Chapter Two:
"Why'd you pretend to be a policewoman?!" asked the Doctor as soon as they stepped outside.
"You broke into my house! It was this or a French maid! What's going on; tell me! Tell me!" replied Amy frantically.
"An alien convict is hiding in your spare room, disguised as a man and a dog, and some other aliens are about to incinerate your house. Any questions?"
"Yes!" said Scarlett. Of course I have questions, Scarlett thought. Any normal person would. For example; where has he been for twelve years? Why didn't he come back sooner? Why does he still look exactly like Amy had described him? How can he be so attractive when he's bound to be an alien? Wait, no, scratch that last part.
"Me too," he replied before running over to a blue police box at the bottom of the garden. Scarlett vaguely remembered Amy saying that that was his time machine, but how he managed to fit into that small thing and travel through time was beyond her. He tried to unlock the machine, but to no avail. "No! Don't do that, not now! It's still rebuilding, not letting us in."
"Well, that's just fantastic, isn't it?" Scarlett said, throwing her arms up in the air. Time machine or not, having somewhere safe to stay for the time being would be great.
"Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human residence will be incinerated."
"Come on!" yelled Amy as she attempted to pull both her best friend and the Doctor away from her house.
"Wait, wait, wait, the shed! I destroyed that shed last time I was here, smashed it to pieces!" said the Doctor, making his way over to the small shed at the bottom of the garden.
"So, there's a new one! Now really isn't the time to discuss Amy's DIY choices!" Scarlett sighed and gave his arm a tug but he didn't move. He had more important matters on his mind… like how this shed has gotten so old so quickly.
"Yeah, but the new one's got old! It's ten years old at least!" He sniffed the shed before licking the side of it, somehow managing to avoid splinters. "Twelve years. I'm not six months late, I'm twelve years late." He then turned to Amy. "You said six months! Why did you say six months?"
"We've gotta go," Amy said, grabbing their arms once more and pulling them out of the vicinity.
"This matters. This is important! Why did you say six months?" the Doctor tried again.
Finally Amy snapped, and turned to face him, yelling in her normal Scottish accent. "Well, why did you say five minutes?!"
"What?" whispered the Doctor as Scarlett glanced back at the house to see the man and his dog moving, "Come on," she urged.
"What?" the Doctor repeated.
"Come on!" She grabbed both their hands and dragged them out of the garden as the voice from above continued.
"Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human residence will be incinerated."
When they finally reached the road leading to the village square, the Doctor stopped and turned again to face Amy. "You're Amelia," he said matter-of-factly, despite only learning this information just moments before.
"You're late," she replied sharply as she continued to walk; the Doctor and Scarlett following suit.
"Amelia Pond! You're the little girl!"
"I'm Amelia, and you're late!"
"What happened?!" he asked, eyes wide as he took in the now grown-up woman in front of him. This wasn't the Amelia he knew.
"Twelve years," scoffed Amy in reply.
"You hit me with a cricket bat!"
Scarlett snickered. That was just so Amy.
"Twelve years," she repeated.
"A cricket bat!" he emphasized. Okay, yes, twelve years was quite a long time to wait for someone – especially when they promise they'll only be five minutes – but she used a cricket bat!
"Twelve years, and four psychiatrists."
"Four?" he said in disbelief.
"She kept biting them," the brunette smirked.
He turned to look at Scarlett, obviously finding this information vaguely hilarious. "Why?"
"They said you weren't real," she replied simply.
"Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human residence will be incinerated."
"Wait, that doesn't sound like it's coming from up there…" Scarlett continued, before they turned to find the noise blaring from the speakers of an ice-cream van.
"No, no, no, come on. What? We're being staked out... by an ice cream van," exclaimed Amy as Scarlett frowned. She was never going to be able to look at ice-cream the same way ever again.
"What's that? Why are you playing that?" asked the Doctor.
"It's supposed to be Clair De Lune," answered the vendor, a look of confusion on his face.
"Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human residence will be incinerated. Repeat. Prisoner Zero will vacate the human residence, or the human residence will be incinerated."
"Doctor, what's happening?" Scarlett frowned.
He didn't reply. Instead, he looked around for a moment before running off towards Mrs. Angelo's – a lovely old woman who lives in their village – house. The girls turned to look at each other and, as if by silent agreement, they followed him.
They're not sure what he said but by the time they got there, he was flicking through the channels on poor Mrs. Angelo's TV. "I was just about to phone... It's on every channel!" She said before she noticed Amy running in. "Hello Scarlett! And oh, Amy dear! Are you a policewoman now?"
Scarlett snickered before wandering over to the Doctor as their conversation played out.
"I thought you were a nurse…" rambled Mrs. Angelo.
"I can be a nurse."
"Or actually; a nun?"
"I dabble!" Amy lied with a nervous laugh. On the inside, she wanted nothing more than to stuff a sock in Mrs. Angelo's mouth so that she could no longer speak.
Shaking her head, Mrs. Angelo turned to the Doctor. "I know you, don't I? I've seen you somewhere before!"
"Not me. Brand new face." He stretched out his mouth, as wide as he could, as if to show her how new his face is. "First time on. And what sort of job's a kissogram?"
"She goes to parties and she kisses people. In outfits," Scarlett explained, clearly finding this whole situation extremely amusing. She had always thought Amy's job was a little odd but on the plus side, it meant that they always had costumes for Halloween.
"It's a laugh!" said Amy defensively, hitting her friend's arm for the second time that morning.
"And what about you? What's your job?" asked the Doctor curiously.
"I'm a waitress," Scarlett answered, suddenly embarrassed of her profession.
"See, now that is a respectable job," he nodded, looking pointedly at Amy.
Amy sighed, "You're worse than my aunt!"
"I'm the Doctor, I'm worse than everybody's aunt!" He turned back to Mrs. Angelo, "And, that is not how I'm introducing myself."
Mrs. Angelo nodded before the Doctor went off on another one of his ramblings which Scarlett noticed occur quite frequently. "Okay. Planet this size has what; two poles? Your basic molten core? Uh, they're gonna need a forty per cent fission blast." Scarlett nodded in agreement, hearing his words but not understanding a bit of them. "But they'll have to power up first. So, assuming a medium sized star ship... that's twenty minutes. What do you think? Twenty minutes?" he asked Jeff who had just walked in aimlessly.
"Are you the Doctor?" asked Jeff.
"He is, isn't he? He's the Doctor! The Raggedy Doctor! From all those cartoons and games from when you two were little? The Raggedy Doctor! It's him!" exclaimed the older Angelo, a huge smile on her face.
"Gran? It's him, isn't it? It's really him!"
"Jeff, shut up," scolded Amy, "Twenty minutes to what?"
"The human residence. They're not talking about your house; they're talking about the planet. Somewhere up there, there's a spaceship. Aaand, it's going to incinerate the planet." He paused, "Twenty minutes to the end of the world."
The threesome finished up at the house and began walking along the village green before the Doctor spoke up. "What is this place? Where am I?"
"Leadworth," said Amy.
"Where's the rest of it?"
"This is it." Sure, it was small, but it was still home.
"Is there an airport?" he asked.
"No," Scarlett said simply.
"A nuclear power station?"
"Ha, no," she laughed sarcastically.
"Even just a little one?" he tried, desperately.
"No!"
"Nearest city?" he asked.
"Half an hour by car," replied Amy.
"We don't have half an hour. Do we have a car?"
"No."
The Doctor looked around one more time before sighing. "Oh, that's good! Fantastic, that is, twenty minutes to save the world, and I've got a Post Office. And it's shut. What is that?"
Amy and Scarlett followed his gaze to the duck pond.
"It's a duck pond," explained Amy as they follow the Doctor's path.
"Why aren't there any ducks?" he continued.
"There are never any ducks," Scarlett shrugged, though she supposed ducks would probably liven the pond up a bit.
"Then how do you know it's a duck pond?"
"It just is! Is it really that important, the duck pond?"
During their squabble, the sky started to change. It was still light out, but the sun looked… strange.
"What's wrong with the Sun?" asked Amy. Now, she was no expert on Geography, but she was pretty sure the sky wasn't supposed to look like that.
"Nothing. You're looking at it through a force field; they've sealed off your upper atmosphere, and now they're getting ready to boil the planet."
"Oh, great. We could've been in this situation with any old monster but we get the ones that want to boil the planet. Just my luck," Scarlett sighed.
That was when everyone in the park – males and females alike – pulled out their phones and raised them to the sky.
"Oh, and here they come; the human race. See, the end comes, as it was always going to, down a video phone," frowned the Doctor, emphasizing his last words with disgust and ignoring Scarlett's little outburst.
"This isn't real, is it? This is some kind of big wind-up," concluded Amy.
"Why would I wind you up?" asked the Doctor genuinely.
"You told me you had a time machine."
"And you believed me."
"Then I grew up."
"You never want to do that," he answered. And Scarlett agreed. It may sound stupid but even as she was growing up she had hoped the Doctor really was there that night. She had hoped that he was real, that he might come back. Now it seemed like her wish had come true.
"Twenty minutes! I can do it!" said the Doctor enthusiastically after a moment of thinking. "Twenty minutes, the planet burns, run to your loved ones and say goodbye... or stay and help me."
Scarlett stepped closer to the Doctor but Amy stayed put.
"No," she said.
"What?" the English girl frowned.
"NO!" She then grabbed hold of the Doctor's tie, tightly, and dragged him towards a just-parked car in the car park right behind them. Scarlett dragged behind.
"Amy, what are you doing?! Are you out of your mind?!" she urged. Twenty minutes to the end of the world and she decides to stall the only person who can save us… Genius Amelia Pond, Scarlett frowned before shaking her head to clear her thoughts.
"Yes, I second that!" the Doctor snapped as Amy opened the car door, and slammed it closed on his tie, trapping him there. She then proceeded to take the car keys off the old man who owned the car – Mr. Henderson – and lock it.
"Who are you?" barked Amy, stepping closer to the Doctor.
"You know who I am. Look at the sky. End of the world. Twenty minutes."
"Well, better talk quickly then," she retorted.
"Amy… I am going to need my car back," said Mr. Henderson, who had been watching the whole ordeal.
"You'll get it back soon, Mr. Henderson. Just go off and have a coffee," Scarlett said as politely as she could.
"Right. Yes…"
He left just as the Doctor started searching through his pockets to pull out an apple. "Catch," he said as he tossed it to Amy. She did, and she stared at it. At a glance Scarlett could see that the apple had a happy face carved into it. It's the one she gave him the first time they met.
"I'm the Doctor. I'm a time traveller. Everything I told you twelve years ago is true. I'm real. What's happening in the sky is real, and if you don't let me go right now, everything you've ever known is over."
"Amy… you have to let him go," her best friend pleaded.
She shook her head. "I don't believe you."
"Just twenty minutes," he tried again. "Just believe me for twenty minutes. Look at it. Fresh as the day you gave it to me, and you know it's the same one."
Amy looked down at the apple, up at the Doctor, and then glanced at Scarlett's pleading expression.
"Amy. Believe, for twenty minutes," said the Doctor.
Pausing, she raised the car keys and unlocked the door.
"What do we do?" she asked.
"Stop that nurse!"