It all seemed to happen very quickly after Jack had pulled her away from Adrian's battered body. Cassie had protested and fought against him, of course, but it had been a useless effort. her eyes, wide with panic and struggling to hold back tears, refused to look away from her friend. Until the sound of two pairs of footsteps filled the air and she almost instinctively turned her head to look at the newcomers. The man was someone she had never seen before, an ordinary looking bloke with goofy looking clothes and a strange sort of gait. Almost clumsy. But his eyes seemed...predatory. But it was hard to focus on him when she say the person walking beside him.

It was her. Same petite height and build, same green eyes, same blonde tangle. Cassie felt as though her heart had stopped beating entirely and she almost went limp with shock. If Jack still hadn't been holding her she would have collapsed. Her eyes were round as she stared at the copy, the other her. She was wearing a different outfit, clothes that Cassie vaguely recognized as her own, but other than that it was like looking into a mirror. They were exactly the same. Until her reflection locked eyes with her and her lips spread into a smirk that Cassie could never make in her life. The expression on her face chilled her to the bone and Cassie drew away, holding onto Jack's forearm's for support.

Then the man gave an order and...it was too terrible to watch but Cassie couldn't look away. Jack tried to shield her as much as he could but it happened so fast that his reaction was too slow. Cassie watched as the girl who was her, or looked like her rather, impaled the soldiers. With her arm. It had become a mass of black ooze but it impaled them all the same. The men might not have been able to scream as they died but Cassie did, and she watched in horror as the fresh corpses seemed to dissolve into the same ooze before they were absorbed into the creature who had stolen her face.

The creature was grinning at her again, a wicked expression that Cassie hadn't known her face was capable of. Then she winked, as though promising her that this was going to be her fate as well. Cassie leaned weakly against Jack, who had drawn her back with the few who remained: Dr. Taylor, Akana, and Martha. The little group huddled together, no one daring to make a move while Cassie's copy guarded them, and they all watched as the man approached the huddled mess that was Adrian.

Cassie didn't want to watch, she wanted to do something. She wanted to run to Adrian, or scream, or do anything other than stand paralyzed in a corner. But there she stood, rooted to the spot as the monster they had all been chasing lifted Adrian into the air, holding his throat as the limp dying body dangled there. Cassie couldn't see clearly what the creature was doing to him, but after several agonizingly long moments she heard a familiar voice shouting and saw Adrian, awake and struggling behind the man before he was lifted into air once again. 

The confrontation seemed to take ages, and it felt even longer due to the fact that Cassie had no idea what was happening. Jack was still holding her up and she leaned heavily against him as she watched the figures on the other side of the room. The monster seemed agitated and angry as it demanded whatever it wanted from Adrian, who seemed to either be refusing the demands, or, more likely, had no idea what was happening. It almost felt like hours before something happened. The monster man wrapped his arms around Adrian's form, almost like he was embracing a friend or brother. But then the facade of the Doctor melted away, revealing the same black ooze that her copy had used to murder a roomful of men, and it enveloped Adrian like a cocoon.

"No!" Cassie screamed, finally finding her voice. Jack had finally released her, and she fell to her knees as he moved forward with Martha. She had taken his gun from him, however, and she emptied the weapon into the black mass. It proved to be fruitless, however, as the bullets simply bounced off. Cassie was barely aware of Akana moving forward to draw Jack and Martha back, and she vaguely noticed the sound of her copy cackling using a voice that she recognized as a twisted, unsettling version of her own. All she could look at was the black egglike thing that had surrounded and was killing her friend. A tear rolled down her cheek and dripped off her her chin.

Then the cackling turned to screams, and before her eyes the black sludge seemed to harden and crack, with golden light pouring out from the inside. Cassie found herself paralyzed again, still kneeling on the floor as she watched the ooze that had been the creature begin to disintegrate, and she was aware that the creature wearing her face had suddenly gone silent. She forced her head to turn enough to see the last of her dissolve into a puddle of goo before looking back towards the egg. Just in time to see the last of the cracked pieced to crumble and to be blinded by the intense light. Cassie's eyes snapped shut and her arms covered her face as she turned away from the light. 

She wasn't sure how long it had lasted but she eventually was able to open her eyes again and look around the room once again. The monster was gone, her copy too. Both destroyed. And Adrian, looking as healthy as she had ever seen him, was standing there. Cassie vaulted to her feet, her lips spreading into a smile as her heart soared, but before she could take her first step he waved his arm and shouted from them to stay back.

It wasn't over. Whatever it was.

The smile slipped from her face as she looked at him. She seemed to memorize everything about his appearance in that moment, to his curling hair to his disheveled clothes. Then they locked gazes and Cassie though that he looked so sad. Like he was saying sorry. She saw his mouth move but only barely heard his voice say her name.

Then it was like he exploded. A force caused his head to be thrown back and his arms to be thrown out at his sides, and the golden light seemed to erupt from his skin. Cassie stumbled back in blind shock, her eyes squeezed shut from the brightness of the light, even brighter than earlier. It was hard to tell how long it lasted and she wasn't sure if she had heard Adrian screaming or not. All she knew was that one moment there was blinding golden light and the next there was not, and she opened her eyes slowly. She was so afraid to open them, like she knew that once she did everything was going to have changed. 

A stranger stood where Adrian had been. A man she had never seen before was standing where Adrian was supposed to be, was wearing the clothes that Adrian was supposed to be wearing. She stood quite still as she looked at him, her breathing very fast and her eyes very wide. The man was taller than Adrian was, had darker eyes than Adrian did, and his hair was longer, straighter, and lighter than Adrian's was. His facial features were...probably more classically handsome than Adrian's were. More delicate maybe. Younger, perhaps. Cassie was suddenly aware that she was very, very scared of this new man. What had happened to Adrian, where was he?

[i]"Cassie?"[/i]

The sound of her name being spoken by this man, in a voice so different from Adrian's, startled her. They were suddenly gazing at each other, and Cassie didn't seem to be able to look away from him. after a few moments of staring at the man she almost started to back away. But Jack was there, both hands on her shoulders as he leaned town to speak softly into her ear.

"Go to him Cassie."

"But...but I don't know him," she said, the words sound small and lame to her ears once she said them.

"Yes you do."

"No...I don't. Adrian...what happened to him?"

"He is Adrian." Jack's voice was patient and gentle to her ear but what he was saying was...crazy. It had to be.

"But he can't be."

Jack smiled. First timers. "But he is."

"No he isn't," Cassie was fighting to remain calm, but her voice was breaking and she felt her eyes begin to tear. "It's impossible."

"As impossible as lizard people living beneath the city? Or a planet eating monster? Or a doppelganger? Or a man who can heal his injuries?" Cassie was silent in response to this and was still staring at the stranger with uncertainty. Jack squeezed her shoulders. "Go to him. Give him a chance. He needs you." Then he nudged the young woman forward and she moved towards the man, her first few steps a a little shaky. 

She finally stopped a few paces away from the stranger, looking him up and down as though he was a particularly confusing riddle that she was trying to solve. She was biting her lip and clenching her fists nervously when she finally met his gaze again, and it took a little bit longer for her to speak. "A...Adrian?" Cassie finally said, her voice a hoarse whisper.