Doctor Who_ Camera Obscura - Lloyd Rose [99]
‘Spare me your comments.’ Sabbath braced the Doctor against the clock. ‘Clocks everywhere,’ he muttered. ‘Not my picture of the afterlife, I must admit.’
‘Well, as neither of us is actually dead, I don’t think it can be the afterlife, per se. More like the suburbs.’
‘You came to speak to Chiltern, didn’t you? Did he come to the edge to meet you?’
‘Something like that.’
‘And gave you the information we need.’
‘Yes.’
‘So another of your lunatic capers pays off.’
‘You needn’t take that tone,’ said the Doctor, offended. ‘I don’t know what else you could have expected me to do, given the situation. If that machine isn’t found and destroyed, more than the two of us will end up here. And in the city centre.’
‘All right, point taken. We’d better get started. Climb on my back.’
The Doctor linked his arms around Sabbath’s neck, and Sabbath slid his arms beneath his knees and hefted him up. Their heads turned, almost in unison but in opposite directions, to examine their surroundings. The Doctor sighed.
‘ “ ‘There must be some way out of here,’ said the joker to the thief”.’
* * *
‘Miss Kapoor?’
Anji raised her eyes from the Doctor to the door. She was so tired that she almost wasn’t startled. Almost.
‘Dr Chiltern?’ she said disbelievingly.
‘Yes, I...’ He crossed worriedly to the bed. ‘Miss Jane has been explaining things to me. She says the Doctor is ill. What’s happened to him?’
‘It’s complicated,’ she muttered. ‘He’ll be all right.’ At the moment, she was more inclined to be anxious about Chiltern. He seemed distraught, unfocused. ‘What about you?’
‘I...’ He hesitated, and she realised that what she saw in his face was grief.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly. ‘This must all have come as an awful shock to you.’
‘It’s like a dream,’ he said distractedly, sinking into the armchair. ‘Or a nightmare. If I hadn’t just recovered from a nervous collapse, I’d say I was having one. Complete with hallucinations.’
She smiled. ‘We’re all quite real.’
‘Of course. I mean delusions. These fantastic, ridiculous ideas. A time machine!’ He looked at her as if he hoped she’d correct him.
‘I’m afraid it’s true.’
‘Dear God.’ He passed a hand across his face.
‘I’m sorry about your brother,’ she said. He looked up sharply. ‘The Doctor is going to try to help with... with the other difficulties.’ His eyes moved doubtfully to the Doctor. ‘He’ll be fine soon,’ she said firmly, as if that would make it true.
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘Just a minor stab wound.’
Chiltern apparently didn’t believe there was any such thing. He insisted on examining the injury. Anji watched uneasily. Sure enough, he was puzzled.
‘It seems quite deep not to have caused greater damage.’
‘Mm,’ she said.
He was obviously bewildered by the operation scars but didn’t ask any questions. Something to be said, she thought, for Victorian discretion. He cleaned the wound again – ‘The great danger now is from infection.’ – and rebandaged it. Throughout, though the Doctor’s face indicated he was still in pain, he lay quietly, unresponsive. This obviously bothered Chiltern. ‘Has he been drugged?’
‘No.’
‘He’s deeply unconscious.’
‘He’s a sound sleeper,’ said Anji weakly. She really didn’t think that cluing Chiltern in on the Doctor’s unearthly origins was the right move at this point. One fantastic, ridiculous idea at a time.
Chiltern washed his hands, emptying the basin into a pail Fitz had brought up earlier. He kept glancing at the Doctor. He looked so sad, Anji thought. What a night of terrible revelations for him. ‘Are you hungry? I could sneak down to the kitchen.’
He shook his head. ‘No thank you. What about you? You must be tired. Would you like me to sit with him for a while?’
Anji hesitated. She was tempted. Fitz’s shift didn’t start for another hour. But she didn’t feel comfortable not having one or the other of them – people who knew exactly who and what he was – with the Doctor. ‘No. I’m fine. But thank you.’
‘Are you certain? You look exhausted.’