Dr. Who - BBC New Series 47

by Touched by an Angel # Jonathan Morris

  ‘Unless?’

  The Doctor didn’t answer. He was too preoccupied taking a reading with the detector. Then he looked up at Amy with a fearful look in his eyes. ‘Unless the course of

  history hasn’t been changed.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Which can only mean one thing,’ said the Doctor gravely. ‘ Mark wasn’t the one who wrote that letter!’

  ‘What? But of course he did,’ said Amy. ‘You said-‘

  ‘Of course,’ said the Doctor. ‘It was all part of their plan.’

  ‘Whose plan?’

  ‘The Weeping Angels.’

  ‘Sorry, Doctor, you’re saying the Weeping Angels wrote that letter?’ said Rory. ‘The one that Mark received in the year 2011?’

  The Doctor nodded. ‘A list of instructions that Mark would think came from his future self, in order to make sure he obeyed them to the letter. In order to make sure that I’d tell him to obey them to the letter.’

  ‘But hang on, you’re forgetting something. Mark said the letter was written in his own handwriting!’

  The Doctor shook his head and turned to Mark. ‘You never showed me the original letter, did you?’

  ‘No,’ said Mark.

  ‘I wish you had,’ said the Doctor. ‘Because I would’ve noticed that it was written on psychic paper. Write a letter on psychic paper and the handwriting will look like that of whoever reads it.’

  Mark pulled himself to his feet. ‘But the name on the envelope was in my handwriting too.’

  ‘Psychic envelope,’ said the Doctor. ‘Same material.’

  ‘And the Weeping Angels got hold of all this how?’

  asked Rory. ‘Did they just pop down the nearest psychic

  newsagents?’

  ‘The Angels are creatures of perception. To them it would be child’s play.’ The Doctor looked at Mark mournfully, as though he was a condemned man. ‘The copy of the letter you showed me. It wasn’t the whole letter, was it?’

  Mark twitched. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There was something else. Something else the Weeping Angels wanted you to do.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What was the other part of the letter, Mark?’ The Doctor exploded in anger. ‘Tell me!’

  ‘There wasn’t any other part of the letter, you saw the whole thing.’

  ‘I don’t think so. Because listen to me. Whatever was written in that letter, it’s not true. The Angels wrote it, because they want you to change history. It is something that can never happen. Something you must never do.’

  ‘No,’ protested Mark, doubling up in pain as though crushed. His chest was heaving and he kept swallowing, gasping, grimacing, as though trying to speak but unable to find the words. ‘No, you’re wrong,’ he hissed at the Doctor. ‘It can happen. I’m going to make it happen.’

  ‘Mark, you can’t, no matter how much—’

  Mark straightened up and regarded the Doctor with cold, angry eyes; eyes filled with years of loneliness and grief. But instead of speaking, he turned away and strode towards the car park.

  ‘Mark. Where are you going? Stop—’

  Mark raised his key fob, aimed it at his SUV, and

  unlocked it with a beep. He climbed into the driving seat.

  The Doctor attempted to grab the car door, but he was too late; the car’s engine growled into life, its headlights flashed on with blinding brightness, and it swung out into the road. Amy, Rory and the Doctor could only stand by uselessly as it accelerated into the night.

  As the car disappeared from view, the wail of sirens grew louder until two fire engines and an ambulance appeared at the end of the road, illuminating everything with their flashing lights. Firemen clambered out, shouting instructions and craning their necks to assess the blaze.

  Distracted by the firemen, it took a few moments for Amy to realise the Doctor wasn’t with her. He and Rory had returned their attention to Mark’s younger self, who was still curled up on the pavement. He regained consciousness with a wheeze and splutter, his bloodshot eyes darting around in confusion. ‘Who are you? What happened?’

  ‘You came to see a man called Harold Jones,’ said the Doctor calmly. ‘Why?’

  ‘Harold Jones?’ Mark frowned as he struggled to remember. ‘I was working late in the office, and came across this folder… he was the reason I got this job. And he had these letters on his desk, with lists of stuff from my life!’

  ‘It’s all right,’ said the Doctor gently as he placed his fingers on Mark’s forehead. Mark’s eyelids drooped and his head lolled forward as he fell into a trance. ‘You’ll be fine. Listen to me. You will have no memory of the events

  of this evening.’

  ‘No memory,’ repeated Mark.

  ‘The last thing you’ll remember is working late in the office. You won’t remember me, my friends or Harold Jones. When you awake, you will never have heard of him. Understand?’

  Mark nodded.

  ‘There was a small fire in your office, someone dropped a lit match into a bin, you threw your jacket over it, that’s how it got burnt.’

  Mark nodded.

  ‘And when you wake up, I want you to phone your wife and tell her you’ll be coming home, then go back to your car and drive straight there. You’ve got all that?’

  Mark nodded.

  ‘Good.’ The Doctor clicked his fingers.

  Mark’s head lifted. For a moment he looked around, not sure where he was, then he stood up. ‘Sorry, um, excuse me…’ he muttered, before speed-dialling a number on his mobile phone. ‘Hiya… Yeah. It’s me. Just calling to let you know I’m on my way home… Love you too.’ Then, without registering the Doctor, Amy or Rory, he strolled over to one of the cars parked outside the building, got into it, and drove away.

  The Doctor, Amy and Rory stepped aside as the firemen located the nearest hydrant and connected their hoses.

  ‘So that’s that?’ asked Amy, rubbing the soot off her hands.

  ‘I think so,’ said the Doctor. ‘Mark goes home to his

  wife, having forgotten all about tonight, and all about us…’

  Rory’s mouth fell open as a sudden, terrible realisation dawned on him. ‘Wait a minute,’ he said. ‘Did you just say he’s going home to his wife?’

  ‘Yes-‘

  ‘But when I spoke to Mrs Levenson, she never mentioned anything about Mark being married!’

  ‘No,’ said Amy. ‘And when I asked him a couple of days ago, he said he had no wife or children…’

  ‘But we know he has a wife now, so if he doesn’t have one in the future,’ said Rory. ‘Then that means either they get divorced, or…’

  The Doctor suddenly looked incredibly old and gaunt.

  ‘So that’s it. That’s what the Weeping Angels have been working towards.’

  ‘You mean, something happened to Rebecca?’ said Amy. ‘Or rather, something’s going to happen to Rebecca.

  Oh my God. She’s going to die…’

  ‘And Mark’s going to try to stop it,’ muttered the Doctor, staring into the depths of the night. ‘He’s going to try to save her.’

  ‘But if he saved her,’ said Rory, piecing it together. ‘…

  then he’d be changing history.’

  ‘Not only that, but—’ Before the Doctor could finish he was interrupted by a voice calling to them from down the street.

  ‘Doctor! Amy!’ A familiar figure ran out of the darkness towards them. As he got closer and slowed down, he moved into the glow of a street lamp and Amy could see his face.

  It was Rory.

  But Rory was standing right next to her, gawping in disbelief at the new arrival. Amy turned from him to the other Rory, the new Rory. He approached with an exhausted look on his face.

  ‘Thank God,’ he sighed in relief, rubbing his side and wincing. ‘For a minute there, I thought I’d missed you.’

  ‘Rory ?’ said the Doctor, regarding him suspiciously.

  ‘What are you doing here?�
��

  The new Rory give Amy a reassuring smile, before he noticed his former self and his mouth fell open ‘I’m, er, from the future, yeah?’ the new Rory began. ‘I mean, I was with you in the future, but then I was touched by an Angel…’

  Chapter

  15

  21 April 2002

  It had been their first major argument.

  It all started when Mark suggested that Rebecca shouldn’t bother to buy another car after her previous one had been written off. His point was that having a car in London was a waste of money, as she hardly ever used it except to go to her parents’, and she’d said herself that driving in London was insanely stressful and dangerous.

  Rebecca’s response had been to accuse Mark of calling her a bad driver. Which hadn’t been his point at all. It wasn’t Rebecca’s driving that worried him. It was everybody else’s.

  Rebecca had been driving to Peckham for the weekly shop when, as she turned left at a crossroads, the car on her right jumped the lights and crashed into her. She’d been lucky to escape with whiplash and a dislocated shoulder.

  The argument happened the following night. They were both overtired, neither of them having slept more than a few hours since the accident. Mark still had the stress of the day coursing through his system, and Rebecca kept being woken up as her painkillers wore off. Then they had a day of dealing with the police, and the insurance. On top of that, they had to cancel their holiday in Paris which had been due to begin the following day.

  That was what the final part of the argument had been about. Rebecca accused Mark of being glad that their holiday had been cancelled because it meant he could go back to work. Mark hotly denied this, but the problem was, Rebecca knew him too well. The thought of returning to work had occurred to him.

  And that’s why he spent the night on the sofa in the living room.

  Rebecca woke as a jab of pain in her neck reminded her of her injury. Slowly and awkwardly, she eased herself into a sitting position and reached for the painkillers and water on the bedside table. She had to twist her waist to see what she was doing as she couldn’t turn her head.

  The alarm clock read 11:30. The other side of the bed was empty. For a moment Rebecca thought nothing of it; she often woke after Mark had gone to work, until she remembered this was the first time she and Mark had spent the night apart since their wedding.

  Rebecca washed and put on a fresh T-shirt, then headed downstairs, gripping the banister with her one good hand.

  She’d have a cup of tea and maybe watch the news. Today she should’ve been exploring the art galleries and museums of Paris with Mark; instead she’d be spending it alone in a cold flat.

  Rebecca stopped at the foot of the stairs. She could hear something sizzling in the kitchen, and could smell the smoky aroma of pancakes. She wandered in to discover Mark at the oven with a frying pan in his hand, a string of garlic around his neck, a beret on his head, humming ‘She’

  by Charles Aznavour.

  ‘What are you doing?’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Making crepes. This is my sixth attempt, I think I’ve almost got it.’

  ‘I mean with the,’ she indicated the garlic, ‘and the,’ she indicated the beret.

  ‘Oh. Idea I had. For the next two weeks, I’ve designated this flat as French territory.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you can’t go to Paris… then let Paris come to you.’

  Mark slid the pancakes out of the frying pan and turned towards her.

  ‘Please take that thing off, you look like Frank Spencer.’

  ‘I thought it made me look like Che Guevara,’ protested Mark. ‘I got it while I was out shopping. Couldn’t get snails or frog legs, but we have croissants, pain au chocolat, and later you have a choice of me attempting either coq au vin or ratatouille.’

  Rebecca noticed the five bulging supermarket shopping bags on the side.

  ‘I also thought,’ continued Mark, ‘that if we’re going to be stuck in the flat together for two weeks, we might need some entertainment, so I got a few DVDs and videos.’

  Mark indicated one of the bags.

  Rebecca rummaged through it. ‘ Amelie. Cyrano de Bergerac. Betty Blue. Mon Oncle. Asterix & Obelix Take On Caesar. And the first two series of ‘Allo ‘Allo… ‘

  ‘Can’t get more French than that.’

  ‘Very true.’ Rebecca sniffed the crepes. ‘So we’re spending the next two weeks stuck in the flat together, are we?’

  ‘I mean, I could always go into work, if you’d prefer, but I thought, two weeks with my gorgeous wife Rebecca, versus sitting in a solicitor’s office in Croydon. No competition really.’

  ‘Not when you put it like that. Is this your way of saying sorry?’

  Mark handed her a pancake on a plate. ‘Overdoing it, do you think?’

  ‘A bit, yes.’ Rebecca broke off some of the pancake and ate it: ‘But I strongly approve.’ She kissed him gently on the back of the neck. ‘Merci beaucoup.’

  ‘You’re lucky. I very nearly bought an accordion.’

  ‘You have no idea how grateful I am that you didn’t.’

  ‘And you’re sure you’re OK with having me hanging around, waiting on you, hand and foot?’

  ‘I could get used to it,’ said Rebecca. ‘I should get into car crashes more often. No, I think if I have to be stuck in the flat for two weeks, there isn’t anyone in the world I’d rather be stuck with.’

  ‘So you’re not annoyed, about not going to Paris?’

  ‘Not any more. I mean, it’s not as if Paris is going anywhere. There’s always next year.’

  *

  ‘Is this strictly necessary?’ asked Rory as the Doctor ran the sonic screwdriver over him like a customs official with a metal detector. Instead of giving an answer, the Doctor darted across the control room and repeated the process with the other Rory, the Rory from the future.

  It was a weird feeling to be in the same room as your future self. That person over there, with the surprisingly large nose and gormless face, would be him at some point.

  Staring back at his past self, who as far as Rory was concerned, was his current self. Which was confusing if you thought about it, so Rory decided to stop thinking about it.

  ‘Completely necessary,’ said the Doctor, closing his sonic screwdriver with a flourish. ‘It’s now safe for you both to be in the same room together.’

  ‘Eh?’

  The Doctor went into explanation mode. ‘Blinovitch Limitation Effect. Two identical versions of the same person, at different points in their timeline, should not co-exist within the same space and time. All sorts of nasty potential for paradoxes. And if they should happen to make physical contact - bang!’

  ‘Like with the two Marks?’ said Amy.

  ‘Like, as you say, with the two Marks,’ said the Doctor.

  ‘But I’ve now neutralised the effect. Ask me how.’

  ‘How?’ said the future Rory.

  ‘You couldn’t possibly begin to understand. But thanks for asking.’

  Rory tried to get his head around it. ‘So it’s now safe for me to touch my future self?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘Although I would strongly advise you not to.’

  ‘Why?’ said Rory.

  ‘Yeah, why not?’ said the future Rory.

  ‘Because it would look odd. Best keep your hands to, um, yourself.’

  Rory and his future self exchanged indignant frowns.

  ‘Right. Yeah. Thanks a lot, Doctor.’

  ‘So where are you from?’ Amy asked the future Rory with a flirtatious smirk. Rory couldn’t help feeling jealous.

  ‘What happened to you exactly?’

  ‘Um, well, I’m not sure how much I can say,’ said the future Rory hesitantly. ‘You know, spoilers and stuff. But we were all in this field, on the South Downs, on the night of the tenth of April 2003, and the Weeping Angels were there too, and well, I got zapped.’

  ‘Zapped?’ said Rory.

/>   ‘Back to 2001. Which was a bit of a head-scratcher, to say the least.’

  ‘And then you came and found us?’ asked the Doctor.

  ‘Not quite. First I had to hang around for a month waiting for you to turn up.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was sent back to the first of May. Four weeks I’ve been stuck in the past waiting for you!’ Future Rory sighed indignantly. ‘I seem to spend half my life waiting for people!’

  ‘Still, four weeks,’ said the Doctor. ‘Give you a chance to catch up on old times and stuff.’

  ‘You try being dumped in the past with no money, no

  job, and nowhere to live! I could hardly go back to Leadworth, could I?’

  ‘I’m sure you coped admirably. No need to go into the grisly details.’

  ‘Hang on,’ said Rory. ‘If this is going to happen to me, I’d quite like to hear the grisly details, thank you very much. Give me some idea what I’m in for.’

  ‘That’s precisely why you mustn’t know,’ said the Doctor. ‘And why your future self mustn’t tell you. You’ve heard too much as it is.’ He returned to future Rory. ‘Let me get this straight. It was the night of the tenth of April 2003, when you were touched by the Angel?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The Doctor swung the small monitor screen to face Rory. It showed the front page of a local newspaper.

  ‘Which was the night that Rebecca Whitaker died.’

  Future Rory nodded and swallowed. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Right. Now, I need you to answer this as precisely as you can. When you were the Rory over there,’ the Doctor indicated Rory, ‘and your future self turned up, what did we do next?’

  ‘What did we do next?’

  ‘Yes. It’s vitally important you remember.’

  ‘I do, it’s just that I’m not sure I should tell you. You know, spoilers.’

  The Doctor let out an exasperated sigh. ‘OK. Let me put it like this. I think the next thing I should do is that I should take us to the time and place where Rebecca was killed. If I were to do that, would I be changing history?’