Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, or the Beatles, or Pandora Radio, or a three-foot-long snake. Not that most of these are mentioned in the chapter, but I thought you should know...

Spoilers: Stolen Earth, which, for those who don't know, is the beginning of the end of s4. However, there will be Spoilers from now until the end of the fic. These Spoilers will be for the Stolen Earth and Journey's End. These Spoilers are not minor spoilers but major, plot point revealing Spoilers. You have been warned of the Spoilers.

A/n: This chapter should have been published earlier. But writer's block, school, a skiing trip, and a trip to New York (alas, not New New York, that would have been amazing) conspired against me. Then I re-read the first few chapters of this, looking for inspiration, and I realized, wait! I don't NEED dialogue! This story is about...whatever the opposite of dialogue is! Inner monologue or something! I can write lovely vague-ish stuff about that! And so a chapter was born :)

000

It happens all over the earth: shaking, falling, and darkness. The darkness is the worst of the three, brushing that deep primal fear of the shadows. Children cry and latch on to parents at the darkness; they know that nothing good can come here.

The adults are more foolish. They walk outside and gasp and point to each other, "Look at the planets in the sky! Where'd the sun go?" They're afraid, yes, but their curiosity overcomes their fear as always happens with humans. They always do this, follow their curiosity, always have and always will.

But curiosity didn't only kill the cat.

In New York, a woman takes charge, looking for the injured and an explanation; searching for the only person she knows who can help. When that fails, she looks for a second option, always a backup plan. She learned that the hard way, but she is the only one who remembers it.

In Cardiff, a man does the same, though he has fewer people to care for and more ideas about what could have happened. He knows more about what he sees than the rest perhaps, because of his age, or because of his upbringing, but even he doesn't understand entirely. He knows at least enough to fear for his friends' lives. Not his own, though, never his own.

In Ealing, a woman searches for the answer, calling on her considerable resources in an attempt to find it. Of them all, her son has the closest guess so far as to the cause of the darkness, and she knows the most about who is behind it, but she doesn't know that her knowledge has any bearing yet. She is the wisest to the ways of the world, but even she will be tested by the coming ordeal.

They all have something in common. They all know who can save them, who must save them, who always saves them no matter how hopeless the situation. And how can things be any more hopeless than now, with the sun gone and death raining from the sky in the form of an enemy thought long dead? How can he not come, and yet how can he find them?

He can only find them by following a miniscule trail made by tiny, insignificant insects, but he doesn't know that yet. He's close to discovering it, close to understanding, but he's only just discovered what makes the lost planets special, how they react with each other, how they form the ultimate engine. He doesn't have a clue about where to find them, and even if he did he wouldn't be able to. He can't find what doesn't exist in the universe properly, not without help.

The people of earth haven't figured out how to help him, not yet. A woman, ex-prime minister, hasn't made her last effort to save the world yet. The earth's captors haven't taken any prisoners yet. The hidden phoenix hasn't risen from the flames.

But She will rise, and She will pass judgment, and none will be able to stop Her.

000

A/n: Short, but now I have WINTER BREAK and have LOTS of free time (yay). No more school eating up seven hours of my time every weekday...

This fic is now an adult in the wizarding world! Yippee for the fic! What's that? Your first legal act of magic as an adult is going to be to summon reviews? I don't know, fic, that might be hard...still, you're a big girl/boy/inanimate-object, I'm sure you can do it!