Not Of My Flesh. by Clive May (clive@cj4386.demon.co.uk) A First Doctor story, featuring Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright. Rating: PG13 - Ian and Barbara with no clothes on. Dr Who is copyright BBC. No infringement of that copyright is intended. This is a work of fan fiction; it was written purely for the pleasure it gave me in writing it; and no money has, or will, change hands. Archiving info at the end. If anyone has read "Threshold" by Ursula Le Guinn, then there is a slight chance that what follows may make some kind of sense. I have always thought: what if Hugh and Irene conceived a child when they made love before leaving the "Evening Land" for the last time. How would that child fair in our world. "I can't have children," Barbara confided in a moment of candor, her pretense of indifference undone by the too casual tone. The Doctor, making no suggestions, exercised subtlety. By diverse misdirections, he guided the teachers to the Grove of the Goddess, knowing that the alien land could not fail to work its timeless magic on those who would be lovers. So it was that Ian and Barbara made love in the little wood of flowering trees. Afterwards, they lay side by side, luxuriating in a rosy afterglow, while overhead, a sprinkle of strange stars peeked down at them through the gently rustling canopy. The enchanted dark had wrapped their nakedness, fragrant with the flowers, while twin tiny moons watched over them through the too short night. Now, between the gleaming trunks, dawn was breaking over the edge of the world. That rosy glow revealed a fairy castle, floating a-glow with pink streamers of light, so ethereal it seemed as smoke upon a misty morn. "I love you," Barbara said, her voice edged with uncertainty, gripping Ian's hand fiercely. "I know," Ian said, sounding ever so slightly smug. "Bastard," Barbara breathed with affection. A presence in the shadows stirred; and a woman moved into the glade on ghost-silent feet. She stood a long moment , regarding the new lovers, her sharp features hidden in a black mane of hair. Barbara and Ian were blissfully unconcerned under that knowing regard, for in the Grove of the Goddess, true lovers could feel no shame. The woman came close, and kneeling, transfixed Barbara with the silven light of the twin moons, which shone softly in her eyes. She spoke. "And shall the Goddess hear the outlander?" There was no hesitation; Barbara answered strong and true. "Yes." Sadness touched the pixy woman's shadowed features, darkening the luminosity of her eyes. "Alas, the gifting of your heart's desire lies beyond even the hand of the Goddess to bestow....And yet, and yet no appeal to the Goddess must go unanswered in her Grove...." The Pixy fell silent, examining Barbara's fretful features, gauging the breadth of her souls desire. Then she nodded slowly, and went on: "...Though such a gift of life as you desire may be lent a-while. But know this, Outlander, that the Goddess guarantees no joy of this gifting. Do the Outlanders still abide?" This time, Barbara did hesitate, glancing across at Ian in the dim dawn light. Her hand gripped his fiercely in the warmth between their close pressed bodies, the trapped bird of her heart fluttering in her chest. The return pressure of Ian's hand came, firm and resolute, giving Barbara room for the only answer possible. "We will abide," the lovers answered in unison, vastly wise in their ignorance. The pixy reached out a hand to Barbara's belly; and on the skin, still warm with the memory of their lovemaking, she traced out the sacred sign of the Goddess. On completing that arcane rune, the Pixy declared: "So is the will of the Goddess made manifest in flesh. Go now, with Her blessing;" and like the dream in a mystery she might have been, the Pixy was gone, faded back into the beautiful Grove, leaving them alone in the dawn, to contemplate her enigmatic warning. They remained undaunted, for they were in love. Ian propped himself up on an elbow. Avoiding Barbara's gaze, he traced an apprehensive finger over the faintly glowing symbol. "We will be married?" he essayed. "I know," said Barbara, in an ever so slightly smug tone. Ian just grinned and grinned. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Clutching the pink, alien monstrosity in a chubby fist, Mary stumped doggedly along the verge. Just feet away, traffic flashed by, blat, blat, blat in a wash of exhaust fumes. Despite the stench, Mary could still smell the flowers that grew on the trees of the little wood. Wuggles's mummy waited there, watching for her with an ineffable patience. The roaring of the traffic could not drown the lilting lullaby she crooned, which called to something unnameable, deep in Mary's heart. Enchanted by the magic of the song, drawn on by the dream of silver moons, Mary didn't see the giant until she'd toddled determinedly into his tree trunk legs. She sat down with a bump, in a scum rimmed puddle, on the litter strewn verge. "Hold on there, Princess!" the friendly giant boomed. Mary hugged Wuggles protectively against her chest, looking up the length of the blue uniform. The Policeman squatted down to her level. "Now, where are we off to in such a hurry, Princess?" he asked, a good-natured smile lighting up his round face. She liked the way his blue eyes twinkled. "Wuggles wants her Mummy," Mary explained, showing the be-tentacled monstrosity to the policeman. "It's a long, long way away but Wuggles wants to go home to mummy." He took her hand. "Well then. If Wuggles wants her mummy? I think we should take her home right now, don't you?" He didn't, of course, because he didn't know the way to the country where Wuggles's Mummy waited in the light of the twin silver moons. Instead, he took her back to where Mummy and Daddy were waiting anxiously. They were angry, and happy, all at the same time. They scolded her for running away. Mary could not make them understand that she was not running away; she just wanted to take Wuggles to where she belonged; but where there were no words to express the soul's desire, frustration blossomed like a dark flower in the gulf between their estranged flesh. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Bug face! Bug face!" the other children would sometimes chant at her in the playground, always from the safety of the group. It seldom bothered Mary then, for they had less reality than the fragrant night, lit by the twin moons, or the fairy tale castle which overlook the little flowering wood where the creature waited who haunted her dreams, waking and sleeping. Once, from the safety of that night dark country, she had turned upon them, her heart full of ungovernable savagery. She said no words, made no threats, even so they had slunk away like whipped dogs, cowed by the light that blazed in her over-large eyes. Since that time, they no longer called her names. From then on, she was shunned. She had no friends. This did not concern her overmuch; but as the years passed, the teachers taught her the wisdom of this alien country. When she had grown truly ignorant with their arrogant wisdom, she consented with reluctance to call her country fantasy, though it seemed a most cruel inversion of fact. But at last she came to believe it so. In that moment, the overwhelming sense of loss the grudging admission engendered, defeated her understanding. A profound loneliness settled into her heart, like a predatory monster settling in its lair. Ever afterwards, it brought a physical pain to name her country a fantasy, and this world real. She wanted to ask mum and dad; but there were no words in which to say the mysteries that lay at the heart of her being. Whenever she tried to articulate her inexpressible loneliness, their eyes communicated a disturbing fear and guilt which puzzled her deeply. She could never comprehend why her sense of alienation so threaten to over-set her parent's contentment. So she said nothing, and sank further into the chilly grey. Inexorably, the rift which grew between them passed beyond the reach of a mother's love, or a daughter's desire, to span. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "LIAR!" Mary screamed. "Liar! Liar! I know!" "There's nothing to know," said Barbara, at bay before the hound of truth, that most savage huntress. "I got a job with the United Nations. I work for an outfit called UNIT. I know. Who is the Doctor?" Barbara's heart clenched in her chest, understanding that now was the time of parting. The enigmatic warning of the pixy woman, who had granted them the blessing of an alien Goddess, had finally come to pass, as she knew it must. "I don't want to hurt you, Mum, but -" "I know, luv. I know," Barbara said. "It's not your fault. If anyone's to blame? then it's Dad and I." "I don't blame you, Mum - either of you. I love you both, Mary said; "but you know this is not my place. The dreams - the two silver moons? I have to be there. I don't know what that place is, or what you did there, but I know that I must reach it somehow? I know the Doctor can help - if only I can find him? " Barbara nodded, a reluctant acquiescence to inevitability. She reached out arms in a gesture of helpless love. Mary went to her. Barbara buried her face in Mary's black mane, drowning her fear in the acidic alien scent of the fine silken hair. "There is a way to contact him," she confessed, understanding in her head, but never in her heart, why this had to be. Breaking away from Mary, she picked up the telephone and dialed. She took great comfort in Ian's hand, laid soft upon her shoulder. His stalwart brand of caring had ever proved a bastion against the fear of loss that lurked in every line of their daughter's alien countenance. The telephone was answered. Barbara spoke briefly. Taking up a pen, she scribbled something on the note pad. Then she hung up, and passed the note to Mary. The young woman took the proffered sheet. She knew it for her passport to a dream of otherness which had haunted her since infancy. It was her ticket to the place where the answer to the riddle of her existence could have meaning. It was also the execution warrant on her parent's happiness. Barbara and Ian felt curiously at ease. They held out arms, and took the thing that had been the daughter they might never have had - the daughter they were not truly equipped to comprehend, into their arms for one last, long cuddle. Barbara gazed deep into the shadows on mystery of Mary's eyes. They shone like the twin silver moons on that magical night when she and Ian had first made love under an alien sky. Neither Ian nor Barbara had any regrets for this thing they had done. Had they not raised a fine daughter? What matter that she might not be entirely of their flesh? There could be no regrets. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mary went without looking back. She drove fast, the lonely child eager to find the adult she might not become, in this alien land, where she had come to birth. It was not a leaving; but a hurrying towards something glimpsed at the limit of understanding. All her life she had been travelling in a trance of longing and loneliness towards this dream of otherness, without getting any nearer. She drove fast through the night to the address on the piece of paper. Wuggles sat on the dash, peering eagerly ahead through the windshield. The warehouse was dark and dilapidated. A door stood ajar, opening onto an evil smelling dark. The blue box waited, as her mother had promised. Mary went to it, laying a hand on the vibrating surface, before passing inside. Beyond the portal, a long corridor stretched before her, the walls patterned with roundels. The way curved left and down in a wide spiral, lit by a sourceless light. The air hummed, a gentle invitation to follow her heart. The corridor was just as she knew it must be, though she had never entertained such a vision before. Mary did not look back. She did not see the end of the corridor become a blank wall. A strange wheezing built up as she set out on the path to maturity, her step light, and heart singing, the song of an un-looked for arrival. She walked on for minutes in a humming silence before the wheezing sounded once more. A doorway wound into view dark with a new night, the night for which she had always been meant. A moment later she stepped into a fragrant silver dim, under the benevolent light of twin moons. Before a small copse of flowering trees a short woman with a great mane of black hair stood awaiting her with a knowledge of certainty that was terrifying. The woman held out hands, an invitation to a love whose patience had power to shame the obdurate persistence of the rocks. Mary ran to her, at last able to become truly herself in the place for which she was. In response the pixy woman relaxed the bindings constraining her physical form to this alien shape. Thus did a mother, who had given without stint of her patient and boundless love, and the child she had lent a while in consolation of another's want ineffable, to gladden the heart of aliens for a span, come together in a fond coiling of gentle pink tentacles under the fragrantly flowering trees of the Grove. Abandoned in the sweet grass, wuggles looked on with approval in his blank cloth-patch eyes. The end