Disclaimer: I have no part in the BBC or Doctor Who. I'm just a humble fan.
Author's Note: I've often felt Amy might have been a more interesting companion than she already was if she hadn't spent years waiting, and/or been with Nine instead of Eleven. This is an interesting twist on that already fairly odd idea. Anyone who has a problem with the fact that I have Amy being quite smart, I'd like to point out that the girl built a sonic screwdriver and took over a hospital with scavenged bits and pieces in The Girl Who Waited.
Amelia Pond was a girl with a chip on her shoulder. Everyone credited it to growing up alone with only an aunt who was hardly seen. The only person her own age who would have anything to do with her was her neighbor Rory. She stood out in Leadworth, all ginger hair, stubbornness and too smart for her own good. No one was particularly surprised when she took off for the States, straight out of A-levels.
The job with Henry van Statten was just too good to pass up for a girl who couldn't imagine going on to university. When she started, she wasn't sure if she believed in aliens, but before long she had become one of the few integral parts of his organisation - or at least harder to replace than his revolving door for assistants and aides. It paid insanely well, and she got to play with most of the bits and bobs that he considered "junk," so she bit her tongue and held back her anger at all his arrogance and condescending nicknames. She certainly wasn't going to find anything better to do, after all.
The Doctor moved around the console in confusion, eyebrows knit. "That's odd." He pressed a few buttons and with the usual sound, the TARDIS started to rematerialise.
"Huh?" Rose asked, blinking. following The Doctor out of the blue box that had become her home. "So what is it? What's wrong?"
The Doctor looked around at the darkened, seemingly empty room in confusion. "Don't know. Some kind of signal drawing the TARDIS off course." He was puzzled, and reminded strongly of a time long ago.
Rose seemed content to ask her now-usual questions. "Where are we?"
The Doctor sniffed subtly, picking up the pieces he hadn't gotten the time to check while materializing. "Earth. Utah, North America. About half a mile underground."
Rose filed away this information. Certainly not on her list of must visit places but it could be worse. "And when are we?"
The Doctor stepped up to a display case, trying to make out what was inside. This place was too still. "Two thousand and twelve."
There was something so interesting to Rose about landing close to her own time. When she was in Dickens' time, she was just a visitor. Here, this was something she could do in a few years. How might she look in 2012? What was her life like? "God, that's so close. So I should be...twenty six."
It wasn't that he wasn't listening, but The Doctor was trying to figure out the mystery, and Rose hadn't been asking a question. He moved over to the wall, and hit the switch, watching in growing unease and a little amazement as the darkness revealed its' secrets.
Rose looked around as the lights went on, distracted from her thoughts of her personal future. "Blimey. It's a great big museum."
"An alien museum. Someone's got a hobby. They must have spent a fortune on this." The Doctor replied, moving through the cases, pointing things out. "Chunks of meteorite, moon dust. That's the milometer from the Roswell spaceship!"
Rose found this terribly interesting, and spotted something quicker than one could say Raxacoricofallapatorius. "That's a bit of Slitheen!" Rose said in amazement. "That's a Slitheen's arm. It's been stuffed!"
The Doctor however, had spotted something a bit more dangerous, and more familliar than a bit of Slitheen. "Oh, look at you," He said, voice soft with amazement. He could almost hear them now. Delete...Delete... Rose, however, did her job as a companion and shook him out of his old thoughts.
"What is it?"
The Doctor found himself struggling how to explain a Cyberman to someone who never knew them. He settled for the simplest. " An old friend of mine. Well, enemy. The stuff of nightmares reduced to an exhibit." He supposed, he too, was the stuff of nightmares now. "I'm getting old." He felt old.
"Is that where the signal's coming from?" Rose asked, staring at the odd robot head, with what looked like a hoover tube sticking in at either side of it's head.
"Nah, it's stone dead. The signal's alive. Something's reaching out, calling for help." Even as he said it though, he had a hard time tearing his eyes away from the head. He found himself wondering where it had come from. Who had killed it. Or more accurately, if he had killed it. He tapped the glass with two fingers, finally looking away when an alarm went off.
Rose glanced around unbothered as soldiers seemed to pour in from all sides, pressing her tongue into her cheek. She was getting oddly used to life or death situations. They hardly seemed as scary as whenthey had been called to Downing Street. "If someone's collecting aliens, that makes you Exhibit A." She told the Doctor in amusement.
Amy glanced up in the lift as the loudspeakers announced the descent of Bad Wolf One just as she had started toward the fifty-third subfloor to see what was going on with the alarm. She looked sideways and sighed, canceling the stop at 53 and hitting the button for the first subfloor. If van Statten was back, he would want a report on her latest acquisitions.
She stepped out of the lift and hurried along to catch up to the moving entourage that encircled Henry van Statten at any one time. She came up beside the third assistant just in time to hear the latest aide, Polkowski, say something stupid and be sentenced to a new life somewhere starting with 'M,' because she was in the back, she rolled her eyes, falling into step with the group.
The next aide stepped up quickly, as they had to, and Amy hoped she would do better than the last. She knew how hard it was to survive in Harry van Statten's organisation. She made a face though, at her summons.
"I like you, Diana Goddard. So where's Mary?" Henry asked and despite the annoying nickname, Amy stepped up easily.
"Right here." She answered easily. "It was a bit of a wash in New York, sir, a lot of junk, but I found five artifacts of some value."
"Bring 'em on, let me see 'em." Henry said with a nod. Amy nodded, having anticipated this. "They're waiting in your office, I thought you might like to see them."
"Ah, that's my Mary, always one step ahead." It was the closest thing to praise he usually offered up.
Diana offered up the information Amy was really interested in. "Sir, with respect, there's something more urgent. We arrested two intruders fifty three floors down. We don't know how they got in."
Henry didn't even slow down. "I'll tell you how they got in. In-tru-da window. In-tru-da window. That was funny!" Oh, the bad jokes. The bad jokes were almost worse than the stupid nicknames. Amy barely resisted the urge to wince as orders were given that concerned the thing in the cage. The prize of the collection bothered her. She had been comfortable in the complex since she had gotten her workroom-office, but just knowing that thing was down there unsettled her.
The Doctor was unsurprised as he and Rose were taken to see whoever was in charge of this alien museum. As they walked in, he noticed a ginger woman showing the man something somewhat familiar.
"What does it do?" The man behind the desk, obviously the man in charge, asked her in annoyance.
"I think it's meant to create or channel some sort of waves." The woman said, as the man turned it over in his hand.
The Doctor knew right away what it was. "I really wouldn't hold it like that." He had some odd hobbies over the years, and while it wasn't a recorder...
"Shut it." The curly-haired aide beside him demanded, rather rudely. He, of course, ignored that suggestion.
"Really, though, that's wrong." The man behind the desk looked up at him, and The Doctor held out his hand. The man leaned forward eagerly, and the Doctor turned it properly. "You just need to be..." He stroked it softlymaking it trill the opening notes of a favourite boyhood song. "Delicate."
The man's eyes wandered slightly with something close to wonder - or perhaps it was just surprise. "It's a musical instrument."
"And it's a long way from home." the Doctor said, with a little smile. That quickly faded, as the man grabbed at it.
"Here, let me." Henry van Statten demanded, tearing it away as he tried to get notes to play, even if it was discordantly.
"I did say delicate." The Doctor reminded him. "It reacts to the smallest fingerprint. It need precision." He was slightly surprised when the brash man improved greatly, though still not quite at a high level. "Very good! Quite the expert."
The man threw it aside. "As are you," he said to the Doctor as the ginger woman rescued the discarded instrument from the floor. "Who exactly are you?"
That was easy enough. "I'm the Doctor. And who are you?"
That arrogant look was back, the look that the Doctor tried to avoid on people. "Like you don't know. We're hidden away with the most valuable collection of extra-terrestrial artefacts in the world, and you just stumbled in by mistake."
The Doctor nodded, that grin on his face again. "Pretty much sums me up, yeah."
The man, obviously with too much money and power, kept talking. "The question is, how did you get in? Fifty three floors down, with your little cat burglar accomplice. You're quite a collector yourself, she's rather pretty."
Rose finally broke her silence, with a glare at the man. "She's going to smack you if you keep calling her she."
This amused van Statten, and his voice picked up a joking tone. "She's British too! Hey, Lady Macbeth, Got a friend for you!"
Amy resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Aye, sir." To the blonde, Amy explained. "This is Mr. Henry van Statten."
Rose was surprised to hear a Scottish accent, but Mr. Henry van Statten had gotten on her bad side. "Who's he when he's at home, then?
"The owner of GeoComTex." Amy replied, examining her lilac-coloured nails.
"Who?" Rose repeated.
Amy sighed, as Mr. van Statten looked offended. How could she explain it to a girl who didn't know about GeoComTex? "The Richard Branson of computers. On steroids." She just hoped that wouldn't offend him. It didn't seem to, as he laughed. "Mr. Van Statten owns the internet." She was still cradling the alien instrument.
There was something about the ginger that Rose didn't like right away, so she sneered, just a bit. "Don't be stupid. No one owns the internet."
Henry smoothly injected himself back into the conversation. "And let's just keep the whole world thinking that way, right kids?"
The Doctor on the other hand, was putting things together. "So you're just about an expert in everything except the things in your museum. Anything you don't understand, you lock up."
Henry was slightly offended by that. "And you claim greater knowledge?
The Doctor didn't raise to the bait...well, maybe a little. "I don't need to make claims, I know how good I am."
"And yet, I captured you. Right next to the Cage. What were you doing down there?" Henry said, convinced he had him.
"You tell me." The Doctor replied, as rose and Amy were left looking between the two men like a tennis match.
"The cage contains my one living specimen." Henry preened.
"And what's that?" The Doctor replied, finally getting to the heart of why he was here.
"Like you don't know." Henry snapped back.
"Show me." The Doctor demanded.
"You want to see it?" Henry asked, not wanting to give in, and yet, at the same time, wanting to show off his prize, which had, at this point, been impossible to show off to anyone, and if this man could tell him more about the jewel in his crown...
"Blimey, you can smell the testosterone." Rose remarked, waving a hand.
"Blokes." Amy said with a shrug.
Henry ignored them, already on the move, and barking orders. "Goddard, inform the Cage we're heading down. You, Mary. Look after the girl. Go curl your eyelashes or braid your hair or whatever it is you girls do. And you, Doctor with no name, come and see my pet."