Sitting around the table, Theodore and Lila partook in the dinner, roasted herb potatoes and the like, the sounds of the fire crackling in the fireplace echoed throughout the dining room, the flames flickered, casting shadows briefly.
Briefly, the change in lighting showed more of the bruisings around Kira's pale skin, they're old, barely faded. Her grey eyes hardly moved towards Theodore and Lila, but never a glimpse towards Annika.
The light produced by the flames in the fireplace gave her golden hair a shiny sheen as it's tied back in a tight braid while Kira quietly ate.
Annika did the talking, she talked with Theodore and Lila about herself, how a woman like her came to success.
Her ruby red lips pointing upright as she smiles, Annika explains how she found success despite her appearance.
She herself, once a former carnie, sought a better life, but the people in their trope didn't believe she'd succeed, saying that nobody would've taken her seriously, they'd chase her away.
However, Annika wasn't deterred and strived until she finally succeeded where others failed.
Now, she's determined that she prove once again, that she wasn't deterred helping Kira.
"That awful man, so unclean!" Annika decried Jimmy, calling him unclean, disgusting, surprised he's alive. His salacious ways, his drinking and smoking habits, his penchant for drugs, if Annika didn't know any better, if nobody killed him, his health will, instead.
Nervous as she's talking about Jimmy, Lila inquired why Annika isn't afraid of him, he seems one of the running candidates of surviving the inevitable gang war that makes or breaks gangs of London.
Pulling her wine glass closer to her as she smiles at Lila, Annika answered that Jimmy couldn't hurt her if he tried. Even if he pulled every favour from his black books, he couldn't do anything to her.
"How're you so sure?" Lila asks her, interested why Annika isn't a hint worried that Jimmy isn't planning on carpet bombing her when she leasts expect it.
He's got enough screws loose that if he thinks they're not doing their jobs fast enough, he'll just kill Annika himself.
At least, what Lila thinks of him.
Her glass resting on her bottom lip, Annika tells Lila that she hadn't survived this long by her looks alone, she isn't afraid of people like Jimmy, and she welcomes them to try, if only to prove her point.
She drinks her wine, Pinot, and when she rests the empty glass on the table, she noticed the decanter's empty.
"Kira, dear, won't you fill it up, please?" Annika asks Kira to refill it with more Pinot and the quiet giantess stood up from her chair, reaching over and grabbing the empty decanter, before leaving the dining room.
She never looked at Annika as she did this, but for once, Theodore and Lila's able to see her eyes clearly, and Theodore saw something hidden behind them, fear.
Confused, Theodore peaked into her head one more time, wanting to know why she showed fear, and subtly, he heard Kira muttering, it's difficult, but Theodore parsed her saying, "Leave. Hurry."
It sounded urgent and the way she looked at them, Theodore deduced she's afraid of Annika, too, and more, she wanted them to flee from her.
With them alone, Theodore kept up the conversations, curious where Annika came from, and she kept her answer vague, only saying that she came from somewhere that's cold and dark, emigrated to London not long ago.
As he's talking with her, Theodore noticed subtle discrepancies around the dining room, he noticed that there's pictures missing from the walls, noticing markings on the wall.
Coupled with what he managed from peeking into Kira's mind, Theodore theorized that there's indeed more to this, and it's not looking great the more he noticed the discrepancies.
In moments, Kira returned with a filled decanter, gently resting it on the table, but before she sat down, Annika asks her to fill up her glass, and without hesitation, Kira did.
She filled the glass to the near top, before resting the decanter down again, and quietly sat down as Annika began drinking from her glass, again.
Theodore conveyed his urgency to Lila silently, telling her they needed to leave, before pulling cards after cards, using what he knew from his father and the situations he and Lila ended up in since they started adventuring, allowing them excused from the table, without looking ungrateful, and without alerting her that he's become aware.
She led them out, conversing with them before seeing them off, and only when they left the area, did Theodore spoke with Lila.
"Not only Jimmy's a jackass, but Annika's one, too," Lila summed that the two weren't different from each other.
Nodding, Theodore says that Kira showed fear as she left to fill the decanter, no reason doing so, unless she thought something might've happened when she left the dining room.
"You noticed anything off about it?" Theodore asks if Lila noticed something peculiar when they were inside the home.
Thinking to herself, Lila remembered that it didn't seem like anything but the atypical luxurious home of an affluent person, but Theodore mentioned that there's pictures missing from the walls in the dining room.
"I didn't see anything with Annika on it, just the usual paintings you'd find at flea markets," Lila remembered not seeing any paintings with Annika, if she's affluent, she would've had at least one.
Having a feeling, Theodore wanted Lila's help, there's always a paper trail, and he wanted to find records of the home.
"What do we think?" Lila asks him as they began walking through the lonely streets of London.
On his mind, many things, but Theodore said that his father always told him to follow his gut feeling, and he's following it.
Annika's not human, the confirmation coming from her unnatural height, her vague answer where she came from, and the blockade in her mind.
Theodore met enough aliens to know how to read their minds, he's practiced on them, the only exception to the rule's Annika, and he can't understand why.
Thinking, Theodore opted to chance it, by reaching out to the TARDIS.
"Al, come in," Theodore reached out.
It took a few minutes, but he heard a familiar voice calling out disinterestedly, "Can't you see I'm taking a nap?"
Theodore quickly gave details and asked if Al's capable of finding out what Annika is, to which Al remarked that he isn't sure that Medi encountered something like Annika, but Al promised he'll try finding anything about her.
He mentioned that he found Kira's medical record.
It needed retooling and going through the databases to update it to their standards, since it's outdated, but Al found that she has a mutation in her LRP5 gene that resulted in dense bones.
She ended up in a clinic after a nasty fight with a rival gang where she proceeded to beat every man she caught with her hands to death, that's how Al found out about the mutation.
"I didn't know they get that tall," Theodore pointed out that he never heard anyone with that mutation taller than the standard heights, but Al said that's what he concluded.
It'd explain why she's an asset to Jimmy, her dense bones lets her pack punches, and shrug off most attacks. Her strength alone's earned her a permanent spot in his gang, that it's impossible replacing her.
"Yeah, but you gotta think, with those dense bones of hers, she can't swim without sinking like a rock," Al warns that because of the mutation, it makes her heavier than a normal person, meaning she'll sink in shallow waters.
The fact she worked at the docks before joining Annika's amazing to Al, since if anything goes wrong, he doubted she'd manage to swim to the surface.
"We'll keep that in mind, how're you doing?" Theodore inquired how the TARDIS handled ending up in a warehouse owned by Jimmy.
Al responded that nobody found him, so that's good, but he noticed the moonshine and other illicit materials hidden away in the warehouse. The content in the moonshine alone's worth something to his aging machinery.
"If I get some of it, I might be able to swing by and help, less chances of him going back on his word," Al suggested he take some of the moonshine and materials for his own uses, at least enough that holds him over, allowing him to track the two down.
Just on the off-chance Jimmy turns on them at any point.
Theodore tells him if he can do it, do it, if he can't, save his strength, they'll come up with something else, and Al acknowledged it before telling him that he'll report back once he finds out anything about Annika.
"Stay safe, you two," Al tells Theodore.
Theodore acknowledges with, "We will."
With that said, Al disappeared from Theodore's head, and he passed along the information to Lila standing beside him with curiosity in her chestnut eyes.
"Dense bones, no wonder Jimmy's afraid of her," Lila remarked after hearing how Kira has a mutation in one of her genes producing dense bones. Coupled with her height, no wonder mere 6ft scrawny Jimmy's afraid of getting on her bad side.
His desperation getting her back's not just because she's an important asset to him, but also because he wanted her close, so he wouldn't have to worry about her turning on him suddenly.
Annika threw a wrench in that plan and the fact that it seems she's no better than him's all that Lila needed for her to say, "God, from one lousy situation to another, is there anything we can do, at all?"
From her life as a carnie to one of Jimmy's goons to whatever Annika's plotting, it's a horrible situation for someone like Kira winding up in. Knowing she only wanted love, that's depressing unto itself!
Theodore pondered their options as he said they don't know for sure what their purposes were for this adventure, but if Al succeeded in obtaining the needed moonshine, he might help them with finding their answer.
Though, he reminded Lila to temper her expectations, Kira's in a different time than them, with that said, despite their good intentions, there's always chances for foul ups.
Slowly nodding her head, Lila sighs as she says that she knows that they can't help everyone they meet, but found it unfair for someone like Kira stuck in a cycle.
"She just wants love, it's not fair she gets the short end of the stick just because of it while Jimmy gets to skirt by just peachy," Lila shook her head as she frowns, sympathetic about Kira's situation, all she wanted's love, and all she gets for her trouble's Jimmy and Annika.
Lila felt Theodore's large hand on her shoulder as he comforts her, telling her that there's a reason his uncle pushed her into the TARDIS with him.
Confused, Lila asked what he meant by that and Theodore summed that she showed immense compassion for others.
"Any more and I'll be in a Lifetime movie!" Lila muttered while Theodore gave her a side hug before they started hearing a low mechanic noise echoing throughout the street.
Appearing before them, the TARDIS, and the door opened inwards on its own, allowing them inside without delay.
Waiting for them inside, Al, and there's crates circling around the console room, all filled with an abundance of moonshine Al took from the warehouse.
"I'll give it to them, that's some whisky," Al commented that while it's bootlegged, the whisky among the illicit alcohol's one of the better alcohols he used.
Lila asks if he took enough for Jimmy to notice, but Al said he's always careful when he takes things, he wouldn't take them if he thought Jimmy would've noticed.
"I didn't care for his cigarettes, though," Al commented that he couldn't care about Jimmy's stashes of cigarettes, they're not his favorite of the stolen goods, and Theodore pointed out that Jimmy wasn't selling them for their quality.
Snorting as he held his lit cigarette, Al said that he's aware, but it couldn't try anyway, before explaining that he found some details about Annika.
As he stood near the console, Al said that he found that Annika didn't show up until a few years ago, which's weird since her abnormally tall height would've garnered some skeptical glances, but Al said that he couldn't find anything about her until then.
"Went looking to Russia, Georgia, and Siberia, but that's a bust," Al said that he searched for her in Eastern Europe, but found nothing on her, not even a news article.
Though, Al didn't come up empty handed in his search, he found news articles about a string of murders.
"Murders?" Theodore raised a brow as he joined the avatar while Al smoked.
Pulling his cigarette out and smoke coming out of his mouth, Al said that he found articles about murders dotting Russia to parts of Poland with similar MOs, finding them ending within a few years before Annika ended up in London.
"Happened at night, they were caught off-guard, things ended up stolen from them. Money, jewelry, stuff like that," Al tells them that in the murders, they all happened the same way, and before Theodore and Lila tell him that it's coincidental, Al added they all died the same way.
Demonstrating with his hands with his cigarette in the corner of his mouth, Al made a sound effect with his mouth as he clasped his hands together.
"Crushed to death?" Lila's baffled as she hears Al say that the victims died from their heads crushed in the hands of their killer.
As he nodded, Al unclenches his hands as he says that they matched, giving him the belief, they're killed by the same person.
"Al, would you do us a favour and see who owns property in the affluent area?" Theodore became intrigued as he asked the TARDIS for help finding out who owned the house the women resided in.
Smiling, Al responded that it's his job and he briefly disappeared before reappearing, saying that he found that the house that Annika says she owns belonged to a family with three small children.
"Here's the thing, they haven't been reported missing, but nobody's seen them in a while," Al says that he can't find any information on the family, nobody reported them missing, but nobody saw them recently.
Theodore asks about the family and Al says the father worked as a banker, that much he knew, for a bank affiliated with… Jimmy.
"Really?" Lila's shocked as it'd seem that there's more to this as Al responded that he checked the bank records. Jimmy cleans his money with the bank and the banker's one of the ones in his pocket.
With his fingers, Theodore went over the course of events.
Holding up one, Theodore goes, "Annika appears in London."
Holding up two, Theodore goes, "Annika… finds out about Jimmy and his gang."
Holding up three, Theodore goes, "Annika tracks down the banker."
Lila added, "Annika kills the banker and his family, takes Kira."
Looking towards him, Lila asks Al what he thinks Annika wanted from Kira, and Al says that he doesn't know. He thinks that Annika doesn't want to kill Kira, but it wouldn't pass him if she wants to kill Jimmy.
"If she kills Jimmy, then Kira would be alone," Lila pondered the motives behind Annika wanting Kira with her.
Theodore added with, "Kira wouldn't have anywhere else to go, but with her."
Looking towards him, Theodore asks him if he came up with anything regarding Annika's race.
As he puffed his cigarette, Al replied that she's a rare kind, one that nobody encountered before, but he says that Annika isn't an alien or human.
It's complicated, but she's native to Earth.
If Al guessed, she's responsible for heaps of people missing in places like Siberia during heavy winter storms.
"What is she?" Lila wanted answers as Al tapped his cigarette against a phantom ash tray before saying that at best, she's the architect behind the Russian fairytale, Baba Yaga.
Raising their brows as Al described Annika as the Baba Yaga, Theodore and Lila hear Al insist that it's what he came up with and he looked in every corner of the records he found.
"Al, Kira's around Theo's age," Lila brought up that Kira didn't match the description of a child stolen by a Slavic witch, she's no older than thirty-two, but Al pointed out that he never said she's the Baba Yaga, only that she's the main influence for the fairytale.
"Still doesn't answer our questions," Theodore frowns as he looked between them, "what does she want with Kira?"