"Yes, I think we will have a lovely day," the Doctor said decisively, wrapping his hand around Lyssa's and tugging her towards one of the deposit booths. Once everyone was inside the small room, the doors shut behind them with a click. "A very lovely day with high chances of incineration. What's next?"

"Deposit booth locking. Please exhale. Your valuables will be transported up from the vault," a computerized voice announced, a small transparent tube extending from a computer panel on the opposite wall.

Saibra, still disguised as an older gentleman, stepped forward, and, casting a nervous look at the others, breathed into the tube. It turned green and disappeared into the wall, a small panel opening to reveal a suitcase inside. Saibra returned to her original form, though she kept the DNA sample in her pocket just in case.

"Question," Psi spoke up, staring at the briefcase. "If this Architect - whoever he is - can break in here and plant this stuff, then why does he need our help?"

"Depends on what the thing is," the Doctor mused, dropping Lyssa's hand to fiddle with the latches on the briefcase. It opened to reveal several small objects and wires nestled inside. "Okay, well, I'm no expert, but fuses, timer. I'm going to stick my neck out and say bomb." He turned to Psi. "Bank schematic. Now."

The Ranger tsked in disapproval as Psi set to work on pulling up the schematics. "So rude. You could at least have said please."

The Doctor only grunted. "He's doing it, isn't he? What's the point of extra words when they would have changed nothing."

"Might have changed my opinion of you from 'completely rude' to only 'slightly rude,'" Psi interrupted sarcastically. "I've got the schematics up." He gestured to the screen in the wall, with data and floor plans displayed.

The Doctor frowned at the screen, studying it. "The floor below is all service corridors, the veins and arteries of the bank." He briefly tap danced in the middle of the floor as Psi disconnected himself, making Lyssa applaud when he finished. He just scowled at her. "He wants us to blow through the floor."

"Well, we'll die if we do that," Saibra pointed out. "Is that his plan? An elaborate way to kill us off for some ridiculous reason? Are we on some ridiculous game show?"

"Been there. Turned out to be Daleks. I don't think this is them," the Doctor dismissed. "Stop being so negative. We don't necessarily have to die. There must be a plan."

"What if the plan is, we're blowing up the floor for someone else? What if we're not supposed to make it out alive?" Clara frowned, shivering slightly. The Ranger rubbed her arms to warm her up, and received a grateful look in return, though she still looked a bit nervous.

The Doctor scowled at her. "Did you and Saibra meet to come up with these gloomy ideas? Don't be so negative. It's bad for team morale."

"What, and getting blown up won't be?" Saibra asked sarcastically, crossing her arms.

"Well, only very, very briefly," the Doctor said after some consideration, pulling out all the pieces from the briefcase and assembling them.

"Was that supposed to be comforting?" Lyssa asked slowly, crouching by him.

"I don't know. If it worked, then yes."

"Yeah, I'm afraid that's gonna be a negative, ghost rider. We humans are weird like that."

He rolled his eyes, but didn't stop working. "I knew that." He looked at her out of the corner of his eyes, though, and lowered his voice. "Are you scared?"

She considered the question. "I think I am, a little bit, but more confused than anything." She remembered the man outside and shuddered, amending her statement. "Okay, I am kind of afraid of that Teller thing. That was incredibly disturbing."

"Okay, you know what, I've had enough," Psi suddenly announced, striding over to the door. "You can do you what you like. I'm going to take my chances out there."

"With a creature that can sense your guilt and wipe your mind?" The Ranger's question stopped him in his tracks, his hand frozen on the handle while Saibra watched them with a neutral expression. "You were planning on robbing a bank. This bank. How far do you think you're going to get?"

"Does it matter?" Psi countered. "This guy right here is a lunatic. He's building a bomb! How is that any better?"

"Well, the bomb is specifically designed to take you out for one," the Doctor's gravely voice broke in. "What do you want, Psi, more than anything else? Whatever it is, it's in this bank. You agreed to rob the most impregnable bank in history. You must have had a very good reason. We all must have. Picture the thing you want most in the universe, and decide how badly you want it. Well?"

"Don't know about you, but I've got what I want right here," the Ranger flirted at Clara, waggling his eyebrows at her suggestively as he tugged her into him once more.

Her cheeks pinked, but she smiled flirtatiously back up at him, her fingers reaching up and brushing past his cheek... to pull his hat over his eyes. "Better hope the Doctor doesn't blow us up with the floor then, or that might not last long." He shoved his hat back up with a grin and winked at her.

Lyssa just stared between the two, her jaw dropping slightly lower with each sentence. Clara and the Ranger were... flirting? But what about... about... She cast her mind, trying to think of Clara's love interest when she was with the Twelfth Doctor. A hazy image came to mind. Sammy, or Manny, or something like that. Danny? That sounded about right.

"Wait. You two are -" She stumbled over the words.

"Desperately, madly in love with each other? Destined from the beginning of time to be together?" the Ranger asked with a teasing grin, wrapping his arms around Clara from behind and resting his chin on her head.

She scoffed, pushing him off her with an annoyed expression. "Try nanny and her charge," she countered, rolling her eyes at Lyssa. "Overgrown man-child, this one. I tell him he's handsome one time, and it goes straight to his head."

He pulled his hat off his head and began idly flipping it in his hands as the Doctor continued to work. "That's because most compliments I receive tend to be about my hats. Not that they don't deserve it, mind," he added hastily. "Wonderful hats they are."

This is what I have to put up with, Clara's expression clearly stated. "To answer your question, Lyssa, we're dating. Not that I don't wonder why sometimes..."

The Ranger pouted, then brightened. "Lyssa, I just realized. We never matched up! Where were you before this? You don't seem to see me as a complete stranger, so we must have met before at least once. Although you didn't know we were in a relationship either, so that means..." He trailed off before shrugging. "I don't know, actually. Time travel is confusing."

"Basically," Lyssa agreed. "I'm actually not quite sure where I was last. Everything's a bit blurry, although the Doctor told me it was just a side-effect from the memory wipe, and should disappear soon. I think it was somewhere with... Nine?" She had a brief flash of leather jackets and a Northern accent, and standing worriedly over a collapsed friend as ice shards fell from the ceiling.

She shuddered. "Somewhere not good. I think I was kind of out of it there, too, for some reason. Don't know how I got here. I have met you before, once. Yeah, I remember now!" she said excitedly. "Don't know if you remember it though. Have you gone on an adventure withe me yet where I'm half blind and the TARDIS shrinks?"

The Ranger raised his eyebrows and shared a concerned look with the Doctor. "Not that I'm aware of, no. I'd ask what happened, but..."

"Spoilers, yeah?" she grinned impishly. "First time I'd met any of you, actually. It's funny, actually. I think I was almost as confused when I arrived there as when I woke up here."

"Woke up?" the Doctor repeated, sounding worried. "What do you mean?" Something clicked and he bent over the bomb again. "Hold that thought."

"Yeah, why are you in charge, again?" Psi asked slowly.

"Basically, it's the eyebrows." The Doctor, evidently finished, placed the bomb in the middle of the floor then backed up to the wall and wrapped his hand around one of the pillars in the corners, tugging Lyssa with him.

Everyone else followed his example as the bomb started to whine, rising in pitch, then flashed brightly, blinding everyone in the room. When her vision cleared, there was a hole in the floor leading to another area below. The Doctor picked up the bomb with an impressed look. "Nice. Dimensional shift bomb. Sends the particles to a different plane. Come on then, Team Not Dead."

"See, this is why no one lets you pick the names," Lyssa snarked, sliding over the edge of the hole and dropping down, landing with a grunt. "Team Not Dead? Really?"

"Not my best, I'll admit," the Doctor granted, joining her and helping Clara down, quickly followed by the others as the doors in the deposit booth started to rattle while someone yelled outside. He pressed a button on the bomb, and the hole vanished, replaced with ceiling that matched the rest of the room.

Lyssa looked around. They seemed to be in a basement hallway, with several tables set up along the walls, and a few doorways here and there.

"So... what do we do now?" Saibra asked, raising her eyebrow at the Doctor. "What's the plan?"

He shrugged nonchalantly. "I don't know. The Architect set all this up. It should make sense. My personal plan is that a thing will probably happen quite soon."

"That's it?" she questioned disbelievingly. "That's your plan?"

"Yep."

"A thing will happen?" she repeated.

"A thing," he confirmed, then hesitated. "Probably."

"Don't dis the plan," the Ranger warned her. "I can't count the number of times where that's been his plan, and it has somehow worked. Although I wouldn't put it past him to make the 'thing' happen when he needs to."

"Doctor. Over there." Clara grabbed the Doctor's sleeve and pointed to a small briefcase resting on a far table.

"See? There you go. Thing time," the Doctor said gleefully, striding over to the table.

"How did he get the cases here, though?" Clara wondered.

"By breaking into the bank in advance of breaking into the bank," the Doctor informed her carelessly, hesitating for some reason before opening the case.

"Well, how did he do that? And if he can do that, then why does he need us to break into the bank?" Clara persisted.

"Clara's asking the real questions," Lyssa applauded, though the Doctor was less impressed.

"Not our problem."

"Well, what is our prob-prob-prob-prob-pr-?" Psi started, only to stutter over the word like a broken CD and stop in frustration.

"You okay?" Clara asked him.

"Drive glitch. It's fine," he dismissed.

The Doctor wasn't paying attention, staring down at the briefcase. "Guilt is our problem. Guilt, in this bank, is fatal. The Teller can hear it. Ever since that first case was opened, we've been targets. The more we know about why we're here, the louder our guilt screams. That's why we wiped our memories. For our own safety. Now, once I open this, I can't close it again."

"Would it be safer if only one of us opened it?" Psi wondered.

"That's why I'm waiting for you to volunteer," the Doctor informed him.

"Er, why me?" he asked, taken aback.

"Because you didn't need that memory worm, did you?" the Doctor challenged. "You're half-computer. You can perform a manual delete. You can clear your thoughts."

Psi shrugged, not arguing with that, a small smile on his face. "Okay. Hand it over." The Doctor slid it over to him, and he moved it out of sight of the others. Carefully opening the case, he kept his head back at first as if it might explode when he opened it. Then he stared at the contents in puzzlement before shaking his head. "No plans. Just stuff. Equipment. I don't know what it is. You may as well have a look."

Everyone crowded around. There were eight small tubes with protruding needles that could be pulled, and plastic caps, almost like fat digital hypodermic needles. "What are they?" Psi continued.

The Doctor pocketed them. "Not a clue."

Saibra scanned his face with sudden attention. "Interesting."

He looked at her sharply. "What is?"

"You're lying."

"Er, why would he be lyi-lyi-lyi-lying?" Psi stuttered again, but was unable to bounce back this time, sinking to one knee. Clara immediately knelt down beside him, looking at him worriedly. "Ugh. Sorry. Stress. Drains the batteries."

The Doctor scanned the room, then locked on a power cable on the opposite wall. Darting over to it, he used his sonic to scan it until he found a socket box hidden behind it. "Interface with this," he called over his shoulder.

"Do we have time?" Saibra asked, lifting one of Psi's arms over her shoulders as the Ranger took the other one.

"Why not?" the Doctor shrugged. "There's no immediate threat." He helped Psi connect to the interface, and then -

An alarm began to blare. "Intruders detected. Intruders detected."

They all froze, and the Doctor closed his eyes, muttering under his breath. "I really need to stop saying things like that. Just invites trouble. Clara, Jamie, you two stay with Psi. Lyssa, Saibra, you're with me. And Jamie..." He paused. "Let me know if you get anything." The younger man nodded, his eyes dark as he scanned the room.

The Doctor was already heading towards the door dark with shadows, Lyssa and Saibra close at his heels. A low moaning sound came from further in the shadow. Lyssa flinched and tried to step closer to the Doctor, grateful when his hand came back to clasp hers reassuringly.

"Aren't you going to ask me?" he said abruptly. She frowned at him, not sure what he meant, until Saibra spoke up.

"Why did you lie? Those hypo things, you know exactly what they are."

"Exit strategy of sorts. How did you know I was lying?"

She shrugged. "I've had a lot of faces. I know how to read them."

They came upon a grill clearly marked 'No Entry Under Any Circumstances.' The Doctor easily kicked it out, then helped the two of them through into a dark corridor faintly lit with a green light. "Quite a gift you've got there."

She scoffed. "A gift? You think this is a gift?"

"Got us in here, didn't it?"

She held up her gloved hand, looking at it with contempt. "Mutant gene. No one can touch me. If they do, I transform. Touch me, Doctor, and you'll be looking at yourself. I am alone."

The Doctor frowned. "Why?"

She raised dark eyebrows at him. "Could you trust someone who looked back at you out of your own eyes?"

He looked away, tugging them further down the dark corridor. A slight clattering made Lyssa turn around in a panic, but it was just the Ranger and Clara, with Psi close behind, now looking back to normal.

A low moan came from in front of them, and she reluctantly continued forward, still clutching the Doctor's hand. They came to a row of cells, and she jerked to a stop when she saw the inhabitants, her stomach suddenly churning within her.

"Oh my gosh. How is he even still alive?" Clara gasped, staring at the customer who'd been... interrogated... earlier, cowering on the floor of his cell with his forehead caved in, held up only by chains attached to his wrists. Drool fell from his mouth to the floor, and a quick glance revealed that the occupants of the other cells were in a similar state.

"I don't know," the Doctor said grimly. "But someone is watching." He indicated a camera with a red light aimed at the cells.

Psi audibly swallowed. "Doctor. However this goes, don't let this happen to me."

Lyssa nodded in silent agreement beside him. Another alarm went off, and she jumped, a small shriek escaping her lips.

"Intruders on the service level. Intruders on the service level."

"Annnnd, time to run," the Doctor announced, turning and tugging Lyssa after him through a series of twists and turns until they came to to another grill labeled 'No Entry.' "Now this says place to hide," the Doctor grinned, sonicking the grill until he was able to pry it off and squeeze through. "In we go. Quickly now."

He sonicked it back into place once everyone was through, then returned to take the lead once more. It was a dimly lit area, with a faint blue light coming from a glass shield on their left, clouded with fog and moisture droplets.

"Where are we?" Saibra whispered.

"It's a cage," Lyssa realized, seeing metal bars around the room, and a shrouded figure behind the glass.

The Doctor stepped forward to peer through the glass, then flinched backwards when the figure moved; stepping forward out of the mist to reveal the Teller, its antennae twitching.

"Nobody move," he whispered hoarsely as they all froze. "Nobody say a word. It's cocooned. Forced hibernation. Its power is probably dormant."

The sound of running boots and urgent voices appeared outside, stirring the Teller. They all waited, hardly daring to breathe until Clara flinched, casting the Doctor a very scared look.

"Clara. It's locked on to you. It may still be asleep. Don't wake it," he ordered quietly, stepping carefully closer to her. The Ranger stood right behind her, his hand hovering over her shoulder, unsure whether it was safe to touch her or not.

"Okay. How do I not do that?" Clara asked in a shrill whisper, trying not to panic.

"Keep your mind blank. Block everything. Once it locks onto your thoughts, it won't let go," the Doctor warned her. Clara shut her eyes immediately, her face screwed up with effort. The Teller growled, its antennae drifting towards Clara, making her flinch again.

"It's waking up. Keep blocking your thoughts, Clara. Don't think!" the Doctor urged her. She tried harder, only to have the creature roar as it became fully awake and aware, but lost control of her thoughts.

Footsteps began pounding towards them. "Okay, time to go. Everybody, run!" the Doctor ordered.

"This way!" Psi directed them to another grill, yanking it off the wall to open up their escape path back to the corridor.

The Ranger shoved Clara out first, then turned back to yank Lyssa through, tumbling through onto the cold tile floor. The Doctor stopped halfway through, turning back for Saibra when she cried out.

"Saibra!"

"She's still in there!" Clara realized in horror. "We've got to get her out of there!"

Lyssa watched anxiously as the Doctor reached out to Saibra, but she was frozen, unable to move as the Teller began to scan her thoughts. "It's scanning her brain," the Doctor told them. "Saibra, clear your thoughts!"

"What happens next?" Psi asked fearfully.

The Doctor glanced back at him grimly. "Soup."

"Then help her!" Clara pleaded as Saibra began to groan.

"Isn't there anything we can do?" Lyssa tried, her vision misting over as she tried to step closer to help, only to be prevented by the Doctor.

"Saibra!" the Doctor called.

"What do I do?" the woman pleaded, her anguish clear on her face. "How do I get away?"

"It's rooting through your brain. It's tasting all the secrets stashed inside. Any moment now, it will finish its sweep and start feasting on what's left," the Doctor informed her.

"And then I become one of those things we saw sitting in a cage?" Saibra finished weakly.

The Doctor nodded grimly. "Yes."

"Can't you get me out?" Saibra tried again.

The Doctor shook his head. "I'm sorry. I don't know how, once it's locked onto your thoughts."

She panted, groaning as a fresh wave of pain seemed to strike. "Exit strategy. That means what I think it means, right?"

The Doctor reached into his pocket and pulled out one of the needles from earlier and handed it to her through the grill, now completely separated from her. "Atomic shredder."

"Painless?"

"In an instant," he promised her.

"When you meet the Architect, promise me something. Kill him." She groaned again.

"I hate him, but I can't make that promise," the Doctor apologized, everyone else watching in silent horror as they realized these were now her last seconds.

Despite her pain, Saibra smirked. "A good man. I left it late to meet one of those." She fired the pin and vanished in a flash of blue light, the Teller roaring in frustration.

The Doctor replaced the grate, then turned to them, face set.

"One down, and five to go," the Ranger whispered solemnly.


A/N: Guess who's finally back!

Thank you guys so much for your understanding and patience while I took off the month of September. Your support has been amazing and I can't tell you how much I appreciated it. I feel so much better, and I have so many more ideas for this story, and have been able to work through several key points that I'd been struggling with.

I am still going to shoot for updates on Saturday nights, but I'm going to extend my posting deadline to Sunday nights, due to certain events, so updates in the future may come on either Saturday or Sundays. Thanks for your understanding!

Special thanks to everyone who's favorited and followed, and shout-out to afionna262, ZaraSwann, K9, QuinnLockwood, brmngirl, NeoMulder, Mermaid1108, gabumon7, and Elysium Phoenix for reviewing! (I've PM'd almost all of you to save space, but a few of you aren't logged in, so I'll respond herev

K9: I've PM'd you your reward options to the username you gave me, feel free to look them over and choose one. :)

Mermaid1108: Thank you so much! Your support means so much to me. :) I'm feeling a lot better, and so much more inspired for this story, so updates should be coming out on a regular basis once a week. Thanks for an awesome review, and I hope you liked it! :)

Once again, thank you guys so much for your support, thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed! :)

General Disclaimer: If I owned Doctor Who, the Tenth Doctor would still be around. And the Eleventh... And the Twelfth... :D Sadly, all I own is Lyssa.