Discovery

by LizzeXX

11/OC -Time Lady- The Doctor has lost all his people again after his confrontation with House...or has he? When a mysterious contact appears that leads to an old friend, the Doctor might just find himself with more than he bargained for. A dear friend who went Mad at the Untempered Schism, a friend of his AND the Master's. What will happen? First in the Mysteries of Space and Time.

6. Night Terrors

Night Terrors

"I really DON'T think this is necessary, Doctor," the Detective began, looking down at herself. She had a life vest on, an inflatable tube around her waist, and floaties strapped to her arms AND her legs.

"Oh, I think it is," the Doctor remarked, checking the straps on her vest for the third time in the last two minutes.

"You're going a bit overboard."

"AM I?" he gave her a pointed look as the Ponds just watched on, utterly lost.

After the trauma they'd had with Melody, the Doctor had decided to give them all a nice day at a resort. The Detective had mentioned she was excited for this one because the swimming pools there were all heated slightly to a comfortable degree, she hated cold water apparently. Which had set the Doctor off on this...odd quest to deck her out in an excessive amount of protective swimwear items. They had to agree, he was taking it a bit far, clearly she had to know how to swim if she was excited about swimming in the pools.

"I am NOT that bad!"

"Really?" he scoffed, "Then, tell me again, HOW did you regenerate that first time?"

She pursed her lips, not wanting to say, knowing the answer would do her in, but he already knew what it was, so she huffed, "I drowned."

"Yes. In your soup. I didn't think it was possible for someone to drown in their soup, but you proved us all wrong."

"That was not my fault!"

"You fell asleep in it!"

"I was hungry!" she defended, "…and apparently very tired."

"Yeah, not making it better."

"Keep up," the Detective threatened him, "And you'll regenerate because I've strangled you with your bowtie."

The Doctor pouted, straightening his bowtie in protest, before wincing, quickly reaching into his inner coat pocket and pulling out the psychic paper, the device having felt like it was burning him. He frowned as he looked at it, "Please save me from the monsters?" he read quietly, before slipping it back into his pocket.

"Change of plans?" the Detective asked, a grin growing on her face that had him momentarily worried, "Brilliant!" before she bound up to the console and began putting in coordinates to track the origination of the psychic call he'd gotten.

As much as she was looking forward to heated pools…a day in a resort was so BORING! Now they had an adventure, a mystery to solve, excitement!

Alright, so there was also a kid involved too, because no adult would sound like that via message, wonderful, but still a mystery!

The Doctor shook his head and went to help her, ducking down to avoid the swimwear she was shucking off and chucking in his general direction in revenge for putting it on her in the first place, "Haven't done this in a while!" he cheered, now safely able to stand up since there were no more floaties and other equipment to be thrown at him.

"Done what?" Amy asked, thankful she hadn't gotten all dressed up the way the Detective had. She'd made that mistake once before when he promised her Rio and they ended up in a graveyard halfway across the world, "What're you doing?"

The Doctor moved to answer, only to get caught on the sight of the Detective trying to get her hoodie back on. She'd taken it off to fit the vest over the tanktop she wore underneath, but now that they weren't going swimming, she was trying to get her hoodie on once more and apparently had put it on backwards in her excitement. She had her arms pulled in and was twisting, both the shirt and herself, to try and set it to rights. It was both amusing, exasperating, and…another word that caused a blush to flare across his face, before he shook his head and looked away.

"Making a house call!" he answered, pulling a lever to set them down with a thump, rushing for the doors, but the Ponds had beaten him to it, Rory stepping out first with Amy behind.

"No offence, Doctor..." Rory called back, taking in the sight beyond the door.

"Meaning the opposite," the Doctor quipped as he stepped out, holding the door slightly open for the Detective to follow before he locked it behind them, spinning around and sliding his arm around her shoulder as they walked over to the Ponds.

"But we could get a bus somewhere like this."

"The exact opposite."

"Alright, so Earth," the Detective looked around at the apartment complex before them, clearly a council estate given the signage, "In your present," she gestured at Amy and Rory, "Night," she inhaled deeply, "Rain in a couple hours. Not much, light sprinkle, but best close the windows."

The Ponds just gave her an odd look, not having expected a weather report to follow.

"Well, I suppose it can't all be planets and history and stuff, Rory," Amy commented to her husband.

"Yes, it can!" the Doctor defended, "Course it can! Planets and history and stuff. That's what we do!"

"But not today," the Detective remarked.

"No," he agreed, starting to scan around the courtyard of the complex with his sonic, the Detective pulling out her magnifying glass to help him look for anomalies, "Today, we're answering a cry for help from the scariest place in the universe…"

"Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory," the Detective said, completely serious, her gaze fixed on the ground as her glass picked up numerous footprints.

"Willy Won…what?" the Doctor turned to her, having been about to agree with her words, thinking she was going to complete his thought, only to be completely thrown by what she said, "No! A child's bedroom."

"Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory?" Rory looked at her.

The Detective shrugged, but then huffed when she actually looked up to see their bewildered expressions, "He tortured those poor kids!" she defended, "I mean, one ended up essentially emaciated, another probably had all her bones broken, the next one nearly got shredded to pieces, another one stretched on the rack, and the last one ended up being groomed to be even worse!"

"Worse?"

"Snowpiercer!" the Detective looked at him, as though it explained everything when it very much didn't, "It's horrific!"

Amy was starting to think the Detective hadn't been lying when she said there was more wrong with her than anyone would ever be able to count, she'd read that book and seen the movies and nothing like that came across to her in such a way.

"And the squirrels!" the Detective continued to lament, "The squirrels, Theta!"

The Doctor chuckled at that, tugging her in to give her a comforting hug, "No squirrels here, Sigma, it's fine."

"What, she doesn't like squirrels?" Amy asked, eyeing the woman as she nuzzled her face into the Doctor's chest like she was trying to hide from said squirrels.

"They're rats with big bushy tails," the Detective sent her a nasty look at the mere thought of a squirrel, twisting in the Doctor's arms so she was resting against his chest but not pushing past the circle of his arms, "Big bushy tails meant to trick you into thinking they're so cute and docile but don't be fooled!" she snapped the last few words, "And their little beady eyes, and teeth sharp enough to cut through nuts! And they scurry up trees and blend in with them and you don't see them and the next thing you know…BAM! There's a squirrel leaping out of the tree and onto your head and trying to scratch your eyes out!" she jolted out of his arms then, very serious as she moved almost an inch away from the Ponds' faces, "NEVER trust a squirrel!"

"Right," Rory nodded, if only because he had absolutely no idea how to respond to that tirade, "Got it."

"Good," she nodded, spinning on her heel and looking at the ground through her magnifying glass once more, heading for the complex.

"Um, Doctor?" Amy began as they watched her go, "Do…do we want to know?"

He could only sigh, "I'm not fully sure I do," he had to admit. He knew the Detective better than anyone, but there were somethings even he didn't know about her. He gave them a shrug before heading off after the Detective as she reached the base of the complex. They all caught up just outside the lift, waiting for it to open.

The Detective held out a hand to the Doctor, who deposited the psychic paper in her palm without her needing to ask, allowing her to look at it under her magnifying glass, which served to make the message large enough for Rory to see as he stood beside her.

"'Please save me from the monsters,'" Rory read aloud, "Who sent that?"

"That's what we're here to find out," the Doctor remarked, taking the paper back when the Detective was done with it.

"Sounds like something a kid would say," Amy murmured.

"It is," the Detective agreed, slipping her glass back into her pocket and pulling out an apple to chew on while she thought, "Scared kid. VERY scared kid. SO scared its call for help made it through the walls of the TARDIS."

"And you've traced it here?" Amy followed.

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded, beaming when the lift arrived, "Ah!" he hurried to try and get in first, but the Detective beat him to it, causing him to huff when they stepped in to see she'd pressed ALL the buttons for every floor.

~8~

The Doctor sighed as he walked down the level of the estate he had gotten off the lift on. They had split up, each of them taking a different level to speak with the residents about any odd activity going on around there that they might have noticed. He hadn't had much luck. He glanced over, able to see Amy and Rory on the level below him, the two having joined up when Rory finished his level apparently, and spotted them walking past a flat where a little boy peeked out the window, before quickly ducking back in as though he was scared.

"Think it's him?" the Detective asked, approaching him from her own level above him, having caught sight of the boy for a moment near the end.

"Could be," the Doctor murmured, reaching out for her hand when she was near enough, smiling as he lifted it up so she could spin under it, "But there has to be other children in the complex, we need to talk to everyone, still have two more levels to go."

She nodded, "No luck on my end," she sighed, "Honestly, it's like humans have never even heard of a Ministry of Doors before," she huffed.

The Doctor cracked a grin, "They haven't, because there isn't one."

"Well, there should be," she stuck her nose up, unwilling to admit her approach likely hadn't been the best. She'd only gotten a few words in before people were slamming the door in her face, and the one person who actually seemed to give her a chance ended up staring at her, before slowly backing away and locking the door on her.

Though, well, she made a mental note after that one that she should probably avoid talking about how easy it was for an axe murderer to shove past a door once it was open, that was when the man really began to look at her weird. The others just slammed the door when she remarked that they shouldn't open doors for strangers.

Ok, she saw it now, looking back, her approach had been terrible.

She'd do better next time.

"Come on," the Doctor nodded to the side, leading her down a set of stairs to meet Amy and Rory just beside the lift.

"Hey!" Amy greeted, "Any luck?"

"Three old ladies, a traffic warden from Croatia, and a man with ten cats," the Doctor said.

"What are we actually looking for?" Rory asked.

"Ten cats!"

"Small human being," the Detective reminded him, "About yay high," she moved her hand from about her thigh to her stomach, "Scared?"

"I found scary kids," Amy offered, "Does that count?"

"I found scared adults," the Detective countered.

"Scared of what?" Rory asked, thinking it might relate to whatever scared the kid they were looking for.

"Me, I think."

"Sounds about right," the Doctor muttered, wincing when the Detective elbowed him, "Try the next floor down," he told the Ponds.

"Right, Thing 1, you're with me," the Detective added, "Thing 2, take Theta."

"What?" all three of them spoke.

She rolled her eyes, "Two pairs of eyes are better than one," she told the Doctor, "And I can do better at this, I know I can," she smiled softly when he kissed the back of her hand he was still holding, knowing he understood her determination in this. She hated letting him down, she always had, and she felt like she hadn't quite gotten as much intel as he would have liked. She wanted to prove she could do it and that he could trust her with this, "But I might need to observe a human in action for it. Thing 1 seems the more sensible."

"Oi!" Amy huffed, recalling from the issue with the Gangers that the Detective considered her to be Thing 2.

"Hold on, Thing 1 is me?" Rory pointed to himself as though just noticing she'd been calling them that now.

"Exactly!" the Detective cheered, "Let's go!" and poked the lift button.

The Doctor and Amy looked at each other and shrugged, the Doctor nodding his head to lead Amy off, down the hall towards where he'd seen the young boy.

"Um," Rory shifted, trying to find something to talk about while they waited.

"Bite?" the Detective offered him a bite of what was left of her apple, it was almost gnawed down to the core.

"No, thanks," Rory waved it off, "So the psychic paper, was the message real or like, you know, junk mail?"

"Could be," the Detective remarked, swallowing another bite of apple, "Or it could be a sign of the apocalypse. Better check it out in case it's the second, you know?"

Rory frowned, "You're…you're not serious, right?"

She just smiled as the lift arrived, stepping in and holding the door open till Rory followed, before pushing a button for the floor below…and then the one below that too.

The moment the doors slid shut, it was like the bottom fell out from under them, the lift starting to plummet down its shaft. Rory screamed, bracing himself against the side of the lift, holding onto the railings in the walls for support, dropping to a crouch.

The Detective though, was shouting and laughing, with a cry of, "THIS IS BRILLIANT! WOO-HOO!"

~8~

The lift arrived on the next level, the doors sliding open to reveal nothing but a chewed apple resting on the floor…

~8~

The Doctor paused in his walk with Amy, blinking at the mental call the Detective had sent him, a warning about the lift, that Rory was fine if unconscious, and then followed by a long tangent about how they absolutely had to talk to the TARDIS about installing something similar because it was a 'wicked cool ride' and she wanted to go again.

"Everything ok?" Amy asked, noticing him stopping and hanging his shaking head with a deep sigh.

"What?" he straightened, as though he'd been caught, before he tweaked his bowtie and cleared his throat, "Yes, fine, everything's fine."

And it was. Rory was fine, just knocked out, and the Detective was with him and…oh dear lord, this was as not fine as it could get.

But he had to keep a brave face for Amy, he didn't need her worrying and rushing off after Rory when he WAS fine, he didn't want to risk her getting trapped wherever the Detective was. She said she'd investigate more once Rory woke up, he doubted she'd be that patient, but she'd definitely find out where they were and it would be fine.

Really.

Fine.

Of course.

"Scared kid," he nodded, reminded, "Come on," and led her off again.

"So," Amy began after a moment, "You know, I'm pretty sure if the Detective hadn't gone off on a rompe with River in Berlin I'd be worried about you right now."

The Doctor had to chuckle at how ridiculous that sounded, yet how it was a perfectly accurate depiction of what happened, "Worried about what?"

Amy shrugged, "That she chose Rory to explore with?" she offered, eyeing him a bit, "That you're not together. You were, like, joined at the hip the last few goes."

He nodded, "Yes, well, I suppose finding your best mate alive after thinking them dead for over a century would make one naturally more anxious to be separated again."

Amy gave him a look, "You're kidding me right?" she scoffed, "THAT's what you're going with?" she shook her head, "Doctor, how long were you two togeth..."

"Oh, look, here we are!" the Doctor cut in, making an odd choking noise to go with it as they came to a stop before one of the doors.

Amy crossed her arms, but the Doctor ignored her, making a show of sonicing around the door like he was looking for something. She rolled her eyes at the faint pink on his cheeks and let it go...for now. She glanced at the door, "This is it?" Amy asked as the Doctor finally stopped. He gave her a nod and reached up to knock, not needing to wait long before the door swung open to reveal a very tired looking man with short black hair and quite a lot of stubble.

The Doctor held up the psychic paper, letting the man see whatever he needed that would allow them to enter and ask about his son.

"Oh," the man blinked, "Right. That was quick."

"Was it?" the Doctor smiled.

"Claire said she'd phoned someone. Social Services."

"Yes," the Doctor looked at the paper, nodding, seeing 'Doctor of Social Services' there, "Yes, I'm the Doctor, and this is my…assistant, Amy Pond."

"I'm Alex," the man spoke, reaching out to shake the Doctor's hand, "Thank you for coming."

"Course we came," Amy jumped in, "Scared kid," she shot the Doctor a look, "Why wouldn't we come?"

"It's not, easy, you know...admitting your kid's got a problem."

"You've got a problem," the Doctor shrugged, putting the paper away, "I've got a problem. Amy's got a massive problem."

"What?" Amy frowned.

"I bet they're all connected," the Doctor ignored her, giving Alex a smile before stepping into the flat, "So...tell me about George," he nodded at a hand drawn sign that said 'George's Room' hanging on one that was cracked open slightly, to let the light from the hall through.

"This him?" Amy called, having spotted an album lying open on a coffee table, reaching down to pick it up and flipping through pages of George in the last section. She moved to sit down, the Doctor joining her, though he sifted through the pages so they could start at the beginning of the album.

"Ever since he was born he's been a funny kid," Alex tried to explain the situation.

"Funny's good!" the Doctor smiled, perking up at that, "We like funny, don't we?"

The Detective LOVED funny, it was why they got on so well in their first bodies, she appreciated his sense of humor.

"He never cries. Bottles it all up, I suppose. Tell him off, he just looks at you."

"How old is he?" Amy asked, smiling softly at the images of George as a baby. It was bittersweet, in a way, to look at them. She had a single photo of Melody, the Doctor had hacked into the security footage of Demons Run to give her a snapshot. It was hard, to sit there and look at a man's child and know her own was all grown and off on her own and she'd missed all of it.

She couldn't help her kid, but she'd be damned if she didn't help this one.

"He was eight in January. He should be growing out of stuff like this, shouldn't he?"

"Maybe," the Doctor gently closed the album, seeing Amy fixating on the baby photos, "It's got worse, though, lately?"

"Yeah," Alex sighed, "We talked about getting help. You know, maybe sending him somewhere. He started getting these nervous tics, you know, funny little cough. Blinking all the time. But now it's got completely out of hand. I mean he's scared to death of everything."

"Pantaphobia."

"What?" Amy and Alex both spoke.

"That's what it's called," he explained, "Pantaphobia. Not a fear of pants though, if that's what you're thinking. It's a fear of everything, including pants, I suppose, in that case. Sorry. Go on."

"He hates clowns," Alex went on.

"Who doesn't?" Amy muttered, they were fine in her book…until Rory had dressed as one for Halloween once, ruined them for her.

"Old toys. He thinks the old lady across the way is a witch. He hates having a bath in case there's something under the water. The lift sounds like someone breathing!" Alex sighed, running a hand a long his hair in frustration and defeat, "Look, I don't know," he sat down on an armchair, "I'm not an expert. Maybe you can get through to him."

The Doctor smiled, "I'll do my best. There's just one thing I should know first."

"What's that?"

"Is he Sciurophobic?"

"Um...what?" Alex shook his head.

"Fear of squirrels, is he afraid of them?" because if he hadn't broken the Detective of that fear by now, there was no hope for George.

Alex blinked and considered it a moment, "Um, no, actually, he loves them."

"Good, good, this'll be a breeze then," the Doctor patted Alex on the shoulder, inwardly chuckling as the Detective went off in his mind about how he needed to teach the child the error of his ways.

~8~

Rory's face scrunched as he slowly began to come to, a tic starting in his cheek when he felt an odd sensation there. He cracked open one eye, his brow furrowing when he realized what it was, "Have you been poking me this entire time?"

The Detective was sitting next to him, her legs crossed, poking him in the cheek with a stick, "Yes."

"Why?"

"Well, Theta says poking people with my finger is 'too invasive' of their 'personal space,'" she huffed, using quotey fingers, "So, stick it is."

"No," Rory shook his head, "I meant…" before he gave up, "Never mind," he winced as he sat up, rubbing his neck and trying to look around the room. It was difficult to do, it was quite dark, with only a faint light coming through the rather bare windows. He moved to pull his small pen torch from his pocket, using that though it didn't do much good.

"Here," the Detective held an impressively large UV light out to him.

"How…where…"

"Pockets," she said with a shrug, handing the light over before rising, holding out a hand to him to help him up.

"Where are we?" Rory asked, holding the light a bit higher to see more of the room, "What happened to the lift? We were in a lift, weren't we?"

"We were, now we're not. Wicked cool by the way," the Detective beamed, "Now we're in a doll's house."

Rory gave her a look, "What?"

"A doll's house, it's a small house usually made for dolls to reside in when children…"

"I know what a dollhouse is!" Rory cut in, he'd been stuck with Amy enough as a child, playing what she and Mels wanted to play, they always outvoted him, "I meant, how do you know we're in one? How do you know we're not dead or that it's not the TARDIS going funny again and sending us to the past?"

"Oh, you should have started with that, Thing 1. We're not dead, because I can still hear Theta," she tapped her head, "Can't do that if I'm dead. And if I'm not dead, you're not dead. Hmmm…that would be a catchy song," she fell silent for a long while as Rory just looked at her.

"…you're not actually trying to write a song right now, are you?" Rory asked, not really sure why she'd suddenly stopped, but she had a thoughtful look on her face and she was humming under her breath and, given her last words, it would make the most sense that's where her mind went.

"No," she gave him a look as though he'd lost his mind, "I'm contemplating what condiment goes better with a turkey sandwich."

"HOW did you get on THAT?" Rory shook his head, completely lost.

"Well, I WAS thinking of a song, but then it made me think of different ways people can die, because you'd HAVE to list them in a song about how you know you're not dead. Which made me think of how I've died in the past, and the first time I died, and how I drowned, and it made me think of how other people drown, and how it would be the worst to be on a submarine because of reasons. Which made me think of subs, which made me think of sandwiches, which made me think of whether a turkey or a roast beef sandwich would work best with mashed potatoes on top."

Rory blinked, then blinked again, then one more time for good measure, "…you put mashed potatoes on your sandwiches?"

The Detective was quite impressed. Of all the things she said, he managed to pick out the most important one.

"No," she answered, "But I'm SO going to, it sounds delicious! Like an American Thanksgiving Dinner but on bread!"

Rory shook his head, realizing they'd gotten off topic, "Um, how did you know it's not the TARDIS then?"

"Cos we weren't IN the TARDIS," she said simply, "Can't send us to the past unless we're IN her."

"Ok, makes sense, but dolls' house? How do you figure?"

The Detective spun on her heel with a grin, "Follow me!" she called, leading him out of the room.

She hadn't been poking him the ENTIRE time he'd been knocked out, she'd gone to explore the room and the nearest halls first. It was always so much fun to explore without having to explain everything to humans, now that she knew where they were, it was more a mystery and she'd like an assistant with her.

Just call her Sherlock Holmes!

And, Rory being a nurse, which was close enough to a doctor, he could be Watson!

…hmm…maybe THAT would be a better name than Thing 1?

She'd have to see how he did as an assistant before she thought of promoting him. She'd nearly promoted Amy back to Thing 1 and she'd failed the test quite abysmally.

~8~

In the middle of Alex telling them about the rest of George's numerous phobias, the man wanting to ensure the Doctor didn't accidently bring one up that would send the child mute with fear, they heard a crash from inside the boy's bedroom. Alex was off in an instant, rushing into the room.

"George?" he moved quickly to his son's side, "You ok? What's the matter?" he was relieved to see just the lamp that had been at the boy's bedside on the ground, "Oh. Never mind. Were you having a nightmare, son?" he asked, picking up the lamp to set it to rights.

"Wasn't a nightmare," the boy replied meekly, "I wasn't asleep…" he trailed off, his attention pulled from his father to the man leaning in the doorway, a bowtie around his neck, watching him. There was a ginger woman next to him, glancing at the man before mimicking his stance, crossing her arms to observe him as well, "Who are you?"

"I'm the Doctor," the man smiled.

"And I'm Amy," the ginger girl offered.

But George was more fixated on the first person than the girl, "A doctor? Have you come to take me away?"

The Doctor frowned at that, as did Amy, "Why would we take you away?" Amy asked him.

The Doctor shook his head as well, "We just want to talk to you."

"What about?" George hesitated.

The Doctor stepped into the room more, hoping that the nearness would make the boy more comfortable and feel less clinical and distant than if he remained in the doorway, "About the monsters."

'Figures,' the Detective huffed in his head, 'YOU get monsters, I'm stuck with Watson-in-Training in a Doll's House. SO not fair!'

The Doctor did his best to hide his chuckle, using a cough to cut it off, 'You can have the next monster, Sigma.'

'I'd better!'

~8~

"See?" the Detective gestured around at the kitchen she'd led Rory to, "Dolls' House, what did I say?"

Rory gave her an odd look, before moving further into the room to examine it. On the other side of the room was a set of shelves that went up to the ceiling, another wall had two large cooking fireplaces set in, and a third with a long counter and sink. There was another long table in the middle of the room with a bunch of odds and ends on it, utensils, a copper pan, a loaf of bread.

"Go on," the Detective urged, nodding to the objects, "You won't believe me till you test them out."

Rory stepped cautiously to the pan and picked it up, frowning as it felt too light to be a true pan. He tapped the bottom of it on the table, nodding as he heard a very different sound than metal on wood, "It's wood," he realized, for the noise could only come from wood on wood, "A wood pan…painted to look like copper."

"Mhmm," the Detective nodded, idly wandering over to a lamp sitting on the table with a candle in it, hitting a switch on the side and turning the fake candle on, "Fake, fake, fake," she shook her head at it, before she smirked at how it sounded and started to dance a bit, "Fake, fake, fake. Fake your booty, fake your booty…"

"Can you not do that?" Rory gave a bit of a huff, getting she was trying to lighten the mood with a little song (or he hoped that was what she was trying to do and not that she'd genuinely gotten distracted), but he really would like to focus on a way out of there first.

"Fine," she let out a long suffering sigh, "Over here," she nodded to a set of drawers, opening one up for him to see a set of eyeballs in various sizes staring back at them, "Glass," she added, knocking on one so he could see it was as fake as everything else.

They looked over when the UV light began to flicker five times.

"Are you doing that?" Rory asked her, even though she wasn't touching it.

"No."

"I was afraid you'd say that."

The Detective rolled her eyes, "So, do you see? Dolls' house. Miniature everything, made of wood, and that loaf of bread is fake too, by the way. Don't make the same mistake I did."

Rory glanced over at the bread on the table, his eyes widening as he saw what looked like paint chipped off in an area in the shape of teeth marks, "Noted."

"I only got this far though," the Detective told him, "You took forever to wake up," she rolled her eyes again, "I couldn't risk wandering too far or else you'd wander and then we'd both just be wandering about till we probably ran into each other at a moment of danger."

"What?" he blinked at her.

"Want to explore more?" she continued, as though he hadn't said anything.

"Um…I guess?" he shook his head, "This place must have a front door or something."

"Good reasoning," she patted his arm, heading for another door, "Basic, but good. Could be better."

Rory followed her out of the room, holding the UV light aloft as they went down a hall and around a corner to another hall, the Detective peering into rooms as they passed, just to see what they were, causing them to lapse into silence for a few minutes.

"So…you're from Gallifrey?" Rory spoke, if just for something to say as they wandered the spooky house. He really didn't want to think about the spooky house so talking it was.

"Time Lady, sort of obvious," she pointed out.

"Sorry, I just mean…well, the Doctor told Amy what he did to the planet, and we almost found some Time Lords but…none of them survived. It's just strange, meeting you. I didn't even know the Doctor had a best friend."

"I didn't know you two had a best friend either," the Detective countered, "Neither did the Doctor. Neither of you talked about Mels, he didn't talk about me. How is that strange?"

"I guess it's not," Rory shrugged, glancing at her, "Um, sorry if this is personal but…you and the Doctor."

"What about us?"

"Are you two…"

"Are we two what?"

"Together?"

"Well not right now," she pointed out, "We're trapped in a doll's house and he's out there somewhere."

"No," Rory blinked, a little thrown that she'd taken it literally, "I mean, together-together."

She gave him an odd look, "Careful Thing 1, I'm leaning more towards not-promoting you."

"What?" he asked, before shaking his head, he didn't want to know, "Are you and the Doctor a couple? Um, dating? Courting, whatever you call it on Gallifrey?"

The Detective blinked, her eyes wide as she finally got what he was asking…

Before she burst out laughing.

~8~

The Doctor did his level best not to huff at the near constant stream of laughter playing out in his head from the Detective while Alex tried to explain his son's trouble sleeping. It was quite detailed, really, all about how they tried to eliminate the spooky things, how they monitored his television shows, how they read him books, tried warm milk, white noise, other noise machines, letting him stay in their room, one of them camping out in his room, and many other trials and errors short of sleeping pills. He was trying very hard to keep his mind on that, but the Detective was very distracting.

He wasn't intending to spy on her or listen in on her conversations with Rory, it was just…not knowing where she was or if she was in danger, he wanted to keep an eye out.

Honestly, he didn't know what Rory had said to bring it on, but he had an idea of what it could be, given her sense of humor. He hadn't heard her laugh this long at something that wasn't a ridiculously corny joke in ages.

He'd once told her a joke about what one wall said to the other wall being 'I'll meet you at the corner' and she laughed for four days straight, before suddenly stopping and asking what color the walls were in the joke, and then debating with him and the Master for six more hours about what the best color in the world was.

Mauve.

She picked Mauve.

Solely because it was the universal alert for danger.

God if that wasn't a clue to how mental she was right from the start.

He shook his head, fiddling with a Rubik's cube he'd snatched from George's bed to try and focus, while Alex paced before them. To her credit, Amy at least seemed to be paying attention to what the man was saying.

"Maybe it was things on the telly, you know?" Alex turned to him.

"It could be," Amy agreed, serious.

"Scary stuff, getting under his skin, frightening him. So we stopped letting him watch."

"Oh, you don't want to do that," the Doctor teased, sending a smile at George.

"Then Claire thought it might have been something he was reading…"

"Some fairytales can be terrifying," Amy had to agree, thinking back to Mels. They'd all gone through a Disney phase at one point or another, Mels had taken it a bit far and decided to critique each movie for the inaccuracies from the original works.

She never wanted to know that much about the Little Mermaid or Cinderella.

"Reading's great though!" the Doctor countered, "You like stories, George?" he asked the boy, who nodded eagerly, "Yeah? Me, too. When I was your age, about, ooh...a thousand years ago, I loved a good bedtime story. The Three Little Sontarans, the Master loved that one. The Emperor Dalek's New Clothes was my personal favorite. Sigma, though, she can recite Snow White And The Seven Keys To Doomsday from memory! All the classics. Rubbish," he muttered at the Rubik's cube, tossing it over his shoulder for Amy to catch, "Must be broken. I hate those things, actually…" he turned to Amy, gesturing for her to toss it back, "Better tidy it away, though, eh?" he moved over to the cupboard after Amy gave it to him, "How about in here?" he stopped reaching for the door handle when George gasped in fear.

"Why's that bad?" Amy asked, picking up on that and looking from George to Alex, "It's a cupboard, it's where you should put things."

"Yeah," Alex nodded, "It's a...thing. A thing we got him doing ages back. Anything that frightens him, we put it in the cupboard. Creepy toys, scary pictures, that sort of thing."

Amy gave the man a pointed look, "So you put all the things that scare him in his BEDROOM cupboard? In his bedroom, where he sleeps at night, and there's a door right there that has all his scary things behind it? No wonder the poor boy can't sleep!"

Alex seemed startled at that, not having thought about it before. It was just a place to get the things that scared George out of sight…he honestly hadn't realized all they'd done was pack all the things that scared him behind a door in his very room! They should have moved it to the rubbish or out of the house or something.

"So that's where the monsters go?" the Doctor murmured, eyeing the cupboard door, "There's nothing to be scared of, George," he reassured the boy, knowing that if they showed him the items just sitting there and not growing more powerful, it would help make him less scared, "It's just a cupboard…" he reached for the latch on it, when a loud knock at the front door startled them all.

"Front door," Alex mumbled, going to answer it.

It didn't do much, the man shutting the bedroom door a crack, they could still hear and see much of the conversation going on on the other side, the landlord confronting Alex about rent.

"Hey, so…what do you do for fun, George?" Amy asked, trying to distract the boy who was growing more tense the longer the landlord was there.

The Doctor, letting her distract him, pulled his sonic out and began to scan the room, using Alex stepping away as an opportunity to do more searching with less questions.

"Is that a torch?" George ignored Amy in favor of the wand making the funny noise.

"Screwdriver!" the Doctor huffed, "A sonic one. And other stuff."

"Please may I see the other stuff?" George asked politely.

"You may," the Doctor grinned.

"Just don't try it on wood, Doctor," Amy reminded him with a smirk.

The man just stuck his tongue out at her before flicking the sonic on, causing all the battery powered toys in the room to light up and move, "Ah, pretty cool, eh?" he beamed at the utter fascination written across George's face, "That's better. No tears from George. That's what I've heard. Go on, give us a smile. There's a brave little soldier. Bit rusty at this. Anyway, let's open this cupboard, eh?" he turned and faced the cupboard, making a show of scanning it for George's sake so the boy would know nothing was dangerous about it, "There's nothing to be..." until, that is, the sonic began to beep faster and higher in pitch, a sure warning that something was most certainly dangerous, "Off the scale…" he gaped at the device, "Off the scale!"

"Doctor?" Amy frowned, seeing him seeming genuinely shocked, "Everything ok?"

"No," he answered, "Not a all."

A moment later Alex entered, trying his hardest to smile for his son and company, to seem like nothing was wrong, "Right. Sorry about that. So, have we got this thing open yet?" he moved to open the latch, but the Doctor lunched forward with a cry of 'No!'

"No!" the man repeated, pulling Alex away and blocking his path to the cupboard, "No, no, no! You don't want to do that!"

"Doctor!" Amy shouted, standing up.

"Why?" Alex frowned.

"Because," the Doctor looked at the two of them, serious, "George's monsters are real."

~8~

Rory was looking quite unimpressed now, standing before the Detective, his arms crossed…the woman STILL laughing.

"Ok, it's been a half hour now, nothing is that funny," he deadpanned.

The Detective had to sniffle, wiping tears from her eyes at how hard she'd laughed at his question, "Sorry, sorry, I just…" she burst into a short wave of giggles, really trying hard to get herself together, "No, Thing 1, Theta and I are not 'together-together.'"

"Really?" he asked, sounding like he didn't believe that for a moment, "I mean, you both seem pretty close…"

Maybe it was different for her and the Doctor, but it was just, he kept thinking about himself and Amy, how they had been friends for so long and eventually got together. He knew it wasn't like that for everyone, men and women could just be friends, but he noticed a sort of comfort between the Detective and the Doctor, a closeness that seemed a little more than friendship at times. They touched, and more affectionately, than most 'just-friends' he'd seen over his life, more than he and Amy ever had. The softness, the care, that the Doctor displayed, it wasn't anything like how the man was around Amy. Again, though, if he'd known the Detective for centuries, maybe that would be normal behavior between friends. It was just that he really felt there was something more between them, they just weren't actually saying it.

"Never had a chance to be anything more," the Detective shrugged simply, "Couldn't let myself think it was possible either."

"Why?" he frowned, honestly startled at how she put it and how easily she'd admitted it.

She wasn't denying she felt anything for the Doctor, she wasn't denying that she didn't feel that way, just that nothing had come of it. She made it sound more like it could have happened, but it just never made it over that bump from friends to more-than-friends, and that the friendship had gone on for so long that all that affection just bled into it instead. Just because she couldn't let herself think of it, didn't mean she didn't feel it.

"I pick him and the Master would sulk and probably go on a rampage over how I 'chose Theta over him.' I pick the Master and I'd never hear the end of it from Theta about how he's a terrible influence. I mean, I think I'm WAY worse a terrible, disruptive influence really, but that's beside the point. You can't really pick one friend or the other gets hurt, so you just pick neither and be Switzerland."

Rory was silent at that. Looking at it now, from all he knew, he got why Mels never seemed to show an interest in him or want him to show an interest in her, why she kept pushing and teasing him and Amy about one day getting together. Mels was apparently his daughter the entire time so she would never feel that way about him or about him picking Amy over her, she'd want them together to ensure she was conceived. But before he'd known that…he hadn't even really thought of it that way, it had just always been Amy for him, whether Mels felt like he'd chosen someone over her or not.

The Detective, it seemed, had a much different relationship with her two male friends than he did his two female friends. She seemed to feel something for the Doctor more than this Master bloke, but both men were very different than Amy or Mels, so he couldn't really compare it could he?

He got the feeling she wanted to pick one of them, but couldn't because it would hurt the other in some way, so she never picked either. She really did remain Switzerland. Eventually it just became the norm to think the Doctor and her could never happen and friendship was all she could have with him. He could imagine, after centuries, the sorrow and regret of something like that passing by would mute and she could look back and feel she made the right choice then. She seemed content and happy with her friendship with the Doctor, but...hearing her words?

He felt a tug in his heart for her, how easily she shrugged it off, it really never crossed her mind that she could have had the Doctor and still been friends with the Master.

In his opinion, if they were true friends, even if you picked one because you wanted to date them, the other should be happy and supportive. It didn't mean you weren't as good of friends anymore, just that you were something different to one of them.

Though, then again, given the small bits he'd gleamed over what this Master bloke was like…he probably would have seen it like being left out or not picked first, whether he felt anything for the Detective or not, he'd still be angry he wasn't chosen. And he'd probably be the sort to see it as the Detective and the Doctor going off together and abandoning him. The man seemed as mad as the Detective, though in a different way. While he would describe her as a bit manic and overexcited, that Master fellow seemed more unhinged and sociopathic. The sort to destroy the world, if the Detective's first comments about him were true. The Doctor had told them a bit more about the Corsair, why he had gotten his hopes up that the man survived the War, because another Time Lord had too, long before House, a man who paraded around as Harold Saxon. HE'D been shocked, he'd voted for Saxon, and to hear more about the man and his clashes with the Doctor over the centuries, he was quite glad the man only had a brief time as Prime Minister.

It was probably for the better that the Detective stayed neutral and not set one against the other. All he'd gathered so far told him the Master and the Doctor ended up being enemies of sorts eventually anyway, it probably would have been worse if they started earlier or were fighting over a woman. He didn't think the Detective would appreciate being the reason for their fighting, she seemed to work very hard to stay out of it and not take one side over the other too much.

"Ooh, look a door!" the Detective turned the conversation, heading down the hall to what looked like the main foyer at the end.

Rory got the distinct impression that her 'turning the conversation' was less changing the subject and more her genuinely being distracted by the sight of a door. He shook his head and followed her, breathing a sigh of relief when he saw it was the main doors to the house, "Oh, at last!"

The Detective snorted, "Don't get too excited, Thing 1…no doorknob," she pointed out.

"That is just not fair," Rory huffed, "No doorknob, wooden pans, a massive glass eyes…"

"Hands painted on the grandfather clock," the Detective added, "Fake candles, miniature everything, dolls' house…oh…"

Rory frowned, seeing her eyes widen in excitement and feeling like he wasn't going to feel the same thing, "What?"

"Where are the dolls?" she asked, actually beaming at the thought of finding them.

He…was less than thrilled with the idea, with how spooky the house was, he didn't doubt the dolls would be just as creepy and he could do without having to face life-sized dolls.

"Let's find out!" she decided, turning to march off…when the sound of a child laughing echoed down to them. She spun on her heel and instantly headed in the direction it came from, "This way!"

Rory was quite sure he was going to regret this very much.

~8~

Amy could only look on with Alex as the Doctor basically ransacked the poor man's kitchen, searching the cabinets for something. She hoped it was for a cup to make warmed milk with, George seemed on the verge of a panic attack when they stepped out of the room, though she supposed that's what happened when someone tells you your monsters are real and living in your cupboard.

"You're supposed to be a professional!" Alex was just barely refraining from shouting, only making an effort to keep quiet so George wouldn't hear them, "I'll never get him to sleep now! It's so…irresponsible!"

"No, Alex," he countered, "Responsible. Very. Cupboard bad. Cupboard not bare. Stay away from cupboard. And there's something else. Something I've missed. Something staring me in the face."

"Doctor what are you doing?" Amy asked when he spun around to continue making tea, having found the teacups.

"Making tea!"

Alex shook his head, rubbing a hand down his face, "Look, I'd like you to leave, please. You're just making things worse. Will you stop making tea?!" he reached out to try and snatch the cups away when the Doctor ignored him, "I want you to leave!"

The Doctor's response? Merely to take the teacups back and continue on his merry way.

"No!" the Doctor added, heading to the fridge and sifting through it.

"What? What do you mean 'no?'" Alex strode over and shut the fridge on him, "Leave! Get out!"

Again, the Doctor ignored him, opening the fridge once more.

"Doctor, really, I think we should go," Amy tried to help, seeing Alex getting frantic and upset, the Doctor ignoring him wasn't helping, "Meet up with the others and come up with a better way to help George," she offered, trying to hint about finding Rory and the Detective, they'd been gone an awful long time, far longer than it would take to check the last few floors.

"Look," Alex huffed, shutting the fridge again, trying to be calmer, "Maybe this was a bad idea. We should sort out George ourselves."

The Doctor snorted, "You can't," he opened the fridge and pulled out the milk, pouring it into the teacups.

He didn't really need tea right now, no one did, but it was a menial task that he could do on autopilot which made focusing his mind on the Detective much easier to do. She had finally stopped laughing and he was trying to relay all he'd learned and picked up to her for her input. She really wasn't called the Detective for nothing, she loved mysteries and solving them, she picked up on clues and things so much faster than any other detective he'd ever met. Including Sherlock Holmes, really WHO did people think taught him how to do what he did? The Detective had. Time Lord eyes saw more than most and that boy had followed her around like he was a puppy to learn how she saw what she did. He'd adapted it for human eyes, of course, and made a name for himself, but it had all been the Detective.

They had been lucky that it happened while they were still in school and that the High Council hadn't noticed how she'd influenced the boy's life. All their poppycock about non-interference. Bah! The Detective had waved it off as the fact that she hadn't interfered, she'd influenced, there was a difference. And really, what did the High Council expect when they sanctioned the Academy to take the students on trips to different planets and time periods? She just so happened to run into Sherlock Holmes as a child and he'd been interested and it was hardly her fault.

And that was why he needed her there, to help him suss out what he was missing because he KNEW he had missed something. He was trying to replay everything he'd seen, heard, and learned since he'd spotted George in the window. But it was hard with Amy and Alex constantly interrupting him and making him forget what he'd told the Detective already.

"No one's going to tell us how to run our lives," Alex spoke, because of course he would, of course the minor silence they'd fallen into for all of 7 seconds wasn't enough, "I don't care who you are or what wheels have been set in motion. We'll sort it!"

"I'm not just a professional," he turned to face the man, realizing he had to be brutally honest right now to get Alex to shut up, "I'm the Doctor."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Please don't…" Amy nearly begged the man, but Alex had already said it and the Doctor was on a roll.

"It means I've come a long way to get here, Alex. A very long way. George sent a message. A distress call, if you like. Whatever's inside that cupboard is so terrible, so powerful that it amplified the fears of an ordinary little boy across all the barriers of Time and Space."

"What…" Alex began.

But the Doctor cut him off, "Through crimson stars and silent stars and tumbling nebulas like oceans set on fire. Through empires of glass and civilizations of pure thought and a whole, terrible, wonderful universe of impossibilities. You see these eyes? They're old eyes," he warned the man, not as old or all seeing as the Detective's, she was born literally two weeks before he was, which was ironic because the Master was born one week before him so she was the oldest of the three yet somehow needed the most looking after. Still, even though her eyes were better his still saw enough, "And one thing I can tell you, Alex...monsters are real."

Alex looked between him and Amy, "You're not from Social Services, are you?"

"What was your first clue?" Amy huffed in a deadpan, crossing her arms and sighing. She'd really been hoping for an out of the flat, to find Rory, make sure he was ok, and then come back to help George with more people there to assist. Rory was good with kids, he loved kids, and being a nurse she was sure he'd be able to make Alex feel a little more at ease, or more than the Doctor was. That was shot now.

"First things first," the Doctor turned to Alex, "You got any Jammie Dodgers?"

Hopefully sending the man on a quest for cookies would be enough to distract him long enough for him to finally give the Detective a complete rundown of what was going on on his end.

~8~

"Are we seriously heading TO the creepy laughing noise?" Rory had to whisper to the Detective as she marched on, leading him up the main stairs to the second floor of the house.

The Detective paused, hearing the odd giggle sound again and grinned, "Exactly!" she cheered, pulling out her magnifying glass and heading in that direction.

"Wait!" Rory called, reaching out to grab her elbow and stop her, the laughter sounding again, louder than before.

"Oh brilliant!" the Detective breathed, "They're heading for us too, getting closer!"

"They?!"

"Of course they," she rolled her eyes, tugging her arm out of his hold, "When do you ever face something and it's singular?" she asked, moving across the room to a door on the other side. She flung the door open, without a care in the world, and laughed when Rory jumped and let out a soft squeal of surprise.

There, in the doorway, was a life-sized doll, with a large porcelain head, painted face, paint chipping off, raggedy hair, and old fashioned clothing.

"That's…that's just a dummy, right?" Rory asked, panting a bit, a hand over his heart as it raced.

"Dunno," the Detective leaned forward, looking at it through her magnifying glass, before pulling her beloved stick out of her pocket and poking it with her other hand.

"This is...weird."

"THIS is weird?" the Detective snorted, still examining the doll, "Clearly you've never been to the Planet Barcelona before before."

"Can't say I have, no."

"Hmmm…" the Detective hummed, pulling back from the dummy and lowering her items, tilting her head as she eyed it.

"What?" Rory frowned, noticing her intent look, "What's wrong?"

"That hair doesn't really go with that complexion does it?" she asked.

Rory blinked at her, "Really? THAT's what's putting you off? Its hair?"

"What?" she shook her head, "It's shoddy craftsmanship if you ask me."

Rory sighed, "Let's just…go. There might be a way out somewhere around here."

"Oh alright," the Detective muttered petulantly, putting her stick and magnifying glass away and following Rory off, the human rolling his eyes at how she was literally dragging her feet in protest of leaving the creepy doll behind.

~8~

The Doctor frowned as he flipped through the photos in Alex's album, trying to review everything he'd seen for the Detective to assess. He was fairly certain everything he'd sent her that he'd heard and learned was correct, but he, admittedly, hadn't paid much attention to some things he'd seen. He was going over it all again to make sure she would see each detail, paying particular mind to the photos as the Detective had emphasized looking at them again specifically.

"What is it with these photos?" he muttered to himself, setting them down on the coffee table, giving her a moment or two to sort them in her mind, "Anyway!" he blocked off part of his thoughts to not distract her while he distracted Alex and Amy till she could get back to him, "Good. Nice tea. Nothing like a cuppa, but decision," he looked at the two humans, "Should we open the cupboard?"

"What?!" Alex nearly choked on his tea, Amy hurrying to pat his back.

"Should we?"

"You said not to," Amy reminded him pointedly.

"That was then, this is now."

"What 10 minutes ago?" Amy deadpanned.

"Got to open the cupboard, haven't we?" the Doctor snapped his finger at her as though she was agreeing with him, "Course we have! Come on, Alex! Amy, come on! How else will we ever find out what's going on here?"

"Doctor," Amy sighed, standing as Alex slowly followed suit, "You said not to," she repeated, "You said it was filled with…"

"Monsters!" the Doctor cut in, "Yeah, well, that's what we do!" he winked at Amy, "Breakfast, dinner, and tea. Fight the monsters. So this...this is just an average day at the office."

'Still can't believe you get monsters and I'm stuck with rubbish dolls,' the Detective complained in his mind.

"Or," the Doctor spoke, "Maybe we shouldn't open the cupboard! We have no idea what might be in there! How powerful, how evil it might be!"

'You had better open the cupboard, Theta!' the Detective huffed, because really he'd only said that to annoy her. That he had the opportunity to deal with real, actual monsters, and he was putting it off.

It was…a relief…he felt, to have someone as eager as he was to experience new things.

"Doctor?" Amy asked, a little concerned with how quickly he'd changed tracks without anyone saying anything.

"Come on!" the Doctor continued to rant to no one in the room, "Are you crazy? We can't open the cupboard!"

'Yes! I AM, thank you for noticing,' the Detective remarked, 'You are, too, if you put up with me, so go open the cupboard! I want to know what's inside! I want to know what the kid did to the cupboard!'

The Doctor chuckled, "Right," he nodded, "That settles it."

Amy frowned, truly very confused now, "Settles what? Doctor?"

"Going to open the cupboard," the Doctor clapped his hands and rubbed them, heading for the door to George's room.

Amy could only shake her head and follow, he'd literally had a conversation with someone who wasn't there, she was sure of it. Neither she nor Alex had said anything and he'd just gone off like they had. It was probably the Detective he was talking to, they had that telepathy thing, at least she thought they did.

She made sure Alex was following her as she entered the room after the Doctor, to see the man staring at the cupboard, stretching his arms and cracking his neck, as though preparing for some sort of boxing match or something. He slowly walked towards the cupboard, Alex moving to his son as George cowered a bit, quickly hiding behind his father's legs, peering around them to watch. Suddenly the Doctor lunged forward, throwing himself at the cupboard doors, leaning on them, before reaching out to the latch…and yanking it open!

'Well…that was disappointing,' the Detective groused inside his head, when there was nothing inside but clothes and old toys, a doll's house too.

"I don't understand it," the Doctor frowned, "It has to be the cupboard. The readings from the sonic screwdriver, they were..."

'Indicating the cupboard,' the Detective finished, 'Which is about right, because I'm guessing that dolls' house is where Rory and I are. Kiddo is quite the powerful little boy.'

'What?' the Doctor frowned, turning to glance at George.

All this time he'd thought it was the cupboard, that the cupboard had done something, had a fault in reality or was the hiding place of an alien causing George his fears. He hadn't thought it was actually the BOY.

'The pictures, Theta,' she remarked and he got the distinct impression she was rolling her eyes at him, 'His mother wasn't pregnant, at all, mere weeks before she had him. So where did he come from?'

The Doctor's eyes widened and he ran out of the room, back to the parlor and scooped up the album, rushing to look at the picture the Detective was talking about. She was right. There, right in front of his eyes, was Claire, Alex's wife, a month before George was born, her stomach flat. The angle and color of her shirt would not have been able to hide a nine month along belly.

He turned and ran back into George's room, "How old is George, Alex?" he demanded.

"What?" Alex frowned, "How old?"

"Yes. How old is George?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Amy asked.

"Alex!"

"Well," Alex fumbled at the shout in the Doctor's voice as he ignored Amy, wanting the answer, "I told you. Just turned eight."

"So you remember when he was born then?"

"Of course!"

"'Course you do," he muttered, shaking his head, "How could you not?"

'Perception filter,' the Detective remarked, sounding both like she was nodding and bored at the same time.

"You and Claire," the Doctor held up the album, turning it so they could see the photo, "Christmas Eve. 2002, right?"

"What?" Alex blinked, "Er...yeah."

"Couple of weeks before George was born," he handed the album to Amy to look at, "Tell me about the day he arrived. Must've been wonderful."

"Best day of my...life," Alex spoke, though there was a falter at the end.

"Sure?"

"Yes."

"You don't sound sure."

"What are you trying to say?" Alex grew defensive, "Look, I don't like this. I've told you before, I want you to go!"

"Doctor…what's wrong with him?" Amy asked when Alex pointed at the door, but looked very shaky and pale, wobbly and confused.

"What's the matter, Alex?" the Doctor asked the man.

"I can't..." Alex breathed, "Don't! Oh, this is scary!"

"No, Alex," he shook his head, "This is scary. Amy," he turned to the ginger girl, "What's on the next page?"

Amy frowned, turning to the next page, where Claire was holding a baby, "Claire and George when he was a baby," she answered.

"Newborn?"

"Looks like it."

"Less than a month after Christmas."

Amy blinked, getting it, and flipped to the first picture, her eyes wide, "But Claire wasn't pregnant on Christmas Eve!" she realized.

"What?" Alex demanded, striding over to look at the pictures Amy was flipping between.

"Not pregnant," the Doctor confirmed.

'Well done, Sigma,' he called to her in his mind.

'Thank you, thank you, hold the applause, please,' she teased back.

But right as he was about to joke back about her modesty, Alex dropped a bombshell.

"Well, of course not!" Alex huffed, "Claire can't have kids!"

The Doctor and Amy looked at him, the man blinking as he realized what he said.

He let out a shaky breath, all of it coming back to him, "We tried everything. She was desperate. As much IVF as we could afford, but...Claire can't have kids. How...how can I have forgotten that?"

"Better question," Amy cut in, "How can you have a son if you didn't adopt him?"

Because Alex had been adamant that he'd been there when George was born, his questions about Claire not being pregnant meant, somewhere, he thought he remembered her being pregnant, so it wasn't adoption. He had no memories of adopting George.

All three of them turned to look at George as he sat on his bed.

"Who are you, George?" the Doctor breathed.

'WHAT is he?' the Detective corrected, 'I'm betting on a Tenza or a Nestene.'

'He's not plastic, they don't grow like he did,' the Doctor argued, because there were pictures of George growing up in the album.

'Could be a new advancement, like the Flesh learning to grow.'

"It's not possible!" Alex continued to stare at the boy, "This isn't..."

It was then that the Doctor noticed how pale and panicked the boy seemed to be growing, "George?"

A moment later the room began to shake, light starting to shine through the cracks in the cupboards' door. The lamp next to the boy turned on and began to glow far too brightly, blinding them and sending them stumbling back as the door to the cupboard swung open.

Amy let out a scream as she was sucked into it, behind the two men and having been holding the album, so she hadn't had time to drop it and grab hold of anything before she was pulled in. The Doctor and Alex, they had better luck, both trying to fight against the force, bracing themselves.

'Oh, NO FAIR!' the Detective grumbled in the Doctor's mind as he tried to fight his way to George.

"George..." he called out, "George, what's going on? Are you doing this?"

"What's happening?" Alex gasped, stumbling back into the side of the cupboard, grabbing hold of the edge of it for help.

George just pulled his legs in and wrapped his arms around them, burying his face in his knees as he began to rock back and forth, muttering, "Please save me from the Monsters! Please save me from the Monsters! Please save me from the Monsters! Please save me from the Monsters!"

"George!" the Doctor called out, reaching for him, but even he was being pulled back.

"Doctor!" Alex called, trying to reach for the man as he was sucked into the cupboard with a cry of 'George!' He looked over at his son, his little boy, his child, so alone and scared and tried to reach out for him too, "George!" but the force within the cupboard was too much, and he soon followed the Doctor in, the doors of the cupboard shutting tight behind him…

~8~

"I really wish there were some more lights around," Rory grumbled as he followed the Detective down one of the halls…though he wasn't actually sure where she was going. She had her magnifying glass out again, and was half hunched over, looking down at the ground as they went, like she was following footprints only her glass could see, "I miss lights. You don't really miss things till they're gone, do you? That's what my nan used to say, 'You'll never miss the water till the well runs dry.'"

"Your nan sounds like a bore."

"Oi!" Rory frowned, put off by how rude that was.

"And that confirms it," the Detective straightened, as though he hadn't said anything.

"What does?" Rory sighed, rubbing his head, "Confirms what?"

"These floors are made of pine."

Rory stared at her, "THAT's what you were looking at? I thought we were following clues or footprints or something! Not examining the wood."

"Good thing to know, what wood is around you," she shrugged, slipping her glass back into her pocket, "Some woods catch fire at different temperatures, best to know what that point is."

Rory frowned, "…is there a fire around here?"

"No."

"Then why…"

Before he could even ask, someone burst through a nearby door and ran towards them, screaming his head off, "Help me!" it was Mr. Purcell, the building manager, the Detective recognized from the Doctor's memories, "Please! Keep them away from me! Keep them away!"

Before the man could reach them, one of the life-sized dolls, different than the one they'd seen, appeared behind him, grabbing the man around the neck with one arm and forcing him to the floor.

"Oh, so there's the second doll," the Detective remarked nonchalantly, watching as the man was converted, before their eyes, into a doll himself.

"Right," Rory reached out, grabbing the Detective by the arm, seeing her about to pull her magnifying glass back out for a closer look instead of getting the hell away from the weird dolls, "Run!" he ordered, half dragging her out of the room as the third doll began to rise, both heading after them as they ran out.

"Don't run away," the child-like voices of the dolls echoed after them, "We want to play!"

"Oh, that is adorable," the Detective laughed, Rory half throwing her through the doorway to another room and slamming the door behind them, pressing against it to keep them out.

"It's really not!" Rory grunted, panting, tense as the laughter echoed behind him. He glanced down, only just beginning to relax when he saw shadows of the dolls under the door starting to move away.

~8~

The Doctor jerked awake with a gasp, a hand flying to his face, to his cheek, where it felt like someone had slapped him.

'Sigma!' he hissed, rubbing his cheek.

'Oops,' she giggled in his mind, 'Bit too hard?'

He could only glare at nothing for her mental slap. Usually, if it felt like someone had actually hit him, it definitely meant the mental slap had been too hard. He sighed, turning to look around, nodding to himself as he saw that he had appeared in the dining room of the doll's house, just as she had. He glanced up at the ceiling, knowing she and Rory were somewhere on the floor above. He moved to his feet and turned, seeing Alex slowly coming around on the floor a few feet away.

It was then that his mind caught up to him and he bolted to the nearest door, shouting out, "George! Don't do this! We want to help you, George!" but nothing happened.

"We went..." Alex tried to get his bearings, using the table next to him to help pull himself to his feet, "We went into the cupboard! We went into the cupboard! How can it be bigger in here?"

"Oh, we haven't been miniaturized again, have we?" Amy groaned, sitting on the floor for a moment for the wave of nausea to pass.

"No," the Doctor chuckled, patting Amy's head as he passed to help Alex up more completely, "More common than you'd think, actually, Alex. You're ok."

"Where are we?"

"Obvious, isn't it?"

"Not really, Doctor," Amy deadpanned, pushing herself up.

The Doctor sighed again and nodded, he probably had an unfair advantage as the Detective had already worked it out, "Dolls' house! We're inside the dolls' house. We're in the dining room, exactly where Sigma and Rory woke up too."

"What!?" Amy gaped at him, more for the remark on Rory being there than anything else.

Alex, however, was more fixated on the first part, "The dolls' house?!"

"In the cupboard. In your flat. The dolls' house!"

"No, no, just slow down, would you?"

"Look!" the Doctor moved over to the nearby table to show them, really starting to get annoyed by the questioning when they really needed to figure out why this was happening, "Wooden chicken!" he began to toss the objects he grabbed over his shoulder for Alex and Amy to scramble to catch, "Cups, saucers, plates, knives, forks, fruit, chickens! Wood! So..." he spun to face them, "We're either inside the dolls' house or this a refuge for dirty posh people who eat wooden food. Or termites! Giant termites trying to get on the property ladder."

"That's not actually possible, is it?" Amy huffed, moving over to the table to deposit the items back down, Alex not even making it there as he just dropped all of it on the floor, still in shock.

"Could be," the Doctor shrugged, turning to head for the door, leaving Amy and Alex little option but to follow him through it and down the nearest hallway. He was doing his best to follow the path the Detective had taken, so he could get to her faster.

"Look, will you stop?" Alex reached out and grabbed the Doctor's arm, spinning him to face him, "What is he? What is George? And how could I forget that Claire can't have kids? How?"

"Amy?" the Doctor snapped his finger and pointed at her, as though she should know the answer.

"Um…" she shook her head, trying to pick something, "Is it that perception filter thing?"

"Exactly," the Doctor nodded.

'Hmm, maybe Thing 2 would be a better Watson,' the Detective remarked in his head, having followed along now that they were there.

"It's some kind of hugely powerful perception filter," the Doctor lightly pulled his arm out of Alex's hold and continued to lead them on, "Convinced you and Claire. Everyone. Made you change your memories. Now, what could do that?"

'I'm calling it now, Tenza,' the Detective called out, 'Bet you 10 quid.'

'You're on,' he grinned, leading Amy and Alex on.

~8~

Rory nearly jumped out of his skin when a bang sounded on the door, the dolls' laughter sounding again as they returned and tried to push their way in.

"You know, we could always just let them in," the Detective remarked, "Get a closer look?"

Rory shot her a glare, reaching out to move a giant spool of thread in front of the door to help barricade it.

The Detective pouted, "Spoilsport."

"You were right," he muttered, "There IS something seriously wrong with you."

"Well, of course there is," she rolled her eyes, "I've been mad since I was 8 years old, 900 years is a long time to develop numerous issues."

Rory eyed her a moment for that oddly specific age, "Since you were 8? What happened when you were 8?"

"That's when we're taken from our families and enter the Academy, after initiation of course," she explained, "We're brought before the Untempered Schism, a gap in the fabric of reality through which the whole of the Vortex can be seen, and told to just look into it, to behold the raw power of time itself."

"Jesus, when you're just a kid?" he couldn't begin to imagine how traumatic that could be to a child.

She shrugged, "It affects all of us differently. Some are inspired, like an artist seeing a sunset. Some get scared and run away, like Theta. And other people, their minds just shatter and they either slowly descend into madness...or skyrocket right into it."

"I'm going to guess you were the last one."

"How'd you know?" she seemed genuinely surprised by it.

He stared at her for a few seconds, before deadpanning, "Lucky guess."

She nodded, "Good one, maybe you ARE more a Watson."

"What?" he shook his head, not caring about that more than... "That couldn't have been easy," he remarked, "That happening to you so young."

"What can you do?" she shrugged again, moving to look around the small room.

It wasn't that she was uncomfortable talking about her madness, she was an open book. It was just...the early days, the early decades, they were a bit more personal to her, something she shared with the Doctor and the Master and really no one else. That was how important a Triumvirate was to a child, to have that support system of others who endured the same as you even if it affected them differently. They healed each other. The inspired helped tone down the madness, giving them other ways to express it, while the ones who ran wormed their way into the hearts of the other two, making the mad ones more considerate and measured in the things they did so as not to frighten the other. The mad ones helped the inspired by inspiring them with things they may not have thought of before because madness really did make you look at the world differently, the ones who ran inspired them to try and make the world better, safe, to come up with new ways to do things. The ones who went mad also helped the ones who ran by encouraging them, to bolster their courage, while the inspired helped them see the beauty and light in the things they feared. It was an interwoven connection.

Hers was skewed, and with her and the Master presenting their madness in different ways, well, in some ways it helped them all, in others it made them worse. The Master had never had to tone down his madness, because she understood him and the Doctor would more explore to give the Master things to focus on. The Doctor never overcame his need to run because she would run right with him, the Master would also provide reasons for him to run if he wanted it. She never really pushed through all of her madness either, because of those same reasons, having someone who understood and someone who would run to distract her from things.

She owed everything she was now to the Doctor and the Master.

She had been a mess, when she'd come back from the Schism. It was a bit of a blur now, but she saw enough of herself in the memories of her friends as she had grown to know what she'd been like. She had been shaking, unable to stop trembling for literal years after the event. The Doctor and the Master had had to help her eat and do her school work then, she couldn't bring anything, food or drink, to her mouth without it spilling everywhere and her writing was worse than chicken scratch. Walking had been another issue, it was like she'd had to relearn it and relied on them to just barely make it up the stairs without falling down them. Talking had been the worst though, everything in her mind was jumbled and fractured and she couldn't string together two coherent words in the same language let alone the right order for far too long.

It had been one reason she had forged a mental bond with the Doctor and the Master at so young an age, when they were expressly told to wait till they were at least 50, because she just couldn't communicate otherwise.

It had been a nightmare for her, to be trapped and confused, unable to speak or connect with those around her. Her mind too full and going too fast to keep up with.

It was made all the worse by the fact that she needed their help so badly, but reacted so poorly when anyone tried to touch her bare skin. It was like it was oversensitive, every little thing affected her. Her clothing made her itch, the ridges of someone's fingerprints drove her up the wall, even the lightest pressure of a hand just resting on her arm felt like it was being pressed on by weights.

It broke her friends' hearts when they might move too quick or touch her wrong and she'd jerk away or panic or scream at it.

Many, many years were needed to work through it all and she kept trying every single day to get better and stay better.

She knew she was overly affectionate with the Doctor, she knew how it looked. Rory wasn't the first one to mistakenly think she and the Doctor (or she and the Master) had been a couple over the centuries. It was just...it was her way of showing them that their efforts and patience and pains hadn't been in vain. She'd been so bad at letting them touch her then, she went overboard now, to show them it worked, that she trusted them implicitly, by allowing their touch whenever and however much they wanted. The Doctor especially loved it when she did, loved that reminder of all they'd overcome.

The way she jumped thought, the way she changed topics, the track her mind would take, it was all the result of tricks the three of them worked out over that time. Instead of fighting to keep her mind on one thing, let it drift, say what she was thinking or what something made her think of. The more frustrated she got, the worse her mind would grow and the harder it was to keep thoughts in place. So instead of fighting to keep a single thought at the forefront and getting more angry with herself as she failed to do so, let it go, let the next thought come, and circle back.

It had taken doing but her mind finally made the pathways for collecting and sorting data, which, she felt, was why she made such a good detective. She saw so much and noticed so much because her mind was geared towards taking in everything. Before it would just get too crammed full with nowhere to go and no way for her to process all of the information. Now it went where it should and stayed there until she needed to review it, most of the time at least.

Looking back to the girl she'd been, that trauma and fight, she was content with who she was now. It was why she never took any insults to hearts, why she never let snide comments bother her. Anyone who dealt them had NO idea the hell she'd gone through just to be as functioning as she was right at that moment, so their comments meant nothing. After all she'd gone through, SHE knew her strength and value, her weaknesses and shortcomings, and what did she care what others thought? The only ones who ever mattered to her were the Doctor and the Master and their opinions, and they'd both made it very clear how important and cared for she was by them. And she tried to return the sentiment, whether it was touches with the Doctor or hanging with the Master while the Doctor was on his adventures, to try and help him through his own madness like he had hers. There were so many ways to do it, so many ways they had shown over all that time. In the little things, how they carried her books for her, how they held her when she couldn't sleep due to her mind not shutting off, how they would sneak her snacks in class because she was hungry and...

"Mmm," she hummed, "We should get pierogis after this."

"What?" Rory shook his head, not seeing, at all, how she'd gotten to that.

She turned to face him, smiling, "I'm hungry."

~8~

"So," the Doctor continued to question, more to himself than Alex, as they all reached the front hall, "Claire can't have kids and something responded to that. Responded to that need. What could do that?"

"I thought you were the expert, fighting monsters all day long," Alex muttered, "You tell me!"

"He's got a point, Doctor," Amy remarked, following along with her arms crossed, none too pleased with the situation. She was starting to realize that Rory had been caught and deposited in the dolls' house as well, along with the Detective, ages ago, and the Doctor hadn't told her about it when it happened. Honestly, if he hadn't let it slip that this was where Rory and the Detective had woken up in the dining room, she doubted he would have actually said anything to warn her about her husband being in danger.

"Oi, listen, mush," the Doctor huffed, "Old eyes, remember? I've been around the block a few times. More than a few. They've knocked down the blocks I've been round and re-built them as bigger blocks. Super blocks! I've been round them as well. Pretty sure Sigma knocked those blocks down though, can't be sure. I can't remember everything."

"So let's find the Detective then," Amy groused, "This is what she does right? Figures out mysteries?"

"Doctor, listen," Alex cut in, "It's the lift," he pointed out, the trio falling quiet as they listened in, hearing the mechanical noise of the lift mechanism, "It's the lift. It's the sound that the lift makes. George is scared stiff of it."

The Doctor and Amy watched as Alex moved over to a set of 5 electric candles in a holder, watching as they switched off and on one by one, frowning at it like he knew something they didn't.

~8~

"I'm telling you," the Detective huffed, her voice a bit sing-song after Rory nixed her pierogi idea, "We should just open the door and run out."

"Are you insane?" he demanded, before wincing when he realized how poor a choice of words that was after what she'd revealed to him.

"Yes, but that's beside the point," she rolled her eyes, unperturbed, "You're clearly frightened, and we're trapped in here. There's more places to go and more space out there, we just have to get past the dolls. And they're DOLLs. We throw the door open, run out, knock them down, and run. Easy peasy."

"HOW are we going to knock them down exactly?" he deadpanned, "If we touch them, we become them."

She nodded, "Take your pick," she began to root around in the pouch of her hoodie, feeling things in the pocket, "I've still got that shovel and replaced that bat from Berlin, but there's also a baton, a staff, nunchucks, a lance, a mop…"

"A mop?" he had to ask, it was not something that seemed to fit with what she was describing...and he really didn't want to know why she had all that in her bigger-on-the-inside pocket.

"I'm a messy eater."

Rory shook his head, glancing behind him at the banging door, the dolls muffledly calling 'Time to play!' through it, and over to her with a sigh, "I'll take the bat."

"Excellent choice," she nodded, pulling the bat right out of her pouch…and then three more, "Now, do you want plastic, metal, wood, or nerf?"

"Why have you got four…" he cut himself off, not wanting to know, "Um…metal?"

"Brilliant!" she seemed FAR too pleased with his choice, handing it over and putting the others except the nerf one for herself back, "Ready?"

Rory took a breath and looked at the door, before turning and pushing the spool away, allowing the door to fly open, one of the dolls plummeting to the floor, not having expected that move. Rory leapt over it, swinging the bat at the others to clear his way. He only paused when he made it completely past them, and realized he wasn't hearing the Detective following.

He spun around, seeing she was standing there, still in the room, the nerf bat nowhere to be seen, her foot resting on the doll to keep it down on the ground, "Detective!" he shouted, urging her on.

She just looked up at him and beamed, "This is going to be brilliant!" she cheered…before leaning down and putting her hand on the fallen doll's head.

Rory's eyes widened, staring in horror as she morphed into a doll too, he could do nothing else but run off, trying to keep ahead of the four dolls following behind him…

He really hoped the Doctor wasn't going to blame him for this…

~8~

"Alex?" Amy called, stepping closer to the man as he just watched the lights turn on one at a time then off again.

"Five times," he muttered.

"What?" the Doctor asked, reaching out to the Detective to try and get her attention, if Alex was going to say something helpful or a clue, it would be better if she heard it, but she wasn't responding to him…which either meant she was in trouble or fell asleep.

And, honestly, there was an equal chance of both happening.

"The lights," Alex pointed out, "It's happening five times. It's like one of George's habits. We have to switch the light on and off five times."

"Now you're getting it!" the Doctor turned to him.

"Well, I'm not," Amy huffed, "Explain."

"What do you tell George to do, Alex, with everything that scares him?" the Doctor answered with a question of his own.

"Well, put it in the…" Alex trailed off, actually getting it now, "Cupboard," exactly where the Doctor claimed they were.

"George isn't just an ordinary little boy," the Doctor looked between the two humans, "So, anything scary he puts in here. Scary toys, like the dolls' house. Scary noises, like…like the lift. Even his little rituals have become part of it. A psychic repository for all his fears, but what is he?"

He paused, trying to hear the Detective's utterance of 'He's a Tenza!' again…but it never came.

So…sleeping then? Even in the middle of danger, she would have been huffing about it and insisting she was right.

Still, her lack of response was putting him on edge.

The three of them spun around, though, startled by the sudden sound of a laugh echoing behind them, only to see a doll standing in the doorway, life-sized and creepy. The Doctor tensed, knowing from the Detective's earlier warnings about them.

"Oh, my God!" Alex gaped at the sight of it.

"Doctor, what is it?" Amy whispered to him as he used his sonic to try and scan it, but it did nothing, and the doll began to advance on them.

"A gun?" Alex's gaze flickered between the doll and the metal device in the Doctor's hand, "You've got a gun?!" he did NOT feel comfortable with the man having such a weapon around his son and him not knowing.

"It's not a gun," the Doctor spoke quickly, "Wood!" he muttered, "I've got to invent a setting for wood. It's embarrassing!" he turned and ran for the opposite door, the others following him, opening it to see a cupboard full of items, like a large pair of purple child-safe scissors, "Come on!" he grabbed it and used the scissors to push the doll back, allowing them to make an escape towards the stairs.

"Don't run away!" the doll begged, "We just want to play."

"Alright," the Doctor rushed to think as he began backing up the stairs, the scissors out to keep the doll back, "Massive psychic field. Perfect perception filter. And that need. That need of Claire's to, to...stupid Doctor!" he slapped his forehead, "Sigma was right! George IS a Tenza. Of course he is! Of course she'd be right, that is REALLY annoying, you know!" he called out, more to the Detective than to the humans, even though he knew she wasn't near enough to hear him.

"He's a what?!" Alex nearly stumbled, hearing his son was an alien, because there was no human word for that, 'Tenza' it wasn't a human word.

"A cuckoo," the Doctor explained quickly, handing the scissors over to Amy so he could turn to Alex, "A cuckoo in the nest. A Tenza. He's a Tenza."

"Doctor, there's another one!" Amy warned, another doll entering the room from a side door.

But the Doctor was on a tangent now, "Millions of them hatch in space and then whoomph! Off they drift, looking for a nest. The Tenza young can sense exactly what their foster parents want and then they assimilate. Perfectly."

"George is an...alien?" Alex had to repeat his inner thoughts, he had been hoping he'd only misheard the Doctor before, but apparently he had been right the first time.

"Yup."

"But he's...he's our child!"

"And he's an alien," Amy huffed, shoving one of the dolls back with the scissors, "My daughter is half-Time Lord apparently, and she's my daughter. You got a problem with that?"

"He's the child you always wanted," the Doctor added, "He sensed that instinctively and sought you out, but something scared him. Started this cycle of fear…"

"Another one, Doctor!" Amy called, as a third doll appeared to join the other two.

"It's all completely instinctive," the Doctor tried to say aloud, tried to work this out, if he could find what sparked George's fear and get rid of it, this would all be over and George would be alright. Oh he really hoped the Detective would speak up soon, she probably already knew what had spooked him, "Subconscious. George isn't even aware that he's controlling it. So we have to make him aware!" he hurried up to the top of the stairs, calling out, "George! GEORGE! You're the only one who can stop this, but you have to believe! You have to believe, you have to know you're safe! I can't save you from the monsters. Only you can! George, Listen to me! George! Listen to me!" he cut off suddenly when he heard a shuffling noise behind him and Rory burst through a door at the top of the steps, a metal bat in his hand held straight out like he was trying to keep something back without wanting to swing at it, "Rory!"

Rory spun around, "Doctor!" he called, before turning around again, having realized he'd taken is eyes off of something.

It was then the Doctor saw a fourth doll had followed Rory, dressed in a long gown that reminded him of something he might see in an Austin novel, with white hair pulled into a high ponytail, "Where's Sigma?" he asked, his hearts dropping into his gut at the sight of the doll, hoping it wasn't what he thought it was.

Rory, though, pointed right at the doll, "She practically volunteered!"

The Doctor sighed, "Yeah, that sounds like her."

"Rory!" Amy gasped, spotting him, "You're ok!"

Rory let out a breath of relief as well to see she was alright too.

"George!" the Doctor turned, using Rory to watch his back as he called out to the boy, "George, you have to face your fears. You have to face them now! You have to open the cupboard or we'll all be trapped here forever in a living death! George! George, listen to me! George! George listen to me! George!" he nearly stumbled down the stairs as Rory was forced back into him, all of them surrounded on all sides, "Please! George, you have to end this! End this end this. End this now!"

There was a moment of stillness only seconds later, the dolls freezing in place.

"George!" Alex gasped and the Doctor spun to the side to see the boy standing in the middle of the main foyer below.

"George!" he laughed, beaming down at the boy, "George! You did it! You did it! It's ok, it's all ok now. Everything's going to be fine," but, contrary to his words, the dolls began moving…away from them, and headed right for George, "No. No. No, no, no, no, no!" he half threw himself over the edge of the bannister to look down at George more clearly, "George, you created this whole world. This whole thing, you can smash it! You can destroy it!"

"I don't think that's helping, Doctor!" Amy shouted up at him, able to see George shaking his head, his entire body trembling as well.

"Something's holding him back," the Doctor realized, "Something's holding him back. Something..." his eyes widened as it hit him, how George was looking at HIM frightened and turning to his father for help, the boys words about a doctor coming to take him away, it all made sense now, "That's what did it!" he rounded on Alex, "That's what the trigger was. He thought you were rejecting him. He thought he wasn't wanted. That someone was going to come and take him away."

"Well, we...we talked about it," Alex admitted.

"Yeah, and he heard you, Alex. A Tenza's sole function is to fit in, to be wanted, and you were rejecting him."

"We just couldn't cope. We needed help!"

"Yes, but George didn't know that. He thought you were rejecting him. He still thinks it."

"But how can we keep him? How can we? He's not..."

"Not what?"

Alex glanced over at his son, the dolls starting to surround him, "He's not...human."

"No."

"Does that matter?" Rory's voice asked, full of an emotion only another father could understand, that it wasn't about blood or species or DNA, it was about the child and how it was YOURs.

"DAD!" George cried out in fear.

And it was all that Alex needed to race to his son's side, shoving past the dolls to get to George, enveloping him in a tight hug, his heart breaking at the tears soaking into his shirt, to know HE had caused this fear in his son.

"Whatever you are," he reassured the child, "Whatever you do, you're my son. And I will never, ever send you away. Oh, George. Oh, my little boy."

"Dad…" George sniffed, hugging him even tighter as a bright light began to fill the room.

"My little boy."

"Dad."

The Doctor, Amy, and Rory had to look away as the light grew to such an intensity that they couldn't watch any longer…

~8~

Daylight shown everywhere as the lift of the Council Estate dinged and opened, Rory and the resident Time Lady standing within. The Detective, back to normal, was practically bouncing on her toes, "That was so wizard!"

Rory could only sag, shaking his head at her as he stepped out of the lift and walked away, the Detective skipping after him.

~8~

Back in the flat, the Doctor looked over from where Amy was, apparently, giving Alex a lesson in how to make a 'decent' sandwich for George, who was sitting on the counter, when he heard a woman call out, "Hi!" from the hall.

A moment later that woman, Claire, he recognized from the photos, entered, seeming startled to see the kitchen full and her son smiling and laughing with a toy in one hand, "Hello!" the Doctor greeted with a beaming smile, "You're Claire, I expect. Claire..." he moved to give her two gallic air kisses, "How'd you feel about kippers?" he asked, heading for the stove.

"No," Amy pulled him back, "That will ruin this sandwich," she warned him, going back to adding the final touches to it.

"Er…" Claire glanced at Alex, gesturing at the Doctor and Amy, "Who…"

"They sent someone," Alex waved it off, not even remotely sure how he could explain what happened or who the Doctor and Amy were without sounding like he needed to be sectioned, "About George. It's all sorted."

"Here you go, George," Amy handed the boy the finished sandwich, laughing when he took a big bite of it and 'mmmm'ed, to Claire's amusement as well as she stepped over to her son.

"Yeah, we had a great time, didn't we?" the Doctor asked George with a smile.

"Yeah!" he cheered.

"See, he's fine," the Doctor nodded, turning, about to go and lead Amy on, rather eager to find the Detective and check on her. He could hear her in his mind once more, she was raving about her experience as a living doll, but he wanted to make sure there weren't any other side effects.

"What?" Claire stopped his retreat with her question, "Just like that?"

He turned to face her, "Yes. Trust me," he gave them a wink before ducking out the door with Amy.

They had only just made it out of the flat when Alex hurried after them, "Doctor, wait!"

"Sorry, yes," he turned abruptly, shaking Alex's hand, "Bye!" and turned to go again.

But Alex stopped him again, "You can't just...I mean..."

"It's sorted," the Doctor insisted, sounding a little rushed now, much to Amy's amusement, though she had wandered over to the railing and was looking down into the courtyard where Rory and the Detective were waiting. She could see, even from there, that Rory looked at his wits end as the Detective talked, not seeming to pause for breath, "You sorted it. Good man, Alex. Proud of you. Come along, Pond!" he called, turning to go again.

"What, that's it?" Alex shouted.

The Doctor sighed, only barely refraining from visibly sagging with exasperation, before turning to Alex once more, "Well, apart from making sure he eats his greens and getting him into a good school, yes."

"But is he going to...I don't know, sprout another head or three eyes or something?"

"Look, he's a Tenza thing," Amy cut in, growing a little annoyed too, she wanted to go check on Rory, "He'll be what you are, won't he, Doctor?" she absently whacked the Time Lord in the stomach lightly.

"Yes, yes, exactly!" the Doctor agreed quickly, "He'll adapt perfectly now. Be whatever you want him to be," he paused to consider something, "I might pop back around puberty, mind you. Always a funny time," before he turned to finally, FINALLY, go.

He and Amy avoided the lift, just to be safe, taking the stairs which, now that he thought about it, he probably should have risked the lift because it had given Amy time to get back to something she'd tried to say earlier.

"So how long were you and the Detective an item?" she asked him, unaware of how similar her question was to her husband's.

"Oh, Pond," he shook his head, knowing there would be no getting out of this unless he jumped the remaining floors...which he probably wouldn't survive without regeneration, "You kids say the darndest things, is the saying, isn't it?"

Amy gave him a look, "Nice try, Mister, but I know a couple when I see one and you and her were most definitely a couple."

"We really weren't," he shook his head.

"Oh, please," she scoffed.

"No, really!" he glanced at her, "We were mates, the three of us, just mates."

"Yeah, sure, mates who touch each other all the time..."

"She had a rough patch with touch in general and..."

"And kiss each others cheeks and hands like a Victorian gentleman..."

"Friends kiss cheeks!"

"And are clearly in love with each other."

"We are not!" he pouted, stopping on a landing and turning to her, "Amy, we're not in love."

Amy eyed him, her eyebrow raised, before she crossed her arms as though he were lying to her.

"We're not, we're..." he sighed and gave up, "SHE'S not."

"But you are."

"It was a long time ago, Pond," he tried to explain, "And things were complicated. It never would have worked. She wasn't interested in me, not like that. Our friendship matters more to me than anything. I don't exactly have many friends left."

Amy frowned, unable to help the bit of guilt that had settled into her stomach at his words. She hadn't meant to bring it up quite like that, to tease him so much, it was just...she herself was torn about how SHE felt with the Detective around.

On one hand, she was overjoyed he had one of his people back, on the other hand she'd have to be blind to miss how much he fixated on the Detective, how touchy-feely he was with her, how carefree. At first she thought it was just his happiness at her return, that it would wear off and calm down, but clearly how they were now was how they ALWAYS were and she didn't know how she felt about it. He was SO close to the Detective and it just made her wonder if he still saw HER as his best friend. It was why she had teased him a bit about them being a couple.

If he was dating the Detective then she wasn't a best mate anymore, and SHE would still hold that title.

She had been a bit more worried about her own role in his life than to consider the Detective's or how the Doctor felt.

"You've got me," she offered, stepping down to the landing and looping her arm with is so they could both continue on, "You'll always be my best friend, Raggedy Man."

He gave her a gentle smile, "And you'll always be one of the best humans I've ever been friends with."

Amy took a breath at that, another thought sliding into her mind, "You know, it's actually kind of cute, you and the Detective, how coupley you are..."

"Amy," he sighed, "We're not a couple."

"You could be, maybe, one day," she said with a shrug, "Things change, feelings change, maybe she'd want to be a couple with you now."

"Yeah, great," he muttered, "Because I'm literally the last man on Earth."

Amy rolled her eyes, "Let me tell you something Doctor, a girl doesn't just kiss any old guy," she told him, "We don't let them grab us into a dance or hang off them if we're not interested in them. I think you're not giving yourself enough credit."

It was funny, almost, how her entire reason for teasing him had spun on its head with just a few words and confessions from him. She had wanted to tease him, get it out of him that he was something more with the Detective, concerned her own place in his life was in jeopardy, but now? Now she just really wanted him to be happy. Seeing his face when he said the Detective hadn't been interested in dating him on Gallifrey, like someone had just kicked a puppy, it broke her heart. He was such a good man and if he loved the Detective, he should go for it, whether the Detective stole him away forever or not, just so long as he was happy. Besides, she didn't think the Detective had it in her to be cruel or hurt the man, IF she didn't feel the same way the Time Lady would still be friends with him, she was sure of it.

"No?" the Doctor glanced at her, "Because she did much the same with the Master."

Well, not...not REALLY. But that was mostly because the Master wasn't a very touchy person. He had been, as a child, when they were younger and the Detective needed more help than when she was older. But the older she got, the more touchy she got, the less the Master did. So...maybe she was just like that with HIM because he let her...

"No," Amy told him firmly as they reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped out into the courtyard, "Now, come on," she hurried forward, tugging him on as she saw Rory and the Detective sitting on a low rock wall.

"Theta!" the Detective cheered the moment she saw him, leaping up and throwing her arms around him, "That was SO much fun! I take it back, you can have all the monsters you want, the dolls were brilliant!"

The Doctor chuckled, patting her back till she let go and slung his arm over her shoulder, though more aware now of just how easily he did it, how quickly she leaned in to him when he did, before looking over at the Ponds, "Come on, you two. Things to do, people to see, whole civilizations to save," he turned to lead them off, though he glanced at the Detective, beaming beside him, "You feeling ok?" he asked, he would run a more thorough exam in the TARDIS but for now her word, and the brief flash of the sonic was going to have to do.

"Hungry," she answered promptly, "What?!" she huffed when he laughed at her response, "The food was made of wood!"

"Hasn't stopped you before," he muttered, wincing when she elbowed him for the remark.

It was true though, there had been one time when the Master had, as a prank, locked them in the art studio of the Academy, it wasn't all time and history and science after all. They had had a bit of a row, and the Master had gotten tired of them complaining to HIM about each other when it was usually them complaining to the Detective. So he'd thought the brilliant thing to do was lock them in the studio to talk it out.

They'd ended up getting into a paint war, then upgraded to slinging chunks of clay at each other, and then, somehow, ended up covered in glue and brightly colored feathers. It was an odd time where there was a longer break between classes using that room and he hadn't had a sonic then. Once they had finally talked it out, after laughing hysterically at how each other looked, they had tried to work out a way to escape. When all seemed hopeless, she'd begun to lament that they may never escape and would be trapped there forever and what would they eat!? She'd gotten so caught up in the not eating part that she'd convinced herself she was starving, to the point where she'd tried to eat the bowl of wax fruit set up for the last lesson of the various techniques many civilizations used to create art.

"I'll make your favorite," he promised her.

"Yes!" she punched the air, pulling away from him to race to the box, the sooner they took off the sooner she could eat.

~8~

The Doctor smiled as he watched the Detective chow down…more like scarf down…her pot of Mac and Cheese. Literally inhaling it as though it were all she'd get to eat for the rest of her life. And, quite literally, the entire pot of it, not a bowl, the entire thing.

Two boxes worth.

It always struck him as so odd, that she was like a bottomless pit of food, willing to eat anything set in front of her, and out of all the culinary feasts she'd had over her life, her absolute favorite was something as simple as Mac and Cheese.

Ok, maybe it was three boxes worth, he had taken a bowl for himself, about half the box though. He did not have her appetite or stomach.

He had to shake his head at her, smiling fondly at the sight.

"What?" she asked, her mouth half-full of food.

He just picked up his napkin and reached across to wipe the smear of cheese she'd gotten…on her forehead…off. How did she even manage to DO that? He hadn't seen her hand or spoon go anywhere near her forehead the entire time she ate and he had been watching her a little too closely, contemplating Amy's words and everything that happened with George.

"Thanks," she smiled at him once she'd swallowed, before continuing on.

He allowed her a few more minutes of silence, allowed her to enjoy her meal before he brought up something that was a touchy subject and, perhaps, one of the few things that could put her off eating...telling her what to do.

"You can't keep doing this," he began, trying to make it sound less like ordering her about and more about hoping she'd stop on her own.

"Do what?" she asked, "Eat Mac and Cheese? Because, let me tell you Theta, I might pick this over my new best mate River and…"

"No," he shook his head, "You know what I mean, Sigma. What if I couldn't change you back?"

"Then you'd have to find a way to explain the very creepy doll that keeps following you around."

"Sigma."

"Theta."

"You, not looking before you leap…it can't keep happening. I can't…" he swallowed hard, needing to close his eyes for a moment to try and get a hold of his emotions and raging thoughts, "I can't lose you, Sigma. Not now, not ever, but especially not now."

The Detective lowered her spoon and her eyes, at those familiar words, ones he only ever said when he was properly and completely terrified. How she should look before she leaped, it wasn't something just HE said to her either, the Master would often give her an earful for it too. Madness, when one looked at the Untempered Schism, manifested in different ways for different people. The Master's presented as a sort of manic indifference, in twists and turns and plots. Hers manifested in erratic behavior, changing attention spans, and a significant lack of self preservation, usually in finding delight and excitement in things that should send other people running for their lives.

It was something she struggled with from the moment she looked into the Schism, like it had just broken inside of her and all she could do was try to glue the pieces back together, unsuccessfully and in the wrong places. If she, the Doctor, and the Master were standing at the top of a cliff, debating who should jump into the waters below, the Master would be the one trying to egg the Doctor on or plotting how to push him in, and she'd be the one shoving them both aside to leap first, regardless of whether there were rocks at the bottom or not. She rushed into things all the time, and it caused her friends enormous panic and stress, which was saying something given who her dearest friends were.

She tried, she really did, to rein it in, to hesitate, to wait, to think. But when she got so excited for something it only made her more eager to do it.

And she got excited a lot.

She never wanted to be the cause of her friends sadness or fear or stress…and she'd done that to the Doctor.

She may not have heard him while she'd been a doll, but when she'd returned back to her normal state, she'd been awash with all he'd felt when he realized what happened to her. His fear, his guilt, his sense of loss.

That was what had gotten to her the worst, his mourning, his loss. She'd tried to push it away, ramble and rave about the positives and the new experience she'd had, but it was there. For the first time since she'd found him again, she'd been hit with his profound loneliness, the way he'd felt crippled at the thought of losing her, of being…alone.

She hadn't lied to him when she said she went to find the Master first because she knew he would need both of them to deal with what he'd done to their planet. She didn't have the same feelings or resentment others might have if they'd found out one of their best mate destroyed their people and planet. She had grown distant from her family, her madness being a bit too much for them to handle at times though they tried so hard to cope. It was just easier for a child to adapt as they grew than adults to change their ways. She loved them dearly, and they did her, but it was hard at times for them to understand her. She had always felt closer, felt more of a kinship to the Doctor and the Master, losing THEM would have been worse to her and she'd nearly lost both. So long as they were ok, she could be ok.

But she knew the Doctor, knew the guilt would crush him, and she'd searched for the Master because she refused to believe that he wouldn't work out what the Doctor would do to end the war. They knew him best, after all.

So many people would see him now, or who travelled with him way back when, would think it impossible for him to do what he'd done.

They didn't know him, they really didn't know what he was capable of, the lengths he would go to BE a Doctor. Because his promise wasn't just to their people but to the whole of the Universe, the Master had had a hand in seeing to that with his constant battles off-world.

She had known, so she'd gotten off when she could. She knew the Master would as well, for a different reason than her probably but he still would get off world, and she'd gone to find him. Her Theta would need his best friends to help him through this.

She had known he wouldn't fault her or the Master not immediately coming to find him for that reason alone. When she'd failed to get the Master, she'd sent the email to the Doctor's UNIT account and gone to wait for him. Because if he couldn't have both he should have one.

Coming out of her time as a dolly, she'd felt his profound emotions as though they were her own, they were so strong, his guilt and fear so powerful. She hadn't meant to hurt him.

"I'm sorry, Theta," she whispered, sincere.

He reached across the table, placing his hand on hers as it gripped her spoon, smiling at her, "Just…don't do it again, ok?"

She nodded, moving her other hand to cross her hearts, though she knew she'd break the general spirit of the promise. She wouldn't always be able to stop herself throwing herself into danger, but she could stop herself turning into a doll again at least. Each time, each thing that caused this in him, she worked to never do again, because she never knew which danger he'd find acceptable and which was too much for him. She wouldn't have thought turning into a dolly would do it, but it had, and she could at least promise not to do THAT again.

"Oi!" she hissed, when he used her distraction to snag the spoon from her hand, still with the scoop she'd been about to take on it, and put it into his mouth instead.

"Hungry," was all he said with a laugh...cackling even harder when she stole the spoon back and threw a scoop at his face in retaliation.

...the Ponds would later wonder why the kitchen of the TARDIS looked as though the massive refrigerator had exploded.

A/N: For anyone who hasn't been following my other stories the last few months, we finally got to see how Sigma regenerated the first time! :) Lol, drowning in her soup :) I have to agree with the Doctor, I wouldn't have thought it was possible either, but leave it to Sigma to find a way to do it :) We'll also find out 2 more deaths in the next chapter ;)

We got a little more of a look into the Detective's madness and how it affected her as a child and then growing into an adult, the role the Doctor and the Master played in her overcoming some of it. I really wanted to take a little time to delve into that, to explore how so much of what she is and how she does things is a direct result of the centuries the Doctor and the Master spent trying to help her and where her habits and tricks come from.

We will see more of the Detective's thoughts on the Doctor as more-than-a-friend very soon. Those feelings ARE there, but it's going to take a very pointed remark for her to consider letting them more to the surface and more to the forefront of her mind. She has spent centuries not just burying them, but being ok with just being friends with the Doctor. She really IS ok that they didn't get together ages ago, she wasn't pining over him or lingering around or putting her life on hold for him while he was off getting married or travelling. It's more that it's just been so long of being friends and being careful to not let on that she feels more that (mostly because of how the Master would react if he knew) it's just become her normal default setting.

We'll see what her feelings were all those years ago, and, from that point, we'll see a bit of a different edge to her interactions with the Doctor as she contemplates whether to actually act on those feelings now ;)

Amy is, I think, at a turning point for how she sees the Doctor and how much she's grown since she first started travelling. There is that initial worry about how close he is to the Detective, how 'chummy' they are and how close, and what it means for her own friendship with him. But she's starting to realize that being his friend means doing what he has always done, putting the friend above herself, and if the Detective makes him happy, if she returns his feelings, she'll try to encourage him to go for it. He's been alone for so long and now he has a chance to be happy again with Sigma, the same way she is happy with Rory. Right now it's not a major concern for her, she does know how the Doctor can be and that it may take him a while to believe he has a chance and go for it, especially after how long he's maintained that friendship, so she's probably more content to just tease him along the way ;)

I also wanted to add in that little scene at the end with the Doctor more from Sigma's POV than his, because she does understand him and how he feels so much more than anyone else. She can see his thoughts and the feelings he allows to drift over or can't stop from her noticing. I wanted to explore more of how it affects her, how she feels to be the cause of that, and how she still struggles to control aspects of her madness but tries for him :')

Now about Snowpiercer. What does that have to do with Willy Wonka? It's mostly a fan theory, but something I felt Sigma would get behind.

For those unfamiliar with Snowpiercer, it's basically a train that goes around the world over and over while everywhere on earth is covered in snow and the only people left alive are on the train. The reason why some people think it's like a 'sequel' to Willy Wonka is that the train is an incredible feat of construction and self-sustaining like the Chocolate Factory was. On the journey to get from the back of the train (the 'lower class' where the hero is from) they face new obstacles where, one by one, someone is 'lost' in each new room and the rest have to carry on until only one is left...and that person then finds out that the entire thing was a test so that the head of the train could pass on control of it to a successor. The head of the train whose name starts with W (Wilford, the theory being Charlie changed his name in honor of his mentor). Children are taken and made to work on the train because the compartments where all of it happens are too small for adults and only kids (or, you know, someone Oompa Loompa sized) can fit, since the ones who were responsible for that maintenance 'recently went extinct.'

For this chapter there is 1 quote (though it's more of a song spoof ;)). There are 2 other references in here, but given what I just wrote about Snowpiercer and how it relates to Willy Wonka, I'm sure you know what two references they are ;)

Quotes from the last chapter:

I am Switzerland - Twilight (though I think it's a fairly common phrase to use when you don't want to be in the middle of something.

I'm gonna call you River, for short - Bindi Irwin. (I saw a youtube clip of their show from way back when Robert was just born and Bindi met her brother. She said 'I'm gonna call you Brian.' And her dad was like 'His name's Robert.' So the cutie goes 'I know, but I'm gonna call him Brian, for short' which is what inspired that line ;))

Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line - The Princess Bride

Some notes on reviews...

We got a small glimpse into Sigma as a child, a look into how far she's come and how much that moment affected her :( We'll get a few more glimpses into how she was as a child before the Schism as the series goes along though ;) I can say this chapter probably gives a hint to what's in her room }:)

I couldn't really see a way for Mels to not go on in her timeline, given all that River does and has done, it felt too fixed point in time to me :( That's awesome that you wrote a story dedicated to him, he was a great man and an awesome king. Unfortunately I have a personal rule that I don't read stories in fandoms I am or plan to write in, to keep myself from being influenced or unintentional use something from another's story. I saw the story was for the Avengers, and I still have at least 3 more series that will feature into Marvel so I tend to stay away from that fandom and stories for it at the moment :( But I wish you the very best with your work! :)

I will be completing Leena yup :) If all goes to plan, I should be posting the first chapter for her on December 1st :) I hadn't heard those rumors, no, thank you for telling me! :) Oh Leena will not be happy with Euros, no, though I think she may end up angrier at Mycroft for quite a few reasons ;) Though I can say that, in writing Series 4 for her, I may have come up with another AU for Leena on top of the one I already have planned, but more about that when we get to her story ;)