Chapter 1: A Holiday Gone Wrong
Amy and Rory Williams were sitting on the steps in the glow of the TARDIS console room ready to see what excitement the Doctor had for them. Amy loved the familiar anticipation before an adventure, and that day was no different.
"Right then!" the Doctor yelled, making Amy and Rory look up in surprise. They hadn't realised that the he'd been silently lurking behind the console. "Who's ready for an exciting trip?"
"It's not gonna involve being chased by evil flesh-eating monsters, is it? We've done a bit too much of that recently," Rory said.
"Nope, we are taking a break today! It's a very relaxed place, no chance of running into trouble there," the Doctor replied, giving Rory a pat on the head.
"I wouldn't count on that," Amy muttered to Rory, ensuring the Doctor couldn't hear her. Then, she directed her gaze back up at the Time Lord. "So where are we going, Doctor?"
"We're popping off to a planet called Puzzle. Ooh, popping to Puzzle, I like that." He grinned excitedly. "It's a planet full of activities like climbing, swimming, sunbathing - all sorts really. It's sun is a red supergiant though so if I were you I'd change into something a little more summery," he said, eyeing Amy and Rory's long sleeves and jeans.
"Okay, let's go get changed, Rory. Back in a sec!" Amy said as they walked out of the console room. The Doctor's voice followed them down the corridor, reminding them to take their swimming gear.
Once they'd changed, Amy and Rory made their way back down the hallway. Amy was feeling confident and excited in her large sunglasses, high waisted denim shorts and red tank top, next to Rory, who was wearing a pale green and white checkered shirt and loose navy shorts. Amy was holding a beach bag containing their swimming gear that she'd insisted on carrying instead of Rory - "After all, you did wait two thousand years for me! Can't expect you to be my pack horse as well."
The Doctor clapped his hands with uncontained enthusiasm when they entered the room. "That's more like it!"
"What about you, Doctor? You'll boil in that suit!" Rory said.
"Were you looking forward to seeing him in speedos or something?" Amy said, snorting at the thought of it.
"Don't question the Time Lord, Rory," the Doctor said brightly, "I know what I'm doing!" He leaped over to the console and started to press various buttons. The timeship hummed and then jolted into life. "Right, Planet Puzzle, here we come!"
After a bumpy flight, during most of which Amy and Rory had had to cling onto the banisters, terrified, the Doctor landed them.
"The TARDIS really didn't want to land today, did you ol' girl?" he said, giving the console a pat.
"I could tell," said Amy, still feeling dizzy from the landing, which had been far from smooth. She pulled herself up and adjusted her top.
"Come along, ponds," the Doctor said, darting over to the front doors, grabbing a straw hat on his way. "We're going to have a nice relaxing day today!" he said, throwing open the doors. "It will be just us, the warm Puzzolian air and-," he stopped in his tracks when they saw that they had landed somewhere that was quite the opposite of where he was alluding to. "Ah."
"Well done, Doctor. Nice one," Amy said, shivering and rubbing her bare arms as the bitter, frozen air drifted into the doorway. They looked as if they were still on Earth, but this time, they appeared to be in a woods covered in a thick sheet of snow.
Amy pushed her sunglasses up onto her head and stepped out into the snow. They were in a small clearing, surrounded by trees that looked fairly normal and Earth-like.
"Some holiday," Rory said, through chattering teeth as he walked over to stand by Amy.
"Yeah, it's really nice weather," Amy added, her voice dripping with sarcasm.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," the Doctor said, choosing to ignore their comments. He scratched his head. "I'm sure I had the right coordinates."
The Doctor shut the TARDIS doors and walked further out into the snow, sniffing the air as if searching for clues.
Amy huffed, her impatience getting the better of her. "Can't we go back inside and try again to get to this planet? I'm freezing."
"Yes, but first I want to know why the TARDIS brought us here. It could be important," the Doctor said. He drew out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the area. "I don't like that," he said, shaking his sonic, "It's not giving me results from the scan." He frowned at it. "Loading? It says loading! It never needs to load!"
"Well I can't see anything weird about this place, it's just a forest," Rory said. He bounced on his toes a few times and rubbed his arms in attempt to warm himself up.
Amy looked around the snowy clearing, searching for anything that looked strange and out of place. She gasped as something caught her eye.
The Doctor and Rory looked over, seeing the same strange object.
"What is it, Amy?" Rory asked.
"It's...well I don't know, it's weird," she said.
The curious object was hanging from a fine black chain and had been hooked onto a low branch. It didn't look like it quite fitted in the snowy forest. When Amy reached the object, she stared at it. It was a mystical red, and the soft glow it emitted was a mixture of all different, beautiful colours, that could only be seen up close. It resembled a precious stone that'd been cut into an irregular shape.
"Excuse me! What do you think you're doing?!" a red faced policeman shouted from the trees with a harsh London accent, quickly approaching them. Amy looked up, startled. "We're under martial law, nobody should be out of their house at this time, especially not in the woods!"
"Amy! Catch!" the Doctor said, throwing his psychic paper in her direction. "Don't mind us! We're special forces," the Doctor called over to him. Amy caught the psychic paper and held it up to the policeman.
"Hmmph. Right," the policeman scoffed. He looked her up and down, clearly disapproving of her summery outfit.
Rory noticed the police officer's confusion. "Yeah sorry, we were told we had a case in California to investigate, but they rescheduled us here, for this, er, very important case of, er, well, strange happenings."
Amy turned around and scowled at Rory. Honestly, he couldn't have made it more obvious that they hadn't a clue what was going on! Amy hoped the policeman didn't get even more suspicious than he was already about who they really were. Rory looked back apologetically and shrugged.
"Hmm," the policeman said, eyeing Rory, then the Doctor, then Amy, then Rory again, with doubt in his eyes. Eventually, after a moment of awkward silent staring, he spoke again. "Maybe you should be wearing proper gear. These kinds of investigations are risky at the best of times. We don't exactly know what we're dealing with here. Anything could be taking people away."
"Look, we know what we're doing. As he said, special forces," Amy said. "Oh, and for future reference, you are a policeman and we are forensic investigators. You probably shouldn't be speaking to us like that, we have a perfectly good boss already, thank you."
She saw Rory stifle a smirk out of the corner of her eye. The policeman's face grew an unhealthy shade of crimson and he looked as if he wanted to retort, but, clearly knowing better, he chose to stay quiet.
The Doctor and Rory started pacing around, trying to look as if they were doing something important and Amy got back to figuring out what the object was. She slipped her hand around the chain and slowly lifted it from the branch.
"What's that then? A clue?" the policeman said.
"I dunno, maybe," Amy said. She lifted the red pendant up in front of her. As it hung by the chain from her fingers, it caught the light (well, what little light there was there in the clearing of the woods) and glistened.
"I'll scan it," the Doctor said, walking over to Amy.
Amy put her other hand out and let the object fall into the palm of her hand. As it rested in her palm, it shone brightly, sending out beams of light in all directions. During this, she felt the most peculiar sensation. It was almost like her body was being pricked by a million tiny pins at the same time as air being blown around her in all directions. The light and the feeling only lasted for a second or two, before disappearing.
"Doctor, come here! You've gotta see this, it-," she said, but stopped mid sentence because when she turned around she realised that Rory and the Doctor had completely vanished. Confused, she spoke again, her voice wary. "Doctor? Rory?"
There was no reply.
When the bright light had faded, the Doctor and Rory looked up for Amy. They didn't like what they saw. Or rather, who they didn't see. Amy had completely disappeared, along with the bright light, leaving no trace.
"Amy! No!" Rory yelled, running over to where she'd been stood. He put his hand to his head, staring hopelessly at the spot of snow which had once been occupied by Amy.
"Amelia!" the Doctor cried. He rushed over to where she was stood. He crouched down and peered at the snow on the ground, willing for any clues to tell him something, anything, about why she disappeared.
Rory crouched down and scrabbled around in the snow, helping to look for signs whilst the Doctor whipped out his sonic screwdriver and began taking readings for anything that could help them.
"Please Amy, come back, just come back," Rory murmured, trying to keep his cool. "Don't leave me now. Please. Oh god..."
The Doctor looked at his sonic screwdriver. When he saw the results of the scan, he closed his eyes in dismay.
"Rory," the Doctor said, turning and crouching beside him. "Rory, look at me." He placed a comforting hand on Rory's shoulder. "I think I know what that thing was, and where she may have gone. I don't know how we are going to get to her though. You just need to stay strong and we'll find her. We always find her."
Rory just stared at the ground, unable to believe that he'd just lost his beautiful wife, that she was somewhere out there, lost and lonely in the vast expanse of time and space.
The Doctor let out a breath, then looked up at the policeman, who was now standing next to them. "Do you know how to find her? You said lots of people have gone missing. Who are they?"
The policeman broke his stare from the spot where Amy had vanished, to look up at the Doctor. His face was a picture of shock and bewilderment. Sweat ran down his forehead and he shifted his eyes back to where Amy had been stood. He eventually found his voice.
"I... How did she do that?" he managed to say. He was too shocked to even pick up on the fact that the Doctor was asking questions that he was supposed to know because he'd said he was investigating it.
The Doctor grunted in frustration as he stood up. The silly police officer wasn't going to be of much use. The Doctor began to pace around in the snow, thinking through possible options. He knew that the red stone must have caused her disappearance in some way. It was activated when she touched it, and his screwdriver was telling him that she had ended up a long way away, somewhere that should have been impossible to get to.
"We're going to get to the bottom of this and find Amy. Come on, Rory," the Doctor said. His voice was angry but his eyes were full of uncertainty and worry. He made sure Rory was following him before turning on his heel and heading towards the TARDIS.
A/N: Thank you for reading! Reviews would be great as I am not sure whether to continue this or not.