Beautiful
Chaos
GARY RUSSELL
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Published in 2008 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing.
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© Gary Russell, 2008
Gary Russell has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
Doctor Who is a BBC Wales production for BBC One Executive Producers: Russell T Davies and Julie Gardner
Original series broadcast on BBC Television. Format © BBC 1963.
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ISBN 978 1 846 07563 6
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For Russell and Julie,
for letting me play in the sandbox…
Recent titles in the Doctor Who series: MARTHA IN THE MIRROR
Justin Richards
SNOW GLOBE 7
Mike Tucker
THE MANY HANDS
Dale Smith
GHOSTS OF INDIA
Mark Morris
THE DOCTOR TRAP
Simon Messingham
SHINING DARKNESS
Mark Michalowski
THE STORY OF MARTHA
Dan Abnett
THE EYELESS
Lance Parkin
ONE DAY …
It was raining up on the hill, the steady patter-patter-patter hitting the vast golfing umbrella like bullets on tin. Truth be told, it was raining everywhere, but up on the hill, here in the allotment, that was the only place Wilfred Mott really cared about it raining right now.
Whenever it rained, he couldn’t help but remember.
That awful, awful day when he had come to the house, bringing Donna with him. Unconscious, unable to remember anything. For her own safety.
Wilf remembered that final sight of the Doctor, soaked in the rain, his face streaked with water, hair drooping, clothes clinging tight to his skinny body. And his eyes, his eyes looked so haunted, so sad, so lost. So, so old. They looked like the eyes of an old man, trapped in a ridiculously young body. So miserable. So alone. So lonely.
Then that marvellous blue box had vanished as Wilf saluted it.
And he’d never seen the Doctor again.
But that didn’t stop him looking, up there. Up into the night sky, up into the stars that were only still there because of Donna. Up at the stars that warmed and illuminated countless planets, with countless lives that owed their continued existence to Donna Noble. Who would never know – who could never know. Because if she did…
He didn’t want to think about that. He didn’t entirely
understand it; he just trusted the Doctor. With his life. And the Doctor deserved that trust because he had saved them all.
From the spaceships in the sky, from the Christmas star, from that huge great Titanic, from the Adipose, the Sontarans and the Daleks.
And those were just the ones he knew about. He knew from Donna, Donna as she had been before, that there were countless more.
He shook his head at the scale of it all. And how small and insignificant he was in comparison. But he didn’t really mind about that. Because the honour had been in knowing the Doctor.
He reached into a damp pocket and pulled out an old leather wallet. And from inside that, he pulled out some photographs.
One showed Donna on her wedding day, the wedding that had never happened. Donna believed she had never even made it to the altar because poor Lance had got caught up in that business with the Christmas Star attacking the streets of London. Lance had died then – that was the story he’d told her. Indeed, it was the story Wilf told everyone. And he also told Donna that she had been so traumatised by Lance’s death, that she’d gone to Egypt to get over the shock.
Whatever it was that the Doctor had done to her memories made her brain accept the story and find a way to fit it together so she was convinced that was indeed what had happened. Perhaps that was the one good thing that had come out of the ‘accident’ – her brain did that to
cope so, rather than a year or so of blankness, if you put an idea to her, she was able to rationalise it without question. Like a jigsaw where any pieces that didn’t fit just reshaped their edges to make sure they did, and formed a slightly different picture but one Donna would never query.
Another picture was of Donna with her mum and dad at her dad’s birthday dinner in town. His last birthday as it turned out.
The final photo was of an older woman in a wicker chair, glass of stout in hand, toasting the photographer.
He sighed. So much sadness in the Noble house over the last couple of years.
He put the photos away and took another look through his telescope.
Nothing to see.
‘How’s the night sky?’ asked a voice from behind.
‘Hullo, sweetheart,’ Wilf said, indicating the newcomer should join him under the umbrella. ‘What are you doing here? You’ll catch your death.’
‘Oh, I’m all right, Dad,’ said Sylvia Noble, passing a thermos flask to him. ‘Brought you some tea and a bar of chocolate.’
Wilf gratefully took the flask, and they sat in silence for a while, letting the rain create a symphony above them. Then he unscrewed the thermos and offered it to his daughter. She shook her head.
‘Donna used to do this,’ he muttered.
Sylvia nodded. ‘I know. Maybe I need to jog her memory, and she’ll start again.’
Wilf shrugged sadly. ‘Best not to, eh? Just in case.’
Sylvia changed the subject. ‘No blue boxes in the sky tonight then?’
‘Not today. But one day I’ll see him.’
There was a pause. ‘Does it really matter? After all he did to us?’
‘Yes, love, it does,’ Wilf said. ‘I need to know he’s out there, still watching over us. Watching over the universe.
Because then I know that what Donna has suffered was worth it. Because without him, we’re not safe.’
‘That’s a lot of faith to put in one man, Dad,’ Sylvia said quietly. ‘And a lot of responsibility.’
Wilf knew that Sylvia didn’t like the Doctor, and not just because of what had happened to Donna. She felt that if the Doctor had never come to Earth maybe those Dalek things wouldn’t have either. It was an old argument, and the two of them would never agree about it. As a result, they tried not to talk about the Doctor too often.