As he walked through the square he saw that it was mostly empty. The people had obviously taken the chastisement of their Mayor to heart and gone about their business, none of them even looking up to watch him pass. As he walked past Merrick's stall, the small boy looked up in surprise and then looked away just as quickly. He was sporting a large bruise on his face. Apparently his mother was physical with her punishments. A little guilt that he had caused that bruise washed over him, but he quickly set his thoughts on the TARDIS. He had to find out what was going on, what was happening to Andy, if anything. But as he approached the TARDIS he noticed something was wrong.

The creeper vines, which had been about two or three metres away from the TARDIS that morning when he had entered, were now close enough to touch the base. In fact one of them was, and in the early afternoon light he thought he could see it was pulsing a little. Horror rushed through him as he opened the TARDIS door and ran to the console. What were these vines doing? What was Andy doing sending them to the TARDIS? It had to be her, he could think of no one else who could do something like this. However looking over the TARDIS, the vines were doing nothing. They were simply swarming around her, looking eerily like a group of soldiers moving in for the kill. But they weren't doing anything. Not draining her of power, energy, life, anything. She was safe. At the moment.

Were they a threat? Could Andy pull power from the TARDIS using these vines? Would she? And was it really Andy? Or was it the parasite that was doing this?

Now that he thought about it, he hadn't seen Andy since early that morning. She'd gone back to the woods to try and get rid of her headache. Had the parasite caused the headache? How would she try to get rid of it? Would she try to go to sleep again? He didn't know enough, he didn't understand and he hated not understanding. So he did what he had come here to do. He typed in the three words on the paper into the matrix and tried to ignore the vines at his door.

Half an hour later, the Doctor exited. The TARDIS didn't have much information on the parasite and had been loath to give it up. Not out of stubbornness, or because she had trouble finding it. No, the Doctor had sensed fear through his slight telepathic link with the TARDIS. Even she was afraid of the parasite. Remembering what happened the last time something had taken her over, he wasn't surprised. He had learned very little more than he knew already, as the parasite was only recorded in myths, and he always took those with a pinch of salt. As he closed the door he looked at the progress of the vines. They were all now touching it, but they hadn't grown up the side of it or anything. It looked like they were just…waiting. But for what? Shaking himself out of his thoughts, he turned back towards the town. There was still one more person he wanted to see, the so-called guardian, Matros.

'his house is the small dirty one on the left path, near the trees' Remembering Merrick's words of describing Andy's former house, the Doctor couldn't help but think that Merrick had got it spot on. It was indeed tiny, the TARDIS in her police box form could not have gotten through the door. The thatch on the roof looked worn and a little patched, and the walls had dirt and what looked like excrement all over them. What windows there were, were grimy and crusted with specks of dirt. A trickle of smoke fluttered out of the broken chimney on the top of the roof.

But it was also very close to the woods and, thinking back to what he'd heard about Andy's childhood, he suddenly wasn't surprised that she had spent almost all of her days in the woods. They were quite obviously separated from the village too, the nearest house was at least fifteen metres away. In a city that wouldn't have seemed much, but in this tiny town, it seemed like a very obvious split between 'them' and 'us'. Perhaps it was because Matros wasn't a local, even after all these years, or maybe just because he was associated with Andy that he had chosen to separate himself from the rest of the village.

Pushing these thoughts aside the Doctor walked up and tapped on the door. There was a snuffling sound, then a thump and then footsteps, slow and heavy, heading towards the door. A creak and then the door was ajar. A strong sour smell of unwashed clothes, body odour and what probably passed for alcohol on this planet wafted out of the house. A sallow face looked out, wild tangled hair hung in almost dreadlocks down his face, a long black beard covered his chin and weasely bloodshot blue eyes looked out, sharp and alert and wary. The Doctor took in his appearance and recognised him as the man from yesterday, who had bowed his head and shuffled away when Andy had looked at him.

"What do you want, stranger?" his voice was gruff and hoarse.

"Matros? Andy's guardian?" The Doctor asked, trying not to hold his breath. The rodent eyes tightened for a second and then he sighed.

"What's she done now?" he demanded sullenly.

"Nothing," the Doctor quickly reassured him, "I'm just interested in what happened to her, that's all." The eyes looked at him warily,

"Why do you wanna know that? What's the girl matter to you?" The Doctor's voice hardened,

"Well someone should care, shouldn't they?" Matros glared out at him, then the fight seemed to leave his eyes. His head sunk down and he opened the door wider.

"You'd better come in," he grunted.