Why did she decide to go after the girl? She wasn't good with kids. Hell, she wasn't good with people. How was she supposed to get Kitty to tell her where the other kids were? She wouldn't trust a bunch of adults, either. Adults had done nothing but screw her over since she'd grown up herself.

Danni really should have let the Doctor deal with the little girl. Then again, how was she supposed to deal with Bill? She didn't trust her at all, and she knew she couldn't just fake it. She was too old and too tired to deal with Bill's many, many annoying questions. And she knew that Bill wasn't too keen on her, either. She was the Doctor's friend, not hers.

Danni spotted Kitty stick her head out from around the back of a tent and darted forward, grabbing her arm before she could go anywhere. "Wait, wait!"

Kitty tugged her arm, trying to get away. "I'll scream," she warned.

"Sure, you go right ahead. But we all know between the girl in rags and the woman in fine clothing, who they're going to believe."

Kitty stopped fighting. "What do you want?" she demanded. "What did you do to Spider?"

"Nothing. How could I? I was farther away then you were, remember?" Danni snapped back before pulling her towards the edge of the festivities. "I know you're scared. We're all scared, that's life but what you saw wasn't normal and we want to help."

"There's only one of you, now," Kitty accused.

"That's because my husband has gone to deal with the runaway child while I'm doing the sensible thing and following you," she retorted. "We really just want to help. We don't do police and we don't do adults. Your friend is gone but you're still here and I think we should keep it that way, don't you?"

"And what are you going to do, eh?" Kitty challenged. "You're not up to much, are you?"

"Hey!" Danni exclaimed before catching herself. She leant in a little closer. "You know as much as I do that what's on the outside doesn't matter. I'm better than you think. You know you're in danger and you know that it's not from us."

Kitty looked unsure, distrustful and Danni couldn't blame her for a moment. She felt the same about most things and she was really starting to regret agreeing to going on a trip. She should have just stayed home and looked after the Vault. If, for one moment, Missy got out…

"Is-Is Spider dead?" she asked and Danni sighed.

"Most likely," she admitted. "And I am sorry. I wouldn't have chased you had I known what was underneath the ice."

"What is underneath the ice?" Kitty asked.

"I don't know. But I promise we'll find out and we'll stop it," Danni told her. "But we need your help. We just want to keep you safe."

"What are you going to do?" the girl asked, this time genuinely asking rather than using it as a slight.

Danni looked around again, trying to see what she could spot in the crowds. There was a lot of people, all wearing fancy clothing and making her feel like Missy could sneak through them without anyone noticing. So, there was nothing new there for her.

"For now, you're going to take me to where the rest of you are," she explained. "Then we'll work from there."

"What about your husband?"

Danni smiled and tapped her own temple. "Don't worry about him. He can read my thoughts," she explained, like it was a joke. "He'll find us."

~0~0~0~

The Doctor found Bill sat at the river's edge, huddled into herself and crying. He hovered behind her, a little awkward as he really wasn't sure how to deal with anyone being emotional around him. Bill glanced up as his shadow fell over her and she rolled her eyes.

"How did you find me?"

"Get used to that question," the Doctor told her.

"Oh, clever. Yeah, very clever," she retorted, with a crack in her voice that said she was still very much upset. He reached up and took off his hat, running his hand through his hair to sort it out. He did love a hat, but it flattened his hair and it was rather annoying. How was he supposed to look like the handsome hero with his hair stuck to the top of his head?

He knew that he was focusing on his hair because Bill's mood was making him uncomfortable, and he also knew that he couldn't ignore it. "What's wrong?"

She looked at him like he had two heads. Not for the first time. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Seriously, what's wrong? I've never seen anyone die before!"

It wasn't a new thought. His life was a dangerous one, and eventually everyone saw someone die. Reactions varied wildly depending on the situation. Donna had been concerned for him. Danni had frozen and terrified. And Bill Potts, it would seem, was just plain upset.

"A few weeks ago we were standing in a garden full of dead people," he reminded her. It just took some perspective, sometimes, to get people back on track.

"That was different," she protested.

"How?"

She turned from even. He knew she could see the flaw in her own argument. Why did he surround himself with such stubborn people?

"They were dead already," she told him. He tried not to sigh. They didn't have time for this whole discussion. There was a kid dead under the water and they had no idea how that happened. Or, in fact, who else had been dragged under. He didn't know what was there, or who had put it there, or why they were eating people in the first place. It reminded him too much of the half-faced man he had fought when he had regenerated, oh so long ago now. Danni had told him she'd met the half-robot again in the data slice that Missy had created as an afterlife. He hoped it wasn't something like that again. How terribly boring that would be.

"Have you ever killed anyone?" she shot at him. He should have expected it, but he didn't. He never did. "There's a look in your eyes sometimes that makes me wonder. Have you?"

He thought back over his life. He saw flashes in his mind of all the people he failed to save, of all the people he let die. Of all the people he purposefully led to their deaths because he had no other choice, or because he was angry. "There are situations when the options available are limited…"

She shook her head, upset. "Not what I asked."

He tried again, hoping to be more diplomatic. "Sometimes the choices are very…"

"That's not what I asked!" she exclaimed and he realised that she already knew the answer. In her heart, in the way she looked at him and he sighed again.

"Yes."

"How many?" she challenged but he didn't reply. It wouldn't matter if he told her the amount. It could have been one, it could have been a million. His answer would always mean the same. "Don't tell me. You've moved on." She swallowed hard, angry at him even though she didn't know why. "What about your wife? Does she know? Or was she in on it as well?"

The accusations at himself the Doctor could live with. He'd wasn't clean in his life and he knew that, depending on which side you were on, he could be the good guy or the bad guy. He could hold up his hand and accept any punishment coming his way. But the anger, and the accusation in Bill's eyes wasn't something he would ever stand being aimed at someone else.

"No," he cut in before she could rant even more. "Be angry at me, or don't, that's entirely up to you at this point. You've already made your decision on whether or not I'm morally sound. But don't bring Danielle into your dilemma."

"I can tell you something now, Doctor," Bill started. "You can pretend that you've moved on all you like. But I've seen the way that Danni's been walking around here, I've seen the way she looks at all of the other people at the university. She doesn't care."

Again, he knew that she wasn't angry at either him or Danni. She was upset, she was mourning the loss of a little boy she didn't know and her innocent thoughts that everything worked out for the best. She didn't know how dangerously close she was to the truth, or the effort that both Time Lords had been putting in to make sure that Danni did care again.

He took a deep breath. "You know what happens if we don't move on? More people die," he told her lowly. "There are kids living rough near here. They may well be next on the menu. And she's not the one taking the time to have a tantrum in the middle of it." He held up his hand as she opened her mouth to protest. "Let me tell you something. I'm two thousand years old, and I have never had the time for the luxury of outrage."

He could see Bill's conflict rushing on her face, and part of him wondered if he had been too hard on her. She'd had quite the experience seeing the young boy being pulled under the ice, he wasn't feeling particularly great about it either. And he knew that Danni, when she allowed herself to, would also care. She didn't really remember it, but he could still see her holding Rigsy's baby like she would destroy the universe before she would let anything happen to the little one in her arms. He knew that there was a protective, emotional, loving person in her that she was so used to repressing that she struggled to let them out. He knew she would be with the young lass she'd chased after, thinking every single moment about the little boy in the hopes that maybe they could save the rest.

And he was with Bill, hoping that if he couldn't save the boy, maybe he could save his friend. And maybe if he could help Bill see that the universe needed help, even when it was uncomfortable or upsetting, and if they didn't help then no one would.

She tried not to look at him, she tried not to let his words settle in her head and, for some strange reason, calm her. Giving her something to focus on was actually helping. "What do you mean 'on the menu'?" she asked.

"Something pulled that boy underneath the water," he reasoned. "If it's under the water it most likely lives there. Why else would it come up?"

"Because most things are hungry, yeah?" Bill replied and he shot her a smug look.

"I knew you were listening," he replied. "Yes, I suspect our victim has unfortunately become a rather tasty snack. The thought now is; how do we save the next one?"

Bill's immediate thought was to go tell someone, but then she thought back to their last adventure together. She'd thought that maybe they should have called the police when they realised that the emoji robots were killing everyone. She'd quickly come to realise that the Doctor was the police, or rather a more eccentric version of them. So she quickly dismissed the thought and had a look around. No one seemed to have noticed that something horrific had just happened, or was happening around them, so they probably didn't know.

"Where's Danni?" she asked, another horrible thought coming to her. "She didn't get pulled under as well, did she?"

The Doctor pulled a face. "What? No, of course not. You think I would be here calming you down if she had?" He had a point, but Bill still glared at him for dismissing her upset yet again. "No, she went after the little girl." He paused for a moment then looked to his left. "That way."

Bill followed him. "How do you do that?" she asked. "Is it an alien thing? Are you two like, bonded or something mentally because you're alien and married? Or can I learn it as well, 'cause that would be really helpful? Or is it something a human brain can't do?"

Again with all the questions. They always both annoyed and amused him. Oh, was that how Danielle felt about Nardole? He was starting to understand it.

"It has nothing to do with being human. Danielle has a human brain; she can do it. It's to do with your species complete and utter ignorance when it comes to the power your brains can handle."

"I thought she was alien too?"

"She is," the Doctor replied, confusing her even more. "She's also human. And a little immortal, but we're still working the extent of that out."

"Hang on, immortal? As in 'she can't die'?" she exclaimed and he waved her questions away as he spotted his wife with the little girl waiting patiently for them catch them up. Kitty wasn't looking particularly comfortable teaming up with the adults she'd grown up to be wary of, but he knew by the fact that she was stood with Danni meant that she was agreeing to work with them.

"Are we close?" he asked her and she nodded. He turned to Kitty. "Lead the way."

~0~0~0~

The children's hideout was in an abandoned house not too far from the river. It was empty, at first, but all of the homeless children Kitty looked after came out of hiding at her command. They, of course, were hiding from the adults who may have been on the lookout for children to take to the Magistrate so no one could blame them for hiding.

"Oh, I see! I get it," the Doctor said happily, looking around at all the young children, including the little girl he had given his hat to. "You lure people to the fair and then you rob them. Very good. Very enterprising."

"That's not how it is," Kitty protested.

"Oh, what? You don't rob people?"

"Course we do. But bringing people to the fair, that's by-the-by. On the side, like," she explained.

"Why?"

"For coin, of course," Kitty replied.

"Money, obviously," Danni said at the same time like it was a stupid question. She shot him a look. "What? You think I got by on the run with just my good looks alone?"

The Doctor shrugged. "I assumed it was a large part of it, yes," he replied. "That and the stealing."

"Well, I worked the odd job as well," she said, almost defensively. "People will pay you if you're not tracible. I imagine a gaggle of adorable, streetwise urchins know exactly how not to be found."

"Hang on," Bill interrupted, leaning forward slightly. "You were on the run? Are you like, an outlaw or something?"

Danni looked at her, trying not to feel rather smug at the question. "Yes, very much so," she boasted lightly. "There's a bounty on both our heads."

"Seriously?"

"No," the Doctor told her. "Of course not."

Bill didn't know which one to believe, after all she'd had her suspicions about the Doctor since the first time she'd stepped foot in the TARDIS and realised what he was. Danni, though, rolled her eyes like she was used to him contradicting her and that didn't settle anything at all. Were they outlaws? Was she travelling with some sort of known criminal gang? Or was it all a misunderstanding, because she didn't have much faith in Earth's police, let alone anyone else's.

"Kitty?" one of the children spoke up, tugging on the older girl's clothing. "Where's Spider?"

That was a question they had all been expecting, Kitty included, but no one had thought to prepare an answer for. After a little bit of fumbling they managed to distract the children from their friend's demise by giving them some food to quell the hunger that, no doubt, they felt pretty much all of the time.

Danni didn't like the idea of any children living on the streets, and she couldn't blame them for being wary of them as well. She'd had a few people offer her help when she was trying to find the Doctor, and she could never trust anyone enough to take it. Even beyond the looming threat of Missy over her head, the universe was a dark and cruel place and it seemed no one really liked to work outside their own agenda.

Plus, she knew the price on her head. She'd been told how valuable she had been long ago by a man trying to steal a spaceship full of dinosaurs and as she'd gotten older that estimate just seemed to be more and more substantiated.

She had to wonder how many children she had made homeless in her time. How many didn't have parents? How many she'd failed to save.

She watched the Doctor do what he did best, which was win over the crowd by reading the little children stories for what was probably the first time in their lives. He used to watch her with children, were these thoughts running through his head as well? She never understood why he continued to punish himself when all he had done was try to help. She hadn't tried to help. She'd just doomed children to die because she had been afraid.

He glanced up from the book he was reading from and caught her gaze. He shot her a smile and she couldn't help but send him one back in return. The children loved him. She could understand that. She loved to hear him tell stories.

He motioned her in from the doorway and, after a brief moment of deliberation, she decided that life was too short to listen from far away. It was a little bit of a struggle with the dress she was wearing, but she sat down next to him as he finished up.

"Okay, I'm wondering why the Frost Fair's on this part of the river," he started, closing his book once he got to the end of the short story. "I bet that at least one of you knows who paid Kitty to take people out on the ice."

The little girl who had given them the flier for the fair didn't hesitate to speak up. "It was the bad man, with a ship."

The other girl looked at her, alarmed. "Dottie!"

"A ship?" Danni asked, her brows furrowed. "Like, one on the Thames?"

"Not that kind of ship," the little boy spoke up. Again, the other girl was seemingly alarmed with how quickly her friends were giving away the information.

Kitty quickly reassured them though that even though the trio were strange, they could let them know about the man with the ship. Dottie held her hand out, pointing to the space on the back of her hand between her thumb and forefinger. "It's a drawing. Here, on his hand."

"A tattoo?" Danni asked. She looked up at the Doctor. "There's a lot of merchants around here, that could be quite a common tattoo."

"But we could ask around?" Bill added. The Doctor looked down at the pair, who were both staring up at him expectantly, waiting for him to either agree with their idea or offer his own.

He decided on the latter. He closed his book with a firm snap and stood up. "Boring!" he declared. "I know something that's much easier to find." He held his hand out, helping Danni off the floor. She took it with a giant grin, one which looked amazing on her face. He was so happy she was enjoying herself.

"Where are we going?" Bill asked, getting up herself.

The Doctor didn't reply to her, although only Bill was expecting him to. Instead he turned to the small group of children. "All right. You guys, hang tight! Laters."

He left, Bill trailing after him with a slightly disgusted look on her face. Danni offered the children a small smile. "Sorry," she said. "He really is trying to be young. He doesn't do very well." She picked up the Doctor's hat, the one he left behind, and hesitated for a moment before placing it back on the little blonde girl's head. "Here, you keep this. Suits you better."

~0~0~0~

Bill had to lift her skirt up slightly to keep up with the Time Lords, who were walking away from the small hideout with a sense of purpose that she was struggling to keep up with. She wasn't about to be left behind, though, so she sped forward with a million questions in her head.

"So, what's easier to find?" she asked them.

The Doctor, who was still holding his wife's hand, glanced behind them at Bill. "Conjecture," he replied. "There's something frozen under the Thames and it's eating people."

"Okay."

"Proposal. We need to get a closer look at it."

Danni slowed down slightly, shooting him a rather concerned look. "Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"

In return he shot her a giant grin. "Oh yes," he replied. "Plan: let's get eaten."

~0~0~0~

"You have to come," the Doctor begged. "What's the fun if you're not in the water with us?"

Danni chucked a helmet onto the large cart. "One of us has to stay on the surface in case something goes wrong," she reasoned. "If we're all down there and our new friend starts to get too bitey, then we're fucked."

"That's not the reason," he protested. "Bill could very easily stay up here and we go down into the water together."

Danni stopped, a pair of belts in hand. "Bill doesn't know how to work the TARDIS. How is that going to help us when something thinks we're their next appetiser?"

"We could show her what to do. It's not that hard," he dismissed. "It's because you don't trust her."

She shot him a look. "I don't trust anyone," she pointed out.

"You trust me," he said. She didn't reply, continuing to load their two diving suits onto the cart. He'd insisted on not moving the TARDIS to the water, which she could understand, but instead moving the equipment closer on foot. She agreed, but they could have moved a little closer. And used a cart that no one needed to push.

He wanted to be historically accurate. She felt that even the idea of that had gone right out of the window. They'd agreed to disagree.

"You could go down," he tried. "I'll stay up here."

"But I don't know what you're looking for. You don't even know that," she replied. "How am I supposed to find it?"

"Because you're the one who usually points out what I'm missing. You could find it long before I even knew what it was."

"Now who's making excuses?" she shot back. "She's your companion, it's your idea and it's your adventure. So you can go into the freezing cold Thames looking for a giant fish we already know is there." She shook a pair of gloves at him. "Also, I can't help but notice that I'm the only one loading all the stuff onto this ridiculous cart."

He quickly grabbed a helmet to show his participation but held onto it, not loading anything at all and leaving Danni with the rest of the work. "What is the real reason?" he asked. "You know those diving suits are insulated. We've worn them in colder waters before."

She sighed, pressing her lips together as she tried to decide whether or not to tell him the thoughts in her head. They weren't new. They were never new. They just went over and over the same points and nothing ever got resolves, because the only way to resolve it was the one way the Doctor would never allow.

"One of us has to stay behind because, if something goes wrong and we can't stop it, one of us has to go back to the university," she stated, not looking at him but rather the gloves in her hand. "You've known the Master for longer than I ever will, but I know Missy better." She placed the gloves on the cart. "You can go in the water. I'll save you if something goes wrong, and you'll look really impressive for your companion."

"Danni…" he started and she shot him another warning look.

"Don't," she cut in. "Please, we have this conversation all the time. I love you purely for the effort of trying to make me forget, but I'm not going to and this is how I deal with it; by making sure that we're going to survive whatever is thrown our way."

He didn't argue, he just took her hand and gave it a squeeze before finally helping her load the rest of the equipment. He meant well, she knew he did, and she really had been trying to enjoy the trip for the adventure it was. It was all just baby steps, though. Maybe next time she would go in the water, but this time it was safer for everyone if she was above the surface whilst they were below. They both knew that her panic was a hindrance, not a help.

So she stood on the side of the Thames and watched Bill fall under the ice. She didn't think that she'd stared so hard in her many lives as she did when the Doctor followed. She just watched the ice, trying to see something, anything through the frosted surface. She couldn't see a thing, though. All she could do was hope with everything that he didn't get stuck down there and that she could be fast enough if he needed her. She even started worrying her hands together, dancing nervously on the spot, which wasn't something she had been prone to do since she'd regenerated.

The floor shook and she held her arms out to stop herself from falling. Th rumble came from under the ice, a deep noise that seemed to shake the ice itself. And Danni, once she caught herself, realised that her eyes had teared up just from the sound. Not because she was scared, but because it had sounded sad. It had felt lonely. It had felt like there was no hope left. Whatever was underneath the ice didn't want to be there, and she knew that feeling very well. It resonated deep inside her, where her own sadness still hung about. The worst thing in the universe was having no hope at all. Whatever was under there wasn't the monster, it was the victim.

It was just when she was starting to regret not going under the ice when they reappeared again. Her shoulders sagged in relief, even though she hadn't realised she was that tense in the first place. She also didn't care that he was soaking wet, or that Bill was watching as she rushed to meet them.

The Doctor took off his helmet. "Well, there was…" he started before she chucked herself at him, hugging him tightly. He froze underneath her for a moment, concerned that something was wrong before his brain kicked back into gear and he realised that it was him being under the ice that had been worrying her and she was just relieved that he was alright.

Bill took her own helmet off. She looked just as uncomfortable as Danni felt. "The sound it made. I couldn't hear you, but that noise, it's like I felt it in my bones, you know? It sounded like, like…"

"Despair," Danni finished for her. She took a step back from the Doctor and straightened herself out, ignoring the wet patch that now soaked her front. "Trapped, alone. A prisoner without hope of salvation, of being saved, of being free. Calling out into the universe but knowing they will never be heard. The sound of pure futility."

Bill looked at the other woman, who had looked down to stare at the ice like she was trying to see through it. "You could hear it too?"

"Oh, I suspect she heard it very well," the Doctor replied lowly, watching his wife. The look on her face concerned him. The emotion had all but fallen away, but he could see the thoughts working behind her eyes. "Danielle…"

She looked up at him. "Let's find them," she declared, her lips pulling up into an angry snarl. "I'll kill the bastard who's done this."