Chapter Five – In The House On The Island
It was a lot smoother than Dominie had been expecting. She'd thought she would at least feel it when they took off, but it was as if they weren't even moving at all. She looked around, slightly puzzled, and then wondered how a blue police box was supposed to be able to exit the atmosphere at all. It had to be a chameleon circuit, didn't it? The ship's exterior couldn't possibly really be a police box. Wait…how did she know about chameleon circuits? Even though the idea had just popped into her head she couldn't actually explain where it had come from. Damn it, why was she remembering so much stuff that she knew she shouldn't?
She looked at the Doctor suspiciously, wondering if he had anything to do with it, but he just grinned back at her. "Well, how about that, non-Lieutenant Dominie Nova? You've just turned me into a fugitive from the law."
She looked at him with a slightly irritated expression. "Well, I didn't ask you to do this."
"Would you have preferred it if I hadn't done?" he said, sounding a little surprised.
She suddenly realised just how ungrateful that must have sounded. "No, I mean...well, thanks, I guess. It's just that this is a little new to me. I don't remember ever having to go on the run from the law before."
"Good," he responded, "Means you've not been going round killing any more people. Or maybe it just means you've not been caught."
She glared at him defensively. "You were right the first time."
"Alright, I believe you," he said, noticing the way in which he was looking at him, and then he pulled down another lever on the console. "Anyway, we're here now."
Dominie's defensive expression suddenly turned to one of complete bewilderment. "What do you mean 'we're here'? We haven't been going five minutes. I'm not convinced we even set off."
"No, seriously," he said, nodding at the door, "Your house is just out there."
"Is this a joke?"
"No," he said again, "Outside that door is the planet Ezucan, otherwise known as Alcyone Three Beta, the second planet in the third orbital around Alcyone of the Pleiades Star Cluster, and we're on the Tropic of Sycaro at the house next to…"
"Alright, I know where I live," she said dismissively as she crossed to the door. Once she opened it she stared outside for a couple of seconds before turning to look back at him with a raised eyebrow.
He grinned back, "Told you," he said, "Now will you admit the Tardis is pretty impressive?"
"Tardis? Is that what you call it?" she said, glancing round the control room, "Well, it's not bad."
He looked rather disappointed with that answer. "Not bad? You're hard to please, aren't you?"
She shrugged. "I guess. Anyway, thanks for the lift," she said cheerily, striding out of the door and up to the front entrance of the villa the Tardis was parked in front of.
"Wait!" he called out, running after her as she strode off. "So, now are you going to tell me what exactly happened between you and that man back on Acaritos?"
"Oh yeah, about that…" she said, walking up the steps to the Terrean-Greek style porch and scanning the key to open the door. She walked inside and he was about to follow her when suddenly a steel barrier descended in the doorway, and he looked along the length of the villa to see the defensive shutters come up on all the windows as well. He sighed, taking out his sonic screwdriver. She really was determined not to cooperate.
He waved the sonic screwdriver in front of the key point and then the steel barrier slid up again, allowing him to go through. He walked into the entrance hall and saw her about to walk through a door at the far end, but then he called out again. "We had a deal."
She suddenly turned to look at him in shock. "Those are reinforced tsunami defence shutters, how the hell…?"
"Well, the sonic screwdriver's speciality is opening doors," he said as he tucked it back in his pocket. "Anyway, I've upheld my end of the agreement, now you uphold yours."
She glared at him. "You know you're technically trespassing now?"
"Ah yes," he said sarcastically, "The woman who just ran from the police is going to have me arrested for trespassing. That's convincing."
She glared at him for a few more moments and then sighed. "Oh, alright then, if you're so determined. Why don't you come in and have a seat? It might take a while to explain it all properly."
"Er…alright," he said, slightly put out by this sudden change in her attitude. Had she just thought of another, more dangerous, way to get rid of him?
"Living room's through here," she said, leading him through to a large open-plan room with a wooden floor and two cream leather sofas surrounding a glass coffee table. The wall opposite the door he'd come in through was made up almost entirely of glass, giving him a view out onto the patio and a series of steps leading down to the beach in the distance. Both the architecture and the décor seemed to be in the classic Terrean style, and he was beginning to think she wasn't a native to the Alcyone colony. The entire villa looked like it had been transported here from 22nd century Earth, and he wondered if maybe she'd once had a classic-style house on that planet that she was trying to recreate here. She was quite clearly human, and he suspected she might originally be from somewhere on Earth itself rather than one of the colonies.
"Ok, why don't you wait here and I'll get you a drink or something? What would you like, tea?" she asked as she led him over to the sofas in the middle of the large floor space.
"Oh, you've got to be English," he said as he took a seat, "Tea is just such an English thing to offer. I'd guess that from the accent too, although I think there's just a hint of Rigellian Dutch in there as well, but I'm going with English."
She looked at him with a mildly amused expression, "I've been told I sound Dutch when I speak Pleiadean Spanish as well," she said, "But anyway, you've not answered the question. Would you like tea or not?"
He was starting to wonder whether she intended to poison it. Where had this sudden willingness to cooperate come from? "Nah, I'm alright, thanks. I'm not thirsty."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Really? You're sat next to one of the best sugarleaf plantations in the galaxy and you're not going to try any leaf tea?"
She was determined to get him to drink, wasn't she? Well, he supposed he could agree to it. "Oh, alright then."
"Good," she said, suddenly putting on a smile and heading into the kitchen that was joined onto the living room via an open plan dining area. He could see into the dining space but there was a wall that blocked his view of the kitchen.
"So, who exactly was he then?" he called out to her as she disappeared behind the wall.
"He's one of the men who've been stealing sugarleaf from me for two months," Dominie replied, taking off the outdoor coat she was still wearing and throwing it on the back of a chair before going to fetch two mugs from the cupboard. She wasn't too sure why she'd suddenly decided to stop trying to get rid of him, but she actually thought she could trust him enough to tell him at least part of the truth. Maybe it had been the way he'd run from the police with her, or the ridiculously speedy ride here, or the casual ease with which he'd got past the tsunami shutters, but she could definitely tell there was something unusual about him, and she sensed it was unusual in a good way. Part of her was still reluctant to talk openly to him, scared that she'd end up finding out more than she wanted to, but he genuinely didn't seem to know anything about her. She hoped that meant she had nothing to fear from him.
"And you just decided to kill him because he was stealing from you?" she heard him call out again. His tone wasn't exactly accusatory, but she still felt defensive.
"No!" she shouted back indignantly, "I confronted him about it first and he didn't react well, that was when I killed him. He tried to poison me first, remember?"
"Yes, I remember," she heard him reply. "But you know there's a legal system for dealing with thieves?"
She didn't answer immediately, instead crossing over to one of the cupboards to take out some teabags. She paused for a moment as she opened the door and read the note taped to the back of it. It was there, just as always, with three words scrawled in her messy handwriting: take the pills. Ah yes, the pills, she thought. She had one bottle in the pocket of her coat which was slung over the chair, and there was another in the cupboard in amongst the tea. Always one close to hand, and always a reminder of what she had to do. Even though she knew she'd already had her regular dosage today, given some of the things she'd been thinking about she didn't think it would hurt to take a couple more.
She took out the bottle from the cupboard and just as she swallowed two of the pills from it she heard the Doctor call out again. "Dominie?"
"What?" she replied quickly as she replaced the bottle, having forgotten what the question was. "Oh, yes, I know. But I don't really like the courts."
She took out a couple of sugarleaf-infused teabags and placed them in the top of the drinks machine before setting one of the mugs underneath the nozzle the liquid was dispensed from. She flicked the on switch and the buzz of the instant boil mechanism almost drowned out what he said next.
"The courts are there to stop things like this happening. If you'd gone to them I'm pretty sure nobody would be dead by now."
The machine finished filling the first mug and she replaced it with the second. "Try telling that to my chief cargo pilot who disappeared when they first started hijacking shipments two months ago."
"Why didn't you go to the police then?"
"I did." She took the second mug out from under the machine and began to head back into the living room. As approached the coffee table with a mug of tea in each hand she looked up to see him frowning at her.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Nothing, they never found out exactly what happened to him. No crime, no suspects," she replied.
"So you decided to take the law into your own hands?" It was just a question, not a judgement, and she was grateful for that. She thought that perhaps she'd been right on their first meeting when she decided she liked him.
"Something like that, yeah," she said, setting down the mugs on the table, "Anyway, here you go. Finest Pleiadean sugarleaf tea."
As she sat down in the sofa opposite him he looked at the drinks. "Thanks," he said, before reaching over to take the mug from her side of the table and taking a sip of it. She tried not to react to that, but she knew why he'd done it. In response she took the mug from his side of the table and took a large gulp of the liquid, having no trouble ignoring the burning sensation it brought to her mouth and throat.
He looked at her with an expression of mild surprise, and she smirked at him. "See, I didn't poison it."
"No, alright, I'll believe that," he said, taking another sip of the tea, and then paused to look down at the mug for a moment. "So what did you do, then?"
"I didn't do anything," she replied, sounding perfectly innocent and with good reason. She hadn't done anything.
"Maybe not to the tea, no," he said, leaning forward to look at her, and once again she saw a burning intensity in those brown eyes that unnerved her slightly. "But I saw you do something."
"What do you mean?" she asked, trying to sound relaxed but her worry showed through. With just that one sentence he'd managed to throw out her sense of calm completely. Had she been wrong about him? Did he know something about her after all?
"When you were standing next to the cupboard it looked like you took something," he continued, "What was it?"
She stared at him in shock for a couple of seconds. "How did…?" She glanced over in the direction of the kitchen, but as her gaze passed over the dining area she noticed the mirror she had hanging on the wall above the dining table. From where she was sat she could see it reflecting the sea through the full length windows, but she was fairly certain that from the opposite sofa it would reflect the kitchen, allowing him to see the cupboard she'd been stood beside.
He must have seen everything. There was no point trying to hide what happened. "I'm on medication," she replied, giving away as little detail as possible.
"What for?" he asked in a curious tone.
She shifted uncomfortably, not wanting to meet his gaze. Nobody was supposed to know about this. This was the exact reason she only ever employed autons on the plantation, never had any friends round, never formed any kind of significant relationship with anybody if she could help it: the less people she was around, the less people there would be to ask questions. She knew she couldn't give him a full answer. "Memory problems."
"Really? Which medication is it?" he asked, still looking at her with that intense gaze. "Iridium lithide? Pherinozac? Novopranazol? Calcium carbohalogens?"
"No, none of those," she said, just to stop him listing them but impressed by how many he seemed to know. "I'm not on meds to counteract memory loss."
He noticed the way she'd stressed the word 'counteract' and he looked at her thoughtfully, his curiosity apparent. "So, you're on meds to make you forget?"
She looked at him in silence for a few moments. How had he managed to go from complete stranger to getting to know this much about her in just a few short hours? But still, for some inexplicable reason she felt she was able to trust him. "Yes. I can't remember anything prior to seven years ago, when I officially died."
He looked confused for a moment. "But how…what could possibly be so terrible or dangerous that you want to erase it from your memory?"
"Well, I don't remember do I?"
"No, but…" he seemed to be trying to work something out, "How do you manage to go on living your life knowing there's something about your past you can't remember? Don't you want to know what happened?"
"No," she said in a tone of absolutely certainty.
He still didn't look convinced, and leaned forward in his seat to look at her more closely as he continued to think. "But you're choosing to take the pills," he said slowly, and she watched him with a growing sense of apprehension as she wondered what he was thinking. "There are ways to permanently erase someone's memory...ways to make them not realise they'd ever forgotten anything it the first place," he continued, "But you know that you're forgetting something. You chose to take amnesia pills instead of having your memory erased completely. So if that's the case then maybe whatever it is you're forgetting can't have been that bad?"
Dominie raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Oh really?" she said, suddenly putting down the mug of tea and leaning closer to him with a serious expression. "Can't be that bad, can it?" She held out her left forearm and he looked down at it in puzzlement for a moment, then she rolled backed the sleeve of her shirt to show him what was underneath. He didn't visibly react, but she thought she'd made her point.
He gazed at the white lines of scar tissue on the inside of her arm for a few moments, before looking up again to silently meet her gaze. They weren't just random cuts. They were marks made with intention and precision to form three words: the same three words she had written on so many surfaces throughout the house, the same three words she repeated to herself every morning as soon as she woke up, the three words that formed the basis of her life: take the pills.
She pulled her sleeve back down suddenly without breaking his gaze. "I don't remember doing that to myself, but trust me, it's not something I would ever do if I was in my normal mental state. I don't remember what happened – maybe I forgot to take the pills or maybe I didn't take them on purpose, I don't know – but whatever happened then was enough to drive me to do that. If I took those kind of measures to make sure I keep taking the pills then I really don't want to find out the reason I chose to go on them in the first place. If that means not knowing anything about my life prior to seven years ago, then I think I can live with that."
He continued to look at her with that intense gaze, but there wasn't any kind of pity or horror in his expression; none of the emotions she'd expected or feared. He seemed to be quite calm, not saying anything for a few seconds, but when he did speak all he said to her was, "Are you sure?"
"Perfectly." Her tone was final.
"No," he said calmly as he sat up straighter in his seat, "What I meant was how can you be sure you chose to go on them? You said yourself you can't remember. It's possible I was wrong about it being your choice to start taking the pills. How do you know it wasn't somebody else who forced you to go on them? What if you're on them for somebody else's benefit rather than yours?"
She shook her head. "I don't care. Even if that was the case, if I don't take them then quite clearly bad things happen. If I do take them then my life is fine, and I don't want to change that."
"Is it fine, though?" he said thoughtfully, "Really? Everything but seven years of your life missing and you're okay with that?"
Dominie couldn't believe how much she'd already told him, but she couldn't stop herself from answering. It was almost like she was trusting him despite herself, and she was wondering if it was something to do with the effects of the pills. "Well, maybe not exactly, but I think I've got less to gain from not taking the pills than I have to lose."
"So you're taking them because you're scared?" Again, it wasn't a judgement, just a question.
She nodded. Even if it made her a coward, it was the truth. "Yes."
He leaned back in his seat and exhaled slowly, looking as if he was working something out. "Dominie," he said after a few moments, still looking at her.
She stared right back, unable to look away from the intensity of those brown eyes. "Yes?"
"What if I told you there was a way to find out what had happened without you having to be scared?"
She shook her head and blinked rapidly to try and break the hold he seemed to have over her. "You can't. There's no way."
"Yes there is," he said, leaning in closer to her, and she found she was unable to prevent herself from looking back into his eyes. "Dominie, I could find out everything that's happened to you. If there's somebody who made you start taking the pills I could find out who it was and why. I could find out the reason your ID card says terminated. Everything you don't know about, I could find out the truth. Collect all the evidence and piece it together without you actually having to remember any of it. Whatever it is, if it does turn out to be something completely terrible then I can still give you the choice to forget about it. How would you feel about that?"
Her eyes flickered downwards for a moment but she found she was unable to break his gaze for long. She'd wanted to stay firm in her convictions and give him a solid answer - it wasn't any of his business and she didn't want to know any more - but she found she was nowhere near that certain. "I…I don't know."
"Dominie, this is most of your life we're talking about," he said, keeping his intense brown gaze fixed upon her. "It's a terrible thing to be frightened of your own past, believe me I know. But it's even worse to not know what it is you're scared of. Seven years is long enough to have been living in the dark. Don't you think it's about time you found out what happened?"
As she looked into his eyes in that moment she was taken aback by just how old he seemed. There seemed to be so much history there...so much emotion and knowledge and pain that she was almost scared to look. But somehow she found herself agreeing with him. "Yes, maybe it is."
He nodded. "Alright, I'll make you a deal. You come with me and we'll find out exactly what happened to you together. I won't force you to stop taking the pills if you really don't want to, but we'll find a way to work out why you're taking them in the first place. And then maybe...maybe once you know what happened you'll choose to remember it all, but I promise it'll be your choice. I won't force you to do anything, but I will help you find out the truth. How does that sound?"
That sounded…she wasn't sure. She couldn't understand why he was doing this. "Doctor, why…why would you offer to do that?"
He smiled at her. "Well, it's a mystery isn't it? And I love solving mysteries, finding out new things and that kind of stuff. But more importantly, I never ignore someone in need of help, and from what I've seen so far you really do look like you need it."
She looked at him, still a little uncertain. He was right, if she was to ever find out the truth about what had happened to her she was going to need help. But she still wasn't all that sure if that was what she wanted. Not to mention his proposal still didn't make much sense to her. "But…how would you do it?"
His smile broadened even further. "Put it this way, I'm a 900 year old Time Lord and I can use my Tardis to go anywhere in space and time. There's not one scrap of information I won't be able to uncover about you, if that's what you want. If you're going to find out what happened then the best way to do it would be with me."
If he'd said that to her an hour ago she would have thought he was mad, but for some reason now she believed him. He seemed to genuinely want to help her. She was trying to be suspicious of him, trying to consider that maybe he was trying to mislead her, or maybe he was someone from her past come to get back at her for something she didn't remember, but her gut feeling was that she should trust him. What he was offering…yes, she wanted that. She was terrified of stopping taking the pills, terrified of uncovering something so horrific it would scar her forever, but if he was there then maybe it wouldn't be so bad. "So you're saying that if I come with you then bad things won't happen?"
"Well, I can't guarantee they won't happen at all, but if they do then at least you won't be facing them alone. I won't let you hurt yourself like that again." He watched her reaction, and even though she still seemed uncertain she seemed to be coming round to his proposal. "So do we have a deal?" he asked.
Dominie chewed her lip nervously as she tried to decide. She didn't need to do this. Her life was fine as it was, and she'd thought she'd be happy just to carry on like this. Even if she didn't know her real name or where she was from she'd thought she didn't mind that, but this conversation with him had prompted her to think more. No matter how frightening the alternative, did she really want to die not knowing who she was?
She looked up at him and took a breath, about to reply, but suddenly the thought of that was wiped from her mind as she saw the flash of light outside the full length windows behind him. She knew that flash. She didn't know how she knew that flash, but something was telling her it was bad.
"Duck!" she yelled, grabbing his arm to pull him to the floor a second before the glass of the windows shattered and burst of hot plasma collided with the sofa Dominie had just been sat on.
They both exchanged glances across the floor where they lay either side of the coffee table. Dominie had made her decision. Or rather, whoever was attacking them had made her decision for her. "Deal," she said as they both picked themselves up, keeping themselves low as another burst of plasma went overhead. "Now run!"