The Day She Saved the Doctor

by Susan Calman

  ‘And I said that your standards were too high,’ Fake Bill cut in.

  Bewildered, Bill looked at the creature that had stolen her body and life. For her to know that, she must be becoming more and more like Bill. Stealing her memories. ‘Okay, how did I get your phone number on the, the, you know …?’ She’d forgotten the word. ‘The ship! The box!’

  ‘Bill here explained she lost her phone. She said it might even have been stolen,’ the Doctor said, eyebrows raised.

  ‘Let me try your jacket on,’ Bill said desperately to Fake Bill. ‘I mean, it’s fabulous and I’d love one just like it.’

  ‘No!’ Fake Bill almost shouted. ‘You’re so weird. I’m not letting you anywhere near me or my clothes.’

  Bill looked pleadingly at the Doctor. ‘If she’s the real Bill, why won’t she let me try on her jacket? You know the real Bill – you know I’d be kinder than that, to anyone!’

  ‘Not necessarily to someone who claims you’re a liar,’ the Doctor said. ‘And if you were really Bill, you would know that wearing clothes can be a very dangerous business. Psychic energy is transferred on to our clothing – and if certain alien species got hold of your stuff, they could do almost anything with that psychic energy.’

  ‘Including stealing your identity?’ Bill said, almost in a whisper.

  The Doctor’s eyes widened. ‘Well, yes. If they had access to your psychic energy and a mechanism to capture it, they might create a connection that could continue to siphon off psychic energy, as long as the thief kept a bond with the item, a fixer of some sort …’

  ‘So you could, say, steal someone’s identity with a jacket and a camera, loaded with, for example, psychic paper?’ Bill said.

  The Doctor looked at Fake Bill, his frown deepening. ‘What was the name of the woman with the star in her eye?’ he asked.

  Fake Bill looked at him blankly, then scoffed. ‘Why are you asking me that? You don’t actually believe this girl, do you?’

  The Doctor turned to Bill and asked the same question. Bill opened her mouth to answer and nothing came out. She couldn’t remember. It was a flower. It was a flower and the woman was beautiful. She remembered so much about her, how she felt about her … Water – there was water. She was a flower. But she couldn’t remember her name. It was there, on the tip of her tongue.

  ‘Heather,’ Fake Bill said. ‘Her name was Heather.’

  Bill’s heart sank. ‘Doctor, don’t you recognise this jacket?’ she said, grabbing at the denim jacket she was still wearing, with badges she’d sewn on herself. ‘It’s the one I always wear. If she’s me, then wouldn’t she have it?’

  ‘I already told the Doctor – I decided to leave it at the shop because I didn’t need it any more.’

  ‘Doctor! Come on! Do you really think I’d do that?’

  The Doctor frowned again.

  Suddenly, from nowhere, Lou sprang out from behind her tree, running towards them. She barrelled into Fake Bill, causing the both of them to come crashing down on to the ground.

  ‘Quick, Bill!’ she shouted. ‘Grab the jacket!’

  Stunned for a second, Bill stared at the two women wrestling on the ground. Then she came to life and ran to them and began to tug at the jacket. Out of the pocket tumbled the three photos of Bill that Ziggy had taken earlier. She stared at them – they had to be psychic paper, the fixers keeping the connection between her and Ziggy going!

  Bill snatched the photos up. This was her chance to get her body back – but if she destroyed the photos, would she be hurt too? Possibly, but she could feel herself fading fast, and she couldn’t wait any longer. She chose the picture with the first jacket she tried on, the amethyst one, and ripped it a little.

  A jolt ripped through Bill’s body and a barrage of images, memories, thoughts, feelings came rushing into her brain, her body at the same time. Not the strange ones she’d been getting all day, but her own memories. Her own personality. Bill, Bill, Bill. The psychic connection Fake Bill was using had been damaged by that initial rip and Bill’s mind was starting to clear.

  ‘Hurry up!’ Lou shouted. ‘I don’t know how much longer I can hold her.’

  Bill ripped the photo in two and her whole body jolted, while a deep, dark amethyst colour lit up her hair, face and body in a glorious display.

  Bill. I am Bill. I really am. Through blurring vision, Bill could see that Fake Bill was lit up with an amethyst glow too – in fact, there was so much energy coursing through her that Lou was thrown back, letting her go for a moment.

  ‘GIVE THEM TO ME!’ Fake Bill roared, pushing Lou aside. She scrambled to her feet and leapt forward, ready to snatch the photos from Bill’s hands.

  Bill used every ounce of her remaining strength to rip the second and third photos cleanly in two, tearing apart the images of herself in the jackets, and setting herself free. She dropped the pieces as her whole body lit up with dazzling green light, and then a sun-like burst of gold. Fake Bill glowed in the same colours as Bill, howling with rage as the psychic connection was severed.

  When the blinding light finally dimmed, Bill could tell she was back to normal. She had use of her brilliant body again, long limbs and all, and when she moved, everything felt normal. She was Bill again.

  ‘No! No!’ Ziggy sobbed, throwing herself to her knees to try to gather the torn pieces of her three photographs.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ the Doctor said and pointed his sonic screwdriver at the pieces, causing them first to flicker and then the images of Bill to completely disappear.

  Bill turned to the Doctor, wondering what he’d done. ‘Severed the signal between the jacket and the photographs,’ he said, his expression serious. ‘No more fixers, and now, no more siphoning device either.’

  ‘What have you done?’ Ziggy wailed, pressing the pieces of the now-empty photographs to her heart. ‘This was my only chance … My final chance …’

  Bill knew she should be furious with Ziggy for what she had done – but Ziggy looked so distressed, so heartbroken, that all Bill felt for her was pity.

  To the Doctor and Lou’s surprise, Bill got down on her knees beside Ziggy and spoke quietly.

  ‘Why did you do this?’

  Ziggy seemed startled by Bill’s tone, which was full of kindness and understanding. She looked up, tears soaking her face. ‘I just wanted to go home. I didn’t want to harm you. Not really. I have been here such a long, long time … I just want to go home.’

  The Doctor stood with his arms folded, glaring down at Ziggy. ‘And where is home, exactly?’

  ‘I’m an Ohcho. My planet is Onhwhie.’

  ‘I know it,’ the Doctor said. ‘The planet of shape-shifters.’

  Ziggy wiped her face, but tears still fell from her eyes. ‘I was banished here,’ she explained. ‘Our planet elected a new and dangerous leader. He ruled us with fear, and with pain, and every morning we woke up terrified, our friends and family going missing in the night. Until a number of us decided: no more. We formed groups, we protested, we started to get others to protest too.

  ‘People across the planet began to wake up, taking notice of what we were saying. They started to feel powerful. And then one night, I was taken from my house, dragged in chains to see the new leader, and banished. Sent out across the galaxies, landing on Earth by chance. They wanted to crush the resistance, but I hope my friends have stayed strong, that they have carried on our good work.’

  She turned to Bill. ‘I’m sorry for what I did to you. But I have been so lonely, trapped here for hundreds of Earth years. I discovered a Time Lord had visited this planet and I tracked him down as best I could. I set up my shop in many different places where I sensed an alien presence, and waited for a chance. A chance to meet you, Doctor – to beg you to take me home.’

  ‘If you just wanted to ask him for a lift, why did you steal Bill’s face?’ Lou said, her eyes narrowed as she stood with her arms folded next to the Doctor. ‘How would that encourage him to help you?’

&
nbsp; Ziggy’s shoulders sagged. ‘Over time, I built the little psychic technology I had into my camera and my jackets. I would practise on ordinary people who walked into my shop, making sure the psychic link worked, but always ripping up the photographs later. I learned that it worked best on those who were nervous, brimming with negative psychic energy – so that’s why I waited until Bill was going on a date to draw her in.

  ‘More importantly, in all that time, I listened for tales of the Doctor. And the more I learned, the more I suspected he would not break the laws of time for just one person. He who had stood by while whole peoples were destroyed, in the name of justice … I could not risk him saying no. I knew my best chance was to ask him as his friend. His greatest weakness.’

  She looked desperately first at Bill, then at Lou and then, finally, at the Doctor. ‘I would have told you the truth, Doctor, and given the photographs and the jacket back so you could restore Bill. I would never have kept her trapped. I know how that feels, all too well. I hope you believe me.’ Ziggy began to cry again. ‘I am truly sorry.’

  There was a moment’s silence, and then Bill carefully stretched her arm around Ziggy’s shoulder.

  ‘We have to help her, Doctor,’ she said, looking up at him, hoping he would understand.

  The Doctor looked thoughtfully at Bill.

  ‘She was wronged,’ Bill went on. ‘They punished her for standing up for the right thing. You were the one talking about character this morning. Did you not believe all that? Ziggy was punished for having character. Don’t punish her more.’

  The Doctor said nothing, but narrowed his eyes – yet Bill looked at Lou, and she was smiling.

  ‘I might be new to this whole aliens-time-travelling-in-space business,’ she said, with a grin. ‘But really, what’s the point in having the power to travel across the universe through time and space if you can’t help good people?’

  ‘All right, all right.’ The Doctor put away his sonic screwdriver. ‘Look. Zaggy, or whatever your name is. Your planet, Onhwhie – it exists in a completely different era to Earth. By now, your galaxy won’t have existed for thousands of years.’

  ‘Doctor,’ Bill hissed. ‘Don’t tell her awful news just like that! Show some compassion!’

  The Doctor rolled his eyes. ‘I just mean we’ll have to travel through space and time to get there. If we were to travel to the planet’s coordinates right now – nothing but clear space. But if we move through time, we’ll find it.’

  ‘You’ll help me?’ Ziggy asked, a smile breaking across her stricken, tear-streaked face. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Now come on, Zoggy, and Bill – back to the TARDIS now – before I change my mind.’

  With that, he stomped off across the lawn of the park, with Ziggy dazedly in tow.

  Bill shook her head as she watched him, and then turned to Lou.

  ‘“Thank you” isn’t enough, I know,’ Bill said to her, beaming. ‘But thank you. You’re a life-saver, Lou. Quite literally.’

  ‘It was no bother,’ Lou said, her cheeks glowing a faint pink. ‘It was fun, actually. Like I said, alien body-snatching, planets with evil leaders, mysterious time-travel machines … all right up my street.’

  Before she could stop herself, Bill threw her arms around Lou. ‘I couldn’t have done it without you,’ she said with a smile. ‘And that tackle to the ground, that was pretty impressive.’

  ‘There’s more to me than meets the eye,’ Lou replied. ‘You and me both.’

  ‘Well, thank you, anyway. And triple chips next time.’

  ‘Gotcha.’

  ‘So, Bill – now will you make use of my many jacket rooms?’ the Doctor asked as he set the coordinates for Ziggy’s home planet, and as Ziggy examined the TARDIS’s glowing control panels with wonder.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Bill replied. She smiled, thinking of Lou. ‘Even if I don’t find the perfect one, who cares, eh? You were right – it’s character that counts. And anyone I go on a date with in the future should believe that too.’

  With those words, the Doctor’s frown turned to a soft smile, and the TARDIS slowly dematerialised.

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  First published 2018

  Sarah Jane and the Temple of Eyes copyright © Jacqueline Rayner and BBC Worldwide Limited, 2018

  Rose and the Snow Window copyright © Jenny T. Colgan and BBC Worldwide Limited, 2018

  Clara and the Maze of Cui Palta copyright © Susan Calman and BBC Worldwide Limited, 2018

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  Cover illustration by Kelly Wagner

  ISBN: 978–1–405–93347–6

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