[Previously:]

It seemed the Doctor noticed the same thing she did at the same time, as she heard him asking, "Where is Lee...?" at exactly the same moment when she was thinking it.

Lydia scanned their surroundings with her eyes but couldn't make out any sign of the young villager. She exchanged a look with the Doctor before moving back down the trail with him. When they walked just a little around the bend of the mountain which the trail wound around, she spotted the huddled form of Lee a few meters down and off the trail, looking like he had just sat up.

"Doctor!" she called out to get his attention, but realised it was unnecessary when she saw the Time Lord already jogging towards the villager as she turned to face him. Lydia followed his example and jogged after him, slowing down a little when she almost tripped over some stones, taking more cautious steps on the rocky ground.
Coming to a stop in front of the men, she saw that Lee was holding his right shoulder (and was that blood she could see darkening the sleeve of his maroon, tunic-like top?), with the Doctor crouching in front of him.

"Show me?" she heard the older man prompting.

"It is really nothing," Lee replied, but removed his hand from his shoulder nonetheless to reveal two slash wounds that ran diagonally across it under his torn clothing, one a little longer than the other. "I was just surprised when it came at me and lost my footing. Bet I did some impressing tumbling, though," he grinned weakly, but sobered again when he took a look at his bleeding shoulder, soil and tiny stone grains clinging to it.

"Looks like some of its talons got you," the Doctor commented, gently placing his fingers around the wounds while taking a closer look. "Lydia, would you hand me your water please?" he requested, not taking his eyes off the shoulder as he carefully tore the fabric around it further apart.

Lydia automatically went for her messenger bag on her side, only to be reminded that she wasn't carrying it when her hand met her thigh. Letting her eyes wander over Lee's form, she realised he wasn't carrying it, either... She looked around them and spotted her bag lying a little further away, before making her way over to it.
Picking it up, she felt a little bad when she instantly thought to check if her phone was still there and undamaged, when her concern should rather be with Lee being injured. But it was her only link to her home, stating her own actual date and time and with all her contacts and photos of people she held dear on it – perhaps the only physical memento she had of her home now, if she were to accept how her situation looked like...

Mentally shaking the last thought away and walking back, she discreetly looked for her phone while rummaging through her bag for the waterskin Rona had given her. Her fingers felt for any obvious cracks in the display, and when she didn't feel any on the smooth surface, she gave a quiet sigh of relief. She then grabbed the waterskin and handed it to the Doctor.

"You're lucky it was just your shoulder that got caught, and only superficial at that," the Doctor commented in a conversational tone while pouring water out of the skin over Lee's shoulder, making the young man hiss at the pain. "Bit more to your left, and it might have been your neck – don't think that would have been very pleasant."

Lydia winced in sympathy while she watched the dirt being washed away, wondering if that last remark had been really necessary; both her and Lee seemed to be already shaken enough as it was. She continued watching as the Doctor made a makeshift bandage out of some clean looking piece of cloth that had been lying in his lap when she returned to them, briefly wondering were he had gotten it from. Probably pulled it out from the dubious depths of his pockets while she had gone to get her bag, she mused.

It didn't take long until the Doctor seemed to be done with his work, confirming Lydia's assumption with an, "There, all patched up. That should do for the time being."

He stood up and Lee followed his example, cautiously rolling his shoulder with a slight wince, before giving them an expectant look.

"Shall we continue then?" the villager was quick to prompt, surprising Lydia.

"You sure you're all right to move on right away?" she asked a little worried.

"Of course! I hurt my shoulder, not my legs," he grinned in reply.

Lydia fought not to roll her eyes at that. It seemed like this was a common thought among his people; as long as it wasn't their legs that had been hurt, they apparently didn't see any problem with walking.
The redhead put her messenger bag over her shoulder in response and raised her brows at the Doctor in a silent question.

"You're really sure?" the Time Lord checked again with Lee. When the latter gave a determined nod at that, the Doctor declared, "Well then; allons-y!" before taking the lead up to the trail again.

Despite the situation, Lydia found herself smiling faintly at the last exclamation. It was the first time she'd heard him say that particular phrase, even if it wasn't quite as enthusiastic as she was used to hearing. It also made the feeling of surreality return for a second, though, especially after what just had happened, but she chose not to think any further on that.

Seeing Lee awkwardly adjusting his bag on his good shoulder, she offered to carry it for him, commetning that they'd be even then, but he refused the offer firmly with a big smile.

With that they went to once again follow the Doctor.

The trio soon fell back into their previous pace, with the adaption of keeping a more wary eye on their surroundings, especially in Lydia's case. She was so spooked out by the close encounter with the bird, that for the first hour or two she startled at every unfamiliar, louder sound around them, losing count of how often her heart had skipped a beat, and kept shooting wary glances towards the sky every so often. The thought that she just wasn't cut out for dangerous situations like that briefly crossed her mind.
The Doctor had signaled for them to stop once, seeming to listen to something he had apparently heard carried over by the wind, making the redhead tense up nervously after just having calmed down again a little. But when nothing had crossed their way after a tense three minute wait, they'd continued on.

The sun was beginning to set when Lydia's body finally began to protest in earnest at the day's exertion, her left hip having begun to throb painfully a while ago from the earlier impact with the ground. Her shoulder was also beginning to ache, since she couldn't switch sides for her bag with her throbbing hip, and her attention was increasingly directed towards the uneven ground in front of her heavy feet rather than on her surroundings.
The Doctor was leading the way further ahead, Lee a little behind him, and the distance between Lydia and the men continuously grew as she fell back more and more with time, having trouble to keep up with the pace that was set and their longer strides.

She was just considering asking for them to stop for a moment, when the Doctor threw a glance back over his shoulder and came to a stop on his own. He waited for both of them to catch up with a slight frown on his face.

"Sorry," Lydia panted when she arrived next to the men. "I think I'm going to need a rest soon..." she finally admitted with a slight wince, unable to help feeling like she was being a hindrance.

The Doctor studied her for a moment, before commenting, "I think you might have already used a one a while ago..."

There was a moment of awkward silence following that statement – she couldn't really argue with him there.

"I'll keep an eye out for any places that might serve as a shelter for the night, so you two can have a proper rest," he finally continued. "Can you still go on for just a little longer?"

Lydia nodded and said a quick thanks, feeling relieved at the prospect of getting some rest. Noticing that Lee was a little sweaty and looking relieved at that, too, made her also feel somewhat less like a hindrance. He seemed to be slowly reaching a point where he needed a break as well, and Lydia was sure his shoulder must have been giving him some trouble.

It was dark by the time the Doctor found them a suitable shelter. He had led them away from the trail into a surrounding forrest and down to what appeared to be a dried-up stream bed, having them walk along it for a few minutes, until they reached a point where it ended in a wall of soil from higher lying ground. The roots of a huge tree curled like curtains down from the higher level, creating a canopied, cave like spot before the wall cut the stream bed off.

The Doctor bent forward to avoid hitting the roots with his head and took a quick look around it, before becokining them to follow him in. Lydia ducked her head and went in first, Lee following soon after.

"All right, this should be good enough," the Doctor declared once they were all underneath the tree's roots, sitting down cross-legged near the entrance so there was more room for the other two in the small space.

After they rested for a while, having a quick bite to eat and something to drink, the Time Lord suggested, "Might be a good idea to try and get some kip, you two. I'll wake you in a few hours."

Close to the soil wall, the temperature inside the shelter was slightly cooler, so Lydia got the poncho Rona had given her out of her bag and put it on, then used her messenger bag as a pillow. She struggled for a few minutes, trying to find a remotely comfortable position on the uneven hard ground that didn't involve lying on her bruised hip or elbow, or poking said elbow into Lee's side – who was already snoring quietly, she noticed.

Once the redhead finally lay still, she only had a few moments to briefly ponder over the surreal day, before exhaustion caught up with her and she fell asleep, too.

The ominous lights in the sky increased, more and more shades of colour replacing the black of the night, each streak carrying the deadly radiation with it.

She was looking around her frantically, searching for the mercury between bushes and trees, then moving on to the abandoned cottages around her – but she didn't even know what she was looking for. The Doctor had never told her, never explained! She only knew that they needed it to escape this death trap of a planet. If they didn't find it soon, they would die from the radiation!

She was sinking deeper and deeper into panic with each new light in the sky. But not only were the colours of the sky changing now, but those of her surroundings, too; she suddenly found dark red dunes and hills replacing the cottages and forest around her.

And then the Doctor was standing in front of her.

She was yelling at him that she couldn't find the mercury, and asking what she was supposed to do, despair clinging to her voice.
It was only then that she noticed he wasn't wearing his usual pinstriped suit and coat, but a familiar orange spacesuit.

"Who needs Mercury?" he asked and threw his arms wide open, a crazed grin distorting his face. "We have Mars!"

With that the lights concentrated behind him and burst into an explosion that tore the night apart, a bright fireball engulfing his imposing figure in the blink of an eye. And still the wide grin wouldn't leave his face, as he stared at her with a wild look in his dark eyes amidst the flames licking at his face.

Lydia's eyes flew open with a gasp. For a moment she felt disoriented, staring at a canopy of soil and roots that she could make out in the darkness in confusion, before remembering where she had fallen asleep. After a few minutes of collecting her thoughts, she sat up and crossed her arms in front of her chest, feeling cold from the damp, cool air in the shelter (and most probably from just having woken up from a way too short sleep, too). Feeling decidely less rested than she had hoped, and a bit shaken from the dream, she took a look around and was surprised to see that Lee was no longer lying next to her.
Just as she turned around to check if the Doctor was still there, she saw the Time Lord poking his head into the entrance of the shelter from outside.

"Ah, you're awake, good! We should move on soon."

Lydia nodded in reply after simply staring at him for a good second, and got up to meet him outside, groaning when she realised just how sore her body was. In addition to her bruised hip, her back was now also aching from the hard ground, not to mention the muscles in her legs screaming at her from their overexertion.

All in all, that wasn't how she would have liked to start a day in general – and then there was also that dream still ghosting around the back of her mind, sending a shiver down her back. (Or maybe that was just the cool air.)
So it wasn't in an exactly cheerful mood that she approached the Doctor, bleary-eyed and still with her arms crossed under the poncho in a vain attempt to keep the chill away. Looking at him standing there, bathed in the faint lights from the sky, she couldn't help being reminded of his crazed expression amidst the flames from her dream for a moment.

"You all right?" the Time Lord inquired.

Realising that she must be staring at him, she lowered her gaze and mumbled, "Just tired."

A crackling sound came from somewhere above them, and Lydia looked up to see Lee stepping out of the covers of some trees and climbing his way down to them. Following his example, she made her way up to relieve herself before they continued moving – and to have a moment to compose herself after the intimidating dream.

As soon as that was done and they had gathered their things, the trio made their way back to the trail, the colourful lights in the sky lighting the night up enough to see the ground and their closest surroundings by. (And unsettling her a little from the memory of danger they had carried in her dream.)
The first hour passed in silence, Lee and her taking their time to fully wake up, and by the time the sun rose, Lydia's mood had improved a little; even more so once they had a short rest for breakfast around what felt like late morning, her body feeling less sore by that point.

But even so she couldn't help her thoughts drifting back to the dream and where her subconscious mind must have gotten the latter images from, mashing them up with the current threat they were facing.

Mars. That spacesuit. The explosion. The crazed grin.

Oh, she knew where it came from – she just wondered why her subconsciousness had brought it up. Was it because she was irrationally fearing some kind of explosion from all the radiaton once the protective magnetic field was gone, like from a nuclear bomb or something? No, she didn't think that was it, even for a dream that thought was just a bit too silly and irrational. The radiation would be deadly enough on its own; a silent and invisible killer. (And wasn't that a merry thought?)

So if that wasn't the reason, then what was?

Maybe because the Doctor had revealed where in his personal timeline they were last night, and because she knew what was going to happen around that time?
Now, that line of thought sounded much more plausible. And thinking that it might actually still be awaiting him...

Lydia almost tripped over a rock at that thought, and absentmindedly gave Lee a quick, reassuring smile, when he had looked over his shoulder at the sound and sent a worried look her way.

The realisation that these particular happenings might still be awaiting the Doctor sat heavily in her stomach. She remembered watching that episode aghast, actually creeped out by the Doctor, but eventually feeling so very sorry at how broken he had seemed after losing his way and realising what he had done...

A traitorous idea suddenly crossed her mind; if she mentioned something to him, gave him some kind of warning... could she maybe - just maybe - help him avoid that situation from ever happening?

The young woman raised her head for a moment and stared at the back of the Doctor's head, before lowering it again, contemplating the idea with a slight frown directed at her Converse clad feet. After a moment she released a heavy sigh, shaking her head at herself. No, it was probably a very bad idea. She shouldn't try messing with things, had no idea what the conseqeuences of changing something might be. How dangerous they could be.

What was she even considering something stupid like that for?!

"Penny for your thoughts?"

She startled in surprise at the sudden question and noticed the Doctor had fallen back in step with her, giving her a curious look.

"Oh, uhm. Just... everything, really," she replied with a shrug and slightly nervous smile, strangely feeling as if she'd been caught on her dangerous contemplation.

Several seconds passed in silence before the Doctor spoke again. "You're taking all of this surprisingly well, you know."

Lydia looked up at him in surprise. "I am?"

"Yeah. No panicking, no pestering me with questions what we're going to do if we run out of time... Just sort of... going with the flow," he commented casually. "Almost seems like you've been in situations like these before?"

Her eyebrows almost disappeared into her hairline at his suggestion. "What?" She stared at him, not quite trusting her ears to have heard him correctly, before scoffing. "Yeah, right; because I totally make a habit of hanging out with fictional people on foreign planets," she replied, her voice laced with sarcasm.

He simply raised a brow at that, not commenting on her sarcasm, and waited for a proper response.

"It's just..." She tried to think of what to say, running a hand through her hair (which was beginning to feel a little greasy close to her head, she absentmindedly noticed). "Well, yeah, I guess I do just go along with things... Because, honestly? I have no idea what else I could do."

The Time Lord did not have a chance to reply to that, because Lee's excited voice suddenly caught their attention.

"Doctor, Lydia!"

They caught up with the excited villager, who pointed his finger at a mountain face in front of them. Lydia followed the direction he pointed to with her eyes and caught sight of the trail they were following going down a slope, ending at what looked very much like a man-made entrance to a cave, not too far away.

After exchanging a look with her and Lee, the Doctor was quick to take the lead again, making his way towards the cave with a quickened pace.

It didn't take them long to reach the end of the trail, and the Doctor didn't hesitate for even a second to walk through the entrance of the cave. Lydia and Lee followed him in, stepping into a dark, cavernous room that was only weakly illuminated by the sunlight that fell through the entrance. It was bare, except for a huge table in the center that was filled with several objects lying on its top.

It wasn't quite what Lydia had expected to see.
Was this really the right cave? There was no real sign of any person inhabiting this place...

Lee made his way over to the table, while the Doctor was busy looking around the rest of the room, and looked through the things lying on it. After a moment he picked up what looked like a landscape painting, painted on a piece of cloth that was taut between a wooden frame.

"I remember this! My aunt made this to thank the Guardian, after my uncle received help fom him when a storm had destroyed most of their harvest several years ago..."

Lydia went over to him and took a closer look at the objects on the table, too. There were carved sculptures, more paintings, decorative textiles...

"Huh... Maybe this is some kind of altar then? To offer gifts for him?"

"Well, I'm sure he would like to be gifted with some power right now," the Doctor's voice joined in from a far, dark corner of the room.

Directing her gaze towards him, Lydia could just make out that he was crouching in front of a wall and seemed to be fumbling with something. Exchanging a curious look with Lee, she made her way over to the Time Lord.

"Found something?"

"Yup."

He pointed his index finger towards the ceiling a little to his left without looking up, and Lydia followed it with her eyes. It took her a moment to notice what looked suspiciously like a camera hiding in the shadows of a corner.

"Oh." She blinked in surprise, still finding it weird to see technology amidst this medieval looking civilsation. "Do you think he is watching us?"

"No, looks very much unpowered – like the other bits we found so far. But!" He paused his speech for a second, while he yanked open what looked like the cover of some sort of panel in the wall that she hadn't even noticed before. "I found this. Well, that badly hidden cable from the camera leading to it wasn't making that terribly hard, really," he commented and pulled his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. "And how lucky that I just happen to have an independent source of power on me to try this!" he finished while pointing the device it at the opened panel.

Lydia raised her eyebrows in silence when nothing happened after several seconds of the Doctor pointing the screwdriver at the wall.

"Aw, come on!" the Doctor exclaimed in frustration and began hitting the device against his palm once again. "Little bit of magnetic interference surely wouldn't knock you out, hey?"

There was still no response from the screwdriver after another moment, and when Lydia was just about to give up on it and ask if there was any other way to help with whatever he had planned, the device finally whirred to life.

"There we go!"

The Doctor grinned triumphantly at her for a moment (tickling the memory of her dream back to the surface of her mind for a second), before pointing the screwdriver back at the panel. He seemed to change the settings a few times and pointed it at different parts of the panel, before the room was suddenly illuminated by soft light.

Looking around in surprise, Lydia made out two spotlights in the ground shining their light on the wall to their right, but which started to flicker after a few seconds. She heard the sonic whirring increasing, and suddenly the massive looking stone wall in the flickering spotlight moved slowly to the side, revealing it to be some kind of apparently hidden door leading to another dark room.

Once the wall stopped moving, the whirring came to a stop and the Doctor stood up, tossing the screwdriver into the air once before catching it again with a smug grin. He then made his way over to the revealed entrance, Lydia and a rather startled looking Lee following him, throwing them a glance over his shoulder.

"Let's have an audience with this famous Guardian then, shall we?"

The hidden room behind the wall was darker than the one they had just left, the flickering beams of the spotlights not reaching very far into it. It didn't take long for the Doctor to find another panel near the entrance, though, and make use of it, and soon enough the room was flooded with weak light coming from the ceiling. Turning the power on inside that room seemed to trigger the mechanism of the wall-door, as it began to slide back into place, closing the entrance again and catching their attention.

When there was just a crack left between the two walls, the light in the room seemed to shine brighter, to which Lydia saw the Doctor raise a curious brow. Once the entrance shut closed, he tried his screwdriver again – which immediately responded this time. The Time Lord then checked the closed wall with it.

"Hm, no wonder I didn't find anything during my scans before; quite the isolation worked into this," he said, knocking twice on the smooth wall.

Only then did Lydia realise that the walls in this room were smooth and looked metallic, and not naturally uneven and stony, like those in the previous room. That made her turn around to take a proper look at their now lit up surroundings, and she gasped at the sight; it was full of high-tech looking things, having more the appearance of a NASA control room, or something along the lines, rather than a cave set into a mountain!

Lee looked even more surprised than her as he stared at their surroundings with his mouth hanging open. He looked completely out of place there on his old-fashioned tunic.

"Are these all Workings of Old?" he asked in an awed voice.

It was beyond weird to have him, looking like he was propelled into the far-away future, calling the technology 'old'.

"Yup," the Doctor answered, popping the 'p'.

Lydia was surprised to hear his voice sounding further away, and turned her gaze away from Lee's wide-eyed face to see that the Doctor had already made his way deeper into the room, fiddling with several devices that he passed.

"And I have some very good news; some of these contain mercury. There should be enough to get the TARDIS back to working," he announced and looked up to give Lydia a small grin. "Well, at least that's something – since the actual reason for our visit doesn't seem to be here."

The redhead went over to him and returned his grin, feeling immensely relieved at these news. They had arrived in time and even found what they needed – everything seemed to be turning out well, after all!

"So, what exactly is this mercury stuff then?" she found herself asking, her curiosity reappearing. Especially after that dream, where she hadn't even known what to look for while searching for it.

The Doctor stared at her. "It's... well, mercury." Seeing her looking none the wiser, he added, "Oh come on, surely you've heard of mercury before? It's nothing unfamiliar on Earth!" When she still just looked at him blankly, he tried more hesitatingly, "Or perhaps quicksilver?"

"Ohh! You mean like the 'liquid metal used in thermometers'-kind of quicksilver?"

"Yes, exactly!" he exclaimed before frowning. "You didn't know it was called mercury?" he asked, sounding rather incredulous.

"Not really, I only ever heard of it referred to as quicksilver..." Lydia couldn't stop herself from facepalming. She felt really stupid now that all along she'd been wondering what the hell this mysterious mercury was, when it was just what she'd known as 'quicksilver'; the more common term smiliar to its German counterpart.

She must have looked like a right idiot just now, asking what it was.

"And here I had been thinking we were looking for something highly advanced that might only be found on other planets, or something..." she mumbled.

"What, like on the planet Mercury...?" It was obvious that the Doctor was trying to hold back a chuckle and had trouble keeping a straight face.

"Oh, go on, laugh," Lydia told him, breaking into an embarrassed grin herself, feeling her cheeks warming with a blush. "I'm kind of about to laugh at myself."

While the Doctor didn't quite laugh, his amused smile did widen for a moment, before he returned his attention back to the room. Lydia followed him deeper into it, her eyes taking in all the different devices and machines, until they reached a huge tank with murky liquid inside, dozens of cables hanging out of it and leading to some of the devices around it.
The Doctor made his way over to one of ithem and began scanning the screen on it with his screwdriver.

"Would you look at that," he muttered, not taking his eyes off the screen. "He actually even manipulated the flow of the magnetic field that was linked to a very clever shielding system, turning the planet practically invisible to any scanners... No wonder the field is fluctuating so badly! This Guardian-person truly did create his very own planet-sized zoo for himself to shape as he pleased," he finished his ramble with a snide remark. "Controlling all these people's lives..."

"Yeah, but... it's not like they didn't know, is it?" The words had left Lydia's mouth before she had really thought about them.

"What do you mean?" he asked, finally tearing his gaze away from the screen to look at her.

She collected her thoughts for moment this time. "Uhm, well... While I do understand your dislike at the idea and agree with you in some ways, the people here seem to be quite happy with it? They do seem to live quite happy lives... I mean, like I said, they are obviously well aware of how dependent they are on the Guardian and that he controlls everything around them – and apparently quite fine with that?" she remarked a little hesitantly.

"Because they don't know any better," he replied in a firm tone, making it sound a bit like a reprimand. "These people deserve to be in control of their own lives and fate, and not for some stranger to play God over them."

The finality in his voice made Lydia shy away from further commenting on the topic, and for some reason she felt like she had just been criticised by the Doctor.

He moved away from the device he had been standing in front of to another one next to it, which was a little bigger and had two differrently sized screens, and went to check it, too, in silence. When the silence continued as he took his glasses out of his jacket pocket, put them on and began typing on some kind of keyboard he had found, Lydia was starting to feel awkward after their previous exchange, with Lee only now making his way over to them, and decided to direct her attention to the huge tank to distract herself.

However, it wasn't long before the Doctor spoke again, his voice sounding grave. "As I thought..."

Just then Lydia spotted something grey floating around inside the murkiness of the tank and took a step back, feeling a little creeped out. Were there some kind of fish in there? Or the alien equivalent of fish? (And would they also be so huge and dangerous like that bird that had attacked them?)

"What is that?" she asked, pointing at the tank, trying to keep her voice calm.

The Doctor turned around to face the tank as well. "The main control console of this whole system – with a living body hooked up to it so it can be operated straight from the brain. Just with a not so living body inside it anymore..." he murmured in reply, a blank expression falling over his face.

Lydia stared at the murky liquid in the tank in horror when the meaning behind the Doctor's reply sank in. She watched the grey bit floating in its murky depths drift closer to the glass wall, which was soon revealed to be a partly burnt looking hand – without any arm attached to it. Her wide eyes were glued to the sight, even though she wanted nothing more than to tear her gaze away, finding that she couldn't, a queasy feeling settling in her stomach. This was like something straight out of a horror movie...

Another thought suddenly struck her: if that body inside had been controlling this whole system, then that meant...

The Doctor finished her thought out loud: "The Guardian is dead."

A/N: I'm very, very sorry about the extremely long wait for this update.

To be honest, I have slowly been losing my muse and motivation for this project. But I have already written down some planned parts for future chapters several months ago, and since some of you have been so wonderful to share their thoughts on the story in reviews and messages, I want to try to keep on working on this at least long enough to reach a certain point in the story, and then see if my motivation might perhaps return once I've reached that point.

I'm afraid updates might continue coming very slowly for the time being and probably without many opportunities for polls, and I really want to apologise for that. But I will try to reach said point, so you should be able to expect a few more chapters to come at least. I'll see if - and how - things will continue once we're there.

Thank you very much if you're still reading this story and decide to stick with it despite the long time between updates! I can't tell you how much I appreciate your patience. Truly, thank you – and sorry, once again.
Some special thanks go out to LovelyAmberLight, who very much helped motivating me to finish this chapter with some very kind and encouraging messages.

And now that that has been said:

Lee is very lucky that most of you seem to prefer circles... When the votes for the poll from chapter 8 were coming in only slowly during the first few days, it was looking like it might end up with the triangle as a result.
If you're curious to know what the poll was about: it was to decide the degree of the attack on Lee and his injury. These were the meanings behind the options:

Rectangle: Badly injured, he isn't able to go on and needs someone's help to be taken back, or at least stay back and wait for their return
Circle: Minor injury, still able to go on or walk back by himself
Triangle: Fatally injured, dies as a result

So, yeah, he's very lucky the circle won out in the end...