Her face was a latex mask. Her skin looked as if it had been bathed
in something corrosive, something that had scored lines into it while also
loosening it from her skull and making it melt a little. Her hair was white,
now, and wispy, contrasting with the dark Terylene of her nightdress.
She looked into his eyes, and didn't say anything. It wasn't
difficult to know what she was thinking: that he barely looked a day older
than the last time she'd seen him, that he'd looked the same since they'd
first met. Now she was in an old people's home, her life nearly spent.
'Betty,' the Doctor said.
She smiled, the effort almost visibly draining her. She seemed to
draw strength from the beautiful roses in their vases and the flickering
light of the television screen playing on her face.
'Have you found her?' she asked.
He shook his head. 'I thought she was in Berlin. I went there, but
no one had seen her. I've just come from there.'
'I didn't see you on the telly. They had a newsflash during the
break on Coronation Street. Show me the photo again.'
The Doctor took the photo of Miranda he kept in his coat pocket,
apologised that it was a couple of years out of date. She would be nineteen
now.
'I love her,' the Doctor said.
'Of course you do, she's your daughter. She's very pretty,' Betty
said. 'I can see the resemblance.'
The Doctor nodded. 'Everyone said that.'
Betty chuckled, admiring the photo. The Doctor looked at the picture
frames lined up on Betty's shelf - children, grandchildren, even a
great-grandchild now. All that history, all those connections. Betty
belonged here: her life, her history, her genes, all weaving and
interweaving across more than a century. Now the century was about to enter
its final decade, and his friends had started dying, one by one: Salvador,
Irving, Larry and Graham just this year. They'd left so much behind; they'd
contributed to the planet they'd found themselves on.
In that same time,
what had he done? He'd known he was different, but had always thought that
meant he should lie low - keep himself out of the history books. If he went
tomorrow, what would he leave behind? He could have made a difference, in
this of all centuries. He could have made things better.
'Do you want a handkerchief?' Betty asked, handing the picture back.
He shook his head. Then he looked at the photograph in his hand and
he knew. Wherever Miranda was, whatever she thought of him, he knew that
he'd achieved at least one thing.
'She's a good girl,' the Doctor said quietly. 'I'm so proud of her.'
'Nineteen?' Betty said. She hadn't heard the last thing he'd said.
The Doctor realised with a start that Betty was going a little deaf. 'I
wasn't that much younger when we first met. Things have changed, though.
Kids grow up so much faster. I've got grandchildren Miranda's age, and...
oh, the things they get up to.'
'You were engaged at Miranda's age,' the Doctor reminded her.
'We didn't have teenagers when I was a teenager,' Betty chortled.
'You never really grew up, did you? You're like Peter Pan. You don't
change.'
'The world's changed around me,' the Doctor said. 'Remember when I
talked about the future? Well, it's starting to happen. Things have changed,
and usually for the better. There's mass production, but mankind isn't the
slave of machines. We treat the mentally ill like people now, we don't just
lock them away. Computers are everywhere. And now, now the Cold War's over.
The world's a better place than it could have been. But a lot of things have
changed since I first went to Middletown.'
'You always were ahead of your time,' Betty said, laughing.
'I tried to give her a normal upbringing,' the Doctor told her.
'Sometimes, I know I was a bit of a Victorian parent, but -'
Betty laughed, and the Doctor realised why. 'No offence,' he
chuckled.
