Weeping Angels - Psychic Paper

The Doctor frowned. ‘So, so now you can no longer send the letter to yourself, and the entire course of history has changed, with disastrous ramifications for the entire planet.’ He paused to straighten up, lick a finger and hold it in the air. ‘Unless…’ He reached for his wibble-detector, which was still slung around his neck, and began to urgently twiddle with its dials. ‘Oh no. Oh no no no no no…’

‘Unless?’

The Doctor didn’t answer. He was too preoccupied taking a reading with the detector. Then he looked up at Amy with a fearful look in his eyes. ‘Unless the course of history hasn’t been changed.’

‘What?’

‘Which can only mean one thing,’ said the Doctor gravely. ‘ Mark wasn’t the one who wrote that letter!’

‘What? But of course he did,’ said Amy. ‘You said-‘

‘Of course,’ said the Doctor. ‘It was all part of their plan.’

‘Whose plan?’

‘The Weeping Angels.’

‘Sorry, Doctor, you’re saying the Weeping Angels wrote that letter?’ said Rory. ‘The one that Mark received in the year 2011?’

The Doctor nodded. ‘A list of instructions that Mark would think came from his future self, in order to make sure he obeyed them to the letter. In order to make sure that I’d tell him to obey them to the letter.’

‘But hang on, you’re forgetting something. Mark said the letter was written in his own handwriting!’

The Doctor shook his head and turned to Mark. ‘You never showed me the original letter, did you?’

‘No,’ said Mark.

‘I wish you had,’ said the Doctor. ‘Because I would’ve noticed that it was written on psychic paper. Write a letter on psychic paper and the handwriting will look like that of whoever reads it.’

Mark pulled himself to his feet. ‘But the name on the envelope was in my handwriting too.’

‘Psychic envelope,’ said the Doctor. ‘Same material.’

‘And the Weeping Angels got hold of all this how?’ asked Rory. ‘Did they just pop down the nearest psychic newsagents?’

‘The Angels are creatures of perception. To them it would be child’s play.’ The Doctor looked at Mark mournfully, as though he was a condemned man.

***

Touched by an Angel, Chapter 14