Far From Over
Part Three: Skin
St. Louis, 2005
This was bad.
This was very bad. In fact, words could not even begin to describe how bad this situation was.
Corey felt her breath coming in short, harsh gasps as she ran down the street for all that she was worth, ignoring the burning feeling that permeated the entirety of her lungs as she ducked down yet another alleyway. Fear was gnawing away at her, sapping her very courage as she tried to flee from the thing that was coming after her.
"Corey, c'mon, where are you? I promise it'll only hurt a little bit."
The girl chanced a terrified glance behind her, a chill crawling down her spine at the sound of the Doctor's voice as it echoed around the aged brick buildings. Whatever this thing was, it looked just like the Doctor, but its personality was completely different. This thing was evil, psychotic. And it wanted to kill her, preferably taking a long as humanly possible while making her shriek with agony.
So, definitely not the Doctor. If anything, the person talking to her sounded like Barty Crouch Jr. from the fourth Harry Potter movie at his most psychotic.
In other words, he was nuttier than squirrel shit.
"Oh, like hell," she whispered darkly as she ducked into yet another dark alleyway, gray eyes darting about cautiously as she noted every deep shadow, and every possible hiding place. Damn, she'd hit a dead end. She could probably get out though if she hopped the brick wall sealing off the alleyway. "If you think I'm just gonna waltz right up to you and let you kill me, you've got another thing coming buddy. Sorry, so not doing my impression of a lamb walking straight to a slaughter tonight."
With that quiet piece of defiance, the seventeen-year-old scrambled up onto the top of a dumpster and then boosted herself up onto the top of the brick wall, looking around cautiously for a moment to make sure that she hadn't been seen before she hopped down onto the other side. Right now, she needed to find the real Doctor, and then maybe kick the ass of the thing that had tried to take his place. But first, she had to make sure that she didn't get caught. Getting caught by this thing was definitely somewhere up near the very top of her list of things Not To Do.
It was right below dying, and just a little bit above getting bit in the butt by an alien piranha.
Not that she'd find an alien piranha here in Chicago. Maybe in Harry Dresden's version of Chicago, or even the Nevernever, but she wasn't there. This was too bad, because she could definitely use some outside help on this one, and the thought of paging through the phonebook to see if she could call in some reinforcements in the form of Chicago's only publically practicing wizard was starting to look incredibly tempting. It really sucked if she thought about it, especially that fact that Harry Dresden wasn't real. Otherwise she'd have called him up and promised him the moon in order to get his help.
Because seriously, how in the hell was she supposed to take down a shapeshifter by herself?
By the time that she finally found someplace that she could rest and hide for a while, Corey was practically dead from exhaustion as she groggily stumbled into a small diner. She had spent pretty much the entire night playing a murderously demented and non-stop version of hide and go seek with her pursuer, and it had taken its toll. The TARDIS wasn't safe, especially since the fake Doctor had the key, so she couldn't lock him out. Not to mention the fact that the TARDIS was probably the first place that he would look for her too. That meant that she couldn't even go back in order to grab some of her books that might actually help her with the situation.
Sunrise had eventually come, leaving her utterly exhausted and wanting nothing more than for everything to be over. However, she wasn't that lucky, and she had to keep going. She had eventually given up the ghost of fighting off sleep, and had curled up in the corner of the local library for a few hours during the afternoon, figuring that the fake Doctor wouldn't think to look for her there, but she had been tossed out of there at closing time. It was probably the fact that she had fallen asleep while propped up against one of the shelves, and that it was almost a quarter after eight when the security guard had found her.
Somehow, Corey managed to form the coherent thought that involved her taking a seat in a small booth in the corner of the diner, with the high sides and back shielding her from view from the window. Right now, she needed to stay one step ahead of the shifter, and that meant staying free and out of sight. Unfortunately, that also meant that she couldn't get any sleep until she found the Doctor.
The teen let out a low groan of pure frustration as she placed her arms down on the table in front of her and let her head fall down on top of them, silently cursing the being that had taken her friend's place. She didn't even know when the Doctor had been replaced! All she had to go on was the fact that he had started acting weird sometime in the middle of the day yesterday, right around when they had starting poking around that one murder scene where the guy had killed his wife. Well, violently tortured to death might be a better description, especially considering all of the blood that had been all over the place.
And even then, that still wasn't much use. It wasn't like someone was just going to waltz up to her and tell her that they had all of the answers to her problem.
"Damn!" Corey growled as she swiftly smacked her forehead once against the stained surface of the table, ignoring the odd looks that she received from the other customers at her actions. She was so tired she couldn't even think straight, much less come up with a decent plan to deal with the shifter!
The girl was so deeply involved in her thoughts, as well as doing her level best not to fall asleep, that it took her a little while to notice that someone was standing next to the table she was occupying. Figuring that it was one of the servers, Corey managed to mutter out her order without actually lifting up her head.
"A BLT with the biggest bloody glass of Coke or Mountain Dew you have, please," she said flatly, not even bothering to open her eyes. An amused cough was the response to her statement, and she could almost feel the smirk that radiated from the person standing there.
"Sorry kid, but I'm not here to take any orders," a male voice said sarcastically. Corey stiffened up almost immediately, and she slowly raised her head to look up at the policeman that was standing next to her table. Great, just what she needed. More trouble.
"Can I help you?" she asked dryly, fighting to keep the bitter edge out of her voice as she slowly looked the man up and down, grey eyes darting from the holstered gut at his hip to the shiny badge pinned to the front of his navy uniform. Why in the heck was a beat cop bothering her? She hadn't even been in the diner for ten minutes, so there was no way she had managed to offend someone.
Apparently, it was going to be just one of those days.
"Yeah, do you know what time it is?" There was a slight edge to his tone, one that immediately set her on guard. Okay, there was no way this guy had picked her out of all the people in there just to ask the time. Something was definitely up.
Corey frowned slightly, and then cast an obligatory glance down at the sports watch strapped to her right wrist.
"It's about nine thirty."
Apparently that was the wrong answer, seeing as the cop's smile turned downright malicious at her words.
"And don't you have somewhere to be right now?"
Corey gave the older man a look that plainly told him that she could care less about where he thought she should be. She was absolutely exhausted, her entire body ached from ducking and dodging all night, and she was cranky. She was in no mood to play games with some smartass cop who thought that he was being clever.
"Look, either get to the bloody point, or leave me alone," the girl growled as she gave the policeman a dirty glare. "I just want to get something to eat."
Whatever she had been expecting him to do in response, it certainly hadn't been for him to grab her by the back of her short-sleeved denim overshirt and roughly haul her up to her feet. Corey let out a startled yelp as she attempted to twist free from the man's grasp, only to have him grab her arm and twist it behind her back painfully as he forced her out of the booth.
"My point is that we have a very strict curfew policy here," he retorted scathingly as he started to frog-march Corey over towards the front door, pointedly ignoring the stunned gasps and stares that came from the other patrons of the diner as he forced the teen towards the door. "I gave you your chance to get going, and you blew it. Guess who gets to deal with your parents now? I bet you anything that they won't be very happy to find out that their daughter was sneaking around behind their backs and sneaking out."
Corey didn't say anything as she glared daggers at the floor, although a furious, wordless snarl somehow managed to make its way from her throat as she tensed up noticeably. She hated bullies with a passion, and this guy was doing nothing more than feeding his own ego. And the fact that he was publically humiliating her on top of it only pissed her off even more.
"First of all, I'm seventeen, you asshole," she hissed venomously. "And second, I'm a fucking college student. Now let me go."
"Yeah right, kid. And I'm Madonna," was the disbelieving reply as the man shoved her forward roughly. There was an almost audible snap as the last strands of Corey's patience finally gave way, and she just let her training take over from there.
Judo lessons: forty dollars. Flipping an asshole cop over your shoulder and making him land flat on his back? Priceless.
Police stations sucked.
It was an almost universal truth, seeing as most of them smelled something akin to the men's locker room at the local gym. Actually, that was being nice. They smelled like sweat, vomit, and god only knows what else, and the creepiest people sat around, waiting to be booked for whatever crimes they had committed.
Or, in her case, watching the chief of police rip the beat cop who had been so eager to rough her up a new one.
Corey carefully kept her face set in a neutral mask as she watched the older man rant and rave at the beat cop who had brought her in only twenty minutes earlier, claiming that she had 'resisted arrest'. Unfortunately for him, several people from the diner who had been appalled by his treatment of her had called ahead and informed his supervisor of what had happened. The poor bastard hadn't even had time to tell his boss his version of what had happened before the older man had started to verbally rip him to pieces.
Well, he had waited long enough to demand that Corey show him her ID. And she had. Her student ID from the University of Wisconsin.
To say that the shit had hit the fan after that would be a serious understatement.
"You're lucky that you still have your badge, Erickson! Assaulting a minor just because she didn't know what the hell you were talking about? We don't do that! And, to make things worse, you ignored her when she told you that she was a college student! Right now, you're lucky that all she did was flip you over her shoulder!"
Corey let out a low groan as she buried her face in her hands and slouched down in her seat, desperately wishing that she could be anywhere but there. She still had to hunt down the shifter, find the Doctor, and hopefully get out of wherever the thing's lair was relatively unscathed. Not to mention the fact that her butt had long since lost any feeling in it, probably about an hour or so ago when she had first been brought in.
"I hate my life," she finally muttered as she straightened up with an aggravated sigh and reached up to rub the back of her neck. A low chuckle answered her somewhat annoyed comment, and she glanced over to see a very tall man clad in a jeans and a brown hoodie standing next to the bench she was perched on.
"I have days like that too," he offered with a slightly encouraging grin, and Corey raised an eyebrow slightly before she gave him a hesitant smile in return. The man seemed to take this as an invitation, and he slowly sank down onto the hard wooden slats next to her, reaching up to run a hand through his messy brown hair, obviously at a loss of what to say next. The girl watched him warily for a moment before she decided that he'd have to be insane to pull something stupid in a police station.
His lanky ass would probably be flat on the floor with about five full-grown men sitting on top of him before she could yell 'pervert'.
"You mean you have days when you get dragged somewhere by some jerk for no good reason?" Corey asked dryly as she straightened up and rubbed at the bridge of her nose, idly wishing for some painkillers to help ward off the sleep-deprivation-induced migraine that was currently trying to take up residence within her skull. Pulling an all-nighter was never fun, but to do it and attempt to function in a reasonably normal manner during the next day was just plain stupid.
"Unfortunately, I do," the man said dryly as he gave Corey an odd look. "Aren't you a little young to have days like that?"
"Nope." It was now official: the Doctor was rubbing off on her in more ways than one. She had sounded just like him when she had said that, popping the 'p' and everything.
It was right about then that everything hit her. Corey's eyes widened, and her breath started to come in short, panicked gasps as she wrapped her arms around herself in a self-hug and hunched over slightly, her hair falling over her shoulders to form a screen between her and everyone else in the room. She was all alone here. There was absolutely no one that she could turn to for help, and she didn't have access to the supplies or information that she needed to defeat the shifter.
She was completely and utterly screwed.
"Hey, kid, you okay?" There was a hint of worry in the man's voice as a large hand was placed on her shoulder, and Corey felt the last shreds of her self-control slip as she buried her face in her hands. Tired and stressed was never a good combination with her.
"No, no I'm not," she growled out through tightly gritted teeth as she clenched her eyes shut, trying desperately to will back the sudden wave of nausea that had followed her realization. "Right now, I'm stuck in a strange city with absolutely no way of getting back, the friend I was with just disappeared, and I haven't slept yet because I was playing 'Run like hell or die' with the bastard who grabbed my friend. And that isn't even the half of it." Tears of shame and frustration welled up in her eyes as she babbled. Why was she telling this guy this? It wasn't like he could actually help. "I'm so screwed."
There was a long stretch of silence from the man, and Corey sucked in a deep breath as she attempted to regain some semblance of self-control before she straightened up. She kept her gaze aimed at the floor as she braced her hands against her legs and sat there. Finally, the man spoke, and when he did it wasn't something that the girl expected to hear.
"Kid, just how old are you?" he asked in a politely curious tone. Corey frowned slightly before she looked over at the man and locked her eyes on his.
"I'm seventeen, and my name isn't kid," she began tersely, keeping her gray eyes locked on his slightly startled green ones. "It's Corey."
He appeared thoughtful for a moment before he glanced over at the shouting police chief and smirked dryly. "Well, I guess that it's been the day for wrongful arrests."
Before the girl could say anything, the man stood up and walked over towards the two policemen. Within five minutes, Corey had been told that she was free to go, and had been all but tossed out of the police station, followed shortly by a very smug and satisfied man.
"Hey, you'll be okay now?" he asked kindly. She offered him a shit-eating grin in response, although she definitely did not feel half as cocky as she acted.
"Yeah." And before he could say anything further, she darted off, making her way back to the TARDIS. She really didn't want to, but she needed to grab some things. Hopefully, if she was careful enough, she wouldn't get caught by the fake Doctor.
Corey grimaced as she slowly walked down the dank, and quite frankly, putrid-smelling sewer, the hair along the back of her neck prickling uncomfortably with every step as she held onto her large black MagLite with a white-knuckled grip. In all honesty, she hadn't exactly expected to be able to get down into the sewers to begin with, but she had. All it had required was a crowbar, and a great deal of stubborn determination.
Well, that, and the fact that she had managed to find a manhole cover in a deserted alley so someone didn't call the cops on her.
Said crowbar – it was a fairly small one – was now sticking slightly out of the top of her backpack, which was loaded up with a few other odds and ends that she figured that she might need if she ran into the shifter again. She honestly didn't know why the Doctor had a whole box of fireworks from 1974 in his little workroom, but right now she wasn't going to complain about it. Add in a lighter, a big can of Mace, a container of lighter fluid, and a buck knife that had belonged to her dad and she had a crude but effective rescue kit ready to go.
The girl shuddered slightly as something skittered past her just outside of the reach of her flashlight, biting down on her lip in an attempt to keep back the yelp that threatened to emerge. Okay, it was now official; sewers were creepy as hell, and she was never going into another one ever again if she could avoid it.
Which meant, knowing her and the Doctor's luck, she'd be ankle-deep in raw sewage sometime next week.
A noise up ahead caught her attention, and Corey flinched as she hastily shut off the flashlight, pressing her back up against the damp wall of the sewer as she gripped the strong metal casing of her Maglite tightly. If whoever was coming down the tunnel towards her tried to grab her, they'd definitely be regretting it shortly. The police used Maglites when they had to go in somewhere dark for a reason. Getting bashed upside the head with a metal flashlight usually tended to hurt.
A dark shape passed in front of her, and Corey silently cursed the fact that her night vision hadn't had time to kick in yet. Clutching the hefty flashlight close to her chest, the girl pressed herself up against the damp brickwork behind her even further, and held her breath. The person paused in front of where she was trying to hide, and then passed on by. Corey relaxed visibly, although she managed to hold back the sigh of relief that followed her actions.
Her silence was broken shortly after that when the figure spun around and roughly grabbed her by the front of her overshirt, easily dragging her out from her hiding spot. Corey swore loudly in response as she tried to lash out at her assailant, quickly cycling through her entire repertoire of profane suggestions in multiple languages. If the Doctor knew that she'd heard him on any of the few times he'd actually swore, he would probably have a heart attack.
"You son of a- let me go!" she shrieked as she managed to land a kick to the man's shin, resulting in some impressive cursing from his end. "Vitun kusipää! Ila jaheem ma'ik!"
This rather obscene statement was swiftly followed by a strike to the forearm with the Maglite, which resulted in Corey being unceremoniously dropped flat on her ass. The girl managed to skid away from the man by a few feet before she aimed the flashlight upwards and flicked it on, training the intense beam of light directly on her attacker's face.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, shine that somewhere else, will ya?" the man griped as he threw up one arm in front of his face in order to shield his eyes from the light. "Gonna make me go blind."
Corey ignored his request as she stood up and kept the bright beam of light aimed at the man's face, her entire body tense as she backed away from the taller man.
"Where is he, you bastard?" she growled. "Where's the Doctor? Because I'm telling you right now, you freaky-eyed son of a bitch, if you've given him so much as a paper cut, I will break your arm off and beat you to death with it before I ram it so far up your ass that you'll be able to flip people off with your mouth!"
To Corey's complete and total surprise, the man started laughing as he suddenly lowered his arms. Before the girl could react, she was lying flat on her back with her own flashlight being aimed into her eyes, a heavy foot encased in a leather work boot pressed down on her chest to keep her pinned to the filthy floor of the sewer. Profanities flew from her mouth as she struggled as hard as she could to dislodge her attacker, fear and desperation lending her strength even as a never ending stream of panicked thoughts raced though Corey's mind.
The shifter was going to kill her right here and now. She'd never be able to help the Doctor, and when he found her he'd blame himself-
"What the-?" the man suddenly said as he removed his boot from Corey's chest before he reached down and grabbed the front of both of her shirts, effortlessly hauling her up to her feet. "You're just a kid."
The girl squinted as she tried to see the man's face behind the beam of light, but no dice. If the tone of his voice was any indication, he was shocked.
"Am not," she retorted as she tried to back away, only to be pulled up short by the man's firm grip on her shirts.
"Dude, you're like what, thirteen? You're a kid."
If looks could kill, then this joker would have been a pile of ash on the floor of the tunnel.
"I'm seventeen, genius."
"So you say."
"Well maybe you just suck at guessing people's ages."
The man paused for a second before he chuckled at Corey's terse remark and let her go. She immediately backed up a few feet and eyed the man warily. There was no way that she was going to let him catch her off guard again. The man seemed to guess the reason behind her caution, because he suddenly tossed Corey's Maglite over to her, causing her to fumble slightly before she caught it.
"So, what's a kid like you doing in the sewers?" the man asked nonchalantly. Corey frowned as she slowly tilted her head to the side, before she shook her head and decided to go out on a limb. This guy didn't look or act like the shifter, and there was a definite lack of the lens flare in his eyes that she had seen earlier on the fake Doctor. She was probably safe, at least for now.
"I'm looking for my uncle," she said as she adjusted her grip on her flashlight, ready to bolt if necessary. Braden had often made the comment that she could run faster than the zombies if 28 Weeks Later when she wanted too. Quite honestly, Corey preferred to be compared to a scared cat.
She hated horror movies.
The guy in front of her made an odd little face that indicated that he was slightly weirded out. "Your uncle lives in the sewers?"
"No. He got grabbed by some silver-eyed nutso who lives in the sewers," Corey retorted tersely as she rolled her eyes. "I came down here to find him. And hopefully, bash the stupid jackass who grabbed him in the face."
A considering look crossed the older man's face as he glanced over at her.
"Kid, do you even know what you're up against?" he finally asked cautiously. Corey arched an eyebrow before she allowed herself to give him a humorless smirk.
"Do you know?" she retorted smugly before she pulled away from the man and headed off in the direction that he had been going. An indignant sputtering noise sounded from behind her, and the girl rolled her eyes as she picked up her pace. There was a nagging hint of familiarity whenever she looked at this guy, but right now that wasn't important. She needed to find the Doctor before something happened to him.
And if this thing was what she thought it was, then that was a very likely possibility.
If she didn't find him soon, then they were both in deep shit. Corey shuddered slightly as she strode down the dim tunnel, ignoring the sound of somebody behind her swearing loudly as they stepped in the pile of discarded bloody skin and whatever else the shifter had left behind when it had changed form. The girl stopped and glanced over her shoulder before she shook her head and moved on, keeping wary gray eyes fixed on the filthy floor of the sewer so she wouldn't step in any 'surprises' herself. Somehow, she had managed to avoid that delightful experience through sheer dumb luck, but she wouldn't put it past the irony gods for it to happen again.
A dim light up ahead caught her attention, and Corey skidded to a halt before she went and pressed herself up against the wall of the sewer once again. The Maglite was turned off, and the girl held her breath as she listened intently for any sign that the shifter was in the room ahead. She crept up towards the odd little room in the middle of the sewers slowly, making sure that she stayed out of sight until she could get a good glimpse of the room when she peered around the corner. All that she heard were a few rustling sounds, sounds that were not out of place for rats to be nosing around in something. It was at that moment that a horrible thought hit her, and it was all Corey could do not to either scream, or throw up.
Rats ate human flesh.
The teen was forced to bite down on her hand to suppress the strangled whimper that crept out of her throat, and she screwed her eyes shut as she banged the back of her head against the filthy brickwork behind her as hard as she could. The pain helped to clear her head, to force away all of the stomach-churning scenarios that came to mind, as she clenched her jaw determinedly.
She would not gag, she would not cry, she would not lose it, not here, not now. She was seventeen years old for God's sake! After everything that she had seen in her life, she would not allow the thought that someone she cared for might be dead stop her, not when she could actually do something to help.
With that thought, Corey flung herself away from the wall and stepped out into the dim light in the makeshift lair, even as a work-roughened hand reached out to prevent her from doing so.
"Doctor?" she called out as she gripped her flashlight tightly. If anything tried to jump out at her, she was going to go down swinging. One thing was definitely certain; the bastard would be walking away with one hell of a concussion once she was through with him.
A hand grabbed her by the back of the short-sleeved denim overshirt that she was wearing and pulled her up short, and the teen swore loudly as she whirled around to face her attacker, wielding her Maglite like a club. The guy that had grabbed her earlier pulled back in obvious surprise, his green eyes widening slightly, before he easily reached up and caught the end of the flashlight before it had an up-close and personal meeting with his face.
"Whoa there, easy Tiger," he said with a wary chuckle as he let go of the end of the flashlight. "That could have been my face." He then winced as he shook out his abused hand. "You got quite a swing there."
"That's because I thought you were the shifter," Corey growled irritably as she took a step back so there was some space between them. "Don't sneak up on me like that, dumbass."
There was a scoffing noise from the man as he rolled his eyes, and Corey had to fight the very insistent urge to bury her fist in his face.
"I had it under control," he said confidently. Corey cocked a disbelieving eyebrow as she crossed her arms over her chest before she shook her head and sighed.
"Right," she drawled sarcastically as she edged away from the man, "well, next time you might not be quick enough."
"Corey, is that you?" a familiar voice asked suddenly, and the teen froze before she slowly turned around in her spot, carefully scanning her surroundings for a familiar thatch of messy brown hair. A frown momentarily crossed her face as the nagging sense of familiarity hit her once again, before she shook her head and shoved it aside.
"Doctor?"
There was a hint of movement off to the side, and Corey immediately bolted for it, slipping on something that was lying on the floor of the sewer and pinwheeling her arms for a moment before she regained her balance and didn't fall flat on her face. She ignored the other man's protests as she righted herself and shoved her way past a stack of cardboard boxes to where the Doctor's voice was coming from. When she saw the Doctor, she couldn't stop the relieved laughter that started to bubble up in her throat as she stared at him. He was tied rather firmly to a BTS chair, and he was clad solely in the t-shirt that he almost always wore underneath one of his dress shirts, and boxers.
He also looked far less than pleased with the situation.
"What took you so long?" he grumbled as he shifted uncomfortably in his spot. Corey flashed him a slightly teasing grin as she took off her backpack and set down on the filthy ground before she started to dig around in it for the knife that she had brought.
"Sorry. I kind of had to ditch Barty Crouch Jr. before I could come get you," she explained as she wrapped her fingers around the hilt of the buck knife and pulled it out of her bag. She quickly set about slicing through the ropes, muttering a series of less than flattering sentiments aimed towards the shifter as she did so.
"Did he hurt you?"
Corey fell silent for a moment before she shook her head.
"Nah. I managed to outrun him before he could do anything," she admitted with a shrug of forced nonchalance. She kept her face down as she worked on the ropes, trying to ignore the penetrating stare that the Doctor was giving her as she sawed on the rough fibers.
"Corey."
That one word somehow carried a multitude of meanings, the strongest one being 'tell me the truth before I drag it out of you'. She looked up at her friend and grinned sheepishly before she silently indicated to the left leg of her jeans, where a raw-looking knee poked through the freshly-torn hole in the denim.
"Slipped and fell when I was running from him," Corey admitted reluctantly as she cut through the last of the ropes, and the Doctor quickly got to his feet, letting out a soft hiss of pain as circulation returned to his limbs. "Hurt like hell, but I really didn't want to end up in a body bag at the local morgue, so I kind of had to keep going."
The Doctor arched a somewhat disbelieving eyebrow as he looked at the girl, and he quickly grabbed her by the wrist before he gently turned her hand over. A colorful assortment of shallow cuts, asphalt-lined scrapes, and even a blister slowly welling up at the base of her thumb, greeted his scrutiny. Corey winced slightly as the Time Lord carefully prodded one of the nastier-looking cuts, a dark look on his face slowly spreading.
"I'm going to assume that the rest of you is in similar condition," he finally said in a purposefully neutral tone as he released her hand, and Corey realized for the first time that night just how much everything hurt. In all honesty, she was surprised that she had managed to keep going as long as she had.
Wordlessly, she nodded in agreement, and the Doctor sighed as he reached up and dragged a hand through his already wild-looking hair before he reached out and gently pulled her into a firm hug.
"I'm glad that you're alright," he said gruffly as he released her and ruffled her hair gently. "Now let's leave."
Before Corey could do anything other than manage an inarticulate 'huh?' in response to the question, another voice broke the oppressive silence of the sewers.
"Kid? Hey, kid, are you okay back there? " Footsteps slowly approached the corner that they were somewhat concealed in, hesitating cautiously every so often. "Did you find something?" A soft curse when no one answered. "If you're back there, you silver-eyed son of a bitch, I swear to god I'll start shooting and won't stop until you let her go."
The Doctor frowned as he looked down at Corey, who shrugged and gave him a somewhat sheepish grin. "Um, he followed me home?"
"That's not funny."
The man who had followed her through the sewers suddenly poked his head around the corner of the stack of cardboard boxes concealing them, and relaxed marginally when he saw the Doctor holding Corey in a protective grip. One thing she noticed though, was the fact that he never relaxed entirely, somehow managing to stay alert the entire time.
"So, you're the uncle, huh?" he said carefully as he looked at the Doctor, who cocked an eyebrow in response. Corey gave a nervous chuckle as she rubbed the back of her neck, and blinked as her world suddenly tilted wildly.
For one moment, she thought that she was going to fall over, and she somehow managed to regain her balance even as the Doctor reached out to steady her. Judging from the startled look on the Time Lord's face, the distortion of her vision had been noticeable.
"Corey," he began carefully even as he kept a tight grip on her forearms, a wary look in his brown eyes, "are you alright?"
The girl opened her mouth to respond, trying to look her friend in the eyes even as her vision started to dissolve into a haze of gray, and her balance wavered again. Fortunately, the Doctor was still holding on to her, so he managed to keep her from tilting over even as a loud buzzing noise filled her ears. Corey stood there for a few more seconds, her gray eyes almost impossibly wide on her pale face as she tried to see past the gray haze clouding her vision, listing slightly to the side, before her eyes rolled up into the back of her head and the girl went limp like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Somehow, the Doctor managed to catch her before she hit the filthy floor of the sewer, pulling the teen close to his chest even as the other man darted in to help.
"Geez!" the man hissed as he helped steady Corey's limp form, green eyes flashing with barely-hidden concern, before he looked over at the Doctor. "Can't say that I expected that."
"I know I didn't," the Doctor muttered as he let out a short sigh. The man cocked an eyebrow before he let out a strained laugh, reaching up to drag his fingers through the short bristle of light brown hair on his head as he did so.
"So, does she do this kind of thing often?" he asked wryly. The Doctor shot the other man a stern look before he frowned.
"No." He then peered closely at the unconscious girl, and let out an exasperated sigh. "She passed out from exhaustion." The Time Lord shook his head as he gently ran a hand over the girls' hair, pausing only to glance over at the younger man who was staring at him intently. "She's stubborn. Won't stop until either I make her stop, or she passes out."
The man chuckled softly in response as he gently supported Corey's limp form, giving the Doctor an opportunity to pull on his clothes while muttering a highly offended diatribe about shape-shifters and the stealing of his personal effects under his breath.
"Tough kid," he offered with a faint grin, and shrugged slightly when the Doctor looked over at him, shrugging on his suit jacket. "I have a little brother – he does the same kind of thing. But your niece, dude, nothing was gonna stop her until she found you."
The Doctor gave the younger man a penetrating stare in response to his comment before he gently removed Corey from his grasp, and hoisted her up into a carrying position with a grunt. He turned around to leave, pausing only long enough to collect Corey's backpack and flashlight, before he looked back at the human who had followed his charge into the sewers.
"By the way, there's a young lady down here as well," he pointed out, jerking his head over in the direction of where the girl in question was tied up. "I believe that she's in need of some help."
At that Dean Winchester let fly a loud curse as he turned around to deal with the other captive, and the Doctor used that opportunity to leave the area unnoticed. He would come back later, once Corey wasn't indisposed, and deal with the creature himself. Normally he wouldn't have bothered to get involved, but the shape-shifter had made a very fatal mistake when it had attempted to pose as him earlier.
It had threatened Corey.
He wasn't called the Oncoming Storm for nothing. Whatever reason why the shape-shifter had tried to murder his companion, it didn't matter. He wasn't going to give it a chance to try again.