A/N: Sorry this is late. Life is unusually difficult.

Chapter Seven

Shopping, Interrupted

Molly's room, it turned out, had shifted next door. After an evening of stretches, sewing and breaking in shoes, learning to use the stereo, and a light warm up followed by an easy dance she'd learned when she was six or seven, she found her room again. A dinner of some alien kind of noodles, a quick bath – noticing, now, the lack of soap – and a deep sleep later, she woke in the morning, repeated the names, changed, and was ready to go to Everywhere.

"Hey," she said as she entered the main control room, looking down below the console where the Doctor was messing with bits of wire again.

"Good morning!" the Doctor greeted. "How did you sleep?"

She took a few steps down the stairs and then sat on them, watching him connect wires seemingly at random, Amy's glasses balanced on his nose. "Really well, actually. I think between the hospital visit, getting kidnapped by aliens, two stops in Paris, and a good workout, my body was ready for some deep sleep."

"I bet," he replied, now placing the wires back where they seemed to belong. "You ready to head out, then? We could get some breakfast in the India district. Or ancient China. Or there's a little restaurant outside a replica of 1940s Las Vegas with cuisine from the local galaxy. What do you think?"

"I'm game for anything," she replied. "But is there anywhere we can do some shopping? I need some basics. You know, like soap, and makeup, and my own clothes, preferably. Wait – do you even have money?"

"Do I have money?" the Doctor repeated, incredulous. "Do I have money? Of course I have money. Why wouldn't I have money?"

Molly used the railing to pull herself back to her feet. "I don't know. In the show you mention that you never really carry it."

The Doctor pulled Amy's glasses off and stared at her a moment. "Well, that's ridiculous. I don't use it that often, but how else am I supposed to get food and supplies?"

"…psychic paper?"

"That would just be unfair," the Doctor replied, headed up the stairs with her. "People work hard to create things; I wouldn't want to just take it from them because I'm pretending to be the Prince of Denmark or from the Halian Embassy or something."

"That does seem more fair," Molly admitted. "Another way the show is different from the reality, I guess."

"Yes," agreed the Doctor. He turned to her with curious eyes. "I wonder where yours varies."

Molly shrugged. "There were only three seasons, I don't imagine is varies very much."

"Do you want to watch it and find out?"

Molly thought about it for a moment. "Not really. Watching my own life through a dramatized lens doesn't seem…comfortable."

The Doctor nodded. "Well, alright, then. Shall we head out? We'll make a shopping list over breakfast." He almost laughed. "Shopping list. Haven't used one of those for ages."

"Sounds good to me," Molly replied. "Shopping list, on an alien planet."

"Well," said the Doctor, pointing to the doors. "Go on, take a look."

Molly smiled and headed for the door of the TARDIS. She paused with her hand on the door for a moment, and took a deep breath. Here we go. Another alien planet. A human planet, yes, but not Earth. She'd already done New New Earth, but this time she was actually going to look around, experience it.

Before it could get too overwhelming, she swung the door open.

It did look like her memories of Earth, specifically New York – partially because of the thin layer of smog clinging to the tops of the buildings. There were crowds of people rushing by, a street lamp flickering despite it being daytime, and advertisements of scrolling words across the walls of buildings. A completely normal city, if she ignored the patchwork-like pattern of architectural styles and colors and materials, the clearly alien people dotted amongst the humans, and the green tint to a sky with a red-tinted sun.

She stepped outside onto what looked like concrete but felt under her feet more like soft earth after rain. She didn't stick to it, but it gave a little under her weight. When she adjusted, it would probably be more comfortable to walk on. Or it would kill her shins. One or the other.

They were parked in a small alley off a side street, but it seemed to be a main street for shopping. She had stepped right out into the crowd, who largely ignored her and quickly moved by her with their bags and briefcases and strollers.

The door closed behind her and the Doctor stepped up beside her. "Right! So. Breakfast."

They wound up at what looked like a 50s diner, but served food from nearly every country Molly could imagine. The menu had been twenty-three pages long, and also included food from other nearby planets, that sounded less appetizing as the Doctor explained them. She settled on croissants and a jam made of some neon purple fruit the Doctor recommended, which was sweet and tart like a raspberry, with a hint of melon. The Doctor ordered something from another planet that looked like a dessert bread with fruit cooked in, and of course a good cup of tea. As they ate, they wrote out a shopping list of what Molly considered essentials: A good bar of soap, red lipstick, and a leather jacket like the one she had at home, if they could find one, among a few other things. She liked the boots the TARDIS provided, but figured she may need other footwear, too. The first stop was back to the TARDIS, to grab a couple bags that were bigger on the inside, just like the TARDIS and the Doctor's pockets.

As they walked along a large outdoor market, the Doctor stopped to pick up a few things for himself, too, though they didn't seem quite as essential.

"What do you need a gavel for?" she asked him, as he handed her the metal gavel to put into one of her bags.

The Doctor turned to her with an expression as though she'd said something ridiculous. "I don't know, one never knows when they might need a gavel. But now, I'm prepared."

"Okay," she laughed. They continued their stroll, and she looked up at the green-tinted sky, enjoying the warmth on her arms and legs, the alien sun on her face. "I think we're almost done for me, anyway."

The Doctor pulled the list out of his pocket. "Clothes, shoes, soaps etcetera, most of the makeup – yep. Just the red lipstick and jacket left."

"Shouldn't be too hard," she remarked, looking around. They'd been shopping for a little while now, but it was all still fascinating. A stall had oddly-shaped bells all hanging around the front, and another bore alien vegetables and pink honey with bumblebees crowded around the jars, and another had a man shouting offers of free sample of something called 'joy curls'. There were bright patterned fabrics, patterns that were common in India or China, or that looked like they may have been made into a dress for Marie Antoinette. In fact, there were clothes from all sorts of cultures and time periods. Someone was selling what looked like vases and statues from ancient Egypt. And all around her, people dressed in what she would consider cliché futuristic clothing, others with bright colors streaked across their face. She noticed a Hath, a little cluster of Ood, and a couple of Adipose bouncing on the roof of a stall. Everything about it was incredible, and so very real and alive. And almost steaming warm.

She looked back over to the Doctor, in his long sleeves and waistcoat. "Aren't you hot?"

The Doctor gave a little laugh. "Yeah…yeah, I am, thanks for noticing." He smirked back over at her.

Molly rolled her eyes. "Oh, you are just so very, very funny. But seriously – temperature-wise…aren't you hot in that cashmere?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Bit warm, yeah. But I'm alright."

Down the way and to the left she noticed jars of pigmented powder, bright creams, and very recognizable metal tubes. Lipstick. "Over there," she pointed. "That'll probably be lipstick handled."

"Excellent," replied the Doctor. They began to head that way, when an odd, almost metallic screeching sound echoed from the sky, a distance away. Shortly after, a strong sound wave passed over them, a sound she could more feel than hear.

"Doctor, what was that?" She turned towards him, and then continued to turn as she realized he wasn't beside her anymore. "Aaaand he's gone." She looked across the market where he'd been standing, and spotted a rush of purple quickly moving away from her. She pulled the bags further onto her shoulder and took off after what she hoped was him.

She watched as he dodged his way through the crowd, a little more deftly than she did with her bags. But running through a crowd was practically second nature to her at that point. He dashed down an alley decorated with paper lanterns, and she followed through a minute later. "Doctor!" she called out. He continued forward. "Doctor!"

Finally, he paused and turned back to look at her, but all he did was gesture for her to continue following. With a frustrated growl, she did so, tempted to drop the bags but not wanting anyone to just pick them up and walk off with them. She may have expected the Doctor to buy her the essentials as they were stuck together, but she didn't want to waste his money.

He slowed a little so she could catch up to him, and together they made their way out of the marketplace, towards the outskirts of the city. She saw smoke rising up in a distant field, a strange, white and red smoke, swirling together in the breeze. "What is that?"

"I don't know," the Doctor responded, his voice somehow both apprehensive and excited. "Almost there, now."

It didn't feel like they were nearly there, but they rushed up a hill and were able to get a good look at the wide and nearly empty field, save for in the center of it. There were great black burn marks, the dead yellow grass in a massive circle turned to charcoal. An inner part of the circle went deep, deep into the ground, the edges of it surrounded by some yellow and orange flames - but inside the hole there was nothing. She looked in the sky, and saw nothing, not even a cloud or a bird.

"Strange," the Doctor muttered. "A crash of some sort. An invisible ship?" His face was serious for a moment, and then excitement began to flood his expression. He turned to Molly and put the serious frown back on. "Of course, very serious, a crash."

"Oh, stop pretending to not be excited by a mystery," Molly demanded. "I know you better than that."

The Doctor's grin returned. "I know you, too," the Doctor pointed out. "You're excited."

Molly examined the scene in front of them. Great big, brand-new crater, surrounded by fire…and empty. "Yeah. Yeah, I am."

"Marvelous. Let's go, then." He looked at the bags. "Go ahead and drop those there. Bring the gavel, though."

Frowning with confusion, Molly dropped the bags, reached into one as deep as her shoulder, and retrieved the gavel. When she looked up, he was already gone. She stood and turned and saw him running for the crater. "I guess the running part of our adventures has begun," she mumbled, took a deep breath, and took off after him.

Her body was unused to running again, so she was a bit out of breath when she arrived at the crater, just outside the fire, and the Doctor was already scanning the area with the sonic screwdriver. A few bits of metal were scattered around the hole, in shapes of things Molly could never guess the purpose of.

The Doctor looked at the results of his scan, and his brow furrowed. He turned to Molly and held the screwdriver out. "Trade me," he said.

Molly's brows raised. "What?"

"Trade me," the Doctor repeated.

She held the gavel out. "Why do you want me to hold on to the sonic?"

The Doctor took the gavel and pressed the screwdriver into her hand, and turned back to the burning crater. The flames were at her knees, and she could feel the heat of them on her face like a bad sunburn. The sound of the flames almost drowned out the sound of the birds. She looked down past them and saw that hot embers filled the bottom.

"Because," the Doctor said, "If I catch fire, I don't want it to be damaged."

Molly turned back to the Doctor with surprise. "Sorry, what? You're not going in there, are you?"

"'Course I am," the Doctor replied, his voice with a tone as though she'd missed the obvious. "How else am I going to check it with the gavel?"

There were too many questions she had following that. "There's a ring of fire around it."

"Yeah, I noticed that, thank you."

"And the ground is ten or eleven feet down and made of red-hot embers."

"Yeah."

"Isn't that suicide?"

"For my shoes, yeah," replied the Doctor, lifting a foot to look at the bottom of his shoe. "For me…hopefully not." He passed the gavel from one hand to the other as he looked all around the crater, and through the flames into it. "Well. Geronimo!"

With that he leapt forward, swinging the gavel wildly ahead of him. Molly held her breath until he saw him land on the other side with no sign of fire spreading over his clothes or hair. He continued to walk forward, swinging the gavel all around him.

"Agh!" he shouted after a minute. "Hot! Hot, hot, hot!" He began hopping from one foot to the other, but continued moving around the crater, leaving no part of the hole unchecked.

"Doctor!" Molly shouted.

"I'm busy!"

"But Doctor-"

"No, shut up, I need to focus!"

"Don't tell me to shut up!" she snapped. "How are you getting back out of there?"

The Doctor looked up at her with irritation, and then a look of realization crossed his face. "Oh." She could barely hear him say over the sound of the flames. He continued moving and swinging the gavel, but now he was looking up at how deep in he was. "I'll figure that out as I go."

Molly had doubts. He always came up with something, but sometimes he needed a little help. She looked down at the sonic in her hand and felt a brief moment of amazement at actually holding the sonic screwdriver. She was tempted to press the button, but what would that do? She didn't know how to use it. She slid it into her back pocket and started to look around. There were things that looked like sharp-edged screws, what might be computer chips, long rods, gears with a thousand little teeth and – hold on.

She ran over a few feet, picking up one of the rods among an oblong-shaped depression of grass. It was long, maybe twenty feet, solid, but surprisingly light, almost feeling like nothing. She picked it up and paused, waiting for the scream of pain through her spine that she'd never actually feel again. Relieved all over again that she was free from its debilitating grasp, she dragged the pole back to the crater, the dragging more due to the length than the weight. "Doctor, throw your jacket up here!"

"Why?!" He was facing the other way now, swinging the mallet.

"So I can put out the flames and get you out!"

He turned back to her, and she waved the rod at him. He held up a finger for her to wait, and quickly finished his last lap of the crater, then turned back to her. Wincing with every step, the Doctor shrugged off his waistcoat. "Ready?!"

She set the rod aside. "Yeah!"

He tossed it up at her, and when she caught it, she felt relief flood her. Wishing for a bucket of water, she began beating at the flames.

"Hurry!" the Doctor shouted, and out of her peripheral vision she saw him hopping, his face red from the heat. She spread the coat out and hit with more force, finally deciding to throw the coat down and risk jumping up and down on it a few times. The edges of her calves and thighs burned, but she gritted her teeth and endured it. Finally, there seemed to be a gap wide enough for the Doctor, and she grabbed the rod and lowered an end to him. He stuck the gavel handle in his mouth, and immediately grasped the rod, and as she dug her feet into the earth and pulled, he used his feet against the wall of the crater to help her lift him up. When he landed at the top with a gasp for the clearer air, she never felt more grateful for physical therapy. Even as fit as she'd been before the gunshot, she never would have had the upper body strength to pull that off.

The Doctor spat out the gavel and reached down and began pulling a shoe off, and she knelt beside him and yanked off the other one. Both of the soles of the shoes had almost completely melted away. The Doctor removed his socks, bits of orange-red gleaming in them, and slowly got to his feet.

"Barefoot. Brilliant. I'll solve the mystery barefoot, then," he scowled, throwing the socks aside as though it was their fault.

"What was that all about?" Molly asked. "What was the point of that?"

"Some shields make a ship invisible," he explained. "If they're strong enough, even the sonic can't detect them."

Molly looked back at the crater. "But you didn't find anything."

"No," the Doctor frowned, looking at the area around them. "I didn't."

"But it just crashed. The ship just crashed here. We felt it."

"I know." The Doctor began to make his way around the crater. "A ship crashed here, it definitely crashed here, look at all these bits of metal, the burned grass, the fire. And then…" He turned to her, his expression perplexed. "And then it grew legs and walked away."

She looked at the crater. It wasn't as massive as she imagined a crater caused by a ship falling from space would be, but it was still big. Too big to be moved that quickly. "How could it have disappeared?"

The Doctor shook his head. "No, literally, it grew legs and walked away," he said, pointing out among the dead grass. "Look, the grass is crushed, and there are little oblong impressions in the ground, slightly to the left, slightly to the right, spaced out evenly."

Molly's eyes widened as she looked at the grass. "Just like footsteps."

"Exactly." The Doctor turned towards her, his hand out expectantly. She reached into her pocket and handed him the sonic. "Grab the gavel, we might need it." And off he went, following the footsteps.

Molly wrinkled her nose, and used the bottom of her tank top to pick up the gavel. She wiped the handle down, then held onto it. A quick glance at her legs showed heat blisters, but other than that, she seemed okay. Once she was away from the heat of the fire it would hurt less.

Molly stood and jogged to catch up with the Doctor, who was moving pretty quickly despite the lack of shoes. "What do you think it is?"

"Not sure yet, working on it," he replied. "It couldn't have gotten far."

"Then why can't we see it?"

"The shielding, I imagine."

Molly lifted the gavel. "Why we have this."

"Precisely."

"Okay, another question, then," she said. "Why can't we hear it?"

The Doctor glanced at her. "What?"

"We heard it crash. It caused a soundwave. If the ship is walking, even if it's invisible, shouldn't we be able to hear it?"

The Doctor glanced over at her with a half-smile. "Why can't we hear it?"

It didn't sound as though he was wondering that himself. He was asking her, because he already knew the answer. She knew the Doctor tested people sometimes, but she really wasn't prepared for it. Her mind raced through any possible ideas, but nothing seemed right. "Does the shielding also include sound?"

"No, but a good guess." He paused and turned to her, and hopped in place. "You can't feel it, because you have shoes on and, well, you're human, but there's a slight rumbling in the ground. And in the distance – do you hear?"

Molly listened for a moment, only hearing the distant market behind them, and the squeaking of birds ahead of them. "I don't…" and it occurred to her. "We're in a field. There aren't any trees ahead of us, or birds above us."

"So where are the birds?"

She listened closely again. The squeaking of the birds. There was something metallic in it. "There aren't any birds. It's the ship moving."

"And the reason we can only just hear it is…?"

Molly turned back to the crater. The bits of metal that had fallen off. The rod – the rod that was too long and too solid for her to have been able to lift or maneuver it so easily. "The metal. It's lightweight. The rod felt like nothing." She turned back to the Doctor. "We can barely hear it because it weighs almost nothing, for its size. That's why the indents in the ground are mostly just the crushed grass."

The Doctor gave her a smile that was mostly in his eyes. "Exactly." He turned back, hurrying after the ship. "Come on! It's headed for the city."