FLESH AND STONE PART ONE
edited as of december 28th, 2020
The jump, while necessary for their lives, was very much unsettling and brought dizziness among the humans. Rubbing her forehead as she stands up, Charlotte clearly sees the Angels raising their arms up at them from above (no, below). While nothing about that would seem to be shocking, the Angels seemed to resemble themselves at their full strength more than a second ago.
"You okay?" River asked Amy as she helped her up from the ground.
Standing up, Amy asks, "What happened?"
"We jumped."
"Jumped where?"
"Up," exclaims the Doctor, "up, look up!" Everyone peers up to see the Angels where they stood before their jump.
Amy's mouth drops. "Where are we?"
"Exactly where we were," responded River.
Still looking up to the Angels, she shook her head. "No, we're not."
Crouching down, the Doctor ushers Amy's feet away as he began using the sonic on the indentation on the Byzantium.
"Doctor," said Amy, "what am I looking at? Explain."
He stands up. "Oh, come on, Amy, think! The ship crashed with the power still on, yeah? So what else is on?" With no answer, as was expected, he continues, "the artificial gravity. One good jump-" for demonstration, he jumps. "-up and we fell. Shot out the grav-globe to give us an updraft, and here we are!" He was close to returning to sonicking the indention, before looking to Aino. "Sorry, left your gun down there."
"No, you're not," Aino replies, then shrugged. "I'm not that angry. But the statues look more like Angels, now."
"They're feeding on the radiation of the wreckage," he answers, still focused on the indention, "draining the power from the ship, restoring themselves. Within an hour, they'll be an army." Finally, the indention opens up to the ship with white lights flickering on inside.
"They're taking out the lights," reminded the Doctor. "Look at them, the Angels. Into the ship, now, quickly all of you!" Being the closest, the Doctor leaped into the hole first.
"But how? Doctor!" Leaning over the edge of the hole, Amy calms she sees the Doctor standing upright in the hallway.
"It's just a corridor," he deadpans. "The gravity oriented to the floor. Now, in here, all of you, keep your eyes on the Angels. Move, move, move!"
After Amy, Charlotte was the next to jump into the corridor. Meanwhile, as everyone else jumps in, the Doctor stands at a keypad, using the sonic on it as the lights had trouble staying on.
Octavian stands beside the Doctor. "The Angels, presumably, can jump up too?"
"They're here," said the Doctor, once the last cleric jumps in and the door closes behind him. "In the dark, we're finished. Run!" Doing so, the Doctor ran down the corridor just as a horn began blaring. Too late to take action, though, as before anyone could get far, a door slid closed and blocks their only escape.
Charlotte, standing in front of this closed door, groans. "You have got to be kidding!"
"This whole place is a death trap," Octavian says.
"No, it's a time bomb," corrected the Doctor, as if it makes a difference. "Well, it's a death trap and a time bomb. And now it's a dead end. Nobody panic."
"That doesn't help," Charlotte told the Doctor just before a bang is heard at the other end of the front door. The Angels were close. Charlotte gulps, looking at the door that closed off their exit. "What's through there, then?"
"Secondary flight deck," answers River.
Amy nods. "Okay, so we've basically run up the inside of a chimney, yeah? So, what if the gravity fails?"
River began working on bypassing the power and the Doctor replies to Amy, "I've thought of that."
"And?"
"And we'll plunge to our deaths. See? I've thought about it." He glances over to River. "The security protocols are live. There's no way to override them, it's impossible."
"How impossible?"
"Two minutes."
The sound of the Byzantium's engines, which had gone unnoticed until now, lowers until it is completely silent in the corridor. Following the engines, the lights flicker off and the exterior door opens for the Angels. Everyone now looks in the direction of the open door, waiting for any sight of the Angels to come soon.
"The hull is breached and the power's failing," Octavian reports.
Just as they were expecting, the lights turned completely off for a second, and unable to watch for the Angels, when the light turned on again, there was a single Angel's arm stretched in front of the door.
"Incoming!" Aino alerted.
"Doctor," stressed Charlotte, "lights."
With the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor helps River with the power. For a longer moment than before, the lights turned on before flickering off again, allowing an Angel makes its way in. Not long after, the lights turn off again for the Angel to be accompanied by three others.
"Clerics, keep watching them," Father Octavian orders them.
"And don't look into their eyes," added the Doctor. "Anywhere else. Not the eyes. I've isolated the lighting grid. They can't drain the power, now."
Octavian nods. "Good work, Doctor."
"Yes. Good. Good in many ways, good you like it so far..."
Aino glances over at him. "So far?"
"Well, there's only one way to open the door," answers the Doctor as he opens up the door's control panel. "I guess I'll need to route all the power in this section through the control panel."
"Good, fine, do it," says Octavian.
"Including the lights," adds the Doctor, to everyone's disdain. "All of them. I'll need to turn off the lights."
Father Octavian looks back over to the Doctor. "How long for?"
"Fraction of a second," responds the Doctor after a millisecond. "Maybe longer. Maybe quite a bit longer."
"Maybe?" furthered Octavian.
"I'm guessing," said the Doctor. "We're being attacked by statues in a crashed ship, there isn't a manual for this!"
Charlotte looks over to the Doctor in the dark. "Are you sure this is the only way? Positive?"
"Positive." He glances at Father Octavian. "Bishop?"
Instead of answering him, Octavian looks over to his most trusted cleric, Aino. "I've lost good men today. You trust this man?"
She blinks. Earlier she said 'sure', but did she actually mean that? Did she seriously trust him after having Stormcage arrest her? Aino clenched her jaw, her eyes focused away from the Bishop. Can you trust someone when they only know the lies you told them? But, while he may not trust her, Aino was crazy enough to do the opposite. After all, you need to trust the only one who can help.
"Yes," responds Aino, "I trust him."
"He's not some sort of madman, then?"
"Like I said, I trust him," she repeated.
Hearing this, the Doctor grins, patting her shoulder before going over to the door. Using the sonic on it, the Doctor knocks on the door, listening as the knock echoes for a second before turning to Amy and Charlotte.
"Alright," he starts, "when the lights go down, the wheel should release. Spin it clockwise, four times."
Amy nods along. "Ten."
"No, four, four turns," he corrects.
"Yeah, four. I heard you." Charlotte, standing on one side of the wheel spares a glance over to Amy as she moves to stand on the wheel's other side.
In the door's circuit, the Doctor places the sonic screwdriver. "Ready!"
"On my count then," says Octavian. "God be with us all. Three... two... one." Finally, the lights go out, and the Bishop shouts out, "Fire!"
As they turn the wheel clockwise, the soldiers (including Aino, using a cleric's extra gun) shoot at the Angels in the dark. Every split second getting a glimpse of an Angel as they move quickly in the gunfire.
"Turn!" shouts the Doctor over the noise.
"I am!" Charlotte shouted back as the wheel turned, causing the door to begin to creak.
"Doctor, quickly!" says River as she tried to help turn the wheel.
Looking up at the door, Amy continues turning the wheel as she watches it open up. "It's opening!" she exclaims. "It's working!" Turning the wheel once more, she stops and runs out with River and Charlotte slipping through the crack behind her.
"Fall back!" shouts Octavian, allowing the soldiers to move out.
Through the door, the clerics ran one by one into a corridor closed by yet another door. Following Octavian, the Doctor rushes into the corridor with everyone else with the door sliding closed behind him. Not paying attention to this, he runs straight to the next door. With the sonic screwdriver, he keeps the door open long enough for everyone to run out.
Once the last cleric runs out, the Doctor turns off the sonic and quickly runs out of the corridor and through the automatically closing door. However, as fast as he was, the door was closing faster. His foot, being the last part of him to leave the corridor was a split second to being smashed in between the door and the wall before Charlotte pulled him through and into the secondary flight deck.
"You're slow," she commented before walking over to the flight deck- which, from the crash, was in immense disrepair with wires running over the main console. Following her, the Doctor moves to a part of the console and began working.
Meanwhile, the Angels, on the other side of the doors, began turning the wheel. Standing in front of one door, Octavian places a device above the wheel which somehow puts the Angels' progress on pause.
"What are you doing?" questions Amy.
"Magnetized the door," responds Octavian. "Nothing can get through there now."
The Doctor looks up from the console. "Yeah?"
The clicks of the wheel turning appear again, this time slower. Octavian glances at the wheel. "Dear God!"
"Ah, now you're getting it!" the Doctor told him. "You've bought us time though, that's good. I'm good with time." He lowers his head, going back to work on the console.
Another wheel began spinning, the first to see this, Amy says, "Doctor!"
"Seal that door," ordered Octavian. "Seal it now!"
Aino, being the closest to that door, pulls out the same device Octavian used and places it above the wheel. Not long after, though, the wheel began spinning slowly. On the other side of the room, a third door's wheel began spinning before another cleric put the device above it.
"We're surrounded," said River.
Octavian looks over to the Doctor. "Doctor, how long have we got?"
"Five minutes max."
Amy scrunched her eyebrows. "Nine."
The Doctor turns to her. "Five," he corrected.
"Five, right yeah."
"Why d'you say nine?"
"I actually thought she said 'nein'," Aino jokes. "Like no, but German."
Amy frowns, looking between them. "I said nothing."
"We need another way out of here!" shouts River from where she works on the console.
"There isn't one," replied Octavian.
While Aino seems to be on Octavian's side throughout the day, Charlotte is the opposite. Finding him thinking of the wrong solutions and how he yelled at Bob for fear, sue her if she found the Bishop annoying. "Yes, there is," Charlotte stressed.
The Doctor stood up straight from the console. "This is a galaxy-class ship, goes for years between planet-falls. So..." he snaps his fingers. "-what do they need?"
River's mouth drops. "Of course." He snaps his fingers again.
"Of course, what?" wondered Amy. "What do they need?"
The Doctor draws attention to the wall opposite of the entrance to the flight deck. "Can we get in there?" queried Octavian.
"Well, it's a sealed unit, but they must've installed it somehow. The whole wall should slide up." The Doctor nears the wall, inspecting it closely. "There's clamps. Release the clamps!" Pushing a box out of the way, he squats down to the ground to begin sonicking the clamps.
"What's through there?" Amy asked again. "What do they need?"
"They need to breathe," Charlotte finally answers her as the wall began to lift up when the clamps are released.
Watching the wall rise, they were met with the lush forest in front of them with bushes, trees, and the smell of the fresh air hurdling in through the growing gap from the ground to the wall. Everyone looks into the new room in amazement as the Doctor turns around with a proud grin.
Amy gulps. "But that's... that's a..."
"It's an oxygen factory," finished River.
"It's a forest."
"And, if we're lucky, an escape route," the Doctor responds as he looks down into the forest.
Doing the same, Amy says in an astounded whisper, "Eight."
The Doctor glances back at her. "What did you say?"
"Nothing."
The Doctor moves on from this for a moment. "Is there another exit? Scan the architecture, we don't have time to get lost in there."
"On it!" exclaimed Octavian, stepping into the forest. "Stay where you are until I've checked the Rad levels." He walks further down but remains in the vision of the others.
"But trees!" Amy chuckles. "On a spaceship!"
Charlotte grins. "There have been a lot crazier things on a spaceship."
"Oh, c'mon," the Doctor says in response to Charlotte. "These are way better than trees. You'll love this." Stepping into the forest, he walks up to one tree, pulling on the moss on its side to reveal wires inside it. "Treeborgs! Trees plus technology. Branches become cables, become sensors on the hull. A forest breathing in starlight, breathing out air. It even rains. It has a whole climate. A whole eco-pod running through the heart of the ship." He meets up with them, looking over to Charlotte. "A needle in a stack of hay in a barrel. Have I impressed you yet, Charlotte Mary Bolton?"
He pronounced her name with emphasis on the first syllable of each name, something Charlotte liked but hid as she hums in thought. "A forest-needle, in a spaceship stack of hay, in a maze or barrel. A much better metaphor before." She shrugs. "Very impressive but the treeborgs are cool, too." Charlotte looks over to Amy as the red-head admires the forest. "Amy, thoughts?"
Amy chuckled. "Seven."
"Seven?" repeated the Doctor.
Amy blinks. "Sorry, what?"
"You said seven," he responds, looking at her face closely in order to find anything.
"No, I didn't."
Aino, leaning on the console, nodded her head in confusion. "You did, I heard it."
"Doctor!" called Octavian from the forest. "There's an exit, far end of the ship, into the Primary Flight Deck."
"Good, that's where we need to go," the Doctor says back to him, too busy surveying Amy's face to look in the Bishop's direction.
"Plotting a safe path."
The Doctor didn't as much as nod. "Quick as you like."
The radio turns on once again, catching the Doctor's attention. "Doctor? Excuse me. Hello, Doctor? Angel Bob here, sir?"
Sitting in the command chair, which was placed in the middle of the console, the Doctor spoke to Bob. "Ah. There you are, Bob. How's life? Sorry, bad subject."
"The Angels are wondering what you are trying to achieve."
"Achieve?" questions the Doctor. "We're not achieving anything. We're just hanging. It's nice here, consoles, comfy chairs, a forest. How's things with you?"
"The Angels are feasting, sir," said Bob. "Soon we will be able to absorb enough energy to consume this vessel, this world, and all the worlds and stars beyond."
Listening, the Doctor didn't seem worried or, rather, was really good at hiding it. "Well, we've got comfy chairs, did I mention?"
"We have no need of comfy chairs."
The Doctor snickers. "I made him say comfy chairs!"
Laughing, Amy says, "Six."
Suddenly, the Doctor stood up from the chair, saying to Angel Bob, "Okay, well, enough chat. Here's what I want to know: what have you done to Amy?"
"There is something in her eye."
"What's in her eye?"
"We are."
As everyone looks over to Amy, and the Doctor looks at her in the eye, the woman remains confused. "What's he talking about? Doctor, I'm five." Hearing herself, she pauses. "I mean, five. Fine! I'm fine."
"You're counting," says River, who stares at her.
"Counting?" Amy repeated to herself.
"You're counting down," said the Doctor, who continues looking her eyes for any hint on what Bob meant. "From ten. You have been for a couple of minutes."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"Well, counting down to what?"
"I don't know."
The radio turns back on. "We shall take her. We shall take all of you. We shall have dominion of all time and space."
Falling back down into the command seat the Doctor replies to Angel Bob, "Get a life, Bob." (Aino, in the back of the room, held back a laugh). "Oops. Sorry, again. There's power on this ship, but nowhere near that much."
"With respect, sir, there is more power on this ship than you yet understand." The radio turns off for a moment as high pitched screeches erupt. To Aino, it was the sound she imagined demons to sound like with their shrieks.
River looks up to the ceiling from the noise. "Dear God, what is it?"
"They're back," says Octavian, but doesn't give further orders.
"It's hard to put in your terms, Dr. Song," Angel Bob replies to River, "but as I best understand it, the Angels are laughing."
While Charlotte seemed to both be close to vomiting and murdering an Angel, the Doctor replies to Bob in disgust, "Laughing?"
"Because you haven't noticed yet. The Doctor and the TARDIS hasn't noticed yet," remarked Bob.
Seeing light coming down from above her head, Aino looks behind and above herself to see a sight that caused her to lose her breath. "Doctor!"
Turning around, the Doctor instantly saw the crack spanning over the middle of the wall near to the ceiling with white light coming out of it. Seeing this he finished the end of his sentence, "... missed." before moving towards the crack.
"That's- That's like the crack in my bedroom when I was a girl," says Amy, captivated and confused by the identical crack.
"Zombie-Donkies," Aino muttered to herself, catching Amy's attention, who moved up for a closer view of the crack. "When we found the Donkies there was that crack on the barn. The owner said it just showed up one day. I didn't think it was important, but clearly..." Her voice goes quiet as she stares into the crack.
"Okay, enough!" shouts the Bishop. "We're moving out!" The clerics, including Aino, were the first to leave the flight deck.
Looking into the crack, River nods. "Agreed. Doctor?"
The man steps on a box in order to sonic the crack. "Yeah. Fine!" he responds.
"What are you doing?" questioned River.
He doesn't answer the question. "Right with you."
"For God's sake..." whispered Charlotte. "We aren't leaving without you!"
"Yes, you are. Bishop?"
Father Octavian, with a foot in the forest, hollers to them, "Miss Pond, Miss Bolton, Dr. Song. Now!" Finally, the three women left the flight deck, jumping down into the forest. Charlotte, near the end of the group, sent a final glance to the Doctor before following after them.
---
One would think that a forest made of mechanical trees in order to power a spaceship couldn't resemble an actual forest well enough to the point someone could trick themself into thinking it's real. But, when she didn't look up at the wires going from the tops of the trees to the ceiling, Charlotte found she forgot the forest is mechanical on multiple occasions.
Walking slowly through the forest, in order to keep an eye out for any Angels, Charlotte kept her head ahead while looking to the sides every now and then. The brunette only looks back when River says Amy's name.
Amy, at the end of the group, had a strange look on her face when she stopped in her tracks. Staring down at the ground, her face is glossed over when Charlotte and River approached.
River, gripping Amy's arms, says in worry, "Amy, what's wrong?"
Amy, pulling away from River's grip, says, "Four," as she curls up on a large, moss-covered rock.
"Med-scanner, now!" shouts River, bringing Aino to hand over the med-scanner.
"Dr. Song," began Octavian, "we can't stay here, we've got to keep moving."
"We wait for the Doctor," she states as she wraps a part of the scanner around Amy's arm.
"Our mission is to make this wreckage safe and to destabilize the Angels," he reminded sternly. "Until that is achieved..."
"Father Octavian," starts River as she continues helping Amy, "when the Doctor is in the room, your only mission is to keep him alive long enough to get everyone else home." She looks back over to the Bishop. "And trust me, it's not easy. Now, if he's dead back there, I'll never forgive myself, and if he's alive I'll never forgive him." River pauses. "And, Doctor, you're standing right behind me aren't you?"
The Doctor, standing on top of a rock behind River, with his tweed jacket nowhere to be seen, replies, "Oh, yeah."
River turns her head. "I hate you."
"You don't." He jumps down, approaching where they surround Amy. "Bishop, the Angels are in the forest."
Octavian looks to the clerics. "We need visual contact on each line of approach." All the clerics, including a hesitant Aino, with seeing Amy's condition, move to keep watch.
When the Doctor came to Amy's side beside Charlotte, and across from River, River questioned him, "How did you get past them?"
"Found a crack in the wall and told them it was the end of the universe," he said as he looked down at the med-scanner.
"What was it?" whispers Amy.
The Doctor glances down at her before answering quickly, "The edge of the universe. Let's have a look then."
Still curled up on the rock, Amy asks, "So, what's wrong with me?"
"Nothing," assured River, "you're fine."
"Everything," corrected the Doctor, "you're dying."
Charlotte snaps her head over to him. "Doctor!"
"Yes, you're right, if we lie to her, she'll get all better!" he exclaimed before turning back to Amy. "Right. Amy. Amy! What's wrong with Amelia? There's something in her eye. What does that mean? Doesn't mean anything."
"Doctor," says Amy.
"Busy."
"Scared."
"'Course, you're dying, shut up." He goes back to thinking.
River put a hand on Amy's shoulder. "Alright, let him think," she whispered to her.
The Doctor stands up, beginning to pace back and forth as he thought out loud. "What happened? She stared into the eyes of the Angel, she looked into the eyes of an Angel for too long..."
A cleric shouts to Octavian, "Sir! Angel, incoming!"
Aino, too, shouts back to the Bishop, "Here too!"
"Keep visual contact," he orders, "do not let it move!"
The Doctor slaps the side of his head. "Come on! Wakey, wakey! She watched the Angel climb out of the screen. She stared at the Angel and... and..."
"The image of an Angel is an Angel," finished Amy, her voice raspy.
"A living image in a human mind," said the Doctor as he sat back down across from Amy. "We stare at them to stop them from getting closer, we don't even blink and that's exactly what they want, 'cause as long as our eyes are open, they can climb inside. There's an Angel in her mind." He puts a hand over his mouth.
"Three. Doctor, it's coming. I can feel it. I'm going to die."
He stands up again, waving his hand. "Please shut up, I'm thinking. Now counting, what's that about?" He took the radio out of his pocket. "Bob, why are they making her count?"
"To make her afraid, sir."
Already assuming that the Doctor nods. "Okay, but what for?"
"For fun, sir." With frustration from this answer, the Doctor looked down at the radio in disgust before shouting as he threw the radio to the ground.
"Doctor," says Amy, "what's happening to me? Explain."
"Inside your head, in the vision center of your brain, there's an Angel." He sits down, putting his chin in his hand as he thought. "It's like there's a screen, a virtual screen in your mind, and the Angel is climbing out of it, and it's coming... to shut you off."
"Then what do I do?"
The Doctor stands up again. "If it was a real screen, what would we do, we'd pull the plug, but we can't just knock her out, the Angel would take over!"
"Then what?" questioned Charlotte, who looks between Amy and the Doctor. "C'mon!"
"We've got to turn off the vision center of her brain. We've got to pull the plug, to starve the Angel."
The scanner begins to beep rapidly in River's hand. "Doctor, she's got seconds."
"How would you starve your lungs?" he wonders.
As she held Amy's hand, Charlotte replied, "I'd stop breathing."
"Amy, close your eyes," the Doctor tells her.
As much as she could while laying on her side, Amy shook her head. "No... No, I don't want to."
"Good, because that's not you, that's the Angel inside you, it's afraid. Do it! Close your eyes!" He sat back down in front of her, putting a hand on her head as she hesitates to close her eyes. Amy glimpsed back up at him before closing her eyes.
In River's hand, the scanner beeps before the reading turns from red to green. "She's normalizing." She sighed loudly. "You did it!"
Charlotte, grinning, looks back to the Doctor. "You. Are. Amazing," she says to him, emphasizing each word as he did with her name.
"Sir?" calls out a cleric. "There's two more incoming."
"Three more over here," shouts another soldier.
River stands up, sliding the med-scanner into a pocket. "Still weak, dangerous to move her."
Amy sits up on the rock. "So, can I open my eyes now?"
Looking down at her, the Doctor says, "Amy, listen to me. If you open your eyes for any more than a second, you will die. The Angel is inside you. We haven't stopped it, we've just sort of... paused it. You've used up your countdown. You cannot open your eyes."
Father Octavian approached the Doctor. "Doctor, we're too exposed here. We need to move."
The Doctor, standing up straight, looked back at Octavian. "We're too exposed everywhere, and Amy can't move, and anyway, that's not the plan."
"You don't have a plan, though," commented Charlotte, her eyebrows scrunching up.
"I don't know yet, I haven't finished talking," he replied to her. "Right! Father, you and your clerics will stay here, look after Amy. If anything happens to her, I'll hold each of you responsible, twice. River, Charlotte, Aino, we're going to find the Primary Flight Deck which is..." licking his finger, he held it up in the air. "-a quarter mile straight ahead. We'll stabilize the wreckage, stop the Angels, and cure Amy."
"How?" asked River.
"I'll do a thing."
Charlotte raised her eyebrows. "Oh, and what's 'the thing'?"
"I don't know," he admitted. "It's a thing in progress. Respect the thing."
"Eye-eye."
Aino, hollering from where she continues watching an Angel, says to the Doctor, "Can't go! I still owe Amy for saving me in the transport ship!" At that, the Doctor threw his hands into the air. Of course, he believed Aino had truly redeemed herself at this point, but he wasn't eager to trust her in protecting a friend.
Octavian turns his attention to the Doctor. "Doctor, I'm coming with you. My Clerics will look after Miss Pond. These are my best soldiers, they'd lay down their lives in her protection, Aino most of all."
"I don't need you," he responds.
"I don't care," Octavian simply tells him. "Wherever Dr. Song goes, I go."
"What?" The Doctor glanced to River. "Are you two engaged or something?"
Octavian frowns. "Yes, in a manner of speaking." The Doctor glanced to River, who shrugged her shoulders as Octavian turned his head in Aino's direction. "Aino, you're in charge 'till I get back," he shouts to her before beginning the trek alongside River Song.
"'Kay," she shouted back, keeping her eyes on the two Angels in front of her, winking every-so-often.
Charlotte, who sat beside Amy, listens as she says, "Please, can't I come with you?"
Close to reply, she is interrupted by Octavian as he left, "You'd slow us down, Miss Pond."
"I don't want to sound selfish, but you'd really speed me up."
"Sorry," Charlotte apologizes, "but you'll be safer down here and it'll be harder to protect you." Cringing, knowing exactly what'll happen, Charlotte shrugged off the feeling before playfully nudging Amy.
The Doctor sat down on the opposite side of Amy. "We'll be back for you as soon as we can. I promise."
"You always say that."
"And we always come back, yeah?" Charlotte countered, and as far as she could tell, Amy rolled her eyes as Charlotte and the Doctor stood up from the rock.
"Good luck everyone. Behave." He looks around at the clerics in the trees. "Do not let that girl open her eyes. And keep watching the forest. Stop those Angels advancing. Amy, later!" He pats Amy's head, taking Charlotte's hand before hollering to River as they began leaving the forest's clearing, "River, going to need your computer!"
Aino, sitting on the ground as she kept her eyes on the Angels, could vaguely see the Doctor and Charlotte heading down a path in her peripheral vision. A moment later, however, she heard the crunch of leaves before stopping behind her. It was the Doctor.
"You still want to go back," he says.
Crossing her arms over her chest, Aino kept her eyes on the Angels. "Yep. All of that shit I did in order to get back, it failed, but I still want to go home. What does that say about me?"
"It says you know what you need, that you'll do anything to get it." Behind her, the Doctor looked up thoughtfully. "What's that prick on your neck?"
Aino's nose scrunched. "What do you mean?" No answer. "Doctor, don't start now." Still, no answer. Sighing, she quickly turned her head, seeing he left, she stared back at the Angels, which both moved slightly but not much.
---
Led by Octavian, Charlotte, River, and the Doctor moved through the forest in the supposed direction of the Primary Flight Deck. The latter, with a device in hand, glanced down at it when it beeped.
"What's that then?" Charlotte asked him, looking down at the device to see different symbols beyond her knowledge flickering back and forth.
"Base code of the universe," he responds. "It's the readings from the crack."
"How can a crack in the wall be the edge of the universe?" River put forward when she walks alongside the two.
He shrugs, despite having a good idea. "Here's what I think. One day there'll be a very big bang, so big that every moment in history- past and future- will crack."
"Is that possible?" queried River. "How?"
The Doctor stops. "How can you be engaged in a manner of speaking?"
"Well... sucker for a man in uniform." She smirks, elbowing Charlotte in her side.
The woman looked betrayed as she yelps, "Ouch! What'd I do?!"
River grinned. "Nothing, not yet."
Octavian walks over, focusing on the Doctor. "Dr. Song is in my personal custody. I released her from the Stormcage Containment Facility four days ago and I am legally responsible for her until she has accomplished her mission and earned her pardon. Just so we understand each other."
The Doctor turns his head to River. "You were in Stormcage?" The device beeps again, bringing it back up, he watches the moving code.
"What?" questions River. "What is it?"
"The date! The date of the explosion where the crack begins." The code begins to crack, slowly revealing numbers on the bottom like a game of hangman.
"And for the rest of us who can't read the base code of the universe..."
The date finishes being revealed, causing the Doctor's mouth to drop and Charlotte to look back up at him as he says, "Amy's time!" Back on the device, the date read 26/06/2010- not only the day after Amy left her time and began traveling with the Doctor but, unknown to him, her wedding date.
---
Charlotte, while she didn't care for guns very much, was very glad River had one. Standing watch beside her for any Angels, she found it made her feel safer. Meanwhile, as Octavian looked for a way into the Primary Flight Deck, the Doctor took readings with the sonic from the device in his hand.
"It doesn't open from here," Octavian fills them in, "but this is the Primary Flight Deck. There has got to be a service hatch or something."
River's jaw clenches. "Hurry up and open it, time's running out."
That caught the Doctor's attention. "What? What did you say? Time's running out, is that what you said?"
In confusion, River glanced back at him. "Yeah, I just meant..."
"I know what you meant, hush! But what if it could?"
"What if what could?" Charlotte asked.
"Time. What if time could run out?"
Behind them, Father Octavian finally found the way in. "Got it!"
"Cracks in time, time running out..." muttered the Doctor to himself. "No, couldn't be. How is a duck pond a duck pond if there aren't any ducks? And she didn't recognize the Daleks! Okay, time can shift. Time can be rewritten. Ah, oh!"
Finally releasing the hatch from the lock, Father Octavian pushed it open to the Primary Flight Deck. He first ushered River in and following her, Charlotte went into the Flight Deck.
"Could you look for the lights?" River asked her, but, while it was worded as a question, it was clear it wasn't when she hands Charlotte a torch.
"...Yeah," she replies. Beginning to look for the said lightswitch, the search was soon proven more difficult than one would believe. When she did find it a minute later, though, Charlotte was slightly surprised they didn't change in design much in a few thousand years. Brushing past this original shock, she lifts her hand to the switch. Then she stopped.
The snap, while it could've easily been dismissed for a twig or a very dry leaf, Charlotte knew better; the Angel snapped Father Octavian's neck. She didn't know him well, or at all. She knew this part was going to happen, and she knew she can't sob now with the mission.
Something came over Charlotte. It was an unnatural sadness, wherein she was sadder than she has ever felt. Charlotte hurt more than she has before; she wants to fall to her knees, to cry until she dies.
The only thing keeping her standing was pure stubbornness... Charlotte isn't sad! It was clear to her this mood swing was from Octavian's death, but when she thought of it and of the Bishop she knew that (no offense to his memory) she wasn't sad enough to cry a river as she felt.
Her miserable state quickly changed not because of anything, but just left as suddenly as it came. Her gloom in no way left when the Doctor entered through the hatch nor did it leave her head due to the lights finally turning on.
No, Charlotte didn't know why her mood became so dismal. And, while someone else may have become confused, Charlotte brushed this off as she has done to many odd things centered around her.
At a young age, when she wondered why she always mixed up her age and why she always thought Gina was her younger sister, Charlotte quickly learned being curious about these things brought splitting headaches that could go on for days. It hurts to poke and prod at these things. So, at twenty-seven, Charlotte Bolton brushed past this mood swing as easily as she did with a manifold of other ponderings in order to help her friends.
_______
Next up: The Crimes of Aino Part Two (Flesh and Stone Part Two)
GIF IS FROM leocompanion ON TUMBLR
a/n: I was not expecting the chapter to go in that direction heh also merry (late) christmas! I decided as a present I'll give ya'll the list of the final to-be-written chapter as of now (but could be changed):
Flesh and Stone Pt. 2
(original chp)
Boom Town
The Mummy on the Orient Express
Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS
School Reunion
Human Nature
Family of Blood
The Girl in the Fireplace
The Snowmen
(original chp. maybe)