Doctor Who_ Interference_ Book Two - Lawrence Miles [1]
He woke up, eventually, and the expression on his face made her laugh out loud. The look of confusion and horror before he managed to get himself back in character again. And then there was that little twist in the side of his mouth, when he finally worked out how he’d ended up going to sleep on the side of the hill.
‘Good morning,’ he said, once he’d found his bearings. He frowned after he said it, pretending he didn’t know why I.M. Foreman was sniggering so much.
* * *
They didn’t have breakfast. She’d been hungry, but the Doctor hadn’t even considered eating. Time Lords had more efficient digestive systems than most, I.M. Foreman reminded herself. Anyway, she didn’t want him pottering off to the TARDIS food machine again. Space food was fine, but somehow it seemed to make everything much too easy.
They spent a while lying there on the grass, trying to tell the future from the shapes of the clouds. At one point, a cloud that looked exactly like the Grim Reaper rolled across the sky, so the Doctor accused her of tapping into the planet’s ecosystem and making the cloud herself (just to scare him). I.M. Foreman didn’t remember doing anything like that, but then again, she had a lot on her mind.
‘The TARDIS knew something was going to happen,’ the Doctor said, at exactly the same moment that I.M. Foreman decided the game was wearing a bit thin.
She turned her head towards him, feeling the softness of the grass as it rubbed against her cheek. ‘What kind of “something” were you thinking of?’
‘What happened on Earth. What happened to Sam. What happened to Fitz. The TARDIS must have spotted it. She must have realised there was going to be a disturbance to my timeline. To our timelines.’
‘Really,’ said I.M. Foreman, lazily.
‘I remember how erratic the TARDIS was. More erratic than usual, anyway. It started a few months before we got to 1996. She kept landing on Earth. Sixties London. Scandinavia. San Francisco. The Battle of the Bulge. We do have a habit of turning up on Earth, but four times in a row…’
‘Sounds like she was trying to tell you something,’ said I.M. Foreman. Something in her nervous system, something slippery and human, made her feel slightly jealous whenever he referred to the TARDIS as female. She had no idea why.
The Doctor nodded. ‘That’s just it. I think the TARDIS knew something was going to happen in 1996. Something that was going to change our lives. She was trying to work out what. She kept going back to Earth, landing near any disturbances she could find in the timeline. In the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, especially. I think she was taking readings. Like a kind of four-dimensional telemetry. She was trying to gather information for what she knew was going to happen in the future.’
‘So how come you weren’t ready for it when it happened?’ asked I.M. Foreman. ‘Unless you’re going to tell me that you ended up in that prison cell on purpose.’
‘No. No, I didn’t. But I knew Sam was going to leave the TARDIS the next time we got back to Earth. I told you that, didn’t I? And I didn’t want to lose Sam. The TARDIS wanted to take us back there, so she could finish the telemetry, but she must have picked up on my anxiety. She must have known I didn’t want to go back to Earth. So she didn’t. The old girl could never resist my subconscious.’
‘So the TARDIS never finished her survey,’ I.M. Foreman concluded. ‘Do you interfere in everybody’s plans like that?’
‘I didn’t mean to,’ the Doctor protested. ‘It just… happened.’
I.M. Foreman rolled on to her side, and draped her arm over him. ‘Nothing just happens to you. You’re too involved. Everything’s got a reason.’
The Doctor looked uncomfortable, although she wasn’t sure whether that was because of what she’d said or because of the physical contact. ‘Not a reassuring thought,’ he said. ‘Can’t I take a few days off every now and then?’
‘Just finish the story,’ said I.M. Foreman. ‘I want to know how you got the goose out of the bottle.’
‘Goose?’ said the Doctor.
* * *
WHAT