Author's Note:
Well, here we are, another Saturday update! This is the longest chapter yet (though the next one will be longer still!) so hopefully you all enjoy it! If you do (or if you don't) please let me know! I know you're reading, I can see your views but I'm starting to worry that this story isn't keeping your attention well enough to warrant feedback. If that's the case then fair enough, like I said at the beginning I'm still not sure about this format, but I'm enjoying writing it so I'll carry on until the enjoyment fades. XD Of course, you could just be like me. I admit that I'm guilty of reading Fanfiction and failing to leave a review but I'm making a conscious effort to break that habit so if any of your lovely readers would like to trade reviews, just let me know!
That's all for now guys, enjoy the chapter!
Happy Reading!
Chapter Six
Staying Alive
Wilfred's suspicion that they'd found themselves in a small little town was confirmed the moment Amy led the trio to the main street. The town around them wasn't just small, it was tiny. Normally such a thing would have pleased him but today the elderly man got the feeling that tiny may not be good. At least they'd managed to convince Jeff and his grandmother to stay behind. If life with Donna had taught Wilf anything it was how to detect an upcoming slap and Jeff's continuing desire to talk about Amy's Doctor-themed cartoons had their artist seconds away from making all red-heads proud when he'd managed to herd both her and her alien muse out the door.
"What is this place? Where are we?" the Doctor asked as they continued to hurry down the road.
"Leadworth," Amy replied as though that explained everything.
The Time Lord glanced around. "Where's the rest of it?"
"This is it."
"Is there an airport?"
"No."
"A nuclear power station?"
Wilf raised his eyebrows. The thought of this new, rather clumsy Doctor hopping around a nuclear power station was more than a little unsettling. Actually, come to think of it, even the alien's former face in a nuclear power station could prove dangerous.
Amy chuckled desperately, "No."
The Doctor glanced at her. "Even a little one?"
"No."
"Nearest city?" the Time Lord tired.
"Gloucester. Half an hour by car."
"We don't have half an hour."
"We don't have a car," Wilf pointed out.
"Well, that's good. Fantastic, that is," said the Doctor sarcastically, "Twenty minutes to save the world and I've got a post office. And it's shut." He glared before something else caught his attention and he hurried towards it. "What is that?"
"It's a duck pond," Amy replied as she and Wilf scurried to keep up.
Coming to a stop at the pond's edge the Time Lord turned to face them with an odd expression on his face. "Why aren't there any ducks?" he demanded.
"I don't know," said the red-head indignantly, "There's never any ducks."
"Then how do you know it's a duck pond?"
"It just is," Amy was looking irritated now, "Is it important, the duck pond?"
The Doctor jerked violently and Wilfred felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. Not again, he couldn't be dying again, could he? He hurried forward to steady him as the alien staggered backwards. "Doctor?" he asked softly, worry clawing its way up his throat. Maybe the regeneration had gone wrong? Maybe crashing so soon afterwards had damaged something? Maybe...
But if the Time Lord could sense his older companion's worry he ignored it, responding instead to Amy's question. "I don't know. Why would I know?" he said in a slightly breathless voice, one hand clutching at his chest.
"Doctor, c'mon, sit down," Wilf ordered firmly, guiding his friend downwards until they were both sitting on the edge of the pond, "What's going on? You're not..." He let his voice trail off, the worry in eyes finishing the question for him.
The Doctor met the old human's eyes and forced a smile. "No, no, I'm not dying. I'm fine really. This is just too soon. I'm not ready, I'm not done yet. But I'm fine."
Wilfred gave him a doubtful look and was about to call him on it when someone turned down the sun. At least, that's what it seemed like. An odd looking, dark, something slid into place in front of the sun, casting the world below into shadow.
"What's happening?" Amy asked, staring up at the sun, "Why's it going dark?"
But almost as soon as the question was out of her mouth the shadows disappeared and the light returned but the sun still didn't look right. It was covered in orange waves, which looked to Wilf almost like there was some kind of energy was between the Earth and its life-giving star. "What is that, some kind of energy field?" he asked, glancing at the man sitting next to him.
The Time Lord looked mildly impressed. "It's a forcefield. They've sealed off your upper atmosphere. Now they're getting ready to boil the planet." Both Wilfred and Amy stared at him in horror as he pulled himself back to his feet and looked around at the people who were emerging from nearby buildings. "Oh, and here they come. The human race. The end comes, as it was always going to, down a video phone."
"This isn't real, is it?" said the red-head softly, clasping her hands nervously beneath her chin "This is some kind of big wind up."
"Why would I wind you up?" the Doctor looked genuinely hurt at the mere suggestion of it.
"You told me you had a time machine," Amy pointed out.
"And you believed me!"
"Then I grew up."
"Oh," said the Time Lord sadly, "You never want to do that. Look at Wilf! Old enough to be all grown up but here he is, exploring the universe! Good old Wilf." He grinned at the pair of them then jerked as though a thought had physically struck him. "No. Hang on. Shut up. Wait. I missed it." He smacked himself roughly on the forehead. "I saw it and I missed it." Another smack. "What did I see? I saw. What did I see? I saw, I saw, I saw..."
Amy turned to Wilf, wide eyed, as the Doctor stared silently into space.
"He does that," the old human told her softly, "Just go with it."
"Twenty minutes," and with that the Time Lord was back from wherever his mind had taken him, a determined look on his face as he turned to face his two companions, "I can do it. Twenty minutes, the planet burns. Run to your loved ones and say goodbye, or stay and help me." He paused. "That choice really only applies to Amy..."
Wilf shrugged. He'd have stayed even if he did have the choice to leave and they both knew it. Or at least, he hoped the Doctor knew it.
"No."
They both stared at Amy in disbelief.
"I'm sorry?" the Doctor asked.
But that was obviously the wrong things to say. "No!" the girl yelled, taking hold of the alien's tie and dragging him forcefully towards a car which had just pulled up.
"Amy, no, no, what are you doing?!" the Time Lord yelped, struggling against her grip until she slammed his tie into the door of a nearby car and locked it. "Are you out of your mind? Wilf, help!"
Wilfred, who had hurried after them, shook his head behind the red-head's back, trying to warn him not to push his luck.
"Who are you?" Amy demanded, then pointed over her shoulder at Wilf, "And who the hell is he?"
"You know who I am. And I told you, that's Wilf!"
"No, really. Who are you two?"
"Look at the sky," cried the Doctor, who was clearly getting agitated, "End of the world, twenty minutes."
"Well, better talk quickly, then," the red-head snapped back.
"Amy, listen to me a minute," said Wilfred, stepping into the line of fire and shooting the Doctor a look to keep him from interrupting, "My name is Wilfred Mott and I just want to help. Now, I don't know what happened when you two met, I wasn't there, but I know the Doctor and I trust him. He's a good man, Amy, he really is. He's the most wonderful man I've ever met." He felt the alien's gaze on him but did not make eye contact. They both recognized those words and knew when they'd last been spoken but now was not the time to go down that road. "He can save this world," he finished instead, "He always does."
There was a beat of silence before the Time Lord spoke, giving Amy his full attention once more. "Catch," he said softly, producing an apple with what appeared to be a face craved into it from the depths of one of his pockets and tossing it to her. "I'm the Doctor. I'm a time traveller. Everything I told you twelve years ago is true. I'm real. Wilf is 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."
But the girl shook her head slightly. "I don't believe you."
"Just twenty minutes," the Doctor pleaded, taking hold of the red-head's wrist and holding it so she couldn't help but look at the apple in her hand, "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, believe for twenty minutes."
"Please," Wilf added gently.
And at long last little Amelia Pond, the girl who got left behind, relented and unlocked the car. "What do we do?" she asked.
"Stop that nurse." The words had barely left the Doctor's mouth before he was moving, sprinting back across the lawn and snatching the camera phone out of the hands of an unsuspecting young man wearing nursing scrubs. "The sun's going out, and you're photographing a man and a dog. Why?" he demanded.
Hurrying to catch up, Wilf and Amy arrived just as the Time Lord had finished his question. Amy stopped next to the nurse while Wilf took up what he was coming to see as his place by the alien's side.
The red-head's presence seemed to distract the nurse from the task of answering, however, for he turned to her instead. "Amy," he said in surprise.
"Hi!" Amy's voice was uncharacteristically breathless as she turned to him and she seemed to be grabbing at his arm and yet actively trying not to all at the same time, "Oh, this is Rory, he's a friend."
"Boyfriend," Rory the nurse corrected.
"Kind of boyfriend," the red-head corrected again
"Amy..."
Ah, well that certainly explained a lot. Wilfred smiled and shook his head at the exchange he was witnessing.
The Doctor, however, was watching them impatiently. "Man and dog. Why?"
"Oh my God," said Rory, a look of dawning realization on his face, "It's him."
"Just answer his question, please," Amy pleaded, the same look of embarrassment she'd had on her face when Jeff and his grandmother recognized the alien reappearing in full force.
Girlfriend or not, Rory still ignored her, staring at the Time Lord with wide eyes. "It's him, though. The Doctor. The Raggedy Doctor."
"Yeah," his girlfriend replied, obviously trying to make it sound like it was no big deal, "He came back."
"But he was a story," the nurse pushed on, "He was a game."
Finally the Doctor's patience seemed to run out. He stepped towards Rory and grabbed him roughly by the shirt so their faces were mere inches apart. "Man and dog. Why? Tell me now."
"Sorry," said the nurse quickly, looking nervous, "Because he can't be there. Because he's –"
"In a hospital, in a coma," the Time Lord joined in, finishing the sentence in unison with the younger man.
"Yeah..." Rory confirmed slowly.
A grin worked its way onto the alien's face. "Knew it. Multiform, you see?" He released his grip on Rory's shirt and began smoothing out the wrinkles he'd caused, "Disguise itself as anything, but it needs a life feed. A psychic link with a living but dormant mind." He jobbed the nurse happily in the forehead.
"Doctor," Wilf reprimanded sharply, his parental instincts getting the better of him.
The Time Lord had the decency to look sheepish. "Sorry, get a bit carried away. Brand new me, this one likes touching..."
A sudden bark from behind them caused the group to spin around. The aforementioned multiform stood at the edge of the lawn, snarling unpleasantly at them from its mouths, both human and dog. It was disconcerting to say the least.
But the Doctor didn't seem phased, walking a few paces towards the creature without hesitation. "Prisoner Zero," he said by way of greeting.
"What?" Rory hissed, "There's a Prisoner Zero too?"
"Yes," Amy replied quickly, her eyes still on the scene unfolding before her.
And were there ever things to see. A spaceship, made up of what Wilf could only assume was some sort of blue, crystallized materiel which formed points jutting out in every direction, descended from the heavens and stopped overhead. A giant blue eye, identical to the one which had commandeered Jeff's grandmother's television, was fastened in the center and busily scanning the earth below. Actually, if he avoided looking at the eye, the old human had to admit the ship itself was rather beautiful.
The Time Lord was staring up at it too, but returned his focus quickly to the alien convict standing in front of him and pulled his screwdriver out of his pocket. "See, that ship up there is scanning this area for non-terrestrial technology," he said with a smirk, "And nothing says non-terrestrial like a sonic screwdriver." He raised the device about his head with a grin, pushed the button, and world went mad.
Streetlights exploded, car alarms blared, some poor old woman's scooter took off of its own accord and an unmanned fire engine trundled past them and off down the road with its crew chasing after it. Wilfred, Amy and Rory stared around them, torn between laughing and full out panicking, just trying to take it all in.
"I think someone's going to notice, don't you?" the Doctor called, obviously enjoying himself.
Prisoner Zero barked angrily as a red telephone box exploded. But that wasn't the only explosion. The sonic screwdriver had clearly reached its limit and Doctor dropped it in surprise as it went up in sparks and smoke.
"No, no!" the Time Lord yelled, picking up the fallen tool before throwing it back down in disgust, "No, don't do that!"
"Look, it's going," Rory called out, indicating the spaceship which was indeed leaving.
The Doctor jumped back to his feet in one swift motion, his arms stretched wide. "No, come back. He's here! Come back! He's here. Prisoner Zero is here. Come back, he's here! Prisoner Zero is here..." His voice trailed off as the ship disappeared.
Wilfred, who was standing next to the Time Lord, heaved a sigh. "How did they not see that?" he asked.
"Doctor!" Amy's voice cut across any reply the Doctor had in mind, "The drain. It just sort of melted and went down the drain."
And sure enough Prisoner Zero was gone.
"Well, of course it did," the alien replied as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"Yeah, o'course," Wilf muttered sarcastically but no one heard him.
"What do we do now?" Amy asked.
The old human shook his head slightly. It seemed he wasn't the only one who was learning simply to accept things such as melting aliens and move on. The Doctor seemed to have that effect on everyone.
"It's hiding in human form," the Time Lord replied though it seemed he was simply thinking out loud, "We need to drive it into the open. No TARDIS, no screwdriver, seventeen minutes. Come on, think. Think! Think! Think!" He tapped himself hard in the temples before dashing over to the drain down which Prisoner Zero had escaped and staring down at it. "Where would it go? Where could it go..?"
The three humans followed, but more slowly. While Amy seemed to be accepting things fairly well (excluding the tiny hiccup when she locked the Doctor to a car with his tie) her boyfriend was clearly struggling. Wilfred offered the young man a kind and, hopefully, reassuring smile and the nurse gave a shaky nod in return before kneeling to stare down the drain.
"You won't see anything," the Doctor sighed, watching as Rory searched the darkness in vain, "Prisoner Zero's long gone."
"So that thing, that hid in my house for twelve years?" Amy asked as her boyfriend stood up mutely.
"Multiforms can live for millennia," the Time Lord explained, "Twelve years is a pit-stop."
Wilf frowned suddenly as a thought occurred to him. "Hold on," he said slowly, staring between the drain and the Doctor, "Prisoner Zero's been here for twelve years, right? So how come his guards decide to show up and look for him on the same day we come back again?"
"The same minute, even?" Amy added, catching on.
"They're looking for him, but they followed me," the Time Lord explained, "They saw me through the crack last time I was here, got a fix, they're only late because I am."
"What's he on about?" Rory asked desperately, staring at them all.
But the Doctor obviously wasn't in the mood for any more explanations. "Nurse boy, give me your phone," he demanded instead, holding out his hand expectantly.
"How can he be real?" the young man continued, waving the aforementioned phone around but otherwise ignoring the request, "He was never real."
"Phone. Now. Give me."
The nurse handed his mobile over though he still appeared to be in a daze. "He was just a game," he rambled on desperately, and Wilf realized that he was trying to convince himself more than anyone else, "We were kids. You made me dress up as him."
Chuckling at the mental image of a tiny Rory swimming in a battered suit and tie several sized too big for him, Wilf turned his attention away from the boy's rambling and focused instead on the phone in the Time Lord's hands, watching over the alien's shoulder as he scrolled through the most recent photos. "These photos," he asked, gesturing to the mobile, "They're all coma patients?"
"Yep," Rory confirmed, Wilfred's question seemingly snapping him back to reality.
"No," the Doctor corrected, "They're all the multiform. Eight comas, eight disguises for Prisoner Zero."
"He had a dog, though," Amy pointed out, "There's a dog in a coma?"
"Well, the coma patient dreams he's walking a dog, Prisoner Zero gets a dog," the Time Lord explained easily then his head snapped up and he gave to group an excited grin. "Laptop!" he announced, turning to Amy, "Your friend, what was his name? Not him," he gestured towards Rory absentmindedly, "The good-looking one."
Wilfred sighed. "Doctor..." he groaned.
"Thanks," Rory quipped sarcastically.
"Jeff," his girlfriend ignored her two fellow humans and replied to the Doctor instead.
Rory made a noise somewhere between a frustrated huff and a groan. "Oh, thanks."
Wilf felt a surge of sympathy for the young man and clapped a hand on his shoulder in reassurance.
The Doctor, however, showed no such consideration. "He had a laptop in his bag," he continued with his train of thought as though there had been no interruption, "A laptop. Big bag, big laptop. I need Jeff's laptop. You two, get to the hospital. Get everyone out of that ward. Clear the whole floor. Wilf, go with them. Keep everyone alive. Phone me when you're done." And then he was off, striding back in the direction they'd come, back towards Jeff's grandmother's place.
The elderly human watched him go before heaving a sigh. Keep everyone alive. No pressure then, right Doctor... But then he realized something and a smile took up residence on his face. In his own, Doctor-y way the Time Lord had just told him that he trusted him. Still smiling to turned to the couple he'd been left to watch over, "Alright, we need to get to the hospital."
"Rory's car," said Amy quickly, "Come on." And with that she took off in the direction of a red and white Mini parked on the other side of the street with Wilfred hurrying along behind her.
"But how can he be here? How can the Doctor be here?" the nurse cried out, still unable to comprehend what was happening even as he ran to catch up, climbed into the driver's seat and drove off in the direction of the hospital.
No one answered him.