He's gone. Soul took him and he's gone. River went off chasing him and neglected to say exactly where she was chasing to. They're gone. And I bet Soul thinks it's just great. I'll bet Soul spent at least ten minutes doing a thing called the 'I'm a Time Lord' dance, which only him and me are supposed to know about, and another hour falling over because it could feel the world turn beneath it. Can't even laugh at it for falling over, because you know it cackled all the way. Soul took him and now him and River are gone.
But don't think for one second that I'm worried. I'm not. All that, all that ridiculous stuff, all those facts, Soul, all that means is that it's up to us now. That's all.
Think, Pond. How would the Doctor do it?
He'd do a long annoying list of things that sound impossible, and then I'd say, 'Oh, and it's that easy, is it?' And he'd say, 'Yes', and proceed to tell me how we're going to do it.
Here goes. Best Doctor impression. Launch towards the console, take the first step at a run, look at all the switches and levers like child in sweet shop; "Locate the Doctor, determine how to remove Soul from said Doctor without causing any damage, do so before any damage can be done."
Rory stands a half-step behind me and says, "Oh, and it's that easy, is it?" Ah, the magic words! This is where inspiration strikes and everything clicks. This is the brilliant bit, where I get to know what it feels like to suddenly and perfectly save the day.
Nothing happens.
Still, I find myself saying, "…Yes. I mean, not easy, no, but… that simple."
It's at this that Jack Harkness reverses in through the door, firing out at whatever it is he can't turn his back on. "Noble sentiment, Amy," he shouts up, "But the Doctor's gone and Kovarian's not, if you get what I'm saying."
Rory's looking at me. So's Jack, even while he closes the door after Jessica. "What?"
"What do we do?" Rory says. "You flew the Tardis, didn't you?"
"No. I hovered the Tardis. Then I swung two levers and the Tardis landed. Captain, what about your manipulator?"
"Frankie took it. Drawing off the Justice Department. She's going to get Mun Jones' co-ordinates and meet us back here."
"Well, what about the Silence, don't they have-"
"Can't leave the box here, Amy, that's not what he'd want."
I used to like you, Captain Harkness, I really did.
"Kovarian am to have been talking them put their power back on soon. Goes, goes now."
Yes, thank you, Jessica, no pressure or anything. Still. Suppose it's good to know my position. The Doctor's the Pilot, River's the first mate and I'm the next one down. Okay, think. Don't think like Pond, think like the first mate or the pilot. Think.
Sonic.
I don't have a sonic.
But what does the sonic do? Talks to machines. Okay, so that's probably not what it does, but the last time I asked him how it worked, that was the closest he could get that I understood. Talks to machines. Oh, God, what am I doing, but I put my hand back on that pad on the far side of the console again. Psychic interface, he called it, the one where the Tardis can read my mind and project my voice.
"Okay, I won't lie, I have no idea how to talk to you, but you were a woman that time and you seemed sensible. Well, sort of. But we're in serious trouble and so is the Doctor, so if there's anything you can do to get us out of here safe, so that we can save him, that'd be brilliant." All this time I've had my eyes closed. Nothing happens and I open one. "Please? Look at me, you know me, I'm not stealing you. But we can't help him here."
Another moment's pause, and everything shudders, screams like a straining engine, but we're not going anywhere. On the scanners, all we can do is watch as the Silents get the power back and, now that they have something to channel, crowd towards the Tardis full of snap, crackle and bloody pop.
"Fine!" I throw up my hands and step away. "What do I know about talking to the Tardis anyway? How dare you all put this on me? What the hell do I know about telling the Tardis what to do?"
"Amy?" Rory says. That was when I was about midway through. Now that I'm done, he says again, "Amy?"
"What?"
"Handbrake?"
Oh. Little purple lever. Goes side-to-side rather than up and down. I flick it and suddenly all the straining and screaming turns back into the usual noise. The jolt shakes me off my feet, and before Rory can pick me up, I find time to whisper to the rotor, "Thank you, old girl."
Jack's theory is that I managed to trigger some kind of emergency setting. Something designed specifically to transport us to safety in times of distress. Which, yeah, sounds like something the Doctor would install. We should then, theoretically, have landed somewhere known and normal and quiet, somewhere the Doctor believes nothing very bad could ever happen, and where he'll know where to find us.
Still, I make Captain Jack Harkness, the big brave man with the big laser gun, be the first one out the door.
"Oh God," he groans, but in distaste, not shock. "I hate these places. Seriously. So boring."
Jessica peers out behind him and her face lights up. "Pond-place!"
Yeah. Safest landing spot in the universe is my herb garden. That would be the herb garden he replanted as a Christmas present after landing in it no less than four times previous. I can reach out and put the key in my own back door without setting foot outside the Tardis.
Jack, sheepishly, "Sorry."
It's okay. Doesn't matter. It is boring here, on the street where we sometimes live. But it's a good boring. A fun boring. It's the kind of boring where everything can be fun again. The kind of boring where you can bake scones or grow herbs or curl up together and watch Con Air on late night TV and one of you's going to fall asleep, but it's okay, because you wake up for the bits with the bunny and the fire engine. And that's not really boring at all. These days, I'd give anything for a bit of boring.
Right now, though, it's not an option. Over coffees in my kitchen, we discuss the things that are.
"Jack, you brought Jessica back. How did you find him?"
"We didn't, remember? We only found the Tardis. And we know where that is."
Sitting at an angle with one corner hoiked up on my back step. Fair point.
"And he could be anywhere," Rory says, like the rest of us couldn't have already noticed, "There's no 'usual place' for him."
"Not matters," Jessica adds, quietly. "Him am not to be deciding where goes. Am being Soul decidings."
They're all sinking. All of them, looking like they can't think of anything. Not even having the grace to give up properly with wailing and gnashing of teeth. No! This isn't going to happen. He'd never let this happen.
"Fine then," I say. "Everybody back in the Tardis, we'll go and ask him!"
"Woah!" Jack cries, pointing at me, "Now just settle, lady. What are you talking about, exactly? Quick jump into an unknown future, 'Hey, figure we saved you a couple of days ago, mind telling me how we did it'?"
"Something along those lines, yeah!"
"Never heard of paradoxes, Mrs Williams?"
Heard of them. And the Doctor explained it, but he explained it his way, and I'm really, really none the wiser. Before I have to think of an answer to that, Rory cuts in, "He does it all the time."
"And the Justice Department want him dead for just that sort of thing. I'm just saying, the Doctor might not be the guy to ask!"
Captain Harkness is in my kitchen, drinking my coffee. He wants to shout? I can shout right back. "Well, who then? Who can tell us where to find him and give us some way to get rid of Soul, if you're so clued up!"
And he's not so smart now, is he? Doesn't have all the bloody smart-arse answers now, does he? Well, that's what you get, Captain, for being all… arrogant and all. But my God, would I like to be proved wrong.
"Oh!" says Rory. Revelation written all over his big stupid face, and a dim little glow about him as he, maybe, hopefully, bless his heart, saves the day.
Please?
Before he speaks again, like he just has to go and make sure he's not being an idiot (which, much as I love him, is a distinct possibility), he pops off.
What he comes back with, he must have rooted out of the jewellery box on my side of the bed. Not the nice mirrored one on top, the old leather one in the drawer with all the broken bits and the costume jewellery. That's where I shoved them. Couldn't think what else to do with them.
He's holding them up to me and tries, 'Groo-groos?"
"Grey-greys," I correct.
Jack stands up and leans right across the table, reaching out to touch them. Corrects us both, "Gris-gris. You all met Legba? I've been waiting on an audience with Legba for nine years!"
See, now I feel bad, because I'd forgotten even Legba's name. Legba was the judge when Marie Laveau was on trial, the one that looked like a tramp. I mean, the Doctor absolutely assures me that he's some insanely powerful alien who basically ran New Orleans, but he really, really looked like a tramp, and he seemed a bit mad like a tramp, so… y'know. Just saying. Careful who you put in charge, that's all I'm saying.
"I have to tell you, guys," Jack breathes, "You could call these in to make him tell you the lottery numbers from here to eternity, or the secret of lightspeed travel, or the meaning of life-"
"Or where the Doctor is," I say.
Rory finishes, "And how to help him."
The Tardis wouldn't take us any farther than the garden. Not her fault, I suppose; her hands are tied, strict instructions to keep us safe and sound. And it's more than my life's worth to see anything happen to her. That's why we left Jack there, to keep an eye on things.
That's why we're at the airport.
Jack says the Intergalactic Embassy will be there until humans themselves leave Earth. He better be right; I'm going to have arms like a sailor pushing this luggage trolley, and that's with Rory helping.
Oh, that's the other thing. Jessica's coming. She insisted. Only she doesn't have an Earth passport and she doesn't know what one looks like, so we couldn't get Jack's psychic paper to work. So she's got a bag of crisps and a couple of bottles of water and I can only stand here and heave and pay the extra baggage allowance for her bloody wooden skeleton and pray that nobody searches the bag.
It doesn't help to catch Rory poking a Toblerone down to her through the zipper.
I'm smuggling a quarter of an alien and three quarters of a human into the USA from England with a psychic visa.
I am only what you have made of me, Doctor. I hope you're proud.
Let's not go into what happened in New Orleans. Let's just say Rory brought us awfully close to having, and I quote, our still-living flesh eternally devoured by a thing called a Trinnobid, Marie Laveau looks as good in a pair of Levis as she did in a hobble skirt and Legba still looks like an old tramp.
But other than that, let's just not talk about New Orleans. Everything was better in 186-whatever, let's just say that much and settle.
We got answers, eventually.
We're going to find the Doctor at Stormcage, exactly four months before the Silence take it over.
Marie Laveau was ordered to give us the right voodoo… potion or whatever it is, to get Soul out of him.
Now all we have to do is get Jessica. The Baron borrowed her. Not that she was exactly mad about going with him. That was the other thing we can probably say about New Orleans; New Orleans am smelly-mud-place. Which seemed a little harsh, at first, in the middle of Mardi Gras, until you remember that this is where Jessica got the ears she never asked for. From the Baron. Personally, I thought she did really well setting that aside to go with him. Angling for a favour, another little edge we could get on Soul. I thought that was well done.
Rory's not so sure. But that's men all over; he thinks she's being forgiving and she's not. Just manipulative. I taught her that, you know. Except, y'know, by 'taught' I sort of mean I gave her a really bad example when I tried to sell her out to Kovarian and she's learned not to do that.
Okay, so she's a bit forgiving…
…Okay, so we should probably hurry to get her.
Rory's a step ahead of me, almost running into the great shadowy wall that is the Baron.
Demanding, where is she?
Being told that the Baron just granted her wish, and being told no more than that, but it doesn't matter. Because she wanted to go to the Doctor. He sent her to the Doctor, only not, because Soul's got him.
Marie and I pull Rory back before he can make an attempt on the life of an ambassador, and one twelve times his size to boot.
This is why I didn't want to talk about New Orleans.
New Orleans very rarely ever goes well.
No time to go back for Jack. Marie requisitioned us a manipulator, which we stole. I'm not going to sugar-coat that; why should I? All's fair. Isn't that what they say?
This is it. This is the day Jessica goes to prison for ninety-seven first-degree murders and a host of other charges, which I know now she wasn't responsible for. I didn't know that the first time, but I do now. There's part of me that be hopeful, that thinks we can stop this here and now, take a link of the chain and watch it all fall and we'll be great. We'll be fine. We'll blink and be in the middle of an adventure and there'll be a robot dog and Jessica'll be there getting on like a house on fire with some primitive Raquel-Welch-alike and I'll get possessed by some crazy snake demon and Rory'll save me and…
But I'm hanging around the Doctor too much, aren't I? Not just the fact that I'm getting his ridiculous imagination, either.
The reason we're here is because he tried to change things that he couldn't. I don't need all the facts and I don't need River to know that. And something tells me no matter how fast we run, how hard Rory hits the first guard to get in our way and how much I might argue with the second, it's not going to matter. We're too late. Not through bad timing, not through any fault of our own, but because we have to be. Because something or somebody meant us to be.
We're on the edge of being arrested ourselves when he walks up behind the mob. It parts for him.
Of course it does. It's a good day to be the Doctor at Stormcage. He just brought in a serial-killing spy.
"Ponds, Ponds, Ponds!" he says.
It says.
Best Doctor impression.
"What on Earth's the matter?"
"What have you done with Jessica?" I said that, you know. Not Rory, for once. I said that.
"Well, you know me," it says, out of him, "Strong sense of justice and all that."
"You've made a mistake!" I tell the guards around us. "That isn't even the Doctor, this is-"
"Oh, they know."
Soul takes a sheet of carbon paper from the Doctor's pocket and unfolds it. The incarceration order. I've seen the other half of this, the original. An abridged list of charges, a special instruction that, should she ever attempt escape, she gives up her right to further trial and goes to the incinerator, and a signature. Not the Doctor, but the General.
A general is a warrior, a man in charge of an army, a cold, calculating director of violence. What the hell else has Soul gotten done in the last three days?
"This is a mistake," I say again.
"Told them you'd say that. Didn't I, gents?"
"You're not the Doctor!"
"And you, Amelia, are causing a scene."
"Okay then." I reach out and snatch his arm. Rory's already holding mine. And the only reason I've been making a scene is so that he could get the manipulator set to get us out here. Now he hits the button and we vanish, all three of us, rematerializing in the remains of my herb garden, next to the Tardis.
Soul sees that and makes a dash for it. That would just be Christmas for Soul, wouldn't it? Well, no way. I throw myself flat grabbing his ankle. Soul's still not used to the balance, can't kick me off, but it rolls over and stretches out at me. It gets angry too quickly, you see; focuses on me and loses sight of everything else, and that's when Rory gets his forearm over the Doctor's throat. Not tight enough to choke, but enough that Soul struggles. Enough to give me time to pull out the little muslin bag of powder Marie Laveau gave us.
Soul sees it coming and cries out in a rage.
I throw about half into the Doctor's face and pocket the rest for another time.
Within seconds, Soul's gone. I can watch it go. It fades out of him slowly, clinging on by the fingernails long as it can. But Marie did the job, and ultimately it has to let go. I check Rory's eyes and he checks mine, and by the time we've done that, the Doctor is sitting straight up on the grass, sniffing the rest of the powder. Must have pickpocketed it from me.
"Ah," he announces, just like himself, just perfectly like himself, thank god, like himself, "Amanita. Mild concoction of ibotenic acids and psilocybin spores. Psychoactive, borderline-hallucinogenic. Soul can't hold onto a mind that doesn't know itself. Hello, Amelia, you really do have very red hair, you know-"
Drugged, I mean. Just exactly like he was drugged.
That was really what I meant to say. I don't think he acts like he's drugged all the time. That's not what went through my head just now. He goes on like that. Rory raises an eyebrow at me. Best we could have hoped for I suppose. When Rory starts to help him up, he notices him, "Ah, Agent Centurion, glad you're here, deliver us, if you would, oh, deliver us from Soul. I suspect it may be abroad, you know. Hovering, you know. Morning Glory seeds, that's what you should use, that'll keep it out, and keep you from seeing too many pretty colours too, if you follow my meaning. Amelia, really, tell me honestly, is that your normal red or has something happened to it? Why are you glowing?"
Yeah, we're not putting him in the Tardis in this state. Who knows where we'd end up. So we edge him past it instead, into the kitchen, where Jack is watching The Saint with a corned beef sandwich, rather than minding the Tardis, but what the hell…
The Doctor's eyes light on the sandwich like it is the single best idea ever conceived by mankind. He can't even articulate his desire with words, resorts to Jessica-style lingering and pointing. Munchies, apparently, hit him quickly. So while I put him down in a chair, while Jack is laughing, Rory goes to that.
And in the midst of all that, the Doctor turns to me, leaning on my arm. Says very softly and very privately and sounding almost scared, "Where have I been, Amelia? I don't remember where I've been. You'd tell me if I'd done something, wouldn't you? You'd tell me if I was wrong. Where have I been?"
I hug him because I don't have an answer for him. I think he knows that. I think that's why he doesn't want to let go of me.
