FEED CONNECTING
FEED CONNECTED
FEED STABLE
IF YOU EXPERIENCE ANY SPLIT INFINITIVES, PLEASE DON’T PANIC, IT’S A STUPID RULE ANYWAY.
Oh dear, I suppose I was a little bit naughty there, telling you that the previous chapter wasn’t written by the Doctor. But, you see, it wasn’t—at that time his life, he had abandoned both the name and the philosophies and ideals he had come to associate with it. Of course, everyone largely ignored his decision. In some ways you could say he ignored it himself, but we’ll come to that in later—or earlier—chapters.
On the subject of chapters, I’ve been receiving a lot of complaints about the content of Chapter Nine. Look, I did warn you about the dangers of reading an out-of-sequence book, recounting out-of-sequence events, out of sequence, so you really only have yourselves to blame. Please remain calm and remember that this is the simple story of one adventure that happened to one man, several times, in the wrong order. Oops, that sentence got away from me. Never mind, best to hold tight and do as you’re told. And stay away from Chapter Nine until you are specifically told otherwise. To repeat: there is a reason why Chapter Nine is not listed on the contents page.
So with that in mind, let us now proceed to Chapter Ten, where we will rejoin the Doctor at another, very different, point in his complex life. Here we find him long after the Time War, but considerably before his summons to the National Gallery. Authorship remains your challenge, but let me clarify one thing from the very outset: this chapter is again written by the Doctor, in his usual third-person style. However, as you all know, the Doctor is not one person, but through the miracle of regeneration, many very different people. So the question is not ‘Who wrote this?’ but ‘Which Doctor wrote this?’
These next few pages cover much material that is contentious, and even salacious, so it won’t come as a surprise to any of you to know that the title is: The Love of the Doctor.
The Doctor shrugged, as best he could in the circumstances. ‘I should have come to you first,’ he admitted, ‘but Professor Candy knew all about the hives, and I’d managed to translate the migration protocols anyway, and well … Look, I’m never quite sure, with you, whether you’re going to … you know … stick to the subject. The matter in hand. Not get all distracted.’
‘Well I hope I’ve managed to settle your mind on that point,’ said River Song from the other end of the bath.
‘Not entirely,’ admitted the Doctor.
‘Is the water warm enough, by the way?’
‘Yeah, lovely and warm, thanks.’
‘Oh good! Maybe you could slip off your suit then?’
‘No, no, I’m fine.’
‘Or even your shoes.’
‘I can’t, my toes prune.’
‘How about your coat?’
‘I’m always worried I’ll leave it behind somewhere.’
‘One lives in hope,’ said River sweetly, and the Doctor wondered if she was teasing him again, in that way he always missed at the time. ‘We could get rid of those awful plimsolls while we’re at it.’
‘So,’ he persisted, ‘Zygons. There’s a whole nest out there on the run, and I’ve lost track of them …’
‘Shape-shifters are always tricky. You should try dating them.’
‘Have you?’
‘Jealous?’
‘Well, no, I’ve never wanted to be a shape-shifter.’
‘Says the man with all the faces.’
The Doctor frowned. How many of his faces had she seen? He’d only met her fairly recently, but she had known so many future versions of him. They were conducting their—what?—friendship?—in reverse order to each other: she’d known him for many years, but from his point of view, they had barely met. It was the hazard of a relationship between time travellers. Who was he to her? Who would she become to him? She already knew it all and he was making his slow way to discovering what she had already lived through. But he did so freighted with a memory that grew darker and heavier behind him, till its shadow now spilled over the road ahead: the first time they’d met, in a long-abandoned library, battling the Vashta Nerada, he had watched her burn and die.1 At the time it had been the death of a stranger, and he could hardly mourn the loss of someone he had barely met. But since then he had bumped into younger versions of her a couple of times. Inevitably they’d grown closer—now, here they were, sitting in a bath together—and the memory of her death was hurting more than it had in the moment. How much more would it hurt, as he made his way into a future that was already her past? No more, he thought. He should avoid her from now on. The future wasn’t written yet, not for him. Maybe, by avoiding her, he could divert her from the deadly path she didn’t know she was taking.
‘You really mustn’t frown,’ she was saying. ‘You simply have no idea where those eyebrows are going.’
‘I am interested in Zygons,’ he said, as sternly as anyone could, fully dressed in a bath with a beautiful archaeologist. ‘In particular, the missing hive, of the Under Wave. I know you’ve tracked Zygons before, you’re even an expert on the subject—’
‘They’re on Earth, as you suspected,’ she said. ‘A time eddy knocked them back a few centuries, but that’s where you’ll find them.’
‘Big planet, long history, I’ll need a bit more—’
‘All the information you need is already in the TARDIS databank.’
‘No, it isn’t!’
‘Yes, it is, I uploaded it myself before I got in the bath.’
‘Well, why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I suppose I was hoping you might take your coat off.’
He was already climbing out of the water. ‘Thanks, River, I owe you,’ he said. And in return, he thought, I’ll make sure I never see you again, so maybe there’s a chance you’ll live happily ever after. And then he frowned, because there was a bottle of champagne rattling in an ice bucket, which definitely hadn’t been sitting on the side of the bath a moment ago.
‘I was hoping,’ said River, reaching for the bottle, ‘that you might stay just a little longer.’ There was a sound like a pistol shot, and a cork shaved past his ear. He sighed, partly because she always did that, but also because River Song always insisted on looking so alive.
It had been dark and cold that deep beneath The Library, and it should’ve been the Doctor not River, who died to save them all. But she’d got the better of him, and taken his place, and then had burned to death, screaming, right in front him. He couldn’t stop seeing it, and the pain got fiercer every time she smiled. It was, he reflected, as she poured the champagne, quite a smile. How many more smiles would there be? How much more painful would it get? Time can be rewritten, he reminded himself. Perhaps her future could be avoided, her death averted, if he just stayed away. And anyway, there were rogue Zygons to chase, a planet to save. He was still the Doctor after all—he had taken back the name, and it came with responsibilities. It was difficult, with that smile filling the room, but he reached a decision, and he knew she could see it in his face. He smiled back at her, and leaned in to give her a peck on the cheek, before leaving as quickly as he was able to, a little under seven hours later.
The note she’d left on the TARDIS console directed him to England 1562, and the Royal Court. Zygons always made a beeline for the nearest power structure, she explained, as it was where their shape-shifting abilities had the most immediate advantage. She recommended he infiltrate the court—‘As a noble, please, you’re utterly hopeless at being a servant. Except when you’re with me, obviously’—and try to work out if anyone had been replaced by a Zygon. ‘Normally you can tell by their breath, but they’ll be well camouflaged in that century—honestly, it’s like living inside cheese. So you’ll need to build some sort of detector, I would think. One of your lovely gadgets will do the trick. Try not to get carried away with the apps, you don’t need to download comics from the future, or anything.’ She ended by apologising for not coming with him. ‘Don’t be cross, I have a date. Well, not a date, a job. The Felman Lux Corporation want me to go and unseal some giant library somewhere. “Get a Kindle,” I told them, but they kept asking and it might be fun. I’ll buzz you on the psychic paper if anything kicks off. Unless that’s all already happened for you. Spoilers!’ she signed off, and he imagined her saying it. Then he sat on the TARDIS floor, leaning his back against the console and spent an hour resisting the brandy in the cabinet. He’d meet her again, of course. And again, and again, and the shadow of the past would lengthen over him. He had to avoid her, it was as simple as that; resist every invitation, ignore every summons, turn and walk away every time he saw her across a room; rewrite her future, without him in it, for her sake. He was on his feet now, slamming the controls, harder than he needed to. Because they all died, he knew that, if he knew anything. Died in fire, like Cass, or in sickness like Reinette. Or in a single act of unforgivable violence, like all those millions of children on Gallifrey when he had allowed himself to believe there was any such thing as the greater good. The shadow behind him wasn’t just River, he knew; it wasn’t just anyone; it was all of them. All the screaming the Doctor could never outrun. ‘All those children,’ he thought. How many more would he have to save, before he could convince himself he’d been justified?
He remembered the night he’d rampaged round the TARDIS, destroying every mirror he could find. Whatever face he happened to be wearing, he’d been absolutely sure he never wanted to look at it again. One face later, he hadn’t changed his mind.
He spun the TARDIS into the time vortex, and he stared into the scalding light of the central column. He had to stop thinking before it tore him apart! What he needed, right now, was trouble.
Several weeks later, Elizabeth tilted back her head, as if to be kissed, and asked, ‘Why am I wasting my time on you, Doctor? I have wars to plan.’
‘You have a picnic to eat,’ he replied, and popped a grape in her mouth to divert her from any other ideas. The day was beautiful, the picnic was sumptuous and, apart from Alison, tethered to a tree a few feet behind them, he was alone with the Queen at last. The bees were humming, the sky was blue, and even the sway of the grass in the light breeze seemed unusually tranquil—in fact, if it hadn’t been for the Zygon detector buzzing silently in his pocket, he might have forgotten that he was about to unmask an alien mastermind and would-be conqueror of the Earth.
‘Wars don’t happen by themselves,’ she was saying. ‘You could help me.’
‘I’m helping you eat the picnic.’
‘But you have a stomach for war.’ Her face was still tilted back below his, as they reclined together on the rug, and now her hand was on his cheek. ‘This face has seen conflict,’ she said, studying him with a tender frown. ‘It’s clear as day.’
‘I’ve seen conflict like you wouldn’t believe,’ he told her. ‘But it wasn’t this face.’ And there it was, he thought, exultant. Nothing! No reaction at all, not even a flicker. He was right!
‘Did you win?’ she asked him.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘I lived.’ Enough! he thought. Time to get to work! He scrambled to his feet. ‘But never mind that, your Majesty,’ he said, grabbing her hand to pull her up with him. ‘On your feet!’
‘I’m sorry?’ she said, clearly intending to express affront, but only achieving something between a squeal and a giggle.
‘Get up!’ he ordered. ‘Stand! Now, please!’
‘I’m the Queen of England,’ she reminded him, very nearly without laughing.
‘I’m not English,’ he said.
She made a show of reluctance, as she clambered to her feet, but it wasn’t very convincing. As soon as she was standing, he dropped to one knee, and took her hand reverently in his.
‘Elizabeth,’ he said, ‘will you marry me?’
She looked down at him, in genuine shock, and for a moment the future of all humanity hung in the balance.
Inveigling himself into the Royal Court had been easy. He hadn’t even bothered dressing the part (tight suit and Converse, unimprovable!), and he’d adopted an alias which changed slightly every day, because he could never quite remember it. The first principles of going undercover, he’d always said, were fitting in as badly as possible, and drawing as much attention to yourself as you could, because those were exactly the things that spies never did. No one was ever stupid enough to suspect an attention-seeking clown of espionage. It also helped to throw around blatant anachronisms every few seconds, since the only people who could recognise them as such weren’t supposed to be there either, and those were probably the ones you were looking for. ‘There’s no such thing as average,’ he’d once explained to a female wrestler on a foggy London night, ‘so anyone who seems average is almost certainly acting, which is why I can spot a spy the moment they walk in the room.’ Sadly the wrestler had turned out to be a spy, and he’d spent the rest of the night handcuffed to a streetlamp in East Cheam, but he felt the general point remained sound. And anyway, she was basically nice, and had even posted his sonic screwdriver back to him the next day, along with his trousers.
Contact with the Queen herself had taken longer, but not much. That she was a remarkable woman was obvious immediately. She ruled her court, and her land, with diamond-sharp efficiency, and a ruthlessness that put the High Council of Gallifrey in the shade, but it was in her personal relations that her true power became apparent. At a distance, she blazed. Up close she twinkled. The first day he’d seen her, sweeping through the halls, surrounded by a fluster of courtiers, he’d mistaken her for tall and imperious, but when his antics at court drew her attention, and he found himself summoned to her presence, the woman patting the cushion next to her was smaller than he expected, bubbling with mischief and laughter, and there wasn’t a hint of reserve or calculation in her merry eyes as she took his hand and explained that he was obviously a spy and she intended to have him tortured for information and executed. ‘Well, better get it in the right order then,’ he said, and they shared their first laugh together, as the Duke of Norfolk beat him to the ground.
She was his only regular visitor during the months of his incarceration, and though she always arrived trying to look stern, she was quickly reduced to squeals and giggles by his stories, and increasingly, so was the torturer. ‘Stop it, stop it!’ he’d say, leaning against the crank handle and wiping his eyes through his hood.
‘Me stop it? Me?’ said the Doctor, his eyes wide with comedy outrage, and they all grew so helpless with laughter, the team from the next torture chamber started popping their heads round the door in puzzlement, which only set them off again.
Sometimes, he was able to use his big sad eyes (his best pair yet, and his first brown ones) to good effect, and she started opening up to him, recounting tales of her childhood, and all the loves she had forsaken in the name of duty. Once she was telling him a story of such intimacy and evident truth, that the torturer had asked if they wanted to be alone. ‘No, no,’ she’d flustered, embarrassed, ‘you carry on.’
He found himself looking forward to their sessions together, despite the constant screaming.
She was often busy, of course, and sometimes weeks would go by with no visits, and given the Zygon situation, he couldn’t help worrying. So after a gap of several months, he was relieved to see her, pink and happy and waving at him, as he mounted the scaffold.
‘I stand tall among you today,’ he said to the crowd, on being granted some final words. ‘Taller, I think, than I have ever stood. People don’t tell you that about the rack!’ The crowd roared, and he managed to keep them laughing for an hour. In the end, he found he’d talked himself hoarse. ‘Sorry, just have to clear my throat,’ he said. ‘And here’s the man to do it,’ he added, throwing an arm round the Axeman. ‘Milk it,’ he whispered to him, as the crowd cheered and laughed.
Kneeling at the block, he wondered if he’d done enough. If he hadn’t, he wasn’t entirely sure how regeneration worked in the event of decapitation. It would be fatal, certainly, but would both severed parts attempt to change? If they did, would they still match? That might cause some confusion when they loaded him into that long box he’d been avoiding looking at since arriving on the scaffold.
The boards creaked as the Axeman moved into position, and the crowd fell into a thrilled silence. There was a grunt of effort and the shadow of the axe swept across the floor. Cold air lay in a line across his bared neck and breathing was suddenly an enormous thing, now that he knew each breath could be the last.
One breath. Come on, Elizabeth.
Two breaths. She liked him, he made her laugh.
Three breaths. He’d smiled through all the pain, he’d joked, he’d listened.
Four breaths. Please, please, Elizabeth!
Five breaths. Were they just making him wait, out of cruelty?
Six breaths. At least it was okay to be afraid now, because kneeling at the block, no one could see my face.
Seven—
Footsteps ascending to the scaffold!
A murmur among the crowd.
Elizabeth? Please let it be Elizabeth. There was a swirl of golden fabric, then two merry eyes were looking into his. ‘You think your jokes and clever tongue have saved you, don’t you, Doctor?’ He forced a quizzical look onto his face, and hoped no one could hear the thudding of his hearts. ‘Well, sorry my dear, but your humour is the disguise of your intelligence, and your charm is the mask of your nature, and we are still quite resolved to take your head. However, I’m sure you would not deny your Queen a last kiss, while you’re still in one piece.’
She kissed him gently on the lips and was gone in another swirl of gold. He found himself staring into the basket again. The bottom of it was bloodied from many impacts, and he wondered if he’d be able to feel it when it smacked against his face.
Realising he was now, beyond all doubt, about to die, the Doctor rose up inside himself, steadied his hearts, and chose his final thought with care.
The children. The children of Gallifrey.
‘However,’ Elizabeth was saying, as he heard her feet trotting down the steps, ‘while taking your head remains a necessity, we are moderately inclined to think that it is slightly more entertaining while still attached to the rest of you.’
Silence pounded in the Doctor’s ears. What? What did she say? It took him a moment to understand that the steely clatter behind him was an axe being laid aside, and that the gentle exhalation from all around was the disappointment of a large crowd.
‘We grant you a day’s pardon, for you to arrange a picnic,’ Elizabeth continued, now standing below, and looking up at him with twinkling eyes. ‘It will be for the two of us only, tomorrow afternoon. Please understand that we have villainously high standards when it comes to picnics, and can be volatile when disappointed. Remember to bring your head, and we’ll decide over dessert which of us takes it home.’
Oh Elizabeth! He’d have leapt down from the scaffold and kissed her, if he hadn’t known she was a Zygon.
‘Will you marry me?’ he repeated because Elizabeth was still just staring at him, one hand pressed against her chest, as if trying to contain a storm within. It was, he conceded, a reasonable impersonation of strong emotion for an upright squid.
‘But I tortured you!’ she said.
‘Was there torture?’ he laughed, gaily. ‘I only noticed you.’
‘Yesterday, I nearly cut your head cut off.’
‘Oh, let’s not dwell on the past. Elizabeth, of England, I’m asking you again—for the third time, in fact—will you marry me?’
And the words burst from her. ‘Oh, my dear, sweet love, of course I will.’
He leapt to his feet, triumphant. ‘Gotcha!’ he shouted.
‘My love?
‘Oh, forget the play acting, I’m on to you. Sorry, dear, but the performance just isn’t good enough. Even Alison saw through it!’
‘Alison?’
‘My horse.’
‘My dear, that horse is male.’
‘Yeah, and he’s called Alison. Don’t box him in, he’s very easily triggered. I was going to call him Trigger, actually, that escalated quickly. He didn’t want to carry us both out here, but I told him it was going to be an Earth defence picnic and that’s the only reason he let us both on.’
‘Your words make no sense, my love!’
‘Then let’s break it down, nice and simply. One! The real Elizabeth would never have accepted my marriage proposal. Two! The real Elizabeth would notice when I just casually mention having a different face. But then the real Elizabeth isn’t an alien shape-shifter from outer space! And—ding!’
He’d pulled his Zygon detector from his pocket, and thrust his wire-trailing but strangely magnificent lash-up of clock-and-smartphone in front of her face, managing to keep the bit made from coat-hangers to the back. She stared at it with what must have been shock and awe, but somehow came out looking a bit like pity.
‘What is that?’
‘It’s a machine that goes ding! Made it myself—it lights up in the presence of shape-shifter DNA! Also it can microwave frozen dinners from up to twenty feet and download comics from the future—I never know when to stop. Didn’t work properly at the Court. Too many people, all that cheese-breath. But since we rode out here, it’s been going non-stop!’
‘My love, I do not understand.’
‘I’m not your love, and yes you do! You’re a Zygon!’
‘A Zygon.’
‘Oh, stop it, it’s over. A Zygon, yes. Big red rubbery thing, covered in suckers. Surprisingly good kisser. Do you think the real Queen of England would just decide to share the throne with any old handsome bloke in a tight suit, just cos he’s got amazing hair and a nice horse?’
He glanced over at Alison as he spoke, but there was only a discarded saddle and tether under the tree, and where his horse had stood a moment before, a mass of something red and glistening was thrashing on the grass. For a moment the Doctor wondered if his horse had exploded, or somehow burst itself inside out, but then a pair of tiny eyes blinked open among the jumble of organs, and an obscene foetus-like head started to rise up, as if forming itself out of the boiling viscera. Bones cracked into new places, nerves and sinews slithered and snapped around them, and in moments, a jerking, pitiful meat-thing, as ravaged and skeletal as a dissected rat but taller than a man, was struggling upright on stick legs. Flesh stretched and popped and bloated around it and suckers starting forming out all over its crimson skin. What now stood there, like a humanoid squid, with a giant baby head and a tiny chimp face, was a fully formed Zygon.
Understanding bore down on the Doctor, like a grand piano from a high window. The horse, the horse. His detector hadn’t been detecting Elizabeth at all, it was the horse. His own horse had been the Zygon all along. Not the Queen, the horse. ‘Oh!’ was all he managed aloud, followed by another ‘Oh!’ when he realised that the woman now gripping his arm was not only the real Elizabeth, but also his fiancée. I’m going to be King, he thought, as he grabbed her hand and started to run.
Directly ahead there was a crumbled old folly (no, not a folly, wrong period, a real ruin) and a thick forest swept away to the right. The trees would be decent cover, but scattering wildlife would provide an easy means of tracking them, while the ruin was both less predictable and the counterintuitive choice. Following the instincts of a lifetime, he made straight for the thing that looked like a folly.
‘I don’t understand,’ Elizabeth was protesting. ‘What was that creature, what’s happening?’
‘We’re being attacked by a shape-shifting alien from outer space, formerly disguised as my horse.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means we’re going to need a new horse.’
He threw her ahead of him, into the shadows of the ruin. Quick scan: there were two other exits, one climbable wall, and a useable vantage point with a nearby pile of throwable rocks. She was smart, Elizabeth, she could make something out of this. ‘I’ll hold it off, you run, or hide, or do a clever thing—but stay alive, your people need you!’
He was turning to go but she grabbed him back. ‘And I need you alive for our wedding night!’ The kiss was wet, noisy and engulfing, and he found himself thinking of the forming Zygon.
‘I will return with help,’ she called over her shoulder, as she dashed off through the ruin. He didn’t doubt that for a second. In fact, he thought, frowning, she wouldn’t normally run away for any reason—certainly not because he’d suggested it—and the only times he’d ever seen her kiss anyone it was to stop them thinking straight. He wondered briefly what it said about him that on meeting a Queen with a steel-trap mind and gold-plated leadership skills, he had immediately assumed she was a squid from space—at which point he decided he’d be more comfortable being attacked by an alien. But when he turned to face the approaching Zygon, the meadow was deserted. A flock of rabbits raced across the grass, but there was no other movement anywhere.
‘Never break eye contact with a shape-shifter,’ Borusa had droned at the Academy, ‘because that’s the last time you’ll see it. Or more accurately, you’ll see it everywhere you look, and never be able trust anyone again.’
The Doctor noticed he was running, and wondered why. Oh, of course the rabbits! As usual, his legs had figured it out first. Zygons were multi-nucleate, and there were plenty of accounts of them transforming into flocks of birds, so why not a flock of rabbits? Provided the scattered nuclei remained within reasonable distance, the psychic link would stay viable, and the Zygon could sustain its consciousness as a network, rather than an individual. The tactical advantages to a Zygon alone in the field were clear, even if it risked losing part of itself to a pie. And blimey, rabbits couldn’t half run!
The flock was sweeping round a hill, and the Doctor sped up—he needed to keep them in view.
One of the rabbits had peeled off. It was sniffing round a patch of greener grass as the others disappeared from sight. The Doctor slowed. What was this? The swarm leader? Was he being invited to parlay?
The rabbit raised its head from chewing the grass, and eyed him innocently. He came to a halt and held its gaze for a long moment. Finally, in his gravest tones, he said: ‘Hello, Alison.’
To its credit, the rabbit kept its calm. Okay, thought the Doctor, if that’s how you want to play it!
‘Whatever you’ve got planned,’ he said, ‘forget it. I’m the Doctor. I’m 900 hundred years old. I’m from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous. I’m the oncoming storm, the bringer of darkness …’
He broke off, because the rabbit was chewing the grass again, and there was a terrible possibility at the back of his mind which was trying to get his attention. He sighed. ‘You’re basically just a rabbit, aren’t you?’
The rabbit glanced briefly at him, and hopped off after the others.
If he’d had something to kick, he’d have kicked it halfway round the planet. How could he be so stupid? Why was he getting everything so wrong?? The Queen! The horse! The rabbit! What was the matter with him? Was the shadow of the past so deep now, he couldn’t find his feet?
And then, almost before he knew it, he was running again, faster this time, back the way he’d come. Elizabeth! Damn her!
The ruin where he’d left her, was coming into view. He prayed to everything he’d never believed in that it hadn’t become her tomb, and tried to stop his mind from racing.
The kiss! She’d kissed him the same way she kissed everyone: to put him off his game. Just as she’d pretended to accept his proposal, to make him feel special.
The ruin was empty, but when he scrambled up the wall to scan the area, he couldn’t see her. Okay, she must have headed to the trees.
She didn’t want him for a husband, she wanted him for her war cabinet, and she’d played him perfectly. Just like all the other love-sick hopefuls at court, bouncing around her like corgis.
Into the trees now! Thick and dark, but look, see everything! Broken twig, wisp of gold on branch—keep running, keep noticing!
And of course, she hadn’t run away. She’d realised that she, not he, was the Zygon’s target, and she was leading it away from him, not the other way round. And it wasn’t because she liked him, it was because she was the Queen and it was her duty.
Single footprint, scattered pile of leaves, two birds returning to a tree after a recent disturbance—everything, Doctor, see it all, and run, run, run. It was much easier to save them, he thought, when they weren’t so much cleverer than him.
Through the trees ahead, a horizontal slash of gold. He threw himself towards it, tearing his way through the branches. She lay in the centre of a glade, unmoving, one thrown arm lying limp, red hair tangled with the bracken. As he reached to check her pulse, he saw that she was breathing. ‘Your Majesty?’
Her eyes flickered open.
‘My Doctor?’
There was no time to lose, so he was already pulling her to her feet. He could check her for injuries once they were safely away from here. ‘That thing,’ she gasped, ‘it attacked me. What is it, what does it want?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to find out. Probably just your planet.’
‘Doctor?’ she said, and he frowned in puzzlement, because this time her lips hadn’t moved and the voice seemed to be coming from behind him. He looked round.
Another flash of gold, and Elizabeth was stepping through the trees, her eyes fastened on the woman beside him. ‘Step away from her, Doctor. That is not me. That is the creature!’
He looked between the two of them. Elizabeth and Elizabeth. Both perfect in every detail.
The Elizabeth at his side was staring in astonishment at the new arrival. ‘How is that possible?’ she asked. ‘She’s me. Doctor, she’s me!’
‘I am, indeed, me,’ replied Elizabeth, staring into her own eyes. ‘A compliment that cannot be extended to yourself.’
‘Extraordinary,’ said Elizabeth. ‘The creature has caught my exact likeness—this is exceptional.’
They were both ignoring him now, circling each other, with the evil fascination of cats.
‘Exceptional? A Queen would call it impertinent,’ replied Elizabeth.
‘A Queen would feel compelled to admire the skill of the execution—before arranging one,’ replied Elizabeth.
‘You have captured my wit but not my speed.’
‘I was about to say the same.’
‘But just a little later.’
Two of them, thought the Doctor. What if they worked in shifts—he’d never get a day off. Then he remembered the equipment in his hand. ‘Sorry, ladies, if you could both just stay still for a tiny moment, this is a routine Queen check.’ He twisted the dials, but nothing happened. He banged it against a tree trunk. ‘It’s not working,’ he said. He looked up into four identical blue eyes now levelled at him like a firing squad. ‘Could I have a minute to change the bulb?’
‘One might surmise that the creature would learn quickly to protect itself from any simple means of detection,’ remarked Elizabeth.
‘Clearly you understand the creature better than I. But then, you have the advantage,’ retorted Elizabeth.
‘Indeed,’ smiled Elizabeth. ‘I have ridden its back.’
‘Oh, a distinct touch!’
‘A simple truth!’
‘It is no easy thing to match wits with a being of unearthly attainment.’
‘So you are to be congratulated!’ they both said, and laughed.
No, thought the Doctor, they can’t be bonding, that won’t work! One’s a megalomaniac from space and one’s from Greenwich.
When the wind hit his face, he knew he’d felt it before, but for the moment he couldn’t remember where. It was a warm wind, too warm for England, and smelled of old wood baking in the sun. He looked up. Hanging impossibly among the trees, was a slowly turning spiral of clouds and light, beautiful, eerie and silent. He knew in an instant he was looking into a slice of the time vortex—and what seemed even more impossible was that it felt familiar. As if he’d looked into that exact slice of vortex before. But how? When, where?
The Elizabeths were demanding to know what was going on, but now he was barely listening to them. Whatever was happening, it was more important than Queens and Zygons.
‘Back, both of you, now!’
‘What is that thing?’ asked Elizabeth, and he didn’t bother to check which one.
‘It’s a rupture in space and time, and I’ll tell you something else—I think I’ve seen it before.’
‘Where could you possibly have seen that?’
Where indeed? This was something from his past, he felt certain. But the trouble with the past, when you travelled in time as much as he did, was that a lot of it was still going on. Sometimes, as now, his memories felt more like a live feed. He found himself thinking of a barn. That barn. That day. The box at his feet, all those people about to die by his hand, all those children. But someone else was there too. Someone stood in the barn at his side. That wasn’t right! He’d gone there alone, too ashamed to be witnessed. So who was this woman now laughing in his memories? She was sitting on the box, then she was stamping round the floor, mocking him. For a brief moment, as she laughed, her face turned clear of her hair, and no, no, it couldn’t be. He hadn’t known her then, that was before they’d even met. But then she laughed again, and yes, it was her. Impossible though it seemed, there she stood, in his memory, smiling at him from the last day of the Time War—Rose Tyler.
Elizabeth was pushing past him now, approaching the vortex. ‘But how does it hang there?’ she asked. ‘It appears completely miraculous!’
The Doctor grabbed her away from it, pushed her round behind him. No time for ceremony.
‘Sorry, your Majesty. Just stay away from it. That’s a timeline fissure, it’s not supposed to be here.’
‘Your words are meaningless,’ said one of them.
‘You will explain, forthwith, what that thing is,’ demanded the other.
‘I can’t, it’s difficult. It’s something from a long time ago. It’s my past.’
Rose! How could Rose Tyler have been there?
‘What about your past?’ one of them was asking.
‘I think it’s playing up,’ he said.
And then something came tumbling through the vortex. It landed just in front of him, a soft thump on the earth. His stomach turned over. For a moment, he didn’t look down at what had arrived, because he didn’t need to. This had all happened before, and now, somehow, it was happening again. No—it was still happening. It had never stopped happening. The air roared in his ears, the world turned at his feet, and shadows rose around him. Suddenly he understood, and the impact of understanding stopped his breath. He’d come so far, he’d saved so many, he’d made his penance, over and over—but not one day of it had been real. He had been living a fantasy—the hope-driven delusion of a repenting murderer. He had walked away from the slaughter of billions and dreamed an impossible redemption, and now he was waking to discover that none of it had happened. He was still in the barn. This was still the last day. The Time War had never ended.
It would take a moment to find the strength to look down, but of course he already knew what he’d see. Lying at his feet, there would be a battered old red hat of the type generally known as a—
There was a thunderous crack, followed by a tremendous crash and everywhere birds went clattering up from the trees. Something much larger had arrived from the vortex above, and had just hit the forest floor with a whirl of arms and legs and a loud ‘Oof!’
The Doctor stared in astonishment. Struggling to his feet in front of him was a strange flail of a man—a jangle of limbs in purple tweed, a startled face under a swaying quiff, and a pair of nervous hands fluttering either side of a bow tie as if disagreeing about how to straighten it.
‘Who is this?’ demanded an Elizabeth.
The man was staring at the Doctor, thunderstruck. Then he laughed and clapped and all but twirled on the spot. The smile on his face was pleased and silly but there was a look of presumption about his eyes that annoyed the Doctor intensely, so he sent what he hoped was a very similar look right back.
‘Doctor, who is this man, and what is he doing here?’ demanded the other Elizabeth.
‘Just what I was wondering,’ said the Doctor, stepping towards the man, as the man, in mirror image, stepped towards him.