Doctor Who_ The Taint - Michael Collier [99]
'I'm sorry, Sam,' he whispered. 'You fought for me, didn't you, all alone again?' He squeezed her hand. "The things I put you through...'
He pressed his lips to her hand, and smoothed damp hair from her forehead. She was far from in the clear. There was a good chance that whole areas of her mind would shut down, unrecoverable, riddled with problems so severe they could never be fixed. Sam herself might not even be strong enough to endure the process. He'd done all he could, but...
A red admiral fluttered softly against his ear, as if whispering a secret. The Doctor smiled.
'Watch over her,' he said, then turned and quietly closed the door behind him.
He strode back to the console room, and noticed that the time rotor had stopped its frenzied interlocking of light and glass. The TARDIS had landed discreetly in the corner of the room that had housed his lab, by the look of it. Excellent. No long, wet walks - he could crack on straight away.
He patted Azoth on his ruined head. 'Come on,' he said. 'We've got some sleeping lions to tame.'
***
Maria knelt on Charles's four-poster bed, its curtains pulled closed so they boxed her in. Idly, she scrunched up his sheets with both hands. They smelled of him - that funny sandalwood and bookish smell he had. She'd mentioned his scent to him once, hadn't she, one time like many others, hopeful and afraid. And he'd laughed, that fluting nervous laugh of his, and said he'd always spent too much time with his books. His father used to say he should marry one if he was that bloody interested in them. She'd stayed quiet of course. She always had.
She sighed, looking at the quiet white world she'd made for herself behind the curtains. She'd managed to gather a poker, a paper knife and a paperweight for her arsenal. She almost laughed. It was pretty hopeless, she had to admit. But it might delay them, just long enough.
She looked at the empty bottle of Charles's sleeping pills. He had terrible bother in the nights, he'd said, up and down all the time, no sleep, no rest.
She'd told him he could come to her whenever he couldn't sleep and they could talk, she wouldn't mind, and he'd said no, he could never impose like that, and she'd said...
No. It didn't matter what she'd said. She was getting quite drowsy now - at least, she thought she was. How long did these things take to work? If they'd just leave her a little longer...
***
Fitz watched from the Wolseley at a safe distance, as the Ford Anglia pulled up in Roley's drive. If what the Doctor had told him was true, then for his mum's sake he couldn't let Taylor get inside that house.
Taylor's stolen car skidded to a halt outside the front door.
You won't have much joy getting in there, thought Fitz, turning off the ignition, patting Granddad on the shoulder and getting out, running for the drawing room.
He had to be ready. He'd get only one chance at this.
***
Maria was lying back on the bed when she heard the soft click of the door opening. In seconds, she was wide awake again and holding her breath.
A theatrical stage whisper sounded up. 'Any nurses in here?'
Lucy. She'd known it would be Lucy who found her, desperate to get her back for what she'd tried to do.
Lucy lampooned Charles's aristocratic voice. ' Crikey Moses, who's been sleeping in my bed?' she said.
The curtains round the bed were whipped away, and Maria shrank back against the headboard, the poker in one hand, the paperweight in the other.
Lucy stood, hands on hips, at the end of the bed and watched her, smiling.
'In his bed at last, eh?'
Maria threw the paperweight as hard as she could. It bounced off the side of Lucy's head, leaving a red mark that began to swell into a bump.
'That'll knock some sense into me,' said Lucy, approvingly. Then a thought seemed to strike her. 'Is that a bouncy bed?'
Maria cried out as Lucy jumped on to the mattress and began springing up and down. She felt the poker twist out of her hand and the paper knife go flying, kicked against