The Undying

The sun was setting, casting the manor house in its warm glow. If it wasn’t for the strange wind that kept pulsating, it would have been a lovely evening. From inside the house, one of the maids was observing the glorious scene though the study window. Hearing the door open, she quickly resumed the pretence of work. Into the study came the butler, followed by two footmen who were carrying a large trunk.

“Will you please see that the study is clean and a fire prepared. Lord Townshend will be arriving later this evening,” the butler address the maid.

“Very good Sir,” replied the maid. “Do you wish me to unpack the case for him?” She motioned towards the large trunk that the footmen were placing on the floor.”

“No. The trunk is not to be opened except by his Lordship.”

“Of course sir, sorry sir.” The butler and the footmen left, leaving the maid alone in the room, tending to her work. From the truck, there was a series of sharp rattles, like a metal bolt begin drawn back. At first the maid didn’t seem to notice, until the lid of the trunk started to shudder. She turned, alarmed at the sound, and the vibrating stopped. Then her curiosity overcame her fear, and slowly she approached the now motionless trunk.

With a sudden lurch the lid of the trunk bust open, and the room resounded with the maid’s screams at the sight of what lay within.

Jamie leapt out of his skin when he turned back to the Doctor, having heard a familiar voice, and saw not the bowtied-pompadoured new-face Doctor but had changed--

Back into his Doctor!

"Doctor!" Jamie cried, happily embracing the little old man. "You're back!"

"What do you mean, 'back,' my boy, I never left!" The Doctor responded by batting Jamie's hands away but taking hold of his sleeve. Jamie stayed near him, trying to determine if this was some kind of trick:

"But, you just--your face, Doctor--" Jamie began. Nikki and Sara had seen him now, too, and looked alarmed, having stepped back, so Jamie felt it his duty to intervene. Jamie, of course, new that the Doctor was a funny old creature, and he was known to change his face sometimes. Jamie did not exactly understand the logistics of it, but it was not quite so queer as if say, he himself changed his face (though that had, in fact, happened, as a matter of fact). He tried to explain this:

"Ach, dinna fret, lassies," he explained. "It's the Doctor! He does this all the time. Well, not all the time--"

"I do what all the time?" the Doctor said grumpily. "Don't fuss me, Jamie, we need to get going--"

"But--where'd the Doctor go?" Nikki asked in a small voice. Sara nodded, dumbly.

"What are you all staring at?" The Doctor insisted. "My word, Jamie, now you've gone and frightened them!"

Jamie's mouth flapped. "But--but--"

"Hush, Jamie, quiet," the Doctor said, going to the controls, and Jamie rolled his eyes and gave up.

The Bachelor blinked. Then blinked again. Then cocked his head to one side. Then, turning his back on the still-bowtied but older and more impish fellow before him, mumbled under his breath to Sara:

"Sooo...do you see the same old bloke with dark hair and a bowl cut?"

"Um--yes?" Sara said, still staring wide-eyed at the man.

"Oh. It's alright, then. He's just regenerated. We time lords do that some times," he continued, and, unlike Jamie, the Doctor didn't try to halt his explanation (perhaps because he knew he wouldn't listen). "I've been through a few regenerations myself. Did you know that I hold the record for the most regenerations in the shortest lifetime? It's true!" He turned and glanced back at the Doctor. "Except...well, I've never thought you'd have to go through repeats..."

"Repeats? You mean he's--he's looked like this before?" Sara asked, pretty quick on the uptake.

The Bachelor nodded and shrugged. "Maybe its something that just happens, you know--he's no spring chicken after all, and I suppose that when you're of a certain age--"

He ducked as the Doctor threw a recorder at him. Sara caught it in one hand.

Nikki shook her head slightly, trying to sort out this latest crazy occurrence in what was turning into a very odd day. She’d take odd over the other option though. And to be honest, given everything else that she’d seen over the past few hours, the Doctor changing his appearance and, maybe by the impression she was getting, his personality, wasn’t as much of an impossibility as she’d expected. At least once Nikki got over the initial shock. Still, there was no harm in checking. Cautiously she neared the console where the Doctor was.

“Doctor?” she asked in a quiet voice, still not quite trusting the new comer, even if Jamie and The Bachelor did.

“Yes my dear,” The Doctor replied, with no hint as far as Nikki could tell that he was an imposter. And after all, if he was an imposter, wouldn’t he have taken the same appearance. Still there was one way to tell.

“Where are we going?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“Why I just told you. I’m taking you to a trip to Earth. How does early 21st century sound? I don’t think you’ll have seen anything like it.” The Doctor grinned at her then turned back to the controls. Nikki watched with interest, trying to make sense of the mass of controls that seemed more cobbled together junk than anything planned. Suddenly a series of flashing lights made the Doctor pause in his adjustments.

“Oh dear. It looks like our journey might get a little bumpy. Hold tight everyone!”

The floor of the TARDIS began to vibrate heavily, which soon spread to the rest of the interior. The companions grabbed whatever they could to keep their footing while the Doctor continued to fuss over the console.

“Nothing to worry about,” the Doctor spoke in an absurdly calm voice. “The TARDIS is just trying to land in too completely different points of Space and Time.”

“And that’s NOTHING?” exclaimed Bach. Even he knew how bad something like that could be.

“What happens if we don’t sort the problem?” asked Sara.

“It’s quite simple really. The TARDIS will be torn apart in the Vortex and us with it,” the Doctor answered.

“How is this happening?” asked Niki this time.

“We’re receiving a signal that the TARDIS is homing in on. But it hasn’t cleared the previous coordinates I set.”

“Hold on. I’ll help.” The Doctor looked up from the console to see Sara fiddling with button and switches on the other side.

“No, no my dear. I’ve got everything under complete control. There’s no need…” The rest of the Doctor’s words were lost as the TARDIS shook violently causing the Doctor to lose his footing.

Jamie caught the Doctor as he hurtled away from the console, the Doctor instinctively gripping his arms to steady himself.

"Doctor, are ye all right?" Jamie asked, gripping a rail to hold them upright as the TARDIS shook again, and he caught Niki's wrist as she threatened to topple. As the room rocked back the other direction, Jamie guided the Doctor back to the console. If the Doctor couldn't fix what was wrong, they were in trouble.

But the Doctor could always fix what was wrong.

Niki clung to the rail behind them. Sara had flung herself at the console as well, with the Bachelor behind her. They made quite a pair, Jamie decided: the Doctor and Sara working at the console, held there and supported by Jamie and the Bach. It looked to Jamie as though they were just mashing buttons and flipping dials, and maybe they were, but Jamie couldn't have known one way or the other even if they were the only thing keeping the TARDIS together.

Sara flicked a panel up, revealing a blue button, and pushed it, and miraculously, the TARDIS responded, righting itself.

There was a beat, then, "Oh, how wonderful! You've found the positron regulator!" the Doctor exclaimed, clapping excitedly. And though the turbulence had passed, the Bachelor was still holding onto Sara, so Jamie felt justified still clinging to the Doctor, who flicked a few switches and, "Now we'll just touch down gently--"

Jamie ought to have expected the jolt that came when the TARDIS landed anything but gently, but still he stumbled at the ship ground to a halt.

"We've landed!"

When the TARDIS finally seemed to right itself, Sara stepped away from the console, though she kept a hand on the Bachelor’s arm as if not quite trusting that the TARDIS wouldn’t fling her off balance again. She didn’t really trust machines she didn’t 100% understand. Just as she had decided that apparently the thing was going to behave and she could let go of the Bachelor’s arm, it lurched and jarred to a halt, sending her pitching almost onto her face. She righted herself and turned to glare at the control panel.

“But where have we landed?” she asked Jamie, and went to the door to hesitantly pull it open just a crack.

“Um… not that I know a thing ‘bout twentieth century Earth, but uh…” she said, turning and looking from the Bachelor to the Doctor as if one of them should know the answer.

“Hey, don’t look at me, I haven’t had a drink yet!” the Bachelor said, and Sara rolled her eyes briefly.

“Ah, we’ve gone a bit off course,” the Doctor said. He was standing at the console and looking at a screen with numbers on it in a format that Sara couldn’t even begin to figure out, but which seemed to make perfect sense to him

“How much off course?” she asked.

“Oh, not so very far,” the Doctor said evasively, and the Bachelor bounded over to look over his brother’s shoulder at the number coordinates.

“Hungary?” he yelped, “Nineteenth century?!”

“Calm down, Bach, we’re only a hundred years off target…” the Doctor grumbled.

“Yeah, and eight thousand miles!” the Bachelor replied. Sara looked over at Jamie and Nikki and traded them a shrug and shake of her head. The Bachelor and the Doctor kept bickering, until finally—

“Bach. It’s Hungary. Calm down,” Sara said.

“Perhaps we should see what’s here, since we’ve already landed?” Nikki asked from over by the door, and after a moment of frustrated spluttering, the Bachelor shut up and gave the door an appraising look.

“I suppose you’re right. Doc?” he asked, and the Doctor gave him a withering glare at the nickname, while the Bachelor grinned unrepentantly.

While everyone was still debating, Nikki opened the doors and stepped out, into what was for her an completely alien landscape.

Everything was.... green! Except of the sky, a mix of blue and white. And what was even more astounding to her was that there was a smell of almost nothing. With her home-world being closer to a polluted wasteland, and the only time she'd spend away from there being on spaceships, this was astounding.

She took a few steps forward, resting her hands on the trunk of a nearby tree.

The Empress of Austria had the life every girl want she was just nineteen, married since two years, her oldest daughter Archduchess Sophie of Austria had just died of typhus fever, while her younger sister survived, but at least she was away from the strict imperial palace in Vienna and in her beloved Hungary. The young Empress missed the freedom she had back home in Possenhofen Castle as a child. Here in Hungary she felt free, again.



“Your Royal Highness where are you?” One of her ladies in waiting was calling her, but she was hiding behind the curtain in the alcove window. She was wearing one of her old dresses she used to wear back in Possenhofen. The young Empress wanted to grief her daughter, she wanted to have a moment to herself without that stuck up etiquette. She loved the Emperor but she wished he was just a normal man. She heard her lady leave, so she opened the window and climbed out, any other woman would have had troubled to climb down the window but the young Empress grew up in the mountains and she always was just like a goat climbing about on them. She was lucky that no one saw her, she quickly disappeared into the shadow of the bushes. She knew she had to come back to the palace for at least for a day she could be free. The best part was the people of Hungary didn’t expect the Empress of Austria to look like one of them. And even though Elisabeth was grieving her daughter, out in the nature of Hungary she was able to smile and fall in love with God’s wonderful world that was so much brighter out here than in any magnificent palace. And her Papi always said ‘When you have grief and sorrows, walk through the forest with your eyes open, and in every tree and bush, in every beast and in every flower, the omnipotence of God will come to your consciousness and give you comfort and strength.’ And he was right here alone in the forest with her zither she felt stronger and able to breathe again, if she could just have a life away from the palace.