Rosita and Jed made their way towards Latimer street and it's endless row of houses. The pair split up to ask the residents anything about the doctor or any other phantasmic incidents. Said residents would either slam the door in Rosita's face or claimed to know nothing. It was only Jed with his charm, wits and luck who managed to find out that the Lakes lived at number 15.
The two walked along the cold and dusty road getting closer and closer to the fated home. Number 21, number 19, number 17. Finally, they stood outside it's unkept wooden doors. Jed and Rosita looked at each other as Jed hesitantly inched his hand closer and closer to the door. Just as his fingertips grazed the handle, the door suddenly opened!
The two jumped back in shock before Rosita cried out "Bloody hell it's you!"
"I was about to say the same thing." The Doctor quipped back with an intrigued and cocky smile.
Jed stared the figure up and down. "Are you-"
"The Doctor? The one, the only and the best!" He responded with a wink.
Jed felt he had trouble breathing as he stood in the presence of this mythic figure. Rosita looked at the man in front of her and felt a million questions build up inside her, threatening to spill out. 'How did you survive the explosion' being one or 'are all of Jed's stories and crazed theories true' being another.
Right now, there was a more pressing question at the front of her mind. "How did you get in? I would have thought this house would be all locked up."
"Spare key stored in a garden gnome by the side. Could have used the sonic screwdriver but this was easier."
"Wait, how did you know tha-"
"All good questions for another time. As we are all acting like common burglars, I suggest we make our way inside."
The Doctor's new companions made their way inside the large house. They looked around in wonder having been more accustomed to the squalors of London.
"This place is nice." Jed stated.
"Oh it's all new and scary now, but give it time and it'll feel like a proper home." The Doctor said seemingly out on instinct.
"Excuse me?" Rosita asked.
The Doctor looked at Rosita out of confusion before shaking his head, having no idea what he had just said or why.
Jed filled the silence by asking "So who are the Cybarmen?" betraying a hungry curiosity for the unknown adversary.
"The Cybermen are old enemies of mine. They used to be us and are determined to make us like them." The Doctor's expression darkened. "They take away everything that defines you as a man. Your love and your pride, everything that makes life worth living. Instead, all that's left is an ungodly creature. A shell of a man with hollow sockets for eyes and a metal rap for a voice."
Jed was stunned into another silence before he awkwardly joked "So it's got no nose? How does it smell?"
"Terrible" The Doctor completed the ancient dad joke with a smirk. Rosita looked at the Doctor in intrigue. For some reason she felt like the smile belonged to someone else.
The Doctor continued his explanation. "So you're all likely wondering why we're here. The Cybermen have been kidnapping and murdering people in cold blood these past dark days. But I am certain that this was the site of the first kidnappings. A mister Jackson Lake from Sussex."
Rosita couldn't help but hear a slight warble in his voice as the Doctor quickly continued. "This is a big house, let's split up and see what we can find. Rosita you take the top floor, I'll investigate the basement and Jed you can check out all the rooms here. Any sign of trouble, give me a shout and I'll be there in due time. Well, allons-y!"
Rosita rolled her eyes at the hero but also felt a touch of sympathy. She had been a barmaid long enough to be able to tell when a man was hiding something. She knew his heroic and outgoing persona was just a front, only thing she didn't know was what the front was for.
With all the wonderful myths and legends about the Doctor, what on earth could cause a man to run so fast and so far away from his demons? She made her way to the top floor as requested and found one of the doors was open. She looked inside and was hit by a pungent smell and a repulsive sight. Inside the room was a dead woman's body. "Doctor!" she screamed.
Immediately the Doctor and Jedidiah ran to Rosita's location. Rosita carefully got closer to the corpse and noticed recognised the markings on the right side of her body. "Doctor, look at the burn marks near her collarbone, they almost look like fingerprints. It must be the Cybermen, right Doctor? Doctor?"
The two companions looked at their hero and saw the haunted pain in his eyes. He ran out of the room, tripped on the carpet and nearly fell over the railing. Rosita grabbed him and forced him to look at her. His mouth opened but no voice came out. Rosita tried reading his lips but all she could understand was "(?) Get out. (?) I'm the Doctor…"
"Doctor? Doctor, what's wrong? Do you know her?" Rosita asked.
The Doctor felt a name briefly flicker in his heart, a semblance of his past life before the Cybermen had changed him. "No, I do not know who she is, but it is a tragedy for any life to be lost."
A single tear welled up in his eye. The name had been extinguished as something inside took back control. The Doctor hid himself away from the loving woman and then spoke with an unfamiliar voice. "Take her body. Bury it in the garden. Give her a good Christian burial, it's no less then what she deserves."
The two trusty companions felt bad for the Doctor so they did he ordered and buried the unknown woman in the garden. As Jed tried his best at a eulogy for their Jane Doe, Rosita looked up at the house and noticed the Doctor stare at the makeshift funeral clearly in pain.
"Continue praying for her, don't stop until I come back." Rosita said to Jed as she went inside the house. Rosita walked gently towards the Doctor who was had a closed pocket watch gripped firmly in his hand. Rosita could hear Jed out the window awkwardly giving his one man eulogy.
"Doctor?"
Rosita saw the Doctor flinch as she approached him. "We shouldn't stay here Rosita, this is a cursed and haunted domain. I haven't even shown you my magnificent transport through time and space yet!" He said with a strained smile as he put his pocket watch away without him realising.
"Doctor, who is that woman?"
The man in front of Rosita went silent before quietly answering "I don't know. I truly do not know." The Doctor immediately picked up and said with a bombastic voice "But I mustn't stop to mourn. I am the Doctor. Protector of London and sworn enemy of the Cybermen."
Rosita could see in his heart that he knew the truth even if his mind didn't know… or didn't want to know.
"Look I know we don't know each other that well-" Suddenly the Doctor's head perked up.
"Rosita shush."
"Don't you shu-"
"No really, do you hear that?"
"I can't hear a thing."
"Exactly, You told Jedidiah to keep praying until you come back. Then why did he stop around a minute ago?"
Rosita's eyes widened when she realised what he was implying. She looked out the window and saw a broken shovel and a heavy set of footprints in the grass exiting the garden.
"Come on they can't have gone far!" The doctor yelled as he bolted down the stairs to the garden. Rosita caught up as best as she could but by the time she got down, she saw the Doctor on his knees outside the garden where the Cyberman's footprints had ended.
"It's too late, the trail ends here. I'm sorry but Jed is gone." The Doctor broke down as Rosita tried her best to comfort him. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry" She heard him sob under his breath.
"It's okay Doctor-"
"No it's not! Don't you see, this keeps happening. I'm the Doctor. The only thing I am, and I can't even-" The Doctor's sentence was interrupted with another sob in the ice-cold grass. Rosita had no idea what to say. She was used to comforting drunks and mad-men but this was entirely new to her. She didn't know if the Doctor was mad or grieving or scared or all three. "Leave me." She at last heard.
"What?"
"I said leave me! Go home Rosita and never try to find me again. I'll just let you down or get you killed like so many others."
Rosita didn't even try to argue, she began to walk away not knowing where to go.
She thought about going back to Jed's house. Someone had to break the news to his sister but in the end she didn't have the heart. She was the one who convinced Jed. She was the reason he was taken.
She thought back to the Cyberman's arm that the urchin sold her. That damned thing that began her problems in the first time. How it didn't have burn marks but scratch marks instead. How it came from the south bank themes, the exact same place as the local gasworks! Rosita came to a realisation; how could she be so stupid!
She ran back to the grieving hero on his knees and explained her latest theory. Rosita took a breath when she realised it was falling on deaf ears. It was time to take matters into her own hands. No more running, it was time to face the Cybermen.