Krista McNair was late again. But who could blame her, she wondered? She was a shop girl, for crying out loud. Nobody would care if she showed up late, again. It was just Pete, the manager there and probably Evan, the stock boy. She smirked as she thought about Evan. They weren't really dating, they couldn't call it that. But months of flirting and innuendo was bound to lead somewhere soon. Krista fussed with her dark red hair, the glossy feature she prided herself on and decided that she could take her time. The shop was only a five minute walk, and she was only….fifteen minutes late. Oh well, she thought shrugging, staring into her old antique mirror as she put on a pink lip gloss. Then she saw something glinting that shouldn't be.
Not half a second later, the lip gloss clattered to the floor where Krista McNair had been.
Lucy Blake was waving goodbye to Captain Jack. He'd asked the Doctor to drop him back off at Torchwood. Apparently, he had a team that would be eagerly awaiting him. But the Doctor hadn't let him leave until he'd disabled his own time-travel device. "Every time you use these, it rips a whole in the universe, the damage is near irreversible. Be good, Captain Jack. Bye, now." Jack had only grinned and offered a salute back to him and a wink to Lucy. The Doctor held the door to the T.A.R.D.I.S. open for Lucy. She checked her phone. It was 15 January. They had passed the time since the New Year in relative bliss. They'd ridden the currents of the Aurora Borealis; Lucy had actually got tears in her eyes at the sight, she'd never seen it in her life. She marveled at the green, blue, yellow, purple and red waves, it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. They'd also gone to a planet called Phalpos, where there were endless stretches of beach and caves that seemed to have no bottom, which glittered with precious stones. They'd spent a full week there, she, the Doctor and Jack. They'd also gone to Greece and visited all the temples and ruins and taken a cruise around Santorini. Lucy had been worried that life with the Doctor would be all running and terror and danger, and there were plenty of moments like that as well. They'd only narrowly escaped from these monsters that spat fire from their mouths but which looked like giant slugs. Part of the bottom of the Doctor's trench coat had been singed off, but Lucy had mended it in no time.
Now the Doctor was setting the coordinates for another surprise location. It took off with that now familiar, wonderful sound, and then gave a sudden lurch. Lucy could feel them being pulled in a in different direction, the T.A.R.D.I.S. trying to go one way, fate or some other force pulling them the opposite way. Lucy was thrown to the ground, the hard metal ground, and then, just as suddenly as it had started, they stopped. The Doctor found his footing first and walked briskly over to help Lucy up. She dusted herself off and could already feel a bruise forming on her ribcage. The Doctor opened the door and peeked outside. Lucy was stuck behind him and couldn't leave until he'd edged his way out, squeezing himself through. Lucy did the same, in case it was necessary. And when she was out, and found herself on a grassy hillock, she resisted the urge to punch the Doctor for making her worry so. They both looked round, the Doctor curious and amused, Lucy, wary and suspicious. "We're in Wales." The Doctor said after a moment. "Near Cardiff, I'd say." He sniffed around, as if that would give him the answer. "Yes, this is Adamsdown." He said. Okay, so perhaps sniffing did give him the answer. Crazy Timelord, she though to herself.
"Well, we're here, and the T.A.R.D.I.S. obviously came here for a reason, so….what do you say we go check it out?" she raised an eyebrow at the Doctor. As though he would turn this opportunity down.
"That's what I love about you, Lucy Blake, always ready for something new!" And with that, they set off down the hill and towards the centre of Adamsdown.
Lucy spied the posters first. Three "missing" posters all tacked to a light post. "Oh dear." The Doctor said, "This can't be good. I've seen this sort of thing before." He thought back to three years ago when he and Rose landed in London in 2012, during the Olympics. A girl invaded by the Isolis had been stealing kids through her drawings. This couldn't be the same thing, but he'd wager it wasn't good. "Excuse me!" Lucy was calling to a man walking down the street. He looked before crossing and came, hand in his pockets, head slightly ducked to Lucy and the Doctor. It was cold and misty and dank, but Lucy couldn't think of the reason for his behavior. He looked suspicious. Or maybe scared was a better word. "Sorry, but these people all went missing round the same time. Isn't that a bit odd?"
The man nodded and said, "They're not the only ones. That Miles Jordan was first. Just in his home, getting ready for school. He never showed up. His parents were both gone, and the door was still locked when the police investigated. And no signs of forced entry. Same goes for the rest of them. Sally Davis was about to go on a date; her boyfriend waited two hours before he searched her place and then reported her missing. And there on the bottom, Krista McNair, she was late for work. Her boss was honking mad, but some Evan bloke put her poster up. That was just yesterday. Three people in a week. All of 'em in their homes, just mindin' their own business. It's not natural, it isn't." And with that, the man shuffled away down the street, toward a brightly lit square. The Doctor and Lucy stared at each other, each thinking the same thing.
"What do you reckon? Extraterrestrial?" Lucy asked staring at the three posters. The Doctor only nodded and then jerked his head forward, ready to do his own investigating.
They were walking down a deserted grey street. Row after row of blank, faded houses, all in various states of disarray. Nothing was remarkable about this street. But every couple of meters, "missing" posters crept up and stared them down. They turned a corner and from the second house on the right, they heard a scream. They both shared alarmed glances and ran toward the house. But before they could even get to the walkway, a woman burst out, wringing her hands and shrieking. "Please! Somebody help! Oh, you two, there, please tell me you can help!" The woman ran up to the Doctor and Lucy. The Doctor nodded and said,
"Yes, we're help, just tell me what's wrong. Has someone else gone missing?" The woman nodded feebly and tried to regain composure. Finally she said in a very small voice, "Yes, it's my husband. He'd gone into the bathroom for a shave. I was makin' supper and noticed he hadn't come out yet; it'd been almost half an hour and it never takes him that long. So, I go upstairs and notice the door's open and Horace isn't there. I look all over the house and he's not there, either! An' you can hear the doors op'ning all round the 'ouse, it's so old. Everything in there's old." The Doctor nodded, said,
"Would you mind if we went in and had a look round. We're detective inspectors." He said, pulling something that looked like a wallet out of his pocket. The woman looked at it and this seemed to convince her. Lucy recognized it as the psychic paper. She'd thought he could only receive messages on it. But it was blank! How could that woman have gotten anything from it? But the woman turned round and led the way into her home. Lucy kept close to the Doctor and said, "I don't understand, Doctor. That paper is blank. How could that have convinced her of anything?" The Doctor turned to her and grinned.
"Well that just proves it, it does. You're brilliant, I knew it!" At Lucy's blank look, he elaborated. "The psychic paper doesn't work for brilliant people. I can flash it at someone and they can draw their own conclusions about who I am, or I can make it say what I want. I showed her our credentials from the police. But really, there's nothing there. It'd take someone really brilliant to know that." And he quickened his pace and left Lucy to feel half complimented half bewildered.
The woman's house was indeed old. Lucy then realised she shouldn't keep referring to her as "the woman", that was impolite. "Sorry, mum, what did you say your name was?"
"Oh, it's Gwen, dear, Gwen Holland. And my husband, that's Horace." The Doctor and Lucy nodded, each with their hands in the pockets. Lucy looked over at the Doctor, at their similar poses. God, she was even starting to mimic him.
Lucy was grateful for the warmth of the house; she was wearing black jeans and a white pea coat with thin lining over a navy blue long sleeved tunic. She shrugged off the pea coat and held it up saying, "Can I put this up on your coat rack? It's so nice in here." Gwen Holland nodded and said, "I don't suppose wither of you would fancy some supper? If not I can manage some tea." She looked from the Doctor to Lucy, clearly intent on being hospitable. It only made Lucy want to help her more.
"Yeah, I'd fancy a cup o' tea. Doctor?" she looked over at him; he was inspecting the knick-knacks on the fireplace mantle. He looked up, slightly confused.
"Oh, sure, nothing like a cup o' tea on a day like this." Gwen smiled warmly and set off for the kitchen. Lucy looked round at all her kitschy, cozy furniture. She frowned a bit, head tilted to one side, eyes focused on the ground. Juliet had dubbed this her very own, "thinker" pose. The Doctor noticed too. "Are you deducting, Lucy my dear?"
Lucy nodded slowly, her thought still in progress, her idea half formed.
"Yes, I-I think so. That man said all three people who went missing were getting ready for something. Miles was going to school, Sally to a date, and Krista to work. And Gwen said that Horace had gone for a shave."
"So…"
"So they were all getting ready, but obviously none of them would be doing the exact same thing. So, we have four people getting ready that have to have one thing in common."
The Doctor tilted his head up, narrowing his eyes, clearly impressed with his companion.
"It's my experience," Lucy went on, "that most people get ready to go about their day in a bathroom." The Doctor raised his eyebrows and wordlessly, they both headed for the stairs and crept up as silently as they could. There were only a few doors on this floor. An open one revealed a bedroom. Lucy stepped inside; sure that Horace had disappeared in the master bath. The Doctor, however, put out his hand, holding onto her elbow.
"What if whatever took Horace is still in there?"
"Well, I'd thought of that, but Gwen said she went inside and nothing was there, namely not her husband. And that she'd searched the whole house and he wasn't there. And the people who reported Sally and Miles missing, they all searched round as well." The Doctor seemed to accept this line of reasoning, at any rate he let go of her. Lucy stepped into the loo first, followed by the Doctor.
"You don't suppose they all disappeared down the drain?" the Doctor asked, half joking and half serious. Lucy didn't respond and when the Doctor turned round she was looking at the mirror.
"They could all have a mirror in common, Doctor. Horace was shaving, Sally and Krista maybe putting on make-up, Miles getting ready for school."
"It couldn't be just any old mirror, though. Loads more people would have gone" the Doctor looked very doubtful as he said this. But Lucy wasn't finished.
"But that's just it. What if it's an old mirror? Gwen said everything in the house was old, and look at the mirror. It's all cracked and fogged. I'll bet it's an antique! What if those other people all had old mirrors in their houses and that's what's pulling 'em in' or whatever it does?"
The Doctor was nodding, catching on. "I wonder what sort of thing lives in a mirror." Just then, they heard the tea kettle whistling. The Doctor went downstairs with the pretence of helping Gwen and saying that Lucy had gone to look round. It wasn't a lie. He just didn't think that he should tell Gwen that her husband had disappeared into a mirror because of the aliens living in it. He accepted his mug of tea from Gwen, noting her grey hair, her smile lines and wishing that he could bring her husband back to her. He set Lucy's mug down on a coffee table and presently heard a faint tinkling sound come from the…oh god…the upstairs bathroom!
The Doctor tore up the stairs, unheeding Gwen's cries of confusion and alarm and sprinted into the bedroom, hurtling into the bathroom. On the floor was an electric razor. Lucy had probably picked it up, examining it. But he couldn't ask Lucy. Because Lucy was gone.
Gwen came rushing up the stairs breathing heavy and looking flushed. She looked round the loo, unaware of anything strange, anything so horrifying, she couldn't imagine it. "What's happened? Did you find out where my husband is? And where's that girl, your partner?"
The Doctor wheeled round, looking quite harried and mad. He ran his hands through his hair, making it stand up in all different directions. "Gwen, your husband disappeared into this mirror. It's old, right, and antique?" she nodded, pressing her hands to her mouth.
"All the other people that have gone missing round Adamsdown, they've all been sucked into their mirrors while getting ready. Right into their old mirrors. And now they've got my friend. Which is very, very bad news for them. Because that means that nothing will stop me from getting her back." Gwen looked horrified, whether at the news of her husband's means of disappearance, or at the Doctor's menacing vibe.
The Doctor took out his sonic screwdriver and ran it along the edges of the mirror. Nothing happened, that Gwen Holland could see.
"What's that thing do? Can't we just…break the mirror and get the, back?"
"Absolutely not, break the mirror an they'll be lost forever. Maybe that's what it wants." The Doctor looked for a long time at the old mirror. He stared so long at it that Gwen wondered if he had quite forgot what he was doing. She even wondered if he had fallen asleep standing up. At long, long last, he spoke.
"I demand, on behalf of the Shadow Proclamation that the entity residing in this mirror reveal itself." Oh dear, Gwen thought. He was mad. He was mad, and he wasn't going to help her at all. But then, just there at the far left top corner of the mirror cam this glitter. Gwen looked away, down the hall that the top left corner showed. Nothing was there. She looked back and saw what appeared to be a young girl.
"It's funny you should mention shadows." The girl said in a small, sweet voice. "That's all these people see when they first meet me. A shadow, a glitter, something in the mirror that's not in the room behind them. And then they're in. You won't make me give them back will you? I'm so alone here in the mirror." The girl would be sweet and pitiable if she weren't so utterly terrifying.
"I'm sorry you're alone. But you can't keep these people. They're not yours. You have someone's husband, child, friend. You have to let them go."
"Never!" the girl screeched and her eyes glowed red, her blond hair blew about her. She lowered her head and narrowed her eyes, clenching her fists. And then she settled back into an innocent little girl. "I'm sorry, you can't have them. They are mine."
The Doctor aimed the sonic screwdriver at her.
"I demand that you release all the people you've taken at once."
"Can we make a deal? A trade?"
"No. You will release every last person you've taken." The girl glared at him and then closed her eyes. After a moment, she spoke again.
"There. Miles Jordan, Sally Davis and Krista McNair are back in their homes. I've done my bit, now I think you owe me something."
"Not so fast, there are still two people you have. The people you took from this very mirror. You have this woman's husband and my friend. Give them back." The girl glared once more and then out of nowhere, the man who could only be Horace Holland appeared in the bathroom, beard only half shaved. Before he could run to embrace his wife however, the girl was speaking again. "I think a trade is only fair." And she trained her evil eyes on Gwen Holland. Before she could fade into the mirror though, the Doctor shoved her out of the door, into the corner of the bedroom, where the mirror couldn't reach. Horace followed, to look after his wife.
The Doctor now turned his eyes on the little girl. His face was grim, eyes hard as diamond's mouth one long straight severe line. He once again raised the sonic screwdriver. "Give her back." He said in a low, dark voice. He didn't need to clarify. The girl was grinning now. This couldn't be a good sign. "Fine." She said in an equally calm, smooth and dark voice, "Have her back. See if you can pick up the pieces." And she brought Lucy into view, Lucy reached out, trying to get out of them mirror. Simultaneously, something very good and very bad happened. The girl gave Lucy a shove, enabling her to leave her glassy prison. However, at the same time, her eyes turned red, her hair stood up on end and she exploded the mirror.
Lucy fell out, unconscious. Nearly every inch of her was cut up, her body and face glittering with shards of broken glass. Her clothes had all been cut with tiny slits as well and she was starting to bleed profusely. The Doctor knelt down and cradled her in his arms. "Lucy? Lucy, wake up, you have to wake up, please." He sounded so scared. Gwen and Horace came into view, both horrified. "Quick, Horace, start the car." Gwen said. Horace left and Gwen moved down to kneel beside the Doctor. "We'll take her to the hospital, love. You can come too, come on then."
"No. Thank you, but no. I have a faster way of getting there." And with that, he picked Lucy up, one arm under her knees, the other under her back, her head lolling in the air. Gwen rushed over to his other side and picked her head up, placing it against the Doctor's chest. She offered him a grim smile and let him leave, passing right by her husband, already waiting in the car.
The Doctor tired to run fast, but Lucy's extra weight, albeit not much, still hindered him. At long, long lat he reached the hillock and finally the T.A.R.D.I.S. He didn't have a whole lot of time so he just laid Lucy down on the cold floor and set the coordinates for a hospital in London. He pulled Lucy's cell phone out of the pocket of the pea coat Gwen had remembered to give him and dialed Juliet.
"Hey, twin, where are you?"
"Juliet, it's the Doctor. Listen, I don't have a whole lot of time. I'm taking Lucy to a hospital, she's, she's fallen through a window." He figured that was a plausible explanation for the cuts and glass. Who would believe that she'd been sucked into a mirror which then exploded when it expelled her? "Anyway, she's going to need blood. Come down to the hospital and meet me in the emergency room." He gave her the address and then hung up. Setting the phone down on the console, he took off his own jacket and covered Lucy up. No sense in getting her pretty coat all covered in blood. Lucy probably knew a great way of getting blood out anyway, he thought. Unless club soda really was the best thing. The T.A.R.D.I.S. landed and the Doctor carried Lucy straight into the emergency room. He was met by nurses and he said, "She fell through a first storey window, but she's unconscious and not breathing." The nurses took her away from him, laying her on a gurney. Just then, Juliet came rushing in shouting, "I'm her twin! Please, let me give her blood." The nurses nodded, they couldn't deny a perfect match and a willing volunteer. Juliet was allowed to go with Lucy, but the Doctor had to stay in the waiting room.
Lucy woke up in a hospital room. Beside her was her twin sister. On her other side, hooked up to her right arm, was a bag fill with AB- blood. "Jules, are you alright?"
"Me? You're the one who fell through a window and needed a blood transfusion! I brought you some clothes, I'm sure they'll release you now you're up. You'll just need to sign a few things and promise you won't b driving home."
Lucy laughed and then thought of the "window" she'd fallen out of.
"Can't help notice though, Lucy. Wherever that Doctor of yours is, trouble seems to follow. I don't think it was an earthquake what happened on New Year's Eve. You and the Doctor and that Jack bloke all seemed fine. And now you're in the hospital! I don't think you should be traveling with him anymore!"
"No, Juliet, it's not like that. Before this, we took a cruise, we went spelunking, and we saw the Northern Lights! Hell, we rode on them! It's not always like this. But, sometimes it is. And those times are worth it. I've learned so much, Jules. I've learned about the universe, about myself! Don't ask me to give that up, because I won't." Juliet only bit her lip and nodded slowly. And sure enough, another nurse came in, asking for her signature. Lucy gave it and changed into the clothes Juliet had brought her. She said goodbye to Juliet again and looked round the waiting room for the Doctor. There he was, his back to her, looking at the paintings on the walls. She took the opportunity and walked up behind him, tapping him on the shoulder. He turned round, eyebrows raised and then saw that it was her. He grinned and caught her in a fierce hug, picking her up and whirling her around. When he set her back down, he still didn't let go. She squeezed him tight as he said, "Welcome back, Lucy."
"Thanks, Doctor, it's good to be back." He led the way out of the hospital and they walked hand in hand to the T.A.R.D.I.S.
