So with that in mind, let us now proceed to Chapter Ten, where we will rejoin the Doctor at another, very different, point in his complex life. Here we find him long after the Time War, but considerably before his summons to the National Gallery. Authorship remains your challenge, but let me clarify one thing from the very outset: this chapter is again written by the Doctor, in his usual third-person style. However, as you all know, the Doctor is not one person, but through the miracle of regeneration, many very different people. So the question is not ‘Who wrote this?’ but ‘Which Doctor wrote this?’
These next few pages cover much material that is contentious, and even salacious, so it won’t come as a surprise to any of you to know that the title is: The Love of the Doctor.
Chapter 10
The Love of the Doctor
The Doctor shrugged, as best he could in the circumstances. ‘I should have come to you first,’ he admitted, ‘but Professor Candy knew all about the hives, and I’d managed to translate the migration protocols anyway, and well … Look, I’m never quite sure, with you, whether you’re going to … you know … stick to the subject. The matter in hand. Not get all distracted.’
‘Well I hope I’ve managed to settle your mind on that point,’ said River Song from the other end of the bath.
‘Not entirely,’ admitted the Doctor.
‘Is the water warm enough, by the way?’
‘Yeah, lovely and warm, thanks.’
‘Oh good! Maybe you could slip off your suit then?’
‘No, no, I’m fine.’
‘Or even your shoes.’
‘I can’t, my toes prune.’
‘How about your coat?’
‘I’m always worried I’ll leave it behind somewhere.’
‘One lives in hope,’ said River sweetly, and the Doctor wondered if she was teasing him again, in that way he always missed at the time. ‘We could get rid of those awful plimsolls while we’re at it.’
‘So,’ he persisted, ‘Zygons. There’s a whole nest out there on the run, and I’ve lost track of them …’
‘Shape-shifters are always tricky. You should try dating them.’
‘Have you?’
‘Jealous?’
‘Well, no, I’ve never wanted to be a shape-shifter.’
‘Says the man with all the faces.’
The Doctor frowned. How many of his faces had she seen? He’d only met her fairly recently, but she had known so many future versions of him. They were conducting their—what?—friendship?—in reverse order to each other: she’d known him for many years, but from his point of view, they had barely met. It was the hazard of a relationship between time travellers. Who was he to her? Who would she become to him? She already knew it all and he was making his slow way to discovering what she had already lived through. But he did so freighted with a memory that grew darker and heavier behind him, till its shadow now spilled over the road ahead: the first time they’d met, in a long-abandoned library, battling the Vashta Nerada, he had watched her burn and die.1 At the time it had been the death of a stranger, and he could hardly mourn the loss of someone he had barely met. But since then he had bumped into younger versions of her a couple of times. Inevitably they’d grown closer—now, here they were, sitting in a bath together—and the memory of her death was hurting more than it had in the moment. How much more would it hurt, as he made his way into a future that was already her past? No more, he thought. He should avoid her from now on. The future wasn’t written yet, not for him. Maybe, by avoiding her, he could divert her from the deadly path she didn’t know she was taking.
‘You really mustn’t frown,’ she was saying. ‘You simply have no idea where those eyebrows are going.’
‘I am interested in Zygons,’ he said, as sternly as anyone could, fully dressed in a bath with a beautiful archaeologist. ‘In particular, the missing hive, of the Under Wave. I know you’ve tracked Zygons before, you’re even an expert on the subject—’
‘They’re on Earth, as you suspected,’ she said. ‘A time eddy knocked them back a few centuries, but that’s where you’ll find them.’
‘Big planet, long history, I’ll need a bit more—’
‘All the information you need is already in the TARDIS databank.’
‘No, it isn’t!’
‘Yes, it is, I uploaded it myself before I got in the bath.’
‘Well, why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I suppose I was hoping you might take your coat off.’
He was already climbing out of the water. ‘Thanks, River, I owe you,’ he said. And in return, he thought, I’ll make sure I never see you again, so maybe there’s a chance you’ll live happily ever after. And then he frowned, because there was a bottle of champagne rattling in an ice bucket, which definitely hadn’t been sitting on the side of the bath a moment ago.
‘I was hoping,’ said River, reaching for the bottle, ‘that you might stay just a little longer.’ There was a sound like a pistol shot, and a cork shaved past his ear. He sighed, partly because she always did that, but also because River Song always insisted on looking so alive.
It had been dark and cold that deep beneath The Library, and it should’ve been the Doctor not River, who died to save them all. But she’d got the better of him, and taken his place, and then had burned to death, screaming, right in front him. He couldn’t stop seeing it, and the pain got fiercer every time she smiled. It was, he reflected, as she poured the champagne, quite a smile. How many more smiles would there be? How much more painful would it get? Time can be rewritten, he reminded himself. Perhaps her future could be avoided, her death averted, if he just stayed away. And anyway, there were rogue Zygons to chase, a planet to save. He was still the Doctor after all—he had taken back the name, and it came with responsibilities. It was difficult, with that smile filling the room, but he reached a decision, and he knew she could see it in his face. He smiled back at her, and leaned in to give her a peck on the cheek, before leaving as quickly as he was able to, a little under seven hours later.
The note she’d left on the TARDIS console directed him to England 1562, and the Royal Court. Zygons always made a beeline for the nearest power structure, she explained, as it was where their shape-shifting abilities had the most immediate advantage. She recommended he infiltrate the court—‘As a noble, please, you’re utterly hopeless at being a servant. Except when you’re with me, obviously’—and try to work out if anyone had been replaced by a Zygon. ‘Normally you can tell by their breath, but they’ll be well camouflaged in that century—honestly, it’s like living inside cheese. So you’ll need to build some sort of detector, I would think. One of your lovely gadgets will do the trick. Try not to get carried away with the apps, you don’t need to download comics from the future, or anything.’ She ended by apologising for not coming with him. ‘Don’t be cross, I have a date. Well, not a date, a job. The Felman Lux Corporation want me to go and unseal some giant library somewhere. “Get a Kindle,” I told them, but they kept asking and it might be fun. I’ll buzz you on the psychic paper if anything kicks off. Unless that’s all already happened for you. Spoilers!’ she signed off, and he imagined her saying it. Then he sat on the TARDIS floor, leaning his back against the console and spent an hour resisting the brandy in the cabinet. He’d meet her again, of course. And again, and again, and the shadow of the past would lengthen over him. He had to avoid her, it was as simple as that; resist every invitation, ignore every summons, turn and walk away every time he saw her across a room; rewrite her future, without him in it, for her sake. He was on his feet now, slamming the controls, harder than he needed to. Because they all died, he knew that, if he knew anything. Died in fire, like Cass, or in sickness like Reinette. Or in a single act of unforgivable violence, like all those millions of children on Gallifrey when he had allowed himself to believe there was any such thing as the greater good. The shadow behind him wasn’t just River, he knew; it wasn’t just anyone; it was all of them. All the screaming
the Doctor could never outrun. ‘All those children,’ he thought. How many more would he have to save, before he could convince himself he’d been justified?
He remembered the night he’d rampaged round the TARDIS, destroying every mirror he could find. Whatever face he happened to be wearing, he’d been absolutely sure he never wanted to look at it again. One face later, he hadn’t changed his mind.
He spun the TARDIS into the time vortex, and he stared into the scalding light of the central column. He had to stop thinking before it tore him apart! What he needed, right now, was trouble.
Several weeks later, Elizabeth tilted back her head, as if to be kissed, and asked, ‘Why am I wasting my time on you, Doctor? I have wars to plan.’
‘You have a picnic to eat,’ he replied, and popped a grape in her mouth to divert her from any other ideas. The day was beautiful, the picnic was sumptuous and, apart from Alison, tethered to a tree a few feet behind them, he was alone with the Queen at last. The bees were humming, the sky was blue, and even the sway of the grass in the light breeze seemed unusually tranquil—in fact, if it hadn’t been for the Zygon detector buzzing silently in his pocket, he might have forgotten that he was about to unmask an alien mastermind and would-be conqueror of the Earth.
‘Wars don’t happen by themselves,’ she was saying. ‘You could help me.’
‘I’m helping you eat the picnic.’
‘But you have a stomach for war.’ Her face was still tilted back below his, as they reclined together on the rug, and now her hand was on his cheek. ‘This face has seen conflict,’ she said, studying him with a tender frown. ‘It’s clear as day.’
‘I’ve seen conflict like you wouldn’t believe,’ he told her. ‘But it wasn’t this face.’ And there it was, he thought, exultant. Nothing! No reaction at all, not even a flicker. He was right!
‘Did you win?’ she asked him.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘I lived.’ Enough! he thought. Time to get to work! He scrambled to his feet. ‘But never mind that, your Majesty,’ he said, grabbing her hand to pull her up with him. ‘On your feet!’
‘I’m sorry?’ she said, clearly intending to express affront, but only achieving something between a squeal and a giggle.
‘Get up!’ he ordered. ‘Stand! Now, please!’
‘I’m the Queen of England,’ she reminded him, very nearly without laughing.
‘I’m not English,’ he said.
She made a show of reluctance, as she clambered to her feet, but it wasn’t very convincing. As soon as she was standing, he dropped to one knee, and took her hand reverently in his.
‘Elizabeth,’ he said, ‘will you marry me?’
She looked down at him, in genuine shock, and for a moment the future of all humanity hung in the balance.
Inveigling himself into the Royal Court had been easy. He hadn’t even bothered dressing the part (tight suit and Converse, unimprovable!), and he’d adopted an alias which changed slightly every day, because he could never quite remember it. The first principles of going undercover, he’d always said, were fitting in as badly as possible, and drawing as much attention to yourself as you could, because those were exactly the things that spies never did. No one was ever stupid enough to suspect an attention-seeking clown of espionage. It also helped to throw around blatant anachronisms every few seconds, since the only people who could recognise them as such weren’t supposed to be there either, and those were probably the ones you were looking for. ‘There’s no such thing as average,’ he’d once explained to a female wrestler on a foggy London night, ‘so anyone who seems average is almost certainly acting, which is why I can spot a spy the moment they walk in the room.’ Sadly the wrestler had turned out to be a spy, and he’d spent the rest of the night handcuffed to a streetlamp in East Cheam, but he felt the general point remained sound. And anyway, she was basically nice, and had even posted his sonic screwdriver back to him the next day, along with his trousers.
Contact with the Queen herself had taken longer, but not much. That she was a remarkable woman was obvious immediately. She ruled her court, and her land, with diamond-sharp efficiency, and a ruthlessness that put the High Council of Gallifrey in the shade, but it was in her personal relations that her true power became apparent. At a distance, she blazed. Up close she twinkled. The first day he’d seen her, sweeping through the halls, surrounded by a fluster of courtiers, he’d mistaken her for tall and imperious, but when his antics at court drew her attention, and he found himself summoned to her presence, the woman patting the cushion next to her was smaller than he expected, bubbling with mischief and laughter, and there wasn’t a hint of reserve or calculation in her merry eyes as she took his hand and explained that he was obviously a spy and she intended to have him tortured for information and executed. ‘Well, better get it in the right order then,’ he said, and they shared their first laugh together, as the Duke of Norfolk beat him to the ground.
She was his only regular visitor during the months of his incarceration, and though she always arrived trying to look stern, she was quickly reduced to squeals and giggles by his stories, and increasingly, so was the torturer. ‘Stop it, stop it!’ he’d say, leaning against the crank handle and wiping his eyes through his hood.
‘Me stop it? Me?’ said the Doctor, his eyes wide with comedy outrage, and they all grew so helpless with laughter, the team from the next torture chamber started popping their heads round the door in puzzlement, which only set them off again.
Sometimes, he was able to use his big sad eyes (his best pair yet, and his first brown ones) to good effect, and she started opening up to him, recounting tales of her childhood, and all the loves she had forsaken in the name of duty. Once she was telling him a story of such intimacy and evident truth, that the torturer had asked if they wanted to be alone. ‘No, no,’ she’d flustered, embarrassed, ‘you carry on.’
He found himself looking forward to their sessions together, despite the constant screaming.
She was often busy, of course, and sometimes weeks would go by with no visits, and given the Zygon situation, he couldn’t help worrying. So after a gap of several months, he was relieved to see her, pink and happy and waving at him, as he mounted the scaffold.
‘I stand tall among you today,’ he said to the crowd, on being granted some final words. ‘Taller, I think, than I have ever stood. People don’t tell you that about the rack!’ The crowd roared, and he managed to keep them laughing for an hour. In the end, he found he’d talked himself hoarse. ‘Sorry, just have to clear my throat,’ he said. ‘And here’s the man to do it,’ he added, throwing an arm round the Axeman. ‘Milk it,’ he whispered to him, as the crowd cheered and laughed.
Kneeling at the block, he wondered if he’d done enough. If he hadn’t, he wasn’t entirely sure how regeneration worked in the event of decapitation. It would be fatal, certainly, but would both severed parts attempt to change? If they did, would they still match? That might cause some confusion when they loaded him into that long box he’d been avoiding looking at since arriving on the scaffold.
The boards creaked as the Axeman moved into position, and the crowd fell into a thrilled silence. There was a grunt of effort and the shadow of the axe swept across the floor. Cold air lay in a line across his bared neck and breathing was suddenly an enormous thing, now that he knew each breath could be the last.
One breath. Come on, Elizabeth.
Two breaths. She liked him, he made her laugh.
Three breaths. He’d smiled through all the pain, he’d joked, he’d listened.
Four breaths. Please, please, Elizabeth!
Five breaths. Were they just making him wait, out of cruelty?
Six breaths. At least it was okay to be afraid now, because kneeling at the block, no one could see my face.
Seven—
Footsteps ascending to the scaffold!
A murmur among the crowd.
Elizabeth? Please let it be Elizabeth. There was a swirl of golden fabric
, then two merry eyes were looking into his. ‘You think your jokes and clever tongue have saved you, don’t you, Doctor?’ He forced a quizzical look onto his face, and hoped no one could hear the thudding of his hearts. ‘Well, sorry my dear, but your humour is the disguise of your intelligence, and your charm is the mask of your nature, and we are still quite resolved to take your head. However, I’m sure you would not deny your Queen a last kiss, while you’re still in one piece.’
She kissed him gently on the lips and was gone in another swirl of gold. He found himself staring into the basket again. The bottom of it was bloodied from many impacts, and he wondered if he’d be able to feel it when it smacked against his face.
Realising he was now, beyond all doubt, about to die, the Doctor rose up inside himself, steadied his hearts, and chose his final thought with care.
The children. The children of Gallifrey.
‘However,’ Elizabeth was saying, as he heard her feet trotting down the steps, ‘while taking your head remains a necessity, we are moderately inclined to think that it is slightly more entertaining while still attached to the rest of you.’
Silence pounded in the Doctor’s ears. What? What did she say? It took him a moment to understand that the steely clatter behind him was an axe being laid aside, and that the gentle exhalation from all around was the disappointment of a large crowd.
‘We grant you a day’s pardon, for you to arrange a picnic,’ Elizabeth continued, now standing below, and looking up at him with twinkling eyes. ‘It will be for the two of us only, tomorrow afternoon. Please understand that we have villainously high standards when it comes to picnics, and can be volatile when disappointed. Remember to bring your head, and we’ll decide over dessert which of us takes it home.’
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