Clara lent back against the wall as she considered the story she'd just heard. Amy had talked for hours, describing her journeys with the doctor and how Melody had been born, right up to their current life in Manhattan, with Rory and River adding in snippets here and there when needed but Clara had noticed there were disjointed bits, or parts that weren't explained properly, like how River and the doctor had reset the universe in an alternate timeline. It hadn't seemed to bother anyone else though; AJ had remained strangely silent throughout it all, and Clara noticed that none of the red-haired woman's revelations seemed to come as a particular surprise to the teenager. In fact, she considered, AJ had seemed almost bored with the story.
Clara felt waves of nausea come over her and she fell to her knees. Which was strange, considering she'd already been sitting down a minute ago. She opened her eyes to find herself in a different, much larger room in a cage, the rest of their little group with her.
"How did we...?" She twirled on the spot, confused.
"The silence. Memory erasers, remember?" Rory clambered to his feet, swaying slightly. Bright lights shone through the room, making it difficult to see. Clara peered out to see consoles, but as she tried to step towards them, pressing herself against the bars in the process a sharp shock ran through her body.
"Ow! There's some kind of current running through the bars..." She told the others, reaching out her hand carefully to test it.
"They're doing it on purpose." Said AJ grimly. "They're disorientating us so we question everything. Moving us when we can't remember, using unsettling techniques, changing scenarios just as we begin to get used to them. Which is good!" She whirled around with a grin after glancing venomously at the bright lights.
"Good? Ah... Sorry love, different wavelength here. How is it good?" Clara asked with a raised eyebrows.
"Because it means they're nervous! They think we're good enough to beat them if we're left alone. They're especially scared of Dr Song, so scared they've tried to wipe her memories and trap her inside her own mind. Good news, them being scared means they're making mistakes and know we're better. Bad news, they seem to be succeeding with River and have also increased security, making it difficult for anyone to get in or out."
Clara blinked slightly at the rapid fire answer, mind taking a minute to process what had been.
"Tick tock goes the clock we laughed at fate and mourned her. Tick tock goes the clock till River kills the doctor." River mumbled. AJ frowned, leaning forward to hear what she was saying.
"Damn. They must have had us out longer than we thought and done... Whatever it was they did last time to her again." She scowled slightly as she jumped up and once again began to pace.
"You know, Amelia, despite your stories she doesn't seem like very much." Sharon peered down her nose at River Song.
"Well, she is. She's amazing." Rory told her with steel in his voice. Sharon raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing. AJ was ignoring them, fingers fiddling with the end of her plait as she continuously moved.
"Ok, I believe that the only way to stop a terrible secret being revealed is to kill the man who holds it. So I kidnap a baby who just by chance happens to have time lord DNA, brainwash her, turn her into a psychopath and order her to kill. That fails, so I force her to do it against her will, which also fails because the doctor saves himself. I then wait years, before re-kidnapping said baby, and her parents and their parents along with his current companion and two girls from the future. To do so I risk tearing apart reality- again- or creating a paradox and then take a six and seven year old who are too old to be brainwashed and too young to be of any use. Why?" She rambled aloud.
"Tick tock goes the clock he gave all he could give. Tick tock goes the clock now prison waits for river." River sang morosely.
"Yes, thank you dear." AJ said distractedly. Clara frowned.
"What if it wasn't about the children? What if they were taken to ensure we wouldn't escape, and we're all here for something else?" She suggested.
"But why take Fae and I as well? We're from the future, the doctor doesn't even know we exist yet. Why bring us here?" AJ continued to pace.
"A trap to kill the doctor?" Suggested Amy. "No, wait. Same problem..."
"And why take us?" Sharon spoke up, and Augustus nodded in agreement.
"We only met the man once!" He reasoned.
Suddenly, the lights flickered and dimmed, allowing them to see that they weren't alone in the room, with the aliens of the silence scattered periodically throughout.
"Well well. Seems like your precious doctor doesn't care as much as we thought." Kovarian came into view, lips twisting in a parody of a smile. "After all, where is he?"
"You have no idea what you're doing." Amy told her coldly. "He'll come, and he'll win. Just like he did all the times before. It must be pretty embarrassing to find the man you'd declared officially dead is actually alive and well, huh?"
"Oh, Amelia Pond. So brave, so believing. Tell me, Amy, how many times did he betray you? Let you down, leave you? Disappoint you?" Kovarian's voice got progressively quieter until she was almost whispering, leaning closer to Amy so she could hear. "He doesn't care. Look at your darling Melody. Tortured and screaming, crying out for him to save her but yet he doesn't come. Not even for his wife." She spat, pushing away from the cage suddenly as she sneered back at them.
"He'll come." Amy said simply. Kovarian turned and walked out with the aliens following her, but left the lights dim. Amy turned, a smug smile on her face.
"Amy...?" Rory rose to his feet, confused as to why his wife would be happy. The smile never leaving her face, she slowly let a long object slip from her sleeve. Clara looked closer, and saw a remote of some kind, which she assumed was good judging by the way AJ laughed when she saw it.
"You picked her pocket!?" she grinned. Amy shrugged, but couldn't keep the smile from spreading across her face. Clara scrambled up from her seat on the floor as Amy studied the plastic object, before pressing a button. The lights brightened, and blinded them all. Behind her, Clara could hear Amy fumbling with the remote until they lowered again, and then, suddenly, a portion of the cage swung open.
"Found it." The redhead announced unnecessarily. AJ bounced over to the nearest console and immediately began typing rapidly, frowning in concentration while Rory lifted River and bought her out form the cage.
"Kovarian always did underestimate everyone else." Amy said, a note of proud satisfaction in her voice.
"Got it. This place is huge- stretches for about a mile square, all underground and consisting mostly of tunnels connecting seperate rooms. There's a room that's using a lot of power- more than any other. One door to a single tunnel that has only one way in or out, that opens only twice a day, everyday. If I had to guess, i'd say that was where they're keeping the children."
"Well, that's good right?" asked Amy. "We go, grab the kids, get out of here. Contact the doctor, tell him we're all right. We get back to the 1950's to avoid a paradox, Clara goes back on the tardis, Mum, Dad, Brian and Aunt Sharon go home and you go back to your time, then everyone's happy, yeah?"
AJ winced slightly, hesitating. "The room's on the other side of the compound. Even if we could get there without being noticed- which is unlikely, may I add- we'd have to double back almost a mile with two kids to get to the exit. It's practically impossible." Amy shook her head angrily, backing away from the teenager in frustration.
"Then what do we do!?" she yelled. "That's my son! I already lost my daughter, I can't lose him as well!"
"Your daughter is right there!" AJ shouted back at her, standing from the chair she was sitting on. They all looked at her with shock, but she had eyes only for a stunned Amy, fire blazing within them. "She's right there. Maybe you didn't raise her, maybe you don't know her as well as you'd like but she's still your baby. And don't you forget that, because she needs you. Do you have any idea how much it hurts to look into your parent eyes and see that they don't have a clue who you are? To know you haven't been born yet from their point of view? Because take it from me, it feels like somebody's ripping your heart out of your chest just for kicks, so don't you dare think for one minute that this is easy on her, that it doesn't matter who she is. Because it does." They stared at eachother for a long moment, before AJ abruptly turned on her heel and walked to the other side of the room where she deftly entered a code and opened a cabinet.
"Catch." She chucked various items back to their owners, slipping some into the pockets of her leather jacket and belt. She closed her fingers around two items at the back, withdrawing a handheld console and a vortex manipulator and a small, slow smile appeared.
"I think I know how we can do it." She held them up with a slight grin. "Cheap time travel, but in the absence of anything else..."
"We can get the children, and get out of here in the space of three seconds!" Rory grinned broadly, leaning over to hug Amy. AJ slipped the manipulator around her wrist.
"It can only carry three at a time, so I'll bring them both back here first." She told them, beginning to key in the coordinates. Before she could, a familiar whirring sounded throughout the room and the Tardis materialised, while at the same time the doors flung open and Kovarian strode in, members of the silence flanking her.
"This is bad. This is very very bad." Muttered AJ as she retreated to stand next to the others, fingers fiddling with the gun she pulled from her pocket as she did so. Rory crouched over an unconscious River protectively while Amy and the others stood in front of both of them, blocking them from the silence and Kovarian.
"Do not take your eyes off of them." Amy warned. Following her instructions, Clara walked carefully backwards until she reached the tardis, where she banged on the door as loud as she could.
"Hey, chin boy! Hurry it up would ya?!" she yelled as she moved a few steps away again, eyes fixed on a smirking Kovarian. The doors were thrown open with a flourish to reveal the doctor.
"Clara! I swear, i'm going to get a leash for you if you make a habit of this!" he hugged her fiercly, lifting her into the air and she yelped slightly, laughing.
"What?" she protested,
"Disappearing! Vanishing, getting into trouble! Honestly, every time I take you out, and sometimes when I don't!" she let out another laugh at his indignant expression.
"When you two have quite finished, maybe we could get back to the memory proof aliens?" Amy called testily over her shoulder, still not taking her eyes from the creatures. The doctor froze, turning slowly as his hands fisted tightly, swallowing thickly before he managed in a weak voice-
"Amy...?"