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The building had five floors. I found them on the fifth.

The woman, Lady Thaw, was pacing back and forth, wringing her hands as she spoke. Professor Lazarus, on the other hand, simply stared out the impressive windows, coldly sipping his drink.

I crouched behind one of the many desks in the room, straining my ear.

"It's me who made this all possible." The woman said, motioning with her hands. "This is my triumph, and I will not be denied, not by you, not after everything I've done here!"

"You backed me because you saw a profit. Your concern was financial." Lazarus scoffed.

"Well! You want the money as much as I do. We had a plan. When the device is ready, I'll be rejuvenated, too. We could be rich and young and together!"

I heard her desperate claims, and I imagined Lazarus sneering and shaking his head.

"You think I'd waste another lifetime on you?" he said lowly.

"Did that process make you even more cruel?"

"No, my love. That I learnt from you. You have a gift for it."

"Then you know that I'll protect my involvement in the project. I'm sure Mr. Saxon will be interested-"

I heard the cracking as Lady Thaw trailed off. Lazarus grunted, and I peeked from my hiding place, watching as Lazarus' face contorted in pain.

"What's going on?" Lady Thaw asked him.

"It must just be-" Lazarus gasped, before he jerked unnaturally. "Ah!"

"What is it?" She asked again, worriedly.

"I'll be fine in a moment. It's probably just a cramp."

He gasped again, his bones cracking as he contorted unnaturally once again. He fell to the floor, and started to convulse. I kept watching, not willing to give myself away just for the sake of helping him.

The Doctor would have helped him.

I wasn't the Doctor.

Lady Thaw wasn't much help either.

"Oh! Richard!" She exclaimed. "Is it some sort of seizure? What should I do? I don't understand what's happening."

Lazarus screamed. Bones suddenly began ripping out from his body, destroying his expensive suit. He grew, and I saw how his body cracked and reformed until he became a scorpion-like creature.

He growled, and Lady Thaw screamed.

I only just saw his tail poised and ready, seconds away from striking Lady Thaw.

"Hey, you ugly bastard! Leave her alone!"

I don't think I fully realized what I'd done until his glowing eyes turned on me. His body had become a completely different creature, but his face remained oddly human-like. It made him all that uglier.

I ducked away just as his tail twitched, barely avoiding the stinger as it rushed past me.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, I thought to myself, gasping as I threw myself behind the desk, once again avoiding the lethal sting.

I just had to play the hero, didn't I?

"You missed, you ugly piece of shit!"

That only made him angrier. His stinger blurred, and I moved blindly, shaking as I felt it move inches from my face.

"Come on, pretty lady," he taunted. "Come to the Professor."

I took off running, cursing my stupidity. It was one thing to throw myself in danger if I had a plan. If I had the Doctor for backup. It was another thing entirely if I had no freaking idea on how to deal with the situation.

A scream lodged itself in my throat as he launched himself forward and I fell in order to avoid him. I scrambled to my feet, and ducked into a broom closet, closing the door behind him. Something slammed against the door, and I winced, praising the heavens when the door held the thing's weight.

"Come out, come ouuut." It hissed.

"Or what? You'll huff and puff until you blow the door in?"

The door shook in its hinges as a weight settled against it.

"Nooo," It hissed. "I'll just come back for you later."

In what could only have been seconds later, a scream thundered outside.

Lady Thaw. Why the hell hadn't she run?

I tried pushing the door but it wouldn't budge. I shoved it with all my strength, but it was no use. He had blocked the door with something.

I rested my head against the door, scrunching my eyes shut as I was forced to hear Lady Thaw's choking screams go and go until they stopped.

There was no doubt in my mind she was dead.

It was silent then. Footsteps approached the door, and I frowned. Footsteps?

"Don't you worry, pretty little thing." He said, and his voice was back to normal. He had reverted himself to his original human form. "I'll come for you later."

I sighed in relief as I heard his footsteps disappear.

On to my second problem. I didn't know how to get out.

I leaned against the door, sliding down until I sat on the dirty floor.

Ah, hell.

This is what happens for trying to help. For trying to be like the Doctor. For thinking it would impress him.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And the woman was dead, anyway. I'd been no help at all. Instead of leaving her to her death (something that happened either way,) I tried to play the hero and now not only was I locked in a supply closet, but there was no way I could warn the Doctor from here.

I needed to get one of those – what was it that humans called it?

Ah, cellphones. One of those.

I leaned my head back against the door.

Now what?

My hands ran over the familiar ridges of the Timepiece. Normally, this would be easy. I'd turn the wheel here, put a number there, pressed the button and I would be out, anytime or anywhere.

I flicked the Timepiece's face one more time, not surprised at all when nothing seemed to happen.

Some people would kill me for this. For letting such an important object get ruined. For even having the Timepiece in the first place. I knew that if they found me, there would be hell to pay.

But then again, how could you find someone that could be anywhere and anytime?

The faint murmur of people talking dragged me back from my thoughts.

I sprang to my feet, and started hitting the door with my fists.

"Help! Somebody! I'm trapped!"

A huge sound of something big being dragged, and then, the door burst open, Martha and the Doctor appearing before me.

I laughed in relief. "About time."

They stood beside a huge, marble desk; probably what had trapped me inside. The room looked in shambles due to my little fight with Lazarus. Martha and the Doctor looked surprised, but also relieved.

"Kylie!" The Doctor exclaimed. "We'd wondered where you'd run off to."

"I wanted to see if I could find out anything on Lazarus and…" I trailed off, remembering. "Lady Thaw!"

I ran towards the windows, and behind a desk, I saw Lady Thaw's skeletal body. Her skin had darkened, and her body appeared shriveled up.

"Is that Lady Thaw?" Martha gasped.

"Used to be." The Doctor muttered. "Now it's just a shell. Had all the life energy drained out. Like squeezing the juice out of an orange."

"Lazarus." Martha guessed.

I nodded, frowning. "It was. I don't know the mechanics of what happened inside the machine, but it seems his DNA was altered or something. He turned into another creature. Tried to do the same to me as Lady Thaw."

"So he's changed already."

"Not necessarily." The Doctor said, quietly. "You saw the DNA. It was fluctuating. The process must demand energy. This might not have been enough."

"So he might do this again?"

The Doctor nodded before looking at me. "Are you alright? Did he do anything to you?"

I shook my head. "Surprisingly enough, no, I'm not harmed."

He nodded. "Good. Let's go."

We rushed towards the lift and back towards the reception.

"I can't see him." Martha grumbled.

I couldn't, either. I wasn't tall enough to see anything except for a few feet in front of me. The Doctor, towering over us, flicked his eyes over the crowd of people.

"He can't be far," he said. "Keep looking."

He walked away, and I followed, leaving Martha behind to talk with her big brother.

"Where is he?" The Doctor grumbled to himself, looking around. He stepped backwards, not noticing the woman behind him, and stepped on her foot.

She gasped in pain, drawing the Doctor's attention. I realized I recognized the woman. She was the one who'd been talking about the Doctor. The one who'd baptized his hairstyle as fuck-mehair. I hovered behind him, amused.

"Look where you're going, you bumbling-" she cut herself off, noticing whom she was talking to. "Don't you worry about it, handsome." She purred.

The Doctor looked a bit startled by her change in mood. "I'm sorry. Have you seen Professor Lazarus?"

She shrugged it away. "No. I must say, I love your hair. What's your name?"

The Doctor looked anxious to leave. "Doctor."

"Doctor Who?"

"Just Doctor."

She laughed, and the sound was low and throaty. "Alright, Doctor." She stepped closer to the Doctor, sliding a hand down his chest, and I saw how he widened his eyes almost comically. "How about we get out of here?"

"Umm, you- I should- umm-" he stuttered.

The woman's hand was now grasping his shirt, pulling him closer.

"Oh, there you are sweetie!" I said, pulling him by the hand until he was dislodged from the very ambitious woman. I interlaced our fingers through. "I've been looking for you."

The woman's face had twisted into one of contempt. She was shooting me daggers with her eyes. I smiled back sweetly at her.

The Doctor surprised me, sliding his hand out of mine and instead, placing it around my waist. It was strange, the warm tingles that exploded through me.

"I'm sorry for stepping on you." He told the woman. "If you'll excuse me."

He steered me away, his arm still around my waist.

"Thank you." He whispered.

I acknowledged him with a nod, still struggling to understand the warm feeling that had flooded me. His arm disappeared from around my waist, and I felt something distinctly similar to disappointment rush through me, further confusing me.

I pushed those thoughts aside, deciding to deal with them later. Now, we had a dangerous creature to catch.

We approached Martha, still speaking with her brother.

"…He was getting' cozy with Tish a couple of minutes ago." He was saying.

We reached them right as Martha's mother did.

"With Tish?" Martha asked worriedly.

"Ah, Doctor." Martha's mother said.

The Doctor didn't seeme to put much attention to her. "Where did they go?"

"Upstairs I think, why?"

"Doctor-" Martha's mother insisted.

The Doctor brushed past her, completely ignoring her, and making her spill her drink all over her. I winced in sympathy, but followed the Doctor.

"I'm speaking to you!" She yelled after him.

"Not now, mum!" Martha yelled back.

We rushed out of the lift once again to Lazarus' office, finding it empty.

"Where are they?" Martha asked desperately.

The Doctor took his sonic screwdriver out. "Fluctuating DNA will give off an energy signature. I might be able to pick it up."

He waved the sonic screwdriver around, the beeping increasing drastically when hi pointed it at the ceiling.

"Got him." He said.

I looked up at the ceiling. "Where?"

"But this is the top floor!" Martha said, and then it dawned on her. "The roof!"

We ran towards the stairs.

I wobbled in my heels as I tried following the Doctor without getting left behind. Heels were incredibly stupid to use near the Doctor. He had a knack of bursting into an unexpected run every five minutes.

We walked out on the roof, the cold air a relief after the staircase. Lazarus and Tish stood, staring out into the distance as he talked.

"I find that nothing's ever exactly like you expect. There's always something to surprise you. Between the idea and the reality, between the motion and the act-"

"Falls the shadow." The Doctor finished.

Lazarus and Tish turned towards us, surprised.

"So the mysterious Doctor knows his Eliot. I'm impressed." The Professor commented. His eyes turned to me. "I see they found you."

I made a face at him.

"Tish, get away from him." Martha warned.

"What? Don't tell me what to do."

I rolled my eyes at the display of sibling rivalry.

The Doctor ignored this. "I wouldn't have thought you had time for poetry, Lazarus, what with you being busy defying the laws of nature and all."

"You're right, Doctor. One lifetime's been too short for me to do everything I'd like. How much more would I get done in two or three or four?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Doesn't work like that. Some people live more in twenty years than others do in eighty. It's not the time that matters; it's the person."

"But if it's the right person, what a gift that would be." Lazarus said with a grin.

"Or what a curse." The Doctor's word wiped the smile right off his face. "Look at what you've done to yourself."

"Who are you to judge me?"

"Over here, Tish." Martha said.

Tish walked over to Martha immediately beginning to bicker.

I watched as Lazarus twitched behind them, his bones cracking as his body contorted once again.

"Ah, hell." I muttered under my breath.

The creature was back, still looking a like a cross between a human skeleton and a scorpion. It growled, rearing back.

The Doctor's eyes had grown wide. "Run!"

We raced towards the stairwell, the Doctor closing the door behind us and sealing it with the sonic screwdriver. Martha ran to the lift, pressing the call button.

"Are you okay?" she asked Tish.

"I was going to snog him." She said, dumbfounded.

The door banged, and immediately the lights where cut off. Sirens began to go blare and a computerized warning rang.

"Security breach. Security breach. Security breach."

"What's happening?" Martha asked Tish.

"Uh, an intrusion. It triggers a security lockdown. Kills most of the power. Stops the lifts. Seals the exits."

"He must be breaking through that door." The Doctor muttered. "The stairs, come on!"

We ran down the stairs, hearing the door crash open behind us.

"Ah, hell. He's inside!" I yelled.

"Haven't got much time!" The Doctor yelled back.

We reached the reception, almost tumbling one over the other. People where looking around and muttering, not knowing what was happening.

"Tish!" The Doctor said. "Is there another way out of here?"

"There's an exit on the corner, but it'll be locked now."

The Doctor tossed the sonic screwdriver to Martha. "Martha, setting 54. Hurry."

Martha and Tish ran off. He then jumped on the platform in front of Lazarus' glowing machine.

"Listen to me!" The Doctor yelled. "You people are in serious danger! You need to get out of here right now!"

"Don't be ridiculous." A woman called back. "The biggest danger here is choking on an olive."

Glass shattered, and Lazarus appeared on a landing above before leaping down to the reception floor. The humans screamed, running towards the exit as Martha and Tish opened the doors.

I heard the Doctor scream a warning right before another woman became another victim of the professor. He then approached Martha's brother and mother, who sat on the ground, stunned. Red was spilling from a cut in her brother's forehead.

"Lazarus! Leave them alone!" The Doctor yelled. "What's the point if you can't control it? The mutation's too strong. Killing those people won't help you. You're a fool, a vain old man who thought he could defy Nature. Only Nature got her own back, didn't she? You're a joke, Lazarus! A footnote in the history of failure!"

Lazarus roared, and the Doctor took off running through the halls, the creature right behind him.

Idiot Time Lord. He was going to get himself killed.

"Kylie!" Martha called before I could decide to follow the idiot man. I approached her and her family, seeing her examine her brother, who was still bleeding from a cut in his head.

"Hold this, please?" she handed me the Doctor's screwdriver.

"What's the Doctor doing?" Tish asked us.

"He's trying to buy us some time." Martha said, still preoccupied with the injury.

"He's an idiot." I muttered, looking at the hallway where he'd disappeared.

"Let's not waste it. Leo, loot at me. Let me see your eyes." She turned to her mother. "He's got a concussion. We need to help him downstairs. Tish, move! We need to get out of here!"

She urged her family downstairs, and I followed, unhappy with the situation.

Downstairs, we saw all of the partygoers, trapped inside by impenetrable doors. They congregated around the exit, hitting the glass and screaming, desperate to get out.

"We can't get out!" Tish screamed. "We're trapped!"

I glanced around. "Martha, there has to be an override switch."

She nodded, turning to her sister. "Where's the security desk?"

"There."

I ran in the direction she pointed and jumped over the desk. I ran to the panel layout before pointing the sonic screwdriver at it. I pressed the button, relieved when it made its usual sound. The power came back on suddenly, and the doors burst open. Everybody rushed outside.

The sonic screwdriver was surprisingly useful. I wondered if the Doctor would let me have one.

I ran back to Martha.

"I've got to go back," she told her family.

Her mother shook her head. "You can't! You saw what that thing did. It'll kill you."

"I don't care. I have to go."

I spoke up. "No, you don't."

She looked at me, confused. "What?"

"I'll go." I raised a hand to stop her from interrupting. "You're a Doctor. You need to help outside. Look at your brother, he's bleeding."

She looked torn, before finally sighing, relenting. "Take care of him."

I grinned. "Of course. I'll meet you right outside in a while."

I took off, running towards the hall the Doctor had vanished in. A huge explosion shook the floor, and I wobbled, veering in the direction it had come from. Where else would he be?

I turned a corner, surprised when another shape collided into me, holding me by the waist before I could fall. It took a confused second to realize it was the Doctor holding on to me.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, surprised.

"Did you really think I was going to let you have all the fun?" I grinned and held out the sonic screwdriver. "And well, I thought you might need this."

"How did you-?"

"I heard the explosion. Guessed it was you."

"I blasted Lazarus."

"Did you kill him?"

Even as the words left my mouth, Lazarus came crashing down the hall, struggling to move in the tight space.

"More sort of annoyed him, I'd say."

The Doctor grabbed me by the hand and pulled me as we ran through the halls and back to the deserted reception room. Lazarus roared as he raced behind us.

"Ah, hell. What now?" I asked.

"We can't lead him outside." He grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me towards Lazarus' machine. "Come on, get in."

We crammed ourselves into the machine, and the Doctor slammed it shut behind him.

It took me a second to realize the warm tingles were back. The small space was cramped, made only for one person, not for two. We were pressed together from our knees and up to our chests. I was eyelevel with his mouth, probably due to my heels.

We were breathing hard, and I could feel the exhilaration rush through me. I breathed in his unique scent. He was incredibly distracting, it didn't help that we were breathing hard, pushing our chests further together.

Another crash brought me back to the present. I realized the Doctor was incredibly still, looking determinably over my shoulder.

"Doctor?" I asked. "Are we hiding?"

His eyes glanced quickly to me before looking away. "No, he knows we're here. But this is his masterpiece. I'm betting he won't destroy it, not even to get at us."

"But, now what? We're trapped!"

"Well, yeah, that's a slight problem."

I rolled my eyes. "So? You don't have a plan?"

He looked down at me, and this time his eyes held mine. "Yes. The plan was to get inside here!"

"Then what?"

"Well…" he dragged out the word. "Then I'd come up with another plan."

I glared at him. "Oh, okay then."

Another crash from outside.

He shifted, and I drew in an involuntary breath. "Um, my sonic screwdriver's inside my jacket pocket. Think you can reach it?"

I did, sliding my hand over his chest as I reached into the pocket. I hoped by cheeks hadn't lit up like I thought they had. I handed him the sonic screwdriver.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"Improvise."

He started sliding down in order to reach the floor, and I closed my eyes when I felt his whole body brush against mine.

"Doctor?"

"Sorry."

"Are you trying to get back at me because of New New York?"

He didn't respond. I glanced down, and saw that his eyes were on my legs. I noticed that the fabric was pulled up enough that my right upper thigh was revealed.

I rolled my eyes. He may be a Time Lord, he may have been around hundreds of years, but he was still a man.

I cleared my throat. Eyes wide, he looked away, trying to focus on the floor as he opened a panel.

"I like your hair," I said after a pause, staring down at him.

Actually, right at the moment, I was very tempted to touch it. I restrained myself, thinking that I shouldn't try to make things more awkward than they were.

He looked up at me, a grin playing at his mouth. I found in peculiarly intimate, the way he looked up at me, the way his eyes twinkled as he smiled.

"Thanks."

He looked down again, working with some cables. He paused, as if remembering something. He glanced up again.

"Uh, nice shoes."

I cocked an eyebrow. "You should tell that to the TARDIS then. Try again."

He glanced back down again. "You look nice," He mumbled.

I grinned, enjoying his embarrassment. "Nice?"

He mumbled something else.

"What?"

He mumbled something again.

"Still can't hear you."

He finally looked up at me again, scowling. "You look gorgeous tonight, happy?"

The warm feeling flooded me once again. "Yes. Thank you. You clean up very nicely as well."

He grumbled something, and returned to work.

A blue light suddenly lit up the capsule.

"Doctor, what's happening?"

"Sounds like he's switched the machine on."

I frowned. "Well, that's not good."

"I was hoping it was gonna take him a little bit longer to work that out."

The lights blinked and flashed.

I squinted against the light. "I don't want to hurry you, but, you know…"

"I know, I know. Nearly done."

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to set the capsule to reflect energy rather than receive it."

I paused. "Will that kill him?"

"When he transforms, he's three times his size-cellular triplication- so he's spreading himself thin."

The light became more intense. "Shit, Doctor!"

"Just one more!"

He pulled a wire and suddenly the lights stopped, and the machine rumbled to a stop. The Doctor opened the door and stepped out, me right behind him.

"Well, that was close," I said.

"Really shouldn't take that long just to reverse the polarity. I must be a bit our of practice."

Lazarus was lying on the floor facedown in his human form, naked.

I frowned. "He seems so… human again. It's kind of pitiful."

The Doctor glanced at me. "Eliot saw that, too." He paused. "'This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper.'"