Running up the three flights of stairs two at a time, Peter reached the burning apartment much quicker the second time around. But his haste had come at the cost of what little spare breath he had. In the thick, toxic atmosphere of all the smoke, it was more than his lungs could bear even with the limited protection of his mask.

Coughing and choking almost to the point of throwing up, it was the thought of Isabella that kept him going and pushed Peter through the nauseating urge.

"Isabella… Can you…"

Calling out to her was no longer an option. She was only five years old and almost certainly in no position to answer him. Her mother had been found unconscious and barely breathing, and Peter still didn't know where in the apartment she was.

The noise of flames was just so loud and as he reached the broken front door, he couldn't hear anything but the vengeful hisses and snapping crackles as everything in its path was destroyed.

Peter knew the building wasn't going to last much longer without becoming structurally unsafe and a deep lumbering groan suddenly confirmed his worst fear.

A gunshot of a crack rang out and he felt the tremor run through the floor beneath his feet.

The entire opposite end of the apartment simply disappeared as the ground beneath the open planned living space gave way and it all collapsed into the floor below.

Peter had thrown himself to the floor and he felt the boom pass through his body of the charred furniture smashing to pieces several meters below him.

Looking up, he saw that nothing was left now but a smoking hole that was framed only by scorched and splintered floorboards as though someone had cut a crude line across half the home.

The final bedroom had been claimed too.

Peter felt his heart sink. That was the one place he'd not yet searched for Isabella. It must have been her bedroom and now…. "Isabella!"

His roaring voice was fuelled by anger rather than the desperation that he could feel in the pit of his stomach. He refused to believe that the little girl had been snatched away from him when he'd come so close to reaching her.

She might not have been in her room at all. There was every chance that she could have gone out to play or even…

"Mama!"

The high-pitched squeal of a scream was coming from the main bedroom he had thought was empty.

Daring to hope that he was actually going to be that lucky, Peter jumped back up onto his feet and dived through the door. Stumbling in his haste with his eyes stinging from the smoke, another fit of coughing was quick to remind him that he was running on spent energy.

Reaching out blindly, Peter felt his hands wrap around one of the bed's wooden posts. His head was swimming and he had to lean against it before he collapsed.

It was almost a tempting thought to lie down on the soft mattress. It wouldn't be so bad… He would fall asleep long before the flames would reach him.

'Isabella!" He called out again. "W-where…"

He'd heard her voice and yet she was nowhere to be seen. There was no one on the bed and even in his dazed state, Peter could see there were no other hiding places in the room.

One of the most boring moments in his entire life suddenly flashed clear across his mind and somehow it was exactly what he needed to know right now to save both himself and Isabella. When he had been about eleven or twelve years old he had watched a fire safety video at school.

It was one of those old, well-worn VHS tapes that would quickly send the whole class to the verge of sleep as it droned on for an hour about the dangers of what might happen if you messed around with electricity or played with matches. It had child actors who would do just that and then the firemen would arrive to put out the fire and… No, that wasn't the important bit.

Get low to the ground to avoid the worst of the smoke.

This advice coming back to him through the years combined with the bed he was almost falling onto told Peter exactly where Isabella was.

Clumsily falling to the floor rather than lowering himself down, he peered underneath the large double bed and saw a little girl lying flat out on her belly just a few inches out of reach of him. Incredibly, she was not only still alive but conscious too, staring back at him with ocean blue eyes the exact same shade as her father's.

"Mama?" She cried out. "Where's my mama?"

Her tiny body trembled as she coughed against the smoke she'd done so well to avoid so far.

It was impressive, really. The wolf inside would lie dormant for another eleven years but she had still done everything she could to protect herself even after being left all on her own after her mother's accident.

"Isabella, come with me," Peter told her. "Hurry… Not much time."

But as he stretched his arm out towards her, she recoiled from him fearfully.

"No, mama! I want my mama."

More coughing came as a result of more smoke flooding into her small lungs. If she continued to argue with him or stayed here any longer then even lying on the ground wasn't going to be enough to protect her.

Also, it was no longer Peter's imagination that the floorboards beneath them both were beginning to heat up as the fire began to consume the apartment below.

The flames would rise up towards the ceiling and damage the integrity of the entire structure of the building and then the rest of this level would fall down into the blaze and take them both along with it.

"Isabella, please!" Peter begged. "We have to go. Your mum is outside with your dad. Now come on, take my hand!"

"No!"

She was only a child.

Terrified and alone in a hot and smelly world of darkness, it was little wonder that she wasn't willing to trust this strange man who was now shouting at her.

With his mask covering his nose and mouth too, Peter could see how he would look like a frightening figure to anyone in her position.

Drawing in the deepest breath he could manage, he forced himself to calm down.

"Hey, it's okay." He told her. "Isabella, your mum… Mama sent me to get you."

The child's eyes lit up at the mention of her mother and she shuffled forward ever so slightly.

Peter resisted the urge to lunge forward and try to grab hold of her. She might reel back from him again and he would lose what little trust he'd earned.

Pulling the rag down so that Isabella could see his face properly, he needed to prove that he wasn't some terrifying monster here to take her away from her parents and home.

"You look dirty." She suddenly giggled. "Your face is mucky."

Laughing back brought more coughing now that he had nothing to protect his face, but Peter knew that he must look an awful sight. He could feel the thick layer of sweat and grime clinging to his skin and his shirt was sopping wet and no doubt beyond salvaging.

Isabella's petite cream dress was more black now from the soot as the bed and her low proximity to the ground failed to entirely protect her.

"Yeah, I think I need a bath," Peter told her. "Come on, Isabella. How about we go find your mama?"

Isabella hesitated in moving any closer to him.

"She fell…" She told him, her bottom lip beginning to tremble. "I couldn't wake her up."

She would have seen her mother lying there unconscious in the bathroom and had been forced to watch as the fire had started without any way of summoning help.

The front door of the apartment had been locked from the inside and there was no way a child of her age could have opened it by herself.

"It's okay, She's safe and outside waiting for you," Peter assured. "Please, Isabella. You've got to trust me."

Seconds of contemplation felt like a lifetime. But Isabella finally made up her mind.

"Okay."

Shuffling forward enough to finally come within reach of Peter's outstretched arm, she allowed him to pull her out from underneath the bed.

Not daring to let go of her even for a moment, Peter scooped her up into his arms as he stood back up. Instinctively Isabella buried her head into his chest and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.

She was coughing even more now and he could feel her tiny body rattling from the effort.

"Here… Put this on." He told her. "It'll… special mask."

The damp and blackened rag of maroon velvet didn't look like it was anything special, but Peter simply didn't have enough breath left in him to explain that it would protect her against the smoke. She needed it more than he did and there were still three flights of stairs to get back down, two levels of which were now on fire.

Isabella didn't protest as he gently tied it around the back of her head.

Being careful not to engage the ends of it in her thick brown hair, Peter knew it wasn't much but that it would simply have to do. It had gotten him this far, and it would protect her long enough until they reached ground level and got out of the building safely.

Without it himself, however, Peter could feel his nostrils and throat burning in protest of being left unguarded. Trying to hold in the spluttering coughs didn't work as he carried Isabella out of the room and through her front door.

No matter how hard he tried, it felt as though a knife was being rammed down his throat each time he tried to breathe.

Worst still, his vision was really starting to blur now and upon reaching the second set of stairs he missed a step and almost ended up tumbling headfirst down them. It was a scream from Isabella and the feeling of her arms grasping the skin around his neck that brought Peter back to the reality of the situation.

If he went down then so would she.

Climbing down to the ground floor was the worst part and Peter knew that he was on the verge of collapsing.

Even though he could see the sunlight streaming in through the blackness of the smoke, it gave him no strength whatsoever and he actually stopped to lean against the table in the centre of the hallway.

The pain of something sharp stabbing into his palm surged up his arm.

It was a piece of the vase he'd knocked over on his way inside the first time. It hadn't fallen to the floor as he'd initially thought. Instead, it had smashed against the hard wooden surface of the table that he had just leaned against with his unburnt hand. Feeling the wetness of blood dribbling across his skin, Peter could tell without looking that a piece of the ceramic had lodged itself in quite deeply. But there wasn't anything he could do about it right now.

Still holding onto Isabella and praying that he hadn't severed an artery, Peter stumbled forward towards the light.

The booming crash of the topmost apartment collapsing in on itself had sent several of the Nimarians running away. Everyone else, along with Rose and the raven-haired woman who'd helped control the crowd had all ducked down in fear of debris from the building falling on them.

As the Guardsman did their best to put out the flames with two of the large hosepipes, sending great streams of water skyrocketing up to meet with the blaze, concern about the situation was slipping through their otherwise stoic expressions.

"Oh, how can he bear it in there?"

The anger of the attractive Nimarian woman had transformed into genuine concern for Peter as his continued absence did little to assure anyone that he was all right.

Rose wanted desperately to reassure her, but how could she do that when it was impossible to believe it for herself? The terrible stench of the smoke was working against the otherwise advantageous heightened noses of these wolves and however unbearable it was to her, Rose knew that it was ten times worse for them.

Hope was fading with every passing second, and out of the corner of her eye, she should see Isabella's parents sobbing as they clung to one another in the absence of their daughter.

"Come on, Peter." She breathed. "Come on. Be alright!"

She had barely got the words of prayer out of her mouth when Rose saw a shadowy figure emerged through the veil of heavy black smoke. Her excitement at seeing Peter sprint clear of the doorway doubled when she saw that he was holding a little girl in his arms.

Isabella was wearing his mask to protect her against the smoke.

But this valiant effort had cost Peter dearly, and as Nicolas and Letizia rushed forward to reclaim their child, he barely managed to pass her over to them before he collapsed to the cobbled ground.

It sounded as though he was coughing up his own lungs and couldn't even catch the slightest of breaths between the awful involuntary convulsions as his entire body shook from the effort.

"No, you need to sit up. Lying down will only make it worse."

Even in her high heels, the attractive Nimarian woman had managed to reach Peter before Rose could and she wasted no time in hoisting the stricken wolf up into a sitting position.

Several people had come running over but she was quick to keep them back as Peter continued to struggle with his air intake "Do not crowd him!" She ordered. "Someone fetch some water and clean strips of cloth, quickly!"

As Rose knelt down beside him, she could see that Peter's face was as black as the inside of a chimney pot and the sheer amount of soot around his eyes was preventing them from opening. His laboured and ragged breaths had left him with little ability to speak.

"D-Did…" He tried to say. "Is she…"

More hacking coughs stopped further words.

But Rose knew what he was trying to ask and he looked up and over towards where Isabella and her jubilant parents were stood embracing one another. They might have lost their home but their most important possessions were all still alive and unhurt.

"She's okay, Peter." She assured him. "You did it. You got them both out."

Peter was modest when it came to his heroics, Rose knew that from personal experience. But even if he wanted to say something about the two lives he'd saved then his smoke-inhaled state was preventing him from doing so.

He needed oxygen desperately and the grime covering his face was preventing the air from getting into his nose properly.

On Earth, an ambulance crew might have provided him with a mask that was hooked up to a compressed tank full of the previous element.

Valerus' alternative looked positively primaeval in comparison. One of the Guardsman had overheard what the raven-haired woman had asked for and had come running over with several strips of white cloth and a cylinder-shaped metal flask that was filled to the brim with water.

"You'll need to soak -" He began to instruct her.

"My father is Algero's most respected physician." She snapped back haughty. "Take care of the fire, Guardsman. I shall look after him."

Rose was half expected the Guardsman to take offence to this and her impetus tone, but the confidence behind it and the yet unextinguished fire pulled him away without further comment. The woman herself wasted no further time on the matter as she quickly soaked one of the rags until it was dripping wet.

"What's that going to do?" She asked her. "How's that going to help him?"

A flicker of a smile crossed the woman's lips in reaction of her apparent ignorance.

"Just hold onto his shoulders and keep him still." She instructed. "This isn't going to be pleasant."

With no warming, she pressed the rag over Peter's nose and held it in place even as he tried to pull himself away from it. Rose winced against the awful retching noise he was making, but she nevertheless did her best to keep him from moving around too much.

Soon enough, however, the effort it took for Peter to breath began to ease as the moisture from the rag aided in cleaning the soot that was clogging the inside of his nostrils.

"It's working." Rose gasped. "That's it, Peter. Nice deep breaths."

Putting her hand against his back she began to rub it gently with her palm in big sweeping circles.

"There, it's all over." The woman declared. "Here, drink some water."

Peter still couldn't open his eyes and she was forced to put the flask in his hand before gently guiding it up towards his mouth. Blindly tiling it back and taking in a huge gulp of water, the back of Peter's throat reacted badly against this suddenly invasion and the liquid had nowhere else to go but back out again.

Jumping out of the way just in time as Peter spat back out most of his drink, Rose was quick to place her hand back on his back to assure him as another coughing fit took hold of the Nimarian.

"Easy, take your time." She told him. "Little sips."

She couldn't help but smile as Peter managed to wheeze out one fo his milder curses in response.

"Yeah, I… figured." He added. "Ah, I can't… My eyes are burning."

Taking the flask back off him, the raven-haired woman quickly draped his arm over her shoulders.

"Let's get you comfortable and I'll sort that out." She told him kindly. "Stand up and lean on us."

Rose could only imagine that it was the other Nimarian's enhanced strength that allowed them to be able to get Peter up onto his feet. Even with this extra support, it felt as though to her that she was carrying a suitcase over her shoulder as Peter's legs almost buckled twice as they moved him over towards the other side of the street.

He still couldn't see or smell a thing, and his hearing must have been a poor replacement for these most vital of senses.

Guiding him through the thinning crowd of Nimarians who had stayed to watch the fire be extinguished, there was a small set of stone steps that didn't lead to any doorway but perhaps might ordinarily serve as a mounting block for any rider of Algero's many horses.

"Take another drink," Rose told him. "Here."

This time Peter was more careful in taking a small sip and he managed to swallow the water without issue.

He could feel the cooling temperature of the flask against his burnt palm. As the adrenaline faded away it was replaced by pain and exhaustion of what he had put himself through. He could still feel the shard of pottery sticking out of his other hand. The skin around it was trying to heal and only getting recut again when it found the protruding obstacle in its path.

"Never mind the eyes." He said. "Rose, the shard in my hand. Can you pull it out?"

He sensed her hesitation even though he couldn't see her face.

"Oh, right I…" She began. "Are you sure you want me to -"

"You remember Karina's claw sticking out of me?" He asked her. "This is nothing. Just pull it out, Rose. I trust you."

Rose watched as Peter stretched his impaled hand out towards her expectantly.

The last time he'd needed something to be removed was when his best friend had cut that gigantic alien bat's nail out of his side. In comparison, the shard of white pottery sticking out of his bloodied hand almost looked like a splinter in comparison. But Peter said he trusted her to do it…

"Okay, here goes nothing."

Gingerly taking hold of it and keeping in mind the Nimarian's ability to heal quickly, Rose pulled it out with one hard yank.

"Ouch!" Peter yelped. "When I said pull it out, Rose…"

"You said get it out." She argued back. "Maybe you should get Stefan to do it next time."

But Rose smiled back at Peter nevertheless as he shot a lopsided grin in her direction.

Taking the flask back off Peter once he'd taken another sip of water, the raven-haired woman quickly soaked another one of the rags. Once it was sufficiently moist she took a seat on the top of the mounting block beside him and reached with one hand to gently guide his head in her direction.

"So, you've burnt one hand and stabbed the other one." She said, almost teasingly. "Blinded yourself with smoke and lost all sense of smell. Anything else I need to know about?"

"No, I think that's it," Peter responded. "But I guess it's a solid enough list for today."

The way in which the woman smiled back at Peter made it clear to Rose that she was no longer staying just to aid her fellow wolf's medical concerns. The unprecedented course of action Peter had taken had convinced her into staying even when any one of the Guardsman could have taken over.

Regardless of being a doctor's daughter, she wasn't going anywhere.

"Here, hold still." She said. "I'll clean those eyes up for you."

With the greatest of care, she began to gently dab the wet rag against Peter's eyes so that the thick black layer of soot could be washed away. Blinking several times as the bright sunlight met with his still stinging irises, he reached up and wiped away the rest of the grime himself.

As his eyes adjusted to the light, the first clear image Peter saw was the woman's cavernously dark and gorgeous black gaze.

"Hello."

Just for a moment, her pearly white teeth bit down against her bottom lip.

"Hello yourself."

Rose never thought she'd see Peter Argent become bashful. Yet, there was that awkward moment of hesitancy as twitches of a grin teased the corners of his mouth. In response, the high cheekbones of the woman who had so diligently restored his breath and vision to him tinged a shade of blossoming pink.

He liked her and by the looks of it…

"You saved them! My family, I… Thank you!"

Nicholas had removed himself from the loving embrace of his recovered wife and daughter so that he could thank the person who had saved their lives.

The breath was squeezed out of Peter a second time as the man scooped him up and into a bearhug of a grip that only lessened when the younger Nimarian managed to pat him assuringly on the back and wheezed out his response.

"I'm just glad they're okay." He replied. "Go on. Be with your family."

Without needing much persuasion to do so, Nicolas gave Peter one last squeeze before letting him go and returning to Letizia and Isabella as they and the majority of the remaining residents of the destroyed tenement block were escorted away by two of the Guardsman.

The remaining four uniformed wolves were succeeding in smothering the fire now as the water quelled the worst of the blaze.

"Quite the story this will make in tomorrow's papers." The raven-haired woman remarked. "But a triumph rather than a tragedy, thankfully."

Peter laughed and shook his head.

"I don't tend to stick around for that bit." He remarked. "Headlines aren't good in my line of work."

"Which is what, exactly?"

There was an inquisitive glint in her dark gaze that almost made Peter want to tell her about UNIT and the river in the New Forest which had drained away and baffled every expert the BBC had decide to interview.

"Erm… Nothing around here." He replied. "We're new to town."

"That much is obvious." The woman told him pointedly. "Both of you are certainly doing your best to stand out."

Rose was really beginning to hate her own clothes right now. Surely the Doctor had known enough about Valerus to warn her that denim and fax leather was going to attract this much attention? But this was nothing compared to how much trouble he was going to be in for his continued absence.

"We haven't had a chance to change since arriving." She explained. "Then we saw the smoke and…"

The woman's furrowed brow reminded her that, like Peter, this wolf could hear the deception even as her heart skipped a beat inside her chest.

"No, that not it." The Nimarian decided. "Your choice of words. It's almost as though you've never… Your scent isn't right."

The accent in her voice thickened ever so slightly in response to her agitated tone as it changed from curious to suspicious in an instant. Rose didn't know what a human scent might smell like but she was almost certain that the empowered noses this species possessed would be able to tell it apart from their own.

"I'm Rose. Rose Tyler." She introduced. "It's nice to meet you."

Handshakes might not even be a form of greeting on this world but holding her hand out towards the woman politely and without hesitancy, she at least hoped it would be enough to disarm her.

The cautious look in the Nimarian's black eyes did fade away. She didn't quite trust Rose enough to accept her hand but social niceties won over enough as her attention soon diverted itself back towards Peter.

"Yes, of course." She agreed, nodding back. "Introductions."

"Right, seeing as I ruined your dress." Peter began. "Which was really a spur of the moment thing, by the way. I really didn't mean to. A rag or bit of hanging washing would have done, honestly. I just saw that it was there and… I'm babbling, aren't I?'

Seeing the woman's teeth shimmering back at him as she smiled in amusement was making him trip over his own tongue. Her nose had wrinkled up ever so slightly and those eyes of hers…

"A little, yes." She told him. "Also, don't mind the dress. Two people are alive that wouldn't otherwise be. I'd say it's a fair trade."

Rose rolled her eyes as she watched Peter laugh and grin back at her.

They were going to get nowhere fast if the two wolves continued to flirt with one another without even realising it. The remaining Guardsman had finally succeeded in putting out the flames, revealing nothing but smouldering skeletal remains of the topmost apartment in its wake.

Peter really needed a shower and the Doctor was still missing without explanation.

"You were about to tell us who you were?"

Her ability to command the Guardsman and her claim to be related to Algero's finest physician certainly had given her a certain air of confidence that to Rose was almost bordering on the arrogant side. But she had helped Peter recover after the fire and had shown genuine concern for him and the people displaced by the fire.

Even as her sculptured cheekbones tinged pink in response, her dark orbs didn't leave Peter's opposing illuminatingly bright silver ones as she held her hand out towards his.

"Rennarita Anglesia Grigorovich." She introduced. "My friends call me Renn."

The soot which was still clinging to Peter's face crinkled up into the creases around his mouth and eyes as grinned back broadly in response.

"That's quite a mouthful." He told her. "Renn. But it erm… it suits you."

He didn't just like her, Rose realised. Nothing short of a good hit to the head might have otherwise explained how the usually stoic and somewhat broody Peter Argent had been reduced to the level of a dumbstruck schoolboy experiencing his first crush. But then again, he was a man and he wouldn't be the first of his kind to make a fool of himself around a beautiful woman.

"I'm glad you think so," Rennarita responded. "As I said, my friends call Renn. You, however, I don't even properly know beyond reckless heroics and a first name from your… companion?"

It was the slight pause and quick casting glance that made Rose wonder. Did Miss Rennarita Anglesia Grigorovich not like the fact that Peter was in the company of another young woman who seemed to share his uniquely none Valerian style of dress sense and behaviour? Was she jealous? It wouldn't be the first time Rose had been caught up in the middle of such a situation, not that she had even fancied Peter for a single moment.

If there was anyone in her life right now who made her feel that way then he was certainly doing his best to annoy her with his current disappearing act.

"It's Peter. Peter Argent."

Rennarita almost looked disappointed. Her smile faded away and an expression tinged with a hint of sadness replaced it as though she had just been denied something which she had been greatly looking forward to. Clearing her throat somewhat awkwardly she briefly looked away from Peter only to return her cavernous gaze back to him with renewed interest.

"Well, if you don't want to tell me." She responded. "Perhaps your secretive line of work means that you cannot?"

Her accent had been curbed slightly over the years she must have spent living in Algero. But it stood out enough and had they been on Earth then the closest Peter could have pinpointed it to was somewhere on the fringes of the Middle East. The softened H's were being replaced by A's and it became more prominent now that Renn's attitude towards him was marred slightly with further discontent.

Peter stared back at her curiously.

"I've had a few aliases before. But that is my real name." He admitted. "Okay, it's Peter Alexander Argent. I know it doesn't sound as fancy as yours but -"

The stinging blow of Rennarita's palm hitting his cheek hurt more than it should have.

"Hey!" Rose shouted defensively. "What'd you do that for?"

People were staring but she didn't care. Not even the excuse of her ruined dress gave Rennarita the right to do that.

Taking a step towards her, however, Rose hesitated when she saw a glimmer of golden light flash across Rennarita's eyes. The wolf inside was warning her that she was not to be challenged further right now. Being a human without the ability to produce neither teeth nor claws at will, it was perhaps sensible to do as she was told.

The Nimairan's aggression did not waver as she turned back to face Peter.

"You think me a fool, do you?" She sneered. "You know, it's really in rather poor taste. Heroics or not, such claims will get you into a lot of trouble. Especially in this city."

Peter was more than a match for Rennarita in both strength and temperament. But even as the redness visible amongst the soot and grime on his cheek faded away, he still couldn't understand her sense of disbelieve and anger that his identity had generated.

He could tell that it was coming from a very serious place and whatever his own name meant to her and Algero was nothing good. Could there be another Peter Argent who had done something terrible here? Was it akin to being a John Smith, a name so common that no one believed it was real? No, Renn looked genuinely worried and…

Most onlookers had lost interest now. But even so, Peter lowered his voice so that only the keenest of eavesdroppers would able to hear him.

"You're no fool and I didn't mean to upset you." He assured. "But when I said I was new to town... I've been away for a while and I've come here in search of answers."

"What sort of answers?"

Curiosity was overtaking Renn's fleeting bout of anger now. Wary of her very solid right hook, Peter knew he had to proceed carefully if he was going to get her to trust him.

The soot around his nose was making it impossible to inhale her scent, but he could pick up on the lingering sense of fear she was still harbouring towards him as he heard her irregular heart as it thumped away inside her chest.

"I don't really know right now." He told her gently. "But what I am sure of is that the name I just gave you is the one I've had all my life. Rennarita… Renn. Listen to my heartbeat. I promise you that I'm telling the truth."

It was an unconscious movement of his left hand that brought his fingertips into contact with hers. Even so, Renn didn't pull away from him and the warmth of her hand in his was almost intoxicating. Any contact with humans from now on would be a cold affair now that he'd finally been able to hold onto another one of his own kind.

Peter said nothing of this, however, and watched as Renn's nostrils flared as she took in his scent. From the way her head was slightly tilted to the side, he could tell she was indeed listening to his heart for any falseness to his words.

Her thumb brushed over the ring that sat on his middle finger and Renn looked down at it as though unsure of what it was she had just felt.

The deep blue moonstone was practically glowing in the warm sunlight and neither it nor the bright silver-coloured band it was embedded within had tarnished or been damaged as a result of the fire. The two darker lines within the precious stone were more visible now, giving away their unique origin of coming from this planet.

"Where did you get that? How did you…"

Renn's words died in her throat as she looked back up and stared into Peter's eyes.

It was as though she was properly seeing him for the first time. Her flawless olive-toned skin lost some of its amber glow and her scarlet-painted lips parted slightly with the shock of whatever realisation it was that she had come to. She was staring at Peter as though he was a ghost from her past.

But how could he be? They were about the same age and he had only been a baby when he'd last been on Valerus.

"Renn?" He asked her. "What is it?"

The tiniest twitch of a smile teased the corners of Rennerita's lips as though she was about to answer him. At the very least, she no longer looked angry and the threat of another slap seemed to have been dispersed. Taking a step forward when there really wasn't much of a gap left between them, Rennarita was just about to speak…

The female Guardsman's voice cut through the air instead.

"Oh, lookout. Here come the papers." She announced loudly to her team. "They can sniff out a story better than the smoke."

Through her fellow Guardsman found this very amusing, the impending arrival of journalists seeking out an exclusive scoop on the fire which had very nearly ended in tragedy seemed to have renewed Rennarita's worries as several Nimarians could be seen racing down the street towards the scene. Some had archaic styled cameras in their hands, whilst the others were already pulling out notepads and pencils ready to write down any quotes they could snatch from witnesses mouths.

"I have to go," Renn announced suddenly. "You seem unhurt and… I'm sorry."

But Peter didn't relinquish his grip as she tried to pull her hand out of the confines of his.

"Renn, wait." He began. "I still don't understand. What are you not telling me?"

Looking torn between avoiding the incoming journalists and staying to explain what it was she knew, it was Renn's fear which won out in the end. Snatching her hand free and backing away from him, she shook her head apologetically at him.

"I shouldn't be here and neither should you." She warned him. "Just avoid the papers, Peter. You don't want their attention right now."

Turning on her stilettoed heel, Rennarita Anglesia Grigorovich walked away and disappeared into the crowd.