AN: No rambling author notes today. Enjoy the new chapter. :D

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The Doctor walked down the corridor and around the corner before he abruptly stopped. He leaned against the wall and listened as Jinx's footsteps started to move away before he abruptly followed.

If there was one thing he knew about Jinx, it was when she was acting strange and there was no doubt about it, she had definitely been acting strange. He knew her to be a good actress, when she wanted to be so it surprised him to see her flummoxed.

He knew her well enough to know that something had rattled her; something so bad that she had insisted that he went in the direction that he had not been planning to go. So it made him curious as to why exactly she would do this?

And the problem was, he couldn't think of an answer.

Not definite answers, but hunches and he was quite the fellow to have hunches. A regular Sherlock Holmes, he found himself to be at times. When he told Rose that once, she had laughed and mentioned something about him getting big headed. He found he could not agree, his head was of a proportional size, wasn't it?

He blinked.

Best to leave that thought to another time, he decided and went back to his original thought as to what Jinx was up to. She was not the kind of person to be easily rattled and so he figured that she was up to something – nothing sinister, he knew her too well for that, but she was definitely up to something. He had an inkling that she was trying to protect him in some way and so he had found himself without reservation, following her.

He just hoped that when the time came, he had not made the wrong choice for Rose in doing so.

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Rose had found herself distancing herself from Edmund in order to examine their cage. It was odd to think she was a prisoner, and even odder to realise that this was all the doing of a broken off branch of a secret cult. She didn't even think there were secret cults…this was the sort of thing the Doctor would love.

She sighed, where was the Doctor? She hoped he had realised she was missing. He would realise, wouldn't he? She did wander off a lot, but he always came looking for her. She just hoped he wouldn't get hurt looking for her this time. He was the type to get himself into trouble.

"They checked to make sure it was secure before throwing us in here." Edmund said, as Rose shook the cage lightly.

She frowned at this. They couldn't just be stuck in here forever and waiting for the Doctor to rescue her was more of a backup plan than anything else. How would he even know she would be here? How would he find her? She did have faith in him, but faith only could get her so far. There had to be something to help get them out of here.

Rose looked around their small cage but it was sparse enough already. She eyes a piece of wood in the corner and moved forward to get it.

She was glad the nausea had passed from earlier. All that remained was a headache but it was more bearable than it had been earlier.

She picked up the piece of wood and went back to the door. If she could get it through the space then maybe she could push open the door. It worked in the movies, and it wasn't as if she had much else to do. It was either this or going back to sitting and waiting.

She leaned against the stick, trying to put her whole weight against it. The metal creaked from the force but did not shift. She tried harder and watched as the door opened a fraction. A smile lit her face, until the wood gave a sharp crack and she found herself shifting forward to grab the cage as two pieces of wood cracked against the floor, making a loud noise in doing so. She had just narrowly missed falling to the floor by grabbing to the cage to hold herself steady.

The door to the room opened at the sound of the ruckus and Rose quickly moved to sit back beside Edmund. Her movements went unnoticed by the man who entered – the same man from earlier.

"What the hell do you two think you're doing?" He said, indicating the broken wood.

"And what is it we're doing, Sleev?" Edmund replied.

"Hey, don't you call me that! I don't like it when people call me that!"

Rose wondered what the name meant. It didn't sound like a name but Sleev – or whatever his name was – got extremely irritated at the sound of it. She wouldn't be surprised if his head exploded with how red it was getting.

"Oh Sleev, no worries man. I'm sure people won't call you that. Again."

He went up against the cage, his face almost meeting the metal as he moved closer, "Don't call me that Edmund! Or I'll-"

"You'll what?" Edmund grinned at him smugly, "Why don't you come into the cage and we'll see what happens…Sleev?"

Sleev scoffed, "With the beating we gave you earlier, you can barely move. I don't think you could do anything. Me, on the other hand," He reached into the cuff of his arm and pulled out the knife again, "I've got this. Unless you want cut, I'd suggest you stop calling me that."

"Sleev-"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" He screamed and Rose jumped involuntarily at the volume of it.

The door opened once again, and a man's head popped in, "Orders from the boss, he wants to see Edmund."

Rose could hear Edmund gulp at that. She looked over to him and saw that he was worried but the look in his eyes quickly passed and by the time Sleev looked towards him, he already looked one again apathetic.

"You can tell him that I don't want to go."

Sleev eyes narrowed, "You don't have a choice in the matter." He waved the knife slightly, letting it glint in the small amount of light, "I don't mind hurting your little friend."

Edmund sighed, "That's getting very old."

"But still effective. Look at your face, you actually care about her well-being."

Edmund made to stand with great difficulty. She could see him wince in pain at every movement. How bad had they beaten him up?

Sleev made it to the door, kicking a piece of fallen wood out of the way. He unlocked it, keeping a careful eye on Edmund as he made his way forward, shuffling slightly.

Edmund turned towards Rose as the cage door opened, "I'll be back, I promise."

Rose simply nodded and watched as he moved out of room, Sleev following closely behind after he finished unlocking the door again.

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Jinx frowned as she walked. It was times like this that she hated her own gift, she knew that she would be in danger walking in and she despised the fact she couldn't see that danger. Not properly, not fully.

She was venturing into the unknown and because of that she wouldn't be able to fully grasp at her own future. She had seen her own death before and had successfully avoided it but when the assailant was unknown, the place, the time were all ambiguous then so too was her ability to be able to see her own future.

People can decide on a whim to kill a person – sometimes it was harder than that to decide – but unless she was on the verge of the situation, knew more about it then she would not be able to see when it would occur. It was an annoying how she could see into anyone else's future's with just the thought of them but seeing her own was slightly more difficult than that. No easy viewings for her, but then watching yourself die was never a pleasant experience.

She just hoped she would see something before it was too late.

She was broken from her thoughts as the sound of a sharp crack surprised her, and her balance suddenly went off-hilter as the heel of her shoe fell in on itself. She reached out her hand, desperately grabbing against the wall to stop herself from falling but failed miserably and instead felt her body lurch forward as knees scraped against carpet. She hissed out a curse as her hands burned at the sharp crease of friction that skin against coarse carpet provided.

The sound of oncoming voices made her go rigid and she desperately moved to a nearby indention of the wall. She slid up against the wall, trying not to focus on how one foot was now evidently shorter than the other, leaving her at an awkward angle.

"…can't make any sense."

"We have our orders. We bring the girl to him for the sacrifice. We don't have to like our orders but you'll know what he'll do to us if we don't follow them."

"I know, I know, but I don't like bringing people to their death. She's only a human. What was so important about her to warrant this?"

"I don't know…let's just do it and try to forget about it."

The man let out a sigh in return, "Yeah…what are they going to do with…"

The voices drowned out as they turned a corner and disappeared from view. Jinx stood against the wall for a little while longer, making sure that no one was coming back.

Once assured she was indeed alone, she took a couple of staggered steps out from her enclosure and reached down and pulled off her broken shoe, the end of the heel lay limply off the corner staring back at her like a twisted smile.

She let out a curse in annoyance and pulled off the heel, stuck the shoe back on her foot before pulling off the undamaged one. She let out a breath before she whacked it against the wall repeatedly until she heard the reassuring crack. The heel clattered on the ground.

She frowned as she noticed that there was now a large indentation on the wall. She glanced down both corridors, stuck her now matching shoe on her foot quickly and noticing that she was alone; she quickly rushed down the corridor the pair of men had disappeared down before anyone noticed her small act of vandalism.

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The Doctor heard the sound of oncoming voices and quickly darted into a nearby passage. He closed his eyes as the footsteps came closer and closer before they stopped, quite nearby.

He opened his eyes and found himself staring at two large men, dressed mostly in black.

"Hello there," He stuck on a smile, "You haven't seen the way to the toilet. I'm dying for the loo." He let his grin widen, "You know how the alcohol can just shoot through you."

"Who are you?" One of the men asked.

"Who do you think I am?"

The men grimaced. Ok, that approach was not working apparently, "I don't think you're meant to be here." The other man replied.

"I think you're right." The Doctor began, "But I was told to go meet a prisoner. Blonde girl, about yay high." He stuck out his hand and tried to mimc Rose's height, insteda it ended up with him waving it up and down as he tried to remember what her height was. "I was sent in from outside. I know your lot from Enignamia aren't too fond of outside company but I am the best so your boss called me in." He stuck out his hand, "I'm the Doctor."

The two men frowned, looking at each other, "We didn't hear about that."

"Yeah…you might not have." The Doctor nodded, he needed to think, "You see, I have to check her over to see if she's really-" The Doctor racked his head to think of something. Healthy – no that wouldn't work, Alive – god he hoped so, "Pure." Bingo bongo! He deserved a medal for his ingenuity, "Here's my badge."

The Doctor dug into his pocket and pulled out the psychic paper, showing it to them, "Oh…" they said looking down at it.

"Yeah," The doctor nodded, "You know with…the whole cross species trend going on, it makes things difficult. I remember the day when planets stuck to their own kind."

The men stared at him for a moment before nodding, "Yeah, yeah…"

"So I met one of you lot at the door and they let me in but he told me to go down this way and turn…at some point but for the life of me, I've forgotten which direction. One of you helpful chaps couldn't show me." He flashed them a smile.

They looked at each other again, "Uh, well we were going to get something before heading back to the prisoner."

"Well, how about you tell me where the prisoner is and I'll go and find my own way there."

"Uh…" One of them began, "Well, you head down there and you'll see a guy guarding the door. That's the room you want. Markus was guarding the door last time we checked but sometimes that other guy is there."

"What other guy?" The Doctor enquired.

"Well, he never talks to us and he's a but pernickety about his name. He rarely tells any of us lot. He's sort of…He's…" He trailed away and thought of something to describe the man.

"He's a right nutter." The other one offered.

"Yeah, a right nutter." The first one nodded in agreement.

"Well, I'll just show him my credentials and then I can go in, check the prisoner over and be out again. Right as rain." He nodded down the corridor, "Down this way, right?" They nodded to him, "See you fellows again." The Doctor gave them a short wave and went on walking.

The Doctor let out a sigh of relief. That was close.

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AN: The Doctor...always able to talk his way out of any situation. Review if you enjoyed...