Author's Note:

Alright, here we are, yet another update. I don't have a lot to say about this chapter, but I hope you enjoy it all the same!

I do, however, have to say a quick something about updates... Work has been so hectic lately that I haven't been able to write anything since my last update. I already had this chapter done, I was just waiting to post it until I got a few chapters ahead again but that hasn't happened and I didn't want to leave you guys waiting for too long so I decided to put this one up. This means, however, that I have no idea how long the next update time will be. I have the day off today so hopefully I'll be able to get some writing done but that's assuming I don't get called in on an emergency basis should another one of our animals have a medical emergency. (-_-) Good times. Anyway, I will do my very best to get the next chapter up within the next two weeks and hopefully things will settle down at work soon.

Now, enough about me, let's get on with the story. As always, if you like it, hate, it, think it needs work or have a question or suggestion let me know!

Happy Reading!

Chapter Ten

Unless There's Children Crying

Stepping out into Starship UK was like stepping into the not-too distant past with elements of future technology popping up here and there, most notably in the glass ceiling through which the same view they'd seen from the TARDIS door shone down. Inside the ship, however, was dirty and dank, and Wilfred found himself wondering if real spacecrafts were ever as sleek and shinny as in those Hollywood films... Even the cactuses' ship had given off an old, rather well-used vibe despite the obviously alien technology.

"I'm in the future." His train of thought was interrupted by Amy who was spinning around slowly, her eyes wide as saucers as she tried to take everything while making her way towards where the Doctor was waiting, "Like hundreds of years in the future." She paused suddenly, staring from Wilf to the Doctor with suddenly narrowed eyes, "I've been dead for centuries."

"Oh, lovely. You're a cheery one," the Time Lord sighed before taking both his companions by their respective elbows and leading them off into the ship, "Never mind dead, look at this place. Isn't it wrong?"

Wrong? Wilf glanced around once more drinking in his surroundings in an attempt to figure out what their host was on about while Amy voiced his thought out loud. The only thing that seemed particularly strange to him were the creepy looking, ceramic men in the glass booths...

"Come on, use your eyes," said the Doctor as he led them still deeper into the ship's corridors, "Notice everything. What's wrong with this picture?"

"Is it the bicycles?" Amy suggested, as they were passed by one pulling a woman in a little carriage, "Bit unusual on a spaceship, bicycles."

The Time Lord gestured over his shoulder at her carelessly. "Says the girl in the nightie."

"Oh my God, I'm in my nightie!" the redhead look mortified before turning on Wilf, "Why didn't you tell me!?"

Wilf shook his head, smiling slightly. "In my defense I did mention it."

The Doctor snickered but quieted as his younger companions gaze fell on him once more. "Now, come on, look around you," he said quickly, flapping his hands a bit more than was strictly necessary in his haste to head off an irritated redhead in a nightie, "Actually look."

"London Market is a crime-free zone." A woman's voice rang out from speakers overhead, interrupting the alien.

But the Time Lord didn't seem bothered by the interruption. "Life on a giant starship," he continued, "Back to basics. Bicycles, washing lines, wind-up street lamps. But look closer. Secrets and shadows, lives led in fear. Society bent out of shape, on the brink of collapse. A police state. Excuse me." And he shot off towards a couple sitting at the outdoor table of a diner leaving his companions blinking after him in the middle of the corridor.

Amy and Wilf exchanged confused looks before following him over to the table in time to see him snatch the man's glass of water.

"What are you doing?" the glass's owner demanded.

But the Doctor didn't reply. Instead he set the glass on the ground and stared at it. Wilf stared at it too but there was nothing to see, just a glass of water sitting on the floor of a spaceship.

"Sorry," the alien apologized after a brief moment, returning the glass tot's place on the table, "Checking all the water in this area. There's an escaped fish." He tapped his nose knowingly and turned back to his companions, "Where was I?"

"What was that you did just there?" the old man asked, gesturing towards the water while Amy nodded her agreement with the question.

"Don't know," the Doctor sounded thoughtful before grinning again, "I think a lot. It's hard to keep track. Now, police state. Do you see it yet?"

Wilf rolled his eyes but Amy looked curious.

"Where?" she asked.

The Time Lord pointed off a little ways in front of them at the same little girl they'd seen on the TARDIS's scanner. She'd moved since then and was now sitting on that last off collection of uncomfortable looking metal benches, still crying. "There."

And with that he was off, walking purposefully towards the tearful child while his two companions hurried along behind him. Coming to a stop a few benches away from the weeping girl the Doctor took a seat, staring at her with his elbows propped up on his knees and his chin resting on his clasp hands, while Amy and Wilfred flopped down on either side of him.

"One little girl crying," said Amy, following the alien's gaze, "So?"

"Crying silently," the Time Lord corrected, turning to stare at the redhead with an uncharacteristically serious expression, "I mean, children cry because they want attention, because they're hurt or afraid. But when they cry silently, it's because they just can't stop. Any parent knows that."

"Are you a parent?" Amy asked curiously.

Wilf, who had leaning forward to watch the exchange, felt his heart clench as the Doctor froze at his younger companion's words. Oh God... The old human shut his eyes briefly. How could he not have considered this? This was a man who was more than nine hundred years old, who'd lost his whole planet, his whole race, and the way he'd reacted to Amy's choice of profession...

"Hundreds of parents walking past who spot her," the alien continued abruptly, returning his attention to the child and looking decidedly shaken, "And not one of them's asking her what's wrong, which means they already know, and it's something they don't talk about. Secrets. They're not helping her, so it's something they're afraid of. Shadows, whatever they're afraid of, it's nowhere to be seen, which means it's everywhere. Police state."

A group of people walked in front of them and when they'd passed the girl was gone.

"Hold on a minute," said Wilf, staring around but finding no sign of her, "Where'd she go?"

"Deck two-o-seven," the Doctor replied easily, glancing between his companions, "Apple Sesame block, dwelling 54A. You're looking for Mandy Tanner. Oh!" He rummaged about in the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a brightly coloured wallet which he handed to Amy, "Er, this fell out of her pocket when I accidentally bumped into her. Took me four goes. Ask her about those things. The smiling fellows in the booths. They're everywhere. "

"But they're just things..."

"They're clean," said the Time Lord simply, "Everything else here is all battered and filthy. Look at this place. But no one's laid a finger on those booths. Not a footprint within two feet of them. Look. Ask Mandy, why are people scared of the things in the booths?"

"No, hang on," said Amy in exasperation, "What do I do? I don't know what I'm doing here and I'm not even dressed!"

"Figure it out of course, Wilf'll help!" the Doctor grinned, "It's this or Leadworth. What do you think? Let's see. What will Amy Pond choose?"

They stared at each other for a moment before the redhead turned away, obviously fighting back a smile.

"Gotcha," their host laughed, before glancing at his wristwatch, "Now, you two, meet me back here in half an hour."

"What are you going to do?" Wilf asked curiously, wondering what else the Doctor had noticed in their brief time aboard the starship.

"What I always do," came the cheerful reply as the alien hopped back to his feet, "Stay out of trouble."

The elderly man snorted at the idea and received a glare for his trouble.

"Oh, shut up," the Time Lord grumbled but he was smiling all the same, "I'm sure I'll manage it this time." And with that he vaulted easily over the back of the bench and made to walk away before Amy's voice stopped him in his tracks.

"So is this how it works, Doctor?" she asked, spinning around on the bench to face him, "You never interfere in the affairs of other peoples or planets, unless there's children crying?"

Her question was met with a crocked little smile. "Yes," the alien replied before turning to his older companion, "Look after her, Wilf." And then he was gone, disappeared into the crowded corridor.

Amy folded her arms across her chest and turned back in the direction young Mandy had headed, trying her best to hide a smirk. "Just so we're clear, I don't need looking after," she pointed out.

Wilfred smiled, remembering the many multitudes of times his girls had told him some variation of that phrase. "I know," he gestured off down the corridor, "Shall we?"

Amy grinned. "Let's go."

"So, what do we do once we find this kid?"

Wilfred, who had been studying the dingy metal corridor (which seemed to be called Dean Street if the signs were anything to go by) along which they were walking en route to Mandy's home, turned to his fellow companion and tilted his head. "Just what the Doctor said. We talk to her, ask her about the things in the booths and see if we can't help her," he replied.

Amy frowned. "I'm rubbish with kids," she admitted, fingering the sleeve of her nightie, "Always have been."

Choosing not to mention that she was, to him at least, still pretty near to being a kid herself, the old man smiled. "Not to worry," he said reassuringly, "I've had my fair share of practice."

The redhead smiled slightly. "How many kids have you got?" she asked curiously.

"Just the one," Wilf replied with a chuckle, "My daughter. And my granddaughter of course."

"What about the Doctor? Do you know if he has children?"

The elderly human sighed, dropping his gaze to the dust floor beneath his feet and watching the tiny plumes of dust rise up with each step. "I don't know," he replied honestly, "He may have had. I'd not really considered it before you asked him..."

Narrowing her eyes Amy stopped walking forcing the older companion to do the same. "What do you mean, he may have had?" she asked suspiciously.

Heaving another sigh and cursing himself for the slip up, the old man turned to face her. He had no intention of lying to the redhead but that didn't mean he had to give away anymore about the Doctor either and she was just going to have to accept that. "Amy I can't..." he said softly, sending a sad smile her way, "They aren't my secrets to tell." His fellow companion opened her mouth to say something but Wilf held up a hand and she shut it again with an irritable snap. "Just hear an old man out," he continued, "There's a lot more to our Doctor than just a mad traveller with a time traveling box. He's been through the wars, that one, seen things we couldn't begin to imagine and it's not my place to go spreadin' those secrets around. He'll let us in when he's ready..."

The redhead frowned slightly. "Seems as though he's already let you in," she pointed out.

"He didn't have much of a choice, I'm afraid," the old man replied, sadness tainting his voice as memories of six billion Masters, and the Time Lords' return, and the former Doctor (all spiky hair and brown pinstriped suit) crumpled on the floor of the Naismiths' mansion flooded his mind, "The situation was very much out of his control..."

Amy nodded, though she still didn't look entirely convinced as she began moving forwards once more. Before she got the chance to say anything more on the subject, however, a voice range out from the shadows of a nearby metal barrel.

"You're following me." The young girl, Mandy, who they'd been sent to find stepped towards the pair with a surprising air of calmness for someone who had been sobbing silently not long before, "Saw you watching me at the marketplace."

To her credit, the redhead didn't jump as her elderly companion did at the sudden interruption, and held out the wallet calmly instead. "You dropped this."

"Yeah," Mandy replied in that obvious tone of voice that only children and young teenagers could manage as she snatched back the wallet, "When your friend kept bumping into me." And with that she marched off down the corridor leaving a confused Amy and amused Wilfred in her wake.

"We should probably go after her," the elderly man suggested with a smile.

The redhead shook herself quickly and nodded. "Right."

They didn't have to walk far before they came upon the girl once more, standing in front of a fold out metal fence, complete with a Keep Out sign, which surrounded a red and white tent in the middle of the corridor and fingering her wallet nervously.

"What's that?" Amy asked, stopping beside the child and gesturing towards the tent.

"There's a hole," Mandy replied simply, "We have to go back."

"A what?" the redhead blinked, "A hole?"

"Are you stupid?" came the child's exasperated reply, "There's a hole in the road. We can't go that way. There's a travel pipe down by the airlocks, if you've got stamps. What are you doing?"

Amy had moved away from the others sometime during the girl's speech and towards the striped tent, pushing the fence out of the way to gain access. "Oh, don't mind me," she grinned at both Mandy and Wilf, "Never could resist a Keep Out sign. What's through there? What's so scary about a hole?" she flopped down on the dusty floor in front of a padlock Wilf hadn't noticed before which fastened the tent's door closed, "Something under the road..?"

Mandy, for her part, was looking incredibly nervous, glancing over her shoulder time and aging towards the same smiling things the booths that the Doctor had sent them to ask her about. Still, she didn't run, no matter how much she looked as though she wanted to, and answered Amy's question instead. "Nobody knows. We're not supposed to talk about it."

The redhead spun around with a smile that must have persuaded many a man to do her bidding gracing her face. "About what?" she asked persuasively.

The girl merely blinked. "Below."

Amy made a face. "And because you're not supposed to, you don't?" she asked, very nearly rolling her eyes as she produced a hairpin from... somewhere, honestly Wilf didn't see where, and waved it at the two other humans before beginning to pick the lock, "Watch and learn."

"You sound Scottish," said Mandy after a moment of watching the other girl work, and Wilf could see traces of confusion on her face.

"I am Scottish," came the distracted reply, "What's wrong with that? Scotland's got to be here somewhere..."

The child shook her head in the negative. "No. They wanted their own ship."

"Hmm," Amy smiled, her eyes never leaving the lock, "Good for them. Nothing changes."

"So, how did you get here?" Mandy asked, frowning.

"Oh, just passing through, you know, with a guy."

"Your boyfriend?"

Wilfred chuckled softly at the thought but quickly fell silent as he noticed that his fellow companion had frozen at the younger girl's question.

"Oh..." she murmured softly.

"What?" Mandy asked, her face betraying nothing but childish curiosity.

"Amy?" Wilf added, his face, by contrast, lined with nothing but concern.

"Nothing. It's nothing," the redhead replied quickly, tossing a quick glance their way, "It's just, I'm getting married. Funny how things slip your mind."

"Married!?" both Mandy and Wilfred cried in unison.

"Yeah, shut up, married," Amy's voice had an undertone of panic to it, "Really, actually married. Almost definitely."

"It's Rory, isn't it?" Wilfred asked gently, hoping to ease some of her panic while at the same time figure out what was going on. The young man had only just been her boyfriend when he'd left Leadworth...

A soft smile crept onto the young woman's face. "Yeah. Rory," she sighed.

The old man frowned. "Forgive me if I'm wrong but wasn't he just your 'kind of boyfriend' last I saw him?"

Amy rolled her eyes. "That was two years ago, Wilf," she explained, "The Doctor was late. Again."

"Of course he was..."

Mandy, who had been watching the exchange with understandable confusion, chose that moment to reengage in the conversation. "When ya gettin' married then?" she asked.

Turning back to the locked she had been working on, Amy sighed. "Well, it's kind of weird. A long time ago tomorrow morning. I wonder what I did?" The locked clicked open at last. "Hey, hey. Result! Coming?"

"No!" said Mandy sharply.

"Suit yourself," Amy shrugged, before turning to her fellow companion, "Wilf? Coming?"

"Right behind," the old man grinned as he made his way up to the tent and bent down next to her as best his creaking joints would allow.

"Stop!" Mandy cried out from behind them, "You mustn't do that!"

The fear in the child's voice gave Wilfred pause and he turned back to face her and gave a reassuring smile. "It'll be alright," he assured her before following Amy into the tent on his hands and knees.

The sight that met him was not what he expected, though that in itself didn't surprise him all that much. Amy was standing just inside the doorway, a wind-up torch clutched in her hands. The old man's gaze followed the beam of light from its source out to a huge, dark red tentacle which was protruding upwards from a hold in the floor and weaving back a forth almost like seaweed in the ocean's currents.

"Oh, my God," Amy whispered, staring at it in awe, "That's weird. That's –"

But exactly what it was she never got the chance to say. At that moment the tentacle lashed out, its clawed tip coming far too close for comfort as the two humans scrambled backwards out of the tent only to find themselves surrounded by a group of men in matching black robes and hoods. Two of the men thrust they hands forwards towards their captives' faces without a word, a puff of gas emerging from their respective rings. The last thing Wilf saw before the world went black was Amy collapsing beside him.