Episode: Forest of the Angels
Chapter: My Knight in Shining Armor [2/4]
Summary: Amy Pond wanted to get out of this mess alive and stay with her Doctor. River Song wanted to keep Amy safe and have the Doctor accept her. Father Octavian wanted to complete the mission. The Master still wanted everything to make sense again… until he got the answers to his questions. Or the one where miracles happen, secrets are revealed and people break.
Rating: M
The silence that falls over them is tense, broken only by their slow footsteps on moss and leaves, and the occasional rush of an Angel moving unseen through the undergrowth.
They encounter them as they close in, at their sides, in front of them, and, for better maneuverability, Amy ends up being carried like a child in the arms of one of the Clerics, Marco, so she can keep an eye behind them without tripping. This means he has to put his weapon down, but as the Doctor told them back in the catacombs, it isn't like they can use them to kill the Angels anyway.
"Do you still remember him?" Amy finally asks when the tension is getting to be too much, but doesn't turn to try and find River when there's no answer.
"I do. There's no way I could ever forget that man," River finally tells her from further ahead, and Amy blinks as fast as she can and tries not to tear up.
The Angels she was staring at are now one tree trunk closer, despite her best efforts, and quickly catching up.
"Even if he's dead?"
This time, there's no answer at all.
But it can't be. It just can't be. Amy can feel it, in River's silence, in the tension in Marco's body, in the tightness in Father Octavian's voice when he tells his Clerics to watch the patches of Angels they come across until they are at their backs and Amy can keep an eye on them. No one, regardless of the impression the Raggedy Man gave them, wants to believe he could truly be dead.
If the Raggedy Doctor, the last of the Time Lords, a time-traveling alien capable of turning hope into reality, is dead, what can they, mere humans, do?
"I've got Angels here," one of the Clerics at the front calls, Phillip, Amy thinks his name is, and the whole group shuffles away from the direction he pointed out.
"Here too, Sir. They're closing in," another Cleric, possibly Pedro, says not a moment later, and Amy feels Marco slow for a bit as the others adjust their formation, though he doesn't stop.
"Years ago, there was a crack in the wall of a little girl's bedroom," Amy whispers, and feels Marco shift so he can listen to her more closely. "At night, voices would come out of it, louder and louder, talking about prisoners and escapees. The little girl was so scared that she prayed for a solution, for someone to come and fix it. And the Doctor came. He appeared out of nowhere in a blue police box, cooked dinner, and whined like a child when it came to fixing the crack, but in the end, he closed the crack and promised he'd capture the escaped criminal. But he didn't. He left," she continues, slightly louder when she realizes she has the attention of everyone in the group.
"Father Octavian, there are Angels further ahead. Three – no, five, six… Sir, they're all over the place," one of the Clerics, Crispin, since his voice doesn't match the other two from before, informs, and, this time, the group stops.
"We're surrounded," Father Octavian whispers, and Amy blinks and swallows when the six Angels she had been keeping an eye on suddenly double.
And the trees, which had been lighting the way, start to flicker.
"He said he would be back in five minutes, but he never came back," Amy says instead, continuing her story louder than before, enough that even the Angels can hear from their positions, slowly closing in with every blink and turn of the head. "And the little girl grew up and forgot about him, believing he had been nothing but a dream, an imaginary friend. But he hadn't been, and neither was the escaped prisoner. And when the prison guards finally caught up to the escapee, when they threatened to destroy the whole planet if the escapee didn't surrender, the Doctor came back. He tracked down the escapee, immobilized it, and gave it back to the prison guards. But he didn't let them leave after that, he called the prison guards back. He told them everyone was important, and that just because no one could see, it didn't mean they could do whatever they pleased and threaten planets. He told them that others had tried to do as them, to do bad things because they thought they could get away with them, but that they hadn't got away with them because someone had been there to stop them. The Doctor. And he told the guards his name and they ran away to never return," she adds with a smile, and hears River chuckle while Marco lets out a soundless 'whoa' that she can feel in the slump of his shoulders.
"They're closing in."
"The treeborgs are going out."
"Weapons primed. Combat distance five feet," Father Octavian orders, and Amy is finally put down and pushed into the center of the ring of Clerics, next to River, as the men put up their weapons and aim at the circle of Angels surrounding them. "Keep your position."
"And then, the Doctor left again, only to return once more for that little girl he met years before, to apologize for being late and to offer her a trip to make up for it," Amy continues, holding onto River's hand as tightly as she can, but doesn't let the fear take over the story or her voice. "They went to the past and to the future, met Queens and Prime Ministers, scientists and priests, space whales and cyborgs. There was war and peace, they laughed and cried, but the one thing the little girl never, ever did, was despair. Because she knew the Doctor would get her home, safe and sound, no matter what. The Doctor would find a way to defeat the most terrifying enemies, to get out of the most dreadful situations, to make it past the worst dangers in the universe," she adds with all of the conviction flooding her chest easy to hear, all of the surety that her words are true, and that the Doctor will save them all.
For a moment, Amy gets rid of all of the fear she felt before and just hopes.
The next instant, a bright white light floods the forest, and Amy closes her eyes—
And snaps them open again, because there are Angels all around, she can't just look away from them or they will get them and kill them and—
"The Angels have gone! Where'd they go?" Pedro exclaims, too startled to observe propriety.
"This side's clear too, Sir," Phillip tells them a second later, just as surprised but more collected than his fellow Cleric.
"There's still movement out there, but away from us now," Marco informs, exchanging a confused look with Crispin. "It's like they're running."
Amy smiles.
"I knew it! Raggedy Man, you did it! I don't know what you did, but you did it!" she calls happily, turning to River to see she's smiling too in both relief and pride, before she turns to the light. "Come on, what did you do?"
But no answer comes.
Amy frowns in confusion and shuffles around a bit while the Clerics spread towards the trees to make sure the Angels are really gone, trying to catch a glimpse of the Doctor against the blinding white light—
It's not the Doctor.
"It's the same shape. It's the crack in my wall," Amy whispers with a tremulous breath, and feels rather than sees River stepping up to her side. "It's following me. How can it be following me?" she asks, louder this time, turning to face River, who has her computer out and a frown on her face.
"It looks like some kind of curtain of energy, but these readings… Whatever it is, it scared the Angels. There are very few things that could do that."
"Phillip, Crispin, get a closer look at that," Father Octavian orders once they receive the all clear from all four Clerics, and the two named ones go towards the crack with a 'yes, Sir'. "Doctor Song, what's the verdict?"
"I'm still analyzing it, but whatever it is, it wasn't caused by the crash, or by anything on this ship. The readings are off the scale, so high even the Angels, who feed on energy, ran away," River answers, still tapping away at her mini-computer, before looking up at Father Octavian. "We need to get to the Primary Flight Deck, rendezvous with the Time Lord. The Angels are still around, and now there's this thing to deal with. The sooner we are out of here, with better instruments than these, the better," she adds, waving her tiny computer, and Father Octavian's jaw tightens almost as if he wants to protest before finally nodding.
"What assurances do we have that the Doctor is still alive?" he asks, and River stops tapping at her computer to give him the same burning stare that Amy is sending his way.
"The only one you ever need. Trust. I absolutely trust the Doctor," River answers, firm, unbending, as if she had delivered a pile of documents with every single reason why trusting the Doctor is a good idea, when, in truth, the only reason anyone needs is trust itself.
"He could be dead."
"And he could not be."
Father Octavian is silent for a moment more, before finally stepping away with a huff.
"Marco, take this and Pedro and investigate that light. Give me one of you radios too. Keep us informed of any developments, and meet us at the Primary Flight Deck," he orders, stepping up to the other two Clerics, who nod and exchange a radio for the computer being offered to them.
"Hang on. What about the other two? Why not just wait until they're back?" Amy asks, frowning, because she may not be part of a militarized Church or have much experience in this kind of situation, but she's pretty sure splitting the group more than it already is could be dangerous.
"What other two?" Father Octavian asks even as Marco and Pedro march off towards the crack, and Amy exchanges a frown with River.
"The ones you sent before, Phillip and Crispin," she answers, lifting an eyebrow in disappointment.
They are all stressed, but this is ridiculous.
"Miss Pond, there was never a Phillip or a Crispin on this mission, I assure you. Now, we need to get to the Primary Flight Deck before the Angels return. Whatever scared them might not keep them away for long, and, no matter what Doctor Song says, as far as I'm concerned, there's only the three of us left," he tells them as seriously as before, and Amy feels herself go cold.
"What about Marco and Pedro?" River asks this time, voice soft and hand squeezing Amy's reassuringly, and Father Octavian frowns down at her.
"I am afraid you must have confused some names, Doctor Song. Only the four of us entered this ship, and the Doctor is missing now. So, I suggest we make due haste to the Primary Flight Deck," the Bishop answers and, without waiting another second, turns his back to them and starts in the direction they were first going. "Our mission is to dispose of the Angels. Once that task is completed, we'll send for reinforcements and investigate that light."
"But they were here a moment ago! Phillip, Crispin, Pedro and Marco, they were here! Marco carried me, they were here and he can't remember now," Amy hisses to River, who pulls her after Father Octavian by the hand.
"I know, Amy, I know! I remember them too, but Father Octavian doesn't. Think, what do the four of them have in common?" she asks, meeting her eyes firmly after a look around to make sure there really aren't any Angels around.
"They went to investigate the crack. But the crack in my wall, it didn't – it didn't do that. It linked the Atraxi prison with my house, it didn't eat people," she explains hurriedly, also looking around a moment, just in case, as they are now moving away from the crack which scared the Angels away.
"And you and me, we are both time travelers. Father Octavian isn't. So, he has forgotten them, but we haven't. Traveling in time changes you, even if you don't notice. You are not of the current timeline, and so you are detached from it, you can notice when something changes or isn't as it should, as long as it doesn't affect you personally. And, even if it did, it takes a while for the new timeline to cement, so you would recognize the differences and maybe have time to reverse the changes," River explains, focusing on Amy as she does, though Amy can only stare at her in bewilderment.
So intent are they on their conversation, though, that they notice Father Octavian has stopped just in time to avoid bumping into his back.
"The Angels are back," he informs them, and as soon as the words are out, the two women move to stand back-to-back with him to see that, yes, the Angels are back and are all around them. "This would be a good time for the Doctor to show up," he adds, pressing what feels like a radio into Amy's hands so he can aim his gun at the approaching statues.
"Agreed," River says, also lifting her weapon, and Amy fumbles for a moment with the radio, not turning away from the Angels, until it crackles.
"Time Lord, if you can hear me, we really need some help now," she calls into the radio, trying to keep her voice composed but failing as, every time she moves her head, she sees more and more statues moving closer to them. "Time Lord… Raggedy Man, come on!"
An Angel is reaching for her, almost close enough to touch—
The world twists out of focus, the ground vanishing, and Amy collapses onto her side with a shriek.
"It got me! Oh my God, the Angel got me!" Amy shouts, trying to find her balance to get back to her feet before the Angel can finish her, like it did Bob and Christian and Angelo, and hears Father Octavian grunt at one side while River curses at the other—
"Afraid so, my dear Amelia," a voice says from over her, and Amy freezes and looks up into relieved amber-green eyes and an amused smirk. "Your very own Guardian Angel."
"Raggedy Man!" she shouts in relief, though it comes out almost like a sob, as she throws herself into his chest.
She misses, coordination still shot from whatever the Doctor did to get the three of them in this Flight Deck, but the Raggedy Man bends down fast enough to catch her into a hug of his own, bringing her to her feet as he straightens. He feels warm around her, but Amy is not sure if it is because he's actually feverish, she's in shock or it's a result of their transport method, so she decides to ignore it for the moment and buries her face in the crook of his neck. The cape actually makes it quite comfy, and with the strong arm around her waist keeping her on her feet and the hand softly massaging the back of her neck, she can feel herself finally calming down.
"You're late," she huffs into the cape, a smile on her lips, and feels him snort soundlessly.
"You'd think you'd be used to it by now," he whispers back, the grin clear in his voice, and Amy finally pulls away to give him a look.
"Are you seriously going to make a habit of it?"
"Are you seriously going to make a habit of getting in the most ridiculous trouble?" he retorts, grin sharpening, and Amy steps away from him with a huff, jerking her head up dismissingly.
"I'm not the one who stayed behind to stare at a crack."
"No, you're the one who had to be rescued by the man who stayed behind to stare at a crack," he quips back, leaning almost casually against the console at his back with a knowing smirk, and Amy blushes as she glares at him—
He's flushed, eyes red as if irritated, eyelids drooping and bags darkening under his eyes, and his hands shake before he rests them on the edge of the console to help him stay on his feet.
"My Knight in Shining Armor," River huffs with some breathless laughter, standing up and dusting herself, distracting Amy from the Raggedy Man's state.
River gives the Doctor a wink and a grin, though there's a softness to her eyes that speaks of just how relieved she is to see him—which immediately turns to worry, though she doesn't speak.
"Thank you for the prompt rescue, Doctor," Father Octavian interrupts, also getting to his feet and holstering his gun once more. "What is the plan now?"
"Well, we're in the Primary Flight Deck. I managed to reroute enough power to the teleport to bring the three of you here, but the radiation interferes too much with it to get us out. Also, what is that thing in the oxygen factory, and where are the other Clerics?" the Doctor asks River with a furrowed brow, gesturing to a wall much like the one in the Secondary Flight Deck, behind which Amy assumes there's the forest.
"Just check this and tell me if you can make any sense out of this data," River answers with pursed lips, offering her tiny computer. "What happened in the other Flight Deck? How did you get out?"
And the Doctor grins, sharp and full of dark amusement, and lowers his head just enough that the shadows cast by the gesture make it look as if his amber-green eyes are glowing.
"I ran."
Koschei can hear River reassuring Amy as they leave the Secondary Flight Deck, telling her that, by sticking around, they'd just distract him and delay him, and so it's best if they just go away.
He's torn between protesting that he would not get distracted by a pair of puny humans and relieved that River is not giving him a chance to test whether his pride is right, and so he just pushes the thought away and focuses on the crack – and tries to ignore how they have him call it a crack too now, instead of the spatiotemporal rift that it is.
This one is different, not the same one he found in Amelia's bedroom wall, in more ways than one. For starters, this one is newer, it literally opened in front of their eyes. And, the next point, this one is more of a temporal fissure than a spatial rift. He can smell it, how the universe is not the same on the other side, how it isn't Alfava Metraxis, but the temporal signature is all wrong too.
More worryingly is the fact that he can't identify it, but it feels extremely familiar. And it isn't a matter of days or years or even decades. He isn't sure even which century it is supposed to be, though something tells him it's probably way out of any human calendar.
Or, now that the thought crossed his mind, maybe it isn't in any calendar at all.
And that's when it dawns.
"The end of the universe," he whispers, eyes snapping open in realization as he finally pinpoints why it feels so familiar.
He may not have spent more time than strictly necessary in the year one hundred trillion as a Time Lord, but the stench it had left on him from his life there as a human was hard to get rid of – metaphorically and literally. It had taken the Master two thorough washes with Lucy's fancy soap to stop smelling of a mixture of burnt electronics, Malmooth shed scales and gluten extract, with just a dash of artron energy and the characteristic blend that was, simply, the Doctor.
Still, one way or another, he knows that what's at the other side of this crack is definitely something he wants nothing to do with.
"We have all the power we need in that vessel."
Koschei looks down – and almost jumps off the container in fright at the sight of a roomful of Weeping Angels reaching for him.
"Talk about getting distracted on the job," he manages to choke out, bristling and slowly edging away from the closest Angel while trying to keep an eye on all the others at the same time. "And talk about mixing apples and oranges! You idiots think you can feed out of this?" he asks the Angels with a scoff, voice devoid of the nervousness and slight panic he's feeling inside, as he gestures at the crack and carefully jumps behind the crate. "That's pure time energy! The fires at the end of the universe! I would know, I've been there! Nothing can sustain itself on that!"
Yet, even as he says it, Koschei realizes he's wrong. The fires at the end of the universe? He was there, there's no fire at the end of the universe, all the stars have gone cold! The universe collapses, freezes, it burns cold. And time energy? What kind of time energy could there be at the end of everything? There can't be any! All of it has been spent, and the universe doesn't rewind itself!
And still, that's what it is, the crack and the universe on the other side. The fires at the end of the universe. Pure time energy.
But how?
… And how is he going to get out of this now?
Angels wherever he looks, closing in with every nanosecond, and, no matter how much he decides to just break the rules and go all out, not even an unshackled Time Lord can get past an army of Weeping Angels—
Alone.
"Need a hand?" Theta asks by his side, and, before he can think about it, Koschei turns to face the other side of the room to keep those Angels at bay.
"More like a couple more eyes," he answers, and, when he doesn't feel his neck snapping the second after, he knows it's working.
Two Time Lords can keep the Angels at bay by virtue of having enough eyes to keep them all in sight. Of course, there aren't two Time Lords, not here nor anywhere else in the universe – but the Angels don't know that.
Koschei's merely projecting, using the uncertainty fibers of the cape, those that fluctuate through dimensions, for substance, giving Theta's ghost a voice and a presence by modulating part of his dimensions and channeling life energy through the cape, and it's working. The Angels think Theta an actual person, believe his awareness to be someone's gaze, and, with all the power and presence of an unshackled armored Time Lord behind it, their quantum-locking instinct is triggered.
As long as Theta is there, watching them, the Angels are nothing but stone. Koschei just needs to keep up this new circulation of life energy through the distorted dimensions and the cape, which will be annoying and will probably give him an awful cramp once this is over, but which, thanks to the armor lining distilling artron energy out of the surrounding drive burn radiation, won't be too exhausting. Using too much of it, like what he did to keep the lights stable and the bulkhead closed, would be extremely painful and dangerous, and this situation would be the same if he had to literally split himself in half to operate the dimensional growth and sapience of the cape… But he has Theta. Whatever the ghost is, he's enough to operate a Time Lord's dimensional growth, allowing Koschei to keep all partitions of his brain in his actual head.
This actually gives more weight to Theta being a remnant of the Doctor instead of an imprint of memory, which would mean he may actually, truly, hold some of the actual Doctor's memories, but Koschei pushes the thought away. Angels now, Amy later, everything else hopefully never.
"If that's so, I don't need legs then," Theta comments almost casually, and the specter loses his legs alongside his eyelids, dimensional tendrils modulated just enough that they don't feel like Koschei's own linking with Koschei's as a cool back presses against his own. "You lead, I watch your back. Like old times!"
"Like old times," Koschei agrees with a grin that breaks into the sixth dimension, cracking at the edges to turn jagged and toothy, and time-locks his eyelids into the fourth dimension so that he doesn't need to blink for as long as there are still Angels around.
It will probably leave him with the worst case of itchy eyes he's suffered since before he took over Tremas of Traken, after his first regeneration cycle ran out, but who cares? Right now, surviving is his priority.
So, anchoring Theta to his back, Koschei locates the closest door—the forest is overrun, he can feel them there even if his height doesn't let him see them—and jumps over the Angels surrounding him, somersaulting so that he keeps them in sight at all times, and latching onto the bulkhead with claws that, once upon a time, belonged to a Cheetah-infected body of his, and which are sharp enough to pierce through the metal and let him swing himself into the clearer, though not empty, corridor.
"Did you give yourself a tail for a specific reason, or was it a slip?" Theta asks mockingly from his back, and Koschei feels his face grow hot and his time feelers bristle and curl over themselves in embarrassment even as he snarls with sharper teeth than he intended to have.
"For balance, you idiot. Do you think that just because you're legless it means you aren't heavy? Your ego weights enough for the two of us," he protests with a huff that is more animalistic than he would have preferred, focusing on zigzagging past the reaching forms of the frozen Angels instead of trying to shift that part of his anatomy away.
Right now, the tail—tails, actually, because if he's going to have a tail at least it can be the triple whip-like ones of his Tohili body, back when he'd needed a new and unrecognizable identity to erase the Master's name from the Shadow Proclamation's black list due to the incident that led to that regeneration—is useful as balance, the feathered fans at the end also helping when he needs to sharply slow down, no matter how much of an excuse it was when he actually said that out loud.
"Nah, I'm pretty sure all that extra weight is your superiority complex," Theta answers nonchalantly, but Koschei's sonic feelers twitch at the huff of laughter hidden under his words.
"You mean your superiority complex. I am the very picture of humble," Koschei purrs—literally, the sound rolling through his chest and making his feelers shiver and tinkle—and Theta laughs out loud this time.
"That's the joke of the century!"
"Is it now? Because I seem to remember someone calling me a genius, and stellar, and magnificent, while I was sincerely saying I had just tried to do my best…"
"Ah, but good old Professor Yana was magnificent!"
"And where do you think all that brilliance came from, you pillock?" Koschei mock-scowls, slowly peeling away all the possibilities and temporally-displaced features as the crowd of Angels starts to thin, so he can try to orientate himself with the energy he used to stabilize his dissonant anatomy – and his purring.
If Theta heard just how much he was actually purring, Koschei would never live that down, ghost or not.
"Alright, yes, that is a good point," Theta concedes with a huff and an almost audible pout, and Koschei cackles triumphantly. "Oh, but another good point… If that brilliance was yours, does that mean the kindness was too?"
And Koschei trips as he chokes on his laughter and protests, and decides to just focus on running from now on, muttering insults under his breath as Theta laughs at his back.
Some twisting and turning later, Koschei manages to find a working holomap, locate the Primary Flight Deck, and, after a couple more bulkheads and the twist of a nanosecond that blows up a pipe to collapse the whole corridor behind him now instead of in three hours, Koschei rushes into the Flight Deck with no Angels anywhere close.
"Alright, now it's your turn!" Theta chirps, stretching on his back, and Koschei needs a moment to process those words before he shakes himself back into a more tridimensional-conforming standard. "Good luck."
"Do you really think I'll need that?" Koschei asks, but with himself folding back, Theta's ghost decides to relinquish his grip on reality and pops away without answering. "Right. Good luck to me."
And his eyes land on the teleport.
With a sharp grin growing on his face, Koschei unclips the radio from his waist and connects it to the teleport before he gets to work, hoping he can reboot it from the overload it suffered when he unfolded, and that he's still in time to locate and teleport Amy, River and the Clerics to the Primary Flight Deck before the Angels get to them.
And then, maybe they'll be able to tell him why his end-of-the-universe feeling keeps getting stronger so much faster than before despite having left the crack behind.
AN: I know in the episode the Angels are freaked out by the crack and so their quantum-locking instinct is triggered simply by having someone who could see them walk too close to them, but… I would say it's a weak excuse, but I've seen the video about the guy who runs around the corner, with another guy dressed in a dino suit after him, and how the other pedestrians all run away as soon as they see the dinosaur, so… I guess instinct is not that hard to trigger. But still, there we have another way it could have worked… with no humans around, of course. Time Lords are Eldritch Abominations, their true forms are so incomprehensible that they drive tridimensional minds mad. But still, I don't think it would be enough to have that eyes on the back of my neck feeling without there being that terrifyingly convenient shadow that just happens to look like a person to add more weight, more truth, to the feeling.
On that point, the Tohili is a made up species that are supposed to be feathered lizards. Tohil is another name for Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent from Mesoamerican mythos.
Why give the Master a non-humanoid body? Because the reason Time Lords mostly look humanoid is that it's the most common look of the intelligent species of this universe, and they want to fit, but they don't need that form. Their species is not defined by humanoid looks, but by their multidimensionality and internal organs, and those don't change (noticeably) with regeneration. Still, the humanoid shape is still the most 'handy', so they keep it. Plus, it makes the Time Lords' jobs easier, as they look familiar yet alien enough to the rest of the universe to blend in but also unnerve them. Gallifreyan that don't become Time Lords don't necessarily have a humanoid form, which is why the Ninth Doctor made those comments about his next regeneration not having legs or a head. It happens.