Chapter Twelve

'A white wedding, with guests from across time and space, all getting on perfectly well together despite their different creeds and histories?'

'Yes,' she admitted glumly. 'Simple girlie wish-fulfilment, I suppose. There was even a unicorn there. The man I married was a bit of a rough diamond with a heart of gold and a roving eye, but he loved me and only me and I loved him back. We interrupted our honeymoon and found dad. He was running a teashop in Berkshire. I got a professorship. A real one that I earned.'

'It sounds like a nice dream,' the Doctor said wistfully, 'if a little far-fetched. I wish I had dreams like that.'

Benny hesitated, and sipped her tea. 'Well, yes and no. It all went sour after that. Roz died. I had an argument with Jason and we split up. Chris left you. Then ... wasn't this coffee a minute ago?'

'Then?' the Doctor prompted.

'Then you changed.' She looked over at the little man, frowning. 'And the government were working with the Martians and we were framed for murder and the Martians invaded and they blew up UNIT HQ and dropped a poison gas on Adisham and all the animals were dying and the people and the Brigadier was driving me away in Bessie and I couldn't stop you and you went running into the cloud and then you - '

Extract from the memoirs of Professor Bernice Summerfield

I woke, screaming.

I was bolt upright with a rough hand over my mouth, in the darkness. Holding me down.

'Bernice,' a firm voice was saying. 'It's all right.'

I had stopped screaming, my mouth hoarse. I lay there, my heart pounding, pumping all that adrenaline around and around my body.

The rain was pattering against the corrugated iron roof of the officer's mess. It was the middle of the night.

'Are you all right?' Alistair asked me.