A/N: Sorry for the time it has taken to update, and I apologise now for any spelling and grammar errors.
I sat there, holding Toby close to me. "How you feeling, Toby?" I asked him softly as he started coughing again.
"Do you really think we are safe from the siren in here?" He asked me, once he had finished he coughing fit.
"Honestly, I don't know. I don't think anywhere is safe at the moment. But I promise not to let anything to happen to you. I won't let her got you, Toby."
"She got Mulligan, and there was no water in there. How did she get into the storeroom? I don't understand it." The Doctor called to me in frustration.
"Okay, so rethink your theory. What happened with the leeches? And what happened in the storeroom?" I asked him, thinking it over myself.
"Mulligan was in there with nothing but a crown. When we were in the hold, the water was still. It's the not water, that's not how she gets in. The water was still, natures mirror." The Doctor concluded.
"So it's reflections. That's how she gets in. You do know how many ways there are for her to get in here now? The windows, the treasure, all of it." I told him. I could feel him start to panic, it would appear that no where on the ship was safe while there were reflection.
"Summer, everything okay?" Amy asked, coming and sitting down next to me.
"Yeah, fine. The Doctor has had to change his theory yet again. He should be here in a minute, he can fill you in on everything that has happened." I told her, staring off into space. "There's nothing in here that can give off a reflection is there?"
Amy just frowned at me. "What do you mean?"
"Anything that can be used as a mirror. Such as still water, windows, treasure." I told her, looking around the room for anything that the siren could use to come for Rory and Toby, and the other last crew member.
"No. I don't think so. Is it important?" Amy asked me.
"Just a bit, yeah." I told her, just as there was hammering on the door.
"Star! Amy! Open the door!" The Doctor cried. "Open the door!"
I helped Amy to move everything and opened the door, the Doctor and Avery charged in and went straight over to Toby. "Are you lads looking for something?" I asked them, pulling out a coin wrapped in a piece of cloth. "She isn't coming through this any time soon." I said, passing it to the Doctor.
He took it for me and kissed the top of my head. "Brilliant. Now come on, we need to get rid of anything else that can be use as a portal, anything with a reflection."
"Well? What are we waiting for?" I asked him, running out of the room and into the captain's cabin. "Excuse me while I do it the quick way." I said, blowing out every single one of the windows. There wasn't a piece of glass left in the frame.
The Doctor smiled at me before explaining to Avery what needed to be done. "We've got to destroy every reflection. Gold, silver, glass, she could spring from any of them. Oh, yes, yes, I know, I know. Very bad luck to break it. But look at it this way. There's a stroppy homicidal mermaid trying to kill all." He started smashing a mirror with the butt of a musket.
"How much worse can things get?" Avery asked sarcastically.
"Do you really want me to answer that?" I asked, grabbing anything shiny.
"Best not, Star." The Doctor said, before turning to Avery. "Help me lug this lot out." He kneeled down, looking at all the treasure in the chest.
"Where are we taking it?" Avery asked him, fearing the answer already.
"The ocean."
"No! No. This is the treasure of the Mogul of India." Avery protested.
"Oh, good. For a moment there I thought it was yours." I could tell from the Doctor's tone that he was not impressed.
"No, no. Doctor, wait. Must we do this?"
"Any reflection, any mirror, and that 'thing' will attack. We have to protect Rory and Toby." I told him.
"Go and get the crown from the storeroom." The Doctor told him as he started to throw everything out of the smashed windows. "How you doing?" He asked, as I started to help him.
"I'm on top of the world." I mumbled, throwing some more gold coins out of the window.
"Liar. What's wrong?" The Doctor asked me, trying not to let me see just how concerned he was.
"I don't know. Something just isn't right, and I'm not just talking about on this ship. There's something not right with me." I told him. What made it worse, was I knew that the Doctor was keeping something from me.
He frowned at me. "What do you mean?"
"I can't explain it, I just know. Doctor, there's something wrong with me, and I'm scared."
He immediately stopped what he was doing and held me tightly. "There is nothing to be scared of. You're fine, you are absolutely fine. I swear."
"You're lying to me. You know something, why won't you tell me?" I asked him, getting a little irritated.
"Star, listen to me." He said, pushing me away a little and gazing into my eyes. "I promise you, everything will be fine. Don't be scared. Just stay calm, I will always find you."
"What do you mean? You will always find me?"
He didn't answer me, he finished getting rid of the treasure and led me back to the room where Amy, Rory and Toby were waiting for us.
"Just wait?" Rory asked, after the Doctor had explained everything to him.
"Not my most dynamic plan, I realise." He admitted.
"TARDIS?" Amy asked, hoping that there was still some hope.
"It's been towed."
"What?"
"Sorry." The Doctor said, looking a little sheepish. "We might be stuck here for a while."
"So you're saying that we should all just wait here below?" Rory asked him. I wished there had been a better plan, but even I couldn't think of anything.
"The sea is still calm, like a mirror. If you go out on deck she'll rise up and attack you." Avery told them all.
"It's okay. The calm won't last forever. When the wind picks up we'll all set sail." The Doctor had hoped that would cheer them up a little, give them some hope. But the way I saw it, we would still be missing the TARDIS. And without her, we were still stuck.
"Until it does, you have to hide down here."
"You okay?" The Doctor asked, as he came and sat down next to me, wrapping an arm around me.
"You know I'm not, so why bother to even ask?"
"You should probably try and get some rest." The Doctor said, looking at Rory and Amy. They just nodded at him before taking my hand and leading me out onto the deck.
"What are we doing out here? I thought it wasn't safe." I said grumpily.
"Not for them. You don't have the black spot, do you?" He asked me, taking hold of both my hands and inspecting them. "No, so she won't be coming for you. You're safe."
"Great." I mumbled, waiting for him to let go of my hands.
"Star, you need to listen to me. You have to stay calm, okay? Just promise me you will stay calm."
I didn't have any idea what he was talking about, but I could hear the concern and desperation in his voice. "Doctor, what's going on? Why do I have to stay calm?"
"Please, you have to promise me." He said, resting his head against mine.
"I promise." I whispered to him. "But tell me, what's going on?"
He didn't answer, he just kissed the top of my head and rested his chin on my shoulder.
"It's fine. You're doing fine. Just stay calm." I heard a woman say somewhere. It was very quiet, almost a whisper. "She is clueless. She has no idea."
"What's wrong?" The Doctor asked me, a frown on his face.
"I… I don't know. I thought I heard something. Guess I must have imagined it." He only nodded at me.
"It's not one star, it's two." The Doctor said as Captain Avery came out on the deck as well. "The Dog star, Sirius. Binary system."
"I use it to navigate the ocean."
"We've travelled far, like you. Space can be very lonely, and the greatest adventure is having someone to share it with you."
"If we get out of this I'll take him back to England. He can't stay with me. I'm not the father he needs." Avery said, looking a little sad.
"Who are you, Henry Avery? Respected navel officer, wife and child at home." The Doctor asked him.
"How did you end up here, wandering the oceans with a band of rogues?" I added.
Avery looked at the pair of us, before turning his attention back to the sky. "I've set my course now. Nothing I can do to alter it."
"People stared at it for centuries and never knew. Things can suddenly change, when you're least expecting." The Doctor told him, before taking my hand again and leading me back inside. I had started to shiver. The night air was rather cold, and it was biting against my skin.
We ended up in the captain's cabin once again. "This room is wrong, Doctor." I whispered to him, as we both looked around.
"Doctor? Summer?" It seemed Amy had joined us, but the Doctor had finally sensed it as well and he hushed her. "What can you see?" She asked, as the three of us stared out of the broken windows.
"Star's right, it feels like something's out there, staring straight at us." Everything was so still and silent, until we saw a flash in the sky and heard the loud clashing of thunder. "Man the sails!" He shouted, dragging me out on deck with him.
The calm was finally over, the weather had changed and we were now stuck in a storm. "To the rigging, you dogs!" Avery shouted at us. "Let go the sails. Avast ye! Put the bunt into the slack of the clews."
Amy and Rory both rushed to release the sails, but the rope was wet, and slippery, they weren't getting very far. "I swear he's making half this stuff up." Amy complained.
"Well, we're going to need some kind of phrase book." Rory pointed out, while the Doctor took the helm.
"Just get that sail down otherwise we won't be getting very far." I called to them, working on some of the ropes myself.
"Toby! Find my coat. My compass is inside it, boy." Out of the corner of my eye I saw the boy head down into the hold. "Heave ho, you bilge rats."
"Rats was all I could hear." Rory shouted, having no clue as to what Captain Avery was saying.
"He means put your back into it. Come on, Rory, get that sail down." I shouted to him. It was difficult to hear anything over the pounding of the rain and the rumbling of the thunder.
As Toby came back up with his fathers coat, something fell from it and rolled across the deck. My eyes widened in horror as I saw it was a shiny gold crown. In an instant the so called siren had appeared out of its reflection and was floating back down towards the deck.
"Toby!" I shouted, trying to reach him before the green, glowing woman did. Only I was too late, and he reached out for her, disappearing in a puff of smoke. "No." I whispered, while Avery cried out. The Doctor was quick to toss the crown over the side and into the ocean, making her disappear as well.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He muttered.
I stormed over to the man. "You couldn't give up the gold, could you? That's why you turned pirate. Your commission, your wife, your son." I spat at him. "Just how much is that treasure worth to you?" I was fuming. He cared more about his treasure then he did his own son. There are some things in life I would give everything up for.
The next thing we knew, the wind had blow and Rory had been knocked overboard. "Rory!" Amy cried, rushing to the side and looking over the edge for him. "I can't see him. Doctor, Summer, I'm going in." She said, taking her coat of.
The Doctor and I were both quick on our feet and reached her at the same time to stop her. "He's drowning. He's drowning. You go in after him, you'll drown too." The Doctor told her, holding onto her tightly.
"There's only one thing that can same him now." I told her, knowing what we were going to have to do next.
"What are you talking about?" Amy demanded to know.
"The siren." The Doctor answered.
"She wants him, Amy. We have to release her." I said, charging over to a barrel of water. I pulled off the lid and in an instant she flew out. "He's drowning. Go and find him. Please." I asked her gently. We all watched as she dived into the ocean.
"What, what did you do?" Amy cried at me.
"Amy, listen to me, if he stays down there he will die." I told her, holding onto her arms tightly.
"But she'll destroy him."
"That thing isn't a ravenous hunter. It's intelligent. We can reason with it. And maybe, just maybe, they are all still alive somewhere." I told her before turning to the Doctor. "We have to follow her. It's the only way we are ever going to get out of this." I told him.
The Doctor nodded at me. "Yes, you're right. We have to follow her."
"Are you mad?" Avery called over the wind and rain.
"If we ever want to see them again, we have to let the siren take us. We'll prick out fingers. All agreed? Yeah?" The Doctor asked.
An aye came from Captain Avery and Amy, before the Doctor turned to me. "Hey, this was my idea thank you very much. So, aye!" I called, as the Doctor pulled something sharp out of his pocket.
One by one we were all stabbed with it, making the black spot appear in the palm of our hands. We all looked up as the woman appeared, singing her wordless song. We were all draw towards her, the sound of her voice pulling us in.
There was a flash of light and everything went dark.
I woke up, soaking wet, but no longer in the rain. Straight away I saw the Doctor lying there facing me. "Oi, wake up." I said, kicking him gently, getting him to move.
He pulled himself off the floor before helping me up as well. "Where are we?" Amy asked as she rolled over and saw the pair of us standing up.
"We haven't moved." I told her quietly. "We're in exactly the same place as before." I looked through the window before us, seeing the ship in the storm on the other side. "I told you we were being watched."
"We're on a ghost ship." Avery announced.
"No. It's real. Spaceship trapped in a temporal rift." I told him, looking around behind me rather than out of the window with the others.
"How can two ships be in the same place?" Amy asked in wonder.
"Not the same. Two planes, two worlds, two cars parked in the same space." I told her, not really paying much attention to what I was saying. I was rambling a little, much like the Doctor. It seemed to happen more and more these days. The longer I spent with him, the more it would happen.
"There are lots of different universes nested inside each other. Now and again they collide, and you can step from one to the other." The Doctor explained.
"Okay, I think I understand." Amy said with a nod of the head.
"Good, because it's not like that at all. But if that helps…" I said, knowing that the Doctor was nowhere near right.
"Thanks." She mumbled at me.
I turned and facer her with a smile. "You're welcome." I turned back to the window. "All the reflections have suddenly become gateways."
The Doctor nodded and picked up a bit of junk on the floor and tossed it through the window. It clanged when it landed on the deck of the wooden ship on the other side.
"Ever look in a mirror and think you're seeing a whole other world? Well, this time it's not an illusion." The Doctor said, a bit of a grin on his face. He really did love new things.
That was when we heard a beeping sound. "The signal." Amy realised as we headed towards the source of it.
"Yes."
"The distress call."
"Uh huh." The Doctor confirmed.
"There was a second ship here all the time." Amy still wasn't quite able to believe it, but I was. I could sense it, and I should have known, I should have spotted it earlier.
"And the siren is on board." The Doctor mentioned as we heard the singing.
He found a door and decided to open it. We all jumped back when we were faced with a very non human skeleton. "Dead." The Doctor said, getting Avery to lower his gun.
We eventually made it to the bridge, where we were faced with more skeletons. "Summer, you were right. There was something staring at us the whole time. How long has this ship been marooned for?" Amy asked as we looked around.
"Long enough for the Captain to have run out of grog." Avery concluded.
"I don't understand. If this is the Captain, then what's the siren?" Amy asked as we looked at who would once have been the ships captain.
"Same as us. A stowaway." The Doctor told her.
"Nope. We weren't stowaways, that was Toby. She isn't a stowaway either." I told the trio, getting some very confused faces. "I'm still working out the kinks. At least I don't keep changing my theory every few minutes like you do, Doctor."
"Did she kill them?" Amy asked, looking at the dead crew while the Doctor scanned the dead captain with his sonic screwdriver.
"Human bacteria." He concluded, looking at the results before showing them to me.
"What?"
I let out a sigh. "A virus, from our planet. Airborne, travelling through the portal. That's what killed them." I told her.
"Didn't get it's jabs." The Doctor added, before putting his hand on the desk. "Ugh. Look." He said, trying to wipe his hand on my back.
I quickly moved out of his way. "Oh, that is disgusting. Get away from me." I called.
"What is it?" Amy asked.
"Sneeze." The Doctor told her. "Alien bogies." He wiped his hand on the sleeve of her coat as he walked past her.
"Right, time to go explore and find everyone else." I said, following the Doctor out of the room.
The next room we found ourselves in was the sick bay. There were beds hanging from the ceiling, each of them seemed to be occupied with those lying in them hooked up to machines.
"McGrath. He's one of my men." Avery said as he recognised one of the men.
"He's still breathing." Amy told him, watching the man's chest slowly rising and falling.
"My entire crew is here." Avery noticed, while the Doctor and I looked at some of the machines a little better. "Toby!" He cried, spotting his son.
"Rory!" Amy called, seeing her husband. The Doctor and I were quickly running past Amy as we spotted something behind a white, plastic sheet.
"The TARDIS!" We both shouted at the same time as we both hugged it.
"We have to get him out of here." Captain Avery said, watching his son.
"Wait." I warned him, as the Doctor and I joined him.
The Doctor scanned the boy with his sonic screwdriver. "His fever's gone." He told him, before moving over to Rory.
"He looks so well." Amy said.
"She's keeping him alive. His brain is still active, but all its cellular activity is suspended. It's not a curse, it's a tissue sample." I said, after looking at the Doctor's screwdriver for myself.
"Why get samples of people you are about to kill?" The Doctor thought out loud.
"Is she really killing then?" I asked him, making him rethink what he had just said.
"Help me get him up." Amy asked. As the pair of them tried to move him, an alarm started going off. Dread flowed through me and I knew it was going to be something bad to follow.
"She's coming." I whispered, pulling the Doctor and Amy out of sight. Avery followed us and we hid behind a selection of monitors as she floated into the room.
We watched as she started singing again, and the stirring Rory settled back down. "Anaesthetic." I whispered with a smile on my face.
"What?"
"Her music. The song. She anaesthetises people and puts their body in stasis." I told her. The Doctor just smiled at me, seemingly pleased that I had worked it all out.
Unfortunately, she was heading over to Toby, and the boys father was not best please at that and stepped out, holding his gun. "Avery, no!" The Doctor hissed at him. But it was too late, he fired at the woman, and the green glow that surrounded her turned red.
The Doctor ducked out as well, watching as the woman approached Avery. She was right in front of him when the Doctor let out a sneeze. Now she wasn't just glowing red, but there was fire flowing from her hands.
"Fire. That's new. What does fire do? Burn? Yes. Destroy?" The Doctor rambled. "What else?"
"Sterilise!" I shouted at him.
"I sneezed. I've brought germs in." The Doctor said, before pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket, blowing his nose, and then throwing it on the floor.
The woman blasted it with the fire, burning it, turning it into dust. Amy took that as her chance to get to her husband. "Amy, stop. Don't interfere. Don't touch him." I warned her.
"Anaesthetic, tissue sample, screen, sterile working conditions. Ignore all my previous theories." The Doctor told her, walking towards her.
"Yeah? Well, we stopped paying attention a while back. When Summer told us to ignore you." Amy said, trying to get the tubes off her husband.
"She's not a killer at all, she's a doctor!" I shouted, getting Amy to stop immediately. As soon as she backed away, the woman, the siren, was surrounded with her normal green glow. "This is an automated sick bay. It's teleporting everyone on board."
The Doctor's eyes widened as he finally caught on to everything. "The crew are dead, and so the sick bay has had nothing to do. It's been looking after humanity while it's been idle. Look at her. A virtual doctor able to sterilise a whole room."
"Able to burn your face off." Amy pointed out.
"She's just an interface, seeped through the join between the planes, broadcast into our world. Protean circuitry means she can change her form, and become a human doctor for humans. Oh, sister, you are good." The Doctor said, getting more and more impressed.
Amy reached down and went to touch Rory, only for the woman to screech at her and flash red until she backed off from her husband. "She won't let us take them." Avery pointed out, wanting nothing more then to take his son away, like Amy wanted her Rory back.
"She's keep them alive but she doesn't know how to heal them." I told them all, trying to think of something I could do to help.
"I'm his wife, for God's sake. Why can't I touch him?"
"Tell her, Amy. Show her your ring. She may be virtual but she's intelligent. You can't do anything without her consent." I told her, hoping that it would work.
"Come on. Sophisticated girl like you. That must be somewhere in your core program." The Doctor pleaded. He was desperate as well, we all were really.
"Look, he's very ill, okay? I just want to look after him." Amy told the woman. "Why won't you let me near my husband?" She asked, holding her hand by Rory's, showing her their wedding rings. Amy was almost in tears.
The siren held out her hand, a golden ring around it. "Consent form. Sign it. Put your hand in the light. Rory's sick. You have to take full responsibility." The Doctor told her. Amy nodded in understanding and put her hand through the ring. The woman disappeared and Amy got straight to getting Rory off the bed.
As soon as she turned off his life support, things turned bad. "He can't breath. Turn it back on." I cried, watching him gasping for breath.
"What do we do? I can't just leave him here." Amy cried. She just wanted her husband back. She had lost Rory too many times already, she didn't want to lose him again, and I could understand how she felt.
"Amy, he will die if you take him out." I told her softly, placing a hand on her arm.
"Rory? Rory, wake up." She called to him gently.
He slowly started to stir. "Where am I?" He asked in confusion as he opened his eyes.
"You're in a hospital. If you leave, you might die." The Doctor told him, a sad look on his face.
"But if you don't, you'll have to stay forever." Amy added.
"You're saying that if I don't get up now…"
"You can never leave." Amy finished for him.
"The siren will keep you safe." The Doctor assured him.
"And if I come with you?"
I let out a sigh. "Rory, you're drowning. On the point of death. If you leave here, you will drown." It was the truth, and I hated it.
"I'm a nurse." Rory reminded us. Amy just seemed to be confused. "I can tech you how to save me."
"Whoa. Hold on." Amy said, seemingly a little bit scared, and completely petrified.
"I was drowning. You just have to resuscitate me."
Amy scoffed a little. "Just?"
"You've seen them do it loads of times in films. CPR. The kiss of life." Rory told her, trying to reassure her that she could do it.
"Rory, this isn't a film, okay? What if I do it wrong?" Amy asked in a panic.
"You won't."
"Okay, what if you don't come back to life? What if…"
"I trust you." We all knew that he meant it. He meant it with everything he had.
The tears were streaming down Amy's face now, and I felt the Doctor wrap his arm around my waist and pull me closer to him. "What about him?" Amy said, glancing at the Doctor. "I mean, why do I have to be the one? Why do I have to save you?"
"Because I know you'll never give up." Rory told her softly. Amy just nodded at him as the Doctor and I walked over to Avery.
"We have to send this ship back into space. Imagine if the siren go ashore. She would have to process every injured human." The Doctor told him.
"What about Toby?" He asked, not taking his eyes away from his son.
"I'm sorry. He has typhoid fever. Once he returns, it's only a matter of time. I wish there was something we could do, I honestly do." I told him, knowing what it was like to have to lose a child.
"What if I stay with him, here? The siren will look after him." Avery asked. "I can't go back to England. And what home does he have now, if not with me?"
"Do you think you could sail this thing?" The Doctor asked, a hint of hope in his eyes.
"Just point me to the atom accelerator." The Doctor could help but let out a little laugh before we walked back over to Amy and Rory.
"I know you can do this. Of course, if you muck it up I am going to be really cross. And dead." Rory told his wife.
"Rory, if you die, I swear I will hunt you down in the after life and give you hell." I warned him, making both him and Amy smile a little. Amy was my sister, he was my brother, and it was killing me to see both of them hurting so much.
"I'll see you in a minute." Amy whispered, before the Doctor just ripped of the restraints keeping Rory on the bed.
Straight away he struggled to breath, and alarms started going off. We managed to get him off the bed and dragged him into the TARDIS, lying him down on the floor just inside of the door.
"Come on. Come on Rory. Not here. Not this way. Not today." I mumbled, holding onto the Doctor tightly as Amy tried her hardest to resuscitate her husband.
"He trusted me. He trusted me to save him." Amy cried as she carried on trying.
"You still can. You can still do this." The Doctor assured her. "He believes in you. Come on, Amy. Come on."
She tried again, and again. "Please, please, please wake up." She whispered. "Wake up. Wake up. Come on. Come on." She mumbled as she kept on trying.
I felt a few tears stream down my face as Amy seemed to lose all hope and began to sob. The Doctor pulled me closer to him, both of us feeling the despair and hopelessness that Amy was feeling.
It felt like we had been sitting there for hours, when suddenly Rory started coughing and spitting up water.
"Amy. Amy, you did it. You did it." Rory said to her, before hugging her tightly. Amy was crying her eyes out, we had all thought he had been lost to us again.
The Doctor pulled me up off the floor and held me tightly. We were both relieved that he was alive, that our Amy had our Rory back. Our family was completed once again.
"You're right, they are our family." The Doctor whispered to me in my mind.
I smiled at him as I looked up at his face. "Feels nice to have a family again don't it?" I asked him.
"Yeah, it does." He said, before kissing me on the top of my head and charging around the console.
Amy had not left Rory's side, and I could fully understand why. We had sent the space ship back of into space, Captain Avery, Toby and the rest of his crew were now sailing amongst the stars.
"I thought I was an excellent pirate." Amy commented to her husband as they walked up the stairs.
"I thought you were an excellent nurse."
"Easy, tiger." She said, grinning at him. "Goodnight Doctor, Summer." She called down to us.
"Goodnight, Amelia." The Doctor said, looking away from the monitor and over at her.
She frowned at him. "You only call me Amelia when you're worrying about me."
"Amy, we always worry about you." I told her, giving her a soft smile.
"Mutual."
"Go to bed, Pond." The Doctor called, as we watched the couple head up the stairs and to their room.
I looked at the screen and frowned, just like the Doctor was as well. "Oh, Amelia." He had been doing a body scan, and it couldn't decide if she was pregnant or not.
"What could be causing that to happen, Doctor? I mean, what can confuse our sexy TARDIS so much that it can't tell if she is pregnant or not?" I asked him with some worry.
"I don't know, Star. But whatever it is, I promise to find out." He assured me, kissing my forehead before dragging me to my room, or rather, our room. That was where he seemed to spend most of his time now.
A/N: Again, I'm sorry for how long it has taken me to update. Thing's have been hectic with starting my placement. 1 week down, 4 more to go.
So, I hope you liked that chapter anyway. I have finished the next episode, so I must remember to upload it and post it during the week.
I won't bore you all too much. Thank you to all who have reviewed, they really make my day. So if you want to leave a review then please do.
Pippa.