Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who.
The TARDIS needed more detail than the Doctor could provide. Since they had been unable to sneak into the house itself, he had to content himself with trying to describe the wounds that the family received in order to track down the weapons used. The TARDIS told him in no small amount of angry beeps that there was not enough information.
"Oh fine!" He stepped away from the console in frustration. "If you must have it your way, I won't try anymore."
Amy hadn't said a word throughout any of his endeavors. She watched him with worried brown eyes, her legs tucked to her chest. At this final failure of the Doctor's, she piped up, "Can't we just pop back in time before Rory was taken and pick him up?"
The Doctor ran his fingers through his hair. The already rumpled strands were now thoroughly mussed. "If that were an option, you know I would have already tried it. We don't know when Rory was actually captured though and if we land too close to where we were earlier, we'll create a paradox."
"You say that as if you haven't already done that before."
"Paradoxes, no matter how convenient they seem, are best avoided."
"Fine." Amy let her legs drop to the floor with a thump. "Then I'll give you something else to work with. Let's move the TARDIS into the house and poke around."
"What? With all of the police still there?"
"Why not?" She came over to him, footsteps sure. "It's not like it's something we haven't done before. We're good at poking our noses in where they don't belong. Why are you so hesitant when it comes to saving Rory?"
"I'm not hesitant, I'm..." the Doctor paused, his eyes dropping to the floor. "I'm concerned. If these aliens wanted Rory so badly, then they must have a very good reason for taking him. Rory himself, no offense, is not important enough to kidnap."
Amy opened her mouth to protest, but the Doctor held up a finger to stop her.
"Let me finish. If they don't need Rory necessarily, then they must need him as bait for a much larger fish. And who do we all know and love that is very good at upsetting aliens?" He straightened his bow tie.
Amy rolled her eyes. "Don't tell me you're afraid?"
"Me? Afraid? How long have you known me? I'm just cautiously approaching this whole situation. I don't like to jump in without knowing exactly I'm getting into."
She quirked an eyebrow.
"Okay, fine! We'll go to the house. Between you and the TARDIS it looks like I don't have much choice."
The familiar noise of the TARDIS started up and Amy ran to the door, ready to face whatever was outside.
Rory didn't know how he managed to get out of his room, but he wasn't about to question his good fortune. So far he'd made it from the yellow corridor to the purple and was now edging up to the red hall. He could vaguely remember passing through each of these colors and could only hope that he was heading in the right direction.
Here where the red hall began, a dark green hall also branched off to the right. Rory could remember coming down the red hall, but not the dark green. Unfortunately, a small group of guards were standing in the middle of the red hall.
He pressed his back against the purple hall and weighed his options. The guards didn't look like they were going to move any time soon and there was no chance that he would be able to sneak past them.
The green hall was vacant.
He went down the green hall. This hall was shorter than the previous ones he had been down and led to a sapphire blue hall. At the end of this hall was a door. Unlike the rest of the doors in this place, this one had a knob.
Rory slowed as he reached it, unsettled. Something about this entire escape was wrong.
A glance back assured him that no one was following him. He couldn't see any cameras either, but he knew from experience that not seeing something wasn't an indication that it wasn't there.
He stretched out his hand to turn the knob and froze.
A small black line marked his hand.
His pulse surged.
Could the Silence really be here of all places?
That question did not deserve an answer. Of course the Silence could be here. They could be anywhere - that was the whole point of their ability to make their presence forgotten.
Rory let go of the knob and glanced up.
Nothing.
He checked both sides.
Again, nothing.
That left only one option. He turned around.
Four Silence stood there, their faces as emotionless as always. He braced himself for the inevitable, clenching his fists down at his sides.
Nothing happened.
"Look," he started, "if you want to talk and tell me what you want, then do so. Otherwise, go ahead and kill me. I prefer either option to this staring contest we have going on."
"You could run," hissed one of them.
He frowned. "Okay, I admit it, you haven't used that one before. You're advising me to run away? What, through this door?"
His fingers brushed against the knob behind him, but he didn't dare take his eyes off of the creatures. A sort of high-pitched cry, muffled, came through the door. "What's behind this door?"
The Silence did not respond.
The doorknob seemed to burn his fingers. He brought his hands around to the front again. "I think I prefer to stay here, thank you very much. Any door you lot want me to go through can't have anything good behind it."
The Silence reacted, stepping forward, their ugly three-fingered hands extended towards him.
"Sorry Amy," he whispered and clamped his eyes shut.
A shock ran through him - startling, but not painful - and he sat up in bed with a gasp.
Yellow walls greeted his wide eyes. He had not escaped after all.
"Just a nightmare," he breathed as he leaned back against the wall behind his bed. He barely managed to stop his hands from trembling when the panel to his room opened.
A woman in her late forties, slim and dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt, came into the room. Behind her, a couple of guards appeared in the doorway.
Rory sat up and swung his legs to the side of the bed.
"Rory Williams," her voice held no inflection. She perused a clipboard in her hands without ever looking at him.
"Yes, and you are?"
Her stern grey eyes rose to meet his. "You may call me Ava."
He smirked. "And I'm guessing that's not your real name."
"I hope you have rested well, Mr. Williams, we have much to do today. It would expedite the process if you came along willingly, but Chester and Wendell here are more than willing to carry you should the need arise." She walked out of the room without another word.
Rory eyed the two guards. He was taller than one of them, but they were clearly more than a match for him in the muscle department. While resisting could be fun, at the moment it didn't seem like there was much point to it. Might as well see what they're up to before I start throwing punches.
He stood up and pushed past the guards into the hall.
Ava waited there, still meticulously studying her clipboard. The guards fell into place on either side of him.
The woman started walking down the hall. "This way."
"Are you the one in charge here?" He figured he might as well get some answers as he was led like a lamb to the slaughter.
She didn't respond.
"Okay, who is then?"
Still no response.
"Look, you could at least give me some answers. You're the ones who kidnapped me after all. And I might as well let you know now that the Doctor doesn't take kindly to his friends being kidnapped - or, at least, the husbands of his friends getting kidnapped. And Amy's one heck of a good shot."
The woman stopped. He and the guards did too.
"Mr. Williams, asking questions will get you nowhere. I advise you to keep your silence. As for your wife and the Doctor, you may as well forget about them. The best thing you can do right now is cooperate."
He stared down at her. He couldn't quite decide whether he should be frightened or laugh or stage a resistance right here and now just to show that he could. He settled on anger. "I don't know who you think I am, but I'm not just going to lie down and take whatever you've dished up. I may not look like much, but I've seen things that you could never dream of and you're going to need more than a group of scientists and your pet alien guards to keep me here."
Ava smiled for the first time. It was not a pretty smile. "Oh, we know, Mr. Williams, we know."