The house was a ruined, burned out hulk. A young man stood gazing at it, uncertainly. You heard rumors about almost every abandoned building, of course, but this particular wreck had attracted his attention.
The old ghost-hunting tech UNIT had left behind wasn't terribly accurate, but both the ectoplasmic and aural scanners were picking up something.
Now, if he could only figure out what ...
Peri slumped dejectedly in the TARDIS console room's only chair, while the Doctor fussed with the console. They had just had a harrowing misadventure, in which they had been threatened not only by the Master, but also the Rani, another member of the Doctor's people. She had changed out of the ridiculous period costume she'd had to wear, but she was tired. She needed sleep.
The Doctor would have none of it, however. He always insisted that sleep was for tortoises. He was in one of his manic moods, full of vibrant energy, and insisted on her staying up for their next landing, which he promised would be soon.
That had been four hours ago, and she was dozing, almost asleep where she sat. As she drifted off, she reflected that perhaps sleeping out here would probably be for the best, since she so often had to be ready at a moment's notice.
Then the console let out a loud insistent bleeping. "I've found it!" The Doctor said. His loud voice jerked her back into wakefulness.
"Found what?" she asked crossly, struggling out of the chair.
"Really, Peri, you should have more of a sense of adventure," the Doctor chided her. She could do without his patronizing tone. Actually, she could do without most of the attributes of this incarnation of him; especially that coat, which was so loud it would give you flash burns if you looked at it too long.
"What I've found," he continued in his plummy voice, "Is what my stuffy old teachers at the Academy would most likely have called a Chronon Overlay."
"Which means?" Peri asked.
"Which means that an area of the time stream has a sort of ... of echo. Elements from the relative past are making themselves felt years later."
She shrugged. "History repeats itself; so what?"
The Doctor looked at her condescendingly. Well, more condescendingly than usual. "I don't mean a similar event. I mean actual elements of a previous time overlapping those of a later one. Imagine deja vu, only in a real tangible sense."
She blinked, her normal sarcastic replies momentarily forgotten. "Dangerous?"
"Potentially, yes." he fussed over the console some more. "Ah! A little closer to home for you, Peri. The USA, about five years before you joined me."
"America's a big country, Doctor," she said. "Not necessarily close to where I lived."
He frowned. "It's all a matter of perspective, Peri. To me, the whole planet's fairly small, in space. But in Time ..." he trailed off, fine tuning the controls. Then he grinned at her. "We've arrived."
The young man whirled as a trumpeting roar began behind him. He stared, eyes wide, as a blue box formed out of thin air in front of him.
He retained enough presence of mind to point the ectoplasmic scanner at it before the roaring noise ground to a halt, but there was no energy registering on the device. He slapped it absently a few times, still staring at the box. Then he got an even bigger shock as two people stepped out of it. The first was a large blonde haired man, both tall and wide, wearing a painfully bright multicolored patchwork coat. The second was a young girl, about his own age, wearing a tight shirt and pants that left little to the imagination. He would have been excited by her, were it not for the fact that their arrival had shocked him so.
He slapped at his belt for the gun he wasn't wearing; old habits died hard. Then the man spotted him, and smiled.
"Hello! I'm the Doctor, and this is my friend, Peri. Who might you be?"
He was so unnerved by their arrival that he answered honestly. "Anton ... Anton Marwood."
The Doctor looked at Anton, curiously. The name was vaguely familiar, but he couldn't quite place it.
Anton was a young man in his twenties, with short red hair, high cheekbones, and an earnest face. He wore blue jeans and a jacket of the same material, and a T-shirt underneath. He would've been unremarkable, except for the eyes; they had an unusual clarity that seemed to pierce the soul. The Doctor looked away.
Peri, he noticed, seemed to be taken in by those eyes too; but she seemed to fancy him. He hoped not; as a general rule, when his female companions became romantically linked with someone, they either left his company, or the love interest died.
"Would you tell me who you really are, and what you're doing here?" Anton asked, a little nervously. The Doctor was impressed; he usually was the one asking the questions, save in torture sessions.
"My name you know, as well as anyone ever does. And I'm here because of ... a chronon overlay. Elements of the past surviving beyond their natural term."
"Ghosts?" said Anton and Peri together.
"Well, not my choice of words, but it's apt, I suppose. Ghosts, yes."
"And you call yourself the Doctor ... tell me, how many of you have there been?"
The Doctor stiffened. "You know me." It was not a question.
"I know of you," Anton said. "I used to work for UNIT. Now, how many of you have there been?
"I am the sixth, but one of my future selves may have worked with UNIT in the relative past, for all I know. And before you ask, UNIT stands for United Nations Intelligence Taskforce. The current head is Colonel Chricton, but Winifred Bambera is being considered as his replacement. I worked mostly with Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart. The head of UNIT-US is....Kramer, I think. I have helped repel invasions by The Daleks, the Nestenes, the Cybermen, and countless others. Not to mention stopping the myriad plots of the Master."
Anton blinked. "Actually, that was more than I knew."
"Good, glad that's settled. Now, what do you know about these ... ghosts?"
Anton sighed and cleared his throat. "Well, thirty five years ago, this house," he gestured to the rotting wreck behind him, "Was the residence of a group of would be magicians."
"Wizards?" asked Peri.
The Doctor scoffed. "There's no such thing as magic, Peri." A troubled look crossed his face. "Well, in this Universe, anyway."
"Maybe, maybe not," Anton resumed. "They took themselves seriously, at any rate. Claimed to be making experiments into time travel."
The Doctor started, and his eyes went cold. He said nothing, watching Anton closely.
"What happened?" Peri asked.
"There was a fire. They were all home at time, and were consumed in the blaze. No survivors. Of course, with a rep like that, it was immediately a spawning ground for haunted house rumors."
"And why," said the Doctor, "Do you take these rumors seriously?"
"Not all of them," replied Anton. "But one in particular caught my
attention ..."
Banshee glared out the window at the strangers. They had come, at last. Trained professionals. Who would destroy them.
"They're not leaving, are they?" Wraith asked from behind her.
Banshee turned to look at him. In life, she had been a gorgeous redhead, her long straight hair falling below the waist.
Wraith, in his turn, had been a young malcontent; straggly brown hair, goatee beard, wiry, angular frame.
Now they were translucent images of their former selves; here and yet not here.
Ghosts.
"No," she answered him in her husky voice, "They aren't. Get the others. We'll need to be ready for them."
"Two years ago," said Anton, "A young girl went in this house on a dare. She came out screaming five minutes later. She insisted that she had seen ghosts. Nothing at all unusual, but the girl happened to be one that the UNIT-US paranormal division was already interested in, because she was a marginal psychic."
"And you were part of that division," said Peri.
Anton nodded. "She was next on my list of investigations when the division was shut down due to budget cuts. UNIT-UK has played with the idea of a paranormal division of their own, but so far, nothing."
"And in the meantime you're on your own," said the Doctor, "and you've finally gotten round to getting the funds and equipment together necessary to investigate."
Anton nodded. "Before the budget cuts, we did manage to get the girl in for one interview. She gave descriptions of three "ghosts"--that exactly matched the descriptions of three of the most powerful cultists."
The Doctor nodded. "Well, if there's even a hint of time travel involved -- and even without your story, there already was -- I *have* to be involved."
He expected a protest, maybe even anger. But Anton just looked at him and swallowed. "I've heard about you. You're the closest thing to official UNIT sanction I'm gonna get. I could use your help."
The Doctor nodded, pleased. "Shall we go?"
There were six of them left, after all these years: Banshee, Wraith, Phantasm, Ghost, Shadow, and Spectre.
They had forgotten their human names; forgotten on purpose. They had taken these ghost names deliberately. That was what they were now; hollow ones beyond the living, forever.
"Can we take them?" gasped Shadow. He was a thin faced, cold eyed, bald spirit.
"I don't know," Banshee said. "But I hope so. Or we're finished."
Anton began to lead the way up to the front door, but the Doctor barged past him.
"Age before beauty, and all that," the Doctor said, without a trace of apology in his voice.
Peri and Anton exchanged a weary glance. "Yes," she said, "He's always like this. Don't worry, you get used to it."
"I've read the files," Anton replied, "but I thought he would be a tad more ... reasonable."
"He used to be," Peri said wistfully.
"Come along now!" The Doctor shouted back to them, his rich voice booming.
Banshee and Wraith waited in the entry foyer, the others scattered at strategic points throughout the house.
"We'll try to scare them off," Banshee had told the others. "If we fail, then everybody will rush them."
Peri examined the old house critically as they approached it. It had been a stylish mansion, thirty five years ago; the 1950s style was apparent. Peri was no architect or archaeologist, but she was impressed by the remnants of its glory, all the same; the classic shape, the round windows, the homely and yet regal feel. Now it was a burnt out hulk. Windows broken. Walls that had once been bright yellow, burned to a dark grey. The run-to-riot lawn; the weedy catwalk.
The Doctor was already at the front door, his bright coat standing out against the dark walls even more so than usual. He seemed a vibrant challenge of life against all that threatened it. For the first time (and, she fervently hoped, the last), Peri found herself actually liking that painfully bright rainbow of a coat.
The Doctor yanked at the wooden beams nailed across the door. His bulk made many underestimate his strength; Anton gasped in surprise as the Doctor tore the crossbeams off with ease.
The Doctor seemed a little surprised too; he turned to them, frowning. "That was too easy. They want us inside."
Anton raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to ask a question, but Peri stopped him. "Don't ask; if you do, the speeches he'll give you will keep us here until next week."
The Doctor harrumphed loudly, then opened the door. It squealed on rusty hinges. The Doctor stepped inside, and the others nervously followed him.
At first, Peri could see nothing in the darkness. Slowly, her eyes made out an entry foyer; a dreary, disused hallway with cracked walls and peeling wallpaper. Off to her right, an arch led to what looked like a living room; to the left, a rotting, broken stairway led upstairs into darkness.
Anton was fiddling with some sort of ghost tracking device; suddenly it began beeping frantically. Both of them looked forward. In front of them, the Doctor raised his head, bright eyes gleaming.
A pair of ghosts rushed down the corridor towards them. They had legs, but did not run; instead they simply floated towards them. Both were wearing what might have been black colored clothing in life; as they were transparent, it was hard to tell. Their skin appeared to be a translucent blue color, like smoke caught in a spotlight.
On the left was a young man with straggly brown hair and a billowing black trenchcoat, over a black shirt and pants. Later in this life, the Doctor would be reminded of Grant Markham by this apparition; still later, the Eighth would be reminded of Fitz Kreiner. But for now, the Doctor only saw a lost poetic soul, drowning in despair.
On the right was a gorgeous redhead, long red hair trailing down to the knees. A swirling dark blue dress reached to just above the knees; with thigh high boots taking over just below.
Both of them flew down the corridor towards the Doctor, letting out screaming high pitched wails of despair and rage.
Peri screamed.
The Doctor bounded forward grinning like a madman. "Greetings!" he boomed. "I am the Doctor, whether you like it or not!!"
They certainly hadn't been expecting that reaction, that was clear.
They halted inches from him, staring in disbelief.
Anton was also amazed, though for a different reason; he had never expected to see a ghost flummoxed. Peri was clinging to him, from behind. Normally he would have found this delightful; but normally he wouldn't be faced by two ghosts.
The Doctor drew himself up to his considerable height and glared at the ghosts. "Now, why are you hiding in this old rotting building?"
"He refuses to be scared off," said the male ghost, speaking not to the Doctor but over his shoulder, into the darkness behind.
The Doctor answered him anyway. "Indeed, I have faced much greater horrors than you in my time. Now, if you're done with the scare tactics ..."
Four more ghosts appeared, moving too fast to make out clearly. As one, the six ghosts charged at the Doctor -- and into him.
The Doctor uttered a strangled squawk, and collapsed.
Peri and Anton crouched over him, frightened and not knowing what to do. His eyes were closed, and he wasn't moving.
Then his eyes snapped open. The were blazing with rage. Slowly, he staggered to his feet.
"Doctor, are you alr ..." Peri began.
The Doctor cut her off with a roar of anger. "GET OUT OF ME!"
Peri and Anton jumped back. The Doctor staggered to the wall, and started hammering his fists against it. "I ... said ... get ... OUT!!"
Nothing else happened for a moment. Then The Doctor said, in a cold voice, "Very well, than I shall be forced to take punitive measures." He closed his eyes and crossed his arms on his chest.
Anton trained his scanner on the Doctor, and detected the ectoplasmic energy of the ghosts, but also a gathering psionic wave ...
A blast of brilliant white light knocked him off his feet.
Anton sat up, and blinked. The Doctor was standing in the center of the room. Around him, the ghosts, Peri and Anton himself were sprawled.
The ghosts were clearly dazed. Whatever the Doctor had done to them, it had knocked them for a loop.
"How ... how did you ... do ... that ..." the redhead stuttered.
"A superior, alien, mind." The Doctor replied, his voice at its most arrogant. Peri knew a speech was about to begin.
"Alien?" Whispered the other lead ghost.
"Yes, alien. I come here to discover why you are haunting this area, and instead of negotiating, you attack. Why is it every time I try to negotiate a peaceful solution, someone decides that I must be killed? Why is slaughter always the first solution? Tell me? WHY?!?"
The Doctor roared the last word, and everybody twitched backward from him. His eyes blazed at the redhead.
"You don't understand," the redheaded ghost whispered. "If we are not left alone, to perfect our experiments, we will suffer a fate far, far worse than death."
"We've already died," agree the other lead ghost. "We now face being erased from existence."
"Erased?" Peri and Anton asked together.
"Tell me your tale," the Doctor agreed. "I might be able to help."
"What reason do we have to trust you?" the redhead demanded.
"What reason have I to trust you?" He countered. "You did strike first, after all. I could leave you to fade away, if, that is, you were telling the truth."
"Oh, we were," one of the other ghosts agreed.
"Then why don't you let me help? I want to end the troubles. And I have some experience with temporal trouble."
"We can't trust him," said another ghost.
"What choice do we have?" the redhead said, "If he's lying, we've lost nothing."
"Just so," said the Doctor. "So, tell me the full tale."
Banshee remembered being young. Linda, her name had been in those days. Many men had wanted her, but only a chosen few had ever gotten truly close to her heart.
Her cabal of mages had been primarily interested in time experiments. They had been warned against changing the timeline, of course; but they weren't planning on anything drastic. Just a few alterations here and there.
("That's how it always begins," the Doctor muttered.)
Something went wrong. One of the minor changes they enacted suddenly caused the house they were using to catch flame. Banshee guessed the timeline had been rewritten in such a way that the house was made of more easily flammable materials instead.
In desperation they tried to use their time spells to stop the fire from starting; but instead condemned themselves to this ghostly half-existence.
And now, they were fading away, one by one.
"There's no such thing as magick in this Universe!" The Doctor protested.
"You're right, and that's the problem," Banshee said. "We opened a portal to another Universe."
The Doctor narrowed his eyes and sucked in a breath. "Yes, I was afraid of something like that. Did it close?"
"Yes, the fire destroyed the runes we were using to keep the gateway open."
"You're probably right," the Doctor agreed, "But do you mind if I just check?"
Banshee's eyes narrowed. "You said you would help us."
"And so I shall," he retorted. "But I need to deal with the whole problem. If the portal remains open, there could be all sorts of repercussions. More people might join your ghostly menagerie."
"Like us!" Peri protested.
The Doctor nodded. "And I'd venture to say the ones you've lost so far are on the other side of the portal, in this magickal universe."
"They might not be able to survive there," Banshee protested.
"Perhaps not. But either way, we must make sure the portal is closed." He turned to Anton. "I'll need to modify some of your equipment."
Anton handed over his ectoplasmic scanner without a word. The Doctor raised an eyebrow; here was a potential companion.
He turned it over and opened a back panel, and started pulling at wires and circuitry.
Banshee loomed over him. "What about us?"
"Once I've ensured the portal is closed, or close it if it isn't, we can take your people into my capsule, away from here. There are many places that could accommodate you, even a few planets where semi-intangible species exist," The Doctor said.
"But no way to get us back to normal?"
He shook his head. "It's been far too long for that."
She turned away, Wraith held her close. Peri and Anton looked at each other. Peri sighed; sometimes the Doctor could be so insensitive.
The Doctor completed his modifications and closed the scanner. As soon as he did, a loud bleeping began. "Oh dear ..."
"Let me guess; it's still open," said Peri.
The Doctor nodded. "I have to close it." He followed the bleeping to where it was loudest, by a blackened wall in the back of the house. "This was where the runes were?"
Banshee nodded.
"I thought so." He turned the device over and began modifying it again. Finally, he turned it over. "All of you, outside. Only I have the abilites to resist the vortex's pull when I attempt to close it." He turned and raised an eyebrow at Banshee. "Assuming, that is, you can leave the house?"
"Oh, yes. We don't usually to avoid detection. But if you're right, that doesn't matter now." With Banshee in the lead, the ghosts filed out.
Peri bit her lip. "Be careful, Doctor."
The Doctor nodded and smiled at her. Anton gave him a thumbs-up, took Peri's hand, and led her out.
The Doctor waited until he heard the front door close, and pointed the twice-modified detector at the blackened wall. He stood with legs braced wide, jaw set, fierce eyes focused. He tapped a series of buttons on the detector.
There was a whine from the detector, that rose suddenly in to a high pitched shrill. In front of the Doctor, a whirling green funnel appeared in the wall. There was a tearing sound that came with it.
Then there was a sighing, in-rush of wind, into the funnel. The Doctor's coat and cravat streamed towards it. He planed his feet more firmly, and gritted his teeth. Only his Time Lord abilities prevented him from being sucked in, and those only barely. He suspected that the mages had not, in fact, opened this portal, only made it worse; it was obviously several centuries old at least.
"A time rift," he hissed under his breath, "I should've guessed. And their "magicks", probably a simple form of energy permutation, changed its direction, and made it a quantum bridge between dimensions."
The funnel opened wider, and he could see into the magickal universe. It was not a pleasant view. He saw a mountain-top, leading down into a mist shrouded valley. The sky was purple, with orange clouds. All sorts of horrible monsters pranced and cavorted there, some of which even he was unable to describe. The monstrosities that Lovecraft had only guessed at came to mind, as well as the works of H. R. Geiger.
The pull became stronger, and the Doctor's feet began to slide. It had to be now. He pressed three more buttons, then, with a wordless roar, threw it into the portal.
There was a great green-white flash. And a thunderous boom that blotted out all sound, and thought.
Outside, Peri screamed as the windows blew out, pelting her and Anton with shards. He wrapped his arms around her, protectively. The ghosts were unaffected by the glass, but even they flinched back from the blast.
A dim, louring green light remained, elderich illumination turning the whole area a sickly, diseased color.
Then the front door fell out, revealing the Doctor. His face was burned red, his costume in blackened tatters, his hair singed.
"Doctor?" Asked Peri, nervously.
The Doctor fell forward onto his face.
Peri was startled only for a second; she had seen this happen enough times already, if not in this particular fashion. "Get his legs," she said to Anton.
At first he didn't move, still staring. She kicked him in the shin. "Move it!"
He blinked at her, his eyes wounded 'O's, then got the Doctor's legs. Peri bent over the Doctor, reached into his vest pocket, and pulled out the TARDIS key. Then she got his arms, and together they staggered towards the TARDIS.
"We can't all fit in there!" Anton protested.
"Not even our intangibility will be enough," agreed Banshee.
Peri didn't answer, but shoved the TARDIS key in the lock, and turned it. The door sagged open, and she and Anton stumbled in.
"It's bigger ..." Anton began.
"Yeah yeah yeah, help me get him into the chair."
Anton did, grunting with effort; the Doctor was at his heaviest in this incarnation. "Now what?"
Peri activated the door control, behind the ghosts that had crowded in. She ignored their wide-eyed stares and turned to Anton. "Now we hope the TARDIS can protect him from the residual effect of that blast."
"That's a plan?" Anton wasn't impressed.
"Perhaps not," came the Doctor's cracked, weary voice. "But it's more initiative than I would've expected from her."
"Love you too, Doctor" she said sweetly, glaring at him.
"Yes, the mutual respect and adoration just flows between us, doesn't it." The Doctor struggled to sit up.
"Are you okay?" she asked, more seriously.
"I will be," he replied, in a cracked, weary voice. Then he turned to Banshee. "I saw the magickal universe before I closed the portal. We can't go there. They physical laws are too alien."
Banshee bowed her head. "We'd given the others up for dead years ago, really."
He nodded, sympathetically. "There are several planets that can accommodate you, though. Earth in any time period is out, however."
Banshee stared around the console room, and smiled. "After seeing this, anything is possible, even ... living ... on an alien planet."
The Doctor smiled, and looked at Anton. "What about you, young man?"
Peri was surprised to realize the Doctor was offering Anton a place in the TARDIS. She hoped he would accept, but wasn't surprised when he said:
"Thanks, Doctor, but my place is here, on Earth. I've got to get back to UNIT again. They've got to listen to me after this!"
The Doctor nodded, staggered to the console, and opened the door. Anton hugged Peri once, then left.
"Well, my spectral guests, there's one more thing I must do before we get underway."
Banshee was puzzled. "What's that?"
"Why, get my spare coat, of course. The sartorial splendor of this one is ruined!"
Peri rolled her eyes.
A much older Anton Marwood returned to the scene some twenty years later. He had seen the TARDIS dematerialize, taking Peri out of his life. He had liked her ... but he had felt there was more to do here.
Little had he realized at the time that he would be responsible for helping an obsessed young man, MacBeth, set up a supernatural branch of UNIT-UK, whose only notable feat would be to torture and imprison the Seventh incarnation of the Doctor for a brief period of time. He had not been there when MacBeth had been shut down; but he had given the order for it to be done. It had been his second and final retirement from UNIT.
Since then he had become one of the world's more famous ghost hunters, exploring supposedly haunted locations around the globe for more than fifteen years. Mostly he found frauds; some few, genuine. But none of them were as amazing as Banshee, Wraith, and their troupe.
Or the Doctor.
He was retired now, and glad of it. He was not truly old, but youth was behind him, and there was a weariness in his bones. He looked around the remains of the house (now a popular draw in the area, a local legend) and sighed. Odd that the glass windows had survived the fire, and not been destroyed until the Doctor had closed the portal. Probably had something to do with the bizarre time-displacement origins of the fire.
He had never seen the Doctor again, but once, the British UNIT's commander, Lethbridge-Stewart, had passed on a message from him. The ghosts had been the chronon overlay the Doctor had suspected, the message said, and were now settled peacefully on a cloud planet. Some of them had even been able to truly rest in peace.
Still, he felt unfulfilled, as though he hadn't done enough with his life. He sighed, and walked away from the old house.
He might have been comforted to know that the memory the Doctor had of him had helped to form the basis of his Eighth Incarnation's physique.
But that was something he'd never find out.
He walked off into the sunset.