#you saw her in logopolis. i saw her in logopolis. we all saw her in logopolis

[genderqueerpond]

by the way Tegan has dyslexia and dyscalculia and ADHD

[sundry-whovengerslocked]

okay but now that we know Fourteen lives a domestic fantasy with Donna (and co) living his best life and starting to heal from all his ptsd...

it starts with talking about the toymaker.

"Doctor. you never answered my question. all those things the Toymaker said, were they true?"

the Doctor, after much hesitation, breaking down, finally, finally.

talking about Amy and all the adventures they shared. how she was another sassy redhead who kept him in line when he needed it. how she died of old age with her husband but was so horribly ripped from him.

talking about River Song, the woman Donna met only once, the woman who died for the Doctor. talking about how he discovered their lives together and thus lived it. about how they were married and about how many goodbyes they had to face.

talking about Clara, the impossible girl, who dragged him out of his sulking, who kept him going, who was like him. talking about the hybrid and the billions of years he spent in the confession dial just to bring her back to life. how he had to forget her or else he would have never stopped.

talking about Bill, the girl who questioned everything, things no one ever thought to ask. who had the best smile and a crush and was so so brave, up until the end. who lived on in a different way.

talking about Yaz, the girl he fell in love with while he was a woman, the girl who saw the Doctor in ways she didn't want to be seen. the girl she pushed away because it hurt too much.

finally talking about the Flux. about how half the universe died. how he never ever really belonged. about how he doesn't know where he's from, not really. about how the not-things taunted him with his memories.

and Donna listens. she listens, and asks, and weeps. she holds him as he cries.

"It's not your fault," she tells him. "you did the best you could.

"i know," he cries, echoing what he said at the edge of the universe, when he thought it was her. "I know, but it hurts."

and they let it hurt. they let it hurt, raw, broken, until the sun sets and the air cools and Shaun knocks on the door of the tardis to tell them Sylvia made tuna madras again.

the next day Donna asks about Adric.

and he tells her.

he tells her about Adric, Logopolis, the time key, the Master. he tells her all the things that he's been running from.

and they weep. and they breathe. and together, the Doctor heals.

[headcanonsandmore]

'Fright Night' Chapter One

Summary: In a dark and stormy planet, the Fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa find themselves separated from the TARDIS and are forced to seek refuge in a old castle nearby. However, strange things are afoot on this alien world and, in the gothic rooms and corridors of the castle, one of the time-travellers begins to find themselves changing...

~~~~~~~~~~~~ Read on AO3.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

‘Tegan, I think you’re being a bit overcautious.’

Tegan zipped up her waterproof jacket.

‘I don’t care what the Doctor says,’ she replied, checking to make sure that her boots were properly laced. ‘We don’t know what weather this planets going to have; I may as well be prepared.’

Nyssa chuckled. The Trakenite was sat at the end of Tegan’s bed. She was wearing her new stripy shirt, with the jersey tied around her middle. Tegan ignored the stammer in her own heartbeat as Nyssa kicked her legs absentmindedly beneath her.

Why had Nyssa decided to stop wearing her usual jumpsuit? On the one hand, Tegan could understand that Nyssa had likely gotten tired of wearing the same sort of clothing every day, but… good grief, Tegan’s heart was having a tough time seeing so much of the Trakenite’s legs.

It really wasn’t fair. Nyssa had always been pretty, but Tegan seemed to get distracted by her every other moment these days. It was as if her time spent away from the TARDIS had changed how she viewed the wonderful woman she shared a room with. Nyssa was her best friend, and she had developed a crush on her, probably from the moment they had first met on Logopolis, but now… that attraction had evolved beyond a simple crush. And Tegan knew -was absolutely certain- that Nyssa had no idea that Tegan saw her that way. More than that, Tegan was sure that Nyssa did not see her the same way.

So, here she was, in love with her best friend who didn’t realise that her feelings had grown beyond the platonic.

‘You sure you’re alright? We can pick up a thicker jacket for you from the TARDIS wardrobe if you want’

‘It’s fine,’ Nyssa said, smiling as she got to her feet. She picked a light waterproof jacket off the coat-stand nearby, her brown curls bouncing prettily. ‘Let’s go.’

Nyssa slipped the jacket on, and immediately linked one of her arms through Tegan’s. The Australian felt her heartrate escalate, as it always seemed to do whenever Nyssa initiated physical contact without warning.

Hoping against hope that she wasn’t blushing, Tegan allowed Nyssa to walk them out of their bedroom, and down the corridor towards the console room.

The Doctor was, of course, waiting for them, wearing an expression of excitement as he took readings from the central console.

‘Ah, there you both are,’ he declared, looking up as they entered. ‘Rather splendid planet, by the looks of things.’

Tegan exchanged a look with Nyssa, who giggled. The Australian ignored the giddy dance that her heart made at the sound, and raised a disbelieving eyebrow as she turned to look back at the Doctor.

‘Really?’

‘Oh, ye of little faith,’ the time lord, wagging his finger at her. ‘Come along, let’s go and have a look around…’

*

Tegan stared at the brooding forests around them, the dark clouds above that seemed to cast the entire landscape in a dim twilight, and could even hear the sounds of unpleasantly course birdcalls. The TARDIS had landed on what appeared to be halfway down a mountainside. In every direction, all that could be seen were dense forests with a scattering of towering cliffs inbetween them. If Tegan didn’t know any better, she would have assumed the Doctor had deliberately landed in darkest Germania during the dark ages.

‘Splendid planet?’ she repeated, with a frown in the time lord’s direction. ‘That’s one way of putting it. Doc, this place looks like something out of Grims Fairy Tales!’

The Doctor glared irritably at her, before unfurling his hat from his jacket pocket and setting it neatly on top of his head.

‘Always the pessimist, aren’t you, Tegan?’ he said. ‘Cheer up; you and Nyssa both have jackets, and I’ve got my umbrella, after all.’

‘What umbrella-’

Out of (apparently) a jacket pocket, the Doctor pulled out a long umbrella. The handle seemed to be formed into the shape of a question mark.

Smiling smugly, the time lord unfurled the umbrella, and put it over his shoulder.

Tegan gave him another glare. The Doctor ignored her, and set off along the path that weaved down the mountain towards a river, which streaked jaggedly through the forest.

Nyssa gave Tegan an encouraging smile, and the Australian allowed herself to be led along by the arm. She really wished she could say no to Nyssa when the Trakenite smiled at her like that, but she knew that it was impossible. Those soft grey-green eyes had a habit of burrowing into her soul. And the irritating thing was, not only did Nyssa clearly have no clue as to the effect she had, but that Tegan liked it. She would have stopped time if Nyssa asked her to. It was as if her heart had a massive “property of Nyssa” stamp on it.

Overhead, there was the distant rumble of thunder. In the horizon, Tegan could see rain falling over the forest trees. She felt gooseflesh erupt unpleasantly up her skin; every single atom of her being was telling her to get back inside the TARDIS now.

‘That doesn’t sound good.’

‘Oh, probably just a spot of light rain,’ said the Doctor, airily, from in front. ‘I find the weather isn’t nearly bad as initial impressions suggest.’

Tegan doubted this very much, but by this point they had reached the river. A small stone bridge lay across it.

There was another rumble of low thunder.

Nyssa slipped her hand into Tegan’s as they followed the Doctor across the bridge.

‘Nys?’ the Australian asked, softly, as she turned to look at the woman stood next to her. ‘You okay?’

Nyssa nodded, quietly.

There was another crack of thunder, and this time, Nyssa’s hand squeezed tightly against Tegan’s.

‘It’s okay,’ Tegan said, giving a soft smile. ‘I’m here.’

Nyssa smiled, cheeks dimpling.

‘Thank you, Tegan,’ she said, softly. ‘I always feel safe when you’re here.’

Tegan felt her heart well with love for the Trakenite. It was all she could do not to burst into tears right there and then, and throw her arms around her friend.

‘I’m sorry for leaving you,’ she eventually said, ignoring the lump in her throat.

‘Don’t blame yourself for that,’ Nyssa said, with a nod of her head towards the Doctor. ‘You weren’t to blame.’

‘I heard that!’

Tegan laughed, as the Doctor let out a huff and strode off at a faster pace.

‘You didn’t leave me, Tegan,’ Nyssa said, still smiling at the Australian. ‘I’m just happy that I managed to find you again.’

‘Almost sounds like you missed me.’

‘Of course,’ Nyssa said, with a gentle nudge of her shoulder. ‘I can’t have a universe without you, Tegan Jovanka.’

Tegan’s heart seemed to pummel against her chest. What the hell did that mean?

‘N-Nys,’ she stammered, feeling her face burn. ‘I… you don’t have to… I don’t deserve you-’

There was another loud rumble of thunder, and the two women startled, coming to a stop.

The path they had been walking along was stretching upwards across the other side of the valley. The Doctor, a few hundred feet in front, turned to face them and pointed up the path.

There was a crack of lightning.

On a rocky outcrop sticking out from the mountainside was a castle. Well, somewhere between a castle and a fortified keep. It must have been at least two hundred feet tall, with ramparts and several towers stretching up. Gargoyles of strange creatures adorned the outside and Tegan could have sworn that, in the afterglow of the lightning, they seemed to move.

The path led up to the main doors, which stood at least ten feet high.

There was another crack of lightning, and the heavens opened.

Near instantly, the rain seemed to crash down around them, turning the path into a mud pit. Tegan squeezed tightly on Nyssa’s hand to help them both stay upright.

The Doctor charged down the path, wobbling as he struggled to maintain his balance amid the mud and rain. His umbrella was barely keeping him dry. 

‘Over the bridge, now!’

The two women turned.

A horrible sight met their eyes.

Looking down the path towards the way they had come, Tegan let out a groan. The bridge had sunk beneath the rising water of the river.

The three time-travellers turned once again and, feet slipping, ran up the path towards the castle. The path gradually became stone-paved as they grew closer, and Tegan was glad for the change, as she could already feel her boots beginning to get dirty. As they reached the entrance, the Doctor hammered on the huge doors, which swung open with a horrible creak. The time lord hurried inside.

Scrambling inside out of the wet, Tegan pulled Nyssa by the hand after her. The Trakenite seemed to have been momentarily shocked by the sudden change in weather.

Looking around, Tegan now saw that they had entered into some sort of entrance hall. It was rather small and cluttered, with various suits of armour haphazardly shoved anywhere they could fit. Several pairs of walking boots had been left scattered nearby a large doormat, which was a tired burgundy colour and had clearly seen better days. The door, in front of which the mat stood, was in barely better condition.

The Doctor pulled the doors shut behind them, and put down his umbrella, wiping his brow with a damp sleeve.

‘Well,’ he said, with a bit of irritation. ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me that you told me so-’

‘Never mind that!’ Tegan exclaimed. ‘Look at Nyssa!’

The Trakenite was shivering under her jacket. Damp curls lay against her face, and Tegan was horrified to see that Nyssa’s cheeks had turned a cold pink colour. 

Without thinking, Tegan unzipped Nyssa’s jacket and helped her friend out of the wet garment. She wasn’t sure why she herself wasn’t feeling the cold as much; perhaps Traken had a much milder climate? Whatever it was, Tegan didn’t like how cold Nyssa was to the touch. She immediately put her own hands around Nyssa’s and began to rub them, trying to get some warmth into the younger woman’s skin.

‘You bloody stupid time lord!’ Tegan said, glaring now at the Doctor. ‘I swear, if she gets hypothermia…’

‘She’ll be fine,’ the Doctor said, feeling Nyssa’s forehead with his palm. ‘Although I don’t recommend that we go back out into that storm anytime soon. Perhaps if we see if the inhabitants of this place can put us up for the time being…’

The Doctor stepped over to the door, and wrapped smartly on the wood with his knuckles.

‘Hello?’ he called. ‘Anyone home?’

Tegan quickly pulled off her jacket and was glad to find that, aside from a little bit of rain on her trousers, she was mostly bone dry. Her boots, of course, had been waterproof anyway. She was immensely thankful that she had decided to wear a warm wool jumper over a blouse, with thick winter trousers; why on earth she had ever thought that a pair of shorts and matching tube-top was a suitable outfit for rainy cold Amsterdam was beyond her.

Well, actually, she had thought it was cute and decided to wear it on the off-chance that she might meet Nyssa again, but that was beside the point. 

She immediately wrapped an arm around the young woman’s shoulders, rubbing her side. With her other hand, she continued to rub Nyssa’s hands.

Nyssa gave a shiver, before sneezing.

‘T-thank you, Tegan,’ she said, a little nasally. ‘Sorry, I’m not normally this bad when it comes to rain.’

‘Hey, don’t worry about it,’ Tegan replied, as softly as she could. ‘We got caught unawares by that storm; let’s just focus on getting you warmed up, okay?’

Nyssa nodded.

At this point, the door opened

‘Oh, hello!’

The speaker was an elderly man. He was balding, but with large tufts of white hair around his ears. A large pair of spectacles was perched on his nose, and he wore a long white lab coat over a battered suit. He looked like the textbook definition of “mad scientist” but his eyes -magnified through his glasses- were kind and gentle.

‘Good evening!’ exclaimed the Doctor, hurrying forwards and shaking the man by the hand. ‘My apologies for the intrusion, but I’m afraid we have become separated from our craft in the storm.’

‘Oh, another storm?’ said the old man. ‘Those are always terrible at this time of year. I tend to stay inside mostly… can’t deal with the cold at my advanced years, I’m afraid.’

‘Understandable,’ the Doctor agreed. He then looked back at Nyssa and Tegan. ‘Er… my young friend here is somewhat the worst for wear; could we get her some warm blankets?’

‘O-oh, yes; please, come in…’

Nodding encouragingly to the two women, the Doctor followed the old man inside. Grimly, Tegan squeezed Nyssa’s side in a supportive manner, and followed. The door creaked shut behind them.

‘Welcome to my home,’ said the man, as they walked into a large sitting room. It was a rather cluttered place, filled with bookshelves crammed haphazardly with old tomes. A couple of slightly dusty-looking sofas adorned the middle of the room. Several test-tubes lolled on a desk, which was covered with scattered papers. ‘I’m afraid I don’t normally have visitors, so you’ll have to excuse the mess. You know how it is, being on your own and focused on work.’

‘I know the feeling,’ the Doctor replied. ‘I’m the Doctor, that’s Tegan, and the young woman who is currently feeling the worst for wear is Nyssa.’

‘Professor Brockenfeld,’ the old man said, smiling kindly at Nyssa and Tegan. ‘And it’s a pleasure.’

‘Oh, you’re a scientist?’ exclaimed the Doctor, now squinting at the titles of the books on the shelves.

‘Yes!’ exclaimed Brockenfeld, eyes widening in excitement. ‘My current field of specialty is preventative medicine, you see. All throughout the galaxy, people want to live longer and healthier. So I’m currently researching scientific means beyond the usual diet-and-exercise that is normally recommended.’

‘Fascinating,’ said the Doctor, keenly. ‘Gosh, it’s wonderful to meet another scientist. Nyssa, weren’t you looking into preventative medicine a while back?’

In response, Nyssa gave another squeeze. Tegan glared at the Doctor reproachfully. However, the time lord didn’t seem to notice, and instead launched into a lengthily discussion with Brockenfeld about the various aspects of his research.

Tegan rolled her eyes.

‘Can you understand what they’re saying?’

‘Mostly,’ Nyssa said, thickly. ‘But I’m afraid I won’t contribute much to the conversation.’

‘That’s more than I can. C’mon; let’s see if we can find a kitchen and get you warmed up; that rain chilled you to the bone…’

*

The kitchen was thankfully not too far away.

It was a bit tidier than the rest of the house, and reminded Tegan somewhat of recreations of Victorian-era kitchens that she’d seen during history class in school. Well, except the various machines that kept steaming randomly. Tegan gently eased Nyssa into a chair, and then doubled back to an airing cupboard they had passed on the way.

She pulled several thick, warm blankets out from the wooden shelf sat above the boiler, and hurried back to Nyssa. She quickly wrapped several of the blankets around Nyssa, who gave a contended sigh of gratitude.

Now… hot drinks were in order.

On the plus side, the kettle did not steam randomly, and barely a minute later, Tegan had poured out two mugs of hot chocolate, one of which she gently placed into Nyssa’s hands.

The Trakenite gave a soft moan as she slowly digested the warm drink.

‘Better?’ Tegan said, smiling as she sat down next to the younger woman at the table.

Nyssa nodded.

‘Thank you, Tegan,’ she said, returning the smile. ‘You’re always so lovely to me.’

Tegan shrugged, feeling a little self-conscious.

‘Hey, what are best friends for, eh?’

Nyssa’s cheeks turned a healthy pink hue as she grinned.

‘Oh, Tegan…’ she said, eyelashes fluttering. ‘Am I really your best friend?’

Tegan wished Nyssa would stop smiling at her like that; it wasn’t doing her heart any good to see the undisguised joy on the younger woman’s face.

‘No-one better,’ Tegan said. ‘I… you mean so much to me, Nyssa.’

‘I imagine probably roughly the same as you do to me.’

Tegan doubted that very much, but she decided not to say anything. It wasn’t Nyssa’s fault that Tegan had fallen in love with her, after all. Well, technically, it was her fault, but Tegan could hardly hold that against Nyssa. If anything, she held it against herself for continuing to pine for the sweet, kind woman who clearly saw Tegan purely as her platonic best friend. 

*

Once they had finished their drinks, and when Nyssa was thankfully warming up, Tegan had suggested that they head back to the Doctor and Brockenfeld. However, Nyssa had then suggested that they take a detour.

‘Are you sure it’s alright for us to be walking around?’

‘I don’t see why it wouldn’t be; Brockenfeld did welcome us in, after all.’

Tegan looked around. The corridors of the castle were uncomfortably dark, even with the pale electric lanterns that dotted the walls at regular intervals. The darkness was… heavy here, as if the light was intruding on it at its own risk. Tegan also felt uncomfortable speaking loudly. It almost felt like the castle itself was listening in on them. An uncomfortable shiver went up her spine.

‘You’re braver than me, in that case.’

‘I’m not as brave as you, Tegan.’

‘You always say that, but didn’t you hold up the high council of Gallifrey at gunpoint?’

Nyssa flushed. In the half-light, the effect was rather wonderful.

‘How did you-’

‘The Doctor told me,’ Tegan said, trying not to think about how cute Nyssa looked whilst blushing. ‘You’re a bit of a dark horse, aren’t you, Nys?’

‘What… what does that mean?’

‘A bit different than initial appearances would suggest.’

‘Oh,’ Nyssa said. ‘Er… what is my initial appearance, then?’

‘Cute as a button and twice as adorable. Too good for this world.’

‘Oh, Tegan…’

Nyssa was now smiling fondly at her. Tegan felt her own face flush.

‘W-well, it’s true,’ she stammered. ‘You are cute. Cutest woman I’ve ever met, and all…’

‘I would have thought you were cuter, Tegan.’

‘Now you’re just trying to make me flustered.’

‘Is it working?’ Nyssa giggled. ‘You do look pretty when you’re blushing, Tegan.’

‘Oh, ha ha…’

Tegan reached out and put her arm around Nyssa’s shoulders, pulling the younger woman closer to her. The Trakenite let out a happy sigh.

‘Thank you,’ Nyssa said, softly. ‘You’re so sweet, Tegan.’

The two walked in silence for a while, before coming to the end of the corridor. A large door -open- stood in front of them.

Nyssa smiled at Tegan, and the Australian found herself being pulled by the hand into the room.

*

The room -or laboratory, as it clearly seemed to be- was mainly covered in large work benches, which were themselves covered in all manner of scientific instruments. On one long wall, bottles of brightly coloured liquids bubbled away, as if on a slow simmer. Tegan bent down to examine one of them; even from a distance, it smelled vaguely of gone-off cheese.

‘Geez, what do you reckon all this stuff is?’

‘I suppose it’s part of the professors research,’ Nyssa replied. ‘If he’s trying to prevent diseases, then it would make sense to investigate animals with different immune systems to humanoid creatures.’

Tegan nodded, as she continued looking. There appeared to be two huge vents in the ceiling, one of each end of the room. At present, both seemed to have grates covering the entrance to each. Strange, Tegan thought. For ventilation, perhaps?

‘Bit Hammer Horror, isn’t it?’

‘Er… what?’

Tegan cursed her own ignorance.

‘Sorry, Nys; it’s a series of films on Earth.’

‘Oh.’ Nyssa said, with a nod. She didn’t seem hurt by Tegan’s forgetfulness. That she’d forgotten Nyssa wasn’t human, again. ‘Are they any good?’

‘The TARDIS probably has some; I don’t know if they’d be your thing, though. Bit scary.’

‘Scary?’

‘I… oh, I’m explaining this badly. Horror films are films that you watch to deliberately scare yourself.’

Nyssa stared at her, perplexed.

‘Why would you do that?’

‘Er… it’s kinda thrilling, I guess,’ Tegan replied, lamely. ‘And… well, when you watch it with friends, it can be fun.’

‘Oh, I see!’ Nyssa said, eyes widening with apparent understanding. ‘It’s an earth bonding activity, yes? Well, I’d be happy to do that with you, Tegan. As… as long as you don’t mind me holding your hand during?’

Tegan knew fully well that she wouldn’t mind that at all.

‘S-sure,’ she stammered. This was bad, this was bad. ‘I’d gonna go check this bit out…’

There was a portion of the room that was separated off from the rest. Almost like a bunker of sorts, with thick panels. The door stood open.

Tegan headed inside. There was a panel located just inside, looking out over the room. The panel itself was covered in buttons and levers, all of which seemed to be connected to different wires, that ran down into the ground.

TEST 3624 ENGAGED!

Tegan swung around, shocked at the robotic voice that had spoken out of the speakers set into the roof of the booth. The door slammed shut behind her.

Nyssa hurried over, and stared at her friend through the glass of the booth.

‘Tegan?’

‘Nys, there’s some sort of test happening!’ Tegan yelled, through the thick glass. ‘You need to find Brockenfeld and get him to turn it off!’

‘I will!’ Nyssa said, eyes wide with concern. ‘I’ll be back soon!’

The Trakenite hurried across the room but, as she got halfway to the door, there was a horrible… horrible sound.

The sounds of the grates being opened, as if automatically. The door to the laboratory swung shut. 

Nyssa spun round, confused, and her eyes met Tegan’s.

And then they heard it.

Out of one of the huge grates, there was a noise. It was low level at first, but it grew louder by the second, increasing with each passing moment. It was a ghastly, haunting sound. It was a sound that gnawed at the primordial corners of the human psyche. The sound that had terrified Tegan’s distant ancestors, way back in the mists of time. Of a multitude of animals all screeching at once.

Before Tegan’s horrified eyes, a black cloud of bats erupted from out of the duct. Hundreds of them, wings flapping wildly, each of them screeching at the tops of their voices. And heading straight for the Trakenite woman stood in the centre of the laboratory.

‘Nyssa!’

The bats swarmed around the Trakenite, who gave a great cry of surprise. The bats were so great in number that Nyssa vanished inside the buzzing mass of them all. There was a sickening thud as the Trakenite dropped to the floor.

Tegan cried, banging her hands on the glass, ignoring the pain that came with it. She had to do something! Her mind buzzed with terror.

Thinking widely, she turned and began to press buttons on the control panel.

TEST 3624 TERMINATED!

The bats fled out of the second shaft, leaving the crumpled form of Nyssa lying on the ground.

The door to the control room (as Tegan now understood it to be) swung open, as did the main door of the laboratory, and Tegan charged out, running straight for Nyssa.

Dropping to her knees, Tegan turned the Trakenite over. Was… was she…

Tegan’s brain refused to contemplate the end of that sentence. A universe without Nyssa was too horrible a prospect to consider.

Nyssa’s head lolled on her shoulders, eyes closed. Her face was horribly pale, but…

Thank goodness; she was breathing!

Tegan’s pulse calmed slightly, but only a little. Nyssa was clearly much the worst for wear, and she needed medical attention immediately.

No broken bones…no bruises aside from the one on her leg from where she had landed on the stone tiles… no visible signs of trauma…

Tegan’s eyes swept over her friend, quickly assessing the situation.

Unfortunately, maybe a little too quickly.

Because, as she checked Nyssa’s breathing, Tegan failed to notice the marks. Barely visible, just under the collar of Nyssa’s shirt, were several bite marks in the white flesh of her neck.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading, everyone; hope you enjoyed the first chapter of my spooky Halloween fic! I did promise a fang-tastic October, after all!

[denimbex1986]

'Amid a host of game-changing twists and heartrending callbacks, Doctor Who's 60th anniversary special also paid a poignant tribute to one of the show's most-beloved companions, Sarah Jane Smith.

Sarah Jane actress Elisabeth Sladen died in 2011, and now the show has established that the character has also passed on, in a touching moment towards the end of the episode.

After a shocking twist which saw the Fourteenth Doctor bi-generate, meaning both he and the Fifteenth Doctor existing at the same time, the duo defeated the Toymaker and returned to the TARDIS.

There, the Fifteenth Doctor and Donna tried to convince the Fourteenth that he was "wearing" himself out, after which they spoke about all the loss he had suffered up to that point.

Amongst the names and events mentioned, Fifteen said to Fourteen: "Our whole lifetime, that Doctor that first met the Toymaker never, ever stopped. Put on trial, exiled, key to time, all the devastation of Logopolis. Adric. River Song. All the people we lost. Sarah Jane has gone, can you believe that for a second?"

Fourteen responded: "I loved her". Fifteen said that he loved her too.

This isn't the first time the Whoniverse has paid tribute to Sladen. Just earlier this year, in spin-off series Tales of the TARDIS, Jo Jones and Clyde Langer remembered her fondly.

As well as paying tribute to the past, The Giggle also set up a lot of plot threads for the show's future, including the potential return of the Master and the arrival of new (or returning) villain, The One Who Waits.'

[circular-time]

Okay so I only hit two major spoilers before I managed to watch The Power of the Doctor...

That Eight was in it, and whom Jodie regenerates into, but luckily neither of those were the emotional beats that hit hardest for me (Tegan is one of my original companions, from the very first episode ever saw) so I was happy.

First impressions…���

Jodie not eclipsed by cameos from other beloved characters? So Thirteen could be amazeballs and lovable in her swansong? Check.

Yaz got to be awesome, and at least a few touching/bonding moments between her and her Doctor, including carrying her 🥺? Check, although I wanted a goodbye hug (I'm really not that insistent on a smooch, but come on).

Sacha chewing ALL THE SCENERY OMFG and being brilliant? check.

Surprise cameos by Doc Martin and other favorites? Check.

SO MUCH 80s WHO FANSERVICE. DEAR GODS THAT WAS ALL FOR US, CHIBNALL YOU SELF-INDULGENT BASTARD, WHAT WILL THE NEWWHO FANS THINK? (Oh well, a certain segment has hated what you did despite Jodie being excellent, so sorry not sorry, just wish Nyssa and Peri weren't out of reach according to Big Finish continuity.)

Only problem with DT showing up is that people will be talking about him and not Jodie or Cutie. (I'm afraid I'm going to call the lad that because voice dictation, but also, he is.) Jodie has seldom gotten enough credit for her skill in the role, thank to scripts which like 80s Who varied wildly in quality from Enlightenment to Four to Doomsday.  And if we're not thinking about Jodie, we should be thinking about Cutie because it's his turn now! Her last line was meant for him!

Also afraid this may be it for Sacha. Which is a pity, as he is so damn good. Then again, I thought they weren't going to be able to find anyone to match Michelle Gomez.

Most of this romp was just entertaining and a bit light despite the body count, but there was one *ahem* exchange between the Doctor and Tegan that made me FEEL a twinge of cosmic angst from long ago. So happy for Janet. And Sophie, but I know Janet. I wonder how many of Tegan's lines were left to her to tweak. Looking forward to Long Island con more than ever, so that we can hear her hold forth! I will do my best to report.

Oh hey. I did not cry. There were too many Jodie smiles to soften the goodbye. Although that bit with Tegan almost did me in. Remember, I saw her original departure live.

Just in case y'all don't have 80s Who burned into your brainstem...all the companions clustered around the Doctor on the floor was a callback to Logopolis, which Chibnall already visually quoted once before at the end of Woman Who Fell to Earth after Grace fell, putting Thirteen in the Watcher's place.

[timeagainreviews]

Zero Room for Error

Over his seven-year reign as the Doctor, Tom Baker had his ups and his downs. While seen as the definitive Doctor by many, towards the end, even Baker himself was tiring of the role. On top of that, the writing had begun to border along the outlandish. In "The Power of Kroll," the Doctor saves himself and others by emitting a high pitched scream that shatters glass. In another story, he saves the very metallic K9 from a furnace with his bare hands. However, it would seem that such heroics go back even as far as "The Android Invasion," where the Doctor jumps from the top of a building, unscathed. Ironic then, that a drop from a radio telescope not that much higher, should spell his death. Perhaps this was just the first of many course corrections the new showrunners hoped to achieve- bringing the Doctor back down to earth, so to speak.

With the introduction of Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, "Castrovalva," seems the most interested in lending some vulnerability to the character. There's a sort of pensive quality to a character having freshly fallen to his death. It spells out a very "look before you leap," plan of action moving forward. Sure, being the action hero is badass, but in the words of Dennis Reynolds- "You know what's badass? Being alive." But how much of Castorvalva is being economical, and how much of it is just plain stingy?

After a very weird regeneration scene involving "the Watcher," Tegan, Nyssa, and Adric rush the Doctor toward the safety of the TARDIS, all the while being chased by security guards leftover from "Logopolis." It's a fairly pointless scene that could have just picked up inside the TARDIS, but it's a chance to see Anthony Ainley's pillar of a TARDIS show a little menace, shocking the guards and Adric. Nyssa's remark about hating his face marks the first and last time she will ever mention the Master wearing her dead father's face- a plot point which I feel went woefully unexplored. At this time, there's not a lot of sense as to how or why the Master fits into the story, other than "He was in the last one."

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor's regeneration is acting up, requiring him to need the use of the "Zero Room," a previously unmentioned area deep within the TARDIS. Along with misnaming his companions, he's also reliving past incarnations, allowing us to see Davison's impressions of both the First and Second Doctors, which admittedly aren't too bad. (His First Doctor is better than David Bradley's! Yeah I said it!) When I first watched this episode, I was horrified to find the Doctor unravelling the iconic scarf of his predecessor. But upon today's viewing, I saw it as a rather gutsy move on the writer, Christopher Bidmead's behalf. Leaving the thread behind as a trail of bread crumbs back to the console room is exactly something the Doctor would do.

After putting the TARDIS into motion, Adric follows the Doctor into the depths of the TARDIS. Meanwhile, Nyssa and Tegan desperately try any information on the TARDIS computer that might help the Doctor. Their conversation waxes philosophical about recursion and the word "if," which leads Tegan to wonder if the TARDIS index file could be reached by typing "I.F." into the console, which it does. This gives them the information they need to find the Zero Room and help the Doctor.

While the Doctor is searching, he finds the pieces of what will become his new costume, with a few red herrings peppered in. While he takes to the cricketer uniform, he leaves the recorder and big green wellies behind. The cricket bat needing a bit of linseed oil shows us that there appears to be an entire room of the TARDIS dedicated to the sport of cricket. One is led to wonder if there are other rooms dedicated to other sports and whether they're all British pastimes. While the concept of an Anglophile alien with a  cricket room is rather absurd, it's the making stuff of Doctor Who.

After the disappointing portrayal of the TARDIS that was "The Invasion of Time," it was nice to see a more sci-fi interior. While it was clearly the same corridor elements rebuilt, and rearranged, it was still better than an old hospital with ugly whitewashed brick walls. These corridors at least felt like they belonged in a space ship. Even the Zero Room does a nice job of developing the TARDIS a little bit. That being said, it also undoes a bit of its own hard work, the second it gets introduced.

The Doctor explains to Tegan and Nyssa that the room is completely unaffected by outside influences. Even the gravity is equalised. Being inside this room has already improved the Doctor's cognitive faculties, as evidenced by his ability to get his companion's names right. He begins to levitate where he will suspend himself until his regeneration is complete. But this is interrupted by outside forces, when the Master appears on a screen, with Adric tied up like his leather slave in some sort of web. It's like the razor wire scene from the "Suspiria" remake with none of the real danger. How the Master is able to penetrate the Zero Room, or how he kidnapped Adric is anyone's guess. Is Adric even there? It’s not made clear.

The Master sends the TARDIS on a collision course with the formation of a galaxy. You may remember this danger from another TARDIS heavy story- "The Edge of Destruction." Only instead of trying to stab one another with scissors, the TARDIS fills up with hydrogen and threatens to explode. The Doctor jettisons various rooms from the TARDIS, enabling him to convert the matter into energy, allowing them to thrust away from the event, and into safety. The only problem is, this also jettisons the Zero Room in the process. This bit has always confused me, as the TARDIS seems almost nigh-infinite inside. Rooms seem less like physical spaces, and more like files on a computer. Couldn't they just make another Zero Room?

Nyssa and the Doctor set about building a to-go Zero Room out of its doors, encasing the Doctor in it like a coffin made out of TARDIS wall. There in goes our hero, where he will sleep much of the story away. Back to the Master and Adric, still tied up and writhing in a way that will leave those of us not on a watchlist feeling uncomfortable. Bless Matthew Waterhouse, he's acting his little ass off, and he's still awful. The Master then tortures Adric until he agrees to help him. This betrayal under duress is never explored further, it's just a bit of light betrayal that will become common for Adric.

After reading on the TARDIS computer of a place called Castrovalva, Nyssa and Tegan decide to take the Doctor there to regenerate in peace. Upon arriving, the deep forest is unkind to the high heel wearing duo as they wheel the Zero Coffin around on a wheelchair. Nyssa's poor choice of footwear lands her waist-deep in some peaty water, which leads to an admittedly rather adorable reaction shot on Sarah Sutton's behalf. I was struck with the utter cheapness that was this scene. I tried to imagine Clara Oswald pushing a silly white box around on a wheelchair, and it just didn't scan. The companions of old really don't get enough appreciation. They were asked to sell some pretty stupid stuff.

While looking for Castrovalva (which is evidently the city, not the planet), our heroes are being stalked by men dressed as a cross between a Weber grill and a muppet. After some pointless padding in the form of running about, they are captured and subjected to a surprising level of hospitality. After removing their hunting gear, we see that the Castrovalvans are an intelligent people, whose only real shortcoming as a society is their choice of headgear. They allow Tegan and Nyssa the comforts of home, while the Doctor sleeps. That evening they roast a pig over the fire, which made me laugh a little. Something about seeing earth animals on alien planets always feels a little odd to me. Sure, there are humans, but that makes more sense than say a mouse in Jabba's palace, or PIGS IN SPAAAAACE.

A lot of the action at this point has come to a dead standstill. The Doctor is sleeping most of the adventure away, which is, to me at least, the worst way to do a regeneration episode. Pertwee was asleep for Spearhead, Davison sleeps through Castrovalva, Tennant sleeps while a Christmas tree wrecks Jackie Tyler's living room... Even Capaldi and Jodie sleep through their regenerations. This does lend the story a sense of urgency, but usually, it's more boring than anything. I much prefer a Matt Smith style "I'm still cooking," manic start, than the Peter Davison sleepy time show.

Once Davison is up, he does a decent enough job filling in the shoes of the Doctor. Though upon my first viewing of the story, I did not think so at all. Going from Tom Baker to Peter Davison was like going from the toy store to the bank. The Fourth Doctor is my favourite Doctor, so it just wasn't very exciting for me. And like I said, I can see now why they may have wanted to tone the Doctor down a bit. Davison is your father's Doctor. His performance is more subtle. Only now am I even coming around to a point where I appreciate what he does, which is what brought me to this story in the first place. I've been revisiting him with a renewed interest.

The episode ends after the Doctor discovers the city is in a state of recursion. Like an Escher drawing, the physical layout of the castle loops in and out of itself, trapping its inhabitants, except for when they need to go hunting. (I guess?) The Master, of course, has been there all along in old man double-hat drag. The Doctor tricks the Master into thinking he's still in the Zero Coffin by filling it with books on the history of Castrovalva. While the Master shoots a box, the Doctor is rallying the citizens of Castrovalva and breaking them of the spell of recursion, allowing them to see with eyes unclouded.

After revealing a tapestry is actually the web that holds Adric, using his mathematical mind to maintain the lie that is Castrovalva, their leader Shardovan destroys the web with a chandelier, causing the city to begin to collapse. The Doctor, his friends, and Adric flee to safety. The Master is not so lucky, as the people tear at him like an angry mob. He becomes trapped inside the city as it fades into nothingness. Upon returning to the TARDIS, the Doctor finds Tegan's landing job askew but assures her that she didn't actually fly the TARDIS, much to her disappointment. I too was a little disappointed. It would have been nice to see the flight attendant become a pilot. It did, however, lead to what I consider one of my favourite Doctor Who memes.

As a "Doctor's first story," goes, I've seen worse. "The Twin Dilemma," will always hold the "What were they thinking?" title. But on its own, I'm not sure I would say it's a wholly successful story. Lots of the plot points are glossed over, and/or made no sense. But there are a lot of things I like about the serial. It's a rare occurrence where the companions were each given a little something to do, despite the crowded TARDIS. I even found Adric tolerable in this one. The world of Castrovalva was uniquely designed and could have stood up to even further exploration. Although I would suggest watching the special edition, as it does the Escher bit far more justice. I also appreciate any episode that incorporates more of the TARDIS into the story. It seems most writers treat our old girl as simply a means of conveyance, which is unfortunate. I wish they would have allowed Davison to maintain a bit of the zaniness from these few episodes, as they promised a Doctor that was a little more cheeky than the one we got. But by the end of it all, he's got his friends, he's got his TARDIS, and he's got his celery. It's hard not to want to watch the next episode.

[douxreviews]

Cloak and Dagger - ‘Restless Energy’ Review

"I like this. You and me. Going out. Doing good. Best we can."

Cloak and Dagger are back, and as you might have heard, season two is going to be Mayhem. But not quite yet.

It still seems hard to believe that we're getting a second season of Cloak and Dagger. Fifteen year old me would never have believed that this day would come. And as a bonus, going by this episode, season two is maintaining the impressive level of quality with which season one spoiled us.

A quick note up front – Freeform aired the first two episodes back to back as a 'two hour premiere' event. I'm reviewing the two episodes here separately, partially because they appear to be two separate episodes from a storytelling perspective, but mostly because I'm pedantic enough that I can't bear the thought of not having separate individual review links under the episode listing on the show page.

I realize that that's a ridiculous thing to care about, but the voices reassure me that it's not a sign of any serious mental issues, so there it is.

As a result, I haven't yet watched the second episode as of my writing this and so if any questions I raise here are answered in the second episode I beg your indulgence.

Second season premiere's are difficult. Season one finales tend to have more complete closure than finales of other seasons because you're never sure whether or not the show is going to get picked up for a second year. The end of Buffy's first season and beginning of its second is a good illustration of this issue. So, not only do you have the usual season opener need to re-introduce your characters and general premise, you also have to begin you story with, '...but wait, there's more...' and that can be tricky.

Season one of Cloak and Dagger leaned heavily into the 'Divine Pairing' take on Ty and Tandy's relationship. It was the story of how their powers brought them together for that one specific incident, so that they could save the city. That's a different story than bringing them together to become a crimefighting duo of superheroes, in that the 'becoming heroes' storyline is open ended and the 'becoming the mechanism that saves the city' is a one time event that happens and then is done.

The C & D writing room dealt with this by leaning into it and making that the point of the episode, which was a good decision. Ty and Tandy, and to a lesser degree Brigid, are essentially hanging around and thinking 'OK, now what do I do?' Ty and Tandy are both dealing with the titular restless energy by going out and making little vigilante runs at night; Ty by hitting drug gangs and stealing their product and money, Tandy by identifying abusive partners and terrorizing them. That's very in character for both of them, and hey – how about the way that they allowed Tandy enough self awareness to understand that she was really lashing out because she's still dealing with the knowledge that her dad was an abuser. Tandy is in a fascinating place at the moment, emotionally speaking. The domestic abuse therapy group she and her mom are attending appears to be genuinely helping her, and we see several examples of her actively engaging with it and doing the work for herself, but she hasn't been magically 'fixed' by it. Her first instinct is still to run away when she feels emotionally vulnerable, and we see her do that twice this week, once with her mom and once with Ty.

I can't overstate how refreshing it is to see a show portray abuse, therapy and recovery realistically as the complicated and messy process it is, right down to the way that it appears Melissa Bowen seems to be leaning into therapy as a sort of 'replacement drug,' devoting all the energy she used to give to drinking and pills to the therapy process. That's a very real thing, and it was nicely understated here. Also realistic was the way that Tandy's attempts to punish Jeremy the abusive boyfriend only resulted in his girlfriend becoming more dedicated to staying in the abusive relationship.

In fact, Ty and Tandy's attempts to help other people this week rebound in unpleasant ways all over the place this week. Ty's laudable desire to use his powers to get drugs and the dealers thereof off the streets only results in making the gang he didn't hit more powerful and dangerous, and his attempts to fix that error result in his completely screwing up the official investigation that Brigid had been running to try and take them down. Like Tandy's attempts to scare abusive partners, lack of focus on the big picture is undermining their attempts to be a force for good.

This is nicely set up by the ballet teacher's chastisement of Tandy not focusing on what she was spotting as she did whatever those ballet spinny things are called. Neither Ty or Tandy has been watching their spot as they spin, and as a result they're not getting anywhere. The show has retained its love of visual metaphors, clearly.

One last word about Ty and Tandy. I really love how real and comfortable their friendship is at this point, with the movie nights in the church, and her kind offer to steal him t-shirts and underwear. Even when they fought in this episode, it was clearly a fight between close friends, and not some kind of 'our friendship is over' blowout. This is a big part of why I  hope that they don't make Ty and Tandy a romantic couple. There are just so few positive examples of non-romantic friendship between men and women out there.

And finally, Brigid O'Reilly. It's a little odd that she's back at the police force without serious issues after everything that went down last season, but we only see her at the firing range and not at the department proper, so we'll have to wait and see how her work relationships are currently doing. It was a little surprising that she didn't start out as Mayhem, since that was the way we last saw her as she climbed out of the lake, but New Orleans appears to be heavy into 'we'll seed your powers now, and then get around to activating them at some point in the future,' and in any case, it made the massacre in the final scene a nice payoff to our expectations. We are all assuming that that was Mayhem, right? So, is Mayhem a Jeckyl and Hyde thing, or can she control the transformation, or what? I've been avoiding being spoiled on this on social media, and as I said I haven't watched the second episode yet. Perhaps this question has already been answered.

Bits and Pieces:

-- I really like what they're doing with Ty's teleportation effect, and I get that they were establishing that he's been practicing, but I hope they don't make the mistake of thinking of him as just a teleporter. Teleporting is the least interesting part of his powers.

-- Brigid told Ty that unless Connors resurfaces it will be hard to get him cleared for Fuchs' murder. I wonder if they're setting up Ty trying to rescue Connors from the dark dimension inside him. Is that the way that we're going to see Tandy going into the dark dimension? Am I just fanboy dreaming?

-- I like the detail that they watch movies on VHS. It's an abandoned church, it makes sense that there would be an old VCR somewhere. It's a little odd that the electricity is still on, though.

-- The effect of Tandy's light knives gouging the walls was particularly well done.

-- Are ballet teachers actually that mean, or is that just a movie and TV thing? Anyone know?

-- Andrea Roth consistently brings a little extra something to every scene she's in.

-- Hopefully we'll get to see Evita properly sooner rather than later. And Mina. And Ty's parents. And I still miss Liam.

-- There was a nice detail when Ty is describing watching Evita get hit on and refers to her having 'rebuffed' the guy. He has such a prep school vocabulary. It's clearly deliberately done, because none of the other characters talk that way. Very nice and subtle.

-- Also nicely done is the way the camera work is developing little tricks to show Ty's appearances and disappearances. They're finding a lot of clever and inexpensive ways to move the camera so that his coming or going looks astonishing, but in reality is very simply achieved. I specifically liked the way his weight shifted the car's balance when he appeared in Brigid's back seat.

-- Did Ty want his physics books so that he could do his schoolwork as a coping mechanism for being isolated, or is he researching the physics of what happened to him and how his powers work?

-- Lots of nice detail work in the drug processing houses. The set dressers really put some effort in.

-- Newton's second law of thermodynamics gets a curious amount of love in genre fiction. I'm betting someone on the writing staff has seen 'Logopolis.'

Quotes:

Girl in therapy: "Kinda sucks when your livelihood relies on being nice to people." Tandy: "Yeah. That’s why I got into roller derby."

Ty: "Note to self. Tandy has no idea what studying is." Tandy: "Solitude has made you sassy."

Tandy: "Note to self – You’re still a horrible liar."

Tandy: "Not to rookie-mistake you, but marking up a map of the city is extremely nerdy, and kinda damning as well."

Tandy: "It’s possible I’m not over my dad the way I wish I was over my dad."

Ty: "You know I don’t drink." Tandy: "Ah, that’s OK. I can drink for the both of us."

A great start to the second season, and hopefully an indicator of the quality to come. Now bring on the Mayhem.

Three and a half out of four VHS tapes.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

[multi-fandom-imagines-party]

Western Stars: An Adric/Nyssa Western AU one-shot

(gifs not mine, credit to the original posters)

Western Stars: An Adric/Nyssa one-shot

(Requested by @4thdoctorjellybabies)

The heat from the sun suffused everything, causing sweat to break out all over the young man. He could feel beads of moisture dripping down his back underneath his shirt, vest, and coat as he took out his handkerchief to mop his brow. He readjusted his hat, not wanting the sun to burn and damage his pale complexion. The stagecoach kicked up puffs of dust as it rattled away over the dirt road, leaving him standing in the middle of Traken. The town had the largest bank for miles around, and he was to be the new manager.

He looked up at the wooden building, seeing the brightly-painted sign denoting it as the bank. He hoped his future would be as bright and cheerful as the sign, but he doubted it. After his failure, this supposed promotion was actually his exile.

Walking up the steps of the building, he toppled to the ground as someone stumbled into him mid-step.

“Oh my goodness, I am terribly sorry!” A gloved hand reached down into his vision. “Here let me help you up,” a feminine voice said.

He looked up, taking the proffered hand. The hand was attached to a woman, older than himself, but beautiful. Her curls hair was doing its best to escape the ribbons that tied it back, leaving ringlets to bounce on the side of her face. Her red blouse and vest accented her figure quite nicely - although he really shouldn’t be looking at that. His eyes widened as he realized she was wearing.... trousers!

He shook his head, trying to clear away the thoughts. “My apologies, miss. My mind was elsewhere. Thank you, miss...?”

“Oh! My name is Nyssa, Nyssa Sutton. And you are?”

“Adric Waterhouse, at your service,” he said.

“Well, Mr. Waterhouse, any business you have at the bank will have to wait. The old manager died, and no replacement has come yet,” she said as she shook her head.

“I was sent here by my superiors; I am to be the new manager of the bank.”

Her eyes brightened. “Finally! It will be good to have someone new in town. The doctor has the keys. I can take you to meet him.” She stepped down, then looked at him, waiting. It would be rude to refuse her offer of help.

Adric tried to think of something, just so he could keep talking to her. Her voice was melodic and soothing. “Have you been in town long, Miss Sutton?”

She shook her head. “I don’t live in town. I own Sutton Ranch, about nine miles east of here. I raise cattle and horses.”

Well, the trousers made more sense, although she could at least wear a skirt in town. “Why does the doctor have the keys? I would think the sheriff would hold onto them.”

“Our doctor and sheriff are the same person. This is a quiet little town, and the doctor is a good man, the best around. He simply prefers to be known as a doctor, rather than by his sheriff title.”

She stopped in front of a two-story wooden building. “This is the doctor. I have to leave, I have business to finish here in town before I go back to the ranch. It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Waterhouse.” She smiled at him, a bright, sunny smile, which faded into a sheepish expression. “I do apologize for stumbling into you, though.”

Adric smiled at her. “The pleasure was mine, Miss Sutton, and you have nothing to apologize for.”

Adric’s earlier hopes of a bright, sunny future as the bank manager were proven to be false, much to his dismay. There was barely any work for him to do since, with the exception of Miss Sutton and the doctor/sheriff, the majority of the townsfolk distrusted banks and those who worked at them. The doctor, older than Adric but still young, soon became his only friend in town, the other man being remarkably amiable. Adric was sure the doctor was the only reason the townsfolk hadn’t run him out of town; even though he was a banker, he was the doctor’s friend, and apparently that counted for more than the other.

His days were filled with a whole heap of nothing to do. Granted, he was still getting paid, but for how long? He was sure he’d be fired after his earlier mistakes, but now it seemed he was to be blamed for the failure of this branch, then fired. With a reputation like that, it would be difficult to get a job.

On the bright side, Miss Sutton, or Nyssa as she soon insisted he call her, visited him every time she came into town. She, like himself and the doctor, prized reading and education, and brought books for him to read in his moments of nothing. Mostly they were on animal husbandry, farming, and other things useful for more agricultural pursuits, but it was still fascinating to him.

When she came to visit, they would often talk. She told him about how her father had passed away, leaving Nyssa to run their ranch. She told him what it was like for her, growing up without a mother in the middle of nowhere. She told him about the struggles of being an unmarried woman and running the ranch. He, in turn, told her about his childhood in Alzarius, how his own parents had died in a fire leaving him and his brother to grow up by themselves. He told her how his brother died during a fight between his gang and a rival one. He told her about how, eventually, he moved to Logopolis, with the dream of becoming a mathematician or a lawyer. Their time together caused him to develop a fondness for her.

One day, yet another boring one where no one came to the bank, Nyssa stormed in the front door. Adric fumbled his feet off his desk, the book he’d been reading flopping down. Nyssa’s hair was in disarray. When she looked at him, he could see tear stains on her cheeks.

“Nyssa, what is wrong? What has happened?” He’d never seen her like this before; while she would rant about her difficulties running her ranch, she’d never cried.

She burst into tears, throwing herself at him. Surprised, he caught her in his arms as she sobbed into his shoulder. He remembered his mother used to pat him on the back when he was a child; perhaps it would be as soothing to Nyssa as it was to him? Awkwardly, he gently patted her on the back. To his dismay, it only increased her tears.

The doctor came rushing in, looking around wildly. “Adric, have you seen- oh, you found her! Excellent. I was worried about her.”

“What is wrong, Doctor? She has not said anything since she came in.” Adric was becoming more worried by the second.

The doctor sighed. “A man, claiming to be her father’s brother, came to the ranch. He brought with him a will of her father’s that left everything to him, instead of Miss Sutton. It is a later date than the one we have.” The doctor shook his head, his mouth a grim line. “I believe it is a fake, but I do not have the power to declare it as such. I sent a telegraph for a judge, but I do not know how soon he will arrive.”

“What happens if the will is declared genuine?”

“It isn’t real!” Nyssa shouted, her eyes full of anger. “My father was an only child; he had no siblings at all, much less a brother! He would have told me. He... he would have told me...” She trailed off, tears filling her eyes once again.

“I will stall him for as long as I can.” the doctor said as he patted her shoulder. “In the meantime, I think that you,” he said gesturing to Nyssa, “should either have someone stay with you at the ranch, or stay here in town with someone. I do not trust this so-called uncle of yours.”

Nyssa shook her head. “I’m unable leave the ranch, not at this time of the year. It’s foaling season.”

The doctor looked at him, a glimmer in his eye. “Adric, will you stay with Nyssa? I can deputize you, giving you authority to deal with anything that might come up. Just... be careful. As I said, I do not trust him.”

Adric nodded. If the man was a criminal, there was no telling what he was capable of. If he hurt Nyssa... Adric had already lost his brother, he wasn’t going to lose anyone else. “You two are the only ones who come to the bank; I doubt I will be missed here.” He looked at her. “Would you consent to my- ?”

Nyssa’s eyes shined brightly, a light blush staining her cheeks. “Would you? I hate to impose, or seem improper, but I would feel safer with you.” Adric was struck by how the light from the windows sparkled in her eyes, and his breath caught in his chest. He cleared his throat, nodded, and smiled at her, not trusting his voice at the moment. From the corner of his eye, he saw the doctor watching them with a pleased look on his face. Whatever did the man have to be pleased about?

The winds were blustering by the time Adric and Nyssa left town. The sky grew darker as the clouds changed from fluffy white, to dense, heavy grey. They could both smell the coming storm. They only hoped they would get to the ranch before the skies opened up. Being caught in a storm would be dangerous, especially if it was a thunder storm. The wagon rattled and bounced along the dirt roads as Nyssa hurried the horses along. Adric focused on holding on to the side of the seat, trying to keep from bumping Nyssa with his legs.

As time passed, the clouds grew darker and more numerous. Neither Adric nor Nyssa could see the sky itself, only the clouds. They saw a flash of lightening in the distance. The boom of thunder pealed around them. The first few raindrops fell.

“We need to get to the ranch!”

Nyssa shook her head. “We are only halfway there; we won’t make it.” She stopped the wagon, as more rain fell down on them. Another clap of thunder sounded, and Nyssa urged the horses down a track on the left side of the road.

“Where are we going?”

“Farmer who left a few years ago, his barn is still standing. It’s closer than the ranch, and we need shelter.”

The wind picked up speed, whipping their wet hair into their faces. The wagon bumped and thumped along the track, which was barely wide enough. Adric held on, afraid he’d fall off if he didn’t. Soon the barn came into view. While the paint was peeling all over, the roof and walls appeared to be secure. Adric jumped down to open the doors as Nyssa led the horses in. He wrestled the doors back into place, and laid his damp coat over the side of the wagon to dry.

Movement in the shadows caught his eye. “Nyssa, behind you!” A man wrapped his hand around her neck, his other arm restraining her. As Adric froze, not wanting to do anything that would cause Nyssa to be harmed, a heavy object thudded into the back of his head. The world darkened as he fell to the ground.

Pain caused Adric to regain consciousness. Trying to move his hand informed him that he was tied up rather securely, around his wrists, arms and torso, and legs. He could move his head though, and he saw the man from earlier sitting with several others; someone else stood apart from them, talking to them. They were a tall gentleman, with slicked back dark brown hair and a beard. Adric didn’t like the way he looked; his eyes were dead, and he had a cruel twist to his sneer. Looking to his left, he saw Nyssa, also tied up. She was so still, he was afraid that they killed her. He was relieved when a small moan came from her let him know she was still alive.

“Ah, it appears my niece is awake.” The villain walked over and knelt by Nyssa. His voice was cultured and oily, the voice of a villain. Adric closed his eyes almost all the way, only enough for him to see through, and worked to keep his breathing even. He didn’t want the man to notice he was awake. “You have such poor luck, my dear. You and your friend stumbled right into our grasp.” He reached out, gently patting Nyssa’s curls, then sharply grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. “I will make this quite simple. Desist in contesting your father’s will, or both you and your friend will die. Your own will shall be found, making the ranch over to me. Since no one will challenge it, I shall receive what I want anyway. You have until the storm stops to think it over.” He let go of her and walked away, settling near a small fire his goons had built.

Adric’s mind was racing. Even if Nyssa agreed to the new will, they both knew this man was dangerous. He would likely kill them anyway, to make sure no one knew his secret. Adric had to get himself and Nyssa free, and to the doctor. Perhaps... He twisted and wriggled his hands, just the way his brother had taught him. He worked slowly, carefully, making sure their captors couldn’t see him. The ropes loosened slightly. Not enough for him to free himself, but it was working. His wrists were being rubbed raw, but he couldn’t let a little pain stop him. Nyssa’s life was at stake. He couldn’t lose someone else, not like his brother. He couldn’t lose her.

Finally, the ropes loosened enough for Adric to slip his hands out. There was a hole in the wall closest to them, just large enough for Nyssa and him to escape. If he could find something sharp, he could cut their ropes. A boom of thunder startled the horses, and their captors had to quiet them. One was more frightened than the others, and refused to calm down.

“Quiet, you ugly nag!” One of the goons threw a bottle; instead of hitting the horse, it hit the wooden post above Adric, showering him in glass fragments.

“That’s enough, you fool!” The leader shouted angrily and cuffed him over the head.

A sharp pain alerted Adric to a piece of glass by his hands. Feeling it, he was overjoyed to find it was a large shard, sharp and sturdy enough to cut through the ropes.

Slowly, hoping and praying he wouldn’t be seen, he inched towards Nyssa. When he was close enough, he touched her hand. “Nyssa,” he whispered, “I have a piece of glass. There is a hole in the wall, above our heads. I will cut the ropes on you, then myself. You head through the hole first, I will follow.” Nyssa wiggled her fingers against his; Adric hoped that meant she understood. He sawed through the ropes. They fell apart as he did. Finished with Nyssa, he passed the shard to her, and she worked on him. The last ropes on his feet came apart, when they heard noises outside.

“This is the sheriff! You are surrounded. Come out with your hands above your head!”

The goons stood up, shouting in confusion. There wasn’t any time. She had to be safe.

“Run Nyssa!” Adric pushed her towards the hole, and she stumbled towards it. She wriggled her way through as he followed her.

“No!” A hand caught his boot, pulling him back in. The imposter glared down at him, fury etched on his face and blazing in his eyes. “You ruined everything!” His hand reached into his coat pocket. He drew out a small revolver, the metal glinting as a flash of lightening illuminated the barn. Adric froze as he watched the revolver point at him. A clap of thunder sounded. Pain blossomed in his chest. His shirt and vest felt warm.

The doors burst open. The doctor rushed in, a rifle in his hand pointing at the the villain. Several men, from the ranch and town, followed him, their own rifles pointing at the criminals. “Lay down your weapons,” the doctor said in a commanding voice, “or face the consequences. We caught you red-handed.”

The imposter tossed down his revolver, holding his hands above his head. The doctor came forward and shackled him. “Tie them up with the ropes.” The doctor swayed back and forth as he stood over Adric- or was that his vision getting worse? The doctor knelt, and Adric shook his head as two of him appeared. “Get my bag from the wagon; Adric’s hurt!” the doctor yelled

Nyssa cried out his name as she ran towards him, tears in her eyes. “There’s so much blood. Adric, Adric, listen to me, do not die. You simply can not die, I need you,” she said as stroked his hair and face; Adric was struck by how her hands were callused and work-worn, yet equally soft and gentle. He tried to focus on what she was saying, but his vision grew dark. The last thing he heard was Nyssa screaming his name as his eyes fell shut.

Adric shaded his eyes as he watched the foals playing in the pasture. The tree above him rustled as a breeze blew through. A shout caused him to turn, and Nyssa rode up with a basket. She smiled as he helped her down from her horse.

“I thought you might be hungry, so I brought lunch for us both.” Her smile was radiant, and Adric couldn’t get enough of it. “I also brought a letter for you; it’s from the bank.”

He ripped open the letter, a grin of delight breaking out over his face as he read the words he’d hoped for. “They accept my resignation!” he whooped as he picked up Nyssa and spun her around in his arms. They both laughed as they tumbled to the ground, dizzy from excitement and spinning.

“Who knew a banker would have such a fine head for horses and cattle?” she teased, though her tone lacked any bite.

Now that he was free from that miserable bank, there was only one thing to do. Nyssa had insisted on looking after him as he healed from the bullet wound. They’d become even closer as time passed. Adric had never felt this way about anyone before. Last night, he’d looked through the few things he had from his parents.

Sitting next to Nyssa, he held her hands in one of his, the other reaching into his pocket. He looked deep into her eyes. “Nyssa, you are a wonderful friend to me. You are kind, thoughtful, intelligent, beautiful, and so much more. I am unable to properly describe all the happiness and joy and good I feel because of you. This ring belonged to my mother; my father gave it to her. Nyssa, will you marry me?”

Tears filled her eyes. She said nothing. Adric began to fear he’d made a mistake, when she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Yes! Yes, I will be happy to marry you!” She kissed him firmly. He leaned back.

“Nyssa, your reputation-” He was cut off with another kiss. As petals drifted down around them and the foals played, Adric thought that maybe kissing wasn’t such a bad thing to do with no one else around. As Nyssa leaned back, he tangled one hand in her hair, the other wrapped around her waist, and pulled her in for another kiss.

[cynicalclassicist]

The Substitute

Written by Chris Newton

This isn’t mine but was done by another of the Lockdown writers who very kindly sent it to me.

If there was one thing Lou loved more than chips – and the beautiful girl with the seriously amazing hair that served them in the university canteen – it was Doctor John Smith’s lectures. Sometimes he would arrive late – bursting into the lecture hall with his Edwardian velvet jacket billowing behind him, already theorising aloud, often in midsentence. Other times Lou would arrive early, the first student there, only to find him already feverishly chalking away at his blackboard and boasting at thin air. It seemed that the Doctor was a walking lesson, and anybody who was lucky enough to be in his orbit – whether a student of St. Luke’s or not – might learn a thing or two. If they could get over the initial confusion, that was. The Doctor’s lessons weren’t necessarily always in chronological order, occasionally anachronistic (he himself often seemed unsure of what year it currently was), and not guaranteed to be in English, but things usually came together in the end. 

She’d once seen him segue from a talk on recording paranormal activity to a masterclass on creative writing, explaining that “ghosts and stories are the same thing. They’re what remains of us when we die.” (Although what any of that had to do with Chemistry, Lou had no idea.) 

Disappointingly, Amazing Hair Girl hadn’t been working in the canteen today. Come to think of it, she hadn’t been around much recently. Not to worry – surely a Doctor John Smith lecture would make up for Lou’s meagre portion of chips. 

Lou was in for her second disappointment of the day, because when she hurried excitedly into the class, it was not the Doctor upon the podium as usual, but a rather severe looking woman in Victorian style clothing who stood leaning on a parasol. There was something a bit Mary Poppins about her, albeit in an intimidating sort of way. Scary Poppins, thought Lou.

“Good afternoon, class,” the woman grinned as though amused by a joke that only she was aware of. “I’m afraid boring old Doctor Whatever-he’s-calling-himself-these-days is ill. I’m your substitute teacher for the day and my name is Mistress Thascalos.”

“What’s wrong with the Doctor?” Lou couldn’t help blurting. 

“Oh, I dunno,” Mistress Thascalos twirled her parasol dismissively. “Spectrox poisoning? A lethal dose of radiation? Falling off a tower? It’s usually something like that, isn’t it?” 

“But he’s okay? He’ll be back?”

“He does seem to make a rather annoying habit of surviving, yes. Anyway – textbooks! Turn to page…” she hesitated, “what subject is this?”

“Advanced Mathematics,” an eager student provided. 

“Maths? Ugh. You know what, who needs textbooks anyway? If you all have a look beneath your seats, you’ll find the very latest in virtual reality technology.”

The students did as they were told and, sure enough, they each found an incredibly hi-tech VR headset. The latest design from Magpie Electricals. 

“Well, don’t be shy! Put them on!” the substitute teacher smiled mischievously. 

“Miss...,” Lou raised a hand, surveying the headset uncertainly. “What does this have to do with mathematics?”

“Well… Very little,” said Mistress Thascalos. “But you’re not missing anything interesting. Take my word for it – I’ve been to Logopolis,” she mimed a yawn. 

“These headsets are the ultimate educational experience,” she declared as the students pulled them onto their heads and over their eyes. “From the comfort of this lecture hall you can sail the oceans,” there was a collective gasp as the students’ immersive experience began. “You can soar through the skies,” Mistress Thascalos continued, “you can probe the furthest recesses of the known universe.”

Lou could not believe what she was seeing. One minute she had been flying through clouds, but now she had burst through the earth’s atmosphere, rocketed past the moon, and was careering towards a distant nebula as constellations wheeled overhead. 

It was overpowering and awe inspiring. It filled her with a desire for adventure, a desire to explore… a desire to obey.

No, that couldn’t be right, could it? OBEY. She tried to focus her thoughts, but all she could think of – even with the vast infiniteness of space all about her – was the Mistress’s voice. Not so much the words, because the substitute teacher wasn’t speaking anymore; she was singing. The haunting timbre of her strange lullaby was like a siren’s song beckoning Lou to spaceshipwreck. 

Sing the days of love

Softly lay me down

Tenderly the night will come

Gently lay me down

Something in Lou’s subconscious was screaming at her to resist, but the melody was wholly overpowering. 

“I… Must… Obey…,” Lou mumbled, half consciously. 

“Now then boys and girls,” Mistress Thascalos struck her parasol against the floor with a joyful authority. “Please attend carefully! Your minds are now slaved to mine. To do my will shall be the whole of the law. As you can see, it’s a big old universe out there – we’ve got lots of work to do!” 

Mistress Thascalos giggled and then sighed. 

“He’s going to let me out eventually and I have to be ready. He will test me. I have to test myself first. I could tear your minds apart. I could claim mastery over you. I could even turn into a weird snake thingy and possess one of you. Actually, I don’t recommend that, between you and me it’s kind of icky.”

She dropped her parasol and sat, somewhat dejectedly, on the edge of the podium. Her face was inscrutable – or would have been had any of the students possessed the mental autonomy to look at her, but none of them saw the Time Lady sitting in contemplative silence. None of them saw the tear that pricked at her eye. Eventually, she clapped her hands together twice and the students collectively snapped out of her influence.

“Class dismissed,” she muttered.  

The students groggily removed their headsets, vaguely aware they’d been on some sort of simulated tour of the cosmos. That was the thing with VR, it was incredibly realistic but it always made you nauseous after too long. Lou thought she must have nodded off. The last thing she remembered was a strange song. I must have dreamt it, she shrugged, before shouldering her bag and shuffling off toward the canteen for a vegan wrap in the hope that Amazing Hair Girl would be back.

***

Missy prowled down the university corridor, past the entrance to the Terrance Dicks Library, and then pushed open the door to the Doctor’s office a peek’s worth. The room was empty, and the TARDIS was gone. She pirouetted across the rug to his desk, rummaging through the collection of sonic screwdrivers in the caddy. She selected one of the earlier models, a small slim silver rod. Surely, he wouldn’t miss this one. 

Unable to resist, she reached out to open the 2000 Year Diary resting upon the desk, but just as her fingers couched its stiff leather cover, the wheezing, groaning of ancient engines filled the room and she hurried for the door.  

She made her way across the quad, and down past the bins and to the heavy iron door which lead to the bowels of the university. A student, still in the previous evening’s glad rags and looking rather green around the gills, was slumped against a stack of bin bags. Missy shooed him out of the way as she pushed against the door’s rusted rivets; it didn’t budge.

“Seriously?” she sighed. “Friends Only?”

Missy turned angrily to the student, raving at the young man as though it was his fault. 

“The Doctor’s set the door to allow friends only,” she yelled.

“Please…,” murmured the student. “I don’t feel well.” His hand shot to his mouth.

“I am his friend,” Missy continued. “His oldest friend. We were at school together.”

Behind her, the door gave a metallic squeal.

“Don’t take that tone with me!” Missy snapped, angrily turning back to the door. “What about the Axons? Remember the Axons? Or Rassilon, remember? Get out of the way – Pizwow!!” she made the noise of a lightning bolt. 

The door remained shut fast. She booted it in frustration and then gave a grunt of pain, hopping on the spot. 

“Fine,” she sighed. “Fine. What about today? I could have killed them all. Kind of wanted to, actually, not gonna lie. Did give it some serious thought. But I let them live. I had them under my power, but I chose to let them go. Because…,” she gritted her teeth. “Because it was right. And, no, I’ve not gone soft, I didn’t do it for me. I did it for him. Because he’s the only person I’ve ever met who’s even remotely like me. Because I am his friend. We had a pact; every star in the universe – we were going to see them all. But he was too busy saving them. I don’t think he ever saw anything. That’s why he has all those pets, those silly little humans; he’s always trying to see the cosmos through their eyes. Maybe one day he’ll see it through his own. With me.” 

The door seemed to gurgle and then opened with a deep clunk. Missy had never heard a door that sounded begrudging before, but it had conceded to her logic. Friends Only meant that the Doctor’s first friend was allowed in. Missy strode through just as the hungover student by the bins was beginning to retch.

She waltzed along to the vault as the door slammed shut behind her and pointed the old sonic at the lock. There was a lot of whizzing, whirring and bleeping, until eventually it rotated to the right with a clunk and she let herself in.

Honestly, one thousand years locked in a vault with nothing to do but escape. Did he really think she wouldn’t have engineered a way out by now? She once built a gun out of leaves. She could get through a door if she wanted to. Missy shook her head.

The Mistress, the renegade Time Lady of Gallifrey, locked herself back into her prison. Without hope, without witness, and without reward. 

[esonetwork]

Timestamp #223: The Doctor's Wife

New Post has been published on https://esonetwork.com/timestamp-223-the-doctors-wife/

Timestamp #223: The Doctor's Wife

Doctor Who: The Doctor’s Wife (1 episode, s06e04, 2011)

“Where’s my thief!?”

A woman named Idris is led to a platform by “Auntie”, “Uncle”, and “Nephew”, the last of which is an Ood who drains her mind in preparation for a Time Lord’s arrival.

On the TARDIS, the Doctor, Amy, and Rory are surprised by a knock on the door. Even though they are in deep space, the shave-and-a-haircut routine reveals an emergency hypercube message for the Doctor, presumably sent by another Time Lord named the Corsair. They follow the signal contained within, dumping excess TARDIS rooms for fuel, and break through to another universe.

Almost immediately, the TARDIS goes dark. The matrix – the heart and soul of the TARDIS – has vanished. While the Doctor puzzles over where it would go, Idris awakens with an exhale of golden regeneration energy.

The travelers exit the TARDIS into a junkyard. Luckily, there’s plenty of rift energy so refueling should be easy. On the other hand, the Doctor is accosted by Idris, who presents as an insane woman calling the Time Lord her “thief”. After taking care of Idris, the Doctor turns his attention to the green-eyed Ood. After fixing the Ood’s sphere, it broadcasts a series of interwoven distress messages from various Time Lords. As Auntie and Uncle take Idris back to the House, the Doctor expresses his intrigue at the possible presence of his own people.

In the House, the asteroid is revealed to be sentient. The asteroid tells the Doctor that many TARDISes and Time Lords have come and gone, but there are no others now. The travelers explore a bit. Amy points out that the Doctor is seeking forgiveness from his people. The Doctor sends the companions back to the TARDIS in search of his sonic screwdriver. Once they arrive, the doors lock as a green mist swirls about the phone box. Meanwhile, the Doctor had his sonic the entire time. Cheeky devil.

The Doctor discovers a collection of Time Lord distress signal cubes. He realizes that Auntie and Uncle have been mended over time by the asteroid with parts of the various Time Lords, including the ouroboros-tattooed arm of the Corsair.

Knowing that Idris foretold the Doctor’s discovery, he confronts her. There he finds out that she holds the matrix. She is the personification of the TARDIS. The Doctor releases her and together they determine that House feeds on TARDISes, which it can only do if it removes the matrices first. The Doctor tries to retrieve Amy and Rory from the TARDIS, but the phone box dematerializes with the chiming of the Cloister Bell and heads back to N-Space. Unfortunately for the companions, the House has hijacked the TARDIS.

In the junkyard, Uncle and Auntie collapse as they lose their source of life. Idris herself only has a short time to live but encourages the Doctor to explore the TARDIS junkyard for a way home. When the Doctor asks what he should call her, Idris tells him (much to his chagrin) that he named her “Sexy”.

House asks why he shouldn’t just kill the humans. Rory stalls for time by suggesting that they could provide entertainment. House agrees, prompting them to run for their lives through the corridors in a series of nightmare scenarios.

As the Doctor assembles a TARDIS from spare parts, he and Idris argue. The discussion ranges from how police box doors open outward (“Pull to Open”, which actually refers to the phone compartment), how the TARDIS always takes the Doctor where he needs to go, the Time Lord’s fascination with “strays”, and how the TARDIS wanted to travel so she stole the Doctor to take her on an adventure.

With a kiss to the time rotor, the patchwork TARDIS console room dematerializes and gives chase. Idris sends “the pretty one” a set of telepathic directions to one of her old console rooms. Rory leads Amy to the archived desktop of the Ninth and Tenth Doctor’s console room. There they lower the TARDIS’s shields but are pursued by Nephew. Just in time, the patchwork console materializes in the archived console room and vaporizes the Ood, marking another one that the Doctor failed to save.

After introductions are made, Idris collapses and House muses about ways to kill the Doctor and his companions. The Doctor gives House instructions on how to get the TARDIS back to N-Space, but when House starts deleting rooms for the journey, it inadvertently invokes a failsafe that protects living things from being deleted with the rooms. As the travelers materialize in the real console room, House suggests that they should fear him since he’s killed Time Lords before and won’t hesitate to do it again.

The Doctor replies that House should fear him. He’s killed all of them.

The Doctor stalls for time as he points out the concept of trapping the matrix in a human body. The goal was to get the matrix as far as possible from the console room, but House has brought the matrix home. With her last breath, Idris releases the matrix. It swirls about and reintegrates with the TARDIS, overriding and consuming House.

As a last gift, the TARDIS speaks through Idris. She remembers the word that she’s been searching for – “alive” – and tells him the one thing she’s never been able to say: “Hello, Doctor. It’s so very very nice to meet you.” In a bright flash of light, Idris disappears, offering her final words of “I love you” to her companion.

Some time later, the Doctor installs a firewall around the matrix. Rory tells him that Idris’s final words to him were, “The only water in the forest is the river,” which she believed that they needed to know for the future. Amy and Rory ask for a new bedroom – preferably one with a double bed instead of bunk beds – since theirs was deleted. He tells them how to get there, then spends some time with the TARDIS console. He asks the ship where she wants to go, even if it’s the Eye of Orion for a little rest and relaxation.

The levers flip on their own accord. The TARDIS sets a course. Adventure awaits.

What a beautiful ride.

When I first saw this episode back in 2011, I was confused by it. The fast pace coupled with rapid-fire references lost me. This time around, however, I relished the experience. The story is well-written and plays off of each of the main characters so nicely, from the Doctor’s desire to be forgiven for his actions in the Last Great Time War to Amy and Rory’s love. The latter of which was actually sold quite well here despite my skepticism of it last season.

The core of this story is the Doctor’s relationship to the TARDIS, which is played beautifully by giving a voice to a consciousness that exists simultaneously across all time and space. The relationship is pretty much that of a married couple, and the TARDIS’s finally expressed love for her companion is one born of their mutual adventures. I love that the TARDIS has archived past console rooms – which presumably means that a blank room is simply formatted with the “desktop” file from previous iterations – and that the TARDIS already knows what rooms are coming up next.

Amusingly, Neil Gaiman has requested that the archive scene feature a classic-era console room, but the budget wasn’t available for that. So, the production team left the coral console room standing for this story. This episode was supposed to air during Series Five but was pushed to this point in time so there was quite a long production lead for it.

The Doctor’s TARDIS also is pretty explicit about the nature of other time capsules. The Time Lords have previously treated them as nothing more than machines or vehicles, but Idris refers to her dead siblings as sisters. That matches well with nautical traditions of referring to all ships as female, but also gives us insight into the culture of the TARDISes overall.

This story featured the Doctor piloting a TARDIS other than his own for the first time on screen – at this point in time, Shada had not yet been completed – and that patchwork ship was the creation of 12-year-old Susannah Leah for a Blue Peter contest, complete with safety straps on the console (hello, Timelash!). The Doctor previously traveled with only the TARDIS console in Inferno. This story was also the first one since Horror of Fang Rock to kill every character except the Doctor and the companions.

Neil Gaiman reached way back for some of the elements here. We first (and last) saw the hypercube in The War Games, last saw the TARDIS’s telepathic circuits used to mess with the companions in The Edge of Destruction, and found the Doctor rebuilding the TARDIS in both The Claws of Axos and The Horns of Nimon. Lest we forget the concept of jettisoning rooms on the TARDIS, which we’ve seen on at least three occasions (Logopolis, Castrovalva, and Paradise Towers), or the idea of tricking the villain into fixing the TARDIS (ala Frontios).

It’s obvious that he’s a fan of the show and has done his homework.

He also deliberately provided the first confirmation in the franchise mythology that Time Lords can change gender during regeneration. I covered many of the reasons why this was a brilliant and easily defensible concept when Jodie Whittaker was announced as the Thirteenth Doctor, and I still stand by it. Gaiman’s choice of the ouroboros – the snake eating its own tail, a symbol for eternity – for the Corsair’s personal emblem was a great representation of both Time Lord culture and the nature of Doctor Who.

This story is just amazing as a franchise game-changer and ode to the show’s history. To call it fantastic is an understatement, but it’s the highest choice I have.

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

UP NEXT – Doctor Who: The Rebel Flesh and Doctor Who: The Almost People

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

[yeonchi]

Doctor Who Series 12 Review Part 7/10: Can You Hear Me?

Air date: 9 February 2020

This was a pretty deep episode if you ask me. Dreams and nightmares have been explored in Doctor Who over the years, but this is the first time that we have gone deeper into them and linked it to mental health. Apparently, this was why a BBC Action Line tag was included in the original UK broadcast of the episode.

My spoiler-free thought for this episode: “Who let Gen Urobuchi touch the script for this episode?”

As the BBC Action Line was mentioned, I guess I have the duty to recommend some support lines before I start the review. This page has a vast collection of mental health hotlines and websites from around the world.

Spoilers continue after the break.

Character development everywhere

This episode managed to develop Graham, Ryan and Yaz’s characters at the same time as we gain an insight into their fears and nightmares. Graham’s fear was his cancer coming back and Grace being disappointed in him (which likely manifested as a result of the guilt of not being able to save her). Ryan’s fear was not being able to see his friend, Tibo, during his lifetime and the Earth turning into what would be Orphan 55 (as shown with the Dregs in his nightmare). Yaz’s fear was a bit confusing for me to decipher, but it seems to be being left alone with no one to help her.

At the end of the episode, it becomes evident that this experience inspires them to do something that furthers their characters. Ryan encourages Tibo to seek support or therapy for his depression. Yaz is inspired to seek the policewoman (Anita Patel, I hate it when they name characters in the credits and they don’t say who they are in the episode) who inspired her three years ago when she ran away from home to answer her bet. Graham confides to the Doctor his worries about his cancer potentially coming back.

At the same time, we also get an insight into the Doctor’s fear (at this point in time), which is evidently that of the Timeless Child and everything she knew being a lie. The Doctor’s previously known fear was back during his eleventh incarnation, namely the cracks in time not being fully resolved as a result of them leaving “scar tissue” in the fabric of the universe.

Overlords or not?

Zellin and Rakaya (the other imprisoned immortal whose name was never spoken in the episode) reminded me of the Overlords of Kamen Rider Agito... until we saw that they were both evil. I was going to put the Doctor into the equation, but then I realised that she is nothing like the Overlord of Light.

Let me clarify. In Agito, the Overlords are twin entities who embodied light and darkness. They created the world, but neither of them could agree on who would reign and so, they fought. After losing to his ‘brother’, the Overlord of Light bestowed his essence on humanity in the form of Agito’s power in the hope that they would evolve beyond his control. The Overlord of Darkness, however, saw to eliminate any who possessed Agito’s power and would have the potential to evolve into him.

Zellin and Rakaya are immortals who entertained themselves with the fears and nightmares of humans, while also destroying planets for their own amusement. The Doctor admires humanity’s potential and encourages them to be the best they can be, giving them as little assistance as possible so they can progress with their own abilities. In a way, they are somewhat like the Overlords, but they are not entirely like them at the same time.

A theory I missed about Ruth

I just realised something about Episode 5 that I forgot to include, namely the theory that Ruth was a pre-Hartnell Doctor. Now, I am of the belief that the First Doctor, as first shown in 1963, is the first of all the Doctor’s incarnations and that any attempt to shoehorn Ruth in at any point in the Doctor’s past (as we know to be) will be proof that the SJW agenda is here to stay.

Apparently, I saw that people were using the Fourth Doctor story The Brain of Morbius as evidence that the Doctor has had incarnations before the First Doctor, as we knew it, and used it as a theory that Ruth could be a pre-Hartnell Doctor. This is shown during the mindbending sequence near the end of the fourth part, where we saw a face apparently belonging to Morbius, then the faces of the Doctor’s previous incarnations, then eight other faces taken from the production team of the time.

Assuming the eight other faces were the Doctor’s previous incarnations and the Doctor can only regenerate twelve times, here’s my theory. Ruth could be a “missing” incarnation in the eight, making the Fourth Doctor the last incarnation in this particular regeneration cycle. The Watcher merging with the Fourth Doctor in his regeneration story, Logopolis, could represent him gaining a new regeneration cycle, but between that and the Eleventh Doctor gaining another regeneration cycle, there are still four incarnations left unaccounted for.

Going by this article on the TARDIS Data Core, some classic-era material seemed to imply that Hartnell’s Doctor wasn’t the first, with even Philip Hinchcliffe, producer of The Brain of Morbius, saying that it was his intention to do so. However, at this point in time, there has been no attempt to confirm this fact, so my belief regarding the Doctor’s incarnations has not deviated from the mainstream view. People can say that those faces were randomly generated or that they originally belonged to Morbius and I’d be inclined to agree with them.

At this point in time, all the episode titles for Series 12 have been revealed. With the final episode of the series aptly being named “The Timeless Children”, I hope the issue of Ruth being the Doctor can be explained, hopefully with the appearance of the Master.

Other general thoughts

The exposition of the two planets was animated in cartoon form. What is this, Homestuck?

Is it just me, or did the Doctor manage to summon her sonic screwdriver into her hand while they were cuffed? I’m sorry, but that is a deus ex machina right there. Someone stated on Twitter that the cuffs were magnetised, but there has been no indication or explanation that that is the case.

According to this Radio Times article, some fans said that the Doctor was apparently dismissive of Graham’s concern regarding his cancer coming back, particularly this fan on Twitter, who lost his grandmother to cancer. Um, the Doctor literally said she was socially awkward and her fam has known her for so long that they should know it, given her alien nature. It’s not the first time the Doctor has struggled with being sensitive towards vulnerable people. If it’s any consolation, she stated that she would eventually think of something that she should have said. If she was actually being dismissive, she’d be more like the Twelfth Doctor during Series 8.

I know I’ve hardly ever mentioned Bowlestrek during the course of these reviews, but I can’t help but say this. I’ve seen some of his reviews of this series, out of curiosity, and while I still agree with his sentiment somewhat, I can’t help but feel that he’s become a shadow of what he was two years ago, during Series 11. Heck, I made rants on a very divisive aspect of anime and video game localisation for five years and it only took three years to make me realise that I’ve become a shadow of myself, and yet I still went on for two more years after that. But I digress; I still think The Oldest Nerd does more level-headed reviews. Tharries sums Bowlestrek up quite well here.

Summary and verdict

This was another thought-provoking episode. If you go on to read the next section, you’ll see how this episode inspired me to talk a little bit about the lowlights of my life.

The characters got decent character development and while we didn’t get any more progress in the Timeless Child arc, it’s good to be reminded that it exists and that it is one of the Doctor’s biggest fears.

Rating: 8/10

Being as personal as possible (without going into too much detail)

Before I go IRL, let me tell you about a fan of mine from years ago. When I first started the Koei Warriors Rant Series, there was a fan who followed me as I presented my research on English dubbing in video game localisation. This person was trans and they had split personalities - a boy one, a girl one, and a third one they claimed was an evil one. They were lucky to be one of the only fans I added on my personal Facebook as I was posting to Koei Tecmo’s page from there before I moved it to the Yeonchi page. Over the years, I saw stories of them writing about their depression and how their family treated them like shit. Near the end, I reported a post where they said they were going to commit suicide by taking a lot of pills - this was their second time if I remember correctly. I still have the screencap of that post. Some months later, they deactivated their Facebook account and I never heard from them again. I presumed they committed suicide given some of their posts, but I never thought about emailing them or anything until I had already started writing the review for this episode. I have no idea if she’ll reply eventually, but if she doesn’t, then I guess my intuition may have been correct all along. 

I was going through a random mood before and after I watched this episode. Before I watched it, my mind, for no reason, suddenly triggered my anger towards something I thought I’d forgiven years ago when I lowkey haven’t (which is why I elected to forget it in the hope that it’d be the same). After I watched it, I, for unrelated reasons, was “reminded” of a few people from high school (it’s a harmless habit that usually goes undetected by others that I’m also hoping to reduce) who I didn’t hang out with a lot, but they intrigued me in different ways. Like the Doctor admits, I have been socially awkward and am trying to overcome it little by little as I see old friends wherever I go (which frankly is a rarity for me), so I have different thoughts about them now than I did back then; I probably wouldn’t have been able to understand those current feelings back then.

One person was another socially awkward person like me, but she had managed to make a few friends in her locker area (she was special enough to have a locker with a few other special students in the year level above her instead of everyone else in our year level). Because of how “similar” our situations were, there were one or two times when our friends shipped us together (as a joke) and I was pissed at it because I never felt that way towards her. We did work together on a few pieces of schoolwork though. The real hitter for me regarding her was when I saw her contribution to an autism awareness project where she mentioned that she was homeschooled up until late into primary school and that she was bullied during the two years each in primary and high school. I was largely unaware that she had been bullied at all (though I did hear a story or two) and, for a great deal of the last decade, I was unaware that I had contributed to it indirectly by filming her on a couple of occasions during camp, screaming and crying at things normal people would have deemed harmless.

Another person was this girl I had this huge crush on during my entire time in high school. She was aware of it and she never loved me back, but the thing I hated about it was the fact that she didn’t tell me directly, in person or on Facebook; no, she was enough of a coward to have her cousin do it for her. Admittedly, while I did show a lot of animosity towards her, hatred even, my crush for her never subsided. If we were in an actual relationship, we’d be flip-flopping between being the abuser and the victim. At the time, I denied feeling this way because my anger and addictions to Dynasty Warriors, later tokusatsu, seemingly covered it up (I was very chuunibyou at the time and had fantasies of fighting her, wrong I know), but at this point, years after we graduated high school, I accepted that I did feel jealous of her, not just because she had a lot of friends and hung out with them all the time, but because she also hung out with a few boys and I was paranoid enough to think that they were in a relationship. I remember fictionalising all this as part of my personal project (that has a big connection with Doctor Who) ala Chris-chan with this girl and her friends as the villains. The main character (not the Doctor) of the project has a turbulent relationship with her - them being together represented my delusion of wanting to be with her, while them being apart and killing each other represented how she didn’t love me back and how I saw it as us hating each other. At this point, I’m planning on ending the personal project, so I put them back together and made them average characters just so I didn’t have to end the story with them killing each other.

The final person really pissed me off because of the way she acted towards the end of our friendship; she was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. She was a cold and socially awkward person when we first met, but over time, she warmed up to social interaction and we eventually became friends. At the end of Year 10, she moved to a different school because her dad just up and signed the contract for their new home. We still stayed in contact for the next few years and caught up with each other, even. Our catchup outings were generally pleasant, but there was this one time where it left a sour taste in my mouth. We went out to watch San Andreas with another friend of ours. We parted with our friend after the movie ended (he was also socially awkward like me) and soon after that, she got pissed off at me for no damn reason, other than me being blunt in our Facebook chats (remember, I was socially awkward at the time as well, but I still tried my best to carry a conversation even if I wasn’t good at it). I had no idea why she suddenly decided to be a bitch to me at the time, aside from a suspicion that she was PMSing at the time. We made up after that, but our friendship continued to drift as time passed. We managed to get into the same university, but we weren’t able to catch up as much as we wanted to because we did different courses and had different timetables. By the time that ungrateful slut (and no, I won’t apologise for that, that’s my honest opinion) deleted me from Facebook, she had a boyfriend and was going out to clubs quite a bit; it was like she became the protagonist of 177013, only she didn’t get injected with drugs and become a megaslut.

Sometimes, I imagine how happy I could have been if things had been different. Sadly, I have to live with the consequences of my actions, intentional or not, for the rest of my life. Many people seem to think that depressed women are the only people we should show compassion to, but they also seem to forget that men like myself can get depressed as well. At the moment, I’m doing just fine; I have a goal I want to strive for and I don’t intend on giving up until I get it - or someone gets to it first.

Stay tuned next week as I review the eighth episode, The Haunting of Villa Diodati.

[mayalr96]

Eve of Something New Chapter 26: Family

I have two importnat thing to tell you today. The first is that my exam period technically started yesterday and will officially start tomorrow. I will try to keep updating at my regular pace of every other weekend, but I might be late more often than usual.

The second thing is that Sunday is the One Year Anniversary to when I started posting this story! That means you all get an extra chapter that I will post on Sunday, the trailer video I made for this story which is already up here on Tumblr and maybe another Outtake on BedTime Stories, though that depends if I'll have the time to type it because I'm going to spend most of the next few days literally studying from sunrise to sundown and then some.

I would love to know if you want any special Outtakes, I might not have much time to write but my schedule does have two hours every day dedicated to not-studying things that aren't eating or sleeping, so I might be able to write a bit.

So tell me what you want and I will do my best to provide. For now, here's the chapter for today.

Links to chapter one on Tumblr, FF.net and AO3. 

This chapter is also available on FF.net and on AO3, as well as below the cut..

Sometime later, the Doctor finally snapped out of the trance he was in, and kissed Eva’s forehead.

“When did you last sleep?” he asked.

“I...” Eva muttered. “I don’t remember.”

“Try to,” the Doctor told her.

“Well...” Eva stretched her mind. “Before here, we went to Logopolis... and I came there after Tooth and Claw.”

“Tooth and Claw?” the Doctor repeated.

“Queen Victoria and a werewolf,” Eva replied. “Which reminds me...” She hit him over the head.

“Ow!” he called out. “What was that for?”

“Six months with Queen Victoria!” Eva called out. “Because you were late.”

“Technically, I arrived just when I was needed,” the Doctor said. “It was you who showed up early.”

“Do you really think it’s a good idea to argue with me right now?” Eva questioned.

“Er... maybe not,” the Doctor said, pecking Eva on the lips. “Amy! Go with Eva to check if she still has a room. House deleted all bedrooms, but I’m not sure how protected hers was.”

“I can go on my own,” Eva said.

“I know you can,” the Doctor said. “But you haven’t slept in about three days, during which you fought a werewolf, a homicidal planet and... and faced him. Wouldn’t want you to fall asleep in the corridor now, would we? Might be a good idea to take a shower, too,” he added thoughtfully.

“Okay,” Amy said, cutting in. “Let’s get you to your room before the Doctor can say more things that can be interpreted the wrong way.”

“What do you mean, ‘Might be a good idea to take a shower’?” Eva called out as Amy dragged her away, and the Doctor’s face lost all trace of colour.

“Nothing!” he replied, grateful that Amy cut in when she did, and smiling at Eva’s angry mutters as she walked to her room.

The room was thankfully still in place, protected from House’s doing, and Eva took a long, warm shower to calm down her nerves. She didn’t want to admit it, but the past couple of days – the last six months, really – had affected her more than she could describe.

As she dried herself, she thought about Four’s regeneration into Five. Eleven told her everything was okay and that she was back before he even noticed she was gone, but she still felt restless, needing to know he was fine and that it went well. She remembered it to be a rough regeneration but was too tired to remember why.

She put on her pyjamas, smoked one last cigarette before bed and fell asleep as soon as her wet hair touched the pillow.

EMH

The War Doctor was walking around the TARDIS – his home for the past hundreds of years. He still remembered the day he first walked through his Old Girl’s doors, as if it was yesterday, and saw his beautiful Eva for the first time.

The memories led him into the depth of the TARDIS, until he stood in front of a light blue door. He still remembered a time when her door was nearly always dark blue, back in his second body, or when it was travelling between red and green in his fourth. He was always intrigued by it, and it took a while before he found out it was related to her mood.

He was expecting a grey door, which meant absence, but this light blue door meant she was there – relaxed, calm and, most importantly, safe.

He carefully opened the door, revealing the view of the young woman sound asleep in her bed. She probably arrived in her sleep, and he was scared to find out how tired she must have been not to notice she was travelling.

His hand reached out, brushing a stray curl from her eyes and the girl stirred in her sleep.

“Doctor?” she muttered.

“Evie,” he breathed out, his voice gruff from age and lack of use.

The woman rubbed her eyes, turning to look at him. “When’d I get here?” she slurred, still not completely awake.

“I don’t know,” the Doctor replied. “I just came in and you were here.”

“Do you do that a lot?”

“What?” the Doctor frowned in confusion.

“Coming into my room when you don’t know if I’m here,” Eva said. “Do you do that a lot?”

“Lately?” the Doctor asked. “More often than not.”

Eva leaned on her elbow, taking in the sight of the man in front of her. It was the first time she was meeting the War Doctor, but she could see it had been quite a while for him in this body already.

His features were marked by lines of worry and dirt that sunk into his wrinkles. The brown coat was slung over his shoulders, covering several layers of clothing, and the scarf around his neck was loose and torn.

And, most of all, she could see the pained look in his eyes whenever he looked at her. She could almost feel the way he held back, forcing himself to not forcefully hold on to her and never, ever let go.

“When was the last time you saw me?” she asked.

“Ten years,” he said gruffly.

“84 percent,” Idris told her minutes before the Doctor revealed the number as the percentage of human in her. “Also, ten years.”

“Come here,” Eva said, moving to the side of her bed.

“What?” the Doctor asked.

“Come here,” Eva repeated, patting the bed.

Hesitantly, the Doctor took off his boots and lied down next to her. She grabbed his arm, wrapping it around her abdomen and snuggling closer to his chest.

It wasn’t long before their even breathing filled the room, the duo sleeping better than they had in far too long.

EMH

Eva spent two whole days with the War Doctor.

At first, she was worried. After all, the Time War was raging outside and this Doctor was the Warrior, the one who fights and refuses to refer to himself by his chosen name. When she found out he wasn’t planning on leaving the TARDIS for as long as she was there, they had their first fight – in her timeline, at least.

“There is a war going on outside!” she yelled. “There are people dying!”

“I know,” the Doctor said, his voice even but his eyes tired and sad. “Which is why there is no way I let you step foot outside of these doors.”

“I can’t die, Doctor,” she all but sneered, and he winced at the sound of his name.

“There are worse things that can happen to you in war than dying,” he told her.

The discussion never rose again.

She sat him down and all but forced him to watch movies with her.

‘The Princess Bride’. ‘Avengers’. She introduced him to Disney, telling him to pay close attention as she asked the TARDIS to put on ‘Dumbo’.

He held her tight, not once complaining about her choice of films and stealing kisses every time she went to the kitchen for more popcorn.

After that, she went to swim in the pool, swatting him on the arm as he looked her up and down when she came out of her room wearing nothing than a bathing suit and splashing water at him when he refused to enter the water.

Later, as he took a shower, she went to the library, where the TARDIS procured her a book that was due to come out a couple of months after Eva left her universe. It was the fifth of a series, and she was so invested in the plot she didn’t even notice the Doctor came out of the shower and sat down beside her until she turned the last page and put it down.

He sat by her side as she smoked, even though she knew he hated the smell. He said he didn’t mind it, and while she knew something deeper was hiding beneath the surface, she didn’t push it.

At night, the fears arrived and under the covers of her bed, the Doctor told Eva he was starting to believe there really was only one way to end this war – by killing all sides involved. She ran a hand through his grey hair and told him that no matter what he decided to do, she fully supported him.

She knew how the story ended – knew that he didn’t really kill all of the Time Lords but instead locked them in a pocket universe – but she also knew that it would be a long time before he found out the truth. Time filled with guilt and regret, times when he questioned the reason he survived in the first place, times that he thought it wasn’t even worth it, since the Daleks survived.

She knew he’d need someone to support him during those moments. And seeing as she was the only thing constant in his life other than the TARDIS, she fully intended on being that person.

But those days of peace and solitude came to an end, as all good things do. Eva was standing in the kitchen, cooking breakfast as the Doctor sat next to the kitchen table and looked at her when her necklace glowed.

The frying pan fell from her hand, cluttering on the floor, and Eva looked at it for a moment before raising her tear-filled eyes to meet the Doctor’s. It was ten years since he last saw her and who knew when would be the next time. She opened her mouth, not even knowing what she wanted to say, but the glow swallowed her before she could think that far.

When the light subsided and Eva blinked, she found herself standing in the middle of the Torchwood Hub.

The place appeared to be empty, and she looked around, silently trying to recognize when she ended up. A sound from behind her made her turn and she saw Jack looking at her.

She smiled, taking a step at his direction but he pulled a gun out and aimed it at her.

“Jack?” she asked worriedly.

“Who are you?” Jack asked. “How did you get in here?”

“Jack, it’s me,” Eva said, confused. “It’s Eva.”

“How do you know me?” Jack questioned.

“I... I travel with the Doctor,” Eva muttered. “It’s not your first time meeting me, is it? It can’t be...”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jack spat out. “Now tell me, how do you know me?”

“We know each other,” Eva said. “You travelled with me, and with the Doctor.”

“Doctor?” Jack repeated, a look of confusion on his face. “Doctor who?”

Eva’s eyes widened for a moment, and the next thing she knew Jack pulled the trigger of his gun and the bullet hit between her eyes.

EMH

When she came to, Jack was tying her up on one of the cold storage cells. His face twisted in anger and surprised when he saw she was awake.

“I shot you,” he muttered. “How can you be alive?”

“Jack, please,” Eva said. “You met me before. I know you have. You travelled with the Doctor – don’t you remember? He’s the reason you stopped being a con man.”

“I remember the Doctor,” Jack said. “I remember him leaving me. I remember him flying away, abandoning me in the year 200,100. That’s what I remember. I don’t remember you being there.”

“Then trust me,” Eva begged. “Trust me when I say that even if I wasn’t there, I’m a friend. I’m not here to hurt you.”

“You’re an alien,” Jack stated. “I checked. Eighty three point six percent human, the rest unknown.”

Eighty three point six? Eva repeated in her mind, before shaking her head. She had no time to think about this right now.

“You need to be contained,” Jack said coldly. “And this is the only way.”

“You trust me, Jack!” Eva called out as he started pushing her cell in. “Please, believe me! How... how else would I know that you grew up in the Bohemian Hemisphere? You told me that! Jack! Jack, please!”

An old memory of a nightmare Eva used to have as a child came back into her mind.

The darkness, the cold, the inability to move. The feeling of being lowered somewhere, and then the sand covering the coffin she was in.

“Jack, please listen to me! Don’t do this! Please, don’t do this!”

Calling out for help but nobody can hear her voice. Or worse – they hear her and ignore. She screams until her voice goes hoarse.

“Jack!” Eva cried, starting to hyperventilate. “Jack, please help me! Please!”

There is nothing but darkness and silence, and then she wakes up crying.

The words found their way into her mouth before she even comprehended the fact that she was saying them.

“Dad, please!”

And, as simple as that, the magic was broken. Jack stopped pushing the cell in, and instead looked at her with recognition and... was that regret?

“Evie...” he muttered. “Oh, Evie, I’m so sorry.”

He removed the restraints he put over her and pulled her out, his arms holding her in a tight embrace.

“Y-You...” she stuttered. “You were going t-to...”

“I know,” he sighed into her hair. “And I am so, so sorry.”

He tried to block out anything other than the woman in his arms as he held her tight, but as often happens in times like this, he couldn’t help but think about the last thing he wanted to think of.

A cloud of smoke extracted from Eva’s mouth as she sat next to him. The Doctor was sulking in one of the other rooms, and neither of them knew where Rose was but it didn’t matter.

“Tell me something about you,” she suddenly said.

“What?” Jack asked.

“This is my fourth time meeting you, and even though I know a lot about you I still don’t know much,” Eva told him, taking another drag of her cigarette. “Tell me something about you. Something nobody knows.”

Jack stopped, thinking for a moment. There was a lot about him that nobody knew, but most of those things had a very good reason to be kept secret. After about a minute of thought, he settled on a piece of information that didn’t bring up bad memories.

“I was born on Earth,” he admitted. “I don’t remember it much, since my parents moved to the Bohemian Hemisphere when I was a year old, but I was born here.” He caught the small smile on Eva’s face. “Your turn. Tell me something even the Doctor doesn’t know.”

Eva hesitated for a moment before admitting, “My greatest fear is being buried alive.”

Being buried alive. Crying out for help but having nobody saving her. And he was so close – too close – to making that fear come true.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “I’m so sorry.”

“How?” Eva asked. “How c-could you not remember m-me?”

“I don’t know,” Jack sighed. “Probably the same way Gwen didn’t remember Rhys.”

“Gwen didn’t remember Rhys?” Eva repeated, understanding dawning on her.

“Yes,” Jack replied. “Is that important?”

“Adam,” Eva muttered.

“What?”

“Adam,” she repeated, louder. “This is all because of Adam.”

“Jack,” a voice whispered, and Eva and Jack broke apart to see Ianto barely holding himself up, his legs shaking and his face stained with tears.

“Ianto,” Jack said, walking towards his lover. “What’s wrong?”

“You have to put me in the vaults,” Ianto choked out. “Lock me up. I killed three girls,” he admitted. “Strangled them.”

“Stop kidding around,” Jack muttered.

“I’m serious,” Ianto said. “I murdered them, in cold blood. I took their bodies, and –” There was a bang and he jumped to his feet, looking around. “You have to lock me away... before I turn on you.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Eva said. “It’s all in your head.”

“None of you are safe,” Ianto said, making a run for it but Jack grabbed his arms.

“Hey, hey!” he called out. “Come here. Come here,” he repeated, pulling him into a hug. “What’s happened to you?”

“I’m a monster,” Ianto whispered, and Eva decided to take action.

“No, you’re not,” she said harshly.

“Eva, I murdered them,” Ianto said.

“You murdered them just as much as Jack never met me before today,” Eva retorted. “Something – Someone is messing with your memories. You got too close to the truth so he planted false memories into your head to make you focus on that, rather than him.”

“Who?” Ianto questioned. “Who can do that?”

“Adam,” Eva replied coldly. “He made Gwen forget Rhys and Jack forget me. He made you think you’re a murderer. He took away everything that makes Owen who he is. And I’m pretty sure he and Tosh are having sex as we speak.”

“It’s not fake,” Ianto said. “These memories are real.”

“Wanna bet?” Eva muttered, going to one of the computers and uploading the security camera’s recording of Adam and Ianto.

“All human record is a lie,” a voice said from the speaker and the screen showed Ianto on the floor. “You crave flesh. Remember this,” the voice said, and a hand was placed on Ianto’s forehead. Adam’s hand.

Eva moved to another footage, this time one showing Adam and Tosh.

“A year ago today,” Adam said, putting a hand to Tosh’s neck. “You remembered.”

“Who the hell is this?” Gwen asked looking at Adam.

“Just cos that’s what I said to you on your first day,” Adam said, touching her shoulder. “Remember”

“Come here,” Jack said, pulling Ianto towards the screen and putting on the first video again. “Just look, look.”

“Remember it,” Adam said, and Ianto screamed when foreign memories entered his brain. “Remember it, remember it, remember it.”

“Where’s Adam’s blood sample?” Jack asked, going through the different vials as Ianto headed to the computer.

“Everything’s in order here,” he said, looking at Adam’s file.

“Check when it was last updated,” Eva ordered.

“24 hours ago,” Ianto whispered in fear, finally starting to believe that what Eva told him might be true.

[headcanonsandmore]

All You Ever Wanted

Summary:  Tegan Jovanka thought she would never be able to see Nyssa of Traken again. But the future has a way of turning out differently to how you expect...

                          Read on FFN.                         Read on AO3.

~~~~~~~

‘Stupid bloody machine!’

Tegan Jovanka was not having a good day. The Doctor and Turlough had run off into danger as per usual, leaving her to pick the pieces. The Doctor had told her to reactivate a piece of technology from the TARDIS workshop; it looked almost like a bicycle, except with added panels.

Oh, and it didn’t work, either.

The Doctor had said that, once she had got it going, the technology contained within it would integrate with the rest of the TARDIS and run diagnostics on the alien egg that the Doctor had brought back from their initial foray onto the surface of the world outside.

Well, the Doctor had been captured by the palace guards and Turlough had disappeared off to goodness knew where, so Tegan was the only one who could do this.

And, like with everything the Doctor told her to do, Tegan found herself wondering if he’d just suggested it so she’d stop yelling at him.

The pedal of the machine swung round, hitting the front of Tegan’s leg and leaving a small gash.

‘Rabbits!’

Suddenly, the machine whirred into life. The seat changed to be the correct size for her, and the pedals changed direction entirely.

The monitor of the TARDIS, set up nearby, flickered into life. It seemed to be playing footage of someone setting up the machine. A young woman with bushy hair, wearing a dark maroon jumpsuit.

Tegan’s heart seemed to break.

It was Nyssa.

‘That’s what she would say,’ Nyssa was saying, as she worked the levers of the machine. ‘I never understood Earth curse-words, but that was one that Tegan used a lot...’

Nyssa’s face suddenly creased, and Tegan was stunned to see a tear slide down the Trakenite’s cheek.

‘Oh, Tegan…’ Nyssa said, beginning to gently sob. ‘I know she wanted to go back to Heathrow but… we didn’t have a chance to say goodbye. And now she’s gone…’

The screen blinked off.

Tegan stared at the now dark monitor before reaching up to wipe a tear from her eye. She wasn’t normally in the habit of crying, but Nyssa had always had a habit of being her weakness. Not that she cared; if anyone had a right to make Tegan vulnerable, it was Nyssa. The woman she had loved from the first moment they had met; from the moment Tegan had clapped eyes on her in Logopolis, she had been well-and-truly gone for the last daughter of Traken.

She swore to herself -there and then- that if she ever was lucky enough to find Nyssa again, she would tell her that she loved her.

                                                                 *

                                                -Four decades later-

 Tegan smiled. She had to admit, she had been doubtful about the idea of a support group for friends of the Doctor when Graham had initially suggested it. But, now that she was here, she saw how much of a good thing it could be. Granted, she had already known Ace through U.N.I.T but there was something rather wonderful about meeting so many other people who had been through the same sorts of experiences as she had.

That whole business with the Master attacking Earth had happened several weeks ago, and U.N.I.T was starting up its new new headquarters. Tegan was technically still a freelancer, as was Ace. And Yaz.

Poor Yaz.

The young woman had clearly been in love with the most recent version of the Doctor. Tegan wasn’t sure what had happened to them but, from the scarce bits of detail Yaz had provided, that version of the Doctor had been at the point of regenerating when they had dropped Yaz off outside the community hall.

Tegan could tell that Yaz was putting on a brave face. But, when Yaz had walked in with Graham and Dan, the look of pain and barely disguised grief had been there under the surface.

Tegan had shared a look with Ace, who had nodded at her in understanding. While the support group was there for all of them, they all needed to be there for Yaz in particular. She needed to know that someone could have a fulfilling life after travelling with the Doctor.

After the meeting had concluded, Tegan was in the kitchen of the community hall, along with Ace.

‘I think that went well,’ Ace said, cheerfully. ‘Nice to meet more people who’ve been through the same stuff as us, eh.’

‘Yeah,’ Tegan said. ‘Although I still think the Doctor could have graced us with a visit.’

‘You know fully well they wouldn’t do that because of Yaz.’

‘Hmm,’ Tegan muttered, taking a sip of tea. ‘That’s their excuse.’

‘Someone mention the Doctor?’

A man, roughly a decade older than Tegan, had poked his head through the door. He was tall, with an amiable face, long sideburns and an easy smile.

‘Mister Benton?’ Tegan asked, putting her cup of tea down. ‘Good grief, talk about a blast from the past!’

Benton grinned and crossed the room, shaking hands with both of them.

‘Sorry I couldn’t make it here earlier for the meeting,’ he said. ‘I was looking after the grandkids today.’

‘How have you been?’ Tegan said. ‘The last I saw you was… what, the early nineties?’

‘Something like that,’ he said. ‘Kate sent a car for me today; weird, considering I used to help babysit her back in the day. But that’s the passage of time for you.’

Ace chuckled, grinning.

‘Fancy a cuppa, Benton?’ she said. ‘We’ve got enough here to fuel an army.’

Benton grinned and began helping them with drinks for everyone (mainly orange juice and a couple cups of tea). Tegan then lifted the large tray off the kitchen counter. She had expecting Benton to insist on carrying it, but he likely knew her too well.

It was at that moment that, from outside in the corridor, the voice of Kate Stewart talking on her phone drifted in.

‘Os, what do you mean, they just teleported in?’

Ace, Tegan and Benton shared a look. Ace darted over to the door and stuck her head out, throwing a quizzical look around the corner towards where Kate was presumably stood.

‘Okay, stand by,’ Kate continued. ‘I’m coming over. Good grief, that’s all we need right now; someone from off-world teleporting into a major London airport…’

‘What was that about?’ Ace asked.

‘There’s an incident over at Heathrow,’ Kate said, coming to stand in the doorway. ‘A woman, presumably from another planet, has teleported into the middle of Terminal One. Scared the baggage-handlers half to death. Border Force called us because the woman kept insisting on speaking to U.N.I.T.’

‘Wait, she knows about U.N.I.T?’ Ace replied, looking baffled. ‘How?’

‘Apparently, she met my father once,’ Kate said, slipping her phone into her pocket. ‘She used to travel with the Doctor.’

‘Really?’ Benton said. ‘Maybe Tegan knows her.’

‘I would imagine so. Apparently, her name is Nyssa of Traken-’

CRASH!

Ace, Benton and Kate spun round.

Tegan had dropped the tray. Her eyes wide, her mouth open, the Australian ignored the rapidly growing pool of tea and orange juice spreading across the floor, and stormed towards Kate.

‘Take. Me. There.’

                                                             *

 ‘So… what’s this all about?’

Ace turned to face Yaz. The two of them were sat in the back seat of Kate’s car. Benton was sat in the front, along with Kate, who was driving.

‘Nyssa used to travel with the Doctor back in the eighties. A while before my time.’

‘And she was… friends with Tegan?’

Ace looked over her shoulder at Tegan. The Australian was staring out of the window, face a mask of urgency. She hadn’t spoken a word since her outburst at Kate at the community hall. Which, for Tegan, was pretty unusual, to say the least.

‘That’s one way of putting it,’ Ace said, quietly, to Yaz. ‘They were… very close.’

Yaz nodded in understanding.

The car stopped, and everyone piled out, hurrying towards the main building of Terminal One. Sure enough, several U.N.I.T personnel were stood around the exits and entrances, consulting with the border staff.

Tegan followed the others into the building.

‘So,’ Kate said, as several officials hurried up to her. ‘Where’s this woman who keeps demanding to speak to a U.N.I.T official?’

‘Just through here,’ one of them replied, gesturing towards a group of U.N.I.T agents. ‘We thought it best to keep her under observation until you arrived.’

A woman emerged from behind the U.N.I.T agents. She was wearing a spacesuit of sorts, with the helmet missing. Her hair was long, bushy and starting to grey.

Tegan’s breath hitched in her throat.

It was Nyssa. The same kind smile, the same inquisitive eyes, the same porcelain skin and the same quiet resolve in her stride. Roughly forty years had passed, but Nyssa was much the same as she had been when they had parted ways on Terminus all those years ago.

Nyssa looked around at the assembled people, unsure of who each of them were. But her eyes then landed on Tegan, and the Australian felt her heartrate increase as she saw recognition in Nyssa’s eyes.

‘T-Tegan?’

‘N-Nyssa?’

Without thinking, Tegan ran forwards across the floor between them. At the same time, Nyssa began to do the same. It lasted barely a few seconds, but Tegan felt as if time was slowing to a crawl as they finally reached each other.

The two woman threw themselves at each other, their arms wrapping around each other in a protective hug.

‘Tegan…’ Nyssa’s voice whispered in the Australian’s ear. ‘Oh, Tegan…’

‘Nys… I got you, Nys…’

‘Oh, I’m missed you,’ Nyssa said, hugging Tegan tightly. ‘I-’

Nyssa stopped speaking because, at that moment, Tegan leaned forward and pressed their lips together.

The Trakenite remained rigid for a second, before leaning upwards into Tegan’s touch, one of her hands pressing into Tegan’s back while it’s brother wrapped into the back of Tegan’s hair so as to kiss her better. All other thoughts disappeared from Tegan’s brain; all that mattered was Nyssa-

‘Hem. Hem.’

The two women’s lips broke apart, their faces flushing. Tegan was suddenly very aware that the two of them were not, in fact, alone and were instead standing in the middle of a crowded airport. The same airport that had indirectly caused their first meeting all those years ago.

It was Benton who had coughed. The man was stood, rather awkwardly, next to the others.

‘I… I missed you too, Tegan,’ Nyssa said, her face a very pretty shade of pink as Tegan’s head turned back to her. ‘Although I wasn’t expecting such a… warm welcome.’

This was when Tegan’s carefully constructed wall of iron came crashing down around her ears. She burst into tears.

‘Nyssa…’ she sobbed, holding the startled woman close to her. ‘I’m sorry… I need to tell you… I wanted to… but with Terminus and everything… I never… I never stopped…’

‘Never stopped what, Tegan?’ Nyssa said, softly.

‘I… I love you, Nyssa,’ Tegan blubbered. ‘I’m sorry I never told you at the time, but I was so scared… I was a scared young woman in love with her best friend, and I know you probably think I’m being ridiculous but I just wanted to tell you-’

Without any warning, Tegan was swept off her feet, and Nyssa kissed her on the lips. It was arguably just as passionate as the first kiss, but with less urgency and more tenderness, as if Nyssa had been waiting for the opportunity and knew it was finally alright to do so.

Eventually, their lips parted.

‘Tegan, I love you too,’ Nyssa said, tears now trickling down her cheeks. ‘I always have.’

‘R-really?’

‘Of course, my darling.’

There was a sudden cheer, and both Tegan and Nyssa startled.

Ace was jumping up and down in excitement, a wide smile on her face. Kate was grinning to herself as she applauded. Yaz was smiling happily. Benton was clapping enthusiastically, a huge grin on his affable face.

‘A welcoming committee?’ Nyssa asked, turning back to Tegan.

‘Er, yeah,’ Tegan said, face burning red. ‘That’s Ace and Yaz; they both travelled with the Doctor after we did. Benton used to work with the Brigadier, and Kate is the Brigadier’s daughter.’

Nyssa smiled at the assembled people.

‘A pleasure to meet you all,’ she said. ‘You must all know the Doctor well.’

‘Understatement,’ Yaz said, a little wistfully. ‘Yeah, I just left her.’

Nyssa’s eyes widened in confusion as she turned back to Tegan.

‘Her?’

‘Long story,’ Tegan said. ‘We just saw her the other week, actually.’

‘You’ve been busy, then?’

Tegan chuckled.

‘Something like that. I would like to know one thing, though, Nyssa.’

‘Oh; what is it?’

‘Did you choose Heathrow to teleport to because I mentioned it so many times?’

Nyssa grinned, blushing prettily.

‘You know me too well.’

Tegan reached out and squeezed Nyssa’s hand.

‘Can’t help myself, love,’ she said, feeling the weight of four decades finally leave her shoulders. ‘Not when you’re involved.’

~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading, everyone! Hope you enjoyed this fic; I thought this one might be suitable for the New Years celebrations, as it deals with the past and the future. Hope you all have a happy 2023!

[mayalr96]

Eve of Something New Chapter 22: Closed In.

Sorry I'm late but I wanted to post this at the same time as when I post on ff.net and it's being annoying again, so I post today after giving up on waiting for it to be fixed again...

Anyway, new chapter!

Links to chapter one on Tumblr, FF.net and AO3.

This chapter is also available on FF.net and on AO3, as well as below the cut.

Eva was smoking a cigarette. In the middle of the Console Room.

She felt slightly bad about it, since the smoke was probably bothering the TARDIS but since the machine herself had provided her with an ashtray, she supposed she was on her side this time. The Doctor hated the smell of cigarette smoke, in all of his incarnations, and now the room he spent most of his time in was smelling of it.

She was just thinking of what she was going to say to him when she saw him again when he walked through the doors, heading straight to the console without sparing her a glance.

"Doctor!" she called angrily, leaving the still lit cigarette in the ashtray and marching towards him.

"Not now, Eva," he said, typing the data the Logopolitans gave him.

"Don't you 'Not now' me, Mister!" she called. "You locked me in here!"

"That I have," the Doctor nodded. "Now, if you'll excuse me –"

"I will not!"

"I have some things quite more important to handle at the moment, Eva," the Doctor said sternly. "We could deal with your tantrum later."

"My what?"

Eva was shocked by the Doctor's disrespect, staring at him as she tried to understand whether or not he actually meant what he had just told her. Using his moment of peace, the Doctor finished typing in the data before raising his head.

"What is this dreadful smell?" he asked.

"I had a smoke," Eva told him.

"You smoked in my TARDIS?!"

"I thought it was our TARDIS," Eva sneered. "And, for your information, our TARDIS had produced an ashtray in the middle of the Console Room, so I don’t believe she minded much about my smoking."

"You smoked in my TARDIS!" the Doctor called.

"Yes, I did!" Eva all but screamed. "Deal with it!"

Just then, the TARDIS shook, causing both the Doctor and Eva to fall down, Eva's head hitting the Console before she fell to the ground.

"Must dematerialise," the Doctor muttered half-coherently, reaching out a hand to press a button on the console. "Dematerialise." He looked at the scanner only to see they hadn’t moved. "Nothing working," he muttered. "Nothing."

"Doctor?" Eva asked.

"Eva," he mumbled, reaching out a hand to grab hers. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she muttered, pressing his hand in reassurance. "We'll be fine."

"What's happened?" he asked.

"There was a problem in the calculations," Eva said. "The TARDIS had shrunk – not just her exterior. Everything's shrunk."

"It's okay," the Doctor said, pulling Eva closer to him. "Everything will be okay."

"I know," Eva told him honestly. "I trust you."

The Doctor started pulling himself to a sitting position. "They've arrested the dimension spiral," he said. "Things are looking up."

He tried pulling himself up further but fell almost immediately.

"I'll do it," Eva said, reaching out and grabbing the paper of data the Doctor was holding earlier. "There it is."

"An error in the dimension subroutine," the Doctor said, looking at it. "Somewhere here. I will not be beaten, I simply will not be beaten." He put a hand to his forehead before looking at the scanner. "But we could certainly do with a little more help from outside. Give me that," he added, marking at something that was placed on the console.

"What are you doing?" Eva asked as she handed it over to him.

"The cheese board is the world, and the pieces the phenomena of the universe, as my old friend Huxley used to say," the Doctor replied before shaking his head. "Cheese board?"

"Chess board," Eva corrected fondly. "And the opponent makes no allowances for mistakes, nor makes the smallest concession to ignorance."

"I'm an ignorant old Doctor," the Doctor sighed. "And I've made a mistake. There's only one direction help can come from now. I'll just have to sit here and wait."

"Or," Eva offered, "You could just look at the scanner."

"What?" the Doctor asked, doing as she said and seeing Tegan holding the page of correct calculations to him. "Ah, yes!" he called, leaning forwards and pressing the correct buttons on the Console.

"You'll have to explain to me what you're doing here one day," Eva muttered.

"Or not," the Doctor shrugged. "Probably not."

He pressed one last key and the TARDIS shook again, this time reverting back to her normal size. Eva almost slipped again but a strong hand caught her, and the Doctor pulled her close once more.

"I've got you," he murmured.

"Don't you always?" she retorted with a smile. "Tantrums?"

"I may have overreacted," he admitted.

"And locking me in the TARDIS?"

"You haven’t missed anything of importance," the Doctor shrugged.

"That's not for you to decide, Doctor," Eva told him harshly. "Don't you dare do it again."

"Don't worry, I won't," the Doctor promised.

"Alright," Eva said with a smile, helping the Doctor to his feet. "Let's head outside."

"Yes," the Doctor nodded. "Let's."

He headed towards the door, walking out and closing it after him almost immediately.

"Doctor?" Eva asked. "Doctor, don’t you dare!"

"I'm sorry, Eva," the Doctor said. "It's for your own protection."

She heard the sound of the sonic screwdriver and knew that the door was locked once more.

"Doctor!" she called out. "You promised!"

There was no response from the Doctor, but another small voice in her head – that sounded all too much like River – spoke up.

Rule One: The Doctor lies.

EMH

Eva was smoking a cigarette. In the middle of the Console Room.

She didn’t even feel bad about it.

She had tried calling Martha again, but received no response. Supposedly she and Ten were in the middle of saving the world once again, along with a different, older Eva.

Older...

For the second time that day Eva jumped up and headed towards her room. Opening the night shed's drawer, she saw a second note bearing a second telephone number and headed back to the phone in the Console Room.

"Eva!"

"Hand the Doctor over," she said impatiently. "Now, Ginger!"

"Alright, alright," Amy muttered. "Somebody's cranky today. Doctor! It's Eva!"

"Evie!" Eleven said happily.

"Shut up," Eva bit out. "Because I swear I am that close to ripping your throat off."

"Let me guess," the Doctor said with a sigh. "Logopolis?"

"Bloody Logopolis."

"Would it help if I said I'm sorry?" the Doctor asked.

"Not really, no," Eva retorted. "You locked me in the TARDIS. Twice."

"I had a good reason!" the Doctor defended.

"Really?" Eva asked. "And, do tell, what was the reason? And I swear, if you're going to say 'The Master' I will set your hair on fire."

"It was to protect you," the Doctor said tiredly.

"Protect me from…" Eva pressed, and the Doctor muttered something unclear. "Sorry, didn’t get that."

"From the Master," the Doctor sighed. "Please don’t set my hair on fire."

"I'll think about you," Eva replied. "Well, gotta go. Things are going to get interesting here soon."

"Have fun," the Doctor said. "Try not to murder me."

"I make no promises," Eva said, smiling as she hung up the call. "And now," she told herself as she lit another cigarette, "I wait."

EMH

Eva leaned on the door, pushing it and trying to make it open.

"Come on," she muttered to herself. "The Master released entropy into the entire universe. That's got to be enough to open up the lock of a single door."

She pushed again, before heading to the console and pressing the button to open the door. She smiled as it finally worked, and walked out of the TARDIS, narrowly missing a piece of stone as it fell down in front of her.

"Doctor!" Eva called, heading out of the room she was in. "Doctor!"

She ran without looking where she was heading, almost running right underneath a stone when a strong hand pulled her out of the way. She closed her eyes, breathing heavily against a chest with two heartbeats.

"Doctor?" she asked.

"Not quite," a familiar voice said and Eva's eyes darted open.

"Master," she breathed out, right before another hand pulled her away – this time the Doctor's.

"Stay away from her," he barked at the Master.

"Let go of me," Eva said, shaking the Doctor's hand away.

"Without me, she'd have been smashed under a piece of rock," the Master said.

"Without you, there would have been no pieces of rock falling from the sky to begin with," Tegan retorted. "This will teach you to meddle in things you don't understand!"

"We are beyond recriminations now," the Monitor said. "Beyond everything."

"Not quite," the Doctor said, pulling the Master aside. "We must pool our resources."

"The creature that killed my father –" Nyssa started.

"I can't choose the company I keep!" the Doctor called.

"An alliance with you, Doctor?" the Master questioned.

"In the circumstances, yes," the Doctor confirmed.

"If we do cooperate, there'll be no question of you ever returning to Gallifrey," the Master noted.

"If we don't cooperate, there'll be no question of Gallifrey," the Doctor replied.

"Doctor, what are you doing?" Tegan asked.

"Please," the Doctor said, raising his hand to signal her now was not the time. "As Time Lords, you and I have special responsibilities."

"Give me one good reason why should I care," the Master said.

"Because if everything is gone then so will Eva," the Doctor retorted. "And if there's one thing that is true for the both of us is that we'll never deliberately hurt her."

Eva wanted to note that it wasn’t true, since the Master stabbed her last time they met, but decided it was probably best not to since the event was still in both the Doctor and the Master's futures.

"Together, then?" the Master asked, reaching out his hand for a shake.

The Doctor made a move to take the hand when Nyssa interfered.

"But, Doctor –"

"I've never chosen my own company," the Doctor said. "Nyssa, it was you who contacted me and begged me to help you find your father. And, Tegan, it's your own curiosity that got you into this. And Adric, a stowaway. And Eva, my Evie..." He turned to look at her. "Eva, who appears from thin air in different times of my life, never seeing me in the same order as I see her."

Everybody stared at the Doctor, shocked, when the familiar whooshing sound of the TARDIS was heard.

"The TARDIS!" Tegan called.

"It's followed us from the Central Register," Nyssa said.

"How can it get here when there's no one in it?" Adric asked.

"Who said there was no one in it?" Eva asked, knowing that the man they saw on the bridge earlier – the Watcher – was in it.

"It must be the man who brought me to Logopolis," Nyssa said in understanding.

"I don't want any further argument," the Doctor said, marking at Tegan, Nyssa, Adric and Eva. "One, two, three, four, into the TARDIS. Quickly."

"Look, we want to help you –" Adric started.

"It's impossible," the Doctor said. "My friend in there will look after you. I'm collaborating with the Master. Now, go on. Battle stations."

"The man's a murderer –"

"Come on, Nyssa," Adric said, realizing it was a lost battle. "He means it."

"Eva?" the Doctor asked.

"No," Eva said. "I've had enough of it. I am sticking with you, whether you like it or not, and you should start getting used to it by now."

"But the Master –"

"I don’t care," she said sharply. "I'm staying."

The Doctor sighed, walking closer to the Master.

"Together?" the other Time Lord asked, offering his hand for a shake.

"One last hope," the Doctor agreed reluctantly, taking the offered hand. The Master put his arm around him but he shook it off, walking back to Eva. "And you stay away from her," he warned.

"Monitor?" the Master asked, ignoring the Doctor.

"He's gone," Eva said.

"You do realize he has no chance of survival without our help?" the Master asked.

"The Monitor wouldn't abandon us," Eva said. "He's trying to salvage the research team's work."

"He must have gone to the Central Register, yes?" the Master asked.

"Yes, maybe," the Doctor said. "It was the last addition to Logopolis. He might be the last one to survive."

"We need his knowledge," Eva told the other two, though she knew they probably realized it themselves. "Come on."

She started walking, knowing the other two would follow closely behind her.

None of them noticed her hand slightly fading away before turning back to normal.

EMH

"The rot is spilling outwards into the universe," the Doctor said as he pulled Eva away from a collapsing rock. "After aeons of constraint. Come on," he added, helping her around the wreckage. "Let's collect the Monitor and get out."

"In my TARDIS?" the Master asked.

"There's no other way," the Doctor replied.

"You're assuming a lot, aren't you, Doctor?"

"Yes," the Doctor retorted. "Aren't I?"

"Monitor," Eva said as they walked into the room, rushing towards him when the Master's hand stopped her.

"Logopolitan maths on a computer?" he muttered in disbelief, watching the Monitor.

"Monitor, the stability –" the Doctor started.

"This is the program we were developing to take the burden from our own shoulders," the Monitor said, handing a paper to the Doctor. "A series of data statements, to keep the Charged Vacuum Emboitments open of their own accord."

"What, do you mean the advanced research project?" the Doctor asked.

"The computer holds a complete log of the research," the Monitor said.

"Then the answer's here," the Master said, nearing the printer.

"Take care!" the Monitor warned. "The research is far from complete."

"Monitor, were you on the right track?" the Doctor asked. "You must tell us about the project in every detail," he added, not waiting for a reply.

"There is nothing to tell," the Monitor said. "It's all there for you to read. Now, I must get on with my work." He kept working for another minute or two before standing up. "I've done what I can, with the Registry in ruins," he said. "We must now re-align the aerial, beam the program out to space. There was a CVE close by. We might still be able to re-open."

"Doctor!" Tegan called, rushing through the doors.

"Here," the Doctor said, not bothering to look.

"Doctor," Tegan repeated, coming to stand next to him.

"Tegan, I told you to get out of here," the Doctor sighed.

"And since when do we listen to you?" Eva asked. "Of course she'll be staying with you – you're her ride back home."

"Doctor, we must form a plan," the Master said. "I propose, one, we withdraw to a position of temporary security. Two, we reconfigure our two TARDISes into time cone invertors. Three, we create a stable safe zone by applying temporal inversion isometry to as much of space-time as we can isolate –"

"Look!" Tegan gasped, marking at the Monitor.

Eva turned to see him fading away, disintegrating before their eyes. It was a sickening sight, and Eva reached out a hand to lean against the wall only for it to fall right through. She stared at it for a moment, horrified as it disappeared for a few seconds only to reappear again. Swallowing hard, she put what used to be her hand in her pocket and hoped that none of the others saw.

"Horrible!" the Master muttered.

"Hardly more horrible than shrinking people," Tegan told him.

"No," the Master said, heading to the door. "Do what you like, Doctor. Logopolis is yours."

"Doctor, stop him," Tegan demanded. "He's getting away."

Eva looked between the Doctor, who was talking to Tegan, and the door before heading outside after the Master.

"Master!" she called out. "Master!"

"I never thought I'd live to see the day you came running for me," the Master said. "I thought I'd enjoy it more than I do now."

"Shut up for a moment and listen," Eva said. "I can't go to the Doctor about it because he'll be so distracted that he'll only make matters worse, so I need your help."

"With what?" the Master questioned. Slowly, Eva took her hand out of her pocket.

"Interesting," the Master said, looking at it. "Your hand is disintegrating and reappearing repeatedly."

"Yes, I understand what's happening," Eva said. "What I need to know is why."

The Master smiled darkly. "The odds that the two of us would become the people we are today and would come to stand here in this scenario are negligible," he said. "The current year, if translated to Earth years, is 1981. How many of the things that could change your immediate presence here have happened past this year?"

Eva thought for a moment. It was only in 2005 that the Doctor met Rose, and without her he wouldn’t have met Jack. If that never happened, Jack never would have become immortal and she wouldn’t have been born – not to mention the fact that there was over a millennium until that happened, and that Jack himself was only born in the 51st century...

"All of them," Eva whispered. "I'm... Am I fading away?"

"It appears so," the Master replied. "If we manage to solve this ordeal, it would more than likely be fixed."

"Solve it, then," Eva said, trying to collect herself as she walked towards his TARDIS, with him close behind.

Not a moment later, a rock crashed down upon them and the two lost consciousness.