Previously...
When the Doctor was in his previous incarnation (Richard O'Brien) he travelled with a companion called Caroline. She became stranded in 1901/02 and fell in love with a man called William. There she lived for a whole year until the Doctor found her again and she had to say a tearful goodbye.
Caroline moved on....
William....didn't....
Chapter 1 (Bumps in Time)
He opened the door. The sunlight was streaming in through the open curtains. She hadn’t gone to bed that night because she was no longer with him. She hadn’t closed the curtains because she was no longer with him.
She was no longer with him.
He walked slowly into the room, the floorboards creaking under his steps. He swallowed hard, but remained resolute. He would not let this overcome him. He would not let it overcome him despite his heart being locked in a battle with his head.
He opened up the wardrobe and was taken aback. There it was - the pure, white wedding dress hanging up like a shining beacon in the dark wardrobe. He touched the fabric and closed his eyes. He could feel his heart winning the battle again. His head simply didn’t stand a chance.
She had changed him. She had changed his world and he missed her so much.
He took the dress out of the wardrobe and then sat down on the edge of her large, four-poster bed. He draped the dress over his lap and stared down at it sadly.
He let out a huge sigh and then rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t keep wallowing. She wouldn’t want him to be like this. She was gone. There would be no wedding. No joy. No fun.
Nothing ever again.
But he still had the children to think of - the orphanage. He had to be strong for them. The head must win. The heart must die.
He pulled out a large box from underneath the bed and began neatly folding the dress into it. This would be just a fleeting moment of happiness that he and she had experienced. He had told her before she had disappeared that she was perfection, and that he believed that perfection was something that they were not supposed to have until they passed over to the next life.
He finished folding up the box and then slid it under the bed. He got up to leave and then looked again at the wardrobe. Her clothes were all hanging there. All of the clothes she had bought in the year she had been in his life.
But then there was something else. Something that didn’t fit in in the wardrobe. A short, red dress. She had been wearing it the day they met beside the Red Lion pub. It was something that hadn’t been a part of this time. And then he shook his head. He could feel his heart getting up for another round with his head. He marched over to the wardrobe and took out the red dress. He held it close to his face. He could smell the sweet-smelling perfume she used to wear.
And then he felt his heart knock his head out. He couldn’t let her go. He couldn’t let her go that easily. She was out there somewhere, in another time, and he would not let her go that easily. They were meant to be there for each other. He didn’t know how he was going to do it, but he would get her back.
He would get Caroline back.
Somewhere in the space/time vortex the TARDIS spiralled gently, the clouds of colours and occasional bursts of electricity doing nothing to halt its course.
Inside the large, white control room the Doctor was stood at the controls, carefully monitoring their journey. He glanced to his right. Holly was sat on the sofa looking a little glum and lost in her own thoughts.
The door to the interior opened and Lilly walked in and then sat on the sofa next to Holly. She turned her head to face her, gave a little smile and then looked back at the Doctor.
“Won’t be long now,” said the Doctor, breaking the silence.
“Okay,” said Holly quietly.
“You can stay, you know?” said Lilly, quiet enough for the Doctor not to hear.
“Well I have made an impact on you, haven’t I?” smiled Holly.
“I couldn’t bloody stand you when you first got here,” said Lilly, “but now…well, I can’t imagine you not being here.”
Holly smiled and took her hand. “I feel awful.”
“How come?” said Lilly.
“I want to stay, but…”
“You have family back home. A life. I know that,” said Lilly. She closed her eyes and then straightened herself up. “Which is why I - I mean we - the Doctor and I - need to let you go.”
“You can always visit,” said Holly. “I’m just a time vortex hop away.”
Lilly smiled and then laughed. “The Doctor doesn’t like to revisit old friends. It hurts him too much to watch them getting older. Who knows though.”
“But what are you going to do?”
Lilly looked back at the Doctor who momentarily flicked his eyes towards her and then back to the console again. She turned back to Holly. “The Doctor understands my situation. He was there through it all.”
“But you’re more Human than Gallifreyan. You grew up with us. With Humans,” said Holly. “I think you need a Human with you to tie you to that.”
“I’ll be fine, Dangerfield.”
“You can stay with me for a while. My parents won’t mind. Take time out from the TARDIS.”
Lilly shook her head. “It’s tempting, but I can’t live on Earth again. I spent all those years living there. I need to be…out here.” She gestured to the room around her.
“But you still haven’t finished telling me what happened with Caleb.” Holly was pleading now more than anything.
“Then it gives me an excuse to pop back and see you again.”
“Almost there, folks,” called the Doctor.
Holly looked at Lilly’s bright green eyes. She could feel her heart being pulled out of her chest again, but she couldn’t quite understand it. She had grown to be friends with Lilly over the course of their adventures together, but this felt like something else. It felt like something more. She wanted to go home and see Agatha and Roxy and her family, but leaving the TARDIS was proving to be more difficult than she imagined it would be.
Before she could think anything more, the TARDIS lurched violently. Lilly was thrown backwards off the sofa and Holly just managed to cling on. The whole room tipped sideways and the Doctor fell back against the doors leading to the outside.
The ship vibrated and the engines grated, causing Holly to cover her ears with her hands.
“What the hell?” said Lilly, scrambling to her feet and holding onto the bottom of the sofa.
The TARDIS tilted back a little and the Doctor managed to clamber up the sloped floor to the console. He hefted himself up and checked the readings. “We’ve hit a time bump.”
“Time bump?”
“Like a speed bump,” said the Doctor, “in the middle of one of your Earth roads.”
“So you were speeding?”
“No,” said the Doctor, “I was not speeding. But the bumps can be created by kinks in time. You have to watch out for them because they can pop up from nowhere.”
The TARDIS began to settle and level out.
Lilly stumbled over to the console. “How are they created?”
“Well whenever I drop into situations in history I always created a ripple, like a stone being dropped into a pond. The ripples usually disappear over time and time is smoothed out again, but sometimes, if it’s a big enough change or disturbance in history then the bump remains.”
“A bit like a scar?” said Holly getting to her feet.
“Exactly,” said the Doctor, pointing to Holly. “Either way, that was a pretty big bump.”
“Shouldn’t we go and check it out?” said Lilly. She looked to Holly.
“We need to get back to Holly’s time and deal with the Kro’Tenk.”
“But it’ll only take a few minutes,” said Lilly. She put her hand on the Doctor. “Please. The Kro’Tenk aren’t going anywhere.”
The Doctor looked at Lilly and then back at Holly’s hopeful eyes. He then rolled his own eyes and nodded. “Okay, Miss Galloway, I suppose we better go and check it out.”
Lilly smiled, span on her heel and almost skipped over to Holly before restraining herself.
Holly arched her eyebrows. “Looks like you’re stuck with me for a bit longer.”
“Nonsense, Dangerfield,” said Lilly, “I just get excited over time bumps.”
It was a warm, summers evening with a light breeze that just touched the tops of the trees, their leaves gently fluttering on their branches.
The stillness was torn apart by the sound of the TARDIS materialising. A few seconds after the blue box had solidified the doors opened and Holly stepped out. She brushed her dark hair out of her eyes and looked around her.
“Well?” asked the Doctor’s voice from inside the box.
“It’s nice. There are trees.”
“Oh, no,” said Lilly, stepping outside to join Holly.
“What?”
“Well are you sure we’re not going to come up against any clowns again? That all started in the woods.”
The Doctor stuck his head outside the door, licked his finger, popped it in his mouth and then smiled. “No alien activity in the area.”
“So where are we?” asked Holly, looking up at the trees.
“I’m not sure. The location monitor has been damaged from the time bump. The only thing I could see was that we’re in 1908. The Edwardian Era.”
“Wow,” said Holly. “I’ve not been back in time yet.”
“We went to the 90’s said Lilly.”
“That’s not the past,” said Holly. “I grew up in that time. This,” she said, crouching down and running her hand along the blades of grass, “is history.”
“But what caused the bump in time?” asked Lilly. “Have you been in 1908 before?”
“No. A little further back than that, but not 1908.”
“Hey, look!” said Holly excitedly.
Lilly and the Doctor turned to see where she was facing. They hadn’t seen it when they first arrived because the doors where facing towards the trees, but they were on a large lawn and behind the TARDIS, a little walk away, was the back of a huge, white country mansion.
“Well, hello there,” said the Doctor.
“It’s just like Downton Abbey,” said Holly, excitement in her voice.
“Down Town what?” asked a confused Lilly.
“We should pay them a visit,” said the Doctor, beginning a stride towards the house.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Doctor?” said Holly, struggling to keep up with him. “This is obviously private land. You can’t just rock up and say hello.”
“Access all areas, remember?” said the Doctor, his hands in his pockets.
“Dangerfield’s right though,” said Lilly, walking the other side of the Doctor.
The Doctor stopped and then turned to face his two companions. “Look, that time bump has emanated from somewhere around this place and time, which means that something different is going on here. Something that doesn’t quite fit in with the normal world.”
“So we need to check it out,” said Holly, glumly.
“You both wanted this,” said the Doctor. He tapped both of them on their nose and then turned to head back towards the house. “Let’s go.”
Holly turned to Lilly. “We’re gonna be in big trouble, aren’t we?”
“We already are,” said Lilly. “Can you not hear that?”
Holly pricked her ears up. Sure enough, over the sound of the birds, there was the ever-growing cacophony of barking dogs in the distance, coming from the direction of the house.
“Doctor, we need to go back,” said Holly.
“They’re just dogs.”
In the distance, from around the side of the house, a large pack of rottweilers started to run towards them, followed by a tall man in a tweed jacket carrying a shotgun.
“Back to the TARDIS!” yelled Lilly.
“No,” said the Doctor, as he turned to run. “We can’t just leave. Head for the line of trees. We need to stay here just to be on the safe side.”
“Oh, god,” said Holly. “He’s gonna get us all killed!”
To be continued...
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