The Time of Change

Investigation and Interrogation

Daniel's mother says from her seat on the stairs, "You'll need information on her, right? To figure out why she's disappeared?"

    "Yes," the Doctor replies, snapping his fingers. "We'll go up to her room, if that's okay. Just to get the feeling for what might've happened. Then we'll come back and ask you lot some questions." Mr. Ralph shrugs and gestures up the staircase. His wife stands to let us past.

    "First door on the left," Daniel tells us.

"But take your shoes off first," Mrs. Ralph adds last-minute. "We just got the carpet cleaned."

The Doctor and I obey, then start up the steps. As I pass Daniel, I give a timid smile, and he returns a sad but hopeful one. The Doctor climbs in front of me, running his hand over the wooden rail lightly, as if feeling her memories by touching things she touched.

I think for a moment. Can he do that? Who's to say an alien crime-fighter can't tap into other people's memories through his sense of touch? I wonder if that would fall more under the category of magical powers than otherworldly ability—or are they one and the same? Quite suddenly and rather poorly timed, I realize that there are so many questions I've never asked him.

    We reach Alex's bedroom door, which is a pristine white color, and I cautiously put a hand on the knob. It almost seems to vibrate gently beneath my touch, like it's inviting me in. With a deep breath I open the door, and we enter a very normal-looking room. Beige carpeting stretches across it. Tucked into the corner is a bed with a dark gray canopy drooping over it; under the single window is a computer desk and closed laptop. Clothes litter the floor, and photos of family hang on the walls and rest on tabletops. I pick one such frame up from off her dark oak nightstand. It is rimmed with glued-on macaroni shells and glitter. The photograph shows a young, slightly familiar girl with dark hair and bespectacled blue eyes hugging Daniel tightly from behind. Her arms are wrapped around his chest, and she is smiling widely. She seems happy. As I set the picture frame back down, I glance around the room at the others. Something about the look in her eye is different: it's darker and less full of life. It reminds me of the Doctor.

    I peer closer at the photo of Alex and Daniel. With an uncomfortable twinge in my chest, I realize she looked uncannily like me.

    "Doctor," I ask, turning to face him as I hear him move about behind me, "what are we doing prying in all her personal stuff?"

He rummages through one of the drawers in the desk shamelessly. "Exactly what I said we were doing," he replies without looking at me. "Looking for an answer to why the Angels chose her to attack. She didn't just stumble into a hiding place of one of them. That sort of thing just doesn't happen. No, this was premeditated, a fixed point in time."

    "... So you can't change it," I muse aloud, and this time he does look at me. His eyebrows are furrowed. "Why would you say that?" he inquires, crossing his arms in front of him, then dropping them again so he can wring his hands.

I respond truthfully, "I dunno. I just almost remember you telling me something once about not being able to tamper with fixed moments. It would disrupt the continuum or make a galaxy explode or something." I shake my head. "I'm probably bonkers."

    "No, you're not," he tells me, smiling a little. He keeps talking as he angles himself toward the desk again, opening a lower drawer while still maintaining eye contact. "You've heard me say that quite a bit, actually, and you're right. I can't change it—can't even try. Even if I did somehow, things work themselves out the way they're supposed to in the end anyway. For example, say by some miracle, I managed to bring Alex back. Let's also say she was destined to die of—oh, I don't know—polio in the past. Then she would without a doubt contract it here in this time period. It would be the only vaccination she didn't get or some other freak thing." I shiver, my eyebrows pulling together in thought, as he adds, "I can almost guarantee it. There's an infinite number of possibilities but ultimately only one outcome. In the battle for life, time always wins."