A/N: I told you that this was a REALLY long chapter. I had to split it into four chapters, so this is the third. Let's continue, shall we?

I do not own Doctor Who. All I own is this story and my OC.

Reviews are appreciated, but flaming is not tolerated. Thanks, and enjoy

PADDLING AGAINST THE TIDE

"I raise my flags, don my clothes.
It's a revolution, I suppose.
We'll paint it red to fit right in."
– Imagine Dragons: 'Radioactive' (Night Visions [2012])

The Tyler's Flat
The Doctor's bedroom

It took the combined efforts of Rose and Mickey to pick up the unconscious, but violently convulsing and sweating Doctor and take him back into the Flat and into the guest bed to sleep off the aftereffects of his regeneration. Jackie helped Katy back inside and ordered her to take a seat on the settee while she took care of the cut on her forehead and made the brunette a strong cup of tea and gave her a small plate of Christmas cake.

"Eat that. You need to get your strength back up." Jackie orders her daughter sternly, and Katy reluctantly eats, wanting to be back in the guest room, helping Rose attend to the suffering Doctor. Mickey had ducked out temporarily to go and fetch his laptop, so they could do some research into exactly what pilot fish were; apart from what the Doctor and Katy had already told them. When he returns, he immediately shrugs off his parka and tosses it on the settee; making a beeline for the dining table to switch on his laptop.

"Jackie, I'm using the phone line. Is that all right?" He asks Jackie, who nods.

"Yeah. Keep a count of it." Jackie agrees, setting a mug of tea beside Mickey and glancing at the wall clock. "It's midnight. Christmas Day." She tells them, before looking over at an exhausted and worried looking Rose who comes in from the Doctor's bedroom and slumps on the settee beside Katy. "Any change?"

"He's worse." Rose shakes her head. "Just one heart beating now." Katy pales, and swallows her mouthful of Christmas cake hard, feeling like she had just finished chewing and swallowing a brick, rather than a claggy, masticated piece of fruit cake. Was this something that she was likely to go through when it was her turn to 'regenerate' (god forbid)? She made a mental note to ask the Doctor when he fully recovered.

The TV grabs their attention when a concerned reporter starts talking.

"Scientists in charge of Britain's mission to Mars have re-established contact with the Guinevere One space probe. They're expecting the first transmission from the planet's surface in the next few minutes." The man whom Harriet had working with for this project suddenly appears on screen.

"Yes, we are. We're, we're back on schedule. We've received the signal from Guinevere One. The Mars landing would seem to be an unqualified success." The man explained, looking relieved but still a little uneasy. A microphone from a nearby reporter is shoved in the poor man's face.

"But is it true that you completely lost contact earlier tonight?" He asked, and Katy frowns a little at this new information.

"Yes, we had a bit of a scare. Guinevere seemed to fall off the scope, but it, it was just a blip. Only disappeared for a few seconds." It was explained. "She is fine now, absolutely fine. We're getting the first pictures transmitted live any minute now. I'd better get back to it, thanks." The man disappears off screen, looking a bit stressed.

Mickey suddenly pipes up from over at his laptop.

"Here we go, pilot fish." Katy and Rose crowd around Mickey's laptop, while Jackie continued watching the TV. It revealed a short, animated video demonstrating an example of what pilot fish actually were. "Scavengers, like Katy said. Harmless. They're tiny." Mickey points out pictures of tiny, striped minnow like fish darting about on screen. "But the point is, they're little fish swim alongside the big fish." A huge Jaws-like shark darts in front of the screen, proving the point Mickey was trying to make.

"Do you mean like Sharks?" Rose questioned.

"Great big sharks." Katy agreed.

"So, what the Doctor meant is, we had them," he points to the minnows. "Now we get that." Mickey points to the Great Big Shark, and Katy shudders at the idea. Rose nodded, understanding.

"Something is coming. How close?" She asked, and Mickey shrugged.

"There's no way of telling, but the pilot fish don't swim far from their daddy."

"So, it's close?" Rose asks, but Jackie interrupts before either Mickey or Katy could answer.

"Funny sort of rocks." The three of them turn to look at the TV, just as the reporter suddenly chimes in.

"The first photographs—"

"They're not rocks." Katy states, shaking her head insistently.

"This image is being transmitted via mission control, coming live from the depths of space on Christmas morning." The reporter tells viewers, just as a red-eyed ugly alien with a head like a goat's skull suddenly growls and gurgles at the screen, causing the four of them to jump back in shock. Katy and Rose look at each other with worry as the reporter's voice chimes back in sounding shaky. "The face of an alien life form was transmitted live tonight on BBC1." Jackie flicks the channel over and an American newsreader chimes in.

"On the 25th of December, the human race has been shown absolute proof that alien life exists." Katy snorts, rolling her eyes, questioning why they believed this over what happened several months ago with the Slitheen. Another flick of the channel and another reporter was giving their two cents.

"These remarkable images have been relayed right across the world." Katy, fed up with the hypocrisy of humans, moves away from the living room and goes back to the Doctor; preferring to just sit in the guest room and take care of him than sit or stand around listening to something that wasn't actually new.

Tower of London

Meanwhile, across the city at the Tower of London, a cortege of black cars drive past the White Tower, and the man working with Harriet, whose name is Llewellyn, is let out by a Secret Service Officer and greeted by a man in Army Uniform with a troop of Red Berets.

"This way, sir." One of the Red Berets, a man called Blake, addressed Llewellyn who nods and allows himself to be escorted away.

UNIT HQ

Blake takes Llewellyn to Basement level 11 which is a hive of industry. Llewellyn is taken to a quieter room within the building.

"Mister Llewellyn, ma'am." Blake introduces him to Harriet Jones, who promptly turns and flashes her ID at Llewellyn.

"Harriet Jones. Prime Minister."

"Oh. Well, yes, I know who you are." Llewellyn explains nervously to Harriet who nodded. "I suppose I've ruined your Christmas." Llewellyn is apologetic, but Harriet merely smiles politely at him and shakes her head.

"Never off duty." She reassures him. "Now, we've put out a cover story. Alex has been handling it." Harriet turns towards a young man in his mid-twenties who is wearing an earpiece and carrying a computer tablet and diallis in his hands.

"We've said it was a hoax. Some sort of mask or prosthetics. Students hi-jacking the signal, that sort of thing." Alex explains, briskly. Harriet smiles at him, looking very much like a mother proud of her son's achievements.

"Alex is my right-hand man. I'm not used to having a right-hand man. I quite like it though." Alex smiles, looking quite flattered by the praise.

"I quite like it myself." He acknowledged.

"I don't suppose there's any chance it was a hoax?" Llewellyn asks, sounding slightly hopeful. Harriet gives him another polite smile and shrugged.

"That would be nice." She agreed. "Then we could all go home." They walk over to a refreshments table and Harriet gestures towards it. "I don't suppose anyone's offered you a coffee?"

"No," Llewellyn answers, as Harriet immediately picks up a cup of coffee.

"But, no, the transmission was genuine. And this seems to be a new species of alien. At least, not one we've encountered before." Harriet explains to Llewellyn who pales as she hands him the cup of coffee.

"You seem to be talking about aliens as a matter of fact." Llewellyn observes, curiously.

Harriet looks nonchalant.

"There's an Act of Parliament banning my autobiography." She explains, casually. Blake approaches her.

"Prime Minister?"

"I'm with you." Harriet acknowledges him and they go out into the main area.

"Miss Jacobs can explain." Blake tells them, indicating to a young woman in her mid-20s, dressed in a smart business suit and skirt with her blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. She stands and greets them.

"I don't think we've been introduced," Harriet says to Jacobs. "Harriet Jones, Prime Minister." Sally gives her a polite smile in response.

"Yes, I know who you are." Jacobs retakes her seat in front of a computer. "The transmission didn't come from the surface of Mars. Guinevere One was broadcasting from a point five thousand miles above the planet." She explains.

"In other words, they've got a ship and the probe is on board." Blake states.

"But if they're not from the surface, then they might not be from Mars itself. Maybe they're not actual Martians." Llewellyn realises, as Blake scoffs at the idea.

"Of course not. Martians look completely different." He tells them. "We think the ship was in flight when they just came across the probe."

"And they're moving." Jacobs adds to the discussion. "The ship's still in flight now. We've got it on the Hubble array." Harriet comes closer to the computer screen.

"Moving in which direction?"

"Towards us." Jacobs confirms.

"How fast?"

"Very fast." Jacobs states, confidently. Harriet turns and observes her curiously.

"What was your name, again?" She asks Jacobs, politely.

"Sally."

"Thank you, Sally." Harriet says, with a smile.

The Tyler's Flat

Katy was kneeling beside the Doctor, mopping his sweaty forehead with a cold face-washer, while still keeping an ear out for anything new going on in the next room with Rose, Mickey, and Jackie, and the latest update on the TV.

"Get well soon, Doctor. We really need your help with this one. It's a little bit out of our league." She whispers to him. The Doctor doesn't respond but continues to shift restlessly in the bed as he continues to complete his obviously difficult regeneration.

Katy winces sympathetically.

"Rose. Katy. Take a look. I've got access to the military." Mickey shouts out to them, and Katy groans.

"I can't come at the moment, Mick. Could you just tell me from there?" Katy requests as she resoaks the damp cloth back in the bowl of water on the bedside table and wrings it out.

"Is the Doctor okay?" Rose calls out, concerned.

"No change. He's just a restless sleeper at the moment." Katy reports back, wiping the cloth across the Doctor's face and his partially exposed chest to try and help cool him down a little. "What did you have to show us, Mick?"

"They're tracking a spaceship." Mickey explains, sounding urgent. "It's big, it's fast, and it's coming this way."

"Coming for what, though?" Rose asks. "The Doctor?"

"I don't know." Mickey admits sounding a little frustrated. "Maybe it's coming for all of us." Mickey gets a clearer image of four of the aliens on the screen of his laptop. UNIT has apparently gotten an even bigger picture of them than what was shown on the TV. "Have you seen them before?" He asks Rose, who frowns and shakes her head.

"No."

UNIT HQ

The alien leader displayed on the screen starts speaking a language closely resembling Klingons from the Star Trek TV shows and movies. Blake turns towards Alex and gestures at him.

"Translation software." He requests, and Alex nods obediently.

"Yes, sir."

The Tyler's Flat

"I don't understand what they're saying." Rose states, despairingly. "The TARDIS translates alien languages inside my head, all the time, wherever I am."

"So, why isn't it doing it now?" Mickey asks, concerned.

"I don't know. Must be the Doctor." Rose guesses. "Like he's part of the circuit, and he's, he's broken." Katy scowls at the description.

"He's not broken." She calls out, defensively. "He and the TARDIS are like one. The books I've read about the TARDIS told me that the Doctor and the TARDIS have a sort of partnership or companionship together, like a semi-instinctual neural link." Katy explains.

"What's that mean?" Mickey calls out, and Katy sighs.

"I think it means that if one of them is disconnected from each other; in this case when the Doctor regenerated into a new person, the TARDIS doesn't recognise him just yet and needs time to make the new connection." Katy guessed.

"And you don't think that that is weird?" Mickey groused, skeptically.

"Obviously not." Katy retorts.

UNIT HQ

The UNIT headquarters were being bombarded by requests from other countries about the current alien crisis. Blake turns towards Harriet with the latest message.

"I'm getting demands from Washington, Ma'am." He reports, and Harriet frowns in annoyance. "The President's insisting that he take control of the situation."

"You can tell the President, and please use these exact words: he's not my boss, and he's certainly not turning this into a war." Harriet informed Blake firmly. He nods, doing just that on his tablet as Harriet turns towards Alex for an update.

"What have we got?"

"Nothing yet." Alex admits, looking a little discouraged. "Translating an alien language is going to take time."

Harriet nods as Blake pipes up.

"How far off is the ship?"

"About five hours." Alex replies.

The Tyler's Flat
Doctor's Bedroom

The TV was still broadcasting the relevant information to viewers as it came in.

"Despite claims of an alien hoax, it's been reported that NATO forces are on red alert." The reporter explains in the background.

Neither Rose nor Mickey were exactly paying attention, and Katy had gone back to check on the Doctor, much to Rose's displeasure. But somebody had to help Mickey find the right information with him, so she stayed put. Katy's exhaustion, however, had caught up with her, and she fell asleep in the chair beside the Doctor, clutching at his hand in her sleep. Jackie had come in, but she didn't have the heart to wake up her daughter and send off for a quick nap, so she just left her where she was. She reached over and grabbed the face-washer and wet it before dabbing at the Doctor's still sweaty head, looking at him pleadingly.

"Oh, come on, sweetheart." Jackie wheedled to the Doctor, who frowned in his fitful sleep. "What do you need? What do you need? Tell me." She begged urgently, as the reporter on TV chimed in once again.

"Speaking strictly off the record, government sources are calling this our longest night."

UNIT HQ

"I don't suppose we've had a Code Nine?" Harriet asked her colleagues, hopefully. "No sign of the Doctor?" Blake shook his head.

"Nothing yet. You've met him, haven't you?" Blake looked awed and a little envious of her. "More like stuff of legends."

"He is that." Harriet smiled wistfully. "Failing him, what about Torchwood?" Blake looks at Harriet in astonishment. "I know I'm not supposed to know about it, I realise that." Harriet jumped in before Blake could tell her exactly that. "Not even the United Nations knows. But if there ever was a need for Torchwood, it's now." Blake hesitated, looking a little uncomfortable; especially with what Harriet was requesting of him. Torchwood weren't exactly known for being very ethical, especially when it came to anything involving aliens and the like.

"I can't take responsibility." He warns Harriet, who waves her hand dismissively.

"I can." She confirms. "See to it. Get them ready." Harriet requests.

"Prime Minister." Alex calls over Harriet who immediately comes over and peers down at the screen Alex was working diligently at.

"Has it worked?"

"Just about." Alex confirms. "People. That would be cattle. You belong to us. To the Sycorax. They seem to be called Sycorax, not Martians. We own you. We now possess your land, your minerals, your precious stones." Alex reads out loud, looking a little disturbed with what he had just translated. "You will surrender or they will die. Sycorax strong, Sycorax mighty, Sycorax rock; as in the modern sense, they rock." He explained, a little perplexed that aliens apparently knew that pop culture terminology.

Llewellyn frowns in confusion about a certain part of the translation.

"They will die. Not you will die, they will die?" He looks at both Alex and Harriet for an explanation. "Who's they?

"I don't know." Alex shrugged. "But it is the right personal pronoun. It's they." He confirms. Harriet swallows hard, before making a decision.

"Send them a reply." She requested, and Alex nodded; poised over the keyboard. "Tell them, this is a day of peace on planet Earth. Tell them, we extend that peace to the Sycorax." Harriet's face then hardens with a determination. "And then tell them, this planet is armed and we do not surrender."

The Tyler's Flat
Doctor's Bedroom

Like Katy, Jackie had eventually succumbed to the call of sleep and had passed out on the other side of the Doctor's bed, lying on her arms. Rose and Mickey had come over to investigate how the Doctor was faring and had found both Jackie and Katy like this. Katy had just started to stir when she overheard Rose lamenting about the Doctor to Mickey.

"The Doctor wouldn't do this." Rose was complaining to Mickey, who despite not completely liking or trusting the Doctor, was looking at him with concern. "The old Doctor, the proper Doctor—" Katy bristled in annoyance when she heard her sister saying this. "—He'd wake up. He'd save us." Katy chose that moment to sit up and let out a large yawn.

"It astonishes me how you still can't accept the fact that the Doctor is still the same man we both know, Rose." Katy chides her sister, turning to scowl at her. "He just changed his face; and not by choice." Rose just glowers at her. "Besides, he'd help us if he could. But his body has suffered a lot after being poisoned. I'm pretty sure that you would probably be sleeping it off too, if you were in his position." The blonde chose to turn and stomp away instead of retorting, causing Katy to roll her eyes at her sister's immaturity. "Nice argument. Good talk." Katy drawled sarcastically and turned sad, concerned eyes back onto the Doctor.

"You really love him, don't you?" Mickey observed, and Katy turned and looked at him with helpless tears trailing down her face.

"I do," Katy confirmed. "But I'm also scared, because of what might happen when it's eventually my turn one day." She confessed. "I just hope he'll be there to help when that time comes." Mickey walks in and pulls Katy up into his arms, hugging her tightly.

UNIT HQ

Dawn eventually comes, along with a response to the message Harriet had requested Alex to return to the Sycorax. The image of the alien appears on the screen, forcing Jacobs to summon Harriet, Alex, Blake, and Llewellyn over.

"They got the message. Here comes the response." Jacobs reports, and everybody watches as the Sycorax leader raises his hand and a blue energy plays over it.

Harriet frowns in confusion.

"What was that? Was that a reply?"

"I don't know," Alex replies. "It looked like some sort of energy, or static?"

"Almost like someone casting a spell." Llewellyn suggested, looking worried. At that same moment, that same blue energy plays over Jacob's head, causing the blonde woman to stare blankly into thin air as though stuck in some sort of trance. Several other people in the room do the exact same thing. "Maybe it's a different form of language, some sort of ideogram or pictogram." The people with blue energy playing over their heads, suddenly rise to their feet and start walking from the room. "What the hell?" Llewellyn blurts out in confusion, before noticing the blue energy. His eyes widen in shock, as does Alex, Harriet, and Blake. "It's the light. It's the same light." He approaches Jacobs. "Sally, what're you doing? Sally?" Llewellyn goes to reach out and touch her, but Harriet immediately stops him.

"Oh, leave her. You'll hurt her." She states, urgently.

"Let them pass!" Blake tells everyone else in the room, firmly. They all follow the blue energy-controlled people.

"Where are they going?" Llewellyn ponders, uneasily.

The Powell Estate

At the same moment, a blank-faced young man is walking along outside the Tyler's flat. His wife, Sandra, follows him, looking confused and distressed.

"What is wrong with you? Jason? Jason?" She shouts after her possessed husband as Katy, Rose, and Mickey come out the Tyler's Flat to see what the commotion was about. Rose frowns with concern.

"Sandra?" Rose calls out, drawing the young woman's attention.

"He won't listen." Sandra explains, desperately. "He's just walking. He won't stop walking! There's this sort of light thing." Katy swivels her eyes towards Jason, Sandra's husband, and blinks in surprise when blue energy plays about his head as he continues walking. Sandra chases after her husband, frantic. "Jason? Stop it right now!" She demands to her husband. "Please, Jason, just stop."

Katy, Rose, and Mickey go over to the balcony and look down to see lots of people in the same condition as Jason, walking through the estate heading up the staircase towards the estate roof.

UNIT HQ

Harriet, Alex, Llewellyn, and Blake are still following their colleagues through a level 2 corridor.

"They're all heading in the same direction." Harriet realises, but Llewellyn makes another astute observation about the people infected.

"It's only certain people. Why isn't it affecting us?" He questioned. Alex's eyes widen in horror when he receives a communication from another colleague over his earpiece.

"Prime Minister, it's happening all over the country." He reports in. They follow them all the way up the staircase.

"They're going all the way up. They're going to the roof." Llewellyn notes, while on the ground floor, watching all of this from his own perspective; a policeman makes a horrifying discovery of his own.

"Just making my way to the front of the building now." He looks up at the roof, and pales. "There's hundreds of them. Oh, God. They've got right to the edge. They're going to jump. They're all going to jump!"

"Sally, stop it!" Llewellyn tries to communicate with Jacobs, who remains oblivious to Llewellyn's request. "It's Danny Llewellyn. Danny Llewellyn. Sally, just concentrate. Listen to me. You're being controlled. We need you! Stop it, Sally!" All the controlled people line up along the edges of the roofs and stop there.

"It's not just the entire country. It's the whole world." Alex reports in, looking grim. On the street level, the policeman continues reporting in.

"They've stopped. They've all stopped. They're just standing there, right on the edge."

"According to reports, it's like a third. One third of the world's population. That's two billion people ready to jump." Alex continues the report, as Llewellyn's eyes widen in horror.

"Surrender or they will die." He remembers the translated message from the Sycorax.

Powell Estate

On the rooftops of the Powell Estate, Mickey looks at all the people standing at the edge of the roof, seemingly ready to jump, with trepidation.

"What do we do?" He asks the sisters. Katy bit her bottom lip, feeling a little bit out of her depth. But she was determined not to lose hope that everything will be alright in the end. Rose however, had an almost defeated expression on her face.

"Nothing." Rose responded dully. "There's no one to save us. Not anymore."

'So, you've chosen to give up, have you?' Katy looks at Rose with disgust before sighing and turning to head back down the staircase, and back to the Tyler's flat. She was determined to figure out what the Doctor needed to recuperate faster.

"Katy?" Mickey went after her, with Rose trailing behind them looking dejected.

UNIT HQ

Alex's eyes widened in surprise when he came across certain similarities pertaining to the controlled people currently standing on rooftops all over the world.

"Wait a minute." He immediately brings everyone's attention to it. "There is a pattern. All these people tend to be father and son, mother and daughter, brothers, and sisters." He realised. "Family groups, but not husbands and wives." Llewellyn immediately realises where Alex was going with his theory.

"Oh, my God. It's Guinevere One." He turns to Alex. "Have you got medical records on file for all your staff?"

"Of course, we have, yes." Alex frowns, looking a little taken aback by the random question. Harriet pulls Blake aside to speak with him in private.

"What about Torchwood?"

"Still working on it." He promises her, flatly. "Bear in mind they have just lost a third of their staff."

"But do they have what we need?" Harriet asks, urgently.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Well, tell them to hurry up." Harriet requests, firmly. Llewellyn finally finds what he is looking for and lets out a triumphant yell.

"Here it is." He pulls up Jacob's medical file. "Sally Jacobs, blood group A Positive. Who else walked out?" He asks.

"Luke Parsons." Alex supplies, helpfully. Llewellyn double clicks on the man's medical file.

"Luke Parsons, A Positive."

"Jeffery Baxter."

"Baxter, A Positive." Llewellyn confirms. "That's it. They're all A Positive." He indicates to the millions of people around the world who were currently standing on the rooftops, being held hostage by the Sycorax.

"How many people in the world are A Positive?" Blake wonders.

"No idea, but I bet it's one third." Llewellyn ventures a guess as Blake gives him a questioning look.

"What's so special about that blood group?"

"Nothing," Llewellyn admits. "But it's my fault. Guinevere One. It's got one of those plaques identifying the human race. A message to the stars. I mean, you don't expect anything to come of it, but I put on maps and music and samples." He explains, looking uncomfortable. "There's wheat seeds, and water, and, and blood. A Positive." Blake pales. "The Sycorax have got a vial of A Positive. And, well, I don't know how, but through that—"

"—They control the blood." Harriet concludes.

"Oh, my God." Llewellyn breathes, looking incredibly guilty. Harriet lets out a frustrated sigh before turning back to Blake, looking resigned.

"There's only one more thing I can try. Major, with me." She requests, and she and Blake leave the room.

Television Studio

With Union Flags draped either side of a large window standing directly behind the desk she was seated at; Harriet sits in a paneled room with a photograph of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second on it for her broadcast to the nation. Harriet faces the camera looking very solemn.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if I may take a moment during this terrible time. It's hardly the Queen's speech. I'm afraid that's been cancelled." Then she frowns and looks to someone off to the side, looking curious. "Did we ask about the Royal Family? Oh. They're on the roof." Harriet confirms, grimly.

The Tyler's Flat

Katy, who had momentarily left the Doctor's side so she could get a drink, pauses in the doorway to the kitchen to watch Harriet's broadcast. Mickey was sitting on the settee, watching the screen also with a grim expression on his face, while Rose and Jackie were standing in the doorway of the Doctor's bedroom.

Harriet continues talking.

"But ladies and gentlemen this crisis is unique, and I'm afraid to say, it might get much worse. I would ask you all to remain calm. But I have one request." They all watched as Harriet swallows hard and then looks beseechingly at the camera. "Doctor, if you're out there, we need you. I don't know what to do." Katy, Rose, Jackie, and Mickey all look in the direction of the Doctor, who was still fighting to regain consciousness. "If you can hear me, Doctor. If anyone knows the Doctor, if anyone can find him, the situation has never been more desperate. Help us. Please, Doctor. Help us. God help us."

Harriet concludes the broadcast, and Katy downs the remainder of the water in her glass before turning it upside down and putting it on the draining board beside the sink, before heading back to the Doctor's side. However, she pauses when she hears Rose suddenly burst into tears.

"He's gone. The Doctor's gone." Rose sobs to Jackie who looks at her daughter with concern. "He's left me, mum. He's left me, mum…" She curls up into Jackie's arms and cries into her shoulder.

"It's alright. I'm sorry." Jackie attempts to soothe Rose, but Katy had finally had enough of Rose's 'poor me' behavior and snaps.

"Oh, shut up and give it a rest." She snarls at Rose, earning a reproachful look from Jackie.

"Katy! That's enough!" She snaps at Katy, who returns the scowl.

"Oh, I agree. It is quite enough." Katy retorts, angrily. "The Doctor hasn't gone anywhere, you daft dimbo. He's been here all along, but with a different face. You're just not accepting that fact, and you've lost your faith in him-" The glass suddenly shatters in the block of flats, interrupting Katy's rant and forcing she, Rose, and Jackie to instinctively duck and cover their heads to protect themselves from the glass showering over their heads. The nearby Gherkin on St. Mary Axe shatters also, drawing the conclusion that glass had shattered at least city-wide.

"What the hell was that?" Jackie exclaimed, fearfully.

Katy, Rose, and Mickey go outside to stand amongst the glass shards and look up at the sky to see a big, powered rock with nasty pointy bits glide overhead, as big as Westminster. Rose suddenly looks determined and heads back inside.

"Mickey. Katy. We're going to carry him." Rose indicates towards the Doctor before turning to a bewildered Jackie. "Mum, get your stuff, and get some food. We're going."

"Where to?" Mickey asked, confused.

"The TARDIS." Rose replied, as Katy immediately understands where Rose was going with this and goes over to the bed and hurls off the duvet covering the Doctor. "It's the only safe place on Earth." She explains, as Katy tries once again to wrestle the Doctor into an upright position on the bed so she could put his dressing gown on.

"Yeah, for once I agree with you." Katy ignores the dirty look Rose gives her as she grunts underneath the Doctor's limp weight, making Mickey come over to help her.

Jackie frowns at her daughters.

"What're we going to do in there?" She demands.

"Hide." Katy replies, succinctly.

"Is that it?" Jackie sounded skeptical.

"Mum, look in the sky. There's a great, big, alien invasion and I don't know what to do, all right?" Rose snapped, frustratedly.

"We've travelled with him, and we've seen all sorts of things. But right now, all we can do is run and hide." Katy explains, a little more calmly than Rose. "Now, quick. We need to move."

She gets behind the Doctor and hooks her hands underneath his arms, trying to support most of his weight as she bear-hugs him around the middle. Mickey goes to grab his legs, but Rose darts forward to grab one of his legs in an attempt to be helpful as the three of them work together to wrestle the surprisingly heavy Doctor from the bedroom and out of the flat.

UNIT HQ

Harriet returns to the UNIT headquarters in time for Llewellyn to announce that the Sycorax were communicating with them once again.

"They're transmitting." He states, frantically. "Onscreen." The image of the Sycorax leader immediately projects onto the large screen in front of them. He starts to speak, and Alex looks down at the translator.

"Will the leader of this world stand forward." Alex translates the Sycorax Leader's words. Harriet takes a deliberate step forward, taking charge.

"I'm proud to represent this planet." She stated, determinedly.

"Come aboard." Alex reads, and Harriet frowns in confusion.

"Well, how do I do that?" She asks, looking around for a solution before she, Blake, Alex, and Llewellyn are enveloped in light.

"What's happening?" Llewellyn asks, worriedly.

"I would imagine it's called a teleport." Harriet answers.

Spaceship

The four of them are immediately beamed aboard into a massive cavern. More aliens are lined up in galleries. The Sycorax Leader walks up to them and starts to remove his bone-like helmet from his face.

Llewellyn brightens slightly.

"It's a helmet. They might be like us." He theorises, then his face drops when the Sycorax's face underneath the mask, turns out to be flatter and bony. "Or not."

Outside the Tyler's Flat

Katy, Rose, and Mickey carry the Doctor down the corridor and towards the stairwell, as Jackie follows behind, struggling with half-a-dozen carrier bags full of food. She accidentally drops one, causing Rose to look up at her with frustration.

"Mum, will you just leave that stuff and give us a hand?" Rose snaps, and Jackie looks up at her, glaring exasperatedly.

"It's food! You said we needed food!" She admonishes her daughter.

"Just leave it!" Rose snarls, and Katy whistles loudly to gain their attention.

"Oi, knock it off!" Katy chides them, before looking calmly but firmly at their mother. "We'll come back for the food in a moment, Mum. Could you just open and close doors for us, please?" Katy asks a little more politely than Rose, and Jackie nods, looking very disappointed with Rose and her attitude at the moment.

Spaceship

The Sycorax Leader finally 'speaks', translated by Alex.

"You will surrender, or I will release the final curse and your people will jump." Alex relays the translated message, causing the four humans to pale or object. Llewellyn steps forward, determined to make amends to the people of the Earth for unknowingly and unintentionally bringing the Sycorax down on them.

"If I can speak." He requested, bravely.

But Blake intercepts him.

"Mister Llewellyn, you're a civilian."

"No, I sent out the probe." Llewellyn retorts. "I started it. I made contact with these people. This whole thing's my responsibility." He turns to address the Sycorax leader who eyes him suspiciously. "With respect sir. The human race is taking its first steps towards the stars, but we are like children compared to you. Children who need help. Children who need compassion. I beg of you now, show that compassion." He pleads, beseechingly.

There was silence for several moments, and the four humans immediately see hope that the Sycorax leader would understand and be willing to be peaceful. But then suddenly, the leader raises a glittering force-whip, which he promptly cracks around Llewellyn's neck and disintegrates him. Blake looks at the alien in outrage.

"That man was your prisoner! Even your species must have articles of war, forbidding—" He is cut off and given the same treatment as Llewellyn, becoming a pile of dust and bones on the spaceship floor.

Harriet takes a step forward, brandishing her ID at the Sycorax.

"Harriet Jones, Prime Minister." She introduces herself, and the Sycorax respond in their language, sounding vaguely hostile.

"Yes, we know who you are." The leader states via Alex. "Surrender or they will die."

"If I do surrender, how would that be better?" Harriet demands.

"Half is sold into slavery or one third dies." Alex responds, sounding horrified at what he was reading. "Your choice."

A/N: Geez, the Doctor takes a time out and suddenly the world goes to hell in a handbasket.
Stay tuned for the fourth and final chapter for this episode. TTFN 😊