Episode: Monsters of the Cosmos
Chapter: The Dream Must End, This World Must Know [3/4]
Summary: Amy wanted to travel and ended in the middle of the UK. The Queen wanted the truth and learned nothing new. A little girl wanted her friend back and almost caused the end of the world. The Master wanted the noise in his head to stop and realized he had been right all along. Or the one where they visit Starship UK and learn more about themselves than they anticipated.
Rating: T
Don't let him investigate, recording Amy had said, stop him. Do whatever you have to, just please, please get Harold – get the Doctor off this ship.
Amy doesn't know what the Hell happened in the voting chamber, what the video was about, but…
"You are here because you want to know the truth about this starship, and I am talking to you because you're entitled to know," the man in the recording had said, calm yet so sad, before explaining about the buttons. "Here then, is the truth about Starship UK, and the price that has been paid for the safety of the British people. May God have mercy on our souls," he'd finished with, and whatever had come after it, Amy had, for some reason, chosen to forget it, but not before recording a message for her amnesiac self.
"Get the Doctor off this ship."
But why would Amy forget? It would be a lot easier to get out of here if they knew what's going on, if Amy knew what's happening. There's no fixing anything if you don't know what the problem is, she knows, but she had still chosen to forget. What could be so bad, so horrible, that not only would she wish to get the Doctor away before he could figure out what was going on and how to fix it, but also that she would rather forget all about it?
"But I won't forget, no matter how much I want to. I failed once, but not anymore. I won't let the monsters win anymore," he had said after revealing he really was the last of his species, and Amy had felt her heart break for him.
Last Christmas, two days ago – they are both the same, something so horrible that the Doctor won't talk about, won't even think about without looking desolate and-and alone.
The loneliest being in the universe, never interfering, hiding behind the prickly shell of a crazy man—though the crazy is starting to look less and less like a shell and more like a result of whatever he's lived through—yet unable to walk away from crying children.
He may be as much of an opportunist as he claims to be, might be as crazy as he appears, might not even be a good person – Prisoner Zero, all alien and twisted in pain, gaping blindly after whatever the Doctor had done to get it out of her head, and the way the Atraxi had run away as if the Devil itself was on their tail – but he's still the Doctor. He helps people, even if his methods aren't exactly orthodox, regardless of his reasons for doing so.
Never killing, never cruel, always giving people a chance, never letting bystanders get hurt in the crossfire. Those are his rules, straight out of his mouth, but he is not harmless. Doctor Rule Number Four. If the bad guy doesn't take the offered chance, off with the kiddie gloves. Prisoner Zero didn't take it. The Atraxi couldn't have taken it faster.
And when Amy discovered the truth about Starship UK, she chose to forget and beg her future self to get the Doctor off the ship. Suddenly, she's not sure whether it's for the Doctor's sake or the Starship's.
One way or another, it is too late now.
The Doctor has shed his fake name, he's completely silent and serious, deadly focused, and hasn't looked anyone in the eye since he figured something out, staring at the tentacle-stingers behind the grate in the corridor.
The bedroom they enter next has a corner covered in water glasses. The Doctor gives them a brief glance but doesn't react, analyzing everything else with the same intensity. Amy suspects he's still putting things together, even if he's already figured out the big secret, holding back judgement until he knows exactly what is going on. She's not sure what he'll do after, though, so she decides she'd better get some information of her own as well. He won't talk, not until he knows exactly how to deliver the most devastating blow he can, like he did with the Atraxi, forcing them to realize just how much they had messed up.
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
Or, in this case, strike so hard as to ensure you don't have to strike twice. That he does it with his words instead of his fists, or whatever he used on Prisoner Zero, only makes it worse.
"What are all those glasses for?" Mandy asks, a bit nervous around the Queen but confident enough to ask questions, and Amy has to smile at her.
"To remind me every single day that my government is up to something, and it's my duty to find out what," Liz answers with her own smile, steel in her eyes.
Well, at least someone is doing something about this crazy situation.
"How come you don't know what's going on? I mean, you're the Queen. Did you choose the Forget button as well?" Amy asks instead, keeping an eye on the Doctor, who is frowning at a wall.
"I'm not technically a British subject, so I don't vote," she answers with a shrug. "And yes, I should know, but they still manage to keep secrets from me. That's why I have to go undercover in my own kingdom," she adds with a humorless smile, lifting her mask.
"How old are you?"
As one, the three girls turn to the Doctor, still staring at the wall with a frown, avoiding their eyes.
"Fifty. I was forty when I came to the throne, been investigating since. And you have managed more in one afternoon that I have in these ten years," Liz answers, huffing in amusement, with amazement in her eyes.
"No way are you fifty now. Wait, unless, is this normal?" Amy blurts out, looking between the immutable Doctor, still looking at the wall, and the grinning Liz.
"They slowed my body clock. It keeps me looking like the stamps," she jokes, and, for one moment, Amy is not sure whether she's more amazed at the fact they can do that in the future or that there are still stamps around.
Something moves behind her before Amy can make up her mind about her next question, and, when she turns around, she sees the Doctor has finally turned to face them. He's glaring at the mask in Liz's hands now, and his eyes are really dark under his frown, almost black.
"And you always wear that. Air-balanced porcelain, stays on by itself because it's perfectly sculpted to your face," he comments blankly, though there's a hint of the same darkness in his gaze in his voice, a rasp that is more of a growl building up.
"So what?" Liz asks, almost defensively, as her grip on the mask tightens, and the Doctor takes a long and deliberate breath before meeting her eyes.
He doesn't answer, doesn't say anything, but Amy can see Liz's wariness building.
And then, some cloaked guys enter the room and surround them.
Liz orders them to explain themselves, their heads twist to reveal themselves to be half-Smilers, and then they tell the Queen that they must go with them to the Tower, on orders of the highest authority.
The Queen is the highest authority in Starship UK. Amy's stomach drops, but she follows alongside the rest, stepping closer to the still silent Doctor.
In spite of the name being 'the Tower', they are taken to the lowest level instead.
The room is big, full of machinery and some raised grates on the ground, keeping at bay tentacle-stingers, while there's a waist-high round wall in the middle of the room with what looks like giant electrodes hanging from the ceiling over it.
An old, tall and thin man with round glasses steps up to them, wearing the same black and gray robes of the half-Smilers, but without a Smiler scowl stitched to the back of his head.
"Hawthorne. So, this is where you hid yourself away. You've got some explaining to do," the Queen tells him after he reveals himself, almost getting in his face as she does so.
The Doctor strolls past them unbothered, hands deep in his pockets and gaze lost in the ceiling, until he reaches the wall in the middle and lets his head loll so he's staring into it – and snorts.
Loudly.
All eyes turn to him, and Amy feels hers widening when she sees his shoulders shake. Just what is inside that well? Is it what recording Amy warned her about? What if it's more of those stingers? She should go pull him back before—
The Doctor throws his head back and laughs.
Loud, boisterous, amused, as if he's just been told the joke of the century.
Amy thinks back to Prisoner Zero, to the two Smilers in the reflux chamber, and pulls Mandy behind her, fearing the worst—
The Doctor whirls around, arms spread wide like a ringmaster gesturing at the next circus act, and a grin wider and more terrifying than the Smilers' fanged scowls.
"The human race, ladies and gentlemen! The greatest monsters in the universe!" he laughs, still sincere in his mirth, and that is the most horrifying thing of all.
He's snapped, Amy can see that clear as day. The Doctor has snapped, his craziness being as real as she feared, and here he is now, having found the last piece of the puzzle. His grin says it even if his words did not, a loud and blatant I knew it!
A loud and clear I told you so.
Mandy grabs Amy's hand.
"Aw, what are all those faces for? Did I startle you?" the Doctor asks with a pout, pressing his hands against his chest as he looks at the girls and the half-Smilers, before grinning widely once more. "What am I saying, of course not! There's no way all the itty-bitty monsters in this room would be scared of little old me! Just look around!" he cackles, arms thrown wide once more as he twirls in his spot. "I love the aesthetics! Classy, all that rocky and dark look, perfect for a dungeon! They don't make torture chambers like they used to; don't you agree? They all lack the ambience. But you actually did it!" he adds, laughing some more as he finally stops spinning and throws his head back, cupping his hands around his ears with an almost delighted grin. "Listen, listen, listen! Don't you hear it? No? Well, allow me!" he roars, any and all mirth turning cutting and fanged as he bows his head, pulls his screwdriver out of his pocket with a sharp move—
The grate keeping the tentacle-stingers at bay blows off with a tiny puff, the purple-red things rising threateningly, glowing blue spots on their sides, and everyone rushes away with some startled yelps.
"Now, listen!" the Doctor shouts once more, thumbing the screwdriver—
And, above the whirring, an agonized moan fills the chamber.
"Listen!"
The electrodes light up, zap whatever's inside the central well, and the moan turns to shrieking.
The Doctor throws his head back and laughs.
Amy pulls Mandy close, covering the girl's ears, unable to look away from the man who fell on her shed so many years ago, the man who saved her from cracks in the universe and face-stealing aliens, and the destruction of the Earth. The same man she had sat at her table just some couple hours ago, and held his hand as he almost broke under the weight of his memories of Last Christmas, two days ago, when his laughing face invaded everyone's minds and a burning planet appeared on the sky before vanishing as if it had never been there in the first place.
Right now, this man is not Amy's Raggedy Doctor, but the deranged Harold Saxon.
"Stop it. Stop it!" the Queen shouts, and the Doctor pulls up his screwdriver, turning it off with the movement, and the screams cease. "What is going on?" she asks, softer now, as she looks at the still widely grinning Doctor, who pockets his screwdriver calmly with a chuckle.
"Oh, you still don't see it? Or is it that you don't want to see? Come on! You have brains, this is more than proof enough!" he tells them, gesturing at the room, at the electrodes zapping at his back and the half-Smilers pointing what look like taser guns at a wobbly tentacle-stinger, the other one gone. "Then again, you are so ridiculously pathetic. So stupid, so willfully ignorant. That's why you're such good little monsters, isn't it? As long as it's fun or pretty, who bloody cares?!" he exclaims with a bark of laughter, once more spinning around with his condescending grin turning sharp. "Let's kill people for entertainment! Let's torture people into making us pretty things! Let's not ask questions so we can keep. Being. Happy!" he roars, his grin turning into a snarl faster than any Smiler could. "Let's drag the Doctor into our bloody messes so he can fix our mistakes and kill the people that we tortured and twisted into monsters! Because that's what he does, always cleaning up after your disgusting selves, always losing so you can keep winning, and winning, and winning! Let us look away! Let someone else press the big red button!"
Mandy is trembling in Amy's arms, her own tightly wrapped around her waist. Amy's hands are still covering the girl's ears, but she's pretty sure she can catch the Doctor's angry tone, if not his words.
No one moves, too busy being frozen in either fear or guilt. Amy's not sure which one, because she can't look away from the Doctor's dark gaze, regardless of the tears slipping down her cheeks.
The only sounds in the room are the soft thudding of the tentacle-stinger against the low wall surrounding it, the buzzing of the electrodes, and the Doctor's panting.
Until, that is, the Doctor huffs, humorless, and grins.
"Let the Doctor kill for us."
And he pulls out his screwdriver.
"Doctor, wait—" the Queen calls, taking a step closer with her hands up, but a dark look from the Time Lord freezes her in place.
"Or what? Will you chain me down and torture me into doing your bidding too? Well, joke's on you! The bloody chains are already on me, all over me, and all because it's always easier to be cruel!" he roars again, snarling like something wild and rabid, as he hunches forward. "Oh, I'm no saint, no shining knight or perfect hero. I'm a monster, a killer, with more blood on my hands than there are souls on this ship. But this? Not even I would stoop so low. Not even I would be such a monster! I have captured, tortured and manipulated people, but never ceaselessly, and never for centuries. And I have never used someone like this without killing them first! But you are the human race, you would never do that, you can do no wrong! Only you can, and you do, even worse than that. Because you've forced me to act now, you lot of inferior lifeforms, blinder than a Jagrafess, more stubborn than a Sontaran, and worse monsters than the bloody Daleks! Even they are better than you, because Daleks hate!" he shouts, the electrodes sparking almost as in answer to his rage, before he calms down with some gulped breaths. "You can't even use hatred as an excuse, because you don't act in hatred. You act because you wanted," he tells them almost softly, huffing with a tiny smile twisting his lips, incredulous and so fake that it hurts. "And now I have to act too, because there are Fixed Points riding on the continuity of your pathetic and disgusting little race. I should kill all but the indispensable ones once I'm done with you all, and leave your bodies to rot."
The tone is almost conversational, and Amy finds herself shaking her head without words, holding her sobs at bay.
This… This can't be right, this can't be the Doctor, her Raggedy Doctor. This just can't be.
"You're right. You should," the old man, Hawthorne, sighs, looking at his feet with his shoulders slumped in defeat. "What we're doing here…"
"What is it. Tell me what is going on right now," the Queen orders, sharp as a blade and as unbending as steel, and Hawthorne meets her eyes with a nod.
"There's no engine vibration because there's no engine," the Doctor answers instead, jolly and cheerful, clapping his hands together before nodding at the tentacle-stinger waving around. "That is your engine, the big fella in the center of Starship UK. And this," he adds, pointing with a thumb over his shoulder, at the well at his back. "This here is the exposed pain center of the creature's brain. The accelerator. And that?" he adds almost nonchalantly, pointing at the electrodes. "That's the finger pressing the button to go faster."
Amy covers her mouth with a hand, the pieces coming together in her mind despite how much she wants to convince herself he's wrong, while the Queen slowly shakes her head.
"Of course, you already knew. This bunch here, they're all acting under your orders. They're loyal to the death, loyal to the one who gives them the order to torture this creature unceasingly. How could they not? That's the only reason they can 'live with themselves', doing what they do, torturing this beast and killing all those who protest. They tell themselves they're following orders, and they go to sleep with a clean conscience."
"That's not true, I—"
"Fifty years old, aren't you, Lizzie?" the Doctor interrupts, still in that calm tone from before, but with his sharp smirk starting to grow again. "Then, how come you have a two-hundred-year-old mask that fits your face perfectly? Your biological clock is stopped, so how can you tell between ten or a hundred years by looking in a mirror?"
"You can't be saying…"
"I don't know. What do you think I'm saying?"
And the room falls silent again, disbelief and denial filling it like a horrible stench, before Hawthorne sighs.
"Ma'am. If you could please come here…"
Amy turns, follows the Queen's line of sight to the computer Hawthorne is gesturing to, and, after the Doctor's condescending grin and nod when she looks at him, Amy joins them at the machine. The Doctor turns to another set of computers, ignoring them, already knowing what will happen.
When Amy sees the two buttons, Forget and Abdicate, and sees the image of the Queen appear on the screen, she realizes she knows what she'll see as well.
"If you are watching this—" the Queen in the screen starts, cutting herself for a moment, while the actual Queen sits down slowly, heavily, in the single chair in front of the computer. "If I am watching this, then I have found my way to the Tower of London. The creature you are looking at is called a Star Whale," she explains, with some charts and 3D models appearing on the screen, all of them depicting a whale-like creature with tentacles instead of tail and many short fins on its belly, as well as an anglerfish rod on its head. "Once, there were millions of them. They lived in the depths of space and, according to legend, guided the early space travelers through the asteroid belts. This one, as far as we are aware, is the last of its kind. And what we have done to it breaks my heart. The Earth was burning. Our sun had turned on us and every nation had fled to the skies. Our children screamed as the skies grew hotter. And then it came, like a miracle. The last of the Star Whales. We trapped it, we built our ship around it, and we rode on its back to safety. If you wish our voyage to continue, then you must press the Forget button. Be again the heart of this nation, untainted. If not, press the other button. Your reign will end, the Star Whale will be released, and our ship will disintegrate. I hope I keep the strength to make the right decision."
The recording ends.
Amy's mind is whirling so fast that it's like there's only white noise in her skull, all the conflict and fear and I voted for this leaving her strangely empty.
She voted for this. This is what she was shown in the booth, and what she chose to forget. And, now that she has learned about it again, she realizes she can't fault her past self. The difference is that, right now, she wouldn't choose to forget.
It would solve nothing. The Doctor already knows.
Amy knows now that the reason she chose to forget in the first place was to spare him from this, and not to spare the Starship, like she feared before. Well, maybe to spare them too from his anger, but that wasn't the main reason.
The Doctor was Amy's choice. Because, if he didn't know about this, about what the people of the Starship were doing, he wouldn't try to stop it, he wouldn't be faced with this choice, with this – this horrifying realization that this is what we become.
True, he could always choose to leave, to turn his back on the Starship and the Space Whale and let them dig themselves out of their own problems, but…
The Doctor sent the Atraxi away, warned them, and many before them, that Earth was out of bounds. He protected humanity, over and over again, in the past and in the future, and this is how they repaid him. Enslaving other species, a gentle creature that just happened to be useful for what they needed at the time.
Humanity has a history of that, and it obviously doesn't get better, even after all the equality movement in the last centuries.
The Doctor may act like he doesn't care, but Amy knows better. He could leave, he could ignore the pleas for help, but in the end, here he is now, fiddling with some computers and… what…
"What are you doing?" the Queen asks softly, standing once more by Amy's side and also looking at the Doctor.
He's typing, staring intently at the screen, and fiddling with some knobs every now and then. It doesn't look like too much so far, but Amy knows just how dangerous the Doctor can be with just words. He managed to code a virus that put all the clocks in the world to 0:00 hours, after all, in less than it took for Amy to drive them to the hospital. He is not harmless, no matter if he may look like it.
"I'm going to put the Star Whale in a permanent vegetative state. I'm trying to figure out how its brain works so that I can neutralize its pain center alongside all its cognitive functions and awareness. A true, organic engine," the Doctor answers with a humorless grin, never looking away from the screen, and Amy's stomach drops to her feet.
"That'll be like killing it."
The Doctor stops tapping, shoulders tensing, as he glares into the middle distance.
"Trust me, I'd much rather leave and let all these miserable creatures continue to snivel in their own guilt, but I can't. I can't. If I leave now time twists, it twists so much and I can't follow, but there's a fixed point and I can't leave!" he roars, clutching his head in his hands as if physically pained, though he jerks it up to glare at them as soon as Amy takes a step closer. "I can't leave, it must happen, I can't leave," he breathes out, almost like he doesn't realize he's talking, before relaxing suddenly as he tilts his head, listening—
The Space Whale is crying, screaming in agony with every zap. Amy can't hear it now, but she'll never forget it. Most important, though, is the reason they managed to hear it in the first place, how they realized it was happening because someone else could hear it and made it so they could too.
The electrodes zap the whale again and Amy flinches when the Doctor takes in a deep breath, her eyes going wide and her hands trembling at her sides.
He can hear it. All the time, ever since they stepped foot aboard Spaceship UK.
He can still hear it.
"I can't leave. I can't destroy this bloody ship, no matter how much I want to. And there's no way in the universe I'm going to leave this creature to suffer for these bastards' amusement," the Doctor adds, calmer, silencing any protests that might have come from the Queen or Hawthorne with a pointed glare. "So, yes, I'm going to destroy its brain. Even when I try to do good, to be merciful, I end up with blood on my hands," he whispers, almost to himself, with a depreciating huff. "Doctor Rules Number 1 and 2. No killing, no hurting unnecessarily. And Rule 3, one chance. This is your one chance. Do something like this again and Rules 1 and 2 go. I will make you suffer," he tells the Queen, the most serious and here he's been since they entered the Tower.
Without waiting for an answer, the Doctor turns back to the screen, warning delivered and conversation over.
There's no need to speak for the others to realize they are better off not crossing the Doctor, not even addressing him, so they all move out of his way, technicians, half-Smilers, 21st century humans and the Queen of the United Kingdom of Britain and North Ireland alike.
Sitting against a wall with Mandy leaning against her side, Amy barely keeps her tears at bay.
This is what the Doctor does, go around saving people from criminals and careless guards who would execute a whole planet to get to who they want. And how do the people he saves pay him back? Not a thank you, not a hug, just point him at a problem of their own making and force him to make the tough choice for them.
For a moment, Amy feels almost ashamed of being human.
And yet, if humanity is so bad, why does the Doctor hang around Earth? Sure, she met him by accident, because the TARDIS was damaged and crash-landed in her garden, but the Atraxi's recordings made it look like he has a history of being around humanity.
"The human race, ladies and gentlemen! The greatest monsters in the universe!"
… Is it because they need minding?
"Trust me, I'd much rather leave and let all these miserable creatures continue to snivel in their own guilt, but I can't. I can't. If I leave now time twists, it twists so much and I can't follow, but there's a fixed point and I can't leave!"
Could it be because of something else? He had said his race was called the Time Lords, but he had never said why. Amy had joked it was because of ego, but… What if there was a reason they were called that? He's the Doctor, even if he doesn't want to be called such. Is it a title or a station? Is Time Lord a mere name or a position? A job description?
Amy looks up at the Doctor, who is now fiddling with the internals of a different machine with an expression of utmost concentration on his face, sonicking something every now and then to either scan it or assemble it into something different. He tilts his head from time to time, as if listening or trying to get a different view of the current problem.
She has so many questions, but she'll never get any answers. She's sure that, as soon as they're done here, he'll drop her off at her place without even a goodbye, vanishing once more. If they ever hear from him again, it'll be in the news, some report or other about an alien invasion being thwarted or some unexplainable phenomena that ended up mysteriously solving itself.
The Doctor, her Raggedy Doctor.
If only the universe could see just what a wonderful person he is, under the grumpiness and twisted sense of humor. If only they could see what they have turned him into, how much this alien, the loneliest of aliens, cares.
As quietly as she can, Amy sniffles and wipes a tear from her cheek.
How could anyone hurt someone this old and kind?
"Timmy!" Mandy exclaims, jumping from her spot and startling Amy back to the present.
There are kids coming into the room, carrying parts or food for the Winders, as the half-Smilers are called, and it is to a short boy that Mandy runs to.
"What are children doing here?" Amy asks Hawthorne, who is standing next to the Queen, sitting despondently in front of the computer with the buttons, gaze lost.
"Protesters and citizens of limited value are fed to the beast. For some reason, it won't eat the children. You're the first adults it's spared. Then again…" he explains, with his last sentence dragging into nothingness as he turns to look at the Doctor, who is deaf to the humans all around.
Then again, maybe it knew the Doctor would be able to help. Even if it is by killing it and leaving it as nothing more than an organic engine, Amy finishes in her mind, and, too disturbed by the thought, turns away.
Mandy is standing in front of her friend, who has just stepped back – and the tentacle-stinger, freed from the grate by the Doctor when they first got here, curls into itself to rub the smooth part of its top softly against Mandy's back.
The girl startles, moving away, but when the tentacle stays curled, stinger pressed safely against it so that it doesn't accidentally hurt anyone, Mandy extends her hand and carefully pets it.
And the tentacle lets her.
A moment later, her friend – Timmy? – reaches for it as well, and the tentacle wobbles between one and the other, rubbing almost reassuringly against their arms, much like a cat after the owner is done with a long and tiring day.
Amy's breath catches in her throat.
"Our children screamed as the skies grew hotter. And then it came, like a miracle."
"For some reason, it won't eat the children."
"This one, as far as we are aware, is the last of its kind."
"I'm the last one left."
"So, that's how it works, isn't it? No interfering unless you can get something out of it… or there are children crying."
"And then it came, like a miracle. The last of the Star Whales."
"Wait," Amy whispers, eyes wide but not seeing the children petting one of the Star Whale's tentacle-stingers, or the Doctor fiddling with a half-dismantled console, or a heartbroken Queen.
Instead, she sees a mocking grin turn to worry as a raggedy man kneels in front of a scared seven-year-old. She sees him smile reassuringly over his shoulder as he squeezes her hands in his big and cold one, and sees him smirk as she leans on his shoulder to read a message writing itself on a piece of blank paper. She sees him cook and offer ice-cream, accept an apple with a smiley face cut clumsily with a sad smile, scowl at passerby ignoring a crying child.
Amy feels her Raggedy Doctor's hands gripping her shoulders reassuringly as he kneels in front of her to promise her he'll be back, hears him give her tasks with all the confidence of someone who knows they'll be done to his standards, and sees him make a face to cheer her up as he tells her the truth when any other adult would have lied.
Finally, Amy knows what must be done.
"Doctor, wait!" she shouts as she jumps to her feet, but though the Doctor turns to look at her over his shoulder instead of ignoring her like he has done with every other human, he continues with his work.
So, Amy rushes to the buttons, to the Queen sitting in front of them, and grabs her wrist.
"Sorry, your Majesty. I'm going to need a hand," Amy tells the startled woman, and, using her surprise, slaps the unresisting hand on the button.
The Abdicate button.
A chorus of 'no!' echoes in the room before the metallic clangs start – and the whole of the Starship shakes.
For a moment, as she holds tightly to the Queen and the computer, Hawthorne draped over them both, Amy fears she made the wrong choice.
But then, the shaking stops, and the ship doesn't break apart.
"What have you done?" the Queen asks her, wide-eyed, as Hawthorne moves off them to check some screens.
Amy smiles, relieved and surprised despite her previous confidence.
"Nothing at all," she answers, helping the Queen to her feet as she stands, before they both turn to Hawthorne. "Am I right?"
"We've increased speed," he tells them, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, and Amy grins triumphantly.
"Yeah, well, it helps you're no longer torturing the pilot," she tells them with a huff before turning to the Queen, who still looks confused and startled, and softens her voice. "The Star Whale didn't come like a miracle all those years ago. It volunteered. You didn't have to trap it or torture it, that was all just you. It came because it couldn't stand to watch your children cry," she tells her, grabbing her hands in hers and squeezing them, before slowly turning to meet Hawthorne's and the other Winders' eyes. "What if you were really old, and really kind and alone? Your whole race dead. No future. What couldn't you do then?" she asks, turning at last to the Doctor, who is kneeling on the ground, a hand hovering over the side of his head, and looking even more disbelieving than the humans, despite the glint in his eyes telling Amy he knows what she's about to say. "If you were that old, and that kind, no matter how prickly on the outside… and the very last of your kind… you couldn't just stand there and watch children cry."