Outside the McCrimmon Estate
The Doctor opened his eyes only to squinch them shut against a painful shining whiteness. He opened his hands to feel something cold and hard against the tips each of his ten fingertips. He moved his head and discovered similar stony protrusions prodding against his scalp.
"Hello?" he murmured as he carefully sat forward. As he scanned the field, he found himself surrounded by acre upon twinkling acre of milk-white crystals.
The Doctor got to his feet then, grinning in spite of himself. Because though the crystalline heath stretched in unbroken whiteness as far as he could see, he stood in the only patch untouched — a perfect Doctor-shaped outline in the grass.
He bent and scooped up a crystal the size of an apricot from the ground. Benign now, the stone felt smooth and vaguely powdery. He brought it to his nose and sniffed.
"Mmm," he said. "Applegrass. Great memory." He gave the crystal a squeeze and tucked it into his pocket.
Above him, the storm busily unraveled into strands of luminous mist. As the air cleared, he felt an incredible lightness in his mind and in his hearts. He clasped his hands together and brought them to his lips. The pain he'd felt, the pressure and confusion, all of it seemed to evaporate along with the storm.
But the elation was short-lived. As he stood in the crystalline wake of the storm, deciding which direction he should walk in order to find his way to the McCrimmon Estate, he heard the distinctive flooshy-wooshy sound of the TARDIS materializing.
"Hang on," he said, turning in the direction of the sound. "You're not supposed to be–"
Nevertheless, the welcome shape of the crystal-encrusted police box gradually but definitely appeared, and no sooner than it had materialized, both Amy and River tumbled through the doors to draw up short and somewhat confuddled before him.
"–here," he finished, taking River's hand in his own. He beamed at her. "Hello. What have you done to my TARDIS?"
Ignoring him, Amy gushed, "Doctor! You're all right?"
"Yes I am!" he cried. Then, striding past them, he bustled into the TARDIS and immediately set about adjusting dials and switches and levers and cranks. "Never felt better. In fact, I could go as far as to say that rarely have ever felt… so light, so candid, so minty-fresh. It's as though a weight has been lifted from my mind. And it has, quite literally." He flipped his hair from his forehead. "Figuratively, too. Anyway, I feel as though I could save the world again." He flicked a gauge with his fingernail. "Nevermind the crystals, side effect, they'll be gone before we know it…"
"Doctor–" River said.
"Yes, I know. Must find Rory! Where's he got off to? Won't be easy, all of time and space, but he has got a very useful gadget on him, a sonic screwdriver, does he not? Program the TARDIS to lock onto that, and Rory's got himself a clever little homing device."
"How did you–?"
"Amy," the Doctor said, his face aglow with a Cheshire grin. "I'mthe Doctor. Come along, Pond. We've got juice enough for the hop back to the McCrimmons. We'll refuel and then it's Destination Mr. Pond."
"Doctor," River said, the stern note in her voice finally bringing him to a halt. "What happened?"
"The storm has passed," he answered.
"Yes, we can see that," Amy pitched in. "What we want is the how."
His smile returned, fainter, and, if possible, a tiny bit wiser. "Onwards and upwards, shall we?" The Doctor released the handbrake and returned his attention to the monitor.
2:44 p.m.
The Tower Room
Darkness. Darker still, now that the storm had stopped, and it seemed that the particles of illumination lessened with every pulse of the clockwork tower.
Rory pressed his ear to James' chest.
"Anything?" Rose whispered.
Nothing.
Rory pumped another thirty count to James' ribcage, breathed another breath, waited. His palms were sweating. His shoulders ached. He felt a crazy itch behind his left ear and could do nothing about it. But he wouldn't give up.
Thirty more beats. Another breath. Listen for a heartbeat. Repeat process. He'd trained for this. He had life experience with this. He knew sometimes the person came back. And sometimes they didn't.
But James had to come back.
"Rose, talk to him," Rory said. "Maybe if he hears you, maybe it'll help."
Rose bent her head to brush his cold fingertips to her forehead. "All right," she said. "I can tell him this. James, I can tell you. You're not the Doctor."
Rory glanced at her. "Not sure that will help," he said.
"No, it will. You're not the Doctor, but you are mine," she said. "Maybe for a long time you thought you were second best. Maybe you thought you had to prove yourself because you were living in his shadow, but you're not. Do you hear me? You're not. The Cosmos is within us. You and me. It's our baby, James. Yours and mine. So you have to come back to us..."
She drew a sharp breath and went on in a ragged whisper. "You have to come back to us. We need you."
She dissolved into tears, and Rory knew they were running out of time. If James didn't wake soon, he wouldn't wake at all. He stooped to breathe another breath when he felt the slightest draft brush against his neck.
"There. There!" Rory said. He placed a hand beneath James' nose and waited. Again, the warmth of a breath.
"Is he–"
"–Breathing! Yes!" Rory continued to feel tiny exhalations against his hand. Still, they waited long, long seconds for James to move or open his eyes.
"What's wrong?" Rose said.
"It's okay. It's okay. He's not conscious, but he's breathing," Rory said. "He's alive."
Rose warmed James' fingers between her hands. "Will he be all right?"
Rory knew the kind of trauma James suffered often met with nasty results. What if Rory had been right about pulling the plug? What if all that had been James was lost up there, in the storm? Rory couldn't bring himself to lie. He said, "It's… I don't know."
Rose pulled James into her arms and held him against her body. Rory could do nothing but sit by and watch and feel wretched.
Seconds wound down, ticking ever slower, until soon no light remained at all.
2:53 p.m.
The Labs
The TARDIS materialized. The Doctor stepped out into the cool, windless afternoon with River and Amy beside him.
"That's… odd," he said, his smile fading from his face.
Amy scanned the still snowy courtyard. "We're at the McCrimmon Estate, just like you said."
"But the coordinates," River said.
"Precisely," the Doctor said. He left them, striding ahead on his gangly legs, followed by River's mincing steps.
"Oof," Amy said. "What about the bloody coordinates?"
They arrived at the front doors of the laboratory and pulled them open. Amy jogged along to catch them as they entered the main corridor.
"You're being cagey, Doctor. I don't like it."
"The coordinates, Amy–"
"–Yes–"
"–The ones he programmed in for Rory," River said.
"Yes?" Amy said, frustrated now.
"The TARDIS found him," the Doctor said. They arrived at the tower room and came to an abrupt stop. "He's here."
"Here," Amy said. "You mean… here?"
They stared gape-mouthed at the glistening glaze of ice coating everything within the tower room. Thick sabers of ice dripped like monstrous teeth from the fretted ceiling. Layers of snow banked against the dull-eyed computer screens. At the room's center, the clockworks within the cylinder softly chimed and radiated and pulsed.
"There's nothing in there," River said. "Nothing can be alive in there. It's frozen solid."
"Be not deceived," the Doctor whispered. He shouldered through the door, and slipping around on the icy floor, made his way across to the central console, with Amy and River close behind. "I knew when I first saw this place there was something to it," the Doctor told them. "Something more. Something… special." He teetered around the console, gripping the icy edge with both hands, until he made it to the opposite side of the tower.
"And there it is," he said.
Neither River nor Amy saw anything amiss. More tower, more ice, more shimmery windows thick with frost. They glanced at each other and shrugged.
The Doctor leaned back and whispered, conspiratorial, almost playful, "It's bigger on the inside."
Then he stepped forward, just one step, and vanished.