Author's Notes: I do not own Doctor Who. Thanks for reading and following and reviewing, can't wait to hear what you think and please enjoy! Oh, and I haven't said hello to the lurkers lately, actually at all in this series. So, hello, lurkers!

Rose evaluated the man in front of her, the one called Master. His features were ordinary enough, but there was a hint of something in his eyes, something dangerous.

"Staring is rude, you know," he said.

"How can he be a Time Lord? The Doctor told me that all the Time Lords were dead..."

"That's a new pick up line, isn't it? 'I'm the last of my species, please shag me.'"

Rose slapped the Master across the face.

He grinned. "So! It's like that is it? And they say I'm the one with the dark side!"

"Shut up!," screamed Rose.

Madame Kovarian made no comment on the interaction. In fact, she seemed pleased by it.

The Master appraised her. "You're not the companion who had the baby, are you? No, wait she was ginger. I get you all mixed up."

"Shut up!"

"He must not be screening companions properly."

"The Master has been helping us with a little project," said Kovarian.

"What sort of a project?"

"To help us reach the Doctor."

"Oh, yeah, because I'm just-"

The Master started screaming as more electricity flowed through him. Kovarian led Rose out.

"He's dangerous. You must understand."

Rose thought she saw something and looked back at Kovarian's face.

"Yeah, I get it," said Rose, her pulse racing. "He has to be controlled."

"Good," said Kovarian. She walked over and took a small bag off a table. "I need you to give this to your charge. It's a gift."

"A gift?"

"A wedding gift."

Donna woke up to the sound of her mobile ringing. She reached over to get it nothing she had fallen asleep downstairs in the sitting room, half to wait up for John and half because she was so enamored by the idea of having the television to herself. Though she might have owned a lot of networks, she never got to watch anything but the kids' channels and thus had spent the night flipping between reality shows about decorating and shopping for wedding dresses. She picked her phone up groggily and muttered something like a greeting.

"Mummy?"

Donna's eyes shot open. It was Ella and she sounded terrified.

"Mummy, please come get me," she said not waiting for Donna to speak. "Please come save me."

"Ella, what's wrong?"

She heard Ella scream and bolted off the sofa. She ran to find her keys and threw on the coat nearest the door. She jumped in the Land Rover, running every red light and breaking every speed limit until she arrived at Ethan's house.

She leapt out of the vehicle, rain pouring on her and ran to the front door, banging on it with both fists.

"Ethan! Open the bloody door!"

Donna banged more and noticed some lights flicking on at the neighbors, obviously curious at what drama was happening.

"Ethan, open the door or I'm calling the police!"

Donna saw the light in the front hall flick on and Ethan opened the door.

"Jesus Christ, Donna-"

She shoved her way past Ethan and went into the house.

"Ella! Josh!"

"Oh, come on," said Ethan, slamming the front door, "she just had a nightmare."

Donna turned. "Ella never has nightmares. Ella!"

She went upstairs, Ethan hot on her heels. She found Josh in the hallway, rubbing his eyes.

"Sweetheart, are you alright?," she said, rubbing the side of his face.

"I'm fine. Ella had a bad dream."

"Ella!"

Donna went in the guest room that Ethan had designated for Ella. She flicked on the light and didn't see her in the bed.

"Ella?"

"Mummy?," a small voice said muffled by the cupboard door. She slid it open and knelt down to face Ella.

"Sweetheart, what happened?"

Ella threw her arms around Donna. "There was a monster."

"What?"

Josh sighed and came in, followed by Ethan.

"A monster with big scary eyes."

"There was no monster, Ella," said Ethan tersely. "I showed you about ten times. Aren't they a little old for monsters?"

Donna rubbed circles around Ella's back. "It's okay, sweetheart. You're safe. Mummy's here."

"Oh, thank God Mummy's here," said Ethan.

Donna shot him a glare. "Is this what you call being a father? Letting her cry alone in a cupboard! Do you have any idea what to do with a child?"

"I suppose John's better."

Donna grimaced. No way could she answer that and not have it thrown back at her either in court or the therapy her poor children would no doubt need after being left in Ethan's care. She knew in her gut something was wrong, Ella was never like this, she never had nightmares, it wasn't right and she wasn't about to leave her children here without an explanation.

"Joshua, get your things," said Donna.

"Mum..."

"No moaning! I'm taking you both home."

Josh stomped off down the hall.

"It's my weekend," protested Ethan.

"Fine. When you can demonstrate you know what to do with a child, you can have your weekend which is suddenly so precious to you!"

Donna picked up Ella's pink suitcase and put what possessions she found in it. She handed Ella her teddy bear and put the little girl's coat on her. Josh returned resentfully, but resigned. She took them downstairs and out to the car.

"You ruined everything," Josh said to Ella.

"Josh, that's not fair. She can't help it if she's scared, can she?"

"It was a monster and it stared at me and it had great big dark eyes."

Donna nodded. "I'm sure it was very scary, sweetheart."

"There was no stupid monster! She said it was right behind me and I looked and I don't remember seeing anything!"

This only made Ella sob more and Donna looked at her pitifully in the rearview mirror.

"It's alright, sweetheart. You can sleep with Mummy, okay? Mummy won't let anything happen to you."

John entered the bedroom Sunday morning surprised to find two ginger heads in the bed.

"Donna?," he whispered.

Donna stirred and smiled at him. Ella was attached to her, arms locked around her mum.

"I thought Ethan had them," said John.

"He did. She got scared and he brought them home."

John shook his head.

"I know," she said, "you missed your chance."

He shrugged as he sat on Donna's edge of the bed. "I'll have other chances."

"I saw the news. Harriet Jones has been excused from office?"

"Should be only temporary." He paused. "Do me a favor? Because I'm probably just being paranoid, could you not let anyone new in? Especially someone called Harold Saxon? I can get you a photo."

"Who is he?," asked Donna.

"An enemy of the Doctor's, it's probably nothing."

He got up and went to the bathroom and started washing his face only to discover Donna standing next to him at the sink.

"Enemy?," asked Donna. "Like blood enemy or like that bint at the Parents' Association I can't stand?"

"Well..."

"John."

"More of the blood enemy persuasion I should think. Of course, I don't know what happened between them in this universe, but he might have been the one to put him into exile on Earth."

"How worried should I be? Really?"

"I don't know. I don't even know if he realizes I'm here or if he would even care. I just want you to be careful."

"How careful? John, I have kids."

"I know and I would never let anything happen to them."

"I know you wouldn't, but I don't want anything happening to you either." Donna sighed. "Do you have to go back?"

"Yeah, I got sent home to take a nap."

"Wait, so you haven't slept at all?" Donna was incredulous. "Since Thursday night? Do you want to kill yourself?"

"I'm fine," John said as he yawned.

"Go to bed," said Donna. "After you eat something. Can't have you saving the Earth on an empty stomach."

A few hours later John returned to Torchwood freshly showered, with a few hours of sleep and one of Josh's old lunch boxes with a Lamborghini on the front.

"You have a lunch box," said Adeola.

"Yeah," said John, "I know."

"Donna's idea?"

"Yeah, she doesn't think I eat enough."

"She's right," said Adeola.

"What did you get from the President?," asked John.

"It's not words, so much as images, she sketched these..." Adeola took out a collection of drawings done on printer paper with pencil. "Oh, and this."

Adeola put down a printout of Edvard Munch's The Scream.

"Now, I don't think Harriet Jones did this," he said.

"No, she just said that's one of the images that's been flashing through her head."

"The Scream? Why The Scream?" He flipped through the others. He found sketches of a glass dome beneath two suns and a blue phone box.

"They don't seem to make any sense," said Adeola.

"Oh, they make perfect sense," said John. "It's a call for help."

"What?"

"He's in trouble, been kidnapped, so he has to make contact with someone and uses a psychic distress call. The President of Great Britain starts getting pictures of alien planets and a blue phone box in her head, she calls Torchwood. Torchwood puts blue phone box in their great big database and they get the Doctor and go after whatever is sending this thing." He paused. "We've got to find a way to get more information, he wants us to find him."

Madame Kovarian did not seem pleased to see Rose return with the gift.

"What happened?," she said stiffly.

"I couldn't get it to them. They went home early. Something about monsters."

"Well, you'll have to work out some other way of getting it to them, won't you?"

Rose nodded. "Do I have to keep seeing him?"

"We may find him useful yet."

"What is this thing anyway? It just looks like a clock."

"Did I say you had permission to look at it?"

"Sorry, I just thought..."

"Thinking is not required, Miss Tyler."

Rose nodded. "Right. Sorry."

"Let's have another visit with our friend."

Rose followed Kovarian back to the Master's cell. This time there was a work table with some sort of device that seemed as if it was made out of an old Discman, a crazy straw and some tin cans, at the middle was a tiny piece of coral.

"That's TARDIS coral," said Rose. "How did you get TARDIS coral?"

The Master looked at Kovarian. "Really?"

"You, Master, are going to teach Rose Tyler how to use the telepathic signaller."

The Master snorted. "I may have thirteen lives, but even I don't have that long."

"I can pick it up," said Rose.

"Right, and your degrees in temporal mechanics and inter-species neurology are from where?"

"I'm certain you can find a way to communicate it to her," said Kovarian.

"Right, see, the TARDIS translation circuits don't speak moron."

"I'm not stupid," said Rose.

"Look around you, you're the only one around here without an Eye Drive, that means they don't think you're that clever."

"You don't have one."

"Gosh, well, got me there, don't you? Guess I'll just shut up! I'm a prisoner you idiot, but rest assured I am a fully certified genius."

"Good. I'll leave you two then," said Kovarian.

She left and Rose found herself alone with the Master.

"Well, this is going to be a low point," said the Master, "and you have no idea how serious that is."

It was Monday. So far, the images were still in Harriet's head with nothing new, nothing to tell John where the mysterious signal was coming from and nothing to confirm it was a message from the Master.

The nation was in an uproar. The Vice President had assumed the office, they had not of course released the actual reason why, leading to endless media speculation on the topic. Since the Cybus incident, the people of this country were not unreasonably paranoid. The sudden disappearance of a popular leader had everyone tense, all they said was "health issues."

"I'm sorry, I don't know anything else," said Harriet. "Those images."

"Someone's trying to communicate with you," explained John. "I think he's in trouble."

"You think?," she asked.

Pete spoke up. "The man in question has a reputation. It could be a trap."

"A trap? To what end?"

"Even if it is," said John, "we don't have much choice but to follow it or we'll never find out what's going on."

There was a knock at the door. Gwen poked her head in.

"Sorry, Madame President. John, it's for you. It's Ella's school, they say it's an emergency."

"Right. Please excuse me."

John borrowed Gwen's car and she was right, it did look out of place amongst all the Land Rovers and X5s in the school car park. He went to the Headmistress' office where they had been expecting him.

John had met the headmistress, Elizabeth Caldwell, on a previous Parents' Evening with Donna. She was an older woman, in her early sixties, he suspected and had seen just about everything. She seemed unnerved as she led John through the school.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Smith," said the Headmistress, "we do prefer to deal with these problems at the school to teach the children a little self-reliance, but it's escalated. Ms. Noble is on a flight to France, I understand?"

"Yes, she has a day trip."

"Mr. Croft says he's busy."

John nodded. "He usually is."

They went into what looked like an art classroom. John saw Lisette and the art teacher, a pretty young woman with dark hair, Miss Johnson, standing by a cupboard.

"What's going on exactly?," asked John.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Smith," said Lisette. "I've tried and she just won't come out."

"She started screaming in the middle of class," said Miss Johnson. "Ella's never been a troublemaker, she's one of my best pupils. She shut herself in there and refuses to come out."

John walked over to the cupboard and knocked on the door. "Ella?"

"Who is it?"

"It's John." He paused. "Why don't you come out?"

"No."

"May I come in then?"

She didn't answer. John opened the door to the cupboard and stepped inside.

"Shut the door," said Ella.

John shut the door and carefully felt his way down to the floor. Ella was hiding behind some coats, her back pressed against the wall.

"What's wrong, Ella?," asked John.

"I saw a monster."

John nodded. "Okay."

"The same one as at Daddy's, no one believes me."

"I believe you."

"You do."

"Of course I do."

She shook her head. "They all looked right at it and then said there wasn't anything."

"Okay," said John. "Why don't you come out of the cupboard?"

"What if it's out there?"

"Then I'll be out there." He leaned in to her. "Ella, I am really good at fighting monsters."

"Really?"

"Oh, yeah. I've been doing it for ages and no way am I going to let one get my Ella."

She nodded. "Okay."

John picked her up and they came out of the cupboard.

"See anything?," he asked.

"No, not now," she said.

"Okay, why don't you go back to class-"

"No!," shouted Ella, burying her face in John's shoulder.

"Okay, Lisette, why don't you take her home for the day-"

"No!"

"Okay, okay," said John.

"I want to go with you," she said, her words muffled by John's jacket.

"I have to go to work."

"Please?"

"Okay, just until your mummy collects you."

John looked around at the art as Miss Johnson went with Lisette to collect Ella's things. He sat on the edge of a table, Ella still in his arms.

"Pictures..." he mused.

"What?," asked Ella with a tiny voice.

"Of course! It's a two way signal! If we can get images, we can send them back and get new ones! I just have to devise something basic enough for Harriet to use that the Master can understand!"

"Okay," said Ella, having broken contact with John's shoulder in order to look at his face and try to decipher what he was saying.

"You're not to worry, but trust me, it's brilliant."