HARMONY (a Doctor Who Novella)

Chapter 6

It was all Rory Williams could do to prevent his wife from diving through the Rift after them. She struggled wildly, screaming at him to let her go, but he held firm. He had been close enough to hear what the Doctor said. Massively unstable. He wasn't going to take a warning like that lightly. He was not going to risk losing Amy again. Not for the Doctor. Not even for two Doctors.

"Rory, let me go!"

"No! Amy, no! Did you hear what he said? It's unstable. It could close at any time--"

"All the more reason for us to follow them," she told him, twisting in his grasp.

"If it closes, we'll be trapped on the other side."

"If it closes and we're not with the Doctor you'll wish you were on the other side!"

A moment later, it was a moot point. The portal expanded with a rush of eyebrow-singing energy then closed in on itself and winked out. Amy let out a gasp of disbelief, then pounded him soundly on the chest. And kept pounding. He took the abuse, repeating to himself that the Rift had been unstable, unsafe, unstable, unsafe... but there was nothing he could do to deter her anger.

"Now what are we going to do?" Amy demanded, her face flushed from the exertion of running, followed by her effort of fighting with him. She jabbed a finger over his shoulder, forcing him to look. "The Tardis is out of phase again, both Doctors are gone, and I have a photo shoot in the morning!"

Rory grimaced. He had forgotten that minor detail...

"Well, you know," he said weakly, offering up his sweetest smile. The one that usually worked but was not, apparently, working just then. "Time travel and all that. You know him. He'll get us back in time. Even if it takes awhile."

"Oh yeah?" she said, pounding him on the solar plexus one more time before she turned abruptly, flipping her long hair in his face, hugging herself against the rain that had begun to fall again. "What if it takes him 40 years? I don't think aging that much overnight is in my contract!"

He coughed hard, thinking better of trying to say anything else clever to make her feel better. She glared at him one final time before stalking away.

"Where are you going?"

"To take the dog out!"

All in all, he thought, she was taking being marooned on an alternate Earth remarkably well.

"Pick up the phone," she yelled, just before he lost sight on her in the woods.

"The--?"

Jackie Tyler's pink, bejewelled mobile lay in the dirt where it had fallen when the Doctors had jumped through the rift. Rory picked it up.

"It says 'Rose' in missed calls. Should we call back?"

***

The world transformed with a sickening shimmer and he emerged on the far side, tumbling arse over elbow onto a road. A very dirty, very hard road. He had barely time to lift himself up, let along draw a single breath before the Doctor slammed into his back, knocking him flat on the ground once more. To think traversing wormholes looked so easy on the telly. When was the last time he had seen Daniel Jackson crash into Jack O'Neill? The horse and rider they had followed from Pete's World were a few metres away, visibly shaken, but recovering enough to move off with all due speed. With no time to loose, he retrieved the Doctor's stylish new hat from where it had fallen in the mud, plopped it on the Time Lord's head, and they began their pursuit.

After what seemed like miles at a dead run he could feel himself tiring. Instead of running side by side like the wind, the Doctor was now outdistancing him, apparently unaware of his encroaching fatigue. He pushed on as long as he could, finally shambling to a halt, hands on his knees, head bent, gasping for breath. The Doctor ran back to him, hopping about manically. The waterlogged ostrich feathers on the hat hung in ridiculous spikes.