"Oh, excellent," exclaimed Clara as Mystery and the Doctor walked over to where she was standing. "Captain Magambo and I were just about to look through this mess," she said, indicating the collapsed building behind her. "Fancy coming along?"

"Of course," the Doctor replied with a grin and a little bow, taking her arm. "Captain, if you could clear the premises for now?" The Captain nodded and gave a few sharp commands. Within minutes, all U.N.I.T. officers were out of the rubble, leaving it clear.

"The area is yours, Doctor," she said, saluting. "Although, do try not to break anything. It may be evidence."

"I never break things unless I mean to," he answered innocently. "And don't salute. I'm no soldier." "No, Doctor?" she asked, politely skeptical. "Then what are you?"

He looked at her for a moment, taking her question rather more seriously than Mystery had expected. "I am an idiot with a box and a screwdriver, passing through, helping out. That's all." Captain Magambo gently inclined her head.

"If you insist, Doctor. But to U.N.I.T., you will always be a hero." And she turned and strode back to her waiting troops.

"She's quite a personality," Mystery commented, watching the older woman walk away.

"That she is," the Doctor agreed, shaking his head. "That she is. Anyway. To business." He rubbed his hands together eagerly, like a child about to open a present on Christmas. "Let's get going." He plunged forward into the wreckage, jumping over a fallen beam and soon disappearing. Clara and Mystery hurried to follow, although at a more dignified pace.

After picking their way through what Clara guessed must have been the main sanctuary, they found the Doctor kneeling just behind a ruined wall, examining a dark hole in the floor. "Oh, hello!" he said cheerfully, peering into the blackness below. "Caught up at last, have you?" Mystery chose to ignore this.

"What've you found?"

"A hole in the floor," he replied, as though that should have been obvious. Clara rolled her eyes.

"Yes, I can see that for myself, thanks," she said impatiently. "What else?"

"Nothing, really." Seeing Clara open her mouth to say something further, no doubt another tart remark, he continued hastily, "But, it could give us access to the lower level. Which would be good. Very good, in fact."

"But Doctor," Mystery said cautiously, "if it's collapsed this much already, what's to stop it from collapsing even further? While we're in it?"

The Doctor considered this. "Well, nothing, really," he answered at last. "But someone's got to. And we're here. May as well." And with no chance for any more dissension, he jumped down into the darkness.

"Doctor!" Mystery cried, staring into the hole for some sight of him, unharmed. She saw only darkness.

"It's alright," he called, his voice echoing from below. "I'm alright. It's a long drop, but there's some kind of padding..." They heard the familiar sonic noise and saw a pinpoint of green light. "Looks like robes of some kind. I'll pile on some more. You'll be fine. Come on!"

Mystery rubbed her eyes. "How can he do that?" she said despairingly to Clara. "Keep throwing himself into things with no idea what might be there. Doesn't he realize how important he is?"

"That's the Doctor's job, and ours as a companion," Clara replied. "To do things that have to be done when no one else wants to. To brave dangers no one else can. He is important because he throws himself into things like that. He makes every life worthwhile."

Mystery, about to protest again, stopped short. "Every life? You mean he's got more than one?"

"Oh yes. Time Lords don't die, they regenerate. Whenever a human might die, he just gets a new body. Well, more than just a body. New personality, too. But it's still him. Didn't you wonder when he said he was the Eleventh Doctor?"

"Well, I did, a bit," Mystery admitted. "But enough else was going on that it slipped my mind. So he's on his eleventh person?"

"Eleventh regeneration," Clara corrected her. "Regeneration is what allows him to take risks like that. It doesn't matter as much to him as it would to us."

"But we can't regenerate!" Mystery cried, returning to her original complaint. "What have we got going for us, to take those risks ourselves?"

"We've got him," Clara said simply. "What else could we possibly need?" Mystery had no answer to that. "The Doctor needs people, companions, to hold him back, to push him forward, to remind him what he's fighting for. To keep his good nature alive and make sure he doesn't overstep his bounds. To help him. And, more than that, to keep him cheerful, however we can. And part of that is going and taking risks by his side." Mystery nodded, chastised.

"But," Clara continued briskly, "there's no reason to be foolish." With that, she ducked back into the ruined sanctuary. "Captain Magambo," she called. "A torch, if you could." Minutes later, Clara returned carrying three large torches. She handed one to Mystery and gestured to the hole. "After you," she said brightly. Mystery sighed, but took the torch, turned to the hole, and jumped.

The Doctor had been correct. It was a long fall, but her landing was quite cushy, although she sent up a cloud of dust when she hit the pile of cloth. Coughing, she fumbled to turn on her torch. Looking up, she could see a small circle of light above, much higher than a church basement ought to be. "What sort of a place is this?" she muttered.

"Mystery?" Clara called from above. "I'm coming down now."

"Go ahead," Mystery replied, moving out of the way. Moments later, Clara plummeted to land with a thump before her, raising another dust cloud. She switched on her torch, coughing as well and waving her hand in front of her face.

"It's awfully far down, isn't it?" she said once the air had cleared. "Farther than just a basement." Mystery nodded, then realized Clara couldn't see her.

"Yes," she said hastily. "I was just thinking that myself." She cast the beam from her torch around her, revealing a small stone corridor of sorts, covered in dust. Clara copied her.

"Where do you suppose we are?" she said quietly. "Some sort of crypt?"

"Eurgh," Mystery said in disgust. "I hope not. Where'd the Doctor get to? Maybe he knows."

"An excellent question, that," Clara replied. "Doctor!" she called, flashing her torch down the corridor. "Doctor, where are you?"

And suddenly he was there. "Yes, hello, I'm here," he said cheerfully from just behind Clara. "It's rather far down, isn't it?"

"Doctor!" Mystery cried, startled. "Warn a person, can't you?" She shone her light just below his face so they could see each other.

"Yes," said Clara, surprised as well, "do be careful. With that chin, you could put someone's eye out."

"Oh, yes, very clever," he answered, scowling at her. "Really witty. Perhaps I should just leave you here in the dark and not tell you what I've found out. See how you like it."

"Found something out, have you?" Clara asked, handing him the remaining torch. "Go on, then. You never miss an opportunity to show off." He merely grinned and led the way down the hall.

"So, as it turns out, we weren't the first ones in here," he called over his shoulder. "It opens up into a larger chamber farther on, and that's already been excavated. A construction team's been through."

"So there won't be anything left for us to find," said Mystery, disappointed.

"No, I didn't say that," he said, beaming back at them. "Despite being often too curious for their own good, humans have a surprising lack of attention to detail. Nothing personal," he added, seeing the looks from the two women. "You don't even know that you're human!" he said to Mystery's glare. Her expression changed from one of anger to confusion.

"Of course I'm human!" she exclaimed. "What else could I be? I look human!"

"Well, that doesn't mean anything, really. You also look Slitheen. Or Time Lord, for that matter. In any case," he added hastily, seeing her start to ask further questions, "there's something in that chamber that is worth a little more investigation."

"What is it?" Clara asked. He winked at her.

"Wait and see."

Clara sighed. "You'd think I'd learn," she said to Mystery. "He never gives away anything until the very last minute."

They followed the taller man further into the darkness, the way lit only by torchlight. After walking for several minutes, they rounded a corner and could see faint daylight at the end of another very long hall. The farther they walked, the brighter it got until they reached the end of the hall. Ducking through what used to be a rather grand archway but was now mostly collapsed, they arrived in what was indeed the remains of another chamber. Looking around, Mystery saw the ruined foundation and walls of the upper floor - they were indeed still a good way underground. The ground was covered in dust, broken beams and shattered furniture. Several destroyed objects were recognizable as religious: a wooden cross, now bent out of shape, several large and very dusty tapestries, and numerous shattered statues. It was to one such statue that the Doctor now led them.

"Take a look at this," he said, picking up a grey stone arm. "Look at all familiar?" Mystery didn't bother to answer. Clara, however, shrugged.

"A bit of stone statue? Could be anything."

"Ah," he said, holding up a finger, "but it isn't just anything, like you said, oh no." He tossed the arm at Mystery, who only just managed to catch it, and went digging in the rubble once more. As Mystery and Clara watched in confusion, he began throwing back more and more stone pieces: another arm, what looked like the bottom of a dress, a face, until he at last, with a mighty heave, yanked out half of a massive stone wing. All were clearly part of the same statue. "There," he said, thumping the wing down next to the rest and looking terribly pleased with himself. "Now what do you think?"

Clara picked up the stone face and examined it. It was clearly very old, its features worn away in places. Its eyes were blank, like any statue, and it seemed almost angry, as though it had lost something at the very last moment. "If I didn't know any better," she said, almost laughing, "I'd almost say it was a weeping angel. But what would one weeping angel be doing in some church basement?"

"A good question," he said, settling down on the remains of a wooden chair, only to have it break underneath him. He fell to the ground in a clatter of wood on stone, but sat there, unperturbed, as Clara and Mystery cried out. "Yes, yes, I'm fine," he said, straightening his bow tie and brushing off their attempts to get him back to his feet. "Don't fuss. Like a couple of mother hens, you are. I will remind you I am hundreds and hundreds of years older than the two of you combined. I should be mothering you!"

"Yes, but we don't need it. You do," Mystery said mischievously, earning an approving smile from Clara and a scowl from the Doctor.

"I do not!" he said, sitting in the dust on the floor. "I am perfectly fine," he said, ignoring the glance of mingled frustration and amusement that passed between his two companions. "So, about that angel-"

"Er, Doctor, before you continue," interrupted Mystery cautiously, "what exactly is a weeping angel?"

The Doctor turned and looked at her gravely. "Creatures from another world," he answered. Mystery looked at him in confusion.

"But that's just a broken statue," she pointed out. "Are we running from statues now?"

"They're only statues when you see them."

"What's that supposed to mean?" she asked impatiently.

"Lonely Assassins, they used to be called," he replied. "No one quite knows where they came from, but they're as old as the universe, or very nearly, and they have survived this long because they have the most perfect defense system ever evolved. They're quantum locked."

"Quantum-locked?"

"They don't exist when they're being observed," he explained. "The moment they are seen by any other living creature, they freeze into rock. No choice, it's a fact of their biology. In the sight of any living thing they literally turn to stone. And you can't kill a stone." He shrugged. "'Course, a stone can't kill you either, but then you turn your head away. Then you blink, and oh yes it can!"

Mystery glanced over at the face Clara was still holding. "That bit of stone could kill us?"

The Doctor nodded. "That's why they usually cover their eyes. They're not weeping, they can't risk looking at each other. Their greatest asset is their greatest curse. They can never be seen. Loneliest creatures in the Universe."

"But that one's broken," she said uncertainly. "It's dead. Right?" The Doctor nodded.

"It must have smashed when the building came down. Broke it to bits, and that's tough to do. But Clara's question was a good one: why only one angel? There aren't enough pieces for two. And look at it," he said, taking the stone head from Clara. "See how it's worn down? This angel was starving. They feed off time energy, see, and when they can't get any, when they're quantum-locked, they start to wear away. This one's clearly been here a long time."

"But why?" Clara asked. "Something had to keep it here, but what?"

"Well," the Doctor said, scratching his head. "Sometimes angels get trapped in mirrors, anything where they get caught in their own reflection."

"But there's no broken glass here," Mystery pointed out, looking around them. "So no mirror. What else?"

"Each other," he said. "They're called Lonely Assassins for a reason. They can't ever look at each other. If they do..." he shrugged. "They're stuck forever. It's almost sad, really. So, the question is," he said slowly, looking at each woman in turn, "where's the other one?"


A.N: Hello, all! So the enemy is revealed. Throwback to Blink, yes? I know it's a Ten speech, but the odd thing is, I can totally see Eleven saying it too. Just differently, of course. In his own style. Anyway. Should be fun, eh? A bit of a mystery going on, new things to find out, fun fun fun. I'm very excited for the rest of this 'episode.' Let me know what you think! I'll post the quotes from the last chapter in my profile sometime tomorrow, most likely, if anyone cares to go look. Anyway, thank you all so much for reading, and please leave a review!

-Forever the Optimist