Holy WOW...

So if there's anyone still reading this, y'all have Willow to thank for this chapter! I didn't think it was worth continuing just because I had gotten stuck back when I was still writing this, and then I just kind of... moved on, and life happened, and I forgot that some people might still want to read my stuff! But like I always have said... As long as one person wants to read what I write, so shall it be. I will write haha it felt good to write again, I will admit I missed Evy and the Doctor :)

Let me know what you think! I'm a bit self-conscious after not writing for so long...

Anyway, thanks again Willow, and here you go!

With love,

-A.

"So…. What's your name, then?"

The woman ignores me, her straight-backed form moving silently ahead of us without a single acknowledgement of our existence. Her bacteria-skin cloak sways, causing the bioluminescence to shiver upon the walls, reflecting beautifully in the liquid behind them.

The hard surface of the Vitarnia's bodily cavities amplifies the sounds of the bacteria, growling and hissing somewhere far away. As it cuts into the silence around us, my skin begins to crawl...

I feel the Doctor's mind react to the unease he feels in me, surrounding my thoughts with his familiar coolness.

I don't mind.

"I have to say, we've had some pretty unpleasant experiences with locals before, but really, this is at least in my top five." The Doctor says under his breath, and I smirk at him, bumping him with my hip. He gives me a sidelong glance, his sea green eyes crinkling around the edges. A single beat passes before he reaches out ever so slightly, gesturing for me to take his hand.

My gaze drifts from his hand, fingers now wiggling, up to his face.

"Could be worse, though, yeah?" He says, earning a chuckle from me, and I take his hand, enjoying the easy companionship that seems to accompany danger with us.

"Never fails. You say that exact thing, and then immediately, it becomes exponentially worse."

"Well, there's a first for everything! I mean, just as a highly hypothetical example… Would you ever think you'd be inside of a gigantic glass-like whale creature fighting off the mutant bioluminescent monsters who live inside it?" He pauses a moment, raising a thin eyebrow at me, "No? Huh, strange. I thought that exact thing this morning."

I let out a ringing laugh, and it bounces off the walls of the narrowing tunnel we're trudging through.

"Does your slave have a brain defect or do you simply allow him to constantly speak without end?" The woman says sharply, and I almost jump in surprise.

She hasn't spoken in the hour we've been dragged through this Vitarnia, or whatever, and that's what she chooses to say.

Keep insulting the man… I love?

See where it gets you, lady.

"If you don't have anything nice to say…" The Doctor says lightly. He seems to enjoy irking her for the sake of his own amusement, but I'm feeling a little less forgiving than he is, apparently.

"Speak to me directly again, and I will rend your head from your shoulders." The woman throws over her shoulder, her voice low, and the Doctor gives my hand a warning squeeze.

He can feel my temper flaring, I bet. Even with the distance between us…

Well good. He knows what's coming, then!

"Hey," I snap, launching out a hand to her shoulder, and she spins around before I can even touch her, glaring at me with her alien eyes. It catches me off guard for a split second, but I rally, raising myself to my full height, "I don't know what kind of shitty planet you come from, but where I come from, no one worth a damn speaks to anyone that way. We're all equal here. Think you can get that through your thick yellow skull? And another thing, if you think you're going to get out of this mess and simultaneously continue talking to us like that, you've got another thing coming."

I jab a finger into the Doctor's chest, and he lets out a grunt of protest.

"He won't leave you behind, not in a million years, not even if you were the worst scum in the universe," I grind out, my nose nearly touching hers, "But I will."

Her eyes burn into mine, and I can tell she wants to bring that staff of hers back into action, bash my brains in probably. I meet her gaze levelly, gritting my teeth against the urge to attack first, get at least one good hit in before she pulverizes me.

Any second now, one of us is going to be on the ground… Probably me. My temper is definitely going to get me killed one of these days. And this time I'll more likely than not stay dead…

"Ladies, please! Can we agree not to disrespect one anothers' cultures, at the very least? We can be civil here!" The Doctor pipes up, clearing his throat, and straightening his bowtie "And Evy, there's no such thing as a shitty planet."

My anger ebbs a little at hearing the Doctor curse. He does it so rarely that it's always a humorous occasion.

Or he did, at least. Maybe the new him will do it more often.

He pauses, shrugging after a moment's deliberation.

"Maybe a planet with colossal class gaps and a highly tense relationship between the main binary genders of its indigenous people, which I have to say comes very close to shitty, but that's beside the point. And you…"

He gestures to the woman, letting out a weary sigh.

"I am perfectly capable of independent thought and speech, definitely more so than you, no offense, and I prefer to be at least respected as a sentient lifeform…"

She turns to look at him, her eyes squinted, either in confusion or anger.

"Honestly, the highest preference I have here is to not be clubbed over the head with that stick of yours again. Priorities." He says, stiffening when she shifts her body weight towards him, her hand gripping her weapon.

She sizes him up with those alien eyes of hers, narrow and judging.

"I will agree that you are not like the males of my home planet." She says, begrudgingly giving in at last.

A moment of silence floats awkwardly in the stale air between us all.

"Lovely." The Doctor says, nodding in the direction we had been travelling before our little altercation, "Now that we're all sorted… Shall we?"

She nods curtly, turning to continue, but not before allowing her eyes to linger on me, a muddled, sort of wary look.

She doesn't understand us, or our relation to each other, or how we came to be this way. Misunderstanding breeds mistrust, I suppose.

If we can make it out of here alive without killing one another, it'll be a miracle.

Hours later, I stretch my arms up toward the glassy darkness that is the ceiling, my aching back and feet protesting heavily to the new movement. We've been down here so long, I've almost gotten used to the skittering of the fluorescent lifeforms, always at the edge of my eyesight, always in the darkness, muttering to themselves.

Almost…

The only conversation between us denoted where she was leading us. Not a very talkative one, this woman, so whatever information we got was short and simple. All I know is that years ago when her mate was alive, they found a place full of things we might use to get out of here. From what I gather, it's some kind of organ that the Vitarnia uses to store things accidentally swallowed that can't be eaten, killed, or broken down by its symbiotic bacteria. Like an extra stomach for indigestible things, I should think.

I wonder what happens when it gets full…

"Probably expelled, just like any other stomach that gets too full of garbage. What I want to know is where this Vitarnia exists in relation to everything else? Its size suggests it would have to be suspended within some kind of liquid to support its mass… And think about it, I mean, if it's the size of an ocean, how big is this planet? Perhaps its this glass-like compound, it acts as a weight distributing mechanism, like an endo-exo skeleton hybrid... Fascinating..."

I raise my brows, the Doctor not seeming to notice he just answered an unspoken sentiment, yet… I can't feel angry with that look on his face. So incredibly familiar to me… Pondering the magnificent unknown. With shadows thrust upon the sharp line of his jaw from the orb of light, his lips pressed together, and green eyes bright with contemplation even in this unending dark…

Without another moment's hesitation, I reach out to his familiar coolness with my mind, entwining myself within it. I know he feels the swell of warmth growing in me steadily, like the tentative blooming of a Moonflower at the first silver light upon its petals.

His eyes meet mine, wide with surprise, and then a sly grin spreads on his lips until he's giving me a lopsided smirk.

"Feeling poetic, are we? Does that make me the moon, or the Moonflower?"

I laugh and smack his arm lightly, a light blush heating my face, my gaze sliding down to watch my feet upon the glassy ground.

"Well," He murmurs, taking my hand and gently positioning it to rest in the crook of his arm, "I say you're the Moonflower, and the moon… and the stars, and the sky, and everything in between."

I look up from the ground, my breath hitching a bit in my chest, my lips gaped open in surprise.

What the- That may have been the most romantic thing he's ever said to me, in this body or the last…

I know he feels the goosebumps rise on my skin, and the heat racing through my veins because those bright green eyes darken, the smile smoldering away.

I feel a deep yearning building in him, some kind of need swirling up from where he keeps it hidden within, beneath the joking and the silliness, and its strength causes me to bite my lip. His eyes dart down to follow the motion.

He's there. He's definitely still there. My Doctor…

"I-"

"If you two can pause in the crazed manufacturing of pheromones for one moment…"

Our new friend has stopped, regarding us with blatant disgust in her foreign gaze, her nose crinkled as if smelling something rotten.

I clear my throat, my face now burning both with embarrassment and annoyance.

"What is it?"

"We have arrived. It is just through here. It should be safe enough. The bacteria, as you call them, don't have much reason to roam here," She says, turning on her heel and making her way through a rather large pore in the glass wall. I climb through after her, with the Doctor on my heels, and he tosses the orb up. The buzz of the sonic fills the air, and then it becomes brilliantly bright, hanging above our heads as it did before.

Sitting clumped and strewn about the rather large room are bits of metal and chunks of what must have been ships.

I can't imagine how else rocket thrusters may have gotten into the Vitarnia…

My hand brushes the thruster laying at my feet, tall enough to reach my hips, yet rather small as far as a standard ship goes. It makes me wonder what other species and beings may have landed here, unwittingly as we had.

The crash of metal makes me look up, to see the Doctor picking up pieces of metal, and tossing them over his shoulder, muttering to himself.

"Haldon reactor… Model 284-DXT, useless… Garbage…"

"I have been here many times. I could not find anything of use. However, I was Niyama on my planet, so it would be unlikely that I could do much," The yellow-skin female says, kicking a hunk of deformed metal near her booted foot, "I thought I would die here."

"Niyama?" I say, knowing it must be untranslatable if the TARDIS left it untouched.

"Niyama… We hunt. We protect. We kill the enemies of our people."

"Like a warrior."

"Sort of. Niyama. It is a title of honor." She says wistfully. I almost feel badly for her.

"Speaking of… Have we yet earned the honor of knowing your name?"

She lets out a sigh, turning to face me.

"My name is Basilah. Any other questions?"

"No, that'll do for now…"

We stand in silence for a bit, watching the Doctor run to and fro like a madman, accumulating a pile of junk in his arms.

"Your sl- your male… He is very docile," she says.

"Docile?" I say, nearly choking on my laughter, "You haven't seen him with a Dalek, he's anything but docile."

My incredulous smile fades into a frown, though, remembering how he so delighted in torturing the Dalek that downed Jenny's ship… Worry grips my heart once again.

Jenny and Calix…

"Well… He doesn't seem to be prone to ripping out throats or pounding others into a pulp, so I would say that makes him docile. Though, he is rather small. Are all your males that small?"

Excuse me… what?

"What exactly are you talking about?" I say, giving her an incredulous frown.

"The males on my planet. They are enormous compared to yours, and much more aggressive. A slave of mine once ripped out the throat of another slave with his bare hand for bumping into him. They completely destroyed the courtyard."

Trying to reign in my shock, I nod slowly.

"What makes them like that?"

"Evolution. My planet is developed, but dangerous and untamed. We are all born to kill. Some more so than others, but all of us, down to the tiniest insect, are built to maim from birth."

"Sounds, uh… Intense. My planet is more passive aggressive than throat-ripping aggressive."

She inclines her head in understanding.

"I have been to such planets. They bored me."

I let out a scoff, smirking.

"Yeah… My planet bored me, too."

We stand again in silence, though a bit more comfortably this time. I am still definitely freaked out by the slavery thing, I have to admit… Yet, I couldn't imagine living on a planet like that. Vicious and deadly, every creature out to compete for survival at all times. Not sure how slavery solves that, though… I have so many questions, though I'm not sure I want the answer to all of them.

Suddenly, Basilah tenses, wielding her staff and whirling to face the entrance sitting behind us.

"There is something coming," She growls, and the Doctor halts his wild junk collecting mid-toss to sonic the globe of light hanging above us. It drops with a muted thud, and we're plunged into darkness. I scurry towards where I saw the Doctor last, Basilah either gone completely, or entirely silent beside me.

Crouching behind a large chunk of ship, I hear heavy footsteps approaching from far away, very faintly.

How the heck did she hear that?

The footsteps, like most creatures here, are all wrong… Almost slapping like duck's feet, yet with the click of a wolf's nails upon the glass. Whatever it is enters the room, and with a loud huff, and the clatter of metal against metal, it recedes slowly.

Finally, there is silence again.

The buzz of the sonic echoes once again, and the light flickers back to life, rising into the air like an itty bitty sun. We all come out of hiding, and glance at one another to make sure we're all in one piece still, and to figure out what that thing wanted.

The answer lays face down on a scrap pile, hulking and so very dilapidated. I let out a short bark of a laugh, grinning at the Doctor, who gives me a wink.

Ask and you shall receive, right?

It's a mech-suit, shaped for one person to operate, with wires sticking out haphazardly in all directions, its hydraulics hissing faintly every so often as if in defiance of its brokenness.

"I can't believe our luck!" I say, despite Basilah shushing me, her eyes trained on the entrance still.

"I keep telling everyone I'm an excellent good luck charm, but no one believes me," the Doctor says, laughing as he starts to stride over to the suit.

"Mmhmm, wonder why…" I mutter, which he decidedly ignores.

"Let's get it turned over. Have to assess the damage to this old boy before we can fix him up…" He says, his voice, loud with enthusiasm, echoing in the chamber.

"Someone seems to have used it recently," Basilah says, approaching the suit with a wary hope in her purple eyes.

Perhaps our 'someones' have used it…

My hearts leap when, at that moment, the suit spurts steam from some broken piping system. Shuddering violently, with its arm moving as if to push itself up, it struggles for a second or so before falling and going still once again.

"At least we know he's functional!" The Doctor says, gesturing us to come closer. After a moment's hesitation, we all prop our backs against the side of the suit, and push back with all our might. With the hiss of steam, it rolls over, coming to rest on its back.

"Oh my god," I whisper.

The front has slashes down the arms and chest, long and vicious, with split wires sparking. There's a cockpit windshield, reinforced with some kind of metal mesh.

Laying inside, eyes closed, lip split and bleeding, forehead already purpled with a bruise, is Calix.