2. The Doctor's Visit.
Simeon is asleep in bed when the Doctor next visits. It's sooner than usual. Chloe feels she must comment about his early appearance.
"Doctor, it's wonderful to see you," she says. "And so soon, too!"
"Yes, I thought I'd better pop in sooner to ask you how your jaunt on Gallifrey went."
Chloe hadn't expected the Doctor to know anything about her visit to Gallifrey, or that she had somehow got a job at the Gallifrey Tardis Manufacturing company (ref. 32). She had been expecting the Doctor to try to prevent her from going as she isn't Gallifreyan, but he seems to know something about it.
"You heard about it, then?" Chloe asks with concern, wondering who has told him.
"Oh, yes," the Doctor says amicably. "I read about it, too."
"You read about me being on Gallifrey? How?" Chloe fears that knowledge of her visit is getting everywhere. She fears that this may undermine everything she's achieved recently (ref. 31).
"Your picture was in the Gallifrey News. I've got it here."
The Doctor shows Chloe an article with her in the background of a picture and the magnified image of her. Chloe has been shown this before, but when she was on Gallifrey. She's shocked that such news has spread beyond Gallifrey. She feigns surprise.
"You're heralded as being the Girl in the Time Continuum or some such nonsense," the Doctor says to wind her up and keep her guessing if he knows or not; of course he knows she is!
Chloe is uncertain how the Doctor will feel about her telling him that she is the girl in the Time Continuum. She chooses to focus on Simeon; a move the Doctor takes to show her meekness.
"Doctor, could you meet my boyfriend, Simeon please?"
"Of course," the Doctor says affably. "Delighted. Where's he from?"
"Doctor, I've only just brought him from Gallifrey," Chloe ventures.
"Yes, that's fine, a fellow Gallifreyan," the Doctor relishes. He appears to be brushing Chloe's concerns away. "Do bring him to me. I'm looking forward to meeting him already! I'll be in the lounge if that's alright."
Chloe wakes Simeon and invites him to meet the Doctor. They arrive shortly in the lounge and Chloe introduces them.
Introductions over, the Doctor takes Simeon aside to have a chat. Soon, the Doctor knows all about Chloe's venture purely by asking Simeon while his guard is down.
Simeon is in awe of the Doctor and expects him to know everything already!
The Task.
The Doctor asks Simeon if he will accompany him on a walk as it's sunny.
"Yes, that sounds great," Simeon agrees.
They set off along some leafy streets before they arrive at a nearby forest with pleasant paths.
"Simeon, could you do something for me?" the Doctor asks as they walk.
"Fine, yes," Simeon says. He's still starstruck being with the Doctor, but he's learning to get over this problem a little more rapidly now.
"These wonderful girls have accidentally committed lots of what you might call, erm, misdemeanors and not put them right. You like things to be done right, don't you? Are you up for trying to put right at least some of their misdeeds?"
Simeon is aware of some discrepancies in things that Chloe and her mother have done. He is in awe of the Doctor and feels he can't simply say no. This task can't be so very difficult, can it? .
As Simeon thinks about it, he wonders why the Doctor doesn't simply do the task.
"You've doubtless tried, Doctor, or you wouldn't be asking me."
"That's true," the Doctor says. "But when it comes to tact and diplomacy I may flounder a bit. I never quite got the hang of how it works. How about it?"
"I'll do what I can," Simeon says more cautiously, also feeling unsure about his own diplomacy skills.
"You're shaping up!" the Doctor says enthusiastically, hoping Simeon will be able to do something at least.
"What's the worst crime they've committed?" Simeon asks.
"I'm not sure," the Doctor says. "One that they've never told me about, I suspect. It's probably stealing Intellectual Property. It happens quite a lot, but that doesn't make it right - I recall the Chinese did this rather a lot at one stage in Earth history and wouldn't admit it to be wrong - it wasn't in their interests to do so."
"What's Intellectual Property when it's at home?" Simeon asks.
"Things like copyrights, trade secrets whether in artistic works or industrial inventions, developments and secrets."
"Oh, erm, I haven't worked much with those," Simeon admits.
"I thought you worked in the Gallifreyan Tardis Manufacturing company, GTM."
"I still do."
"When you worked there everything was classified as secret."
"Ah, yes, Doctor, I see what you mean. Gallifreyan secrets."
"Yes," the Doctor says. "You and I are both born Gallifreyans. But Chloe isn't. So, really she ought not to have had any access to GTM secrets."
Simeon had been glossing over this area to protect his interest in Chloe. He feels the Doctor's challenge begin to bite. "I trust her."
"So do I," the Doctor says. "My problem isn't with trusting her but trusting where the secrets she acquired while she was there might end up. As an example, if, say, my Tardis was to be captured by Daleks, it could decide to self-destruct. But if the Daleks knew exactly how far they would have to push the Tardis before it would destroy itself, they could learn a great deal about how our Tardises work before it does. That knowledge is our Intellectual Property and mustn't leak out. Now do you see where I'm going?"
Simeon sighs again. His eyes have clearly been blinkered while he's been with Chloe. During that time, he's come to love her so much that he has disregarded all his possible misgivings about her having access to all this.
Being challenged by the Doctor tugs him in many directions. His allegiance to Gallifrey, his love for Chloe, his interest in Chloe's family and finally meeting the Doctor.
What Simeon had regarded as minor misdemeanours - Chloe working at GTM, gathering more information, even the mysterious origin of her knowledge of the contents of the Gallifreyan Library - all seemed suddenly to gather more importance than before.
Simeon can see the problem, but not how he can do anything about it. "So, I should ask; what would you be asking me to do?"
"Oh, just challenge her a bit here and there," the Doctor says. "Point out where she has Intellectual Property and why she perhaps shouldn't have it."
Simeon begins to feel uneasy about just telling Chloe what to do. He loves Chloe and trusts her fully.
The Doctor continues, "I find I'm not always in the right role to ask people directly, but they've left a trail of unresolved misdeeds they're not even aware of, and it just needs tidying up a little." He smiles hopefully.
"Like you, I may be in the wrong role to do much about this," Simeon says. "Doctor, I can see your point, but I love Chloe and I don't feel I should stand in her way."
"Oh, no, no, no. Nothing so strident," the Doctor concedes quickly. "Just the occasional nudge, that's all."
"Well, okay, maybe I'll see what I can do, but no promises, and it won't amount to much, I'm sure." Simeon isn't sure quite what he's expected to do and is pleased when the Doctor changes the subject.
It starts to rain as they approach Crystelle's house. To keep spirits up, the Doctor declares, "It's sunny above the clouds!" He didn't need to, but he interjects this anyway.
Simeon chuckles as they race for the door. "The probability of rain is one hundred percent and falling." It makes them both feel better about the rain.
Is it the probability percentage that's falling or the rain? .
The Doctor looks at his sonic screwdriver and smiles. "Thank you. After our chat just now, I feel better about it already."
"How can you tell that by looking at that device?" Simeon asks.
"I've programmed my sonic screwdriver to show me some specific timelines, and they're perfect for me now!" That might be an over-statement, but it's much better from his point of view anyway.
"Chloe's had a good teacher," Simeon says, chuckling, refusing to be dragged down by the Doctor's gloom. "I hope you'll forgive me, but I scanned Chloe with an Artron energy detector - it showed she'd been travelling hundreds of times in a Tardis."
"That's quite likely," the Doctor says, suddenly keen to avoid telling Simeon too much - that would be for Chloe to tell him what and when she chooses.
The Fragile Peace.
"Your Chloe has been busy causing peace to break out all over the place," the Doctor says. "If the peace that is won is more enduring, then that might be more useful!"
"Is it not enduring?" Simeon says gradually recognising that all that Chloe and her mother have achieved might be short lived (ref. 31).
"Oh," the Doctor says. "The current peace is all based on circumstantial mishaps!"
This surprises Simeon. "What do you mean?"
"The Dalek peace just happened, seemingly, for no good reason. But that's not how Daleks work. They're creatures of hate. They can think of nothing better than war, yet now they're apparently keeping a peace, waiting for a new force to appear. That won't last long! And when their war restarts, they will have re-grouped, re-grown, re-armed and maybe re-developed their Dalek armour. They may even develop other forms of attack." (Ref. 14.)
"Surely not, Doctor," Simeon groans.
"They will. I died trying to stop one of those," the Doctor asserts. But he's on a roll! "Do you think I don't know my enemies? They'll be many times stronger and more numerous. I usually try to keep them busy fighting, away from populations where possible, rather than ever give them development time!"
"Sorry, Doctor, I was just groaning," Simeon retracts.
"Alright, I'm sorry," the Doctor says. "I just got carried away. But then there's the Cybermen. They might have listened one day to a leader who then disappeared, but that surely won't last long. All this time they'll be upgrading more people to be like them, so there'll be many more of them. Then they discover their upgrade can't be undone and they're stuck as Cybermen. Those poor people!"
Simeon groans again. "At least the Master is locked away."
But the Doctor sighs deeply and looks skywards for a moment in a massive roll of his eyes. "The Master won't stay behind bars for long! He has what he calls friends, they're all bullies really, but they're right under his thumb; still hurting from their last encounter with him, but all too eager to stay on the right side of him. One of them is bound to get him out!"
The Doctor decides their chat is complete. "So, now we can go. I've enjoyed our chat. Oh, and you might need this." The Doctor produces a tiny box from a pocket deep in one of his many garments. "Keep it safe, it may be valuable to you one day soon!"
The Doctor winks and grins briefly before getting up and leading the way out of his Tardis.
Unfortunately, Simeon is left wondering if anything he'd said had terminated their chat time and he starts worrying about what the Doctor had thought. He's distracted away from asking what the tiny box is or what it's for and just places it absent-mindedly in a back pocket.
The giving of a ring.
The Doctor finds Chloe a little later. "Now you're going places on your own you might need this ring." The Doctor adeptly puts the ring on her finger. It's a beautiful thing to see. "Sorry, it's rather bright just now – it will fade a bit with time," he promises, although he knows it isn't exactly time it will fade with.
Chloe is far more concerned with how the Doctor's chat with Simeon went. "How did your time with Simeon go?" she asks.
"Simeon's a great Gallifreyan, one of the best," the Doctor tells Chloe. "I'm very glad you met him! He'll keep your feet on the ground. Listen to him and you'll do very well!"
Praise indeed, especially coming from the Doctor! It may be over-the-top, but it may ensure that Chloe listens to Simeon!
The Doctor only needed to plant a few seeds in order to gain the benefit of what he wanted to happen.