The trio were holding on to the console tightly as they were following an object speeding through the time vortex. Winnie continued to look at the screen where they viewed the object on radar, blinking mauve.
"What's the emergency?", Rose called out.
"It's mauve", the Doctor shouted.
"Next time, I vote we follow a red alert. I want to go dancing", Winnie told him.
"What?", Rose furrowed her brows.
"Mauve's for danger. Red's for camp. There have been so many misunderstandings. All those red alerts, all that dancing", he seemed to reminisce, then he shrugged at Winnie, "You're right, after this we'll follow a red alert. For now I've hacked in, slaved the Tardis. Where it goes, we go."
"And that's safe, is it?", Rose asked.
"Totally" - Doctor.
"Not at all" - Winnie.
They looked at each other like the other was wrong, then there was a bang and the Doctor pouted, "Okay, reasonably. Should have said reasonably there. No, no, no, no! It's jumping time tracks, getting away from us."
Winnie watched the mauve dot appear and reappear as the Doctor kept following it, "But what is it?"
"No idea", he grinned at her.
"Then why are we chasing it?", Rose asked.
"It's mauve and dangerous", Winnie replied.
"And about thirty seconds from the centre of London", the Doctor added.
They soon landed in the centre of London, in an alleyway between two houses, sitting closely next to one another.
"This cannot be modern day London", Winnie noted.
"Do you know how long you can knock around space without happening to bump into Earth?", the Doctor asked the Tylers.
"Five days?", Rose suggested, "Or is that just when we're out of milk?"
"Of all the species in all the Universe and it has to come out of a cow", the trio laughed at the Doctor's comment and started to wander around, "Must have come down somewhere quite close. Within a mile, anyway. And it can't have been more than a few weeks ago. Maybe a month."
"A month?", Rose frowned, "We were right behind it."
"It was jumping time tracks all over the place. We're bound to be a little bit out. Do you want to drive?"
"Yeah", Rose retorted, then she asked, "How much is a little?"
"A bit."
"Is that exactly a bit?"
"Ish."
"Guys", Winnie scolded them, rolling her eyes.
Rose rolled her eyes too at the interruption and then continued her questioning, "What's the plan, then? Are you going to do a scan for alien tech or something?"
"Rose, it hit the middle of London with a very loud bang. I'm going to ask", he showed the sisters his psychic paper.
"Attractive, intelligent and has proven himself a hero", Winnie raised her brows at what she read, "Really, Doctor?"
His eyes widened and he pulled it back to look at it himself, seeing exactly what Rose now said, "No, it says, Doctor John Smith, Ministry of Asteroids."
"That's not a thing", Winnie said, "And neither is what it showed to me."
"You're lying, aren't you?", he wasn't sure, "It's psychic paper, it tells you-"
"Whatever you want it to tell me, I know", Winnie smirked, "Attractive, intelligent hero. Got it. Now, shall we ask our way to the mauve alert?"
He pouted, took her hand and led them to the Deliveries Only entrance to what must have been a pub or club.
"Not very Spock, is it", Rose commented, "Just asking."
"Door, music, people. What do you think?"
"I think you should do a scan for alien tech. Give us some Spock, for once. Would it kill you?"
"Actually, I agree with Rosie", Winnie said.
"You always do", the Doctor pretty much whined.
Winnie chuckled, "But scanning is so much more efficient."
"But asking is so much more fun."
"And being noticed as time travellers looking for alien tech and getting locked up for it is bloody amazing, that doesn't change the fact that I'd love a scan and treasure hunt."
"Next time", he promised, "This time we'll do it my way."
"Next time we wanted to do red alert. I'd hope there's no need for that", she rolled her eyes as the Doctor worked the door with his sonic.
"Are you sure about that shirt?", he asked Rose.
Rose was wearing a shirt that was basically just a giant Union Flag and shrugged, "Too early to say. I'm taking it out for a spin."
"Come on if you're coming. It won't take a minute", with those words the Doctor ushered Winnie inside already, looked back at Rose, then shrugged and followed inside.
"It's got a vibe about it", Winnie commented on the smoke filled room where people sat at dimly lit tables with their drinks, dressed in fancy old-fashioned clothing, as they watched a woman singing on stage, accompanied by a small jazz band, "It's giving forties, but only in the pretty sense."
The Doctor furrowed his brows at her strange phrasing but quickly went on stage when the song ended to ask into the microphone, "Excuse me. Excuse me. Could I have everybody's attention just for a mo'?"
As the crows quieted down, Winnie had a more in-depth look around and caught sight of a poster 'Hitler will send no warning', her eyes widened and she started to shake her head, "Not pretty, then. Doctor!"
But he was unfazed, "Be very quick. Hello! Might seem like a stupid question, but has anything fallen from the sky recently?"
There was a beat where the Doctor looked at each face except Winnie's, then the crowd just started laughing.
"Sorry, have I said something funny?", meanwhile Winnie was still trying to grab his attention, "It's just, there's this thing that I need to find. Would have fallen from the sky a couple of days ago."
He was interrupted by a siren sounding, prompting the entire audience to evacuate. Winnie still waved at him.
"Would have landed quite near here. With a very loud-", he had now caught eye of Winnie and the poster she was pointing to and realisation landed in his features, "Bang."
They wandered out of the now-empty pub and back into the alleyway where they had landed and Rose was nowhere to be found. So Winnie called out to her, "Rosie? Rose? Marion?"
"You know, one day, just one day, maybe, I'm going to meet someone who gets the whole don't wander off thing", the Doctor rolled his eyes, "Nine hundred years of phone box travel, it's the only thing left to surprise me."
"I don't wander off", Winnie opened the Tardis and called out for Rose again, but only received a dismissive hum from the Tardis, letting her know she wasn't there, so she turned back to the Doctor, "Nine hundred years?"
"Nine hundred years", he looked down at her, "That okay?"
"Why do you always ask that when I find out something new about you?", she narrowed her eyes at him, "Why does my opinion of you matter to you so much?"
His hearts did a couple jumps there. He leaned closer to her and his breathing got shallow. She looked into his eyes with her own ones wide and full of awe. Oh, this was happening. Then a phone rang and they jumped back. Because it wasn't just any phone. It was the Tardis phone.
"How can you be ringing?", the Doctor opened the small door exasperatedly, "What's that about, ringing? What am I supposed to do with a ringing phone?"
"Pick it up", Winnie shrugged, looking away from the scene, still kind of shocked by what had just almost been going on.
He started sonicking the phone but before he could do any of the sort a young woman at the end of the alley called out, "Don't answer it. It's not for you."
"And how do you know that?"
"'Cause I do. And I'm telling you, don't answer it."
"Well, if you know so much, tell me this. How can it be ringing? It's not even a real phone. It's not connected, it's not-", he looked back her way to see she was gone so he answered the phone, "Hello? Hello? This is the Doctor speaking. How may I help you?"
Winnie distinctly heard a child calling for their mummy on the other end and furrowed her brows.
"Who is this? Who's speaking?", the Doctor was just as confused.
"Are you my mummy?", the child asked.
"Who is this?"
"Mummy?"
"How did you ring here? This isn't a real phone. It's not wired up to anything."
"Mummy?", then the call cut off and the Doctor hung up the phone. He shut the door and called into the Tardis for Rose once more before he instinctively took Winnie's hand and pulled her along.
He ushered her over to some bins outside a nice-looking upper middle class house where a larger middle aged woman shepherded a young boy into their air raid shelter in the front yard. She stood in front and called for 'Arthur' to hurry up as well.
The big man strutted outside, "Middle of dinner, every night. Blooming Germans. Don't you eat?"
"I can hear the planes", she whined.
He yelled up at the sky, "Don't you eat?"
"Oh, keep your voice down, will you? It's an air raid! Get in. Look, there's a war on", she scolded him.
"I know there's a war on", he begrudgingly let her push him in the shelter, "Don't push me."
As soon as the door was closed with the family inside the young woman from the alleyway walked through the garden gate and into the house, closely watched by the Doctor and Winnie. They walked around to see her raiding the kitchen for tins.
They followed to look through the dining room window where she now discovered a feast. She went back to the front door, whistled through her fingers twice and soon enough a couple of young boys came running to the house, until a whole group of children went into the house. The Doctor shrugged and pulled Winnie along after them.
Somehow they were now at the table with the children without having been noticed as they theorised what was happening here.
"It's got to be black market", a boy said, "You couldn't get all this on coupons."
"Ernie, how many times? We are guests in this house. We will not make comments of that kind", the young woman scolded him, "Washing up."
The children all laughed with the boy commenting, "Oh, Nancy."
"Haven't seen you at one of these before", Nancy said to another boy.
"He told me about it", he nodded to the boy next to him.
"Sleeping rough?", she asked empathetically.
"Yes, miss."
"All right, then", she picked up the plate of meat and handed it to the child to her right, "One slice each, and I want to see everyone chewing properly."
"Thank you, miss", they all said as they picked their slice off the plate.
Everyone gasped when the Doctor took his, saying, "Thanks, miss."
"It's all right", Nancy told them all, "Everybody stay where you are."
"Good here, innit? Who's got the salt?", the Doctor started eating, earning a swat from Winnie.
"You're taking food from starving children", she hissed at him.
"Back in your seats", Nancy spoke over it to the children, "He shouldn't be here either, neither of them,"
"So, you lot", the Doctor said with a full mouth to the scared children, "What's the story?"
"What do you mean?", Ernie asked.
"You're homeless, right? Living rough?"
Winnie snatched his plate away and handed it to the girl next to her who hadn't even gotten to the plate of meat before the Doctor had interrupted.
"Why do you want to know that? Are you coppers?"
"Of course we're not coppers", the Doctor seemed offended, "What's a copper going to do with you lot anyway? Arrest you for starving? I make it 1941. You lot shouldn't even be in London. You should've been evacuated to the country by now."
"I was evacuated", another little boy said, "Sent me to a farm."
"So why'd you come back?"
"There was a man there-"
"Yeah, same with Ernie", another boy spoke up, "Two homes ago."
"Shut up", Ernie said, "It's better on the streets anyway. It's better food."
"Yeah", the other one agreed, "Nancy always gets the best food for us."
"So that's what you do, is it, Nancy?", the Doctor asked the woman herself.
"What is?", Nancy was weary of him - rightfully so. After all he had just waltzed in here and taken two slices of meat.
"As soon as the sirens go, you find a big fat family meal still warm on the table with everyone down in the air raid shelter and bingo! Feeding frenzy for the homeless kids of London Town. Puddings for all, as long as the bombs don't get you."
"Something wrong with that?", she had gotten up and stood between the Doctor and Winnie now.
"Wrong with it? It's brilliant. I'm not sure if it's Marxism in action or a West End musical."
"Why'd you follow me? What do you want?"
"I want to know how a phone that isn't a phone gets a phone call", the Doctor told her, "You seem to be the one to ask."
"I did you a favour", she shrugged a little, "I told you not to answer it, that's all I'm telling you."
"Great, thanks", he shrugged and went on to another topic, "And I want to find a blonde in a Union Jack. I mean a specific one. I didn't just wake up this morning with a craving. Anybody seen a girl like that?"
"Flag", Winnie corrected him and earned a look from him. She shrugged, "Let's hope she's not at sea, only then it would be a Union Jack."
"How-"
"Mum used to date a sailor."
He raised his head in a long nod.
"No blondes, no flags", Nancy almost glared now, "Anything else before you leave?"
"Yeah, there is, actually", the Doctor sat up straight and started drawing on a napkin, "Thanks for asking. Something I've been looking for. Would've fallen from the sky about a month ago, but not a bomb. Not the usual kind, anyway. Wouldn't have exploded. Probably would have just buried itself in the ground somewhere, and it would have looked something like this."
He handed the napkin around where he had drawn a rough sketch of the object that essentially looked like a tube. The children all looked at it sorrowfully, scared of the object, and the stranger.
There was a knock on the door and everybody jumped, "Mummy? Are you in there, mummy?"
Winnie and the Doctor looked outside to see a blonde little boy with a gas mask.
"Mummy?"
"Who was the last one in?", Nancy asked, scared.
"Him", Ernie pointed to the new boy.
"No, he came round the back. Who came in front?"
"Me", another boy admitted timidly.
"Did you close the door?"
"Er-"
"Did you close the door?"
As the little boy outside called for his Mummy again Nancy rushed into the hallway and locked the door on several locks.
"What's this then?", the Doctor asked as he and Winnie followed, "It's never easy being the only child left out in the cold, you know."
"I suppose you'd know"; Nancy didn't spare him a look.
"I do actually, yes."
"It's not exactly a child."
"Mummy?"
She went back in the dining room and ushered everyone out, "Right, everybody out. Across the back garden and under the fence. Now! Go! Move!"
The children grabbed their things and ran. Nancy went to help a young girl who can't have been older than four.
"Come on, baby, we've got to go, all right? It's just like a game. Just like chasing. Take your coat, go one. Go!"
She put the coat on the girl and pushed her on a little. Winnie tilted her head at Nancy's warm nature. Something gave her a feeling about Nancy's behaviour. The way she was treating these children. Strictly where necessary, but gently. Reminded her of Jackie when they were little, just even more so because of the radical situation.
"Mummy? Mummy?", the boy's hand, a y-shaped scar on it, came through the letter box, "Please let me in, mummy. Please let me in, mummy."
Winnie furrowed her brows worriedly, "Are you all right?"
"Please let me in", the hand drew back when a vase shattered against the door, thrown by Nancy.
"You mustn't let him touch you", she told them.
"What happens if he touches us?", the Doctor asked.
"He'll make you like him."
"What's he like?", Winnie asked.
"I've got to go", she dodged the question.
"Nancy, what's he like?", the Doctor repeated the question.
"He's empty."
The phone next to her rang and the Doctor stepped closer.
"It's him", she told him, "He can make phones ring. He can. Just like with that police box you saw."
He picked up the phone and the boy was on the other end, again asking, "Are you my mummy?"
Nancy took the phone away from him and put it back on the hook, Then the radio started playing in the dining room and a clockwork monkey started playing.
"Mummy? Please let me in, mummy", then he started speaking through the monkey, "Mummy, mummy, mummy."
"You stay if you want to", Nancy ran off through the backdoor and the radio and monkey stopped.
"Doctor, this is genuinely terrifying", Winnie looked up at him with furrowed brows.
He looked back at her, studying the worry and fear in her face.
"Mummy?", the boy outside called again, "Let me in please, mummy. Please let me in."
They went back into the hallway to see the boy's hand through the letterbox again. The Doctor took Winnie's hand and said, "Your mummy isn't here."
"Are you my mummy?"
"No mummies here ", the Doctor replied, slightly confused, "Nobody here but us chickens."
Winnie elbowed him as the child said, "I'm scared."
"Why are the other children frightened of you?", Winnie asked.
"Please let me in, mummy. I'm scared of the bombs", he just replied.
"Okay", the Doctor let go of Winnie's hand and stepped in front of her, "I'm opening the door now."
The boy pulled his hand back and the Doctor carefully opened each door lock. He twisted the doorknob and opened the door. He looked outside to see the boy was gone and no one was outside.