The Doctor flopped down on the dusty twin-size bed and sighed. "It's not that bad," he said to Amy and Rory, who were staring at him from the doorway.

"Why didn't we just stay in the TARDIS?" Rory asked, gazing at the alien that sat on the squeaky mat.

"Needed time to repair herself," the Doctor replied. "She'll need a week to get back to normal, minimum."

"A week?!" Amy exclaimed. "We can't survive a week here. Why didn't we get a room uptown? At least it sounded better than this place."

But the Doctor wasn't listening to them anymore. He was thinking about what happened to his TARDIS. "I'm going out," he said, standing up and heading for the door. "I need to make sure the TARDIS is phasing normally. You know, that nothing's gone wrong. Come on, Ponds, help me out here."

Amy and Rory had been married less than twelve hours ago, and now they had to spend their honeymoon in a dump. With the Doctor. Great. "Why are we here, anyway?" Amy raised her eyebrow in that way that she always did. "Why aren't we off seeing the twelve planets of the Kronora alignment or something?"

"First of all, it's Krinera," the Doctor stated. "And second, it seems like there's a sort of a rift here; like a magnet pulling us in. That's what happened to the TARDIS; it got pulled in and was damaged in the process. But why here? Why now?" He looked up at his two companions and sighed. "I can't just sit still for a week. I need to find out what's going on. So you two can stay here in this dingy, decaying dump for a week or you can come with me."

The Ponds were getting more than a little bit angry now. They just wanted a break, and with the Doctor, it was nonstop running and almost dying and saving people. "We're staying here," Amy said, and Rory nodded along. "You go see if the TARDIS is okay. We'll be here."

"Okay," the Doctor said, his eyes darting from the door to the two people in front of it. "Fine. You stay here and be bored out of your minds. Watch the telly." He pointed at a cube-shaped 1960s-era television with a twelve-centimeter screen and a metal coat hanger for an antenna. "I'm going to see what's going on." With that, he pushed past the newlyweds and headed out into the dusk. The streetlamps had just begun to flicker on, and the whole area was cast with an eerie glow. Of course, the Doctor was used to eerie, so this barely phased him. I'll go repark the TARDIS, he decided. I'll be back before anyone suspects a thing. He did feel bad that the Ponds were so angry at him, but what could he do about it now? They just needed time to cool off.

Skid Row. It was a funny name for an urban Northeastern area of America. However, the surroundings did seem to match the name. Homeless people gathered together on the sidewalks, so the Doctor decided to walk down the road. There weren't any cars around here, anyway; the place seemed too low-maintenance for cars. He saw two women in somewhat provocative dresses prance in the opposite direction on six-inch heels, and he walked faster. The Doctor had enough on his mind, what with the Ponds, River Song, and the recent destruction of the universe. On top of it, that Audrey girl was acting strange, and the TARDIS was possibly broken.

It got dark very quickly here, and the streetlamps gave barely enough light to see down the road. However, it was still lit at Shmendrik's with people continuing to attempt glimpses at the strange blue box. He needed to clear everyone out of the area so he could get in and make sure she was still working properly. Seeing a telephone box disappear would be kind of a shock to these people, whose front-page headlines consisted of a new smoking technique of meat at the butcher's. The Doctor approached the swarms of people, and as he edged to the front of the crowd, he saw the worst thing he ever thought possible.

They were trying to break into the TARDIS. The fire brigade was here, with hammers and other tools to break into things with. The crowd was chanting at the firemen; chants of "Break it! Break it!" rung throughout the congregation. They couldn't see what was inside the TARDIS. That would be really, really bad. So, with cat-like reflexes, the Doctor flung himself into the crater where the firefighters and the TARDIS were. "Don't touch it!" he yelled, and the a hush fell over the mob.

"You're that idiot from earlier," a female voice called out. "That street magician guy."

"Yes, I am," the Doctor replied, thinking quickly. "And this box is part of my act. If you break it, then you'll all have to pay to have it fixed."

"How much'd that be?" a man asked.

"Not cheap. You wouldn't believe how much it would cost."

"You're lying!" someone shouted.

"No, no, it's true. I had a friend back where I grew up who spent millions of pounds to refurbish one of these. That's millions of American dollars we're talking about."

At the sound of the high price, the citizens began to back away from the box. None of them had enough money to pitch in. This place needed a successful billionaire or something. Someone to fund the little disgrace of a town. Even the fire brigade became apprehensive to continue bashing in the box.

"Now, since you've been hanging around for so long, I think you deserve a gift," the Doctor continued, knowing that eventually he would regret this. "Another magic trick from the British street magicians." With this, he retrieved his TARDIS key from his jacket pocket and put it in the lock. Twisting the key, he heard the familiar click of his box unlocking, and he opened the door just enough so he could get in but not enough that any of the people could see inside.

As the Doctor slipped into the TARDIS, he pulled the door shut behind him, and looked for something that could pass as magician-worthy, but not otherworldly. Not a chunk of rock from Astris Twelve, or sand from the beaches of Liliaxis. What would astound the group without making them question him?

He could hear voices mumbling outside of the box. "It's a joke," he could make out someone saying. "He hasn't got anything in there."

"Come out of there, you faking jackass," a man's voice yelled to him. The Doctor recognized it as the voice of that dentist guy with the leather clothes, Orca Something, DDS. "We know you're hiding."

The Doctor then reached into his jacket, and touched his Sonic Screwdriver. In that moment, he realized something very important, a rule that he had heard about but never really followed - less is more.

So the Doctor pulled the Sonic Screwdriver out of his inner jacket pocket, and flung the TARDIS doors open to see the audience's disbelieving faces.

"A flashlight?" the Orca guy said, smirking. "What are you gonna do, glow us to death or something?" The people around him laughed, but this man in leather clothing didn't even chuckle. Instead, he stuck his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a handheld canister. It was silver and shiny, and had a little nozzle at the top of it. The dentist kid aimed the nozzle up his nostril, and squirted a sizable amount of whatever gas the canister held into his nose. He leaned back and began to laugh; the gas was obviously nitrous oxide. He was a little insane, but nothing too severe to worry about.

"No," the Doctor replied, his finger resting on the button. "But I can do this." He held up the Screwdriver, hit the button, and all the streetlamps on Third Avenue simultaneously burst. Shards of glass cascaded from the broken lightbulbs to the asphalt, and the whole crowd turned away from the TARDIS.

"...the hell?" Orca or whatever his name was muttered. The Doctor couldn't help feeling proud that he had drawn the attention away from him. These people were no smarter than the Daleks - easily fooled by the smallest of things. The crowd shifted from the box to the now-dark road, and he seized this opportunity to climb back into the TARDIS and shut the door.

"Quickly, quickly, quickly..." He sang a little tune to himself as he approached the console. Pulling the plotter and turning a knob, he stared at the radar. "There!" he said, looking at a perfect-sized space between two buildings six blocks away. It was just right, so the Doctor tried to pull the TARDIS into the crevice. But even the little hop was almost too much for his Type 40, and the short ride was a somewhat bumpy one. He could feel her pain in moving, and because of their symbiotical linking, it hurt him too. This had better be a good hiding spot, he thought to himself, stepping out of the box and surveying the area.

It was a perfect place. The shadows crossed over the box in such a way that you could only find it if you were purposely trying to look for it. The navy of his TARDIS blended with the maroon bricks of the adjacent buildings and the grey of the asphalt, and the Doctor loved it. He locked her up once again, whispering to her the whole time. "Don't worry, old girl. I'll be back soon. This is temporary, don't worry."

He decided to not pass by Third Avenue or Shmendrik's; he would get noticed there, too much attention. But the Doctor wasn't familiar with the area, and as a result, he found himself stumbling along 10th Street once again. His TARDIS was still hurting, and as a result, his hearts were beating irregularly. He needed somewhere just to sit down and rest. So he dragged himself along to the nearest lit store and sat against it.

The place was a flower shop, with petunias and ferns lining the windowsill. However, a spot in the middle was empty, as if the centerpiece of the display was missing. A piece of printer paper was Scotch-taped to the window from the inside, reading "Come in and see our amazing new plant, Audrey II". He had never heard of an Audrey II before, and this was in his 900 years of traveling. Curious, the Doctor reached up and pulled on the door. It was locked. It wasn't like he was going to try to bust into the shop - he wasn't that interested in the plant. It was probably just a hoax anyway, just a little moneymaker. So the Doctor sat leaning against the brick wall, listening to some kid's voice pour out of the vent that was a fixture of the building.

Sure, he sang to himself in the shower, but the Doctor knew that this was different, like one of those musicals that he'd seen on Broadway and at the Palladium. This kid was simply singing because there was nothing else to do. "I've given you plant food," he was belting out. "And water to sip. I've given you pot ash, you've given me zip!" If anything, it was entertaining to listen to the boy croon on about various plant techniques. The Doctor wasn't sure who the kid was talking to or what about, mainly because he was focusing on his own well-being.

His hearts were beating more steadily now, thanks to the TARDIS' calm state. However, he was more sure than ever that she needed a break, so he devised a plan for the Ponds and himself. They would try to lie low for a while. Get temporary jobs, make friends with the residents, normal stuff. Just until she was better, though. As soon as his TARDIS was up and running again, they would be out of this dump of a city.

So as the kid in the florist's sang about southern exposure and pinching back hard, whatever that meant, the Doctor got up and pushed himself to the motel where the Ponds were. His vision was slightly blurry and his head hurt, but he carried on. He blocked out the now-distant singing, and reached the motel within fifteen minutes.

And when all was said and done, the Doctor believed that if he had listened to the kid's singing for a little while longer, things would have turned out much differently. Because instead of accidentally walking in on the Ponds having honeymoon sex, he could have helped the kid out. Instead of feeling ashamed that he had disturbed his Companions and sleeping outside, the Doctor would have learned the strange plant's craving for the strangest of things.

Which just happened to be blood.

A/N

Wow, cliffhangers! I'm glad that I got some fine reads and reviews; they've really been helping me out. Truthfully, you Brochachos/Companions/Seussians/none-of-the-above are some of the best fans an author could ever have. Seriously. It would mean the world to me if I could get some suggestions for future chapters! Thank you to all the people who have already given reviews, and hopefully, I'll get some new ones soon! Again, thanks so much, and I hope to see you soon! Bahai!

-C.A.T.