Until We Burn | Dr Who

Chapter Forty-Two: The Shakespeare Code

TW// Racially insensitive comments, dodgy comments about trans people (if the Harry Potter references didn't give it away, a bigot wrote this. I've tried to fix it but let me know)

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"But how do you travel in time, what makes it go?" Martha has to shout over the roaring of the engines, keeping a tight hold on a handle fixed into the console.

"Oh, take the fun and the mystery out of everything! Martha, you don't wanna know. It just does. Hold on tight!"

The warning doesn't do much. Another harsh tremor sends us to the floor. "Blimey! Do you have to pass a test to fly this thing?"

"Yes, and I failed. Now, make the most of it, I promised you one trip and one trip only." The Doctor races past us, stopping at the foot of the exit ramp with a barely suppressed grin. "Outside this door... brave new world."

"Where are we?"

He raises his eyebrows and eases open the doors behind his back. "Take a look. After you."

The first thing to become apparent in this new place is the smell, like animals and rotting food. The street is busy, full of peasants in what I calculate to be 16th-century clothing. The lead-paned windows glow, some draped with drying laundry. Woody smoke hangs faintly in the air, forming a welcoming haze. The houses of wood and white painted wattle and daub.

"Oh, you're kidding me. You're so kidding me. Oh my God, we did it! We travelled in time. Where are we?" Before either of us can speak, she raises a hand to stop herself. "No, sorry, got to get used to this, whole new language. When are we?"

Beaming, he looks up, realising just in time to pull us back as a slosh of pungent, brown liquid streams from one of the windows. "Mind out!"

"Gardez-loo!" a distant voice warns, far too late.

The Doctor seems particularly unimpressed as he looks down at the new puddle on the straw-padded earth. "Somewhere before the invention of the toilet. Sorry about that."

"I've seen worse, I've worked late-night-shift in A&E." We step around it but, once again, she hurriedly gestures for us to stop. "But, are we safe? I mean, can we move around and stuff?"

"'Course we can, why'd you ask?"

Finding it obvious, she warily glances around. "Like in those films: you step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race."

I leave it to him to answer, sending him a slight nod of teasing encouragement. "Tell you what then," he says, "don't step on any butterflies. What have butterflies ever done to you?"

It seems to be enough, so she follows us along. "What if — I don't know — What if I kill my grandfather?"

I frown. "Your grandfather was alive now?"

"Well, if President John Tyler could manage. Are you planning to?"

"No!"

"Well then."

Falling in step beside her, I can't help but keep my attention on her rather than the civilisation around us. She and Donna are the only people I have ever witnessed to see this life and world as we do — as Rose and Mickey knew the Doctor before me, and Jack and I had already been familiar with a far cruder form of time travel. It's oddly fascinating just to see her face and listen to her questions. The best of humanity would struggle to comprehend this but Martha tries and succeeds with little difficulty. Once again, I am comforted by her excitement. "This is London?"