A young woman, maybe her early 20s, with long flowing blonde hair ran through the streets, her wild eyes unfocused as she desperately searched for someone, anyone, to help her, behind her there were two men in black gaining ground as they chased after her.
Sharply turning the corner of a brownstone, the young woman ended up losing her shoes as the laces became sheered from the stress they were put under, kicked the ruined shoes away as quickly she could, before continuing her escape.
Her bare feet slapping against the pavement, the pain of the stones and gravel jabbing the underside of her feet washed away from the fear of being captured by those men, being sent back to that place.
And never getting to see her beloved parents, ever again.
Jumping over a fence, she hurried through a narrow alleyway, before she stopped and heard two pairs of footsteps ahead of her.
It wasn't the men, these were someone else, and she then hurried to intercede them, praying that they would be the ones who save her from the men in black.
She could see them closer now, a man and a woman, and the moment her eyes crossed the woman's, something in the woman made her veer towards her, wrapping her arms around the shocked woman as she burst into tears, before burying her face into the woman's chest.
Shocked, the woman didn't respond initially as the man next to her could only get out, "What?"
Tears running down her face, the young woman begged for the woman's help, and the woman haphazardly asking, "What… what's wrong?"
Pointing behind herself, the young woman warns, "Those men! They… they're after me!"
Tugging on the woman, she begged for her help, and the pair led her away, somewhere remote where the young woman would feel more comfortable talking to them, while the man helped retrieve a new pair of shoes for her.
The young woman spoke limited English, couldn't tell if it was because of her panic, but she insisted that a pair of men in black were after her, and she got away from them.
When asked why, the young woman gestured as she tells in her limited English how they took her from her family, how she was trying to reunite with them, but the men in black caught up with her, thus her predicament.
"Why were they after you?" the man asked after retrieving a pair of shoes.
Handing them over to the young woman, he heard in limited English that the men wanted to take her back to a place she resented, hated, feared.
Tugging the shoes as they fit her snug, the young woman sniffled as she gestured that she didn't do anything, she only wanted to go back to her family.
"I'm likely to believe you, miss, where do your parents live?" Paul gestures as he watched the woman stand up, tapping her new shoes against the ground as she felt her feet adjust to them with ease.
He heard back, "A farm. With goats. Trees! Mama's garden!"
Raising his brow, the man then told her that he was the Doctor and the woman with him was Taylor.
Seeing the fear in the woman's blue eyes, he assured her that he wasn't anyone affiliated with the men in black, and Taylor confirmed this.
"I think we should go back to the beginning; would you like some tea?" Paul gestures as he offered the young woman a chance to sit down, but she gestured that the town was closed, but saw the smile on his face.
Leading her, he and Taylor brought her to an unusual object hidden away.
Never seeing anything like it before, she hurried up to look at it closely, pointing at it, before childishly asking what it was, and Paul explained what it was with her eyes twinkling.
Imagine her surprise when the door opened on its own and she sees that there's something inside this odd thing!
Ran around looking at the new area she was in and how it was seemingly bigger on the inside than out.
Watching this woman run around, it made Paul take pause as he turned his head to Taylor.
Shrugging her shoulders, Taylor comments, "It's not the first time we had our adventures land on our laps, Paul."
Leading Paul to quip, "Or arms, it appears!"
Once the young woman calmed down from the excitement, the couple brought her tea, and she drank from the teapot.
Multiple times.
Taylor and Paul had to take turns making tea because of it, but by the ninth teacup it was enough to calm the young woman, Alyson Gillespie, into explaining her side of the story, and the more she explained, the more her words started articulating better, until she talked normally.
It started when she was adopted into the Gillespie household, Milo and Miriam became her parents, it was a match made in heaven.
The couple had been struggling for years for a child of their own to one day receive a call from a social worker, having found Alyson wandering the highway, at least four.
She can't remember much of her past, where she came from, who her biological parents were, what her original name was, but with clarity, Alyson remembers every waking day she was with the Gillespies.
Everything was fine, until that day that men came to the farmhouse with the intent on taking Alyson to her biological mother.
The Gillespies fought to keep her, but the men legally bullied them with relentless intent.
She never wanted to leave, but the men forced her away from the only home she knew.
They forced her into some odd place she never seen before, the men sticking wires and tubes, making her take medicine she didn't want.
But she escaped, burst her way through that hell, since she had been trying to get home, to her family.
"Why would they want you?" Paul raised his brow as Alyson told them the epic.
Shrugging, Alyson responded that she doesn't know, she tried asking, but the men looked at her with such disdain.
Can't tell him where it is, she didn't look back, not once, only running forward.
His hand under his chin, Paul ponders, as he does, he silently communicated with Taylor.
"Stealing a child from her parents' lower than the Daleks," Paul subtly turned his head towards Taylor.
Looking at her, Taylor tried not frowning as she added, "Keeping her for years, Paul, what were those men doing to her?"
Lowering his hand, Paul exhaled as he answered, "I don't know, but it sounds like experimentation and experimenting on a child's even lower than the Daleks."
What the men intended with experimenting on Alyson, he doesn't know, but that's what he and Taylor planned on solving as he comforted her.
He stated that he and Taylor will help her find her parents and the woman nearly squeezed them black and blue in gratitude.
Once she released them, Paul went up to the console and typed in Alyson's name, hoping that the TARDIS could point them in the right direction.
Typing in her name, Paul waited, and the TARDIS gave him more than just an address, but something that raised his brow.
There seemed to be some missing context as he saw the court documents filed by the Gillespies' fighting to get Alyson back.
With help of the TARDIS, it would seem that Alyson should have been no more than at least twelve years old, but here she was, twenty something, and she wasn't gone from her home long like Taylor thought.
From what the TARDIS dug, she was gone for at least a year, and stress does more than aging someone.
A child that seemingly aged quicker than expected would sound odd to normal people, but for Paul and Taylor, what's odd to some, sounded benign to them.
It was a matter of how that was concerning them.
"Miss Gillespie, as much as we'd love nothing more than reunite you to your family, I fear that there is a chance that they'll go there first," Paul frowned as he turned around to face Alyson.
These men know Alyson would go back to her family, if she did, they'd be at risk by the men wanting to recapture Alyson.
If she wanted to keep her family safe, she would need to keep the men away, by making them believe that she hadn't left the general area.
Confusion in her blue eyes, Alyson questioned if it'd work, and Paul assures her that it will, adding, "I'm the Doctor."
So long the men believe she hadn't gone to her parents, there's a chance they'll be preoccupied trying to locate and capture her to bother.
Hopefully, if they can force information out of them, they can find out where they took Alyson, and go from there.