And Then Again (short story)

And Then Again
Main character(s):	Bernard
Featuring:	Seventh Doctor, Bernice
Main enemy:	The Company, Robin
Main setting:	Alternate timeline
Key crew
Writer:	Rob Shearman
Release details
Part of:	A Life of Surprises
Release date:	4 October 2002
Bernice Summerfield short stories
← Previous	The All-Seeing Eye
Next →	Cuckoo
Treasury
← Previous	The Evacuation of Bernice Summerfield Considered as a Short Film by Terry Gilliam
Next →	Misplaced Spring

And Then Again was the twelfth story in the Bernice Summerfield anthology A Life of Surprises. It was written by Rob Shearman.

Summary

Bernard Stanley Summerfield and Robin are working for the Company. One day a man gives him a blue box and he wonders what it is.

Plot

Unhappy couple Benny and Robin wake up on separate sides of their bed as usual and work out whose turn it is to make the coffee. Benny, who thinks of himself by that name despite everybody calling him Bernard, shaves his face and heads to work at the Company where the Doctor, having taken over the lunch trolley, gives him a small blue box. Calling him by his preferred name, the Doctor tells him to open it once its door has appeared and leaves.

Benny remembers about the box after getting home from work and notices that it now has a door. Robin examines it, finding it empty, and they go to bed. Robin ends up leaving Benny because of him always proposing to her at the same time on each of her birthdays and he realises that he does indeed love her only too late. Four years later, the Doctor takes over the lunch trolley again and Benny asks him for a blue box instead of a jam doughnut, having lost the other one. The Doctor tells him that there are no second chances and he cries at the state of his life.

The Doctor sends Benny home, where he finds the blue box again. It is hot to the touch and becomes the size of a wardrobe. Benny enters and meets Bernice, touching her hand and becoming one with her. He realises that he was always supposed to be Bernice and remembers everything that she has done and seen. The two merge completely and the TARDIS dematerialises, taking Benny Summerfield on a new adventure.

Characters

• Bernard Summerfield
• Robin
• Seventh Doctor
• Bernice Summerfield

Worldbuilding

• 7 is not divisible by 2.
• Bernard Summerfield is an accountant.
• Phyllis always gives Benny a jam doughnut. She dies or retires.
• Rhonda takes over from Phyllis.

Notes

• This was later one of the eight stories collected in Treasury.
• This is a rare example of a story on Big Finish’s Bernice Summerfield range that actually features what is unambiguously the Doctor. Generally, the range didn’t feature or even directly refer to him, as an homage to the fact that original Virgin books (and Big Finish themselves for their first year) had to write around trademarks since they lost the Doctor Who license. However, in slightly keeping with this, he is never referred to by name.

Continuity

to be added