Doctor Who_ Return Of The Living Dad Part 12

'You worked it out a long time ago, didn't you?' she said.

'What you'd do if a time traveller came along - someone with the power to get you back to Mum?'

'The time travellers are dreadful, Bernice. They always offer to take you back to save a dead relative, or correct some terrible mistake. Which doesn't mean much when you know they're stranded because they forgot to bring spare batteries for their time machine.'

Benny laughed, just a small laugh, some of the tension leaving her face.

'Do you know what the Draconians call him, Benny?'

She shook her head.

'The Oncoming Storm.'

Above them, thunder crashed, making the crockery rattle in the cupboard. They both smiled at the timing.

'We can't help it,' she sighed. 'We're lightning rods.'

10 Knight on Earth

Chris snapped out of sleep. He'd been dreaming about Roz again, the same old dream, he Wait a minute. No, he hadn't.

He opened his eyes, focusing on the hard smoothness of the painted wooden ceiling, and waited for his heart to slow down.

He'd dreamt that he was following the Doctor up a hill.

He'd been leading a grey mare, easily, as though he'd been handling horses all his life.

Chris sat up on the edge of the bed, closing his eyes. It had been like something out of a King Arthur sim. The hill was thick with gra.s.s and flowers, the air soft with summery smells. He had been wearing his uniform - no, some kind of old-fashioned armour, bulky and heavy but somehow familiar.

The Doctor had been dressed in his usual linen suit and white hat, but he didn't seem out of place in the medieval landscape. He glanced back at Chris, as though to make sure he was still following, and smiled at him.

At the top of the hill there was a woman in white. 'Is this your new steward?' she asked the Doctor, glancing at a pocket.w.a.tch. 'Or have you brought me a sacrifice?'

The Doctor turned around and looked at Chris again, an expression of surprise crossing his face.

Then his hand had gone to his shoulder. There was an arrowhead between his fingers, brilliant metal glinting in the sunlight.

The woman watched, impa.s.sive, as he stumbled down the hill to Chris.

But before Chris could catch the Time Lord, he had woken up... with the intense feeling that someone was watching him.

He froze on the edge of the bed. There was someone in the room with him, but he couldn't see them. Where? Where were they?

After a few seconds the eerie sensation ebbed away. He couldn't hear anything. He looked around, cautiously.

There wasn't anyone here. It had just been a leftover feeling from the nightmare.

The window exploded inwards.

He jumped up with a yell. No, it hadn't exploded, it had just blown open. The rain pounded into the room, drenching him as he struggled with the old-fashioned gla.s.s-and-wood structure, trying to work out how to make the two halves join up in the middle.

There was something else, as well. Not just the freezing water - bees! The room was suddenly full of the fat insects, droning as they looped through the air. What had they been doing out in the storm?

Chris fastened the window and shot out of the room, slamming the door behind him. He could still hear the insects through the door.

'Gee,' he said.

He'd better check that Roz was okay.

Except that his trousers were on the other side of the bedroom door.

The rest of the small cottage was quiet. He crept around, checking the windows and doors in the front room and kitchen, and tiptoed up the stairs.

Roz's door was shut. He hovered. Should he knock, or just push it open and peek inside?

He nearly fell backwards over the banister when it opened of its own accord.

Roz blinked at him. She was wearing a set of flannel pyjamas two sizes too big for her. 'What is it, Chris?'

'Um,' he said, wishing he was wearing something more than his socks and a pair of Daffy Duck boxer shorts.

Something weird just happened in my room.'

'Yes?' 'Er, well, nothing much. Some insects got in. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.'

'I'm fine,' yawned Roz.

'Um, sorry...'

'No sweat.' She slapped his arm. 'I think we're all a bit on edge at the moment.'

Chris realized that his heart was thumping. She was less than a metre away, close enough for him to catch the soft scent of her skin and hair. G.o.ddess, surely she knew, surely she could tell.

'Well, if you're sure you're okay.' he said, being casual.

'I promise I'll call you if a flying saucer comes to beam me away. Goodnight, Chris.'

She closed the door.

He went back downstairs, put an ear to the door of his bedroom. Was the buzzing sound still there? He wasn't sure.

He got a spare blanket out of a cupboard, curled up awkwardly on the sofa, and dreamt about Roz's pyjamas.

The Doctor seldom slept. Night on Earth was a good time to be up and doing things, while human beings were still and quiet and unlikely to interfere.

But, as he kept reminding himself, he was on holiday.

So he lay on top of the spare bed in the bungalow Joel and M'Kabel shared, his arms folded behind his head, and listened to the rain.

He thought about poor Woodworth huddled under her tent fly. He hoped she was wearing thick socks.

How could Little Caldwell have been here all this time, without his ever noticing it?

Part of the answer was UNIT. From what little he'd picked up, Isaac and his crew were adept at avoiding the military, even the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, with its special interest in the extraterrestrial. And during the early seventies avoiding UNIT meant avoiding him too. He'd taken refuge with the taskforce during the long years of his exile, and it had blinded him to what was happening outside it.

But there was more to it than that. They'd been waiting for him to arrive, all this time. Expecting him to take one look and knock them down like a row of dominoes.

He frowned at the ceiling. They could run rings around MI5 or the CIA, but he was the threat they couldn't predict, couldn't prepare for. After everything he'd done to protect Earth, they saw him as their greatest danger.

He was stung.

He started as a flash of pain jumped across his temples and was gone.

He blinked in the dark. Ah, well, goodness, now wasn't that clumsy?

He slowed down one of his hearts, unpicked the tapestry of his mind until at least part of it was asleep. One set of threads was still vibrant with activity. Why had the Lacaillan run away? He had a nasty suspicion that he knew.

The sparkling, stabbing sensation came again. This time it wasn't painful, the bubbles of light and sound sinking softly into his brain. He let them move about the sleeping part of his mind, tentative and disorganized.

He wouldn't visit Lacaille 8760 until far in the objective future. No, Ia Jareshth had no reason of her own to fear him.

But what had Isaac and his crew told her about him?

He captured one of the bubbles, gently, altered it, sent it spinning back to the others. After a few seconds, the presence withdrew from his mind.

She hadn't even left a message for the other Lacaillan.

She'd fled in panic, from the one place on Earth it might be safe for her to stay.

Oh, she'd be back, when she realized there was no other way off the planet. It might be for the best if he wasn't here when she arrived.

He let the rest of his mind shut down, softly.

Four hours later, he woke up with a violent start, and stumbled out of the cottage.

He ran through puddles in his bare feet, whirled around outside the post office, looking wildly up and down the main street.

The TARDIS was gone.

He sagged against the bicycle rail, water pouring down his face. 'It never rains,' he whispered.

PART TWO.

LOOSE THREADS.

Non-violence is a flop. The only bigger flop is violence.

Joan Baez, 1967

11 The morning after

Benny struggled out of sleep into the coldness of the morning. Her dreams had been full of glittering insects and desert sands.

Once so much touching would've made her uncomfortable, but now waking up alone, without Jason wrapped around her, felt wrong. The big bed was conspicuously devoid of husband. On the other hand, the overstuffed easy chair across the room was occupied by the Doctor.

The thought of the Time Lord quietly sitting and watching her sleep naked, even under the covers, was a bit much.

'Where's Jason?' she said, clutching the eiderdown.