Chapter 6: Crash Stranded
The TARDIS is in a free fall. Hurling through time and space, while also losing and gaining power at a rapid rate with the box being in the process of rebooting herself. Sparks are emitting from the now broken light fixture on top, showering the blackened void between all of space and time with temporary light. The roof continues to crumple and then expand after its impact in the cave. Everything is a mess and the Gallifreyan machine is struggling to remain together.
Things are even more chaotic on the inside with alarms blaring, machinery sparking or even on fire and lights blinking from the power surges. Amy and Rory are clinging to the railings surrounding the console for dear life as the police box jolts from side to side and a few times, nearly hurls them all upside down. It's as if the TARDIS was doing it on purpose to keep them from staying on their feet. All the couple can do is hold each other and the railing for stability.
"DOCTOR!" Amy cries out.
"I know, I know, I know Ponds, I know!" the Timelord hisses. He too is having trouble staying on his feet, being flung from one side of the console to the other, flipping switches, pressing buttons and pulling levers in an attempt to maintain control.
Another violent movement to the left, nearly sends Rory headfirst into the console, if Amy didn't have a hold of his jacket. The TARDIS shifts, forcing him back towards his wife and the railing goes into his stomach with a painful impact.
"I think I'm going to be sick," he murmurs. He's always hated roller coasters and avoided them at any county fairs, but this was a thousand times worse and there was a very real threat that they would die from this.
Suddenly, the police box goes completely horizontal, the trio is left dangling in the air. It's still shaking but now everything is sideways. The Doctor clings to one of the scanners, while his companions look as though they're hanging on monkey bars.
"How do we get out of this one?" Rory asks, wishing this nightmare would end.
However, Amy's hands, which are sore and already sweaty from fear, plus the shaking from the TARDIS are about to make the nightmare much worse.
"I'm slipping…" Amy says quietly.
"What?" Rory asks.
"Rory, I'm slipping!" she screams, tears in her eyes.
"Hold on Amy!" The Doctor says, hearing the panic in her voice. He tries to reach into his jacket for his sonic screwdriver, to try and override the console and stabilize the TARDIS, however holding on with one hand and fumbling into his pockets takes up precious time, precious seconds that they don't have.
"I can't… I'm slipping… help me!"
Rory scrambles to try and reach his wife. The Doctor manages to grab his screwdriver, but another sudden shock causes him to drop it and it plummets past the Ponds.
However, that shift spelled something even worse. When her hands lose the last bit of traction, Amy thinks this might be the end. The fall would kill her. Tears flood her eyes, and she tries to memorize Rory and the Doctor's faces… the last ones she'll ever see. No sound comes from her mouth, she's just completely silent.
"AMY!" Rory and the Doctor scream out.
The thought of losing one of his best friends, and his family, forces the Time Lord to try and reach something on the console, any button that could change the possible end to Amy Pond.
Fortunately, Rory has wrapped his feet around one of the bars, giving him enough leeway to reach down and grab his wife's wrists. The sudden stop causes Amy to finally let out a sound… a mixture of relief and very present fear. She looks up at her husband gratefully, tears in her eyes.
"Doctor please!" Rory begs. "I can't hold like this."
"On it," the Time Lord says, finally managing to hit a button, causing just enough of a shift to bring them to a better state.
Amy collapses into Rory's arms sobbing at the near-death experience and he does his best to hold her and be attached to something solid.
"Impact Imminent. Impact Imminent" a warning system shouts.
The Doctor looks at Amy and Rory… his hearts are beating like crazy. He watches the latter of his companions doing his best to shield his wife from the coming impact. The alien knows there's a very real risk that this crash landing really could and quite possibly would kill his friends this time.
He looks at the screen of the TARDIS.
"Come on girl, I know what you're going through, but just stabilize for me… and them…"
A massive boom surrounds them as they break the sound barrier while entering an unspecified planet's upper atmosphere. Sparks that had been emitting from the outside now, ignite into flames, illuminating the windows outside.
"Come on… it's all or nothing, my beautiful girl," the Doctor says, pulling a lever.
With one final manoeuvre and with the last of her power, the police box rightens herself and slips through a cluster of trees, landing very heavily on the ground and causing a large shock wave to spread outwards.
With that, everything inside goes dark.
…
Both companions stumble out of the smoke, gasping and still holding onto each other. The Gallifreyan marvel and machine had nearly killed them twice in a matter of seconds, but somehow it hadn't. Of course, when it had been possessed, the TARDIS had tried to kill them then, but this time it was completely unintentional.
Amy, still shaken and crying from nearly dying minutes earlier, lets go of her husband and uses a tree to prop herself up. She then leans back against the bark and then slowly slides into a seated position. She leans her head back, drinking in the cool, damp air and waiting for the Vertigo to stop. Rory joins his wife and hangs his head between his legs to prevent vomiting. The adrenaline and fear of nearly dying are rushing through their veins and it's the most unpleasant feeling of all.
Once the police box stops hissing and spewing smoke, it's completely silent… in what the Ponds deduce to be a forest of some kind due to the presence of many trees. They can definitely tell where they had come from due to the smouldering and the blackened branches that surrounded the hole above them. A gray and silent wooded area, exactly what they needed to recover. The strange thing was… there were no animals, no crickets, nothing… soundless, which was not good.
Emerging from the darkness, the Doctor removes himself from his beloved TARDIS, completely unaffected by the "crash" landing and pockets his recovered screwdriver.
"Not the greatest of landings, but at least we're in one piece."
The Ponds shoot death glares at the alien. Once again, his stupid adventures had nearly gotten them attacked by some unknown creatures and then nearly obliterated by the trusty time machine.
Finally, coming down from the adrenaline and panic of nearly dying, Amy speaks first. "I can't believe that's what a crash landing is like," She's still waiting for her sickness to subside. "Is that what you went through when you crashed into my back garden all those years ago?"
"More or less," the Time Lord says. "Although fortunately, the library did not go into the swimming pool this time."
Rory stays out of the conversation. While he'd heard Amy's story of meeting the Doctor before, he didn't even want to know how their crash landing measured up to a previous one.
"The important thing is, we're on solid ground and the old girl can reboot in peace," the Timelord says, patting his box in appreciation for getting them somewhere safe.
"Thank you, sweet girl," he whispers.
"Speaking of ground, where are we exactly?" Rory asks. Both he and his wife know that even if where they landed looked harmless and like Earth, it could merely be a façade and the eerie silence did not help their suspicions.
The Doctor opens his mouth and tastes the air.
"Earth…" he pauses to get another sample. "Definitely Earth." The relief of Amy and Rory that they weren't stuck on an alien planet while the TARDIS was rebooting was a godsend.
He tastes the air again and also smells it.
"2019 by the atmospheric conditions…"
This spooks the couple a little bit, but it wasn't a significant jump in time. How different could 2012 be from 2019?
After one more sample…
"The USA, I believe… the salted moisture in the air means we're closer to the oceans… Close to the Pacific, but not as hot. I'd estimate Albany… no wait! Maine."
"So, we're in Maine in the US in 2019?" Rory says, summarizing the Doctor's analysis.
"Yes."
"And where exactly are we going to stay while the box is rebooting?" Rory asks.
"We could stay in the TARDIS," the Doctor suggests.
"With no power?" Amy says skeptically. "No lights, no heat, no electricity, no WiFi."
"One of those things you don't need Pond… bloody Twitter?" the Time Lord swears in disgust.
"No, to call someone like my parents and let them know we're okay," Amy reasoned, ignoring her best friend's hostility towards social media.
"We're in 2019 Pond, I can't guarantee that your parents have the same telephone numbers or if they're living in the same place… plus think of the bill being halfway around the world."
"Well, then we can use it to find a hotel or something. We're not staying in the TARDIS if it doesn't have any power."
"Plus, it's dark as night in there," Rory adds. While it sounded childish, no one wants to be within a massive time machine without being able to see anything. Who knows what might be lurking in there?
The Doctor removes his screwdriver and does a quick scan through the woods and checks the readings.
"There's a highway just east of here. Less than a mile, but there are no cars at the moment."
"Better than nothing," Rory says, standing up.
He offers his hand to Amy, but she stands up on her own.
The two humans walk through the trees in the direction the alien indicated.
After shutting the door to his box, the Doctor follows.
Eventually, in the fading light, they reach the aforementioned stretch of road. A two-lane highway with nothing to be seen in either direction. It was clearly just a paved way to get in and out of the forest, the kind of road someone might take to go camping or hunting.
"What now?" Amy asks.
"I say we start walking. We're bound to hit civilization at some point," Rory answers.
"But we're so deep in the woods, plus it's almost dark out," the redhead says. "We need torches or something. And coats" She shivers in the cold.
"I'll go get them," The Doctor says, going back towards his crashed ship.
Rory removes his sweater and wraps it around his wife. She smiles in appreciation. He then kisses her and removes his phone from his pocket and turns on the flashlight.
"Who needs torches?" he smirks.
"Shouldn't we wait for the Doctor?" Amy asks.
"How about I scout ahead and when he comes, just follow the light?" he suggests.
"All right, but don't get lost," she says, kissing her husband.
Rory begins walking up the road, using his phone for light. He's hoping that they would eventually hit a town or village, something with a population. All roads lead somewhere.
As he walks, he notices that the sounds of the forest have returned. Crickets and nocturnal birds come to life. Perhaps the reason for the silence was the TARDIS crashing.
Just then, the beam of his phone catches something.
On the road, is a crudely painted line, bright orange or yellow. Maybe it was a marking of some kind.
He walks closer until his foot is nearly on the line, becoming hopeful that they're close.
He turns to call out to Amy and the Doctor, but he takes a step back.
In a flash, he vanishes.
…
Rory Williams blinks in shock because there's now suddenly what appears to be a town in front of him. In the distance, he can see streetlights and light within the shops and houses making it appear cozy and idyllic… like something out of a storybook. It looked completely normal and secluded.
He reads the sign saying Welcome to Storybrooke.
The nurse is completely stunned. How could this place just appear like that?
Maybe they were on an alien planet because what place on Earth is concealed by some kind of force field? He's about to turn when an angry, gruff voice shouts at him.
"Hey, you! Yeah, you... Who are you and how did you get here?"
…
"Rory? Rory?" Amy calls, looking around for him down the road.
"What happened?" the Time Lord asks, coming back with jackets and torches.
"Rory, just vanished," Amy reports.
"Seems to be a pattern with him," the alien mutters and Amy smacks him in the shoulder.
"What?"
"He decided to charge ahead, using his phone light and I could see him, then his light was suddenly gone."
"Which way did he go?"
Amy points and the two hurry up the road to where Rory Williams was last seen.
They too see the painted line on the road.
The Doctor takes out his screwdriver and scans the area where Rory vanished. However, his screwdriver blinks and gives the Time Lord the most unusual readings.
"That's odd…"
"What is?"
"It's some sort of energy field, but it's nothing that my screwdriver has ever seen before."
"Is that bad?"
"Depends on your opinion. What I can get from this is that it's made of energy, it's concealing something."
"What could it be hiding?"
"No idea…" his face lights up with curiosity and intrigue. Don't always need the TARDIS to discover an adventure.
"Can we get Rory back through? Is it going to hurt him?"
"I think it's only one way Pond and there's only one way to find out."
"GERONIMOOOOO!" he shouts before racing towards the field.
"Doctor!" Amy screams but is unable to grab him.
In an instant, her best friend vanishes, creating a ripple in the surrounding trees.
"Impossible," she mutters to herself, even if she already knew it was indeed possible, anything was with the Doctor.
Being more cautious, she approaches the line and puts her hand out.
It hits what feels like a wall and it ripples as a stone does when dropped in a pond.
Trusting her instincts, she shuts her eyes and walks through to the other side.
A/N: It's finally time. Hope you're excited