Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who.

Itself

Chapter One: Introductions

Mas was nervous. Not that he would ever show it. Nerves were for people like his parents, people who didn't move from outside of their accepted positions, who believed in respect and duty and honour and…

Snore.

And so, here he was, deep within Noc territory, further than anyone had ever been. Well, anyone official. There were rumours whispered among his schoolmates, stories of those who had ventured inside looking for long dead loved ones and never returned, eaten alive or strung up and whipped or any number of horrific punishments. All of it by the Nocs, naturally, a people few had actually seen.

It was something he envied about his father. He had met them. Spoken to them. But whenever pressed on the subject, all he would say was that Mas 'didn't want to know'.

But Mas did want to know. Hence, he was here, lurking from tree to tree and keeping a close eye on every shadow that lurked in the wasteland around him. Which was difficult, considering everything was a shadow around here. He combed some fine blond hair from his eyes with his hand, letting it rest in a messy formation on top of his head.

A yelp from behind made him whirl around, suddenly alert. Ona had stumbled on something unseen, and was using a tree branch for support. She looked at him apologetically, and he just rolled his eyes and moved on, shaking his head. Why had she insisted on coming along? Ever since they were children, she was always there, tagging along, trying to join in while he and his friends threw rocks at defunct sonic generators and plotted to release a stink bomb in the headmaster's office.

She had pretty much ruined both of those efforts, stumbling and falling through everything as she did. He had pleaded with his parents to let someone else look after her for just a few hours, but she was his sister, and that meant he had to include her. Apparently, he would regret not spending time with her when he was older and they didn't live together.

His parents often made things up to make him feel guilty.

But he refused to feel guilty if anything happened to her out here. He had told her to go back, to let him go alone, but she had insisted, not even bothering to answer his simple question of 'why?'.

"It's still not too late, you know. You don't have to continue from here."

"No, it's all right," she said, as though doing him a favour. "I'm okay."

"Yes, but… you're making a lot of noise. They could find us."

"You're making more noise than me by talking."

"Yes, because you won't leave." He sighed, turning to face her. "I'm just looking out for you."

That one should do it.

Ona laughed. "You're such a liar."

With that, she moved on past him, leaving Mas hanging his head in frustration. He clenched his teeth. This was getting beyond the limit.

"Look, Ona-"

As he turned, he bumped into her back, and noticed she was staring at something ahead.

"What?"

"Uh… it's a… box."

His gaze became decidedly sarcastic as he looked at her, but then he followed her eyes and indeed found a box. A big blue one, with alien writing on the top. Alien or Noc. He walked straight to it, leaving Ona frozen behind him.

"Mas, be careful-"

He waved a frantic hand in the air, trying to get her to shut up. For once. Always chattering away in his ear, but quiet as a mouse in front of anyone else. It was maddening.

Mas reached out to the box, his hand shaking. It felt like wood, and the windows at the top were blanked out. Moving around it, he found a door on the other side.

"There's a door," he said as loudly as he dared.

Within a few seconds, Ona was beside him, looking increasingly worried. "Look, Mas, maybe we should wait for Trey. He said he would be right behind us, and if we go too far-"

"We're not going anywhere, Trey can catch up," he whispered, enraptured by the box. A real piece of Noc architecture. Completely unlike anything from home. He gripped the small metal handle and pushed.

It didn't budge.

"Locked…"

"Mas."

"It looks like a slot for some kind of key card here, but the shape is so strange…"

"Mas."

"It feels pretty flimsy, maybe I can break it open with a rock."

"Mas!" she hissed, finally grabbing his attention.

Just as he looked at her, he felt something sharp poke at his back. Slowly, he turned around, hands up. Two Nocs waited for him, grey uniforms tattered and decaying, their rifles wooden and patchy. Although the bayonets at the end seemed to be in working order, judging from the dried blood.

"Move," his captor grunted, and Mas did as he was told.

They walked for some time away from the blue box, which obviously held some value to them. A Noc weapon, maybe?

Eventually they reached a bunker, quite low down and with stairs that descended to some heavy metal doors. They opened with a horrifically loud creak as they arrived, revealing the yellow-lit, dingy corridors beyond.

"Move," he grunted again, poking him with the rifle.

They were taken downstairs to a cell block. Most seemed empty, all the doors open and revealing that the stone prison cells were bare. Only one was closed, and they were promptly shoved into the cell next to it. The door was slammed violently behind them, making Ona jump.

There wasn't much to them. A platform that jutted out of the wall that could function as a bed (only one, Mas noted), and a sizeable hole in the floor in the corner.

Mas struggled to control his breathing, and started pacing. Ona sat down on the bed and watched him, worriedly.

"Mas, take some deep breaths."

"Don't-" he bit back his instinctively harsh words and gestured a finger at her slowly, "-don't tell me what to do."

"I just don't want you to end up hyperventilating."

"Hyperventilating? Hyperventilating? We're trapped in a Noc prison for interfering with some Noc weapon that looks like a blue box, and-"

"I beg your pardon, but it's not a weapon."

The muffled voice came from behind him. Mas looked to the offending brick in the wall, then to Ona.

"Did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" the voice replied. "Me talking? Yes, I heard that."

Another voice, this one female and with an odd accent, chipped in. "Would be nice if you weren't rude to the first people we've seen in days…"

"I'm not being rude, I'm just answering the question. And technically, we can't even see them, so there's not really a basis for complaint there. We're down here, by the way, hello, delighted to see you, well, hear you," the male voice said cheerfully.

It was coming from down below, near the door. A gap between bricks. Mouth dry, Mas slowly moved down to his knees, crawling along on all fours. He ignored Ona's frightened breathing as he moved closer and closer. Finally, he was peering through the gap at two faces awkwardly stacked on top of each other. Above was a girl about his age with red hair and beautiful eyes while the one below… well, he looked about the same age, but there was something off about him. His eyes, probably. They seemed… deeper than they should be.

"Hello there! I'm the Doctor," he said, his face disappearing so his hand could be shoved through again. Mas yelped and fell back, and Ona screamed. The hand withdrew as though burned.

"What, what's happening?" the man asked, sounding panicked.

"Uh…" Mas' voice was shaky, and he swallowed to try and counter it. "Nothing. You just scared us."

"What, with my hand? I admit they're a bit big, but scary… that's a new one for me. Scary hands. What do you think?" he asked, speaking to the girl in his cell.

Sounding tired, the girl spoke again. "I think it's more the fact he doesn't know who you are and you just shoved your hand in his face."

"Ah. Yeah, that would make more sense."

"Just a bit."

"Just a bit, yeah… so, anyway, where was I? Weapon, right. No, not a weapon, that's what I was saying."

Mas frowned. "What?"

"The box you saw. It's mine, and definitely not a weapon, thank you very much, though you can crush sheds with it quite handily. Called a TARDIS. I left it there by accident. Stepped out and straight into some spears, although not straight into some spears, that would have been messy, sorry, I'm rambling, it happens, what's your name?"

A little befuddled by the sudden influx of completely random information, Mas blinked before responding.

"Uh… Mas. My name's Mas."

"Lovely to meet you, I'd shake your hand but mine are quite scary, apparently."

The girl rolled her eyes. "Doctor…"

"Oh, yes, and this is Amy Pond."

She wiggled her fingers about in a wave. "Hello."

"And unless you scream like a girl, I'm thinking there's someone else in there with you? I apologise in advance if you actually do scream like a girl, though you could probably reach an excellent soprano."

Mas cleared his throat, and looked at Ona. Eyes bulging, she warily moved over and crouched down beside him, keeping a safe distance from the hole in the wall.

"Hello," she managed. "I'm Ona."

"Ona," the Doctor said languidly, seeming to enjoy pronouncing every letter. "That's a great name. Sort of like Amelia, which is a name I think is brilliant, much better than bland old Amy," he said pointedly, shooting a look up at his companion.

Rather than respond, Amy just spoke directly to them.

"Ignore him, he's just excited to meet people who'll listen to him. Why are you two in here?"

"We were…" Mas thought for a moment before finishing the sentence. "…exploring."

Ona gave him a look, but said nothing.

The Doctor looked overjoyed. "Ah, my kind of people! I love a good exploration, I even tried to explore this cell."

Amy sighed. "He really did."

"It didn't last long," he conceded, disappointed. "But there's not much to explore outside, though, is there? From what I saw it's a bit of a wasteland."

Feeling a challenging tone in the Doctor's voice he never really got from anybody else, Mas suddenly felt very defensive.

"I'm sorry, but who are you? And what do you mean you stepped out of the box? Why were you in it in the first place?"

"I'm the Doctor, I have to step out of it in order to leave it, and it's my ship."

A hushed silence fell over them, and Mas swallowed, his mouth dry. "You mean… a ship for travelling in space?"

"Amongst other things."

"But…" he exchanged a look with Ona. "That's forbidden."

"Forbidden?" the Doctor asked, the word seeming to leave a bitter taste in his mouth. "What for?"

"Uh… we've never been told. We just know it's forbidden."

"Well that's rubbish. Who's idea was that? Space is fantastic. Don't knock it until you've tried it, and certainly don't not try because other people knock it."

Mas smiled, liking the mischief in the man's voice. "I never do as I'm told."

"Good man, I'm liking you already." His smile suddenly vanished and he looked around, like a dog who had heard something. "Oh, that's interesting, where's that coming from?" Then he was back to Mas. "Okay, sorry, where was I? Yes, right. Is that what you were doing out here? Disobeying orders?"

"Not… orders, just my father."

"Sounds like a very dull man, if you don't mind my saying, though you probably do, in which case, sorry, not used to being in one place for this long." After a quick glance up at Amy, he volunteered another question. "Incidentally, where is here?"

Amy looked down at him. "What?"

"It's a fair enough question, considering we've been here for two days," he defended, sounding rather elitist about it.

"No, but… you don't know where 'here' is?" She was sounding dangerously annoyed now. "You brought us here, how can you not know where we are?"

"Because I was following a signal rather than setting a course, now, please…" He gestured in Mas' direction, and Amy rolled her eyes in surrender.

"Now, Mas. You were saying. Where is here?"

He exchanged another look with Ona, frowning. "I… don't know."

The Doctor stared at them for a good few seconds. "What?"

"We don't know where we are."

"Great!" Amy enthused, throwing her hands up in the air.

"Mas," the Doctor said delicately, "How can you not know where you are? You're from this planet, aren't you?"

Mas stared at the Doctor. "You're not?"

"Yes, very good question, put it in your pocket and save it for later. Mas. Where are we?"

A frown was all he could manage, and he looked at Ona in complete confusion. She leant forward and spoke very simply, and politely.

"We're in Noc territory."

The Doctor smiled and nodded. "Right, but Noc territory where? What planet?"

"Oh," Ona said quietly. "Um… Stoarn."

For a few moments, the Doctor said nothing, his eyes thinning and taking them both in, as though judging their honesty.

"Stoarn, yes, right, thought so," he said, taking a big breath. His eyes were wide as he spoke, looking like he was concentrating on something else entirely. "I was definitely mostly entirely sure that it was Stoarn. I mean, of course, Stoarn. Good old Stoarn. I love Stoarn. Who doesn't love Stoarn? Some of my favourite shoes are from Stoarn. Do you make shoes? Of course you do, it's Stoarn."

Amy was giving him the most confused stare Mas had seen from a person, so he felt slightly better for not understanding anything the Doctor was talking about.

"But!" the Doctor announced, clapping his hands and standing up, "that's enough of that, let's get out, shall we?"

Mas glanced at Ona hopefully. "You mean you've got a way out?"

There was a hope-building pause before the Doctor spoke. "Not right now, no."

Mas' heart sank.

"But that's fine, I can improvise! Planning on the fly, just you watch, you'll be very impressed, trust me. I did have a plan before, but it was sort of dependent on the guards coming back in here, but since they haven't been back for two days, that one went in the bin. Of course, I'd have us out of here in a few seconds if they hadn't stolen my sonic screwdriver!" He shouted out that last bit, as if trying to guilt the Nocs into giving it back to him.

The Doctor's face reappeared at the hole. "When they asked me what it was I told them it was a torch, but they just responded by yanking it out of my hand and punching my nose."

Amy grinned. "You should have seen the look on his face afterwards. It was hilarious."

"Anyway, moving on," the alien man muttered, shooting to his feet again. "There must be something we can do with two people in this cell and two in the other. Ah! Mas, do you know what a Koflon Dinglesling is?"

"Uh…" He cleared his throat. "No."

"Bibble Shot?"

"No."

"Clot Bottle?"

"Shut up, that does not exist," Amy scoffed.

"Tell that to the baby army of Stemplox Four." He was pacing now, up and down the cell. "Think, think, think, something I'm missing, something I noticed but then put away for later…"

Mas and Ona's door flew open, and Trey stood in the doorway.

Mas heard the Doctor snap is fingers. "Yes, right! I heard him coming!"

The man who Mas would probably describe as his best friend (if he had any other friends to compare him to) stood in the doorway, the keys to the cell in one hand and a thin, metal cylinder in the other. His brown hair was a mess, as it usually was, with the faintest hint of dust matching the scuff marks over his face and clothes. The guard had clearly given him a fight.

"Are you all right?"

The question wasn't directed at him, Mas knew, but he answered anyway, simply because he knew Ona wouldn't.

"Fine. We haven't been here long."

Eyes still on Ona, Trey nodded. "Right. Let's go."

He made to leave and Mas was about to follow when the Doctor waved a pale hand through the gap.

"Hey, hi, hello, we'd rather you didn't leave us in here to rot!"

Trey frowned at the hand. "Who's that?"

"Hello, I'm the Doctor," he said, waving. The hand pointed back towards the wall. "This is Amy Pond, although you can't see her."

"Hullo," she said, surprisingly cheerful for someone who had been locked up for two days. Maybe it was the prospect of getting out.

Looking to Mas and Ona, Trey spoke quietly. "Do you know them?"

"Only met them today, in here," Mas said.

"But…" Ona's voice barely registered, but it was enough for Trey to look at her. Encouraged by his attention, Ona spoke again. "They were going to help us escape."

"That's what they said," Mas reminded her cautiously.

"So you don't trust them," Trey said, not really phrasing it like a question.

"How can we? We've only known them for a few minutes."

Unintelligible shouting came from the entrance to the bunker, followed by some loud metal clanking. Trey looked down the corridor where the sound had come from, and back to them.

"We have to leave, right now."

"I can help."

They all looked down to the hand that now hung limply through the gap.

Mas frowned. "What?"

The hand perked up with the Doctor's voice. "Oh, so you're listening to me now, are you?"

"Doctor," Amy said, sounding a little more frantic than before. "Please don't insult the nice people about to let us out of our cell."

Either ignoring her or moving on, the Doctor's hand gestured madly, pointing and waving around with every description. "I can help you escape in my ship, but you have to let us out of here."

Unconvinced, Mas tilted his head to the side, making his shrug bigger than it needed to be. "And we can trust you, because…?"

"Because there's a lot of Noc guards coming right now, and I'm the best bet you've got."

Mas looked to Ona, then to Trey, who just shrugged.

After a moment's thought, Mas snatched the keys from Trey, and unlocked the Doctor's cell.

He was skinnier than Mas imagined, his hands and feet seeming out of proportion with the rest of him. Amy was… distracting in that way pretty girls were when they were aware of their looks.

"There's a good man," the Doctor said, sounding satisfied as he rubbed his hands together and looked them over, finally settling on Trey.

"Ah, you're the one I heard, eh? See, I said you'd all be impressed. Now, let's get to the TARDIS shall we? First thing's first, though, that's my sonic screwdriver," he said, pointing to the cylinder in Trey's hand.

Mas had thought it was a pipe when Trey had been stood in the doorway, but it was indeed a sonic screwdriver, although completely unlike any Mas had seen back home.

The Doctor took in the unconscious guard in the corridor, then looked back to Trey, his head whipping back and forth and shaking his abundant hair everywhere.

"Did you… hit them with it?"

Trey shrugged.

Thinning his eyes, the Doctor snatched the tool away from Trey and waved it about in his face like a scolding teacher.

"You don't hit people with it, it's a sonic screwdriver." He looked it up and down, switching it on and off a few times. "What did the nasty man do to you…?"

"Uh, Doctor," Amy said, sounding tense as she looked over Mas' shoulder. Turning, he saw several guards gathered at the end of the corridor. Looking behind the Doctor and Amy, Mas saw more guards there as well.

"Can we use this to get to your ship?" Trey asked urgently, showing a transmat disc to the Doctor.

He looked it over briefly before throwing it over his shoulder. "Nope, too short range. Actually, no, wait, shut up, let me look at it first."

The Doctor whirled on his heel and scooped up the disc again, swirling the sonic screwdriver around it, tongue sticking out of his closed mouth. He sprang to his feet, throwing the transmat up in the air and catching it again before facing them with it.

"There! Everybody grab on. Now, these modifications are a bit slapdash, so this might get bumpy."

Mas didn't like the sound of that. "'Slapdash'? 'Bumpy'?"

Eyes bulging, the Doctor nodded to the disc in his outstretched hand. "Yes, because this is the perfect time for a debate. Don't worry, it's just like playing 'Bop It'. With a little bit of 'Twister'. And teleporting. Just grab on, please."

Everyone did as they were told, Mas included. Satisfied, the Doctor did something else with the sonic screwdriver, and the disc began to glow.

"Doctor, this is going to work, yeah?" Amy asked, almost as an afterthought.

"Yeah, definitely," he replied securely, eyes on the device.

The glow spread to all of them, and Mas prepared for the teleport jump.

"…mostly definitely. No-one is too attached to their extraneous limbs, are they?"

Everybody glared at the Doctor, who looked promptly chastened.

"Black humour not appreciated. Noted."

The teleport took hold, light consuming them.

(A/N: Okay, so this is a sequel/prequel to another story, 'Dominoes'. I'm hoping it works well enough as both, so you can easily read one without the other if you were so inclined. I'd rather you read it, though. I quite like it. J

Anyway, reviews please!)