Title: The Fearful Child

Author: Skyeblux

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Ten/Rose

Genre: Episodic, Introspection, Romance, Spooky Ghosts

Summary: The TARDIS picks up an errant transmission of a terrified child that chills Rose's heart. Together the Doctor and Rose investigate the ghostly goings on and strange disappearances in an old world village but as even the Doctor is effected by the visions and possessions, can the dynamic duo save the day before they join the ranks of the restless dead?

AN: Set in a favourite place of mine! I will post some photographs to accompany the fic to give you an idea! You can view them at my Livejournal account, username: Skyeblux!

Chapter 1:

Rose Tyler was not sleeping. She had been not sleeping for the past two long hours, tossing and turning in frustration. She had faced down anamorphous beings, grotesque monsters of nightmare, shades from the underworld, the Emperor of the scourge of the universe, her mother and a time travelling alien on a sugar high and yet watching one 1960's thriller chiller with a delighted Doctor made her afraid to close her eyes and drift into blessed sleep. The Doctor loved Hitchcock's "Psycho"; he may be a super-duper, superior genius but when it came to human psychology and emotions he was on a long, slow, learning curve. She worried her bottom lip as she hoped that his core basis of study wasn't the psychopathy of one, Norman Bates though, considering how clueless, said Doctor could be, she wouldn't be at all surprised.

Finally Rose Tyler gave up and heavily hulked her bulk out of bed in search of some hot chocolate or a Doctor distraction, which ever came first. She gratefully patted the thrumming wall in thanks for the TARDIS's thoughtful but failed attempts at calming her as, blurry eyed and dressed in nothing but her white, stripy, kitten top and pink multi-kittened shorts, she marched into the labyrinthine corridors of the ship.

Strangely the Doctor was nowhere to be seen and she pondered briefly if the oh so magnificent Time Lord was actually asleep before remembering how hyper and hopeful he was earlier in the evening when he tried to convince her to watch the rest of the "Complete Works of Alfred Hitchcock" as she yawned incredulously at him. She'd just poked her head round the door to the console room to check for signs of life when some sort of fizzling static emitted in a jarring hiss. She sighed heavily at the doomed ceiling, failing to repress a fond smile, "What's the matter with you then, old girl? You want me to fetch his Lordship?"

"Help me! Please. Somebody? Is anybody there? Please, I'm scared. She's coming…" Silence crackled again over the broken white noise. The voice had the pitch and timbre of a small child, a boy; a boy who was choking on muffled sobs and sniffing loudly through a running nose. He sounded so small and helpless, so lost.

Rose stared unblinking at the Time rotor, pulsing its steady, calm hues, her hand trembling gently over her mouth, eyes wide and moistening with unshed tears. In an instant she was a whirl of action, flicking buttons and spinning wheels, "I'm here. I can hear you. Don't worry, sweetheart." The sound, like an old television set at the end of broadcasting, abruptly ceased. "No, no, no! What did I do?"

The usual mysterious and ancient moans of the TARDIS seemed a deafening, uninterrupted silence as she continued to charge around the console looking for flashing lights or tell tale signs of…something. "Hello? Can you hear me?" she cried, pausing then and unconsciously holding her breath, straining her ears for the faintest flicker of a voice above the pounding of her heart. Suddenly the vast environs of the time machine seemed stifling and claustrophobic. The Doctor, she needed to find the Doctor.

- x -

There is a little townland, on a little coast of the little island of Ireland called Cultra. In this little area of the globe history is brought to life in vivid and magical recreation. The Ulster Folk Museum is secreted away from the bustling commuter traffic, secluded by dense, verdant trees, green fields and a babbling brook with cascading waterfall on the estate of a prosperous, old mansion. Within its grounds is an authentic, "olde worldie" village, constructed from the rebuilt stones of actual buildings from antiquity. There is the village square with all the essentials of a flourishing rural life, the school house, steepled church, bank, manual printers, haberdashers, doctors, quaint pub and gardened manse with miles of countryside branching off and thatched, white washed, farmers cottages and mills with creaking water wheels, spotted on the outskirts. It really is like stepping back in time through some unseen portal.

There is a slightly more modern row of red bricked, terrace houses where school and youth groups can stay, sleeping on the doorstep of this rich, educational treasure. It's early summer, the swallows are flying and the twilights never reach the pitch blackness of a vast winter's sky and alone in a musty dorm room on the first floor of one of these terraces a young boy is trying and failing to get to sleep.

The atmosphere in the soft amber lit room is potent and precarious. Timothy rests a shaking hand against the liquid cool plaster of the bedroom wall and concentrates on sensation. The air is dense and moist like rising damp and stuffy library archives and there's a faint chill to it, unnatural and persistent even when he's wrapped snugly in his warm, worm-like sleeping bag. There's a constant tickle at the edge of his perception like something trying to materialise, his senses so alert that he can almost feel a muted presence like foam walls brushing his mind. The building creaks and bangs with old age and old systems and the hairs on his arm stand on end. His nerves frazzled, his vision conquered by the shadows in the corners and darkened street below his window.

Suddenly in the strained silence there's a bang, sharp like an axe hitting wood, and he screams.

- x-

"Ah, I knew you'd change your mind, always so indecisive you humans. What shall it be, "The Rope?" Nah, too strung out. "Rear Window?" Too much dramatic irony and the dog bothers me. Oh, how about "Vertigo", Jim-Jiminy-James Stewart, awh you got to love ol' Jimmy. Did you ever see Harvey? Well not SEE Harvey as that was the whole point you see. Harvey was a giant, invisible rabbit, can you imagine? Well not that you have to, I can take you to Lapis, they're a national treasure there, though I never meet one called Harvey…Rose?"

He had been wrestling with some unseen foe that appeared to be alive in his bedside cabinet before whirling around and practically bouncing for the door. Now he'd slammed on the Doctor brakes, better late than never, and was gazing at her intently, particularly at a stray tear that had leaked down her flushed cheek and the way she chewed violently at her thumb nail while jiggling about uneasily.

"Bad dream?" he asked sincerely, without a trace of mockery.

She opened and closed her stricken mouth a few times before any sound came out, "No dream," she almost whispered.

His concerned brow furrowed further as he gently clasped her arms to focus her, "Tell me?"

"I couldn't sleep," she stumbled. "Went looking for you in the console room and there was this sound like the static between radio stations and then a voice asking for help. He sounded so scared," her voice hitched on a broken sob.

"He?" the Doctor encouraged, lazily rubbing soothing circles into her bared skin.

"A boy, a child."

He knew the instinctual protectiveness and fear at hearing a child in distress, it was one of the most harrowing and potent sounds in the universe and he quickly understood her shaken dismay. Oh Rose, always so compassionate and caring.

"He said something else. He said "She was coming?" and then there was just silence apart from the static and I tried to get him back but I didn't know what to do and then it stopped all together. Who was it Doctor? How could I have heard a child in an empty console room, drifting in space?"

Her eyes pleaded with him for an answer or maybe just to say it wasn't real that nothing was wrong, just a random malfunction, old audio track, reborn in a freakish fault of electricity and mechanics. She'd prefer a condescending lecture on sleep deprivation and crazy imagination at the moment then the echo of terror and hopelessness coming from a child's mouth.

"Don't worry. You and me? We'll figure it out." It wasn't the answer she hoped for but as he drew her firmly against his lean, unyielding body and wrapped her in his embrace she couldn't help but instantly feel better. He was the Doctor and though it was just one boy, he would never ignore the cries of a child. This, whatever it was, would not stand.

Without warning the fabulous flying vessel jerked and launched to one side, shuddering like screeching cogs in a fractious, unoiled machine and sending the Doctor and Rose into an unceremonious heap on the floor. "Bloody internal reality motion stabilisers," he groused as he untangled his long limbs and leapt to his feet dragging a grimacing bundle of pink and yellow in tow. "Come on!"

The Doctor took off towards the console room with Rose hot on his heels, momentarily musing how natural her reactions had become amidst such discombobulating states of affairs.

"Oh you clever girl? The TARDIS is triangulating the original source of the transmission and hurtling towards it. How'd you manage that Rose and You? Is the hurtling really necessary, I mean for a Time machine you have an incongruous sense of urgency?" The lights seemed to flicker in enjoyment at his irksome expression and Rose was more confused than before, what did she do?

The engines wheezed to an asthmatic stop and the rotor gracefully stilled with almost personified smugness.

"Where are we?" Rose hefted herself once again of the grated floor and rubbed extrageratedly at her 'rear bumper'.

"Oh, it would be Earth wouldn't it and close to your time! We're in Holywood," he shrugged.

"Really? Wow!"

"No, Holywood, one 'L'. Holywood, Northern Ireland?"