Double Back

Darkness Within

DARKNESS WITHIN

Two months had gone by since The Doctor had dropped Nancy and Luke back home.  No explanation or reason given as to why her mother had decided to leave with HIM, of all people, except the very vague one her mother had given.  Surely The Doctor had just as much interest in finding her soul as did The Master...? Or Edward as he preferred to be known.  She sighed as she stood outside her front door.  Gazing at the passing traffic wishing and hoping that the next taxi would drop her mother off!  It was a vague possibility that they were at each other’s throats.  That maybe her mother had seen sense.  No, she sighed.  The Master was too interesting an individual for someone like her Mother to lose interest in this quickly.

Nancy had another reason for wanting Dorothy to return for there was not even a chance that she was going to get married without her Mother there to consent.  In some ways Nancy would prefer to have a Mother’s speech rather than a Father’s speech... Unless that father was Tremas.  Every time she thought of that silvery haired, kind, gentle man her hearts shattered.  

Some nights she had to get up and make a cup of tea, as the image of his wrinkly smile and blue eyes sparkling deeply into her soul with nothing but love and affection, kept her awake.  

Great, she glanced up at the sky, it had started to rain.  Juggling the big pile of paperwork with her keys she eventually managed to let herself in.  Immediately her cat purred up to her and wrapped it’s tiny kitten form around her ankles.  A sweet white and tortie pretty little thing that stole her affections straight away.  Luke brought her for Nancy in an effort to cheer her up.  In most ways it worked.

The sounds of merows and purrings echoed through the quiet house as Nancy made her way to the kitchen and thumped the paperwork on the kitchen table.  The kitten jumped onto the table and affectionately rubbed her tiny face all over her mother’s knuckles.  Giggling, Nancy went to the cupboard and got a pouch of food and a clean plate and sloshed the meaty chunks onto it.

“You know,” Nancy sighed, “we still have not named you, have we?”

The kitten continued purring as she ate.  Nancy cleared out the litter tray.   Put more kitty litter in the empty tray.  Made herself a cup of hot chocolate and settled down to signatures, small prints and legislature that made her head ache.  This was normally Luke’s province but she had to do it tonight as Luke was having a friends reunion with Clyde and Rani at the side of London.  Nancy was not sure how she felt about Luke having a friend with that name... She supposed it was Indian and her parents did not know about the other Rani but, it still made her feel uneasy.  

Apparently Rani was working under the PR aspect for NASA and Clyde was with UNIT.  Nancy felt so alone.  

“I know,” Nancy sighed, “we’ll call you Ace!” she exclaimed to the continuously purring tiny furry food obsessed feline.

Slowly, she took a sip of her orange hot chocolate and took the first sheet of paperwork - Great, it was something to do with that Scumbag.  Someone she would quite happily zap to a zillion pieces with five Tissue Elimination Compressors, Six Daleks and a whole army of Cybermen.  For once, she was not thinking of The Master as she wished this doom.  In fact, a small smile crept along her lips, she would certainly thrust this slug at The Master’s mercy.  

Calm, she heard Luke’s voice in her head, remember what anger does to you.  Just be calm.  This man cannot hurt you.  If only that were true...  Luke did not know what happened last week.  Deep down inside she did not trust this man the second he stepped into her office.  A millionaire yes,  a Philanthropist... Certainly not.  This was his new contract.  Nancy read down the small print.  Slouching in the chair as she did so.  Running a shrewd eye down the words.  Her temple throbbed slightly at the legal speak.