I think. When I came to write this all up… Listen, if you’re a historian, you know you can’t trust a diary, right?

Well, it felt like the woman was just a character I’d made up. Perhaps I’ll just start this whole account with the words: ‘Long ago and far away.’ I got back to the campfire and walked round and round it, hugging myself.

Hutchinson was still in mid-rant when the time barriers hit us.

We got to our feet after they’d passed, feeling as if a ghost had gone by, or that we’d just missed a fast aircraft at an air display.

Tim blinked. ‘I feel like⁠ — like I’ve just woken from a dream,’ he said. ‘Goodness, Anand, what a strange few days this has been.’

Hutchinson stopped talking, tried to pick up his place and started to flounder. I have a feeling, if my own experience was anything to go by, that he has a smell of mud and iron in his nostrils.

Hadleman and Alexander clutched each other. Alexander looked at the other man and I saw a strange, hopeful, smile on his face. ‘I don’t know why,’ he said, ‘but I suddenly feel quite hopeful.’

While I was doing all this observing, and the sun was coming up too⁠ — by the way, I’m really quite thorough about background⁠ — I realized that I’d started to cry. Or laugh. Or something.

What a strange life this is.

At any rate, by the time the Doctor got there, I was smiling.

Diary Entry Ends

Chapter Fourteen

Cat Heaven

The Doctor stepped into the circle of boys. ‘Hello. I’m the Doctor.’

‘Are you?’ Bernice leapt to her feet and grabbed him, looking joyfully into his eyes. ‘So⁠ —’

‘I used the Pod before I got to the dome. August didn’t know that. He was prepared to fight off Time Lord biodata, not human nature. Smith took over his body. August and Hoff are now in the Pod themselves, off to safekeeping.’

‘And what about Joan?’

The Doctor’s face clouded. ‘Smith died saving her. I think he was fond of her. I sent her back to her house.’

Tim ran forward and beamed up at the Doctor. ‘So you beat them?’

‘Yes. And I didn’t kill them. So I won. Talking of which…’ He wandered around the tree and smiled gawkily up at the naked Greeneye. ‘What are we going to do with you?’

‘I don’t care. You can torture me⁠ —’

‘No. I think I’ll have you locked up. I did that once to an immensely powerful other-dimensional sorceress. She got out immediately, but the experience left her feeling sheepish.’

‘But we can’t have him getting away,’ Hutchinson objected. ‘He ought to be bloody well hung!’

Bernice raised an eyebrow and Alexander burst out laughing.