A fixed point in time focused on a package. A postman on a two-day time loop trying to deliver said package to a married woman with whom he was having an affair. An impending alien attack. Our pals at UNIT have messed up the dissemination of the anti-Rehengese virus. But they still need to ward off the technological attack somehow... now our heroes have no choice but to start gumshoeing about in different time periods...

On that note, this chapter will pack a punch! Warning: there is some harsh language here.

I had three challenges with this chapter. 1) How mean and coarse does our friend George really need to get, in order to be a fleshed-out character? 2) How to illustrate unhinged-but-sincere? 3) The lingo. I feel like these two characters talk like they're living in the 21st century, but they're a couple of forty-year-olds in the 60's. Hopefully what they're saying is straightforward and universal enough that it doesn't matter much.

Or maybe it's that the TARDIS is "translating" for Martha ;-).

Shout out to my unofficial Beta, my good friend Miggs who enjoys the unhinged aspects.

I hope this makes you shudder just a little! Enjoy!


IX

The Doctor and Martha briefly returned to the TARDIS to warn her of the impending attack by the Rehengese, now that they had a way of getting into her systems. Reassuringly, she did not seem worried. They also picked up the lug nuts they had rigged to become high-level perception filters and put them around their necks.

"Ready?" asked the Doctor.

"Ready as I'll ever be," Martha answered.

They tested the filters by walking into the UNIT truck, and when no-one noticed them at all, including Larry, even when they both sat down on either side of him at computer work stations, they were satisfied that the devices worked. They went into the Handler house via the garage door, then out through the front door, and into a day in the 1960's when everything changed somehow for a postman, and a red-haired lady on his route. They raised the garage door then by hand and spied, as Martha had before, a shiny black Chevrolet with a plush toy in the rear window. They shut it behind them, then eased open the door to the house.

"I have to say, even for me, this is weird," the Doctor whispered with a sour look on his face. "Didn't we just leave this house?"

Immediately, they heard noises coming from the bedroom.

"Ugh," Martha groaned.

The Doctor snuck in ahead of her, and his eyes darted round the space. Upon the kitchen counter, he spied a newspaper laying open, with a cold cup of coffee and an ashtray sitting on top of it. He reckoned it was today's paper, since a homemaker in the 1960's would have needed the counter clear for breakfast and dinner. He flipped the paper back to see the front page. It was the Thursday, May 12, 1966 edition of The Denver Post. He showed it to Martha; they now had a date to work with.

A loud moan, a squeal and laughter came from down the hall. From there, the sound of wood repeatedly pounding the wall filled the air, accompanied by a short, high squeak with each strike. In spite of herself, Martha stifled a giggle. The Doctor smirked at her, then made his way toward the noise.

He knew what he'd find, but he was drawn to the scene; had to see for himself. Surely enough, there was a rather stunning, porcelain-skinned, red-haired woman lying on her back on the bed, with her legs wrapped around a man. He was thrusting, growling at her, knocking the headboard against the white, green and peach wallpapered surface behind it. She arched her back and began to huff encouragements at him.

Martha came up behind him and took a peek. "This is different from what I saw before," she whispered.

"Maybe we're early," he said.

With that, the watched woman seemed to flush all over, she screamed and cursed and gripped at the arms of the man. And then the intensity in her seemed to subside, as it does.

The Doctor whispered, "I can't seem to look away."

"I wonder why," Martha chuckled.

"Maybe it's like a train wreck," he speculated.

"Yeah, that's what it's like," she muttered, sarcastically.

The woman on the bed then said with a heady, breathy voice, "All right you. On your back."

With the change of position, the Doctor instinctively pulled back and out of sight of the lovers, though he knew he couldn't really be seen. At this stage, Martha recognised the tableau as roughly where she had entered before, with Lillian Handler straddling, and only visible from the back, her partner's eyes fixed on her bouncing bosom.

"Okay," said the Doctor as he stepped back into the doorway. "I see the letter bag. The shoulder strap is hanging off the footboard."

"That is what you're getting from this?" she asked, with another chuckle.

"Sorry. Just trying to look somewhere else."

"I wonder if everyone will get their post today," Martha wondered, whimsically, after about thirty seconds passed.

"Certainly doesn't seem like it, does it?" the Doctor speculated. He looked at his wrist as though to check the time. "He'd better get a shift on."

In a few minutes, the cries grew louder again, and both spectators stepped aside, to hide their view of the proceedings. Both parties on the bed were nearing climax, with, as Martha had described, phrases like, "Yes, yes, yes," and "Oh God," escaping in the form of moans and exclamations. Before long, an eruption of sorts came forth from both participants' voices, as though they were competing to be heard.

"Does this mean it's over?" the Doctor asked, his eyes shut tight.

"Sounds like it. Thank God."

There was only panting for a few moments, and then George asked, "What's wrong?"

The Doctor and Martha leaned in once again to see what would happen. They saw Lillian, still sitting astride him, her hands on his shoulders, presumably in a post-coital catching-of-breath. Though from the evidence, her face was also registering some kind of dismay.

"You know what's wrong, George," Lillian Handler said.

"Ugh," groaned George. "Again?"

With that, she flung her right leg to the left and extricated herself from the literal entanglement on the bed. She walked naked and spectacular over to the corner where a white and blue flowered housedress had been flung, and she picked it up, shook out the wrinkles, then laid it carefully out on the vanity.

As she did so, he sat up and asked, "Aw, are you having another attack of conscience?" His tone was syrupy sweet, bordering on sarcasm, and his lower lip stuck out slightly.

She was not facing him. "It's not another attack. It's constant. Constant guilt, constant paranoia…"

He stood up from the bed as well, and walked round it. By now, she was climbing into some undergarments that she had found amongst the pile of U.S. Postal-Service-issue garb, but he made no effort to dress just yet.

"Paranoia? About being caught?"

"Yes," she said, quietly.

"Oh, come on," he scolded. "Don't give me that. The possibility of being found-out is what gets you going!"

"No, George, you're wrong."

"I'm wrong? Remember the time when we were doing it on the sofa, and Mrs. Eichen rang the doorbell?"

"That was six months ago," she reminded him.

"So what? Anyone who was actually afraid of getting caught would have stopped riding me. Would have fallen silent and pretended not to be home! Instead, you called out 'I'll be right there, Mae!' and made her wait on the doorstep while you finished. And then I hid in the linen closet!" He was laughing by this time.

"Yeah, yeah, I remember, all right?" she said, harshly, cutting off his chortling. Now in her bra and pants, she put her hands on her hips in exasperation. "Look, maybe at first, that sort of thing turned me on, but… you know, you and I are getting more and more brazen. When we first started this thing, you'd come over around noon, and we were finished by one-thirty, and you were gone by two. Now… Jesus, you don't even get here until almost three! Last Monday, we had to sneak you out the bedroom window because you were still here when John came home! I had my blouse on inside-out, and didn't have dinner started, and I had to make up an excuse!"

"Is that what this is about? You're worried he'll know you're fooling around because you didn't have a casserole in the oven?"

"No," she spat. She turned and plucked his boxer shorts from the mass of clothing on the floor, and tossed them at him. "Get your clothes on, would you?"

He obliged by putting on only the shorts, and asked, "Look, Lilly, if you want me to start coming by around noon again, then I can. If you don't want to be so brazen then I'll make sure I'm out of here in plenty of time. John won't find out, I promise."

"George, that's not going to solve the problem."

"I see. So once again, your guilty conscience rears its head." His tone was drippy sweet again.

"It's not about a guilty conscience anymore. At least not in the way you think. It's not just about stepping out on my husband. It's about my family. Last Monday John almost found out, but even worse than that…"

She had trailed off then, and now stood motionless, eyes wide, contemplating her lover. On her face, Martha thought she could read a weighing of options. Martha could anticipate some of what Lillian might be thinking, because she had been through the "affair" revelation with her own dad. She thought that when Lillian looked at George, she must know that there was almost no chance that he would understand what it was really about, and she was wondering if she should even bother to try and explain. It would just lead to more of this.

But she did try, after George asked, "Even worse than that… what?"

"Even worse than that, the previous week, Diane almost found out," said Lillian.

"How is that worse?"

"She's my daughter!"

"So?"

"Don't you know what a thing like this could do to her? How much it could hurt her?"

"Why? You're not cheating on her!"

The Doctor and Martha looked at each other in disbelief.

And indeed, Lillian laughed bitterly at his non-comprehension. "No, but I'm betraying her father. He has the personality and excitement-level of a cardboard box, but it doesn't matter – he's her daddy. He and I are supposed to be her foundation, her example of what love should look like, of how a family is supposed to be. If she found out what you and I are up to, what's she supposed to think? How's she going to make any sort of sense out of life, and marriage, and how a mother is to feel about her family?"

George shrugged. "She's a child. What the hell would she even know about it?"

"She's sixteen, George," Lillian responded. "She's old enough to understand what we're doing, and that it's wrong. But not really old enough to put it into perspective. She's going to think that I don't love her father, and by extension that I don't care about my family, which means her and her brother and sister. Don't you see?"

George crossed to the armchair and began to step into his postman's trousers. "Clearly, I don't. Like I said, I'll just get out of here before she gets home from school. She's there until all hours anyhow, doing whatever she does… what is she, in drama club?"

Lillian took the cue and began to pull her dress over her arms then. "Drama and cheerleading," she muttered. Then, "No, no, you're missing the point."

"Just what is the point, Lillian?" He stood with his hands in his pockets, waiting.

"The point is, if I'm going to give my children the best example of a good mother, a good wife, a good leader, a good member of a family, of a community, then I can't just not get caught being horrible. I actually have to not be horrible."

With that, she tied off the sash, and smoothed out the dress.

"So, you're ending this with me," he concluded.

Lillian contemplated, as though she hadn't fully realised where this conversation would lead. Contrary to what she had said, it was obvious to Martha that she was having an attack of conscience in that moment, but perhaps it would finally facilitate a change.

"Yes, I think I am," Lillian answered after a few beats. "For the sake of my family, George."

He frowned now too. "You don't even love him!" he whined.

"I do love him, it's just…"

"He doesn't satisfy you!"

"No," she admitted. "Not by a long shot. A very, very long shot. But he's…"

"I know. A good, steady man with integrity and good bearing and he's the father of your children." He said this with a high-pitched, mocking tone. "I've heard it all before."

"Because it's all true."

"Oh, what a big snooze!"

"Just who do you think you are?" she asked, her hands on her hips again. Suddenly, she looked very proper and serious.

"I'm someone who gives you what you need," he practically shouted now. "I'm someone who cares about you, Lillian, on the inside, about what you want, deserve and enjoy! Call it providence, call it an act of God if you like, but I'm on this mail route for a reason. I'm a gift to you, and more importantly, I love you!"

George seemed surprised that this had come tumbling out of his mouth. The Doctor and Martha both separately assumed that it was the first time this revelation had come to light.

"Well," she said, her mouth having gone dry. "So does my husband. And being with him doesn't make me feel like a terrible person." Her voice shook a bit now.

"No, it makes you feel like a pillar of salt," he argued. He now got extremely close to her, took her fingertips lightly in his, without raising them from their position at her sides. With a voice very low and secretive, he asked, "Lilly, when was the last time he made love to you?"

"What?" she responded, in a non-secretive manner.

"Better question: when was the last time he did anything other than get on top of you and push and grunt until he was done, then turn over and fall asleep?"

"I…"

He now stroked her neck just below her ear, with the backs of two fingers. "When was the last time he made you come?"

"George!" she exclaimed, and batted his hand away.

He grabbed her by the arms rather hard now, and continued, louder. "When was the last time he made you come so hard that your eyes rolled back in your head? Or you broke a nail clawing at something?"

"Stop it!" she spat, more annoyed than hurt or frightened.

"When was the last time he made you scream? Has he ever managed to do that? Has he ever made you pant and whimper and yip like a lap dog, like I just did?"

"Jesus Christ, George!" she hissed, and tried to pull away from him.

He would not let her. He now grasped her wrists at an awkward angle, forcing her to stay put.

Very low again, almost at a whisper he asked, "Lilly, you told me about that very first time with him; it was in the attic bedroom in your parents' house, in 1946. Twenty years ago, when he was apprenticing his father, and you were home from college for the weekend. You said it lasted less than two minutes, but you were sure it would get better."

"It did," she said, meekly.

"Maybe so, but come on, now. How many times in all those years has he brought you to the point where you really, really wanted it?"

Stubbornly, Lillian stared at the floor and said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know what I'm talking about, because I've seen you at that point, Lilly. It's that point where, if he doesn't just fuck you right now, and hard, you will absolutely fall apart. When has John given you that?"

She closed her eyes and exhaled… with exhaustion, with resignation, with realisation. For the observers outside the bedroom door, it was difficult to say.

"I don't know," she whispered. "Maybe never."

He moved his mouth in closer. His lips were now less than an inch from her ear. "How many times have you begged him for more? Begged him to do it to you one more time because it was just so good and so delicious and you've just got to have it in you again…"

She wriggled free of him, and he let her. "That's enough!"

"Listen, I only ask because…"

"I know why you ask," she interrupted. "And you're right. You do all of those things. You bring out the fiend in me. You make me scream and scratch and beg and keep me so satisfied, I actually don't know how I'll do without it. But I'll manage."

"Why even try, Lilly? Why are you even thinking of going back? If you think it's wrong for us to carry on while you're married, then make a clean break! Leave him, and just… be with me."

"I can't do that! You know that!"

"I love you, I swear it," he said, his voice hard and serious. "And I would be a better partner to you than he ever was! I can be a provider, I can be earnest and stable and all of that. And you know I can keep you coming and screaming and…"

"George, please."

He fell to his knees and wrapped his arms around her hips. "I would worship this body," he insisted, running his hands over her hips and bum. "I would never leave it wanting. I would never leave you wanting. I would never let you get to a place where you are getting your kicks from someone else – never!"

She pushed his shoulders away. "You're making this harder than it has to be."

He sat back on his heels. "Wouldn't it be a better example to your daughter just to come clean, let your husband be free, and take up with someone new, rather than have her know that you played around behind his back?"

"What would be even better is if I honoured my vows and my commitment to my family."

He stood. "And never again get the good hard screwing that you crave? That you deserve? That your pussy deserves?" He grabbed her by the hips and ground his pelvis against her.

She stepped away hastily, toward the door. The spectators moved out of the way.

"Why do you have to use language like that? You're disgusting," Lillian complained, though it sounded completely contrived.

Something in him snapped then. The whimsy was gone. The playful mocking was gone. The supplication was gone.

The air in the room changed palpably with the shift in McPhail's demeanour. The Doctor and Martha looked at one another, each with a feeling of foreboding. This was where events would begin to play out into tomorrow, leading to a pivotal moment that affects all of time and space. The Doctor knew it in his Time Lord gut. Martha could just feel it in George's very human misery.

"Yeah," George growled, eyeing Lillian sideways, darkly. He bent for his shirt and began to put it on. "Well, disgusting is what you love."

"No," she protested, but not very convincingly. She fiddled with the lapels of her dress.

"No? So, you're really all shocked and shaken because I used some naughty language? Do you know that not one hour ago, you were on your knees in the living room with my cock in your mouth?"

"I know, I remember."

His voice went even harder, and the words came out like bullets. "With your fingers in your cunt, and my come sliding down your throat."

"I know."

Anger escalated in his voice. "And now, you're what? June-Goddamn-Cleaver?"

"A lady can try," she lilted. She stood for a moment and watched him dress.

"A lady?" he scoffed. Then, low and gravelly, but with an intensity that could cut glass, he told her, "Lillian, once something is tainted, there's no cleaning it up again."

"Tainted?" she asked, her eyes narrowed with confusion.

"You can turn over a new leaf and be a good wife and a good member of a family all you like," he said. "It won't change the fact that you're a slut."

She nodded calmly, not at all surprised by his answer.

"Prim and fucking proper," he said. "Family woman. Mother of three. Perfect in every way. But I've seen what happens to you, Lillian Handler, when you've got an urge, when the desire grabs you and you get all pink and wet down there. You can't keep your knees together or your feet on the floor, can you?"

"I can. I've just been making the wrong choices."

"No, you can't," he insisted, his finger now in her face. "I know you too well. You could get rid of me, but it would be just a matter of time before you'd be bouncing up and down on some other guy's rod because you would never, ever get it from that limp fish you call a husband. Mark my words. You're wired a certain way, my darling. Once a slut, always a slut."

She was finally, finally angry now. She batted his hand away, then crossed her arms defensively over her chest. "Is that any way to talk to someone you claimed to love, not five minutes ago?"

He leaned back and crossed his own arms, looking her over. He seemed to think about what she said. Then, "Oh, I love you – I can't help myself. But I know what you are."

"You know what I am?" she asked, in disbelief. "So, what, you'll worship me, never leave me wanting, appreciate me, blah, blah, blah, but remind me of what a low-down whore I am?"

"All of that worshipping and appreciation and never-leave-you-wanting still stands, Lillian," he told her, his voice still rather hardened. "I can't change that I'm in love with you! And I love you because you're like that. Because you're insatiable. Because you behave like a whore when you've got the itch under your skin! I just can't understand why you would choose to carry out this life lying in bed next to Friar Tuck, and very occasionally under him. During which, you'd be checking your watch the whole time and wishing he were me."

"Well, we've established that you can't understand, so why don't we just end this farce now, eh?"

"I swear, if you'd come to your senses, I wouldn't talk to you like that! I wouldn't call you names. I only did that because…"

"…because I'm so damn stupid?"

"I didn't say you're stupid."

"So, if I had come to my senses and decided be with you instead of my husband ten minutes ago when this whole argument started, I wouldn't have heard any of what you actually think of me? I'm a slut? I'm a whore? You love me only because I fuck like a banshee?"

"Listen to me…"

"No!" she shouted. "You mock me for having a goddamned conscience and for wanting to do the right thing. Then you beg me to leave my husband for you and swear that you'll always be the perfect lover. Then you call me a slut and imply that I'm an imbecile… and you still want to be with me? Think I'd be crazy enough to turn my life over to you? Have you lost your mind, George?"

"You belong with me, and you know it," he said, slowly, darkly, teeth gritted. "I need you. Do you understand me?"

Everyone in the room could see that he was holding back some kind of outburst, that he would have liked to lash out, to have his way and be done with not having the upper hand – whatever that meant. The intensity in his eyes and words gave Lillian pause, and she took a step away. "George, you're scaring me a little. Let's just calm down. Both of us."

She then turned and walked through the bedroom door, straight past a Time Lord and his Companion, who were standing, riveted in the hallway.

George followed her out into the living room and grabbed her arm and yanked it. "Don't tell me to calm down! Now listen! I want you with me, now and forever."

"Well you can't have me with you, now and forever," she said, weary. "I'm married. I have a family. I have obligations."

"I don't fucking care about any of that!"

"Well, I fucking do!" After a pause, she said, "On top of which, you are more than a little unhinged."

He looked her over with dark, brooding eyes. "You are a stubborn woman, Lillian. And brave."

"Yeah? Thanks. I try."

"It wasn't a compliment."

"Well, I took it as one."

"I won't stand for it."

"Stand for what?"

"I won't stand for your stubbornness, do you hear me?"

"I hear you. I think you've lost your mind, but I hear you."

"You'd do well to drop the strong woman routine, now, Lillian," he said, his voice creeping like a shadow. "Because I am not playing games now."

"I'm not either, George."

"I will not lose you."

"You don't have a choice," she said, walking away, into the kitchen.

He followed her, and the Doctor and Martha followed him. "I'll give you one last chance. You and I belong together. You know it in your head, in your heart and in your cunt. You're just too brain-addled to see it right now, for some reason."

"Brain addled?" she mocked, with eyes squinted. "Must be my whorish nature. Maybe you just didn't give it to me hard enough to bang any sense into me today."

"Because I love you, I will let that pass," he sang, all too evenly. Then he disappeared into the bedroom and came back with his letter bag.

"Oh good. You're finally leaving. You can just leave my mail in the box tomorrow, okay?"

He went for the front door. "I'll ring the bell tomorrow at noon," he told her. "That's what you said you'd like."

"No, I didn't! What is the matter with you?"

"I'll be back at noon, and I'll give you one more chance. Hopefully, by then, you'll see it the way I see it."

"Don't hold your breath," she muttered, pulling a package of egg noodles out of the cabinet.

"If you don't, there will be consequences," he said, shutting the front door behind him.


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