for youmetimespace: Rapture

[rude_not_ginger]

Follows this.

Where she needed to be. Whatever that meant, it couldn't have been good, the Doctor supposed. Still, he didn't have any intention to move her out of the TARDIS, even when his instincts were telling him---

Well, they weren't telling him she was evil really. Just that she had a lot of secrets, and a lot of them involved him. He wasn't sure if---

Suddenly, the TARDIS shook violently as she made a rather unpleasant sounding landing. He gripped the console as she settled.

"What was that about, eh?" he asked, looking up at her. "Where've you taken us? Some sort of temporal disturbance, brought us down. That's odd."

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[youmetimespace]

River could feel his eyes on her. This was trouble. She knew it was trouble. She'd lived most of their life together and next up was her death, but here she was changing their future. And even if she should mind, she didn't. She was just scared of what that future might mean for her.

"I didn't do it," she said immediately and came up close behind the Doctor to see what the console said.

[rude_not_ginger]

"Oh, you had to just say that, didn't you?" he snapped. "Because now, you know, I'm just going to assume it was you."

He patted the console, then all but dashed over to the door.

"Want to take a look?" he asked, grinning at her.

[youmetimespace]

"Doctor, I'm hurt that you think I'd do anything to hurt the TARDIS." She slid her hand over the console and then wandered over to meet the Doctor. "You know, I think you're just jealous that she likes me."

She pats along her side just to make sure she has her gun on her and holstered and then she nods. "Ready when you are."

[rude_not_ginger]

He pulled open the door, to reveal a long, dark corridor with checkered flooring. An eerie, blue light illuminated the corridor, that appeared to lead to a balcony of some sort. Earth, it appeared, and possibly in the early 30's, judging from the architecture. But where were the people? And why was there a spacial distortion?

"Air's breathable," he said. "20th century, I'd say. What do you think, Professor?"

[youmetimespace]

"I'd say no earlier than the 1930s. Look at the architecture. Sleek and modern for the period. I'm not sure how old the buildings are, though. It could be 1930s architecture in 1930s or in the 2030s."

She pushed gently on the small of his back to push him out of the TARDIS.

[rude_not_ginger]

"Really? Was this big again in 2030? That wasn't an era I traveled to all that often," he said.

He hopped from one black checkered square to the next. This was a pretty place, he decided. Pretty, if eerie. Especially because he wasn't sure how they got there.

[youmetimespace]

"Popular? Maybe not, but there are still buildings around from the 1930s a hundred years later," River pointed out. She watched him go for a minute and then followed him...walking normally. She was fairly certain that there was no reason he was bouncing to and fro beyond his own amusement. Secretly, she was amused, but outwardly, she just shook her head.

[rude_not_ginger]

"What I want to know is, where is everyone?" he asked, stopping on a particularly cracked black square. "And do you hear that?"

He dashed ahead, past a huge window, to where a record player was droning out a tune. "We can't be alone."

[youmetimespace]

"Time difference?" River suggested. She put her hands up to her mouth and shouted a hello. All she heard was her own echo. "Maybe the people are out of synch with us? I heard something like that happened to you, once, and no. That wasn't a spoiler." That had been an incarnation the Doctor had seen fit to share with her since he'd considered it safe. He'd probably considered this incarnation safe, too, and yet here she was.

[rude_not_ginger]

"Maybe," the Doctor said, taking the needle from the record. "Or maybe they're hiding somewhere."

He looked up and around them. "What would they be hiding from---"

His eyes went wide as he went to the window. "River, take a look at this."

Outside the window was a dark view of the ocean. Deep and vast, with a large squid flitting past them. They were at the bottom of the ocean. The whole city, all neon lights and huge spires, was under the water.

[youmetimespace]

"Beautiful," she murmured as she looked outside. They were in a bubble and it looked like they were submerged. The two of them, all...no. No, she couldn't give into that kind of sentiment. He wasn't her Doctor, yet, and he couldn't be. He just would be some day.

"All right, so we're under the water and, if the people are here, they're hiding. But they breathe oxygen and apparently have legs. Or some kind of way to move that isn't through the water."

[rude_not_ginger]

"And speak English," he adds, nodding to some of the neon signs outside.

[youmetimespace]

"Are you sure those aren't thanks to the TARDIS' telepathic circuits?" River teased. It was, after all, quite easy to forget that a certain language wasn't the language you just expected to hear.