The Doctor's Son

6 - Aliens of London

When the waning moon slipped back behind the valley slopes and the sun took to the sky, Flora found Dorian in the garden, lying where he had been shot. She ran over to him, crying, and was so shocked and amazed when he opened his eyes that she dropped his head back onto the ground.

Dorian grimaced in pain as she helped him up, telling him all about how the wolf had been allergic to mistletoe and the Doctor and Sir Robert helped to destroy the wolf with the telescope-that-wasn't-a-telescope in the observatory. Sir Robert had been killed by the wolf, defending the Queen, and the monks had fled when they heard the wolf's last howl.

Flora and Molly checked Dorian over, convinced that he should have some sort of wound, frequently remarking on how lucky he was to still be alive. Dorian sat quietly through it all.

It seemed that Dorian hadn't been the only one to suffer wounds from the previous night; the Queen had a bandage on her hand, a splinter from the door she said, but the sideways glances the Doctor kept giving her said otherwise.

That morning Dorian stood behind the serving girls in the main room of the house and watched as Queen Victoria dubbed his father 'Sir Doctor of Tardis' and Rose 'Dame Rose of the Powell Estate'.

He was rooted to the same spot, shocked, when the Queen banished them both from the British Empire, never to return.

He remembered seeing that very same Queen's coronation forty-one years previous, but decided not to mention that to anyone.

Dorian left the room as fast as he could when the audience with the Queen was over but couldn't find the Doctor or Rose anywhere.

***

Present Day - London, 2006

Dorian's day started off normally. Or as normal as it can be when you're a 246 year-old half-Time Lord living on Earth and training to be a Doctor in one of the busiest hospitals in London.

He and his fellow third years had attended an anatomy lecture followed a shift shadowing a few doctors. Now Dorian, Ronan, Martha, Gerard and Jo were sitting outside the Starbucks down the road from the hospital, sipping coffee on their lunch break. The sun was shining over central London, they could see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament on the other side of the Thames.

'They still haven't found that missing girl.' Gerard commented, turning a page in his newspaper and reading an article. A local 19 year-old girl called Rose Tyler had gone missing a year ago and there were still notices in the newspapers and MISSING PERSON posters up all around central London and in the suburbs.

'I reckon her boyfriend did it.' Ronan said.

'But the police questioned him and he wasn't charged.' Martha added, taking a sip of Dorian's coffee. She and Dorian had been going out for almost a year now.

'I still thi-'

'Shh!' Dorian commanded, holding his hand up to silence Ronan. 'Can you hear that?'

All five of them stopped and listened carefully to the hustle and bustle of the city. Car engines hummed, music blared from nearby shops, and people all around them chatted away happily.

'What are we meant to be hearing?' Jo asked.

'I don't know what it was, it sounded like a plane.' Dorian looked confused.

'There are planes overhead all the time, D.' Gerard pointed out.

'No, this one sounded different. I don't know what it was. I must be imagining thi-' Just as he said it, a horn blasted and a deafening rumbling sound was heard, getting louder and louder. Conversations stopped as people looked uncertainly up at the sky.