Travels
With Teddy
A fifth
Doctor story
by
Clive May
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The
copy right of all things pertaining to the concept and characters of Dr
Who is
the property of the BBC. This story is
a work of fan fiction; it has
been
written simply for the pleasure it gave me in writing it; and no money
has or
will change hands with respect to the story.
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At the
moment of crisis, there was an almighty wrench inside the Doctor's
mind. He clung to the console with one hand,
whilst making adjustments with
the
other. The floor tilted, sending Tegan
sprawling across the floor.
Oddly,
Nyssa stood unshaken by the perturbations.
She put hands to her
temples,
and peered around, wide eyed, at the dimming lights.
"Doctor!"
Tegan cried from where she lay, entangled with the coat stand.
"It's
alright, Tegan," the Doctor assured.
"We're free...With no harm done."
As was
becoming all too common with the Doctor, he was completely mistaken.
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Lucy
awoke with a start from a most peculiar dream.
She lay in the amber
glow
from the street light streaming in through the window, and listened to
the
strange noise dying away into the distant hum of traffic. She hugged a
threadbare
teddy to her cheek, taking comfort from her most favourite toy.
Mr
Teddy had never failed to bring her comfort, ever since he had arrived on
her
fifth birthday, two years ago.
Over in
the darkest corner of her room, a shimmering purple light was
unfolding
like a blooming flower. Even as the
un-curling petals were
settling
into an eye-defying arrangement, the entire bloom was fading. Lucy
drew
the duvet up to her chin, clutching at the edge, her fingers rigid with
fright.
Somehow,
she recognised the purple flower as the beautiful woman she had been
talking
to in her dream. The woman had been
tall and slender, silvery
haired,
with a face made of wise eyes and a laughing mouth. She had been
telling
Lucy the most wonderful fairy story.
Now, she was no more than a
misty
patch of fading purple light. Lucy
realised, too, that the horrible
noise
which was filling her head, had been the woman's gentle voice.
Lucy
tried to remember the story; but the details were slipping away even as
the
flower faded. She desperately wanted to
know how the story ended; but
the
noise was dying into silence.
It was
plain to Lucy that she was still dreaming, so she pinched herself.
The
pinch hurt, which fooled Lucy into believing she was awake. Comforted by
her
innocent certainties, and by the rasp of Mr Teddy's fur against her
cheek,
she went back to sleep.
It was
a whole life time before she finally awoke from that dream, and heard
how the
story ended.
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Straining
her eyes in the half-light, Tegan leaned down to peer over the
Doctor's
shoulder. He was kneeling at the
console. One of the side panels
was
off, and he had his head stuck deep inside the workings. He was poking
half-heartedly
at the complex circuitry by the light of a pen torch.
"You
don't know what's wrong? Do you?"
Tegan said, her breath misting the
chilly
air.
The
Doctor's back stiffened a little at the rebuke in Tegan's voice. He
continued
to fiddle a while, before backing out to peer up at the Australian
woman
over his half lenses. He made no
immediate reply.
Tegan
put hands on hips and gave him a sour look.
"You don't, do you?"
"I
do," said Nyssa confidently. Then,
when two pairs of eyes turned to fix
her
with an expectant glare, she added less confidently: "At least, I know
what it
feels like?"
The
Doctor got to his feet.
"Well?" he demanded, his tone a trifle too
sharp.
Before
answering, Nyssa glanced all around at the shadows crowding in where
the
roundelled walls had, a few moments before, gleamed whitely in the
sourceless
light. At last, her gaze came back to
the Doctor. Taking a
breath
of the enervated air, she explained what was in her mind.
Tegan
sniggered.
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Lucy
travelled constantly. It was not what
she did; it was what she was.
Even
when she could not move from place to place, she travelled in her mind,
traversing
new mental landscapes. She tried out
new ways of thinking, of
feeling
and seeing. She discovered that if one
looked at them from the
proper
perspective, even the mundane possessed endless new planes of
intricacy.
She
tried to paint them; and in so doing became a world famous abstract
artist. Her canvases exchanged hands for thousands;
but the money never
interested
her. Lesser mortals avidly sought her
opinion on art; but the
fame
and the fawning sycophants bored her.
She was never satisfied with the
canvases
she produced. They lacked something,
some quality of perspective
unique
to herself, which defied all attempts to transfer to the two
dimensional
planes of the canvas. Dissatisfied, she
gave up painting, and
turned
to the written word in her search for a suitable medium of expression.
Lucy
travelled further and further, always having an uncanny instinct for
knowing
what would lay round the next corner, or over the next rise, or
across
the next burning desert. The
foreknowledge did nothing to dull the
wonder
at each new experience, for the child Lucy remained within. Her eyes
drank
in the sights, and her graceful hands poured them down onto paper in a
whole
series of fantastic stories. All of the
stories remained unfinished,
for
Lucy could not know then how the story ended.
One
drizzling day in London, when she was old and weary, she got a glimpse of
the
ending. She turned a corner in an east
London street... And it was
there
before her, the shape which defined her un-nameable longings. They
were
not an uncommon feature of London in those days; but Lucy had never run
across
one before.
She
stopped dead, her heart suddenly in her throat. Lucy had a word for the
strange
mental sensations thrilling along her nerves, though she had never
experienced
it quite so strongly before. It was
deja vu.
It was
there, all there, everything she had been seeking in the shape of a
dowdy
London Police box, standing in the rain.
Why had
she not known this before? She had
travelled the world around, and
not
found that elusive magical thing which completed her, only to stumble
upon it
in a drab London street.
The way
her heart thudded in her chest, and the way her breath had stalled in
her
throat, alarmed her.
"Are
you alright, dearie?" inquired an elderly woman, concerned at Lucy's
obvious
distress. "You look like you've
seen a ghost."
"A
body," Lucy said distractedly.
"Not a ghost... A
body... My body..."
And now
that it was there before her, she became suddenly possessed of the
conviction
that it would fade away... With a
wheezing sound the blue box
would
fade away... And she would die without
ever knowing how the story
ended...
Letting
out an inarticulate cry, she began a tottering run at the blue box.
Her
tired old heart thudded fit to burst.
If only she could get there in
time?... Before...
Oh. Please just let her reach
the box in time... But
it was
going to fade; and she would never know...
She
lunged for the box, stretching out her hands to the blue, knowing in her
heart
that it was too late. Her fingers
brushed the blue. Her tired old
heart
burst within her chest; and, finally, Lucy reached the end of the
story.
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The
ambulance man hesitated before he laid the red blanket over the woman's
face. There was such happiness in the face that he
could not hold back a
small
smile. He could feel the woman's joy
right down inside his heart.
This
was certainly the happiest corpse he'd ever had to deal with.
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"Lost
her Soul, is perhaps a rather metaphysical way of putting it, Nyssa,"
the
Doctor said, "but essentially correct." At Tegan's frown, he went on
to
explain. "When we broke free, the Attractor must
have been holding on to her
life
force tighter than to her physical substance.
When we tore free, I
think
her sentience was wrenched apart from her physical form."
"Is
she dead?" Nyssa asked, peering around at the darkness. The notion that
she
might have to spend eternity in this limbo, sent shivers down her spine.
The
Doctor regarded the girl in thoughtful silence a long moment. "TARDISses
are
hard to kill, Nyssa," he said; but he did not sound convinced.
"But
can she live as a , a ghost?" Nyssa asked. "I mean, can she exist as a
disembodied
spirit?"
The
Doctor did not answer at once; but Nyssa could see the answer in his
eyes. At last he spoke. "Normally, when she comes under overwhelming
stress,
she can retreat back into the Matrix, and be safe there..."
It was
left to Tegan to add the inevitable "but?"
"But
the link to the Matrix was severed in the moment of break out," the
Doctor
said. "From that moment on, she
would have been alone, for the first
time in
her existence, she would have been completely alone...And, no Nyssa,
the
TARDIS cannot exist as a disembodied spirit."
"Then
we're stuck here in this limbo, forever," said Tegan's shaky voice from
the
gathering shadows.
"There
may be a way," the Doctor said, even without the sentience of the
TARDIS
to steer a course back to reality."
He
turned from where the shadowy forms of the two girls hovered in the dark,
back to
the lifeless console. "Maybe if I
could..." He got down on hands and
knees,
and began to fiddle uselessly with the innards.
There
came, very softly, the sound of a TARDIS materialisation. A soft
silver
radiance glowed by the door, lightening the gloom. In its heart stood
a
little girl, clutching a thread bear teddy to her cheek. The girl peered
around
with wondering eyes. Then a brilliant
smile lit her face; and she
shimmered,
and faded away. The familiar source
less light, soft and silvery,
brightened
the console room. The air hummed
gently.
The
Doctor withdrew slowly from under the console and stood up. The Time
Rotor
was moving up and down. The motion was
a little jerky, as though the
motivating
spirit was feeling its way uncertainly; but even as he watched,
the
motion eased into an assured rhythm.
Propped
atop the rotor was a threadbare teddy, its button eyes bright. The
Doctor
took it down. Holding it gently to his
chest, he gazed all around at
the
white roundelled walls in wonder, his expression radiant.
"Welcome
home, Old Girl," he whispered.
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The End