Doctor Who Fan Fiction ❯ War and Peace ❯ Chapter Two ( Chapter 2 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

The TARDIS.

No particular time. No particular place.

`Right then, let's have a look at the universe through fresh eyes shall we,' the Doctor said out loud. He got a hum of acknowledgement from the TARDIS; she was more than happy with this new incarnation of her love. He stopped and watched the time rotor pumping up and down without seeing it.

He was thinking about the Earth girl he had asked to come with him, she reminded him of someone. . .. Sarah Jane, of course, clever and feisty. His memories were starting to come back now, having been put through the blender and the shredder of his regeneration.

Even under extreme stress and duress, she had thought clearly, coming up with a very plausible explanation why a plastic manikin might have attacked her. It was the kind of daft stunt students would get up to, and she wasn't to know that there were aliens on her planet (other than him).

Also, she took the fact that the TARDIS was bigger on the inside rather well, better than that useless lump of a boyfriend of hers. When he thought about it, most of the people he had travelled with seemed to cope with transdimentional engineering, which seemed to be a good indicator of whether they would make a good companion.

And finally, when he had been grabbed by those two Autons, she had swung over the Nestene vat and kicked one into the cauldron, fantastic. She ticked all the boxes for a first rate travelling companion, except for one, she didn't want to come. To say he was disappointed was understating it; he missed having someone to show off to when he was being brilliant (which was most of the time).

His previous regeneration didn't have any time to show off, unless it was to show how many Daleks he could destroy with one plasma blast, and that wasn't something he was particularly proud of right now. Okay, at the time it was necessary, and if he thought about it, he could probably rationalise it as a choice between two evils, but he felt that if he had chosen a different regeneration, he may have been able to choose a different outcome than the one that haunted his nightmares.

As he gazed unseeing at the time rotor, the wheezing morphed into the screams of billions of Gallifreyans as their world was consumed by the blast of a super nova. He shuddered and was suddenly back in the room as the TARDIS started to land.

`So where have you brought me to this time?' He said, looking up at the ceiling before checking the readouts.

`Southampton, 9th April 1912. Oh let me guess, you want me to delay the Titanic from sailing so that it misses the iceberg,' he said, as he moved around the console, taking the various systems off line.

`I can't do that; it's a fixed point in time. The public inquiries in Britain and the United States lead to major improvements in maritime safety. The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea governs maritime safety from this point on and saves countless lives.'

That made him go quiet again as he thought about Gallifrey and its population. He had taken their lives so that the universe would be safe from the threat of Daleks from that point on. The TARDIS had brought him here deliberately, probably to make him think that very thought.

At the moment, he felt like some of the male survivors, who were accused of cowardice for leaving the ship while people were still on board, or the White Star Line's chairman, J. Bruce Ismay, who faced social ostracism for the rest of his life.

Maybe he could redeem himself though. What if he could save one person who would make a difference? He went around to the monitor and started typing on the keyboard, bringing up the Titanic passenger manifest. The TARDIS performed a lineage search to each name on the list.

He found what he was looking for and a big grin spread across his face. `Fantastic!'

He went through to the wardrobe and found a suit from the period with a long frock coat that made him look quite the gentleman. `Mmmm, shame about the ears,' he said to himself as he inspected himself in the full length mirror.

Picking up a small brown suitcase, he headed back to the console room, and out through the doors onto the streets of early twentieth century Southampton, looking for a particular family who had four children. He wasn't going to save one person; he was going to save six!

First of all though, he needed to find pawnbrokers so that he could get the money he would need to make his plan work. In the inside pocket of his jacket was an antique diamond ring that he would sell to get some cash in his pocket. Well, when he said antique, he'd picked it up new in his eighth incarnation.

He didn't really understand money and finance, it was a human thing, but he did understand trading and bartering. He could trade the ring for bits of paper with the picture of a monarch's head on them, and then use those bits of paper to trade for other things. (How weird was that?)

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He found the guest house he was looking for and climbed the few steps to the front door, where a big, brass knocker was just waiting to be knocked. The bay window to the left of the door had a sign saying “vacancies”. `Fantastic,' he said out loud, fate was being kind to him, and the Daniels family.

“THUNK, THUNK”. He knocked the big brass knocker that was waiting to be knocked, and it made a satisfying noise. He heard the “clip-clop” of shoes on the stone tiled hallway floor getting closer.

The door was opened by a buxom woman in a long tweed skirt and white blouse, her hair in a bun on top of her head.

`Hello, can I help you?' she said with a smile.

`Mrs. Hoskins? I am told by the desk sergeant at the local constabulary, that you keep one of the finest guest houses in Southampton,' the Doctor said with a charming smile. He hadn't been told that, it was part of a cover story he had concocted to try and convince the Daniels' to relinquish their ticket for the maiden voyage on the Titanic.

Mrs. Hoskins looked at him suspiciously. `Constabulary, what are you, some sort of miscreant?'

The Doctor pretended to look shocked. `Oh no,' he said reaching into his pocket and taking out a wallet with psychic paper in it. `Detective Inspector John Smith from Scotland Yard, I'm here following up a lead in an investigation and need a bed for the night.'

Mrs. Hoskins looked at the blank paper and sure enough, there it was for everyone to see (apparently), his warrant card from the Yard. `Oh I'm terribly sorry Detective Inspector, only you can't be too careful with all sorts passin' through the port these days.'

`Not at all Mrs. Hoskins, very sensible attitude if I may say, and please, call me John, Detective Inspector is a bit of a mouthful.'

She showed the Doctor up to his room, which was small but comfortable and spotlessly clean. It had a chest of drawers and a wardrobe, and a small sash window that had a view over the rooftops to the masts of the ships moored in the port.

`I can see why the sergeant recommended your establishment, very clean and homely,' the Doctor said.

Mrs. Hoskins clamped her hands together and plumped up her bosom in pride. `That's very nice of you to say Det…. John. Evening meal is at seven sharp, and you'll be able to meet the other guests, a family from London and a nice couple from Birmingham. They're all sailing on the Titanic tomorrow.'

She left the room, and the Doctor placed his empty suitcase on the chest of drawers, before lying on the comfortable bed to wait for the evening meal and his chance to meet the Daniels family. As he stared at the ceiling, he thought about the eight year old daughter they had, who given the chance, would go to school in Boston, and then to college, and then on to Yale, where she would achieve a first class degree in biochemistry and be instrumental in the development of wide spectrum antibiotics, which would save billions of lives.

He smiled to himself. That would be a good evening's work.

He didn't need to look at his watch, his sense of time was impeccable, it was two minutes to seven, and it was time to go to the dining room. He descended the stairs and made his way along the hallway to the rear of the house where a room had a number of tables set for dinner.

`Good evening,' he said to everyone in the room, `I hope I'm not late, my name's John, John Smith.' He knew that he wasn't late, but it was a good way to get a conversation going.

`Good evening Mr. Smith, you seem to be perfectly on time,' a woman said, who he presumed was Mrs. Daniels, being as she was sitting with a man and four children.

`George Daniels,' the man said, `and this is my wife, Mary, and my children Catherine, Elizabeth, Henry, and Jane.'

`Very nice to meet you, and who else are we dining with tonight?' he said, turning to another table where a young couple were sitting.

`James and Emily Prentice,' the young man said.

`Would you like to join us?' Emily said, indicating a free chair at their table. The Doctor chose a chair that would allow him to speak with George as they had dinner, speaking of which, Mrs. Hoskins entered with a food trolley, followed by a teenage girl in a maids uniform.

`Good evening diners, it's only simple fare I'm afraid, but it is wholesome,' she said as the maid started to hand out the plates of food.

`Nothing wrong with a good old British beef dinner,' the Doctor said.

`Here, here,' George said in agreement, as a beef dinner was placed in front of him. Everyone started eating, and the room went quiet for a while.

`So, tell me Mr. Smith, what brings you to a guest house in Southampton?' James asked him.

`I'm a policeman at Scotland Yard; I'm just following up some loose ends on an investigation.'

`Oh, how exciting,' Mary said. `But surely that makes you a detective, not just a policeman?'

The Doctor smiled at her. `Well, Detective Inspector actually, but I'm still a copper.'

`Do you catch thieves and murderers?' the six year old Elizabeth Daniels asked him, excitement shining in her eyes.

`Have you met Sherlock Holmes?' the three year old Henry asked.

`Children, don't badger Mr. Smith so,' Mary chided them.

The Doctor laughed. `That's alright Mary, I wish he were real, I could do with someone like him to help me crack this case.'

`Are you allowed to talk about it?' George asked. `Maybe an outside perspective would help. I find it sometimes work when I have a design problem.'

The Doctor raised an enquiring eyebrow, when Mary answered proudly for her husband. `George is a design engineer, and he has had the offer of a job working on airplanes at the Curtiss Aeroplane Company in New York.'

`Airplanes? Fantastic! They're going to change the world you know,' the Doctor enthused. The children were looking at him expectantly, waiting for details of gore from his investigations of murders and such like.

`Oh, right, the investigation. Well, I suppose I have a moral obligation to mention it, as Mrs. Hoskins tells me that you're all here to travel on the Titanic tomorrow.'

`The Titanic?' Mary said, concern written on her face.

`Er, yes, you see, I don't know if you are aware, but the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast had a lot of sectarian violence within the workforce during the construction of the Titanic. Catholics were beaten up and thrown off the job by some narrow minded Protestant thugs.'

As he finished his meal, George put his knife and fork on his plate. `What are you trying to say John, that they may have sabotaged the ship somehow?'

The Doctor slipped into the cover story he had concocted to try and dissuade the Daniels' from travelling on the Titanic. After all, he couldn't tell them that he knew it would hit an iceberg and sink, now could he?

`Scotland Yard were approached by the White Star Line to see if there was any truth in a rumour they had heard that a group of militants had interfered with the watertight compartments.'

`Excuse me Mr. Smith, aren't those the things that make it unsinkable?' James asked.

`Virtually unsinkable,' the Doctor corrected the claim. `It's probably nothing, but…. the reaction I've had from the people I've interviewed does make my coppers nose twitch. It might be that they don't like talking to the police, but, well, I don't know.'

The room was silent, he'd introduced the seeds of doubt and fear in their minds, all he had to do now was water the seeds and wait for them to grow.

Mary was the first, with her concern for her children. She reached for her husband's hand. `George, what if it's true, and they want to sink her?'

George patted her hand in reassurance. `How could a few workers sink a massive ship like that? And besides, we paid forty pounds for our berth; we can't afford to lose that kind of money on a rumour.'

`Exactly,' the Doctor said with a manic grin. `How could a bunch of manual labourers, who know the ship from the inside out, every plate, every rivet, how could they sink a massive ship that's claimed to be virtually unsinkable?'

`Excuse me Detective Inspector; is there a real chance that this could actually happen?' Emily asked.

The Doctor wanted to scream at them, “just throw away your tickets, and go home”, but then he would have to explain why, and then…. well, time travel was just a story by Jules Verne.

`Look, if it was me, I'd sell my ticket and get a later sailing. I mean, if you want to make a point, what a better way to do it than the maiden voyage of the most luxurious ship ever built, particularly when it claims to be unsinkable, virtual, or otherwise.'

He looked at the young couple and recalled the information the TARDIS had shown him. James Prentice worked in finance and was heading for the New York stock market, where he becomes a successful trader. His wife Emily, is a trained secretary, and becomes his personal assistant, before the days when they had personal assistants.

They have three children, and live a long and prosperous life. They survive the sinking without him interfering. James is a weekend sailor and his skill with boats gets him a seat on one of the lifeboats with his wife. The Doctor inwardly smiled at the irony of a man from Birmingham, a hundred miles from the coast, being a sailor. But the river Avon at Stratford has a very popular boating marina, and sailing a small boat was just the skill James needed.

`Well, even if she does sink,' James said, `they'll have lifeboats, and I hear they have the most sophisticated radios onboard. I bet you could literally step from the Titanic to a rescue ship without getting your feet wet.' He stood and held his hand out for his wife. `And if you will excuse us, I'm taking my wife for an evening of dancing at the local dance hall.'

They left to a chorus of goodbyes, which left the Doctor and the Daniels' in the room. He could see that Mary was unhappy about the latest developments.

`George, what do you think, I mean could we trade the tickets for a later sailing?'

`What, on the evening before she sails? I doubt it.'

Mary looked at the Doctor. `What would you do Detective Inspector, I mean, if it was your family?'

“If it was my family?” he thought to himself. “I burned any family I had, in a war to end all wars”.

Mary saw the look that came upon the Doctor's face; she'd seen it before when she was a nurse, on the faces of the men coming back from the Boer War. `Oh John, I'm sorry. What happened to your family?'

The Doctor had let his mask of invulnerability slip, and was amazed at her perception, the years of nursing must have given her the ability to read her patients and empathise with them. George, on the other hand, hadn't got a clue what she was on about.

`Mary?' he asked.

`This poor man has had a tragedy in his life, it's written all over his face.'

The Doctor nodded in agreement. How long had it been, a few days, a few years, a few centuries? It was difficult to tell when time didn't travel in a linear fashion for you. `Yes, I had a family, and I couldn't save them. And if I had my time again, I would do anything to change that.'

`And you carry that guilt with you, don't you?' Mary said.

`Yes, I do, but there is something I can do now that I couldn't do then, I can make a difference.' He reached inside his jacket, took out a wallet, and turned to George. `Forty pounds you said? I have an expenses account for my investigation. Let me buy your ticket and I can travel aboard the Titanic and continue my investigation.'

George looked stunned. `But…. won't that put you in danger if you are right?'

`Nah, not me. Danger's a constant companion, we're old friends. And if I'm right, I can try and make a difference, and if I should die, well, I'll be reunited with my family again.'

`Oh John, that is such a kind offer, what can we say?'

The Doctor switched on his manic grin, his plan had worked. `You can say yes. Titanic's sister ship, the RMS Olympic is just as luxurious, and she'll be coming into port in a few days. The tickets will be cheaper, and the extra money will pay for your rooms here until she docks.'

`God bless you, we will pray for you at church on Sunday,' Mary told him.

The Doctor smiled at her, `Thank you that means a lot to me.'

Humans! The compassion and empathy they had for complete strangers never failed to amaze him.

`It's a shame that we won't be on the maiden voyage, but you never know, when I've made my fortune in America, we can have a first class berth on the Titanic when we come back to visit.'

“I wouldn't hold your breath”, the Doctor thought to himself.

`Mr. Smith, we were going to have a commemorative photograph taken tomorrow before we sailed. We would be honoured if you would be in that photograph,' George said.

`Oh, I don't know, I'm not much for having my photo taken,' he told them.

`Please,' Mary pleaded, `it will be something we can tell our children, and their children, that a detective from Scotland Yard, in the middle of an investigation, warned us of a possible threat to the greatest ship ever built.'

`Oh go on then, I don't suppose one photo will hurt.'