I'm great. Better than ever, in fact.
I mean, sure, I've just watched in perfect, Dogme-95 first person as they picked up my husband and carried him upstairs again, back all that way that we'd come together and farther. Back to the second circle, and the medical sector where they'd laid out the unconscious Kovarian. And sure, now he's in the same room as her and she's awake and he's not.
Yeah, all of that.
But I'm just fine, Doctor, thanks. You stay next door and play with your shiny new information. I don't need you. I'm great, thanks.
And I actually do get a lot better when I see the state of Kovarian. She's flour-white, trembling slightly. It's making her cruel, too, or more so than usual. You can see it all over her, an extra tremor in the usual snarl, a flash in the eyes.
But she can bring it on. I might be a billion lightyears away on the far end of an earpiece and camera, but I'm ready for her this time. Time she learned she can't just take what she pleases and not pay for it.
That's called stealing.
Kovarian readies herself before she gets up from her pallet. Doesn't know I'm watching her yet, or she'd never let this show, all this fear and the nerves and the fact that she knows the Doctor and Liam Reilly have just cleared her head out for all she was worth. I should probably get this burned to a disc when it's over. You know, for rainy days.
She walks over and lightly, almost gently, tries to slap Rory awake. That's fine. Really. That's okay. When I get him back with marks on him, that's when we'll run into problems. For now, it's fine. "Mr Williams… Mr Willi… For God's sake, what did you give him?"
"Just the usual," River shrugs. "Promise. Daddy never has been an ox when it comes to chemicals."
"Wait," Kovarian says. Leaning down close to the camera. To Rory's face, but that's fine, for now. For now, we'll just say camera. "So who's watching, then?" That's when she finds the earpiece. That's when I take a deep breath and sit straighter. She can bring it on, I'm waiting.
"Doctor?" she begins. Trying to fix her voice, too, and I can hear it, trying to level out and stop shaking. That makes me strong.
"No."
"Mrs Williams…" She's smiling now. She likes that. Silly pushover Mrs Williams, she's thinking, well, what haven't we taken from her in the past? She's thinking that this is the one ray of sunshine in an otherwise pretty dark day and she has never been more wrong.
"Yeah, sorry I couldn't make it in person."
"And you sent your husband with your apologies, of course." She rips off Rory's eye drive and flips it over to show him to me. Out cold and the puncture mark on his neck suspiciously dark, swollen up hard. "I never got them."
"Then return him to sender, if you wouldn't mind."
My hands have still been at the keyboard, but my fingers shake and they keep hitting keys, so I bring them back and sit with them pressed between my knees. Keep them out of trouble.
"Might hold onto him, actually. At least until you tell me what the hell the Doctor thinks he's playing at, sending cheap thieves into my mind."
"Firstly, 'thief', singular. Secondly, he wasn't cheap, he was free, he did it gladly. Thirdly, I think he just went in for the background knowledge."
"Oh," she grins, "he's a wonderful fool, isn't he, Amelia? Background knowledge… I never heard the like. No patience…" She's pacing now, about the medical rooms. Probably just walking off that groggy, hungover feeling of having your mind raided. But she takes the eye-drive with her, and I hear the clack of her heels. Hear a single little snort of laughter before, "As though I were special. He could hop forward to anywhere and hear all about the General."
All of a sudden, I realize that I have nothing to barter with. Nothing she wants to trade for. The whole point of this, the reason we're here to begin with, is that Kovarian is the one with all the answers. I panic. Cover the microphone so she won't hear a very brief spell of hyperventilation and one soft quiet cry to myself.
Then I bite my lip so the Doctor won't hear it either. What would he say if he could see me now, sat here bargaining with the enemy, winging it all the way? Certainly not 'That's my girl', or 'You learned from the best'. He'd call me names and throw me out of this chair and take over and do it properly.
That's why I'm great, remember? I'm fine.
I don't need him here, spinning it out in layers upon layers of lies and-
Oh.
This is how it happens for him, then. You rant about the thing that bugs you most, and suddenly it becomes relevant. There in the dark, inspiration strikes. Oh, that's how it works.
"Yeah, well," I tell Kovarian, and I do my best to sound off-hand and like I'm laughing, "you're just the best source, aren't you? Get all the facts rounded up together. He just didn't plan it all that well. Didn't give himself time. It had to be today, so-"
"Why?"
Gotcha.
"Oh? God, I thought they would have told you first thing. Yeah, Jessica escaped. That's what Rory's there for, he was trying to bring her back. He, the Doctor I mean, he's a bit worried you might not exist tomorrow."
And so, now, is Kovarian. She turns to River, demanding to know why she wasn't told that the creature was here. And I do, I almost correct her. I almost say 'girl', over the word 'creature'.
First time I met Jessica, the Doctor was still calling her a thing. I was the one saying no, it was definitely a female.
It was different, back then. I didn't know what that girl really was, not until Stormcage. I still have that prisoner file. Under the mattress. I still think of it sometimes. Treason and espionage and that long, long list of murders in the first degree.
Before Kovarian can say anymore to me, before I can think any harder about what I'm doing, I continue. "She's wearing one of these eye-drives, Madame Kovarian. Jessica, I mean. The kind like you have in your hand, with the little camera. And to be honest, there isn't much else in the world that would do me as much good and getting the popcorn in, kicking back in this chair and watching you squirm. And then, when I get bored, I'll flick over the channel and there'll be this really creepy horror movie on, where you follow this mental little killer stalking her victim in the dark. The only thing is, I think I can guess how it ends."
"Oh, please, Mrs Williams. Do you really think we won't find her before then?"
"Yeah, I really do. Because she knows that place. Childhood home, if you think about it. And also I have the cameras and I'm in her ear. As far as staying hidden goes, Jessica's covered."
Silence falls. I let it.
River cuts in. "This is ridiculous. Unfounded demands about a creature we can have well in hand. Give me ten minutes, Madame Kovarian, and I'll haul the little scrag-end here by the hair."
Kovarian raises a hand to her. Looking thoughtful, which makes me nervous, but I put my fingernails in the arm of the chair and squeeze it out. "What exactly is it that you want, Mrs Williams?"
"River and Rory."
"No. Don't be greedy. You're only giving me one; why should I give you two?"
"And why," River cuts in again, "would I be going anywhere?"
I was being strong, wasn't I? Yeah, that's right, that was the plan. Big girls don't cry, Pond, get it together.
"But your husband… Well, fine. I have no use for him. I suppose we could cut a deal there."
I bite back, on instinct because I don't have much else left, "No. It's both of them or nothing."
"Then I'll keep him."
"…No."
Kovarian smiles. She wasn't supposed to smile. When I went over this in my head that wasn't how it ended. And then she starts to give instructions, and those never appeared in the run-through either. "I'm going to give the earpiece to River. You'll guide her and two human guards to a safe apprehension of the girl, at which point, I will return your husband to you via his rather nicely modified vortex manipulator. Understood?"
That was supposed to be my line. 'Understood?' That was a thing I was supposed to say to her. And it was going to feel so good to hear her stammer back her answer. I know exactly how great that would have felt, and so much so that I almost envy her when she gets to hear me do it instead.
My shaking hands hover over the keyboard. Before I quite know it I've typed a message. Only to go to the room next door. I could just scream and have the same effect and probably feel better for it.
It reads: I've made a mess. Please help.
I stretch out my ring finger and hold down backspace until it's gone. It's too late for that. What's the point? What difference is he going to make? What choice do I have now but to go through with this?
Then, for the first in a long time, the Blue Dot moves. Not very far, just creeping out of a dark hiding place, somewhere on the Ninth Circle, into a spot where there's enough light for her camera. She looks up into the CCTV. Directly at me. Nods and says out loud for Kovarian to hear, "It understands."
River laughs. Or whatever sick Silent imitation of River this is, she laughs, "Well, if nothing else, you made her loyal."
She's addressing Kovarian but I tell her back, "Yeah, but who to?" That's not a strength in what they did to Jessica. They just made her terrified. She could be loyal to anybody who showed her a scrap of respect. The highest bidder, if they bid in mint humbugs and jelly babies. I gave her strawberry laces at Christmas. But before I can think about that, Kovarian hands the earpiece to River. Smiles at me on Rory's eye-drive camera the whole time.
I direct them to the ninth circle. River, two Silents, two human guards. The last four in full body armour to guard against the ash stakes, but Jessica has actually broken them off since I saw her last, and stands still, like a soldier at ease with her hands lightly clasped behind her back, just waiting.
Why is she doing that?
I don't actually have a map of the Ninth, so it takes them a while to find her. Long enough for me to remember that Jessica has the transmatter disc. Not that that counts, not that that makes any difference, but what if it does? What if they search her and they find that and they think it's all part of the plan? It's her only out, her only chance of escape and I know that, but what if they don't send back Rory?
All that time, until they reach her, I have no idea whatsoever what I'm going to do.
They get there. They have her surrounded. And they don't trust the fact that she's just waiting for them, just standing still. "Anything we should know?" River asks me, before anything approaches her.
"No," I say. Then, "Yeah."
I tell them about the disc.
And this time Jessica's head whips round, and this time she looks at me on the camera like I've done something truly vile. "Amypond…"
