Episode: A Journey in the Dark
Chapter: The Pyre of Denethor [4/5]
Summary: Amy wanted to have a good time with her boys, one last trip before the wedding. Rory wanted a party to make up for his stag, something truly worth of traveling in space and time. A businessman wanted to find the saboteurs so work could continue… and he wanted his daughter back too. The Master wanted to get rid of those annoying Ponds so he could get back to figuring out a way to bring the Doctor back. Or the one where some people get what they want, others get what they need, and the time travelers only lose.
Rating: M
Warnings: Character death.
"The female is in the next chamber. I cannot promise she would still be alive; my poison works differently with each specimen. But that she has survived as far as she has, even with an escape attempt, speaks much of her strength," Vastra tells them as they turn into a smaller corridor, walking past a couple more exits or empty rooms—
And there, lying on her side with her hands tied at her back, is a young woman in a dark green dress, her brown hair tied in a bun but slipping out of it to stick to her flushed and sweaty face, her breaths coming in short and tremulous past her pale lips.
Her eyes are open, if half-lidded, and still manage to focus some on them when they finally get into the room.
"Jennifer!" Flint exclaims, falling to his knees by the girl's side almost as fast as Rory does. "You stupid, foolish girl. How many times have I told you not to wander into the sites?" he reproaches sharply, the fear that makes his face go pale as death fueling the anger in his shaky voice.
Rory scoffs but doesn't bother sparing him a look, undoing the restraints on her wrists so he can lie the girl on her back and check the injury on her collarbone, green veins stretching over what little is visible of her skin under the ripped dress.
"That doesn't look good…" Arthur whimpers breathlessly, standing by the entrance with Amy and Boyce so as to not crowd, while Koschei gets to his knees next to Rory and shamelessly unbuttons the girl's dress to properly check on the wound.
"Mister Gandalf! I will not have you—"
"Oh, shut up and let the professionals work! Would you rather have your daughter dressed primly but dead, or with her shoulder exposed and alive?" he snarls at Flint, whose face scrunches painfully as he debates the issue before finally nodding.
"Doctor? I really don't know what to do here. I mean, I can disinfect and bandage the injury, sure, but the poison…" Rory calls, wiping the injury clean with careful swipes of a pad of gauze he pulled out of his mystery kit, working tenderly to avoid irritating the swollen flesh any more than it already is.
"Vastra, any ideas on how to treat this? Any tech in this part of the city that we could use? I think I may be able to concoct something back in the TARDIS, but it may not be as effective as a proper Silurian treatment," he asks, scanning the girl with the screwdriver and frowning at the results. "It seems to target her DNA, producing mutations. Nothing irreversible so far, but it could quickly turn deadly. Or worse."
"There is nothing," Vastra answers almost subdued, looking at Koschei with new eyes, both awed and yet more scared than before, though he can't figure out why, sticking to the wall she's pressing against, away from the group in the middle of the room and those clustered at the door. "Nothing that would work on an ape, that is."
"TARDIS it is. Rory, do what you can for the wound, the last thing we want is an infection on top of everything else. Arthur, you're the tallest and fittest of the group, you'll have to carry her on the way. Amy, go with Vastra to collect whatever might be of use. I'll try to find out where the TARDIS is," he orders them, and everyone nods or answers positively when his eyes land on them.
"And me?" Boyce scowls, more mutinous than actually peeved at being left out.
"You stick to Mister Flint and make sure he doesn't interfere with the medical professional," he answers mockingly, but the seriousness in his eyes is more than enough to keep Boyce's retort to a glare.
That done, Koschei turns to the desk in the middle of the room and, with a whir of the sonic, activates the holographic computer.
There are some gasps and more murmurs of witchcraft, but he deftly ignores them as he accesses the blueprints of the colony and what surveillance is still intact, using his own sense of smell and feelers alongside the map to try and find out where his TARDIS is.
Amy and Vastra come back not a moment later, with the Silurian glaring at the redhead with more confusion than annoyance and with Amy looking as proud and smug as when she manages to get Koschei to agree to something, while Arthur kneels by Rory's side and helps him by holding his instruments. Rory doesn't want to use any pain relievers or antibiotics on Jenny, as her father calls her in his murmurs for her to stay strong, in case they conflict with whatever Silurian medicine they'll be able to get in her, but he still cleans the wound and has some extra gauze ready to bandage it tightly once he's done with that.
… Well, now Koschei knows what the mystery kit is, and he feels almost disappointed in himself for not having figured it out earlier. Still, really clever on Rory's part. He knew there was a reason he liked him. That human knows how to prepare for any eventuality, what with his research on the TARDIS and this kit. He had that on his person for his stag, of all things!
"Here," Vastra whispers, holding a small jar towards Arthur as soon as she and Amy enter the room, and, despite tensing in distrust, the man finally takes it. "It's a Silurian antibiotic. It should cleanse her wound without harming her."
"We tried it, she scanned me with a machine in the infirmary to make sure there was nothing in the human body that would react badly to Silurian medicine," Amy explains when Arthur still hesitates, and Koschei sends a Look her way. "Don't give me that! We had to make sure it would work! We don't know about the actual treatment, we could only retrieve these vials to make the cure out of, but we still needed to check," she protests at Koschei's look, her eyes daring him to argue.
"Why would you do such a dangerous thing?!" Flint exclaims, as if he can't really understand why anyone would do that, and Koschei turns back to his blueprints even as he rolls his eyes.
"Walking out one's front door is a dangerous business, Flint. And yet, it's something everyone needs to do sooner or later. If we all worried so much about everyday dangers, nothing would ever get done," he scoffs, frowning softly as he tries to recover the files for a part of the corridors that lost visual not that long ago.
"It's a dangerous business, walking out one's front door," Amy repeats with a wise air about her, and Rory groans even as he tries to keep a smile at bay, finishing with the bandages around Jenny's shoulder after applying the antibiotic.
"You're back…" a weak voice whispers in the silence, and all eyes turn to the injured girl on the floor, whose eyes are finally focused on Vastra, still standing by Arthur's side.
The Silurian tenses, hissing softly in what Koschei suspects is a sign of how uncomfortable she really is when everyone turns to her, before she slowly lowers herself into a crouch when Arthur shuffles back to make space.
"I am," she answers slowly, carefully, before gesturing to Flint. "I found your father."
"… No, he isn't… My father wouldn't come… He doesn't… think me important… Why doesn't he care…?" the girl weeps softly, her feverish gaze moving from Flint's stricken face to Vastra's now clearly uncomfortable one.
"He came. He cares," the Silurian answers simply, shortly, snout curling as if the words tasted foul on her tongue.
"… Daddy?" Jenny calls in a small and scared whisper, turning fully to her father, who seems to decide his daughter is more important than any reputation he could have and carefully cradles her against his plump front with a sob, tears streaming down his face. "Daddy… I'm sorry I don't like men…"
"Oh, Jenny, my Jenny… Hush now, it doesn't matter. You're going to be alright, that's all I care about," he sobs, stroking her face and wiping her tears off of her cheeks.
"Are you alright?" Amy asks softly, suddenly standing at Koschei's side and resting a hand on his forearm, hands hovering over the holographic screen he has all but forgotten.
"Wha—Who, me? Of course I'm alright," he huffs, recovering from the surprise of Amy's sudden appearance, and realizes even before Amy rests her hands on his cheeks that his eyes are wetter than they should. "This is nothing. It's the screen, its light after all the tunnels and torchlight—" he tries to protest, tugging on Amy's hands with what he knows is nowhere close to enough strength to get out of her practically non-existent hold, part of him actually enjoying her warm skin against his own chilled one.
"I will not say do not weep, for not all tears are an evil," she recites half proudly and half sincerely, and Koschei has to blink a couple times before he finally pulls her hands off his face softly, smirking knowingly.
"Once we're back in the TARDIS, you have to tell me where you get all those quotes from."
"Deal," she agrees with a wink and a grin, squeezing his hands, which he has still wrapped around her own, before she steps back to his side to look at the screen. "So, found the TARDIS yet?"
"Almost," he answers, tapping once more as he finishes with what he hopes is the recovery program—and smiles widely as he finds the timestamp of the loss of visual is the same as when the TARDIS fell down the sinkhole. "Aha! Found her! Right, team, let's move. Team? Nah, crew? Squad?" he muses, turning off the display and exchanging a look with Amy, who grins knowingly.
"Fellowship?"
"… I don't know where you got that from, but no, no way. Bunch of humans and one Silurian, move it," he orders, ignoring Amy's snickers as he gestures them towards the door—
And whirls around with a chocked breath, dragging Amy away from the wall as it rips open into a crack of light, something terrifyingly familiar almost snapping at his time feelers before he retracts them.
"Doctor, Amy!" Rory shouts, hurrying to their side and grabbing onto his fiancée's arm, but Koschei is too busy staring at the crack in the wall to protest about being called Doctor again.
"How can it be here?!" Amy protests, as wide-eyed as Koschei is, clearly recognizing the shape of the spatiotemporal fissure.
Her horror is justified, especially after seeing the same crack twice aboard the Byzantium, but Koschei's own comes from a completely different revelation.
He hadn't had his time feelers stretched when the first fissure opened aboard the Byzantium, and he had definitely not prodded the one in Amy's bedroom with more than the Doctor's screwdriver, knowing better than to mess with time in such a way. But he had with this one, and what he'd felt…
"Step back," he tells the Ponds, taking out his screwdriver and carefully scanning the crack, making a note of the fact it seems to widen slowly.
"Doctor—!"
"I said step back! Vastra, take them to my TARDIS, section T-57. I'll be there in a moment, I just need to… check…" he lets his words trail off as he checks the results of the scan, eyes widening but brows furrowing in disbelief.
And then, deciding to throw caution to the wind, he pockets the screwdriver and pulls out a handkerchief, closing the distance until he's standing right in front of the crack – and plunges his hand in.
This time, he can't make sense of what Amy and Rory are shouting over his pained scream, but he still manages to snarl at them to stay back, trying to ignore the pain of hot-cold-flame-time-out-of-synch-time-gone-notimealldeadNeverwereNeverwasCouldHaveNeverBeen—
His hand closes on something and he pulls himself away from the crack so hastily that he ends up flat on his back, holding the whatever he retrieved from the crack tightly wrapped against his chest.
Amy and Rory are suddenly at his sides, calling his name and helping him up – wait.
"Do not call me Doctor," he growls at them, recovering his breath and sitting up on his own to deliver a scathing glare.
The bloody Ponds have the nerve to smile instead of cower.
That's it, Koschei's dropping them off in Leadworth as soon as they get back to the TARDIS, there's no way he'll ever manage to get anything done now that even Rory has lost all fear of him.
"He's alright," Rory comments happily, though he watches him like a hawk after helping him back to his feet, ensuring he's not going to faceplant or something equally ridiculous.
"Of course I'm alright, you dimwit. And I told you two to stay back! I thought at least you, Rory, still had enough common sense to—"
"If that's what I have to do. It's time to change. Maybe I've been wandering for too long. Now I've got someone to care for."
The gunshot is so loud in the small room to almost drown that one word, shouted with fear and desperation almost as strong as the hand that pushes Koschei away from the bullet's path.
Almost.
"Doctor!"
Koschei is back on his feet almost as soon as he hits the ground, rolling off the body he crashed into and towards that voice, that hand, that fear—
The sight of red pooling behind his savior's head is even more macabre than that of red blood soaking onto an already red sweater.
He doesn't hear himself cry out her name, doesn't feel his mouth opening or his legs moving. One instant he's crouching atop a startled Rory, not yet aware of what happened or who crashed into him. The next, he's kneeling by Amelia's side, taking one glance at the bullet hole—between the ribs, spurting bright red blood from a punctured aorta or another artery way too fast—and rounding on Boyce with a wordless shout and a snarl that could only be called human because, in his blind rage, his first instinct is to not unravel in front of tridimensional beings.
The screwdriver whirs silently, drowned by the drums thundering in his ears and filling his sight with images of death, but he still manages to see that the timeline to come into effect is not the one where he used the sonic screech to drop Boyce and the rest of the humans unconscious, but the one where the gun blows up in Boyce's hand and the Dalek reject gets electrocuted by the broken console he slams into as he falls onto his back.
If he wasn't so busy turning to Amelia and trying to beat the drums into silence, he would feel pleased.
As it is, he feels terrified, more so when she grabs onto his hand when he reaches for her sweater to pull it away and ascertain the damage that he knows it's bad, that's too much blood and flowing too fast—
"Let me see, let me—" he tells her as softly as he can manage, pushing down his horror so he can give Amy a calm smile that he doesn't really feel because that's a lethal wound, and there's blood trickling down from Amy's lips and she can't seem to breath any deeper than a gasp.
Rory is screaming at his back, shouting Amy's name over and over and struggling against Vastra's grip, but the Silurian wrenches him away from them, telling him to let the Doctor work, if anyone can save her it's him, come on, we need to move before whatever that light is devours the whole room—
Amy sobs, tears pooling in her eyes as they leave Koschei's face to see her fiancé fighting Vastra with all he has to get to her side, and Koschei immediately lifts a tremulous hand to gently wipe the tear off of her pale and quickly cooling cheek, trying to drown his own panic as he flips desperately between timelines in search for a solution, something that is not easy with the Rassilon-damned crack expanding so fast—
"Hey, hey, hush now, I'm here, we'll fix this, just—" he whispers to her, forcing the tremor away from his voice as Amy meets his smile once more with her eyes quickly losing focus—
Her breath hitches on a thought so strong that it echoes in Koschei's mind even without him trying to catch it.
Oh… I'm not scared…
Her eyes fill with something warm and all-encompassing and that he refuses to acknowledge because this is not the time, as her lips twitch into a smile—
A sigh, too loud even with his heartsbeat filling his ears, his chest, his brains, and Amy's head lolls to the side.
Amelia's—the Doctor's—body is completely limp in his arms, colder than is healthy even for a human—Gallifreyan—, brown—blind—eyes closed and face almost relaxed into what could almost be called a smile. No weak and erratic heartbeat—heartsbeat—flutters against the arm Koschei—the Master—still has around her—his—back, no mind waiting for—brushing against—Koschei's—the Master's—frantically reaching one.
"See you in five minutes!"
He promises, as best as he can, but she still pouts, tiny arms crossed against her chest and dark eyes glaring accusingly up at him, because he had promised before, this was supposed to be her time with her Daddy, but Daddy has to leave now again, like all those other times before, and it's not fair.
"See you in five minutes!"
He promises, knowing it's true, because those big trusting eyes and that spitfire personality had ensnared him before he had a chance to realize it was doing so, and she knows as well as he does that he'll be back, so while her shiny eyes are full of tears there's still a smile on her face, and unshakable trust in him and his word to keep the sadness of his departure at bay.
See you in five minutes.
There aren't five minutes, not anymore, not ever again, not in any future, any possibility, any Could've Been or Meanwhile or Neverwere—
The crack expands and there's nothing, no matter how much he flips, but this nothing, this non-existence is unnatural, it's reversible, and if he can turn back time and bring back what was lost—
If he can fix what the cracks erased, he can bring those lost back – alive.
He just needs—
"He has a strong heart, one that will not give up, one which will hold onto your love until the end of the world and beyond. Not even death will take the love out of his heart."
—Rory.
He's still screaming in Vastra's arms, eyes so full of the same tears cascading down his cheeks and chocking his voice that there's no way he can see anything clearly, but that doesn't stop him from fighting against the Silurian's grip with all his might, trying to reach Koschei, to get to—
Koschei looks down at the body in his arms, at the ever-growing crack – and gently but quickly leaves Amelia's corpse on the ground.
"Move away from the light. Move! If it touches you, you'll be wiped from history. We need to get to the TARDIS, now!" he orders, squeezing the unnaturally—nonononono—cold hands one last time before grabbing the handkerchief-wrapped thing he salvaged from the crack and finally standing up and moving away from Amy.
"No! I'm not leaving her! You have to help her!" Rory snarls, struggling even more to the point Vastra is starting to look troubled as she tries to wrestle him away from the body on the ground, which is starting to be enveloped by tendrils of light that make Koschei's memories of little Amelia split into different Could've Been before being sucked into Neverwere.
"The light's already around her, we can't help," he tells Rory as he ushers Flint and Arthur, with Jenny in his arms, out of the room, approaching Vastra to try and help her with Rory.
"I won't leave her!" Rory roars—
Koschei stumbles and almost falls to the ground, ears ringing and sight blotching for a couple of seconds after Rory punched him, which leaves him in shock for one extra second – until a nasty crack and the urgency of the expanding crack—heh—bring him back to the present, that is.
Rory slumping in her arms like a sack of potatoes, with his forehead reddened in the beginnings of a bruise, Vastra looks at Koschei expectantly and with a hint of wariness, but no remorse.
Koschei spares forty-five milliseconds to admire Vastra's effectiveness and tough skull, but quickly shakes his head, nods at her, and rushes out of the room to guide the group to the TARDIS, the Silurian carrying his now unconscious companion over her shoulder.
Adrenaline makes up for the weight in Arthur's arms and Flint's obvious lack of fitness, so they reach the alcove where a dusty but undamaged TARDIS is waiting for them in no time, which Koschei opens hurriedly but with a long and heartfelt caress to her side at finally being back at her side. No one complains about the apparent lack of space when he ushers them in, though the rumbling of the walls and the cracking ceiling might have something to do with that.
"What's happening out there?" Vastra asks when Koschei joins them inside, closing the doors at his back, her eyes wide and pain and fear in her voice.
"The crack is destabilizing the structure of the colony, erasing it having been there in the first place and thus destabilizing – Ugh, forget that! Timey-wimey spacey-wacey stuff. Now get in that corridor, first room on the left, get Jenny and Rory strapped down in the beds and grab onto something. Go!" he orders, already rushing around the console as he clings to the TARDIS and basks in her warm welcome and hides in her pain and condolences and revels in her hope all at once.
Flint looks around, mutters witchcraft one last time, but looks down at his daughter's unconscious and pale face, cheeks red in her fever, and pushes everything else aside to lead the way to the infirmary.
Koschei gives them thirty seconds before he's forced to dematerialize the TARDIS, hoping he has managed to polish the coordinates enough to get them to the surface, and feels immensely grateful when, after the initial violent tremors from escaping from the proximity of a spatiotemporal rift of such magnitude, the rest of the process goes smoothly.
He turns everything off, runs a quick diagnostic and scan of their surroundings, physical and in the time-space continuum, and when everything comes green, finally slumps against the console with a chocked sob – and his tightly-clenched fist taps into something plastic and velvety.
He looks up, blinking back the beginning of tears, and feels his throat close as he recognizes the tiny box lodged halfway into a groove between the flight stabilizers and the switches for the chameleon circuit settings.
Tremulously and without conscious order, his fingers uncurl jerkily and wrap around the box as if it was the most precious item in the whole universe.
A soft click later, Koschei finds himself staring down at a golden ring with a shining diamond on it, carefully and lovingly nested in a burgundy velvet cushion.
Amy smiles, taking the box and pondering for one last moment whether to bring the ring with her, but finally decides on leaving it behind, checking one last time that it won't go rolling when she next opens the box, before carefully leaving it between a couple switches on the console and rushing to join the other two outside.
A tear lands on Koschei's hand, and he hurriedly closes the box and wipes at his eyes. With a deep breath, the box goes into an inner pocket before he sets for the infirmary.
AN: This chapter shares its title with the seventh chapter of Book 5 of the Lord of the Rings, also known as the first half of Return of the King.
James Birdsong: Thank you!