Dr. Who - BBC New Series 47

by Touched by an Angel # Jonathan Morris

  ‘No,’ said future Rory. ‘That’s exactly what I remember

  you doing last time.’

  ‘Good. Then that is what we shall do.’ He turned to Rory. ‘I hope you’re paying attention to this, I’ll be asking questions later.’

  ‘Yeah, don’t worry,’ said Rory, tapping his forehead.

  ‘Committing it all to memory.’

  ‘Good.’ The Doctor advanced on the console like a concert pianist about to give a recital, but before he could start laying in a course he paused. ‘You know, it could potentially get a little confusing having two Rorys about the place…’

  ‘I’m not confused,’ said future Rory.

  ‘No, me neither,’ said Rory. ‘I know which one I am.’

  ‘Yeah, and so do I,’ said his future self.

  ‘Yes,’ said the Doctor. ‘But nevertheless it would be useful if I had some way of telling you apart.’

  ‘What, like one of us growing a moustache?’ said Rory.

  ‘Yes, but there’s hardly time for that, is there?’ The Doctor bit his lip as he thought. ‘Future Rory. Future Rory.

  “F” Rory. “F” Rory… Ha! I know! I have just the thing!’

  The Doctor jumped down into one of the storage areas by the interior doors, pulled out a chest, and rummaged inside it before extracting a red cylindrical hat with a tassel. ‘Fez Rory!’ the Doctor announced. He strode over to Rory and slid it on his head. ‘Future Rory, Fez Rory!’

  ‘Er, Doctor, I’m not the future one,’ said Rory. He pointed towards his future self. ‘He is.’

  The Doctor snatched back the fez. ‘You see, I said you’d start getting confused.’ He bounded over to future Rory and placed it ceremonially onto his head. ‘There.

  Now, you have to keep this on. The fate of the entire universe may depend on it.’

  ‘Really?’ said future Rory. ‘The entire universe?

  Depends on me wearing a fez? That’s how these things work, is it?’

  ‘Now, if you’ll give me a moment,’ said the Doctor, returning to the controls. ‘The sooner I get us to 2003, the sooner we can stop having two Rorys roaming about the place!’

  Chapter

  16

  10 April 2003

  At last, after nine years of waiting, the day had finally arrived. The day Rebecca died. Except this time everything would be different.

  Mark drove through the narrow lane, squinting as the setting sun flashed through the hedges that towered over the road. In the distance he could see the black thunderclouds of the approaching storm. In an hour or so it would be pitch dark and bucketing with rain. But Mark would be ready. He’d left nothing to chance.

  His mouth was dry with anticipation. He’d explored every option of how to prevent the accident. He’d considered simply stealing Rebecca’s car, but what if a passing policeman caught him in the attempt? He’d spend the night in the cells while she continued to her death. No.

  He would have to keep it simple, intervening only at the last possible moment. Only then could he be sure he would prevent the accident without being part of the chain of events that led to it.

  The details of the accident were indelibly burned into his memory. At 10.26 p.m., Rebecca was involved in a head-on collision with a heavy goods vehicle one mile from the village of Chilbury. She had just taken a blind left turn. The lorry was travelling at over fifty miles an hour. Because of the high hedgerows there was no way either of them could have seen the other. Mark had visited the site of the accident in preparation and knew every detail of the journey.

  So all he had to do was to stop the lorry before it reached the fatal corner. Mark knew that the lane continued towards Chilbury, with no junctions or intersections, but about a quarter of a mile further on there lay a long stretch of road, the width of a single lane, that led uphill into the village. This was where the lorry had built up speed. This was where Mark’s car would be blocking the road. The driver of the lorry would see it in plenty of time and be forced to come to a halt. And Rebecca, coming the other way, would also see the car and slow down. Only then would Mark move his car out of the way.

  And then he’d have Rebecca again. All the years without her, all those long, lonely years of grief and regret, would be wiped out in an instant. They would never have happened. And if it summoned the Weeping Angels, then that was a small price to pay for the life of the woman he loved.

  Almost without noticing it, Mark came to the point in the road where the accident had taken place. Would take place. Would no longer have taken place. He changed

  down gear, steered his SUV around the corner, and accelerated up the long, straight road to Chilbury. Then, at a small, gravelly lay-by about halfway up the road, he pulled in and switched off the engine.

  He’d checked the area the week before. Even in torrential rain there was no chance of his car being stuck in mud. He’d checked the engine, there was no chance of it failing or running out of fuel. He’d checked the police report after the accident - read it so many times he knew it off by heart. In the ten minutes leading up to the accident, there had been no other traffic sighted on that stretch of road. At 10.16 p.m., he’d move his car into the lane, then he’d be able to watch from a nearby field as the lorry approached from a distance of half a mile. He’d thought of everything.

  There was a rumble of thunder and rain spattered against the windscreen.

  Rory followed the Doctor and Amy out of the TARDIS

  and immediately he flinched from the cold and hugged his coat for warmth. Thankfully his woollen chullo hat covered his ears, as the wind blasted icy rain into his cheeks. Beside him, Amy brushed her hair from across her face and pulled her hood over her head, while future Rory tried his best to look nonchalant whilst wearing an increasingly damp fez.

  Only the Doctor seemed immune to the freezing weather. ‘This is the place?’

  Fez Rory nodded.

  The Doctor handed them each a torch which they

  clicked on. The beams only extended a few metres into the gloom, the lights picking out an ever-shifting curtain of raindrops. Rory could make out uneven, mud-soaked turf beneath their feet. He’d have to be careful not to trip up.

  ‘I’m getting wibbliness on an unprecedented scale,’ said the Doctor as he took a reading from his wibble-detector.

  ‘Hard to pinpoint the exact source, but this is it. This is the tipping-point, the moment where the future hangs in the balance.’ There was a sudden boom of thunder and a flicker of bright blue lightning. “The moment the Weeping Angels have been waiting for.’

  ‘The dinner gong?’ said Amy.

  ‘With a big, juicy, space-time event on the menu. It’s time for the feast.’ The Doctor lowered his detector and clenched his jaw, his face filled with dread, then waved the beam of his torch downhill. ‘This way, I think.’

  As they followed the Doctor across the muddy field, Rory strained his eyes to see anything in the gloom. It was so dark he kept thinking he saw movement, but it was only his eyes playing tricks as they grew accustomed to the darkness. But then he saw it; a pale yellow light about a quarter of a mile away, at a point further down the hillside.

  ‘There!’ said Rory. The light came from inside a car parked halfway up a steep country lane.

  ‘That must be him.’ The Doctor turned to Fez Rory. ‘Am I right?’

  ‘Um, yeah. That’s his car,’ confirmed Fez Rory.

  ‘Then there’s no time to lose.’ Using his torch to pick out the ground ahead, the Doctor strode towards the light

  with renewed urgency. ‘But watch out. The Weeping Angels are here. And they will try to stop us.’

  Ten minutes later, Rory’s shoes were soaked through and his feet were numb. From here they could see that Mark’s car had been abandoned in the middle of the road.

  Rory couldn’t tell if the SUV’s engine was running; all he could hear was the roar of the wind and the occasional crash of thunder.

  ‘What’s he doing?’ said Amy. ‘He’s
just left it there?

  Why?’

  ‘His wife met her death on this stretch of road,’ said the Doctor. ‘A collision with an oncoming vehicle. Which can no longer be oncoming if there’s a car in its way.’

  ‘You got all that from just a parked car?’ said Rory, stamping some feeling back into his feet.

  ‘He’s left the lights on, he wants it to be seen. It’s a warning. Best way to stop a crash between two vehicles?

  Put something large and very obvious between them. It’s what I’d do.’

  ‘Er, Doctor,’ said Fez Rory. He indicated a figure standing about twenty metres away, between them and the car. A man in a puffy winter coat, his face ruddy from the cold. He stared defiantly into the glare of their torches.

  ‘Mark,’ the Doctor shouted to him. ‘Whatever it is you think you’re doing, you have to stop!’

  Mark shook his head. ‘Whatever I think I’m doing?’ he shouted. ‘I’m going to save Rebecca. And there’s nothing you can say or do that will stop me.’

  The Doctor began to slowly venture toward him. ‘After everything I’ve told you, haven’t you learned anything?

  You have to move your car out of the way and let history take its course.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You have to do it, Mark.’ The Doctor wiped his hair, out of his eyes. His face and clothes were sopping wet, raindrops dripping off his nose and eyebrows. ‘ Listen to me.’

  ‘In about seven minutes’ time a heavy goods lorry is going to come down that hill. If my car isn’t there to stop it, that lorry will hit Rebecca’s car. And I am not going to let that happen.’

  ‘You don’t have any choice!’

  ‘But I do. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here to try and talk me out of it,’ said Mark, his face lit up by a flash of lightning. ‘No. This time it’s going to be different. This time she lives.’ There was another boom of thunder.

  ‘She dies, Mark. What has happened, has to happen.

  You can’t change that.’

  ‘Why not?’ protested Mark. He began to back away from them, down towards the road.

  ‘Because it’s a trap,’ shouted the Doctor, walking steadily towards Mark. ‘Everything that’s happened, it’s all been engineered by the Weeping Angels to bring you to this point.’

  For a moment it looked like Mark believed the Doctor, his face twitching as he fought back tears. ‘They’ve given me the chance to save her,’ he said, his chest heaving with rage.

  ‘The Angels don’t care if Rebecca lives or dies. They’re just using her, and you, to give them what they want. A

  time paradox.’

  ‘I don’t believe you!’

  ‘Then look around you, Mark!’ shouted the Doctor.

  ‘Look around you!’

  The Doctor flashed his torch towards a marble-white figure stood in the pitch blackness five metres to Mark’s left. The figure had its hands held out before it, palms upwards, the rain spattering and dribbling over its stone wings and Greek-style dress.

  The Doctor swung his torch to Mark’s right, lighting up a second Weeping Angel in the same submissive posture.

  Rory, Amy and Fez Rory flashed their torches around them, illuminating the wet grass, the shimmering sheets of rain, and four more Angels emerging from the void of darkness, two to their left, two to their right. All with their hands palms out before them, as though in greeting.

  ‘Oh hell,’ muttered Rory.

  ‘You took the words right out of my mouth,’ said Fez Rory.

  ‘You brought them here,’ said the Doctor with an edge in his voice. He took another step towards Mark. ‘Just as I warned you not to.’

  Mark backed away, his eyes darting between the Angels. ‘No. No…’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ the Doctor assured him. ‘They won’t stop you. They can’t get involved directly, you see, they need the paradox to be the result of someone else’s interference.

  But as for us… well, ha, that’s another story.’

  As the Doctor spoke, Rory kept moving his torchlight between the Angels. They were all still standing in the

  same posture, but was it his imagination or were they moving nearer? No. It wasn’t his imagination. The four Angels to their left and right had closed in, to cut off any line of escape. ‘Um, Doctor, about that…’

  The Doctor ignored Rory, keeping his attention fixed on Mark. ‘You think it’s bad now?’ he said. ‘You have no idea what the consequences will be.’

  ‘I know what I’m doing,’ protested Mark, taking a stumbling step away from the Doctor. ‘I’m going to save Rebecca.’ Rory noticed that the Angels on either side of Mark had moved closer together. They were now only a couple of metres away from Mark, trying to get between him and the Doctor, to cut them off and prevent them from reaching the car.

  ‘And you think that will make the world a better place?’

  said the Doctor.

  ‘How could it be worse?’ cried Mark. ‘How could it?

  Answer me that! I’ve spent seventeen years without her. I don’t care about paradoxes, I don’t care about Angels.’

  Mark blinked back the tears forming in his eyes. ‘I just want her back.’

  ‘You can’t have her back. She has to die.’

  ‘Why?’ screamed Mark. ‘Why does she have to be the one who has to die?’

  While the Doctor concentrated on Mark, Rory directed his torch into the blackness that surrounded them. With two Angels behind them, two to the sides and two in front, they were effectively caught in the centre of a circle.

  The Doctor gave Mark a sympathetic smile, ignoring the two Angels who flanked him on either side. ‘Why do

  you think the Angels chose you, Mark?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘ Exactly. It could’ve been anyone, they just happened to pick on you. Because everyone has something they’d like to go back and change.’

  ‘I just want to save one person,’ sniffed Mark, wiping more tears from his eyes. ‘Do you have any idea what it’s been like, these last nine years? All the good people who have died, where I’ve stood by and done nothing. How do you think I felt on September the 11th, watching all those people die? But I did nothing. I could’ve saved my own father, but I did nothing. I followed the rules, Doctor. I did as I was told. I just want one life. Is that too much to ask?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the Doctor regretfully. ‘I’m afraid it is. You can’t change the past.’

  ‘Can’t he?’ said Amy. She had tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘You’re always saying time can be rewritten. Why not now?’

  ‘Because this isn’t about one person’s life,’ explained the Doctor. ‘The Angels have arranged this deliberately so that any change in the timeline will have the greatest possible impact.’

  ‘But there’s got to be some way of saving her,’ cried Amy. ‘There has to be something we can do!’

  ‘No. Rebecca’s death is a complex space-time event. If Mark prevents it, he won’t just change the future, he’ll change the past as well.’

  The poor guy, thought Rory. All he wants to do is to save his wife’s life. Rory thought about what he would do if he was in Mark’s shoes, and it was Amy who was about

  to die. Would he risk everything just for the slightest possibility of saving her? Of course he would. Like a shot.

  Because the thought of her death, the thought of having to go on living without her, was simply too terrible to imagine.

  Rory wiped the tears from his eyes and swung his torch around him again, almost grateful for the distraction.

  While the two Angels on either side of Mark hadn’t moved, the others had each taken three or four steps closer and had raised their arms to either side. Closing off any gaps between them.

  ‘You’re lying!’ cried Mark. ‘You can’t know any of this for sure!’

  ‘Mark, if you save her, what do you think will happen?’

  said the Doctor. ‘You think you’ll just get to carry on from where you left
off?’

  ‘No –’

  ‘No. You’ll wipe out the events of the next eight years.

  All that time will be unwritten. But that’s not all you’ll lose. You’ll lose the past nine years too. All the time you had with Rebecca will cease to have existed. All gone. Not even a memory. Every moment you ever spent with her will be lost without trace!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Think. You’ve travelled in time. Your past, present and future are inextricably bound up together. Think of all the times you’ve intervened in your own past. Would you have even got together with Rebecca in the first place if it hadn’t been for your future self? No. But if she never died, you’d never have travelled back and so you’d never have

  got together. That whole timeline will be erased.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ stammered Mark. ‘I don’t believe you!’

  ‘You’ll lose her, Mark. And the Angels will feed, and they will grow stronger. And that will be the beginning of the end of the Earth.’

  ‘What? How do you know that?’

  ‘Because I’ve seen it before! Do you think when the Angels are done with you that’ll be the end of it? No.

  They’ll move onto someone else. Put them through everything you’ve been through until they create another paradox. Then there’ll be someone else, and someone else, until there isn’t a single person left on this planet whose life hasn’t been used by the Angels as a source of nutrition.’ The Doctor raised his eyebrows and spoke softly, pleadingly. ‘And I won’t be able to stop them.

  They’re weak now but they won’t remain weak for long.

  You’re just the first. But you won’t be the last.’

  Mark’s face crumpled in pain. ‘I just want to save her.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said the Doctor, with the sadness of centuries. ‘But you’ve got to let her go.’

  Fez Rory coughed to get the Doctor’s attention. While the Doctor had been trying to make Mark see sense, the four Weeping Angels had advanced even closer. They were now standing only four or five metres away, each with their arms outstretched, their faces eerily calm. ‘Er, Doctor, hate to interrupt, but we have a Weeping Angel situation here.’