Resuming the Eleventh Hour
"What's happening?" Amy asked, whirling around. "Why's it going dark?"
Callie looked up, her eyes widening as she spotted the dimmed sun. It looked almost like an eclipse— like there was something huge blocking the sun. The air around them instantly became cooler, and goosebumps rose along Callie's arms.
"What's wrong with the sun?" Amy asked when neither Callie nor the Doctor answered her.
The two of them shared a look.
Forcefield blocking the sun, she said to him.
We need to find Prisoner Zero, the Doctor responded, and fast. Any clues?
Clues? The Doctor had never asked Callie for clues before. She blinked, racking her brain for any memories of this episode. Prisoner Zero… How did they stop it in the show?
"Rory," Callie breathed. She whipped around, pushing her hair out of the way as she looked through the crowd that was growing in the park. Vaguely, she heard the Doctor telling Amy about the forcefield and that it meant the Earth was going to be boiled.
Everyone around was holding their phones up towards the sky, taking pictures of the impromptu eclipse.
"The human race," the Doctor huffed in disbelief. "The end comes, as it was always going to, down a video phone."
"Callie, is this real?" Amy asked, looking at her with wide eyes. "It's— it's got to be some kind of big wind up, right?"
"Why would I wind you up?" the Doctor asked, incredulous.
"It's real," Callie murmured. Finally, she spotted him. With a big wave, she shouted, "Rory!" and ran off, trusting the Doctor and Amy to follow.
Rory, dressed in his nurse scrubs, stood with his phone out like everyone else. But unlike everyone else, he wasn't looking at the sky. He was looking at a man and his dog down the road, taking a picture.
"Rory!" Callie called again. Her pants— rolled up at the cuffs, since Amy was a good half foot taller than her— began to unroll and slip under her feet as she ran across the park. She slipped, falling forward towards the ground quickly.
Arms grabbed her around the waist, twisting until Callie could see the Doctor above her. Callie's breath caught in her chest for a moment. The Doctor pulled her up gently, a soft look on his face.
"So clumsy," he murmured. Callie's heart picked up, pounding in her chest and ears. In the back of her mind, she heard Amy when she said, "The only friend who ever looked at me like that was Rory."
"Twenty minutes," Amy reminded them, panting as she caught up.
"Right! Twenty minutes until the Earth burns," the Doctor repeated, though he didn't drop his arms from Callie's waist. He was still looking at her so intensely it took Callie's breath away. "You alright, love?"
Callie blinked, the pet name rendering her speechless. "Rory," she said again, trying to remember what was going on. Why she was thinking of Rory while the Doctor's arms were wrapped around her. The Doctor frowned.
"Who's Rory?" He didn't sound pleased.
"I'm Rory," Rory said, walking over to them. Callie started, pulling away from the Doctor yet again.
"He's my— friend," Amy explained, stepping next to him. Rory tried to put his hand around Amy's waist, but she pushed it away. Callie frowned.
"Boyfriend," Rory and Callie said in unison. Rory met Callie's gaze and she winked at him. The Doctor pinched her in the side.
"Ow," Callied whined, slapping at his arm. "What'd you do that for?"
"Just reminding you I'm here," he said lightly. Callie rolled her eyes, but inwardly she was too pleased to be back with the Doctor again to actually be annoyed by him.
"Anyway," she said, turning back to Rory. "You were just taking pictures of that man and his dog, right?"
"Wait— it's him," Rory breathed, staring at the Doctor. "First the Golden Angel, and now the Raggedy Doctor's back, too?"
"Yeah, he came back," Amy muttered. "I'll explain later."
"The Golden Angel?" the Doctor echoed, his lips twitching upwards. "Fitting. But Callie's right— why would you be taking photos of a man and dog while the sun's gone dark?"
"Sorry," Rory apologized. "Because he can't be there. Because he's—"
"In a hospital, in a coma," the Doctor chorused with him. Rory blinked, flummoxed.
"Yeah."
The Doctor nodded. "Knew it. Multiform, you see? It can disguise itself as anything, but it needs a life feed. A psychic link with a living, but dormant, mind."
The man and his dog came closer to them, stopping next to a drain in the curb. The man opened his mouth, but a dog's bark came out.
"Wrong mouth!" Callie called. "Maybe you could try again?"
Amy snorted into her hand. Callie smirked, and they shared a look. Then, Callie remembered she was mad at Amy and dropped her gaze.
"Prisoner Zero," the Doctor stated. Rory's eyebrows knit together.
"What? There's a Prisoner Zero, too?"
"Yes," Amy answered, eyeing Prisoner Zero warily.
In the distance, a spaceship with a giant eyeball in the center came down from the sky. Its silver spires spiked out all around it as it zipped around, the eyeball twisting and circling as it searched for something.
For the prisoner right in front of them.
"See, that ship up there is scanning this area for non-terrestrial technology," the Doctor told Prisoner Zero. He stepped forward, moving slightly so he was blocking Callie from Prisoner Zero. He held up his sonic— the silver and blue one that belonged to Nine and Ten, Callie noticed fondly— and pointed it into the air. "And nothing says non-terrestrial like a sonic screwdriver."
He pressed the button, and the streetlights around the park began to explode, one by one. Callie, Amy, and Rory all ducked when the one above them snapped and sizzled. Nearby, the car alarms started going off and a firetruck cruised down the street, sirens blaring.
Callie's jaw dropped as she spotted the fireman behind the truck, chasing and shouting after it.
"I think someone's going to notice, don't you, Callie?" the Doctor asked.
"Oh, definitely," Callie said, shaking her head and bringing her attention back to the situation at hand. "This is definitely noticeable."
And just as he spoke, the Doctor shouted and dropped the sonic. It exploded in midair, leaving a mangled mess of silver in its wake.
"No, no, no! Don't do that!" the Doctor shouted. He tried to pick the screwdriver up, but hissed and dropped it again.
"I can use mine—" Callie started, digging in her pocket for her phone. She pulled it out, but before she could make it to the sonic app, Rory gave a shout.
"Look, it's going!" He pointed to the drain as Prisoner Zero melted and slipped inside.
"Well, of course it did," the Doctor muttered, slapping himself in the side of the head.
"What do we do now?" Amy asked, looking at Callie. Callie looked to the Doctor, like she always did when the adventures began to heat up.
"It's hiding in human form," the Doctor said. "We need to drive it into the open. No TARDIS, only one sonic, and seventeen minutes until the Earth is roasted."
"We can do it," Callie said with a nod. Amy and Rory didn't look like they believed her. "Promise."
"Prisoner Zero— that thing has been in my house for twelve years?" Amy asked, her voice small. "The whole time?"
"Multiforms can live for millenia. Twelve years is a pit stop," the Doctor said, still trying to come up with a plan.
"It's very good at hiding," Callie told her. She grabbed Amy's hand and squeezed it. "The Atraxi— the eyeball aliens looking for it— followed the Doctor when he messed with the crack. They came back now because he did. Prisoner Zero was never a threat before now."
"Which is why you never said anything."
The Doctor looked from Amy to Callie.
How long have you been here, Callie?
Not important. We need to deal with this first, Callie reminded him. Rory's got a phone full of Prisoner Zero's disguises.
"Nurse boy." The Doctor snapped his fingers, holding his hand out. "Give me your phone."
Rory gave it without argument. The Doctor flicked through the images on the phone.
"These photos— they're all coma patients?" Rory nodded. "No, they're all the multiform. Right comas, eight disguises for Prisoner Zero."
"He had a dog, though. There's a dog in a coma?" Amy asked, crossing her arms. Again, she was asking Callie instead of the Doctor.
"If the coma patient is dreaming about his dog, then Prisoner Zero can manifest the dog," she answered, thinking about the rest of the episode. "You know what Prisoner Zero looks like, right?"
They split up. As much as Callie hated to separate from the Doctor, she knew he wouldn't leave her behind for anything and so she went with Amy and Rory to the hospital.
"I'm sorry," Amy said in the car. She sat in the back with Callie as Rory drove across town.
Callie met her gaze. She pressed her lips together and nodded. "I know."
"I shouldn't have ever—"
"I forgive you," Callie said, cutting her off. Amy laughed humorlessly.
"How?"
Callie shrugged, looking out the window. "You're my friend and I love you. And anyway, things will go back to normal now."
"But normal for you isn't normal at all," Rory said from the front. He looked at Callie through the rearview mirror. "This is normal for you."
Callie beamed. "It is. I missed it so much."
"End of the world is normal to you," Rory muttered under his breath. He pulled into the parking spot and stopped the car.
The front door to the hospital was blocked off by police tape, with policemen visible inside.
"Something's happened up here," Rory said, coming to a halt. "We can't get through."
Callie sighed and waved her arm. "Amy, lead the way."
"But it's blocked—" Callie gave a significant look to Amy's current outfit, and after a moment Amy got the message.
The policemen inside didn't spare them a second glance once they saw Amy's uniform. Callie wondered if they could get arrested for impersonating a police officer like this, but pushed it from her mind as they ran up the stairs to the coma ward.
They came to a stop in the doorway to ward. It was a mess— tables and supplies thrown about. More than one patient was hanging half out of their beds, strewn across like they'd been shoved or thrown.
A woman holding the hands of two little girls approached them. Callie's hackles rose and she took a step back, pulling Amy with her. Even if she hadn't seen the episode before, she would have known this woman wasn't human.
Callie hadn't had much opportunity to get used to her newfound abilities bestowed by the Time Vortex, but identifying an alien mind seemed to be one of them. In such close corridors, with two humans next to her, it was glaringly obvious that these three people were one alien multiform.
"Officer," the woman in the middle spoke, her voice emotionless.
"What happened?" Amy asked, not noticing how alien the form in front of them was.
"There was a man— a man with a dog," the woman said. "I think Doctor Ramsey's dead. And the nurses."
Callie cursed. She adjusted her grip on her phone, as if it were a weapon she could use. Amy pulled out her own phone, calling Rory's phone. The Doctor answered, and Amy explained the situation as she knew it.
Prisoner Zero settled its gaze on Callie, the corners of the little girl on the right's mouth twitching when it realized Callie knew.
"He was so angry," Prisoner Zero said, keeping up its charade. But it messed up again, and now the adult woman's voice came from the little girl's mouth. "He kept shouting and shouting. And that dog— the size of that dog."
"Back up," Callie said, putting her arm across Amy and grabbing at Rory's shirt. She pushed them back, holding her phone in front of them. Her sonic app may not be a classic weapon, but she could make some lights explode in a pinch.
"Where did he go? Did you see?" Prisoner Zero continued, taking a step forward. "We hid in the ladies'."
"You might as well drop the act," Callie told it. "You're messing up again. You really shouldn't go for the disguises with more than one mouth."
"It is tricky," Prisoner Zero agreed, now speaking from the mother again. She flashed an ugly grin, showing inhuman, pointed teeth.
"Oh, my god," Rory moaned. The three of them ran into the ward, away from Prisoner Zero.
"Amy, talk to me!" The Doctor shouted on the phone.
"We're in the coma ward," Amy said, stumbling behind a chair. "But it's here! It's getting in."
Callie grabbed the phone. "We're on the second floor, on the left. Fourth window from the end. Hurry!"
"Oh, dear little Amelia Pond," Prisoner Zero clucked, following behind and taunting. "Twelve years, and you never even knew I was there. And you— Callie Foster, the Golden Angel. Both such children on the inside, waiting for their magic Doctor to return. But not this time."
Amy's phone beeps in Callie's hand. Callie glanced down, then shouted, "DUCK!"
Just as the three of them hit the floor, the ladder of a firetruck burst through the window behind them. Glass showered over them, shards catching in Callie's curls. Amy grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her aside.
"You okay?" Amy asked, brushing back Callie's hair. Glass clinked on the floor like raindrops.
"Fine," Callie said with a small smile. She turned to see the Doctor climbing into the room on the ladder.
"Right, hello! Am I late?" he asked. He checked Rory's phone. "No, three minutes to go. So, still time."
"Time for what, Time Lord?" Prisoner Zero simpered, looking stupidly smug for knowing the Doctor's species. Callie scowled.
"Take the disguise off," the Doctor said simply. He walked around the room, stopping next to Callie. "They'll find you in a heartbeat. Nobody dies."
Prisoner Zero clicked its tongue. "The Atraxi will kill me this time. If I am to die, let there be fire."
A chill ran up Callie's spine at Prisoner Zero's tone. Amy's grip on Callie's wrist tightened, so she knew she wasn't the only one.
"Okay," the Doctor went on quickly. "You came into this world by opening a crack in space and time. Do it again— just leave."
Prisoner Zero scoffed. "I did not open the crack."
The Doctor glanced at Callie, as she'd noticed he tended to when something caught him off guard. He always checked to see if she knew what was going on— what was going to happen next. If she might chime in and say something.
Callie thought back to the Aplan temple and knew she couldn't say anything. The Doctor hadn't realized what the cracks were until then— so she'd keep her mouth shut for now.
"You just took advantage of the crack," she said to Prisoner Zero instead, resolutely not meeting the Doctor's gaze. All three of Prisoner Zero's heads tilted sideways in unison, that stupid smug look returning to their faces.
The mother's voice was dripping with condescension as Prisoner Zero said, "Trouble in paradise, hm? The Golden Angel keeping secrets from her magical Doctor? She knows, but he doesn't."
The two children's voices sang out, loud and shrill, "The Doctor in the TARDIS doesn't know! Doesn't know, doesn't know~!"
"Shut up," Callie bit out. She took a step forward, but Amy and the Doctor both held one of her hands and kept her in place.
"The universe is cracked," Prisoner Zero snapped back. "The Pandorica will open. Silence will fall."
Silence will fall when the question is asked.
Those words— nonsense to anyone who didn't already know. Nonsense to everyone but Callie. She felt it as everyone looked to her; she felt the weight of their stares. The Doctor squeezed her hand— a silent, reassuring gesture that he understood her silence— when the phone in his other hand went off.
"And, we're off! Look at that!" the Doctor shouted. He let go of Callie's hand, stepping out and thrusting the phone out for Prisoner Zero and everyone else to see. The screen read 0:00. Just like the clock in the ward above his head.
Callie almost breathed a sigh of relief. This was almost over. Earth was about to be saved, yet again.
It still gave her a little thrill that she was able to think that again. God, six months was far too long to go without the Doctor and his adventures. She didn't know how she ever survived before.
The Doctor launched into his explanation of all the zeroes and how he'd turned Amy's phone into a homing device, leading the Atraxi straight to them in that small town hospital.
He looked incredibly smug— Callie couldn't help but find it stupidly attractive.
And then she promptly cursed herself for it. Falling for the Doctor would only lead to her own heartbreak. Never mind Amy's traitorous voice in the back of her head saying, "The only friend who ever looked at me like that was Rory."
A bright light shined in through the windows, and the self-satisfied smirk on the Doctor's face grew. "Oh, and I think they just found us!"
Prisoner Zero huffed. "The Atraxi are limited," it explained through the mother's mouth. "While I'm in this form, they'll still be unable to detect me. They've tracked a phone, not me."
"Yeah, but this is the good bit," the Doctor said, "I mean— this is my favorite bit. Do you know what this phone is full of? Pictures of you— every form you've learned to take, right in here."
The Doctor worked quickly, typing on the phone. "Ooh," he continued, "and being uploaded right now! And final score is: no TARDIS, down a screwdriver, two minutes to spare. Who da man?"
All at once, Amy, Rory, and Callie cringed. The Doctor huffed.
"Oh, I'm never saying that again."
"Amy," Callie said quietly. "You remember what Prisoner Zero looks like, right?"
Amy's eyebrows furrowed. "Yeah, why?"
"Then, I shall take a new form," Prisoner Zero stated simply, cutting off any reply Callie may have had. The Doctor scoffed.
"Oh, stop it. You know you can't," he dismissed quickly. "It takes months for that kind of psychic link."
Callie squeezed Amy's hand. "Just remember—"
"I've had more than enough time," Prisoner Zero said. Callie readied herself to catch Amy, when suddenly the world spun and went black.
Amy cried out when Callie collapsed, crumpling like a piece of paper. She grabbed Callie's shoulder, her knees buckling under Callie's full weight. Rory came around from Amy's other side and caught Callie's head before it hit the linoleum floor.
"No! Callie!" The Raggedy Doctor ran to them, his eyes on nothing but the unconscious woman in front of them all. He fell to his knees, cradling her cheek with one hand and brushing it lightly with his thumb. "You've got to hold on, Callie. Don't sleep, please."
Callie's eyes remained shut. Amy swallowed hard, a horrible lump in her throat. She's not dead, Amy reminded herself, no matter how horribly close to death Callie looked. She's going to wake up. Amy looked up to glare at Prisoner Zero for doing this to her friend but—
The woman and two kids-form was no longer in front of them.
Rory followed Amy's gaze and balked. "Doctor," he said, nodding towards Prisoner Zero's new form. The Doctor turned and looked, as well.
"Well, that's rubbish," he said rudely. "You look nothing like Callie. Who is that supposed to be?"
The form Prisoner Zero now wore was of a young woman with wildly curly hair, but that was where the resemblance to Callie stopped. The woman in front of them was a good four inches taller than Callie, and significantly curvier. Her hair only came to her shoulders and was a dark brown, and her eyes were a piercing blue. She was a complete and utter stranger, and somehow that scared Amy more than anything.
"Poor little Calliope Foster," Prisoner Zero simpered, stepping forward. It pouted, and somewhere in the shape of its eyes, Amy could see Callie shining through. "Still such a child inside, holding onto the person she used to be."
It hit Amy like a truck.
"She changed," she said with a gasp, looking back to the Doctor. "That day, twelve years ago— she was so scared when she saw her reflection. This— this is what she used to look like."
"How can someone just change their face like that?" Rory asked sharply, the weirdness level finally hitting a point he couldn't handle.
"I do it all the time," the Doctor said lightly, looking back down at Callie's sleeping form. He brushed her gold hair back so he could see her face. The face he knew. "It's called regeneration."
Prisoner Zero gave a lurch, stumbling forward and falling to the floor in front of them.
"No," it moaned, digging its hands into its curly hair. "No, no!"
Its form shimmered, and then turned into the serpentine form Amy had seen in her house. Amy sucked in a breath. The Doctor, on the other hand, laughed out loud.
"Oh, Callie, you brilliant, brilliant woman," he breathed, quickly pressing a kiss to Callie's forehead. It was so soft and full of adoration that it almost gave Amy a cavity to watch.
God, if Callie thought the Doctor was anything less than totally in love with her, she was dense as a brick.
Then, the Doctor turned to face Prisoner Zero in its original form. "Well done, Prisoner Zero. A perfect impersonation of yourself."
When Callie finally woke up, it was just her and Rory in the open ward. The Doctor and Amy were nowhere to be seen. Callie groaned, her head throbbing as she sat up.
"What happened?" she asked, looking at Rory through watery eyes. He was right by her side, giving her a once over.
"Careful," he admonished as she tried to stand. "You should sit. How are you feeling? What hurts?"
"I'm fine," Callie said, ignoring her headache. She'd gotten good at doing so, though maybe she shouldn't. After all, the last time she ignored her headaches she ended up jumping six months ahead of the Doctor.
The Doctor. Callie froze, her breath catching in her chest. She whirled around. "Where's the Doctor?"
If he ran back to the TARDIS— if he left her behind thinking he'd be right back and she was stuck in Leadworth another two years, she would just scream.
"Ah, he went upstairs to call the aliens back," Rory said, quite unhappily. "Amelia went up with him."
Callie nodded, grimacing at how it worsened her headache.
"You should probably rest," Rory said. He tried to lead her to one of the empty beds in the ward, but she waved him off. "That alien was messing around inside your head. Who knows what it did."
"I'm fine," Callie repeated, heading for the stairs. Just as she expected, Rory followed behind. "Anyway, the Atraxi got Prisoner Zero, right?"
He nodded, coming up beside her. "Yeah, it somehow switched to what it really looked like, and then the Atraxi came and beamed it up. It couldn't hide anymore."
Callie sighed, a little bit of the tension leaving her shoulders. "Good. I wasn't expecting it to take me instead of Amy, but I'm glad I was able to remember what it looked like. It's kind of hard to control what's in your head while you're passed out."
"Wait, what do you mean— you thought it would go inside Amelia's head instead?"
Callie winced, but kept climbing the stairs. "Er, well, Amy's been in the house with Prisoner Zero longer. It would've made more sense to go for her."
"But you knew it was going to pull that trick?"
"Yeah, it's—" Callie was saved from answering by the Doctor bursting into the stairwell.
"Callie! Good, you're up," he cried, taking the steps two at a time to get to Callie and Rory. He scooped Callie into his arms, hugging her close.
You are brilliant, you know that? He told her silently. Callie could feel how strongly he believed that, and it warmed her from head to toe.
I didn't do anything special, Callie replied softly, burying her face in his tweed jacket.
"Oh," she said out loud, pulling back. "You changed!"
"I did," he said, tweaking the bowtie. A fond smile slipped onto Callie's face.
"I like it," she said, straightening the bowtie herself. Her hand dropped to rest on his chest, only to find it burning. "Ow!"
"Oh, right," the Doctor said. He dropped his arms from Callie's waist and fished around in his breast pocket, producing a glowing key. "Brand-new TARDIS. Wanna check it out?"
Somehow, they lost Amy and Rory as they ran across town to Amy's backyard. As the house came into view, Callie found herself actually glad to see it. She ran, hand-in-hand with the Doctor, through the gate and into the backyard.
Callie came to a stop, tears pricking her eyes as she saw the TARDIS for the first time in six months.
The Doctor squeezed her hand, a grin on his brand-new face. "You ready to get out of here?"
"More than you know," Callie breathed. The Doctor gestured with his free hand, and Callie stepped forward. And maybe a tear fell down her cheek as her fingertips brushed the blue wood and the door clicked open.
Orange light washed over the two of them.
"Alright, let's see what she's got for us this time," the Doctor said.
Callie almost walked inside, but caught herself. "We need to wait for Amy."
The Doctor paused. "Just a quick hop to the moon? When's the last time we did anything just the two of us?"
Callie bit her lip. "Never," she admitted.
"We'll be back before she even knows we're gone."
The Doctor held out his hand, wiggling his fingers in invitation. Callie looked back to the garden gate, wishing Amy and Rory would appear right then. She had no idea how she and the Doctor got so far ahead of them— but they were nowhere to be seen.
Callie looked back to the Doctor, to the invitation she'd never gotten when she first arrived in this universe. To the invitation she'd been dreaming of since she was a teenager.
Just as the TARDIS faded away, wheezing and groaning, a note fluttered to the ground.
Back in 5 mins! (Sorry Amy, I promise we'll be back!) ~ Callie
A/N: Finally, a new chapter and we'll soon get back to the adventures! I've got so much planned, it's almost overwhelming. Please, please leave a review and let me know what you thought!
(Also, in light of all the FF-might-be-going-down rumors, please know that this story is also being posted under the same name on AO3! My user over there is haelpack)
