Behind his back, silhouetted in white against a red backdrop was the image an old man in with a western string tie and a goatee, smiling benevolently down at everyone. Amy had asked the Doctor to meet her in a popular American fried chicken takeaway, situated not far from Victoria Station.

"Who're they?" Were the first words out of Amy's mouth, as she glanced at Malcolm, then at Major Tibbets.

The Doctor had induced the two U.N.I.T. men to come with him, on the premise that it was his scheduled Time Lord tea break. Malcolm bought that, but the major merely shook his head in disgust. He'd correctly guessed that the Doctor didn't want a curious Malcolm messing about with the ship's controls while he was gone to meet Amy and Rory. What the major didn't grasp, was that the Doctor also didn't want a potentially violent and possibly paranoid soldier left unattended inside the TARDIS.

Malcolm and Major Tibbets were seated at another table. The Doctor had insisted on his privacy. Mainly because he didn't want Amy or Rory to undergo some stupid and time-wasting interrogation by Major Tibbets. Malcolm had taken the opportunity to order the lunch he'd forgotten to have, in his excitement over meeting the Doctor again. The major was sat there, glaring at the Doctor's back, still nursing a slight grudge over his ruined gun.

"Oh, hitchhikers. You know how I am, always giving lifts to strangers."

The Doctor spoke dismissively, sipping orange Fanta from a paper cup, and trying very hard not to show how unhappy he truly was with this unscheduled emergency. After all, Amy was his friend as much as River was, and wasn't nearly so annoying. Still, he didn't like that he'd not heard from anything from River since that last phone call.

"Now, I am just a teensy bit busy today Amy, so are you going to tell me what's going on, or are we going to have to play charades? Tell me we're not, because I really hate charades, and I'm so absolutely not in the mood for party games right now." The Doctor told her severely, but not unkindly.

"Jeez, you are a grumpy old fart today." Amy told him, rolling her eyes. "Well, you know Rory and I were at my mum and dad's anniversary party. Well, turns out, dad's allergic to a certain kind of mushroom, and the caterer had chopped them up and put them in the bread stuffing in the roast turkey. Dad always said he hated mushrooms, now we know why. Thank God Rory was there, and we got dad to hospital in time." Amy explained, smiling and giving Rory's hand a squeeze under the table. "Anyway, the doctor said that my dad was going to be fine, so mum convinced Rory and I to spend the rest of the afternoon doing some sight-seeing around London."

"Excuse me for interrupting, Amy," An impatient Doctor told her, conspicuously making a show of looking at his wrist watch, "But is there a short-cut to this story, or am I going to have to endure the guided tour?"

"Yeah, point taken, Doctor. You can put your hand down now." Rory said, as the Doctor waved the hand with the watch in front of his face. "The short of the story is, Amy and I were coming out of Victoria Station, when this antique army ambulance, say about a hundred years old, comes roaring out of a solid wall, right towards us! It nearly ran Amy down! I managed to get her out of the way, but...it hit this other pedestrian, some old homeless bloke. I tried Doctor, I really did try, but couldn't save him though, his injuries were simply too massive. All I could do was hold his hand. I can't begin to imagine how tragic and lonely it must be to die alone, or with no one but strangers around you." Rory added, clearly upset.

The Doctor's mood instantly changed from impatience to understanding. Every time he regenerated, it was like dying, in a way. His old self--his appearance, mannerisms, personality, all died before the new bloke appeared and took over. The only thing that never changed was his mind and his memories. Last time he'd regenerated, he'd had been all alone in the TARDIS. The Doctor recalled how that had felt. He didn't like that feeling. He reached out and gave Rory's shoulder a sympathetic squeeze.

"I know you did, Rory." The Doctor told him. "You did save Amy though, and, you had the courage to care about that homeless man. That's why I consider it such a privilege to travel with someone like you."

"Cheers, Doctor. That means a lot to me." A surprised Rory responded, a grateful smile twitching the corners of his mouth. Still, the Doctor could see the sadness in his eyes.

"It was so weird though," Amy said, thoroughly puzzled over what she'd seen. "The Ambulance drove right over the poor man and just left him there to die. It was horrible." Amy said. "Then it simply vanished again, into thin air." She looked inquiringly into his face. "What's it mean, Doctor?"

"It means, Amy," The Doctor said, leaning forward and lowering his voice so that only she and Rory could hear, "That these rifts in time are getting worse. And, I think I know why."

"What is it, what's going on?" Rory asked. The Doctor didn't answer, only gave him a disquieted look.

A half hour later found them all back in the TARDIS. Pointedly ignoring everyone's questions, the Doctor dashed around and under the console, checking various instrument readings and making calibrations. Then, the phone rang again. Snatching up the receiver, the Doctor's face betrayed his anxiety for River Song's safety.

"Hello, River? Are you OK? Where are you? What the hell is happening?" The Doctor belted out in rapid succession.

Amy and the others watched as there was a long pause. They saw the Doctor's face fall in disappointment, then grow dark and angry. Unconsciously, Amy clasped Rory's hand, as the Doctor's emotional state transmitted itself to her.

"Look, whoever this is, you'd better not harm one hair on River's head, is that understood? Not a hair, or a finger or so much a toenail, am I making myself clear? Because if you do, you will face my wrath, and trust me, when it comes to menacing my friends, you do not want to tick off this particular Time Lord." The Doctor said in a low, foreboding voice.

Slamming down the phone, the Doctor simply stood there staring at the four people who were staring back at him. Then he turned away with a sigh, his shoulders slumped as if in defeat.

"They've taken River....whoever they are. They'll kill her if I don't do as they say." Was all he told them.

"Who was that on the phone, Doctor?" The major demanded.

"If I knew that major, I'd have hardly said, 'whoever they are', now would I?" The Doctor replied shortly, jamming his hands into the pockets of his trousDoctor replied shortly, jamming his hands into the pockets of his trousers and shaking his head.

"Were you able to trace the call?" Malcolm asked, trying to be helpful.

"No, it was blocked by some sort of interference signal." The Doctor told him.

"What about the caller's voice? Did you recognize it?" another question by the major.

"Cary Grant." The Doctor shrugged.

"What? Look, Doctor, I know you're upset about your friend, but now you're just being ridiculous!" The major said.

"The caller used a CMVR to disguise his or her voice." The Doctor told him.

"A what?" Malcolm asked him.

"They had a computer modulated voice replicator. It can replicate any recorded voice in the universe. Works like a translator, only instead of languages, it translates your voice into someone else's." The Doctor informed him. "Highly illegal. It's use is banned on over ten thousand worlds."

"Is River OK?" Rory asked quietly.

"How should I know?" The frustrated Doctor shouted at him. "Do I look like a clairvoyant to you, Rory?"

Amy was the only one who held back. She walked over to the Doctor and gently laid a hand upon his arm.

"Shouting at Rory isn't going to change anything, Doctor." She chided him gently. "You'll get River back" Amy smiled encouragingly and squeezed his arm, "And, you know River. She's so much like you, she's probably having the time of her life plotting her escape, right now."

"Yeah, yeah, you're probably right, Amy" The Doctor looked down at her, and gave Amy a faint smile, before looking up sheepishly at Rory. "Sorry I shouted at you, Rory."

"Meh.." Rory gave the Doctor a playful jab in the arm and flashed him a forgiving grin. "It's good practice for you, in case, you know, if I ever go deaf from some alien explosion or...something." He joked lamely.

The support of his friends seemed to change the Doctor's attitude in an instant. Smiling affectionately at his two friends, he leaped back to the console and began frantically tweaking the instruments again.

"What are you doing, now, Doctor?" Malcolm asked, following the Doctor around like an excited puppy. "Oooh, what's this do?" He asked, about to touch a particularly strange looking instrument on the console.

"Ow!!" He said almost immediately, as the Doctor slapped his hand away from a particularly sensitive TARDIS control.

"If handled incorrectly, it implodes the TARDIS and makes the entire universe collapse." The Doctor answered, as he bent forward, and lay his left cheek against the console.

"Oh." Said Malcolm, completely abashed.

"On the way back to the TARDIS, the Doctor mentioned that you'd helped him before." Amy said, coming to the Doctor's rescue. She tactfully drew Malcolm away from the console. "You know, I bet Rory would really like to hear about that. Why don't you tell him all about it, as he gives you the grand tour of the rest of the TARDIS?"

An unhappy Rory standing behind them, pointed to himself and silently mouthed to her; "Me? Why me?" Amy just gave him one of her looks, and rolling his eyes in resignation, he went over to the scientist.

"You mean it's even bigger than this?" A wide-eyed Malcolm turned and asked Rory "Oh, I'd like to see that very much, thank you!"

"And I'd like hearing about all that....sciencey stuff you did...with the Doctor." Rory replied, less than enthusiastically, taking Malcolm by the arm and escorting him up the ramp towards the TARDIS bedrooms, kitchen and library. Rory had the idea that at least there were no dangerous alien gadgets in that part of the ship, for Malcolm to fiddle with.

Keeping his eye on the typewriter two inches from his nose, the Doctor typed something on the keys with his left hand, while his right hand was outstretched as far as it could reach, to adjust a dial at the top of the console, that looked strangely like an ordinary combination lock.

"What's he doing?" The major leaned over and whispered to Amy.

"Beats me." Amy shrugged. "Rory and I just came along for the ride...and the food. The Doctor's a wonderful cook." She added, with a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "His butter curry chicken is gorgeous."

"You don't say?" the major said patiently, like a parent speaking with a child who was making silly talk around adults, "How very nice of him."

"Ah ha!" The Doctor suddenly shouted, coming upright and flicking a strand of hair from his eyes. He looked at Amy with a proud grin on his face. "That ought'a do it!""

"Do what, Doctor?" Amy asked, looking at the console. She didn't see anything that looked different than before. But then again, the TARDIS was so alien and cobbled together, that she wasn't sure she'd even notice if anything had changed.

"This!" Said the Doctor grandly, flicking a toggle switch with a flourish, like a celebrity turning on the lights at Blackpool.

Nothing happened, except that the console speakers suddenly spewed out static. The Doctor's smile wavered. Glancing over at the major, Amy could see he was very much unimpressed. In fact, he looked decidedly bored. At that moment, Malcolm and Rory re-entered the control room. Rory couldn't answer most of Malcolm's questions, and the scientist didn't display any enthusiasm over Rory's CD collection. As the static penetrated the control room, the two of them glanced around, looking for the source of the noise.

"I'd have thought that he'd have better radio reception than this." Malcolm said, clearly disappointed.

"Yeah, but at least it isn't Radio Four." Rory replied with a shrug.

"White noise." Amy said to the Doctor, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes at the ceiling. "Yeah, that's...great. I hear it's really good for helping people get to sleep."

"Er--sorry. Just one more second, if you please." The Doctor said, somewhat contritely.

"Seriously, what are you doing, Doctor?" Amy asked again.

"What I'm trying to do, Amy," he answered, "is to put that phone call into an auto-analytical noise filter and then use the binary cross link feed to play back the call, but this time, with only the background noise, which, if all goes to plan, will be amplified and cleaned up to make it clearer. " He turned his back on them and made some furious adjustments.

"OK, now this should work," The Doctor said hopefully, turning to face Amy and the major and putting a brave face on."but if it doesn't, I'm sure you'll all get a really restful night's sleep tonight."

Once again, the Doctor flicked the toggle switch. This time, coming through very faintly, was something else besides static. Something that raised that hair on the back of Amy's neck, made the major gasp with shock, and turned the Doctor's face momentarily pale.

"Monitor the prisoner. If she makes any attempt to escape, exterminate her. Exterminate! Exterminate! Grated the deep voice of a Dalek.