Chapter 4

Shadowed Echoes

The Doctor walked hand in hand with Rose down the dimly lit street. He drew in a sharp breath and sighed, thinking back to all that had taken place in the last hour or so.

First he had given Hopper his car back, and while he wasn't arrested, he did receive a threat- albeit as a joke. Then they had gone back to the TARDIS to check up on El, who they had to gently explain to why she couldn't go trick-or-treating- ghost costume or no, it was still a risk neither of them were willing to take. Rose had promised her, however, that they would buy her a lot of candy before coming back. She had also offered to watch a scary movie with her- something the Doctor had requested they leave him out of. And now he and Rose were keeping watch over the four boys, who were easy to locate in their Ghostbusters costumes.

Will was holding the video camera and conversing with his friends happily. Jonathan, however, was nowhere to be found. The Doctor supposed Will had left him behind somewhere.

As they got close enough to be within earshot, the Doctor and Rose had to fight to keep from laughing.

"If I get another 3 Musketeers, I'm gonna kill myself," Lucas complained.

Dustin shot back, "What's wrong with 3 Musketeers?"

"'What's wrong with 3 Musketeers?'"

Mike nodded in agreement. "Yeah, no one likes 3 Musketeers. It's just nougat."

"'Just nougat'? It is top three for me," Dustin replied, seemingly shocked.

They continued arguing about candy bars while Rose snickered and the Doctor broke into a grin. "Personally, I like them," he said to her, perhaps a bit loudly.

Rose raised an eyebrow at him, prepared to say something, when Dustin whirled around and exclaimed, "Yes! Thank you, random- Doc?!"

Dustin grinned and waved. "Holy shit, you guys! You're back?"

Rose and the Doctor grinned in unison and walked closer, nodding. "Yep! We're back," the former said brightly.

Will nodded and turned to his friends. "Yeah, I forgot to tell you. They, uh...visited me and Mom earlier. It was fun," he said, glancing at them briefly.

Dustin laughed and ran over, with Lucas and Will behind him. "Hey, man! How you been? We didn't call you or anything. So...why're you guys here?"

Will gave the Doctor a sideways glance. "Did Mom put you up to this? I can't do anything by myself anymor-"

The Doctor shook his head. "Nope. Hopper had a bit of a problem earlier today, and we decided to visit you and your mum while we were here. Right now, though, I'm just keeping an eye out for anything suspicious, seeing as I haven't fixed the problem yet."

Rose nodded in agreement. "Yeah, observation is important. Just pretend we're not here."

Dustin nodded. "Okay. By the way, where's the redhead and her husband?"

The Doctor smirked in reply. "Amy and Rory are at their house, Dustin. Their own timeline."

Dustin nodded again, before spinning around and starting to walk in the other direction. Just behind him, the Doctor caught sight of Mike- who was giving him and Rose a bitter glare. Before the Doctor could do anything, however, another trick-or-treater in a Michael Myers costume jumped out in front of the boys.

All four of them shrieked and tumbled backwards, nearly falling to the ground. Lucas' scream was particularly shrill, and made Rose fight back a grin.

The costumed figure burst out laughing, before pulling off their mask. It was a girl with long ginger hair that the Doctor and Rose didn't recognize.

"Holy shit! You should've seen the looks on your faces." The girl glanced at Lucas. "And you? Who screams like that? You sound like a little girl."

She collapsed into laughing again, but stopped when catching a glimpse of the Doctor and Rose. "Who the hell are you? Aren't you guys a little old for this?"

The Doctor grinned and shook his head. "Nah, we're out here for different reasons. We-"

Dustin cut him off. "This is the Doctor, but we just call him Doc. I dunno if he likes that or not, but whatever. And this is Rose, his...wife?" He frowned when Rose shook her head. "You're still not married? Ah, whatever. At least you got your shit together. Doc, Rose, this is-"

In turn, the girl interrupted him. "It's Max. I'm new here. What about you guys?"

Rose grinned. "We're...well, I guess you could say investigators. Anything weird starts happening anywhere, we try to figure it out and fix it. An' it's nice to meet you, Max."

Max shrugged. "You too, I guess. Investigating sounds cool. This guy your boyfriend, or..."

Rose shrugged. "Pretty much. I can't think of a better way to explain it."

Max smirked. "That's kinda weird. Anyway-" She turned her attention to the boys. "Are you guys coming or not? Oh, I heard we should hit up Loch Nora. That's where the rich people live, right?"

With that, she turned around, replaced her mask, and kept walking. Dustin and Lucas both glanced at each other and laughed excitedly. "Yeah!" They all but ran after her, with Will walking close behind. Mike, however, lingered.

He sighed and gave the Doctor and Rose another cold glare. When they glanced at him with concern, he snapped, "Leave me alone," and stomped after his friends.

Some time later, the Doctor and Rose were getting ready to head back to the TARDIS, as nothing odd had taken place. That changed, however, when they walked past the neighborhood the boys had gone to- Loch Nora.

One minute Will was walking with his friends; laughing with Dustin and Lucas, who were glad to have Max around- unlike Mike, who did not seem to care for her. The next he was shouting in fear, as some older kids had jumped out to scare and poke fun at him.

What really worried the Doctor and Rose, though, was that when they moved closer to check on him, he got to his feet with a terrified expression on his face.

"Mike?" he called out. "Mike! Mike!"

Suddenly, he looked up, panting in fear. His gaze was fixed directly on the Doctor and Rose, but he seemed to be looking straight through them. His eyes got wider and his mouth opened slightly, before he turned around and ran blindly in the direction of an unknown house.

The Doctor and Rose gave each other looks of alarm before running after him. "Will?" Rose shouted. "Will, come back!"

They followed him down a set of stairs, calling out his name. However, he never turned around- almost as if he was unable to hear them.

At the base of the stairs, Will crouched down against a wall, breathing heavily. When he started whimpering, Rose reached out and grabbed onto his shoulder. "Will!"

Finally, he opened his eyes and knew she was there. "Will, what's wrong? Are you hurt? What did you see?"

Will said nothing, only continued to whimper. Rose put an arm around him, attempting to calm him. A moment later, she was distracted by his friends running down the stairs.

"Will? I couldn't find you. Are you okay?" Mike asked, panicked. Dustin, Max, and Lucas were just behind him, the first of them shouting, "Holy shit!"

Rose pulled back, but kept her hand on his shoulder. "I'm gonna get you home, okay?" Before Will could respond, though, Mike walked forward. "I'm coming with you."

He, Rose, and the Doctor all helped Will to his feet, then Dustin protested. "Mike, why are you-"

"-Keep trick-or-treating. I'm bored anyways," he snapped. He then walked off with the Doctor and Rose, supporting Will with one arm. "Come on, we'll go to my house."

When they did reach Mike's house, they slipped in through the back door so Mike's parents wouldn't notice the Doctor and Rose. They spent several minutes in silence, Mike and Will sharing Halloween candy while the Doctor and Rose alternated between keeping a watchful eye on the basement stairs and glancing at each other worriedly.

Will was the first one to break the silence. "I had another episode. I don't really understand them. They say they're flashbacks, but it...feels real."

The Doctor nodded, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Well, when you have a flashback, it does feel that way. Like you're there. Trust me, I know from experience."

But Will shook his head. "But flashbacks are when you see things that already happened, right?" When the Doctor nodded, he continued. "Well, this isn't...this isn't like that. I don't see things that happened to me- I don't, like, see Rose in there or anything. It doesn't feel like a flashback. It's more like...like I'm stuck."

Rose tilted her head in confusion. "What d'you mean by stuck? Like stuck in the Upside Down?" Oddly enough, she had managed to remember what the kids had named the other dimension.

Will shook his head again. "No. You know, like, a View-Master, when it gets like..."

For the first time since coming back to his house, Mike spoke up. "-Caught between two slides?"

Will turned his head to face him and nodded. "Yeah, like that. Like, one slide is our world, and the other...The other slide is the Upside Down."

He paused, taking a deep breath. "And...there was this noise, coming from everywhere. And then...I saw something."

The Doctor and Rose shared a look of alarm not unlike the one they had when Will had started yelling; as Mike asked, wide-eyed, "The Shadow-Walker?"

"No. It was like...this huge shadow, in the sky. Only...it was alive. And it was coming for me."

Mike couldn't think of a response, other than to ask, "Is this all real? Or is it like the doctors say, all in your head?"

Will shrugged. "I don't know. Just...please don't tell the others, okay? They won't understand." He then looked at the Doctor and Rose. "And don't tell my mom. She doesn't need to know." The Doctor said nothing, only nodded. However, he silently told himself he'd inform Will's mother if anything else happened.

Mike replied, breaking the silence, "Eleven would. She'd understand."

"She would?"

Mike nodded. "Yeah. She always did."

Suddenly, the Doctor was reminded of himself, back when he first lost Rose and was traveling with Martha. He had been a broken man, mourning her. At least more broken than he was now. And he had said something very similar about Rose then to what Mike had just said about El now.

"Rose would know. She always knew."

And that was when he realized that somehow, through some twist of fate, Mike did not know that El was alive and safe. Now hardly seemed to be a good time to mention it, though.

Mike smiled slightly after the mention of her name. "Sometimes I feel like...I still see her. Like she's still around, but...she never is."

The Doctor sighed and stepped closer to Mike. "When I lost Rose, the same thing-"

Mike glared and cut him off. "-That doesn't help at all! You got Rose back!" Rose looked rather uncomfortable at that.

Will sighed. "Mike, stop yelling at him. It wasn't his fault. Or Rose's."

The kindness that was in Will's eyes, coupled with the fact that he did not blame the Doctor for any of what had happened to an innocent girl made the Doctor's hearts want to break. True, El was alright now, but neither Will nor Mike were aware of that. And she hadn't deserved to be hurt the way she was when the Doctor had first come across her.

And that was the reminder the Doctor needed- he and Rose had a girl waiting for them back home, and they had a promise to keep. "Rose and I are going to go, if that's alright," he murmured, smiling slightly when both Mike and Will nodded. "Good. Now, if you two need me, just call the number I left you, alright?"

When they nodded again, he took Rose's hand and led her to the side door. "Goodnight."

Will left Mike's house not long after they did, leaving Mike alone in his room with his walkie-talkie. He did what he had done for the last three hundred and fifty-two days: picked it up and used it to try and contact El.

Speaking into the comm, Mike murmured, "It's day 353. I had a bad day today. I don't know. I guess...I wish you were here. I mean, we all do. If you're out there, just...please, give me a sign."

Suddenly, he almost...felt another presence in the room. Looking up, hardly daring to believe, he called out, "Eleven?"

Unbeknownst to him, she had heard nearly every single message he left her for the past three hundred and fifty-three days. Due to circumstance, however, she had been unable to say anything back. That he could hear, anyway.

Which is why, some time later, the Doctor and Rose came home to the TARDIS and found a girl that refused to come out of her room- she had locked the door. From behind the barrier, they could hear her crying softly. Between her sobs, she called out a painfully familiar name.

"Mike!"

(A/N: Look at all this angst. LOOK AT IT! Sorry. Also, I am still and probably always will be open to suggestions for Mind Flayer names. Another also, what do you think of the Mike/El and Doctor/Rose parallels? They are legit on the same level it's just different because Mike and El are kids. And we've reached the end of Trick or Treat, Freak.)