Normally, in a situation like this with reality being a relative concept and mental states being the order of the day, I wouldn't advise splitting up. One must hold on to the things one knows to be real; they make the rest look pale and fake. Less sentimentally put, they show up the fractals, those little lines where yes and no meet. The little haze on a bad perception filter or a flicker of indecision in psychic paper. You need real things around to bounce the fake off.
That's why I sent her away.
It doesn't make sense, that River following me out. Being in that room before me and me not being aware of her. The more I think about it the more certain I become that the River who has been with me is the production of the Tian Lu Quan. Told you that would happen, didn't I? Me sending her packing. She won't come back. Now that she's gone I'll forget about her. Whatever residual influence the place is having on me, and that's the only explanation I can think of currently, it ought to fade with her. Well… maybe once I've apologized to the concierge.
I'm still headed to room seventeen. The sooner I break them out, the easier it will be for them to leave behind their respective heavens. There is one small problem, however. Allow me to relate to you the numbers of the rooms on this corridor: seven, eighty-two, fourteen, fifteen, sixty-four and twelve.
So where the hell is seventeen, then? Or forty-two for that matter, I'll take what comes. There's no mathematical reasoning to it, I've checked. Just another line of defence between the captives and freedom.
The shadow of an Attendant falls around the corner. I duck into the nearest open room and pull the door as close to closed as I dare. Behind me, there's a whisper of water on sand, the salt scent and warm sun, and a voice that calls me on. And the last thing I should do is close my eyes, so I press one to the crack at the door and the other loses everything in the doorpost. The beach isn't real. The Attendant, unfortunately, is. This is a door. I am holding onto a door. I am watching an Attendant in the seedy hallway of the Tian Lu Quan whether I want it or not.
He's writing something down. Making a note on a clipboard. And I'm willing to bet it has something to do with his rounds. Rounds which only include two rooms. One of them, then, is around here somewhere. But how will I find the other afterward? Quickly, as he walks away, I scan him for any electrical signal I might be able to lock onto.
There's one. Disconcertingly, it would appear to be a small implant in the brainstem. That, then, must be how they switch off the thoughts and desires of the workers, the myth that River had heard about. She hears a great many myths, you know, I think it's how she finds me sometimes and she's the last, the last thing I should be thinking of, isn't she?
A hand on my shoulder. The lightest touch, long strong fingers. Not a word said. I hold my breath until the Attendant turns the corner, and don't look down at the black glass panel, because there's bound to be some reflection of her there, then push free, away. I close the door without turning, without looking back. Hades and the Tian Lu Quan; the two places you can lose it all by looking back.
Free now, I run the way the Attendant's just come. Then I freeze.
Room Seventeen belongs to the Ponds. I know this, and would have known the room even without the clue. There in the hallway, floating upward from a deep blue weight, is a gold balloon with the words 'Do Not Disturb' printed on it in black.
Lovely. Now I get to be that person again. Bunk bed person. Stupid bloody bunk bed person. The relative coolness of bunk beds nonwithstanding, that's not what we're disputing here so much as their usefulness and how conducive they are to certain situations, much like the one I may or may not be rambling to distract myself from and I am, aren't I?
Alright, deep breath time. Steel myself and rap most firmly at the door. "Ponds! Now I'm terribly sorry to interrupt but-"
That is precisely what I say. Apparently, though, they hear something different. All full of the pain and rage of embarrassment, I hear Rory seething back at me, "Oh my God, Dad, go away!" And from somewhere else in there a muffled Amy giggling.
"Rory?" I yelp, then pause to bring my voice down by an octave. "Now listen, you two, very carefully, I am nobody's father and you're both in grave danger and-"
"I'm twenty-two, Dad, you can't threaten me anymore!
"I'm not your Dad!"
A bit louder and stronger than perhaps I should have said it; that one appears to get through. There's a scrabbling inside the room, voices hushed in shocked discussion. Moments later, the door that would not move for me is suddenly flung open, and there stands Rory, clutching at nothing around his waist where he very probably thinks there are sheets.
"What do you mean you're not my… Doctor, you're the Doctor and I'm… I'm really naked…" I have not looked anywhere into the room but somewhere Amy yelps, his realization triggering hers.
I'm trying to turn away and cover my eyes at the same time, so I don't have a hand to keep the door open when he slams the door again. Thankfully, my jacket catches in it, sparing me the trouble of having to go through that again. I explain, while they cast about for their cast offs inside, where they are, that they must pay no attention to the world within, no matter how tempting it might seem.
They're not listening though.
"Wait a minute," I hear Amy say, after a while, "Why are we getting dressed again?"
"I don't know, it seemed really important a minute ago."
"Oh, for heaven's sake!" I cry, and throw the door open, and sonic the last of the illusion out of the corners of the room. "Because I'm here, because none of it's real, because it all seems so real and lovely you'll never want to leave it, not even to eat, am I ringing any bells here?"
They stare at me. Rory tugs the ruches of his t-shirt down over his belly, and Amy is trying very hard to smooth down her hair at the back. Blank faces, utterly without recollection. So I step out of the doorway and usher them through. Half of my mind takes out the sonic and begins to trace the signal from the Attendant. The other half pulls gently at the tangles in Amy's hair.
"Before anybody begins, I have no desire to know what went on and I require no explanation – wait," and here I stop, and turn on my heel to make sure, "Where did the balloon go?"
"What balloon?" It's nice to have Amy back to being confused, it takes the look of intense shame off her face.
"There was a balloon, a big 'Do Not Disturb' balloon, and I can read, only I had to disturb, unfortunately, but there was a balloon and now there's no balloon." No little weight either, no pretty red ribbon. No gold balloon.
Neither of them has anything to say, and so they say nothing. There are other things to think about, though. Gently shepherding them along I briefly explain again about the Tian Lu Quan. That's the thing about River, you see, she always has an idea about these things, you don't have to lay everything out of her, she's already heard it and she is still the last person I should be thinking of.
"But…" Rory begins, the moment I finish, as is his wont, "I don't remember us being put in a room. How did we get here?"
I take them by the outside shoulders so that they turn inward, and I lean close to Rory, make sure I'm looking him dead in the eye. Because Rory had had this great idea about where we should go, hadn't he? "Good question," I say to him, "how did we get here?"
He goes all wide-eyed and trembly and leans as far back as I can allow. "I asked you that, Doctor."
"Course you did. Because it's a good question and you have great faith in my knowing things and stuff and answers. But that one I don't know. I do know Jessica's in room forty-two, though, and that we have to go," checking the sonic, "that way to get there." But as I step back from between them I notice that they've met each other's eyes and now they're lingering with it.
I'd tell them to get a room, but it wouldn't be the best idea I've ever put forward.
