Part Seven: Epilogue
"Don't forget we have to collect Harry from the planet," Sarah said, when she could speak again, from her slumped position on the floor of the TARDIS, where she'd collapsed the moment they were through the door, her cotton-wool legs unable to support her a moment longer.
The Doctor, in contrast, seemed as fresh as a daisy still, in spite of everything, already busying himself at the console as if nothing had happened while the familiar sound of the TARDIS engines offered assurance of their safe escape from the inferno. He looked mildly offended that she might think he needed reminding, and loftily sniffed that he hadn't forgotten. "I imagine the Brigadier would take it rather amiss if we mislaid his medical officer on the wrong side of the galaxy."
"I don't suppose Harry would be thrilled, either." Struggling to a more upright sitting position, leaning back against the roundels, she pulled her knees tight to her chest and wrapped her arms around them to keep from shaking.
It had been so close, far too close.
"You know, days like this I wonder why I ever agreed to come with you," she muttered, and determinedly turned her face away from him, so as not to see how he reacted – or didn't react, as the case may be. "Look at me, I'm filthy – nose full of smoke, legs like jelly – haven't slept in days." Her stomach rumbled loudly. "And dinner was goodness only knows how many planets and time zones ago!"
In the silence that followed, she let her forehead drop onto her arms and didn't move even when the Doctor quietly came alongside her. A moment later there was a faint rustling sound, and she lifted her head to find herself staring into a bag of jelly babies, the Doctor waggling his eyebrows beseechingly just behind it.
She took one and felt better immediately, ridiculous though it was.
"We really did make a difference here, you know," he said. "The Lindosians are now free to develop as they should – and the Tarsins have also been saved from tyranny, and perhaps they'll have learned something, from the experience."
"I thought they were monsters," she quietly told him, resting her chin on her arms. "The whole time, while I was with the slaves, I thought of the sky raiders as monsters. I saw what they did, how they treated the slaves – as if they were animals, worse than animals. There was a pit." Her eyes burned with hot, angry tears at the memory of it, choking her, making it hard to get the words out. "I found a pit – full of bodies – slaves, used up and then thrown away. Monsters. They were monsters. But then…" She remembered the feel of the gun jerking in her hand, how it had felt to see the guard collapse like a puppet with its string cut, because of her, and swallowed hard on the wave of nausea the memory induced. "But they were just people, weren't they? Just people. And sometimes people do terrible things. My people have done terrible things, too. It doesn't mean they aren't worth saving."
"Sometimes people do wonderful things, as well." The Doctor's voice was soft and deep, almost hypnotic. "Two sides of the same coin. You don't really want to go home, do you?"
"Yes," she said. "No," and then, "I just want to sleep," and that was the complete and honest truth of it.
"Then sleep." He ruffled her hair in a way that would infuriate her if it were anyone else, then pushed up to his feet and headed back to the console. "You know where the bedrooms are."
"Not until we've picked Harry up." She began to pull herself upright once more, aching muscles protesting all the way. "Are you sure you can land in the right place this time? We don't want to leave him stranded."
"Sarah." He shot her a look of deep reproach. "Oh ye of little faith."
"Well, you said we were going to Scotland and we landed on Lindos instead," she pointed out. "And he'll think we've been blown up, or something."
"It's a short hop, Sarah." The Doctor's voice positively dripped with offended dignity. "There's really nothing to it. Trust me – we might even get there before him."
dwdwdwdwdw
It was a fully automated system, pre-programmed – just a matter of punching a few pre-set commands – and it worked, like clockwork.
As the transport vessel set down safely in the mountain base on Lindos, Harry felt a broad smile spreading across his face as anxiety gave way to exhilaration. He'd experienced some incredible things since setting foot inside the Doctor's TARDIS – horrifying, incomprehensible, wonderful things – but this was definitely his favourite.
It had also been one of the most terrifying experiences of his life, all those innocent lives resting squarely on his shoulders, with no safety net for error, so he allowed himself a few moments to catch his breath and let his frantic heart rate slow to a more normal pace before clambering out of the cockpit and heading around to the cargo bay to release his passengers.
Would the reactor up at the moon base have hit meltdown by now? Had the Doctor been able to prevent it – or had he and Sarah at least managed to get away in time? The Doctor wouldn't have allowed Sarah to come to any harm, surely, yet Harry couldn't help but worry as he hit the release button to open the cargo bay doors, wondering how long it might be before he found out what had become of them – if ever.
Roba sprang out of the cargo bay like a jack-in-the-box and leapt into his arms, yelling his head off with triumph and delight, and that childish joy was infectious, driving out all gloomy fears. Harry laughed as he swung the boy around and set him down, then turned back to start helping the others make their way out, and that was when he heard it.
Engines – TARDIS engines. They'd made it.
dwdwdwdwdw
There were more Lindosians than Sarah had realised, some she recognised from the mine and many more she hadn't seen before. Some of them were injured and some were sick, some were frightened, others triumphant, all of them hungry and most of them confused, unsure whether they dared believe the ordeal was over or not.
It seemed to take forever to sort them all out, but there was food and first aid supplies in the abandoned Tarsin base, and Harry was a doctor and the Doctor was the Doctor, and slowly but surely order was imposed upon the chaos; the freed slaves began to revive, both physically and mentally and started to organise themselves. They came from different settlements, different tribes, and banded together accordingly into smaller and larger groups, working together to get their bearings and make plans for their journeys home.
While the Doctor busied himself with something technical deep inside the base, Sarah and Harry followed the rag-tag refugees outside to find a new day dawning on Lindos. The groups of survivors began to drift away, one by one, until only Emera's group were left. Olos was back on his feet now and Sarah was happy to see it, exchanged handshakes with them all and wished them well. She returned Roba's enthusiastic hug of farewell with all her heart and watched fondly as he ran to say goodbye to Harry, then turned to say a heartfelt farewell of her own.
"I did not believe you," Emera softly said. "You told us that if we strove, one step and then another, there would be a way, that we might be free. And I did not believe it was possible, yet here we stand. Free."
Sarah caught at her hand and squeezed it. "You came with me, though. You believed enough for that."
"I still do not know where you come from, you and your friends. But I think perhaps the gods sent you, to save us."
"You saved yourselves," Sarah told her, "By not giving up – by taking the chance when you had it."
"Perhaps we all saved one another." Emera smiled warmly, and then glanced over at Harry and Roba with a chuckle. "I think my son will miss your friend."
"I think he will," Sarah agreed with a smile. "I'm glad I met you, Emera. Be safe, on the journey home – and give your daughters a big hug from me."
"I will. But the first embrace will be mine and mine alone."
And that was farewell. Sarah watched as the group made their way out across the valley floor to the hills beyond, bathed in the rising sun and freedom of the rest of their lives, waving until they were out of sight. Then she wandered over to join Harry, who'd found a handy rock seat nearby.
"So you flew a spaceship all by yourself, did you?" Dropping onto the rock alongside him, she watched his face light up with boyish delight.
"I did." He was very pleased with himself. "It wasn't actually all that difficult, really."
Sarah laughed. "Oh, so you'll be trading in your stethoscope for a spacesuit when we get back to Earth, then," she teased and he huffed a rueful little chuckle.
"If we ever get back to Earth, not a chance. No, I know where my calling lies, and it certainly isn't in space."
And that was rather a telling little statement, she felt, all things considered. "What do you mean, if? Of course we'll make it back. We always do. The Doctor just…has a knack for finding the most scenic route possible."
Harry leaned forward, resting an elbow on his knee and his chin on a hand, surveying the valley before them. "Well, this particular leg of the detour certainly is scenic, I will say."
It was. With everything that had been happening, Sarah had almost forgotten to notice just how gloriously, beautifully alien the landscape of Lindos was, but she admired it anew now, leaning back to soak up the deliciously hot rays of the rising sun and breathing in the heady scent of the flowers that carpeted the mountainside.
"So do you regret it?" she suddenly thought to ask, remembering their conversation of however long ago it had been, camping out in those hills in the dark.
"Do I regret what?" Harry had evidently forgotten all about it.
"You told me to ask you again later, when this was all over. So I am. Do you regret coming along for the ride? I know the Doctor didn't exactly warn you what to expect – and I don't think even he expected to be away for as long as this, so…do you?"
Gazing out across the alien landscape, Harry looked about as content as she'd seen him since the moment the Doctor tricked him into setting foot inside the TARDIS as a joke that had got further and further out of hand with every new destination they reached that wasn't UNIT. "No," he said at last. "No, I don't think I do. I don't suppose I'd have agreed to come along if I'd been asked, of course, if I'd known what it meant –"
"If you'd believed it, you mean."
"But I'm here now. And there it is. So no. No regrets."
"I'm glad," Sarah told him, and she was. As fond as she was of the Doctor, in all his enigmatic, charismatic, irresistibly wonderful alienness, it was fun having a human friend along to share the experience on a more equal footing, and she would hate to think he was miserable about it. "I can see the 'but' coming before you say it, though," she added with a grin. "But you'd quite like to head back to UNIT now and find out why the Brigadier was calling for us."
He looked slightly chagrined. "Am I that transparent?"
"Oh, only sometimes," she teased, but then added, more seriously, "I'm sure we'll end up in the right place this time, you know – the Doctor won't leave the Brig in the lurch, not if he really needs help."
Harry smiled. "I'm sure you're right."
She dug an elbow into his ribs, a quick, playful jab. "Of course I'm right."
They fell silent for a moment, watching the sun rise and the moons set in that brilliant green sky above purple-blue hills, and it was beautiful and strange and alien, and reminded Sarah again both of how much she loved experiencing new worlds like this and of how long it had been since she last saw the reassuringly familiar sights and sounds of home.
"It'll be good to go home for a while," she admitted, thinking longingly of her own comfy bed and her favourite meal at her favourite restaurant, such simple pleasures from what felt like a lifetime ago. "It seems such a long time."
"Really?" Harry glanced at her in surprise. "I thought you'd have been happy to carry on indefinitely, taking on the universe one frontier at a time."
"Hey, I might not be facing court martial if I don't show up for parade but I do have a life too, you know," Sarah pointed out. "And it's about time I looked in on it. Aunt Lavinia must think I've fallen off the face of the Earth or something."
"Well, she'd be right, wouldn't she?" Harry mildly observed, and that brought her up sharp because he was right.
"I've never really thought about it like that. When I'm away, it's as if real life doesn't exist any more – it just gets put on hold until I'm back. But we've never been away as long as this before, not in one stretch." And that was another point. "We don't even know how long it's been, do we? Not for them and not for us – I've completely lost track."
"So perhaps now I should ask you," Harry quietly said. "Do you mind?"
"No." The answer came instinctively; she didn't even have to think about it. "No. I know I get a bit fed up sometimes, but I'd do it all again. I don't care how long it's been. I don't care how tired I feel, how many deadlines I've missed, or how many bills I haven't paid – I'd do it all again in a heartbeat."
"Are you two coming?" a powerful voice boomed out behind them. "Or shall I go without you."
And just like that, the moment of reflection was over and it was time to move on.
"I like that!" Sarah protested, swinging around to see the Doctor leaning against the tunnel entrance, grinning. "We've been waiting for you to finish…whatever it is you've been doing."
"Whatever I've been doing?" he indignantly echoed, and this was a game they could play all day and they both knew it, which was why he was smiling as he loftily explained that he'd been setting the outpost to self-destruct once everyone was clear, because it was alien technology that the Lindosians could very well do without, their development had been interfered with enough already – oh, and the countdown was already ticking, so they'd better hurry up if they wanted to catch their ride home.
So they ran, back through the tunnel into the cavern beyond where the TARDIS was waiting for them, a slightly more leisurely sprint than the one up on that moon base, but urgent enough, into the TARDIS and away.
"To Scotland, then," the Doctor declared. "Right, Harry? I believe the Brigadier is waiting for us."
"Thank you," said Harry, looking relieved.
"I think we'll take the long way around, though…" the Doctor added, and that casual little statement promptly triggered a red warning flag.
"Oh, Doctor, you promised," Sarah protested, in the same moment that Harry cried out, "Now hang on just a minute," and the Doctor lifted a hand to quieten them both, looking amused.
"Relax. Honestly, I've never known such worry-worts. In fact, relaxing is just what I want you to do, both of you – fat lot of good you'd be to the Brigadier in this state. So go on, be off with you, the pair of you. Get a good night's sleep while I just give the stabilisers the once over, and we'll be with the Brigadier and his Scottish emergency before you know it, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed."
dwdwdwdwdw
What with one thing and another, Harry hadn't really ventured far beyond the console room of the TARDIS before. The corridors seemed to go on for ever, and if he weren't quite so tired he might have had a good mind to explore, but as it was, with the crisis over and the journey home underway, he was tired enough to simply fall onto the first bed he saw, asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.
It was the first good night's sleep he'd had since they left Earth, and, like Sarah, he'd completely lost track of how long ago that had been, running around from one place and time to another as they'd been. He awoke unknown hours later, feeling well rested and refreshed, to find Sarah still asleep on another bed just across the way.
There was no sign of the Doctor.
Harry went exploring. He got lost more than once, but along the way managed to find a bathroom, a kitchen and the most ridiculously enormous wardrobe he'd ever encountered, so huge he scarcely dared go in, in case he never found his way back out again. Most of the outfits were outrageously garish, but he managed to turn up something that would do and quickly freshened up, dropping his own sadly travel-stained clothes into some kind of Laundromat machine set into the wall, then found himself a bite to eat and made a cup of tea to take back for Sarah.
He only got lost once on his way back to the sleeping quarters. Sarah was just waking up as he arrived, so he gave her the tea, left her to her ablutions and headed for the console room, where he found the Doctor in more or less exactly the same position they'd left him – did the man never need to sleep?
"I say, Doctor – you haven't been at it all night, have you?"
"Good morning, Harry," the Doctor cheerfully boomed, as a tremendous final wheeze and the stilling of the central column indicated that they'd reached their destination – or a destination, at any rate. "You're just in time, we're landing. Where's Sarah?"
"Coming," Sarah herself called from just down the hallway.
"It was the navigational stabilisers, you see." The Doctor turned back to Harry.
"What was?" Harry was almost sure he did it on purpose, carrying on a conversation they'd never had just to keep him on his toes. He never knew what the man was talking about, half the time.
"That took us off course, of course. High time the old girl had a thorough overhaul, you know. Still, it's all in good working order now, I'm sure of it. Almost sure, at any rate." He buffed a spot on the console with his sleeve and then patted it fondly. "Yes, I'm almost sure of it. Get the door, would you, Harry."
The door control was one of the few switches on that console that Harry dared touch, after the alarming outcome of his first encounter with this remarkable machine. He flipped the switch and headed for the opening door, hoping rather than expecting to see Loch Ness, which was where the Brigadier's summons had originated.
The door opened into space – or height, rather – and he had to catch hold of the frame to avoid stepping out onto nothing, looked down at a tremendous drop of many thousands of feet, dizzyingly far and crowded with traffic…airborne traffic, zipping around at breath-taking speed. Looking up again, he blinked and jerked back as another of those flying cars zipped past, almost close enough to touch – and then another, and another. The sky was full of them, zooming around in all directions and at all levels.
It was a city of some kind – a city of skyscrapers, impossibly high, all glass and chrome, graceful and curved, busy and bustling with air traffic of all shapes and sizes, as far as the eye could see.
Not Loch Ness, then.
"Er, Doctor…"
~END~
© J. Browning, May 2013
