"Guardian of the Array"

25. If We'd Never Known

March 2012 – Lima, Ohio

When she'd heard the phone ring in the distance, Sugar had barely shaken her head to herself, but otherwise she ignored it and let the call go unanswered. She'd gotten Puck in the bathroom and, after she'd shut the door, she had forced him to take a seat on the edge of the bathtub, the better for her to get everything set on the counter before getting to clean the cut on his cheek. She was a bit clumsy about it, and Puck wasn't sure if that was just how she was or if there was something else on her mind. He found out soon enough.

"I did meet him," she said as she was dabbing at the cut with disinfectant.

"You did?" he'd startled, and Sugar grabbed hold of his chin so he would sit still. "We are talking about the Doctor, right?" he had to check, since she hadn't actually said the name.

"Yes," Sugar frowned. "And that's all I'm going to say. You can't ask me when I met him, how I met him, or why I met him. That's the deal, take it or leave it." There was something different about the way she spoke, and he couldn't explain it, so he didn't bring it up.

"I don't know how that's going to work, but if that's what you need, then I'm cool with it. You did say 'he' a lot though, so he was definitely a dude when you met him, right?"

"What else could he be?" she stared at him, lost.

"Well when Artie met the Doctor, it was a woman, and it's hard to explain but we're pretty sure they're the same person."

"What, like he had a sex change?" she stared at him, wide-eyed.

"No, just some alien thing, how should we know?" Puck shrugged.

"Sit still," Sugar scolded him.

"Why are you telling me now? You basically ditched us on the side of the road the other day, and you haven't been to school, are you hiding or something?"

"We said no questions," she pressed the cotton to his cheek.

"Okay, okay, sorry!" Puck pulled his face away before she stuck the cotton any closer. "So what did he look like?" She glared. "I just want to know about him, not you," he pointed out, so she sighed.

"I don't know, he…" She'd thought for a moment she wouldn't be able to call up the memory, but even years later she could see their faces clear as day, and she smiled to herself for a moment. "He had really short hair, and he was tall, and he had these ears, just…" she mimed.

"Yeah, that's the dude I saw, too!" Puck tried to keep still, so not to incur her wrath, but at the same time he was almost excited. Ever since he'd met the Doctor, he had never been able to talk about it with anyone, and when he and Artie had gotten to share their stories with each other, finding that his Doctor and Artie's Doctor were not quite the same had made it different. Now he had Sugar, and she'd met him, the very same man he had met.

"It is?" she smiled.

"And there was a girl with him," Puck went on.

"Rose," Sugar went on smiling.

"Yes!" he exclaimed again. "What about Jack, did you meet him?"

"Who?" she frowned.

"Guess not." She tossed out the cotton, showed him a bandage, and he shook his head.

"You can take it off before going to school tomorrow or something, if you think they'll laugh at you. I mean, I would," she told him before sticking the band aid over the cut.

"What about someone else? Did you meet anyone else, or see someone that you knew?" She stared at him, and he knew he was about to get told she wouldn't answer questions again.

"What do you mean?" she asked instead, so he sat up.

"Did you see Miss Harrison when you met the Doctor?" She blinked.

"Miss Harrison? Our Miss Harrison, the sub?" He nodded. "No, that's impossible, she wouldn't… Why do you think I would have met her?"

"Because she's not who she says she is, or at least that's what we have to go on. Somehow she was there, where I ended up, and when Artie met the Doctor…" He had mentioned this part before, but still when he said it, Sugar looked as though she had only heard it now.

"Artie's met him, too?"

"Yes, well… her, met her. And she was travelling with someone, not Rose, not Jack, but a woman named Gemma, Gemma Lucas, and that was Miss Harrison. Are you sure you haven't seen her? She might have just been around. In my thing, I didn't actually see her, but someone else who was there…" he didn't say it was his daughter all grown up, "She saw a woman there, and the woman ran, and she tripped and hurt her ankle…" he pressed on this so Sugar would hopefully make the connection, and she did.

"And you think that it's how Miss Harrison hurt her foot last month?" He nodded.

"It would explain why she keeps running around, she's travelling in time for some reason, to the place where I was, and maybe she went where you were, too."

"I didn't see her, I swear," Sugar shook her head apologetically, though finding out what he was telling her about the teacher was definitely startling. It would take her a while more before she could process the information and decide what she made of it. "So… what now?"

"You can't tell her that you know anything, can you do that?"

"Sure, I guess. But what's the big…"

"Think about it. She's been here for months, on and off. Why would she do that, especially with everything that we know… Why would she be here unless something was about to happen? Wow, I sound like Artie right now," he frowned.

"Okay," Sugar breathed, and he looked back at her. "I'm in."

TO BE CONTINUED (SUNDAY)