16 year-old Ruth Carter ducked low, or as low as her wheelchair allowed, in a vain attempt to avoid the large multi-coloured beach ball hurled in her direction. It caught her shoulder and bounced up and off the side of her head. It didn't hurt, but she felt her face flush red with fury. The others all laughed.
"Knock it off!" she cried, glaring at the tall handsome blonde boy who'd thrown it at her. He grinned with malicious good humour, face beaming with the kind of casual high spirited cruelty that came only with the right kind of public school education.
Ruth hated him. She hated him and his stuck-up friends. And she hated her sister for falling for such a shallow, arrogant, narcissistic git.
He affected a look of mock hurt. "C'mon Ruthie, it didn't hurt ... get into the spirit of things!"
"Toby ..." Ruth's sister Angela said disapprovingly, but with little feeling, from her position on the other side of the sagging old volleyball net. But he kept grinning. Beside him, Melissa, girlfriend to Gary, Toby's best friend who stood smirking beside Angela, giggled vacuously and stood on perfectly browned tiptoes to whisper something in his ear. His grin widened and he threw back his head and laughed. Melissa joined in and Gary looked over his shoulder at her and smiled too. Angela looked down at her feet, awkwardly making a pattern in the sand with her toes with embarrassed indifference. Embarrassed? But by what? The cruelty shown by her best friends to her poor crippled sister? Or the fact she was saddled with looking after the silly fat cow on such a beautiful day when she'd rather be off frolicking in the surf with her rich public school friends?
Her blush deepened and she felt hot bitter tears stinging at the corners of her eyes. Clumsily she spun the chair round, not wanting to give them the satisfaction of seeing her cry. She heard soft footsteps padding quickly up the sand towards her, and then Angela was kneeling down beside her, sun-kissed oval face apologetic, guilt showing in her eyes.
"Ruthie, I'm sorry ... they don't mean anything by it."
Ruth glared at her, still struggling to hold back her tears. "Yes they do! They hate me ... you all hate me!" Ruth tried to propel her chair forward but Angela caught her.
"Ruthie, don't say that! Nobody hates you, least of all me. Come on, why else do you think I invited you along?" She smiled hopefully. But Ruth would not be placated.
"You didn't invite me, Mum and Dad told you to bring me. They didn't want me left in the house on my own in case I broke something again."
Now it was Angela's turn to blush. "Don't be silly, Grandma's vase was an accident. You know full well Mum & Dad are perfectly happy to leave you on your own."
"Yeah, they do it often enough," she retorted bitterly.
Angela sighed. She so hated it when Ruth got into one of her 'everyone hates me/I hate everyone' moods. She tried so hard to make her happy. She tried so hard to understand. But it was like water off a duck's back. What could she do? It was so frustrating ...
"C'mon Ange, the sun's going in!" Toby's voice drifted across the beach. Patience wasn't his strong point. Angela flapped a hand at him.
"Ruthie ..."
Ruth shook her head. "Go and play with your friends. Don't worry about me. I can look after myself." She pushed herself forward, muscles bunched and quivering in her arms, chin low on her chest. A single tear trickled slowly down her cheek. "I won't embarrass you any more," then she added hoarsely and too softly for Angela to hear: "Ever ..."
Angela watched her wheel furiously across the sand, mixed emotions running through her mind. A hand dropped onto the back of her neck and she looked up at Toby. He was still grinning, and didn't look once at the wheelchair scooting off into the distance.
"Hey babe, come back and join the party. I'm getting lonely without you." He stroked the tanned skin at the nape of her neck. She twitched, more in irritation than pleasure, but he didn't notice. She frowned.
"I'm worried about Ruth. She's kinda low at the moment, what with the hospital tests and things."
"Aww, c'mon, don't let her spoil our fun. If she wants to be a wet blanket it's her look out."
Angela felt a momentary flash of anger and looked at him, wondering if all the horrible things Ruth had been saying about him were true. But what could she do? Once Ruth got into one of her moods it was nearly impossible to shake it out of her. She'd had precious little opportunity to be with her friends this summer. The way things were going, she wasn't likely to get another.
"Tobeeee ..." Melissa called impatiently. Toby reached down and tugged Angela to her feet, pulling her back to the net. With a last glance in her sisters' direction, Angela allowed herself to be dragged back.
What harm could she possibly come to?
***
Ruth wheeled the chair up to the edge of the shore a long way from her sisters' party and watched the tide for a while. It was pretty deserted, only the odd stroller or sunbather. It was too early in the season for the usual throng of holidaymakers, and Ruth was glad of that. She'd stopped crying, but her face was bleak. The thoughts running through her mind were bleaker still.
She looked out across the ocean, fascinated by the motion of the waves. She'd always loved the sea. Her happiest memory was of her father plucking her from her chair, when she was very young, and running with her down to the waves and into the surf, where they splashed and played for ages. That was before the cancer rotting her spine made that sort of activity impossible, and before her father gave up on the idea of any sort of bodily contact with her whatsoever, as if her disease were infectious, and probably not already caused by some hideous long-dormant defect in his own genetic makeup, transmitted to her at birth.
Eyes half-closed, she gazed into the water. How cool and inviting it looked. How cool, and deep, and calm. To sink into those depths, to lose ones' self into a world of calm and tranquillity, far from the troubles of the world. She closed her eyes and imagined the feel of the cool water surrounding her, enveloping her, pulling her down into even deeper and cooler and darker depths, away from all her troubles; the chair, her sister, her stupid friends, her parents, the hospital and its doctors and their endless tests and their endlessly reassuring smiles...
She looked down at her useless legs, felt the dull knot of pain that throbbed continuously in her back in time with her heart. The pills and potions the doctors doled out helped keep that pain to a tolerable level - most of the time. But it never went away. Oh, how she wished it would go away. Just to be able to wake up and spend one day - half a day, an hour, a minute! Without that pain.
Ruth looked out across the water again, yearning to feel the soothing embrace of the water around her body. The only embrace she was ever likely to get.
She took a deep breath. Her hands were trembling. "Oh shit, why not?" she murmured shakily.
Her hand released the brake and she trundled towards the water edge, hands working the wheels faster and faster as she got nearer.
As the waves started to lap over the wheels something suddenly brought the chair to an abrupt stop. Ruth jerked forward, but a firm hand grasped at her shoulder and prevented her from toppling into the surf. She jerked her head round, half furious, half guilty, expecting to see her sister. Instead, a little man in a crumpled cream-coloured linen suit, a straw hat on top of his head, confronted her. A battered umbrella with a peculiar question-mark handle hung from his top pocket. He was frowning with concern, but there was something deeper within his dark eyes. She had a brief flash of recognition, almost dΘjα vu.
"Whoops! You nearly had a nasty accident then. This beach is pretty slippery, isn't it? Not good for wheelchairs!"
His voice was cheery and pleasant with a faint Scots burr. Ruth just glared at him.
"Leave me alone! Just go away!"
But he simply bent down and tinkered with the chair. "No, your brakes seem okay ... funny that. I could almost have sworn you were deliberately pushing yourself into the sea." He looked at her levelly. Ruth held his gaze defiantly.
"So what if I was? What's it got to do with you?"
"It's everything to do with me. I have a distinct aversion to people throwing away life so unnecessarily. Life is such a rare and unique gift, don't you think?"
"I wouldn't know. I've never had much of one!"
"That's why you're throwing it away, eh?" he replied casually.
Something in his tone brought all of Ruth's bottled emotion rushing to the surface. She cried "No, because I'm sick and tired of being in this chair, and being in pain all the time, and I'm sick of the hospitals and my stupid family and my stupid sister and stupid friends ... I'm sick of it! Just totally and utterly sick ..."
She broke down and wept, long and hard, harder than she had done in a long while.
The little man looked out to sea, face carefully neutral, waiting. When she'd cried herself out, he plucked a large handkerchief from her pocket and passed it to her. She scrubbed her face with it, feeling more than a little ashamed of herself.
"Better?" he asked quietly.
"I suppose so," she murmured huskily.
"I thought so. It's not good to bottle so much negative emotion inside yourself. It's bound to blow in the end. Better to let a little of it out every now and then."
"My sister told me that, once."
"It's good advice. Your sister, is she here?"
"Up the beach, playing with her stupid friends."
He frowned darkly. "They abandon you?"
"No ... it's more a case of me abandoning them," she admitted, grudgingly. "I just couldn't stand it any longer."
He nodded knowingly. "Not easy being the outsider, is it? I'm with friends too, but it seems they've preferred to go their separate ways as well. Oh, I'm forgetting my manners. I'm the Doctor."
"Doctor? You don't look like a doctor."
"What do I look like?"
She considered him for a moment. "You look like ... trouble."
He grinned. "A friend of mine once told me that trouble always attracted me. Sad, but true. And it usually boils down to the same thing. Someone's in trouble and needs saving, either from someone or something else, or more often, themselves." He looked at her very directly. She avoided his gaze.
"That's what you do? Save people?"
Now it was his turn to avoid her gaze. "I try. I don't always succeed."
"You don't look like a lifeguard either."
He grinned again. "Never judge by appearances!" His face became serious. "Supposing I were to take you somewhere ... show you something that might change your mind about things. How would you like that?"
Ruth looked dubious. "I don't know ..."
He smiled gently, as if reading her mind. "I'm many things, but I'm seldom dangerous. Besides ..." He looked at her sideways. "What do you have to lose?"
He held out his hand.
She reached out and took it. It was warm, and soft.
And caring.
***
Ten minutes later they came to a stop at the base of the sea wall.
"What's that?" She pointed at a large blue box sitting on the beach.
"That? That's my home. Or has been for a long while."
"Home?" She peered at it. "It's an old police box."
"Not just any old police box. Care to see?"
Before she could reply, he fished out a key and unlocked the door. He paused a moment then fished into his pocket for something else - a tiny black box. He looked back at her and grinned.
"Haven't used this much since K-9 left." He pressed a button and a slim ramp slid out from the base of the box. "Voila!"
"Very nifty. Still can't see how I'll fit in there though."
"Oh, you'll fit ..."
He pushed her towards the doors. As they got across the threshold, Ruth had a momentary sense of disorientation in the darkness inside, then ... pow!
Ruth was flabbergasted.
"It ... it's ..."
He smiled.
"Yes, it is, isn't it?" He crossed to the gleaming mushroom-shaped console in the centre of the room and started flicking switches. The doors closed behind her, not that she noticed.
"Off we go ..."
"What? In this?"
"Oh yes."
"Where?"
"You'll see."
"How long will it take?"
He straightened up. "We're there." He reopened the doors and gestured towards the opening. "Shall we?"
She hesitated. He crossed to her.
"Don't be afraid. You've trusted me this far."
He held out his hand again, and she took it.
***
"I'm not sure how much more of this I can take."
Ruth was looking out through a large window at a sight more beautiful than she'd ever seen in her entire life. Stars, shining bright in a dark void. But more stars than she'd ever seen in the night sky. Thousands, millions even.
And dominating it all, the Earth. Big and bright and blue, filling the lower portion of the window. Ruth gazed at it hard, overwhelmed with wonder. The Doctor stood beside her and rested a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
"It's quite something, isn't it? Don't worry, you're only sharing the same feeling that everyone who's gone into space has felt."
"It's awesome."
"It gets better too."
She looked up at him, face eager. "Can I see?"
He smiled. "Presently. There's someone I'd like you to meet."
He pushed her through the gleaming corridors of the place. She guessed they were on a spaceship of some sort, but that was, well, impossible ... wasn't it?
They emerged into a similar room to the one they'd left earlier, only this time the viewing port showed the interior of a massive chamber. Control panels and machinery lined the walls and consoles and workstations jutted out. Ruth could see various people working at the consoles and drifting in the spaces between. A young Asian woman emerged from a door to their left, and it took Ruth a moment to realise she was in a wheelchair. She wheeled across the room to join a man in another wheelchair working on a computer across the room
The chairs were unlike any other Ruth had seen before, motorised in some way and incredibly hi-tech. The man in the chair was quite remarkable as well; broad shouldered, with handsome, chiselled features, a well-trimmed beard and a mane of golden blonde hair tied back in a pony tail. He reminded Ruth strongly of that Swedish Tennis player, Bjorn Borg, except for the fact that his legs were shrunken and useless. The Doctor cleared his throat and he turned around. He saw the Doctor and grinned broadly, pumping his proffered hand with evident delight.
"Doctor, long time no see! What brings you back to our neck of the woods?"
"Someone I'd like you to meet. Karl Winter, this is Ruth. Someone I met very recently on my travels. She's in need of a little motivation. I thought perhaps you might be able to help."
Karl's smile became wider still. "Of course, anything to oblige ... the least I can do in return. Hi Ruth." He offered his hand, and shyly Ruth took it.
"Hello," said Ruth shyly. The Doctor patted her shoulder.
"Don't be bashful, now. You're among friends here. Tell her all about it, Karl. You're the expert here."
Karl explained the purpose of the place. It was an Earth-orbiting space station, he explained, designed purely for scientific research.
"Some of the very finest minds of the 22nd century are here on the Hawking," he explained.
"22nd century? Hawking?" Ruth gaped.
"Named after one of our earlier benefactors, and an inspiration to us all."
The Doctor leaned over. "Professor Hawking has a lot in common with the crew of this station."
"What's that?"
The Doctor pointed through the window at the row of empty wheelchairs neatly attached to a rack on one wall.
"Everyone here is confined to a wheelchair, or similarly disabled in some way. Well, I say confined ... when they're working in the chamber, they're free as birds. It's zero gravity in there ... absolutely no need for a wheel chair at all."
Ruth gaped. "How? I mean, they still need to move around. Don't you need to use legs to kick yourself along?"
"Easily solved!" Karl came back over to join them. He had something bundled up in his lap, and he tossed it lightly to Ruth. She caught it clumsily and looked at it. It was a harness of some sort, with a light skullcap woven from tiny wires and filaments, and rows of black discs made from a peculiar black material along the lining of the straps. The discs felt rubbery but rang like metal when she tapped it with her finger nails. "This harness takes care of that. That's Cainium, a very special mineral that helps movement in zero-G. The harness and the cap takes stimuli direct from the central nervous system and the brain, and the Cainium helps adjust the movement of the body." Karl turned to the Asian girl. "Meera, help Ruth into her harness and take her for a spin, will you?"
Meera smiled. "Certainly. If you'd like to follow me into the airlock?"
The Doctor stood beside Karl and smiled. "Thank you, Karl."
"No problem. Least I can do, after the help you gave us. Incidentally, that little problem you left with us..."
The Doctor waved a hand dismissively. "I'm not worried about that today. I'll pick it up another time."
"So you're just here for a visit then?"
"Yes," he said simply. "I suppose you could say I'm looking after an investment." With that he clasped his hands behind his back and gazed out into the chamber beyond, an enigmatic smile on his mouth. Karl looked at him a moment and shrugged. He knew the Doctor of old, and realised there was no point in pressing him on the subject. In front of them, two figures emerged from the airlock and drifted into the chamber, holding on to each other. Karl pointed.
"There they go!"
***
Ruth was in heaven.
At first, she was uneasy, not to say panicky, at being separated from the chair, and the moment gravity left the airlock and she started to drift upwards she struggled and sought to hold on to the chair. But with Meera's soft and gentle encouragement she let go and allowed her to guide her into the chamber.
And suddenly, she was free. Free as a bird, almost literally. She swooped and dived through the room, laughing and whooping with delight at the experience. Meera was in close attendance, to ensure she didn't crash into the walls or consoles, but apart from one or two breathless knocks to begin with she gave Ruth plenty of space, enjoying the girl's happiness and remembering well the first time she was freed from her chair and spent time in the chamber.
For perhaps the first time in her life, Ruth felt alive.
***
"Doctor, I ... I..."
She could barely speak, so overcome by the moment. The Doctor simply patted her arm.
"That's all right. No thanks necessary. I hope, though, that I've proved something today."
"Oh yes!" She looked at him, eyes filled with hope. "Can I ... stay here?"
His face fell a little, and her turned away slightly, turning a slim keypad over and over in his hands restlessly. "I'm afraid not. We shall have to return."
Ruth blinked. She felt devastated. "Why? Why can't I stay? I'm no use back home. I'm just another stupid cripple, wasting everyone's time."
He looked at her sternly. "No you're not. Never think that. Everyone has a purpose in life. Some bigger than others."
A tear trickled down her face. "It was cruel of you to bring me here. Build up my hopes and then knock them down again. How could you. How could you?"
He watched her crying softly for a moment, then gently put the keypad into her hands. "Have a look at this, Ruth. It's the history of the development of this station. Run your eye down the list of founders. You might find it interesting."
He left. Ruth ignored the device, wrapped up in her own depression. Then, after a few moments, she picked it up and looked at, eyes flicking disinterestedly over the text that scrolled up the LCD screen. "Founders..." she muttered. "Who cares..."
Professor Stephen Hawking... Lady Avril Palmer-Monroe ... Professor Ajay Widodo ... Doctor Ruth Millicent Carter ...
She gasped, eyes widened with shock. She re-read it again, then touched the control to bring up a picture. She found herself staring at ... herself. Thirty years older, but still recognisably herself.
"That's why..." she breathed. "But how?"
"How is not the issue."
The Doctor's voice drifted quietly from the doorway where he'd been standing silently, watching her. "What matters is, you have a purpose. A future. All this was helped to be created by you." He came over and crouched by her chair, taking her hands in his. "I'm not saying that the rest of your life is going to be easy, Ruth. There will still be pain, and suffering, and bad times ahead of you. But there will be better times as well. Studies. A career. A family. This station. I can't go into details, I've already broken several rules by even bringing you here. But trust me on this." He looked deep into her eyes. "It's all there in the future for you, Ruth. Wait until tomorrow. You'll see." He smiled. "Shall we go back now?"
She nodded. "Yes. Yes please."
***
The Doctor watched her scooting across the sand, back towards her sister and her friends. For the first time in a long while, he felt content. "I did good," he murmured to himself, and turned back to the TARDIS.
His companions were waiting for him. Ace and Benny leaned on either side of the TARDIS. An awkward silence hung in the air, and his hearts sank as he realised they were still not talking to each other. But were they going to talk to him?
Benny was lapping at a multi-coloured ice cream cone while Ace was digging into a greasy paper cone of heavily salt 'n' vinegared chips. The sweet and the sour, the Doctor thought to himself ruefully. Benny looked at him and smiled slightly, holding out her ice cream for him to sample. "Fancy a lick?"
"What flavour is it?"
"Pineapple, choc chip and strawberry. With pistachio nuts."
"Hmmm, pistachios hurt my teeth."
"Quelle surprise," muttered Ace. Her face was stony, eyes unreadable beneath her mirrored glasses. She didn't offer him a chip. "Finished ruining somebody else's' life for the day?"
Benny winced, but the Doctor maintained his composure.
"Something like that. Where would you like to go next?"
She shrugged. "You're the driver. Surprise us." She laughed cynically, twisted the wrapper into a ball and flung it with unerring accuracy into a nearby wastebin, then turned and stalked into the TARDIS. Her aim was getting better by the day, thought the Doctor uneasily.
Benny opened her mouth to say something but the Doctor shook his head. "She'll get over it," he said quietly.
"You reckon?" she snorted, and followed Ace inside. The Doctor sighed and looked back across the beach. In the distance, he saw a brightly coloured beach ball spinning up into the sky, and heard faint laughter.
He smiled sadly. "I do," he said quietly to himself, and he gazed beyond the other end of the beach, into... "Wait until tomorrow ... you'll see," he echoed himself.
He turned and entered the TARDIS. A minute later, it disappeared, and the wheezing, groaning sound of its motors was replaced by the sound of laughter drifting in the air from further down the beach.
