What brought about this fic? Probably the fact that the weeping angels are the absolute scariest Christing things I've ever seen on TV. Ever.

This is my first multi-chapter Doctor Who fic, so let's get on with it and see where it goes.

Summary: An attempt at landscaping turns into something far more lethal when a certain stone angel shows signs of life.

When Molly Mason saw the stone statue her husband had picked up for her garden, she was not pleased with him. In fact, she was so displeased that she intended to cook his least favorite meal, tune the radio to a channel he despised, and become the sole dictator of the telly so he couldn't watch his silly football game. She also intended to take a sledgehammer to the horrendous block of rock as soon as he left for work in the morning.

"I don't see what the problem is. You wanted an angel, I got you an angel," her husband said.

"No, I wanted a happy, smiling angel. Maybe one holding a dove or playing a harp. Not one hiding its eyes and bloody weeping. This angel looks clinically depressed," Molly replied.

"It's not that bad. Besides, I got it on sale."

"So not only is it ugly, it's also cheap! George, you may not care if the neighbors laugh at our garden, but I take pride in it. That monstrosity is not staying."

"It was hard enough for me to take it out of the truck. I can't put it back in by myself."

"Then get someone to help you. That lad from down the street, what's his name, he could help you."

"I'm not asking a twelve-year-old to help me pick up a statue. Just give it a few days. If you still hate it on Friday, I'll drive it back and ask for a refund."

Molly snorted. There was no way the statue would still be in one piece on Friday.

George, his back aching from hefting the statue, went into the house. Molly stayed outside and leered at the angel a little longer. The longer she glared at it, the stronger the urge was to go out to the shed and grab the hammer.

"I hope you enjoy my garden, because first thing tomorrow, you're dust," Molly said. She turned her back on the statue and retired for the night.

Just as she'd planned, Molly cooked fish for supper and George was forced to eat a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich. Then she turned on the kind of music her mother had loved and that made George want to stick a fork in his ears. When George went for the remote, Molly beat him there. Before he could protest or whine, she had turned on an educational program about lions tearing apart baby wildebeest. After the first graphic feeding frenzy, George went to bed.

Hours later, Molly fell asleep with the television still on. It stayed on the rest of the night, broadcasting to nobody. George turned it off when he came downstairs in the morning. He didn't bother waking his wife.

Molly finally woke a few minutes before ten o'clock. She winced at the stiffness in her neck—sleeping on the sofa always gave her aches and pains. Rubbing her neck, Molly got off the couch and went to cook a hearty breakfast. She would need her strength if she was going to be swinging that heavy sledgehammer.

After eating her eggs, bacon, mushrooms and toast, Molly went up to her bedroom to find suitable clothing. She couldn't be seen destroying the statue while she was dressed in her nightgown. The old, stained tee shirt she'd worn while repainting the bathroom would be much more appropriate.

Dressed for success, Molly headed for the shed. The shed was cluttered with an array of old, rusty tools, gardening supplies, and holiday lawn decorations. Luckily, the heavy sledgehammer was too big to get lost, even among the junk.

The grinning executioner approached the helpless statue. She brought the heavy hammer up and rested it on her shoulder. For a second, she considered running back inside and seeing if she couldn't locate safety goggles or even a pair of sunglasses, then dismissed the concern. She could just close her eyes at the moment of impact to keep any dust or stone fragments from getting inside.

Molly was halfway through her swing when something about the angel forced her to stiffen her arms and bring the hammer to a halt. The statue looked a bit different. Which was nonsense. But true.

It had lowered its hands from its eyes. Instead of looking as though it were crying, the angel now looked as though it had just finished counting in a game of hide-and-seek and was about to start hunting.

"No, that can't be right. It must have looked like this yesterday," Molly told herself.

She wasn't convinced. Last night, the angel's eyes had been entirely covered by its hands. That was what Molly had so hated about it; the hiding eyes. But now the eyes were revealed, and they almost seemed to be looking directly at her.

The hammer dropped to the lawn. Despite the warm sunshine, Molly suddenly felt as though she'd been immersed in ice water. Fear, irrational and powerful, seized her. Her palms became damp, her mouth dried and her tongue became thick and unruly, and her heart convulsed.

She bolted for the house, all thoughts of destroying the statue vanished from her mind. Molly slammed the door shut and locked it. While the fear still had full control of her, she rushed through the house, locking all the doors and windows.

By the time she had drawn the currents over the window in her bedroom, Molly had calmed down considerably. Her logical facilities were returning, and she began to feel shame creep in and replace the retreating fear. She had just run away from a stone statue, and there was the distinct possibility one of the neighbors had seen. Molly blushed and moaned.

"I can't believe I was so stupid. It was all just a trick of the light. When George brought the statue home, it was almost sunset. There were shadows. 'Course it looks different now, in proper lighting."

Determined to prove her theory, Molly went back downstairs and to the window that overlooked the garden. She pulled back the curtain and screamed.

The angel had moved again. This time there was no room to rationalize the movement as a trick of the light. The angel's face was fully visible, and its hands were resting at its bosom, as though it were praying.

Molly called her husband. She dialed in such a blind panic that she hit the wrong button twice. Once she finally reached her husband's mobile, her hands were shaking so badly she nearly dropped the phone.

"Molly, is something wrong?" George asked.

"Yes, there is something wrong! You need to come home right now!"

"But I've got a client who's—"

"I don't care if he's going to invent a cure for cancer! I need you!"

That convinced George. His wife never needed anything from him, and certainly she never begged so desperately. She was a self-sufficient woman, and whatever was the matter had to be a massive problem.

"Alright, I'll leave. Family emergency and all that. I'll be home in fifteen minutes."

Fifteen minutes sounded as long as a hundred years. Molly whimpered and hung up the phone. She hoped she could last fifteen minutes without running from the house like a madwoman.

Pacing through the house ate up six minutes of her agonizing wait. Standing in front of the window, her hand on the curtain, consumed another three. Finally mustering enough courage to check on the angel, Molly pulled back the curtain for another peek.

The angel had not only moved its arms, it had moved its entire body closer to the house. Molly felt tears spring to her eyes. There were only two possibilities, two ways this was happening: her statue was either alive, or she had lost her mind. Neither option was the least bit pleasant.

Molly left the garden window alone. She would wait by the door for George, so she could seize him the moment he walked in. It would only be another five minutes, maybe less if he was courteous enough to break the speed limit for her.

George must have ignored the speed limit, because he pulled into the driveway not two minutes later. He left his briefcase in the car and hurried to the door. As soon as he opened it, his wife wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her face against his chest.

"Molly, what is it? Oh, don't tell me it's your dad. The doctors said he was doing so much better."

"It's not my dad. Please, just come and see."

"See what?"

"Please."

Not in four years of marriage had Molly ever been so plaintive. George followed her through the house in silence. She stopped in front of a window, reached for the curtain, but then drew her arm back.

"I can't do it again," Molly sobbed.

George couldn't begin to imagine what had his wife reduced to this uncharacteristic state. The same wife who could send him to bed without any supper was now afraid to look out into the garden.

"What's out there, zombies?" George asked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Look. I, oh, I can't."

George grabbed the curtain and refused to hesitate. He pulled it back and gasped in surprise.

"Who the hell's been in the garden? Is that is? Were there some hoodlums out there?" George asked. "You should have called the police, Molly."

"It wasn't kids," Molly replied.

"Then who moved the angel? And…its arms are lowered. What's going on? How can its arms have moved?"

"I noticed this morning, when I went outside. Its hands weren't over its eyes anymore. I thought I was mistaken, but when I looked at it again, it was obvious."

George squinted at the angel. "I'm going out there."

Molly clutched him, and held him immobile. "You are doing no such thing."

"I need to find out why the statue in my garden is moving, Molly."

"No." To George's surprise, he found his wife dragging him away from the window. He was forced to relinquish the curtain, which drifted back into place and obscured the view.

"Then what do you propose we do? We can't ignore something like that," George pointed out.

"Let's call the police."

"And tell them what? That our lawn ornaments are alive? They'd think we'd been into cannabis."

"We could tell them someone was out there. An intruder or a gang of kids, like you said before," Molly replied.

George sighed. "Maybe we have been into cannabis, and don't remember."

"I haven't touched it since I left university," Molly said.

"Then how are we seeing what we're seeing? It's impossible."

George was struck with a sudden idea. His mobile phone had a camera and video recording feature. He could set in on the window sill, leave it to record for a few minutes, then review the footage. If the angel moved in the video, then they would have evidence that something was going on. They could take the video to the proper authorities, though what the police would make of it, George didn't want to guess.

"We'll take a video of it," George said as he pulled out his mobile.

Molly let go of him and allowed him to approach the window. George had to admit the trepidation he felt as his hand grasped the curtain. His hand was shaking, and it took a few deep, steadying breaths before he could draw the curtain.

The angel was closer and its arms were now down at its sides. George hid the sight from his wife. She had turned her back on the window, anyway. He quickly set his phone down on the sill and let the curtain go.

"Let's leave it be for a while."

They sat down at the kitchen table and waited for five minutes; that was the longest video George's camera could record. George got up and, taking tiny, shuffling steps, went to the window. As soon as George was out of the room, Molly grabbed a long knife from the woodblock on the counter, though she knew it would do little against solid stone.

George opened the curtain just a slit. What he saw was enough to nearly trigger a heart attack. The angel was only feet from the window, and had drawn its arms up in an attack position. Its fingernails and face had also transmogrified; it now had claws and its mouth, open wide, bristled with pointed teeth. George grabbed his camera and ran.

"Out of the kitchen. Come on, we're too close here," George said. He grabbed Molly around the arm and yanked her from her chair.

"What did you see? Tell me," she demanded.

"It's close, very, very close. And ugly."

"How close?"

"Arm's length from the window. And it's got claws now."

"Oh my God."

"We'll call the police and they can do whatever they want." George went to dial 999, but paused before his finger could hit the button. The phone's screen was still on the camera mode, and the angel's snarling face stared up at him. It unnerved him so badly he couldn't dial.

"I'll use the home phone," George said. He set his phone down on the coffee table.

George picked the phone up from its cradle. He had dialed the first nine, but as he depressed the button a second time, there came a frantic knocking on the front door. The doorbell began to chime, too.

"What if it's the statue?" Molly asked.

"The way that thing looked, it could just smash the door down."

Molly crept to the door. The knocking became more insistent and desperate. Whoever was out there wanted to come in.

"Who's there?" Molly said.

"I'm the Doctor, now open the door!"

"We didn't call a doctor."

"No, but if you'd had my number, you would've. Believe me, you'll want my help."

"But I don't know who you are."

"Do you have a stone angel that's behaving strangely?"

The door swung open. The Doctor was greeted by a young woman who was clutching a long knife. He grinned at her and waved. She scowled back.

"Is this your doing?" the woman demanded.

"No, not in the least."

"Then how—"

There was the sharp sound of breaking glass. Without waiting for permission, the Doctor shoved past Molly and ran into the house.

TBC!