Fight For Freedom |4| The Ascension

Chapter Two: The Beast Below

My name is Amy Pond.

Amy chuckled as she floated in space, the Doctor hanging onto her ankle from the doorway of the TARDIS.

When I was seven, I had a pair of imaginary friends.

Zoë was next to him, smiling as she studied his new face, realigning her mental image of her father.

Last night was the night before my wedding...

"Come on, Pond," the Doctor said, pulling her back inside.

... and my imaginary friends came back.

"Now do you believe us?" Zoë asked, raising her eyebrows pointedly.

"Okay, your box is a spaceship," Amy gasped. "It's really, really a spaceship. We are in space!" She blinked. "What are we breathing?"

"I've extended the air shell. We're fine," the Doctor assured her, his attention half on the conversation behind him.

"What's that?" Pietro was asking, pointing at the view below them on the monitor.

McKenzie frowned, zooming in, then smiled. "Twenty-ninth century," she decided. "Solar flares roast the earth, and the entire human race packs its bags and moves out till the weather improves. Whole nations migrating to the stars. Isn't that amazing?"

The Doctor pulled Amy inside and shut the doors behind her, grinning. "Come on, Pietro's found us a spaceship." The three of them came over to the central console to look at the monitor.

"This," McKenzie began, indicating the ship with her index finger, "is the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland. All of it bolted together and floating in the sky. Starship UK. It's Britain, but metal. I mean, that's not just a ship, that's an idea. That's a whole country, living and laughing and shopping. Searching the stars for a new home."

"Can we go out and see?" Amy asked eagerly.

"Course we can," the Doctor agreed. "But first, there's a thing."

"A thing?" Pietro echoed.

"An important thing," he nodded. "In fact, Thing One: We are observers only. That's the one rule I've always stuck to in all my travels. I never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets, and girls, would you please stop laughing?" He mock-glared at McKenzie and Zoë, both of whom were finding it hard to keep a straight face.

"What part of Sokovia was in any way like what you just described?" Pietro asked, raising his eyebrows.

The Doctor blinked, then pointed at the monitor. "Ooh, that's interesting!"

"So we're like a wildlife documentary, yeah?" Amy asked as McKenzie zipped her feet into a pair of heeled boots--these had a thicker heel than her stilettos and she really didn't want to get her shoes stuck in some grating. "Because if they see a wounded little cub or something, they can't just save it, they've got to keep filming and let it die. It's got to be hard. I don't think I could do that. Don't you find it hard, being all, like, detached and cold?" She looked around, but the Doctor was nowhere to be seen. "Where'd he go?"

McKenzie pointed to the monitor, where the Doctor was consoling a crying girl. "Him not interfering?" She snorted, heading for the door. "Never."

Pietro, Zoë, and Amy followed her out into the bustling futuristic London Market. Amy stopped still as soon as she left the TARDIS, her eyes the size of plates. "I'm in the future," she realised. "Like, hundreds of years in the future. I've been dead for centuries."

The Doctor rolled his eyes as he joined them. "Oh, lovely. You're a cheery one. Never mind dead, look at this place. Isn't it wrong?"

Pietro frowned. "What is wrong?"