Chapter rating: M to be cautious, Bellatrix's insanity, Doctor's bewilderment, Pissed off Amy, Lost Rory, the works y'know.
The Doctor's Child
03. The Impossible Prison
It was with great difficulty, that the Doctor extended his hand and snapped his fingers to snap the doors shut before him. Once the doors closed, the feeling of despair and anguish that had clung to the air like an oily skin abated and the trio was able to breathe once more.
"What the bloody hell was THAT?" Rory asked in a trembling voice as he helped his wife up.
"It's… it's like suddenly every single feeling of happiness and content and anything positive just left me and all I could think about were the bad times… and all that went wrong in my life and…" Amy babbled on, tears still falling from her wide eyes.
The Doctor ignored his two companions and ran to the consoles, verifying the data he had on this location and staring with something akin to shock when nothing came back.
"This is not possible…" He muttered, foraging through the databases to try and find more about where they just landed.
"What is it, Doctor?" Amy asked, looked slightly frightened.
"All the data I could uncover all point to the fact that there is nothing at these coordinates. We should be in the middle of the North Sea, not standing on anything! And the residual energy that is picked up by the T.A.R.D.I.S. doesn't look like any thing alien I've met before… It even has a human tint to it… But that's not possible; Mankind hasn't uncovered the means of cloaking devices and perception filtering yet! We're in 19-bloody-81, this is impossible!" The Gallifreyan man rattled, his eyes fixed on his monitors. "I need to find out more…"
The Time Lord was so intent on his objective that he sort of occulted his companions from his mind, only remembering them when Amy grabbed his arm roughly and forced him to turn around toward them.
"You are NOT going out there on your own! Have you not FELT anything when you opened that blasted door?" She screamed at him, trying to shake some sense into the man.
"Amy! Amelia!" The Doctor tried to calm her down, carding her face between his hands. "The T.A.R.D.I.S. brought us here and there is someone out there that needs our help! Do you remember what you learnt the first time I took you into the stars? On Starship U.K.! Think, what happened?"
"The… There was the Star Whale and Liz 10, you wanted to kill the Star Whale's brain to avoid its suffering but I stopped you…" Amy remembered with a bit of fondness.
"Why did you stop me? Think, Amelia Pond, what did you realize about the Star Whale and I?" The Time Lord continued pushing on, still staring right into her eyes.
"The children… you couldn't stand children crying and the Star Whale couldn't either…" Amy realized, thinking back to the psychic message, realization hitting her suddenly.
"There is a child involved, Amy, I can't let a child in need! And if this is the place where that child is, all the more reason to investigate!" The man said softly, his eyes trailing back to Rory who was looking on with a solemn face.
"Then we're coming with you!" The Scottish girl stated definitively. "You're not doing this alone, this place is creeping me out, I can't let you go alone!"
"Don't you think you should ask Rory what he wants before dragging him with us?"
That half-smile the Doctor gave her was worth all the bad emotions in the world.
"He'll be my stupid face in shiny armour!" Amy retorted with a smirk, making the Time Lord laugh slightly.
Rory's protests were weak and seemed less heartfelt than believable and they soon brassed themselves and pushed opened the T.A.R.D.I.S.' doors again.
Even though they were all prepared, the onslaught on negative emotions still took its toll but the three persevered and stepped out of the ship.
The Doctor immediately switched on his sonic screwdriver, trying to detect the origin of the psychic message. He started walking in the direction indicated by his tool, followed closely by the two humans that were looking around with a definite feeling of unease.
Amy and Rory were following the Doctor, holding hands nearly painfully as they took in the sombre atmosphere, the foggy air despite the wind snapping around them. They appeared to be at the top of a tower and the Doctor was leading them to the closest door, a massive thing of heavy metal battered by the element and rusted to the bone.
Not even a step in, the Time Lord stopped in his tracks, seemingly frozen on the spot.
"Doctor?" Rory asked in a whisper, as Amy nearly broke his fingers while holding his hand.
"This is a jail!... A high security prison!" The Gallifreyan said, looking down at the stairs going down and down into the dark.
"What is a baby doing in a place like this?" Amy gasped shifting closer to her husband with a shiver.
"Well we're here to find out!" The oldest man present replied with solemnity.
They went down what seemed like kilometres of stairs, each turn seemed to plunge them further into darkness, the feeling of misery and despair clinging more and more to them as they descended into what seemed to be levels and levels of dungeons and jail cells, trying to occult the bad memories that the feeling of dread was bringing back and the moans and cries and screams from the cells around them. They didn't have time to spare for the poor souls trapped in here, a child, in this environment was like a crime against all that was good in the Universe.
They went down another few floors, neither Rory nor Amy could tell exactly how many, and then they finally stopped at a level and the Doctor immediately moved to the closest cell.
"Oh… what did they do to you!" The Time Lord murmured as he looked on to the huddled form on the ratty old cot.
"Who are you? Came to laugh at the captives! HA! Let me out and I will have you stringed by your innards on the fountain of the Ministry!" The form declared in a raspy voice, untangling herself, letting them watch as she stood up, shivering but tall and proud.
Amy couldn't help but admit that however insane and bloodthirsty the woman appeared, she was a beautiful one, under the grim and the blood. Long curly black hair that had seen better days, but still seemed to bounce around her face, dark eyes with the snobbish glint of someone who knows they are above anything as plebeian as a greeting, a gaunt body that had been filled with curves and lithe and pale. But the blood, layered in brown and red on her ripped dress was the most attention catching.
The Doctor quickly opened the door, his suspicion rising when the door didn't seem to be even locked. He stepped into the cell and opened his mouth to talk but was interrupted by a shriek of anger and a bedpan thrown in his general direction.
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