The Gift (audio story)

 was the third story in the audio anthology Doom Coalition 2, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Marc Platt and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, Nicola Walker as Liv Chenka and Hattie Morahan as Helen Sinclair.

Publisher's summary
The TARDIS deposits its crew on Earth in San Francisco, 1906. There they find an actor-manager desperate to stage his definitive production of King Lear. But a real storm is headed their way when he becomes the possessor of a mysterious psychic 'Gift' which is hungry for power and intent on wreaking havoc and destruction. But exposure to so much psychic activity has the Doctor becoming increasingly erratic. Can he battle his demons and save the world?

Plot
The Doctor uses the TARDIS to follow Caleera's trajectory when the console catches fire. After Liv and Helen extinguish it, the TARDIS materialises but without light or power.

On the streets of San Francisco, Sam Sonora preaches the end of days and how he and every other person is a sinner for whom retribution would soon be coming.

By light of a candle held by Helen, feeling guilty for convincing him to free Caleera, the Doctor searches for a crank handle to manually open the TARDIS doors. Once the doors are open, he hears music that Liv and Helen cannot and leaves to get a haircut despite Liv telling him that he needs rest.

Ethel Halliday poorly rehearsals her role as Cordelia for Mr McLean's production of King Lear and is scolded by him for it. She tells him that her fellow cast-members will not be showing up for rehearsal unless they are paid, which Mr McLean blames on the presence of the opera in the city, and that the manager of the Palace Hotel has kicked him out.

The Doctor wanders the city, looking for a barbershop, and Liv and Helen are looking for him. Finding a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle, Helen finds that it is 17 April, 1906. Liv wonders if Caleera is here.

Mr McLean goes to see Mr Deluca at a grillroom and is invited by Pepé Gonzalez to sit with him whilst he waits. Gonzalez offers to finance Mr McLean, who politely declines before Gonzalez magically pours coins out of his own hands. The flabbergasted Mr McLean is then taken to meet Mr Deluca, with Gonzalez telling him to remember his offer.

The Doctor goes to a laundry and asks the man there for a haircut, telling him that he has a letter of commendation from President Roosevelt. Liv and Helen continue looking for him and hear barking dogs which seem to remind Helen of an event occurring in San Francisco in 1906.

Mr Deluca declines to continue financing Mr McLean due to the lack of sales. Ethel enters, having followed Mr McLean, and runs away upon seeing that Mr McLean is being tortured.

Liv and Helen decide to return to the TARDIS when they hear a strange noise, the street going "all echoey" and a horse being spooked. Ethel runs up to them asking for help, chased by Tony, and is saved by Gonzalez who fires a torrent of silver coins at him. The Doctor senses a psychic tremor and meets Sam Sonora, who is dealing with his barking dog and says that it is because it is the end of the world.

Gonzalez offers Mr McLean his powers, which he accepts despite Ethel's protestations. Liv wonders if the sound that she and Helen heard, which they heard again when the coins were flying, is connected to what the Doctor heard.

As the Doctor left the laundry with his haircut only half-done, Sam cuts the rest of it.

To be completed.

Cast

 * The Doctor - Paul McGann
 * Liv Chenka - Nicola Walker
 * Helen Sinclair - Hattie Morahan
 * Caleera - Emma Cunniffe
 * Charles Virgil McLean - James Jordan
 * Pepé Gonzalez - Paul Marc Davis
 * Sam Sonora - Cory English
 * Ethel Halliday - Laura Harding
 * Aldo Deluca - Enzo Squillino Jnr

Continuity

 * The Doctor recalls being "dead and born" in San Francisco 93 years from now. (TV: Doctor Who)
 * The Doctor notes that he will die again (TV: The Night of the Doctor) and believes that he will one day "run out of deaths". (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
 * The Doctor mentions the music of the spheres. (TV: Music of the Spheres)
 * Helen asks the Doctor if he is suffering from "the headaches again". (AUDIO: Beachhead)
 * The Doctor got a haircut in San Francisco once before, in 1997. (PROSE: Vampire Science)
 * The Seventh Doctor had briefly been in San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake. (PROSE: All-Consuming Fire; AUDIO: All-Consuming Fire)
 * The Doctor has to use the crank handle to open the TARDIS' doors. (TV: Death to the Daleks)
 * The Doctor mentions encountering morgrahounds. (AUDIO: The Galileo Trap)