Join Me in Paradise

Amy

When she was younger she used to love adventure novels. She adored them, their simplicities and intricacies, the fact they always seemed to end the same way, with the heroes surviving and finding lost treasure or rescuing a kidnapped damsel or escaping a shadowy villain. And yet throughout all her travels with the Doctor, through journeys to the future; finding the truth about the pyramids; run-ins with Weeping Angels; going to World War Two – none of it quite matched up to the sense of delayed, juvenile excitement within her when she saw a shipwreck on the beach of a desert island. Even being on an actual pirate ship and meeting a 'mermaid' didn't strike the same nostalgic chord.

It was a large ship, too, a Galleon, centuries old, splintered apart on some jagged rocks which had once, perhaps, been deeper underwater. That or there had been a rough storm at the time it had crashed on the shore, she supposed either could be true. But it was gigantic, made to look even bigger because it didn't have its barnacle-covered belly submerged in the ocean. The decrepit masts made it appear skeletal, like the protruding ribcage of a rotting animal carcass, yellow shreds of sails rippling gently in the calm, sea breeze.

"Wow," Donna stared at it, "This is brilliant."

"It's where I've been hunkered down these last few weeks," Earhart explained, leading them towards it. It rested on a precarious angle on the beach, torn to pieces by the jagged rocks lining the bay, so when they ducked inside via a craggy, gaping hole blasted in the hull everything within was wonky. Amy had to stoop to get around parts of it, and lifted her sunglasses so they perched on the top of her head; it was direly gloomy, but free of plants for the moment at least. Even without the sunglasses, though, she could hardly see a thing.

"It's a bit dark, isn't it?" Amy said, squinting.

"Yes, 'fraid so," said Earhart.

"Hang on," Donna murmured. Amy turned towards her shadowy outline and the sound her voice and thought she saw Donna examining a wall very closely. Then she held up her hands as though ripping something apart and pulled. Pale blue light shimmered around the outline of a ghostly lantern hanging on a rusty wall-bracket, lit and glowing though the quality of this image itself was strangely fuzzy. Amy had never seen anything like it. As Donna lifted the phantom lamp from where it hung, the glow disappeared, replaced by the soft, orange light of the flame.

"Did you just create that!? Out of thin air!?" Amy exclaimed.

"No, I brought it here from the past," Donna explained. But the lantern wasn't even the most remarkable thing; it illuminated the glittering contents of the ships old, broken hold, barrels and boxes overflowing with treasures of the most astonishing order. It definitely was a pirate ship, a pirate ship with all of its prizes still intact and preserved. "Oh my god… this must be worth millions… billions, even."

"I think I deserve the lion's share," Amy said.

"Excuse me?"

"You're already rich since you won the lotto," Amy reminded her for maybe the dozenth time that day, "Rory and I live in a tiny little flat in New York. You know the economy is completely broken in the 1930s, don't you?"

"You live in the 1930s?" Earhart questioned. Of course, at the moment they were in the 30s, 1937.

"Yeah," Amy said, "It's complicated. We'll explain it later, there's bigger mysteries afoot right now."

"Like what?" Donna asked sardonically, "What ratio to split up the treasure?"

"I've been too preoccupied thinking about how to escape to think much about what to do with these gems," Earhart said, "Suppose the best course of action would be to return them to whatever country they were originally stolen from." Of course she had to go being the moral one, when Amy would quite like to nick a few handfuls of doubloons to give she and Rory a nice little safety net when they inevitably returned to life in the midst of the Great Depression.

"Yeah…" Amy said quietly, being noncommittal. But then she got an idea. "Hold on, where's the wreck of your plane?"

"The Electra?"

"If that's what your plane's called. I'm no Earhart scholar," she said, "Didn't you say it was broadcasting an SOS?"

"Yes, Fred and I managed to fix up the radio and set it on a loop before discovering the plants and before they got him. It's stuck in the trees, I barely managed to get the emergency supplies and the rations before coming to the beach. Haven't been back, I assume it's what the Green Beast will expect."

"Right…"

"You said it talked to you?" Donna asked Earhart now as they walked carefully through the crooked shipwreck, past the treasure hoard. "And asked for food?"

"Food was the main point."

"But it spoke English?"

"Pretty good English."

"There's a ladder here," Amy said, mostly to Donna since she assumed Earhart already knew where things were on the ship if she had been living there for the last few weeks. She went up it first onto the next level, which was where there were more barrels and crates, a lot of them empty of whatever their original contents had been. Donna passed the lantern up to Amy (which felt oddly tingly in her hand) as she climbed, Earhart coming last: She really was the Doctor's usual type, Amy noted, not questioning them about time travel and their strange abilities. It was just the kind of thing she, too, would ignore with the Doctor around. Anything remotely sensational became arbitrary, sad as that was.

"It's oddly intact," Earhart said, following them third of all, sword on her hip. She was clearly enjoying having human company; maybe that was the real reason she wasn't questioning anything odd.

There was a very small amount of light getting into that floor, which she realised was coming through the portholes where the mouths of the cannons were supposed to be pointed. The cannons had rolled about it, but they were certainly all there, at least six of them, and probably more deeper into the wreckage and out of her line of sight.

"Tell me about it, this thing could be in a museum," said Donna, "It doesn't look like there's anything missing. Except for the hole in the side.

"What have you been living off while you've been here?" Amy asked Earhart as Donna tried to open one of the barrels to see what was in it – maybe it was more treasure.

"Mostly fruit and my own rations. I've managed to catch a fair few fish, use driftwood to make a fire without going too deep into the jungle. Supplies are scarce, though."

"Fish?" Amy asked, "Is that the only meat?"

"I suppose so. Haven't seen any animals, or even any traces of any animals. Not even birds or lizards."

"Neither did we," Amy said Donna.

"So?" she said, "You probably wouldn't see many birds or lizards in Antarctica, either," Donna pointed out, "Doesn't make it completely unusual."

"A tropical island without any birds? Or monkeys? Or snakes? Just evil plants?" Amy asked her.

"Maybe we just haven't seen any. Nobody's seen the Loch Ness Monster for hundreds of years, or Bigfoot."

"The difference being that the Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot don't exist."

"I'm sure they exist," Donna said, "Somewhere."

"Have you met them?"

"No, but I met a giant wasp, and that's weirder."

"Haven't seen any giant wasps on this island, either."

"So what's your point?"

"My point is that the island is empty, despite that plant dragging a plane out of the sky. And this pirate ship is also empty," Amy said, as Donna managed to pull the lid off a crusty old barrel. It gave off quite the stench when she did, and Amy found herself having to resist the urge to be sick. "Oh my god, what is that?" Donna was trying to force the lid back on top. Even Earhart was holding her nose, and could she even breathe well with her sinusitis?

"Fruit," she said, "Very old fruit. It's sort of pickled."

"Eurgh."

"That's why they called you lot 'Limeys,'" said Earhart, "British sailors drinking lemon juice with their grog. Prevented scurvy*."

"Right," said Amy, unsure, "Well, if that's a barrel full of limes, it stinks."

"It was too far gone to see what they were," said Donna. The smell lingered in the air despite the barrel being sealed again. "Bloody stank. Barrel mustn't have been opened since they crashed. Except…" She looked around, thinking. She had picked up on the same thing Amy had picked up on, something which Earhart had not had the time nor the inclination to try and work out because she was so distracted trying not to die. Donna went to attack another, separate barrel.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Earhart asked, "There's a reason I haven't looked in this ship for anything edible."

"Maybe you should have done," said Amy.

The next barrel Donna opened was empty, however. Well, almost. The one lone occupant made Donna scream when she opened it and almost drop the lantern. Both Amelias went to investigate and saw a skeleton lying in the bottom, one of a rather large rat. Not particularly surprising. There was still a kind of residue on the inside of the barrel, however, and a salty smell a little different to that of seawater.

"Looks like this was used to store meat," she said, "I wonder where the meat went. If nobody ate the fruit."

"Maybe the rat got it all? Ate itself to death?" Earhart suggested.

"I know that it's a bit of a chore trying to eat your five a day sometimes, but you'd have to think that even a crew of starving pirates would go for the lemons eventually, on an island with no other animals," said Amy, "And here's what I'm thinking – where's the crew?"

"Mmm, there's no bodies, no skeletons," realised Donna, "It's not a proper pirate shipwreck without a spooky skeleton. There's just this rat."

"Maybe they were rescued?" Earhart suggested.

"And they left what was left of their provisions and all their treasure?"

"Doesn't make sense," Donna added.

"We've got an intelligent, carnivorous plant monster overrunning this island, and a pirate ship where the only thing missing is any meat," said Amy.

"A carnivorous plant monster you said spoke English," Donna told Earhart, "How do you suggest it did that other than by meeting other people who spoke English before? And there's probably not many of those on this abandoned island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Except the pirates."

"So you're saying that this plant has been on this island for centuries, and that these pirates taught it to speak English, and then it ate them?" Earhart questioned Amy, "Sounds farfetched."

"But you said you saw it eat Fred and heard it speak enough to ask for food," Amy persisted, "Where else is it going to have learned to talk, and what other explanation do you have for the entire crew of this ship vanishing? This isn't the Mary Celeste. There must be some kind of captain's log around here – where's the grand cabin?"

"At the back," Earhart said, "Where I've been sleeping. Full of papers I don't have time to read."

"Brilliant, let's go there."

"I find this wholly ridiculous, though," Earhart persisted as Amy and Donna took off towards the back of the ship, Donna holding the lantern aloft as they passed more barrels and eventually hammocks and gunpowder kegs and a basket full of cannonballs. Through the thin galley, the crew quarters, and then up a half-broken staircase which led to the deck and the sunlight again. "Why would they all be dead?"

They had quite the view from up there, standing at a very awkward angle to avoid falling over onto the sand of the beach. Amy thought she saw the tide starting to come in but grew more unnerved when she looked back at the jungle. She could have sworn the trees and the leaves were moving, bristling with energy not caused by the wind. The whole island was alive, one gigantic monster. The Green Beast. Watching them like a predator.

"What do you mean?" Donna asked Earhart as Amy paused to take in the horizon.

"I've been absolutely safe out here for weeks," Earhart said, "They had plentiful supplies of fruit and could easily have fished – any pirate worth his salt would know how to fish. Yet you mean to tell me every last one of them walked to their death?" Donna didn't have an answer, because Earhart was making a good point. They were avoiding the trees as much as possible, and two of them had barely been there an hour. Pirates, with all their superstitions, would certainly not have been fooled so easily. "The ship has no signs of being attacked, either."

"Maybe it tricked them?" Amy suggested, though she wasn't sure how much she believed her own words, "Like, an intelligent monster like that might have to resort to trickery to get dinner, especially if it wants to eat humans. Hannibal Lecter was always very polite, after all. Vampires rely on trickery to get food because they needed to be invited in. I think. Does Other Clara need to be invited into places?"

"The Great Vampires do," Donna said.

Amy scoffed, "Great Vampires, Time Lords – whatever happened to modesty?"

"My point is that a crew of two-dozen men wouldn't calmly walk to their deaths, and especially not when it isn't necessary," Earhart persisted.

"You've been up here with the logs this whole time," Amy pointed out.

"Let's look around and see if they wrote anything down," said Donna, approaching the door into the great cabin, which was ajar and creaking slightly in the wind. Amy followed, glancing again at the bristling forest before ducking underneath the doorway.

The cabin was strewn with whatever supplies Earhart had managed to reclaim from her ship, and a meagre food supply of fish and coconuts. If only there was some rum – what good was a pirate ship without any rum? Maybe they had drunk it all. There was makeshift bedding on a cleared patch on the floor, and even more treasure piled high, treasure which looked even more valuable than that in the hold. It was the captain's quarters, after all. Now they set about searching for anything important among all the old pieces of paper.

"Are you sure about not taking any of this treasure?" Amy asked Donna, "I'm sure your lottery money must run out someday."

"We've invested," Donna said, "Turning a profit in the property market."

"You? Investing? In property?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just…"

"I'm brilliant with numbers and money, I'll have you know. Although it was Shaun's idea."

"So, he takes care of all that while you're away with us?"

"No, he still works," Donna said.

"Really?" Amy was surprised, "Why's that?"

"Wants to stay down to Earth. Not like those mental people you hear about on the news who get a bit of money, so they buy a monkey made of diamond, or something." They could probably find a monkey made of diamond on that ship if they tried hard enough. "He's good like that."

"Yeah…" Amy faded out, not listening as much, picking up a large leather-bound journal from inside of a desk. She didn't even think she'd ever met Shaun. Donna was far better at compartmentalising everything than anybody else on the TARDIS, and she and Rory had never been particularly good at it. "I've found something." She thought it was a manifest, but upon opening it found it was the travel log, with short entries detailing their pirating escapades.

"What does it say?" Earhart implored.

"It says," and here Amy paused to clear her throat, "'Arr, mateys! Ahoy! Ye will come with I to become the scourge of the seven seas-"

"It doesn't really say that," said Donna. Amy gave her a flat stare.

"What gave it away?"

"What does it really say?" Earhart asked.

"Nothing so interesting," Amy said, skimming it, struggling to decipher the handwriting, "Most of them just say, 'At sea, no land,' or they have details about their plunder. Captain keeping a note of it, so nobody can screw anybody over, I assume." Flipping through the droll pages she stumbled across an entry significantly longer than any of the others, which caught her attention. "'May 28th, 1672. Deep into the evening ex-Left Tenant Jameson spied something of a most extreme nature from the crow's nest of the Hanged-Man, which he described as a stupendous burning in the heavens nigh above. He called out to those of the men below deck and indicated to everyone a great blossom in the air, as if a star itself had come alive and journeyed towards us.

"'Despite the superstitions of one of the former slave boys, we went in pursuit of this omen, for seeing it as a sign of almighty God answering our prayers and directing us towards a friendly port in which we may weigh anchor so as to alleviate ourselves of the burden of our loot, before one of the more disloyal blackguards decides to help himself, at which point he would need to be alleviated of the burden of his fingers…'" Amy found somewhere to sit down, on top of a wooden crate, as she continued to read aloud the entry, putting on her sunglasses.

"Why are you wearing sunglasses to read?" Donna asked.

"…They're prescription."

"Since when did you need glasses?"

"Since the last few years," she shrugged, "The Doctor stole my reading glasses. Bring the lantern over here." Donna did, holding it next to Amy's head so that she could resumed. "Where did I get to? Fingers? Okay. 'The slave boy did explain his thinking that when the sky is seen to ignite it is nothing but a sign of ill-fortune, yet I say how can something so marvellous to the eyes be anything aside from a divine symbol, such as when Constantine saw a burning cross in the air which led the Romans by word of Greek to conquer our ancient home of Albion.' This is a very learned pirate."

"What do you think they saw?" Donna asked.

"People think they see all kinds of things in the sky," said Earhart, "But if my knowledge of aerial phenomenon is up-to-date – and it damn well should be – it sounds like they started to follow a shooting star."

"'I ordered the men to hoist the main sails and head off as quickly as possible in the direction of God's will, promising fortune much vaster than that which we have conquered in our trawls across the Oriental trade routes, and we have been following its course deep into the night and now into the following dawn.' That's the end of the entry, but there's more… 'May 30th, 1672. After two days of hard sailing where we have been blessed with strong winds and clear skies, we have traced the course of the Lord's providence to a remote island not present on any of my maps, even those particularly expensive we did steal from the Emperor's most valued navigators themselves, and I shall be updating our own charts as follows, perhaps the location can be sold for a penny to anybody else wishing to follow these divine pathways. The ship was briefly scuttled on a small reef beyond the coast and came slightly flooded, however we made land quickly enough that no man was lost and nearly all of the treasure remained secured, and I think highly of our chances at repairing the damage enough to set sail again…' He rambles a bit."

"They weren't even stranded…" said Earhart, "They could have left, with their treasure, but they stayed… Is there anything about the Green Beast?"

"Uh… in the entry for June 1st he says, 'I hereby forever mark this day as the day when I, Captain Cameron Stanwick of Plymouth, England, did discover his Lord's most valuable hidden treasure, the Garden of Eden itself, and an agent of God in the midst of it all who has requested nothing of us nor our treasure, nothing except our continued devotion and servants, which I determined by attempting to communicate with this great face myself…' You remember when you said that a bunch of pirates wouldn't have just walked to their deaths?"

"Seems like a bunch of pirates just walked to their deaths," Donna finished, both of them talking to Earhart, who crossed her arms and thought.

"Taught it to speak using passages from the Bible, and eventually it told them the others had reached 'divine enlightenment.' Here's the entry for June 11th, the last entry in the log, 'It is with great modesty and humble heart that I renounce all piracy and thieving endeavours, resigning myself to the eternal glory of God and returning to His bosom, which is where humanity in its infancy did spring from. In a choice between Dismas and Gestas, where I formerly would have chosen the latter, I now must say I am penitent, and as the only remaining member of my crew to not yet become one with the Lord's blessing and His heavenly domain, I will be the last to join them as we have all gone, one-by-one, into His arms. I pledge all of this treasure to whomsoever shall find it after me and bequeath it back to those whom it was stolen from, for I will have no need of it as I transgress into His love, though I pray that ye who finds it does not shirk the divinity of this island and that you, too, may find eternal solace in the words and heart of God.'"

"Did pirates care about god particularly?" Donna asked.

"Donna, this is the Seventeenth Century, everybody cared about god. They still believed that the monarchy was chosen by divine right and not just by who had the most swords."

"I can't believe they fell for it," sighed Earhart, "It's sometimes nice to think people are smarter than that."

"Well, they were pirates, they probably killed loads of people, can't get too upset," Amy shrugged, "It must have crashed here in the meteor, or something. A meteor could easily carry a bunch of seeds ready for gestation."

"And then it ate them and every other living thing on this island it could get to, that's why there's nothing here but plants," Donna continued to deduce. Who needed the Doctor? They were just as good without him.

"But we have to stop it," said Earhart, "It's only a matter of time before it finds a way off this island, or before my broadcast brings people here investigating. The plant has to die."

"So how do we kill it?" Donna asked anyone who wanted to answer, glancing between them both.

"The same way you kill a rat," Amy said, remembering seeing the rat skeleton in the empty barrel downstairs, "Trick it into eating poison."

"We haven't got any poison," Donna said.

"No, we've got something much more effective than that…" Earhart snatched the lantern from Donna's hands and stole out of the cabin. Donna and Amy exchanged a confused glance before Amy dropped the captain's log back on the messy desk and pursued her, all the way back below deck and down to the room filled with cannons. This was where they found Earhart fumbling with a cannon, peering down the barrel with her lantern to see if it was loaded.

"I don't think a cannon is going to work after, like, five-hundred years," Amy commented, again removing her sunglasses.

"Two-hundred-and-sixty-five years," Donna corrected her, "If we're in 1937. And the log was from 1672. You know, when Jenny was born it was me who worked out that their 'ancient war' had only been going on for seven days, and they were up in arms about some goddess-thing."

"It's just one creation myth after another today," Amy sighed and watching Earhart try to light the cannon's fuse with the flame from the candle inside the lantern. After a minute of struggling, however, she actually managed to do so.

"Cover your ears," Earhart warned, stepping back.

"I really don't think it's going to-"

BOOM.

The noise was deafening. Despite the warning, Amy did not plug her ears, unlike Donna, and was rendered dazed with her head violently ringing. Earhart had sent a cannon ball straight out of the wooden wall of the ship, making an enormous, splintered hole in the hull and leaving a crater right at the edge of the treeline. Earhart was grinning, and it took all of Amy's strength to focus enough and actually hear what she subsequently declared.

"I've got a nifty idea."

*That IS the reason the British are nicknamed "Limeys," though it actually dates back to the 1800s and the Royal Navy rather than as far back as pirates