Doctor Who_ The Stone Rose - Jacqueline Rayner [65]
He ran a hand through his hair and looked as though he was expecting applause.
Rose walked round the statue. ‘Is my bum really that –’
‘Yes,’ the Doctor interrupted testily. ‘This statue is accurate in every detail. Burn. Arms. Legs. Nose. Broken fingernail on your right hand.’
Rose looked down. ‘Hey, even I hadn’t noticed that! Well?’
‘Well what?’
‘Well, where did it come from?’
He sighed exasperatedly. ‘I made it.’
Rose laughed. ‘No, really.’
‘Yes, really.’
‘What, you’re serious? But, like, how? I didn’t know you sculpted. You said you didn’t sculpt. You said you weren’t a master sculptor. I heard you.’
‘I learned,’ the Doctor said.
She was puzzled. ‘When?’
‘This is a time machine,’ he said – and told her everything. How he lost her trail. How he went back to the British Museum. How he realised the truth. ‘The earrings gave me the first clue,’ he said. ‘But when Mickey and I turned her over and found my signature on the bottom –’
‘You’d better not have signed my bottom,’ said Rose.
‘– on the base,’ continued the Doctor, ‘well, that was a bit of a hint too.’
‘You mean to say no one had ever noticed that this statue had got “the Doctor” written on it before?’ asked Rose. ‘’Cause wouldn’t they have wondered why?’
‘Ah,’ said the Doctor. ‘Gallifreyan signature. They’d have no idea what it was. Anyway, then I knew I had to find the real you – and find a sculpture to take your place. I did think for a minute about just nicking that statue and bringing it back here, but well – then it would have been a 4,000‐year‐old statue, which would not only have confused people but also set up all sorts of paradoxes, and I think we’ve had enough of those for the moment. Better not to risk the whole of causality if you don’t have to. So, anyway, quick flick of the coordinates, back to the Renaissance, took that sculpting course.’ He produced Rose’s mobile. ‘Mickey texted me pictures so I got it just right, and Michelangelo helped with the tricky bits. Like your ears, they were a nightmare to get right. And then, when it was all finished, I came back to Rome a couple of days before I left, and hid outside Gracilis’s place, ready to follow Ursus when he went off with… with you. Rescue effected, all’s right with the world.’
Rose was almost speechless for a moment. ‘You went gallivanting off for months and months with Michelangelo while I was left standing there like something a dog might put its leg up against?’
‘You were only stone for a couple of hours!’ said the Doctor indignantly. ‘And it was your idea in the first place. Sort of. A bit. And you wouldn’t believe what a slave‐driver Michelangelo is. Everything has to be perfect.’
Rose stood looking at the statue for a bit longer. ‘It is perfect,’ she said at last.
‘I was inspired.’
They smiled at each other. All was right with the world again.
‘Anyway,’ the Doctor continued, ‘you know what? I think you bring me luck. My Fortuna, that’s you.’
‘You mean I’m a sort of mascot,’ said Rose. ‘Like a four‐leaf clover. Or wearing lucky pants when you go for an interview.’
‘That’s it exactly,’ the Doctor told her. ‘You’re my lucky pants.’ Then he said, more seriously, ‘I realised it when you pretended to be Fortuna in that shrine. Knew it was right to portray you like that.’
Rose frowned. ‘But you only went to that shrine because you’d already seen the statue of me as Fortuna.’
‘And there was only that statue of Fortuna because I’d seen what a good Fortuna you’d make.’
‘Another paradox?’
The Doctor grinned. ‘Only the tiniest of tiny ones. More like circular logic. Like how no one ever actually came up with that very complicated formula to turn people back from stone.’
‘So they didn’t!’ Rose realised. Then she thought of something else. ‘You said that Fortuna’s sometimes got a blindfold on. So she doesn’t know who she favours.’
He nodded.
‘So sometimes she turns her back on people who’ve relied on her. Sometimes the luck… goes away.’
‘And lucky pants are just