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Leila Graves was having an awful day. She'd woken up already half an hour late for work. She'd immediately called her boss and said that she'd been sick. Rushing round her flat, she stubbed her toes no less than three times and misplaced her keys once she was finally out the door. Her car wouldn't start once she finally got in it. She decided to walk which would only make her more late, but at least she'd get there. Now, the heel of her right shoe was threatening to snap off and she had to walk with an odd limp that made people stare. Leila hated attention. As a receptionist for a legal firm, she didn't get a lot and that was how she liked it.
Leila looked down at her mobile and saw she'd gotten a message from her boyfriend, Dave. She smiled, thinking that maybe he could say something that would cheer her up.
"Lei, I met someone while I was on business in Cancun, I think we both know we've been through for a long while. Well, bye then."
What! She hadn't known they'd been through. This was news to her! Leila screamed and threw her phone on the ground, stamping her foot and finally breaking that right heel off. As she staggered, people swerved wide on the walkway to avoid her. She collected herself, picking up her phone and dusting it off. Well as far as she was concerned, things could only go up from here. She pulled off her shoes, thinking she'd just walk barefooted the rest of the way to work. Just as she was thinking that things must turn around now, it started to rain. Leila hated rain. She looked up at the dark grey sky and cursed it mentally. "Is the whole bloody universe against me then?" she asked darkly to no one in particular.
She trudged through the wet and saw her building not far away. She could at least get inside, get warm and dry and think about nothing for a few hours. It certainly couldn't get worse now.
After thinking that, Leila noticed that indeed, the rain seemed warmer than it usually was in London, and her skin felt kind of tingly. She looked down at her arm and saw steam rising from it. What?
No one saw Leila Graves leave the world. They were all tucked away, safe in their walls by now. No one saw as she continued to stare at her body which kept on steaming. No one saw as she apparently turned to mist and floated up and away into the sky. No one saw the rain immediately clear up after she was gone.
Carrie Novella was leaning against the side of the tattoo parlour on her smoking break. She needed to quit; these fags were ruining her life. She coughed all the time and her teeth were starting to turn yellow. Thank god for bleach strips. She rested her head against the brick face of the building as she blew smoke up in the air. The sky was turning grey. Those clouds looked heavy. Today had been slow. Tuesdays were never big days for getting inked.
Still, she had three sketches to finish and two appointments later that day. She could keep occupied. Sticking the fag back in her mouth, she pulled out the pack from her back pocket. Carrie debated whether or not to light another one. She flicked the first on the ground and after looking long and hard at the half empty pack she'd bought this morning, she flung it into a nearby drain. Carrie Novella felt she had a new lease on life.
Even now, the rain was coming down to cleanse her. She even opened her mouth a little and tilted her face up to receive it. She noticed how warm it was, how it made her skin tingle and sizzle.
Still in the alley on the side of the building, no one saw as Carrie Novella, like Leila Graves, got dissolved into steam and floated up into the already clearing sky.
Miles away from all this, Lucy Blake was bent over a sketchbook. The book had seen better days. She'd spilt coffee on it once and softened some of the pages, staining the bottom right corners faint brown. It had been tossed around enough and the corners and spine were somewhat dented. Pages had been torn out, samples of cloth had been taped or glued in. She'd had it for about five years, and now it was almost full. She twirled her pencil round in her left hand and set the tip down again, adding more detail.
Lucy had decided to make the Doctor a suit. She could think of no better way to thank him for everything he'd done than by doing what she did best. She knew that he'd only say she didn't have to, but all the same, she wanted to. This one would be dark, dark grey, pinstriped, of course. She had yet to choose a fabric, which meant she couldn't make much headway on the design. Different materials did different things. Whatever she did, she didn't want the Doctor to know until she was actually presenting him the suit.
A buzz from her mobile jerked her from her thoughts. Juliet, it could only be Juliet. She picked it up on the second ring and sighed by way of greeting.
"Oh, Lucy, really, can't you think of something more inventive than a sigh?"
"I know, Jules, I know, but I'm thinking and that's using up all my creativity."
"Well, when you take a break from that, how about you get yourself back down to Earth?"
Sitting up straight, Lucy pulled her brows down and felt her heart racing a bit. "Jules, is something wrong?" she asked urgently.
"No, twin, why does something have to be wrong for me to call you? No, I just felt like I should, I felt like I needed to talk to you. Actually, I was going to ask if you were all right."
Lucy suppressed the urge to laugh. She hadn't called Juliet after going to the Louvre and nearly being consumed by Pyranor. Jules would be mad that she hadn't called right away, but that would pass. How like Juliet to pick up on Lucy almost telepathically. That was an identical twin for you. She assured Juliet that she and the Doctor would be there within the hour.
After she set her mobile down, she tucked away her sketchbook and headed down the hallway to where the Doctor would be, as always, at the controls. They were currently orbiting a sun that had just been born. The white light was blinding and the Doctor was wearing sunglasses even with the lights dimmed inside. Lucy held up her hand to shield her eyes and said, "Doctor? Mind if we pop down to Earth and visit the twin? I never told her about the Pyranor and all, and it's been awhile."
The Pyranor had been a week ago, as a matter of fact. The Doctor looked up at her and grinned as he said, "Sure. Off we go."
Minutes later they were landing in that handy alley by Lucy's flat. She wondered why she still thought of it as her flat. She certainly didn't think of it as her home. The T.A.R.D.I.S. was her home, and had been since she'd met the Doctor.
Pushing the thought aside, she threw the door open and was met by her sister, who had heard them land. They hugged for a good while, the Doctor leaning on the door frame and smiling at them.
"So what's been going on, Lucy? I know I felt like I had to call you for a reason."
"Yeah, I've been meaning to tell you. About a week ago, I went to the Louvre-"
"You went to the Louvre without me!" Juliet interrupted.
"Well, sort of. I mean, yes, I did go without you. But it was in the year 2084 and we were only going because something was wrong. Anyway, they were these things there, these things called Pyranor and they got inside my head, like the Somnium Parasites. But this time, I had to think all kinds of awful things to get them out. They're gone though, and they're gone for good."
Juliet was frowning. This was the sort of thing that made her nervous about Lucy traveling with the Doctor. Danger followed their every step and sometimes they went chasing after it. It wouldn't be long, Juliet thought, before Lucy was met with something that wouldn't be easy to get rid of.
"But nothing's going on here, Juliet, right? Everything's fine?" Juliet looked up from her brooding and thought for a moment.
"Yeah, of course. Although…"
Now the Doctor straightened up and came toward Juliet. His eyes were wide and he looked quite concerned. "Although what, Juliet?"
"It's just…people have been turning up missing. All in the last week. A friend of mine, she said that this girl she works with, Leila, or something. She said that she was late for work and then never showed up. No one's heard anything from her. And people all over London are just disappearing. And…oh god."
"What, Jules, what?" hissed Lucy, irritated that her sister so often let things like this slip her mind.
"Oh, god, Lucy, how could I forget? Do you remember old Stephen Cross, the bloke who used to watch us when mum couldn't?"
"Yes, of course, Jules, has he gone missing too?"
"Yeah. Just yesterday, actually. Apparently some friend of his invited him to tea and he never made it. And you remember old Stephen, he was never late for anything, never forgot a date."
"Juliet, has anything else odd or unusual been happening lately?" The Doctor pried. Lucy was far from believing that these disappearances were due to any rising crime rate in the city. Nearly everything she ran into was extraterrestrial or supernatural. This had to be too.
"No, I don't think so. Well, I dunno, it's been raining a lot more than usual."
Lucy and the Doctor gave Juliet blank stares. Juliet shrugged her shoulders, splaying her hands. "Well, that's the only thing I could think of, all right? Some people have said that it's unseasonably rainy."
The Doctor frowned, shaking his head. Lucy couldn't speak for him, but she doubted that rain in London was behind the disappearances.
"Do you know anything else about the people who disappeared? Where they were, did they have anything in common?"
"Almost none of them. The first was that Leila girl, and then later that day some woman who worked in a tattoo parlour. Then it was some bloke on a golf course. Then it was Stephen Cross, and later yesterday, a minister on his way home from a sermon."
"So today's Monday?" Lucy asked. Juliet nodded.
The Doctor had moved into their living room and the twins followed. He was pressing his hands to the side of his head and pacing back and forth.
"Oh, think, think, think. A girl on her way to work, a man on his way to tea, a man on a golf course and a minister leaving a church. What was that tattoo parlour girl doing, do you know?"
"I think someone said she nipped out for a fag."
The Doctor nodded while Lucy's eyes grew wide and her mouth dropped open.
"Doctor, they were all outside. Everyone who's disappeared was outside and then no one saw them again. Juliet said it's been raining more than usual, may-"
"Yes! Yes, that's it, Lucy, it's the rain! Oh, Juliet, you were right!" Juliet beamed a little bit while Lucy frowned some more.
"But, Doctor, it rains all the time in London. So it's happening more often now. What's causing that?"
The Doctor stopped pacing and his hands dropped from his head. He looked quite defeated for a moment.
"Rain. Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. What makes it rain?" Lucy and Juliet exchanged glances. As far as they both knew, rain occurred naturally. Every day. All the time. They both looked back at the Doctor simultaneously and waited for him to come up with something. They were both stumped.
"That's it! Yes! No…no it can't be, but, yes, it is! No, although…yes!" After this babbling he tore through them and dashed out the front door. The twins raised their eyebrows at each other again and followed him. He was standing in the middle of a deserted street. No doubt everyone was staying inside because something would get you if you stepped outside.
The Doctor looked up at the greying sky and knew that he was right. Lucy and Juliet came to stand on either side of him, staring up at the same thing he saw. He heard Juliet gasp and felt the rush of air as her hand moved to cover her mouth. Lucy was stoic but she grabbed his arm with both her hands. Glancing down at her, he saw that she looked worried. She looked up at him, for answers he knew, but he didn't have the ones she wanted.
"Who are they, Doctor?" she asked softly, her eyes never leaving his. He squeezed her hand which had found its way to his before he replied.
He gestured up toward the giant spaceship hovering hundreds of meters above them. The whirling black discs on the bottom opened up and they could see a faint mist get sucked inside.
"On that ship are the Stratomorphs. They change the weather and the atmosphere so that they can go unnoticed."
"But what do they do, Doctor?" Juliet asked, hand moving down from her mouth to her throat.
"They take people, Juliet. They latch on to one person and take them up into their ships." Lucy looked back at him. The question in her eyes was undeniable and clear. Why?
"They take them for fuel. They spend their lives in space and only come close to life, to a planet when they need more fuel. Their fuel is energy, living, breathing energy. But they convert it into that mist we saw just a second ago. Another person is going to be reported missing soon."
Juliet swayed on her feet a bit and looked as though she might be sick.
"So the Stratomorphs are using the rain that already falls on London, harnessing it, changing it, and using it to abduct people whom they then convert to fuel?" Lucy asked, sounding more sober than she probably felt. The Doctor only nodded, always appreciative of how quickly she picked things up, of how much she understood about alien races.
"How many will they take?" Juliet still sounded weak.
"The Stratomorph fuel tanks can hold millions of liters of fuel. That's hundreds of thousands of people. But they can bide their time, taking several people a day for weeks. They're trying to stay unnoticed now, but later they'll throw caution to the winds, which they could control if they wanted to, and take everyone. Turn them into mist and plop them in a fuel receptacle. They could take all of Great Britain."
Lucy and Juliet leaned forward to see each other around the Doctor. The look they exchanged now was one of utter fear.
"Hold on, though? What if people just stay inside? It's the rain that's taking them right?" Juliet asked. She and Lucy were looking at the Doctor hopefully. He hated to have to tell them this.
"If it was only the rain they controlled, yes. But like I said, they can manipulate any weather pattern, any atmospheric condition. Not enough people on the streets? No problem, just create a hurricane and use it to smash some roofs in and get more people. Send a tsunami if they start getting impatient." Lucy took a shaky breath and Juliet darted for the door to the flat.
"No, Juliet, you may as well come back inside the T.A.R.D.I.S. with us." Lucy called. Juliet nodded and changed directions, heading for the big blue box. The Doctor looked down at Lucy, somewhat astonished.
"You're not suggesting we just leave them, are you?"
"Don't you know me better than that by now, Doctor? Of course I'm not suggesting that, but we'll be safest inside the T.A.R.D.I.S. while we think of something to do to help everyone. If we get turned into mist, there's not a whole lot we can do to help."
The Doctor nodded and ushered her forward, his hand on the small of her back, to his beloved ship. Of course he knew her better than that, he chided himself. He should know by now that Lucy's unquenchable need to help people far outstripped anything else. How he loved that about her, he thought as he closed and locked the door behind the twins.
