Saturday
"No!" The Doctor shook his head, as if trying to rid it of a highly unwelcome thought. "This isn't right!"
"You've only realised this now?" Jack asked.
"It's not meant to happen...It can't be." He looked around wildly and turned to Jenny, searching her face with his eyes. Jenny met his gaze calmly. Too calmly, given the scene in front of them. Donna turned back to it.
Even though the light looked like dusk, streaks of orange light across it seemed to suggest sunset but it was wrong...it was just wrong.
"Morning," the Doctor said and his voice was calmer, as if he were forcing himself to try and think straight. "We've lost a night getting here. Their time travel is causing havoc with ours."
"But we haven't gone anywhere," Donna said. That much was obvious to her now. It was the house, Nerys' house that alerted her to the fact. Standing in the middle of what looked like a choppy sea, the row of houses looked horribly surreal.
"Still think you can just go up and talk to them?" Jack asked bitterly.
"Absolutely." The Doctor was still staring into the distance, as if he could see something invisible to the rest of them."
"My family though..." Donna said urgently, "and Nerys...what's happened to them?"
"They're in no immediate danger."
"What? The streets are nearly under the sea! And you think there's no immediate danger? Are you out of your mind?"
"No but I'll tell what we all are and that's out of our time."
"What?"
"Look closely, Donna. These creatures are good at destruction but they're not that good."
Donna glanced uncomprehendingly at the houses across from them. It took her a moment to realise what he meant. On closer inspection, the houses were not what they seemed.
"They look..."
"Derelict, yes."
"We're in the future." Jack said flatly.
Jenny was staring at them miserably. Despite her shock, Donna couldn't help noticing that the girl didn't look in any way surprised. Miserable, yes. But not surprised.
"We're in the future," the Doctor confirmed, "years later by the looks of it."
"Some sort of hallucination?" Donna ventured. It was true that the scene around her couldn't get much more surreal. The familiar streets in the midst of the still film of water and then you looked at it, really looked at it and it was a wasteland. The smashed windows. The walls crumbling at the tops. The faded signs. The people.
People!
"Doctor..." She began. But he was already seen.
"Oh God," Jack murmured softly.
In front of a building that should have been a shop, there were steps leading up to a fire escape and gathered on the step were five young people. They huddled and watched with their eyes fixed on some point near the TARDIS. They showed no interest however. Their clothes, sodden in places, were ill-fitting and faded. Their eyes...
"What's wrong with them?"
"What's right with them?" Jack asked bitterly. "It's like a war zone. And I'm guessing someone else won the war."
It was also cold. Very cold. Beside her, Jenny was shivering. Donna put an arm around her and nearly jumped back when she felt the extent of her shaking.
"Are you alright?" she asked.
Tears ran down Jenny's face. She didn't reply.
"So we go back and stop this happening?" Jack asked. "Doctor, we can get to them in our time. You have the TARDIS. We have the Rift. Surely between us, we can summon up enough energy to make them tangible. We can send them away. We can send them anywhere. Into the void even! This doesn't need to happen."
The Doctor still looked far-away. Donna wanted to shake him.
"WB Yeats once said that the country of the people of Faery was the heart of the world," he said finally.
"The whole world's falling apart here and you want to discuss poetry?"
"There's worse things," the Doctor said lightly, "like starting a war when you've no idea what you're fighting."
"I know what they're capable of, if that's what you're saying," Jack said and Donna had never heard that note of bitterness in his voice before.
"And if you know so much, you'll also know that most myths are in actual fact, a distorted version of history."
Jack took a deep breath, as if desperately trying to hold back an eruption of words but the Doctor turned to face him.
"I'm sorry," he said and his quiet gaze took in Donna, "I'm so sorry but you're not going to like what I have to tell you."
The abrupt change in tone seemed to stop Jack in his tracks.
"Go into the TARDIS," the Doctor continued, "talk to your team. Ask them what's going on right now. Donna, go with him. I want to talk to Jenny."
Donna walked up to the Doctor and whispered in his ear.
"Talk to her, don't fight. She's terrified."
The Doctor gave her a long look and nodded slowly. Patting Jenny's shoulder, Donna followed Jack. She turned back at the door and watched the Doctor slowly approach Jenny. Jenny gazed up at him solemnly and Donna noticed, not for the first time, how she could sometimes look so old and yet so young, in the same moment.
"I'm right, aren't I?" he asked her quietly.
Jenny nodded.
Donna forced herself to turn away, hoping that whatever he was right about, wasn't about to make things worse.
Inside the TARDIS, Jack was talking into a screen on the console.
"Six?" he was asking.
"And counting," Ianto's voice came back to them, "the last two came in the last ten minutes."
"Not a coincidence then," Jack said.
"We're not that lucky," Ianto replied, "Jack, if this..."
He was cut off as the screen went fuzzy and then blank.
Jack was gripping the edge of the console as if it was the only thing keeping him upright. When he noticed Donna, he stood up straight.
"There's been six more reports of women convinced that their babies are different," he said, "all within a six mile radius of here. The hospitals are hushing it up. Nobody knows what to do with them. One or two, you could say..."
"That they were ill, like I thought about Nerys," Donna said.
"Yeah." Jack looked around, as if for inspiration.
"Donna, these creatures have stolen children for centuries. Chosen Ones, they call them and God help anyone who gets in their way. But this..." He came away from the console and walked slowly around it.
"I knew someone, years ago, and she thought fairies were these beautiful little creatures who hid in the woods and danced in the moonlight."
"Can't blame her. Up until today, I'd have clapped my hands to keep Tinkerbell alive."
That made Jack smile.
"Come on," he said, "at least this time, we've got them scared."
"This time? You've seen them before?"
"Come on," Jack repeated, taking her arm and leading her back outside.
Outside, the Doctor and Jenny were still talking quietly together. He turned around at the sound of the TARDIS door closing and his face was focused on Jack.
"Well?"
"Six cases of women reporting that their babies are different."
"I don't understand," Donna said, "you say that Nerys' baby has been swapped for one of these...creatures. And she has to look after it. But then you say changelings are myths."
"And myths are based on fact," Jack added.
"Getting it now?" the Doctor asked.
"It's happened before," Jack breathed. He looked at the Doctor expectantly.
"When?"
But the Doctor's face disturbed Donna. It was as if the sight of the ruined streets around him, his daughter's tear-stained face, Jack's tension, the gathering gloom in the sky...none of that was bothering him as much as whatever was playing out in his mind.
"What does it mean?" she asked him as gently as she could.
It was as if he didn't hear her.
"Santorini," he said softly, "Mount Tambora, Pompeii...you know how Edvard Munch described Krakatoa? An endless scream passing through nature..."
"From poetry to art," Jack said and then, quietly, "Doctor, you're scaring me."
The Doctor looked at him and their eyes locked together as if they were sharing the same thought.
"Changelings," he said slowly, "fairies returned to a human body to be found in another time. And they do it for one reason and one reason only. Protection. They see humans as being so much further removed from nature than they are." He gave a harsh laugh. "They think you're more protected from it.
"They've only ever occurred when the Earth is about to rip itself apart. No aliens. No wars. Just nature. The one thing none of us can really control. Not them. Not you."
Jack waved a hand towards the expanse of water. "This is the result of some kind of natural disaster? Doctor, how can you be sure that the fairies aren't causing it? It's how they work."
The Doctor shot Jenny a look that Donna couldn't fathom.
"They're not fighting us," he said, "They're trying to warn us."