"The plan is simple," Heri-koo said. "You want me to repeat it again?" He'd had enough of all this stupidity from his group. They were meant to be the most intelligent people in the whole of Jufior, yet all of them acted inferior to him.

"No, it's fine," Gigi answered. It's not like the plan was particularly complicated. Brute force wasn't a thoughtful process. "Jirko and Plo do the actual complicated stuff, that I'm fairly certain you made half of the words up, and we find a way through the back entrance. We get in there, tie them up…"

He scoffed. Typical. "We're not tying them up. We're executing them."

Gigi blinked at him and looked around the group. No one backed down or looked away. "Wait, but we can't just—"

"They did this to us, first," he said. He'd been having enough of Gigi; always his head in the clouds, never fully paying attention to anything. This had been the plan for so long; it's like he joined the group a few moments ago, even though he was one of the founders. "We're just giving them back what they've paid for."

"There has to be another way," Gigi begged like everyone else hadn't already made up their mind.

Heri-koo sighed. Gigi was still his friend, as much as he angered him. So as much as he wanted to smack him in the face, he managed to restrain himself. "If you don't like it, you can leave."

At that, Gigi looked down. There wasn't anywhere else to go, they both knew that. This had to be done—they couldn't live like this any longer. In fear that you would be next; in fear that they'd raid your house, your family—

It shut him up. They didn't have a choice, someone had to do it.

"Alright then," Heri-koo said. He took his gun from the table. "That's resolved. Let's go."

"Where are we?" Rose asked. The whole building looked like it would cave on you if you sneezed on it. Cracks in the wall, covered with brown vines here and there, and mould spots. It made her slightly uncomfortable.

"Don't know," the Doctor responded. "Doesn't remind me of anything." He looked Corin's way, but he merely shrugged. Neither did he have something to say. Despite it looking slightly abandoned, people walked about it, once again no one batting an eye at the huge blue box that just popped in. Humans.

They looked like humans, anyway, even if something was slightly off about them. Like the fact that their skin was camo green. There was a man staring at them from afar, with a hood on. The Doctor waved at him, and he waved back with a small smile.

Seemed like reasonable enough people. He didn't know where they were, though. Not a single window, and the barricades made him think they were underground. He wondered if that was a choice or a necessity, and would have made it so.

"Which way should we go?" Rose asked. There were 3 different ways to go, at least, that they could see. Each looked a bit more repulsive than the last. Were those slugs?

"I think we shouldn't split up," the Doctor said. "I have a feeling this is a city, not just a base."

"Of course it's a city," Corin said. "Look at it."

The Doctor refrained from rolling his eyes. "Right. We can just explore, then."

"They're green," Rose commented. "Are they human?"

"No idea," the Doctor said, starting to head one way. "Might be the sun." He didn't explain any further, so Rose looked over at Corin for an explanation instead. He didn't provide it either, pretending not wanting to, but really, not being able to.

What does he mean, the sun? Humans started photosynthesising or something?

Rose threw the concept around for a bit as they went on their way. People gave them odd stares, here and there, but the general population didn't care. They all seemed a bit on their toes, some even looking behind their shoulders.

There was even a kid crying. A small kid, couldn't be more than 10, and everyone was walking past. The Doctor stopped and stared at the kid. Corin followed his gaze.

"Why are we—"

"That kid," the Doctor answered. "He's crying."

Rose blinked at him. Although she knew the Doctor to generally care about people, a singular crying kid seemed a bit much to stop for. Yet, maybe that was her wanderlust taking over her empathy. She didn't really care if she was honest. "What about him?"

"No one's helping." He turned to them. "Which means the adults know. Which means it's something they can't talk about."

"Which means trouble," Rose finished.

"Possibly." He nodded once, shortly, and turned back to the kid. The kid was sobbing quietly, some adults looking briefly at him before going about their business. He had a small orange Madras tissue.

"It can just be that everyone here is a jerk," Corin added. "No need to diagnose the human race over here."

"You make it sound like you're personally offended at that," the Doctor argued.

"Well…"

Before Corin could properly make any comebacks, the Doctor moved over to the kid. Rose followed him quietly, and a bit from afar. Corin stayed next to Rose. Rose wasn't entirely sure how to deal with kids. Tony had been an easy kid, surprisingly, but she hadn't had any luck with any other kids. She'd let the Doctor handle it. Because apparently, he'd been a dad before, or something. She still wasn't sure about that.

Tony. She had completely forgotten about him. Things had been such a mess, she forgot about the fact that she could never go home. Had it been years ago, she wouldn't have minded, but now she thought family was more important than that. When the Doctor grows tired of you, you need somewhere to fall. She hadn't thought it'd happen, but of course, because she meant nothing, it did.

It wasn't a mistake she wanted to repeat. Not that she could do anything about it. Now, if the Doctor was tired of her…

"Are you alright?" Corin looked at her with a small frown. Apparently, her thoughts must've been visible on her face.

"Just thinking about my family," she responded mindlessly. It was rather unfair, she realised a bit later because Corin didn't have any . But when she looked at him, he had a neutral face.

Odd. She'd have expected him to be a bit sad about it, but not a single trace of anything was written on his face. Then again, he seemed to be best at hiding the most important bits.

Then he yawned, so she really got confused about him. "Slept badly?"

He chuckled. "You can say that again."

Then she realised it wasn't a topic she wanted to get into, at all. If he was still anything like he was before, but human, he'd likely not sleep a wink. But she didn't have to change the subject, because the Doctor did that for her. "So," he started, clasping his hands together. "Mhm."

Silence. "That's it?"

"I was right," he concluded. "Something you're not allowed to talk about."

"Like what?" Corin asked.

The Doctor gave him a look. "Anyway." They wouldn't get very far if no one could talk about the problem. They'd have to figure it out themselves through their acute observation skills.

"Hey."

Or not. The hooded man from before had crept up behind them and was standing closely to them. He hadn't made a sound. He held his hood down slightly with his hand.

Silently, they followed the man to an abandoned antique shop. Something about it being dangerous to talk in the open. The window had been smashed through, and the odd-placed furniture was lying on the ground. The man sat down on a well-worn chest. "Not from around here, are you?"

The Doctor and Corin looked at each other. "No, not really. Passing through."

"You can tell," the man said. Well, yeah. They had a whole different skin colour than the whole populace. "Why are you here?"

"Like I said, passing through."

The man raised an eyebrow at them. "In this waste of a city? How did you even get here? The borders are closed."

The Doctor merely shrugged.

Corin pinched himself to stay awake. "So, what's happening around here?"

The man at Corin, hard, then looked around. "They get you for speaking up, we've got to be careful."

"Who's they?" Rose asked.

"They call themselves the Government. The State." He threw a hand around. "Whatever. The people in charge of this dump."

Ah, so a pleasant little place, then. The Doctor held himself. He had seen a bad government here and there, that wasn't any surprise. But keeping a whole city underground seemed a bit too much for a mere governmental misuse. "Why are you all underground?"

But the man was more interested in explaining the danger. "They come in, mostly at night. They ransack our homes for appliances, food, and materials. They leave us here to die while they feast. If they hear you've been acting up, or snitching…"

"But there is such a thing as nighttime?" Rose asked, saying what the Doctor was going to.

"We've got clocks all around the city, telling us the time."

Now, why would they do that, the Doctor asked himself. Working clocks for a whole city must take quite a bit of energy, why would they waste it on that?

The Doctor turned around to ask Corin something, but he had preoccupied himself with analysing all the antiques left in the store. He sighed.

"They keep us here underground because no one can hear us," the man suddenly said. "They go up, enjoy the rest of the world. They keep us here, trapped. Waiting for us to die out."

"Why?" Rose asked. "Why would they do that…?"

"Why does anyone do anything?" he answered. He sat down and crossed his legs. "Power, money, pleasure, whatever. It doesn't matter. We're all left here to die. They amuse themselves by providing just enough food for us to live, but never to be satisfied. We struggle with disease, hunger, and often thirst, but they don't care."

Rose looked at the Doctor, and somehow, he fully understood what she was asking for. How much could they do, really? A government was a huge entity that you couldn't easily change, but it was something they had done before. Well, kind of them.

She wasn't sure if he'd let it. He nodded at her. He wasn't exactly sure how yet, but they could absolutely do something.

"Do you know where they are?" he asked, turning back to the man.

"What?" He chuckled. "You can't possibly think of going there. You'd need an army." He cocked his head to the side. "I've heard rumours of a group. You could join forces with them. They might be hard to find, though."

"We'll do it on our own," the Doctor said confidently. "We don't need an army." He almost wanted to laugh at himself, since he had little to no idea how powerful this bunch would be. Eh, he had fought worse with less.

The man laughed, then calmed down when he realised they were serious. "Oh, well, they do have a main base of operations, but you can't just waltz in there."

A tad later, they left the small shop and the man behind. When Rose put a confident step in the wrong direction, the Doctor froze. "Shoot," he said, turning back. "We forgot Corin."

They went back in the small shop, only slightly surprised at the man's disappearance, and looked for Corin. They found a misplaced bookshelf and a giant, conveniently man-sized hole in the wall. They both sighed.

"Corin?" Rose yelled down the hallway. It echoed slightly, but no response. "That man is going to be the end of me." She sighed before going in.

"Wait," the Doctor stopped her. "You're going in?"

"Well, we can't just leave him behind, can we?"

The Doctor shrugged, then followed her. It was dark, but he used his sonic as a terrible flashlight. Rose kept calling for Corin every so often, but didn't get a response.

Until she did. "Yeah?" Corin's voice called back. "What?"

She muttered something under her breath. Then she called out again, "Where are you?"

Silence. Then approaching footsteps. It was too dark to see well, but she saw something lighter further away. There he was, then. He huffed. "It's a whole system down here," he said. "Like a secret tunnel to every corner of the city. I guess. I don't know. I wouldn't know. Why would I know that? Oh, hey, the Doctor's here too."

The Doctor gave a small wave.

"Well, thing is, I found this door," Corin continued. He walked up to the Doctor and snatched the sonic from his hands. "And I'm gonna need a bit of help to get it open."

"Whoah, you can't just—" but Corin was already gone. The Doctor and Rose looked at each other. Not that Rose could see him anymore. The Doctor took her hand and led her along the darkness. She kept her other hand on the wall. It turned moist at some point, which was disgusting, but she didn't want to stupidly hurt herself in this darkness.

Then they found a lit room. Corin was kicking a door, obviously using his high intelligence. The door looked packed, locked and fortified with tons of metal that seemed melded shut. There were scratches and other forms of damage all over it. A small yet weirdly bright gas lamp was on one of the shelves. It was all shaking a little with every kick that Corin gave.

"Corin, what in the world are you doing?" the Doctor asked. He took back the sonic that was on the shelf and went to sonic the door.

"I'm trying to bake a cake," he said. He stopped and took a breather. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Carnage," Rose said. "Should we even open this door? Y'know, it's not because you can that you should?"

Corin looked over at the door. "You telling me you don't want to know what's behind here?"

"Not what I said."

The Doctor moved closer to the door, forcing Corin to take a step aside. The sonic gave such a complicated reading for such a seemingly simple door. A whole mechanism was likely behind it, or even, in it . Brute force wouldn't do it, there was a way with it.

Corin didn't care, however. He kept kicking at it. The Doctor frowned at his lucrative method. Where did his brains go? "Corin, stop. You're going to hurt yourself."

He gave one last kick and shrugged. That was that then. Then the door made an odd whirring noise, and a bit of steam came from the side.

The Doctor got ready for someone behind the door, but there was nothing. No one, except…wind?

A harsh wind, wailing, weeping behind it. The door remained clam shut because of the mere pressure of the winds. Both the Doctor and Corin went to it, trying to get it open. Eventually, they managed. Rose put a loose brick between the door and the wall so it remained open a slither.

It was all black. The sky, the equivalent of grass, the trees, even the goop running across the hill in the distance. All of it; different shades of black. Like it was nighttime, but even the typical blue-ness wasn't saturated in colour either.

"Uh," Corin said, eloquently. "I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that that's not normal."

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that they are not feasting up here," the Doctor replied. "It's dead. Nothing can live here—not for long."

"Oxygen?" Rose asked.

"Some," the Doctor answered. "But generally immensely toxic."

She crossed her arms. "So, how long are we going to leave this door open?"

The Doctor took one last look at the outside, then gave the brick a kick, letting the door clasp shut. He pushed it further, soniced it in hope of closing it properly. "Something's odd with this whole thing," he said.

"Either he's lying or he's been lied to," Corin reasoned.

The Doctor threw his sonic in the air and caught it. "Why would they want people to think they had it better than they do?"

"Maybe it's not something they want," Rose answered. They both looked at her. She shrugged. "Y'know how it goes. People tell stories, or time twists them."

Corin stared at her for a bit longer than was warranted and muttered something under his breath. He cleared his throat. "So what are they doing?"

They arrived at what looked like a giant building. You couldn't see most of it, as it was built into the wall, but based on how high and wide it was, it was very large. The previously grey concrete was browning at the sides. Frankly, it looked like you could break the walls by punching them. The doors were barricaded badly with planks and very little nails; the place was almost begging for red 'stay out' signs. "The best way to get in there," the Doctor started, turning his sonic off.

"Is to get arrested," Corin finished.

The Doctor stared at him.

"You can disagree," he said, crossing his arms, "But I'm not wrong."

"Okay," the Doctor said, more so to himself. "Where was I? Right. We have no idea how tight security is in that place. We can take a venting system instead of going through the front door." He took out his sonic. "In theory."

"Again with the vents?" Rose asked. "It's always something like that with you."

The Doctor briefly looked at Corin before going to the side of it, pushing a box to one of the barricaded windows. Corin and Rose followed him, and stared at him silently as he put his sonic to it. It buzzed between the silence.

Corin had enough of it after a while. "So, uh," he started. "Nice weather we're having."

"Y'know," Rose responded after a bit, "that's one of the stupidest things you've ever said."

Corin raised an eyebrow. "Really? That ? I can guarantee I've said worse."

"I feel like you should have a book, somewhere, with quotes of all the stupid things you say. You honestly got quite a habit of doing so." Rose briefly looked back at the Doctor, but at Corin's silence, she started a gazing contest. "No", she said after a while. "Really? Where?"

Embarrassment creeping on his face, he looked away. Rose took a step closer. "Corin, please." He crumbled in on himself. She poked him. "Please tell me where it is. Or why . You can't just say something like that and not elaborate."

"Rose," The Doctor butted in, annoyed. "I'm trying to resonate concrete." Although implying for them to shut up, Rose and Corin looked at each other before bursting out laughing. The Doctor nearly stopped with his sonicking in surprise but managed to blink them off as they shared a laugh behind his back. He wasn't sure what he did, and he was fairly certain they were probably mocking him—Corin was pointing at him like an idiot—but he let them be.

Nice to see them laugh once in a while.

The thing fell off and crashed to the ground, making a colossal amount of noise. One person in proximity stared at them, but quickly left them alone.

…Wasn't this a major government building? There should be guards, or, well, anything. He looked around. Sure, this was one of those times he had no plan at all and was just going in, but nothing seemed to be according to plan.

Eh, whatever.

Uncomfortable crawling through too tight vents later, the Doctor kicked down another venting system and went down first into a room. As Rose and Corin followed him down, he inspected it.

Dusty, rusty, and way too cosy. There was a sofa with pillows nearly in the middle of the room, like a break room… or a living room. The walls were some claustrophobic eggshell white with a little too many cracks than inspection would deem safe. There were half-dead plants and broken pots and—

Footsteps.

"Y'know, this place—" Rose started, but she couldn't finish as the Doctor grabbed both of them by the arm and pulled them further to hide behind a wall and a shelf. Before either could ask, or protest, he put a finger to his mouth signalling them to shut up.

Two people, men, probably, walked into the room.

"This is never going to work!" one of them shouted, throwing something down. "We don't have enough. We just can't. It won't work. We'll never have enough time."

The other gave a loaded sigh, and fell into the sofa. "We can't give up," he said, solemnly. "Provisions are good for about a month."

"We're already feeding them scraps."

"It's all we have!" the other retorted.

"I know. Okay? I know. We failed, and…" A loud silence. "We probably will never be able to attempt it again." He sounded like he was holding back a cough. Or tears. "It's hopeless."

"It's not hopeless," the Doctor butted in, standing at their side.

Wait, when did he— Rose went to follow after him, but Corin held her back.

Now that the Doctor could see them properly, the Doctor could distinguish between the two. One had long braided hair, and the other had… well, nothing. The one with the braids questioned him: "Who are… How did you get— Who are you?"

"Alien," he answered. They expected him to follow up with something, but he didn't, giving an almost comically serious shake of his head.

"Uhm," the other one cleared his throat. "Right. What?"

"I can help," he answered. "What's the problem?" The Doctor looked between the two of them.

"How can you help if you don't know what the problem is? Actually, don't answer that. I don't need to know." The braided one gave an exasperated look at the other one, nodded, and left the room.

"Alright, well. My name's Peri," Peri said. He pointed to the door the other one had just left to. "He's Jool."

The Doctor blinked at him.

"Right. Well, since you're, uh, alien ," he started, saying it as if it were taboo, "How much do you know?"

"You're in a bit of a pickle, and so is everybody else. The surface of your planet is inhabitable, and probably has been for a bit, now. I'm surprised you're even alive, considering I haven't seen a single sustaining food source." He turned backwards. "You can come out. You know that, right?"

"Yeah," Corin gave.

"Just checking."

Peri blinked. "There's more of you?"

"You could say that," he answered. "Doesn't matter. So what won't work? What's your plan?"

He gave a deep sigh as his whole posture changed. He looked defeated, which, by going what they knew, was absolutely the case. "We're trying to get a ship out. A signal, far enough, for someone to hear." He looked back up at the Doctor. "You're right. We won't survive very long anymore. We're all starving, we have very little resources, and the one trip we made failed."

Corin came out, and Rose followed him. Peri was quite surprised at them, but they didn't give it any mind. It wasn't that unusual to be unusual. As he stared at them, something seemed to click. "Wait, are you—"

"No", the Doctor cut him off. "I'm afraid we're not."

"Doesn't mean we can't help," Rose added. She pointed at the Doctor and Corin. "These two? Giant nerds. Might be able to fix something up for you with very little."

"Wonderful," Peri said, his face turning slightly purple and smiling for the first time since. "We might actually have a chance. Follow me," he said, ignoring the looks that the trio were giving each other.

"What?" Rose asked innocently. "You're really going to say that that's not true?"

The place was indeed quite the mess. Frankly, it looked like if the wind went through several pieces would go off and explode the whole building, but there was no need to make that comment. They had very little, but it would have to be enough. Worst-case scenario, they could bring something up from the TARDIS, but based on the sheer variance of stuff here, that wouldn't be necessary. A lot of loose wires in a surprisingly dark room, with gadgets from popcorn-makers to automatic toenail clippers. Yum.

As the Doctor was sonicking one thing, Corin was… Well, he had no idea what Corin was doing. Just looking around the place, handling something here and there, but it didn't look like he was actually doing something—other than looking busy.

Corin's frequent apathy was anger-inducing, to say the least. He wasn't sure if it was laziness, lack of empathy, or actually not having the tools to do so. Cowardice, maybe. It was so weird. If there was one thing that he did do, however, it was chatting up Rose. She'd gotten from mildly annoyed to vaguely disinterested, so that was good.

"We can make a trip to the surface pretty easily," Peri said. "We've got the suits. Basic, but they should hold up for at least an hour."

"You'll need about five minutes," the Doctor said. "Should last a lifetime, however long that is." He tossed it around in his hands before staring at it. "Should be it."

"Already?"

"Mhm."

Peri blanched for a moment, but then sprung into action. Uncomfortably hugging the Doctor and saying a few too many thank you's, he grabbed the thing and ran out.

"So, we're leaving?" Corin asked. "We're done?"

What 'we'? The Doctor wanted to ask. There is no we. Corin didn't do anything. He hummed shortly. "Except if you want to go put it there yourself."

"We can at least wait to see if they manage to make it work," Rose said. "Just in case they don't."

The Doctor looked around the room. "They should be capable. This stuff is rather advanced, even if it is out of commission."

"Please?" she asked.

"We can stay," Corin decided. "Just five minutes, you said?"

The Doctor put his head in his hands. He wanted to comment, but refrained when he looked at Rose. No need for a giant scene. He walked out of the room and sat down nearby, looking at Rose and Corin walking out after him.

"You changed sides quickly," Rose accused, her arms crossed.

"Your argument was very compelling," Corin answered plainly.

The Doctor snickered. "What, the 'please'?" he teased.

"No—" Corin's shoulders shot up and his eye twitched. "That—That we don't… That we don't know. If they'll manage. Survive. Plant it. Whatever."

"Just a joke, Corin," the Doctor said, calmly.

He sat down loudly, letting his weight do the work for him. He crossed his arms and pouted. "At least I didn't almost destroy the whole universe because she merely asked," he murmured.

"—What?"

" You did that," Rose reminded him. " You are the one who did that. He has the face, but you are the one who did that. He hasn't done anything like that."

He stared at her. "You sound defensive."

"What was that bit about destroying the universe?" the Doctor asked.

Rose rolled her eyes at Corin. Nobody said anything anymore. The Doctor wanted to ask once again what that whole ordeal was about, but apparently, that was normal with these people. As long as they didn't do it again.

A few too many minutes later, Peri came back. He looked overjoyed. "They managed," he said. "No problems. Little bit of delay, but that's it."

Corin got up. "Great."

"So," Peri took a breath, "Now all we do is pray someone hears us, and has mercy."

"That's a way of saying it."

"There's really nothing else we can do?" Rose asked.

"No," the Doctor started. "I'm not even sure if we should've done this, but I think it'll be fine. Small planet stays a small planet, it'll be popu—"

Several gunshots cut him off. Everyone looked at each other for a moment. "Uh," Peri said. "That's not—"

"Should we get out?" Rose asked.

The Doctor stared at the door where the gunshots came from. Corin, however, moved into action instead and grabbed Rose's hand and tugged at it to lead her away from it. She let herself be dragged, partially, but she tugged back to ask the Doctor what to do.

Another few gunshots rang through the building.

Peri broke from his trance-like state. "We have nothing to defend ourselves with. We have pots, at most. We can't… I don't…"

"Running towards it won't help. We have no idea who they are, we don't know if they'll listen if we try to talk to them." The Doctor finally turned around. "And I don't feel particularly like dying over this, so, I guess, let's go."

So they ran.

Then they ran into another group. Although they had made no obvious sound, they too carried guns. They shot Peri on sight. Rose gave a yelp and held on to the nearest person to her, while the Doctor and Corin merely stared at them, both with different degrees of anger. The group of 5, obviously natives, stared back at them. They wore normal, beige civilian clothes like most people they had passed by had.

"What in the world are you?" one of them asked. He had long, dark braided hair.

"Maybe some odd science experiment," another answered.

Another raised their gun at them, but the one with slightly more purple skin put his hand on the gun and lowered it. "Maybe they'll be useful. Let's report this to Heri-koo, first."

"He's not the boss."

"He literally is."

He rolled his eyes and addressed the trio. "Turn around and walk."

With different levels of reluctance (Rose had to drag Corin with) they did so. They walked back the way they had come from, and ended up back in the same room as before. This time, however, there were more people. All in beige, except one, who was in a grey uniform. He raised an eyebrow at the human-looking ones. In total, there were a good dozen people, making them vastly outnumbered. Both the Doctor and Corin were working on a plan in their head, but none of which could be executed immediately.

"We found this lot," the one with the long braided hair said. "Don't know what they are."

"Shoot them," the one in the grey uniform, probably Heri-koo, ordered.

"Whoah, whoah!" another came in as others raised their guns. "We can't just shoot them," he protested. A bead of sweat ran down his forehead. "We don't know if they're part of it."

Heri-koo looked them up and down with a scrutinising eye. "Mhm. Tie 'em up," he ordered.

Corin tried to protest, but with a gun at his chin, he kept quiet. They shoved him down roughly and tied his hands behind his back. They did the same to the Doctor and Rose, albeit a bit more gently. Darn favouritism. All because he was resisting.

"Hold on," Heri-koo said. His little minions turned to him, expectantly. "Take the girl. Get whatever info you can on this odd lot," he ordered them, and they followed obediently like the rascals they were. "Easiest to break."

"Don't." Corin objected. He could already see it all play out; she'd tell the truth and they'd never believe her. "I'm warning you." They, of course, didn't care much for what he had to say, and went to help her up from the floor. "Don't touch her!" he growled.

Heri-koo raised an eyebrow at him. "Calm down, dog." He chuckled. "Shame. You'll be too far to hear her scream." Something glimmered in his eyes. "Maybe we should move you, too."

Corin stabilised his feet and slammed his head into Heri-koo's. He let out a word that the TARDIS refused to translate as he fell backwards on his bum from the force.

The Doctor looked at him and sighed, but Corin didn't notice anything else anymore. He just saw the man in front of him, and all he wanted to do was tear his skin open. Rip him apart with his fists and nails. But the stupid rope was keeping him from that.

But not for long. He made sure to keep his tongue away from his teeth, and bit. A grind in his thumb, and a burning, tingling feeling settled in his hands.

Pop.

He took his hands painfully out of the ropes, feeling a slight burn at the wrists, and pushed through it. He got up and punched him in the face. And again. And again. Even when he fell down, he went with him. His hands warm through a different feeling, he took out the gun from its holster. The gun later clicked, and he had to resolve to more traditional ways.

The Doctor stared at the body in front of him. Lifeless eyes, accompanied by blood nearly everywhere. A ringing in his ears blocked out anything else, including his own yelling. He wasn't sure what he was yelling for. Corin wouldn't stop, and neither would it help those who froze, or those who were already running away.

Corin didn't let them go.

A few more bodies dropped in his peripheral as in sync with unheard music. He didn't know what to do. He felt frozen, paralysed in a way he'd rarely ever been. Even his own voice felt uncontrolled by himself.

Corin stood still as he was the last man standing. He straightened his back again, and once again cleared his eyes of the building-up blood, as he had done many times before. Going for the throat left a lot of blood, which was evident if you took one look at the room.

Carnage.

Corin popped his thumbs back into their sockets. It spasmed, but he didn't pay it any mind.

The Doctor was staring at him. He hadn't moved a bit the whole time, bar from saying a few things Corin never heard. Corin approached him. The Doctor flinched, so he stopped. He blinked at him. Why did he…? It's not like he was the bad guy or anything.

He went behind him and cut off the ropes. Darn things took a few tries, especially trying not to cut either his face off or the Doctor's wrists, but he managed in the end. When the ropes fell, he threw the knife near a corpse somewhere, took one of the guys with a clean headshot's shirt, and moved on. He used the shirt to clean off at least a bit of the blood while he walked through the hallway that he saw Rose go into.

The Doctor hadn't followed him, so he was on his own. Darn bastards got what they had coming, is all.

"Um," he started eloquently. "I don't know what—" He cut himself off and ran a hand through his hand. It reminded Rose of her Doctor. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright," she said. She found it a bit funny that she was comforting the one who was meant to be questioning her. He looked like a young man, and through his formative years, he was anxious. He was fiddling with his hands and had a nervous tick of touching his hair. It was rather sweet to see, but she thought it was awful that they had recruited such a young man—probably younger than her—in such a thing.

His gaze softened at her words. He seemed to appreciate it so much he relaxed, sitting down and sighing deeply. "I'm not sure how this is supposed to go."

Rose looked at her untied wrists. She was fairly certain that that was not meant to happen, but she was grateful for the freedom. Those ropes burned after a while. "What's your name?" she asked. "I'm Rose."

"Gabac," he said. "I'm from Khill."

"Kill?"

"Treacherous city," he answered and laughed nervously. "Don't go visit." He stared for a moment. "Not that you can. Oh, I'm sorry. I don't know why I… I'm sorry."

"Hey, Gabac." She smiled at him. "It's alright. Don't worry."

"Right, erm." He shuffled in his seat. "Where are you from? You're obviously not from here," he said, motioning to his own face with his hand. The drastic difference in skin complexion gave that away.

"It's a bit complicated," she said. She wondered if that kind of information was truly important. I mean, they probably didn't even know where Earth was, right? Plus, even if they did, the time wouldn't match up. Could they find out their weaknesses based on the planet? They probably could. "I don't think you'd know where it is."

"You're probably right," he said. He shrugged lightly, and Rose could see the tremor in his back. He was still shaking. Even as he held his own hands, tightly to the point you could see the whites on his knuckles, they shook. Poor kid.

She wondered what she could say to soothe him. She still didn't want to reveal too much of the truth, lest they find some weakness against the Doctor, but she could make some of it up, right? "I'm from Woman Wept," she finally said. "Small place, you wouldn't know where it is. The Doctor isn't from there, and Corin is half from there."

"How can you half be from a place?" he asked.

She smiled to hide her nervousness. Maybe digging her own grave wasn't a good idea, but she surely wasn't going to give anything away. "His family moved there. But it's not his original—" she cut herself off. Darn right he wasn't the original. "It's not his original home."

"So," he started, twiddling his thumbs. Nice to see that was a universal thing. "You guys are like… friends?"

Rose blanked for a moment. That was a very complicated story by now, wasn't it? "Yes," she said. "Something like that."

He nodded curtly.

Corin opened the door. Rose was sitting next to someone. They both looked at him incredulously. He made sure to reach for the head once again. He took the guy by the collar and raised him from his chair, and pushed him against the wall before punching him several times in the face. His knuckles felt sore but he didn't care. Every heartbeat he could feel pounding through his chest, every vivid shake he could feel when he punched him, more blood and surprisingly rapid bruising appearing in his vision, and…

A daring hand on his arm and someone calling for him. It was distant, but he recognised her voice.

"Rose?" He turned to her horrified face and let the man fall. "What's wrong?" She stared at him with widened eyes. "What?" he repeated. When she didn't respond, he went to her hands to untie the rope, but he saw her hands were already untied.

A groan made him look back down at the man. He seemed to be too out of it to realise what was happening anymore, but once his eyes regained a light, he looked back at him, horror-stricken.

"Corin, he…" she put a hand on his arm again and he turned back to her. "He was kind," she said. He frowned. "You didn't need to—Are you alright? There's so much—"

The Doctor opened the door. He briefly looked at the beat-up, bloodied man against the wall. "We should get out of here."