Thanks to all who have reviewed!

Unexpectedly got this done today when I wrote a couple of thousand words after my History exam. But due to how long it got, and the plans I have for the end/after the end of this arc, I decided to split it up because quicker update and more reasonable chapter length. So this is no longer the end of the medieval arc, you guys will have to hang on a little longer.

Enjoy!

Please don't stand so close to me
I'm having trouble breathing
I'm afraid of what you'll see right now

And I will make sure to keep my distance
Say, "I love you," when you're not listening
And how long can we keep this up, up, up?

And I keep waiting
For you to take me
You keep waiting
To save what we have

Distance - Christina Perri

It was chaos. Screams filled the air, one of them Aliya's own. Roger reacted first, drawing a long knife from his belt and confronting the creature with it, only to be joined by Thomas a few moments later. Meanwhile, the others had resorted to yelling. Cecily was helping Robert to one of the doors while telling Laura to grab Nicholas from bed. Aliya flung herself from her chair and stumbled towards the door as well, the Doctor appearing at her side and assisting her in getting her out.

"Roger! Thomas! You can't fight it here! It'll have trouble getting through the door, we've got to run while we can!"

Despite the Doctor's yelling, Roger slashed at the creature's chest with his knife and actually made contact. It howled with pain and swiped him with its claws, gouging his arm.

Thomas yanked him out of the way and then through the door. "I can never be sure whether it is your idiotic bravery that makes me like you or whether it is what makes me reconsider our friendship, Roger."

"I thought it was my dashing good looks," Roger murmured, in a tone that Aliya felt that she and the Doctor were probably not supposed to hear, but did due to their hearing that was slightly better than that of humans. The two human men exchanged secretive little smiles before they noticed themselves being watched. The alarm on their faces, to their credit, was only there for an instant before they were able to cover it.

"Where's the safest place to defend ourselves from this thing?" The Doctor asked them as they ran out of the inn.

"The church, it's not huge, but it's stone and should keep it out," Thomas answered immediately.

"Lead the way."

When the small group got into the church, they shut the door behind them with a loud slam that disturbed the priest, who had been kneeling in prayer.

"What about the rest of the village?" Aliya asked the Doctor worriedly. "They're still out there!"

"This thing is intelligent, I think it's going after us directly. Roger and his lot killed its mate, and we've been investigating it. It's going after us, so they should be fine."

"But now what? Do we just hide here overnight?"

"No, we make it think that is our intention, and then hunt it," Roger said, clutching his injury. Blood dripped down his arm and onto the stone floor.

"What is going on here?" The priest asked them incredulously, having gotten from his knees and hurried over to them. He was a portly older man, with a round face and kind eyes.

"Father, there is a devilish creature pursuing us with ill intent," Robert gasped. He was a ghostly colour and Aliya hurried to help Cecily get him sitting on the nearest pew. "We seek sanctuary."

"And you shall have it," the priest said, looking rightly alarmed. "What manner of creature?"

"A deadly one," the Doctor replied grimly. "That's all you need to know. We'll give it time to clear the area before following it."

"And who are you, sir?"

"This is John Middleton, Father, a passing traveller and his wife, Aliya," Robert explained. "Can we place her and my family in your care when we leave for the hunt?"

"You're not going anywhere, Robert!" The Doctor and Cecily told him in perfect unison. They glanced at each other and laughed a little. The former added, "You're injured. You'd get killed and probably take some of us with you. You're staying here."

Robert laughed morosely. "It was worth a try."

"Roger's injured as well, I could replace him," Aliya suggested hopefully. Roger rolled his eyes while the priest laughed. When he spotted her less than impressed expression, he faltered.

"Oh. My dear, you aren't serious?" The concern in his voice annoyed her, but she couldn't entirely ignore the fact that it was only there because he apparently cared about her well being. Which was frankly odd considering he didn't know her. Were all priests like this?

"Of course not," the Doctor lied smoothly. He put his arm around her shoulders. "She's my little jester." Oh I am going to make you pay for that later, Aliya thought irritably. She forced a smile.

"Oh yes, I'm just going to kill you with one of my jokes these days," she said sweetly, and saw his Adam's apple bob as he gulped. Satisfied, she turned to the priest. "What was your name, Father?"

"Father Robin," he said with a warm smile, "It's a shame that your travels here had to be tarnished by a monster of all things."

"Before it appeared, I was able to make some good memories," she promised, thinking of the mud fight with the Doctor and playing with Nicholas. The Doctor caught her eye and her grin sparked up again. Her mind brought up the memory of him reciting the Shakespeare in the light of the fire. The idiotic feelings it had stirred in her hearts then turned her cheeks red in the present.

Cecily nodded approvingly, and Aliya, catching on to the innuendo in the human woman's eyes, began stammering that she'd not meant that and her memories were more or less innocent. Not one of the humans appeared to believe her, so she just shut her mouth and quietly basked in her mortification.

The priest didn't look entirely sure how to feel about the implication. To his credit, he didn't comment.

"If you could believe it, Nicholas is still asleep," Laura said, adjusting her brother on her hip. The girl's hair was messy and Aliya realised that her own hair had lost its covering, but she couldn't bring herself to care what anyone thought of her anymore.

Somehow the mention of the young boy had everyone more at ease with each other, and Laura took a seat next to her father while Thomas helped Roger over to a pew several metres away. Aliya, however, realised that she'd never been inside a human church. Within a second, her curiosity was piqued. She broke away from the others and began to make her way up the main aisle of the church.

Stained glass windows lined the walls, their depictions seeming incomplete without the sun they were intended to be illuminated by. Dust gently somersaulted down from the high ceiling, from places too impossible to be cleaned, the tiny specks illuminated in the faint moonlight coming through from the huge round window behind the altar. Aliya's lips ghosted a smile at the sight. Her arms crossed over her chest to stave off the chill in the room. The stone walls didn't do much for the temperature, but gave the place a rustic feeling that nothing in the 21st century could replicate. Then again, that could have been the glow from the torches on the walls as opposed to the electric lighting she was accustomed to.

Her boots scuffed the stone underneath them as she walked and came to a halt in front of the grating that blocked way into the sanctuary.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" The Doctor's voice said into her ear. She jumped, her reverie broken. Wordlessly, she nodded.

"I've never actually been inside one of these places before. I...I don't understand it," she murmured, a minute frown taking hold of her face. "Who are these people in the pictures and the statues? What do they have to do with this God that they believe in?" The strangest feeling of detachment had taken a hold of her. She'd never felt more alien than when standing in front of something so fundamental to human life that she didn't comprehend.

"Do you want me to explain?"

"Yes, please."

His hand closed around hers and tugged her to the left, to a statue of a woman in blue. "Mary. They believe that she bore the child of God, even though she was a virgin."

"Birth and no sex, the opposite of Time Lords," Aliya said, amused, "Wouldn't she have been alarmed at having a child that way?"

"An angel came to her, beforehand, to tell her that it was what God's wish and so she agreed to it."

The blonde made a face of distaste. "I forgot that this culture and some of its religions had angels. Dear lord."

"Try not to take it personally," he said, smirking. "Now we're up to the important one." He pulled her to the statue on the wall in front of the right side of the sanctuary. "Jesus."

Aliya tilted her head and regarded the near naked man shown nailed to a cross with a crown of thorns on his head. "I think I recognise the name from my time in Wales. Mary is shown so normally, so peacefully. Why is this Jesus like this? It's barbaric, I want to be sick just looking at it."

"That's how the Romans used to kill people," the Doctor said solemnly, "His own people offered him up to be executed because they didn't agree with what he was teaching. And yes, it's barbaric. He was flayed first and made to carry that cross up the hill where they then nailed him to it and hung him up to die."

She bit her thumb, choking down her disgust. "And people glorify this? I understand even less now."

"Mary was his mother. They believe he was the Son of God, sent to teach his people and fix the flaws in their old beliefs. And then to die for them."

"Die for them?"

"Part of the belief is that every human is born flawed, due to a transgression, a sin, by the first man and woman. And then of course almost every person goes on to sin further through moral misdeeds. The idea was that Jesus willingly gave himself up to die, out of love for the whole of humanity, that by taking humanity's sin he could save their souls and become the bridge between them and the God that made them."

"...okay…" Aliya said, unsure of how to verbalise her confusion. "That's strange. So how much of this is true? Surely Mary couldn't have a child without a father or science."

"Maybe not," the Doctor agreed, "But this man was real, his suffering was real. And he was...he was nice."

She wasn't sure why she was as shocked to hear that as she was. "You knew him?"

"Met him once, and then went to the crucifixion." The Doctor's frown was troubled and deep, and made her want to rub it away from his forehead with her palms. "He was from Israel, looked totally different to me, yet when I bumped into him, he didn't falter at seeing a pale bloke in cool clothes, not for a second. He just told me to have a good day, and to keep spreading the love in my heart. And sometimes I think he said hearts. He was famous, so I went to watch him die." His voice became a whisper. "To this day it was one of the most horrible things I've had to watch."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Her hand squeezed his, but her mind and voice couldn't hesitate to ask, "But he wasn't the son of God, because there's no such thing."

He just shrugged. "Later, there's a theory that he was either just a great moral teacher, a madman, or the son of God. He came up with some of the soundest moral teachings to ever be produced, so obviously he wasn't mad. But he claimed to be the son of God, which means he wasn't just a great moral teacher, because that's not something a great moral teacher would claim, so, that's how they justify their belief in him."

Something occurred to Aliya and she laughed a little. "'Once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth'. Is that what they're trying to say?"

He laughed too, almost definitely because it was the Sherlock Holmes quote that she had been able to guess immediately. "Basically."

She bit her lip, glanced around, and said, "Frankly, that's ridiculous."

He chuckled. "Yeah, probably."

The story, however peculiar (and in many ways far fetched but also more tame than she had been expecting), considerably helped her understanding of the place, but there were still many gaps in her knowledge. She was about to thank him for explaining it to her when Thomas approached them, his easy smile showing.

"Roger's quite keen to be leaving now, John," he said. His face was apologetic.

"Sure I can't come?" Aliya asked the Doctor wryly. Thomas laughed, but not unkindly.

"In all honesty, if it were up to me, I'd have you along," he told her, and she couldn't help beaming at him for that.

"That means a lot, Thomas, thank you," she said. On an impulse, she leaned up to give him a kiss on the cheek. "Please try to come back alive, you're my favourite. But if you could look after this idiot, that would be fantastic, because my life would be quite boring without him."

"I understand," Thomas said, nodding, and she didn't miss how his gaze flicked for half a second back to where Roger was standing at the church door, "And I promise to keep an eye on him."

"Thank you."

"I'll be there in a minute," the Doctor told Thomas. He nodded and left them alone in the shadow of the column that lay behind them and blocked them from the view of the others. Aliya, back to being bitter about being left behind, leaned against the column tiredly.

"Better be on your way. Sooner you go, sooner you can get back and I can stop worrying about you getting slashed to pieces," she muttered, using the attitude to mask the potency of her concern.

He smirked and stepped in closer. "Are you really worrying about that?"

"With your coordination and the giant violent creature out there with big claws?" She retorted, crossing her arms. "Yes I am! I want to be out there, helping you, but everyone here, including you, is treating like a little helpless girl!" She wasn't little, or helpless, and she certainly wasn't a girl.

"I know, and I'm sorry."

"No, you're not, because you're encouraging them," she told him furiously, "And I hate it."

"We can't raise suspicion or get on their bad sides," he said, but his reminder didn't sit properly with her. She just didn't give a damn. "Besides…" His hand grabbed onto her crossed arms and slid until they grasped her hands and unwound them. He brought them down to her sides and interlocked his fingers in hers. "I'll be safer if I don't have to worry about you. I'm selfish, and horrid, and want you safe."

Aliya cursed the fact that she was against the column and couldn't step back any further, because he was too close and again making her forget natural processes like breathing. "I'm not a possession you can hoard up in a safe little box," she whispered, her eyes involuntarily dropping to his lips for a moment. Even when they came back to his eyes, his entire face was only two inches from hers, and therefore a problem.

"I know," he said, voice just as soft, tongue darting out to wet his lips nervously, "You're my second in command. And I need you here, looking after them because that's what you're good at. Not because it's the safe place but because it's where you are most able to help. Besides, if something goes wrong, then they've got you."

"You need me," she said, to confirm. His hand tucked her hair behind her ear, agonisingly slowly.

"I need you."

She swallowed slowly. What he meant was perfectly clear, but the words were ambiguous enough to send her brain and hearts into overdrive. Please don't let him hear how fast they're racing, she thought hopelessly. His intense jade eyes still hadn't left hers, and her breathing was ragged enough for her chest to shudder against him.

One inch. He'd moved even closer, the hot breath of him ghosting over her lips and cheeks. All it would take was the slightest movement on either of their parts and they would be doing the one thing she'd tried to keep herself from imagining for months. Years, really. And with only partial success.

Aliya was all too aware of how terrified she was of that actually happening, regardless of her fantasies. The Doctor, as usual, was near impossible to read, though he wasn't looking away from her and didn't look to be doing so any time soon.

"Doctor," she breathed, and it wasn't until his hand shifted in hers that she realised she'd been gripping him like a python and probably hurting him. Her other hand was fisted in her skirt in an attempt at self-control but it was considering coming up to touch his chest.

"John!"

In less than a second, it was all gone. The Doctor jumped a mile away from her, muttered a goodbye, and left their private alcove to head for the door. Aliya was left leaning against the column, quietly gasping for breath and fighting back tears with only partial success.

"Idiot," she whispered, and this time she wasn't talking about the Doctor. After another few moments to get over herself and gain some composure, she also left the alcove. She sprinted to the other end of the church and wrapped her arms around the Doctor in a tight hug. As if she'd let him say goodbye to her with only half attention.

"Hey," he said warmly, as if he'd already forgotten their tense moment of ten seconds before, "I'll be fine."

"You'd better be," she mumbled into his jacket. "Be careful!"

Saying goodbye was important, but once he and the others left with the slam of the door, Aliya felt her composure slip. Her mind immediately flew her back to the moment in the shadow where she had been able to feel the warmth of him through their clothing. They'd been so close. And the worst part was she couldn't even be sure if she wished that it had happened. Because yes, she wanted it, she wanted him, often more than air. But say it did happen? What then? To have him claim it was a terrible accident, or just physical, or something altogether worse...the emotional battering would be more than she could take. Besides, she was likely imagining the entire thing. He had such a lack of boundaries when it came to personal space that even speculating on a kiss was actually ridiculous of her, but to be expected from her lovesick hearts.

A sob escaped her throat, one of the tormented kind. Why does this entire situation have to be so many kinds of fucked up? She thought. Problem was, letting herself crack a little meant the entire wall came down.

"Idiot, idiot," she whispered to herself over and over, squeezing her eyes shut as tears fell more freely down her cheeks with every second.

The humans were talking, in the back of her conscious mind she could hear them, probably about her, but she found herself unable to care. That was until small, soft arms wrapped around her shoulders and brought her mind back to the church. Like a reflex, she clutched the person and let out a shuddering breath.

"He'll be okay," Laura said in her ear, trying to be comforting. "The others know what they're doing. And he's so smart."

Aliya chuckled, but the sound was hollow. "Thank you, Laura, but that's not why I'm crying."

The girl pulled back to examine her curiously. "Then why?"

"I wish I could say, but it would make no sense to you."

"You could try."

"No, but if you want to help, could I take Nicholas for your mother for a while? I've found that children tend to help when I'm upset."

So with Nicholas in her arms, Aliya lent her head down on his curls and hummed her Gallifreyan lullaby to calm both of them.

The Doctor left the church with his hearts pounding, but fear had little to do with it. His mind was preoccupied with the vivid memory of being close enough to Aliya to count her eyelashes. The feel of her all but in his arms, trembling. And the speck of his darker and more instinctive nature could only focus on how much he'd wanted to take that shaking lip between his teeth and pull her body to his.

Stop it, he told himself. The idea that he wanted Aliya was startling yet also entirely irrevocable. It was a mystery to him how his mind could immediately conjure dark fantasies with that new realisation, yet his cheeks flamed invisibly red in the dark at the thought of even trying to kiss her.

"Not now," he whispered to himself. This was an issue that could wait at the very least until this was all over and they were back in the TARDIS.

Before he could quite banish that chain of thought, it washed over him with sobering clarity the reason for the shaking lip that had momentarily entranced him.

She'd been scared. Dilated pupils or not, the dominant emotion in her eyes had been blatant terror. She'd been afraid of him coming any closer, and there was nothing less attractive than fear. Fear of him and what he might do. After what had happened back at the inn, it hit too close to home. The idea of her fearing him made his blood run ice cold.

I'll find a way to apologise. When this is all over, I'll do something nice for her, he promised himself before turning his attention to the situation at hand.

Thomas held a lit torch in his hand and used it to illuminate the ground for Roger to examine. The Doctor got out his sonic and scanned for the creature. The trail of footprints they were following held faint particles of morphic residue, confirming they were on the right track.

"So you truly believe that you can communicate with this thing?" Thomas asked the Doctor. "How?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," the Time Lord said, "The problem won't be understanding it, it'll be negotiating. It certainly doesn't seem friendly."

"It's killed, killed people we know, I don't understand why we can't kill it and be done with it," Roger said.

"Because that's not the way I do things," the Doctor told him, fixing him with a firm look. The other man stopped in his path to send a similar look back, one of narrowed eyes and pure determination.

"I see. Well, John, in the end that simply won't suffice. This isn't your town, the people who died were not your friends, and I'll not do them the injustice of not being avenged," Roger said with more passion in his voice than the Doctor had even thought he had. Surprised, the Time Lord took a step back and scratched his chin.

"While those are fairly compelling reasons, fact is I still won't condone murder."

Thomas frowned. "But this creature has murdered already. More than once."

"Doesn't matter," the Doctor said, moving his eyes between the two of them to be sure they were listening, "An eye for an eye makes the entire world blind. Two wrongs don't make a right. Violence never solves violence, it only adds to it. Are you two fellas with me?"

Roger glowered at him. Thomas just seemed pensive. The latter spoke. "But if we don't kill it...you said negotiate, but negotiate what? How does one negotiate with a monster?"

"It could be lost, or hurt...and recall that your lot actually made the first strike, you killed its mate, it's acting out of revenge, just like you want to. We're going to take the moral high ground and see if there's something it wants that isn't all of our heads on a stick." The Doctor clapped his hands together and smiled pleasantly at them. Thomas nodded, though looked sheepish when Roger frowned at him. The Doctor, with no intentions to get in the middle of what could very well be a lover's spat, went on ahead of them, his point made.

The trio walked for several more minutes before a bleep from the sonic had the Doctor halting and holding his arm out to stop the others.

"It's here," he muttered. His keen eyes scanned the darkness around them but couldn't quite make out the shape of the creature he knew was there. "Want to come out?"

The huge bear, its eyes level with his own, emerged slowly from the trees. Next to the Doctor, Roger's hand twitched towards his arrows but to the man's credit he didn't string his bow, only grasp the arrow tightly.

The Doctor smiled at the bear. "Now now, how are we supposed to talk when you're like that? I'd like a chat, please, so if you don't mind-" The creature's skin rippled, and its face flattened, the entire body shrinking and straightening until a bipedal humanoid was standing in front of them. The male creature was taller than the Doctor, and his entire body was covered in the thick chestnut fur he had in his bear form. His eyes were still almost entirely black, and his teeth were sharp when they bared in a sinister grin.

"You speak my tongue?" He asked.

"I speak everything," the Doctor replied. "Now, can I say just...you are stunning. Downright gorgeous, actually. I'm the Doctor. You are?"

"I am Kane." The creature cocked its head, examining them all. His muscles were tight and visible under the fur when he moved his arms and curled his clawed toes and fingers. "You're not human," he said, sniffing, and the Doctor figured it was fortunate Thomas and Roger didn't have the TARDIS in their heads translating. "What are you?"

"Old. Old enough to know that this is obviously a plot for revenge. And old enough to know the pain of losing a mate. But these people have to kill animals for their food, they didn't know your mate was so much more."

"They will die for their ignorance! And you shall die for helping them. I have seen you, in the woods with your mate. She will also die."

"She's not my mate."

Kane made a wheezing sound that had to be a sort of laugh. "No? Then you will not mind when my mate kills her."

The Doctor blinked. "Sorry, what? Your mate died. That's...the entire problem, remember?"

"They killed Taen. My other mate, Liline, is on her way to that stronghold of yours right now, to kill the females and children. We do not take the murder of our mate lightly, and will not stop until those responsible have watched their loved ones die before dying themselves," Kane said viciously, dark eyes glinting with menace.

"So, to clarify, revenge and murder is all you're interested in?"

"Yes."

"Absolutely nothing else?"

"No."

"There's two of them," the Doctor said to Roger and Thomas, who had been warily watching the conversation they couldn't understand, "I've got to warn Aliya - never mind how - but if you two could knock him out so that we can tie him up, that would be great."

Roger and Thomas rushed forward with their weapons, looking all too relieved to be allowed to do something. The Doctor, meanwhile, brought his hands to his temples and tried to reach out and find Aliya's mind. She was there, faintly, just as she always was (and he was eternally grateful for the background her mind provided, as it kept away the haunting chasm he had endured for years before finding her). But she was too great a distance away to get any sort of coherent message to her, not without knocking himself out. And he couldn't afford that right now.

But a burst of instinct and feeling, that was possible, though only for a moment. A blatant warning. She would just have to work out what it was he was warning her about on her own.

He projected the feeling as powerfully as he could, and stumbled to lean against a tree when the headache kicked in afterwards.

Aliya had given Nicholas back and gone back to wandering around the church. Despite knowing more about the fundamental beliefs behind it, there was still so much about it that was so alien, but she couldn't be sure if it was in a pleasantly intriguing way or in a way that made her uncomfortable.

Perhaps a bit of both.

She was standing in front of the 9th picture in a row depicting a series of events all happening to the Jesus person the Doctor had mentioned earlier. It showed Jesus having fallen, for the third time if her counting was correct. About to move on to the next, she stumbled suddenly when a mental message hit her like a battering ram.

There were no words to it, just a clear warning of danger. And a powerful one.

It could only be from the Doctor, so the question was what he meant by it. Of course, she could mentally work through the possibilities while organising a general defence.

"Father Robin!" She called, rushing back into the main body of the church, through a row of pews. "I can't explain how, but I know for a fact that we are all in danger. Is there something we can use to barricade the door?"

All the others had been silent or speaking very quietly out of respect for the church - her loud voice came as a shock to them all, but her words even more so.

"What sort of danger?" Laura asked, getting to her feet even though Nicholas was on her hip.

"I don't know exactly, but assume it's the sort where our lives are at risk." Aliya thought hard and turned to Father Robin, who was standing some way away looking dubious. "Actually, what can we use for weapons? We'll organise that first because we might not have time to complete a barricade." She whirled around back to the family who was with her. "Robert, you and Nicholas have to hide. There are small side rooms here, aren't there? Or a basement? Something that could be overlooked?"

"I-" Robert's argument didn't even have time to gain a second word before a look from Aliya drowned it. She approached them, holding his eyes with hers.

"You're injured. You would only hinder us. Let Cecily help you get somewhere safe. You will be protecting your son. There's no nobler cause," she said, voice reasonable and authoritative without being rude or unsympathetic. "Father Robin, direct them to a safe place, now."

Father Robin didn't entirely seem to be alright with her giving orders, but was in enough shock that he wordlessly complied.

Turning to Cecily, who was walking away from her, Aliya added, "Cecily...I won't ask you or Laura to fight should it come to that, because it's not my place, but I could use your help if you're willing."

Cecily nodded, her eyes impossible to read, and turned back to where she was getting her husband. Laura went past Aliya, heading to take Nicholas in the same direction. The girl's face gave away her potent fear, but there was a glint of something else in her eyes.

"I'll help you," she said, quiet steel in her voice. Aliya smiled for a moment proudly before scanning the room for potential weapons. She approached a brass candlestick nearly as tall as she was.

"This is a good start," she murmured, and lifted it from its stand. It was heavy and she lacked physical brawn, but there wasn't much choice. Besides, mass meant momentum which meant damage to an enemy. Physics never let her down.

"What are you doing?!" Father Robin cried from the shadowy side of the church he was returning from. "That is the Lord's. Do you wish to enrage God?"

Aliya pushed down the urge to yell at him for his ridiculously impractical and downright inconvenient religious beliefs. He was, after all, rather nice and only acting in what he believed was the best way. She turned to face him, grasping the candlestick with both her hands so that she actually had the strength to lift it.

"Do you really think that God cares more about this candlestick than our safety?" She asked, doing her best to keep her voice calm as she lifted an eyebrow at him. Father Robin immediately frowned and went red.

"Well, no, I suppose...not," he stammered.

"Exactly, so with respect, shut up. I need to think." Aliya shut her eyes and scanned through every second of her memories of the church since she had arrived, taking in every object she could potentially use. At the very beginning, their arrival, something stuck out. "No. Wait. When we came in, you were on your knees. You had something in your hands. A ball on a chain, with smoke coming out of it."

"For the incense."

"Go and get it." When he looked doubtful, she just stared at him expectantly until he started moving. When he returned, he reluctantly held out the strange piece of equipment for her to examine. "Yes, that'll do nicely. Weapon. You can use it if you like, else give it to Laura."

"I'd quite like it, actually," Laura called, hurrying over to them. Cecily followed her.

"Get back in there with your father, girl."

"No, Mother, you said it yourself, she needs help and you might be amazing but you're still only one person," the girl insisted.

Cecily frowned. "And if you have one of your fits? Your panics?"

"You get panic attacks?" Aliya asked Laura sharply. The girl hesitated, no doubt having never heard the term that wouldn't be invented for centuries. Then she nodded. "Then she might be right."

"It'll happen in there or out here," she said, determined, "At least out here I might be able to do something helpful first."

The mother and daughter seized each other up until the former gave in with a sigh. Laura nodded, looking like she wanted to grin but was too scared to quite manage it. Father Robin handed her the incense holder, and she grasped it with a shaking hand.

"Alright, good," Aliya said, nodding, smiling at them. "Cecily, Father, find something useful. Laura, help me start barricading the door."

The two blondes dashed for the back of the church, ready to get to work. But, as Aliya had feared, there just wasn't time. They were only halfway down the aisle when the large wooden doors burst into splinters. A giant bear, similar but not identical to the one from the inn, snarled at them and the pair screamed in surprise.

Aliya immediately shoved Laura behind her, shielding her from splinters and the malice of the creature.

"My name is Aliyanadevoralundar!" Aliya yelled. "Identify yourself!" It was taller than her by half a foot and jet black. At her words, it morphed right before their eyes into a female humanoid creature roughly the height of the Doctor. Her body was entirely covered in fur, with eyes almost as dark and quite far from human.

"I am Liline," she rasped, "Mate of Kane and Taen. And I am here to kill you, just as Kane is going to kill your friends."

"Polygamous group," Aliya breathed, "Shit. Look, I'm sorry for what happened to your mate, to...to Taen. But revenge only hurts more, you'll be causing even more pain than you're feeling now. What's the point?"

Liline's eyes flashed. "That is the point."

Aliya lifted her candlestick, which was still lit at the end. "I was really hoping you weren't going to say that." Her hearts were racing and she couldn't see this going well, but what else could she do? "Come on then."

I hope you guys enjoyed that! Do let me know in a review what parts you enjoyed and which parts you didn't, what could use work, etc. Feedback is the only way I am going to improve!

Also, yes, that was an almost Daliya kiss. I know I'm cruel.

Non spoilery note on the Doctor Who finale: I am legitimately in love with Missy more than is healthy and I need her back ASAP. She's hilarious and heartbreaking all at once (The over abundance of Kate also gave me inspiration for the next couple of chapters of my Kate/The Rani fanfic too, so that's a plus). So yes, Moffat, please bring Missy back, preferably as a recurring character. I need her in my life for more than an episode and a few bits.

Thanks for reading, and love you all,

-MayFairy :)

p.s. if you wanna talk about Doctor Who or pretty much anything ever, my inbox is always open and I love chatting!