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'He lives in Archway,' said Roley, a little confused.

'I'll wait for you here,' said the Doctor, abruptly losing interest in the subject.

He stared again at Roley. 'It is all right if I stay a while longer, isn't it?'

'Er...'

'There's so much for us to discuss! I mean, your work, your book... Oh, please!' the Doctor implored, like a child asking for sweets.

'Well, why not?' said Roley, a little nervously. 'Don't see the harm. By all means, stay for a while longer.'

'Until my young friend returns, then.' He clapped his hands together, the matter apparently settled. 'Off you go, then, Sam, take your time.'

'Got any dough?'

'If this Fitz is a gentleman, he should treat you.'

'Good tip, Granddad. Very modern.'

The Doctor held her hand briefly, and when he took his own away she was left holding odd-looking notes and coins. 'Nineties girls stand out in the sixties,' he said. 'Be careful.'

Sam sighed, pocketing the cash. 'I will.' She looked at him. 'I don't have to go at all; if you'd just let us leave -'

The Doctor shook his head. 'No. No. Not after what Austen said. Not after what he's seen .'

Sam pouted. 'That stupid cave?'

'The cave, yes. A decidedly odd-looking cave. And I should know: I've seen it myself.'

'Where?'

Sam tried to keep her expression even, despite the chill that ran through her. The Doctor was pointing through the window, at the sky.

2.4

Nurse Bulwell watched Austen as he lay pacified now on the black leather couch in the Restraint Room. That was the official name for it, at least -

Charles always referred to the room as Dreamland. He'd never been happy with the thought of something so essentially unpleasant under his roof, although he'd recognised its importance in the right circumstances. 'Give him forty cc's and off to Dreamland with him, Maria,' he'd said, the last time Austen had acted up.

She smiled. Charles was a little too soft sometimes, a trifle indecisive if not taken in hand, but such a good man. She understood him. She understood the effects his childhood boarding in remote public schools had had on his life, how greatly the drive to please an uninterested father had exhausted him with so few rewards. But she'd seen his potential, way back when.

She'd understood the dreams that held him in thrall each night; and, while Freud and his teachings enabled Roley to interpret and understand them, Maria knew that only she had the power to make the dreams mean something to him.

She looked again at Austen and pulled hard on the straps of his straitjacket. That this... degenerate was part of his dream irked her a little.

Him and all the others downstairs. The preparation for all this had been quite pleasant - the two of them had worked together night after night after night, and she'd sensed how grateful he was. She'd spent the best part of a year just visiting hospitals, trawling through records, listening to his pet theories becoming more and more outlandish and outrageous, and imagining the roads down which they would lead the two of them, hand in hand, into acclaim.

Or into notoriety, even. She didn't fear scandal, she was no stranger to it.

She'd lost touch with her friends, dropped them all. How could they compare to Roley? And since she'd moved in with him... Well, the jealous gossips had really dined out on that one! How the rumours must have snowballed through those unsightly streets she'd grown up on. Even her own mother wouldn't talk to her, now.

Her own mother didn't know she'd merely moved into staff quarters, of course, that she slept by herself every night. Roley slept alone upstairs as he'd done all his life, forlorn and skinny like a half-starved child. But she could give him nourishment. She understood his feelings. She understood him .

Austen stirred very slightly on the couch. She looked at him, balefully.

***

Sam's stomach felt full of butterflies. It was nothing to do with worry about