Life in 1902 was getting better and better for Caroline. At the end of January William had proposed to her. A lot of people - including Hazel the maid - had thought it was a little too soon, but Caroline and William had argued that they’d known each other since June last year and they were perfect for each other.
And it was true. Ever since Steve, Caroline had felt disconnected and not interested in having any kind of relationship, but coming to the nineteen-hundreds and living a life here and meeting someone as charming and lovely as William had changed her mind on all of that. Admittedly, she didn’t think she’d be marrying him so soon, but it was what they both wanted. Caroline was ready to get this rather bizarre, next stage of her life into full gear.
The Fieldgate’s had been positively beaming with the news and Mrs Fieldgate had already taken Caroline around the shops, looking for the perfect wedding dress. They had decided on a date: June 1st of this year. One year since she and William had met. It just felt like the perfect date.
Mrs Fieldgate had wondered who would give Caroline away. In a perfect world it would have been Danny, but this wasn’t going to happen, obviously. So Caroline had decided to ask Mr Fieldgate to give her away, which he had accepted most graciously.
That afternoon Caroline was walking down Flottergate, buying groceries, when she spotted a shop she hadn’t gone in before. It looked like it stocked coffee and tea and all manner of herbs and spices.
Out of curiosity she went inside. There were tins and jars stacked wall to wall and the light from the outside was blocked by even more jars and tins. At the back of the shop a little old lady stood behind a counter. She smiled when Caroline walked in, the rings around her eyes deepening.
She went to put on her small, spindly glasses and squinted through them at Caroline.
“Good afternoon,” said Caroline, politely.
“Good afternoon, miss.” There was some recognition in the old woman’s face. “You’re that young lady who runs the orphanage, aren’t you?”
“I try,” smiled Caroline.
“Such a wonderful job you’re doing. I’ve never seen those little urchins look so happy.”
“Thank you. It’s certainly something I never thought I’d be doing.”
“And you’re marrying young Master Fieldgate, aren’t you?”
“I am,” nodded Caroline.
“Such a nice young man.”
The old lady took Caroline’s hand. And then she froze. Her eyes seemed blank and she stared straight at Caroline.
“Are you okay?” asked Caroline, concerned.
The old woman continued to look at Caroline. She didn’t blink and her eyes grew darker still.
“Can you let go, please,” said Caroline, politely, but starting to get a little concerned.
The old woman opened her mouth, but all that came out was a slight hissing sound.
“Get off me,” said Caroline, much more sternly.
“You,” said the woman. “You are a lost little girl.” Her voice was high and rasping and didn’t sound as it had done before. It sounded cold and evil.
“How do you know that?” asked Caroline.
The woman continued to stare at her, trance like. “You come from such a far away land.”
Caroline was about to speak when the old woman raised a finger to Caroline’s lips.
“Don’t speak. You are further than that. Not a far away land. A far away time. And much, much further than that. You do not belong here. You do not belong anywhere.”
Caroline tried to pull away but the old woman would not let go. She felt like shouting for help, but something made her stay. She wanted to hear the old lady.
“You’ve been searching for answers for so long. Your answers are all around you. All you have to do is look. James knew. James knew the answers. James still knows the answer.”
“You mean Jim? Jim’s dead.”
The old woman laughed. “Saint James. You need to open your eyes a little more, my dear. You will be faced with a choice very soon, and whichever decision you make will bring misery to all. You need to make a choice!”
“And you need to bloody well let go of me!”
Caroline snapped her hand away and the old woman blinked. Her eyes flickered and then she was back to normal, smiling and as if nothing had ever happened.
“What was that all about?” asked Caroline.
“I’m sorry, dear?” asked the old woman, and then noticed Caroline’s terrified look. “Oh no. Did I do it again?”
“Again? What?”
The old woman tapped the side of her head. “I have…certain powers. Of a psychic nature. Don’t go telling anybody though. They’ll have me carted out to the loony bin.”
“What do you mean psychic powers?”
“I can read the cards. I can do séances.”
“No, no, this was much more. It was like you were possessed by something.”
“That’s never happened before. Touch me again.”
“No!” said Caroline, making sure her hand was well away from the woman.
“I’m sorry dear. Sometimes I go a little funny, but never any kind of possession.”
“I think I’ll be leaving.”
Caroline turned and went straight out the door and back into the street. As she walked home she thought about what the old woman had said. Could it have been her own powers channelling through the lady and making her go like that. And what about Saint James? The church they had fought the Apparites was called St. James’s.
With a large sigh she put it out of her head. So she had special powers. So what? There was nothing she could do about it now. All she wanted to do was get on with her life here.
Later she was standing on the balcony overlooking the river with William. She had told him what had happened and he had told her to be careful of Mrs Potts. She was forever seeing ghosts and strange things, apparently.
And soon those things were furthest from Caroline’s mind again.
“What song do you want at the wedding?” asked Caroline as they watched the children drop crusts into the river for the ducks and seagulls to eat.
“Song?” frowned William.
Caroline rolled her eyes. “Of course. Silly me!”
William laughed. “Another one of your future things?”
“You could say that. There’s a song I love by this band. It’s called ‘The Gambler’. A lovely song. I heard it the other year - I mean 2011 - and knew that I wanted that at my wedding.”
“Maybe you could play it through your eye patch.”
Caroline looked very, very confused. “My what?”
“The thing you play your music through.”
Caroline burst out laughing causing even the children to stop playing and look around at her.
“What?” laughed William. “What?!”
“It’s called an iPod, not an eye patch.”
Caroline had shown it to William a few weeks back. The battery was almost dead, but she had taken to listening to one song every week, so long as it was quiet and no one was around. She knew that showing it to William was wrong, but she didn’t care. She was a part of his world and she wanted to show him a little of her world whilst she still could.
“So why not play it?”
“I don’t think it’d be wise. It’s another 100 years or so before those things are invented. And as soon as the battery is dead I’ll be destroying it.”
“I suppose that’s the best thing to do,” agreed William.
She smiled at him and then turned to look across the river and down the street. The sun was starting to set and the rest of the staff were getting the children inside and into the warmth. She could see the tower of St. James’s church in the distance and it reminded her of where she’d come from.
“Are you okay?” asked William, touching her hand.
“I’m okay,” she said with an uncertain smile. “Just thinking of old ghosts.”
February, 1988
The Doctor had spent the last few weeks gathering more and more equipment from various locations around the country and had even popped back to UNIT HQ a few times. It occurred to Danny that the Doctor could just go and find himself at an earlier point in his own personal timeline, but the Doctor had told him that it would risk changing the timeline even more.
And relations between the Doctor and Danny had continued to deteriorate. One time Danny went into the Doctor’s room and found him humming a very cheerful song to himself whilst working on the equipment. Danny had exploded in a rage, telling him that he shouldn’t be cheerful at a time like this. It had hurt the Doctor, but it had pushed Danny closer to Lisa.
One night, after avoiding the Doctor at the pub, Danny had made his way to Lisa’s flat in the high rises near Freeman street. He had bought a bottle of wine and hadn’t been intending on getting drunk with her, but it was certainly an option, and anything was better than the miserable atmosphere between him and the Doctor.
“So have you made up with your parents yet?” asked Danny, finishing off his third glass of wine.
“Not yet,” said Lisa, sat on the sofa next to him.
“You need to.”
“There’s plenty of time,” smiled Lisa. “I wanna let them stew for a bit.”
Danny smiled weakly. “You never know what’s round the corner. What might happen.”
“Oooh, don’t be so glum!” scolded Lisa. “We’re here to enjoy ourselves.”
Danny leaned in a little closer, his head resting on his arm. “I like you, Lisa.”
“I like you too, Danny boy.”
“I try not to…”
“Oh, thanks!”
“No, seriously. I try not to, but I can’t help myself. And what the Doctor’s doing is wrong.”
Lisa frowned and angled herself so she was looking directly into his eyes. “What do you mean? What’s the Doctor up to?”
“If you knew something terrible was going to happen and you knew you could stop it, but in doing so would cause something equally, if not as bad, to happen, would you do it?”
“I don’t quite follow.”
Danny sighed. “Oh god, I might as well just come out and say it. The Doctor’s trying to erase you from history.”
Lisa burst out laughing, almost spilling her wine all over the carpet.
“I’m being serious. As mad as it sounds. You know me and him aren’t normal.”
“I like you being not normal though.”
“We’re from another time all together.”
“What?”
Danny leaned back on the sofa and looked at the ceiling. “We’re from 2012. Time travellers.”
“Get out of it,” said Lisa.
“It’s true. We got stranded here.” Danny turned to her. She was trying to understand him, but he knew she was having a hard time. “My other friend, Caroline, is stuck in 1902. She’s your ancestor. Your Great Grandma or something.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Deadly serious. Anyway, she shouldn’t be there and the Doctor wants to pick her up before she blows up an orphanage.”
“Blows up an orphanage? This is getting a little bit confusing.”
“The point is, if the Doctor saves her, you’ll disappear from time. You’ll never have existed. None of your family will have.”
“Danny, how can you expect me to believe this?”
Danny looked hurt and turned away from his friend. He opened his mouth to say something, but he snapped it shut again, unsure of what he could say.
“This is all just…madness,” said Lisa. “Time travel is not possible.”
Danny looked at her. He felt like exploding with rage and showing Lisa exactly what he was, but he knew that was just the Apparite within him, conflicting with his emotions again, the both of them equal prisoners. He closed his eyes and let the anger and fury wash over him and disappear.
“Danny,” said Lisa again, putting her hands over his.
“It’s all real,” said Danny, sadly. “I wish it wasn’t. But it is. I don’t know what I can do to convince you.”
Lisa frowned as she looked at him. “Suppose I believe you then?”
Danny looked at her hopefully.
She held out a hand. “Ah-ah-ah. I’m not saying I do believe you, just that what if I did. What do you want to do about it?”
“I want to stop the Doctor,” he said. “I want to rescue you. Stop you from being erased. There has to be someway to let you and Caroline still exist and save those children at the same time. There must be.”
Lisa looked at Danny closely. He had tears in his eyes. Whether this was the truth or not, he believed that it was. And as strange as the Doctor might be, Danny certainly wasn’t some kind of lunatic. He was genuine. She knew that.
“I don’t want my life to be the result of innocent kids being killed,” she said.
Danny sighed. “I know, but I’m not willing to let him let you die.”
Lisa leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
“What was that for?” asked Danny.
“I’ve met a few guys in my life. Some where nice and some were not too nice, but none of them have ever offered to stop time being rewritten for me.”
Danny stifled a laugh. “The Doctor hold’s all the cards. He’s determined and he’s not going to back down.”
“You should speak to him.”
“No,” said Danny quickly. “I don’t want to be anywhere near him at the minute. I know he’s only doing what he thinks is right…but I can’t accept that. I just can’t!”
“You need somewhere to stay,” said Lisa. “You both live there, at the White Hart.”
“I know,” said Danny, frustrated.
“Stay here,” said Lisa.
“I can’t stay-”
“Stay here,” she said again, her hand gripping his tightly and her big eyes looking right into his own. “Stay with me, time boy.”
And then they kissed.
And somewhere, deep inside Lisa, a strange, dormant power began to reignite. A power that her distant ancestors had…
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