Doctor Who_ Earthworld - Jacqueline Rayner [70]
FITZ.
Fitz was in a room with a redheaded girl – a remnant of a long-ago adventure.
He’d loved her, for a while. And she was the only woman that he’d ever loved for whom the ‘while’ kept being extended. True love is where you haven’t seen the other person for an eternity, but just know they’re still feeling the same way.
Possibly. Or was it just a case of ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’? No, probably not. Fitz was an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ guy, really. Except in this case. Her name was Filippa. Ha! He remembered her name – it must be love.
‘Hello, Fitz,’ she said.
‘You’re not real,’ he replied.
‘As real as you,’ she said.
‘I’m not real, either. I’ve just found out.’
‘You mean I fell for a fake Fitz?’
‘’Fraid so, babe.’
‘You must have a very low opinion of me, then. To think I would be taken in so easily.’ She gave him a pretend-hurt look.
If You Prick Me, Do I Not Bleed?
127
‘Um. . . ’ Witty comeback or heartfelt denial? By the time he’d considered it, it was too late for either.
‘I fell in love with you, Fitz. We weren’t in a real situation, but you were real.
You fell in love with a girl from her memories alone, and she with you. I was Essence of Filippa, and you were Essence of Fitz.’
‘By Calvin Klein,’ said Fitz, unable to help himself.
She carried on, brown eyes staring deep into his, and he wondered if she could see herself in them. ‘I couldn’t have loved you if you weren’t real, and you couldn’t have loved me. You did love me, so you were real. Have we cleared that up?’
‘Yes, Filippa,’ said Fitz meekly.
‘Good. Now, you’re meant to be deciding if you want to have a construct of me to join you. That bargain thing with the triplets, remember? Of course, this construct would look like me, have my personality as you remember it – though I notice already that my speech patterns have degenerated into a cross between my own and yours – and would also, to a certain extent, have my memories –
what you know of them. But – and this is the crucial difference – it wouldn’t have Essence of Filippa.’
‘By –’ began Fitz.
‘I ignored that the first time,’ said Filippa, ‘because it wasn’t funny even then.
OK?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Fitz. He really loved this woman. ‘So, two artificial constructs together – you don’t think it would work, then?’
She sighed. ‘Don’t be silly. You know perfectly well it wouldn’t. You’d be aware the whole time that I was out there somewhere else. And will you stop saying you’re an artificial construct? You are no more so than Compassion was, and you treated her as a person. Well, in your own inimitable way, you did, anyway. To put it bluntly, you’re bloody real, Fitz. And I’ve just shown how much I mean it, because in your memories of me, I never swear. Now just go and live your life, you idiot, and stop wallowing in self-pity because of something that happened in the past that you can’t change. If it helps, wonder if anyone who feels that amount of self-pity could possibly be a fake Fitz. See?’
‘But will I ever see you again?’ asked Fitz, torn between relief and trauma.
‘Well, I don’t know, do I? I’m not a fortune teller, I’m an aspect of your mind.
Do you think you’ll ever see me again?’
Fitz considered this for a moment. ‘I think I probably will. I’d like to. But I’m not going to destroy what we had by building impossible dreams on it.’
128
EarthWorld
‘Good answer,’ said Filippa, smiling. She moved closer, and kissed him. Much to Fitz’s surprise, he felt it. ‘Now, go on. Back to the Doctor.’
‘Couldn’t we just –’
‘No. Go!’ But she was grinning as she said it.
‘Fitz! Are you OK?’ cried Anji, bursting through the door.
‘I am now,’ said Fitz.
Chapter Nine
Nights at the Round Table
The cell was getting very crowded now. Fitz, the triplets, three new arrivals, a robot and a corpse, as well as the quite chunky Memory Machine.
The kid that Anji had dragged along – Xernic – was obviously terrified of the triplets. Fitz would have found the idea of a grown lad being given the heebie-jeebies by three adolescent blondes hilarious,