A/N: An update. I know right, it's been a while. I hope that you enjoy what I've written
Chapter Twenty-six: Transportation and Preservation
After going home to see their mother, and dealing with the 'abzorbaloff' who had targeted a group of 'Doctor Watchers', Annamae had regained all of her strength and the muscles that she had lost due to the energy exchange properties of what she had done back on The Bitter Pill. Despite being at full strength, the Doctor settled on something simple which he had reason to be believe would be non-dangerous: the 2012 London Olympic games.
The Doctor landed the Tardis, pocked his head outside, before ducking back in and quickly re-adjusting the TARDIS.
"Did you land us in a cupboard again?" Annamae questioned, amused.
"Not quite," The Doctor admitted with a sheepish smile as he opened the doors.
"We've definitely arrived in 2012?" Rose questioned, examining a Shane Ward Greatest Hit's poster on one of the containers just outside where the TARDIS Landed.
"Definitely," The Doctor confirmed.
"Why 2012?" Rose questioned. Since this was something Annamae had wanted to see, something for them to watch over several days in piece before they got back to their normal adventure, they hadn't filled Rose in on their purpose on earth.
"I had a passing fancy." The Doctor answered flippantly. "Only it didn't pass, it stopped."
"You'll have to take me to the anti-grave Olympics' one day," Annamae rested her head on the top of the Doctor's arm as she closed her eye and breathed in the clean air. They had landed in a small cul-de-sac away from the heavy pollution of central London and the industrial districts.
"To watch or compete?" The Doctor questioned with an amused smile.
"Both," Annamae answered with her own smile just as they turned onto Dame Kelly Holmes Close which had a large banner suspended across two street lamps.
"Thirtieth Olympiad." The Doctor announced grandly.
"No way!" Rose smiled brightly. "Why didn't I think of this? That's great."
"Only seems like yesterday a few naked Greek blokes were tossing a discuss about, wrestling each other in the sand with crowds stood around baying. No, wait a minute, that was Club Med. Just in time for the opening doo dah, ceremony, tonight, I thought you'd like that. Last one they had in London was dynamite. Wembley, 1948. I loved it so much, I went back and watched it all over again. Fella carrying the torch. Lovely chap, what was his name? Mark? John? Legs like pipe cleaners, but strong as a whippet."
"John Mark," Annamae informed the Doctor as her eyes drifted to a man putting up a missing poster on a lamppost that already had missing posters. "Doctor, something isn't right."
"Dale Hicks," Rose read aloud. "I've never seen so many new missing posters before."
"What's taking them, do you think? Snatching children from a thoroughly ordinary street like this. Why's it so cold? Is someone reducing the temperature?" The Doctor frowned.
"It says they all went missing this week. Why would a person do something like this?" Rose questioned.
"What makes you think it's a person?" The Doctor countered.
"Whatever it is," Rose started as they watched a woman come out of her house and put her trash in the bin before hurrying back into her house. There was no one else out on the street except for the council roadmender, and there was an air of fear. "It's got the whole street scared to death. Doctor, what…"
The Doctor took off down the road, dragging Annamae along behind him, to one of the front lawns on the street where a kid's goal was set up.
"What is it?" Annamae questioned, crouching opposite the Doctor as he held his hand out. "Oh, your hairs are standing up." Annamae frowned lowering her shields slightly to see if she could feel whatever energy was causing that phenonium. Even with her shields up she could feel the fear and unease that surrounded this street, but when she brought her shields down slightly, she got the sense of loneliness and something else – an energy that felt almost like how she remembered residue portkey sights used to feel.
"Can you feel it?" The Doctor questioned, "like a tingle."
"Yes, I feel it. The energy reminds me of high-level transport… but there is something, off…" Annamae trailed off. "And look at the grass, perfect in every way except for the occasional small human sized footprint and this." Annamae gentle touched a small circle of grass which had brown on the top half of the stem but the bottom of the stem was still lush green.
"Interesting," The Doctor hummed.
"What's your game?" A man came out of the house and demanded.
"Sir, are you the owner of this residence?" Annamae questioned before the Doctor could take that as a literal question as to what game he played.
"I am, and I want you off my property," the man snapped.
"We apologise, we were alerted to the string of missing children in the area."
"This was where Tommy was taken from, correct? Your front lawn." The Doctor took over.
"Yeah, what off it? And who are you anyway?" The man took a threatening step forward.
"Detectives," Annamae pulled her ID from her pocket to show the man, grateful for her many IDs and the fact that they were in a time close to their own. The Doctor got the hint and pulled out his psychic paper. "I'm Detective Annamae Tayler and this is the Doctor, my consultant."
"And why you on my property without my permission?" Tom's dad demanded, taking a threatening step back.
"We're looking over the area where Tom was last seen." Annamae was quick to jump in, glancing back over to where Rose was being confronted by an elderly woman. "Doctor," Annamae nodded to her sister.
"Hay, where are you going? I didn't say you could leave?" Tom's dad followed the two of them back to the street. "And who the hell is she? She looks less like a cop then you do?"
"She's in training." the Doctor was quick to jump in.
"What are you going to do?" the young woman, Trish, who had taken out her trash joined the quickly forming group.
"The police have knocked on every door." Maeve pipped up. "No clues, no leads, nothing."
"Look, kids run off sometimes, all right?" Tom's dad was clearly living in denial that something would have been able to or wanting to take his son. "That's what they do."
"Saw it with my own eyes." Maeve was back to speaking, disagreeing with the assessment made by Tom's dad. "Dale Hicks in your garden, playing with your Tommy, and then pfft! 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…" the Doctor started to caution, noticing that the situation was rapidly devolving into what he liked to call a 'human blaming game'.
"Why don't we start with him?" Another woman joined the conversation and pointed angrily at the road repair man, Kel. "There's been all sorts like him in this street, day and night."
"Fixing things up for the Olympics." Kel protested.
"Yeah, and taking an awful long time about it." Tom's dad grumbled angrily.
"I'm of the opinion that all we've got to do is just…" the Doctor tried again just as all the humans started talking over each other and pointing fingers.
Annamae pinched the bridge of her nose. She thought that parents and teachers would have educated out this petty squabbling and arguing that is so very instinctive to humans, along with pointing the finger. But alas, here she was on a quiet street with missing children, and the adults were acting like six-year-olds accusing one of their own for stealing the red pencil. Didn't they care about finding their own children.
"Fingers on lips." The Doctor shouting, losing his patience with all the bickering. With the sudden volume and authority in his voice, combined with 'that look' in his eye the Doctor swiftly had everyone with their fingers on their lips – even Annamae placed her finger on her lips after giving the Doctor an amused glanced. That was clearly a skill he'd picked up back when he had children – the paternal instinct never really went away even all these centuries later.
"In the last six days, three of your children have been stolen. Snatched out of thin air, right?" the Doctor confirmed what they already knew.
"Er, can I?" Maeve moved her finger away at the Doctor's nod. "Look around you. this was a safe street till 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?"
Rose noticed something in one of the home's windows, which caused Trish to take noticed and return inside. With one adult having left, the others followed her lead – deciding to leave them to their search for the children.
With the humans out of the way, they returned to Tom's front garden to see if they could determine what it was that they'd noticed before being interrupted. Instead of relying on his eyes, and the feeling he got when he held his hand out over the spot on the grass, the Doctor breathed deeply. When he did it again, Annamae got curious and took a deep breath herself only to wrinkle her nose.
"Want a hanky?" Rose smiled, bemused.
"Can you smell it?" the Doctor asked Rose. "What does it remind you of?"
"Sort of metal?" Rose questioned, biting her tongue.
"Mmm hmm." The Doctor agreed proudly. "Where else had the children been taken from?"
"Danny, the back alley. We'll have to check the poster for which alley though." Annamae answered with a frown as she thought back over the poster that had caught their attention.
It didn't take them long for the Doctor to get the information they needed, and they headed to the back alley in question where the Doctor filled them in on the additional information of what Danny had been doing
"Danny Edwards cycled in one end but never came out the other. But his bike was found… whoa," the Doctor held out his hand. "There it goes again! Look at the hairs on the back of my manly hairy hand."
"And there's that smell. It's like a, er, a burnt fuse plug or something." Rose agreed.
Annamae frowned, as she felt that energy residue again but couldn't there wasn't enough for her to trace. At the minute, she was getting the leave point but no trail to follow. The Doctor caught her confirmation nod.
"There's a residual energy in the spots where the kids vanished. Whatever it was, it used an awful lot of power to do this." The Doctor explained to Rose, keeping her in the dark about Annamae's magic use.
They continued walking around the neighbourhood, ending up on Dame Kelly Holmes Close, looking for other places where there was residual energy.
"Aren't you a beautiful boy?" Rose crouched to pay attention to a beautiful ginger tabby who had crossed their path.
"Thanks!" the Doctor ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm experimenting with back combing. Oh." He looked over to see Annamae's amused smile and Rose crouched with the cat.
"I used to have one like you." Rose told the cat, before looking up and seeing the Doctor giving the cat and uncomfortable look. "What?"
"I'm not really a cat person." The Doctor explained. "Once you've been threatened by one in a nun's wimple, it kind of takes the joy out of it."
"Until you see a kitten, and get over it." Annamae predicted. The Doctor may not do humans, but he was easily taken in by children and babies and that was true no matter the species.
As Rose had stopped giving it immediate attention, the cat took the opportunity to get inside the carboard box that someone had left out to be taken with the trash. I shuddered as the sudden feeling of a ghost passing through me was felt – whatever was taking children, was apparently also taking cute animals because that was definitely the feeling of unnatural transportation.
"Come here puss. What do you want to go in there for?" Rose tiled the box, before leaning back and waving her hand in front of her face as though to ward off a smell. "Doctor! Phew."
"Whoa!" the Doctor tilted the box. "Hoo, hoo, hoo. Ion residue. Blimey!" the Doctor whistled, impressed as the stronger smell hit him. "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, the cat's been transported?" Rose asked for clarification.
"It can harness huge reserves of ionic power. We need to find the source of that power. Find the source and you will find whatever has taken to stealing children and fluffy animals. See what you can see. Keep them peeled, Lewis." The Doctor instructed before he grabbed Annamae's hand as so they could split up.
Once they were far enough away from Rose that there was no chance that they'd be overheard, the Doctor turned to Annamae – concern in his eyes. Annamae spoke before the Doctor was forced to ask.
"The energy that is being used to steal the children, and the cat… it's only going to one place. Doctor, they aren't reappearing as wholes on the planet – it's like they're only harmed formed so I can't…. I can't follow the residue." Annamae struggled to put into words this unique feeling.
The closest that she had ever gotten to this feeling before was when someone had spliced themselves mid-Apparation and ended up in two completely different places, or when there was portkey malfunctions and two portkey's crossed paths.
"We'll find who's taking the kids, stop them and bring all the children back." The Doctor promised, taking Annamae's other hand and giving it a squeeze.
"I know, I'm still not used to the change in my magic." Annamae smiled sadly. "I can feel it growing and changing inside, all the time. Soon, not even I will know what I'm capable off, and that scares me."
"We will figure that out as well," the Doctor promised.
A scream from Rose sent the both of them running to where there was a row of garages. Rose was lying on the floor, being harassed by what looked like a ball of animated scribbles. As he ran, the doctor pointed his sonic screwdriver.
"Stay still!" he ordered Rose.
Just as thy reached Rose the ball shrank to the size of a tennis ball and dropped into Rose's hands.
"You alright?" I pulled Rose to her feet.
"Yeah, cheers." Rose muttered.
"No probs." The Doctor took the item and started examining it from different angles. "I'll give you a fiver if you can tell me what the hell it is, because I haven't got the foggiest."
The Doctor tossed it to me, and I shuddered lightly at the feeling. The object had the same residue that I'd associate with a conjured item that someone had turned into a Portkey and then used. Conjured items weren't supposed to be used as portkeys, and many had gotten lost in transit when the magic had failed, those that did make it to the end point had their own magic corrupted like they'd been using dark magic for too long. When the government hadn't been able to hid the effects of the conjured portkey's anymore, Annamae had immediately put a stop to them. the government had managed to hid the effects for five years because of the state that they'd been in, and they fell not three years later.
"Well, I can tell you you've just killed it." Rose muttered, staring at the object as I gave it back to the doctor who did a quick scan with his screwdriver.
"It was never living. It's animated by energy. Same energy that's snatching people. That is so dinky!" the Doctor suddenly tossed up the ball for a caught it. "The go anywhere creature. Fits in your pocket, makes friends, impresses the boss, breaks the ice at parties."
"Can you tell what it's made from?" Annamae questioned, unwilling to run a magical scan on it and unable to tell by just it's look and texture.
"No idea. Let's go find out." The Doctor said cheerily, before spinning on his heal and heading to the TARDIS.
"Why did they suddenly decide to create a creature when they've been taking children? What is the connection?" Rose wondered as they walked.
They didn't have an answer for her.
When they got to the TARDIS, the Doctor set it on the scanner on his console.
"Oh, hi ho, here we go." The Doctor typed something to get the results up on his monitor. "Let's have a look. Get out of here." The Doctor pulled a pencil from one of his inner pockets.
"What's it say?" Rose questioned.
The Doctor flipped the pencil and used the eraser to rub some of the ball out.
"It is. It's graphite. Basically, the same material as an HB pencil." The Doctor explained.
"I was attacked by a pencil scribble?" Rose asked in disbelief.
"Scribble creature, brought into being with ionic energy. Whatever we're dealing with, it can create things as well as take them. But why make a scribble creature?" the Doctor repeated Rose's question.
"Maybe it was a mistake." The Doctor and Annamae stared at Rose, confused at the way she'd that. Like a statement not a proposal. "I mean, you scribble over something when you want to get rid of it, like a, like a drawing. Like a, a child's drawing. You said it was in the street." Rose finished having followed her train of thought to completion.
"Probably," the Doctor agreed.
"The girl," Rose pointed out.
"Of course!" the Doctor cheered. "What girl?"
"Something about her gave me the creeps. Even her own mum looked scared of her." Rose explained. So that was what she had seen in that window.
"Are you deducting?" the Doctor questioned, impressed. Critical thinking skills, something the Doctor and Annamae had been teaching her.
"I think I am." Rose agreed, tongue in cheek smile.
"Copper's hunch?"
"Permission to follow it up, Sarge?" Rose requested.
"I hate it when children are involved," I took the Doctor's arm and we left the TARDIS together.
They stood in front of Trish's door, the Doctor in the middle.
"Hello." The Doctor greeted cheerily. "I'm this Doctor, this is Anna and Rose. Can we see your daughter?"
"No, you can't." Trish responded instantly.
"Okay. Bye." The Doctor said just as cheerily.
"Why? Why do you want to see Chloe?"
"Well, there's some interesting stuff going on in this street, and I just thought. Well, we thought, that she might like to give us a hand." The Doctor explained.
"Sorry to bother you." Rose continued, as though they planned on leaving.
"Yeah, sorry. We'll let you get on with things. On your own. by again." They turned as one and headed down the path.
"Wait!" Trish called after them. "Can you help her?"
"Yes," the Doctor and I spoke together. "Yes, we can."
Trish let them into her house.
The television was on, playing the news and discussing the Torch Bearer.
"She stays in her room most of the time." Trish was naturing away nervously. "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."
"What about Chloe's dad?" Rose questioned even though there were no personal pictures of the man in the family room.
"Chloe's dad died a year ago."
"I'm sorry," Rose responded automatically.
"You wouldn't be if you knew him."
"Well, let's go and say hi." The Doctor went to walk to the door but was stopped by Trish.
"I should check on her first. She might be asleep." Trish cut in hastily.
"Why are you afraid of her, Trish?" the Doctor questioned gentle.
"I want you to know before you see her that she's really a great kid."
"We don't doubt that." Annamae assured her.
"She's never been in trouble at school, you should see her report from last year. A's and B's." seeing that Trish wasn't going to let them buy just yet, Rose asked to use the loo and quickly slid upstairs while Trish continued explaining about Chloe. "She's in the choir. She's singing in an old folk's home. Any mum would be proud. You know I want you to know these things before you see her, Doctor, because right now, she's not herself."
"Trish," Annamae interrupted. "Sometimes are children just a little extra help; that doesn't mean that there is anything wrong with them."
Chloe appeared then, looking at the ground and ignoring them as she headed straight for the fridge to get a glass of milk.
"All right, there? I'm the Doctor."
"I'm Chloe Webber," the girls voice was very nearly monitored.
"How're you doing, Chloe Webber?" the Doctor questioned, using her full name as he had been introduced.
"I'm busy. I'm making something, aren't I, mum?"
"And like I said, she's not been sleeping." Trish told them.
"But you've been drawing, though. I'm rubbish. Stick men about my limit. Can do this, though." He gave her a Vulcan salute. "Can you do that?"
"They don't stop moaning." Chloe informed them.
"Chloe." Trish tried to caution her daughter.
"I try to help them, but they don't stop moaning."
"Who don't stop?" Annamae asked.
"We can be together."
"Sweetheart," Trish tried to reach out to comfort her daughter but Chloe pulled away.
"Don't touch me, mum."
"Chloe, what have you been up to? Your mum say's you spend all your time upstairs drawing. Are you drawing something special?" Annamae joined back in the conversation as Trish tried to hide her hurt.
"I'm busy," Chloe started trying to leave the room.
"Come on, Chloe. Don't be a spoil sport. What's the big project? I'm dying to know. What're you making up there?" The Doctor tried to goad her into responding, using a tone that most children would respond to.
From up the stairs, Rose's panicked voice came: "DOCTOR!"
The Doctor was the first to get to Chloe's room, with Annamae only a step behind. From in the closest which was drawing Rose in, there was a red glow and a voice. The Doctor planted his body between Rose and the closet as he closed the door.
"Look at it," Rose suggested.
"No, ta." The Doctor went to look at the pictures hung on the wall which had drawn Annamae's attention once the closet was closed.
The pictures were of the missing children, and an orange cat, they were all giving of a feeling similar to a portkey landing, but not fully formed. Like that one time a portkey had started forming at its destination but a chain portkey had triggered before it fully formed dragging the passengers away.
"What the hell was that?" Trish demanded.
"A drawing. The face of a man." Rose explained, her voice absent and a little shocked.
"What face?" Trish demanded, going to open the closet but being stopped by Rose.
Annamae gentle took the Doctor's arm and used morse code to tap on his arm that the children where in the pictures so he didn't look odd getting his screwdriver out and scanning.
"What've you been drawing?" Trish asked her daughter with her path to the picture blocked.
"I drew him yesterday." Chloe informed them.
"Who?"
"Dad."
"Your dad. But he's long gone. Chloe, with all the lovely things in the world, why him?" Trish demanded, kneeling and taking hold of her daughter's shoulders.
"I dream about him, staring at me."
"I thought we were putting him behind us. What's the matter with you?"
"We need to stay together," Chloe stared over her mother's shoulder.
"Yes, we do." Trish agreed.
"No. Not you, us. We need to stay together, and then it'll be all right."
"Chloe," Annamae moved forward cutting her sister off before she could say anything.
She gentle moved Trish out of the way, and knelt before the child. A gentle hand on her chin had Chloe's head turned so they could look each other in the eye. Chloe Webber had dark brown eyes, just like her mother, but there was something else – a reflection of another life. A life which was yellow and red.
"What is the name of your friend, Chloe?" Annamae asked gentle.
"What are you on about? What friend? Get away from my daughter!" Trish tried to reach out to grab Annamae and break her eye contact, but the Doctor intervened.
"Let her do this. You know there is something wrong with your daughter's pictures, and that she's been taking the missing kids somehow. Let us help you." The Doctor requested. "Annamae won't hurt her."
"She's a child." Trish whispered.
"You're terrified of her. But there's nowhere to turn to, because who's going to believe the things you see out of the corner of your eye? No one. Except us."
"Who are you?"
"Help."
"Tell me the name of your friend, Chloe." Annamae requested again, waiting patiently and keeping eye contact.
"They don't have a name to themselves." Chloe finally answered.
"How did you meet your friend?" was the next prompt, gentle and kind. Not pressuring Chloe into answering and allowing her plenty of time and space, if not physically.
"They came to me, when I was drawing." Chloe took a step back and Annamae let her. "I like drawing."
"We should leave her be," Annamae stood back up and looked to the Doctor who nodded and escorted Trish from her daughter's room and back to the kitchen.
"Those pictures, they're alive." Rose got the conversation started as the Doctor sat on side and Annamae leant next to him. "She's drawing people and they end up in her pictures."
"Ionic energy. Chloe's harnessing it to steal those kids and place them in some kind of holding pen, made up of ionic power." The Doctor explained.
"And what about the dad from her in her wardrobe?"
"How many times do I have to say, he's dead." Trish cut in.
"Well, he's got a very loud voice for a dead bloke." Rose muttered sullenly.
"If living things can become drawings, then maybe drawings can become living things. Chloe's real dad is dead, but not the open 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." The Doctor explained with a frown. He hated when children were involved, it made things so much more complicated.
"She always got the worst of it when he was alive." Trish admitted.
"Doctor, how can a twelve-year-old girl be doing any of this?"
"With help from a friend." Annamae sighed.
"Well, let's go met this mysterious friend." The Doctor jumped down from the counter.
When they entered Chloe's bedroom, they found her sat crossed leg in the centre of her bed, paper and pencils spread around her. She looked at the Doctor when he entered and performed the Vulcan salute.
"Nice one." The Doctor smiled as he came to sit on her bed before placing his fingers on her temple. After a second, Chloe's eyes rolled into the back of her head and the Doctor gentle lowered her back onto her pillows.
"There we go." The Doctor spoke softly before he stood up.
"I can't let him do this," Trish tried to move forward of the bedroom door but Rose stopped her.
"Shush, it's okay. Trust them." Rose reassured her.
"Now we can talk." The Doctor was suddenly stern.
"I want Chloe. Wake her up. I want Chloe." The being hiding inside Chloe spoke with a breathy tone.
"Who are you?" the Doctor demanded.
"I want Chloe Webber." The being slammed Chloe's fist on the mattress in a childish display of age.
"Doctor," Annamae took the Doctor's hand. "It's a child. Whatever we're dealing with is a child. That's why it's power is drawn out through pictures."
"I'm talking to the being whose been hiding inside this little girl." The Doctor sat on side of Chloe and Annamae sat on the other. "I need to know who you are?"
"I don't care what you need."
"What do you care about?" Annamae tagged in.
"I want my friends."
"You're lonely," the Doctor looked across at me. "We know that feeling."
"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!" the Doctor suddenly commanded.
"Isolus."
"You're Isolus. Of course," the Doctor breathed out in sad realisation.
"Our journey began in the Deep Realms when we were a family." The Isolus started drawing at an impossible speed as she talked.
"What's that?" Trish moved forward to see the image.
"The Isolus Mother, drifting in deep space. See, she jettisons millions of fledgling spores. Her children. The isolus are empathic beings of intense emotions, but 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." The Doctor explained, his eyes shadowed in sadness.
"Our journey is long."
"The Isolus children travel, each inside a pod. They ride the head and energy of solar tides. It takes thousands and thousands of years for them to grow up."
"Thousands of years just floating through space. Poor things. Don't they go made with boredom?" Rose questioned.
"We play!"
"Their empathic connection and ionic power, it allows them to create their own world." Annamae whispered. She could see how those things could work together to allow such.
"In-flight entertainment." Rose muttered.
"Helps keep them happy. 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." Chloe added more details to her pictures.
"That's a solar flare from your sun. It would have made a tidal wave of solar energy that scattered the Isolus pods."
"Only I fell to earth." The Isolus admitted. "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, and I was drawn to Chloe Webber. She was like me, alone. She needed me, and I her."
"You recognised yourself in her. You wanted to be with her, because maybe being together would make you feel less alone." Annamae whispered.
"I want my family. It's not fair." Isolus started getting distressed.
"We understand. You want to make a family. But you can't stay in this child. It's wrong. You can't steal anymore friends for yourself."
"We can find your pod, return you to your family. But you can't steal anyone else." Annamae agreed.
"I am alone." With this distressed shout, a crash came from the wardrobe which started glowing red as the door shook. Chloe started shaking as though she was trapped in a nightmare.
"I'm going to hurt you. I'm coming." A dark voice said from the wardrobe, and Annamae shuddered at the anger and hate that came with the voice and the impression that was tyring to imprint through that picture. It didn't have full form yet, but if the Isolus gave it anymore power through Chloe's nightmares and fear then it would be able to step out of that wardrobe.
"Trish, how do you calm her?" The Doctor got up from the bed.
"What?"
"When she has nightmares, what do you do?"
"I, I…" Trish stuttered fearfully.
"What do you do?"
"I sing to her."
"Then start singing."
Trish took the Doctor's place on the bed and started singing an old lullaby. It took a few minutes, but Chloe calmed and the dad-from-hell stopped trying to escape. Once Chloe was asleep, Trish broke down into tears.
"He came to her because she was lonely. Chloe, I'm sorry."
Once Chloe had settled into sleep, they went around the house collecting all of her pencils. They couldn't let her take any more children or people, untill they figured out how to send the Isolus home.
"Chloe usually got the brunt of his temper when he'd had a drink. The day he crashed the car, I thought we got free. I thought it was over!" Trish was ranting to herself.
"Did you talk to her about it?" Rose imputed into the rant that was only half directed at them.
"I didn't want to" Trish admitted shamefully.
"But maybe that's why Chloe feels so alone. Because she has all these terrible dreams about her dad, but she can't talk to you about them." Rose suggested.
"And she would definitely feel ashamed to talk with anyone else about it." Annamae looked to Trish. "Children who have been abused, whether they escape that situation or not, always feel like they deserved it and that they could end up back in that position at any time. If Chloe needs to upon up to you and talk about, then you need to let her – no matter how hard it is for you, otherwise she is never going to get over what happened to."
"You… you have a lot of experience with children like Chloe?" Trish straightened from where she'd been bent looking for pencils.
"Yes, I volunteered at a call and support centre for children in need." Annamae told a half truth. She had worked at such a call centre, but she had once been an abused child and helped others like her get free.
The Doctor reached out and squeezed my hand. I hadn't gotten around to giving him details, but he knew the truth.
"Chloe and the Isolus. Two lonely kids who need each other." The Doctor looked down.
"The Isolus won't stop, will it? It'll just keep pulling kids in." Rose questioned.
"It's desperate to be loved. It's used to a pretty big family." The Doctor frowned.
"How big?"
"Say around four billion?" the Doctor suggested the number which included so much of the British Population.
"We need to send the isolus back to its family," Annamae decided.
"We need to find the pod, come on." The Doctor was suddenly filled with energy and pulled Annamae out of the house. Rose gave a last warning to Trish about keeping pencils away from Chloe, before following us.
"I can scan for the same trash that I picked up from the scribble creature. We'd need to widen the field a bit." The Doctor held the TARDIS door open for the girls to pass through before he started dancing around the console and pulling things out to build
"Are you building a tracker?" Annamae questioned curiously.
"Yep," the Doctor smiled brightly.
"Is it going to work?"
"Probable." The Doctor gave a wink as he popped his head-up from behind the council before returning to retrieving whatever it was that he needed.
"Are you two flirting now?" Rose questioned. She'd gotten the idea that the Doctor and I were more than just friends even if we didn't typically display true affection around her.
"No, we're bantering." Annamae rolled her eyes. "Flirting is a little bit different."
"You knew the Isolus was lonely before it told you. How?" Rose questioned, moving away from such a topic.
"I know what it's like to travel a long way on your own." the Doctor leant against the main console. "Give me the styner-magnetic. The thin in our left hand."
"Sounds like you're on it's side." Rose frowned.
"I sympathise, that's all." The Doctor shrugged.
"The Isolus has caused a lot of pain for these people." Rose argued.
"It's a child." The Doctor and I spoke as one.
"That's why it went to Chloe." The Doctor continued. "Two lonely mixed-up kids."
"Feels to me like a temper tantrum because it can't get its own way." Rose muttered.
"It's scared. Come on, you were a kid once. Binary dot." The Doctor looked to me. I glanced across the small array of things he gathered across the console, and picked up the binary dot.
"Yes, and I know what kids can be like. Right little terrors." Rose muttered.
"Gum," the Doctor was only half paying attention.
"I've got cousins," Rose spat the gum she had been chewing on the Doctor's instruction. "Kids can't have it all their own way. That's part of being a family."
"What about trying to understand them?" the Doctor proposed.
"Easy for you to say. You don't have kids." Rose grumbled.
"I was a dad once." The Doctor muttered, so absent minded that he didn't realise Rose was present.
"And a granddad," Annamae agreed. She'd been a mother by choice, but never by blood, but she knew the pain the Doctor felt with their loss. "You are so very good with children."
"I think we're there." The Doctor announced. "Fear, loneliness. They're the big ones, Rose. Some of the most terrible acts ever committed have been inspired by them." the Doctor rambled in order to distract Rose from the personnel she now had. "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. You know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold."
"Doctor, your scanner." I took his hand in order to point at the screen with his hand.
"It's the pod! It is in the street. Everything's coming up Doctor." The Doctor cheered running from the Tardis, Rose following behind him.
Annamae was about to step out of the TARDIS when she was slammed into by a feeling so very foreign and familiar to her. She was caught by the navel with a hook, and twisted and pull through a straw at the same time. No control, no direction, her magic flared wildly and brightly. Before she completely lost the feel of the TARDIS beneath her feet, she felt her mind and the time reach out to her and give her a direction.
The Doctor carried the torch to the flame and sent the Isolus home before returning to Dame Kelly Holmes Close in order to meet back up with Rose and Annamae. The street was holding a party to celebrate the opening of the Olympics and the return of their family.
"Cake?" Rose greeted him holding a fairy cake with a silver sugar ball on top.
"Top banana," he cheered even as he looked around for Annamae. She should be there by now. "Mmm. I can't stress this enough. Ball bearings you can eat, masterpiece!"
"I thought I'd lost you." Rose admitted.
"Nah. Not on a night like this. This is a night for lost things being found. Where's Annamae?" The Doctor questioned.
"I thought she'd be with you. She was in the TARDIS when Chloe drew the picture of it." Rose explained.
"Then, let's go check the TARDIS." The Doctor got them going, but he knew that she wasn't there. He would have known if she was still in the TARDIS because he'd used it to take the Torch and return, and she wasn't in the control room then. Maybe she'd retreated further into the TARDIS while she'd been a drawing.
"Doctor, where is she?" Rose questioned once they'd searched the ship. The Doctor had even done a scan for life.
"Missing, she's missing. The Tardis tried to save her, emergency teleport out but something went wrong – she's lost in time. She could be any when, anywhere." The Doctor stared at the scanner screen which showed the attempt at emergency action being taken.
"Well, can you follow the teleportation trail? I don't know, track her or something?" Rose demanded, angry and scared.
"No, no I can't. Something went wrong… I can't find her!" the Doctor slammed the screen in anger.