and Cioné would go for their weird little family. How lucky she was, to have that.
“One day,” Iris said. “We will all be dead. Sorry. Miserable I know, but it’s true. And in the grand scheme of things, we’re so tiny we’re not even equivalent to a bacterium in a body – shit, I hope there aren’t any religious people here. And I hope none of you mind swearing. Oops. Anyway.”
Thankfully, people laughed, so she didn’t feel like such an idiot. Or like she’d offended anyone. Though she wasn’t sure she really cared.
“But, no matter how little any of us matter, Mum and Dad are always there to make us smile.”
Iris smiled, then. Like it was her parents’ legacy, and she wanted to bring it to people herself. They inspired her, like that. Gave her the heart to make her want to do good things in their name. They weren’t perfect, but at least they held their mistakes close, and tried to make amends on them – even if all they could do was some random, good deed for someone, like making them smile.
“I am so lucky to have them. Every second, while I know that I am steadily decaying – sorry, my inner scientist – I would like to say, that I am very happy that Mum and Dad are here. That they have been here, for me. To make sure I’m not left behind. They’re pretty cool parents. Seriously.”
Iris glanced quickly upwards at the whole room, before turning away, like they were all too much.
“And to all of you?”
Iris saw Lizzie, a look of admiration evident on her face, no longer drowning under the people around her – she could ignore them, as it felt like Iris was the only person in the room. Lizzie was so proud of her – the girl she’d watched grow up, who stood a fine, magnificent young woman in front of her.
Cioné and the Doctor felt the same – and seeing their little girl on stage, somehow not making a tit of herself with a karaoke microphone, made their hearts hurt with pride. Iris, the astronomer who could, when she thought about it, write poetry from the stars, and speak it to them all. In some moments, it felt like only yesterday that she was tiny – a couple of hours old and sat in that funny hospital chair in Lizzie’s arms. Other days, it felt like an age had passed. But all the time, they were thankful, for the joy and the laughter and the love that Iris had brought them.
Jada’s face was stony, in the way it so often was – her emotional control was exceptional, but for once, it seemed to waver, and her features softened. Iris’s words cut right through them – she was not a perfect person, and she had never been lucky enough to have a mum and dad. But for once, Jada understood – family meant nobody was left behind, and no longer was she left behind. Instead, Jada was alive, and lucky enough that, in that one, stray, ludicrous moment, she was with Iris.
None of them wanted the moment to stop.
But it would.
However, Iris was content that she was there to see it.
“Thank you, everyone, for making me smile.”
And she was done. Nervously, she looked up from the microphone, and at all the people around her. There was silence again, and this time, none of them were quite sure why. Iris looked desperately for a quick exit, but due to the sheer number of people in the room, it was impossible. They cornered her, a strange, awestruck barricade, keeping her there, stuck in that one point in time.
But then someone clapped.
And someone else. And someone else. And people kept clapping, and clapping, and clapping, and soon applause rushed through everyone, cascading at the front of the room where Iris stood, feeling wholly out of place, with that stupid karaoke microphone. Some of them were cheering, too.
Iris ignored it all – she didn’t care for it. Instead, she looked to see her mum, standing there, at the edge of the room. Cioné gave Iris a sad, but proud smile.
And, in fact, Cioné had to hold herself together. She was biting her lip, but a lone tear escaped and hung caught on her cheek. She didn’t wipe it – she let it stay, stuck there, knowing that soon it would fall from her face, and fade forever. As the cheering and applause to continue, Cioné watched her daughter not really knowing what to do – Iris was, sometimes, insecure. Everyone was – Iris just tried to hide it more than most others. A bit like her dad, in that respect.
In fact, at that moment, Cioné put an arm around her husband, and pulled him close, not wanting to let him, or her daughter go, ever again. They were there – a family. A peculiar family, perhaps, but a family nonetheless. One who never left anyone behind, and one who, above all, made her smile.
Cioné smiled.
The tear fell.
***
Over the sound of thumping speakers, and chatter, and laughter, and over the constant sensation of bodies packed into her flat, Lizzie peered nervously at the clock. It had only been five minutes since she last checked the time – and therefore, five minutes since she last thought about how dire this whole ‘partying’ affair was. However, she smiled her way through it. As Iris had said – she did not want to be there. And yet, she felt she had a strange obligation… in a way, she felt as if this was the right place for her to be.
That did not change the fact that she was looking forward to it being over. She had decided that after taking one sip of a cocktail and thinking it tasted like cleaning fluid.
However – the party showed no signs of stopping, the celebrations almost seeming like they wanted to drag on for all eternity. So, Lizzie stood, in the corner of the kitchen, conveniently jammed beside the cupboard with the teabags, just in case she needed to resort to her contingency plan – a cup of tea might have provided the relief from all of this. Nevertheless – ‘all of this’ had reminded her about some important things.
It was, at that moment, she looked up, and saw Leo grinning mischievously from the far end of the kitchen.
“You look like you’re having such a good time,” he laughed, as he manoeuvred his way past a cyborg smoking something that didn’t smell like tobacco. Lizzie chuckled hysterically, as he hugged her.
“Help,” she whispered nervously. As her gaze drifted over him, he was stood, in the dimmed lights of the flat, his face occasionally sinking into the gentle illumination of a warm, orange lamp. His smiled at her – gently, and lazily, and his eyes were almost uncertain, stuck between vulnerability and naivety, and self-assuredness. Those eyes watched her, and she wanted to keep him that way. That way… there were no other words to describe it, apart from adorable. That’s how he looked at her – adorably, naively, innocently – and she didn’t want him to change.
He made her feel like things were normal – that both of them were young and ridiculously optimistic, and that they might have beautiful days waiting for them, somewhere. But all the time, that same look, and that same feel, was a stab to her heart. Things wouldn’t ever be normal, for so many reasons. Her life was crazy. Most importantly… she was far from normal.
“You okay?” Leo asked her, catching her eyes drift vacantly over the room before them. “You look… I dunno.”
Aimless – maybe that was the word he was looking for. He had been worried about her for a while – occasionally, he would catch her looking somewhere, and he would see a look of utter lostness as her eyes passed uncertain over everything, like she didn’t know where she was going, or who she was, or what she wanted.
“I’m… in a party,” she gestured around herself. “Of course I’m gonna look weird…”
He gave her an incredulous look. “You don’t look weird.”
“Leo, weirdness is like… my thing, like –”
“Like Donald Trump and misogyny?”
“Yeah. Exactly. I think…”
“Sorry. That was weird.”
“Yeah. It was,” Lizzie mused, though she secretly loved the fact Leo was far from a wordsmith. He could do art, though. His art was beautiful. It was like he could look at a moment and somehow capture everything about it – the life breathing through it, the colour bringing it to life, every slight action and movement, and the emotion, and how all of those things united and function in unison, to somehow create the world. Leo could see it, and it was like he wrote it – but he did it all with his eyes.
And yet, sometimes he didn’t understand. He could transform a scene into the most vivid and real work of art, but when it came to talk to her? To understanding how she felt? Sometimes, it was like he was an alien, and that’s how she felt. Alienated. But again – sometimes she liked it. She felt like the complicated stuff going on inside her wasn’t really that complicated – like it was just as simple as Leo would like to liken it to.
But sometimes she hated it.
Maybe it was because he was innocent. And naïve, and vulnerable, and… unsullied. She knew he’d ‘downloaded the anxiety expansion pack’ as he so eloquently worded it, but that was it. He was nervous of the world’s darkness, simply because he’d never seen it before.
She shrugged it off. “I’m just… mopey this evening.”
What was it Iris had said? Bitchy as heck, or something like that. Iris had also said that she was enjoying seeing Lizzie so grumpy. It was, apparently, nice to see her being snappy and… angry for a change.
Lizzie, however, did not find it nice. And she hated that she felt it so often – ever since the Memory Graveyard, and since she’d admitted to herself her depression, and since she’d started counselling and mediation and somehow trying to come to terms with it – Lizzie had felt like she was doing a lot of snapping. She hated herself for it.
“It’s fine,” Leo waved it off nonchalantly, like it didn’t matter. It mattered to her. And she wasn’t fine with it.
“Iris can… make a beautiful speech about smiling, and I’ve got a face like a slapped arse.”
“It’s… a nice arse?” Leo only realised mid-sentence the ridiculousness of what he was saying.
Hearing him say it, however, made her smile. And then, like some cycle of smiling, Lizzie’s smile made Leo smile even more.
“God,” she muttered, laughing. “We need lessons on how to act like functioning human beings.”
Leo wasn’t convinced. “I think that’s part of our charm. The fact we can’t.”
“Charm? Leo, I actually walked out of Tesco’s earlier without getting what I needed because I saw someone I recognised from work.”
Leo found that markedly more hilarious than Lizzie, and he laughed, as she watched him stonily. But her face softened, as she realised it was a bit stupid.
Though none of it changed the fact she felt like a failure. As she listened to him laugh, and saw him smile, she felt even worse. Lizzie could never be the normal person he deserved, and the guilt plagued her. But it went further than that – she felt like she couldn’t do anything, and that she was spinning so many plates, all of them were dropping. Her mind was so tangled and stupid that when she tried to do something useful, she couldn’t. If she tried to write, she couldn’t find the words. She’d dug out her old electric keyboard the other day, but the music wouldn’t fit around her fingers, and it wouldn’t play.
No matter how hard she tried, or how long she spent, she couldn’t do anything. It all felt rubbish, and fake, and nothing felt genuine anymore. At least once upon a time, even when she’d felt terrible, she could grimly browse Tumblr at three o’clock in the morning and feel mildly satisfied. But now, it was like the well of creativity and content and life within her had dried, and she had nothing left to offer. Her mind would wander distractedly, her brain would lose focus, and she would never accomplish anything – and when something was accomplished, it was forced, and it wasn’t truly her.
She was failing. At everything.
She had lost herself. And now, her life was cold, and empty of music, and devoid of life and joy and contentment, and the things that made her happy.
“Yeah but… Tesco’s-gate –”
Lizzie shuddered at the name, knowing that then, it would live onto haunt her. “Oh god, please don’t name it…”
“I like the name. It means I’ll remember it.”
“Why would you want to remember it?” Lizzie grimaced. “It’s a hallmark of my hideous awkwardness.”
“Exactly. I like your hideous awkwardness.”
“That’s like saying you like… shingles, or something.”
He didn’t reply, so he looked up at her. He watched her like he was somehow… admiring her. Loving her. Loving the weird quirks about her that made her who she was. He watched her, like he was holding onto her with his eyes – like he was going to paint her, and was capturing everything about her, and treasuring it.
“All I’m saying,” he continued. “Is that some of the things you hate about yourself probably aren’t that bad.”
Lizzie screwed up her face in disgust. Hmm. Maybe he was a bit right, about some things. Not all things, though. She still felt a complete failure. But at least she felt like she was a loved failure.
“That was a bit more poetic than the whole Trump thing,” Lizzie muttered, coyly looking away from him.
“Still no Shakespeare, though…”
“Afraid not.”
She embraced him, and looked up at his face. The orange lamps, on their constant cycle of brightness, dimmed, so his face sunk slowly into the dark, like the sun setting slowly. And, in lieu of the music coming from the speakers, now something noticeably slower, they began swaying, rocking back and forth, like they were dancing. No – they were dancing. It was a strange feeling – Lizzie had thrown caution to the wind once before, back on the iCruiser – but that wasn’t like this. This was slow, and intimate. This was two people, close together, connected in a slow, gentle, set of movements. Lazy, slow movements, but at the same time beautiful and mesmerising with the delicacy of them.
Something struck Lizzie, then. This was all weird – and not just because it was new. It was weird because it promised so much – things that had previously seemed alien to her. They were at the beginning of something, and neither were sure what. It was their four-month anniversary. Yes. Four months. They laughed about that the other day – about the stupid new couples who celebrated monthly anniversaries like they’d been married for 60 years. Both Lizzie and Leo thought it was pointless. But as she hung loosely on Leo, her arms around his neck, holding him, she realised something. The early anniversaries, while not worth celebrating, stood shadowed in ominousness – foreboding of what the future might hold, whether it be good or bad.
And it scared her, for she had no idea what those things were.
Sometimes, she would look at Leo, and think things were going to be brilliant. That they would make their way through life together in an awkward muddle, and always be there for each other, to listen with, to laugh with. Maybe they would have years together – maybe the rest of their lives. Perhaps, after so many years of drifting lostly through the world, Leo was finally going to help anchor her to the ground. To show her that she was normal, and to make her feel like she could face the dark things in the world.
But there were days when she would look at him and think that it was too wrong. Leo wouldn’t ever understand her, and she wouldn’t be right for him, in his normal, everyday existence. They were similar, but maybe too similar – and perhaps it was a blissful thought, that they would always be there for each other. Both couldn’t deal with other people well. Lizzie was a good liar. Leo was so tetchy with his emotions. Both of them were deeply flawed, and sometimes it would send a chill through Lizzie, to think about how those flaws could drive the two of them to dark places.
She didn’t know.
Couldn’t know.
But for now, things were okay.
“OHMYGOD, GALS!!!” came a sudden yell. Lizzie broke off from Leo immediately, to see Kym stood on the sofa. She looked precarious, stood up there with those tall heels, and Lizzie was not sure what she was most concerned about – Kym injuring herself, or the impending announcement. She gulped loudly.
“I’M JUST GONNA INVITE SOME MORE PEEPS, ADD SOME MORE SPARKLE!!”
Lizzie immediately gravitated towards Kym like a missile towards its target, sheer terror rising through her. It was chaotic enough without needing half of Kym’s friends list descending upon them and ravishing the place like a plague of locusts.
“No, no, Kym,” Lizzie spoke up to Kym, grabbing her arm to hold her steady, as she stumbled over the soft furnishings. “Please, don’t, it’s fine as it is –”
“Oh shit,” Kym exclaimed, putting a hand to her mouth. Lizzie’s face went white as a sheet. “I’ve already put it on Facebook.”
Ohmygod.
Lizzie turned to make an urgent tea. She caught Iris’s eye, who turned to make an urgent g & t. Lizzie took a deep breath, as she realised the magnitude of what was about to descend upon them. The party she was currently subject to – that was nothing, in comparison to the tsunami about to engulf the flat. She wondered whether there was any way out of this – but there was nowhere to go. Lizzie would have to grit her teeth, and ride this one out.
Only seconds later, there was the first knock at the door.
She braced herself.
***
Five Hours Later
They had left their mark. The flat was a picture of devastation. Now, Lizzie and Maggie sat back amidst the aftermath of the carnage. The partygoers had gone – and it was not even that late, by some of their standards. Thankfully, Kym had managed to haul them off over the road. Not before, however, making the whole flat look an entire wreck. If Lizzie had thought it was hard enough to cram everyone else in the flat before, as Kym’s 2,304 friends began to file into the place, it suddenly felt like they were defying all laws of physics, even though only a fraction of that number turned up.
And ‘turned up’ made it sound like a quiet, unassuming affair – a decision, just to pop along for a quick drink as a bit of a laugh. However, it was nothing of the sort – they had ploughed into the room, shouting, screaming and singing, dragging crates of alcohol and appetites for destruction. They drew on the windows with whipped cream, they hid the ornaments on the mantlepiece, they put food in the X-Box (Iris would be fuming when she found out). They’d got up to all sorts of antics in the bedrooms and the bathroom, and they had, in general, swept through the building like a drunk, made-up, chavvy tornado.
“Anyway, she met him on Whambam, and then she sees him in Greggs with half a pasty and a decaf cappuccino!” Maggie exclaimed, almost astounding herself at the dramatic retelling of her tale. “Mad, I know…”
Lizzie laughed quietly. It was certainly an amusing tale – though she was almost too tired to properly care. Tired, and yet unable to sleep. Such was the problem of insomnia. But, now that all the guests had gone – including the sort-of uninvited ones, Lizzie felt a strange, sudden release of pent-up energy, and she was quite happy just to sit on the sofa and enjoy her cup of tea.
“Best things always are always mad,” Lizzie mused, believing it fully. After all – the best days of her life had happened since she’d met a wizard in a magic box. That was pretty mad.
“Exactly,” Maggie shrugged. “Like your life.”
“I know,” Lizzie murmured, glancing at the chaos around her. If you’d asked her 12 months ago whether all of this would have been possible, she would have laughed in your face. Well – she’d have awkwardly shrugged it off and then shuffled off to somewhere to hide. Sometimes, Lizzie wasn’t sure what shocked her more – the fact she had travelled all through time, from places lost in the past to the far-flung future, to places on the furthest reaches of the universe – or the fact she had all of this. A family, and a flat, and… parties. Parties. That would have been the most shocking thing. That would truly have made her hide.
She wouldn’t hide now, though.
She was still a quiet soul, and a quiet soul she would stay. Lots of people, it just wasn’t her thing. By herself with a cup of tea and Coronation Street, and she’d be sorted. But, at the same time, Lizzie no longer felt the need to isolate herself from everyone. She was brave enough, now, to greet the world with open arms, and no longer be scared of it.
“It’ll end, though,” she murmured, the words coming out of the blue, but bogged down with dejection. Sometimes, Lizzie thought it was already ending – she’d look at the Doctor and Cioné and see them happy. And then she’d see Iris, all grown up, and married. What need was there for her? She just sort of… hung around, feeling like a spare part. Such was the nature of her life.
“Everything does,” Maggie admitted solemnly and briskly, like she wanted to move on from it. Maggie did not like endings – but at least she had come to terms with it.
“I… I don’t know how to deal with that.”
It was a sudden realisation for Lizzie. She was old, to only just be understanding that. She felt like a child. She felt like an idiot. Most people learned to cope when they were teenagers – that was probably why adolescence was so hard for so many. But, Lizzie hadn’t ever had to worry about it before – this was the first time in her life she’d ever had something so worth hanging onto, that the thought of it ending was so painful. It was only now, then, that when she thought about the dark, impending endings, that she realised she had no idea how to cope.
“Sorry,” she shook her head, grimacing. “That was a stupid thing to say. I sound like a complete wallower. God… I can’t be wallowing, what have I become…”
Maggie laughed, and Lizzie sat there miserably.
“Look,” Maggie said, being her usual diplomatic self. She did not think Lizzie was a wallower – if anything, Lizzie had done quite remarkably at keeping going, with everything she had gone for. Maggie had infinite respect for the woman sat beside her – it took a lot to go through what Lizzie had gone through, and be such a kind, conscientious individual. “‘Course you don’t know how to deal with it. You’ve never had to deal with it before… and we learn by experiencing things.”
Lizzie turned to Maggie, desperate to take in her wisdom. Sometimes she just really wished Maggie would write a handbook or something to life. It would make everything so much easier. Instead, she was left to wander this earth, blundering through and giving Maggie a ridiculous phone call at ridiculous o’clock in the morning.
“And, Lizzie,” she continued. “I’ve known you all your life, basically. And it’s in this last year, that I’ve seen you start to live.”
Gone was the awkward girl stood behind the café counter at Dunsworth, serving Mrs Smith and her dogs. Instead, stood a confident young woman, ready to show the universe her goodness, kindness and warmth, and be a gentle force of nature in every situation she faced. The universe was so much better because of it – and so was Lizzie. Maggie looked at Lizzie and saw a bravery that she had never noticed before – and, although in a way, the dark days were darker, at least the bright days were brighter too.
Lizzie had a stupid question. And she wasn’t sure how she was going to ask it – but she was going to try. “So how’d you deal with knowing the best days of your life are over?”
Maggie thought about it for a few seconds, wrestling with this seemingly impossible problem – one that she hadn’t, and nobody else, had ever managed to find an answer for.
“I remember,” Maggie reminisced, thinking back years ago. “When I first met you, you had this Snoopy tee-shirt on – and on the back, it had this quote. Can’t remember it exactly, but it had Charlie Brown saying one day we will die, etc. Then Snoopy, saying this: but the other days, we will not. And that’s always stuck with me, for some reason.”
Lizzie looked up at her, confused. The girl who could read any situation, apart from her own. Typical Lizzie.
“You’ve got other days!” Maggie explained, unable to hide the hope and optimism in her voice – for she was hugely hopeful and optimistic for Lizzie. She knew that her surrogate-daughter could be truly brilliant, if she tried. “Go on crazy little adventures. Have a laugh. Take down a government. Smile. Make stupid speeches and invite all your Facebook friends to a random party. Live, basically.”
Lizzie slowly nodded in approval. She liked that.
Maggie decided to speak honestly. When Lizzie was a kid, she used to complain about not being told things honestly, just because she was younger, and people thought she needed to hear a diluted, censored version. Funny, how things changed, Maggie had never stopped thinking about that, and had always endeavoured to tell children things as honestly as possible.
“And maybe those other days won’t compare. Or maybe, you’ll get to a point where you can’t do what you’ve dreamt of. But you’ll never be useless. I know you, Lizzie – you’ll always be fixing someone.”
Lizzie liked to think so. There was something gloriously ironic, she always thought, of how she worked so hard to keep everyone together – and yet, she was the least experienced at this whole ‘family’ thing of all of them. Maybe that was why, though – she understood how important it was, and so was willing to put her neck on the line for it.
“Just got to keep going, on our way, through life. Because it doesn’t stop.”
It’s a bit rubbish like that, Lizzie thought.
“And if I did try and stop it, and Rachel were here, she’d bollock me to high heaven. So, there we go.”
Lizzie nodded. “She sounds brilliant.”
“She was. I miss her. So much.”
Lizzie knew how it felt.
“Do you regret it?”
Was that a stupidly obvious question? Lizzie wasn’t sure. She wasn’t even sure what she meant. Regret what?
Maggie understood, it though. And she thought about it, for what felt like the first time ever. It probably was. Whenever thinking about those events, she tried to gloss over it. Her own involvement preyed heavily on her mind, and for a few years, she hated herself. Sometimes, there were still moments when she hated herself – why didn’t they stop? Why didn’t she screw her head on the right way, and know when they’d gone too far? If she did, then her best friend wouldn’t be gone.
But she was gone. And no matter how much Maggie tried to block out that thought, for so many years, it had always been there. Her best friend was dead. There, at the back of her mind – that grief, eating away at her, constantly. The regret of not doing something about it, there too. But she had hidden it – kept calm, and carried on. Tried not to be sad about the fact she wanted nobody more than her best friend, and yet that person was the one she could never see.
“Yeah,” she said.
It was only then that she dared to lift the taboo, and thought about it.
Maggie hesitated, doing a very good job at holding herself together. Oh well. So many years in her job, she’d got very good at it. “Some of it, of course. But whoever said je regret rien or whatever, was a complete moron. Because of course I regret things, but if you didn’t regret anything then chances are, you haven’t lived.”
“And…,” Lizzie began nervously, suddenly feeling the silence of the flat. The ticking clock. The random noises that buildings made in the middle of the night. In the end, this was what they were all left with. Silence. Honest conversation. Truth. “If you could change it?”
Maggie quickly had an answer for this. She had thought about it a lot. “And whoever started talking about changing the past was also an idiot, because… it’s a question that can’t be answered. If Rachel was alive, maybe I’d be a very different woman. Who knows?”
Again – Lizzie could understand. She didn’t ask anything else of Maggie. It felt wholly inappropriate, and she just wanted Maggie to talk, and for her to listen. For so often, it had been the other way around – now it was nice that the tables had turned. And Lizzie would be quite content if Maggie decided that she didn’t want to talk anymore – it would only involve Lizzie granting Maggie the same respect that Maggie had always been generous enough to grant her.
“You’ve been hanging around with that Doctor too much,” Maggie said, deciding to change the subject. “Changing time and all that…”
Lizzie smirked. She knew well enough that it was impossible to change some things. They just had to live with them, and move on, and try and do something right, making amends.
“Hey,” Maggie turned to her, suddenly intrigued. She’d been meaning to ask this for a while, and hadn’t ever gotten around to it “Can he go forward in time and tell me how they’re going to rumble Pat Phelan?”
Lizzie couldn’t help but smile. Never change, she thought, knowing that one, sad day, she would.
“I just can’t see how they’re all going to find out!” Maggie continued. “It’s a great storyline, though. Entirely unrealistic, but gripping, I’ll give it that.”
But for now, her and Maggie were there, in that flat that smelt slightly of vomit.
Lizzie finished the dredges of her tea.
“What you up to tomorrow, love?” Maggie asked, as Lizzie leant forwards and placed her mug on the coffee table, before slumping back on the sofa. Maggie would often ask her questions like that – to remind her that there was a tomorrow. Lizzie had often thought, as an insomniac, it was so easy to forget that the night didn’t last forever, and that life would resume again – ever since she’d told Maggie, Maggie would always try and ask.
Lizzie shrugged. Keeping going. Not stopping. That was her only answer. Sometimes it was hell. Sometimes it was okay. She’d have to see in the morning.
“Actually,” Lizzie suddenly realised, knowing that nobody else would do it. “I’ll be cleaning this disaster up, I suppose.” With every passing second, she felt the task grow ever more daunting in her head. Perhaps that was why she’d put off going to bed and trying futilely to get some sleep. She often found herself doing that – feeling that if there was something to confront, it was always much better to just… not sleep.
Maggie smiled. “Again. Always you, holding everything together.”
Lizzie glanced over at the plant pot. “I might draw my Samaritan line at the plant pot vomit, though.”
“Yeah. I don’t blame you.”
Lizzie stood up, then, and took her mug off to the sink. As she placed it in, ready to wash it up tomorrow, she glanced up on the windowsill – a set of keys sat there. Iris’s, she thought. There were keyrings, and pressed into them, family pictures. Memories, held in Perspex, to carry around with oneself constantly – to give comfort, when feeling most alone. There was one image, with herself and Iris – both in sunglasses, sat on some beach somewhere, probably hating the hot weather. Lizzie held it, gazing at it in strange captivation for a few seconds, before gently placing it back down on the surface, like some remnant of a time now lost to the past.
Lizzie turned back to the sofa, and stopped, looking at Maggie sat there, her feet lazily up on the coffee table.
“Thank you,” Lizzie said.
Maggie looked confused. “What for?”
“Not leaving me behind.”
Oh, Maggie understood. The thought hadn’t even crossed her mind, it had simply become what she did with Lizzie. Maggie was a bit useless at everything – but if there was one thing she could do, it was keep Lizzie safe, and always be there for her.
“I’d never leave you behind. Even if you’re… in space fighting bug-eyed Nigel Farage monsters or whatever.”
“I worry sometimes –”
“You don’t say…,” Maggie mocked, knowing that Lizzie worried more than anyone else she’d ever met in her life. Lizzie gave her a stern look, and Maggie chuckled away to herself.
“I worry about how I go off into space and leave you here.”
Maggie shrugged dismissively. “Lizzie, you’re allowed to leave home,” Maggie grinned, hopeful, optimistic – while she missed Lizzie dearly, she secretly loved watching Lizzie fly off into the stars – living a story that she could only have ever dreamed of. “And I’ll always be there, for a cup of tea and a hug whenever you fancy coming back. You’ll never be left behind.”
Lizzie looked at the old woman huddled on the sofa. She couldn’t bear to think of a day when Maggie wouldn’t be there.
Slowly, she drifted over to her bedroom. “I’m… gonna try and sleep. Well. Sleep. You know me, I probably won’t.”
“I’m sure I’m still be out here if you can’t. They’ve got the Silent Witnesses with the sign language playing at ridiculous o’clock at the moment. I’ve been watching them all again.”
Lizzie felt reassured then. But for once, she felt like she might be able to doze off. Even if it was just a bit.
In the end, this would all be gone. The moment would fade, like it had never existed, as they all went on their journey.
But for now, it was there.
Lizzie hesitated by the bedroom door.
“You alright, love?” Maggie asked.
“Yep,” Lizzie said, honestly and genuinely.
“Good good,” Maggie acknowledged. “Sleep well.”
Epilogue
Evangeline Cullengate’s body was dealt with in secret.
Of course, normal procedure was followed to the letter. Thankfully, because the murder had occurred in private, it was possible for the aides to cover it up. Which of course, they would. There was no going back now. They had come so far to get into power, there was no way they were going to let it drop. The plan between Cullengate’s team was to not announce the death, and continue ruling themselves, using Evangeline as a puppet, as if she were still alive. It would be very easy to arrange. Rulers rarely made public appearances nowadays. A bit of media cover-up would do the job perfectly.
The night it all happened was the night her body was lying, ready for the cremation. She was dressed in her best blue suit, with her pearls. It would be a private ceremony. A very private ceremony. Only a few of her closest advisors, and Hugo and Edwin, the dogs.
The chamber she waited in, before her final journey, had been constructed beneath her Prime Ministerial building, just in case any tragic circumstances befell her in office. It was a good thing they had been constructed.
They were decorated with great precision. Evangeline always lived her life in perfect order, and so it was fitting the same should go for her death. Vases of perfectly kept flowers were positioned at the four corners of the altar-like bed she lay upon, and on the walls hung some pretty artworks. Nothing of the calibre Evangeline had once owned, but they were nice, nonetheless.
There had been nobody to come and see her. No final, private goodbye before the cremation. And it was all silent in Evangeline’s final chamber. No noise, but the tick of a grandfather clock, haunting her to death.
It was as if the ticking stirred something inside her.
Evangeline Cullengate’s eyes opened.
“Good god,” she murmured, wiping the sleep dust away from her eyes. “I hope the next one is more spectacular than that.”
She swung her legs over the edge, and stood up. Although she had just woken up from the dead, nothing broke her usual, confident swagger, as she strode to check the notation on the door.
Evangeline laughed as she saw the paperwork. “Goodness. I’m glad I woke up before the cremation.”
Well. This chamber wasn’t the nicest place to do it. Evangeline fancied her office, right at the top of her building. So, she opened the doors, and made her way to the lift. On her way, she passed a morgue technician, and gave her a little wave. The morgue technician seemed to faint behind her.
Evangeline didn’t have time to stop, and probably wouldn’t stop anyway.
The lift was glass, and as it crawled up the building, she could see out over the Capitol. It was beautiful, all laid out beneath her. They were like dolls to her. They had always felt like nothing more than toys, and now, even more so. How wonderful, to see the city didn’t stop in the dead of night. In life, she’d always said that prosperity had no time for rest.
Evangeline strode out into her office, her heels clicking against the floor. Hugo and Edwin were asleep in their basket, and she didn’t desire to wake them. Wouldn’t want them injured. But she knelt down, and gave each a kiss on the top of the head.
“Good boys. Thank you.”
Evangeline watched her dogs, as she strode to the centre of the room. She stretched out her arms, as if she were ascending to heaven.
“Long live the Queen.”
It began.
Fire burst from her hands, and from her head, turning her body and soul and personality to ash. Within that, the new her would rise, like a phoenix, and take her place. A place that would hopefully be even more magnificent than before. Well, maybe not that magnificent.
Her new body was forming now, she could feel it, through the agony of her flesh melting and being completely relayed, like a wall being covered in plaster and retiled.
Actually. Maybe she would be that magnificent.
The process was finished. That age-old process of the Time Lords, that they called regeneration. The age-old process of her people – the people she despised.
Evangeline took a deep breath, and suddenly it was over.
There was a new her. She strode to the balcony, and stepped out into the coldness of the night. As she walked again, a living person, she was reminded of what a God she was to these little people.
“And long may I reign.”
Of course, normal procedure was followed to the letter. Thankfully, because the murder had occurred in private, it was possible for the aides to cover it up. Which of course, they would. There was no going back now. They had come so far to get into power, there was no way they were going to let it drop. The plan between Cullengate’s team was to not announce the death, and continue ruling themselves, using Evangeline as a puppet, as if she were still alive. It would be very easy to arrange. Rulers rarely made public appearances nowadays. A bit of media cover-up would do the job perfectly.
The night it all happened was the night her body was lying, ready for the cremation. She was dressed in her best blue suit, with her pearls. It would be a private ceremony. A very private ceremony. Only a few of her closest advisors, and Hugo and Edwin, the dogs.
The chamber she waited in, before her final journey, had been constructed beneath her Prime Ministerial building, just in case any tragic circumstances befell her in office. It was a good thing they had been constructed.
They were decorated with great precision. Evangeline always lived her life in perfect order, and so it was fitting the same should go for her death. Vases of perfectly kept flowers were positioned at the four corners of the altar-like bed she lay upon, and on the walls hung some pretty artworks. Nothing of the calibre Evangeline had once owned, but they were nice, nonetheless.
There had been nobody to come and see her. No final, private goodbye before the cremation. And it was all silent in Evangeline’s final chamber. No noise, but the tick of a grandfather clock, haunting her to death.
It was as if the ticking stirred something inside her.
Evangeline Cullengate’s eyes opened.
“Good god,” she murmured, wiping the sleep dust away from her eyes. “I hope the next one is more spectacular than that.”
She swung her legs over the edge, and stood up. Although she had just woken up from the dead, nothing broke her usual, confident swagger, as she strode to check the notation on the door.
Evangeline laughed as she saw the paperwork. “Goodness. I’m glad I woke up before the cremation.”
Well. This chamber wasn’t the nicest place to do it. Evangeline fancied her office, right at the top of her building. So, she opened the doors, and made her way to the lift. On her way, she passed a morgue technician, and gave her a little wave. The morgue technician seemed to faint behind her.
Evangeline didn’t have time to stop, and probably wouldn’t stop anyway.
The lift was glass, and as it crawled up the building, she could see out over the Capitol. It was beautiful, all laid out beneath her. They were like dolls to her. They had always felt like nothing more than toys, and now, even more so. How wonderful, to see the city didn’t stop in the dead of night. In life, she’d always said that prosperity had no time for rest.
Evangeline strode out into her office, her heels clicking against the floor. Hugo and Edwin were asleep in their basket, and she didn’t desire to wake them. Wouldn’t want them injured. But she knelt down, and gave each a kiss on the top of the head.
“Good boys. Thank you.”
Evangeline watched her dogs, as she strode to the centre of the room. She stretched out her arms, as if she were ascending to heaven.
“Long live the Queen.”
It began.
Fire burst from her hands, and from her head, turning her body and soul and personality to ash. Within that, the new her would rise, like a phoenix, and take her place. A place that would hopefully be even more magnificent than before. Well, maybe not that magnificent.
Her new body was forming now, she could feel it, through the agony of her flesh melting and being completely relayed, like a wall being covered in plaster and retiled.
Actually. Maybe she would be that magnificent.
The process was finished. That age-old process of the Time Lords, that they called regeneration. The age-old process of her people – the people she despised.
Evangeline took a deep breath, and suddenly it was over.
There was a new her. She strode to the balcony, and stepped out into the coldness of the night. As she walked again, a living person, she was reminded of what a God she was to these little people.
“And long may I reign.”
INTRODUCING
MARGOT ROBBIE
AS EVANGELINE ix
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