At the bottom of Kettleworth Lake, the lump of black coral had gotten bigger, the crystal consumed by it. It was now pulsating with orange light, smoke rising from within it. It was getting larger and larger. It was growing.
The Doctor and Mary had finished looking around the abandoned building, but they were no closer to discover a solution to what might be able to save the little girl.
Mary was busy flicking through old black and white photos of blurs and light flares whilst the Doctor paced up and down the room, his hands in his pockets.
“So what are we going to do?” asked Mary. “We can’t just sit here waiting for her to turn up.”
“No,” said the Doctor. He stopped on the spot. “No, we can’t. We need to find a way to bring her to us.”
“What if we dug deeper into this Torchwood Institute?” said Mary. She shrugged. “We’ve got to pick up a thread from somewhere.”
“No, they’re too secretive. We’ll never find anything linking us to where they are now.”
“Well we’ve got to do something.” Mary was getting frustrated.
The Doctor turned to look at her, a strange look in his eye. Mary realised that he wasn’t actually looking at her, rather through her.
“Doctor, are you ok?” she asked. She turned to look behind her, almost expecting to see the little girl, but there was nothing there.
He put a hand to his chest, his lips curling into a very slight smile. “I’m…I’m fine.”
“You look…well, you look distant.” Mary got to her feet and looked up at him.
“I feel warm.” The Doctor looked down at her and grinned.
“What? You feel warm?”
“Something is stirring.” He grinned. “She’s coming back.”
“The girl?” said Mary, suddenly feeling cold, looking around the room.
“No-” said the Doctor.
But he didn’t finish his sentence. As if to punctuate Mary’s question there was a rumble of thunder from outside of the bunker.
“She is back!” said Mary.
The Doctor reached out and grabbed Mary’s hand. “Come on.”
By the time to two of them were outside the sky had turned grey again. The rain clouds hung heavy in the sky and it was starting to rain. Mary pulled the Doctor’s jacket tighter around her.
“Right, what can we ascertain from this?” asked the Doctor, pointing to Mary.
Mary felt like she was back in school. “We know that when the weather is bad that the girl appears.”
“Exactly,” said the Doctor. “So what does that tell us?”
“That the two are connected.” Mary looked up at the clouds. “But ghosts don’t live in clouds.”
“I keep telling you she’s not a ghost,” said the Doctor. “She’s trapped.”
“But that’s what spirits are, aren’t they? They’re trapped.”
“Not the same thing,” said the Doctor. The rain was becoming to come down heavier now. Large drops of water splashed down on them.
“Shouldn’t we get back inside?”
“No, no, no,” said the Doctor. He looked at the clouds. There was another clap of thunder. “The refugee ship must have been passing by. Now, if it was a medical ship…think, Doctor, think…” He balled up his fist and closed his eyes, knocking his fist against his forehead. “Medical ships are fitted with transmat devices.”
“Hang on, you’re losing me now.”
The Doctor span around to face her. “Spaceships - some spaceships - have the ability to transport people from one place to another. They effectively disappear from the spaceship and reappear somewhere else.”
“A bit like an illusion.”
“Yes, except this is science, not trickery.”
“But, hang on…” Mary closed her eyes and put her hands to her forehead, “…I’m still trying to understand the concept of a space ship. A craft that flies through space and contains beings from another world?”
“That’s correct.”
There was a flash of lightning followed, a few moments later, by a huge clap of thunder.
“Surely it’s all just fantasy though. I mean none of this could ever be real, could it? We would have see such beings had they existed. Surely they’d be all over our planet by now.”
“In the future the people of your world will see much, much more of these beings. All sorts of beings.”
“Your world?”
“About that…” The Doctor was starting to look a little flustered.
“Okay, okay,” said Mary. “Clearly there are things I don’t quite understand, but maybe we should deal with the task at hand.”
“Exactly my thoughts.”
“I can’t say I don’t have more questions though.”
“And I’ll try to answer them when all this is over.”
“So you say this space ship must have transported this girl?”
“That’s my theory. The spaceship obviously isn’t here. We’d have come across some trace of it or at least remnants in the bunker by now.” The Doctor looked up to the sky. The rain was now pounding down harder and harder. “For some reason this young girl was transported down from the spaceship. Someone was likely trying to save her.”
There was a flash of lightning and Mary felt the air go cold. She could see her breath in front of her and when she turned to look back at the bunker there was the little girl again. She backed away, but somehow felt a little less frightened this time.
“Hello,” said the Doctor, stepping past Mary and towards the girl, her face still glowing brightly. “Are you able to communicate with me?”
The girl reached out her arms towards the Doctor.
“You were in an accident, weren’t you?”
The Doctor stepped a little closer, Mary just behind him. The closer they got the more Mary could see. There were tendrils of light flowing from the girls face.
“What happened to her face, Doctor?” asked Mary.
“Someone was trying to save you, weren’t they?” asked the Doctor. He was now right in front of her. He knelt down in front of the little girl. “If you are what I think you are then you should be able to show me.”
The girl reached her hands out further.
“Be careful, Doctor,” said Mary, warily.
“It’s ok. It’s ok.”
He closed his eyes as the girl touched his temples.
There was a flash…
She was being carried through darkened corridors, their metallic panels occasionally lit up by flashing red lights. Her father was a handsome man, but he was also a concerned man. There were people collapsing around him. A deadly gas had been released inside the ship. He had covered his own face and his little girls face, but she was already drifting in and out of consciousness.
There was a loud explosion from somewhere towards the front of the ship.
“We’ve lost the bridge, Captain!” shouted one of his officers.
He didn’t look at the man. He carried on running. “Get everyone who can’t walk to the transmat pads now!”
He turned the corner and entered the circular room. The transmat pad was set into a large, circular alcove surrounded by glowing, round circles.
Kyla was already unconscious as he laid her down on the transmat pad. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “I love you.”
Her eyes fluttered momentarily and then he stepped back towards the controls.
“Sir, the ship is going critical!” said an officer in a grey tunic and black helmet.
“Abandon ship!” yelled Jericho. “The planet down below can offer us shelter until we can find a way out of this.”
“We don’t have the time.”
There was another rumble of explosions. This time from the aft of the ship - the engines.
“Oh, my sweet Kyla,” said Jericho, activating the transmat, “I hope you find someone out there to help you.”
As Jericho activated the transmat the little blonde girls face began to glow, golden light began to spew from her hands.
“No, not now!”
“Sir, if she regenerates while she’s transmatting down-”
“I can’t stop it.” Jericho watched in horror as his daughter began to disappear. He didn’t get to see her disappear completely. A huge explosion ripped through the ship and the room exploded in front of him.
The Doctor staggered back from the little girl who hung her head sadly.
“What happened?” asked Mary. “What did you see?”
The Doctor looked to Mary and then back at the little girl - back to Kyla. “Give me your hand.”
Kyla reached out and the Doctor took her hand. “I know what happened.” The Doctor smiled again. “And we need to get to the lake.”
Mary was amazed to discover that the little girl, whom the Doctor had named as Kyla, had not disappeared all the time she had held the Doctors hand. She held on tightly and walked slowly. The weather continued to rage above them and the three of them were soaked through to the skin, but the Doctor had a new determined look on his face.
“Her name is Kyla,” the Doctor had said. “Her people have the ability to completely repair their bodies if they are dying. They are able to regenerate themselves and heal. Kyla was on board a refugee ship that was under attack. Her father teleported her down to the surface of your planet. As she teleported three other things happened - she began to regenerate and the ship she was on exploded. Her atoms, whilst regenerating, were caught between the exploding ship and the planet Earth and passed through a storm.”
“So she was…I don’t know, scattered through the atmosphere?”
“That’s right,” said the Doctor. “Scattered in the immediate area but unable to reform back into a solid state.”
“The poor thing.” Mary shook her head. “This is just so…fantastically unbelievable.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
Mary had a thought. “Hold on, why are we heading to the lake?”
“Because something is at the bottom of the lake that will help her.”
They arrived at the banks of the lake. The storm was beginning to ease off, but Kyla was still there, holding on to the Doctor tightly. There was a faint orange glow coming from the centre of the lake.
“That’s where you said you were fishing,” said Mary.
The Doctor looked at her and then knelt down in front of Kyla. “You should be close enough now for you to stay held together.”
Kyla nodded and tentatively let go of the Doctor’s hand. She fizzed and crackled, but remained solid, albeit her face still glowing white.
She put one foot into the lake and then slowly began walking.
“Doctor-” said Mary.
The Doctor held up his hand to stop her. “She’ll be fine.”
Kyla headed out into the lake until she was fully submerged. She began to swim down and down towards the surface. She swam towards the orange glow. Eventually she arrived at a huge, almost square lump of coral, the orange glow emanating from it. She reached out her hand towards the coral. When he hands touched the slimy, rocky surface it began to glow brighter and brighter. Kyla gasped as the glow completely covered her.
Mary and the Doctor watched on in silence. There were no sounds. The storm had gone. Mary was about to speak when suddenly a large shape broke through the surface of the water. A large, black lump. There was a faint orange glow about it as the lump remained floating on top of the water.
“Yes!” shouted the Doctor, punching the air in delight.
“What is it?” asked Mary, frowning as the lump began to reshape itself into more of a rectangle shape.
“Kyla’s people are connected to their spaceships.”
“So that’s her ship down there? I thought you said it exploded.”
“That’s not her ship, but it comes from the same place.”
“The explosion in the lake…”
“Mary,” said the Doctor, turning to her, “I think I need to explain a few things to you.”
“I don’t know if my brain can take much more of this strangeness, Doctor!”
“Myself and Kyla are from the same planet.”
Mary didn’t say anything.
The Doctor took that as his cue to continue. “That lump of coral slowly reforming itself into a box is my ship. It was critically damaged. It shouldn’t still be here, but the presence of Kyla has caused it to reignite and regenerate itself.”
Mary watched as the coral box finally finished reforming and standing there on the surface of the water was…a police box…
“Hang on…” Mary looked at the Doctor with a frown.
“I’ll try and explain the police box thing.”
“Please do,” she said, flashing him a smile. “But where’s Kyla?”
“Shall we find out?”
Mary didn’t mind the swim across the lake. She was already soaking wet so it didn’t make much difference. The Doctor arrived at the ledge of the box first and hauled her up to the doors.
He rummaged around in his pockets until he pulled out a key. He flashed her a grin and then unlocked the door. There was a strange humming sound coming from the box. The Doctor took a deep breath and then went inside.
Mary couldn’t believe her eyes. At first she had to shield them against the light, but once they had adjusted she felt quite taken aback.
The inside was much larger than the outside. Too large to fit inside the blue police box. The room was white with its walls adorned with grey, indented circles. Across the far side was a bank of computers and a door leading off to, what she assumed, was further parts of this strange spaceship.
In the centre of the room was a six sided, green-tinted console with a glass cylinder running through the middle of it. Above the console was a large, hexagonal device that hung from the ceiling.
“Amazing,” said the Doctor, as he gazed around in wonder, “she’s reset herself to the default design.”
“Default design?”
“Kyla!” said the Doctor, ignoring Mary’s question. Lying down on the floor of the spaceship was a young girl - but she looked different. She had light, brown hair - a little like Mary’s, but it was shorter. She looked older as well - maybe about 13 years old - and she was sleeping soundly.
“Is she okay?” asked Mary, her concern for the girl overshadowing her complete bewilderment of the spaceship she was standing in.
The Doctor knelt down beside the young girl. “She’s alive, but very, very ill.”
“She looks different. She looks older.”
“That’s regeneration for you.” The Doctor picked her up in his arms. “She could have easily have turned into a teenage boy!”
“What?” Mary was confused.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters now is getting this young lady the help she needs.”
The Doctor started making his way, with Kyla in his arms, towards the inner door. He then turned back to Mary. “Please, sit down Miss Auckland. I’ll go and pop the kettle on.”
The Doctor had returned - without Kyla - with two steaming hot mugs of tea. Mary had sat down on an old, wooden chair and was nursing a headache. The Doctor sat cross-legged on the floor and handed her the tea.
“Mmmm, that’s good,” said Mary.
“You have questions,” said the Doctor.
“I do,” said Mary. “Where did you put Kyla?”
“She’s in a stasis tube.” Mary looked confused. “She’s healing but it’s going to be a little while before she’s up and walking about.”
“The poor thing - and you think she lost her entire family?”
“Her father’s ship exploded. There were no other survivors.” He sipped on his own tea. “I just wonder what they were running from.”
“You said they were refugees. Was there a war on your planet?”
“There have been many wars,” said the Doctor, looking distant, “but I won’t know until I get back there and find out.”
“I still can’t quite believe you’re not from this world.”
The Doctor took another sip. “I truly am sorry for not telling you everything, but I never expected for this to happen.”
Mary put her cup on the floor and got up from her seat, walking around the large, white room and taking in every detail. “This place is truly fantastic, Doctor. I…how does it work?”
“You’d need a good few years of dimensional engineering classes to even come close to understanding how it works. The TARDIS is truly a miracle machine.”
“TARDIS?” said Mary.
The Doctor sighed. “I’d forgotten the questions that come with new visitors to the TARDIS.”
“Well, I’m sure you can tell me all about it.”
The Doctor finished his tea and got up to check on the console. It was then that Mary noticed how concerned he looked. He was looking at a particular dial on the console. “That’s odd.”
“What?” she said, crossing over to him.
“That dial shouldn’t be set to those numbers. Not unless the ship has been pre-programmed to take off. I’ve not touched anything yet.”
There was a sudden low thump from the depths of the ship.
“No!” said the Doctor.
A lever - on its own - moved downwards. Lights started flashing and the central glass column began to move up and down. There was a loud grating of what Mary could only assume were engines from all around them. The ship began to vibrate and Mary felt unsteady. She fell back into her chair.
“What’s happening?!” she shouted.
“The TARDIS - it’s taking off.”
“We’re travelling into space?”
“Not only space,” said the Doctor, turning to her, “but time as well.”
“Time? It travels in time?”
“Again, I think we have a lot to talk about, Miss Auckland.”
“But I’ve got a job to get back to. My mum is going to wonder where I’ve gone!”
The Doctor shrugged as he checked the console readouts. The TARDIS seems to have other ideas. He looked sheepishly at her. “Welcome to the TARDIS, Mary.”
He could feel his chest thumping faster and faster. He could feel something flaring up inside of him. Something he had not felt before. Well, at least not for a long time. It didn’t feel right. It felt unnatural to him.
He brought his fist down on the controls. “Control yourself. Control yourself!”
He suddenly broke free, stepping back from the console. “Control yourself, man, control yourself.”
The ship rocked again.
“CONTROL YOURSELF!”
The ship vibrated. It was almost in anger. It was as if it was reacting to the anger he felt.
“No. No, no, no. What’s going on? What’s going on?”
He fell to the floor, his knees wet in the already partially flood ship.
He balled his fists up and pressed them against his temples. “This cannot be happening. What is happening?” He looked up to the ceiling. “WHAT IS HAPPENING?!”
He screamed out in agony and fell to the floor. With a anguished cry he got to his feet and headed to the console. There were still vestiges of power inside the console. The TARDIS was dying. He reached out and flicked the door switch.
The doors swung open and he turned to face the rush of water that awaited him. It never came. Outside was a beautiful summers day. The birds were singing and there was a light breeze. The TARDIS was balanced just slightly below the surface of a large lake and it was sinking, but he was still able to clamber out. He crossed the threshold and began to swim across the lake all the time his head pounding and the anger flaring up in him.
He managed to crawl across to the bank where he saw a woman in a sunhat and a dress cycling past.
“Woman!” he shouted. “Woman, help me!”
The woman stopped and lifted the brim of her hat. She was an attractive woman in her early 40’s with long brown hair and a summer dress.
“Hello? Can I help you?”
“That much is obvious,” he said, getting to his feet.
The woman looked across the lake just in time to see the box sink below the surface. “What’s happened here?”
“Never mind that. What year is this?”
“The year?”
“The year and the exact date, woman,” said the man.
“Don’t you talk to me like that!” scolded the woman.
“Please,” he said, trying to dampen the anger, “what is the date?”
“July 16th 1949,” she said. “Have you been in an accident.”
“Of sorts,” said the man. He looked about him. “Where am I?”
“Kettleworth Lake,” said the woman. “In Saxerby.”
“Earth I presume?”
“Earth? Of course. Listen, I’m on my break from work and a need to get back to the post office. If you’d like I’ll ask PC Forrester to send for a doctor.”
“What’s your name, woman?”
“Patricia. Patricia Auckland.”
The man nodded and continued to look around. “And you say there is a village nearby?”
“Indeed there is.”
“Miss Auckland, I’m not feeling very well. I wonder if you could help me to the village.”
“Of course I can. That’s if you’ll stop being so horrible. If my husband was alive…”
“Please, Miss Auckland.”
She got off her bike and walked over to him, taking his hand and guiding him towards her bike. “You have been in the wars, haven’t you?”
“Something just doesn’t feel right.”
“What’s your name?”
“My name? It’s the Doctor. Doctor John Smith.”
“Well, John, let’s get you somewhere that can help you, shall we?”
Less than a mile away Mary Auckland, Patricia’s daughter, and her friend, Betty, were settling down for a picnic.
The TARDIS was in flight and the Doctor had made Mary another cup of tea. He had made his way through the corridors of the TARDIS towards the medi-bay where Kyla was safely tucked away in a stasis tube. He looked down at her as she slept soundly.
“She helped you to heal, old girl,” said the Doctor, looking up at the ceiling. “And you helped her. But why are you sending us in flight now?”
There was no answer.
“You know I’m going to have a hell of a time trying to control you now? Back to how it used to be a suppose.”
The Doctor smiled down at Kyla and then stared ahead. Something wasn’t right. Something felt amiss. He couldn’t put his finger on it and he guessed it must have been down to the newly regenerated TARDIS, but there was something not quite right.
And there were white curtains billowing in the sunlight.
And once again he felt like he had forgotten something….
The End
The Doctor and Mary had finished looking around the abandoned building, but they were no closer to discover a solution to what might be able to save the little girl.
Mary was busy flicking through old black and white photos of blurs and light flares whilst the Doctor paced up and down the room, his hands in his pockets.
“So what are we going to do?” asked Mary. “We can’t just sit here waiting for her to turn up.”
“No,” said the Doctor. He stopped on the spot. “No, we can’t. We need to find a way to bring her to us.”
“What if we dug deeper into this Torchwood Institute?” said Mary. She shrugged. “We’ve got to pick up a thread from somewhere.”
“No, they’re too secretive. We’ll never find anything linking us to where they are now.”
“Well we’ve got to do something.” Mary was getting frustrated.
The Doctor turned to look at her, a strange look in his eye. Mary realised that he wasn’t actually looking at her, rather through her.
“Doctor, are you ok?” she asked. She turned to look behind her, almost expecting to see the little girl, but there was nothing there.
He put a hand to his chest, his lips curling into a very slight smile. “I’m…I’m fine.”
“You look…well, you look distant.” Mary got to her feet and looked up at him.
“I feel warm.” The Doctor looked down at her and grinned.
“What? You feel warm?”
“Something is stirring.” He grinned. “She’s coming back.”
“The girl?” said Mary, suddenly feeling cold, looking around the room.
“No-” said the Doctor.
But he didn’t finish his sentence. As if to punctuate Mary’s question there was a rumble of thunder from outside of the bunker.
“She is back!” said Mary.
The Doctor reached out and grabbed Mary’s hand. “Come on.”
By the time to two of them were outside the sky had turned grey again. The rain clouds hung heavy in the sky and it was starting to rain. Mary pulled the Doctor’s jacket tighter around her.
“Right, what can we ascertain from this?” asked the Doctor, pointing to Mary.
Mary felt like she was back in school. “We know that when the weather is bad that the girl appears.”
“Exactly,” said the Doctor. “So what does that tell us?”
“That the two are connected.” Mary looked up at the clouds. “But ghosts don’t live in clouds.”
“I keep telling you she’s not a ghost,” said the Doctor. “She’s trapped.”
“But that’s what spirits are, aren’t they? They’re trapped.”
“Not the same thing,” said the Doctor. The rain was becoming to come down heavier now. Large drops of water splashed down on them.
“Shouldn’t we get back inside?”
“No, no, no,” said the Doctor. He looked at the clouds. There was another clap of thunder. “The refugee ship must have been passing by. Now, if it was a medical ship…think, Doctor, think…” He balled up his fist and closed his eyes, knocking his fist against his forehead. “Medical ships are fitted with transmat devices.”
“Hang on, you’re losing me now.”
The Doctor span around to face her. “Spaceships - some spaceships - have the ability to transport people from one place to another. They effectively disappear from the spaceship and reappear somewhere else.”
“A bit like an illusion.”
“Yes, except this is science, not trickery.”
“But, hang on…” Mary closed her eyes and put her hands to her forehead, “…I’m still trying to understand the concept of a space ship. A craft that flies through space and contains beings from another world?”
“That’s correct.”
There was a flash of lightning followed, a few moments later, by a huge clap of thunder.
“Surely it’s all just fantasy though. I mean none of this could ever be real, could it? We would have see such beings had they existed. Surely they’d be all over our planet by now.”
“In the future the people of your world will see much, much more of these beings. All sorts of beings.”
“Your world?”
“About that…” The Doctor was starting to look a little flustered.
“Okay, okay,” said Mary. “Clearly there are things I don’t quite understand, but maybe we should deal with the task at hand.”
“Exactly my thoughts.”
“I can’t say I don’t have more questions though.”
“And I’ll try to answer them when all this is over.”
“So you say this space ship must have transported this girl?”
“That’s my theory. The spaceship obviously isn’t here. We’d have come across some trace of it or at least remnants in the bunker by now.” The Doctor looked up to the sky. The rain was now pounding down harder and harder. “For some reason this young girl was transported down from the spaceship. Someone was likely trying to save her.”
There was a flash of lightning and Mary felt the air go cold. She could see her breath in front of her and when she turned to look back at the bunker there was the little girl again. She backed away, but somehow felt a little less frightened this time.
“Hello,” said the Doctor, stepping past Mary and towards the girl, her face still glowing brightly. “Are you able to communicate with me?”
The girl reached out her arms towards the Doctor.
“You were in an accident, weren’t you?”
The Doctor stepped a little closer, Mary just behind him. The closer they got the more Mary could see. There were tendrils of light flowing from the girls face.
“What happened to her face, Doctor?” asked Mary.
“Someone was trying to save you, weren’t they?” asked the Doctor. He was now right in front of her. He knelt down in front of the little girl. “If you are what I think you are then you should be able to show me.”
The girl reached her hands out further.
“Be careful, Doctor,” said Mary, warily.
“It’s ok. It’s ok.”
He closed his eyes as the girl touched his temples.
There was a flash…
She was being carried through darkened corridors, their metallic panels occasionally lit up by flashing red lights. Her father was a handsome man, but he was also a concerned man. There were people collapsing around him. A deadly gas had been released inside the ship. He had covered his own face and his little girls face, but she was already drifting in and out of consciousness.
There was a loud explosion from somewhere towards the front of the ship.
“We’ve lost the bridge, Captain!” shouted one of his officers.
He didn’t look at the man. He carried on running. “Get everyone who can’t walk to the transmat pads now!”
He turned the corner and entered the circular room. The transmat pad was set into a large, circular alcove surrounded by glowing, round circles.
Kyla was already unconscious as he laid her down on the transmat pad. He leaned in and kissed her on the cheek. “I love you.”
Her eyes fluttered momentarily and then he stepped back towards the controls.
“Sir, the ship is going critical!” said an officer in a grey tunic and black helmet.
“Abandon ship!” yelled Jericho. “The planet down below can offer us shelter until we can find a way out of this.”
“We don’t have the time.”
There was another rumble of explosions. This time from the aft of the ship - the engines.
“Oh, my sweet Kyla,” said Jericho, activating the transmat, “I hope you find someone out there to help you.”
As Jericho activated the transmat the little blonde girls face began to glow, golden light began to spew from her hands.
“No, not now!”
“Sir, if she regenerates while she’s transmatting down-”
“I can’t stop it.” Jericho watched in horror as his daughter began to disappear. He didn’t get to see her disappear completely. A huge explosion ripped through the ship and the room exploded in front of him.
The Doctor staggered back from the little girl who hung her head sadly.
“What happened?” asked Mary. “What did you see?”
The Doctor looked to Mary and then back at the little girl - back to Kyla. “Give me your hand.”
Kyla reached out and the Doctor took her hand. “I know what happened.” The Doctor smiled again. “And we need to get to the lake.”
Mary was amazed to discover that the little girl, whom the Doctor had named as Kyla, had not disappeared all the time she had held the Doctors hand. She held on tightly and walked slowly. The weather continued to rage above them and the three of them were soaked through to the skin, but the Doctor had a new determined look on his face.
“Her name is Kyla,” the Doctor had said. “Her people have the ability to completely repair their bodies if they are dying. They are able to regenerate themselves and heal. Kyla was on board a refugee ship that was under attack. Her father teleported her down to the surface of your planet. As she teleported three other things happened - she began to regenerate and the ship she was on exploded. Her atoms, whilst regenerating, were caught between the exploding ship and the planet Earth and passed through a storm.”
“So she was…I don’t know, scattered through the atmosphere?”
“That’s right,” said the Doctor. “Scattered in the immediate area but unable to reform back into a solid state.”
“The poor thing.” Mary shook her head. “This is just so…fantastically unbelievable.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
Mary had a thought. “Hold on, why are we heading to the lake?”
“Because something is at the bottom of the lake that will help her.”
They arrived at the banks of the lake. The storm was beginning to ease off, but Kyla was still there, holding on to the Doctor tightly. There was a faint orange glow coming from the centre of the lake.
“That’s where you said you were fishing,” said Mary.
The Doctor looked at her and then knelt down in front of Kyla. “You should be close enough now for you to stay held together.”
Kyla nodded and tentatively let go of the Doctor’s hand. She fizzed and crackled, but remained solid, albeit her face still glowing white.
She put one foot into the lake and then slowly began walking.
“Doctor-” said Mary.
The Doctor held up his hand to stop her. “She’ll be fine.”
Kyla headed out into the lake until she was fully submerged. She began to swim down and down towards the surface. She swam towards the orange glow. Eventually she arrived at a huge, almost square lump of coral, the orange glow emanating from it. She reached out her hand towards the coral. When he hands touched the slimy, rocky surface it began to glow brighter and brighter. Kyla gasped as the glow completely covered her.
Mary and the Doctor watched on in silence. There were no sounds. The storm had gone. Mary was about to speak when suddenly a large shape broke through the surface of the water. A large, black lump. There was a faint orange glow about it as the lump remained floating on top of the water.
“Yes!” shouted the Doctor, punching the air in delight.
“What is it?” asked Mary, frowning as the lump began to reshape itself into more of a rectangle shape.
“Kyla’s people are connected to their spaceships.”
“So that’s her ship down there? I thought you said it exploded.”
“That’s not her ship, but it comes from the same place.”
“The explosion in the lake…”
“Mary,” said the Doctor, turning to her, “I think I need to explain a few things to you.”
“I don’t know if my brain can take much more of this strangeness, Doctor!”
“Myself and Kyla are from the same planet.”
Mary didn’t say anything.
The Doctor took that as his cue to continue. “That lump of coral slowly reforming itself into a box is my ship. It was critically damaged. It shouldn’t still be here, but the presence of Kyla has caused it to reignite and regenerate itself.”
Mary watched as the coral box finally finished reforming and standing there on the surface of the water was…a police box…
“Hang on…” Mary looked at the Doctor with a frown.
“I’ll try and explain the police box thing.”
“Please do,” she said, flashing him a smile. “But where’s Kyla?”
“Shall we find out?”
Mary didn’t mind the swim across the lake. She was already soaking wet so it didn’t make much difference. The Doctor arrived at the ledge of the box first and hauled her up to the doors.
He rummaged around in his pockets until he pulled out a key. He flashed her a grin and then unlocked the door. There was a strange humming sound coming from the box. The Doctor took a deep breath and then went inside.
Mary couldn’t believe her eyes. At first she had to shield them against the light, but once they had adjusted she felt quite taken aback.
The inside was much larger than the outside. Too large to fit inside the blue police box. The room was white with its walls adorned with grey, indented circles. Across the far side was a bank of computers and a door leading off to, what she assumed, was further parts of this strange spaceship.
In the centre of the room was a six sided, green-tinted console with a glass cylinder running through the middle of it. Above the console was a large, hexagonal device that hung from the ceiling.
“Amazing,” said the Doctor, as he gazed around in wonder, “she’s reset herself to the default design.”
“Default design?”
“Kyla!” said the Doctor, ignoring Mary’s question. Lying down on the floor of the spaceship was a young girl - but she looked different. She had light, brown hair - a little like Mary’s, but it was shorter. She looked older as well - maybe about 13 years old - and she was sleeping soundly.
“Is she okay?” asked Mary, her concern for the girl overshadowing her complete bewilderment of the spaceship she was standing in.
The Doctor knelt down beside the young girl. “She’s alive, but very, very ill.”
“She looks different. She looks older.”
“That’s regeneration for you.” The Doctor picked her up in his arms. “She could have easily have turned into a teenage boy!”
“What?” Mary was confused.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters now is getting this young lady the help she needs.”
The Doctor started making his way, with Kyla in his arms, towards the inner door. He then turned back to Mary. “Please, sit down Miss Auckland. I’ll go and pop the kettle on.”
The Doctor had returned - without Kyla - with two steaming hot mugs of tea. Mary had sat down on an old, wooden chair and was nursing a headache. The Doctor sat cross-legged on the floor and handed her the tea.
“Mmmm, that’s good,” said Mary.
“You have questions,” said the Doctor.
“I do,” said Mary. “Where did you put Kyla?”
“She’s in a stasis tube.” Mary looked confused. “She’s healing but it’s going to be a little while before she’s up and walking about.”
“The poor thing - and you think she lost her entire family?”
“Her father’s ship exploded. There were no other survivors.” He sipped on his own tea. “I just wonder what they were running from.”
“You said they were refugees. Was there a war on your planet?”
“There have been many wars,” said the Doctor, looking distant, “but I won’t know until I get back there and find out.”
“I still can’t quite believe you’re not from this world.”
The Doctor took another sip. “I truly am sorry for not telling you everything, but I never expected for this to happen.”
Mary put her cup on the floor and got up from her seat, walking around the large, white room and taking in every detail. “This place is truly fantastic, Doctor. I…how does it work?”
“You’d need a good few years of dimensional engineering classes to even come close to understanding how it works. The TARDIS is truly a miracle machine.”
“TARDIS?” said Mary.
The Doctor sighed. “I’d forgotten the questions that come with new visitors to the TARDIS.”
“Well, I’m sure you can tell me all about it.”
The Doctor finished his tea and got up to check on the console. It was then that Mary noticed how concerned he looked. He was looking at a particular dial on the console. “That’s odd.”
“What?” she said, crossing over to him.
“That dial shouldn’t be set to those numbers. Not unless the ship has been pre-programmed to take off. I’ve not touched anything yet.”
There was a sudden low thump from the depths of the ship.
“No!” said the Doctor.
A lever - on its own - moved downwards. Lights started flashing and the central glass column began to move up and down. There was a loud grating of what Mary could only assume were engines from all around them. The ship began to vibrate and Mary felt unsteady. She fell back into her chair.
“What’s happening?!” she shouted.
“The TARDIS - it’s taking off.”
“We’re travelling into space?”
“Not only space,” said the Doctor, turning to her, “but time as well.”
“Time? It travels in time?”
“Again, I think we have a lot to talk about, Miss Auckland.”
“But I’ve got a job to get back to. My mum is going to wonder where I’ve gone!”
The Doctor shrugged as he checked the console readouts. The TARDIS seems to have other ideas. He looked sheepishly at her. “Welcome to the TARDIS, Mary.”
Epilogue 1
He could feel his chest thumping faster and faster. He could feel something flaring up inside of him. Something he had not felt before. Well, at least not for a long time. It didn’t feel right. It felt unnatural to him.
He brought his fist down on the controls. “Control yourself. Control yourself!”
He suddenly broke free, stepping back from the console. “Control yourself, man, control yourself.”
The ship rocked again.
“CONTROL YOURSELF!”
The ship vibrated. It was almost in anger. It was as if it was reacting to the anger he felt.
“No. No, no, no. What’s going on? What’s going on?”
He fell to the floor, his knees wet in the already partially flood ship.
He balled his fists up and pressed them against his temples. “This cannot be happening. What is happening?” He looked up to the ceiling. “WHAT IS HAPPENING?!”
He screamed out in agony and fell to the floor. With a anguished cry he got to his feet and headed to the console. There were still vestiges of power inside the console. The TARDIS was dying. He reached out and flicked the door switch.
The doors swung open and he turned to face the rush of water that awaited him. It never came. Outside was a beautiful summers day. The birds were singing and there was a light breeze. The TARDIS was balanced just slightly below the surface of a large lake and it was sinking, but he was still able to clamber out. He crossed the threshold and began to swim across the lake all the time his head pounding and the anger flaring up in him.
He managed to crawl across to the bank where he saw a woman in a sunhat and a dress cycling past.
“Woman!” he shouted. “Woman, help me!”
The woman stopped and lifted the brim of her hat. She was an attractive woman in her early 40’s with long brown hair and a summer dress.
“Hello? Can I help you?”
“That much is obvious,” he said, getting to his feet.
The woman looked across the lake just in time to see the box sink below the surface. “What’s happened here?”
“Never mind that. What year is this?”
“The year?”
“The year and the exact date, woman,” said the man.
“Don’t you talk to me like that!” scolded the woman.
“Please,” he said, trying to dampen the anger, “what is the date?”
“July 16th 1949,” she said. “Have you been in an accident.”
“Of sorts,” said the man. He looked about him. “Where am I?”
“Kettleworth Lake,” said the woman. “In Saxerby.”
“Earth I presume?”
“Earth? Of course. Listen, I’m on my break from work and a need to get back to the post office. If you’d like I’ll ask PC Forrester to send for a doctor.”
“What’s your name, woman?”
“Patricia. Patricia Auckland.”
The man nodded and continued to look around. “And you say there is a village nearby?”
“Indeed there is.”
“Miss Auckland, I’m not feeling very well. I wonder if you could help me to the village.”
“Of course I can. That’s if you’ll stop being so horrible. If my husband was alive…”
“Please, Miss Auckland.”
She got off her bike and walked over to him, taking his hand and guiding him towards her bike. “You have been in the wars, haven’t you?”
“Something just doesn’t feel right.”
“What’s your name?”
“My name? It’s the Doctor. Doctor John Smith.”
“Well, John, let’s get you somewhere that can help you, shall we?”
Less than a mile away Mary Auckland, Patricia’s daughter, and her friend, Betty, were settling down for a picnic.
Epilogue 2
The TARDIS was in flight and the Doctor had made Mary another cup of tea. He had made his way through the corridors of the TARDIS towards the medi-bay where Kyla was safely tucked away in a stasis tube. He looked down at her as she slept soundly.
“She helped you to heal, old girl,” said the Doctor, looking up at the ceiling. “And you helped her. But why are you sending us in flight now?”
There was no answer.
“You know I’m going to have a hell of a time trying to control you now? Back to how it used to be a suppose.”
The Doctor smiled down at Kyla and then stared ahead. Something wasn’t right. Something felt amiss. He couldn’t put his finger on it and he guessed it must have been down to the newly regenerated TARDIS, but there was something not quite right.
And there were white curtains billowing in the sunlight.
And once again he felt like he had forgotten something….
The End
