CHAPTER TEN
When Amy entered the small kitchen that morning, she found the Doctor already halfway through a piece of toast, sipping some tea from a yellow mug.
"Um, morning," she said wondering whether it'd be awkward or not.
"Tea, Pond?"
Taking a mug from the cupboard, she decided that, yes, it would be awkward.
The next ten minutes passed in a sleepy, strange sort of quiet, while Amy considered making porridge (and decided against it: she really wasn't very good at cooking).
The Doctor had just finished is third piece of toast, when he looked up, staring right at Amy. "We're going back to Leadworth."
"It's time we went back."
"Can you bring Rory back, or …?"
"No. But we've got to stop the Master. Or do something." He pushed his chair back, grabbed his coat (which was hanging off the corner of the kitchen cabinet). Spinning around, he pulled it over his back, before leaving the room and running down the hallway.
Amy drank the last few mouthfuls of her tea, before pushing back her chair, and half running, half stumbling after him.
He stood by the console, adjusting a few knobs and gadgets, before flicking one large lever, leaping up, and beginning to spin around it, hitting buttons, turning handles, until, with a final grinding sound, it halted, as though reaching out to grab onto something solid.
The Doctor flung the door open, grinning, while Amy followed him into the cold, crisp day that was just beginning. The grass was frosty, crunching underfoot, as Amy and the Doctor, who seemed to have parked in the middle of Leadworth, right next to the "duck pond" made their way in the direction of Rory's parents' house.
"I don't know why he'd still be there," said Amy, walking in her odd, tight, tramping sort of way.
"Well, we need somewhere to start."
Amy nodded, looking away from the Doctor, eyeing Leadworth: her town.
They walked down the street, past the few shops, a couple rows of houses, until the Doctor was knocking on the door of the same one they had visited about a month ago.
No-one answered.
The Doctor knocked.
Still no answer.
Amy stepped forwards and knocked.
There was a small sound from within the house.
Still no answer.
They simultaneously leaned forwards, cupping their hands against the cold glass, pressing their noses into it. The front door was directly facing the stairs, and soon, a pair of feet, clad in familiar blue tennis shoes appeared on the stairs. Amy gasped, and began to bang on the window. The Doctor grabbed the back of her coat, pulling her back.
The feet took another step down. He was wearing jeans.
Slowly, the Master (Rory?) walked his way down the stairs, until he was standing at the landing, merely a few feet away from The Doctor and Amy, separated only by wood. Wood and glass. Then he smiled. It was a huge, slow, manic grin, the sort of expression you couldn't even imagine on Rory's face.
There was a cracking noise in the bushes behind them, and the Doctor spun around, grabbing Amy, forcing her to turn. She stumbled back in shock:
There, right behind them, half the citizens of Leadworth stood, motionless, blank, with zombielike expressions on their faces. Amy found herself reaching out, behind her to her side, until her fingers found the Doctor's. He stared at her as they backed up. So many people, more and more appearing from the bushes, moving closer, an army, hundreds and hundreds of people. Amy knew almost all of them. She'd grown up knowing almost all of them. She stared as they advanced, trembling.
"Doctor? You've got a plan, right?"
"Well, yeah, I guess."
"Because if you don't have a plan-"
"What?"
"I have one!" She hollered, letting go of his hand, turning her back on the advancing army.
"What are you doing?"
"When we were little," she said, moving her hands along the length of the door, pushing on the pieces of wood in between the panels in the glass, "Rory and I had this thing … where we'd sneak out at night-" she grabbed onto the Doctor's sleeve, pulling him along the side of the house "-and we realised, there's this little door, and you can get through it-" she jumped around the corner "-and inside!"
She strode past the overgrown flower beds, through the muddy brown earth, and stopped by a window. Kneeling down, she pulled the handle of a tiny, wooden door, reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. She wriggled down onto her front, shimmying forwards into the door. "What? We're being chased by my murderous ex-neighbours, and you're even hesitating?"
"Um …" The Doctor got down onto his stomach, before awkwardly dragging himself through the door. "I thought your plan would be more, um,"
"Easy?"
"Yeah."
They were sitting on a dirt floor under a low roof, only high enough to stoop beneath, nothing more. Amy shuffled over to a small step ladder protruding from the roof, and climbed her way up it, into the house. The Doctor followed.
They emerged in the hallway right next to the stairs: wooden-floored, with photographs lining the walls.
The Master was leaning over the banister, looking down on them both. "Congratulations on making it back. I was worried you weren't going to show."
He smiled again, that same, terrifying look, before walking down the stairs.