Disclaimer: Still not mine. Sorry.
Author's Note: This and the next few chapters are going to be slightly later than usual, as I am on vacation. However, this chapter is also twice the length of normal due to the importance of the scenes, and the fact that I wrote it on the train, while heading to Pittsburgh for Tekkoshocon X-2.
The Doctor was being followed. It was not a feeling he was unaccustomed to, but st least this time it was a horse and not The Master. "Rose!" He worked through the corridors looking for his erstwhile companion...and Mickey. No luck, but unlike his companions, the horse seemed to have no issues following behind him. even when it wasn't wanted. He turned to the creature and put up a hand. "Would you stop following me? I'm not your mother!"
The horse snorted and this and pushed his head into The Doctor's arm as he examined another time window. "Is this where you came from, horsey?" He asked, opening bright white stable doors and stepping through them. He found himself just outside a stable when he did, and his eyes were immediately drawn to a mass of ginger hair, like a moth drawn to the flame on a match. Amy was with a group of friends, all of them dressed in riding outfits.
"When I said we should go to the pub for your stag night rather than stay in, this is not what I meant!" Amy declared, attempting to stuff her hair into the riding helmet. "Whose ever heard of a pub ride anyway?"
A tall, dark-haired young man laughed. "C'mon Amy, it'll be fun." Amy snorted in reply, and it made The Doctor smile. As if she could sense his presence, however, she turned and look toward him, forcing him to conceal himself along the wall of the stable.
"Are we sure this is safe?" Another voice asked, and The Doctor risked a peek out to see the man he had startled earlier. He rolled his eyes, and resumed watching.
Amy had swung herself up on a chestnut horse like she had done it her entire life, but she looked nervous and held the reins a bit too tight.
"Oh come off it, Rory." A third, heavier man said, his voice tinged with Wales, maybe even Cardiff. "We let you bring your girlfriend with the rest of the boys on Jeff's stag night. Don't start complaining."
"She's not my girlfriend, Rhys!" Rory, the man The Doctor had startled before, corrected.
"And I count as one of the boys." Amy corrected, looking in The Doctor's direction again, and causing him to hide once more. "Now come on, I have plans to get pissed, or are you going to stand around and gossip like the girls?"
The Doctor smiled at her words, and backtracked through the time window. This one was too risky, she had almost seen him twice, and there were more people around.
Rose was beginning to feel just a bit frightened of the ship. Mickey was slightly ahead of her. He hadn't yet really had a chance to get used to how they now lived. He turned to her, trying to rationalise what they had both seen. "Maybe it wasn't a real heart."
"Course it was a real heart." Rose disagreed, even though the thought made her feel distinctly queasy. Apparently she seemed slightly less affected by it than she thought.
"Is this like normal for you?" Mickey asked, just starting to understand how much Rose had changed since she had left him. "Is this an average day?"
"Life with The Doctor, Mikey?" Rose said simply. "No more average days." She stopped by what seemed to be a large, plate-glass window.
"Do you think it's England again?" Mickey asked, curious. "Can we see England?"
"I think we're looking through a mirror." Rose said. "But I'm not sure where it is."
They watched as Amy entered the room, dressed in a peach bridesmaid dress. "Well, that dress doesn't fulfill the one duty of the bridesmaid dress." Rose said, with a slight edge of envy in her voice.
"What's the one duty of the bridesmaid dress?"
The Doctor, coming up behind them, answered the question for Rose. "To make the bridesmaids look as horrible as possible in order to make the bride look better."
Mickey turned and looked at him. "I thought you were an alien. How is it you know these things and I don't?"
"Some things are universal, Mickey, my boy." The Doctor replied, shaking his head as he thought of his various wedding days.
Rose turned a big smile on The Doctor. "Oh, here's trouble." She remarked, tilting her head flirtatiously. "What you been up too?"
The Doctor answered just as casually. "Oh, this and that. Became the imaginary friend of a Scottish girl, picked a fight with a clockwork man..." He trailed off when the horse saw fit to stick his head around the corner and whicker. "Oh, and I met a horse."
"What's a horse doing on a spaceship?" Mickey asked, in the same tone he used when The Doctor had told Rose to show him the squash courts.
"Mickey, what's pre-interplanetary flight England doing on a spaceship? Get a little perspective!" He turned serious though, pondering the mystery. "See these? They're all over the place. On every deck. Gateways to history. But not just any old history." He watched as Amy moved over to the window, checking her hair and redoing her lip gloss. Someone else entered the opulent room, and spoke to her, though they could not hear what was being said, the other girl left shortly after. "Her history. Time windows deliberately arranged along the life of one particular woman. A spaceship from the fifty-first century stalking a woman from the twenty-first. Why?"
"Who is she?" Rose asked, watching The Doctor's face as he watched the window. She felt a stab of jealousy, not unlike their last adventure.
"Amelia Pond," The Doctor said, forming the name carefully. "Now known to her friends as Amy."
"Why are they so fixated on her?" Rose wondered aloud, unsure if she was referring to the clockwork androids or The Doctor himself. "If she's just a normal person?"
"Most powerful thing in the world, normal people." The Doctor said, shaking his head. "Making something out of nothing, scratching out existence from the bottom...but there's something special about her. I just...don't know what it is yet."
"Something you don't know?" Mickey said, semi-sarcastically. "That doesn't happen often, does it?"
"Not often." the Doctor replied. "Big old brain like mine, gets overstuffed sometimes. Bringing up things that don't really relate..." Suddenly, he caught sight of the clock on the far wall from them, it's face intact, but the wires for the batteries hanging loose.
Amy turned away from the mirror in the middle of the hotel. It was Jeff's wedding reception, and Sarah had told her that Rory was planning to finally 'make his move.' The thing was, Amy didn't really want Rory to make his move. Which is why she was here, checking on her sash for the third time and trying to decide what to do if her best friend really did decide to kiss her while they were dancing.
When she finally turned, she saw someone dressed like Victoria Beckham. Really, who wore black to a wedding? How long had this woman been creeping in the corner, listening to her talking out her inner battle? "How long have you been there?" She demanded. It had to be some relative of the bride's, because she knew everyone from Jeff's family. Leadworth was too small not to know.
The android turned slowly, and she found herself not looking at a member of the bride's family, but a female version of the monster under her bed. Before she could move to react, whether to scream or something else, there was a noise behind her, and her Fireplace Man was stepping out of the window with something that looked rather dangerous.
"Hello, Amy. Hasn't time flown?" The Doctor said, stepping toward the droid with purpose.
"Fireplace Man!" Amy said, surprised, but less so than she probably should. She moved slightly to get a better look as he sprayed the Posh-droid with he weapon he was holding, causing it to freeze up.
If everyone started to relax, it wasn't for long as the android let out a loud creak.
"What's it doing?" Mickey asked, catching the fire extinguisher again as The Doctor finished with it.
The Doctor stepped closer to the droid, inspecting the plastic face. "Switching back on. Melting the ice."
Mickey was not comforted by this. "And then what?"
The Doctor was serious. "Then it kills everyone in the room." He said simply. As if reacting to his statement, the droid extended her hand, causing him to jump back. "Focuses the mind, doesn't it?" He took a breath and focused on why he was here. "Who are you? identify yourself."
The droid made no move to answer.
The Doctor made a face and looked back at Amy. "Order it to answer me."
Amy was puzzled, but took a slight step forward. "Why would it listen to me?"
"I don't know, but it did when you were a child." The Doctor pointed out. He walked to her side and lowered his voice, speaking in a stage whisper in her ear. "Let's see if you've still got it."
Amy took a deep breath. "Answer the question." She ordered. She could feel the eyes of the two strangers on her, especially as the droid did not move. "Answer any question asked of you."
The droid took a moment and lowered it's hand, head still tilted awkwardly, like a marionette whose strings were not being controlled. "I am repair droid seven."
"Well, what happened to the ship then?" The Doctor queried. "There was a lot of damage."
"Ion storm. Eighty-two percent systems failure." The droid answered mechanically.
That explained the damage, but not while it was still there, hanging in space, a derelict. "That ship hasn't moved in over a year. What's taken you so long?"
"We did not have the parts."
Mickey, ever the mechanic, laughed. He knew that song and dance. It seemed almost comforting to know that even in the fifty-first century things couldn't be fixed with a wave of a wand. You still needed parts. "Always comes down to that, doesn't it? The parts."
"What's happened to the crew?" The Doctor asked. In his scans he had notice that no escape pods had been deployed.
The droid only echoed itself. "We did not have the parts."
That was not helpful. "There should have been over fifty people on your ship. Where did they go?"
Again, the echo. "We did not have the parts."
Amy realised it first and mad a sound of disgust. "Did you use the people? As parts?"
"They were compatible." The droid answered.
"The crew?" Mickey repeated, trying to fight back the bile rising in his throat.
"We found a camera with an eye in it, and there was a heart wired in to machinery." Rose said, looking ill.
The Doctor looked at the droid, and imagined the people, the repair droids only doing what they were told, not understanding the heinous nature of their actions. "It was just doing what it was programmed to. Repairing the ship any way it can, with whatever it could find. No one told it the crew weren't on the menu. What did you say the flight deck smelt of?"
"Someone cooking." Rose said, trying to pull herself together in the face of what she had said, what she had thought when she smelled it.
"Flesh plus heat." the Doctor said, shaking his head. "Barbecue."
"Well, I'm never eating again." Amy said, unable to help making a face.
"You've opened up time windows. That takes colossal energy. Why come here? You could have gone to your repair yard. Instead you come to twenty-first century England? Why?" The Doctor was afraid he knew the answer, but he had to ask anyway. If he had to stop them, he would, but he had to know.
"One more part is required." The droid intoned.
"So why haven't you taken it?" The Doctor asked, looking back at Amy, who despite being scared, was resolute.
"She is incomplete." This droid echoed the one in the bedroom so long ago.
"I'll show you incomplete, you Spice-girl-horror show!" Amy said, taking several large steps forward.
The Doctor stopped her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her tight against his chest "I won't let anything happen to you." He promised. "I've gotcha." His tone had softened just enough to make Rose's eyes cross. When he turned back to the droid, however, he was all business, The Oncoming Storm, come to call. "What, so, that's the plan, then. Just keep opening up more and more time windows, scanning her brain, checking to see if she's done yet?"
Rose, trying to hide her jealousy, and failing, at least from Mickey, asked a question. A question that had bothered her since they had started watching at the mirror. "Why her? You've got all of history to choose from. Why specifically her?"
"We are the same." The droid intoned.
That triggered something in Amy, who had gone almost docile in the doctor's arms when he had taken hold of her. "We are not the bloody same!" She shouted.
"We are the same." The droid intoned.
For a moment, The Doctor felt her shake and thought she was giving in to fear, but as he shifted his hand to place a comforting palm on her back, he realised that it was not fear but anger.
"Get out." Amy said, in a cold voice.
"Amy, no!" The Doctor said, releasing her. "No!" But it was too late, the droid had teleported.
"it's back on the ship!" the Doctor said, hurrying back to the mirror. "Rose, take Mickey and Arthur. Get after it. Follow it. Don't approach it, just watch what it does."
Rose started towards the mirror, but then paused, looking over her shoulder. "Arthur?"
"Good name for a horse." The Doctor replied, as if it were obvious.
"No, you're not keeping the horse!" Rose declared.
The Doctor shooed her through the mirror. "I let you keep Mickey. Now go! Go! Go!"
Rose took a deep breath and stepped back through. She was silent through the corridors at first, trying to make sense of it all.
Mickey had a feeling that she probably felt like he did after Christmas, when he had said I love you, and she had only said goodbye with the biggest smile on her face, as if she couldn't care less. So, being Mickey, he decided to joke. "So, that Doctor, eh?"
Rose bristled. "What are you talking about?"
Mickey figured this was as close to as he was going to get to make his point. "Well, Amelia Pond, The Corsair, Sarah Jane Smith, Cleopatra..." Rose made a face at him. It was as close to her 'are-you-really-watching-a-football-match' face as he'd seen in ages. It was working and he stepped ahead of her, walking backwards to keep it going.
"Cleopatra he mentioned her once and The Corsair was male half the time!" Rose argued, feeling particularly sensitive.
"Yeah, but he called her Cleo." Mickey argued. "And apparently The Corsair was a bad gir..."
Mickey!" Rose shouted as an android grabbed him from behind. She struggled for a moment as she was restrained, before everything went black.