Suddenly Compassion lost all patience with him.

‘Doctor, you’re babbling at me.’

His face fell. ‘I am?’

‘It happens when you get nervous or overexcited. It’s very distracting.’

He blushed. ‘Babbling? No one else has ever complained,’ he lied.

‘You ramble on about nothing when there are more important things to discuss.’

‘Ah.’ He grinned and tapped his nose. ‘I don’t think you’ve cottoned on yet to the incredibly sophisticated way in which I operate.’

‘Yes I have. It’s wasteful and ostentatious.’

‘Right.’ With a sudden burst of energy he pulled the bus into an emergency stop, switched off the music and jumped out of the cab.

‘You, madam, are stepping out of line. You’ve not said a decent word to me yet since you. . . um, rescued me. In fact, I’d go so far as to say you rarely have a decent word to say to anyone at all!’

Compassion tutted. ‘I’d agree with that.’

‘But that’s awful!’ He grabbed her elbows and found himself shrugged off.‘You have to give people more time. Look at Fitz. . . He’s really not Kode, you know. He’s a new man – well, his old self, I suppose.’ He sighed. ‘If you tried a little harder, I’m sure you’d see he’s all right, actually. . . he’s a good man. . . ’

‘He’s dead anyway. I told you. And that woman. Iris.’

The Doctor shook his head firmly. ‘I don’t believe it.’ He smiled. ‘See? I’ve got intrinsic faith in my friends.’

‘Then you, Doctor,’ said Compassion, ‘are a fool.’

He paused, fixing her with a cold glance that she found she couldn’t shake.

Very slowly he inclined his head towards hers, until their noses were only an inch or so apart.

‘I would suggest, Compassion, that you make just a tad more effort with your social superego. Your manners are appalling. And what’s more, I should like to point out just how tactful I am being in not demanding to know, right here and now, exactly how you found me.’

It was a second or two before she could even find her voice. When she did,it shook very slightly.

‘I don’t know what I did, Doctor. I don’t know what happened at all. . . ’

He nodded grimly. ‘That’s what I thought.’ Then he went back to the driver’s seat, turned Dusty back on, and they started off again

*

The Doctor hurled himself out into the black wind.

Iris followed with the others.

He howled out of rage and frustration.

‘You did it on purpose! You stopped me helping everyone!’

Compassion looked curiously at Iris. ‘Did you?’

Iris shrugged. ‘There was no way I could really get back to that exact moment. He should have known that. I saved our necks. Isn’t that enough?’

She shouted over the noise of the wind at the Doctor. ‘Is that enough?’

‘No!’ he roared. ‘I could have done it! I could have stopped this war!’

Iris shook her head. ‘No. You can’t always win. It had to go on.’

‘It did not! I was there! I could have made them –’

‘Doctor,’ said Iris, moving towards him. ‘It is inevitable. The universe andits Obverse. You couldn’t impose yourself between them.’

He looked at her, his face twisted in horror. ‘I don’t know what you’ve done.’

Iris shook her head. ‘It’s your TARDIS you should blame, lovey, not me. You think it’s coincidence it keeps plonking you right in the middle of all these dimensional disturbances encroaching on your precious Earth?’

‘What are you saying?’ the Doctor demanded.

‘I’m saying your own ship knows more than you do. . . It knows what’sgoing to happen, what has to happen. It’s doing the rounds, it’s been tryingto prove itself wrong – but you mustn’t go back to the Obverse, Doctor. You simply mustn’t.’ The Doctor stared at her. ‘I don’t even know who you are any more.’ Iris shrugged. ‘I’m just glad I could save your life. All our lives. That’s enough for me.’

The Doctor pulled away from her.‘I wish I’d let you die on Hyspero.’

She gasped. ‘You don’t mean that.’

‘I want to go into the Obverse,’ he said.

‘You can’t.’

‘You know about it. You can tell me how to get there.’

‘I can’t.’ Iris looked away from him. ‘Not yet.’

‘You have to tell me, Iris.’

‘I don’t. You can’t go there yet.’

‘When, then?’

‘Trust me, Doctor. I’ve sorted it out. I’ve sorted it out so you don’t have to go there. . . ’

‘Fitz! Compassion!’ he shouted. ‘We’re leaving!’

Fitz came hurrying up. ‘How? I mean, where are we?’

The Doctor pointed through a gap in the dark trees.

Fitz looked through.

There was a sharp hill, drifted with snow.

Further afield lay the lights of Tyneside.

The angel statue, aglow with orange.

The shopping mall, blazing with late-night shopping lights.

The car park, packed to bursting.

And, closest to them, in all this regular hubbub, the TARDIS. Solid, blue, waiting for them.

‘How did you know. . . ?’ he turned to ask the Doctor.

‘I’m going now, Iris,’ said the Doctor quietly.

She nodded. ‘One day you’ll see. There are things we really can’t get in the way of.’

‘Perhaps one day you’ll care enough to explain it to me,’ he said, in a very level tone.

Iris was fighting to stop her eyes watering. ‘I will. You know I will.’ Shelaughed bitterly. ‘Gods, if you don’t know already, you ought to. Doctor, one day you’ll sit and listen to me, and I’ll tell you the whole lot. Everything. One day you’ll stay with me long enough.’

He looked her up and down. ‘Iris. . . I don’t think I want to stay with you that long. . . not just yet.’

He turned away from her and led his two companions through the black trees.

He turned his back on the bus and its lights blazing aboard and Iris silhouetted in their glow. She waved once but he had stopped looking back.

He led Compassion and Fitz through the trees and down the sharp, snowyhill, to the car.

‘Why did you ever trust her?’ Compassion asked him. ‘She caused all of that. She made that war inevitable.’

He fished around in his pockets for his TARDIS key. ‘It’s just like I said. I’ve got to look again at the people I trust. I never used to be so. . . gullible. Pliable.’

Compassion looked stung at this.

They had to climb over a metal fence to get to the TARDIS.

Fitz tried to make the Doctor smile, passing his old scarf over to help him.

‘I hate the feeling that Iris knows something I don’t,’ said the Doctor, as they walked up to the ship. ‘It’s like something hanging over my head.’

Compassion’s eyes narrowed.

Fitz spoke up as he followed them into the vast, dusty, darkened console room.‘Don’t you wish. . . sometimes. . . we lived a quieter life?'