Author's Note: I'm trying something new that isn't post doomsday. It takes place before Fear Her, and is written like a Doctor Who BBC book such as "The Stealers of Dreams" and "The Stone Rose". I've always wanted to try my hand at this, and you know what? It'll probably be the same length. I won't be surprised if by the time I've finished all chapters on the word documents, it's 200 pages long. So wish me luck :)

With thanks to my many supportive and friendly reviewers who made my previous Doctor Who fan fictions so good. Your encouragement is really, really appreciated and any input for this is welcomed, including constructive criticism. If you could tell me especially if you like how I portrayed the characters that would be VERY helpful.

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who! I would like to! But I do not! Oh well! One day when my evil taking-over-the-world plot, I might. But that plot has not succeeded… yet :) However, plot is mine. MINE.

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It was a golden city out of a fairy tale that moved through the universe as if by magic. Legends followed it avidly; any sight of it was hurled into the history books immediately; no one, not a single person nor a whole government could resist the glory that it brought.

But if those people had ventured inside, they would have been told a different story of terrible nightmares and shadows that lurk in the night. For it is a common saying, wherever you are and in whatever company, that you should never judge a book by its cover. There are many different variations of the saying, but the only explanation is that the exterior of something should never fool you, be it alien or civilisation. Or alien civilization, for that matter.

Absolutely anything can and does follow this rule, the city in the sky being no exception.

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The dim lights of the TARDIS illuminated the excited expressions on the two traveller's faces, identifying Rose Tyler as the bearer of peroxide blonde hair, and the Doctor as a whimsical faced, brown coated man in his early thirties. The truth behind the two masks, was of, course, out of this world. But to the normal eye, that wasn't to be known as Rose danced eagerly around the TARDIS console to stand by the Doctor, peering intently into the monitor wired into the side.

"So where are we?" She said, barely bottling the excitement she could never contain. "What have you cocked up this time?"

The Doctor, it seemed, chose to ignore the last comment as he 'sonicked' – as Rose had come to know the process – one of the controls next to the monitor, before banging it with a mallet. "Why don't you see for yourself?" He said. "New world out there; go explore!"

"I might just take you up on that offer," she said as she virtually bounced over to the door before fervently opening it. Water trickled through the bottom, pooling at her feet as she hesitated yet again before daring to look through the crack. She wasn't going to stand out there, thank you very much, if it were likely she would get very wet.

To her relief she realised that it was unlikely, although she did close the door and turn back to the Doctor with a grin on her face. He looked back up, bemused.

"So? What are you waiting for?"

"Might want to move the TARDIS a little," she said, trying to contain her laughter. "Wouldn't want it to get swept away in the tide."

"Ah," he said. "No, wouldn't want that, would we?" He jogged around the console pressing that and pulling this; Rose staring at him. Then he looked up, and put his hands up defensively. "I can't get it right all the time, you know!" He said. "I usually get where we want to go, don't I?" His face creased in thought for a moment. "Don't I?"

"1763 – Sheffield; 1863 Scotland. GameStation – oh yeah, the TARDIS defences were really great. Cardiff, instead of Naples! I was missing a year because of you, when apparently I'd only been gone –" Rose put her hands behind her ears and stuck them out in a vague impression of the Doctor in his Ninth Regeneration; "– 'ten days'!"

"When we last went to see your mum, though! It was a perfect landing!"

"When we came back it had been towed away."

"I didn't see the double yellow lines!"

"Then you crash-landed the TARDIS at Christmas…"

"I was regenerating! I went a bit mad, okay – a side-effect!"

Rose smothered a laugh. "Then it's long lasting," she giggled.

The Doctor split a grin, too, and gestured to the doors. "If we could proceed," he said, "we've moved, Madame."

The next thing Rose knew she'd been dragged onto a white, sandy beach that the blue, peaceful seas kissed harmoniously. Only, it wasn't a normal, paradise-like beach, because the island they stood on was entombed by a liquid shell; a bubble, if you like. Outside… outside was the sea of stars that was space, looming in from every way you looked. And after the beach… where you might expect vegetation, or glorious palm trees that rear up into the sky, stood the gleaming burnished, golden metal of a city that looked like it had been modelled against the waves. Sparkling streams of… everything gleamed in rivers that floated atop the great spires of the city buildings.

For a moment, Rose was too breath taken to say anything. And then:

"Blimey… take it you meant to land here?"

The Doctor spread his arms wide with a grin and walked backwards along the beach; the effect was slightly ruined, however, when he tripped over his own feet and landed spread eagled on his back. Then came the muffled cry of: "Yep!" She laughed and ran over to his side, giving him a hand up so he could stand and dust off his coat like nothing had happened. Which could only make her laugh harder.

"So where are we? Where did we land? Apart from a giant snow globe in space?"

"Oh, come on," said the Doctor challengingly; "with twenty-first century knowledge and more, don't tell me you've never heard of Atlantis."

Rose paused for a second, all trace of humour wiped from her face. Then the smile returned and she looked up at him as if he was hilarious. "You're joking?"

"Nope!"

"But Atlantis is like… I dunno, it's one of those fairy-tales no one believes. Didn't they make it a Disney film?"

"Oh yeah! Atlantis… I love that film. I thought that it was –"

"Doctor."

" – I mean, aside from being completely rubbish…"

"Doctor."

"… And the bit where…!" The Doctor's voice trailed off as he saw Rose. "You're staring at me," he observed, with a slightly freaked out expression on his face.

"Yep," said Rose, letting the eerie smile on her face grow until the Doctor really did look rather disturbed; "just trying to jog you back down to earth."

"Atlantis," he corrected.

"Right, whatever. But you say this is Atlantis, but that's supposed to be some kind of sunken-city type thing on earth. So… what's it doing floating around in space?"

"What it's always done, thanks! Just 'cause one day it made a little earthbound visit, suddenly it's part of your planet, see? Stupid. This is the real deal. The original."

"Okay," said Rose. She would take anything on board, because ever since she had met the Doctor her world existed in so many other different places apart from what was literally her world. She had seen everything and had so much time travel experience now – nothing compared to the Doctor, of course – that anything he told her she was willing to believe. She linked arms with him and they both smiled at each other.

"So… let's go explore Atlantis!"

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Aerie was scared.

She wasn't alone, and even if she had been, that wouldn't have made her any more terrified than she already was. The dark room just wasn't meant to be. Atlantis was a city of gold and light and it represented strength and beauty and goodness. She had always thought it so.

So why was the room so out of place? Why did it even exist?

All of them, every single soul in the dark place huddled together and held hands as the footsteps outside were heard. A metal grille was moved across with a sickening scrape as everyone trembled. Because they knew what the bad people did, and every one of them wished and screamed at night, asking and pleading to the gods that they be spared. That someone else could go before them. No one was offended by this because everyone secretly prayed the same thing. They were all as bad as each other.

The humanoid man with white skin and red eyes stepped forward, through the swinging door. In any other light he might have looked slightly pathetic; his eyes watered, and were pinker than anything else. He was frail and his hair was as white as his skin, but in the dark, to the terrified captives, he was the monster in the dark and the eyes burned like the fires of hell.

"Patient 1273.G5," whispered the frail voice. It was like a feral snake whispering the final good byes to a victim.

But, of course, this was the final good bye.

Aerie didn't stand up because she couldn't move. She was too scared, petrified. She wanted to die then and there. However, she didn't have to move; because the limp hands of her former allies pushed her forward, reaching out as far as they dared to, just to push her a little further away. And then she sensed the others cluster away from her like she was contaminated.

The cold presence of the red-eyed monster waited. His hand gripped around the back of her clothes and lifted her to her feet by the neck.

It was like the hand of death.

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The city was dark, illuminated only by the stars outside its travelling bubble in space, but the gentle silver sheen against gold buildings only made the iridescent beauty of the city more alive. It sparked inspiration in everything. The splendour, and the strange structure of the buildings was beyond cleverness; it was ingenuity and art combined. In the centre lay one bulbous building, its teardrop head and spire rearing into the sky, marking the city's centre. The rest, underneath the head and spire was built like the layers of a snowman; in circular bulges of perfectly smooth metal. It looked like something out of Aladdin, such were the buildings; but so much more modern, and so much more beautiful, and so much more real. It was a glittering metropolis shrouded with star-stream walkways that wound their way about the rooftops like an evening mist. It was warm constantly, some kind of natural environment generated by the encasing. That was what Atlantis was. A city inside a ship. A beautiful snow globe that explored the stars.

"Whoah! Nice. Why don't you take us to places like this more often?" Rose stepped onto the ethereal stream and the Doctor followed.

"I would, if you didn't want to spend so much time at home with your dear mother," said the Doctor. He couldn't see her face but he knew she was smiling; ah, ever-smiling Rose. He could almost anticipate the next question, so he had the answer ready. Maybe it was a bit presumptuous, but he'd spent enough time with Rose – perhaps too much time, but he'd worry about that later; much later – to know what kind of questions she asked. And the order in which she asked them.

"So, this is probably some kind of anti-gravity pathway made to look pretty by some projectiony-things," she observed, throwing the Doctor so completely off guard he let out a small:

"What?"

She turned around again and beamed. "Well, I guessed that you had already guessed what my next question was so I decided to answer it for myself, you know."

As she turned back, the Doctor noted that life with Rose Tyler was unpredictable and in the future, he should tread warily. He blew out his cheeks and put his hands in his pockets: sometimes, she really was like Jackie. Not in what she said so much as the way she seemed to know everything. Tylers: they had eyes in the back of their heads! Well, more than the Doctor did, anyway. Not a good move, choosing a companion who had eyes in the back of their head. You never knew at which inappropriate times they were watching.

He loved it really.

"So, what we gonna do? Go looking for trouble or let it find us?"

The Doctor couldn't help the grin. That grin that always made its way onto his being in the face of danger. It was his face. No one could master the Doctorish smile.

"Oh," he said. "No question."

"Maybe we should go down the pub and get a few drinks, don't wanna… exert ourselves."

"So we play the waiting game."

"Yeah," she nodded, as if asking: problem?

He shrugged his shoulders and let the grin stay firmly upon his face before saying:

"More fun that way."

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He held the bottle up in the air and looked at it as if it were god itself. "You," he said, and anyone from a mile off could see he was drunk. "I don't know what you are," he said in slurred words, and narrowed his eyes suspiciously, looking at the peeling label that depicted a golden building surrounded by spidery letters; "but you… you make me feel…"

And she spoke, because she could see he was getting nowhere in confessing his feelings to the empty bottle of alcohol. "And you…" she declared, taking it out of his hand and doing a twirl on the starry pathway: "you, mister… time… king… lord… whatever you are. You… are drunk!"

There was an insane giggle as he shoved her along the pathway. It was, of course, relatively safe due to the fact the pathway was suspended only a little way above the ground; perhaps a foot. "So are you!" Came the shout; and then several giggles followed by even more slurred speech.

"So… is that it? Do we fly tome in your HARDIS?"

"Dunno, not much trouble around, is there? Bo-o-oring… so… predictable."

"But you, Doctor," said the blond who was still clutching Atlantis' Finest Ale in her hand, stumbling into his path; "you are a very unpredictable… man. Alien. Whatever."

"Yeah, the rest of the universe… it's terribly boring compared to me, isn't it?" He was rather angry about that; he travelled the stars, which didn't take much effort at all in the TARDIS – but still, the thought was there – and tried to show his friend Atlantis, which had once been on the edge of crime and a bustling place for good old pirates and plunderers, and what did it turn out to be? A good city. A good place. No trouble or excitement anywhere. What a letdown.

"We should sue."

"For Atlantis being so completely predictable?"

"Aye aye, captain."

And then, completely out of the blue, a scream rent the air, piercing the darkness. Rose threw the bottle down onto the floor where it smashed, but it went unnoticed by the two time travellers, who had seemingly in a second sobered up. Because there was trouble underfoot… more literally than they could have imagined.

How unpredictable, the Doctor felt himself observe as he yelled happily:

"Finally!"

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Author's Note: A bit short, a bit fragmented, but I couldn't help it. I made up a few words here and there but I hope I got you intrigued about what is afoot in Atlantis. And sorry about the unoriginal place… Atlantis just fitted. And sorry if it was slow to start!

And I never watched the film, if you wondered!

Reviews appreciated, welcomed, and replied to :)