The Gamma Forests
"C'mon River, let me up!" Jack pleaded.
"Tsk-tsk, not until I think you've learned your lesson." She replied distractedly buttoning up her shirt. She turned back to the mirror and applied her lipstick.
"You're leaving? Without letting me up?" Jack yelled frantically.
"Yup!" She replied smoothing down her curls and turning towards the door.
"At least get me a blanket! Please?" Jack pleaded again.
River opened the door, turned back and admired his naked form stretched out with his wrists handcuffed to the bed posts above his head.
"As I said, not until I think you've learned your lesson. You should always ask a lady first before tearing off her clothes." She said matter-of-factly. "I won't be long!" She smirked at him, turned away and walked through the door, locking it behind her after placing the Do Not Disturb sign on the door knob. She strapped the Vortex Manipulator onto her wrist, re-enabled the initiate screw, punched in some coordinates, and disappeared.
"RIVER SONG! Get your sexy ass back in here!" Jack screamed in frustration from behind the locked door.
.
.
Amy woke to find herself sprawled face down diagonally across the Doctor's bed. As with most mornings, he was already gone, having either left after she fell asleep, or after his own short nap. She turned towards the screen noticing that it was blank. They must've landed. The Doctor had explained to her that he only kept the screen activated while in space, disabling it when the TARDIS had landed somewhere in order to conserve energy.
She shuffled in to the shower, turned it on, pulled off her nightie and stepped under the warm water. She showered quickly, then dried off, pulled back her hair, and dug through her bag looking for something to wear. She pushed aside all the clothing for tropical weather and found clothes more suited for a cooler climate. She settled on slim-cut jeans, trainers, and a vibrant green long-sleeved stretchy V-necked shirt. As an afterthought she grabbed her jacket, and went in search of the Doctor. She found him in the control room, hanging upside down under the control deck, reconnecting a cable.
"There you are!" She called out cheerfully climbing up onto the glass flooring and tossing her jacket onto one of the chairs.
"Ow!" The Doctor smacked his head against the bottom of the stairs as he pulled himself upright.
Amy jumped down off the platform and hurried over to him, knelt by his side, one hand on his shoulder and the other gently lifted his hair off his forehead to assess his injury. Her fingers tingled when she lightly grazed his skin and she became aware of the closeness of him. She breathed in and became aware of his scent. He had a spicy scent about him, like cardamom, cinnamon, and fennel. They were fragrances she associated with contentment, and her eyes closed as she breathed in the scent deeply. She re-opened them to find him looking at her; she caught a mixture of pain and sadness about his face before he could school it back to a neutral look. Those brief flashes of pain on his face made her want to wrap him in her arms and comfort him. She pulled her eyes from him and looked back up to his forehead.
"I think you'll live." She proclaimed. "I could get some ice for you if you'd like?"
Her hand dropped and the Doctor caught it in his, "That would be lovely. Yes. And breakfast maybe?" He chuckled as Amy's stomach complained loudly.
Amy helped pull him to his feet where he swayed slightly, his eyes blinking rapidly as he appeared to suffer some light headedness.
"Easy does it!" She laughed as she steadied him. She pulled his arm across her shoulders, swung her arm around his waist, and guided him to the stairs to sit until his head cleared.
"Thanks." he responded, shaking his head as the darkness lifted from his vision.
Amy punched him lightly in the arm "Hey, what're best friends for?"
He stared at her is surprise, eyes wide and mouth open at her choice of words. He clamped his mouth shut and looked quickly away.
His reaction startled Amy; she did not understand why he would react so to her words. Something stirred in her mind though as she reviewed them in her head. Something from the night before where she had told him that he was her best friend in a dream. She remembered where it had gone after that and a slow blush crept into her cheeks as she relived the memory of that dream kiss she and the Doctor had shared. She pulled herself back into the present and stood up, hoping he had not noticed her blush.
"I think you said something about breakfast?" She asked him, laughing uneasily as her stomach once again growled in hunger. She took his hands once again, and helped him up slowly. Once it was evident that he was steady, they made their way to the kitchen.
Amy got the Doctor seated in a chair, brought him ice for his head, and then set out to make breakfast. She gathered ingredients, fired up the cook top, and whipped up omelets, toast and tea.
She was aware of him watching her as she prepared their meal, and caught herself blushing several times as she felt as though he knew about her dream from the night before. Each time she admonished herself. How could the Doctor possibly know what she had dreamed?
She served up their breakfast, and the two settled down to eat.
"Trees." The Doctor proclaimed.
"Trees." Amy repeated.
"Yes, trees. Lots of trees. And not just trees, psychic trees, trees that can actually communicate. Impossibly huge, intelligent trees." He clarified.
"Apple trees? Maple trees? Yew trees? What're we talking about here?" Amy inquired.
"No-no-no. Conifers. Giant trees, much like the sequoias that grow in the central western coast of North America. Trees that are so giant that people look like tiny insects next to them, and they're psychic. How's that for WOW?" The Doctor sat back, a smug look on his face.
"So, we're going to go out and talk to the trees?" Amy asked doubtfully.
"Yes! Well, no." He gestured towards the general direction of the doors, "we're going to go out those doors and see who we will meet. There are humans here also. Well, mostly humans. They've interbred with other beings through the generations since they left earth, but just looking at the people here you can't tell that they're anything but human. They are, however, symbiotic with the trees. They are themselves, somewhat psychic. Well, the women are. They converse on an emotional level with the trees, living harmoniously together."
"What about the men?" She asked between bites.
"What about them?" The Doctor seemed briefly confused. "Oh! The men, being not psychic? The men are actually a minority here. For every man, there are 63 women. It's a matriarchal society, the women run the planet, and are the heads of the families. Something about either the genetic combination, or the environment, has caused the male birthrate to drop. While the women run things, men care for the children, cook the communal meals, and interestingly enough, they are also completely peaceful. Well, not just the men, everyone. There is no war here. The society is similar to the Druids. Not the Druids from literature, but the real Druids. They were very peaceful, basically gardeners. The original Druids were caretakers of the trees. They lived peacefully in the forests of what is now France and Britain, and you're about to see here, what no person on earth has seen since before the time of Christ. That reminds me, I owe him money."
Amy looked shocked.
Finishing his breakfast, the Doctor stood and held his hand out to Amy, "Shall we?"
"Doctor? You still haven't said where are we? Exactly?" She took his hand and let him pull her up to her feet and they made their way to the exit.
"The Gamma Forest." He replied looking back over his shoulder at Amy.
Her eyebrows furrowed together, "that sounds familiar. Why does that sound familiar?"
He turned to her, "you've met someone from here, at Demons Run, a girl, Lorna Bucket. She died." He said sadly.
Amy's eyes mirrored his sadness as she remembered the young woman who had sewn the prayer leaf for her infant daughter Melody, and who had given her life fighting to protect Melody and Amy, who had given the infant her ultimate name in the language of the forest: River Song.
"If the people here are peaceful, why did Lorna join the war?" She asked.
The Doctor frowned. "I'm not sure. She died before I knew her."
Amy grabbed her coat as they walked past the chairs at the control console, and they exited the TARDIS, stepping out into a lush green forest. The Doctor and Amy both inhaled deeply, the sweetest air they had ever known. Their ears were greeted with a cacophony of bird calls, irritated at being interrupted by strangers intruding into their forest. As they stepped away from the TARDIS, and looked around, Amy felt herself enveloped in a sense of peace and serenity. There seemed to be a question in her mind, and she realized with a start that the trees were curious about her and the Doctor.
"How does it work, the psychic thing with the trees?" she asked him.
"I'm not exactly sure. "Why?"
"I think they're talking to me." She replied.
"You can hear that?" He seemed surprised. "You shouldn't be able to hear them, you're fully human!" He pulled out his sonic screw driver and scanned her. He had scanned her before, but she had been replaced once already, he wanted to be sure she hadn't been replaced by something again, and to satisfy himself that this was HIS Amy. The scan came back normal, and he reached up to scratch his face. "Interesting."
"What?" Amy asked nervously. She wasn't sure whether to be alarmed or amused.
"It seems, somehow, I don't know why, but it seems that you've developed a psychic ability that is compatible with the trees." The Doctor's forehead wrinkled in confusion.
"Can you hear them?" she asked him.
"Of course I can hear them; I've always had this ability. But you haven't. You shouldn't be able to hear them Amy. I don't know if this is good or bad. I don't know WHY you can hear them." He continued mumbling incoherently to himself, and now using his screwdriver on the trees.
"Ah… they don't like that." Amy volunteered tentatively, responding to the mild agitation that had replaced the peaceful feeling from before.
"I know they don't like that!" The Doctor snapped, "I can hear them too!"
He snapped the screwdriver shut and replaced it in his pocket. They continued to explore the area around the TARDIS, walking along the natural path of dried needles that led through the thick undergrowth of giant ferns.
Amy gloried at the forest, communing with it at a subconscious level. The trees seemed to be reviewing her life, sifting through her memories. Some things that she considered terribly important in her life were barely noticed by the awareness of the trees, while smaller inconsequential things seemed to be brought to the foreground, and to be examined with an intensity she did not understand. In exchange, she was treated with images from the forest. Nests filled with speckled eggs; deer-like creatures nimbly stepping between the undergrowth and nibbling on tender young ferns with their young peeking out from behind them; the morning sunrise burning its fire across a crimson sky, torrential storms wreaking terrible destruction in their paths; and time stretching out in all directions with an infinite sense of patience. She found it very distracting, and stumbled often.
The Doctor chuckled.
"What?" She asked him, distractedly.
"They are VERY interested in you. I don't think they've ever met someone like you before, and you seem to intrigue them." He countered.
She realized that through his own psychic abilities, he must be seeing what the Trees were seeing in her mind. She stopped in shocked surprise, a scarlet blush flooding her cheeks, and immediately threw up walls around her memories. There were some thoughts she really did NOT want the Doctor to see. Like her dream from last night.
Amy had known for a long time, since those first days with the Doctor, that despite her crush on him, he would never feel that way in return. She realized that even now, as her friendship with him grew closer, and their affection for each other deepened, he would never love her the way she was growing to love him.
"What?" he turned back to her curiously. The trees were suddenly surprised and he turned to find the source. He saw the blush on Amy's cheeks, and the alarm in her eyes. "Amy?"
"Doctor?" she responded nervously. "What do you see the trees looking at?"
"Nothing really, just that they are curious about you and want to know you better. Why?" He was quite confused at Amy's reaction.
"So, you can't see what the trees see in my head?" She asked, slightly mollified when he shook his head.
"Good" she murmured under her breath. She eased the walls in her mind down, but made sure that some memories were buried down out of sight. She wasn't about to take the chance that the Doctor had lied about what he had or had not seen the trees looking at in her mind.
The Doctor stepped behind her, placing his hands on her shoulders he spoke, "Why don't I just steer since you are being distracted?" he suggested.
Amy nodded in agreement, and the two continued on through the forest, the Doctor guiding her safely along the trail.
They had been walking for about an hour when they noticed changes in the forest. The trees were thinning out, and in the distance they could see dome-like structures. They heard the sound of rushing water off to their left, and the land on their right began to slope upwards into a forested mountain range. As they continued on, the sound of the river grew louder, and they eventually came to a bridge, the community a short distance from the other side of the river. A group of women stood on the bridge, obviously awaiting their arrival.
Amy became aware of her mind being returned to her. The trees left her with a gentle greeting.
As they approached the women, a slender woman who appeared to be in her early 30's, with an Asian cast to her features stepped forward. "Greetings Doctor and Amy, welcome to our colony. The trees have informed us of your approach. I am Larana, and we are the women of the Gamma Forest."
She stepped towards the doctor, holding out both hands palms upwards. The Doctor closed the distance between them, grasping her hands in the form of greeting for the women of the Gamma Forest.
"Larana, greetings." The Doctor released her hands and she turned to Amy, greeting her in the same fashion. As she grasped Larana's hands and looked into her eyes, a shock of recognition rippled through her. There was no doubt in her mind, that Larana was somehow related to Lorna. There were some differences, mostly in the chin and around her mouth, but otherwise she was identical to what Amy remembered of Lorna.
A look of surprise flickered across Larana's face as she seemed to know what was in Amy's mind. Amy realized that the trees must have registered her impressions and passed them on to Larana.
"How do you know my daughter, Lorna?" Larana asked bewildered.
The Doctor and Amy exchanged looks of alarm. This was going to be hard to explain.