☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆
☆» 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘦: 𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘺𝘻𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘶𝘮 𝘤𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘩
☆» 𝘦𝘱𝘪𝘴𝘰𝘥𝘦: 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘭𝘴
☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆.。.:*・°☆
𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐣𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬
IT'S AMAZING, THE WAY museums, no matter how old or young they may be, always seem to give off the same aura, pulling you in with the promise of knowledge beyond the stars — much like a black hole. Looking around at the steadily growing collection of alien and Human artefacts alike, Violet can't help the smirk that grows on her face at the amount of pieces she recognises — pieces she helped find their way here to their final resting places.
"Wrong. Wrong. Bit right, mostly wrong," the Doctor lists, walking past the exhibits with Amy a few steps behind him. "I love museums."
"Yeah, great," Amy hurriedly agrees, trying to placate the man's enthusiasm. "Can we go to a planet now? Big spaceship? Churchill's bunker? You promised me a planet next."
"Amy, this isn't any old asteroid. It's the Delerium Archive, the final resting place of the headless monks. The biggest museum ever."
"You've got a time machine. What do you need museums for?"
"Wrong. Very wrong." The Doctor eyes gleam. "Ooo, one of mine. Also one of mine."
Amy scoffs slightly. "Oh, I see. It's how you keep score."
Violet stops beside a Home Box encased in glass, her sapphire eyes instantly drawn to the ancient writing engraved on one of the six faces. The Doctor glances at it and keeps moving along, but soon spins around and hurries back to his wife and the box, hazel eyes filled with stars as he examines the starliner's Home Box with great interest. Amy groans at their interest in the box but ultimately stops and stares, trying to figure out just why it's so much more interesting than any other box or piece of junk within the museum.
"Oh great, an old box."
"It's from one of the old starliners. A Home Box."
"What's a Home Box?"
"Like a black box on a plane, except it homes. Anything happens to the ship, the Home Box flies home with all the flight data."
"So?"
Violet's fingers hover above the glass, itching to trace the circular writing. "The writing, the graffiti. Old High Gallifreyan. The lost language of the Time Lords."
The Doctor smiles. "There were days, there were many days, these words could burn stars and raise up empires, and topple gods."
"What does it say?" Amy asks, slightly more interested now that she's learning something about both the Doctor and Violet.
""Hello, sweetie.""
Violet pulls one of her blasters free of its holder and adjusts the function before clicking the trigger in once, a brilliant purple flame shooting out from the muzzle, a smile bordering on insanity coming to life on her face. The Doctor grins as his wife melts the glass around the Home Box, leaving a melted ring of cooling glass as an alarm sounds and guards start chasing the odd trio back to the TARDIS.
"Why are we doing this?" Amy asks.
"Because someone on a spaceship twelve thousand years ago is trying to attract our attention," the Doctor explains in an ecstatic jumble of words, plugging cords and wires into the box. "Let's see if we can get the security playback working."
The playback shows River winking at the camera.
"The party's over, Doctor Song," a man says. "Yet still you're on board."
"Sorry, Alistair. I needed to see what was in your vault," the bushy-haired blonde with Time Lord DNA says with a nonchalant shrug. "Do you all know what's down there? Any of you? Because I'll tell you something: this ship won't reach its destination."
"Wait till she runs. Don't make it look like an execution."
"Triple seven five slash three four nine by ten, zero twelve slash acorn. Oh, and I could do with an air corridor."
Violet and the Doctor quickly input the coordinates.
"What was that?" Amy asks, thoroughly confused. "What did she say?"
"Coordinates," the Doctor says with a smile.
"Like I said on the dance floor," River says to Alistair. "You might want to find something to hang on to."
Violet notes that River is standing in front of an airlock and, once the blonde blows a kiss, the door slides open a moment later, leaving Alistair and his guards hanging onto rails. River is sucked out, backwards, her sparkling black dress reflecting distant starlight and making her look like a goddess reborn from the stars themselves. The TARDIS materialises in her flight path only a few seconds after the airlock opens, Violet and the Doctor opening the door, holding out their hands and River Song sailing into the blue box. Her sudden weight sends the married trio tumbling to the TARDIS floor, the blonde woman landing mostly on top of her husband.
"Doctor?" Amy calls in disbelief. "Violet?"
"River?" the Doctor asks, inviting her to explain.
River stands, dragging the Doctor and Violet up with her. "Follow that ship."
And follow the starliner they do, no matter how the TARDIS seems to struggle following the spaceship. Violet laughs as her wife and her husband bicker back and forth the whole while, Amy holding on for dear life as they're all almost thrown away from the console, the blue box making its own beeping sounds of delight and amusement at their current predicament.
"They've gone into warp drive," River curses. "We're losing them. Stay close."
"I'm trying," the Doctor retorts.
"Use the stabilisers."
"There aren't any stabilisers."
"The blue switches," Violet offers.
"Oh, the blue ones don't do anything, they're just blue."
"Yes, they're blue. Look, they're the blue stabilisers." River presses them and the TARDIS stops shaking. "See?"
"Yeah. Well, it's just boring now, isn't it?" the Doctor complains, aggressively mashing the buttons. "They're boring-ers. They're blue boring-ers."
"Doctor, how come she can fly the TARDIS?" Amy stage whispers to the Time Lord.
"You call that flying the TARDIS? Ha!"
"Okay. We've mapped the probability vectors, done a fold-back on the temporal isometry, charted the ship to its destination, and parked us right alongside." River shares an amused expression with Violet at the Doctor's denial of them landing. "Of course we've landed. I just landed her."
"But, it didn't make the noise!" The Doctor looks like a petulant child.
"What noise?"
"You know, the..." He makes a myriad of wheezing sounds, attempting to sound like his beloved machine, but all he does is make Amy give her childhood imaginary friend a disbelieving look.
River gives her husband an unimpressed look. "It's not supposed to make that noise. You leave the brakes on."
"Yeah, well, it's a brilliant noise. I love that noise." The Doctor skips down the stairs. "Come along, Pond. Let's have a look."
River pulls the scanner towards herself, eyes transfixed on the screen. "No, wait. Environment checks."
"Oh yes, sorry. Quite right. Environment checks." The Time Lord opens the TARDIS door and looks out. "Nice out."
"We're somewhere in the Garn Belt. There's an atmosphere. Early indications suggest that..."
"We're on Alfava Metraxis, the seventh planet of the Dundra System," Violet rambles off, watching River give the scanner a disbelieving look before sending it at Violet herself. "Sorry, couldn't help myself."
"Oxygen rich atmosphere, all toxins in the soft band, eleven hour day and..." The Doctor sticks his head out the door, inhaling once again before returning to the box. "...chances of rain later."
"He thinks he's so hot when he does that," River tells Amy, a devious smile on her face as the Doctor finds himself a seat beside the console. "And Violet isn't much better sometimes."
"How come you can fly the TARDIS?" the redhead asks, seemingly enamoured with the blonde beside her — which Violet can't help but laugh quietly about, given that River is Amy's daughter.
"Oh, I had lessons from the very best."
The Doctor looks down with a smile, raising his arms in a 'what can you do?' gesture. "Well, yeah."
"It's a shame you were busy that day," River calls around the console, winking at Violet. "Right then, why did they land here?"
"They didn't land."
"Sorry?"
"You should've checked the Home Box. It crashed."
River leaves the TARDIS, Violet half a step behind her wife as they hurry out onto the surface of Alfava Metraxis. Apart from the beautiful shale and the distant sound of rolling and crashing waves, the giant blemish on the beautiful scenery burns and releases more radiation than is really healthy for any living thing — aside from those that feed on it. The once sleek spaceship is a burning wreck sticking out of a rock-carved building that Violet can only guess that the Aplans built before they died out centuries ago.
It's only seconds later that Amy and the Doctor are by Violet and River's sides, both staring up at the Byzantium with something akin to horror etched onto their faces. The Doctor is quick to put up a different façade, interest taking precedence over his previously conflicting emotions as his ancient eyes take in absolutely everything, assessing the situation like a proper soldier.
"What caused it to crash?" Amy asks.
"Not me," River denies.
"Nah, the airlock would've sealed seconds after you blew it," the Doctor agrees. "According to the Home Box, the warp engines had a phase shift. No survivors."
"A phase shift would have to be sabotage. I did warn them."
"About what?"
River does a quick search on her miniaturised computer. "Well, at least the building was empty. Aplan temple. Unoccupied for centuries."
"Aren't you going to introduce us?" Amy teases the Doctor.
"Amy Pond, Professor River Song," the Doctor says, waving his hand absently towards the blonde.
"Ah, I'm going to be a Professor some day, am I?" River crows, making the Doctor regret the slip of his tongue, his eyes closing and his face scrunching up in irritation. "How exciting. Spoilers."
"Yeah, but who is she and how did she do that?" Amy pushes. "She just left you a note in a museum."
"Two things always guaranteed to show up in a museum," River supplies with a smirk. "The Home Box of category four starliner and sooner or later, him. It's how he keeps score. It's really how both of them keep score."
"I know."
"It's hilarious, isn't it?"
"I'm nobody's taxi service," the Doctor suddenly says. "I'm not going to be there to catch you every time you feel like jumping out of a spaceship."
"And you are so wrong," River laughs. "There's one survivor. There's a thing in the belly of that ship that can't ever die. Now he's listening." River uses her communicator. "You lot in orbit yet? Yeah, I saw it land. I'm at the crash site. Try and home in on my signal. Doctor, can you sonic me?" She holds up her communicator. "I need to boost the signal so we can use it as a beacon."
He does, grudgingly, use his Sonic Screwdriver to boost the communicator's signal. River curtsies her thanks
"Ooo, Doctor, you sonicked her," Amy teases.
"We have a minute. Shall we?" River gets out her TARDIS-style diary and flips through the pages, fingers tracing over the yellowing pages with fondness. "Where are we up to? Have we done the Bone Meadows?"
"What's the book?" the redhead asks, beyond curious as she makes her way over to River.
"Stay away from it," the Doctor sighs.
"What is it though?"
"Her diary."
"Our diary," River corrects, looking up with a smile. "All of us, Doctor."
"Her past, my future. Time travel. We keep meeting in the wrong order." The Doctor glances over at Violet. "Not sure how Violet manages to fit into our story so well with all the chaos, but she sure does."
Four small tornadoes kick up the dust and turn into four soldiers, but Violet knows better. These men are part of the Church in the 51st Century, and just thinking about being in this Century again has her curious. There's something about the 51st Century that keeps dragging her back to it — be it the birth of Jack on the Boeshane Peninsula or something else — Time and Fate want her to be in the 51st Century for a specific reason.
"You promised me an army, Doctor Song," the man at the front chastises when he takes note of Violet, the Doctor and Amy.
"No, I promised you the equivalent of an army," River denies. "This is the Doctor, and Violet."
"Father Octavian, Sir." The man salutes, making the Doctor limply mimic the movement, having long given up on trying to make people stop saluting him. "Bishop, second class. Twenty clerics at my command. The troops are already in the drop ship and landing shortly. Doctor Song was helping us with a covert investigation. Has Doctor Song explained what we're dealing with?"
"Doctor, Violet, what do you know of the Weeping Angels?"
The Doctor stares at River with dark eyes, and Violet gets a sudden chill down her spine, having heard rumours about the silent assassins even before she set foot on Gallifrey and learned that they were considered to be mythological even to the Time Lords.