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.

8. The God Complex

The God Complex

Contrary to how positively giddy the Time Lords were as they hurried up the stairwell of an old-fashioned hotel, hand in hand and literally giggling to each other as they went, the Ponds were less enthused.

"'Let's go to Ravan-Skala,' she says," Amy muttered as she and Rory followed the aliens up, "'The people are 600 feet tall, you have to talk to them in hot air balloons and the Tourist Information Center is made of one of their hats,' she says. I'm sorry, Detective, but I don't see any huge hats."

"Who says this building isn't IN one of their hats?" the Detective countered, her magnifying glass out and looking every which way through it.

"I do," the Doctor answered with a cheer, wrapping his arms around her waist and spinning her around with a laugh at how interesting this was. He set her down and the Detective jerked back when his hands moved for her sides, intent to tickle her for good measure. He chuckled when she darted off to look more around the room and spun to look at Amy and Rory, heading down the steps now, "Amy. Beaky. This could be the most exciting thing I have ever seen!"

"You're kidding," Rory gave him an incredulous look.

"How can you be excited about a rubbish hotel on a rubbish bit of Earth?" Amy had to ask.

"Because it's not!" the Detective answered, moving back over to them as well, putting her elbow onto the Doctor's shoulder to lean on him, noticing how he moved his arm around her waist to keep her from tumbling down the stairs...which HAD happened a number of times in the past, thankfully those times not leading to regeneration, "This isn't Earth. And this isn't a hotel. It's just been made to LOOK like it."

"What? Then where are we?"

"No idea, and isn't that brilliant!?" she beamed, both her and the Doctor positively bouncing on their toes while the Ponds looked more exasperated at their excitement than anything. She moved her arm off the Doctor, gripping the end of his hand on her waist to spin under his arm and tug him off, back towards where the TARDIS was parked, by a wall, looking carefully at the potted plants nearby and the framed photos hanging on the walls with her magnifying glass as they went.

There were quite a number of photos really.

"Something must have yanked us off course," the Doctor remarked, reaching out to touch one of the plants, tugging the Detective over by the hand he was holding to see it, "Look at the detail on that cheese plant!" he sniffed the leaf, inordinately pleased that it even smelled exactly as it should.

"Right, but who would mock up an Earth hotel?" Rory frowned.

"Colonists maybe," the Doctor shrugged, reaching out to take an apple from a nearby bowl of fruit with is free hand, "Recreating a bit of home, like when ex-pats open English pubs in Majorca," he took a bite from the apple, "No, whoever did this, I am shaking his/her hand/tentacle."

"Ooh, look, pears!" the Detective cheered, finished with going back to examining the pictures and heading for the bowl of fruit. It had taken remarkable dedication on her part to ignore it before, but this was the middle of an investigation! She had a rep to protect, couldn't go getting distracted by food till she'd gotten all the clues she could. Good thing she was quick on the uptake and got all the details she could from the room.

The Doctor grimaced as she took a big bite of the pear she'd selected. No matter what incarnation, he just always seemed to hate pears for some reason. He rolled his eyes, though, when she smirked and offered him a bite of her pear, knowing exactly that.

He really did need to find a food she didn't like, if just to tease her in return. He was 900 years in and still hadn't found one, but he was hopeful.

"So what are these about?" Rory asked, moving to look at the photos, the Detective had seemed more intrigued by them than the cheese plant, spending more time looking at them, "Look at the labels underneath."

"Commander Halke, defeat," the Detective recited the label of the Sontaran Rory was looking at, having memorized all of them from a glance, "Tim Heath, having his photo taken," she added when Amy looked at a human, "Lady Silver-Tear...Daleks. Paige Barnes, other people's socks. Tim Nelson, balloons. Novice Prin, sabrewolves. Royston Luke Gold, Plymouth. Lucy Hayward, that brutal gorilla."

"What does that even mean?" Amy had to wonder, admittedly a bit impressed the Detective had known all that. The woman seemed to have the attention span and memory of a goldfish at times, yet she'd absorbed and recited all that perfectly.

"I don't know," the Doctor shrugged, still grinning.

The Detective took one last bite of her pear, she had a theory, of course, those labels were quite obvious, but what it meant for the people in them, what they got or what happened to them, that she didn't know yet. Best not say anything or else it would alarm the humans. Which just meant there was more to learn, which had her beaming, "Let's find out!"

The Doctor grinned, reaching out to take her hand, giggling like a school boy on Christmas day, before running down the hall with her, pleased as anything that there was someone else around as curious and excited about all this as he was.

~8~

The Detective pouted as they strolled into the reception area of the hotel, she'd been hoping there would have been more to see and more clues to find along the way, but it was more of the same. Just the same halls, same plants, same sorts of pictures. Different people, different labels, but same sort of things.

It DID confirm her theory about what the labels related to, but why they mattered was still eluding her.

Even the reception area looked boring as anything. Why couldn't they have had an awesome alien receptionist? With multiple heads or eyes or arms, now that would be cool.

The Doctor seemed to notice the lack of staff too, reaching over the desk to tap the bell, as though perhaps the missing person would be in a back room or something. But, to their surprise, three people, not one, ran around the corner, all quite mismatched for such a place, all clearly not staff, and one of them brandishing a chair leg as though it were a weapon.

"Blimey, that was quick," the Doctor muttered, tugging the Detective back and behind him in reaction to the sudden 'attack.'

"We surrender!" one of the men, an alien, one who looked a bit like a humanoid naked mole rat, called out.

"Tivolian," the Detective assessed right off the bat, eyeing the others from around the Doctor's shoulder.

"No, it's ok," Rory tried to reassure them, his hands up, stepping close to Amy to protect her from the chair leg, "We're not…we're nice!"

"She threatened me with a chair leg!" the Doctor muttered to the Detective, frowning at the woman swinging it, an Indian woman, dressed in hospital scrubs.

"Who are you?" the woman demanded.

"Human," the Detective remarked, more to the Doctor than anyone else, no one else was paying much attention.

"We're back in reception!" the second man, with glasses and curly black hair, wearing a gamer shirt, lamented.

"Human, too."

"We surrender!" the alien called out again.

"Never been threatened with a chair leg before!" the Doctor continued.

"You're forgetting your first day rooming with the Master, aren't you?" the Detective snorted, thinking ack to when they'd all gotten old enough in the Academy to move from general child housing rooms to more individual and paired off rooms. The two apparently gotten into a row about how to set up their sitting room in the Academy. She'd walked in on them 'dueling' with the chair legs of their desk chairs, the victor would set up the room to their preference.

"No," he winced, nodding, recalling that rather humiliating defeat, "I tell a lie."

Amy, however, was more fixated on something else, turning to Rory, "Did you just say, 'it's ok, we're nice?'"

"Ok," the Indian woman shouted, "I need everyone to shut up now!"

"Right, thanks," the Detective nodded, pulling a small bag out of her hoodie pocket, "Jelly Baby?" she offered to the others.

The trio just stared at her, not sure what to make of that, but the Doctor just plucked one from the bag and tossed it into the air to catch with his mouth.

"Ok," she said after a moment of no one else moving, "Taking that as a 'no,'" she shrugged, "More for me!"

And then she slapped the Doctor's hand when he went in for another one.

"Rita," the human male reached out when the Indian woman, Rita, took a step towards them, "Be careful, yeah?"

"Their pupils are dilated," Rita noticed, "They're as surprised as we are. Besides which, if it's a trick, it'll tell us something."

"Ooh, good deduction!" the Detective laughed, "I'm going to call you Watson."

Rita frowned, "I'm Rita," she corrected, "This is Howie," she gestured to the other human, "And Gibbis," and to the alien, who gave a tiny wave.

"Hmmm, no," the Detective shook her head, "He looks more like a Bernard, and I'm gonna call you Rufus," she added to the alien.

"What?" Howie shook his head.

"Ignore her," Amy sighed, rubbing her head, "I'm Amy," she began to gesture around them.

"Thing 2," the Detective whispered loudly, as though sharing a secret with the other three despite the fact everyone could hear her.

"Rory…"

"Thing 1."

"The Doctor."

"Theta."

"And this is the pain in our arse."

"Yes, Sigma," the Time Lady reached out to shake their hands, Amy's minor insult completely rolling off her, "Or, the Detective. Whichever you want. Hello!"

The Doctor eyed Gibbis a moment, "I take it from the pathological compulsion to surrender, you ARE from Tivoli?" he asked, just wanting to make sure, not that he doubted the Detective's assessment, but wanting to show that they had some knowledge of aliens, that they knew more.

It was very important that they establish themselves as leaders or in charge, made it easier to work with others and figure out what was going on if people worked with you than against you. And being knowledgeable about things made you seem more worthy of leading.

"Yes," Gibbis nodded, "The most invaded planet in the galaxy. Our anthem is called Glory To 'Insert Name Here.'"

"You with the face, Howie," the Doctor began.

"It's Bernard, Theta," the Detective corrected, completely serious, as though HE had been the one to get the name wrong.

"You said you were surprised to be back in reception," he ignored her.

"Well, of course he is," she rolled her eyes, "I'm guessing the walls change on them. Like a really outdated Hogwarts."

"Um, yeah," Howie frowned, "How did you know…"

"Well there's no reason to be so surprised you're back here unless you weren't trying to come here and ended up here. Which means the halls are a maze or they move to get you here."

They all just looked at her.

"Detective," she repeated, honestly it was getting a bit old when people seemed so shocked that she was so observant, it was in the title.

"She's right," Rita had to admit, a little alarmed that the odd woman had guessed so correctly, "The corridors twist and stretch, rooms vanish and pop up somewhere else. It's like the hotel's alive."

"LOVE it."

The Doctor shook his head, though he smiled at her reaction, he was quite excited about it too, loved a good mystery him. And, really, this was the first one that they would be doing together since the War. Before, he'd already known a lot about the Flesh, and there was a second her running around so it wasn't like he could share it with JUST her. Then Demon's Run was less of a mystery and more of an attack, same with Mels. And George they'd been separated for. Twostreams was just a right old mess but not a mystery.

Oh, this was Christmas!

"That's quite enough of that," the Doctor leaned over the reception desk to shut the music playing through the speakers off. It was a bit annoying and he didn't want any distractions.

"And it's huge, with, like, no way out," Howie added.

"Hmm…" the Detective looked around again, "Nope, not a doll's house this time," she determined.

"Really, just a glance?" Rory had to ask.

"The food was real," she said simply, as though it was proof enough.

"Have you tried the front door?" Amy asked, nodding her head to the main entrance behind them.

Rita gave her an unimpressed look, "No, in two days it never occurred to us to try the front door," she deadpanned, "Thank God you're here!"

The Time Lords had to chuckle at her words, though they both moved over to the door to take a look at it. Sometimes the way an exit was barred could give more clues. If it was high tech, it narrowed down who was doing this. If it was a bit simpler or older, made it harder.

The Doctor threw open the doors to reveal a brick wall, the Detective examining even that with her magnifying glass, "They're not doors," he agreed, "They're walls, walls that look like doors. Door-walls, if you like, or 'dwalls.'"

"I prefer 'woors,'" the Detective remarked, crouching down to look for any seams or cracks at the base of the wall.

"Though you'd probably got it when you said, 'They're not doors.'"

"And if these are the doors, then the windows are…" the Detective moved over to one, throwing the curtain to the side to see more wall, "Walls too."

"Right, big day if you're a fan of walls."

"Which I am."

He snorted, "You only like them because you like finding ways through them."

"Says the man who never uses an actual door if he can help it."

"It's not just that," Rita called out, pulling their attention back, "The rooms have...things in them."

"Things?" the Doctor perked up, "Hello! What kind of things? Interesting things? I love things, ask anyone."

"Bad dreams."

"They have purple Raxicoricofallapatorians regurgitating pizza and refusing to share it with you so they can feed it to their unicorns?" the Detective gaped at her.

"…what?!" Howie had to shake his head, completely lost.

"Oh, Sigma," the Doctor patted her head, "Really, we should get you checked out one day. This probably isn't normal by even our standards."

The Detective just stuck her tongue out at him, "SHE'S the one who said bad dreams."

"Hold on," Rory gave her a look, "THAT's a bad dream to you?"

"They wouldn't share their pizza, Rory," she said, truly serious, as though that was the worst nightmare anyone could ever have.

"Ok," Amy shook her head, not wanting to touch that with a ten foot pole, "How did you three even get here?" she looked at the others. She knew they were pulled off course, but how did Rita and them get there, two of them looked human.

"I don't know," Rita shrugged, trying to get the image of whatever a Raxi…something was puking up pizza out of her head, "I'd just started my shift. I must have passed out, because suddenly I was here."

"I was blogging, next thing, this," Howie added.

"Oh," Gibbis perked up when it was his turn, "I was at work, I'm in town planning. We're lining all the highways with trees, so invading forces can march in the shade. Which is nice for them."

"Yeah..." the Doctor nodded, "So what have we got?" he turned to the Detective.

"People snatched from their lives and dropped into an endless, shifting maze that looks like a 1980s hotel with bad dreams in the bedrooms," she summed it up.

"Well, apart from anything else, that's just rude."

~8~

The Doctor and Detective led the way up the stairs, heading for the TARDIS once more, ready to get the others out of the wonky hotel…if just so they could come back and see what was going on without having to worry about more people than the Ponds.

"We'll pop back to the TARDIS," the Doctor was telling them, "Sigma and I'll do a planet-wide diagnostic sweep, then we'll have a sing song."

"Ooh, I love karaoke!" the Detective cheered, "I WANT MY TEARS BACK!" she shouted out, starting to bang her head and hum a tune, "I WANT MY TEARS BACK NOW! Dance and jump!" and began to do just that, while still somehow walking up the stairs, looking quite like a flailing and flopping fish in the midst of a seizure in the process.

"Ok, ok, breathe Sigma," the Doctor chuckled, reaching out to grab her arm and tug her still so she wouldn't topple down the stairs, the last thing he needed was for this to be the time the stairs actually did her in and she regenerated. Honestly, given some of her past deaths, he was truly surprised her numerous topples down various stairs hadn't gotten her sooner.

She'd once died via a coconut hitting her on the head.

A coconut!

And people thought HE had terrible luck with his regenerations.

If the humans thought she was hyper now, they would never survive her chock full of regeneration energy.

She pouted but calmed, moving up the last few steps to the floor they'd left the TARDIS, "Speaking of rude," she huffed because…

The TARDIS was gone.

The Doctor frowned and stepped closer, reaching out to feel the space incase it had turned invisible for some reason.

"Where's the TARDIS?" Amy asked, "You parked it there, didn't you?"

"What's a TARDIS?" Howie asked.

"Our spaceship," the Detective stated, eyeing the space with her magnifying glass, set to detect things invisible to the naked eye, but nope, not there. She even squatted down to make sure it hadn't been miniaturized.

"It was our way out," Rory added to Howie, the man gaping at the idea of being in a spaceship, "And it's gone."

"Oi!" the Detective called out, spotting a security camera in the corner of the ceiling, "If you're going to turn the music back on, play something decent! Like that Metallic band!"

"Metallica?" Amy supplied, she just snapped her finger and pointed at Amy.

The Doctor frowned, realizing that the music HAD turned back on but that all of them were nowhere near the music controls, "Ok. This is bad. At the moment, I don't know how to say quite HOW bad…"

"On a scale of the Master murdering Bambi in front of me to him stealing my last cookie, how bad?" the Detective offered.

Amy opened her mouth to comment on how shouldn't that be reversed? But, recalling the woman's obsession with food…yeah, in her mind someone stealing a cookie would probably be a level 10 on a 'badness' scale.

"Probably around him trying to trick you into decaf coffee."

"Ooh, yes," she nodded, completely understanding the level of bad now, "Not as bad a stealing the cookie but still, at least three buses, a long walk, and eight quid in a taxi from good," and then she suddenly spun on her heel to face Rita, ""Are there any more of you here, Watson?"

Rita blinked, glancing back, honestly having forgotten the woman had declared her 'Watson' until now, which took her a moment before she answered, "Joe, but he's tied up right now."

"Doing what?" the Doctor asked.

"No, I mean he's...tied up right now," Rita had to admit awkwardly.

"Ropes, cuffs, or duct tape?" the Detective asked, serious, not at all disturbed by the fact that they'd done such a thing.

~8~

It was either the trio had gotten some sort of bearing for the layout of the hotel, or the hotel wanted them to get to this Joe fellow, for they easily made their way to the dining room of the building, no walls changing or shifting to keep them away. It was a large space, with tables set up, chairs out, and identical ventriloquist dummies seated at each space, all laughing, their heads bobbing.

There was a single man, who could only be Joe, tied to a chair at one of the tables, ropes holding down his arms and keeping his torso to the chair.

The moment they entered the room, though, the dummies stopped laughing, their heads turning to face them, watching as they approached Joe.

The Doctor glanced over at the Detective, the woman at his side, her magnifying glass out to examine the dummies, while he focused on Joe, "Hello. I'm the Doctor, this is the Detective, and…"

"You're going to die here," Joe cut in, his voice holding a dream-like quality to it, as though he were in a daze or a trance.

"Well, they certainly didn't mention that in the brochure," he quipped, brushing that aside, "Is Joe there? Can I have a quick word?" he moved to pull out a chair, sitting across from Joe, glancing over when the Detective seemed to finish with the dummies and move towards Joe too.

"Oh, it's still me, Doctor, but I've seen the light. I lived a blasphemous life, but he has forgiven my inconstancy, and soon...he shall feast."

"There's a feast?" the Detective asked, leaning in to look at Joe through the glass, eyeing him up and down, even examining the inside of his ear to be thorough, "And we're not invited? Rude."

"I think we'd be the main course, Sigma," the Doctor remarked, amused when she started to sift through Joe's hair as though looking for lice or something, "Well, you've been here two days, what's he waiting for?" he turned to Joe.

"We weren't ready," the man answered, "We were still…aww…" Joe tried to say 'raw' but the Detective had grabbed his nose and pinched it, using it to tilt his head back and examine the inside of his mouth.

The Doctor pursed his lips a moment to keep from laughing, waiting till she'd released him to continue questioning, "But now you're what? Cooked?"

"If you like," Joe went on, completely unfazed, as though he wasn't being basically manhandled and shoved this way and that in the Detective's examination, "Soon you will be, too."

The Doctor glanced down when the Detective managed to pick up Joe's hand just a bit, turning it to show him the dice-cufflinks the man wore, her magnifying glass 'absently' positioned in front of the man's tie, where a horseshoe clip was fixed.

"Be patient," Joe continued, "First...find your room."

"My room..."

"Everyone's probably got a room here," the Detective remarked, stepping back and crossing her arms, "And I'm guessing each room has the bad dream labeled on those photos in it."

"There's a room here for everyone," Joe confirmed, though he turned to look at the Detective a moment, "Even you," and then to the Doctor.

"You said you'd seen the light now," the Doctor began.

Joe smiled, seeming blissful, "Nothing else matters anymore. Only him. It's like these things," he looked at the dummies, "I used to hate them! They make me laugh now!" he burst out laughing, "Gottle o' geer! Gottle o' geer!'" and laughed more when the dummies joined in, before stopping abruptly, "You should go. He'll be here soon."

The Doctor stood, smirking when the Detective, having read his mind, moved a hand dolly under Joe's chair, ready to take him with them, "I think you should come with us."

~8~

"Ok, so it's not bad dreams," the Detective said as they stood in the reception area of the hotel once more. She, the Doctor, Amy, Rory, and Rita on one side of the counter, Howie, Gibbis, and Joe on the other, "It's fears."

"What?" Rita frowned.

"I thought it was that," she continued as though Rita hadn't said anything, "But you threw me off, Watson! You've got to be a bit more clear on that."

"I don't understand, what do you mean fears?"

"You said bad dreams," the Detective repeated, "But Gollum was..."

"Who?"

"Gollum," she gestured back at Joe, it was a fitting name in her book. Big eyed, creepy, disturbed. She shook her head, "He was surrounded by dummies he was afraid of, not a nightmare of sorts. It would have been far more disjointed and convoluted if it was just a dream. No, it's a specific thing each person is frightened…oh dear lord."

"What?" Amy frowned.

"There's going to be a room here filled with squirrels."

"We won't open it," the Doctor patted her on the shoulder, coming to the same conclusion as her about what was in the rooms, "What I don't understand is, WHY are there fears in the room. What does it do? Why has it made Joe…"

"Loopy?" Rory offered.

He snapped his fingers and pointed at Rory, "What's the point? And why the people in the photos?" he looked at Rita and the others, "Why you four? That's what I don't understand. Aside from all the other things I don't understand," he muttered the last part and moved to switch the music off again.

"What does it matter?" Gibbis huffed, "Sooner or later, someone will come along and rescue us. Or enslave us."

"First, we find the TARDIS," the Doctor decided, ignoring him, "Quick thing before we go. If you feel drawn to a particular room, do not go in, and make sure someone else can see you at all times."

"Joe said 'he' will feast," Rita remarked, "Is there something here with us?"

"Good point, Watson," the Detective nodded, "Bit late, sort of obvious when the music turned on 'by itself' before, but good point."

"Something to add, Joe?" the Doctor called over when the man began laughing.

"Here comes a candle to light you to bed," the man began to recite, "Here comes a chopper to chop off your head. Chop, chop, chop, chop."

"Can we do something about him?" Howie asked, a bit frantic.

The Detective beamed, "I was hoping you'd ask that," she reached into her pocket and pulled out a massive roll of duct tape, "I wanted to do this before, but I've been told it's rude."

She shrugged, she'd basically been invited to do it now, so she took a piece of the corner and pulled off a wide strip, heading over to Joe to tape his mouth shut.

"Why has she got…" Rita began.

"No reason," the Doctor said quickly, taking a subtle step back behind the Ponds, one of his hands coming up to 'rest' (block) his mouth.

~8~

The Doctor and Detective led the way down one of the halls of the hotel, past a few intersections, Gibbis pushing the detained Joe behind, with the others in between.

"Oh, that is brilliant," the Detective murmured, half bent over as she observed the floor through her magnifying glass, a small part of her attention on the conversations the humans were having behind her. Gibbis was commenting to Joe that they should all just surrender, while Howie had some mad conspiracy theory that they were in Norway.

"What is?" Amy sighed, it felt like they'd been walking for hours.

"We've changed direction!" the Detective straightened, "The grain of the wood is patterned just a bit differently heading in one way than the other. We've swapped direction 4 times so far."

"Four!" she gaped, "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Well, the first time I thought I was making a mistake," the Detective explained, taking the question seriously, "So I had to make sure, then the second time I thought third time's the charm. The third time I got distracted counting the specks of lint on the carpet, and the fourth time was just now."

Amy could only rub her head at that, turning to the Doctor to ask him how they were supposed to find anywhere to go or hide now when the halls really were changing, when the door to room 158 suddenly opened and a PE teacher stepped out.

"Hello?" the Doctor blinked at the sudden appearance.

"Have you forgotten your PE kit again?" the man demanded, eyeing the Doctor up and down, "Right, that's it, you're doing it in your pants!" before turning to go back into the room.

"I am not against that," the Detective quipped, throwing her hand into the air.

The Doctor just rolled his eyes and turned to check on the group, just in time to see Howie reach for a door, "Hey!" he shouted, "Don't!" and rushed over to try and push Howie away, but the door had already opened.

Inside were a group of young, college age women, all quite pretty, all laughing when they caught sight of Howie standing there.

"Oh, look, girls, it's H-H-H-Howie!" one taunted him.

"What's 'loser' in K-K-K-Klingon?" another mocked.

"Shut the d-d...the-the door!" Howie stuttered as he backed away from it, terrified and humiliated, the Doctor quickly doing so, slamming the door shut, "This is just some m-m-messed-up CIA stuff, I-I-I'm telling you."

The Doctor nodded, moving over to Howie and putting an arm around his shoulder, patting him on the chest with his free hand, "You're right, keep telling yourself that. It's a CIA thing, nothing more. Come on," he nodded, urging Howie forward to get the group moving again.

They headed up another stairwell and down another hall, the Detective poking and prodding everything she could as she went, from the wallpaper to the light sconces, to the doorknobs of the rooms, stopping only when she came to what looked like plaster that had been scrapped off of a low beam.

Amy frowned when she spotted a paper on the floor and moved to pick it up, "Look!" Amy called, holding it up to reveal it was a letter of some sort. But before she could hand it over, a growl sounded behind them, which made Joe strain in his bonds, "Ok, whatever that is, it's not real, yeah?"

"No, no, I'm sure it isn't," the Doctor tried to reassure.

"But if it is, how should we say hello?" the Detective added, "Do we growl back? Is that how they say hi?"

The Doctor shook his head, "No greeting the thing trying to eat Joe," he chastised, "Ok, everyone, hide, now, please!" he turned and grabbed the Detective's hand, pulling her into a room. Gibbis did the same, he and Howie moving to another, Rita pulling Joe into a third, while Amy grabbed Rory's hand to yank him into the last.

"Theta," the Detective spoke, the Doctor peering out the peephole of the door.

"Yes, Sigma?"

"I've got a strong hunch that one of the photos out there has a label for 'Weeping Angels.'"

"What makes you say that?"

She reached out and turned his head to show him they were in a room with two Weeping Angels trying to attack them.

"Don't...blink," the Doctor breathed.

The Detective scoffed, "I WON that staring match with the Pyrovile, thank you very much. YOU don't blink."

"Right, I won't."

"Not that it would matter much," she added, the lights flickering, causing the statues to move.

"Why's that?"

"They're not real, obviously."

"What?" he turned his gaze from the Angels to her.

"They'd have gotten us by now," she said, "I only turned around ten seconds after we got in here. That's nine more seconds than they'd need."

He frowned, that was true, they were faster than the blink of an eye, it wouldn't have taken them so long to reach them if they were actual Angels. He glanced at one, and moved closer to it, reaching out to touch it cautiously, only for his finger to go through it, "You're right, not real."

"Thank you, thank you, hold your applause."

"Ok, so…if they're not real, does that mean whatever's after Joe isn't too?" he wondered, turning to the door to peer through the peephole again, "If I could just see what it is…"

The Detective let out a huff as he crowded the peephole, glancing down to see a shadow approaching the door and her eyes widened with excitement.

The next thing the Doctor knew, he was being shoved to the side by a tiny blonde Time Lady, nearly toppling to the ground as she moved to her toes to peer through the hole and spot the creature.

"Oh, that is SO Wizard!" she laughed, though she sent him the mental image of what she was seeing. He jumped back a bit when it turned its head directly towards their door, but the Detective just seemed more excited to see it face-to-face for more detail.

It was like a minotaur of sorts, and so he immediately began to think of any species that bore such a resemblance.

"Ooh, I think it's going after Gollum," the Detective remarked, smushing her face to the side to try and watch the minotaur walking away.

"What?!" the Doctor hurried forward, pushing her to the side now, able to see Joe had somehow escaped his bonds and was in the hall now.

"Come to me!" Joe was shouting, his arms wide to draw the beast's attention, "Come to me. Praise him."

The Doctor threw the door open the moment the beast had dashed past it, but it was quick, faster than he thought it could be. It had already gotten to Joe and dragged him around the corner of the hall by the time he set foot beyond the room, "Leave him alone!" he shouted, rushing off after it, trying to get to Joe, leaving the Detective to gather the others.

He ran through the halls, up stairs, around corners, calling out for Joe, getting a little lost at a four way intersection of halls, peering down each of them for some clue, when he spotted it, Joe's cufflink on the carpet of one hall. He ran down it, picking it up, and looking to the side, down another hall, where Joe was kneeling, propped up against the wall.

"Joe!" he hurried over, slowing hen he noticed Joe's lack of movement, "Joe?" and his lack of breathing. He moved around the man, crouching down and taking his face in his hands, but there was no reaction, no pulse.

Joe was gone.

~8~

"Well, not much on the dummies," the Detective spoke, coming to sit beside the Doctor in the dining room where they'd all gathered. They'd assumed the room would be a safe base of operation now that Joe was deceased, and it was the easiest to move things around or out of the way, had more objects to barricade the doors with, as Rory and Howie were doing, and a kitchen so there was food. Joe was stretched out on a small dais, the Doctor having been scanning him with the sonic while she had reexamined the dummies, both trying to see if there was anything different in their readings now that there was no life in Joe and no life to affect the dummies. It was all the same though, "Excellent kindling if we need it."

The Doctor chuckled slightly at that, he wouldn't mind burning the dummies either, even silent they were creepy. He glanced over as Rita entered the room with a set of tea cups on a tray, doing her best to calm everyone's frazzled nerves, well, human nerves. He and the Detective were both more befuddled and a tad excited, in a morose way than genuine excitement, it had been tainted now by this beast roaming free. Still, it was a mystery to be solved before anyone else was harmed.

"She's remarkably calm, isn't she?" the Detective mused, observing Rita too, though her gaze drifted to Amy and Rory also.

It was actually quite obvious to her, which of this group had seen their rooms and which hadn't, which might find it next.

Comparing how Rita, Howie, and Gibbis had acted when they first met, coupled with the death of Joe which should have sent them all into a spiral of fear…only Rita and Howie were calmer now than before. She knew Howie had seen his room, she could assume Rita had seen hers too.

Which brought up Amy and Rory. Amy wasn't much changed from when they first arrived, but she had noticed the woman remarking on the Doctor's ability to save them all, her faith in him and how he wouldn't let them down, more. She wasn't really trying to help them solve the mystery, but relying on them instead and something in her gut told her it was a clue.

Rory wasn't acting any differently than before, she honestly was wondering if he even HAD a room. But that was mad, because she knew he had fears. Anyone whose wife was kidnapped and whose child was stolen and warped into a psychopath would have fears, even, at the minimum, about their ability as husband and father, as protector. So it wasn't that he didn't have fears to not have a room…perhaps he didn't have a room because the room wouldn't do its job.

But what was its job?

"That's what I'd like to know," the Doctor mumbled beside her, rubbing his head, following her thoughts. At a time like this, whenever they were separated or had things they needed to work through without humans hearing, they agreed to keep their minds open to each other. He'd seen her entire range of thought about it.

She always gave off such an impression of being distracted and not taking things seriously, but inside her head…well, it was just as chaotic and she did treat things more like a game than life or death, but she took her title seriously. Her mind would run numbers and clues constantly, but it would also operate on other things too. Like thinking about two things at once, or going through the motions but your mind was elsewhere. She could just manage having a few things playing out at the same time. It confused humans, their minds couldn't work like that, but hers did. So while she might be going on a tangent about which ice cream flavor was best, she might end it with an exclamation of a different finished thought.

They glanced over at the others, Howie and Rory finished moving a table in front of the door, Rory having joined Amy off to the side, the woman now finished with the conversation she'd been having with Gibbis, when Rita walked over with the tea.

"What exactly happened to him?" Rita asked, setting the tray down and frowning at Joe's sheet covered body.

"He died," the Detective blinked at her, "You…you ARE a nurse right? That's not just a costume…"

"I am, yeah," Rita shot her a look, "ARE you a doctor?" she countered, though it was directed at the Doctor, "Like a medical doctor? You haven't just got a degree in cheese-making or something?"

"No!" he laughed.

"Yes," the Detective answered instead, "Birthday gift," she added.

He scoffed at that, "More like a birthday gift for you. You only signed me up for that class so I could make you cheese whenever you wanted."

"Cheese is good!" she defended, "Better than bananas, even. And you've never complained about it before, you love cheese too!"

He sighed, nodding, "I do."

"No, but really, ARE you a proper doctor?" Rita had to know she wasn't trusting the lives of everyone to someone who had some rubbish degree.

"Yes, both," the Doctor clarified, "This…" he shook his head, glancing at Joe, "There is no cause, all his vital organs simply stopped, as if the simple spark of life, his loves and hates, his faiths and fears were just..." he trailed off when a loud slurping noise sounded beside him, and turned to see the Detective had taken a cup of tea from the tray and had slurped it instead of sipped it, "Taken."

The Detective ignored his put off look at how she'd ruined his moment, to hold the cup up to Rita, "This is a cup of tea."

"Yeah?" Rita eyed her oddly.

"You made a cup of tea."

"Yeah."

"WHY did you make a cup of tea?"

"I'm British?" she shrugged, not sure why it was a big thing, "It's how we cope with trauma. That and tutting."

"So what you're saying is…the kitchen IS well stocked?" the Detective asked, "With REAL food?"

"Yeah?" Rita frowned, seeing the Doctor frantically shaking his head at her, the man cutting it off when the Detective threw him a livid glare.

"One last question, Watson," the Detective spoke, her voice deceptively even, as she turned back to Rita, "A question of vital importance, a question that will determine whether or not my colleague here lives to see another day."

"Um, go on?" Rita eyed the Doctor as he dropped his head into his hands and shook it.

"Was. There. Cake?"

"What?" that was not what she was expecting.

"Was there any cake in the kitchen?" the Detective repeated, looking very tense, like she was holding herself back from beating the daylights out of someone.

"No," Rita answered, noticing how the Doctor nearly sagged with relief, "Not that I saw, no."

The Detective pouted, but turned to the Doctor, "You're safe this time, Theta," she warned, "Lie to me about food again and I'll strand you on Earth for a week, understood?"

"Yes, Sigma," he sighed, "Sorry."

"See if I share any Jelly Babies with you again," she muttered, sticking her nose up, and…pulled a biscuit out of her pocket to dip into her tea.

"Why has she got…" Rita began to ask, but cut herself off at the pleading look the Doctor sent her, sighing and shaking her head, getting back on track to the thing she'd originally come over to ask them about, "Look, I heard you talking when you arrived. This being an alien fake hotel, it's no more ridiculous than Howie's CIA theory or mi...or mine."

"Which is?" the Doctor asked, curious what she'd thought this was.

"This is Jahannam."

"The Muslim hell," the Detective swallowed a bite of her food, "Are you a practicing Muslim, Watson, or raised in it but lost faith?"

"Practicing," Rita answered.

"And you think this is Hell?" the Doctor asked, sipping a cup of tea from the tray.

"The whole '80s hotel thing took me by surprise, though."

"And all these fears and phobias wandering about," the Doctor agreed, "Most are completely unconnected to us, so why are they still here?"

"Shoddy craftsmanship," the Detective remarked, "Someone cut corners, there's a fault in the wiring."

"Or maybe the cleaners have gone on strike," Rita tried to joke.

The Doctor laughed, "I like you, you're a right clever clogs. But this isn't Hell, Rita."

"You don't understand," Rita spoke, serious and calm, "I say that without fear. Jahannam will play its tricks, and there'll be times when I want to run and scream, but I've tried to live a good life, and that knowledge keeps me sane, despite the monsters and the bonkers rooms. Gibbis...is an alien, isn't he?"

"No, he's a mutated naked mole rat," the Detective deadpanned, "Of course Rufus is an alien."

"Ok," Rita nodded, "I'm going to file that under 'freak out about later.'"

"Doctor!" Amy called before either Time Lord could remark on that, coming over with a paper in her hand, "Look at this. I found it in a corridor, I completely forgot I had it."

The Doctor moved to take the note, but the Detective beat him to it, snatching it out of Amy's hand and whipping out her magnifying glass to examine it, reading aloud as she went, "'My name is Lucy Hayward…' Oh," she nodded, "The one with the brutal gorilla label. Ok, she's dead," she added to the others, as though to clarify there wasn't someone else running around the hotel for them to worry about…though judging by the expressions on their faces, they were now more horrified and concerned than worried. Ok, perhaps she should have left that for the end. She cleared her throat, "'And I'm the last one left. It took Luke first. It got him on his first day, almost as soon as we arrived. It's funny. You don't know what's going to be in your room until you see it…' well, that's rubbish, how did they not work out what was in the rooms from the labels?" she huffed, "And if you know what's in your room, WHY would you go looking for it?" she shook her head, "Rubbish," before taking a breath and continuing, "'Then you realize it could never have been anything else. I just saw mine. It was a gorilla from a book I'd read as a kid,' told you, gorilla…"

"Sigma, less commentary, please," the Doctor cut in.

"Oh, alright," she huffed, "'My God, that thing used to terrify me. The gaps between my worships are getting shorter, like contractions. This is what happened to the others...and how lucky they were. It's all so clear now. I'm so happy. Praise him.'"

"Praise him," Howie repeated.

"Yes, that's what it said," the Detective nodded, before it hit her, "Hold on…"

"What did you just say?" the Doctor frowned, looking at the man, who looked quite startled now.

"Nothing!" he insisted, before tensing, biting his lip like he was trying not to say something, but it blurted out anyway, "Praise him!" he called, clapping his hands over his mouth to try and keep it in.

"This is what happened to Joe!" Gibbis jumped away from the man as though he was contagious.

And, of course, the entire room descended into chaos, everyone talking over each other while Howie freaked out about being the next one to die.

The Doctor sighed, trying to get a word in, but no one was hearing him, "Sigma?" he asked.

"What?" she glanced at him.

"A bit of help, please?"

She grinned and pulled the duct tape out of her pocket.

"Not THAT help," he huffed.

"Well, you need to be more specific, Theta."

"You have to have something for…this," he gestured at the shouting now happening, "Get their attention?"

"What makes you think I have that?"

"You've got a refrigerator in your pocket," he deadpanned, "I'm sure you have something that can cause a louder ruckus than this."

She grinned, a grin so pleased he was almost sure he would regret this. But, to his relief, she pulled out a simple airhorn and held it up to blast over the yelling the others were doing, not letting go till they were nearly hunched over, clutching their ears from the sound of it.

"Huh," she frowned, lowering the device, "That wasn't the mega-sonic one…hold on…"

"Nope!" the Doctor quickly snatched her hand, realizing she was going for an even louder one, and entwined their fingers to keep her from grabbing it, "Now, all of you, listen…"

"No, you listen!" Gibbis cried out, "Don't you see? He'll lead it right here!"

"What do you suggest?" Rita gave him a narrow eyed look, all of them sure they would not like Gibbis's plan.

"Look, whatever it is out there, it's obviously chosen Howard as its next course. Now...tragic though that is, this is no time for sentiment. I'm saying, if it were to...find him, it may be satisfied and let the rest of us go. All I want to do is go home and be conquered and oppressed, is that too much to ask?!"

"I'm going to go with…yes?" the Detective answered, sounding hesitant, as though she genuinely didn't know if that was too much to ask or not, ignoring Gibbis when he flopped down onto a chair in defeat.

"It's ok," Rita spoke, turning to the Time Lords, "I'll stay with Howie. You take the others and go."

"And miss watching this thing in action?" the Detective snorted, "No. You can learn a lot about a species by observing how it hunts, kills, and eats…"

"I think," the Doctor cut in, using his free hand to cover her mouth from making it worse, "What she meant to say was, we stay together," he looked over at Gibbis, glancing at the Detective to make sure she wasn't going to speak about that again, before he released her and made his way over to the alien, crouching down to speak lowly to him, "Your civilization is one of the oldest in the galaxy. Now I see why. Your cowardice isn't quaint, it's sly, aggressive…"

"Aggressive," the Detective repeated, plopping down beside him to crowd in the intimidated alien.

"It's how that gene of gutlessness has survived while so many others have perished."

"Gone, kaput!"

"Well, not today, no one else dies today."

"Stars, not in position," the Detective nodded, "Can't do it. Not today."

"Sigma, really," the Doctor huffed.

"Tell me anything I said that wasn't true," she shot back.

He shook his head, but couldn't counter it, and turned to head over to Howie, putting a comforting arm around him and leading him over to a table, "Howie, any second, it's going to possess you again. When it does, I'm going to ask you some questions. Please try to answer them."

Howie fidgeted as he sat down, "I hope my mum's all right, she's going to be w-worr…what are you doing?" he asked when he felt something touch his arm to see the Detective was tying him to the chair with the same ropes Joe had been tied up with.

"Gotta make sure you don't run off," she smiled at him, as though it was completely normal to hold someone against their will.

But he didn't fight or struggle, instead, just as she reached his other hand, he seemed to droop a bit, his head bobbing as though in a daze.

"Howie?" the Doctor spoke, cautious, "Howie?" when the man blinked up at him, that same blissful smile that was on Joe's face, he knew the change had taken hold, "Howie, you're next, we're all dead jealous, so tell us...how do we get a piece of the action? Why isn't he possessing all of us?"

"You guys have got all these distractions," he moved like he wanted to tap his head but could only manage to point towards it due to the binds, "All these obstacles. It'd be so much easier if you just let it go, you know, clear the path."

"Well, at least I'm safe," the Detective joked, or at least they hoped it was a joke. They never knew with her.

The Doctor absently nodded though, a jest or not, it was probably true. Even when she was trying to focus on just ONE thing at least three others were always there too. He honestly doubted there was anything in the world that could quiet her mind or clear her thoughts. Not that he was much better, but well, the madness of the Untempered Schism made things a bit more complicated for her. In all the time he'd known her, all the times he'd had a look into her mind, it was never quite or empty or on just one thing, ever.

"You want it to find you?" Amy caught that part of it, "Even though you know what it's going to do?"

"Are you kidding?" Howie laughed, "He's going to kill us all! How cool is that?!"

"Oh, yeah, sure, don't chastise HIM for being curious," the Detective muttered when the Doctor merely stepped away, "But you give one HINT of wondering what Chen7 actually does and it's hand over the mouth."

The Doctor ignored her complaints, gesturing the others to follow him as he explained what they'd gathered from Howie's remarks, "It's as we thought," the Doctor said, gesturing between him and the Detective, "It feeds on fear."

"Told you, fears," the Detective grumbled, "The rooms, the note, the pictures, all to do with fear and frightening people."

"So we have to resist it. Do whatever you have to, cross your fingers, say a prayer, think of a basket of kittens, but do not give in to the fear."

"Ok," Amy nodded, "But what are we actually going to DO?"

The Detective beamed, "We're going to hunt down a monster! Wait!" she gasped, "We're going to be monster hunters! Hunters! CARRY ON MY WAYWARD SON! THERE'LL BE PEACE WHEN...ooh! The TARDIS!" she spun to the Doctor, "If we fix the Chameleon Circuit, do you think she'd transform into a black Chevy Impala from 1967?"

"Um…why would you…" Amy shook her head.

The Detective pouted, "Now I actually wish Bernard was here, I'm sure he'd have thought it was brilliant," before she turned and shuffled off, muttering something about trying to find a trench coat in the wardrobe when this was over.

~8~

What sort of hotel had a beauty parlor? That was the question the Detective was asking herself. Especially on earth. Unless someone's fear was getting a bad haircut? That could explain it. Either way, she was currently doing her level best to not fall asleep as she sat in one of the chairs, spinning in a circle as she waited for the Doctor to finish setting up.

He'd refused to let her partner with the humans or Gibbis in this plan of his. Apparently he thought she'd go wandering off or try to 'hunt' the monster herself. Honestly, you mention having a sawed off shotgun packed with rock salt in your pocket once and everyone looked at you like you were a complete loon!

Now she was trapped in the parlor, waiting till they could lure the beast to them and try to talk.

So now it was ok, was it?

She argues with Rory forever to just let the dolls into the room and her fights at every turn. But here it's perfectly ok to not only let the creature in, but trap it in there with them? Fine, hypocrites. Be that way.

Still, she'd rather be there with the monster to get more clues and answers than stuck in reception with Howie and Gibbis, where they'd rigged up the speaker system to broadcast Howie's religious rants, or in the hall with Amy and Rita to get a door locked behind the beast, or even with Rory to do the same thing. Then she'd have to listen through the door to hear what was being said. It was too much work.

She'd offered to help the Doctor set up, he'd just given her a look and pointed to the chair, and there she was, spinning around and round and…

"You spin me right round, baby, right round. Like a record, baby, right round, round, round," she muttered under her breath.

"Sigma," the Doctor sighed, putting a finger to his lips. They had to be quiet or the beast might hear them and not Howie and work out the trap they were laying to lure it there.

She rolled her eyes and began mouthing the rest of the song instead. But was it so wrong to want to drown out Howie? Not in her book. The boy was shaping up to be more annoying than the Master when he was on a complaint tangent about the discrepancies between books and their movie adaptations…oh no, wait, that was the Doctor. The Master would complain about the stupid mistakes the arch villains always made in telling their grand plan to the hero when it LOOKED like the hero was going to die a gruesome death but then miraculously escaped. Hmm, she supposed he never really learned from the movies either.

Though...now realizing why the Doctor and the Master left her out of things, maybe that was why the Master would make that mistake sometimes, because if the Doctor knew the plan then he could escape the plan and not be truly hurt and upset her? Hmm, she'd have to ask him next time she saw him.

"Bring me death!" Howie's voice echoed out from the only speaker rigged to broadcast it, now resting on a chair in the parlor, "Bring me glory! My master, my lord, I'm here! Come to me. I'm waiting here...for you. He has promised me a glorious death."

The Doctor glanced over at the door and the full length mirror he was trying to move into position, trying and succeeding to ignore Howie, well, he had ample experience with ignoring the annoying.

"Oi!" the Detective reached out to lightly kick him for that thought, he just stuck his tongue out at her.

"Give it to me now, I want him to know my devotion. Praise...him. Praise...him!"

They both fell silent when a shuffling sounded outside the doors, the Doctor ducking behind the mirror, signaling for her to get off the chair and hide on the other side of the row of mirrors herself right as the beast entered the parlor.

"Rory, he's in!" Amy's voice shouted out, a second after the door was slammed shut behind the beast, the girls trapping it in, which Rory did as well at the only other door in or out too.

The Doctor flicked on the sonic, turning the lights off, casting the room into darkness, which didn't appear to sit well with the beast as it let out a roar and began crashing into things.

"Let his name...be the last thing I hear!" Howie continued to praise, "Let his breath on my skin be the last thing I feel!" the Detective peered in between the space between two mirrors to peek out, seeing that the beast had spotted their trick, had turned one of the chairs around to see the speaker, "I was lost in shadows, but he found me. His love was a beacon that led me from darkness to light, and now I am blinded by his majesty! Humbled by his glory! Praise..."

"That's quite enough of that," the Doctor muttered, flicking the sonic again, this time to cut off the transmission.

"…him."

"Nothing personal!" the Doctor called out, distracting the beast, it was part of the plan. He would talk to it, ask questions, get answers, while the Detective moved around and examined its physical shape for any other clues, or weaknesses it might have, any injuries to exploit if needed, "I just think we should take things slowly. Get to know each other. You take people's most primal fears and pop it in a room. A tailor-made hell, just for them. Why?"

It growled.

"What do you mean THEY take?" the Detective frowned, standing up behind the beast, before realizing her flub and ducking down as it spun around with a roar.

"That was me!" the Doctor shouted, shooting her a very firm warning in her mind, "I threw my voice, like those dummies in the dining hall, for Joe. You know Joe, you went after him last. Now, what do you mean, THEY take?" he repeated her question, listening for its response, "Ahh, what is that word?"

'Warden,' the Detective called over to him. Languages had always come easier to her and the Master than him, bit of a perk to madness. Things were always jumbled and confusing, so what sounded like gibberish to others made perfect sense to them, they picked it up quickly.

"This is a prison," the Doctor realized, hearing that, "So, what are we? Cell mates?"

'You said WE would be the feast, Theta, that mean's we're the meal.'

"Right," he nodded, "Lunch," he frowned, hearing the beast continuing to growl, "We are not...ripe? This is what Joe said. That we weren't ready. So, what? You make us ready? You...what?"

'Replace,' she translated.

"Replace what?"

'Fear,' she added, 'He replaces fear with something else that makes them 'cooked.''

"You have lived so long, even your name is lost?" the Doctor considered the next words the beast said, "You want this to stop. Because you are just...instinct. Then tell me. Tell me how to fight you."

"My master, my lord!" Howie's voice suddenly broke out.

From the hallway.

Just outside the doors.

"I'm here! Bring me death!"

"No!" the Doctor ran out from behind the mirror, not even thinking about the beast but about trying to stop it getting to Howie now that the man had come for it instead.

"Thing 1, get back!" the Detective shouted, seeing the beast shoving the Doctor aside and running for Rory's door, very keen to break it down.

Hearing a call for Rory, Amy bust in from the back door with Rita, but the Doctor warned them, "Stay back!" he pushed himself up as the beast burst through the door, knocking into Rory but kept running.

"My turn!" the Detective cheered, and raced out the door after it.

"Sigma!" he yelled, but she was gone. He scrambled to his feet, calling to Amy, "Pond, bring the fish!" before he tried to go after her, bypassing Rory, who Rita was already heading for.

~8~

The Detective winced as she hopped down the last two stairs, her magnifying glass out as she tracked the beast, which had slammed into Howie and carried him off. There was a pinch in her side, oh, she shouldn't have eaten that biscuit before running. That was a rule wasn't it? Don't eat anything for a half hour before exercise?

She thought it was don't eat anything for a half hour before ordering 'extra fries,' so that you'd have more room for all those chips, but the Doctor and the Master both claimed she was wrong and for them to agree on anything meant something.

Still, bit of a cramp, but nothing she wasn't used to. She took off down one of the halls, her glass picking up footprints till she came to an object decidedly NOT a footprint…a pair of glasses, Howie's glasses. She picked them up and fumbled a moment, not wanting to hold onto them, because she needed at least one hand free, but not wanting to put it in her pocket because she did not have a space set out of eyeglasses and her pockets were actually quite organized…if organized chaos applied…and she would not throw off her entire setup for this. So she put them onto her nose and winced.

"Oh, Bernard, you were blind as a bat, weren't you?" she muttered, already getting a headache from how blurry everything was, and pushed them onto her head instead, then raced off once more.

…until she came to Howie, kneeling on the floor, leaning against the wall. She sighed, moving to crouch before him, examining him incase there was any last trace for just how these people were dying, but there was nothing left. She pulled the glasses off her head and placed them back on his nose.

"Sigma!" the Doctor shouted, just as he appeared behind her, rushing over. He let out a long breath when he saw Howie, reaching out to place his hands on her shoulders, squeezing them in slight comfort. Amy, Rory, and Rita came down another hall, stopping short when they saw him.

And then Gibbis appeared down another intersection.

"He got free," Gibbis stated, "He overpowered me."

The Detective shot him a look, "Those bonds were not tied in any human manner," she told him, "They would have been impossible for any of you to untie unless you cut them, Rufus."

Gibbis swallowed hard, not having known that, "It might leave us alone now?" he tried to defend, "Maybe now we'll be safe," but the others just gave him sorrowful, disappointed looks, before turning to follow the Time Lords as they moved to carry Howie back to the dinning room, "Wait!"

~8~

Howie's photo had been added to the wall automatically, it appeared. Along with Joe's. It was as the Detective had thought, 'Dummies' and 'Beautiful Women' were their greatest fears, labeled just under their names.

"Have you found your room yet?" the Doctor asked absently, when Rory joined the two of them at the wall.

"No, no," Rory remarked, "Is that good or bad?"

"Good," the Detective stated, "I would probably end up burning down the entire hotel if I came across my room."

The Doctor snorted, recalling how she preferred to handle any 'pests' she didn't want to be bothered with. A can of spray and a lighter. Usually she reserved that for small insects, but anything that kept squirrels away from her would work too. He'd rather not die in an inferno.

"Maybe you're not scared of anything," the Doctor added.

"Well, after all the time I spent with you in the TARDIS, what was left to be scared of?" Rory asked.

"That you're going to fail your next child the way you failed your first," the Detective remarked, looking over at them only when the silence stretched on, "What?" she shook her head, "It's a genuine fear he probably feels but doesn't want to say. Everyone is afraid of something. But maybe not everyone has a room here. THAT's what we need to work out. Why THAT is."

Rory let out a long breath, looking away, not wanting to admit that was a very large, crippling fear he did have. The way she hit it on the nose like that was impressive in a very disheartening way and also a little shocking to him. She really was a detective, wasn't she? Sussing out clues and unravelling secrets. She was so weird he often forgot it was her job to do that. She'd found it out without him saying anything. Didn't mean he wanted it broadcast to everyone though.

"Why wouldn't I have a room?" he asked, that part sticking to him.

The Detective looked at him, "I just said that's the last part of this we need to work out."

"Right," he nodded, she had said that. He'd just been a bit distracted by her guess at his fear.

"You said that in the past tense, you know," the Doctor remarked after a moment, absently moving over to the Detective and winding his arms around her waist to rest his chin on her shoulder, a comfort for what it meant that Rory had done that.

"Said what?"

"The time I SPENT," the Doctor repeated, "What WAS left?"

"So?" Rory shrugged, turning to look at the photo of Howie, speaking again before either the Doctor or Detective could work out more in his words than he wanted to reveal, "You know, Howie had been in speech therapy."

"Guessed that," the Detective nodded, and she had, when he'd stammered out of nowhere and his fear was the girls mocking his stutter. It was clear he'd had one at some point, and he'd worked to get rid of it.

"And he'd just got over this massive stammer."

"And that."

"What an achievement," Rory continued as though she hadn't spoken, "I mean, can you imagine? I'd forgotten, not all victories are about saving the universe."

The Doctor sighed, stepping away to pat Rory on the shoulder, before nodding to the side for the Detective to follow him as they moved down the stairs, heading for the first floor to head back to the dining room and check on Joe and Howie, maybe there were more clues between both of them.

"Rita!" the Doctor greeted when they caught sight of her heading up, "Brilliant! How are you? Not panicking, are you? Good, good. Because I am literally an otter's toenail away from getting us out of here."

"Why?" Rita asked, though she was smiling.

"Second best question in the universe," the Detective beamed at her.

"What's the first?" the woman laughed.

"Doctor who?" she teased, elbowing the Doctor lightly, earning a laugh from him too.

"Third best question would be, why not, then?" Rita guessed.

"Exactly!"

"Why what?" the Doctor asked.

"Fifth one," the Detective whispered to Rita, "Why me, being the fourth."

"Really though, why what?" the Doctor asked.

"Why is it up to you to save us?" Rita elaborated, "That's quite a God complex you have there."

The Doctor sighed, draping his arm along the Detective's shoulders, looking over at where Amy was setting the fishbowl on a small table, "I brought them here. They'd say it was their choice, but offer a child a suitcase full of sweets and they'll take it."

"Or a ice cream," the Detective agreed, "That's also a good alternative."

The Doctor chuckled, "Offer someone all of time and space and they'll take that, too. Which is why you shouldn't. Which is why grown-ups were invented."

"All of time and space, eh?" Rita called after them as they began to head off once more.

"Oh, yeah. And when we get out of this, we'll show you, too."

Rita shook her head, "I don't know what you're talking about. But I have a feeling you just did it again."

"Hmm…" the Detective hummed, spotting something, "Change of plans, Theta," she reached out to take his hand and drag him off down the stairs, sending him an image of the security camera she'd caught sight of in the corner of the ceiling.

The Doctor grinned, "Got you, Mr. Minotaur."

~8~

"Oh no you don't," the Detective took to shoving the Doctor onward when he suddenly stopped and turned to look at a door marked '11,' "On you go, Theta. We are not opening the room. Nope."

"But, Sigma, it…" he turned, like he wanted to try and get around her, so she leapt up to get her arm around his neck, pulling him into a headlock and kept walking, dragging him along, "Ow! I just wanted to see what…"

"You KNOW what's in there," she huffed, "I know what's in there too, it's not like it's some big shocking thing. Why open something when you know what's there already? It's no fun at all."

"Sigma, will you just…ow!" he cried when she began to noogie him.

"Not stopping till we get to security," she just kept on like it was no big deal, "Honestly, Theta, you really think I'm going to let you risk being infected by whatever this all is? You really think the humans would follow ME on anything?"

He fell silent, that was…probably true. She came across as quite unreliable and flighty to other people who didn't know how loyal and caring she really was. She just had odd ways of showing it. Even the names she gave people were her way of showing affection. Most thought she just didn't care enough to get their names right, but it was more that she related them to things that she knew, so she could keep them straight in her head more clearly.

It really was a jumbled hell inside her mind and he knew, compared to the 900 years she'd endured it, he'd only seen bits and pieces of it. If she didn't give people names or jokes that she associated with them, they would truly feel like she had forgotten or not noticed they existed.

Most people took offense to her or didn't take her seriously, they wouldn't listen to her if she tried to get them out of this, much like how Older Amy had reacted to the Detective in Twostreams. She had assumed the Detective got the timing wrong to make it more interesting. Really, she found everything interesting, there was no need to make it even more so.

For some reason, they trusted him more to get them out of danger and her to get them into it.

So he sighed and stopped fighting her, letting her drag him on and practically throw him into the security room, shutting the door behind them and pressing herself against it, eyeing him with a narrowed look as though to gauge whether he would try to fight past her to get out. She nodded after a moment, assessing him, and moved to the monitors instead.

He had to chuckle at how she just randomly pushed buttons hoping it would work.

"Here," he called out, moving to stand behind her and lean forward to type in some commands, bringing up the proper footage to sift through, "Come on, big fella. Where are you?" he swallowed hard, doing his best to will his hearts slower when she relaxed back, resting her head against his chest. Though he couldn't help the spike when he saw Rita wandering the halls, no Amy or Rory or even Gibbis in sight, "Rita, where are you going?"

The Detective reached out to pick up a phone nearby and dialed the room closest to Rita as she passed, getting her attention for Rita stopped and looked at the room.

Rita frowned, glancing around till she spotted the camera, but turned to enter the room, "Hello?" her voice came over the line a moment later.

"Rita, hello there, how's the weather?" the Detective began, "Listen, enough small talk, can you bring the phone into the corridor? It's quite weird not being able to see you…" she waited to watch, seeing Rita appear, the phone cord stretched but making it to the doorway, "You started to praise it."

"Yeah," Rita admitted.

"Rita, come back," the Doctor spoke louder, the Detective holding the phone up for him to be a bit clearer, "Please. We'll find a way to stop it, I swear to you."

"No," Rita shook her head, squatting down on the monitor, "I need to get as far away from you all as possible."

"Why's that?" the Detective asked, "The creature only wants whoever's praising it, so long as we keep Amy away from it, it should be fine…" Amy being the most likely next target.

"You'd put yourself in its way?"

"We literally have a rule about laughing in the face of your imminent destruction," the Detective told her, deadpanned.

The Doctor reached out and took the phone, "We're coming to get you. Block out the fear and stay focused on your belief."

"The hotel will keep us apart," Rita argued, "I could be 50 miles away by now. I want you to do me one last favor. I can feel the rapture approaching, like a wave," the Doctor looked down when the Detective tapped on a monitor, seeing the beast heading down a hallway, "I don't want you to witness this. I want you to remember me the way I was."

"Rita. Rita, please. Let us find you. Sigma is really very good with footprints…"

"You stay where you are," Rita ordered, "Please, let me be robbed of my faith in private."

"Rita," the Doctor grew a bit more frantic, the Detective pointing to another monitor where the beast appeared at the end of Rita's hall, "Rita. Go into the room, lock the door."

"I'm not frightened. I'm blessed, Doctor. I'm at peace. I'm going to hang up."

"No, no, no, Rita."

"Goodbye, Doctor."

"Rita!"

"Thank you for trying."

"Rita, please!"

They could only watch as Rita hung up the phone, her eye on the beast, before moving into the middle of the hall and opening her arms wide, the beast running towards her…

"Oi!" the Detective huffed when the Doctor shut the monitor off with a flick of his sonic.

"It was her last request, Sigma," he muttered, knowing she was hoping that they'd see more about how the beast ended their lives to help learn how to stop it, but he couldn't do it in the face of what Rita had asked.

The Detective sighed, but nodded, "Fine. We should go find her then, no one deserves to be left in a hallway."

He nodded, waiting till she got up to hug her before she could move, "Thank you," he whispered to her, not for this, not for letting him turn the monitor off or her compassion to find Rita.

But for stopping him.

He'd thought he could handle it, opening the door, seeing his greatest fear, but he'd been prideful, this time HE had been the one about to leap without looking. She'd stopped him. Because if he'd been wrong, if he wasn't as strong as he hoped he was…that could be him. He could die at the hands of this beast, not knowing if regeneration would have even been possible, and she'd be alone.

Just as he had asked her not to leave him, he'd nearly risked leaving her.

"Two halves of a whole, Theta," she murmured, "I won't be one half, ever again, mister."

He smiled and nodded, pressing a kiss to her hair and holding her just a little longer.

~8~

Once they had brought Rita back to the dining hall, to the shock and horror of Amy, Rory, and Gibbis, the Time Lords had retreated to the hotel's bar area. The Detective had used the phrase, that 'she needed a drink'...and then proceeded to make a chocolate milkshake.

She sat at the bar, guzzling it down, to cheer herself up, because ice cream always made things better the way a good cuppa tea did…and right now tea reminded her of Rita.

The humans were sitting at some of the tables, with Gibbis, though the Doctor was in the other room, having a tantrum, kicking and screaming and knocking things off the tables. A 'Hulk Smash' as the Detective called it. She had a milkshake set up on the bar beside her, untouched, which was surprising to the humans that she had enough restraint not to inhale that one.

But it became clear why when the Doctor entered and moved to sit beside her, taking the milkshake and drinking it too, creating a milk moustache on himself before he wiped it off and began to use a straw.

"Ok," he sighed once he was halfway through the drink and calmer, the tension on now that there were fewer people and Amy was likely next, according to the Detective, "It preys on people's fear and possesses them."

"Rita wasn't afraid, she was calm, too calm," the Detective agreed, "That's how I knew," she added to the Doctor, "She was too calm, she had too much…" she trailed off, "Oh."

"Oh?" Rory frowned, "Oh, what?"

"She had too much faith," the Detective realized, "Wow…" she looked at the milkshake in her cup, "I should have been drinking this, not tea!"

Of course she would blame the drink on her late realization than on her mind.

"It's not fear, it's faith!" the Doctor's eyes widened, getting it too, "Not just religious faith, faith in something."

The Detective pointed her straw at him, "Bernard, conspiracies. Gollum, luck. Rufus, invaders. Watson, religion."

"They all believe there's something guiding them," the Doctor explained to the others, "About to save them. That's what brought them here."

"Like Thing 2, believing the Doctor will get us all out of this alive."

"That's what it replaces. Every time someone was confronted with their most primal fear, they fell back on their most fundamental faith," he winced, "And all this time, I've been telling you to dig deep. Find the thing that keeps you brave. I made you expose your faith. Show them what they needed."

"You have your good days and bad," the Detective patted his shoulder, before slurping the rest of her milkshake.

"But why us?" Rory frowned, "Why are we here?"

"It doesn't want you, Thing 1," the Detective stated, "You haven't even found your room, you probably don't have one."

"Yes, you're not religious or superstitious, so there's no faith for you to fall back on."

"Are we all just ignoring the fact that I pointed out Amy's next?" the Detective had to ask, "I mean, really, is NO ONE picking up on that?"

"What?" Amy blinked, she had missed that part, she'd just thought the Detective was using her as an example of what it would look for not literally saying it was coming for her, "Me?"

"Your faith in me," the Doctor repeated, "That's what brought us here."

"And she's been way too calm since we lured the beast into the parlor," the Detective nodded.

"But why do they lose their faith before they die and start worshipping...it?" Rory wondered.

"It's its way of cooking, I'd imagine," the Detective shrugged.

"It needs to convert the faith into a form it can consume," the Doctor nodded, "Faith is an energy, the specific emotional energy the creature needs to live. Which is why at the end of her note, Lucy said..."

"Praise him," Amy finished.

"Exactly."

"Hold on," the Detective spoke up, when the others turned to stare at Amy for her words, "I can make this better," before taking a big slurp of the very last bits of her drink…and then spit it out in a chocolatey spray, "What did you say!?" she asked as dramatically as she could.

"No," Rory shook his head, grabbing Amy's arm, "Oh, please, no."

The beast let out a mighty bellow from somewhere in the hotel, loud enough for them to hear in the bar.

"Right, run!" the Doctor shouted.

"Why are we…" the Detective began to ask, but the Doctor just grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the room, not letting her finish as they fled.

~8~

The Detective huffed as she was half dragged down the hall by the Doctor, Rory seeming to be doing the same to Amy, though the ginger girl was struggling more than she was. Gibbis was ahead of them, trying to put them between him and the beast.

"Amy!" Rory shouted when she managed to pull away from him and turn to face the beast at the end of the hall.

"What are you doing?" Gibbis cried out.

But Amy only stared at the minotaur thing, "He is beautiful."

"Ok, that explains her fascination with Rory," the Detective remarked, grimacing a bit at the sight of the minotaur. It wasn't an insult to Rory, she didn't think, just that well, Amy seemed to see beauty in some very odd things.

"Leave her!" Gibbis ordered, "Just leave her!"

But the men would not, both Rory and the Doctor grabbing Amy's arms and yanking her after them, down another hall.

"Here!" the Detective called, spotting a room, a very particular room marked '7' and throwing the door open for them to run in.

…only to spot a young, ginger girl sitting on a suitcase in the middle of it, looking out the window, waiting for someone.

Gibbis threw himself between the beds while Rory tried to hold the door shut, Amy, however, sank to her knees, staring at the little girl, her own past self there waiting for the Doctor, fearful that he'd left her, that he had abandoned her, but knowing in her heart he'd come back because he promised.

"Doctor, it's happening," Amy breathed, "It's changing me, it's changing my thoughts."

"I don't understand why we were running," the Detective muttered, "We should have…"

The Doctor reached up to cover her mouth with his hand, "Not helping, Sigma."

"If you had let me finish," the Detective huffed, pulling the Doctor's hand off her mouth, "I was going to say, why are we running? We know what it eats, which means we know how to poison it."

"We're not poisoning Amy!" Rory snapped.

"Yeah, as entertaining as that would be, wasn't suggesting that, thanks," the Detective deadpanned, turning to the Doctor, "We poison her faith."

The Doctor's eyes widened, even as his hearts broke for what she meant by that. But…it couldn't be helped, right now it was either break Amy's faith in him and save her life…or let her continue believing in him and kill her. He swallowed hard and turned to the ginger girl.

"I can't save you from this," the Doctor said, seeing that no one else had been paying attention to the Detective's last word, not even Rory, who was preoccupied with the beast now thumping against the door, "There's nothing I can do to stop this."

"What?" Amy looked up at him, tears in her eyes.

The Doctor glanced at the Detective, who gave him a solemn nod, before he moved over to stand before Amy, "I stole your childhood and now I've led you by the hand to your death. But the worst thing is, I knew. I knew this would happen. This is what always happens," he knelt down to look into her eyes, the beast managing to shove the door open, "Forget your faith in me, I took you with me because I was vain, because I wanted to be adored. Look at you," he murmured, tears of his own in his eyes as he stroked her hair, "Glorious Pond. The girl who waited for me," he looked over at the younger version of her, now watching him, "I'm not a hero. I really am just a mad man in a box. And it's time we saw each other as we really are," he turned back to Amy and pressed a kiss to her forehead, "Amy Williams," he stated, glancing at the beast as it staggered back in pain, "It's time to stop waiting."

The Detective moved over to the door, stepping into the hall to examine the beast as it collapsed to the ground, giving the Doctor space to compose himself as the lights around them starting to flicker on and off. She shook her head and moved to sit next to the beast's head, "Sorry about that," she remarked, "Poison, never fun to ingest. Do not try this at home," she eyed it, "Food supply is rank now, can't eat it. No food, no life."

She looked up when the room around them flickered, the hall and lights and room behind disappearing, revealing a large, black room. There was a grid pattern on the floor, lit up, with a control panel off to the side, running weakly. All of them were there, Amy still kneeling on the ground though Rory was at her side, helping her up, the younger Amy now gone with the rest of the hologram.

"What is it?" Amy asked, clearing her throat from her tears as she looked down at the beast, "A minotaur? Or an alien? Or an alien minotaur? That's not a question I thought I'd be asking this morning."

"It's a distant cousin of the Nimon," the Detective stated, standing and brushing her hands off. She stepped over the beast and headed to the instrument panel, the Doctor joining her to examine the information they could find.

"They descend on planets and set themselves up as Gods to be worshipped," the Doctor added, absently hitting a few buttons, accessing the databanks, "Which is fine, until the inhabitants get all secular and advanced enough to build bonkers prisons."

"Correction," Rory called from where he and Gibbis had crouched down by a porthole in the floor, "Prisons in space."

Amy glanced down at the hole in the floor, seeing stars and planets drifting by, before she moved over to the Time Lords but didn't fully make her way there, "Where are the guards?"

"Right here," the Detective knocked on the instrument panel, "All automated."

"It drifts through space, snatching people with belief systems, and converts their faith into food for the creature," the Doctor agreed.

Amy shifted on her feet, taking another step towards them, "It didn't want just me," she murmured, having worked it out, Rory didn't have a room, but the Detective seemed to think she would, and when they were speaking to Rory about him not having one, the Doctor hadn't said he didn't either, "So, you must believe in some god or someone, or they'd have shown you the door, too. So, what do Time Lords pray to?"

"Coffee machine," the Detective said, squinting at one of the readings.

"What?"

"Lots of people pray to the coffee machine," the Detective glanced at her, "'Please, please, don't blow the fuse today, please, I just need one cup…'"

"According to the in-flight recorder," the Doctor added, not answering Amy, "The program developed glitches. It got stuck on the same setting, the fears from the people before us weren't tidied away."

They glanced back when the beast growled.

"What's it saying?" Amy asked, now a bit green in the face when she could see it clearly, a little disgusted she'd gotten so caught up in it.

"'An ancient creature, drenched in the blood of the innocent, drifting in space through an endless, shifting maze,'" the Detective translated, "'For such a creature, death would be a gift.'"

The Doctor sighed, moving over to it and kneeling down, reaching out a hand to rest it on the beast's, "Then accept it. And sleep well."

The Detective cleared her throat when the beast growled once more, "He um, wasn't talking about himself, Theta."

The Doctor stiffened at that, glancing at her, hesitant, as though he wasn't sure what he would see when he looked. But she was glaring at the beast instead.

The Time Lady shifted closer, reaching out to nudge (slightly kick) the best in the shoulder with her shoe, "Rude," she told it, moments before it closed its eyes and let out its last breath. A moment later she held out a hand to help the Doctor up, not letting go of his hand, knowing the beast's words had rattled him, leading him over to the TARDIS.

"Could I have a lift?" Gibbis asked as they passed, "Just to the nearest galaxy would do…"

The Doctor unlocked the box and held the door open for the alien to enter, followed by Amy and Rory, before the Time Lords stepped in after.

~8~

The Detective let out a low whistle as she stepped out of the TARDIS to see a row of colorful townhouses just across the street from where the TARDIS had set down. There was a rather nice, red sports car parked in front of one of them. She'd have to give it to the Doctor, his tastes had improved, if just a bit.

"Don't tell me," Amy sighed as she followed, Rory and the Doctor after her, "This isn't Earth, that isn't a real house. And inside lives a goblin, who feeds on indecision."

"Nope," the Doctor chuckled.

"Would be very, VERY cool if it was," the Detective beamed, "Sadly, real earth, real house."

"Real door keys!" the Doctor pulled a set from his pocket and tossed it into the air for Amy to catch.

It took a moment for the Ponds to realize that they were keys to one of the houses, that the Doctor was GIVING them a house!

"You're not serious?" Amy gaped at him as he shrugged.

"The car, too?" Rory's eyes nearly bugged out of his head as he walked towards it, like a child on Christmas, "But that's my favorite car!" he spun around to face them, "How did you know that was my favorite car? Did you do detective things?" he eyed the Detective suspiciously.

The Doctor was the one to answer, chuckling as he patted Rory on the back, "You showed me a picture of it once and said, 'That's my favorite car,'" before tossing Rory the keys to it.

"Rory," Amy called out, moving to her husband a moment, "Can you give us two minutes? Two minutes?"

Rory nodded, but pulled the Doctor closer, "She'll say we can't accept it because it's too extravagant and we'll always feel a crippling sense of obligation," he looked over his shoulder at the car, "It's a risk I'm willing to take!"

"Go on," the Detective urged, "Check out your new house."

Rory nodded, doing just that, heading towards the front door but keeping his eyes on the car till the last second. Amy shook her head at that and moved to lean against the bonnet of it, "So..." she began, waiting till the Time Lords moved to join her on either side of her though she spoke more to the Doctor, having known him longer, "You're leaving, aren't you?"

"Can't get rid of us that easy, Thing 2," the Detective laughed.

"Yes, you haven't seen the last of us," the Doctor nodded, "Bad Penny is my middle name! Seriously, the looks I get when I fill in a form..."

"The looks YOU get?" the Detective scoffed, "Last time we were on Earth, he told people my name was Shirley Pesterer Holmes!"

Amy shook her head at them, before sighing, "Why now?" she asked, trying to keep it serious, because this was serious to her, very serious.

"Because you're still breathing," the Doctor replied, grim.

"Well, I think this is about the washing-up, personally."

"Well," the Detective clapped, pushing off the car to skip towards the TARDIS, the Doctor moving to follow at a walk, "Time to go, things to do, people to see, planets to smash..."

"Save," the Doctor corrected.

"Planets to save," she gave Amy a salute.

"Do you know, there's a planet whose name literally translates as 'Volatile Circus?'" the Doctor asked her, trying to make the situation not seem as final or depressing.

"Do I know? Do I know?" she scoffed, "Who do you think named it that?"

The Doctor had to give her a look for it, before nodding, she got up to quite a few things, it appeared, while trying to keep the Master from rampaging at his losses.

"You can't just go," Amy moved over to them.

"Amy," the Doctor sighed, "No matter what happens, or what we get up to, it'll never measure up to the bigger, scarier adventure waiting for you in there," he nodded at the house.

Amy glanced at it and back to him, "Even so, it can't happen like this. After everything we've been through, Doctor. Everything. You can't just drop me off at my house and say goodbye like we shared a cab."

"And what's the alternative? Me standing over your grave? Over your broken body? Over Rory's body?"

"You can't regenerate like we can, Amy," the Detective agreed, serious for once.

Amy sighed, but reached out, actually hugging both of them tightly, "If you bump into my daughter, tell her to visit her old mum sometime."

"And look after him," the Doctor nodded at the house.

Amy nodded, glancing at the Detective, "And you look after him."

"On my life," the Detective agreed.

The Doctor smiled, holding out a hand for the Detective to take before they headed for the box, waving back at Amy once more, taking in her smiling, if crying, face, before they stepped into the box and headed to the controls. The Detective manned most of it, sending the box into the Vortex as she observed the Doctor just watching the rotor rise and fall.

As soon as the box was set to drift in space, she moved over to him and slid her arms through his crossed ones, nudging him to release his grip so she could hug him tightly, "Theta Sigma," she murmured against his chest, "In the TARDIS. Next stop, everywhere."

He closed his eyes at those words, from so many years and lifetimes ago, the words he himself had used to try and convince her to travel with him and Susan. It wasn't just a reminder that it was finally happening, but that it was as true then as now, Theta Sigma, two halves of a whole. He would miss the Ponds, he would miss every companion, but there was something about having the Detective in his arms that made his hearts feel lighter about this separation. Amy was his closest human friend, but he could admit she wasn't his closest friend ever. Maybe that had been why he'd been so ok with Rory travelling with them, it would be the closest he could get to the Detective and the Master being there with him, that, maybe, for a moment, he could pretend his old friends were there, the three of them off and having adventures.

The Detective really was there now, though. She was in his arms, she was staying with him, when humans couldn't, SHE could and she would.

"You still have me," she whispered, hugging him tightly, "Always."

He opened his eyes with a smile, leaning a bit to press a kiss to her forehead, before hugging her even more tightly.

The Detective closed her eyes this time when he began to hum a light song under his breath, one from Gallifrey, one the three of them had come to using whenever one was upset or scared, to comfort them. She took a breath, "I love you, Theta."

"Love you too, Sigma," he murmured into her hair.

She opened her eyes, grateful her head was tilted to the side so he couldn't see her as her brow furrowed, trying to assess his words. It was by no means the first time she had ever said that to him nor him to her, but it sounded just like it always did, no new inflections or tones to decipher. She filed her poke away for now and pulled back to look at him, "What do you want to do?" she asked, "Where do you want to go? Anywhere and anywhen you want?"

He leaned back to look down at her, "You know, I think I'd pick right here, right now."

She let out a light breath as he pulled her back into that tight hug, settling...for all of 30 seconds, which, to be fair, was 5 more than her record, before she said, "You know, I'll only be able to manage another minute or two right?"

He chuckled by her ear, nodding above her head, "Still have another minute and 43 seconds," he remarked, starting to sway a bit as he held her.

And if she managed an additional 14 seconds of standing that still so he could hug her, well, that deserved a reward of picking the next adventure.

A/N: Just starting by saying I'm putting up a poll for pairing names for Sigma and the Doctor :) It'll be up until the Christmas chapters so check it out ;) It may take an hour or two to show up on my FF profile, but it'll be there soon ;)

I was really SO tempted to show Sigma's room, but it's already been identified what her greatest fear is, a few times, so it wasn't like it would be a surprise and, knowing what's in the room, I couldn't see even her curiosity being that high as to try and confirm it lol :) Nor could I see her letting the Doctor open his door and be infected by whatever it was. Like with Chen7, she was curious, but he stopped her. This time he was curious and she stopped him :)

I tried to balance Sigma's curiosity with the growing threat to Amy and how it would affect the Doctor, where she gets a tiny bit more serious as the mystery plays out. And at the end, she hasn't had the same bond with the Ponds that the Doctor has nor for as long as he had so, to her, it's not hitting her as much for them to depart, but she knows it's hitting him hard so she's really trying to be supportive and understanding.

That was one thing, I think, that really upset HER in the past, when he'd lose a companion and she couldn't be there to help him right at that moment :( I think she'll make it her mission to cheer him up over the next few decades ;) While continuing her investigation about what other sort of bond might be between them ;)

I have to say, I'm really excited to get to the next chapter, I think Closing Time was one of my favorites to write for Sigma :)

Lol, we found out yet another way she regenerated in the past even if we don't know WHICH regeneration it was just yet. Death by coconut, I can definitely see why she's on a quest for 'cooler' ways to go ;)

For this chapter there are 4 intentional quotes and 5 little references ;)

Quotes from the last chapter:

There's a special level of hell reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the theater. - Firefly

HULK SMASH - The Hulk

Pull the lever, Kronk! - The Emperor's New Groove

References from the last chapter:

Wilson - From Cast Away (I know there were references to Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, but I thought those were a bit obvious ;))

Some notes on review...

Clara's ending annoyed me too :/ I think the Doctor went way too far and it sort of wasn't fair to all his past companions who he probably could have saved if he had been willing to take it that far too, made it feel, to me, like he valued Clara more than all the others and that was sort of a disservice to them :/ We'll definitely get more glimpses into the Doctor's wife as the series goes on yup ;) It's always complicated for her, I think, on one hand Sigma did 'back off' and tried not to interfere in his life or insert herself into his family, just kept the normal bond of a triumvirate. So his wife was important to him, and Sigma would never intentionally put him in a position to have to pick her or his wife so she could have been secure in that and accepted Sigma as just someone important to him. On the other hand, we'll learn more, she sort of treated his bond with Sigma as though she couldn't understand why it was just as strong as other triumvirates, because it was skewed, and she went into a relationship thinking his bond was or should be less so it was partly her own assumptions that caused some issues for her :/ But we'll definitely learn more about her :) I love the Judge for that too, she sort of holds him accountable for his decisions and reminds him they do have consequences, just because he wasn't there to face them didn't mean they went away. I think it's part of her job bleeding in there, she's the one meant to uphold the law and make sure others were held to standards and punished for breaking it, so she's not just going to let him off free when he's done something she feels was against their family and a bit against their people/planet. Oh boy, if Newt was there I just see her releasing all his animals for the sole purpose of the chaos of tracking them all down and then running around a city causing even more ruckus to get them back :) And thank you, I feel like retail and food service are where you sort of really need to watch those 'restore my faith in humanity' videos on youtube because of how awful some people are :/

I'm sorry you had some bad experiences with customers too :( I've had that happen to me too in a similar sense, someone would order a food product with their drink, then flip when they didn't get it because it wasn't rung up and they literally had the receipt saying they never paid for it. And then managers would be called in and, instead of taking your employee's side on a legit issue, they cave to the customer and you're left feeling like no one has your back and it just perpetuates their behavior :/ I almost wish I had a café of my own so I could be the manager/owner and when customers try that I'd be the first one on my employee's sides :/ I hope your experiences have gotten better and I hope any and all future encounters with others are positive :)

I debated if Sigma could work out a way to save the second Amy, and I think she'd be very game to find out what would actually happen if both Amys were in the TARDIS, if they could pilot the box away in the 10-15 seconds they'd have to get somewhere Amy could survive, but part of her wouldn't risk the Doctor's life like that. If it was just her, she'd probably not think twice, but with the Doctor there too, she wouldn't risk it :(

Rory is the best :) I love him. I feel like he's sort of been in the same boat, and he waited so many years to try to date Amy, and he had to compete with the Doctor, or at least he felt like he did. I think he'd see something of that in Sigma and want her to be able to be happy like he is :) I'm glad you like the little stories for them, much more to come ;)

I'm glad you're enjoying Sigma :D I'm very much looking forward to that AU too :) Just imagining 11 with Angel? O.O I would probably really get diabetes from how sweet they'd be together :) I definitely have it in the plans to write, it may just take a little while to get to with the other stories I need to catch up with first. It's actually part of why I'm considering ending the DW stories at 12, because then I'd have more time to put towards the AUs and exploring them. But we will definitely see that AU ;)