They have Clara, and Adam. Heaven knows where Jessica is. Elizabeth is leaning on his arm, having trouble doing so much as thinking straight. And what on earth is the matter with them? Lees, nugatorily injured and more than capable of correcting that herself, and Sieverts untouched by any of this. If the Doctor weren't such a clever and strong man, he might almost be of the opinion that Sieverts was somehow winning this little pass of theirs. But the Doctor knows, and knows very well, that when an arrogant man believes he is winning he very, very rarely is.

It's just very difficult, right now, to see how he could be possibly be losing.

Though he knows there's a hotel, with Sieverts and Lees waiting for him, and though he knows they won't make it difficult to find, he slowly guides Lizzie back to the Tardis. It doesn't matter how long it takes. So long as he is still at large, all these people who might be used against him are still safe. That's possibly the only upside to being collateral; there is a long period of time where collateral is in no danger whatsoever.

At the Tardis he has the best chance of helping Elizabeth back to herself. And, if he's honest, despite the few facts he's been able to gather, he still has the tiniest ray of hope that Jessica might be there. Maybe she got overexcited with her exam results. She got all tuckered out. Ate a load of strawberry laces perhaps, and then fell asleep during the resultant sugar crash. He's seen her crash before, one Christmas with the Ponds. She fell asleep on a beanbag and wouldn't even be wakened for The Gruffalo. Yes. That's all that's the matter with her. She's crashed. She's curled up in bed. She'll be annoyed when he wakes her, but once he explains, she'll understand. She'll be armed. They'll go in together. Lizzie for the brains, the Doctor for the decisions, Jessica for the attack. Missing only their dearest heart, they will do very well in the struggle to get said heart back.

But there's no Jessica. He settles Elizabeth at the console, and she keeps telling him they're the only two here. He doesn't quite believe her until he's rushed up, taking the stairs two at a time, to the bedroom up above the time rotor. The little white room with the walls covered in Jessica's childish handwriting and her little doodles, with the little bedroom hooked off to one side, with the little one-person kettle and toaster being the only little luxuries she could dream up.

Until very recently, there had been a space among the scribbles. Right over the head of her bed. She never gets that far. She tends to sit up in the night and think of something that must be written. She'll go to the first white space she sees, and the first space one sees is very rarely behind one's head.

But now he finds that it has been written on. In blue marker, amongst all the other black, to mark it out as obvious and special. She took time with this. Her letters are block capitals and as neat as he has ever seen. She has, quite obviously, consulted one of her grammar books to assist.

Being message for Doctor, says the first line, as if he couldn't possibly have known that. Him is to be thinking that her is being very stupid.

She has crossed out 'her is', and written above it 'I am'.

But this am being much good dessizhuns for her.

Similarly, she has crossed out 'her'. The word 'me' has replaced it, though it is even shakier and unfamiliar than he is accustomed to.

MissusToffee am not to be tells lies about small thing, that can be gives Jessica proper realgirl livings. Much wants for being real girl. Doctor am to be understands this. Jessica am knowing that for Doctor to be being real persons am being much big dream for Doctor that not ever can have. Doctor am please to be understandings. Her am being too much sorry for leaves. Is being much big huge much selfish. Jessica am knowing this. But soon is to be talks real and having small life and might big probably even to be has family-persons. Not Owner and Tall Persons, but real family-persons. Please much is Doctor to be understands.

To be knows all of her big heart love,

Jessyka.

"Oh, dear girl," he mumbles, one hand covering his mouth to prevent him saying anything more, or indeed screaming the way he feels a scream build up. "Dear, sweet girl, you silly thing…"

He hears an odd rattle and clatter off to his right. Lizzie, struggling up the stairs. Given there is nothing he can do about Jessica just at this moment, he gives up and goes to his dear witch instead. He meets her halfway and settles her down on the tread at their feet. Her tormented head swings down against his shoulders. "She's gone, isn't she? Your loyal bodyguard…"

"Don't be horrible. I know you've just being through something horrible yourself, but don't be horrible about Jessica. In some people, their heart's desire is a very powerful thing."

"She's still gone. When you needed her and any one of us needed her. Do not, Doctor, pass over this fact."

"Stop it, now, Elizabeth."

"I am merely pointing out the fact," she sighs, "that Sieverts and Lees are stick and carrot respectively, and they work very well in combination. I am merely pointing out that even one so… and here I use her word for it, not mine – devoted as your little Jessica could happily be led astray by-"

"Stop it!"

"But it's alright," she sighs, "It's alright, Doctor, it's alright. I know what has to be done. Do you remember? I always knew how to do this. Once I've had a look at a situation and have all the facts, once I've properly assessed it, I know how to make the situation do what I want. You remember. I was always able to do that. My special talent. I knew it the moment his skin touched mine. I just had to fight through all that to get to it. You must play along, Doctor, and you mustn't let him touch you. You mustn't ask anyone but Toffee Lees about Jessica. You mustn't rush immediately to Miss Oswald when you see her. You mustn't worry, you mustn't worry…"

She is speaking like a ghost, or one in a trance. She has only this message. He feels if he asked her any question she wasn't prepared for, she would begin again and recite the message over. In all, the Doctor deems it best to treat her like a sleepwalker; he will only follow and make sure she doesn't do herself a mischief.

When he helps her to her feet she reacts by walking. He lets her lead, and lead him past the console, where she picks up a slip of paper and hands it to him. It's not handwriting he's seen before. Your pretty soldier, it begins, and he knows it must have been written by Lees, insisted I leave this for you or all bets are off.

Beneath, she has left the address of the hotel, of where to find them. The Doctor gives it to the console. He wants the Tardis close, as a quick exit. He's not sure what will happen, only that it's unlikely to be pleasant, that it's unlikely all parties will come out intact

Elizabeth puts his arms around his neck. During the close bumps of take-off and landing, she clings to him. She draws herself close and whispers in his ear. At the first bump he doesn't hear her. At the second he hears her wrong, or he must do, because what he thinks she says is, "Just let her go, my love." Barely above a whisper, no sharper or smarter, and when he stares she just stares back, seemingly unaware of having spoken at all.

The Tardis drops them in the parking lot of an awful little rat-trap on the far fringes of town. Still, for a moment, he can only look at Elizabeth. She shows her empty hands, asking what he wants. The Doctor points a wild, accusatory finger. "You said something. Specifically, you said someone else's thing!"

"I didn't speak at all, you lunatic."

"Well, maybe it wasn't you, but certainly it came out of your mouth. And In a great many years, not a great many people have ever dared to swing about my tender and very breakable neck, Elizabeth, while the Tardis did what she does. That's what we have rails for."

"You were closer than a bloody rail!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!

"You sound an awful lot like someone else right now, Elizabeth!"

She rolls her eyes at him and starts for the door. His immediate instinct is to call her back. They ought to agree strategy. She should tell him what she knows and he'll decide what they're going to do with it. It's just… well… he's aware it will sound silly but… Elizabeth's walk, you see, it's… it's not quite her own. It is, in fact, more of a stalk, full of arch little twists and a grind that the shape of her body neither calls for nor supports. It belongs entirely to someone else. Someone who, as it happens, he is very much prepared to follow, into hell or diving into high water. He follows now.

"Just how do you intend to fight against him?" he calls, feeling just as useless and ignored as a certain someone used to make him feel.

"Oh, we won't. Not you, not me… Certainly not your pretty soldier-" That, of course, is yet another someone else's phrase. He is beginning to doubt Elizabeth's provenance, if such a term might be applicable. "-No, no, darling. No, Mrs Lees will fight him for us."

"Lizzie, please don't call me 'darling'. It's an awfully familiar term."

"I didn't. Did I?"

The Tardis left them no more than five steps from the lobby. That's where they find the former clerk. He is slumped in the chair behind his desk, still wearing bright red ear defenders. Now, however, he is dead. If you believe the fantasy version of events Toffee has left in her wake, the six or seven feet of blue ash stake driven through his chest is what killed him. Both a quick sweep with the sonic and Elizabeth's hand on his arm tell the Doctor this is not true, that in fact the length of lethal wood, thought I might be real now, was not present at the time of death.

"She really does alter the world," he breathes out. He falters, "Elizabeth, be careful. If she suspects for a second that you can turn her to your will, she'll-"

"I know. But the trick is, Doctor, it's not my will, it's hers. I'm just going to show her the way to do it. You have that little machine, don't you? The one that restores souls?"

He pats his left jacket pocket, and the swinging weight inside. It's more of a comfort than he can possibly describe.

"If you know so much, where's Jessica?"

"Exactly where she said in her note. She's gone, Doctor, to a normal life. Poor thing."

The stairwell is lit with flashing fairy lights. Above is the dim suggestion of something soft and golden. They climb, Lizzie just one step ahead and with her hand in his.

The upper floor has been opened out still further, now that Toffee has her good mood to support her. It reaches now even beyond the bounds of the building, stretching past physics to echo deep and cavernous, with faraway ceilings coffered and vaulted. The carpet is deep and there is music around with no source at all, only in it the air itself. All of the walls are covered with art. There are three chandeliers that burn with a thousand candles each and these are the only light.

Not so far away as to become indistinct are two four poster beds. Adam rests on one, in the same sleep as they have always known him to occupy. Clara rests on the other. The Doctor has never seen her sleep. In a chair, perhaps, or briefly dozing, but not deeply. Not in bed, curled on her side with the pillow hugged close against her head. It seems odd to him, when he's seen all these other people sleep. Jessica, for instance, sprawled like a starfish on the Ponds' beanbag, head tipped back and snoring loud as a train. River, forming herself to the shape of his side, her leg wound over his. Clara looks so small by comparison, so contained. He starts toward her on instinct, but Elizabeth stops him. Her hand wraps around his arm and draws him back.

Opposite where they emerged at the top of the stair are two identical couches. Louis Sieverts sits straight and attentive. Toffee Lees lies on her back, watching the beds, the sleeping prisoners, smoking a cigarette over her own creation. She is again wearing the shoes that she placed on Elizabeth's feet before.

And yes, Sieverts is terror. Sieverts is the one who can render any creature helpless with the merest glance of skin on skin. But the Doctor keeps his eyes on Lees.

Lees has only to decide, and believe deeply, that he no longer cares, and it will become true. The Doctor glares at her and burns with all his considerable reserves of rage and hatred so that she won't be able to believe a damned thing.

As if she were sleeping, Sieverts reaches over and nudges her shoulder. He doesn't appear to notice that her breath catches. "Toffee. Toffee, dear, they've arrived. How does the next part go?"

"Oh, well," she yawns, "it's simple. There's a parlour scene just about to begin. After that, there'll be a scene of resolution for whichever side emerges victorious. Then, again for whichever side wins, there'll be a follow-up scene with Miss Apple. And then there'll be a finale, which, as the title suggests, is rather final. But yeah, sure, right now? Right now there's a parlour scene to play. Either you or the good Doctor there don't make it, Louis." She yawns again, uncaring, "Hard to say yet which of you it'll be…"