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Many, many months ago in an orphanage in 1969...
"Please help me. Help me, please." The girl pleaded, not answering. Two of the Silents entered the room and Amy screamed as the door shut. Danni backed away as the Ganger Amy was deactivated, dissolving into nothing. The girl in the astronaut began crying, terrified and Danni turned to her fighting the nausea that came from the image trying to wipe itself from her memory. She began unzipping the front of the suit.
"Come on, little Melody." She told her as calmly as she could, "You can do it. I'll help, but you have to force your way out."
"They're going to get me." She sobbed as they approached.
"Not while I can stop them." She promised, turning around and standing defensively in front of the little girl.
"You stay away from her." She warned the two aliens.
"You are Danielle Fielding." One breathed and she nodded.
"And you're the Silents." She replied, "Leave her alone. She's only a little girl."
"We do not want the child." The other replied in the same breathless tone. Danni frowned.
"What? You want me?" One held it's huge hand towards her just as the little girl burst out of the suit. Danni spun and helped her out, kissing the top of her head.
"Run, little Melody." She kissed the top of her head, "I'll protect you always." The little girl made no move to run and Danni pushed her towards the door, "Run!" The girl sped out and she turned back to face the aliens. She grinned at them and then screamed at the top of her lungs.
"Help us! Canton, please will you help us?!" She shouted, knowing the agent would hear her as the creature touched her and she collapsed.
~0~0~0~
Danni groaned as a bright light was shone in her eyes, dragging her out of the sleep she had been enjoying and back into the real world. The room she was in was dark, except for a light suspended above her. She blinked the spots in her vision away and looked around, spotting Amy strapped to a chair off to her left.
"Amy!" She cried, struggling to get up, her wrists jarring in the straps used to keep her attached to her own examination board, much like the one in the warehouse.
"She is Amelia Pond." A voice wheezed and a Silent appeared, "You are Danielle Fielding." Danni nodded.
"Well done. Let her go." She snarled.
"We will." Another voice joined in, an arrogant female voice as a woman in a black skirt suit appeared, her black hair pulled up on her head and an eye patch over one eye, "We're almost done with her."
"Oh, I know you." Danni sighed mockingly, "That... Silent lady. Sorry, I don't remember the names of ineffective people." She pulled at the bindings around her wrists, "Can you let me go now? I have places to be, people to meet. Time Lord's to kiss. It's a full life." The woman frowned at her, leaning over her until Danni could feel her breath on her face.
"We will let little Amelia go when we are done with her, the same applies to you." She told her, "But we're not done with you yet. We've got quite a way to go with you yet." Danni frowned.
"What can I possibly offer you in your ill-advised attempt to kill the Doctor?" She strained to move upwards, "You fail, by the way. Miserably. They'll laugh at you for all time as the woman who failed to kill the Doctor." Madame Kovarian moved away from her, pacing to a console in the middle of the room.
"We have been quite thorough in our research on Time Lords." She explained, "And we came across one who gave us quite an excellent idea. The one weakness the Doctor always had, his loved ones. And there is only one he holds above all else, worlds fall when they hear she is in danger because it means he is coming. Who he will sacrifice his companions, his Amelia Ponds and even her children, and that is you." She typed a few things into the console and a helmet fell from the ceiling, bouncing wildly above her head.
"Who did you read about?" Danni asked, ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach at the sight of the helmet. What was she planning?
"He chronicled his time on Earth." Madame Kovarian continued as if she hadn't heard Danni, "How he tried to use the Time Child against the Doctor. Unfortunately, he fell at the same hurdle the Doctor always does. He became emotional." She smirked, walking over and pulling the helmet down, "Fortunately, we do not have such weakness in out ranks." Danni struggled the best she could, but Madame Kovarian was able to force the helmet onto her head, strapping it underneath her chin, "The Books of Saxon have been very useful to us, and we thought we'd use what we learnt against the Doctor. We're going to drive you insane." She smirked evilly and Danni frowned.
"Why the hell would you do that?" She asked, confused before yelping as two metal spikes darted out, pressing into her temple, "What are you going to do to me?"
"Oh, don't worry about the details my dear. We'll see to that. We're going to drive you insane, and you won't tell the Doctor anything." Danni laughed harshly.
"I tell the Doctor everything." She retorted firmly.
"Not this." Kovarian replied.
~0~0~0~
"She has always known. Her mind can hold their image, she never forgets." Kovarian told the Doctor as Danni pointedly refused to look at him, "Because we told her. We thought you'd need another intensive to turn up for your death; you are so selfish for everyone but her."
"You did this to her?" He asked lowly and Kovarian nodded.
"It worked, didn't it? You turned up." He laughed.
"She didn't tell me." He pointed out, "I turned up on my own and you still hurt her." He turned to Danni, "Why didn't you tell me? I trusted you, and you didn't say a thing." Her eyes narrowed.
"If I'd told you, you might have run here." She hissed, "I wasn't going to be responsible for your death. Let reality burn, because what's to come isn't something I wanted a hand in." She looked up at him, her eyes glistening in anger, "You have no idea what is going to happen, and I can't handle it, all right?" She snarled.
"Then tell me." He commanded, "Maybe we can stop it together." She shook her head, backing away from him.
"I can't." She whispered.
"Why?"
"Because you promised!" And with that, she turned and stormed off out of the room, leaving him to stare after her. He sighed, torn between fixing reality and fighting his away from the guards and following her. He took a deep breath in and turned to River.
"This needs to happen." He insisted, knowing he couldn't go after her, "Time will die if we don't touch, River. We have to restart it."
"And I'll be by a lakeside, killing you." She replied, instantly, as she also stared after Danni. It was a throwaway comment and the Doctor frowned at the fact she wasn't really paying attention to him.
"And time won't fall apart. Reality will continue. There isn't another way." He tried again and she shot him a sad smile.
"I didn't say there was, sweetie."
~0~0~0~
Red. It was dark, and it was red. Like looking at the world through through one side of the old style 3D glasses. She took a deep breath as she slid down the wall to the floor. She'd stormed off, not angry at anyone but herself and had come across another corridor full of Silents. Her head spun, she really shouldn't have used so much energy running away from him. But that's what friends of the Doctor did, wasn't it? They ran from their problems. All of them were running away from something; she was running away from her previous universe and the heartbreaking desire to want to go home, why couldn't she run from this?
"Danni!" River knelt down beside her, "Are you okay, sweetie?" She placed a hand against Danni's forehead but she brushed it away.
"Yes, I'm fine." She snapped, "What do you want?"
"I just wanted to see if you were okay." The woman replied calmly, "Why didn't you tell the Doctor?"
"Because!" Danni sighed, pinching the bridge of the nose, "Because we can't show the damage, can we? I know it's a bit pointless trying to hide it, considering the marvellousjob I've done so far, but you know as much as I do that it's hard competing with a practically immortal alien."
"I don't yet." River stated, sitting down next to her and leaning on the wall.
"You will." Danni told her, "You told me that. Not here, back in my own universe. Don't let him see the damage. They were trying to use me against him, I couldn't let him know. What if it worked? We'd've lost 200 years together." When she was there, but she didn't want to say it, they both knew what she meant anyway.
"He could have helped." River pointed out.
"What if he didn't?" Danni suggested, "What if when he found out, instead of rushing to his death, it didn't work? What if he would have let me be?" She looked at her hands, "He's all I have. My life revolves around him. I'm not complaining, but it makes things so very difficult for me. I can't do anything, because I'm never away from him. I was never going to be able to hide it, because there's never a time I can just run and hide. I have to take the moments alone when I can." She brushed a hand through her hair, "I don't even know if you're real. I could just be talking to myself."
"Of course you're talking to yourself." River pointed out, putting an arm around her shoulder, "I'm getting ready to marry the Doctor as we speak. But, I always seemed to like you. Your mind's conflicted, you don't know who is your friend and who is your enemy. That's why I'm here." The hallway filled with the sound of something cracking and both Danni and her invisible River turned to see a small crack in one of the Silent's containers.
"That's not good." Danni murmured, pushing herself up off the floor. Suddenly the dormant alien's turned to face her at once and she stepped back, alarmed.
"I think we should run." The Doctor said and she turned to see Ten smiling at her brightly, holding his hand out for her, River now gone. She grinned manically and took it, letting her mind lead her back to where she wanted to be.
~0~0~0~
"There are so many theories about you and I, you know." River told the Doctor, who was still being restrained by the two guards. Who were, quite frankly, staring to get on his nerves.
"Idle gossip." He brushed aside angrily.
"Archaeology." River corrected and the Doctor shrugged.
"Same thing." River slowly walked towards him, smirking too arrogantly for his liking.
"Am I the woman who marries you, or the woman who murders you?" He leant forward as far as the grip on him would allow, so their faces were almost touching.
"Oh! I don't want to marry you." He snarled and she nodded, unaffected by his tone. She knew he'd be angry at her, but she really didn't care. This wasn't about him.
"I don't want to murder you." River replied calmly as Amy reached up, feeling something drop on her head. She rubbed her fingers together, was that water?
"This is no fun at all." The Doctor murmured, leaning away from her and River nodded her head.
"It isn't, is it?" She agreed. Amy looked upwards, seeing water trickling from the ceiling.
"Doctor... What's that?" She asked and the trio looked up, watching the water dropping from a crack in the stone above.
"The pyramid above us." The Doctor replied, "How many Silents do you have trapped inside it?"
"None." Madame Kovarian replied and the three looked at her, "They're not trapped, they never have been. They've been waiting for this, Doctor... For you." The door behind the burst open, the sounds of soldiers fighting flowing in as Rory appeared. In the other doorway Danni appeared, shaking slightly.
"They're out!" They both screamed together, "All of them."
~0~0~0~
Danni shook as she stared at the door the soldiers were barricading. They were coming, all of the Silents were heading straight for them and she was actually terrified. Proper terrified. Like she didn't know if she'd ever stop feeling terrified. She'd always known they'd implanted the noise in her head, but what else had they done in the process? She'd seen movies where with a codeword, or a click of their fingers, bad guys would cause the good guys to do terrible things. What if she had something similar in her head? What if, because she hadn't done what she was supposed to, they just killed her?
"Let me go." The Doctor snarled at River, who shook her head sadly.
"We can't risk you trying to touch me. Those are the orders." She explained.
"Well whose idea was it to order that I can't comfort her?" He exclaimed, furious. She was scared, he had to do something!
"Danni." Amy replied, "She doesn't want you to touch River."
"Maybe not for the reasons we don't want you to." River continued, "But she explained the outcome and those are the orders." Rory fell back to his men, all of whom were pointing their guns at the door.
"No-one gets in here!" He ordered before looking back at Amy, "Ma'am, my men out there, should be able to lock this down we have them outnumbered."
"And you're wearing eye drives based on mine, I think. Oops!" Madame Kovarian taunted. The Doctor approached her, glaring down at her.
"What do you mean?" He asked just as the woman who had fetched Danni a glass of water before screamed, falling to the floor as her eye drive started electrocuting her, "Help her! Help her!" The Doctor exclaimed and Amy ran to her side. Across the room the eye drive of a soldier began to electrocuting him and Rory helped to yank it off.
"She's dead." Amy told them lowly after checking the pulse of the poor woman.
"Eye pads off, now, remove them!" The Doctor commanded and Danni rushed over, pulling his off as Amy took care of her own.
"One of the perks of remembering them." She told him with a wry smile and he placed a kiss on her palm.
"I'm not angry." He promised her, "Not with you, anyway." It was the woman behind them he wanted to watch burn, and he would see to it. He would send the message out to the universe, no one would touch his Danni-Girl without knowing what was coming for them when they did. He watched Danni visibly relax at the fact she was off the hook and he planted a kiss on her head. He then straightened, turning to Kovarian as River pulled Danni towards her. Danni went gladly, letting the older woman wrap her arms around her in a hug; she was too scared to care who it was, but the feeling of someone comforted her.
"The Silence would never allow an advantage, without taking one themselves. The effects will vary from person to person... either death or debilitating agony. But they will take you all, one by one." She told them all.
"What did you put in her head?" He demanded.
"Just a little thing. Linked to you, on that day." She explained, "It will stop when you do."
"But what is it?" He demanded as he watched her eye drive begin sparking like everyone else's.
"What are you doing?" She asked, ignoring the Doctor, her voice going up in pitch in her fear, "No, it's me... Don't be stupid, you need me. Stop it, stop that!" The Doctor growled, knowing she wasn't going to get an answer off her.
"We could stop this right now, you and I." He insisted.
"Get it off me!" Kovarian screamed as the Silents began to electrocute her.
"Amy, tell her!" He continued, hoping that it hurt. Hoping the pain would drive her mad.
"We've been working on something." Amy replied instead, standing next to her daughter, the three women in his life lined up, "Just let us show you."
"That's my point. There's nothing you can do. My time is up." He exclaimed in frustration.
"We're doing this for you!" She pointed out.
"Then people are dying for me. I won't thank you for that, Amelia Pond." Kovarian groaned in the background and he grinned happily, hearing her struggle filling him with a certain level of satisfaction.
"Just let us show you!" River pressed, reaching behind her to hold her mother's hand. Amy squeezed it back reassuringly.
"Please." Amy added. The Doctor sighed, shaking his head.
"We are wasting time." He told them both firmly, "Danni, please tell them." He looked at her pleadingly, she knew what was at stake but she too shook her head.
"Just go see what they have to show you." She asked, "For me, please. I don't want you to do this."
"It'll be okay. You'll see me again..."
"That's not what I meant." She snapped back, thinking of the scene on the rooftop. If she was there, maybe she could convince him to take the help the universe wanted to offer him. Maybe, just maybe, there was another way, "Just go, please." He squeezed his eyes shut, then nodded reluctantly.
"Fine."
"Captain Williams, how long do we have?" Amy asked her almost-husband.
"A couple of minutes." He replied and she nodded.
"That's enough." River replied with a nod, "We're going to the Receptor Room right at the top of the pyramid. I hope you're ready for a climb." She started walking, the Doctor following straight away, followed by Amy and Danni bringing up the rear. A climb? She groaned to herself, oh that didn't sound too good, did it?
"I'll wait down here, ma'am, buy you as much time as I can." Rory called after them, causing Amy to pause.
"You have to take your eye drive off." She told him, incredulous that he still had it on. He shook his head as he reloaded his gun.
"Can't do that, Ma'am. Might forget what's coming." He pointed out.
"But it could activate any second." She said, concerned.
"It has activated, Ma'am." He replied and she spotted his hand shaking in pain.
"But I'm no use to you if I can't remember." He used the same hand to steady his aim on the door, "You have to go NOW, Ma'am." She nodded, taking a deep breath and swallowing. Suddenly the idea of leaving him left her feeling cold.
"Yes. Yes, thank you, Captain Williams." She turned and rushed out, almost running into a waiting Danni.
"You're not just going to leave him there, are you?" She asked Amy in disbelief.
"It's his job." She tried to brush off but Danni grabbed her arm as she tried to push past.
"No, he's your Rory. Go get him." She stared Amy down, who looked torn over what to do before nodding, running past a body of solider and stealing his gun as she did. Danni smiled to herself as she heard Amy fire at all the Silents that she knew where descending on Rory, then she heard Kovarian begging Amy for help. She stormed to the doorway.
"Leave her alone." Danni snarled and the two women turned to face her, "Amy, take Rory upstairs."
"But..."
"Now, Amy." She commanded and Amy nodded, grabbing Rory's hand and leading her away, leaving just the two women in the room together.
"Please, Danni..." Kovarian begged, the eye drive hanging off her face but still periodically electrocuting her.
"Why should I help you?" Danni laughed as she slowly sauntered over to the woman, "What possible reason is there for me to save you?"
"The Doctor would." Kovarian replied in a pant, using the best card in her hand, "The Doctor would be kind." Danni shook her head.
"I thought you did your research. The Doctor only gives you once chance, and you blew it long ago. You took Amy's baby, you tried to kill the Doctor and you are killing me. So, I'll ask you again, why should I save you?" Kovarian's eyes darted around, realising she needed something big to convince the girl but pulling up blanks.
"You don't want another death on your conscience." She exclaimed suddenly, "Your precious Doctor won't like that." Danni leant close, smirking maliciously.
"Wrong again." She whispered and Kovarian's face fell, "I'll destroy the universe to keep him safe. He won't like it, but I can live with that pretty easily. You made me believe I was going to kill him, but I'm not. I know I'm not now, it's too late. So, remember when time is fixed, no one messes with my Doctor while I'm still alive to stop you. Tell the universe, Danielle Fielding is coming and she will stop you." She pressed the eye drive back onto her face with glee, "Goodbye, sweetie." She placed a kiss on the woman's cheek before leaving her to scream, the Silents killing her painfully and slowly.