Doctor Who_ Relative Dementias - Mark Michalowski [90]
‘That’s hardly the Doctor’s fault, Ace jumped in defensively
‘If he hadn’t helped, millions could have died. Earth would have been enslaved or wiped out.’
‘Maybe. But it didn’t stop them hating him; it didn’t stop them hating me. And it didn’t bring Andy back. The UNIT
soldiers are lads, lads like any others. Everyone thinks that they’re oh-so special. Above all that hazing shit, initiation ceremonies for new recruits. But they’re not. Believe me, I know.
And if you’re not “one of the lads” –’ His voice tailed away.
‘And what’s that got to do with what the Doctor said earlier
– with you coming up here?’
‘I’ve had enough,’ he said simply, spreading his palms. ‘I’ve had enough of the whole lot. Enough of living in Mum and Dad’s shadow, enough of being an apologist for him –’ he jabbed a finger in the Doctor’s direction, ‘-when he doesn’t give a toss about any of us; enough of being “old Arseworth” to the lads; enough of watching people die.’
Ace shook her head, still reeling from all of it. ‘And you didn’t tell me any of this ‘cos you thought I might snitch on you to UNIT? To the police?’
He looked away from her, nodded. ‘There’s probably a warrant out for me right now And a court-martial waiting for me when I go back.’
The woods around Graystairs echoed to the sound of footsteps
– sharp, regimented footsteps. In the baleful glare of the moon, hair gleamed silver-white and eyes shone hard and cold, and shards of moonlight glinted off the barrels of guns.
Michael watched Claire tending to the Doctor. Since he’d punched him, the Doctor had done little but sit in the corner, staring into space. Claire had brought him another brandy to replace the one that had been spilt in the fight, but it sat, untouched, in front of him. Claire was telling him, calmly and assuredly, that he’d be fine in a while, but that he should just take it easy. Michael couldn’t remember the last time anyone had spoken to him like that, and he felt a twinge of jealousy, made all the worse because he liked Claire – liked her sassiness, her common-sense, charm and scepticism – and wondered whether, if it were him sat in the corner instead of the Doctor, she’d be ministering to him in the same way. He thought of Mum, back at Graystairs with Gran, holding Gran’s hand as he had left angrily, unable to believe that, with everything going on up there, Mum still wanted Gran to stay for her treatment. What was that, then?
Love? Guilt? Daughterly devotion? He shook his head and downed the last of his pint. Across the pub he saw Eddie, sitting on a bar stool and enjoying another pint of Guinness; the old man gazed around the pub with a sense of quiet bemusement.
Every now and then he’d rub his eyes and look up, as if the pub was new to him each time.
The smell of stale beer and cigarette smoke, the last guttering flames in the fireplace and the quiet murmur of other people’s conversations around him pulled Michael out of the moment, just for a second, and he suddenly felt sad and isolated, an observer of other people’s lives, rather than a participant in his own. Three years he’d been in UNIT, and the closest he’d got to the kind of consideration Claire was showing the Doctor was when Brigadier Bennington had sent him to the medic with a minor head wound. UNIT was laying siege to a dingy, crumbling warehouse in Birmingham where a small group of ape-like aliens called Ogrons had holed up after landing on Earth for emergency repairs. It was his first encounter with aliens, and like all ‘the lads’ he hadn’t believed it until he’d seen them himself –
and even then, there was