AN: Tee hee hee. If you thought I was referencing "Love & Monsters" last time, well…I wasn't. XD That chapter has actually been moved to another point in this timeline. As for where and how I'll be doing it, well…you'll have to wait and see. ;) Anyway, past that little note, on with the chapter.

Fear Her

Dame Kelly Holmes Close, Stratford
26th July 2012

Closing the door to her brown bricked, two story home, Trish, a dark-skinned woman of 37 years, dressed in a cream three button shirt with black jeans, walked to the front of her driveway to place a large red rubbish bag onto the ground, where it will sit for a while until the rubbish truck came down the street. Moving to stand in front of her, staring in fearful scrutiny around the street was Maeve, an elderly lady with white hair, wearing a blue jacket, blue button up shirt, blue track pants and trailing a blue roller bag. "Maeve? Are you okay?" Trish asked, blinking curiously at Maeve's squinting eyes.

Maeve spared her one glance but still kept looking around the street. "No, love, I'm not."

Trish's gaze darted from side to side in confusion. "You want me to call a doctor?"

Maeve scoffed. "A doctor can't help."

"So…what's the matter?" Trish asked.

"Can't…" She trailed off before sighing, turning around to gaze at her properly. "Can't you feel it, Trish?" She asked.

Trish shook her head. "Can't feel anything."

Maeve turned to look across the small street, seeing two boys, a blonde in a yellow shirt and a dark-haired boy in a shirt made after the British Flag, playing football in their front yard while the Dad of the flag boy was cleaning his small red and silver car nearby. "Boys, get indoors!" Maeve called, moving across the street without her bag, trying to usher the smiling yet puzzled children into the house. "Get inside! Get them inside!"

The Dad, Zack, blinked. "What's up with you? They haven't done nothing wrong." He said, putting his sponge into the bucket momentarily.

"It's happening again!" Maeve said.

Trish turned back to her house to the upstairs window, seeing the silhouette of her daughter, Chloe, staring with blank eyes and a hand against the glass into the street. Oh please, no. Not again. Trish blinked, moving back into the house and closing the front door, pressing her back against it. How am I supposed to tell her to stop? She won't listen to me. I don't even know how she's doing it, or why. She mentally whimpered.

"They're not safe!" Maeve called; her voice slightly muffled by the closed door of Trish's house.

"They're in the garden!" Zack argued.

"That's what it likes! It likes it when they're playing! Get them in, I'm begging you!"

"Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree." Chloe hummed to herself upstairs. The song felt like a painful stab in the heart to Trish, since that song was what helped Chloe to sleep whenever…well…her father was alive, at least. But now, it almost felt practically insulting, as if Chloe was resenting her, and Trish still didn't know why. "Merry, merry king of the bush is he. Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh. Kookaburra, gay your life must be."

"All right, I've got my beady eyes on them." Zack said, obviously trying to usher Maeve away. "Come on."

"No!" Maeve cried, and Trish knew that it wasn't to Zack.

"T-Tom?" Zack asked, Trish already figuring out what happened to Tom, the kid wearing the flag shirt. "Where's he gone?"

"What are you?!" Maeve cried into the street. "What do you want with our children?!"

"Merry, merry king of the bush is he. Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh. Kookaburra, gay your life must be."

27th July 2012

The TARDIS materialized with a slow thud between two large blue steel containers and the doors opened. "Ah." The Doctor's voice muttered before he closed the doors. Then, the TARDIS started to dematerialize before reappearing, still in the same spot but now with the doors properly exposed, which swiftly opened. "Ah!" The Doctor beamed, moving out of the TARDIS with Clara at his side as Rose followed behind, closing the doors as she did. Clara had comfortably changed back into her "Teacher" outfit while Rose wore a blue Levi jacket, a yellow Diesel shirt, dark blue Topshop trousers and a brown Diesel belt.

"Took you long enough." Clara teased as she took his hand.

"Oi! I know how to pilot my TARDIS, thank you very much." He whined.

""Basic mode"." Clara reminded with a mischievous smile.

"Stop it." He warned.

"So, near future, yeah?" Rose interrupted, making them spin around with a jump, as they saw Rose standing by a temporary wooden wall, looking at advertisements for a new musical album.

"Well…I had a passing fancy. Only, it didn't pass, it stopped." The Doctor quipped lightly as they walked off into the nearby street named "Dame Kelly Holmes Close". "Now, look at that!" The Doctor beamed, looking at an Olympics banner hung between two houses, saying "London 2012". "30th Olympiad." The Doctor proclaimed.

"No way!" Rose beamed. "Why didn't either of you think of this before?! That's great!"

Clara rolled her eyes a bit while the Doctor chuckled. "Only seems like yesterday. A few naked Greek blokes were tossing a discus about, wrestling with each other in the sand and crowds stood around, bai-no, wait a minute. That was Club Med." The Doctor quipped, bumping Clara with his shoulder. Clara bumped him back and he wrapped an arm around her with a grin. "Just in time for the opening doo-dah, ceremony tonight. Thought you'd like that." He said to Clara.

Clara giggled. "I do like it." She confirmed.

"Last one they had in London was dynamite. Wembley, 1948, I loved it so much, I went back and watched it all over again. And…the fella carrying the torch…" He trailed off with a frown, "lovely chap. What was his…Mark? John Mark?" He muttered, scratching his cheek beside his ear. "Legs like pipe cleaners, but strong as a whippet."

"Doctor." Rose called from behind them, but they kept walking as if they didn't hear her.

"And in those days, everyone had a tea party to go to."

"Clara!"

"Did you ever have those little cakes with the…crunchy ball bearings on top?"

"It's been a while, but I did." Clara said before frowning. "Oh, now you've got me hungry for sweets." She whined, and the Doctor laughed.

"You two should really look at this!" Rose called with a growl and they turned around to walk back to Rose, who was standing by a grey lamp post beside an orange brick wall that had four paper posts on it.

"Did you know that nobody else in this entire galaxy has ever even bothered to make edible ball bearings. Genius!" He beamed but it quickly melted away into a frown which Clara quickly mirrored as they stood beside Rose. The three paper posts were about missing children, "Danny", "Dale", "Jane" and "Tom". "What's taking them, do you think?" The Doctor asked. "Snatching children from a thoroughly ordinary street like this."

"And why is it so cold?" Clara muttered with a shiver, making the Doctor rub her arms. "Is someone reducing the temperature?" It was indeed cold, colder than London usually was.

"It says they all went missing this week." Rose said, still looking at the posts. "Why would a person do something like this?"

"What makes you think it's a person?" Clara asked.

They heard a front door open, turning around to see a woman walking out with a terrified expression as she placed a red trash bag down at the front of her driveway before quickly, almost running, back into her house and sharply closing the door. "Whatever it is, it's got the whole street scared to death." Rose muttered. "What do you reckon?" She asked but received no answer. "Clara?" She turned around, seeing the Doctor and Clara down at the other end of the street and Rose rolled her eyes. "Of course." She muttered before starting to walk down the street towards them. She walked past a white van on the other side of the road, its boot open clearly showing lots of hand and power tools inside as a dark-skinned man in a blue uniform with a green hi-vis vest was placing a large brown broom back inside. Rose also saw a small red and black car with a white top coming down the street towards them, before slowing down to a sudden halt. The driver tried to start it, but only gets the sound of engine grinds, causing the worker to roll his eyes as he walked over to the car.

"There you go. Fifth today." He remarked to the driver. "That's not natural, is it?"

The driver shrugged. "Don't know what happened. I had it serviced less than a month ago."

The worker shook his head. "Nah, don't even try and explain it, mate. All the cars are doing it, and you know what? Its bonkers. Bonkers. Come on then, pal. I'll help you shift it." He said, and the driver got out of the car to stand by his closed door while the worker braced himself against the boot of the car. "Quicker you're on the way, happier you'll be." They both breathed and panted as they slowly, inch by merciless inch, pushed the car forward in the hope that it will start it up. "There we go." The worker muttered amidst his panting.

"Do you want a hand?" Rose asked.

The worker shook his head, even though the strain of it was obvious on his face. "No, we're all right, love." He breathed.

Rose shook her head and moved up beside him. "But you're not. I'm tougher than I look, honest. Come on." She nudged, and he begrudgingly moved aside to let her brace herself against the boot of the car. The three of them pushed and shoved through their panting against the car until it gave a sudden start and a jolt, sending the worker stumbling to the ground while Rose hobbled about to maintain her balance as the car throttled back to life again.

"Cheers, mate." The driver said, hopping back into his car and driving off as the worker and Rose gave him a wave.

"Does this happen a lot?" Rose asked as they regained their breaths.

"Been doing it all week."

"Since those children started going missing?"

The worker blinked with a shrug. "Yeah. I suppose so." He turned to walk back to his van, so Rose moved to follow him. "I mean…every car, and I mean EVERY car cuts out. The Council are going nuts. They've given this the street the works, renamed it. I've been tarmacking every pothole." He said, placing a hand on his chest with obvious pride that made Rose snigger. They stopped in front of the van where a small patch of smooth charcoal black lay in the road. "Look at that. Beauty, isn't it? Yep, and all this is because that Olympic Torch comes right by the end of this Close. Just down there." He pointed behind him to the end of the street. "Everything's got to be perfect, right? Only…it isn't."

"It takes them when they're playing." Maeve interrupted, making them blink just a tiny bit in shock before Rose frowned.

"What takes them?" She asked.

"Danny, Jane, Dale, Tommy, snatched in the blink of an eye."

"We are police officers!" The Doctor called, making Rose blink as she saw him and Clara backing away from Zack. "That's what we are. We've got a badge and a…police car. See? We can prove it, just hold on." The Doctor reached into his pockets for his psychic paper.

"We've had plenty of coppers poking around here and the both of you don't look or sound like any of them." Zack accused.

"And we have a colleague." Clara said, nudging Rose as they moved to stand beside her and the worker.

"Lewis." The Doctor added, Rose briefly blinking before shrugging at the name.

Zack scoffed. "She looks less like a copper than you do."

"Training. New recruit." Clara quickly said. "It was either that, hairdressing or cheerleading, so-"

"Don't." Rose warned as the Doctor held up his psychic paper.

"See? Voila!" The Doctor beamed.

"What are you going to do?" Trish asked, stepping up from the driveway of her house.

"The police have knocked on every door, looked everywhere, appealed on TV. No clues, no leads, nothing." Maeve said.

"Well, kids do run off sometimes." Trish shrugged. "That's what they do. The coppers will find them."

Rose blinked. That's a weird response. And not in a good way. More like a…frightened way.

"I saw it with me own eyes." Maeve said to Trish. "Dale Hicks in Zack's garden, playing with his Tommy and then…" She let her eyes widen and blink for a few moments to echo how she felt yesterday. "Right in front of me, he was gone, like he was never there. You're all too scared to face the truth. There's no need to look any further than this street, it's right here amongst us."

"Why don't we-"

"Why don't we start with him?!" Zack interrupted the Doctor, pointing an accusing finger at the worker. "There's been all sorts like you, Kel, working in this street, day and night."

"Fixing things up for the Olympics!" Kel defended.

"Yeah and taking an awful long time about it." Zack retorted.

Maeve scoffed. "It's nothing to do with the Council."

"And for the record, I've been interviewed by the old bill twice this week." Kel added.

"I'm of the opinion that all we've got to do-"

"What you just said, that's slander!" Kel retorted, interrupting a now pouting Doctor.

"I don't care what it is, my son is missing!" Zack growled.

"I think we need to just-"

"I want an apology from you!" Kel retorted.

"Stop picking on him." Maeve said to Zack.

"Yeah, stop picking on me!" Kel reiterated.

"And stop pretending to be blind. It's evil." Maeve continued.

Zack scoffed. "I don't believe in evil. Only people who are messed up in the head."

"Oh no, you just believe in tarmackers with sack loads of kidnapped kiddies in their van." Kel said sarcastically.

"That's not what he's saying." Trish muttered.

"Would you stop ganging up on me?!"

"Are you feeling guilty, are you?!" Zack growled.

"Shut up!" Clara roared. "All of you, shut the fuck up!"

Everyone blinked. "But-"

"Be quiet!" Clara snapped at Zack. "Fingers on your lips! Now! Do it!" She ordered. Everyone hesitantly followed suit, including a now calmer yet stunned Zack and an impressed Rose.

"Thank you." The Doctor said to Clara.

"Ah, ah." Clara tutted, and he quickly muttered a "Sorry" before following suit. "Now, in the last six days, three of your children have been stolen. Snatched out of thin air, right?" Everyone nodded. "Now, that will either mean that a someone actually stole your children or a something did. You can't go around accusing anyone and everyone unless you observe everything." Clara said calmly.

A moment of silence followed before Maeve gave a small clearing of her throat. "Can I?" She asked, and Clara nodded. "Look around you." She said, motioning to the whole street. "This was a safe street till it came. I'll definitely say it if no one else will, it's not a person, it is most certainly a THING. Maybe you three are coppers, maybe you're not. I don't care who you are, can you please help us?" Maeve asked.

"Yes." Clara said simply. "Now, all we ask is you remain calm and inside your houses. Kel, stay by your van. Do not come out into the open, no matter what. Okay?" The people nodded, and Clara sighed. "All right then. Off you pop." She said gently, and they quickly dispersed to their houses. Once they had disappeared inside them, Clara breathed out loudly, turning to a smirking Doctor. "I'll say I think that went rather well." She quipped lightly.

"Proud of you." The Doctor said, giving her a brief kiss before they looked at Rose, who was staring distantly at the empty 2nd floor window of Trish's house. "Rose?"

Rose jumped a bit and shook her head slightly. "Sorry. Daydreaming there a bit. Right, where shall we start?" She asked.

"Front garden of Zack's house. That's where we were before we were rudely interrupted." The Doctor explained, and they moved to stand on the empty lawn.

"Now, stand right here." Clara motioned to Rose by the football goal.

"Woah." Rose muttered, feeling a sort of tingling sensation wash over her suddenly.

"See? Odd, isn't it?" Clara mused, pulling Rose out of the spot. They almost jumped as the Doctor appeared beside them, sniffling in the air. "You need a tissue?" Clara quipped.

"Can you smell it?" The Doctor asked. Clara and Rose started to breathe through their nose before quickly blinking. "What does it remind you of?"

"Umm…" Clara stuttered. "Uh…sort of…uh…metal?" She said finally.

"Mm-hmm." The Doctor nodded, and Clara giggled. "Come on, there's another spot." He ushered, waving a hand to the confused Zack as he walked with them to a small walkway behind the houses. "Danny Edwards cycled in one end but never came out the other." The Doctor informed as they walked down it. "Woah!" He said suddenly with a stop, causing Clara to bump into his back. "There it goes again!" He said, holding out his hand, the hairs on it standing up on end. "Look at the hairs on the back of my manly, hairy hand." He quipped.

"It's a nice hand." Clara flirted, putting her hand in his.

"No flirting while I'm around, please, thank you." Rose groaned, starting to sniff. "There's that smell." She muttered. "It's like a, um…burnt fuse plug or something."

The Doctor, with Clara's hand in his, led the three back out of the walkway and into the street. "There's a residual energy in the spots where the kids vanished. Whatever it was, it used an awful lot of power to do this."

Trish paced back and forth in her living room, absentmindedly biting her nail amidst the tense silence in the house. I need to try to get through to her. Maybe she'll start to listen.

No, she won't! She never has, so why would she do it now?

Because I'm scared! Trish suddenly stopped, taking a deep breath with her face in her hands. I'm scared for her. She admitted before sighing aloud and moving out of the room, up the stairs and knocking on her daughter's bedroom door. "Chloe?" She asked, opening the door slowly to see her small, 12-year-old daughter, dressed in a purple t-shirt and a pair of black trousers, hunched over her desk and drawing away with a pencil. "You have to come down sometime, Chloe."

"I'm busy, Mum." Chloe muttered, still drawing away.

Trish sighed, moving softly into the room. The wall beside Chloe was covered in used coloured papers, all which bore drawings of all kinds on it, from the fantastic to the mundane. "Look at it in here. You must've used up half a rainforest." Trish quipped lightly. Moving to stand behind Chloe, she looked down to see three sheets of paper, all of which bore, to her frightened yet unsurprised knowledge, the three missing children. One had Dale, along with the outline of what seemed to be a ginger cat. "That's Dale." Trish said, gently taking the paper from Chloe to look closer at it. Dale's expression was slouched and dejected, gazing off into some kind of distance sadly. "Why did you draw him so sad?"

"I didn't draw him like that." Chloe said, finally lifting her face up to look at Trish. She, despite everything that had happened, was perfectly yet strangely calm. "Dale made himself sad, so I'm going to draw him a friend." Chloe held out a hand for the paper and Trish reluctantly gave it back to her. "That's what he needs. More friends."

Trish sighed as Chloe returned to her drawing, so she decided on a different approach. "Have you seen the TV?" She asked, sitting down on the bed. "Today is the final lap of the Torch, and it'll pass right by our street. Then, they'll light the Olympic Flame in the Stadium and the whole world will be looking at our city. Doesn't that make you feel part of something?" Trish asked. Chloe didn't respond, and Trish's smile faded. "Sweetheart." Chloe still didn't respond, and Trish gulped. "Chloe."

"I'm busy, Mum." Chloe said simply.

"Chloe." Trish said softly. "I…I heard you calling out again last night."

"It's fine." Chloe shrugged.

"Nightmares? Chloe, whatever they are, they're just dreams, you do know that? They can't hurt you." Chloe didn't respond again. "Chloe-"

"I'm busy." Chloe interrupted. "Unless you want me to draw you, Mum." Chloe warned without glancing at her.

Trish's eyes widened, and she stood up from the bed. "If you want to stay cooped up in here, fine." Trish said but her words bore no bite as she walked out of the room, closing the door as she did. Once she walked downstairs to be alone, she let a sniff out, holding a hand over her mouth. "My baby." She cried quietly.

"Aren't you a beautiful boy?!" Rose beamed suddenly as they walked through the street.

Clara and the Doctor shot each other bewildered looks until they saw Rose moving up to a ginger cat, sitting on the sidewalk. "That makes more sense." The Doctor said.

Rose petted the cat, which gave a delightful meow to her as she glanced at the couple. The Doctor was frowning while Clara gave a jealous expression to Rose. "What?" Rose asked.

"I like cats too." Clara said. Then, she let her jealous expression drop into a dreamy look. "Still, no one beats George." She said.

"Who?"

"George."

"Who's "George"?"

"The clockwork squirrel in our library. We called him "George"." Rose gave a "Oh" expression at that while Clara shrugged.

"I thought about calling him "Dash"." The Doctor inputted, still frowning at the cat. "But I thought Clara might not appreciate the constant references to what's-her-face."

"And I don't." Clara agreed with a smirk. Her smirk faded however as she saw the Doctor's expression. "What?" She asked.

He shook his head with a slight shiver. "I'm not really a cat person anymore." He admitted. "Once you've been threatened by one in a nun's wimple, it kind of takes the joy out of it."

Clara just gave him a soft look. "I'm sure I can convert you back." She said.

He blinked. "Even with George?"

Clara giggled. "Even with George." She confirmed.

"Oi! You two!" Rose called, ushering them over with a frown. They moved over to Rose, who was squatting down beside a large, open cardboard box.

The Doctor went to pick it up and immediately recoiled. "Whoa!" He exclaimed. "Hoo hoo hoo hoo! Iron residue! Blimey! Hoo!"

Clara picked up the box and observed it. "Did the cat come in here?" She asked Rose.

"Yeah and…well, you know the rest."

"That takes some doing, all just to snatch some living organism out of space and time." The Doctor commented. "This baby is just like "I'm having some of that!" Admittedly, I'm a bit impressed, but also far too curious."

"So, the cat's been transported?" Rose asked.

The Doctor shrugged. "Whatever it is, it can harness huge reserves of ionic power. We need to find the source of that power. Find the source and you will find…" The Doctor spun around, glancing at the street with a frown, "whatever has taken to stealing children and fluffy animals. See what you can see." He said, grabbing Clara's hand to lead her with him.

"Keep those beads peeled, Lewis!" Clara called, and Rose gave a small two finger salute as they walked off.

Rose gave a small sigh as the couple moved off to gaze at some other houses nearby. Time to play hide and seek with…whatever is doing this-

*BANG*

Rose almost jumped as a nearby garage door was whacked by something on the other side. The loud force, or whatever it was, banged again, and the garage door rattled forward just enough to let Rose know that the door was unlocked but whatever was inside still couldn't get out. "Is that you, pussy cat? Are you trapped?" Rose called, and the only answer was another loud bang. "Okay, Rose, it's obviously not the cat." She muttered to herself with a small eyeroll as a large metal lid rolled around inside the garage before spinning on the ground right to a stop. "Okay, not gonna open it. Not gonna open it." Rose muttered but her fingers twitched and tingled in irresistible curiosity and before she knew what she was doing, she grasped the latch on the door, twisted it and heaved it up and open. Almost as if on cue, a large, blurry mass of fizzing black, hissing with static electricity, dove out of the garage and knocked Rose flat on her back.

"Rose!"

"Stay still!" The mass stopped, hovered in the air for a second, then it twitched and instantly shrank into a small ball the size of a cat scratch ball and it fell into Rose's grasp, cold and…stringy? The feeling felt rather weird to Rose, but she didn't contemplate it as Clara dove in front of her and grasped her arms, hauling her back up to her feet. "You all right?" Clara asked as the Doctor moved up beside them, his sonic still in his hand.

"Yeah." Rose nodded with a thankful smile. "Cheers."

"No probs." Clara shrugged. "Doctor did all the work." She added, gazing down at the small black lump in Rose's grasp.

"All I did was flash out my wand and cast a spell." The Doctor shrugged and then the three instantly got disgusted faces. "Okay, that right there without the right context sounds…" He shook his head with a shiver.

"Yeah, okay, moving on." Rose quickly said, and Clara nodded.

"Know what this is?" Clara asked the Doctor.

"Nope." He quickly answered. "You?"

"Nope. Rose?"

"Nope. All I know is that you just killed it." Rose said.

The Doctor shook his head. "Nah, it was never living. It's animated by energy." He said as he took it out of Rose's grasp to look at it closer, ever so slightly squinting his eyes. "The same energy that's snatching people." He tossed it up a bit before he caught it with a grin. "That is so dinky!" He beamed. "The go anywhere creature. Fits in your pocket, makes friends, impresses the boss, breaks the ice at parties." He commented, making Clara shake her head. "Come on, let's go have a closer look at it."

Entering the TARDIS, the Doctor pulled the monitor over, took out the small black mass and placed it into a small circular mesh in the console. The monitor started to show three symbols in Gallifreyan that spun around and around as the Doctor took out his "Brainy Specs". "Oh, here we go. Let's have a look." He said as the symbols stopped moving and came together with a click, which, too Clara and Rose's puzzlement, made his jaw drop. "Get out of here." He muttered.

"What does it say?" Clara asked.

Instead of answering the question, the Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out a pencil. Then, he took the small mass and rubbed the eraser over it for a few moments. The action caused some of the mass to blur and smudge away into nothing. "It is." The Doctor said, briefly blowing on it to remove some of the particles of smudged pencil. "It's Graphite." He said. "Basically the same material as an H.B Pencil."

Clara's eyebrows raised while Rose's furrowed. "I was attacked by a…pencil scribble?"

"Scribble creature." The Doctor corrected. "Brought into being with ionic energy." He took off and pocketed his "Brainy Specs". "So, whatever we're dealing with, it can create things as well as take them." He quickly furrowed his eyebrows. "But…why make a scribble creature?"

"It could've been a mistake." Clara offered. "It's what children do when they make a mistake while drawing. They'll just scribble over it to cover it up." The Doctor nodded at that.

"Wait…" Rose muttered, which instantly drew their attention.

"What?" They asked.

Rose blinked to herself for a few moments before clicking her finger at them. "You said it was in the street. Everyone did."

"Most likely, yeah." Clara agreed.

Rose shrugged. "Well…the girl." She said obviously.

"Of course!" The Doctor and Clara beamed before they quickly shook their heads. "Nope, don't get it." They said in unison, turning their attention back to a mildly frustrated yet amused Rose. "What girl?"

Rose's eyebrows furrowed. "I don't know, just…something about her gave me the creeps. Even her own Mum looked scared of her."

The Doctor and Clara shot each other and impressed look. "Rose, did you just deduct something important?" Clara asked.

Rose smirked. "I think I did. Permission to follow up?" The couple giggled, for they didn't even need to answer that.

The doorbell rang again, making Trish draw her breath. She could tell through the glass of the front door that the people behind was the odd trio from earlier, who wanted to help with the missing children. But Trish just couldn't admit about her daughter, because even if she did, no one would believe her. One of them, who looked like they wore a long brown overcoat, raised their fist and knocked on the door. So, Trish, with a sigh that bore some shaky fear, steadied herself and moved to open the door, seeing indeed the odd trio on the other side, all bearing bright beaming smiles at her.

"Hello! I'm Clara." The short yet very pretty lady greeted. "This is the Doctor and Rose." The pair with her waved in turn. "Can we see your daughter?" She asked.

Trish shook her head. "No, you can't-"

"Okay." Clara interrupted with a shrug. "Bye." She waved and the three turned around.

Trish blinked at their sudden words. "Why?" She blurted unconsciously, inwardly cursing herself for doing so as the trio turned around to look at her.

"Well…" Clara started, "there's some interesting stuff going on in this street and we just thought that she might like to give us a hand."

"Sorry to bother you." The Doctor quickly added.

"Yeah, sorry. We'll let you get on with things…on your own. Bye again!" Clara beamed, and the trio turned around to leave.

Trish blinked. They DO know about her! But…not in a…well…a bad way, like some creepy government officials. "Wait!" She blurted, making them once again stop to turn to look at her. "Can you help her?" She asked.

Clara's smile turned from bright and bubbly to a soft, warm smile. "Yes, we can." She nodded.

Trish quickly smiled in relief. "Please, come in." She said, and the trio moved to enter the house, going into her living room and she motioned for them to take a seat. Rose did so while Clara and the Doctor just gave a no thanks as Clara helped the Doctor take off his overcoat and gently place it on a small sofa, all the while the TV played the news of the Olympic Torch's current position, but all of them just droned it out into background ambience.

"Now then…where do you want to start?" Clara asked Trish.

Trish gave a small sigh and wrung her hands together. "She stays in her room, most of the time. I try talking to her but…it's like…"

"Talking to a brick wall." Clara finished for her. "Unless she just wants you to leave her alone."

Trish blinked. "Yeah." She muttered.

Clara just smiled warmly. "I was a teacher." She said, and Trish quickly nodded at the reasoning.

"What about Chloe's dad?" Rose inputted. "Does he also know of-"

"Chloe's dad died a year ago." Trish said coldly.

The trio blinked at her tone. "Trish-"

"Don't be sorry." Trish said. "You wouldn't be if you knew who the bastard was."

"So, we can take it that after he died, things got better for you two? At least, for a while?" The Doctor asked.

Trish nodded. "Yes, they did."

"Well…" the Doctor beamed, "let's go and say hi."

Trish drew in a sharp, shaking breath. "I should check on her first. She might be asleep."

Clara sighed. "Why are you afraid of her, Trish?"

Trish gulped. "I want you to know before you see her that…she's really a great kid."

"I'm sure she is." Clara reassured.

"She's never been in trouble at school." Trish continued. "You should see her report from last year. A's and B's." She smiled.

Rose quickly stood up with some slight agitation. "Sorry, can I quickly use your loo?" She asked.

Trish nodded. "Go ahead." Rose quickly moved from the room. "She's in the choir. She sings in the old folks' home. Any mum would be proud, you know." She trailed off into a mutter. "I…I want you to know these things before you see her because right now…she's not herself." She admitted.

The thumping of soft footsteps came down the stairs and into the kitchen, making Trish shoot them a nod about the person's identity. Her daughter, Chloe. So, the Doctor and Clara moved into the kitchen, Clara first, as they saw Chloe fishing out a bottle of milk and taking a drink. "Hello. I'm Clara Oswald. This is the Doctor." Clara greeted.

Chloe put the milk back in the fridge, closed it and turned to look at them. "I'm Chloe Webber."

"How are you, Chloe?"

"I'm busy. I'm making something." She shot Trish a rather dull look. "Aren't I, Mum?"

Trish stiffened but decided not to answer it. "And like I said, she's not been sleeping." Trish said.

"But you have been drawing, though." The Doctor inputted. "Personally, I'm rubbish." He said with a small scrunch. "Stick men are about my limit. I can do this, though." He held his left hand up, parting his fingers but keeping them pressed in pairs with his own thumb stuck out on its own. "Can you do that?" Chloe didn't answer. "No? Yes? No?" The Doctor brought his hand back down with a dejected sigh. "Blimey, they did just reboot the series a few years ago."

"They don't stop moaning." Chloe said, ignoring everything they just said.

"Chloe." Trish muttered sadly.

"I tried to help them, but they don't stop moaning." Chloe said, ignoring her Mum.

"Who don't?" The Doctor asked.

"We can be together."

"Sweetheart." Trish started forward, but Chloe glared at her.

"Don't." Chloe growled, making Trish stop her movements. The Doctor and Clara shot each other a look as Chloe's glare dulled, and she glanced back at them. "I'm busy." She said, then she moved off the counter and back to the foot of the stairs.

"Come on, Chloe." Clara called. "What's the big project you have up there?" She asked.

"Doctor! Clara!" Rose cried, making them dash past Chloe and up the stairs and into an open room, Chloe's bedroom, where Rose was standing at Chloe's opened wardrobe and being bathed in a blood red light.

"I'm coming to hurt you." A sinister voice called from within the wardrobe, the Doctor immediately closing it while Clara hauled Rose away by her arms.

"Look at it." Rose said, taking her eyes away from the closed doors and onto Clara's face.

"No, thank you." Clara quickly said as Trish and Chloe entered the room, while the Doctor turned to get a closer look at all the drawings on Chloe's wall, taking out his "Brainy Specs".

"What the hell was that?" Trish asked Rose.

Rose sighed, leaning back against the wardrobe doors. "A drawing. The face of a man."

"What face?" Trish asked, moving to grasp the door handles but Rose moved to cover it.

"Yeah, best not." She quickly shook her head at Trish.

Trish turned to Chloe with a frightened face. "What have you been drawing?" She asked.

"I drew him yesterday." Chloe simply said.

"Who?"

"Her dad." Clara interrupted from beside the Doctor before Chloe could speak. "Dad up and dies, family gets better, then Chloe gets nightmares and draws a picture of it. Best answer: Dad." Clara concluded.

Trish's eyes widened. "Chloe, I thought we were putting him behind us. What's the matter with you?"

"We need to stay together." Chloe simply said.

Trish nodded. "Yes, we-"

"No!" Chloe growled. "Not you. US. We need to stay together, and it'll be all right." Trish started forward, but Chloe flinched back. "Don't touch me." She warned.

A very tense silence followed before Rose spoke up. "Trish, the drawings. Have you seen what Chloe's drawings can do?"

"What?" Trish muttered. "No, of course not, they're kids' pictures."

Rose shook her head. "Chloe has a power, and I don't know how, but she used it to take Danny Edwards, Dale Hicks. She's using it to snatch the kids."

"She can't have." Trish tried to deny.

"Have you seen those drawings move?"

Yes! "I haven't seen anything."

"Yes, you have, out of the corner of your eye." The Doctor inputted, putting down the drawing of Dale and the ginger cat. Before Trish could protest, the Doctor interrupted. "Yes, you have, and then you dismissed it, because what choice do you have when you see something you can't possibly explain?"

"But she's just a child!" Trish protested.

"And you're terrified of her." The Doctor added calmly. "But there's no one to turn to cause who's going to believe the things you see out of the corner of your eye? No one…except us."

Trish blinked. "Who are you? Either of you?" She asked, flittering her gaze between him and Clara.

"We're help."

Trish stood there, contemplating for a few moments before she sighed. "Come back downstairs with me." She said, turning to Chloe. "You can come down." She offered but Chloe didn't say anything, so they decided to wordlessly leave the room. Moving down the stairs and back into the kitchen, the Doctor immediately grabbed a jar of marmalade, took off the lid, dipped two fingers into the contents and slipped them into his mouth.

"Oi!" Clara snapped, making him jump. "What are you doing?! Put that back!" She admonished.

The Doctor, with a guilty face like a caught puppy, put the lid back on the jar and replaced it back onto the kitchen counter. "Sorry." He muttered after gulping down the marmalade, using a tissue to wipe his fingers.

"Those pictures, they're alive." Rose said after a few moments. "She's drawing people and they end up in her pictures."

"Ionic energy." The Doctor said, crossing his arms. "Chloe's harnessing it to steal those kids and place them in some kind of holding pen made up of ionic power."

"And what about the dad from hell in her wardrobe?"

"How many times do I have to say it?" Trish groaned. "He's dead."

Rose shrugged. "Well, he's got a very loud voice for a dead bloke."

"If living things can become drawings, then maybe drawings can become living things." Clara said ominously before blinking with a small shudder. "Sorry about the tone." Clara apologized.

"Chloe's real dad is dead," The Doctor started, "but not the one who visits her in her nightmares. That dad seems very real, that's the dad she's drawn, and he's a heartbeat away from crashing into this world."

"She always got the worst of it when he was alive." Trish said sadly.

"So, how can a 12-year-old girl be doing any of this?" Rose asked the couple.

They shrugged. "Don't know." The Doctor answered. "Let's find out." He then led Clara back to the stairs, Trish and Rose following behind.

"I feel like that one skunk that kept going back and forth in front of green crates." Rose muttered as they all re-entered Chloe's room, finding the silent girl sitting on her blue bed, which had planets all over it, to the Doctor's amusement and Clara's puzzlement.

Chloe raised up her right hand to mimic the Doctor's hand signal from earlier and he nodded slightly. "Nice one." He commented, and Chloe returned her hand back to her lap. The Doctor knelt in front of her and pressed his fingers to her temples, closing his eyes. Chloe briefly stiffened and rolled her eyes back into her head before she sighed and slouched, and he let her calmly drift down onto the bed. "There we go. Now we can talk." He said.

"I want Chloe. Wake her up." Chloe said, her voice now bearing a rasping echo inside it. "I want Chloe."

"Who are you?" The Doctor asked.

"I want Chloe Webber." She raised her fist and slammed it against the bed, rather like a spoilt child that was denied a piece of candy.

"What have you done to my little girl?" Trish muttered.

"Doctor, what is it?" Clara asked.

"Not Chloe." The Doctor simply said before turning his attention back to the girl. "I'm speaking to you, the entity that is using this Human child." She said nothing. "I request parley in compliance with the Shadow Proclamation."

"I don't care about shadows of policies." The girl said.

"So, what do you care about?"

"I want my friends."

The Doctor sighed and knelt down beside the bed. "You're lonely, I know. What is your name?"

"I am one of many." She said, almost avoiding the question. "I travel with my brothers and sisters. We take an endless journey, a thousand of your lifetimes. But now I am alone, and I hate it! It's not fair and I hate it!"

"Name yourself." The Doctor demanded.

""Isolus"."

The Doctor raised his head in a "Oh" expression. "Isolus. No wonder."

Isolus reached into her pocket and pulled out a red pencil and started to draw on a white piece of paper, all the while her eyes remained closed. "Our journey began, in the deep realms, when we were a family."

"What's that?" Clara asked, kneeling at the base of the bed and the Doctor shifted to be beside her as they watched Chloe draw out the outline of a large creature, rather similar to a flower.

"The Isolus Mother, drifting in deep space. She jettisons millions of fledgling spores, her children. The Isolus are empathic beings of intense emotion. When they're cast off from their Mother, they form an empathic link with each other, and their need to be together is what sustains them. They NEED to be together; they cannot be alone." The Doctor informed.

"Our journey is long." Isolus added.

"Each of the Isolus children travel inside a pod and they ride the heat and energy of solar tides. And it takes thousands and thousands of years for them to grow up."

"Thousands of years, just floating through space?" Clara muttered in a soft tone. "How do you avoid getting bored?" She asked.

"We play."

Clara blinked slowly. "You…play?"

"Yeah." The Doctor answered as Isolus nodded. "While they travel, they play a game. They use their ionic power to…literally create make-believe worlds in which to play."

"Seriously?" Clara asked in fondness.

The Doctor nodded. "Helps keep them happy. While they're happy, they can feed off of each other's love. Without it, they're lost." He added grimly. "Why did you come to Earth?" He asked after a few silent moments of him and Clara staring adoringly at each other.

"We were too close." Isolus stopped drawing, flipped the paper over to create a blank slate and then proceeded to draw the sun.

"A solar flare." The Doctor deducted. "Would've made a tidal wave of solar energy that scattered the Isolus pods."

"Only I fell to Earth." Isolus said. "My brothers and sisters are left up there and I cannot reach them. So alone."

"Your pod crashed. Where is it?" Clara asked.

"My pod was drawn to heat, and I was drawn to Chloe Webber. She was like me: Alone. She needed me and I her."

"You empathized with her." The Doctor said. "You wanted to be with her because she was alone like you."

"I want my family." Isolus whined. "It's not fair."

"We understand. You want to make a family." The Doctor said. "But you can't stay in this child, it's wrong. You can't steal anymore friends for yourself."

"I am alone."

"Chloe!" The voice from her wardrobe rang out, the doors beginning to shake while Chloe started to sweat and whimper. "I'm coming to hurt you!"

"Trish, how do you calm her?" Clara asked.

"What?" Trish muttered.

"When she has nightmares, what do you do?" Trish stammered, and Clara inwardly groaned. "Trish, what do you do?"

"I sing to her." Trish finally said.

"Then start singing." Trish quickly moved to sit on the bed beside Chloe, laying a hand on her hair to stroke it.

"Chloe! I'm coming!"

"Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree." Trish hummed, holding back any shaking in her voice to be soothing for Chloe. "Merry, merry king of the bush is he."

"Chloe!"

"Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh."

"Chloe!"

"Kookaburra, gay your life must be." The voice roared in wailing agony before the shaking stopped and it disappeared once again. Trish sniffed and rolled Chloe over into her arms. "He came to her because she was lonely. Chloe, I'm sorry." Trish cried, hugging Chloe close.

After they came downstairs once Trish had calmed both herself and Chloe down, Trish started to gather up all the pencils she could find and place them inside a large black bag. "Chloe usually got the brunt of his temper when he had more than a few drinks. The day he crashed the car, I thought we were free. I thought it was over."

"Did you talk to her about?" Clara asked.

"I didn't want to." Trish whimpered with a gulp.

Clara sighed. "Then that's why Chloe feels so alone. You need to be there for her."

Trish blinked. "How do you know all of this?"

Clara's gaze just fell down to the floor. "Making up for what I can't have." She said simply, quickly earning the Doctor's hand in hers.

"It won't stop, will it?" Rose asked to divert the topic. "They'll just keep pulling kids in."

"It's desperate to be loved." The Doctor informed. "And it's used to a pretty big family."

"How big?" Rose and Trish suddenly asked in unison, shooting apologetic looks at each other.

The Doctor shrugged with a small sigh. "Say around…four billion?" Their eyes widened, and the Doctor moved over to the other side of the room to grab his overcoat. "We're going to need that pod." He said as Clara helped him place it back on.

"And it's definitely not destroyed. If it likes heat, it must have been attracted to a nearby source." Clara added. "Knowing us, they'll be tons of it around here, or if we're lucky, just a few sources."

"And hopefully, it should keep it in a fit state to launch." The Doctor concluded as he and Clara moved to leave, motioning for Rose to follow. "We'll be right back." He called to Trish as they left the house. "It must be close. It should have a weak energy signature the TARDIS can trace. Once we find it, then we can return the Isolus back home." He said as they rushed down the street and back towards their parking spot. "We can scan for the same trace that I picked up from the scribble creature. Just need to widen the field a bit." He said, Clara quickly fishing out her key as they walked up to the TARDIS and quickly entered. "Just need to assemble a small device." The Doctor muttered, throwing his overcoat onto a coral arch before grabbing a small glass sphere and an array of small gadgets to help. "Clara could you-" Before he could continue, Clara, with a handful of small mechanic trinkets, held out a little glass bottle to him and he smiled. "I bloody love you." He said, him and Clara hopping onto the Captain's chair to assemble the device. "Fear and loneliness." He informed as Clara took out her sonic to help speed up the process. "Some of the most terrible acts ever committed have been inspired by them. Cause we're not dealing with something that wants to conquer or destroy or kill. There's a lot of things you need to get across this universe. "Warp Drive", "Wormhole Refractors", but you know what you need most of all? You need a hand to hold."

"You also need a gorgeous girlfriend to live with you." Rose said, winking at Clara.

"Shut up." Clara blushed, and the Doctor laughed, wrapping an arm around her.

"Gorgeous girlfriend whose hand I can hold." He added, kissing her cheek.

They looked up to see Rose pointing behind her to the console and they blinked. "What?" They asked in unison.

Rose groaned. "Get up off your asses and look." She said, and they stood up to look at the monitor.

"It's the pod!" The Doctor beamed, seeing a pulsing orange light in a blue schematic of the street.

"And it IS in the street." Clara deducted.

"Everything's coming up doctor." The Doctor winked, bumping Clara's shoulder as he moved to grab his overcoat again.

"Wait, haven't you-"

"Yes, I have finished it." The Doctor interrupted her. "Well…we did, really. Come on." He said, picking up the device as Clara and Rose followed him out. "Okay, the pod is about two inches across, dull grey, like a gull's egg, very light." The Doctor said as Clara wrapped her arm through his while Rose gained pace ahead of them.

"So, these pods, they travel from sun to sun using heat, yeah? So it's not all about love and stuff. Doesn't the pod just need heat?" Rose asked. What answered her was the smashing of glass onto the ground behind her. Rose turned to see the Doctor, Clara and the TARDIS gone. Completely disappeared from view, the only trace being the broken device, smashed to pieces on the ground. "Doctor! Clara!" Rose called with fear in her heart, but the only answer was just the rattling of the nearby trains. Rose, with widening eyes, guessed the answer as to their disappearance, so she raced back up to Trish's house and burst through the front door.

"Rose?" Trish asked in puzzlement as she bounded up the stairs. "It's okay, I've taken all the pencils off her!" She called but Rose ignored her as she moved straight into Chloe's room and snatched the paper the girl was working on, which, too her unsurprised yet chilling realization, bore the Doctor, Clara and the TARDIS on it.

"Leave me alone!" Isolus exclaimed. "I want to be with Chloe Webber! I love Chloe Webber!"

"Bring them back now." Rose growled.

"No."

Rose rolled her hand over her head with a snarl of frustrated anxiety. "Don't you realize what you've done? They were the only ones that could help you now bring them back!"

"Leave me alone! I love Chloe Webber!"

Whatever it was, being Rose's own choice, or Isolus's words, it made Rose snap out of it with dreadful realization at what she was doing. So, she blinked and sighed, slouching to calm herself and the stiffened Isolus. "I know." She muttered. "Sorry." She quickly added before standing up and looking at the piece of paper in her hands. "If you two can hear me, I'm going to get you out of there. I'll find the pod. I promise." She said softly, pressing a kiss to the paper before placing it down. "Don't leave her alone, no matter what." Rose said to Trish before she moved out of the house and into the street, seeing Kel out of the corner of her eye rubbing a small completed tar patch on the road with obvious pride. "Heat. They travel on heat." She muttered to herself. Wait. Tar. Tar needs heat to work. Tar. Rose turned and rushed over to kneel beside Kel, who gave her a beaming smile.

"Look at this finish! Smooth as a baby's bottom. Not a bump or a lump."

"Kel, was there anything in this street in the last few days giving off a lot of heat?"

"I mean, you could eat your dinner off this. Beautiful." Kel said, almost as if he didn't hear Rose's question. "So, you tell me why the other one's got a lump in it when I gave it the same love and craftsmanship as I did this one."

Rose blinked, almost sniggering at his words. "Well, when you've worked it out and put it in a big book about tarmacking, cool. But before you do that, think back six days."

Kel nodded. "Six days." He smiled. "When I was laying this the first-time round."

"What?" Rose muttered but he heard her.

"Well, that's when I filled in this pothole for the first time."

The gears began to click together inside Rose's brain. "Six days ago?" She reiterated.

"Yeah."

Rose slowly smiled. "Hot, fresh tar."

"Blended to a secret Council recipe." Kel quipped. "Good thing too, the Torch is coming up to brush alongside this street in a matter of minutes." He said, pointing down to a recently set orange barricade that was already guarded by Police and was even starting to get a few people standing around it, patiently waiting. Rose, without another word, shot up from the ground and sprinted over to Kel's van. "No, I don't keep it in the van." Kel called but Rose ignored him as she opened the boot and dove inside to grab a pickaxe. "Hey, that's a Council van. Out." Kel said, standing up but Rose immediately got out of the van with the pickaxe and raced back over to the patch. "Whoa, wait, wait a minute. You just removed a Council axe from a Council van. Put it back or give it to me." Rose ignored him, and, with a beaming mischievous smile, she raised the axe over her shoulder, her target being obvious. "No, don't, wait! No!" Rose struck down, the axe burying itself in the patch with a grant from the bearer. "No! Stop!" Kel protested but Rose started to repeat the process of lifting the axe and striking it back into the patch. "You just took a Council axe from a Council van, and now you're digging up a Council road! I'm reporting you to the Council!"

After a few strikes, Rose placed the axe down beside her as she squatted down, searching through the small rubble of rock before finding a small dull grey egg like rock and she beamed. "It went for the hottest thing in the street. Your tar!" Rose said, bursting out into laughter.

"What is it?!" Kel demanded, still torn up about Rose literally tearing a whole in his patch.

"It's a spaceship." Rose answered as she stood up. "Not a Council spaceship, I'm afraid." She quickly added with obvious sarcasm before hopping up with the pod and axe in her hand and straight back inside Trish's house. "I've found it!" She called, immediately getting Trish's attention. "I don't know what to do with it but maybe the Isolus will just hop on board." Rose slowly lifted her head towards Trish with scrutinizing eyes. "Hang on, I told you not to leave her." She said. Before Trish could say anything the TV, that was still on the news regarding the Olympic Games, suddenly went absolutely quiet.

"My god!" The commenter exclaimed, Rose and Trish looking towards the TV. "Uh, what's going on here?" The commenter asked. The stadium was completely empty, not a single soul was inside.

"I don't care if you've got Snow White and the seven dwarves buried under there!" Kel said, storming into the house. "You don't go-"

"Shut up and look!" Rose snarled, silencing Kel as he, with widening eyes, looked at the TV.

"The crowd has vanished! Uh, um…they're gone. Everyone is gone. Thousands of people have just gone. Uh…um…right in front of my eyes. It's…it's impossible. Bob, can-can we join you, um, in the box?" The commenter received no answer. "Bob? Not you too, Bob?!"

"The stadium won't be enough." Rose muttered. "The Isolus has four billion brothers and sisters." Rose and Trish shared a wide-eyed look so they and, surprisingly an eager Kel, sprinted up the stairs to find Chloe's door shut. Rose twisted the handle, but the door was barred from the other side. "Ugh, you've got to be kidding." Rose growled low in her throat.

"Chloe!" Trish called.

"Chloe, it's Rose! Open the door! We've found your ship! We can send you home! Open up!" No answer. "Right, stand back." Rose said to Trish and Kel. They stepped back while Rose used the pickaxe to break a hole right through the door.

"Chloe!" The hellish dad called. "I'm coming to hurt you!"

Once Rose had destroyed a hole large enough for her arm to get through, she tossed the axe to the floor, reached her arm through and tossed aside a small white chair before swinging the door open. "Chloe!"

The wardrobe doors rattled, making Rose and Trish stop as they looked at it and Chloe, who was currently using crayons to draw an outline of the Earth on the wall. "I'm coming to hurt you!"

"I've got to stop her." Rose muttered, starting forward until Chloe turned her head to glare at her, all the while still drawing.

"If you stop Chloe Webber, I will let him out." Isolus warned. "We will let him out together. I cannot be alone. It's not fair!"

Rose held out her hand to show what she had found. "Look, I've got your pod."

"My pod is dead."

"No, it-it only needs heat." Rose reassured.

"It needs more than heat."

Rose blinked with a scoff. "Well, what then?"

"I'm not being funny or nothing, but that picture just moved." Kel pointed out.

"We can't worry about the pictures right now." Rose retorted.

"And that one!" He said. "The one with the blue box!"

Rose looked at him with a frown before moving to the bed to pick up the paper. It bore Clara pointing to the Doctor who was currently carrying the Torch with the most beaming and prideful grin on his face. "Chloe didn't draw that, they did. It needs more than heat, you two." Rose whimpered low in her throat. She placed the paper down on the bed with a sigh before suddenly, she just stopped.

"What?" Trish asked.

Pride. Love. Support. That's what the Isolus is about, and right now we have people giving their love and support and pride to the Olympics. And the Torch is the start of that. Rose's eyes widened, looking at the Doctor's obviously prideful smile, and thinking back to Kel's own attitude to a simple patch. And the TORCH. "I think I've got it." Rose muttered, sprinting from the room.

"What?" Trish called, her and Kel rushing down with her. "What do you mean?! Got what?!"

"I don't know! I just had an epiphany!" Rose said. "I mean, I hope it's a good one. Please be a good one." Rose muttered to herself as she sprinted to the TV, where the news was focusing on the current position of the Torch. "Stay with her!" Rose ordered to Trish, who sprinted back up the stairs.

"The Torch is still on its way. I suppose it's…it's much more than a Torch now. It's a beacon. It's a beacon of hope and-"

Rose rolled her eyes at the cheesy words of the commenter. "Yeah, yeah, cool, I already figured that out. Now where is it?" Rose growled.

"The Torch Bearer is still running, and he is about to run straight past "Dame Kelly Holmes Close"."

"There we go." Rose said. "Took him long enough." Rose sprinted straight out the door, past a watching Maeve and towards the orange barricade at the end of the street, where a group of people had gathered to watch the Torch Bearer run past. Rose saw no way to actually go up to the Torch to place the pod in the flame, since, of course, there's policemen guarding him. I can't even chuck the pod into the Torch; my aim isn't that good. All of a sudden, Rose started to feel the pod shifting and tingling in her hand and she looked down to see a small dim light within the pod. "You felt it, didn't you?" She whispered, even though the cheering of the crowd. The pod began to pulse and hover in her hand and Rose smiled, cupping the pod in two hands and brought it up to her lips. "Feel the love." Rose whispered before flinging the pod up in the air. After a few moments, the Torch flared with a sudden burst of heat, making the crowd cheer and the Bearer stumble for a few moments before he regained his footing and continued back on the path. "Yes!" Rose cried, joining in with the cheering crowd, just not for the same reason.

Trish watched as Chloe suddenly stopped drawing the world, stiffening up with a shaking breath. "I can go home." Isolus said. "Goodbye, Chloe Webber. I love you." Then, her eyes rolled back into her head and she sighed. Out of her mouth came a small little white flower that floated in front of her before disappearing out of the open window without a trace.

Chloe blinked, looked at the crayon in her hand and dropped it to the floor as she stared around the room. "Mum?" She whimpered.

Trish, for the first time in six long days, gave a warm and loving smile to her daughter. "I'm here." She said.

Chloe turned to look at her and beamed brightly. "Mummy!" She raced up to her and Trish wrapped her in a tight hug.

"I'm here." Trish said, kissing her cheek. "I'm here."

Rose walked back into the street, followed by a very bewildered Kel. "Well, I did it." Rose sighed as the disappeared kids came rushing up to their parents, including Zack, being relieved to be reunited with his son Tommy.

"Great." Kel quipped before shaking his head. "Wait, what was it that you did?" He asked.

Rose sniggered. "Long story."

"Darling." Maeve called behind Rose, making her turn to see the elderly lady bearing a bright smile. "I don't know who you are or what you did, but thank you, darling!" Maeve beamed, bringing Rose into a hug and kissing her cheek. "And thank that funny little couple for me, too!" Maeve said before walking away.

Rose glanced around, her eyebrows furrowing as she tried to see them, but she couldn't. "Where are they? They should be here. All the drawings came to life. That means…" Rose's eyes widened as she looked at Trish's house to see the window of Chloe's bedroom glowing blood red. "Oh no." Rose muttered, rushing over to the house's front door. Without a warning, the door slammed shut before she could get inside, and she tried to wrench it open but found it locked. "Trish!" Two pairs of hurried footsteps came down the stairs to the door but even they couldn't open the door from the inside. "Trish, get out!" Rose demanded.

"I can't! The door's stuck!"

"Mummy!" Chloe cried.

"Chloe!" The voice called as they heard her wardrobe shatter into pieces upstairs. "Chloe, I'm coming to hurt you!"

"Please, dad, no more!" Chloe whimpered.

"Chloe, listen to me!" Rose said. "It isn't real like the others, it's just energy left over by the Isolus, but you can get rid of it, Chloe!"

"I can't!" Chloe cried.

"It's cause you're so scared that he's real but he's not! You just need to believe it, Chloe! You can do it!"

A loud thumping noise like footsteps started upstairs, the destination of the source obvious to the three of them. "Chloe! I'm coming! Chloe!"

"Mummy, please!" Chloe cried.

"I'm with you, Chloe." Trish reassured. "You're not alone! You'll never be alone again!" She promised.

"Chloe! I'm coming!"

"Trish, Chloe, you need to sing! It's how you helped her before, it can help you again, now sing!" Rose said.

"Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree." Chloe hummed.

"Chloe!"

"Merry, merry king of the bush is he." Chloe hummed, yet it was stronger now as Trish joined in with her.

"Chloe!" The voice cried but now it was filled with pain and the thumping on the stairs stopped.

"Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh. Kookaburra, gay your life must be." The voice cried and roared, until the light from inside the house vanished, a single echoing roar being the last words of the entity. Chloe and Trish burst out into relieved giggling, yet they kept singing. "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree. Merry, merry king of the bush is he. Laugh, Kookaburra, laugh. Kookaburra, gay your life must be."

When the house fell into a calm silence, Rose slouched back against the front door, finally able to calm down and take a breather. All she needed was her friends with her. That thought made her sigh. Where are they? I'll even have them flirt with each other if they can just be here. Rose pleaded.

Rose, Trish, Chloe and Kel gathered into the house to see the stadium on TV once again filled with people, to their own sighing relief.

"Just look at this!" The commenter beamed. "Utterly incredible scenes at the Olympic stadium. 80,000 athletes and spectators, they disappeared, and they've come back. They've returned. They're reappeared. It's quite incredible."

"80,000 people." Rose muttered. "But where are my friends?"

"But hang on, the Torch Bearer seems to be in a bit of trouble. We did see a flash of lightning earlier that seemed to strike him. Um, maybe he's injured. He's definitely in trouble." The commenter said as the TV flicked to a new camera, showing a profusely sweating Torch Bearer stumbling down to the ground, the crowd around him halting their cheering as they looked on in anxious worry. "Does this mean that the Olympic dream is dead?"

"Hell no!" The four spun around to see a grinning Clara standing in the doorway. "Didn't go with him. He's wanted to do this for a long while." She informed. They turned back to see a figure in a brown overcoat reaching down to pick up the Torch before running off, the crowd cheering once again as he did.

"Oh, that bastard." Rose grinned, going over to wrap Clara in a hug. "Good to see you two all right." She said.

"Oh, it's fine." Clara shrugged as they looked back at the TV.

"There's a mystery man." The commenter said as the Doctor, bearing a bright beaming grin, waved at the crowd as he kept running for the last stretch to the stadium. "He's picked up the flame. We've no idea who he is. Um, he's carrying the flame. Yes, he's carrying the flame, and no one wants to stop him. It's more than a flame now, Bob. It's more than heat and light. It's hope and it's courage and it's love."

Trish and Kel shot Rose raised eyebrows and she shrugged. "What? It's still cheesy." Rose said, and they laughed.

"Eh?" Clara asked.

"I'll explain later." Rose simply said, and Clara nodded.

The Doctor raced right across the stadium to the other side, up the stairs and towards the Olympic Cauldron. He turned around and whooped loud and heartily towards the cheering crowd, even with the blinding spotlight in his eyes. "That's one off the bucket list." The Doctor quipped, raising the Torch and placing it into the cauldron, setting it on fire. Amidst the cheering of the crowd, he could hear the pod within the flame chirping as if to say thanks. "Go on." He reassured. "Join your brothers and sisters. They'll be waiting." Then, the pod shot out of the flame and straight up into the sky and the Doctor smiled, giving a two fingered salute as it disappeared from view.

The Doctor, having cheated in travel, using the TARDIS to catch up with the Torch Bearer, came back to Dame Kelly Holmes Close, seeing all the townspeople, mainly kids and teenagers running about the street, chucking footballs and tennis balls at each other. He stood there, bathing in the slightly chilly air with a delightful sigh.

"Cake?"

The Doctor spun around, seeing Clara bearing a beaming and beautiful smile, holding out a small cupcake with white icing and small edible silver ball bearings on it. The Doctor burst out laughing, going straight up and wrapping his favourite girl in a warm hug. "Top banana!" He beamed, giving her a few adoring kisses before taking the cupcake and biting into it, grinning at the delicious treat. "Mmm! I can't stress this enough!" He said with his mouth full. "Ball bearings you can eat. Masterpiece!" He hugged her tighter before they parted to see Rose standing there with her hands on her hips.

"Well, we didn't save the day, now did we?" Clara quipped. They looked at Rose and shot her beaming grins. "Come here!"

Rose dove over and wrapped the two in a hug. "Oh, I thought I lost you two." Rose said earnestly.

"Nah!" They denied in unison.

"Not on a night like this." The Doctor said after swallowing a mouthful of cupcake. "This is a night for lost things being found. Come on." He said, Clara linking into his side while Rose walked in front of them, but more specifically walking backwards so she could see them for herself.

"What now?" Rose asked as Clara snuck a bite at the cupcake.

"Wanna go to the games!" The Doctor said obviously. "What we came for."

"Is this your first time going to the Olympics together?" Rose asked.

"Yes." They said in unison.

"And, the next time we go, Clara's taking the Torch." The Doctor said.

"What?" Clara asked with wide eyes. "Seriously?"

"Yeah." He said obviously. "I got the first round; you get the next round. It's only fair."

Rose shook her head at them, but she was glad to have them back. "Give us a clue then." Rose said. "Which events do we do well in?"

"Don't ask me." Clara shrugged. "Never paid attention to the Olympics before. I have no idea how it works.

"Clara!" The Doctor whined. "It's sports and…stuff. I don't know either." The Doctor quipped, and Clara giggled. "Although, I will tell you this: Papua New Guinea surprises everyone in the shot put."

"Really?" Rose asked with blinking eyes. "You're joking, aren't you?" He shrugged, him and Clara sharing the last bite of the cupcake. "Doctor, are you serious or are you joking?"

He groaned. "Ugh, wait and see!"

In the sky above their heads, the nearby neighbourhoods started to blare up with fireworks that lit up the sky in a multitude of colours, with the addition of the usual loud explosions of said fireworks that made them wince just a tiny bit. "You know, they keep on trying to split us up, but they never ever will." Rose said with a smile as they stopped walking to admire the fireworks.

"Never say "Never, ever"." Clara warned lightly.

"Nah, you two will always be okay. Otherwise people will feel like they're missing something in their lives." Rose said earnestly.

"Thank you, Rose." Clara said, taking her hand. "It's good to have you as a friend. Truly." She said.

Rose smiled. "I reckon I'll always be okay, especially if you two are around. Don't you reckon?"

Clara didn't answer, looking to the Doctor who was still staring up at the sky, but his face bore an expression of worry, and dread. "Doctor, what is it?" Clara asked.

"Something in the air, something coming." He muttered.

"What?"

"A storm's approaching."

AN: Well, goddammit. Rose's time is right around the corner, and as I've repeatedly said, I'm so not ready. But it has to come to an end sometime. I do hope that all you dudes/dudettes had a great Christmas/Year, for I sure did. Also, thank you to all the readers who commented and reviewed on my story. If you haven't reviewed on my story but are still reading it, once again, thank you so much. It means a lot to me. :D And with that, I'm going to back into the world of Middle-Earth and finish off my marathon and I shall see you again…whenever I finish the next chapter. As always, thank you so much for reading and leave a review if you wish. :)