"The Mistaken M. Jones"

20. Synchronizing

Earth, in the year 4524

The woman who had taken up residence in Merit's house following his arrest was called Annabel. Her hair was a soft sky blue, which matched her eyes near perfectly. When she had bought the house, she had found it emptied and, for lack of a better term, gutted. There had been holes in the walls, which she took to understand someone had been looking for something. Who the searcher was and what they were looking for, she had no idea, nor did she care. The repairs and all associated costs would be taken care of for her, so she signed the papers, and it was her house.

It was only after she had moved in, started to unpack, that she found the box. It was exactly in the same spot where she would later retrieve it from to show Mercedes, which baffled her. Was this what the searchers had been looking for? Either way, they mustn't have done too good of a job if they hadn't come across it. She had opened it, finding within two things: a sheet of paper, and a round object she could not identify. When she'd held it in her palm, it had come from cool to very hot in a remarkably fast time, but not so much that it hurt her. That was all it did, and it stopped doing it within seconds, so she put it back in the box and focused on the paper.

To the resident,

You have found my beacon. Good. Now, leave it alone. Replace the box just as you found it, keep it hidden, tell no one that you possess it. One day, anywhere from weeks to years, depending on when you come upon this note, a girl will come to your doorstep in search of the previous owner of this house. When she does, it is vital that you give her this box. She'll know what to do. I know you have no reason to trust me, so I will say this: the odds are that you will have lost someone in your life to that asteroid. I intend to do something about it, and this girl will be the key. Help her.

With regards,

The Doctor

PS: Sorry about the holes in the walls. And the floors.

In reading the note, all she'd been able to do was picture her little sister's face. Savelyn's heart-shaped face, her eyes, the same blue as hers, her hair a darker shade than hers… Ever since then, she'd held on to the belief that when this girl would come, it would mean getting her sister back. So, she hid the box back where she'd found it, just as the note said, and she went on with her life, a new sort of hope about her, one the bleakness of her city could not stomp away.

And today, the girl had come. Annabel had given her the box, she'd held the object inside, and it didn't just get hot: it pinched her, left a tiny prick in her skin, as though it had sampled her DNA. After that, it had begun to pulse with a light. They'd barely had seconds to wonder, both of them, what it might mean, that they heard a strange sort of thrumming noise coming from downstairs. Together they hurried back into the living room, just in time to see a lanky man in a bowler hat and a woman in a Victorian dress emerge from the blue box planted in the middle of the living room. The man in the bowler hat had his index out and pointing about, scanning the room until he landed on…

"There she is!" he sprinted up, taking hold of Mercedes' shoulders and staring into her startled face. "Centuries since I saw you, how've you been? Well, much the same, I imagine," he corrected himself.

"Doctor?" she finally found her voice.

"You've had quite the couple of days, haven't you? Three Doctors… Could be worse, you could have had all eleven of us… and then some."

"Eleven?" He nodded, pointing to himself. "You're the eleventh."

"Yes, that's right."

"And those other two, the one with the hair," she mimed.

"Tenth."

"And the ears?"

"Hey!" he frowned, touching his own ears. "But… yeah, ninth. Now though, I'm here, and I'll make sure and get you through this, alright? I'll get you home, I promise." Someone cleared their throat. "Clara and I will, we both will, that's Clara," he pointed behind himself before turning about. "Clara, meet Mercedes," he gestured between the two, and Clara nodded.

"Hello."

"Hi," Mercedes did the same.

"And you must be the, ah, the resident, yes?" the Doctor turned to the blue haired girl.

"Annabel," she nodded, staring back at the TARDIS, unable to look away. "How did you get that in here?"

"You should see the inside," he chuckled.

"You made those holes in my…" she pointed to the wall.

"Diversion," he explained. "After you disappeared, there wasn't much I could do for Merit, I'm afraid. I didn't know when I'd be able to make our paths cross again…"

"Couldn't you just… it's five years, every time," Mercedes frowned.

"Ten, Nine, Eleven, remember? I already knew it wouldn't…" He shook his head to say 'anyway.' "So I had to let him go back. I told him he could hide, that I could take him somewhere else, but he insisted. He wasn't going to hide because of them. So, they arrested him."

"Rage issues?" Annabel asked, still waiting for an answer. "The holes, why?"

"They thought he had something to hide, I thought maybe if they thought someone else searched the place after they had him… It doesn't matter now. He's been locked up for something he didn't do, for nearly five years. We have to do something about that, wouldn't you agree?"

"And you'll help get my sister back?" Annabel asked. The Doctor looked back at her, nodding to himself.

"Whatever can be done," he swore to her. "So let's get started."

"How?" Clara asked, and he turned to her, smirking.

"Funny you should ask." He frowned. "You'll need to change."

TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)