Jenna quickly put the tissue in the incinerator and the Doctor watched it quickly flare and dissipate. Seconds later, the King crashed into the door. "DOCTOR. COME OUT NOW." The Doctor's heartbeats quickened. He slowly opened the door to the heavy-breathing King. The King scanned his face, looking for the blood. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, they were sane, and all his hunger had gone. "I am sorry for my advances Doctor. I have no idea what came over me." The Doctor nodded, "It's already forgotten. While you are here, Jenna and I had a few requests."
"Then speak them."
Jenna piped up from the side of the room. "Well, my research has kind of reached a standstill. I need to go into the tundra to get resources to find out more about your lifestyle." The king bowed his head, and seemed to consider the request for a moment. "Very well. I assume that the Doctor will be joining you?" Jenna nodded.
The king acknowledged her agreement and then looked down the corridor towards the exit. "I will send some of my personal guard with you then. It would be a loss to have my two best researchers lost in the tundra." The king made a move to leave, but the Doctor tapped him on his shell, causing him to halt. "I was wondering where in the universe we were. I mean, I know all the stars and I can usually tell where I am, but I've never seen any of the constellations outside before." The King seemed perplexed. "Stars. I have not heard that before. We, the Ayokyans, we call them the Fireflies of the Night. They are beautiful, but terrifyingly large creatures. If you had asked me a thousand millennia ago, I might have been able to answer your question." The Doctor's shoulders sank. New knowledge was always exciting to him. And a completely new set of stars! That was truly fascinating.
Almost everyone who had every met the Doctor knew that time was not a straight line, as a matter of fact it was a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. But space, well, it was almost the same. Although space could be measured, and appeared solid, it was just as ever changing as time. But one thing that the Doctor had only witnessed once in his life was a new system of stars appearing. It had happened once, in the Milky Way in fact. Three years before the first bacteria was birthed, almost all the stars in the sky went out for a day, and a new set was created. He had been back there, to watch that amazing cosmic event at least thirty times.
He knew that he would be back here many times in the future, but he would have to leave first. The day of the expedition, he found Jenna sitting against the wall in the laboratory, wringing her hands. He sat down next to her, and grabbed her hands, stopping her. "What's up?" he said, keeping his voice low and comforting. "Um. Well, it's kind of complicated." Jenna replied. Her head was tilted back, tracing the lines in the roof. "Sometimes I get, kind of, anxious. I normally have medication and oils that calm me down, but I've been living here for a while and I ran out a couple of weeks ago." She took a deep, stuttering breath and tried to stop her eyes from welling up with tears. "I used to have a boyfriend, but he left and it's gotten worse. I don't really have anyone to feel close to anymore." Tears were running down her cheeks, but she took no notice, and her voice wasn't shaky. It was as if she was experiencing her hurt from the outside, not really feeling anything.