Chapter Text
As the afternoon sun shone through the windows, nothing could be heard at Coal Hill Academy. The entire place was now emptied out. All the students had gone home to their family, the teachers were most likely hitting a pub (because of their students), and even the caretakers had finished cleaning the building.
Ruby Sunday was an outlier. After the final bell rang, she stayed behind. At first, it was because of her piano lessons, but now she was just avoiding going home. A shadow now loomed over her flat like a ghost haunting the Sunday residents.
She checked her phone and whatever hope was left failed. The Doctor still hadn’t called her back. The world was getting weirder. UNIT was having trouble keeping up with all the threats. She had gotten plenty of calls, but she just couldn’t go back. After everything that happened last year, she couldn’t throw herself back into that.
Grabbing her bags, she got up to leave the classroom, but stopped herself as her ears pricked up. A cool breeze whipped her face. A white light flashed so brightly that she covered her eyes with her arm. The swirling wind coalesced in the corner of the room until the faint outline of a familiar box appeared. Ruby immediately recognized it. The TARDIS was here and the Doctor was back.
The blue police box solidified. Out the door came a blonde woman in a big pink coat. She threw open her arms and exclaimed, “Ruby Sunday!” Ruby was swept up into an unreciprocal hug. She was lifted up off the ground, and her legs dangled about desperate to be set on the ground again. The woman then paused. All her enthusiasm zapped away, and she gazed into Ruby’s green eyes. “What’s wrong?”
“Doctor?” Ruby stuttered.
“Hello,” she grinned.
At this point she desperately wished to be put back down. She could tell that this stranger was the Doctor, but it was all wrong somehow. She was too different from the one she knew, the one with the mustache, but still the same. It was like trying to describe something from a faint dream that was barely remembered. All the details were there, but all jumbled up into a mess that didn’t quite reflect the real thing.
“How’ve you been?” the Doctor asked as she gently placed Ruby’s feet back onto the vinyl floor.
Ruby gave a polite, “Alright” as she fidgeted with her necklace. The silence that followed was awkward. Neither really knew what to say to each other. It wasn’t until a black woman with curly hair stepped from the TARDIS that the conversation continued.
“This is Angel,” the Doctor said.
Looking at her, Ruby noted, “You move on quick.” The remark sounded more sarcastic and bitter than she intended. “I heard about her. Kate told me you ran into each other Christmas day.”
“Yes! One of my busy ones! Well, all my Christmases are busy!”
Angel smiled and said, “It’s very nice to meet the elusive Ruby Sunday.” She put out her hand and Ruby shook it.
“Oh?” Ruby muttered.
“The Doctor’s been avoiding you for ages.”
Blushing, the Doctor shouted, “I’ve got a time machine! I can avoid things for however long I want!”
“Too bad you’re late,” Ruby replied.
“Late?” The Doctor checked her watch.
“I’ve phoned so much. You could’ve nipped this in the bud months back.”
The Doctor’s jaw fell, “Months?”
“I first phoned in May.”
“I was a little busy with David Bowie.”
“Then I tried a few weeks ago.”
“That’s a long time between calls. What changed?”
“The situation got a little more complicated.”
“What happened?”
Ruby reached into her bag and pulled out a laptop. She set it onto a desk and a news app opened. “A new tech company popped up. Run by a madman. Oren Wright.”
“Isn’t that all of them,” Angel noted.
Ruby giggled before instantly becoming serious, “He announced that he was going to redefine what mortality really meant. Obviously, UNIT started investigating. This month, his product finally released to the market, LifeBots.”
Angel asked, “What’s a LifeBot.”
“From what we can tell, it’s some kind of robot or android that somehow becomes dead people.”
“Do we have a model,” the Doctor chimed.
“There’s one at my flat.”
“Great, let’s go there!”
“Wait,” said Ruby.
The Doctor cocked an eyebrow.
“We might not have the easiest time with it.”
Refusing to connect the dots, the Doctor stared in silence.
The only thing Ruby said was, “Mum.”