This Morning, With Delight, Our Songs Burst

by dhalgren99

In what in retrospect appears to be an attempt to graduate from the Williams Burroughs School of Storytelling, the Doctor & Amy arrive on a world where everyone has a wish and all wishes have to come true. And the Doctor has to stop it from getting worse.

Full title: This Morning, With Delight, Our Songs Burst into Flame

This is the fitfully entertaining expository portion of our program. Please keep all hands and arms inside the vehicle.

As is typical of most of my work in this medium, this one started out as a gift. John Allison of the webcomic "Scary Go Round" and "Bad Machinery" did a print of two people who looked suspiciously like the Doctor and Amy Pond called "Timeboy and the Redhead". I gave that print as a gift to someone and decided that the most perfectly normal thing to do would be to write a story based on that print. I thought I would only write a scene or two. Several weeks and many pages later, that appeared to not be the case.

So, here we are. Two things to notice here: as usual, there's no chapter breaks because I couldn't be bothered and they would seem out of place here, frankly. Secondly, the entire story is nonlinear. I wish I could say there was some deep stylistic or symbolic meaning to that but I had started writing the scenes out of order and thought it would be interesting to structure the whole story that way to see what it did to the pacing. If one senses an element that I was making it up as I went along, I could possibly be accused of that. I think it turns the story into a ceaselessly unfolding mystery with constant depths to be plumbed . . . you may find it just gives you a headache trying to figure out what order it goes in. But hey, nobody complains when Quentin Tarantino does it. We're just lucky any of this at all is coherent.

Necessary notes, I suppose: the Eleventh Doctor and Amy, obviously. Don't ask me when the heck it takes place, probably during season five, and before Rory decides to start hanging out with them. I don't remember if Daleks were mentioned or not, if so, then it takes place after that. Otherwise, it could be any other point. Construct your timeline accordingly. I will apologize in advance for Amy . . . after spending a season watching her I have to admit I really don't quite "get" what makes her tick and the story probably reflects that. But you're all here to see the fellow in the tweed and the bowtie anyway, eh?

Other than Ms Pond and the good Doctor, I made up everyone else so if you feel like using them . . . I'll be really impressed because the ratio of people who make it out of the story alive versus those who don't is rather low. If you wind up getting attached to anyone, I can only beg your infinite pardons.

Oh, and I'm not exactly interested in the leads making out. But if you've been to any of my other stories previously, you're probably aware of that already.

I think that's enough notage. For those of you who wind up enjoying this . . . you have my boundless but slightly bewildered appreciation. For those who don't . . . I probably won't do this again for a while, so take heart in that.

By all means, after you. Cheers! - MB

---

"What exactly do you want?" he asked, seemingly to the air as much as her.

The wind tickled her hair against her cheek, perhaps a message apparent. Fine tendrils of red danced in the corner of her eye, fluttering along with her breathing. The pink sky was supposed to be soothing in a way, but now it was the color of softened blood. The color of the last person she had seen dying.

"Well?" the tweed coated alien with the floppy hair asked, inches from her shoulder. Even at his calmest he was impatient, the smartest kid in maths class waiting for the rest of the dunces to catch up, having solved the problem long before.

The crevice beneath them caught his words and spiraled them upwards in a draft until they soared upward and over her, without weight. But that was deceptive. The very tips of her shoes were poking over the edge. The cliff had the good grace not to let any pebbles tumble down to prove its height. It wasn't a long way down, it was further. She refused to feel dizzy. It was only distance and these days, it meant as much as Time. A passing gap to be traversed willfully.

What exactly do I want? Amy Pond thought, blinking quickly. Please don't ask me that.

She shuffled an inch closer to the edge.

---

"What do you want?" The Doctor stood just an inch closer, towering over the bug-eyed alien wrapped in multi-colored rags. His eyes were constantly moving, examining each cranny of the crowded shop, the shelves stacked high and stuffed with objects of various shapes, square and triangular and odd trapezoids and some that appeared to shift in between at a constant rate, except at the times when you were staring at them. He was looking at everything, without looking away once.

The alien blubbered with full lips, wringing webbed hands together and knotting a stray rag. "Why, money," he said with some surprise. His cheeks bubbled outward. "I'm a merchant, tis my living be. Money is what I needs, sirrah, in the hopes of getting you the goodes that you desire."

"I'm not talking about that." The Doctor snapped his fingers and stepped away sharply, pivoting on the ball of his foot. "I've got a ship full of junk that I'll never be able to . . ." he plucked an utterly hideous gnarled tree ringed in glittering purple and blue lights. "Although this . . . this is absolutely vintage. Don't you think so, Amy?"

"I guess." Amy leaned against the doorway, only half-paying attention. Outside there was a constant stream of loosely termed people, since some of them crawled by on tentacles, or floated on little pads, or rolled in what appeared to be tiny hamster balls. It created a neverending hum of noise, the clashing of prices, the crisscross of bargains, the rattle of currency tumbling and falling into pockets and palms.

"You must have gotten this out before the Koosnatchi invoked the Inward Travails." The Doctor was turning the ugly tree over and over in his hands, sending splinters of dotted lights dancing over his face. A bloody twee disco ball, Amy thought distantly. "It's a collectors item now. Whatever you're selling it for, I guarantee you that it isn't enough."

The merchant wobbled, not sure what to make of this. "Are you proclaimings that sirrah would like to purchase thises finer declaration-"

"Oh, absolutely not." The Doctor stalked forward again, the tree clutched firmly in one hand. He shook it at the merchant as he talked. "Removed from the radiation of its homeworld it eventually sheds microfilaments that get into the brain and replace neurons. The end result is that you become part of their new orchard. I'd consider destroying it myself." He banged it down on the desk, causing it to wobble and the merchant to flinch backwards. "On the plus side, you are never out of season, so there is that." His gaze flicked back. "But you never answered my question."

"If we're going to be perform quibblings over pricings-"

"You have to want something." He planted both hands on the desk, leaning even further forward. "I mean, yes, you're doing this fine work of these essential goods but what about you, what about your desires?" Amy sighed, wishing that he would just get to the point. It was getting harder to tell which questions were just him being mercurial and which were just going somewhere. It would be nice if he stopped faffing around. Like the people outside, moving directly and swiftly and without hesitation to their destinations. They knew what they wanted. "What hopes and dreams beat in that moist and floppy chest of yours? Surely this wasn't your life's ambition."

Amy tapped her foot. She was getting used to the crowd noise, it was less an assault now than a pleasant burbling. The array of the masses was moving faster and smoother, a river that had removed any blockage. She wanted to be out there, and swept away.

The alien blinked filmy eyes, going briefly opaque. "The transference of goodes for currencies is considered a highest in honors of mies kind."

Absently, she rubbed her hand and felt a rough patch. Glancing down, she saw a swatch of dried and faded pink creating a splotch on the back of her hand. Oh. The cause of it leapt back into memory with a screech not unlike that of a backwards feedbacked guitar. Suppressing an indrawn breath, she turned her gaze away and back outside, to the now familiar bustling crowd.

"And see, that's what I don't get here, that's what I am not fathoming." The Doctor had his hands clasped behind his back and was pacing before the desk. The merchant kept wringing his hands together, following him with a bare quiver. "How is that every single person on this planet is-"

"Doctor."

The Doctor stopped his pacing, but kept the same stance, looking directly down. "Yes, Amy?"

Amy licked her lips, hiding her hand behind her back so she could eventually look in a different direction. The roughness had no feel. It felt like a growing fungus. It must have splattered when he. "I don't know if this is important or not, but it's . . ."

"Waits," the merchant whispered. "You are theys."

"Not now," the Doctor snapped, hopefully to the merchant.

"The crowd." Her lips felt numb, the words were tumbling out without heed to order or preference. "It's all clear. The crowd." Her voice carried its own internal echo in the newly christened silence.

"The onnners in the newswires." The merchant was reaching under his desk, his body glistening. "The king, he saides."

"Not now," the Doctor barked, forcing the alien into a pause.

"Everyone is all gone." Amy stared at the packed dirt of the once packed throughway. Some of the dust started to swirl in the wind, gently and tentative.

"Amy." There was a certain insistence in his voice now. "Amy Pond, get away from the door. Now."

A whistling sound was beginning to rise, air forced through narrow corridors.

"Get away from the door."

"He saides yours was the onners who was going to destroyers everything."

Whistling and hissing near, down empty rows.

A hand grasped her, right where the blood was starting to burn.

---

"What do you want?" the man on the throne asked, in the imperious tone that kings tended to use as if that was their default setting. Not that Amy had met many kings, but this is what she always imagined. Though she secretly hoped her own Queen was kind in person. She had been bugging the Doctor to get them in to meet her at some point, but he kept brushing her off, saying he didn't do contemporary. Though once he did tell her to ask on a day that wasn't a full moon.

"Me?" The Doctor laughed, jammed in hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. "Nobody ever asks me that question."

Amy raised her hand. "If it wouldn't be too much trouble, I would kill for a proper shower right now. And a steak, if you have those here."

"This counsel can ask any question of any petitioner it desires." The king filled up the chair and it was with his own bulk, not just because the dirty white of his robes seemed to endlessly spill out from some central portion, like a hyperactive spider gone mad. The edges draped along the floor and constantly fluttered at the edges. His hard black eyes stared at them without blinking, from under brows that were chiseled from rock. Sinews in his neck stood straight like metal rods and when he talked his teeth ground together, adding an unsettling cracking tone to all his words.

"You can ask." The Doctor might as well have been addressing the ceiling. He thrust his chin out lackadaisically. "But there's a reason no one ever does." There were no other courtiers in the room, just the three of them, small against the spacious confines. The walls of the ceiling were tilted inward and there was a constant breeze coming in from the slitted windows that ringed the roof. "No one ever likes the answer." The last was said in a singsong fashion.

"But we insist," the king thundered. Another cool breeze came down, and Amy shivered, glad that she had thought to wear her long sleeved sweater before getting out of the TARDIS.

"Of course you do," the Doctor thundered back, dancing forward on spindly legs. "Because that's what you people do, isn't it? You sit there and order and expect everyone to leap to your desires simply because you're in charge. Is that it?"

The king's head reared back at the outburst, nearly hitting the variety of dangling metal chimes that surrounded his throne at various levels, all of them softly dinging together, though never quite in harmony.

"That's how it works, isn't it?" The Doctor's voice was filling the room, finding a focal point wedged down into his center. "You get the idea in your head one day that nobody can tell you 'no' and next thing you know you've convinced some thugs to go slap some other people around simply for looking at you wrong. Do it enough times and suddenly, lo, you have a kingdom. Well, congratulations to you." The Doctor clapped his hands together, the noise utterly cutting. Even Amy flinched. His voice dropped when he spoke next. "But let me tell you this, counsel, any empire you build with this as a foundation, with the travesties I witnessed outside here, it won't stand. It will fall right on your head."

"We have earned the right to rule over these sovereigns-"

"It won't stand!" the Doctor shouted back. "It will not stand." He was breathing heavily, his shoulders hunched and he appeared to be in some pain. He clutched his shoulder and staggered back a step, to the point where Amy nearly wanted to run to him.

"Doctor . . ." she said instead, useless in itself. She glanced from the king to him, waiting for one of them to do something. Unless they were waiting for her. But she didn't have the slightest idea where to start. For his part, the king seemed disturbed, one hand idly trailing one of the chimes, a silvery carved piece that spun on its simple string.

The Doctor waved her off, lifted his eyes to the king. His mouth moved soundlessly for a word or two before he managed to speak and when he did it was while his eyes searched the king's face, rapid and haunted. "Your right to rule caused your soldiers to stab an old woman to death in public, while a crowd watched." A section of his face hardened, and would not relent.

"Julius," he breathed in a near-rasp, "this wasn't you at all. What happened?"

---

"What do I want?" Quiddoth hissed, his segmented arms running up and down the cracks between the door and the wall. His touch was leaving a slimy trail in its wake. Sealing the door, he had said. Keeping out all that wanted to get in. All who wanted to get in. "Freedom, of course. A chance to determine our own destiny. A chance to decide what that destiny is." But the light that shone brightly through the cracks was beginning to flicker with interruptions. "I don't believe that is too much to ask for, do you?"

Amy paced along the far dull brown wall, doing her best not to watch her own shadow. The room was spare but in clear disarray, lumpen objects flung into corners and cracks flung like spidery fingers along the walls. Each step made a creak that was far too loud. The room smelled damp and clear, a cave with no visible exit.

"They're going to kill us," she said mostly to herself. "We've never had that before, Doctor. Even the Daleks wanted to tell us about their plans first. How are we supposed to fight that?"

"Freedom shouldn't be something you have to ask for." The Doctor spoke from the corner, propped back against a table. The shadows caused his eyes to shimmer slightly, capturing all the available light. Thrust into the near-dark, he seemed impossibly ancient somehow. "That's now how it works."

"You have to ask for everything here," Quiddoth sneered, finishing his sealing of the door. Outside there was a series of distant thumps, that could have been boxes falling down, or the latest dancebeats. Or something perhaps more dire. "Every day we need to ask for life, we beg for it. But asking only puts us deeper in thrall."

"That's what I don't understand." The Doctor leaned back, covering his eyes with both hands and bumping his head against the wall. He didn't seem to notice. "Your state of oppression has almost become ritualized in a sense, from the top down. Yet you're still chafing against those shackles." He banged one hand on his knee. "It hardly makes any sense!"

"My world stopped making sense a long time ago." The alien shuffled away from the door, patting it with a wispy hand. "And now you're caught in it, the same as we are." Quiddoth was looking directly at Amy as he spoke.

She did her best not to flinch. For the last twenty minutes she had felt a tingling running up and down her arms, through her sleeves. A chill, maybe. A clinging, errant chill. "We're just visiting, he said it was a vacation planet. You said the cliffs were older than the universe, didn't you, Doctor?"

"That's what the brochure claimed but maybe they were exaggerating slightly," the Doctor replied offhandedly. "The translator sometimes gets words wrong. Older, picturesque, made of candy, it's all the same thing in some languages." He put his elbows on the table, clasped his hands together. She wasn't used to him sitting in one place for more than a minute or two. He was always moving, trembling with a slow and repressed energy. "But we're not part of this, Quiddoth. I want that clear."

"Are you certain?" the alien seethed back. "How can you not be?"

"I will solve this, but in my own way. It's what I do." His fingers were intertwined in his floppy brown hair and he was staring straight ahead. "And what I do doesn't involve guns."

Amy has almost forgotten about the slim metallic device in the alien's other hand. She almost expected a wisp of smoke to be drifting from the tip of it, even though that made no sense. But it would have been fitting after. After.

"Does what you do involve dying?" the alien shot back. "Because that's not part of my plan. Only for others."

From too close was a shout. Quiddoth slid away from the door, the gun clasped in both hands. Amy backed away, pressing near the wall. Thoughts were swirling in her head, asking her questions she knew she couldn't answer.

"We're not part of your revolution!" The Doctor stood up. Amy started looking for another way out, a secret door maybe. Or maybe the alien could use the gun to blast a gap in the wall. With all the exercise she was getting lately, she should be able to fit.

"How can you not be," Quiddoth said, bracing himself, the back of his shell like a hole opening in the dark, "when you've come here and breathed the same air that we have?"

---

"What do I want?" Amy laughed, swinging her arms freely as she bounced through the narrow and crowded streets with the Doctor. "For once, I'd like your descriptions of a place to actually match the place when we get there, you." She skipped a step, slipping around a burly alien that smelled like charred chocolate and kept humming to itself, nearly running into a cluster of tiny hooded and wheeled robots instead. "I mean, you said here that the skies would be as red as the hair on my head and twice as lively."

"Did I really say that?" the Doctor had an angular and perplexed look that sometimes made her wonder if he jumped in time when she wasn't looking and had conversations with her at other points. She always worried about that sometimes when he left the console room and came back in five minutes later not seeming to remember what they were talking about. She often wondered if there were Doctors from different times wandering around different parts of the ship, unaware of each other. It would certainly explain the funny little man she had run into at one point, telling someone she couldn't see "When I say run . . ."

"Yes, you absolutely did!" she said, laughing again. Even if this place wasn't exactly living up to his descriptions of it, it seemed like a good lark anyway. The weather was nice and even if the sky wasn't deep auburn, it was a nice shade of pink that still looking sufficiently feminine to her. It was a change from all the worlds where men in armor that smelled like oil and machismo tromped around like they were trying to stamp the planet flat. "You said, 'Amy Pond, what you deserve is a world as feisty and vivacious as you are.'" She gestured dramatically with her hand as she said it, almost striking a bat-like creature who was hovering a few feet off the ground. It chirped cutely at her and then fluttered away.

This time he laughed. "Oh, I'm pretty sure I didn't say that."

Amy gave him a sidelong glance, smiling. "Not in so many words, maybe." She put a hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun. "So, you recognize anything about this place yet."

The Doctor made a show of glancing cagily around, even though she knew he had done so already, and probably twice. "Maybe." He stared off into the distance. "A lot has changed, if it is. There used to be a hill you could see from everywhere, even in your sleep, but it appears to be gone now. Just as well."

"You need to start cataloging these places," she chastised him. "Or you're going to confuse Alcon IV with the Peanut World, or something. You know, or else . . . . oh!" She grabbed the Doctor's arm. "I want to live in a house just like that someday."

The Doctor inclined his head in her indicated direction and merely raised an eyebrow.

It was tall and crooked, bent forward ever so slightly, with cascading shades of green and blue shimmering down the height of it. The windows were round and bulged outward a fraction, enough to catch the sunlight and reflect pieces of the sky, looking like vague pink eyeballs. The door was slanted and ajar, the walls made of a substance that was knobbed and ridged.

"It's the kind of house that just screams 'An interesting person lives here,'" she said, folding her arms over her chest. "Not like my boring old house."

"I don't think your house is quite that boring," the Doctor murmured. "And I didn't think interesting meant a total lack of taste."

"This from a man who adores his bow tie."

The Doctor had the temerity to look affronted at least, self-consciously tweaking his tie. "I make this look good and it does the same for me."

"You joined the bow tie of the month club."

He drew himself up. "I'm a charter member, I'll have you know." He stared past her and slightly to her left. "But if you're going to point out strange houses, why not that one over there?" He pointed to a low house, striped grey and black, with sheets of water acting as curtains for the windows and door."

"Oh Lord, I live there I'd think I'd have to take a piss all the time," Amy protested. She raised herself on her toes and spun around. "Or, or, hey, why not that one over there?" This one had a garden growing on the roof, with plants that seemed to be attempting to start their own band, constantly curling and uncurling, releasing a wide variety of oom-pha noises. "Or the one next to it!" Caved inward, with lattices connecting the two sections, gem-like moisture glistening on the strands.

The crowd was attempting to move around them now, they were a bottleneck in the midst, or a blood clot in the center. Rounded eyes kept staring at them without lingering, furry mole packs ran around her legs like snuggling bandits, reptiles slithered by, testing the air near her with black tongues.

The Doctor was totally engaged in this game of "I Spy" now, gleefully pointing out a house with transparent walls that revealed the skeletal structure of anyone standing inside, and then another that looked melted and droopy and then another near that spiky branches intertwined that sparkled in the bright light.

"I didn't realize how different they all were," Amy said, clapping her hands together. "It's amazing, have you ever since anything like it?"

"Oh, some of the artier communes maybe." The Doctor tapped her with his elbow and they started walking again. "But the Impermanence Impertinent Imaginarists rarely leave their work up for more than a day. Ruins the moment, they say, and only gets in the way when they get more ideas. Of course, if they bothered to expand outside of the abandoned Jiggs Food For All Shapes restaurant parking lot they might have a little more elbow room. I've told them, the Panoptic Diner parking lot has so many dimensional folds that it would take years before anyone realized they were there but you know how stubborn artists can be-"

"You think anyone lives in those houses?" Amy asked, not wanting to tell him that she was marrying a nurse and thus had no ideas how artists could be. Rory's idea of art was the drawing he did for his mum that hung on the fridge when he was seven. "They seem empty."

"Maybe the occupants are working. After all, this isn't a vacation world for-oh, hello!" The Doctor, looking up, nearly tripped on the fellow kneeling on the ground. He was long and rumpled, a blanket rolled into a tube and played with for hours by a child. He had two eyes of utterly deep blue.

"I want . . ." the creature was muttering, folds of its body shivering.

"Well, if you don't want people to step on you then you watch where you want to take a rest," the Doctor said. He cocked his head to one side and bent down to get nearly level with the alien. The rest of the crowd was giving them a wide berth, unlike before where they couldn't pack in tightly enough. "Unless there's something else you want."

"I want . . ." it said again.

"Maybe he's hurt?" Amy ventured, wincing and spitting as some of her hair blew into her mouth.

"Is that it? Are you?"

"There's so many, and I only get one, I only get one." Its whole body rippled. "I only get one."

"One what?" The Doctor glanced at Amy, who only shrugged. "What exactly do you need one of? Maybe we can help."

"He has lots of things in his pockets," Amy offered. "Maybe one of those. Plus it would help him get rid of some of that rubbish."

"Everything I possess is of infinite value," the Doctor said, stuffing his hand in his pocket and bringing out a squeeze toy shaped like a spiral galaxy. He tucked in back in after squeaking it once. "Even if the uses aren't immediately apparent."

"I know, I know, I know what I want." It had little hinged jaws that flopped open and closed. "If the Census finds me, if they seek to find to need the want and I can't wait, I can't, I don't, the risk, I don't . . ."

"Just calm down," the Doctor put an arm gingerly around the alien. "Why don't we take a walk and-"

Suddenly it got much darker, and Amy felt a sense of being incredibly closed in. The air suddenly smelled dry, like the inside of her nose in winter.

The Doctor looked up and grinned. "-and maybe these five rather intimidating gentlemen can help us."

---

". . . did they want . . ."

She was keeping her eyes closed because it was safer that way. It seemed to be a good rule for the universe lately.

" . . . can't stay here, they're going to send others and then . . ."

Safer just to listen to the mumbling sounds around her and let them settle into a pleasant drone. Safer to feel the stone wall at her back and her legs curled up beneath her and her hands

". . . told you, I've told you several times that we would not get involved in any violence . . ."

her hands that had

". . . little late for that now, wouldn't you say . . ."

hands that were covered in

". . . it ends here, I want to be very clear about that. From here on, we find another . . ."

Amy shivered, pressing her cheek against the cool wall. There was a weight on her that wouldn't relent, even after the weight had been removed. Her foot shifted and bumped across a solidity that wasn't anything that she would allow herself to identify.

". . . say so, Doctor, but you may find that wish nearly impossible to grant . . ."

There were darkening shadows lurking underneath the underside of her vision, shifting into looming pieces that kept detaching and bearing down. The skin of her throat swelled and twitched, suddenly and constantly itchy. There was an smell in her nostrils like dried and dead lilacs, like a funeral being held for funerals.

". . . I say, I'm a hopeful optimist . . ."

There was a picture in her brain of a room that had to not be this one, because the one in her head had all sorts of elements in it that could not possibly exist in the room that she was in right now and was thus totally wrong.

". . . takes a special person to admit optimism surrounded by all these . . ."

So Amy began to diligently erase all the wrong parts of the room in her brain, so that it would match the room that was just beyond her eyes.

". . . have to get back to the palace, I need to talk to . . ."

But none of that would erase the sounds she was hearing now, the gentle clop-clack of someone's boots on ground stone, the gentle rattling sigh of segmented hands, the expelled and trapped breath of lost voices.

". . . yes, it needs to be stormed . . ."

Voices like hers, so sharp she winced herself sightless. Voices pressed and compressed.

" . . . no, we're going to do this my way . . ."

Voices smothered and flailing, searching for even the smallest piece to escape.

". . . oh, are you saying that's what you wa-"

The quietest cough into the briskest silence.

". . . don't, Quiddoth. Don't."

Amy jerked again, awakening into sleep and her sneaker tapped a certain yielding shape. I didn't mean it. Oh God, I swear, I didn't mean it.

". . . but you are starting to get the shape of it finally . . ."

A cool breath on her cheek made her snap her head to the other side so violently that she smacked into the wall. She bit her lip without breaking the skin, but barely.

"Listen to me, Amy," her alien friend said, his long and delicate fingers with their too-cool skin finding her hand. Avoiding the presence of the pressure of the slickness. "It wasn't your fault, you have to understand that. You have to."

She nodded without opening her eyes, running by automatic gesture.

"But there's something going on here that I'm just beginning to understand. I need to understand it, if I'm going to save everyone here. And I'm going to save everyone here." Those fingers tightened on hers just a fraction.

"But I need two things from you, Miss Pond." He was close enough to smell, libraries stuffed with old books and the last night before they closed down the greenhouse, when the boy put his arm around her and said, watch the moon.

"I need you to be brave."

I'll take you there, some day.

"And I need to know what you said before all this happened."

I want

But the moon was nowhere in sight.

"Exactly what you said."

I want you

---

"What do I want?" The Doctor closed his eyes and flung his arms out wide as his coat fluttered back. "Oh, Amy, so many things I don't even know where I would start."

---

"What do you two want?" the old woman hissed at them, pulling them off the street and into the alley. "To go and get yourselves killed?" If not for the pair of antennae sticking out the top of her head and a set of azure shimmering scales covering her cheeks, neck and back of her hands, she would have looked like an ordinary old woman, dressed in rumbled clothes and a smock. She had a bag clutched in one hand with wheels on it and a sack slung over her other shoulder.

She pulled harder than she seemed from her small size, nearly flinging Amy to the ground despite throwing her hand out against the wall to brace herself. The rough stone scraped her palm. The Doctor, as usual, managed to land against the opposite wall with a graceful dance, only stopping a second to adjust his coat.

He leapt off the wall just as quickly, towering over the old woman and looking about to barrel past her. "I was merely trying to help that poor fellow out there. and unless you're the local official unrescuing committee, I suggest the smartest thing for you to do would be to get out of my way."

"Sorry, not in the realm of helping idiots commit suicide," she rasped, muscling forward and forcing him back. He bumped into Amy just as she regained her feet, causing her to stumble backwards as well. The slit of the street they could still see was growing further distant, the crowd of people merging into a series of impressionistic colored circles and vague soft shapes, like gumballs being poured back into the jar.

And a series of solid darkened monoliths, standing so close that could have blended into one. Monoliths receding but still managing to maintain the same size and shape. Not a single one had broken to follow them. Her shoulder still ached from where one had shoved her. Shoved the both of them, without even looking in their direction. She refused to let it unnerve her.

Somehow she found her voice first. "Hey, you can't do this, those men were going to kill him." The question hovered in the air still, failing to dissolve in the cool air. What do you want? Looming into the quivering, sliding into a sudden emptiness.

Her laugh was sand scratched sharply across bone. "Not unless he's stupid, like you. He'll know what to say, unless he's said it already, in which case he deserves what he gets."

"Nobody deserves to die for a stupid reason," the Doctor said, drawing to a halt and bringing the rest of the alley to a standstill with him. His voice was deadly quiet. "So I would carefully rethink that line of thought, if I were you."

She fixed him with a squinted gaze, a smile pulling at the wrinkles on the side of her face. The shadows cascading slanted down the alley were catching her scales and giving her face an extra dimension. "You're far too young to intimidate me, and I'm far too old to be scared."

"I'm far too old for bluster." The Doctor bent down slightly to regard her at a more even level, hands on his knees. "And certainly too old for contests. But I will you this, your most ancient days are springtime meadows to me."

The old woman only blinked. "The man out there is fine, if you must be concerned."

"I must," the Doctor stated firmly and frankly.

"It's like a thing with him," Amy explained, trying to defuse the tension. The monoliths seemed to have faded away, less evaporated than sunken. But there was a haze over the street that didn't appear to have been present earlier. A certain swirling feeling. The air in the alley was very still, almost stagnant. "If he doesn't save at least two lives a day he gets really cranky. I think he feels like someone is grading him."

The old woman sighed. It caused her antennae to droop slightly, giving her the brief semblance of sadness. Though her face spoke of nothing but exasperation. "It was only Hermilton, and it happens nearly every day. He always delays his want until the last possible second. Until the Census has to come out and pin him down. But he always picks the same want." She shook her head, the antennae bouncing almost comically. "Every day. Sometimes I can't tell if he's being forgetful or if it's simply willful ignorance. It will get him killed, one day, mark my words." Shuffling forward, she brushed past the Doctor and Amy. "Now, if you'll excuse me, this bag isn't getting any lighter and by saving you fools, I've done my good deed for the day."

She had taken more four steps further down the alley when the Doctor called out to her. "Why would it get him killed?"

"If you don't know it will only get you killed too," came the reply. The back of her legs were covered in scales as well but in multi-colored patterns, swirling around like embedded tattoos. "So I would suggest you leave by the way you came."

"I've lived a long life, I can take the risks," the Doctor shouted back. "Who are the Census?"

"Ensurers."

"And what exactly do they ensure?" The Doctor was striding forward, catching up to her all too quickly and leaving Amy to race ahead to stay with him. She cast one last glance back down the alley, as if waiting for those brutes to materialize. There had been something ominous in their deep set eyes, a deeper red than her hair. And even without the long spears they had held at the ready, their hands alone had been big enough she would have disappeared in their grasps, if it had come to that.

"Hey!" He grabbed her by the shoulder and spun her around. "I asked you, what do they ensure?"

She grimaced and for a second looked honestly out of place, as if she realized finally that she had lingered for too long. Her voice when she answered was a weathered croak bereft of air. "That we want to live."

---

"I'm sorry, what was it you said you wanted?" Quiddoth coughed, turning his head to the side and spitting a wad of blood through the jagged crack that ran diagonally down his face.

Amy wiped at the underside of her eyes, telling herself that tears weren't forming. The tunnel was dank, the walls coated with a brown and green slime like a weeping corruption. There were shallow pools of water on the ground between bricks, seeping constantly. "It's not important," she said quietly, gingerly shifting the alien. Her hand came away sticky, some kind of invisible and foul grease. "It really isn't."

For a few seconds his labored and fluttering breaths were the only sounds in the corridor. Quiddoth tried to turn his head in the direction from where they had arrived but his arm began to spasm and he arrested the motion. "Do you think they'll find us here?"

"Eventually." Amy swallowed and leaned back on her heels, nervously tugging at the sleeves of her sweater. There was a taste in her mouth that tasted like no language that she knew. But she had spoken it anyway. "We can't stay." Any moment they might emerge from around a corner, without a sound. She hadn't gotten used to that yet, the way they moved so silently.

"Correction: you can't stay." The alien made a seething, wheezing sound that she had learned was his version of laughter.

"I'm not leaving you here." The air was heavy down here, sitting restlessly in her lungs, sluggish and slovenly. Even her words barely lifted from her lips, falling to the floor before they could truly take flight.

"You can stay here with me, but you might find the stay more permanent than it should be." Again, the wheeze, broken off by a shallow hacking. There were puncture wounds in the side of its body that were oozing what she assumed to be blood, emerging in forceful pumps. He kept running his hands over them despite the obvious pain, secreting a sealant that barely lasted before the blood dissolved it. Quiddoth shifted again, trying to sit up against the wall. "There was a time when I thought I might be able to want myself off this whole world." Each sentence was followed by a firm exhalation, giving its body the semblance of a deflation. "But even my dreams won't allow me that release."

"I still don't understand how all of it works. The rules and everything." It was easier to talk. It helped her forget what was really going on. "Every time I think it starts to make sense, someone goes and changes it on me."

"Your friend the Doctor understands." He was still holding his gun in one hand, although it was useless now. The end of it was twisted and blunted, covered in dried blood.

"It's his job to understand. Or to make the world understand it his way." She laughed, before realizing how loud it was and clapping a hand over her mouth. There was a faint smell coming from her hand and she whipped her hand away just as quickly. Her heartrate was a steady dripping wave, refusing to come down. Her hair felt dirty and knotted, with barbs hidden inside the tresses. It had only been hours. "Sometimes I think it's all that matters to him."

"You matter to him." Amy didn't look at Quiddoth directly when he said that. Somehow it seemed impossible. There was a distant clunk as he laid the gun down and seemed to relax further.

A smile forced itself out of her regardless. "I better. You don't get people you hate into this much trouble."

"And you'll wait for him."

Amy slid down so that her butt was against the floor. She tipped her head back so she was staring at the ceiling, too close and too dark. Quiddoth was directly opposite her, bulbous and small. The destruction of his face gave him the visage of a Van Gogh painting. "Yeah," she said, "I will."

"You should go." There was a pinched strain to his voice now, and it seemed that a piece of him might have flaked away in her peripheral vision. "He'll find you. He's not lost, he's merely taking an indirect route."

"That sounds like something he might say." Even since she had started travelling with him, she felt more aware of passing time, of the increments that transpired between moments. Of how tired time could get when it wallowed and failed to keep up with its own pace. When seconds became frozen and distorted. When even the tiniest whisper could be curled back and echoed like darts.

"He and I have the same goals, though he doesn't want to admit it." The alien turned its head again, as if stretching. But not a part of it looked ready to relax. "We both want this order changed, this repression removed."

"He said you all agree to it." Her own words from shuttered lips kept coming back to her. The power of it. A new spark every day. It was tempting. But subservient as well. No wonder no one ever got up the nerve to leave. There was always the hope that tomorrow could be better, if you stuck around long enough to see the end of today. "That you got greedy and allowed it to happen." The problem was dealing with the aftermath of yesterday.

"Can you blame us?" the alien snapped. Amy didn't even have the energy to flinch anymore. Quiddoth coughed again, a piece of him inside seeming to crack. The blood was making patterns underneath him, distorted oil slick rainbows in the gloom. "Can you imagine what it was like, to understand what a simple word might bring? I saw a man in the early days transform himself into rings of light, and ascend. Another created music through patterns in the sand, and scrawled symphonies on dunes. Another gained the knowledge to create houses that soared. I lived in one for some time, when I felt younger. Each morning the wind blowing through a series of holes would create a clustered murmuring, and I felt immersed in community again, so far from the days when I felt the pressure of another on my shell, and the rattled whisper too close near. Of all that I miss, that might be the most . . ." Quiddoth made a small noise, flopping slightly and Amy wanted to get to it. But it didn't seem the kind of creature for hugs and she was in no mood to give any. This segment was growing shorter. Doctor, where the hell are you hiding? Don't solve this without me. But maybe she had proved to be too far in to be a solution.

Quiddoth coughed again, each wheeze ending wetly and elongated. Amy went to go to him this time but he waved her back. There was a lidded haze in his eyes. Silence was retreating in the tone of footsteps not yet present. Any second the corner would be an entrance.

"Drunk on the possibilities, we didn't realize the limitations until they were imposed by someone with a vision of order. And now we are locked, frozen." He ran a hand over his body again, leaving a trail that could have been a name, wrecked and broken. "I cannot even want myself to be well, or better. Once, we could have made flowers sprout from rock and held stars in our hands. Now, I don't even feel their heat." In a quieter voice, he added, "Now, I do not feel much of anything."

"Come on," Amy said, fighting a rising swell of panic. "We have to go."

"It has to come down," Quiddoth said, less plea than statement, less statement than fact. "Once we thought we could bend the system back into a form that can once again be fair for all but we are far past that point now. We've seen the possibilities and there is no going back from that." One hand clutched for the gun without reaching it, spasmodically opening and closing. The alien didn't even seem to notice. "The only reaction is to remove it entirely. To destroy it. We've ruined it and no longer deserve it." His jaw grated, sliding against what passed for bone. "Why doesn't he understand that?"

"Because he doesn't destroy," Amy said, with a lurking surety. If he was sure.

"Neither did we," Quiddoth shot back, fixing her with a glare that practically boiled. "And yet here we are, in creation's debris, gradually suffocating in the stench of our endless wonders." He lifted a arm, stick-like and trembling. "What would you make from that?"

---

"What do you want, Reparticant?"

Every window was open, letting the voices filter out into the street.

"For the realm of breath to continue on this day!"

From the center of the segmented building, cubes on stacks on cubes.

"What do you want, Hexxulvianial?"

With gentle fingers raked down sandstorm walls, creating patterns like soft rain against hardened stone.

"Peace in the hearts of all and blood welling in my veins."

The sun shining down on reflective roofs, sending shimmers of refracted light into the air, falling into fragments and warped grace.

"What do you want, Kilpinal?"

Shadows inside, in open spaces, flickering like darkened candles.

"The grace of another day, as glorious as this one and the same in every way."

On streets matted down by absent feet, toes and boots and tails.

"What do you want, Ipotrx?"

Edges of vastness on vastness, words with all the borders smoothed.

"To be allowed to experience this yet again, by every chance of luck."

High ceilings capturing every nuance, rafters looming long in inward architecture.

"What do you want, Juh?"

The day falling, cushioned and staccato, the steady rap of wood on wood.

"The continuation of our sustenance."

Every breath a pause and every pause a breath.

"What do you want, Turi?"

Every footfall a place that comes too close by, brushing without touching.

"For our king's continued vitality, so his benevolence can linger on eternally."

Brushed away, from eyes that don't look up but still sense.

"What do you want, Ertujaq?"

From untouched structures, dangling into emptiness without motion.

"For matters to remain as they are, for all our sakes."

Waiting for the structure to perhaps reveal invisible motion.

"And what do you want, plain fellow?"

To ring out into the dry, pale air.

The Doctor raised his eyes from the chimes. "Right now, I'd rather just listen."

In the proper moment, braced for a stirring without a disturbance.

---

"Are you sure you want to do this?" the Doctor asked softly, drawing himself up until he seemed to consist of nothing but height. Amy had leapt from her chair but had maneuvered herself so that she stood behind it. A lot of good it was going to do her.

The behemoth merely stared him down, filling the doorway to the point that it had to stoop slightly. Beyond she could see the shoulders of two more, like mobile solar eclipses. Its nostrils flared out with each breath just a fraction, the only sign of motion in its otherwise impassive face. It was bulky and broad-shouldered, like an ape but larger, the arms wide enough she couldn't wrap both her hands around it. The color of its skin was a chalky obsidian. It wore dark clothing, maybe a kind of leather, dark enough so that the sheath of a long sword blended in with its attire. Its hands were nowhere near the sword, as if it didn't care. As if it could handle what was going to happen with just its bare hands.

"A statement of need is required," the monolithic creature said. The lips barely moved and the red eyes bored into the Doctor, who refused to budge. But one sweep of its arm could knock him across the room. "A statement will be taken." It had a voice like plate tectonics, rumbling and probing. Glacially slow.

"Really? But we've only just met. We should really get to know each other first." The Doctor danced back a step and held out his hand. "I'm the Doctor, this is my good friend Amy."

"Hi," she said, with a little wave. "How do you do?" But inside she was braced. The situation didn't feel dangerous yet but there was a cloying stagnation to the air that made her nervous. Even the wide open window wasn't adding any circulation to the room.

"They aren't ones for pleasantries, Doctor," the old woman said from her spot on the couch, what looked like a tea cup expertly balanced in one hand. There was a threadbare quality to her surroundings that she blended into perfectly. "So you're just wasting your time, really."

"Oh, I doubt that, I'm a very personable fellow." The Doctor grinned cheekily and threw his arms out to the side. "I bet after a few minutes we can be proper mates, sitting around the telly at the pub, eh?"

The creature from the Census raised one fist, not so much warning as punctuation. "A statement must be taken."

"Or?" The Doctor's stance had become sharp.

Fingers with thickened nails came close to his head, tracing the shape, the way you gauged the strength of an eggshell before you cracked it. "A statement will be extracted."

"I'd watch where you put your hands. You never quite know what you'll grab." The Doctor patted the creature on the arm in an almost affectionate manner, pivoting and taking two steps away from it before abruptly spinning back when it went to take a step into the house. "On whose authority?"

"The statement will consist of-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that," the Doctor bellowed over the creature's thick voice. The other members of the Census behind it were shifting and rustling, the crinkle of their clothing. "We've exhausted that possibility, it's boring now. Let's talk about something vastly more interesting . . . who has you doing this?"

"They're agents of the king, Doctor," the old woman said. "Extensions of his will."

"Thank you, Inelda," the Doctor said over his shoulder. "See what age does, gentlemen?" He tapped the creature on the shoulder, causing it to rock back without retreating. One hand was nearer the sword now, palm open. Amy started to look around for something to throw, if it came down to it. Something that wasn't too nice so she wouldn't feel bad about breaking it if things went poorly. Which they seemed about to. "It gives you more time to learn about the world around you. What is right with it . . ." he suddenly dashed forward, his hand reaching out to grasp the creature's belt far faster than it could react, ". . . and what is wrong." The belt released and with a clang the sword hit the floor.

"You ask people what they want and then bring weapons in?" The Doctor slid the sword to his own hand, the length of the blade appearing to dwarf him. At his feet it was another version of his shadow. "That's the work of bullies, of people who are so afraid of what the truth is that they'll go to any lengths to ensure that their version remains the accepted one." He picked up the sword, his face briefly straining under the weight. His back arched as he heaved it in front of his body. The members of the Census didn't react. "Yes, my new friend Imelda has told me all about you. What you'll do to me if I don't tell you what you want to hear."

"What we want is irrelevant." The creature stepped forward, forcing the Doctor to rock back and nearly lose his balance. Its shoulders seemed to expand as it stepped further into the house. Amy sped up her search for a heavy object. "You are to state your needs, so that when the moment arises the need will be met."

"With you as my fairy godmothers?" the Doctor asked through gritted teeth, his arms shaking as he held the sword aloft.

The creature from the Census suddenly reached out and steadied him by grasping the blade of the sword tightly in its bare palm. Amy swore she heard the sickening slick noise of the edge biting into the skin and seconds later a dark ichor began to seep onto the metal.

"Thanks, that's a big help," the Doctor gasped.

It shook the blade, forcing him to step back. He had the hilt in both hands and his face was locked in intense concentration, though a battle of strength wouldn't be much of a contest.

"The price of living is the cost of needing," it said to him, twisting the blade so that the metal bent alarmingly. The others were beginning to enter, one staring directly at Amy. She smiled disarmingly at it but put some distance between her and it. Only Inelda remained where she was, casually sipping from her beverage. "And to live in the system one must want to live in the system. That is the necessity."

"But, who, ah, made that?" The Doctor dropped to one knee, still refusing to let go. He kept his eyes locked on the representative of the Census. A second one had entered the room fully as well, imposing on it a darker shade. "Who designed the system like this."

"The necessity is-"

"Whose want is this?" the Doctor suddenly raged, pushing back hard. "Because I assure you, it is not mine and it is not the need of those who live here."

"Perpetuation is assured," it rumbled. They were trying to flank Amy now, not very hard when one of them took up half the room. The walls were curved out and bulbous, like a hand had fallen flat on the roof and squished the still soft house. It didn't have corners or edges. Just lopsided open windows, angled so sunlight wouldn't wantonly spill in.

"Doctor," she said, "this would be a good time for something brilliant."

But the Doctor hardly heard her. Struggling with the sword, he didn't see the other massive hand reaching for his head, a black hole with fingers. "Your system is a travesty. So who is the person I have to track down and explain this to, who do I-"

The creature lightly tapped him on the side of the face, a motion that sent him flying away from the sword and into the nearest table. He crashed into it, head thrown back and slid off onto the other side to hit the floor.

The sword was discarded with barely another glance, clattering in a lonely fashion. All three of them were in the room now, solid smoke and choking.

He shaking his head and struggling even as Amy ran to him. Just as she reached him he uncurled himself, his hand emerging from his jacket with the narrow screwdriver pointed directly at them.

"Another step, one more centimeter into this room. and I scramble your brains." All the Census paused, but not due to outward fright. They seemed merely idly curious. Amy wasn't even sure if he could do that with the screwdriver. While it would be nice right now, part of her hoped not. "You're going to back out of this room, nice and slowly, and you are going to tell your king that I am coming to speak with him. It's up to him whether it will be a discussion he enjoys. Am I clear?"

Almost lazily, the creature peered at the screwdriver, its head cocked to the side. Then, with a speed so slow as to seem comical, it wrapped its giant fist around the Doctor's hand and squeezed.

"Ah-" the Doctor gasped, throwing his head back, with his mouth open wide. One of his fingers must have hit a switch on the screwdriver, because a high pitched keening emerged from somewhere in the center of the fist.

"Sire Monarch Julius will not receive you," the creature said.

"Ah, wait, did you . . ."

"Let him go!" Amy grabbed what looked to be a vintage vase and shattered it over the creature's arm. Not even a bruise appeared. Stop this. For the first time she started to feel honestly worried. It was no longer a taunted stand-off. His face was clenched and creased, making him seem so much older. You have to make this stop.

"And unless you state, you will cease to-"

I want this to

"That's enough," a wrinkled voice said quietly.

All talking halted and attention turned to the old woman, who had stood up from the couch, her beverage finished and tea cup set aside on an end table. She smoothed the front of her smock and strode with delicate steps over to the lead representative of the Census.

"You're going to leave right now. You've far exceeded your welcome here." Her eyes narrowed as she regarded the creature, who merely stared back at her like she was some curiosity. In the meantime, the second silent one had come up behind Amy, not acting but simply remaining.

"He has not stated his-"

"Look," Inelda said with some exasperation. "I've tolerated this behavior for this long because I understand you have a job to do. But that tolerance only goes so far. You need to leave. Now."

Nothing budged in the room, not even the air. The old woman made a little tsk with her lips and shook her head. "You seem to misunderstand your purposes more and more lately. This man here has done nothing wrong."

"He has not stated-"

"Feel the world around you!" she snapped and Amy felt all the hairs on her arm stand up. "There's no breath of it at all. He has no need to state it yet. You're exceeding the bounds of your positions by forcing it from him. You are enactors, not enforcers." The only other sound in the room was the Doctor's now muted gasping. "Look to it, when the time comes he will know the choice and the price. Your job is to ensure he is aware of that."

The representative from the Census swung its head about ponderously, partially like it was trying to find the woman properly and partially like it was stalling for time.

"He must decide, eventually," was all it said.

"So must we all, every day," she told it, just as solemnly. The Doctor's face had taken on a kind of distant, thoughtful strain, as if he had shunted the pain to another part of his brain entirely. The screwdriver could still be heard faintly, screaming for help. "That is the way and I accept it as you do. But you need to leave."

The creature didn't move.

This time the old woman bristled, a part of her face trembling. "Do not overstate your role, sirs. You do not need this now. If the time comes and he has not stated his need, you will know. And you will find him." She stepped closer, so close that if it sneezed it could decapitate her. "So I'm warning you, don't overstep here. Or I could use my want to take your voice away, so when the time comes for stating you are without speech."

"You would have no armor," it said, but seemed to shiver all the same.

The old woman smiled thinly. "And neither would you. I've survived far worse than you. I'm willing to assume the risk. Are you?"

It locked gazes with her for perhaps another half-minute. Then, a chime hanging from the ceiling dinged so quietly it was almost imperceptible, perhaps touched by a stray wisp of air.

The effect was the same as a gunshot. With a casual toss, the lead representative from the Census released the Doctor, who collapsed in a full heap on the floor.

Turning to its fellow, it gestured for them to leave in a sharp motion and in seconds, and in silence, all three of them were out the door and gone. The room didn't get any brighter. Not a single one looked back to see the old woman watching them go.

On the ground the Doctor was very still and face down. Amy bent down to him swiftly, tugging at his arm so she could see if any damage was done. Not that she would know what to do, it wasn't even like she could call Rory since they were God knew where.

"Doctor, are you-" she started to say, but when she turned him over he wasn't paying attention to his hand at all. His face was alert and his eyes were wide, searching her and seeing past her. Wide and dark and worried.

"The king's name . . . they said it was Julius," he whispered.

---

"What did you want, ultimately, Julius?" The Doctor struggled back to one knee, ignoring the gash on his head, the dust coating his face. One side of his coat was torn, and one arm was hanging limply, perhaps a little off-center.

"That is a question we should be asking you, Doctor," the king said, staring straight ahead.

The Doctor cast one brief sad glance down at the Census representative at his feet. It was curled up on the floor, legs drawn up like it was sleeping. Or recoiling from a terrible dream. There was a stain of blood oozing out from underneath it, spreading closer to the Doctor's boot. "None of this," he said softly. "You haven't told me yet. What the point of all this is."

"The point is to ensure that everyone lives." There was a charred mark on the polished stone above the king's head but otherwise his lined face looked unperturbed.

"By making them state their demand for it every day?" The Doctor went to step sideways but his leg buckled beneath him and he went tumbling, righting himself again within seconds. He winced, opening his mouth but failing to cry out. "And killing them if they don't ask? What kind of a system is that, Julius?"

"I told you the last time you asked-"

"I know what you said!" the Doctor shouted, his voice echoing in the heightened rafters of the room. One of the doors on the other end of the room was hanging on a single hinge, and a large circular window was cracked. The castle was creaking, searching for feeling in its bones. "And I am going to keep asking until you give me an answer that makes sense!"

"There are mechanisms to measure-"

"Julius." The Doctor was speaking very quietly, his voice still carrying. "I don't think you are hearing me here. I can see the engine you've constructed here. I can see all the gears and all the people caught in the gears. That's what I do, you see. I look very carefully and I can see how all the parts intersect, how they grind up perfectly good people." He reached inside his coat. "I'm going to jam the gears if I can, Julius, because if there is one thing I cannot stand, it is the foul smell and the constant grinding of machines that serve no purpose. But before that happens, there is one thing I need to know."

A crack in a window shivered, rattling, threatening to displace a cheerfully lit face.

The Doctor slid the screwdriver out from his coat. "What is driving the engine?"

"The Census is going to be here shortly." The glass was rattling against itself, a frantic Morse code without letters. Sound for emotion. The endless warning. "They're going to want an answer from you."

"Do you know what this is, Julius?" He held the screwdriver up at eye level. The end of it was glowing brightly and a rising hum could be heard. "It's a sonic device. A rather powerful one. Why is it powerful? Because I built it." It shifted pitch. "It can do a lot of things, so many that one day I'm going to have to write them down and when I do it's going to fill a very large book. Right now you need to concern yourself with only one setting."

Julius blinked, a shimmer in his eye. "Doctor, you don't understand-"

"I understand perfectly. I understand that people are dying if they don't submit themselves to your rule." He began walking forward, staggering, limping, each level step taking him up the side of a mountain. The king didn't flinch but instead seemed to lean forward, awaiting the shortening of the gap. "I understand that my best friend is now in great danger somewhere underneath this castle. I understand all this because I have a perfectly good grasp of the situation." The humming was rising, fall out of known sound. It was drowning out the shuddering of the window. The king glanced at the Doctor, then at the window and back to him again.

"They are coming, Doctor, and you need to be prepared. I won't be able to stop this if you don't-" A trace of hoarseness had crept into his words.

"I need you to understand some things, first, however." The Doctor was holding the screwdriver over his head. Behind the door there was the clomping of many feet, and muttering voices conjoining. "I need you to understand that we are surrounded by stone and that stone has certain resonances. And when those resonances are achieved . . ." he slid a button on the screwdriver and suddenly the whole room rumbled around them. ". . . the stone will vibrate itself apart. Do you follow, Julius?"

"We are as much a prisoner in this as you are-"

"Oh, spare me," the Doctor sneered. "I'm going to make this very simple for you. Abdicate and dismantle this travesty you call a system, or I will bring the entire room down around our heads." There was a fuzz on the edges of his voice, passing through the violence of the vibrations.

"This isn't like you, Doctor." The Doctor didn't answer and the king suddenly stood up, his legs wobbling. The chimes around his head were swinging crazily, providing an atonal soundtrack. "Doctor!"

The Doctor only smiled and raised the screwdriver higher. The whole room was shaking now, with one of the doors tilting further and further to the side, threatening to fall off entirely. Voices were shouting, rumbling like a detached hillside, sweeping closer with every second. Some of them seemed to be coming from outside, past the window. The crack was growing wider and longer in the glass, a river expanding, forming tributaries.

"You were never suicidal, Doctor. We know this." The king took a wobbly step away from the throne, nearly fell and had to steady himself on the armrest. "Do you remember that discussion we had years ago, outside the library? You said the greatest argument for life was life itself, and it should never be willingly surrend-"

"This is the wrong time to remind me about old history, Julius!" the Doctor shouted over the din. "I would save your breath for more useful words!"

Behind him the doors burst open but it wasn't clear but there was only darkness beyond it, and the hints of other footsteps.

"But don't you see, Doctor? Don't you see?" He stumbled forward, fell into the Doctor, who arched his back but refused to fall. The screwdriver never wavered. The king's face was taut, his blue eyes boring into the Doctor with an urgency that had nothing to do with the situation. "What you said, is the whole reason for this." A few rocks shook loose from the ceiling, and fell near them in a half-circle pattern. The king flinched and flung out his words more desperately. "Your words are what we try to run this society on."

---

I want

the hands on her throat just pushing and squeezing and pushing

and the air was getting dimmer and dimmer there was a tunnel

somewhere in her head receding and a groaning in her ears that

was not the groaning the one that would save her

and

oh God I want

someone kept asking her in a very serious voice the question asking

the question would have to be this question it was getting so hard to

I want I want I

her nails were digging into skin that wouldn't budge, it was leather and she

she was flailing and falling the wall was biting into her back and the world

what was the world?

the world was

I I I wa

a giant pair of black coal eyes so far away she had taken a breath hours ago and

she needed another one why couldn't she take another one why did

I want you t

the world smell like decay and false perceptions and money left too long

out in the rain

and hitting the arms she had been lifting for hours and there was no

oh God no strength and there were vices wrapped around it was so hard

to

to

I want this to

her throat was closing and the words were trapped in her throat and

someone kept trying to scream very far away underneath the idle need

of the urgent

I want you

the question was Amy what did you want Amy the question

everywhere and the clamps on her throat and she

was hitting so hard that it hurt it hurt so much against these steel

rods that

I want this to

weren't going to let her go and the wind was rising in her ear the great roaring

the wind like smoke invisible smoke and the eyes were disintegrating into

nothing just

stratifications of breathing and come on her leg was kicking air come on why

why doesn't somebody help me why is someone going to let them do this to

I want please I want

and they keep asking with their eyes and with the rushing air and with the

insatiable need closing the hole that led to her lungs with the air the air was

smelling of screaming and they were shouting and where was everyone you

you you said said you'd keep me you safe you said you you said and now now

I want goddamit I want

its up to her and the wind is blowing her hair in her face and she can taste the

shampoo strands and the unclean dust and the arms

her arms are like

heavy fire and

I want you to

sparkles are falling like dark blood in her vision in tracks in running in please

I don't want to

make this stop she wanted to ask

I want you to

please just somebody

I don't want to

the words in her throat ready

I want you to

to make this

I don't want to

make a noise

I want you to

that will

I don't want to

seconds for light where is

I want you to

please

die

---

"I want the prosperity of my life to continue."

The breeze made the flags flutter violently overhead.

The Doctor adjusted the long, low purple hat on his head and gave the merchant a curious stare. "Well I hope it does as well, but don't you think that's a little self-serving to say in front of a customer."

Amy tugged at his arm. "Come on, Doctor, don't call too much attention to yourself." She looked the hat up and down. "Well, more than you already are."

"Oh, Amy, I could do so much more than that to call attention to myself, if that was my goal." He took a few hopping steps away from the merchant stand. "I could do cartwheels. I could sing." He dashed back, nearly running into her if she hadn't brought herself up short. "I could ride a gondola made entirely of the sentient feathers of Huldare-VII, if I could convince them to come out of the TARDIS."

Amy blinked. "Wait, we have living feathers in the TARDIS?"

"Yeah, somewhere, probably." He stood facing a wall like he was staring into a mirror, adjusting his bow tie and the hat on his head. "They stopped paying rent years ago so I guess they're technically squatters now but I haven't the heart to evict them. I'm getting soft in my old age. My younger old age, I guess."

"One day you're going to have to show me a map of the ship." She smiled and leaned against the wall, crossing her arms. The hairs on her skin were still up, a facet she did her best to ignore.

"I certainly will, once I get around to making one." Back against the wall now, he flexed his hand, frowning as if considering a fact that hadn't occurred to him before.

Amy rolled her eyes. "Well, we have as much chance of that happening as landing in the right spot the first time out." He didn't respond to the bait and Amy scooted a bit closer to him, bumping him with her shoulder. Suddenly the need to make small talk was vital. "How's it, then? Still hurts?

"Not really now, no. I've felt worse." He flexed his fingers individually one more time than jammed his hand into his pocket almost self-consciously. "I feel like I'm waiting for something to happen, here." His face was shaded by a mop of hair, the shadows sitting him inside a tightening triangle. She tried not to think about how his face had looked when he heard the name. "It's not a feeling I really can say I like."

"Isn't that what we normally do, though?" And shouldn't we be going somewhere? Amy brushed some hair out of her face and let her gaze wander across the expanse, the broad flat plain that existed between the stands and the buildings. Many of the merchants seemed to be lazing inside their darkened tents, surrounded by dangling objects, some metallic, some made of cloth. When they weren't speaking to a customer, their eyes kept going to the tiny flags that ringed the edges of their tents. The air seemed peppered with pronouncements in different languages, not all of them translating like they normally did, giving the area a soupy quality in its sounds, vowels mixing uncomfortably with verbs, verbs crashing into consonants, with a trilled layer of static separating each one. How many words were there? "We blunder into things and then figure out a way to save the day on the fly."

The Doctor smiled wanly at this. "You're catching onto my methods all too quickly," he said, tapping her on the nose just an inch shy. But then he seemed to lapse into an odd melancholy again. "But I don't want to be purely reactive here, I think that would be a grave mistake." He dragged one heel along the ground, strangely impatient. Yet, hesitant, too, in a manner unlike himself. "I used to be so much more proactive, Amy. You wouldn't even believe."

"So what happened?"

"I got shot by a gang and grew beautiful hair and that was the end of that." He sniffed the air, staring away from her. "That seems like a very long time ago, now. They all do." The side of his nose twitched and he went to brush at it almost absently, the motion only stopped when his hand underwent a spasm. He tucked it aside with a violent jerk. "Sometimes I almost wish . . ."

"What?" Amy let the gap trail between them. Focused on him as she was, the scene behind him became blurred, almost froze. The market was a tableau they refused to be part of. That was the design.

He snapped back against the wall, staring at her with his face turned slightly askew, the vague mad look about him again. She told herself it was the look of a genius. Sometimes. "That we could find a place that makes a halfway decent soufflé. In the whole universe, is that so much to ask?" He clasped his hands together, rubbing them vigorously. "And in a marketplace like this, I say we have a decent chance of finding one." His words were at right angles to his face.

"So we're going to keep wandering around here? Out in the open?" Amy tried to keep her tone light, like this was just a lark. The two of them, wandering. But that wasn't the case and she knew it. He knew it too, but he was ignoring it. Or counting on it. Giving her no choice but to follow him. The first merchant they passed was selling what looked to be planets inside glass jars, floating inside streams of spiraling light. She passed in front of him while one was in front of his face, distorting his features and putting a huge blue green swirling jewel where one of his eyes would be.

"Unless you want to tunnel. Or burrow, even? What's the difference between those two words, I can't say as I really understand them." He was hopping lightly again, that singular skip in his step, the one that demanded she keep up even as he would dance on the ball of his foot and pause just long enough for her to catch up. "Both of them take you down, take you deeper."

"Different ways of getting there, I guess. Moles dig, rabbits burrow. Is that enough of a difference?" One merchant had two heads and was trying to sell broad carpets that appeared to depict scenes of battles. Most of them made no sense to her eyes, perhaps cast in colors that she couldn't perceive. One head was animatedly talking to a green swathed buyer with a bulbous head and three arms. The other head was constantly muttering to itself in words that she couldn't make out.

"There has to be some kind of difference though, am I right?" She went to reach him, to catch up, but suddenly he was everywhere but near. He did a little hop over a cluster of skittering aliens that hugged the ground, while chattering wildly. He didn't even seem to notice the intrusion. "Come on, Pond, we need precision here. We need to know exactly what we're trying to say."

"Why? Are you giving me a test?" A double step, but no.

"If I did, would you pass?" The quick glance back, with just the hint of sparkle.

Her response was just the right degree of indignant. "I haven't failed a test in my life!"

"Then we might as well start now, since you're constantly prepared." He let his tongue drag over the words, giving them a vaguely sarcastic air that she couldn't pinpoint. He was ahead of her, all looselimbed and flexible, seemingly ready to evaporate at any second. That's how her life felt lately, less a dream than a story that someone might become bored with at any moment and end, forcing her out of it. Or worse, never able to find the ending.

"Doctor, is this really what we should be talking about?"

"Don't change the subject now," he admonished. "Why would you do one, instead of the other?"

Amy threw up her hands. "How am I supposed to know? I'm not a mole or a rabbit! Is this really important?"

"Of course it is. Everything I say is important all the time." He turned to a passing alien, its head mostly eyes. "Wouldn't you agree?" It blinked at him and kept walking. "Or you?" Sharply. The snake-like alien hissed at him, covered in a suit of shiny reflective scales. But he didn't notice, having already turned. "Or even you?" The gaseous cloud had no face at all, and thus no immediate reaction. Parts of it seemed to flicker pink, however. "Or you?" It wasn't even clear who he was talking to that time. "All these people could be counting on your answer, Amy."

She didn't even bother answering him, only looking down in the hopes she wouldn't have to see him. His shadow capered ahead of her, flickering in the light breeze, sand dancing through it. She hated when he would get like this, more a teacher than a friend, trying to instill lessons in her without any clear or immediate point. She wanted to see the universe, not be subjected to metaphorical parables about it. What are you doing here? Why won't you let me understand you?

But eventually the words forced their way out of her. She couldn't bear to let him have the last word. "Why would they be doing that?"

"Because they can't express it themselves." He stamped his foot into the ground, propelling himself maybe six inches into the air. His voice was a bark, a rubber band breaking. Two brown cloaked men stopped in their quiet chanting to stare at him, golden skin shimmering, before turning back to their monotonous steps. His hand was at his side, clenched tightly and slightly bent. The look on his face was in his stance. "You have a whole city here, maybe even a whole planet that can't bear to cry for help. That don't even know how anymore." He stopped in the middle of the fairway and spun around to face her. His posture was slanted, just an inch shy of angry. She had never seen him like this before. "They've been taught to ask, to beg for something that should be given naturally. That should be the basic right of every living being!" He shouted the last few words, throwing his head back. As if the sky might concur. A few gazes turned toward him but there was a gentle constant murmuring that Amy was becoming more aware of, one that refused to cease.

Amy went to put her hands on his shoulders, caught between nervousness and laughter. The memory of the Census was all too fresh in her mind, the grim and implacable weight of them. The invisible mass of their motion. She looked around quickly, expecting one of them to rise up at any moment, to have questions inside questions. A statement must be. "Doctor, what are you-"

But he shrugged her off, like her touch had become caustic. "And not a single person protests, not a single person even questions what has happened here. They don't have the breath for it. You heard Inelda. This is the way of life, how the system works." He was spitting out each word as if barbed, like he had eaten a skeleton and was vomiting up the sharp parts. And it was all sharp parts. "Do you know how much that burns in me, knowing that? Do you have any conception of what a place like this does to me? People who don't know what the difference is between how they live and how they could live."

It was his turn to grab her by the shoulders now, but he pulled her close, so quickly that she thought she they were going to bang heads. Instead he stopped just before their foreheads touched. His eyes seemed to change color in the light, turquoise to grey to azure. He spoke so quietly that each word was a hammer. "And the difference comes down to words. So I am asking you now, Amelia Pond, to tell me what that difference is. Because I don't know how else to demonstrate to them."

The contours of the market seemed to blur and bend around her, colors warping into other states, drifting into a dust ridden haze while all sound slowed and slurred, leaving only the Doctor in sharpened focus, the glint of his teeth, the pitch of his nose, the tremendous thunder of his breathing so close to her. A breeze was beginning to stir his hair, the strands of it tickling her forehead, and maybe it was his breath or maybe it was coming from outside, each flap of cloth its own snap of weight, each hiss a razor that refused to leave a mark.

His words circled in her, becoming the pivot that the market whirled around, motion without action. Her life in a box, fraught with variable boundaries. The old woman had wanted to say but she only had so much space to say. How do you explain the rain when wetness was all you knew? It just was. He was sunshine striping the dark, riding the whim of a merry dare. The ribbons obscuring, forming coats without sleeves and in colors that rainbows couldn't carry the weight of. The scent of endless meadows above, fresh dirt painting the sky clean. He had promised her all this and had never asked a single token for it. Except for this. A line. A delineation of sorts. But she needed the why of it, so acutely that it strung. It hurt, the same way she knew his hand did. The same way she knew he did, seeing a man scream a wish out into the air. It did threaten to drive him mad. But she couldn't tell why and in order to tell him she needed the notion of it. The secrets unpeeled.

The wind rattled her teeth, a chill without cold. It was possible, all the tiny voices of her life whispered. His hands were on her neck, breathing every other second through lungs that looked like seashells, with infinite chambers of peace. Hidden folds. There was so much she had to know. Could the old woman have been right? If a single word could make him tell, if a single word came from her to ask, would that be a crime? Would that be so terrible? Her shirt was no protection from the relentless lack of heat. The rest of the world had gone quiet, tongues poised where there were tongues to pose. A single certain need was imminent, bulging out of her like a seed. What do you want, Amelia Pond? In his voice. In her voice. In all the voices that had ever crossed her hearing, the way all the colors bled into white light. A shiver would bring it forth. A single, near shiver.

He was waiting for an answer, the daft fool. But she had something else.

The barest taste was too much. "Doctor, I want to know-"

The violence of his expulsion was enough to give her whiplash. The world arced and exhaled and shuddered.

Amy stumbled back, every string on her suddenly broken, all her muscles jerking. She was struck from the inside of her own head. Gravity worked like an insidious prankster, took her down. Took them both down.

She saw the Doctor from below, and nearly at her level, rocking back onto his heels, so close to the ground. One hand behind him, to stabilize him, to steady him. His eyes were wide and for the first time since he had met him, he looked pale.

"Amy . . ." he breathed, the way air could form a cone so hard it might cut you. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, that was . . ." He wiped at his arm with a sleeve, as if trying to change the view. "I didn't realize what . . ." His face went rubbery, contorted, some place just left of anguish. "I didn't realize how close it . . ."

Amy gasped through her open mouth, trying to find a way to swallow past the sudden hoarse grittiness. The air had gone stagnant again, and for the worse. Black dots were appearing in the periphery, hovering.

"What is this place?" That might have been her.

"A burrow." One of the dots suddenly kicked her, lightly. Startled, she shifted her hand and found it firmly planted in a sticky substance. "Because burrows are places you dig into to convince yourself that you are someplace safe. Buried, away from everything."

A set of feet came into view then, held up by legs that seemed too thin for it. They casually tapdanced over to the Doctor, to lightly kick him as well. He barely seemed to notice. He was staring straight ahead, directly at Amy, and breathing heavily.

"They're destinations, only. And traps. While tunnels . . ." Two of the blocky feet stamped the ground, displacing hardly any sand. ". . . tunnels are what you dig when you want to get somewhere." The feet, held under a rounded and small shadow, reversed away. "Or when you've finally decided that you want to escape."

A single foot made a scar in the dirt as a scratched murmur. It left a glistening trail hardly long enough to follow. "That's the answer to your question. In case you actually wanted one."

The Doctor turned, finally coming back to himself, and went to speak, but by then the feet had already retreated, to be readily and dispassionately swallowed by the crowd.

---

"Which did you want?" Amy asked, closing her eyes and heaving herself to a better sitting position. The two of them couldn't stay here. "The tunnel or the burrow?"

Quiddoth didn't respond right away and for a frightening second Amy thought the alien had died. Her breath caught on something sharp in her chest, but she didn't want to consider that was less sadness over the alien's demise as having to face the prospect of being left down here by it.

But it rustled a second later, its voice becoming dry and jagged leaves scraping together. "The tunnel, of course. I was never one to revel in false comfort." One leg stiffened, brushing against another leg that was bent in the wrong direction. "I can feel the vibrations through the stone, others are coming. They're sweeping the corridors. You need to leave, human."

"Later," Amy said dismissively, trying to figure out how she might carry him. Her own legs were stiff from sitting against the wall but she could work that kink out in a minute. She had to keep moving, that was the key. That would keep her from thinking. I didn't really want it. I was scared. Aren't I allowed to be scared?

"There was a point in my life where I believed the burrow was all I needed." Each word was coming in between a labored breath, with a rattle like a broken fan coming from somewhere deep inside it. She didn't even know if the alien had proper lungs. The Doctor kept promising to give her a book on alien anatomy but he said the library kept moving on him. Why they never went to a future library and just checked the book out was beyond her. Sometimes he went for the most complicated solution possible. "I think we all did. The idea that we could live as long as we wanted in peace, as long as we made that our stated intention every day. It was tempting. Too tempting, as it turned out."

Amy stood, ducking to avoid hitting her head on the ceiling. Her body was aching, worse than their usual running around corridors could cause. A deep seated ache in the center of her bones and a certain tiredness. Was that how the Doctor felt all the time, in the moments when he leaned back and attempted to relax, when he thought she wasn't looking at him? The running, all the time. Never stopping. Doing it for a few months was beginning to wear at her. He'd been doing it for centuries, if he was to be believed.

"But it becomes smothering after a while, to curl up so deep underground. Stifling. You begin to want to pound against the walls, find some larger space." Quiddoth scratched at a stray portion of his body. A piece of it seemed to detached, and he discarded it without comment. The pool of liquid and grime beneath him had stopped spreading but Amy wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. "It's not until you're buried so deep that you realize what kind of a trap it is. And the only way out risks bringing the whole structure down on top of you."

Amy went to the end of the corridor as far as she dared. It branched, of course, both sides equally dark. The other direction was the one they had come from. That way led back to the Doctor, but it was nowhere she wanted to go right now. Also, she saw the splayed feet of a fallen soldier peeking from around the corner, just barely blending into the gloom. She hurried back to Quiddoth, bent down to him. "Come on, can you stand?"

The alien looked at her with what she assumed was resigned surprise. "Don't be foolish. There are only two options for us here."

"I was never a girl to limit my options." She tried to take his arm and wrap it around her shoulders, heave the alien to its feet. She had no idea how heavy it was. The two weeks at the gym for a failed New Years resolution probably wasn't going to help her here. Quiddoth's other hand was still gripping the gun, unable to let go.

But the free hand suddenly gripped her wrist strongly, and yanked her both close and to the side. Its face was trampled soil, ruined without new growth appearing. It had tried to seal some of the harsher wounds, but the movement of its jaws kept bringing them apart. If it hurt, Quiddoth gave no sign. "You are either leaving without me to enter into your own peril, or staying here to die."

Amy did her best to pull back. "Nope, told you. I don't listen very well to what other people tell me to do. Ask the Doctor. Once he finds us."

The grip on her arm tightened. "Then I will not tell you what to do. I will merely tell. You are in grave danger, human. You have stated your want for this cycle." Her eyes must have given her away, because the alien made a rasping sound. "Yes, I noticed. I know the sound of fulfillment, after so many years of grudgingly subjecting myself to it."

The world went blurry for a second and before she knew it she was sitting down, hard. "I didn't . . . it just came out. I didn't mean to . . ."

"Worse mistakes have been made." Its voice became something closer to tender. "And a mistake made for life isn't much of a mistake at all. But it changes nothing. You have accepted our system by the very act of it. You are now bound. Like all of us, bound."

Amy felt her insides become very cold. "What do you mean?"

"Let me ask you. What would you prefer, given the choice? The burrow or the tunnel?" Its hand relaxed around her wrist just slightly, one gnarled finger stroking the skin, seemingly for the contact.

"Neither," Amy blurted out. "I never liked being underground. The humidity buggers my hair. That's why we're leaving. Come on."

Quiddoth suddenly winced and this time Amy felt the vibration through its fingers. And through the soles of her sneakers as well.

"Yes," it said, so very quietly. Already the shadows were drooping. "They are nearly here. But even if you escape, the binding remains." The world wavered as her head went light. Suddenly all of time and space were a cage that were still too small. No. No no no. "If you do not state your desire to live every day, then they will find you, and they will kill you. That is the system you now inhabit. The system our cowardice engineered." The next vibration might have merely been a weakening spasm. "On behalf of us all, I am so very sorry."

---

"State the definitive nature of your want." The representative from the Census was a sunspot brought down low, silhouetted in a deeper darkness.

Everyone has moved away, though other pieces of the Census were circulating amongst the crowd. All of them had their swords out, the tips hovering near faces and throats and stomachs. Not threatening but factual. The dirt kept swirling in rising concentric circles, mimicking the feeling in her stomach.

The Doctor straightened, his stance still slightly bowed. "It's going to come down to this, isn't it?" he asked softly. "It always does, when power is at stake."

"No!" From the crowd, a singular shriek. There wasn't even a ripple inside. "My child was hungry and couldn't say so I . . . so I-" Amy more felt than saw the Census representative's arm go down, sharply and so casually. So easily. The scream was barely a whimper.

The Doctor closed his eyes briefly. "Which of us wants to impose our beliefs more."

"You have not stated." A bit of dust hit the soldier in the eye, but it didn't react. The tip of the sword was moving nearer to his throat, with the glide of the inevitable. "You must state."

"I refuse, like before."

"This is not before." A flag snapped free of its pole and went sailing into the sky, fluttering in protest. "The moment is upon us and refusal is not permitted. It will not be allowed." The edge of the blade caught the sunlight. There was a stain on the sand, emerging slowly from the massed and loosed crowd. She expected there to be silence now, as everyone was waiting for the outcome, but instead they were all muttering, murmuring, saying words that she had no hope of making out. Each trapped in their own little crisis.

"What is the point of this?" the Doctor asked, seemingly ignoring the blade getting closer to his throat. They were just going to cut his head off. Amy wanted to race forward and tackle him, throw him to the ground and shout for him to come up with some kind of plan, with a faster plan, with a better plan. Bluffing wasn't going to work. Her legs were frozen, and suddenly she was acutely aware of the representative from the Census behind her, the walls of the cage locking into place. "What do you gain from this?"

"Gain is not the goal. Maintenance of the system is."

"But what is the system? What is the mechanism keeping it in place?" Gritty particles of dust were flying into her eyes, making her wince and cover her face. He never wavered, even as the edges of his coat began to flap around. The murmuring was growing louder, repetitive, more desperate.

"I want to continue, oh please I still want to-" This one screamed longer, and too much in her line of sight she saw a Census representative idly lift up its foot and bring it down solidly on something she couldn't see. Coincidentally, the shouting ceased.

"State your want. This is the final request." The sword tip was resting on his shoulder. "The moment is near."

"I deny your system. I will not be a part of it!"

"That is not a concern. You can be removed."

The Doctor's eyes widened just a fraction, but lost none of their resolve. "Nobody should be allowed to only have one want. Nobody should have to prove they want to live."

"That is the way," came the reply. The sword swept back as a howling went up. "The moment is here."

"Doctor!" Amy screamed, as he staggered back reflexively.

"Amy, I want you to . . ." he might have said, caught in the invisible gale.

"NO!"

---

"What does wanting have to do with it?" the Doctor asked, hands clasped behind his back and his chin tucked into his chest.

"It's the whole purpose." Inelda straightened out a chair that had been knocked over during the brief melee. Her antennae twitched to follow the sound of his words, and Amy realized how much you didn't notice them until you realized how human her face looked. She could be someone's grandmother, if they had grandmothers where she came from. Maybe everyone just grew out of the ground.

"It's a ridiculous purpose," the Doctor snapped.

"That's because you haven't existed within it," she responded calmly.

"They almost killed that guy out there because he wouldn't say that he wanted to live," Amy interjected. "What kind of a system is that?"

"One that ensures longevity." She shuffled across the room, unknotting the strings on the bag she had carried in and beginning to unpack various wrapped packages of what Amy assumed were food. It can't be that great if you still have to eat, she thought, although immortality without wanting to eat ice cream wouldn't be all it was cracked up to be. "The mechanisms of it are simple."

"The mechanisms are oppressive." He was looking at his hand, running his thumb along his palm. Amy wondered how hard the Census representative had squeezed but she had a feeling if she asked him about it he would pretend nothing had happened, or just ignore it. He could be a bit of a pisser that way sometimes. "You're not going to convince me otherwise."

"Do I appear oppressed to you?" The tone in her voice indicated a raised eyebrow, although she had none to manipulate. "The rules are the same no matter one's station. The king lives by the same as us. There are no favorites."

"Yes, the king." He pronounced the word as if drawing it past a blade. "Why even have a king, then? If everyone is so happy to be the same? Why bother with elevating someone to a higher rank."

"We may be immortal, but we are governed by laws, still. It helps to have one person overseeing their implementation." She held up one of the packages to her face and took a sniff. "Nobody ever complains about it."

"With those gentlemen from this so-called Census out to enforce his rules, how can anyone find the time to complain?" He snorted. "It's a wonder that anyone even wants for anything, really."

"You misunderstand." The room was somehow returning to some of its original brightness, achieving a dry coziness at odds with the danger that had been imminent not long before. She could easily believe it was just the house of a senior citizen, without the rambling stories of what life had been like during the Blitz. She wondered if the Doctor had ever been there. "They have nothing to do with the king's laws. We have police for that. They exist to ensure that all wants are met, and all wants are stated."

"And kill you if you don't state the right ones." The sunlight streaming in from the doorway gave him the silhouette of a drooping flower, all stem and no petals.

"We accept this." Inelda waved the package at him, and Amy swore she saw a pair of legs through the wrapping. "Don't go racing in like some kind of hero, thinking that you're saving us all. Spare us the favor. Go find another world that hates their own lives. That isn't us."

"No?" was his only question. He still refused to look anywhere but down.

"What if someone wants a different king? Can't they just ask?" There were times when she wanted to be taller. "How does that even work? Is there some genii roaming around granting everyone's wishes?"

Inelda shrugged. "Anyone could be king if they so desired, although I can't imagine why. It seems like a thankless job. He rarely leaves the palace for anything."

"Oh, he gets a palace too. You have one of those now!" His laugh was barbed, and there was a narrowed glint at the edges of his eyes. "I can't imagine how he can have anything else on his want list. Has he gotten himself a nice car yet? Or . . . or maybe he can start his own band?"

"How old are you, Doctor?" Inelda asked suddenly.

"Old enough," he said, cautious.

"An age." She put the package down on the table, and began to root for another. "Having saved your life, I believe I've earned that much from you, at the very least." This one she did unwrap, unfurling what appeared to be an edible blanket. She nibbled at the edge of it, before folding it up neatly and placing it on the table.

"I don't know the actual number." For some reason he seemed mildly embarrassed over this. "I lost count some time after a thousand."

She nodded, as if expecting that answer. "And if you were to live a thousand more years, would you feel that you have seen everything? Accomplished everything you had set out to do?" He didn't answer. "Hm, Doctor? Would you leave this existence feeling fulfilled?"

There was a slight stab of pain across his face, less a twinge than the reminder of one. "I wouldn't have even gotten started," he murmured, finally.

"And you condemn us?" There was some soft sadness in her statement, more pity than anger. "So you see, what we have here is not even a choice at all."

---

"You wanted this, didn't you?" Quiddoth lifted three of his legs and kicked out the back door. "Every story about you says you bring chaos and upheaval in your wake."

The Doctor followed after him, ducking under the shards of shattered wood that remained. "I'm sure that's merely a fault in the translation." He hung back, pausing to let Amy get in front of him. In the room beyond there was a hammering, steady and unrelenting. They would get through, she knew, it was just a matter of time. "I'm going to take you back to the TARDIS," he whispered to her. "I can summon it here and you can-"

"Are you crazy?" she hissed back. Quiddoth was scouting ahead, checking the other rooms, probably sealing all the other entrances. His hardened shell was visible through the door, muttering to himself. "You are not locking me away in your little safety box until the big boys have finished their adventure. That's not how it works."

"I won't have anything happen to you," he said firmly. The banging came again, louder, and he cast a quick glance back to where they had come from. "They're going to break through soon!" he shouted to Quiddoth.

"It should hold for a few more minutes!" the alien yelled back. "I'm more concerned that they'll find another way through in the meantime. We don't need them flanking us." There was the sound of him overturning a table. An object rolled end over end into their room, finally coming to a halt to reveal that it was a holographic image. It seemed to show two people with segmented bodies, holding bulbous shapes that could have been larva. The inside of the house seemed encased in a thin layer of dust that made her nose wrinkle. "If they make it through the door I can take care of them."

"Just find a way, I don't want you shooting anybody." The door cracked, but not all the way through, forming a single, sharpened tear. The Doctor guided Amy deeper into the house, past long and thin furniture, tables with rounded bases and hanging fixtures that were far over her head, softly glimmering in the near-light. "This is becoming far more dangerous than I would like."

Amy frowned. "I can take care of myself."

He frowned right back, with an icy glare. "Amy Pond, you are a guest on my ship and as such I'm responsible for you." He clapped her on the sides of her arms, sporting a sudden, broad smile. "I can't have anything happening to you before your wedding day, right? I promised Rory I'd get you back in one piece."

"You never promised that."

"It was implied. By taking you away, I made it this . . . implied thing." The door cracked further, although the pounding never varied in tempo. She could picture it hammering at the side of a mountain for centuries, just waiting to wear all the way through. "Make sure you leave us an exit!" he called to Quiddoth.

The alien's reply wasn't immediately heard. "I'm going to ask you this to do this willingly," he told her. He wasn't using the same tone of voice he used when talking to Daleks, which she was grateful. Sometimes he forgot the difference between disagreeing and talking down world conquerors. "Or I will simply materialize the TARDIS around you, and have it take you away like that."

Her eyes widened. "That wouldn't be fair!"

Daylight suddenly started streaming into the main room in a narrow band, dust dancing madly inside it. It took both of them a second to realize that the door had broken open further.

"I'd never speak to you again," she insisted, her words taut. She wasn't going to let him face this alone. She had seen his look back in the palace, when everything had gone wrong. He was railing against monoliths that blocked his path, and nobody wanted to help him find a way around. Just Quiddoth, and he wanted to level everything in his path.

He blinked, came near to flinching. "You'd be alive," he said, very quietly. "I could deal with that."

"So you're into staying alive at all costs now?" she shot back. His hands on her shoulders felt like he was trying to hold her in place, as if she were too light to remain grounded. "That's not too far from what everyone else wants here, isn't it?"

This time he did flinch, though only in the sideways places, not anywhere concrete. She felt his double pulse quiver through her shirt, from his arm to hers. The sunlight was punctured by a blocky fist, solid as the shadow it maintained. "Quiddoth!" he screamed, while still holding onto her. "I don't say this too often, but I think we're out of time."

The alien stuck his head through the doorway. "And if you two weren't busy arguing over who needs to be in greater danger, you might have heard me say that I've found a way into a cellar," Quiddoth noted dryly.

"Okay, then we'll-" A shadow detached itself from other elements, rose to fill the doorway behind them.

"I don't know why you think I need to listen to you," Quiddoth muttered, raising his weapon and firing it.

---

"You wanted to be right," Inelda said, looking at the Doctor sadly. Everything had stopped now. The day had become the color of a mirror that refused to reflect. "And you were." The bulk of the Census representative cast a shadow that a threatened to swallow her. "How does that make you feel?"

Amy hadn't even seen the old woman appear between them and the Census. The lead soldier's sword barely cleared the top of her skull, ready to anoint. Her antennae were jostling wildly in the wind, the only sure motion.

The Doctor's face had taken on a tinge of urgency. "Inelda, don't do this. Please. This wasn't my point."

"A statement is required from you as well," the soldier rumbled, rooted and solid. The crowd hadn't stopped speaking but suddenly they lacked any importance. The sword began to drift down toward her neck, with a slowness that was maddening.

"By living for ourselves, we lost ourselves." Even the wind couldn't carry away the weight. "And so many people were hurt."

"This isn't how you solve it." He went to grab for her, to fling her out of the path, but she shrugged him off deftly, leaving him flailing. They were in a dance, measured in segments, and the segments were counting down.

"It's a start," was her reply. "As you said, everyone has to start somewhere."

"No, she's not doing this!" the Doctor rushed ahead, trying to shove her out of the way. Unperturbed, she reached into her satchel. The day kept looping into a repeating chord, vibrating somewhere in Amy's chest. Up into her throat. She didn't know what was about to happen. There was only one page left in the script. "I'll tell you what I want!" he shouted, leaning into the Census, the wind throwing his hair askew. "I want this-"

Without any expression, she smashed a cloth into his face. It seemed to cling to him and his words became muffled screams as he staggered back, nearly losing his footing. Amy reached out to grab him, to try and steady him but his limbs were all over the place, he was a man caught in a seizure, trying to tear at the cloth, his distorted words becoming indistinguishable frantic sounds. The contours of his face, a constantly shifting topography, were clear underneath the surface, the mouth open wide and nothing escaping but pure noise, softened feedback bleeding into the uncaring air.

While, as if in opposition, Inelda spoke clearly and plainly and quietly to the representative from the Census. "I want these two to stay alive."

"The statement is accepted," the Census intoned. But the sword didn't move. In fact, the point of it began to quiver, shivering in the wind.

With an effort, Amy finally yanked the cloth off his face. He had gone limp in her arms and she nearly dropped him. "What did she do, Doctor?" She had to shake him to ensure the words penetrated. "What did she just do?"

"No." The edges of his face were red and he looked near to tears. "No, no, no."

"And your decision is made," the Census representative said, raising his sword as he stood over the old woman, dwarfing her. Already the shadow of it was a bisection.

To her credit, she never flinched.

---

"Do you want to know how she died, Julius?" the Doctor asked.

"It is all in accordance with-" the king said.

"That is not what I asked you!" the Doctor bellowed. The room was ringed with representatives from the Census, none of whom even twitched. Amy looked around nervously, wondering how all the exits had become blocked. Surely the way in was a way out as well. The Doctor always seemed to think he could figure out such details later.

"Her death was unfortunate, but duly part of the system," came the reply. A chime near his head dinged softly, as if in agreement. "Her actions were no doubt her own, and thus the consequences."

"She never made a sound, do you know that?" His boots made but the tiniest scuff when he stepped forward. A little scratch, the bare and broken rhythm. His hands were at his sides, the wounded fingers curled painfully. He hadn't even reached for his screwdriver yet. "She could have begged, she could have screamed, but she never made a single noise. And it must have hurt so much. Have you ever been stabbed, sir?" The word was thrown out as mockery. "It's the kind of pain that only intensifies as your body realizes what has just happened to it. Not even until the last seconds does it ever relent. Just nothing but twisting, searing pain . . . until its over."

"We feel that your point has been made."

"It's not fast, either. Oh no." He laced his fingers together, barely remembering to wince. His eyes were searching, probing. "It probably took place in agonizing slowness. Every second stretched out to an eternity. But she never made a sound, Julius. She had no regrets. She had lived for so long and she wanted to keep on living, I'm sure. But she chose otherwise. For me. Do you realize how big a thing that is?"

"Better than you know," the king replied, with some vague echo, and there was a heaviness to how he said it. "But you are simply belaboring-"

"I couldn't even look at her," the Doctor said and Amy thought he might be accidentally speaking his personal thoughts aloud. "I never had the chance. It was so slow for her but so quick for us. Time moves so fast when I'm not expecting it. And I couldn't reach her. Not even to save her, that wasn't possible. Your people, they know how to wound. To kill. They do it so well." He rubbed his face loosely with the back of his hand. "But I couldn't even let her know that she wasn't alone."

"Enough." There was a lingering note of finality in the word. Not that it ever stopped the Doctor.

"So she died alone in the middle of a dusty street, surrounded by strangers, and when it was over they just left her there." A section of his voice began to glow white-hot. "They just left her there."

"Do you seek to belittle us?" This time it was the king's turn to roar. But the cavernous nature of the room seemed to swallow it, render it little more than a swirl of breath in the face of a gale. "Is that your goal here? By stating these facts as if we unaware of them?"

"Her name was Inelda." The Doctor was in a different conversation entirely now. "All she wanted to be was old. And she was still so much younger than me." His fingers traced the edge of his cheek. "They all are, in a way."

"You condemn this counsel without understanding the reasons for your condemnation." A portion of the king's tunic appeared to ripple. "The system is working as it should." None of the representatives from the Census even twitched, their faces eyeless and chiseled, for all appearances apparently sleeping. It was just the three of them in the room. Amy wished that wasn't the case.

"I walked through blood to get here, Julius. I have left footprints on your nice palace floors. Would you like to go see it?" He stamped his foot, as if trying to make another mark on the polished marble-like surface. The windows seemed to shiver, rattling in taut cages. "That isn't the mark of a system, it is proof of a failure."

"She would not have done it if she had not wanted it. You can rest your mind easy in that fact. That is the way things work here." The king wasn't so much defending as explaining to a toddler who didn't quite grasp why people had to stop at certain traffic signals. It felt like one of those arguments where Amy's parents would end with Because that's just the way things are.

"She wanted me to have a chance to dismantle what you've done here!" The Doctor wasn't focusing properly, or he was focused on all the wrong angles. He had just barged in, a sonic blast to the face of the first guard, doors opening in his wake, constructed himself an intricate straight path that might have led through a wall if that had gotten in his way. She remembered the guard screaming, clutching his eyes, blinded. Temporary, the Doctor had said. It was all just Time. That wasn't like him. She wished Quiddoth had come along, hadn't abandoned them.

The king rumbled underneath his own words. "You keep using our given name, sir. But we do not recognize your countenance. May you wish to enlighten us?"

That he and Quiddoth hadn't argued before coming here.

"You know who I am, Julius." The Doctor tilted his head down, stared up at the king.

Don't do this. The alien's last words, before departing them. Tender and hard-edged, the two of them debating over the nature of corpses. Or maybe that was how it sounded, when all the phrases were remembered. In here, even the echoes had alternate meanings.

"We can safely say we have never met your like before." The king leaned forward, pressing his hands together. "Now, if you have nothing new to say to this counsel, then this audience shall come to an end."

"The Day of Falling Flowers, have you forgotten that?" The Doctor took another step forward. "In the square, you led the crowd in a song, and nobody knew the words but they were learning as they went, following you. Your voice was the loudest, and you kept laughing. Everyone was."

"What?" The king only had space for the one word. Amy swore she saw the arm of a Census representative twitch, the sword tip a bare centimeter over the floor. If they started moving it would only take them three steps to reach where they were standing. That would take seconds. "How do you . . . how you do remember . . ." His voice had become a haunted echo. Don't do this, Quiddoth had said.

"There was so much laughter," the Doctor continued. "The air seemed to just hold it . . ." he clenched his fist, the wounded one, lifted it to his chest. It was only shaking slightly. "Hold it until it was full to bursting. And the children kept running around, they were streaks of rainbows, the flowers had started melting in the rain and everyone was becoming covered in hues. The smoke, you couldn't even smell the smoke from the hill at that point, the fires had gone out. The machines had all been washed away, you said they wouldn't even leave a footprint. And they didn't. I looked for the hill when I got here, and it's gone. I couldn't find it if I didn't know. How long ago was it now?"

"Ages," the king whispered. He was peering at the Doctor closer now, trying to look beyond the skin, trying to see something in the mannerisms maybe. Like he was expecting a different face entirely. Amy didn't understand, the Doctor used to comment how he was once taller or fatter but it just seemed like rubbish hyperbole, the way she always remembered the times she once had bigger thighs. It didn't make her a new person. Just one with larger thighs. Don't do this. That wasn't all he had said. The last parting comment, in a world where all the moments were gathered into a portrait and shattered, reassembled by random, at random. The life driven. "The children lost their color, and became like the rest of us."

The Doctor only nodded, his mouth drawn in a tight line. "That was your job, to keep that from happening." He laughed, all gnarled and prickly. "You know what the funny thing about that time was? That I came in expecting to do something. The sky was clogged, it had gone black and geometric. The smog could lacerate you simply by breathing it in. And you and Arinis, stood up and said, no, we have this. We don't need your help. Just watch. And for the first time in my life, the only time in my life, I believed you. I sat back. Do you know how hard that is for me?"

"No," the king breathed, his eyes opening a fraction wider. Don't do this, Quiddoth had warned.

"And you had it. Without me. I was just a bystander. I've never felt like that before, I've always been inside events. Until they get inside of me." His shoulders had taken on a particular downward slant, finding the new weight. "Is Arinis still under the hill, then?"

"He remains there, yes." The king was answering automatically, numb words pulled out of frozen lips. "It was his decision."

"'I will fertilize the new age,' he said. 'And around me will grow only beauty.' They had already infected him, the nano-machines were rampaging through him. He was sparking in the last moments I saw him, his eyes had become circuits and he could no longer see. But he laughed, and oh. His whole body wrapped in tangles of electricity, and he still walked, right into it. He insisted." Don't do this. The Doctor's voice had become low and etched. "He was so very brave."

"Aye."

"And so were you, Julius. You walked with him into the hill, so he wouldn't have to be alone." His eyes closed too briefly. "The last thing I saw before it all came down into collapse was the two of you, arm in arm, silhouetted in the doorway, in that baleful orange light. Walking, without hesitating. One of you was even whistling. I stayed outside because you didn't need me. And I loved you all for it."

"Who are you?" The king was shivering now, and the representatives from the Census were shivering along with me, the tips of their swords creating a violent and insistent low humming in the room. What you're walking into, is not what you remember, the alien had warned and he had been so sincere. "There was no one else there with us."

"What happened?" The Doctor's plea stopped just short of a demand. "You replaced a monstrosity with beauty. Why didn't you just stop there?"

Don't use your words on him.

"No one else but one." The king's gaze had taken on some measure of steel.

"Why did you have to go try and improve it?" Sad, and solid.

"We know who you are." There was little joy in the statement.

"Of course you do. You always remember the one who ensures your tears aren't burned away by flames." His smile was every knife. "Hello again, Julius." Don't do it. "This isn't like the time before."

"Doctor."

Don't remind him.

As one, every single member of the Census twitched.

"This time, you do need my help."

Whatever fool plan you have.

The king stood from his throne. "No," he answered softly.

As one, every sword was lifted.

Amy moved closer to the Doctor. But caught at the focus of the center, he was no shield.

"We have declared that this audience is at an end."

Just don't do that.

And as one, every member of the Census stepped toward them.

---

"Amelia Pond, I want you to listen to me."

Shouting everyone was

shouting and

his voice was coming from all sides, dimensional pockets with mathematical precision aligning themselves in perfect harmony.

"I need you to listen to me."

His hand the only sure grasp the anchor of the world was unraveling and they were racing through corridors of tilted squares, dodging days of ruination and this was supposed to be a holiday every time they went into some bloody place it would supposed to be a vacation and here they were with this with the woman who had been

"Doctor, they . . . they . . ." her own voice was breathless, beamed in from a radio station that wouldn't exist until the future, drowned out in the past and

the old woman they had

a figure ahead, sharpened light chiseled against opposing sunshine and

squealingithurtherears

the dark colossus went down tumbling against the wall and grabbing at air and

want tell us

what do you

tell us

what you

state what it is

the old woman with the placid expression on her face as it

came down and

that you want what do you

again and

again and

again and

"They surrounded her and they just kept . . ." Words were spears coiling back at her in infinite light, slowing down until they were hardened black spheres passing her as they ran in abrupt directions

"Ssh, Amy . . ."

a blade in the path and the screechscream

falling away, turning

"They didn't stop, even after she-"

There was a heart too big for her body in her chest and it was choking her, it was crowding out her lungs and it was impossible to breathe around the mass of it and he kept moving, he was tweed quicksilver, dragging her along in his endless wake of orderly masses and the parting of fevered crowds and the shouting kept dancing past her as snarling insects and

another, approaching with barbed sentences

you have to state your

and down, in misted static

"Amy, you have to stop pulling-"

Bodies on the square as tree trunks caught in hurricanes, pieces scattered and all the jigsaws of the world wouldn't be enough for the king's men to get them back together again and no one nobody no one

"She's dead, why did they do it?" There was a taste in her mouth like a night of terrible drinking but normally there were good memories to go with it, warmth, the boy with the liquid eyes and the blurred hands, the dance along the riverbank trying to catch her own reflection. None of that here. "She knew what was going to happen and they did it and she just stood there and what . . . what just happened, Doctor, what is-"

The corner is sliver edged and they are around as a plummet and there is hardness on her back and shimmering hardness before her, hands planted on her shoulders and his ancient boyish face and the sun seen through cloisters

and a flag high above

still against the wind

drooping against the

against

"Amy." He was a microscope and she was the wrong end, fogging up the lens. "You are correct, you are absolutely correct. She is dead and there was no reason for it. I will not forgive them." In a bar so far on the edge of names that it had to be titled in emotions of desperation, a soldier had burst into tears upon seeing them. "But there is something terribly wrong and dangerous here. These people are being kept enslaved by their own wants and I can't figure out how." The Forever Warrior had come for him, finally, he had said through his own sobbing. To make sure that all payment was extracted for that foul day.

her stillness and why but why

why hadn't her breathing slowed

down yet why

"Because those soldiers keep killing them!" Some days the cinders were still fresh in his nostrils, and all his sorrow could not wash away the smell.

"It's more than that." His face was everything, bereft of weight it managed to loom.

and the ceaseless hacking of sound in her head wouldn't stop

ritualized up and down

and down and up and

steady and

I have walked further from the field than I have ever deserved

and he took out a pistol and he

he put it to his head and he

"More than just a system of rules. There has to be." An abacus in his head spanned dimension. They existed in the equidistant center. "The populace far outnumbers the muscle. They could overpower them at any time. Or just leave. Something is keeping them here."

while he sloped in a slump of an angular fashion and never said a word

"What could make someone live in this?"

And the arms went up and the

arms went down and the arms

never

stopped

"Two things." Fingers pressed against her skin. One two one two. The pressure of his pulse, light as a skipped stone.

"Fear."

a quickening at the edges as the flag went into

the first entered the limits of their orbit

"Or there is something in this system that makes it worth staying."

already tugging her, the strings of their flighted pursuit snapping

into other

and at the end another eclipse

and the words of

you must state

you are to state your

what do you

getting closer, nearer, closer

you must say what you

"In a few seconds, I am about to do something that will be vastly foolish but remarkably effective." His skin was leaves and feathers, in the seconds before release.

say what you want

you must state what you

what do you

"And when I do that, I need you to run as fast as you can."

nearer in synchronized step in parallel in marches of even parades

"Can you do that?"

and the swords were closing the gaps by being so near and

a squeeze of his hand of the crinkle of time that was all she

tell us what you

want do you

"Then, Amy, get ready to-"

the pitch sung out and he

do you

he did

do-

nothing

as the pitch sung again

and again and

state-

the first slab regained its weight with a thud and

the second performed a ballet to the earth and

the wind licked a thin layer of sweat off her and

a series of feet stomped lightly through the wreckage belonging

to just one

to only one

who said

"Before you dig yourself in any deeper, why don't you let someone show you the way through a tunnel?"

---

"I wanted nothing more than time to experience what age was like." Her eyes weren't asking for his approval. He sat on the chair all rigid coils, his hands drawn up to his chin and his eyes fixated on spaces that they weren't able to see yet. "We are a long lived people, where I come from, but even that is nothing when compared to galaxies and stars and the time it takes for one word to reach from one to another."

Inelda handed Amy a cup of what she assumed was some kind of tea. The Doctor had declined, saying he didn't like it anymore. Not unless it was dipped in mustard. After blowing on it to cool the liquid off, she took a sip. It was sweet and with traces of both mint and hazelnut. Or maybe it was her tongue playing tricks on itself, because in the next sip she tasted cherries and chocolate.

"You're not the first one who's wanted to live forever. " The Doctor crinkled his hand without moving it, his eyebrows drawn down. "Most people find that it isn't all that they ever wanted."

"I wanted to see mountains rise, oceans change contours, I wanted to see the stars form new constellations." She had prepared a small cup for herself and sipped at it with a delicate gentility, the wisps of stream curling around her face. "I wanted to feel a sense of permanence, to not be a wisp dispersed on the rocks of Time, forgotten for the scant second that I had existed."

"You have no conception of how long a billion years actually is." He was squeezing his hands together, kneading them, pressing the blood to the surface. "By the time you've lived a hundredth of it, you're so tired."

"You speak like a man who has had experience." She was studying him carefully, maybe for the first time.

"I've seen a million years go by slower than I would like," he ventured, without elaborating. There was a section of the TARDIS where an orchard was planted for baby universes. They thrived if you sang showtunes to them. Or so she was told. He wouldn't allow her to get anywhere near it. Sometimes she wondered if she would ever be allowed past the console room. "There's a reason why stars go supernova. They just get tired of burning all the time. They want to go cold, and blend into the dark. It's the closest they get to a rest."

"I'd take the chance, honestly." One of her antennae dipped into the tea, shook itself dry. "I would like the chance to decide it for myself."

"And that's what living here can get you? A shot at immortality?" A stab of disgust curled at his features. "That wasn't how I left things." The last came out as a near murmur, a page of history fluttering from his eyes.

"If one wants it badly enough."

"Want. Want." He stood up as a shot, a rubber band bristling with elastic. "That's the word here that everyone keeps using, like it has some kind of power."

"It can be a very powerful word," Amy chimed in. "Just ask a kid at Christmas."

"That is because here your wants can become material, Doctor." She came around the couch and stood face to face with him. There was a set to her that was immobile. Like Amy's own grandmother had once been, steadfast in her refusal to accept anything. Retirement, a nursing home, the stroke that cornered and corralled her. The last time Amy could remember seeing her, she said, in a voice like brittle spider-webs, You die only when you accept that it's possible. And I don't want to. "Anything you wish for can become true. If you wish to be taller, then all you have to do is state it. If you would like wealth, or a companion, or the ability to run quickly, all of that can be possible."

This didn't seem entirely bad to Amy on the face of it. "So if I wanted my boyfriend to have muscles like a bodybuilder, all I'd have to say is that I want Rory to-"

"Amy." He drew her up silent with just the tone of his voice, like the sternest teacher she had ever encountered. He wasn't even looking at her, that was the worst part of it. Eyes on all sides of his head. "Don't. Be very careful what you say around here." Body tilted just slightly forward, he stepped forward and regarded Inelda, who continued to sip at her tea. "There's a catch though. There always is. Or else this whole planet would be full of palaces and kings and piles of money and all that nonsense that people wish for when they don't have imaginations."

Inelda swallowed calmly. "Of course there is. The system has to check itself, or else people would certainly abuse it."

"Instead of just being afraid of it," the Doctor added dryly.

"The ones who fear are the ones who have selfish reasons for wanting. My wants are simple, and so they are maintained." She put her tea down on the table, moved to straighten a picture on the wall. Amy was struck by how austere the room was, carrying just the bare essentials of furniture. There was no art, no photographs, no sense of a life here other than what existed while she was here. The smell of the tea, the lack of dust, the various satchels and goods that were scattered around the room. If not for those, the house would have no breath. "Others might get greedy, and disrupt the order that we have here."

"Oh yes, begging not to get killed on a whim is definitely a lot to ask for," the Doctor answered archly. "What did the rest of the civilized universe do before all these concepts arrived?"

"You mock, Doctor. I thought you might be better than that." She didn't seem particularly concerned by this, using the same stern teacher voice he liked to unleash when it suited him. By the way he bristled, he didn't seem to like it any more than Amy did. "The people who live here are limited to just one want per day, at a certain time. When the time arrives, the nature of their want can be anything they desire."

"But they don't know when it is, do they?" Amy remembered the man they had encountered sobbing on the ground, repeating his wants like a grocery list put inside a lottery. "So they have to be careful what they say, or they'll get the wrong thing."

"Yes," Inelda said, while the Doctor also nodded, having perhaps already figured this out. Well, thanks for waiting for the slow student to catch up, Amy thought sourly. "And that has happened before. For years we had a waterfall running through the marketplace because poor Hannniu had taken a poor bet that did not work out in his favor."

"That kind of thing could get dangerous," Amy noted, picturing a world where the laws of physics got all wacky, words didn't mean what they normally did and everybody was a fabulous dancer. Which didn't seem entirely terrible, although most things tended not to seem terrible upon initial inspection.

"In essence, yes," the Doctor replied. "Though not for the reasons you're probably thinking." He walked over to the window, tapped at one of the chimes, which swung limply without making any kind of sound. "What is the purpose of the Census in the midst of all this? They seem like enforcers of a sort."

"They keep the system working." Her cup finished, Inelda left the room to go into what was no doubt what passed for a kitchen around here. The door was barely a slit, seeming to expand as she got closer to it, and it was impossible to see inside.

"You said they ensure that everyone wants to live."

"They are the check and balance of the system, however crude their methods might be sometimes." Her voice came from a deepness, several floors down and wrapped in layers. There was the sound of a shattering, as if the cup was being eaten. "They ensure that every person uses their one and only want for the day. They can tell, somehow." She appeared through the door again, far from the distance that she appeared. "Their mission is to find each person, every day. A thankless job, if you ask me, but a necessary way to keep things from getting out of hand."

"That isn't the full of it, however." The Doctor had one hand on the windowsill, his head just barely outside. His head was cocked to one side, perhaps listening. "Civil servants don't exactly carry swords around merely to see if people have gone through their want list for the day. People are afraid of them. And you . . ." his gaze was a slit, that let nothing out and everything in. "You threatened them with a want."

"I did, although I was bluffing." She didn't seem ashamed of this at all. "It was enough to hold them off, as I didn't think you understood the system well enough to be devoured by it. I felt sorry for you, then. Now, you won't get such a chance. You are truly on your own." There was no malice in the statement, just simple fact. Indisputable, in her eyes.

"What happens when they find you and you've already stated your want for the day?" The Doctor had both his forearms on the windowsill and kept blowing gently at the chimes, trying to make them sound. But no matter how hard the air crept, they never touched.

"If you wish to live, nothing. They won't pay you any mind."

"And if you wanted, say, a new car, or a pair of pants that fit? What then?"

"Then there's nothing stopping them from performing their assigned duties, and killing you," the old woman said. She held the still steaming pot toward Amy. "More tea for you?"

---

I didn't want any of this. The explosion was only an aftermath, shouting in the wreckage. If she even had a voice. The final burp of an irate dragon, encased in unseen fire. The pressure of its near passage entangled her legs and almost sent her down onto the hard stone. She caught the wall, scraped her hand against it and halted her fall before it started. Her ears were constantly ringing, a high pitched screaming that was going right out of her head, escalating past all point of hearing. There was light splattered against the wall in frozen spots, dancing on her eyeballs and refusing to diminish. The stones were shaking around her for new reasons now, tiny trickles of rock falling down in streams here and there, the edifice standing up only through sheer will. Or luck.

It didn't happen, she told herself, not even wishing to wake up anymore. It couldn't have happened. There was a flash on her eyelids that was shaped in contours that were known to her but she was refusing to let herself recognize those. I have to keep moving. The thought was meaningless without a destination, but she had none. Now she was only running the clock out, but that only worked when you had the winning score and could afford to stall. She was at least a point behind. Maybe two now. She had to find a way to score, to overcome. It had to be easy, right? She was on the good side, the side everyone wanted to win. Except they didn't know that here. That was a dream inside a dream, all symbols stripped, drowning itself in dry metaphor. The corridor used to represent the lengthy nature of her struggle, the featureless walls explaining to her how she never noticed details, that her life used to trudge from one boring day into another. Life as series of journeys, roaming and running and being free. Seeking freedom.

Now it was just another place they could trap and kill her. It was another place to run, until she couldn't run any longer.

"Why did you do it?" she asked someone who wasn't there any longer, her words choked by the thickness of the air, or perhaps another facet. Her ears were ringing and his last words had been blotted out. They'd never come back, gone forever. She was the last person to hear them and she couldn't remember what they were. What if he had family, a child, a mate? They might ask her what his last moments were like and she would have to admit she had blotted it out, let other elements do the painting. Thick and knotted ink, burning up her throat. It was painful, what was locked inside her chest. She put a hand to her face, feeling the heat of it and also the smell of it. The old and crusted blood. It wouldn't go. No matter how much her nail would scrape against it. Even when the cuts became mass. "What the hell am I supposed to do now?" Sh. Voices carried, even in stillborn moments. Air hadn't visited these tunnels in centuries.

Tunnels can get you away, get you someplace else. Always the insistence. But what if the place you were going was worse than what you had run away from? He had chased her away, they both had. One to spare her and one because she might hold him back. Incidents shaped like memories wobbled uneasily in her head, the constant shifting gravity of it driving her forward in a stumbling, uneven fashion, fits and starts and hiccupped strides. Stars ensnared her vision, clogged her thoughts. Everyone had a plan here. What was her plan? Survival? That was the plan of the people who kept getting killed because they didn't have anything beyond that. When the time came, they didn't know how to stay alive because that was their only pure goal. It wasn't enough. She was not going to die down here in forgotten corridors under some stupid balance far away from her boyfriend while her best friend was somewhere above trying to save them all. Amy Pond was better than that. Amy Pond had plans. She had-

I wanted to be useful to-

The thought became squashed before it became anything other than a thought. A piece of her brain went lopsided, unbalanced. Her neck still hurt when she turned it too fast. But now she was only looking ahead. To the future, the darkness above. It was darker in here now and smelled like constant sulfur, smoke and broken stones. There were gouges in the wall made by time and hands without fingers. He was gone. No, stop thinking about that. It had been a whole thirty seconds since it had last occurred to her. There were eternities buried in that statement. Chimes were sounding in her ears, an entire squadron of churches all marking the time, condensing into voices. Falling into nearness. Nearly crumbling into a fall. Her breath was a perfect gasp. This was a tunnel and tunnels had to take you somewhere and anything was better than this very spot and so would the next spot and she had to keep moving, she had to do more than want to keep moving because she had only one wish for today and that had been used up

no amy no it hasn't you still have

but there were only two directions, forward and back. Or up and away. Or down and here. But back was sealed and forward might only take her back up. Up was a climb up an invisible hill, hard when she was being continually hit by wobbly thunderclaps and the distance wouldn't mean anything, because one corner looked just like another corner

you still have this brilliant plan you've studied under the best and you've got this situation under control amy of course you do

and around the corner had to be a place where nobody wanted for anything and nobody left you behind for any reason and you could be somebody, you could be a person that made things happen instead a person that things happened to and she wasn't sure what the difference was anymore except there had to be some kind of a difference because here she was stumbling away alone and alone and

you are striding confidently down this dark and blank corridor and the wreckage isn't stopping you at all, oh no amy, you know exactly what to do

stupid and useless she had gotten one person killed already and maybe two and maybe three and it was hard to count which ones were directly her fault and which ones were assists and that was horrible but her head was knobbed and wrapped around the tumbling thoughts like rocks and it had made a horrible noise like a fist crushing a can from the outside and it was still in her head rattling against the inside

because you've figured out how this place works because you are awesome, amy, you've been studying it all along with keen redhead eyes always seeing time stuff

and maybe it was the curtains of water running from the walls, from the cracks, there were plates of stone that had run up against each other and none of it looked familiar even as it all looked the same she was leaving footprints in holes of water no matter where she walked

and its the best plan you have, amy, the best, because it you're holding all the cards in your hands you lucky girl you

tripping and her pants were wet and her shirt was soaked and her hair was stringy and the water was coming down now in a shower the water was shuddering or maybe it was her if only she could keep her balance if only the ground didn't keep moving and dancing away from her

you just have to wait for them to make the next move and they won't even see it coming, what you do you're just going to dazzle them amy

soaking into knees and the stone was so soft crumbling holes in the floor she had to stand she had to keep moving or else what he did was pointless what did he do he did this he said words she couldn't hear and then he then he then he oh

you're going to astound everyone just you watch amy this is the moment when you show them exactly what you are made of and you are made of awesome amy awesome

he made her shake she couldn't stop shaking and there was water from the ceiling it had to be running down her face in the rain seeping into her bones and the air the air coming from the holes in the floor and the walls and she was crumbling forward forward she had to keep moving forward even though the air smelled like peppermint and lost intentions and someone that sounded exactly like her kept saying how sorry she was

with this great plan you've spent all morning designing you've just got to put it into action and this is all over

dodging the floor and the departed heavy shadows from around the swift corner getting nearer and the air was in her teeth and with silent suddenness there were one or two or three shadows

they won't even know what hit them amy

faster than her fast skimming to run and it was hard to see through the condensation that kept clogging her in rivulets of rain and he had warned her in the last second before the unheard he had said to her said said don't get caught don't let them

they won't have any inkling of what plan is about to hit them

find their hands surroundings and kicking and the walls were breaking not fast enough and hands on her under her the dark corridor went darker and the air as hissing spines and glittering sharpness and this was the best she could oh

not the slightest idea amy because your plan is brilliant

her feet weren't on the ground anymore and she wasn't hurt but she must be because she kept calling for a medic she kept calling for a nurse she kept

its the best plan ever amy

calling for a doctor any doctor to come help her even though she wasn't hurt even though she was being lifted and rising and someone was asking her what she wanted and she wanted to be useful she wanted not to fail because otherwise had told her for nothing

and they don't stand a chance, frankly

she had messed it all up she couldn't fall right she was on the wall and so high the lidless face

nope, amy, those bastards don't stand a chance at all

on her back and the face and the face and this face and that face

and just wait until you see their expressions when they find that out

all crowding and what was she going to do what the hell could she

you can't beat ol' Amelia Pond

tell all the medics that she was no help the answer

they just don't know it yet

the answer was nothing and

haven't you amy?

and nothing and nothing

of course you ha

and nothi-

---

What is it that you have come here to want?

"After all that's happened, what makes you think I still want anything?"

"Do I want to know how much you failed in there?" The air was blanketed in the screeching of laser fire, operating as broken punctuation. Quiddoth had half-concealed himself behind the doors of the palace and was shooting at the approaching representatives of the Census. Two of them went down, tumbling onto their backs with their feet marching, flailing along invisible treadmills.

"It didn't . . . go well," the Doctor said, standing behind Quiddoth and frowning, his body something of a blur even as he was standing still. There were two bodies of the Census near the doors, one of whom was missing his head. Another was still twitching, his arms apparently stuck to his sides. It would have been better if they blinked, or closed their eyes. Amy was trying to gauge how far the others were but the only distance she could come up with was "too close." "Julius didn't want to listen to reason. He's utterly convinced of the morality of this system."

"You did what I said not to do," Quiddoth said flatly, squeezing off another shot and then starting to push the doors back together. They were taking long strides without hurry. If they threw the swords, they could impale someone. One hand was already working the edges, leaving behind a viscous slime. "And got the expected result."

"I had to try." The Doctor put his hand on the other door but instead of pushing he stood directly in the center. Five representatives of the Census were close enough now to see the etchings on their tunics, the grim light at play on their bodies. They were stepping over the bodies of their fellows without consideration or care, swords out, and up, and ready. Amy thought it was high time they should have been running by now.

Quiddoth looked over at Amy. "Does he always fail to listen?"

Amy put her shoulder into the door but it resisted her weight. "He never listens to me, I can tell you that much." That sounded funny. Funny was good right now.

"Quiet, both of you." The Doctor put his arms on both doors and leaned inward, staring at the representatives of the Census. None of them came any faster, or slower, if his sudden stand surprised them at all they didn't indicate it. Every second brought them closer, inevitably. "I don't know if you carry messages," he shouted to the oncomers.

"You want for the day will be stated," one, or all of them, told him. Their voices were close no matter what the distance. Right in her ear, somewhere near the base of her spine. Amy shivered in the sunshine, even after she promised herself that she wouldn't.

"But I have one for you, to take back to your king."

Quiddoth pushed on the doors. "Enough grandstanding, Doctor. Or do you want me to shoot them all?"

"No. No more guns." He put his head between the massive doors. A second's shove could flatten his skull. "If you're able, tell him that this isn't over. That I will come back and I will stop this." At the top of the passageway as a giant chandelier made entirely of hanging glass, twisted in refracted prisms. The tiny shards dinged against each other passively, sending mini-sprays of color all over the floor. The Census walked through it without regard. "No matter what he wants. Or thinks he wants."

"It is your want that is the concern." The voices were ghostly and solid and flat.

"Are you quite finished?" The alien went to shove the Doctor aside, to finish sealing the door.

"No." His arm shot out straight, with the screwdriver clutched between his fingers. A button was depressed and the air was swarmed with a high screeching. Amy ducked and covered her ears even as Quiddoth flinched, nearly dropping his weapon.

Overhead the chandelier gave one enormous jerk, as if undergoing its own form of inanimate seizure and then every single piece of glass cracked, sending a shower of it down on the representatives from the Census, a slow motion rain comprised entirely of color, turning end over end. Broken rainbows and descending flickers of light. They shielded themselves automatically as shards pelted them, causing one or two of them to drop their swords. The clatter outweighed the barely heard sprinkle of discarded glass settling on the floor like edged dust.

The Doctor tucked the screwdriver back inside his coat. There was a slim coating of glittering dust coloring his hair. "Seal the doors. We'll go back in another route." He began to stalk away, his stance holding the barest suggestion of a limp. "Come on, Amy."

The palace loomed too far above them, a tiny face with a beard spilling out all over the landscape. Chiseled blue, polished to a near black in the sunshine, it held its own contents barely. The doors weren't going to hold for long. The Doctor knew this, and wasn't moving any faster.

Amy caught up to him, tried to jog a little to get him to increase his stride. "You don't mean for us to go back in there?" She told herself she wouldn't look back at the palace to see if the Census had broken through. By the third time she broke it, she realized what a bloody stupid promise it was. Thinking about how easily they seemed to find everyone else just seemed unproductive.

Arms outstretched, and constantly glancing around, Quiddoth steered them down an alley next to a house that seemed to consist of a series of nested and low archways. His motions were furtive, every rapid motion checked and double checked, as if the sudden hint of violence had awakened a nervousness in him. The reality of disintegration. Was that the sound of cracking wood? Would it even carry? Possibly, every which way except toward expected danger. From inside the home came soft voices of massed and choral singing. "She's right. The entire city is going to be on high alert now. You need to lay low until the worst of it is over."

"Oh, is that all I have to do?" the Doctor said, his hands in his pockets. "That seems to be done easily enough when you put it that way."

The alien spat. The mucus landed in a clump on the soil and refused to settle. "Do not mistake me, Doctor, I want this way of life destroyed. I've told you this. I want my society rebuilt. My imagination has been shackled all these years because of this pressing need to desire living. That needs to end."

"No matter how many bodies you have to climb over to achieve that goal?" He kept digging his heel into the ground, twisting it back and forth, creating a deeper hole through sheer inertia. "No, Quiddoth, no. This is why I didn't want you in the palace."

"And the reason we are standing out here is why I didn't want to go. Not on your terms. No." His hand seemed to be weeping, darkened spots of ooze hitting the soil in tiny balls. "What do you expect, Doctor? That I'll just fall in line with you? I've been working toward this for years." He pointed to Amy. "You want an army of people like her, you'll have to look harder. I am not her. Whatever hold you have on her does not exist in me."

She almost missed the statement, finding herself the lookout by default. "Hey!" Amy shot back. "There's no hold on me. I'm with him, there's no reason to run in with guns blazing. How much good has that done you?" She fixed the alien with her fiercest gaze. "We've done a lot more for you in the past half a day than you have since . . . since when? Since never."

A plate on Quiddoth's face slid back, exposing flattened teeth. "You have caught the ire of the Census, enraged the king and nearly gotten yourselves killed several times already. For starters. That is quite the track record." The alien went to usher the Doctor along but he didn't move. One hand was on the wall, his fingers spread and arm held out straight. He was bracing himself, or holding up the house. "And one person has died directly, because of you."

The harshness of that hit Amy in the gut, even plainly phrased. The Doctor's jaw tightened, and his arm shook slightly but those were the only outward signs.

It was all in his voice, all the strands coiled, tightening. Choking. "I watched her die, Quiddoth. Do you think if I multiply that it will somehow get easier?"

Outside the alley the streets were sparsely swarmed, the air holding just the barest hint of a tickle. People kept staring above, some in the direction of the palace. The Census had to have escaped by now, if not through that door then another. Probably searching all the alleys and houses by now. And they moved so silently, she'd see them before she heard them. They all would.

The alien was hardly fazed. "To break out of this system we're going to have to let go of the idea of diminishing loss, Doctor."

And the problem with silent pursuers was that while you could see them arriving, it didn't help if they were right behind-

Amy spun around in a shot, her eyes wide. No. There was nobody there, just her heartrate rattling in the close confines. She put one hand over her chest and tried to relax. Easy, Pond. Easy. If they were to force her to say what she wanted, what would she say?

"Why don't you just wish everyone dead, then?" the Doctor shouted, far too loud for the alley. Amy flinched, blinking and turning away. The Doctor had rounded on Quiddoth, his arms swinging loosely behind him. "If you want the system gone that badly why let anyone survive at all?" His voice bent into a sneer. "You're all part of it, am I right? You all wanted this in your greed and your cowardice and instead of getting what you wanted, you got what someone else wanted and now you can't get out of it. So why not destroy the whole thing, huh? Take everyone down with it so that no one survives. It just takes one want. One simple want." One hand pressed flat against the alien's chest, not moving but pushing. "But is that what you want, Quiddoth? Is that what you really want?"

Quiddoth rose up on all his legs, and from his stance it seemed he was ready to kick the Doctor. The two of them held each other still, even as the air around them was compressed by sound, a jostling of unknown verbs, sounds brushing against harsher sounds.

Finally, the alien's eyes twisted away from his stare. "No," he said, sliding an inch back. "Those of us who entered this are guilty in our own way, of failings, of weaknesses, but there are those who did not get a choice, who were born into this." His eyes were rimmed in faded colors. "Children should not be caught in the collapse."

"This world is not kind to children, is it?" There were memories buried in the spaces between. Amy hugged herself, not wanting the reminder. What age would she have understood, had she been thrust into this. Probably not soon enough.

"No." The word was pulled out of him, bleeding. "It was not something any of us envisioned."

The Doctor tapped him on the chest. "You see, then. You see." He pulled himself closer. "We could lay low, wait for the right moment. Life is full of moments, and the perfect one is always going to come along eventually. It has to. But in that time, someone else might die. Maybe more than one person. It doesn't matter. One is enough. Are you able to explain to that person that they had to die because the moment just wasn't right? I can't do it." He shook his head slowly, never taking his eyes off Quiddoth. "I'll tell you the same thing I told Inelda. People deserve to have more than one want."

"And she came to believe that, by the end?" Quiddoth's voice was somber, oddly angular.

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. I think she did."

Quiddoth turned away sharply, one hand dragging along the wall. "You'll have to get back into the palace."

"I'm aware of that."

Amy felt her skin prickle. Her glance toward the end of the alley was purely accidental.

"How will you do it?"

Just in time to see the narrowed slit covered by an eclipse. Oh no.

"The same way I always do." Without turning around, he pointed the screwdriver in the direction of the new shadows.

"The statement of your want has not been taken."

The screwdriver sounded, setting his teeth on edge, and a piece of the shadows broke off and reeled back. The Doctor had already grabbed her by the hand.

"I start running," he said, yanking her past the alien and nearly off her feet, "and make up the rest as I go along."

---

"Your want has been discharged."

as the hammer crashed down and

the whole time he kept raising his hands to defend himself and they

it just

"No! You need to stop this!"

swatted his efforts away and in perfect repetition they

"Your lack of want has been assumed."

came down on him in synchronization and the sound that his shell

"Julius! What is the point of this? Tell me! What is the point?"

made when it cracked was so loud even over the shouting

"You will be excised."

and the talking and boots were scuffing on the polished floor so hard

"Is this what you wanted? Look at this! Dammit, look!"

even as his head hit the unyielding surface and their hands kept pounding

"Right in front of you, this is what is happening in places that you don't look!"

and he kept kicking at them and nobody was stopping and it had to stop it just

they were surrounding him and he could barely be seen he was buried except

"Every day! Every single day they are doing this!"

for the blood the blood was becoming everywhere

"And nobody is stopping them. You aren't stopping them!"

on their hands

"The system . . . the system is working exactly . . . a-as it was designed."

on their legs

"Arg, let go . . . how can you live like this? How can you . . . Amy, get back, stay back!"

on their arms and their thighs and in the places they store their swords

"Your want has been discharged as well."

and in their faces, the streaks on their faces like distorted motion

and he's still defending himself struggling he's not stopping he's shouting

what is he

"I'm not running away. You're going to let us both get beaten to death?"

he's saying

"Can you do that?"

and kicking at the floor in their arms kicking and reaching

"If t-there are exceptions made then . . . it will fail . . . it will . . ."

in regular time the hands are falling in fisted lengths and it won't

it's not

it won't stop

"Amy, go! They will do it!"

the blood won't stop spreading across like the floor like the shadow of

melted fingers

just at the tip of

"Amy!"

the tip of her shoe

as a foot splatters the shallow pool and he's a different shape now

flattened

underneath a seething

"Go on. Do it, then."

rain of thundering silent falls

"If they touch her, Julius, if they touch her I will come back and crack this planet in half! Do you understand me? Do you?"

even as he's flailing and trying to dodge the endless rain and everyone is shouting

"Make us a matched set."

so quietly and its waiting

the shadow of a stick of a clock

falling

"You will be excised too."

ready to

"You see this? On my arm?"

fall

"If you let this happen, I will-"

hovering here and

twisting in a tangle underneath and reaching

"I did that. And I'm not proud of it. I hate it."

the last swing in the endless steady rhythm

"And I want it gone."

reaching through to find that one space where

she could

not be

"Amy!"

scared to

go down in the slowed terrible seconds of the swinging of the

sound of the turning of the

screaming of the running of the

flashes of the flashes of the flashes

"Just start running."

falling back

"Get them, get after them!"

and going with a gasp

"Don't stop! Both of you, don't stop!"

as entries for exits and the lumbering and the

"They won't stop."

shattered held together and the slanted smears on her hands

looking at her and outside and down and

"Is . . . stalling for time the only . . . plan you two ever . . . have?"

down and away and away from the room and him

Doctor.

"When we can't think of anything better, yeah."

---

"Is this what you wanted, now?" the Doctor asked, softly, sadly. The body sagged, seemed utterly hollow and deflated. All sound and breath had departed.

"Was this all worth it?" Gently, he turned the dulled eyes away from himself and stood up. "I hope you're somewhere now where you can ask that question, and get an honest answer."

---

"What is this? Where has he gone?"

"What did you want to show me?" Her voice fluttered steadily through the wooden mesh of the door. There were checkered shadows on the floor, broken by abstractions. "A house. There's plenty of houses here."

"Yes." A shadow jerked across the view sideways. "But I'm hoping that this will serve my purposes." The door bucked once as a bulge appeared. "I did some wandering before."

"That was a long time to use the bathroom, I thought," came Amy's voice.

The door spasmed again, splinters of light scattering over the floor.

"Yes, that was the original purpose but your public facilities in this city are just ghastly. I can't believe no one has ever said they wanted a perfectly fine washroom."

With a snap, a foot came through the door. It wiggled slightly, as if testing the air, and then withdrew smoothly.

The Doctor's head came through a second later, followed by his shoulders and then the rest of him. "Which just goes to show you, everyone's priorities here are completely out of touch with what people really want."

Amy came through moments later, brushing chips of wood off her shirt. Inelda's feet could be seen through the jagged hole, standing firm.

"I am not going in there."

The Doctor tsked. "Now, how exactly are you going to learn anything if you don't let me show you?"

"Why are we here?" Amy mouthed to the Doctor, but he just shook his head tersely at her, keeping his head tilted and his eyes focused on the hole and the barely revealed old woman seen through it.

"I don't need to learn anything, Doctor." Her voice was brisk and brittle and hurried. There was a shuffling as her smock rubbed against the dirt. "Not from you. Certainly not how to break into people's homes."

"This house is abandoned. Look, I can prove it." He lifted his head to the ceiling and shouted, "Hello!" loud enough to make Amy wince and start to cover her ears. "See, not a soul around. It's perfectly safe to come in." His voice dropped into a lower range. "You should come in, Inelda. The people who used to live here would have wanted it."

It was gloomy inside, with a sort of dusted museum quality, a stillness that seemed partially derived from a fear of moving anything, instead of wanting to hold it close to preservation and memory. The room held together in loose alignment, with a single missing element disrupting the entire facade. The Doctor had become the central spire of it, purely by accident. The room was bent inward toward him now, the walls lacked all corners, curved inward like frozen waves. Cabinets lined the walls, some doors hanging off, some others open just barely, caught in the act. There was furniture that didn't seem suited for beings with legs, unless those beings like to lay flat at all times. Some portions of the wall were covered in what looked like bowls, or maybe they were steps, heights to reach the ceiling. From certain angles they looked like eyes that had been closed, asleep or waiting for a reason not to be sleeping.

"The people who live here would have wanted you to not be inside their home." Her voice was spiky and immobile.

"They're not coming back." He pressed his fingers together gingerly, careful of his hurt hand. "Aren't you at least curious why?"

"No."

"No." The Doctor repeated this, nodded to himself. Amy could see that the house branched off into other rooms like outstretched arms, the line between the wall and ceiling wavy, blood vessels seeking the rest of the body. There were footprints pressed into the floor shaped like smashed dolls. Drips hung suspended in dust, like frozen flickers. Every voice came from outside, including theirs. The house didn't have a voice, though, favoring silence. So someone had to speak for it. "Very well. Can you answer me this, then? Can you perceive any downside at all to your system, to this life you have all chosen to live?"

Her sigh was a rattle, stretched beyond all sense. "Doctor, I really don't need or have the time to stand here and listen to your critic-"

"You have forever!" he snapped. "Isn't that the whole damn point?" She rustled, one foot moving in a circular fashion, then the other. She could just walk away, in any given second. "So why don't you indulge this mere mortal for a fraction of your eternity and answer my question." He almost mimicked her motions, flicking his hand and pacing in the smallest square he could manage.

Her answer, when it came, gave no notice as to when it would arrive. "While there are times when I have differences with its implementation, or some aspects of its enforcements, it has allowed me to see sights that would have been impossible otherwise." Her shadow grew closer to the door, her antennae becoming thin arms stretched toward a vacant and distant sky. She could be pulled through the slats but it would take her to pieces. There was nothing but gauze within her contours. "I should have died fifty years ago, Doctor. Fifty years this planet would have gone around its star without me. Fifty years of conversations I would not have had, sunrises I would not have seen, tastes I would not have experienced, a breath of air I would never have felt." Her silhouette rippled, seeming to ascend. "You strike me as someone who has seen great and wondrous things, myths I have only heard stories of. Rain falling on stars, galaxies embracing, the sky fold up upon itself and carry a lucky few away. If I am so blessed then maybe I shall see but a tenth of what you have perceived, and be content with that." Her hand was pressed against the door, and it bent, not in protest as much as affirmation, or acknowledgement. "But in the meantime all I wanted was to experience the pleasant normalcy of an ordinary life, revel in the daily routines, immerse myself in the mundanities of it. That's what I have been given, what I enjoy and will continue to enjoy. Because of this system, because of what this world promises. You have your disputes with it, Doctor, but I have had fifty years to savor the taste of my favorite tea, which may be a small thing but I've only ever wanted a life full of small things." Her hand dragged down, stretching her fingers into insubstantial talons. "So, no, there is no downside to this system that I can perceive, or that I would change."

Amy sighed and pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. The floor was a held swirl, waiting for light to touch it again. Where the sunlight caressed it, nuggets of it sparkled.

The Doctor appeared to notice none of it. "I thought you might say that," was his only comment and for a moment he looked to abandon the argument entirely, turning away from the door in stance.

Then, in a sharp gesture, he spun back toward the door, crossed the two steps to it and yanked it open, revealing a startled Inelda, seemingly ready to depart.

"In which case I've found that when people refuse to take the step for themselves, the only option is to make way in as easy as possible. So, with that in mind . . ." He stepped back with a grand flourish, his arm sweeping outward and in toward the rest of the home. "Please, by all means, come inside."

Amy gave the Doctor a strange look. "Why did you kick through the door and make us crawl through it for?"

"Dramatic effect," he said plainly. "Plus Inelda bet me that you I couldn't make you crawl through the door," he added quickly.

"I said no such-"

"This way, please," he ordered, grabbing them both and yanking them further into the house.

"We're going to be questioned, Doctor, if we linger here for too long." She was trying to dig her heels in against his momentum, but he was a storm without friction, gathering everything that came near. "And a moment may come upon us during this time and we won't know . . . the Census will-"

"On some level you are absolutely correct." The Doctor was speaking over her, pulling them both down a corridor that gradually narrowed, the walls tinted with darkened red and windows that pointed into nowhere. "As a fully consensual system, there are no flaws in it. Everyone who abides by the rules gets exactly what they want." Amy's foot hit an lumpy object lying in the middle of the floor, nearly tripping her. But it rolled away before she could get a good look at it. "Everyone enters into it knowing exactly what the limitations and the consequences are, and thus only have themselves to blame if they try to exceed its limits and suffer for it." The corridor branched to either right or left, and without even taking a moment to consider, the Doctor plunged them left. Something soft squeaked under her foot.

"Is there a point to this-"

He was a halo of darkness ahead, the shape of his hair distorting his sharpness. The corridor bent his voice into a cone, directed it around and back at them. "And the punishments for trying to cheat the system, while harsh, aren't terrible compared to other societies. For anyone who understands. That's what I thought."

Inelda yanked harder on her arm to break away. "And we all understand, Doctor, that is the point I've been trying to make. It's you who don't understand what this-"

"It's what I thought," he said, in a voice that suggested it was never what he thought at all, "until I came here."

He stopped and whipped his arms forward so that they were both flung into a room that felt vaguely spherical. Amy immediately tripped on a whole slew of objects that were underfoot, nearly falling on her face if not for the soft and wide and low object that she hit on the way down. It steadied her, even as her knees hit the floor. Dammit, why do I have to be part of the lesson?

Inelda had barely gone anywhere at all, her short and stocky form seemingly carved from obsidian. She was staring directly at the Doctor, her hands held tightly at her sides.

"You have made a conscious choice to be part of this oppressive society, Inelda. And it is oppressive. The benefits, such as they are, do not outweigh the toll." The Doctor had reached into his pocket, pulled what looked like a small round ball. Amy kept sweeping her hands to her sides, clearing all kinds of jingly and clangy and misshapen objects from her immediate area. "And I could be okay with that, if everyone was like you. Certain and deluded and content. Aware of what they had done to themselves but willing to pay the cost." His finger flicked a switch and the area just under his face was bathed in a soft white glow. It thrust his deep features into shadow, giving him a hollow and gaunt appearance. "That isn't the case though, and you need to be aware of that."

Holding the ball in the palm of his hand, he tossed it easily into the air, where the light it emitted expanded in conical form to encompass the entire room. Amy blinked against the brightness, letting the washed out features of the place settle into her vision.

The room was lined with shelves, stacked on each other crazily, slanted and hanging and hovering, some of them appearing to vanish further back into a deeper dimension. Each shelf was jammed with objects of various sizes and shapes, full to bursting, some of them listing precariously and nearly tumbling over the edge. Which, if they did would find them in lots of company as the floor was littered with more of the same, each one colorful and inert.

The center of the room was taken up with a soft rectangular object that Amy had been leaning against. The top of it was covered in a fused mass that looked nothing more than a lump of dirt that had been left sitting out in the sun for too long. What spaces on the walls that weren't covered in shelves sported a type of spidery writing, quavery and wavery, that Amy found impossible to read. The soft light shining from above them at angles gave the room a hallowed feel, a stopped clock sensation. Like someone had gone away and would be back any minute.

Inelda must have felt it too, because she kept glancing about in quick darts, never letting her eyes rest on anything for more than a second. "It's a room in someone's house, Doctor. I see that. Now, if you've made your point-"

"That's not all you see." He was so thin and there was so much space around him but no force would ever find the means to shove its way past. "What else is it?"

Her eyes flashed, and what she was going to say was thrust back into her chest. "A bedroom."

"Very good," he said, with jagged silkiness. A part of this was wobbling him, in the places of his expression that the light wouldn't touch. Amy slid away from what she now realized was a bed, and her foot wound up twisting as it became caught in a spherical object with a large chunk cut out of it. "And what else?"

With a squeal she fell down on her rear as the object suddenly lit up on three sides, unleashing this jauntily horrible and repetitive noise, while also rolling around back and forth.

"Whatever point you are desperately trying to prove is not in this room," Inelda stated flatly. "So we may as well just-"

Amy went to grab the object to shut it off but it rolled away from her, still making the same asinine and unearthly noise. She got on her knees to grab it with both hands but in the process she bumped into another, which began to bounce up and down while making a noise in an entirely different pitch. Meanwhile the first one rolled back toward her, until she tried to grab it, at which point it darted away again.

"What else is this room?" the Doctor demanded.

"It does not matter what-"

Amy dove on top of the ball, catching it under her body but only muffling the headache inducing noise it was making. The same tune, over and over again. Just like . . .

"You know!" the Doctor insisted, taking a step toward her. "Just say it."

"Toys." Both Inelda and the Doctor turned to regard Amy, who was struggling back to her knees, one flashy and noisy object in each hand. "This room is full of toys." She looked at the Doctor, then past him, reexamining the room. "It belongs to a child."

---

"Where else do you want to go?" Quiddoth asked, slamming another door shut. He immediately began getting to work sealing it. "And please don't tell me, 'anywhere but here'."

"Took the words right out of my mouth," the Doctor muttered, his mouth in a straight line. He had laid the screwdriver against one palm but didn't seem sure what to do with it.

"Can I second that?" Amy chimed in.

"We have to keep moving." The only light in the room came from a single window, coated and sealed in glass. There were dangling pieces of what looked to be colored porcelain right outside, hanging down limply and still. "Staying in the houses is going to be our only way of losing them, they're not as maneuverable in the low ceilings."

"Eventually we're going to have to go outside again." The Doctor was holding the screwdriver up, stiffly stalking around the room. "It'll be the only way to get back into the palace."

Quiddoth paused in his labors. "Are you thinking of going in with just us?"

"You had a better idea?"

He slammed his flattened palm against the door, checking the sealant. "I know others that were waiting for this day. Give me time and I can contact them. We can have support." He turned to sweep past the Doctor, heading for the back of the house. "Come on, I know one who lives nearby."

The Doctor stood in his way. "We are not raising an army to go storm the palace. Leave your revolution fantasies out of my rescue!"

"Don't be foolish." Quiddoth sidestepped him and went to proceed again. "Just the three of us would be suicide. You don't strike me as foolhardy."

Amy laughed, telling herself it was to ease the tension. Both Quiddoth and the Doctor gave her severe glances but neither of them commented.

"The three of us can handle this," the Doctor insisted, standing over the alien. "I don't even want to risk the two of you but at this point I can't imagine you'd stay behind."

"But we can overthrow this, finally, Doctor. We can free ourselves from these restrictions. We have labored under this for so long, bound and weighed down. It chokes, it chafes and we cannot bear it any longer." It was the most animated Amy had ever heard the alien, his voice infected with a passion that hadn't been present earlier, or ever.

"And we'll get rid of it." The Doctor was trying to sound soothing, a placation in the face of resistance. "You'll be free."

"No, it doesn't need to be discarded. It's merely gone away from its original purpose." The alien was shifting from one foot to the other to another, its hands beating the air in a rhythm that no one else could hear. "The king has done this to us. With him out of the way we can put things back to how they were."

The Doctor shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't let that happen. The system needs to be removed entirely. It's too dangerous. Or do you want this to happen again?"

"It won't. We'll make sure of it."

"Quiddoth, no. It's over." The Doctor seemed genuinely saddened. "Whatever mechanisms are in place to make this possible, the risk of someone corrupting them for their own fears is too great."

"We can make sure of it!"

"And isn't that what Julius tried to do?"

Amy's attention had started to drift, waiting for them to finish arguing. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a flickering, a dancing spectacle of light. A vague knocking drew her further, until she saw the source of it.

"Hey," she said, tapping one finger against the window. "The wind has really kicked up out there."

Quiddoth turned sharply. "What?" His eyes immediately focused on the object hanging from the window, its various spangles whirling madly and silently. "No. No. Get away from there. We have to stay here and stay silent."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "Wait, what do you mean?"

"Quiet! A moment is upon us, you need to be careful what you say!" The alien was herding the Doctor closer to the wall, even as the Time Lord had his arms up, trying to find the space to speak. "Just listen to me for once!"

But the Doctor wouldn't be moved. "How do you know-"

The answer came obliquely and tangentially as the window shattered near Amy's face, showering her in glass, while the dark and heavy hand that came through and wrapped around her throat a moment later begged a whole new question entirely.

---

"I didn't want to kill him," Amy said sadly. The alien's weight was all on her shoulder and there was a tingling going down her arm. She kept telling herself it was stemming from the mark on her hand, the blood. It was a mold, with tendrils spreading all over her skin. Or it seemed that way, thickening by the hour. The corridor seemed so endless, erasing all her invisible progress. She had been still for so long and that wasn't getting her anywhere.

Quiddoth grunted, a churning and wasted sound right in her ear. It would have been nicer if he had helped. "No? He certainly wanted to kill you."

"But I didn't . . ." she rubbed a hand against her eye, telling herself that wasn't going to start crying again. They didn't have time for that. The floor beneath her feet rumbled again, so softly she wouldn't have even noticed if her senses weren't hyper-attuned now, hearing every swishing stab of breath, every trace of slime and moist odor, even the taste of sweat in her mouth was a salty explosion, tainted with a bitterness she couldn't remove. "I didn't mean for it to happen."

"Here, what we mean never occurs," the alien said, so calm for something that was leaving a trail of fluid in their wake. But it wasn't like she carried bandages on her. Only in her nurse outfit. "What occurs is what we want."

"But no, it's not fair!" she shouted, a prickling on her skin counting off seconds. Seconds that would turn into minutes and then into hours, all adding up to the time when she had to want something again. Every day, and if she didn't, they would find her and kill her. Her hand went to the soft bruises on her throat, already fading into vague tenderness. It had wanted her dead. It had required her to be dead. That was their goal. "Who came up with this system? Why did you go along with it?"

"Because its promise far exceeded its risks, at least at first."

Every time she closed her eyes the body of the representative from the Census was lying before her, its head twisted unnaturally and the rest of its body lumpy and sagging, as if something had broken every bone within it, leaving nothing but a bag of shattered toys that had no purpose. It hadn't even made a sound when it died. She kept imagining a sigh, an intake of a gasp of air, but that could only have been the wind.

"Having to dodge a bloody execution every day?" she hissed back at it. Every time she tried to imagine the aftermath of the scene too closely, a flickering series of blacknesses fell across it, a film strip running out to the end. Quiddoth was getting too heavy and she wasn't used to carting weight around. But with his shape it wasn't like she could throw him over her shoulder. Weren't the dying supposed to feel lighter? Wasn't that how it always went in movies? Hoist them up and comment how feather-weight they must be? "That seemed promising to you?"

"The moments used to be more regular and predictable. Julius must have changed the pattern to avoid people learning to take advantage of it." A sound came from deep inside of him like a broken burp. It would have been comical it for the fact that her shoulder was gradually getting soaked by a seepage into her shirt. "At first, it was always in the center of the day, to ensure that everyone was awake. Now, there have been times when it has come in the late darkness, when some residents have fallen asleep and thus aren't aware that a moment is present. Several were killed before they awakened, and never had a chance to know what happened."

"Ah." More an expulsion than sound, she rested with her back against the wall, letting Quiddoth slide off her a little. The stone bit into her through her shirt, stabbing dully at her back. She was already covered in dirt, so more wouldn't make any difference by now.

The alien regarded her with a crooked face. "This is tiring you. You need to leave me before I slow you down too-"

"Not happening," Amy replied with a gasp, too fast. "If there's one thing I've learned from being with the Doctor it's that you never leave anyone behind. They might be useful later."

"My usefulness in this state is somewhat suspect." Quiddoth almost sounded bemused, though the line between that and resignation was probably thin.

"How do you know when the moments are right?" Her vision had already blacked out when it happened, opacity giving way to floundering deeper darkness, when she heard the rushing hissing howling and the pressure on her neck was suddenly lifted. The rest, the cracking and the breaking, was merely denouncement. It was only afterwards that she had time to examine her own thoughts. And see the damage done. And wait for the damage yet to come. "Back at the house you knew exactly when . . ."

"The wind." He shifted again, parts of his carapace were digging into her, and she took that opportunity to lift him again, making it further down the corridor. It seemed to be sloping downward, though how far down Quiddoth had no idea. He seemed to think the whole city was built on top of a network of caves structures that had rarely been explored. A lack of air, he said. "It presages a moment. This had always been a windy world, subject to violent gusts but Julius said once those were tamed he chose to have them only blow at the precise times. Its our only warning."

"What if he took them away? What's stopping him?" A layer of thin cold had covered her, the atmosphere soaking into her. The dank and the chill. A boyfriend had been in a goth band by that name. What had he wanted? Black blood, he had said, while painting his nails. Something told her he hadn't been kidding. The world everyone wanted, the night coming down each day. The separation. Her thoughts were swirling into black, the blocks breaking down into prone bodies, all with their heads twisted and facing her. Without blinking, expelling invisible and violent gusts of air. Taking away her own. Saying I want and I want and I want. In tandem time, in various pitches. "He could do it right now and everyone would be dead." It didn't sound as crazy in her head but the air kept cracking her voice. That was the pure reason of it.

"Then he would have no defense himself." Quiddoth seemed to regain enough strength to push his feet harder against the ground, helping her propel. She still felt that she was going to walk tilted for a month after this was over. When it was over. When she survived it. Unlike-

No. Stop it. The wind rushing and whipping the hands away from her, talons with clutches and claws. No. Because of her. No. Because of what she said. No no no. Because she had wanted death and it had granted her-

She stumbled, nearly falling to her knees. Quiddoth braced her, but the effort seemed to drain him, and she swore she heard part of him crack. There was a drizzle of fluid down the side of her arm.

"Why can't this be over," she whispered, staring at her own feet. She must have become taller because they were so far away.

"It wasn't meant to be like this," Quiddoth told her, with the first traces of wistfulness she had ever heard from him. "But we weren't sure what was happening, in the first days, and we wanted to ensure it would last forever."

"Nothing does." She ignored the shooting tingling in her arm. Another step. Another step and another. Each one was crucial. Each one was one less to some destination. Somewhere better than where she was. Wasn't that what everyone wanted?

"Yes." A piece of him seemed to loosen. "But were we so wrong to want it otherwise?" The dots across her vision kept her from speaking. The dots that kept forming the colors of other blood. Too heavy for the wind to carry it. She was too heavy for any carrying. "Julius thought it would be a good idea to codify it, to limit it. We nearly had an incident where a wrongly worded want almost changed the structure of the planet to a gas, and didn't want a repeat. We thought it would give us a better chance, force us to decide what we really wanted. By presenting boundaries, we would become stronger. It made so much sense at the time."

"You didn't realize how much he wanted to be in charge." But from her brief two views of the king, he hadn't seemed like someone who had wanted power. He had merely seemed tired, and a little sad.

"He was the noblest of us," Quiddoth said. "You should have known him in the other days. He could write songs that could bring a crowd to utter joy, or tears, in the space of a moment. Because he never wanted it, he said, it came directly to him." Had they stopped moving, or was the road merely halting them? Her knees were locked, and unwilling. "He and I used to discuss our wants for hours. He wanted to know others utterly, but even that seemed beyond the reach of what could be done."

"And you?" The world had become a series of slits, fluttering swiftly. Another step, please. Another minute of this boring tunnel. "What did you want?"

These boring walls. "Myself?" He rattled, perhaps a specter of thought. "Even since I was a youngling, I had always wanted to point myself in the direction of the furthest distance." This boring monotonal floor. "And become light, so I might reach it."

This boring stasis. "That's . . . that's actually nice."

"It's what I wanted."

"Your want has been stated for the day."

These boring feet, just ahead, and dark.

"Oh no," Amy said, as all support fell away. You need to

"Oh, it's about time," said Quiddoth.

---

"What did you want, Doctor?" The king still had his hands on the Doctor's shoulders. The room had gone still, an exhalation the barest second before collapse. There was a low pounding on the double doors leading into the throne room, slow and regular, marking out ponderous seconds.

"If I could, I would take the TARDIS back to see where all this went wrong." The words were removed from sting by his tired delivery, finding notches in the spaces where his words hung loosely. "I would find the first person who agreed with you that this travesty was a good idea, and try to talk them out of it."

"You would be at it for quite some time," Julius replied. There was a sheen of sweat covering his otherwise ruddy face and his breathing had taken on the cadence of someone who wasn't used to exerting himself. The robes, perhaps, were heaver than they let on. "Our proposal had wide support."

"No!" the Doctor shouted, wresting himself from the other man and spinning away. "I can't believe that. I can't believe that you were able to talk these people into this without resorting to some kind of trickery."

"Everyone wants something, Doctor." His slippers crunched on unseen glass, the dust creating new and invisible patterns on the floor, only revealed when the sunlight hit them discretely. Fallen stars, yearning for the higher reaches. "And here, that is possible. One must merely speak it and it would become real."

"That's not possible." He stamped his heel on the floor, mistakenly using his good leg and thus nearly fallen when his other leg buckled. "How do you even accomplish that? Where is the cost for this, Julius? What had to die so this ridiculous dream could run with free reign?"

The king tucked his chin into his chest and adjusted his robes. The bodies of the fallen representatives of the Census were arranged around them in a star pattern. One kept tapping a finger against the floor in irregular patterns, perhaps signaling. Or maybe it was merely diminishing energies. "Nothing. That was the problem."

"Don't play games with me, Julius." The Doctor pointed a finger that he kept just barely from shaking. "There is nothing in all of space and time that doesn't have a cost associated with it. I know that."

"Do you remember that conversation we had, Doctor?" There was an arc of emptiness between them. The king took a step toward the throne but barely seemed to see it. "Before I went down. When the atmosphere was weeping lead and the machines were screaming in symphonic cacophony? Everyone else had fled and the square was deserted. I hadn't even expected you to stay."

"I enjoyed front row seats for things in those days." The Doctor hung back, wavering and swaying, unsure. Memory was more than a snare. "And I've often found that the worst way to do something was to do it alone. So I stayed."

"You laughed so much, we remember. When they carved a scar into the air, just to prove that it was possible for them, you laughed so hard that we thought you would break yourself in two." His smile was merely the faintest echo. "We had to laugh with you, or risk being swept away in it. We had to hold our own ground."

"You did fine, then. All of you did." One hand was gripping his wrist tightly. He was studying Julius, the spaces over the king's head. "And I remember the conversation, Julius."

"We asked you if this was suicide on our part." The steps back to the throne were not direct. "And you said nobody ever needs to die, it was a thing accomplished through a weakness, or an absence. Unless one were ready, and had taken their fill of this universe. Then one had lived fully, and could depart, of their own choice." He ran one hand across his cheek, maybe massaging an old scar. "They belched smoke, as mimic and mockery. Let the clouds come low, filled with chittering knives. And you ignored it. You asked us if we were satisfied with all we had seen."

"I was trying to give you courage. I thought you were scared." A tightness in his hand bled the skin white around the screwdriver. "I was wrong. You're not scared of anything. You were merely curious." His eyes refused to reflect any light. "I need you to be scared now, Julius. It's our only way out of this."

"We said that we wouldn't die that day, because we wouldn't be able to see the times that were to come ahead for our world. We couldn't fight as we did, as so many others did, and not persist to witness the fruits of our struggles." He stood perpendicular to the Doctor, softly staring him down. "We didn't recognize you this time. You were so much lighter, then, Doctor. How often do you laugh now?"

"The years accumulate. Each one is a set of clothes you can't take off." He wasn't speaking directly to the air. It gets harder to move, as the time goes on, even as there is more room." He held his arms out to the side, straight, as if demonstrating. "I laugh only in the quiet spaces now, to bring some noise to it, to give solace to others that have gone silent. There is so much noise in the universe now, I'm tired of adding my voice to the general static. I pick and I choose." He went to take a step, hesitated. "I'm much older than the years between days."

"You said living was the greatest benefit of not dying. That every new moment brought new insights, and added to the ongoing conversation, one that the dead could not take part in." He rubbed his hands together, cold and dry. The throne was at his back, rising and reachable. "Every voice lost takes a thread away, and who knows where it might have gone? We decided then we would make the conversation last as long as we could, for all of us."

"Yes." The Doctor stalked forward, so fast that it didn't seem like he would stop when he reached the king. "That is beautiful, Julius. Simply wonderful. The sentiments of a man who understands the preciousness of life, the sanctity of it." His legs were a blur, his boots a steady clatter on the hard and smooth stone. "The necessity of it." The short spaces seemed much longer, drawing nearer. "Those are the words of the man I spoke with that day, one who strove for preservation and progress and hope . . ."

He reached Julius on the beat of the last word, sidestepping him at the last possible second even as the man attempted to step back and away. But the Doctor clamped his good hand on the other man's arm, squeezing tightly and spinning him around, standing behind him so that his voice was drilled directly into Julius' ear.

"But look at this, Julius. Look at this!" The vista of the shattered throne room, the splayed and scattered bodies, the blood drawn in dried crisscross patterns, the cracks that ran from floor to ceiling, maps in mazes with no outlet. "Do you see all this? Do you?" If the king nodded, it didn't matter. "How did you get us to this? What happened to make this real? Can you tell me that?"

"Do you want us to?" the king asked, with barely a whisper upon the smile.

Twisting his hips violently, the Doctor flung Julius down onto the base of the steps, forcing him to roll painfully onto one arm, his robes nearly becoming entangled. The Doctor's eyes had gone past fire, his voice razor edged. "I saw what they tried to do to you, inserting sharpened words in your brain to lacerate all thoughts, drowning you in their futures, turning you about so you could get lost in the maze shaped like your inverse. They knew the end was coming and would have done anything in their desperation. But do you know why they never tried to touch me?" He got down on one knee, his voice never getting louder. "Because there are some risks that even those with nothing to lose do not want to take. And I've learned so much more since then, Julius."

"You . . . you were never one to threaten, Doctor," the king panted, although he kept his gaze level and firm.

"My patience has worn thin. When that happens I stop trying to follow the script." He laid a finger on the king's chest. "One more death, Julius. One more. And I drown you in this. I kick out the pillars and let it all come down. Are you ready for that?"

The king was breathing heavier now. His eyes kept casting upwards, over, but always back to the Doctor. "To want was to find all needs delivered. It was paradise of a sorts."

"Give me the tools to dismantle this." The king didn't answer immediately and the Doctor pressed harder with the finger, causing him to flatten his body against the unyielding floor. "Tell me!"

"In the grand flush of the wake of our escape, the, ah, the wants were . . ." his shoulder went into a brief spasm and his eyes fluctuated in view, darting all around. His hair lay dark and thick on his head, matted with a sweat that refused to evaporate. "At first they were promising, imaginative. Swelled with joy, we had artisans of emotions, poets of the sky, architects of hope. Quiddoth was among our finest, his sculptures based on pure texture. He was . . ." His gaze shifted, his eyes went back a fraction into his head. "But we realized early on that the risk of them becoming petty was too great. With the world open again, newcomers entered and not drawn up through loss and despair as we had been, they brought their own petty needs to this." He swallowed, his throat expanding a size too much. "In a fit of anger, a Cordonian changed his shellmate to a gaseous vapor. We were able to restore her but it was the first time the wanting had ever been used in malice, to harm another. Don't you see, Doctor, something had to be-"

"Inelda," was all the Doctor said.

"Ah." The king attempted to slide back, his head tilted toward the ceiling. With no impediments, he was bound in, and neatly penned. "I went back to what we had talked about, Doctor. About how life was the most important want of all."

"What makes it important is how it's chosen without coercion."

"We had no such luxury, Doctor!" For the first time the king reflected an anger near the Doctor's. "The choice was between unbridled wishing and a certain level of control. Given the circumstances, we decided that the best course was to limit them, with the perfect want being the most basic and precious of all. If they decided that something was more important than life, and some did, then it was up to them to stay alive long enough to enjoy it." The king's upper lip was trembling severely, words brushing at the underside. "If you could choose one want every day, Doctor, what would it be?"

"Life is not a want!" the Doctor said, yanking his hand away from the king as if burned.

"Every day, we wake up and choose to live, Doctor. Each one of us, without even realizing it." The king twisted away, got partway up the steps and stayed on one knee. "All we did here was remind everyone on this world how important a decision that is."

"And force them into it!"

The king eased himself up another step. "Do you think we wanted this? The system should have been allowed to flourish in its own perfection, and instead I am ruler of a world that must consciously keep the teeth of their own executioner away from their throat each day."

"It didn't have to be that way." The Doctor held himself stiffly, his body shaking in an advent of an excess of motion. "You can change this, it's not too late."

"Oh, Doctor," Julius said sadly. "If we have learned one fact in these long years, it is that everyone wants something, and those wants are dangerous."

"You can't assume that." His breathing was so much faster, even as he was caught in stasis. "You can't, Julius."

"Facts are not assumptions," the king said somberly, grimacing as he went up another step. "Facts are real. Wants are real."

He was wringing his hands together, the screwdriver spinning between them. "They are what make us alive!"

"They are what make us deadly!" the king half-stood, trying to lean over the Doctor from his higher perch. His white robes were stained and dirty from crawling on the floor, flush with abstractions. "You know this! But you refuse to accept it!"

"I don't accept your twisted world-view!"

"Everyone, Doctor! Every single person." His face was flushed, parched of air. "Even you."

"I don't want the same way that you do," the Doctor's voice was low, his eyes narrowed. If he cast a shadow it was pointed and sharp.

"You do! Don't deny it!" He stood on trembling legs, rising to tower. His gaze glimmered with history. "That day, before we went down. You know what you said!"

"You're twisting it!" The Doctor took a step forward. "You're-"

"You said you wanted perfection in the universe!"

"No!"

"You said you wanted no one to ever die."

"That is not what I said!" the Doctor bellowed, hopping up the steps in two quick strides and standing face to face with the king. His face was warped with an anger that nearly made him unrecognizable, turning him into other people. "I said I wanted everyone to have their fullest life possible. I wanted no one to ever die through the injustice of others. That was why I was here! That's what I try to do. That's what I want, Julius!" He appeared ready to lean on invisible supports, his body sagging. "That's what I want, and nothing else."

The king smiled. "Is it?" he asked, softly.

"Yes." The Doctor was looking down and didn't see the king's expression. "Is that so hard to-wait." His gaze rose to meet the king's expression as the hall gradually became filled with the resolute and sincere sound of laughter.

"That's wonderful, Doctor," Julius said, still laughing under his words. But even as he was, he pointed up over his head, and the Doctor became aware of the quietly dinging sound of the wind chimes brushing together, filling their small space with pitched and oblique music. "For ourselves, we want to live another day, if the moment allows."

The Doctor's eyes went wide and he didn't dare to speak again.

"You, however, don't seem to want that. A pity. Welcome to our system now, Doctor," Julius said with a thin smile, his joy refusing to drown out the atonal chiming. "You're part of it now, and trapped, for the limited time you're going to exist in it."

---

I want to wake up any time now, Amy thought as her feet kicked at the empty air, her heels hitting the wall behind her. The representative from the Census was a dark on dark solidity before her, fingers pressing painfully into her shoulders. She was forcing herself to breathe regularly, her vision already swimming with the stress of it, her head pounding in the wake of all that had happened. The running, the fighting, the rumbling that still sounded in her ears as the echoes of a forgotten avalanche.

"Your wants for the moment have been stated," it said to her, a reminder of what she had done. The reminder was as painful as the hold, the body still stretched out in her mind, unmoving and crushed. There had been no choice in many ways but she still felt that the Doctor would have found another way. She couldn't keep letting him by her benchmark, though, or she'd launch herself head first into insecurities. "That leaves only one alternative."

It was going to kill her. That's what they did. Everyone knew that. Everyone accepted that. It was going to stab her or crush her head or simply drop her from a far height. Because it had to. Because that's what they did. Amy forced her heartrate down, imposing calm. It wasn't working, she only felt sweatier and stickier. Every second wasted was another second gone. She couldn't want herself out of this, she had blown that chance already through fear. She had to be better than that. What did the Doctor always say? Being scared is alright, as long as you make sure you're still around later to remember what it was like to be scared. There had to be something else she could do here. Already its hands were squeezing, a pressure that made her gasp through the cold of it. No. This was not how she was going to die.

"Enactment will commence now," it told her, which was very helpful of it.

"Wait!" she said, twisting a little in its grasp. "Don't I get a say in this?"

She expected it to just bash her across the face to make her shut up, or simply ignore her and get on with the business of murdering her.

Instead it paused.

"Your wants have already been stated for the day." It was the same flatness as before, but did she hear something else underneath the tone? A slight confusion, perhaps?

"Oh, I know that, obviously." She kept herself perfectly still, wanting to do nothing to remind it that it was holding her aloft. "You've all been perfectly clear about the instructions around here. I was just wondering, since I failed your little test, if I don't get to pick how I'm punished." Amy kept her voice as level as possible, ignoring the rising rate of her pulse. It might just kill her now. It might.

"The extent of one's demise should be irrelevant to the needs of the situation." Amy exhaled slowly. Okay. Okay. It was letting her talk and as long as she was talking she was still alive. Quiddoth's words came back to her, All you people do is stall for time, words she thrust away with a small pang. He had gotten her away, and she had gotten herself into this. For his sake, she had to get out of it.

"Well, maybe I have a preference, you know? Did you ever think about that?" She tried to keep her voice as prim as possible, not sure if it would have an effect on the representative.

"The consideration is not normally allowed."

"But it's not disallowed, though, right?" She smiled sweetly at it, hoping she was the prettiest doomed person ever. Her mind was racing three steps ahead of itself, trying to imagine where the conversation would go, where she could steer it. The Doctor made this look so effortless, always forcing people onto tracks that he had laid out. One day she wanted someone to do it to him so he knew how it felt. But not today. Today had not been a good day. "There's no reason why you can't indulge a poor girl's final request, hm?" She fluttered her eyelashes at it, telling herself that flirting with an alien construct was not the most embarrassing thing she'd ever done.

"Your meaning is unclear. Are you referring to a stated want?" Its fingers flexed against her skin, leaving marks in her shoulder that she refused to wince against. "Your stated want has been recorded, you are allowed no others. A demise will commence."

Bloody hell. This wasn't working. It was getting back on topic too quickly. "Wait, wait, wait," she shouted, kicking her feet against its dense body. Distantly she wondered if kicking the sword away would help. Not that it really needed the weapon. Not when bashing her head against the wall would accomplish much the same thing. "What about you?"

This seemed to give it pause again. "The meaning is unclear," it said again. "Please restate the inquiry." Amy was surprised that it was letting this go on for this long. The only reason she could imagine was that every fool on this world would just accept whatever fate was handed to them and refuse to fight back. Thus the representatives weren't used to any backtalk and weren't sure how to handle it. That was an advantage. It had to be one. She tried to ignore the beads of sweat running coolly and uncomfortably down her back. She had this. Though a last second save wouldn't be out of the question, Doctor. I wouldn't mind that.

"Don't you have a preference here?" Its grip wasn't loosening but even if it dropped her there was no way she could outrun it. Not when it had that sword. "You've probably killed people in a wide variety of ways. Don't you have any favorites?"

"The method chosen is as the situation demands." That seemed to end the discussion and Amy frantically flailed about in her mind for another distraction. But then it spoke again. "But this inquiry has never been made before. Explain."

Oh, bingo. Amy wet her lips, trying to choose her words carefully. "The whole world gets to say what it wants every day, right?" She didn't expect it to nod, that would be asking too much. The fact that she wasn't dead she took as tacit acknowledgement that she was to continue. "But nobody ever asks you how you want to go about it, am I right?"

"The notion has not entered into the discussion," it stated plainly. "What would be the point of it?"

"The point?" Amy laughed heartily and what she hoped in a way that would be recognized as friendly or conspiratorial. "The point is that you're more than just an instrument of punishment."

Its features were dark on black, more chiseled than fluid, but Amy swore she saw a flicker of thought run across what passed for a face. Or maybe it was just the ghost of her own near panicked reflection, seen in swoops. "Our purpose is to enforce. Our purpose is to be an enactor of punishment if the situation demands it. We are no more than that."

"Doesn't that ever get boring though? You know?" She tilted her head to the side in what old boyfriends used to tell her was a cute manner. But then they were ex-boyfriends so she had to take that for what it was worth. One time she had dyed her hair and it had taken Rory three days to notice. Even then, he complimented her on changing her eye shadow. "You've got everyone so well trained on this world that you probably never need to do anything at all, just whenever idiots like me roll around to spoil things."

"Boredom does not factor into it. Our presence is necessary for the system to work. When wants are not stated, we are to ensure they are stated. And when the proper wants are not stated . . ." The fingers began to squeeze again.

"Oy, oy!" Amy shouted. "No need to go into that nonsense again. I mean, we've been over it so many times and I really . . ." she fluttered her eyelashes. "I just find you so fascinating."

"This conversation is merely extending time in a useless manner. Enforcing will commence."

"I get to choose!" Amy barked at it, and before it could go any further she continued, speaking as fast as she could. "I am a visitor from another world and I did not come all the way here to die in the most boring fashion possible, am I clear on that? I will not perish in some dingy tunnel with your hands around my throat. I expect better than that. I mean, do you just half-ass your job every day or do you take some pride in it?"

The representative seemed frozen. When it spoke again its voice seemed to come from a great distance. "The task is done in the most efficient manner possible."

"Oh, you sound like that maths teacher I dated." Amy rolled her eyes. "Always going on about angles of deflection and all that. So what you're saying is that you get to decide how to kill me." This better work. Please? She wanted to flinch on every word, figuring it would be the last one it let her have. But she had a chance.

"Indeed." Okay, that was simple, you're supposed to agree. So far so . . .

"So what you're saying is that it's how you want to kill me, right?" She raised an eyebrow, although the sassy look was no doubt lost on it. All her talents were being wasted today. The Doctor had probably run into a steamy room of male models and was chatting with them about quasars, the way her luck was going.

"You will be eliminated in the most efficient way-"

"No, no, forget all that, all right? Just . . . just stay with me for a second here." It occurred to her that other representatives might have a sense of where their friend was and start coming down to see what was taking so bloody long. She had to wrap this up. Sweet talking one was hard enough, she didn't have it in her to work a room. "You could kill me in any way, right? I'm totally at your mercy." She shrugged, indicating with a motion of her head the two arms holding her fast.

Another pause. Then: "The assessment is perhaps correct."

"You know it's right." She took a deep breath. "So, being that you could kill me any old way, and you're choosing to kill me in this one particular way . . . wouldn't it be safe to say that's how you want to kill me?"

"It is merely the most effective-"

"But you're saying you want to kill me in the most effective way possible? So that the system is maintained and all that rubbish? Right?" Come on. Go with me on this you homicidal chunk of whatever the hell you are.

"The system must be maintained." Getting it trapped in a loop would be a good outcome as well but getting her hopes up there was probably pointless.

"But this is how you want to maintain it," Amy insisted intently, praying it would take the bait. That was all she needed, just one simple acknowledgement and the rest would fall into place. Maybe. Being able to teleport would have solved a ton of problems by now. "Isn't it?"

A long pause, the longest so far. Any second it could get tired of arguing. Thank goodness its patience seemed oddly infinite. The upside of being oppressing was that you had all the time in the world to linger on stuff like this between purges.

Amy was about to ask it again when it spoke up. "Yes." The pressure on her began to increase again, escalating into the edges of painful.

"Yes . . . what?" The risk had to be taken.

It didn't relent, but still managed to speak. "This is what this representative wants. To kill you in this fashion."

"Right, exactly!" Amy gasped, doing her best not to think of the hands moving toward her own throat. "So the system stays. The system that you're part of."

"Everything on this world is part of the system." At least it didn't seem to be enjoying this. She had that going for her.

"And . . . ah!" her shoulder was being squeezed painfully. What the hell? This wasn't efficient at all! "And you're absolutah . . . absolutely right. But you're missing something really important."

"The missing element is no doubt irrelevant. The commencing will continue." She tried to twist away to ease the pain, kicking her heel into the wall to avoid crying out. Come on, Pond, talk faster.

"Why am I being killed?" she blurted out in one elastic breath.

Its answer came oil slick easy and too slow for her. "Because you have stated your want for the day and that stated want was not to persist for another day."

"But . . . what about you?" It was like getting a massage from pistons. Her vision was beginning to become ringed with strobing red flashes. Either this works or I really need a last second save. I'm not particular at this point. "You're in the . . . same boat . . . as me."

"This representative?" Amy only nodded rapidly, unable to speak for a moment. "Explain."

"You . . . you said you wanted to kill me, like . . . like this . . ." she was forcing the words out past some obstruction in her throat. An obstruction like electricity constantly zapping her thoughts, disrupting them before they were fully formed.

"That is true."

"But if that's . . . true, then you haven't said you wanted to live." Her eyes felt like they were bugging out of her head, about to burst. It had submerged itself in a pool of shimmering black, destined to float away. Its arms were elongating. Or she was sinking.

A shudder seemed to run through its arm then, a vibration that went straight into her jaw. "That is true."

"And you said, you're part of the system, right?" If her feet could touch solid ground this would be all better. Just for a second. Just to relieve the pain. "They don't make an exception for anyone?"

"I want to kill you in the most efficient manner," the representative from the Census said, its tones subdued.

"But if you're like me and you're only allowed one want a day, where, ah, where does that . . . leave you . . ." she threw her head back, opening her mouth wide in silent pain, desperate not to scream. Focus, stay focused. Oh God, stay focused.

"The want has been stated." It wasn't even visible anymore, night had come down. Black bears in the black forest drawn on black construction paper. Not even a flicker.

"What do . . . you do . . . then?" She hadn't closed her eyes, she wouldn't close her eyes, she had to stay . . . to stay . . .

"The want has been recorded."

I just want to stay . . .

"And if the want is not persistence . . ."

I want to . . .

". . . then a presumption exists."

Amy heard hammers hitting each other softly in her brain. I want.

"And a punishment must be enacted."

Suddenly gravity was taking hold of her and all the elevator cables were cut. Her knees hit the floor painfully before she even realized that the hold on her had ceased. She grabbed at her throat, gasping, her eyes squeezed shut.

"Thus a cessation must occur."

Something brushed against her and she dodged away, too slow, far too slow. It was going to grab her again, it was going to run her through or or-

Or none of those things.

Above her, looming like an obelisk turned into a mountain, the representative from the Census walked toward the wall, putting both hands flat against it. Unblinking, it stared directly at the stone surface, pitted with age and grime.

"In the most efficient manner possible."

And smoothly, it tipped its head back and then swiftly forward again, smashing its face into the wall.

"Thus it will be done."

Its legs were surrounding Amy, twin trees keeping her pinned. Above, it heaved toward the wall again, without hesitation.

"This is the want."

A crack was heard, sharp and crisp, ice breaking across the lake on a cold day. It jerked again.

"And the punishment."

Unable to escape properly, Amy covered her head with her hands, trying to curl into the smallest possible space, even as another crack was heard.

"And the want."

The voice was a little blurred now, shot through with fractures, taking on a regular and brutal rhythm.

"And the punishment."

A shower of rocks began to drizzle at her back.

"And the-"

There was another bang, louder than before and a whole of rocks came down on her. Amy closed her mouth tightly to avoid swallowing any dust, as a near avalanche showered her clothing. When it was over, she lay there, doing her best not to tremble and keeping her eyes shut.

The representative had fallen silent.

Cautiously, she looked up, brushing shards of rock and dust from her hair and shoulders. Too far above, she could see the representative from the Census almost melded with the wall. What appeared to be its head was a ruin, misshapen and no longer even humanoid, but she didn't want to study it.

I didn't think that would work, she thought woozily, as world begged to take a vacation from her for just a few minutes, and feeling magnanimous, she decided to relax and let it.

---

"Do you still want to do this your way, Doctor?" Quiddoth asked. "Or have you finally been convinced?"

"You're all right, right?" the Doctor whispered to Amy, brushing some glass away from her hair, letting it tumble from her like diminished sparkles. His hands stayed away from the marks on her throat, shaped like fat fingers and an blaring red-purple in color. That would fade. It had to fade. "You're fine, I swear."

Amy only nodded shallowly, her eyes not directly focusing.

"What did she do?" the Doctor asked the alien, with a sudden injection of harshness. "What did this world do to her?"

"The system doesn't discriminate." In the shadows of the room he seemed as much a texture of the wall as an entity in himself. "She had a want and it was fulfilled."

"But how?" He was squeezing her shoulder but she only stared at it with a distant and detached expression. There was a streak of blood on her face that he was wiping at with a handkerchief. It kept trying to smear, changing colors as it did so. "There was no psychic resonance, I would have sensed that."

"It's not a psychic phenomena." Quiddoth was working on the only door out, trying to force it open. The wall on the other side of the room was sporting a jagged hole and just through it could seen a hand, fingers curled tenderly toward the floor. The rest of the body was out of view. "We would have figured that out."

"So what are your other theories?" The Doctor was absently straightening her clothes, giving her worried glances when he didn't think she was paying attention, and flashing a winning grin at her when she was. She returned the smile automatically, still blinking dazedly.

"It's a function of the world, as far as we can tell." He jiggled the door one more time, then put his weight behind it and heaved. With a quiet crack of protest it broke open, revealing another room beyond, long and narrow. Windows lined either side, but none of them seemed to let light in from the same angle. Overlapping shadows danced in contrast, waves without oceans. "It may have been present all along, but masked by other entities."

"That may very well have been the case." Noting Amy staring at him again, the Doctor grinned again and patted her gently on the cheek. Turning away with a huffed expulsion of breath, he shoved his hands into his pockets and faced Quiddoth. "Were you here . . . during those times?"

Quiddoth glanced over his shoulder. He studied the Doctor, up and down, and said nothing for a full minute. A part of his multi-hinged jaw worked silently, gnawing a slice of the air.

Then he skittered over to the Doctor, and twisted his body to the side. Awkwardly, but revealing.

"Here," he said, pointing to a section of his skin that had a different texture than the rest. Rougher and raw, at odds with the flesh surrounding it, it appeared to be an overlapping and intricate series of lines, with several nodules nested inside.

The Doctor met ran a hand over the mass, tracing the contour of it. Quiddoth barely flinched, his breath briefly stalking a double-time. Finally, the Doctor looked up and met his eyes. A certain understanding was embedded.

"Integration," he breathed. "I'm so sorry."

"They were trying to calculate the basic equations of time and space, with the hopes of substituting their own variables and changing the essential formulae. They devoted everything to it, including us." His hand came near his skin without touching it. "I was torn from my home, along with others of my cluster, and hard wired into the machine. Our shouts became the clacking of the abacus, our pulses counted out the steps toward the solution, our breathing was expressed in terms of the calculus of stasis." One of his arms spasmed, without any warning to its meaning. "This went on for years, or so it felt. Immersed in the chattering complex of numbers, my brain adapted and took to the task, sorting through roots and irrationals, imaginary fractionals and derivatives. That was maybe why I survived, the others of my cluster burned out not too long after." His face seemed to clench. "I didn't notice they were gone until the machine broke down, and I emerged from it, until hands torn me away, bleeding and bawling. When the time came, I didn't want to be removed from it, you see. I had grown enamored of the task, and wanted to see it through." A pervasive shudder ran through him. "I remember the bodies becoming smoke in the carnage. They had left them where they had failed, as husks. Raw fodder to feed those of us who still remained, as nutrients." His hands rubbed together, fingers trying to remove each other. "At times when I sleep, on the rare moments that I do, I often dream in pure numbers. A part of me still wants it solved. Sometimes I wake up, feeling that I am just on the edge of the solution."

"The solution doesn't exist. Not from that angle. They were going about it the wrong way." The Doctor was staring past Quiddoth, into the sunlight quilted room beyond.

"And yet most days it felt so close," the alien said quietly. "You understand, then, Doctor, having been part of one system, how I can't stand to see this one perverted. This was not our intention, to make every being pawns of its mechanics. It can return to how it once was. Easily."

"Violently," the Doctor countered.

"All actions are, in one form or another, a type of violence. Especially when those actions impose. I merely look for the violence that will make us the most free." He motioned toward Amy. "Get her up, we've lingered here for too long. We need to keep moving, or we'll die debating."

The Doctor went over and threw one of Amy's arms over his shoulder, hauling her to her feet. She muttered something about how she could do this but otherwise didn't protest.

"Come on. One two, one two," the Doctor said brightly, sweeping her along.

As they did, she stared around with the same detached expression as before. Except when her gaze fell upon the portion of the body that could be seen through the door.

"Did I want that?" she asked no one in particular. "Is that what I wanted?" she said to the Doctor, her brow wrinkled and her eyes worried. "Is it?"

"You stated the want." Quiddoth answered, despite the Doctor's silencing glare. "You stated it in the moment and thus it was fulfilled. That is how it works."

"Oh," was all she said, even as the Doctor tried to make a reassuring noise. The impact of the word hit her a few seconds later and a part of her face crumpled into deeper emotion. "Oh my God," she moaned, covering half her face with one hand even as the Doctor steered her away.

"A verbal trigger implies that someone is listening," the Doctor stated as they entered the new corridor, letting it close around them with a constant whispering burble. The windows, floor to ceiling and sectioned, all showed different vistas, some of them scorched, others lush jungles and still one more a vast snowfield, with swirls of snow dancing across it as dervishes. In one of them, a meadow drenched constantly in rain, a pack of dog-like men sat in a loose circle around a weak fire, and regarded them with a mixture of curiosity and bewilderment.

"The gods, perhaps."

"You don't strike me as someone who believes in gods." The Doctor's face was enveloped in differing shades of light, yellows and greens and blues, striping his face like he was being painted with different skies.

"I can't say that's even really been a concern." The door on the other end of the corridor was also locked, with a single window that only reflected their faces. Or it reflected them, but reversed. Amy was staring straight ahead, intensely and intently. "I've accepted the nature of this world as part of its strangeness. I wish it to remain strange."

"You know that won't happen." One of the windows abruptly switched to a world drenched in red light, a star too big hovering in the sky like a bloated eye. Tiny plants hugged the surface, their twitches as seizures and the only hint of actual life. The crimson shaded his eyes. "It's going to change. It has to change."

"It merely needs to revert." The door slid open smoothly and suddenly, leading into a circular room taken up by a massive pool of water in the center of it. Sections of railing ringed it, and a giant window in the ceiling showed the underside of another pool, bubbles reeling and colliding in a kind of playful but destructive game.

"That isn't possible, Quiddoth," the Doctor said, frustrated. He staggered to the railing, leaning against it and letting Amy slide from him. She grabbed onto the railing as per reflex, still seeming trying to get a sense of where she was, or even who she was. She stared down into the water, the three of them broken into splotches of basic color, floating without moving, drifting without leaving. "We have to go back to the palace. We can't keep running. They're going to catch up with us again."

"Then we'll kill them." There was a sudden savagery in the alien's voice. The water churned placidly, out of time with his words. "Julius doesn't understand how badly we want this, but he will if we eliminate most of his representatives. Let him send hordes of them after us, until he has none left. Then he'll have to listen."

"That's your plan?" The Doctor was incredulous but not exactly surprised. "To kill everyone until there's no one to stand in your way?"

"Just the one who maintains this current corruption. You misunderstand me, Doctor, by your implications. I do not want to instate myself as ruler, but merely give this world a chance to realize its potential. That has been taken away, and we deserve it again." Dark shapes moved under the water, passing by each other in slow linear ballet.

"No, that's not how it is," the Doctor said softly, folding his hands together. Light reflected from the water played off his face, finding the crannies and contours, a floating world dispersed in his eyes. "You had the chance and proved yourselves unworthy of it. It was fear that led you here, fear of your own limitations, a fear of what others might do if not checked or bounded. You took cowardice and told yourselves it was a kind of freedom." He ran one finger along the railing, rubbed it against his thumb. "You perpetuated a system where nobody was trusted. And they died. And they're still dying." There was only the barest trace of sadness when he looked at Quiddoth again. "It ends today, and it's not coming back."

"You can't assure that," Quiddoth hissed.

"I can," the Doctor said simply, with a small shrug of his shoulders. Next to him, Amy shivered, leaning over the pool with her forearms on the railing. "I'm sorry, Quiddoth. But I can't take the risk."

The alien rose up on all his legs. "Then why am I wasting my time assisting you?" he railed. "If you're going to destroy everything I want restored, why am I here? With you, and you!" He pointed to each of them, waving his weapon around. The Doctor watched him carefully. "You know nothing of what we lost, and what can be regained!"

"I know what has been lost!" the Doctor shouted. "I watched someone die in front of me! Where was the beauty in that? Where was the perfection in that?" He was breathing heavily now, two sets of respirations for two hearts, and the water was responding to the rancor of his words, small waves becoming choppy, moving up and down. In regular fashion up and down. Just like swords, falling.

"You take the flaws and you let them stand as examples for the system itself, when you have seen nothing of the beauty of it." Quiddoth was coming around the pool in slow measured steps, following the railing closely. The Doctor was standing straight now, arms at his sides. Elongated shapes capered beneath them, even as Amy was trying to count them, her eyes slightly narrowed. Shadows draped on shadows, on different planes of remission. "You have not heard the music that was created from the falling of sand, sculptures built from laughter, stories woven in clouds. You want to condemn us all for a weakness, for not foreseeing what that weakness wrought? And has greatness only blossomed from your imperfections, Doctor?"

"I learn from my mistakes, not repeat them in the hopes that it might turn out differently this time," the Doctor said tightly.

The alien stalked over to him smoothly, his body low and slowly rising. The clacking of his jaws was inches from the Doctor's chest. "There's so much we could still do. I won't help you take it from us again."

"No." His answer was by turns sad, and firm, with no room for anything but loss, and the aftermath of it. In nonlinear time, sometimes mourning began before the body died. "You were so desperate to grasp at a chance at forever, you hoarded it, in the vain hope that if given endless days, miracles would occur. And yes, in an infinite span miracles do occur, but so does horror. And needless death can't be used as an excuse for miracles." His fingers wrapped around the rail as he became the only immoveable object in the room. The only sound for a few seconds was the gentle sloshing of errant water. "You are still capable of wonderful things. You don't need this."

"One, two, three," Amy counted, wagging one finger at the pool.

The alien's back rippled, nearly bristling. There was a darkening gleam that the light wouldn't touch, as if the shell was breaking. His weapon wavered, not pointing at any one object. "I will not accept limitations. Not after having once been released from all boundaries."

"Four, five, six," Amy noted, quite seriously. "Doctor, there's-"

"I'm sorry, but you're going to have to do it the hard way from now on." He went to take a step out to the side, as if trying to block Quiddoth, but then decided against it. "The same as everyone else."

"Seven, eight, what the . . . Doctor."

"Then those are terms I cannot accept." The alien receded, backing down. His weapon was lowered, just barely scraping the floor. "This alliance, feeble as it was, is over." He began to skitter toward the door, already awash in softened shades of azure.

"Quiddoth!" the Doctor called out. His voice echoed as a bowl, needles in the air. "I don't want to have to deal with you, too!" The alien didn't respond.

"Nine, ten, Doctor-"

"Amy, don't interrupt me when I'm trying to talk reason to someone." The Doctor half-turned, exasperated. "Especially someone who is so stubborn he won't-"

From above, there came a loud bang, low toned and hollow, resonating far longer than it needed to. Staggering back a step, the Doctor stared up.

Amy stared up, too. "Oh," she said, her voice still hazy and distant, "that makes a lot more sense."

There was shadows on the water, drifting upwards from great depths like slow missiles. The shadows were only reflections. The sources were above, in the dome of water that protruded into the room.

"The numbers didn't add up," Amy said, squinting as the dark shapes fell out of their indistinct margins, resolving at the edges, at the center. Finding colors, if colors were black. Finding components, legs and arms and hands and heads. Monolithic golems free of gravity and forever descending. "Doctor, it's-"

"I know," he said quickly, quietly, carefully. "I know." He leaned back on his heels, took out the screwdriver and pointed it at them for a brief moment. "No, no," he muttered to himself as he stuffed it back inside his coat. "That will just . . ."

Above, the first figure bumped against the bottom, bouncing only barely. A hand began to move toward the glass with an agonizingly slow determination.

"Quiddoth!" the Doctor yelled. Something in his voice made the alien pause even as he was mostly through the doorway. "We've got company."

The alien took a few steps back into the room and stared upwards with a detached curiosity. "I suppose you do," he said softly. "But understand, it is no longer my problem."

The hand banged against the glass, and all the figures above vibrated, like static running through a transmission. Two more floated down, in that same eerie and heavy grace, one on either side of the first, raising their hands as well.

"You think they'll stop with me?" The Doctor grabbed Amy's arm and pulled her closer. The room sounded with three loud and wobbling bangs, the chime of a clock gone horribly wrong. "They'll come after you next!"

"You won't guilt me into this," the alien shot back, one hand on the door. But his eyes were focused on the chiseled pieces of obsidian, blurry at the edges, that was clustering on the bottom of the dome like flattened vultures. "You want to finish this your way, without killing anything? Here's your chance! Bask in the utter perfection of your plan. Find a way now."

The next deep chime was interrupted by a sharp crack, a wrong note in an improvised symphony. Water droplets began to pool on either side of the crack, the letters of an alphabet that couldn't be read.

"You're making a terrible mistake." The Doctor's hands were clenched into fists, his body drawn from a ramrod. Another crack was heard, a splinter that turned dewdrops into a slow trickle, striking the calm waters of the pool below and adding a strange note of musicality to the scene. "This is your world's best chance."

"I can wait for the best chance," Quiddoth said. Half his body was in the doorway, still backing away. "I can hide in the system, where they can't touch me. Until the time comes again. I thought it was you, Doctor, but I was wrong."

A thicker dollop of water hit the pool, sending splashes to count the edges of the floor under the railing. All other shapes that had once occupied it were gone, buried or dispersed. The light in the room was darkening, the blue becoming deeper, leaching itself of all hue. The pounding was an erratic heartbeat now, counting up and counting down.

"You don't have forever," the Doctor said, speaking quickly. Faces were pressed, assuming new shapes. The alien hadn't run yet. But even he could see what the lips were asking. "You don't. One day you're going to make a mistake and they're going to find you and that will be it. You've condemned yourself to a race that you're going to lose. Do you realize that? This is what you wanted!"

Quiddoth twitched. "Don't say that. Don't."

"Doctor . . ." The cracks were spreading, becoming a spidery hand with fingers that were attempting to clutch the dome, to pull it down. Small waterfalls were forming, bubbles drifting past the giants above in lazy escape.

A splatter of water hit the floor hard near the Doctor's feet. He never appeared to notice. "If you tell yourselves that all you want to do is live, you leave room for nothing else. It becomes a struggle to wish, to dream. Is what you wanted?"

Quiddoth's hand gripped the doorframe, squeezing so tight the skin seemed to bulge. "I just want another chance. Is that too much to ask for?"

The water was falling faster, a near deluge drenching the room, turning the lower pool into chaos. A hand was up against the widest crack, attempting to fit through. "All along, you've been playing the wrong game. Because no matter who wins, this is what you're going to get!" He threw his arms out wide. "How many homes have we wandered through, to find hidden imaginations too afraid to be revealed. For the fear of one more day."

The dome was bending, creaking. The faces were being molded into the glass. The shadows were taking their shapes. The pool was crying upwards, disturbed.

"There used to be so much time . . ." Quiddoth whispered.

"And one day this is all you'll have . . . a world of empty rooms stuffed with beauty, and nobody around to appreciate it, or even remember." He tugged Amy sharply, stepped toward Quiddoth. "Is that going to be your legacy?"

"You're asking . . . do you know what you're asking . . ." the alien sounded out of breath.

The water was roaring down now, and the Doctor could barely be heard. "I'm asking as someone trapped, if you know a way out. Do you?"

A chunk of glass broke free, somersaulted to the pool, landing flat with a heavy splash. The water was churning now, out of time with the assault.

Quiddoth saw it and his eyes seemed to recede. "Doctor, I want . . ."

"What?" He dodged to the side to avoid a giant wave, nearly slipping. "What do we want?" It was noise being strangled in a tunnel. A hand came through the glass, grasping, the form obscured by foaming and escaping water.

"To get out of here," Quiddoth said firmly, taking three steps forward and grabbing the Doctor with one hand, Amy with the other. His voice was carved from outside. "I want us to be in the palace. Now."

With an intaked hush, the air took them.

---

"You want me to . . . what?"

Explain this necessity of wanting.

"Wanting is . . . it's what everyone does. No matter how perfect your life is, there's always something you want."

And this is desireable?

"It's not bad. Sometimes people want impossible things, like to redo a certain day that didn't go well, or make someone fall in love with them who can't. Sometimes it's silly, like you want to be taller, just for a day, or be able to sing."

Are those wants often acquired?

"No, they . . . we don't always get what we want. Or you get it and find out that you didn't really want it, that you were better off a redhead, or in your crappy office job, or skipping that last pint because you had that office job the next morning."

Then to get a want is to be desired, is to have done right?

"Not all the time. All that silly impossible stuff, nobody ever expects to get that. That's life, you know? We all have stuff we'll never get, and it's okay. Nobody is really supposed to be their lives around one want."

But this is what we are taught to be told.

"Excuse me."

You are wrong. People are given hold to one want, and hold no other, except for letting go to grasp another entirely. It is true.

"No. No, it's not."

Then tell us the fullest extent of your want, or do not leave.

---

"Can you want a moment to come?" Amy whispered to Quiddoth. Mobile walls were forming around them.

"The finalization of the punishment will be enacted. There will be no further movement."

"It's never worked that way before," the alien whispered back. "And besides, it would do us very little good. We'd never be able to tell, down here." He shrugged himself away from Amy suddenly, proving to be lithe even while injured. The action nearly sent her spinning to the floor, her knee hitting painfully.

"Oy," she said, part question and part expression. She clutched her leg, mouth opened in a round aspect of pain. For a second she forgot that they were surrounded.

That second was short-lived and less than its time, as the feet of a nearby representative grew closer, attempting to hem her in. She tried to crawl closer to Quiddoth, but the alien pushed her away. Time had removed itself into a series of slow motion sequences, the flicker of film running at the wrong speed. A barrage of images with no connecting motion, and only the implications of the moments she was unable to see working to form an assumed narrative.

"We can barrel past them," Amy said quickly, one hand wrapped around one of his legs. "They all move at the same time, and not fast. Stick with me and when I say run, we'll-"

"There will be no further movement." It wasn't clear if the representative had actually heard her, however, or was merely following its own script.

"It's right," Quiddoth said, a subcutaneously bell suddenly evident in his voice. "I'm not going anywhere."

"I am not dying here," Amy hissed back, glancing at Quiddoth while trying to keep one eye on the steadily closing representatives from the Census. All of them were reaching for their swords, perhaps taking no chances this time. Their inches were incremental, but inevitable. "And we didn't go through all this so you could suddenly decide you have a death wish"

"The lack of want has been assured," the nearest representative to her said, reaching for her with one set of blocky fingers. Amy dodged away from it in about the only space available to dodge into, aware that she was checkmating herself on some level.

"How do you even know that?" she shouted at it, debating whether to kick it. But it might just grab her leg and drag her away. Or slam her into the ceiling. Or cut the leg off. Whatever it wanted to do.

"You are correct. You are not dying here." There was a nervous calm to Quiddoth now. His fingers were fumbling deftly at his weapon, taking it to pieces, breaking it down to new components. He was out of synch with the incidents arising around him, he and Amy and the representatives all locked into different planes. "This is not something that will happen."

A surge of alarm seized Amy. This scenario was unfolding too fast, and pausing at all the wrong moments. "Neither are you. Okay. Neither are you."

"I will tell you what will happen to you, however." He separated part of the weapon, a thin slick of a block, and reversing it, plugged it into the forepart firmly. This exposed some dangling wires, which he proceeded to splice together, running his hand along to seal them.

A sword blade screeched into the wall near her, throwing out errant sparks. Amy screamed and dove away, trying to maneuver in what little space remained. They had all the entrances covered, along with the exits. And they were moving so fast, she couldn't do this, couldn't keep track of the multi-tasked scene.

"You will get away from here, and find your friend." His motions were so deliberate, running a puzzle through thread and still able to see the full picture. "He and you will save the day, and end all this, then leave to find greater adventures elsewhere." His words didn't conceal the gently rising hum that was emerging from the transformed weapon. Quiddoth flicked another switch, pressed another corner, altering its shape yet again.

"Stillness is a necessity." The hand reached for her again, almost steering her into another. Her back slammed against the wall, a scratching she felt right through her shirt.

"Yes." Quiddoth nodded, rubbed two pieces of his jaw together. "I would like very much for that to happen."

"I told you before, I'm not leaving you-ah!" The sword clanged down on the stone near her as it nimbly lumbered, keeping her confined. Quiddoth ignored her statement, focusing on his device, twisting another wire. "Dammit, Quiddoth, I'm stalling for time!" A hand reached for her and she fell backwards, nearly cracking her head on the wall. Time fluctuated, the wave rolled back. Her face was near the alien's, and he looked back at her, misshapen and broken.

"And the punishment will not be circumvented."

Amy's eyes met his. "We're supposed to save each other," she said softly. "That's how it works."

"I made a decision earlier." He made one final twist, breaking off a piece of the device and tossing it onto the floor. The hum of the pitch began to rise more sharply, a cliff without a crescendo. "For the first time I made something other than wanting to live another day my highest priority. I threw away certainty and opened myself up to my own possible doom." A representative went to grab his arm and he shook it away almost irritated, waving the device at it. Surprisingly, it backed off, but just an inch, and hovered. "And as much as it might be happening now, by doing so, I also opened myself up to salvation, in a way."

"No, don't do this." She went to grab for the device but he held it away from her, nearly backing into a representative from the Census, who wrapped arms around him. Amy felt arms wrapping around her as well, pulling them apart, forcing a gap between them. She struggled, went to find the looseness in it. One they could both slide through.

"All unstated wants are irrelevant. The task has been set." Sword tips could be heard, scraping against hardness.

"I realized something important, in doing so." The one representative had him firmly, but he was relaxed in the grasp, hardly struggling. "The Doctor was right, after all. You can be make two wants come true, simultaneously, and hold them both until possessed. I had forgotten, in my zeal."

"Quiddoth!" So close and she was shouting anyway, the loudness of her voice somehow startling the representative, allowing her to slip out and away from it. But more blocked her from getting back, crowding around Quiddoth, raising swords, raising fists.

"This is as necessity, a final statement."

His face was still visible through the mass, obscured by trees made of darkest carbon. "Tell him someone is going to have to make toys now. It was never one of my skills."

"No!" Somehow she was getting shoved back, forward was taking her away, the corridor was receding, black bars pressing in from both sides.

A sword was on the back of his neck. Seen by Amy through slits, Quiddoth was holding the device in both hands, its rising tone underscoring his words.

"Afterwards, all wants are silent."

"The prudent action would be to run," he said simply, one finger on the edge. "If you were to ask me what I wanted."

This isn't, no. This won't, he. Her heels were slipping, the floor was tilting, hands reached out to catch her again and it was very clear suddenly that she had to let herself fall.

And she went. And she did.

Quiddoth watched her go, a fluttering sigh infusing him. Two more swords appeared at his throat but the only sound was the wail of the device. "I thought I had built myself a tunnel, to find a better place," he told the representatives. "While the whole time, I had merely trapped myself in a burrow. We all were."

He didn't flinch as the sword started to cut into him. "But I've found a way to get us all out."

His finger pressed hard into the device and the wail abruptly cut off, replaced by a trembling and too brief silence.

"Come along," Quiddoth may have said, as he stared straight up into the further point and closed his eyes just as the silence ended. And became light.

---

"Why do you want to know what I want?"

So it can be fulfilled. Isn't that a desire?

"Yes . . . but no, no! Not all the time. Don't you get that? Don't you understand?"

How can a want not be desired to be brought into reality?

"Because . . . because there's a difference between wanting something and having something. You don't get to have all the things you want."

What is the point of wanting it then?

"Because it's . . . it's fun, in a way. It's nice. At one point in my life I wanted a huge house, and a devilishly handsome rich husband and I would have a horse I could ride anywhere, I could ride until I found where sunsets ended."

Should not those things be had?

"But I didn't get sad by not having them. I got other stuff instead. I got a man that I love, because he goes to people who are terrified and hurting, and when he looks at them he's not afraid, and they become less afraid. And he wants to marry me and I don't understand it sometimes, because I'm this daft ginger who doesn't know what she wants from her life. But until then I have this great life and . . . oh God."

Why not conceive of one's ideals?

"He was right. He was joking and he was right. I do stall for time. I'm doing it now."

And bring those ideals into existence?

"Oh God, just . . . no, listen. You don't understand. Just because you want something doesn't mean you deserve to have it. I want lots of stuff. Every day. Most of it is ridiculous. Once I wanted someone to bring me down the moon. And that's everyone. You can't just hand over what they want."

Or?

"They don't earn it. There's no satisfaction, you've got first prize handed to you and what's the point of that? Sometimes getting what you want is, it's the planning, its the steps involved in getting there. The journey, and yes I know that sounds stupid but you've probably never heard that cliché. But don't you see?

The removal of struggle will allow freedom for further greatness. Is that not true?

"No. Dammit. Don't you know what you're doing?"

Facilitating and engaging. Enforcing. Enlightening.

"You're doing just the opposite. You're just making it worse."

---

"Do you want me to feel sad over an empty house?" Inelda stalked over to Amy and snatched what she had called a toy from her hand. "There are hoards of abandoned houses all over the city. People craft them, grow tired of them, and move on."

"Or die," the Doctor said, leaning against the opposite wall, his body at a stark angle. His posture was never young. Amy could never get used to that. There was too much weight to its lightness.

"Yes, that happens too." She tossed the toy onto the bed, where it beeped forlornly. "You act like this is the first time I have been exposed to such travails. I am aware of this, no matter how much you try to shock me with it." Her eyes flashed in the dim lighting, trying to pin him. But he had already taken hold, and would stand firm. "I have seen leavings in my time, Doctor. Some of them voluntarily, many of them not. I have grown used to emptiness as a part of life. It does not move me." She gathered herself, adjusting her skirt and smock, her antennae stiff and upright, and went to leave. "Are we done here?"

"Did you ever have children?" The question came as a spear before she had taken more than two steps out. He wasn't even looking in her direction.

Nor did she look back to his. "No." It was stated flatly, without lingering sentiment. "This body would not allow me that luxury."

"I'm sorry," Amy blurted out, not even sure why. She wanted kids someday, she had always told herself. Some day on a day that wasn't today. And it was always today.

"Don't," Inelda answered. "We are not all suited for it. I accepted it, and became a witness with my own eyes, instead of achieving satisfaction through the eyes of others."

"But people had children here, on this world," the Doctor said. The one toy was still beeping, but growing quieter. In the darkness it was hard to make out the details of the room, the colors, or if the random patches on the walls were simply the texture of the construction or decorations meant to delight. Her frame of reference was gone.

"Of course they did."

"I see." He pushed himself away from the wall and brushed past her, as if the leaving had been his idea all along. But instead of going back the way they had entered, he took an abrupt left, darting down a short ascending corridor. "And did you ever see any of those children?"

"Perhaps. Sometimes." A tremor of uncertainty had entered the underside of her voice, not enough to shake her but enough to make her think for a moment about her answers. "I didn't normally associate with those people, but of course they existed."

"Of course," the Doctor said dryly, still leading with quick strides. The corridor opened into spokes, with four or five rooms branching off from the main bulb. All the doors were closed and there appeared to be markings on each one. "Of course," he said again, not to her. His hands were on his hips.

He spun to face Inelda, fast enough to make her draw back. "Did you ever give any kind of thought as to how you would have been as a parent, if your life had taken that path?"

Amy expected the old woman to give him a snide answer. But his question must have probed a different part of her. "Yes," she said, with softened grit, "a long time ago, when I was more reflective. I would have done my best, and if all went well, I suspected that would have been just enough."

The Doctor went to the first door, examining the markings on it by running his fingers over it. Amy came over to stand near him, seeing that they were carved into the door with a rough line and a jagged cut. "Would you have treated them well?"

"What kind of a question is that?" she snapped. He was at the second door now, which felt warm to Amy's touch. A section of it seemed to be vibrating, the power of a tired or slumbering engine.

"An honest one, with the hopes that an equally honest answer will reveal more than the answerer intends." Amy was trying to gain a sense of the markings, even as her eyes kept constantly adjusting to what felt like a shifting gloom. She saw that the ceiling overhead had bulges in it, irregular and not near to bursting.

"Then, yes, I would have treated them well. What else does that reveal of me? I have been nothing but honest with you, Doctor. I resent the implication." She stood in the center of the spokes, her arms folded across her chest.

"It's not honesty to me that I'm concerned with," he murmured, spreading his fingers against the third door, then folding them into a fist. "And if they had wanted something, would you have given it to them?"

"If it was in my power, of course." Curiosity made her lean forward, but not make the leap. "As a mother, it would be expected."

"And if they wanted more than one thing, say, a new toy and a story before their bedtime? Or a snack? What then?" He tapped against the door lightly, his eyes narrowed. Amy went to touch the door as well, but something in his stance shooed her away.

"My answer wouldn't change."

"Good." He said it with a small smile. But there was an intensity that never left his eyes. "And if those children were raised on a world where people were only restricted to one want a day?"

The question seemed to catch her off guard. "What do you . . ."

"Here." He tapped his fist against the door once more before taking one step back and kicking it, hard and sharp and rapid. Whatever material it was, too smooth for wood but not hard like metal, cracked easily under the impact. The door bent like a struck person, right in the center and creaked open.

"Here," he said again, and went inside.

Amy followed immediately, the dry smell hitting her first. It stank like hay left out too long in the sun, with a hint of rain to soften the decay. The room was compressed and boxed, but that was only because she couldn't see the walls. The walls were covered in cages, floor to ceiling, some stacked in front of the others. Some were metal with wires, some were solid glass, some seemed like tubes to hold gaseous forms. A few were totally empty but most had a residue of sorts left behind, a lumpen pile of matter, bones crossed together like sharpened silk, a frozen form locked in a final approximation of life.

"Is this some kind of zoo?" Amy asked, unable to raise her own voice from a whisper. There was another sort of squareness in center of the room that she assumed was another bed.

"In a sense." He examined the top of the assumed bed, pushing his fist into the top of it. The surface failed to yield.

Inelda's silhouette haunted the entrance, a shape that made no weight. "What is this, Doctor?"

"The flaw in the system," the Doctor said, standing up rapidly as if just remembering that she was with them. In a flash he strode out past her, shoving her aside and heading for the next nearest door, also kicking it in without even slowing it down. An array of beeps and wavering sounds assaulted them and Amy caught the barest glimpse of a literal wall of blinking stacked objects, rumbling and crashing into her each other.

"If you bring a child into world where they can have literally anything they want, what do you think will happen?" the Doctor barked out, taking out the next door. Amy couldn't even begin to enter as the smell hit her as a physical force, with even the Doctor only taking a step inside. It was sugar left to curdle and then breed, and the shadows broke into solids, wobbling stacks upon stacks, towers of radiating smoke, cured meats and salts mingling together. "They will ask for it. They will demand it."

Inelda could only a few steps before the Doctor changed course. "Then they'll have to be made to underst-"

The end of her sentence was interrupted by yet another bang as the Doctor took on another door and succeeded. "How do you explain that to a child? To someone for whom the whole world is new and fascinating? How can you put that within their reach and tell them there are limits?" This room was flushed with voices from invisible sources, leaking out as one mass and swarming over them, screaming and cooing and laughing until Amy had to cover her ears to ward off the noise.

"You can't!" the Doctor shouted, taking out his screwdriver and holding it into the air. The tip of it hummed and suddenly the voices cut out. Inelda had shrank back, her hands twitching as if attempting to catch the now silenced voices.

"They . . . they could be . . . taught." Her voice was curled and curved, not willing to extend fully.

His laugh lacked all mirth, and was mercifully brief. "Maybe, eventually. It's called maturity, but I've found even most adults never attain it." He paced around her in a loose half-circle, one arm held at an angle out from his body. "And what do you do in the days before that miracle occurs? When they've wanted a new toy, a new pet, a favorite food? When they've stated every want but what the Census wants to hear. What do they do?" He had stopped before another closed door, facing Inelda. Amy stood on the opposite side of the old woman, wishing it didn't seem like they were surrounding her, trapping her.

She didn't answer, her antennae bent back. He took a step at her, leaned in and nearly bellowed, "Well? What do they do?"

Her form was held, but trembling. "There . . . there would have to be some leniency . . ."

"Why?" the Doctor sneered, in a voice that Amy felt was wrong coming from him. "The system is perfect. There are no flaws in it. Everything is as it should be. Right?"

She only shook her head.

"Do you know what these markings are?" The Doctor pointed to each door. Some of the markings were distorted or cracked with the entrances breached. "It's writing. It says what the contents of each room are. And an apology. It says they were never allowed any of it. I guess they hoped it might have swayed the Census."

"It could have been explained to them!" Inelda shot back, trying to force her argument into a bundle and shove it at the Doctor. It was only a breeze to him. "If the parents couldn't explain the stakes . . ."

"How do you explain imminent mortality to a child? How do you explain consequences to someone who just wants a new toy, or a friend to play with?" He walked straight at her and past her, not even noticing when she practically skittered out of his path. "How do you deny someone so much, when you only want them to be happy?"

"The system isn't perfect!" Inelda came back at him hoarsely. "Is that what you would like me to admit, Doctor? That all I have lived under is not flawless? Would that satisfy you, finally, if I said you were correct. It changes nothing!" She was panting, her legs wobbling slightly.

He gauged her, as if wondering how much further to take this. "They couldn't take them outside, for fear the Census might come across them. So they had to hide them in the house away from everyone, with toys they couldn't dare let them play with, with new wants and desires popping up every day." He dragged his foot along the floor but the line was already drawn. "Because they were children, they never got to see the sun, they never got to meet anyone else, were forced to make due with these walls and this house and this life. Because they were children." The look he gave her could have brought down mountains. "And you call it merely a flaw, Inelda? You're delusional."

"The rewards, the possibilities . . ." she said, her antennae trembling. She looked suddenly, older than the Doctor. Amy wanted him to stop, tell him that he had gone far enough. But he was the type of man who saw things through. All the way through.

"Sure, why care about them when you get to live another day?" He lunged forward like he might knock her over but pivoted before the motion was complete and moved for one of the remaining closed doors. "When you can go to the market any time you wish, when you can talk to a friend, leave your windows open to let the fresh air in? When all you have to do is take care of yourself?"

"They had a choice!" Inelda was unable to move closer. "Everything here comes down to a choice. Each one, deciding which one you want most."

"They did," the Doctor admitted. He was running his screwdriver swiftly over the seam for the door. "But in the world as you see it, choosing is merely deciding which flower to pluck from the garden of delights that endlessly surrounds you . . ."

He pulled the screwdriver away, stepping back as the door receded and neatly dodging the body that tumbled out, scattering dried pieces of itself where it hit the floor.

". . . when the reality is you're only allowed to pick certain stems, because all the rest are covered in thorns."

The body was unrecognizable as anything that Amy knew, a husk now, brown and seemingly made of strands of prickly wheat, bulging in the wrong places for a human, no sense of legs, long fingers permanently curled and a hole that should have been the back of the head. A section of it near the center was dominated by a wide slit, too smooth to be utterly jagged.

The Doctor nodded to it, as if in deferral. "When the reality is, no matter how well you hide them, one day you're going to slip and they're going to come in. And they'll know, to go to finish." There was a twist in the body and a sense of pleading inherent in the empty hole. It was screaming a single note, already crumbling at the edges. "And in desperation, because it's every nightmare that you have ever envisioned, you will take the only step you can."

"It's a choice . . ."

"You're damn right it's a choice!" His voice seemed to echo far beyond the end of his sentence, perhaps aided by the empty room beyond him. "A choice to give your own children a chance that this world had denied them. A choice to render your own life forfeit in order to save theirs." His fingers probed the edges of the slit. "It must have been so fast. Because they wanted the children to survive, it was assumed they no longer wanted to live "

He stood up again, smoothly, rising in a way that bore down. "Do you know what this door says, Inelda?"

"Enough, Doctor, enough . . ." The old woman had somehow, in a way, become nearly transparent. Or perhaps not. Her heart was fluttering so that it might engage in futile flight.

"If you come here, please do not hurt them." He was finding the door at oblique angles, reading off the prism of scattered sunlight, wavelengths beyond what was seen. "They are good ones and never cause harm. The smallest likes to make noise but means no harm. The twins hit but do not hurt. The tallest likes to find the color in all." His voice had taken on a strange cadence, finding the odd meter of another language. It was a cathedral, this small space, inhabited by only his voice. "Please do not hurt them, they mean no harm."

He reached out a hand to Inelda, and the old woman seemed to shrink from his touch. Part of him was inside the room now, staring at the walls nearest the door, where more words must have rested for he kept reading.

Hand still extended, he said, "They want but the wants we can give them. They will not be a burden. We can give. Please. If you see this." Inelda still came no closer. Or maybe a step. His hand was out. She took another, drawn. "They stay here and do not harm. If you see this. Please." She wasn't going to take his hand but she was here. Or nearly as here was. "They roll the floor, they find little noises. No one sees. Please. If you see this. They will grow and one day." Because here kept shifting, the Doctor sinking deeper inside. Amy's view had changed, or maybe she had shifted. Nearer. This was here. "They will know and properly want. One day of the future. Please. If you see this."

The floor crunched under her feet, bathed in a semantic blue, near to darkening. The Doctor was following the inner wall, without being seen. Inelda wasn't in yet, too near his hand. The thread of his voice. "They do as they are told most days. They will not harm. Please. If you see this." The musty smell, cascade as a swirl. Almost inside. "They are delight most days. They are not a want. Please. They are a life." The bare walls and the mat on the floor. The underwater removed of fluid. Someone was breathing so fast now. His voice was so measured. "If you see this. Please. We did our best. We kept them away. Their noises down." The mat covered in a loose blanket, thin and translucent. Inelda had him, was holding on. "If you see this. We are sorry. Please. They mean no harm."

Her eyes were drawn to the mat.

"They are good. Please."

And the still shapes under the blanket.

"If you see this."

And the smell of old days stalled.

"They will love you as they know you."

And his voice stripped of all sound.

"Please."

And the thin faces poking from the blanket, dry and feeble.

"If you see this."

And the eyes trapped closed.

"They are only sleeping."

And all movement long extinct.

"They mean no harm."

And the old woman let go.

"Please."

And the old woman let go.

The Doctor didn't even react as Inelda fled from the room, making a peculiar hiccupping noise as her steps carried her in leaps down the corridor. Amy thought they might give chase but instead he had fallen silent, his eyes lightly closed and his forehead a bare inch from the wall.

The old woman was nearly out of sight, and it occurred to Amy that she might try to get the Census to come back.

"Doctor, we should-"

"No," he said, not to her and maybe not about Inelda. Her footsteps were already gone, a vague memory erased. His eyes snapped open like he might read more, then just as quickly closed again. "No."

---

Does one want for a life to be worse?

"No, oh God, no . . . maybe if you're a masochist, but that's not most people, it's . . ."

Masso kissed? Explain.

"It's not important, don't worry about it. What I'm trying to tell you is that peoples' lives are being made worse and they don't realize how it's happening."

Desires are being achieved. They are spoken each day. And when they are spoken they are granted. That was the agreement.

"Agreement? And what do you get out of it?"

We are endeavored to breathe. Is that not enough?

"Ah, God, I don't know how else to explain this. I don't . . . listen. Can you answer me this?"

Do you want us to?

"I, ye -ah . Oh no, not that easy. I would like you to answer the question but if you don't there's nothing I can do about. Why do people here stop living?"

Because they no longer want to.

"Because they don't want to live or because there's nothing else they want?"

If there is nothing to want then how can living persist? If there is no ideal to grasp, or forward to form, all motion must cease because a reason cannot prevail.

"B-but . . . that's not how people work."

Explain.

"I don't know how, I just . . . crap, why is this down to me? I could be home now, and out, and singing down at the pub."

Pub?

"Yeah, it'd be summer now, back home, and . . . you ever have a few and they're still in you when last call comes, so you stumble out into the wee morning still humming inside? And it's warm out, the comfortable kind, where it's better to be standing near to someone. There's just a tinge of lightness to the sky and you walk home and whoever you're with, you and your mates are the only people in the whole damn world. The world's gone frozen, the play's over and you're backstage and nothing is going to happen until you go to bed. And you never want to go to bed. It's forever and it's magical and . . . I'm sorry. You don't understand. I'm rambling and you don't even understand."

Is this a need you want?

"A want? How do you even put that into words? You always want them but they just happen, that's what makes them . . . oh."

We do not under-

"That's what wrong here! Don't you see? That's what you're doing to them!"

---

"So you want to know my name?" the shelled alien asked, adjusting the setting on its weapon. The pressing whine of it was still ringing in Amy's ears, a subcutaneously drill like the constant cry of an annoying child. It would fade, she hoped, and not grow into something worse, like children tended to do.

Other noises weren't fading as quickly. The constant repetitive taste of them.

"That's generally how introductions go," the Doctor said, idly kicking at the representative of the Census sprawled out near them. A neat hole had been chiseled into its head and its sword lay flat on the ground, within reach but unclaimed. "Here, we'll show you how it's done." He stuck out his hand to Amy, who grasped it automatically. No matter how much running they did, he never seemed to sweat.

"Hello, earthwoman!" he said. "I'm the Doctor."

"Hello, Doctor," Amy answered, in what she hoped was her best "people of earth" voice. "I'm Amy Pond." But her voice mostly sounded numb to her ears. Even the failing ringing couldn't drown out the constant whisking thumps of the swords.

The Doctor turned and grinned at the alien. "See how easy that was? Now, you try it!'

It stared at them in seeming disbelief for a few seconds before clacking parts of its jaw together and turning away. "Fools," it muttered. "Regrettable fools."

"Hey," the Doctor said. "If I'm going to be insulted I prefer it to be done to my face." There was a dangerous edge to him now, like the situations where he needed to be scared only empowered him. He was scared by the strangest things, he once told her. Things disguised as the color mauve, songs about owning rabbits and standing in the shadow of an abandoned star. Anything else could be overcome.

The alien spun around. "I have been trying to decide whether you two were buffoons playing your parts too well or people who stood a chance of accomplishing something that hasn't been done before." He gestured toward the fallen representative of the Census. Even inert they looked dangerous. Like a dormant volcano. "That's why I saved you, to make a final decision."

"And?" Amy heard her own voice quaver in a way she hated. The old woman had been so small against them. She kept glancing at each end of the alley, waiting for another shadow. The Doctor had covered her and whispered in her ear over and over but all she could think about was how it just focused the sound and how he smelled like an old dusty attic on the first day of spring when you opened the windows to let the air rush in.

"I should have let them do what they would," the alien said dismissively. "It would have only saved you from a possibly worse death later." He went to walk away again. "But I shall leave that fate up to you."

"Just let him go, Doctor." She wiped at her eye, trying to stop the emotion. This place was forming a pressure on her, and she didn't know when it would break. Already it was all coming down, stacked like a precarious pile of toys.

"No. I think not." There was a grim set to his mouth as he stalked over to the alien's retreating back. "In case you didn't notice out there, someone just died." His hand fell on the alien's back and seemed to stick there when he tried to draw it away.

"I am well aware." The alien sought to turn around with the Doctor still attached to him, forcing them into a brief spinning and hopping dance. Finally the Doctor was able to free his hand, flexing his fingers with a curious and disgusted look on his face. He took a voluminous handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his fingers down. "I have long become used to such displays."

"How can you become used to that?" Amy exclaimed, feeling a wall in her shuddering but refusing to burst.

"As it turns out," the alien replied coolly, "one can become used to almost nearly anything."

"Any of you could be next!" She had to stop. Her voice was going ragged, an argument scratching at a door that refused to yield. "They could just decide to kill any of you!"

"There are ways to assure one's safety, if one knows how the system works." The alien's eyes pivoted to regard first Amy and then the Doctor. "And one of those ways is to not follow that idiot's example and be foolhardy."

The Doctor reached out and grabbed the alien by the closest approximate to the shoulder, barely touching but doing so in a way that made it buckle, half its legs bending nearly to the ground. "That 'idiot' saved our lives by doing what she did," the Doctor told it, his voice so quiet that space was a cacophony by comparison. "If you've grown so callous as to not even recognize that, I wouldn't see any reason to even bother saving this world."
It wanted to fall to the ground entirely but some force of will kept the alien upright. Tilted, but upright. "You think you can save this?" One hand feebly waved about, the tip of the weapon still glowing in its midst.

The Doctor let go, shoving the alien away slightly. Straightening his jacket, he said, "I owe it to at least one person to try." He studied the alien. "And would you go around saving complete strangers if you didn't think it was worth it as well?"

The alien spat. A gooey substance hit the dirt. "I see what we are and remember what we once were and the fall disgusts me. I distract myself through delusions and in those delusions wait for an opportunity."

"It wasn't always like this?" The Doctor folded his arms across his chest, leaning against the wall. It was his best thinking position, he told her. It was amazing how active he could appear even when standing perfectly still.

"No. It was once wonderful." The alien's voice lost a trace of its abrasive abruptness, stopping just short of nostalgia. "It was a place where any want could be granted, no matter how vast or impossible."

"Sure, in the olden times, before anyone was born," Amy said, with a smirk. It was getting easier to let the scene go, to fall into old rhythms. To push on. Was that how the Doctor did it? Yet he still seemed out of phase. "That sounds like the beginning of a really nice myth."

This time the alien rounded on her, and its voice was back to a full level of disdain. "Was it myth that allowed me to use the clouds as actors to put on the plays of others? Was it a myth that enabled us to create homes that fit the exact shape of the owner's needs?" Amy refused to step back but it was about to bowl her over, arms probing the air near her, fashioning a new box. The Doctor merely watched and said nothing. "You act like I speak of some fabled times before memory but I was in those memories. I was here to see songs shimmer in the cooling air, I felt the very clay of imagination move through my fingers. Mock what we have became, sneer at it if you must, much as I do, but do not think to mock what we once were, because it was glorious."

"And no longer," the Doctor interjected.

A bit of the spark went out of the alien. "No. We have allowed ourselves to be ruled and have thus come to ruination. Unnumbered desires have become limited and necessary. The Census ensures the rule is maintained and all we do is live. Or in some rare instances, dream."

"All this, because of the king."

"Yes," the alien hissed. "He was once a participant, but in the interests of our safety has set himself apart. And shackled us through his own wants." One hand waved in a direction that could have been the sky. "He barely leaves the palace now, content to let this travesty of a system sustain itself."

"Julius," the Doctor murmured.

The alien twitched. "You know him?"

"I knew a name, once. A very long time ago." He patted his hands on his legs hard and stood away from the wall. "And he caused all this, you say?"

"The mechanics are all of his construction. I was a witness to it in those days, and have cursed myself ever since for not speaking up more." Its eyes were rounded and dark and strangely shiny. "When you have been given a conception of infinity, to exist within its bounded limitations is a constant grating. If not for my desire to see it rid, I don't know how long I could have lasted under it."

"Then it needs to be stopped. That's why we're here."

The alien seemed skeptical. "Was it always so?"

"It is now." The Doctor slipped his hands into his pockets. "Are you tired of fighting alone?"

"Yes." The alien didn't seem to realize the strength of the word just then, and had to test it once more. "Yes. A restoration can be at hand, finally. You'll help me in this?"

"I'd prefer the other way around, honestly."

"Whichever eases you." The alien nudged the Doctor, then clapped its hands together. "I am Quiddoth, then, with a small semblance of joy. I feel like my greatest wants will finally be achieved."

"That's all anyone can hope for," the Doctor said neutrally. He stared straight up and squinted at the day. A drifted silence had fallen on the whole area, the soft murmur of life passing forward. Her body was probably still in the street, with everyone walking around it like nobody chose to see. Amy wanted to tell herself the Doctor wasn't thinking about that. She didn't know his head that well. But he was. He had to be. "Where do you suggest we start?"

"The palace." Quiddoth might have fired the weapon right then, if he could have hit straight to the heart. "It is where Julius is. Where the center lies. Where the Census emerges from its depths. The start of it, the perpetuation of it, and if you are as true as your word is hopeful, perhaps the end of this as well."

---

"Did you ever necessarily want to be king?" the Doctor was sitting on the floor cross-legged, idly tapping the screwdriver against the floor.

"It seemed an appropriate symbol for us to take." Julius was brushing dust off the seat of the throne. He had taken his long robes off, stripping down to a sleeveless plain tunic and thrown the bundle next to the seat. Somehow removing the vestments of his title made him look older, showcasing the thinness of his arms, the skeletal nature of his body. "The idea of one person making the most important decisions, the one who stood to lose the most if the decision went poorly. It stood for a constant spotlight and burden." He stared past the Doctor, and downwards. "Even if you do not feel the taint of age, you can feel the weight of time easily enough. Memories and events layer upon one another until we feel we might become buried in them. We are in the bottom of a hole and the hole is slowly filling up."

"Yes. I find that's what happens when you live longer than you should." The Doctor was studying the intricacies of the smooth tile, tracing its disconsolate lines with one finger. "It becomes very difficult to process, day in and day out. You don't want to forget, but it become difficult to retain."

"One of our . . . subjects." Even the king had a hard time wrapping his speech around the term. "He designed a way to store his memories inside books, with proper indexing, so that if he ever needed to relive or experience an event, he only needed to go to the shelf and open a tome and let himself become immersed in the past."

The Doctor frowned. "An interesting concept. What happened with it?"

"He wrote himself a memory of himself reading the memories, and thus became unable to tell which was present memory and which was the act of remembering. He died of starvation, convinced he was in his own past. The Census confiscated the books and they are in the royal library." He continued to brush at the steps, the tops of his boots growing dusty. "Sometimes we enter into his wedding day, an event that we regretfully were not able to attend."

The Doctor made a face. "I'm sure the royal schedule of oppression was pretty booked up that day."

"Do not mock," the king said, with a note of harshness creeping in. He turned back to glance at the Doctor over his shoulder, and his expression softened somewhat. "The Census will return soon."

"Yes, the good soldiers always come home." He swiveled on the floor, examined the fallen body of a representative of the Census. "I imagine they're going to kill me when they arrive."

"Yes." Julius sat down solidly on the steps and studied the Doctor at work. "They will know your want was not to live, and will take action." He folded his hands together and shifted, briefly uncomfortable. "I will not try to stop you if you decide to run."

"That's real big of you, your majesty." The Doctor looked and smiled insincerely before continuing his examination. "But I don't think I'll be going anywhere, if it's all the same to you. Why? I'm glad you asked." He gestured into the air to make his point. "A few reasons, really. One, my friend Amy is downstairs trying not to get killed by your little army and I owe it to her not to get left behind. She's getting married soon, did she mention that? There might not have been time to bring it up, between you and I screaming at each other and the Census beating up Quiddoth. But she is."

"We are sorry, Doctor."

"Oh, you don't need to apologize to me. I'm not the one getting married. This time, at least." He found a spot where Quiddoth's weapon had bored a hole into the representative and began to probe at it, running his fingers along the edges and tsking quietly to himself. "I'm not sure how I'm going to break it to Rory that his fiancée died on some planet underneath a castle while surrounded by hulking soldiers who fancy themselves as enforcers for fairy godmothers, but I figure the right words will come when the moment is upon me." He was on his knees, one eye closed and trying to see inside the darkness. "Or maybe I'll just get beaten to death here and it won't be a problem for anyone. Which is another reason why I'm not leaving."

The king's eyes narrowed. "We are not sure we follow."

The Doctor looked up and met his eyes plainly. "I've managed to never die alone, Julius. It seems to me a lonely thing and I'd rather not break a habit. So if they're going to come and do it soon, let them. Just promise me you won't leave when it happens."

The king rustled under the request, a certain demeanor betraying his unease with it. He seemed to take it in stride regardless, murmuring, "We can promise this to you, Doctor, as a last act."

"Oh good. Good, good, good." The Doctor leaned back on one knee and clapped his hands together. "That's one matter out of the way, at least. But don't worry, Julius, I'm not done with you yet. I've got a few questions for you." He waved the screwdriver in his directions. "If one might petition the mercy of this court."

The king couldn't help but smile. "Your curiosity does not falter under any circumstances, does it? That is what we remember most about you."

"Well, thank goodness it wasn't the clothes," the Doctor quipped under his breath. "But, please, indulge a last few questions of the condemned here. One or two last wants, if you will."

The king brushed some dirt off his legs and stood up, crossing a few steps closer to the Doctor. "Speak, then, if you must."

"This whole concept of granting wants, it's new. It wasn't in place when I was last here." He aimed the screwdriver at another hole in the body of the representative, letting him hum, the meager light given off by it not revealing anything that could be seen. "Yet it's not something that is derived from you."

"It is not."

"Right. I thought so." He lifted himself up and sat down on the body of the representative itself, idly kicking his heel into the floor. "Which begs the question, where does it come from?"

"As best as we could ever tell, it was a function of the planet itself. Something that was submerged in times that we all experienced, and reemerged when those times were over." The king was pacing around the Doctor, examining each inch of the battered throne room like a man trying to memorize the moments of his life in case there might be a quiz. "Quiddoth was the first one to discover it. We found him one day wandering, pieces of the circuitry cocoon still clinging to his body. He didn't speak a word and we brought him into the town, hoping that we could revive his spirit. All our efforts failed, until I asked him what he wanted. He said, and we shall never forget the tone of his voice, that he wanted some memento of his family. Because everything had been taken away when they were taken and he had nothing to remember them. And with a rush of air, suddenly he had in his hand a series of woven fibers, glistening his morning dewdrops. It was from his mate, he said. Something that had been given to him, and thought lost. He would have wept, if he still contained the capacity, I believe."

"But you didn't know what caused it?"

"No, we merely assumed it was a fluke, some grand miracle to help lift us out of those times. The next time granting didn't occur for some time, when I was writing and my pen broke. I wished for another and suddenly in my hand was an exact copy of what I had just broken." There were cracks on the walls that reached to the windows, that a single firm punch might shatter. Or less, maybe. He refused to touch them. "I told Quiddoth, the only one I could trust with it, and we tested the idea in secret for several months. Tested the limits of it."

"And were there any limits?" The Doctor knocked softly with his knuckles just around the hole in the representative, putting one eye to the hole as if finding the farther could be nearer.

"Imagination, we supposed." The king was tracing a line that no one else could see. Down the wall, along the sides of the castle. "Something in it struck Quiddoth and he began to create. We couldn't even hope to stop him. He created flowers that he said were in the exact smell of his mate. Their color depended on the angle from which one saw them. We believe a bush of them still exists in the shadow of the castle somewhere. We used to catch him visiting them, after the system was instituted. We thought we might bury him there, finally, in the event that he died. It was the closest he might get to those he lost."

"He never wished for them back?"

"If he did it was never in front of us." The king had his hands clasped in front of him, not facing the Doctor. "Perhaps he never wanted to because he didn't want to know that limits existed to what was happening. Best to leave it as an option someday. Or maybe he did when no one else was around, so that the failure was his alone." His eyes were filmed, and didn't see the wall. "We don't believe he did, however. He never would have survived the failure."

"And you, Julius?" The Doctor was studying him carefully. "You never wanted anything back?"

The king said nothing.

"Or anyone?" the Doctor ventured further.

"If we were to . . . want such a thing, it would make a mockery of the decisions that were made by those others. Willingly, and with great care." Julius put a hand out to steady himself, but didn't actually touch anything solid. "No, we have resigned ourselves to the notion that those we know who are lost must remain lost. Whatever this is, it is not a resurrection machine and we will not treat it as such."

The Doctor nodded silently, although it was unclear whether it was in agreement or simple acknowledgement.

The king studied him again, his lips pressed tightly together. "Why did you come back here, truly?"

"Ah, I don't know." The Doctor linked his hands together behind his head and stretched his arms far back. "Nostalgia, I guess. Curiosity, maybe. I rarely get to see past the ending. Just for once I wanted to. I wanted to show my friend that there are times when everything does turn out okay."

"It did."

"I have a hard time believing that," he said to the ceiling. "Why did you never try to find out what the source of all this was?"

"We do not know, Doctor." The king's voice betrayed some irritation. "Sometimes the explanation is what ruins the beauty of it."

"So you thought you'd just ruin it on your own." The edges of his mouth pulled down. "Typical."

Something about his dismissive tone caused Julius to tremble at the base of his hands. "We kept it fair for the vast amount of people in this-"

"I've heard this before, Julius, you can stop trying to convince me. It won't matter." He stood up, balanced himself on the head of the representative. "You're talking to a dead man, right?" He held his arms out wide. "A walking dead man, waiting for his time to expire, and if that doesn't demonstrate the failures of your system, I don't know what will." He tapped his chin quickly with his clenched fist, pondering. "Or wait, I guess the beatings in the street, the people trapped in their own houses and the broken lives of the children didn't convince you either."

"We will not be judged by the likes of you," the king hissed, his voice low and deadly. "We did these things because they were proper and right. They were not easy decisions-"

"They were wasted decisions!" The Doctor hopped off the representative, not moving but still managing to be in motion. "This whole time, this whole system was just a waste. Quiddoth was right, the potential in here was limitless and you've squandered it. You could have harnessed it to move planets, to make water flow between the stars, to reduce distances, to make Time merely a steppingstone. Instead you went and made yourself a king?" He laughed derisively. "A king? You had the ability to do anything in the universe and you gave yourself a title? Are you serious?"

"From a man who only calls himself the Doctor, that is not especially harsh criticism," the king shot back, his voice fraught with cracks. He was falling without standing, moving without churning, the palace had walls on all sides.

"My experiences speak for me more than my name ever will," the Doctor pressed. "Your experiences speak of nothing but petty dictatorship, of crushed dreams, of dreams that will never get fulfilled." He looked close to spitting, weaving near the king without getting nearer. "If you ever bothered to look you would see them littering the floor near you, condemning you, just this mass of broken hopes and decaying despair."

"We were the only ones . . ." the king choked on the words.

"The pile must be getting so high now," the Doctor said quietly, flipping the screwdriver around his fingers. "How do you see around it?"

"Nobody else was willing!" The king rushed forward and grabbed the Doctor by his lapels, almost lifting him clear off the floor. "All of them knew the dangers but none of them had the slightest idea how to combat it. Nobody even wanted to start. Just us. Just me!" There was spittle bracketing the Doctor's face, the king's voice had become inverted, ejecting itself from his body through his organs. Thin purple lines like rising bruises were appearing in the folds of his face. "The reason that all these people are alive out there to wish for another day is because of me. I never asked for any of them to thank me."

"Good thing," the Doctor responded, brushing away the king with a nimble gesture that sent him tumbling into a crouch. "You might not have liked the response."

"They never asked for a leader," Julius intoned. "But it was what they needed."

"That's the problem with putting yourself on top." The Doctor seemed to trip over himself and fall backwards, arms flailing, but just as quickly recovered, bouncing back onto his feet. The same as ever, with one difference.

His screwdriver was no longer in his hand. But it could be heard.

"It makes it difficult to claim you deserved it."

"I became king to save them."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "Really?" He inclined his head toward the body of the representative, which now sported the screwdriver protruding from the hole that had been drilled into it.

He snapped his fingers and with a grunting rumble the body suddenly lurched to its feet. Julius backed away as it pivoted toward him with the grace of a tectonic plate.

"Then maybe I shouldn't welcome you to the revolution, then."

---

Why would we want to do anything but what is asked?

"That . . . that's what I'm trying to get at. Life, it's not about asking for stuff. And that's what you've turned it into here."

Everyone must want to live.

"But, no, no . . . even before that, before everyone had to make the same stupid wish every day . . . that's all they did, right? They just woke up and said whatever they wanted and it was given to them."

Yes. The hurt had been great and thus an easing had to be instituted.

"They all wanted big things, though, didn't they? This . . . God, I'm trying to make you understand. Everyone kept asking for the same stuff, big houses, the ability to make big wonderful pieces of art, songs and smells and just . . . just using their imaginations to make extraordinary stuff. Am I wrong?"

We are unable to judge, merely dispense.

"Whatever popped into their heads they could have, but do you know what that does? Do you? When was the last time someone asked for a sunny day when they thought it was going to rain, or for a friend to visit that they didn't know what was in town. or for a song to come on the radio that they hadn't heard in a while? When did those things happen?"

Those were never deemed as necessary.

"And that's my point! Okay? That's it! Everyone here got so caught up in what they wanted next, what big thing to have created for them, stretching their imaginations to the limits . . . that they forgot about the little stuff. The happy stuff that makes life fun and interesting."

How are those qualities meant to be more than a stated want?

"People are funny that way. We never know what we really want until it's given to us. I told you, I used to want all the standard boring stuff when I was younger. I wanted a beautiful house and a nice car and lots of money and a hot husband who had no inhibitions when the lights went down . . . God, I can't believe I'm telling you this. I wanted to have a job where I could roam around the world in a nice hat. I wanted people to know who I was and respect me and be glad to see me. Those were all the things I thought I wanted to be perfectly happy. And you know what?"

You still want them.

"No. I don't. And I'm happy. I really am. I met a man who I want to spend the rest of my life with and another man who has taken me on the most fantastic adventures to other worlds and times. I live in a modest old house by myself and I work in a job that pays the bills and lets me dream and one day I'll have something better but not now. Now I can go wherever we want and explore and then move on to another place. I never thought I would want this kind of life, but I do."

Are you suggesting that a stated want is not what any being actually wants in truth? That nobody can know their own wants?

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far. Honest. This boy in my class wanted to be a veterinarian from the day he found out what it was. I remember, the day we took a trip out to the stables and the man in charge said one of the horses wasn't feeling well. And this kid, he asked who took care of the horses if they were sick, so they could run again. From that point, he knew. He never wanted anything else and we lost touch so I never found out for sure, but I bet he got it. He got it because he wanted to earn it."

The entities here had lost time and that time had to be redressed for them. The time to earn wasn't allowed because it had been stolen. Lives had to be retaken. The wants are not so far off from your theory.

"No, it's not! Gah, how can I make you . . . you made it less about wanting than having. That's the difference. I don't know how else to explain it."

Does not everyone have what they want?

"Dammit, the Doctor would know just what to . . . okay. You can do this, Pond. You're doing a good thing here, whatever it is that you're doing. But you're making people greedy. You're making them less likely to appreciate what they do have, because they're focused on wanting what they never thought they'd have, or that someone else will want something that will hurt them."

This is why strictures were put into place and agreements were made.

"But . . . when all you care about is what you want, you forget about everything else. The little surprises that make us happy. Doesn't that make sense? You're . . . you're assuming that every person knows what they want at all times, and it's just a matter of them getting around to telling you, one day at a time."

And they do not?

"Not everything. That's not how the world works. Most of us want the same basic stuff, air and water and long days and love. Well, some people may not need the air and water. The rest of it is what makes us look forward to every day when we wake up. The idea of . . . what's going to happen today?"

What does that have to do with wanting?

"Everything. Because it's that stuff that we're not expecting, the flowers that come out from your garden early, the phone call from the friend you haven't heard from in a while, the rainbow that comes just when you're feeling down. The breakfast in bed, the song you didn't remember until that exact moment, the piece of advice from a stranger that turns your whole day around. None of it is important. It's not going to change the world, or even our world, really. The stuff that none of us ever ask for but we need."

Why should it exist then?

"Because, I said, we need it. We forget how important it is, because we always want the big things, the huge cars and the money and the giant sweeping gestures, the big plans and the ambition, the crowds and the honor."

They are proper wants. And they are necessary, to some.

"Maybe. But let me ask you this."

You cannot state that no one can have what they desire.

"Let me finish. For all those desires that you made possible, has anyone ever asked you what you wanted?"

Our needs are immaterial. And irrelevant.

"But the people here don't know that. And they never asked, did they?"

Not to our knowledge, no.

"And before today, did anyone ever ask what anyone else wanted? Did a single person ever look up to you and say, give that person what they want?"

Where would the need reside?

"Because what good is living your life if you only care about yourself? Is that the kind of world you wanted to create here?"

There are no ideals in it, perhaps.

"Twice in the past few days, I've seen people ask for things that didn't directly involve themselves, they asked for stuff that helped me, or my friend. And you know what happened after they asked for those things . . . they were killed."

Truly? The nature of the-

"Are you listening to me? Are you? They were killed! Right in front of me I had to watch them die, all because for once they didn't think about themselves and did what was best for someone else. It's a selfish world you have here, do you realize?"

The intention was never-

"I don't care what your bloody intentions were, people were dying, good people were dying because they wanted to make sure that someone else got what they wanted. Is that how you envisioned things going when you came up with this stupid system? Because this is what happened with it and it's just going to stay like this. What kind of a reward is that?"

Then perhaps they have not acted in the fullest interests of the system.

"No, they sure as hell have not. Nobody wanted fear or death and is what you have. Is that how you wanted it? Is it really?"

No.

"Right. Then tell me this, what are you going to do about it?"

---

"Do you want to amuse us, Doctor?" Julius stood in the bulk shadow of his own eclipse, his eyes becoming sunken stars. It took another step toward him, arms outstretched and flexing. The shimmering sibilant hum of the screwdriver, earning greater resonance by being jammed in the body of the representative, was a constant undercurrent.

The Doctor seemed to be standing in the shadow as well. His stance made him seem misshapen from the wrong angle. "I want you to know how it feels, Julius. To be trapped. To know what death is like breathing down your own neck." Julius didn't back down from the monstrosity reaching toward him, hands beginning to come down on either side of his head. "What every person on this world feels every day. Because of you. Because of what you've done to them."

"What we've done is protect them from the greater horror, Doctor. From the unshackled and unbounded nature of wanting." The arms were coming so slowly it was nearly comical. Julius put a hand up and touched the incoming palm as if trying to make contact with a deeper insight. If he could see himself reflected in the obsidian depths, angular and pale, formed into a new kind of transparency, it wasn't clear. His eyes saw what he had to see. "To choose what is the greatest need, each day. It wasn't unkind, compared to how it might have been."
"You gave them nothing but fear to look forward to, and the hope that one day they could be free from wanting." The Doctor stumbled into an angle to find the king, one leg seeming looser and more prone to buckling than the other. There were pauses between his words, an extra breath taken.

"You forget, Doctor," Julius said, staring up into the representative without blinking, "we did not make ourselves exempt from that notion either. We are as much subject to it as we are bearer and keeper of it." The fingers could have caressed him, if that had been the intent. The king began to lower his hands slowly.

"Just because you immerse yourself in your own madness doesn't make me more inclined to go easier on you." The Doctor was holding his shoulder, burying his chin into his forearm. "There's been enough of this, Julius. It's time to give up."

His features nearly engulfed, Julius threw his head back and laughed. "Truly, Doctor? You appear to have forgotten one fact." The king brought his arm down and suddenly the air was suffused with a whistling noise.

The Doctor ducked without need as a thin and heavy object slit the air above his head. The representative jerked once and fell to the floor, arms flailing and twitching, the sword jutting wickedly from the side of its head. Its impact on the floor jolted the screwdriver from its setting, and it went spinning across the floor to the far corner.

Turning to see the source, the Doctor's eyes widened only slightly.

"The Census has arrived," the king finished, stepping around the once again somnolent form.

They were on him in seconds, one grabbing each arm with perhaps the intention of pulling him into two parts. The Doctor struggled only briefly, the will to fight not traveling to his face. A third representative of the Census walked in a half-circle around the trio, a sword in hand.

"What did you hope to accomplish with that, Doctor?" the king asked, hands clasped behind his back. His face appeared flushed despite his calm speech, and there was a certain tremble in one corner of his eye. "Despite your bluster, you are no killer. We know this. The years have changed your face and form, but not who you are. You may execute justice, but you are no executioner."

"That was then," the Doctor said, testing his bonds with a half-hearted jerk of his arms. His eyes never left the king. "In the interim, things have changed slightly. And I'm no longer comfortable with letting certain matters stand."

"Is this scenario so offensive to you?" A little rise could be heard in Julius' voice. The representative began to come nearer but the king waved it off. It hung back, but reluctantly, its mouth opening and closing silently. A want had been dispensed, a punishment had to be enacted.

"If you have to ask me that, then one of us has changed more than the other." The Doctor let his legs go limp so that the representatives were supporting him almost completely. "It needs to go, Julius. I don't know how many times I need to tell you that."

"It can't." The king's voice was firm and quiet, with the smallest hint of a plea. "You have to understand that."

"I've tried, and I can't." The Doctor stamped his heel into the floor, the heavy and dry thunk sounding too loud in the spacious zone. "Why is this so important to you?"

The representative stepped forward again, and when Julius waved it back it halted with even more reluctance than before. The sword tip kept pointing at the Doctor like a divining rod. He was wringing his hands, pacing away and then back to the Doctor, as if surprised to see him still there each time he looked up. Gradually he was making his way toward the throne. The Doctor kept watching him, ignoring the representatives.

"This planet is capable of miracles," the king said, his eyebrows turned down uneasily. "But it is unbound in the purest state. There is no conscience to it. There is no separation between wants that hurt others and ones that benefit purity. Any desire can be stated and achieved if the imagination for it exists."

"But did you even care to find out why?"

"We don't know, Doctor!" the king shouted back. His hands shook for a second and he stepped to bottom of the throne steps and back again. "Do you think you are the only curious person in the history of creation? We have studied it and we have analyzed it and we cannot come up with an answer. Maybe there is no answer. Maybe there is-"

The Doctor, still limp, jerked his head back as the sword tip came near his face. The two representatives stiffened their arms to hold him tighter and his feet kicked uselessly against the floor.

"No!" Julius ordered, and it backed off, but barely.

"The punishment must be enacted. The lack of want is clear," the representative, or maybe all of them, said.

"Not yet. Hold. Hold." Julius wiped at his brow with his forearm, drawing out a shuddering breath. "They are becoming restless, Doctor. They will not listen soon."

"Well, it's your system," the Doctor said flippantly, although the slant of his face betrayed none of that feeling.

"Our system bourn of necessity!" He was projecting his words, trying to convince. There were ropes on his skin, without being seen.

"A system bourn of a want for powe-"

Julius took three strong steps up to the Doctor and slapped him hard across the face. It barely resonated, unlike the Doctor's noise. His face jerked to the side with hardly a wince and he worked his jaw silently for a few seconds, gradually letting his gaze drift back to Julius.

The king's face was inches from his. "If we wanted to, this second . . ." his hissed through teeth that had somehow become fused, ". . . we could wish you into vapor, we could turn this palace into methane, wish for the internal organs of everyone in this planet to become three sizes too large. These things would happen, all we have to do is wish it. To state it."

"He has stated his want and the punishment must be-"

"We are not finished here yet!" the king bellowed without turning around.

"No," the Doctor said, talking around the reddening mark coming forth slowly onto his skin. "I guess we're not."

"We realized the danger of this, while the rest were drunk on the possibilities, we were sober enough to see the inherent harm of it. Us, only us." He looked ready to strike the Doctor again, but his hands were at his sides, close to his legs. "And you would condemn us for that?"

"I condemn you for needless death!" the Doctor said, suddenly lunging forward and forcing Julius to step back. His eyes flicked away from Julius briefly, maybe to the representative standing near and all too ready.

"All we would have had here is needless death, if not for us! If not for our decisions!" He strode toward the throne, his shoulders shuddering. "You cannot ask for restraint in a world where it is not designed to exist. All it would have taken was for one want to go horribly wrong and everything would be ruined."

"It was ruined, or haven't you noticed?" The Doctor nearly wrenched his shoulder trying to face Julius. "Or was rampant fear your only want?"

"Order had to be imposed!" The edges of his voice had gone ragged, but he came no closer. And when the representative once again began to slide nearer, the king said nothing, only watched it with weary eyes.

"What's wrong, Julius?" the Doctor said. "Don't like it when people point out your shortcomings? When people remind you of the horrible waste this has become?"

"Do you think we wanted this?" the king asked softly, bending down to gather up his robes. "We are not going to stop them from killing you now."

"Sure, silence another voice!" The Doctor kept one eye on the representative, who still seemed fraught with hesitation, as if waiting for some last second stay of execution. "What better way to convince yourself this mockery should continue!"

"The best argument for this is simple, Doctor." The king, head bowed, was staring at the throne and not the Doctor. "In a world where anyone can have anything they want, nobody has ever wished for this counsel to be disassembled. Because they know. Because they understand."

"Or maybe they're waiting for you to realize what a mistake you've made." The sword hovered near his face and he ducked away, his legs lifting off the floor as he levered himself backwards. "But they don't understand that this is what you really wanted all along. To rule."

"No." A spasm went along his spine.

The Doctor grunted, twisting his body to the side to present a smaller target. "All along, you were just looking for an excuse to set yourself up as the real power, no matter what it took. This must have been a blessing to you, then." The sword sliced past, catching the edge of his jacket and sending it fluttering out like it was caught in a short but stiff wind. "A real lucky break dropped right into your lap . . ."

"No . . ." One fist was clenched so hard that the knuckles were getting ready to burst.

"The perfect . . ." the Doctor leapt into the air and drew his legs up as another cut came closer to the floor. ". . . opportunity to . . ."

"Do you think we enjoy this?" the king's voice was a roar. He spun about and backed up to a step on the throne, as if that might make his voice larger. "Do you think we derive great pleasure from forcing others onto this path?"

"You could have wanted anything." He ducked his head to the side, then bent his body as far forward as it could go to dodge the backstroke. His breath was getting uneven, and the representative was getting ready to use its free arm to just hold him in place. Their dance was stationary and static and running out of steps. "But you chose this. You chose this!"

"We had no choice!" The robes were just a limp and loose bundle in his arms now. "Do you think this decision was made from selfishness, for lust of power? We are hated, Doctor, when once we were loved by all. They curse our name, they spit upon the mention of us. and that was how it had to be."

"Funny how things don't work out how you want them to." The next cut he was a second too slow for and it caught him on the shoulder, drawing a shallow line that immediately began to bleed. He hissed but continue to try and predict the next move.

"We have abandoned all dreams, all creativity, all notions of art for this!" The king's eyes were hollow now, his face reddened and swollen. "We, who used to make tapestries from the stars, are trapped here, in this room, head of a world that does not want to be ruled. And you say we wanted this?"

"Power is an ultimate . . . temptation." He winced as it came near his ear, and he tried to kick at the sword, only succeeding in nearly getting his ankle taken off in the process. "You see that now, hm?"

"We only wanted the safety of these people from themselves!" He looked to sit but held himself upright through sheer will. "We had no control over the granting of the wants, so we set ourselves up as the focus of their ire, to give them a reason to constrain their imaginations. We gave up everything so they could live properly." His nostrils were flaring, great gulps of poisonous air expelled from his body. "And you suggest we enjoy it? Truly? Are you insane?"

The Doctor glanced up and past, dodging by feel, trying to gauge the bending of the air. "Given what I've seen, you really aren't qualified to make that distinction anymore."

"You act like I am unaware of the deaths under this system." Julius was bending without breaking, falling without plummeting. "You have seen one death and it haunts you, have you ever considered that I have seen death after death day after day, far more than you have, for far longer. I watch each one and hate it."

"Just because you feel bad about it doesn't make me feel bad for you." The Doctor nearly bent himself in two going backwards, his arms stretched out until he seemed ready to snap, his eyes both wide and unsurprised simultaneously. "You can justify it all you want-"

"This is my justification!" the king's mouth opened into a near howl and he pointed toward the ceiling, the throne room, the palace, the world. "All of this, here! The fact that it still exists, that it wasn't wished out of existence on some idle whim, that is my justification and my purpose, Doctor!" There were sections of his eyes that had gone opaque. "Do you understand that? Do you? Every person on this world is guaranteed a chance at another day of life each day and you want us to give you proof and reasons until you are satisfied with it?" He laughed, and it was a bitter, arcing sound, straining water forced through the wrong pores. "What gives you the right?"

His body went tight, as if being yanked in two different directions. "Someone said 'help'," was his reply, with the barest of shrugs he could manage in the hold.

There was rain in Julius' eyes, rapidly freezing. "I'm not asking you for help now."

The next cut caught his ankle and he bit his lip, wincing hard. Landed hard as well, nearly stumbling if not for the arms supporting him. "I know, you don't even have the guts to do that any more . . ."

The laugh again, shorter and sharper this time. "If you're just going to goad us with taunts, Doctor, then we might as well let them kill you . . ."

". . . because if you weren't ashamed of this, if you had any glimmer of hope that you had done the right thing . . ." the Doctor grunted, nimbly swinging his legs and then folding his head almost into his chest. "He would be here, to see what you had done." His gaze snapped up and locked onto Julius.

This time the king did stagger, falling back up a step. "No," was the only word that could be made out, that was intelligible.

"You can have anything you want in the world, and yet he's not here." The Doctor's voice was measured, the next slash nicking his shoulder, drawing a too thin line down his skin. He didn't flinch, didn't look away. Only toward. "How can you explain that, Julius?"

"It was not . . ." the king fumbled for words, finding nuances in the air that couldn't be conveyed. The representatives were moving faster and looser now, pulling in different directions, while the one with the sword began to swing wildly, slashing cross-sections on the air. The Doctor gritted his teeth and tried to go with one of them, his jaw taut as he glanced skyward. "He cannot . . ."

"What you said before wasn't true. You don't bring him back because you can't, but because you didn't want him to see this, to see what a mess you made of this world, of what you two had fought for." The Doctor swung his words out bluntly. "Did you?"

"He would have . . ." He pressed his wrist to his forehead, eyes closed, trying to find new focus.

"Arinis, your best friend, your companion, absent. In a world where nothing is impossible." The Doctor was as gentle as stone falling from a great height. Quiet and inevitable as the embrace of gravity, and the impact it contained. "Why? Because you knew what he would say if he saw what you had done . . ."

"Do not speak of this, Doctor, do not-" The words were pulled out of him as pure sound, assembled later.

"Was it worth being lonely, to be spared his judgment, to spare him the sight of your debasement?" The sword's shadow was above his face and diagonal, a clock hand ready to strike a final bell. Minutes were seconds. Seconds were now. Now was no time at all. "It's the look in his eyes that you wouldn't be able to handle. He wouldn't say anything, but that light toward you would dim and you would be lowered, you-"

"Enough, Doctor!" the king screamed, so much that a speck of blood hit the floor from his shredded throat, forming a misshapen star. "That is enough."

The sword began to fall, in another life. "Even when we already know, it's so much worse when the ones we love tell us we're wrong, isn't it?"

"You, you don't . . ." Julius struggled around his words, pointed at the Doctor without indicating, his arm trembling violently.

"And Arinis, he was-"

"He is gone." The king had opened a piece of himself and it was flooding out as a wind, a storm, his voice sapped of all moisture. "He is not here and he is gone and every day reminds me of that fact, Doctor. Every. Day." His arm slashed crosswise, his face suddenly malleable in its own grief. "He is gone and I do not hear his voice anymore, his laugh is replaced by daily pleas that I am forced to listen to, his tones by the steady elimination of all that I held dear, the color of his skin by the endless parade of dreary souls who postpone their own deaths but don't know how to live a life." He wiped at his face as if trying to pull it off. "He is gone and I am left with this, this world, this kingdom, this life that I don't want, I never wanted." His voice was crumbling at the edges, falling through fingers too loose to hold, gradually rising in volume. "He made the easy choice and I came back to this and I did what I could but look at this . . . look at this world!" His arms swept out and he threw his head back. "This pitiful place with everyone just wanting all the time. Just begging and craving and having and I hate it, I hate every second I spend here." There was a piece of his voice that refused to crack. "I couldn't do it without him and I had to do it without him and what was I supposed to do, Doctor? What?"

The Doctor only shook his head, the shadow of the blade refusing to budge. "I'm sorry," was all he said. "I'm so-"

"Yes." The laugh came again, but as a sprinkle diminished. "You're wrong, though, you're wrong. Do you . . . do you think that I'd want him here, amongst all this, to suffer endless days without any hope of relenting? I barely wanted that for myself, why would I want that for him?"

The sword, descending, the Doctor only looking past it, his mouth in a tight line.

"No, Doctor, no, you have it all wrong." It was every rush to force out the words. "I don't want him here, I never wanted him here." His eyes shone past this place. "I wanted the very opposite. I wanted to away from here, and with him. I want to be with him. That's what I want, Doctor." He was stabbing the invisible air between each word. "That is what I want."

The Doctor closed his eyes.

The king's own eyes fluttered, and he seemed to sway in place. He went to speak again, to say a further word but a sudden melody infiltrated the quiet.

"What . . ." he murmured, glancing up and away from the throne. "What is . . ."

Above him, the wind chimes were clanging quietly together, forming complicated simplicities in their arrangements, singing notes to take down the day.

"No," Julius said, holding onto his heart without touching it. Every instance of his body had been replaced with the pale. He looked toward the Doctor. "But we . . . the moment was already . . ."

The Doctor only shook his head. "The screwdriver generated a sonic wave to vibrate the air. It was never a moment, until now. I wanted you to think it was, to let your guard down, but not . . ." He glanced at the chimes, and then looked away sharply. "I'm so sorry, Julius."

"You . . . you're so . . ." There might have been a tear in his eye then, or perhaps a function of the fractional light. There was a breeze coming into the throne room, no doubt through a broken window, gradually gathering a chill. Julius spoke again, maybe less than a word and his last word wasn't a sound at all, and thus never heard.

It was over when it ended, as it had to, and the drift of gravity taking him was gentle in its small mercy.

On either side, on all sides, the Census ceased.

Free now, the Doctor flexed his arms, checked him and strolled over to the corner where his screwdriver lay. He took it again and stared one more time at the quieting chimes, his face unreadable. Then he began to walk over to the throne.

A scuff across the room caused him to turn, with some evident pain, the screwdriver held out before him as a way of warding.

Amy smiled at him, leaning heavily on the door with one hand. "Hi," she said, with a little wave.

"Amy!" he shouted joyfully, preparing to run to embrace her but stepping into a stagger. "You made it, and I didn't even have to-"

It was the vanishment of her smile that halted him. "What is it?" he asked, standing in the bare center of the quiet.

She bit her lip. "I didn't come back alone," she said, gesturing to the empty space next to her.

He gave her a quizzical stare.

"Hello," said the air, quite politely. "Do you want to have a discussion?"

---

"I want to sleep for five more minutes, mom," Amy groaned, shifting and wondering when her pillow had gotten so hard. And all the tiny pebbles under her cheek, had the gang convinced her to go camping again. She swore after the last time when the bug got into her boot that she would never-

The soft hissing and the residual smell of smoke and soot warned her that maybe this was no forest.

Painfully, she let her eyes flutter open, getting a strobe view of the world that told her nothing since all she saw was rocks and dark. But enough of the dark, maybe the barest fragment of it, was enough to trigger an influx of memory and suddenly her eyes opened wide. She heard herself gasp, one of the least favorite sounds she made since it sounded like a noise a very unprepared fish might make.

She leapt into a sitting position and immediately regretted it, as her head protested the action, outvoting the rest of her. Moaning, she let her forehead rest against the cool stone, trying to sort out recent events. It felt like everything was happening out of order to her, a film spliced up and reassembled by someone who didn't have the slightest idea what cause and effect meant.

How did I get here? What the hell happened? She resisted saying it outloud, as much as the sound of her own voice might comfort her. She didn't want to become one of those people who talked to themselves in stressful situations. So far she had managed to avoid that and screaming. If she was going to keep traveling with the Doctor, those were her two personal goals.

It came back to her slowly, viscous water being forced through narrow cracks. The fight in the throne room. the flight from said fight, her and Quiddoth and . . . the last forced her eyes to shut tightly. Amy rubbed the underside of her eye, even though there was nothing there, and sniffed. She took a deep breath and kept trying to retrace.

Quiddoth and the running and the Census. One had caught her and had tried to kill her and she wasn't dead so something must have happened. Something she had caused? But what? What had she . . .

She shifted against the stone, scrunching her face up in thought, sending a shower of small rocks to tumble off her back and shoulders. Peering closer, she realized the entire space around her was covered in a spray of broken rock and debris. Cracks in the wall near her face travelled upwards, seemed to open up wider as they reached a crater carved into the bare wall. Who had done that? Amy looked down, kneading her forehead as she tried to shake her brain back into gear. What had . . .

The crooked eyes of a representative from the Census met hers.

"Ah!" she shouted, her feet kicking at the rocks uselessly as she forced herself back, coming thisclose to breaking one of her rules. "Don't you . . . don't you come any . . ." She put up her fists in what she hoped appeared to be a fighting stance.

The representative didn't react.

In fact, it was lying on its side, eyes open but all the world appearing to be sleeping. And what she had originally thought was a defect in the eyes was really due to a large crack that ran from about where the mouth was all the way around to a spot behind the forehead. A piece of the face had fallen off near the nose, giving the impression of a hollow void existing inside the representative, not so much deformed as incomplete.

The hissing she had heard before seemed to be coming from the crack, like reluctant air escaping. Nothing could be seen, however, no cloud, no gas. Just the broken face. She was alone in the corridor, a fact that didn't make her feel any better. That was probably only a temporary situation, so she needed to get out of here before more representatives arrived.

In the meantime, the hissing petered out and stopped, without any real fanfare.

"Okay, Pond," she said, telling herself there was an exception to every rule. "How do I get myself back to the Doctor?"

"With the extra necessity of flexibility provided, we can take you there," the empty air suddenly offered. "That is, if this is what you want."

---

"Do you want the simple explanation, or the explanation as I understand it?" The Doctor was sitting on the edge of the cliff, kicking his heels against the stone. There was a brisk wind out here, and she had to keep brushing her hair out of her face. It wasn't a cold wind, which she had expected. It felt enveloping without being smothering.

"I love how those aren't the same things to you." Amy kept back from the edge, not trusting the winds. The Doctor could be blown off at any second, his coat was flapping violently against his body, but he didn't seem to care. He could fall and never land. She needed to know how to do that.

He smiled to acknowledge the jibe, but otherwise kept peering into the air. "They're quantum sprites." He let the sentence dangle, glancing back at her as if testing her reaction.

Amy made a face at him. "I get it, the simple ape isn't going to get the big boy explanation. Go on anyway, I want to hear it."

He shrugged. "So the lady requests." Staring up into the air again, swirling itself on thickened currents, he said, "They exist in communal clusters and don't normally intersect with this dimensional plane. The only reason we even know about them is because the TARDISes would often converse with them out in the vortex, but that didn't tell us much."

"Wait, the TARDIS can talk?" Some days Amy had to resist the urge to strangle him, the way he dropped facts like some kind of careless waiter with an overstuffed plate. "And who is they?"

The Doctor let both questions go by. "For some reason a number of them have manifested on this world, apparently as gusts of air. Maybe the climate agrees with them, maybe it's just a passing whim. Their reasons probably change minute by minute, so it's hard to tell what the original or actual reason is. Or was." He stroked a plant struggling to grow near his position, almost like he was soothing it. "But due to their interfacing with the building blocks of matter, they are capable of altering basic functions of reality."

Now the wind felt cold. Hugging herself, Amy asked, "Like granting wishes?"

"In a sense." His eyes followed invisible lines, searching for intersection points. "Where they come from is both more and less complex than this level of reality, and so altering basic components is as simple as changing your clothes, or finding a new color for your hair."

"But why were they doing it here?"

"They told you as much." The air pulsated and puckered above him. "The easiest way to put it: they felt bad."

Amy gave him a puzzled look that he more felt than saw.

"They've adopted this world . . . again, don't ask me why. It seems like they ignored all the people that lived here for centuries. People are like . . ." his fingers danced on the air, typing out formative transparencies, ". . . they're like rain to them. Something you don't really notice until it really gets weird, or it ruins your day."

"Oh." The wind was tugging at her like an insistent small child. The kind she never was, always finding new and smaller corners, wanting to know what could be hidden within. But she was so used to people noticing her that it was hard to imagine being little more than a speck to someone. "It has something to do with . . . with whatever happened here. The first time you were here." He kept saying how much older you looked, like you were aging backwards. I don't understand a thing about you.

"Yes." The Doctor stared straight down. There was a river far below, looking like a static and wavy line from this height. Anyone standing below wouldn't be able to see them from this distance. They would be less than dots. "This world had a crisis of sorts, an imposition of ideas that could have been catastrophic. It was, to certain people." History lurked in every unlined portion of his face. Sometimes Amy imagined that he had only started exploring and having adventures when he met her but more and more it was becoming harder to keep up that lie. There had been a whole life in his life before she came along. More than one life, it seemed. "The sprites weren't paying attention until the aftermath, because it was literally just a flicker to them. They slowed down enough to gain an understanding and . . ." he cocked his head to the side, as if finally listening to himself. It was cute, in its way. "Whatever specific plane they hail from must be where emotions reside, because what they felt in the wake of what happened here was very acute." His nose twitched, an itch he wouldn't reach. "They wanted to help."

Amy laughed, telling herself it was humor. "It's kind of a weird way to help."

"It's a perfect way to help," the Doctor admonished. "It was a brilliant act of compassion . . . unfortunately it only works properly if everyone understands the rules each side operates under." Against the expanse of the crevice he refused to seem small. "Limitations as they apply to corporeal beings on this plane mean nothing to the sprites. They don't understand what harms or heals us, what savages or soothes. They can only give us exactly what we ask for. And they did." He looked toward the sky, expelling a breath over lips that were turned inward. "They're lucky it wasn't worse," he whispered.

"That's how the king got things how he wanted them." The concept of being able to have anything you wanted was tempting and Amy felt a brief pang that the Doctor hadn't taken them here when the world was more like that, when it was the world that Quiddoth had described in such tones of wonderment. But then her fingers found the spot on her hand that she had finally washed off not long before and realized that it was perhaps better to be restrained.

"Julius thought he was doing good, or at least making the best of what could have turned into bad situation." The frown was on his face but his eyes told a darker story. "Without limits, the potential for a disaster was incredible. Imagine, if someone had wanted the planet to stop spinning, they would have done it, because they didn't understand that people couldn't survive such a scenario." He shivered, or maybe it was the air rummaging across his shoulders, and Amy wondered if he hadn't let the tension go just yet. "Julius didn't know how to communicate with the sprites, didn't even grasp the concept of them, but the wants of his structure were specific enough that the sprites became a part of it. It probably seemed like fun to them, a way of making everybody happy in the same fashion." He banged the palm of his head into the dirt, grunting. "He didn't give himself the room to refine it into something better and they didn't understand the harm they were causing. So it just lingered on. What a mess." His anger was a clenched thing, like spikes had been driven from the inside of his body into places that were deeper.

"With the king gone, it should be better now, right?" Amy had to resist the urge to bend down and give him a hug. There was an epic slash to his misery, making her worst day feel merely petulant. "That's what we did."

"Julius is gone," the Doctor admitted, staring straight out into the world. Sometimes it seemed like the loss hadn't fully struck him yet. She wondered if time travelers ever fully felt loss. Any person was really only a step away, no matter when they left. "But that was only half the problem."

The air before him billowed, mussing his hair.

"Do you want us to begin again with yourself?" a piece of the wind asked.

The Doctor rested his chin on his hands. "The question is, now what do we do with you?"

---

"I-I want to know . . ."

The tunnel held only a darkness and a sense of weight, a constant Stygian pressure that fossilized Time and left it hanging in the air, frozen and cracked, exhalations in that forever moment between seconds, when nothing moved and the universe remade itself. The arch was as big as sight, a hole carved inside the hollows of stillness, a low groaning humming becoming a vibration winding down, the aftermath of the explosion settling, sinking to the place where it found itself at peace.

". . . where I am. Where is this? What am I doing here?"

The blackness held nothing but folds upon folds, the kind where shapes capered behind the eyes when the eyes were tired of having nothing to see. There were suggestions choking the void, a straining for the solid. The need to fill the gap, the need to create no matter what the clay presented, the need to make a mark.

The tunnel held its own breath. A long time ago, perhaps, all had stopped.

"What is this, why? What am I doing bac-"

"Sh."

And then a light appeared, soft and irregular, with edges that kept bleeding into new forms. A tiny light in the vastness of the tunnel.

"Is that someone?"

The light bobbed, maybe came nearer. It was hard to tell, surrounded by the sea.

"You might say that."

"Who? Who is . . . oh. Oh."

The glow flickered in its steadiness, casting no shadows.

"It's taken you long enough."

"Oh, I didn't think, I never expected, is it really, is it . . ."

The light bounced, then held its place.

"Of course. Of course it is."

The tunnel held the voices, sending echoes slithering along slick trails, to travel next to beyond.

"I'm sorry, oh, I'm so sorry. I never meant for it to take this long, I never-"

"Sh. It's okay. It's fine."

It was the moment the light had, the second after the end. The curtain drawn and all the secret scribbling.

"But . . . but what was it like, being here, being down here and . . ."

"It wasn't terrible." The light found itself a fraction. "And it's better now. So I really can't complain."

"It was awful, above. I did my best, but I thought of you all the time. It was-"

"Don't worry about it. It's over now, right? It's done." The light dipped, as if to touch.

"You're right. It is. It's over." The pause was a flutter. "I don't even know where to begin."

The tunnel slumbered in its own yawn. The darkness was crowded, and blind. The light refused to recede against it. "Then don't. Not yet." It seemed to spin, calmly impatient. "But we can go, now. It's okay."

"Is it?"

"Yes. We've been enough. Come on." The light drifted, unable to be swallowed.

"We're going, then?" The silence had its own undulation. "It was over so . . . okay. All right."

It drifted away, maybe, illuminating nothing.

"You can tell me along the way." A crumb of brightness in the midst of it all. "I'd love to hear about all of it."

A crumb hovering. Or shrinking.

"And you waited down here all this time?"

"Of course. You think I would go without you?"

Or dwarfed by distance.

"I-I didn't know and I'm . . . I never thought . . . I'm so glad."

Without a diminishment in whispers, or need.

"So am I. Come on, it's just a little . . ."

Only a single light, falling away. Perhaps.

"But . . . what happens now? Where does this lead?"

"Who knows? But we get to find out." The light was a dot in the center of the dark. "And isn't that what you always wanted?"

---

It bounced a fraction, then flickered again. A piece of broken dark began to whistle, hailing from nowhere without hesitation. After a second, another joined in, clinging into harmony. While the light grew steadily smaller, perhaps devoured, perhaps receding, perhaps turning a corner until, finally, for all of those reasons or maybe one other, it went away, and left the tunnel quiet and static and a little less than it was.

"The wants of the world are practically endless." If not the constant sputter of wind, it could have been that she was hearing voices.

"It always will be," the Doctor said, crossing his legs at the ankles and swinging them out over the void. That's what he did, Amy realized, stood out over the pit. Because someone needed to have the courage to look down without flinching. "Do you understand that now?"

"We only sought to be assistance. That gifting the wants they wanted would ease their hurting."

"Only Time can do that. And even then." The last was said quieter, perhaps to a space not in the air. "I know you only wanted to help, but they don't need anything from you. They never did."

"The one who is not your entity explained that to us."

"Me?" Amy had been wandering away but came back when she saw the Doctor glance over at her. "But I didn't-"

"Your want eliminating the corporeal form of this commune caused you pain. That was never the purpose of the want. It was meant to ease, not exacerbate."

"I thought I killed something," Amy whispered, pulling her sleeve down to cover her hand. "That's not me."

The Doctor hopped to his feet nimbly. "The Census was merely a manifestation of Julius' want, with the sprites ensconced inside to give them some degree of life."

"There was a fascination with the limitations of the solid, and what you call limbs. The forced lack of movement leads to many interesting compromises."

"But it bled," Amy murmured.

"The visibility of the sense of life was strived to be accurate in all matters."

"They were curious enough to try it out, but not so curious that they were going to stick around when violence happened." The Doctor squinted into the sky. "Quiddoth shooting a number of them probably caused the sprites inside to seep back into their own plane. Violence does that to them, they're terribly sensitive at times. Your tricking the one to crack itself opened made them inquisitive and come out."

"Is hurting still within you now?" A force nudged at her, almost nuzzling at her hair.

"No," she said, closing her eyes, even though there was nothing to see. Quiddoth's last moments were drowning in shadows. He had made his own decision. She had to keep telling herself that. It hadn't just been for her benefit. "It's getting better." Which was true enough, in its way.

The Doctor put a hand on her shoulder. "You alerted them that their goals weren't having the desired effect. They see things differently now." He raised his voice, cast it out toward the canyon. "Don't you?"

"The system as it has been effected will no longer function." The wind whipped around them like flexible knives, merely shaping. "The harm that we have been causing without forethought will have ceased." It swirled around them like dancing in its purest form, bonds having been let loose and bodies dissolved.

"Good," the Doctor said. He glanced toward the familiar blue shape of the TARDIS, parked not too far away, and said to Amy, "You ready for a different climate?"

Amy nodded. "Maybe an actual vacation this time?"

"I keep telling, it's not that easy to pick-" A gust of wind picked up between them and forced the Doctor apart from her. His arms windmilled but he kept his balance, looking rapidly around himself in confusion.

"You have given us greater understanding of this layer and thus we are bound to ask," the air said to him.

The Doctor seemed to expect this. "There's nothing I want. Not from you."

"If we have learned one thing in this experience, it is that wants do not have to be permanent change. They can be whims, or idles. Is there nothing?"

The Doctor considered this, tapping at his chin. Then he seemed to come to a decision, walking closer to the edge of the gap. His lips moved but Amy didn't catch what he said. The wind seemed to shiver, a brief splash of haze.

Then, as she watched, he put his arms out straight to either side, and took a flying leap off the edge of the cliff.

"Doctor!" Amy shouted, panicking, breaking into a run even though it was a mad hope that she would be able to catch him. But there was no need, as his boisterous laugh a second later told her.

"Oh my . . . this is brilliant, Amy!" the Doctor shouted, the brisk wind fluttering at his clothes, causing them to ripple rapidly. He floated in the air, bobbing like a toy left out in the bath, pretending to swim as he bounded and pirouetted and hovered in mid-air. He looked down and laughed even louder, his voice catapulting itself off every nook and cranny, until the whole valley below seemed to be filled with his mirth. "This is simply wonderful!"

"Doctor," she said, smiling and shaking her head.

"Come out here! Come on!" He waved to her, doing a backflip in the process.

Her eyes went wide. "Are you crazy? What if they let go?" The tip of her sneaker was just over the edge but that was as far as she would let it.

"They won't." He pinwheeled again, arms outstretched. "I won't let them."

Amy didn't budge. On the stable cliff, she was safe.

The Doctor crossed his legs and put his arms behind his head, leaning back as if reclining. His face twinkled in the bright sunlight. "Trust me?" was all he asked.

Amy shook her head one more time, taking a half step back. Her eyes met his again, one man hovering alone and carried by the wind in the midst of nothing. The view must have been magnificent. And she'd never know. She took a breath, felt it catch, took another in quick succession. He waited, without seeking.

What do I want? she asked herself, as she took a step right up to the edge. She could fall into the world and never know when she hit. Staying here was a kind of certainty. Closing her eyes, she swallowed heavily. Her heart would not quiet itself.

Just this. She put her foot out and felt nothing but empty air. The wind kissed her lightly. The sky beckoned, shivering. Only this.

Forever.

Amy jumped.

---

"You wanted us to go somewhere new?" The time rotor wheezed to a halt, ending with its typical thump. The Doctor checked the console readings, tapping them with his typical air of haphazard erudition. "Here we are, then."

Amy curled up in the chair, doing her best to look bored. "Is it actually, or are we just on another space station?"

"No," he answered quickly, although she caught him double checking the readings again. "A new world, fresh for you to explore to your heart's content." He crossed the area over to her and tweaked her cheek. "With skies as red as the color of your vibrant hair."

"So it's some kind of volcano world?" she teased, but swung her legs off the chair and got to her feet.

He only grinned and shook his head, not even bothering to look wounded. "It wasn't the last time I was here."

She gave him an exasperated look. "Come on, you've been here before? I don't want to rummage through your greatest hits, now."

"Oh, it was a long time ago, by both my reckoning and Time's. If this is even the place I was thinking of. I'm sure it's changed a whole lot since then." He fiddled with a few more controls, parking the TARDIS better in time and space.

"If you say so," Amy said, crossing her arms and trying to keep the sulk out of her voice.

"Well, there's only one way to find out," he said, practically bouncing down from the console steps toward the door. He opened it and a giant dollop of sunlight spilled into the TARDIS, making all his edges hazy. "Unless you'd rather not see for yourself."

She stuck her tongue out at him, but he was already gone, spinning through the door, leaving it ajar in his wake. A fragment of his laughter seemed to cling to the air.

The door banged quietly in its frame, perhaps caught by the wind.

Amy walked around the console, stared up at the dormant time rotor, thinking not for the first time that it looked like a giant gaudy birthday candle. For some reason, she found that image incredibly amusing and had to force down a giggle.

"Okay, then," she said, bouncing a little on the balls of her feet. She pretended to blow the rotor out, holding her chin up all proper and saying, "I want to have a great, grand adventure."

Then, without waiting, she strutted away in a silly dance, humming merrily as she went. The door, she took care to secure. The song and the rest, presumably, left with her.

- MB

12.16.10-1.28.11

RP