She woke to the sound of voices in the room with her. Her first instinct was to push even further back into the shadows beneath the bed.

"Do you see them?" It sounded like a man speaking, but the voice was muffled, making it difficult to know for certain.

A woman – it was clearly a woman – answered. "No. But I think I heard a scuffling over there..." The light from a flashlight spun 'round the room as she spoke.

Curiosity finally getting the better of her, the child squirmed forward until she could see out into the room...and gasped in surprise. In the shadows cast by the flashlight she could dimly see the nutcracker of the night before come to life once more across the room. At the sound, the figure turned to glance in her direction but, before she could retreat back into the shadows, the nutcracker's head was spotlit in the flashlight.

The woman, cast only as a dark shadow beyond the glow of the small light she held – which the little girl could now see was not a regular flashlight at all but a small rectangular object with a light at one end – continued speaking, "I can't see anything now."

"Maybe they've left?" The nutcracker looked around the room. "Where on earth are we, I wonder. This place is... strange."

The woman laughed. "That's funny, sweetie, coming from a man in a nutcracker mask."

Laughing himself, the man reached up and lifted the large stage mask off his head to reveal a rather odd looking face beneath. Of course, he wasn't really a nutcracker, the child realized. No nutcracker had ever worn such an ugly jacket and silly looking tie about his neck. At least, the one on stage the night before hadn't. The man glanced down at the nutcracker head in his arms. "Don't you like it?"

The woman snorted.

"Nutcrackers are cool," the strange man insisted as he set the mask down next to him.

His companion didn't bother to respond. Instead, she swung the light around the room again. Searching the shadows. The child instinctively pushed herself back further under the bed to avoid detection. After a moment, laughing, the woman observed, "It's The Nutcracker, Doctor."

"You've already said that, dear."

She shone the light back on the man's face. "No. I mean, The Nutcracker. The ballet. When are we, again?"

The man lifted up his arm to glance at the watch on his wrist. He tapped it a few times and then peered closely at the face. "December the... twenty-second. 1969. New York City."

The woman paused for a moment, her light shining steadily on the man. "1969? New York? You sure?"

The nutcracker man nodded. "Yes. Why?"

The woman shook her head. "Nothing... Nothing." She turned her light back around the room. "Only, I'm fairly certain this is the New York City Ballet's annual production of The Nutcracker."

The man glanced down again at the head sitting next to him. "Well, that would certainly explain the nutcracker then, wouldn't it?"

"Yes, but why did they come here? Of all the places in the universe?"

"Maybe they like his music?" the man suggested.

"Whose music?"

The man and woman both swung round at the voice. The woman lifted her light, illuminating the face of the second man who'd entered behind them. This man was dressed sensibly, in a dark coat and string tie, and his white hair and beard had an order absolutely lacking in that of his younger companions. "Yours," the woman answered.

The man glanced around the room. "Nutcrackers? What on...?"

The nutcracker man leaned towards the woman and whispered, "He hasn't written it yet," before turning back to the man. "Oh. Never mind, Peter." He waved his hands wildly about the room. "Anyway. It doesn't matter. They're gone. Not here. We're too late."

"Well... If you're sure-" The older man's – Peter's – words were suddenly interrupted as a large furry figure flew out of the shadows towards the trio. Without missing a beat, the woman drew a sidearm from it's place on her thigh and fired at the creature. It stopped for a moment, suspended in midair and then, with a loud, ear splitting squeal, fell to the floor at the woman's feet.

She stepped forward and kicked the still form with the toe of her boot. "Is he...?" Peter asked.

She looked back over her shoulder at them. "Dead? Yes."

The nutcracker man kneeled down next to the creature. He gently shook it. With a sigh, he agreed. "Yes. Definitely dead. Too bad, really."

"It's a rat," the woman reminded him. "A giant rat. It's loss is hardly..."

The man stood up and turned back to her. "I know, River. Still," he glanced back down at the creature, "It is a dreadful waste."

River rolled her eyes.

"Is that it, then?" Peter asked. "Time to head home?"

"You never had to come," the nutcracker reminded him.

"No, Doctor. The creature was, after all, living in the basement of my house. I wanted to see this business through to the end."

The nutcracker – the Doctor – glanced down at the creature at his feet. "If only it were that simple."

"What do you mean?" River asked.

"This is a Rodentarian, River. They might look like large rats, but in reality, they act more like insects. Somewhere, some when – as this particular group seems to have developed rudimentary time travel – there'll be a hive queen, as it were."

River sighed. "Don't tell me..."

The Doctor turned to her, a grin slashing across his face, and the child decided that maybe he wasn't quite so silly looking after all. "Yeah. We have to find them. We can't have time traveling rodents traipsing all over, now, can we?"

"But you just said..." He silenced her with a look. She sighed again. "Right, then. Where do we start?"

The trio continued talking, but the child wasn't listening. Her ears, which seemed to be more sensitive than those of the adults, had detected a new sound coming from the shadows across the room.

A scuttling, scurrying sound.

Like that of a giant rat.

Quietly, so as not to attract attention herself, the child moved to the back of the bed. Squeezing out behind its frame, she crawled along the wall towards the sound. As she got closer, she could see it... And she'd been correct. Another Rodentarian, this one behind the three adults, pulling itself into a crouching position, preparing to spring...

The little girl acted before she could think. Slipping off her shoe, she flung it at the creature in the shadows. Instantly alerted, the adult's spun around. The woman's gun was in her hand and, in a single fluid movement, she dropped into a crouch, took aim and fired.

The giant rat joined the first upon on the floor.

Dead.

Only this one hadn't been alone. A flurry of fur erupted from the shadows behind it as countless creatures launched themselves into the room.

"Run!" the Doctor screamed at his companions.

The little girl hadn't waited for his command. Taking advantage of the chaos, she'd already left, running away only to find herself in a second room very much like the one she'd just left. Only in the center of this one stood a large blue box, very similar to the magic box she'd seen on stage the night before. As she could hear the others running towards her, in desperation for a place to hide, and, for once, wary of the shadows, she made the most obvious choice.

Rushing to the big blue box, she pushed open the doors and quickly slipped inside.