Apparently, setting a deadline does not work well enough. And this is a short chapter. Sorry about that. The good news is that I finally seem to have overcome my writers' block to some extent, and I'll try to post another chapter this weekend if I can.

Disclaimer: Any claims of ownership of Doctor Who by me will be exterminated.

Chapter 18: Into the Hooverville

"They named it after the president," April said, "because they blamed him for the Great Depression. They had Hoovervilles, Hooverblankets…" She struggled to think of a third thing. There was always a third thing. "Anyway, things were all great in the 1920's, I think it was, and then a bunch of bad things happened. Dust bowl, people got too risky with the stock market—"

"The Wall Street Crash, yeah?" Martha asked. "When was that, 1929?" What? April thought. How does she even know that? It's not like she grew up in America. I don't learn ultra-specific things about the UK in school. Although I guess it's important enough?

"Do you remember this episode?" April whispered to Harriet. "Because I don't." As much as she tried to think about its plot, the events of Daleks in Manhattan seemed to elude her memory. She'd seen it multiple times, and yet she could barely remember what happened.

"Sort-of," Harriet said quietly. "I mean, I don't know the whole plot, but I know the idea."

"Neither of us remembers this one very well then," April said.

"It's better, I guess?" Harriet said. "We won't be tempted to change anything."

"No, it's not." April said, a little too loudly.

"What?" Martha asked.

"Nothing," April said quickly. Too quickly. You really need to improve your lying skills. You're good, but not enough. "We were talking about home."

"Well, you could get the Doctor to drop you off, couldn't you?" The Doctor was already walking ahead, so April, Harriet, and Martha raced to catch up to him. "At home, I mean?" Neither of them answered. "Right?"

"Yeah," April said. I'm not going to cry, I'm not going to cry, I'm not going to cry. "Yeah, we can, but travelling with the Doctor. Who'd miss that?" I would, if I could. And you will, if I don't change the future. You'll choose to leave. They walked in silence until they reached Central Park.

The Hooverville was full of people dressed in drab, tattered clothing. Navy blue, black, brown…and all threadbare and spotted with holes. The smell of smoke drifted through the air as the inhabitants kept warm by the same fires that cooked their food. There was noise everywhere, a thousand discontented voices and rumbling stomachs. April thought she could hear children crying.

Clotheslines were draped across trees, holding garments much lighter than the ones that the people there wore. All throughout the shantytown were American flags, and April wondered how they hadn't already lost faith in their country. Solomon, she decided. He probably put them there, as a show of unity or something. That was the leader's name, wasn't it? Solomon? She was pretty sure it was, since it sounded right.

"This is where they live?" Martha asked. "In a park, in the middle of the city?"

"Ordinary people lost their jobs. Couldn't pay the rent and they lost everything. There are places like this all over America. No one's helping them. You only come to Hooverville when there's nowhere else to go."

"You thieving lowlife!" April heard a man shout. She turned around, following the Doctor towards the source of the noise. Immediately, other people grabbed him as the man that he had yelled at rushed towards him. In a matter of seconds, all of them were fighting.

"I didn't touch it!"

"Somebody stole it!"

"It wasn't me!"

"Oh, I know him!"

"Think you can steal from me!"

"Saw you lookin' shifty 'round my place this mornin'!"

"I didn't do nothin'!"

"Oh, there's a tale!"

"I said—"

"Can you believe—"

"—the hell?"

"Stop—"

"—warned you!"

"Cut that out!" Yelled a man, stepping out of his tent and donning a hat. He had dark brown skin and wore a light brown coat. As he walked, he pushed the men apart. "Cut that out right now!"

"He stole my bread!"

"That's enough," said the leader, said Solomon. "Did you take it?"

"I don't know what happened. He just went crazy!" The other man rushed at him.

"That's enough!" Solomon ordered again. "Now think real careful before you lie to me."

"I'm starving, Solomon." Solomon held out his hand, and the thief gave him the bread from inside his coat.

"We all starving. We all got families somewhere." Solomon split the loaf in two, handing one piece to the thief and one piece to the other man. "No stealing and no fighting. You know the rules. Thirteen years ago I fought in the Great War. A lot of us did. And the only reason we got through was because we stuck together. No matter how bad things get, we still act like human beings. It's all we got." Both of the men walked away, holding the precious bread.

"I suppose that makes you the boss around here," said the Doctor, rushing up to him. April, Martha, and Harriet followed. What happens to Solomon? She wondered.

He dies, April was filled with utter certainty. Solomon died. But she couldn't remember exactly when or how. The more she tried to think about it, the less clear it got.

"And, er, who might you be?" Solomon asked.

"He's the Doctor. I'm Martha. And this is Harriet and April."

"A doctor. Huh. Well, we got stockbrokers, we got a lawyer, but you're the first doctor. Neighborhood gets classier by the day."

"How many people live here?" Martha asked.

"At any one time, hundreds," Solomon told her. "No place else to go. But I will say this about Hooverville. We are a truly equal society. Black, white, all the same. All starving. So, you're welcome, all of you. But tell me. Doctor, you're a man of learning, right? Explain this to me. That there's going to be the tallest building in the world. How come they can do that, when we got people starving in the heart of Manhattan?"

Isn't that to create jobs? April wondered. The New Deal? Theodore Roosevelt—no, it's too early for him. I guess it's the Daleks, then.

"So, men are going missing. Is this true?" Asked the Doctor.

"It's true all right," Solomon said, leading them to his tent. It was small and plain. There were three seats, and a small wooden table that held a small lamp. Books covered the top of the box. April bent over them to read their titles. Most of them were nonfiction—information about law and history—but there were a few classics that April had heard of and a few that she hadn't. He had another hat hung up, along with some picture in a frame.

"But what does missing mean?" The Doctor asked. "Men must come and go here all the time. It's not like anyone's keeping a register."

"This is different," Solomon said.

"In what way?" Martha asked.

"Someone takes them, at night. We hear something, someone calls out for help. By the time we get there, they're gone like they vanished into thin air."

"And you're sure someone's taking them?"

"Doctor, when you got next to nothing, you hold onto the little you got. Your knife, blanket, you take it with you. You don't leave bread uneaten, fire still burning."

"Have you been to the police?" Martha asked.

"Yeah, we tried that. Another deadbeat goes missing, big deal."

"So, the question is, who's taking them, and what for?"

"Solomon!" April could hear someone call from outside the tent. Moments later, a boy with light brown hair and a grey cap popped his head in. "Solomon, Mr. Diagoras is here."

"Yeah, we're comin'," said Solomon. "You want work, Doctor, he's your man. Finds all sorts of jobs." They left the tent to find a large group of people gathering around three well-dressed men.

"I need men," said the leader, Mr. Diagoras. Volunteers. I've got a little work for you and you sure look like you can use the money."

"Yeah," said the boy. "What's the money?"

"A dollar a day."

"What's the work?" Solomon asked.

"A little trip down the sewers. Got a tunnel collapsed needs clearing and fixing. Any takers?"

"A dollar a day? That's slave wage. And men don't always come back up, do they?" The crowd began to mutter discontentedly.

"Accidents happen," Mr. Diagoras said.

"What do you mean? What sort of accidents?" Asked the Doctor.

"You don't need the work? That's fine. Anybody else?" The Doctor raised his hand. "Enough with the questions!"

"Oh, no, no, no. I'm volunteering. I'll go."

Martha raised her hand. "I'll kill you for this," she warned him. He smiled and laughed slightly. April and Harriet raised theirs as well. It'll be fine. I just need to remember what happens during this episode. They go down in the sewers and…then they end up in Three Ls and an H's place. What's her name? LLH. LLAH. Tullipah? No. It doesn't matter. She tells them her boyfriend's missing. There's that scene where Martha chases him across the stage, right? And then she gets kidnapped. Daleks in the sewers.

The Doctor gets there somehow, they escape somehow. Then there's some sort of fight at the Hooverville, I think, and then—

And then what? April wondered. She could remember snatches of the episode—the Dalek-humans aiming their guns at the Doctor, the Doctor clinging to the Empire State Building as the lightning struck, Dalek Caan emergency temporal shifting away. But whenever she tried to picture them in her memory, she couldn't. And try as she might, she couldn't remember what happened after Hooverville.

What happens to Solomon? April wondered. She could almost see him, standing in the darkness, talking. He was saying something, but she couldn't remember what.

"Come on," Harriet said. "We're going."

I'm really curious what you guys think is going on with the plot. I just hope all my answers make sense in the end.