Doctor Who_ Loving The Alien Part 2

A puzzled muttering around the room. All eyes turned to Davey O'Brien. He was as pale as a ghost.

'I don't understand,' said Drakefell. 'Please repeat.'

'Captain O'Brien here, sir. I didn't think I was going to make it.'

13.

Chapter Two.

Inside the fantastic multicoloured corridor of the Time Vortex, the TARDIS a dull blue brick twisted and spun as if thrown. Not that it was without direction. No. It knew exactly where it was going. The exact planet, the exact country, the exact year, the exact month, the exact day.

The landing position programmed down to the last millimetre.

But it had been told to wait. And so it waited, its holding pattern a complex Mobius-strip path through now and then, between here and there, across possibility and actuality.

It was impossible to tell how long it had waited how do you measure time outside time? It flickered in and out of reality, realigning itself with the s.p.a.ce/time curve, taking readings, picking fragments of history from the ether and shunting them through to the telepathic circuits for retrieval at a later date.

Inside the s.h.i.+p, in the impossibly huge control room, the time rotor rose and fell, keeping the rhythm like a metronome. Complex systems constantly monitored the internal configuration, keeping the structure contiguous where its pa.s.sengers were residing, reconfiguring the rest of the s.h.i.+p as necessary.

Lights flickered on the hexagonal control column in response to a comment by one of its occupants that it was 'b.l.o.o.d.y cold in here'. The TARDIS raised the mean temperature in the pool area by eight degrees whilst still maintaining the specific temperature requirements in the rest of the s.h.i.+p as instructed by its other occupant.

He was concerned. The symbiotic relations.h.i.+p between s.h.i.+p and owner was a delicately balanced thing, and the TARDIS could sense it.

Events waited to be set in motion, waited until the Doctor was ready.

Setting another nonsensical path through the vortex, the TARDIS marked time.

Ace floated in the warm waters of the TARDIS swimming pool, or the bathroom as the Doctor insisted on calling it.

It was crazy. An Olympic-sized pool, but with all the trappings of a council house bathroom. A small Formica cabinet with mirrored doors was bolted to one wall (Ace meant to check out the small, delicate 14 gla.s.s bottles that lurked inside), a wire rack filled with bath oils and a loofah hung in the shallow end and an entire flock of bright yellow plastic ducks bobbed and swirled around her. By contrast, the poolside was littered with white plastic loungers, wicker furniture piled high with huge soft towels and plants from a dozen different planets. Ace had never been sure how they got watered. The Doctor had never struck her as the green-fingered type.

She struck out for the deep end with long powerful strokes, muscles starting to ache pleasantly from her swim. The last couple of weeks had been remarkably quiet and she was starting to get out of condition.

Not that she was going to complain. The Doctor had gone out of his way to make life as stress-free as possible. No alien worlds to save, no monsters to fight. In fact the last few weeks had been everything that she had hoped travelling with the Doctor would be.

After Blini-Gaar, after everything that they had both been through with Vogol Lukos and Channel 4001, he had been quiet and withdrawn, and Ace had begun to get seriously worried about him; even the mood of the s.h.i.+p had started to become sombre. Dull day followed dull day as the Doctor dragged her off to one faceless, nameless planet after another.

And then they had landed at Heritage.2 Ace hauled herself out of the pool and pulled a towel from one of the wicker tables. She slumped down on a lounger and started drying her hair.

When it had all started Ace had been quite looking forward to it. A mystery to solve, an adventure to have. She should have known that something was wrong, but her guard was down. She had been bored and the little signs that she might otherwise have noticed had slipped past her. The Doctor had landed there with too much knowledge, as usual, but even he had been shocked by what they found.

Mel dead.

Poor trusting Mel. A do-gooder always seeing the best in people. So trusting that she had left the Doctor and headed out into the void with Sabalom Glitz without a moment's hesitation. Ready to take on the universe.

Ace's room in the TARDIS still showed signs of Mel's occupancy.

Childish trinkets that Ace had tucked away in the back of a cupboard.

All except one. All except a battered menu from the Shangri La Holiday Camp that Ace kept pinned to her noticeboard as a reminder.

A reminder that she was not the first. That she was the latest in a long 1 See Doctor Who: Prime Time Doctor Who: Prime Time 2 See Doctor Who: Heritage Doctor Who: Heritage 15.line of the Doctor's travelling companions. A reminder that nothing lasts forever.

After Heritage the Doctor had been lower than Ace had ever known him. She had barely seen him, a sometimes-glimpsed figure flitting through the darkened corridors, an occasional half smile thrown at her from across the control room as his hands danced in complex rhythms across the controls.

Then one day he had bounced into the control room with his infectious crooked smile on his face and announced that they were 'having a couple of weeks off'.

Since then they had been on a delightful, magical, impossible impossible switchback tour of all the good places in time and s.p.a.ce. They'd celebrated New Year at a dozen points in a dozen planets' histories, he'd taken her to a royal wedding on a planet entirely populated by giant b.u.t.terflies, they'd hidden on the moon watching as Neil Armstrong took his first steps the Doctor keeping her in st.i.tches as he whistled like a Clanger. For a week they'd hiked through mountains on the planet Kriss, their sherpas the gentlest, kindest, funniest aliens that Ace had ever met, he'd bought her candyfloss at the Twelve Planet Fair while he entered the juggling contest, and they'd been to Live Aid. switchback tour of all the good places in time and s.p.a.ce. They'd celebrated New Year at a dozen points in a dozen planets' histories, he'd taken her to a royal wedding on a planet entirely populated by giant b.u.t.terflies, they'd hidden on the moon watching as Neil Armstrong took his first steps the Doctor keeping her in st.i.tches as he whistled like a Clanger. For a week they'd hiked through mountains on the planet Kriss, their sherpas the gentlest, kindest, funniest aliens that Ace had ever met, he'd bought her candyfloss at the Twelve Planet Fair while he entered the juggling contest, and they'd been to Live Aid.

The two of them had never got on better and Ace had loved it.

And then they had landed at Woodstock.

At first everything had been fine. Ace still had a Polaroid of the Doctor from that day ludicrous in his long wig and ankle-length kaftan, weighed down with beads, both hands raised in peace signs.

But then she'd met Gavin and his friends hippies from Canada.

They'd hit it off and one night she had slipped away from the Doctor, lost herself in the crowd and spent the night in Gavin's tent.

The following morning the Doctor had found her, and Ace had never seen him so angry. He had practically dragged her back to the TARDIS and since then they had hardly spoken.

On several nights she had woken, sure that she had heard the familiar grind of the TARDIS's materialisation, but if they ever had landed anywhere then, the Doctor never acknowledged it.

He spent much of his time in a room deep in the bowels of the s.h.i.+p.

Ace had followed him there once, hiding in the shadows watching as the Doctor unlocked a heavy door with an ornate key, checking over his shoulder before he did so, furtive and on edge.

That had made Ace uneasy. For the Doctor to be jumpy and nervous inside his own s.h.i.+p... She had planned to try to sneak back to that room when the Doctor wasn't looking, to see what secrets he was keeping, but something about his manner frightened her and she wasn't sure that 16 she wanted to see inside that room anymore.

She s.h.i.+vered and pulled the towel tight about her.

'I thought I told you to put some heat on!' she bellowed.

In the absence of the Doctor she had been venting her frustration on the TARDIS. Pointless, she knew, but it made her feel better. Suddenly the shadows inside the s.h.i.+p had started to seem a little bit darker, the echoes a little more distant.

Whatever it was that was going on, she wished that it would be over soon.

Deep in the bowels of the time s.h.i.+p the Doctor sat back, exhausted, and took a deep breath.

He stripped the latex surgical gloves from his hands and let them drop into a stainless steel bin, trying not to look at the blood.

It was over.

He rubbed at his forehead. He was tired and starting to feel his age, and at over 800 years old that wasn't a good thing.

Across the other side of the room the body lay under a dark green surgical sheet. Ace's body. Not the body of an old woman, not a shrivelled corpse, but young, as she was now, and if he had any thoughts that she had died of natural causes, the bullet hole in her forehead had put paid to them.

The bullet itself sat in a stainless steel tray on the trolley in front of him. The Doctor leant forward and picked it out, holding it in front of his face. Such a simple thing. Such an easy way of killing someone.

The powder burns on Ace's forehead meant that the gun had been close to her head when it had been fired. She had looked her killer in the eye as he ended her life. The bullet had torn through her brain and blasted out of the back of her skull.

When he had first found the body, when he had first dug the coffin out of the graveyard in the East End, the Doctor had painfully accepted that another death lay at his feet. There was nothing that he could do.

His people had laws. Time had boundaries. Ace was dead. She would die, and he was powerless to stop it.

He had nearly given it all up at that moment. Nearly taken her back to Iceworld and left her, a billion pa.r.s.ecs and a thousand years from her death. Safe in the future.

Finding Mel had changed all that. Then he had realised that just abandoning her would kill her as certainly as that gunshot.

When he had first heard the rumours of the death of one of his travelling companions he had accepted the inevitable, blind to the fact that Heritage was the wrong place in the wrong time. Mel dead. And 17 Ace was next...

That had forced him to do something.

And so he had indulged her, as an uncle might indulge a favourite niece. He made sure that she was happy and entertained, kept her as far from the circ.u.mstances of her death as he could take her. By pus.h.i.+ng the fact of her death to the very back of his mind he had tried to ignore the inevitable, tried to cheat death.

Losing her for nearly twelve hours at Woodstock had made him realise how powerless he was to protect her. He could ignore things no longer.

A furtive trip to the British Library had revealed the date of her death a young girl's body fished from the Thames. The papers littered the Doctor's secret surgery. Papers, maps, police reports.

He had unlocked the room where Ace lay and made himself confront the reality of her death. He had a head start, an advantage over time.

The tag on her toe was from St Thomas's Hospital.

Cutting open the body of his friend had been hard. Slicing into her lifeless corpse when she was still moving about the s.h.i.+p above him, laughing and shouting and alive.

He had tried to imagine her last days. A tattoo was emblazoned across her shoulder blade a heart and crossbones, the legend 'Ace and Jimmy, 1959' underneath.

A livid bruise, just underneath the breastbone, the shape and size of a fist.

He had opened her stomach. The last thing she had eaten appeared to be a toffee-apple.

And there was something else. Chains of small contusions on her neck, shoulders and b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Colloquially known as love bites. And...

other, deeper evidence. Just hours before her death, she had had s.e.x.

Ace looked up in surprise at the knock on her door.

'Come in.'

The Doctor's tousled head appeared, his expression puckish.

'Are you decent?'

Ace tugged her towel up a bit. 'Just about.'

The Doctor pushed open the door with his foot, her bomber jacket bundled up in his arms. 'I had a few moments, so I thought that I'd do some repairs.' He held it out proudly. 'You were coming apart at the seams.'

'It has been said.' Ace took it from him and dumped it unceremoniously onto the mess of clothes on her bed. She looked at him quizzically.

'Are you OK? I've been worried about you.'

The Doctor played with his tie, looking embarra.s.sed.

'No, no, no. I'm fine. Just busy. Things to do. Housekeeping.'

18.Ace nodded slowly. Housekeeping? 'Right, Professor.'

He seemed about to say something else, then seemed to think better of it and turned on his heel. At the doorway he stopped.

'I was wondering...'

'Yes?' Ace c.o.c.ked her head on one side.

'Well, now that I've repaired your jacket, it seems a shame not to give it an outing. To see if it's still waterproof. Fancy a little trip?'

He was looking over his shoulder at her, his grey eyes wide and expectant.

Ace smiled. 'That would be great, Doctor.'

'Good' He vanished back into the corridor. 'I'll see you in the console room in ten minutes.'

Ace gave a deep heartfelt sigh. The pause in their lifestyle was over; Whatever it was that was going on, the Doctor had decided to involve her again. Distantly the harsh, discordant grind of the TARDIS engines stalled to echo around the corridors.

She hopped from the bed and started to haul on her jeans.

They were landing.

Ignoring the protests of his wife, Arthur Baulstrode shrugged himself into his grimy old army coat, pulled his knitted hat over his ears and stepped out into his garden.

Arthur was proud of his garden. Since his retirement barely a day had gone by without him potting or pruning, tending to his rockery, or cutting back his climbers. But the end of the summer had been a bad one, torrential rain and howling wind, and it hadn't let up. Not through September, not through October. Only now had the weather turned dry enough for him to get out and tend to things. He tutted to himself. The lawn was looking shabby. It had needed a last cut before winter had set in. No chance of that now Everything was still sodden despite two dry days.

Arthur didn't like the winter. Oh, he tried to keep himself busy with house plants and his greenhouse, but it was never the same as being outside, the sun on his back, the soil under his fingers.

And it got him away from his wife.

'Don't you go catching your death now, Arthur Baulstrode.' She was watching him from the kitchen window. She'd be frowning. He knew that without looking. She was always frowning. He even had a photo taken on their wedding day when she was frowning. Some baby with chocolate all over its mouth that she thought was unsightly.

'Yes, dear.'

'And don't you come back in treading mud all over my kitchen floor!'

'No, dear.'