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locker_monsterTitle: Echoes (4/10)
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Eleven, Amy, Rory, Amy/Rory
Timeline: Post-"Death of the Doctor" and post-"A Christmas Carol" and pre-"An Impossible Astronaut"
Summary: The Doctor runs into an old enemy, and an old friend, when the TARDIS lands in 18th century Scotland.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to the BBC.
A/N: Once again, a big thank you to my beta
punch_kicker15. You rock!
Chapter One. Chapter Two. Chapter Three.
Despite the all clear from Morag, no one else came out to greet the Doctor. They were all traumatized; he couldn’t blame them. Or maybe they just didn’t like his head. He certainly didn’t like it.
The head in the grass Amy had found should have been a Cybus Cyberman head. He hadn’t seen a Mondasian Cyberman in ages and he had hoped it would stay that way. Now he had evidence that the Cybermen from this reality were possibly mobilizing again.
But why here? Why attack a remote Scottish hamlet? A hamlet now home to a former travelling companion of his no less. Questions were fun, but the Doctor liked answers more.
Morag was the only one willing to talk to him, it seemed, but she had disappeared into one of the houses and random door knocking likely would get the Doctor nowhere. There was always Jamie, of course. He had numerous questions for his old friend as well, but he had nothing to gain from asking them right now. The safety of the hamlet was more important than satisfying his personal curiosity.
There was only one person about, leaving the Doctor with no other choice. He just hoped he didn’t leave the conversation looking like a piece of Swiss cheese.
He found Donald with his trusty pitchfork lurking behind an old shed that provided him cover and allowed him to spot any incoming visitors coming across the open foothills. The TARDIS was a noticeable blue rectangle off in the distance. The fact that the time machine was still out there assured the Doctor that the Cybermen hadn’t decided to steal it. Yet.
“All quiet on the western front, eh, Donald?” The Doctor had snuck up on the Scotsman without making a sound and Donald spun around, surprised, when he heard the Doctor’s voice. He muttered in Gaelic, cursing the Doctor’s name and inviting a plight upon the Doctor’s household. “Strictly speaking, that’s the eastern front.” The Doctor carried on, barely hearing a word. “But who’s going to argue with the man with a pitchfork?”
“Ye brought back the metal men.” Donald aimed an angry jab at the Cyberman head. “Ye’ve killed us all!”
“It’s harmless,” said the Doctor, dropping the h on harmless slightly. Donald just glared at him. “Look.” The Doctor dropped-kick the Cyberman head like a football. He tried to anyway. His foot made contact with the head and it was like kicking a concrete block. A sharp pain raced up from the Doctor’s toes all the way to his knee. The Cyberman head dropped to the ground with a clang.
With a rather undignified air, the Doctor hopped around on his uninjured foot while waiting for the feeling to return to his toes. Donald, paying no attention to the Doctor, cautiously prodded the head with his pitchfork, producing a sharp ping from the hard metal. When the head didn’t react, the Scot backed away, satisfied that it posed no danger.
The Doctor sat down on an overturned crate, massaging his sore toes through the leather of his shoe. Now that he had been knocked down a peg in Donald’s eyes, the man appeared more relaxed around him. “What year is this?” he asked, taking advantage of their newfound level of trust. “And where are we exactly?”
“Ye dinnae ken what year this is?” Donald raised an eyebrow, further cementing in the man’s mind that the Doctor was an utter fool.
“I’ve been travelling for a long time. You tend to lose track of the date.”
“It’s the year of our Lord 1789 and yer in the clachan of Glen Beagan,” said Donald, clearly humouring the Doctor.
As the Doctor suspected they had arrived in a period after the Battle of Culloden. It wasn’t a bad era, from an invasion standpoint. The majority of the dissidents from the rebellion were either dead, in jail, or overseas in the United States and there were few arms in the Highlands due to the Act of Proscription. The Cybermen could easily lay waste to any settlement they came upon.
But it still didn’t answer the Doctor’s question of “why here?” What advantage did the Scottish Highlands provide? Did the Cybermen want a heartier stock so they were cyber-converting Highlanders?
“How did you end up out here then? Seems a bit remote for a clachan.” The Gaelic word rolled easily off the Doctor’s tongue.
“My grandad settled here,” said Donald, a touch offended. “After the Uprising of ’15 he wanted to live somewhere in peace, away from the English.”
“If your grandfather settled this place, why aren’t you laird?” Donald thrust his pitchfork into the ground, dangerously close to the Doctor’s feet. He took that as a hint to change topics. “Tell me what happened, when the metal men attacked.”
In the Doctor’s experience, Scots were ready storytellers, but Donald showed no enthusiasm to recount the tale. He gripped his pitchfork tightly until his knuckles were white. “They came during the night, sweeping through the village like ghosts. We didnae ken they were here until the first scream.”
Donald dug his pitchfork deeper into the ground, like he was impaling one of the metal men. “Their eyes were black and soulless and their skin gleamed in the moonlight. Lightning shot outta of their hands. Axes and knives were useless. I thought fire woulda drive them away, but it didnae stop them.” Donald paused and his voice dropped. “We lost Bruce Lennox and his two wee bairns.”
The Doctor thought of the burned down cottage. Perhaps Donald wasn’t on sentry duty by chance. “Go on,” he urged gently.
It took Donald a moment to gather himself before he returned to his story. “I thought we were all gonna die. And then one of them shrieked in pain.” He gazed out at the hamlet, like the scene was replaying before his eyes. “McCrimmon had touched one. It was like sorcery. He threw something into their faces, I dinnae ken what, but the metal men started to scream, like wails of the damned they were. They fled but one ran off into the night, into the foothills.
“McCrimmon took one of the horses from the barn and chased after it. He returned to Glen Beagan at first light. Told us to gather the wounded in one place and how to bind their wounds. Everyone listened.”
“And they made him laird,” concluded the Doctor.
Anger flashed across Donald’s face before he could control himself. “For now,” he said through gritted teeth. “He kens these metal men, like he’s met them before.”
“But that isn’t what bothers you. Before all this, Jamie McCrimmon was just the strange old man who lived here. No one spoke to him because he talked about fantastical far-off lands and made claims he met men from Mars. Why should anyone trust him over the village founder’s grandson?”
Some of Donald’s wariness towards the Doctor returned. He pulled up his pitchfork from the ground. “How can ye ken that?”
The Doctor rose to his feet, the feeling in his toes now returned. He kept a civil smile on his face, but it belied how he truly felt. “I always marvel at how petty you humans can be.” He leaned forward, putting him nose to nose with Donald. “It wasn’t sorcery. It was gold. The metal men are vulnerable to it.”
He turned away from Donald and headed back into the hamlet. He didn’t look back as he said, “They won’t attack you from the open field. You should be watching the mountains.” It might have been foolish of him to turn his back on a pitchfork wielding Scot with a vendetta, but he presumed Donald was too busy being dumbfounded that he didn’t have to worry about being stabbed from behind.
It was a brisk walk back to the make-shift hospital where he had left Amy and Rory. The Doctor had so many thoughts bouncing around his head. He needed a moment to think things through and raving madly in the company of others always helped him to think better.
Just as the Doctor came upon the house, a blood curdling scream broke the strained tranquility of the hamlet. He thought it brazen of the Cybermen to attack while it was still light out, but it was a fleeting thought at the back of his mind as he charged into the house. It wasn’t Amy who had screamed, nor had it been Rory, but that didn’t mean they weren’t in trouble.
He fumbled to pull out the sonic screwdriver from his jacket pocket, though he knew it wouldn’t be much good against an attacking Cyberman, but he quickly saw there was no need for it.
There were no silver men trying to accost his friends. It was just Amy and Rory, standing around one of the injured. The man laid out on the cot was unconscious and limp as a piece of cooked spaghetti.
“Are you torturing people in here?” The Doctor noticed a piece of wood lying on the floor underneath the man’s cot. When he walked over and picked it up, he saw there were deep bite marks in the surface of the wood.
“He had a dislocated knee,” said Rory. He looked shaky and slightly sweaty. “The patient’s usually knocked out when we put it back in place.”
The Doctor threw the piece of wood into the unlit fireplace and he absently wiped his fingers on the front of his jacket.
The man was the last patient to be treated from what the Doctor could see, and a good thing, too. The recovering townsfolk all regarded Rory with an air of caution now and they huddled quietly beneath their blankets. Still, the place was better than when the Doctor had left it.
Hurried footsteps pounded against the ground outside and a moment later, Donald appeared in the doorway of the house, out of breath and his hair dishevelled. He threw his gaze around the room, his ever-present pitchfork at the ready.
“Everything’s fine,” the Doctor assured the Scot, barely glancing at him as he wandered around the room. “Just working the lungs, making sure they still work at the higher altitudes. There aren’t any missing.” He looked up sharply as the detail dawned on him and he strode across the room to Donald. “You mentioned dead, but not missing. Cybermen always take people to convert them.”
The man’s eyes widened as he suddenly found himself the centre of the Doctor’s attention. “We didnae lose anyone outside of the fire,” said Donald, automatically answering.
“What is wrong with these Cybermen?!” The Doctor spun back around and he stared at Amy and Rory like they had all the answers. “They land in the highlands of Scotland, attack the first settlement they see but they don’t take anyone? Even if there were only a handful of them, their first instinct would be to convert the local population. Unless Jamie’s trick with the gold powder made them re-think their tactics.”
He looked around at the room, taking in the seven injured townsfolk. Seven out of fifty. Two days without an attack. “Oh, good ol’ Jamie. The Cybermen are still licking their wounds.” The Doctor allowed himself a small smile.
“So you do know him.”
The Doctor looked back at Amy. While he had been thinking aloud, Donald had slunk off to return to sentry duty and all of the conscious patients were feinting slumber. For all intents and purposes, it was just him, Amy, and Rory.
Amy fixed him with an inquisitive stare. “‘Good ol’ Jamie.’ You don’t say that about people you don’t know.”
“Of course I can. ‘Good ol’ Copernicus. The Earth isn’t the centre of the universe.’ See, it’s easy.”
“I thought you said you met Copernicus,” said Rory, not helping matters. Backed by her husband, Amy smiled in triumph.
The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and it gave a quick buzz as he scanned for any anomalous signals. “We need to find the Cybership,” he said, acting as though Rory hadn’t spoken. With a flick of the wrist, he took a peek at the sonic’s findings. Nothing. “They’re probably in the mountains. I should have asked if anything fell to Earth recently.” He pocketed the sonic screwdriver and started for the door.
“It’s like you’re ashamed to talk about him.” The Doctor knew he should have kept on walking, but he found himself pausing in the doorway. “Why can’t Jamie remember you, Doctor?” asked Amy.
His fingers tightened around the doorframe until his nails sunk into the wood. Why did humans always have to bring up such obscure questions in the middle of the most inopportune times? “People forget.” He glanced at Amy over his shoulder. “You forgot me.”
She weaved her way around the cots towards him. “That was different. You were erased from time and I still remembered you anyway.” Amy abandoned gently prodding him for information and her fiery temper was starting to rise.
“Cybership!” The Doctor turned around so abruptly Amy took a step back. “Was no one listening to me? The Cybermen won’t stay away forever. They’re going to cyber-convert every living thing in this village if we don’t do something now. I don’t have time to talk about why people don’t remember me.” He held her gaze as he struggled to take deep, even breaths.
Some of the patients huddled deeper into their covers, as if their blankets could act as a sound barrier or make them invisible. Rory hung back at the far end of the room, wisely staying out of the argument.
Amy didn’t speak, but it wasn’t because she was afraid of the Doctor’s wrath. It was obvious she had nothing else to say to him. She glared at him as she pushed past him to exit the house. Her long legs quickly carried her away, putting her out of sight in a matter of seconds.
The Doctor stood motionless in the doorway, half turned from the house from Amy’s push. Outside, a cloud passed over the sun, painting the hamlet of Glen Beagan in shades of grey.
“She held on to the memory of you for the longest time, long after everyone told her she should forget the Raggedy Doctor.” Rory spoke softly, but his tone was firm. He wasn’t trying to placate the Doctor. “Forgetting you is the worse thing imaginable in Amy’s mind.”
If he had the time, the Doctor would have sought out Amy. To apologize yes, but not to explain. But he didn’t have time. Sunset was approaching and he didn’t want to go wandering around a mountain range at night. “The Cybermen are hiding their ship somewhere in the mountains. I’ll need your help to do a thorough search.”
Rory frowned. “Can’t you take the TARDIS?”
“Yes, let’s drop an all powerful time machine on the Cybermen’s doorstep.” The Doctor re-entered the house and grabbed a spare lantern hanging by the door. “I assume you know how to ride a horse.”
“I’m not coming.” The Doctor was nearly out of the house again before he realized what Rory said. He swung back around, feeling very much like a Time Lord yo-yo. “I need to stay,” explained Rory.
It was only then that the Doctor noticed the blanket draped over one of the cots, a vague humanoid shape beneath it. A shape that didn’t move. Rory wasn’t prepared to lose anyone else. The Doctor admired that.
“When Amy gets back, keep her here.” The Doctor couldn’t stress that enough. He made it past the threshold and kept on going. “Glen Beagan is the safest place right now. I don’t want anyone wandering off.”
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Eleven, Amy, Rory, Amy/Rory
Timeline: Post-"Death of the Doctor" and post-"A Christmas Carol" and pre-"An Impossible Astronaut"
Summary: The Doctor runs into an old enemy, and an old friend, when the TARDIS lands in 18th century Scotland.
Disclaimer: It all belongs to the BBC.
A/N: Once again, a big thank you to my beta
punch_kicker15. You rock!Chapter One. Chapter Two. Chapter Three.
Despite the all clear from Morag, no one else came out to greet the Doctor. They were all traumatized; he couldn’t blame them. Or maybe they just didn’t like his head. He certainly didn’t like it.
The head in the grass Amy had found should have been a Cybus Cyberman head. He hadn’t seen a Mondasian Cyberman in ages and he had hoped it would stay that way. Now he had evidence that the Cybermen from this reality were possibly mobilizing again.
But why here? Why attack a remote Scottish hamlet? A hamlet now home to a former travelling companion of his no less. Questions were fun, but the Doctor liked answers more.
Morag was the only one willing to talk to him, it seemed, but she had disappeared into one of the houses and random door knocking likely would get the Doctor nowhere. There was always Jamie, of course. He had numerous questions for his old friend as well, but he had nothing to gain from asking them right now. The safety of the hamlet was more important than satisfying his personal curiosity.
There was only one person about, leaving the Doctor with no other choice. He just hoped he didn’t leave the conversation looking like a piece of Swiss cheese.
He found Donald with his trusty pitchfork lurking behind an old shed that provided him cover and allowed him to spot any incoming visitors coming across the open foothills. The TARDIS was a noticeable blue rectangle off in the distance. The fact that the time machine was still out there assured the Doctor that the Cybermen hadn’t decided to steal it. Yet.
“All quiet on the western front, eh, Donald?” The Doctor had snuck up on the Scotsman without making a sound and Donald spun around, surprised, when he heard the Doctor’s voice. He muttered in Gaelic, cursing the Doctor’s name and inviting a plight upon the Doctor’s household. “Strictly speaking, that’s the eastern front.” The Doctor carried on, barely hearing a word. “But who’s going to argue with the man with a pitchfork?”
“Ye brought back the metal men.” Donald aimed an angry jab at the Cyberman head. “Ye’ve killed us all!”
“It’s harmless,” said the Doctor, dropping the h on harmless slightly. Donald just glared at him. “Look.” The Doctor dropped-kick the Cyberman head like a football. He tried to anyway. His foot made contact with the head and it was like kicking a concrete block. A sharp pain raced up from the Doctor’s toes all the way to his knee. The Cyberman head dropped to the ground with a clang.
With a rather undignified air, the Doctor hopped around on his uninjured foot while waiting for the feeling to return to his toes. Donald, paying no attention to the Doctor, cautiously prodded the head with his pitchfork, producing a sharp ping from the hard metal. When the head didn’t react, the Scot backed away, satisfied that it posed no danger.
The Doctor sat down on an overturned crate, massaging his sore toes through the leather of his shoe. Now that he had been knocked down a peg in Donald’s eyes, the man appeared more relaxed around him. “What year is this?” he asked, taking advantage of their newfound level of trust. “And where are we exactly?”
“Ye dinnae ken what year this is?” Donald raised an eyebrow, further cementing in the man’s mind that the Doctor was an utter fool.
“I’ve been travelling for a long time. You tend to lose track of the date.”
“It’s the year of our Lord 1789 and yer in the clachan of Glen Beagan,” said Donald, clearly humouring the Doctor.
As the Doctor suspected they had arrived in a period after the Battle of Culloden. It wasn’t a bad era, from an invasion standpoint. The majority of the dissidents from the rebellion were either dead, in jail, or overseas in the United States and there were few arms in the Highlands due to the Act of Proscription. The Cybermen could easily lay waste to any settlement they came upon.
But it still didn’t answer the Doctor’s question of “why here?” What advantage did the Scottish Highlands provide? Did the Cybermen want a heartier stock so they were cyber-converting Highlanders?
“How did you end up out here then? Seems a bit remote for a clachan.” The Gaelic word rolled easily off the Doctor’s tongue.
“My grandad settled here,” said Donald, a touch offended. “After the Uprising of ’15 he wanted to live somewhere in peace, away from the English.”
“If your grandfather settled this place, why aren’t you laird?” Donald thrust his pitchfork into the ground, dangerously close to the Doctor’s feet. He took that as a hint to change topics. “Tell me what happened, when the metal men attacked.”
In the Doctor’s experience, Scots were ready storytellers, but Donald showed no enthusiasm to recount the tale. He gripped his pitchfork tightly until his knuckles were white. “They came during the night, sweeping through the village like ghosts. We didnae ken they were here until the first scream.”
Donald dug his pitchfork deeper into the ground, like he was impaling one of the metal men. “Their eyes were black and soulless and their skin gleamed in the moonlight. Lightning shot outta of their hands. Axes and knives were useless. I thought fire woulda drive them away, but it didnae stop them.” Donald paused and his voice dropped. “We lost Bruce Lennox and his two wee bairns.”
The Doctor thought of the burned down cottage. Perhaps Donald wasn’t on sentry duty by chance. “Go on,” he urged gently.
It took Donald a moment to gather himself before he returned to his story. “I thought we were all gonna die. And then one of them shrieked in pain.” He gazed out at the hamlet, like the scene was replaying before his eyes. “McCrimmon had touched one. It was like sorcery. He threw something into their faces, I dinnae ken what, but the metal men started to scream, like wails of the damned they were. They fled but one ran off into the night, into the foothills.
“McCrimmon took one of the horses from the barn and chased after it. He returned to Glen Beagan at first light. Told us to gather the wounded in one place and how to bind their wounds. Everyone listened.”
“And they made him laird,” concluded the Doctor.
Anger flashed across Donald’s face before he could control himself. “For now,” he said through gritted teeth. “He kens these metal men, like he’s met them before.”
“But that isn’t what bothers you. Before all this, Jamie McCrimmon was just the strange old man who lived here. No one spoke to him because he talked about fantastical far-off lands and made claims he met men from Mars. Why should anyone trust him over the village founder’s grandson?”
Some of Donald’s wariness towards the Doctor returned. He pulled up his pitchfork from the ground. “How can ye ken that?”
The Doctor rose to his feet, the feeling in his toes now returned. He kept a civil smile on his face, but it belied how he truly felt. “I always marvel at how petty you humans can be.” He leaned forward, putting him nose to nose with Donald. “It wasn’t sorcery. It was gold. The metal men are vulnerable to it.”
He turned away from Donald and headed back into the hamlet. He didn’t look back as he said, “They won’t attack you from the open field. You should be watching the mountains.” It might have been foolish of him to turn his back on a pitchfork wielding Scot with a vendetta, but he presumed Donald was too busy being dumbfounded that he didn’t have to worry about being stabbed from behind.
It was a brisk walk back to the make-shift hospital where he had left Amy and Rory. The Doctor had so many thoughts bouncing around his head. He needed a moment to think things through and raving madly in the company of others always helped him to think better.
Just as the Doctor came upon the house, a blood curdling scream broke the strained tranquility of the hamlet. He thought it brazen of the Cybermen to attack while it was still light out, but it was a fleeting thought at the back of his mind as he charged into the house. It wasn’t Amy who had screamed, nor had it been Rory, but that didn’t mean they weren’t in trouble.
He fumbled to pull out the sonic screwdriver from his jacket pocket, though he knew it wouldn’t be much good against an attacking Cyberman, but he quickly saw there was no need for it.
There were no silver men trying to accost his friends. It was just Amy and Rory, standing around one of the injured. The man laid out on the cot was unconscious and limp as a piece of cooked spaghetti.
“Are you torturing people in here?” The Doctor noticed a piece of wood lying on the floor underneath the man’s cot. When he walked over and picked it up, he saw there were deep bite marks in the surface of the wood.
“He had a dislocated knee,” said Rory. He looked shaky and slightly sweaty. “The patient’s usually knocked out when we put it back in place.”
The Doctor threw the piece of wood into the unlit fireplace and he absently wiped his fingers on the front of his jacket.
The man was the last patient to be treated from what the Doctor could see, and a good thing, too. The recovering townsfolk all regarded Rory with an air of caution now and they huddled quietly beneath their blankets. Still, the place was better than when the Doctor had left it.
Hurried footsteps pounded against the ground outside and a moment later, Donald appeared in the doorway of the house, out of breath and his hair dishevelled. He threw his gaze around the room, his ever-present pitchfork at the ready.
“Everything’s fine,” the Doctor assured the Scot, barely glancing at him as he wandered around the room. “Just working the lungs, making sure they still work at the higher altitudes. There aren’t any missing.” He looked up sharply as the detail dawned on him and he strode across the room to Donald. “You mentioned dead, but not missing. Cybermen always take people to convert them.”
The man’s eyes widened as he suddenly found himself the centre of the Doctor’s attention. “We didnae lose anyone outside of the fire,” said Donald, automatically answering.
“What is wrong with these Cybermen?!” The Doctor spun back around and he stared at Amy and Rory like they had all the answers. “They land in the highlands of Scotland, attack the first settlement they see but they don’t take anyone? Even if there were only a handful of them, their first instinct would be to convert the local population. Unless Jamie’s trick with the gold powder made them re-think their tactics.”
He looked around at the room, taking in the seven injured townsfolk. Seven out of fifty. Two days without an attack. “Oh, good ol’ Jamie. The Cybermen are still licking their wounds.” The Doctor allowed himself a small smile.
“So you do know him.”
The Doctor looked back at Amy. While he had been thinking aloud, Donald had slunk off to return to sentry duty and all of the conscious patients were feinting slumber. For all intents and purposes, it was just him, Amy, and Rory.
Amy fixed him with an inquisitive stare. “‘Good ol’ Jamie.’ You don’t say that about people you don’t know.”
“Of course I can. ‘Good ol’ Copernicus. The Earth isn’t the centre of the universe.’ See, it’s easy.”
“I thought you said you met Copernicus,” said Rory, not helping matters. Backed by her husband, Amy smiled in triumph.
The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver and it gave a quick buzz as he scanned for any anomalous signals. “We need to find the Cybership,” he said, acting as though Rory hadn’t spoken. With a flick of the wrist, he took a peek at the sonic’s findings. Nothing. “They’re probably in the mountains. I should have asked if anything fell to Earth recently.” He pocketed the sonic screwdriver and started for the door.
“It’s like you’re ashamed to talk about him.” The Doctor knew he should have kept on walking, but he found himself pausing in the doorway. “Why can’t Jamie remember you, Doctor?” asked Amy.
His fingers tightened around the doorframe until his nails sunk into the wood. Why did humans always have to bring up such obscure questions in the middle of the most inopportune times? “People forget.” He glanced at Amy over his shoulder. “You forgot me.”
She weaved her way around the cots towards him. “That was different. You were erased from time and I still remembered you anyway.” Amy abandoned gently prodding him for information and her fiery temper was starting to rise.
“Cybership!” The Doctor turned around so abruptly Amy took a step back. “Was no one listening to me? The Cybermen won’t stay away forever. They’re going to cyber-convert every living thing in this village if we don’t do something now. I don’t have time to talk about why people don’t remember me.” He held her gaze as he struggled to take deep, even breaths.
Some of the patients huddled deeper into their covers, as if their blankets could act as a sound barrier or make them invisible. Rory hung back at the far end of the room, wisely staying out of the argument.
Amy didn’t speak, but it wasn’t because she was afraid of the Doctor’s wrath. It was obvious she had nothing else to say to him. She glared at him as she pushed past him to exit the house. Her long legs quickly carried her away, putting her out of sight in a matter of seconds.
The Doctor stood motionless in the doorway, half turned from the house from Amy’s push. Outside, a cloud passed over the sun, painting the hamlet of Glen Beagan in shades of grey.
“She held on to the memory of you for the longest time, long after everyone told her she should forget the Raggedy Doctor.” Rory spoke softly, but his tone was firm. He wasn’t trying to placate the Doctor. “Forgetting you is the worse thing imaginable in Amy’s mind.”
If he had the time, the Doctor would have sought out Amy. To apologize yes, but not to explain. But he didn’t have time. Sunset was approaching and he didn’t want to go wandering around a mountain range at night. “The Cybermen are hiding their ship somewhere in the mountains. I’ll need your help to do a thorough search.”
Rory frowned. “Can’t you take the TARDIS?”
“Yes, let’s drop an all powerful time machine on the Cybermen’s doorstep.” The Doctor re-entered the house and grabbed a spare lantern hanging by the door. “I assume you know how to ride a horse.”
“I’m not coming.” The Doctor was nearly out of the house again before he realized what Rory said. He swung back around, feeling very much like a Time Lord yo-yo. “I need to stay,” explained Rory.
It was only then that the Doctor noticed the blanket draped over one of the cots, a vague humanoid shape beneath it. A shape that didn’t move. Rory wasn’t prepared to lose anyone else. The Doctor admired that.
“When Amy gets back, keep her here.” The Doctor couldn’t stress that enough. He made it past the threshold and kept on going. “Glen Beagan is the safest place right now. I don’t want anyone wandering off.”
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no subject
Date: 2013-06-12 04:57 pm (UTC)*Wibbles*
*Clings to you*
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Date: 2013-06-13 12:11 am (UTC)