Her sleep wasn't exactly peaceful, though.

There was this odd feeling that there was something wrong.

And indeed something was.

Her dream-self turned around, realizing that she was in a large cavern, and found herself face to face with the dragon. She started to scream when the dragon spoke.

"No worries, dear child" it said "I will not harm you. You have given me no reason to, much unlike the others. You saw me for what I truly am"

Alice stood there, shocked then asked "where's the Doctor?"

"Doctor? Doctor Who?" the Dragon asked, a grin spreading across its face "do you mean that Time Lord that wandered by? He's more ancient than me, and yet he still doesn't believe in the old magic. Shame on him, we would have been great friends."

"What did you do to him!" Alice asked, starting to panic

"Feisty! And simple minded," the Dragon laughed "but, I did what needed to be done. He got what he deserved."

"Did you kill him!"

The Dragon only laughed

Alice awoke with a start. She looked over at the bed across the room, and noted it was empty. The Doctor either decided not to sleep or was already awake and she had slept in. Having an odd feeling it was the latter; she headed out to find him.

"Doctor!" she called, heading into another room.

"Just missed him!" Tim said "he and Ida left only a few minutes ago. Did you need him for something?"

"I need to tell him something" Alice said

Tim laughed "call him on the intercom then, but don't hog the line!" he headed out.

"I won't!" Alice called after him. She pressed the button for the intercom "Doctor? You there?"

"Alice!" the Doctor said "I thought you'd never wake up!"

"Listen to me!" she said urgently "you have to come back! You have no idea what you're dealing with!"

"Alice, I'll be fine! Besides, what's any old monster going to do to me?"

"I don't know! Eat you or something!"

"That's never bothered you before, why are you worrying so much now?"

Alice groaned.

"Listen, this isn't going to take long, I'll be fine! So stop worrying about me,"

Alice rolled her eyes and hung up.

The Doctor looked at Ida "she hung up on me!" he said "she hung up on me, while I was in the middle of a sentence!"

Ida just shrugged

"Hey! Where are you going!" Chris asked as Alice started to leave the base.

"To find the Doctor" Alice said "if he won't listen to me from here, I probably have a better chance of smacking some sense into him if I'm actually nearby."

"I can't let you do that!" Chris said

"And why not?" Alice asked, glaring at him, arms crossed

"Because…" Chris stumbled over words as he thought of what to say "I just can't okay! It's dangerous out there alone!"

"Then come with me if you're worried so much, but with or without you, I'm going to find the Doctor" Alice said firmly, starting for the door again.

Chris stopped her, and handed her a communicator. "We need to at least be able to contact you" he told her "take this." Alice took it and grinned.

"Thanks!" she said, heading out the door.

"Alice" Chris said over the comm. device "may I ask why you need to smack some sense into him?"

"Because he has no idea what he's getting himself into" Alice replied

"Well, here we are again" Ida said, looking up at the entrance to the cave "you, me, a large cavern"

"And someone yelling at me over the intercom" the Doctor finished "my day couldn't get any better"

Ida smiled as they headed in and maneuvered their way through the twisting tunnels of the cave, trying to find the main cavern. The Doctor kept shining his flashlight along the walls, examining the graceful loops of writing that kept showing up. Ida watched him with mild amusement.

"So what did happen between you and Rose?" she asked after a moment.

"She moved on" the Doctor said, not looking at her. As Ida started to say something else the Doctor added "listen Ida, I'll apologize now if I end up being short with you, but I don't really want to talk about it" he let out a sigh and did his best not to turn and glare at her. "It might not have been all that long for you, but for me it's been quite a long time. I've changed since then! I'm a completely different man now, and I've got every reason right now to just put the past behind me and forget about it, and you're making it kind of hard to do!" He stopped and rubbed his head "sorry, sorry. There's just something that feels off about all of this, and it's driving me nuts."

"It's fine" Ida said "I'm getting an odd feeling too"

"Good, I'm glad I'm not the only one" the Doctor muttered, then broke into a grin "come on! Let's stop chatting and go explore this cavern. See what's hiding out in here."

Ida gave him an odd look, but decided not to press the question farther.

The Doctor continued his examination of the odd writing that kept showing up as they walked along. He paused and ran his fingers over one of the words, muttering something under his breath, trying to figure out what it was.

"Still traveling?" Ida asked

"Course I am!" he replied, turning away from the word as they headed round a corner and into largish cavern with more tunnels leading out of it. "Which tunnel?" he asked

"This one" Ida said, going to the one farthest on the right "I think,"

"Don't tell me we're lost!"

"We'll find our way there, most of these tunnels have to lead to the main cavern eventually"

"Got a point there" the Doctor muttered, looking at another of the weird words for a second before walking on "I see you're still exploring."

"Yeah" Ida watched as he examined another one of the words "any idea what they say?" she asked

"No, actually" the Doctor admitted "I mean, I recognize the language, but none of these words actually mean anything. It's just gibberish, random letters just thrown together. It's almost like it's not meant to be read, not meant to say anything at all. Maybe it's just here to confuse people."

"Is that good?" Ida asked

"It could be" the Doctor replied "and yet it could be really, really bad. But whatever it is… it sure is confusing."

"Let's not worry about it, we should get a move on. There's still something waiting in that central cavern for us."

"I suppose there is…" the Doctor muttered. The two of them set off towards said cavern that was waiting for them.