The Doctor frowned at the small black cubes he was scanning as he sat on top of the jungle gym portion of the playground in the park opposite the Ponds home.
Just last night Thea had gotten a call from Sarah Jane that Mr Smith had picked up an odd energy trace that was gone within a second, which was very strange and concerning and so the woman had called them to see if the TARDIS could pick anything up.
They had landed a bit late, the next morning, to see the street covered in the small black cubes that Mr Smith hadn't even picked up, the Supercomputer couldn't get a scan from any of them, like they didn't exist.
So they'd come round to the Ponds, thinking they might like to be involved with whatever the cubes were.
Thea frowned at her phone as she sat on a swing, lightly swinging on it, reading the message Luke had sent her. Whatever these cubes were, she didn't like it.
"Doctor?" Amy called as she and Rory came running over, both still in their pyjamas having been awoken by Brian, "Thea!"
"Invasion of the very small cubes." The Doctor remarked, "that's new."
"Mr Smith can't even seem to sense them." Thea sighed. "Which is never a good thing." She tossed a cube in her hands. "And K9s laser did nothing to them."
"And what's do you think?" The Doctor asked her.
"I don't like them." She stated.
"Because?"
"Because..." She furrowed her brows, trying to get the words out, "they're wrong." She let out a huff of frustration at that, how unhelpful her own words were being.
~.~
Thea crossed her arms as she flicked through the news channels in the TARDIS, seeing what the humans had to say about the sudden arrival of the cubes. The Doctor paced behind her, examining one with a magnifying glass.
"All absolutely identical." The Doctor muttered, "Not a single molecule's difference between them. No blemishes, imperfections, individualities."
"What if they're bombs?" Brian cut in, "Billions of tiny bombs? Or transport capsules maybe, with a mini robot inside. Or deadly hard drives. Or alien eggs? Or messages needing decoding. Or they're all parts of a bigger whole. Jigsaw puzzles that need fitting together."
"Very thorough, Brian." The Doctor nodded, it could be any of those things and more, "Very, very thorough. Well done. Stay here. Watch these. Yell if anything happens." He handed his cube to Brian heading to the door.
"Doctor, is this an alien invasion?" Amy asked, she and Rory following to the doors, "Because that's what it feels like."
"There couldn't be life-forms in every cube, could there?" Rory wondered.
"I don't think so," Thea tilted her head, eying the cubes Brain was holding, "they're just here."
"I don't know," the Doctor admitted, "And I really don't like not knowing."
"Who doesn't?" Thea agreed as they headed out in the lounge of the Ponds house they had moved to TARDIS to.
"Right," the Doctor headed straight for the kitchen, "I need to use your kitchen as a lab. Cook up some cubes. See what happens."
Rory checked his watch, "Right, I'm due at work."
"What?" The Doctor looked over from where he was raided the cupboards for whatever he could use, "You've got a job?"
"Of course I've got a job." Rory rolled his eyes, "What do you think we do when we're not with you?"
"I imagined mostly kissing."
"That's the dream life," Thea laughed, "imagine dying because you've kissed someone so much you end up dehydrated to death."
The Doctor pointed at her, "No."
She rolled her eyes, resting her head in her hands, elbows on the counter as she watched him work, "not that you have to worry about that with me."
"I write travel articles for magazines and Rory heals the sick." Amy said, wanting to speak against any awkward silence, they all knew Thea was a romantic. The girl didn't speak about it much, but they knew she wanted a long relationship but knew it was close to impossible to have one. There wasn't many species in the universe that lived as long as Time Lords.
"My shift starts in an hour." Rory added, "You don't know where my scrubs are?"
"In the lounge." Thea answered him, distracted.
Amy shook her head at her, "where you left them." She added to her husband as he headed out for his uniform.
"All the Ponds," the Doctor commented as he got to work on a device, "with their house and their jobs and their everyday lives. The journalist and the nurse. Long way from Leadworth."
"We think it's been 10 years." Amy sighed, "Not for you or Earth, but for us. 10 years older. 10 years of you, on and off."
"It's been three and a half," Thea corrected, handing the Doctor various components for the device he was creating. "I always keep linear with the gang."
"And here I thought linear was such a human term." Amy joked as Thea stuck her tongue out in response.
"Look at you now." The Doctor smiled, "All grown up."
Thea tilted her head to the side, stiffening a moment, "we have company."
The door was smashed down, men in black running in, "Clear!" One man shouted, "Trap one, kitchen secured."
"Trap three, back garden secured." Another called from behind in the garden.
"There are soldiers all over my house," Rory grumbled as he was lead back in the kitchen, at gunpoint, by the soldiers, only wearing the top half of his scrubs, "and I'm in my pants."
"My whole life I've dreamed of saying that, and I miss it by being someone else." Amy smirked at him.
"All these muscles," A deep raspy voice called, a woman in her 40s approached them, her hair blonde and short, wearing a tan suit, her hands casually in her pockets, "and they still don't know how to knock. Sorry about the raucous entrance." She offered an apologetic smile, "Spike in Artron energy reading at this address. In the light of the last 24 hours, we had to check it out, and the dogs do love a run out."
Thea laughed and ran over to hug the woman, "Hello Kate."
"Hello Thea." Kate returned the hug before straightening and eying the Doctors bowtie, "And with dress sense like that," she pulled out a scanner holding it to the Doctors chest, seeing his two hearts, "you must be the Doctor. I hoped it would be you."
The Doctor frowned, not sure what to make of the woman with the soldiers surrounding them. Oh he was well aware of his history with UNIT, he had still never technically left the organisation, but he didn't like how comfortable Thea was around them, how she was first name bases to the woman who seemed in charge. It was even worse knowing that the UNIT officers at the Snowdon base had worked with the Shanseeth to steal his TARDIS. He didn't take too lightly to that.
"Sorry," Kate shook her head, "Kate Stewart, head of scientific research at UNIT."
"Tell me, since when did science run the military, Kate?" The Doctor frowned.
"Since her." Thea nodded to her.
"UNIT's been adapting." Kate agreed, "Well, I dragged them along, kicking and screaming, which made it sound like more fun than it actually was."
"What do we know about these cubes?" The Doctor questioned.
"Far less than we need to. We've been freighting them in from around the world for testing. So far, we've subjected them to temperatures of plus and minus two hundred Celsius, simulated a water depth of five miles, dropped one out of a helicopter at ten thousand feet and rolled our best tank over it. Always intact."
"That's impressive." The Doctor muttered, "I don't want them to be impressive. I want them vulnerable with a nice Achilles heel."
"We don't know how they got here," Kate continued, "what they're made of, or why they're here."
"And all around the world, people are picking them up and taking them home."
"Like iPads have dropped out of the sky. Taking them to work, taking pictures, making films, posting them on Flickr and YouTube. Within three hours, the cubes had a thousand separate Twitter accounts."
"Twitter?" The Doctor grimaced at the thought of the website.
"I've recommended we treat this as a hostile incursion. Gather them all up and lock them in a secure facility. But that would take massive international agreement and co-operation."
"We need evidence." The Doctor determined, "The cubes arrived in plain sight, in vast quantities, as the sun rose. So, what does that tell us?"
"Maybe they want to be seen." Amy guessed, "noticed."
"Or more than that, they want to be observed. So we observe them. Stay with them round the clock. Watch the cubes, day and night. Record absolutely everything about them. Team cube, in it together!" He cheered, kissing a cube.
"Well, at least they're not firing lasers at us." Thea joked, taking the cube and tossing it in the air, only to wince as it hit the ceiling light.
"What was that?" Amy shouted down the hall.
"Nothing!" Both Time Lords shouted.
~.~
The Doctor laid upside down on the sofa in the living room, Amy and Rory on either side of him as Thea sat, legs crossed on the floor, her gaze on the cube, "Four days," he complained, "Nothing! Nothing!" He shifted upright, taking the cube, "Not a single change in any cube anywhere in the world." He sighed, setting the cube back down and plopping back on the sofa, "Four days, and I am still in your lounge!"
"You were the one who wanted to observe them." Amy reminded him.
"Yes, well, I thought they'd do something, didn't I? Not just sit there while everyone eats endless cereal!"
"You said we had to be patient." Rory recited as the Doctor jumped up and started pacing.
"Yes, you! You, not me! I hate being patient. Patience is for wimps. I can't live like this. Don't make me. I need to be busy."
"Fine!" Amy snapped, "be busy! We'll watch the cubes."
The Doctor cheered and dashed out the room as Thea barely blinked, "he'll be back in an hour."
Rory shook his head, unable to comprehend how the Doctor can barely last four days in their house watching the cubes (which he insisted they did) and then there was Thea who has managed three years on Earth, "Sometimes I forget he adopted you and then he acts like that and you like this…"
~.~
The Doctor had kept himself busy does the chores around the house, creosoting the garden fence, playing football, mowing the lawn, fixed the car and vacuumed the house before plopping back down on the sofa, "That's better." he grinned, "Nothing like a bit of activity to pass the time. How long was I gone?"
"An hour." Thea stated, having hardly moved in that time, except to start working on a puzzle on the table next to the cube, which she had completed far too soon to even enjoy it.
"I can't do it." He hopped over the back of the sofa to the TARDIS parked in the corner of the room, "No."
Thea sighed and got to her feet, following him.
"Where are you going?" Amy called, her and Rory going with them.
"Brian," The Doctor blinked, seeing the man still inside, watching the cube on the console, "you're still here."
"You told me to watch the cubes." He replied simply.
"Four days ago."
"Ah! Doesn't time fly when you're alone with your thoughts?"
Rory shook his head, not seeming surprised by his father antics and turned to the Doctor, "You can't just leave."
"Yes, of course I can." The Doctor countered, "Quick jaunt, restore sanity. Ooh, hey, come if you like."
"They can't just go off like that." Brain argued.
"Can't they? Can't you? That's how it goes, isn't it?"
"I've got my job." Rory reminded him.
"Oh yes, Rory. The universe is awaiting, but you have a little job to."
"It's not a little job," Thea pointed warningly at him, "not to Rory. I wouldn't want to go to any other nurse."
Rory smiled at her, "what you do isn't all there is."
"I mean if I went to another nurse they'd probably lock me up and dissect me." Thea continued, "but the point still stands." She hugged Rory from behind, "you're my favourite nurse."
"And you'd be my favourite patient." Rory laughed, rubbing her head.
"Oh I really wouldn't be. I hate hospitals give me the heeby-jeebies."
"All right," the Doctor cut in, "Fine. We'll be back soon."
"Brain, you don't mind keeping watch of the cubes do you?" Thea asked him, knowing the man was retired and had more free time than Amy and Rory.
"Yes," The Doctor nodded, "monitor the cubes. Call us."
"I'll get the TARDIS set up on all news feeds." Thea moved around the console to the monitor, "and see if Mr Smith has picked anything up, though if the TARDIS hasn't, I seriously doubt he has." She smiled, stroking the console at the gentle hum.
The Ponds nodded and waved goodbye, stepping out as the TARDIS dematerialised a moment later.
~.~
Nine months later the Time Lords returned to Earth, not that it had been that long for them, barely a week for them as they kept the TARDIS searching for anything about the cubes, but the Earth scientists had deemed the cubes safe enough. They'd nipped back to Earth a couple of times before returning to the Ponds, checking up on the gang, seeing if Mr Smith had found anything, if UNIT had anything else to go off.
But now they were returning to see the couple for their anniversary, wanting to congratulate the pair on being married for another year.
They surprised the couple with flowers at their party before whisking them away for a romantic night in the Savoy Hotel, just after it opened in 1819, which hadn't turned into quite the romantic night as they'd been hoping for when they discovered a Zygon ship hidden beneath it and half the staff were actually Zygons.
They'd gone on a few more adventures, mostly accidently as they tried to get the Ponds back to the party but with the Doctors pilotting they knew that was a difficult thing to do.
After a run in with King Henry VIII where Amy had accidently agreed to marry him they had finally made it back to the house, not even 5 minutes later.
So there they were, standing to the side, watching as Amy and Rory mingle with their friends.
"How long were they away?" Brian asked as he made his way to their side.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Brian." The Doctor stuck up his nose in innocence.
"Because they're wearing totally different clothes from earlier."
"7 weeks." Thea answered honestly.
"I got side-tracked." The Doctor sighed, "A lot."
It wasn't really his fault, he just really wanted the Ponds to have a good anniversary gift from them, no danger or running, but it did seem to follow him everywhere so he kept trying again.
"What happened to the other people who travel with you?" Brian wondered. This was his son and daughter-in-law, he wanted to know they'd be safe. They had been gone seven weeks and he would have barely known if not for the different clothes. He didn't want to be on Earth while they were travelling and then they never return and he would spend the rest of his life wondering what happened to them.
"Some left me." The Doctor answered quietly, "Some got left behind. And some, not many but...some died." He sighed, "Not them. Not them, Brian. Never them."
"They'll die of old age," Thea took his hands in her, wanting to give him that assurance, "peacefully and content with their life. Trust the psychic?"
She had told the couple that she saw them dying old together, things kept making her doubt that, but in the end Amy and Rory always came back to each other and she knew now they would die old and grey, having lived their full life's together.
~.~
The Doctor walked over to Amy after the party that evening, Thea helping Rory to tidy the garden a bit. "Can we stay here, with you and Rory, for a bit. Keep an eye on the cubes. However long that takes."
Amy eyed him, "I thought it would drive you mad."
"No, no, no. I mean, I'll be better at it this time. I miss you. Thea misses you."
Amy smiled, glancing to where Thea was helping Rory put the garden chairs away, "I missed her too."
"Oi!" The Doctor pouted.
Amy shook her head, "I missed you too," She embraced him, "moron."
~.~
The Doctor sat in the middle between the Ponds on the sofa, Thea on the armchair to the side, curled up with a bowl of ice cream as the Doctor, Amy and Rory shared some 'fish custard' while watching 'the Apprentice.'
"I sent you out to sell as many cubes as you could in 24 hours." Lord Sugar was speaking, "And look at you, you've made a right hash of it, haven't you. Well, Craig, you're fired."
"If I had a restaurant," the Doctor commented, "this'd be all I'd serve."
"Yeah, right." Amy laughed, "you running a restaurant."
"I've run restaurants. Who do you think invented the Yorkshire pudding?"
"You didn't?" Rory looked at him.
"Pudding, yet savoury. Sound familiar?"
"It started out as pancakes." Thea told them.
~.~
"Boom!" Thea exclaimed as she jumped on the sofa, having won two rounds of tennis as she and the Doctor kept busy in the Wii, "in your face!" She pointed the remote at him.
"There's still one more round." The Doctor argued.
"Two out of three! I automatically win, you're just rubbish!"
"Yeah, well," He fumbled for an excuse, "You've had more practice than I have."
"Yeah, well," Thea stiffened suddenly, "We should go."
"What?" the Doctor glanced at her to see her gaze shift to the cube a second before it began to hover and fly before the TV. "Whatever you are, this planet, these people, are precious to me." The Doctor eyed the cube, motioning for Thea to stay back as she jumped over the back of the sofa, "And I will defend them to my last breath." He blinked at it didn't do anything else, "Is that all you can do, hover?"
"I have a metal dog that can do that." Thea muttered, making her way round to the doorway, "down!"
The Doctor quickly ducked as the cube opened reveal a tube, similar to the barrel of a gun and began to fire, as the Doctor scrambled to the doorway.
"Ooh, you really have woken up." The Doctor muttered, cautiously peeking into the room to see the cube flicking through the channels on the TV.
"Doctor!" Rory dashed out from the kitchen, "Hi. Er, the cube in there, it just opened."
"The cube upstairs just spiked me and took my pulse!" Amy shouted, running down the stairs.
"Why do we get the one with the laser bolts?!" Thea huffed, glancing into the lounge, "Oh, and it's now downloading everything from the Internet."
"You're never going to believe this!" Brain announced as he ran into the house, "My cube just moved. It rattled."
Rory answered his phone as it rang, "Hello?"
"Rory, mate, I'm desperate for help." One of his co-workers called, "People are saying they've been attacked by the cubes. It's going to be a long night."
"Okay, I'm on my way." He hung up and looked at Amy, "I have to get to work. They need all the help they can get."
"Let me come, help out." Brian offered.
"Take your dad to work night, brilliant!" He turned to his wife, "Okay, are you going to be all right here?"
Amy smiled, kissing him, "Keep away from the cubes."
"And the lift." Thea added, not looking at him as she typed on her phone. Seemed all the cubes had gone off at once as the gang quickly tried to get in contact to let her know.
"Right." Rory nodded, turning and ushering Brian out as the Doctor pulled out the psychic paper.
"What are you grinning about?" Amy asked, seeing a smile growing on his face.
"We're wanted at the Tower of London." He waved the paper at them.
"It's still blank." Thea deadpanned.
"Right." The Doctor dejected.
One day he would remember she couldn't see it.
~.~
"Every cube across the whole world activated at the same moment." Kate got right to the point as they arrived at the Tower via the car Kate had sent for them.
"Now we're in business." The Doctor grinned, clapping his hands, "You sent me a message to my psychic paper. You know what? I'm almost impressed."
"I gave them it." Thea remarked, finishing off one last text that should hopefully keep the gang calm. It wasn't that they were panicking about the whole situation, they knew how to keep calm in far worse situations, they were just worried for their friends and family who had taken in the cubes despite their warning. She couldn't blame them. She would be a right state right now if one of them had told her they had the laser cube. "I gave them the technology for it." She slid her phone away, "don't need another reality bomb incident."
"Oh, you little genius," the Doctor beamed at her, "good thinking, kiddo."
"Secret base beneath the Tower." Amy raised her eyebrows, "Hope we're not here because we know too much."
"Yes," Kate nodded, "I've got officers trained in beheading. Also ravens of death."
"I like her." Amy smirked as they followed her inside.
~.~
Kate led them into a large room where the cubes were being monitor inside sealed cubicles. "There are fifty being monitored," she explained, "and more coming in all the time. I don't know how useful it is. Every cube is behaving individually. There's no meaningful pattern. Some respond to proximity. Some create mood swings." She gestured to where a woman sat inside a cubicle, crying.
Thea frowned, resting a hand on one of the cubicles, the cube inside setting itself on fire, "interesting."
"Er, what's this one?" Amy gestured to a cubicle with a cube sat inside seemingly doing nothing.
"Try the door." Kate gestured as Amy opened the door and 'the Birdie song' played, "on a loop!" Kate should over the noise as Amy quickly slammed the door shut again. "This is the latest." The led them into another room filled with computers.
"Oh dear." The Doctor eyed the screens, "Systems breach at the Pentagon, China, every African nation, the Middle East."
"I've got governments screaming for explanations and no idea what to tell them." Kate shook her head, "I'm lost, Doctor. We all are."
"Don't despair, Kate." The Doctor glanced at her, "Your dad never did." He smiled, seeing her looking surprised he knew that.
"I didn't tell him!" Thea held her hands up, quick to defend herself.
"Kate Stewart, heading up UNIT, changing the way they work. How could you not be? Why did you drop Lethbridge?"
"I didn't want any favours." Kate told him, "Though he guided me, even to the end. Science leads, he always told me. Said he'd learned that from an old friend."
"And he'll still shoot five times rapid." Thea added, holding her fingers like a gun and firing, "shooting down Bane without a second thought." She whistled, "I'm going to go back and buy him a whiskey."
"We don't let him down." The Doctor determined, "We don't let this planet down."
"They've stopped." The man monitoring the screens announced, "The cubes, across the world, they just shut down."
"Active for 47 minutes, and then they just die?" Kate frowned.
"Not dead." Thea shook her head, "dormant?"
"Then why shut down?" Amy wondered.
"I don't know." the Doctor huffed in annoyance, "I don't know. I need to think. I need some air. Who has an underground base? Terrible ventilation. Come along, kiddo." He turned, pulling Thea along with him as Amy ran after them.
~.~
The Doctor sat on a wall outside the Tower, overlooking the river Themes, Amy on his right with Thea on his left, resting her head against his shoulder.
"The moment they arrived, I should have made sure they were collected and burned." The Doctor muttered, "That is what I should have done."
"How?" Amy scoffed, "Nobody would have listened."
"No one listens to the mad of soothsayer." Thea murmured.
"You're thinking of stopping, aren't you?" He asked Amy quietly, "You and Rory."
"No." She answered, "I mean, we haven't made a decision."
"But you're considering it."
"Maybe. I don't know. We don't know. Well, our lives have changed so much. But there was a time, there were years, when I couldn't live without you. When just the whole everyday thing would drive me crazy. But since you dropped us back here, since you gave us this house, you know, we've built a life. I don't know if I can have both."
"Why?"
"Because they pull at each other. Because they pull at me, and because the travelling is starting to feel like running away."
"That's not what it is." The Doctor denied.
"Oh, come on." Amy rolled her eyes, "look at you, four days in a lounge and you go crazy."
"It wasn't always like that." Thea murmured, shifting to sit upright, turning her gaze to the stars above.
"Really?" Amy raised her eyebrows in disbelieve.
"Oh, back in the day I used to kick the kids out the house, sent them on a scavenger hunt around the garden knowing full well it would keep them occupied all day so I could have a day of peace to just sit and relax with a book." The Doctor smiled fondly at the memory. "I'm not running away." The Doctor continued, "But this is one corner of one country in one continent on one planet that's a corner of a galaxy that's a corner of a universe that is forever growing and shrinking and creating and destroying and never remaining the same for a single millisecond. And there is so much, so much to see, Amy. Because it goes so fast. I'm not running away from things, I am running to them before they flare and fade forever."
"And that's okay," Thea smiled over at her, "because we would rather you stop on your own terms than..." She trailed, not wanting to say it, "you forget, this little Gallifreyan for life. And I know where you hide the biscuits." Amy laughed at that, "one day you'll both want to stop. I've known for a while."
"Then why do you keep coming back for us?" Amy asked.
"Because you were the first." The Doctor admitted, "The first face this face saw. And you're seared onto my hearts, Amelia Pond. You always will be. I'm running to you, and Rory, before you fade from me."
Amy gave a soft smile at that, "Don't be nice to me. I don't want you to be nice to me."
"Yeah, you do, Pond, and you always get what you want."
"Just like the cubes!" Thea gasped.
"What?" Amy looked at her.
"Get up!" Thea called, not waiting for them to get to their feet as she ran back downstairs, "I know why they stopped!"
The Doctor quickly jumped up, helping Amy up at they ran back downstairs, Thea shouting for Kate as the woman stood near the monitoring station.
"They scanned everything!" She gasped out her explanation, "the cubes! All medical limits, military response patterns. They know everything about this planet. That's what the surge of activity was! Stars, I can't believe I didn't see it sooner!" She grumbled.
"You can't see everything." The Doctor muttered.
"That's not helpful."
The power suddenly cut off and the Doctor scanned around with the sonic, "problem with the power?"
"Not possible." Kate breathed, "We've got back-ups."
The Doctor held the sonic up as he led them back into the room with the cubicles.
"Doctor?" Amy called, nodding to a cube that now had a bright blue '7' on it, "Look."
"What?" The Doctor frowned at it.
Kate glanced at the rest of the cubes, seeing they were all the same, "Why do they all say seven?"
"Seven." The Doctor mumbled, "Seven, what's important about seven?"
"Seven wonders of the world." Thea shook her head.
"Seven streams of the River Ota."
"Seven sides of a cube."
"A cube has six sides." Amy looked at Thea for that.
"What about the INSIDE?" She countered when the '7' changed to '6'.
"It has to be a countdown." The Doctor deadpanned.
Kate checked her watch, "Not in minutes."
"Why would it be minutes?"
"Kate," Thea turned to her, getting a very bad feeling now about the cubes. It had always been there over the months but they knew they could do something it was getting worse by the minute, "try to get everyone from those cubes."
"Why?" Kate eyed her.
She was vaguely aware of the girls abilities, her father had mentioned them, sworn her to secrecy about them, not even her file had a mention of them.
"There's something...in them?" She shook her head, frustrated at how useless that sounded, "not something in them, but," She looked at the woman, silently begging her to believe her, "they're dangerous, I know it!"
"Okay, but why is this starting now?" Amy wondered, "I mean, the cubes arrived months ago. Why wait this long?"
"Because they're clever." The Doctor realised, "Allow people enough time to collect them, take them into their homes, their lives. Humans, the great early adopters. And then, wham! Profile every inch of Earth's existence."
"Discover how best to attack us." Kate gasped.
"Get that information out any way you can." The Doctor ordered, "Go!"
"Right." Kate rushed off.
"There must be a signal or something," Thea remarked, "like with the reality bomb, we got a signal out to you," She looked at the Doctor, "and the bees disappearing."
"Oh you little genius!" the Doctor cheered, "We need to think of all the variables, all the possibilities, okay? Go, go, go, go, go!"
The few scientists quickly rushed around at his urging as the technician before them pulled up a news feed Kate had already got sent out, trying to warn people to get the cubes as far away from them as possible.
The cubes dropped from '5' to '4'.
~.~
"I don't like this," Thea fidgeted, rubbing her arms as she looked at the Doctor as he stood before the door of a cubicles, ready to go inside and be close to the cube as the countdown reached '0'.
"Doctor, please." Amy agreed with Thea that this was a bad idea, "You don't have to do this."
"She's right." Kate nodded, "you don't have to be in there. We can do this remotely."
"Thea, tell him." Amy turned to Thea.
"Surprisingly, Pond, I am in charge of Thea." the Doctor told her. "Do you feel like it might kill me?"
Thea fidgeted, biting her lip before sighing, "No, but…"
"Then it's fine." He assured her, "and besides, remotely isn't my style." He placed a kiss on her head, "See you after." and opened the door stepping cautiously inside as the countdown changed to '2.'
The Doctor sat down at the white table the cube sat on, waiting as the countdown changed to '1' and then '0' before switching off and the top opened.
"Geronimo." The Doctor smirked, leaning forwards to peer inside.
"What's happening?" Kate asked.
"Well?" Amy pressed, "What's in there?"
The Doctor sat back in a huff, "there is nothing in here. As Thea said."
"Er, well, that's good. It's not, it's not bombs, it's not aliens."
"Why? Why is there nothing inside? Why? It doesn't make any sense."
The Doctor stepped out if the cubicle and headed over to the technician by the computers "Glasses," he put his hands on his shoulders, the man wearing glasses. "Is it the same? Is it the same all around the world?"
"They're empty." Kate shook her head, "We're safe, right?"
"Ah, no, no, no, we are very far from safe. All along, every action has been deliberate. Why draw attention to the cubes if they don't contain anything?"
"Because they're not empty." Thea said quietly, getting that feeling now.
"But there was nothing inside!" Amy turned to her.
"Nothing we could see."
Amy gasped, catching sight on the monitors, "look."
They turned to see people clutching their chests and collapsing.
"They're CCTV feeds from across the world." The technician told them, "they're showing the same."
"People are dying!" Kate cried in alarm.
"What?" The Doctor frowned, "They can't be dying. How? How are they dying?"
Thea leaned forwards, "looks like a heart attack." She glanced at the Doctor, if the cubes were causing heart attacks on humans, then would his left heart be shut down as well?
"I want information on how people are being affected." Kate ordered.
"The cubes brought people close together. They opened and then...argh!" The Doctor suddenly doubled over, clutching his chest, falling back on a chair.
"Dad!" Thea cried, rushing to his side.
"Doctor, what's the matter?" Amy asked urgently.
"Argh." The Doctor winced in pain, "Ah, I don't know!"
"Hospitals are logging a global surge in heart failures." The technician reported, "Cardiac arrests."
"Oh, thank the stars!" Thea breathed.
"How is that good?" Amy exclaimed.
"Well, it's not, technically, but at least the right hearts still working," she defended, "at least it's not both."
"Okay, I'm going to get you to the hospital!" Amy decided, moving to try and help the Doctor.
"What happened 10 seconds after the cube opened," Thea called to the technicians, "show the patterns in their electrical currents."
A heartbeat appeared on screen.
"See?" The Doctor nodded only to clutching his chest in pain.
"No!" Kate stared in horror.
"Yes, the power cut. They zapped the power and then argh!" He winced as pain struck him, "They're signal boxes. People leaning in, wham. Pure electrical surge out of the cube targeted at the nearest human heart. The heart, an organ powered by electrical currents, short-circuited. How to destroy a human? Go for the heart. Ow." He winced again, hunching forwards from the pain, "crikey Moses."
"Doctor, the scan you set running." Kate looked back at him, "The transmitter locations. It's found them."
The Doctor leaned on Thea to get a better look at the monitors, seeing the 7 points across the Earth, "And look at them all, pulsing bold as brass. Seven of them, all across the world. Ow!" He groaned in pain, "Seven stations, seven minutes. Why is that important? Argh! Ow, ow. How do you people manage?" He asked the humans, "One heart, it is pitiful. A wormhole, bridging two dimensions. Seven of them hitched onto this planet. Where's the closest?"
"Rorys work." Thea answered, helping the Doctor to his feet.
"Then let's go!" Amy determined, dreading to think what kind of trouble Rory could have gotten himself into.
"Wait a moment!" Thea straightened the Doctor up, giving a hard hit on the front of his chest and then again on the back.
"Oh, welcome back lefty!" The Doctor whooped as his heart restarted, "Right, to the hospital." He pointed at Thea as Kate and Amy hurried ahead to get a car ready, "that really hurt."
She crossed her arms, "Well, you deserved it! Imagine if it shut off both your hearts!" She rubbed her arms, looking down to the floor, mumbling, "I don't want to be the last."
"I know." The Doctor whispered, pulling her in for a tight hug.
They both knew it was inevitable that one day he would die and she would be alone, the Last of the Time Lords herself, but they could make it last.
He didn't really think, he was so used to putting himself in danger, not caring about himself as long as others were safe he never thought about her.
She always had the tough girl act when really she was terrified that one wrong bonk to the head would be enough to take him out.
~.~
"How many deaths have been recorded?" the Doctor asked Kate as they hurried through the hospital.
"We don't know." Kate replied, "We think it could be a third of the population."
"Kate, I have to find the wormhole, but the attacks could still happen. Tell the world. Tell them how to deal with this. The world needs your leadership right now."
Kate straightened, "I'll do my best."
"Of course you will. Good luck, Kate." He pulled out the sonic, scanning around as Kate dash off, seeing Thea staring over at a little girl standing with a cube in her hands, her face blank. "Hello. Hello!" He moved the sonic closer to her, "You are giving off some very strange signals." He brought the sonic closer and her face glowed blue.
"Oh, my God." Amy gasped.
"Outlier droid, monitoring everything. If I shut her down, I can..." He flashed the sonic at her, catching her as she collapsed, gently lowering her down.
"This way," Thea turned and led them down the corridors, round a corner to a goods lift. She tilted her head, "Did I say something about a lift?" She pushed the button, summoning the lift.
"Ah, portal to another dimension in a goods lift?" Amy raised her eyebrows.
"The energy signals converge here." the Doctor remarked, seeing the signals on the sonic, "Does seem a bit cramped, though." The doors opened and they stepped inside.
Thea reached out and placed a hand on the back wall, making it wobble.
The Doctor grinned, "Through the looking glass, kiddo?"
Thea rolled her eyes, "funny." She commented as they stepped through into a large, rather dark, alien ship.
"Where are we?" Amy asked, looking around.
"We're in orbit." The Doctor answered, seeing the Earth outside one of the windows, "One dimension to the left."
"Rory!" Amy cried, spotting her husband on a slab, Brian on another one besides him.
"Ah. Soborian smelling salts." The Doctor tossed Amy the vial to help wake the men up.
"Aren't those outlawed in seven galaxies?" Thea questioned, pursing her lips.
Amy waved the salts under Rorys nose as he jolted up.
"Get down!" Thea yelled, pulling the Doctor down as someone began to fire at them.
"What kind of a welcome do you call that?" The Doctor muttered, seeing a man dressed in black with a worn and wrinkling face. He turned to Amy, "Get them out of here. You too. Now!"
"What are you going to do?" Amy asked as Rory woke his father up with the salts.
"Absolutely no idea." The Doctor admitted, "Get him to the portal."
Brian jerked awake as Amy and Rory began to wheel him back to the portal.
"So many of them crawling the planet," the man in black spoke as the humans left, disappearing and reappearing before a computer screen, "seeping into every corner."
"The Shakri." Thea breathed, hardly daring to believing it. The Shakri were a Gallifreyan myth, a legend. Like the Whispermen and... the Toclafane...so maybe she shouldn't be that surprised.
"It's not possible." The Doctor frowned, "I thought the Shakri were a myth. A myth to keep the young of Gallifrey in their place."
"The Shakri exist in all of time," the Shakri stated, "and none. We travel alone and together. The Seven."
"The Shakri craft, connected to Earth, through seven portals and seven minutes. Ah, but why?"
"The Tally." Thea answered, recalling the stories.
"Why the cubes?" The Doctor turned to her, "Why Earth?"
"Not Earth, humanity." The Shakri corrected, "The Shakri will halt the human plague before the spread. Erase humanity before it colonises space. We thought the cubes were an invasion. The start of war. The human contagion only must be eliminated."
"Who are you calling a contagion?" Amy demanded as she and Rory returned.
"Oi!" The Doctor turned to them, "Didn't I tell you two to go?"
"You should have learned by now." Rory remarked.
"I knew they'd be back." Thea smiled at them.
"Psychic." The Doctor flicked her nose as she rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, and what is this Tally anyway?" Amy asked.
"Some people call it 'Judgment Day', or the 'Reckoning'."
"Don't you know?"
"I've never wanted to find out."
"Before the Closure, there is the Tally." The Shakri stated, "the Shakri serves the Tally."
"The pest controllers of the universe, the story said." Thea remarked.
She could remember being told the story as a little girl, her grandmother always told her it whenever she was misbehaving, it usually worked well enough. Until it got to the point where she was refusing to sleep, and back then, she needed a good few hours each night. Her parents had not been impressed she kept interrupting them at night. She hadn't been aloud to see that grandmother again.
Good riddance.
"Wow." Amy muttered, "that's some seriously weird bedtime story."
"You can talk." The Doctor scoffed at her, "Wolf in your grandmother's dress?" He turned back to the Shakri, "So, here you are, depositing slug pellets all over the Earth, made attractive so humans will collect them, hoping to find something beautiful inside. Because that's what they are. Not pests or plague, creatures of hope, forever building and reaching. Making mistakes, of course, every life form does. But, but they learn. And they strive for greater, and they achieve it. You want a tally. Put their achievements against their failings through the whole of time, I will back humanity against the Shakri every time."
"And so will I." Thea added.
"The Tally must be met." The Shakri stated, "The second wave will be released."
"What does that mean?" Amy asked, growing concerned.
"It's going to release more cubes." Thea realised, "and kill more people."
"The human plague breeding and fighting." The Shakri nearly spat, "And when cornered, their rage to destroy. You're too late, Doctor. The Tally shall be met."
With that it vanished.
"He's gone?" Amy blinked.
"He was never here." Thea countered, "ships interface."
"Like a talking propaganda poster." The Doctor agreed, moving to the computers, "I can stop the second wave. I can disconnect all the Shakri craft from their portals, leave them drifting in the darkspace. Ah, but all those people who were near the cubes, so many of them will have died."
"Defibrillation." Thea called, making the Doctor looked at her, "We could use the cubes to turn people's hearts back on."
"Oh, you are brilliant!" He pointed at her, starting to input the command, "Thirty seconds. Don't let me down, cubes, you're working for me now." The ship began to shake violently as the command went through, "oh dear. All these cubes. There's going to be a terrible wave of energy ricocheting around here any second. Run!"
"Come along, Williams!" Thea laughed, pulling Rory along with her as they ran back to the portal.
"I'm going to miss this!" Rory couldn't help but laugh with her as the jumped through the portal seconds to spare as the ship exploded as all around the world people started to get up from the ground.
~.~
Thea smiled as she hugged Kate tightly back outside the Tower of London. The last time they'd met hadn't been the happiest of day what with it having been the Brigadiers funeral and hugging Kate rather much felt like getting a hug from a big sister. Which she supposed, giving their fathers old friendship, she rather was in a way, despite Thea was centuries older than her.
And she did miss dear old Alistair very much, it was nice to see Kate following in her father footsteps and making her own name for herself it helped her know that while she may follow the Doctors footsteps and be like him, she could also be known for her work.
"The file does not do you any justice." Kate told her as they pulled apart.
"It's how I surprise everyone." Thea grinned.
"You, er, you really are as remarkable as Dad said." Kate turned to the Doctor and gave him a platonic kiss on the cheek, "Thank you."
"My!" the Doctor smiled, "A kiss from a Lethbridge Stewart. That is new." He checked his watch, "Oh dear, we're late for dinner."
"Bye Kate," Thea waved as they got in the car to take them back to Amy and Rorys, "See you soon!"
~.~
They'd had a quiet evening in, the group of give sitting around the table finishing off their Chinese food.
"We should check in with the gang," Thea said as she finished her last mouthful of food.
It wasn't that she had been worried about them, nor had they really been worried about the cubes, their trust in her was unbelievable. But she knew they hadn't been able to keep their friends and families from the cubes all the time and knowing what Ranis mother was like, the woman had highly likely been affected by the cubes and rather would have worried best to check she was doing okay now.
"Hmm, yes." The Doctor agreed, "Things to do, worlds to save, swings to...swing on." He grabbed two fortune cookies for the pair as they headed to the TARDIS only to look back at them, "Look, I know, you both have lives here. Beautiful, messy lives. That is what makes you so fabulously human. You don't want to give them up. I understand."
"Actually, it's you they can't give up." Brain cut in smiling at his son, "and I don't think they should. Go with him. Go save every world you can find. Who else has that chance? Life will still be here."
"There's plenty of room in the TARDIS." Thea left the offer open.
But Brian shook his head, "Somebody's got to water the plants. Just bring them back safe."
Amy and Rory grinned as they got up to follow the Time Lords to the TARDIS, pausing to wave to Brain before stepping inside for their next adventure.