NO REST FOR THE WEARY

No sooner had Jesse and Karmen stepped foot in the cathedral than they nearly ran headlong into Phoenix and Sammy who were both frantically scrambling away out of breath.

"We- have- to go," Phoenix wheezed, "Bad. Bad angels...get to TARDIS"

"Bad angels?"

"TARDIS! Now!"

"What do you mean, bad Angels?" Came Karmen's voice.

"They're here for you," Sammy said in a suddenly distant voice.

"What?"

"The Angels…you escaped the prison. They're here to take you back." Sammy turned around and then screamed. Twenty feet away were three of the gargoyles. Phoenix took the lead.

"We need to get to a crowd, that way they can't move, come on back toward the festival!"

Without looking back, they began to move away, staring at the statue.

"Wait- I can't- move-" Phoenix turned her head slightly to the left and saw that indeed Karmen was frozen to the spot, staring at the other Angel. A horrifying thought dawned on her.

"Oh no…Karmen can't move! And neither can the Angel! They're both looking at each other!" Jesse and Sammy quickly caught on to what she was saying.

"W-what do we do?" Sammy asked, suddenly panicked. The crowd was drawing closer; a sort of parade had begun. More of the Angels were coming, but four gargoyles were now frozen at the Cathedral door. And still no one seemed to notice the statues.

"Jesse and I, we'll go get the TARDIS. Sammy you stay here and make sure those ones don't get any closer!" Phoenix pulled Jesse along and they disappeared into the crowd. Sammy looked around frantically, though for what she wasn't sure.

"Karmen? Can you still speak?"

"Yes."

"Alright…" She stood next to the statue, looking behind, staring at the statues on the steps of Notre Dame.

"Are you scared, Sammy?"

"Oh, just a bit. Just a bit, how are you not scared?!"

"I am. I'm worried I might not be able to move ever again, but I'm trying not to think about it."

"How do you just forget that you're literally stone?"

"I don't know. Maybe we keep talking about something else."

"Oh...alright. Um…" Sammy nervously fiddled with her sweater sleeves, "Do you dream?" She asked a bit suddenly then added, "Only because, you know, you're not exactly human and I was just curious if other species dream too…"

"Huh. You know, I don't dream that I can remember." The crowd was thick around them, obscuring the Angels from view. No one seemed to be alarmed at the sight of a gargoyle and Angel statue having a standoff.

"No?"

"No. I don't really dream. Actually, I'm not really sure if I sleep. I haven't tried it yet. But you dream a lot, don't you?"

"Yes...I do. A little too much. Sometimes I dream and I'm not asleep."

"So do you think this is all a dream?"

"I considered that, but no. This is too long to be one of my dreams. And as weird as its been, it makes too much sense to be one of my dreams." Sammy still couldn't see the cathedral steps.

"So Phoenix found you on Earth, at a hospital, she said."

"Yes. Are you from Earth, or do you know?"

"I...I don't know. I feel like I've been to Earth before. I have some recollections of what it looks like. But I don't know when those recollections are from."

"So you really remember nothing before the prison?"

"No images...I can remember a few emotions. But nothing else…" The steps became visible for a moment. Sammy counted four gargoyles before they vanished. When the people parted again, they were gone.

"Sometimes I feel like I remember memories that aren't even mine," Sammy said, trying desperately not to panic as she scanned the area.

"That must be confusing,"

"It is, I -" she stopped and let out a shaky breath, "They're getting closer, Karmen." The crowd was thinning around them, and between people she could see them moving closer. They had spread out so she could only look at two at a time.

"How many?" "Four." Sammy refused to blink, staring at them as long as she could but they just kept getting closer, a few inches at a time. "What happens if they touch me?"

"You get sent back in time…"

"Oh great. Living in a sixteenth century feudal village is really not on my to do list. I like indoor plumbing. And personal hygiene." The first of the Angels was now nearly two feet away. "No, no, no I really do not want to stay here, I like having a sewage system and wifi and the right to own property-" Suddenly, the TARDIS materialized around them. Phoenix was looking worried but burst into a smile when she saw them.

"Oh good! We got here in time! I kept having problems landing the TARDIS. Are you alright?" She asked, suddenly realizing Sammy looked very pale, "You should sit down."

"No, we're all alright. Just cutting it very fine there." Karmen added, "Now I'm going to go move around for a bit." She disappeared down the hallway. Sammy still looked pale and now seemed to be having trouble breathing. Jesse helped her sit. Phoenix looked very concerned.

"Oh no, I forgot that humans are breakable! Did I break her? Is she alright?" She poked Sammy's knee and looked closely at her face.

"Sammy," Jesse said gently, "What is the matter?"

"I just - I think my body - we've been gone too long. Need...meds."

"Alright, what can we do?"

"Go back to the hospital...need meds." Phoenix, still concerned, obeyed and flipped a few switches. She made the landing outside the hospital on her first try.

"Phoenix, I think you ought to stay here," Jesse said, "I can go help Sammy, and you stay with Karmen and the TARDIS, alright?" Confused, Phoenix consented and watched as he helped Sammy out the doors. Karmen joined her a few minutes later.

"What's wrong?"

"I think I did something…"

"Something like what?"

"I think I damaged Sammy somehow. I forgot that humans can be so delicate."

"Delicate? Jesse and Sammy don't seem delicate."

Phoenix sighed, "No, they don't seem so delicate but they are. They're just so...so stubborn. All humans are! I mean, they can drown but they still sail the oceans of their Earth sometimes in no more than wooden buckets. They domesticated predators! They know how dangerous space is and yet they still venture out there, despite the fact that there is no water, oxygen, or anything their species needs to survive. They stand up to armies they could not possibly hope to defeat! They're brave, so brave they can be stupid. I forget sometimes they're not as indestructible as they think they are."

"You sound like you have a lot of experience with humans..."

"I-I guess I do- I mean- I think I was one of them...a long time ago."

She felt a hand pat her on the shoulder tentatively.

"It's ok, Phoenix."

Jesse looked at the clock and realized that Phoenix had dropped them off only fifteen minutes after they had left, so it took very little explanation as to where they had been. Nurses shooed Jesse out of the room after a while, so he waited outside to hear how she was doing. It seemed the doctors were mystified as to how Sammy's body had processed the morning's medication so quickly. A nurse tried to explain to Jesse how the pills worked, but he didn't understand her medical mumbo jumbo.

"All I need to know is if she is alright."

"Yes, sir. She will be just fine. The dosage is high which means the side effects are also much greater…" he let her continue for a while then excused himself. Back in the lobby, he looked out the window, realizing the TARDIS was gone. He hadn't long to wait. Phoenix stepped out of the large fish tank in the center of the lobby, or rather she crawled out of the cupboard below it where a filtration system would have been on a normal fish tank.

"She does like to show off," Phoenix nodded at the tank, "Where is Sammy?"

"Ah. I think we should give her a few days to recover."

"Oh alright. Get in the TARDIS and we can go visit her a few days in the future."

It took Sammy two hours to realize that Jesse, Karmen, the TARDIS and the Phoenix were gone. At first she was too dazed to care. Then she began to panic. They could be gone for days. Weeks. They could really be gone as long as they pleased. Maybe she'd never see them again. Had she really ever been with them at all? Or had it all been another Daymare, a really vivid one? She began turning the details over and the more she thought, the more she doubted. When she said it all out loud it sounded ridiculous. A shape-changing box with a girl who could fly it through time and space? Statues that were only statues when you looked at them? Living gargoyles atop Notre Dame? It couldn't have been real.

And yet all those stars and galaxies...all that running...she wanted it to be real. Looking out the window, she could barely see any stars against the garish London sky but she whispered to no one in particular,

Please let it be real.

Alright, question time! So as I work out the plot yet to come, I'd like a little feedback. Which character's backstory would you want to know more about? (besides Phoenix's obviously, since that's classified :) ) Additionally, which character do you like best so far?!