"Doctor, how does this machine work, exactly? What is its fuel source?"
The Doctor was busy finicking with something at the console.
"Well its...ok, first do you know what a computer is?"
George looked at him deadpan and clueless. The doctor looked away, disappointed with himself.
"Ok, do you know what a calculator is?" He tested.
George could see the Doctor wasn't making an effort to look at him.
"Yes, it solves equations, does it not?"
"Yes that's right. Well imagine the TARDIS is like a big calculator making trillions of computations a millisecond. Understand?"
He crossed his arms and felt tired. He needed somewhere to sit.
"Not at all, Doctor. No."
The Doctor smiled thinly. "Well, worth a go."
George was much inclined to sit down. He had sat in some of the most uncomfortable places imaginable, but he was so tired even now, even as his breaths drew greater. He could feel it working, not quite perfectly. He felt like a dead balloon had been inflated in him. And it inflamed his brain with tiredness. But not sleep.
"Doctor, is there a chair somewhere? I have awful heels." He said flatly.
"Yes yes, erm...try the gymnasium or no..." The Doctor stood up and almost violently grabbed George and flung the pair down the steps, to a corridor beneath the console.
"Jesus, Doctor, where the blazes are we going?"
The Doctor looked manic, smiling the smile of a very happy mad man. George was barely keeping up and in the end The Doctor grabbed him and picked him up, through corridor after corridor.
"Doctor I must insist you put me back on my feet." George was breathless and exhausted.
"Sorry George, almost there. You will like this. Trust me, you will adore this."
George rolled his eyes, holding into the Doctor for dear life and wishing he didn't have to.
Then all the same they stopped moving and were facing a wooden doorway without a door. George caught his breath.
"Doctor..." He exhaled sharply.
"If you mention this to anyone-"
The Doctor rolled his eyes in turn and turned away from George for a moment.
"Yes yes, physical violence, literary references lovely stuff, Georgie boy, really but before you do anything..." He clasped his hand together, locking fingers and turned to George, walking backwards into the room.
"...Look. At. This."
And in one move he left Georges view. He was still catching his breath and was relieved to see that the corridor slanted downwards slightly. That little bit less effort counted with his condition.
Still, George noted without prejudice the way he seemed to recover more normally than he had from something like this, His knees weren't aching as much. His feet were weak but not giving out and his breaths were not shallow. He felt many years and experiences younger.
All this but still he found he disliked its artificial feeling. Like he was part-machine. And not just because of the Oxotron.
He heard a vague airy sound coming from the room ahead. Though he only spied the carpet, he could feel a sense of comfort emanating from it. It was a comfort he only really felt nowadays if he was half sleeping
He began to step forward and came into the room. It felt very soft in the air and the smell brought him back to his days as a bookseller. It was instantly obvious why.
Stacked, endlessly, for what he thought must really be miles, were books. Many colours, chandeliers with no light on them, but a strong yellow almost sunlight came in from the sides of the walls. He could peer into doorway after doorway and find endless books in them still. He looked for some kind of repeating pattern, some idea that there was a trickery. But there was none.
He was in reverie. There was a strange kind of travel, not through time like the TARDIS, which he was yet to actually see first-hand. No, it was far different. He felt like he was a child again. Back in Burma, in that small room with what few books they let him have. He had been so happy. Happiness born of ignorance was happiness nonetheless. In this room, he felt like a pleasant side character, able to read at his leisure.
He looked in front of him. He found a rug, red, with the centre cut out in a rectangular shape, with a table made of wood with seats that looked very comfortable. It was an open area and the library did not start yet. There was something that looked like a stream to his left. There was no barrier from it. He was amazed, enthralled and also overwhelmed a bit. He sat down without words, the Doctor nowhere to be found.
But then, he appeared, with quite the stack of books in front of him. George smiled encouragingly. The Doctor dropped a stack of at least 12 books on the table. Where they were from, he couldn't guess.
But he was darkly pleased to find the Doctor out of breathe this time.
"Ok, so there's these ones, the Orwell sections pretty large so I might just...sit down."
The lanky little man made landing on the couch opposite Orwell.
"Orwell section?"
The Doctor answered without context. "Yes, it's a big area, lots of little corners and it isn't even exhaustive, just the recent stuff."
"So, what do people write about me? Why?"
The Doctor stopped his hyperactive musings and looked at George, realising what was said.
His voice grew soft, like he was telling a child of the existence of Disney land.
"George, what you wrote left a lot to think about. And, and...People talk about you and your work." He broke into a smile. "So all that toil, all those days kipping and marching and running from bombs, they don't ever get forgotten, George."
George leaned back in his chair and raised a hand to his chin. This was a lot to take in. Almost too much.
"Doctor, I am surprised. Really surprised that this was what happened."
He leaned forward, realising what was in front of him. "May I?"
The Doctor paid attention. "Yes, sure."
Orwell peered over the several titles. Some were boring looking and a few had a very interesting form of bonding in the fibres. Others had very beautiful outlines; a few had pictures of him. Some of his own books were there, with pictures on the front he didn't remember. So they had been reprinted. This made him crease slightly. He hadn't liked most of his fictional writing before. Not even his latest work. He was somewhat amused to find an edition of 1984 with an eye on the front.
He hoped the new novel he was working on would be a better, more honest, interesting work. All he knew was it would be about Burma.
Then, at the bottom he found two books and these piqued his interests more than the others.
The first was a book titled "Orwell: A life" by D.J Taylor.
The Second was a book whose title he disbelieved could exist.
"Why Orwell Matters" by Christopher Hitchens.
It was all very endearing. The Doctor watched with silent glee as Orwell slowly gave way to his gratitude and shock that he was so remembered and so fortunate.
For George, it was indescribable. He had received more press in his time, that was true. He had gained much attention from Animal Farm. And Nineteen Eighty-Four was his best received book. But to see his name still being mentioned, it was unbelievable. He saw on the books backs that their copyright transcended the 21st century. He thought, for some reason, of the tress he planted years before. They would live into that century. He had felt so distant and cold to that future, and the stratosphere from whose point of view was rearing and rolling with nuclear armament and military build up. In the shadow of the war, a new rivalry brewed from the ashes, between the east and the west. He had seen this coming, but did not feel clever.
He honestly wondered how anyone could dare miss it or ignore it.
But then, looking briefly at these pages, it was obvious from context that no real nuclear war had happened. He snapped from his thinking backwards and forwards and asked the time traveller seated in front of him.
"Doctor...The nuclear war...does it ever happen?"
The Doctor looked up from his own reading.
"The twentieth century one? Oh now, a bit of rough and tumble, a few actual wars but no, those weapons went unused."
"Really? But what about the people under the states that owned them? Were they free? Or should I say, from my time, do they stay free?"
The Doctor thought about this carefully. To tell George any truth was difficult, because he himself was unaware of the whole picture. But he knew that while there wasn't mass death, there was much corruption. His time in UNIT had left him uneasy about any large human institutions.
"George, those weapons were kept because it was seen as almost insane to not have them. But even thought the Cold War ended, the power of the state, of the governments, of the powerful, they didn't quite dwindle. What I do know is that the human race goes on to conquer the stars. It doesn't end in a big, bright, horrible light but...some people weren't quite free."
"Who wasn't free? And why, Doctor?"
George was sounding serious and he became colder in his questioning. His wish to pressure the Doctor came from a petulant Childs behaviour, which the Doctor exhibited to the point of intoxication.
"Racism and Homo-, well, racism nonetheless didn't go away." The Doctor began to sound depress and he felt worn down by the authors strong blue eyes.
"The truth is, there's a lot still to be done. And you won't live long enough before the big things change for good. But they do. Slowly. That doesn't make the fact it's there ok, but it doesn't mean it isn't worth pursuing, as you'd know."
George sat back again while the Doctor thought over his knowledge of the twentieth century.
"I'm sorry Doctor. I was being very forthcoming and I don't wish to offend."
The Doctor smiled and tried to cheer things up.
"What is it with the British and being polite?"
George looked at him slightly seriously, but dropped the façade quickly and answered/
"I think its guilt and class."
The Doctor playfully dismissed him. "Well of course YOU would think that."
"Ok Doctor, what does the alien think?"
The Doctor played it around in his head.
"I think...it's...yes, probably guilt and class." Not unlike the Time Lords.
The Doctor caught a real glimpse of Orwell seeming confident, but it was barely there. He reminded himself that Orwell was a man who consistently and aggressively kept himself in check. A man who tried. But not always successfully.
Dun
The telling sound of a TARDIS landing brought The Doctor back to why he took Orwell in the first place.
"George, we're here."
Orwell seemed confused.
"You mean, we will hear my voice?"
The Doctor suddenly remembered what this meant. He was about to run into someone he had not seen for a long time. And they didn't know.
"Yes, George but first, a few things I need to talk over. Come, let's get back to the console room. Take one book with you and don't let anyone read it. We can't afford to have timelines getting all tangled."
Orwell was certain he understood very little about what was just said, but he obliged, taking the last book and walking with the Doctor, toward something new.
Arriving in the console room, The Doctor spoke all the way.
"Lovely country, Spain. Lots of stuff happens and beautiful sunshine. I was there once. There was two of me; I think I was wearing that rainbow coat, not sure. Anyway..." His voice led on and with one hand he flicked the TARDIS door open behind him, George standing few feet opposite.
"...Spain!"
The doors opened onto a city-scape that had recently seen great change. People walked in the streets, careless and with candour, posters emblazed with purple colours adorned every wall. Soldiers going to and fro the train station walked with a sense of purpose.
For George, it must be impossible. He remembered and had even written about the atmosphere in revolutionary Spain. But to be thrust back into it so suddenly, it was jarring. He had only once been to Spain before.
Now, he had only once been to Spain. Twice.
The Doctor riffed all the same, used to summing up new locations for new people.
"The year is...oh, 1936. November or December-ish. Civil wars in full swing."
He was walking up and down the brown, slightly degraded street, peering into to posters and shop windows, oblivious to how silly he looked.
"Fascists and Franco supporters on one side, Communists, anarchists and Socialists on the other.
Tell you what George, you humans know how to make wars big." His smile faded slightly.
"But we know what comes after."
George hardly listened, trying to be certain he was not mad or mistaken. He looked at the atmosphere, the way the streets were, and it had to be Spain. It was seared into his mind where he had been. Spanish speakers could be heard and one newspaper he could find had the date. It was indeed 1936.
Not satisfied, George went up to one couple who looked like they were somewhat friendly, awkwardly asking in almost dead Spanish what year it was. He thought he must sound plain insane to them. It had been too long since he had had to use Spanish.
"Are you asking the year, comrade?"
George stopped and searched for the right response. The English was perfect, yet he could tell that in complete appearance, the couple in front of him could only be local. Uncertainly he replied, in English, with the affirmative.
"It is 1936, you hilarious man."
George oddly nodded and stepped aside, allowing the couple past. This was strange.
The Doctor walked up to him, neither happy nor sad, by the looks of it.
"Hey, how is it, bit boggling, eh?"
"Doctor, how can they speak English? In Spain I hardly met any English speakers, let alone in the street."
The Doctor clicked. Oh right.
"Well George, that blue box we just walked out of, again, is able to translate things in your head."
George turned even paler than before. "In my head?"
The Doctor regretted his words, realising the man he was talking to.
"Doctor, what is in my brain? How did it get there? Explain it to me because I am feeling very invaded." He said with impunity.
The Doctor clutched at his jacket, knowing he was at a crucial moment.
"George, it's only a translator. The TARDIS keeps things simple, stops wires getting crossed, yeah?"
He touched Georges shoulder, realising how silly he looked only afterward, as George stood taller than him. "If I wanted to hurt you, I'd have done it by now, don't you think?"
George was still unsure of himself. "Doctor, I need a moment. I must have a coffee, I'm still tired. I'm heading into there."
The Man was pointing at a brown, slightly drab but populated cafe across the street, with glass windows that hid nothing within, at least on the ground floor.
"Yes, ok."
George stood pained to speak for a moment, not looking at his opposite number.
"Do you have money?"
The Doctor fuddled about in his pockets.
"Ah yes, she's always putting things in these when I'm not looking. Here."
He handed Orwell a series of notes and coins whose value he did not know. It took George pushing his hand away. If there was any time to be frugal...
"Ok Georgie, meet back here after a coffee. I'm going to go around looking for trouble."
"Trouble? Ha! Doctor, this is a nation in war. Trouble is around every alley and street corner."
The Doctor nodded like a child.
"Well then, I'll be busy. Now go on, shoo shoo, and don't say anything you shouldn't."
George took a moment, as the Doctor shooed him away, to reflect on the bounty of time travel. But the more he wondered about it, the more incessantly puzzling it was. What made the Doctor an authority on it? Why can he time travel here and walk around and let him buy coffee, but cannot prevent deaths from happening?
He didn't willingly believe what was happening around him. He wanted to think he was dreaming, but decided that by having that thought, the idea was moot. After sitting down alone at a table meant for two, he wondered why the Doctor had come for him. He was troubled.
But nonetheless he was in Spain, in 1936, enjoying a coffee in a cafe he vaguely remembered being in once before. He decided it could not be otherwise. The scene, the setting, it was too elaborated, even with the apparent English being spoken to him, for it to be a fakery.
He remembered the scene, vaguely. He had been sitting on a sunny but cold day, with clouds making the sun look like an egg yolk. The seat, if he remembered, was the one now ahead and to his right. He was sitting facing away from the door.
He thought of his wife. She was alive in this time. He depressingly realised that the Doctor probably knew some rule keeping him from seeing her.
Strangely for what was going on with him, he couldn't help thinking of H.G Wells and his work.
He remembered the article he wrote about him. Wells hated it. Called George a little shit.
Orwell knew Wells knew nothing of real time travel, but it humoured him to think that Wells had touched on the idea, not knowing of the Doctor, or of the possibility it might be true.
He realised, in this train of thought, that if this really was 1936, then wells was still alive. That further meant that he knew when Wells was going to die, before Wells did.
Orwell retracted his cup closer to his chest, realising now why the Doctor had been so obstructive regarding his own future. Orwell just couldn't imagine meeting Wells, or writing to warn him of his death. For one he'd seem a kook and for another, Wells died a death that was unsurprising for his age. So it was pointless anyway.
He would feel guilt as well, to tell a man the specifics of his death, and realised now that maybe the best way to live was to be ignorant of one's own future, or at least one's own death. And so George understood the Doctors reasoning by their argument earlier. Part of him wasn't pleased to realise this.
Speaking of which, he thought of how time had passed for him. He wasn't sure, but it felt like two hours had passed since meeting the Doctor, but really, it was 13 years in the past. All of this made his head hurt.
Distracting himself, he looked out the window. The Doctor was still there, looking like something out of Punch magazine, right down to the tweed jacket. George chuckled hoarsely. He had forgotten the reason he was breathing normally.
The sun was shining bright and it intensified for a moment to the point that he had to look away. He found his coffee empty and was about to ask for more when, peering out the window again, he saw the sun split between the clouds, like a yolk from an egg. His eyes wandered down to street level again, almost in response. He saw a figure, clad in a big, olive jacket, new looking, with a beard unshaved for days and an expression of a total lack of sleep about him. He wore a cap that was slightly too big for him and was walking with an effort to be confident towards the cafe.
With him was another man, with strange looking ears and a leather jacket, walking confidently and with none of the other figures reluctance or temperance. He did have a distinct dark look about him, though.
The latter man he was unsure of. But Orwell knew right away who the huskier man was.
It was Eric Blair who was walking towards him.
The Doctor was slightly out his depth. Looking like a child from a private school had not endeared him to anyone he chose to speak to. He heard all kinds of things from people, most of them labelling him a bourgeoisie dog or some other thing. He didn't take it hard, but he was beginning to realise he looked out of place here. He remembered why it was he typically stayed out of nations in war. Too many social rules to follow. He contented himself with readings from his sonic screwdriver and just looking at the world happen.
He smiled sometimes, to himself, to think how this would all end. The human race was to survive this and go on. But in the meantime, many nasty things were ahead. War, genocide, racism, protests...The human race did not always leave itself room for sympathy. But his forgotten years in the Time War taught him that the ravages of war can always get worse. In fact, they were destined to.
The human race still had much of its worst to experience. But still, he thought, they clung for dear life onto home and recognised its singular awesomeness. The sun still went round the earth, from earth's point of view, while earth went round the sun for real. He never bored of being on earth like he had on Gallifrey. The 1st him, he recalled, had lived a whole life on Gallifrey. It was not always a fruitful one. But he was glad he travelled from home. Ran away. Though he missed it occasionally, Earth was more interesting.
This street, with the people spitting at him as they passed, did not diminish that. He had worn the wrong outfit, he accepted. He looked Victorian in a very unvictorian place.
He decided he had waited long enough and headed towards the cafe. He remembered, almost in the same instance he started walking, what he was looking for.
The man in the leather jacket walked in front of him, oblivious, talking actively with a much burdened man. The Doctor almost couldn't believe it. He barely gained enough composure to walk, quickly and frightfully unsubtly past the two towards the cafe door, beating them to it.
"...Is that a common sight here...I'll take the sight of it at face value..."
He burst in the door and looked incredulous at the confused shopkeeper, flinging money at him confusedly and finding George, sitting next to him.
"Yes yes, two coffees, whatever they are, and thank you."
George looked at the Doctor, judgmental and also with utter loss of words.
"Yes, I know that's you. You can't meet you. You are a very singular person and you can't meet yourself."
George snapped out of it as the lumbering two figures, one of whom was George himself, were almost at the door. The Doctor was facing the door, opposite the seated, older George.
"But wasn't this the idea? I hear my own voice?"
"Yes George but NOT BY TALKING TO HIM!" He said, trying desperately to keep his voice down.
"Sit down you idiot."
The Doctor quickly tossed George a newspaper and made hand signals that indicated to pretend to read it. George obliged.
The Doctor looked as the two came in. One of them was him. 9 Was not a short life. He remembered now. He had come here during the hundred years between his leaving and coming back for Rose. For Rose, it had only been a few seconds. Lord, he thought, how long ago that was.
George tried to look as little as he could, watching without looking and listening in on the conversation between the far younger duo of themselves.
"Me? No. I got this of a...a defector...from the front, yeah. It's fantastic isn't it?"
The younger George, who both Orwell and the Doctor could only see as Eric, replied while heaving his bag almost without breath. Orwell realised what it was he was about to hear.
"Well, they are not often so well dressed so I hope he is fighting for us."
Orwell looked away as the two sat down in the seat he remembered sitting in decades before, or was it now?
They engaged in hushed conversation beneath the menu and upwards newspaper and The Doctor got to witness a site he was sure was not of this earth: George Orwell smiling.
"I am struck with confusing joy, Doctor. My voice!"
The Doctor smiled a winning smile back.
"Hmm, yes George but listen, he can't see you and I should probably say, that person is me."
George turned confused for a moment. The Doctor clarified.
"Ok basically when I die fire shoots out my limbs and head and it repairs and renews every cell and changes my mind and body, ok?"
The Doctor spoke so fast that George nodded dimly anyway. He was trying to listen.
..."Tell you what, Eric, there's a man called Jack who you would quite like..."
"Oh would I? Who is he?"
"Well, he's ones of ours, of course. On the side of the revolution...mostly. He's a captain."
George was not disappointed to hear his voice, but it did do one thing he wasn't expecting: He became only more aware of his own raspy, shadowy tones. The man seated feet from him did not know he was to lose that voice in the year to come. He hadn't seen war yet. There was innocence there, of sorts.
The Doctor, meanwhile, could only gawk at his past self's ears.
Good lord, the ears were bad that time. Still, at least he wasn't vain like Ten, mister 'regenerates twice'
But Orwell became down about himself. It was startling to look at himself, but this was different. It was a him away to war. A war that he learned much from but did everything to escape. He lost his voice, his sense of comradeship. He was stabbed in the back. Like with Wells, George knew all of this and could do nothing about it to help Eric. He leaned back, temporarily risking exposure, to reflect on this. They chatted passively.
"So, what's it like to hear you talk?"
George did not look at him, but responded mournfully.
"I forgot how little I spoke. And why." He leaned in again.
"The truth is, Doctor, that this scenery, with everything that's going on, just reminds me of the place. And when I was here, I remember, at some point, being with Eileen."
The Doctor didn't like that. Eileen O'Shaughnessy had been Orwell's wife. She died on an operating table during the war. And The Time Lord took his turn at being depressed. He had to tell George something awful.
"You can't meet her."
"Why not?" He asked begging.
"Because if you did, time would rip apart. You think Spain is bad? Wait til that happens."
"But Doctor, wouldn't you do it? I know, looking at you, you have felt love. And when I look into that mans eyes, the one that resembles a U-Boat captain-"
"That actually is a U-Boat captain's jacket" The Doctor interrupted.
Orwell looked glaring at The Doctor, continuing.
"That man is in love, I can tell. And you said he was you. A past you, so to speak. Am I wrong?"
The Doctor deflated, admitting defeat in himself.
"No, you're right."
Orwell peered over at the other two again, still not sure how he hadn't remembered the conversation. He still appreciated his own voice somewhat, but barely to the extent he expected.
"Was this why you brought me? Are we here for the same reason?"
"No!" He almost shouted, still trying to whisper. "I can't remember this. Time travel...stuff. But listen, it's up to you what we do next, ok? I can see me but you can't see you!"
He took a sharp breath. "Oh Lord, is this complicated."
"Well I have been confused since I got here. I'm not sure what's happening."
"Let's just...have another coffee and wait until they go."
The Doctor stood up while George still painfully lowered his long neck down to hide from his younger self. As he ordered the coffee, Eric Blair and the U-boat Captain suddenly stood up and began to walk out. As they did so, the eared one stopped and spoke right into the Doctors ear.
"Which one are you?"
"The Eleventh."
The Ninth Doctor nodded
"Will I remember this?"
"No."
"Glad we made it this far. Cus you look too young to be me."
And 9 walked away.
Eleven hung about the counter for a minute, collecting energy.
He sat down again only to find Orwell getting ready to leave.
"George what are you...?"
He looked at the time traveller, disappointed.
"Doctor, I thought time travel made anything possible. I thought it could theoretically end wars, stop horrors. I thought it meant freedom. But it seems I was wrong.
I don't blame you, Doctor. I chose to come along. But if it's all the same to you, I'd like to head back to my own time and place."
His voice faltered towards the end. Both men felt vaguely annoyed at how the day had turned out. A once in a lifetime opportunity of sorts had passed by only to show that neither man had gotten over old wounds wholly.
George didn't really want to leave the Doctor, but felt he had no choice. He was his guest and he had out stayed his welcome. This and the fact he had been made worse emotionally by the trip didn't help.
The Doctor had one more trick up his sleeve, but it had to wait.
Orwell and the Doctor walked out of the cafe, heading around the street corner towards the TARDIS.
Orwell remembered he had a book with him.
A few things:
According to Orwell's own wartime diaries, H.G Wells really did call Orwell a 'little shit' and quote "Among other things" in a letter he sent to him after Orwell published his essay "Wells, Hitler and The World State." Orwell was unhappy about pissing off Wells, who he considered a worthy literary influence on himself.
Most of the information relating to wartime Spain I took from Orwell's own account in "Homage to Catalonia".
Any reviews are lovely and I thank you for them.