3 Months Later – July 1969

Area 51

The Doctor sat chained to a chair, wearing a straight jacket, alone in a dark cell. Three months growth had left him with a rather impressive beard. He might have liked it if it hadn't been so itchy, or if his hands were free so he could scratch it.

"We've located your little band of misfits, Doctor," Canton Everett Delaware the Third said coldly as several soldiers drug three body bags into the cell. "Rory and Amy Tyler-Pond were caught running through the Arizona desert." He lightly toed two of the body bags. "Mrs. Tyler was apprehended in Glen Canyon. She put up a good fight; pity she didn't make it either. All three of them were covered in strange markings. Know anything about that?"

"You should have asked them yourself," the Doctor replied just as coldly.

Canton ignored him. "Doctor Song and Captain Harkness were a bit more elusive, but we managed to locate them as well."

"Where are they?" The Doctor strained against the chains that bound him to a chair.

"They dove off a building in New York. Swan dived off the fiftieth floor," Canton said in his cool deep voice.

"Is there a reason you're doing this?" the Doctor asked as the man in question entered the newly constructed cell made of zero balance dwarf star alloy, the densest material in the Universe.

"I want you to know where you stand," the reinstated FBI agent smirked.

"In a cell," the Doctor said flatly.

"In a perfect cell. Nothing can penetrate these walls. No sound. Not a radio wave. Not the tiniest particle of anything. In here, you're literally cut off from the rest of the Universe." Canton inserted his fingers into the control matrix and the door shut. "So I guess they can't hear us, right?"

Easily shrugging off the chains, the Doctor grinned. "Good work, Canton. Door sealed?"

The other man couldn't help but smile back. "You bet."

All three people in the body bags shot up. "These things could really do with air holes!" Rory complained as he unzipped his bag.

"Never had a complaint before," Canton shrugged.

"Oh, shut up," Rose said with a smile as she wiggled out of her own. "Some of us don't have respiratory bypass."

The Doctor was at her side in a second. "I missed you. Three months is too long to be apart." Leaning down, he kissed her and she giggled.

Pushing him back, she said, "You're shaving that first chance you get." She wiggled a finger towards his beard. "Oh, and I missed you, too."

After rounds of hugs and kisses for everyone else, Amy asked Canton, "Isn't it going to look odd that you're standing here with us?"

"Odd, but not alarming. They know there's no way out of this place," Canton said casually.

"Exactly! Whatever they think we might be doing in here, they know we're not going anywhere," the Doctor said as he leaned against the invisible TARDIS. "Shall we?" He snapped his fingers and the doors popped open. The group scrambled on board.

"Hello, you gorgeous thing!" Rose exclaimed. "I missed you, too." She stroked the nearest bit of console and the Doctor grinned at her.

"What about Dr. Song and Captain Harkness? They dove off a rooftop." Canton asked curiously.

"Don't worry, they're out there. Amy! Rory! Open all the doors to the swimming pool," the Doctor said as he and Rose landed the ship on the side of the correct building. When the doors were flung open, River and Jack fell in a blur through the console room and landed with a distant splash in the pool.

A few minutes later Amy and Rory came back into the room followed by River, in dry clothes, and Jack, in nothing but a dressing gown. "Seriously, Jack?" Rose challenged, raising an eyebrow. He just grinned.

Ignoring everyone else, the Doctor continued his rambling explanations. "So, we know they're everywhere. Not just a landing party, an occupying force. And they've been here a very long time. But nobody knows that, because no one can remember them."

"So what are they up to?" Canton queried.

"No idea." He threw the controls that landed the TARDIS. "But the good news is we've got a secret weapon." Heading down the ramp, he threw the doors open. They were in Florida, Kennedy Space Center, and had a remarkable view of the launch platform.

"Apollo Eleven's your secret weapon?" River asked as she stepped outside.

"No, no. It's not Apollo Eleven. That would be silly. It's Neil Armstrong's foot," the Doctor said with a knowing smirk, his arm reaching out and pulling Rose to his side. "Now everyone back inside. We have work to do and Jack, for the love of anything decent, please put on some actual clothes or I will be forced to throw you into a supernova."

Jack grinned. "Come on, Doc, you wouldn't do that."

"Don't bet on it," Rory said. "He's got one picked out especially for situations like this."

"I'd never let him actually do that," Rose said, ushering everyone back inside. "Let's all go and get cleaned up and yes, Doctor, that includes getting rid of that ridiculous thing on your face."

"I don't know, Mum; I think it makes him look older. With that thing, no one would question him having adults call him Dad," Amy said as she brushed past him, laughing all the way down the hall.

The Doctor preened but Rose smacked his arm. "I'm not kissing you again until that beard is gone."

After about thirty minutes everyone reconvened, fully clothed and clean shaven in the console room. "So! Three months. What have we found out?" The Doctor was doing his normal manic movements around the room, only this time he had what looked like a gun in his hand. He shot something into Canton's palm.

"Ow," Canton yelped and the Doctor laughed.

"Well, they are everywhere. Every state in America," Rory said before whimpering as the Doctor shot his hand, too.

"Not just America, the entire world," the Doctor said, shooting Jack and River's hands, too.

Jack didn't even flinch. "There's a greater concentration here, though."

Coming over the where Amy and Rose were standing, the Doctor shot Rose's hand, then brought her palm up and placed a kiss where he had hurt her. Next he turned to Amy and shot her, too. "You okay?" he said softly. Rose had told him what Amy had confided in her.

"All better," the red-head said a little sadly.

"Better?" The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

"Turns out I was wrong. I'm not pregnant," Amy replied, not willing to meet his eyes.

Rory came over and grabbed her hand. "We still have plenty of time for kids. We can try again later."

Rose rubbed Amy's back. "I'm sorry; I know what that kind of disappointment feels like."

"Thanks, Mum. Can we just not talk about this right now?" Amy said, wanting to change the subject and wanting the attention off of herself for the moment. From across the room River gave her a sad smile.

Canton spoke, breaking the tension. "So you've seen them, but you don't remember them?"

"You've seen them, too. That night at the warehouse, remember? While you were pretending to hunt us down, we saw hundreds of those things. We still don't know what they look like," River said, adjusting the scanner.

"It's like they edit themselves out of your memory the minute you look away. The exact second you're not looking at them you can't remember anything," Rory added.

"They must be pretty powerful, too, if they can erase themselves from a Time Lord brain." Jack said, leaning on the railing near River.

"Sometimes you get a bit sick but not all the time." Amy brushed a hair out of her face.

"So that's why you marked your skin?" Canton nodded in understanding.

Amy nodded. "Only way we'd know if we had an encounter."

"They're dangerous, too," Rose said, her voice low but full of anger. "Those creatures are responsible for the death of my parents, and they would have killed me, my husband and Rory if they had the chance."

Jack stood up straighter; she had never told him this before. "What do you mean?"

Rose turned to her best friend. "I didn't remember until I saw them again, but whatever they are, I saw one right before Bad Wolf brought us back here. Told me to hand over something," her eyes flicked in the direction of her son, "someone they wanted over to them or they would destroy it. I caused the crack in Amelia's wall when I brought us back here, a crack in the wall of the Universe."

"Yes, and I fixed that crack in Amelia's wall and that event brought me back to you and kept the rest of you safe," the Doctor said softly to her. "Well worth it in my opinion."

"Except this time I can't just jump Universes to protect my family," Rose retorted bitterly.

"Hold on," Jack said, leaning forward. "You told me that whatever the thing was that made you come back was threatening Rory. That they were after the 'Time Child'. If this is the same memory erasing creature from that Universe, how did you know what they were after?"

"They sent a message to Torchwood. Jake didn't know it pertained to us until it was too late. I don't really remember being thrown back here. It's fuzzy. I remember feeling threatened and then the SUV being filled with that golden light."

"Similar to what Rory did…" Jack trailed off, not wanting to bring up James' death.

"What?!" the Doctor said, astonished, his eyes flicking between mother and son. "What did Rory do exactly?"

The young man in question finally spoke up, his voice tense. "I 'went Bad Wolf' when Dad died. I could hear that howling in the back of my head and felt like I had the power to… well, it doesn't matter because I didn't do anything with that power."

"You never said. Any of you. How can Rory have the powers of the Bad Wolf?" the Doctor said, looking accusingly at all of them.

"Don't look at me, Sweetie, I wasn't there." River held her hands up in defense. No one bothered to correct her that she hadn't been there yet.

"It's not like we were intentionally keeping it from you," Rose said, putting a hand on the Doctor's arm. "It's just not a day that any of us like thinking about, let alone talking about. I would have told you about it eventually. You have to know that. No secrets between us. "

He nodded his head. "Of course you would have. No secrets. I'm sorry, but this could have been important."

Rose gave him a small smile. "We think that whatever Rory and I are able to do is genetic. It must be linked to the part of our genetic makeup that is directly related to the TARDIS, not to absorbing the Vortex."

"We don't know that they after me, Mum. I've lived on Earth for years and they haven't come after me yet," Rory said, trying to emphasize the point. "And I haven't let Amy out of my sight for months. I know you're worried, but she's not even pregnant." Next to him, Amy tensed momentarily. "They could be after something completely different in this Universe."

"Or they could be after the same thing," Rose almost yelled, her fear obvious in her words.

"Amy's not pregnant. So if they're after a Time Child, it's not mine," Rory said with more anger than he meant to. "Is it yours? Are you pregnant?" He regretted the words as soon as they were out of his mouth. It was a valid question but not one that needed to be yelled out during an argument.

The room was silent for a moment, all eyes on Rose. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. "No, no I'm not." Walking over to Rory, she put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry, it's just, I'm scared. The parallel version of these creatures tried to kill you. I won't let them hurt our family."

"I know, but they can't be after me. I ran into hundreds of those things in the last few months and I'm fine. And as far as we know there isn't another Time Child on the way," Rory said, pulling his mum into a hug.

'"How long have they been here?" Canton asked suddenly, breaking the family out of their internal struggle and bringing them back to the current situation.

Thankful for the change in the line of discussion, Amy said, "That's what we've spent the last three months trying to find out."

Rory nodded, letting go of his mum. "Yeah, not easy if you can't remember anything you discover."

"How long do you think?" Canton probed.

"As long as there's been something in the corner of your eye, or creaking in your house or breathing under your bed or voices through a wall," the Doctor said dramatically, trying to turn attention back to him and away from the discussion that Rory and Rose had just had. "They've been running your lives for a very long time now, so keep this straight in your head. We are not fighting an alien invasion. We're leading a revolution. And today the battle begins."

"How?" Canton asked.

He held up a small tube. "Nano recorder." He loaded it into his gun and shot himself in the hand. "Ow! It fuses itself to the cartilage in your hand, and it tunes itself to the telepathic centers of your brain. The moment you see one of the creatures, you activate it," he touched his palm, "and describe aloud exactly what you see."

Touching his palm again, the Doctor's voice repeated his previous words from the Nano recorder. "Because the second you look away you forget. A flashing light indicates that you left yourself a message. Keep checking your hand."

Canton turned to look at something over his shoulder, turned back and straightened the Doctor's bow tie. Everyone was staring at him. "What are you staring at?"

The Doctor's gaze flicked down. "Look at your hand."

The light from the device in Canton's hand was flashing. "Why's it doing that?

"What does it mean if the light's flashing? What did I just tell you?" the Doctor asked.

Shaking his head slightly, Canton said. "I haven't—"

"Play it."

Looking down once more, Canton pressed his palm and the recording played.

"Oh my God, how did it get in here?"

"Keep eye contact and when I say, turn back and when you do, straighten my bow tie," the Doctor said.

"What are you staring at?"

"Look at your hand."

Canton once again turned around and saw one of the creatures standing by the door to the ship.

"It's a hologram extrapolated from the picture on Amy's phone," the Doctor explained.

Rose continued. "She ran into one of them when she went to the restroom back at the White House. These things are everywhere."

"Take a good long look," the Doctor said before Canton blinked and turned back around. "You just saw an image of one of the creatures we're fighting. Describe it."

"I can't," Canton said blankly.

"No. Neither can I," the Doctor said, moving back around the console. "You straightened my bow tie because I planted the idea in your head while you were looking at it."

"So you could be doing all sorts of things without really knowing why you were doing it," Amy said thoughtfully.

"Like post-hypnotic suggestion," Rory said in agreement.

"Ruling the world with post-hypnotic suggestion." Amy shivered.

"Now then, a little girl in a spacesuit. They got the suit from NASA, but where did they get the girl?" the Doctor said, adjusting a few more controls.

"Could be anywhere," Canton added.

The Doctor and Rose shared a look that no one else understood. Rose shook her head and the Doctor said, "Except they'd probably stay close to that warehouse because why bother doing anything else. And they'd take her from somewhere that would cause the least amount of tension. But you'll have to find her. I'm off to NASA."

"Find her where?" Canton asked.

"Children's homes." The Doctor swung the view screen around to show them several places that he had narrowed it down to. "Amy, Jack, you're with Canton on this. River, Rory, I need you two to head to the White House to get Mr. Nixon up to speed on our progress. Rose, you're with me."