“It’s trying to stop us, isn’t it?” asked India.
Holly noticed something different though. Her fringe was beginning to whip up a little, like there was a gentle breeze blowing on her forehead.
“Listen,” said India.
Holly narrowed her eyes to listen. Slowly there came the familiar wheezing and groaning of the TARDIS materializing. Just beside the lifts near the door the blue box solidified with a loud and definite thump.
The door opened and the Doctor and Lilly – the ones Holly had escaped from – emerged, looking around curiously.
“So you found me,” said Holly, backing away a little.
“What are you doing? What was your name again?”
“Holly Dangerfield?”
“What are you doing, Miss Dangerfield?”
“Freezing time by the looks of it,” said Lilly, nodding her head in appreciation.
The Doctor looked from his India to the crowd of arrivals and then spotted the earlier India. His eyes widened and he looked back to Holly, fury on his face. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m trying to put things right,” said Holly.
“By messing things up even more?” asked the Doctor. “I took me a bit of doing, but I managed to track you down thanks to the two anomalies.”
“The one at the cemetery in Huxley,” said Holly.
“That’s the one.”
“That was the Master killing me. So you have to believe me.”
“I do believe you,” said the Doctor, “but this is still not the way. Time is fighting back against you and you are becoming more and more dangerous by the second.”
“I don’t understand,” said India.
“Surprise, surprise,” said Lilly. “Red doesn’t understand. Remind me why we took you away with us?”
“You didn’t take me,” hissed India. “It was my choice.”
“What do you mean by me being more and more dangerous?” asked Holly.
“Your wrist. That device. It’s building up more and more.”
“I know,” said Holly. “That’s why I’ve got to put all of this right.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” said the Doctor, edging a little closer to her.
“Stay away,” said Holly, backing up and nearly colliding with the frozen, earlier India.
The four of them were distracted by the most hideous, horrible scream any of them had ever heard. It was coming from outside the entrance doors. Hovering over the row of taxi cabs was, what Holly assumed, the Nightmare.
Holly froze on the spot. It was floating horizontally, but it’s arms were outstretched and it’s head pointed unnaturally forward. It was pure white and had a female form, but wore no clothes. The head was bald but had female features. It had no discernible mouth, but the eyes burnt a bright red as the head turned to look at the four time travelers.
To Holly’s horror she recognized the creature. It looked like her.
“Oh my god,” said India.
“Into the TARDIS,” said the Doctor. “Quickly!”
“What the hell?!” said Holly.
“Oh, that thing’s got your face,” laughed Lilly as they ran towards the TARDIS.
The Nightmare sensed it was about to lose them and turned and aimed itself towards the windows. Holly shielded her face, waiting for the glass to shatter, but instead it just phased through and bore down on her.
“IN!” shouted the Doctor, literally dragging Holly by her arm into the TARDIS before slamming the doors behind them.
The Nightmare rammed itself head-first into the doors of the TARDIS, but a few moments later the box disappeared.
“What the hell is going on?” asked Holly. “Why did that thing look like me?”
“Hold on a moment,” said the Doctor, jumping from control to control. “I’m trying to make sure it’s not following us.”
“The Keeper said it’d always follow me, that it was after me.”
“Well the Keeper isn’t the most reliable person around at the moment,” said the Doctor, almost shouting at Holly.
“But you sent me to see him – or at least your real self did.”
“Holly,” he said, skidding around the console, “look at me.” He pointed to his face with both index fingers. “This is me. I may be a little different to the Doctor you know and love, but this is still me.”
“Doctor, maybe you should try and help her to understand,” said India, “because quite frankly my own brain’s starting to fry here.”
“Tell them about the Keeper, Doctor,” said Lilly, sitting on the sofa and putting her feet up on the arms. “Tell them about your realization.”
“Be quiet, Lilly.”
Lilly smirked and rolled her eyes.
“Tell me,” said Holly. “Please.”
The Doctor checked the readings one more time and then walked over to Holly. He scratched his chin and then looked at the wrist device. “If we’re going along the same thought patterns as my alternate self then he sent you to the Keeper because he said he would help you, yes?”
“That’s right.”
“Except your Doctor told a little white lie. I say a little white lie – I actually mean a massive, huge, whale-sized black lie.”
“What do you mean?”
“I suspect the idea was that the Keeper would re-write you into history.”
“Back up a moment,” said India, feeling confused.
“No,” said Holly, “he sent me back in time to try and stop the Master changing time.”
“Which is what confuses me because there’s no way that was ever going to work. The Keeper has the ability to defuse these situations. He would have rewoven you into time and discharged this wrist strap. This timeline would still remain, but you’d be able to still exist. Your original timeline can never return now.”
“No,” said Holly, shaking her head, “my Doctor wouldn’t do that to me. He wouldn’t lie.”
“He would if he knew there was no other way. If it meant protecting someone he cared about. If he’d have told you the truth you wouldn’t have gone through with it, would you?”
“No,” said Holly, feeling her world start to melt around her, “I would have tried to put it all right.”
“Exactly,” said the Doctor. He looked sad, pushed Lilly’s legs out of the way and sat down next to her on the sofa. “He knew the only way to save you was by sending you to the Keeper.”
“But hang on,” said India, trying to wrap her head around all of this, “none of this makes sense. The Keeper didn’t say anything about defusing the wrist band or anything. Why wouldn’t he tell us that?”
“Why indeed?” asked the Doctor. “It’s curious, isn’t it?”
“Did this Keeper bloke say anything to you about where he comes from?” asked Lilly.
“No. Just that he could help and that the timeline would become more and more unstable.”
The Doctor shook his head. “Those freezes in time that you experienced…that was not the reaction of an unstable timeline. That was a very strong-willed timeline trying to stop you.”
Holly looked dejected and began itching at her wrist. It felt hot and she felt pins and needles in her fingers. “What can we do?”
“Firstly we need to work out the Keepers motives,” said the Doctor.
“So we go to the Zero Point?” asked India.
The Doctor interlocked his fingers. “Perhaps, but there’s something you need to know first about the Keeper.”
The three of them stayed silent, waiting for an answer. “The Keeper isn’t just a resident at the Zero Point – he’s also a prisoner. His name is Mortimus and I used to know him as the Time Meddler.”
To be continued
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