Doctor Who fanfic: From Within (4/6)

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Title: From Within
Author: sarah531
Rating: PG13
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters: Rory, Amy, Eleven, OCs
Pairing: Amy/Rory
Summary: Amy and Rory are enslaved on a hostile world, the Doctor is a prisoner, and things can’t get any worse for them. Unless they’re given to the terrible things which lurk in the planet’s caves, unless they accept what they’re offered…

Previous:
Chapter one
Chapter two
Chapter three

From Within

“Oh,” said Amy, and then she swore.

“No, it can’t be,” Rory said. “It’s a coincidence…”

“Come on! How many coincidences have there been since we were here?

“Well, okay, so Mort’s…”

“The Doctor!” Amy snapped. “We’ve seen this before! He’s another form of the Doctor! Or something!”

“Oh, what little faith you have,” came a voice.

Both of them looked up as Mort came towards them, dragging the Doctor from the room he’d been in.

“So quick to assume that there’s so much evil in me.”

“Hello, Amy. Hello, Rory,” said the Doctor. “I’m afraid he is a part of me. Sorry about that.”

“Yes,” said Mort, who was breathing heavily. “It seems I am. No parents! No home! No friends.”

Amy and Rory looked at each other and simultaniously decided it was worth a shot.

“We’re your friends,” Rory said.

“Yeah,” Amy said. “You always were my friend, remember?”

Mort laughed in their faces. “Nice try! But I don’t want you, either of you. Doctor!”

“Yeah,” said the Doctor, “I’m afraid this ends here.” And he actually punched Mort in the face, which was such an atypical thing for him that Amy and Rory were temporarily stunned too. Mort fell against the wall, and the Doctor grabbed Rory.

“Sorry about this-”

Before any of them could react he’d pushed Rory’s hand against Mort’s forehead.

“What’re you doing?” yelled Amy. Rory, bewildered, kept his hand there- and then pulled it back.

“It’s burning!” he yelled.

Mort grinned nastily, reached up, and grabbed Rory’s hand once again.

“No, no, it’s burning, stop! Stop!”

He screamed, and Amy tried to shove Mort aside, but he was too hot to touch.

“LET HIM GO!” the Doctor roared, as Amy tried to pull Rory away. “LET HIM GO, OR-”

“Or what?” Mort asked, and he let Rory go. He fell to the floor, his hand blackened and smoking, Amy turning pale at the sight of it.

The Doctor stood in front of his friends and faced Mort down.

“There’s only one way we can do this,” the Doctor said.

“Doctor,” Amy was shouting, “Doctor, he needs an ambulance!”

“Do your worst, Doctor,” Mort said. “And there aren’t any ambulances here, you stupid stupid girl.”

“Don’t call her stupid,” the Doctor said. He advanced towards Mort, fear on his face, a man without a plan. “What now, then? Tell me.”

Rory tried to say something, but then passed out from the pain.

“Doctor!” Amy screamed.

“You know what?” Mort said. “Time Lord powers, they’re brilliant.”

He snapped his fingers, and the Doctor, Amy and Rory were gone.

*

They reappeared in a prison cell.

“Doctor,” Amy said hysterically, “we have to help him!” She had her arms around her husband.

“It’ll be okay, Amy, I promise. Just wait until he comes around and give him water…okay, there’s no water here. But he’ll be fine, I promise.”

“How can you say that, why’d you let Mort touch him?” She was screaming now.

“Well,” the Doctor said, and he seemed ashamed, “Mort is evil. I think we’ve established that, he’s quite evil.”

“Yeah-”

“And your husband is good. I told you once, the darkness in you and Rory…there isn’t any, you can make evil things starve. I thought, if Mort gets a taste of goodness, maybe…”

“You let your evil double feed on my husband!”

“Well, in a way. I’m sorry.”

Amy carefully laid Rory on the ground and went to the cell door. She banged on it.

“You’re good too,” she said, inbetween bangs. “Why didn’t you touch him?”

“Amy, Mort came from me. He’s all my darkness made real, like the Dream Lord. Everything he did and said were things I could have done or said. I’m not good, Amy, not like my friends are.”

“Don’t be so stupid!”

“I’ve done terrible things, Amy, things I’ll never mention.”

“Shut up, you’re good, I know you are!”

As if in response to her hitting it, the door flew open and Mort was there. He was back in his uniform, and so covered with Alya’s blood. The sight of this infuriated Amy still more, and she moved towards him, but with a twitch of his fingers Mort forced the Doctor and Amy to the back of the room.

“So I am a Time Lord,” he said thoughtfully, “but my alligance is still to the Forest. To think what I can do for them now!”

“No,” the Doctor said fiercely.

“Doctor! Come with me. We’re going to kill the prisoners. And then we’ll take the Osterhagen key from the past, take it from Martha Jones as she tries to put it back, and destroy Earth! Think of all that power. All that freedom. Isn’t that what you want sometimes? To be free? Why should a creature so powerful be bound by emotions?”

The Doctor was silent.

“Martha Jones’ phone number is on your phone, Doctor. Call her. Tell you…you changed your mind.” And he took a phone from his pocket and waved it in the air.

“No.”

“Doctor! Your destiny awaits.”

“I will never help you murder innocents.”

“Well,” said Mort, “it was worth a shot. You’ll watch! Say goodbye!”

He pulled the Doctor through the air, out of the room, and the door slammed shut before Amy had a chance to speak. She turned back to her husband, observed his burned and ruined hand, and wept.

*

You’re good, I know you are…

The Doctor was dragged by Mort down the corridor, wondering what to do, remembering the words I don’t want to go. His last words, some of Rory’s last as well. He was pretty sure he was going to die, and on the whole he was alright about it, he just wished for strange things. River, she was one. Amy and Rory, of course, were another. He thought of all the people he’d never meet, all the weddings he’d never attend…

*

Rory came around.

“What happened?” he asked

Amy explained as best, and as gently, as she could. Gentleness was not a strong suit of hers but for Rory she did it.

“How many evil doubles of himself has the Doctor got?” Rory asked, still wincing from the pain.

“Apparently, lots,” Amy said.

“Amy,” Rory said, “I don’t want to, um, worry you…but…I’m sort of in pain, lots of pain.”

“I know,” Amy said desperately. “But it’ll be ok, I promise.”

“I think this may be a bit of an impediment to me being a nurse…”

Amy realised that for a long time Rory had never mentioned his job or that he planned to go back to it. But she had little time to think about it, because the floor had started to shake.

“Amy,” said Rory, “is the floor shaking, or is that just me?”

“No,” she said, “it’s not just you…”

The floor opened up and they both fell.

*

The Doctor was tied up on the little stage, and the prisoners were called.

“Right!” Mort screamed, waving his gun. “Every time the Doctor refuses to hand over the weapon I need, one of you will die.”

The Doctor looked out at all of them, at Alya’s body still crumpled on the ground.

“Actually,” he said loudly, “none of that’s going to happen.”

*

“Oh God, we’re in the caves!” Amy whispered. “Rory! Rory!”

Rory still seemed to be only just concious. “What?”

“We’re there, in the caves, we’ve got to get out!”

“They dropped us into the caves?”

“Yes!”

Rory got up, slowly, and steadied himself against the wall. In addition to his hand, his head was now bleeding too. “Oh God. Amy, you remember what Alya said…”

“Yes, I remember what she said! Come on, you stupid, stupid man!” She grabbed his working hand and started to run, through caverns and through darkness, in blind panic-

A voice rang out.

“I know your face and know your soul,” it said in a snarling tone. “Fetch the coffin, dig the hole!”

Amy and Rory stopped dead, and through the darkness they saw a pinprick of bright light, growing bigger.

“Amy,” Rory said, “what’s that?”

“I don’t know!” she said, and the thing was talking over them. “…eternal things will drag you down!”

“What are you?” Amy screamed.

“I fear, my dear, we own this town.”

“Amy, I love you,” Rory said.

“Don’t start saying that, don’t you dare start saying that!”

“Count the time while your heart beats…WHILE FROM WITHIN, THE MONSTER EATS!”

And the light split into two, and two smiling, glowing, almost angelic creatures were there, and looking into their eyes was like looking into a black hole.

“What are you?” Amy screamed again.

“Freedom“, answered the creatures. And then one of them swooped down and grabbed her, and she didn’t even have time to scream “I love you too,” to her husband.