In-between and shorter. Sorry. Something reasonably significant happens in this chapter but I won't fully explain what's happened/happening for a bit, and this is just a trigger for something a lot bigger.
CHAPTER 17. The Unbreakable Wall: 24 October – 3 November 2010
"Did you mean it?"
"Mean what?" Amy's tone was harsh and clipped. Saving Broad's life was one thing – being friendly with her, quite another.
"Whatever you were threatening to do back there to those guys. Could you really have done that?"
"Want to find out?"
Katherine swallowed. "Not really."
"Good answer."
They strode down the leafy terraced street, heading purposefully back towards Katherine's townhouse. Amy marched stiffly ahead, Katherine following a few places behind – she didn't want to get too close, not least for her own physical well-being. Amy had called Jack on her sonic phone, curtly informing him that yes, the Precept goons had found Broad, no, they hadn't hurt her, yes, they were coming back. She didn't elaborate on the details of the rescue – now that she was calmer, she was beginning to have considerable second thoughts on how the scene had played out.
The Doctor wouldn't have done that... damn. She'd actually threatened them. Threatened to kill them, or worse. The Doctor would never have done that. This is exactly what he was scared of. What she was supposed to be scared of. Control yourself, Amy Pond, she rebuked herself, or you'll hurt more than just a few mobsters.
She shook her head, clearing her mind. It's not like I would have actually have done it. Just the threat of it was enough, she reasoned, resolutely refusing to acknowledge that it was completely beside the point. There'd be time to deal with that later, and time was one thing she had plenty of.
Jack glanced nervously out the window, pacing the entrance hallway. His mind, although sharp and very much used to taking in the seemingly impossible, still hadn't quite caught up with the implications of Amy's nature. Calm, Harkness. She'll be fine... it's the others that need to worry.
A four-beat marching of footsteps and the door was wrenched open, revealing a somewhat smug-looking Amy Pond and a shaken but very much alive and in one piece Kath behind her.
"Oh, thank God," he murmured, rushing over and pulling the blonde into his arms, pressing his lips against her forehead. Amy watched, eyebrows raised.
"Bit forward, aren't ya?"
Jack blushed slightly, but covered it by smirking at the red-head. "Speak for yourself, Miss Pond," he retorted, extricating himself from the embrace.
She tossed her hair. "No idea what you mean." She instantly swore to herself never to tell him about the incident in her bedroom months ago. "So, the Doctor and Rory turn up yet?"
He looked at the grandfather clock on the ceiling. "Nah, but they should be back any-" A tick of the clock. "-second-" Another tick. A gentle breeze filling the room. A soft mechanical whirring, fading in and out. "-now." A police box, standing in the middle of the room, the lamp on the top scraping the ceiling slightly.
The doors opened.
"I trust you kids have been behaving yourselves?" the Doctor asked.
Katherine stood a foot within the entrance, her mind having quite simply ceased operating.
The Doctor skipped down from the central console to join her, having managed to successfully dodge Amy's furious tongue-lashing she had prepared for him for dragging Rory and not her off to help fly the TARDIS.
"Incredible, amazing, impossible, isn't it?"
"It's... it's..." she stammered, turning around slowly to take in the cavernous depths of the 'police box' interior.
"Bigger on the inside?"
"Well – yes."
The Doctor laughed and clapped his hands together, skipping back up to the central console and throwing his hands at a series of levers. "See, Rory? That's how you're supposed to respond. Same goes for you, Pond. 'I'm in my nightie'", he intoned girlishly, scoffing. "I mean, really," he added, dodging the swing of the Scottish girl's arm.
The Doctor continued to roll around the TARDIS, flicking switches and spinning knobs. He came to rest in front of a silver-gold lever reminiscent of an aircraft throttle, lined with bright green lights. He yanked it downwards with all his strength and a tremor ran through the TARDIS, knocking all five slightly-off balance. Seemingly expecting it, Amy, Rory and Jack quickly righted themselves, but Katherine found herself on the floor next to the door. Amy suppressed a smirk.
"What the hell was that?" Katherine asked, having recovered managed to get her higher order thinking processes restarted – mostly.
"We've taken off, that's all. Nothing dangerous."
"Taken – taken off? You mean we're leaving?"
"Yep!"
"But – but," a million thoughts washed through her mind. She had prepared herself to leave, but she hadn't expected it to be so sudden. At a minimum, she'd expected to at least have time to pack. There were things she needed to have. "My clothes – and food, and – and stuff. I sort of need it."
"Oh, don't worry about it. Wardrobe has all the clothes you'll ever need, and then some, judging by the number of shirts Pond goes through. Pantry restocks itself every hour, but the fish fingers and custard is off-limits. Oh, and there's the choice of bathrooms there, there and there," he added, pointing to the various corridors that led away from the control room. He twirled back to the console panel, laughing gaily.
"All of time and space – everything that ever happened, everything that ever will. The universe is our backyard," he exulted, throwing his arms wide (and narrowly missing hitting Rory in the face). "So let's go out for playtime, shall we?" He moved to an old typewriter, and began hammering away at the keys. "And I know just the place to start."
No answer. He looked up at entrance. "Katherine?"
She'd gone. He frowned.
"Where'd she go?"
Jack had a lopsided, wry smirk on his face. This clearly wasn't how the Doctor had hoped the introduction would go. "Wardrobe."
The Doctor groaned. "Women," he muttered.
This time Amy didn't miss.
His initial irritation and yet another TARDIS welcoming going awry aside, the Doctor quickly warmed to the blonde. Although clearly shaken by being kidnapped and having to be saved from imminent sexual assault and murder twice, she proved herself to be determined, resourceful, sharp-tongued and very, very sharp. Much like, the Doctor noted silently, a certain Scottish redhead.
He was thankful for this for her sake, because said Scottish redhead was finding the arrangement, although necessary, not to her liking at all, and didn't hesitate to show it. They still hadn't gone anywhere – first by agreement for a few days for both to recover (Amy's guilt over her murder was only just beginning to subside), but the Doctor quickly became bored.
Unfortunately, their break-from-adventure-by-agreement had become a break-from-adventure-by-force after the two firebrands had dismantled half the console room to use as missiles to hurl at each other during one particularly heated argument over heaven knew what – from the screamed curses, the Doctor gathered that neither was particular impressed with each other's intrusions on their private wardrobe sections. The damage from this particular tiff was so severe that he had to let the TARDIS repair itself – and with people inside, this would happen the slow way.
So that was another week gone down the drain. It really was amazing how long that could can be even after nine or so centuries of life.
Still, he had things to do – a week confined with Amy (and others) in the TARDIS meant he had ample opportunity to pursue his other major task. Jack, it turned out, was a highly capable if not always happy associate, and his spyings – as much as he tried not to admit it, that's what they were – were much more fruitful than beforehand.
However, that wasn't saying much.
Amelia, seven, sitting on her suitcase, waiting. Amelia, eight, colouring in a toy TARDIS. Amelia, nine, yelling at a psychiatrist. This is all not very useful – I already knew about all this, thanks. Yes, I screwed her up good and proper, no need to remind me.
He kept trying.
Amy, ten, playing dress-up. Amy, eleven, yelling at a teacher, her face screwed up in fury. Amy, twelve, doing the same with another psychiatrist. Amy, thirteen, busy poring over history books, presumably for any sign of a police box. Amy, fourteen, running from Rory one lunchtime, tears pouring down her face – gee, that's rare. Not sure I want to know what happened there.
And that was it. The moment he tried to push into when she was fifteen, he got nothing. Nada. Just a blank, black, pile of zero. It was as if the year 2004 had been completely erased from her memory... but even that wouldn't be so complete. No, this was deliberate. Conscious. And extraordinarily powerful. The moment he hit that mental wall, he knew that the object of his search was sitting right on the other side. Right behind that immense, unbreachable barrier.
Ha. I'm the Doctor. Nothing is unbreachable. You just have to put some effort into it.
He was even more determined to succeed once he saw what was there when he went around this impossible wall. Up until 2004, Amy was a strange, introverted and witty young girl – so basically as he knew her. 2005, however...
Amy, doubled over, vomiting after having had far too much to drink one evening. Amy, dazed and in hospital, Rory holding her hand, as medics rush her inside a ward after a minor heroin overdose. And it just got worse and worse. Eventually, the memories were so distressing, so painful even for the Doctor, that he simply couldn't see them. He left them well alone. Thankfully, by late 2005 she seemed to have more or less recovered, although he noted that she was going exclusively by the 'Amy' moniker now.
He was in no doubt. Whatever had broken Amelia Pond, whatever she was holding back, whatever had happened to put her mind in such a state that it now left everyone around her in terrible danger, happened when she was in fifteen.
So he kept trying.
Right, so, usual way. Past the big first layer, then these little ones, then that nasty psychic feedback loop she has set up, and through the randomized psychic dislocation thing she has going – nice trick, that one, Dulkios knew what he was doing when he wrote that – and under this wall, and yes. We're in.
He felt the wash of random memories, thoughts, and emotions wash over and caress his presence as he flitted through her mind. He took care to avoid contact that wasn't blatantly related to his search – he was well aware he shouldn't be here at all. Got a job to do, he firmly told himself.
Through the usual scar-crusting of mistrust, pain and regret she held in the deepest, darkest corners of her mind – a great deal of it his own fault, he reminded himself – and there it was. That immense psychic edifice, that extraordinary barrier closing off that huge chunk of her mind.
Okedoke. Time to get to work.
To an external viewer, the whole episode would have taken just a second or two. But within the Doctor's probing mind, it felt like hours' worth of exertion as he probed, he watched, he felt, he manipulated, he poked, he searched. Any sign of a weakness, any sign of a break in the unbreakable wall.
He'd been working stealthily for the psychic equivalent of three hours, and was about to give up when a section of the wall responded differently to his psychic touch. He tried again. Yes, there was definitely something different about this bit.
Hello. What's this. Looks like a weak point... as if the barrier has corroded here – from the inside? Looks as if whatever's in there is trying to get out... oooh, that's not good. That's very much not good at all. The wall is disintegrating from the inside out.
He hesitated. I can break through here. But I'll be damaging the integrity of whole wall... and whatever's in here really is escaping this mind prison on its own, I could be irreversibly accelerating the process. But it's going to get out anyway... in time.
His resolve hardened. I need to do this. I need to know what's behind all this. What's making her so unstable. So dangerous. He steeled himself, and prepared a psychic jab, small but spear-like, to penetrate the weak spot. He tensed his mind, and pushed.
It crumbled on the first attempt, leaving a tiny, almost indiscernible hole in the wall. A little gap through which one could have a little peek. He flitted inside... and found himself assaulted by visions of a single colour.
White.
Pure, clean white. Nothing but white. No sound, no smell, no feeling – just white.
What the...? Land of fiction? No, impossible, we've never been there, clearly. What could this possibly-
"Doctor! You awake?"
He jerked upright as if a thousand volts of electricity had gone from head to toe. He slammed shut all his psychic barriers, terminating the connection to the innermost parts of Amy's psyche. "Yes! No! Maybe! Sorry, what? Drifted off. Wondering when the TARDIS would be ready."
Amy rolled her eyes. "Jack here reckons the red skirts go with my hair. But I like the denim. What do you reckon?"
He frowned. She's asking me for... fashion advice? "I dunno. They're all skirts, aren't they? Ow!"
"That's for being a useless git." Amy snapped, her lip curling.
"Right. Well, I'll try not to be one next time," he muttered, rubbing his arm gingerly.
"You better. But anyway Jack, yeah, not convinced..."
The Doctor wasn't listening. He raised his psychic barriers once more, preparing to resume where he'd left off. He worked his way into her mind again... and found himself right against a repulsive, psychic wall, the likes of which he'd never witnessed before. Gingerly, he tried probing it – and a psychic impulse emanated from it, knocking him right back into his own mind with such strength that he physically staggered backwards.
Amy shot him a brief glance, then looked away, continuing to gossip merrily with Jack about flavours of ice cream. The Doctor continued to smile his usual, pleasant smile, but beneath his mind was a ceaseless, raging tempest of activity and his hearts were going at light-speed.
He hadn't failed to notice, in the instant before she'd looked away, how her eyes had flashed and narrowed ever so slightly, imperceptible to all but a Time Lord.
She knows.
"Kappamarine?" Amy asked, reading the ornate circular symbols on the screen. The TARDIS had rebuilt the console room at last.
"Third planet in the Kappamarine system, to be precise," the Doctor rattled off, "Although everyone just calls it by the name of the star anyway. Quite a lovely place, glittering nano-sand beaches, the clearest purple sky you'll ever see, and the coffee is excellent."
"So it's like a holiday resort planet, yeah?" Amy and Katherine asked simultaneously. Amy shot the blonde a dirty look.
"Basically." He threw the lever back up, and another jolt ran through the floor. This time, Katherine didn't end up the floor, thanks to a last-second grabbing of the wall to steady herself. "Alright, we've landed. Come along, Pond – and Broad – and others – we've got holidaying to do!"
He latched onto Amy's wrist in the now-familiar way and the pair skipped towards the door. Katherine had already reached the door (she only had to move two steps), and had opened it ever so slightly for a peek.
"A holiday resort, yeah?" She inquired in a neutral tone, closing the door again. The Doctor frowned, sensing that something wasn't quite right. Jack also picked up on her sudden unease, and he felt instinctively for his hip, relaxing when he felt the familiar press of cold metal still there.
"Supposed to be, yes."
"Right." She grabbed both door handles and pulled the police box doors to their fullest width.
The Doctor's mouth opened, astonished, his eyes wide. His voice reduced to a mere whisper.
"Not... possible..."
Oh, and some stuff that I should have put in here but forgot to when I uploaded this (hey, it was 3am! Don't ask me what I was doing up at 3am). One. Remember, no River Song. So no Mels. So that Let's Kill Hitler scene doesn't happen. Two. Yes, I am filling in a lot of Amy's 'backstory' in this. Eventually, and it will not be entirely canonical. Three. That does include her going briefly off the deep end completely when she's 15-16. This happens for a reason, which should hopefully make sense in due course.