Doctor Who_ Bad Therapy - Matthew Jones [32]
hers. He couldn’t think of a legitimate reason why he might need any. Not in October, anyway. Instead he soaked a tea towel in cold water, of which there was plenty, and hoped that would be sufficient.
The Doctor was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the room Jack shared with Mikey. He took the tea towel from Jack without question and used it to gingerly dab his face, which was already beginning to swell after the beating: he had the beginnings of a black eye, and his lip was cut and puffy. The Doctor must have seen the expression of concern on Jack’s face, because he tried to grin reassuringly, but only succeeded in making his lip start bleeding again.
They had run for what felt like hours after they fled the nightclub. The Doctor always a little ahead, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to check that Jack was still behind him. At first, Jack had been scared that they were going to be followed, but there had been no sign of that. And once he had realized that they had escaped from those awful men, that they had got away with it, he had started to laugh as he kept pace with the Doctor. For the first time in months he felt safe and free. He deliberately jumped in the puddles as he ran, soaking his trouser bottoms. And when trying to laugh and run at the same time had given him a stitch, he called to the Doctor to stop and they walked the rest of the way to Notting Hill and home.
Mikey had returned from work by the time they got back. The tall, lanky, West Indian lad was in his usual bad mood, grumbling about the people he worked with on the building site. Jack hadn’t been sure what Mikey was going to say about the Doctor staying over. Mikey had frowned when Jack opened the window to let the Doctor in, but so far he hadn’t said anything. Ever since Mikey’s little brother had come to stay with them, they had made a sort of unspoken alliance to help keep each others’ guests secret from Mrs Carroway.
The Doctor was sitting by the small gas fire, the blue light from little jets making his eyes twinkle. Jack made the three of them tea, and sat down beside the Doctor.
‘We’re not going to be safe here, are we?’
The Doctor looked from Jack to where Mikey sat on the bed, sipping his tea and gently stroking his little brother’s hair. ‘I think we can rest tonight.’
‘But they know where I live. They’ll come after us, won’t they? Those men, I mean.’
The Doctor nodded. ‘Yes. They will come after us. We’ve inconvenienced them a little too greatly for them just to let us alone.’ The Doctor replaced his solemn expression with a reassuring smile. ‘We can worry about that in the morning. But we may have to leave here for a while. You may have to leave here for good.’ The Doctor surveyed the small, sparsely furnished room. ‘Is this place important to you?’
‘No,’ Jack said, deciding to come clean. ‘I was ready to run away this 53
evening, before you came back.’
‘I’d rather formed that impression.’ The Doctor grinned, and then winced because it hurt. ‘London isn’t your home town, I take it?’
‘Darlington. My mum and dad still live there. We get on and everything.
They love me, they just wouldn’t understand. . . ’ He paused, uncertain of how much he could confide in the Doctor. ‘I always knew that I was going to leave. Even when I was a little kid I knew I wasn’t going to stay there. Wasn’t going to get a pound-down house and the Hoovermatic on the never-never, a mortgage and the payments on the car.’
Jack hugged his knees, the gas fire was making them uncomfortably hot.
‘I always knew that I was different. That I didn’t belong.’ He looked at the Doctor. ‘You know?’
‘Oh yes,’ the Doctor said, his eyes full of dark fire. ‘I know.’
Jack found himself telling the Doctor a little about his life in Darlington.
Much more than he usually told anyone. The Doctor listened attentively, particularly, Jack thought, when he began to talk about Eddy.
The Doctor only interrupted his story once, and Jack thought that it was a strange comment to make. When Jack mentioned that