Chapter 1: The City on the Edge of Forever
The viewscreen sparked into life. Literally. The Doctor sharply recoiled his arm in pain as he sucked his vaguely burnt thumb. The viewscreen faded once again into the deep depression of dysfunction.
"Ack! I really need to get that fixed. I keep putting it off," The Doctor complained.
The Doctor complained a lot – to himself, to the TARDIS, to the universe in general. It didn't really matter if someone was listening or not. Complaining was one of the many human traditions he'd picked up over the many, many years he'd spent gravitating around Earth, and he rather enjoyed it. You'd never see a Time Lord complaining on Gallifrey when the weather was bad, or when a causality loop had trapped their last pair of socks in the wardrobe. And even better, it just so happened this time, he had one of those many, many, many humans he had encountered on hand to complain to. Brilliant.
"Why would you put it off?" Amy Pond asked, suddenly extremely worried for their imminent survival, "Don't you need that see where you're going?"
"Pond, my dear, do you think that with all of space, time and reality to sift through and manipulate – travelling through the entire universe and all the rubbish hard-to-avoid dimensions in-between - that I chart my course using a screen from a Tesco's self-serve checkout?"
The Doctor was getting to act superior now, which was another wonderful thing which complaining often led to. He found himself casually trotting over to the wooden front doors of the TARDIS, planning to indulge in another human tradition – smugly proving a point.
"I thought that's what that was!"
"Besides, if I need to see where I'm going I can always just poke my head outside."
The Doctor threw the doors of the TARDIS open. Normally this would result in the grandest view in existence – the vast biggy bigness of the spacey thing which all those humans got so impressed by. What greeted him was not normal at all.
The Doctor was instantly thrown back by an enormous burst of energy. A blinding light shone into the TARDIS cabin, but it wasn't any ordinary light. It was charged, destructive, pulsing with unknown and unknowable colours as it tore into the TARDIS' deck, ripping a chunk out of the floor. Fire, hell and fury raged, but only for a brief second before the doors slammed shut once again.
Amy had hit the emergency override on the TARDIS' central control console.
"Doctor!"
For his part, The Doctor looked none the worse for wear, although Amy did think she could hear him audibly sizzling. He was smacking his lips.
"That shockwave. It tasted like... Oh no."
The Doctor leapt to the TARDIS' console, pushing Amy aside as politely, yet haphazardly as possible, as he began fiddling with its arrangement of scavenged knobs and controls.
"Oh, don't worry about me saving your life just now by remembering how to operate the bloody spaceship. No need to thank me."
"You're welcome."
The Doctor was far too concentrated on his readings to pay much attention to Pond. He crushed a beer can jutting out of the analysis console then watched with interest as it slowly re-took its shape.
"Oh no." The Doctor re-iterated. There was a deathly fear in the tone of his voice.
"What is it, what's wrong?"
The Doctor stared at Amy in terror.
"We're not dead."
That last sentence didn't quite process through Amy's brain. It took her a few seconds to comprehend the stupidity of what she was hearing.
"Well, that's good isn't it? Not being dead, I mean?"
"No, it's bad."
"Bad?"
"Horribly."
"When is not being dead horribly bad?"
"When you're standing in the middle of a supernova."
Amy looked back toward the TARDIS doors and the ripped sheets of metal that had once been the floor in front of them. She thought she could hear the faint groan of the TARDIS, gritting its teeth from the damage.
"You just opened the doors on a supernova?" Amy felt like smacking The Doctor upside his head. So she did.
"Yes, and we really, honestly shouldn't be alive. A shockwave burning brighter than five billion suns is expanding out around us and all that happened when I opened those doors was a bit of extra DIY work for this Sunday."
The Doctor continued to mutter to himself, while Amy walked back to the viewscreen and looked behind it, finding a power switch. She flicked it on, then hit the standby button on the front, which brought the screen on in a surprisingly obedient fashion.
"We can't be in a pocket dimension because I vented the Epsilon collectors, and it can't be the Dream Lord since we switched to peppermint tea..." The Doctor looked up, "...And you got the viewscreen working?"
"Tesco screen. But, look - Doctor."
"We're not calling it that."
The Doctor walked around to see what Amy was seeing on the Tesco screen. The fury of the supernova was being diverted, in an image not unlike a rock in the middle of a running stream. Except the rock was a planet. And the stream was enough fire and energy to rip a hole in the universe, flowing around the planet's rim and barely skimming past the TARDIS.
"Doctor, that planet in front. It's shielding us from the shockwave. How is that possible?"
The Doctor's gaze darkened.
"It's not."
The TARDIS slowly materialised on the planet's surface, taking longer to flicker into reality and lurching like a child with a limp.
"There, there dear," The Doctor re-assured the TARDIS, "That mean old super explosion can't hurt you... here?"
The Doctor and Amy Pond stepped out into a calm, mild day. A cool breeze drifted through the air. The sun hung in the blue sky – much further away than it should have been given it was currently exploding.
They were in a city. Tall, spiral-shaped skyscrapers towered over relatively normal looking brick-and-mortar buildings and businesses. Relatively in the sense that Amy could have mistaken ground-level for London, if most of the building's facades weren't shaped like hexagons. In front of them beings walked two and fro. They were not dissimilar to humans in many respects. In fact, they were almost identical. Bipedal, two arms, recognisable faces, similar skin tone. They appeared to have slightly larger, hunched backs, which one could mistake for a deformity if closer inspection didn't reveal they were in fact a type of carapace, hidden beneath layers of remarkably modern London fashion. There was no panic in the streets. There were no riots. The most annoyed anyone appeared was one of the aliens who seemed to be trying to flag down a hover taxi. The Doctor and Amy discretely hid from view in the alley in which the TARDIS was parked.
"Doctor, what is this?" Amy asked, disturbed, "Nobody seems to know what's going on. Did you land us on the right planet?"
"There's only one planet to land on!" The Doctor snapped back.
"Well it doesn't look like they're in the middle of the apocalypse! We have to warn these people. Save them. Something. Agreed?"
The Doctor's brow furrowed, as if devising a sophisticated theory for what was happening.
"Let's go ask in the shop," he concluded as he marched to what appeared to be some kind of alien corner store. Amy followed suit, attempting to employ what little stealth she could behind The Doctor as walked, loudly whistling a popular REM tune to himself.
A bell dinged as they entered the shop.
"Oh! A little bell. I love it when shops have those. Even impossible alien super planets." The Doctor grinned as he turned to face the clerk behind the store's desk, "Now, you there. What are you doing working today?"
The clerk looked back at him strangely, "It's time and a half today. Be daft not to."
Now it was Amy's turn to look strangely at the clerk.
"Well... that's great. Look, have there been any announcements, or warnings or...?"
"What for?" The clerk asked, in what Amy thought was a strangely Northern accent. The TARDIS' translation circuits at work, no doubt.
The Doctor flicked out his sonic screwdriver, focusing intently on the little green light at its apex as he spoke.
"Your star has gone supernova and is currently engulfing your star system, the shock wave tearing apart every last molecule..."
The sonic screwdriver's light blinked off.
"...But not here. Sorry to trouble you. Best be off."
The Doctor quickly pocketed the screwdriver and motioned to Amy to leave. As they opened the door, a scream rang out from the street. The Doctor and Amy raced out to see where it was sounding from. A middle aged woman was running for her life.
"That's a little more like it." The Doctor remarked.
"What's wrong, why isn't anyone helping her?" Amy wondered.
The clerk overheard her and responded with a smirk, "There's only one person who can help her."
"Who?"
"What, are you stupid or something?"
The Doctor and Amy exchanged a puzzled look. Then ran after her.
The woman was in tears by this point. On-lookers ignored her. Some tutted with disgust at her perceived impoliteness. Nobody came to help. She came to a stop in the centre of a small square, freezing suddenly. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head. Amy approached the woman, her arms outstretched to help, but The Doctor stopped her. He showed Amy the sonic screwdriver, the green light on which had suddenly re-activated. He solemnly shook his head. Amy looked on.
At first, it was just the woman's eyes that were glowing. Soon, it was the rest of her skin. A deep, guttural scream began to emanate from her mouth. It was the most painful and pathetic noise Amy had ever heard. It built and built and built, screeching and squealing. Amy thought her eardrums would burst, but fortunately (or unfortunately) the woman did first. She shattered into firey ash, except the ash kept burning until it too disintegrated. There was nothing left.
Amy was horrified. The Doctor's eyes narrowed.
At that moment, the pair suddenly became aware of a presence behind them. They turned slowly. There was somebody there.
A man. Not like the others. Bald. Human-looking. Heavy-set. Wearing a scarf, a light brown trenchcoat and a broad smile.
"Who are you?" The Doctor demanded.
"Have no fear, travellers. I am here to help. In fact, it's what I do."
"What you do?" Amy asked.
"Yes. I'm The Caretaker."
He grinned.