Chase The Wind: Doctor Who/Studio C [Book 1]

Blink (Part 4)

A/N: Ahhh, where everything comes together. I love this episode.

2007

Sally felt like she'd tramped through half of London today.

Now she was in a hospital, in what was perhaps the most surreal twist of what had already been an astoundingly surreal day.

A man she had met, just moments ago, who had been a young man asking her on a date, was now an old man in a hospital bed.

"Billy?" she said softly, but he didn't answer her for a long moment, apparently dozing.

She moved to the window, watching the rain come down. After a long moment, his voice came to her. "It was raining when we met."

"It's the same rain," Sally said, trying to ignore the hysteria bubbling up in her. Things like this weren't supposed to happen outside of bad, low-budget sci-fi shows, she thought to herself.

Billy looked at her for a long moment, with an old man's eyes, and began to explain, in the barest terms, what had happened. He'd been sent back in time to 1969, and had to live all the remaining years, until the day they met, until he could see her again.

After a little while he passed her a photo, of him and a lovely, beautiful woman on their wedding day, just a few years after he'd been sent back. "She looks nice," Sally said.

"Her name was Sally too," Billy told her.

"Sally Shipton," she said with a small smile.

"Sally Shipton!" he exclaimed. She laughed. After a moment, he continued. "I often thought about looking for you before tonight, but apparently it would've torn a hole in the fabric of space and time and destroyed two thirds of the universe," he told her gravely, before winking at her. "Also, I'd lost my hair."

"Two thirds of the universe," she repeated. "Where'd you get that from?"

"There's a man in 1969. He sent me with a message for you."

"What man?"

"The Doctor."

"And what was his message?"

"Just this," said Billy. "Look at the list."

"What does that mean? Is that it, 'look at the list'?"

"He said you'd have it by now. A list of seventeen DVDs," he said, and she felt her heart skip a beat. "I didn't stay a policeman back then," he continued. "Got into publishing. Then video publishing. Then... DVDs, of course."

"You put the Easter egg on?" Sally asked.

"Have you noticed what all seventeen DVDs have in common yet?" he said instead. "I suppose it's hard for you, in a way."

"How could the Doctor have even known I had a list?" she demanded. "I only just got this!"

"I asked him how, but he said he couldn't tell me. He said you'd understand it one day, but that I never would."

"Soon as I understand it, I'll come and tell you," she said with a small laugh.

"No, gorgeous girl," he said, and she looked at him sharply. "You can't. There's only tonight. He told me all those years ago, that we'd only meet again this one time. On the night I die."

"Oh, Billy," she said softly.

"It's kept me going. I'm an old, sick man," Billy said. "But I've had something to look forward to. Ah... life is long, and you are hot." She let out a little laugh as he put one of his hands on hers. "Oh, look at my hands. They're old man's hands. How did that happen?"