The Doctor had offered to take Caroline there in the TARDIS, but she had declined, telling him that he’d only end up getting them trapped on another world in another time again. Instead she hopped in a taxi on the rank beside the train station and headed to the hospital.
Once there she made her way to reception and asked for directions,
Eventually she found her way through the many green and white-painted corridors until she arrived in the room where her Father was resting.
She stepped into the room and froze when she saw her Mum and Dad.
Her Mum got to her feet, opened her mouth to speak and then stopped herself.
“Is he okay?” asked Caroline, a little shakily.
Cathy Parker made a head movement that was somewhere between a shake and a nod. “The doctor’s aren’t sure,” she said, her voice trying to hold back the emotion.
“How did it happen?” asked Caroline, stepping a little further into the room.
Her Mum placed a hand on her sleeping Father’s hand, squeezing it gently. “He’d been overdoing it recently. The garden was getting more and more overgrown. I told him not to…it was just so stupid. He tried to cut the stupid, blasted tree down and that’s when it happened.”
Caroline shook her head, noticing her Mother beginning to cry. She wasn’t sure what to do so just put her hand on her arm and rubbed it gently.
“Caroline,” said Cath, “I’m so sorry.”
Caroline wanted to hug her and tell her it’d be okay. But she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t tell her that the lies she had told her for all of those years were okay.
“What’s wrong?” asked Cath, noticing her daughter’s dark look.
“I know,” said Caroline. She knew this wasn’t the time or place, but she couldn’t help herself.
“You know what?” asked Cath, looking worried.
“I know everything. About you and Dad. And about Thomas and Rebecca, and about me.”
In the depths of the Doctor’s TARDIS, Matthew Cole was still and silent in his stasis tube. But his mouth was curled into a menacing smile, his eye twitching.
And in his head, Matthew dreamt. He dreamt of evil and wicked things. Evil and wicked things that he wanted to do to the Doctor…
Cathy and Caroline Parker stood next to the bed containing Tony Parker, staring at each other. Now Caroline came to think about it, they didn’t even look alike. Caroline was much smaller than Cath, and she never even had the same colour eyes as her or Tony.
She swallowed and stared up at Cath.
“How?” said Cath, nervously.
“Did you think I’d never find out?” said Caroline, trying to hold back her anger.
“Caroline, who told you?”
“Friends of Thomas and Rebecca. Friends of my real parents.”
Cath held out her hands. “Sweetheart, you have to understand why we kept it from you.”
“Don’t call me that,” snapped Caroline. “What am I meant to understand?”
“They said that bad people would come for you.”
“If they were so bad then why didn’t you just move out of Thornsby and take me with you? Instead you stay in the place where these bad people are.”
“Your father and I still don’t know exactly what they mean.”
“The ghosts. The things. They’re creatures from another dimension. They’re the bad people.”
Cath shook her head. “This is all getting confusing.”
“The point is, mother, that you never told me anything. You were overbearing and overprotective of me. The least you could have done, when I was old enough, was to tell me the truth.”
Cath slumped down onto the end of the bed, just missing Tony’s covered up legs. “Caroline…”
“Spare me your tears Cathy,” spat Caroline. “I’m through with them.” She pointed a finger at her. “Did you know that I was pregnant.”
Cath looked up. “What?”
“Yep,” said Caroline, arms folded and nodding. “I was pregnant. Met a guy called Steve. Really nice bloke as well, but because I’m not normal, those bad people came for the baby. They took it away and made sure there was no trace of it. And then Steve left me.”
“Caroline, I’m so sorry…”
“I don’t want your sympathy. I just want you to know that if you had told me the truth, I might have been able to save my baby.”
Cath put her head in her hands.
“And then there’s the Doctor. It doesn’t take a genius to work out what’s happened. He came to see me, didn’t he? Back in 1998. And he erased my memory.”
“I told him. I told him!”
“Spare it!” snapped Caroline, pressing her face right up to Cath’s. “You’re pathetic. You’re nothing but a pathetic, whinging, lying waste of air!!”
Cath looked at Caroline. Her eyes were black and her skin had gone almost luminous. There was something wild and unnatural about her. She was foaming at the mouth and her hands were shaking.
“Caroline,” said her mum slowly, “you need to calm down.”
Caroline’s eyes flicked down to her hands. They were glowing white, just like they had back in 1902 when she was with William. The power running through her was coming to the surface again.
“Why should I calm down?” said Caroline.
“Because you can’t control it. You need to calm down.”
Caroline held her hands up. She could feel all of time and space running through her. She felt so alive - and so angry. She could feel the thoughts of the Apparites and could see everything that the Ancestors had seen. This power was hers and she could use it for whatever reason she wanted to.
She reached out a hand towards her mother’s throat. She would start here, with her. She would snuff out the liars life and put a stop to her lies.
And then Cath slapped her.
Caroline staggered back against the wall, clutching at her stomach, the power slipping away from her once again and returning to within her.
“Caroline…?” said Cathy, nervously.
Caroline looked at her, tears in her eyes. “Oh, Mum,” she said.
“Come here,” said Cath, holding out her arms.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” said Caroline as she fell into her mother’s arms and sobbed.
In the room adjacent to the crypt, the Doctor stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at the metal tube-like TARDIS that had once resembled a wooden shed. It looked cold and dead, but he knew that deep inside was another dimension, fighting to break through into this world.
“Strange, isn’t it?” said Jayne, joining him in the doorway.
“Indeed,” said the Doctor. “It almost doesn’t seem possible.”
“It looks so quiet.”
“TARDISes are good at disguising themselves,” said the Doctor. “Well, most of the time,” he said with a little smile.
“Did you examine it?”
“Yes,” said the Doctor, “but I can’t really tell you anything more than what you already know.” He walked across to the tube and touched it. “Everything you told me is true. It’s a Battle TARDIS. An old 80-Q-S type. And that General Helix…it sounds like he’s the same General who’s now living in the future and in charge of the Eyeglass.”
“But can we do anything?”
The Doctor staggered back again and fell against the wall. He went for his pills in his jacket pocket and swallowed two of them quickly.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Just holding back death,” said the Doctor, slumping into a sitting position.
Jayne crouched down beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry about all of this.”
The Doctor smiled sadly. “You did what you could. You’ve been here for centuries.”
“And I haven’t gotten us very far, have I?” Jayne sat down beside him. “All I did was lose more and more team members and cause more heartbreak. You say April died in the future?”
The Doctor nodded slowly, remembering the power-mad Captain April Nivere and her death at the hands of Tressure.
Jayne shook her head. “I never meant that for her.”
“I know you didn’t,” said the Doctor, “and for what’s it’s worth, I don’t blame you for any of this. You were all misguided, yes, but things just spiralled out of control.”
“Can I ask you something, Doctor?”
“Of course.”
“Do you believe that we are all here for a reason? That we are destined to have one path and one path only? Because I can imagine myself being stuck guarding this stupid thing forever.”
“Oh, Miss Robson,” said the Doctor, looking towards the ceiling. “Destiny is never a fixed thing. Well, most of the time it isn’t. It depends on who it affects. But right here and now we are in control of our destinies. Never let anything stop you doing what you want to do.”
Jayne nodded. “So we have a way out of this?”
The Doctor got to his feet and walked towards the metal tube. “We have a way out of this. I need to shut down the inner dimensions of this TARDIS. That‘s the only way to even hope to put this right.”
“But how?”
“I’m going to open it up.”
Next time: The Doctor goes on a dangerous mission. Coming Sunday 10th November.
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