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The Orphan and the Two Lords
By Susan Henry
The little girl bundled herself up in her warmest clothes, and carefully crept out of the bedroom she shared with the other orphaned girls, making sure she remained as quiet as a mouse. The house mother was surely fast asleep, but she could wake up at any moment for a myriad of reasons, and getting caught was entirely out of the question. In fact she was surprise the house mother wasn't already awake, considering how loud the noise was when the blue box had appeared in the courtyard. The little girl could feel the emptiness of the house around her, as she crept through the room, and the silence was positively maddening. There were voices outside now, and she could just make out part of their conversation, making her curious as to how they got there, what they wanted, and if they could help her. She had a vague idea who the man was, but she didn't recognise the girl's, save for the fact that she sounded Scottish.
"...what on earth are we doing here, Doctor?" she heard the girl say as she reached the front door, opening it just a touch.
"Don't know," the Doctor replied, glancing around the courtyard, as if he was expecting someone. "I got a message on the psychic paper, and I just used the coordinates it gave me." He looked around, trying to get his bearings. "Although we're definitely on Earth."
The little girl tiptoed out of the orphanage now, and into the courtyard, her slippers padding softly on the stone footpath. The voices were louder now, and she could hear an odd whirring noise from the stick that the man carried in his hand. She took another step forward... and stepped on a dry twig and breaking it with a resounding crack!
"What was that?" asked Amy, her head snapping up in the direction of the noise.
At first, the little girl's instincts told her to run, but her legs didn't want to cooperate. She was trapped.
The Doctor turned, and noticed the child standing on the footpath, a broken twig underneath her slipper clad foot. He smiled. "Hello," he said pleasantly, approaching the girl, "now where did you come from?"
"Are you the Doctor?" she asked, neglecting to answer his own question first. "The man in my head said that the only person who could help me was the Doctor," she continued, not waiting for him to answer, "and that he didn't always come when someone needed him." She cocked her head to one side. "But you did come, so he must have lied. So are you the Doctor, and have you come to help me?"
The Doctor raised his eyebrows, slightly surprised by the child's eloquence, but not surprised at all by her precociousness. "Do you always speak to strangers that way?"
The girl shrugged. "That depends," she replied.
"On what?" asked Amy.
"On whether or not I'm talking to strangers," said the little girl. "If you're the Doctor, then you're not a stranger." She frowned. "Now are you going to answer me or not?"
The Doctor thought about this for a moment, weighing up the merits of answering the little girl's question. There was something not quite right about her, but not dangerous or evil, just... off. He still didn't know who sent him the message on the psychic paper, and he very much doubted that a little girl had the mental power to send it herself, but the mention of a man in her head set off alarm bells. He raised a finger in the air, then took Amy's hand with the other. "One moment," he said, leading Amy back to the TARDIS.
"What are you doing, Doctor?" Amy hissed. "Aren't you going to help that girl; because she certainly thinks you can."
"There is something wrong with that little girl," the Doctor replied. "I can't put my finger on it; not yet anyway, but I don't think we should let her out of our sight."
Amy nodded. "All right, in that case you should tell her you're the Doctor, since she's not going to let up until you do."
"You're right," the Doctor muttered. "Though I don't know how she knows me."
"You think it might be like with River?" Amy suggested. "Maybe she's met you before, but you haven't met her yet?"
The Doctor shook his head, waving his hand at her in dismissal. "No, it doesn't feel like that; not this time."
Back on the footpath, the little girl sighed and rolled her eyes. "Are you done talking about me?" she called. "My ears are burning like nothing on earth!"
Breaking away from Amy, the Doctor approached the little girl, studying her appearance. There was a pang of familiarity, but the feeling was fleeting. Something was in this girl's head, and that something must have been familiar with him, considering what she'd said about it telling her about him. "What are you?" he murmured, his eyes narrowing. "Who are you; how do you know about me?" He knelt so he was now at the little girl's eye level. "What's inside your head, and how does it know about me?"
The little girl swallowed, now feeling simultaneously intimidated and intrigued by his actions. He didn't seem to act like other adults. Other adults always seemed to act like they were afraid of her, particularly after she told them about the voice in her head. They all thought she was crazy by the time they were finished with her. But not this man. If he was the Doctor, and she was very sure of that, then he would definitely be able to help her. "Tell me who you are," she said evenly, "and then I'll tell you who I am."
The Doctor stood up, rocking back and forth on his heels. "Fair enough," he replied, but made no effort to do as she asked.
The little girl raised an eyebrow. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Aren't you going to tell me if you're the Doctor?"
The Doctor's expression turned to annoyance. "Of course I am!" he exclaimed. He heard Amy giggle behind him, muttering "Does it always take you this long to introduce yourself?", then glanced back and waved her over to join him. He turned back to address the little girl. "Have you always spoken to your elders like this?" he queried.
"Not really," the little girl replied. "But then, adults usually don't like to talk to me. They think I'm weird, and so do the other girls." She frowned. "Why are you avoiding my question?" she said. "It's not that hard to tell a person who they are, is it?"
Amy grinned. "She's got you there," she said. "Better answer her before the night's over."
"All right. All right," the Doctor said with exasperation. He knelt in front of the girl, then took one of her little hands in his own and shook it gently. "Hello, I'm the Doctor."
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The little girl grinned. "I knew it," she said happily. "I knew as soon as I saw the blue box!" She let out a squeal of delight and launched herself at the Doctor, giving him the biggest hug she could muster, which surprised him enough that he had little choice but to hug her back."The man with the bow-tie said you wouldn't come, but I knew you would!"
The Doctor gently pulled away from the little girl, but kept his hands firmly on her shoulders. "What man with the bow-tie?" he asked, knowing full well that she had not fulfilled her end of the bargain and told him who she was. "What does he look like?"
The little girl cast her eyes to the ground. "He comes to me when I'm sleeping, and sometimes during the day, when I daydream. He sends things after me to try and hurt me, and then tells me the only one who can help me is the Doctor." She sighed. "The house mother thinks I'm lying when I try and tell her, and whenever someone comes to visit, or to try and adopt one of us, they don't believe me either. They all think I'm lying, or I'm crazy. You don't think I'm crazy, do you?"
"No, I don't think you're crazy," the Doctor replied, "and I don't think you're lying either. But I'm not sure I can help you unless we've introduced ourselves properly. Names are powerful things, you know."
"They are?" the little girl asked, looking up at him with wonder.
Amy couldn't help but smile, recognising the little girl's behaviour since she had been in the same position all those years ago. By the end of it all, this girl would want to come with them, and the Doctor was going to break her heart, just like he broke hers. She didn't understand it then, but the Doctor's world was far too dangerous for a young child, no matter how plucky and brave they were. Maybe there was a way to circumvent that, or to stop it from happening entirely, but now wasn't the time to think about that.
Now was the time to solve this little girl's problem.
"My name is Robyn Guinevere Lawson," she said proudly, as if she were imparting knowledge of the greatest importance.
The Doctor grinned. "There, that wasn't so hard, was it?"
Robyn shook her head, tossing her long black hair over her shoulder. "No, it wasn't," she agreed. "So does this mean you're going to help me now?"
"Well, I can't promise anything, but I'll see what I can do." He took Robyn by the hand. "Come with me," he said, leading her to the TARDIS, while Amy followed closely behind. "I'll be able to take a better look at you in here."
The sight that met Robyn's eyes when she crossed the threshold of the Police Box was amazing, beautiful, and terrifying all at once. It was exactly as the man in the bow-tie had shown her, in every small detail. There was the console right in the middle of the room, and the steam rising from the floor, and the noticeboards. She immediately got the urge to play with the bits and bobs hanging off the console, but she knew things like that could wait, and the Doctor probably wouldn't like her doing that anyway. "She's beautiful," Robyn murmured. "I knew she would be."
"You're not surprised that she's bigger on the inside?" asked Amy.
"Why, should I be?" Robyn replied, a wide grin on her face. "I think she's cool. It's like magic."
The Doctor opened his mouth to say that it wasn't magic, that the inside of the TARDIS was just another dimension, but thought better of it. He'd let the girl interpret it however she liked. "Would you like to take a look around?" he said instead. "I'm sure there's something around here that you'd like."
Robyn thought for a moment, trying to remember what the man in the bow-tie told her about the blue box. He'd said there was a library, and swimming pool, and that the swimming pool was in the library, and he'd said there were beautiful gardens full of flowers from all kinds of climates. She liked flowers, and gardens, and the things you could find in them when you looked really carefully. She liked animals too, though she didn't remember the man in the bow-tie telling her if there were any animals in the blue box. Then she yawned and rubbed her eyes, remembering how late it was.
And then she heard the birds.
"Not again," she moaned.
The Doctor was by the little girl's side in an instant, catching her as she fainted dead away. This wasn't a normal slumber, he noticed, this was a much deeper sleep than normal. This was disturbingly similar to the coma like state that the Dream Lord put them into when the psychic pollen had warmed up in the time rotor. But how, and why, was it happening to a normal little girl? What was so special about her that the Dream Lord saw fit to torment her while she slept?
"Doctor, what's wrong?" asked Amy, the concern for Robyn showing on her face as plain as day. "What's happened to her?"
"I don't know," the Doctor replied, only telling her half of the truth. She didn't remember the incident with the Dream Lord, not since Rory had been taken by the Crack. "And I don't think I will until she wakes up."
"And when's that going to be?"
"Whenever the man in the bow-tie decides to release her."
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"Take me back!" Robyn yelled. "I don't belong here! This isn't real!"
As soon as she'd fallen asleep in the TARDIS, Robyn had woken up in the bedroom of the house she'd lived in with her parents before they died. She threw off the bedclothes and jumped out of bed, then raced out the door and down the stairs. She knew that the house wasn't real because it burned down not long after her parents deaths. An electrical fault or something, they'd said. Her godparents had moved in to take care of her, and then lost their own lives saving her from the fire, and that was how she'd ended up at the orphanage, because there was no one, absolutely no other living relatives, that could take her in. But the other reason she knew it was a dream, even though any other child would have loved it, was one small heartbreaking detail.
She knew it was a dream because her parents were alive.
"Hey Robbie!" said Phillipa Lawson, as Robyn came skidding into the kitchen. "What's the rush?"
"You're not real!" Robyn exclaimed. "You, and Dad, you're both dead, and I'm supposed to be in an orphanage, and..." She started to cry. "This isn't real, I know it isn't, and the man in the bow-tie is going to send his things after me at any moment, and... and..."
Phillipa moved to her daughter's side and gathered her into a big hug. "Have you been having bad dreams again?" she asked, stroking the child's hair.
Robyn stiffened in her mother's arms. As much as she wanted it to be real, standing there with her mother trying to comfort her was wrong, and she knew it was wrong, but the man in the bow-tie wanted her to think that it was right, and if she listened to him, if she accepted this world where she wasn't an orphan and she still had her mother and father... Robyn pulled away sharply, stepping away from her not-mother as far as she could. "You're not real," she said again. "The man in the bow-tie says you're real, but I know he lies, because somewhere out in the real world, the Doctor's come to help me and when he knows how to help me you're going to go away forever."
"But why would you want that to happen?" a man said behind her.
Robyn whirled around and came face to face, or as close as she could because of the height difference, with the man in the bow-tie. "Because I know what's real and what isn't, and I want to live in the real world. I don't want everyone to think I'm a liar or I'm crazy. I... I want... I want a real family, not this."
"But this can be real," said the man in the bow-tie, "if you let it. You'll have your real parents again, and you'll live in the house you grew up in, and everything will work out just fine."
"But it won't!" Robyn insisted. "Because unless I accept this reality you'll send... things... after me, because that's what you always do before I wake up!"
The man in the bow-tie sighed and shook his head. "I only do that because you disobey me. If you did as you were told, I wouldn't have to resort to such measures."
Robyn smiled conspiratorially. "None of that's going to matter soon," she said. "The Doctor came for me, and he said he will help me, once he works out how he can help me." The relief in her voice was unmistakable. "He'll save me, because that's what he does."
"He doesn't save everyone," said the man in the bow-tie, "and I know that better than anyone."
Robyn's eyes narrowed. "How?"
"That isn't important," the man in the bow-tie retorted. "But should you be ignoring your mother?"
"She's not my mother!" Robyn cried, tears falling freely down her face once again. "My mother is dead! My father is dead!"
By now, all Robyn wanted was to wake up, to be able to tell the Doctor what was going on. The man in the bow-tie had told her the Doctor could help her, and she was going to believe that for as long as she lived. She'd had enough of this fantasy world, especially since it was no longer under her control. It was about time that the man in the bow-tie left, and Robyn would do everything in her power to facilitate that. "I want to wake up," she eased out through her tears. "I want to wake up, back in the TARDIS, with the Doctor, and that girl... That's the real world, and that's where I want to be."
The man in the bow-tie glanced behind Robyn and grinned. "Are you sure about that?" he asked, his eyes transfixed on Robyn's mother... or what used to be Robyn's mother. "I told you not to ignore your mother."
Robyn turned around slowly, then saw what the man in the bow-tie was hinting at. In the spot where Phillipa Lawson stood not moments before was a creature, one of the same creatures that the man in the bow-tie would send after her before she woke up. It was a strange mix between a bear, a wolf, and something Robyn couldn't even begin to describe, but she knew, whatever it was, that she needed to run at that very moment. The man in the bow-tie had won again, this time, but now that she had the Doctor on her side, she was sure the man in the bow-tie wasn't going to win again.
And so she ran.
The creature took off in pursuit, salivating at the thought of the tasty morsel that was trying to get away. It wasn't constrained by the ideas of what was real and what wasn't, it only knew that it was hungry, and it wanted to eat at that very moment.
It wanted Robyn.
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