KIND OF WOMAN THAT'LL HAUNT YOU
Chapter Seven Once they got back to Stevie's house, Karen showed them inside and got the Doctor and Rose something to drink while Lindsey went to the kitchen and got himself a beer. Karen brought out a couple of cans of Lipton iced tea for the Doctor and Rose. They thanked her and she smiled and left. A few minutes later, Lindsey came into the room. "Stevie needs to lie down for awhile before the concert but she'll be back in a few hours," he said, popping the top of his beer. "She always does this. The woman stays up during the night and sleeps most of the day if there isn't a tour going on. Plus, she needs to rest her hip." "Oh really? Why?" the Doctor said, concerned. Lindsey rolled his eyes. "Her right hip has bothered her for several years now. Went to a chiropractor to have her back worked on and the dumb shit screwed up her hip somehow. She can walk but she has trouble climbing if there are a lot of stairs and it aches on occasion. Hell, despite all that the woman is sixty one and better off than some of the people her age. Sometimes it's hard to believe she and I are in our sixties. Seems surreal." He took a sip of beer and smiled. "Course you don't have to worry about that, being time travelers and all." "Well, I do age chronologically but my body doesn't. It'll stay this way until I regenerate." "I envy ya, man. Wish I could do that. It's a bitch growing old. But playing guitar keeps me young just like dancin' and twirlin' keeps Steves young. And...you're very lucky to be here at this time if you wanna hear our greatest hits. That's all we're playing on this tour. We don't have a new album to support, although we are thinking about making another one after we get done touring. But we figured that since we had so many hits from past albums, we'd give the fans what they really want just this one time. Where are you going after you get done here though?" "Not sure," the Doctor said, shrugging. "We just go to places on the spur of the moment," Rose said. "Ah, couple of free spirits. I like that. I used to be able to do that before I finally settled down and had kids. Steves, on the other hand, will never get married and does go off on the spur of the moment to anywhere she wants. Thank God for cell phones because alot of times I don't know where she's at. She usually doesn't stay here by the way. She has a condo she likes better than this place. She's only back here because we're in LA at the moment." "You're happily married then, I take it," the Doctor said. "Yeah, I love my wife and kids. But...deep down, I still wish Steves and I coulda made it work. I love her just as much as my family. She was there before all of this back when we were two crazy kids living in squalor while we chased our dream. Hell, we could probably fit the place we lived in into Stevie's bedroom now. We had our arguments and our problems but we also had each other and even though we've tried to walk away from one another at several points in our lives, it never works because we have a bond that runs so deep it transcends time. Stevie believes in reincarnation and believes that we've been together through many lives. I'm not entirely sure about that but I like the idea of being in different bodies and bugging the shit outta her over the centuries." He grinned when the Doctor and Rose chuckled at that and took another sip of beer. "But enough about me. What are some of the things you've seen in your travels?" he asked. Stevie lay under the comforter on her bed staring up at the ceiling while her dogs lay beside her, snoring softly while they slept peacefully. She had tried to go to sleep for about the past hour but her thoughts kept drifting back to the Doctor and Rose and her heart ached knowing that they would leave them after tonight and she'd more than likely never see them again. Despite loving her career as a musician, the whole idea of getting inside the TARDIS and seeing other planets and time periods thrilled her and once more she felt a twinge of jealousy that Rose got to travel with such a remarkable man while she stayed grounded on the Earth. "But wait, he's in a time machine," she said aloud. Her dogs woke up at the sound of her voice and she stroked their backs when they came over to her, sniffing at her face. "Sorry, babies, I didn't mean to wake you," she said to them. "Mama was just thinking aloud." The yorkies lay back down beside her and stared at her with their dark eyes. "I was just thinking," she said to them as they wagged their tails, "that he has a time machine and he could take Linds and me for a couple of trips and come back to this exact same time period. I mean, I know he made a mistake when he overshot the Rumours concert but he demonstrated that he can land accurately because he brought us back to this day. I would like to ask him if we can go with him. It's just that...I don't want him to leave after knowing what he is and seeing his ship and that beautiful planet. I wonder if Rose was the same way. Rose saw some of the wonders out there and was hooked from that moment on." She leaned over and smiled at her dogs as they wagged their tales harder. "Not to mention the man is cute for an alien," she said to them. "I can see why Rose would wanna travel with him because if I was thirty years younger I'd be flirting with him like crazy. Damn, he didn't land back in '77 when I was young enough to have a shot at him." She chuckled to herself as her dogs licked her face affectionately. "Well, I'm not gonna be able to get any sleep with the time travelers downstairs," she said to them as she sat up on the side of the bed. "I might as well take a shower and start getting ready for tonight. I'm sure Linds is boring them to death with all the talk of how he's a genius, eh girls?" She patted their backs when they wagged their tales. They jumped down off the bed and followed her into the adjoining bathroom. Both of them sat and stared up at her while she turned on the shower and adjusted the water temperature to her liking. While she did that, she sung Silver Springs to herself. She paused a moment when she got to the lyric, time cast a spell on you so you won't forget me, and thought of the Doctor. "You know what, girls?" she said to her dogs. "I might have to write a song about our new friend. Yup, the old mad songwriter gets another idea for a song, who'd a thunk it?" She frowned when her dogs began to growl and bare their teeth. "What is it?" she said. "Girls, what's wro..." She trailed off when she suddenly got a funny feeling she was being watched. She turned and gasped when she saw a white alien floating behind her. The woman resembled a ghost with long flowing white hair and piercing black eyes. She couldn't see any legs or feet. The bottom of the ghost looked like a ragged dress that swayed to and fro beneath her. Stevie stared up at the female entity, frightened of it, while her dogs growled and barked to drive it away. "Who are you?" Stevie managed to get out. "I am the Ban'shi." "What do you want?" "I want the Time Lord and his TARDIS. I want to free my sisters from their eternal prison. I want this world and I want the universe. But in order to do all that, first I want you!" Stevie gasped. She spun around and screamed as she felt the Ban'shi grab her around the waist from behind. Then she froze and the dogs barked furiously as the Ban'shi melded with Stevie's body and entered her, becoming one with the singer. For a moment, Stevie's eyes became as dark as the Ban'shi's had been and a twisted smile spread over her face. Then, with a groan, she lost consciousness and collapsed to the floor as everyone in the house cried out her name and ran to her aid.
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