Categories > TV > Doctor Who > Doctor Who- the Vanishing of Penelope Kelsey
The Tardis turns over with a heavy clunk, the engines engage and pump, seem to hesitate, then the ship dodges to the side sharply enough to almost knock Rose off of her feet before settling.
“Where are we?” Rose asks.
“Kelsey's house.” John says.
He cautiously opens the door, steps out. They are in a small, dark room, lit only by the glow from the Tardis. A ring appears in the back wall, traced in an eerie bright green for a second before the interior goes transparent. Yellow light flickers in from the gas lamps, snow gusts through and begins to melt on the floor.
A voice drifts in from off to the side. “...not really 'real' but not 'not real' either, sort of between...oh- look at that.”
The Doctor appears, waves at John and Rose. “Hello. See, I told you we'd be OK.”
Fisher steps through the opening after her, looks around. “So, we're in...where are we?”
“If I'm not much mistaken, this would be the storage room in Dr. Kelsey's basement.” The Doctor says.
“Right as usual.” John says.
“Well, that was interesting.” The Doctor shakes her head. “We may have to re-think this whole mechanism.”
“What happened in there?” John asks.
“Nothing.” The Doctor says. “No wolves, no trains, no creepy men. Followed the street lights for a few blocks and they brought us here.”
“So, when this tunnel exists, it just connects here with New Shanghai.” John says.
“That seems to be the case. Did you have any trouble finding us?”
John shakes his head. “Came right here.”
“So, yeah, this probably just goes between those points. That article said that these...fungus things...sometimes have psychosomatic effects- maybe they're more than hallucinations.” The Doctor shakes her head.
There is a muffled rattle from far on the other side of the wall. The Doctor looks over, narrows her eyes. “That's probably Kelsey. Come on, we need to get out of here.”
“How?” Fisher hisses. “Not back in there.”
“No, in here.” The Doctor pushes the door to the Tardis opens and motions them all inside.
Rose and John immediately go through the door, but Fisher hesitates.
“Just get in.” The Doctor tugs him in and closes the door behind them.
“Wow.” Fisher says. “It's….it's bigger on the inside.”
“Yes.” The Doctor is flipping switches and turning dials. She reaches for a lever, stops herself, flicks several switches down.
“It's a tesseract.” Fisher says.
“She's a Tardis. Here- you wanna have a surreal experience-” She bumps her eyebrows at Rose, then engages the engines.
The Tardis purrs to life, the turning of the engine vibrating the floor softly, almost silent. There is an expectant hush, Rose finds herself holding her breath, then a soft thump and low whistle.
“Did we...did we move?” Rose asks.
The Doctor nods, flips switches and turns dials until the ambient noise comes back up.
“I didn't know you could do that.” Rose says.
“Yeah, well, it's no fun, is it.” The Doctor shakes her head. “Fisher, ah, would you mind hanging about for a bit? I get the feeling we could use another hand.”
Fisher nods. “Yeah, sure. How big is this place, exactly?”
“Mmm...big.” The Doctor says, she's distracted poking buttons on the console again. “Big as a planet. Small planet. Dunno, really, measuring the inside is tricky. Besides, the outside is all that matters.”
“The box.” Fisher says.
“Yes.” The Doctor says. “Alright- so Penny, and our friends Lean and Arrow, were all in New Shanghai. And we know that, at least sometimes, there is a direct and unencumbered link between there and Kelsey's house in 1885.”
The Doctor leans on the console, looks Fisher up and down speculatively. “Hey- do that 'I'm gonna squash you like a bug' thing.” The Doctor rolls her head around then cracks her knuckles, Rose giggles. “I know, doesn't work the same anymore. Does for you, though.”
“What are you thinking?” John asks.
“I'm thinking Scotland Yard just called in some...persuasion.” The Doctor grins. “Not really- please don't beat people up. Unless you have to. Violence is rarely the answer.”
“Good, I was getting worried there for a second.” Fisher laughs. “You don't seem like you'd do that.”
“Only if they really, really deserve it.” The Doctor says. “And, usually not even then. Right, Rose, can you help him with the closet? I need to talk to my right hand man here-” Rose and John both groan “Oh, come on, you knew I was going to say it eventually. And, ah- rough around the edges, you know.”
“Bad cop. Got it.” Rose tugs on Fisher's arm. Î…Come on, future-boy.”
The Doctor works controls on the console for a moment, then loads the video from outside of Plum Pudding's shop and focuses on the shape of the female again.
“You know her?” John asks.
“You do, too.” The Doctor says. “Only last time you saw her, she was a he, and had a gun pointed at your head."
“No.” John says slowly, shaking his head. “Not the Master.”
The Doctor nods. “She goes by Missy, now. And let me tell you, she is so, so crazy. I don't even know where to start.”
“So, you're from another time?” Fisher asks Rose as they walk down the corridor.
“Me? Yeah. 21st century. Well, technically I'm from another dimension. I mean, I started off here, but I've been over there. ”
“In another dimension.”
“Yeah. It's not exciting. It's not even interesting, really. Pretty much same as where I came from.” Rose tries the release on the closet door but it sticks. “Come on! Be nice!” She whacks it with the flat of her hand, the way you'd strike a disobedient horse, and the door slides free. “She'll mess with you, if you let her.”
“The Doctor?”
“No-” Rose laughs “Well, yeah, a little. But no, I mean the Tardis. The ship. She's alive- sort of. It's complicated. She can't talk, but she'll sort of...feel...at you. I dunno. You get used to it. Here, put these on.”
Fisher stares at the clothes she has tossed to him. The fabric has a rougher feel than he is used to, and smells like dark, gritty smoke. “This...this looks real.”
“That's because it is.” Rose says, the raises her voice. “Doctor! Doctor! Oy!”
“What!” The Doctor's voice comes through the PA, sounding slightly irritated.
“I'm not putting on this dress.”
“Good, please don't tear my clothes to shreds.” The Doctor says.
Rose groans, steps out of the closet room and shuts the door to let Fisher get dressed. “What are you going to make me do?”
The Doctor doesn't answer, and Rose leans against the wall, waits for what feels like an eternity for the door to open again. It rattles, thumps several times then relents.
“This is weird.” Fisher says, tugging at the shirt sleeves.
Rose laughs. “Works for you, though. Come on.”
“Should I...should I be as ok with this as I am?” Fisher asks. “I mean, I feel like I should be freaking out.”
“The Doctor does that to you.” Rose says.
“Who is she, really?” Fisher asks.
Rose shrugs. “The Doctor is the Doctor.”
They come back into the console room, where the Doctor is leaning on a control panel watching figures scroll across a monitor.
“He's outside.” The Doctor says, motioning to the door.
Rose steps out, blinking in bright sunlight. They have come to rest behind the shed in Kelsey's back yard, under a small stand of trees.
“Alright, we're looking for more of those...things.” John peers around. “Look over there- there used to be a building that burned down. These things like carbon, good place to start.”
“They like Carbon, huh.” Rose says.
John grins. “Yeah. You know, she certainly seems to have taken a shine to him, too.”
Rose laughs. “Is that really it? Just bump into somebody and take them along?”
“Yep.” John says. “Well, people who do things like get sucked into alternate dimensions or attacked by mannequins and follow the number one rule.”
“The Doctor Lies?” Rose arches her eyebrows.
“No, no, the Big Rule.” John shoves her shoulder.
“Which is...” Rose says.
“Don't Panic.” John grins.
They have been walking toward the trees he had pointed out, and now they come through them to find brush and vines covering the wreckage of foundation and remnants of burned timbers. John pulls a device out of his pocket and begins to move it slowly back and forth, the thing beeps softly and slowly, after a few minutes it picks up and emits a higher tone.
“Here.” John pulls a small folding shovel out of his pocket, hands the probe to Rose. “Hold onto this.”
He starts to dig, after a few shovel-fulls he slows, scraping the dirt carefully away with the tip of the tool, then putting it down to gently brush with his fingers.
“Well, look here. Hello, little friend.” One of the egg creatures is pressed deep into the earth, it's tentacles wrapped around blackened and degraded wood.
“If you get us zapped into another dimension, I'm never talking to you again.” Rose says.
John has been about to poke the thing, now he draws his finger back. “Fine, fine. Let me get a photo and we'll cover it back up.”
They manage to find four more of them scattered about, marking each place after they snap photos with John's phone and cover the creatures again.
“Lets go have a look toward Kelsey's place.”
……….
“So, what are we doing?” Fisher asks.
“We're going to have a talk with Adrian Kelsey, who claims to be the father of the girl in that photo- who also supposedly went missing in 1885.”
“So, that...city...is a tunnel between New Shangai in the present- my time, I mean- and 1885?”
“England. In 1885. Not to far from London.”
“But- I don't speak English.” Fisher protests.
“It's fine.” The Doctor says. “The Tardis translates. You can override it if you really want to, but I wouldn't recommend it.”
“What about diseases and...couldn't we change something here, and potentially destroy the future?”
The Doctor waves her hand dismissively. “Don't worry about that. I am, however, worried about losing that tie.” She pulls the strip of cloth loose and then works it back into a proper knot, pats his chest, then puts hand at the top of her head and makes a line across, it stops just above his shoulder.
“What?” Fisher asks.
The Doctor shakes her head. “Nothing. Felt very short there for a second. Right- out we go.”
She pulls the door open and shoves Fisher out before he can comment further, hops out behind and shuts the door. Fisher has stepped to the edge of the trees and is looking out past the corner of the shed at the house.
The Doctor nudges him, and he follows her across insect filled grass, past the side of the house. He reaches out to touch the wood, just to assure himself it's really there, they come away coated in fine gray dust. They step out into the front yard just as hooves can be heard approaching from down the street. A large cart horse comes by, pulling a load of hay with long even strides. It flicks it's ears in their direction but the driver, a bored looking boy in a floppy hat, appears to be taking a nap.
Fisher has been watching the horse, and it takes him a moment to hear the Doctor calling him. When he turns, she's standing by the front door with her hands on her hips, though she looks amused.
“Sorry, I've just never seen-” Fisher trots up beside her.
“I know.” The Doctor laughs as she knocks on the door. “Dr. Kelsey! How nice to see you again. Mind if we come in and ask a few more questions?”
Adrian Kelsey steps back, surprised to see the Doctor and her new companion, who is a good bit broader than the man she's brought before. “Right. Ah, where is Mr Smith, if you don't mind me asking?”
“Oh, he's about somewhere.” The Doctor says, waving her hand vaguely. “This is Constable Fisher.”
Fisher has to bite his tongue to keep from laughing, manages to force his mouth into a straight line and nods, then decides he should probably tip his hat as well. He ends up grabbing it and pulling it off a moment later going through the door, and for a moment feels unbelievably self conscious, expecting Dr Kelsey to ask why he's bumbling about like an idiot, but the man doesn't seem to notice.
“Please, sit down. I'd offer you tea, but I-”
“That's fine.” The Doctor smiles and sits down, crosses her legs and puts her hands on her knees. “Have a seat, Dr. Kelsey.”
He sits down opposite the Doctor. Fisher walks slowly across the room, looking at the items on the shelves and mantle, stops to stand behind Kelsey's right shoulder, where the man can just see him out of the side of his eye.
“I put in inquiry in as to the circumstances surrounding the death of your wife- or should I say alleged wife. Strange, there don't seem to be any records of the marriage. And no one- including your landlord- can ever recall seeing you in the company of a woman.” She lets the words sit heavy in the air for what feels like a very long time, the silence filling the room like a living thing. When she speaks it almost comes as a relief. “Tell me about the girl. Where did she come from?”
Kelsey swallows with a dry throat. “In Gods honest truth, Doctor, I do not know. I found her...or perhaps she found me...but where she is from, no, I cannot say.”
“When was this?”
“The first night I spent in this house.” Kelsey looks down at his hands, flexes and relaxes his fingers slowly. “I awoke, it was very late, early, perhaps two thirty. There was a barn, down at the back of the yard there. I saw...it looked like a fire. The barn had burned down many years ago, but there was a flickering light. It went out after a moment, but I took up a lantern and went down to make sure. That was when...she was there, on the ground. This little girl without a stitch on her, completely clean, too, hands and feet, as though she had just come from nowhere, appeared like that.
I took her inside, her pulse was racing but when I listened at her chest she...” Kelsey balks again.
“She has two hearts.” The Doctor says.
“Yes.” Kelsey says, looking surprised. “How did you know?”
“Call it a hunch.” The Doctor says.
“She woke after several hours. She seemed...well, it's hard to tell with children, you know. Coherent, at least to some degree, she could name colours and animals and spoke quite well, very intelligent. She couldn't tell me her name, or where she was from, but she insisted that she did not have parents. I began to call her Penny, after my childhood friend who she resembled. As far as I am aware, she never recalled her name.”
“What about other things?” The Doctor asks.
“She...she told me she came from a place very far away. That her world was in possession of technology far superior to our own. She looked like a child, but she must have been quite old. Do they age quite slowly, her kind? Whatever they are?”
“Yes.” The Doctor says speculatively. “She'll live perhaps seven or eight hundred years if no outside force interferes.”
Kelsey thinks about this for a moment. “What is she? Where is she from?”
“As Penny said, a long way away.” The Doctor smiles. “Now, Dr Kelsey, it is very important you be frank with us. Where did Penny go, when you said she was visiting her aunt?”
He shakes his head. "A girl would come, in a carriage. I don't know who she was, I've never seen her before."
“And she, Mrs Turner, believed that Penny was a normal child?” The Doctor asks.
Kelsy nods. “Yes- well, I told her that she had a medical condition that caused a high heart rate, but that it wasn't dangerous.” Kelsey muses for a moment. "They were very close, the two of them. I'd hear them talking sometimes, late at night. Penny wasn't...unfriendly...but she seemed to take to Mrs Turner, it was as if she knew her already.”
“And the night Mrs Turner died?”
“It was as I said.” Kelsey says.
“Did you ever go into the city in your basement?”
“No. That's all true.”
The Doctor looks at him, letting the silence build for a minute again. “Why did you report her missing?”
“I didn't.” Kelsey says.
“I'm sorry?” The Doctor says.
“A constable came, later that same day. He said they had received my correspondence. About Penny.”
“But you never sent any sort of message.”
“No.” Kelsey says. “Do you know...is she...alright...do you think? Or did something...”
“I think, Dr. Kelsey, that this person is probably completely unharmed. What do you know about this...fungus I suppose...did you ever speak about it with her?”
“I think she knew more than she said.” Kelsey says. “She...told me I shouldn't touch it.”
“That's probably very good advice.” The Doctor says. “Did she help you in your practice as well?”
Kelsey gives his head a little shake. “She knew things about medicine. Formulations. Little changes, or new treatments. Sometimes she would say things that...I think, wherever she was from, they must have been considerably more advanced than we are.”
“Mm.” The Doctor makes a noncommittal sound.
The front door opens, and footsteps can be heard in the hall. Rose and John Smith appear from the hall, both with dirty hands and knees. Rose is wearing jeans and a t-shirt, a light jacket tied around her waist, and Fisher shifts so he can see Kelsey's reaction to the strange clothing. The man gives the two newcomers a glance, nods to them in recognition then immediately turns his eyes back to the Doctor.
“Pardon us for a moment.” The Doctor nods for Fisher to come along and they step out into the hall, close the door behind them.
“Whatcha got?” The Doctor asks.
“It's all over that old barn site, and we found a few coming back up here. Looks like there are more, but they're deep. Down there, by the basement.” John says.
“I know what was there.” The Doctor snaps her fingers abruptly. “And I know why that room was walled up.”
“This house was owned by a vet, right? Intensive care unit is going to be inside the house. And when you have sick, possibly infectious animals, you need a way to quickly dispose of the corpses.”
“Of course.” John rolls his eyes. “There was an incinerator there.”
“Probably in a separate room, I bet there's an old doorway still behind the back wall. Maybe they knocked part of the foundation out- maybe it fell in by itself...maybe those things found their way up here and broke in.” The Doctor stops, goes still for a second then jerks sharply. “The Tardis!”
“What?” Rose asks.
“Dammit. Kelsey! We'll be back! Come on!” The Doctor breaks into a run, the three others look at eachother before following.
They get into the yard just as the engines start up.
“No!” The Doctor barks, but it's to late, the ship is already fading by the time they round the shed.
“Somebody took the Tardis?” Rose says. “But how-”
“That little witch!” The Doctor stops in the middle of the imprint of her ship, flashes the screwdriver around, makes a face followed by a series of frustrated sounds and gestures which end with her kicking the ground and stomping her foot several times. “I'm gonna get you for this you...you... devil woman!”
“Where are we?” Rose asks.
“Kelsey's house.” John says.
He cautiously opens the door, steps out. They are in a small, dark room, lit only by the glow from the Tardis. A ring appears in the back wall, traced in an eerie bright green for a second before the interior goes transparent. Yellow light flickers in from the gas lamps, snow gusts through and begins to melt on the floor.
A voice drifts in from off to the side. “...not really 'real' but not 'not real' either, sort of between...oh- look at that.”
The Doctor appears, waves at John and Rose. “Hello. See, I told you we'd be OK.”
Fisher steps through the opening after her, looks around. “So, we're in...where are we?”
“If I'm not much mistaken, this would be the storage room in Dr. Kelsey's basement.” The Doctor says.
“Right as usual.” John says.
“Well, that was interesting.” The Doctor shakes her head. “We may have to re-think this whole mechanism.”
“What happened in there?” John asks.
“Nothing.” The Doctor says. “No wolves, no trains, no creepy men. Followed the street lights for a few blocks and they brought us here.”
“So, when this tunnel exists, it just connects here with New Shanghai.” John says.
“That seems to be the case. Did you have any trouble finding us?”
John shakes his head. “Came right here.”
“So, yeah, this probably just goes between those points. That article said that these...fungus things...sometimes have psychosomatic effects- maybe they're more than hallucinations.” The Doctor shakes her head.
There is a muffled rattle from far on the other side of the wall. The Doctor looks over, narrows her eyes. “That's probably Kelsey. Come on, we need to get out of here.”
“How?” Fisher hisses. “Not back in there.”
“No, in here.” The Doctor pushes the door to the Tardis opens and motions them all inside.
Rose and John immediately go through the door, but Fisher hesitates.
“Just get in.” The Doctor tugs him in and closes the door behind them.
“Wow.” Fisher says. “It's….it's bigger on the inside.”
“Yes.” The Doctor is flipping switches and turning dials. She reaches for a lever, stops herself, flicks several switches down.
“It's a tesseract.” Fisher says.
“She's a Tardis. Here- you wanna have a surreal experience-” She bumps her eyebrows at Rose, then engages the engines.
The Tardis purrs to life, the turning of the engine vibrating the floor softly, almost silent. There is an expectant hush, Rose finds herself holding her breath, then a soft thump and low whistle.
“Did we...did we move?” Rose asks.
The Doctor nods, flips switches and turns dials until the ambient noise comes back up.
“I didn't know you could do that.” Rose says.
“Yeah, well, it's no fun, is it.” The Doctor shakes her head. “Fisher, ah, would you mind hanging about for a bit? I get the feeling we could use another hand.”
Fisher nods. “Yeah, sure. How big is this place, exactly?”
“Mmm...big.” The Doctor says, she's distracted poking buttons on the console again. “Big as a planet. Small planet. Dunno, really, measuring the inside is tricky. Besides, the outside is all that matters.”
“The box.” Fisher says.
“Yes.” The Doctor says. “Alright- so Penny, and our friends Lean and Arrow, were all in New Shanghai. And we know that, at least sometimes, there is a direct and unencumbered link between there and Kelsey's house in 1885.”
The Doctor leans on the console, looks Fisher up and down speculatively. “Hey- do that 'I'm gonna squash you like a bug' thing.” The Doctor rolls her head around then cracks her knuckles, Rose giggles. “I know, doesn't work the same anymore. Does for you, though.”
“What are you thinking?” John asks.
“I'm thinking Scotland Yard just called in some...persuasion.” The Doctor grins. “Not really- please don't beat people up. Unless you have to. Violence is rarely the answer.”
“Good, I was getting worried there for a second.” Fisher laughs. “You don't seem like you'd do that.”
“Only if they really, really deserve it.” The Doctor says. “And, usually not even then. Right, Rose, can you help him with the closet? I need to talk to my right hand man here-” Rose and John both groan “Oh, come on, you knew I was going to say it eventually. And, ah- rough around the edges, you know.”
“Bad cop. Got it.” Rose tugs on Fisher's arm. Î…Come on, future-boy.”
The Doctor works controls on the console for a moment, then loads the video from outside of Plum Pudding's shop and focuses on the shape of the female again.
“You know her?” John asks.
“You do, too.” The Doctor says. “Only last time you saw her, she was a he, and had a gun pointed at your head."
“No.” John says slowly, shaking his head. “Not the Master.”
The Doctor nods. “She goes by Missy, now. And let me tell you, she is so, so crazy. I don't even know where to start.”
“So, you're from another time?” Fisher asks Rose as they walk down the corridor.
“Me? Yeah. 21st century. Well, technically I'm from another dimension. I mean, I started off here, but I've been over there. ”
“In another dimension.”
“Yeah. It's not exciting. It's not even interesting, really. Pretty much same as where I came from.” Rose tries the release on the closet door but it sticks. “Come on! Be nice!” She whacks it with the flat of her hand, the way you'd strike a disobedient horse, and the door slides free. “She'll mess with you, if you let her.”
“The Doctor?”
“No-” Rose laughs “Well, yeah, a little. But no, I mean the Tardis. The ship. She's alive- sort of. It's complicated. She can't talk, but she'll sort of...feel...at you. I dunno. You get used to it. Here, put these on.”
Fisher stares at the clothes she has tossed to him. The fabric has a rougher feel than he is used to, and smells like dark, gritty smoke. “This...this looks real.”
“That's because it is.” Rose says, the raises her voice. “Doctor! Doctor! Oy!”
“What!” The Doctor's voice comes through the PA, sounding slightly irritated.
“I'm not putting on this dress.”
“Good, please don't tear my clothes to shreds.” The Doctor says.
Rose groans, steps out of the closet room and shuts the door to let Fisher get dressed. “What are you going to make me do?”
The Doctor doesn't answer, and Rose leans against the wall, waits for what feels like an eternity for the door to open again. It rattles, thumps several times then relents.
“This is weird.” Fisher says, tugging at the shirt sleeves.
Rose laughs. “Works for you, though. Come on.”
“Should I...should I be as ok with this as I am?” Fisher asks. “I mean, I feel like I should be freaking out.”
“The Doctor does that to you.” Rose says.
“Who is she, really?” Fisher asks.
Rose shrugs. “The Doctor is the Doctor.”
They come back into the console room, where the Doctor is leaning on a control panel watching figures scroll across a monitor.
“He's outside.” The Doctor says, motioning to the door.
Rose steps out, blinking in bright sunlight. They have come to rest behind the shed in Kelsey's back yard, under a small stand of trees.
“Alright, we're looking for more of those...things.” John peers around. “Look over there- there used to be a building that burned down. These things like carbon, good place to start.”
“They like Carbon, huh.” Rose says.
John grins. “Yeah. You know, she certainly seems to have taken a shine to him, too.”
Rose laughs. “Is that really it? Just bump into somebody and take them along?”
“Yep.” John says. “Well, people who do things like get sucked into alternate dimensions or attacked by mannequins and follow the number one rule.”
“The Doctor Lies?” Rose arches her eyebrows.
“No, no, the Big Rule.” John shoves her shoulder.
“Which is...” Rose says.
“Don't Panic.” John grins.
They have been walking toward the trees he had pointed out, and now they come through them to find brush and vines covering the wreckage of foundation and remnants of burned timbers. John pulls a device out of his pocket and begins to move it slowly back and forth, the thing beeps softly and slowly, after a few minutes it picks up and emits a higher tone.
“Here.” John pulls a small folding shovel out of his pocket, hands the probe to Rose. “Hold onto this.”
He starts to dig, after a few shovel-fulls he slows, scraping the dirt carefully away with the tip of the tool, then putting it down to gently brush with his fingers.
“Well, look here. Hello, little friend.” One of the egg creatures is pressed deep into the earth, it's tentacles wrapped around blackened and degraded wood.
“If you get us zapped into another dimension, I'm never talking to you again.” Rose says.
John has been about to poke the thing, now he draws his finger back. “Fine, fine. Let me get a photo and we'll cover it back up.”
They manage to find four more of them scattered about, marking each place after they snap photos with John's phone and cover the creatures again.
“Lets go have a look toward Kelsey's place.”
……….
“So, what are we doing?” Fisher asks.
“We're going to have a talk with Adrian Kelsey, who claims to be the father of the girl in that photo- who also supposedly went missing in 1885.”
“So, that...city...is a tunnel between New Shangai in the present- my time, I mean- and 1885?”
“England. In 1885. Not to far from London.”
“But- I don't speak English.” Fisher protests.
“It's fine.” The Doctor says. “The Tardis translates. You can override it if you really want to, but I wouldn't recommend it.”
“What about diseases and...couldn't we change something here, and potentially destroy the future?”
The Doctor waves her hand dismissively. “Don't worry about that. I am, however, worried about losing that tie.” She pulls the strip of cloth loose and then works it back into a proper knot, pats his chest, then puts hand at the top of her head and makes a line across, it stops just above his shoulder.
“What?” Fisher asks.
The Doctor shakes her head. “Nothing. Felt very short there for a second. Right- out we go.”
She pulls the door open and shoves Fisher out before he can comment further, hops out behind and shuts the door. Fisher has stepped to the edge of the trees and is looking out past the corner of the shed at the house.
The Doctor nudges him, and he follows her across insect filled grass, past the side of the house. He reaches out to touch the wood, just to assure himself it's really there, they come away coated in fine gray dust. They step out into the front yard just as hooves can be heard approaching from down the street. A large cart horse comes by, pulling a load of hay with long even strides. It flicks it's ears in their direction but the driver, a bored looking boy in a floppy hat, appears to be taking a nap.
Fisher has been watching the horse, and it takes him a moment to hear the Doctor calling him. When he turns, she's standing by the front door with her hands on her hips, though she looks amused.
“Sorry, I've just never seen-” Fisher trots up beside her.
“I know.” The Doctor laughs as she knocks on the door. “Dr. Kelsey! How nice to see you again. Mind if we come in and ask a few more questions?”
Adrian Kelsey steps back, surprised to see the Doctor and her new companion, who is a good bit broader than the man she's brought before. “Right. Ah, where is Mr Smith, if you don't mind me asking?”
“Oh, he's about somewhere.” The Doctor says, waving her hand vaguely. “This is Constable Fisher.”
Fisher has to bite his tongue to keep from laughing, manages to force his mouth into a straight line and nods, then decides he should probably tip his hat as well. He ends up grabbing it and pulling it off a moment later going through the door, and for a moment feels unbelievably self conscious, expecting Dr Kelsey to ask why he's bumbling about like an idiot, but the man doesn't seem to notice.
“Please, sit down. I'd offer you tea, but I-”
“That's fine.” The Doctor smiles and sits down, crosses her legs and puts her hands on her knees. “Have a seat, Dr. Kelsey.”
He sits down opposite the Doctor. Fisher walks slowly across the room, looking at the items on the shelves and mantle, stops to stand behind Kelsey's right shoulder, where the man can just see him out of the side of his eye.
“I put in inquiry in as to the circumstances surrounding the death of your wife- or should I say alleged wife. Strange, there don't seem to be any records of the marriage. And no one- including your landlord- can ever recall seeing you in the company of a woman.” She lets the words sit heavy in the air for what feels like a very long time, the silence filling the room like a living thing. When she speaks it almost comes as a relief. “Tell me about the girl. Where did she come from?”
Kelsey swallows with a dry throat. “In Gods honest truth, Doctor, I do not know. I found her...or perhaps she found me...but where she is from, no, I cannot say.”
“When was this?”
“The first night I spent in this house.” Kelsey looks down at his hands, flexes and relaxes his fingers slowly. “I awoke, it was very late, early, perhaps two thirty. There was a barn, down at the back of the yard there. I saw...it looked like a fire. The barn had burned down many years ago, but there was a flickering light. It went out after a moment, but I took up a lantern and went down to make sure. That was when...she was there, on the ground. This little girl without a stitch on her, completely clean, too, hands and feet, as though she had just come from nowhere, appeared like that.
I took her inside, her pulse was racing but when I listened at her chest she...” Kelsey balks again.
“She has two hearts.” The Doctor says.
“Yes.” Kelsey says, looking surprised. “How did you know?”
“Call it a hunch.” The Doctor says.
“She woke after several hours. She seemed...well, it's hard to tell with children, you know. Coherent, at least to some degree, she could name colours and animals and spoke quite well, very intelligent. She couldn't tell me her name, or where she was from, but she insisted that she did not have parents. I began to call her Penny, after my childhood friend who she resembled. As far as I am aware, she never recalled her name.”
“What about other things?” The Doctor asks.
“She...she told me she came from a place very far away. That her world was in possession of technology far superior to our own. She looked like a child, but she must have been quite old. Do they age quite slowly, her kind? Whatever they are?”
“Yes.” The Doctor says speculatively. “She'll live perhaps seven or eight hundred years if no outside force interferes.”
Kelsey thinks about this for a moment. “What is she? Where is she from?”
“As Penny said, a long way away.” The Doctor smiles. “Now, Dr Kelsey, it is very important you be frank with us. Where did Penny go, when you said she was visiting her aunt?”
He shakes his head. "A girl would come, in a carriage. I don't know who she was, I've never seen her before."
“And she, Mrs Turner, believed that Penny was a normal child?” The Doctor asks.
Kelsy nods. “Yes- well, I told her that she had a medical condition that caused a high heart rate, but that it wasn't dangerous.” Kelsey muses for a moment. "They were very close, the two of them. I'd hear them talking sometimes, late at night. Penny wasn't...unfriendly...but she seemed to take to Mrs Turner, it was as if she knew her already.”
“And the night Mrs Turner died?”
“It was as I said.” Kelsey says.
“Did you ever go into the city in your basement?”
“No. That's all true.”
The Doctor looks at him, letting the silence build for a minute again. “Why did you report her missing?”
“I didn't.” Kelsey says.
“I'm sorry?” The Doctor says.
“A constable came, later that same day. He said they had received my correspondence. About Penny.”
“But you never sent any sort of message.”
“No.” Kelsey says. “Do you know...is she...alright...do you think? Or did something...”
“I think, Dr. Kelsey, that this person is probably completely unharmed. What do you know about this...fungus I suppose...did you ever speak about it with her?”
“I think she knew more than she said.” Kelsey says. “She...told me I shouldn't touch it.”
“That's probably very good advice.” The Doctor says. “Did she help you in your practice as well?”
Kelsey gives his head a little shake. “She knew things about medicine. Formulations. Little changes, or new treatments. Sometimes she would say things that...I think, wherever she was from, they must have been considerably more advanced than we are.”
“Mm.” The Doctor makes a noncommittal sound.
The front door opens, and footsteps can be heard in the hall. Rose and John Smith appear from the hall, both with dirty hands and knees. Rose is wearing jeans and a t-shirt, a light jacket tied around her waist, and Fisher shifts so he can see Kelsey's reaction to the strange clothing. The man gives the two newcomers a glance, nods to them in recognition then immediately turns his eyes back to the Doctor.
“Pardon us for a moment.” The Doctor nods for Fisher to come along and they step out into the hall, close the door behind them.
“Whatcha got?” The Doctor asks.
“It's all over that old barn site, and we found a few coming back up here. Looks like there are more, but they're deep. Down there, by the basement.” John says.
“I know what was there.” The Doctor snaps her fingers abruptly. “And I know why that room was walled up.”
“This house was owned by a vet, right? Intensive care unit is going to be inside the house. And when you have sick, possibly infectious animals, you need a way to quickly dispose of the corpses.”
“Of course.” John rolls his eyes. “There was an incinerator there.”
“Probably in a separate room, I bet there's an old doorway still behind the back wall. Maybe they knocked part of the foundation out- maybe it fell in by itself...maybe those things found their way up here and broke in.” The Doctor stops, goes still for a second then jerks sharply. “The Tardis!”
“What?” Rose asks.
“Dammit. Kelsey! We'll be back! Come on!” The Doctor breaks into a run, the three others look at eachother before following.
They get into the yard just as the engines start up.
“No!” The Doctor barks, but it's to late, the ship is already fading by the time they round the shed.
“Somebody took the Tardis?” Rose says. “But how-”
“That little witch!” The Doctor stops in the middle of the imprint of her ship, flashes the screwdriver around, makes a face followed by a series of frustrated sounds and gestures which end with her kicking the ground and stomping her foot several times. “I'm gonna get you for this you...you... devil woman!”
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