Episode X: Christmas Bells Part 5

The Doctor dived from his seat and raised the Sonic Screwdriver. The detonator Dux carried exploded into pieces. The Robot Santas threw the Doctor to the floor and Dux stepped forwards, standing over him.

“Kill him.”

Elizabeth remained in her hiding place, waiting for the Doctor to return. Her hand brushed past her pocket and she frowned – there were several objects weighing the material down. She pulled them out and examined them.

“The Doctor’s Sonic Screwdriver and the explosion disc!” she said excitedly.

Climbing to her feet, she headed for the door, and then stopped. Maybe the Doctor had intended for her to hide in the spacesuit room. She ran back to the spacesuits, and found one of an appropriate size.

“I cannot believe I’m doing this,” she sighed. “If only Mrs White could see me now!”

After tying the Sonic Screwdriver and explosion disc to the belt on the suit, Elizabeth headed to the door and opened it. The corridor was empty, so she slipped through the doorway and hurried along it.

“Doctor, where did you go…?” Elizabeth muttered.

A Robot Santa walked out from a door, and Elizabeth dived into another room. She looked around desperately – if the Robot Santa moved slightly to the left it would see her, and she’d be caught. She ran to the opposite wall, and found a map.

“Airlock, here you are!” Elizabeth trilled to herself.

The Airlock was a few corridors away, and as the Robot Santa walked away, Elizabeth decided that she had to find it.

Georgia pointed out of the window, at the Church, which was now stood amongst the white light a few hundred feet away.

“Maybe they were helping the Doctor too,” she sighed. “Maybe he’s been captured.”
“Come and sit down,” Colin pleaded. “Stay with me…”

Georgia left her position by the window and rejoined Colin on the sofa, biting on the bottom of her lip in a nervous way.

The Doctor swung his feet around, knocking Dux off his feet. He dived past the Robot Santas and made his way to the exit. Instead of going back the way he came, he took the opposite direction, and locked himself in the control room.

“Here we go,” he muttered. “Now, where’s Elizabeth?”

He searched through the CCTV files, through the spacesuit room, and the map room, and the corridors, eventually finding Elizabeth sneaking into the airlock room.

“It’s time to get the TARDIS,” he decided.

After spending five minutes testing out how the Sonic Screwdriver worked, Elizabeth managed to unlock the Airlock, and after preparing herself, she pulled open the Airlock, using all her strength as the air pressure dropped. She stepped into the small chamber, and closed the first door. Turning around, she opened the second door, and began to float out of the Airlock.

“Oh my!”

She stopped for a moment, clinging on to the outside of the Airlock. Far below her, the Earth turned majestically, sitting beautiful in its part of space. Elizabeth smiled, and watched the clouds swish around, like they were playing some sort of game. She took one last look at the reflections of bright blues and greens, mixing together, before floating back round to face the ship, when she gasped.

“No!” she cried, floating along the outside of the ship, heading for the engines.

The ship’s large gun had swung around, and now directly faced the Earth. Around the central panel of the gun, red lights flashed, and Elizabeth took that to mean it would be firing very soon. Some way above the gun was a glass window, and Elizabeth could just make out Dux strolling along, admiring himself in the reflection. He paused, and looked out of the window, almost directly at her. If he spotted her, the gun would shoot her into oblivion. She held her breath, but Dux looked at a different spot on the glass, where an image appeared. It was the Doctor.

“Hello!” the Doctor beamed, waving at Dux.
“Find him!” Dux roared at his Roboforms. “What do you want?”
“I’m going to offer you a chance,” the Doctor said. “I love chances; they’re good to take… Anyway, you can take your ship, your Robot Santas, and leave. Or, you can carry on what you’re doing, and I’ll have to stop you.”
“And how do you intend to do that?” Dux snarled.
“Oh, I have a plan,” the Doctor smiled. “Now, what do you say?”
“You’re bluffing,” Dux decided. “So I can either hand myself in to you, or carry on and destroy the Earth! You know what, I think I’ll do the second option – I still need all my expensive things.”
“For yourself,” the Doctor sighed. “You’re so vain; you probably think this plan is about you. Which, to be fair, it is. Bye!”

Dux frowned, not understanding what he was on about. Back in the TARDIS, the Doctor sighed.

“It was song! You probably think this song is about you!”

He looked at the TARDIS scanner, and found where Dux kept his prisoners. Georgia, Conner, Colin and all of the Pink Ladies in the Church were in a place called nowhere land, a vast area of white space, much like limbo. If he could get them out, then the ship would explode and they’d be sent home.

“I’d better get to work then.”

Elizabeth reached the engine, and fumbled around her belt for the disc. Extracting it, she pressed it onto the ship’s engine, and pushed the disc into detonation mode. It light up purple and Elizabeth pushed herself away from the ship, floating through space, waiting to die. The explosion would surely kill her, but at least the Doctor would return Georgia and Colin home. She had done her job, as a mother and a wife. Closing her eyes, she waited for the end.

“Eight, seven, six,” she counted.

Suddenly, there was a rasping and grating noise and the TARDIS materialised behind her. Floating around, Elizabeth smiled as the doors opened and the Doctor leaned out.

“Three seconds,” he warned. “Come on in.”

She climbed inside the Doctor’s ship and closed the door. There was a large explosion and the TARDIS was thrown through space, heading towards the Earth. Elizabeth held on to a coral pillar, smiling as the Doctor announced full detonation of the ship.

“Dux is dead,” he confirmed. “And the Robot Santas have all deactivated.”
“And Colin, and Georgia?” Elizabeth asked.
“They’re home.”

Kate covered her eyes and the street flashed white, and the Bell house reappeared. The doors burst open, and Georgia, Colin and Conner ran out, laughing and jumping around.

“He did it!” Georgia grinned.

Kate headed over to join them.

“My name’s Kate Lipsett,” she announced. “I work at UNIT. Welcome back. Are you the daughter of Elizabeth Bell?”
“Yes,” Georgia replied. “Why? Did something happen?”
“She’s fine,” Kate smiled. “She helped the Doctor save the world.”
“Seriously?” Conner asked. “Woah…”

At the Church, Privates Charlotte and Alfie stepped forwards and opened the door of the recently returned Church. The Pink Ladies stepped out, smiling, some shaking.

“If you’d like to come this way,” Alfie said.
“You’ll be screened,” Charlotte added. “To make sure you’re all okay. This way!”

Mrs White bustled her way to the front, dragging Daisy with her.

“I need to personally explain what happened to the Vicar,” she said. “We’re very good friends you know, the Vicar and I. And my sister once met Prince Charles. And the love of his life – Camilla Parker Bowles.”
“I thought Diana…” Daisy began.
“Out of my way please,” Mrs White said to Charlotte.

Charlotte nervously stepped aside, and allowed Mrs White to drag Daisy off, glancing at her apologetically as she did so. She didn’t like leaving Daisy to the wrath of Mrs White, but it had to be done.

“Who was that?” Alfie asked. “We need to cross them off the list.”
“Viola White,” Charlotte pointed at the clipboard Alfie was holding. “And Daisy Cole.”
“Right,” Alfie said, stepping forwards. “Ladies, come this way. Betty Spencer and Dorothy Atkin, come this way. Janet Martin, Joanie Allen, Sylvia Hold and Mary Wood go with Charlotte…”

Georgia and Conner looked up as the TARDIS materialised. Elizabeth stepped out, talking to the Doctor, who remained inside.

“Hey mum,” Georgia smiled.
“Hello dear,” Elizabeth replied. “How’s your father?”
“Alright,” Georgia said. “He misses you though.”
“I expect he does,” Elizabeth chuckled. “Now dear, I feel like a nice cup of tea. The Doctor sent his love, to both of you, and said he’d be back soon.”

Georgia nodded, and led the way back to the house. Conner smiled at Kate as he stepped inside the house, and she nodded and walked away.

Two months later.

Elizabeth held her best flowery hat to her head as the wind picked up. She stepped backwards to allow Colin, staggering under the weight of his and her suitcases, to head to the car. Mrs White came out of her house, as had most of the neighbours. What Elizabeth didn’t realise, was that they were all happy that she was leaving for an unknown length of time.

“Come on dear,” she said to Colin. “We haven’t got all day.”
“Yes dear,” Colin sighed. “If you’d like to get in the car?”

Elizabeth coughed, and Colin sighed once more. He climbed out of the car, walked around to the passenger side, and opened Elizabeth’s door for her.

“Thank you,” she said, climbing into the car.

Colin muttered a reply, and climbed back into the driver’s side. One of the nearest neighbours shouted of their departure to the rest of the street, who all cheered. Elizabeth opened her window and waved as the car drove along the street.

“Goodbye! Goodbye!” she trilled. “You know, dear, I don’t think we should move to America. Our neighbours would simply miss us too much.”
“But we’re supposed to be looking at houses!” Colin sighed.
“Well, it’ll be a lovely holiday,” Elizabeth said. “I’ll have to tell all the Pink Ladies about our expensive trips around the world when we get back. I hope I left enough holiday brochures for Mrs White… She was thinking of going to America too.”

Mrs White smiled as the car turned a corner, and returned to her house. She stepped through the living room, heading to the sun room, where she could find her gardening gloves. It would be nice to be able to do gardening without Elizabeth poking her head over the fence to bombard her with questions. As she opened the door to the sun room, she screamed. There were mounds and mounds of holiday brochures, absolutely everywhere!

The TARDIS materialised outside of Kaylie’s house. Georgia, Conner and Kaylie ran to greet the Doctor, who stepped out with a renewed smile on his face.

“You all okay now?” Georgia asked.
“Yeah,” the Doctor nodded. “Thanks for being patient. Come on in.”

Georgia smiled, gave the Doctor a quick kiss on the cheek and stepped inside the TARDIS. Conner turned to Kaylie, and hugged her.

“Thanks so much for looking after me these, ooh, six months?”
“You arrived in August, so I guess it’s been about six months,” Kaylie agreed. “Christ, I’m surprised my mum let me keep you at home for six months!”
“Tell her thanks,” Conner grinned. “And I’ll see you when school starts again.”
“In a week?” Kaylie asked.
“I thought this half term was two weeks…” Conner muttered. “But yeah, soon. I want to carry on going to school – it’s important to me. I’m not gonna be with the Doctor forever, and I want to know I’ll be okay if he leaves again.”
“Hey!” the Doctor protested. “I was upset!”
“Shut up,” Conner teased. “Come on then Dr Jekyll, where to first?”
“Ah, now I have a few ideas on that…”

The Doctor entered the TARDIS, and Kaylie waved at Conner as he followed. With a small smile, she stepped back as the TARDIS dematerialised.

“So what are you doing this half term, Catherine?” Beth asked.

She was talking on her phone, walking down an alleyway.

“Ooh, sounds good,” she said. “I love that programme. Not the same since Dawn French left…”

She continued talking for a while, before hanging up. She smiled to herself as she placed her phone in her pocket. There was a small flash as she looked up, and two people appeared in front of her. She was trapped in a small alleyway, with Petr Costravalos and Pippa Blackwell.

“Hello Beth,” Petr smiled. “We’d like a word with you…”

The End