Author's Note:
The story is underway! This one is a little harder for me to write (I've been doing a lot of research to keep it historically accurate) so I might be a little slower on the updates. Sorry about that! This chapter is also a little bit shorter due to the length of the next chapter. I really hope you enjoy the story and please feel free to leave me a comment, review, or critique!
Happy reading!
Chapter Two: The Stowaway
"Amelia Earhart?" Clara's eyes went wide as she stepped behind the Doctor. Her eyes flickered over the woman's face. "The Amelia Earhart? The pilot? The first woman to fly across the Atlantic? That Amelia Earhart?"
"The one and only," the Doctor's grin was as eager as his voice. "Wait wait, you're here; you're in New Guinea, which means…oh!" The Doctor snapped his fingers and pointed at Amelia, who raised one eyebrow at the Doctor. "You're on your flight around the world, aren't you? Oh that's brilliant, you are brilliant! I always loved Amelia Earhart, what a woman!"
Amelia watched the both of them with a hint of amusement in her features. She raised an eyebrow at the Doctor and Clara as she listened to them.
"You speak strangely," Amelia said with a smile, "where are you from then? You don't sound American."
The Doctor turned to Amelia with the widest, most amused grin he could possibly manage.
"I'm the Doctor- nothing else, just the Doctor-and this is Clara. We're time travelers from the future and I'm an alien from another planet." The Doctor swayed a little bit with his elbows bent as though he were just dancing. His grin never left his lips as Amelia quirked an eyebrow at them. When she did not speak, the Doctor straightened with a sort of disappointed sigh. "Right, one day that will actually work. How about this then," the Doctor reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the psychic paper. He waved it in front of her.
"Doctor," Clara whispered to the Doctor as Amelia took the psychic paper and read the information that had appeared there, "you said this is Amelia's flight around the world. This isn't the flight where she…you know," her eyes flicked to Amelia then back to the Doctor. "Disappears, right?"
The Doctor fidgeted with his fingers. "July 1st, 1937, Amelia Earhart has stopped off in Lae, New Guinea to refuel before taking off in the direction of Howland Island the next day." The Doctor swallowed and looked at Clara. "Yes, it is. This is the last stop Amelia Earhart sees before she crashes somewhere in the Pacific Ocean."
Clara's eyes widened and she opened her mouth to speak again before Amelia cut her off, handing the psychic paper back to the Doctor.
"The Doctor," Amelia said with an eyebrow quirked. "You're a journalist from Great Britain?"
The Doctor flipped the psychic paper towards him and read it before he smiled and stuck it back into his pocket. "Yes, yes I am! And this is Clara Oswald, my assistant. We're here to do all sorts of investigate-y journalist…things."
"Doctor," Clara whispered, "we can't just—"
"Investigation? Do you mean the disappearances?" Amelia cut Clara off again. "Is that what you're here for, to investigate the disappearances?"
The Doctor's eyes narrowed and he looked at Amelia with a curious confusion. "Disappearances?" He repeated, taking a step toward her. "What sort of disappearances?"
"You don't know then?" Amelia sighed and gestured for the Doctor and Clara to follow her. "Come along, I'll show you what I mean"
"It only seems to happen at night," Amelia said as she took a purposeful stride through the hangers of the base. There were several planes, new to this age but so very old to Clara, that sat on the concrete ready to be flown. A few of them were being tended to by burly mechanics with oil on their hands and faces as worn as leather. Clara couldn't help but feel like she had walked straight into one of Angie and Artie's history books.
"There have been disappearances almost every night since we arrived. People are going missing in the dead of night without a single trace. At first I thought it was just a coincidence and maybe they had gotten too drunk to stumble back here, then I found this." Amelia stopped at a small desk in the corner of the hangar and began rummaging through it. She pulled out a black and white photo of a man and a young girl. On the corner of the photo was a smudge of dark red. The Doctor scratched a little bit of the red mark off the photo and rubbed it between his fingers.
"It's blood," Amelia said as she watched the Doctor. "That photo belonged to a mechanic here by the name of Gordon Thatch. The girl in the photograph is his daughter who passed away a year ago. He kept that photo in his front pocket at all times. I found it just outside the hangar the morning after he vanished."
The Doctor looked up from the photo at Amelia with a surprised expression. "Hold on, have you been investigating?"
"Well, people disappearing into the night, strange noises, mysterious journalists appearing in the middle of my runway," Amelia's grin resembled a mischievous child. "It sounds like it has adventure written all over it, and if there's adventure I'm there."
The Doctor's grin widened and he rocked back and forth on his heels. "Oh you are brilliant, I always knew there was a reason I liked you, Amelia Earhart, something scary happens and you run right towards it." The Doctor clapped his hands together as he began walking toward the main building. Clara and Amelia followed him, trying to match his stride.
"Now, there are two things that need answering here. First one, obvious question, what has been happening to the people vanishing and what has been taking them. Second," The Doctor suddenly stopped and turned on his heel, staring past Amelia and Clara. "Who is following us?"
Clara and Amelia turned around to see who the Doctor was talking to. Clara's eyes scanned the hangar behind them and at first, all she saw were planes and tools scattered about the ground. Her eyes followed the Doctor's until they landed on a pair of shoes that most certainly did not belong in 1937.
"No…" Clara whispered in disbelief. "It can't be."
