A/N: This SHOULD have been yesterday's chapter but Comcast didn't think I deserved internet service yesterday night. Here it is today instead. The good news is today's a holiday, so there'll be another chapter before the day is out. That's two in one day. How'd we manage that?


"What the hell are you two doing here?" he asked, fortunately not pointing a gun at them for once, Quinn noticed. Still, he was intimidating as all get out, standing a little taller even than the Doctor.

"Ah. Yes," the Doctor said, stepping forward to greet him. "You'll have to excuse me, we seem to have got aboard by accident."

"By accident?!" Hollins exclaimed. "How can you... we're in the middle of the bleeding Atlantic!" He looked past them to the tank they'd just stumbled out of. "And what've you done to the bloody tank?" he asked. "It's only holding 60% capacity, so we're..." he'd shoved through them to look in the viewport, and he found the TARDIS there. "What the hell's that thing?"

"It's nothing, don't worry about it," the Doctor started, but the other man cut him off.

"You've filled the damn ballast tank with that... thing! What the hell do you think you're playing at?"

"Now if you'd just let me explain," the Doctor said, but again he was cut off as Hollins reached for his radio. "Captain, I'm at tank 7," he said. "We have a couple Passers," he said. "And they've jammed up the tank, that's why it's not taking water on like it should."

"Jammed it up how, lieutenant?" a weary female voice said over the radio.

"There's some sort of... crate in there, ma'am," he said. "Taking up all the space, displacing the water."

"Jettison it," the unseen captain said.

"No, no, wait!" the Doctor said, trying to interpose himself between Hollins and the control panel on the wall, but the technician roughly shoved him aside and threw a switch. The iris-like hatch on the floor of the tank opened up and with an almighty rush, the water and the TARDIS were gone. The sinking feeling in the pit of Quinn's stomach returned. Just like that, the TARDIS was gone. Completely and totally gone, utterly gone. What were they going to do without it?

The Doctor seemed to be on the same wavelength as he grabbed Hollins by the lapels and spun him around. "What the hell have you done?!" he asked. "Do you have any idea what you've just cost me?"

Hollins seemed completely unflappable as he straightened his coveralls, forcing the Doctor's hands away in one swift, simple motion. "What about the Passers?"

"We can't support anyone who isn't vital to the mission," the captain replied. "Toss them overboard."

"What?!" Quinn shrieked, regaining her focus in a heartbeat. "No, you can't do that!"

"Aye aye, cap'n," he said, ignoring her continued pleas. She spread her arms in a gesture of surrender as she backed away from him, causing the pinstriped jacket to open. Hollins was about to grab her forearm - he'd already roughly grabbed the Doctor's - when he caught a glimpse of her condition, and it at least gave him pause. He pursed his lips, seeming to mull it over a moment, then clicked the radio on again. "Uh, captain..."

"Yes, Mr. Hollins, what is it now?"

"About throwing these two overboard," he said.

"Yes?"

"I uh... I really don't feel I can," he stammered.

"Why not, lieutenant?"

"It's, uh... well... you really ought to see for yourself, ma'am."

There was a tense silence, then the curt reply, "Bring them to the control room. Captain out."

"This way you two," Hollins said, giving them a shove in the back to get them moving.

The Doctor wasn't saying anything, just marching along next to her with his hands jammed in his pockets. Normally he'd be talking up a storm right now; the loss of the TARDIS must have hit him pretty hard, especially considering everything else that had happened today.

She wished more than anything that she knew how to help him with all this, with all the change and loss and pain, but nothing seemed quite right. Really there was no way that she could relate to that kind of thing; what he was suffering was unique to the Time Lords. Swollen ankles and hormone rushes didn't even come close to touching this.

She turned her attention to trying to figure out where they were. Everywhere they went, every turn, it was all metallic corridors and doors. The saltwater earlier proved they were somewhere near the ocean, but whether they were on a ship, or an oil drilling platform, or even underwater completely she couldn't be sure.

It didn't take long to wind their way through the corridors up to the control room, wherever it was. Everything seemed to be on the same level at least - there were no stairs or lifts anywhere along on the journey. After a few more minutes of walking along the relatively straight corridor in silence, they opened a set of heavy sliding doors and stepped out into some sort of control room. It was cramped, not anything like the space station control rooms she'd seen. Every square inch of space was covered in screens and controls, and there were only a few stations for crew members around the perimeter of the room, not like the huge crews she'd run into before. None of the seats were occupied, however, except one - a woman she assumed was the captain. Directly above her chair was what looked like a periscope all folded up into the ceiling. Okay then. Submarine. She glanced around at the screens and her breath caught in her throat when she saw a map on one of the screens. There was no mistaking that configuration of continents for anything else, it was definitely Earth! She was back on her home planet. She had wondered when Hollins had said something about the Atlantic but that wasn't necessarily a unique name across the whole of time and space. Now she had absolute confirmation - she was back home again. There wasn't even time to process how she felt about that, though. The captain had heard them enter and she stood up right away.

She wasn't quite as tall as Quinn, but she had a commanding presence, and when she stared them down both she and the Doctor took an involuntary step back. She stood stiffly at attention before them, eyes piercing into them.

"Mr. Hollins," she said, not even acknowledging the two strangers standing in front of her. "Perhaps you'd like to tell me why you're having such trouble with basic orders?"

"It's the girl," he said, pointing to Quinn. "She's-"

"I can see exactly what she is, Mr. Hollins," the captain said sternly. "What I can't see is what bearing that has on you carrying out my orders." Quinn looked from the captain to the Doctor and back again, waiting for someone to say something. If nobody did anything, soon they were going to be tossed out to drown. "This mission is of the utmost secrecy," the captain continued. "You know that as well as I do. We can't jeopardize that for a couple of Passers."

Quinn grabbed the Doctor's hand and looked at him again, silently pleading with him to please do something. He seemed to be at a loss, so she tried to think of what he would have done in a situation like this if he'd still been the same man she knew this morning. Bracing herself and trying to show an outward courage she didn't feel, she said, "Won't it drive you crazy, though?"

The captain looked at her like she was amused that her little plaything had mustered up the courage to speak. Her smirk seemed to indicate her interest wasn't as strong as her desire to play with her prey like a cat with a mouse. "Won't what drive me crazy, dear?"

"You're underwater, a hundred miles away from anywhere and who knows how deep. And we just showed up here? How did we get on board?"

"You must have forced your way into the ballast tank."

"The two of us and a giant blue box? How did we do that without you knowing about it? You're pinging the whole area with sonar, right? How did we get anywhere close without you knowing about it?"

The captain still wore her smirk, it hadn't changed at all, but her eyes narrowed like she was at least considering what this girl had to say. "How indeed?" she asked. "But no matter. Soon the mission will be finished, and then we won't be needed here anyway."

"If you complete the mission, sure."

"And just what's that supposed to mean?"

"Well," Quinn said, in her best Doctor impression, "I suppose it means that if we got here undetected, there could be more of us. Maybe more coming. Maybe more aboard the sub already. How would you know? Unless, of course, you want to wait and find out where we came from."

The captain studied her for a few tense moments, then said, "Don't think for one second I don't know what you're doing."

"Well then, if you're completely confident," she said with mock sweetness and a mischievous smile.

She didn't get a chance to find out if her bluff worked or not, though, because the double doors behind them were opened again and two extremely excited young men entered, shoving their way through the tiny crowd blocking the entrance to sit at the stations on the perimeter without even noticing the two newcomers.

"What's going on? Cabin temperature's rising. Captain, have you seen this?" one of them asked.

"Not a good time boys," she said, aggravation obvious in her voice, but neither of them seemed to pick up on it, too immersed in their instruments to notice anything else.

"Phase variance is dropping again," the other one said, "lower than I've ever seen it."

"But low enough?" the other asked.

"It's too early to say. We could be looking at a spontaneous event but it's not very likely. The odds are 10,000 to 1 against."

"10,406," the other corrected."

"Still, never seen a drop like that before. We're at variance 1.3. 1.2. 1.1."

"We've never even got it below 1.5 before. Captain! I need your orders!"

She growled at the back of her throat then turned away, back to the controls she was watching over. "Mr. Hollins, hold them. Don't let them out of this room." She seemed to forget them almost immediately afterwards, focused entirely on the situation that had arisen. "Evan, what's the variance now?"

"Less than one!" The first one said excitedly. "It's less than one!"

"I need an exact reading mister!" she yelled, and he composed himself.

".98"

"Odell, is the rate of change constant?"

"Not quite, but close," the other man replied. "It's still decreasing steadily."

"At the current rate how long until a dimensional event?"

"Calculating, just a minute..." he said, working a pad and paper rather than a computer, Quinn noticed. "Factoring the current fluctuations in rate change, we could see an event in less than two minutes," he replied a few seconds later.

The captain took only a second to mull over the data she'd been provided, then she sprung into action, pulling the periscope down to her eye level and peering into it. "Action stations," she called, and the whole room illuminated red when she said it. "Lower the conduction barrier and get ready for final approach. Arm all offensive and defensive systems."

"Conduction barrier lowered," Odell said, followed by Evan.

"Offensive and defensive systems activated."

"Good. All stop, continue to monitor the variance. Once the level drops below oh-point-oh-nine, prepare for final action."

"Yes captain," the two men said in unison. Then there was silence, with the exception of Evan giving continued readings from his screen.

".89. .88. .87." He rattled off the numbers as calmly as if he were reading the football scores, but there was a tension and excitement in the air that was almost palpable.

She took advantage of the momentary lull to ask the Doctor a question. "Is it okay for me to be here?"

"What?" He asked, the first thing he'd said in almost a half an hour now.

"I asked if it was alright for me to be here. Is it safe? I mean if..."

He reached out and took both of her hands in his own. "I'd never bring you someplace that wasn't safe." She looked around at their surroundings, obviously not convinced. "Do you trust me?" he asked, and she stopped glancing around to look at him instead, her expression indicating that she wasn't quite sure how to answer. She had trusted him this morning... did she now? He looked older now, more tired. His red hair was accented in the light, making his whole face seem to turn a bright crimson color. Maybe it was the unnatural light but there was something different about his eyes. Not just the color... he didn't seem to look at her the same way he once had. Was that a hint of sorrow? Regret? She couldn't say for certain.

".81. .80... wait, back to .81," Evan read. ".80... .81... it's fluctuating, leveling off... and holding steady at oh-point-eight-oh."

"Alright, good job boys," the captain said. "Evan, get every reading you can. Whatever's changed I want to know what it is and how we can re-create the effect. Let's make it happen."

"Yes ma'am."

The captain turned her chair around to face the two prisoners once again. "Now to deal with you two," she said.

"Yes, captain, shall I get on with throwing them overboard, then?"

"No, no, Mr. Hollins," she said. "They've done something to my ship, and I want to know what it is."