Doctor Who_ The Stone Rose - Jacqueline Rayner [58]
There was a sound: a footstep. Solid ground! A smell: of trees and stone and animals.
A voice: ‘Rose?’
She opened her eyes. There she was, back in the temple. There was Vanessa to one side of her, and, this time, the GENIE still nearby.
And there in front of her was the petrified figure of the Doctor.
She felt like crying. In fact she realised she was crying, tears of joy streaming down her cheeks. She grabbed the amazed Vanessa in a hug and then pulled the phial of restorative out of her belt pouch.
She’d got as far as removing the stopper when a paralysing thought hit her. She turned to the GENIE. ‘How do I know this isn’t an illusion as well? That you’re not in my mind, making me think I’m seeing what’s really there, but it isn’t there really?’
The GENIE hmmphed. ‘My dear young lady, I can assure you this is reality. And I do not lie. So unless you wish to carryon for the rest of your life assuming that you are not experiencing what you are actually experiencing, I urge you to accept that fact.’
‘Well, you would, wouldn’t you?’ muttered Rose.
But she carried on anyway, raising the phial, tipping it slowly, carefully, to one side…
A single drop, a liquid emerald, splashed on to the stone cheek of the Doctor.
And the cheek became flesh. Pale flesh, dark hair, intense brown eyes. His tunic rippled back into cloth, ten toes wiggled within his sandals. Arms flexed, and grabbed Rose into a hug. Soft lips pressed hers with a kiss of gratitude and joy and unspeakable pleasure at being alive.
‘Wotcha,’ Rose said, smiling through her tears.
‘Hello,’ he replied softly, his eyes shining.
‘I think you must be real,’ she said after a moment. ‘My imagination’s not that good.’
The Doctor grinned at her and stepped back. He took in the now‐calm shrine, the GENIE, Vanessa. ‘Looks like you’ve managed to sort everything out while I was gone,’ he said. ‘I’m impressed.’
Rose laughed. ‘You’d never believe the half of it. I’ve left a few bits for you, though. Didn’t want you feeling like I was taking over.’ She began to count off on her fingers. ‘You’ve got to get Vanessa here back to her own time, restore the true emperor to the throne – emperors do have thrones, right? – maybe bring back a few people from Timbuktu or their second childhood… and all without sacrificing two million people on the GENIE’s altar.’ She explained everything to him.
Not really to her surprise, the Doctor didn’t seem particularly concerned. ‘Easy‐peasy, lemon‐squeezy,’ he said. ‘If power’s what’s needed, then we have rather a large source of power near at hand. Starts with a T…’
‘Yeah,’ said Rose, ‘but the GENIE can’t just reverse wishes. It said so.’
‘Nonsense,’ said the Doctor. ‘It undid that nothingness thing, didn’t it?’
Rose frowned. ‘Yeah, but… Hang on!’ She turned to the GENIE. ‘When I wished for the Doctor to be back, you didn’t grant it!’
The GENIE looked slightly embarrassed. ‘I think if you consider that time,’ it said, ‘you will recall that no such wish was ever made.’
Rose thought. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘I was going to wish my wish undone, and you said you didn’t advise it.’
‘Indeed,’ said the GENIE. ‘I didn’t. I cannot help any further deductions you made from my simple statement.’
Rose’s mouth dropped open. ‘You mean if I had gone ahead with my wish – or just wished the Doctor was back or something – this whole thing could have been sorted hours ago?’
The little dragon head bobbed up and down. ‘But why?’ she asked.
‘I cannot refuse to grant a wish. Therefore I had to attempt to convince you that such a wish should not be made.’
‘Right,’ cried Rose. ‘In that case I wish all those wishes you granted at the party were undone. Bring people back, and make them their real age, and stop that cute but apparently megalomaniacal boy from thinking he’s the emperor.’
But as the thunder rumbled, Rose took in the rest of what the GENIE had said.
‘Why did you try to convince me not to wish the Doctor back?’
The Doctor stepped in. ‘I think our friend here was afraid,’ he said.
‘Afraid of what?’