Dr. William Denver contemplated the lake in front of him. A lone boat with The Lochness inscribed in blue lettering on the side zoomed along the horizon pulling a jet ski. His wife, Lily, lifted their two year old onto a large rock and leaned backwards, placing her hands on her bulging stomach. The baby wasn't due for another three weeks, but Dr. Denver expected a surprise trip to the hospital before then, judging by the size of the bump. He returned to his work teaching chemistry and calculus at Cleveland Community College in five days after several months of summer vacation, and silently hoped the infant would be willing to sit out the first day of classes.
William remembered a similar time two years ago. Two days before the end of summer vacation when he had stood frantically by as his friend drove his boat into the nearest marina following Lily's sudden announcement that labor had started. Alex had almost been born on the water, making his first appearance only forty minutes after the boat pulled into the harbor with the ambulance waiting for it.
The beginning was prophetic; several years later the toddler was truly at home in the water. Will looked at his son. Alex's arms looked stick thin hanging out of his thick red lifejacket. The boy was entertaining himself banging a small rock he had found against the bigger rock his mother had placed him on and splashing at her with his feet. Lily smiled indulgently and gently splashed lake water on his legs and feet.
William whistled towards Alex as he picked up a small flat rock. He skipped it across the water and the boy clapped his chubby hands in delight.
"Again! Throw Again!" The word throw came out with the "th" sound lisped, a habit Alex only fell in to now when he was excited. William indulged briefly in memories of his son's early attempts at speech as he went to pick up another rock. Moving aside a medium sized bumpy rock near the shoreline, he found a pile of water-flattened ones below. William reached into a crevice to grab a promising option and pulled it out. The perimeter of the rock was grey and unextraordinary. However nearer to the center it turned a deep shade of blue. Exactly evenly in the center was a glittering strip of gold with three golden prongs on the end. Curious, the professor pocketed the key and continued searching for a rock to throw to his son.
"Allon-z," the Doctor shouted, pulling down on the lever that would take the Tardis into space. He and Martha were headed to the Lineus galaxy. They had the finest tapestry weavers in all the universe there, and the recent encounter with a gnarly toothed beaver-bat had left an unfortunate red bloodstain on the floor of the Tardis that neither the Doctor or Martha could seem to get out.
The Doctor rubbed his arm slightly where Martha had insisted on injected the last of a series of rabies shots engineered by the Tardis's artificial intelligence systems to be effective against beaver-bats. The trainee doctor had been utterly unmoved by his insistence that the bat couldn't be rabid, rabid gnarly toothed beaver bats didn't survive long enough to attack anybody in the Pentilium sector. Or at least they hadn't before that small time rip caused by the Tardis's crash landing on the planet. Still, the Doctor was sure he would have been fine.
Lost in his thoughts, the time lord didn't hear the high frequency rattling coming from the command console. He also didn't hear Martha calling his name three times, each time increasingly loudly. He didn't realize anything was amiss at all until he saw his companion dive onto the control console and shoot her arm out, closing her first around a pile of air as a flash of gold slide between the console and the engine itself. They key had rattled out of its holding and disappeared. He knew he should have fixed the key slot.
The Doctor stood. Martha stood. The Doctor looked at Martha and Martha looked back. "What now," asked the medical student, a note of accusation in her voice at the time lords irresponsibility. The Doctor took one more second to look at the slot between the console and the engine. That engine was hurtling them halfway across the universe and through several millennia of time. Back in time too, the poor old thing always had trouble going back in time these days. The Doctor had meant to fix that too. Too late now, he thought as he turned back to Martha,
"We need to get the key"
"How," she responded, looking around the room for anything that might help.
"Easy." the Doctor said, the note of excitement in his voice hiding the fact that he had no idea and belaying the confidence that he'd figure it out by the end of the sentence, "We just need to grab it with something. A magnet or some wire." Martha was moving over to the tools draw by the time he finished speaking. She walked back towards the console with a large magnet and began to reach towards the engine with it.
"Wait," the Doctor interrupted, "Actually, not a magnet. Not a good idea at all. The engine is very sensitive to magnetic fields, bringing one close to it could send us anywhere at any time. It might have already shot us off course. No telling now. Better try the wire instead."
They tried the wire. They tried bending it and twisting it and fashioning a fish hook out of the end. They may have quit in discouragement if their efforts weren't interrupted by a sudden jolt that threw both human and time lord against the wall.
They stood up to find the control room tilted at a 30 degree angle. "Lineus IV?" She asked, recalling the previous destination. The Doctor stuff his head outside, "No," he declared certainly, "the magnet must of thrown off the navigation. Weather is nice though"
"So where are we," Martha inquired.
"Earth. What are the odds. If you had to been stranded somewhere, there's really no place like home is there?"
"Are we near London?" Martha asked. Without the key she assumed they were at least temporarily stranded. It would be nice to be somewhere familiar while they sorted out the situation.
"Yes. About 5 blocks from Buckingham Palace," the alien replied, still looking around outside the Tardis.
"Alright," Martha said, thinking quickly. "We can catch the tube to my parents place. I don't suppose a regular locksmith could fashion us a new key."
"Oh, Martha," the Doctor said, "I don't think the tube is running quite yet. For that matter, I don't think you will be finding many locksmiths either. We threw off the positional navigation of the Tardis, but it kept the time we wanted just fine. 65 million years from the present. Your present at least. It's the late Cretaceous, the days dinosaurs walked the earth." The Doctor closed the door and moved inside upon revealing this. "We seem to have landed right next to a nest. T-rex if had to guess, but earth history has never been my strong suit. I'll take you to see the three eyed flying dinosaurs of the rainforests of Canula, as soon as we can find that key."
Martha quietly calmed down and tried to focus on the one thing that could get them off the T-rex nest that the time lord found so unconcerning. "I suppose we should continue fishing for it?" she suggested, reaching for the wire.
The Doctor took out his screwdriver and shined it down the crack where the key had disappeared before shaking his head, "It's gone. Must have fallen out while we were travelling. I knew I should have fixed the floor beneath the console. No telling where it ended up. Around now if we're lucky. We've got a long wait ahead of us if it fell out in your time. Best get looking. These eggs look almost mature"
Martha contemplated the situation. Carefully she decided to walk over to the door and peak outside. They were in a large flat plane. But the ground was squishy underneath her feet and dark clouds floated ominously overhead. It would rain soon. They had better get started looking.