A/N: Thanks to everyone who reviewed the first chapter! I was a little worried as to how this story would be received, given that I've never tried anything like this before, and it was a great relief to have such great support from everyone. Thanks!

Dedicated to: InuFan4Life for her constant encouragement, both in writing and just in general. And also because she's the only person I know who would be able to tell what the inspiration was for this story just by reading it.

Inspired by: Doctor Who (duh), Billy Joel's song "Miami 2017 (Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway), and the Book of Revelation.

Disclaimer: The plot is mine. Everything else isn't. Although, I am working on building my own TARDIS…and I have a Doctor tied up in my closet.

CHAPTER 2: LEFT BEHIND

'One of these days, I will learn not to try to take Rose to any shows. We never quite seem to get there,' the Doctor thought to himself. The Doctor didn't often admit to being scared, but he thought that maybe this time he would say he was terrified. Most of the time, destruction to the timeline was fairly obvious, but this time…he had no answers to what was going on, and even if he did have answers, he wasn't sure that he would want them. Whatever the answers were, they weren't good. Part of him wanted to walk back into the TARDIS and pretend he'd never set foot in this time period. But, as usual, he knew that wasn't a valid option. Instead he took a deep breath, and did the next best thing.

"So, Rose, want to look around?" he suggested, his voice portraying a lightness that he definitely didn't feel.

"Sure," Rose answered, her voice sounding dazed and her eyes wide in a disbelieving gaze.

The Doctor took her hand and gave it a comforting squeeze, although inwardly, it was just as much for his comfort as hers. With the silence and vastness of the deserted city it was entirely too easy to feel completely alone. Rose stepped closer to him, leaning on his arm and he interlaced their fingers as they started to walk down what must have once been a busy street. Rose repressed a shiver as the wind blew around them endlessly with a ominous roar. She did everything she could not to look up at the blood-red sky, and tucked her face into the Doctor's arm. She breathed in his scent, hoping it would rid her nose of the omnipresent smell of death. The Doctor gripped her hand tighter in response and briefly placed his face into her hair in the same attempt, briefly kissing the top of her head before resuming his pace up the street.

He stopped suddenly, and the sound of the rock that Rose's foot kicked when she tripped echoed through the dead winds. "What's wrong, Doctor?"

"Did you hear that?" the Doctor asked, his head turning back in forth in an effort to catch the sound that had briefly passed his ears.

"I'm sorry I wasn't blessed with sensitive hearing like you were, Doctor," Rose said, in an effort to break the unease this place had brought in by implementing playful banter.

The Doctor played along. "Who said it had anything to do with my heightened senses?"

"Well, it can't be the satellite dish ears this time. You lost those with the regeneration."

"Oi! What are you trying to say?"

Rose's response was cut off by the fact that she was knocked to the ground by a hurtling figure that pinned her to the dusty road and proceeded to snarl and claw at her. Rose was so taken aback that it took her a few seconds to realise what the figure was. It was a little girl, no more than 6 years old. Her hair was stringy and her clothes exceptionally primitive and her nails and teeth were sharp on Rose's skin.

"Doctor, help me!" Rose screamed, trying to pull the girl's hands off her arm and keep the girl from biting her at the same time. She wasn't succeeding very well.

The Doctor was trying, but having difficulty due to the girl's erratic movements and the fact that she was having little to no trouble biting him as well. More than once, the Doctor was forced to remove his hands from around the girl's waist in order to shake his hand free of the pain.

Suddenly, they heard a woman's voice pierce the air. "Nora!" Immediately, the girl backed off and ran towards the voice. Rose stood up, grabbing the Doctors proffered hand. "What in the bloody hell was that?" Rose asked, wincing slightly at the pain in her back.

"Nora, I believe," the Doctor said, his voice taking on the haughty tone it got whenever Rose didn't know an answer that the Doctor thought she should.

"And who the bloody hell is Nora?" Rose asked indignantly.

"That would be my daughter," the previously mentioned voice said. The Doctor and Rose turned, and there, standing a few feet away from them, was a woman, her clothing tattered and torn, and her skin seriously dirty, pale, and injured by an obvious age of just trying to survive. She had what looked to be dirty blonde hair (or had been when she had been able to wash it), and deep blue eyes. Rose glanced at Nora, who was standing right beside the woman, calm and serene, and noted that Nora was a spitting image of her mother.

"And who are you?" the Doctor asked, not unkindly, but forcefully.

The woman seemed to pause a moment, as if in serious thought. "Marcia," she finally answered. "I'm sorry. It's been so long since I've used my name. I'd almost forgotten it. I'm sorry about my daughter. We don't often see people alive. She probably thought you were monsters."

"She could have just asked," Rose muttered, feeling sorry for Marcia and Nora, but being attacked didn't sit quite well with her either.

"Actually, she couldn't. My daughter wasn't talking yet when this happened. She hasn't grown up around speech. I myself rarely speak. There's no one really to say anything to." For the first time, the Doctor noted the obvious raspiness of the woman's voice, a sure sign of disuse.

"What did happen here?" the Doctor asked, his voice giving off an intensity that Rose knew meant business.

"Where have you been, under a rock?" Marcia asked, her voice portraying her anger and disbelief that the Doctor could be so ignorant.

"Let's just say I've been traveling."

"You would still know what's going on! The whole world looks like this! Everywhere," Marcia said, her voice breaking and tears starting to come. "You're one of Them, aren't you? You're here to take my daughter. Well, you're not having her!"

Marcia jumped at the Doctor suddenly, forcefully trying to take him to the ground. However, he simply did a move that Rose couldn't begin to describe and when he had her at bay, assured her, "Marcia, you have to believe us. We just got here and we're going to help you the best way we can. But you have to tell us what happened. Everything." As he said this, he stared deeply into Marcia's eyes, his strong, yet thin arms holding her at bay. Whatever she saw there seemed to placate her, and she stood down, nodding her head and breathing deeply. Rose didn't have to ask what had convinced Marcia to calm down. The Doctor's deep brown eyes just seemed to have that effect on people. They most definitely had that effect on her.

"I'll tell you everything," Marcia said. "But not here. It's almost time for the Gathering, and if we're here when that happens…let's just say, you don't want to see what They will do. Come, follow me. I'll show you where to hide."

The Doctor took Rose's hand once again and they followed after Marcia, who had Nora's hand safely inside of hers, as the two women led them down side alleys off the main street.

"You okay?" the Doctor asked Rose. She nodded in affirmation.

"What was that move you did on Marcia, Doctor? I've never seen anything like it," Rose said. Rose had been with the Doctor for over two years now, and she had never seen him use any real hand-to-hand. He always used the sonic screwdriver. She had to admit that she was slightly impressed. Her Doctor definitely had some moves.

"Just a little bit of Venusian Aikido. I haven't had to use it in years. I try not to advertise alien martial arts. Came in useful this time though."

Rose could do little more than smile briefly at him in admiration. "Could you teach me some?" she asked, causing the Doctor to smile briefly at her.

"Depends. You won't use it on me, will you?"

"Depends. You won't be a pompous git, will you?"

"Probably will."

"Then I'll probably use it on you."

"Then I won't teach it to you."

"Wanker."

"You wound me with your words!"

Their banter was cut short by Marcia holding up her hand, signaling silence. She pointed deftly to her right, and walked over to a trash dumpster, her feet falling so softly upon the dust that nay a sound could be heard. She moved the dumpster out of the way to reveal a small hatchway in what had to have once been an apartment complex, but was now no more than a fallen piece of rubble.

She signaled them all in, Nora entering first, and then the Doctor and Rose following. Marcia moved the trashcan in front of the hidden hatchway and then proceeded to close the hatch. The Doctor and Rose found themselves in what looked to be little more than a hovel. The room was derelict and bare, with a little bit of mold growing on the walls and what looked to be little beds made out of straw. Rose couldn't help but feel that she had stepped backwards into the Dark Ages.

"We must whisper now," Marcia warned them. "It's time for the daily Gathering and while we're relatively safe, there are no guarantees. Any sound could tip them off."

"What happened here? What's the Gathering?" Rose asked, suddenly thinking of her mother away in England and wondering if she was still there. The Doctor seemed to sense Rose's shift in thoughts and grabbed her hand again, sitting down on the floor and dragging Rose down with him, where she proceeded to lean slightly against his shoulder, taking what little comfort from him that she could.

"It all happened 7 years ago. It was just a normal day. And then…they were gone. All of them, just gone. Hundreds of thousands of people disappeared in seconds. All the children--not a one left behind. The only reason Nora is here is because I was still pregnant with her at the time. But, all my friends lost their children. My husband Dave--Nora's father--was gone. The adults seemed to have been picked at random.

"After the disappearances, things just got worse. That's when it happened." Marcia stopped and couldn't seem to form words for the horrors that came after the disappearances.

"What happened, Marcia?" the Doctor pressed. "What happened next?"

Marcia looked down at the floor, as though she was seeing it all happen again in the footprints left behind in the dust and hay. When she looked up again, she looked as tired and worn as the Doctor and Rose had seen her yet. She started to sob, and the Doctor knew without asking that this would be the first time she had really spoken about the terrors she had seen.

"It happened. The apocalypse."

TBC…