Frank felt as if he was trapped in the body of a sloth. Everything, even the most miniscule movement, seemed to take so much energy. Frank even found simply blinking becoming a laborious task. It wasn't a normal feeling at all.

On top of that, things were starting to become fuzzy. His brain wouldn't focus on anything. It was just a dull mess that wouldn't cooperate at all. Faces and names became muddled before a cloud swept over all of them to blind Frank's thoughts.

Even when the red haired man sat in front of him, it took most of his willpower to recognize him. His Doctor would fix him... His Doctor? Was that who he was?..

His memories seemed so dull and faded...

Frank didn't have the strength to think further. He felt weak. He could feel his eyes half closed, but he couldn't do anything about it. He just wasn't right, and there was no way to fight it.

---

"He's getting colder." Andy said, pulling his hand away from Frank's exposed skin. "I don't know how much longer you guys have to gank that son of a..."

Joe rolled his eyes. "Just say bitch, Andy. Promise it won't curse you or anything. I've said it enough to know."

Andy fiddled with his glasses, moving them up and down a bit where they rested on his ears. "I just don't prefer to say it myself..."

The Doctor walked over to look sit beside Frank as the hunters readied themselves. Patrick had said they knew where a nest of the creatures resided, and that they should be able to clear out the alpha without the Doctor being there.

Frank was currently laying on his back, looking up at the stained metal ceiling of the room the hunters had brought them to. He was just so still...

"Frank?" The Doctor called out, pushing hair to the side of the human's face. Andy was right, Frank's skin was nearly frozen to the touch. "Can you hear me?"

There was no response from Frank, but his chest was slowly rising and falling. It was only a few hours after his encounter with the thing, how could he already be so bad?

"It happens so fast..."

The Doctor looked up to see Patrick walked slowly over. Patrick was looking at Frank with sadness, the kind of sadness that came from experience.

"How fast did it take your friend?" The Doctor asked, shifting his position to better look at Patrick.

Patrick bit his lip. "Two and a half days." He finally responded in a hushed voice, "It wears away at your physical life force and memories... Until there's nothing left..." By the end of his words, he was barely speaking in a whisper and his eyes were filling with tears.

The Doctor frowned at the boy. He was so young to experience such an impacting loss... "How old are you, Patrick?" The Doctor asked.

"Nineteen, sir." Patrick replied, wiping the wetness from his eyes. "Andy is twenty one and Joe is twenty."

"How old was your friend?" The Doctor asked.

Patrick looked at him with a mixture of sadness and confusion. "What does that matter?" He asked in a choked voice as the Doctor rose to his feet.

The Doctor gave him a sad smile. "Forgetting can hurt worse than remembering."

More tears began to find their way to the corners of Patrick's eyes as he looked at the Doctor. He seemed reluctant to speak. It was as if something was holding the words back on his tongue before they could be spoken.

"Pete was going to be twenty two." Patrick finally blurted out, "Pete... He was going to be twenty two this year..." He sniffled, looking down before letting out a sad chuckle. "He only wanted a home made pizza for a present..."

Patrick quickly brought up his arm, hiding his eyes behind his sleeve. The Doctor stepped forward and hugged the boy as he sucked in a shakey breath of air. Patrick leaned against the time lord as he tried to calm himself. When the shaking calmed and his breath was even, Patrick pulled away.

"I won't let Frank become someone you'll only be able to remember." Patrick promised, tugging at his long sleeves. "I'll make sure you'll be able to hold him again."

The Doctor nodded. "You'll stay safe, won't you?" He asked, "This seems dangerous."

Before Patrick could answer, Joe came over and threw an arm around the other boy's shoulder. "Don't worry, sir. We've been on hunting trips more times than Stump kid here has had monster movie marathons before all of this shit happened." He shook Patrick's beanie, sending it a skew.

Patrick gave him a slight look of irritation, but there was a smile building under it. "We can do that again, you know. We have electricity, a TV, and we've always kept a few around for sentimental value." He suggested as he straightened his beanie.

"We'll see what happens after the hunt, kid." Joe laughed. He retracted his arm and stood up straight. He looked at the Doctor, "Andy will be staying here with you, sir." He said, his tone becoming more businesses like. "He'll be our eyes and ears in a sense to our surrounding, as well as Frank's condition."

"Yes sir." The Doctor nodded, considering making a salute for the human, but deciding against it.

Joe nodded as well before turning away from the Doctor. "Gear up, Stump." He said to his friend, patting his shoulder as he walked back over to where he had been previously.

"I should get ready." Patrick said, following Joe with his eyes with a look of nervousness. "I don't want to make him, or your friend wait."

The Doctor nodded as the shorter boy hurried off to where Joe had gone. The time lord took that opportunity to sit beside Frank. He looked over the unmoving human with a frown, reaching out to move Frank's dark hair behind his ear.

When he pulled his hand back, he pulled out his sonic to scan him again. As he fiddled with the small device, Andy popped up from where he had been sat in front of some small monitors.

"Joey, they're out there." He said with a look of fear in his friend's direction.

Joe nodded. "Alright. Patrick, let's go." He tapped the shorter boy's shoulder and hurried for the exit. Before he could follow Patrick out, however, Andy grabbed his hand.

"Please be safe." Andy whispered, holding onto Joe's hand with both of his. Joe just grinned in response.

"Aren't I always?" He asked with a wink before pulling his arm close, consequently pulling Andy along with it, and kissing the longer haired boy. When Joe pulled away, Andy gave him a nervous smile before releasing his hand. He watched the blob of hair and the beanie topped boy push the heavy door just enough to slip out before it was closed again.

Andy bit his lip before he spun on his heels, hurrying back over to the small monitors he had been working with. He sat quietly, but scooted close to the screens.

The Doctor found himself unconsciously gripping Frank's cold hand with the hand that wasn't holding the sonic. There was a slight grip coming from Frank's hand, as well, despite the reading of the sonic and the other's warnings. The Doctor looked at their hands before his gaze traveled up to Frank's face. Frank's eyes were still half open, but there was something different about them.

"Frankie?" The Doctor scooted up on the couch, sliding his butt so that he was closer to Frank's face. He dropped his sonic beside the human as he reached up to lift Frank's eyelid. "Frank, listen, can you hear me?"

Frank's hazel was a softer tone than the Doctor had noted before. There was a gray overcasting the color, and a small portion seemed to be overtaken by the faded color.

"Frank, please." The Doctor let his eyelid drop. He instead caressed the human's cheek, looking over the details of his face. "Say something?"

No words came out. The only response the Doctor got was Frank's eyelids falling just a bit lower. The Doctor felt his hearts race. Frank wasn't getting better.

"How can it be draining him from just a scratch!?" The Doctor asked in desperation, looking at Frank with worry.

"Because these things aren't normal, sir." Andy replied, not looking away from his small command center. "They're mutations of sorts. They aren't even technically vampires, we just call them that for their similarities. They don't turn, only drain and kill..."

"How could someone use desperate people to create that?.." The Doctor muttered to himself as he grabbed his sonic from Frank's side to scan the human's wound, "How does he benefit?"

"Free research for whatever his real intentions were?" Andy asked out loud, although it seemed more like a thought that accidentally slipped past his lips.

Upgrades. The Doctor knew where he had heard that recently, as well as, where he had heard it in the past. If it was what he was beginning to think, how did the bald man tie in? Why did he jump from the future to the past?..

"Doc...tor..." Frank mumbled out of nowhere. The Doctor spun, immediately, to look at him.

"What is it, Frankie?" The Doctor asked, hopefully. He had a smile to match his tone as he squeezed his human's hand.

Frank only blinked slowly.

"How cold is he?" Andy asked, peaking over at them before back at the screens.

The Doctor pressed the back of his hand to Frank's forehead, pulling away quickly with a soft 'yelp!'. Frank's skin was a burning cold. Almost unbearable to touch. Yet, somehow, his hand that held weakly onto the Doctor's was the same temperature as earlier.

"Cold..." Andy noted. He was staring intently at one of his screens with a look of mixed worry and anticipation. "They have to be getting close..."

"Cold..." Frank sighed, speaking with a breath of air. His eyebrows seemed to twitch, just slightly, as he continued to stare at the ceiling with what his eyes could see through their near closure.

"Would blankets help at all?" The Doctor asked, frowning down at Frank. He wasn't fully sure that the human could even hear him.

Andy shrugged, "There's some behind the couch."

The Doctor hopped to his feet and hurried around the couch, unwillingly releasing Frank's hand for the moment. There was a small pile of blankets, just as Andy had said, that the Doctor grabbed up in his arms. He didn't even bother to go back around the couch to cover Frank. He flung the blanket out and held it as it fluttered down to cover the freezing human.

"They've got something!" Andy suddenly exclaimed, sitting somehow more alert in his seat. "Chasing it now."

The Doctor nodded, he just wasn't paying the most attention. He was watching Frank. The human's eyes were losing their vibrancy; gray was invading all of his iris.

"Frank!" The Doctor ran around the couch. He didn't even think twice as he crawled on top of Frank, planting his tushie right along Frank's waistline. He leaned down, resting his arms along Frank's collarbones to tap his cheeks. "You can't leave me already, we've just barely started." The Doctor pleaded.

If Frank could hear the Doctor's words, he didn't let on. His eyelids hung low, and his stare was consistent. It didn't seem real...

"There out of range from my eyes!" Andy exclaimed from his position in the room with panic rising in his tone.

The Doctor wasn't listening at the moment, however, he was watching Frank's eyes. The beautiful color and life was being shifted to gray. He didn't want to accept this.

Not so soon.

Not to Frank.

"PATRICK!" Andy yelled as a blood curtling screech echoed through the air, seeming to bounce off the metal walls around them.

Frank's eyes suddenly shot open as his body seemed to fill with air. The Doctor could feel the dramatic rise of Frank's chest. His eyes held only speckles of their original hazel, but they quickly found their way to the Doctor's.

His eyes were still wide, but Frank's brow furrowed in a slight confusion. "You look familiar, mister." He commented, in an aged down and dazed sort of tone, before his eyelids dropped completely and his head rolled to the side.

"Frankie!" The Doctor yelled, tapping Frank's cheek as if his life depended on it. The Doctor didn't have much time to focus on that, before loud banging was heard on the metal wall.

"Andy!"

Andy shot up from his chair to pull open the heavy door. Joe stumbled inside, yelling for Andy to shut it and clenching a red stained beanie in his hand.

Joe was breathing heavily, and appeared to be bleeding on one of his sides. He shook his head as Andy threw his arms protectively around him.

"What happened!?" Andy asked, shaking his head. "It was going so well..."

Joe shook his head. "It was a trap..." He whispered between breaths, cringing at the sounds of unearthly screeches from outside.