The Doctor Of War ³

Before The Flood pt.2

Clara is at the door, staring at the phone stood on a ledge opposite. Suddenly a figure appears before her, and she jumps back.

"O'Donnell's dead" Clara whispers, as she, the Doctor, Cass and Lunn watch ghost O'Donnell turn away "oh, no. No, no, no, no, don't you dare. Don't you dare" the ghost takes the phone and walks down the corridor.

*Time skip*

"Big day for you. Time travel, twice" I say.

"Whoa, really? When are we going to?" Bennett asks.

"Off the map. Out of the rule book. What if I don't die? What if I refuse? I'm going to go back to the base and I'm going to save Clara and the Doctor because that's what I do. And I don't see anyone here who's going to stop me" the Cloister Bell tolls and the TARDIS materialises, once it lands the two step out to see 512 is in big numbers on the wall above a paper target of a soldier "why are we still here?" I then see another TARDIS round the corner, with herself walking out of it "no. No, no, no, no, no."

"What?" Bennett asks.

"We've moved half an hour backwards. I'm locked in my own time stream. The TARDIS won't let me leave."

"Well, what do we do?"

"Now we have to keep out of sight until time catches up."

"Where's Bennett? We need to get going."

"Oh, he's still throwing up" Bennett and I spot the undertaker.

"Prentis. He's alive" Bennett says.

"No, he's just not dead yet. And we don't tell him."

"Yeah, but he's right there. I mean, we
can just..."

"No!" I push Bennett against the wall "however that sentence ends, no, we can't. Save him, and you'll want to save O'Donnell. You can't cheat time. I just tried. You can't just go back and cut off tragedy at the root. Because you find yourself talking to someone you just saw dead on a slab. Because then you really do see ghosts. We don't tell him. Understand? Not a word. We don't have that right." Later they are hiding behind some metal barrels labelled toxic waste and watch the conversation they had in half an hours' time.

"Albar Prentis, Funeral Director.

"You're from Tivoli, aren't you?

"The most invaded planet in the galaxy! Our capital city has a sign saying, if you occupied us, you'd be home by now."

"Yes, I've had dealings with your lot before. I can't say I'm a fan."

"No, we do tend to antagonise!" Bennett gets up and I wrestle him to the ground. O'Donnell hears the thud but sees nothing.

"What are you doing here?"

"Ah, yes. Of course."

*Time skip*

"The dark. The sword. The forsaken. The temple. When we found out what the ghosts were saying, we weren't surprised because the words, they were already inside us" Clara says, Lunn is signing all this for Cass.

"But you, you were, weren't you? You didn't know what the words were going to be" the Doctor says pointing to Lunn who shakes his head.

"Er, no, I didn't. How did you know?"

"Who was the one person who didn't see the writing in the spaceship?"

"Me. Cass wouldn't let me go inside."

"That's why the ghosts didn't hurt you when they had the chance. The message isn't inside you."

"Yes, I suppose that makes sense."