Chapter 1
He never raised his voice. That was the worst thing. The fury of a Time Lord…and we discovered why. Why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons – why he had run away from us and hidden.
He was being kind.
He wrapped my father in unbreakable chains forged in the
heart of a dwarf star. He tricked my mother into the Event Horizon of a
collapsing galaxy. To be imprisoned there…forever.
He still visits my sister. Once a year, every year. I
wonder if he might one day forgive her… but there she is. Can you see?
He trapped her inside a mirror.
Every mirror.
If you ever look at your reflection and see something move behind you, just for a second – that’s her. That’s always her.
As for me, I was suspended in time, and the Doctor put me to work standing over the fields of England as their protector.
We wanted to live forever. So the Doctor made sure we did.
The Doctor finished putting in the last of the coordinates and pulled
the lever, sending them spinning back into the vortex. He stood there
for a long moment, staring unseeing into the time rotor as it flexed up
and down. He was so silent and still. There was no evidence of the
overwhelming fury that burned at the center of his being. Martha thought
she’d never seen him look more alien.
“What happened to them?” she asked, unable to bear the silence any longer.
“Hmm?” The Doctor’s eyes flicked over to her, and they held nothing but polite, empty curiosity.
Martha shivered. “The Family. What happened to them?” Her voiced dropped
to just over a whisper at the end, half-hoping that he wouldn’t hear
her. His face – did she really want to know?
“Nothing.” He slipped his hands into his trouser pockets and stared at her with unfathomable eyes.
She blinked. “Nothing?”
He turned away and disappeared down the hallways of the TARDIS with
calm, measured steps. His voice came floating back at her out of the
gloom of a darkened arch. “Nothing at all.”
Somehow, she knew that he’d answered her question.
