Questions
The Doctor was not happy about the fact he'd had to leave Adelaide in a room filled with pirates, but he was especially not happy about the fact that the TARDIS, their only way of getting out, had just flown off on its own. And the fact that Adelaide would probably blame him for it, even if she wouldn't say it.
The pair of them made their way back towards Avery's quarters since, apparently, it was closer than the magazine. But they hadn't gotten far when Mulligan appeared, decked in treasure and with two guns aimed at them.
"Mulligan, what are you doing?" Avery asked, glaring. Mulligan just pushed them back more. "This is mutiny!"
"She doesn't want me," Mulligan pushed his way past them. "She only wants Toby." Now he was standing behind them. "And the scrawny looking fella." And then he ran off.
"He's got the last of the supplies," the Doctor said, looking after him. "We should go after him."
"Never mind the damned supplies. What about my treasure?" Avery ran after Mulligan, following him to another storeroom where Mulligan fired at them and forced them to duck out of the way.
"Don't get injured!" the Doctor told Avery. "Don't get injured!"
They ran after Mulligan just until he ran into a room and locked the door behind him. "Come out of there, you mutinous dog!" The Doctor rushed up to sonic the door open, but they both stepped back when they heard the siren song, checking for any injuries. They looked down as the green light shone from under the door.
"She's inside," the Doctor whispered.
"She's come for Mulligan." And then Mulligan screamed.
The Doctor rushed forward again, opening the door and letting them rush inside. He turned in a circle as he soniced the room while Avery went for the golden crown that had fallen to the ground.
"No water in here," Avery said. "How did she take him? Your woman said she uses water like a door, that's how she enters a room."
"She was wrong." And then he froze, looking around as though Adelaide could hear him and she would scold him, even though part of him knew that she'd more likely welcome being proven wrong. "Don't you dare tell her I said that." Avery just scoffed at him. "We're all in danger. The water's not how she's getting in." He was fairly certain Adelaide would kill him when she learned he was making theories, but they had no mental connection for him to ask for her help, so he was on his own now. "When we were down in the hold, think what happened. You, me, Adelaide, Amy, Rory, leeches."
"She sprang from the water."
The Doctor nodded. "Yes, only when it grew still. Still water. Nature's mirror."
"So…you mean…" Avery looked down at the crown.
"Yes. Not water. Reflection." The Doctor pointed at the crown. "That siren legend, the curse!"
"You both said curses weren't real!"
He shrugged. "Folklore springs from truth. She attacks ships filled with treasure. Where else do you get a perfect reflection?"
"Polished metal." Avery looked down where his medallion must have normally hung, the medallion he had given to his son, the medallion that was with Adelaide. The Doctor hid the crown beneath his jacket before turning and running off, not giving Avery an attempt to say "we must warn them!"
They rushed through the ship, banging on the door the moment they reached it. "Adelaide! Open the-" He didn't need to finish the sentence because Adelaide had already opened the door looking some combination of confused and worried. "Medallion!"
She didn't ask, just turned and grabbed the medallion that Toby had been polishing from his hand, sticking it deep into her pocket. "Let me guess, it doesn't come through water?"
The Doctor nodded, grabbing Adelaide's hand and pulling her towards the captain's quarters. "We've got to destroy every reflection." He grabbed a musket and started to smash the windows. "Gold, silver, glass, she could spring from any of them." The Doctor turned and saw the mirror Adelaide had just held up, smashing it before looking towards Avery. "Oh, yes, yes, I know, I know. Very bad luck to break it. But look at it this way; there's a stroppy homicidal mermaid trying to kill all."
Avery shook his head. "How much worse can things get?"
"We need to take these out," Adelaide called, making them all turn. She had moved to stand beside a table with a large box of treasure on it. She hadn't needed the Doctor to explain exactly what he'd determined; he'd been gone for some time, she'd already begun to think that, perhaps, the siren didn't need just water. It had been confirmed when the Doctor had run up shouting about a medallion.
Avery and the Doctor came over to lift it. "Where are we taking it?" Avery asked.
"The ocean."
"No! No! This is the treasure of the Mogul of India."
The Doctor shrugged. "Oh, good. For a moment there I thought it was yours."
"No, no, Doctor, Adelaide, wait. Must we do this?"
"Any reflection, any mirror, and the siren will attack." Avery looked away. "We have to protect Rory and Toby."
Adelaide touched Avery's shoulder. "Get the crown from the storeroom."
Avery nodded, leaving the Time Lords to throw the gold out of the windows. "Just so you know, Doctor," Adelaide said, not looking at him, "I will forgive you for the fact you had a theory without me."
He paused and kissed her quickly, managing to catch her before she ducked out of the way.
|C-S|
"Just wait?" Rory asked them as the Time Lords walked away to stand closer to the captain.
"My part of the plan," the Doctor offered, an arm around Adelaide's shoulder. "She's still upset with me."
"TARDIS?"
Adelaide shrugged. "It's been taken, apparently."
Amy's eyes widened. "What?"
"Sorry, we might be stuck here for a while."
"So you're saying that we should all just wait here below?"
Avery nodded. "The sea is still calm, like a mirror. If you go out on the deck she'll rise up and attack you."
"It's okay, the calm won't last forever. When the wind picks up we'll all set sail."
"Until it does, you have to hide down here."
|C-S|
The Time Lords sat on the deck of the ship since neither of them had the mark. Adelaide sat in the Doctor's arms, both of them looking up at the stars and testing each other on their names...and going on tangents about some sort of adventure that had happened relating to the star. It was quite an enjoyable task and was good for passing the time since they didn't have a TARDIS.
She didn't blame the Doctor for losing the TARDIS, but she was still annoyed about it.
They looked over when they heard someone walking up to see Avery joining them. The Doctor pointed up at a particular star, the one he and Adelaide had just been discussing. "It's not one star, it's two."
"The Dog star, Sirius," Adelaide explained. "Binary system."
Avery shrugged. "I use it to navigate the ocean."
"We've travelled far, like you," the Doctor said. "Space can be very lonely, and the greatest adventure is having someone share it with you." He kissed Adelaide's cheek, making her smile.
"If we get out of this I'll take him back to England. He can't stay with me. I'm not the father he needs."
Adelaide looked over at Avery, frowning. "How did this happen, Henry Avery? Respected naval officer with a wife and child at home. How did you end up wandering the oceans with a band of rogues?"
Avery shook his head, looking down. "I've set my course now. Nothing I can do to alter it."
She nodded up at the sky. "People stared at it for centuries and never knew."
The Doctor nodded and the pair of them stood. "Things can suddenly change, when you're least expecting."
|C-S|
Since their privacy had been interrupted, the Time Lords had retreated to the captain's quarters. Not that they were going to do anything, not on a pirate ship, but they preferred to talk about their lives where other people wouldn't easily be able to hear them. There were secrets in the lives of the last two Time Lords, secrets they couldn't risk letting someone else hear.
However, almost as soon as they arrived, they paused to look out the window, frowning. It felt almost like someone was…
"Doctor? Adelaide?" Amy said quietly.
"Shush…" the Doctor frowned.
She came up beside them. "What can you see?"
"Feels like something's out there. Staring straight at us…" thunder rumbled through the sky. "Man the sails!" he shouted, turning and running back up onto deck.
|C-S|
Very quickly, it began to rain quite hard. Avery hung from a rope while Amy and Rory rushed up. "To the rigging, you dogs!" he shouted at them. "Let go the sails. Avast ye!" They ran off to the sails. "Put the bunt into the slack of the clews!"
Adelaide ran up to steer the ship while the Doctor ran to help Avery. "Toby!" Avery called at his son, spotting the boy trying to make his way towards him. "Find my coat. My compass is inside it, boy." He glanced back over at Amy and Rory. "Heave ho, you bilge rats!"
Somehow, the clanging sound broke through the sound from the storm, and everyone looked over to see the crown rolling away from Toby, having fallen from the coat. It rolled to a stop just a bit away from him and, a second later, the siren flew out of it and landed before Toby, holding a hand out to him.
"Don't let her take you!" Avery shouted, trying to make his way towards his son as the boy walked towards the Siren. "No!" Toby reached out a hand, touched the siren, and vanished. "No!" Avery collapsed to the ground, Amy pulling Rory away from the siren.
The Doctor ran forward and tossed the crown into the ocean, making the siren fade away.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Avery wept, just staring at where his son had vanished.
"You couldn't give up the gold, could you," the Doctor snapped, almost thankful Adelaide was still too far away to criticize him for his rudeness. "That's why you turned pirate. Your commission, your wife, your son. Just how much is that treasure worth to you, man?"
There was a scream as a sail, swinging loose, hit Rory and threw him overboard. "Rory!" Amy ran to the side of the boat, searching for her husband. "Rory! I can't see him!" The Doctor ran over, Adelaide coming down to that level of deck. "Doctor! I'm going in!"
"He's drowning," the Doctor said, grabbing Amy's arm to stop her taking off her jacket. "He's drowning! You go in after him, you'll drown too. There's only one thing that can save him now."
"What are you talking about?"
The Doctor looked back at Adelaide, who was standing closer to the barrels. "The siren. The siren, she wants him. We have to release her."
Amy's eyes widened. "Adelaide, no!"
But Adelaide didn't listen. She opened the barrel of water and let the siren fly out as the Doctor dragged Amy away. "He's drowning! Go and find him!" The siren dived into the water.
"What did you do?"
"If he stays in there he'll die," the Doctor said.
"But she'll destroy him."
Adelaide shook her head. "She's not a ravenous hunter; she's intelligent. We'll be able to reason with her and it's highly possible they're still alive somewhere." She took a deep breath. "We have to follow them."
"Are you mad?"
She shrugged. "Perhaps. But if you ever want to see them again, we're going to need to let the siren take us."
The Doctor nodded. "We'll prick our fingers. All agreed?" he pulled a nail from his jacket. "Yeah?"
It took Avery a second to nod. "Aye."
Then Amy. "Aye."
The Doctor reached for Adelaide's hand, not needing to ask her; she had come up with the plan, after all. An exchange of their newly defined roles. Squeezing it, he pricked a finger on the other hand, then Avery, then Amy, and finally his own.
The siren appeared almost instantly, holding out her hand to all of them. And they all reached out to touch her.
|C-S|
The moment the Doctor sat up he searched for Adelaide, thankful that she was sitting next to him, still holding hands. They'd woken on a metal floor and slowly Amy and Avery were waking beside them.
"Where are we?" Amy said, groaning.
"We haven't moved," the Doctor said, pointing towards a window nearby. "We're in exactly the same place as before." They all stood, looking through the window to see the deck of the ship they'd just been standing on, still trapped in a storm.
"We're on a ghost ship," Avery breathed, his eyes wide.
"No, it's real," Adelaide said, glancing around. "This spaceship is trapped in a temporal rift."
"How can two ships be in the same place?"
"Not the same," she corrected. "Two planes, two worlds."
"Two cards parked in the same space," the Doctor offered. "There are lots of different universes nested inside each other. Now and again they collide, and you can step from one to the other."
Amy nodded. "Okay, I think I understand."
"Good, because it's not like that at all." He shrugged. "But if that helps."
Amy sighed. "Thanks."
Adelaide picked up a piece of metal from the ground, throwing it at the window. "All the reflections have become gateways."
"Ever look in a mirror and think you're seeing a whole other world? Well, this time it's not an illusion."
There was a quiet beeping noise behind them and they turned, beginning to follow it. "The signal?" Amy guessed.
"Yes."
"The distress call."
"Uh huh."
"There was a second ship here all the time."
There was a faint singing sound further in the ship. "And the siren is on board." The Doctor hit a button on a nearby door to reveal an alien skeleton. They all stepped back from the shock, Avery even pulling out his gun, but he lowered it.
Adelaide frowned at it, not recognizing the species, and that alone surprised her...and annoyed her. "Dead."
Carefully, they slipped around the alien into the bridge of the ship. There were more skeletons here, the one in the pilot's seat looking towards the captain's quarters from Avery's ship. The Time Lords stepped up to the alien to study it, while Amy and Avery looked out at the other ship.
"You were right," Amy said. "There was something strange staring at us the whole time. How long has this ship been marooned here?"
Avery glanced back at the skeleton. "Long enough for the Captain to have run out of grog."
Amy shook her head. "I don't understand. If this is the Captain, then what's the siren?"
The Doctor shrugged. "Same as us. A stowaway."
"She killed it?"
Adelaide held up her sonic's results, comparing them with the Doctor's before speaking. "Human bacteria."
"What?"
"A virus from your planet," Adelaide nodded towards Amy. "Airborne, somehow traveled through the portal. That's what killed it."
"Didn't get its jabssss…" The Doctor grimaced, pulling his hand away from the console. He'd started to lean against it for balance, only to put his hand right in the slime that covered it. "Urh." He held it up to Adelaide. "Look."
She sighed at him. "Really, Doctor? There are better ways to go about that. Like not touching the strange substance with your bare skin."
He grinned. "Alien bogies!" Then he tried to shake his hand to get it off, only for nothing to happen. Instead, he just moved to wipe it on Amy's jacket, but Adelaide grabbed his shoulder.
"You have towels in your jacket," she reminded him, reaching in for it while taking care not to touch the slime herself. "At least pretend you have some semblance of manners." When he tried to get the slime on her again, she swat his wrist with the towel before tossing it on his face, walking past him to another room.
It seemed to be some sort of medical ward, given the number of people lying on tables hanging from the ceiling with their shirts and shoes off. There were various tubes connected to them, monitoring them in some way.
"McGrath!" Avery rushed past her, pointing at one of them. "He's one of my men!"
Amy walked up to him. "He's still breathing."
"My entire crew is here." Avery looked around. "Toby!" he rushed to his son.
"Rory!" Amy did the same to her husband.
"The TARDIS!" the Doctor ran up to the ship, kissing the door.
Adelaide, in turn, was studying one of the men and the machinery around it.
"We have to get them out of here!" Avery shouted, moving to unstrap his son.
"Wait," Adelaide called, walking over to him and scanning the boy quickly. "His fever's gone."
Amy glanced over. "He looks so well."
Adelaide nodded. "She's keeping him alive. His brain is still active, but all its cellular activity is suspended." She glanced up at the Doctor, the man standing on the other side of the boy. "It's a tissue sample."
He frowned. "Why get samples of people you're about to kill?"
"Help me get him up," Amy said, unstrapping Rory. They hadn't gotten far before a beeping sounded and the siren's song began to echo through the room.
"She's coming," the Doctor breathed, and they all ran to hide behind a panel station. Even if Adelaide was beginning to believe the siren wasn't a threat, even she could admit the siren wouldn't take well to knowing there were strangers on the ship.
The siren floated up to Rory, who was now awake. She held a hand above him and, after singing for a few seconds, he fell back asleep.
"Anesthetic."
Avery looked at the Time Lords. "What?"
"The music. The song. So she anesthetizes people and puts their body in stasis."
The siren moved towards Toby, making Avery stand with his gun out. "Avery, no!"
But Avery didn't listen and shot at the siren, which only turned red. She spun to look at him, hissing. The Doctor ran around to the other side of the siren and sneezed, Adelaide working on keeping Amy from danger.
The siren stopped a bit away from Avery and turned towards the Doctor, creating fire between their hands. "Fire, that's new," the Doctor said. "What does fire do? Burn? Yes. Destroy? What else?"
"Sterilize!" Adelaide called.
His eyes widened. "I sneezed! I've brought germs in." He blew his nose into a hanky and threw it away, watching the siren send the fire at it instead of him.
"Amy, no!" Adelaide shouted, Amy managing to pull away when Adelaide was distracted. "Don't interfere," the siren turned to Amy instead. "Don't touch him."
"Anesthetic, tissue sample, screen, sterile working conditions…" the Doctor glanced at Adelaide, seeing her manage to nod at him. As expected, she'd already realized what he'd just determined. "Ignore all our previous theories!"
"Yeah?" Amy scoffed. "Well, we stopped paying attention a while back. Especially to yours."
"She's not a killer, she's a doctor!"
Amy froze with the news, having been attempting to mess with Rory's life support. The siren returned to the calm green from before.
"This is an automated sick bay," Adelaide explained. "It's teleporting everyone on board. Since the crew are dead, the sick bay has nothing to do, so it's been looking after humanity."
The Doctor nodded at the siren. "Look at her. A virtual doctor able to sterilize a whole room."
"Able to burn your face off."
"She's just an interface," Adelaide said, "broadcasting into our world. There must be protean circuitry allowing her to change her form and become a human doctor for humans."
The Doctor grinned. "Oh, sister, you are good."
Amy tried to take off Rory's breathing collar but the siren turned red again, forcing Amy to take a step back. "She won't let us take them," Avery said, having gone to stay near Toby.
"She's keeping them alive, but she doesn't know how to heal them."
Amy frowned at Rory. "I'm his wife, for God's sake. Why can't I touch him?"
The Doctor nodded towards the siren. "Tell her, Amy. Show her your ring. She may be virtual but she's intelligent. You can't do anything without her consent." He gestured between Amy and Rory's hand, showing the rings. "Come on, sophisticated girl like you. That must be somewhere in your core program."
Amy glared at the siren. "Look, he's very ill, okay? I just want to look after him. Why won't you let me near my husband?" the siren seemed to realize something and held out her hand to Amy, making a golden ring appear around it. Amy looked towards the Time Lords for explanation.
"Consent form," Adelaide said. "Put your hand in the light to sign it."
"Rory's sick. You have to take full responsibility."
Carefully, Amy reached out and put her hand through the light, making the siren disappear. Amy glanced back at the Time Lords before they all rushed to Rory's side. She hit a button on the side and Rory jerked up sitting, gasping.
"He can't breathe!" the Doctor shouted. "Turn it back on!"
Amy hit the button again and Rory fell back again, asleep. "What do we do? I can't just leave him here."
"He'll die if you take him out," Avery said, looking down at his son.
Amy ran a hand across Rory's forehead. "Rory?" she whispered. "Rory, wake up."
Slowly, Rory blinked awake. "Where am I?"
"You're in a hospital," the Doctor said, cutting in before Adelaide could. "If you leave, you might die." Adelaide hit his arm.
Amy glared at the Doctor before looking back at Rory. "But if you don't, you'll have to stay forever."
"You're staying that if I don't get up now…"
"You can never leave."
"The siren will keep you safe."
Rory nodded. "And if I come with you?"
"Drowning, on the point of death." Adelaide hit the Doctor again for that.
Rory's eyes widened. "I'm a nurse."
"What?"
"I can teach you how to save me."
Amy leaned back, shaking her head. "Whoa, hold on…"
"I was drowning. You just have to resuscitate me."
"Just?"
"You've seen them do it loads of times in films. CPR. The kiss of life."
Amy shook her head again, tears in her eyes. "Rory, this isn't a film, okay? What if I do it wrong?"
"You won't."
"Okay, what if you don't come back to life? What if…"
"I trust you."
Amy looked up at the Time Lords. "What about them? I mean, why do I have to be the one? Why do I have to save you?" Thankfully, they didn't mention that the siren would probably attack them if they dared lay a hand on Rory while he was still injured.
"Because I know you'll never give up," Rory said, making Amy nod. As the Time Lords stepped away, he began to describe exactly what Amy would do.
"We have to send this ship back into space," the Doctor turned Avery, who was still near his son. "Imagine if the siren got ashore. She would have to process every injured human."
"What about Toby?"
The Doctor shook his head. "I'm sorry. Typhoid fever. Once he returns it's only a matter of time."
"What if I stay with him?" Avery offered. "Here? The siren will look after him. I can't go back to England. And what home does he have now, if not with me?"
The Time Lords couldn't help but smile. "You believe you can sail this ship?"
Avery grinned. "Just point me to the atom accelerator."
The Doctor laughed, patting Avery on the shoulder before going back to Amy and Rory just as Rory finished explaining. "I know you can do this," Rory told her. "Of course, if you muck it up I am going to be really cross. And dead."
Amy chuckled slightly, though she still seemed terrified. "I'll see you in a minute." She looked up at the Time Lords and, after nodding, began to rip off the restraints.
Rory gasped and the Time Lords carried him to the TARDIS, dropping him on the floor and stepping back so that Amy could begin the CPR. She gave him five chest compressions and a breath while the Time Lords stood to the side. When she looked back at Rory, there was no change.
The Doctor started to chew on his thumbnail, and even Adelaide ran a hand through her hair in worry. "Come on," he breathed, "come on, Rory. Not here, not this way, not today."
Amy did it again, but still nothing. "He trusted me. He trusted me to save him!"
The Doctor, standing closer to her, reached out and put a hand on Amy's shoulder. "You still can. You can still do this. He believes in you. Come on, Amy!" Amy nodded, beginning again. "Come on!"
"Please, please, please wake up," Amy begged, doing it again, as the Time Lords just watched in horror. "Wake up. Wake up. Come on. Come on." But it didn't work. Rory wasn't moving, and Amy fell against him, sobbing.
Until he started coughing, chocking on water. He rolled to the side as Amy fell back, the trio watching him in shock, though the Time Lords did walk back to the console, leaving the humans to do whatever they needed.
|C-S|
The Time Lords stood by the console of the TARDIS, frowning at the screen before them. Amy and Rory had gone off to dry off since he had fallen into an ocean in the middle of a storm, but they knew the pair would have to pass through the console to get to the rest of the TARDIS.
They were right and could hear the companions walking up and talking. "I thought I was an excellent pirate."
"I thought you were an excellent nurse."
Amy smiled at Rory. "Easy, tiger." She turned to look at the Time Lords, who had swung away their monitor. "Goodnight, Doctor, Adelaide."
"Goodnight Amelia," the Doctor said, Adelaide nodding.
Amy frowned at both of them. "You only call me Amelia when you're worrying about me."
He shrugged. "We always worry about you."
Amy swallowed hard before speaking, making Adelaide frown. "Mutual."
"Go to bed, Amy," Adelaide said. "You too, Rory."
Amy glanced back at Rory and the Time Lords couldn't see what was said, but it made Amy nod and the pair of them leave the room.
Once the Time Lords were certain the humans had left, they pulled the monitor back.
They'd run another scan of Amy, and this one had the same results as the last.
Flickering between positive and negative.
"Oh, Amelia," the Doctor breathed.
A/N: No big revelations for the Time Lords here, but the next chapters...oh, those are some big ones ;)
Notes on reviews:
slytherpuffrules: I'm glad you liked it! Don't know if I said it before, but I love your username :)