A/N: Alright, so it's off to visit new planets! Read, enjoy, review.
"Amy, this is it! This is 052293A, the planet that very well may soon play host to a hundred Time Lord!" the Doctor exclaimed, bursting open the TARDIS doors to reveal the planet. Amy looked out of the blue box, eager to finally see the planet. She was confused, however, to find that the TARDIS was perched on a very small island surrounded by a seemingly never-ending ocean. The island was about as large as a classroom and made up of small pebbles and sand mixed together. The water looked even less inviting- there were whirlpools scattered like spots, some as small as a human hand and some as large as a house.
"Um, Doctor?" Amy asked tentatively. The Doctor looked disappointed. "This is 052293A? The new home of the Time Lords?" She looked around more at the depressing excuse for a planet. If Amy was expecting some sort of glorious paradise with signs all over reading "Welcome Time Lords," she'd been wrong.
"Oh, well that's anticlimactic," the Doctor sighed. He stepped out onto the small island and observed the turbulent waters. He focused on one of the midsized whirlpools close to where the TARDIS had landed. "This is rubbish. There was nothing about it being taken over completely by the seas in the brochure. I wouldn't have come if there had been. Really, it's false advertising. I'd suggest we sue the writers, but considering they already want us dead for stealing their documents…" the Doctor trailed off, pulling his sonic out of his jacket and pointing it at the whirlpool he was inspecting.
"What is it?" Amy inquired. The Doctor was looking down at his sonic with great interest. "Oh no. You've got that look," Amy groaned. He was interested in something. And Amy had an idea that when the Doctor got interested in something, he wanted to know much more about it.
"What look?" The Doctor kept his face innocent.
"The, 'I've found something interesting, and by interesting I mean extremely dangerous' look," Amy answered in an annoyed voice. "I hate that look," she added under her breath.
"Nonsense. This is how I always look," the Doctor brushed off her comment.
"My point exactly," Amy grumbled. The Doctor smiled, not caring if Amy was put off by this. He'd noticed something, and he couldn't very well let it go. That wasn't in his nature.
"Those whirlpools. Which direction are they spinning?" the Doctor asked. Amy shrugged, not particularly interested. But the Doctor stared at her intently, awaiting her reply.
"Counterclockwise. Does it matter, the direction?" Amy responded. The Doctor nodded toward the nearest whirlpool again before bending down to pick up a pebble and throwing it into the swirling water. Predictably, the pebble zoomed around in a circular motion, in tighter and tighter circles until it sunk. "Okay, that was lovely, but what was that supposed to prove?" Amy sighed.
"If the whirlpools are spinning counterclockwise, then why did the pebble go clockwise?" the Doctor proposed. Amy's mouth opened slightly. She hadn't even noticed that as she'd watched the pebble sink down. How had she not noticed? Well, it probably had something to do with the fact that she wanted to get off this planet and out into space where they could find an actual viable home planet instead of a waterlogged physics-defying world.
The Doctor crouched down, getting closer to eyelevel with the whirlpool. He tossed another pebble and watched as it sunk through the vortex against the apparent current.
"Please tell me this doesn't mean we're sticking around to find out why this is happening?" Amy asked. She already knew the answer, but she was hoping to be wrong just this once.
"We're sticking around to find out why," the Doctor confirmed to Amy's annoyance. Amy shook her head while rolling her eyes to convey the extent of her irritation, but the Doctor paid her no attention; he was much too busy getting ever closer to the whirlpool. He was so close that, for a fraction of a second, Amy contemplated shoving him in there. Before the thought had even finished in the redhead's mind however, the Doctor had already dipped a finger into the ocean at what appeared to be a safe distance from the swirling vortex.
"Whoa!" the Doctor exclaimed as he was dragged into the current.
"Doctor!" Amy screamed. The Doctor was kicking in the water, desperately trying to grasp onto the shoreline. Amy thrust out her hand to catch one of the Doctor's flailing arms, but he was already out of reach. "Doctor, grab my hand!" Amy yelled frantically. He was breathing in gulps of water now, circling closer and closer to the center. Amy watched as a flash of his arm appeared for a moment, and then he was gone.
Amy fell to the ground, not able to believe what just happened. The Doctor had dipped a finger, just a finger, into the water, and then he'd been sucked into a whirlpool and disappeared. This was not good. How could that have happened? Her mind was beginning to work faster than it ever had, as fast as what she imagined the Doctor's mind must go sometimes. Think, Amy, what are you supposed to do now? What would the Doctor do? Well, that was an easy one. Amy repositioned herself into a crouching position, not wasting any time at all. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, preparing herself to do exactly what the Doctor would do.
"Geronimo!" Amy shrieked, springing from her crouched position and jumping straight into the whirlpool.
*DW*DW*DW*
Amy felt the water rushing all around her, but she didn't try to fight it. She stayed calm, knowing that she was going after the Doctor. And, in the calm, Amy realized that she couldn't really feel the water much anymore. Her body felt as though it was falling, drifting slowly through a deep blue similar to the ocean but much less… wet.
Where am I? Amy thought, but she had no answer. She cautiously opened her eyes, finding that the water did not sting her eyes in the least. Actually, it didn't even feel like water at all. So she tried taking a breath. Oxygen flooded her lungs. Having oxygen and sight, Amy was then able to focus on her surroundings.
At first, there was nothing. Just blue, deep deep blue, for miles and miles. Or was it nothing at all? The same blue seemed to stretch on and on, never stopping for as far as she could see. Amy turned her head around, then her whole body, trying to find some indicator that she was even falling at all besides the feeling in her gut. She came up empty. Where was the Doctor? Had he fallen through this odd blue world under the whirlpool like she had? If so, then why couldn't Amy see him?
And then there was a light, a simple white light, fairly dim. But it stood out amongst the blue when there was nothing else. Amy tried moving toward it, unsure whether she should walk or swim. She wasn't really in liquid or on solid land or flying through air. It was actually rather disconcerting to not be in any consistent form of matter, but Amy, being the persistent woman she was, pushed through with a strange combination of walking and swimming. As she got closer and closer to the white light, she felt a question nagging at the back of her mind. Where do you want to go? She didn't know where that question came from. It wasn't her own thought, no, it seemed foreign. Like someone or something else had planted it there. But it also didn't seem like a malicious someone or something. Just a simple question. So Amy answered in her mind- I want to go where the Doctor is.
The white light grew. It was slow at first, growing to be twice as large after a few seconds. But then it started growing much more rapidly. Three times larger. Ten. A hundred. And then the white light overtook the blue completely, and Amy lost consciousness.
*DW*DW*DW*
The entire Amazon expedition had been another bust. The legends had apparently been brought to the Amazon people by European travelers, missionaries, as a matter of fact. Rory was feeling a bit put out by the whole thing and seriously considering asking Jack how many vacation days he got as an honorary member of Torchwood.
"Hello, handsome. Ryan's out sick again today, so we're one down on the call team. Fancy filling in for him?" Jack poked his head in Rory's room and asked. They were back at base at the Torchwood institute for a few days, cataloguing all of the evidence from the Amazon. Not that there was much to catalogue.
"Why not? It'll get me out of the planning meeting," Rory replied. He hated planning meetings. People always expected him to be brimming with ideas in planning meetings because he had traveled with the Doctor. To be honest, Rory would much rather just be an average soldier that followed orders and went wherever the team did. It would be much easier than being held responsible in part when the team came up empty.
Jack left and returned to his own duties, most likely preparing for the very meeting Rory was getting out of. Rory left his temporary room, which doubled as his office, and turned out of the door for the call center. The tech team for the Time Lord search and rescue project had their own wing of the tech center, including several computers and telephone lines. The call center was usually considered one of the worst posts for a soldier considering it didn't involve any action. Basically it consisted of answering phones all day like a secretary and forwarding any calls that may hold any actual importance to the higher ups. Very few legitimate tips came in through the call center, but it was kept open on the off chance that something might show up.
Rory nodded and smiled politely at a few agents he passed on his way to the call center. He'd made a few friends at the agency, but he hadn't gotten close to anyone. There was Jack, and he was the closest Rory had to a best friend now. Though Jack could annoy Rory better than anyone he'd ever met, the man always had Rory's back. Rory knew he could trust that man until the end of time. But still, no one measured up to Amy.
Once he'd sat down at one of the open call center desks, he kicked back and waited for the phone to ring. He didn't have long. The phone gave a shrill ring and Rory picked up the phone.
"Hello, this is the tip line for odd alien occurrences, can I help you?" Rory intoned dryly. He knew that wasn't exactly how he was supposed to answer the phone, but he didn't care. Rory also knew that people higher up could listen in on calls and reprimand him for speaking in such a way on the public line, but again, he didn't care. He was too valuable an asset for Torchwood to lose. So he may as well answer the phone however he liked.
"Yes, hello, I have seen alien activity. You see, my dog Tracie has been acting odd recently. She hasn't been eating her favorite food, bacon, and she hasn't even been playing nearly as much. She'd got this odd sort of birthmark that I've never noticed before, too. I think it's a mark from her being abducted by aliens," a distressed woman said from the other side of the line. Rory rolled his eyes. This was exactly why soldiers hated call center duty. Most tips were just like this- pointless and annoying.
"Alright ma'am, we'll report that," Rory said with a monotone. The woman thanked him and hung up. Less than thirty seconds later, the phone rang again. This time, apparently, a man's wife just must have had some sort of alien technology tried on her, because she was pregnant, and the man hadn't been in town for six months. Rory silently banged his head against the wall as he calmly told the man that his wife would be fine. And so the day went. Hours slowly slipped away as Rory watched the clock in between calls, waiting for his shift to be over. As his shift was coming to a close, Rory got another call.
"Hello, this is the alien tip hotline, what have you got?" Rory asked sarcastically. He was fed up with all of the crazies and paranoid people. He heard an uncertain cough as the man on the other end of the line cleared his throat.
"Hola- er- hello. I have information about a person who started glowing orange after a shooting from one of the cartels," the man said unsteadily in a clear Mexican accent. Rory sat up a little straighter. Glowing orange? That actually sounded like regeneration.
"Alright, sir, could you tell me who this person is?" Rory asked. He was ready to forward this call, but then remembered that, technically, he outranked anyone that he had the option to forward the call to. So he stayed on the line.
"It's me," the man said, coughing again. He sounded sick. Rory's attention was focused now. The man on the line had been shot by a drug cartel and was about to regenerate.
"Alright, calm down, this is all actually normal. You're going to experience a burning sensation followed by a change in appearance," Rory explained in a controlled voice, reciting the explanation as he'd heard it from one of the first 32 Time Lords the agency had acquired. The man's breathing was heavily labored. "Can you tell me your name? We'll send a team out there to help you. They should get there in a few hours."
"My name is Ricardo Martinez. I'm the president of Mexico," the man said. Rory's jaw dropped to the floor as the line disconnected. This was going to be one interesting acquisition.
A/N: First of all, this chapter is dedicated to Kentastic72, who has read and kindly reviewed so much of my work and been such an encouragement. They have given me the idea to make a world leader a Time Lord, so I've included that twist. Thanks so much!
Next, I'd like to say that there are two very important storylines going on right now- the Doctor and Amy as well as Jack and Rory. These four will not stay separate for much longer. I hope anyone who's reading this is enjoying it. Let me know what you think. What you liked, didn't like, ect.