'It's hard sometimes. I know more than most. You just have to pick up the pieces.'

Chris nodded, but didn't meet her gaze. He was looking at the crystal again. 'That's what the Detrians have to do now too,'

she said gently.

'I know,' he said. 'You're right. They can still do something.

They aren't dead yet.'

He gave Roz a wan smile. 'And neither, I suppose, are we.'

'What the h.e.l.l kept you?'

Ace practically fell into the TARDIS and gulped in deep breaths of its sweet, rich air. The Doctor was silent. He remained at the console and reset the coordinates.

'Don't tell me you had problems?' Ace mocked. She grinned, looking over to him for some form of rejoinder. The expression froze as she saw him properly for the first time. 'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l.

What happened to you?'

'It doesn't matter. It's over now.'

'All except for the cleaning bill. Who did you murder?' He looked at her sharply, but chose not to answer. He returned to his work, but Ace's eyes were captivated by the stains on his jacket and his skin. There was even a splash of blood on his face. 'You must have some pretty wild dreams,' she said.

She was obviously not going to get an explanation. She found herself wondering what sort of dreams he did have. She wondered to what lengths he had gone to triumph over his own mind.

As the fictional blood began to evaporate from the Doctor's hands, Ace wondered if the metaphorical stains could ever fade.

240.

26.

And They All Lived

Kat'lanna stared up through the hole in the Great Hall's roof and wiped a stray tear from her cheek as the Detrian Miracle's death-throes continued. 'What was it all for in the end?' she whispered. 'Our planet is doomed despite all we've been through.'

She felt Thruskarr's hand on her shoulder. His sibilant voice came softly, haltingly. 'You told me what the alien said, what you worked out together.'

'I know,' she sighed. 'That the Miracle was no real answer.

And I knew in my heart that it couldn't last. It's Just hard to imagine a better salvation.'

'It will come,' the lizard man a.s.sured her. 'So long as the survivors of this catastrophe can work together, on something which will benefit us all.'

Kat wrenched her gaze away from the depleted crystal. The Hall was still full of people, but there was no fighting. Those of both sides who were not dead or unconscious were staring at the sky or weeping on their knees or sitting with heads buried, unable to believe all that had happened.

Somebody had taken advantage of the distraction to slip a knife into Enros's gut. He coughed blood and spasmed as his soul went to whatever final rest he had brought upon himself.

Kat knew it could have been much worse. If Rokk had managed to kill him only moments earlier, the Undying One's fall would really have coincided with that of the Miracle. His immortality in Detrian beliefs would have been a.s.sured, and who knew what might have been done in his name then? As it was, few people spared his carca.s.s a second glance. The discredited Messiah, defeated and exposed; and dead, now.

241.

The Doctor was spotless once more. Only the dejected hunch of his shoulders remained as evidence of whatever he had been through. Ace studied him as he allowed Jason into the TARDIS and dematerialized once more, bound for Detrios. If she knew him half as well as she thought she did, then he was definitely worried about something.

Had he fretted so much about her, she wondered? Had he been as hurt when she turned against him?

Chris Cwej walked in almost as soon as the doors opened. He spared the Doctor only a brief nod as he bustled through to the internal corridor, fists clenched and head down. Ace was genuinely taken aback by the hurt that this dismissal precipitated in the Doctor's expression.

'You didn't bring her then,' he said to Roz, as she followed.

His voice was dull and he had turned so that neither she nor Ace was able to see his face. He pretended to be working at the ship's controls.

'It's all gone,' Jason announced. Ace looked up, surprised by the sudden outburst. He wasn't addressing anybody in particular. His eyes were staring into the mid-distance. 'It's draining away,' he said.

Roz had hesitated, torn between answering the Doctor's question and pursuing her partner. 'He learnt the hard way,' she said. 'He'll get over it.' Then she chose the latter option, calling out Chris's name as she hurried after him.

'No more stories,' Jason wailed painfully, wrapping his arms about himself. He seemed oblivious to everything else.

'What are we going to do with him?' Ace asked.

The Doctor sighed and walked over to the young man. He regarded him intently for a second, then seemed to reach a decision. He pa.s.sed his hand briefly over Jason's eyes and commanded: 'Sleep.'

'You're going to wipe his memory, aren't you? I thought you were learning your lesson about that.' The Doctor glared at her and Ace almost felt guilty about her accusation. 'Still playing head games?' she clarified, one eyebrow raised.

'I'm giving him a chance to live.'

242.

'You're correcting the Time Lords' mistake for them, more like. Finishing of their botched job. Cleaning up the Land of Fiction's remains.'

'It's better for everybody this way.'

Ace shrugged. 'So long as you can still justify mucking with people's minds.' He continued to subject her to his penetrating stare. She studied the console and pretended not to be affected.

'Are you taking him home then?' she asked him finally.

The Doctor returned to the console sulkily. 'England, 2001,'

he grunted.

The following week pa.s.sed in a dull blur, and later, Kat would find it hard to distinguish in her memories between one day and the next. The Detrians went underground again, their brief forays to the surface halted by the eventual loss of atmosphere.

The power they had drained from the Miracle vanished from their grids and even the most optimistic estimates said that life would be extinct on the planet within two generations.

Not all things were so bleak. Mortannis's return had filled Kat with joy. She had a.s.sumed him dead, but instead he had incredible tales to tell. His story tallied with - and expanded upon - what she already knew, although she was disappointed not to hear any mention of her erstwhile alien confidante.

Kat'lanna was amazed at how much respect Mortannis commanded now. Disillusioned cultists flocked to his outcast band in droves and many of the Ruling Family's supporters were noticeably quiet, ashamed to admit their Political inclinations. In the cold darkness which followed the p.r.o.nouncement of death upon Detrios, allegiances shifted like the wind.

Mortannis addressed as many as he had time for. He Preached on the possibilities of survival, on ideas such as Wind power and hydro-electricity and the harnessing of fossil fuels, all things which had been postulated before the first Great Darkness began. They had squandered, he said, most of the reprieve that their ancestors had bought them. But, although things looked bad now, there was still time, and thus hope, for their race.

243.

Most of those who heard him believed. They understood why they couldn't wait for a fairy-tale ending such as the Miracle had once promised. What Detrios needed was for all people, all cla.s.ses, to work productively at overcoming their considerable problems. They couldn't afford to fall back into the old ways of politics, mistrust and superst.i.tion.

Kat'lanna was proud of her brother and happy too with Thruskarr's continuing companionship, himself proving a useful orator in the fight to win back the support of the decimated and resentful lizard people. Neither knew what the future held. Kat's feelings had turned a full loop since that night they had talked in the old but on the surface. She wasn't sure that she knew which way was up any more and she wanted time for things to settle before she tried to sort through her own emotions. Thruskarr, bless him, understood her needs. And, in the new society they were building, such choices would at least be theirs to make alone.

But, uppermost in Kat's mind through this unsettled period, was one man: one man who had given her hope when hope had died, reviving feelings when she had thought she might not feel again. One man whose courage and optimism had dragged her and her planet into a bold new era.

Kat didn't really know why Christopher's friends had done what they had. She wondered if he had tried to stop them, if they had disposed of him and gone ahead with their plans anyway. From what he had said, though, she doubted that they had. She suspected that the destruction of the Miracle had been for the greater good of all.

She couldn't look at the sky any more. It didn't matter: there was nothing to see there. She stared at the internal lighting instead, night after night, for long months after the handsome alien's departure. She accepted, too, that he had had to leave.

His destiny she knew, was in the stars.

But what Kat'lanna could not understand was why he had never come back to find her.

Mel followed Bernice into the console room, a shapeless grey hold-all slung over her shoulder. The Doctor looked up as she 244 entered. She saw that, behind him, the doors were open.

'Are we there?'

'I had another little errand first.' He glanced at the bag.

'Your friend helped me go through one of your wardrobes.'

'I hope you don't mind,' Benny said apologetically. 'She didn't have anything.'

You left me with nothing,' Mel said icily, 'when you turfed me out. And I see you got rid of it all.'

'I did explain about our swapping TARDISes,' Bernice reminded her.

The Doctor didn't say anything; not until Ace had returned from escorting the dazed Jason out into his home. She was dressed like some secret agent, Mel thought: long trenchcoat, shades and rucksack. So much had changed.

The Doctor set the ship in motion, then asked Mel solemnly where she wished to go. She answered him firmly and decisively. 'Home.'

'How long since you left 1986?'

'Four years.'

'Then would you prefer 1990?'

She shrugged. Ace interjected: 'Anywhere in that decade.'

She patted her backpack. 'We'll fine tune things later, when we've taken in a few sights.' The Doctor nodded without expression. Mel didn't understand the exchange, nor did she care much.

'One question,' she said, a challenge in her tone. 'How could your double find me so easily? You kept tabs on me through the TARDIS, didn't you?' She took his silence as affirmation.

'Then you knew I was trapped on that horrible planet and you never lifted a finger to rescue me.'

'I thought Avalone was a nice place,' the Doctor said guiltily.

'I imagined you'd settled down there.'

'"A nice place"? No, Doctor, I don't think you're the sort to be taken in by glossy brochures. You just wanted to know where I was, in case you needed to use me! Because that's all I ever was to you, wasn't it? A p.a.w.n! To be manipulated and removed from the board as soon as someone with a few less 245 scruples came along!' She shot a look towards Ace, who seemed offended but chose not to interrupt.

She pressed on, ignoring the Doctor's wounded expression.

'What was it, Doctor? This further use you had in mind?

Because, whatever it was, you can forget it! I'm not dancing to your tune again.'

The TARDIS landed and the Doctor opened the doors without a word. Mel stalked towards the entrance, but hesitated (although she didn't know why) and turned to him. 'I'm going now. I doubt we'll meet again.'

He just nodded. She expected him to argue, at least, to convince her there was still good in him. His silence hurt. It was the last time she would be hurt like that by him or anyone.

'You're not the Doctor I knew,' Mel said, holding back hot.

painful tears. 'You're a liar and a user and quite possibly a murderer. I don't wish to know you any more!'

An almost tangible silence followed Mel's departure. The Doctor stared at the open door, as if expecting her to walk back in. Bernice was shuffling her feet uncomfortably.

When Ace made a move, the Doctor looked to her in sudden panic. She knew what he was thinking. Was she walking out on him too? She gave him a calculatedly rea.s.suring smile. 'I'll catch her up and sort her out,' she promised. 'That's if she'll let me. She's not that thrilled about what I've turned into either.'

She walked over to Bernice and the pair hugged briefly. Ace slapped her friend on the arm and grinned. 'I'll see you in December then.'

She turned to the Doctor and their eyes met again. He still hurt, and that pain melted her heart. 'Oh, come here!' Ace said, embracing him affectionately. 'You might be a b.a.s.t.a.r.d, but you're still our b.a.s.t.a.r.d.'

She headed for the door then, but turned back as she reached the threshold. 'Just make sure you do something about you-know-who,' she said sternly.

The console room was in semi-darkness when Bernice returned to it an hour later, refreshed by a steaming hot bath. The Doctor 246 was bent over the controls, although he didn't seem to be doing anything.

'What's this?' she called, straining to make her voice sound casual. 'Mood lighting?'

He straightened and turned. His expression was carefully neutral, but she saw worry in his posture and in the lines about his eyes. He looked older than he had that morning. 'How are they?'

'Chris and Roz?' He nodded eagerly. She shrugged. 'All right.'

'Do they trust me?'

'Oh, Doctor.'

'Well? Do they?'

'You know that Roz always has, implicitly.'