Amy's and Ginny's Choices - Part Four
Bits of mulch seemed to flow from my coat once I made my way to my feet, and upon stretching my arms up a bit a few more pieces shook away. Thomas took the liberty of combing it out of my hair.
"Did you make mulch angels in your sleep or something?" he asked, giving my hair a playful rustle. I chuckled as we walked towards the castle ruins.
"I wouldn't put it past me," I said, "Sometimes I'll wake up and my blankets have become a modern art piece."
As we walked up the stairs to the ruins I noticed that the Doctor, Amy, and Rory were already there. The Doctor was frantically hopping between peculiar sand mounds, sonicking some of them and examining the drawstring bags near others. Amy and Rory were talking near the stairs when we made it to the top.
"Nothing bad could ever happen here," Rory said wistfully.
"I wouldn't speak so soon, brother mine," Thomas said, "I mean a blue phonebox did fall out of the sky recently."
"That's different though."
"No, Thomas has a point," Amy said, "All this… tranquility, it's not really me, is it? I mean, would I be happy settling down in a place with a pub, two shops, and a really bad Amateur Dramatics Society?"
"Oi!" Thomas and I exclaimed, having been cut to the core.
"That's why I got pregnant! So I don't have to see them doing 'Oklahoma!'"
"Ok honestly Amy, that's fair. But Thomas and I are doing everything we can to make it better over there!" I said, but I don't think she was listening.
"Doctor, what are you doing? And what are those piles of dust?"
The Doctor, after letting some of the dust cascade back into the pile, stood up with a grim look on his face.
"Playtime's definitely over," he said, and it clicked.
The children. The ones who were playing here just moments ago were all reduced to the dust piles in front of us. As the realization of what happened settled on me, I felt Thomas give my hand a sympathetic squeeze.
"Oh my god," Amy croaked.
"What happened to them?" Rory asked.
The Doctor seemed to have found a culprit because he suddenly leapt to the railing and said,
"I think they did."
I turned around to see who he was referring to, and to my shock it was the seniors from the nursing home. What were they doing out in this weather?
"The seniors?" I asked.
"Yeah, how could it be them? They're just old people," Amy said, joining my confusion.
"No. They're very old people," the Doctor said before starting to run down the stairs, "Sorry Rory, I don't think you're what's been keeping them alive."
"Oh, this can only end well, right?" I said, following after him.
I figured this was as bad as it would get, but lo and behold, the Dream Lord had to show up.
"Hello, peasants!" he said, "What's this, 'Attack of the Old People?' Oh, that's ridiculous. This has got to be the dream, hasn't it?"
He turned to face me and Amy, "What do you think, ladies? Let's all jump under a bus and wake up in the Tardis. You first, Amy."
Now, I can only reason that I did what I did in the next moment on impulse. Impulse, and a tad bit of boiled over annoyance. I power walked past everyone in our group right up to the Dream Lord's smug figure all the while reeling my hand back ready to smack him into the next dream cycle. It was only as I was bringing my hand down that I remembered he didn't have a physical form; all the force and momentum behind my slap went right through him and sent me spiraling down onto the ground.
"Ouch!" the Dream Lord grimaced while feigning concern, "Maybe I was wrong about this one being bright. Wanna toss this one back into the crack, Doctor?"
"Leave her alone," the Doctor said coldly. Thomas helped me back onto my feet all while I glared daggers into the Dream Lord's non-corporeal face.
"Do that again," he smirked, "I love it when he does that. Tall, dark hero, 'Leave her alone!'"
"Just leave her!" Rory piped up from behind Amy, his voice cracking slightly in the middle. Funny, I didn't remember that happening in this episode.
"Nicely done, honey," Amy said sarcastically.
"Yes, you're not quite so impressive," the Dream Lord took a step closer to the expecting couple, "But I know where your heart lies, don't I Amy Pond?"
"Shut up," she commanded, "Just shut up and leave us alone."
"Loves his redheads, our Doctor," he sneered, "Has he told you about Elizabeth the First? Well, she thought she was the first."
"Drop it," the Doctor said, "Drop all of it. I know who you are."
"Course you don't."
"Course I do. No idea how you could be here, but there's only one person in the universe who hates me as much as you do."
It was as if a lightbulb had just flickered on in the Dream Lord's mind.
He's finally figured it out, I'm sure he was thinking as a smug smile curled across his face.
"Nevermind me," he said, glancing over at the seniors, "Maybe you should worry about them."
He phased out the moment we all turned to look at the surprisingly fast approaching group of the elderly. As they got closer I was able to pick Mrs. Wallis and Mrs. Poggit out of the crowd. And as they got closer they also began to fan out to the left and right; likely to keep us from getting away.
"What do we do?" Thomas asked, sounding a bit worried.
"Just act natural," I said before putting on my best customer service voice to address the group, "Hello everyone! Dreadful weather today, huh?"
"Yes yes, absolutely ghastly," the Doctor joined in, "We were wondering where you lot went. To get reinforcements, by the look of it. Are you alright? You look a bit tense."
Ever ready to help the infirm, Rory stepped forward to address a man walking forward with a cane.
"Hello, Mr Nainby," he greeted the gentleman who kept advancing towards him.
"Rory be careful," I said.
"But Mr Nainby ran the sweet shop. He used to slip me the odd free toffee."
Mr Nainby then hoisted Rory up into the air by the collar as if he weighed almost nothing.
"Did I not say thank you?" he asked worriedly, before being tossed through the air and falling right between me and Thomas.
"How did he do that?!" he exclaimed as we helped him back to his feet.
"I suspect he's not himself. Don't get comfortable here. You may have to run fast," the Doctor said. Amy looked down at her belly and sighed. Having to do all the running for two was surely taking a toll on her.
"Can't we just talk to them?" she asked, but before the Doctor could give an answer one was presented to all of us. Each of the seniors started to open their mouths to reveal a green, worm-like alien with a single eyeball at the end, looking between the five of us frantically.
"There's an eye in her mouth," Amy said, sounding quietly shocked.
"There's a whole creature inside her; inside all of them. They've been there for years, living and waiting," the Doctor said, bringing his sonic screwdriver up to meet the creature's eye.
"So that's what's been keeping them alive," I said, taking a few steps back from Mrs. Wallis.
"That is disgusting!" Rory said, "They're not gonna be peeping out from anywhere else, are they?"
As if taking offense to his comment, the creature inside Mrs Poggit screeched and released a green gas from her mouth.
"And that's our cue to get the hell out of here!" I said, taking Thomas's hand and running past the playground. Amy and Rory followed behind us as quickly as they could until we were all back at the car. I reached for the keys inside my coat pocket and tossed them to Rory.
"Get her back to the cottage and lock the front door," I said pointing to Amy.
"But what about you two?" Amy said, "You should come back home with us. We'd be safer together!"
"The Dream Lord wants us separated though. If we all get into the same car he might cause us all to fall asleep and have the car crash," I started re-tying my shoes, "I hate to say it, but splitting up might be the safest option for all of us right now. Now go!"
Once the car was further down the road I started looking for places to hide out. I knew from the episode that the next birdsong was coming up soon and we needed a secure place to wait out the old folks. Then in the distance I saw one of the steeples for our local church.
"Sanctuary!" I exclaimed, booking it down the road with a very confused fiancé in tow.
"Where exactly are we going, Ginny?" Thomas asked between tired breaths.
"Somewhere I've needed to go for awhile now," I said, trying to ignore the faint tweeting in my head.
We somehow ended up at the front gate in no time. Unfortunately in that time though the birdsong had become even louder. I could tell Thomas was starting to drift off as I unlocked the large front doors. I had to snap my fingers in front of his face in order to get him awake enough to walk inside so I could lock the doors back. I wound up having to half-carry half-drag him further into the sanctuary because of how out of it he was. I could already hear a group of the elderly trying to push against the door, but the birds had gotten even louder and I found myself starting to drift off. But an unpleasantly familiar voice had briefly woken me up a bit.
"Ah dear child! Is there something you need to confess?" the Dream Lord said from the pulpit, in full bishop attire.
"Nothing I haven't already forgiven myself for," I shot back, resting Thomas on a pew while I unlocked a storage closet. The birds were getting louder by the second, and as I went to get Thomas off the pew I found myself falling on top of him and almost falling asleep.
"And what about our loverboy here, anything to confess to him?" I had to push myself though. If I could just get us to the closet, we'd be safe. I heard the doors crash open and several footsteps coming down the main hall.
"Come on Thomas, help me out here!" I shouted, and somehow it worked. I could tell he was fighting off just as much drowsiness as I was, but we managed to support one another until we were safe in the storage closet. The last thing I remember after sonicing the door shut was Thomas's arm pulling me in close.
*peeks out from behind curtain* ummm, hi. so, i'm not dead! and a whole lot has happened in the past 4ish years. not gonna lie, i lost a good amount of interest in Doctor Who for awhile, but now my husband (yes, i got married!) has been wanting to watch the series with me. and i dunno, call it poetic, but picking this story up almost 10 years after publishing the first chapter seems right. i can't say with certainty that chapters are going to be released on a certain schedule. who knows, it might be another 4 years before the next one comes out, but i'm going to do my best to keep the next break between chapters from being such a long hiatus! i wanted to thank everyone who has continued to read this story i started in high school. seriously, getting the emails that people keep favoriting this makes me feel really good about the art i put out. truly, it means the world to me. thank you so much for your continued support and patience, and i hope to be back with another chapter soon!