The Bizarre Adventures of Doctor Who

The Funeral

Everything happened so quick, Theodore couldn't even describe what happened to him and Lila. The news shook him to his very core, he didn't register the TARDIS for a few days until he snapped back to reality. Despite this, he couldn't speak to Hammond and Odette about it, they're busied with the arrangements, that Theodore asked if Lila kept the TARDIS until everything's resolved.

Then, when that happens, he'll explain the situation with Hammond and Odette. How well that goes, he doesn't know, but he couldn't well send the TARDIS away, it'll hound him if he tries, and he needed to know the reason why it searched him out after all this time.

If it's even possible that it knew his father's death even before he did and some strange way kept him away from their universe until long after his brother and sister found out. For whatever reason that may be, Theodore hadn't figured it out.

When he finally has an appetite and able to eat, he'll investigate it all, but for now, he's miserable and wearing large sunglasses to hide his reddened eyes and it's not just him.

Hammond's wearing his own large sunglasses, hiding his reddened eyes, too.

They haven't said a word to one another since they started their drive to the cemetery and the silence heavily uncomfortable.

The air's frigid, the skies dark and grey, befitting for this day.

Driving the yellow roadster bequeathed by a family friend on his sixteenth birthday, Hammond drove it with his brother in the passenger seat and in the back, Lila.

In little words, Theodore asked Lila to come with them to the cemetery for support.

He might've only known her for a month and a half, but that aloof man treated her like a best friend in that time, and it'd only be fair since Ben's coming with Odette for support, too.

Not something Lila expected, but in times like this, it's only fair that she came along for Theodore's sake, even if they hardly knew each other, and she never got to know his father, only what she learnt from him and Hammond.

Their father lived in the countryside and busied himself, any time they have a chance, his children popped in every now again to check up on him, and he's still as clever when he was their age, it'd seem.

Never appeared at the library, not that Lila's able to remember, but Mr. Smith seemed to favor the quiet life of the countryside and there wasn't ill will.

Oh, right.

John Smith, aged 80 (in human years, apparently), found dead in his bed by a concerned neighbor who hadn't seen him outside for a day.

The old man had a ritual and when he didn't do it, it's enough for the neighbor to take notice and check on him.

For the cause of death, it's tricky when he's a full-blooded Time Lord with two hearts, but apparently, he's friends with a lot of people, that they swung into action the moment they're notified of his death.

Careful as they're able, they gave the cause of death as heart attack on the official paperwork for the clerks and officials.

In private, they concluded that it's likely John Smith's hearts failed, seeing there's signs of stress on them.

Broken heart syndrome, for the layman term.

Shocking for a man fit, but given his younger years, it's likely that the myriad of injuries and the stress from the situations he sustained finally caught up to him, added with the loss of his wife, it cultivated with his death.

Ruled as natural causes, his body released to his children, and they prepared him for burial.

As he wished, they're burying him next to his beloved in the hilltop of the cemetery.