Here you are my lovely readers, another chapter. Um, not much to say except I hope this chapter came out just as I wanted it too. I've taken some liberties you'll see. So no blasting me on being wrong or something like that. If you feel the urge to correct me do not do it in reviews. I am more than happy to respond in a message. Okay other than that, have fun. Thank you to those who review and those who have added this to their alert/fav list. You guys have no idea how much that makes me happy.

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who, though I really really wish I did at some times.

Chapter Six

"What do we do now?" asked Addie as she shut the doors of the TARDIS. Once more they were both safely tucked inside, nothing from the outside able to harm them."Not as if we can just leave them over night. Who knows if someone else will be attacked."

"We're not just leaving them. We can't exactly have the ship parked miles from town. Got to land her somewhere close."

"Look a little odd landing her in town, perception filter doesn't work as well as I remember." Addie teased while watching the Doctor do what he didn't do best, flying the TARDIS. She held on tight to one of the railings to keep from being thrown about mid-flight.

"Oh don't be so mean, she's just as good as she's always been." The Doctor pouted as she gave one of the controls a pet, like telling the ship she was being good. Addie wouldn't blame the ship for the somewhat rough rides, she blamed the driver.

She rolled her eyes with a teasing smirk on her face. "Yes landing a ship that looks like a sixties police box in the middle of the late eighteen hundreds is the brightest idea in the world."

The Doctor laughed now before saying, "Oh the places I've landed her, worse places where she would stand out than Athens in the eighteen hundreds."

At this Addie did give a wild little laugh. The ship landed with a startling lurch which slammed her forward, abdomen first, into the railing. As far as trips went this one was fairly good which was saying a lot. "I've been injured more on this ship in the last five hours than I ever was on Earth."

"Sorry about that. You've got to get used to her again."

With a little glare in his direction she raised a brow. "There isn't any getting used to her Doctor, it's more like you need to learn how to fly her properly so that I don't end up with my head bashed in on the console. Wouldn't do to have that now would it," she said as she lifted her shirt to inspect the straight red mark forming across her lower stomach. It would turn into a purple bruise before the end of the night. It would be gone tomorrow with any look.

She gave a little wiggle as she smoothed the shirt down and tugged her jeans up. "As I was asking, what do we do next Doctor?" She hadn't noticed the fleeting look on the Doctor's face while he had been watching her inspect her stomach.

"We do a bit of research," he finally said with a goofy grin.

"Foot research I assume. Don't know what that thing looks like and there are hundreds of creatures that feed like it, or at least similar in some respects I suppose." She began heading in the direction of the hall as she spoke.

The Doctor followed her asking, "Where are you going? The town's that way." He pointed towards the doors the opposite way in which Addie was headed. He might have been able to read her emotions given the fact they were the same species but he couldn't really read her mind.

"I've got something I'd like to retrieve if it's still in my hiding spot," she called, already in the bowels of the ship, the Doctor several yards behind her though with his larger stride he was catching up with her at a rapid pace.

He caught up to her just as they stopped in front of her door. He noticed the color change and the fact that her name was now craved in a more lilting handwriting of a woman rather than that of a child. Like the past, her name was written in Gallifreyan. "What would that be?" he asked.

Pushing her door open she turned quickly on her heel giving him a impish smile. "Hold your horses, you'll find out soon enough if you have the patience." She walked to her reading area, pulled up the cushion and felt around for the hidden latch on the inside of the wood. There was a satisfying click as she found the latch causing a small panel to pop up.

The Doctor, having watched Addie rooting around, stared in awe at the hidden cache. "Brilliant, couldn't have thought of any place better," he exclaimed. "What you got hidden in there?"

"This," Addie said brightly as she came up with her own sonic screwdriver. "Remember when you got me this thing? Had to cross your own time line just to snag me one." She flicked it open and watched as the tip flashed purple. She was realizing that her childhood self had quite the addiction to the color purple. But unlike her room, the color of her sonic could not be changed. It looked almost like an Earth black light.

The Doctor smiled at her. "You smiled like a loon for a week. Ten year old with a new toy, couldn't keep you out of anywhere after I gave you that thing. Sometimes wished I hadn't." He scratched the back of his head as she pocketed her new shiny toy, the same smile of her ten year old self on her face.

"Still smile like a loon whenever I think about it. I've missed it for years now. Could have helped me out a lot of messes when I was a teen." Her mind slipped back for a moment into past, her running around after dark with her mates, getting into trouble and just causing havoc for their parents.

"You still are a teen."

Her nose cringed at being called a teenager. "In the eyes of a Time Lord, yes I am. In human years I'm an adult."

"As a Time Lord you are merely a baby just learning to walk." He gently teased her even if it was the truth. She was literally twenty five years old, in respects to her Gallifreyan ancestry, she was just a baby. She wouldn't be an adult until she was nearly ninety.

Addie punched him lightly on the arm. "Thank you so much for calling me a baby. Just what I want to hear as a twenty five year old woman."

"That hurt," he said while rubbing the spot. "Come on you've got your sonic, lets go find out what seems to be killing people." He grabbed her hand, tugging her out of her room and back down the hall until they were out of the TARDIS in the middle of a rank smelling alleyway.

Addie put a hand to her nose nearly gagging as the smell invaded her senses. She could nearly taste it on her tongue. "Smells like a sewer in London."

"Of course it does, eighteen hundreds Athens. Not exactly twenty first century accommodations," he began to amble down the ally, his hands in the pockets of his coat. The smells around him didn't bother him one bit.

"Don't look so pleased. I haven't smelt something this horrid since I was a wee lass running about Elizabethan London with you on my tail. Didn't mind it back then, the thrill was a bit greater then and it over powered the smell," yet while she spoke she removed her hand from her nose and began to walk her way down the alley slightly behind the Doctor.

It was darker now in the village center. Taverns and inns were closed or were in the process of closing, people weren't rambling about as much either. The hum of activity which had occurred over the dead man not more than an hour ago had long since passed. The body had been removed and the grieving sister taken somewhere safer, where she was less likely to cause a scene.

While this might have seemed like a good thing for the town, it wasn't a good thing for the Doctor and Addie. They didn't have a body to examine and they didn't have people to talk to. They would either have to wait for another attack of they were going to have to find the body in order to see if they could find any clue as to what type of creature had done this.

Addie let out a sigh after ten minutes of walking. "Doesn't look like we'll be getting much done tonight seeing as that attack has the whole city in a bit of a scare. We should head back to the TARDIS, do a bit of book research, and maybe I'll cook us up some dinner since we didn't really get to eat at the tavern."

"Sounds like a good idea if ever I heard one. Can't be running around looking out of place," and with that being said the Doctor turned around, this time following behind Addie as they made their way back to the ship in the alley.

Once inside, Addie made a beeline for the kitchen, calling out to the Doctor as she did so, "Anything in particular you want to eat? I'm in the mood for breakfast actually. Feels like I haven't eaten in days. I suppose all this walking has made me a bit famished."

"Could you make banana muffins?" he called back to her like a child asking for candy.

She chuckled lightly. "I take it by the tone of your voice, you like bananas still. If you've got the ingredients then I'll be more than happy to make you some." She swore she heard him squeal like a child at her response. "Child," she mumbled to herself even while she was ginning widely.

With a shake of her head, she kicked off her shoes once in the kitchen. She walked around in her socks gathering bowls, measuring cups, and the numerous ingredients for the muffins. When those were put in the oven and baking she set about gathering the things for a full breakfast. Eggs, toast, hash browns, and even sausage and pancakes.

She was surprised by the amount of food in the kitchen. Growing up there had been only what they needed, only what she asked for. Maybe it was the years that had passed which had changed him or it was the Doctor himself who had changed, but she liked that fact that she wasn't having to request they stop off on Earth to gather things.

It didn't take more than an hour to get everything ready. "Could you call for the Doctor, let him know dinner, or rather breakfast, is ready," she asked the ship hearing a purr in response. It took a little more than three minutes before the Doctor made his way into kitchen where she was setting things up on the center island counter. She pulled up a second stool beside the one she had gathered for herself. She patted it while giving him a soft smile. "Here, sit. I'll serve, it's the least I could do seeing as you've taken me on again."

The Doctor didn't argue much with her order, just took a seat as she sat a muffin on a plate in front of him. "Fresh made with real bananas and vanilla. I added walnuts for a bit of crunch."

She watched hopefully as she began to lay out two plates and fill them with food. He began to tear into the now warm muffin as if it were the first thing he had eaten in months. For all she knew it was. "When was it that you last ate, beside the little nibble at the tavern?"

"Don't remember actually," he said through a mouth of muffin. "This is amazing!"

She gave a half smile, feeling a little self-conscious at being complimented. She had never been really good at being praised. "Thank you. I've been practicing baking lately. Got a knack for it actually. Made Lilly's birthday cake this past time. She couldn't help but love it, said it was the best cake she'd ever had. I'll have to make you one, maybe if you'd every tell me when your birthday is."

"You don't need an excuse to make me a cake," the Doctor reached across the counter for another muffin as she laid a plate in front of him. She poured them each a glass of milk and then she put her plate at her spot before hopping onto her stool. She grabbed for her own muffin.

She had to admit that they were pretty good, the best she had made in quite some time. The real banana gave it a smooth texture, the walnuts added a hint of crunch like she had said, and they were heavier than she usually preferred her muffins. "Best I've made in a while if you ask me," she mumbled while finishing off the crumbs and then dug into her plate. "Did you find anything while I was cooking?" she asked while trying to chew her toast.

"All I managed to do was pull at least a hundred books off the shelves in the library. We'll go look through them when we're done here."

"A hundred? Sounds like a lovely bit of fun, that." She poked at a bit of egg before swirling it into the shredded potato of the hash she had made. She gulped it down and finished off her milk. "You enjoying dinner?"

"It's amazing, best breakfast I've had in a long time."

"Probably the only breakfast you've had in a long while," Addie snorted out watching as he finished all the food on his plate. If he could have, without looking like an fool, he would have licked his plate clean. The mental image in her mind was cute and she couldn't help but grin a bit while finishing off the last bite of her own meal.

"I'm happy that you've enjoyed it," she grabbed at his plate and took up her own. "Take the rest of the muffins to the library while I clean this mess up. Shouldn't take more than a minute or two." She shooed him out even as he tried to protest her doing all the work. She shoved the tin of muffins into his hands and giving him a shove. "You've never been domestic, let me take care of this," she shouted after his retreating form.

She only got a grunt in response and she laughed.

She sang as she cleaned, making sure everything was in order before slipping out of the kitchen and into one of the many hallways of the ship. She went to her room first, changed, took care of Kiva, and finally began her trip to the library where she found the Doctor already going through a large pile of tomes.

Without saying a word to him, she took a large book off the stake, noting that some of the books were thin and some where as thick as her forearm. She wandered a couple of yards away from where the Doctor was seated on the ground, finding an old worn sofa. She adjusted the pillows and flopped backwards with the book in her hands.

Taking a moment to look at the cover she noted that it was in old French and quite old. She flipped to the table of contents, skimmed through it, and began to flip through the hundreds of pages in search of anything relevant to what had happened to that man on the street. Page after page she turned finding nothing of actual use though she did learn a little more about the Earth as a whole.

Halfway through she yawned softly to herself, blinked, and rubbed her eyes. She wouldn't say she was tired, more that she was bored. Sleep wasn't something she needed all that much, at least she was finding that as she began to get older. Yet here she sat, curled on a couch, reading a book looking for anything that could hint to what had sucked a man dry in the middle of the street in front of dozens of people, and her eyes were starting to drift closed. She was out in a matter of minutes.

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The Doctor heard the book hit the ground, the thud echoing through the first level of the library like a pin dropping in a quite temple. Curious, he glanced up from his book removing his glasses as he did so. Across the room he spotted Addie stretched out on one of the old sofas, her hand falling off the side. She was completely asleep.

He smiled lightly, put his own book aside, got up, and walked quietly to where she was. He leaned down to pick up the book, flattening the pages which had crinkled in the midst of its fall. He set the now straightened book on the ground and reached behind Addie to grab the throw blanket off the back of the couch. He gave it a soft snap before laying it over her gently.

She grumbled in her sleep, tugged at the blanket, and snuggled deeper under the soft fabric. He couldn't help the smile of affection that spread across his face. He had seen this sight before, several hundred times when she had been growing up. Yet never before had he felt not only the tug of affection but a tug of something else.

Even beneath the blanket her curves could still be seen, the soft fabric clinging to her frame. She had once been a child, still was in fact because of where she came from. Though here she lay, looking less like a girl and more like a woman that ever before. He wasn't used seeing someone of his own kind looking older than they should at such a young age in their life cycle, unless they had regenerated that was which was rare in its own right.

Earth had been the cause of that he supposed, exposed to all those chemical and hormones in the foods and water. That would cause her to mature a little faster than if she had continued to live on the TARDIS. She'd still look like a teenager if she had traveled with him. He didn't know if her maturing had been a blessing or if it would show to be a curse.

"Grew up more than you should have on that planet, didn't take that into account," he talked to himself while walking away from her sleeping form.

He sat himself back in his original spot surrounded by dozens, if not hundreds, of books. Yet he couldn't find the urge to continue flipping through them. If he had to place a bet on why he was so distracted, he would wager heavily on the reason being the black haired woman on the couch not more than ten yards away. It wasn't just because of how mature she was now, it was more because he knew something wasn't right. He didn't know why, he just sort of knew that there was something going on with her. Something she wasn't quite willing to talk about just yet. He knew it was something to do with those nightmares, he just wished she would trust him enough to talk.

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Addie awoke with a scream from the nightmare. She had been burning, burning so terribly. Her body feeling as if it were on fire. She ended up flat on her front side on the ground, trying not to howl in pain. She felt her body curl into a ball as her body temperature rose. Her head was throbbing and every muscle in her body screamed in agony from some unknown injury. She couldn't pinpoint what was going on, where the pain started and where it ended. She tried to concentrate, felt the pain radiate in ripples down her spin, until she was so tightly wrapped around herself that she thought she was going to implode, like a star in the last moments of its life. She was burning from the inside out, as if her nightmare was raging inside her, a force of nature she couldn't fight.

Hands as cold as ice touched her back sending a new and startling burst of pain through her body. She screeched and pushed herself away from the hands. Her eyes were blinded by the fire in her system. She couldn't see who was there, couldn't even feel who it was.

Once more those cold hands made contact with her burning skin. She didn't scream this time, more like whimpered as she once more tried to move out from under them. She found herself trapped, nowhere to go to escape the cold pressing down on her body. She could do nothing but try to open her eyes and ears.

Her eyes still didn't work, the pain still clouding her vision. Her ears, ringing, opened more so than her eyes. She could hear her own screams and the soft sound of a voice. "Come on Addie, you're alright," the voice cooed.

"I—wh—at?" she tried to talk, her voice breaking as another round of fiery pain ripped through her body.

"Addie this is your body trying to adjust. I told you that you were just a child. I didn't take into account your time and Earth and the exposure to the hormones and chemicals. It shouldn't have come on this fast, it should have been a decade or more before this happened."

"What?" she managed to wheeze out, feeling the pain dissipate for a second before flaring once more. She tried to fight this time, tried not to curl into a ball but her body was having none of that and instead of obeying her, curled tighter into itself.

The hand smoothed her hair off her face, ran a thumb under her eye. She could feel the ice spread where she was touched. It was now becoming less of a pain and became more of a helpful sensation which kept her linked to herself.

"You're experiencing a burst of bio-engery for lack of a better term. Something that happens during regeneration and puberty of our kind. You shouldn't go through this until you around thirty-five, maybe forty years old."

"But I'm not an adolescence anymore and I sure as hell am not regenerating," her voice came off full instead of broken yet it was still soft and barely heard.

She was aware it was the Doctor holding her now, cooling her over heated body. "I never got the chance to explain our system to you. While you might have gone through puberty on Earth you haven't gone through it properly."

"How can I go through two types of puberty?" she questioned as she finally was able to pull herself up. Her eyes where no longer clouded and when she looked at her hands she saw a faint glow of gold. "What?" she flipped her hands over, watched as the glow disappeared.

The Doctor looked at her for a moment seeing the confusion in her gray eyes. "Time Lords are essentially like a human, females have a reproductive cycle similar to that of a human female. Normally a Time Lady would go through the puberty of our people at around the age of forty years old, some earlier some later. This mimics a human's puberty in which you turn from a child into an adolescent. Unfortunately you lived on Earth and were treated as a human. You eat prepared food with hormones and chemicals that kick started your puberty in a human way. Once you got back on the TARDIS you're Time Lord biology kicked in and this is the result, a rather painful burst of energy. It only lasts a couple of months, I promise you. These bursts will come on and off, usually with some kind of indicator. A headache, maybe a swift change in personality, it's different for everyone. You aren't as violent as some." He pushed some of her hair off her face before running his hand down her hair's length.

She tried to clear her head of the last of the pain as her body rode out the last of the energy bursts. "I'm sorry, I don't quite understand. Are you saying that I've got a couple of months left of dealing with this shit? I thought it was a one time thing! Damn it," she cursed and rubbed her hands over her arms.

"One time thing? This has happened before?" asked the Doctor still half holding her.

Addie sighed, ran a hand through her sweat covered hair feeling knots from her sleep. "Yes, about a month ago. I had a terrible headache the weekend Lilly went out with some of her mates for a girl's weekend. Asked me if I wanted to go with her. I told her I wasn't feeling well and I was going to take a nap. She left. I woke up in the same state I was here, not as bad but still it wasn't something I care to repeat. Will it always be this painful?"

"No, not always. If you can figure out when an episode will hit you can learn to breath through it. Think of it like cramps."

She snorted and said, "Like you would know what true cramps are. Granted this wasn't much better but still, don't care to repeat this again if it can be helped. Being here in the TARDIS didn't help either."

"Of course not. It accelerated things a bit, possibly made it worse."

"I would say so. Yet it would have made things worse if I had been out on the streets walking around Athens. Would have been admitted or taken in for experiments seeing as I glowed like a star there for a moment." She laughed a little as she removed herself from the Doctor's half embrace.

She realized that her tank top had ridden up nearly exposing her bra, her flannel pajama bottoms had slipped down to expose her hip bones. She blushed and tried to adjust herself as best she could in her current position. "Sorry about my state of dress."

"I've seen you in less," he said offhandedly.

Addie's gray eyes widened with shock as her face turned as bright red, nearly matching that of a tomato. "Well thank you for making me feel slightly more embarrassed than I already was. Now if you'll excuse me I need to take a shower and get ready for the day. If my calculations are correct it would be early morning. We've got to be off if we'd like to find out anything about this thing killing people."

"You aren't going to talk about this are you?"

"Not a lick Doctor," she murmured and waved her hand as she exited the library without so much a look back.

Once in her room she collapsed backwards onto her bed, a soft sigh escaping her lips as she felt an array of muscle cramps plague her limber frame. She grunted through the pain, felt it pass, and relaxed. She had felt this way for longer than she was willing to admit to the Doctor, little cramps here and there, flashes of pain, her lack of stability. She now knew what had been causing it and she wasn't quite pleased with it, yet there was nothing she could do about it.

After a few minutes of laying there with no lingering affects she rolled off the bed onto her feet and made her way to the bathroom in order to get ready for the day. She downed a couple of pain pills from the cabinet, took a swig of water, and then took a shower.

Within a little under and hour she was clean and feeling a bit more like herself. She dressed this time in a soft blue and cream Victorian inspired dress which was a little more period appropriate all curtsey of the TARDIS bringing clothing up from the wardrobe. She pulled her long hair up in a twist, sticking in a couple of pins to keep it from falling. She slipped on her Converse, grabbed her sonic form yesterdays jeans and along with her phone stuffed them both into the bodice of the dress, hiding them nicely.

She was out of her room in a flash after that, taking a longer route to the console room where she knew the Doctor would have gone following her departure from the library. "Hello there," she called softly.

The Doctor did a double take at Addie, noting that the dress wasn't truly from the late eighteen hundreds, but it was close enough. "You seem to be wanting to blend in today."

"I don't care to be stared at and what I'm wearing isn't exactly the proper attire but it's close. The TARDIS placed the dress in my closet, I'm assuming for the sake of the time period," she said giving a little twirl. "Kind of like it."

"You look lovely in it and you'll be less likely to stand out while wearing it," he added. "We've got to talk to the locals, maybe see if anything like this has happened before."

Addie rose her brow, snorted, and leaned against a railing. "You really don't think I haven't already thought about that? I'm a brilliant girl remember." Her tone dared him to say something smart about that.

When he didn't she walked to the door, opened one, and held it there so that he could lead the way. "After you Doctor." He walked out in front of her and when he outstretched his hand in her direction she took it. She was still a little iffy on the things going on inside her body but the one thing she was sure of was the fact that this man knew what he was talking about and she knew he would take care of her even if she wasn't going to talk to him yet.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Suggestions? Review Please!

A/N: There is a link to Addie's dress in my profile. Also please take the time to take my poll. It's about which story you lot would like to see posted next. So far my stories based in the Sherlock fandom are winning. Anyways take a look vote. It would make me happy.

Also...I have a question for my readers. I'm sure all of you have seen the new Christmas special...What did you all think of it?

I personally loved it. I miss the Ponds like crazy but I think I might like his new companion.