I was childish and unfair
To you, my only friend
I regret, but now it's too late
I can't show you any more
The things I've learned from you
Cause life just took you away
--- Why, Enigma
The peace of the country road was shattered bluntly as a globe of light
flared a metre above the gravel. Static charges burst outwards, scorching
the English elms. With a dissipatory hiss the sphere vanished.
A large black motorcycle dropped road-ward, the two passengers yelling.
Impact: the cycle bounced on its suspension, throwing the smaller pillion
passenger onto the grass.
"OK," said the rider over the laughter of the downed passenger. "Who's the
clever sod who leveled the road?" Dorothee McShane plucked her mirrored
shades from the end of her nose and pocketed them.
"You'll definitely have to work on re-entry," the passenger giggled,
propping herself up. They'd just come from the early twenty-first century
where Dorothee had bought the bike and they'd modified it for time travel.
At the rear of the cycle, a large black box sparked happily. "Still, it
wasn't bad for a maiden voyage. Did we reach nineteen ninety three?"
"Probably," Dorothee said, carefully examining the readouts built into the
handlebars. "We'll have to find a newspaper to make sure. I thought you
told the Doctor four years."
"I told the Doctor a lot of things," Melanie Bush said, staring into space.
"Seven years is a long time to be away."
"It was longer for me. I'm almost thirty one now," Dorothee pointed out,
still astride the motorcycle, waiting.
"That's turnabout for you," Mel grinned, leaping up. "When we first met, I
was older than you."
"Time travel cr..." she amended her sentence under Mel's gaze to a clumsy
"does weird stuff to you. What about you then? Ending up traveling with a
Doctor younger than the one you first met."
Mel shrugged. "And he never did meet the Vervoids. Then when he
regenerated he said not to jump to contusions."
A broad grin spread over Dorothee's face. "Which way's home?"
Mel put her hands on her hips and glanced around at the road, the grass-
covered verge, the stone walls leading in either direction. "It's been
a while. Crawley's that way, I think..."
Moments later the pair were roaring away through the countryside.
Dorothee stopped the motorcycle at crossroads. The paved road split into
a fork with a sign planted firmly in the middle. The southern road apparently
lead to "Pease Pottage".
"Did you say something?" she asked, looking over her shoulder. Mel had
developed a far-away look.
"I should've stayed with him."
"No you shouldn't have," Dorothee corrected her gently. "I told you the
sorts of horrible things that happened to me. Would you really want to go
through all that?"
"No. Yes. Maybe," Mel looked at her bleakly. "I feel like I should have
been there."
"No one can always be there, Mel. When Benny and the others go, there'll
be someone else there with him."
"Do you think he'll visit? I said some things..."
Dorothee smiled sympathetically. "So did he; He's not very good at
communicating. Tell you what, I'll have a word to him next time I see him.
I'm sure he'll want to stop by."
Mel smiled faintly and nodded as the engine gunned back to full-throttle.
The house was a small, white affair set back from the road. The gravel drive
terminated at a carport which protected a battered green mini from the
elements. A path split off from the drive at the halfway mark, leading
between a double row of flower gardens up to the pale green door of the
house.
The motorcycle roared to a halt across the road, causing a dog to bark in
the distance. Mel jumped off and bent down to unfasten her gray hold-all
from the back. The curtains in one of the windows of the house drew back
slightly, as if someone were looking out, before twitching back.
"You really should get a motorcycle helmet," Mel commented distractedly,
tugging the hold-all loose. Dorothee grunted non-commitally without looking
around and flipped on her sunglasses.
Mel paused. "Come inside for a while. I promise I won't give you any
carrot juice." she added cheerfully.
Dorothee turned to her and grinned. "All right," she agreed, turning the
ignition key. The engine died.
The pair crossed the road, making an odd pair. Mel in a pink leather jacket
over a cream shirt and dark blue trousers and clutching the gray mass of her
hold-all. Dorothee quite a bit taller in black jeans and leather jacket over
a white T-shirt.
"It must be a weekend," Mel noted, pausing at the letterbox by the side of
the driveway.
"And I thought Perivale was the dead end of nowhere," Dorothee was gazing
along the deserted street.
Mel waved a solitary letter. "I'd have thought the bills would be piling
up by now. Not to mention the magazine subscriptions and death threats from
alien foes."
"He probably took care of it," Dorothee said, still looking around.
"He's got quite a green thumb in that case; The garden looks like I never
left."
Dorothee turned sharply and was about to say something when there was a
loud crash from within the house. Mel grabbed her arm.
"Did you hear that?" was the apprehensive question.
"Nah, the Doctor's singing drove me deaf," Dorothee deadpanned.
She touched a button set into the side of her shades. Instantly they
switched to the infrared portion of the spectrum, blues and blacks washing
over her vision. A dim mass of heat bobbed into view, partially masked by
the walls of the house.
"One person, could be armed," Ace produced her Flash Gordon gun from under
her jacket.
"You're not going to shoot them are you?" Mel looked shocked.
"Only if they shoot first, you'd better stay behind me..." Dorothee
hesitated, her brain suddenly going into over-drive.
"Oh, this is stupid," Mel marched briskly up to the door and knocked.
If Mel joined the Doctor at his trial, Dorothee reasoned, and traveled
continuously from then until his regeneration, then the Doctor would never
have stopped in Pease Pottage to pick Mel up. It would have happened in the
possible future that the Doctor saw on the matrix screen. And since that
possible future never happened, Mel wouldn't have been picked up and would
still be living in Pease Pottage.
Dorothee opened her mouth to say something, but froze as the door swing
open.
"Ace!" squeaked Mel.
"Oh shit," said Ace succinctly.
The second Mel who was standing in the entrance hall merely stood and
gaped.