Doctor Who_ Rip Tide - Louise Cooper [62]
'Hey!' The paramedic snapped out of his trance and called after him. 'Where are you going? Just let me take a look, in case —'
He went after the Doctor, and Steve would have gone too, but Paul caught hold of his arm.
'Leave it, he'll sort it out!' Paul was angry, baffled and concerned all together. 'What the hell's been going on, Steve?'
Steve tried to pull away. 'Later, Paul! I've got to —'
'Not later; now!' Anger was winning and Paul jerked him back as he made to go. 'What do you think you were doing, taking your sister on a shout?'
'I didn't know!' Steve said desperately. 'She tricked me. She put Geoff's suit on, and — look, Paul, I've got to go and —'
'No way! You are staying right here; I've got the coastguard on my
back, the Press Officer having kittens, and before I know it the Divisional Inspector'll hear about it and be down like a ton of bricks! You may have caused this prize screw-up, but I'm the one who takes the flak!' Suddenly from the corner of his eye Paul glimpsed a figure scurrying past, heading for the road, and he whipped round. 'Nina! Come back here this instant – I want a word with you!'
Nina paused. She wanted to defy Paul and sprint after the Doctor, who had almost reached the lifeboat house now. But her conscience hit her like a slap from a heavy wave. She had started all this; she had got Steve into trouble. She couldn't just run away and leave him to face it alone.
She cast a helpless glance up the beach, hoping the Doctor would look back, see what was happening and understand. He didn't. Nina's spirits cascaded down into her wet feet, then she turned and trailed, shoulders drooping, to where Paul stood waiting for her with an apocalyptic expression on his face.
If people on their way to the beach turned to stare at the Doctor as he sprinted up the road with Ruth in his arms, he neither knew nor cared. All that mattered was to reach the cottage and do what needed to be done. And time was leaching away from him at a horrifying speed. His burden had no weight to her; she was a wraith, a shadow, still living but her hold on life now so precarious that even seconds could be the crucial factor in her hope of survival.
He kicked the cottage's garden gate open with a force that nearly tore it off its hinges, and ran up the path. The front door was too strong for the same cavalier treatment and he put Ruth over his shoulder, cursing as he fumbled for the key and fitted it in the lock. Inside, into the sitting room, then another delay, maddening, nerve-racking, as he found the key to the TARDIS and wrestled the door open.
Ruth had been semi-conscious when he left the beach, stirring feebly and uttering small, meaningless sounds in her own tongue. Now, though, she was silent, motionless. The Doctor laid her gently on a plush velvet chaise-longue. No time to ease off the drysuit, or to formulate a microcosmic environment to stabilise her – calculating and preparing could take minutes, and minutes he did not have.
He swung to the TARDIS's console and his brain shifted into top gear
as his hands started to move rapidly on the controls. Co-ordinates – time was flowing like a flooded river and everything seemed to take forever – but there was no margin for error, there must be no mistake.
'Ah!' Relief dragged the gasp from him. He made a minor adjustment, then flung a look at Ruth. (She was still alive – wasn't she?). He spared no thought for Nina or Steve or whatever might be happening at the beach at this moment. His hand made the final move – and the TARDIS powered up.
The sound rose and fell, rose and fell, muffled from outside by the cottage's thick cob walls. A light appeared briefly in one of the windows, then it and the sound began to fade, and within seconds there was only the chirrup of birds in the cottage garden, and, a ceaseless backdrop, the sighing thunder of the sea.
Nina pounded up the road towards the cottage, cursing Paul, the coastguards, the Press Officer and everyone