London: February 16th, 1941

In a damp and dark part of London, a red headed young woman followed after another, making sure to stay out of view as she did so.

Rieka had been worried about Nancy after the air-raid sirens went off and had reluctantly left Constantine on his own to check up on her. So, Rieka had silently sighed in relief when she had found the younger brunette coming out of a house unharmed.

If it had been any other time, the red head may have frowned at the knowledge that Nance was breaking into someone's house to steal their food, but this was the Second World War! It was bad enough that the children Nancy watched over were still in London, let alone wanting to care about where their next meal came from. And Rieka had also had the unfortunate experience of seeing some disappear, only to reappear a few months later. And it didn't take a genius to know why they had returned after seeing the condition some of the children had been found in.

But after the incident with Nancy's brother Jamie, the witch had been making sure to check up on the brunette whenever she could. The freedom that Rieka had with flight helped often, as sometimes Nancy wasn't alone, and the children she cared for were understandably not very fond of adults – no matter how nice they seemed. And after losing Jamie, Rieka had been more inclined to watch the brunette from afar.

Rieka hung back in the shadows as Nancy headed towards one of the many catches of food and supplies she kept for the children. The red head tugged off one of her gloves and stared at the odd, pulsating scar that marred the back of it as her eyebrows furrowed. She didn't know what type of virus had started to spread after the air-raid that had killed Jamie, but she was going to find out.

She had too... before she lost Constantine as well.

Looking up in the direction that Nancy had gone, Rieka put her glove back on before she headed back towards the hospital. Moving easily through the deserted streets, it wasn't long until Rieka reached the alleyway she had been searching for; the entrance marked with a howling wolf tagged onto the brick with a bit of black paint. Stepping into the alleyway, the red head felt her own familiar wards wash over her before she shifted into her more feathered form and took to the air; the wards in place to deter anyone from watching the alley for too long. She knew that Nancy would be fine for the time being, and had made sure to stock up one of her catches by the Thames with some more food and water.

And so, with that thought in mind, Rieka headed towards Albion Hospital. Although when she had the building in her sights, the animagus banked to the left and a little off course, wanting to circle around the bomb site that had... changed Jamie. Her midnight black feathers seemed to reflect the moonlight as she soared silently through the air; giving off a dark red sheen that almost made it appear as if her feathers were glowing dimly like dying coals in the darkness. And as Rieka glided silently over the rooftops, her wings beating lazily as she caught an updraft, she couldn't help but think about the virus.

It was all she could think about since she was one of the first infected.

But she was the only one whom appeared unaffected by it.

Anyone who had come into contact with Jamie on that fateful night had succumbed to the virus within a day.

And anyone who had come into contact with those infected afterwards...

Anyone... but Rieka.

The witch had her suspicions as to why, of course. But it wasn't like she could really talk with anyone about her magic and how certain viruses may affect her differently to normal humans. That would only lead her to a one-way ticket to the looney bin, or dumped straight onto Torchwood's doorstep; wrapped up with a little bowtie like a present on Christmas.

Yes. Best to stay away from that lot, Rieka mused as she circled the bomb site; catching a glimpse of the undetonated bomb that was covered by some tarp as people moved around the area. She took note of each soldier that patrolled the perimeter, along with the best way to enter and exit. Though Rieka really had no intentions of getting anywhere close to the bomb site. It was an old habit that her father had taught her to do when she surveyed anything, and it had yet to be broken.

As she came around for one last flyover, the animagus noticed that the people working on the site had tried to get into the bomb and wondered if they had a death wish. She had no idea as to why anyone would want to try and get into a bomb of any kind, let alone one that could possibly go off at any time. She gave the soldiers, and the bomb one last glance before she headed back in the direction she had been originally heading in.

If they wanted to play with fire, they were most welcomed to... as long as she was not in the local vicinity when they did so.

Movement near the hospital caught her attention, breaking the animagus from her musings when she noticed a man wearing a black leather jacket making his way through the – what should have been – locked gate. She passed overhead, wanting to get a better idea of what the man looked like before disappearing around the building and towards the open window of her room.

She was rather curious to know why someone would want to break into a hospital in the middle of a war, and the moment she was inside her room, Rieka shifted back and gave herself a once over in the mirror. She didn't want to return to Constantine looking like she had just tracked through the filthy streets of London, and with a thought, the few marks on her dark blue top and black pants vanished; her magic doing what she wanted before she even realised what it was doing. Her long, dark green coat was as spotless as always, having been charmed to resist most things, and her boots needed a bit more effort to clean them. And after a quick brush, her blood red, pixie-styled hair was somewhat presentable.

Rieka didn't want Constantine to worry about her being out during the air-raids, and as the 'young' witch rushed down the stairs and to the ward where she had last seen the doctor, the red head couldn't help but think about the man she had seen at the gate.

He hadn't looked to be an officer of any kind... but he also didn't look to be a doctor, healer, or any type of medical expert.

Rieka paused on the last step, a frown marring her features.

So why is he coming here, then? she thought before continuing on her way; although there was more of a wariness about her as she made her way to the ward she knew Doctor Constantine was in.


"You should be resting," Rieka admonished the moment she stepped into the ward, seeing that Constantine was leaning heavily on his cane as he checked over one of the patients. "I told you I would do the check-ups when I finished that load of washing after dinner. It's really not like they're going anywhere," she lied as she wrapped an arm under his shoulders and helped the doctor over to a chair.

The man shook his head, a small smile on his lips even as he sat down with a relieved sigh. "It was no problem, my dear," he said, his eyes twinkling despite his rather ill complexion, "You've been run off your feet and do far more than enough around here as it is. There wasn't much that needed to be done and I thought that I could get the round done before you returned."

Rieka opened her mouth to reply, when the sound of a door opening further down the corridor outside the ward gained her attention. She gave Constantine a look, clearly telling him that she didn't approve of him working while he should be resting, but her curiosity towards the leather-clad newcomer was perked. And after spending day in and day out tending after patients that did nothing but lay around... a part of Rieka was welcoming the man's arrival.

Moving closer to the door so she wouldn't be seen unless the man was actually looking for her, Rieka watched the newcomer enter the ward. He didn't seem to notice either she or Constantine as he moved straight to examining the patients; each of which were all wearing gas masks that Rieka had been horrified to find weren't actually sitting on their faces, but fused to their very flesh – though she couldn't, for the love of all things magical, figure out how. All of the books the witch had been left with had nothing on what she was seeing, and Rieka wondered if it was some new kind of weapon the Germans were using.

She really wasn't to certain anymore, as if that note had been correct and that this was a different universe... just how much had her presence changed?

While the newcomer was examining another patient, Rieka took the opportunity to look him over. He looked rather ordinary in any sense, but then so did she. Though Rieka was getting a feeling that there was something different about him. Something that set him apart from the rest.

"You'll find them everywhere. In every bed, in every ward. Hundreds of them," Rieka spoke after a moment of observation as she moved back towards Constantine and startling the newcomer.

The Doctor spun on his heel, his twin hearts skipping a beat at the sound of Rieka's voice. He froze when his eyes landed on her and immediately took in her difference in appearance; realising that it had happened once again. When he had last seen the red head, she had much longer hair... and it had been over forty years from now. What Aries Prince was doing in London during the Blitz, the Time Lord had no idea. But he also had so many other questions when it came to his Nesdra... more so after their last encounter.

Tilting her head to the side a little, Rieka watched the man's reactions carefully and came to the decision that he was probably the oddest person she had ever seen break into a hospital. Let alone a hospital during an air-raid. He was wearing a dark blue shirt under the leather jacket, along with black pants and shoes, and the witch wondered idly if he had a thing for the colour black.

"Are you okay?" she asked, her eyebrows knitting together slightly as the Doctor just continued to stare at her. It was almost like he had seen a ghost, and his expression confused her as Rieka didn't believe she had met him before. And the witch was certain that she would have remembered meeting the strange man before.

The Doctor's blue eyes cleared as he shook off his surprise, although his own eyebrows were still slightly creased. "Yeah, fine," he replied before refocusing on the patients around them. He could figure out what his Nesdra was doing in World War Two later, along with how she seemed to jump around his timeline. "Why are they all still wearing masks?" he questioned as he looked at the mask one of the patients was wearing.

Rieka frowned at his reaction. She could clearly see that the man had recognised her, but she pushed the thought aside as she picked at her gloves. "They're not," she explained, only to shake her head when the Doctor shot her a curious look. "Who are you?" she changed the subject, curious to know more about the strange interloper.

"I'm... er," the Time Lord trailed of, a little confused as to why his Nesdra didn't recognise him. Well, he was until a thought flickered through his mind. It sounded impossible for a human from the twenty-first century, but as he remembered the remarks that not only the Slitheen, but the Dalek had said in regard to his Nesdra... "Are you the Doctor?" he asked instead, a frown tugging at his lips as he noticed the red head fiddling with her gloves.

"Doctor Constantine," another voice spoke up and caused the Time Lord to startle until he spotted Constantine behind his Nesdra as the older man attempted to stand. Rieka was by his side in an instant and helped him to his feet as he continued, "And you are?"

The Doctor hesitated, his eyes going between Rieka and Constantine as he tried to figure out what he could actually say. If his theory was correct, and this was somehow his Nesdra's past, the Time Lord knew that he had to be cautious as to what he could say around the red head. Though he was also concerned about his Nesdra having another confrontation with Rose– who was on a rather very thin rope after the fiasco she had caused on their last trip. If he hadn't realised where his Nesdra had gone, the Doctor was certain that his companion would have been dropped off at home without a second thought.

"Nancy sent me," the Time Lord finally decided to say, causing Rieka to look at him in surprise. Nancy hadn't mentioned anything about seeing anyone new the last time they had spoken, let alone an older man. The children would have ran the moment they had spotted him. And adding the fact that Rieka had just come from seeing Nancy... the red head frowned.

"You know Nancy?"

"But that means you must've been asking about the bomb," Doctor Constantine interjected before Rieka could get a response.

The Doctor turned to Constantine. "Yes," he replied, knowing that that was something he could talk about. It wasn't that he didn't to talk with his Nesdra – in fact it was the only thing the Time Lord wanted to do – but if she didn't know him, he didn't want to run the risk of revealing something he shouldn't and change anything; whether it be her future, or his past. That thought, however, had the Time Lord pausing, realising that his Nesdra had gone through exactly what he was currently living through multiple times before, and he couldn't stop himself from wondering if they would ever meet in the correct order.

"What do you want to know about it?" Rieka questioned, her frown deepening. The moment she heard that the newcomer had been asking about the bomb, her mind had immediately focused. She hoped that he might be able to provide some more insight in to whatever virus the Germans had used, as then she would be one step closer to stopping it from spreading even further.

The Doctor, much to Rieka's dismay, shook his head. "Nothing. Why I was asking," he explained, and Rieka felt as though her heart had dropped into her stomach; her hopes of getting closer towards a cure dashed. The Doctor looked concerned when he noticed his Nesdra's expression change, and he once again glanced between the two as Constantine grabbed one of Rieka's gloved hands and gave it a reassuring pat.

"What do you know?" he asked, wanting to know why his Nesdra was looking so dejected. The sight of her fallen expression had the Doctor wanting to do whatever it took to get her dejected expression to disappear.

"Only what it's done," Constantine replied as his gaze swept over the patients before that stopped on the gloved hand he was still holding; a sad expression in his face at the knowledge of what the young red head was going through.

Looking around, the Doctor looked rather confused as he continued to notice how many patients were in the ward; let alone the rest of the hospital. "These people, they were all caught up in the blast?" he questioned, finding it rather off that so many people had been injured by something that hadn't even exploded. Although the Time Lord didn't believe for a second that what he had followed through the time vortex had been a bomb.

Constantine shook his head with a small, humourless chuckle. "None of them were," he managed to explain before he started coughing. Rieka pursed her lips as she guided Constantine back to the chair where the ward nurse would normally have been, glancing at the other man as he watched them closely.

"You're very sick," the Doctor pointed out uselessly to Constantine, a small frown playing upon his lips as his gaze shifted to his Nesdra in concern; worried that whatever Constantine had, she might catch.

"Dying, I should think," Constantine agreed as Rieka helped him sit down, "I just haven't been able to find the time."

"And it's not the time now, either," the red head cut in as she grabbed his hand. The mere thought of losing someone else left a very bitter taste in Rieka's mouth.

Managing to return her gesture by giving her hand a reassuring, Constantine tried to offer the young woman he had come so see as a daughter some comfort; but he knew that his time was up. He raised his head, looking to the newcomer who was watching them rather oddly. "Are you a doctor?" he enquired, wanting to know if the man could help Rieka with what he had failed to do.

She had come to mean so much to Constantine, and having spent the last three years teaching her everything he knew, the elderly doctor hoped that there was some way to save her from the same fate that was taking him. Constantine knew that there was something remarkable about Rieka, and he was rather saddened at the thought of leaving her behind with no one to help her. Or more importantly, be there to support her.

"I have my moments," the Time Lord admitted as he once again looked between Rieka and Constantine; noticing the gloves the his Nesdra was wearing. They weren't surgical gloves or any type of medical form. Just a simple pair of black, leather gloves and he was curious to know why she was wearing them. He had never seen Aries wearing gloves before, and it wasn't a particularly cold night.

"Have you examined any of the patients yet?" Rieka quickly asked, her eyes giving away her alarm at the possibility of someone else becoming infected. She took a step towards the man; her eyes darting to his hands but was unable to see the tell-tale sign of a scar.

"No," the Doctor replied with a frown, pausing to glance back to Rieka before he headed towards a patient, pulling his sonic screwdriver from his jacket as he went.

"Don't touch the flesh," Rieka exclaimed, taking another step away from Constantine; though the red head made sure that she didn't move too far away from her mentor.

The Doctor paused and looked up from the patient that he had just about to examine when he heard her tone. "Which one?" he enquired, curious to know what had her so... panicked. It was not an emotion he had seen coming from the red head before. If anything, Aries Prince was one of the most level-headed humans he had ever come across, and her ability to separate emotions from logical thinking to work out a problem she encountered was something that had both surprised and intrigued the Doctor. So, seeing her in such a state worried the Time Lord, as well as cemented the idea even further into his mind that this was his Nesdra's past.

"Any one," Constantine answered as he reached out to take Rieka's hand; giving it a weak squeeze. He knew how she felt about the virus, along with the knowledge that she still hadn't been able to find a way to stop it from spreading. He had seen how vast her knowledge was on medicine, along the way she tended to patients, and both she had done in a way that he had never seen. But, Constantine also had seen how Rieka felt about failure.

Pointing his sonic screwdriver at the patient before him, the Time Lord drew Rieka's attention when she heard the device make a faint buzzing sound. The witch frowned, cocking her head to the side as her eyes narrowed on the man. She knew that the device the Doctor was using – whatever form of sonic technology it was – it shouldn't be here. It was something she knew was way to advance for this time period, let alone any time period she had lived in; past or future.

Though the device had the red head questioning whether or not this person was the one who had left her the note when she had awoke in that house all those decades ago, however the man didn't seem to be the type to call someone 'Sweetie'. Rieka's nose wrinkled at the mental image her mind had helpfully provided, shaking her head in an attempt to rid herself of the thought. No, whoever left me the letter was female, she thought, remembering the peculiar scent she had noticed after waking up in that bed.

Then again... the red head mused as she watched the Doctor scan the patient with his sonic, Maybe whoever left me the note knew I would encounter someone with advanced technology, she thought, her mind going to the library she had discovered mere hours after having arrived in this universe. There was someone out there who clearly knew exactly who and what Rieka was, so there was no way to completely deny the possibility that they also knew that she would encounter this strange man who still hadn't told them his name.

"Conclusions?" Constantine asked, breaking Aries from her thoughts. The red head glanced at her mentor, a little surprised at how at ease he seemed to be with a complete stranger appearing in his hospital with technology the likes he had never seen before. She gathered that it must have something to do with knowing that the end was near. Things like out-of-time sonic devices really weren't worth questioning when you didn't know if you were going to be alive in the next hour.

"Massive head trauma, mainly to the left side," the Doctor explained as he looked at his sonic and causing Rieka to watch him curiously; the red head having read about the different forms of sonic technology, but never having seen it working in person. "Partial collapse of the chest cavity, mostly to the right," he continued, "There's some scarring on the back of the hand and the gas mask seems to be fused to the flesh, but I can't see any burns." He turned to look back to Constantine and Rieka, a little confused about his findings, only to catch sight of his Nesdra's curious gaze.

"Examine another one," Constantine told him, and after getting a nod from Rieka, the Time Lord did.

"This isn't possible," he declared after he checked the next patient, his eyes darting back to Constantine and Rieka in confusion. None of what he was reading should have been possible.

"Examine another," Rieka suggested this time. She was intrigued by the Doctor, but she was far more curious about the sonic device he was using. She couldn't help but compare it to a wand; how it was able to scan the bodies and give off a detailed description of what it was finding much in the same way she had once done with her wand while training under her father.

The Doctor frowned as he glanced at her before he did as she said, though couldn't stop wondering why she wanted him to do so. But as he finished scanning the next patient, his eyebrows knitted together and his eyes widened when his sonic came up with the exact same readings from the two patients he had just scanned seconds before.

"This isn't possible," he breathed as he moved on to the next patient.

"No," Constantine admitted.

"They've all got the same injuries," the Doctor exclaimed, looking to the pair as he moved onto another patient.

"Yes," Constantine agreed, though he glanced at Rieka when she shook her head, her eyes on her scarred hand.

"Exactly the same," the Doctor continued, not seeing his Nesdra's expression as he move to the next bed.

"Yes," Constantine repeated.

"Identical, all of them, right down to the..." the Doctor trailed off as he looked down to the patient he was scanning, his eyes widening before his head shot back up to look at Constantine. "To the scar on the back of the hand," he exhaled, looking between Constantine and his Nesdra. His eyes lingered on Rieka before they flickered down to her hands; but with her gloves he couldn't tell if she had been infected.

Rieka fidgeted slightly as realisation slowly dawned onto the man; one of her hands picking at the fabric of the glove on her other. She still wasn't too certain as to why the virus hadn't seemed to have affected her as it had everyone else it had come into contact to. The red head didn't even feel any different than usual, and all her scans had come back clear. The only side-effect she seemed to have was that the hand that had been scarred got itchy at times... but nothing else.

"How did this happen?" the Time Lord demanded, his eyes still on Rieka's hands as his hearts hoped that she wasn't like Constantine.

That she didn't bare a scar.

"How did it start?" he continued, managing to force himself to look away from his Nesdra and towards the doctor.

"When the bomb dropped, there was just one victim," Constantine explained.

"Dead?"

"At first," Rieka's voice was quiet, saddened by the memory, "His injures were truly horrific. But... by the following morning, every doctor and nurse who had treated him – who had touched him – had those exact same injures." She took in a shaky breath, the tip of her pointer running over the scar that was hidden by her glove. She had been one of the first who had been marked – one of the first infected. The moment she had laid eyes on Jamie's broken body, however, Rieka hadn't even though, she had just did.

"By the morning after that," Constantine continued when he noticed that Rieka wasn't going to, and he didn't blame her; knowing how she felt about the little boy, "Every patient in the same ward, the exact same injuries. Within a week, the entire hospital. Physical injures as plague. Can you understand that? What would you say was the cause of death?"

The Time Lord, who had been watching Rieka from the moment she had started talking, looked back to Constantine with a frown. "Head trauma." Though in doing so, he missed her lip turn upwards slightly in bitterness when she realised where Constantine was going with the conversation when he replied in the negative. "Asphyxiation," the Doctor guessed again.

However he was once again told that he was wrong by the doctor.

"The collapse of the chest cavity."

The Time Lord seemed to grow even more confused when his response was met with a third, 'No'. He looked between Constantine and Rieka, rather bewildered as he had just listed off each injury that could have caused the patients deaths. "All right. What was the cause of death?" he enquired.

It was Rieka who answered him this time, and the Doctor's eyebrows knitted together slightly as her expression went from sad to wary. "There wasn't one," she said before her silver-grey eyes met those of the Doctor's blue, "They're not dead."

The moment the words left her mouth, Constantine hit a waste bucket with his cane and the noise made all the patients sit up in their beds, startling the Time Lord and causing Rieka to shiver. Even if she had seen it happen multiple times before, the witch still found it unnatural for someone who held no pulse to be able to move. It reminded her too much of an Inferius, and even if she knew that dark magic, let alone necromancy was impossible to occur in this world, it still made her feel wary around the patients.

Rieka was, as far as she knew, the only witch in this world – in this universe.

"It's all right," Constantine said calmingly, grabbing Rieka's hand once more to comfort her, "They're harmless. They just sort of sit there.

No heartbeat, no life signs of any kind. They just don't die."

The red head felt another shiver pass up her spine at her mentor's words. Too much like Inferi, she thought as she eyed the patients, At least they're not trying to kill anyone.

"And they've just been left here?" the Doctor questioned incredulously as the patients all laid back down in their beds, "Nobody's doing anything?"

"We try and make them comfortable," Rieka explained, drawing her gaze away from the patients and back to the Time Lord, "What else is there?"

The Doctor couldn't help but smile a little at her words. At least some things don't change, he thought, knowing that the woman he knew wasn't the type of person to allow another to suffer if she could help them. Even if they didn't like her. "Just you two? You're the only ones here?" he questioned.

Constantine's hand tightened around Rieka's as he spoke. "Before this war began, I was a father and a grandfather," Rieka looked away sadly, knowing that the man spoke the truth; having met his son and granddaughter before the war had started. "Now I am neither."

Eyeing the pair, an expression of shared pain reflected in his eyes, the Doctor quietly admitted, "Yeah, I know the feeling," causing Rieka to glance at him sadly.

"But I am still a doctor," Constantine continued as he cleared his throat, trying to dispel the morose mood that had fallen over the room, "And Rieka is as close to a daughter to me as one could be for one who isn't related by blood or marriage," he added, turning to look at the young woman beside him proudly.

"Rieka?" the Doctor questioned in confusion, his eyes turning to his Nesdra.

"We suspect the plan is to blow up the hospital and blame it on a German bomb," Rieka explained, dropping her eyes slightly and avoided the Doctor's questioning gaze. She was starting to feel a little uncomfortable with the way he was watching her, and it was one thing to talk about medical things with the man, but she didn't even know his name, let alone want to have a conversation about loss with him.

The Time Lord in question looked around the room and at the patients, hiding the small smile that had formed on his lips at the way his Nesdra had diverted the conversation back to what had originally brought him here. Even as young as he assumed she was – which he honestly had no idea what her age was to begin with – she still had a hard time expressing her emotions. And getting her to talk about herself was another mission altogether. Even after all this time, the Doctor still knew next to nothing about his Nesdra. Though he did find her shyness rather endearing.

"Probably too late," he told them after a moment.

"No."

"There are isolated cases," Constantine nodded his head in agreement, "Isolated cases breaking out all over London." The doctor doubled over in his seat, causing Rieka to turn her attention to him; moving to kneel in front of him as she tried to see if there was anything she could do.

The red head heard the Doctor take a step towards them, possibly in the likelihood of offering his assistance, and her head whirled around as she shouted, "No! Stay back!" and caused him to freeze.

"Listen to me," Constantine's words were coming out strained and hearing it had Rieka turning back to him and begun to secretly scan him with her magic; needing to know if there was any way of stopping the virus. "Top floor," he continued when he knew he had both their attention, "Room eight oh two. That's where they took the first victim, the one from the crash site."

Shaking her head, Rieka pulled her hands away from her mentor when she realised that there was nothing she could do. Constantine, like everyone before him, was finally succumbing to the virus, and Rieka hadn't managed to stop it in time.

"You must," Constantine said firmly, leaving no room for argument. He looked to the Doctor, who he found watching them sadly as the Time Lord realised that his Nesdra wasn't as unaffected by the virus as he had hoped. "And you must find Nancy again," he added, needing them to know.

"Nancy?" the Doctor and Rieka questioned together, the former managing to tear his eyes away from the latter. Why in the world would Doctor Constantine want them to find Nancy, they had no idea. But the Doctor knew that until his Nesdra was safe, he would not be leaving her side. Even if she didn't actually know him at the moment.

Constantine nodded, "It was her brother. She knows more than she's saying. She won't tell me," he looked to Rieka, needing her to see how important finding Nancy was, "But she m... mi..." Constantine begun to struggle with his words, causing Rieka to back away, "Mig... mi... Mummy."

Rieka closed her eyes in anguish as she dropped her hands to the floor, her head falling forwards as she let out a shaky exhale. She knew what was happening, having seen it countless times before if the patients that filled each room in the hospital were anything to go by, but the witch was unable to bring herself to watch the change happen to someone she had come to call her friend and mentor.

"Are you my mummy?" Constantine asked, his voice coming out childlike before his mouth started to change – along with the rest of his face – into a gas mask.

Rieka reached forwards and grabbed her mentor's wrist, her eyes still closed as she felt his heart slowly come to a stop. The moment it did, Constantine slumped in the chair, and Rieka knew that it was over. Taking in a large, fortifying breath, the red head let his wrist go as she slowly raised her head. But at the sight of her mentor having become just like the other patients, Rieka shook her head, not wanting to accept what she was seeing and her hands balled into fists as her determination grew to find out who or what had taken her friend.

She wouldn't see anyone else die.

Not if she could stop it.

The Doctor watched his Nesdra sadly, wanting to comfort her but knew that he couldn't. He had seen the way Constantine and Rieka had interacted, and the way she continuously fiddled with her gloves unconsciously whenever the virus was mentioned told him that she had already contracted it.

It didn't, however, stop the need, the drive to comfort her. But the Doctor directed that drive to figuring out what was going on here.

He wouldn't lose his Nesdra. He couldn't. Not after just finding her again.