Doctor Who_ Return Of The Living Dad Part 11

Benny looked at Chris and Roz, sitting together across the booth.

'I'm worried about the timing,' said Roz. 'We turn up, and almost immediately they're missing an alien.'

No, thought Benny, trying not to smile at the pair of them.

They couldn't be.

The Doctor frowned, looking into his cup as though trying to read the tea leaves. 'I rather think Isaac's worried about the timing as well.'

'Yeah, but what I mean is, have we done or changed anything that might've caused this?'

'We have to find her,' said Chris. 'Show them that we're on their side.'

'I've been thinking.' The Doctor pushed his tea to one side. 'Perhaps I should go away for a little while.'

'What?' said Chris. 'Where?'

'Isaac can't relax while I'm here,' he said. 'Perhaps I should give him and Benny a little time to get to know one another.'

Benny put her arms over his shoulders and hugged him from behind. 'Of course not. We have to help them now that we're here. Besides, I want you two to get along.'

Chris jabbed a finger at Jason in a not very subtle gesture. Benny looked over to where her husband was glumly pouring himself and Albinex another drink. She sighed, and changed tables again.

'I've been part of the operation since the beginning, I'm proud to say.' Albinex was diminutive and fas.h.i.+onable, his hair gel intact despite the rain. 'The Tisiphone Tisiphone caused a few interesting radar blips, but for the most part, their arrival went unnoticed. Except by me. I'd been watching for new arrivals ever since I crashed here in the fifties.' caused a few interesting radar blips, but for the most part, their arrival went unnoticed. Except by me. I'd been watching for new arrivals ever since I crashed here in the fifties.'

Benny sat down and picked up the bottle, pouring some of the whisky into her empty coffee mug. 'They must have been in a state.'

'The Admiral was as cool as ice. The others were in shock. He still does that in an emergency, just switches it all off and gets on with the job.' Albinex took a mouthful of whisky. 'They ended up piling into my van, and I drove them back to my flat in Ammanford. Beilby died two days later, insisting they didn't take him to a hospital.'

'How did Little Caldwell begin?'

'At first it was a library in Llanelli. Then it was a centre for the homeless in London. Those were good years, the late sixties and early seventies. Busy years, too. While UNIT was mopping up the invasions, we were mopping up after UNIT.'

'Albinex,' called Isaac, from across the room.

'Sir.' Albinex got up. 'Excuse me.'

Jason and Benny sat opposite each other for a few moments, Jason toying with his gla.s.s.

'Wish you wouldn't do that,' he said.

'What?'

'You know what I mean. What does my body language tell you, then? That I'm jealous of your father?'

Benny sat back. If anyone had heard, they were politely pretending they hadn't. 'I wasn't trying to read you,' she said.

'Actually, I was just thinking -'

'Can I just talk about it?' said Jason. 'Can I just talk and you listen?'

Benny swallowed hard and said, 'Let's go outside, then.'

Outside it was raining fiercely onto the awning, a wide puddle forming in the gutter. Jason stood with his hands in his pockets, staring into the near-darkness. Benny folded her arms and waited.

'I've been looking into myself. You know?' he said, eventually. 'And I think I've always been jealous of him, right from the start.'

'Jealous of my dad?'

'When you used to talk about him, I could hear this terrible... all your life you'd been walking around like a jigsaw puzzle missing one piece. I wanted to go and find him and bring him back for you, and make everything all right.'

Benny glanced back at the shop. The hologram made it look empty and dark. Jason said, 'It was bad enough having to hear about the Doctor all the time. But at least I could do stuff with you the Doctor couldn't do.' Benny smiled sadly and held Jason's coat lapel in her fingers. 'But how could I compete with this mythical other man? And now we actually find him, and he's doing -' he gestured around him '-- this.

He's a hero.'

Benny looked at him. 'I promised you I'd back you up, no matter what, and I meant it. But how can I compete with that?'

She walked up to him, grabbed hold of his ears, and angrily kissed him. Jason made a surprised noise.

'You get back in there,' she said, 'and you talk to him like a human being. That's all he is, a human being.'

'I thought you'd be furious,' he said.

'This isn't a compet.i.tion.' She kissed him again. 'I want you to like one another. Go on, get in there.'

'What about you?'

Benny sighed. 'I need a bit of fresh air.'

Jacqui didn't like the Friday evenings. Usually she stayed at the peace camp, sitting around the fire with the others, playing her recorder. But this time she thought it would be a good idea to come back to Little Caldwell, help with searching or something. She had spent a little bit of time tidying up in the cottage she shared with Ms Randrianasolo and the Bannerman. The poor alien left things all over the place, not because he meant to, but because he just forgot about them. He was stone deaf, too, so you couldn't ask him where he'd left things. When she was finally finished, she switched off all the lights and locked the front door.

It was raining steadily, making a soothing, drumming noise on her umbrella. She sloshed through the puddles in her wellies, humming to herself. It would be her thirty-fifth birthday in two days.

Someone was standing outside the Pyramid, watching the rain come down. As Jacqui got closer, she could see it was Bernice Summerfield. There was a hologram up, making the shop look empty. She didn't know why they bothered with that. Mr Sullivan the postman went home to Newbury at night, and it wasn't as if anyone was going to come here in weather like this.

Bernice had noticed her. 'h.e.l.lo,' she said.

'You're getting wet,' said Jacqui. She thought her voice always sounded tiny and rusty, like a bit of machinery that hadn't been used for a while.

'I just needed to get outside for a bit,' said Bernice, scooping sodden hair out of her eyes. The shop's rolled-up awning didn't offer much protection.

Jacqui waited to see if she was going to say anything more. 'I'm caught between three men,' said the Admiral's daughter, at length. 'I don't believe this - we've only been here one day.'

Jacqui nodded seriously. 'Do you feel as though it's all going a bit fast for you?'

'It was always like this.'

'Travelling with him?'

Bernice looked down at her. 'We're lightning rods,' she said wearily. 'The Doctor and the Summerfields. Whatever's started here, it's not going to get easier: it's going to get harder. More complicated instead of simpler.'

'Lightning rods,' said Jacqui.

'I'm sorry,' said Bernice. 'You must be freezing down there. Let's go inside.'

Jacqui shook her head. 'I'm all right. It's my birthday in two days.'

'Well, happy birthday for Thursday.'

'Thank you.'

Jacqui turned around and went back down the street, the rain pouring from the rim of her umbrella. Perhaps the Admiral's daughter watched her go.

The clock over the sink chimed softly. Quarter to midnight.

Isaac pulled the plug out, found himself watching the suds go down the drain.

The Doctor and Jason had moodily volunteered to do all the was.h.i.+ng up, probably at Benny's insistence. But the final tidy-up was the Admiral's job - making sure everything was in its place. Even if one of the cups had been broken during the day, even if it couldn't be saved with a drop of glue, it made him feel right to know know.

Cups broke without warning, of course. You didn't look at each cup and think about the day it must inevitably break.

There were other times, much worse times, when you could look back afterwards and see all the little warning signs you'd missed. Like when Beilby had started to sniffle. Ms Randrianasolo had laughed and said it was the ancient pollen, that he had hay fever.

A tiny cloud on the horizon in the morning, a storm at night. Now, sometimes, when they had a bit of bad luck, Isaac wondered if someday he would look back on this tiny caveat.

There was a footstep on the stairs. Isaac looked up from his reverie, realized he was holding a teacup, put it carefully back into the cupboard.

'What were you thinking about?' asked Bernice.

'A storm in a teacup,' he said, with a small smile.

'Couldn't You sleep?'

She leant on the counter. G.o.d, she looked like Claire.

But in the warm light, her eyes were a hundred years old.

What had she been through? What had he done to her?

'Do you really think you're going to have to pack up and leave?' she said.

Isaac frowned. He got out a cloth and wiped down the counter again. Benny stood back.

'We can't know unless we find Ia Jareshth,' he said. 'Or something else happens. Rashly deciding to leave could be worse than staying put.'

'It would be terrible if you had to leave after all this time,'

said Benny. Well, how could he reply to that? 'Listen...'

He yawned, loudly. 'That's enough for one night,' he said. 'We can't do anything until the morning, and we'll be no use to anyone if we're not rested.'

'You haven't asked me once about Mum,' she said.

Isaac closed his eyes. His fingers curled around the damp cloth. 'Your mother also had a very direct way of speaking.'

There was a long silence. He could hear the soft sound of the dishwasher, the drumming of the rain. Benny took a breath as though to say something more.

'There is a reason,' he said.

She was looking at him with big, frightened eyes, teeth pressed into her lower lip. Suddenly she was seven years old, afraid to tell him that she'd broken his favourite mug, not so much because she might be punished but because she couldn't stand the idea of his being upset.

But she had asked him point blank, and he was going to have to tell her.

'I haven't asked because I don't want to know. I don't want to know whether she's alive or dead, because if she is alive I'll want to go back to her and if she's dead I'll want to go back and save her.'

He continued before she could say anything. 'You might be thinking, "He doesn't want to damage the timelines," which would of course be very n.o.ble. No. Claire is not going to be a bargaining chip in this.'

Like the seven-year-old who had been so bright, so quick, she said, 'You don't want to have to ask the Doctor for anything.'

Isaac shook his head firmly.

He couldn't read her expression. Disgust, perhaps, that he still didn't trust the Doctor. Didn't trust her, by implication.

There was so much he wanted to tell her, to fill up that silence. But he couldn't. It was too soon. It might always be too soon.

After a few moments, she said, 'Actually, I thought perhaps you and Ms Randrianasolo -'

He smiled again. 'No.'