Chapter Eleven
Irene
The Doctor has gone to the medical bay to make sure the cured CyberMentals are really themselves. Mr. Rye is playing Chess with me, and Oswald is sitting in the chair to my left, eating a portion of what looks like mashed potatoes and green beans. Mr. Rye stands up from the chess game.
"Would you like something to eat, Irene?"
It's then I realize that I haven't eaten since the lunch before I visited Taylor in the hospital. If I were home, it would probably be long after dinner time by now. My stomach grumbles. I nod.
"Yes, please."
He gives a smile to Oswald, and then disappears through a door, presumably to get me food.
"I'm glad you've gotten better," I tell Oswald. She nods at me; she still has no voice. I look at the ring on her left hand. "Are you engaged?"
Another nod, only a little shyer this time.
"That must be fun."
She shrugs. I stand up, and turn to look at the big window far above a Christmas tree. The blue that envelopes it is far more calming now that I'm not straining to see a giant, deadly fish.
"I'm glad we came here," I tell her. "Even though it's been like living in a horror movie. The Doctor thinks I'm not happy we came here. Do you think I should tell him? That I'm happy, I mean."
I look over at her, and she's smiling at me. She bobs her head up and down, and takes another bite of green beans.
I look back up at the blue window. "Wish it could last."
Something clatters to the ground behind me. I turn around to look. Oswald is standing, her eyes huge with fear. Behind her, a tall woman with straight blonde hair holds what looks like a shard of broken glass to Oswald's neck. She's wearing a long black dress that seems to melt into the floor around her like putty. Oswald's tray of food is turned upside down on the floor beside them.
"Hey! Take your filthy hands off of her!" I cry, running forward without a second thought. The woman lifts a single finger to her lips, and then disappears into a ray of green light with Oswald.
"Mr. Rye!" I scream. "Mr. Rye! Help!"
He bursts back into the room in about fifteen seconds, and he's been running.
"She's gone!" I cry, "The lady took her! Where did she go?"
Mr. Rye sees the overturned lunch tray on the ground. I see a sliver of panic cross his face. "What lady?" He asks me.
"I don't know!" I answer. "I haven't seen her before!"
He holds his wristwatch close to his mouth. "Captain Chrysanthemum, we have some breach. Someone's taken Oswald."
"What?" Comes the reply over a little speaker.
"Irene saw it happen. Where are you?"
"In the med bay. With The Doctor. We're on our way."
***
"No a trace of teleportation, or wormholes, or void jumps," The Doctor scans the room for the third time.
"The observation cams show nothing," Captain Chrysanthemum reports, walking in.
"I'm not lying," I insist. "There was really someone there!"
The Doctor crouches down with me."Tell me, Irene, what exactly did you see?"
"Well, I was talking to her, and I turned to look up there, and when I looked back, the lady had a piece of glass to her neck."
"What lady?"
"I don't know! She was wearing a black dress, and her hair was blonde and straight. And she shushed me and disappeared with Oswald again in some green light."
The Doctor's face falls. He shakes his head. "Well, without a trace, we can't track them."
"Are you giving up?" I ask.
With weary eyes, he looks at me and says, "It's time for us to go, Irene."
***
Standing outside the TARDIS, I tug on The Doctor's sleeve gently so he'll look at me.
"You knew who she was, didn't you?"
He doesn't speak. He just unlocks the blue doors.
"Mr. Smith, are you going to answer me?"
"No, Ren. We're doing them a favour. No one needs to be wrapped up in it any more than we already are."
"But-"
"I'm taking you home now." This silences me. "Like you asked."
***
Home feels different, now. My family already had dinner, and thought that it was strange how late I was, but I just assure them that Taylor will be alright. I didn't yell at Tony when he stole my desert. Thoughts of Oswald being shot in the arm haunted me. It seemed so pointless to argue about a cookie. I let him eat it.
Upstairs, I picked up my notebook, and wrote the following words in my bucket list:
"Get home."
Then, I cross them off. I have gotten home, alright.
Some hours later, after tossing and turning in bed for a while, I open the notebook, and scribble in the words, "Find who kidnapped Oswald." But I can't cross them off yet.
The next two days pass without disturbance. I focus on my math, so I don't visit the library during lunch. It is on the third day (it turned out to be a Friday) when I realize that I kind of miss Mr. Smith.
After school, I wander to the school library, but no Mr. Smith is found. I whisper his name (I know, like any sensible person, not to shout in a library). Everyone except the teachers and the janitors have already left.
Then I find the emergency exit at the back of the the library. It's alarm has been dead for ages, and I've known kids who sneak out of detention through it. I decide to leave via said door, instead of heading back through the school to the main entrance.
Outside, on a concrete patio, The Doctor is leaning peacefully against the wall, looking at the crystal blue sky.
"Walk?" He offers. Immediately, my ingrained "stranger danger!" alarm goes off. He must see my hesitation, because he adds, "We'll stay on the main streets."
Moments after we start walking, he's telling me a story that involves three genies, one wish, and a spare doorknob, and I'm laughing. Not because the story has a punchline, but because when you don't understand a word that's being said, the whole thing becomes the punchline.
"Wait," I say as he ends the story with a flourish of drama. "What happened to the stopwatch. Wasn't that what they all wanted?" Or am I just hearing things, now?
"It's possible that there was no stopwatch to begin with!" He explains. I cover my mouth.
"So all that..."
"For nothing? Possibly."
"So you wasted time?"
"Possibly, although between you and me, I don't exactly have a shortage in that area."
I nod, slowly. "So, Doctor," I try out the title consciously, and it just doesn't seem to fit, "I accepted that you're not... normal around the time I tripped over a dinosaur skeleton."
"But?" He knows immediately. I look at him sideways, and he clarifies, "What's the catch?"
"Where are your friends?" I ask. "I mean, where are all the people in your life. Why on Earth are you spending time with a student?"
He doesn't look thrilled to go into this conversation, but I have to push it.
"You have to tell me," I insist.
Halting swiftly, he asks, "Why?"
"If you don't, I'll report you to the police for pedophilia." I don't flinch, and I'm surprised when he doesn't, either. I have every reason to think this is just an elaborate trick to make me trust him. His shoulders sink.
"My friends are gone."
I squint, "That's sketchy. Where are they?"
"A lot of them I had to leave. A lot left me. Some..."
"Some?" I prod at him with my words like a cattle farmer pokes new specimen. Does he have a bad temper? Is he dangerous? Should I keep my distance?
"Some died," he finishes. I back away a couple of steps.
"Did you kill them?" I ask. He raises his eyebrows.
"That's a new one."
"Did you?" I begin to raise my voice to signal that I am in danger to passerbyers. A man and woman walk by with their dogs, and they both look at us as they pass. The Doctor smiles at them tightly, and I give them a fleeting wave. All of my warning lights are on now, and my feet are positioned to run.
"I did not kill my friends," he says in that distinct tone that makes me feel like an idiot. "They died because my enemies got ahold of them."
I hesitantly slow my racing pulse. I know the basics of lie detecting, and Mr. Smith is displaying no red flags. I rely on that fact and the fact that he seems generally honest, as I fall back in time with his steps.
"It's hard," I explain hesitantly, "because everything I've been taught says that you're crazy and I should run, but after seeing the future with my own eyes, I have some doubts. Tell me about your family."
"Gone," Mr. Smith says automatically.
"You aren't helping yourself."
"Listen, I've had many families, Irene," he says. "And they are somehow destroyed each time. Take that as you will."
"All right," I say, shifting my backpack's weight on my shoulders. "Creep intensifies."
I pull out my phone, and thwack it against my hand when it refuses to connect with cell service.
"It's been like this since we got back. We're back in the twenty-first century now, phone. You can stop being weird, now."
The Doctor reaches for the phone without a second thought, and I recoil. "May I?" He offers.
I hesitate only for a moment; my parents have enough to worry about without dealing with buying me a new phone. These are the kinds of stupid decisions that would definitely get me killed if I was ever in a horror movie.
"Fine," I grumble, but peer over his elbow as he works, keeping an eye out for a tracker or anything he could bug my phone with. The Doctor glances at me.
"Are you usually this paranoid?"
"No," I admit, "but you're weird."
He chuckles. "There. All back to normal."
I take the phone, and speed dial my Mom.
"Mom?" When she picks up, I feel strangely normal talking to her on the phone like it's just another day.
She sounds happy to hear from me. "Hey, do you need something?"
"No, not really. I just wanted to know how you are."
I flinch. I've never called to ask her this before. She will know something is up. I brace myself to invent a story about visiting Taylor and things going badly. Shockingly, she doesn't seem surprised by my sudden checking up on her.
"I'm great. What about you? Are you almost home?"
"I'm good. Well, I detoured to visit Taylor on the way home, so I might be around closer to dinnertime."
The Doctor raises his eyebrows at nothing in particular. Annoyed, I flick him.
"Oh, okay. Please be home before five. I want you to have time for your homework before we watch Red Dawn tonight as a family."
"We sure have been having lots of family nights, lately."
"Well, your dad wants to spend more time with us, since he has that big project out of state coming up."
Her elegant lie makes me feel better about my own. We all know that no project would make my dad watch my favorite movie twice in one week. A death note on his daughter's doorstep, however, might convince him.
"All right. I'll be home by then."
"Thank you. And thanks for calling."
I smile. I didn't expect to actually enjoy this phone call. "You're welcome. I love you."
"I love you too. Oh, the timer for the potatoes just went off. Bye!"
"Bye." After hanging up, I look up at The Doctor, feeling ashamed of how distrustful I've been. "Thanks."
He smiles at me softly. "You have a lot happening to you, Irene."
It's not exactly a comforting statement, but the way he says makes it sound like he really gets it.
For a while, we walk and I like how comfortable I feel by his side. I don't want to speak, but that doesn't stop him when we reach the green street sign that announces in boxy white letters, "Gueneville Ave." Here on this corner of broken sidewalk, I grew up. I ran my first bike into the fire hydrant to my right and got a concussion trying to impress the neighbor boy by skidding along ice in snow boots. The fence that borders the street perpendicular street has watched me walk by with our two dogs a Rue and Taco twice a week until they were buried in our side yard.
Now, if a new era of my life is starting, this crumbling, tar-filled asphalt seems as good a place as any to begin.
The Doctor shifts his weight. "I have to go."
I don't panic, because I knew this was coming. I lift my head from against the sign post. For a moment we are silent. Then, I tilt my head. "Why?"
"Planets to save, people to meet and forget... things like that."
"But, why?" I ask again.
"I don't stay in one place for very long," he admits. "I have my reasons."
"Are you looking for another family?" I ask, because this whole "multiple families" charade still confuses me. Is it something most aliens do?
He seems taken aback by the blunt question. "Not exactly," he admits. "It's more like trying to keep away from finding a new one."
"And friends included in that," I guess.
"Well, the last time I met someone, things didn't end very well." He fidgets when he's nervous, and he won't stop moving right now. Anything from fiddling with the lapel of his jacket to glancing at his shoes; you name it.
"Do you like to be alone?" I lean against the street sign post. Tony tells me I'm blunt. I can't say I object. Getting to the point allows you to get to the next situation quickly.
"I'm not lonely."
"That wasn't the question," I say. "It's obvious that you're lonely. I asked you if you like being alone."
He stares at me, and drums his fingers repeatedly on the fence he's leaning against until it sounds like a band of rebels marching off to war. I notice that he has green eyes.
"I suppose not," The Doctor stands up straight.
"I didn't think so."
"But it's easier, you know."
I fold my arms, and look him squarely in the eye. He has stopped fidgeting. "I have a family which, just counting those here in Arizona and who are directly related to me, consists of about thirty people. I have three cousins just across the street. I can't go for a walk without bumping into someone who spawned from the same gene pool. Of all people, I know that it's easier to be alone."
"What are you saying?"
"I kind of need a break from this cancer thing. 'You only live once' has a new, special meaning to me, and I still have..." I count on my fingers, "nine days of winter break left. I want to come with you, again."
He tries to act cool, but I see his eyes light up. "What if all the travelling hurts you?" He speaks of the actual tumor, but my main concern is the hardships that would be difficult for me because of the cancer and treatment.
"It won't."
"Are you sure?"
"No."
He smiles widely. "Good. I try never to be sure of anything."
It has been so long, and I am so sorry. I try to stay at least one episode ahead of the game, and I just stumbled past the finish line for the next one. This book is some serious stuff.
Read On, Awkward Ferrets!
~TheLivingParadox