I own no part of the Doctor Whoniverse, but I'm looking into rental properties or perhaps a Time Share, nothing too flashy, just a little bungalow somewhere within flying distance and not too far off from the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the galaxy...


With Karena's book in hand, the Doctor wound his way through the streets of Zaragosa. He took the long way back to the Tardis, passing by three of the places mentioned in the articles, and at each stop he took readings on the sonic. Sometimes the signal was weaker, sometimes stronger, but always there was the hint of something alien still there, a trace on the pavement, a scent in the air. The Doctor was so distracted by his search, and by the bustling sights and sounds of the era, that he never thought to look up. His eyes were on the ground and the streets around him. Even if he had looked up, it was unlikely that he would have noticed the shadow, the shape of a creature, round and long-legged, about the size of a small dog, that loped along the rooftops from chimney to chimney, from dormer shadow to dormer shadow and under the lattice of the eaves. It was following him, close behind but always above, out of sight.

In the late afternoon, the Doctor stopped to buy dinner off a young man at a vegetable stall. As he paid for his meal, he thought he caught a glimpse of a shadow over his shoulder, but when he looked up, there was nothing there but the setting sun just sunk behind a factory's second floor. With a frown, the Doctor walked on. A moment later, a shadow detached from the corner of the factory's roof and scampered off again. It didn't usually hunt in daylight, but for this new prey, it had made an exception.

.

The house on Calle Moncasi had been in the Garcia family for nearly three generations. It was purchased by Miguel Nevares' grandfather and he passed it on to his eldest daughter – along with a great deal of debt. The house was, by this daughter, paid off quite soon after her marriage, although the husband of Maria Garcia Nevares managed to enjoy his property for only two years of marital bliss before he was killed by an eastern fever while travelling on business. He left his young wife and infant son alone in the world, which was perfectly acceptable for Maria Garcia Nevares.

Mrs. Nevares raised her son in strict austerity until his twenty-first birthday, after which which she took herself off quietly after his father.

Like his mother, Juan Miguel Garcia-Nevares had little use for society or people at large. He was a bookish child, who became, in due course, a studious young man before he finally settled on a career as a reclusive, erudite old man. He wrote many papers, some of which were even published in obscure magazines where they were read and made fun of by other scholarly old men. He taught actively at the local university, and actively patronized its cafes and clubhouses, until the ripe old age of seventy-six when his colleagues conspired with the dean to have him respectably retired.

It was at this point in Professor Nevares' life that he realized all a man ever really wanted in the world was a good book, a warm fire and a cup of tea. Soon after that – realizing that he was not the sort of man who would ever stoop so low as to stoke his own fire or brew his own cuppa – he advertised for a housekeeper.

As poor as the professor was in friends and social dignity, he had inherited a great deal of money on his father's side and had saved up every peseta of his own more-than-acceptable salary. He had money, and a long line of hard-working women and girls passed through his door over the next two year trying to get at it. Miss Rosita Perez Alvarez was considered the record-holder, having passed a full sixteen days under Prof. Nevares' roof before she gave her notice by way throwing a book at the gentleman's head.

After two years of searching, the Professor began to despair of ever finding a housekeeper to suit him – and his neighbors began to wonder whether it would not be better for the old man to hire a sturdy nurse than a willowy washing-up girl.

The professor withdrew his advertisements, and the following day, Miss Karena Andalucía knocked on his door. The advert she presented was crisp and yellow with age, and her references were unpronounceable, but the woman was even tempered, patient to the point of frustration, and she had the uncanny ability to know exactly what the Professor would demand a full minute before he knew it himself. His tea was at his elbow before he knew he was thirsty, his dinner was cooked before his stomach reminded him to be hungry, and whether he was preparing to complain that his bed sheets were too hot or too cold, they were always perfectly comfortable when he lay down for sleep.

Karena herself had little to worry about. The old man paid well and spent most of his time at his studies. Her only difficulty was in occasionally tracking down the obscure books that he required for his obscure studies and making sure that she got to the packages first so that he wouldn't find the other books, rarer and even more difficult to find, that she had ordered for herself. With such a diligent woman to look after his affairs, Professor Nevares was able to retire from the world completely. He signed the checks that Karena gave him to sign, ate the meals that Karena gave him to eat, and disbelieved everything he read in the daily paper.

For many years the two got on, happier than most married couples, and if you were to ask any of the professor's neighbors, you might think that they still get on to this day. The professor had no family to inherit his money, and so there was no one to ask after his health. And if the families who live on either side of a gentleman's home don't ask questions when he doesn't once leave it during the five years leading up to his death, they certainly won't ask when he fails to leave it after.

And yet, for all their neighborly indifference, quite a few people would have been quite surprised to learn that Professor Juan Miguel Garcia-Nevares has spent the past two years peacefully buried under the beanpoles in his own kitchen garden.

.

With a deft hand, Miss Karena folded and tucked away the last of her skirts in a drawer. There was no real reason to do it. She knew that she would never set foot in this house again, but she'd lived there for more years altogether than just about any place else besides her childhood home. She was reluctant to leave and was putting off the inevitable. On the bed behind her was an old carpet bag that she'd picked up on her last trip to Madrid. It was half-full of extra clothes, the papers that she would need, forged letters of credit, and extra cash just-in-case sewn into the lining. She'd first put that bag together two years ago after the professor died, and had only added a bit more cash and a second revolver. In that bag was everything a girl could need when fleeing to a foreign country.

Karena shut the dresser drawer with a bang and scowled. She didn't want to leave yet. She hadn't planned on leaving for another fifteen years at least, but the Doctor had a way of sticking his nose into places that it didn't belong. He was already suspicious; she'd seen it in his eyes. He'd be back with more questions, and she would have to be long gone by then.

Still, it had been a comfortable old house while she'd lived in it. Even after the old Prof died and she'd lived there alone, she had everything she could want. She might have sat out WWII without being so much as a blip on the radar and then flown to America to wait out her remaining years and complete her mission.

Something scratched at the window, startling her, but it was only an old tree branch. She felt her heart beat faster. It had been a long time... a long time, indeed.

Karena made sure that the window was latched, and then took up the carpet bag and left her room for the last time. In the hallway, she patted the pocket of her skirt once, making sure that the envelope was still there. Karena didn't know why Paola hadn't met her at the shop as she'd asked, but she guessed that the Doctor had had something to do with it. Karena would rather have given Paola the money in person, but the postal service was reliable enough. She would have to mail her money and her apologies. She couldn't give Paola the explanation that she needed, but at least she could offer the woman some help for the future. Ángel was dead; Karena had known that for a long time now. She didn't know what had killed him, or the other boys, but the Doctor was here. He would figure it out. She'd practically gift-wrapped the mystery for him.

The hall leading down from the servants' quarters was dark and dusty. A gleam from the lamplights outside showed where her skirts had swept the pale wood clean, but the carpeted stairs were grey and ghost like. Karena was not much of a housekeeper when there was no one paying her to clean. The portraits on the walls looked out of the shadows, dark and twisted like alien faces.

A shadow passed by her on the stairs, going up as she went down; she had seen it before and nodded to it as to an old friend. She wasn't sure whether it was the past of the future. There were doors in this house that had not been opened since before the old man died. Karena refused to give her opinion on ghosts, but she had long ago learned that the distance between déjà vu and premonition was as short as a gasp and as quick as a wink. It was important to keep your options open.

She left her bag in the foyer near the front door and stepped across to the dark library. The sun had gone down, making the white tablecloth look ghostly in the dim light from the streetlamps. She switched on the electric lighting and the shadows fled. Karena pulled back the tablecloth and looked down at the mess, old radio parts, bits of butchered transmission equipment, and rows of small tools for electrical work. She had spent years working on this project, all for nothing. There was no time now to finish it, or to clean it up.

She rolled up her notes and pocketed a handful of circuitry. The rest, she didn't need. The Doctor would come back to the house, looking for her, he'd clean up anything that she left behind. Not that it mattered, really, there was enough alien-tech floating around the dealers and antique shops of Earth that a bit more wouldn't make any difference.

Karena looked down at her work, the wires that she'd cut and spliced, the circuit boards that she'd built. She frowned and glanced up at the old clock on the mantelpiece. It hadn't been wound in half a decade and the hands were stuck at quarter past three.

"Six o'clock," she murmured. "There's still time enough to..." She didn't want to finish the thought.

Karena took two books from the shelf and added them to her carpet bag. She took a pen from the drawer of the small table in the foyer and quickly addressed the envelope for Paola and pasted a stamp in the corner. With the envelope in her pocket was the corner of newspaper that the Doctor had written his address on. That street was not far from Karena's own house, and there was a postbox between here and there, she knew. She could post Paola's letter, have a look around, and be back at the house by eight o'clock with enough time to collect her bag, hail a taxi and be out of town before midnight.

She touched the Doctor's thin scrawl with the tips of her fingers, her thoughts far away from taxicabs and telephones. There was a fire in the kitchen stove, and she was tempted to burn the paper and make her escape, but something stopped her. The thought of fire, a memory burned into her thoughts like an exploding star. She couldn't leave yet. She had to take one last look before she went, and she had time. She drew a long, gold chain out from under the collar of her blouse. She fingered the silver key that hung at one end, touching the cold metal to her chin thoughtfully.

Yes, she had time, more time than she knew what to do with these days. "I wonder," she murmured, catching the key blade between her teeth. The Doctor hadn't recognized her, but that didn't tell her when. "I wonder…"

There was only one way to find out.


Response to Guest Review: Dove - You're so sweet! I wish you had a profile on the site so I could write you long, long answers and explain everything. For now, I must leave an apology instead of an explanation. But all will be made clear in time.

Next chapter: the Doctor and Miss Karena meet again in rather dramatic fashion, and we'll be learning more about this mystery woman and just what is her connection to Carmen Ortiz...

-Paint