Twist and Shout

Amy

Turquoise sea, white sand, emerald jungle glistening with rainbow foliage, humidity and driftwood and a burning hot sun – it was everything she could have wished for when she suggested to Donna they have a relaxing excursion to cure her writer's block. A tropical island so picture-perfect it could be a default laptop screensaver, and that truly was the mark of a high-quality graphic. It was gorgeous with palm trees and clear skies, completely isolated. There was only one thing missing from their getaway location.

"I thought you said there would be cocktails?" Donna asked, wandering around on the island, both of them dressed for the climate. Every time Amy dressed to go somewhere hot she was reminded of when the Doctor had promised they were going to Rio and she had found herself stuck in cold, wet Wales in the shortest short-shorts possible. At least her gamble had paid of this time, though – it was a primo destination and she fell in love with it as soon as she stepped onto the beach in the cool breeze, with her open-toed sandals and her sunglasses.

"Yeah… I thought there'd be people everywhere," Amy mused, but the island appeared to be empty. When she strained her ears to listen, she couldn't hear any tell-tale, human sounds, just the waves lapping at the shores and the wind rustling the leaves of the trees behind them. "Honestly, I swear this is a proper destination. Maybe they do that thing where they close the beach sometimes?"

"Do places do that?" Donna frowned.

"I think so. I don't know. You're rich, you must go on holidays to fancy places."

"I don't need to, I have a villa, in the Maldives," Donna said. Amy gawked; she had never heard that before.

"You're not serious? How is that fair?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, the Doctor leaves you, but he gives you a winning lottery ticket. The Doctor leaves Rory and I when we were taken by Weeping Angels, and we're forced to live the rest of our lives in New York in the 1930s during the Great Depression and back when all the food was boiled and there was no vaccine for tuberculosis."

"Invest in the stock market?" Donna suggested.

"The stock market that just crashed? That's your plan?"

"By shares in… I don't know, ammunition manufacturers. You'll get rich when World War Two happens."

"Somehow I'm not morally okay with exploiting war for profit," Amy said.

"No, fair enough," Donna sighed. Amy had made up her mind – if and when she and Rory actually left the TARDIS and returned to their squalid lives in mid-20th Century New York City, she was going to make sure he left them with some way to get money. A way that didn't involve capitalising on all the millions of people who were doomed to die in World War Two. Maybe they would pull a Back to the Future and find a guide to make big money gambling on sporting events. Or maybe they should cut their losses and just become gangsters.

"We've got basically all the ingredients for cocktails right here," she changed the subject.

"What?" Donna frowned, staring around, "Listen, I've drunk some very disgusting and highly alcoholic concoctions in my lifetime, but I'm not sure you have any of the ingredients for any alcohol whatsoever here. It's deserted. It's a proper deserted island."

"No, look, there are palm trees. If there are palm trees, there are coconuts. If there are coconuts, then we can make piña coladas."

"You also need pineapples and rum," Donna reminded her, "And something to mix it in. And ice."

"There are probably pineapples somewhere around here – it's a tropical island."

"And what about rum?" Donna challenged.

"Maybe there are pirates."

"What?"

"Pirates always have rum. I think. It's their thing. Anyway, I'm sure there's a bar here somewhere, this is definitely a resort. There's probably a hotel right through those trees, or around the beach. Let's go see," Amy said, marching purposefully towards the treeline. Donna met her by the brush and they stepped into the forest and its dense foliage. Within minutes of leaving the beach they were packed in by trees and plants and vines and flowers, strange plants Amy had never seen before. Though that didn't particularly surprise her, it was a desert island after all, and she was no botanist. "It's like Lord of the Flies out here." Donna stared at her. "Before they start killing each other, I mean."

"Lot of nice flowers," Donna observed after a minute. It was slow-going in that jungle, dragging their feet through the roots and foliage which just seemed to get thicker as they progressed.

"I was just thinking the same thing."

"The Doctor and Rose haven't even picked flowers for the wedding yet," said Donna.

"Really? We had a lot of sunflowers."

"Sunflowers? Weird choice," said Donna.

"What did you have? You and Shaun?"

"Hydrangeas, mainly, blue ones – and avalanche roses. We got married in December, the colours looked nice. Couldn't afford anything too fancy, we didn't have much money at all. And then the Doctor got us that lottery ticket as a wedding gift. He was there, actually. I saw the TARDIS in the background of one of the photos. Didn't know what it was – with the memory wipe – asked somebody to edit it out but I changed my mind at the last minute. Suppose something in me recognised it," Donna explained.

"Sounds nice," Amy said, "Similar thing with the sunflowers, actually – bunch of weird stuff with my memory. I totally forgot who the Doctor was until halfway through the wedding reception, and I stood up and made a speech demanding into thin air that he show up. Everybody thought I'd lost it, even Rory. But he showed up though, like always."

"What's that to do with sunflowers?"

"We met Van Gogh," she said, "Few weeks, or maybe months, earlier. I kept trying to get him to paint sunflowers, I filled the whole garden with sunflowers. It's my favourite painting. But I forgot about that, too. It was these cracks in time, sucking everything up, I don't know. It's complicated and it was a while ago, years. But I insisted on us having sunflowers at our wedding. Rory doesn't have many opinions about flowers anyway. He was more worried about if I was going to jilt him at the altar."

"Why did he think you would jilt him?"

"I don't know. I wouldn't. Well, I did run off with the Doctor the night before my wedding, and maybe I did also try to kiss him, but he wasn't having it," said Amy, "Very awkward around women."

"Yeah, he does seem like he doesn't know anything about girls."

"I suppose I was speaking to a Doctor before he'd been married to River for three-hundred years, though," Amy shrugged, "My daughter has clearly done a number on him. She does have a tendency to be a bit psychotic sometimes." Donna laughed. "Anyway, how is Shaun? You never talk about him. Like, ever."

"Oh, he's fine. Nobody ever asks. I see him a fair bit."

"You do? When?"

"I've been having dinner with him at home most evenings," Donna said. Amy paused, dragging her feet through the leaves.

"Have you?"

"Ever since I unlocked this new 'power' with the portals," she said, "I can pop home, pop back again without anyone asking me what I'm doing. It's the questions I hate more than anything, people are so nosey. 'Specially you, bothering me when I'm in the library, forcing me to come out here – I don't see any bars or hotels yet, Amy."

"I am sure that there's going to be some alcohol out here somewhere, okay?" Amy argued, though she was getting increasingly less sure that there was any alcohol. But she couldn't show weakness. "We should have dinner, or something. You, me, Rory, Shaun. I'm dying to see your villa."

"There are cocktails at my villa…" Donna muttered, "But we're not staying in the villa at the moment, we've got this flat that overlooks Hyde Park."

"Blimey, that must have cost you a fortune."

"It did. What a cliché, though – all the married people hanging around with each other."

"Eurgh, I know. It's gross. We should invite Mickey and Martha. Speaking of, do you think those two have been acting strange recently?" Amy asked, peering at Donna over the frames of her sunglasses, which were sliding down her nose because she was sweating in the heat. She certainly thought Mickey and Martha had been acting strange. They didn't actually used to spend too much time together, Martha was always at Rose's heels while Mickey and Rory had conjured up quite the 'bromance' since they had met. But in recent weeks they had been completely absorbed with one another, whispering together and sneaking out of rooms.

"Maybe a bit. I reckon they've just rekindled their relationship a bit, or something," Donna shrugged, "You hear about it all the time. Woman reads an article in Heat magazine about adding excitement to the bedroom and then they're-" Donna was, at this point, a step or two ahead of Amy, with Amy following the path she was making in the underbrush. But Amy froze while walking, froze and saw something – something deadly. While Donna was still mid-sentence, she acted on impulse.

"Watch out!" she shouted, grabbing Donna's arms and dragging her backwards. Donna tripped and fell into a tree, loudly objecting to what Amy was doing, but then they saw something shoot through the air in front of them, half a dozen tiny objects.

"What the hell was that?" Donna hissed, Amy letting go of her arm.

"I don't know. Looked like blow-darts, or something. I had a premonition," she explained, edging forwards to get past Donna and investigate. If Rory was there he would tell her to turn around and run in the opposite direction from something that was shooting at her, but she had never been in the habit of trying to escape from danger.

Tentatively she approached, through the grass and branches, looking to see if the darts had found a nearby tree trunk to latch onto as Donna had been rescued. Luckily, they had, and she carefully picked one out of the bark. That was when she realised it was not a dart, it was a thorn, like a rose thorn only larger and glistening with what appeared to be some kind of secretion. It glistened in the light as she held it.

"Is that a thorn?" Donna stared at it.

"Looks like one," said Amy.

"It looks wet, you should put it down. It could be poisonous."

"Good point…" Amy stuck it back in the tree trunk she had pulled it from, wedging it into the slit it had made, and wiped her hand on a leaf. She would have to keep an eye on that, because she highly suspected it was poisonous, and hopefully it was only the type of poison that had to be ingested rather than any kind which could be absorbed through the skin.

Unfortunately, the mysterious thorns were the least of Amy Pond's problems. She tried to continue walking, to find herself impeded. Something was caught around her ankle, keeping her stuck fast – quite literally rooted to the spot – and it smarted when she tried to walk and pull herself free. As she paused and tried to twist so that she could see what her foot was stuck in, her whole leg was wrenched. It was she had been grabbed by someone and she was being dragged, and in one painful instant she was suspended, upside-down, by her ankle.

"Oh my god!" Donna shouted.

"What!? What's going on!?" Amy flailed in the air, struggling to get eyes on what was tugging at her. She lifted herself up as best she could and saw that it appeared to be a vine, thick and green, and that wasn't all – it was moving. It was wrapping itself around her leg tightly, snaking along her like a python. Maybe it was a python, but she was sure pythons bit their pray before constricting them, and she was not being bitten. Just having the bones in her left leg slightly crushed. She screamed. "Do something!" she yelled at Donna, swinging as she tried to claw and grab at the vine, but she only seemed to be succeeding at scratching her own bare skin to pieces. Why had she dressed for the beach? Her sunglasses fell to the floor underneath her.

"Like what!?" Donna demanded.

"I don't know! Grab it!"

"How the bloody hell do you expect me to do that!?"

"What's the point of being so tall if you can't do anything about this!?"

"You're taller than me!"

"AND I'M HANGING UPSIDE DOWN!"

"I can't do anything!" Donna continued to protest, shouting so loud that the sonic soundwaves made Amy swing even more violently as the vine crawled up her thigh, moving from one leg to the other and tying them together, "Why don't you do your persuasion thing!? Order it to move!?"

"Right – yeah – plant: I order you to let me go," she said. But the plant just continued to wrap itself around her, squeezing and squeezing, getting to her pelvis and her hips – soon enough her stomach, squashing her internal organs into a long, thin, pâté.

"Did it work!?"

"No, it didn't bloody work!"

"Well how should I know!?"

"Because you've got eyes! Can't you make a portal somewhere and get something!?"

"They don't work like that!"

"Oh, of course they don't work like that! Because that would be too bloody-" she screamed again and dropped, crashing to the ground in a bed of leaves and foliage. The grip on her leg and body relaxed but didn't vanish. She saw part of the vine, severed and secreting something semi-translucent, sliding away back into the undergrowth. A shadow loomed over Amy and she glanced up to see a woman, hardly visible in the darkness against what little sun could breach the leafy canopy above.

"You're lucky I heard you shouting in here," she said. Amy squinted at her. She appeared to be holding a sword, dropping in the almost-clear, slightly-yellow fluid Amy had seen dripping from the vine. She realised what had happened when she looked at the vines still left on her legs as she tugged herself free, aching all over; this stranger had rescued her, she had chopped the vine in half with a large sword. And yet, despite the sword, Amy was confused, because she was also wearing a pair of flight goggles. Flight goggles and sword were certainly not from the same era.

When she had freed herself, Donna helped her to her feet, her picking up her sunglasses from the ground at the same time, reminded because of this stranger's get-up.

"Thanks," she said, "For saving me from the… what was that? Did I get attacked by a plant?"

"Afraid so. Plants on this island – nasty things. Learned that the hard way. Where are my manners," she sheathed her sword in an old-fashioned belt and held out her hand for them to shake, "Amelia Earhart, at your service."