It was unclear how much time had passed, but when Leander finally opened his eyes, he was still in the same dim room. The candle on the table was unlit, burnt down to a pile of vax. Judging by the light outside the window, it seemed dawn was not far. As he warily scanned the chamber, recent events started to creep back into his mind. Daunted, he tried to sit upright, but soon found he couldn't, because his arms were strongly tied to the sides of his body with a coarse rope, which in turn was wrapped around a huge wooden pillar.

"Why on earth..." he mumbled, desperately attempting to struggle free from this tethered situation. It was of no use. He had probably been taken prisoner by the green baboons, either to be cooked for breakfast or... To act as bait to lure the Doctor here? If this was the case, it had to be prevented at all costs. The last thing he wanted was to let one of the loveliest people he'd ever met sacrifice himself to save a miserable friendless boy whose existence was disgrace to his family.

First he had to make sure the Doctor hadn't already been captured. "Doctor?" he murmured in a hushed voice. "Are you here? Doctor?" He narrowed his eyes to see what was in the dark corners of the room, but no outline of a body or any living being was to be seen. Trying to get himself to calm down, Leander sank back against the pillar and closed his eyes. So this was the end. If not the end of his life, at least the end of an era in his life. If he somehow managed to escape, he knew he couldn't go back to his old way of living. Meeting the Time Lord had woken up a long-lost rebel inside him and Leander wasn't willing to let it just fade away. Not this time.

After a while he thought he heard something from the back room. His senses didn't betray him - it was the sound of muffled foreign speech and occasional low growls. Leander gulped. Only a wooden wall separated him from his disgusting enemies, who were probably discussing the best ways to cook him. He tried to make out what they were saying, but strangely enough wasn't able to. This struck the young man as odd, because earlier he'd understood their every word.

His string of thought snapped immediately when he felt someone's cold fingers touch his hand and close around it. Leander bit his lip hard in order not to cry out. He was equally terrified and curious to see who or what it was. But when he finally glared down to look, he only saw long slender fingers that squeezed his ever tighter. 

"Leander... Are you okay?" the Doctor's voice weakly whispered from the other side of the pillar. Leander's heart leaped in simultaneous joy and horror. He tilted his head as far back as he could, but still couldn't see his friend nor the state he was in. Eventually he felt hot from struggling and gave up. All the could do was to squeeze the Doctor's hand in response.

"If only I had the sonic... But they've taken it - ow!" Panic overcame Leander once again, because the Doctor sounded like he was in serious pain. The boy would've given anything to ease that pain.

"Doctor, hang on, please! We'll figure something out, I promise, just please don't fall asleep, all right?"

There was no answer. Tears welled up in Leander's eyes as he furiously made another useless attempt to break free. The creatures in the next room snarled louder and someone got up. Footsteps neared the front room and Leander squeezed his eyes shut, hoping this all was just a bad dream.