Lingers in the Air
Author: Time Spectator.
Context: Doctor Who.
Rating: All ages.
Characters: something of Rose Tyler, two originals.
Ship: refers to Doctor/Rose.
Description: A notion I hammered into a short fic a few years ago. Not fluff; it's either horribly tragic or bittersweet depending on your view. Not beta'd. Comments welcome.
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A private consultation with a doctor seemed to be increasingly difficult to arrange. Liang Li found herself put off to a disused common office waiting area. The reception desk for the nearest doctor was shut and empty, most lights were off to save power and no one else seemed to be using the area. Even the occasional tables were free of the typical complimentary Portbooks and literature, just empty chairs and walls of nondescript silvers, beige and pale pinks broken by a few tinted windscreens and mirrors.
Life was hectic and there was too much to be done to wait around. A spreadsheet and teleconference on her mobile would be most useful, but Liang discovered she must have found the only remaining spot in London that VersioGlobal's new wireless infrastructure wasn't working in. Roaming the area hoping for a sufficient signal, Liang tried not to notice how terribly quiet and lonely this area felt. She paid more a month than her solar car cost outright for a forty by ninety foot flat, yet these major medical co-ops often had more space than they knew what to do with. This area was larger than any space she'd ever lived in.
Nothing she could do, it was just that any line of thought was better than thinking of her purpose in seeing a doctor: to learn whether the cyst needed operating. Worse was dwelling on how physically violated the idea of such an operation made her feel, beneficial as it may be.
"Hello."
Liang was startled by the voice, looking almost to the someone she had a shadowy idea from the corner of her eye was sitting in a far corner. Refocusing on the signal meter of the connectivity app, she moved a little closer in courtesy as she replied, "Hello. Where are we?" she wondered for entering the location into the connectivity app.
"It's Powell Estates."
"Ah it used to be estates," Liang acknowledged the irrelevant bit of history as making conversation and took an absent look into the shut reception desk area.
"I don't understand. There: it's his picture, look."
A large framed photo on the wall of the reception area caught her eye and she looked it over. A young, thin white English man with low thin brows, young putty skin on his long forehead and old eyes. "Isn't he young for a doctor?"
"Isn't he? Fancy 'em older, me, just, don't tell him. Oh he's so beautiful. He has his pick, though. But I always wait here for him."
"Your boyfriend?" Liang gathered from the sound of it.
"He's much more than that. I hope mum will be back soon. Or anyone. I've been waiting so long."
"I'm waiting for a doctor too. And I can't seem to find a good signal," Liang tried to further conversation. "They promised dead spots were a thing of the past."
"You could grow old waiting for a doctor. You could die."
A few foot rectangular mirror was visible on the near side wall of the open small lavatory and she saw in the mirror what was certainly the young English lady with the sweetly full voice and quaint accent. Warm yellow tan, heavy old fashioned external make up, long straight hair dyed blond in the old style; made up in keeping with the style she dressed, in her antique casual jacket of pink. But in the woman's staring eyes Liang felt more than saw a painful stab of loneliness.
Reflexively, Liang diverted her eyes to her mobile. Before her eyes, the signal app flashing, 'Bad reception' flashed instead, 'Bad Wolf'.
"Why does it hurt?"
The voice wasn't coming from the lavatory. Heart nearly seizing in her chest, Liang looked to the mirror and saw no one. Only then she realised there had been no one in the lavatory. Looking to the corner where she'd heard the woman's voice, she again saw no one and her skin froze. Except the warmth of a hand, which then touched hers. And that was all: Liang looked down to her empty hand then turned in fright.
"Don't wait."
The voice, the same voice was at her other shoulder. Liang turned and again no one was there. Just the fading scent of roses.
Dropping her mobile, Liang ran from the waiting area, down the stairs not waiting for a lift and straight outside.
It was some several minutes at the least before Liang had a solid sense where she was and didn't have a vaguely upset stomach. Security were probably wondering why she was loitering about in the landscaped grounds. Straight to her new solar vehicle then. Once in the seat and automatically harnessed, she felt much more composed and even considered returning to the office. Then she saw the mobile she had dropped in the waiting area laying on the passenger seat just as though she had left it there.
"Home," Liang instructed.
The vehicle backed up to drive home, apparently the same time as another vehicle behind. The proximity alert sounded and the vehicle stopped to instruct the other with an external speaker, "Please yield."
"Yielding," the other vehicle announced.
Just as Liang dropped her head back in annoyance at the delay, the vehicle rocked as though it were being shoved back. The vehicle struck something. The damage alert sounded. As the vehicle downloaded the identification from the other vehicle and alerted the allocated legal firm, insurance firm, rescue services and then filed the accident report with police, Liang searched for an override for the harness. A man appeared at her door and once she found the security override to allow the window to be lowered and lowered it, the man knelt down.
"Our vehicles seem to have... struck one another," the man said, sounding as surprised as she.
This didn't happen. A damage case might bring years of debt and she still had thirty three years to pay off her education. What was she to do? "I'm so sorry, I didn't look, it must be my fault." That was what she then realised one was never to do: admit to any guilt.
"It must?" the man seemed more surprised at that than the accident. "I'm sorry, are you all right?"
He had to help her to find the buried commands to override the harness control and let her get out of her vehicle. Once she was out, he looked up to her and up: she had to be close to two feet taller than himself. Just his luck. But he was still in amazement at her admission of guilt. Whether it was accurate or not he had no idea, since he'd literally never heard of a vehicular accident occurring in a parking lot. It was her candour that impressed and he finally introduced himself with a warm handclasp. Her hands were still cold and shaking. "Lee Roing, accounts assistant. Are you a patient?"
"I was to see a doctor," Liang explained.
"Seeing our vehicles will be busy a while," Lee waved off the vehicles, "I could cover your transportation home or anywhere you need to go. I can list a deduction," he pitched the offer as sensibly as possible and gestured to the public transport stop nearby.
She was very surprised by the offer. He was very surprised she accepted.
"You seem a little shaken, if you don't mind my saying," Lee started conversation as they started their walk.
"It wasn't the accident," Liang found herself rattling off, "I had a fright. In there. You'll think I need a psychiatrist."
Lee stopped. "You weren't seeing Doctor Smith?"
"No, Pughn," Liang explained. "It was in a common waiting area."
"By Doctor Smith's," Lee predicted.
"A young man?"
"I couldn't say; I've never seen him, he never seems to be in," Lee replied. "It must be nice, a life on the links."
"It was closed," Liang noted, also noticing she found his smile sweet. "Why?"
"Supposedly the place is haunted by a ghost," Lee was almost embarrassed to say. "Everyone at the office seems to have a story. We blame odd things around the office on the ghost. Many people have actually ran from there, some said they hear footsteps pacing the floor, or a woman's voice, or feel a touch, or even see someone in the mirror. I haven't, but a few times I've been alone in the office, I've had a strong sense of someone being over my shoulder and one time I distinctly smelled something like perfume when there was nobody around."
"Roses."
"Yes," Lee admitted, feeling a bit of a chill. "You...?"
"All of those things. They just happened," Liang put a shaking hand to her chest. "It was so terrible. I could describe her face. A young lady, blond English woman, short, she was dressed in pink, right out of the turn of the century. Lost, lonely, heartbroken, it was so vivid. Hauntings? Ghosts? Mysterious voices, perfume? I never believed in any of those old mythical stories."
"Me neither," Lee agreed. They fell in step and he was relieved to have something to talk about. More, he felt for her distress and was pleased, if surprised, to actually be able to offer her some comfort through their conversation, or so it seemed. "A young blond English woman in pink sounds similar to what we've heard before. It's almost a local legend around here."
"A local legend?" Liang was surprised.
"As I've heard it," Lee related, "there's a woman in pink who was in love with a doctor and supposedly haunts that area up there: the waiting area, the offices, even the lavatory, supposedly."
"Does anyone know who it's supposed to be?" Liang wondered, the presence of the distinct individual still perfectly fresh in her mind, frightening yet moving.
"No," Lee admitted. "Yasmeen, a secretary, is researching the place to build up a story on her vlog. There used to be one of those dreadful ugly council estates there. I'm not boring you?"
"Please, no," Liang urged, "it's helping me to convince myself I might not be going crazy. I'd like to hear more about it."
"The janitor," Lee offered, "claims there's a woman in pink that makes her presence known to him every night by turning lights on for him, he claims, as he does his rounds. Supposedly he talks to her as he works because, he says, she's a 'lonely spirit'. Most are pretty sure he's an old drunk who talks to himself. A patient told me about seeing a woman in pink and when she tried taking a closer look, it disappeared. Sounds like you have a story too," he prompted her.
"I suppose I have," Liang was almost as surprised at that as she was at the, well, she supposed it was a haunting. "That up in there and my vehicle hitting itself into yours, I don't know what to think. Nothing ever happens to me. Ever."
"You could talk to me about it," Lee offered. "I won't think you're crazy." And he asked, "Do you like Thai food?"
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Fin
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