Herbert George Wells watched the final frames of the video recording of Clark and Bobbie’s wedding ceremony once more and sighed. His taller companion looked over his shoulder and clucked his tongue.
“Oh, come now, George, this is the best outcome of all the possibilities and you know it. Two very nice people will spend their long lives together instead of dying early and alone and unfulfilled, and they will save a great many lives. Uncounted good things will occur because of them and their children. Despite a few bumps in the road, they’re happily married, at least for now, and we know they will deal adequately with the adversity that comes to everyone. Your Utopia is back on schedule and Superman is going to be active for decades, as will his descendants. Why are you still sad?”
“Oh, I suppose it’s because Lois will not be Clark’s wife in this universe. I will miss her greatly. And I still cannot understand why I was not able to effect a change in her fate.”
The man gave him a crooked smile. “No one can save everyone every time, George. We both know that.”
“I’ve been able to save them both a number of times.”
“Yes, but all those other times you were setting right someone else’s meddling. Repairing a timeline is not the same thing as altering one.”
“Even if my machine refused to go to the point of Lois’ death, yours surely could have. One of us could have saved her.”
“I’m sorry, George, but no, I couldn’t have,” the man said, not unkindly. “Her death was a fixed point in time, old boy, at least in this branch of reality. You know about those.”
Wells sighed again. “I have some familiarity with them, yes. I still do not like them.”
The taller man grinned impishly and strode toward the anachronistic blue box in Wells’ garden. “That’s a bit like expressing a negative opinion of trees in general, don’t you think? Fixed points in any time line are like old-growth forests on uninhabited planets, part of the local reality. Just be satisfied with what you were able to accomplish. Neither of us can repair everything to our liking. Nor do either of us want giant bats eating everything in existence.”
Before Wells could answer, a striking young woman with long wavy reddish-blonde locks opened the door and all but lunged out of the blue box. “Will you two come on? Just shake hands and agree that you got very lucky this time. I’ve got a procedure scheduled in two hours and I have to make sure the patient is ready. We were only supposed to be here for fifteen minutes at most!”
The tall man crossed his arms and mock-frowned at her. “The Tardis is a time machine, Grace. You cannot be late with me at the controls.”
Grace returned a look familiar to Wells that said she didn’t believe or trust him on that subject. Wells stifled a chuckle.
The tall man ran a hand through his own curly coif and stepped toward Grace. “Very well, my love, since you’re in a hurry.” He turned to Wells. “Are you coming, George?”
Wells shook his head. “Not this time. Our rendezvous schedule is at an end, I fear. I must return to my home base. The Temporal Watchers are somewhat upset with me over this incident.”
“They’re going to take you to task over this?” The taller man rolled his eyes and adjusted his expensive lapels. “Surely they have better things to do with their time.”
Grace stomped her foot once. “Do you want me to drive? Get a move on!” She turned as if to reenter the box, then stopped and glared past her shoulder at the man. “And quit making stupid puns or I’ll have Bobbie arrest you!”
The man blinked twice, then sighed. “My apologies, my dear. That one was not intentional on my part.”
This, of course, was a continuation of a long-running faux argument between the two, an argument in which Wells had no desire to participate. “Intentional pun or not,” Wells put in, “we all have other obligations which must be met, and we must all depart this timeline. I hope we meet again, hopefully under less dire circumstances.” He bowed slightly. “I have greatly enjoyed our time together, sir.”
The man smiled and returned the bow. “Farewell, good sir. I look forward to working with you once again.”
“And I, you. Take care of yourself. And do take good care of the lovely Dr. Holloway.”
The dashing Doctor winked. “I shall allow her to continue taking good care of me.”
With a jaunty wave, he followed his companion into the blue box. After a few moments, the light on top flashed, the box made a grinding noise not unlike an asthmatic Velociraptor, then it slowly faded from existence.
Wells smiled. He’d give the enigmatic Doctor a good deal of the credit for a successful outcome in his report. The man’s idea to use the Maldraxian REM Sleep Sublimator on the editor and the police inspector the night before Clark and Bobbie’s first meeting had been quite good. Almost genius, in fact. Wells had to admit that it was much better than his idea to use it on Clark to influence his choices and attitudes. After all, the machine could not force anyone to do anything, only suggest possibilities within the subconscious mind. Give one a little nudge, as Dr. Holloway had said with a smile.
Those two uses were the only times they’d used the odd contraption, save for the one time Wells had “borrowed” it and used it on Clark the night after he met Bobbie. And the single application the Doctor had made to Bobbie’s thoughts two nights later, even though he had been somewhat vexed at Wells at the time for “borrowing” the Sublimator without permission.
Although, come to think of it, there had never been a satisfactory explanation of the self-described madman’s timely arrival, nor of his willing, even enthusiastic, cooperation. Or why he’d had the difficult-to-obtain Maldraxian device so close at hand. Or how he’d known of the projected extinguishing of Utopia in this timeline before it had the opportunity to begin.
It was especially curious that the Doctor had firmly believed – and had convinced Wells – that bringing Clark and Bobbie together was the best possible course of action, despite several far less promising options that would not have involved anything near the level of suggestion and manipulation they had employed. Nor would those other options have required Wells and the Doctor to – as Grace had phrased it – “fiddle” with two separate lives.
He had never understood an overheard comment the Doctor had made to Grace, at the beginning of their partnership, that he owed Bobbie something from a kindness she’d done him a long time ago. And it seemed that he’d never understand. It was something of a blow to Wells’ ego to be all but upstaged by the man.
Nevertheless, the episode had eventually been completed with satisfactory results, and that, Wells mused, was the most important thing. This series of events had ended well.
As well as they could have, at least.
Wells sighed again. He’d go visit the home dimension’s Lois and Clark. Just to check in on them, of course. And, he admitted, to cheer himself up a bit.
# 30 #
