Author's Note: Okay, so this story is set after the tenth Doctor has just lost Donna, he's soul searching out in space, trying to get over the guilt and loneliness.

Hope you enjoy, please review if you have the time.


Crash

The TARDIS had never felt so empty, not since Donna had gone – her often opinionated and resounding voice had always rebounded from the walls of the great ship and hit the Doctor's ears with such force that he had believed himself to be in danger of losing his hearing; now the most deafening noise was simply the silence, the endless silence. It was just the Doctor, just the Doctor and his ship travelling amongst the stars trying to find a place where he could find some sort of peace…

He'd tried to ignore the loneliness, tried to convince himself that he wasn't completely divided from everyone else – there'd been adventures, of course there had, he'd made new friends, created new allies and battled new creatures; but after every new encounter and every narrow escape from death and every victory, there was always that voice, like a looming shadow behind him, that emptiness that was there to remind him.

You're alone Doctor.

No matter how odd it seemed, the silence was just too loud to bear; and when he was surrounded by others and action it just emphasised how alone he actually was, made his circumstances even more pitiful. The Doctor, once a member of the greatest species in all the universes was now just a lonely and forgotten man. He stood, hands in his pockets, by the TARDIS's controls and watched his magnificent ship's power core working steadily as he reminisced over one of the last journeys the TARDIS had taken, all of his friends and partners flying her together - the way a TARDIS was supposed to be flown.

But suddenly he was jolted from his thoughts and off his feet, the TARDIS fluctuated and failed, her engines giving in momentarily and the sirens sounding.

"What in the name of…?" the Doctor threw himself over the control panel and pulled the screen towards him, analysing his situation. "What was that!?" the TARDIS was literally tumbling through the air, as though affected by some odd pull of gravity. The screen in front of his face was displaying to him a planet gradually drawing nearer to his ship – of course it was the other way around, but naturally that didn't matter as seeing as either way would result in a rather large impact of the two. Panicking only a little, the Time Lord dived towards the handbrake and pulled down with all of his weight; the TARDIS did slow a little but it wasn't enough to prevent what now seemed as a rather obvious head-on encounter; the small television screen still flashed it's message "WARNING: IMPACT IMMINENT!"

"Hold on," said the Doctor to himself, and to the ship, as the distance between the two of them and the planet became metres. However, instead of being flattened against the planet's surface, the small blue box crashed straight through the first layer of ground and came to a complete halt twenty metres below; immediately the Time Lord stood up and shook himself, running one hand through his fantastically styled hair. "Well, that could have gone worse." he beamed. The TARDIS didn't reply but the Doctor felt as though the shaken ship disagreed. "I best go and see where we are then…" and with that he scrambled to the doors and pulled them wide open.

It was odd to realise that the TARDIS had in fact landed slanted; inside of the ship one could never tell but trying to climb out of lopsided doors was something the Doctor had not expected to have to do. He scanned his whereabouts closely and then stretched his long, thin legs out from his craft and clambered into what appeared to be a mining tunnel of some sort, one that hadn't been quite obviously abandoned, as he could tell from the lighting system that ran along the ceiling of the tunnel; it was state of the art technology, but hadn't been used in some weeks. The light from the sky above shone through from the crater-size hole that had just been created and offered the Doctor a way to see his surroundings a little easier. Only after only a few seconds of scanning did the Doctor really wish he couldn't see anything. In fact, he wished more than anything that the tunnel he now found himself in, was somewhere else entirely …

Something was moving in the distance, coming ever closer with thunderous footsteps and silver armour that even from so far away glinted menacingly when it caught small rays of light. It wasn't hard to work out who they were, they were Cybermen.

The Doctor's hearts began to beat frantically, fear took hold and he turned, realising with terrible dread that until his ship was upright there was no way he would either get her flying or even get past her. And yes, he might be pretty amazing, but this Time Lord's form was rather scrawny and not built for shifting spaceships; TARDIS's were known to be very heavy objects.

The footsteps were coming closer, the sound of heavy metal echoed through the tunnel; there were at least three of them, too many for him to take on with just a sonic screwdriver; but how did they get here?? Voids apparently weren't as hard as he'd thought to escape from…

He stood quite still as he prepared to meet his enemy, face solemn and fists clenched; he was as ready as he ever would be in such circumstances, though he'd at least try to talk his way out of this predicament – like always, naturally.

Of course, something else happened that the Doctor had not expected, something that made him dive forwards in both shock and need to get out of the way; the TARDIS shook violently and suddenly jolted from her lopsided position back to her base and then was seemingly pushed – almost shoved - to the side of the tunnel by a figure behind, clearly wanting to get in on the action.

"There is no way my luck is that bad."

What stood behind was a fourth Cyberman, standing adamantly and looking at the Doctor blankly; it was a little different from any design he had ever seen, the metal armour had been modified, made to look more futuristic –more individual – but individuality and Cybermen were two different things all together… As he stared at it, the great silver monstrosity paced forward and… thrust out a hand to the Time Lord.

"Come with me if you want to survive."

The three other Cybermen had emerged from the shadows of the tunnel now and all three were advancing a little quicker after seeing their target; at the moment they were of little importance to the Doctor who was completely flabbergasted by this new arrival…

"What??"

"I repeat; come with me if you want to survive."

Still the Doctor didn't get it. "…What??" There was no way that this was actually happening.

A fifth set of footsteps approached from the end of the tunnel the fourth Cyberman come from, they were far quicker and far lighter than any mechanical being and soon after the Doctor had noticed them, a young woman appeared from the darkness; she was tall and slender with short and scruffy black hair, she was wearing a well-worn combat outfit very similar to that of a guerrilla warrior, her skin was smudged with dirt and soot and she was yielding a few rather impressive pieces of weaponry – impressive maybe, but the Doctor couldn't help but immediately disapprove, he didn't like guns. Facing the advancing Cybermen, she quickly shot a look back at the gawping Doctor and lifted a set of goggles to reveal a pair of electric blue eyes; "Do as he says," she ordered him, "Or you'll be a lot stiffer than you are now if these guys get a hold of you. Zak!" This was aimed at the Cyberman it appeared, "Get him out of here!"

The Cyberman nodded and then bent down to face the Doctor. "Orders are orders." Yanking him to his feet, the metal creation cupped one hand around his arm before dragging him down the tunnel he had just appeared from; the young woman turned back to look at the remaining three Cybermen and laughed. "Three – nil to me, I think;" she boasted as she pulled a slim and circular grenade from a pocket in the belt strapped around her body, pressed a button in its centre and tossed it at the looming figures before she shot away. It attached itself to the middle creature's chest and four seconds later, exploded.

The mighty blast behind almost knocked the Doctor over but the girl who had already caught up with them grabbed his elbow firmly, he looked down at her as they continued running and she winked, a cheeky grin on her face; after a few more metres they stopped and both the girl and the Doctor dropped to the ground panting, catching their breath. The Cyberman however, merely turned to where they had just come from, his Cybus Industries logo opened partially and emitted a thin blue streak of light that shot through the darkness; then it disappeared and his chest plate closed again, he turned back to the pair and looked down at them both. "Readings negative, all three Cyber beings deactivated; status of alien ship of unknown sentient being: still intact – mild singeing to wooden panels."

The Doctor had had enough. "Look, now just hold on for two seconds…!" he pushed himself back up to his feet and stared from the Cyberman to the teen still lying on the ground. "What just happened and why, why is this… this…" he struggled momentarily to think of a fitting word as he pointed at the metal contraption "…this thing, helping you?? And… and how is his technology so far advanced?? And just what is going on around here!?!"

"You only had to ask," replied the girl quite calmly. "This," she gestured to her companion, "is Zak, he is my partner and I, am Kura Desporena Atropos. I'm the one who has modified his technology with up-to-date weaponry in order to help us defeat our enemy. We're two of some of the last people alive on this planet defending against the Cybermen. And Zak, despite being a Cyberman, is completely on our side."

In all those of years of travelling, now the Doctor could safely say that he had seen absolutely everything.