"Doctor, I don't think you'll be able to get out that way." I told him as he walked to the door.
"It's the front door, how else am I going to get out?" he asked me. I gave Rose an amused look and watched as the Doctor opened the door. "Ah." The TARDIS had materialized in the middle of two gates and the Doctor had parked it so the door was facing on of them, blocking us from leaving.
"Yeah." I said. He came back inside and together we made the TARDIS dematerialize and rematerialize again, this time the right way round. He went back to the door and opened it
"Ah!" I shook my head with a smile on my face as Rose and I followed him out of the TARDIS. She had called and wanted to travel for a while. Who were we to say no?
"So, near future, yeah?" She asked us.
"I had a passing fancy. Only it didn't pass, it stopped." The Doctor told her as he and I walked down the street, hand in hand.
"30th Olympia." The Doctor said looking at a banner that said London 2012.
"No way! Why didn't I think of this, that's great! Ah!" Rose said excited.
"Only seems like yesterday a few naked Greek blokes were tossing a discus about... wrestling each other in the sand with crowds stood about, begging... no, wait a minute... that was Club Med." The Doctor said. He laughed at his own joke and nudged me. "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...? Mark...? John..? Mark...? Legs like pipe cleaners, but strong as a whippet." he told us.
"Doctor-" Rose called but we weren't really listening to her.
"Do you remember, in those days, everybody had a tea party to go to." I reminded him, laughing at some of the ones we'd been on.
"Ashlee?" Rose called again.
"Did you ever have one of those little cakes with the crunchy ball bearings on top-" The Doctor asked me.
"You should really look." Rose told us and I pulled him to her.
"Do you know those - those things? Nobody else in this entire galaxy's ever even bothered to make edible ball bearings. Genius." The Doctor continued talking while reading some missing posters attacked to a post. "What's taking them, do you think?" I looked at the street. "Snatching children from a thoroughly ordinary street like this. Why's it so cold...? Is something reducing the temperature...?"
"It says they all went missing this week. Why would a person do something like this?" Rose asked.
"What makes you think it's a person?" I asked her. The Doctor and I moved further down the street. We quickly found the place we'd been looking for. We stood in front of a mini football goal. He held his hand out in front of him, as though feeling something invisible. We crouched down, his hand hovering above what appears to be an ordinary area of grass. The Doctor giggled as he felt whatever sensation he experienced over the grass. He grabbed my hand in his and had me feel what he felt. I laughed lightly at the sensation.
"Tickles!" he said.
"What's your game?" we spun around to see a man standing behind us.
"My... um... Snakes and Ladders? Quite good at... Squash. Reasonable." he said and I gave him a look. "I'm... being facetious, aren't I? There's no call for it."
"Seriously?" I asked him. We stood up and back away back to Rose.
"I'm- I'm a police officer! I've got a badge - and- and a police car... you don't have to get- I can- I can prove it! Just hold on-" The Doctor said before fishing for his psychic paper.
"We've had plenty of coppers poking around here, and you don't look - or sound - like any of them." the man told us.
"See, look! I've got colleagues! Lewis and Ashlee." the Doctor said and I smiled at him.
"Well, they look less like coppers than you do." he told him.
"Training. New recruits. It was either that or hairdressing, so..." he finally pulled his psychic paper out of his pockets and brandished the psychic paper at him. "Voila!"
"What are you going to do?" A woman asked.
"The police have knocked on every door - no clues, no leads, nothing." an elderly woman told us.
"Look, kids run off sometimes, all right? That's what they do-" the man who found us in his yard.
"Dale Hixon in your garden, playing with your Tommy, and then...!" the older woman said. "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 said but was interrupted.
"Why don't we start with him?" a woman said pointing at a black man next to Rose. "There's been all sorts like him in this street, day and night."
"Fixing things up for the Olympics!" the man told her.
"Yeah, and taking an awful long time about it." the man who back the Doctor and I up said.
"I'm of the opinion that all we've gotta do is just-" the Doctor tried again.
"You don't- what you just said, that's slander!" the young man said again.
"I don't care what it is!" the woman who accused him of taking the kids said.
"I think we need to just-" The Doctor tried again.
"I want an apology off her!" the young man said.
"Stop picking on him." the older woman told her.
"Yeah, stop picking on me!" the man agreed.
"And stop pretending to be blind! It's evil!" the old woman said.
"I don't believe in evil." the woman blaming the young man said.
"Oh no, you just believe in tarmackers with sack loads of kidnapped kiddies in their van-" the tarmaker said.
"Ay, ay, ay, that's not what she's saying." the man said.
"Would you stop ganging up on me?!" the tar maker asked.
"Feeling guilty, are we?" the woman asked him.
"Fingers on lips!" The Doctor shouted over everyone. He put his finger on his lips and glared at the neighborhood citizens as if daring them not to do the same. After a moment of complete bewilderment, they put their fingers on their lips too. I looked at the Doctor who was looking at Rose, who followed his instructions. He turned to me. He gave me a pointed look and I shook my head at him. He gave me another look and I rolled my eyes at him before doing as told. "In the last six days, three of your children have been stolen. Snatched out of thin air, right?" the older woman gestured for permission to talk by taking her finger off her lips.
"Er... can I...?" she asked and the Doctor motioned for her to go ahead. "Look around you... this was a safe street 'til 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?" she asked us. I looked around, feeling something staring at me. I looked up and saw a young girl, staring down at us from a window. I noticed one of the women who'd been standing in our little circle spin around and looked up at the window before going inside.
The three of us stood in the yard the Doctor and I had been in earlier as the Doctor sniffed around the front lawn like a sniffer-dog.
"Want a hanky?" Rose asked him and I laughed.
"Can you smell it?" The Doctor asked us. I nodded my head at him and Rose sniffed the air around her. "What does it remind you of?"
"Sort of... metal?" Rose asked him.
"Mm-hm!" he said nodding.
"Oooh!" she said grinning. The Doctor and I waved to the man in the window before we left.
"Danny Edwards cycled in one end but never came out the other." The Doctor said as we walked down a narrow alleyway.
"There it goes again!" I said as the Doctor held up his hand.
["Look at the hairs on the back of my manly hairy hand." the said and I laughed.
"And there's that smell... it's like a um... a burnt fuse plug or something." Rose said.
"There's a residual energy in the spots where the kids vanished." The Doctor said.
"Whatever it was that took them used an awful lot of power." I said and we walked out of the alleyway.
"Aren't you a beautiful boy?!" I heard Rose say and I looked at Rose confused.
"Thanks! I'm experimenting with back-combing." the Doctor said, beaming. Rose was petting a cat close to us. "Oh."
"I used to have one like you." Rose told him. The cat meowed as the Doctor and I watched her uncomfortably. "What?"
"No, I'm not really a cat person. Once you've been threatened by one in a nun's wimple, it kind of takes the joy out of it." The Doctor told her as the cat wandered over to a cardboard box.
"Come here, puss!" Rose said following it.
"Rose, just leave him alone." I called after her.
"What do you wanna go in there for?" Rose said, ignoring me. "Ashlee! Doctor!" We hurried over to her as she stood up quickly.
"Whoa! Hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!" The Doctor said, waving the smell away and picking the now empty cardboard box. "Iron residue. Blimey! That takes some doing!" He turned the box over, impressed. "Just to snatch a living organism out of space/time. This baby is just like, "I'm 'avin' some of that" - I'm impressed."
"So the cat's been transported?" Rose asked.
"It can harness huge reserves of ionic power." The Doctor told her. "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 'em peeled, Lewis." The Doctor and I walked away, knowing Rose would follow.
I walked down the street alone as Rose and the Doctor both went in their own directions. The neighborhood was eerily quiet except for a dog barking in the distance. I jumped as I heard something crash from inside one of the garages. The initial crash was followed by several smaller ones as I approached the garage door.
"Hello?" I called into the garage but no one answered. There was a sound of something metal rolling along the floor from within. I puts my ear against the door, but jumped back almost immediately at the sound of another crash against the door. Slowly and tentatively I opened the door and looked around inside. Suddenly, I was ambushed by what looked a very violent tangle of wires, making a strange buzzing sound. I fell backwards, holding the creature back.
"Stay still!" The Doctor called to me.
"Easy for you to say!" I told him before the scribble convulsed and collapsed into a small ball that fell into my hands.
"Okey dokey?" The Doctor asked and I took his outstretched hand for him to help me up.
"Yeah." I told him. "Thanks."
"No probs." he told me. I suddenly lurched forward and looked down to see Rose's arms around me.
"I'm alright, Rose. I promise." I told her. She finally let me go and I showed the Doctor the object in my hand.
"I'll give you a fiver if you can tell me what the hell it is." the Doctor told me, poking the creature with his screwdriver. "'Cos I haven't got the foggiest."
"Well, I can tell you you've just killed it." Rose said looking at it.
"It was never living. It's animated by energy. Same energy that's snatching people." I told her as the Doctor took it from me and threw it up and down in the air, delighted.
"That is so dinky! The Go-Anywhere creature. Fits in your pocket... makes friends, impresses the boss... breaks the ice at parties..." he said, pocketing it. rose and I laughed as we left for the TARDIS.
When we got to the TARDIS I went to the computer as the Doctor put the object on the TARDIS console for analyzing. It took a few minutes for it to tell us what it was.
"Oh - hi ho, here we go. Let's have a look." The Doctor said as the readings came to the screen.
"No way." I said.
"Get out of here..." The Doctor said, just as surprised as I was.
"What's it say?" Rose asked as us. The Doctor took a pencil from his pocket and held the object out in front of him. He uses the eraser to rub out part of the object.
"It is!" I said smiling. "It's graphite! Basically the same material as an HB pencil." I told Rose.
"You were attacked by a... pencil scribble?" she asked me.
"Scribble creature." The Doctor corrected her, sniffing it. He held it out for Rose and I to sniff. "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?!"
"Maybe it was a mistake." Rose offered to us.
"You scribble over something when you wanna get rid of it. Like a um... like a drawing. Like a... a child's drawing." I said, remembering earlier. "It's in the street."
"Probably..." the Doctor said.
"The girl." I said looking at them.
"Of COURSE! ... What girl?" The Doctor asked me.
"Something about her gave was different about her... even her own mum looked scared of her." I said, thinking about what had happened.
"Are you deducting?" He asked me, leaning into me.
"I think I am." I told him.
"Copper's hunch?"
"Permission to follow it up, sarge."
We walked back to the house I'd seen the little girl in and ran the doorbell. We waited for a moment before the Doctor rapped on the letter box.
"Will you quit doing that?" I asked him. He smiled at me as the door opened.
"Hello! I'm the Doctor. This is the Hunter and Rose. Can we see your daughter?" The Doctor asked her.
"No! You can't." she told us.
"Okay! Bye." I said and we all turned and walked away, waiting.
"Why?" We all turned in unison to look at her. "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 told her.
"Sorry to bother you." Rose said.
"Yeah, sorry. We'll let you get on with things." The Doctor told her..
"On your own. Bye again!" I added. We turned and walked away again.
"Wait!" we turned back to her. "Can you help her?"
"Yes, we can." he told her smiling.
We sat in the sitting with the footage of the Olympic Torch Bearer on the TV.
"The Torch Bearer is running up towards the mall, which I can tell you is..." I sat down with Rose on the sofa while the Doctor flung his coat down next to me.
"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." Trish told us.
"What about Chloe's dad?" I asked.
"Chloe's dad died a year ago." she told me.
"I'm sorry." I told her.
"You wouldn't be if you'd known him." Trish told me.
"Well! Let's go and say hi!" The Doctor said brightly.
"I should check on her first... she might be asleep." Trish said, stopping us from leaving.
"Why are you afraid of her, Trish?" I asked her. I'd never seen a mother so afraid of her child. Afraid for her child yes, but no of them.
"I want you to know before you see her that's she's really a great kid." Trish told us.
"I'm sure she is." The Doctor agreed.
"She's never been in trouble at school... you should see her report from last year. As and Bs." Trish said smiling at us. I offered her a comforting smile in return.
"Can I use your loo?" Rose asked her. Trish nodded to her and I watched Rose as she left the room.
"She's in the choir... She's singing in an old folks home. Any mum would be proud." Trish told us.
"Yes, she would." I agreed.
"You know... I want you to know these things before you see her, Doctor. Because right now, she's not herself." Trish told us. We heard someone go into the kitchen and I looked at Trish. She nodded and I got up and went into the kitchen with the Doctor and Trish behind me.
"All right, there?" The Doctor asked her. Chloe was drinking some milk from the fridge as we walked further into the kitchen. The Doctor and I settled ourselves against the table as Chloe replaced the milk and closed the fridge door. "I'm the Doctor. This is my wife, the Hunter."
"I'm Chloe Webber."
"How're you doing, Chloe Webber?" I asked her.
"I'm busy. I'm making something. Aren't I, mum?" Chloe asked, turning to her mother.
"And like I said, she's not been sleeping." Trish told us.
"But you've been drawing, though. I'm rubbish. Stick men are about my limit. Can do this, though..." the Doctor did the 'live long and prosper' sign from Star Trek and Chloe stared at him expressionless. "Can you do that?" Chloe looked to her mother, who nodded, encouraging her to answer.
"They don't stop moaning." Chloe told us.
"Chloe..." Trish said to her.
"I try to help them, but they don't stop moaning." Chloe said.
"Who don't?" I asked, bending down to her level.
"We can be together." Chloe told me.
"Sweetheart-" Trish said, going to her.
"Don't touch me, mum." Chloe told her mother. Trish stopped in her tracks, letting her hand fall back to her side. I blanced up at the Doctor and Trish. "I'm busy... Doctor. Hunter." she said leaving.
"Oh, come on, Chloe! Don't be a spoil sport!" The Doctor said to her as we followed her. "What's the big project? I'm dying to know! What're you making up there?"
"Ashlee!" I lurched forward and sprinted up the stairs with the others following me. When I got up to the room I saw Rose staring into the wardrobe as thought transfixed.
"I'm coming to hurt you..." I heard a man say. I slammed the wardrobe doors shut without looking inside of it.
"Look at it." she told me.
"Yeah, that's not happening." I told her. I saw the Doctor walk away to examine the drawing on the wall.
"What the hell was that?" Trish asked.
"A drawing. The face of a man." Rose told her.
"What face?" Trish asked trying to open the doors but Rose and I rammed ourselves up against them, stopping her.
"Best not." I told her.
"What've you been drawing?" Trish asked, turning to her mother.
"I drew him yesterday." Chloe told her mother.
"Who?" Trish asked her.
"Dad." Chloe said.
"Your dad? But he's long gone. Chloe, with all the lovely things in the world - why him?" Trish asked her.
"I dream about him, staring at me." Chloe told her mother.
"I thought we were putting him behind us. What's the matter with you?" Trish asked her.
"There's no need to ask that." I told her but she ignored me.
"We need to stay together." Chloe told her.
"Yes, we do." Trish agreed with her.
"No. Not you. Us." Chloe corrected her. "We need to stay together. And then it'll be all right." Trish went to her, putting her hands on her daughter's cheeks but Chloe flinched away.
"Trish, the drawings - have you seen what Chloe's drawings can do?" Rose asked her.
"Who gave you permission to come into her room? Get out of my house." Trish ordered the three of us.
"Tell us about the drawings, Chloe." The Doctor told her.
"I don't wanna here any more of this." Trish told him.
"But that drawing of her dad... I heard a voice. He spoke." Rose told Trish.
"He's dead. And these - they're kids pictures. Now get out!" Trish demanded again.
"Chloe has a power. And I don't know how, but she used it to take Danny Edwards. Dale Hicks - she's using it to snatch the kids." I told her.
"Get out." Trish said.
"Have you seen those drawings move?" I asked her.
"I haven't seen anything." Trish told me.
"Yes you have. Out of the corner of your eye." The Doctor corrected her.
"No." Trish denied.
"And you dismissed it, because what choice do you have when you see something you can't possibly explain? You dismiss it, right? And if anyone mentions it, you get angry, so it's never spoken of, ever ag-" The Doctor said.
"She's a child-" Trish said.
"And you're terrified of her." I said. "But there's no one to turn to, because who's gonna believe the things you see out of the corner of your eye? No one. Except us."
"Who are you?" Trish asked looking at the two of us.
"We're help." the Doctor told her. We all left Chloe in her room and made our way back down into the kitchen. The Doctor swiped a jar of marmalade off the worktop, unscrewed the lid, dipped his fingers into it and starts sucking the jam off. Rose cleared her throat and he paused. I shook her head at him, mouthing 'no'. The Doctor, looking for all the world like a naughty schoolboy caught red-handed, glanced at Trish who was just staring at him. He meekly replaced the lid and pushed the jar behind him.
"Those pictures - they're alive. She's drawing people and they end up in her pictures." Rose said.
"Ionic energy. Chloe's harnessing it to steal those kids and place them in some kid of holding-pen made up of ionic power." the Doctor said.
"And what about the dad from hell in her wardrobe?" I asked.
"How many times do I have to tell you? He's dead." Trish told us.
"Well, he's got a very loud voice for a dead bloke." Rose said and I elbowed her.
"If living things can become drawings, then maybe drawings can become living things..." The Doctor said. He suddenly shivered violently, making Rose and I jump. I hot his arm for startling us. "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 us.
"But how can a twelve-year-old girl be doing any of this?" Rose asked us.
"Let's find out." he said after a pause. We strode off back up to Chloe's room to see her sitting cross-legged on the bed. The Doctor and I stood before her, looking down at her. She said nothing, but did the 'live long and prosper' sign.
"Nice one." The Doctor told her before he knelt in front of her, holding her head in his hands, fingers on her temples. Her eyes rolled in her head for a moment before closing. He closed his own eyes before suddenly Chloe fell backwards onto the bed. "There we go..."
"I can't let him do this-" I turned and saw Trish moving closer to us but Rose stopped her.
"Shh, it's okay. Trust them." Rose told her as the Doctor straightened up.
"Now we can talk." the Doctor said.
"I want Chloe. Wake her up. I want Chloe." Chloe said, revealing that there was something inside of her.
"Who are you?" The Doctor asked.
"I want Chloe Webber!" the creature said.
"What've you done to my little girl?" Trish asked.
"Doctor, Ashlee, what is it?" Rose asked us. The Doctor and I walked to opposite sides of the bed while looking down at Chloe.
"I'm speaking to you. The entity that is using this human child. I request parlez in compliance with the Shadow Proclamation." The Doctor said.
"I don't care about shadows or policies.
"So what do you care about?" I asked her.
"I want my friends." she told us.
"You're lonely, I know. Identify yourself." The Doctor told her.
"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!" she said and her eyes snapped open.
"Name yourself!" I demanded. I never liked people who messed with children.
"Isolus." I sighed and looked down.
"You're Isolus. Of course." the Doctor said.
"Our journey began in the Deep Realms when we were a family." She said, drawing on a piece of paper next to her on the bed.
"What's that?" Trish asked and I looked at the picture as it took shape.
"The Isolus Mother, drifting in Deep Space." I told her. "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."
"Our journey is long." the Isolus said.
"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." the Doctor explained.
"Thousands of years just floating through space... poor things - don't they go mad with boredom?" Rose asked.
"We play." the Isolus told her.
"You... play?" Rose asked.
"While they travel, they play games. They use their ionic power to literally create make-believe worlds in which to play. Like we did when we were kids only slightly different." I told her.
"In-flight entertainment." Rose said.
"Helps keep them happy. While they're happy, they can feed off each others love. Without it, they're lost." The Doctor said. "Why did you come to Earth?"
"We were too close." she said before ripping the piece of paper she was drawing on off the pad and started anew.
"That's a solar flare from your sun. Would've made a tidal wave of solar energy that scattered the Isolus pods." The Doctor said.
"Only I fell to Earth. My brothers and sisters are left up there. And I cannot reach them. So alone." she said.
"Your pod crashed... where is it?" I asked her.
"My pod was drawn to heat... And I was drawn to Chloe Webber. She was like me. Alone. She needed me. And I her." she told us. The Doctor stroked her head as the tears fell from her eyes silently.
"You empathised with her. You wanted to be with her because she was alone like you." the Doctor said.
"I want my family. It's not fair." she told us.
"We understand. You wanna make a family." The Doctor told her. "But you can't stay in this child. It's wrong. You can't steal any more friends for yourself."
"I am alone." she said. There a thump from the wardrobe making Trish gasp.
"I'm coming to hurt you." Chloe started to shake and tremble in fear, although her face remained impassive. There was a pounding on the door of the wardrobe. "I'm coming."
"Trish, how do you calm her?" I asked her as Chloe's body was jerking as though she wais having a seizure.
"What?!" she asked me.
"When she has nightmares, what do you do?" I asked.
"I... I..."
"What do you do?" I almost yelled at her.
"I sing to her." she told me.
"Then start singing." I said as the Doctor motioned for Trish to take his place next to Chloe.
"Chloe... I'm coming."
"Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree, merry merry king of the bush is he..." Trish sang.
"Chloe... Chloe..." The banging and thumping on the door continued. The Doctor, Rose and I all looked over at it, whilst Trish stroked Chloe's hair, trying to sooth her. "Chloe... Chloe..."
"Laugh, Kookaburra laugh, Kookaburra, gay your life must be." The banging and the voice eventually faded. "Laugh, Kookaburra laugh, Kookaburra, gay your life must be." Trish sang until her daughter was asleep. "He came to her because she was lonely... Chloe, I'm sorry..." She buried her head in her little girl's shoulder, arms around her, sobbing.
Trish strode into the sitting room and started gathering up all the pencils that are lying around.
"Chloe usually got the brunt of his temper. When he'd had a drink. The day he crashed the car, I thought we were free." Trish told us as Rose handed her a bunch of pencils. "I thought it was over."
"Did you talk to her about it?" Rose asked her.
"I didn't want to." Trish said.
"That's why Chloe feels so alone. 'Cos she has all these terrible dreams about her dad, but she can't talk to you about them." I said and she kept her eyes down on the ground.
"Her an the Isolus... two lonely kids who need each other." the Doctor said.
"And it won't stop, will it? It'll just keep pulling kids in." Rose said.
"It's desperate to be loved. It's used to a pretty big family." the Doctor told her.
"How big?" Rose asked.
"Four billion." I told her. We left soon after to go back to the TARDIS. the Doctor shrugged into his coat as we left.
"We need that pod." The Doctor said.
"It crashed - won't it be destroyed?" Rose asked us.
"Well, it's been sucking in all the heat it can... hopefully that should keep it in a fit state to launch." I told her. "It must be close. It should have a weak energy signature that the TARDIS can trace. Once we find it, then we can stop the Isolus." we walked back to the TARDIS and the Doctor dug in his pockets for the key.
"We can scan for the same trace we picked up from the scribble creature. Just need to widen the field a bit." The Doctor started fumbling with a device, putting it together as Rose and I watched.
"Oh give me that." I told him taking it from him so it would be put together right.
"I can do it you know." he told me and I gave him a look, shutting him up.
"You knew the Isolus was lonely before it told you. How?" Rose asked him.
"I know what it's like to travel a long way on your own." he told her.
"Give me the thing in your left hand." I told her and she glanced at me, chewing on gum absent-mindedly.
"Sounds like you're on its side." Rose said to him. Rose slotted the 'thing in her left hand' into the device while I holds it still between my legs.
"I sympathise, that's all." The Doctor told her.
"The Isolus has caused a lot of pain for these people." Rose said and I glanced at her, confused at her words.
"It's a child!" I said before the Doctor blew on the device. "That's why it went to Chloe, two lonely kids." I examined the device before blowing on it again.
"Hmm... feels to me like a temper tantrum because it can't get its own way." Rose said and I shook my head at her.
"It's scared! Come on, you were a kid once." the Doctor said.
"Binary dot." Rose handed me the binary dot.
"Yes! And I know what kids can be like. Right little... terrors." she told us.
"Gum." Rose spit her gun into my hand.
"Kids can't have it all their own way. That's part of being a family." Rose said. I stuck her gun into the device, securing it.
"What about trying to understand them?" the Doctor asked her.
"Easy for you to say. You two don't have kids." Rose said.
"We were parents once." I told her offhandedly.
"What did you say?" she asked me.
"I think we're there!" I said, going to the console. "Fear. Loneliness. They're the big ones, Rose. 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 the world.
"There's a lot of things you need to get across this universe." the Doctor told her. "Warp drive... wormhole refractors... You know the thing you need most of all? You need a hand to hold." He noticed Rose's outstretched hand and took it, grinning.
"No! Look, I'm pointing." she said laughing. The Doctor and I looked at the computer screen where she was pointing - a flashing white light on a map of the neighborhood indicates the whereabouts of the pod.
"It's the pod! It is in the street! Everything's coming up Doctor!" he said and we scooted off towards the doors with Rose behind us.
"Okay. It's about two inches across. Dull grey, like a gulls egg. Very light." he told us.
"So these pods - they travel from sun to sun using heat, yeah? So it's not all about love and stuff. Doesn't the pod just need heat?" she asked. Before the Doctor or I could say anything a crash came from behind us, causing us to turn - the device she and I just constructed was shattered on the floor - and the Doctor had vanished.
"Doctor?" I called out to him. The TARDIS was gone. "Doctor!" I ran back to Trish's house as fast as I could. When I got to her house I knocked on the door frantically. When she opened the door I barged past her and up the stairs with her and Rose behind me.T
"It's okay! I've taken all the pencils off her!" Trish told us. I bursts into Chloe's bedroom and crossed the room to the desk, swiping away the paper Chloe was drawing on and observing the TARDIS and the Doctor sketched onto it.
"Leave me alone! I want to be with Chloe Webber! I love Chloe Webber!" The Isolus told me.
"Bring him back, now." I told her sternly.
"No." she denied and I moved away slowly from her.
"Don't you realize what you've done? They are the only ones who could help you, now bring him back!" Rose said viciously. I turned to see her holding Chloe by the shoulders.
"Leave me alone! I love Chloe Webber!" the Isolus told her.
"Rose!" I said and Rose backed off.
"I know." Rose told her. "I know." I turned down to the paper I was holding.
"Doctor, if you can hear me, I'm gonna get you out of there. I'll find the pod." I told him before turning to Trish. "Don't leave her alone, no matter what." I ordered before leaving the room. I walked outside with Rose behind me.
"Heat. They travel on heat." she said. We saw Kel, the tarmaker, on his hand and knees rubbing on the pavement.
"Look at this finish. Smooth as a baby's bottom." he said as we hurried over to him. "Not a bump or a lump."
"Kel, was there anything in this street in the last few days giving off a lot of heat?" Rose asked him.
"I mean, you can eat your dinner off this. Beautiful. So you tell me why the other one's got a lump in it when I gave it the same love and craftsmanship I did this one!" Kel said.
"Well, when you've worked it out, put it in a big book about tarmacking, but before you do that - think back six days." Rose told him.
"Six days..." he said, remembering. "When I was laying this the first time round!"
"What?" I asked him.
"Well, that's when I filled in this pothole for the first time." he told me.
"Six days ago..." Rose said working it out. "Hot fresh tar..."
"Blended to a secret council recipe." Kel said. Without another word, I stood and ran to his van. "Ah- ah! I don't keep it in the van!" I wrenched open the doors. "Ay, that's a council van. Out." I ignored him and climbed inside. I grabbed the closest ax and grinned. I hopped out of the van and went to the fresh tar. "Whoa, wait, wait, wait, you just removed a council axe from a council van. Put it back. No don't, wait - put the axe back in the van, that's my van, gimme the axe." I swung the ax behind me, ready to bring it down hard on the road. "No! Wait! No!" With a shout, I brought the ax crashing down the road, smashing through the tarmac. "No! You- stop!" I hacked at the road again. "You just took a council axe - from a council van - and now you're digging up a council road! I'm reporting you to the council!" I handed the ax to Rose and bent down, digging in the hole I just made. I smiled when I found the pod.
"It went for the hottest thing in the street. Your tar!" Rose told him, laughing in delight.
"What is it?!" Kel asked us.
"It's a spaceship! Not a council spaceship, I'm afraid so I'll take it with me." I told him going back to Chloe's house.
"We found it!" Rose said going to the sitting room with me behind her.
"I don't know what we can do with it, but maybe the Isolus will just hop on board." Rose said before I realized Trish was alone.
"Hang on, I told you not to leave her!" I told her.
"My God. Er - what's going on here?" We turned to the TV and saw the crowds inside the stadium had vanished, leaving it deserted.
"I don't care if you've got Snow White and the Seven Dwarves buried under there, you don't go digging up-" Kel started saying to me.
"Shut up and look!" Rose told him.
"The crowd has vanished! Er- um... they're gone. Everyone has gone. Thousands of people have just gone. Er... um... right in front of my eyes. Um... it's impossible! Bob, can we join you, um, in the box? Bob? Not you too, Bob?"
"The stadium won't be enough. The Isolus has four billion brothers and sisters." I said running up to Chloe's room to see the door was closed. I tried to open it but something blocked me.
"Chloe?" Trish called to her.
"Chloe, it's the Hunter! Open the door!" I told her. "We found your ship! We can send you home!"
"Chloe?!" Rose called.
"Open up!" I told her. "Stand back. Rose give me the ax. Trish and Rose did as I said and I swung the ax and brought it crashing down on the door. I swung the ax again and again, splintering the wood. Having made a large enough hole in the door to fit my arm through, I knocked the chair out of the way and opened the door. Before rushing in with the other two.
"Chloe!" Rose said.
"I'm coming to hurt you... I'm coming..." I saw the picture of the earth being colored in.
"We've gotta stop her." I said. I started forward but the wardrobe doors rattled particularly violently and I stepped back.
"If you stop Chloe Webber, I will let him out. We will let him out together. I cannot be alone. It's not fair." the Isolus told us.
"Look, we've got your pod." Rose said.
"The pod is dead." the Isolus told us.
"It- it only needs heat." Rose said, not understanding.
"It needs more than heat." I said.
"What, then?" she asked me.
"Love."
"I'm not being funny or nothing, but that picture just moved." I turned to see Kel pointing at one of the pictures of the kids. "And that one!" I picked it up to see a sketch of the Olympic Torch next to the Doctor with him pointing to it.
"She didn't draw that. He did. How's that going to help, Doctor?" I asked him.
"It's much more than a torch now, it's a beacon. It's a beacon of hope and fortitude and courage. And it's a beacon of love." I spun to the computer screen to see the runner.
"Love." I said.
"So let's have a look from the helicopter - there we go, the torch running..."
"I know how to charge up the pod." I told them, running out of the room and down the street. I joined all the people who'd gone to see the Torch Bearer run by, squeezing through to the front.
"Sorry, you'll have to watch from here." the policeman said, stopping me.
"No, I've gotta get closer..." I told him.
"No way!" he told me.
"We can stop this from happening!" Rose shouted at him. As the torch bearer passed by, the pod begins to chirp.
"You felt it, didn't you?" I asked it. I backed out of the crowd and then brought my cupped hands close to my mouth, whispering to the pod. "Feel the love." I threw it into the air and it is drawn to the torch. The torch bearer staggered slightly as it falls into the flames, but dismissed it. Rose and I jumped up and down with joy.
"Yes!" she cheered. Kel joined us, confused and I ran to where the TARDIS had been. I saw the TARDIS just sitting there as though nothing had happened, but no Doctor. I went inside and grinned at the Doctor who looked as though he was waiting for me.
"Ready?" he asked me.
"Always." I told him and he took the TARDIS to where the stadium was and we waited in the crowd. We watched the torch bearer stagger a bit before he collapsed. The Doctor grabbed my hand and ran to the torch. He picked it up and we ran alongside the crowds and up the red carpeted stairs with the torch, the spot light following him. The Doctor and I faced the crowds with huge grins on our faces and he whooped making me laugh. He then lit the Olympic Flame.
"Go on. Join your brothers and sisters. They'll be waiting." he told the Isolus as the crowd screened and cheered. The Isolus, unseen by anyone except the Doctor and I, rose up into the air and away into the night.
"Have I told you recently that I love you?" I asked him.
"Not that I can recall." he told me, grinning as I kissed him.
Later that night the Doctor and I were walking back down Dame Kelly Holmes Close, hand in hand.
"Cake?" the Doctor and I turned and saw Rose holding out a cupcake decorated with edible ball bearings. We started to laugh together.
"Top banana!" he said taking it from her and taking a bite. "Mm. I can't stress this enough. Ball bearings you can eat - masterpiece!" I hugged Rose tightly for a moment before letting her go.
"What now?" she asked us as we walked down the street.
"I wanna go to the games! What we came for!" the Doctor told her.
"Go on - give us a clue - which events do we do well in?" Rose asked us and I smiled at her.
"Well, I will tell you this: Papua New Guinea surprises everyone in the shot put." the Doctor told her.
"... Really? You're joking, aren't you? Doctor, are you serious or are you joking?" she asked him.
"Wait and see!" I told her, laughing as fireworks exploded overhead.
"You know what; they keep on trying to split us up, but they never will again." I told him.
"Never say never ever." he told me, stopping us in our tracks.
"Nah. We'll always be okay, you and me." I told him. The Doctor looked skywards, reflecting for a moment - as though he sensed something.
"Something in the air. Something coming." he told me.
"What?" Rose asked him. I looked up the sky, which was lit up with fireworks. "A storm's approaching."
The next time on the Doctor's Girl:
This is the story of war on Earth.
"The valiant child who will die in battle so very soon."
I walked down the hall, following who I'd seen earlier.
"It said I was gonna die in battle." I reminded him.
"Then it lied." he told me
I snuck around the side of the TARDIS to get the lab coat.
"Woke up one morning, and there they were - ghosts everywhere." Mum told us
We saw kids playing ball, completely ignoring the ghosts right next to them.
"Oi where are you taking that?" I heard Mum ask.
"If it's alien, it's ours." the woman from before told her.
I peaked out of the TARDIS doors.
"We've got a problem down here. Yvonne, can you hear me?" he called to her.
I looked out the window to see war happening below us.
The Doctor stood outside the TARDIS, waiting for the ghost.
Men with guns surrounded the TARDIS.
Cybermen.
That's when it all ended. This is the last story I'll ever tell.