A/N: Okay. So, NaNo is over. And I have forced myself to keep working on this when normally I would have scraped it. So, this is not as good as it should be. The story kind of kills off because this is sort of mainly a romance fic and the next chapter will probably be the end. For all the people who still follow this, thank you. Really. ^_^ Enjoy reading and comments are always appreciated.

TEN

"Great. Great. That's just…well, actually, that's not really a surprise. Pretty much standard operation with you." Rory's hands were on his waist and he sighed. "Get out of one problem, find ourselves in another. Bad to worse to horribly not good to oh my god, why does this keeping happening to us?"

Doctor smiled, rocking back and forth on his feet. "Yeah, but never boring, eh?" He flicked a few settings on the screwdriver and the lights flickered back on. "Least the lights're working again. There's something."

Rory shook his head.

"Alright. So, what do we do? We try and get out? Break the walls down? What?" Amy asked, her limps twisting and her feet pacing with the need to be doing something, achieving something as opposed to just waiting.

The Doctor shrugged. "I don't think we'll have that much time."

"What'd you mean?"

"Well, I'll have to guess, guess mind you, only guessing, they'll probably want to talk to us first. If I'm right, there isn't much time before they come to us. Probably just wanted to make sure we're all safe and secure. Show us who's in charge, or who they think's in charge."

Amy swallowed. "O-kay. And what makes you think that?"

"They're intelligent. And one thing I know comes with any sort of intelligence…" He pointed to his forehead. "It's curiosity." He smiled, removing his hand from his head and putting the other in his pocket. "I'm willing to bet they've noticed the TARDIS and I'm also willing to bet they've never had this much activity all at once. Weird blue box lands in the middle of a supposedly uninhabited bunker and now they're getting all sorts of problems. I know I'd want to know what exactly was causing such a ruckus. Wouldn't you?"

Amy nodded. "Alright, fair enough. But what do we do once they get here? They going to probe us or somethin'?" She put her finger in his face to show she was serious. "'Cause, I am not going to be poked with some creepy alien probe-y-thing."

The Doctor shook his head. "I doubt there will be any probing. We'll simply talk to them, find out their side and see what happens. 'Play it by ear' as they say. Oh. Love that. Not having a plan."

"You never have a plan." Amy countered.

"Yeah, but this time, that's the plan. I've planned to not have a plan." He smiled, clearly more amused than anyone else.

"Great. So reassuring." Amy mumbled.

"You'll what now?" Terrin asked, drawing the attention from the adults that had almost forgotten he was there. "You ain't talking with anything. Those things come in here and I'm striking first." The boy stood his ground, chin high in the air. His little fists shook. "I'm taking them before they take us, that's how this works. They're the enemy."

The exit hissed slowly open and every head swiveled toward the door. A few of the creatures blocking the pathway out.

Terrin ducked down instantly, scooping up a table leg he had spotted earlier. The Doctor pulled on the back of Terrin's jacket as the boy swung the weapon fiercely. He thrashed and sputtered, trying to reach his enemy. Anger burned in the boy's eyes. Too much pain and anger for such young eyes.

"Oy, you, let's calm it down, don't want to start a fight now. Had enough fighting for today, thank you." The Doctor pulled him back, sliding the boy behind him as he looked the three creatures up and down with a smile. "As for you lot," He situated himself between the Fedoom and his friends, letting them know that he would be the one doing the talking. The corner of his mouth lifted into a half smile and he adjusted his bow tie. "Let's hear your side of things. The Doctor will hear your plea."

The creatures looked at them, heads tilting and limbs twitching. Finally, a voice sounded as if from a speaker. "We do not wish war."

The Doctor chuckled. "That's good news, cause there wasn't gonna be one. Not on my watch at any rate." His eyes narrowed at the creatures, "What's that then? Some sort of voice simulator? Ah, can't speak can you?"

"That computer-y sounding voice is just a sort of transmitter then?" Amy tried to clarify.

"Sort of. There are a few species of highly developed races that don't need to communicate audibly. They're probably telepathic, but they'll assume any humanoid life form is incapable of communicating similarly. The simulator reads their thoughts and translates it into sound."

"Ours."

The Doctor's attention was shifted back to the aliens in the doorway. "Yours. What's yours? What've you been poisoning all these humans for? And keep in mind," He raised a finger. "I am being extremely nice about this whole thing. See as much senseless death as I've just seen in this place, usually puts me off. Well, still does, but you've caught me in a mood. Not a good mood. A mood. I'd name it but I'd need a thesaurus to really get the right- Does anyone happen to carry one?" He turned to look at Amy and Rory,who shook their heads. "You know, the little ones you keep in your pockets?"

"Doctor, they're just called pocket thesauruses cause they're small, they don't actually fit in pockets." Amy corrected.

"Maybe not yours." He sighed, disappointed. "Oh, fine then. Whatever. Didn't really care all that much anyway. So." He got his rhythm back from the temporary side track. "So back to my point. Let's hear your explanation, cause it had better be a good one. Why attack the humans? Why poison them?"

"Ours home first. Humans came once ago. Many centuries. We were peace. But humans killed many. We did not wish war." The creatures spoke in broken English, like they had worked to translate, but got the pieces wrong. Or the simulator wasn't doing a good job. It was probably trying to do the translations on its own and their speech wasn't easily translated by the device.

The Doctor frowned. "So humans come in, you try and coexist, but they kill numerous members of your species, then centuries later they come back and you decide to strike first?"

"This is affirmative."

"Yeah, know how that can be." He nodded, looking past them as he recalled a similar experience. "Except, in place of the invasion it was more of a series of bad dinner party and instead of killing we just had to eat loads of pickled octopus liver, which, believe you me, if you try it...it's basically the same thing, and when I say we 'struck first' I mean we ate beforehand. Only so many times you can eat that stuff without losing your lunch in the process." His hands were in his pockets as he bounced on his feet, smiling at the memory. Finally, he turned to face the humans behind him. "Okay. Here is how this is going to go—"

"You ain't in charge here. You can't listen to them. They killed all of us, everyone here. Look at all the bodies?" Terrin was nearly shouting, his voice cracking slightly.

"I've already said, there isn't going to be any violence. As far as they are concerned you're the hostile invaders. They were just protecting themselves so—"

"You're just going to let this go—"

"SO." The Doctor interrupted loudly. "We are going to give them back their planet."

"Moon."

"Aha." He pointed, smiling and then clicking his fingers once. "Yes, thank you, Rory." He put his hands together, feeling better now that things seemed nearly back to normal. At least for now he could pretend that was the case. "We've got the TARDIS now, you and the other children are going to come with me and I'm taking you home."

"What home? We've only know this." Terrin seethed. He flinched when Andromeda put her hand on his shoulder.

"We don't belong here. This is their home, like the Doctor says. Do you want to stay here?" Andromeda soothed, even as he declined her affection, she still pursued him like he was her stubborn brother.

"'Course I don't."

"Then we should go."

"Not if he just lets all them get away with killing all our families." Terrin wiped a tear from his eye quickly. No one was going to see him cry. Especially not a girl.

"Killing them won't bring your parents back." The Doctor said quietly. "You're young. Don't make the mistake of thinking revenge is more important than your life."

"You can do both. I can get revenge and then you take me and the others with you." Terrin shouted again, his fists shaking.

"I could yes, but I won't. I don't have to. You're not going to hurt anyone because despite you feeling angry," He leaned down to Terrin's level. "Deep down, you know I'm right."

"You're just as bad as them." Terrin hissed dangerously.

"Hey now, that's a bit harsh." The Doctor looked at the Fedoom and adjusted his bow tie. "I'm much better looking."

Rory stepped forward, looking at the boy as he wiped his eyes again. "Hey. I, uh, I know it's not my place or anything, but take it from someone who knows. Hurting them won't make you feel better. You're already sad and angry, don't add guilt to the list."

Terrin sniffed, glaring at Rory. "Fine. Whatever. I'm not staying here, that's for damn sure so I'll just go with you." He glared at the creatures watching the exchange and sprinted off toward the TARDIS. The Doctor nodded a silent thanks to Rory before turning back to the creatures.

"Here's the deal then. They get the moon back, it's their home, they get to keep it. We get all the survivors back to Galadros and Andromeda?"

"Yeah?" She stepped forward, looking eager.

"Tell the other children, I need all of you to tell people what happened here. That this place belongs to the fedoom and humans can search for their minerals somewhere else. Maybe one day, in the future, they can contact the fedoom before settling here and talk things out peacefully, find a solution that can help everyone." He looked at her severely, knowing that just because she was a child didn't mean she didn't understand the seriousness of the situation. Actually, in his experience, children could be more trusted than most adults.

Andromeda nodded. "It might take some convincing…people are greedy that way." She went to follow Terrin and retrieve the other children. She had no idea what would happen to them once they were brought to their home planet, but she knew that she trusted the Doctor and that was enough for her right then.

The Doctor turned his attention back to Amy and Rory. He looked at them awkwardly, his eyes flitting from one face to the floor to something or other. It was usually best to just ignore awkward situations and pretend they never happened, he thought, his eyes lingered a half second longer on Amy.

Finally, he took his hands from his pockets and rubbed them together. "So. We stop off on Galadros, not a long trip from here considering we are on one of its moons and then, what do you say?" He stalked off mid sentence, flinging open the doors to the TARDIS before continuing inside. "Feudal Japan? Age of the samurai? Or maybe back a bit further? Pay a quick visit to Socrates? Oh, Socry. Great philosopher. Excellent Chess player, when I showed him what chess was…but let me tell you…what-a-troublemaker. Honestly. Can't put a foot through an arch without a bucket of well water falling over your head. Ten minutes with him and I came this close," He put his fingers together. "To wishing I had some shaving cream and a feather for later that night. Try and inscribe dirty poetry into the side of my TARDIS will you. Ha. I don't think so." He began pulling levers and twisting buttons. Hitting some of the controls more fiercely than he wanted.

Amy had her arms crossed, looking at the floor while he talked, knowing exactly what he was trying to do. Rory wasn't clueless either, but he wasn't as comfortable being in the same room with him at the moment. Head still down over the consol, the Doctor watched Rory head to his room in his peripherals. His hands were braced on the controls and he decided that if he was going to be left alone in the control room with one of them, he would have preferred Rory. He would have preferred Socrates at that point. At least he hadn't done anything drastically horrible to destroy Socrates' life. The temporary blue hair dye didn't count, Socrates just assumed it was the gods getting back at him for attempting to inscribe his name into the side of a temple so that everyone would know he was there. And he deserved it.

Leaning against the railing, Amy sighed and inspected her nails. Running was the strongest impulse at this point. Running very far and very fast in any other direction. The Doctor and Amy both considered bolting in opposite directions, looking over their shoulder's longingly. However, Andromeda chose that moment to show up outside the ship. Noticing her on the monitor, the Doctor sprinted to the door, threw it open, and ushered everyone inside, muttering the typical, "Yes, it's bigger on the inside."

Keeping the wide, there is nothing wrong, smile on his face, he powered up the TARDIS to bring the children back to their home planet. Andromeda, knowing that the TARDIS was bound to have some way of communicating with the planet, brought the coordinates and the contact information so they could arrange for family members still on the planet to meet with them. They were able to communicate with the group directly on the planet that was supposed to be home base for the settlement. When they found out about the situation, they were apparently completely shocked. They had been getting regular messages from the moon, now known to be from the fedoom to keep more humans from showing up.

Once the children were settled and in safe hands for the first time in years, there was nothing to keep them on the planet. The Doctor went back to the controls, already setting the destination for Leadworth.

Amy ran her finger along the consol, walking around it until she was on the same side as the Doctor. "So." She began. "We still going to ancient Greece or whatever?"

"If you want…" He responded quietly. "I was actually…" He flicked at a switch. No more boyfriends. Seriously. That was it. One person at a time, or things just got complicated. He did not want to continue this conversation, but he could hardly hope things could go back to some semblance of normal between him and Amy and that Rory would just grow old and live his life in that room. "Rory." He said simply.

She closed her eyes. "Yeah. I know. Alright? I feel…" She sighed and put her fingers against the sides of her nose, bending her head down. "I feel terrible. Worst than I ever have…" She looked at him warily. "You're taking us home aren't you?"

"Us?"

"Well…him…"

"Oh."

"I mean, I thought…"

"What?"

"I don't…that this might not…work anymore-I don't know." Amy groaned. "Gah!"

The Doctor studied her, unsure of what exactly was happening, but feeling better now that he knew she was staying. The situation might still be uncomfortable, given what had happened, but he decided that running didn't really seem as appealing without Amy trying to catch up.

"So…Rory?" He asked again, pretty sure that there hadn't been any actual talk on that front.

Amy looked at him, her nails tapping the consol. "I'll talk to him. I think…whatever he wants, that's what we'll do. If that's okay?"

"Sure. Yeah. Fine. Whatever…Rory wants. Of course." He pulled on the monitor, just for something to do and looked at the floor sadly.

Amy nodded, putting her hand on his wrist and squeezing gently before heading up the stairs to talk to Rory. She knew that it was his decision if he wanted to leave or stay. That was what she had meant. It wasn't fair to kick him out because of her, but she already knew what he would want. Still, he deserved a real, clean headed explanation and apology and so much more than she was capable of giving him. Teetering back and forth on her feet, she put her hand on the door and gave herself a small pep-talk before opening it. She smiled at Rory, sitting on the bed and turning to look at her when he noticed her enter. She tucked some hair behind her ear, deciding to go first.

"Hey."