by Doctor Who
As they roamed through the streets they heard talk of festival tricks, of magic, of gods walking in the world of men. The Doctor grinned at the words, but Gracilis grew more and more nervous, convinced they would be arrested at any moment – but determined to carryon to the bitter end.
‘What are they going to do to us?’ said the Doctor, trying to reassure him. ‘Unless it’s Opposite Day, they can’t charge us with bringing people back to life.’
Finally there was just one statue to go, and, according to Gracilis’s contacts, it was to be found in a grove of trees near the Theatre of Pompey. But there was a shock in store as they arrived. The grove was entirely surrounded by armed guards.
The Doctor sauntered over. ‘What’s going on?’ he said, innocent cu-riosity shining from his face. ‘Someone has been nicking all the statues by the sculptor Ursus,’ a guard told him. ‘But they’re not getting this one. See them getting it past us!’
The Doctor tutted. ‘What is the world coming to?’ He was thinking hard as he wandered casually back to Gracilis. Only one statue to go, 95
compared to the dozens already liberated. If they risked this and got into trouble, what would that mean for Rose and Optatus?
But through the trees he’d spotted the gleam of marble. The statue of a young girl standing on a pedestal. A girl of about Rose’s age, her whole life ahead of her.
So of course he couldn’t leave.
‘How are you going to get past all those men?’ Gracilis asked, worried.
The Doctor thought for a moment. Then his face lit up. ‘Getting in isn’t the problem,’ he said. ‘What they’re worried about is someone getting out with the statue. Well – I wasn’t planning on doing that!
Now, I just need you to engage a couple of them in conversation, distract them while I slip in. . . ’
The Doctor crept into the grove. Most of the guards were around the perimeter, but there was one actually standing by the statue itself.
Luckily he had his back to it, but even so. . .
Carefully, quietly, the Doctor padded closer. The statue was that of an Earth goddess, a buxom young woman who radiated comfort and solicitude even in stone form. The Doctor drew the stopper from the phial, then reached up to place a hand over her marble mouth.
A single drop and she was whole again, a human being. The panic rose in her eyes as the Doctor swung her down from her plinth, but something in his expression must have reassured her. He put a finger to his lips as he took her hand, and they stumbled off into the trees together.
‘Hiya, Gaia,’ the Doctor whispered to the one-time Earth goddess as they crouched behind a tree trunk. ‘Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be all right.’ He had trouble not laughing as they watched the armed man still blithely guarding the empty stone pedestal. ‘Just follow my lead.’
‘Oi!’ called a guard as the Doctor and the girl walked out of the trees and made to cross the armed line.
The Doctor beamed at him. ‘Hello.’
‘No one’s allowed in there!’
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‘We’re not in there,’ the Doctor pointed out, reasonably. ‘We’re out here.’
‘What were you doing in there? We searched it all.’
‘Well,’ said the Doctor, ‘you obviously missed us. Not hard to do.
No blame attached to you, I’m sure. My, er, friend and I –’ The guard sniggered knowingly – ‘must have fallen asleep in the afternoon sun.
Still, we’re wide awake now, so if you’d just let us leave. . . ’
‘Hey!’ The shout came from inside the grove. ‘The statue’s gone!’
The Doctor was suddenly surrounded by guards. He put on his best blasé expression.
‘Where is it?’ demanded a guard.
‘Where’s what?’ asked the Doctor.
‘The statue! You must have taken it – no one’s been allowed inside!’
The Doctor raised his arms. ‘Please, search me,’ he said. ‘If you think I have a statue concealed in my tunic somewhere. . . ’
‘Then you’ve got it out already.’
‘What, I just walked past all you armed gentlemen with a bloomin’
great statue – and then returned for the fun of it?’
The guards looked at each other, floored but reluctant to give up on their one hope of avoiding ignominious failure. Suddenly the man who’d been guarding the sculpture spoke up. ‘’Ere,’ he said, pointing at the Doctor’s companion, ‘she don’t ’alf look like that statue. Even those clothes what she’s wearing.’
The Doctor slapped his palm against his forehead. ‘of course! That’s it! You’ve got me bang to rights. What I actually did was sneak in there, transform the statue into this young lady and then try to casually walk out with her. What a fool I was to think I could get away with it with you fine gentlemen on guard. I’ll just come quietly, shall I?’
At that moment, Gracilis wandered up to them. ‘Is there a problem, Doctor?’ he said. ‘I am Gnaeus Fabius Gracilis,’ he told the guards importantly, ‘and this man is my friend. May I inquire as to why you are detaining him?’
Grumbling and suspicious, the guards let the Doctor and ‘Gaia’ pass.
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‘Thanks,’ said the Doctor, thumping Gracilis on the back. ‘Told you we could do it. Now – let’s get out of here. . . ’
Gracilis arranged transport for the slaves, and then he and the Doctor headed for his own carriage. ‘Back to my son, at last!’ Gracilis cried, beaming. The Doctor was less happy. He had every confidence in his ability to track down Rose, but that didn’t change the fact that, right at this moment, he had no idea where she was. A thought suddenly struck him.
‘And we can check up on Vanessa too,’ he said. ‘There’s been no word from her, has there? I hope she’s OK.’
But at the moment all Gracilis could think of was that he had a son to save.
As they walked towards the city gates, the Doctor spotted a familiar-looking street. ‘Hold on a tick,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose there’s room in that excellent carriage of yours for a rather stylish blue box?’
It was late afternoon the next day. The carriage carrying the Doctor and Gracilis approached the villa, closely followed by a hired cart bearing the solid blue shape of the TARDIS (the Doctor had been right
– there hadn’t been room in the carriage).
Gracilis ordered the carriage to stop before they reached the villa itself. ‘I want to bring Optatus to my wife,’ he said. ‘I do not want her to witness his restoration. I fear the knowledge of what truly happened would disturb her mind.’
They walked to the grove and Gracilis stared at the statue, not speaking. Perhaps, now the moment had come, he was too scared to rush in, knowing that his hopes could still be dashed. But finally he nodded to the Doctor.
The Doctor stepped forward and let one of the last remaining precious drops of green liquid fall on the stone.
Even the Doctor didn’t breathe as they waited, microseconds feeling like hours.
Then it happened. The spread of flesh, the blinking of an eye, an arm slumping down from its noble pose.
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And then Optatus was in his father’s arms and both were weeping.
The Doctor looked on from a distance as Optatus was reunited with his mother. Her tears flowed freely, but she couldn’t stop smiling. Finally, after it seemed that everyone had calmed down, he approached.
He couldn’t stop Marcia from bursting into tears again, hugging him and thanking him so many times that the words began to sound in his ears like a nonsense chant, but eventually he was able to ask her his questions. Had she seen Rose? Or Ursus? Had there been any word from Vanessa?
The answer to all his questions was ‘no’.
The Doctor slid away from the celebrations. Hopelessness was not a feeling he would ever admit to, but right now the Roman world stood before him impossibly large and discouraging. Rose was a tiny marble needle in a giant Roman haystack. How would he ever find
her?
And then he had a thought. A real humdinger of a thought, a blast-between-the-eyes thought.
He knew exactly where he could find Rose.
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The bright blue of the TARDIS screamed incongruity amid the clini-cal white walls and anaemic marble of the sculpture room. However, the Doctor, still dressed in his Roman tunic, blended in with the exhibits in a way no other visitor did – yet he was the one who got strange looks from the camera-laden tourists in sloganed T-shirts and the dusty academics wearing tweed jackets.
As far as the Doctor was concerned, though, these people didn’t exist – even the kids prodding at the TARDIS, assuming it to be some sort of interactive display, got barely a glance. He was a man on a mission and he was not going to be distracted.
But when he reached Rose’s statue, something distracted him.
Perched on the big toe of the nearby giant foot – in blatant disregard of the signs forbidding anyone to touch the exhibits – was a familiar figure. Mickey Smith.
‘Doctor!’ Mickey said as the Doctor approached.
He looked over the Doctor’s shoulder – but the Doctor was alone.
‘Oh. Wotcha.’
The Doctor slowed his frantic pace. ‘Hello,’ he replied. ‘So. . . is this before or after the last time?’
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Mickey shrugged. ‘How do I know what the last time is for you?
Last time for me was a fortnight ago, when you and Rose went off to make her the toast of the art world.’
The Doctor winced.
‘And I guess you got there all right,’ Mickey continued, looking the Doctor up and down, ‘or are man-skirts in this season?’
The Doctor ignored him, concentrating on the statue before him.
Rose’s youthful beauty captured for ever.
Even petrified, the
strength shone out of her face. No one could look at this and not realise what a special person she was. He unconsciously reached out a hand to hold hers. But of course, it wasn’t there.
Suddenly, a wave of doubt threatened to overcome him.
Mickey had got up and was standing beside him. ‘You know, who-ever made this must have really known her,’ he said. ‘It’s like. . . like they really understood her.’ He paused, then had a sudden thought.
‘Hey, she wasn’t, you know, seeing this fella or anything, was she?’
The Doctor laughed harshly – inhumanly – and Mickey took a step back. ‘Whoa! Didn’t mean to step on your toes, man.’
‘This isn’t a statue of Rose,’ the Doctor said.
Mickey looked confused. ‘What’re you talking about? Course it is.
Think I don’t know Rose when I see her?’
‘No, you don’t,’ said the Doctor. ‘Because you’re looking at her right now. This isn’t a statue of Rose. This is Rose herself. Rose has been turned into stone.’
Mickey had sat back down on the foot and was cradling his head in his hands. ‘It’s not true,’ he was saying, the words high and muffled, his body heaving with the sobs that he was trying to suppress, trying to hide.
A uniformed official approached them. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said to Mickey, seemingly oblivious of the tears. ‘I’m afraid I must ask you not to sit on the exhibits.’
Mickey ignored him; probably didn’t even hear him.
‘He’s a bit upset right now,’ the Doctor pointed out.
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The man was unmoved. ‘I’m sorry, sir, but I cannot make an exception.’
The Doctor stepped closer and prodded him. ‘Sorry, just checking if you were really human. Because a real human would see just how upset my. . . friend is and show a bit of compassion.’
The guard ignored the Doctor’s anger. Probably used to that sort of thing, even in as refined a place as a museum. He spoke so reasonably that the Doctor, not in the best of moods just at the moment, felt his ire rise even higher. ‘We have a duty to protect these items. They wouldn’t have lasted for countless generations if everyone had been allowed to go around sitting on them, would they?’
The Doctor was about to launch into a number of counter-arguments involving past uses of stone works – as well as uses that had just come to him and in which the guard could possibly take part
– all of which would probably have had the man doubting his sanity, when Mickey pushed himself to his feet. He shoved his face towards that of the security guard.
‘I don’t care about your stupid statues or your stupid duty!’ he shouted.
Everyone else in the room turned to stare. One tourist took a photo.
‘She’s dead! Don’t you understand? She’s dead! I’ve been coming here every day, every single stupid day, just to feel I was close to her –to keep me going until I saw her again. But I didn’t know. . . now I’m not going to see her again, not ever!’
‘I’m sorry, sir, but –’
The Doctor stepped in before the situation got any worse. ‘As I told you, he’s a bit upset right now,’ he said harshly, and took Mickey by the arm.
Silent tears still coursed down Mickey’s cheeks as the Doctor led him out of the room and up the stairs; he looked dazed and angry.
The Doctor sat him down at a table in the Great Court and went off to a nearby counter. He returned with two plastic cups of blackcurrant cordial and placed one in front of Mickey, sticking a straw in the top.
They sat silently for a few minutes. Neither one of them was really there any more; they were in the past, with Rose. Talking to her.
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Laughing with her. Just looking at her face.
‘She was always too good for me,’ Mickey said suddenly. ‘Didn’t deserve her, I didn’t. There was this time I had the flu – she looked after me, every day. I felt like I wanted to die, then she’d hold my hand and I’d remember how good life could be.’ He almost smiled. ‘I thought I was the luckiest man alive to get her. We were only kids, but I knew she was special. Kept thinking she’d leave me. And she did, once.
Came back, though. Thought she was on the rebound, that she’d see sense after a week or two. But she didn’t. Never thought I’d hang on to her a second time. Knew there was something better out there and she’d realise it in the end. I just had to make the most of every day I got. I mean, I was angry when she went off with you. Angry with you, but angry with her too, angry that she’d seen through me at last. Realised I was a loser and she was a winner. But I didn’t mind, not in the end. Because she deserved more than me. She deserved someone who could give her the whole universe.’ The sorrow in his voice turned to anger. ‘But you got her killed.’
‘I know,’ said the Doctor, and it was as if he hated himself.
‘You got her killed and I’ll never see her again! She thought she wanted danger and excitement – but you could have stopped her!
She wasn’t a – a Time Lord, she was just an ordinary girl and you got her killed.’
‘Rose wasn’t “ordinary”,’ said the Doctor. He stopped sounding angry at himself, directed it at Mickey instead. ‘What was I supposed to do? Wrap her in cotton wool? Tell her, “Here, I could give you the universe, but I’m not going to in case you get hurt? There’s all this stuff out there, all these planets, all these wonders, but I want you to stay at home and work in a shop?”
Mickey stood up and yelled, ‘You should have taken better care of her!’
The Doctor shouted back, ‘I know!’
Mickey sat back down. ‘You should’ve,’ he repeated quietly. He suddenly shivered. ‘How’m I gonna tell her mum? She’ll crucify me.’
‘I think you mean me,’ said the Doctor. He gave a half-laugh. ‘Fun-nily enough, I was almost crucified this morning. Luckily, they threw 104
me to the lions instead.’
Mickey concentrated on the first bit, too wrapped up in what was happening right now to care in the slightest about the Doctor’s adventures. ‘Like you’ll stick around. And Jackie’ll have to take it out on someone. She ain’t go
t anyone else any more.’ His face crumpled.
‘She won’t even have a grave!’
The Doctor was quiet for a few minutes, letting Mickey’s tears run their course. Then he said, almost hesitantly, ‘I can bring her back.’
Mickey looked up, astonished. ‘You what?’
The Doctor spoke again, more assured this time. ‘I can bring her back.’
Mickey jumped to his feet, almost more angry than before. ‘You. . .
you can? Well, why didn’t you say so before? Was this fun for you, seeing me like this? Mickey the idiot, doesn’t understand this stuff, let’s have a laugh with him?’ He looked as though he was about to punch the Doctor, who stepped in quickly.
‘I. . . wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to do.’ He waved a hand, silencing Mickey’s next protest. ‘But now I am. So isn’t the fact that I can do it the most important thing here?’
Mickey seemed about to argue – but then he nodded. ‘Yeah. Right.
Well, what are we waiting for, then?’ He started walking.
‘For that guard to go away for a start,’ the Doctor called after him.
Mickey stumped back and sat down again.
They were both silent for a few moments. The Doctor took a long swig of black currant cordial.
Then Mickey said, a bit nervously, ‘But. . . won’t she be, like, 2,000
years old or something?’
‘Closer to 1,900, give or take the odd change of calendar,’ the Doctor replied. That shouldn’t. . . that won’t matter. She’s not aware in there.
She hasn’t aged.’
‘Are you sure she’s not aware?’ asked Mickey. ‘Are you sure she hasn’t been watching everything that’s going on?’
The Doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, if she has, she’ll have seen you every day for the last fortnight. That should earn you Brownie points.’ He’d meant it almost – almost – kindly, but Mickey looked 105
like a puppy that had been kicked. He sighed. ‘Come on,’ he said, standing up. ‘Let’s see if the coast is clear.’
But Mickey remained seated. ‘Rose might not have aged – not the Rose inside. But that statue has. It’s got chips out of it. Its hand’s got knocked off. Will that come back when you bring her to life again?’