"Ex Memoria"
17. For His Own Good
Inside the TARDIS
They had been so convinced that they would return to the ship and be confronted with an annoyed Time Lord that the majority of the travel back from the hospital to the park had been spent with Amy and Rory alternating in sharing the tales of past encounters with the Doctor's frustrations. But when they'd come through the door, they had found the place as silent and empty as they'd found it the last time. A quick run around had established to a near certainty that, if the Doctor had come, he had left once again, and they were no nearer to being reunited.
"Maybe he's still at the station," Tina suggested. "Trinity Wells did that report, so he could be back there."
"I'll call and try to see if he's there," Mike offered, and soon he was stepping out of the ship, pulling his phone from his pocket.
"Why don't you go and lie down a bit," Amy told Rory, tapping his shoulders. "You've had a rough day, get some rest while we're waiting, alright?" she told him as she guided him in the direction of the bedrooms. Rory looked ready to complain, but in the end, he might have caught on to what was really happening. He bowed his head and went in search of a bed.
Left alone, standing around the controls, Amy observed Tina, on the other side, before moving up to her. For another minute or so, she only observed her. Sensing the redhead's eyes on her, Tina looked up, trying not to appear so nervous.
"How long's it been?" Amy finally asked her.
"How long…" Tina shook her head, not following.
"Since you really met the Doctor," Amy filled in, and Tina hesitated. "I'm just remembering something at the moment, and I must be getting better at this, because I can tell the difference between my memories and other people's, and this definitely doesn't feel like it belongs to me. I think it was Mike's, seeing as it came with a bit of… feeling… toward you," she admitted, and Tina didn't know whether to be amused or freaked out.
"What do you… remember?" Tina asked, unsure how to phrase it.
"I remember you, and me… I mean… you and Mike, and the Glee Club, at McKinley, and Gemma, she…" She paused, growing quiet, and it took a while before Tina figured out what had upset her so suddenly. She knew where Gemma fit in the story. She was the Doctor's companion, or she would be… in a time when Amy no longer was. Tina tried to say something, but she didn't know what. Either way, Amy had taken a breath, let it out, and they were moving onward. "The Doctor doesn't know, does he?"
"It hasn't happened to him yet," Tina confirmed.
"Like him and River Song," Amy told herself.
"Who's River Song?"
"She's a long story," Amy replied, and this subject, like Gemma, was dropped.
"You can't tell him," Tina begged.
"I have the memory, remember?" Amy pointed out. "I know that he can't know, and I won't say a word."
"Right," Tina allowed herself to relax again. "I don't know how long it'll be, from now until he goes to Lima, I don't know what he'll have done, or… gone through," she tried not to turn to look at Amy as she said this, even though she might have been looking at the furthest point away from her and the other girl would still have seen right through her. "But I think he'll be okay."
"Just because he remembers to smile, doesn't mean he's not somewhere else…" Amy replied, and before Tina could ask her to elaborate, Mike returned. The way the door snapped open and shut around him, they knew he had hurried to get himself inside.
"Kid wouldn't stop staring at me," he breathed.
"Did you get in touch with the station?" Tina asked.
"I did, and when I asked about the Doctor, described him, the girl on the phone said he had been there, but only briefly. He spoke to Trinity Wells for a few minutes, but then he left and he hasn't been back since. That was hours ago."
They'd been so busy, between Rory's memory and Mrs. Lenkov's sister, that they had lost perspective on just how long they'd been parted from the Doctor, but now that they thought about it, they knew something had to have happened in the middle. The Doctor should have been back here, waiting to yell at them, but he wasn't, and there had to be a reason. It wasn't going to be a good one.
Amy had gone to fetch Rory from whatever room he'd holed up in while she spoke to Tina. When she had him, she brought him back to the control room, filling him in on what Mike had learned.
"You don't think… something happened to him?" Tina asked, worried. It wasn't as though they had let him go on his own, he was the one who'd told them to wait while he went by himself, but even then, she felt like they shouldn't have split from him.
"If he's not at the station, and he's not here," Amy counted off, working just as plainly to not let the worries get to her, "Then he might be at the museum, we'll go and find him," she declared, leading Rory toward the door.
"What if he's not there? What if he comes back?" Mike asked, but Amy turned to look at him, and her face was locked tight.
"He'll be there," she declared, then paused, hearing the loudness in her voice. She breathed, then at a regular tone, "He has to be." Neither Mike nor Tina argued at that, so all four of them left the TARDIS and started for the museum.
TO BE CONTINUED (TOMORROW)