by Oli Smith
‘I can’t believe we forgot about the TARDIS.’
Amy sighed. ‘We wouldn’t have been able to save her anyhow. She’s tough. I’m sure we’ll find her buried around here somewhere.’
Rory looked at her. ‘You’ve started calling the TARDIS “she”,’ he said. ‘I’ve never noticed that before.’
‘I think we’ve sailed in her long enough,’ Amy replied.
A flare went up in the distance. The pink light flickering across the desert landscape. One of the robots had found the ship.
Immediately, the others changed course. They trundled over to aid in the digging.
‘X marks the spot.’ Rory grinned and broke into a jog.
The blue lamp of the TARDIS had already been uncovered by the time Amy and Rory reached it. Amy smiled with relief.
‘The paintwork’s not even scratched.’
‘Is it really paint do you think?’ asked Rory.
Amy thought for a moment. ‘I reckon it’s space-paint,’ she decided.
They sat down on the lip of the hole and watched as it grew deeper around them. Every now and then Amy pulled off her jacket and wiped at one of the surfaces. She cleared away the grit and the mud until the blue shone brightly amongst the sandy ground.
Rory lay back on his elbows, glad that the running was over at last. He looked around. Then spotted something in the distance.
He nudged Amy. ‘Guess what?’
‘What?’
‘Or rather, guess who?’
A smile spread across Amy’s face as she spotted what Rory had seen.
They leapt to their feet and began to run towards the dark shape in the distance. As they approached, the shape became clearer, forming into the black silhouette of a tower. It was crooked and unstable amid the perfectly flat landscape. Amy didn’t need to guess to know that its base was exactly two metres square – Daryl’s emergency beacon.
Grey plaster clattered down the broken storeys as they arrived at the tower. They looked up at the concrete support that held together the fragments of floor. The top few levels had broken away and lay in a heap nearby. But three-quarters of the way up sat the Doctor, still in his chair, in front of the Desktop.
He rubbed his aching head from where he had removed the wishbone interface from his temples and gazed down at them dreamily. They waved.
‘Hello!’ he called down to them. ‘Been doing a bit of home improvement have you?’
‘Well, we’ve laid the foundations,’ Amy shouted back.
The Doctor fiddled with his shirt-cuffs. ‘Oh, I think you’ve done more than that,’ he said. ‘Come up and see!’
Rory raised his eyebrows at Amy. ‘Is he kidding? This thing’s a death trap!’
But Amy was already scrambling for a handhold in the brickwork.
‘The things we do for love,’ Rory groaned to himself, before following her at a more cautious speed. They scrambled for what seemed to their aching arms like hours, but in reality was barely a few minutes, until they arrived, panting and sweating in the remains of the Doctor’s room.
He pulled them up and onto the floor and tried to dust them down with a tiny handkerchief.
‘Yeah, that’s not going to help,’ Rory coughed in the dust.
‘That’s a shame,’ said the Doctor, ‘this is the kind of occasion you should really dress up for.’ He paused. ‘At least I think it is. If it’s not then it should be.’
‘What are you talking about Doctor?’ Amy asked.
The Doctor coughed, and by way of explanation grabbed them both by the shoulders and turned them around to look out across the plains.
‘This,’ he declared, ‘is the occasion.’
In the distance, shrouded in the soft glow of the morning sun, the reconstruction of Earth had begun. Steel spires had already been erected, twisting and turning around each other in ways that Amy had never seen. To the right a glass pyramid was already nestled between two other buildings, shaped like a square and a circle. A new horizon was being created, and Amy caught her breath at the beauty of it all.
‘The rebuilding of Earth,’ the Doctor murmured. He smiled as he recognised the hand of the Chief Architect in the curving ribs of another tower block, relieved that he had escaped. ‘You should be honoured,’ he added.
Rory looked at him.
‘This is for you,’ the Doctor said. ‘For humanity, a gift from the citizens of Parallife to the players who created them. A new Earth, ready and waiting for their return.’
Overcome with emotion, the Doctor hugged his two young companions tightly to his chest.
‘You know guys,’ he said, ‘I don’t say this often, but this time – we did good.’
The End
Justin Richards
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First published by Puffin Books 2011
This digital edition first published 2015
Written by Oli Smith
Copyright © BBC Worldwide Limited, 2015
BBC, DOCTOR WHO (word marks, logos and devices),
TARDIS, DALEKS, CYBERMAN and K-9 (word marks and devices) are trademarks of th
e British Broadcasting Corporation and are used under licence.
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ISBN: 978-1-405-92627-0