"You wanted me to fall into the scar." But that wasn"t true, was it? He had a great chance to throw her in, and he didn"t. "You wouldn"t have cared if I had.
You"d have got your your Sam back." Sam back."
"I didn"t think of it as dying," said the Doctor softly. "Just being put back, ah, the way you should be. . . "
"Yeah." The anger was a sticky black ma.s.s in her throat. "Well, I"ve never been too interested in how I should should be. I"m just who I am. Right now." be. I"m just who I am. Right now."
The Doctor put down the face cloth. "Sam, if Sam were in your shoes "
"You realise how stupid that sounds?"
" she wouldn"t hesitate to have herself turned back."
Sam laughed an ugly laugh. She pushed herself out of the chair, leaned against the windowsill, her back to them.
"You really think if you told Little Miss Perfect she was supposed to smoke a pack a day, you think she"d want to change into me? And then try telling her I get high high and watch her have a coronary." The words piled out of her mouth before she could think about them. "And that"s before we get to the c.r.a.p job and the c.r.a.p little bedsit and the undesirable friends. She might be thick enough to do it on principle. But do you really think, if she and watch her have a coronary." The words piled out of her mouth before she could think about them. "And that"s before we get to the c.r.a.p job and the c.r.a.p little bedsit and the undesirable friends. She might be thick enough to do it on principle. But do you really think, if she knew knew me, she"d want to me, she"d want to be be me?" me?"
"I"m not talking to her right now," he said plainly. "I"m talking to you. And I"m saying I"m sorry for the way I treated you."
He reached out both hands to her face his fingertips touching her cheeks, just for a moment. Her mouth was suddenly dry.
"I want to do something to make it up to you," he said. "How does dinner sound?"
Sam glanced out of the window. She could just see the juggling clown, surrounded by his audience, balancing increasingly improbable numbers of b.a.l.l.s on top of one another as they hung unsupported in the air. As she watched, he threw his top hat on to the pile.
He knew how to handle it all. knew how to handle it all.
45."I should just go home," she said. "Get on the next plane and go back to work and forget the whole thing. Never know what in h.e.l.l"s going on with my lifeline, and end up getting knifed on the street by a little kid who wants me dead for some reason I don"t have the first clue about." She let her forehead rest against the gla.s.s. "Dinner"s fine."
"Hang on," said Fitz. "What little kid?"
"Pulled a knife on us in London," said Sam. "Weird little foreign boy, maybe eleven, twelve. Called me a paradox."
"Dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin, weird grin?"
The Doctor and Sam turned and stared at him.
"Oh s.h.a.g," said Fitz. "I think he"s been here all along."
Sam was lying on the bed, cradling her head in her arms. The aching had diminished to a distant throb.
The Doctor had insisted on making his phone calls first, trying to get his stabiliser thing fixed. What she wanted to know was when they could go out and do a bit of GBH on that little brat with the knife.
"You"re just about our last hope, Adrienne," the Doctor was saying. He"d put the phone on to speaker. "We need cutting-edge technology. ITAR seem to have lost most of their funding after the atomic-clock debacle."
There was a knock at the door. Sam wandered over and let Fitz in.
"I don"t know if UNIT have got the kind of technology you"re after," said General Kramer"s gravelly voice. "I"ll make some calls. But don"t rely on us. If there"s anyone else you can contact. . . "
"Possibly," said the Doctor. "Maybe. Thank you, anyway, Adrienne. You can always call us at this number, leave a message."
"How"re you doing, Sam?" said Kramer.
"Oh, fine," said Sam, before she realised that the general was talking to someone else entirely.
"Good to hear you"re still with us," said Kramer, with a knowing smile in her voice. "Keep an eye on him for me. He"s hopeless at taking care of himself."
"Yeah," said Sam. "Yes, of course."
"You take care of yourself, too."
"I will," said Sam. "Thanks."
The Doctor rang off, and put his head in his hands.
"I"ve warned all my contacts about the grey men," said Fitz. "They"ll get in touch if they see or hear anything." He looked down at the Doctor, whose face was still hidden. "I gather you didn"t have much luck either."
46.Sam sat up. "When are we going to do something about the boy?"
"Soon," mumbled the Doctor. "First things first."
"No luck?" asked Fitz.
"I"ve called everyone I know in the entire Bay Area," said the Doctor. "Even the ones who don"t know anything about high-energy physics."
"So that"s it then," said Fitz. "We"re stuffed."
"There is someone who could help," said the Doctor between his fingers, "but none of the phone numbers I have for him are working. He"s probably not even in the area any more. I"m down to my last option."
"What"s that, then?" said Sam.
He sighed. "Both of you please wait outside."
"What"s he doing in there?" Sam stared at the closed door to the Doctor"s room.
Fitz had taken up residence in the doorframe on the opposite side of the hall.
"I think he"s contacting his people for help."
"Right." Sam lit up, ignoring the This is a non-smoking floor signs. "So who are his people?"
"The Time Lords," declared Fitz. The look he gave her over his sungla.s.ses spoke of untold mysteries.
"I know that. But who are they?"
A pause. "b.u.g.g.e.red if I know." Fitz shrugged and settled his hands in his pockets. "He usually changes the subject when they come up. But it sounds like turning to them is like ringing up G.o.d and asking for a spot of divine intervention."
"Or ringing up your parents and begging for a handout. No wonder he wanted us out of there. I wouldn"t be caught dead "
"He hasn"t got much choice," said Fitz. "If he loses the TARDIS. . . I saw him when she nearly died, a few weeks ago. It wasn"t pretty."
"Listen," said Sam. "The Doctor and that other Sam. Are they s.h.a.gging, or what?"
Fitz looked as though he"d been hit round the head with a two-by-four. "Well,"
he said, after a few moments. "Well, I can"t say I"ve ever actually caught them at it."
"You think they are."
Fitz pushed his hands even deeper into his jacket pockets, as if he was fishing in them to find his composure again. "I don"t know," he admitted. "Maybe that"s why she"s always been able to resist me. Though I suspect that"s just her good taste at work."
47.Sam laughed, blowing out smoke. "Her taste can"t be all that good," she said.
"Yeah, well," he said. "Hmm."
"Catch!" called the Doctor.
Sam jumped, nearly losing the cigarette. The Doctor had appeared in the doorway, and he"d just tossed a large white cube at her.
Her hands leapt up to catch it, but in midair it twisted and vanished.
"Time Lord message pod," he explained.
He began pacing the hall with the energy of an expectant father outside the delivery-room door. "I"ve told them everything. I"ve asked, I"ve called in favours, I"ve made vague threatening remarks, I"ve even come as close to grovelling as I ever hope to in this lifetime. It"s the only way, I"m not proud. Well not really.
Just so long as they send their reply to the s.p.a.ce-time co-ordinates I gave, I"ll be happy. I really will." Maybe he even believed it too, but she caught a flicker of real anguish on his face, and he was pacing so fast like he wanted to leave the whole subject behind.
"So when"ll the reply get here?" asked Fitz.
The Doctor took out his pocket watch and flipped it open. Sam had a glimpse of dials and crystals spinning inside. "Later tonight," he said. "Once the epistopic interfaces of the s.p.a.ce-time continuum are properly aligned."
"So it"s OK? It"s going to be all right?" said Sam.
The Doctor tucked his watch away. "Yes," he said. "I think."
"One problem down," sighed Fitz, "several thousand to go."
"Then we"d better get started, hadn"t we?" said the Doctor.
The Doctor and Sam were squeezed together in the s.p.a.ce behind a rubbish dumpster, behind the hotel. He was pressed between her, the wall, and the pile of discarded boxes behind them. The air smelled of wet cardboard and rotting fruit.
She could barely make out the approaching voices. "Just down this way." That was Fitz. "His car"s parked at the end of the alley."
"He may be armed," whispered the Doctor. Sam nodded. For just a moment she thought she shouldn"t be able to believe this it was too wild for her life.
But around him you just found yourself accepting almost anything.
Fitz had almost reached them.
"Sam," whispered the Doctor, "number fifteen."
She turned to ask him what? what? but the Doctor just let out a tremendous yell and charged. Sam ducked as he shoved past her. but the Doctor just let out a tremendous yell and charged. Sam ducked as he shoved past her.
48.He was hurtling towards the boy, who stood rooted to the spot. Fitz jumped back a pace, blocking the way they"d come.
But the Doctor veered off circling the boy, just out of reach, the kid turning with him until his back was to Sam. The Doctor"s prolonged war cry was beginning to run out of breath, edging into the ridiculous. He shuffled slightly, like an actor who"d missed his cue.
Why didn"t he just grab the kid?
The boy bolted down the alleyway.
She screamed and shoved the stack of boxes. They fell away from the wall, thumping down into the boy"s path, knocking him off balance, and she lowered her head and rammed him.
Her shoulder caught him in the middle of his back. He crunched face first into a wooden crate with a satisfying noise. She was on him in a second, dragging his arm up behind him, forcing her elbow into place in the kind of headlock she used to use on her little cousin Peter.
He twisted his head around, grabbing at her arm, and she got her first good look at his face. He had a livid black eye, and his mouth was open in shock.
For one wonderful moment, he was frightened.
Then he saw her eyes on him, and he smirked. "How "bout picking on someone your own size?"
She yanked him back, hard, pulling his feet off the ground for a moment.
"You pulled a frigging knife on me," she said. Then Fitz was there, holding the boy from the side, shooting her a look which said don"t let him rattle you don"t let him rattle you.
She tightened her arm across his throat. "Do it again and I"ll break you in half "
"Enough of this," said the Doctor.
He was pacing towards them, his eyes fixed on the boy"s. He"d picked up a stained cardboard gift box from the scattered ma.s.s. He held it up to the boy"s face as he closed in.
"Now then," he said, in a low voice. "Inside this box there is a monster that eats little boys. I want you to tell me who you are, and what you"re doing here."
The boy snorted. "I"m too old for that monster c.r.a.p! There"s no such "
"There you"re wrong," said the Doctor. "There is is a monster that eats little boys. a monster that eats little boys.
She"s called Time. And no little boy can escape her." He pushed the box closer, snapping its lid open and shut, nipping at the boy"s nose. He flinched. "She didn"t eat me because I did a deal with her. And I want to know who you"ve you"ve done a deal with." done a deal with."
49."Time!" sneered the little boy. "I got that b.i.t.c.h wrapped around my little finger." He wriggled up against Sam"s body.
"You said you wanted me because I"m a paradox," she said, bending him back a little further. "Why? What for?"
The boy laughed. "It"s our thing."
" Whose Whose thing? Who are you? How do you know about me?" thing? Who are you? How do you know about me?"
"Oh, you"ve been asking all all the wrong questions." The boy twisted round, trying to stare her in the face. "We"ve been keeping an eye on you. It"s all "cause of Save the Whales Girl. We checked up on her background." She could see he was smiling. He was the wrong questions." The boy twisted round, trying to stare her in the face. "We"ve been keeping an eye on you. It"s all "cause of Save the Whales Girl. We checked up on her background." She could see he was smiling. He was enjoying enjoying this. "We found out where she came from. One Sam, two Sam, blonde Sam, you Sam. We found out how you got this. "We found out where she came from. One Sam, two Sam, blonde Sam, you Sam. We found out how you got turned turned."