Calendar Girl
Note: This is a much longer chapter than the first. I considered splitting it into two, but could not find a good place to break. So get comfortable before you begin. Or you can use one of the page breaks as a temporary stopping point. Also, I do have a basic direction and idea for this whole "Calendar Year" but I would still love feedback and ideas. Yours might be better than mine! (Plus the more you reply the more motivated I am to post regularly :) )
Chapter 2 - Rose and the Chocolate Factory
Rose watched the time rotor move up and down within the clear cylinder. The motion and green glow was so mesmerizing that she almost forgot that she needed to talk to the Doctor before they reached their next destination. He moved so fast from place to place that it left her little time to adjust or to do normal things like eat and use the loo.
The Doctor was alternating between repeatedly flipping some small lever and reaching sideways to push a green button. Rose wondered how the console of random buttons, levers, and dials managed to control anything.
"Doctor," Rose started.
"Rose!" said the Doctor brightly, "See that large lever to you right? Pull it downward and hold it there."
"Um, okay," said Rose, doing as she was asked.
The Doctor continued toggling the small lever and pushing the button while he checked the monitor. The display looked like fancy circles to Rose, but it was apparently very important to the Doctor.
Rose tried again. "Where are we headed exactly?"
"Not sure!" the Doctor answered brightly.
Rose didn't quite like this answer. He had a tendency to get the time or date wrong and she didn't know if it was better or worse to wing it.
"Do you know approximately, then?" asked Rose hopefully.
"Haven't decided yet," said the Doctor, not taking his eyes of the screen, except to make sure he found the button he was pushing.
Rose's felt her stomach grumble. The food at the festival on Melunia was plentiful enough to cover both breakfast and lunch, but enough time had elapsed that, according to her body, it was long past tea time. Rose knew that the Doctor ate and loved a variety of food, but he apparently did not need it as regularly as a human. Rose also realized that the Doctor did not need to rest as often as she did and therefore was also likely not aware that in a few hours she would be craving her warm bed in her room on the Tardis more than the adventure outside its doors.
The Tardis jolted to the side and the time rotor stood still. Wherever they were, the Tardis had arrived.
"Are you ready?" asked the Doctor offering his arm.
"Yes, but…um…I was thinking it might be nice to eat before we do…whatever," she said. "And I've been in this thing," she said, sweeping her hands from shoulder to foot, "all day. I was hoping I could change into something else."
The Doctor furrowed his brow in thought as he looked at Rose's dress. "What you have on is fine. It's close enough to fit in where we are—a bit anachronistic, but not too far off."
Rose's disappointment must have shown.
"If you'd rather change, though…" the Doctor said without finishing.
"'S all right, if it's just going to be similar to this, I might as well not bother," Rose said as she shrugged.
"Fantastic. Ready then?"
"Almost." Rose ran to the loo. While there, she brushed her hair and tried to style it in a manner similar to the way she had worn it when they were in Cardiff in 1869. She didn't know fashion well enough to guess in what exact decade an Alice-in-Wonderland style dress and pinafore would be "close enough," but she assumed it had to be close the same time period.
The Doctor was leaning against one of the coral columns by the double doors when she returned to the console room, but he stood up straight when he saw her. His eyes fell on her hair, then down to her eyes where they lingered for a moment. Rose felt her cheeks flush.
He cleared his throat. "Right then." He offered Rose his arm once more and gestured toward the doors with the opposite hand. "Chocolate Easter eggs await."
"Are you going to tell me where we are now?" asked Rose as she took the Doctor's arm.
"Birmingham, England—Twenty-first of March, 1875," he said. The Doctor opened the door and stepped out with Rose. "It is known at this time as 'the city of a thousand trades' because of its importance during the industrial revolution. It caused great wealth, but also poor living conditions. We are here right as people are trying to make some changes. They are improving the gas and waterworks, tearing down slums, and planning new streets. And all the while commerce continues to drive the town. And one of those businesses is run by George and Richard Cadbury."
"The same Cadbury as the chocolate company?" said Rose, recognizing the name.
The Doctor nodded. "In 1875 they made the first chocolate Easter egg. We can be one of the first to try it."
Rose smiled and surveyed her surroundings. Though just six years later than the year she had visited Cardiff, it seemed far more modern. The buildings were set close together and much taller than the ones in Cardiff, and many of the buildings appeared to be factories. The street she and the Doctor stood on must have been one of the nicer ones because it contained a variety of shops and there was a train station at one end. As the busy people bustled by them, one man dropped a newspaper. Rose picked it up and glanced at the front page. When she did, she giggled.
"Doctor," said Rose, showing him the paper.
The Doctor read it and shook his head. "Twenty-first of March, 1878."
"Just three years off though," Rose said, trying to be encouraging. "Can't be that different, can it?" As she was speaking, a lamplighter walked past them to light the gas lamps that lined the street.
"Not too much," he said. Then he nodded at the lamplighter. "And I did land on schedule for twilight. Let's find out what Birmingham has to offer for tea." Rose stared wide-eyed at him. She had only just mentioned she was hungry, but the Doctor had already planned on arriving for a meal.
"Don't be so amazed, Rose," said the Doctor, noticing her look. "I'm aware you need to eat. And I am not fond of skipping meals myself. Shall we go?"
Rose nodded. "Let's go."
The Doctor and Rose found a hotel with a small restaurant below. The interior had dark polished wood floors and equally dark wooden beams in the ceiling. The dozen or so tables were of a similar color with four chairs at each one and covered with a white lace-trimmed tablecloth. The Doctor and Rose were seated near the fireplace and served mutton, potatoes, bread with jam, and a cup of tea. Rose was hungry enough to inhale her food, but took her cues from diners at other tables and tried to mimic their pace and manner of eating.
When they were almost finished eating, a middle-aged woman approached their table.
"I am Mrs. Georgina Addison," said the woman. "My husband, William, and I run this hotel. We could tell you were from out of town, and we wanted to welcome you to Birmingham."
"Nice to meet you Mrs. Addison," said the Doctor with a nod of his head. "I'm the Doctor and this is Miss Rose Tyler."
"Pleased to meet you," said Rose to Mrs. Addison. She wasn't sure if she should shake hands, curtsey, or do some other formal gesture, so she remained still.
Mrs. Addison smiled at Rose but directed her conversation toward the Doctor. "What brings you to Birmingham? Are you here to work in one of our hospitals, Doctor…"she said searching for a surname.
"Just the Doctor," he said with a wide smile. "Actually, we are here on holiday to visit a factory. Could you tell us if we are close to Bridge Street Works?"
Mrs. Addison's face grew serious. "If you are not conducting business on Bridge Street, I would suggest you stay clear of it."
"Really?" asked the Doctor raising his eyebrows. Rose could tell by his tone that he was trying (and failing) to hide his excitement. "Why is that?"
"Strange things have been happening lately," Mrs. Addison told him. "Disappearances. It is no place anyone has need of visiting, especially after dark and especially—" she nodded to Rose, "for children."
Rose scoffed. For children? She probably should have kept silent, but she couldn't help it. "I beg your pardon ma'am, but I am not a child."
The woman gave Rose a patronizing smile. "Of course not dear. Girls your age never consider themselves children, and I will say that you carry yourself well enough to have the appearance of one as old as seventeen. Nevertheless, at fourteen, you are still not full grown, and you are naïve about the world outside the comforts of your home."
Rose took a bite of jam and bread to distract herself from speaking her mind. She was tempted to tell the woman just how far outside her home she had been.
"Doctor," Mrs. Addison said seriously, "I must warn you to stay away. Children have gone missing. And not just the street urchins—the poor dears—but even children of high society. If you must go there, wait until the day begins. And whatever you do, do not take your daughter."
Upon hearing the last sentence, Rose choked on the piece of bread she had been eating. Fueled by the anger of being labeled a child and the embarrassment of the woman's assumption, all pretenses of Victorian propriety were abandoned. "Wait! You think he's my dad? That's so far off it's just—"
"Rose," the Doctor warned, shaking his head.
Rose ignored him and continued her rant. "Heaven knows he's old enough to—Well, never mind, let's not even go there. I don't even want to think…Whatever. Still, he's not my dad. My dad was wonderful and brilliant and…" Rose found herself unable to continue. Gwyneth in Cardiff had known through her gift of clairvoyance that Rose's father was dead, but it was not something she talked about much. And she hadn't told the Doctor even after Gwyneth had read her mind. Now she felt she should. She ignored the meddlesome woman and looked into the Doctor's eyes.
"He died," she said, "when I was very young. I was just a baby. All I had was my mum until…" She was going to say, "Until you invited me to go along with you." But she realized how improper that would sound in 1878, so she hoped the meaning was conveyed through her eyes. Sure, Rose had friends—Mickey and Shireen had been the two of the closest ones—but already this Time Lord meant more to her than any of them.
Mrs. Addison, thinking Rose was still talking to her, misinterpreted Rose's unfinished sentence and wrapped her arms around her. "You poor child, to lose both your father and your mother! That explains your less-than-proper outbursts. Poor thing," she said. "And the good Doctor here, he watches over you now, does he?"
Rose knew it wasn't worth her bother to clarify, and the Doctor did indeed watch out for her (of course she did the same for him, but that was beside the point), so she just nodded.
The woman turned her attention back to the Doctor. "My warning still stands Doctor. Your ward would be in terrible danger if you took her to Bridge Street. And as headstrong as she appears to be, you'd be best to mark my words."
Before Mrs. Addison would give the Doctor directions to the factory, he had to promise her that he would not visit Bridge Street until morning and that he would do so without Rose. They were then prevented from leaving the restaurant until they assured Mr. Addison that they already had lodging elsewhere, and therefore were not in need of rooms for the night.
As they left and began to walk toward their destination, Rose couldn't help but complain. "A child!" she exclaimed. "Why did she assume I was a child?"
The Doctor said nothing, but he pursed his lips and looked up.
"What?" demanded Rose.
"That was my fault," he said. "I forgot about the dress length. It's a bit short."
"It's a few inches a bit above my ankles," she said, looking down. "How is that short?"
"Grown women wear their dresses to the ground or at least past the ankle. Mid-calf is worn by girls that are about fourteen-years-old," he said."Oh, and pinafores are only worn by children or servants."
"Well that explains it," she said a bit irked. Then she pointed a finger at the Doctor. "Next time I change."
The Doctor nodded as they turned onto Bridge Street.
Bridge Street Works, the factory owned by the Cadbury brothers, was in the center of town and easy to spot. The building facing the street was two stories high and had nine large windows across the top floor. Directly under these windows on the ground floor were wooden doors. One of the doors was an archway large enough for horse-drawn cart to drive through. To the left of the building was a large gate that lead to the rest of the factory. Through the gate, Rose saw larger buildings with smokestacks that were arranged around a courtyard. And at the far end she could see the beginning of a small canal, which linked the factory to the main canal in Birmingham.
"Impressive," said Rose. "Not Willy Wonka, but still big."
The Doctor smiled at her remark, but then frowned. "Does anything seem out of place to you?" he asked her.
"No," she said, "Seems like a factory that's closed for the night."
"Exactly," he said. "So why isn't it closed?" The Doctor gestured with his chin to the door on the far right of the building. It was open and a flickering light was coming from within.
"That wasn't open a moment ago," she said. She and the Doctor moved slowly toward the door. When they were about twenty feet from the entrance, Rose heard a faint sound. As she stopped to listen, she realized it was music. "Do you hear that?" she asked the Doctor. "The music? That can't be from this time. It sounds like the music that plays when a business puts you on hold or—"
"Lift music," said the Doctor, with a look of recognition. "It can't be."
The Doctor had heard music like that before. It had been one of the devices used to force cheerfulness by the Happiness Patrol on the world of Terra Alpha. But that was years in the future. Could there be another explanation? Perhaps another time traveler was stuck in 1878 and simply liked Muzak.
He was mentally chiding himself for the ridiculousness of his last thought when a young-sounding voice shouted from across the street. "Don't go in there!" the voice said.
The Doctor turned to see a young boy in torn, dirty clothes running over to where he and Rose stood. He waited till the boy had reached them before addressing him. "Why shouldn't I go in there?" he asked the boy. "What's going on?"
The boy, who appeared to be about ten-years-old, was trembling. "It's something evil," he said." The boy's eyes drifted over to the open door. "It lures them in with the music and a pile of sweets just by the door. But they don't come back out." The boy's eyes filled with tears.
The Doctor crouched down to the boy's level and looked into his eyes. "Who is being lured in?" he asked.
"The kids," the boy said. "First it was just sweets at the door and just the real little ones went in 'cause they was to small to know better. But then the music started, and now even the bigger ones go in. They get too close and they can't stop."
"How long has this been happening?" the Doctor asked the boy.
The boy closed his eyes and started counting on his fingers. He opened up his eyes when he was holding up seven fingers. "Seven days," he said. "And yesterday it took my brother, Lucas. He was thirteen—three years older than me. He knew better, but it got him anyway." The boy started crying.
The Doctor patted the boy on the shoulder, but he was not sure how he was supposed to comfort him. Fortunately, Rose bent down and pulled the boy into an embrace. Sometimes she was infinitely more clever than he was.
"What's your name, sweetheart?" she asked as she let go of the boy.
"Caleb," he answered, sniffing. "Caleb Tanner."
"Nice to meet you, Caleb. I'm Rose. And he's the Doctor," she said pointing.
Caleb smiled meekly at the Doctor.
"Well, Caleb," she said. "I think this needs to stop, yeah? And maybe if we go in on purpose, it'll be different." Rose looked over at the Doctor, who nodded in return.
"Caleb," the Doctor asked. "Is there anything else you can tell us that might help us find your brother, or anything else you know about what is happening here?"
Caleb sniffed. "One day the owners didn't come out when the day was over. They usually gave us chocolate if we helped carry things for them," he said. "But that day the workers left and they stayed inside. The next day people went to work, but no one has said nothin' about it. Like we was the ones what was strange." He took a breath. "But then the sweets showed up that night and every night after. And for three days it's been this music. Last week Miss Beatrice Lytton disappeared. Now that an upper class girl has gone missing, everyone knows," Caleb said. Then he looked at Rose. "You ain't much older, Miss Rose; I might think again about goin' in."
The Doctor noticed Rose's sigh about her again-mistaken age, but was thankful when she didn't say anything.
"Thank you, Caleb," said the Doctor. "Now listen to me. I want you to go home now. Rose and I are going to find out what is going on. Whatever you do, do not follow us. Do you understand?"
Caleb nodded.
"Good boy," said the Doctor with a smile. "Now off you go."
The Doctor watched until Caleb turned the corner and was no longer on Bridge Street. "Ready?" he asked.
"Let's go," said Rose.
As they got nearer to the open door of the factory, the instrumental music increased in volume. It also seemed to have a hypnotic pull. Something told him he better heed Caleb's warning, so he took hold of Rose's hand.
"Whatever this is," he said to Rose, "it is utilizing some sort of low-level psychic field in the music as means of control." Just then, an instrumental version of "The Girl from Impanema" played in the background. "Course it would have to," he said. "No one would be drawn to this music naturally."
Rose smiled at his comment. She looked at the plate of sweets at the door's entrance and became serious. "What does it want with children though?"
"I don't know," said the Doctor as they reached the doorway "I've encountered this music before, but at the time it was just an attempt to force happiness, not a means of hypnosis." He looked at Rose, gripped her hand tighter, then entered the building.
The room they had entered was lit by gas lamps and held countless barrels of cocoa beans. The only thing notable was the incessant background music. The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver to find its source, but frowned at the reading.
"Multi-frequency wave distortion," he mumbled.
"Come again?"
"The music isn't coming from speakers or a traceable source. It's riding on the sound waves already in the air, refracting off each other, and using the environmental acoustics to disperse the sound," the Doctor said. "In other words, it's almost impossible to trace except with the ear."
"So we keep walking," she said.
The Doctor nodded. They walked forward into an adjoining room in which beans were in some state of being sorted. The music had seemed to move ahead of them, leading them through another door. This door lead them to the courtyard, which was empty except for various crates and supplies along the edges of the building. The song selection had stopped, so the Doctor did as well. Then he heard music coming from the building on the right. The Doctor quickened his pace following the melody of "Do You Know the Way to San Jose."
"Is it aliens then?" asked Rose as they walked briskly to the building.
"Actually, I think these might be future humans," the Doctor said, "especially given the music selection."
They reached the entrance to the building and the Doctor prepared to open the door with his sonic screwdriver. However, it was wide open.
Of course it is, he thought. We were being lured here.
He gave Rose's hand another squeeze, then lead them through the doorway.
The Doctor and Rose had entered a room that was out of place in the nineteenth century. It was sterile and white and housed electronic controls and a clear glass vat filled with a bright red liquid. Standing at one of the controls was a semi-robotic creature slightly taller than the Doctor. Its head seemed to be comprised of blue bubble gum with swirling hypnotic eyes; its torso and arms appeared to be of a mix of robotics and pink-and-red hard candy; its abdomen resembled yellow taffy with a black center; and the legs resembled a mixture of candy and robotics.
"Kandy Man," he said darkly. This same creature had been a ruthless assassin when he had encountered it before. But what was he doing in Birmingham in 1878? Was he still the henchman for Helen A. or some faction of the Happiness Patrol, or did he have another master—or perhaps no master at all?
Kandy Man had not detected their presence, but the Doctor knew they needed to get out before that fact changed.
"Rose," he said quietly under his breath. "We are going to back up very slowly."
Rose nodded and the two of them backed out of the building. Once out, the Doctor backed up a few more steps, still holding tightly to Rose's hand. He then turned left toward the opposite end of the building, turned the corner, and stopped. They crouched behind a stack of barrels while the Doctor tried to think of his next step. Out in the courtyard, he could hear "Calcutta" playing, trying to lead them back from whence they had just come.
"What was that?" Rose asked after she caught her breath.
"The Kandy Man," the Doctor told her. "I came across him once before. He was an executioner who derived a warped sense of pleasure from his work. But he can't be here. It doesn't make any sense."
Rose's hand flew to cover her mouth. "The children!" she said. "Does that mean they…"
"I don't know," said the Doctor, "but we need to keep looking till we have some answers."
"So where to?" she asked.
"We're going to find a back entrance," he said, as he pulled her to standing.
"That's fine," she said, "but you're going to cut off my circulation." She wiggled the hand he was still holding.
"Oh!" he said surprised. He hadn't even realized he still had her hand or, unfortunately for her, how tightly he was holding it. He dropped it with a sheepish look, then focused on his mission.
They rounded the corner and found a simple wooden door with a metal lock. One pulse from the sonic screwdriver, and the door was open. They had entered a room filled with ovens for roasting cocoa beans. However, the room was cool because the ovens were not lit.
After passing through the oven room, they entered an enormous room with large metal vats in which chocolate was poured and mixed. Something did not seem right to the Doctor, so he used the sonic to scan the room.
"Rose!" he said, "There are life signs in here. Search the vats!"
The Doctor and Rose ran up and down the rows looking in each one. Finally, the Doctor heard Rose call him. "Doctor! Over here!"
Six vats were lined against the wall. Five of them held two to three children each. Their hands and feet were tied with rope that appeared to be made of licorice, and they were gagged with a substance that seemed to be candy floss that did not dissolve. The sixth vat held two bearded men who appeared to be in their thirties, and they were bound in the same way. The Doctor and Rose helped everyone out of the vats, and the Doctor used a mild heat setting on the sonic to melt the restraints.
"You must be the Cadbury Brothers," said the Doctor, shaking their hands. "I'm the Doctor and this is Rose Tyler."
"Pleased to meet you," said one of the men. "And, uh, thank you for the rescue. I'm George."
"Yes, thank you," said his brother. "I'm Richard." He was eyeing the sonic screwdriver. "What exactly is that item you freed us with?"
"Just a bit of science," the Doctor answered as he quickly pocketed it. "Now can you tell us what's happened here?"
"I regret to say that we cannot tell you much," said George. "We were captured a week ago by some monstrosity that I can't begin to describe. We have been bound and fed on sweets since that time."
"So the…monstrosity didn't speak to you?" asked the Doctor.
"It did not," George answered.
"I can tell you what happened," said a boy who looked like Caleb Tanner, except taller.
"Fantastic," said the Doctor. "What's your name?"
"Lucas, sir," he said "Lucas Tanner."
The Doctor and Rose listened as Lucas told them what he had witnessed. "Kids had been going' into the factory for five days when I went in," Lucas said. "As soon as they got close to the door to take the sweets, they followed the music like that story about the pipe player and the rats. My little brother begged me not to go in, but I had to find out what was going on. The music didn't get to me, but I followed where it went. This monster that looked like boiled candy took the kids and set them in chairs and put something on their heads that looked like a bowl. There were also wires he stuck to them. He kept asking them how they could be happy when they were poor. But the kids couldn't answer. They were too scared and they were crying. So the monster got mad and tied them up how you saw them. I stayed hid all night. In the morning the workers came in, and some man told them that the vats were still not working, so they stayed away. But he found me and brought me to the monster."
"It was William Strain," said Richard Cadbury, "but he didn't sound himself. It reminded me of the mesmerist that came through here a few years ago."
"Psychic control," nodded the Doctor. Then he turned to Rose. "It looks like we need to go meet with the Kandy Man," he said.
Rose nodded. "But first we need to get the children out of here." She turned to address the Cadbury brothers. "Could you lead the children out of the factory?"
"We could," said Richard, "but perhaps the older children could manage that. We would like to stay and fight for this factory." He looked over at his brother for confirmation, who nodded.
"It's not just a business to us," said George. "Our factory and its workers are like family, and they depend on this place for their survival."
"I can take them," said a young teenage girl whose tailored dress was out of place amongst the dusty rags of the other children. "I can have Lucas help me."
"What's your name?" asked Rose?
"Beatrice Lytton," she said. "I entered because I was worried about the children. My father and I often bring extra food to the families on this street, and I heard how the children had disappeared. I think the music must affect the youngest the most. I could hear it, but I could withstand it. Still, I was captured."
"How old are you?" Rose asked her.
"I will be fifteen in a fortnight," she answered.
"That is what fourteen looks like," said Rose, annoyed, and looking at the Doctor. "Not me."
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Are you still moaning about that?"
Rose shrugged.
"Beatrice," he said to the girl, "could you help Miss Tyler remove her pinafore?"
Rose looked at him confused, but the girl did as she was asked an untied Rose's pinafore.
The Doctor then handed Beatrice a pair of scissors that he had produced from his pocket. "Now, can you cut the seam of her hem?"
Beatrice complied, and knowing what was to happen next, helped Rose remove the thread that ran the around the edge of the dress. She then lowered the hem so that it reached her ankle. "Not a neat job, but much better," she said as she smiled at Rose.
"Now you look nineteen again," he said impatiently. "Can we go stop the confectionary maniac now?"
Rose didn't give him an answer. Instead, she gave him a partial smile/partial glare and set to work to get the children out. She paired them up then put Beatrice at the front of the line and Lucas at the end. George Cadbury gave them a key for the large gate at the other end of the property, so that they did not have to cross near the Kandy Man on their way out.
When they could see that the children were safe, the four adults rounded their way around the building to Kandy Man's headquarters, accompanied by the background music of glockenspiel, shaker egg, and stringed instruments.
"Do you have a plan, Doctor?" asked Rose. "After all you've encountered this thing before."
"No," said the Doctor. "Isn't that wonderful?"
The Cadbury brothers exchanged nervous glances.
"Don't worry," Rose told them with a reassuring smile. "That's when he does his best work."
As they reached the open door the Doctor stepped in front of Rose and the Cadbury brothers. Rather than sneaking in as he did before, he strode in with a giant smile. Rose followed a few paces behind. "Kandy Man!" he said, as if greeting an old friend. "It's been a long time since Terra Alpha. What brings you to Victorian England?"
Kandy Man turned in the direction of the Doctor's voice. It was hard for Rose to tell with the swirling eyes but it seemed that he looked at the Doctor in surprise. "How do you know who I am?" Kandy Man asked in a high pitched robotic voice.
"We met long ago," said the Doctor. "You tried to kill me with strawberry fondant surprise—" the Doctor looked at the large glass container of red liquid "—and I fixed your feet to the floor with lemonade."
"Doctor!" said Kandy Man with a mix of surprise and fear. "You do not look the same."
"How do you not look the same?" whispered Rose.
"Hard to explain right now," the Doctor whispered back. "I had…longer hair. And different clothes. And a hat."
The Kandy Man shook a robotic hand at him, interrupting Rose's inquiry. "This is not your time." Kandy Man said. "You should not be here!"
"Neither should you," he said. "How did you get here?"
"Mistress Helen A. returned to Tera Alpha and found me," said Kandy Man. "She found scientists to revive and reprogram me. Then we used a time vehicle to search for the true source of happiness."
"And to extract it for her own use, I bet," finished the Doctor. "And how do you do that exactly?"
"Sugar mixed with electrodes," boasted the Kandy Man. "Any pleasant thoughts are absorbed in the fondant. I am not in the business of killing anymore, Doctor. Not as a first option."
"And where is your Mistress?" asked the Doctor. As he did he signaled with a wave for George and Richard to enter.
"Mistress was lost in the vortex. But I await her return," answered Kandy Man. "When she does, I will be rewarded for my findings!" Kandy Man was so involved in his own story that he was not paying attention to the Doctor, who was examining the control panel. A second later the music and its power of psychic control had been shut off. Rose breathed a sigh of relief.
The sudden silence caused Kandy Man to lose focus on his story and notice his surroundings. "Intruder!" he shouted at Rose as he started to pursue her. "You are older than the rest, but maybe I can extract more happiness from you since you don't seem to be crying like the rest of those young humans."
"Oh, no you don't!" said Rose. She nodded at the Cadbury brothers, who had made their way behind Kandy Man and had found a long rope made of licorice. Together they were able to bind him up and direct him to a chair that was underneath a vat of strawberry fondant.
"Will you kill me then, Doctor?" asked Kandy Man.
The Doctor considered the Kandy Man's question. They had been able to rescue the children without any lasting harm, and he had disabled the music control. If he could dismantle Kandy Man's kitchen-like headquarters, then there was no reason to harm him.
"No," said the Doctor. "But you will be my prisoner until we can find a place where you can live without harming anyone."
"Then answer me this, Doctor," asked Kandy Man, with a hint of melancholy. "Why have I not found it?"
"Found what?" asked the Doctor.
"Happiness," answered the Kandy Man. "Outside, the children with little food or clothing laugh and play. Where is it produced? Why couldn't my mistress find it?"
The Doctor thought of his own life. He had been asking himself the same question: When you have so much pain and regret, where do you find happiness? He thought of the children who lived in hardship but would laugh during a game of tag. He thought of Rose who watched her planet blow up years in her future, but was cheered up by the smell of chips.
"It is found in hope," said the Doctor. "Youth have no reason not to hope. They can find joy in the smallest things around them; as we get older we forget how to do that. And it can't be extracted, bottled, or forced." He looked over at Rose, surprised to find there was a lump in is his throat. "But it is contagious, and it can be learned. You do that simply by spending your time with those who still have that hope."
"But what good is hope, when your life is miserable?" challenged Kandy Man.
The Doctor's eyes were still fixed in Rose's direction. He had not known her all that long, and yet he was aware that she had had a positive effect on him. "Because hope brings change."
The Doctor was pondering this when he heard Rose shout, "Doctor! Watch out!"
The Doctor, who had been preoccupied by his own thoughts, had not noticed that the Kandy Man's licorice ropes had melted. Kandy Man seized the Doctor by the arm and shoved him in the chair, spraying syrup from his torso region that functioned as a glue, keeping the Doctor in place.
"Your words are intriguing," said Kandy Man, "but do not match with my program design. I will keep my mission, but you will have to die." Kandy Man moved to the controls to release the fondant.
"You would kill a man because you disagree with him?" shouted George, distracting the candy-made robot.
"You are my prisoners!" shouted the Kandy Man. "You also must die."
"Then catch us!" taunted Richard. He opened a door in the back of the room that lead to the oven room that the Doctor and Rose had been in earlier. He ran through it with George right behind him. Kandy Man, unable to both kill the Doctor and chase his escaped prisoners, chose to pursue the Cadbury brothers and leave killing the Doctor till later.
"How do I free you?" asked Rose, rushing over after Kandy Man had left.
"The sonic in my lapel pocket," he said. "It should still be set to melt. Just aim near my hands first."
She found it and did as instructed. The Doctor then took the sonic back and melted the rest of the syrup. In about a minute, he was finally free, though sticky and uncomfortable.
Without a word, they raced into the oven room. The Doctor noticed that, unlike before, the room was incredibly warm.
"The ovens light as a chain reaction, and over half are lit now," the Doctor heard George say. "You have a choice. Stop with your plan and surrender to the Doctor, or melt."
"I will not melt!" said Kandy Man with a laugh. "I have been rebuilt stronger. You will burn first." The Kandy Man once again squirted syrup from his chest, which caught fire and spread it beyond the confines of the oven. It was headed toward the Cadbury brothers.
"Run out the back entrance!" The Doctor shouted to them. The Cadburys complied at once. Then he turned to Rose. "Out the way we came, quick!"
"No! I won't!" she said. "We're in this together!" Mrs. Addison was right. Rose was headstrong—infuriatingly so—but it was also one of the things he appreciated most about her.
"I have a plan," he said, having to raise his voice over the sound of the blazing fire. "I promise."
Rose gave the Doctor a reluctant look, but did as he asked.
The Doctor quickly changed the setting on his sonic screwdriver and aimed it at a heavy chain that was hanging from the ceiling. It caused the chain to swing loose and knock over Kandy Man. It also knocked over an oven, resulting in higher, more unwieldy flames. He ran back through the door of Kandy Man's control kitchen, and then out into the courtyard. Outside, George, Richard, and Rose were standing watching the flames grow higher.
"Run!" he shouted.
The four of them made it outside the gates of the factory just as a fireball exploded in the air.
"That was the reaction of the fire and the chemicals used by Kandy Man," he explained. And the four of them watched as the factory was engulfed in flames.
An hour later, Rose and the Doctor sat at a table at the Addison's restaurant drinking tea. Beatrice Lytton, with the help of Lucas Tanner, had been able to get all the children safely home and was now at another table with her father and mother.
"Well, Doctor," said George with a smile. "It appears you have blown up our place of business."
"Oh, he does that all the time," said Rose with a grin. "Blew up my shop the first time I met him. Then there was Cardiff and Downing Street. It's pretty much his calling card."
The Doctor shook his head but smiled. "Sorry about that."
"No matter," said Richard. "We were running out of space and had plans to rebuild anyway. We wanted to do something better for our workers."
"Yes," added George. "Why should an industrial area be squalid and depressing? We've purchased fourteen acres of land four miles south of here with far better conditions than workers experience in the slums of this crowded city. It has a meadow, cottage, and a trout stream called "The Bourn.'"
"Bournville!" said Rose. "I've been there. It's lovely!" Then she clasped a hand over her mouth realizing that Bournville had not been founded yet.
"Bournville," said Richard. "I like it. We had been thinking of calling it Bournbrook, but I like this much better. "
George nodded in agreement. "You two should come back when the building is complete."
"I'd like that," Rose said. "Despite almost getting blown up, I enjoyed your factory. I just wish I had been able to get what I had come for."
"What was that?" asked George.
"I didn't get my chocolate Easter egg."
"I think we can help with that one," said Richard with a smile. "We have a shop just down the street."
"Think you have enough Easter eggs now?" asked the Doctor with a smirk when they were back on the Tardis. No less than ten chocolate eggs in boxes were scattered on the floor of the console room.
"Nah, these'll be gone in a week or less, and that's if I don't share with you," said Rose with an impish grin. She tilted her head and thought for a minute. "You know, every time someone mistook me for fourteen, I couldn't suss out why it bothered me. Then I remembered my mother on the phone when we were in Downing Street saying I was just a kid, and you agreed. But I felt by then I had already done enough to prove that wasn't true." She looked at the chocolate egg she was breaking in pieces and eating. "But now that I think of it, maybe being a little childish now and then isn't so bad."
The Doctor considered Rose as she sat on the ground with her storybook dress and stash of chocolate eggs. She was youthful, to be sure, but he did not see a child. He saw a young woman who sometimes could be immature, but other times showed wisdom and courage beyond her years.
"You're not childish, Rose," the Doctor said as he took an egg from one of the boxes and took a bite.
"Oi, that's mine!" she said in protest.
"Well, you're not usually childish."
Rose made a face at him, which made him smirk.
"Still, never be ashamed of being young," he said. "Some people would die to have a bit of that energy and wonder."
"Thank you," Rose said as her face flushed slightly. "And Doctor?"
"Yes?"
"Happy Easter."
Author's Notes: The historical facts about the Victorian era and the city of Birmingham are accurate. Even exterior descriptions of the factory are based on drawings. (The interior details of the factory and restaurant are my own imagination, but are also based on research.) The Cadbury company was founded by a Quaker named John Cadbury and later taken over by his sons, George and Richard. The values they express in the story are based on my research, and I believe they reflect their true values. Also, Bournville really did start to come about in 1878. You can learn more by going to the Cadbury UK site.
The Happiness Patrol is a 4-part episode during the Seventh Doctor's era. (And yes, I did watch it.) The Kandy Man is an often ridiculed monster, but the society of the Happiness Patrol is actually an interesting dystopia story (just under developed.) I hope I brought an interesting angle to this old villain.