Chapter 8 The One with the Titles

Back again! What's up what's up? Are we all doing well? Here's part two of tooth and claw, we have some drama, some realisations, some bonding… let's see!

As per, nothing is mineeee.

Florence was unsettled by the presence of the young monk in the cellar with them. His eyes bore into each of them, but she noticed that he lingered on Rose most of all. She was uncertain of the danger he posed, as Rose said, he was in a cage, but there must be a reason he had been kept in there. He didn't seem like a prisoner in that he was unshackled and clean looking, while the monk robes were clearly old and tattered, they were also clean as was the boy's face. He must have been looked after, but for what reason… Why were the monks keeping one of their 'brothers' imprisoned like that? All these questions were running through her head when she noticed Rose attempting to get closer to the cage, she tried to help her by moving forward slightly with her, allowing their chains to extend a bit further. Lady Isobel tried to stop her,

"Don't, child." Rose simply ignored her.

"Who are you?" She asked the boy softly but firmly.

"Don't enrage him." One of the stewards warned her, but Florence waved him off, turning to the boy and questioning him herself.

"What are you?" She reworded Rose's question, she didn't want to know his name, she wanted to know the darkness behind his eyes.

"Where are you from?" Rose continued her line of questioning, both girls getting straight to the point. "You're not from earth. So what planet are you from?"

"Oh, intelligence." The boy commented, in a creepy sing song voice.

"Where were you born?" Florence repeated, firmly.

"This body?" The creature asked, confirming Florence's belief that the boy was inhabited by something else, something sinister. "Ten miles away. A weakling, heartsick boy, stolen away at night by the brethren for my cultivation. I carved out his soul and sat in his heart." Florence looked fearful at the comment, wondering what on Earth (or not, clearly) could have possessed a body and replaced his very essence with something new.

"Alright, so the body's human." Rose clarified, trying to see the situation though the logical lens that Florence had seen the Doctor himself use so often. "But what about you. The thing inside?"

"So far from home…" The creature told them.

"If you want to get back home, we can help." Rose tried, but Florence shook her head.

"I don't think that's what he's after…" She whispered to the blonde, and the boy seemed to agree with her,

"Why would I leave this place? A world of industry, of workforce and warfare." He inhaled like his mouth was frothing at the thought of it. "I could turn it to such purpose."

"How?" Florence asked, and the creature finally took his eyes away from rose to stare at Florence.

"I would migrate to the Holy Monarch." Florence frowned at this.

"Queen Victoria. What do you mean 'migrate'? Migrate what?"

"With one bite." He explained. "I would pass into her blood, and then it begins. The Empire of the Wolf." Florence could hear the fearful whimpers of the prisoners behind her, she understood what was so off putting about the boy in front of her. She suddenly understood a lot of things. Why something felt so odd about the bald household staff that gave her the creeps, why they all felt so endangered being trapped in the cellar with him, and why the Doctor was here. She had a theory, after four adventures with the man, Florence had already worked out that where danger appeared, the Doctor soon arrived to stop it. She hoped the tradition continued as well as it had done so far, although maybe let the "being stuck in the cellar with what she could only describe as a werewolf" situation be the most dangerous part of the evening. She highly doubted it.

Florence was startled out of her musings when the werewolf lunged at the bars of his cage, looking at Rose with wild eyes. "Look. Inside your eyes. You've seen it too."

"Seen what?" Rose asked, looking fearful.

"The Wolf. There's something of the Wolf about you." Florence was confused at this, but Rose seemed to understand, although she tried hard not to show it.

"I don't know what you mean." She told him, and he smiled, showing uneven blackened teeth.

"You burnt like the sun, but all I require is the moon." As he spoke the doors to the cellar leading outside were flung open and the light of the full moon shone into their prison cell. The werewolf kept smiling his unnatural smile as he began to remove his monk robe from his shoulders, revealing his pale body underneath.

"Rose…" Florence warned her, knowing that they had to act fast before he transformed. "Rose we need to get out of here." She pulled Rose away for looking at the creature, as a wind picked up around him causing a chill to sweep through them all. Her and Rose grabbed the attention of the other prisoners with them, trying to draw their eyes from the werewolf. "Hey! Stop looking at him, all of you." Rose grabbed Flora's hand.

"Flora. Listen to me." She told the young girl, looking at the chain attached to the brick wall opposite them. "Grab hold of the chain and pull." Florence too grabbed her part of the chain and started to yank with all her might, urging the others to join her desperately.

"All of you! Pull! Now!" She threw a glance to her left and saw bones shifting underneath the pale skin of the young man, his spine elongating and arching, throwing his head back in almost gleeful pain. She caught sight of long claws growing from his nail beds, scratching against the floor of the cage, before turning back to the chain, Rose now instructing them all to focus.

"We said pull! Stop your whining and listen! Everyone, come on!" She grunted in the exertion of pulling and Florence noticed the Lady of the house hadn't managed to turn away from the transformation.

"That includes you, your Ladyship. Stop looking at him!" She told her, rustling her chain to grab her attention.

"One, two, three. Pull!" Rose ordered, and they all yanked as hard as possible, they repeated the process again just as the werewolf finished shifting and was examining its body with interest, Florence saw the chain had weakened at the wall, and urged them all to pull one more time.

"One, two, three. Pull!" They freed their chains from the wall just as the door to the house was kicked open, and the Doctor and Sir Robert appeared, Florence cried out in relief.

"Took you fucking long enough!" Sir Robert began to usher his household staff and wife out of the cellar, they all cowered in fear as the werewolf broke out of his cage, splintering the wood.

"Out, out, out, out, out, out, out!" The men cried as they emptied the room. The Doctor pushed Rose out of the room and grabbed Florence, pausing before he too ran out of the room, staring at the creature in front of him.

"Oh, that's beautiful." He stared at it in admiration, ducking as something was thrown by the creature in his direction. Florence tugged his sleeve and dragged him out of the room.

"Come on!" They shut the door behind them and the Doctor sonicked the door shut, she whacked him on the chest as they ran to the others. "What the hell are you doing just gawking at it?!" The Doctor sighed and grabbed her hand, moving them quicker with his longer legs.

"Do we have to do this now?!"

The two of them followed the rest of the group into a gun storage room, where the steward was handing weapons out to the men. The Doctor began to unlock the chains still connecting them all, while the steward instructed, "Arms, and you five. Ready, everyone?" He turned to Lady Isobel. "Take the girls. Get them out through the kitchen." The Lady looked to her husband.

"I can't leave you." She told him. "What will you do?"

"I must defend her Majesty. Now," he gripped her shoulders, "don't think of me, just go." Lady Isobel nodded and turned to her handmaids,

"All of you, at my side. Come on!"

"Doctor," Florence began, looking at him as he removed her last shackle, "that thing, that can't be… y'know, a werewolf? I mean…" He shrugged lightly,

"I don't know, could be. Or it could be any form of light modulated species triggered by specific wavelengths." She shook her head at his scientific explanation for such a supernatural creature. "Did it say what it wanted?"

"The Queen, the Crown, the throne - you name it." Rose told him, and Florence nodded.

"Said he wanted to infect her, create a new empire." The Doctor looked concerned by that, but before he could ask them anymore they heard a crash from around the corner, he ran from the girls to check on what it was. "Oh, why don't you ask him yourself." Florence muttered, watching as he came back around the corner as quickly as he disappeared, grabbing the two of them and pushing past the steward and his men, who opened fire on the werewolf that had followed behind him.

The shots died down and the men joined them further into the house, where the Doctor attempted to usher them along. "Alright, you men. We should retreat upstairs. Come with me."

"I'll not retreat." The steward told him, foolishly. "The battle's done. There's no creature on God's Earth that could survive such an assault."

"Don't be stupid!" Florence cried out, shaking off the Doctor's hand from her shoulder. "You saw that transformation! Do you really think bullets stopped it?! Listen to him and come upstairs." The steward looked down at her with a sneer.

"I will not listen to weak willed womenfolk. I will sleep well tonight with that thing's hide upon my wall." He stepped back from them and back into the hallway he came from, triumphantly. "It must have crawled away to die." Before he could look proud of himself for long, a hairy clawed paw reached down from the ceiling and grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, hoisting him up into the air with a terrified scream. The Doctor turned the girls away and began leading everyone into the next room,

"There's nothing we can do! Hurry!" The other men didn't follow, aiming their guns uncertainly at the beast that had just devoured their companion, while the Doctor led Florence, Rose and Sir Robert to a grand staircase, and further away from the snarls and wet ripping of flesh that echoed behind them. Florence forced herself not to look back in fear of seeing something that may have forced the vomit bubbling up in her throat to spill out. As the Doctor checked the house for an escape route, Sir Robert caught sight of the Queen on the landing above them.

"Your Majesty? Your Majesty!" He called out, and they met in the middle of the stairs.

"Sir Robert?" The Queen asked. "What's happening? I heard such terrible noises!"

"Your Majesty, we've got to get out." He told her urgently. "What of Father Angelo? Is he still her?" The monarch paused briefly before responding,

"Captain Reynolds disposed of him." The Doctor rejoined the group, apparently his search had been somewhat successful,

"The front door's no good, it's been boarded shut. Pardon me, Your Majesty. You'll have to leg it out of a window." He gestured that they reentered the dining room that three of the five had been in previously, and the Queen held her head up high and walked past him.

"Excuse my manners, Ma'am, but I shall go first, the better to assist Her Majesty's egress." Sir Robert offered, stopping her before she could get too close to the window. The queen nodded at his request,

"A noble sentiment, my Sir Walter Raleigh." Florence almost rolled her eyes at the drama of it all, and it seemed that the Doctor had the same idea.

"Yeah, any chance you could hurry up?" Sir Robert got closer to the window and braced himself to climb up, but he had only managed to lift the latch and open the window the barest amount before a group of monks who had been waiting outside opened fire on him. They all ducked, Florence letting out a light scream before poking her head up slightly with the rest of them to see three monks with rifles reloading.

"Right so there goes that plan." She said glumly. "Now what?"

"Seems like the monkey boys want us to stay inside." The Doctor agreed, and the Queen looked aghast at set of the events.

"Do they know who I am?"

"Well, yeah." Rose told her bluntly. "That's why they want ya. The wolf's lined you up for a, uh… biting." The Queen looked at her in disbelief.

"Stop this talk, there cannot be an actual wolf." She spoke too soon, as at that moment the wolf let out a howl that sounded way too close for Florence's comfort. They ran out of the dining room and saw the door that the Doctor had shut behind them when they had entered the entrance hall being readily chipped away by great thudding and scratching from the wolf. Florence turned to the Doctor in panic,

"What now? Upstairs?" The Doctor nodded.

"We just run."

"For how long?!" Florence cried, wondering why his usual planning mode hadn't kicked in yet. He gave her a sarcastic look,

"Oh until he stops for a break! Let's go!" Rose seemed to be in the same mind as Florence,

"Is that it?"

"Either of you got any silver bullets?"

"Not on me, no." Rose replied to him with an attitude and he nodded in kind.

"There we go then, we run. Your Majesty." He turned to the queen and jogged on the spot. "As a Doctor, I recommend a rigorous jog. Good for your health. Come on!" He took her hand and they set off up the stairs, just as they made it to the third landing, the door below them smashed open and Florence looked over the bannister briefly to see the wolf following them at great speed. "Come on! Come on!" The Doctor urged her to continue to run faster, down another corridor. They followed the twisting and turning of the house's many corridors, the thudding of the wolf's paws steadily gaining on them, Florence's heart was in her throat and her lungs burned with exertion. Just as the wolf was almost nipping at their heels, Captain Reynolds stepped out from around the corner of the next corridor and shot the creature, causing it to retreat with a pained whimper. They all paused for a moment and watched him reload his pistol, giving them orders as he did.

"I'll take this position and hold it. You keep moving, for God's sake!" He looked at the Queen, who was struggling to catch her breath. "Your Majesty, I went to look for the property and it was taken. The chest was empty."

"I have it. It's safe." She reassured him, and he nodded.

"Then remove yourself, Ma'am. Doctor, you stand as Her Majesty's Protector. And you," he looked Sir Robert in the eye with disgust, "Sir Robert, you're a traitor to the crown." He flicked off the safety of his pistol and made to move, but the Doctor tried to stop him.

"Bullets can't stop it!"

"But they'll buy you time! Now run!" Captain Reynolds yelled, and they had no choice but to obey, just before she turned away Florence saw him ready himself to shoot at the beast with whatever bullets he had left. The Doctor led them further down the hallway and Sir Robert opened the grand doors to the left of him, leading them into a spacious library, they entered in a hurry, Florence noticing Rose had stopped just outside the door, the sound of bulletproof behind them stopping and being replaced with the screams of the captain. She grabbed Rose by the arm and pulled her into the room with them,

"Rose! Come on!" She shook her out of it and Sir Robert ordered them to begin barricading the door, which they did with chairs and a small console table near them. A hush fell over the room save their heavy breathing and the Doctor pressed his head up against the door.

"Wait a minute." He told them, and there was a soft howl to indicate that the wolf was only on the other side of the door. "Shush, shush, wait a minute." Florence could hardly breathe, she felt frozen in place as she almost waited for the moment the wolf would break the wood of the doors like a match and slaughter them all. "It stopped." The Doctor told them. "It's gone." Florence could hear something faint, slight scratching of the claws of the wolf against the hard wooden floors of the house.

"Listen." Rose murmured, light growls accompanied the scratching, it seemed to be walking along the outside of the room, towards something.

"Wait." Florence wondered, looking in the direction the wolf would be walking on the other side of the wall. She turned to Sir Robert. "Is this the only door?"

"Yes." He told her, before immediately shaking his head and turning to the open door on the opposit side of the room. "No!" They raced to the door, shutting it and barricading it just like the first, pausing again to listen to the sounds from outside. The scuffling continued, the wolf seemed to be edging around the outside of the room, which confused them all.

"I don't understand." Rose whispered. "What's stopping it?" Florence nodded, looking around cautiously for any other door or way in.

"It tore down those other doors? What's with this room?" The Doctor was looking around the room curiously,

"Something about it is different, but what? Why can't it get in?" Sir Robert sat with his head in his hands, Rose moved forward slowly and tugged the sleeve of Florence's cardigan, making her look at her in concern,

"I'll tell you what though…" The Doctor turned to look at the two of them, seemingly confused.

"What?"

"Werewolf." Rose breathed out in barely concealed excitement, and the Doctor grinned in response,

"I know!" He pulled her in for a quick firm hug before turning to Florence and cupping the side of her head gently, "You alright?" She nodded, still attempting to calm her racing heart but managing to smile at him, welcoming his kind gesture,

"Yeah, beside the mild heart failure. You good?" He grinned again (she took that as a yes) and repeated the question to Rose, who nodded.

Sir Robert lifted his head from his hands and interrupted the calming moment between the friends. "I'm sorry, ma'am." They all looked at him in confusion. "It's all my fault. I should have sent you away. I tried to suggest something was wrong, I thought you might notice. Did you think there was nothing strange about my household staff."

"Well, they were bald, athletic… your wife's away. I thought you were happy." The Doctor quipped, and soft smile she wore previously fell, Florence gave him a sharp look.

"Doctor…" She warned.

"I'll tell you what though, ma'am." Rose commented, and Florence was already preparing to cast the same dark look in the blonde's direction. "I bet you're not amused now."

"Rose." Florence cut in sharply. "Stop it." She couldn't help but be a little disappointed in her friends, she thought they of all people would understand how terrifying these situations could be for people, and she didn't appreciate the way that they seemed to forget about the real people's lives that were affected by their adventures. She supposed she hadn't thought of it much the last few times with this Doctor, she didn't think about the countless lives lost to the Macra on the Motorway, or the people that the Krillitane had already devoured. But with his future self and the Minotaur, she had come face to face with bodies of the people they had failed to save. People who would never see their families again, people whose lives were cut short before they could do anything with them. And it was painfully real. The only two people she knew in this room suddenly felt like strangers to her, people who only enjoyed getting in funny quips and fulfilling bets at the expense of real people's feelings. She was, if anything, disappointed in the disillusions she had about the man who had revealed his true insecurities and flaws when he told Amy that he could no longer help her.

"Do you think this is funny?" The Queen scolded, clearly feeling the same annoyance at the pair, and Rose had the decency to look abashed, not that Florence could quite tell as she refused to properly look at either of them, especially not the Doctor who was trying his hardest to stare the side of her face down.

"No, ma'am. I'm sorry." Rose apologised.

"What, exactly, I pray tell me, someone, please." The Queen demanded. "What exactly is that creature?"

The Doctor took over at that point, giving up on getting Florence's attention for now. "You'd call it a werewolf, but technically it's a more of a lupine wavelength haemovariform." He told them, and Florence looked over at Sir Robert,

"I bet it has something to do with that wolf you were going to tell us about at dinner…" before he could reply, the Queen questioned the Doctor more, clearly not finished with him.

"And should I trust you, sir? You who change your voice so easily? What happened to your accent?" The three time travellers winced slightly at that realisation, the Doctor had indeed lost his Scottish brogue he had impressed Florence with only hours before.

"Oh right, sorry, that's…" He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, feeling suitably caught out.

"I'll not have it." She told him. "No, sir. Not you, not that thing, none of it. This is not my world."

There was an awkward hush that came over the library, none of them were quite sure what to do with the Queen's words, they were still in the middle of danger and they couldn't forget that. The Queen sat herself on a leather sofa while Sir Robert, the Doctor, Rose and Florence all remained where they were, the Doctor cleared his throat slightly and leaned himself against the barricade, casting his gaze downwards, before frowning and looking closer at the carvings on the doors. "Mistletoe." He ran his fingers over it. "Sir Robert, did your father put that there?" Sir Robert shrugged slightly.

"I don't know. I suppose." Florence looked over at him and saw the same carvings behind him.

"On that one too… what's that about? Why an image of mistletoe?" The Doctor looked at the wood intently.

"No, a carving wouldn't be enough. I wonder…" He climbed over the barricade slightly to get closer to the carving, before doing the unthinkable. He ran his tongue over the wood in a long lick. Florence made a disgusted noise at him. "Viscum album, the oil of the mistletoe. It's been worked into the wood like a varnish." He jumped back from the barricade with a shout and a grin. "How clever was your dad? I love him. Powerful stuff, mistletoe. Bursting with lectins and viscotoxins."

"So the wolf's allergic to it?" Rose asked.

"Well, it thinks it is. The monkey monk monks need a way of controlling the wolf, training it to react against different things."

"Why the library? If there's no other escape route why this room?" Florence asked curiously, but Sir Robert ever the pessimist interrupted.

"What does it matter? That creature won't give up, Doctor, and we still don't possess an actual weapon." The Doctor shook his head slightly at him.

"Oh, your father got all the brains, didn't he?" Rose smiled fake and brightly at him,

"Being rude again!" He walked away from them and towards the shelves.

"Good. I meant that one. You want weapons? We're in a library. Books! Best weapons in the world." He dramatically placed the glasses Florence had seen him wear when fixing up K9 on. "That's why we're trapped in the library, Florence. This room's the greatest arsenal we could have." He threw a book to her, and she caught it with an eyebrow raised. "Arm yourself."

The group were looking through the various books lining the shelves in front of them, the Doctor flicking through them in seconds with an ease that confused Florence greatly, who had struggled to read the index of her last two in less than five minutes.

"Biology, zoology. There might be something on wolves in here…" Rose was saying, catching books the Doctor was throwing to her.

"What about folklore in the area? Anything we might know from that?" Florence suggested, handing the Doctor a book on mistletoe he had reached for.

"Wolfsbane?" Rose asked, and Florence snapped her fingers.

"What truth is there to those myths?" The Doctor paused, stepping down from his perch holding the book open in his palms.

"Oo." He placed the tome on the table in front of him. "Look what your old dad found. Something fell to Earth."

"A spaceship?" Rose asked, but Florence pointed to the caption below the photo they were looking at.

"No, a meteorite. 1540, 'an almighty fire did burn in the pit'."

"That's the Goen of Saint Catherine just by the monastery." Sir Robert told the,, and Rose shook her head in confusion,

"But that's over three hundred years ago. What's it been waiting for?"

"It can't have been that body that survived? All that time?"

"Maybe just a single cell survived." The Doctor suggested. "Adapting slowly down the generations, it survived through the humans, host after host after host."

"But why does it want the throne?" Sir Robert asked, and Rose and Florence looked at each other concerned.

"The Empire of the Wolf." They said in unison.

"That's what he said." Florence told them, and the Doctor left out a deep exhale.

"Imagine it. The Victorian Age accelerated. Starships and missiles fueled by coal and driven by steam, leaving history devastated in its wake." The three time travellers looked most concerned at the thought of disrupting the timelines in such a catastrophic way.

"Sir Robert." The Queen called from her seat by the fireplace. "If I am to die here."

"Don't say that, Your Majesty." Sir Robert insisted, but the monarch continued,

"I would destroy myself rather than let that creature infect me. But that's no matter. I ask only that you find some place of safekeeping for something far older and more precious than myself." She reached into her purse.

"Hardly the time to worry about your valuables." The Doctor called over from their table, though Florence and Rose were both curious as to what she had in there.

"Thank you for your opinion, but there is nothing more valuable than this." She pulled out a bright white diamond the size of a large apple, showing it to the group. Rose gaped at the sight of it.

"Is that the Koh-I-Noor?" Florence nodded mutely.

"Oh, yes." The Doctor answered, just as in awe. "The greatest diamond in the world."

"Given to me as the spoils of war." The three approached it slowly, still staring at it. "Perhaps its legend is now coming true. It is said that whoever owns it must surely die."

"Well, that's true of anything if you own it long enough. Can I?" He reached out for it, rather presumptuously in Florence's eyes, and the Queen rightly hesitated before handing it to him. Florence daringly couldn't help but reach a finger out and gently stroke its side when the Doctor held it towards her.

"That is so beautiful." She murmured.

"How much is that worth?" Rose asked breathlessly.

"They say the wages of the entire planet for a whole week." Florence shook her head slightly,

"Fucking obscene wealth." She muttered, only loud enough for the Doctor to just hear her. Rose laughed at his words,

"Good job my mum's not here." She mentioned. "She'd be fighting the wolf off with her bare hands for that thing."

"And she'd win." The Doctor quipped, making both girls laugh lightly.

"Where is the wolf?" Sir Robert raised a good point, and put Florence back on edge. "I don't trust this silence."

"Why do you travel with it?" The Doctor ignored him, asking the Queen more about the diamond instead.

"My annual pilgrimage." She replied. "I'm taking it to Helier and Carew, the Royal Jewellers at Hazelhead. The stone needs recutting."

"Oh, but it's perfect." Rose told her, looking at the diamond in wonder still.

"My late husband never thought so." The Mourning Queen responded, sadly.

"Now, there's a fact." The Doctor informed the girls. "Prince Albert kept on having the Koh-I-Noor cut down. It used to be forty percent bigger than this. But he was never happy. Kept on cutting and cutting."

"He always said the shine was not quite right. But he died with it still unfinished." The widow told them, causing the Doctor to have a breakthrough of sorts, throwing the diamond back to her.

"Unfinished… Oh! There's a lot of unfinished business in this house. His father's research, and your husband, Ma'am, he came here and he sought the perfect diamond." He paced the room slightly, running his hands through his hair and tugging at it. "Hold on, hold on. All these separate things, they're not separate at all, they're connected." He hit his head. "Oh, my head, my head. What if this house, it's a trap for you. Is that right, Ma'am?" The Queen looked confused at his bout of madness.

"Obviously."

The Doctor smiled victoriously. "At least, that's what the wolf intended. But, what if there's a trap inside the trap?"

"What do you mean? A double bluff?" Florence asked him, and he gestured the two 1879 natives in the room,

"What if his father and her husband weren't just telling each other stories. They dared to imagine all this was true, and they planned against it, laying the real trap not for you, your Majesty, but for the wolf." Before any of them could let the revelation sink in, dust fell in front of the Doctor's face from the ceiling, and Florence looked up fearfully, hoping not to see what she was expecting to see.

"That wolf I presume." She commented, seeing what everyone else was seeing, the werewolf on top of the glass domed roof of the library, his claws making tinkling noises as he crawled along. The glass begin to splinter and crack, and the Doctor ran to their makeshift barricade, pulling it apart and yelling to them all,

"Out! Out! Out!"

They ran.

The Doctor attempted to shut the library doors behind them but the wolf flung them open and began to chase them down the hallways, Florence could feel the burning in her lungs as painfully real as the burning she felt before she jumped, and the awful awful terrified selfish part of her almost hoped she did just to escape the brutal beast. That didn't happen, but neither did the fangs of the wolf descend on them as he was stopped by an unexpected weapon in the form of a saucepan filled with boiling water thrown at him by the ladies of the house. He retreated with a pained sound as the water hissed against his skin, and the Doctor praised the women and Florence gave Flora a quick squeeze in thanks, while Sir Robert and Lady Isobel reunited with an emotional kiss, he pulled away swiftly.

"Now, get back downstairs." He told her, and she pressed her hand over his heart,

"Keep yourself safe." She ordered him in return and he nodded.

"Go." She turned to the rest of the women and ushered them with her,

"Girls, come with me. Down the back stairs, back to the kitchens. Quickly!" They left almost as quickly as they came and Florence looked over her shoulder at the direction the wolf had fled in, concerned that they may already be lingering too long,

"Doctor, Sir Robert." She caught the men's attention. "We have to keep moving." Sir Robert nodded firmly.

"The observatory's this way." He led them through the house toward their goal.

They reached the observatory in no time, but unfortunately the thudding of the wolf's footsteps had rejoined them, and they sprinted into the room to set their plan into motion. The Doctor looked at the plain wooden doors in front of him, running his hands over the smooth surface.

"No mistletoe in these doors because your father wanted the wolf to get inside. I just need time." He looked from the doors to the telescope and finally landed on Sir Robert. "Is there any way of barricading this?" He tested the sturdiness of the doors but Sir Robert had another idea in mind.

"Just do your work and I'll defend it." Florence shook her head,

"Can't we just barricade it?" She asked, but the man shook his head,

"I said I'll find you time. Now shut them behind me."

"Good man." The Doctor spoke his final words to the man that was about to sacrifice his life for them and Florence could do nothing but watch as the doors were closed behind him. The Doctor turned to the Queen and held out his hand expectantly. "Your Majesty. The diamond." She seemed reluctant, clutching her hands to her chest.

"For what purpose? She asked."

"The purpose it was designed for." She handed it over, still sceptical of the man's plan, and the Doctor took it from her, running over to the large telescope.

"Florence, Rose." He called the two girls over to help him turn the large cog to the side of the machine, which began to angle upwards. "Lift. Come on!" Florence left out ops huff of exertion as she complied,

"Alright! It's not exactly…" The three grunted as it shifted an inch further. "Light!" Rose agreed, huffing out her own complaint,

"Is now really the time for stargazing?"

"Yep!" The Doctor answered, pulling the handles of the cog with all his might as the sounds of yelling and tearing echoed outside the door, and Florence shared a scared look with the Time Lord, who looked down and continued his task.

"You said this thing doesn't work!" Rose pointed out, and the Doctor nodded.

"It doesn't work as a telescope because that's not what it is. It's a light chamber. It magnifies the light rays like a weapon. We've just got to power it up."

"Light rays?" Florence repeated. "But how does that… the moonlight!" She realised at the same time the Doctor gave her a look as if to say 'work it out faster please'. Rose looked between the two of them,

"But the wolf needs moonlight, it's made by moonlight?"

"You're seventy percent water but you can still drown." The Doctor commented. "Come on! Come on!" They shifted the telescope slightly further so that it was directly under the moon's light, and Florence heard a distinctly modern sound of whirring as the machine was powered up. Just in time, as the door behind them burst open and the wolf raised a giant paw up to attack the Queen, the pure moonlight hit the floor near their feet, and the Doctor slid from his position and threw the diamond out, landing under the moonlight and reflecting upwards so that it refracted upwards, catching the wolf in the chest. It was raised from the ground by the power of the light rays and transformed back into the young man, shrouded in a white light.

"Make it brighter." The now human wolf begged. "Let me go." The Doctor turned and adjusted the magnifier on the side of the telescope, increasing the brightness and intensity of the rays, and the werewolf disappeared into stardust with a lone howl. Florence looked up at it as it vanished, feeling overwhelmingly relieved at their survival, but couldn't help feeling sad for the countless bodies the creature had inhabited and ruined before this. The Doctor noticed her pensive look and she felt him gently grip her hand with her own, but she didn't let him linger long before sliding her hand out of his hold and into her pocket, her emotions from earlier in the library still running high. She thought about the house that they had entered earlier in the day, and how only a handful had survived this adventure. The Doctor stepped forward, pulling Florence out of her musings, and looked to the Queen, who was holding her wrist in front of her face.

"Your Majesty?" He asked cautiously. "Did it bite you?"

"No." She said, stroking whatever was on her wrist. "It's… it's a cut, that's all."

"If that thing bit you…" The Doctor began, stepping closer to her.

"It was a splinter of wood when the door came apart. It's nothing." The Doctor reached out as if to check on her, but she snatched her hand away and covered his exposed skin once more. "It's nothing." She picked up her skirts and turned away from them. "Come. We must collect our dead and inform Lady Isobel of her husband's departure." She waltzed out of the room and Rose and Florence made to follow her, but the Doctor stopped her slightly with a hand on her elbow, causing them to walk slightly behind the other women.

"Are you okay, Florence?" He asked gently, and she nodded slightly, not speaking. He sighed. "If this is about earlier and the, the joking…" She cast a look at him before continuing to face ahead.

"It's about everything." She admitted. "Travelling with you, it's, it's numbing." She stopped him at the end of the hallway and the Doctor motioned Rose to go ahead. "You stand there and make jokes, while we're fighting for our lives, and other people's." He opened his mouth to answer but she wasn't finished. "I'm not saying you can't cope with the adventure and fear in your own way, I know you've survived this long on your own, but Doctor… you just appear in people's lives and look what happens. I'm not blaming you." She added, seeing his hurt expression and that he was about to interrupt once more. "None of this is your fault at all. But you've also got to take a second and remember what you're leaving behind. You might be okay with swaggering off into the TARDIS without a backwards glance, but I'm not. And I'm scared that the Florence I become is okay with that too."

"You think I'm okay with all this?" He asked her, in probably the angriest voice he had addressed her with. "Because I am not okay with any of this. I make inappropriate comments sometimes, but I am also the one who saves these people's lives."

"What, so that entitles you to say what you want?" Florence bit back, rather scathingly.

"That's unfair." He told her, hurt. "You know that's not what I mean. It isn't that I don't ever look back, it's that when I choose not to, it's because it hurts too much to remind myself how much and how often I failed." Florence looked down, slightly abashed. "And I hate that you think that of me, but I can't say I'm not also slightly glad." She looked up at his words, frowning in confusion, he placed his hand on the back of her neck lightly, and rubbed her jaw with his thumb, she hated the way her heart faltered at the simple action. "Florence. You've always seen me as I am. You call me out, you worry when I go too far. I know it'll happen again in the future, I'll mess up, I'll annoy you and I'm just glad because it means that you're still there." He smiled softly. "I need you to be there when I do look back on the people I leave behind." He was so sincere, so apologetic, so unlike any man she had ever met, and not because he was a time-travelling alien.

So Florence knew in that moment that she would have no choice but to be there, but this time the thought of it didn't seem to bother her as much.

The sun rose on the Torchwood Estate, basking it in an orange glow that acted as a stark contrast of the moonlight the manor had bathed in last night. Florence found herself kneeling beside the Doctor and Rose in the early hours of the morning after a fitful night's sleep, and couldn't believe the image she saw before her of Queen Victoria standing in front of her holding a ceremonial sword.

"By the power invested in me by the Church and the State, I dub thee Sir Doctor of TARDIS." She placed the sword lightly on his shoulders as she spoke, before moving to Rose and repeating the process. "By the power invested in me by the Church and the State, I dub thee Dame Rose of the Powell Estate." She finally turned to Florence. "By the power invested in me by the Church and the State, I dub thee Dame Florence of Barnsbury. You may stand." The Doctor gave the girls a cheeky grin as they stood, and Florence rolled her eyes goodnaturedly at his excitement.

"Many thanks, ma'am." He told the monarch, while Rose and Florence smiled sweetly.

"Thanks! They're never going to believe this back home."

"Your Majesty," the Doctor began, "you said last night about receiving no message from the great beyond. I think your husband cut that diamond to save your life. He's protecting you even now, Ma'am, from beyond the grave." He smiled at her, but her face remained stony.

"Indeed. Then you may think on this also." She paused and looked between the three of them. "That I am not amused." Florence's mouth dropped open and she looked at Rose who grinned triumphantly,

"Yes!" She celebrated slightly, before faltering at the Queen's face.

"Not remotely amused. And henceforth I banish you."

"What?" Florence gaped, and the Doctor pulled a face,

"I'm sorry?"

"I have rewarded you, Sir Doctor, and now you are exiled from this empire, never to return." The time travellers shared uncomfortable looks. "I don't know what you are, the three of you, or where you're from, but I know that you consort with stars and magic and think it fun. But your world is steeped in terror and blasphemy and death, and I will not allow it. You will leave these shores and you will reflect, I hope, on how you came to stray so far from all that is good, and how much longer you may survive this terrible life. Now leave my world, and never return." Rose looked shocked by the stern dismissal, and the three nodded slightly before taking their leave, heading to the courtyard where Lady Isobel had organised a cart to escort them back to the TARDIS.

The Doctor waved at Douglas the driver as the trio hopped off the back of the cart, wrapping his arm around Florence's shoulder as they walked, having come to a mutual understanding with the young version of his dearest friend and feeling much better about the nature of their relationship once more. "No but the funny thing is," he was telling them his theory about the Queen's evasiveness the night before, "Queen Victoria did actually suffer a mutation of the blood. It's historical record. She was haemophiliac. They used to call it the Royal Disease. But it's always been a mystery because she didn't inherit it. Her mum didn't have it, her dad didn't have it. It came from nowhere." Rose looked at him funny,

"What, and you're saying that's a wolf bite?" Florence laughed,

"You're really looking to get us kicked further out of the empire with such treason, Sir Doctor." He knocked her as they walked and shrugged,

"Well, maybe haemophilia is just a Victorian euphemism."

"For werewolf?" Rose couldn't believe his words. "Queen Victoria's a werewolf?" He shrugged again.

"Could be. And her children had the Royal Disease. Maybe she gave them a quick nip."

"A little family bonding once a month." Florence quipped, making the Doctor laugh.

"So, the Royal Family are werewolves?" Rose was trying to grasp the theory.

"Well, maybe not yet." He theorised further. "I mean, a single wolf cell could take a hundred years to mature. Might be ready by, oh, early 21st century?" Florence shook her head,

"Nah that's ridiculous!" Rose wagged her finger at her slightly,

"Mind you… princess Anne."

"Stop!" Florence laughed more.

"And if you think about it, they're very private." Rose continued. "They plan everything in advance. They could schedule themselves around the moon. We'd never know. And they like hunting!" They arrived at the TARDIS and the Doctor removed his arm from Florence's shoulders, unlocked the door and entered with a flourish of his overcoat, the girls following behind. "They love blood sports. Oh my God, they're werewolves!"

I won't lie, this episode took my while… I struggled getting across that Florence doesn't quite understand how the Doctor and Rose are around danger (which personally I found careless at times) but is still growing to love her time with them and the adventures.

And she didn't jump at the end this time! She will have jumped by the next chappie… which I can reveal will be with 11 again! Our fave bow tie boy!

See you for chapter nine! xo