Author Notes: Set post 'The Wedding of River Song.' Brigadier Winifred Bambera, Ancelyn, and Shou Yuing all appeared in the Seventh Doctor story 'Battlefield,' which featured the last appearance of the Brigadier in a Doctor Who story and the only on-screen appearance of his second wife, Doris.
THE MOURNER'S FACES
When the noise of the TARDIS engines sounded from the second floor, Doris wasn't surprised. Tears did prick her eyes though, because Alistair had been right – the Doctor had turned up, just not when everybody else had. Of course. Doris let the tears fall for a few moments before taking a deep breath and washing her face. The Doctor did not deal well with tears, but he did enjoy her pumpkin soup and she'd been keeping a batch ready for him ever since the care home had called her about the Doctor making contact.
By the time the Doctor clattered down the stairs, Doris was in the kitchen, warming up the soup and retrieving the last of the Swiss roll. As she heard the Doctor making his way down the hallway, she steeled herself, just a little. Who knew which version was paying her a visit? If it was an early one, she couldn't say anything about what had recently occurred and it would probably be best if she asked him to leave before he worked it out for himself, because that would be painfully awkward and awful for both of them and…
"Pumpkin soup. Just what I need."
Doris turned with a relieved and warm smile. It was a later incarnation, though the youngest-looking yet, even in tweed and a bowtie. She was always struck by the urge to take a brush and pair of scissors to this one's hair. And…oh, he knew. Doris had seen that same weight of grief on everybody who'd come to visit her lately. Her smile lessened.
"Doctor." She stopped there, not wanting him to see accusations or bite in her words, though she'd felt plenty of both at her lowest and most lonely ebbs. The Doctor carried so much guilt already. "He said you'd be along eventually."
The Doctor looked even sadder – "he hates being thought of as predictable, Doris. But there's not much he could say to surprise me, not any more. And I think he needs that." The silence stretched out, becoming vast and terrible. For once, the Doctor didn't know what to say. He looked…utterly bereft. Doris ladled out a bowl of soup.
"Eat before it gets cold."
Her tone was kind and would broker no arguments. She'd lived her life around men in the service and knew exactly how to handle them. The Doctor sat down obediently and drank both the soup and the cup of tea she provided, sweetened just the way he liked it. While he was occupied, Doris went to the sitting room to retrieve a pile of letters bound up with a neat green ribbon. She'd kept them in a locked dresser drawer for months now. The journey between rooms took her much longer than it used to.
The Doctor was just finishing the Swiss roll when she placed the parcel at his elbow. He looked at it with some trepidation. She offered him a napkin for the soup around his mouth. Whatever body he wore, he always had the air of a small child, not yet entirely taught table manners.
"A present from your friends," Doris supplied when the Doctor didn't ask, staring at the envelopes as though they might explode. "They left them when they came to visit."
It had been Martha's idea. She'd visited along with her husband as soon as they'd heard the news. Martha had double-checked Doris's medical records, giving her a full check-up before she and Mickey had begun working on the garden together. Doris hadn't asked them to. She'd sat and watched; warm in the sun yet a part of her heart staying in shadow when Alistair hadn't appear around the corner, carrying something to plant. When she'd left, Martha had left a phone number for Doris and a letter.
"For the Doctor, when he eventually turns up," she'd said with a rueful look of what-can-you-do-about-him?
It had been lovely to have people in the house who'd known and loved Alistair, something she must have mentioned to Martha because people continued to turn up after that. Sarah-Jane and her family, those lovely children who were so sweet and who had hesitantly offered how much they'd liked Alistair. Jo Jones had arrived with a marvellous fruit cake and had baked with Doris for a whole afternoon while her grandson fixed that dripping pipe in the second bathroom. Winifred and Ancelyn who'd serviced Bessie. Winifred had mostly silver in her hair now and wore a suit in the exact same way that she'd worn her old uniform. Ancelyn had brought his sword to the funeral and had saluted the coffin with it.
Ace, of course, who'd worn a leather jacket over her funeral clothes and sunglasses that had hidden her eyes from the world. The teenage nickname still suited her and she'd clung to Doris fiercely for a few moments before leaving. She'd brought a present from Shou Yuing, a beautiful potted plant with unnaturally red leaves and bright yellow petals.
The Doctor had missed all of that. On purpose.
Now, he was looking more than a little guilty, a little boy caught with an empty biscuit tin in hand and melted chocolate on his face. Doris poured him more tea.
"I'm told that you rarely answer your phone and never return calls, so it was decided that letters would be best, for the next time you visited."
The Doctor touched the very edge of the top letter, delicately as though it would crumble into dust; perhaps he recognised Jo Jones' spidery handwriting. He managed to swallow and then clung to the full tea cup like a lifeline. Doris smiled softly. Poor boy, he really didn't know what to say. She wondered, not for the first time, if he'd ever had a mother.
"Many people went to a great deal of trouble to deliver them so make sure that you read them."
The Doctor stared down at his tea for a moment, then at the letters until a sort of smile bent his mouth upwards, though the fearful expression was still very much present. "I will."
It was as much as could be expected. He probably wouldn't answer them. But Doris knew how to pick her battles. Her mind turned to the one friend of the Doctor who hadn't left a note. Gleeful verbal instructions had been provided instead and Doris kept her tone as one of casual interest.
"Doctor Song didn't leave one, of course. She said that you'd understand."
The Doctor choked on a mouthful of tea and Doris smiled into her own cup. River had mentioned that the idea of her visiting without him present would horrify him – "He thinks I need supervision, darling. I can't think what he imagines I'll get up to with the two of you." She'd claimed that they simply had to reveal her numerous visits, just to see the look on his face. She'd said that it would make up for some of the difficulties he'd put them through.
His expression was indeed priceless. Oh, if only Alistair had been here to see it. Doris's smile twisted into sadness and she carefully got up to deal with the dishes at the sink in order to compose herself.
Alistair had enjoyed River's company and her stories. He'd treated her with the same dry amusement that he'd always used in the Doctor's company. River had tucked her arm through his and had asked Doris if she minded sharing. They'd spent a lot of time laughing together. River had always left with a flask of pumpkin soup.
She'd come to see Doris alone once, when Alistair was off in Peru again – why were all the UNIT conferences being held there nowadays? She'd looked a little older and a little sadder, especially when she'd seen the care home brochures on the kitchen table. Doris had made her tea and had sat down, anxious and resigned and knowing that something had happened. It was the same feeling she got sometimes when the Doctor turned up.
"I can't tell you," River had started with, looking so much like the Doctor in that moment. "And I'm so sick of saying that to people. But I really can't say a word. All I can leave you with is the fact that you won't be alone, not at all."
Doris, who's mind had been filled with medical prognoses and Alistair's protests that he wanted to stay at home no matter what, had clasped River's hands and thanked her. River had held on just as tightly. She'd stayed for hours afterwards, much longer than she usually did. It was the last time she'd visited the house before Alistair's death, though Doris had a suspicion that River had turned up several times at the care home. Maybe she'd even been there on that last grey day.
She'd been at the funeral, wearing the most extraordinary hat and laughing at the stories people told. She'd told her own at the party afterwards, had danced with everyone, and had kissed Doris's cheeks before leaving in her usual showy flash of light.
"I can't tell that story," she'd said, whenever Doris or Alistair had asked about where she was living and why she always had to leave so quickly. "Timelines, well…anyway, it doesn't matter really, not here."
She'd told them other stories instead.
When Doris turned back around, fortified now, to face the Doctor again, he was still looking utterly poleaxed. River did have a tendency to do that to people, Doris had noticed, it was little wonder that she and the Doctor clearly knew each other so well.
"She told us all about her parents. Neither of us could make head nor tail of it at first, but well, we got there eventually. It's quite unbelievable."
The Doctor started at her voice, clearly lost in painful daydreams, and managed a mangled sort of a smile.
"Yes, I get that a lot," he said at last, allowing a brief pause before diving back in. "River was…really, River came here?"
"More than once. She was always welcome." Ah, there was the guilty look again. Doris smiled gently and eased herself back down into her chair. Her joints were beginning to hurt more now. "Now then, there's no need for that. Alistair never expected you to be any less than yourself."
The Doctor choked on a laugh. "He…he thought too much of me."
"Nonsense. You're here, aren't you? That was what he wanted. Your friends all knew you'd come, that's why they left you the letters."
Doris rubbed at her aching hands and remembered a time when she'd gone for a joy ride in a ridiculously high-powered yet old-fashioned bright yellow car, with a Brigadier that she wasn't married to and two teenage girls. The Doctor was predictable, but his friends behaved in surprising and wonderful ways. He hadn't sent them, but they'd known when they were needed.
Doris could feel her chest rattle when she breathed sometimes. Perhaps she'd get another visit from River, older and sadder and knowing, and they would clutch each other's hands again. Afterwards, she planned on writing a letter of her own to the Doctor. She was sure River would guarantee that he'd receive it.
Her house needed to stay in safe hands. Where else would people gather on summer days or in winter storms? And somebody needed to keep an eye on the flowerbeds.
The Doctor still looked lost. It was a look that Doris herself had been wearing ever since she'd said that final goodbye to her husband. How many times had the Doctor said goodbye to someone dear?
Doris cleared her throat, for both of them. "You never went through those old records of Alistair's like you promised. And I've been owed a dance for decades."
It wasn't much, but it might help, for now. Distraction was all they had left. When the Doctor smiled this time, it looked almost real. So Doris led the way up to the first floor where Alistair had stacked his old forty-fives. The music sounded cracked in places, Doris's feet were slower than before, and as they danced, the dust motes flickered around them endlessly, ticking time away in their own rhythmic countdown.
-the end