Not Until We Are Lost

It was just so bright.

The Doctor stepped backward, as though to get away from the brightness of the square. It was day time and there were torches at the foot of the platform he stood on, which he quickly realized was a stage. Based on the dress of the people standing there, watching him, waiting for him to do something, the Doctor placed the time period in at least a rough era, and wished he could be more exact with at least a decade, but he could not. Not right this second. Not without using the TARDIS or the Sonic. Not without talking to these people.

"Come on, get on with it!" one of the onlookers shouted. It was a woman with a disapproving face. It seemed, based solely on her expression, that she thought the Doctor stupid.

As he turned to look behind him, the Doctor could not blame her.

A large banner hung behind him, serving as a backdrop for the stage, and it read THE MAGICKAL ACTS OF JOHN SMYTH THE ADEQUATE, with a set of times listed after.

Adequate? That wasn't a ringing endorsement, was it?

Still, the Doctor smiled broadly and decided to enjoy this. "Right then! Pressing on!"

He rubbed his hands together with something like glee. He reached into his coat pocket, noticing that it was an ornate coat, not his leather jacket, and well patched on the inside, as though he'd had it quite some time, and removed the Sonic Screwdriver.

"For my next trick," he said, smirking, "with this wand, I will make that banner back there accurate!"

The Doctor had been nothing short of frustrated the entire time he was on that island. He was glad Rose was alright, but she was far away, and after everything... he had to protect her.

And the others.

That was his job, wasn't it? Why he'd survived the Time War? Why he'd made such great, great sacrifices?

He woke up this time in a fairly posh room, one that looked a lot like...

The Doctor sat up. The TARDIS was in the corner, he was not inside it, yet the room looked like his room inside the TARDIS. On the bedside table, there was his psychic paper and Sonic Screwdriver, and he could see his leather jacked hanging on a hanger off a dresser knob.

Well, at least there was that.

He dressed and grabbed all of his gadgets, patted the TARDIS happily, resolving to thoroughly inspect her shortly, and left the room.

He knew he was on a space ship. Oh, he knew.

Rose was priority one right now. And he head off to find her.

The sun was setting by the time Rose made it back to shore. Carnivorous, territorial fish! Rose had heard of them, but she'd never thought that they'd be in the span of ocean between this island and its twin. Fortunately, they hadn't cared enough to follow her when she got closer to the island where she'd woken. Now the day was nearly done. The sun was slipping toward the horizon, and her skin stung from the saltwater and the wounds. And she still was no closer to finding the Doctor.

There were supplies deeper in the heart of the island; she'd seen them when she went exploring earlier in the day. She was going to get up soon and go back to the cave where she'd seen the first aid kit -- soon. But first, she was going to catch her breath. She was tired, she was frustrated, she was bleeding, and she was absolutely furious. At last, she pulled herself up from where she'd sprawled, wet and hurting, on the beach, and sat up enough to look at the bitemarks on her arms, her ankles and her belly. None of them were going to cause her any problems.

Carnivorous, territorial fish! Daleks, Cybermen, Slitheen, Davros -- those, she could understand. But fish?! Worse, Rose had crossed the barriers between alternate universes before, and she had utterly failed to manage what looked like less than a mile's swim. She didn't used to get so angry, so quickly. It was easier, these days.

Rose hadn't wanted to go to sleep the first night in the TARDIS. Part of her felt like sleeping was wasting time, and she'd already lost too much of it with him. But the other part was truly afraid she'd wake up in flat 48 of the Powell Estate, John Smith across the hall, Torchwood waiting across the city, and no hope of seeing her Doctor ever again.

She felt it strange to see her old Doctor again, strange to know that she'd seen what he looked like after this face, and after the face after that one. But she'd begun to love him when his eyes were that icy shade of blue, and the truth was that she didn't mind at all. In fact, it was a relief to look at him and not feel that tug of anger-almost-hatred that she'd felt every time she looked at John Smith. It was better, she'd decided, somewhere between 2 and 3 a.m., not to have to be reminded of what he'd done to her... to them both, but also to her.... every time she looked at him now.

It was inevitable that she finally fall asleep. Rose didn't remember being moved to her own bed in the TARDIS, but that's where she woke up the following afternoon. Of course, the TARDIS was sans-Doctor by the time she finally got up, showered, dressed, and ate. And then, with a huge grin at the inside of the door of the TARDIS, she went exploring.

Far stranger was this graytone world. She wasn't immune, and neither was her Doctor or the inhabitants of the world. No one acted as if anything were amiss, and Rose quickly acclimated. Up one street she went, staring through boutique windows and ducking into shops here and there. She quickly found that the money in her pockets didn't work here, and the faces on the bills weren't of the queen but of old movie stars. Even the city itself was named after a movie star. Rose wondered if this wasn't a deliberate part of their kidnapper's experiment.

She finally settled on a street bench and picked up an abandoned newspaper. Unfolding the front page and smoothing it out across her lap, she started reading. It was grim. Her mouth turned down as she skimmed the dark news.

A day or two after Annabelle Curry left the TARDIS, the Doctor relocated his ship. It wasn't that the spot he had it was a bad hiding place. It was more that he didn't relish the idea of continually having to explain to those in his group that he was down this alley, past that broken window, and mind you don't get your pocket picked coming in. There were easier places to place the TARDIS.

Now she sat inside the natural history museum where Cavan and Annabelle first found him. Happily, there was a section here about the Allied Forces. Though the TARDIS was still slightly anachronistic, it wasn't by much since the police boxes she was fashioned after had existed since 1877, so he parked her in the England portion of the exhibit. He even made her a plaque in the style of those the museum had. It read as follows:

POLICE CALL BOX OF THE KIND TYPICALLY FOUND IN LONDON. THE CITY CURRENTLY HAS 613. THIS MODEL IS BASED ON THE 1929 MACKENZIE TRENCH DESIGN. A PHONE INSIDE RINGS LOCAL POLICE, AND A FIRE EXTINGUISHER CAN USUALLY BE FOUND INSIDE AS WELL.

With that done, the Doctor started to do some research. He was still looking into things for Annabelle. The girl was going to have a very rough time of it, even with the help of this Simon fellow. She was bright, yes, but the Doctor wanted to speed along her learning. He'd re-visited the holograms in his library and right now was looking at some Shakespearean references to witches. There was something here, he was sure of it, but he couldn't quite pinpoint it.

Outside the TARDIS, the museum was beginning to close for the evening. No matter; the Doctor had rigged a window near his beloved Queen Elizabeth that enabled him to come and go as he pleased. Tonight he might pop in on Phaedra, see how she was doing.

He set down the book he'd been reading and left the library, making his way back to the control room.