God, people can write episodes in 2 chapters. I take 5. Urgh. Well, I am learning.
H x
Miracles Out Of Nowhere
Chapter 9
Susan moved to the cabin, thinking over the words she had said to the Captain. She didn't know where they had come from if she was honest, and yet they were her words and words she'd been thinking. She needed to hold onto family. She just needed to decide if he was family.
Susan stopped, just behind the Doctor, and gazed around. There was something wrong. Something…not right, which she supposed was the very definition of wrong and yet her mind still commentated. She shivered.
"Doctor?" She whispered and he turned, just as Amy came into the room as well. He had also noticed it, and motioned them, before looking ahead.
"Shush." He said. Amy craned her neck, puzzled.
"What can you see?" Amy asked, but then Susan's shushed her, walking forwards so she was next to him, staring through the broken glass and out to sea.
"Feels like something's out there, staring straight at me." The Doctor said, slowly, gazing ahead.
"I know." Susan uttered. Suddenly, a loud clap of thunder echoed through the hull, the boat giving a creak and the Doctor looked up at the ceiling, knowing a fork of lightening was most likely illuminating the sky. Susan looked up and around as well before hurrying to the open door and seeing the beginnings of a storm. She set a petrified glance to her grandfather, who looked equally worried.
"Man the sails!" He roared, pulling himself, Amy and Susan out into the raging winds. Susan saw Avery up on the rigging, Rory already at the stern of the ship as Amy rushed over. Rain lashed down on them all and it took seconds for Susan to get soaked; her hair clinging to her face in dreads.
"To the rigging, you dogs! Let go the sails. Avast ye!" Avery shouted at them all. Susan had a split second of confusion before rushing over to help the Ponds, who ran to the ropes for the sails. This was so not Treasure Planet. "Put the bunt into the slack of the clews!"
Susan turned to them, gasping as the cold wind bit at her face. "I swear he's making half this stuff up!" Susan looked over as Rory roared back to the Captain, something about a phrase book, and saw the Doctor attempting to steer the boat, but a cold feeling that wasn't the wind or rain, told her they would be stuck. She scrambled over, holding onto anything she could and fought her way to the Doctor, grasping to at the slick wood of the wheel, trying to turn her bow on to the storm.
Susan grunted with the effort, only making out echoes of the shouts of the Captain.
"Toby! Find my coat. My compass is inside it, boy." Susan saw the boy out of the corner of her eyes. "Heave ho, you bilge rats." Susan looked back at the Captain.
"SHUT IT WITH THE INSULTS!" She yelled over the roar of the wind, thoroughly sick of pirates.
"Rats was all I could hear." Rory cried, swinging from the ropes. Susan heard a clatter and the Doctor turned, tugging on Susan's arm as he gaped. Susan managed to heave her tiny body to the other side of the wheel, so as she faced the rest of them, in time to see a crown rolling along the deck.
"No…" She whispered under her breath as the rain began to coat it with a gleaming reflection of the wooden planks. She held onto the boom of a sail as the green figure of the Siren appeared from the gold. Susan let out a yell, and tried to force her way forward, to get to Toby but the Doctor grabbed her, their combined weight making them fall back against the wheel. She fought against him, hearing Avery cry out over the Siren's song.
"Don't let her take you!" Toby held out a hand to the Siren and Avery launched forwards, shouting but it was too late and Toby was gone with a scream. "No!"
"Toby!" Susan broke free of the Doctor's arms as he leaps forwards and throws the crown overboard. The Siren disappears. Avery is a mess on the deck
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry." He mutters, his mouth full of rainwater. Susan blinked rapidly, the mixture of tears and rain in her eyes as she pushed forwards onto the main deck.
"You couldn't give up the gold, could you? That's why you turned pirate. Your commission, your wife, your son!" Susan roared at the man, wanting nothing more than to throw the useless man overboard. She started to go towards the fallen man but the Doctor grabbed her, pulling her back and she shrugged him off. "Just how much is that treasure worth to you?" Susan seethed, screaming at the man. Toby was a boy. A boy. Barely lived and now his father had sold him over for trinkets.
Suddenly, a yell was heard and Susan spun round to see Amy running to the railings, gazing down. Susan looked and saw the white foam of a splash. Rory.
"Rory! Rory!" Amy yelled, looking frantically at the raging sea. Susan's blood turned to ice. He'd drown. "I can't see him. Doctor? I'm going in." Amy yelled, starting to take her coat off. At the same instant, Susan and the Doctor moved to prevent her, the Doctor tugging her coat on and Susan looking down, holding onto the side of the ship, trying to see Rory.
"He's drowning. He's drowning! You go in after him, you'll drown too. There's only one thing that can save him now." The Doctor yelled, holding Amy back and looking into her face, trying to make her listen. Susan looked up sharply; surely not.
"What are you talking about?" Amy yelled but Susan answered.
"The Siren. The Siren, she wants him." The Doctor gave a weary arm over at her, reinforcing her point before looking back at Amy, explaining, pleading.
"We have to release her." He pulled at Amy, who fought every step but Susan grabbed her as well, climbing back down to the main deck.
"Doctor, no!" Amy protested. The Doctor got out his sonic, passing it to Susan, clumsily as he held Amy back whilst getting Avery. Susan half ran, half skidded to a fresh water barrel, sonicing it and opening the lid. Instantly the Siren flew outwards.
"He's drowning. Go and find him!" The Doctor asks, and the Siren obliges, diving into the sea.
"What, what did you do?" Amy said rounding on the Doctor but Susan closed the lid, handing the sonic back to him and wiping the hair from her face.
"If he stays in there he'll die." She explained.
"But she'll destroy him."
"That thing isn't just a ravenous hunter. It's intelligent. We can reason with it." Susan told her.
"And maybe, just maybe, they're still alive somewhere. We have to follow." The Doctor said, trying to get his point across, for once agreeing. If they had any chance of getting them alive, they had to. Avery obviously didn't think so.
"Are you mad?" Avery asked over the howls of wind. Susan nodded slightly, after all that much was true but the Captain was focused on the other.
"If we ever want to see them again, we have to let the Siren take us. We'll prick our fingers. All agreed? Yeah?" Susan thought it was a stupid plan. So stupid, it may work. Oh, let it be one of those plans that doesn't end with their deaths!
Two ayes came from Amy and Avery before the Doctor turned to Susan. She nodded, calling up her voice.
"Aye." She agreed and the Doctor nodded, giving one final aye of confirmation, he takes a needle and drew blood from each of them. The black spot appeared on each of their palms and the Siren appears.
Susan felt a weight lifting off of her, like all her troubles did not exist as she clambered towards the woman, who was not a demon or killer, but beautiful and safe. The Doctor, Amy and Avery went as well, stretching out their palms as they touch the siren, one by one in a flash of bright light.
Susan awoke to her body being shaken; she opened her eyes confused and thankful that they were still alive, and saw that the hand on her shoulder was her grandfathers, who lay next to her. She was still soaked, but the room was dry and grey.
"Where are we?" She heard Amelia ask, as Susan sat up, clutching her pounding head.
"We haven't moved. We're in exactly the same place as before." The Doctor replied. Something in his tone made Susan turn and she saw what they were looking at and gasped. The window showed the ship, in the heart of the storm, where they were but…not. Susan stood up fully, and moved closer.
"We're on a ghost ship." Avery said but Susan shook her head, not tearing her gaze from the window, almost smiling at the brilliance of it all.
"No…no, temporal rift, two slots filled." She explained but Amy gave a noise behind her that suggested she was really confused.
"It's real. Space ship trapped in a temporal rift as Susan said." The Doctor confirmed.
"How can two ships be in the same place?" Amy asked, sort of in awe as the three went to stand near Susan.
"Not the same. Two planes, two worlds, two cars parked in the same space. There are lots of different universes nested inside each other. Now and again they collide, and you can step from one to the other." He rambled slightly, his tone portraying the wonder he felt. Amy nodded next to him
"Okay, I think I understand."
"Good, because it's not like that at all. But if that helps." He said, with a ghost of a smile. Susan rolled her eyes, less hatred now more…endearment and she caught herself, focusing on the problem at hand.
"Thanks." Amy said, fiercely. Susan patted Amy's arm, leaning in to whisper.
"It is like that. He's lying. He does that." She said, with a hint of resentment. Amy looked at her and gave a small smile.
"Thanks." But the Doctor was still in his own little world.
"All the reflections have suddenly become gateways." He looks around, fervently, and picks up a piece of metal, throwing it at the window. It gives a zap of noise before going through and clattering onto the deck.
"Ever look in a mirror and think you're seeing a whole other world? Well, this time it's not an illusion." He said dramatically. Susan gave a small chuckle, unable to take it seriously. Then a low beep, beep rang out and Susan looked around, before it clicked in her mind.
"The signal." She concluded.
"Yes." The Doctor made his way up the stairs, Susan following.
"The distress call!" She confirmed with a grin, glad to have worked it out. Oh, she had thought something was up. 17th century of course there was another ship!
"Uh huh." The Doctor was distracted, moving up and looking at something.
"There was a second ship here all the time." Amy realized. The ominous sounds of the siren singing could now be heard as they reached a door.
"And the Siren is on board." He presses a panel and the door opens. Susan leapt back as they come face to face with an alien skeleton, its skull long and slender. Avery pulls his gun out of reflex and the Doctor pushes it down, out of reflex.
"Dead."
They make their way past the skeleton, to the bridge, the pilot room filled with navigational equipment, dials and scanners. Susan moves forwards, and looks in the seat. More crew, dead, meet her eyes and her eyes soften sadly.
"You were right. There was something staring at us the whole time. How long has this ship been marooned here?" Amy marvelled. The Doctor looked up, examining his own skeleton, covered in thick goo.
"Long enough for the Captain to have run out of grog." Avery commented. Amy shook her head.
"I don't understand. If this is the Captain, then what's the Siren?"
"Could be the same as us. A stowaway." Susan reasoned, thinking it through. It was possible. The Doctor got out his sonic.
"She killed it." Amy concluded, but the sonic gave a buzz and the Doctor held it up in the dim light, looking at the readings.
"Human bacteria." He read. Susan looked up and frowned.
"What?" She asked. That didn't make sense. Ok, ok, so the Siren didn't kill them, if it was human bacteria then- "A virus from your planet. Airborne, travelling through the portal. That's what killed them." She thought out loud. The Doctor gave a small chuckle.
"Didn't get its jabs." He joked but his 'jabs' was prolonged as he leant against the console. He let out a groan, Susan heard a squelch and he held up his hand, which had unfortunately been covered in the slime. "Urgh. Look."
"What is it?" Amy asked, confused and grossed out.
"Sneeze! Alien bogies." He groaned, unsure what to do, he walks forward and flicks his hand, some of the slime flying away before he wiped it on Susan's coat sleeve.
"Thanks." Susan said, stony. He flashed her raised eyebrows and a small smile, walking past and on into the ship.
Now reviews:
Copperdragon2: Glad we're on the same page then ;)
StreamHarmony: Sorry it took a bit longer than normal but so glad you are enjoying it!
Unknown2most: I will be doing something special for A Good Man Goes To War. I have a plan in my head, that may change or may not. They will want a Timelord but she got free. So repercussions? Or not?
Ok, so I hope we enjoyed this chapter. Please tell me if you did and if you have anyquestions, comment or send me a message on my tumblr (bethedrunkgiraffe)
Till next chapter,
H x
