Doctor Who_ Earthworld - Jacqueline Rayner [97]
he’d lived several human lifetimes since then. He still seemed to be the week-ago Doctor, though, in all the ways that mattered. And it was Fitz’s job to make sure he stayed that way.
He took a deep breath. ‘Doctor. . . ’ he said, ‘um, you remember when we went to. . . to Gallifrey. . . ?’
He could sense the Doctor’s mind working 6/8 time. ‘We go to so many places, Fitz,’ he said.
‘But Gallifrey – we could maybe take Anji there? For a holiday?’
‘Oh yes, someday, perhaps. Lovely place for a holiday. Very –’ the Doctor was trying to think of a word that could cover all options, not show that he had no idea, Fitz knew that – ‘very. . . tranquil.’
‘Yes, Doctor. Fair enough, just thought I’d mention it.’
Yes, the Doctor was himself again, and that was good. He wasn’t the wreck he’d been after the destruction of his home planet, Gallifrey, and that was good, too. He didn’t know Fitz was a fake, or that he’d killed the real one, and that was very good. But. . . how fragile was this new-old Doctor? Knowing all 176
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these things had all but destroyed his mind in the first place; was he any more fitted to cope with the knowledge now? And knowing that he had to protect the Doctor above all things – however horrified the Doctor would be if he found out Fitz was protecting him – Fitz decided he would have to sacrifice any dreams of going back to Filippa, any hopes of Anji’s of getting home, any hope of comfort from the Doctor for his unreal state, in order to keep this Doctor whole.
Giving things up for the Doctor felt good. He – well, the real Fitz, anyway, but it felt like it had happened to him – had gone with his mum to see a play of Oscar Wilde’s. Am dram – support the local community and they might begin to like us. There was a lot of keeping secrets for the good of others in that, and the young Fitz had been rather dissatisfied with the ending, because all the secrets were kept and the characters went on, he assumed, to live happily ever after. He’d wanted to see the big dramatic scenes where all the secrets were discovered, and his mum had said he was missing the point. Now, the mature Fitz could see the point: could understand that Oscar Wilde had had the right idea all along. If keeping a secret could make someone else happy, then hey, secrets were a good thing. There might be some weird sense of closure if everything came out in the open, some soap-opera resolution, but happy endings were infinitely preferable.
The Doctor had looked after Fitz – had thought he was looking after Fitz –
for years now. Fitz might not be the real Fitz any more, but that was irrelevant.
He had a purpose in life now. He was going to look after the Doctor. Whatever it took.
To: cybertron@xprof.net
From: anji kapoor@MWFutures.co.uk
Date: 15/2/01 15:14
Subject: Your Death
Dear Dave
I wish I hadn’t been thinking of leaving you. It makes things so much worse – for me, that is, thinking selfishly, but then, when haven’t I been? I miss you terribly, but I have so many guilt feelings where the grief should be. It wasn’t as if it was something I’d consciously decided – I wasn’t planning on walking out or anything, there had just been feelings of ‘is this all there is?’ and wondering if I might be better off somewhere else, with someone else. But I Dear TARDIS...
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wasn’t going to do anything about it. Not really. Now, although I am utterly miserable, I feel I have no right to be – you weren’t my whole world, you were just a habit. And you can miss a habit, but you shouldn’t mourn it. And then I think: no. No, that’s not how I felt about you. I did – do – love you. Just because it wasn’t a fairy tale any more doesn’t mean it wasn’t love. I am allowed to grieve. And just because I was brought up not to feel sorry for myself doesn’t mean I never have anything to be sorry for myself about. Does that make sense? Probably