CHAPTER TWELVE

Some hours later, Keith, his siblings and Caroline were ready to disembark from their long day, Keith was spent, he perched himself into the front of Caroline's car as his brother and sister clambered into his father Lucas's vehicle.

Lucas stared at Keith and commented on his son's fatigue

"You looked like you just talked for England...I was speaking to some of the parents of the other children, they said they were fascinated by what you were telling them, stayed fixed to the spot for a good few hours, what were you telling them?"

"Look, it's really nothing complex" Keith said

"Nothing complex?" remarked Caroline, "He spent what for a kid is an afternoon's worth yapping away about how he found a man with a gaping bullet wound in his chest lying flat on the ground on the outskirts of his college, he helped take the bullet out using what he learned in the med unit classes, he wanted to phone the ambulance but the guy brushed him off and went waltzing down the street still bleeding out slightly, so Keith took his scarf off and tightly bound it to the open wound, he insisted the guy go to the hospital, after a bit, the guy finally listened, gave him a contact number to let him know if he made it, and that was it"

"I got the call from him a day or so late, that time I told you I was yapping away to one of my girl mates" replied Keith

"You never told me any of this, weren't other people around?" asked Lucas.

"Traffic accident over the other side, nobody could get through, so no witnesses...I don't know...I felt compelled...to tell someone about this, so I...told the young ones...I kept the bullet, even showed little Massey the procedure with her Barbie dolls, and how to dress the wound..."

"How enlightening. Don't think I'd cut Massey out as a Doctor"

"Well I did pick it up from your mate Billy, and he got that from a grumpy old Doctor he met on the day that Kristine woman went missing"

"Yeah, she showed up again lately, eighteen years old, suffering from Stockholm's syndrome, I don't like the sound of this...too much coincidence going on"

"You believe in that?" asked Caroline

"A little...some call it shamanic, others call it magic, I just call it rotten timing" confessed Lucas, "Right, well we'd better be off"

As he and the kids clambered into the car, Keith and Caroline retreated to their own transport. They perched themselves onto the front seats and both breathed a sigh of relief as the taxing events of the day washed over them

"Do you think they liked the show?" asked Caroline

"I don't like to brag...but...they totally did didn't they?" said Keith, a wry and self-satisfied smile stretching over his features.

Caroline looked to the back of the car to find her clothes scattered across the seat

"I need to change" she said

Keith couldn't be bothered moving. And she knew that.

"Oh get 'em out and just get on with it" Keith said, closing his eyes, which left him wide open to a sneak attack as a bikini top flew across his face.

Elsewhere, in the safety and security of the TARDIS, Ace was analyzing the puppets left behind by The Showman, while The Doctor was taking out a pen and paper.

"These weird gadgets in the felt, what are they? Seems to be full of numbers counting down to something" asked a curious Ace

"They gather data, almost like bees gather nectar, and report their findings back to a hive mind on a planet torn apart by war, the ones with the most resistance to different forms of entertainment or endearment the hive mind focuses on and deems fit to recruit. The Showmen are there to hold their hands, to influence them, in time, over the years, letting their memories slip away, until all they could think about was the reward, a chance to fight in the war, which was decided upon after someone younger than Ms. Rimmer, another who attended the show, claimed he would rather fight a glorious battle than preside over a regular old punch-and-Judy routine"

"I don't like the sound of that Professor"

"Precisely why I kept you away at a distance from that show, you were prime stock for the hive mind, your pride would have gotten in the way"

"Glad you didn't say my temper" joked Ace.

"You would put all the children there to shame with a time-honoured tantrum as is your tradition" said The Doctor

"Oi, I'm not that much of a sulk...more of a Hulk" said Ace.

The Doctor began scribbling down words on the paper

"What are you doing now?" asked Ace

"Errands to run" The Doctor replied, "You should get some rest while I pop back and forth home"

"Home? The Time Lords? Gallifrey? We're heading there? I'm not missing that"

"Afraid you'll have to. I'm going back along our time stream...awfully tricky business, probably will have the C.I.A developing very immediate baldness with how many hairs they'll be pulling out trying to reconcile these things, I'll have to write them a very earnest apology...once I find the time, and the motivation. This is going to be a time where outsiders weren't welcome on the world, so you'll have to stay in the ship"

"Fine" sulked Ace, "But no rest for the wicked"

"You win" joked The Doctor.

"...Professor? Does this have anything to do with what that weird fat lad said to you on the beach? What does it all mean? Will I ever know...maybe I should speak for anyone who joins us or you later long after I'm gone...I'm not a fool, I can see when the patterns are too big, too complex, to properly digest in one lifetime. This is one of them isn't it Professor? I ask you...will it ever be explained? Do the questions ever really end?"

The Doctor gave her a telling glance. Ace didn't' require a response to understand it.

So little in life goes unexplained.

The same applies to the inexplicable lives led by Time Lords.

He finished writing the letter, a small one, with a simple request directed at a very unique person.

To walk along the beaches, taming the tides as they crash and course through the sands of time, a footprint must be imprinted in concrete

"My dearest Susan..." opened the letter.