The Doctor slowly opened his eyes, hastily moving a hand in front of his face to cover the glare. He squinted, and blinked several times, trying to orientate himself and work out where he was and how he'd come to be here. There was a strange grunting noise from his side and the Doctor looked across to see Donna, her head flopped backwards and a small amount of spittle dripping out of her mouth. He gave her a friendly nudge.
"Wha—what. What's going on? Where are we?" She said, jolting awake and looking around her. They seemed to be sitting on a park bench, a gravel path winding past them, and grass rolling off into all directions.
"That's what I'm trying to figure out." The Doctor seemed to be gripping his forehead tightly with his hand.
"We...were going to my house weren't we?" Donna said, looking up for confirmation.
"Hang on...aha!" Donna jumped in surprise as the Doctor yelled a little too loudly. "It's a memory lock; someone's placed a little barrier around some of our memories. Not particularly strong either." The Doctor closed his eyes and looked to be in deep concentration.
Donna still had no idea what was going on. She remembered being in the TARDIS, asking to drop back home to see her mum and granddad and then...nothing. But she knew something was there, she just couldn't get to it, as if the neurons inside her head were being put on a diverted course.
"There we go." The Doctor said after a while, rubbing his head and smiling at Donna.
"Well...what happened?"
"Do you remember that I landed off course, about a mile from your house?" Donna shook her head.
"That we decided to walk and whilst we went down an alley I thought I saw an alien through a gap in the fence, you said it was probably a cat, I said we should investigate, and you moaned?" Donna looked away in thought.
"Then we went to someone's house party, and saw this little blue thing walking hand in hand with an old woman."
"Garth!" Donna yelled at the top of her voice. "How could I forget that? So I presume he put some sort of memory wipe on us?"
"Well, I think he tried, but it doesn't seem he had enough energy to do a full wipe. I guess my magnificent mind was too much for him." The Doctor smiled broadly at the increase to his ego.
Donna stood up, dusting down her dress. "I presume we can't have gone far. I think my mum took me here once as a kid, so we're still in the area."
"I say we go back and try again." The Doctor said, walking off towards a large black entrance gate.
"And get memory 'locked' and dumped in the park again?"
"Let's wait until night this time."Donna stared at the Doctor for a while, waiting for the punch line.
"Wait, you're serious? You're suggesting we break in to the old woman's house?"
"Well, not totally break in. If I'm right, I think Garth is from Tar, judging by the blue glow, ability to mind alter and the change in colour. So, he won't need to sleep. So, we should be able to talk to him in private."
"He can mind alter now, not just mildly make us forget? As in he could burn up our brains if we got in the way."
"That's the thing Donna, why didn't he? Why isn't he going on some murderous rampage across Earth? Not that Dars would, but if you get stranded on an alien planet you don't stick around with some elderly lady unless you have a damn good reason."
"Hang on, they're Dars from Tar. Tar Dars?" Donna said, giggling to herself. The Doctor stared at her before rolling his eyes.
They had managed to take a shortcut back to the TARDIS, which was parked in a random back alley, not too far from Anne's house. The Doctor opened the door and held it for Donna.
"Go get some rest Miss Noble. We're on the night shift."