"THIS EDGE OF MIDNIGHT"

Text © VIETNAMESE WALLFLOWERS 1997 & 1998

The TARDIS lurched violently.

A moment elapsed but eventually the Police Box reinstated itself in the centre of London’s nervous system.

A sudden push and one of the battered doors slowly opened. The Doctor stepped forth, looked down the street and then quickly headed in the opposite direction.

Estella aimlessly meandered after him.

"What are you looking for?" She said, cupping her hands together.

"I’m looking for a man." The Doctor said, turning a corner.

Estella smirked.

"Well, there’s plenty of them about." She smiled.

He paused and turned to face her, an all consuming scowl obscuring his features.

"A specific man." He said, the words sounding unfamiliar through the fog of his accent. "A man called John Constantine."

Estella waved her hands in a winding up gesture.

"And you know this Constantine?"

The Doctor frown deepened by several fathoms.

"I knew one of his colleagues." The Doctor replied, trying to shroud his lame excuse in mystery.

"And he was?"

"A powerful practitioner of magic. I think he was called Mister E or something."

Estella yawned.

"Mister E, how original, besides I could have done some bloody conjuring tricks for you if you’d only asked."

The doorway of Ed’s Easy Diner dawned.

"He’ll be here soon." The Doctor said adamantly.

Two or three hours and numerous cups of black coffee passed until a dishevelled thirty-something with dirt coloured blonde hair and a trenchcoat to match sluggishly entered the room.

He paused, his right hand cupping a lighter as he popped a Silk Cut cigarette in his mouth.

The Doctor turned, almost falling from his seat in a rather uncomical manner.

"You," He said, his finger pointing in the man’s direction. "You’re John Constantine."

The Doctor made his way across the room.

"Jesus, where’d you come from?" Constantine spluttered.

The Doctor smiled.

"Here and there." He replied as Constantine sat himself down a few seats away from Estella.

"So what can I do for you?" He asked, stirring a milky cup of tea with a plastic spoon.

"I need help." The errant Time Lord stated.

Constantine arched an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I noticed." He replied.

The comment didn’t seem to register and if it did the Doctor never allowed it to show.

"It’s about the Babelogue." He said, strategically.

Constantine jerked his head up and nearly choked on his tea.

Feet against tiles and Estella moved over to join them.

"So when’s the wedding?" She asked, her ever-present smirk growing.

The Doctor looked at her as if she had just interrupted an incredible important conversation, which in fact she had.

"Well, you both seem equal in the badly dressed stakes so I figured you’d be getting to know each other a tad better very shortly."

Constantine waved his cigarette in her direction.

"She with you?" He asked.

The Doctor nodded slowly.

"I get lumbered with birds like that sometimes." Constantine said, almost to himself. " ’Spose I should introduce you to Doctor Occult if it’s the Babelogue you’re after."

He stood up and dropped a handful of change across the unhygienic counter.

The Doctor nodded and the three of them made their way to the exit.

"Some island near Nicaragua got firebombed." Marly mused, flicking through the morning’s paper. "They saw that Poison Ivy had something to do with it."
Doctor Occult’s cold eyes cold almost have been looking through her.

"Apparently she wiped out most of the company who blasted it as an act of revenge." She continued. "So the Batman sticks her in Arkham only for her to escape this morning."

Doctor Occult remained quiet and it occurred to Marly that he was looking through her.

"So how are the Astral Planes been recently?" She said, continuing her one sided argument.

Finally he looked up at her.

"As always they are equally balanced between order and disorder." He replied, his voice a calm, monotone whisper.

"And Rose?"

The form in the chair blurred, a strange distortion of light filled Marly’s eyes and she soon found herself looking at a slender woman, her hair cut in a neat, raven black bob and the faintest smell of perfume.

"I’m fine." She paused. "Thank you, Marly."

Marly sighed and returned to her newspaper.

"I don’t think I’ll ever get use to you two doing that." She said, more to herself than anyone else.

The serene quiet was disrupted by the sound of footsteps.

Constantine opened the office door, two mismatched strangers behind him.

Instantly Rose sensed the disruption of the primary stranger’s karma.

She glided from her seat, passed Constantine and stood facing the cold-eyed man, the palm of her hand dancing against the skin of his cheek.

"You’re lost." She muttered quietly. "Your feminine half…your reason has been snatched from you."

Constantine smirked as the Doctor faked mock amazement.

"Really?" He said, his voice drenched with the venom of sarcasm. "I suppose you figured my closet homosexuality out as well, did you?"
The words didn’t even touch her.

"It mends." She whispered to him. "I lost myself too…once."

The light blurred again and Doctor Occult was sitting in the chair at the other end of the room, looking out from under the peak of his hat.

"What brings you here, Constantine?" He asked.

John smiled, the stubble on his chin standing out. He waved an unlit cigarette in the Doctor’s direction.

"These people are looking for the Babelogue." He remarked, holding his lighter up to the cigarette.

Once again Occult looked towards the strange Doctor and his companion.

His voice was compassionate yet also distant.

"You believe the Babelogue can reunite your two separate halves?" He asked.

The Doctor remained unshaken.

"Well that was the general idea." He replied in his muffled Mancunian accent.

A dark figure stepped from the shadows of the corner of the room, another face with dull, white eyes and another trenchcoat.

"Fuckin’ hell," Constantine smirked. "This is turning into a right little cosy meeting."
Occult looked towards the latest stranger.

"I do not believe the three of us have been together for some time." He reflected.

The room dulled to a silence, the ceiling of the room clouding with cigarette smoke.

Estella leant over the desk till she had Marly’s attention.

"Are we the only sane ones here?" She whispered.

Marly turned, her grin broad like Alice’s Cheshire Cat and in one simple gesture she nodded.

The parallel TARDIS drifted out across the seas of time and space.

Inside the tall figure of the other Doctor sat in a chair of high Gothic origins, contemplating both her past and her future.

The control panels hummed reverently, as if in respect of her contemplation and eventually she rose from the old Gothic armchair and gracefully made her way to the secondary control panel and opened the gaudy plastic flip top from a record player.

Pulling the needle upwards and placing a round lump of vinyl onto the turntable the deep saxophone of Courtney Pine dripped out into the room, filling every room with it’s sound.

Numerous images leapt to life as she stood, hands upon hips, high above the control panel, gazing from one screen to the next until finally something caught her eye.

The Babelogue.

Cross referencing several of Terra’s different mythologies she came up with a relatively comprehensive account of the angel Ariel’s life and death, it’s ashes finally finding peace in an urn fashioned from the bricks of the Tower of Babel.

Suddenly her eyes fixed upon one solitary fact and she let out a gasp.

"It’ll kill us both." She whispered to herself and hurried over to the other side of the room.

The Doctor had the look of a man who had waited for far too long.

"So do any of you actually know where I can find it?" He asked, seated on the edge of the desk.

The Phantom Stranger’s piercing eyes fixed grimly on the Time Lord.

"The place where the Babelogue is located is beyond the jurisdictions of any of us, Doctor." He said, his voice a cold authority in the crowded room.

The Doctor’s face crumpled into a frown.

"So where is it?" He reiterated.

The Stranger paused and finally continued.

"The Babelogue is located deep within the Garden of Eden." He said, calmly.

"Christ’s sake," The Doctor said, both his form and voice rising. "Can’t anything be simple for once? I mean, why is everyone so concerned with playing these stupid games?"
Estella punched him in the arm, scowling like a mother at her child.

"Calm down, will ya." She whispered. "You’ve got your little time doodar, I’m sure we can find it in that."
He looked at her, still frowning.

"We’re not talking about mortal realms here, we’re talking about the ethereal Garden of Eden as stated in the Holy sodding book, you can’t expect the TARDIS to find the birth place of creation if some deity in all it’s infinite wisdom has chose to hide it, it’d be too much of a risk." He stated, placing his palms upon her shoulders.

She shrugged away from his grasp.

"Control yourself, Doctor." The Phantom Stranger warned, his voice as stern as Estella remembered her father’s had been.

"I can take you to Queen Titania and King Oberon of the Fair Folk." Doctor Occult said, searching for a reaction in the Stranger’s face. "They will have the key and the doorway that will lead you to Eden, but they will ask a favour of you."

The Doctor looked at him.

"Don’t suppose I have much choice do I?" He said, half to himself.

Within a quarter of an hour Occult, Estella and the errant Time Lord were deep within Faerie.

It was totally unlike anything the Doctor had seen.

Fields of unpolluted green grass and skies of the lightest blue.

Estella, at first hesitant, was now leaping through the fields yet still the Doctor held back.

"Don’t be alarmed." Whispered a kind voice from behind his shoulder.

He turned and found himself looking at the defiant woman who had greeted him in the office.

"Where’s Occult?" He demanded.

Rose smiled gently as she slowly began to walk.

"Doctor Occult is an aspect of me and I of him." She paused and looked him in the eye. "My name’s Rose by the way."

She began walking again, onwards towards a large crystal city.

"I am travel in two aspects so as to help people with psychological problems and of course, to make it easier when walking through the more subtle realms." She paused. "Where as the Doctor here is meant to be but one, I have no sexual imperative."

"I think know would be a good time for us to meet your little friends." The Doctor muttered.

The reverse TARDIS, trapped between time and space; between infinity and hyperspace shuddered violently.

Whatever was causing the attack was not registering on the TARDIS scanners.

The female Doctor attempted to keep her balance but failed.

Not since her encounter with Sutekh had her TARDIS been assailed by such powerful psychic forces.

Eventually she managed to stabilise the ancient time/space machine and the monitors flickered with images of hideous, bat-winged monstrosities, clambering across the fading blue outside walls.

Talons the size of human heads clawing through the artificial wood, a hideous howling emerging from their mutilated lungs.

She attempted to materialise the machine in the nearest safe place yet the demonic hybrids had seized control of it’s mass.

She was alone in a godless vacuum.

High above normal and even Gallifreyan reality, a woman strode through the Garden of Eden.

Her hair was a flowing stream of fiery red and her clothes made of leaves and other floral entities.

She paused and bent down to converse with one of her half-plant, half-animal hybrids, patting it affectionately.

Behind her the angel’s urn shuddered slightly.

A man watched on as the three travellers entered, his hair the colour of sand and his age indefinable.

A wicked grin grew across his mouth and he rubbed his hands together.

The time would be soon, his daughter would return to her rightful place.

"Who would dare disrupt the king of the Fair Folk?" Oberon boomed.

His eyes had settle on a dangerous animal like creature.

" ’Tis the Lady Rose, my Lord." Robin Goodfellow replied, his voice an impish squeak.

"Then by all means grant her entrance." Queen Titania smiled.

"She brings visitors, Lady." Goodfellow grinned, running from the throne room.

Oberon glared at Titania.

"You dare to make a jest of my authority?" He snapped.

The Queen smiled dangerously.

"I’m afraid, dear Oberon that my sense of humour differs some what from your own." She replied.

Goodfellow coughed, just loud enough to catch their attention as the three companions entered behind him.

"Good day to you, Rose." Titania said. "Won’t you please introduce us to your companions."
Rose smiled hesitantly.

"This is the Time Lord known as the Doctor and his young assistant, Miss. Estella Calohan."

Titania arched her eyebrows.

"A daughter of Calohan no less?" She replied coldly. "What is it you require?"

"I require nothing, my Lady but the Time Lord and his companion seek passage to Eden."

"Only recently did I direct a mortal on her way to the Garden." Titania mused. "I shall open the doorway to Eden for you yet you must know that you shall be in my debt, little man."

"I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer." The Doctor said, scratching the back of his head.

Titania smiled again.

"I shall call upon you when I require your services." She said, dangerously. "But for now, yes I shall grant you passage to the Garden."
She produced a key from her crimson robes and stepped down towards an ominous oak door.

Slowly she inserted the key into the lock and the door begrudgingly opened.