Hi! Thank you so much for reading this far! :)
Once again, neither of these fandoms are mine. I hope you like the next chapter.
Amy leaned against the tree behind her grumpily. Rain was pouring out of the sky like the world was about to end, and it was bloody cold rain, too. Of course the Doctor had to go this way, so she had taken shelter under this tree when the downpour started. She only hoped her quarry had done the same.
Amy heard hoofbeats on the road behind her and looked up. Rory was cantering slowly along the road, sitting easily atop a plain-looking brown horse. Amy stood hurriedly up and ran to the edge of the road, just in time for him to very nearly run her over. She gave out a startled shriek. After a few paces, Rory managed to pull the horse to a stop and hop off.
"Amy!" he yelled. "Never do that again! I almost killed you-" he was interrupted by a flying hug. The horse started backing away, but stopped soon enough while the couple hugged.
"Rory," Amy said anxiously, "how did you get here? I've been going after the Doctor, there was a herald or whatever they're called back in the last town who told me he'd gone this way."
"The Doctor's here? Oh good, he can get us out of here."
"Only if we can catch him," Amy added with an infectious grin. "Wanna run?"
Rory grinned back at her. "Always."
The Doctor stumbled through the rain, head spinning. His hair was flattened against his skull, his temples pounding, and he couldn't feel his feet. This last was testified by their subsequent tripping in the mud, sending the Doctor flat on his face. Again. He picked himself back up and stumbled on. Once the headache that had been growing since his arrival had reached huge levels, the Doctor had decided to make a quick detour back to his TARDIS to see if he could figure out what was going on. Unfortunately, it had turned out not to be so quick a trip after all, given his current inability to go in a straight line. Finally, he fell into a ditch. A vaguely familiar ditch, given the earlier prints in the mud. Just above the edge of the ditch on the far side from the road was, yes, at last, a well-loved blue wood construction. The Doctor gasped in relief and fumbled his key into the lock, turned it. The door opened, offering sweet sanctuary- he fell over, cracking his head on the bottom of the TARDIS. The Doctor tried to clamber back to his feet, but darkness flooded into his mind in a rose of cold. He blacked out.
It had been over an hour, and the rain had stopped, but Amy and Rory had found no sign of the Doctor. At last, Rory got off the horse, handing the reins to Amy. Rory the Roman, they both knew, could track a person and now he was scanning the sides of the road.
"You sure he went this way?" he asked.
"That's what the Herald said."
At last Rory came to a bush. Fully half the branches were broken.
"Well, somebody's been here, at least."
A short ways on was a pine tree with a large, muddy handprint on the trunk. They proceeded in this fashion for a little while longer, still on the North Road. Off the side of the road, they eventually found a series of faint tracks, mostly washed away by the rain. Strangely, they staggered from side to side as if the owner were drunk and the pair found occasional handprints on rocks or trees or, sometimes, the ground. Finally they reached another road. On the opposite side was a ditch and, directly opposite the road, the TARDIS. Or at least, Amy thought it was the TARDIS. It was Rory who finally raised the comment that resided in both of their minds.
"She looks awfully beat-up".
"Smaller, too, and a different color blue." One hand reached out to grasp the other and the Ponds walked up to the stranger TARDIS.
"The door's open." Amy glanced at her husband.
There was a groan from underneath them and both Ponds jumped back. A man lay in the ditch, coated in mud over a pale brown trenchcoat, hair ruffled and dark brown, wearing a dark blue pinstriped jacket with a muted tie that was probably red under the dirt. His head was marked by a multitude of small cuts and bruises including a large bump on his temple. Clutched in the stranger's hand was a small silver key on a necklace and poking out of his pocket was- a small, silver sonic screwdriver with a blue end. The Ponds looked at each other as the stranger stirred.
It had stopped raining when the Doctor finally woke up on the hard floor of the TARDIS- wait a moment. That wasn't right, couldn't be right. He'd been knocked out in a ditch- he sat up with a start, only to see two strangers standing next to him. One had long, bright red hair, a leather jacket, and a scarf and the other short blondish hair and was wearing a sweater. The latter was also holding his screwdriver in one hand.
"Who are you?" he demanded. "What happened? And you, nose boy, give me back my screwdriver. Now."
The woman raised an eyebrow. "Not until you tell us who you are and where the Doctor is."
"Wha?" he stuttered. "Well I guess you're in luck, I am the Doctor and oh, dear," he answered, "my headache's coming- " he blinked a few times, moving his mouth in silence and clutching at his head. Thoughts rushed into his brain, not his thoughts, other people's.
:You're not the Doctor!: yelled a Scottish-sounding voice in his head.
"You're not the Doctor. I know what the Doctor looks like," the woman replied flatly.
"I know," he managed to gasp out, "I heard you the first time." The Doctor pulled himself up on the railing beside him and stood shakily. "But I am the Doctor, I should know. And you still haven't answered my question." he wheezed.
Rory glanced back at Amy, then told him. "I'm Rory Williams and this is my wife, Amelia Pond."
"Pond?" he asked. "Sounds like a name in a fairytale."
Amy's hand rose to her mouth. Abruptly, the Doctor was overwhelmed by a rush of memories. A little redheaded Scottish girl, all alone in her house. The crack in her wall. The images made no since. A man with huge hair, a ridiculous chin, and his shirt all shredded to bits, eating... fish fingers and custard? That must have been repulsive.
"Fish fingers and custard," Amy exclaimed, "what about fish fingers and custard?"
"What?" he asked vaguely, jerked out of the river of thought. "I don't know, it's your memory. I think."
"You're reading my mind right now?"
The Doctor winced. "I don't exactly know?"
Fish fingers and custard, his mind screamed, a crack in her wall. The crack flashed through his brain again, a thousand times. Angels. A battle, soldiers in uniform lined up for battle. The woman again and again and her husband, Rory, his name was. Romans and Cleopatra- no. Her. River. The archaeologist. What? The Pandorica- but that was a legend. Daleks, and cybermen, and the TARDIS all shiny and new-looking and the man with the chin, in all of these pictures. A wedding, the woman's, and he had been... late? And Rory was... a Dalek?
"You don't know?" The woman demanded incredulously. "You don't know if you're reading my mind?"
"I haven't exactly done this before," the Doctor gasped, lunging for his screwdriver. The man- Rory, he remembered- moved it calmly away. He stood up straight again, dizzily, hearts pounding. He stared into Rory's eyes. "I am the Doctor, I swear to you, and you must have travelled with me. Now give me my screwdriver before something happens."
"Fine."
"Thank you."
Rory dropped it into the Time Lord's hand, which closed firmly around it before the Doctor collapsed with another groan of pain. He scrabbled to put the screwdriver back in its pocket against the burning pain in his head and got another series of images, of 2000 long years of waiting, waiting in a world with no stars while Amy- that was her name. Right. She had said it earlier, or rather Rory had. He curled into a ball as the TARDIS made a sympathetic whooshing sound and stared fixedly at one of the round thingies on the wall.
"I think I might need a little help."