Author's Notes:
Sorry for the hiatus, other pressing priorities kept me away. Here's a nice long chapter to make up for it, and hopefully the next one will be up sooner.
Also, just a heads up that part of this chapter revisits the Bastille Day 2016 Nice truck attack. While there are no graphic descriptions of violence, it's still a very sad and serious event in real life. If you'd rather skip this chapter, please do so. I will build in a quick recap of the important events of this chapter in the beginning of the next one.
Chapter 14
28 December, 2025, Royal London Hospital, London, England
The Doctor found Osgood pacing pensively outside of the ward. He knew she was worried that he might slip and tell Kate more about the current situation than she wanted.
"Well, how did it go?" She asked a little frenetically. The Doctor summoned a grave expression and spoke in a low, quiet voice.
"She knows everything, Petronella."
The shocked expression on the science officer's face was worth it. Osgood used her inhaler, something the Doctor noticed that she did when nervous. He wondered how safe an inhaler might be under the current circumstances and made a note to scan the breathing aid when Osgood wouldn't notice.
"All of it? About Harlowe? The missing generators? The depleted food stores?" As her anxiety increased, the Doctor felt a lot less good about his little joke. Clara would be proud of him.
"Osgood, I was having you on. Kate doesn't know anything."
She looked at him blankly for a moment before her face filled with anger.
"You know what, you can be a real arsehole, Doctor."
"So, I've heard. I apologize. It was wrong to do that."
The furrow between her brows softened.
"It's okay. And sorry I called you an arsehole."
They were both silent for a few moments. Osgood took off her glasses and used the corner of her blouse to clean them.
"How did it go with the power generator?" That got a smile.
"Oh, good! We're back in business, thanks to that. Right now, we're not running any of the remaining petrol generators. And thanks again for the rations. We're going to need them."
Because there had been a desertion. James Harlowe, previously the second in command of the search and rescue detail, wasn't very easy to get along with on a good day. He had different ideas from Kate and the rest of the leadership team about what to do about provisions, outreach, and preparing for a worsening situation. Harlowe did not agree with the idea of continuing to look for and bring in new people on the grounds that they had limited sheltering space and supplies. Bradley expressed his suspicion to Kate that Harlowe was using his "search and rescue" hours to meet with someone, or someones – above ground. The entire leadership team had been aware that someone was pilfering supplies, and Kate suspected Harlowe.
Things came to a head on Boxing Day, when he got into an argument with Bradley about making space for a family of three a salvage team encountered while scavenging at a Tesco. The mother was pregnant, very ill with radiation sickness, and not likely to live. The father and daughter were in slightly better shape, though malnourished and in urgent need of medical attention.
Osgood had given Harlowe an ultimatum – accept that they were an open group with the mission of locating and helping others and make an effort to cooperate with the team or leave. The Doctor was certain that Kate would have done the same.
The group awoke the next morning to find Harlowe and their one ATV gone, along with two of their generators, several gallons of petrol and nearly half of the food rations. Jax suspected he had located the other large group they knew was sheltering near Piccadilly Station and joined them with a gift of valuable supplies.
"You're going to need more than that to keep this community going. Once I have the TARDIS again, I can pick up supplies and then nip back here with them."
"No, you can't Doctor. You need to focus on fixing the timeline. If you get that sorted, then none of this will matter. Right?"
Of course, she was right, but that didn't make it any easier for the Doctor to stick to his task. As tired and unwell as he was, he was sorely tempted to use the vortex manipulator to at least do a few small supply runs. It would mean returning to the TARDIS after each trip, spending valuable minutes of the diminishing Sagacity night, and risk additional complications with his dodgy device, but the thought of walking away and letting this human community suffer through a nuclear winter with little food was too much to bear.
This kind of moral crisis was something he struggled with much more in his tenth incarnation. He liked to think that he'd become more pragmatic with age, using the accumulated wisdom of his advancing years to take a more strategic approach. And yet…
The Doctor checked on Peter and found the human boy still asleep, but apparently in the middle of a nightmare. He'd kicked off the bedding. Perspiration stood out on his brow. His body twitched frequently, and he shook his head back and forth, negating whatever was going on in the landscape of his subconscious.
After hesitating for a few moments, the Doctor approached the bedside, mentally preparing to drop in on Peter's dream. He did feel a little guilty, as the boy had no say in the matter, so this was technically eavesdropping. All the same, his intent was to understand the trauma and try to help Peter heal.
He had just returned to the TARDIS after dropping off a final load of supplies to the ravaged post-nuclear community dwelling beneath the Royal London Hospital in 2025. He'd made twelve trips in total, between obtaining the supplies, often "liberating" them without paying for them, and stealthily delivering them to the community to avoid detection and a potential row with Osgood.
While by now he was feeling symptoms that told him that either the first dose of acaer was wearing off or the vortex manipulator was once again leaking chorenn, he would do it all again if it meant fewer people would suffer and die in that alternate reality.
"I've gone soft in my old age," he said aloud. He took a composing breath and let it out, flexing his fingers as he prepared to make the psychic connection.
It was never easy with humans. Their synapses were too underdeveloped for a high-fidelity connection. As he gently placed his hands at Peter's temples he closed his eyes to increase his sensitivity.
He felt a coolness in the air and the damp of the underground. It was dark. Something was dripping, slowly and incessantly. He took a breath and coughed out the dust of collapsed cinderblock.
"Help me, please. Mum, Dad,"
The Doctor heard crying.
There were sounds of other people in distress off in the distance, but the weeping boy was near. The Doctor coughed again and felt around until he made contact with an intact wall. He trailed his hand along the wall as he followed the sound of weeping to its source.
Peter lay on the ground turned on his side, facing the train tracks, which were about ten paces away. His right arm was pinned under a heavy stone buttress. The Doctor knelt beside him. The boy's face was covered in blood. Broken spectacles lay beside him. I never knew he needed glasses, the Doctor thought.
Peter became aware of his presence and clasped his arm tightly with his uninjured hand.
"You've got to help – my parents, my sister," The boy gestured to a large pile of rubble only a meter away. His teeth chattered, a clear sign of shock.
The Doctor saw a man's shoe sticking out of the rubble, half off of the foot it covered. A pool of blood extended out from the rubble.
"Peter, I'm so sorry, but your parents and sister are dead. You know that, though, because this is a dream."
"No! Not true! They're in there. You can help them. Go help them!" The boy's voice cracked from shouting. He shoved the Doctor as hard as he could, which wasn't very hard, toward the rubble. When the Doctor remained where he was, Peter covered his face with his good hand and burst into fresh tears.
The Doctor sighed inwardly. It always comes down to Dad skills. I'm a bit rusty, but…
He clasped Peter's shoulder. "I know you're grieving, son. I know you're in terrible pain. This happened quite some time ago now, and you've started healing. It's okay to miss your family, but you never have to revisit this place again."
Peter didn't move or look at the Doctor, but his tears slowed, and his sobs were tapering off. They sat that way for as long as it took, until the Doctor felt this dream Peter falling asleep, moving on to the next dream. The Doctor rifled through the boy's memories, searching for a suitable one for his purposes. Finally, he found one.
In addition to being a closeted maths and science brainiac, and in spite of his compact build, apparently Peter was quite the rugby player. The Doctor slowly nudged Peter toward a very pleasant memory of scoring a try at the very end of the second half for the win in an important match. Then he watched as a new dream shifted and developed around the memory.
From there, the Doctor was a silent passenger in the dream. He watched Peter somehow playing rugby one-handed, pushing easily through scrums, dodging contact with an opponent twice his size, and sending the ball cleanly through the goalposts. The crowd went wild.
When he was sure Peter was resting peacefully again, the Doctor forced himself to move away mentally, back into his body where it sat on the edge of Peter's bed. All of the familiar aches and pains were there to greet him, along with his constant companion, nausea, and an overwhelming exhaustion that compelled him to lie down next to the boy and fall into deep, dreamless sleep.
Instead, he forced himself to stand and stretch. Not yet, he told himself, too much to do, and the night is slipping away.
Back in the console room, the Doctor refamiliarized himself with the next critical event on the timeline, a terrorist attack that occurred in Nice, France on Bastille Day in 2016 on the true timeline, but did not occur on the corrupt one. He compared the two timelines and found the key differentiator. On the corrupt timeline, a parade attendee noticed a man passing weapons into a truck just off the parade route and reported it to a police officer. But his breath froze when he saw the name of this bystander.
"PE. No, that can't be."
Mouth dry and pulses racing, he pulled up the list of the dead on the true timeline.
"Please don't let her be on the list."
And to his relief, Clara was not listed among the dead. He breathed a sigh of relief. But then he saw Danny's name.
"PE," he said again. He dug into news coverage of the thwarted terrorist attack on the corrupt timeline and learned that Danny and Clara were on Holiday in Nice. In an interview with Ouest France, Danny explained that he'd just proposed and been turned down by Clara and was sulking at the parade when he noticed the would-be terrorist.
On the true timeline, the Doctor scoured through human interest stories about the victims of the truck attack and their survivors. It took a while to find it, but just as he was about to give up, there it was.
Rupert Daniel Pink, Age 30, Profession, Teacher, London, England
Clara Oswald was on holiday in Nice with her boyfriend, Danny Pink. Both teachers at Coal Hill School in London, the couple decided to celebrate Bastille Day and take in the French countryside. The trip was more special than miss Oswald realized. Just before the parade began, Danny Pink proposed to her at a restaurant.
Only minutes after their engagement, the happy couple joined the throng on Promenade des Anglais to celebrate. And then tragedy struck. A former soldier in the British Army who served in Afghanistan, Pink saw what was happening and moved into action. He pushed his way through the panicked crowd and attempted to board the truck from the passenger side, likely in hopes of disabling the driver. He was shot at point-blank range and died instantly.
"He died right in front of me." Clara Oswald said when asked to describe his last moments. "I don't have any words that can convey what that's like. In a way, it's still going on. I can never unsee it. One moment he was there beside me, and then next he was gone."
The Doctor paced for a bit, trying to decide on the best course of action, always aware, though, of the fleeting Sagacity night. Minutes ticked by. Steeling himself, he knew he must go to Nice and convince Clara to accept Danny's proposal at the restaurant, even though that meant that Danny would die barely an hour later.
And you thought you hated me after our trip to the moon, Clara. That's nothing on how you'll feel about me after this.