Over the next several hours, Lena's chills got progressively worse. The Doctor and Rose bundled her up as best as they could, because she insisted on staying with them instead of resting. They couldn't let her in the Tardis and risk the Tardis being invaded by the hostile nanogenes, though the Doctor would have been much happier for her to be safely in the med bay. Instead he settled for a metal band she wore around her wrist that kept a close eye on her condition and would alert him if anything changed. Her temperature was slowly but surely dropping as time passed, and her it wouldn't be long before her core temperature got dangerously low. Henry sadly told them that she was the most drastic example of the chills symptom he'd seen since the Cybermen had taken him.

"It usually isn't this dramatic," he said.

"Well, t-t-that's me, I suppose," Lena said wryly. "Just ask the D-Doctor. I can't seem to have anyt-t-thing happen to me normal-l-lly. I didn't just run into him. Oh, no, I had to p-p-pop over from a whole d-different universe." She shook her head. "Just my l-l-l-luck." Rose laughed and gave Lena a little hug.

"Don't worry, it'll all work out. I'm pretty jeopardy friendly, but no matter how many close calls I have, the Doctor always sorts things out in the end."

"I kn-n-now," Lena sighed. "But it doesn't make the freezing any more p-p-pleasant."

They were making rather good progress until the Cybermen showed back up. Then everything turned into chaos. The Doctor frantically tried to get everyone to safety, but about half of the people, including Lena, were trapped with the Cybermen. The rest of them had made it into the Tardis, surrounded by a containment field to keep any rogue nanogenes from escaping.

He was grim as he piloted the Tardis straight into the heart of the Cybermen's operation. Rose stayed out of his way. He didn't let anyone come with him.

After what seemed like an eternity, he came back to the Tardis with Lena in tow, who looked much the worse for wear. Several UNIT agents had come along to collect the other affected humans and help them recover per the Doctor's instructions. The Doctor made sure that UNIT knew how to reverse the effects of the Cyberman technology—showing them the first little girl, who he had already fixed up—then piloted the Tardis into the vortex. Lena was shaking like a leaf on the jump seat, still surrounded by a containment field. The Doctor quickly got rid of the nanogenes and bottled them up in a jar. Rose threw blankets around the now-much-warmer Lena, who was still much too cold for the Doctor's liking.

The Doctor and Rose proceeded to tuck her up in bed with heated blankets, fleece pyjamas, and a mug of hot tea, which was supremely appreciated.

"Well," Lena said, "that was quite a first adventure."

"No kidding," Rose said.

"I'm kind of mad, though."

"Why?"

"I didn't get to do anything! I just kind of sat around like some lame damsel in distress. I was hoping to be awesome and save the world but instead I got stuck freezing my face off in a lame old warehouse."

"That's not true!" the Doctor protested. "You were the one who stopped them in the end. You figured out which button it was. Not even I could do it."

"Yeah, right."

"No, I mean it. I don't have that wonderful humanness that you used to solve it. You humans, bumbling around in your crazy habits and flawed logic and quirks. But that's exactly what you needed today."

"Why? What happened?" Rose asked.

"Lena," the Doctor said, "just demonstrated the human race in a nutshell."

"Which would be?"

"Evaluate a problem, apply logic to come up with a reasonable conclusion, and then completely disregard said conclusion to go with simple instinct and intuition. Which aren't really simple at all, but that's a conversation for another day. A.k.a., she decided on one button and then pressed the other one at the last second, which happened to be a very good decision."

"I just pressed a button," Lena said.

"You saved a lot of people."

"Oh, just shut up and take the credit!" Rose said. She grinned at Lena. "Might be the last time he ever lets ya."

"Fine! Okay! I pressed a button and fixed stuff and stopped a bunch of bad stuff from happening. But honestly, all I really cared about was getting warm. Survival instincts, you know. I get a one-track mind when I'm cold." She paused, tilting her head. "Or hot. Or soaked. Or startled. I can be unbelievably clumsy on a routine basis, but poke me—"

The Doctor couldn't resist. He jabbed Lena in the side, right on a tickle spot. He had barely made contact when Lena's arm had already lashed out and whacked his hand out of the way to kingdom come.

"—and I turn in to a crazy spider-monkey-turtle-Batman-ninja."

"Ow!" the Doctor said indignantly, holding his poor sore hand.

"Your fault," Lena said with a shrug. "I did try to warn you. I don't know, insensitive bloody Time Lord, I've no sympathy at all." She cracked up at her own reference. The Doctor and Rose didn't get it for a moment, but once they did it was a full-blown laughter attack that turned into a violent pillow fight, cushions and pillows and blankets hurtling through the air until all three of them plopped down, exhausted but happy.

Hi everyone! Thanks so much to everyone who reviewed favorited, and followed. You guys make my day. ^_^ Hope this chapter wasn't too disappointing-I whas pressed for time, so I had to summarize... :/

Anyway, stay awesome!

~Starlight