Rita sat in the jump seat as the Doctor walked around the console thinking how he would tell her everything. Martha had gone to rest and he was worrying a little too much about what she would say to him. What her reaction to what he did would be when she told him, what if she knew?

"Doctor" Rita said shattering the silence and causing him to stop in his tracks and shoot his head in the Time Lady's direction. "Just ask me what you want Doctor. I wouldn't get mad or angry." He then proceeded to raise his brows at her. "I promise"

The Doctor let out a deep breath before he walked over and sat down beside her on the jump seat. "How did you escape?"

Sighing the Time Lady began to talk. "After you warned me about Arcadia I thought long and hard about my family. My mother and father, everyone, I knew even with you not telling me, I knew that you were going to use the moment and I got scared, I did what we did years and years before, I stole my family's TARDIS and ran, but unlucky me got shot, one of the bloody pepper pots found me and shot me, I managed to get into the TARDIS and get out of Gallifrey but then I regenerated and became even more scared and terrified so I took myself to a parallel universe and used a Charmeleon Arch to make myself human."

"I thought you died..." He muttered.

"And I'm sorry." She whispers looking at the ground, the pattern of the grating suddenly becoming interesting to her eyes that were unable to look away, glued to the pattern of the metal desperately trying to avoid looking anywhere near him.

"I heard you disappeared and thought that you died it was meant to be impossible for you to come back." The Doctor muttered. "I only thought it was you when I saw the watch, then the Daleks called you Stone and I hoped it was you."

"I remember how I got that name as well." She laughed. "But Doctor?" She looked at him. "Do you wish that I had told you what I was planning to do before I went?" She then swallowed thickly choosing her words carefully as if they could shatter him into a million pieces. "Even if I told you I would have never been able to come back let alone open the watch on my own.

He looked at her for a moment thinking to himself not even realising that she was not looking right at him. It was like she couldn't face him until asking that question. Giving him that reality. He studied her face and her eyes then gave his answer knowing that after all of this their friendship grew even wider and stronger: "No"

----------------------------------------------------------------

"Morning Martha!" Rita beamed watching the woman walk into the console room.

"Have you two been here since I went to sleep?" She asked.

"We did some reading for a while" the Doctor shrugged. She eyed them for a moment still trying to figure out where they both stood with one enough, at times she could swear that they were together but at others, she believed that they were just best friends.

"How are you not tired?" She asked them.

"Time Lords don't need much sleep." The Doctor explained. "Anyway off we go." He jumped out of the jump seat and started running around the console turning dials, pressing buttons then pulling a lever. The TARDIS jolted and Rita groaned getting thrown to the floor.

"Sory there Stone" The Doctor held out his hand and helped her up after the TARDIS materialised. She narrowed his eyes at him then grabbed her coat off of the 'Y' beam and threw the Doctors in his face, laughing as it hit him then fell to the floor leaving him looking a little dazed by the sudden action.

Rita rolled her eyes and headed for the door, he picked up his coat and followed exiting the TARDIS. Martha followed and asked: "Where are we?" While walking out of the TARDIS.

"Ah, smell that Atlantic breeze. Nice and cold. Lovely. Martha, Stone have you met my friend?"

They both turned and looked up seeing the Statue of Liberty.

"I believe I have actually, came to New York on a trip once I think" Rita nodded.

"Is that?" Martha looked up stunned. "Oh, my God. That's the Statue of Liberty." She gasped.

"Gateway to the New World. Give me you tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breath free."

"That's so brilliant. I've always wanted to go to New York. I mean the real New York, not the new, new, new, new, new one."

"You can never get better than the original can you?" Rita asked admiring the statue.

"You sure can't" Martha replied.

"Well, there's the genuine article." They turned around. "So good, they named it twice. Mind you, it was New Amsterdam originally." The Doctor began to ramble. "Harder to say twice. No wonder it didn't catch on. New Amsterdam, New Amsterdam."

"I wonder what year it is, because look, the Empire State Building's not even finished yet." Martha pointed to it and surely she was right, the empire state building was still not finished at the top.

"Work in progress. Still got a couple floors to go, and if I know my history, that makes the date somewhere around"

"November first, 1930." Martha cut him off reading off of a newspaper she had found lying on a bench.

"You're getting good at this." The Doctor said before looking down and seeing she was reading off a newspaper.

"Eighty years ago. It's funny because you see all those old newsreels all in black and white like it's so far away, but here we are." She smiled looking at the view. "It's real. It's now. Come on then, you two. Where do you want to go first?"

"I think our detour just got a little longer," Rita muttered pointing to the newspaper. "What do you say to taking a look?" She suggested.

"Hooverville Mystery Deepens." Martha read of the paper frowning. "What's Hooverville?"

"Come on Martha, we can explain on the way." Rita told the woman beginning to walk off.

----------------------------------------------------------------

" Herbert Hoover, thirty-first President of the USA, came to power a year ago." The Doctor explained while the three walked through central park. "Up till then New York was a boom town, the Roaring Twenties, and then."

"The Wall Street Crash, yeah? When was that, 1929?"

"Yeah 1929" Rita replied. "The whole economy wiped out overnight leaving thousands of people unemployed, the number doubled with no where to go so where do you think they went?" She asked Martha.

"What, they actually live in the park? In the middle of the city?" She guessed while they continued to walk and then came up to the small looking down which was overlooked and in the center of the park.

"Ordinary people lost their jobs. Couldn't pay the rent and they lost everything. There are places like this all over America. No one's helping them. You only come to Hooverville when there's nowhere else to go." The Doctor explained to Martha as they walked down what was a small street, people watched them past most likely seeing the well cleaned clothes they wore.

"You thieving lowlife!" They heard a man shouting and a fight breaking out.

"I didn't touch it!" The other man protested. "Somebody stole it!"

They stood watching out of the way and noticed another man walk out of a tent setting a hand on his head. "Cut that out! Cut that out right now!" He ordered pulling the two apart.

"He stole my bread!" The man shouted.

"That's enough! Did you take it?" The one with the hat on asked the other.

"I don't know what happened. He just went crazy." The man claiming the other stole his bread then went to lunge for the man.

"That's enough! Now, think real careful before you lie to me."

"I'm starving, Solomon."

The man with his hat on now called Soloman held out his hand and the man hesitated before bringing a loaf of bread from inside his jacket.

"We're all starving. We all got families somewhere." He told them both and broke the bread in half handing them each a piece. "No stealing and no fighting. You know the rules. Thirteen years ago I fought in the Great War. A lot of us did. And the only reason we got through was because we stuck together. No matter how bad things get, we still act like human beings. It's all we got." The two then walked away.

The Doctor then leaned to Martha and Rita and whispered for them both to follow. "I suppose that makes you the boss around here." He said to Solomon.

Solomon looked at the three. "And, er, who might you be?" he asked.

"He's the Doctor, she's the Stone and I'm Martha."

"A doctor. Huh. Well, we got stockbrokers, we got a lawyer, but you're the first doctor. Neighbourhood gets classier by the day." Solomon joked nodding his head in the direction of each of the men he spoke about.

"How many people live here?" Martha asked.

"At any one time, hundreds. No place else to go. But I will say this about Hooverville. We are a truly equal society. Black, white, all the same. All starving. So you're welcome, the three of you. But tell me. Doctor, you're a man of learning, right?" he then walked away and the Doctor followed. He then pointed between the trees up at the Empire States building. "Explain this to me. That there's going to be the tallest building in the world. How come they can do that, when we got people starving in the heart of Manhattan?"

"Sometimes people sadly think for themselves" Rita spoke up.

----------------------------------------------------------------

"So, men are going missing. Is this true?" The Doctor asked walking in Solomons tent, Rita and Martha following behind.

"It's true all right."

"But what does missing mean? Men must come and go here all the time. It's not like anyone's keeping a register."

"This is different." Solomon replied.

"In what way?" Martha asked sitting down on a stool.

"Someone takes them, at night. We hear something, someone calls out for help. By the time we get there, they're gone like they vanished into thin air.

"How are you so sure that someone is taking them? They could have just left" Rita pointed out and the Doctor nodded from where he was standing.

"Stone, when you got next to nothing, you hold on to the little you got. Your knife, blanket, you take it with you. You don't leave bread uneaten, fire still burning."

"Have you been to the police?" Martha suggested.

"Yeah, we tried that. Another deadbeat goes missing, big deal."

"So the question is, who's taking them and what for?" The Doctor asked, they three then turned their heads in the direction of a voice calling for Solomon. A young man then poked his head inside the tent.

"Solomon, Mister Diagoras is here." The man then removed himself from the tent as the young man spoke. The Doctor, Rita and Martha all looked at each other before following wondering what all of the commotion was about.

They walked out and a man stood on a box as a crowd began to gather. "I need men. Volunteers. I've got a little work for you and you sure look like you can use the money." He spoke loudly so they would all hear.

" Yeah. What is the money?" The young man from before asked.

"A dollar a day."

"What's the work?"

"A little trip down the sewers. Got a tunnel collapsed needs clearing and fixing. Any takers?" Diagoras asked looking at the crowd.

Solomon then spoke up. "A dollar a day? That's slave wage. And men don't always come back up, do they."

"Don't always come back? Are you thinking what I am thinking Doctor?"

"Prehaps I am." He grinned.

"Accidents happen." Diagoras said rather flatly.

"What do you mean? What sort of accidents?" The Doctor asked.

"You don't need the work? That's fine. Anybody else?" He asked. The Doctor and Rita then looked at each other then back at Diagoras raising their hands.

"Enough with the questions." Diagoras said to them.

"Oh, no, no, no. we're volunteering. we'll go." Martha looked at them and groaned then raised her hand as well.

"I'll kill you two for this." She whispered. The two Time Lords just grinned at her in amusment.

"Anybody else?" Diagoras asked, Solomon and the young man beside him then raised their own hands.

The crowd then disbanded and Diagoras gestured for them to follow. They then climbed into the sewers and he began to explain the directions. "Turn left. Go about a half a mile. Follow tunnel two seven three. Fall's right ahead of you, you can't miss it."

"And when do we get our dollar?" The man who said his name was Frank asked.

"When you come back up."

"And what would happen is we prehaps don't come back up?" Rita asked crossing her arms and raising a brow.

"Then I got no one to pay."

"Don't worry, we'll be back." Solomon muttered.

"Let's hope so." Martha mumbled walking away with Solomon and Frank. The Doctor and Rita stared blankly at Diagoras for a few moments before they turned and followed the others.

"I don't like him one bit" Rita whispered to the Doctor who hummed in agreement. They walked on in silence for a while until Frank started to talk.

"We just got to stick together. It's easy to get lost. It's like a huge rabbit warren. You could hide an army down here." Frank said to Martha.

"So what about you, Frank? You're not from around these parts, are you?" Martha asked.

"Oh, you could talk." he looked at martha. "No, I'm Tennessee born and bred."

"So how come you're here?" She asked.

"Oh, my daddy died. Mama couldn't afford to feed us all. So, I'm the oldest, up to me to feed myself. So I put on my coat, hitched up here on the railroads. There's a whole lot of runaways in the camp, younger than me, from all over. Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas. Solomon keeps a lookout for us." He explained then looked at Martha. "So, what about you? You're a long way from home."

"Yeah, I'm just a hitcher too." She nodded.

"You stick with me, you'll be all right."

"So this Diagoras bloke, who is he then?" The Doctor asked walking between Solomon and Rita shining his light in front to see.

"A couple of months ago, he was just another foreman. Now, it seems like he's running most of Manhattan."

"And how did he get to that?" Rita asked.

"These are strange times. A man can go from being King of the Hill to the lowest of the low overnight. It's just for some folks it works the other way round." They continued to walk Rita then pulled the Doctor to a stop and moved his light down.

"Whoa!" He gasped looking down at what looked like a luminous green jellyfish.

"Is it radioactive or something?" Martha asked as the Time Lords crouched down. she then held a hand over her nose in disgust. "It's gone off, whatever it is." The Doctor then picked it up and went to sniff it. "And you've got to pick it up."

"Just be lucky he hasn't licked it." Rita told Martha. "I've seen something like this before, somewhere, but I can't remember where it was" She explained before slightly leaning in and sniffing. "You are right though, smells nasty"

"Shine your torch through it." The Doctor instructed Martha who did so. "Composite organic matter." he stated. "Martha? Medical opinion?"

"It's not human. I know that." She told him and Rita nodded.

"No, it's not. And I'll tell you something else. We must be at least half a mile in. I don't see any sign of a collapse, do you? So why did Mister Diagoras send up down here?"

"I did say I didn't like that man at all" Rita muttered. "So what is going on, what are we needed for?"

"Where are we now?" Martha asked. "What's above us?"

"Well, we're right underneath Manhattan." The Doctor.

"You can keep that in your pockets because it isn't going in mine" Rita pointed at it. The Doctor rolled his eyes and placed. They got up and started to walk around in the sewers again.

"We're way beyond half a mile. There's no collapse, nothing." Solomon pointed out.

"That Diagoras bloke, was he lying?"

"I guessed it from the start" Rita explained. "Something wasn't right but I needed to be sure, and I am"

"So why'd he want people to come down here?" Frank asked.

"Solomon, I think it's time you took these two back. Me and the Stone will be much quicker on our own." The Doctor said remembering how much she had argued about staying with Brannigan and Valerie in New New York and knew that she would only argue even more now.

They shot their heads in multiple directions hearing what sounded very much like a pig squealing.

"What the hell was that?" Solomon asked.

"Hello?" Frank slightly moved forward.

"Shush." Martha tried to hush them, the Doctor and Rita slowly started to move forward. The Doctor held out his hand to keep the brunette behind him.

"Frank." Solomon warned seeing how much he was edging forward now.

"What if it's one of the folk gone missing? You'd be scared and half mad down here on your own."

"Do you think they're still alive?" The Doctor asked.

"Heck, we ain't seen no bodies down here. Maybe they just got lost."

"He does has a point." Rita noted. "There has been no bodys." She said before there were now multiple other squeals.

"I know I never heard nobody make a sound like that." Solomon informed them.

"Where's it coming from? Sounds like there's more than one of them." Frank said his eyes darting around the cold damp sewer trying to figure out or see the direction.

"This way." The Doctor started to move but Solomon pointed his torch light in another direction. "No, that way."

"Doctor?" Martha looked at him a little worried seeing he was slowly walking towards the figure. "Stone?" She then said seeing she was indeed following the Doctor.

"Who are you?" Solomon asked shining his light at it.

"Are you lost? Can you understand me? I've been thinking about folk lost down-"

"It's okay, Frank. Me and the Doctor will have a look, if he even lets me that is." Rita muttered.

The Doctor ignored the brunettes comment and continued inching forward. "He's got a point, though, my mate Frank. I'd hate to be stuck down here on my own. We know the way out. Daylight. If you come with us." He then got close enough to see it was a pig that looked like a man.

"Oh, but what are you?" The Doctor asked crouching down beside the pigman.

"Is that, er, some kind of carnival mask?" Solomon asked.

"I wish" Rita muttered. "This is real."

"I'm sorry." The Doctor said calmly to the pigman laying against the wall on the floor. "Now listen to me. I promise I can help. Who did this to you?"

"Doctor? Stone?" Martha shakily said to them seeing the shadows on the wall and not liking what she was thinking. "I think you'd better get back here." Martha then shouted their names seeing more of the pigmen at the tunnel.

"Actually, good point." He backed up taking Rita's hand firmly in his grip.

"They're following you." Martha pointed out keeping her eyes on the pigmen.

"Yeah, I noticed that, thanks. Well then, Stone, Martha, Frank, Solomon."

"What?" Martha asked.

"Eh? Er, basically," he muttered looking between them and the pigmen.

"Run!" Rita screamed, the four of them spun round and ran down one of the tunnels with the pigmen squealing in a chase behind them.

"Where are we going?" Martha shouted following the Doctor and Rita.

"This way!" He shouted pulling Rita along. He then skidded to a stop and ran back turning and going down one of the tunnels.

"Ladder! Always loved a ladder!" Rita shouted pulling her sonic out of her pocket and climbing. She then quickly soniced the cover and pushed it aside then climbed up followed by the Doctor and Martha.

"Frank! Frank!" Solomon shouted, Rita and the Doctor both looked down to see Frank who had grabbed a rode and was using it to try and keep the pigmen back.

"C'mon, Frank! C'mon!" Solomon shouted, Frank then threw down the rode and started to climb, they grabbed his legs pulling him to a hault, the doctor Solomon and Rita grabbed Franks hand screaming for him to try and break free from the pigmen.

"I've got you. C'mon! Come on!" The Doctor shouted pulling on Franks arm.

Solomon screamed as Frank was torn away from their grip being pulled into the sewers. "Frank!"

"No!" The Time Lords screamed trying to climb back down, Solomon shoved them aside and forced the cover back on then locked it shut panting and breathing.

"We can't go after him." Solomon told them breathing deeply.

"We've got to go back down. We can't just leave him." The Doctor shouted moving to the cover again. Solomon stood in the way and pointed at the Doctor.

"No, I'm not losing anybody else. Those creatures were from Hell. From Hell itself! If we go after them, they'll take us all! There's nothing we can do. I'm sorry."

"Doctor" Rita quietly muttered noticing a woman step out holding a gun pointing it at the four of them.

"All right, then. Put them up. Hands in the air and no funny business." The Doctor slowly raised his hands and gently pushed Rita behind him holding one hand behind his back for a moment before raising it back up. "Now tell me, you schmucks, what have you done with Laszlo?" She demanded cocking the revolver in her hand.

"Who's Laszlo?" Martha asked.

  ----------------------------------------------------------------  

"Laszlo's my boyfriend." The woman explained sitting in her dressing room waving aroud the gun. The four stood in the doorway, the Doctor still standing in front of Rita who continulously sent him a glare. "Or was my boyfriend until he disappeared two weeks ago. No letter, no goodbye, no nothing. And I'm not stupid. I know some guys are just pigs but not my Laszlo. I mean, what kind of guy asks you to meet his mother before he vamooses?"

"Yeah. It might, might just help if you put that down." The Doctor gestured to the gun.

"Huh? Oh, sure." The woman then chucked it down and the Doctor flinched a little. "Oh, come on. It's not real. It's just a prop. It was either that or a spear."

"What do you think happened to Lazlo?" Martha asked lowering her hands.

"I wish I knew. One minute he's there, the next, zip. Vanished."

"Listen, ah—what's your name?" The Doctor asked.

"Tallulah."

"Tallulah." he nodded repeating her.

"Three Ls and an H."

"Right. We can try to find Laszlo, but he's not the only one. There are people disappearing every night." The Doctor explained.

"And there are creatures. Such creatures."

"What do you mean, creatures?" Tallulah asked with curiosity.

"Look, listen, just trust me. Everyone is in danger. I need to find out exactly what this is." He brought out the green jellyfish-like creature from before.

"Because then I'll know exactly what we're fighting."

"Yuck." Tallulah's face turned to disgust looking at the creature in his hand.

"We better start looking then" Rita patted the Doctors arm and began to search around for parts to use.

After collecting a few items Solomon walked up to them both holding a radio out. OLOMON: How about this? I found it backstage.

"Perfect. It's the capacitors we need. I'm just rigging up a crude little DNA scan for this beastie. If I can get a chromosomal reading, we can find out where it's from." He explained then looked at Rita who nodded.

"How about you two, Doctor? Stone? Where are you from? I've been all over. I never heard anybody talk like you two do. Just exactly who are you?"

"Oh, we're just sort of passing by."

"I'm not a fool, Doctor." Solomon looked at them both.

"Solomon if we told you it would make us look madder than he already is" She looked over at the Doctor. "And me as mad as he is now." Solomon looked at them both again, he then nodded and headed over to the sewer entrance they had used to escape before. Solomon sighed and looked at it, staring while talking, "I was so scared, Doctor. I let them take Frank because I was just so scared." He looked up at them both shifting his gaze away from the cover, the terror clearly in his eyes. "I got to get back to Hooverville. With these creatures on the loose, we got to protect ourselves. Ain't no one else going to help us."

"We wish you good luck Solomon." Rita told him nodding her head in understanding.

"I hope you both find what you're looking for, for all our sakes."

"So do we" Rita quietly muttered as he walked away.

"Come on Rita we need to find out what it is." He quietly told her, she nodded in agreement and followed bringing the items with her.

They walked onto the balcony abouve the stage and the Doctor started to set up the equipment as Rita helped. "I'm going to go and check on Martha, not knowing what that is and knowing she isn't here is worrying me." She admitted, the Doctor looked up from the wires and looking into her eyes clearly seeing the worry.

"I know Rita, it worrys me as well." He admitted to her. "I'll be here" She nodded and walked off to find Martha just to keep herself sane knowing that her friend was okay.

Oh, my I haven't been checking (due to being busy with exams) but Parallel: From Another World reached 1k reads and just over 150 votes. Thank you so much! For the first book in the series (Which I loved to write) I am so happy that at least someone is enjoying it!

Currently, I am writing the eleventh Doctors first Christmas special (You can see how far ahead I am with writing xddd) Hopefully by the summer I would have finished all of series 6 and be just on to editing to catch up so there will be lots of updates very soon :D