Silencing the Drums

Somewhere deep in the blackness of space, in a place that was outside of and beyond the flow of Time, something stirred and reached out for the last living TARDIS and its nomadic pilot.

Alone in a field of white grass, the last living TARDIS groaned with the sudden strain of a pulling, a tugging on its heart. It lasted only a moment, and when it’d gone the TARDIS was silent again, just as still and patient as it always had been.

The shift was so subtle that the Doctor didn’t notice it, not at first. He was too preoccupied with the Master’s existence to pay much attention to anything else.

Indeed, the only two creatures to notice the minute disturbances in time turned out to be a pair of ordinary human beings.

~*~

At the end of their most recent journey, the Doctor had dropped newlyweds Amy and Rory off in a quaint seaside town for their honeymoon. It hadn’t been his idea, and Rory had needed to drop some pretty heavy hints before he finally got the picture. Even after all this time, the Doctor still had some trouble with certain human customs, and this was one of them.

Even Amy had to admit, a long weekend without monsters was a nice change of pace. The Pandorica had driven the both of them to limits they didn’t know they had. Rory was resigned to picking back up with the Doctor in a few days’ time, and perhaps even looking forward to it in his own quiet way, but he especially had needed this time to get to know his new wife and remind himself that they had married.

Amy had grown more and more edgy as days passed without word. The Doctor had promised to pick them up at the end of the week, but he’d yet to keep an appointment like this. With her luck, he’d show up in five years’ time, and by then she’d definitely be pregnant, if not looking after a rugrat or two already. How would she travel with him then? Not that she wasn’t looking forward to raising a litter of super-gingers with Rory – she just thought it was a bit soon.

If she was honest with herself, she’d been waiting for the TARDIS since the day they’d arrived. She’d had a good time, made sure Rory knew just how pleased she was to have married him at last, but she couldn’t shake the wanderlust brought on by her travels with the Doctor.

When she heard the sound she went from dead sleep to complete alertness in less than a second, sat bolt upright in bed, looked around wildly for flashes of blue light on the walls. It was still dark outside, and the clock blinked a Rory snuffled in his sleep and turned over towards her, wrapping an arm around her waist.

The noise stopped, and Amy panicked. Had he missed them? Was he having trouble with the TARDIS? She should go to him, find the source of the sound – Rory would understand. If she didn’t flag him down, it might be another year before he showed up? Gently, carefully, she disentangled herself from her husband and the bedsheets and swung bare legs out over the edge of the bed. It was absolutely silent now, and she jumped a bit at the creaking floor as she set her feet down. These old cottages – couldn’t take a step without waking the dead.

Amy crossed the cold floor to the window and peered out, halfheartedly covering herself with folded arms. Outside – nothing. Not a single trace of the TARDIS, of the Doctor. A full moon hung heavy over the coastline, lighting up each grain of sand, each foaming whitecap, and she couldn’t see even a single footprint.

In her disappointment, it took a moment for her to realize what was wrong. They’d been dropped off at this cottage, reservations made, sometime in June. It was only logical – they’d wanted to enjoy a little sun, a little swimming, share an ice cream cone on the boardwalk.

Currently, the boardwalk, the sand, and the surf were covered over in a thick blanket of frozen, fluffy whiteness.

“Rory,” she said, her voice a bit strangled, eyes glued to the scene outside. “Rory, you’d better come look at this.”

Rory stirred again and buried his face in her pillow, torn between a desire to sleep and the urgency in her tone. “Mmmhhcome back to bed, Amy,” he mumbled, hoping (but not believing) that she might listen to him.

Amy would not be dissuaded. “Rory, what day was it yesterday?”

“16th,” Rory replied after a moment’s thought. “Why?”

“16th of what?”

Rory blinked the sleep from his eyes and sat up, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “16th of June. Come back to bed, sweetheart, it’s freezing-“

“That’s just it,” Amy said, turning at last to face him. Her expression forced Rory fully and completely awake. “Outside – it’s snowing. How can it be June if it’s snowing?”

~*~

The Master managed to be civil at breakfast. His proper metabolism seemed to be kicking in again, and he’d lost most of the ravenous hunger he’d picked up after his botched resurrection. All in all, despite lingering injuries (that shouldn’t have been lingering) and the occasional fit of madness, he was in pretty good shape. This morning’s bout on the bedroom floor had made that quite clear. The Doctor hoped dearly that he wouldn’t show any bruising. Lucky for him, once the Master had taken his aggressions out on him, he’d let him up and calmed back down, becoming nearly reasonable once more.

They broke their fast in Kyu’s spacious dining hall, a room located close enough to the surface to feature large skylights. Natural light filled the space and warmed it thanks to panes of heavy, insulating crystal, and pale wood helped brighten the place considerably. They sat down around a low table on small, square cushions and ate from tidy bone bowls, each dressed in loose, flowing white garments provided by their host. Breakfast consisted of fresh fruits and boiled grains, long slices of salty preserved meats and small sweet-cakes, a feast laid out to honor guests.

“You didn’t have to go to all this trouble, you know,” the Doctor remarked as he lifted slices of fruit into his bowl. A white peel concealed vibrant pink-orange flesh with purple seeds, dripping thick gobbets of nectar.

“Come ‘round more if you don’t want to be treated like a guest,” Kyu laughed. “Anyway, it was no trouble. Standard-issue breakfast. Still, I’m sure it’s better than what your humans offer you.”

The Master still dealt exclusively in meats, but he was being practically dainty with them, shredding the long strips with his fingers and licking the small, resulting flakes off with quick flicks of his tongue. The meat was good – salty, sweet, fatty, almost like prosciutto, and he wondered about the animal it’d come from. It was probably something big and succulent, and he wished he had a rib or two to gnaw on. Rom could hardly take his eyes off of him, entranced and afraid all at the same time, and now and then the Master would glance sidelong at him, daring him to make a move.

“So, what’s the plan?” Kyu asked, filling a near-awkward silence with words. Everyone was thinking the same thing, but none of them would dare even joke about it – the Doctor’s mortification would ruin the entire morning, not to mention the Master’s complete unpredictability. “You have your stories, and I hope they help – I’m not sure what else we can do for you.”

“I’m not, either,” the Doctor admitted. “It’s strange – I feel there’s something I’m missing, but I can’t for the life of me figure it out.”

“That’s nothing new,” the Master said, not bothering to look up from the meat between his fingers. “You’re incredibly dense.”

Jack stepped in almost immediately like a parent attempting to head off an argument. “Well, I know one thing that’s changing. I’ve, ah… decided to stay here for a while, Doctor.” He looked sheepish, almost apologetic. “Thought they might be able to help me out with the thing where I can’t die.”

The Doctor gave him a small smile and nodded, though inside his stomach lurched. What would he do with the Master all by his lonesome? Jack had been a handy buffer, though he supposed that wasn’t at all fair. “I thought you might. You know I’ll have to take the vortex manipulator. Can’t leave that type of technology in his hands.” He nodded to indicate Kyu.

“Mmm, sorry to be losing you.” The Master looked up at Jack with a thin smirk. “Going to miss the freak. Haven’t even had a chance to kill you yet.”

“And you won’t either,” Jack retorted, half lurching to his feet. “What, didn’t get enough of me the last time?”

“Actually, if you want the truth, I was a little bored,” the Master said. “You just lost your novelty.”

The Doctor stood to prevent a brawl as Kyu and Rom shuffled back from the table, but they were all saved the trouble by the sudden ring of a mobile phone. Rom jumped a bit and rummaged around in the wide pocket of his shirt, digging out a battered, bright orange, ancient-looking communications device.

Everyone stopped and stared at him. Rom gave an apologetic shrug and flipped the device open, just as confused as they were. The phone hadn’t worked as a phone for years. He kept it on him for the apps.

“Hello? This is Rom speaking,” he answered, tentative.

He listened a moment, brow furrowed.

He handed the phone to the Doctor.

Two minutes and a number of expansive gestures later, the Doctor stood and announced quite dramatically, “We have to go now. Amy Pond is in danger. It’s been lovely, and I’m sure we’ll be back for another visit soon, but we’re going to need to get our things and head off now.”

“So suddenly?” Kyu asked with a frown. “You have a time machine. Surely you can stay for lunch.”

“This is something different. This is what I’ve missed,” the Doctor replied, and set to work gathering some of the whole fruits in a napkin to take with them. He thought of the Master and added a few slices of meat. “I’m not entirely sure what it is yet, but I expect we’ll find out when we get there. Come along, Master.” He grinned, bubbling over with frenetic energy once more. “We’ve got work to do!”