Disclaimer: If I owned Doctor Who, I wouldn't be driving my family nuts waiting for the Christmas Special.

Ch. 51:

"Where's Mo?" Ambrose demanded as Tony tried to open the door to the church.

"This flamin' door!" Tony said, ignoring her. "Always sticking! I thought you were having it fixed!"

"Dad!" Ambrose shouted.

"Something's happened to him, hasn't it?" Elliot said.


The Doctor, Lily, Nasreen, and Tony were setting up equipment in the church.

"So we can't get out, we can't contact anyone." Ambrose summed up. "And something, the something that took my husband, is coming up through the Earth."

"Yes." The Doctor said. "If we move quickly enough, we can be ready."

"No, stop." Ambrose demanded. "This has gone far enough. What is this?"

"He's telling the truth, love." Tony told her.

"Come on!" Ambrose protested. "It's not the first time we've had no mobile or phone signals. Reception's always rubbish."

"Look, Ambrose, we saw the Doctor's friend get taken, okay?" Nasreen told her. "We saw what the Phoenix did to the drill. You saw the lightning in the sky. I have seen the impossible today, and the only people who've made any sense of it, for me, is the Phoenix and the Doctor."

"Them?" Ambrose demanded.

"Us." Lily replied.

"Can you get my dad back?" Elliot asked suddenly.

Everyone turned back to look at the Doctor and Lily, who moved to stand in front of him. The Doctor gently put his arm on hers and she backed down.

"Yes." The Doctor said, walking towards Ambrose. "But I need you to trust me and do exactly as I say from this second onwards because we're running out of time."

"So tell us what to do." Ambrose said.

"Thank you." The Doctor replied. "We have eight minutes to set up a line of defense. Bring me every phone, camera, every piece of recording or transmitting equipment you can find."

Rory started going through the all the small electronics he could collect.

"Every burglar alarm, every movement sensor, every security light." The Doctor continued. "I want the whole area covered with sensors."

Ambrose and Rory began hooking up cameras at ideal positions and Lily used her screwdriver on them.

The monitor inside continued to show the progress of whatever was approaching.

"Right, we need to be ready for whatever's coming up." The Doctor said, turning to Elliot. "I need a map of the village, marking where the cameras are going."

"I can't do the words." Elliot told him. "I'm dyslexic."

"Oh, that's all right, I can't make a decent meringue." The Doctor told him.

"It's true." Lily added as she walked up to them. "Last time he tried, he blew up the kitchen."

"Says the woman who set fire to the kitchen by making a grilled cheese sandwich." The Doctor said as she kissed his cheek. "Draw like your life depends on it, Elliot."

The boy ran off and the Doctor checked the time.

"6 minutes 40." He murmured.

Lily squeezed his hand before moving back to Rory and Ambrose as Elliot began to draw. Nasreen watched the time countdown and Tony pulled up an overlay of the village.

"Works in quadrants, every movement sensor and trip light we've got." He told them. "If anything moves, we'll know."

"Good lad!" the Doctor said, patting him on the back.


The Doctor looked through Ambrose's van as she walked by, her arms full of gardening tools.

"Oi!" she exclaimed. "What're you doing?"

"Resources!" the Doctor replied. "Every little helps! Meals on wheels. What've you got here then, warmer in the front, refrigerated in the back?"

"Bit chilly for a hideout, mind." Ambrose said as she set her things down in the front of the van.

"What are those?" he asked.

"Like you say, every little helps." She replied.

"No!" the Doctor said. "No weapons. It's not the way I do things."

"You said we're supposed to defend ourselves." Ambrose protested.

"Oh, Ambrose, you're better than this." He told her. "I'm asking nicely. Put them away."

They jumped as there was a loud bomb and Lily appeared in a flash of gold on the ground.

"Can you stop doing that?" the Doctor demanded, helping her to her feet.

"That son of a bitch won't let me through." Lily complained. "I'm torn between wanting to find the tech that produced it and study it and finding it and beating it, and it's operator, to a pulp."

"Well, first you need to find it." The Doctor told her.

"Why do you have to ruin my daydreams like that?" she pouted.

"Because it's just so much fun." He replied, leaning down to kiss her. "Come on."

He led her back towards the church. Ambrose took one last look at the tools before following them.


The countdown was at 3:23 as Elliot showed the Doctor his map and Lily walked over to help continue to put up cameras.

"Look at that!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Perfect! Dyslexia never stopped Da Vinci or Einstein, it's not stopping you."

"I don't understand what you're going to do." Elliot told him.

"Two phase plan." The Doctor replied. "First, the sensors and cameras will tell us when something arrives. Second, if something does arrive, I use this to send a sonic pulse through that network of device, a pulse which would temporarily incapacitate most things in the universe."

"Knock 'em out." Elliot said. "Cool."

"Lovely place to grow up, round here." the Doctor commented.

"Suppose." Elliot said lackluster-ly. "I want to live in a city one day. Soon as I'm old enough, I'll be off."

"I was the same, where I grew up." The Doctor told him.

"Did you get away?" Elliot asked.

"Yeah." The Doctor said.

"Do you ever miss it?" the boy asked.

"So much." The Time Lord replied.

"Is it monsters coming?" Elliot asked softly. "Have you met monsters before?"

"Yeah." The Doctor told him.

"You scared of them?" he asked.

"No!" the Doctor exclaimed. "They're scared of me."

"Are you scared of anything?" Elliot asked.

"Of course he is." Lily said, coming up behind the boy.

"What?" he asked, turning to look at her.

"Me, of course!" Lily told him, kneeling down so she was level with him.

Elliot turned to look at the Doctor, who nodded very quickly, making the boy laugh.

"Will you get my dad back?" the boy asked, sobering quickly.

Lily reached out and gently squeezed the boy's hand.

"Of course we will." She told him, smiling.

"No question." The Doctor said, turning back to the computers.

Lily squeezed his hand again and got up, heading over to Rory.

"I left my headphones at home." Elliot said, leaving as the Doctor continued to work.

They had just over a minute.


"Hey." Lily said as she walked over to the man.

"Hey." Rory said softly.

He walked outside and Lily followed.

"How are you doing?" she asked softly.

Rory looked at her and she sighed.

"We'll get her back, Rory." She told him. "I swear to you, we'll get her back. And I don't abandon my companions. Even when they're more his than mine."

"What do you mean?" Rory asked.

"Well, it's like when you're friends with another couple, but really the guys only hang out together because the girls are friends." Lily told him. "But not really." She laughed at his expression. "I'm really bad at explaining things, aren't I? Dear Lord, I sound like him. Okay look, Amy is his companion because he's closer to her, just like you're really my companion because I'm closer to you. Make sense?"

"Not really, no." Rory said, laughing slightly.

"Okay, let's put it this way." Lily said. "In the divorce? He get's Amy, I get you."

Rory laughed at that.

"Who's getting divorced?" the Doctor asked, coming up behind Lily.

"You and me." Lily said, looking at him over her shoulder. "You get Amy, I get Rory and the TARDIS."

"Yeah, in your dreams." He replied, rolling his eyes.

"Which part?" Lily asked. "The divorce or the getting Rory and the TARDIS?"

"Honestly, I'm not sure." He replied. "How's it going?"

"It's getting darker." Rory said, looking up at the sky. "How can it be getting dark so quickly?"

"They're shutting out light from within the barricade." Lily replied, also looking up. "They're trying to isolate us in the dark."

"Which means…" The Doctor trailed off as they heard a rumbling. "It's here."


The trio collected Ambrose and made their way back to the church. Ambrose went to open the door, but it stuck fast.

"I can't open it!" she said. "It keeps sticking! The wood's warped."

The Doctor went to help her.

"Any time you want to help!" he told the other two.

"Do you want it to function as a door after you get it open?" Lily asked.

"Of course." The Doctor replied.

"Then you don't want me to open it." Lily shot back.

"Can't you sonic it?" Rory asked.

"It doesn't do wood!" the Doctor told him.

"That is rubbish!" Rory exclaimed.

"Oi!" Lily said, shoving his shoulder. "Don't diss the sonic!"

She and Rory went to help and the door finally opened. They ran inside and joined Nasreen and Tony as the door slammed shut behind them. Underneath them, the ground shook.

"See if we can get a fix." The Doctor said, running to the computers.

Items began falling off shelves.

"Get away from the walls." Lily ordered, herding them towards her as she put up a shield to protect them from the falling items.

The Doctor began to narrow down the area with Tony's program when the computers sparked and the power went out.

"Son of a bitch!" Lily swore.

"No power." Tony said.

"It's deliberate." The Doctor told them.

"What do we do now?" Rory asked.

Tony turned on a bright torch.

"Nothing." The Doctor replied. "We've got nothing! They sent an energy surge to wreck our systems."

"Is everyone okay?" Rory asked. "Is anyone hurt?"

"I'm fine." Nasreen said.

"I'm good." Tony replied.

"Me too." Ambrose added.

There was a loud rumbling.

"Doctor, Phoenix, what was that?" Rory asked.

"It's like the holes at the drill station." Tony said.

"Is this how they happened?" Nasreen asked.

The Doctor got down and put his ear to the ground.

"I really wish you wouldn't do that." Lily ground out. "It makes me very nervous."

"It's coming through the final layer of Earth." The Doctor said, ignoring her.

"What is?" Nasreen demanded.

The Doctor stood up quickly as silence descended.

"The banging's stopped." Tony said.

"Where's Elliot?" Ambrose asked, looking around. "Has anyone seen Elliot? Did he come in? Was he in when the door was shut? Who counted him back in? Who saw him last?"

"I did." The Doctor said.

"Where is he?" Ambrose demanded.

"He said he was going to get headphones." The Doctor replied.

"And you let him go?" Lily yelled at him. "He's a child Theta! How could you let him go by himself?"

"I didn't-I mean-" The Doctor sputtered.

"Well I guess it's a good thing we can't have children." Lily sneered.

The Doctor stared at her and Lily immediately regretted saying it.

"Doctor-" she said softly.

They broke off as they heard something pound on the door.

A/N: I know it's been forever, but I've been in a Doctor Who withdrawal depression. I'm sure it'll clear up after Christmas. Let me know what you guys think. Please, just don't kill me.

Abbey