Amara blinked repeatedly when the light faded away, trying to adjust to the brighter lighting wherever she was and trying to get rid of all the dark spots she was seeing. Her heart was still beating extremely fast, and her head was spinning, making her vision worse than ever.
"Doctor?" She murmured, hoping the man was nearby and knew what the hell was going on with her. She didn't want to have accidentally encountered a symptom of having the TARDIS literally open up and flood inside her and die from it. Or something like that. She expected that she'd have accidentally turned into Bad Wolf and was finally coming to, but that would lead to some disastrous consequences- and time would fall apart, which was definitely not what was supposed to happen.
Oh no- what if that was exactly what happened? That would mean Rose could possibly figure out what happened when someone absorbed the heart of the TARDIS long before she was supposed to in case they landed where she was, or in case the TARDIS had possessed her and made her do it- or even worse- the Doctor attempted to extract it from her by absorbing it himself- and that would obviously lead him to regenerate. Meaning Ten would come sooner. And time would be rewritten and things won't go according to plan and cause the entire universe to implode in itself. Well, something that extreme probably wouldn't happen, but the key word was probably. Meaning there was still a chance for things to go completely whack. And anyway, anything that went off plan would lead to a disaster eventually- all of Amara's experiences suggested that, which was why she almost always preferred to do whatever she could to stick to the damn plan.
"Amara?" A deep voice murmured beside her, and she could vaguely feel someone wrapping their arm around her. "Are you alright?"
"What the- where did she come from?" Another person said- their voice was lower in volume, they were probably further from Amara than the other person. "Does she just randomly appear out of gold light? Is this supposed to be some sort of a weird initiation thing for me or something? How did she even do that?"
"She, erm, I don't know. But she does that quite often, so that's another thing for you to keep in mind." The person talking rubbed her back. "What happened, where did you come from?"
There was something weirdly familiar about the voice, she just couldn't place where she'd heard it. She blinked a couple more times, her head slowly stabilising and her vision slowly clearing, to reveal a white haired man with sharp features- especially the eyebrows, which were scrunched together.
Her eyes widened and she backed away from the Twelfth Doctor, who frowned before looking at her again. "Amara?"
"What- where- how-" She sputtered, the English language having conveniently left her brain. Her breaths quickened and her eyes widened even more. She pointed at him, "You're- You're Twelve!" Her voice was extremely high pitched and the sentence was spoken between gasps.
"Yes?" The Doctor frowned again, trying to reach for her, but she backed away, breathing heavily. She hit something as she did so, and she groaned, clutching her head, which was in incredible pain. She closed her eyes tightly, trying her best to hold in her scream when someone- the Doctor, presumably, wrapped an arm around her again.
"Why is she so shocked? Aren't you both-" The other voice said. She assumed it was Bill, since there was no way Clara sounded like that.
"Our timelines aren't in the right order. For all we know, this version of Amara could be a lot younger than the one we saw before." The Doctor told her and turned back to Amara again. "Amara?"
She blinked, straightening up from her slouching position and taking her hands off her face and head, groaning softly. She turned to the Doctor, who was frowning at her in concern. "I'm assuming this is right after the whole Nestene Consciousness thing."
"No, wait, shut up." Amara whispered, slowly getting up by taking support of the thing she banged her head on. She looked around the room, her eyes widening. She was in a huge room with electric blue lighting. There was a balcony around the ceiling, having bookshelves and boards at the wall, and a desk facing the side that had the door with a huge comfy chair on it. She turned around, frowning at a young woman with curly hair and a denim jacket, who gave her a nervous smile and a wave. "Hi!"
She turned to the Doctor, who was staring at her expectantly, holding a blue journal and a pen in his hands. She frowned at him. "What the hell is that? And how am I even here?! Do I just keep doing this?!"
The Doctor nodded, and she threw her hands up, turning towards the console, shaking her head. "Great. Brilliant. I'm in a fanfic. I'm dead and the afterlife is a fucking Doctor Who fanfic." Her hands dropped onto the cool metal edge, when she felt a familiar warmth course through her. She pulled her hands off it before they could probably get fused again, backing away as if she'd been electrocuted.
"What was that?!" She turned to the Doctor, who was nervously staring between her and the console. "What happened to me? Why-" She pointed to the TARDIS, "What even-"
"Long story short, it's her way of saying hello." The Doctor walked towards the console. "Long story long," He opened his journal and turned to her after turning a few pages. "You'll find out later." He raised an eyebrow as he stared down at the journal. "Pretty soon, actually." He looked up at her. "That is, if this isn't a prank or something. Which is why I'll need to know where you just came from."
"Nestene Consciousness." She nodded, and gestured to the journal, "What's that?"
He looked down at the journal and looked back at her. "Oh, this? It's how I keep track of, er," He gestured to her and the console, "Everything. So that I don't accidentally reveal things you don't know yet. Don't wanna accidentally disintegrate the already fragile timeline we both share. You have one too. It's, erm-" He absently gestured to one of the walls of the TARDIS as he clicked his pen and wrote something down on the journal. He closed it and put it back in his coat pocket before turning to the console. "Anyway," He gestured to Bill, who was staring at the interaction with great interest, "Miss Potts here hasn't had a proper first trip in the TARDIS, so we'll have to take care of that now." He placed his hands on the console and leaned towards one of the monitors.
Amara turned to Bill, suddenly overcome with embarrassment. "Hey Bill,"
"Hi. Again, I guess." She waved again before turning to the Doctor. "So, where are we going?"
At that moment, someone knocked on the door. Bill frowned and turned to the Doctor, who sighed, placing a hand over his face. "Who's that?" She asked him as he turned around to walk towards the door when the person outside knocked again.
"Mum," He muttered, exasperated, as he walked away. Bill frowned at him and turned to Amara, who shrugged. "It's just Nardole." Bill nodded as the Doctor opened the door, bringing in a very annoyed and suspicious bald man with glasses. "Excuse me?" He asked the Doctor, "What is the TARDIS doing down here?" He seemed to notice Amara and nodded towards her. "Hello ma'am." She waved at him, smiling.
The Doctor turned to him. "I'm over 2000 years old. I don't always want to take the stairs."
Amara smiled softly at that. She'd always loved Twelve's interactions with Bill and Nardole- especially his dynamic with Nardole. There was a reason series 10 was in her list of top 5 series.
"Your oath, sir! You're not supposed to go off-world unless it's an emergency!" Nardole exclaimed.
"I'm not off-world!" The Doctor threw his hands up.
"Are you going off-world?"
"I'm going back to my office. Could you put the kettle on, please?"
Nardole stared at him, still not convinced. The Doctor sighed. "Alright, you know what?" He turned to Amara, "Amara, we're not going off-world, are we?"
Amara pursed her lips together to prevent herself from laughing and shook her head. "Nope. We definitely don't plan to do it."
He turned back to Nardole, who sighed, before turning to Bill. "Why's she here?"
"Educational purposes." Amara cleared her throat. "The Doctor thought it would be a good idea to teach her how the TARDIS works 'for physics reasons', as he put it fifteen minutes ago."
Nardole frowned for a moment before turning to the Doctor, who nodded. "Exactly! Do you really have that little trust in me, Nardole?" He didn't even let the man answer his question as he said, "Kettle. Now."
Nardole sighed and turned around, walking towards the door, muttering some nonsense about how Bill could make her own cup of tea. Once he left, the Doctor turned to the other two. "So, back to your office for a cuppa, then?"
The Doctor walked towards the two of them and leaned in front of Bill. "Between here and my office, before the kettle boils, is everything that ever happened or ever will." He walked towards the console, "Make your choice."
"What choice?" Bill asked.
"Past or future."
Bill stared at him for a few moments before saying, "Future."
The Doctor turned to Amara, who frowned but nodded. "Future sounds good, yeah." And also it was an episode which was supposed to happen and if it didn't happen, it would disrupt their already fragile timeline, as the Doctor so kindly put it, so she had to go with it. Not that she minded, though. The future was always an interesting time to be in, no matter how terrifying or depressing it was. Well, would be.
The Doctor nodded and went towards the console, pressing a button. He walked towards a lever and turned to Bill. "Why?"
"Why do you think? I want to see if it's happy."
The Twelfth Doctor was definitely a lot better at driving the TARDIS than the Ninth Doctor was. He still wasn't as safe of a driver as she would've liked, but mild to medium tremors were definitely an improvement from literally flying across the ship while holding onto dear life. When she'd remarked this to the Doctor, all he did was shrug and say that she'd made him read the instruction manual and follow it for once. Although, he'd compromised with her to have a little freedom. Well, that was a good thing, then. She didn't have to worry about dying or getting majorly injured whenever the Doctor decided to go somewhere. For the most part.
Once the TARDIS landed, the Doctor made Bill exit the TARDIS first. Before the Doctor could exit the TARDIS behind her, Amara cleared her throat behind him. He turned around, frowning. "You alright?"
"What are the rules?" She asked him. "Like, I know I'm not supposed to be telling you anything if I know something about the future, but I'm sure I would've come up with more rules if I've been jumping around your timeline for quite a while. That is, if I actually have been doing that."
"You have, and that's rule number 1a, by the way. No spoilers." He ran a hand through his hair. "Although, you usually give me a hint on what I'm supposed to be doing. Something that doesn't reveal much, but something that helps me. And rule 1b is that you don't change any established events." He paused, before shaking his head. "Well, you do change a couple of events, but that's mostly unintentional. Can't tell you which ones, though. That would violate rule 1a and God forbid someone breaks a rule in front of you."
She scoffed at his amused expression, preparing to give her usual response to that. "Rules are-"
"Made for a reason, yeah, it's not like you always keep saying that. Those are the most important rules, I'll probably tell you the rest later. Or you'll formulate them before that- we can't really tell with the whole timeline confusion." He shook his head, before his hand went to the doorknob. "Anyway, we better get out before Bill ends up breaking rule number one of travelling with me."
"So I do make the list. Good to know." Amara murmured as she walked outside as he opened the door. She went to stand next to Bill, who was staring at the place in amazement. They were on a sunny planet that was covered in wheat fields. The wind that blew across was cool and pleasant, balancing the heat of the sun. They were in one of the gaps between the rows of the wheat crops, in front of one of the entrances to what looked like a city that was full of white buildings.
"So," The Doctor walked towards Bill with his hands in his pockets. "Any passing comments?"
"We're on another planet." Bill gasped, looking around the place. "Which way is Earth?"
"Ah, space is bent. Earth is any way you choose to look." He walked in front of the two of them before turning back. "Why, are you thinking about leaving?"
"Thinking?" Bill scoffed. "I'm not thinking, my brain's overloaded." She muttered, before turning back and facing the TARDIS. "Why a phone box?"
"I told you."
"Yeah, well I know it's a cloaking device, but why keep it in that shape?"
"Well, apparently the cloaking device's circuit broke and he doesn't know how to fix it-" Amara started, but the Doctor shook his head. "No, the manual gives a way to fix it. I just didn't because, well-" He turned around to see both Bill and Amara raising an eyebrow at him. He turned around again and started walking towards the city. "Anyway, never mind that, come on."
Amara and Bill turned to each other, both of them suppressing their grins before they followed the Doctor again. "Why do you like it?" Bill asked, skipping towards him.
"Who said I like it?"
Amara shrugged. "You figured out how to fix it and you didn't. If it weren't for the symbolism of the TARDIS and rule 1b, I would've been super pissed."
The Doctor rolled his eyes and ignored them as he walked towards the city. "Come along!"
Amara skipped towards the Doctor. "You didn't answer her question."
He shrugged, pushing his sonic sunglasses up his nose. "I did."
"You asked her a question. That's not an answer." Amara shrugged. "But seriously, why?"
"If I say 'spoilers', will you leave me alone?"
She shrugged. "I mean, I'll have to because of rule 1-"
"Well then, spoilers."
Amara rolled her eyes. "You just don't want to answer the question, do you?"
"Spoilers."
Amara sighed before looking back up at him again. "Has anyone told you that you're extremely annoying?"
"One person has. Many times." He walked off, leaving Amara behind, shaking her head.
"This is one of Earth's first colonies." The Doctor said as they entered the city. They were in a fully white corridor that had translucent blue windows on one side. There were white pillars on both sides that arched into triangles. The place was beautiful- in a clean and isolated way. "They say the settlers have cracked the secret to human happiness." The Doctor gestured around the place as Bill took out her phone and took a picture of the corridor behind them.
"One question." Bill stopped behind him. He turned around, eyebrows raised. "Little fella said you made an oath? You're not supposed to leave the planet."
Amara shrugged. "He's terrible with rules and orders. Uses the time machine excuse way too much."
"I don't see you complaining." He said, and she shrugged. "Complaining about that would clash with rule 1b. Which, I'm assuming, is the more important rule." She stared straight ahead. "I'm breaking a rule." She mused.
"Is it really counted as breaking a rule if you'll have to follow a more important rule?" Bill frowned. "Isn't it like sacrificing something for the greater good?"
Amara shrugged. "You're right, but it's a rule! I'm, I'm breaking a rule, I-" She took a deep breath and scowled at the Doctor, who was staring at her with an amused expression. "You won't understand." She huffed, and he shook his head. "That's because I don't obsess over nonsense like rules."
"They're not nonsensical, they're actually pretty helpful!" She shook her head and continued walking forward. She turned to Bill and the Doctor. "And to answer your question about his oath, he did a thing and that resulted in him having to guard the vault in the basement. I can't say much because it'll be a violation of rule 1a." She shrugged, turning around.
"But he's not guarding the vault now!" Bill said.
"Yes I am." The Doctor exclaimed. "I have a time machine, I can go back to before we left."
"You can't, that'll cause a paradox." Amara shook her head, and the Doctor rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I've thought about it."
"Hang on- wouldn't causing a paradox cause a lot of problems?" Bill asked, coming to stand next to them.
The Doctor nodded. "Yes."
Bill raised her eyebrows at him while Amara sighed. The Doctor blinked at them. "What?"
"What exactly did you think about?" Bill said slowly, as if explaining something to a little child.
"It'll cause a temporal blast that could possibly destroy the timeline." He ignored the wide-eyed expression Bill had. Amara rolled her eyes. "What's your plan in case that happens?"
He stared at her for a moment before shrugging. "I dunno, I'll come up with it when it happens. I'm too busy to do silly things like make plans. And anyway, making plans is her job." He gestured to Amara, who shook her head. "What if I decide I don't want to do that?"
The Doctor gave her a disbelieving look. "Well, that'll mean someone kidnapped you and sent an impostor instead. Anyway, enough talking about boring things."
He turned away from them and pointed in front of them. "Look at that building." He gestured to a huge white building lined with blue glass a little way in front of them. "You know what I like about humanity? The optimism." He pointed to the sky. "Do you know what this building is made of?" A bunch of tiny black figures that looked and sounded like bees flew across the sky, looking like a fast moving dark cloud. "Optimism." He said.
Amara looked up at the flying cloud. She knew what they actually were- microbots called Vardies. She'd always found the idea of a whole city built by robots extremely amazing, and seeing it in real life was wonderful.
"What are they? Alien birds?" Bill asked.
The Doctor looked up and murmured. "Vardies. Tiny robots." They walked towards the proper entrance to the city, which was a huge glass door at the bottom of a dome-like structure lined with white walls and clear glass. "They work in flocks. They're versatile, hard working, good at learning skills. The worker bees of the Third Industrial Revolution."
The Vardies buzzed directly above them, moving around in a helix-like pattern, slowly coming close to them. Amara looked up at them and frowned, stepping towards the Doctor and Bill. She felt someone take her hand and squeeze it, and frowned when she saw that it was the Doctor. The most surprising part, he didn't even seem to notice he did that.
"Probably just checking us out for security." He said, tilting his head towards Amara slightly. "They're perfectly safe."
"These are robots?" Bill asked sceptically. "These are disappointing robots."
The Doctor stopped in his tracks and turned to her, gaping. "That's a very offensive remark. Don't make personal remarks like that."
"Why do you sound so offended?" Amara smiled slightly, walking towards him. "Are you secretly one of them?" She gasped, pretending to be shocked. "Have you been lying to us about your species the whole time?"
The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Why, Amara Kashyap, you are hilarious."
At that moment, a loud, piercing sound hit her ear. She flinched, placing a hand on her ear, closing her eyes tightly as Bill yelled. "Ow, what was that?!"
Her voice was directly heard in Amara's ear, which made her close her ears and groan in pain. She felt someone place a hand on her shoulder. "Amara-"
"What's happening?!" Bill yelled, and Amara flinched hard. She never did like loud noises. "They've upgraded our ears, I think." Amara muttered, and the Doctor said, "I think it's a communication device that is using our own nervous system as hardware."
Amara opened her eyes and blinked. She was slowly getting used to the whole voice-directly-inside-her-ear thing. It was still loud, but she wasn't completely shocked or paralysed by the loud noise.
"I'll never lose my phone again!" Bill exclaimed, walking towards them. "I'll never run out of battery again!"
Amara frowned, staring at Bill. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"Close your eyes and think about something you wanna see!" She grinned at her. "It's like I have a whole piece of software in my head, like a phone!"
Amara's eyes widened. "What?!" She knew about another type of technology that did the exact same thing, and she did not want those two to be connected in any way possible. She turned to the Doctor, who shook his head. "No, it's not like Cybus, don't worry." He walked in front of them, before turning back. "I think. If it is, then, well," He shook his head. "Eh, I'll figure it out if that's the case." He continued walking forward, leaving Amara standing there, eyes wide and mouth agape. Bill raised an eyebrow at her. "What's Cybus?"
Amara shuddered, shaking her head. "Company from a parallel world. They create robots using advanced earphones." She walked towards the Doctor, her hands folded, a realisation slowly coming to her. She couldn't say more. Not when- not when Bill was going to have more , erm, interactions with people similar to them in the future, so that might technically count as a spoiler. All of a sudden, she didn't feel so good anymore. She felt hot- and scared. And nauseous. A small chill passed through her, making her shiver.
"What's wrong?" She snapped her head up towards the Doctor, who was frowning at her in concern. She shook her head and gestured towards one of the triangular doors, which slowly opened to reveal a small white robot at the doorway.
"What's that?" Bill placed a hand on Amara's arm, having walked towards the pair of them. She stared at the robot before smiling. "Now that is a robot. That is not a disappointing robot."
She walked towards it, leaving the Doctor looking scandalised. Amara smiled weakly at his reaction as she walked towards Bill and the robot. The Doctor pointed at the small white robot, which was staring at them with smiley faces for eyes. "Technically, this isn't a robot at all. The tiny little things- those are the robots. This is just an interface for them."
"Does it speak?" Bill asked the Doctor. "Will we understand it?" The robot looked at the Doctor, its eyes in the form of question marks.
The Doctor bent to the robot's level. "Depends on what aspect of your language has survived over many thousands of years."
The yellow screen on the robot's face flashed again, changing its eyes to smiley faces once more. "Emoji!" Bill exclaimed, "It speaks emoji!"
The Doctor stared at her and back at the robot, the disappointment evident in his face. "Of course it does." He muttered as the robot's face flashed again, replacing the smiley faces with thumbs-ups.
"Aw, it's cute!" Bill tilted her face and showed it a thumbs-up as it looked up at her. Amara took a deep breath and nodded, forcing a smile. Unknown to her, this did not go unnoticed by the Doctor. In all the years of his life, he'd developed the practice of taking note of her reactions- especially those of her early versions- to everything to get somewhat of a hint about things, especially since she was extremely secretive about her spoilers.
The robot held out its hands, three blank yellow circles on them. Amara took one and placed it on her chest, feeling it slide down her back as the Doctor showed his to Bill. "Blank patches." He muttered as Bill shook her head and pointed at the frowny face on his. "Yours isn't blank." He flipped it around as Bill did the exact same thing to hers. "It's never on the side you're looking at."
The Doctor turned to Amara, whose hands were folded tightly across her chest. He frowned slightly. "Where's your patch?"
"I put it on." She murmured, pointing to her back.
"You put it on your back?" Bill frowned. Amara shook her head. "No, I put it on, and then it slid down my back."
"Why?"
The Doctor stared at his patch. "I think this is some sort of a mood indicator. That's why we can't see our own." He turned to Bill, "You know, since knowing your mood affects it."
Bill nodded, before putting the badge on her chest. It slid back and she turned around as the Doctor did the same. She turned back again. "That means everyone you walk past can see what you're thinking."
"What you're feeling." Amara murmured. The two of them turned to her, frowning. She shook her head. "It shows a face that represents what you're feeling- it doesn't have your exact thoughts written down on it, so it can't show what you're thinking."
The Doctor smiled slightly at that, glad that she was at least a little similar to her usual self. He'd managed to sneak a glance at her mood patch before she put it on, and he did not like what she was feeling. He had a small idea as to what caused it, but he could never tell when it was early Amara. She was always a lot more reserved and cautious around him when compared to the later versions of her.
Bill nodded, before turning to the Doctor. "What if you fancy someone? Wouldn't they know what you're feeling?"
The Doctor gulped. He hadn't thought about that. Well, looks like he had to be extremely careful from that point on. He turned to Bill. "Well, I suppose you'll have to maintain eye contact with them." He walked towards Amara nonchalantly.
"Oh, that's brilliant!" Bill whispered as the robot turned around and started to toddle away. If it weren't for the fact that the robots were actually murderous, Amara would've agreed about how cute they were.
"Welcome to the future." The Doctor said, following the robot into a huge white corridor. "Emojis. Wearable communications. We're in the utopia of vacuous teens." He complained.
"Dei, my sister's a teen." Amara said, folding her hands and staring up at him. "Tread lightly."
He threw his hands up and raised his eyebrows, walking forward. "Yes ma'am."
They walked into a huge balcony-like place that was right underneath a dome made of clear glass. The railings of the balcony were also made of blue glass and the whole place was white in colour. There was a table with three chairs, and in front of each chair was a plate. Two of the plates had a blue cube each in them and one of them had two.
Bill ran towards the table. "It knew I was starving!" She sat in front of the table. "Food from another planet!" She looked up at the Doctor and Amara, who were standing a little ways away from the table. "What? You've got to eat, haven't you?" She bent down to smell the cube. "Smells like fish."
"All the reason for me to not eat it." Amara muttered, backing away slightly.
"Should we eat, though?" Bill asked, pointing her fork at the robot. "What if they're not like us?"
"Well, the cutlery is human cutlery, and no other species uses emojis. Everything here is human. Except-"
Bill placed her fork and knife on the table, having cut out a small part of the cube. "But no humans."
The Doctor spread his arms out, walking backwards. "This is the perfect colony- but where are the colonists?" He turned to Amara, who shrugged. "Rule 1a. No spoilers, remember?"
He shook his head. "No, no, this isn't a spoiler, this is background information." He walked towards her. "Unless it's an important plot point. Then it's a spoiler."
"Which would mean I would've accidentally revealed something without actually saying anything." Amara muttered, her eyes widening slightly. "And I'd violate rule 1a anyway. Or waste my one hint."
The Doctor nodded slowly. Amara frowned, turning away from the two of them. She didn't know if her rules specified lying as an option- although if they did, that would probably ruin the whole point in a way. Plus, she had a feeling the Doctor knew when she was lying. Maybe because he was notorious for lying himself. Unless-
She turned around. "The colony has just been built. This is just the skeleton team. They're preparing the place for the actual colonists." She gestured to the smiley- well, now frowning- robot. Technically, she wasn't lying, and if the Doctor came to any conclusions, that was all on him and not her in a way, so she didn't have to worry about that either. Plus, it wasn't a spoiler- hopefully.
The Doctor nodded slowly. "That's it." He ran towards Bill, Amara following along. "This whole place. It's waiting."
Bill nodded, and then frowned at the plate with two cubes. "So, they're all still in bed? Also, why two portions?"
"That would be mine." The Doctor said, and Bill frowned. "Is there gonna be food sexism even in the future? Is this bloke utopia?"
"It's probably reading me as two people." He gestured to his hearts. "Two heartbeats." The Doctor walked away from her, going on a tangent while Bill's eyes widened a little bit. Amara shrugged. "Yeah, two hearts. He's an alien, expects everyone to just go along with it. And yes, he has really high blood pressure." Bill slowly took a bite of her cube.
"...You send a rocket load of intelligent robots up ahead of you." The Doctor continued walking around, spreading his hands out, oblivious to the exchange. "They build you a place to live, so that, when you arrive, it's all waiting. This is brilliant!" He ran away from the robot towards the window, continuing to talk.
"Why does he have two hearts?" Bill asked Amara, and she shrugged. "Different physiology. Different number of hearts. I'm not even sure he knows the answer to that."
"...send data back, so you know whether to bring your waterproofs or not. Work in huge robot flocks. You just send them up ahead and you leave them to it!" He leaned against the window railing thing, looking outside. He turned around, running towards the two of them. "This is brilliant! We don't have to deal with a bunch of nosy pudding brains!"
"I'm sorry, what?" Bill turned to him, an eyebrow raised. "Pudding brains?"
The Doctor rolled his eyes at her. "Have you met another human? Of course they're pudding brains." He gestured towards the two of them. "No offence to you two- you're a few of the only exceptions."
"Wow, that's a comfort." Bill stood up, shoving the entire cube in her mouth and flinching as she swallowed it. "Too salty." She muttered.
Amara giggled while the Doctor rolled his eyes. "Like I said, pudding brains."
"Hey, that's rude!" Amara grinned, shaking her head. The Doctor smiled back, "I'm not ginger. When I'm ginger, I'll stop being rude."
"One of the numerous rule number ones- the Doctor lies." She shrugged. She really had to make that list when she had the time.
He rolled his eyes at her. "You're the one who's insane about following rules. I'm," He gestured to himself. "Unpredictable." He waved his hands around, before turning towards another corridor. "Anyway, come along!"
The three of them then followed the robot into a greenhouse inside the complex. It had a huge transparent dome covering it, lined with white arches. There were different rows of plants and herbs like rosemary, cabbage, and potato. Each row was separated by a bunch of grey stone paths. There were sprinklers leaning down from the dome, spraying the plants with a white powder at regular intervals.
The robot went to stand by one of the plants- probably to take care of it- while the Doctor, Bill and Amara walked around on the stone paths. Amara stood close to the Doctor and as far away from the robot as possible. Her breathing became shallower as her sense of dread increased slowly. She knew what they were gonna see, and she was not looking forward to it. However, she tried her best to look as calm as possible- she had the mood patch on and didn't want to take any risks.
The Doctor frowned at her, placing his hands behind his back. "So," He started, making her jerk her head towards him. He closed his eyes, internally reprimanding himself for startling her like that, "What do you think?" He gestured to the garden, "Lovely place, isn't it?"
"I guess," She said, her voice extremely low, but slightly high-pitched. The Doctor frowned at her again. "You sure you're alright?"
She looked up at him and forced a smile. "Yeah, of course." She nodded, lifting her hands, which had two thumbs-up gestures, "Why wouldn't I be?"
"So, since people aren't here, what do we do?" Bill, who was walking a little ways in front of them, asked, "Put a kettle on?" The Doctor stopped, frowning at something on the ground. He bent down and picked it up, flashing it to Amara before hiding it behind his back. It was a blue pendant on a metal chain. Amara shrugged slightly, clasping her hands together.
Bill, who hadn't noticed any of this, turned around. "Or are we gonna leave before they arrive? Is that what you're worried about?"
The Doctor smiled at her and started walking forward, Amara following him. Bill frowned at the two of them. "I can see you're both worried."
Amara shrugged, widening her fake smile while the Doctor shrugged, leading the two of them forward. "Well, you never know what's around the next corner."
They walked into another section of the greenhouse, which was strictly just rows of plants. The ceiling was a lot lower, and the pumping of the white powder was a lot more often than it had been in the previous section. The smell of rosemary hit Amara's nose, mixed with a little bit of mint.
"Ah, of course, wheat fields outside, now something else to eat when they get here. This is their crops. Look, they're going to have orchards, olive groves. This is their nursery." The Doctor pointed to the robot, which was standing in front of a plant, its arms outstretched. Small golden light particles started forming around the plant. Amara frowned at them, before turning to the Doctor, who shrugged. "I know it looks like, well, can't say because rule 1a, but it's not that. The little robots are doing pollination-" He straightened up, his face hardening in realisation. "Work."
He turned to Amara questioningly, and she shrugged. "I can't read your thoughts, man. And even if I could, I don't think I'm supposed to answer whatever you're gonna ask me." She muttered, as Bill let out an exclamation.
"Oh, this plant!" She was standing in front of a rosemary bush. "There's one of these growing outside the Student Union. It smells amazing."
"Rosemary." The Doctor said absently before walking towards Bill.
"I'm smelling home twenty light years from home. Thanks for bringing me. This is a great day out." She walked forward before turning to the Doctor again. "I mean, come on, admit it. You love it."
The Doctor faked a smile. " Did I say I didn't love it? Yes, I do. It's very lovable. You asked me where all the people were, and I theorised that they hadn't got here yet. Did I sound convincing?"
"Yes?" Bill said. The Doctor turned around. "And did I convince myself?" His mood patch had a frowny face on it. "No." Bill shook her head.
"No." The Doctor repeated. He turned back to Amara. "And I'll tell you why. Because there should be somebody here. There should be some kind of set-up team, a skeleton crew." He turned to Amara, his eyebrows raised, and she nodded slowly, her hands folded tightly.
He turned around and started walking slowly. Bill pointed at his mood patch. "You're thinking. Tell me what you're thinking about."
"A magic haddock." Amara closed her eyes and shook her head. Bill frowned. "Obviously." She muttered, as Amara walked over to her and whispered, "It's an analogy."
"For what?" She raised an eyebrow and Amara shrugged. "All I can tell you. I'm just attempting to convince you that he's not completely batshit."
The Doctor whirled around and pointed at Amara. "Language." She frowned at him before folding her hands, closing her eyes, and shaking her head.
Bill placed her hand underneath one of the streams of the white powder. "What is this stuff? Is it snow?"
The Doctor placed his hand underneath as well. "This is fertiliser. Mineral fertiliser, calcium-based. Now, Bill and I don't have answers, so let's put together two questions." He walked towards the end of the greenhouse, placing a hand on one of the numerous white panels. "What is the source of this mineral fertiliser?"
He pulled out his screwdriver and used it on the panel, opening it up to reveal a grinder that was producing the white powder. Amara slowly backed away, knowing what was coming next, while the Doctor soniced a lower part of the panel. "And where are all the people?" He mused as the lower panel popped open, a bunch of human bones and skulls spilling out of it.
A/N: Hey guys! I've finally uploaded after a long week of finals (I still have one more left, but it's a long while away so I'm glad about that lol. I ope you guys enjoyed this chapter, please let me know what you think in the comments, I love reading them and seeing all your theories and thoughts :)
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Notary Sojac: As a person who also struggles with anxiety, I wanted Amara's experiences to be as realistic as possible, especially since that's how I've envisioned her character. I'm glad you like the banter between them, Amara's and the Doctor's dynamic is so much fun to write.
