The Second Homecoming

Epilogue

Epilogue

  “Goodbye, mum… Dad. What can I say, I’ll see you soon. I’d better go before…”

 “Before your other self returns home from visiting aunt Mavis in Herne Bay.” Mum finished for me and then she smiled knowingly. “We wouldn’t want the two of you accidentally bumping into each other now would we?”

 It was early evening and the Doctor and I were standing beside the TARDIS in the ruined Victoria Square with my parents, I shook my head and smiled.     

 “Anna!” Jasmine Kaur came sprinting towards us, she drew a deep breath. “I thought I’d missed you.”

 “How’s Paul doing?” The Doctor enquired.

 “He’s doing well thanks, should be out in a couple of days. And I don’t think the museum has sustained too much damage and the exhibits are all still intact…” Jasmine smiled wryly at the Doctor. “Though I’m not even going to attempt to explain the great, big dent in the vault door.”

 “Ah that reminds me Jasmine, you have a piece missing from the Staffordshire hoard…” The Doctor grinned pulling a stone out of his deep pocket, it looked exactly the same as the alien artefact, the missing piece to the time key, so much that for a second it made my heart skip a beat. The Doctor handed it to Jasmine for safe keeping.

 “How did you? What?” Jasmine stared down at the stone bead in bafflement.

 “From the little shop, you sell stones and I picked it up earlier and have since moulded it exactly to the same shape and texture.” The Doctor’s eyes twinkled mysteriously as he lowered his voice in a conspiratorial tone. “No one will ever know.”

 Everyone laughed with joyful abandon. After everything we had been through only the Doctor would think about replacing the missing piece to the Staffordshire hoard, the very piece which had caused us so much trouble, the catalyst to all those dramatic events.

 “Well I’ll be sure to place it within the exhibition at the first opportunity.” Jasmine shook her head and smiled, completely beguiled by that wonderful and eccentric man known as the Doctor. “Which reminds me Anna…” My friend handed me an envelope about A4 in size. “Remember what I told you earlier about when I was cataloguing a collection of newly acquired studies by some of our Victorian artists and I photographed this copy for you…” I began to open the envelope with building excitement. “And the study is by none other than the Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti and the likeness of the woman blew me away when I saw it.”

 I opened the faint pencil study and gasped with an agreeable mixture of shock, flattery and amazement…I was in a drawing by my favourite artist of all time, Rossetti had remembered me. The rough portrait had captured my likeness, the features were undoubtedly mine (even if the artist had over glamorized my appearance), my bobbed hair partially concealed under a shawl and though my lips were plumper and my eyebrows heavily exenterated, I was struck by the rapt and joyful expression that Rossetti had captured upon my face as I stood in front of a pillar which was unmistakably the TARDIS. There was even a title: “La Signora del Tempo” translated in English as The Lady of Time.       

 Mum and dad gaped in amazement both of them dumbstruck until I heard mum brimming with pride.

 “It’s our Anna, our brave and beautiful daughter.”

 I handed the copy over to my parents for safe keeping and then turned to the Doctor triumphantly.

 “See, I told you Rossetti wanted to paint me.”

 “I’m sorry I ever doubted the chap.” The Doctor sniffed and then admired the study, nodding in agreement.  

 I turned to my friend and hugged her.

 “Thank you Jas.”

 “My pleasure Anna.” Jasmine beamed back. “It’s a little weird to get my head round but I’ll see you soon I guess. I can’t wait for the “other” you to turn up and we can make up for lost time. And you’ll have so many stories to tell me about your travels with the Doctor.”

 The Doctor began fidgeting impatiently, it was time to go.

 “Don’t forget Anna, you call me anytime you need me.”

 I heard mum shouting out as I closed the TARDIS doors. It was just me and the Doctor again as he began the dematerialization sequence.

 “What’s the matter Anna?”

 I snapped out of my trance and smiled at the Doctor.

 “Oh nothing…Well I’m just thinking about what’s out there…Waiting for us and if I’m going to honest I’m a little scared for the first time about what’s in store for us in the future.”

 “Yeah, I know what you mean and…” The Doctor confided but then stopped mid- sentence and looked away, distracted by something on the console.

 “And?” I prompted the Doctor to continue, feeling the hairs rise on the back of my neck.

 “And do you want to know a secret Anna Bailey…” The Doctor turned his full attention back to me and smiled his biggest toothiest smile. “Sometimes it terrifies the “lives” out of me. But at the same time I think- BRING IT ON!” The Doctor punched the air with defiance.

 “Lives?“ I muttered to myself, I was just about to ask the Doctor what he meant by that strange expression…

 Though I would never get the chance find out as the TARDIS control room suddenly darkened and the time rotor in the centre of the console stopped moving mid-way.

 “What’s happening Doctor?” For some reason I  whispered, my voice unsteady, on the verge of being engulfed by fear.

 The Doctor stared back at me, his eyes widening with panic.

 “I don’t want to alarm you Anna… But something is very wrong here.”

 There was a low humming sound in the background which then accelerated and increased in pitch and then there was silence…The TARDIS engines had stopped working. The Doctor began to run over to the console to find out what was happening but before he could reach the controls a chain of furious explosions broke out upon the console. The next thing I was conciousness of happening was being flung violently across the control room alongside the Doctor.

 “Hold on Anna!” The Doctor grabbed hold of me and with his other hand held onto the smoking console. “I’ve lost control of the TARDIS. We’re falling through the Time vortex.”

 In the pit of my stomach there was this terrible sensation of weightlessness as we plummeted through endless space. The Doctor frantically tried to restart the engines and regain control. But nothing was happening. I pulled myself up alongside the Doctor and gripped onto the console tightly.

 I looked into the Doctor’s eyes and it’s as though I heard him say out loud “This is it, you’re going to have to be strong cause we’re in big trouble now.” What did the future hold for us? Well as it turned out we didn’t have very long to wait, we were diving headlong and out of control into our next adventure.