disguise her expression of confusion and disgust; eyebrows raised and pushed together, and her eyes wide. Her lips were slightly turned downwards into a frown as her mouth sat slightly agape. She reached up and placed her hand over the Doctor's which now rested on her shoulder. He had moved Donna and Valarie closer to him.

"Doctor, these strangers were inquiring about the state of a servant of mine."

"Whom?" He responded, eyes never leaving the three. Donna didn't understand the hostility, but his gaze was enough to rattle her. It was cold and hungry.

"She was," Valarie stuttered out, "she was a kid. Sixteen probably."

"Sixteen is hardly a child." Helen scoffed. Valarie thought on the remark. In this time frame, she was middle-aged.

"Brown hair. Gray, gray eyes I think." She responded. Helen thought on it for a moment before Jekyll clasped his hands together before him.

"Ah, they must be thinking of Alba. That Gaelic girl from up in the hills." He announced, eyes switching to Helen. "Yes, she has been slightly ill as of late, but rest assured I am personally seeing over her care." Jekyll stepped forward, now pacing them and slowly circling them like a predator. Valarie shivered slightly. While yes, Jekyll had been the reason her and the Doctor's paths ever collided, he had planned to basically eat her. To suck the life out of her with a straw basically. And after Brion, oh god, what kind of vengeance he held for those two. The other one Valarie recalled was nowhere in sight, so she perceived him to possibly have died in the explosion.

"My majesty, it is getting late." He stopped in front of her, only two feet from Valarie as he peered down at her. He licked his lips. "Why not show generosity to these travelers? God knows they've most likely traveled a long, long way." Helen nodded, not catching onto the animosity that sat in the room. The Doctor would've pulled Valarie closer if he could have; he certainly didn't like the way Jekyll looked at her.

"It is getting rather dark. Dusk is upon us. I'll see to it that you are shown to some quarters." Helen agreed. She departed from the group and Jekyll, vanishing into the stone corridor as the three stared each other down.

"Ilek." The Doctor greeted, rolling his shoulders and his head to the side. "Thought you died back in, oh, I don't know, 2007." Jekyll snorted, looking to the side and back to the Doctor.

"Fortunate for you, your little accidental blast did take Ewin from me. But I survived. Pulled myself from the rubble."

"How did you end up here?" Valarie asked.

"Oh, you." He cooed, approaching her as he inhaled deeply. "Smell better than you did the last time. Must've endured quite the emotional turmoil between now and then." He chuckled, leaning in slightly as Valarie wished nothing more than to vanish.

"Oh, now that's a smell I don't forget." He sniffed the air, following almost an invisible vapor trail towards the Doctor.

"It's all over you too, Doctor. Now I didn't expect that out of you, especially with some human." His sharp sense of smell, of things no one else in the room could smell, revealed the emotions that brewed between the two. Attention snapped as Helen's throat cleared. Eyes turned to her, standing with two aids at her side.

"August and Clement here will show you to your rooms. Men and women will be separated, respectively." She smiled. The two servants stepped forward. They were both boys, aged fifteen possibly.

"Sir Doctor." One ushered. He appeared hesitant to follow, glancing between them and the boy. Valarie pursed her lips, grabbing onto Donna's arm and pulling her closer. She nodded to him, almost as if silently promising she was going to find him in the later night. He turned back to the young boy and hesitantly began to follow him into the stone corridor.

"Miss Donna, Miss Valarie. Clement will show you to your room." Helen smiled. Valarie walked slowly past Jekyll, peering at him intensely through the corner of her eye. Donna turned her head to him, giving him a confused and somewhat angry look. She wasn't sure what exactly he had done, but she didn't like how badly he spooked Valarie and worried the Doctor.

__

Valarie paced the stone wall quarters, Donna sitting on a window seat as she gazed below. She turned to Valarie and shook her head.

"So, what exactly happened between that Jekyll character and you two?" She asked. Valarie held a hand to her mouth, resting on a folded arm as she paced. She unconsciously chewed on her nail - a habit she hadn't returned to since her primary school days. Her eyes flickered to Donna. Donna's hands sat clasped in her lap.

"Well, we thought he was dead, for starters." She remarked. When Donna didn't respond, she continued. "Brion, remember when the Doctor mentioned Brion? Well, I was an intern. This was before I meet the Doctor. Some unpaid college intern, a year ago. Jekyll was a researcher at the lab. He was my supervisor. Weird things started happening, and people around me started changing. There was a girl named Olivia, who I always thought was rather a bitch, but then she disappeared and a guy I had gotten close to named Lee took her place. I mean, trait for trait, everything. He went from loud and fun to silent and bitter. Empty." Valarie took a seat on the bed across from Donna, folding her legs and gesturing her hands as she spoke.

"One night, Jekyll who used to be great asked me to stay late and work on his notes. It was generally unreadable garble. I did. He seemed bitter about something. I stayed. Around one in the morning I think I thought someone had broke in. Go to look, and it was the Doctor. That's how we met." She revealed. "We go back to his notes, and from there things get mixed together but Jekyll was some alien thing. A race that prayed on emotions or those chemicals or whatever. The Doctor triggered an explosion, a complete accident actually. But Jekyll, or Ilek or whatever, we thought went up in flames. Guess not."

"So he's some alien? Like a timelord?"

"Oh, no. The Doctor truly looks human. Ilek is disguised. He is this tall, clawed, fanged, reptile thing. With a long snout, and a tail even."

"Like a dragon?" Donna gawked. She then began to laugh. "You just described a bloody dragon, Val! A dragon that only some knight could vanquish." She put her head in her hands laughing.

"Donna." Valarie announced. She looked up at her. "We have to get out of here tonight. Ilek may want to get a hold of me, but I can promise you he wants to get a hold of the Doctor more."

"Okay." She started. "When it gets dark, we'll slip out and get him and get out of dodge." Valarie nodded in return, okay with the plan. She laid back on the bed, hands on her forehead as she thought it over. She closed her eyes and let out a deep sigh. She felt shaken, like she had viewed at the ghost of Christmas's past.

__

Night had fallen, and the corridors were dark. Empty room's doors remained open, making their hunt for the Doctor exponentially easier. Valarie trailer ahead as the leader, sticking to the wall. Torches were hung high in the walls and provided illuminance slightly to the room.

"How do you know where he is?" Donna whispered.

"I don't." She frankly remarked. "If anything, he's probably out looking for us." She sighed, hoping she could find him before something else did. Or worse, something found them. Jekyll had to be planning something, no doubt. Not only was he a carnivorous alien, but he was a carnivorous alien with a grudge.

"So, this guy just wants to...eat, you?" Donna asked.

"Kind of. Seems like we killed his friend, or his mate, his whatever." Valarie responded, hands running over the jagged walls. Her eyes scanned in the dim light, fighting to see any moving forms that resembled the Doctor's. "Ilek is going to tear us apart because we took them away." Valarie mumbled.

"Well, I guess that's understandable," Donna mumbled back.

"Understandable?" Valarie sneered.

"Well." she sighed in return, the two stopping at a corner that led into a wide corridor. A grand stair case descending below was in the room, with brilliant tapestries decorating on either side.

"Something tells me if you were taken away so suddenly like that, the Doctor would tear everything apart."

Valarie thought about her words as she continued her stride. She became consumed in the idea, knowing deep down while she in no way had the power she would as well. Even if it was suicide. And for a glaring moment, she pitied Ilek. Just a moment.

"Donna, I-" She turned towards behind her again at the sound of scuffling shoes. In the dim lighting, she saw it; the tips of Donna's brown shoes vanishing behind an archway that descended into what looked like a bottomless pit. She froze, her heart stopping as she realized they most likely already had the Doctor, and now Donna as well. It was up to Valarie, and Valarie alone to find and free them. She looked around; mind blank on how she could even begin to stand a chance against the giant dragon-like creature that was Ilek. And heavens, who knew if he didn't just have more like him here?

In the corner there was a flicker; light bouncing off of a reflective surface and showing a distorted version of her flame back to her. Standing in the corner was her answer. Standing tall on a stand was a proud suit, made of iron and covered in few specks of dust and dirt. Its hands were positioned into a clasp, with the handle of a sword protruding from it and the tip of the sword rested snuggly against the plate of wood it was positioned upon.

Well, she thought, it was always the knight that slayed the dragon.