Doctor Who - 02 - The Art of Forgetting

.15. Faded Memories

Boudicca-Donna was back in the morning, hauling just one man this time. When they stepped into the room, Ace nudged Gold under his ribs.

"Oww, what?"

"Don't you recognise him? It's the guy in the suit!"

"What?" Gold turned on his bed and ogled the slim man standing behind Boudicca, dazed expression on his face. "It's him, all right. Told you he wasn't a program."

"A player, just like us," Ace exclaimed. "But, blimey, he's blank!"

Boudicca pursed her lips and gave both boys a piercing stare, but she didn't say a word. She just swept her eyes towards Corrie, seated with her knees up on a bed next to her mum – absolutely still and seemingly dead. As if sensing the woman's questioning gaze, the girl looked up, biting her lips and plucking loose threads from her torn overalls. She looked at Ace's projection briefly and shrugged. "I've no idea," her gesture said. "He's simply came back."

Boudicca shrugged as well, moved a chair away from the table and seated the man accompanying her. She had to use a bit of physical force to do it. Finally the man's knees gave way and he slumped on the chair. He was looking vaguely into space, which made him look blind. He might have been blind as well; although he was gazing straight ahead, he didn't seem to see anything. Boudicca grabbed another chair and sat down opposite him, staring at his face intently.

"Doctor?" she whispered. There was unusual warmth and pleading in her voice. "Can you hear me? Doctor?"

"He looks like one of them," Ace murmured. He shivered and turned to Gold. "Wonder what scared him so much?"

Gold only shrugged his shoulders and sunk back into pillows.

"Doctor?" Boudicca repeated. "Doctor? Oh, you bloody spaceman! I told you to follow me! Once, just once, you could have listened!"

Josh, the man the Doctor rescued from a space-station's simulation, approached her, his magnetic boots clicking on the floor.

"Can I help you with something?"

Boudicca gave him an absent look.

"Talk to him," she answered. She got up, unsheathing her bronze knife. "Don't stop talking. I'll try to find her..."

She carved a complicated ideogram in the air. Josh blinked, surprised, as she disappeared suddenly, without any in-between phase. She just was there and then she wasn't.

"Simon was right," said Gold from his bed. "She is an emergency protocol. I just wonder if it works. If anything at all still works."

Josh slumped on the chair previously taken by Boudicca. He outstretched his hand hesitantly and moved it in front of the slim man's eyes. The man's expression didn't change. Josh sighed heavily.

"Talk to you, huh? Fine. All right. So... there's... wait... there's forty seven of us here now. Most of us doing just fine, but some did reset, just like you. We've found water and some biscuits; I know it's useless in the projection, but it boosts morale. And the girls tidied this mess a little..."

The man was staring straight ahead vacantly. If he could hear and understand, he didn't let it show. Josh hesitated and moved back on the chair. He sighed deeply and ran his fingers through his hair.

"It's bloody pointless!"

"What?" asked Gold getting up from the bed and coming closer. He didn't look at the Doctor; his eyes were moving from side to side, as if he was scrutinising the air on both sides of the man sitting on the chair. Josh thought it weird but didn't comment.