Author's Note: There I was, happily watching The Christmas Invasion, when my errant mind begins to wonder...what was happening in Leadworth that morning? This little oneshot is the result.
Let me know what you think; it'll make me very happy, and unlike the Doctor, I can promise not to bite your hand!
Christmas 2005
Mels laid a card down on the floor between them, watching carefully for Amy's reaction – or at least what was visible of it. Amy's poker face was getting better, but her main tactic tonight had been to hide behind her hand of cards. Her bright eyes widened at the sight of the card just laid down, and Mels knew she had won again.
They were sixteen, finally nearly adults. They'd never once separated since Mels had found her, and she intended to keep it that way. Amy was the only thing that kept her sane though all of her training and ordeals at the hands of the Silence. She had no idea of it yet, but her mother was already helping her to survive.
Earlier that evening, Mels had escaped her 'home' where the Church was raising her. Oh, they'd notice she was gone – probably already had, but there was nothing they could do while she was with Amy, and in any case she'd go back later. Trying to stay away and getting caught just wasn't worth it. But she'd decided that she wanted a proper Christmas – she was so sick of getting back to school and hearing all the other kids talk about their presents and the food – and that she was going to spend it with Amy. Her Aunt Sharon had been really easy to persuade, and now the two sixteen year olds were convinced they could do whatever they liked.
They were sat on the floor in Amy's room, cross legged and with a glass of eggnog each by their knees.
"So, any boys to look forward to in the New Year?" Mels asked as Amy contemplated her next move.
Amy snorted. "Fat chance."
"Not even the Doctor?" Mels asked slyly as she raised her glass.
"Shut up. He was just an imaginary friend I had when I was seven, okay?"
"That's just what the psychiatrists told you to say to yourself."
"Yeah, well, Aunt Sharon spent good money on them, so let's give it a chance to work, okay? Next subject."
"Do you know what you're getting for Christmas?"
"Nope."
"Oh, don't tell me you've given up on going into your loft and seeing what you're gonna get," Mels said, disappointment showing in her voice.
"Shh! Not too loud or Aunt Sharon will hear you!" Amy scolded, swotting her best friend before laying down a card.
Mels laughed. "It was fun though, wasn't it?"
Amy gave an impish grin. "Of course it was!"
Mels put down another card, one that would make it very hard for Amy to win the game. She tried though, lapsing into silence as she worked around the problem. Mels took another sip of her eggnog, completely content. Not only because she was winning, but because this was a perfect Christmas Eve for her; quiet, happy, with people she loved – with family. Maybe next year she'd try spending it with Rory. Now that would make his eyes pop. And then the year after they would be eighteen; maybe Rory and Amy would finally have gotten it together, and she could visit them in their flat and…she really was getting way too far ahead of herself. And apparently not paying attention to her cards and the way she'd been playing them, because all of the sudden, Amy slapped down her last card with a triumphant 'Ha!', and laughed at Mel's double take.
"How did you do that?" Mels asked as she looked back through the stack of played cards on the floor.
"What, you mean win while you weren't paying attention?" Amy asked smugly, and Mels pulled a face at her.
Suddenly, there was a faint chiming of the clock in the distant church tower, striking midnight. The two girls' eyes lit up, and then grinned at each other.
"Merry Christmas," Amy whispered.
"Happy Christmas," Mels said quietly.
A moment of silence passed before both of them started squeeing happily, hugging each other and jumping up and down, drunk with their own excitement.
"We should call Rory!" Mels suggested, and Amy laughed.
"Because he'll be so happy to get woken up at this time of night."
"Well he will insist on subtly showing off the new phone he got for his birthday."
"Nah, let him sleep. We can plague him tomorrow. Girl's night, remember?"
"Doesn't Rory count as a girl?" Mels asked and Amy laughed loudly.
They stayed up for a while longer, chatting and laughing and joking, before finally calling it a night. They both ended up camping on the floor, because they couldn't agree who should get the bed to sleep in – though they did decide that it was high time Amy got a bigger one. What they didn't do was turn on the TV, because if they had, they'd have seen an alien race broadcasting to the world. And if they'd have seen that, then they might have had a small warning of what was going to happen the next morning.
Amy's hand twitched, making the blankets rustle. Once, then again. Well, she had been sleeping on the floor all night, Mels thought sleepily. She wouldn't be used to that; perhaps that was why she was awake so early, before it even got light. Slowly, Amy sat up.
"Sleep well?" Mels mumbled, not yet bothering to open her eyes to see. But there was no reply. There was the rustling of the blankets as Amy disentangled herself from them and stood, but no reply. "You okay?"
Still no reply.
Finally, Mels opened her eyes to see Amy lurching towards her as she crossed the room. She sat up suddenly, her braids swishing about her head from the sudden movement. "Amy?"
But Amy didn't even look at her. She just kept marching towards the door, moving like a sleepwalker, knocking the glasses from last night over without a care. Mels scrambled to her feet, kicking her way out of her blankets.
"Amy!" she called as her friend stiffly opened the door and wandered out into the hall. She dashed in front of her, and took her by the shoulders. "Wake up, Amy, you're sleepwalking!"
But Amy just stared blankly ahead, pushing against Mels as she tried to continue forward.
"Stop it!" Mels hissed, just as a flicker of blue light ran right around Amy's head. Mels flinched back, allowing Amy to pass. Her mind raced as she tried to figure out what was happening, even as she quietly trailed Amy past her Aunt Sharon's room and down the stairs. It wasn't anything from Earth, not from this time period: that was for sure. Her mind ran through the possibilities at lightning speed, dismissing some ideas before she'd even had the time to really think of them.
Then she hit on it: blood control. A shiver went down her spine as she realised this, and suddenly she was afraid, so afraid of the Church and what they might do to punish her now.
"I'm sorry!" she cried out uselessly. "I'll come straight back. Just don't hurt her!"
But there was no one listening; Aunt Sharon hadn't even woken up, and now Amy was at the front door in her pyjamas. At least she was well covered in a long sleeved t-shirt and soft trousers. Mels looked down at herself and suddenly regretted her choice of hot sleepwear – a midriff bearing tank top and hot pants. Amy turned the key in the lock and opened the old door, letting a blast of cold air in from the outside, making Mels shiver. But Amy stepped straight out into the front garden, her bare feet padding along the freezing flagstone path until she joined the road.
And that was when Mels realised: Amy wasn't the only one sleepwalking down the street. Several other people were already out of their houses, adults and children alike, all with the same blank expressions, all lurching along like zombies. There weren't very many of them, but then there weren't very many people in Leadworth. It made for an eerie scene as Mels quietly trailed Amy through the small crowd; blank sleepwalkers, marching on through the predawn darkness.
As they passed the one electrical shop in town, whose televisions in the window were never turned off, Mels saw that it wasn't just in Leadworth. The pictures were coming from London, of people in the dawn, stood on high rooftops, along with replays of a Sycorax message. Mel's blood ran cold. So it wasn't the church; it was something else, something she had no hope of influencing or reasoning with at all. And if the people in London were perched on the nearest rooftop they could find, then the people of Leadworth would soon be doing the same.
Sure enough, off in the distance, Mels could see the dark outlines of silhouettes on top of the little Village hall, the people stood right on the edge, poised to jump. For a moment Mels stopped in her tracks, watching to see of they would. Another sleepwalker joined them, but instead of taking that final step into oblivion, he stopped at the last moment, and just seemed to wait. But the people in the street weren't stopping; the guy from the chip shop crashed into Mels from behind, sending her stumbling forward and then racing to catch up with Amy. Mercifully, she walked straight past the entrance to the village hall, but as they turned the corner, Mels saw that Amy had something even higher in mind: the church tower.
Clutching onto Amy's sleeve so that she wouldn't loose her again, Mels whipped her phone out of her pocket and dialled Rory's number.
Rory was sensible, and dependable, and he loved Amy so much; she just hadn't noticed it yet.
"Come on, come on," Mels muttered as the dialling tone went on and one. "Please don't have the same blood type."
"Hello?" came Rory's muffled, sleepy voice, and Mels grinned in relief.
"Rory! Get up and get out here!" Mels shouted down the phone to wake him up.
"Get out where? You're not wrecking my back garden again, are you?"
"No you idiot! Get up and look out of the window!"
"But it's seven am!"
"GET UP!" Mels shouted, and she heard muttering on the other end of the phone as he finally did as he was told. There was a whoosh as he pulled back his curtains, and a stunned silence, and she knew he had seen what was going on. "It's happening all of England. People are just walking like zombies to the nearest high building."
"But…Well what can we do about it?" Rory asked quietly.
"Rory…Amy's walking."
"Right, where are you?" Rory asked, and Mels could hear the confusion in his voice hardening into resolve. That was the way it always was with Rory: if Amy was in trouble, he was there.
"Meet us at the Church, at the top of the tower; that's where she's going. And Rory? Bring some rope. Lots of rope."
The two big burly guys in front of Amy broke down the door to the church, pushing it wide open for the others to pass through. It was pitch black inside, but none of the walkers faltered, though Mels was glad that she still had a hold of Amy's sleeve. They made their way down the aisle and behind the pulpit to a little door which lead to a cramped, winding staircase. Up and up they climbed, past the gallery level, past the bells, right up to the top of the tower, where they broke down another door and emerged onto the roof.
The lead roofing plates were slippery with the frost, but that didn't seem to bother the walkers. They fanned out across the roof, climbing up onto the battlements, where as if by an invisible, inaudible command, they stopped. Next to Amy, Mels peeked over the edge and saw the last of the walkers arriving at the church. She held onto Amy's sleeve still, her heart lurching with every wobble, every breath that Amy took.
She knew there was no point in trying to reason with her, or even trying to pull her back from the edge. If she tried that, Amy would only struggle against her with all of her strength and then some, and they would both fall to their deaths. But Mels knew that if Amy jumped, then she might as well jump, too. She wondered briefly if she would even make it to the ground before flickering out of existence.
"Amy! Amy!" Rory's shouts echoed up to the tower as he ran flailing through the graveyard.
"She's up here!" Mels shouted down to him, and he squinted up through the darkness to see Amy's pale, slender silhouette against the dark sky.
He hesitated for only a moment before running through the open church doors, and Mels waited until she heard his footsteps echoing up the staircase before she finally turned away from Amy. When he did appear on the rooftop, he slowed, looking frightened as he saw all the other shadowy shapes gathered up there. But when he saw Amy, he hurried over to her, taking her hand and standing next to her.
"Amy? Amy? Wake up. You have to wake up now and get down," he said, tugging on her hand as he backed away from the edge, but Amy tugged her hand out of his and went back to being motionless.
"Don't try to pull her away, you'll only hurt her," Mels said, taking the rope that Rory had slung over his shoulder.
"What's happening to her? What's wrong with all of them?"
"I don't know," Mels lied as she began uncoiling the rope. "But I think they might jump at any moment."
"But...why?"
"I don't know!" Mels snapped, shaking Rory out of his trance. "But we can't let her jump, so we're going to tie her up. Here, you tie this end around her; I'll tie the other end around…something."
Rory looked at her, automatically taking the rope Mels held out to him. "Is she going to be alright?"
Mels looked at him sharply, though she saw the worry on his face and felt sorry for him. "Not if we don't work quickly."
With that, she strode off across the church roof, looking for something, anything that she could tie her end of the rope to. In the end, she settled on tying it to the raised part of the battlement on the other side of the tower. She pulled it fairly tight with little slack; enough that Rory could tie his end around Amy, but not so much that she would get hurt if she fell or jumped. She wrapped the rope around twice, then tied it in as many knots as she could think of before hurrying back to Rory. He was doing passably well, but she began helping him, tying the rope in a kind of harness around Amy, first around her waist, and then under her arms.
By now the glow of the approaching sun could be seen on the eastern horizon, casting a pale light on their already eerie surroundings.
Mels raised her dark eyes to the morning skies. "You'd better be doing something," she muttered darkly, and Rory shot her a look.
"Who are you talking to?"
"The Doctor," Mels replied, getting back to work on securing Amy.
Rory stared at her. "Amy's inches from death, and you're talking to her imaginary childhood friend?"
"Just shut up and keep working. Just so long as we can keep her from jumping, we'll be fine."
"What about the others?" Rory asked, pointing to the other silent figures who stood on the roof of the church tower.
"Amy's important."
"Of course Amy's important."
"Amy's more important," Mels said sharply.
"But-"
"If Amy dies, I have no future!" Mels shouted, and Rory momentarily froze.
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know, I just don't want to see a world without her, okay," she huffed, trying to cover her mistake. "So keep working."
Rory nodded, and then continued to tie the rope around Amy's waist. Once they were done, they went back and checked every knot again; neither of them complaining when they felt the need to double check the other's work.
"She should be safe now," Mels said quietly, brushing a stray shock of red hair out of Amy's eyes. "Now we can worry about the others."
Working separately now, they used the remaining strands of rope that Rory had found to tie up some of the other walkers. They didn't have time to choose carefully, so just secured the people who were closest to them until they ran out of rope.
"Now what?" Rory asked.
"We wait," Mels said quietly.
Rory shifted about uncomfortably, looking like he wanted to run off and find more rope, but he didn't know where to get any more – or even if the people would still be on the roof by the time he got back. Eventually he settled for taking Amy's hand, gently rubbing his thumb against her knuckles as if to calm her.
They waited.
And waited.
Off in the distance, they could hear the commotion coming from the roof of the Village hall, where other residents of Leadworth who had finally awoken and noticed something amiss. But no one else made their way to the Church, where Rory and Mels stood alone among the absent walkers as the sun rose above the horizon.
The wait was awful; never knowing when or if the people were going to jump. Rory's heart was pounding so fast that he could hear the rushing of his own blood in his ears, and beside him Mels wore an expression that he'd never seen on her before: fear.
Then, as one, the walkers shuddered, and for an awful moment, Rory and Mels thought they were all going to jump. Rory's hand tightened on Amy's as she swayed…and blinked. She blinked several times again, as a confused look spread across her features, and Mels let out a breath of relieved laughter.
"Thank you," she whispered to the sky. Sure, she'd still kill the Doctor someday, but today, he had unknowingly saved her mother.
"Amy?" Rory asked hesitantly.
Amy whipped her head around to face him, her red hair tumbling everywhere. "Rory? What are we doing on the church roof?" she looked down at herself and saw the red rope wound around her body, and her voice dropped to an accusing tone. "Why am I tied up?"
"Um…Ow!" Rory shouted as she slapped him, and he rubbed his cheek.
"You had better have a very good explanation!" Amy thundered, stepping down off the battlement just before Mels flung her arms about her. "You too, Melody Bishop!"
"It's not his fault," Mels said with a grin. "We have no idea what happened; you just got up and walked here, and stood up here like you were about to jump, like everyone else."
Amy looked around as Mels finally released her, and her eyes widened as she saw the other people climbing back down, some of them also tied up.
"Oh," Amy whispered, casting an apologetic glance at Rory.
"Yeah," Rory said pointedly.
Amy gave a half smile and held her arms out to Rory. "Hug?"
He dithered for a moment, and then his anger melted away.
"Yeah," he said softly, wrapping Amy in a gentle embrace.
With the others, they made their way off the roof and back down to the welcoming ground, walking back through the village together in the early morning light, the three of them going arm in arm. Unable to understand or explain what had happened, they settled for joking about it. They said goodbye to Rory as he went to sneak back into his own house, and Amy and Mels did the same, sneaking back past Aunt Sharon's room, where she continued to sleep. When questioned about it later, Amy told Aunt Sharon that she hadn't had a clue that it had ever happened until she heard it on the news. Aunt Sharon never did figure out where the muddy footprints through the hall had come from.