"Where are you?" The desperate wail rang out over the desolate landscape. A lonely figure stood on the edge of the sandstone cliff in the nighttime. "Where are you?" The wind whipped the man's dark hair around as he threw his arms out wide and shouted to the sky. "Where are you?" He fell to his knees, filled with failure, tormenting himself as he remembered how he had allowed himself to be knocked out and had let them get taken away from him. He had failed them. They couldn't run and there had been nowhere to hide. And now Amy and Rory were gone.
Seven hours earlier…
"The Windstorm Planet!" the Doctor proclaimed. "Home to the worst winds on a habitable planet in the Andromeda Galaxy." He pointed to the pale blue sky. "But look at that, not a wind at all today."
"And why's that?" Rory questioned, looking around at the bare expanses of red and orange stone, the cliffs and the cracks as wide as canyons.
"Happens occasionally," the Doctor explained. "Weather systems are weird here, I won't try to explain them. Just trust me, we're perfectly safe here today, and there's not going to be anyone else here, so we can explore without being disturbed or attacked."
Amy Pond frowned. "Why isn't there anyone else here, then? If the conditions are so perfect."
"That's the thing," the Doctor said excitedly. "Life hasn't evolved here yet, and it won't for another several centuries. No one else has come here yet, either. We're technically the first life forms to stand on this planet's surface. But we've only got four hours before another storm starts, so we have to be fast."
Familiar and welcome anticipation welled up inside of Amy and Rory. "What are we waiting for?" she asked. "Let's go explore!"
Leaving the TARDIS landed safely on the bare expanse of rock, the trio set out. They exclaimed in wonder over the shapes of the columns and stones carved away at by the violent winds. Laughing, they tried to determine what each of them thought a particular hoodoo looked like. Amy was fond of saying they looked like cats. The Doctor was a bit more creative, but he said that they looked like numerous alien species he had come across, and Amy and Rory couldn't confirm or deny any of it. Rory compared them to everything from the sonic screwdriver to a pirate ship to a strawberry.
The pinnacles of stone were sometimes even climbable, and with the Doctor's help, the Ponds managed to clamber up on top of one particularly high, not too steep one. A flat part at the top provided a perfect place to sit and rest and look out at the never-ending landscape of sheer drops and low crevices, topped by pillars like so many candles on a cake. This planet's single yellow star was dropping lower in the sky. The still air was warm and clear.
"Why isn't it always like this?" Amy murmured to herself, but the Doctor heard her. He looked at her, confused.
"Like what, Amelia?"
Amy sighed. "I dunno. Peaceful. Beautiful, calm. No one attacking or threatening us, no need to save the universe before time implodes on itself or anything like that. Just no…fighting."
Now Rory looked at her with apprehension, but also agreement. The Doctor glanced back and forth between their faces, Rory looking at Amy and Amy looking at the Doctor. "Ponds…" the Doctor started, but broke off. "Really, is that what you want? Because I could bring you back home, you know. You'd be perfectly safe there, and you'd never have to be in a fight again. That's always an option."
Amy shook her head. "No, that's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?" Rory wondered.
"I dunno what I meant," Amy muttered. "I didn't mean to say anything. Forget it."
The Doctor looked like he was about to say something, but thought better of it. Instead, he reached out to both of the Ponds and pulled them closer to him, Amy on his left and Rory on his right. Amy sighed and put her head down on his shoulder, and Rory put one arm around the Doctor and placed his hand on Amy's red hair. They sat together in silence for a while and watched the sun sink down. The wind blew gently across their faces.
Wait. The Doctor pulled quickly away from his companions, scrambling to stand up and get away from the edge of the rock. "Amy, Rory, we have to go!" he shouted.
They stood up, startled. "What is it?" they said together.
The Doctor was panicking. He grabbed both of their hands and pulled them over to the route they had used to climb up. "Quickly, hurry, get down, we have to get back to the TARDIS!"
Knowing better than to argue but not realizing what was happening, the Ponds began to climb down, backwards, using little dips in the stone as foot- and hand-holds. The Doctor followed. "Faster, slide down if you have to!" Somehow, they got down onto the flat, solid stone that made up the ground of the planet. Taking their hands again, the Doctor started to run, pulling his companions along with him.
"Doctor!" Amy protested then. "What the heck is wrong? Why are we running?"
"I miscalculated!" the Doctor shouted, making them go faster. "We have to get back to the TARDIS and get out of here, the wind is coming now!" The breeze was picking up, and Amy and Rory's hearts dropped to their stomachs with fear. It had taken them over an hour to walk here from the TARDIS. How long would it take to run back, especially since they only had a rough idea of where they had left the ship? Would they get out in time?
Now the wind was really starting, pushing in the opposite direction from how the trio was running, slowing them down and blowing sand into their eyes. The Doctor urged them on, but unevenness in the stones and the confusion of the quickening winds caused them to trip and nearly fall several times. He pulled them back up, never letting either of them get left behind, but they were going too slow. The air whistling around the stone formations was so loud that they could barely hear each other if they shouted.
The tiny rock particles stung on contact with the exposed skin of their faces. Tiny cuts were being formed with every sand grain striking them, and they could no longer see because if they opened their eyes, they might be blinded by the blowing bits.
The Doctor slammed into the side of a tall, narrow pinnacle, propelled there by the tumultuous storm. He lost his tight grips on his companions' hands and fell backwards. His head struck a smaller stone on the ground and he fell into unconsciousness.
Now
The Doctor had woken up alone. Besides the strangely formed stones, he could not see anything. Though the winds were still howling, they weren't nearly as strong as before. The worst storm had passed for now. He staggered to the edge of a crevice that was nearby and stood at the edge of the cliff. "Amy! Rory!" he screamed. "Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?" But there was no reply other than the wind's singing. "Please," he whispered, tears filling his eyes. His strength was gone and he fell to his knees. The rough sandstone bit through the knees of his trousers and he could tell that he was bleeding now, but he didn't care.
He'd lost them now. He didn't dare look over the edge of the cliff for fear he might see one or both of their broken bodies lying at the bottom. What was the point of him if he couldn't even keep them safe? How had he managed to make such a catastrophic miscalculation? Stupid, foolish Doctor. "AMELIA!" he shouted hoarsely. "RORY!" The stars shone down unforgivingly, and the Doctor imagined that he heard a reply. He shook his head sadly at his own foolishness. But then he heard it again, and hope sprang back into his hearts.
"Doctor?" came the soft, distant, Scottish response.
"Amy?" the Doctor cried, springing now to the very edge of the steep drop and looking down. There, on a single outcrop, sat a disheveled, scraped-up Amy Pond and an unconscious Rory Williams. "Amy! Rory!"
"Doctor, help!" Amy called. "He's knocked out."
"Okay, okay," the Doctor said, trying to stay calm. "Hold on. Can you climb up?"
Amy was almost in tears. "Maybe, but Rory can't! Doctor, I'm not leaving him."
"No, no, of course not," the Doctor tried to reassure her. "Hang in there, I might have some rope in a pocket somewhere." He reached into his coat, pulling out his sonic screwdriver, a stethoscope, a small paperback book, a rubber ball, a pencil, his psychic paper, and several other things Amy couldn't identify.
How does he fit everything in his coat? Amy wondered silently. Finally, he pulled out a length of rope.
"This should work," he said. He tossed one end down to Amy. She was about to tie it around Rory when he sat up suddenly and his eyes sprung open.
"Hey," he said. "What happened?"
Amy rolled her eyes. "You and me and your stupid face managed to fall off of a cliff. Come on, we have to get back up. The Doctor has rope, look."
Eventually, they all were standing up well away from the edge. Rory was limping slightly, and everyone had shallow cuts covering their faces and hands, but apart from that, miraculously, no one was hurt too badly. They found their way back to the TARDIS.
"You're a sight for sore eyes, old girl," the Doctor murmured as he stroked the police box exterior, and her door clicked open without even making them use a key. "Thanks, love." Once inside, Amy and Rory excused themselves to go and collapse in their room and sleep. The Doctor didn't let them go until he had given both a huge hug. He didn't tell them that he had thought he may have lost them. They didn't need to know how scared that had made him.
But once they had disappeared into the depths of the TARDIS corridors, the Doctor allowed himself to, after flying instantly away from the quickening of the winds, walk slowly down the stairs to the lower part of the console room and sit in the little sling of cloth he had strung up to sit in while fixing bits of the lower console. He pressed his forehead against a smooth part of the TARDIS controls nearby and closed his eyes, letting out a long, tired breath. "What am I going to do without them?" he asked of his oldest and best companion in the universe. "Tell me that, old girl." The TARDIS hummed. "Yeah. I didn't think so," the Doctor agreed. "I'm just going to have to keep them forever, because I can't keep travelling without them. I'll just stop somewhere, won't I? I'll just be done. Forever."
Not forever, the TARDIS seemed to sing inside his head. Not forever, my thief.
I hope you enjoyed that. It was interesting to write, and a little hard at some points. It's part of a series of one shots I'm writing, one with each Doctor and their companion(s) from New Who. The first one was The Red Bicycle, and the previous one was Colors. The next one is called Ten Thousand, a special New Year story. Thanks so much for reading! I love you all.