So, even though the Ood have survived, everything's back to normal, right? LOL, nope!

"Right!" the Doctor announced, spinning a dial. "Let's get everyone home, shall we?"

"Sounds good," Barry agreed, turning to the Ood. "Where do you guys come from, anyway?"

At its direction, the Doctor set the controls, and they spun off through the Time Vortex to a planet of ice and snow.

"Haven't been this way in ages," the Doctor reminisced. "Visited the Sense-Sphere a while back. Maybe take you there after."

"Sounds good," Barry nodded as he led the way out, only to emerge near a…well, the only word Barry could think of was "factory." The Doctor came out beside him as the Ood followed, huddling around in the sudden cold. He shivered as he looked around, suddenly very awake. There was a sense of grim, impersonal, uncaring ruthlessness all around, and it seemed to fill his very bones.

"They said the Ood were slaves, but I didn't really….I mean, there was so much going on, and…"

"Yeah," the Doctor nodded, their gazes drawn to a walkway above, where an overseer was whipping an Ood who'd fallen to its knees. Barry's mouth tightened and he took off, ignoring the Doctor's shout. A second or two later, he was back at the Doctor's side and the overseer was tied up with his own whip.

"You know, I completely disapprove," the Doctor told him conversationally. Barry smirked.

"Okay, and?"

His mentor snorted and turned away, coat billowing dramatically. "Let's see what we can find out. You lot," he addressed the Ood, "Just stay here, okay? Don't wander off."

"Like that ever works," Barry muttered.

It didn't take long to find an interesting-looking door marked No Access—Authorization Only, which, as Barry could've predicted, acted on the Doctor like a red rag on a bull.

Inside, they found a warehouse full of crates. And each of those crates was full of dozens of Ood. Barry swore.

"Humanity never changes, does it?" he asked the Doctor. "Great big empire built on slavery."

"Mmm," the Doctor nodded as they faced the ranks of Ood in a container.

"I don't get it, though. Why don't you guys run away?" Barry asked them. One of the Ood tilted its head at him.

"For what reason?"

"You, you could be free!"

"I do not understand the concept," it said placidly. Barry grimaced and turned away. "Guys, we'll, uh, we'll come back for you, okay? Just…we'll be back."

He and the Doctor turned and strode through the aisles of containers. Barry's fists clenched, and he had to make an effort not to punch one of them.

"Joe once told Iris and me a story," he said to the Doctor. "There was this guy, and he captured a bear. Put it on a leash, brought it to a circus, made it do tricks. Then one day, the leash broke, but instead of running away, it just went right back to its owner, holding the leash in its mouth. It was so broken by slavery it didn't even know how to be free."

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed, eyes distant. "Everything gets like that if it's enslaved for too long."

"How long's this been running?" Barry asked. "I mean, how long have we—they—had slaves?"

The Doctor puffed out his cheeks. "I dunno. Couple centuries, at a guess?"

"So how do we stop it?"

Whatever the Doctor had been going to say, the answer was cut off by an alarm. "Typical," Barry muttered, and whisked the two of them outside.

"There has to be somewhere they keep them before they get the translator balls," the Doctor mused. "Natural, unprocessed Ood. We need to find a map or something." With a bit of searching, they found a holographic terminal at a cross-section, which sputtered to life under the Doctor's sonic.

"Here! Far side of the Red Section. Let's go."


It took a little dodging around and the occasional burst of super-speed to avoid the guard patrols, but they managed, and soon found themselves inside another warehouse.

"Listen," the Doctor breathed as they went down a metal staircase. "Listen, listen, listen. Oh, my head."

"What is it?" Barry asked.

"Don't you hear it? They're singing."

The Doctor shone the screwdriver, like a flashlight, into a cage containing a few huddled Ood. Barry's fists clenched again as they beheld a small group of the Ood, huddling away from the light of the Doctor's torch.

"This lot look different," Barry noted. "They haven't been processed, right?"

"Right," the Doctor agreed grimly, leading the way forwards. They knelt in front of a cage.

"That's their song!"

"I can't hear it," Barry shook his head, but the Doctor looked at him.

"Do you want to?"

"Yeah."

"It's the song of captivity," the Doctor warned.

"Let me hear it," Barry insisted.

"Face me," the Doctor ordered, and placed his hands on Barry's head in what looked suspiciously like a Vulcan mind meld.

"Open your mind," he murmured. "That's it. Hear it, Barry. Hear the music."

It took a moment…and then he heard it, the song he knew would reverberate in his mind forever after. It was the most beautiful, most tragic, most heartbreaking sound he'd ever heard, the sound of a people crying out, knowing that no hope was coming, knowing that they'd lost everything. Everything but each other, and their music. As they sang, or wept, or both, the music swept over and through and into him, entering his soul. He remembered being eleven years old, looking in horror at a body that had been, just a few minutes before, his mother.

He remembered every visit to the jail to visit his dad (even though it had never happened), the blankness of the walls, the hopelessness, the despair, the bullies at school, the scoffing of everyone who loved him…it swept over him like a wave, and Barry drowned in it. In his mind, he watched the lightning, watched the bullies, watched his father be led away from the glass partition over and over again, watched Kara's eyes watering as she spoke with longing of the home and family she had watched burn…

Hey, there's Allen! I hear his dad killed his mom!

Late again, I see, Allen. Obviously your parents never taught you any better.

Father in jail for murder…

"Barry, you gotta face it, I'm sorry, but there is no Man in Yellow."

"It didn't happen that way, it didn't!"

A tear trickled down his face.

"I can't," he whispered to the Doctor. "I'm sorry. It's just…just too much. I can't."

"C'mere," the Doctor ordered, and blanked out the song again. For several long moments, Barry just leaned against him, and the Doctor held him close. "But you can still hear it," he whispered, wiping his eyes.

"Yeah."

The Doctor sonicked the lock on the cage and the two of them approached the Ood, who cowered away.

"What are you holding?" the Doctor asked gently, as if speaking to an animal. "It's okay, it's okay. We're friends. Doctor, Barry. Friends. It's okay. Let me see. That's it. That's it. Go on."

Gently, slowly, the Ood opened its hands.

"Is that…" Barry started.

"It's a brain," the Doctor breathed, and from there they deduced the whole, horrible truth—that the Ood were a gentle, naturally pacifistic race, born with their brains in their hands. Until the humans came, and lobotomized them. In all the time he'd known him, Barry had seldom heard the Doctor this angry, and he was right there with him.

"That is sick!" Barry yelled. "That is the fucking sickest thing I have ever seen!"

There was a slam, and a man in a suit rushed in, along with a pair of guards and an Ood with a Greek letter sewn onto his suit following.

"Intruders," the man drawled.

"And you are…" the Doctor asked, slowly rising.

"Halpen," the man scowled. "I own this company and the products. What the hell do you think you're doing? This is valuable merchandise!"

Barry had heard the expression seeing red before, but he'd never fully understood it, until now. Lightning flickered across his vision, and the universe went crimson.

"Barry..." the Doctor warned, but he barely even heard his friend. He lunged, and some distant part of his brain registered screams and thumps, but the only thing he saw was the man in the suit, eyes wide and mouth open.

"Barry!" the Doctor yelled. "Barry, don't!"

He slammed the suited man into the wall.

"Guess what," he growled. "Your empire is over. I swear, you guys are done! No more slaves! If it's the last thing I do, you. Are. Going. Down!"

"Barry!" the Doctor shouted. He rushed up to his friend's side and put a hand on his shoulder. "It's okay. It's okay. Just breathe."

"He…"

"Barry, you're better than this. Don't do this. Come on."

Barry closed his eyes for a moment. He imagined what Henry or Joe would say. And he took a deep breath, and let go. The suited man slumped to the ground, and the Doctor pulled him into a hug.

"Sorry," he muttered, but the Doctor just gripped him tightly.

"Excuse me, sirs," the Ood said. "I believe there is something you should see."

Barry and the Doctor exchanged glances and shrugged at each other. "Lead on."


The Ood led them to an cavern, containing…

"The Ood Brain," the Doctor breathed. "Now it all makes sense. This is the missing element, the third brain, the one that bound them all together."

"And those pylons?" Barry asked, nodding to a field of electricity ringing the giant brain.

"They keep the song tamped down," the Doctor breathed. "With your permission?" he asked, and the Ood inclined its head.

"It is yours, Doctor."

"Oh, yes!" the Time Lord exclaimed. He twisted a dial and threw down a lever. "Now, the Ood can sing!"

There was a moment's silence, another. And then the Song of the Ood once more filled the air, audible even to Barry, but now it wasn't melancholy or despairing. It was like the sun had suddenly come out from behind the clouds. It was soaring, uplifting, filling him with energy. It reminded him of the first time he'd kissed Kara, feeling like he was floating (as it had turned out, they were). He remembered waking up one morning and realizing that he'd grown up with his dad there at home with him. He remembered the first time he'd felt the Speed Force, felt it consuming and fillinghim, making him want to run forever.

He looked at the Doctor, and they beamed at each other. It was the song of a people who had rediscovered hope. It was a song of joy. It was the song of freedom.

"We did it!"

The two of them headed up and out, watching the Ood emerge from their cages and stand in circles with their hands together, singing. Several of the guards were watching, awestruck.

"Just a sec," Barry said, shaking out his arms.

"What—what are you doing?" the Doctor asked, raising his eyebrows. Barry grinned at him.

"Setting them free."

Later on, many guards would remember a streak of red-orange lightning and a gust of wind that brushed between them, there and gone in an instant. Throughout the complex, accompanied by the wind and the lightning, doors seemed to unlock themselves. Cages were thrown open. Cuffs were dropped to the ground. Guns, whips, stun prods, and shackles were torn away and thrown into snowdrifts or over crevasses. The machinery used to lobotomize the Ood, it was later reported, had been destroyed by an intense, localized vibration or shattered by objects moving at just south of the speed of sound. And everywhere, the Ood stood in circles with their hands together, raised to the sky, singing the song of freedom.

"The message has gone out," the Doctor announced cheerfully, hands in his pockets as he stood by the TARDIS. Barry leaned against the opposite wall, munching on another of his concentrated calorie bars.

"That song resonated across the galaxies. Everyone heard it. Everyone knows. The rockets are bringing them back. The Ood are coming home. This organization…" he snapped his fingers. "It's done. What was your name?" he asked the Ood with them, who'd led them to the brain.

"I am Ood Sigma, sir," the Ood responded. "We thank you, Doctor, Barry, friends of Oodkind."

"Our pleasure," Barry grinned, spitting crumbs into the snow. The Doctor rolled his eyes, but smiled as well.

"And what of you now?" the Ood asked. "Will you stay? There is room in the song for you."

"Oh, I've, I've sort of got a song of my own, thanks," the Doctor smiled.

"Take this song with you, then," Ood Sigma told them. "We will," Barry nodded, straightening. "Always," the Doctor agreed. "And know this, Doctor, Barry. You will never be forgotten. Our children will sing of the Doctor and Barry Allen, and our children's children, and the wind and the ice and the snow will carry your names forever."

The Doctor nodded once more, and Barry waved, and they stepped into the TARDIS.

"Doctor?" Barry asked as they went off into the Time Vortex.

"Mmm?"

"How'd they know my name?"

"Oh, the Ood are psychic, remember? They can probably pick up low-level thoughts if you're mind's not shielded, especially since you were right next to the Ood Brain."

"Right," Barry nodded, frowning slightly. "Hey, listen, can we go somewhere to eat? 'Cause between fighting the Devil, rescuing all those Ood, and saving them, I think I must've burned up about a gazillion calories. Could do with a bit of a rest, too."

"I know this great restaurant on Florana," the Doctor offered. "Went there with Sarah Jane once. Voted #5 destination for the discerning intergalactic traveller. We can grab a meal and hit the beach. Sand as soft as swan down."

"Sounds good," Barry grinned. "And over dinner, you can tell me about how your people invented black holes. There's gotta be a story behind that."

"Oh, yeah," the Doctor smiled, eyes far away. "And didn't we have trouble there…"

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