Her empty question was met by the purple-pink of a foreign sky. Along the horizon peaked a range of glassly mountains, the warm hues of the sky mirrored through their translucent surface. In the close distance elegant spires soared from the green grassy ground and touched the magenta air with a delicate intimacy.

'Welcome to Apalapucia, voted second in the Top Ten Destinations for The Discerning Space Traveller. It's one of the most beautiful paradise planets in the universe, and would you look at that, the Chen7 outbreak's finally been taken care of. High time too, the last time I came here-' His soft voiced faded to a whisper as a dark cloud passed over his face. 'Well, there was a little trouble.' The cloud passed and he paced impatiently forward as he spoke. 'There always is, you know, I think this is one of the very rare moments where there actually isn't any, or have I just jinxed that? Oh wait, no I'm not superstitious, I forget.'

Lillian walked out into the path, between an array of silver colonnades that seemed to bind the world before her to the sky. 'This isn't earth, is it?' He turned to her, aghast.

'No its Apalapucia, weren't you listening? How could you even ask such a question?' He reached out and poked her head. 'Silly.'

'So do you do this often? Travel through space I mean?' He stopped and cocked his head pensively. 'You could say that.'

'So what do you do while you're there?' That one took a little more time to answer.

'All sorts of things, I save planets, aliens, the day usually.' She narrowed her eyes at him with a slight disbelief but then let out a little laugh.

'You're funny.' She giggled. He just lifted his strange little hat and flicked his hair back purposefully with a smile. 'Well I have had a long time to practise.' His smile was smug.

'So you're a timelord, does that make you an alien?'

'Yes, it does.' He seemed more excited at that than she did.

'You don't look like an alien though.' As mad as he may be, to Lillian he looked no different in appearance than any other man, apart from the fact he liked to wear strange hats and bows around his neck. 'Maybe not on the outside, but inside I'm an alien.' He made a small gagging gesture. 'Urgh, that sounded mushy.' Lillian giggled again. 'No what I meant was I have two hearts, whereas you, have only one.' He pointed at her chest where her heart would be to make a point. Lillian was momentarily baffled by the concept of being able to feel two heartbeats and a flood of questions washed over her. Is it painful? If he has a heart attack in one, does the other one keep him alive? Or does he need both to be working to live? Could he even die?

But she didn't have a chance to ask any of them as he continued to walk forwards, awed by the picturesque scene before him.

Lillian didn't follow, she turned around and saw the large silver building behind her for the first time. It was huge, and about as ornate as her left thumb. Even then it was still astounding with its tasteful and sophisticated architecture. 'Over there you see, are of course the Glasmir mountains, beautiful aren't they, like glass.' Hands on his hips, turning up the back of his jacket, he admired the view.

'Glass isn't very beautiful, its clear and plain, it breaks easily too.' Lillian was still staring at the looming building. A large hostile door sat directly in front of her, a small red light flashing above it. 'Well that's not true, glass can be very beautiful and strong, you've obviously never been to the 1800's, when glass was very beautiful indeed.' The sounds of footsteps were coming from the other side of the door, making Lillian take a step back. He leaned over a small balcony to take in the scenery. 'I remember meeting this london glass cameo maker back in 1889-' But he was interrupted before he could finish.

'Um, Doctor?'

The door disappeared into the wall seamlessly and a handful of white-clad soldiers surrounded them with an ominous symmetry. The Doctor threw up his hands to slowly walk backwards without arousing any trouble and Lillian copied. 'What's going on? I thought this was a paradise planet, this level of security is over the standards of your planets regulation.' They both stopped when their backs touched. Lillian looked up at him, his tone had changed and become more serious. He saw her out of the corner of his eye. 'Don't worry.' He whispered to her in his usuals tone, his mouth seeming not to move, but she saw the fine edges of a smile appear on his face.

A short slim man parted his way into the circle of soldiers, wearing a suit of the same colour. 'Apalapucia has been sanctioned for extra security after the outbreak.' The man spoke with a stale authority that made a chill shiver run up Lillian's spine. 'Any visitor seeking entrance must now hold a valid pass and have certain permissions to even think about setting foot on this planet. Now, where are yours?'

Lillian felt him step forward, his arms were lowered and he was reaching into his pocket. The soldiers were tracing his every moment with the strange looking weapons that each one clutched tightly to their chest. He brought out a small folded object. The man stepped forward as the Doctor flicked his wrist and thing in his hand jerked open.

It was blank. Lillian scrunched up her face in puzzlement. How could a blank piece of paper help them? To her surprise the man took a step back in slight shock. 'Come with me.' His authoritative tone snapped as he turned on his heels and led them both through the open door, the soldiers filling the space around them in two orderly lines.