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'I know. I understand.'

Sam glared at him. 'No, you don't know. This was like something I've never felt before.' She shivered suddenly. 'I can still feel it, somewhere. It's like...

Oh, I don't know. Deep-rooted. Primitive. Instinctual: She looked at him.

The Doctor affected to scrutinise a button on his frock coat. 'It was a frightening situation, no doubt about it.'

Sam sighed. 'It was more than that, OK? Anyway, I woke up this morning...'

She couldn't face explaining all that. 'Came back here. But I felt that feeling of terror, Doctor, of real terror, again. On the way here.'

The Doctor looked up sharply. 'When? Exactly when?'

'Would've been about twenty past six, I suppose.' She looked at him.

'Why?'

'Interesting. Around the same time our friend Mr Austen took a particularly energetic morning constitutional.' He pursed his lips. 'I wonder...'

Sam walked over to join him. 'Doctor... I know what you'll say, but can't we just... well, go?'

'Go? No.'

'Why?'

He smiled, faintly. "The usual reasons.'

Sam turned away from him, and he called after her.

'The way to overcome fear is to face it, to understand it. We both know that.'

'You always presume you know what I know,' Sam snapped, massaging her bruised head. 'Just 'cause I'm young, blonde and human , you -'

'You're scared Sam, I know that. Scared of yourself, maybe. Scared that those microorganisms from Bel, even now you know they've gone, might have altered your mind somehow... left you more vulnerable to madness.'

She screwed up her eyes to try to stop tears from escaping.

'That's why you're so uncomfortable here, around people like Mr Austen.

Isn't it?'

Sam didn't speak until she was sure her voice wouldn't tremble. The Doctor said nothing either.

'Yeah, well... People like him have always scared me.' She took a shaky breath. 'Lunatics. Spastics, or whatever they're called now. Mentally handicapped. When I was in Brownies we used to go round mental homes at Christmas and sing carols in the wards. Not that they seemed to notice. I used to shake so much I could hardly hold the carol sheet. It was like there was nothing there at all inside them... Nothing would be preferable to being like that. It wasn't fair.' She listened to the hum of the TARDIS, tried to concentrate on it, feeling it reverberate through her, hoping it would soothe her. 'It's like... when my gran went senile. She... I loved her so much but I was so scared of being around her, calling me by the wrong name, not knowing any of us, who she was, where she was.' She rounded on the Doctor. 'How can I face a fear like that? How can you understand something that... well, that nobody can ever understand because that's the whole point. Because it's insane'. She exhaled deeply and reluctantly walked over to him, accepting the inevitable hug, feeling the softness of his silk cravat against her hot face. 'Irrational. Meaningless.'

'Oh, you've got your good points too,' whispered the Doctor.

'Cheeky git.'

He was stroking her hair. It made her realise it needed washing. Imperfect, human... So comforting after those nightmares of perfection.

'Why am I still so scared, Doctor?'

'I don't know,' he said. 'At least, I think I don't know.'

'What are you on about?'

'Well... All the people in Roley's so-called care have been recounting similar experiences about that cave -'

'The one you've seen before?' Sam interrupted.

'Yes, if I could only remember where and when... And yesterday, before you left, Lucy told us that Captain Watson wasn't feeling well - as Austen wasn't - and that maybe there was something going around... Last night you endured some kind of psychic attack that seems to have had an effect on tissue generation in Mr Austen's body' (Sam didn't stop him to make him explain that last bit – she was just happy he believed her now without question) 'and this morning you experience a primal fear at the same time Mr Austen acts out a terrified shadow-play of his own.'

'So?'

'I'd be surprised if the events weren't linked, wouldn't