Later in the night, the waters picked up— our only chance of escape.
I scrambled to pull at some ropes in the intense thunderstorm with Amy and Rory. Which ropes exactly, I had no idea-- because I did not speak the same language as Captain Avery.
"To the rigging, you dogs! Let go the sails, avast ye! Put the bunt into the sack of the clews!" He screamed through the harsh rain that was soaking us all.
"I swear he's making half this stuff up!" Amy struggled, clutching onto a rope rather than actually doing anything with it.
"I think he's making all of it up!" I tugged on the same rope over and over.
"What we really need is some sort of phrase book!" Rory shouted.
The Doctor attempted to steer, while Avery kept pulling levers and cutting ropes. "Toby, find my coat! My compass is inside it, boy." He shouted to his son, before facing us again. "Heave ho, you bilge rats!"
"Did anyone get that?" I shouted.
"Rats was all I could hear!" Rory exclaimed.
As Toby struggled to lug his father's heavy coat towards him, something fell out of it and rolled along the floor-- An extremely expensive gold crown-- with a reflective surface.
Toby and his father exchanged a look. They knew what he had done.
The siren reached a hand out, and then floated above the ship gracefully.
Toby reached out and stumbled to her. I knew that I could reach her also if I could only make it across. The only emotion I was capable of feeling was longing to be with her.
Toby disappeared with her, and I tried moving forward also. I couldn't perceive space anymore. I had no idea if I was close to her or not, but I must have been, because the Doctor pushed me away, and threw the crown into the ocean.
"No!" Avery cried. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
"You couldn't give up the gold, could you? That's why you turned pirate!" The Doctor screamed at Avery. "Your commission, your wife, your son! Just how much is that treasure worth to you, man?"
Another huge gush of wind swept across the ship and knocked Rory out of the sails, into the violent ocean.
"Rory!" Amy ran to the side of the ship, trying to look overboard. "I can't see him. Doctor, I'm going in!"
Amy began taking her coat off, ready to jump in after her husband, but the Doctor caught up to her, forcing her coat back on and holding her by it. "He's drowning. You go in after him and you'll drown too. There's only one thing that can save him now!"
"What are you talking about?"
"The Siren!" The Doctor reminded her.
"Yes!" I cheered, something about that statement making me extremely excited.
"Oh, no, not you," The Doctor placed a hand on my cheek for just a moment before turning back to Amy, yanking her by her coat lapels. "The Siren, she wants him. We have to release her! You need to hold Nova back!"
Amy grabbed my arms behind my back as the Doctor ran over to the water barrel.
"He's drowning, go save him!" The Doctor told the creature as she was released.
The Siren did as she was told, but came back on the ship, reaching out for me.
"Yes!" I cheered again, pushing Amy behind me, and moving forward.
"Nova!" The Doctor tried. I didn't understand why, or what he was trying to do, but eventually he caught up to me, and kept me back from her.
"Let me go!" I thrashed around, whining. I tried lunging forward, but I could feel his cheek right next to mine, his arms hooking mine behind me. He was doing everything in his power to hold me back, and it was making me mad. "Why won't you let me go? You let Rory go but not me? You love Rory more than me!" I felt like crying and laughing at the same time. I barely understood what I was saying.
"No, I don't, which is why I'm not letting you go!"
"That's so. Mean!" I was surely crying now, although I could barely tell with all the rain falling on my face. I did everything I could to try and get him off of me— I stomped on his feet, I kicked, and I jerked my shoulders and neck back repeatedly. I was getting exhausted, and I knew I probably hurt him-- but he wouldn't move.
All I wanted was for him to move. All I wanted was for the Siren to take me.
"Just let her go like Rory! You said the Siren could save him, she can save her too!" I heard Amy shout from somewhere behind me, but I didn't care to look back. The only thing I cared to look at was the Siren.
"It might know what to do with a human, but it won't know what to do with a Time Lord!" The Doctor explained, out of breath. "Get the lid and cover the barrel!"
Avery did as he said, and the Siren left.
"Doctor, I think we all have to go!" Amy shouted. "If we want to see them again, we should let her take us!"
"Aye!" Avery agreed.
"Please," I breathed, exhausted, kneeling down by the barrel-- the portal to the Siren.
Everyone else knelt around me.
"You're probably right," The Doctor agreed reluctantly. "Maybe."
Amy pulled me towards her to get my attention. "Nova, you tell him!"
With some effort, I swayed myself the opposite way, crashing into the Doctor. "Please...?" I mumbled into his chest, not being able to hold myself up anymore. I had almost forgot that fighting the Doctor before was what made me exhausted. My mind completely consumed by her, there was no space for any other thoughts.
He gulped. "We'll all prick our fingers, all agreed?"
"Aye," Avery confirmed.
"Aye!" Amy joined in.
"Aye!" The Doctor pricked all their fingers with a small nail.
The spots appeared, and the siren came.
888
"Where are we?" Amy asked.
"What happened?" I followed, standing up.
"We got taken by the Siren, and we haven't moved. We're in exactly the same place as before," The Doctor explained.
When we all stood, we realized that we were looking out a window-- a window that showed the pirate ship we were just on.
"We're on a ghost ship," Avery tried.
"No, it's real. Space ship trapped in a temporal rift." The Doctor explained again.
"How can two ships be in the same place?" Avery asked.
"Like two different universes within each other," I tried this time.
"All the reflections have suddenly become gateways," the Doctor continued.
He picked up a scrap of metal, and tossed it at the window. Although the window appeared to be glass, it slipped right through and landed on the pirate ship on the other side. "Ever look in the mirror and think you're seeing a whole other world? Well this time, it's not an illusion."
A low beeping resonated around. "That's the signal we were following," I remembered. "Or trying to follow."
"Yes." The Doctor confirmed in a low whisper, as we followed him up some stairs.
"The distress call," Amy noticed.
The Doctor kept walking. "Uh-huh..."
"There was a second ship here all the time..." Amy noticed again.
The Siren's call followed the distress signal. "And the Siren is on board." The Doctor pressed a button on the wall, and a door slid open abruptly, revealing a strange skeleton on the other side that made us all flinch back.
Avery pulled out his gun again, but the Doctor pushed it away. "Dead."
888
We entered another room, filled with platforms floating at different levels with people resting on them, wires attached. It wasn't long before we realized it was people from the crew-- including Toby, the TARDIS, and Rory.
"We have to get them out of here!" Avery declared.
"Wait!" The Doctor scanned Toby. "His fever is gone."
He came over to where Amy and I stood, with Rory.
Amy caressed his face gently. "He looks so well..."
"She's keeping him alive. His brain is still active but all its cellular activity is suspended." The Doctor turned over Rory's palm, showing the spot. "It's not a curse, it's a tissue sample." The Doctor showed a disc he snatched from earlier, proving that the sample of his skin was in it. "Why get samples of people you're about to kill?"
"Because you're not about to kill them." I suggested.
The Siren's voice echoed again. "She's coming."
We all scrambled to hide behind a piece of machinery at the side of the room, watching as the Siren approached Rory. He panicked at first, but the more she sang, the more he calmed down.
"Anaesthetic." The Doctor whispered.
"What?" Avery asked, probably never having heard that word in his life.
"The music. The song. So she anaesthetises people and then puts their bodies in stasis." The Doctor explained.
This explanation made no sense to Avery. So as the Siren reach down to Toby, Avery jumped out from the hiding space, and fired a bullet.
The Siren screeched, turning red again-- her eyes burning fire as she tried approaching any one of us. We all scrambled, but when the Doctor sneezed, she came for him, with a stretch of flames between her hands.
"Whoa. Fire! That's new. What does fire do? Burn? Yes. Destroy? What else? Sterilise! I sneezed. I've brought germs in." The Doctor took out a cloth from inside his jacket, and blew his nose on it, throwing it away from him. She shot her flames at the cloth, destroying it and all the germs that were on it.
"Amy, get away from Rory. She's not a killer, she's a doctor!" I rushed to explain.
Amy took a step away from Rory, and the Siren went back to her calm, normal green at my revelation.
"Of course!" The Doctor approached us. "This is an automated sick bay. It's teleporting everyone on board. The crew are dead and so the sick bay has had nothing to do. It's been looking after humanity whilst it's been idle. Look at her. A virtual doctor! Able to sterilise a whole room."
"Able to burn your face off!" Amy felt offended.
"She's just an interface. Seeped through the join between the planes. Broadcast in our world. Protean circuitry means she can change her form And become a human doctor for humans. Oh, sister, you are good!" The Doctor grinned, as if she understood him.
Amy reached for Rory again, but the Siren hissed at her until she stepped away. "She won't let us take them."
"She's keeping them alive but doesn't know how to heal them," The Doctor figured.
"I'm his wife for god's sake! Why can't I touch him?" Amy glared at her.
"Tell her Amy. Show her your ring." He grabbed her left hand, waving the ring in front of the Siren's face. "She may be virtual but she's intelligent. You can't do anything without her consent. Come on! Sophisticated girl like you, that must be somewhere in your core program."
"Amy, say something," I tried.
"Look. He's very ill, okay? I just want to look after him. Why won't you let me near my husband!?" She cried.
Although it was not evident anywhere on the Siren's face that she understood, she held out her left hand with a gold ring of light around it.
"Consent form. Sign it. Put your hand in the light. Rory's sick, you have to take full responsibility." The Doctor said.
Amy put her hand through the ring, and the Siren disappeared. Amy rushed towards Rory again, turning off the power on whatever machine he was floating on-- but he gasped for air, dying once again.
"He can't breathe, turn it back on!"
Amy turned it back on. "What can we do? We can't just leave him here."
"He'll die if you take him out," I reminded her.
Amy stroked Rory's face. "Rory? Wake up."
As if her words were magic, he blinked his eyes open. "Where am I?"
"You're in a hospital. If you leave you might die," the Doctor got straight to the point.
"But if you don't you'll have to stay forever," Amy continued.
"You're saying that if I don't get up now..." Rory trailed.
"You'll never leave." Amy finished, tears in her eyes.
"The Siren will keep you safe." The Doctor reminded him softly.
Rory nodded. "And if I come with you?"
"Drowning, on the point of death."
"I'm a nurse." Rory stated.
"What?" Amy asked.
"I can teach you how to save me."
"Hold on--"
"I was drowning. You just have to resuscitate me."
"Just?"
"You've seen them do it loads of times in films. CPR. The kiss of life."
Amy shook her head. "Rory, this isn't a film, okay. What if I do it wrong?"
"You won't." The look Rory gave her told her that he believed that entirely.
"Okay, but what if you don't come back to life? What if--"
"I trust you."
"What about the Doctor? Or Nova? I mean, why do I have to be the one? Why do I have to save you?" Amy was nervous.
"Because I know you'll never give up."
Amy nodded.
888
By some miracle, Amy saved Rory's life like I knew she would. He trusted her endlessly, and she never gave up on him. Although there was some panic in the beginning, once I realized Rory was going to be okay, I desperately wanted him and Amy out of the room.
In all honesty, I wasn't exactly paying attention-- something about Amy and the Doctor being worried about each other-- because I was too busy staring at the new object on the console.
I sat in the pilot's chair, absent-mindedly playing with my hair, until the Doctor said, "Go to sleep, Pond," and Amy smiled and left.
I stood and rushed up to the Doctor the moment she closed a door. "Is that it? The liquid version of the orb? I'm supposed to drink that, right?" I pointed at the spot on the console where the orb used to be. It looked like the orb was still there-- only just half of it, like someone had sliced off the top half, and now it was filled with a strange liquid-- the same, gold-glowing christmas light type the orb was filled with.
"Yes..." The Doctor picked it up, and held it in his hands carefully, like it would break if he breathed too hard. Maybe that was why he whispered. "Nova, are you sure? The Time Lords, they're... dangerous. And once you get this power, you can't undo it."
"Someone went through a lot of effort to bring me all the way over here with that. Or multiple people." I reminded myself.
I watched as the Doctor moved his fingers slowly so that his hands moved under the half-sphere, holding it like an offering. But his arms were not outstretched to me yet. He closed his eyes. "Do you know why the Supernova means so much to the Time Lords?"
"Why?" I asked. I may have known part of the answer, but I wanted to hear him explain it to me.
"The Omega and Rassilon used its power to allow for time travel. Its raw energy is what gives-- or gave us-- I don't know, our abilities." He struggled, and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes, and when he looked at me, he slowed down, his voice as careful as his hands under the half-orb. "Basically... it's what made the Time Lords themselves. The Supernova. It's in your name, and it's in this orb. You said that when they reversed your regenerations, they called it the Amending of the Supernova."
"Amending. A new version. When I named myself that, I said it meant to make new, to be new..." I thought all the way back to when I had first met the Doctor-- or rather, when he had first met me. All I wanted was to be someone else. To start over. To be who I was supposed to be-- the new me that Area 51 would never let me discover.
"And it could still mean that!" The Doctor assured me. "But it could also mean..."
"I'm... the Second Supernova?" I said it like a question. I almost couldn't believe it.
"Only if you drink this." The Doctor held the strange spherical cup out to me.
I slowly traced my fingers between his, filling the gaps, holding the light glass carefully.
The Doctor stared at me again, his eyes asking me, are you sure?
I lifted the glass to my lips. The liquid smelled like something pure and new-- like the clearest version of water I would ever feel. I tasted it, and how smooth it felt gliding down my throat was almost intoxicating. I felt empowered.
I stared back at him.
Yes.
a/n: once again, i end up posting the next chapter the next day. hope you all enjoyed this, and get the sense that i've been planning this big huge thing since the very first chapter. it will still take some time for it to REALLY unfold, but... we're getting there!!!
i move out this week and am losing my mind packing and running errands and doing Weird Adult Things like that, so i don't know when the next chapter will be up. but i will still be here to reply to messages and comments.
check my message board thing, because i'll probably say there when i'll update again, and if for some reason you really want to know what's going on in my life or just want to say hi, you can check my twitter, which is now @ marvelatina
thanks for reading, hopefully i'll be back soon!!
ps- if you're looking for the chapter where the 'amending of the supernova' thing happened, it was "The Hungry Earth (pt 3) / Cold Blood (pt 1)" chapter 25 of book 1