Man with two faces
Temporal Hiking
"Aaaahh..." the Doctor groaned as he sat up from the floor "another happy landing"
Across the TARDIS the two Ponds were also beginning to come to "what was that?" Rory moaned accusingly
"Minor operational function fluctuation" he blustered as his ears popped
"That means he hurt the TARDIS' feelings so she threw a tantrum" River, who miraculously was still on her feet, told him knowingly.
The Doctor hopped to his feet, straightening his bow-tie and vaguely registering the condescending look he was getting as he helped Rory to pull Amy to her feet
"Right, unintentional landing but never mind, think of it as the TARDIS on shuffle" he began zooming about the console prodding controls and stroking things "anyone for a butchers?"
"Wait" said Amy, stepping forward "don't we need to check the atmosphere's safe and all that first?"
"Good idea, Pond, won't be a minute" the doctor scurried off down the walkway and opened the door. He took a long breath through his nose and shouted "smells weird... never mind" he shot the crew a thumbs up, twirled around on the spot and marched out of the door.
The Ponds turned to River Song who shrugged, smiled and followed him.
A barren moor met them when they left the safety of the TARDIS, thick brush on the ground and hardy grasses. The doctor was a little further uphill climbing onto a great pile of rocks. River had caught up and was also climbing. A strong wind was whipping at the Doctor's clothes as he reached the top and stood into the wind yelling "brilliant!"
Rory gestured to follow him but Amy grabbed his arm pulling him back
"Dress!" she yelled at him, he looked back confused, cupping his ear
She gestured at the short summer dress she was wearing and his eyes registered cognition. He pointed at the TARDIS and mimed putting some trousers on. She raised her eyebrow and trudged back into the time ship.
When she returned from the TARDIS wardrobe in a pair of jeans and a thick woollen jacket the Doctor's voice filtered through from the console room "Brilliant! Bracing!" his eyes were alight "lots of lovely Bs" his eyes alighted on Amy emerging through one of the physically impossible corridors "great isn't it?" he grinned
"Lovely" she replied sarcastically "but where are we?"
"Well that's another brilliant thing, I don't know" he looked like a kid trying to solve a jigsaw "it looks like English moorland, but we're not in England, the TARDIS would know"
River sat as always at the back, the woman of action wasn't used to this slow pace of progress and it showed. Obviously she left the deliberating up to the Doctor.
"Maybe we could... no never mind... stupid Doctor! Stupid!"
"Maybe it's a time eddy" River suggested, bored.
"Time eddy... no, couldn't be... hang on, wait! Time eddy! River, you're brilliant!"
"It was only a guess"
"No it's not a time eddy but you've given me an idea"
"Ok, what's going on?" Rory said, face contorted in confusion
"We've crossed a time stream... or someone's crossed ours, it's happened to me before but there were time lords back then, they could govern how it all worked."
He looked around at three faces first Rory, Amy then River and in those faces he saw utter bewilderment, delight and nostalgia respectively.
"See, when the time lords went to war, they left behind some last minute precautions; they knew they might not return so they prepared the universe for temporal accidents like this. In the old days they'd keep an eye on you, make sure you didn't kill your grandfather, things like that but now there's no one to do that so we've triggered a time lord containment bubble."
Amy piped up "ok, let's start from 'containment bubble' but slowly... in English"
"Think of it as a quarantine ward, it protects the universe from a sudden outbreak of disease; a paradox. Doctors and nurses can go in and out but the patients are stuck inside until they're treated."
"Right, so we're stuck here until we're treated... for what, time flu?"
"Well no, nothing like that, but if it helps..."
River stifled a laugh while the doctor's two companions looked at him blankly.
"Ok, Ponds. Step one; find the paradox, remember it could be an older Amy, a Rory anomaly... I bet it's something to do with you" he shot River a disapproving look, she responded with a look of angelic innocence which made them both laugh.
"We're locked in quarantine... let's go and pick the locks"
For the second time that day, the TARDIS crew left the safety of the doctor's time ship and venture out into the pseudo- countryside, the wind whipped at them throwing the doctor's hair around in flapping motions
The Ponds followed behind he and River, who were conspicuously close, the wind blew hard into their faces making a deafening roaring in their ears that all but incapacitated them, their faces were beaten pink and raw by the savage gale and it was all they could do to just keep moving forwards.
The ground was uneven, sucking bogs grabbed at the group's feet. Several times either Amy or Rory would get a foot stuck and have to help one another out. Somehow up ahead, the doctor and River, who was wearing high heeled boots, carried on without pause.
After what seemed like days but could have been less than an hour, the Doctor turned to his companions, they saw him cup his hands to his mouth and point but his words were whipped away by the deafening gale. They followed the doctor into a small opening in the rocky ground where they were sheltered from the wind.
"What is it?" demanded a flustered Amy, her hair was everywhere and she was quite easily the grumpiest person in the group.
"there's something wrong with the wind" the doctor yelled "River's noticed it too, no matter which way you face it's always blowing directly into your face" he reached up to flatten his fringe down.
"That's all you've got?" Amy bellowed "all this hiking and that's it?"
"Rory control your Scottish wife" the Doctor said
Amy shot him a look that read death itself and the man who had faced down the whole universe countless times and struck fear into emotionless hearts looked worried.
"Basically what this means is that this enclosed environment is repeating itself, it's not actually that big which means it's only a very primitive time lord construct. Basically through a myriad of clever ideas in my head this tells me that the control centre is just over here"
With this, the time lord pressed his hand against the rock they were crouched behind, with a swish, it opened and instead of wind whipped moorland beyond it they saw a short metallic corridor.
"Geronimo"