Chapter Two
"Why won't you go back there?!" The Doctor snarled under his breath as he struck the TARDIS console a little harder than he meant to. Looking guilty he gently petted the controls apologetically. "Sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to hit."
"Doctor?" Amy peeked around from the other side of the centre pillar. "What is going on over there?"
"Just some navigation issues."
"Again?"
"Yes, yes, again." The Doctor sighed.
"Where are you trying to take us this time?" Rory asked wearily as he leaned against the rail and yawned.
"Uh..." The Doctor thought for a moment before brightening. "Oh! I remember, yes, you'll love this. This place is spectacular, one of a kind."
"And the TARDIS will go there?" Amy asked.
"What? Of course. Why wouldn't she?"
"A second ago you were having 'navigation issues'."
"That was something else."
"So this place we are going isn't the place you were just trying to get to?"
"No, I'll try that again later." The Doctor said waving his hand dismissively as he began the complicated process of reseting the TARDIS coordinates.
Rory watched the Doctor as he raced around the main console. At first glance he almost believed that the Doctor's shoulder had finally healed. However the more he watched the more he realized that the Doctor had simply become better at compensating. Any time he had to reach up above chest level he would cross over with his right hand rather than raise his left. If something was a full left arm's length away he would take a side step over to close in the gap rather than stretch his arm out. All in all his every move was calculated to reduce the need to move his shoulder.
Anytime Rory asked to look at the injury the Doctor told him that there was nothing that could be done and changed the subject. He had long since given up on trying to force the Time Lord into accepting his help and was just keeping an eye on him now. Every now and then Rory caught sight of a flash through the Doctor's shirt as the Nova Diamond around his neck flared, another topic the Doctor refused to discuss.
The TARDIS landed with its usual fanfare and noise and the Doctor bounded off towards the doors. Amy seemed to still hold the same excitement for each new world, but at the moment Rory was dreading what might lay on the other side of the TARDIS doors. The Doctor had the doors open, but Rory was still leaning against the rail on the dais. Amy noticed that Rory hadn't follow along and stopped halfway between the two men.
"Wait here one second, let me make sure there's no unusual radiation or anything. Sometimes this planet's sun gets a little uppity." The Doctor announced. "You'll love it if the levels are safe though! This is a place I've been meaning to go back to for a long time now."
Amy watched the Doctor leave before turning back to her husband. When Rory still didn't leave his place on the rail Amy sighed. She hated it when he got quietly petulant, it meant he was getting jealous again. Amy gave in and joined Rory up on the dais once again. She took a breath to say something but Rory beat her to it.
"You know where I've been meaning to go back to for a long time now? Home." Rory asked and answered in the same breath.
"Rory!" Amy admonished.
"What?" Rory countered bitterly. "It's been over three months since Abydos. We were supposed to go home after 'a few quick stops', actually we were supposed to go home directly from Abydos."
"Are you in some sort of rush?"
"Well, I've got a job that I am now very late for."
"It's a time machine, Stupid," Amy rolled her eyes "we can be back seconds after we left."
"Not with the way he drives." Rory pointed out sourly.
"Rory, don't do this, just be happy." Amy changed to a sweet tone and wrapped her arms around Rory's waist. "Let's just enjoy this, please?"
"We have another life to live that is getting left behind, Amy. A real life. We don't usually stay this long on a single trip."
"I know, but I'm not ready to go home yet."
"Is it really you that isn't ready or is it the Doctor?"
"Does it matter?"
"Of course it matters."
"Why?" Amy snarled as her temper flared again. "Because you'd stay for me, but not for him?"
"Amy..."
"Don't be selfish, Rory, the Doctor has given us so much and all he is asking for in return is a little company in the aftermath of some *very* dark hours." Amy pushed herself away from Rory and crossed her arms over her chest. "But if you think that getting home on time to get up for your nine to five is more important than being there for the man who has always been there for us, then by all means demand that the Doctor take you home, but I'm staying, and if you leave now don't be surprised if I never come back for you."
"Are you finally choosing him over me?"
"No, I'm choosing right over wrong." Amy said firmly. "I will not abandon the Doctor when he needs us the most."
"He doesn't need us, he won't even let me look at, let alone touch, his shoulder."
"Rory, his shoulder is the least of his pain, he hasn't even gotten past the 'denial' stage of coping with what happened. He had his soul cut out, Rory, and I don't think he got it all back. Someone has to be here when he realizes that he can't run from what he did, and we are the only family he has."
"Wait...are you saying you think he remembers all that stuff you told me about purposefully torturing the Minyans by stretching them out in time?"
"He must. Why else wouldn't he go back and check on Aleena? He told me he's worried about her, she hasn't called him, and yet he doesn't just go to see her. The more I think about it, the more I think he must remember now. He's ashamed to even look at her. He's putting on a brave face now, but when he falls he's going to fall hard. I am going to be here for him, even if that means spending the rest of my life on this ship waiting for him to be ready."
Rory flushed slightly with guilt from suggesting that they leave. He tried to think of something to say to dig himself out of the hole he was in, but the problem with trying to dig your way out of any place was that usually you just ended up deeper. Before he could make things any worse the Doctor returned.
"Okay, everything looks good." The Doctor said. "The sun has been behaving."
Still angry Amy stared at Rory as if waiting for an apology. Rory shifted his weight uncomfortably and instinctively looked to the Doctor for help.
"Uh...you two coming?" The Doctor asked.
"I don't know, Rory, are we?" Amy asked icily.
"Of course we are." Rory replied instantly.
"Did I miss something?" The Doctor asked as he noted the tension between the pair.
"Not at all, Doctor." Amy kissed Rory's cheek and headed towards the doors. "Where are we?"
"This is Gemina, twin planet of Gemino. Once an amazing pair of civilizations lived on them, however the surface of both planets is desolate now."
"What happened?"
"Same thing that happens to any two civilizations that grow too close to one another," the Doctor sighed heavily "they tore each other apart in a devastating war."
The Doctor paused for a moment, lost in thought, but he shook it off quickly and threw the TARDIS doors open. Amy gasped sharply at the scenery beyond the doors while Rory just stared in amazement. With the story that the Doctor had told Amy expected to see a windswept wasteland under a gray sky. However they weren't on the surface of the planet at all, they were deep underground in a network of caverns.
Far from being dark and dank the cavern walls pulsed and glittered with a myriad of bioluminescent colours. The complex fungi and mosses that covered the stone gave off different intensities of light and the insect life that buzzed through the air and crawled across the rocks also flashed and blinked in their own rhythm. A luminescent turquoise dripped from the cavern ceiling near the TARDIS. The Doctor reached out and let it fall on his hand, he brought it closer to his face so that he could sniff at it and give it a quick taste.
"Why do you taste everything?" Amy asked.
"Because every once in a while I find something that tastes amazing." The Doctor smiled with his lips still glowing blue.
"How does the glowing stuff rate?"
"Dreadful." The Doctor turned to the side and spat.
Amy chuckled as she stepped out into the glowing world. The floor was soft, covered in a deep green moss that gave off a dull glow. As she walked past a rock about half her height with red and orange glowing fungus on it she reached out to touch it. She hesitated and looked back to the Doctor to see if it was okay and he nodded. Touching the orange fungus the glowing colour came off on her hands. A small firefly type bug fluttered up to her finger tips to see if she was something new worth inspecting before flying off with a trail of yellow glowing behind him.
"It's so beautiful." Amy breathed in awe.
"Radiation isn't what makes all this stuff glow, does it, Doctor?" Rory asked.
"No, it's all chemical. We're perfectly safe here."
"You said our last stop was going to be safe and that didn't turn out so well." Rory pointed out.
"Yeah...I don't know what went wrong there." The Doctor mused as they continued to walk through the large tunnel. "The Mardokans used to always welcome me, at the very least they weren't hostile. They were not as thrilled to see me this time around."
"Not as thrilled?" Rory repeated incredulously. "Doctor, they were going to eat you alive."
"No, no, it wasn't that bad. I think you are exaggerating."
"I'm really not. In fact I was being literal."
"Amy, was it that bad?" The Doctor asked.
"Sorry, Doctor, I have to side with Rory on this one." Amy confirmed as she rubbed the orange glow off on Rory's shirt. "They were sharpening their knives, starting a fire, and getting out the barbecue sauce."
"See? A nice civilized fire. Exaggerating, they weren't going to eat me alive at all, they clearly had plans to roast me first."
"And that makes it better somehow?" Rory asked doubtfully.
"Yes. Well...no." The Doctor admitted. "Either way, barbecue? Don't be ridiculous, at my age I'd be much too gamey. A stew perhaps, parsnips, carrots, maybe some celery...it would need a lot of salt thou..."
"Stop there," Rory begged "this conversation is getting to weird."
The Doctor chuckled and slipped his hands into his jacket pockets and continued to stroll casually. As they walked it didn't take Amy long to realized that every time they passed by something glowing blueish or turquoise in colour that the Doctor took the time to go over to it. At the very least he touched all the blue glowing moss and fungi, and most he went as far as to taste. When he came to a thin ribbon of bright aqua moss he became extremely interested, tasting it several times.
"Doctor? What are you doing?"
"Enjoying the scenery." The Doctor replied as he continued to study the aqua ribbon.
"Why did we really come here?"
"The same reason we go anywhere, Amy."
The Doctor didn't further explain what he meant by the comment. He just wandered away from the wall that held the aqua moss and kept walking. Amy looked to Rory, but if he noticed the unusual behaviour he wasn't concerned by it. Amy went up to the moss that the Doctor had been so intrigued by, but she couldn't figure out how it was different than any of the other mosses other than its color.
While Amy was distracted by the aqua ribbon on the wall the Doctor wandered off with a purpose. Coming to a large stone that held another identical strain of aqua moss he carefully pulled it from the stone. Placing it in a bag he slipped it into his pocket. Continuing down the tunnel he came to an area where the cavern opened up.
The closest side of the cavern was unnaturally flat. The wall had been scorched at one point with a laser blast, killing off the fungi except for a large red patch in the middle of the wall. Walking out into the middle of the cavern the Doctor looked at the wall from a distance and sighed. The red glowing fungi was in the vague form of a twenty foot wide pair of lips.
"Subtle, River, very subtle."
After having burned the existing layer of growth off the wall long ago River must have coated her lips in the glowing fungi and somehow managed to get up high enough to give the cavern wall a kiss. Over the past century the slow growing bioluminescent organism had spread to grotesque proportions. Shaking his head sadly the Doctor pulled out the sonic and scanned the area at the foot of the cavern wall.
When the sonic made a higher pitched sound he knelt down to dig in the dirt and revealed a small metal box. Opening the box he pulled out a dull metal disk studded with blood red rounded stones and intricate carvings. Of the five objects that he had asked her help collecting this was the third one that he'd found waiting for him, but he realized that this was probably the first one she would have gone to get. The Doctor also lifted up a faded hand written note scrawled out a hundred years ago.
"'Kiss, kiss. I hope this helps, my Love, it wasn't easy to get.'." The Doctor read out loud. "'I know you lied to me about my parents on Abydos, but I trust it was for a good reason. I didn't seek them out then, I just don't want you thinking you can lie to me and get away with it. Be careful, Sweetie, don't do whatever it is you're doing alone. You don't have to tell me what it is, but tell someone, please. I hope to see you all soon. Love, River Song.'."
The Doctor smiled and ran his fingertips across the paper where River had signed her name with a large flourish. He placed both the note and the metal disk into his breast pocket. When he went to get to his feet he made the mistake of putting his left palm down on the dirt floor to push up from. A white hot bolt of pain lanced through his shoulder. Collapsing to the floor he pressed his palm against the source of the pain and bit down on his lip to keep from crying out and alerting Amy and Rory.
Unable to do anything else the Doctor rolled onto his uninjured side and just waited for the pain to subside. Breathing heavily he stared blankly at the softly glowing far wall of the cavern and fought to not let his thoughts drift back to the events on the Minyan ship. He had been spending time in the Zero Room in a desperate attempt to fix his shoulder, but as a result bits and pieces of his memory that had previously been missing had been returning.
As the jangling nerves finally began to calm the Doctor experiment with moving his hand again. Confident that if he was careful that he'd be allowed to move the Doctor got to his feet. The pain never truly went away, there was always a stiff ache, but it became more bearable once again. Weary from the flare up the Doctor looked up at the large red kiss that River had left behind. He reached up with his good hand. Pressing his palm into the glowing mark he bowed his head and closed his eyes.
"Thank you for trusting me, River. I need that more than ever now."