THE HOUSE ON SPACE-TIME LANE
Chapter Four
THE SEARCH FOR AMALIE
by Galen Hardesty
~*~
Daria looked at him, eyes wide, then she looked down and blushed. "I'm sorry," she said. That was a tactless thing to say."
"No, it wasn't." he replied. "It was honest, even insightful, if somewhat cynical."
"Thanks. Umm, you sounded as if you now believe the chances of finding her are better."
"Quite. Having recalculated the odds based on new data, I find they are dramatically improved."
"New data?"
"I am fairly certain the superTARDIS is here, coexisting with this house, using it as a disguise."
The three girls stared at him, wide-eyed. Even though Jane and Daria had been thinking something along those lines, the implications were staggering. "It can do that?" Jane asked.
"You've seen my TARDIS. From the outside, it looks like a police call box that you might've seen on a London sidewalk in the mid twentieth century. That's because its chameleon circuit jammed when I was visiting that period, and I haven't been able to fix it. My access to repair shops on Gallifrey has been somewhat limited of late. Normally, it would be able to look like nearly anything I wanted it to. This machine's disguise capability is more advanced. The part of it that emerges into normal space can coexist with objects in its vicinity. Its entryway could become, say, a tree that the local population has been familiar with for many years."
"But that's not important. If this is the superTARDIS, that means Amalie must be here on Earth. There are barely more than three billion women on this planet, so that narrows the search down dramatically."
Daria said, "Well, if she's here on earth, try thinking about her and opening the door." The Doctor gave her a peculiar look. "Hey, it might work. Couldn't hurt. That's how you got here."
Shaking his head slightly, The Doctor adopted a posture indicative of concentration, pinching the bridge of his nose between left thumb and forefinger, and holding his left elbow in his right hand. He closed his eyes.
"Okay, when you're ready, open the door."
"Daria? Is that you?"
Even slightly muffled, Daria instantly recognized the voice. "Aunt Amy?"
"Daria, what are you doing in town? And why are you hiding in this alley?" asked the muffled voice.
"What? I'm in the kitchen. Where are you?" Acting on a hunch, Daria stepped forward and opened the laundry room door. There stood Amy in an alley. Behind her, outside the alley mouth, a narrow slice of a city larger than Lawndale was visible.
The Doctor's eyes lit up. He made a peculiar low bow toward Amy with his hands behind his back and his chin held high. "Miss Amalie." he said.
Amy gasped, and her face lit up in a surprised smile, which was quickly replaced by an expression akin to apprehension. "Well, I see you can operate this thing better than I could." Amy said to the Doctor.
Daria noted with astonishment and a sense of foreboding that they seemed to know each other. She was totally at a loss for what to think about the Doctor calling Amy Amalie.
"I don't know that I can operate it at all, milady. Haven't tried yet. Here is your operator. Here is our superTARDIS pilot. The long-hoped-for reincarnation of the Time Lords of the Golden Age." The Doctor gestured to Daria.
Realizing that she'd been standing there slack jawed for several seconds, Daria made an effort to close her mouth and say something intelligent. "But how can I be a reincarnation of a Time Lord? I'm an earth girl, and I'm pretty sure Mom and Dad are too. I mean..."
The Doctor's eyes flicked over to Amy and back to Daria. "Right, well, ah... with your permission, Daria, I'll just go and have a poke about. Give you and your, ahh, aunt a chance to, um, catch up." And with that he was through the laundry room door, pausing briefly to make sure it was indeed the laundry room.
Daria slowly turned back to Amy, her thoughts in an uproar. Hope, fear, belief, disbelief, longing, and incredulity warred for control. Where was her vaunted cynicism when she needed it? Facts, suppositions, and wild speculations clashed and meshed, forming grand and terrible pictures that threatened to destroy her worldview and perhaps her sanity. If Amy was Amalie, that meant she had flown the SuperTARDIS that was this house from Gallifrey to Earth as a lovesick, pregnant teenager. She must have had the baby shortly thereafter. But that was impossible. This was Amy Barksdale, Helen's kid sister. Helen had told her lots of Amy stories, going back to when they were both young children. She would surely have mentioned Amy being an alien if that were the case. And how could she have had two childhoods on two separate planets?
And what had become of Amalie's baby? And why had the Doctor referred to Daria as 'the long-hoped-for reincarnation of the Time Lords of the Golden Age'? He couldn't mean... naah, of course not. He'd said Amalie had vanished 'a few years ago'. To Daria, eighteen was more than a few. But then, there were time machines in this story. Time machines could play havoc with time and sequences of events.
The one thing Daria felt fairly certain of was that Amy had something very important to tell her.
Amy's gaze was caught by Daria's eyes. She couldn't remember ever seeing such longing before. Oh, wait. Yes, she could. A long time ago, on a planet far, far away, in the eyes of... oh, lord, she had his eyes! Amy wanted to back away, to run away, to hide from those hungry, yearning, beautiful eyes. She gripped the counter edge to stop herself.
Daria watched the flow of expressions across Amy's face, and read her answers there. She felt as if her world was cracking and crumbling beneath her feet, but somehow, right now, she didn't care. Another world was waiting, a world filled with undreamt-of wonders, and she had wings to take her there.
End Part One