They sat curled up together for a long time. Amy felt her legs getting stiff. For the first time, her beloved TARDIS felt ...alien. Cold. Unwelcoming.
They didn't belong here. Not without him. If only at least River were here. River would have known what to do, how to fly the TARDIS...something.
She fought hard to ignore the growing fears in the pit of her stomach. How long would he be gone? Would he really come back? Was he in trouble?
Was he dead?
Next to her, she felt Rory swallow and knew he was frightened, too.
Minutes ticked by...then an hour...then two...three...
Out of nowhere, Amy thrust herself up to her feet. Then she fell back down again, smack onto Rory, grimacing. Her legs were asleep. "Crap!"
"Hey!" yelled Rory. "A little warning would be nice?"
"I was tired of sitting," she growled, trying to wiggle her toes. Her legs felt like tree trunks. Electrified tree trunks, full of needles. "Ow ow ow ow ow..." she muttered, feeling impotent.
"Your legs are asleep," said Rory helpfully.
"Shut up."
Slowly the aches subsided and she could move again. She pulled herself back to her feet, groaning as loudly and theatrically as she could.
Turning, she limped back over to the phone. "Really, there's no way to make this thing work? There's got to be something we can - "
FLASH.
The doctor was in front of her. Right in front of her, right where he'd been when he disappeared. If she reached out she could touch him. He was standing just as he'd been, holding up the sonic screwdriver, a look of wonder on his face. He was still talking.
"- wave is - "
And then he toppled.
He fell forward, collapsing onto the console of the tardis. His face was white. He dropped the sonic screwdriver and it bounced onto the floor, rolling over to where Rory was still sitting, frozen, stunned.
Amy leaped forward and grabbed the doctor's shoulders, catching him before he could slip down to the floor. "Doctor! What happened? Are you ok? Can you hear me?"
"Doctor!" yelled Rory helpfully.
For a second or so, the Doctor did not seem to know where he was. Amy was holding him up. He was still looking towards the center of the TARDIS, a dazed look on his face. He blinked, and then slowly, his face turned to look at her.
"Pond?" he said, and his voice was changed. Low, and quiet. Amy could feel him shaking in her arms. She pulled him closer to her, his face almost touching hers.
"Doctor, what happened?" No answer. "Here, you need to sit. Let's sit. Rory, bring me that blanket." She turned him and began to move him to sit on the steps. He let her move him a few steps - and then abruptly, stronger than he'd seemed, he shoved her away from him hard.
"Hey!" yelled Amy. She fell back and hit herself on the typewriter. "Ow!"
"Don't touch me!" he hissed. "Don't touch me, Pond - you either, Rory," he said, turning to face the man bringing him a blanket. "Nobody touch me. This will kill either of you if you get sucked in." He was still standing where she had left him, shaking. He looked dreadful - pale and sick and wobbly.
"What will, Doctor? What will kill us? What happened to you?"
"No time for that now," he said, as Amy knew he would. "Rory, throw me that screwdriver. And stay away from me. I've got to get us out of here."
Both of them ran up to the other sides of the console. "Get away from where? Where are we? Can we help?"
"Shh. No." Pause. "Yes. Yes. Amy - when I say go, push that chrome lever there to the left. No, your other left. There, like that. Ready?" He was fussing with dials, staring at a screen, pushing knobs and who knew what else. "Ready, go!"
Amy pushed the lever to the left, hard. The TARDIS lurched horribly to its side and Amy was flung to the floor. "Ow!" she yelled. "Oi, I'm getting tired of being bounced around!"
Rory came over and helped her up. The Doctor ignored them. He was staring at his sonic screwdriver, and he looked worried. "Nope, no, no, that didn't do it. We're still stuck." He stood still for a moment. "Hmm..."
Then, "OK, Pond, I want you to try turning things to the right this time.
"On my mark - now!"
Amy barely had time to scramble back to her station. On cue, she pushed the lever HARD in the other direction. The TARDIS obliged by careening wildly, flinging her and Rory to the edges of the room.
The Doctor managed not to be dislodged from his place at the console. He stared at something on a screen, watched the pistons of the TARDIS move, and said nothing.
Amy and Rory got up, rubbing aches all over. Amy rushed back to her spot in front of her lever, grinning. Now that the Doctor was back, this was fun! "Did that do it, Doctor?"
The Doctor was quiet, staring at his readout. Slowly he seemed to relax, his shoulders lowering. He took a deep breath. "Yes," he finally said. "Yes. I think we're out of it."
He turned, leaning with his back against the instrument panels, and sighed. He put his head in his hands and rubbed his temples. "Oh crikey, that was not ever fun."
Amy started to walk around to him. His head snapped up, his hand reaching out to warn her off. "Not yet, Pond. I'm not sure that we're clear. Don't touch me."
Amy whuffed a frustrated whuff. "OK, OK, but from what? Will you tell us what's going on, please?"
The Doctor sighed again. "I think it's a time wave. Like the vortex manipulator, but on a much grander scale. Think of it as..." he grinned, "the Titanic of vortex manipulators." He gazed thoughtfully up at the central TARDIS pistons. "We must have been passing though it, and it synced up with me. Moved me into the future. We're attractive to time waves, you see."
Rory shook his head as if moving the information around inside of his skull would help him make sense of it. The look on his face made it clear that that he wasn't succeeding.
Amy frowned. "You said the vortex manipulator was bad for you."
"Oh yes," nodded the Doctor. "Yes indeed. very bad. And this is much worse. That was not fun, let me tell you. But I'm a timelord, I can stand it. It would take maybe, I dunno... four trips to kill me? The longer the trip, the nastier the effects. But you? Rory, you'd be fried on the first jump." He turned to Amy. "Pond, you might last one jump, but not two."
"Hey!" protested Rory. Amy tried unsuccessfully not to look pleased.
"What does it do to you?"
The Doctor was starting to look a little better. There was some pinkish color in his cheeks, and his eyes had some sparkle. He pulled an apple out of his jacket pocket and took a bite. "Crystallizes the cells," he said, around apple bits. "Freezes them. It's cold in the parts of space where time doesn't exist, and the body can't handle it. Do it too much or too fast, and you're very quickly dead. It's going to take me quite a few hours to fully defrost, I think." He leaned over to show Amy the apple he was crunching. "See what it did here?"
The apple was partially frozen. Under the rosy skin it looked a little like a snowball. She could see intricate shards of ice where he'd bitten it.
Amy's stomach gave a nasty turn.
He lifted the sonic screwdriver again, and read what he saw there. "Yep, it's a time wave, and we're still not through it. I think we're OK, but just in case, don't -"
FLASH.
He was gone.