Dead of Winter - James Goss [67]
Then The Sea… it surged up around the Doctor. Rory and I fell back, or were pushed back – I’m not really sure. But we fell against the shore, winded and soaked.
Rory helped me up and we both stood there, shaking with shock and cold. There was no sign of the Doctor. Just thick fog everywhere.
Then the fog cleared slightly, and showed us that The Sea looked wrong, somehow. It was a livid green – the shade of green you dye your hair when you’re 14 years old and a bit rebellious. It lit up the sky the same sickly colour. And it was boiling and thrashing like a kettle full of angry squid.
Then The Sea parted, splitting down the middle and rushing away, leaving the Doctor’s huddled body lying on a pile of rocks, surrounded by a thick wall of churning water that hissed and spat.
Amazingly, the little figure stood up. The Doctor was alive.
I held on to Rory, ever so tightly. My hero.
The Doctor ignored the giant, impossible water feature in front of him and turned around. He waved absently at Prince Boris and Dr Bloom – it was the kind of wave that said ‘I’ll deal with you in a minute’. Instead he faced Rory and me.
‘Hello!’ he said.
‘Hello,’ we said back. Bit lame. Couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘Rory Williams.’ The Doctor stuck his hands in his pockets, pulled out a fish, frowned at it, and threw it away. ‘Rory, Rory, Rory – was it your idea to get The Sea to cure me?’
‘Yes,’ said Rory, smiling.
‘That was brilliant.’ The Doctor beamed, then his face fell. ‘-ly awful.’
‘What?’
‘The one thing I have been trying very hard not to do was to let The Sea scan me.’
‘I didn’t have any choice!’ protested Rory. ‘You were dead! I wasn’t giving up on you! I wasn’t letting them win!’
‘Never mind,’ sighed the Doctor. Truthfully, I thought he was being a tad ungrateful. ‘Now… Just run.’
One of the things you learn very quickly around the Doctor is never to question him when he says that word. You just run. It’s almost like breathing.
As we started running, something really, really terrible happened to The Sea.
The Doctor was just standing there. He was screaming at the top of his voice. He was arguing with The Sea. ‘I am sorry!’ he was yelling. ‘I’ve been trying very hard to stop this happening.’
The Sea made a noise.
It was as if water could scream.
The Doctor’s voice got even louder. ‘Your Familiars work by reading people’s minds and becoming what they miss the most. You do all that and you take on all their pain, everything they’ve done, and you give them back something they’ve lost. Which is why I knew I could never let you anywhere near me. I’ve tried so hard.’
The Sea screamed again, bulging and tearing itself around him.
‘I’ve lived so long. I’ve lost so much.’ The Doctor reached out a hand, beseeching the shuddering waves. ‘I’m the very worst thing you could possibly have scanned.’
A wind howled, knocking us all flat, blasting sand into our eyes. I tried to keep watching – through the storm I could just see The Sea twisting and turning, reaching out and forming itself into something… almost unnameably horrible. A giant towering creature – tentacles, and claws and teeth and metal and hundreds of mouths. All screaming. The creature still changing and shifting and howling reared up, blocking out the sky, tearing the wind from the air. It was bubbling and thrashing and expanding and dissolving – in places there were what looked like struggling limbs and howling faces, in others it appeared to be sprouting shiny silver towers, and shapes I just couldn’t describe – just a giant nightmarish confusion that was growing bigger and bigger and more and more agonised.
Over its cries, I could hear the Doctor shouting at the top of his lungs: ‘I’m the Last of the Time Lords.’ His voice dropped grimly. ‘Unexpected Item in the Bagging Area.’
Then the beach exploded.
A Letter from Maria
St Christophe
8th December 1783
Dear Mother,
I woke up from a long sleep. The Doctor was building a sandcastle. He saw me looking at him and he smiled.
‘Hello Maria,’ he said. ‘Everyone else is still asleep.