Doctor Who: Bad Therapy (40 page)

‘Doctor!’ Jack fought his way through the clouds of dust and found him lying unconscious, half-buried in hospital rubble. He cleared away the larger bricks and then pulled the Doctor free. The Doctor was covered in grey dust and Jack thought he looked like a partly demolished sculpture.

Lifting the Doctor into a fireman’s lift, Jack staggered out of the hospital.

Despite his small size, the Doctor was heavy and Jack only managed to put about twenty yards between them and the hospital before he collapsed, exhausted, on the gravel driveway. His mouth was full of bitter dust and he could feel his heart pumping madly in his chest. He never wanted to move again.

Jack turned back to the Institute and saw emerald light and smoke spilling out of every window of the tall, red-brick building. With a muffled crump, part of the roof collapsed in on itself.

That was when Jack heard the noise of a car. A black cab was racing towards them down the drive of the Petruska Institute, its headlights blazing.

Oh no, Jack panted, hardly believing his eyes. After everything he’d been through, this just wasn’t fair. He looked at the Doctor lying face down in the gravel, where he’d dropped him.

And Jack Bartlett, site wages clerk, decided that whatever happened, he wasn’t going to let the monster get the Doctor this time. He looked about him for a weapon, but there wasn’t so much as a fallen branch.

So he let out the most fearsome scream he could manage and started to run towards the approaching monster, waving his fists angrily and hopelessly in the air.

‘Come on then you bastard!’ he yelled, the dust he’d swallowed tearing at this throat. ‘Come on then!’

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It was only then that he noticed that the light on the taxi shone with a familiar orange glow.

The taxi skidded to a halt and Jack stood, frozen in its bright headlamps.

He squinted painfully at it, one arm still raised above his head.

‘Come on
deahs
,’ Tilda shouted as she leant out of the back of the cab. ‘The meter’s running. Get those lallies moving!’

Jack collapsed on the ground in front of the taxi, laughing uncontrollably.

He watched as Inspector Harris ran past him to collect the Doctor. Tilda hurried over to where Jack lay. She wrapped him up in her arms and hugged him tightly.

‘What time do you call this, daughter?’ she snapped, fixing him with one of her beady stares. ‘You’ve had us worried sick.’

‘Sorry, Mother,’ he whispered, and started laughing again.

And as the taxi turned and headed for home, the Petruska Institute disappeared in a rainbow of colours.

234

London, late twentieth century

The two people stood in the centre of the busy concourse of Victoria Station in an awkward silence. The Doctor, ever the gentleman, had insisted on carrying Gilliam’s rucksack from the taxi, and they’d had to stop for him to hand over her luggage.

And to say goodbye.

He looked uncomfortable as he hovered around her. He’d changed so much since Gilliam had seen him all those years ago. Not just a change of face and of body. But he was a gentler man now, softer, more. . . human. A strange word to use about the Doctor. He smiled awkwardly, just like a little boy. And she smiled back, openly.

Twenty-five years he’d left her stranded on an alien planet and he could make her forgive him with a single smile.

‘A-ha!’ he started suddenly, his eyes lighting up. He rummaged through the pockets of his tweed jacket for a moment before producing a small brown package. ‘I almost forgot. Your passport, you left it behind when – It was left –’ He paused. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, finally. ‘Really.’

She gave him a hug.

‘I’ve rustled up some traveller’s cheques and currency. Dollars, of course.

I’ve learnt that Arcturian pounds are accepted in rather fewer places than I’d been led to believe.’

‘You’re not making any sense, Doctor. As usual,’ Gilliam said, opening up the package. She burst out laughing when she came across the photo in her passport: a vision of innocence and pigtails.

If I knew then what I know now, she told herself. She glanced at the front, grinned and then handed it back to the Doctor.

‘Keep it as a momento, Doctor. It’s years out of date anyway.’

The Doctor looked crushed. ‘Oh no, I’ve spoilt your trip! How are you going to get past customs at Dover without a passport?’

She laughed. ‘Doctor, I’m the queen of seven systems. I’ve spent the last twenty-five years governing half a dozen planets. I think I’ll be able to find my way into Europe without a passport.’

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‘We’re already in Europe,’ he said, a smile creeping back over his face.

She touched her finger to his nose, making him go crosseyed. ‘See, I succeeded already.’

‘I should never have doubted you. Will you travel far?’

‘Who knows?’ she shrugged, nonchalantly; but she couldn’t keep the question out of her voice.

‘Not me. Not this time.’

‘Good. Then we’re both in for a surprise.’

He helped her struggle into the straps of her rucksack. ‘Take care, Per-pugilliam Brown,’ he said, rolling his R’s with more enthusiasm than skill.

‘You too, Doctor.’ She fixed him with a hard stare. ‘And look after Christopher. We’re not as robust as you; we travelling companions are fragile things.’

The Doctor was about to speak but she silenced him, kissing him lightly on the lips, and then she turned and headed for the Dover train.

When she reached the platform gate, she turned to see whether he had set off for adventures new. He hadn’t. He was still standing where she had left him, swinging his umbrella gently in one hand. He waved once and then turned on his heel, disappearing completely into the crowd.

‘Goodbye, Doctor,’ she whispered.

Soho, London, late-summer 1958

The police box ground into existence across the road from Holborn Library.

The Doctor ushered Jack out, leaving the door open behind them.

‘Are you sure this is where you wanted to come, Jack? You had the Universe to choose from.’

‘Yeah, I know. But there’s something. . . someone I’ve got to see.’

The Doctor made a quick survey of the surroundings, no one appeared to have noticed the TARDIS’s sudden intrusion into the sunny afternoon.

The library was an ugly square concrete building, sitting slumped between two grander structures. At the end of the street, a saloon car pulled up. Even at this distance the Doctor recognized Tilda and the Major. Gently, they lifted a dark-haired boy out of the back of the car. His movements were sluggish, graceless and uncertain, as if he were half asleep. He was dressed in a straitjacket, the arms of which had been untied. The boy flapped around inside of it like a newly hatched chick. Tilda tugged the straitjacket from his shoulders and the dark-haired boy passively allowed his arms to be threaded into a jacket.

Try as he might, the Doctor couldn’t make out any features on the dark-haired boy’s face.

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Tilda and the Major walked with the boy as he took his first few steps, supporting him between them. As the party approached the entrance to the library, the boy seemed to emerge from his dreamlike state. His steps became more confident, more assured. Tilda and the Major let him go and stood back and watched, like parents hovering behind a child as he ventured out on his first solo bicycle ride.

The Doctor could see the boy’s face now. The face he’d first seen lying in the alley in Soho. Skin as smooth as soapstone in the summer sunlight. Dark eyelashes framing deep blue eyes.

The Doctor had been among humans for long enough to tell that the lad was handsome, but whatever it was that humans found so irresistible about each other’s bodies was lost to the Doctor. Perhaps lost to him for ever. He couldn’t be sure.

He felt a pang of loneliness, and rested a hand on Jack’s shoulder. To get involved in the exchange of human emotions – however much trouble they always seemed to leave in their wake – just looked. . . well, ever so satisfying.

‘I just wanted to see him,’ Jack breathed, ‘just one more time.’ Quickly, he pushed past the Doctor and went back into the police box.

The door to the Library swung open as someone started to hurry out. The Doctor hesitated before following Jack into the TARDIS.

As if this were his cue, the dark-haired boy suddenly, deliberately, ran head-long into the sandy-haired boy coming out.

Soho, London, late-twentieth century

Soho was alive with colour and music and people from a hundred different countries. It had changed so dramatically since 1958 that Chris wouldn’t have guessed that he was on the same streets. He sat at a table outside a small busy café, content to watch the evening as it unfolded. Families on their way to the theatre, friends walking arm in arm chatting and laughing, lovers holding hands as they enjoyed the immunity of the Soho streets.

The pavement was so busy that people were walking in the gutter and in the road. He caught sight of a tweed jacket in the crowds, and then glimpsed a battered fedora. A red question mark poked out of the mass of people and a second later the Doctor appeared, walking alone in the crowd.

‘Hello, Christopher,’ he said, and popped into the café only to emerge a few moments later, carrying two fresh cappuccinos which he set down on the tiny table.

‘Did you ask her if she wanted to come with us?’ Chris asked, scrutinizing the Doctor.

The little man seemed confused for a moment. ‘Her? What? Oh, you mean 237

Peri?’ The Doctor spooned two sugars into his coffee, stirred it manically for a moment, and then shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t. Not this time. She’s got travelling of her own to do.’ The Doctor smiled, a little artificially, and then changed the subject. ‘How are the troops?’

Chris had spent the morning playing eight-ball at La Quatrième Pie continental-style brassiere down the road. ‘Dennis beat me five games to three.’

The Doctor glanced at his watch. ‘How old is he now?’

Chris wasn’t sure. ‘Late forties, I think. His daughter was there, she’s just graduated from UCL.’

The Doctor seemed satisfied. ‘Moriah built them well.’

‘Yes,’ Chris said, and stared into his coffee. The radio above the counter started to play an old show tune and the wound in his shoulder began to ache as he recognized the singer.

Not a day

I wouldn’t last a single day

Without your tender love

My dear

Chris rubbed at his shoulder. Would he have stayed with Patsy if he’d been able to save her? Despite having risked his life for her, he still didn’t know.

Wouldn’t ever know. His eyes came to rest on the Doctor’s face. It was hard to believe that he’d been so angry with him.

‘So, Christopher Cwej,’ the Doctor announced, cutting through Chris’s thoughts. ‘It’s just you and me.’

Chris couldn’t help smiling warmly at the impossible man sitting opposite him in the busy café. ‘The Doctor and Chris against the Universe?’

The Doctor blinked. ‘
For
the Universe, I hope.’

‘I’ll drink to that.’ Chris smiled and drained his gritty coffee. The Doctor suggested that they take their leave, and the two friends linked arms and walked out of the café and into the London evening.

And somewhere else, both earlier that same afternoon and yet more than thirty years before, an awkward boy, hurrying out of Holborn Library, his arms full of books, collided with a strange and beautiful thing.

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• Front Cover
  
• Contents
  
• 1: The Colour Of His Hair
  
• 2: Used To Be A Sweet Boy
  
• 3: Half-A-Person
  
• 4: At Your Own Risk
  
• Interlude: Gilliam's Story
  
• 5: Something Beneath The Skin
  
• Interlude: Gilliam's Story
  
• 6: You've Never Had It So Bad
  
• Interlude: Gilliam's Story
  
• 7: On Being Sane In Insane Places
  
• 8: Against Nature
  
• 9: Sweet And Tender Hooligan
  
• Interlude: Gilliam's Story
  
• 10: You're Gonna Need Someone On Your Side
  
• Interlude: Gilliam Comes Home
  
• 11: All I Have To Do Is Dream
  
• Interlude: Home At Last
  
• 12: Hold On To Your Friends
  
• 13: Alone
  
• 14: London Burning
  
• 15: Whatever Happens, I Love You
  
• Epilogue: Equal Affections
  
• Back Cover