Brittle Bones

~Chapter 4~
Avoided

Martha and Avery sat around the kitchen table, with Joseph opposite of them. The boy looked troubled, sad, and held his gaze down at his lap, avoiding looking at the strangers just invited into his house. The Doctor remained in the background, his eyes glancing around at everything while the father clumsily tried to put on a kettle.

"Sorry," the man apologized after he glanced back at Martha and Avery, whom had been watching his actions. "The wife's upstairs… She don't come down much anymore."

"After Tristan?" asked the Doctor.

"Yeah…"

Joseph squirmed in his chair. Mr Kinley continued to try and make some tea while the others remained awkwardly silent.

Avery cleared her throat before standing up and walking over to the man. She gently placed a hand on his arm, "How about you just sit down and run us through what happened, okay? Don't you worry about the tea."

"I-It's proper to offer your guests tea…"

"Well, I'm not British enough to care that much about tea. And my friends'll be fine."

Martha nodded her head at Mr Kinley while the Doctor simply offered a sheepish smile.

"Okay…" breathed Mr Kinley, sitting down next to his son while Avery resumed her previous spot around the kitchen table. "Where are you from anyway? Never heard an accent quite like that one before."

"Oh, a faraway land," replied the Doctor for her and she quickly realized America might not have been founded yet. "That night… what happened?"

"We don't know. One minute he was inside of the house, where he was supposed to be, and the other he just… wasn't… it wasn't until bedtime that we noticed he was gone and by then he had already… already…" Joseph squirmed again. "I'm sorry…"

"That's alright, Mr Kinley," said Martha kindly. "Take your time."

"It's just – He was such a proper boy that one. Never did anything he wasn't supposed to do. Worked hard and helped his mother as best he could. We don't know why he would go out like that after curfew."

"Curfew?" asked Avery.

Mr Kinley glanced at them once before answering, "Set up by the police after the first two murders. They all happened when the moon was out, you see."

"Really?" the Doctor piped in, "And you don't know of any reason for why Tristan would go out after curfew?"

"No, none at all. In my head I've been over it a thousand times already, but it just doesn't make any sense. He knew of the murders. He wouldn't take that risk."

Joseph squirmed again. This time, the Doctor picked up on it too and before Avery could ask, he had already opened his mouth, "Joseph? You alright?"

The Doctor walked over to the table, his eyes narrowed in concentration and curiosity. He leaned his hands on the table, staring at the poor kid intensely.

When Joseph did not look up nor answer, his father piped in instead, voicing what any father would simply assume, "Joseph's been through a lot. He doesn't like to talk about it, that's all."

The Doctor glanced over at Martha, the two exchanging a look over Avery's head. Once more she felt left out… this time it felt as though it was on purpose, as though the two had bonded over something which had suddenly taken their relationship a lot further than Avery and the Doctor's, or Avery and Martha's.

She hoped she was just overanalysing things… then again, it was okay for Martha and the Doctor to be friends. She was not the only one who was allowed to have a connection with him. She was not in the centre of the world after all.

Then again… She could not help but be selfish enough to feel jealous.

"Curfew's about to start. I wouldn't want to be the reason for putting the three of you in harms way."

"Well, we better be going then," announced the Doctor, this time glancing at both Avery and Martha.

"Thank you, Mr Kinley, for your time," said Martha.

"Do, uh, you know of any places we can stay at?" asked the Doctor.

"Uh, yeah… Just down the road there's an inn. I'm sure there's room for the three of you there."

"Thank you."

Fifteen minutes later, the three of them were in a room in the local inn called the Flying Barb. It was a room with two king sized beds, a dresser, a small table and two chairs. Nothing more and nothing less. The bathroom was nothing more than a ceramic pot standing by the beds… which made Avery rather uncomfortable.

The room was lit up with candles and there was only one window, from which a terrible draft passed through the room towards the door. The draft was so bad it made the candles flutter dangerously, nearly extinguishing them. Though, Avery knew she would still be able to fall asleep. Their day at the market had been fun, and the chasing after clues about the murders had been interesting too, but it had taken a toll on her and she knew she needed to sleep.

She sat down on a bed, letting her hair down before plopping down her head on the pillow. It made a strange noise as she did and she realized there were actual feathers inside of the pillow. Avery wanted to turn and ask the Doctor about it, finding it strange as she knew animal products were not artificially made in this time, which meant the poor animals would have to have been plucked in order to gain these feathers – though the Doctor and Martha were already in a deep discussion about their day, particularly the murders.

She had just been left out of it. Again.

"Like the father said, Tristan would have needed a good reason to go out during a curfew. And that boy, Joseph, he looked as though he knew something," said Martha.

The two were seated on the other bed, with Martha propped up on some pillows while the Doctor sat next to her, staring intently at a nearby candle while speaking.

"I couldn't find any traces of anything alien at the crime scene. It makes no sense."

"You don't say! It's impossible for a human body to have been just… sucked dry of everything! Even the bones were missing. It was literally just some tissue left."

"Yeah, but the skin was kept quite intact."

"Is that a clue?"

The Doctor shrugged, "Might be."

"So, what's the plan?"

"I say we check out the skin tomorrow for any clues we might have missed. That doctor should probably have some reports on the previous murders as well. There has to be something we're missing. Some clue as to why this is happening and who is doing this. And… why the bones? I mean, I understand the flesh if you want to eat humans, but why the bones? For protein? The calcium?"

Martha was the one to shrug this time, though it was obvious the Doctor had been talking more to himself than anyone else. He finally snapped out of it, glancing at Martha, "Until then, you get some sleep."

"You aren't?" asked Martha as the Doctor stood up.

"I'm going to think."

"Think?" asked Martha sarcastically, raising an eyebrow. "You need sleep as much as we do."

"No, actually, I don't." The Doctor smirked at that before going to sit on one of the chairs in the room. He beamed at Martha's confused look, clearly not going to explain that much more.

Martha sighed, lying back down on the bed, "Good night, Doctor."

"Good night."

Avery quietly lied back down on her bed as well, "Night…" she whispered quietly.

Her heart pounded loudly when Avery awoke three hours later. Her fingers itched, tingling with a strange sensation. A candle was still lit, over by the table and chairs and Avery knew the Doctor was still wide awake, possibly watching her stir in her sleep. Her mind was so aware of him sitting there, that she felt almost bad about doing what she did next. Exactly why she thought it was something she needed to do in secrecy was a mystery to her. After all, the watch was somewhat of a memory to her. She found it on the beach that one day her parents were still smiling and holding hands. Each time she looked at it, that memory would awake and surely there was nothing wrong with taking a peek at it in the middle of the night?

No, normally there was nothing wrong with it. But it was the fact that there was more to it, a strange longing of checking up on the watch, hold it in her hands and make sure it was okay that made the whole thing weird. She carefully reached her hands out towards the bedside table, where her bag was. Her fingers curled around the small bag before she quickly snatched it, pressing it against her chest. She resisted the urge to take the watch out, knowing the Doctor was probably watching.

The moment the watch was there, with her and in her arms, she felt ten times more relaxed. The voice she kept hearing before had not said anything in a while, which made her worry less, but instead other things had been happening… things she was not aware of.

As she began falling asleep again, she thought she felt a hand suddenly brush through her hair. A warmth touched her back, as though someone had lied down next to her on the bed. She wanted to turn and check who it was, but the sensation felt so good she fell asleep almost immediately.

When her eyes fluttered closed and her breathing turned calm again, the Doctor looked away from Avery, a worried look in his eyes. From where he was sat by the table, he had only seen her snatch her bag from the bedside table. Though he knew what was in there and it troubled him to see her want for it.