Chapter 12

The Doctor and Jamie stepped out of the TARDIS and found themselves in front of a small decorating store. In the shop window was a row of paints and a several colour charts which had been laid out to form a wheel.

'What are we doing here, Doctor? Jamie asked.

'We need to get some turpentine,' the Doctor stated, 'and this is the place to get it from. Come on, Jamie.'

The Doctor ushered Jamie through the shop door. As the bell above the shop tinkled the shopkeeper looked up from behind the counter and then returned to his copy of The Daily Mail.

The Doctor began browsing through the various colours of paints on display while Jamie stood behind him. At length the Doctor turned to face his companion:

'Go on, Jamie; ask the gentleman if he has any turpentine!'

'Ach, Doctor, can ye no' go ask him yesel'?' Jamie moaned.

'No,' the Doctor replied, resolutely, 'I'm busy looking through these colour charts.'

He picked up a colour chart and began riffling through the pages, admiring several colours. Jamie rolled his eyes at the Time Lord before making his way to the counter, muttering angrily to himself in Gaelic, so the Doctor wouldn't understand what he was saying.

'Hello,' Jamie called. 'Can ye help me?'

The shopkeeper looked up from his newspaper. He gave the Highlander a once over and with, a look of distain, took in the grubby clothes and battered kilt the young Scot was wearing. It was clear the boy was not of his class. The shopkeeper sighed; it was so hard to find decent, middle-class people in these industrial cities.

'I've no business with ruffians like you, young man,' the shopkeeper declared. 'Either purchase something or you and your friend can get out!'

'Ach, keep ye hair on, ye grumpy Sassenach. I only wanted tae buy some o' that stuff what gets paint off o' things.'

'You mean turpentine,' the man drawled, clearly bored with Jamie, whom he had already decided was an uneducated lout, probably a miner's son.

'Aye, that stuff,' Jamie replied.

'Very well,' the man replied.

He turned away from the counter and made his way into a small room at the back of the counter. Several minutes later he returned with a bottle of turpentine in his hands.

'There you are, young man, that'll be £1.50 please.'

Eagerly, Jamie handed the shopkeeper the money before taking his bottle of turpentine and making his way over to the Doctor and proudly showing him the bottle.

As the young man in the kilt and his strange companion exited the shop the shopkeeper watched them go with a look of distain. As the returned to his copy of The Daily Mail, he concluded that the Doctor and Jamie were defiantly not his type of people.

DWDWDW

'Och, Doctor, what a bampot he was!' Jamie remarked when they were out of earshot.

'Yes, he was a bit full of himself,' the Doctor remarked.

'Full o' himself?' Jamie cried, astonished. 'The way he was carrying on, anyone would think he had a stick lodged up his a-'

'Yes, Jamie, I think that's enough!' the Doctor cried, before the Scot could finish his sentence. 'Come on, we've got the turpentine. All we need now are the paintings.'

'Aye, an' how are we going tae get those?'

'I've still got the list, remember,' the Doctor asked.

'Eh?'

'The list Mr Johnston gave us with name of those who had bought Crying Boy prints.'

'Oh, aye,' Jamie nodded, still not following.

'Don't you see, Jamie, we can use this list to find the prints.'

'Oh of course, Doctor! Now why didn't I think o' that?'

DWDWDW

It was a crisp October night in Greno Wood (which lies 13 miles west of Rotherham and 5 miles north of Sheffield). The moon, now full and bright, reflected off of the leaves which were already starting to float gently to the ground. Somewhere, close by, a tawny owl hooted and a mouse scurried across the fallen leaves, desperate not to become the owl's breakfast.

Suddenly, there was a strange metallic whooshing noise and a peculiar blue box appeared in an opening in the woods. The mouse scuttled into its burrow and the tawny owl flew from its perch in the beech tree. In the next moment two young men one in a bow-tie and tweed jacket and the other in traditional Highland dress made their way through the woods to the open pasture to the west. In their arms they carried a stack of framed paintings.

'Yes,' the Doctor said, glancing around at the clearing in front of them. 'I think this is a good spot.'

'Aye,' Jamie agreed, 'far enough awa' from the woods so they disnae catch fire.'

'Yes,' the Doctor decided, 'the last things we want to do is risk the woods catching fire and have the fire bridge out here looking for us! Right, Jamie, have you got the turpentine and the matches?'

'Aye, Doctor, what dae ye want me tae dae with them?'

'Burn them of course!'

'Eh?'

'You said in, your dream, that the only way to stop the fires was to destroy the paintings. The best way to do that by burning them, effectively fighting fire with fire!'

Still not sure what the Doctor was up to, Jamie shrugged his shoulders and gathered up all the paintings and placed them in a pile as though he was building a bonfire.

As he rose from placing the paintings on the ground he noticed some familiar figures standing a little way off. The sight of which made his heart freeze. There, standing close to a hawthorn bush was the small boy and the maroon robed woman from his dreams.

'Doctor!' he hissed.

'What?'

'O'er there,' Jamie hissed, pointing to the bushes. 'Look, that's the boy and the woman I saw in ma' dreams!'

The Doctor followed his friend's outstretched hand to where a small child and a woman in a maroon robe stood, the palms of hands clasped together in an inverted prayer pose.

'These are the people you saw in your dreams?'

'Aye,' Jamie confirmed. 'The wee boy; that's the boy in the paintings his name is Don Bonillo.'

'And the woman?'

'She is Anna Maria,' Jamie stated.

So that's Anna Maria, but who is this mysterious Sisterhood?

'Doctor,' the woman hissed; a subtle Mediterranean tone in her voice. 'Hand over the boy!'

'Why, so you can kill him?'

'I don't know what you mean, Doctor,' she replied, innocently.

'Oh, I think you do. For some reason Jamie is important to the Sisterhood – I don't know why but I will find out why – and you don't want them to find him. You will extract your revenge by killing the one person the Sisterhood needs in order to survive. It was you, using the child and the paintings, who tried to kill Jamie before, am I right?'

'So, Doctor, it appears that you are as intelligent as I thought you to be. It's a shame that you have to die now!'

'Except there's one flaw in that plan,' the Doctor remarked. 'While we've been having such a lovely conversation Jamie has dowsed the paintings with turpentine. All I need to do now is strike this simple match and through it onto those pile of paintings there and your little plan comes undone.'

'You wouldn't dare, Doctor. You know if you do that you will destroy this child! Ah, but then that is what you do, don't you, Doctor. You make these pitiful humans think you are out to save them but, the reality is, that you are the Destroyer of Worlds, the one who wiped out his entire species. Go on, Doctor, destroy the child, show you most loyal companion your true colours!'

The Doctor hung back, the unlit match poised in his hands, as though waiting patiently for him to strike it. His mind raced in turmoil. Did he strike the match and destroy the paintings and the child or did he turn and walk away. He had lived so long and done so much maybe it was time he stopped saving the Human race and left them to deal with their own problems, but he couldn't do that, could he? Whether he liked it or not he was their protector, their saviour, wasn't he? He stood as still as a statue, unsure what decision to make.

It was Jamie who effectively made the decision for him. He had seen the Doctor prepare to strike the match and had heard Anna Maria's words. He still didn't know what had happened to the Time Lords but he knew it must have been something bad to affect the Doctor in this way. He also knew that the Doctor's purpose was to save

him, and every person on this planet, from the monsters. True, Jamie may have been a brave fighter but he was just a humble Scottish piper from a time past. The Doctor was (and had always been) earth's great defender.

'Doctor,' Jamie hissed, 'light the match noo, ye ken 'tis the only way tae end this!'

As though the sound of the Highlander's voice had woke him from a trance the Doctor sprang into action. He struck the match against the coarse striking surface on the edge of the box. Instantly, a flame formed on the match head.

'One chance,' the Doctor warned Anna Maria, 'that's what I am offering you.'

'What if I refuse your "one chance?" '

'Then I will throw this match onto the pile of paintings and destroy your very creation. One chance that's all I'm offering you, a chance to leave this time period and return to your own time where you can ask the Sisterhood to forgive you your sins.'

'Never!' Anna Maria roared.

'In that case…'

As he spoke the Doctor flung the match onto the turpentine-covered paintings. The results were instantaneous, a huge flame roared up into the sky as the paintings burnt and melted.

As soon as the match had hit the paintings Don Bonillo had begun to feel funny. He withered and groaned in pain as an intense heat radiated from his body. His insides felt like they burning.

He turned to Anna Maria with a look of desperation in his eyes. 'Help me,' he muttered, weakly.

There was nothing she could do, however, and it was only a matter of time before he disintegrated.

Jamie watched horrified yet, at the same time, fascinated as the child seemed to flicker and die like a flame being extinguished.

'Come on, Jamie, let's go back to the TARDIS,' the Doctor suddenly said.

'What about me, Doctor, surely you can't just leave me here?' Anna Maria cried.

'No,' the Doctor said, his voice detached and emotionless, 'you're coming with us.'

DWDWDW

The TARDIS floated around the planet, Prometheus. It was a fire planet where nothing could grow or survive since there was no water or earth for anything to grow or live upon.

In the TARDIS console room Anna Maria stood opposite the Doctor and Jamie.

'So what, Doctor, are you going to keep me as your pet!' Anna Maria hissed. Jamie looked at his friend. There was a cold, harden expression upon his face which Jamie was unable to read and, therefore, couldn't work out the Doctor's intentions towards Anna Maria. Did he really mean for her to go travelling through time and space with them? Surely not, after all we had done?

The Doctor said nothing as he made his way to the TARDIS console, his expression as unreadable as it had always been.

Suddenly the TARDIS landed. The Doctor opened the doors to reveal a barren landscape wasted by flame and ash. He turned to Anna Maria.

'Go now,' were the only words he uttered. 'Out there, but it's so barren!' 'I told you, one chance only,' he stated. 'Since you chose not to accept my chance this is your punishment, to spend the rest of your life seeking out an existence on Prometheus, the fire planet. Rather fitting, don't you think?'

Anna Maria said nothing as that cold, harsh Doctor turned away from her and back to his time machine without uttering a so much as a goodbye. As she heard the metallic whooshing of the TARDIS leaving Prometheus for good she looked around her new home and, although it was a desolate place, she knew she should be thankful that the mighty Doctor, the Oncoming Storm had let her live when so many others had perished by the hands of his judgement.

DWDWDW

In a darkened room several women in maroon robes have gathered together. They formed a circle around a small effigy of their original Abbess, Maren. Every so often they could be heard chanting the words of the cornerstone of their beliefs; the Scared Flame, which the Sisterhood believed produced the Elixir of Life which would prolong their lives, causing them to live centuries longer than they normally would have.

Further down the corridor the woman who had been watching Jamie on a computer screen stood with the Abbess Elatha.

'It seems this Doctor was able to do what our agent could not,' the Abbess Elatha commented. 'Perhaps it is for the best, the last thing we need is rouge elements of our Sisterhood causing difficulties.'

'Yes', the woman settled. 'The Doctor has helped us, greatly, soon we will have the boy and the Doctor will have brought him to us. It will break both the Time Lord's hearts when he realises he has given us the boy on a plate!'

'Yes,' Abbess Elatha agreed, 'the Doctor will, unwillingly, bring us the boy and then we will extract the boy's soul and the Pythia will rise again!'

* End of Episode 2 *