SMOKE AND MIRRORS

CHAPTER FOUR

Amy spared only one more shocked and hateful glance at River, before running to be by her husband's side. She cradled his head in her lap, running her hand through his tousled hair, quietly sobbing. Meanwhile, the insides of the huge transparent globe began to fill with smoke. It rattled and shook on its platform. Sparks began to pop and fizzle inside its interior, from some hidden mechanism stationed at its top.

"What are you doing? Get away from him!" Amy shouted, trying to push River Song away from Rory. River had come to kneel beside Rory, with some sort of medical syringe in her hand.

"Sweetheart, I know you're upset, and believe me, you've every right to be." River said evenly, looking into Amy's eyes, "But Rory's not dead. He's just been stunned. This shot will help to bring him around."

"How can I believe that after what you just did?" Amy said, trying to shield Rory's body from River.

"Look, I need to bring Rory back to consciousness." River explained, her forehead creased with worry. "That machine is about to explode, and when it does, the three of us really don't want to be here. Now, I can't lift Rory by myself and neither can you. We need him awake and moving, or he really is going to die, and probably us with him.." she checked her wrist watch, "That thing's going to blow in exactly two minutes and forty-three seconds. Amy," River said seriously, "Even if it's for the last time of your life, just this once, you are going to have to trust me."

"OK," Amy nodded reluctantly. She glanced behind her as smoke from the globe began to fill the exhibit hall. Only then was Amy aware of the noise. The air around them was rent by a series of violent cracks, as the perspex the object was made from, began to develop fissures along its surface. "I'm not saying that I trust you professor, but for Rory's sake, I'll take the chance that you may be telling the truth."

Without delay, River Song plunged the needle into Rory's neck. Almost immediately he let out a gasp of breath, and his body convulsed. River propped him up and indicated that Amy should do the same.

"We need to get him off this ramp and up and walking." She told Amy.

"Oh my God, I had no idea he was this heavy." Amy grunted. "There's no way we can get him down all those stairs in time!" She was trying valiantly to bear her share of Rory's weight. "When we get home--if we ever get home, I am so putting him on a diet." She muttered under her breath. "No more totties with cheese and beans for you, Rory!"

"Eh--wha?" Was all a groggy Rory could answer, as he swayed drunkenly upright between the two women.

Instead of heading for the arched entryway leading out of the exhibit hall, River Song headed instead for one of the tall, lead paned windows at the side of the hall. She gave the half-awake Rory over to Amy. Walking up to the window, she placed her hands against it and peered through it.

"Where are you going?" Amy huffed, struggling with keeping Rory upright, "You said we had to get out of here!"

Instead of an answer, River stood back and aimed her pistol at the window. This time, instead of a red ray, a blue ray emitted from the gun, causing the window to disintegrate completely. Grabbing Rory under the armpit, River helped Amy move him over to the broken window.

"Oh no. Tell me you're not thinking of doing what I think you are?" Amy asked, knowing the answer already.

"Come on, Amy, where's your sense of adventure?" River smiled grimly. She looked past Amy at the havoc the break up of the globe was wreaking on the building. "I'll go through first, and help you with Rory. We've got to hurry!"

Already, the red-orange globe was shaking so violently, that chunks of the ceiling were beginning to rain down. Flames were shooting out of the open door of the object, and the wooden base it rested on had caught fire. The pair of them, with only a little help from Rory, managed to get him through the window.

They found themselves standing on a small flat section of the roof, less than two meters wide. It appeared to house some kind of ventilation unit. Unfortunately, all around them, the rest of the slate shingled roof sloped away at a steep angle. Amy stood at the edge of the flat roof, but didn't want to look down. Though only two and a half stories up, it still seemed like an awfully long drop down to the pavement below.

"Now what?" She asked River.

"Sit down, Amy, hold Rory upright." River instructed.

Amy was about to argue, but then the building gave a great shake, and she found herself sitting down anyway, as she was thrown off-balance. Rory lay in a daze in front of her. Amy propped him in an upright position, the back of his head resting against her chest, while she held on to him tightly.

"What are you going to dooooooo----!" Amy screamed the last word. That's because River Song had given her a big push over the edge of the roof.

Sliding on her bottom down the roof, grasping Rory, Amy screamed in terror the whole way. When she and Rory shot over the edge of the roof, she closed her eyes and hoped this wouldn't be too painful. Much to her surprise, they both landed with a soft plop, smack in the middle of a high snow drift. The drift had been blown against the building, and was deep enough to cushion their fall.

Amy's head came out of the snow, gasping from the cold and fear. Seconds later, Rory's head also poked up from the snow. The cold rush of wind from the fall, followed by being unceremoniously dunked into the icy drift, had helped to revive him.

"What the? Amy! Why are we covered with snow?" He spluttered.

"Head's up!" River's voice called from above, as her body shot down the roof. "Yeee-haaa!" She shouted with glee, as she shot off the roof and plummeted into the snowdrift beside Amy and Rory. She grinned at the open-mouthed pair. "Well kiddies, that was more exhilarating the the bobsled run at Lake Placid. But I really think we should run now."

And indeed, glass and building materials were raining down, and flames were shooting out of the windows of the upper floors of the building. A sound like distant thunder could be heard. The machine was on the cusp of exploding, and Amy could feel the ground beneath them shaking with the violent rumbling of the mysterious globe.

With River's help, Amy and Rory picked themselves out of the snow drift, and sprinted away. They'd gone maybe ten meters, when the building abruptly exploded, throwing all three of them to the ground.

"Are you alright, Amy?" Rory asked, helping her up.

"Yeah I'm fine, Rory. Cheers." Amy replied, kissing him on the cheek. "But look," she nodded towards the museum, "it's completely gone." And, it was. Nothing but a blackened hole in the ground remained.

"You tourists," River interrupted, "Always stopping to gawk. Come on, we've got to get back to the TARDIS."

"Where are you taking us?" Amy asked suspiciously.

"To the Shadow Proclamation." River told them, striding off into the snow, looking up at the distant blue speck of the TARDIS, starkly outlined on the white hillside.

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