Fear Her

The TARDIS landed with a thud and a groan, and Rose glanced at the Doctor. "You got grease on me."

"I got grease on me," he countered. "What's the problem?"

She shook her head and walked toward the hallway. "I have to change clothes. D'you want me to grab your other jacket?"

"Nah, it's fine."

"Shireen," Rose called. The other woman was still staring at the console in wonder, but when Rose said her name, she looked up.

"Are we really in another place?"

"And time," she confirmed, tilting her head thoughtfully. "2010?"

"Close," the Doctor disagreed, moving the monitor so she could see it.

"Ah, 2012." Rose nodded. She knew what they'd be doing. "I just have to change real quick if you wanna come with. My room's just down the hall if the TARDIS is in the mood to be nice today."

"She's always nice to you," the Doctor called as the two women disappeared down the hall. Shireen was looking around as if she couldn't believe there was more. They turned a corner and Rose smiled at the sight of her door, which she pushed open. Inside, her room was a bit of a mess with clothes strewn about and her bed unmade.

"You really live here," Shireen said. She was walking around the room curiously. She picked up a picture resting on the vanity and tilted her head. "He's fit."

Rose glanced over as she grabbed a new pair of jeans and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "That's Captain Jack Harkness. He's my best friend. Aside from you, obviously. Travelled with us for a bit."

"Well, you look close," she commented. In the picture, Jack was lying with his head in her lap and was laughing as she grinned down at him. It had been taken by Ianto, and neither had known until he'd given it to Rose as a gift. "Where's Captain Jack at, then?"

"Uh, Cardiff," Rose answered as she took off her dress and replaced it with her jeans and cropped grey shirt. "He works for the government, sort of. Secret government. He helps protect the planet from aliens when the Doctor and I aren't around. Gets the Weevils and bits off the streets."

Shireen stared at her. "You're joking."

Rose shrugged on her leather jacket and shook her head. "Jack couldn't travel with us constantly anymore because there was an accident, so he's doing what he did with us on Earth and more consistently. I know Jack, so he'd have been watching me while everything was shit as a teenager, so he probably ended up watching you a bit, too. Not- not in, like, a creepy way. More like… you're my friend, and you're there, so he saw you."

"Your friend stalked you," Shireen summarized. "Rose, maybe you need better friends."

She let out a laugh and put on her combat boots. "Nah, Jack's always looking out for me. He just worries too much."

Shireen stepped closer and grabbed her hand. "Tell me, Rose, is this dangerous? What you do? I mean, if you go places and time travel, are you ever in danger?"

Rose considered lying, especially since the situation they were about to step into wasn't that bad, but decided against it. Shireen would know, and she'd be mad. "Sometimes, yeah. We don't always control where or when we go, and we can get in trouble, but we always get out of it eventually. Anything is possible, doing what we do. With what the Doctor knows and what I can do… we're good, Shirls."

"Well, what is it you can do?"

"Um."

"Rose," she pressed. "I've gone two years without my best friend. I wanna know everything."

She let out a sigh. "See my eyes? They glow?" Shireen looked confused, so Rose blinked and grabbed her sonic. She turned off the perception filter and saw Shireen gasp.

"Oh my god!"

"Yeah, this is what happened to me," she explained. "It sort of turned me into something else."

"Like the Doctor."

Rose shook her head. "No, more than the Doctor. I can do things. A lot of things, you know, to an extent. If I do too much without giving myself time to recover or use the TARDIS to recover, I can get sick or hurt or even regenerate. But sometimes, I can use it to help people. Save people, including the Doctor and I. So my point is, we're good."

"I have so many questions," her friend said.

"We can talk later. Maybe we can get lunch after this trip and you're off work and- oh, slept, I guess. I've got so much to tell you. For now, are you ready?"

"Where are we?" Shireen wondered. Rose led her out of her bedroom and back to the console room, where she found the Doctor waiting impatiently.

"London," Rose told her. "2012. What're we here for?"

The Doctor didn't answer. Instead, he opened the door and moved to step out, but nearly walked into a wall. "Ah."

Rose laughed and ran around the console. It only took a moment to turn the TARDIS to the side, at which point he nodded gratefully. "Could've checked outside while I was changing."

"Yeah, well," he said, tugging his ear. "Thought I'd wait, you know."

"Mmhm."

He opened the door again and stepped out with a grin and a nod. "Ah! 30th Olympiad!"

"Oh my god!" Shireen grinned, following them out. She looked around in wonder as Rose held the Doctor's arm and walked ahead. "We've moved. We've really, actually moved! How could- wait, did you say the Olympics?"

"2012, London," Rose nodded. "Olympics!"

"Only seems like yesterday a few naked Greek blokes were tossing a discus about, wrestling each other in the sand as the crowds stood around baying… no, wait a minute, that was Club Med," he winked, nudging Rose. "Just in time for the opening doodah ceremony tonight. Thought you'd like that. Last on they had in London was dynamite. Wembley, 1948. I loved it so much I went back and watched it all over again. Fella carrying a torch. Lovely chap. What was his… Mark? John? Mark?"

"Doctor," Rose sighed. She moved to the pole nearby and grabbed down a missing poster. "Doctor-,"

"Did you ever have one of those cakes? With the crunchy ball bearings on top? You know those things? Nobody else in this entire galaxy has ever even bothered to make edible ball bearings. Genius!"

"Missing kids," Shireen said, looking over the posters. "Lots of them. Bad neighborhood?"

"No, upper middle class," Rose disagreed.

"Who's taken them, do you think?" the Doctor wondered. His mood shifted as he looked around the quiet street. "Snatching children from a thoroughly ordinary street like this. And why's it so cold? Is someone reducing the temperature?"

"They all went missing this week," Rose sighed.

"Three this week and it's only Thursday?" Shireen stared with wide eyes. "Look around, it's so quiet. Everyone's scared."

"Why d'you say that?" the Doctor wondered. Shireen shrugged.

"Happened like that after Rose disappeared. Except it wasn't just her. There was this other girl, I can't remember her name but I saw her missing poster. She went missing too, just disappeared. Jackie took down yours, Rose, but that girl, hers are still up. When you guys went missing, everyone was a lot more careful. Staying indoors, going out only in groups, keeping to themselves."

"So nothing like usual," Rose gathered. "I wonder what happened to her."

"What- what's he doing?" Shireen asked. Rose turned around to find the Doctor running down the street, and she made a face at his back. They took off to follow him and reached him a minute after he'd stopped in a yard.

"Oh," Rose grimaced. "Oh, I don't like that."

"Neither do I," he said quietly.

The women spun around at the sound of a car stalling in the middle of the road. A worker also heard and moved back, clearly irritated. "There you go. Fifth today. That's not natural, is it?"

"Dunno what happened," the man inside the car complained. "I had it serviced less than a month ago."

"Nah, don't even try and explain it, mate," the worker shook his head. "All the cars are doing it, and you know what? It's bonkers. Bonkers. Come on then, pal. I'll help you shift it. Quicker you're on your way, happier you'll be."

He groaned as he started pushing it, so just as last time, Rose went to help and with Shireen at her side. Instead of offering to help, they just started pushing as well. "Can't imagine doing this five times a day."

"It's alright, love-,"

"You're gonna turn down two gorgeous women offering to help?" Shireen quirked an eyebrow at him. The man considered her for a moment before he quieted, and Rose stifled her laugh as they pushed the car. Just when they'd nearly reached the curb, the engine started up again and the car nearly took off without the driver.

Once he'd gotten in his car and left, Rose turned to the worker. "Rose Tyler. This is Shireen Brown."

"Ah, I'm Kel," he said. "It's mad, it's been happening all week."

"And kids have gone missing all week," Shireen spoke up. He looked at her oddly.

"Yeah, suppose so. Every car cuts out. Council are going nuts. I mean, they've given this street the works. Renamed it. I've been tarmacking every pothole," Kel pointed at the ground. "Look at that. Beauty, innit? Yep… and all this is because that Olympic torch comes right by the end of this close. Just down there. Everything gotta be perfect, ain't it? Only it ain't."

Rose glanced at the old woman as she approached them, fear in her eyes. "It takes 'em when they're playing."

"What does?" Shireen asked her.

"Danny, Jane, Dale, snatched in the blink of an eye," she continued. Rose glanced over her shoulder and quickly dug in her pockets for the psychic paper. She grabbed it out and ran over to the Doctor, who was being yelled at by a man.

"Liar, you're a liar!"

"Sorr, sir," Rose said quickly, holding up the psychic paper. "We're with the police, special division for missing children."

The man turned his anger on Rose, pointing at her and poking her chest. "We've had plenty of coppers poking round here, and you don't look or sound like any of them!"

"Sir," Rose said slowly. "That's because if someone took these kids, we can never be sure who did it. No need to spook the neighbors, eh? If the person that took them comes back, we want them to think that the we gave up, which is why we're dressed in normal clothes. Please, Sir, my name is Rose. This is Shireen, and that's the Doctor. We're only here to help."

"What are you going to do?" a woman asked from her lawn. At that point, they were standing in the middle of the road with the old woman and the council worker.

"The police have knocked on every door," the old woman explained. "No clues, no leads, nothing!"

Rose nodded in understanding and hoped the Doctor would keep his mouth shut. She had a lot of practice in Torchwood getting people to cooperate, telling them just what they needed to hear to get them to back down. "We work a bit different. We're going to take a step back and gather information on our own so we can assess it differently, which is why we'd appreciate your cooperation. We're doing everything we can to get your kids back for you as soon as possible."

The man shook his head in denial. "Look, kids run off sometimes, alright? That's what they do!"

"I saw it with me own eyes," the old woman argued. She looked exhausted with him, as if they'd already had that argument. "Dale Hicks in your garden playing with your Tommy, and then… poof! Right in front of me, like he was never there. There's no need to look any further than this street. It's right here amongst us!"

"Why don't we-,"

"Why don't we start with him!" another woman that had just joined them yelled as she pointed at Kel. "There's been all sorts like him in this street, day and night…"

"Fixing things up for the Olympics!"

"Pointing fingers is not going to help," Rose said firmly. "We don't need you arguing amongst yourselves. I've already spoken with him, okay? If we have an actual reason to believe he did it, then we'll talk again."

The Doctor nodded, more than grateful for the curious way she managed the situation. "In the last six days, three of your children have been stolen. Snatched out of thin air, right?"

The old woman waved around. "Look around you. This was a safe street until it came. It's not a person. I'll say it if no one else will - maybe you're coppers, maybe you're not. I don't care who you are. Can you please help us?"

"Yes," the Doctor said confidently. "We can, but only if you let us work and don't run me out of your lawn."

"Doctor, maybe this is when we decide to be nice," Rose suggested.

"Well, I've got to look around," he said. "And we need to start back at that lawn. There's something there."

Letting out a puff, the man turned on his heel and went back into his house. They took that as an invitation to look, so the three of them made their way over to the lawn, where the Doctor started sniffing.

"Don't be so dramatic about it," Rose laughed. "It's metallic. Why?"

"Wait, sorry, no," Shireen grabbed Rose's arm. "What was that? You got all… official."

Rose shrugged. "Watched eleven seasons of Criminal Minds in two weeks, I was bound to pick something up. Put me in front of a serial killer and maybe I could profile him, too."

"C'mon," the Doctor called. He was making his way down a bit of an alley and talking as he did so. "Danny Edwards cycled in one end but never came out the other- woah, there it goes again."

"Tickles," Rose complained. "Like my arm hairs are standing up."

"And the hairs on the back of my manly, hairy hand," the Doctor agreed.

"Smells like a burnt fuse plug, too," Shireen added.

"So, there's a residual energy in the spots where the kids vanished," the Doctor summarized. "Whatever it was, it used an awful lot of power to do this."

They came out the other end of the alley, and Shireen gasped dramatically. "Oh, Rose, look! You love cats."

Rose glanced at the fat orange cat and smiled while she leaned down to pet it. "Such a beautiful boy, huh? I used to have one like you. His name was Steve. D'you have a name?"

The Doctor made a face at her. "I'm not really a cat person."

"Aren't you the one that told me to be nice to the cat nuns on New Earth?"

"Exactly! Once you've been threatened by one in a nun's whimple, kind of takes the joy out of it."

The cat moved toward a cardboard box, and Shireen followed after it. "Steve was such a nice cat, whatever happened to him?"

"Mum dated that trucker and he stole him," Rose replied.

"Oh my god!" Shireen gasped as she looked in the box. "Rose, it's gone. The cat's gone!"

The Doctor hurried over and picked up the box before dropping it again. "Woah! Ion residue, blimey! That takes some doing, just to snatch a living organism out of space-time. This baby is just like 'I'm having some of that!' I'm impressed."

"So where is the cat? Transported?"

"It can harness huge reserves of ionic power," the Doctor thought out loud. "We need to find the source of that power."

"And we'll find the kids," Rose agreed. "And the cat, presumably."

OoOoOoOoOoOo

It was Shireen that got attacked by a ball of graphite. Thankfully, Rose was there. She used her sonic to take care of it, and the ball landed on Shireen's stomach.

"Give you a fiver if you can tell me what the hell it is, cause I haven't got the foggiest," the Doctor said as the trio made their way back to the TARDIS.

"Well, it's dead now, right?"

"It wasn't alive," Rose told her. "It was just energy."

"Same energy that's snatching people," the Doctor agreed. "That is so dinky! The go-anywhere creature. Fits in your pocket. Makes friends, impresses the boss, breaks the ice at parties."

Rose opened the door to the TARDIS and waved them inside. While the Doctor studied it, she grabbed a hair tie for Shireen, who pulled her hair up after picking out a couple small sticks.

"Oh, hi-oh, there we go. Let's have a look… get out of here!"

Rose read over his shoulder while he grabbed a pencil and began to erase the ball. "Graphite. It's made of graphite."

"You can read that?" Shireen wondered, staring at the screen. "It's all circles!"

"It's Old High Gallifreyan," Rose explained. "The language of the Time Lords. The Doctor taught it to me when I… turned into this."

"Brought into being with ionic energy, but who would do that?" the Doctor wondered, still focused on the ball. "Why? And whatever we're dealing with, it can create things as well as take them, that's not a good combination."

"Well, you scribble things when you wanna get rid of it," Shireen reasoned. "Maybe it was a mistake."

"Like a child's drawing," Rose added. She rubbed her forehead tiredly. "It was in the street. It was the girl."

"Of course!" the Doctor exclaimed before pausing. "What girl?"

Rose shook her head. "I don't know, she was different. Even her mum looked scared of her."

The Doctor looked at her with a barely suppressed grin. "Are you deducting?"

"I think I am," she replied, her chin tilted up.

"Copper's hunch?"

Rose resisted the urge to laugh. "Permission to follow it up, Sarge?"

"Weirdos," Shireen laughed at them. With that, they made their way from the TARDIS and back down the street to the house in question. They rang the doorbell and nothing happened, so they knocked. After nearly a minute, the door was opened.

"Hello! I'm the Doctor, this is Rose, and that's Shireen. Can we see your daughter?"

"No, you can't."

Rose turned around to leave while the Doctor nodded firmly. "Okay. Bye."

"Why?" the woman called as they walked away. "Why do you want to see Chloe?"

"Well, there's some interesting stuff going on in this street," the Doctor reasoned.

"We're trying to look into everyone," Rose continued. "Talk to kids, see if maybe they've seen anything suspicious.

"We thought she might like to give us a hand," the Doctor nodded.

"Sorry, though," Shireen waved at her.

"Yeah, sorry. We'll let you get on with things… on your own. Bye again!"

"Wait!" she called as they started walking down the sidewalk. They spun around to find her looking desperate. "Can you help her?"

"Yes, we can," the Doctor said with a grin.

They went inside with Trish and paced or sat in the living room while the woman stood in the door. "She stays in her room most of the time. I try talking to her, but it's like trying to speak to a brick wall. She gives me nothing, just asks to be left alone."

"And she's not usually like that?" Shireen wondered. Trish shook her head.

"She's quiet, but she's never withdrawn this much."

"And Chloe's dad?" Rose asked.

Trish paused hesitantly. "Chloe's dad died a year ago."

"I'm sorry."

Trish shook her head and let out a small, humorless laugh. "You wouldn't be if you'd known him."

"Well!" the Doctor said. "Let's go and say hi."

"I should check on her first. She might be asleep."

The Doctor looked at her knowingly. "Why are you afraid of her, Trish?"

"I want you to know before you see her that she's really a great kid."

"I'm sure she is."

The Doctor was sincere, but Trish clearly felt the need to continue defending her daughter. Rose understood - the woman had no clue how, but she knew her daughter was taking kids. It would be stressful for anyone, but especially after just losing an abusive parent and partner, it was understandable she was overwhelmed. "She's never been in trouble at school. You should see her report from last year. A's and B's."

Rose offered her a smile. "Can I use your loo?"

Trish nodded, so with a glance to the Doctor and Shireen, Rose slipped from the room. As she made her way up the stairs, she could hear Trish keep talking - convincing the Doctor and Shireen of how great her daughter was.

Rose hurried up the stairs as quietly as possible, glancing around the corner as she did so. When Chloe's door opened, she slid into a closet and hid as the young girl made her way past. Once she was gone, she snuck into Chloe's room and took a look around.

That trip wasn't quite as clear as others, mostly for the fact that Canary Wharf happened almost right after. She'd been trying very hard not to consider that, but it was getting more and more difficult. She knew it was coming soon, and she knew the Doctor was aware something was happening. He hadn't mentioned it, but there was a feeling of dread just in the back of their bond, and she couldn't tell who it came from.

The very idea of getting stuck in Pete's World again had her anxiety spiking. She'd loved having a dad, and she'd loved seeing her mum happy with him, but being away from the Doctor had been completely unbearable when she was human. Now with their bond, her bond with the TARDIS… not to mention the simple fact that the Doctor had admitted he loved her, she couldn't handle losing what they had.

But aside from the Doctor, she didn't want to leave Jack again. Last time, she hadn't remembered seeing him for so long after the Game Station. She'd left without a goodbye, and it had hurt her to remember. She couldn't handle doing that again, so she promised herself that after this, they'd go back and see him so they could talk.

Just like last time, the room was covered in Chloe's drawings. Most looked unhappy or just plain afraid. She saw one of the most recent missing kid, Dale and sighed. If she could just get him out of there then, she would've.

The door rattled suddenly, prompting her to spin around. She pointed her sonic at it calmly and winced at the amount of ionic energy in the cupboard. She knew better than to open it - seeing a demonic drawing of an abusive father once was good enough for her. Despite that, she glanced toward the door and made her way down to the kitchen, where they were talking. "Chloe, can I ask you a question?"

"I'm busy," the girl said shortly. Rose nodded.

"This will only take a second. I just was wondering, who's the man you drew in your closet?"

"Man- her closet? What were you-,"

"It's Dad," Chloe answered her. "I drew him yesterday."

"Your dad?" Trish repeated with a furrowed brow. "But he's long gone. Chloe, with all the lovely things in the world, why him?"

"I dream about him staring at me," Chloe explained. Trish looked extremely displeased.

"I thought we were putting him behind us. What's the matter with you?"

"We need to stay together!"

Trish nodded quickly. "Yes, we do."

"No. Not you, us. We need to stay together and then it'll be alright."

Trish surged forward to hug her daughter, but the girl jerked back slightly. Rose sighed.

"Trish, Chloe's drawings move, and you must've seen it. I know you're probably scared, and I want you to know that all we want is to help figure this out so you and Chloe can have a normal life. But right now, Chloe's got something that has her acting differently, and it allowed her to take Danny and Dale. If we're going to help her, you need to help us."

Trish stared at Rose with wide eyes, clutching her daughter against her. "Who are you?"

"We're the people that can help."

Trish let out a frustrated sigh and sent Chloe back to her room. The girl went more than willingly, leaving the four of them alone. "So, what do you need?"

"Chloe's using ionic energy to snatch kids and placing them in some sort of cell in the pictures, also made of ionic energy," Rose explained.

"But she's human," the Doctor cut in. "Just human, so it's impossible."

"What exactly is ionic energy?" Shireen wondered. "How d'you know so much about this, Rose?"

"Experience," she replied, partly referring to her time at Torchwood. They'd run into some weapons that worked off of ionic energy, and they'd been extremely difficult to safely manage.

"Ionic energy is a sort of powerful energy that can- can warp things, change them in nearly impossible ways," the Doctor explained. "It's why some people believe in magic when it's really just a different sort of energy being harnassed."

"And how much should we be worried about the dad dead in the wardrobe?" Shireen wondered. "I mean, he is dead, right? We're not actually thinking about reincarnation, are we?"

"No, no, no," the Doctor shook his head quickly. "But if living things can become drawings, maybe drawings can become living things… Chloe's real dad is dead, but not the one who visits her in her nightmares. That dad seems very real. That's the dad she's drawn, and he's a heartbeat away from crashing into this world."

"She always got the worst of it when he was alive," Trish told them.

"Well, then how could a little girl do any of that?" Shireen questioned.

The Doctor let out a sigh and made his way back upstairs with everyone following him. They went into Chloe's room, where they found her sitting on her bed, staring at the wall. When he came to stand in front of her, she gave him the Vulcan salute. "Nice one," he said. He knelt down and pressed his hands to her head gently. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she passed out onto the bad. "There we go."

"I can't let him-,"

"It's okay," Rose stepped in front of Trish. "The best guess right now is that there's something other than Chloe in there, something that can harness ionic energy. All he's doing is trying to speak to it. Chloe's okay."

"Now we can talk," the Doctor decided, getting to his feet again.

"I want Chloe!" the thing possessing Chloe demanded. "Wake her up! I want Chloe!"

"Who are you?" the Doctor asked it.

"I want Chloe Webber!"

"I'm speaking to you," the Doctor said as he stepped around the bed. "The entity that is using this human child. I request parley in compliance with the Shadow Proclamation."

"I don't care about shadows or parleyses!"

That was a good answer for him - whatever it was, it didn't know what the Shadow Proclamation was. Nearly everyone in the universe did, as they were the closest thing to a governing body over the entire universe that they had. "So what do you care about?"

"I want my friends!"

"You're lonely, I know," the Doctor knelt down again. His tone softened a bit. "Identify yourself."

"I am one of many. I travel with my brothers and sisters. We take an endless journey. A thousand of your lifetimes. But now I am alone. I hate it. It's not fair, and I hate it!"

"Name yourself!"

"Isolus"

The Doctor's eyes cleared and he tilted his head back in understanding. "You're Isolus, of course."

"Our journey began in the deep realms, where we were a family," she said as she drew quickly despite still lying down.

"What's that?" Trisha asked.

"The Isolus mother, drifting in deep space," the Doctor told them. "See? She jettisons millions of fledgling spores, her children. The Isolus are empathic beings of intense emotion. When they're cast off from their mother, their empathic link, their need for each other is what sustains them. They need to be together. They cannot be alone."

"Our journey is long," Isolus said, still drawing.

"The Isolus children travel, each inside a pod. They ride the heat and energy of solar tides. It takes thousands and thousands of years for them to grow up."

"That sounds awful," Shireen said sadly. "I'd go mad, floating through space so long. Mind you, I'd go mad floating through space at all, I guess."

"We play," Isolus told her.

"While they travel, they play a game," the Doctor confirmed.

"It's what the ionic power is for, why she has so much of it," Rose told them.

"They literally create make-believe worlds in which to play. Helps keep them happy," the Doctor said. "While they're happy, they can feed off each other's love. Without it, they're lost… why did you come to earth?"

"We were too close," Isolus answered. She was still drawing, this time a ball, but it was enough to get the point across.

"There's a solar flare from your sun. Would have made a tidal wave of solar energy that scattered the Isolus pods."

"Only I fell to earth. My brothers and sisters are left up there, and I cannot reach them. So alone!"

"Your pod crashed, where is it?"

"My pod was drawn to heat," Isolus told him. "And I was drawn to Chloe Webber. She was like me - alone. She needed me, and I, her."

The Doctor nodded his understanding. "You empathized with her. You wanted to be with her because she was alone like you."

"I want my family! It's not fair!"

"Is it- oh my god, is it trying to make itself a family?" Shireen asked Rose in horror. Rose nodded quietly.

"She's lonely, and she's a child. She has no concept of how wrong what she's doing is."

"Rose is right," the Doctor told Isolus. "I understand, and I'm sorry, but you can't stay in this child - it's wrong. You can't steal any more friends for yourself."

"I am alone!"

Trish gasped as something banged on the cupboard door, and they could hear it speaking. "I am coming to hurt you!"

"Trish, how do you calm her?" the Doctor asked. Trish looked between him and the cupboard, scared and confused.

"What?"

"When she has nightmares, what do you do?" he pressed. She just looked lost, so he spoke a little louder. "What do you do?"

"I sing to her," Trish managed.

"Then start singing."

They swapped places and did their best to ignore the monster in the closet. Trish started singing immediately upon kneeling down next to her daughter, and the Doctor gently put himself between Rose and the cupboard.

"Um, is that thing actually gonna burst the door in?" Shireen asked. She was on Rose's other side and looked understandably nervous. "Rose?"

"Kookaburra, gay your life must be," Trish sang. As she did, the monster in the closet let out an angry shout, but it disappeared as Chloe rolled over on her side to sleep. Trish stroked her hair sadly. "It came to her because she was lonely. Chloe, I'm sorry."

OoOoOoOoOoOo

"Give me the steino-magnetic-," the Doctor cut off as Rose dropped it in his hand and he shot her a smile. "Thanks."

"So what're you gonna do with it?" Shireen asked them. "Once it's out of Chloe, is there some sort of space prison you'll send it to?"

"Yes," Rose said before pausing. "Well, no, we're not sending Isolus to prison but yes, there is a sort of space prison. Many of them, actually."

"Isolus is just lonely," the Doctor told Shireen, glancing up from what he was doing. While he spoke, Rose took over for him. "She's a child. It's not her fault, no one told her right from wrong, drifting off in space like that."

"Sounds like you're siding with it," Shireen shot back. Rose glanced between them and recognized the same stance she'd held last time in her friend. "It's hurt all these people, are you really just gonna let that go?"

The Doctor looked irritated. "I sympathize with her, that's all. She's doing what she can to not be lonely, it's all she knows. She's lonely, that's why she went to Chloe - two lonely, mixed-up kids."

"More like it's throwing a fit, so it's hurting people."

"Shireen, how about we focus on helping her get back and then we can discuss this?" Rose suggested, looking down as she worked. "Doctor, have you got the-,"

"Binary dot," he said, offering up his index finger to her. "Course I do."

Rose put that on and then spit out the gum she was chewing to use it - she hadn't wanted to, but it was the best way to hold it together in the moment. "Gross. We need to pick up more of that glue from Stratts 97 later."

"Not my fault Ross used it all on his last project," the Doctor muttered before pausing. They exchanged a glance and fell silent. Ross was a subject neither of them cared to broach anytime soon, at least not to each other.

"I'm just saying, kids can be horrible," Shireen continued, only because it was suddenly very silent and uncomfortable and an argument was better than that. "They can't always get what they want, and sometimes they need to be punished."

"So you'd put a child in prison?"

"For hurting other kids? Yeah, I would."

"What about trying to understand them?" the Doctor wondered.

"Well, it's not like you have kids, so how would you know?" Shireen shot back.

"I was a dad once."

Shireen blinked and looked at Rose. "Is he serious?"

"Sometimes the Doctor doesn't realize when things come out of his mouth as opposed to staying in his head," Rose explained quietly as she focused on finishing up. "This would be one of those things. Don't ask, you won't get any answers."

"But a dad, you don't look like-,"

"Got it!" Rose exclaimed, handing the thing over to the Doctor. "All done, and you better promise we'll stop by Stratts 97, because they've got more of the gum I just sacrificed to this thing."

He ignored her and made his way toward the door with them following behind. "Fear, loneliness, they're the big ones. Some of the most terrible acts ever committed have been inspired by them. We're not dealing with something that wants to conquer or destroy. There's a lot of things you need to get across this universe, warp drive, wormhole refractors, but you know the thing you need most of all?"

"Someone there with you," Rose answered him with a smile. She offered her his hand and he grinned and took it while she nodded at the screen. "The pod's in the street. They probably paved over it."

"Okay!" the Doctor exclaimed as he pulled her out of the TARDIS. Shireen followed excitedly, coming up on Rose's left. "It's like two inches across. Dull grey, like a gull's egg. Very light."

"So what's that thing going to do?" Shireen asked. "Look for the pod with love?"

There was a loud smash of glass, and Rose stiffened when she felt the Doctor's hand go missing from hers. She turned to see he was gone and willed herself not to panic. "Damn it."

"What happened?"

"Isolus took him," Rose answered. She ignored the broken device and instead hurried toward the house. Without knocking, they ran inside and up the stairs. Isolus had already moved on from the Doctor and the TARDIS because she was drawing a dog by then. "Bring him back."

"Leave me alone! I want to be with Chloe Webber! I love Chloe Webber!"

"Bring him back now. And the TARDIS."

"No!"

"Rose," Shireen said with a gasp. "Rose, you said you could… do things. Can you bring him back?"

Rose paused and stared out the window as she considered the idea. With a slow nod, she looked at her friend seriously. "Shireen, I need you to stay calm when I do this. It'll look odd and inhuman, but this is how I can get the Doctor back."

"Okay…"

Taking in a deep breath, Rose called on Arkytior with only one task in mind - get the Doctor and the TARDIS back safe.

It was the fact that she only had one task in mind that really messed things up.

She lit up brightly and focused on the ionic energy and the Doctor, but it was like Isolus was throwing a tantrum, focusing more energy on the Doctor because she didn't want to give him up. Arkytior in turn added more power to her attempt, and she didn't even notice papers beginning to burn up, nor the way Isolus was drawing again despite the other two women attempting to stop her. Arkytior's focus was only on the Doctor and the TARDIS.

She wore down the ionic energy keeping them there and found them being released. With that done, she sent herself down to the street where the Doctor was and let her power slip away until she stood there in front of him. "Doctor!"

"Rose," he said, touching her cheek. "You didn't have to…"

"Doctor?"

He'd trailed off and was looking around with a slight frown. There was a stalled car on the street that had been abandoned, along with a council truck and a few tools just lying carelessly on the road. At the house next to Trish's, there was a cane lying on the sidewalk, and across the street, an abandoned lawn mower. "How did you bring me back, Rose?"

"I- I just wore down the ionic energy," she told him slowly. Her focus was on him, and she didn't see what he saw. Not yet. "Why?"

Horror spread through him as he looked down at her, but he didn't confront it yet. "Did you figure out where the pod is?"

"Yeah, it's in the street," she told him, pulling him over to where she remembered it was. "We can grab that pickaxe, dig it up."

He nodded, and they went to do that. He was unusually quiet as they worked, and she tried not to overthink it. Within ten minutes, they had the pod in the torch, and they'd gone back to get Shireen. She was also quiet, which told Rose that she'd definitely missed something big.

Rose sent them into the vortex before looking at them with her arms crossed. "Alright, tell me. What is it?"

Shireen looked at her hesitantly. "Rose, do you not know what you did?"

"She wouldn't," the Doctor said. "Focused on me, she wouldn't have seen it."

"What are you talking about? What did I do?"

"When you did… whatever it was you did to get him out of there," Shireen said slowly. "It was weird, like you were fighting Isolus. And Isolus was strong, and her cupboard was going to open and kill us, so we couldn't really stop her. She was still drawing - drawing the entire street. All the people she could see and more, people Trish said she knew. Her teacher, her friends, her doctor, everyone. But you like… burned the drawings, getting to the Doctor."

Rose let out a sharp breath. "What are you saying?"

"They're gone," the Doctor told her as gently as possible. "They were in the drawings, but you destroyed them."

A numb feeling overcame her as she understood - she'd killed people. A lot of them. She'd killed them because she'd been so confident that she was more powerful than Isolus that she could save the Doctor. The issue was, she was more powerful. She just wasn't careful enough. She'd been reckless and they'd died and it was her fault. The very thought made her nauseous, and before she knew it, the Doctor was guiding her to the jumpseat to sit.

"Rose-,"

"Can we talk about this later?" she interrupted softly. "We should… get Shireen home, and I have an errand to run."

The Doctor was clearly reluctant to let her stew in what had happened, but she was equally as reluctant to discuss it, so he left her there and took them out of the vortex and back to where they'd picked her friend up from. "Great to meet you, Shireen. Back where we got you, maybe five minutes off."

"You're gonna call me," Shireen ordered Rose. "You've disappeared from my life for years at a time twice now, and it's not gonna happen again, got it?"

"Promise," Rose nodded. Happy with that, Shireen made her way out and once she was gone, Rose got up to steer the TARDIS. They landed once more and she let out a shaky breath and looked to the Doctor, who was watching her. "I'll be back in a few hours, probably."

"Take your time," he said. He knew where they were and he knew who she was going to see. He was still trying to understand why she needed to see him for certain things, but he did know that it was what she needed right then, so he didn't ask. Grateful, Rose slipped out of the TARDIS and made her way to see her best friend.

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