Doctor Who_ Return Of The Living Dad Part 3

He doffed his hat, smiling. 'I'm the Doctor. And this is my friend...' he looked around bewilderedly for a moment.

'Admiral Groenewegen,' said the woman, shaking his hand. 'And you're looking for Benny.' The Doctor nodded.

'Well, you're in entirely the wrong place! She's been waiting for you at her camp for nearly a whole day. I'd take her a present if I were you. Come on, I'll point you in the right direction.'

The Doctor found himself trailing obediently after the little woman. He put his hands in his pockets and smiled at himself.

Benny yawned, looked at her watch again, and said, 'b.u.g.g.e.ry b.o.l.l.o.c.ks.'

Jason didn't look up from his paperback. He was lying against the pile of boxes and bundles that his wife was sitting on. 'The message hasn't reached him, has it?'

'Possibly not,' said Benny. She blew out her cheeks in frustration. 'It's more likely that he's too busy defeating the Vermicious Knids to bother with me.' She looked at her chronometer again.

'A watched pot never boils,' said Jason.

Benny stuck out her tongue at him. He grabbed her ankle and pulled her off the boxes. She yelled, laughed and kissed him, pinning him to the gra.s.s. The paperback waved about in the air behind her as he pretended to struggle.

After an interval, someone coughed.

Benny looked up with a start. There was someone immensely tall and blond and embarra.s.sed standing over them.

Benny let out a whoop, and jumped up, throwing her arms around the big man. Roz was standing behind her partner, eclipsed. Benny shook her hand awkwardly while Chris hugged her. 'I'm so glad to see you!' she said. 'Are you well? Where's you-know-who?'

'Your coordinates plus some wonky TARDIS widget or other landed us in the inst.i.tute's garden,' said Roz, helping Jason to his feet. 'Well, in the fountain, actually. We decided to send out two search parties to find you.'

'Do you want something to drink?' said Jason. He rummaged in the luggage, pulled out some foil packs of Crimson Star beer.

'How'd he take it?' said Benny.

Chris was trying to tear the foil with his teeth. It took Roz a moment to puzzle out what Benny meant. 'The Doctor? I think he's worried about you.'

' He's He's worried!' Benny grinned weakly. 'This was the last thing I expected, Roz. I'd always had a sort of mad belief that I'd just stumble over Dad one day... but this is different. We'll be going back to the moment he originally disappeared. Or maybe the moment he died. The moment of truth, anyway.' worried!' Benny grinned weakly. 'This was the last thing I expected, Roz. I'd always had a sort of mad belief that I'd just stumble over Dad one day... but this is different. We'll be going back to the moment he originally disappeared. Or maybe the moment he died. The moment of truth, anyway.'

'You know - I don't think he has has a father.' a father.'

Now it was Benny's turn to be puzzled. 'Oh, the Doctor.

I'd picked up bits and pieces - that the Time Lords are all test-tube babies or something or other. I expect they're just too clever to manage it the old-fashioned, unskilled way.'

'We should talk!' interjected Jason. Benny hurled his paperback at him.

Roz shook her head. 'My parents were always very annoyed that I didn't want kids. To pa.s.s on the genes, you know.'

'You should have a couple with Chris,' joked Benny, 'and really give them a surprise.'

'Well,' said Roz, her grin vanishing, 'we can't hang about here all day.'

Benny bit her lip. 'Right,' she said. 'Er, why don't you lot stay here, and I'll go and see if I can spot the Doctor.'

'He headed for the dig,' said Roz. 'We might take some of your stuff to the TARDIS in the meantime. Off you go.'

Benny nodded, decided not to say anything, and went.

Only a few of Benny's and Jason's belongings were left now: Just a big wooden chest with a flat top, a few chairs and a bag or two. The cold wind had become a steady icy breeze, barely stopped by the row of trees at the edge of the clearing.

The Doctor had deactivated the alarm field they'd left to guard the bits and pieces. He'd improvised a tablecloth from one of his cleaner handkerchiefs, and rummaged through the bags until he'd found a chipped ex-UNIT enamel mug and a mug with the message MY PARENTS WENT TO SKARO AND ALL I GOT WAS A LOUSY PAIR OF GENES.

Groenewegen had insisted on helping him pick out the champagne from a travelling merchant's wares. The Lacaillan, a blue humanoid with cropped white hair, had spent five minutes rummaging through the coins and notes from the Doctor's pockets until he'd found one he liked.

They clinked their mugs together as the sun began to set.

Benny took a long drink and sat down, swinging her feet up onto the wooden box. The Doctor copied her, watching the sunset as he took a careful mouthful of the wine. He was still into the silk shirts, she saw, but the burgundy-coloured waistcoat made a nice change. The tweed jacket made him look like an eccentric university tutor.

For a little while they just sat there, quietly, letting the night settle in.

'"Drink! for you know not whence you came, nor why,"'

said Benny, at length. "Drink! for you know not why you go, nor where."'

The Doctor tilted his head to one side. 'The Rubaiyat Rubaiyat,' he concluded.

'It's good to see you.'

The Time Lord raised his mug to her.

'Well, what do you think?'

'We have two options,' said the Time Lord. 'One is to watch the outcome of the battle from a nearby safe bit of s.p.a.ce. The problem with that is that we might not learn much more than we already have from the hologram.'

'What's the other option?'

'We could materialize aboard your father's ship a few minutes before the disappearance.' He looked at her sternly.

'They might have been blown apart by a Dalek energy bolt.'

'I understand. But won't we, well, give them a bit of a surprise? Appearing on their ship out of nowhere?'

The Doctor reached into a pocket, pulled out a plastic sheet with blueprints stamped on it. 'The Fury-cla.s.s ships were ma.s.sive, all engine and weapons systems, with a tiny cone at the front where the crew of six sat.'

He traced his fingertips over the blueprint. 'There were access corridors running through the bulk of the ship, like tunnels in a warren. We could materialize the TARDIS in one of those, and take a quick look around.'

But Benny was shaking her head. 'Not us. Me. I can't ask anyone to risk themselves for this.'

'Asking isn't required,' said the Doctor, drumming his fingers on the blueprint. 'I'm coming with you.'

Benny took another swallow of the champagne. 'I'm not planning to try and save him,' she said quietly.

The Doctor looked up at her. 'The best-laid schemes of mice and Benny...' he said. He held up a hand before she could speak. 'I have a responsibility to history. We have this responsibility, Benny, each time we step out of the TARDIS.'

'I mean it,' she said.

'Of course you do.' The Doctor watched the bubbles rise in his champagne. 'We rea.s.sure ourselves that we'd give our lives to protect it all. But anyone can die. Living with the responsibility is much more difficult. How long before we're wondering what little exceptions we can make? Whether solving one problem, saving one life, would spoil some great eternal plan? From time to time, I need to rea.s.sure myself that I can still do it.'

'Do what?' said Benny.

'Let someone die.' He ran a finger around the rim of the mug.

'I understand,' said Benny.

The Doctor's eyes bit into her. 'Do you?'

She held up her thumb and forefinger in a mimed pinch.

Just a little.

The Time Lord shook his head. 'What have I done?'

The Doctor had spent an hour rummaging through the TARDIS for baby things, and had come up with a magnificent Victorian Wooden cradle, a food machine capable of producing nappies, and a Martian hatchling's spinning top.

Out of his own pockets he'd produced a teddy bear and a chewed copy of Little Miss Star Little Miss Star.

The cradle needed a few repairs. Benny handed the Doctor the hammer. He'd managed to avoid his own thumbs, for the most part. A handful of nails were sticking out of his mouth.

'It's very different,' she said. 'Living one day at a time. I'd nearly forgotten what it was like. Monday comes after Sunday, the seasons change in order... and you can make plans.'

'I make plans,' the Doctor mumbled.

'I mean plans that last a lifetime. Getting a degree.

Finding somewhere to live. You know, the sort of things the rest of the human race spends their time on.'

The Doctor plucked the last of the nails from his mouth. 'I see...'

Probably not, thought Benny, but never mind. She sat back, looking around at her old room. It wasn't even dusty.

Something furry brushed up against her. 'Wolsey!' she said, delighted, gathering the tabby up into her arms. 'You fluffy creature. How are you?' Wolsey miaowed and gave her a cat kiss, nostrils flaring as he took in the alien scents she had acc.u.mulated.

'Meeting Admiral Groenewegen must have thrown quite a spanner into your plans,' said the Doctor.

Benny rubbed Wolsey between the ears. 'I suppose so.'

'I know how important finding your father is. How much it has defined your life,' said the Doctor. 'Or rather, I know how important it once was.'

'Hey?'

'I still carry the snapshot of your mind I took when we first met. You're... the only other person inside my head like that.

From time to time I like to take the picture out, and look at it.

You've changed, Benny.'

'Let me see,' she said. 'May I see?'

He put down the hammer, took her hand, brushed her fingertips across his temple. It took only a moment, but it was like phoning an old friend, someone you haven't seen for years but who you can talk to at once, as though the two of you had never been apart. It was like catching up with a younger sister.

'Oh,' said Benny, lowering her hand. 'Oh, you're right.'

'Are you sure you still want to go through with it?'

'Yes.' She rocked the cradle, experimentally. 'Doctor,'

she said, 'why are we fixing this?'

He waved at her vaguely. 'We don't know how long you'll be staying.'

She laughed. 'It'll have to be a long time. We've been trying for most of Youkali's autumn.' More seriously, she said, 'Actually, that is one reason I need to find out about Dad.'

'Clearing the family name, yes.'

'b.u.g.g.e.r s.p.a.cefleet and all that. When little Keith or Dorothy finally arrives, when they're old enough to ask about their grandfather, I want to be able to look them in the eye and tell them not to believe what anyone says. That Admiral Isaac Summerfield wasn't a coward, he was a good man.'

We'll be materializing in a few minutes,' said the Doctor softly. 'Then we'd better get up to the console room,' said Benny, spilling Wolsey from her lap as she stood up. 'I'll be with you in a minute.' The Doctor fussed about with his toolkit, spilling a packet of screws across the floor. Benny kissed him on the forehead, startling him. She smiled, and went out of the room. He leant his head against the cradle, eyes closed, listening to her footsteps recede. 'But what if he wasn't?' he said softly.

'Now,' Benny said. 'The Doctor and I are going to go aboard the Tisiphone Tisiphone. We'll have at least four minutes before the ship blows up, or does whatever it does.'