Death was always more tragic, he thought, when it came to the very young; and yet the ancient clung to Life with equal desperation. Perhaps it was because he himself was so close to extinction, but the Princess’s story seemed to chime eerily with his own. Both of them were lonely. Both of them craved adventure. And both were in possession of powers far beyond their control; powers that allowed them to fling open the doors of perception –
‘What do you mean, you’re dying?’ she said.
The Doctor started to explain about the crystal cave, then stopped. ‘That’s not important, is it?’ he said. ‘The important thing is, I don’t have much time.’
‘Stay here,’ said the Princess simply. ‘No one ever dies here.’
The Doctor shook his head. ‘I can’t. Time has a habit of marching on. Whatever we do; whatever games we play with it. An old friend of mine, by the name of – oh, well, you wouldn’t know him – wrote a story about a man – a Doctor, in fact – who made a pact with the Devil. It went like this: the Devil would give the Doctor everything he could possibly want; but if at any moment, he was truly happy, if ever he wanted to stop Time, then the Devil would have the right to drag him down to Hell.’
The Princess assumed a mutinous look. ‘I don’t believe in Hell,’ she said.
‘Neither do I,’ the Doctor replied. ‘Though I suspect my friend would have disagreed. But if I did, maybe stopping Time would be a good way to get there.’
For a moment he paused, and thought of how often he had used the Time Vortex for his own ends. There was a reason the Time Lords had guarded their knowledge so jealously. The power to manipulate events throughout Time and Space was a drug that had too often proved fatal. He himself was far from immune. And the Princess was a child – albeit a child with psychic powers far beyond anything he’d encountered before – a child who desperately wanted to live.
‘They couldn’t cure you, could they?’ he said. ‘All those doctors and specialists. They promised, but they couldn’t; instead all they wanted was to study you, to find out how you do what you do. They kept you in their hospitals, tested you in their behavioural labs, made you read cards and run mazes. And so, you escaped. To the Village. A place where you were in control and you could do just what you wanted.’
The Princess nodded, suddenly looking so much older than her years that for a moment the Doctor glimpsed the woman she might have grown up to be – the mother; even the grandmother – if Life had been fairer.
‘It doesn’t work, does it?’ he said. ‘Even in a dream world, Reality gets in the way. What’s your name, my dear?’
‘Polly,’ she said. A single tear ran down her face.
The Doctor took her hand. ‘All right. Polly, let’s go home.’