The Eleventh Hour – Part Three
Prisoner Zero marched through the village of Leadworth, taking in his new surroundings. He'd been cramped into the same room for twelve years. He got a number of strange looks from passers-by, as the man and dog moved in perfect unison. He seemed to be circling the village. About twenty metres behind him, Alex crouched behind a small bush, not wanting to be seen. The Doctor wanted Alex to keep an eye on Prisoner Zero, he was sure of it. Can't let an inter-dimensional multi-form from outer space roam a quaint little English village freely. Although what Alex was actually supposed to do if he saw any trouble was beyond him.
"Repeat! Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human residence will be incinerated!" The words came from every speaker imaginable, from MP3 player headphones, from a mobile phone, from radios, from televisions that Alex spied through some house windows. Some tourists passed Alex on the path, looking just as confused as the residents of Leadworth.
"Répetez! PrisonnierZéroquitter larésidencede l'homme, ou de la résidencede l'hommeserontincinérés ! "
The French people glanced at each other. They evidently believed it was some odd English music. Alex however, thought more deeply.
"Why tell the French?" he whispered to himself? He disregarded it and turned back to Prisoner Zero. He'd disappeared. "Oh GOD," Alex leapt up and ran forward to where he'd last seen the alien. He twisted left and right but saw nothing.
"So very rude... and that dog! It should be in a kennel!" Alex heard the words and turned, watching the old lady leave the park, talking to her friend. With no other option, Alex decided to take a chance and ran into the park, keeping a constant eye out for the man and dog. He rounded a corner and nearly ran into him. He stopped dead in his tracks, waiting for Zero to turn round.
When it seemed he'd got away with it, Alex crept behind the fire engine to the side of the alien and onto the green. He took a seat at a bench, keeping the man, who stood stock-still, in his sights at all time. Periodically, he glanced over, but the thing hadn't moved a muscle, simply staring into the sky. Alex stretched and glanced around, waiting for the Doctor to make an appearance. Instead, he caught the eye of a man sat on another bench nearby. The other man looked away straight away, shooting an eye over Prisoner Zero instead, which he too was doing at regular intervals. The man had brown-blonde, short hair. He was fairly tall, but had a nervous look about him. He had a large nose to match his height, and was dressed in a nurse's uniform. Alex jumped up and joined the man at the other bench.
"Now, I know why I keep looking at the bloke with the dog," he said, conversationally. "But why are you?"
"What?" the man replied defensively.
"Alex. Alex Morgan," Alex held out a hand, which the nurse shook, slightly confused.
"R-Rory Williams," he replied.
"Good to meet you Rory." Alex cast an eye over Rory's attire. "Doctor?"
"Nurse," he corrected. "Sort of, nurse. I have to take, erm... time-off."
"Why's that?"
"Why does it matter to you?"
"Because I'm interested! Anyway, manners cost nothing."
"My supervisor. She said I'm... well, you know. Why am I even telling you this?"
"No idea. We're going to get on though, I can tell," Alex grinned at Rory, giving him a friendly punch on the arm. "Now, tell me Rory. Why do you keep looking at the guy with the dog?"
Rory turned towards Alex, looking at him properly for the first time. "Do I know you?"
"No. Pretty sure you don't."
"I've heard Alex Morgan somewhere before,"
"Fairly common name. Sort of," Alex glanced past Rory and finally noticed the Doctor jogging down the road and stopping short at a small pond, Amelia close behind. "Ah, there he is!"
Rory looked to where Alex's eyes were directed. "That's my girlfriend," he mentioned. "Who's the guy with her?" He sounded rather annoyed now.
"Oh, just a frien- oh!" in the distance, the Doctor seemed to collapse in pain. Amelia did little to help him, from what Alex could see. What Alex could see lessened further, as the light in the area dimmed. Dimmed light, outside? Alex twisted in his seat to look at the sun. "What are you doing?" Alex asked it, as it changed colour, looking like a sun painted with watercolours. "Any ideas Ror..." Alex turned around, as the sun re-lit itself, to see that Rory had disappeared from his side. Looking around, he spotted him a short distance away, with his phone out. Prisoner Zero was glaring at the ever-changing sun, a look of something that could be akin to fear etched upon his stolen face. Taking advantage of this lapse in concentration, Rory had jumped at the chance to take a picture of the man. Alex joined him.
"Okay, seriously, why're you taking a picture of him? What do you know?"
"Because-"
"Sorry, back in a mo'!" In the distance, Alex had noticed Amelia shove the Doctor against a car, grab his tie and trap it in a locked door. Alien-on-the-loose? The last thing you want to do then is incapacitate the Doctor. Alex strolled towards the Doctor and Amelia at a decent pace. Rory stared after him, deciding whether or not to follow. He decided not to, and went back to his phone, checking the photo he'd just taken.
As Alex approached the pair, he noticed that the pair seemed to be having a serious moment. He slowed down, not wanting to interrupt.
"...Twenty minutes," the Doctor was telling her. "Believe me for twenty minutes..." He looked up and noticed Alex. "Alex. Apple."
Alex took a moment to understand. He felt the slight bulge in his pocket. He reached into it and pulled out the apple with a face lovingly carved into it. The Doctor took it and passed it to Amelia.
"I'm the Doctor. We," he gestured to Alex. "We're Time travellers. Everything that happened twelve years ago, everything we told you, is true. What's happening in the sky is real. And if you don't let me go right now, everything you've ever known is over."
Amelia stared into the eyes of the man. The man she had waited for all these years, the man she never truly gave up on. The Raggedy Doctor. Her Raggedy Doctor. "I don't believe you,"
The Doctor sighed and looked to Alex for help. He approached the pair slowly. "Amelia,"
"Amy," the Doctor corrected. Alex looked at him questioningly, before being spurred on.
"Amy. Look at me. Look at both of us. We look exactly as we did twelve years ago," he almost whispered his words, trying to get through Amy's tough skin to her soft heart within. "I know, I know it must've been hard. Five minutes, twelve years. I know. But all that time you've waited. We finally come back, and you don't believe in us anymore? Don't waste those twelve years...please. Believe..."
The Doctor took over. He nodded towards the apple, still held in Amy's hand, which he grasped. "Look at it. Fresh as the day you gave it to us. And you know it's the same one." Amy looked from the apple to her companions and back again, soaking it all up. "Believe us... for twenty minutes..."
Slowly but surely, Amy rose her hand with the car keys. She pressed the unlock button. "What do we do?"
"Stop that nurse." The Doctor released himself from the car-door and sprinted over to where Rory was standing, Alex close behind him, with Amy bringing up the rear. Rory, still preoccupied with his phone didn't notice the Doctor jog up behind him. He had no time to protest as the Doctor grabbed his phone out of his hands and glanced at the photo on the screen.
"The sun's going out," the Doctor announced, giving Rory back his phone. "And you're photographing a man and a dog, why?"
Rory, completely startled, didn't reply. Alex and Amy joined them. "Back, Ror," Alex clapped him on the shoulder.
Rory glanced at Alex, still slightly uneasy. Amy arrived at his other side. "Amy!" he said, obviously very happy to see her. She grasped Rory's arm and grinned back.
"Hi!" she looked back to the Doctor. "Oh, this is Rory. He's a... friend."
"Boyfriend," Rory corrected.
"Kind of, boyfriend,"
"Amy!"
"Man and dog, why?" the Doctor interrupted, looking from Amy to Rory impatiently.
Rory looked the Doctor up and down, recognition in his eyes. They widened. He turned to drink in Alex's appearance too. "Oh, my God. It's them!"
"Just answer his question, please," Amy interjected.
"It's him though! The Doctor, the Raggedy Doctor! And Alex! Alex Morgan!"
"Yeah, they came back!"
"How... do you know us, then?" Alex leaned his head into the discussion.
"Amy drew cartoons of us," the Doctor told him, speaking fast.
"Cartoons..?"
"She made me help her," Rory mentioned.
The Doctor's patience ran out. He grabbed Rory by his jacket and pulled the man towards him roughly. "Man and dog why? Tell me. Now," the Doctor asked bluntly, emphasizing each new sentence by roughly shaking Rory. He seemed rather intimidated.
"Sorry!" he blurted out. "Because he can't be there because he's in a hospital," the Doctor and Rory spoke simultaneously. "In a coma," they finished. Rory nodded nervously, as if to agree with the Doctor. "Yeah,"
"Knew it... Multiform y'see," the Doctor patted down Rory's jacket, tidying it up. "Disguise itself as anything, but it needs a live feed, a psychic link with a living but dormant mind."
A ferocious barking alerted the four to a new arrival. They all twisted round to see Prisoner Zero standing in front of them, glaring at them.
"If looks could kill..." Alex muttered.
The Doctor stepped forward. "Prisoner Zero..."
"What?" Rory asked Amy incredulously. "There's a Prisoner Zero too?"
"Yes!"
Without warning, a great whirring of otherworldly engines sounded overheard. Looking up, Alex noticed the disembodied eyeball. But it was no longer disembodied. Sort of. Attached to what seemed to be a distorted mix between a metal spider's web and a snow-flake, the eye emitted something similar to a tractor beam, which travelled all over the surrounding area. The Doctor turned back to Prisoner Zero.
"See that ship up there is scanning this area for non-terrestrial technology," he told it, taking the Screwdriver out of his pocket. He went on. "And nothing says non-terrestrial like a Sonic Screwdriver!" The Doctor, ecstatic, held the Screwdriver aloft, with a look of victory etched across his face. As it activated, chaos reigned in the vicinity. Street lights burst and exploded, car alarms sounded, windscreen-wipers and car horns spontaneously activated. Most noticeably, a large, red fire-engine went careering down the road driverless, chased frantically by a number of shouting firemen. Prisoner Zero looked around at the pandemonium, looking genuinely fearful. The Doctor, un-phased by the destruction he was causing, went on.
"I think someone's gonna notice, don't you?" Still smiling, he lowered the Screwdriver slightly. The telephone box to the Doctor's right exploded, sparks showering the area and certainly putting the phone within out of use. It was too much for the Sonic Screwdriver, which exploded in a similar manner. White-hot sparks rained down on the Doctor, who released the Screwdriver in pain, wincing as sparks landed on him. The fried Screwdriver fell to the ground. The Doctor dropped to the floor with in, picking it up in disgust, as if it were something truly revolting. The Doctor's trusty Screwdriver had failed him at last.
"No! No-o-o! Don't do that!" The Doctor threw the Screwdriver to the ground in anger and desperation. The strange, alien engines sounded overhead once again, as the ship soared away, apparently sure that nothing non-terrestrial was in the immediate area. Evidently, the commotion caused by the Doctor had gone un-noticed.
"Oh look, it's going!" The Doctor pointed out in frustration. "Come back!" he shouted in vain, as the ship flew off. "Come back, he's here! Prisoner Zero is here, come back! Prisoner Zero is here-e-e..." the Doctor petered off as the ship disappeared from view.
"Doctor!" Amy cried. The Doctor, Alex and Rory turned to look at her. Prisoner Zero had disappeared. Where had he gone? "The drain," she explained. "It just sort of melted and went down the drain."
"Well of course it did!"
"How? Alien or not, it still has a human body!" Alex noted.
"No it doesn't. You weren't far off when you said 'hologram' earlier. It's a disguise. You can put a sheet over your head, doesn't make you a ghost. Same principle here," the Doctor's face displayed a look of worry.
"Well what do we do now?" Amy didn't particularly direct the question towards anyone. The Doctor barely knew the answer, his hair looking as dishevelled as his face. Alex and Rory continued to gaze at the drain.
"It's hiding in human form. We need to drive it into the open... No TARDIS, no Screwdriver, seventeen minutes. Come on... think. Think!"
Rory was still glaring at the drain. He approached it apprehensively, wishing to look down it.
"Rory, best not eh?" Alex called out.
"It's fine, it's long gone..." the Doctor assured them. He and Amy joined Rory and Alex at the drain. Rory straightened-up, having noticed no alien-snakes lying within.
"So that thing," Amy asked, also looking up from the drain. "That hid in my house for twelve years?"
"Multiforms can live for millennia, twelve years is a pit-stop."
"So how come that lot turn up on the very same day as you two do, the same minute?"
"They're looking for him but they followed me. They saw me through the crack... they're only late 'cos I am," the Doctor explained it away.
"What's he on about?" Rory finally spoke up.
The Doctor held his hand out towards him. "Nurse-boy, gimme your phone."
Rory couldn't drop it. He asked Amy "How can they be real, they were never real!"
"Phone, now! Gimme!"
Rory relinquished his phone, which the Doctor began to look through. "It was a game, we were kids. You made me dress up as him!" He pointed at Alex. "You too, sometimes."
Alex looked slightly taken aback. He turned to Amy, wanting an explanation. "What did I do? He was the interesting one."
The Doctor interrupted. He was looking at Rory's photos with interest. He took each one in. "These photos, they're all the coma patients."
"Yep,"
"No, they're all the multiform. Eight comas, eight disguises for Prisoner Zero."
"He had a dog though, there's a dog in a coma?" Amy asked him.
"Well, the coma patient dreams he's walking a dog, Prisoner Zero gets a dog."
"Hold on, I asked that ages ago. You didn't answer me." Alex sounded slightly affronted.
"Yes, well, I was chained to a radiator, while the house was about to be incinerated. Laptop!" the Doctor looked up from the phone, to Amy. "Your friend! What was his name? Not him," he pointed to Rory, "the good-looking one!"
"Thanks"
"Jeff," Amy nodded.
"Oh-h, thanks!"
"He had a laptop in his bag! Big bag, big laptop! I need Jeff's laptop! You two, get to the hospital. Get everyone out of that ward, clear the whole floor! Phone me when you're done! Alex, with me!" At this, the Doctor, taking with him Rory's phone, left the group, dragging Alex with him. They jogged across the green in the direction the Doctor had come from.
"Doctor?" Alex called as they ran. He looked at him, acknowledging the question. "What's happening in twenty minutes? When Amy had you on the car, you told her to trust us for twenty minutes."
"The eyeball, the Atraxi, when they say they're going to incinerate the human residence, they weren't talking about Amy's house. They're talking about the planet. It'll take about twenty minutes to power up their weapons to incinerate the planet."
Alex stopped. He widened his eyes in horror. The Doctor was probably enjoying this. He probably considered twenty minutes to save the world as a fun challenge. True to form, the Doctor hadn't realised that Alex had stopped and had ran ahead to his destination. Alex rolled his eyes, took a breath and chased him. The Doctor vaulted a white, picket fence and trampled plants as he ran across the garden behind it. He barged through the door. Alex followed, taking the more conventional method of the garden path. An elderly woman appeared at the door. She noticed Alex.
"Oh, hello Alex, dear," she said to him. He looked at her questioningly.
"Amy said you'd come back," she answered his unspoken question. "Come in, come in!" she ushered.
Alex followed the woman into the house. She led the way down a passage and opened a door. Alex wandered inside too. Within, he found the Doctor, sitting on the end of a bed with a laptop on his lap. Another man, Jeff, Alex assumed, sat behind him, looking slightly mortified. Alex wondered why...
"Gran!" Jeff's facial expression deteriorated further at her arrival. He glanced at Alex. "Who's th- are you Alex Morgan?"
"Yeah. So this is what celebrity is like..." Alex muttered. The Doctor raised his head and looked at him in confusion. "Strangers know your name," he explained.
"What are you doing?" the woman asked the Doctor as he returned to the computer.
"The sun's gone wibbly. So right now, somewhere out there, there's gonna be a big ol' video conference-call. All the experts in the world, panicking at once. And d'you know what they need? Me." The laptop beeped, having completed its mission. The Doctor grinned and scanned the computer screen. "Ah and here they all are! All the big boys. NASA, Jodrell Bank, Tokyo Space Centre, Patrick Moore!" The Doctor smiled cheekily at this last one.
"Oh, I like Patrick Moore!" the woman chuckled, nodding.
"I'll get you his number. But watch him. He's a devil."
"'Ey, you can't just hack in on a call like that!" Jeff told the Doctor, frowning.
"Can't I?" The Doctor extracted the Psychic Paper from his pocket and flashed across the screen, which was now divided into six different camera feeds. Occupying each was a different expert, all of whom expressed their confusion, outrage and annoyance at the stranger's presence.
"Who are you?"
"This is a secure call, what're you doing here?"
"Hello. Yeah, I know, you should switch me off, but before you do, watch this!" the Doctor spoke to the screen. He began to type on the keyboard, speaking to himself rather than the scientists on screen. His work showed on screen as images of nuclei, electrons and protons began to circulate. "Fermat's Theorem, the proof, and I mean the real one! Never been seen before, poor old Fermat got killed in a duel before he could write it down!" He looked up from his work. "My fault. I slept in."
Jeff and his Gran glanced at Alex in confusion. He sighed and shrugged, smiling as if to say "He's always like that."
The Doctor went on. "Oh! And here's an oldie but a goodie, why electrons have mass! And a personal favourite of mine: Faster-than-light travel with two diagrams and a joke!" The experts on the screen had been silenced. "Look at your screens. Whoever I am, I'm a genius. Look at the sun. You need all the help you can get. Fellas. Pay attention."
The experts were still silenced, as were Jeff and his Gran. Finally, she spoke up. "Fancy a tea, dear?"
Alex glanced at her and realised she was talking to him. "Oh, er, I'd better, y'know, stay with the Doc-" he stuttered.
"Come on," she interrupted, taking him arm. "Leave them to it and help me with the tea." She pulled him out of the room, leaving Alex looking pleadingly at the Doctor as he left who, noticing, was already getting to work. Alex sighed and followed her to the kitchen.
"Can you get the milk from the fridge for me dear? Check it's okay to drink," she told him, as she tottered into the kitchen.
"Fifteen minutes 'til the end of the world and I'm checking the use-by-date of some milk..." he muttered. He grabbed the bottle, plastered a smile back onto his face and straightened up. "Absolutely fine!"
"Oh good!" she took it from him and began to prepare the drink.
"So... you've known Amy how long?" Alex asked conversationally, leaning against the counter.
"All of her life! Yes, I've lived in Leadworth twenty-six years. The Ponds moved in about thirteen years ago, when Amelia was six, or so!"
"Right... you said the Ponds... D'you know what happened to her parents?"
"Her what?"
"Parents."
She seemed to think for a moment or two, troubled. Eventually, she replied "Do you know dear, I'm not sure..."
"Right... you knew them though?"
Again, she didn't answer straight away. "I think so. I must have done, yes. Can't... actually remember anything about them though..." she seemed to be deep in thought, staring into space. Suddenly, she shook herself out of it, perking up. "That's what age does to you, I suppose! Do you take sugar?"
"Two, please. So you don't remember them at all?"
She busied herself with spooning sugar. "Remember who?"
Alex changed tact. "So what was Amy like? As a child?"
"She was always a bit odd. But then she met that Raggedy Doctor of yours. Sent to psychiatrist after psychiatrist. Never had any close friends, not really. She'd get along with Jeff, but I don't think she'd have ever chosen to spend time with him... No, the only true friend she had was little Rory Williams. They'd never be apart. Always running around the village green, pretending to be fighting aliens and monsters..." the woman seemed nostalgic. Alex, smiling at the thought, didn't press her on. Eventually, she did. "Bit of a tearaway as a teenager. Leaving the house after dark, usually to meet Rory. Everyone knew he was infatuated with her. She's an attractive girl, after all. Anyway, her aunt banned her from seeing him at one point, until she realised Amy was lost without him." She finished the drink she was preparing and handed it to Alex. "Take that to Jeff, will you dear?"
"Alex, still smiling at the thought of little Amy and Rory playing together, wandered from the kitchen towards Jeff's room. As he neared it, the Doctor burst from the room, phone in hand. He saw him.
"Job done, let's go!" he grabbed the mug from Alex, drank a bit and put it on the sideboard.
"Where now?" Alex asked him.
"Hospital!" the Doctor yanked the front door open and stopped. "One sec," he ran back to Jeff's door and opened it. He stuck his head around it. "Oh and, delete your internet history," the Doctor told him. Slamming the door shut again, he jogged to the front door, out of it and down the garden path, followed closely by Alex. The Doctor stopped and glanced to his right. He grinned. "Oh yes..." he muttered, running in the direction of the large fire engine he had broken earlier. It had been left unattended. The Doctor hopped up into the driving seat, beckoning for Alex to join him.
"Is this legal?" Alex asked, as he clambered inside.
The Doctor started up the engine and grinned at the firemen on the lawn jumped up at started running towards the vehicle, arms waving. "'Course not!"
With this, the Doctor reversed the fire engine onto the road and careered out of the sleepy village and onto the motorway, leaving the distraught firemen far behind.