Doctor Who_ Earthworld - Jacqueline Rayner [89]
That’s what it’d look like to them.
And Fitz was shouting ‘Look out!’ almost before he saw one of the girls beginning to move. She was moving – which one was it? – moving towards the door, towards Hanstrum – towards the gun on the floor. She scooped it up.
‘You killed me!’ she screamed, and shot. Acting by instinct. And there was a gasp, and a thud, and another body on the floor.
The girl – and Fitz realised with a start that it was Antarctica – dropped the gun, and moved back to her sister. Together they knelt beside Asia’s body, wailing and tearing at their hair.
That’s all they’ve got left now, Fitz thought. They’re not human beings any more. That’s the last defining action of their lives. And it’s all over, Hanstrum’s plotting and scheming and the triplets’ murdering and everything. Years and years of stuff, over in a few seconds.
Fitz was amazed to find that he was shivering.
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Xernic dragged Fitz back to reality. ‘Anji!’ he was calling. ‘She’s waking up!’
She was fluttering her eyelids, little moans coming from her mouth.
Fitz looked at her and then went over to check on the Doctor. Suddenly two huge bright blue eyes were staring at him. ‘Doctor! Thank goodness you’re all right.’
The Doctor was frowning. He began to push himself up, not speaking. Anji was getting up too. She was staring at the Doctor. He was staring back. They were both completely ignoring Fitz, Xernic and everything else. They moved closer to each other. And to Fitz’s incredulous horror, the Doctor and Anji began to kiss.
Chapter Eleven
Dear TARDIS...
The Doctor and Anji moved apart, eyes still locked. ‘Don’t be angry,’ said the Doctor. ‘It’s what I have to do. It’s right, you know it’s right.’
Anji turned away. ‘You’ll lose everything,’ she said. ‘And so will I.’
‘Um, Doctor? Anji?’ said Fitz. They ignored him.
‘I can leave your name out of it. I’ll just tell him they’re not his,’ said the Doctor, confusing Fitz no end.
‘And you think he won’t work it out? Who else had access to you in your confinement? Me! Only me!’ Anji was shouting now. ‘For Earth’s sake, Elizabethan, you can’t do this to me!’
The President was watching, eyes wide. Fitz saw him mouth ‘Elizabethan?’
‘The girls can’t be allowed to take over, Guy. They’re unstable. They mustn’t rule.’
‘Then have more children. A male.’
‘I can’t risk it! Look what happened with the girls – that can’t happen again!’
Fitz saw the President mouth ‘Guy?’ and turn to look at Hanstrum’s body.
Elizabethan and Guy? Fitz thought. The President’s wife and Hanstrum? Had their spirits taken over Anji and the Doctor somehow?
‘So you’re just going to tell your darling husband that you’ve been lying to him all these years?’ shouted Anji. ‘That to stop him throwing you out on the streets you had another man’s children?’
The Doctor’s eyes blazed. ‘I was never unfaithful to him!’
Anji snorted. ‘It wasn’t a question of faith. If you’d let things happen the normal way instead of being so bloody pure then our children might have been normal.’
The Doctor slapped her. Fitz’s mouth dropped right open. That was the Doctor, and that was Anji, but they weren’t, and the Doctor had just. . . hit her?
‘How dare you!’ the Doctor cried. ‘We needed an heir – John will understand that I was doing it for him, for the people!’
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‘You were doing it for yourself,’ sneered Anji. ‘President’s wife: most important woman on the planet. You just couldn’t bear the thought of being put aside for someone else; letting someone else have the glory. There! Can you take the truth? Or are you going to hit me again? Go on, hit me again.’ She offered the Doctor the other cheek.
He was quiet now. ‘I’m going to tell John,’ he said softly. ‘I’ll try to keep your name out of it, but New Jupiter must come first. Our daughters must never see power.’