Chapter 4

They drove back to the FBI headquarters in absolute silence, the Doctor staring sullenly out the window, Rory with his face buried in his hands. Once there, the Doctor sprang out before the Volvo had even stopped moving and sprinted inside. Rory and the others followed more slowly, Jill and Rory bringing up the rear.

"I'm so sorry about Amy." Jill said quietly to him as they went up the stairs to Erickson's office.

"It's ok," Rory wiped his face angrily with the back of his hand; he had been crying and didn't want anyone – especially Hoffman – to see that. "Seriously, she will be ok. I married her, for God's sake; I know she's tough enough to get through this. She's survived way too much for her to die...'sides, the Doctor said..." He stopped talking: his voice had almost cracked and he was scared he would start crying again.

Jill rubbed his arm. "It'll be fine. Trust me." She said soothingly. Hoffman turned round and glared at her – Rory could almost say he looked outraged. Jill stared him out. "Problems, Detective?" She sounded mocking. He turned back round, visibly seething.

The Doctor was already pacing when they walked into Erickson's office, Jenny gazing arms folded out of the window. "Right, we need to think: where would be the best place to put an innocent girl in a trap that will either kill her or leave her severely damaged, mentally, physically or both of the above?"

"Somewhere deserted?"

"Genius, Strahm, genius."

"Shut it, Hoffman."

"Since when do I take orders from you?"

"Oh, for God's sake, stop bickering!" The Doctor and Rory turned on them both angrily. They shut up.

"Quayside?" Rory suggested. "There's plenty of abandoned industrial sites down there, we drove past it."

"No, too many luxury apartments nearby." Perez shook her head. "And there's no guarantee that he'll be undisturbed: we pick up around ten stoned teenagers round there a week."

"So that's cancelled out," The Doctor stared moodily out of the window at the surrounding city. "What else?"

Jill shrugged. "There's no other place that it could happen – the only places I can think of are way out of the city, and chloroform doesn't knock people out for that long."

The Doctor looked at her. "How do you know that?"

"I went to medical school for a while. Go figure."

"Actually there is another place that we could check," Hoffman broke in suddenly. "The Gideon Meat factory. It was constructed by John before he turned psycho, but the business company that ran the factory went bankrupt and the place closed down. Judging by the history of it, I'd say that is our best shot."

"Excellent!" The Doctor was suddenly animated again, a lot more like his usual self. Jill shot Hoffman a dark look.

"Problems, Jill?" He asked. She looked mutinously away.

"Right Erickson, I think I can take it from here." The Doctor clapped him on the back. "You can leave us to it."

"I'm sorry," Erickson started. "I'm afraid I can't –"

"Oh, abandon the rule book, Erickson," The Doctor forcefully walked Strahm, Perez and Erickson to the door, ignoring their protests. "There's no such word as 'can't' – at least, that's what they want you to think...I'll only need Hoffman for this, you lot can go back to brainwashing yourselves with ground-up Axian poison..." He shut the door firmly and glared hard at Hoffman and Jill. "...And I can talk to you two. Sit."

Jill forced a poker face. "What about?"

The Doctor glared at them. "About everything you're not telling me."

xXx

Amy groaned and slowly opened her eyes. She felt groggy from the after-effects of whatever had knocked her out, so it took a while for her to get fully awake.

"God...where's the light switch?" She fumbled in the darkness for one, but at that moment red light flashed on from outside...it was at this point that she realised that she was in an opaque plastic tank. Three pipes – big enough for her to squeeze through but no big enough for her to turn around and come back – were attached to three of the four sides: left, right and centre.

And attached to the cramped ceiling on a length of string was a tape player.

"Better not be any Justin Bieber on here." Amy swallowed, pulling it down. An ominous gurgle came from overhead, but she ignored it and pressed play.

"Hello Amy," A low, gravely voice began. "I want to play a game."

"Definitely not Justin Bieber then..."

"Before you knew the Doctor you knew a life of absolute security, with little chance of death knocking at your door. But suddenly he appears with death stalking at his heels, and you willingly let him drag you headlong into various situations with no regard for your safety or your life. I deem this unacceptable, and now you must come face to face with the happy-go-lucky life you lead.

"The pipes you see before you are your only way out of your current situation. However, choose wisely: two of these three pipes will lead to a tank that will fill with water as soon as it senses your weight entering it. You will drown, the consequence of you plunging recklessly into death without thinking.

"The other one however will lead to safety. But just as you continue to rush into yet more danger after only just avoiding the last one, so there are more tanks and more choices.

"Don't think that you can stay in one place until your precious Doctor comes to save you: as soon as this tape ends, this tank will begin to fill with water. As soon as you crawl into one of the pipes, the weight sensors will turn off the water flow, but if you enter into the relative safety of the right tank with more pipes leading from it, the water flow will start again in that tank.

"Will you be able to make the right choices, or will death finally catch up on you after all this time?

"Live or die, make your choice."

Amy screamed as cold water began to pour from the ceiling, hitting her in the face. "Oh God," She whimpered. The red light turned the water black as it swirled around her ankles and began to rise.

She looked at the three pipes, the darkness inside them yawning like an open mouth.

Left, right, centre.

"Oh, fuck it all!" She muttered, using language she wouldn't usually use as the climbed into the left-hand pipe and began to squeeze her way through.

xXx

"You know where she is."

Silence met the Doctor's statement. Both Hoffman and Jill were wearing poker faces now.

"For God's sake!" The Doctor slammed his hands down on the tabletop, making them flinch. Rory stared at him; he had never seen the Doctor this angry before.

"Sorry," The Doctor sighed, slumping down on the desk looking defeated. "Ok, let's start again, shall we? Where is Amy Pond?"

"Let's answer this again: we don't know." Jill replied mechanically.

Rory stared hard at Hoffman. "You're being pretty quiet, aren't you?"

"What evidence do you have that proves we have any idea of where Amy is?" Hoffman asked the Doctor calmly.

The Doctor stood and moved to stand in front of him, a move which Hoffman reciprocated. "For starters, when I said 'You dirty liar!' when I first met you and you said you were late because of traffic, that's because I knew that you'd been getting 'games' ready: there were iron particles all over your hands, it has a very particular feel you know. Secondly, I caught you looking confused when Perez was explaining how the gun device worked – you hadn't made it, you hadn't seen any blueprints of it, you hadn't been the one murmuring an innocent person for a change. So you were wondering who had."

"Do you know?" Hoffman asked quietly.

"I'll help you if you help me."

Hoffman paused, and then nodded. "I wasn't lying about the Gideon Meat factory – that's where we usually...put the games in place."

"Hoffman!" Jill stood, eyes blazing. "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"Oh, get over yourself Jill." Hoffman snapped at her. "He already knows, there's no point."

"You want him to help her!"

"Well, maybe I do! Are you going to do anything to stop me?"

Jill shrugged. "Meh, there's not very much point anyway..."

Rory stood up and would've slapped the stupid smirk off her face if Jenny hadn't held him back. "What do you mean?" Jill remained obstinately silent. "What do you mean, you bitch?"

"I'm not going to say anything if you don't ask politely." Jill said self-righteously.

Hoffman sighed. "Look, let me try." He backhanded Jill so hard she fell on the floor. "ANSWER THE QUESTION, BITCH!"

"Thanks." Rory smiled briefly.

"No problem."

"You want an answer?" Jill smiled sweetly. "Well, here's one: Amanda designed the trap Amy's in."

Hoffman's face paled and he groaned. "Oh, shit..."

"What?" The Doctor looked at Hoffman, concerned. "What is wrong with Amanda?

"Everything's wrong with Amanda," Hoffman whispered hoarsely. "She designs inescapable traps."

Rory blinked. "So you mean –"

"Yeah," Hoffman nodded. "Amy's got no chance."

"That's where you're wrong, Mark me old mucker." The Doctor said lightly, his eyes flashing. "She has a chance."

"And what is that?"

"Me." He answered as he raced out.

xXx

Amy felt like she had been crawling through these tubes in the nightmarish crimson light forever. She felt more scared than she ever had been before, and she was constantly paranoid that every tank she came to would have no exits. But she had made the right choices so far, and as Amy rounded another turn and entered another trap she felt more hopeful than afraid. She looked around as the familiar gurgle resounded above her head –

At three blank walls.

"No," She whispered as water splashed down. "No."

She turned to go back down the tube but this time the water had risen quickly and it had already filled it.

"NO!" She screamed in desperation. The water rose up her neck and she sobbed in one last breath before the water went over her head.

The world was a hellish red and black, and she needed to breathe so badly...

For the first time in years Amy prayed, but not to some God.

Please, Doctor...please, save me...

And then the world blurred and faded out.

So, did you like the trap? I know it probably wouldn't be THAT intricate, but you know...

Next chapter coming up when I have time!