Out of Time

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

 Anna Bailey woke up in her bed with a violent start, she had been here before; she knew she was only dreaming… For the first few months after she had returned home from her travels with the Doctor, nightmares had dominated her sleep but then came the adventure dreams. Some of them were part of her imagination, those exciting dreams which everyone has once in a blue moon but in Anna’s case most of those exhilarating dreams were based on reality. About eighteen months after returning home Anna thought she might have finally found some closure after “the Birmingham Museum adventure” that this was the turning point she had been waiting for, where the rest of her life could finally begin. Anna allowed herself to believe she was finally adjusting to normal life but then coming up to the three year anniversary  since her last adventure with the Doctor she started dreaming about Adam Tallis almost every single night… It was always the same dream, the one by the sea, on a white washed Victorian promenade with the tide rolling in fast. Time was always against them, Adam would be running towards her sometimes he would reach her and take her in his arms, both of them held on tightly. It was so vivid, down to the feel of his skin, his stubble brushing against her face, the beating of his heart and always the kiss...How many times had Anna relived their heart breaking kiss. Then the inevitable separation would come, Adam would be taken from her, wrenched from her arms by an unseen force or he would begin to fade away to nothing, dissolving away like grains of sand. It was traumatic but unlike the other nightmares there was no off switch, Anna would always remain until the end because she could not leave him. Adam still existed out there as he cried out to her, his voice carried on the wind and always promising the same thing.

 “Anna I’m coming for you! I’ll find you. Hold on I’m coming!”   

 And it was always at that point she’d wake up drenched in sweat, her heart beating as fast as it did in the days when she ran with the Doctor. Then she would have to carry on with her everyday life where everything and everyone was grey and flat though above all frighteningly inconsequential compared to the vibrancy and reality of her dreams… The clock showed six thirty, Anna sunk back onto her pillow; there was nothing to get up for anymore. She slipped back into her troubled dreams far too easily, this time the Doctor made an appearance, the elusive Doctor who was running so fast and Anna couldn’t keep up with him, she knew it was the Doctor by the squeaking of his converse trainers, the flowing long coat trailing behind him but he would never turn and show his face.  But today the dream got very silly as the Doctor turned only for his face to morph into that of the white rabbit from Alice in the Wonderland. The rabbit held up his pocket watch and exclaimed with pinned back ears.

 “You’re late…You’re late. Hurry up Time’s running out!”

 Anna went to speak but her lips would not move as she sunk to her knees, paralysed on the spot. She suddenly felt very weak and helpless as though all the time she had spent time travelling had finally caught up with her. Then the shadows began to fall, devouring everything in its path. The shadows were coming towards her, coming to claim her, maybe she had escaped too many times… Anna woke up before the darkness reached her. She pulled the covers from her body and leapt from the bed it was half past ten and now Anna Bailey was running late, it was her signing on day at the job centre.

 It was Thursday afternoon, Anna angrily wiped a tear away from her face as she left the city museum and art gallery. She had just visited her friend Jasmine Kaur, it was a weekly ritual where they would spend her lunch hour together and apart from catching up, they would discuss any forthcoming job vacancies within the council that might be suitable for Anna. It didn’t help that they were in the middle of a recession, not a galactic one but a planet Earth one and the biggest to hit the UK and western civilization in decades. When historian’s look back they would concede that during the early twenty first century times were hard and very desperate. There were few vacancies in any line of work so competition was intense but many times Anna had ruefully admitted to herself that her heart just wasn’t in it anymore. To be fair her heart hadn’t been in it for quite some time and Anna knew that she should have fought more when her job was on the line alongside other colleagues. “Jas has got her own life to worry about. This isn’t her problem.” Anna mused to herself as she awkwardly deflected the sympathetic enquiries and pitying looks in her friend’s eyes as she tried to help Anna find another job and get her life back on track. “It’s not her fault I was made redundant.” Aside from her parents, Jasmine was the only person whom Anna had confided in. And as talk inevitably turned to Jasmine’s imminent maternity leave, her hopes and fears at becoming a mother, Jasmine suddenly reached across the table and took Anna’s hand in her own.

 “Don’t worry Anna…Your time will come.”

  Anna felt her throat constrict and tears prick the back of her eyes, moved by her friend’s kindness, at the certainty Jasmine felt which she no longer felt in her own future. Overcome by emotion Anna quickly sipped her tea, she could not stay for long after that, she only asked after her husband Paul, who was now the head of security at the museum and then it was time to go. Anna’s eyes were instinctively drawn to a poster for the Staffordshire Hoard, it was still a popular attraction, drawing in hundreds each week. Jasmine stood up a little slower, her bump clearly visible; her eyes followed Anna’s and when she realised what she was looking at, the two friends both smiled and then hugged in parting, each in their own way recalling that special and secret day in the museum with the Doctor.  

 “I’m thirty one this year…I can’t go on like this.” Anna’s thoughts rang out loud and clear, the reality slapping her in the face. She pulled her TARDIS blue rain mac closer, the temperature had noticeably lowered for July though Anna’s response today was to shake her head and smile wryly to herself. For months after her travels Anna had always been constantly on the look-out for the extraordinary in the seemingly every day ordinary, like a soldier who had returned from the front line she was always on high alert, ready for the next alien invasion or strange phenomenon involving time. Anna had driven her parent’s mad with her spiky impatience and all-consuming curiosity. The Doctor had irrevocably changed Anna’s life, despite the fact that nothing was going her way at the moment, in her heart she was still that same adventurer who was still capable of seeing the beauty and the wonder in her world, not to mention the whole Universe. Anna smiled to herself, suddenly fired up with new found determination to take control and stop being pathetic as she patted something in her pocket. “Something has got to change. But it’s me who’s got to do something.” Anna quickened her pace as she walked across Victoria square, the scene of destruction had long ago been repaired and put back together. If only it was as easy to put people’s lives back together. Apart from her weekly visit Anna very rarely went into the city centre, there were just too many memories. Caroline Bailey had said her daughter was suffering from depression, Anna couldn’t argue with that but she knew it was something more. One day in the job centre, the realisation had suddenly dawned on Anna and it was a revelation to her, that for the past three years she had been slowly tortured by a future life that did not seem to be emerging. Was she being impatient, maybe it wasn’t her time yet as she waited for the man she was supposed to meet, the child they were supposed to have together. The trouble was Anna knew too much about her own future but at the same time not enough, why couldn’t she have left a note for herself in the “family journal” which she was supposed to write one day but didn’t even have the heart to begin. Anna Bailey knew something had gone wrong in her timeline. She also knew that no one would believe her. Her mum who was at her wits end had insisted that she see a doctor but as Anna patted the TARDIS made mobile in her pocket she knew there was really only one Doctor she needed to see…So what was keeping her from making the call? Anna knew she could not cope if she was unable to get in contact with the Doctor who could be anywhere in space and time. Also Anna’s last shred of hope would be gone and the nagging doubt, the terrible truth that the Doctor had moved on and might not want to return her call.