AN: Wow, I actually came up with some names for once! Good job, me, you never let me down.
Anyways, enjoy.
Spoiler Alert: this contains spoilers for the Angels Take Manhattan and the Snowmen. Although, if you haven't seen those then you're silly and need to stop reading this and go watch them, right now.
As previously stated, enjoy and please try not to punch me in the ovaries from all the feels.
-G xx
Chapter One: A Cry for Help
"Heartbreak is a burden on us all; pity the man with two." -Madam Vastra
"There's a man out there with both his hearts broken. He's lost his friends, lost his family. Lost them all." The boy spoke to the alien as they crouched, hidden from sight behind a large purple rock.
"Even his friend, the red girl, she has been lost?" The tall, string-like Rascurian looked at her companion. The human boy nodded solemnly, his green eyes following the alien man as he stepped into the blue box, his shoulders heaving with sobs unheard.
"Yes, Quizzetta. Lost to Time itself." The doors to the box slammed shut and the couple crouched lower behind their rock overlooking the plain where the TARDIS was parked.
"What if he takes off? Don't we need him?" Quizzetta looked curiously at her male partner, standing up and preparing to run down the hill.
"No! Quizz, get down! He might see us. Quizzy, dear, he needs to be alone right now. He is simply here to grieve. The stories say his red girl went on an adventure with the nervous boy and him, the Doctor, and they were taken from him."
"Taken?" Quizz cocked her head, trying to wrap her mind around losing someone. On Rascuria, if someone unraveled, they were simply wrapped up again.
"Yes. By the Lonely Assassins." The boy lowered his head slightly out of respect.
"But Michael, how will the Doctor get back his boy and girl?" Quizz frowned deeply, wanting to help.
"Quizzy... He can't. They're gone. His boy and his girl, they have to stay lost, to prevent the unravelling of Time."
"No! I want to help," Quizz said,
standing up. She strode down the hill towards the solitary box before Michael could stop her. Quizzetta raised a string hand to knock on the door as Michael ran up behind her, reaching for her.
"Quizzetta! No!"
It was too late. Four knocks came from a string hand. The knocks echoed across the deep blue paint; and no answer came. Quizzetta prepared to knock again when suddenly, without warning, the door flew open. Quizzetta tripped over the blue doorstep, as she had been preparing to pound on the door, and fell in, pulling Michael with her. They landed in a heap on the glass floor. Quizz picked herself up, dusting off her petticoats and adjusting the mop of yarn on top of her head. Michael stayed on the floor where he had fallen, staring, wide-eyed at the mechanisms below. There were simple things, like gears and buttons, and complex things, like what Michael thought looked like several handles attached to a delicate blue wire and an engine taped to an umbrella. And then there were things that were just out of place. A purple surfboard hung precariously from a hook shaped like an amoeba, while several bow-ties were draped over a miniature sofa with three legs. Michael gaped, his nose pressed to the glass. Quizzetta, however, had begun to orient herself towards the distant sounds of sobs. She carefully walked up a flight of metallic stairs, making sure her brown boots made the least amount of noise as possible. Michael stood and followed his companion, still in awe at the vast complexity of the machine surrounding him. As Quizzetta reached the top of the stairs, she tilted her head and listened. Michael, lost in thought, ran abruptly into her. Quizz shushed him, peering down each of the four corridors snaking away from where they stood.
"That one," the alien girl said, gesturing at the farthest right hallway, "is a dead end." She pointed at the next one to the left. "This one has multiple empty bedrooms, and I bet that's where his red girl and subordinate boy lived." Michael nodded, checking them off on his fingers. "He's down here," she said, pointing at the third corridor.
"And the last one?"
"Swimming pool."
Quizzetta began marching briskly down the hall she had identified as the Doctor's. Michael tagged along after her like an obedient puppy dog. "How'd you know all that, anyways?"
Quizzetta tapped her nose, winking and grinning. "I have a good sense of smell." She stopped suddenly, gesturing to the door in front of her and lowering her voice to a whisper. "This is it."
The door was the same blue as the outside of the box, a change from the orange-yellow walls surrounding them. A strange, circular, pictographic writing was etched into the door. It was slightly ajar. Quizz crouched down and peered in. Michael stooped to glance in as well. A tall man with funny hair sat curled up in the corner, sobbing hoarsely into his knees. He looked like a child, for a man with such a reputation. The traveling man, they called him. The oncoming storm, the man of fire and ice and rage, the trickster. More fearsome than anything the universe had to offer. The Doctor. No one knew his real name, they simply called him the Doctor or the Caretaker or Get-Off-This-Planet. And now, here he was, the man himself, reduced to tears, the epitome of grief. He continued to cry, the teardrops wetting his tweed jacket. The raw sobs would occasionally subside, just to start again soon after. As he shifted to lean into the wall next to him, Quizzetta could see he was holding a red jumper. He would bury his face in it every now and then, and be incapable of move due to the cries that racked his entire body. Michael had looked away in respect, but Quizzetta continued to watch, looking for a way to help. At last, when it seemed he could not cry any longer, the Doctor put down the red sweater and stood up. Wiping his eyes, he walked to the door.
"Quick, hide!" Michael hissed, pulling Quizz into a small nook next to the bedroom door and covering her mouth with his hand. The tall man was so wrapped up in his own bitter grief that he didn't notice the two others aboard his spaceship as he walked past them on his way to the engine room. As his figure silhouetted and disappeared, Michael released his grip on his yarn-composed friend.
"Where do you think he's going?" Michael asked, watching him go.
"Probably to take off; we need to get off this spacesh-"Quizzetta didn't finish her sentence as the floor jarred and they went flying. Michael crashed to the floor with a painful thud and didn't move. Quizz fell into a wall. She righted herself and knelt by Michael. She turned him onto his back, and felt for a pulse. He was alive, just unconscious.
Quizzetta smoothed his hair, noting the gash near his left temple and, in a rash moment of panic, gently set his head down on the floor. She stood, lifted her skirts, and ran down the corridor. "Help! I need help!"
Lost. He was lost. And that was how he wanted it. Alone and afraid, he wanted only to mourn them. Sarah Jane, Peri, the Brigadier, Rose, Donna, and his most recently lost, Rory and Amy. Their faces seared in his memory. Laughing on faraway beaches, under tunnels, through the streets of Venice. Playing darts in the TARDIS. The dartboard hung, forgotten, drenched in memories he could not handle at the moment. Hugging aboard spaceships, eating fish fingers and custard, watching Telly and pretending to be normal together. Together. That was a word he couldn't use anymore. He would have to say alone. All by himself. Another sob threatened to escape him. The Doctor let it come. He was lost, and broken, and there was nothing that could mend his hearts right then. Not a single thing in the world. A tear slid down his cheek as he thought of Amelia Pond, the young girl with a name from a fairy tale, sitting on her suitcase with her little peacoat and wellies. Waiting. For him. For a day that wouldn't come for twelve years. Go and visit her, Amy had said. Tell her this is the story of Amelia Pond, and this is how it ends.
The Doctor broke down in tears again.
"Help!" a young voice called out from one of the TARDIS's many corridors. The same corridor he had just exited.
"Please, Doctor! Help me!" The Doctor turned, quite taken aback, to see a small girl appearing to be made entirely of string hurtle into the room. The Doctor recognized her species instantly; she was Rascurian. The race of undying string creatures the rest of their galaxy had cruelly nicknamed 'voodoo dolls' out of jealously for their immortality. But what was a Rascurian girl doing on his TARDIS? He hastily wiped his eyes and raised an eyebrow at her.
"How did you get on board? This is an impenetrable type-40 TARDIS. No way a simple Rascurian could sneak on without shattering the space-time continuum."
She looked a bit cross at the 'simple Rascurian' bit, and she frowned and said, "Impenetrable? Sir, you left the front door open."
"I did? No I didn't! And besides, where are your manners? Do you just waltz onto any spaceship that leaves the front door open-which I didn't?"
"We knocked sir, several times, and you didn't answer, but then the door just opened, and so I-"
"'We'? There are more of you? Just what I need. An army of Rascurians inside my TARDIS." The Doctor sighed irritably. He would have to drop this annoying string girl and her comrades off at the next planet, or else he might do something rash.
"He's not Rascurian, he's just a human boy. And there are only two of us, sir, I swear. But I need your help. When you took off, we weren't prepared-"
"Of course you weren't, you broke into my bloody spaceship!"
"And, sir, Michael fell and bumped his head. He's not moving, but he's got a heartbeat. I made sure to check." She sounded almost proud of herself. That wasn't wise, bragging to a doctor, he thought. She might get herself kicked off of his ship as soon as physically possible.
"And why should I help you?"
"Well, sir, our town has... A problem. I'm sure you've heard of the Vashta Nerada?" The girl shuddered as she said the name.
"Yes, I'm familiar with them," the Doctor said briskly, thinking back to River Song and her inevitable fate in the Library.
"Sir, our town is overrun with them. We -Michael and I- we just nearly escaped. So it's the least you could do. Pity to only have one survivor instead of two..." She glanced at the turmoil of emotion on his face, smirking coyly to herself. Maybe now this man would cooperate and help Michael!
"Alright. Only once, though. I won't be helping you with your little problem."
"I wouldn't call it little..."
"Where is he?" The Doctor strode up the stairwell, taking the steps two at a time. The girl trotted after him, pointing at the hallway leading to his bedroom.
"Just down this hallway. Oh, I'm Quizzetta, by the way. Quizzetta LeViracall."
"I'm the Doctor, as I'm sure you're already aware of. And I'll have you know I'm NOT here to help."