Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who that goes to the BBC
In a staircase of a hotel that looked like it was from the 1980s, the Doctor popped his head down as he looked down the staircase with Rose and Amy doing the same as their hair fell down over their shoulders as Rory looked down the staircase as well.
"'Let's go to Ravenscala,' he says," Amy muttered to herself, recalling what the Doctor told her and Rory before they along with Rose found themselves in the hotel, "'The people are 600 feet tall, you have to talk to them in hot air balloons and the Tourist Information Centre is made of one of their hats,' he says. I'm sorry, but I don't see any huge hats, Doctor."
"Arkytior, Amy, Beaky. This could be the most exciting thing I have ever seen," the Doctor told them as he walked over to Rose, Amy and Rory.
"You're kidding," Rory said with disbelief as Rose muttered a Gallifreyan curse word under her breath.
"How can you be excited about a rubbish hotel on a rubbish bit of Earth, Doctor?" Amy asked the Doctor with confusion.
"I think he's gonna say that this isn't Earth," Rose suggested, "Because this feels like one of those games that the Celestial Toymaker has made for you to play, Doctor."
"Who?" Amy asked the Time Lady.
"From what I heard the Doctor say, he's a Transcendental being that is powerful and likes to play childish games with sentient beings with their freedom at stake," Rose answered, "He first encountered him in his first incarnation and beat him in his game, and he doesn't like to lose and have had quiet a few rematches with his other incarnations like his sixth, seventh and eighth incarnations."
"Exactly, Rose, this is not Earth," the Doctor said, agreeing with his wife, "This has just been made to look like Earth. The craftsmanship involved... Can you imagine?"
"What? Then where are we?" Amy asked both Gallifreyans.
"I don't know. Something must have yanked us off course," the Doctor answered as he and the others walked back down to the floor, where the TARDIS was resting with potted plants and framed photograph portraits hanging on the walls nearby, "Look at the detail on that cheese plant!" He then grabbed one of the leaves on one of the plants and sniffed it.
"Right, but who would mock up an Earth hotel?" Rory asked him as the doctor grabbed an apple from a bowl.
"It could be the Eternals," Rose suggested, "They're a group of other Transcendental beings that the Doctor faced, way before the Time War when he travelled with two former companions of his that I've yet to meet, Tegan Jovanka and Visor Turlough."
"You may be right, Rose," the Doctor said, agreeing with her, "Or it could be colonists maybe, recreating a bit of home, like when ex-pats open English pubs in Majorca." He then took a bite from the apple, "No, whoever did this, I am shaking his/her hand/tentacle."
"Have you seen these?" Rory asked his wife and both Gallifreyans, "Look at the labels underneath." He then began to read the labels under a few of the photographs of a Sontaran, and two humans, "'Commander Halke, defeat. Tim Heath, having his photo taken. Lady Silver Tear... Daleks.'"
"Paige Barnes, other people's socks," Amy said after walking next to Rory as she began reading a few of the other labels under their photographs, which included a few more humans and a Cat Nun from New Earth as the Doctor and Rose walked over to their companions, "'Tim Nelson, balloons. Novice Prin, sabrewolves. Royston Luke Gold, Plymouth. Lucy Hayward, that brutal gorilla." Amy and Rory then looked at both Gallifreyans, "Doctor, Rose, what does it mean?"
"I don't know," the Doctor answered.
"Me neither," Rose said, agreeing with her husband.
"Let's find out," the Doctor told them.
They then suddenly found themselves in the reception room of a hotel as the Doctor tapped the bell on the desk before they screamed as three people came around the corner with one of them being female and was brandishing a chair leg, who had dark tanned skin, black hair and was wearing hospital scrubs, one of the other ones had black hair with some curls, light skin and was wearing glasses and the final one being a male alien that looked like a mole and had almost to no hair.
"Whoa!" The Doctor exclaimed as he saw the man with dark brown hair and glasses brandishing a chair leg.
"That was quick," Rory muttered as he saw them as well.
"I wasn't expecting that reaction!" Rose stated as she also saw them.
"We surrender!" The alien told them.
"No, it's OK, we're not...We're nice!" Rory assured the alien and the others.
"She threatened me with a chair leg," the Doctor said with surprise.
"Who are you?" The woman asked them.
"Oh God, we're back in reception," the man stated.
"We surrender!" The alien announced again.
"Never been threatened with a chair leg before," the Doctor stated, causing Rose to face palm as she remembered that he had been threatened with a chair leg during their time at the Academy on Gallifrey whenever he and Koschei were making trouble, only for her to get them out of it and during some of their adventures after they reunited, "No, hang on, I tell a lie."
"Did you just say, 'It's OK, we're nice?'" Amy asked her husband with disbelief in her voice.
"I think he did, Amy," Rose told her.
"OK, I need everyone to shut up now!" The woman ordered everyone.
"Uh, Rita, be careful, yeah?" The man urged the woman.
"Their pupils are dilated. They're as surprised as we are," Rita explained as she handed the chair leg to the man wearing glasses, "Besides which, if it's a trick, it'll tell us something."
"Oh, you're good," the Doctor stated, "Oh, she's good. Amy, with regret, you're fired."
"What?" Amy said with surprise and confusion in her voice.
"He's just kidding around, Amy," Rose assured their ginger companion.
"We'll talk," the Doctor mouthed at Rita as he looked at her and mimed that he was holding a phone before turning to the alien, "I take it from the pathological compulsion to surrender, you're from Tivoli."
"Yes, the most invaded planet in the galaxy," the alien confirmed, "Our anthem is called Glory To Insert Name Here."
"I've always wanted to meet one of you guys," Rose told him, "What's your name?"
"Gibbis," the Tivolian answered.
"You with the face, Howie, you said you were surprised to be back in reception," the Doctor recalled as he looked at the man wearing glasses.
"The walls move, everything changes," Howie explained.
"You, clever one, what's he talking about?" The Doctor asked Rita.
"The corridors twist and stretch, rooms vanish and pop up somewhere else," Rita answered, "It's like the hotel's alive."
"That's quite enough of that," the Doctor muttered as he switched off the hotel's music.
"And it's huge, with, like, no way out," Howie added.
"Have you tried the front door?" Rory asked them.
"Rory, I think if they tried that, they wouldn't be here," Rose told the nurse.
"No, in two days it never occurred to us to try the front door," Rita told them, confirming Rose's suspicions, "Thank God you're here!" The Doctor walked up to the front door as he took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the door with it as Amy laughed at Rita's comment before he opened the doors wide open to reveal a white brick wall.
"They're not doors, they're walls, walls that look like doors," the Doctor stated, "Door-walls, if you like, or dwalls, dwoors even though you'd probably got it when you said, 'They're not doors.' I mean, the windows are…" he then opened the curtains to reveal even more walls, "Right, big day if you're a fan of walls."
"It's not just that," Rita told them, "The rooms have...things in them."
"What things?" Rose asked her.
"Things?" The Doctor asked her at the same time, "Hello! What kind of things? Interesting things? I love things, ask anyone."
"Bad dreams," Rita answered.
"Well, that killed the mood," the Doctor muttered, "How did you get here?"
"I don't know, I just started my shift," Rita answered, "I must have passed out, because suddenly I was here."
"I was blogging, next thing, this," Howie told them.
"Oh, I was at work, I'm in town planning. We're lining all the highways with trees, so invading forces can march in the shade," Gibbis added.
"Ah," the Doctor muttered.
"Which is nice for them," Gibbis stated.
"Yeah... So what have we got? People snatched from their lives and dropped into an endless, shifting maze that looks like a 1980s hotel with bad dreams in the bedrooms," the Doctor said before he took out a Rubik's cube, "Well, apart from anything else, that's just rude."
"We'll pop back to the TARDIS, me and Rose will do a planet-wide diagnostic sweep, then we'll have a sing-song," the Doctor said as he and Rose walked up the stairs in the stairwell, leading the others, "The TARDIS is gone."
"Where's it gone?" Rose asked herself as the Doctor began feeling the area where the TARDIS was parked in case it's invisible.
"Where's the TARDIS?" Amy asked both Gallifreyans, "You both parked it there, didn't you?"
"We did, Amy," Rose answered.
"What's a TARDIS?" Howie asked them.
"It's too complicated to explain," Rose told him.
"Our way out. And it's gone," Rory explained as he held his head in his hands as he leaned over the railing.
"OK," the Doctor muttered as he suddenly heard the music again as it suddenly switched back on before he walked back down the stairwell to the others, "This is bad. At the moment, I don't know how bad, but certainly we're three buses, a long walk and eight quid in a taxi from good. Are there any more of you?"
"Joe, but he's tied up right now," Rita answered.
"Doing what?" The Doctor asked her.
"Yeah, what's so important that he's not with you three right now?" Rose said, agreeing with her husband.
"No, I mean he's...tied up right now," Rita clarified.
"Why?" Rose asked her.
"It'll be better to show you," Rita told the Time Lady.
Joe had light skin, dark brown hair, wearing a black suit with a yellow tie and was tied up in a chair at a table inside a dining room within the hotel, while around him, seated at every table were identical ventriloquist dummies and they are all laughing with their heads bobbing as the Doctor and Rose both slowly entered the room before they stopped as they approached Joe as the others entered behind them.
"Hello," the Doctor said, greeting Joe, "I'm the Doctor."
"And I'm his wife, Rose," the Time Lady told Joe, introducing herself.
"You're going to die here," Joe stated, dreamily.
"Well, they certainly didn't mention that in the brochure," the Doctor muttered as he and Rose both shared a look, "Is Joe there? Can my wife and I have a quick word with him?" He and Rose both grabbed chairs and sat across from Joe.
"Oh, it's still me, Doctor, but I've seen the light," Joe told both Time Lords, "I lived a blasphemous life, but he has forgiven my inconstancy, and soon...he shall feast."
"Well, you've been here two days, what's he waiting for?" The Doctor asked him.
"Yeah, what's he waiting for?" Rose said, agreeing with her husband.
"We weren't ready," Joe told them, "We were still raw."
"But now you're what? Cooked?" The Doctor asked, using a similar metaphor that Joe used.
"If you like, Doctor. Soon you both will be, too," Joe told them before the Doctor and Rose both noticed that Joe had a horseshoe tie clip and dice cufflinks, "Be patient. First...find your rooms."
"Our rooms?" The Doctor and Rose both said with confusion as they looked around the room.
"There's a room here for everyone, Doctor and Rose," Joe told both Gallifreyans, "Even the two of you."
"You said you'd seen the light now," Rose recalled as she looked at him.
"Nothing else matters anymore. Only him. It's like these things. I used to hate them. They make me laugh now," Joe told her before he began laughing like an insane person, "Gottle o'geer! Gottle o'geer!" His laughing was soon joined by the dummies, "You both should go. He'll be here soon."
The Doctor gave him a thin smile before he and Rose both stood back up as he grabbed a hand dolley and slid it under Joe's chair, "I think you should come with us."
"Why you four?" The Doctor asked the people they found when they entered the reception for the first time as he, Rose, Amy, Rory and Rita were standing on the guest side of the reception's counter, while Howie and Gibbis were standing on the employee side with Joe, "That's what I don't understand. Aside from all the other things I don't understand."
"I'm wondering the same thing," Rose said as the Doctor switched the music back off.
"What does it matter?" Gibbis asked, rhetorically, "Sooner or later, someone will come along and rescue us. Or enslave us."
"First, we find the TARDIS," the Doctor told them, "Quick thing before we go. If you feel drawn to a particular room, do not go in, and make sure someone else can see you at all times."
"Joe said 'he' will feast. Is there something here with us?" Rita asked the Doctor when Joe suddenly laughed.
"Something to add, Joe?" The Doctor asked Joe.
"Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head. Chop, chop, chop, chop," Joe told everyone as if he was a lunatic.
"Can we do something about him?" Howie asked before Joe began laughing again.
As the Doctor and Rose walked down the corridor past the intersection, Gibbis turned around the corner, pushing Joe who had his mouth taped shut with Rita, Amy, Rory and Howie, following him before both Gallifreyans turned when they both realised that they changed direction.
"Personally, I think you've got the right idea," Gibbis muttered to Joe, "Times like this, I think of my old school motto, 'Resistance Is Exhausting.'"
"I've worked out where we are," Howie told Rory as the nurse had his arms crossed.
"Hmm?" Rory muttered as he looked at him.
"Norway!" Howie stated.
"Norway?" Rory said with disbelief.
"You see, the US government has entire cities hidden in the Norwegian mountains. Earth is on a collision course with this other planet, and this is where they're going to send all the rich people when it kicks off," Howie explained, revealing that he believes in conspiracy theories.
"Amazing," Rory muttered.
"It's all there on the internet," Howie stated.
"No, it's amazing you've come up with a theory even more insane than what's actually happening," Rory told him with disbelief when the door to room 158 suddenly opened up before a PE teacher stepped out in front of the Doctor and Rose.
"Hello," the Doctor and Rose both greeted the PE teacher at the same time.
"Have you forgotten your PE kit again?" The PE teacher asked both of them, causing everyone to stop and with everyone in front of them turning around as they watched the PE teacher, "Right, that's it, you're doing it in your pants!" The PE teacher then went back into the room and shut the door behind him before the Doctor and Rose both turned around in time to see Howie reaching towards a door.
"Hey! Don't!" The Doctor yelled.
"Don't open the door!" Rose yelled at the same time as the Doctor tried to push Howie away but he already opened the door and inside the room were young women of high school or college age and laughed as they saw him.
"Oh, look, girls, it's H-H-Howie!" One of the girls stuttered before the girls laughed, while in his mind, he screamed before laughing.
"What's loser in K-K-K-Klingon?" One of the other girls asked, mocking a stutter disorder.
"Praise him," Howie said within his mind before he backed away from the door, "Shut the d-d...the-the door!" The Doctor then closed the door, "This is just some m-m-messed-up CIA stuff, I-I-I'm telling you."
The Doctor put an arm around Howie's shoulders as he patted him on the chest, "You're right, keep telling yourself that. It's a CIA thing, nothing more." As Rory, Rose and the Doctor walked with Howie, the conspiracy theorist looked back over his shoulder. Curious, the Doctor and Rose both looked back as well.
Howie soon led them as they walked up the fight of stairs.
The Doctor walked down the corridor with Rose, feeling the wallpaper, tapping the light sconces and feeling the plaster where it's been scraped off low beams as Amy found someone's writing on the floor as Rory stopped to tie his shoe before he saw a fire exit.
"Uh...guys?" Rory said, calling out to the others.
"Look," Amy told the Doctor and Rose as she began to show her the notes that she just found when they suddenly heard a loud growl as Joe began straining against his bonds, breathing heavily as he tried to escape from his chair, "OK, whatever that is, it's not real, yeah?"
"I'm not sure, Amy," Rose answered.
"No, no, I'm sure it isn't, but just in case, let's run away and hide anyway," the Doctor said, agreeing with Rose before both Gallifreyans took Amy, Howie and Gibbis into one room, while Rita pulled Joe into another, "In here."
"No, this way! I've found a…" Rory began to tell everyone as he turned back towards the door he found, only to see that the fire exit had disappeared and was replaced with a door to another room.
Rita turned away from the door and saw an older man with a similar skin tone as her, grey hair, beard and wearing glasses in a doctor's lab coat with a stethoscope around his neck.
"A B in mathematics?!" The man said with disbelief in his voice, "You are lazy!" Rita pursed her lips closed as she backed away and sat down on one of the beds, "Do you understand me, girl? Lazy."
"I'm sorry, Daddy, I'm so sorry!" Rita said, crying before like with Howie earlier, in her mind, Rita went from screaming to smiling and heard herself saying "Praise him," in her own voice within her mind.
"Rory, come on!" The Doctor called out to Rory as he was now standing back in the corridor, outside the door to the room that he, Rose, Amy, Howie and Gibbis entered.
"There was a…" Rory began to tell him.
"Come on!" The Doctor ordered him yet again before Rory ran down the corridor and into the room that Rose, Amy, Howie and Gibbis were in and came to a stop behind Rose, Amy and Howie before the Doctor followed and exclaimed in surprise as he saw two weeping Angels in the room with Amy staring at them.
"Don't...blink," Amy told Howie.
"What?" Howie asked with confusion.
"They're Weeping Angels, one of the oldest life forms in the universe," Rose stated, "Also known as the lonely assassins and they have the most perfected defence mechanism ever evolved, they're quantum-locked. Which means they can only move when they're not observed and when they are, they freeze to stone." The lights then began to flicker as Gibbis cowered in the cupboard as the Weeping Angels changed position with their arms stretched out.
"Amy, get back," the Doctor ordered Amy as he pulled her back, "Why haven't they got us yet?" He then stepped forward and put a finger through one, "Amy, they're not real."
"What?" Amy said with confusion.
"They should have got us by now," the Doctor told her, "Amy, look at me, focus on me. It's your bad dream, that's all."
"And you were more frightened of them than me and the Doctor when we encountered them on the Byzantium with River," Rose added.
"I don't even think they're for us," Rory stated as Gibbis screamed and slammed the cupboard doors shut as they suddenly heard a noise outside in the corridor.
"Doctor, what are you doing?" Amy asked the Time Lord as the Doctor slowly approached the door.
"Yeah, what are you doing, Doctor?" Rose said, agreeing with Amy.
"I'm sorry, I just have to see what it is. I just have to see," the Doctor apologised as he looked out through the door's peephole and through the peephole, he saw a minotaur-looking creature walking past the door, "Oh, look at you... You are beautiful." He then saw the face of the minotaur-looking creature staring back at him as it stopped walking and turned its head towards the door as if it heard the Time Lord's voice, causing him to jump back, startled, "Oh, dear."
In the room that Joe and Rita were in, Joe struggled against his bonds and stills when the ropes that he was tied to suddenly loosened and fell to the floor on their own before he used his hands to pull the tape from his mouth as ran out of the room and into the corridor.
"I think it's going after Joe," the Doctor told Rose, Amy, Rory, Howie and Gibbis as he continued to watch the minotaur-looking creature from the door's peephole of the room that they were currently in.
"Come to me," Joe muttered as he stood in the corridor, "Come to me." Then his mind began to change from screaming to laughing, "Praise him."
Back in the room where the Doctor, Rose, Amy, Rory, Howie and Gibbis were hiding within, the Tivolian opened the cupboard door as the Doctor opened the door to the room and stepped into the corridor before he turned his head in time to see that Joe's body was being dragged away.
"Leave him alone!" The Doctor ordered as he ran after Joe's body and the minotaur-looking creature as he began running through the maze of corridors and back to the stairwell as he began running up the stairs, "Joe! Joe!" He then ran down another corridors before stopping at a four-way intersection, unsure of which way to go, he checked them all, "Joe!" He soon stopped when he found one of Joe's cufflinks on the carpet before he turned around and saw Joe kneeling, propped against the wall, "Joe? Joe!" He then walked over to him, "Joe! Joe, what happened?" He then took Joe's face in his hands and turned it around to face him, only to find that there was no reaction as he realised that he was now dead as the Doctor let Joe's head rest back against the wall.
Back in the hotel's dining room, a hand removed a whistling kettle from a stove as Joe's deceased body was stretched out on the small dais as the dummies were set up against the wall behind him, while the Doctor scans the body with his sonic screwdriver with Rose standing next to him.
"If we can wedge a chair under the door handles, that should stop anything from getting in," Rory told Rory as he rolled one of the tables past both Gallifreyans as Rory followed him with a chair in his arms.
"Help yourself to tea," Rita announced as she came through the room with a tea tray, while Amy sat on the room's bar, watching Gibbis as he sat nervously at a table, "Guys, tea over here."
"If it's any consolation, I've met the Weeping Angels, so I know how... In fact, I thought that room was for me," Amy told Gibbis.
"Joe was right," Gibbis stated, "Whatever it is in here, it actually wants to kill us. Not oppress us or enslave us, kill us!"
"OK, listen... The Doctor and Rose have been part of my life for so long now, and they've never let me down," Amy told him as she joined him at the table, "Even when I thought they had, when I was a kid and they both left me, they came back, they...saved me. And now they're going to save you. But don't tell the Doctor I said that, because the smugness on his face would be terrifying."
"Of course, if the Weeping Angels were meant for me, then your room is still out there...somewhere," Gibbis said as she stood back up before she turned away before being startled when Rory came up beside her.
"Every time the Doctor gets pally with someone besides Rose, I have this overwhelming urge to notify their next of kin," Rory told his wife as they watched as Rita brought the Doctor and Rose cups of tea before Amy laughed at Rory's comment, who was startled by her reaction, "Sorry. The last time I said something like that, you hit me with your shoe. And you literally had to sit down and unlace it first."
"What exactly happened to him?" Rita asked the Doctor and Rose as they now had Joe's deceased body laying under a sheet and was sitting down next to him.
"He died," the Doctor answered.
"Doctor, you are a medical doctor, aren't you?" Rita asked the Time Lord, "You haven't just got a degree in cheese-making or something."
"Actually he does, he studied medicine in Glasgow," Rose answered for her husband.
"It's both, actually," the Doctor said, agreeing with Rose, "I mean, there is no cause, all his vital organs simply stopped, as if the simple spark of life, his loves and hates, his faiths and fears were just…" He then sniffs his cup of tea, "taken, and this is a cup of tea."
"Of course, I'm British, it's how we cope with trauma," Rita told him, "That and tutting."
"But how did you make it?" Rose asked her.
"All hotels should have a well stocked kitchen, even alien fake ones," Rita explained, "I heard you two talking when you both arrived. Look, it's no more ridiculous than Howie's CIA theory or mi...or mine."
"Which is?" The Doctor and Rose asked her at the same time.
"This is Jahannam," Rita answered.
"You're a Muslim!" The Doctor realised with surprise.
"Yeah, you believe in Allah," Rose said, agreeing with her husband with surprise in her voice as well.
"Don't either of you be frightened," she urged them.
"Ha! You think this is Hell?" The Doctor said with disbelief as he and Rose both took a sip of their tea.
"The whole '80s hotel thing took me by surprise, though," Rita stated before both Gallifreyans stood up and looked at the others as they stood next to her.
"And all these fears and phobias wandering about, most are completely unconnected to us, so why are they still here?" The Doctor asked her.
"I'm wondering the same thing," Rose said, agreeing with her husband.
"Maybe the cleaners have gone on strike," Rita suggested.
"Ha! I like you, you're a right clever clogs," the Doctor told her.
"I like you too, Rita," Rose said, agreeing with her husband.
"But this isn't Hell, Rita," the Doctor stated.
"You both don't understand, I say that without fear," she told him, "Jahannam will play its tricks, and there'll be times when I want to run and scream, but I've tried to live a good life, and that knowledge keeps me sane, despite the monsters and the bonkers rooms. Gibbis…" The Doctor and Rose both gargled with their tea as they heard her mention the Tivolian's name, "...is-is an alien, isn't he?"
"Yeah. Sorry," the Doctor answered.
"OK... I'm going to file that under 'Freak out about later,'" Rita muttered.
"So are we, Rita," Rose told Rita as Amy found the notes that she had put in her pocket, "We may look human but we have a different physiology and can live longer than humans can."
"Doctor, look at this," Amy called out to the Doctor as he, Rose and Rita walked over to her, "I found it in a corridor, I completely forgot I had it."
Amy then handed the notes to the Doctor as he tapped her on the head with them before leaning against a table and reading aloud with Rose standing next to him as Amy sat next to Rory, while Howie sat at the same table as Gibbis, rearranging the silverware.
"Er... 'My name is Lucy Hayward and I'm the last one left," the Doctor said as he began reading the notes that Amy gave him, "'It took Luke first. It got him on his first day, almost as soon as we arrived. It's funny. You don't know what's going to be in your room until you see it, then you realise it could never have been anything else. I just saw mine. It was a gorilla from a book I'd read as a kid. My God, that thing used to terrify me. The gaps between my worships are getting shorter, like contractions. This is what happened to the others... and how lucky they were. It's all so clear now. I'm so happy. Praise him.'"
"Praise him," Howie suddenly blurted.
"What did you just say?" Rose asked Howie with surprise in her voice.
"Nothing," Howie said, trying to fight whatever just made him say what the notes that the Doctor just read said, "Praise him!" He then clapped his hands over his mouth.
"This is what happened to Joe!" Gibbis stated before everyone began talking all at once.
"God, it's going to come for me now," Howie said with fear in his voice.
"You'll lead it right here," Gibbis told Howie
"Me and rose won't leave you, we promise, you have my word," the Doctor assured Howie.
"I don't want to get eaten!" Howie said with fear in his voice again.
"Howie, calm down!" Amy urged him.
"He's going to lead it right here!" Gibbis stated as the Doctor and Rose both exchanged a look before she pulled her sonic screwdriver out and aimed it over her head and activated it, causing everyone to stop arguing as she and everyone else placed their hands over their ears.
"Thanks, Rose," the Doctor said, thanking his wife for what she did.
"No problem, Doctor," Rose told him.
"Don't you see? He'll lead it right here!" Gibbis stated.
"What do you suggest?" Rita asked the Trivolian.
"Look, whatever it is out there, it's obviously chosen Howard as its next course. Now...tragic though that is, this is no time for sentiment. I'm saying, if it were to... find him, it may be satisfied and let the rest of us go," Gibbis explained, "All I want to do is go home and be conquered and oppressed, is that too much to ask?!" He then sat back down in his chair.
"It's OK, I'll stay with Howie," Rita told both Gallifreyans, "You both take the others and go."
"No. We stay together," the Doctor argued before he walked over to Gibbis and whispered in his ear, "Your civilisation is one of the oldest in the galaxy. Now I see why. Your cowardice isn't quaint, it's sly, aggressive. It's how that gene of gutlessness has survived while so many others have perished. Well, not today. No-one else dies today. Right?"
"Yes," Gibbis mouthed a reply.
"Brilliant," the Doctor said before he walked back to Howie and put an arm around his shoulder, leading him back to the table, "Howie, any second, it's going to possess you again. When it does, I'm going to ask you some questions. Please try to answer them."
"I hope my mum's all right, she's going to be w-worried," Howie stuttered as they all sat at the table.
"Howie... Howie," the Doctor said before seeing a change in Howie, who smiled, "Howie, you're next, we're all dead jealous, so tell us...How do we get a piece of the action? Why isn't he possessing all of us?"
"You guys have got all these distractions, all these obstacles," Howie answered as he chuckled after tapping on his head, "It'd be so much easier if you just let it go, you know, clear the path."
"You want it to find you?" Amy said with disbelief, "Even though you know what it's going to do?"
"Are you kidding? He's going to kill us all!" Howie stated, "How cool is that?!"
"How is that cool?" Rose asked him, "All life is precious."
"It's as I thought, it feeds on fear. Everything, the rooms, Lucy's note, even the pictures in reception, has been put here to frighten us. So we have to resist it," the Doctor said as they all walked away from the table, leaving Howie alone, "Do whatever you have to, cross your fingers, say a prayer, think of a basket of kittens, but do not give in to the fear."
"OK, but what are we actually going to do?" Amy asked him.
"If I know my husband as I have since we were children, then we're going to catch ourselves a monster," Rose answered, causing the Doctor to smile at his wife's response.
"Bring me death! Bring me glory! My master, my lord, I'm here!" Howie's voice said throughout the hotel as the Doctor and Rose were both inside the hotel's beauty parlour, where there were places for washing, cutting and drying people's hair as well as a manicure area along with a water feature and a small fish bowl as the Doctor and Rose were lining up a framed full-length mirror, "Come to me. I'm waiting here...for you. He has promised me a glorious death."
The Minotaur-looking creature was walking the corridors as Rory waited in the corridor outside the beauty parlour armed with a mop.
"Give it to me now, I want him to know my devotion," the voice of Howie went on.
Amy and Rita hid in one of the rooms as the minotaur-looking creature passed by, while sitting on one of the beds was a clown holding a red balloon.
"Anything to do with you?" Rita asked Amy, who shook her head.
"How's it going?" Amy asked the clown as she looked at it.
"Don't talk to the clown!" Rita told Amy as the minotaur-looking creature walked past the front of the door.
"Praise...him," Howie said throughout the hotel as the minotaur-looking creature headed for the salon, "Praise...him."
Amy and Rita both closed the door behind the minotaur-looking creature as Amy yanked a rail off from the wall and jammed it through the handles of the door that leads to the salon.
"Rory, he's in!" Amy yelled out to her husband before he blocked the other door to the beauty parlour with the mop.
Rose shut off the lights in the beauty parlour as the minotaur-looking creature knocked things over in the dark.
"Let his name...be the last thing I hear," Howie's voice went on throughout the hotel, "Let his breath on my skin be the last thing I feel." The minotaur-looking creature then turned a chair around to reveal a speaker before it turned around and saw itself in the mirrors, "I was lost in the shadows, but he found me."
Back in reception, Howie was behind the desk, duct-taped to a chair with Gibbis watching him as the Doctor had set up his sonic screwdriver to act as a microphone.
"His love was a beacon that led me from darkness to light, and now I am blinded by his majesty!" Howie said into the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, "Humbled by his glory! Praise…"
"That's quite enough of that," the Doctor said as he and Rose both stood by a speaker on the wall before turning to Rose, "Don't you think so, Arkytior?"
"You're right, Theta, I can barely take it anymore, if I hear anymore out of his rant, I would want to take aspirin just to end it all," Rose said, agreeing with her husband.
"..him," Howie continued on the speakers before the Doctor pulled wires from the speaker, disabling the speakers.
Back in reception, the feedback from the Doctor pulling the wires from the speakers in the beauty parlour seemed to have pulled Howie out of his trance.
"What's going on?" Howie asked as he looked behind him and sensed that Gibbis was standing in the doorway behind him, "You lied to me!"
"Calm down, Howie. This is for your own good," Gibbis assured him
"At least stand where I can see you!" Howie said as he tried to get free from the duct tape that was restraining him to the chair.
"I've been told not to speak to you," Gibbis told him.
"Don't mean you can't listen," Howie argued.
Back in the beauty parlour, the Doctor and Rose were both speaking to the minotaur-looking creature from a separate area, using the mirrors to see it as they conversed with the minotaur-looking creature, interpreting its growls.
"Nothing personal. I just think we should take things slowly. Get to know each other. You take people's most primal fears and pop it in a room. A tailor-made hell, just for them," the Doctor said, translating what the minotaur-looking beast was saying, "Why? Did you say 'they' take? Ahh, what is that word? The guard? No, the warden? This is a prison."
"If this is a prison, then where are the guards or other prisoners?" Rose asked the minotaur-looking creature with confusion in her voice.
"Excellent point, Rose," the Doctor said, agreeing with his wife before turning back to the minotaur-looking creature, "If this is a prison, then where are they?"
"You were right, you know," Howie told Gibbis, trying to convince him to let him go, "Chances are if you hand me over, he'll leave you alone."
"Yes, well, we saw how that idea got shot down in flames," Gibbis reminded him.
"It's not like kicking me out of a plane to lighten the load," Howie stated, "I'm asking you for this. I'm begging you."
"You're possessed. You'd say anything," Gibbis told him.
"Possessed guys can be quite strong," Howie stated, "Who's to say I didn't overpower you?"
"So, what are we? Cell mates? Lunch? We are not... ripe?" The Doctor asked the minotaur-looking creature as he and Rose both stepped out as he continued to translate what it said, "This is what Joe said. That we weren't ready." He then stood behind the water feature with Rose, "So, what? You make us ready? You... what? 'Replace'? Replace what? Fear? You both have lived so long, even your names are lost? You want this to stop. Because you are just... instinct. Then tell us. Tell us how to fight you."
"Replace? Replace? Replace?" Rose muttered to herself before realising what the minotaur-creature replaced within the people that it possesses as she recalled what Rita said before it possessed Howie, "Doctor, it's belief. It replaces your belief with belief in him."
"Of course!" The Doctor said before slapping his forehead, "I am so thick! You replace our religious beliefs or any of our other beliefs into belief in you."
"My master, my lord," both Gallifreyans and the minotaur-looking creature heard Howie say from the corridor.
"I'm here!" Rory heard Howie say from the corridor as he stood outside the beauty parlour.
"That's Howie," Rita muttered from the room that she and Amy were hiding in as they also heard Howie's voice.
"He's got out," Amy realised.
"Bring me death!" Howie said, calling out to the minotaur-looking creature from the stairwell as he climbed up the stairs.
"No, no, no, no!" The Doctor and Rose both cried out from the beauty parlour as the minotaur-looking creature swung at the water feature, shattering the glass.
"Rory, watch out!" The Doctor warned Rory as he backed away before Amy and Rita opened the doors behind them, causing him and Rose to both exclaim in surprise, "Stay back!"
"Yeah, do as he says and stay back!" Rose said, agreeing with her husband when the minotaur-looking creature shattered the window in the door near Rory, who covered his face as the Beast pulled the mop from the handle.
"Pond, bring the fish," the Doctor ordered Amy as he and Rose left the beauty parlour.
"What, the fish?" Amy said with confusion before realising what he meant, "Oh, the fish!"
Outside the beauty parlour, Rory was lying on the floor as the Doctor checked up on him.
"Where did he go?" The Doctor asked him.
"Yeah, where did he go, Rory?" Rose said, agreeing with her husband.
"Somebody hit me," Rory told them, "Was it Amy?" The Doctor and Rose both chuckled as they headed off as they reached the staircase and ran down the stairs before they ran through the corridors until they found Howie's glasses on the floor and saw that one of the glasses was cracked.
"Oh, Rassilon," Rose muttered to herself as she looked at the glasses as they realised that Howie had been killed as well as the Doctor got on his stomach and grabbed the glasses as he began to examine them.
"Rory, are you all right?" Rita asked Rory as she and Amy ran out of the beauty parlour and found the nurse lying on the floor before he nodded a response.
Back in the hotel's corridor, the Doctor stood back up before he ran back down the corridor with Rose.
"We should find the Doctor and Rose," Amy stated as she stepped over Rory as Rita helped him stand back up before Amy stopped and turned to look at a door numbered room 7 and slowly walked towards it before she turned the door knob and looked inside the room.
"Praise him. Praise him," she suddenly heard a voice say in her mind before Rita pulled the door closed and stood in front of it.
"You shouldn't have done that," Rita told her, "What did you see?"
"Nothing," Amy lied, "Nothing. I don't know, it was weird."
"Come on," Rita said as they began walking down the corridor.
Back in the other corridor, the Doctor and Rose both found Howie kneeling on the floor and leaning against the wall before he put the dead man's glasses in his hand before gently patting his face as he and Rose looked up when Amy, Rory and Rita came running down the corridor before both Gallifreyans shook their heads as Gibbis appeared at the opposite end of the corridor.
"He got free. He overpowered me," Gibbis lied as the Doctor and Rose both strided back to the others as Gibbis followed timidly, "It might leave us alone now. Maybe now we'll be safe." He then ran past Howie's deceased body, "Wait!"
The Doctor and Rose were both looking at a picture of Howie that had been put up on the wall in the stairwell when Rory joined him.
"Have you found your room yet?" The Doctor asked Rory.
"Yeah, have you found yours, Rory?" Rose said, agreeing with her husband.
"No, no," Rory answered both Gallifreyans, "Is that good or bad?"
"Maybe you're not scared of or have a strong belief in anything," the Doctor suggested.
"I have a feeling that you're right, Doctor," Rose said, agreeing with her husband.
"Well, after all the time I spent with the two of you in the TARDIS, what was left to be scared of or believe in?" Rory asked them, rhetorically.
"Rory, you said that in the past tense," the Doctor stated.
"No, I didn't," Rory told him.
"Yeah, he said that in the present tense, Doctor," Rose said, agreeing with the nurse.
"You know, Howie had been in speech therapy," Rory told them as the Doctor leaned against the stair rail as he held Rose's hand, while Rory looked at Howie's photo, "He'd just got over this massive stammer. What an achievement. I mean, can you imagine? I'd forgotten, not all victories are about saving the universe."
Please review.
And when Rose regenerates should her sonic screwdriver get damaged beyond repair or not?