"Whoa! Did you see that? Did either of you see that?" Ryan screamed.
"Yeah, I saw the Doctor leave us to die with a big fat two minutes to spare," Yaz said.
"It was a blue box, wasn't it?" said Graham. "I saw it was blue and it was like a... A phone box?"
Ryan shook his head in disbelief. "It was real." He laughed. "She actually had a spaceship!" He began to rock forwards and backwards with laughter.
"Ryan," Graham said in a mournful tone, possibly taking his laughter as a mad expression of accepting their demise, "If this is the only chance I ever get, there's something I have to ask of you."
Ryan wiped a tear on his shoulder and nodded.
"Ryan, I know what I did to let you down. And it's completely my fault. So you know what? Right now, I am going to admit it..."
"Graham –"
"No, please, let me finish.
"When I married your Nan and started living with you, I saw you were uncomfortable. And you had a right to be! I was hasty, and I was worried. I made a bad decision...
"I hired a psychiatrist and I told her to pretend she was my friend when she met you.
"It was wrong and deceitful. And it completely backfired because the other guests at the house party recognised her for who she was... And, well, you figured it out.
"I know you've never forgiven me for it. I-I know you were embarrassed and humiliated. I know you felt like I neither knew you nor trusted you. And the truth is, I just didn't understand. But I've grown. I learned from my mistake and I know that I should never have done it!"
He fumbled his thumbs in the metal binds, like cuffs, making him look like a prisoner confessing a crime. He met Ryan's eyes.
"I was stupid and I was desperate to help you in any way I could... But believe me, Ryan, I never did that, or anything, out of sympathy. I did it out of love and worry and all the things I mentioned before —"
"Stupidity?" Ryan reminded him.
Graham gave a weak smile.
"Yes. Stupidity. You've always been smarter than I was, Ryan. You always cope better than anyone in your place possibly could. And you deserve better than me, I admit it. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Ryan, love. Could you ever forgive me?"
Graham's eyes were glistening, and for the first time, Ryan saw him as he was. Not the man who married his Nan and forced himself upon their house. Not a man of ego and pity and malice... He saw an old man, an old man with greying hair and wrinkles around his eyes, an old man quivering under the weight of his actions.
Ryan was speechless.
He looked towards the motionless figure of his Nan, still unconscious and breathing gently. What would she say? Right now, at this moment, what would she ask him to do?
But before he could make a decision there was a familiar groaning, wheezing noise and a sharp wind slapping the back of his neck. Ryan whipped his head around to spot the blue phone box coming into view again, and his heart soared.
It faded, then darkened in the dim carriage, and again, until it was definitely, solidly, sitting on the train floor, wedged between the aisles as it had been the last time it had appeared. There was an emanating silence.
It didn't wink away.
Instead, the door opened and the Doctor walked out.
"DOCTOR!" Ryan leapt to his feet before he realised — the coils were dead! "Whoa. What the hell are you up to?"
Then he saw that the Doctor was walking around the room towards the bomb that was still counting down. Incredibly, it was still at one minute, ten seconds. Nine. Eight...
She placed a black band placed around her head.
"I managed to overpower Tzim Sha, kill the signals on the coils and the tiny trackers in our shoulder... He's out of the way, for now, but there's still the matter of this countdown..."
"Hey, that's the thing that was around that alien's head, isn't it?" Graham said. "So, what, is it some kind of mind control thingy?"
"Yes, Graham, it is exactly a kind of mind control thingy, but the problem is — I can't mind control the thingy!"
"Wait, what?! I thought you said you were a little psychic?" Ryan piped up.
She was a picture of despair. "I'm too psychic!" she wailed. "I'm an idiot! And my idiocy is going to cost us our lives!"
"Doctor, will you tell us what you need?!" Yaz screamed.
"I... I need to give this device a mental signal of truce, a surrender, a pause. But that's not an emotion it understands! In order to stop the countdown, I need to feel a pure and complete sense of... mercy. Mercy, and forgiveness, for all that happened. Forgiveness for Graham."
Fifty seconds.
"But when I captured Tzim Sha," she continued, "I made a psychic link with him, to-to learn how to stop the bomb. But I saw... more." Her breath came dark now, hollow. "I saw the death of Quara Sha, his wife, and sh-she..." The Doctor collapsed to sit in a heap on the ground, arms around her knees. "She blew away like smoke. The heat from the gunshots is enough to evaporate their ice cold forms, and... It's an image I c-can't easily get over."
They stared at each other.
Forty seconds.
"I never meant for them to die, you know," Graham said. "I only... I only called the police cause my bus broke down mysteriously. And I saw people... Who were there but also not quite? It made me horribly uneasy, so I reported it. I didn't know they would open fire."
"That would be their camouflage. they must have just landed, and they usually take a moment to recharge their shields and divert power from their weaponry. They were at their most vulnerable. That's why it took a month for Tzim Sha to collect resources for the bomb. Their weapons need re-calibration to adjust to new atmospheres and –"
"I'll do it."
They all looked at Ryan. He held out a hand.
The Doctor took off the band and handed it to him, saying, "Ryan, this is a very delicate instrument. It detects even the slightest nuance in your instructions. If you harbour any resentment towards Graham, then it won't work."
"Yeah? Well, that's not a problem." He looked at his Nan's face, then at Graham's, and placed the band around his temple.
"Ow!–" It seemed to clench at his mind... Not unlike the coils, but this was more of a mental clench than a physical one. He felt like it was squeezing his brain with some kind of electromagnetic...
Focus.
"Okay. Mercy? No resentment? Well! I've had a lot of resentments. in my time. I've kept it all bottled up inside me. But you know what? Not anymore."
He looked straight at Graham.
"Graham, we started off on the wrong foot. I mean, it was your wrong foot, but that doesn't matter anymore. You made a mistake. You hurt me, and you definitely hurt that Tim Shaw dude... but life isn't about going over mistakes. If I kept thinking about every time I tripped, I'd never be able to walk again. Genuinely!"
He laughed. The others smiled weakly.
Ten seconds.
Breathe.
"So right now, I want to start over. I want to say to you, Graham, that even though what you did wasn't right, my anger over it isn't right either. No one deserves to be judged by their worst. So... I forgive you. Because I believe that you can do better. And you know what?"
The countdown tarried a second too long on the four. It was working.
"You will do better. Because I forgive you, seeing that you've been trying. And you're actually..."
He took a deep breath. The numbers had paused at two seconds and were blinking.
"You're actually an incredibly caring Grandad, and I appreciate that."
It seemed Graham could stay put no longer. The numbers faded to black and he threw himself upon his grandson in an all-encompassing bear hug. Ryan squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He could hardly stand the emotions he was having.
Nor could he believe it! Mercy actually worked! Mercy...
"Always mercy," said the Doctor, patting him hard on the shoulder with what could only be pride on her face.
"Good on you, Ryan!" Yaz cheered.
He cheered back, within.
It was the perfect moment.