This chapter has a whole lot of talking, and we find out where vampires werewolves and ghosts come from...

The rating has gone up because I can't seem to write Nina without swearing!


"Facts which at first seem improbable will, even on scant explanation, drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple beauty."

-Galileo Galilei-

Mitchell shook his head slowly. His face contorted into an angry mask as he ground out the words, "Why couldn't you just leave me alone?"

The Doctor opened his mouth to answer, but the Irish vampire was already brushing past him, and wrenching the door open, stormed out of the house.

The alien made to go after him but Martha laid a hand on his shoulder, and with a disarming smile said, "I'll go."

For a moment he looked like he was going to argue, but all he said was, "Be careful."

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Martha followed Mitchell a short way down the street before catching up with him. He threw her a disdainful glance then ignored her.

As they strode past a row of shops, Martha saw to her surprise that the Irishman had no reflection. Despite all the strange and unbelievable adventures she had experienced, she could not help but blurt out this fact.

All Mitchell said was, "Didn't your precious Doctor explain vampires?"

The young woman shrugged. "No. He doesn't really explain much of anything. But it doesn't make sense see. I mean, I can accept that vampires are aliens, but a refection is a reflection. It's just science! How can you not have one?"

"It just is," her morose companion answered. "Maybe it's not science. Maybe it's magic. "Then, under his breath, "Maybe it's a curse."

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The three remaining housemates watched as the mysterious Doctor whirled around the house, flicking through anything that caught his eye, and leaving chaos behind him. Eventually Nina spoke up, "What the fuck is going on?" She advanced on the man, grabbing a magazine out of his unaware hand. "Would you put our stuff down, and tell us who the hell you are and how the hell you know Mitchell?"

The Doctor blinked, opened his mouth to talk, and then closed it again. It was strange how the man who could face down Daleks and Cybermen without even a murmur, had absolutely no defence against the tirade of a short, pregnant nurse. He had just got his act together when the woman turned on him again, "But first, tell us everything you know about werewolves."

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The vampire and the time-traveller stopped at a bridge. Mitchell stared moodily at the water below then began to talk.

"It was ten years ago, I was in Paris with a few other vampires, must have been about six of us. And there was this girl, blonde, quite young. Her name was Rose."

He frowned when Martha interrupted with a muttered, "Of course it was."

"Anyway, she smelled…different. Exotic. A bit like you and the Doctor actually. Now I know that's how time travellers smell, the time vortex or something he called it. But then…" he paused, shaking his head with a half smile, "Then it was just the most fantastic smell in the world. And, we just couldn't stop ourselves."

He stopped, gazing into the water below. Martha had worked with enough messed-up patients to be able to read some of the complicated emotions that flickered across his face; shame, guilt, regret.

Then, in a tone barely above a whisper he said, "I was a very different person then."

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"A long time ago, centuries ago, there was a war. Thousands of light years away. And the war wasn't going so well for either side. So one of the races invented a weapon. A biological weapon that transformed the molecular structure of any of the enemy race it came into contact with. It turned them into beasts. Monsters. Not everyone got infected but the ones who weren't were ripped apart by their family and friends."

They watched the Doctor as he spoke. His eyes were focused on the corner of the room, as if he was personally recalling the events. Every so often he would glance at one of them, eyes drilling into their skulls.

He continued, "But some of them escaped. Every individual is uniquely different, and some were lucky enough to be immune to the virus… and then lucky enough to avoid being massacred. They took a ship and ended up on Earth."

He paused, eyes heavy with sadness, "They didn't survive very long. The Earth's atmosphere was deadly to them. They lived just long enough to pass on their virus to a few unlucky humans. Humans aren't infected as easily by the virus; it must spread by tooth and claw."

George interrupted, forehead furrowed. "But we aren't wolves all the time. Only during the full moon."

The Doctor gave a sudden bright smile and leaned forward excitedly, "Oh yes! That's because you are human. Partly, because you have different biology, different DNA, you don't remain wolf for the entire time – it's connected to the movement of the moon! And partly, partly because there is something so strong, so focused about humans. You force the wolf inside of you to hide, you push it down into your very cores."

The werewolves exchanges glances. To think that this curse that haunted them was so…so scientific. So easy to explain.

Annie broke the silence. "And ghosts? Are ghosts caused by aliens too?"

The Doctor's grin widened even further. "Oh no," he began, "Ghosts are a different story entirely."

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"So, you bit her?" Martha hazarded.

Mitchell's expression darkened. "Yes."

"And what happened then?"

"What do you think? The Doctor turned up. And I have never seen anyone so angry." He didn't need to say more than that. Martha shuddered. She had seen the Doctor angry. It was not an enjoyable experience.

She listened as Mitchell recounted how the Doctor had used the sonic screwdriver to scare off the vampires – emitting a frequency too high for human ears but debilitating for a vampire's more sensitive hearing. She heard how the others had run, but Mitchell hadn't. Privately she admired him for that, for staying to face the Oncoming Storm. The Doctor must have thought it brave too, which is why he made a deal with Mitchell.

Briefly she wondered if the Doctor cared about her that much, whether he would defend her with the same anger which which he had defended Rose.

"He said if I stopped killing he would let me go. But...he would come back in ten years. To check. I never saw the other vampires again."

"He didn't kill them." Martha stated conviction emanating from every pore of her body.

When he gave her a questioning look she told him what had happened with the Family of Blood. She told him that the Doctor understood that there were worse things than death.

"The Doctor doesn't kill," she said. And the truth never sounded so deadly.

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"Ghosts," the Doctor began, "are what is left of the human spirit when the body dies. I have never seen another race make ghosts. It's like there is extra life force inside you that cannot be contained by your physical form. The energy to keep up the form is taken from the movement of tiny particles in the air. See they produce kinetic energy which…"

The alien continued on for a few minutes before realising he had long ago lost his audience. Coughing he went back to his main point. "Ghosts aren't alien. They're as human as you can get."

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"So did you stop killing?"

Martha knew the question was wrong as soon as it had left her lips. Her medical training had brought her in contact with many addicts, and Mitchell was showing classic signs of addiction. You don't challenge an addict llike that.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. "I tried. But this life, this hunger keeps on dragging me back."

She watched him closely, saw the self-loathing and pain in his features.

"They are the best thing that ever happened to me. My friends. If it weren't for them I wouldn't be human any more."

This was stated with such bald honesty that Martha saw suddenly what the Doctor must have seen in the vampire all those years ago. Mitchell knew what he was. He hated what he was. But he did not deny what he was.

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"Vampires are different again" said the Doctor, leaning back in his chair and taking a gulp of his tea. "The original vampires landed in South America thousands of years ago. They were predators, and humans were their prey. But they weren't evil. A fox isn't evil if it kills a rabbit – it just is. But they realised eventually that they could change humans, making them stronger and faster – and with a lust for blood. But these new human vampires were evil. Yes, humanity can be brilliant and imaginative and wonderful, but all so often they are disgusting and cruel and terrible. And becoming a vampire brings out the worst in a person, which the original vampires learned – nearly too late."

"But so many things about vampires don't make sense," Annie insisted. She was trying to forget what the Doctor had said, about how the human side of a vampire was the most dangerous part. "They can't be seen in the mirror! They can't enter homes!"

The Doctor raised his hands in despair. "If I explained it would you actually understand? The lack of reflection is due to the vibration of a vampire's skin at…" he paused seeing the blankness creeping into their eyes again; and changed tack, "And the inability to enter dwellings is only a human-vampire trait. It's to do with the effect the mind has on the body. It was so ingrained, at the time they were first made, that corpses should not enter homes that it became a lasting physical characteristic. Take for example the placebo effect…"

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Martha sighed, and then said, "You have to go back."

"I know, I just-just got scared. Annie, George, they always were more than I deserved."

He pushed himself off the barrier, the effort a mixture of mental and physical will. "But you're right."

As they walked back she couldn't help asking, "Did you kill again?"

But no answer was forthcoming.


Hope you enjoyed this chapter!