"The Mistaken M. Jones"

37. End of the Line

Inside the TARDIS

Her adventure had been sneaking away from her piece by piece, ever since the cuff had fallen from her arm. First they had said their goodbyes to Annabel and Gravis and their daughter, and then they had taken Merit into the past, to the asteroid… Mercedes still had some difficulty accepting what this would mean for him. She knew why he wanted it, and she would by no means put herself in his way if it was what he wanted, but knowing what they all knew, Merit included, it felt like such a bad way for his story to end. As they'd waited, she and Clara had had enough time to consider it all, and they had left the subject with the decision that if it would make him happy, or at peace at least, then they had nothing to say.

Then when the Doctor had come back and they'd departed, Mercedes had known exactly where they'd go next. This was it, the end of her adventure. They were taking her home, to her own time and her own city.

"What do you think happened to him?" she asked; it was her last chance to do it. "Lenton. What happened to him that he was wounded like that and he came to me? If he hadn't been hurt, he would have gone through it all, and he would have been back there, with Merit. They could have lived out their lives together," she bowed her head.

"I don't know," the Doctor admitted. It had been something that plagued him, too, and if he'd been there, if he'd been able to gain more information than this, he might have known what to tell her, but he didn't. "But see, it was always going to be this way, wasn't it?" he told her, hoping maybe this would comfort her. "If Lenton had been the one to return to Earth, to enter that world, he would not have been the one to do what you did, and those people on the asteroid, they might not have been saved."

"Yeah, I guess…" She still wished she had more of an answer than this.

Clara had brought her a stack of clothes which she soon realized were her own, the ones she'd had in the beginning, when she'd landed, before she'd had to change into that uniform.

"How did you…" she started to ask, but she was merely ushered off to go change.

Before long, the TARDIS had come to a stop. When she opened the door, Mercedes blinked. This was the very same day, the place, where she'd disappeared from. The Doctor told her she needed to keep these past few days to herself, couldn't tell anyone. She promised she would keep the secret. They said their goodbyes, and after she'd stood by to watch the police box disappear, she'd turned and started on her way back home, to the old college debacle with her parents.

"So, about the hair," Clara pulled off the canary bun, as the TARDIS went off. The Doctor startled, staring at the cascade of messy brown curls.

"Blimey…" he breathed.

"Salon, now. As I recall, you did say I was the boss," she smirked. He tried to argue, but instead he closed his mouth and he flipped a switch.

X

In the year 4540

Lenton Daen could hardly believe that he was looking at it, that he was holding it. The specifications he'd made had been programmed into it, and soon the cuff would take him back. Earth, my home… thirty-one years ago. Merit would only be sixteen at that point, and he didn't know what he would do when he found him, if he would even manage to say anything. He'd see them, and that might have been enough. He still wore his old uniform, the one he'd left the asteroid in, years ago, when his search for the cuff hadn't yet begun. For some reason he couldn't make himself part with it. Many of them might have chosen to burn it, a symbol of their old lives; maybe he needed to remember.

The numbers on the inside of the cuff were counting down, still several minutes to go. Once he made his first jump, he wouldn't be able to take it off anymore, not until the cycle was complete. He wished it would lock already; he never wanted to lose it, not for all the work that went into tracking it down.

Then he heard something, a commotion nearby, something loud, rhythmic, like boots... He was drawn to go and find out what it was, and when he did, he paused. It couldn't be… Judoon… He'd heard about them before, had never seen them, but then there was no mistaking it.

Some passersby stared briefly at the small pack of them, but they didn't stick around. They were not targeted, and that was good enough for them. Lenton would have gone, too, but then he saw something, and he didn't have to look long to understand this was what the Judoon were after. A man and woman were hurrying along, and the Judoon were following; some of them were reaching for their weapons. The man and woman didn't look at all like they belonged in this situation, and the next thing he knew, Lenton was hurrying toward them.

"Here, over here!" he called to them. They looked in his direction, and they veered to follow. He let them get past him, and that would be his undoing.

The Judoon's shot had not hit him squarely, if anything it barely glared off of him, but it had been enough. To their credit, the man and woman didn't abandon him to his fate, there on the ground. They picked him up, one arm over each of their shoulders, and they ran with him, until they could get cover.

"Did we lose them?" the man asked.

"I don't know, just be quiet," the woman begged, crouching to look at Lenton's injury. She frowned; it didn't look good.

"Please…" he panted. "I have to…" he cringed, pain shooting through him. "I have to go…" he showed his arm, the cuff. The woman stared long at it, and if he hadn't been so stricken with pain, he might have seen the realization hit her. As it was, she only pulled her sleeve back, revealing a different kind of cuff, this one made of leather. She started tapping in some sequence he couldn't see. "What are you…"

"Listen to me," she said, taking his hand and placing it over her cuff. "You have to look for the one called Jones, she will help, she knows the Time Lord. Find her, find Mercedes Jones." She doubted that he had caught the end of it. He had disappeared just as she said it. She sat back on the ground, looking up over her shoulder.

"What do we do now?" Walter asked. Gemma frowned.

"Well, they found us… again. We'll have to think of something, won't we?"

TO BE CONCLUDED (TOMORROW)