4| Diversion
Page 3
3. The return
"So when do you have our grades?" Nick asked his teacher when they were dismissed from class.
"In a few days. Friday I think." he said while collecting the completed tests. "Why, are you nervous already, Nick?"
"No, no. I think I did pretty well, Sir." Nick answered proudly.
"Ok, then you will have good news to bring home this weekend." the Doctor laughed.
He put the papers in his case and locked the classroom behind him. He and Nick went down the corridor.
"Shouldn't you go to Mr. Daly's Art and music class now?" he asked the student.
"No, I have to pick up my baby sister from her school trip."
"Ah, I'm going there too for Sarah and Adrian.You can show me where they arrive."
Together they went to the primary school some blocks away and joined the group of parents and caretakers who had all gathered to welcome the children back. The busses hadn't arrived yet so the Doctor chatted with some of the other waiting parents.
"I heard the kids got a new teacher recently. Have you met her already?" he asked a parent of a kid in the same class as Adrian.
"Oh, yes, two weeks ago when she had just teaching here. Delightful girl, this Ruby. Pretty too." the parent said.
"Oh, there they are. The busses have arrived." he said and looked if he could see Sarah and Adrian amongst the disembarking children.
Soon he spotted the bright red braids of little Sarah in between the children lined up next to the furthest bus. He made his way through the mass of kids and parents until he had nearly reached Sarah and Adrian, who was holding his sisters hand while they waited to be picked up.
Then, right in front of him, he saw a familiar face, one he thought he would never see again and it made his hearts skip a couple of beats.
"Impossible. This can't be real. It can't be her. Is it her?" he thought to himself in shock. Though, there she stood, right in front of him, smiling gently at the children surrounding her and she looked exactly like Rose.
The same Rose Tyler he had been travelling with before he decided to give up wandering the universe, because losing her was too great a trauma to overcome.
"How can she be here? I saw her being trapped into another dimension, with her father, mother and Mickey and his grandmother too. There was no possible way to return and see her again, except for that one, too short, time at the beach." he thought to himself, but then he began to doubt himself, "Or is there? Did I somehow end up in her dimension? Oh, stop thinking about it! Only one way to find out. Go on, say something to her."
"Rose?" he asked with a hint of disbelief and hope in his crackling voice.
She looked him straight in the eyes and smiled.
"No, near enough, though. It's Ruby." she said merrily.
"Ruby." the Doctor repeated sheepishly and clearly disappointed.
"Yes. And you are?"
"Picking up Sarah and Adrian." he said after a slight hesitation. "Nice to have met you Miss Ruby. Good day."
"Of the same." she politely replied before she moved on to meet with other parents and the Doctor went to get Sarah and Adrian.
"Till Friday!" he said to Nick who had his little sister by the hand and were also on their way home.
"How was your trip? Did you enjoy it?", he asked, walking down the street with Sarah on his arm on one side and Adrian walking at the other. He looked like a regular aren't, on a regular day, taking his two children home from school.
4. A hot cocoa day
The kids were laughing, the sun was shining and the trees and rooftops were all frozen white, blinking like they were covered in diamonds instead of ice.
Meeting the children's new teacher had returned the ache in his hearts and resurfaced memories of the times when he used to travel though time and space with his ship, the blue police box, he called a TARDIS. His precious TARDIS. No, he had decided to leave that life behind and he had built a good life here, with Lynne, Sarah Adrian and the dog, Laika. They are happy and that made him happy too.
He made his train of thoughts stop and listened to Sarah, who excitedly told everything she could remember that happened on their school trip.
"Yes, yes. And after that she took us all for a walk through the woods. We didn't see any animals though. The other children were too noisy, they scared them off. But Miss Ruby told us all she knew about the plants we found there." Sarah said.
Adrian droned up a fact he had heard from Miss Ruby that afternoon.
"Yes thank you, Adrian." the Doctor said before the robot boy would recite the entire list of plant facts he had stored.
"So it was quite exciting?" he said to Sarah.
"No the best part comes next; when we met the Knoba's." Sarah said.
"It was supposed to be a secret Sarah." Adrian said disapprovingly.
"You saw Gnomes in the wood?" the Doctor asked, thinking none of it, assuming it was just a child fantasy.
"Yes, Miss Ruby took us to them."
"The whole class?"
"Yes everyone. And they were very nice to us. They gave us all a pendant. Look." She held it up to show and tucked it away quickly as she continued her story. "They are just as small as me you know, but they are very smelly." Her face turned all lemony as if the unforgettable smell had instantly returned to her nostrils.
"What did you do the second day?" the Doctor asked.
"We played games on the field near the hostel, but it wasn't much fun. I won almost all of them. The running, throwing and balancing competitions. I couldn't finish the puzzle on time though." Sarah said.
"I won that one." Adrian added.
"Very well done, I am proud of you both. I say we deserve some hot chocolate, what do you think?" the Doctor said as they walked up the path to the blue front door of their house.
"Yeah!" the children cheered and they ran ahead in excitement.