It was raining. He knew it would be, of course, but that didn't make it any less unpleasant. He ducked his head against the downpour and walked fast. He didn't pay attention to his surroundings but he knew the path well. Left at the lights, cut across the parking lot, right at the house with the broken window. And there it was, standing amongst the litter in an alleyway, looking like it had been abandoned. The rain had turned the blue paint dark, and in the twilight it looked almost black. Later he would say that it was because of the darkness and the rain that he didn't notice the bundle of cloth that was heaped at the foot of the box, and he had assumed it was nothing more than human refuse.
It looked up. "You are not the man I was looking for," it said.
"Sorry," he said to hide his shock. He looked around and hesitated; he should be moving on. He was getting to be too well-known in these parts, and people would start looking for him. But the cloth-bundle (containing a young woman's face, he now saw) was drenched from the rain, and he didn't want the thought of her catching pneumonia to nag at him. "Perhaps you should go indoors," he said. "Don't you have somewhere warm to be?"
"Yes," she said. She didn't move. She was still staring at him.
"Maybe you should go there now," he said, hoping she'd get the hint and move on. She was sitting directly in front of the door, and he was too polite to step over her.
"I was looking for you," she said.
"But you just said that you weren't looking for me. Really, if we're going to talk in riddles, I'd like a bit of warning first."
"I was looking for you, but I came too late," she said. She lowered her head, hiding her face again. "I always come too late."
He was getting quite chilled by this point, and he reckoned that the woman must be freezing. This is a bad idea, he thought, but ignored it. "Look, why don't you come into my, erm, box and warm up. Then you can tell me what's wrong." He smiled hopefully, even though she couldn't see him.
She looked up. "Into the magic blue box, the wonderful Wonkavator, that goes up and down and sideways and slantways and longways and squareways," she smiled.
"Was that a yes?" he asked. She might be crazy, or she might be messing with him. Either way, she would be interesting to have a conversation with.
She held out a hand. It took a second before he realised she was waiting for him to help her up. He obliged. "What was your name?" he asked.
"Didn't give it. But you can call me Jane," she replied, sounding lucid and cheerful. She held out her hand again, this time to shake.
Again, he obliged. "I take it that's not your real name?"
She grinned. "What's in a name? What does a 'real' name tell you about a person? Are any of our names real?"
"Good point," he said, unlocking the door. "I'm the Doctor. Nice to meet you."
*** She took the inside of the 'box' rather well. She strode straight up the ramp and to the console, sitting down on the creaky jump seat as if she'd done it for years. "It's nice," she said.
"Erm, yes it is," he said, watching her carefully. "It's also, you know, bigger on the inside."
"Yes, I can see that," she said gently.
"And that doesn't bother you?"
" 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than can be dreamt of in your philosophy.' "
More riddles. "Not the first time someone's said that to me," he said. "I meet Old Bill once. Cheeky flirt."
"Ah, but have you meet your match?" she grinned again.
She must be mad. Only the insane take things like this so well. "Who are you?"
"I am a redundant tool. An anomaly. A saviour for those already saved."
This was getting tiresome. "How long were you out in the rain?" he asked, taking a different tactic.
She fell silent and still, no longer grinning. " 'The day is cold, and dark, and dreary. It rains, and the wind is never weary,' " she said softly.
"Longfellow," he said. "First Dahl, then Shakespeare, now Longfellow. You're a fan of literature. That's something at least. Who are you?"
" 'Be still, sad heart! and cease repining; behind the clouds is the sun still shining; thy fate is the common fate of all-' "
" '-into each life some rain must fall, some days must be dark and dreary,' " he finished. Her smile was faint but content.
He was still standing by the door, water dripping off him. A similar puddle was forming under the jump seat from her clothes. He walked up to the woman and said, "I'll get you something so you can dry off." She didn't move, only looked at him.
He disappeared into the maze of hallways and returned a few minutes later with some towels and a tartan blanket. "There's always something tartan in here, sorry 'bout that," he muttered. He set them down beside her and leaned against the console. In silence she stripped off her jacket and squeezed the water out of her hair. She kicked off her shoes and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders.
"Better?" he said.
"Do you want to look inside my head?" she asked.
He blinked, but didn't say anything. The question had taken him by surprise. She intrigued him, and he wanted to know where she came from, but did he really need to go that far? He could see that there wasn't anything overtly malicious or devious in her character, but the way she talked and the things she said unnerved him. She knew something, and wasn't going to give it up easily. And she had given him permission, in a roundabout sort of way. But that wasn't right, was it? You can't consent to something if you don't know what it is. And he wasn't sure if she was rational enough to give such permission. He said, "How would you suggest I look in your head? I'm not a therapist; I don't have an MRI; I'm certainly no surgeon-"
She moved swiftly and suddenly she was in front of him, pinning him to the console. "Use those magic fingers. You can wander the halls of my mind as easily as I can wander the streets of London." When he still hesitated, she said, "I don't have the words to explain it. You need to see for yourself. Please."
He was forced to look her in the eye for the first time. They were a marble-like green; interesting, but nothing to write sonnets about. Under the colour, they were complex. Pleading, desperation, passion-fire, and the strange calm of the mad all swirled together. "Alright," he finally said. He placed his fingers against her temples, her skin nearly as cool as his, and without thinking said, "I'll be gentle."
She laughed once, a brief exhalation. "Just try me."
Then he was in her head.
In the few minds he had been in, there had been doors of locked information and pockets of random sensation. It was disorientating, like being in a carnival funhouse, but he grew used to it quickly. No matter the time, place, or species, his experience of another's mind was roughly the same.
Her mind was different. For one thing, it was ordered. It was as organized as any library. Other minds had memory stuffed next to fantasy, today beside twelve years ago, a certain smell connected to a person. Her mind adapted itself to him. It brought up the most recent memories first and started to flip backwards. He could see how he looked through her eyes; the sopping too-long hair covering half of his pale too-long face. The memories flipped faster, blurring together and leaping through months and years of her life.
He wasn't doing this. She was. She was leading him to a specific moment in her mind, the important moment that she couldn't tell him herself.
Suddenly the motion stopped. The memories had reached the end and disappeared. He was left in blackness, or at least his mental perception of blackness. Movement caught his eye. What was down here, in the basement of her mind? That tingling nervousness he felt when he looked at her had come back.
There! Something large and white and slow. Something walking towards him. He watched warily as it approached. It was an animal of some sort. It seemed to take ages for it to get close, but again it was only his perception. When he could finally make out its form, he didn't gasp or cry out or stare in disbelief. He merely breathed deep and tilted his head in recognition.
It was a wolf.
Truthfully, he wanted to leave it all behind. Move on. Start over. Let the past stay dead. He hated being followed by ghosts.
The wolf stopped in front of him. Its ears could have brushed his chin, it was so tall. Its fur was thick and creamy and luxurious, the kind of fur you wanted to bury your face in and never leave. But he was more interested in the eyes. Its eyes were the same colour yellow as gold and amber reflecting candlelight. They held wisdom, and comfort, and trust. It was a beautiful creature. "I wonder what Freud would have said about you," he murmured.
It huffed in the same way the woman did, so he took it for laughter. They stared at each other for while, examining the other, until the wolf stepped to the side and stared behind him. He turned.
There was another wolf watching them. It was so different in appearance to the first one that it was almost painful to look at. Its skin stretched over sharp bones and ropey muscle, and its brindled fur was lank and ragged. Salvia dripped from its open jaws, and it panted wetly. Its eyes were also yellow, but reminded him of pus-filled orbs rather than jewels. They were so round they looked like they would burst from its skull at any moment. It had rabid eyes.
"What have you done?" he whispered. He heard something and reluctantly turned back. He didn't trust that thing behind him. The first wolf was trotting away, lifting up its muzzle in a howl that he couldn't hear but felt in his bones. Other shadows brushed past him, following their leader. They ran off into the darkness.
He looked back at the monstrosity. It hadn't moved. "What do you want from me?" he called. "Why do you need me?"
The creature (he refused to call it by the same name as the one that just left) lifted its head slightly, and began to cough. It was a racking, tortuous noise, causing salvia to fly everywhere. It was made worse when he realized it wasn't coughing, but laughing. The noise got louder and hoarser and more terrible until he finally covered his ears and yelled, "Stop it!"
It did. The silence rang with the memory of sound, but it was silence nonetheless. "What are you?" he said. The creature did nothing but stare at him with insane intensity. Then, with impossible speed, it rushed at him and leapt at his throat.
He pulled out of her mind and stood panting against the console. She looked at him sadly. "See?"
"What are you?" he asked again, but wasn't sure if he was referring to the creature or the woman. He needed answers. This was getting out of hand.
"I was supposed to help you. I'm sorry."
Normally he was slow to anger, but the encounter with the wolves had scared him. "You need to stop this," he said. "You need to tell what was in your mind. You need to tell me how you found me, and what you're supposed to do, and what I'm supposed to do. Tell me!" he said when she didn't move.
"She saw everything," she said quietly.
He stopped, then gently led her back to the jump seat. "Tell me what happened," he said just as gently, sitting beside her. She stared into space, not looking at him. She drew a rough breath and started talking.
"For the briefest moment, she saw everything. The length and breadth and depth of it all. Everything. She could have changed so much, but she didn't. She focused on you." She smiled slightly. "She saw your timeline, burning across the stars. She watched all the lives you touched and saw her place in it. All the events that happened. She watched her death, and the beach. She watched the stars disappear. She watched the reunion, and the crisis, and the final parting. She watched you continue on alone, always alone. So, she tried to give you the right kind of companion. The immortal you ran from. The soldier who died in your arms. The equal who had to forget you. All failures." She turned to him and talked faster. "It was all done by instinct, you see, she was almost unconscious of what she was doing. Nothing was done deliberately. She never wanted to cause pain or sorrow, but she did the best she could. She wanted to create hope." She turned away again, all animation gone. "Even as she paved the way for their creation, she saw how they failed. Some new variable changed with each new test. She kept trying."
He remembered what she said earlier. "You're one of the anomalies," he said. He felt numb. Would the consequences of that night never leave him?
"Yes. She changed me. She told me about you. She said, 'Find him.' She gave me the knowledge of your history, and adjusted my mind so I could use it. I was another test. An experiment."
"I'm sorry," he said. It was the only thing he could offer.
"She was so young," she whispered.
They fell silent again. Her speech seemed to have used up her energy, and he needed time to think. He didn't know how long he sat there before he realized she had fallen asleep. He straightened the blanket around her and stood. "We'll talk in the morning," he murmured and left her there.
***
Literary sources are: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dalh, Hamlet by William Shakespeare, and The Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.