When the TARDIS crashed into their garden for what Amy claimed was the thirty- seventh time, (she had a tally next to the kitchen door), the Ponds assumed that it was time for another wild adventure. They'd both had a long day: the media had once again been trying to break into Amy's private life, and Rory had had to deliver the news that a four year old had leukemia. Neither of them could summon the energy to bound outside, but they knew the Doctor would come to them. And though they rolled their eyes at one another, Amy grabbing her jacket from the back of her chair and Rory draining his lukewarm coffee, both were glad of the distraction. It'd be good to escape to their Doctor life.
Both of them waited, arms folded, taking it in turns to glance at the clock. Five minutes passed, which wasn't unusual: often the Doctor had a strange treasure, or indeed passenger, which he'd have trouble pushing out of his mind-boggling ship and onto Amy's long since lost rose-bed. Five minutes was fine. Then five became ten. And ten became fifteen. When the minute hand inched onto sixteen minutes past three, Amy looked at her husband. Her arms had fallen to her sides, and her slight chest was heaving with the rapid pace of her panicked breathing. "Something's wrong." She sprinted from their kitchen, with Rory on her tail, and pounded on the TARDIS doors.
Which proceeded to do something she'd never seen them do. Open, with no assistance or, apparently, command from the Doctor. He'd told her once that you needed a key to get in without him, that nothing would get through. He'd also mentioned that he and the TARDIS were telepathically linked, hence his ability to open her doors with the snap of his fingers. She, the TARDIS, would know if it was anyone else and simply ignore him or her. She did not let people in.
Slowing, Amy cautiously stepped inside, almost on tiptoes, and glanced around. The control room was empty. Every light in the time machine was blinking red, slow but insistent. Obviously some sort of warning, but apart from the Doctor's conspicuous absence, nothing appeared to be wrong. The TARDIS was not randomly dematerialising, nor was there any sound, other than the pounding hearts of the Ponds. Frowning, Amy stepped to the side to let Rory in, and he closed the doors behind them.
"Something's wrong." Rory's voice was hushed, as if he ought not to be breaking the eerie quiet. Amy could relate, but she huffed noisily anyway, trying to fight the discomfort now easing into her bones.
"Well obviously, stupid face. Doctor! Doctor, where are you?" Pulling on a big smile that she'd learnt long ago would help her fight her fears, Amy lowered her shoulders and stepped under the console, wondering if he'd fallen asleep doing repairs again. He'd done it before, and the TARDIS had taken him here; apparently their house was a safe place for her Time Lord to rest. But she normally landed in the spare bedroom, and the doors never opened until the Doctor opened them himself...
Out of nowhere there was a heavy pounding of booted feet, rising to a crescendo before thudding into the control room, making both the Ponds jump. Looking up through the glass floor of the console platform, both of them raised their eyebrows and began to smile as the Doctor danced around the platform. The smiles fell as he continued, far and away from his usual light-footedness, he was stamping on the ground, beating a fevered, almost tribal tattoo of sound into the air.
"Doctor, are you alright?" Amy had folded her arms again, and she straightened them in annoyance. She was not uncomfortable. She was not scared. This was the TARDIS and the Doctor and she was safe.
These were things which she believed, believed with all her heart in spite of the hairs rising on the back of her neck. The Doctor jumped over the railing of the platform in one sudden movement, landing in a crouch before her and looking up at her with the glossy eyes of a real mad man and did a cartwheel to his feet, shouting as he did, "Donna! No, Jo! Leela? No sorry Astrid! No no no no she's gone no no no no." Then he burst into tears, and Amy realized with sudden, chilling certainty that things were not all right. Nor was she sure they would be.
Both Amy and Rory stepped back and away on instinct. At which point the Doctor stopped crying. He went ramrod straight, like a puppet who'd been pulled too hard and gotten stuck, then raised his eyebrows at them, in a sudden moment of lucidity. "I didn't want-" He cut himself off with a choked gasp, and then his arms and legs jerked and he fell onto his back. He began to writhe on the as if he was falling through the air and not rolling on the ground. Gasping, he shouted a stream of whispers, "why so long why doesn't it stop why can't I just die now oh here it comes..." and then he began to scream, clawing at his own skin and sobbing, rolling and crawling to the central column shuddering and still screaming, on and on and on until Amy had to cover her ears, unable to take this nightmare for her friend.
Next to her, Rory was frozen between horror and concern. When the Doctor entered what looked like a seizure, he moved over, cautious and clumsy in his fear. Quickly he kicked the heavy boxes of tools and gadgets the Doctor always left lying around out of the way. He barely needed to, after a second or so the Doctor stopped, becoming absolutely still. Amy froze too, like a small, scared animal that had just seen it's end, transfixed as Rory apprehensively lifted the Doctor's wrist, checking for a pulse. There was one, but it was weak, and too slow, certainly for a man with two hearts. Forty-five seconds later, the Doctor blinked awake with a gasp, staring up at Rory with a look of horror; horror the like of which Rory had never seen, not in this life or all two thousand years of his other one.
Then the Doctor got to his feet, normally this time, gently pushing Rory's helping hand away, and looked up at his TARDIS. "Why did you bring me to them? They could be hurt! You're supposed to help me, why won't you let me just..."
He cut himself off again, suddenly leaping in front of Rory as if thrown by an invisible hand. He jerked on the floor, his body crumpling around his torso, and rolled onto his back. Choking, he grit his teeth, breathing fast. Sweat began to roll down his face, and in alarm more than anything else; Rory knelt next to him, checking his temperature. "Doctor, what's wrong? What's happening to you?"
Amy, having overcome her initial horror, knelt next to the men and took the Doctor's hand, gently rubbing her thumb over the back of it. The Doctor tried to speak, then screwed his eyes shut in sudden pain. Then, as before, he shuddered, and stilled. His pulse slowed, and forty five seconds later he awoke with a gasp. With desperation he rarely showed, he seized a fistful of Rory's shirt, dragging him closer. "The Conscience Mirrors. Find River. Stay away from me!"
Then he jumped to his feet and ran, out of the console room and down the corridors. Amy stood, ready to follow, but Rory grabbed her hand and quietly shook his head. "He meant it this time." Pursing his lips, he looked down the darkening corridor where the Doctor had headed, listening as the heavy sound of his boots faded into the depths of the TARDIS. "We'd help him more by finding River. And figuring out what the hell is going on."
The TARDIS rumbled, and then her launch lever lifted of its own accord. Without even the groaning sigh of her usual takeoffs, she dematerialised. Rory and Amy grabbed for the struts under the platform, holding on as the TARDIS whirled through space and time, faster than she ever had before. Within moments, they landed, and the TARDIS doors swung open. Both Amy and Rory ran to the threshold, stopping in the doorway.
They were at Storm Cage. River was outside, looking into a small hand mirror, patting some powder onto her nose.
"You know, I asked you to call ahead next time. It's not fair to keep taking me by surprise." She looked up, a large, flirtatious smile on her face, which fell when she saw her mother and no Doctor. Wordlessly, River marched into the TARDIS, the heels of her leather boots clicking on the glass floor. She stopped at the console, looking around as the TARDIS shut her doors and dematerialised into deep space. Hands on her hips, she glared at her parents, acting as if she wanted to be annoyed but simply looking panicked.
"Where is he?"
Rory opened his mouth to explain, but Amy beat him to it, wanting to make up for her earlier impotence. "He turned up at our house, or… the TARDIS did. He's acting weird, like, scary really truly crazy weird. He ran off into the TARDIS and she took us here. He told us to find you. Said something about the, um, Conscience Mirrors?" Amy had planned to go on, but at those words, all the blood drained from River's face. Rory leapt up the steps three at a time to catch his daughter, River Song; psychopathic gun-slinging TARDIS-flying genius, as she literally swooned. River let him, her knees buckling before she took a deep breath and straightened, looking at them both with a face as drained of color as an arctic tundra.
"Where is he?" Her voice shook with what was either fear or grief or fury or all three.
Rory paused, taking her hands in his. "River, what's wrong? What are the Conscience Mirrors?"
River started to shake, and Amy gently put an arm around her shoulders, pressing a kiss into her curly hair. "Where. Is. He?" It was a snarl now, but a half-hearted one. The effect was ruined by River's voice breaking halfway through the sentence.
Both her parents stepped forward to wrap their arms around her. And both of them knew something truly was wrong when she did not resist, and when, after a few seconds more, she buried her face in Rory's shoulder and began to cry.
"Shhh. Shhh baby, it's ok." Amy was in full-on mothering mode, gently stroking River's hair, and kissing her forehead and cheeks, holding her close. Rory let herspeak, simply stroking their daughter's arms. River shuddered and began to shake her head, rubbing the tears away and pushing out of their arms.
"No. No it's not. I don't...please, where is the Doctor?"
Amy and Rory glanced at one another, making a silent agreement. Rory folded his arms and braced himself."No." River looked murderous, and he held up his hands in an gesture of appeasement. "No, just, not yet. Please, River, please tell us what is going on."
He reached out for River's hand, but this time she stepped away. The tears on her cheeks shone like drops of blood in the TARDIS' emergency lighting. Rory sighed, following her anyway, still holding out his hand. "Meldie." It was his nickname for her, his special nickname that no one else used. When they'd been younger, before they'd known who she was, Rory couldn't say Melody. So he'd say Meldie. It was his way of reminding her they were on the same side. "Meldie, please, none of us can help him if we don't all know what we're dealing with. The TARDIS came to us first. She did it for a reason, you know that."
River was very still, backed against the railing of the console platform and holding onto it as if for dear life. Rory tilted his head to the side, giving her a gentle, lopsided smile. "Please let us help."
The TARDIS hummed in the background, a quiet, constant sound of life that moved gently around the room. Rory's smile never fell, and after a few seconds, River let out a sigh in a quick, deep rush of air, her chest rising and falling in a sudden movement of surrender. "Alright. But you're not going to like it."
Rory gave a low chuckle. "I'd sort of guessed that bit."
AN: Hello! So, finally finished this. It's going to be short-ish story, 3-6 chapters depending on how long I make them. Set in the little AU-friendly world between the end of series 6 and the start of series 7. Bits of wibbly wobbly canon (the Doctor's family, later) are based on Lance Parkin's Infinity Doctors, and generally New Who. But it's wibbly wobbly fanfiction, so please take it as it is meant, and that is not an assertion of anything!
Neither Doctor Who, nor the characters belong to me, but all original ideas, characters and plotlines do, so please don't steal. (Ta very much!)
Thanks for reading, let me know what you think!
~LiS