Doctor Who_ Left-Handed Hummingbird - Kate Orman [65]
He’d never give up the crusade. But this might be the time to leave him to it, when he at least had Bernice. Ace could be like these hippies, be like she had been when the time storm had torn her away from Earth, throwing everything away and starting again.
She wanted to say something understanding to Lizzie, but the black woman was staring up at the Doctor, her eyes totally fixed on him.
‘Smile,’ shouted somebody.
Ace looked up just in time to be dazzled as Cris took a snapshot of the Doctor and Bernice, arm in arm with their backs to her.
Oh, yeah, she thought.
* * *
Half a dozen of them had gathered in the kitchen, sitting on the floor around a camp stove. The weak blue flame sputtered and spat, filling the kitchen with the sharp odour of methylated spirits. A kettle perched on top of the stove, centred precisely over the flame. The sink was full of unwashed dishes, but there were beautiful bits of pottery on the window‐sill, cupping tiny flowers in their clay mouths.
John was given the honour of passing out the tea cups. The Doctor took two, solemnly, and handed one to Bernice. They sat side by side on the floor, feeling the contrast between the coldness coming up from the basement and the thin warmth of the stove. The hippies had been chatting, but now they fell silent, listening to the river‐noises of the water inside the kettle.
The whistle seemed to come out of nowhere, making Bernice jump. She looked at the Doctor, hoping for some sort of reassurance, but he was staring blankly into the blue flame.
Lizzie was fussing with something on the kitchen counter. Now she carried a small bowl of sugar cubes to where the group was sitting, and put them carefully down next to the stove.
John lifted the singing kettle from the flame. He left the stove on while he added level teaspoonfuls of Earl Grey to each cup, and carefully added water from the kettle, stirring it with a wooden spoon. The hippies stared into the flame or watched as their cups were filled.
Lizzie picked up a cube in the sugar‐tongs and asked, ‘One lump or two?’
The hippie to her right, a woman with long straight hair who was wearing a green turtle‐neck sweater, said, ‘Just the one.’ She swayed slightly as the cube was carefully dropped into her cup, without a splash.
‘Two,’ said the next member of the circle, a moustached black flashing a grin at Lizzie as she topped up his cup.
‘One,’ Eleanor said, and her old man had two, stirring the tea with his finger before sipping it.
And so it went, until it came to Bernice. She opened her mouth, and suddenly caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye. The Doctor was shaking his head, ever so imperceptibly.
‘None for me, thanks,’ she said, trying not to sound bewildered. There was more to these sugarcubes than just sugar, evidently. She rummaged in her mind for the piece of twentieth‐century trivia that would explain.
Lizzie shrugged. ‘What about you, Doctor?’ She and John were watching him like a pair of vultures.
The Doctor smiled sweetly.
‘Three,’ he said.
* * *
Ace was asleep on the battered beanbag, snoring gently. Her sunglasses had tilted off her nose and landed on the litter of peanut shells on the wooden floor.
A handful of hair hung down over her face, its anger softened into curves, almost like a little girl’s face. The Doctor gently brushed it back, his fingers discovering a collection of tiny scars above her right temple, hidden in the hair. Tiny pieces of flak had carved their signature into her scalp. Probably from an exploding Dalek.
She had been drugged, of course. She’d drunk only a little alcohol, but in combination with the contents of one or two tranquillizer capsules… He checked her pulse for a full minute, listened to the gentle sound of her breathing, shutting out the heavy thumping of the music.
His own pulses were up just noticeably, his blood pressure increasing