Alice opened her eyes with a start. She was lying in bed and her hair was a mess again. She was sure she had remembered brushing it before she went to bed. Why do us women do that anyway, she thought to herself? Why brush your hair before you get into bed, only to let it become a bird nest by the time you wake up?
She had a slight headache, but forced herself to get up. She made her way out of her room and towards the TARDIS shower room.
Alice frowned when she reached the room. It was huge. Much too big for a simple bathroom. It had 17 glass cubicles and the ceiling was like the ceiling of a particularly high-roofed church.
She turned on one of the showers and, getting undressed, stepped inside.
She stayed in there for about 10 minutes, letting the headache slowly fade, and then exited, wrapping a towel around her and making her way back towards her room.
Twenty minutes later she was fully clothed and back in the control room.
The Doctor was still standing over the console, checking readings.
“How long was I asleep?” she asked, sitting down on the sofa.
“About seven hours,” said the Doctor, checking his complicated wrist watch.
“Did you sleep?” asked Alice.
“No,” said the Doctor. “Too much stuff to do.”
“Like what?” asked Alice, slightly amazed. This man never seemed to sleep.
“Popped to the Galactic Bank, helped John Lennon’s mother to do the dishes - nice woman, Julia. Watched a performance of Joseph from 2077, cured the Mumps virus and starred in an episode of Neighbours from 1988, which, incidentally, led on to a further television career in a game show called-”
“Get away!” laughed Alice.
“Busy, busy, busy,” he smiled.
It was a cool morning when the TARDIS returned to Little Pebbleford. It had been drizzling and, for a Saturday morning, it had been pretty quiet. Okay, so Little Pebbleford wasn’t the busiest of villages on a Saturday morning, but today it had been even quieter.
The TARDIS slowly materialised beside Casterby House, the part-time residence of the Doctor, causing a squirrel to scurry away from the alien box and run back up his tree.
The door opened and Alice stepped out first, wrinkling her nose at the light drizzle.
“All okay?” came the Doctor’s voice from inside the box.
“I thought we were going to my house,” said Alice.
“Oh,” said the Doctor, popping his head outside and looking disappointed in himself. “Sorry about that. The old girl must have become familiar with this place.”
“Not to worry,” smiled Alice. She fastened up her long, grey coat, jammed her beanie hat onto her head and then headed towards the gate.
“You’re coming back, aren’t you?” said the Doctor, he had a hint of worry in his voice.
Alice turned and smiled. She found it quite sweet that he was getting attached to her. “Of course I am. I’m just gonna pack a small suitcase and I’ll be back with you.”
The Doctor smiled and gave her a little wave as she disappeared out of the gate and down the little lane towards her cottage.
By the time Alice had gotten to her cottage, unlocked it and clambered over the three newspapers on the doormat, she had worked out that she had been gone for three days.
She picked up the papers and gave them a quick once over. It was the Friday edition that caught her eye. The village didn’t have it’s own individual paper, but rather one that served the entire county. But it was the headline on it that made her sit herself down, her face white and ashen.
“LITTLE PEBBLEFORD: SCHOOL HEADMASTER FOUND DEAD”
She read the story, tears in her eyes. David Groves, the Headmaster of her obliterated school - her Headmaster - had been found strangled in his home. There had been signs of a break in and it had been revealed that he had died around a week before Alice had left.
Hang on, thought Alice, a week? She had only seen him four days ago. The report surely couldn’t have been right. She had seen him at school four days ago when he had handed her the new keys to take to the Doctor.
She made a mental note to call the police about this mistake when there came a knock at the door.
Alice got up, felt a little sick at the news, and then unlocked the door.
Standing there was a tall, dark-skinned man with piercing white eyes and a little bit of a beard. He was completely bald and for a moment Alice was taken aback by his height.
“Alice Stokes?” he said, standing there in a long, black coat.
“Yes,” said Alice, still not quite digesting the shock of David Grove’s death.
The man smiled. “Just checking.” He clicked his fingers and everything went black.
Alice woke up 30 minutes later, sat back in the armchair. She frowned and rubbed her temples. Did she just imagine the man? What had happened to her?
The door suddenly burst open and the Doctor came bounding in. “Thirty minutes, Alice!” he said. “Are you coming or what?”
Alice frowned and then got up, swaying a little on the spot. “Something weird is going on.”
“What?” said the Doctor, peering curiously around Alice’s front room and crossing over to a music system beside the television.
“David Groves is dead.”
“What?!” said the Doctor. “What happened?”
“The police are saying he was found strangled. But the thing is,” she rubbed her forehead this time. She felt a migraine coming on, “they say he died a week ago.”
“But he was alive-”
“-four days ago. Yes, I know.”
The Doctor nodded.
“And not only that,” said Alice, “but this bloke just appeared at the door, clicked his fingers and I blacked out.”
“Interesting,” said the Doctor, rubbing his chin.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” said Alice, getting used to the Doctor keeping things to himself.
“I think,” said the Doctor, “we need to go and check on Mr Groves body.”
Ten minutes later the TARDIS had arrived at the nearby town of Foxhill, outside the hospital that David Groves body was being kept in.
The Doctor had flashed some kind of pass - which looked blank - to the receptionist, and somehow they had blagged their way into the morgue.
Alice had never been anywhere like this before and it frightened her and she stood in the cool, metal room, staring at the rows of metallic compartment fronts that could have contained any number of bodies.
“Are you okay?” said the Doctor, noticing Alice’s fear.
“No,” she said, “but I will be. I know we have to do this.”
The mortuary attendant pulled opened the compartment marked A-E1 and pulled the metal shelf from the inside. The body of Groves was still underneath the white sheet.
The Doctor gripped Alice’s hand tightly, to reassure her, as the attendant pulled back the sheet, exposing the cold, dead face of Alice’s former Headmaster.
She closed her eyes and stopped her tears from coming out. The Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver from his pocket and ran it over the body. A few seconds later he checked the readings, nodded a “thank you” to the attendant and then turned, guiding Alice out of the mortuary and back towards the TARDIS.
“Well?” said Alice, recomposing herself.
“He’s definitely been dead a week,” said the Doctor.
“But how is that possible?” said Alice. “He was alive and well.”
The Doctor put the key in the TARDIS lock and hesitated. He rapped his fingers on the warm, tingling wood of the exterior shell and frowned.
“Doctor?”
“That man who arrived at your cottage - what did he look like?”
“Tall, dark. A bit scary, but pretty handsome.” Alice had found him attractive and would have blushed had she not been so sick with the news of Groves.
He bit the end of his finger as he turned the key in the lock and they made their way inside.
“Doctor, we need to find out who he is. It’s worried me.”
“It worries me,” said the Doctor, “that you can black out for 30 minutes.” He ran the sonic screwdriver down the side of her face and then plugged the device into the console. A small computer screen on one of the panels showed a number of readouts that Alice hadn’t a hope in hell of understanding.
“What is that?” said the Doctor to himself, staring at the readouts.
“What? Do I have some kind of illness or something.”
“No,” said the Doctor. “Nothing like that.” He was now furiously drumming his fingers on the top of the console. “I can’t quite work these readings out though.”
“What are they?” said Alice, finding herself getting frustrated with the Doctor and herself.
“These figures show brain activity, but there are extra figures here. It’s like your brain is working overtime.”
“What?” said Alice, frowning and looking at the screen as if expecting it to all make some kind of sense. “What does that even mean?”
“I don’t know,” said the Doctor, clearly starting to get frustrated with the constant questions. He turned to her. “Let’s go back to yours and get that suitcase.”
Six Months Ago
The car sped along at just under the speed limit. Alice was a confident driver, but even a confident driver would be concerned in this downpour. She had been heading back from a training day and was on the motorway when the heavens had opened up and the roads had been attacked with sheets of heavy rain.
She cursed as her windscreen wipers worked furiously to clear the raindrops off her windscreen.
It was dark now and conditions were becoming worse. She could see the flashes of headlights on the other side of the road, shooting past like bolts of energy.
She looked in her rear view mirror and was aware of a red sports car coming up behind her. Whoever was in it was speeding and was clearly looking to overtake.
Alice cursed again. Bloody dangerous drivers!
On the radio “Crazy Nights” by Kiss had started up.
The red car overtook her and she felt herself relax as it passed on safely by.
And then she noticed it skidding on the wet road. It swerved to the side and then skidded off to the hard shoulder. Alice, though, had already swerved to avoid it and now her car was out of control. But instead of heading towards the relative safety of the hard shoulder, she was heading towards the divider in the middle of the motorway.
She tried to put on the breaks, but on the wet road they failed miserably. The car skidded headlong into the barrier and Alice felt herself thrown forward.
And then all went black.
The driver of the sports car exited the vehicle and walked over the now-relatively quiet motorway towards the crashed car.
He was a tall, dark-skinned man, wearing a long black coat and with white, piercing eyes.
He aimed a strange, laser-like device at the car lock. It clunked to the unlock position and he opened the door. He leant across to Alice, her head against the steering wheel and blood pouring from her ears. He checked her pulse. She was still alive.
He lifted a wrist device to his mouth and spoke into it.
“This is Agent Maxus to control,” he said.
“Go ahead, Maxus,” came a voice through the device.
“We have the package.”
Now
Alice had finished packing her suitcase with numerous items of clothing for all weather, but her previous sense of enthusiasm had been lost with the strange goings on that she had experienced. And it worried her even more that the Doctor didn’t seem to know what to do about it.
She was just coming down the stairs when she heard a beeping-like ring tone.
“Hello,” said the Doctor.
She came down the last few stairs and saw he was on some kind of futuristic mobile phone.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “who are you?”
A reply.
“Oh,” said the Doctor. “Oh yes, of course! Mr. Dennington! How are you? It’s been a long time since Theen.”
The Doctor went quiet, his face looked like all the blood had been drained from it.
“What happened?”
Another reply.
The Doctor nodded. “Yes. I’ll be there. Thank you, Mark.” The Doctor hung up and then looked at Alice. “We need to go.”
“But what about the strange goings on?”
“It’ll have to wait, Alice,” said the Doctor.
“What’s happened? Who was on the phone?”
“An old acquaintance,” he said. “His name’s Mark Dennington. I met him a while back on a planet called Theen.”
Alice looked at him, indicating for him to continue.
“Alice, I’ve travelled with people before you, as you know. Well, back when a was a bit…different, I travelled with a young Irish woman called Ivy. Ivy Coldstone.”
“Something’s happened, hasn’t it?”
The Doctor nodded. “She’s been killed. We need to go and pay our respects. I need to say goodbye.”
Agent Maxus watched on from the trees as the Doctor and Alice returned to the TARDIS and then smiled as it disappeared.
He brought the device to his mouth again. “This is Maxus.”
“Go ahead, Maxus,” said the voice.
“I’ve made contact with Tylaya. All is going to plan.”
“Maxus,” came the voice, a little nervously, “I’m afraid we have some bad news. Tylaya’s body has expired.”
“What?!” spluttered Maxus. “This was meant to be fool-proof. What the hell happened?”
“We don’t quite know, but you mustn’t tell her.”
Maxus looked like he was going to explode as he stared at the empty space that the TARDIS had previous been stood in. With a cry he threw the device to the ground, fighting back the tears.
Meanwhile, the face smiled and waited, unaware of what had gone on back home.
Next time: The Doctor and Alice travel to Mars to pay their last respects to Ivy Coldstone, and the Doctor tells Alice all about his first meeting with his old companion...back when he had a different face. Coming Saturday April 5th 2014.
If you want to refresh your memory on Ivy Coldstone's previous appearance in Doctor Who: Darkpaths, then please visit the Story Index and read back through "Eye of the Jungle" from Series 1.
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