They found Smith's body before they reached the lab. Meg felt punched in the gut. The man was disemboweled, the smell of feces was overpowering. His face retained an expression of horror and pain. She wanted to vomit. She wanted to run the other direction. She forced her facial muscles to stay relaxed, her expression neutral. It helped that this wasn't the first dead body she'd seen. She could hear her teachers' voices in her head: Don't give your enemy an inch. Are you in pain? Smile. Are you scared? Look bored. Your body is not the boss of you. You are the boss of your body.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." She said, kneeling and closing the man's eyes. You died to protect others. There is no nobler sacrifice. May flights of angels see thee to thy rest.

They moved forward, quiet and subdued. They both knew more of the same would be waiting for them in the lab.

It wasn't long before they were before the doors. "Ready?" The Doctor asked.

"Let's get this over with."

Their shoes splashed through pink-tinged puddles of alcohol mixed with blood. The fumes made Meg instantly lightheaded. In the back wall of the room stood a huge fish tank with the front shattered. Glass cracked and popped as she stepped inside. The other walls had a whiteboard, shelves and cabinets and a deep sink. She didn't quite want to move her gaze to the floor, but at the same time, she couldn't help herself.

The Doctor quickly found a small grey lump on the tile floor and went to investigate. It didn't look like a monster. It looked like roadkill. Meg kept her distance all the same. The Doctor scanned the small, sodden body with his sonic screwdriver. He didn't bother scanning the scientists. One was headless, the other, in pieces. "Definitely dead."

"So what's plan B?" Meg asked, putting sodden copy paper over the faces of the dead.

"You mean, the general's plan?"

"Well… yeah."

"We're not killing them." He said flatly.

"Why not?" She snapped. "Look around. Look what they did."

"They think we're the bad guys."

Meg was incredulous. "So … what, you want to talk to it? They're animals; you can't reason with it, you can only put it down."

"They're scared and hurt right now. That makes them dangerous." And they're not the only ones.

"Cry me a river."

So much pain behind that hate. The Doctor thought, studying her face. Why? "They were kidnapped. They crashed. They were in a toxic bath in a catatonic state. When they woke, their offspring was dead. Soldiers were shooting. Have we given them any reason to trust us? If all that happened to you, how would you react?"

Meg looked down. "I hadn't thought about it like that. But you still haven't answered the question. What's plan B?"

"We run. We go back to the TARDIS. Keeping everyone separate, I'll transport the Treveens home."

"Let's get a move on, then," Meg said. It sounded like an overly simple plan, with steps he didn't share. But running and a few extra steps worked with the Verloc, maybe it'd work with the Treveens too. She was trusting him again. Her stomach knotted. Did he deserve it? Wanting to do the right thing and being lucky did not qualify as deserving.

They didn't make it to the armory. Down yet another long, whitewashed hallway, they crossed paths with one of the Treveen. The alien looked dog-like in the sense of four legs, one head, two ears, and fur, but it was the size of a tiger, with two tails, four completely black eyes, a beak and the teeth of a crocodile. Its fur was white and still wet, its muzzle was stained red with blood. Twin scars trailed the whole left side of its face.

'Mostly peaceful' the Doctor said? It looks like a killing machine, Meg thought.

It growled and charged. Meg drew a gun and aimed as well as she could with her trembling hands.

"No! Don't shoot!" The Doctor pushed to into an office and locked the door. Where did she get that? He wondered. Smith. As she was paying her respects, she stripped his corpse of his weapon. With a thud the creature slammed itself into the door, splintering the wood. It wouldn't hold long.

"Why did you stop me?" Meg demanded.

"Were you ever on my side, or did you just want to go around my back with the General's plan?" He yelled and reached to take her gun.

She slapped his hand away. "Those men were killed, Doctor. Did you forget about them already? The state we found them in? That door's not going to hold long, and I'm not going to stand around and let myself get killed."

The Doctor looked at Meg, finding her stoic with her decision to kill. "So that's it? Kill it because it killed ours? Then what? Where does it end?"

Meg paused, unwilling to gang up on him when the General was a strong enough advocate for the creature's death. The door splintered again. If they were to travel together, an understanding needed to be made. "I'm not good with these kinds of questions. I'm aware there's a deeper philosophical meaning somewhere along the lines of 'violence begets violence' or 'violence never solved anything,' and I know it's true. Violence doesn't solve the root of the problem. Believe me, I don't go looking for fights, but the diplomatic solution is dead back in the lab. Simply and practically, in this situation, it ends with one or both sides dead. That's final enough for today."

The Doctor looked shocked and disappointed by Meg's answer. The door was giving way. One more hit and the Treveen would be in the room. "Ceiling." He said, jumping up on a desk, and moving aside one of the tiles. He gave her a boost and climbed up after her.

They crawled on hands and knees along the dropped ceiling in silence for what seemed like blocks.

"Look, Doctor…"

"Keep moving. Don't stop."

Meg grit her teeth. Time and a Place or Silent Treatment? She had a guess – the judgment rolling off him was suffocating.