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locker_monsterTitle: Echoes (6/10)
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. Chapter Four. Chapter Five.
Smell was the strongest trigger of memory, Rory found. Just a hint of a scent could send him careening back to his childhood. The smell of toffee always reminded him of Amy and the day they met as kids. His mother had a hell of a time trying to get the sticky wad of candy out of his hair but he had made a friend for life that day.
As he washed his hands with the lye soap provided by Molly Mackenzie, he was taken back to another day from the past. A day spent wandering across the desert outside of Jerusalem with the sun baking his flesh. He thought he would literally melt that day and he’d be nothing more than a puddle of plastic by the time he made camp with the Knights Templar. It felt like he had used a hundred bars of soap to scrub himself clean of sand that day.
Rory paused, his hands still dripping with water. He had done it again.
“Gatherin’ wool, laddie?”
An elderly voice stirred Rory from his thoughts. He looked up from the bucket he was using as a wash basin to the doorway of the house. An older man, stooped over with age, entered, politely removing his hat as he stepped over the threshold.
“Sorry?” Rory quickly dried his hands on a spare piece of cloth. All of the makeshift bandages were gone. He wondered whose household Molly had raided to get so many clean sheets.
“Ye coulda been out on the moors, gatherin’ sheep’s wool ye looked so far away.”
The man’s literal use of wool-gathering got a small smile from Rory, though it was brief. “I was just remembering something.”
“Something pleasant, I hope.” The man cast a glance around the room.
It was better than when Rory had initially arrived. His patients had settled down for the coming night, still in some pain but likely to see the next sunrise. The ones beyond help were comfortable; it was all he could do for them. There was only one empty cot. The deceased man’s family had come to collect the body so they could prepare for a proper burial once things were safe again.
A gloomy atmosphere still hung over the room despite everything. When the hamlet would be safe again was anyone’s guess. So it surprised Rory that this older man was here, venturing out of his home with night fast approaching.
His training kicked in and he did a quick assessment of the man in a glance. The man looked like he was in his seventies, but he was probably younger considering the state of health in the 18th century. Even if the man was in his fifties, that was still pretty good; life expectancy was woefully low in this time. Good luck was likely a factor rather than the man being in good health. The man’s hair and short beard were streaked with white and his face creased when lines from a life spent out in the sun. Aside from his slight stoop and worn clothes, Rory couldn’t see anything wrong with the man.
“I heard there was a doctor about.” The man spoke softly to avoid waking anyone. He made his way over to Rory.
“I’m not really a doctor.”
“Ye helped them, didnae ye?” The man jerked his chin over at the slumbering patients. “And that’s good enough by me.”
The man didn’t have all of his teeth, Rory noticed. A common sight, he recalled. So many toothless grins wherever he went with the Pandorica.
“How can I help?” Rory pushed the thought away. His life as a plastic Roman soldier may have happened once upon a time, but it wasn’t his life now. He had to stop thinking about it.
“It’s not a broken bone,” said the man, pushing up his sleeve, “but I cannae move my wrist without feeling a spike of pain.”
The man’s left wrist was noticeably swollen. Rory gently probed the area, garnering a wince from the man. “Sorry. It’s a simple sprain, though.” Normally he would have prescribed ice to ease the swelling, but he doubted they had ice here. “You should keep your arm elevated and no strenuous work. Dipping a cloth in cold water and wrapping it around your wrist three times a day will help with the swelling.”
There were still clean blankets. Rory reached for one, intending to tear it up to make a tension bandage. The man handed him the dirk from his belt without being prompted. “Thanks.” Rory took the small knife and sat down on a chair in the corner.
“I’m Munro, by the way.”
“Rory.”
Munro sat down next to him and watched him cut through the blanket. After a moment or two of silence, he spoke. “Ye didnae fight in the Uprising, did ye?”
His memories of being Auton Rory in the mid 1700s were of dragging the Pandorica around the British Colonies, trying to find passage back to England. Jacobites had been the last thing on his mind. “No, I didn’t.”
“I thought not. Yer too young, and yer English, but ye got that look.”
Rory started to wrap up Munro’s wrist but he paused when he heard this. “Look?”
“Like a soldier without a war.”
He suddenly became very focused on wrapping the bandage around Munro’s wrist, like his life depended on getting every revolution just right.
“I see it in all the lads who survived Culloden. They’re haunted by the battlefield, but fightin’ gave them a purpose. Now we have nothing.” Munro got a far-off look in his eye. Rory’s earlier thought about luck was right. Munro had fought at Culloden and he survived the massacre that followed.
The older man looked up at Rory. “Ye had a purpose, laddie, something more than healing wounds.”
Rory quickly tied the end of the bandage. “You need to keep your wrist wrapped. Give it a few weeks and the swelling and the pain will go down.” He handed the dirk back to Munro.
The older man slipped the knife into the sheath on his belt, but he didn’t look away from Rory. “It stays with ye, dinnae it?”
He wanted to say no, but since his and Amy’s wedding he had spent so many nights just lying awake, afraid to close his eyes because something might happen to Amy. It was engrained in the very fabric of his being that he had to remain vigilant. Every room had to be checked for potential entrances and exits, every stranger viewed as a possible thief. He was the guard, the protector, the Lone Centurion.
He just wanted to be Rory Williams from Leadworth.
“I think it would be easier to forget all of it.” He didn’t need two thousand years of alternative history filling up his head.
“Aye, it’s tempting, but it’s a part of ye and it makes ye better.” Munro patted Rory on the shoulder with his uninjured hand. He rose to his feet, intent on heading home before night could come completely.
A terrified scream shattered the silence of the hamlet.
Rory was on his feet and out the door before he could even register what was going on. Dusk had fallen but it was still light enough to see. He yearned for a sword in his hand.
Six foot tall metal men, eight in all, stalked the wide lanes between the houses of Glen Beagan, their silver skin gleaming faintly in the dying light. Cybermen.
Rory ran back and closed the door of his make-shift hospital. Without any weapons, he stood his ground and waited for the Cybermen to come to him.
The Doctor urged the horse on, daring it to go as fast as it could without it collapsing from exhaustion. The horse was already foaming at the mouth and the powerful muscles beneath him quivered from exertion. If he pushed the animal anymore, it was liable to buck him and Amy before they reached Glen Beagan.
Amy sat in the saddle behind him, her arms wrapped around his waist so she wouldn’t fall off the horse. Her grip around his middle grew tighter and tighter as the minutes ticked by. As they were the same height, her chin came to rest on his shoulder, but she felt much smaller, like he was riding with Amelia Pond, not Amy Pond.
The fire remained contained to the one house, but no effort was made to douse the flames. As they drew closer and closer to Glen Beagan, the Doctor could make out panicked shouts and mournful moans. At least it meant some of the townsfolk remained. They could tell him what happened and he could devise a plan sooner.
Jamie had left his horse at the edge of the hamlet. The Doctor slowed his mount but he hadn’t even brought it to a stop when Amy jumped down from the saddle. She landed awkwardly but her long legs kept her upright. Shouting Rory’s name, she ran into Glen Beagan.
The horse let out a frightened whinny and it reared up on hind legs. “Whoa!” The Doctor tugged on the reins, trying to bring the animal under control. It settled down to all fours again and he quickly dismounted. Free of its rider, the horse ran off into the night. He couldn’t blame it for being skittish. He could smell burnt flesh on the breeze and the blown fuse smell of recently fired energy weapons.
The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver from his jacket pocket, using it more as a torch rather than a scanner, and he set off after Amy. He ran past the shed where he had spoken with Donald and he skidded to a stop when something caught his eye.
Donald’s pitchfork was driven into the ground, or so it seemed. When the Doctor got closer, he saw it had been stabbed through the Cyberman head he had left behind, right in the eyes. It must have taken all of Donald’s strength to pierce the metal skin of the head with the wooden prongs of the pitchfork.
The Doctor didn’t need to do a scan. The pitchfork told him all he needed to know.
He found the majority of the inhabitants of Glen Beagan gathered in the centre of the hamlet. Jamie was there and he listened with a grave face as Morag recounted a tale. Families huddled together, mothers and fathers cradling their children, their faces streaked with tears. The Doctor had put the population of the hamlet around fifty people. He counted roughly thirty now.
Rory wasn’t among them.
The house of the injured was still standing, but there were several blaster hits around the door and the door itself was nothing but splinters. With the lanterns out the sonic screwdriver bathed the room in an eerie shade of green. The figures laid out on the cots were still. They weren’t feinting sleep any longer.
In the corner, Amy stood over the body of an older man, his head twisted at an odd angle. Clutched in his right hand, which was wrapped up in a make-shift bandage, was a dirk. The tip of the blade was crushed flat, like it had been stabbed against a very hard surface.
“They’re all dead,” Amy said in a whisper, staring vacantly at the body of the old man.
The Doctor shined the light of the sonic screwdriver on Amy and he caught the tail end of a tear sliding down her cheek. When she turned to look at him, her expression hardened.
“Where’s Rory?” Her voice was husky with contained emotion, fear and anger chief among them.
“He’s not with the rest of the townsfolk,” said the Doctor, trying to deliver the news as gently as possible. Amy shook her head and she tried to push past him. He snagged the sleeve of her jacket as she passed and held on tight. “Listen to me, Amy. Rory’s not dead, but if we want to save him, we need a plan. Let me talk with the survivors.”
He could feel how tense Amy was just from standing next to her. “I’m not losing Rory again.” It sounded like a threat as well as an expression of her devotion. The Doctor wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of the first Cyberman that crossed Amy’s path.
“You won’t,” he promised her. He let go of her jacket and hurried out of the house back to the gathering of townsfolk.
In the brief time he was gone, someone had organized some of the remaining men to gather buckets of water to douse the fire. Smoke drifted between the houses, the thin fog adding an ominous air to Glen Beagan. The Doctor lit a nearby lantern with the sonic screwdriver, pushing back the darkness.
“What happened?”
The townsfolk stared at him with shocked expressions, but it was hardly from the use of the sonic screwdriver. He could have landed the TARDIS right in the middle of the hamlet and no one would have batted an eye.
Only Morag came to her senses, but her face was still drawn and pale. “They attacked just after sunset. We tried to fight back, but there were so many of them. They took Donald.” Her voice wavered at the mention of her brother.
“What do we do now, Doctor?” asked Jamie. With the protection of Glen Beagan foremost on his mind, the Scot was more willing to talk to him. “We cannae stay and let the Cybermen take more of us.”
The Doctor thought of evacuating the remaining townsfolk in the TARDIS, but he quickly dismissed the notion. Time was short and he didn’t want to waste what precious minutes he had trying herd a bunch of scared humans into a strange looking blue box bigger on the inside.
“The Cybermen were watching you, but Donald destroyed their means of observation. Everyone is safe, for now.”
“What about the people they took?” Amy came up from behind him, her arms crossed over her chest. She was trusting him to get her husband back, but she looked ready to bolt for the barn and grab a horse.
How many times was this now that he had endangered Rory’s life? The Doctor knew he should have checked the Cyberman head more thoroughly but he had been trying so hard to distract himself that he had overlooked the little things. Knowing it was sending images back to the Cybership wouldn’t have prevented an attack but it might have postponed one.
“The Cybermen need them alive. If we can locate their ship, we can get them back.”
“Then let’s go already.” Amy headed off without looking back.
“Amy!” His shout died to a mutter as the Doctor realized there was no stopping her now. He turned to Jamie as he had done countless times before. “Gather everyone in one house. If the Cybermen return, escape across the foothills. You’ll find a blue box about two miles out.” He handed the TARDIS key to Jamie. “Get everyone inside and lock the doors.”
Jamie handled the key carefully, but the Doctor couldn’t tell if the description of the TARDIS had stirred up any memories. “Let me come with ye, Doctor. Ye and Amy cannae take on the Cybermen alone.”
The Doctor clapped his hand down on Jamie’s shoulder. Oh, the trouble they found when they were younger. It would have been like the good old days, with Jamie watching his back, but he couldn’t, not this time. “These people need a protector. They need their laird. Give me and Amy until morning. If we’re not back by then… Run.” He patted Jamie on the side of his face and offered him an encouraging smile.
He left to the sounds of Jamie shouting orders to the people of Glen Beagan. The Doctor’s determined stride carried him to the barn, still full of horses thankfully. Cybermen apparently had no need to cyber-convert farm animals.
Amy was, unsuccessfully, trying to saddle up a brown mare. The saddle kept slipping and the horse, ungrateful that it was being manhandled, refused to stop moving around in its stall.
The Doctor laid his hand on the horse’s nose and softly spoke a few words of Gaelic to it. The horse snorted, blowing hot air in the Doctor’s face, but it finally stood still.
“Thanks,” muttered Amy.
He let her work, watching her tighten the cinch of the saddle around the horse. When it came time to buckle the end of the strap, Amy’s fingers fumbled to get the leather looped through. Her hands shook noticeably.
“It’s my fault.”
Amy gave up on the buckle and tied the two ends of the cinch in a knot. “It’s not.” Angered as she seemed, that fury wasn’t aimed at the Doctor. “I should have stayed behind. I’m always running off,” she muttered sourly to herself.
The Doctor took the reins from Amy before she could haul herself up into the saddle. “I’m not talking about Rory.”
It only took Amy a second to realize what he talking about. Her enthusiasm to learn the truth was somewhat dimmed now, though she still asked, “Why?”
The Doctor felt he finally owed Amy an explanation. They were both to blame for being away from Glen Beagan when the attack came, but he could have easily avoided any and all problems if he had simply told the truth from the beginning. But wanting to and being able to were two entirely different things.
“The Time Lords wiped Jamie’s memories to punish me.”
“Why would your own people want to punish you?”
He let the reins fall from his hands. He had said all that he was willing to. The Doctor went to grab another saddle and he set about preparing the horse in the next stall. He could feel Amy’s gaze on him, but their urgency to leave halted the rest of her questions.
Amy quickly mounted her own horse. She was first out of the barn, while the Doctor paused to grab a lantern to light the way. The Cybermen would see them approaching, but that was fine with him. They knew who he was and he wanted them to be quaking in their metal boots at the thought that the Doctor was coming.
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. Chapter Four. Chapter Five.
Smell was the strongest trigger of memory, Rory found. Just a hint of a scent could send him careening back to his childhood. The smell of toffee always reminded him of Amy and the day they met as kids. His mother had a hell of a time trying to get the sticky wad of candy out of his hair but he had made a friend for life that day.
As he washed his hands with the lye soap provided by Molly Mackenzie, he was taken back to another day from the past. A day spent wandering across the desert outside of Jerusalem with the sun baking his flesh. He thought he would literally melt that day and he’d be nothing more than a puddle of plastic by the time he made camp with the Knights Templar. It felt like he had used a hundred bars of soap to scrub himself clean of sand that day.
Rory paused, his hands still dripping with water. He had done it again.
“Gatherin’ wool, laddie?”
An elderly voice stirred Rory from his thoughts. He looked up from the bucket he was using as a wash basin to the doorway of the house. An older man, stooped over with age, entered, politely removing his hat as he stepped over the threshold.
“Sorry?” Rory quickly dried his hands on a spare piece of cloth. All of the makeshift bandages were gone. He wondered whose household Molly had raided to get so many clean sheets.
“Ye coulda been out on the moors, gatherin’ sheep’s wool ye looked so far away.”
The man’s literal use of wool-gathering got a small smile from Rory, though it was brief. “I was just remembering something.”
“Something pleasant, I hope.” The man cast a glance around the room.
It was better than when Rory had initially arrived. His patients had settled down for the coming night, still in some pain but likely to see the next sunrise. The ones beyond help were comfortable; it was all he could do for them. There was only one empty cot. The deceased man’s family had come to collect the body so they could prepare for a proper burial once things were safe again.
A gloomy atmosphere still hung over the room despite everything. When the hamlet would be safe again was anyone’s guess. So it surprised Rory that this older man was here, venturing out of his home with night fast approaching.
His training kicked in and he did a quick assessment of the man in a glance. The man looked like he was in his seventies, but he was probably younger considering the state of health in the 18th century. Even if the man was in his fifties, that was still pretty good; life expectancy was woefully low in this time. Good luck was likely a factor rather than the man being in good health. The man’s hair and short beard were streaked with white and his face creased when lines from a life spent out in the sun. Aside from his slight stoop and worn clothes, Rory couldn’t see anything wrong with the man.
“I heard there was a doctor about.” The man spoke softly to avoid waking anyone. He made his way over to Rory.
“I’m not really a doctor.”
“Ye helped them, didnae ye?” The man jerked his chin over at the slumbering patients. “And that’s good enough by me.”
The man didn’t have all of his teeth, Rory noticed. A common sight, he recalled. So many toothless grins wherever he went with the Pandorica.
“How can I help?” Rory pushed the thought away. His life as a plastic Roman soldier may have happened once upon a time, but it wasn’t his life now. He had to stop thinking about it.
“It’s not a broken bone,” said the man, pushing up his sleeve, “but I cannae move my wrist without feeling a spike of pain.”
The man’s left wrist was noticeably swollen. Rory gently probed the area, garnering a wince from the man. “Sorry. It’s a simple sprain, though.” Normally he would have prescribed ice to ease the swelling, but he doubted they had ice here. “You should keep your arm elevated and no strenuous work. Dipping a cloth in cold water and wrapping it around your wrist three times a day will help with the swelling.”
There were still clean blankets. Rory reached for one, intending to tear it up to make a tension bandage. The man handed him the dirk from his belt without being prompted. “Thanks.” Rory took the small knife and sat down on a chair in the corner.
“I’m Munro, by the way.”
“Rory.”
Munro sat down next to him and watched him cut through the blanket. After a moment or two of silence, he spoke. “Ye didnae fight in the Uprising, did ye?”
His memories of being Auton Rory in the mid 1700s were of dragging the Pandorica around the British Colonies, trying to find passage back to England. Jacobites had been the last thing on his mind. “No, I didn’t.”
“I thought not. Yer too young, and yer English, but ye got that look.”
Rory started to wrap up Munro’s wrist but he paused when he heard this. “Look?”
“Like a soldier without a war.”
He suddenly became very focused on wrapping the bandage around Munro’s wrist, like his life depended on getting every revolution just right.
“I see it in all the lads who survived Culloden. They’re haunted by the battlefield, but fightin’ gave them a purpose. Now we have nothing.” Munro got a far-off look in his eye. Rory’s earlier thought about luck was right. Munro had fought at Culloden and he survived the massacre that followed.
The older man looked up at Rory. “Ye had a purpose, laddie, something more than healing wounds.”
Rory quickly tied the end of the bandage. “You need to keep your wrist wrapped. Give it a few weeks and the swelling and the pain will go down.” He handed the dirk back to Munro.
The older man slipped the knife into the sheath on his belt, but he didn’t look away from Rory. “It stays with ye, dinnae it?”
He wanted to say no, but since his and Amy’s wedding he had spent so many nights just lying awake, afraid to close his eyes because something might happen to Amy. It was engrained in the very fabric of his being that he had to remain vigilant. Every room had to be checked for potential entrances and exits, every stranger viewed as a possible thief. He was the guard, the protector, the Lone Centurion.
He just wanted to be Rory Williams from Leadworth.
“I think it would be easier to forget all of it.” He didn’t need two thousand years of alternative history filling up his head.
“Aye, it’s tempting, but it’s a part of ye and it makes ye better.” Munro patted Rory on the shoulder with his uninjured hand. He rose to his feet, intent on heading home before night could come completely.
A terrified scream shattered the silence of the hamlet.
Rory was on his feet and out the door before he could even register what was going on. Dusk had fallen but it was still light enough to see. He yearned for a sword in his hand.
Six foot tall metal men, eight in all, stalked the wide lanes between the houses of Glen Beagan, their silver skin gleaming faintly in the dying light. Cybermen.
Rory ran back and closed the door of his make-shift hospital. Without any weapons, he stood his ground and waited for the Cybermen to come to him.
The Doctor urged the horse on, daring it to go as fast as it could without it collapsing from exhaustion. The horse was already foaming at the mouth and the powerful muscles beneath him quivered from exertion. If he pushed the animal anymore, it was liable to buck him and Amy before they reached Glen Beagan.
Amy sat in the saddle behind him, her arms wrapped around his waist so she wouldn’t fall off the horse. Her grip around his middle grew tighter and tighter as the minutes ticked by. As they were the same height, her chin came to rest on his shoulder, but she felt much smaller, like he was riding with Amelia Pond, not Amy Pond.
The fire remained contained to the one house, but no effort was made to douse the flames. As they drew closer and closer to Glen Beagan, the Doctor could make out panicked shouts and mournful moans. At least it meant some of the townsfolk remained. They could tell him what happened and he could devise a plan sooner.
Jamie had left his horse at the edge of the hamlet. The Doctor slowed his mount but he hadn’t even brought it to a stop when Amy jumped down from the saddle. She landed awkwardly but her long legs kept her upright. Shouting Rory’s name, she ran into Glen Beagan.
The horse let out a frightened whinny and it reared up on hind legs. “Whoa!” The Doctor tugged on the reins, trying to bring the animal under control. It settled down to all fours again and he quickly dismounted. Free of its rider, the horse ran off into the night. He couldn’t blame it for being skittish. He could smell burnt flesh on the breeze and the blown fuse smell of recently fired energy weapons.
The Doctor pulled out the sonic screwdriver from his jacket pocket, using it more as a torch rather than a scanner, and he set off after Amy. He ran past the shed where he had spoken with Donald and he skidded to a stop when something caught his eye.
Donald’s pitchfork was driven into the ground, or so it seemed. When the Doctor got closer, he saw it had been stabbed through the Cyberman head he had left behind, right in the eyes. It must have taken all of Donald’s strength to pierce the metal skin of the head with the wooden prongs of the pitchfork.
The Doctor didn’t need to do a scan. The pitchfork told him all he needed to know.
He found the majority of the inhabitants of Glen Beagan gathered in the centre of the hamlet. Jamie was there and he listened with a grave face as Morag recounted a tale. Families huddled together, mothers and fathers cradling their children, their faces streaked with tears. The Doctor had put the population of the hamlet around fifty people. He counted roughly thirty now.
Rory wasn’t among them.
The house of the injured was still standing, but there were several blaster hits around the door and the door itself was nothing but splinters. With the lanterns out the sonic screwdriver bathed the room in an eerie shade of green. The figures laid out on the cots were still. They weren’t feinting sleep any longer.
In the corner, Amy stood over the body of an older man, his head twisted at an odd angle. Clutched in his right hand, which was wrapped up in a make-shift bandage, was a dirk. The tip of the blade was crushed flat, like it had been stabbed against a very hard surface.
“They’re all dead,” Amy said in a whisper, staring vacantly at the body of the old man.
The Doctor shined the light of the sonic screwdriver on Amy and he caught the tail end of a tear sliding down her cheek. When she turned to look at him, her expression hardened.
“Where’s Rory?” Her voice was husky with contained emotion, fear and anger chief among them.
“He’s not with the rest of the townsfolk,” said the Doctor, trying to deliver the news as gently as possible. Amy shook her head and she tried to push past him. He snagged the sleeve of her jacket as she passed and held on tight. “Listen to me, Amy. Rory’s not dead, but if we want to save him, we need a plan. Let me talk with the survivors.”
He could feel how tense Amy was just from standing next to her. “I’m not losing Rory again.” It sounded like a threat as well as an expression of her devotion. The Doctor wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of the first Cyberman that crossed Amy’s path.
“You won’t,” he promised her. He let go of her jacket and hurried out of the house back to the gathering of townsfolk.
In the brief time he was gone, someone had organized some of the remaining men to gather buckets of water to douse the fire. Smoke drifted between the houses, the thin fog adding an ominous air to Glen Beagan. The Doctor lit a nearby lantern with the sonic screwdriver, pushing back the darkness.
“What happened?”
The townsfolk stared at him with shocked expressions, but it was hardly from the use of the sonic screwdriver. He could have landed the TARDIS right in the middle of the hamlet and no one would have batted an eye.
Only Morag came to her senses, but her face was still drawn and pale. “They attacked just after sunset. We tried to fight back, but there were so many of them. They took Donald.” Her voice wavered at the mention of her brother.
“What do we do now, Doctor?” asked Jamie. With the protection of Glen Beagan foremost on his mind, the Scot was more willing to talk to him. “We cannae stay and let the Cybermen take more of us.”
The Doctor thought of evacuating the remaining townsfolk in the TARDIS, but he quickly dismissed the notion. Time was short and he didn’t want to waste what precious minutes he had trying herd a bunch of scared humans into a strange looking blue box bigger on the inside.
“The Cybermen were watching you, but Donald destroyed their means of observation. Everyone is safe, for now.”
“What about the people they took?” Amy came up from behind him, her arms crossed over her chest. She was trusting him to get her husband back, but she looked ready to bolt for the barn and grab a horse.
How many times was this now that he had endangered Rory’s life? The Doctor knew he should have checked the Cyberman head more thoroughly but he had been trying so hard to distract himself that he had overlooked the little things. Knowing it was sending images back to the Cybership wouldn’t have prevented an attack but it might have postponed one.
“The Cybermen need them alive. If we can locate their ship, we can get them back.”
“Then let’s go already.” Amy headed off without looking back.
“Amy!” His shout died to a mutter as the Doctor realized there was no stopping her now. He turned to Jamie as he had done countless times before. “Gather everyone in one house. If the Cybermen return, escape across the foothills. You’ll find a blue box about two miles out.” He handed the TARDIS key to Jamie. “Get everyone inside and lock the doors.”
Jamie handled the key carefully, but the Doctor couldn’t tell if the description of the TARDIS had stirred up any memories. “Let me come with ye, Doctor. Ye and Amy cannae take on the Cybermen alone.”
The Doctor clapped his hand down on Jamie’s shoulder. Oh, the trouble they found when they were younger. It would have been like the good old days, with Jamie watching his back, but he couldn’t, not this time. “These people need a protector. They need their laird. Give me and Amy until morning. If we’re not back by then… Run.” He patted Jamie on the side of his face and offered him an encouraging smile.
He left to the sounds of Jamie shouting orders to the people of Glen Beagan. The Doctor’s determined stride carried him to the barn, still full of horses thankfully. Cybermen apparently had no need to cyber-convert farm animals.
Amy was, unsuccessfully, trying to saddle up a brown mare. The saddle kept slipping and the horse, ungrateful that it was being manhandled, refused to stop moving around in its stall.
The Doctor laid his hand on the horse’s nose and softly spoke a few words of Gaelic to it. The horse snorted, blowing hot air in the Doctor’s face, but it finally stood still.
“Thanks,” muttered Amy.
He let her work, watching her tighten the cinch of the saddle around the horse. When it came time to buckle the end of the strap, Amy’s fingers fumbled to get the leather looped through. Her hands shook noticeably.
“It’s my fault.”
Amy gave up on the buckle and tied the two ends of the cinch in a knot. “It’s not.” Angered as she seemed, that fury wasn’t aimed at the Doctor. “I should have stayed behind. I’m always running off,” she muttered sourly to herself.
The Doctor took the reins from Amy before she could haul herself up into the saddle. “I’m not talking about Rory.”
It only took Amy a second to realize what he talking about. Her enthusiasm to learn the truth was somewhat dimmed now, though she still asked, “Why?”
The Doctor felt he finally owed Amy an explanation. They were both to blame for being away from Glen Beagan when the attack came, but he could have easily avoided any and all problems if he had simply told the truth from the beginning. But wanting to and being able to were two entirely different things.
“The Time Lords wiped Jamie’s memories to punish me.”
“Why would your own people want to punish you?”
He let the reins fall from his hands. He had said all that he was willing to. The Doctor went to grab another saddle and he set about preparing the horse in the next stall. He could feel Amy’s gaze on him, but their urgency to leave halted the rest of her questions.
Amy quickly mounted her own horse. She was first out of the barn, while the Doctor paused to grab a lantern to light the way. The Cybermen would see them approaching, but that was fine with him. They knew who he was and he wanted them to be quaking in their metal boots at the thought that the Doctor was coming.
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