Here Kitty

Sam was dying. There was no way around it. Galaximus was probably the only being that could match him at full strength, and match him she did. After a climactic and long fight, she found a way to inject ink directly into his blood, and if he was human he would've dropped dead where he stood.

But of course, Sam wasn't human.

He had seen this all before, through his tenth self's eyes. His body laid across the street of the future - well, the present now - Carmen using a regeneration and Peeter's DNA to revive him. But he didn't plan on dying, not today at least.

As Sam fumbled over the controls of the TARDIS, the ink was contaminating his blood, making it too thick to move. He needed to get to a hospital. He could be helped there. It didn't matter if they didn't know how to cure him, he could just skip to the future and get helped there.

Sam tripped out of the TARDIS doors to meet a small town, comprised fully of tiger people wearing no clothes. The ink-contaminated blood couldn't reach his brain, so he said the first thing that came to mind. "Here kitty."

Nobody seemed to notice him, thankfully, and he was about to get back into the TARDIS when he was tackled by something. They rolled and Sam kicked out, knocking his attacked off of him. It wasted no time recovering, and Sam wasted no time running away and soon they were in a chase. He pulled at what ever was near him and threw, hitting it with....a handful of grass.

Suddenly, his attacker stopped running and started coughing, making Sam feel the urge to ask if it was ok. He was too tired from running to make use of this situation, and he didn't want to run again, so he went up to it. "Are you ok?"

It looked at him, still coughing, and Sam saw that it wasn't an it. It was a her. "I'm allergic to grass you idiot!" She snapped, and Sam instantly felt really bad. "I'm really sorry! It's just that you were attacking me, and that I was trying to defend myself and..." "It's fine. I should've made my motives clearer. I wasn't attacking you, I was getting you away from my village. They're extremely human-phobic." She stopped coughing and Sam could get a good look at her. She was a tiger-person and, like her village, she wasn't wearing any clothes, which Sam realised with more enthusiasm than he had intended to.

"So we're not fighting now, right?" Sam didn't want to do any more fighting/running for the next few days. "Right." She held out her hand, "I'm Isobel, and you'll have to get used to that name, because you'll be hearing it a lot." "What do you-" Isobel's legs gave way and she collapsed onto Sam, facing him. "Get off! You said that you weren't attacking!" "I told you that I was allergic to grass! The coughing wasn't all of it you know." "How long until I can get up?" "Two days." Sam made an unrecognisable noise. "That's what you get for throwing grass at me." "I said I was sorry!" "Too late." She smiled and, despite everything, Sam smiled too.

Night fell and they both slept and in the morning Sam woke to Isobel rubbing her head against him and purring. Great. He had hoped it had been a dream. He let Isobel purr for a few more minutes - it was relaxing - before asking her "What are you doing?" She opened her eyes and looked up at him. "With my weight constantly applied to you, it could be dangerous and potentially fatal. Purring lowers blood pressure, and can postpone if not fully prevent this from happening." "You're smarter than you look aren't you?" Isobel started purring again.

They lay in silence for a while. "So...were you born a tiger-person or did you turn into one?" "I'm not a tiger person, I'm a Keidran. We're a species that resemble the animals that you know. There are Fox Keidran, Dog Keidran, Wolf Keidran, Cat Keidran and me, a Tiger Keidran. The humans have attacked us many times, so most of us tend to be afraid of them." "Are you afraid of me?" "What do you think?" Sam groaned in pain, and turned away from Isobel, spitting out an ink-blood mixture. "Are you OK?!" Sam kept on spitting but managed to say "No..." before he fell unconscious.

Sam woke to find Isobel performing CPR on him, and a jolt went through his mind. He became aware of his heartbeat quickening, and in the same moment he realised that Isobel wasn't laying on him. This didn't relieve him as much as he had hope it would. Isobel looked at him. "Are you OK?" I would be better with her. "Yeah." "Are you breathing." No. Perform CPR on me again. "Yes." "Is your heat rate normal?" No. It's fast for you. "Yes."