‘That’s what we were wondering.’
‘So it wasn’t you who opened it then?’
‘It was found this way.’
‘Was anything taken?’ The Doctor spoke from a few feet behind them. Kate looked round, to see him bent over at a cabinet, peering inside with his torch.
‘Nothing is missing. Only damaged.’
‘What, someone broke in and just vandalised?’ asked Clara.
‘Essentially.’
‘Vandalised what?’ said the Doctor. As he spoke, he’d buzzed his screwdriver at the cabinet doors. They swung open and he pulled something from inside.
‘Doctor,’ sighed Clara. ‘You don’t need another fez.’
The Doctor ignored her. He turned the battered old hat over and over in his hands, his face troubled, as if haunted by a memory.
‘Why would you lock up a hat?’ he asked.
‘I told you, there’s an awful lot of nonsense down here, it’s probably nothing.’
‘Nothing …’ repeated the Doctor, thoughtfully. Then he caught Clara’s worried stare, grinned, and popped the fez on his head. ‘What do you think?’
‘You don’t need another one, you’ve got four in the TARDIS.’
‘I can’t wear those, they’re presents from Tommy. How do I look?’
‘Like an idiot.’
‘Kerching!’
‘If I can drag you back to the current moment,’ Kate said, ‘and the reason you’re actually here.’ She gestured to the vault door. ‘You wanted to know what had been vandalised?’ She led the way inside.
In contrast to the rest of the Under Gallery, the room was white, well lit, and almost empty. A modest selection of paintings hung on the walls, these ones facing out in the normal way. They were perfectly ordinary landscapes for the most part, and only two things made them unusual in any respect. One was that in every case, the glass in the frames had been smashed, and lay in fragments on the floor. The other, Clara didn’t notice until she stepped forward.
‘They’re 3D,’ she said. ‘Like the one upstairs.’
‘Time Lord art,’ confirmed the Doctor. ‘Or at rate, art made by the same technology, though these seem to be Earth landscapes. Elizabethan period, probably. Part of the same collection as Gallifrey Falls?’ he asked Kate.
She shook her head. ‘Gallifrey Falls is the personal property of the Curator.’
‘You mean me?’
‘It’s complicated. These are from the private collection of Elizabeth the First. No information on how they came into her possession. On her personal order, they were stored first underneath Richmond Palace, then moved here for greater security, in 1826. By Royal command, they are to be stored under lock and key as long as England exists, and shown to no one. They can’t even be mentioned in written material. The paintings you are looking at have officially not existed since 1562.’
‘And now someone’s broken in and just smashed the glass?’ said Clara.
‘No,’ said the Doctor. ‘I’m afraid that’s not what happened at all.’ He looked at Kate. ‘Is it?’
‘It doesn’t seem that way no.’
‘Look at the glass, Clara. I think you’ll find it’s interesting.’
Clara frowned, bent to the look at the fragments on the floor. ‘Why? Because it’s broken?’
‘No. Because of where it’s broken from. Look at the shatter pattern. The glass on all these paintings was broken from the inside.’
‘How’s that possible?’
‘Lots of ways, none of them good. Is there a theory, Kate?’
‘Not a theory, exactly, but there’s an anomaly. As you can see, all the paintings are landscapes—no figures of any kind.’
‘Okay, yes. So?’
‘There used to be.’ Kate had pulled her phone from her pocket. On the screen, she showed them photographs of the paintings they could see on the wall. Although they were the same landscapes, in the photographs, there were distant figures scattered across them.
Clara’s eyes went to the glass on the floor. ‘Something came out of the paintings,’ she said.
‘A lot of somethings,’ said the Doctor. He stepped to the vault door and buzzed it with his screwdriver. ‘This door was forced from the inside. From in here.’
‘Yes, that’s what we thought too.’
‘This wasn’t a breakin. It was a break-out.’ He turned his frown on Kate. ‘I presume you’ve searched this place?’
‘There’s nothing here that shouldn’t be. And nothing has got out of the building—that would set off every alarm in UNIT HQ.’
The Doctor’s eyes found Clara’s and it was one of those moments where the air seemed to crackle. ‘So whatever came out of the paintings is still down here. In the dark. With us.’
‘We’ve done a complete sweep, there are no hostiles present.’
‘There’s an awful lot of sand.’
‘Are you suggesting the sand is hostile?’
‘No, it’s sand. It’s inert, in no way alive, just rock particles.’ He was pacing up and down now, drumming his fingers on the top of his fez. ‘But it’s everywhere, everywhere, everywhere! You’re missing the point, Kate!’
‘What point?’
‘No idea, I’m missing it too. Clara, what’s the point?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Great, now Clara’s missing the point. Could everybody stop missing points all the time!’
The first thing he noticed was the fez flying from his head and tumbling across the floor. The second was the sand in the corridor outside whipping into the air. He bounded out of the room, and straight into a wind that now battered and buffeted through the gallery. At first it smelled of old wood in a desert, but a moment later it was an English forest in spring.
He turned towards its source, already knowing what he would see. He was aware of Kate and Clara coming to join him. They were probably staring too, but he didn’t turn to check.
‘What is it?’ Clara was asking.
Not now, thought the Doctor. Please don’t come for me now, I’m busy!
‘Doctor, are you going to tell us what that is?’ asked Kate. ‘Or don’t you know?’
Clara was stepping forward, curious. The Doctor took hold of her arm and stepped her back from the swirling vortex of light and clouds now filling the other end of the corridor. It was just hanging there, turning in silence, as it had in the barn a long time ago, and then later above him in the forest.
‘Doctor?’ Clara was saying. But memories were flashing through his head, blotting out the present. Rose Tyler in the barn. But that wasn’t right, she’d never been on Gallifrey. Two Elizabeths in a forest. But why were there two of her? He didn’t remember that. And now a man was crashing down out of the sky, right at his feet. Who was this banana-faced idiot, laughing at him?
‘Doctor!’ Clara’s voice.
‘Sorry,’ he said, trying to force himself to concentrate. ‘It’s just … my past, I think.’
‘Your past?’
‘Yes. It’s playing up.’ Hang on, he’d said that before. He’d said those exact words before, in a very similar conversation. When, though, when, when?
Kate was talking now, her voice rising. ‘Doctor, can at you least theorise on what this is—I am responsible for all UNIT personnel on site. Is it do with the paintings?’
‘No,’ he replied, ‘this is something else.’ Fragments of memory were surfacing now. Details, glimpses. Not everything, but enough to know that whatever was about to happen, it was huge.
‘Clara, fetch me that fez,’ he said, before becoming aware of the look he was receiving and fetching it himself. He stood in front of the vortex, as if hypnotised by it. It seemed to him that the other two might still be talking, but it was so hard to focus now. He wondered how he ever managed to hear anyone with all these memories banging away in his head.
‘Doctor!’ Oh, that was Clara again. ‘Doctor, are you okay?’
‘Excuse me, both,’ he replied, smiling. ‘T
his is where I come in.’ And he wound back his arm, and threw the fez as hard as he could. It spun down the vortex and was sucked out of existence, with an electric crack and a whiff of ozone. But where had it landed? The past, certainly, but which past? The barn? The forest? Both perhaps, but how? Clara and Kate were still talking, but they sounded miles behind him now; the silent vortex drowned out everything, buzzing in his hair, humming in his blood. This vortex had been following him for hundreds of years. He couldn’t exactly remember why, or how it had all started, but he knew, with absolute certainty, he was looking down the tunnel of his own life; a tangle of days, leading back to the man he had once been. All the paths he had chosen to reach the place he stood now had opened at his feet again; all the mistakes and regrets and wrong turnings. No second chances, he had told someone once. Was that true? It was time, he decided, for a leap of faith.
‘Geronimo,’ shouted the Doctor, and leapt into history.
He’d thought perhaps he’d tumble down a void for a moment, but it was simpler than that. The Under Gallery just disappeared, there was a rush of wind and sunshine, and suddenly trees were spinning round his head. He’d just started to wonder how he could be flying through the air, when the ground slammed into him. He didn’t recognise any of the stars now whirling round his head, but some of the little tweeting birds seemed familiar. He tried to focus on the forest floor, which had somehow risen up to stand vertical, and was pressing into the side of his face. It would probably sort itself out in a minute, if he just leaned against it and had a bit of a rest. He winked at one of the funny birds, and it winked back.
‘Who is this?’ demanded a voice he almost recognised. Give us a moment, love, just got here.
‘Doctor, who is this man, and what is he doing here?’ The same woman. Honestly, settle down, there’s birds and stars and the ground is all leaning against me.
‘Just what I was wondering,’ said a man’s voice he didn’t recognise at all. He made an effort to focus. Four Queen Elizabeths stood staring at him. He shook his head, cleared it, and noticed with relief that there were only two. Two? When had there been two? He thought hazily of that birthday when River had cloned herself, then remembered just in time to delete that incident from any written account of his adventures. Also staring at him, he noticed, was a pair of Converse. He looked up. Frowning down at him, from a few feet away, was a man he thought he should recognise. He looked vital and wiry, in a tight suit and tie. The big dark eyes would have seemed tearful if the face hadn’t been so cheeky. He stood like he was posing for an album cover, feet planted wide on the ground, fists balled at his sides, head angled for maximum glare; as skinny and sharp and clever as Mum’s favourite in a boy band. That was odd, thought the Doctor—he could remember describing someone else that way. Who had that been? It seemed to him that he’d been looking into a mirror at the time, and the man he’d been describing was—
Himself. It was him. The man in the forest, staring down at him from one face ago, was him. The Doctor scrambled to his feet and stared in fascination at his younger self. ‘Skinny!’ was all he could find to say. ‘That is proper skinny! I’ve never seen it from the outside. Matchstick man!’
The Doctor was now stepping towards him, and he found himself doing the same. Although those big brown eyes were now clouded in puzzlement, he noticed an air of presumption about them, that irritated him intensely, so he shot an even more presumptuous look back, until he was rewarded with a confused frown.
‘You’re not …’ said the Doctor, as if finally understanding who this new arrival was. ‘You can’t be …’ The eyes now looked pained, as they flashed to the Doctor’s bow tie. The Doctor returned the pained look with a smile. You’ll get there, mate, he thought, bow ties are cool, and reached under his coat. He paused a moment, as he saw that the Doctor had reached under his jacket in exactly the same way, and had now also paused. They stood there like mirror images for a second, eyeing each other, then they smiled and produced their sonic screwdrivers. They held them up, like badges of office.
The Doctor noticed that his new screwdriver was substantially larger than the old version in the Doctor’s hand, and found himself smiling. The Doctor returned his smile with a look of disdain, and asked, ‘Compensating?’
‘For what?’ asked the Doctor.
‘Regeneration,’ replied the Doctor. ‘It’s a lottery.’ He stuffed his teeny-tiny, ickle-wickle screwdriver back in his jacket. ‘Now look,’ he said, trying to make his voice all deep, ‘what’s going on? What are you doing here, in my time zone?’ He glanced at the Elizabeths. ‘I’m busy!’
His time zone?? What did he mean, his time zone. For a moment the Doctor wondered just who the Doctor thought he was, then followed his look to the two Elizabeths, who were staring in confusion at them both. ‘Oh, busy, is that what we’re calling it?’ He gave his best elaborate bow. ‘Hello, ladies!’
‘Just don’t,’ warned the Doctor, from behind him.
‘Private little outing, is it? Couples only? Just the three of you? Well, four of us now. Ooh, complicated. Double dating for two!’
‘Don’t start. I’m in the middle of something.’
‘Oh, I can see that, you’re right in there,’ the Doctor laughed. ‘But look, fair play, whatever you get up to in the privacy of your own regeneration is your business.’
‘One of them’s a Zygon.’
‘Well, I’m not judging you.’
‘Are you listening to me? One of these two is an alien hostile, intent on the conquest of this planet!’
‘Well in that case, mate, I don’t think much of yours.’
There was a humming, sizzling noise from above. The Doctor spun round—the vortex from which he’d just emerged was flexing in the air, stretching and twisting. ‘What’s wrong with it?’ the Doctor asked him.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied.
‘Well what’s it doing here then?’
‘I don’t know that either.’
‘Well, you’re the one who fell out of it.’
‘You’re the one I nearly fell on,’ the Doctor snapped back, and turned to the Elizabeths. ‘Listen, you two. That thing up there—possibly very dangerous. You both need to get out of here.’
Rather to the Doctor’s annoyance, they both looked straight past him to the Doctor. ‘But what about the creature?’ they asked in unison. The Doctor took a step towards them, making frankly unfair use of the big brown eyes. ‘Whichever of you is the real Elizabeth,’ he said, ‘turn and run in the opposite direction to the other Elizabeth.’ Clever, thought the Doctor, as he listened, and wondered if he was being immodest. The Elizabeths looked at each other, and then each in turn stepped right past the Doctor and planted a long and noisy kiss on the Doctor. As each kiss went on and on and on, the Doctor found himself standing next to the other Elizabeth, shrugging apologies, while she observed in horror the activities of his younger self. In the catalogue of his personal humiliations, the Doctor decided this was a new low.
‘One of those was a Zygon,’ the Doctor reminded himself, as the Elizabeths tore off in opposite directions.
‘I know,’ said the Doctor, discreetly wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
‘Big red rubbery thing. Covered in suckers. Venom sacs in the tongue.’
‘Yes, I’m getting the point, thank you.’
‘I think I’m still getting rid of the taste.’
‘Oh, you think you’re so funny!’
‘From you, that’s a compliment.’
There was another crackle from the vortex above, and this time a voice. ‘Doctor? Is that you?’
Clara! It was Clara’s voice, no question. ‘Clara? Hello? Can you hear us?’
‘Yeah, we can hear you. Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine, yes. Are you still in the Under Gallery?’
‘Course, yeah. Where are you?’
The Doctor realised he didn’t know, and glanced at the Doctor, who called out, ‘England, 1562.’
‘Who’s
that?’ called Clara. ‘Who are you talking to?’
The Doctors looked at each other, and grinned. ‘Myself,’ they said in unison.
Now it was Kate’s voice. ‘The portal, or whatever it is, seems to be becoming unstable.’
‘Possibly, yes,’ replied the Doctor. ‘This end too.’
‘Then you should come back through, immediately,’ said Kate, sounding more like her father than he thought possible. ‘In case it closes.’
She had a point. The Doctor looked around, and then grabbed his fez off the ground. ‘Where are they talking from?’ the Doctor asked him. ‘Who are those people?’ The Doctor ignored him, and shouted into the vortex again:
‘Physical passage may not be possible in both directions,’ he explained. ‘Let me just try something first. Fez incoming.’ He threw his fez up into the vortex. He watched as it was sucked out of existence, and waited. Silence. ‘Did you get it?’ he asked. ‘Is it there?’
‘Is what here?’ asked Kate.
‘The fez! I threw the fez back through.’
‘Nothing came through here.’
He was vaguely aware of the Doctor, now grinning cheekily right at his ear. ‘Looks like we’re down one fez. Go on, try the bow tie next.’
The Doctor wasn’t listening. His hand had gone to his head, and he could almost feel the connections snapping together inside. He understood now. He knew exactly where the fez had gone. It had disappeared into the vortex, whirled backwards through time and landed slap bang in the middle his memories. If he was right, it was now lying at his own feet, on the floor of a barn, a very long time ago.
The Doctor interrupted his thoughts. ‘Okay, you used to be me, this is your second go. What happens now?’
‘I don’t remember,’ he replied.
‘How could you forget this?’
‘It’s not my fault. You’re obviously not paying enough attention!’ It wasn’t strictly true, he realised. However hard the Doctor concentrated, two of them standing together played havoc with the timelines and made it all but impossible to form lasting memories. He had a sudden image of himself, pacing in a cold room, explaining that the timelines were tied in a knot and his memory was all over the place. Where had that been? He dismissed the thought and raised his screwdriver.
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