‘JELLY BABY?’ THE DOCTOR was feeling enormously hungry. He offered round the crumpled white paper sweet bag more out of habit than because he didn’t currently want to eat every one of them at once, followed by a big roast dinner and a full Maori hangi all to himself. His headache had got worse and also felt as if it belonged to someone else, or maybe something else. Bryony didn’t seem to want a jelly baby, but he tried encouraging her. ‘Go on. Have a purple one – they taste of Zarnith.’ It seemed that sharing a jelly baby might make him feel less lonely.

LONELY

The vast thought swiped in at him and, although it didn’t knock him out this time, he did stumble and he was aware that Bryony was staring at him with concern. He told her, ‘No need to worry. The world’s my lobster. Honestly, I couldn’t feel better.’

Like all good youngsters on Gallifrey, the Doctor had been brought up with a strong awareness of how little other species knew about, well…anything and how they usually shouldn’t be told about, well…anything, because most of the information a Time Lord might be able to offer them would at least make them retire to the country and keep bees – should their planet have bees, or similar life forms – if not actually drive them irreversibly insane.

‘Everything’s absolutely fine. And by the way, do you like honey?’

Just for an instant the Doctor contemplated what would happen if he were to become irreversibly insane.

And then someone not very far away screamed horribly, which was a great relief, somehow. The Doctor knew exactly what to do when he heard horrible screaming – run towards it and help.