Doctor Who fanfic: The Children’s Story (6/9)
Title: The Children’s Story
Author: sarah531
Rating: PG13
Characters: Amy and Rory’s children Alec and Johnny; totally OCs- plus Amy, Rory, Aunt Sharon and the Doctor, and mentions of River
Summary: Alec William Pond is about to discover that the bedtime stories his parents told so well were true.
The Children’s Story
6. Parents Go First
When Alec came round the screen was off, a phone was ringing, and the Doctor had hurled water at his face.
“They’re dead!” Alec gasped.
“No, they’re not,” the Doctor said, and pulled him to his feet. “Eight more minutes. You fainted, and I’m so so sorry, but you’ve gotta stay alert now.” And he handed Alec a phone.
“What-”
“We need a transmat! And other things, but you’re on transmat duty! Call the number for a Miss Smith, speak to her or her robot dog or whoever’s there, tell them we need a transmat and we need it now! Tell them to put the transmat on another transmat and send it to the phone’s co-ordinates! Got it?”
“Put the transmat on another transmat,” said Alec dizzily, and at that moment he knew he was nothing like his parents, not companion material. “What are we doing?”
“Well, I sort of have an army of good people,” said the Doctor. “Not just your parents, other wonders. Go! Call!”
Alec raised the phone, it was a pretty modern one with a standard video link, and found the number. Still breathing heavily, he waited while it rang. Then the ringing stopped and a pretty Indian woman appeared on screen.
“Hello?”
“Are you Miss Smith?”
“No, I’ll call her- are you alright?”
“No,” said Alec.
A second woman, older with grey hair, came into view.
“My goodness!” she said. “Are you alright? How’re you in the TARDIS? Is the Doctor there?”
“It’s my parents and my brother,” said Alec, trying very hard not to burst into tears. “The Doctor needs a- a transmat- they’re trapped, they might die!”
The younger woman rose from her sitting position and hurried away. The older one backed away slightly from the camera, and Alec saw she was in a wheelchair.
“Gracious, it’s Alec Pond!” she said. “The red hair, the eyes! You were just a baby when I saw you last…”
“What?”
“Many years ago, my dear! You won’t remember me, but your mum and dad will. Sarah Jane Smith.”
“It’s-it’s nice to meet you,” Alec stammered.
In the background the Doctor was talking into another phone, yelling something about a tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator.
The young woman came back.
“K-9 has it, he’s locked on, we’re sending it now!”
“A robot dog?” Alec asked, bewildered. Behind him something hit the ground with a loud clang.
“There you go!” said Sarah Jane Smith. “I’ll cut transmission now, and trust me, Alec Pond, you will be fine. Tell me when you save them.” And the screen went blank.
The Doctor snatched the phone from Alec.
“Nice work! Very nice work. And here’s something from Torchwood…” A pile of complicated-looking equipment clattered into being. “Right! Stand to one side, Alec, we’re bringing them home!”
And he picked up the screwdriver and started fixing wires, moving like a blur.
“Alec!” he said. “Hand me the transmat-”
It was at that second that the door opened. Alec thought it was Peter back again to wreak more havoc, but it wasn’t him, it was a woman-
Aunt Sharon.
“Oh my god,” she said.
“Oh no,” said Alec.
“Sharon Mason!” said the Doctor, barely missing a beat. “You’re just in time to save your niece. Hold this wire!”
“What?” she screamed.
“Wire! Hold! Now!”
She took the wire and stood there gobsmacked.
“You! You’re not real! You’re fake!”
“No, I’m pretty sure I’m real,” said the Doctor, racing round the console. “Your niece, her husband and her youngest son are in very grave danger. If you want to see them again you do exactly as I tell you, understand?”
Aunt Sharon managed a “Yes.”
“Right! Good!” The Doctor hit a button on something and a streak of lightening shot up the console.
“What if this doesn’t work?” Alec asked, raising his voice over all the noise.
“Then I’ll rip open the heart of the TARDIS! Solves all problems if you don’t mind dying! Now, Alec, Sharon, stand back!”
Obviously terrified, Sharon took Alec’s hand and moved him away. Alec couldn’t blame her for her terror; he was shaking himself. Then he noticed what he hadn’t before- clutched in Sharon’s left hand was Mum’s diary.
“You came here to steal the diary!” he said, and actually backed away from her in horror. “You-” He wanted to say an awful word, but it died on his lips. “You cow!”
“Alec!” she snapped.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because my life doesn’t make sense!” she said. “Because I raised my niece after losing my sister, but I didn’t! Because I took care of that difficult child, but I didn’t! Because I neglected her and left her to go mad on her own, but I didn’t!”
One of the screens came on and there was Mum, and suddenly Alec was focusing on nothing but her. “Mum! Mum, is everyone okay?”
“We’re all okay!” she shouted. And behind her, next to Dad and Johnny, a transmat clattered to the ground. “Doctor! What do we do?”
“Get on the transmat!” the Doctor shouted. “All three of you! Hold hands!”
Even as the Doctor spoke Dad clutched Johnny to him, grabbed Mum’s hand- and just before their feet hit the transmat there was an explosion of lightning from somewhere, a flicker of fire from a shadow, that vanished in blue light-
“Peter!” shouted the Doctor. “No!”
But the damage was done. And Alec thought, so close, and he jammed shut his eyes and thought he might faint again-
“I’m not done yet!” shouted the Doctor, running his sonic screwdriver up and down another screen. “Amy! Rory! The transmat is still working, at one-third capacity! One of you can still use it!” And Alec opened his eyes, maybe all wasn’t lost after all. “Quick! Amy! Which one of you is coming back?”
“ARE YOU AN IDIOT?” Mum roared. “JOHNNY, OF COURSE!”
Dad was placing Johnny carefully on the transmat. He kissed his forehead, and Johnny flickered off the screen- and landed in the TARDIS, next to Alec.
“Oh my god!” Aunt Sharon cried, but Alec was too stunned and too relieved to say anything. He knelt down next to his sobbing baby brother. Johnny’s face was blackened from the smoke, and his trousers were wet.
“Mummy!” he was crying. “Mummy and Daddy are still there!”
“We’ll save them!” Alec said, but his words were drowned out by an echoing voice.
“Doctor! Glad you saved the little boy. I don’t like killing children, I’m no monster. But I’ll let you and them see their parents die. What creature in the world would ever trust you now, a man who tears loved ones apart?”
“Who is that?” screamed Sharon.
“Now correct me if I’m wrong,” the Doctor yelled at the ceiling, “but it seems to be you doing the tearing apart, Peter my boy.”
There was no answer, except Mum screaming from the screen.
“Doctor! Listen to us!” And when he turned around her face softened. “It doesn’t matter anymore. The children are safe.” Dad appeared on screen too, and Mum leaned against him, their hands entwined. “It’s okay. Really. No more risking of lives. There’s two minutes left and there’s no time for a new plan, and that man won’t rest until somebody dies. It’s over now, and we just want to say goodbye. Give us those last two minutes to let us talk to our children.”
The Doctor said nothing.
“Doctor,” said Dad, “just step away, just for a moment.”
The Doctor did, and he took Aunt Sharon by the shoulders to lead her away too.
“Sharon!” Mum called suddenly. “I don’t know why you’re here, but you’re the adult, this is on you. Sort things out. The will, the house, the boys’ education, everything.”
Sharon nodded mutely, afraid.
“Alec, Johnny,” Dad said, as the Doctor lead Sharon away, down the corridor, “we’re so sorry.”
“Don’t go!” Alec screamed. “This isn’t fair!”
“But it is fair,” Dad said. “It’s the way things are, parents go first, for a parent to lose a child is one of the worst things in the world. And we love you, both of you, more than anything else that ever was.”
“I don’t want you to go!” was all Alec could say, while Johnny sobbed beside him.
“We know,” Mum whispered. “And we wish we could stay. We don’t want you to grow up like I once grew up, but there’s two minutes left, no plan, no time…Alec, Johnny…”
“No!” Alec said. “No, there’ll be a way, there’s always a way!”
“We’re sorry,” said Dad.
“We love you,” said Mum.
“No!”
He was so blinded by grief and fear that he didn’t see the Doctor burst into the room, didn’t realise anyone had joined him until he was pushed aside.
“Amy! Rory! Listen!” the Doctor shouted into the screen, and Alec was still unable to move and just held Johnny. “There’s still enough energy in the transmat! I checked on my secondary console, I can save one of you!” Alec choked on his tears, and the Doctor swung around to look at him and then back to the screen. “I have to save one of you!”
“Don’t make us choose, we can’t choose!” Alec found himself roaring. And Aunt Sharon came hurrying in from the corridor, calling “Amelia! Amy! Get on the transmat, Amy!”
On screen Mum and Dad shared a long, long look.
“They can’t grow up as orphans, Rory, not if there’s another way,” said Mum quietly.
“Amy-” said Dad, and he moved towards her, to push her to the transmat, but she was faster. She pushed him, he fell, he vanished, and then he crashed to the TARDIS floor. He just sat there, gasping, seemingly unable to grasp quite what had happened, even as Johnny ran to him.
“Rory!” screeched Sharon. “Why the hell didn’t you make her get on?”
Dad ignored her, and pulled himself to his feet, hugging the boys even though he was crying. He turned to face the screen, they all did, and it wasn’t just Mum standing there. Peter was behind her.
“Boys-” Mum started to say, but then Peter grabbed her, hit his wrist and blipped them both out of the world. There was flickering, then the screen went blank.
“Where’s he taken her?” sobbed Johnny. It was the first thing he’d said for ages.
“No!” Dad yelled, and he ran forward and actually pounded on the screen. He whipped around to face the Doctor. “What’s he done! Where’s he gone? Did he save her?”
The Doctor began to speak, but then the booming voice from the ceiling, Peter’s voice, spoke over him.
“Right! Getting bored now, bored with all this saving! I’ve got the girl- your friend, his wife, their mother! And I heard her goodbye, I heard the children sobbing, and unlike you I love second chances! So here’s the deal- offer up someone who means even more than she does. Offer up River, and she goes free.”
“What?” said the Doctor.
“River! Your wife. That invincible woman! I met her, remember? I met her before she loved you, but she will. And she’s your girl, out of all the girls in the world. Not dead, not left, not lost. River. River dies and Amy lives.”
The Doctor laughed- a hollow laugh, but a laugh nonetheless.
“You think you could ever kill River?”
“I can try,” said Peter. And his echoing voice made it sound like the TARDIS itself was talking. “Now, Doctor, here’s your transmat-” Something clattered to the ground. “It’s set to my co-ordinates. Get your person, River or another, to stand before me. If I’m satisfied with your choice, they will step on the transmat and leave you, but Amy will return. And if you step on it, Doctor, if you come to save her, I kill her the second you land. This won’t end until someone dies, until you feel what I feel. And I will kill Amy, unless I get another. River! Or a child, if you have a child, my Angela said you were a father.”
Alec took one look at the Doctor’s eyes and knew that any children he had were dead.
“And River,” came the voice. “I want her dead, because one day she will be just like you.”
Then there were no more words, but something flickered on the screen. A number, and beneath it were the words CALL IN TEN MINUTES, MAKE A SACRIFICE, OR SHE DIES.
GIVE ME YOUR WIFE, AND I’LL FREE THEIR MOTHER.