‘Oscar?’ Nick was giving the writer a confused look, but the writer was refusing to meet his eye. The Doctor stepped forward, drawing everyone’s attention to himself, which had been his intention. He noted the look of relief on Wilde’s face when the writer was given somewhere valid to look.

‘How did it happen, Oscar?’ the Time Lord asked, keeping his gaze focused on the tall Irishman. Alf was still standing behind him, but he could feel the tension and adrenaline radiating off her and knew she was prepared to jump forward and attack if she felt a need to. The Doctor was certain there would be no need. ‘How were you made this offer? Was it through the nonexistent Basil Hallward? Did somebody else talk to you?’

‘Not exactly,’ Wilde replied in a mildly puzzled tone. ‘It’s merely a voice… it speaks in my dreams.’

‘What does the voice want? What does it tell you?’ The Doctor attempted to keep his own voice in a soothing rumble. He noticed Nick looking between himself and Oscar as if the blonde were seated at a tennis match.

‘It simply wants me to write,’ Oscar sighed. ‘It wants me to be… great again.’

‘So somebody else is doing all this,’ Alf muttered to herself behind the Doctor.

‘Yes, Alf,’ the Doctor replied without so much as a hint of smug “I told you so” in his voice. ‘Oscar’s merely a pawn. It’s not his fault.’ He gave Wilde a kindly look. ‘And now we can find a way to stop it.’

‘But why must it be stopped?’ Oscar answered. ‘It only wants me -’

‘To find your creativity again,’ another voice joined the conversation. The others all spun around, hunting for the voice. The Doctor’s gaze immediately went to the portrait, seated on the table by the chaise longue.

‘Nice of you to show yourself,’ the Doctor said coldly. Nick looked at the portrait and jumped off the chaise, backing away to stand beside the Doctor. Alf came forward, joining them both; Oscar also stood up but went closer to the picture, as if to investigate how the voice was emanating from it. ‘Oscar, please stay away from there.’

‘No need for him to do so, Doctor,’ the cool, androgynous voice emanating from the portrait replied. The lips of the painted face of Oscar Wilde might or might not have been moving; it was impossible to tell. ‘I can give him everything he’s ever wanted.’

‘By giving him a portrait of himself in 1895?’ the Doctor mocked. ‘Oh yes, I can see how harping on the past will indeed make him want to do anything you say.’

‘He - it - hasn’t made me do anything,’ Wilde said, looking up at the Doctor. He remained standing by the portrait. ‘The voice has only ever encouraged me to write, to regain what I’ve lost.’

‘Yes,’ the voice sighed. ‘I gave him this portrait as a present, as a reminder of what he once was and what he will be again, if only we work together. I would never make him do anything he wouldn’t want to do; I merely encourage him to create again as he once did. So much untapped potential, Doctor. So much imaginative energy. How could you wish to waste that?’




On the outside, the Doctor was doing his damnedest to convey the impression that he was in control. As Oscar had put it, in matters of importance, style - not substance - is the essential.

But on the inside, the Doctor’s mind was churning. The sudden revelation of their opponent before he had determined its full nature put him on the back foot, and that placed them all in deadly peril.

He cast his mind back to the somewhat esoteric lessons he’d received on Gallifrey, and his experiences since. Not the Toymaker, he thought, wrong modus operandi. The Gods of Ragnarok? Too much active involvement and they normally operate as a group. One of the Old Ones? No, no, no…




‘It isn’t wasted if Oscar chooses not to use it,’ replied the Doctor, even as he frantically reviewed those ancient powers of which he knew. ‘You see, Oscar? This… creature isn’t interested in you at all; all it wants is your creativity. But what for, eh? What for?’

‘For nothing more than entertainment, to make the world a more pleasing place in which to live,’ the voice piped. ‘Come now, Oscar, isn’t an inordinate passion for pleasure the secret for remaining young? That is what the brute Queensberry and the others stole from you - your passion and your youth!’

‘No,’ said the writer, shaking his head, ‘it wasn’t Queensberry. It was never Queensberry. It was an ill-fated and most lamentable friendship that brought me ruin and public infamy. But it was my own choice, my mistake, a combination of absolute idiocy and vulgar bravado. Nobody, great or small, can be ruined save by his own hand.’

‘And nobody, surely, can be saved by any other means,’ came the voice, now sounding stronger and more like Wilde. ‘And in your hand, what weapon is mightier than the pen?’

‘The arrangement, Oscar, if I do say so myself, seems very one-sided,’ the Doctor countered, not liking the path the exchange was taking. ‘What do you get out of it? A man so shunned by his fellows could never hope to regain what he has lost. You’ll have gained nothing!’

‘But that’s it, Doctor,’ replied the writer, seeming to shrug off the depressed state his introspection had caused. ‘I won’t be shunned! I am promised that I can write myself out of this situation; rewrite my history to make it better and to live in it! I won’t be tried, I won’t be imprisoned and I won’t be forced to live in exile - it will all be made better!’

‘But you can’t rewrite history!’ cried the Doctor, ‘Not one line! Oscar, one last appeal: what you are trying to do is utterly impossible. I know! Believe me, I know!’

‘No Doctor,’ the writer replied, ‘the one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it. Anybody can make history - only a great man can write it!’

‘Any endeavour to rewrite history is fraught with peril, Oscar. You assume you can change things to suit yourself, but every change will lead to others and eventually you will not recognise the world!’ The Doctor paused, thinking that explaining the butterfly effect would be too much in this case; it was unlikely that Oscar would believe it. So what instead? Of course; Shakespeare: ‘“If you can look into the seeds of time, and say which grain will grow and which will not, speak then to me.” Each small change is a seed of time, Oscar, and you cannot tell which ones will grow, and you cannot tell how they will grow! Those you think will change your life for the better may be the ones that don’t grow at all!’

‘He speaks nonsense, Oscar!’ the voice asserted.




Get on with it, Doctor!

Alf stared hard at the painted face of the writer, wishing she could break into this conversation somehow and make Oscar Wilde see reason. But she didn’t have a place in it; she didn’t have the skills or the knowledge that would help her out with this particular problem. She had no idea what would make Wilde listen to them. She needed to do something; all this tense waiting was driving her crazy.

But she looked again at the Doctor and forced herself to hold back and listen. He’d been right so far this whole time, and one thing she knew about him for sure; he was always a talker, and she had the feeling only words would work with Wilde. She would wait and see what happened. And if the Doctor needed her help… she’d help him.