Dusk ⋆ Doctor Who¹

7. The... Tongue

FINDING AMY WAS EASY, WITH THE DEVICE LIZ TEN GAVE THEM. What is surprising, though, is Mandy waiting for her to get out of a small cubicle, a look of worry painted on her face.

"Hey," Aurora says softly. "What's up?"

Mandy's eyes are avoiding hers. "She's voting," she answers with slight fear.

Aurora frowns. "Voting? Voting for what?"

Mandy gulps, and the door opens on Amy. Aurora immediately walks over to her, still frowning. The Doctor comes beside her.

"Listen to me," they hear Amy's voice coming out of the little screen in front of her. "This isn't a trick. This is for real."

"Amy?" the Doctor tries.

"You've got to find the Doctor and Aurora—" She stops the recording of herself.

"What have you done?"

Amy doesn't answer for a while, looking at them with slightly wide eyes and tear-stained cheeks. "I... They showed me a recording, and I forgot it. I chose to forget it."

The Doctor gets in the room, Aurora behind him, and he looks around. He spots the light on the ceiling and stands on the chair, holding up his screwdriver, scanning it.

"Yeah, your basic memory wipe job. Must have erased about twenty minutes." 

He gets down.

"But why would I choose to forget ?"

"Because everyone does. Everyone chooses the Forget button," Mandy answers from outside the cubicle.

Aurora turns to her. "Did you?"

"I'm not eligible to vote yet. I'm twelve. Any time after you're sixteen, you're allowed to see the film and make your choice. And then once every five years."

"And people always choose to forget?"

"Come on," the Doctor says. "Everyone chooses to forget what they've learned. Democracy in action."

Aurora scoffs, shaking her head.

"How do you not know about this? Are you Scottish too?"

She smiles. "No, I'm American."

Mandy's face scrunched up. "Ha."

Aurora chuckles. "What?"

"Nothing." The young girl shakes her head, turning to the Doctor, messing around with the buttons. "What about you?"

"Oh, I'm way worse than Scottish. I can't even see the movie. Won't play for me."

"It played for me," Amy tries.

"The difference being the computer doesn't accept me as human."

"Why not?" When the Doctor turns to look at her, she takes a defensive demeanor. "You look human," she explains, walking to place herself next to him.

"No, you look Time Lord," Aurora says. "Pretty sure they came first." The Doctor looks at her oddly. "What? It wasn't that hard of a deduction."

"Yes... Right."

Aurora can practically see in the Doctor that her knowledge is either scaring him a bit... or getting on his nerves.

"So there are other Time Lords, yeah?" Amy asks.

The Doctor stiffens and Aurora's heart sinks. She knows the answer.

She doesn't even take the time to ask herself how she knows, pain and sadness overcoming her.