A bruising force on his ribcage woke Jay up, and he regained consciousness while spluttering water from his lips. The Doctor's face hovered above him but immediately leaned back, and sighs of relief came from behind him. Jay coughed up more water before tilting his head back to get an upside-down view of Aliya and Jenny's worried faces.

"What happened?" He asked, voice weak.

"You nearly drowned is what happened," Jenny said, arms crossed, "Dad did CPR." Their gazes went to the Doctor, who was wincing and cradling his left hand, which was considerably more burnt than any other part of his or anyone else's body. "Also, these little containers were floating on the surface of the water when we came up. We think they might be from our sponsors."

Jay pushed himself up into a sitting position as Aliya twisted one of the containers open to reveal a clear, sticky substance. She hesitantly dipped her fingers in it, only for her eyebrows to go up. She brought her fingers to red and cracked skin of her face and slowly smeared the substance across her cheek. Almost instantaneously, the patch of skin she touched began to clear.

"Burn balm," the Doctor said, with a pleased sigh, "Thank goodness for that."

"Can I put this on you, Jay?" Aliya asked, looking at him with concern. "Other than the Doctor's hand, you were exposed the longest."

It sounded like a nice way of saying that he was the one that currently looked the most screwed up, but every bit of exposed skin stung like hell, so he couldn't nod quickly enough.

Incredibly gently, Aliya spread the balm across Jay's face. Upon properly taking in the blistered, red skin of her face, Jay realised he could help with that.

"Can I return the favour?" He asked, bringing his hand to the jar.

She smiled at him. "That would be great. Thanks."

Jenny had meanwhile grabbed the other container and knelt by her father, lathering the balm over his particularly injured hand very gently while he grit his teeth.

"What happened to his hand?" Jay asked Aliya quietly as the older blonde gingerly pushed some of his hair out of the way to get the balm on the skin underneath. For someone who barely knew him, she was very attentive.

But upon hearing his question, her eyes flicked to the Doctor and she bit her lip. "He held his hand above the water the whole time," she said slowly, swallowing hard, "So that he would immediately know when the fog cleared, if it did. Undoubtedly saved all our lives by doing so."

"Ouch," Jay said, and they both knew he wasn't talking about any of his own pain. It was more or less entirely gone thanks to the balm and Aliya's application of it. He hurried to finish his own job of fixing her up, and then they went to Jenny and the Doctor to offer some of their leftover balm.

"Ow," the Doctor said as Jenny swept the balm across his jawline, "You know, normally I'm a fan of fog. This might just put me off it for the next hundred years or so."

It was impossible to tell if he was exaggerating or not, and Jay couldn't think too much about that now. Instead, he knelt by the other man and put a hand on his arm. "Thank you. For saving my life."

The Doctor smiled at him, far too cheerfully for someone who had gone through as much pain as he had. "You're very welcome, Jay."

"That was a terrible plan," Aliya said, but her soft voice didn't match her words, and the Doctor just turned his smile onto her, looking vaguely amused.

"Says the one who followed it without question."

She didn't answer, just gave him a faint smile back and started heading in the direction of the pod, apparently intent on finishing what they had started.

"There's one thing I don't get," Jenny said, watching her go and frowning, "Why would the sponsors help us when we've been planning to get up there and shut them down this whole time? If they're supposedly watching us."

"Maybe their videos don't have an audio link," the Doctor said, shrugging, "Or maybe they just don't think we can do it and aren't worried."

"We - we can do it, though, right?" Jay asked, suddenly worried and realising that maybe he should have been earlier.

The Doctor got to his feet and clapped Jay on the shoulder, grinning at him. "Course we can. Come on." They headed back to the pod, where Aliya was already back to being covered in wires, and the Doctor wasted no time in diving back into his own work.

"How are we doing?"

"Almost there, I think."

After a few minutes, they started grinning at each other and got Jenny and Jay to join them on the platforms once the circuitry was replaced. The Doctor lifted his sonic screwdriver in front of him, pressed the button, and everything went white.

When the light faded, they were somewhere else entirely. That somewhere else being a minuscule space that had them crushed together in a way which was decidedly uncomfortable.

"Where are we?" Jay gasped, spluttering as he tried to get Jenny's ponytail away from his mouth.

"Storage cupboard, I think," the Doctor said, grinning, "There's always a cupboard." He looked at Aliya, who had ended up awkwardly squished under his arm. "See? Told you I could do it."

"I'd be more impressed if you weren't standing on my foot and if Jenny's elbow wasn't digging into my ribs," she replied, sighing, "But credit where it's due - your aim is enviable."

His grin only widened. "Enviable?"

"Fuck off and just tell us the plan so we can get out of here."

"Well, I was thinking that we find the room that controls the arena simulations, and find a way to shut everything down."

"But there'd be people in there working the controls and stuff, wouldn't there?" Jay asked, frowning at him in the harsh artificial light, "We wouldn't just be able to get in."

"We've got this thing called psychic paper that can get us into pretty much anywhere," Jenny explained, "Shows them whatever credentials they want to see."

"Okay, well, that's weird and awesome," Jay said slowly, "But seems like it still wouldn't be any good if they already know what we look like, which they will if they've been watching the competition."

"Shit," Aliya muttered.

The Doctor sighed. "What she said. Okay, hold on, there must be something else, just let me think." While he went quiet, the other three fidgeted to try and get more comfortable. It didn't work - Jenny's shoulder ended digging into Jay's chest even harder than before.

"Would there be a way to cut the transmission of the game?" Jenny asked after a while. "I mean, if the sponsors are watching it somewhere, someone's probably organising the footage and then sending it through. Would we need to be in the control room to cut it off?"

"Probably not, there's loads of wiring in the walls we could tamper with, I bet, the sonic could find the right spots for it," the Doctor said, "And turning off their telly would be a pretty good distraction."

"Distraction for what?"

"For me to do a thing."

Jay frowned at him. "What? What does that mean? What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to tell on them," the Doctor said simply, before pointing his sonic at the door of the cupboard, "Now come on, team, move out."

They were all too eager to stumble their way out into the corridor and stretch their cramped bodies with sighs of relief. The Doctor spun around with the sonic and then beamed.

"Lovely, there's apparently a terminal just around the corner that should work." He led the way and opened up a panel in the wall to reveal another mass of wires and circuitry. "There we are. Now, for this to work, I'll need to be on the deck where the sponsors are when the transmission cuts out. So I think it would be best if you took care of this one, Aliya."

"On it." She crouched in front of the panel and pushed her sleeves up as she peered at the mess in front of her. "So it would be these ones here?"

The Doctor took a look at where she was pointing. "Yes, I think so."

"Looks straightforward enough, then, but I'll need some time."

"You've got ten minutes."

While Aliya got to work rewiring, the Doctor came to put his arms around Jenny and Jay's shoulders and beamed at them. "How are we doing? Jay, you alright?"

"Er, yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"I dunno, space station, aliens, I imagine it's a bit of a shock."

"After alien monsters trying to kill me, you're not really enough to scare me," Jay told him, which seemed to please him.

"Well good. Because I'm not. Scary, that is," he said as he let go of them and stepped backwards, "Not me. I can be, sometimes, but only to aliens who aren't being nice and won't listen any other way - are you sure you're doing that right, Aliya?" His head had jerked towards where his friend was working on the panel and he was frowning. "I think that coupling is meant to go in the-"

"You're the one that told me to do this, so don't be a backseat engineer," Aliya told him, gritting her teeth as the panel sparked slightly, "Given that one of us has an actual qualification and the other just tends to fiddle and hope for the best."

"Yes, but I do it brilliantly," he said, flicking his hair while she rolled her eyes and let out a 'hmph' noise that sounded to Jay like one of very reluctant agreement. He crouched next to her again. "Now, when I said to cut the transmission, that was only half true. I need you to do this as well-" Their voices became quieter as they leaned into the panel opening further so he could point to whatever they were discussing. A few moments later, Aliya was nodding and the Doctor was back on his feet, looking satisfied. "Alright, Jenny, you stay here with Aliya and keep watch for anyone who might come your way and give you trouble. Jay, with me."

"Where are we going?"

"To see the sponsors. Let's see just who gets kicks out of plucking people from their homes and watching them kill each other. I'm sure they'll be a charming bunch."

He set off without another word and Jay hurried to follow and fall into step with him, which wasn't as easy as he might have liked because the alien man was a fair bit taller than him and therefore had longer strides.

"So, do you do this a lot?" Jay asked him.

"Do what?"

"Well, you know, stop bad guys from doing bad stuff."

"Maybe. Why, do I seem like I do?"

"Yeah. And some stuff Jenny said about you when we first met. She made it sound like you were pretty experienced with getting out of tricky situations."

The Doctor smiled at him, a little bashfully. "I suppose I am. I don't usually mean to end up in the middle of things like this - but it does tend to happen to me rather a lot."

"But you like it, right?"

"Like constantly running away from people who want to kill me, being kidnapped and imprisoned left right and center, and being an inch away from death more often than not? Are you insane?" The Doctor asked with a horrified look on his face, before grinning. "Course I do. Never a moment of boredom."

"Right," Jay said, not half disconcerted with how quickly he could change his demeanour. It was almost enough to give him whiplash. "So, what's our actual plan?"

"Like I said, we're going to tell on them."

"But what does that mean?"

"Do you think outer space doesn't have laws, Jay? There's police out here just like anywhere else. And this? This whole setup? Do you really think this is legal?"

"Legal?" Jay repeated. Perhaps it was silly, but the thought of legality of all things applying to their absurd situation was one that hadn't remotely occurred to him.

"Come on, Jay, think about it," the Doctor said with exasperation, "There are loads of planets out there as clueless about aliens as Earth. There are plenty of laws in place to keep them from being victims of more advanced civilisations. Kidnapping on this scale, if it's been going on as long as I suspect, is a direct violation of the Shadow Proclamation's-"

"The what?"

"They're basically the space police. Point is, if what they're doing got out, they'd be in big trouble. And I mean big. So, I'm going to remind them of that, make them shut the whole thing down, and if all goes to plan, we'll have you and everyone else home for tea."

"Oh, okay," Jay said, "Well, that'd be great." It all sounded a little straightforward and good to be true, but Jenny said that the Doctor was good at this. That it was what he did. So surely it would work out?

They turned a corner and found themselves a grand set of doors. When they poked their heads through, in front of them was a sweeping staircase that led down to a huge, decorated space filled with various species of alien dressed in what looked like probably the finest clothing and jewellery one could get in outer space or wherever they happened to come from. They were all seated in lavish lounge seats and watching the screen at the front of the room which was easily as big as the one at the largest movie theatre Jay had ever been to.

On the screen, a small red alien was bashing in a humanoid's head with a rock. Some of the sponsors were cheering, while others were upset, though Jay figured probably just because the humanoid was their favourite or sponsored competitor.

"So now what?" Jay whispered. He tried to ignore the queasy feeling in his stomach which he knew was induced by the sight in front of him. Knowing that people had gathered to watch people like him kill each other, for fun and some stupid trophy, that was one thing. Seeing it was another.

"Now we wait for the transmission to cut out," the Doctor whispered back, "Any minute now. Aliya knows what she's doing."

Sure enough, twenty seconds later, the huge screen went black and there were cries of outrage from the large group of sponsors.

"I apologise, ladies, gentlemen, and otherwise," said an alien that Jay recognised as the announcer who had been on the screen in the pod at the beginning of the game. They had strode out in front of the protesting crowd and offered what was probably supposed to be a charming and reassuring smile. "A minor technical hiccup, I'm sure."

"I wouldn't be, if I were you," the Doctor said, projecting his voice like an expert and stepping properly through the doors, giving Jay little choice but to come and stand next to him. Every alien in the room turned to look at them with alarm. "Sorry, I never can resist a grand entrance."

"Hang on, you're my candidate!" An elderly humanoid sponsor said, looking outraged. "How did you get out of the arena? How dare you come here?"

"How dare I?" The Doctor repeated, lifting an eyebrow. "Big talk coming from the fella who's been participating in illegal blood sport." His sponsor turned an interesting shade of purple. "What? Don't like being reminded of the fact that if this little contest of yours was ever discovered by the authorities, you'd all be in Stormcage for life?"

"What have you done?" The announcer demanded.

"Well, basically we've cut off your transmission and had it rerouted, ready to send somewhere else entirely," the Doctor said, grinning, "And in case you're wondering, that somewhere else is the Shadow Proclamation. I've got the Architect's personal inbox code."

One of the other sponsors, a very tall lilac woman in black, whipped out a gun and pointed it in their direction. "Then I suppose we'll just have to shoot you before you can make good on that threat," she told the Doctor.

"Not a bad plan, in theory," the Doctor said, all too nonchalantly for someone with a gun pointed at him, "Except, oops! Forgot to mention the other detail. I'm not the one doing the rerouting. That would be a friend of mine. And she'll still send the feed through if I'm dead, so I suggest you all do exactly as I say, because currently the lives and freedom of everyone in this room are in my hands. Or at least, hands that in this instance answer to me. So...do I have your full attention now?"

The room was silent, and the Doctor smiled. For the first time, Jay found himself just a little wary of him. He'd been charismatic from the start, sure, but he'd just gained full control of a room full of armed aliens with nothing but words. And Jay didn't know whether he thought that was terrifying or the most awesome thing he'd ever witnessed. Or somehow both at the same time.

"Good."

That was when Aliya and Jenny ran in, the former holding a very flimsy looking device in her hands, her thumb on the button. "If you think you can shoot me before I press this, you're wrong," she said, her gaze steady as she eyed the room of hostile aliens below them.

"Nice timing," the Doctor told them.

His daughter grinned. "Learned from the best."

"What do you want?" One of the aliens asked them, its tentacles trembling. "If you're blackmailing us, you must want something."

"Oh, that's easy," the Doctor said, smiling pleasantly, "I want you to stop."

"Stop what?"

"Everything. All of this. I want all those people, your competitors, sent home, immediately. I want this to be the last game of its kind I see run by you people. I want you to all find hobbies that don't involve kidnapping innocent people and making them kill each other for your amusement while you bet on them like they're animals."

While the Doctor's previous speech had been frightening due to the casual manner that didn't fit the words, this one had become deadly serious. There was a quiet fury in his tone that sent a shiver down Jay's spine. He didn't know how they weren't all withering under his gaze.

The man in the bowtie also wasn't done yet. "I want to never get a single whiff of you doing anything like this ever again, and believe me when I say that if you do, I will know." He looked to the announcer, who flinched. "You. Where are the teleports controlled from?"

"The control room."

"The same one that controls the simulations?"

"Yes."

"Good. Okay. What do you need to address the entire arena, right now?" The announcer held up a device on their wrist. "Bring it to me." They did, and the Doctor strapped it onto his own arm before fiddling with the settings. "Alright, excuse me for a moment."

"Are you sure you know how to-"

A small light field surrounded him and he looked straight ahead into nothing. "Listen up, any of you who are left in the game. Stop whatever you're doing and listen. My name is the Doctor. Some of you might have seen me in the arena. Bloke in the cool clothes who can't stop running his mouth. Anyway. My friends and I managed to escape onto the sponsor ship, and long story short, we've taken control and are shutting down this operation for good. If you all return to the pods you came from, we can get you all back home. Just make sure you're in the right one. Run along now, quick as you can! Soon enough we'll all be able to relax with a nice cup of tea and forget this ever happened."

The light field disappeared and the Doctor snapped back to attention.

"Now what?" The announcer asked, looking like they wanted to try and run back down the stairs by the way they were inching away from the Doctor.

"Now you all leave," the Doctor said, shrugging. "I assume you all have transport or teleports. Use them. Get out of here and don't come back. Because if you do, I'll go straight to the Shadow Proclamation and you'll all be finished. Go on, go." He projected his voice to the whole room. "Go! Go home, all of you! And don't get any ideas about doing this again!"

There was a pregnant pause that could be felt in the very air, where the aliens looked at each other unsurely. Then half of them teleported away in an instant and the others ran for a side door that probably led to a transport dock of some kind.

The Doctor, Jay, Jenny and Aliya all glanced at the announcer, who was still standing at the top of the stairs nearby. The blue alien jumped when the Doctor just lifted an eyebrow at them. Then they ran off down the stairs as fast as their thin legs could carry them, and out the same side door as the sponsors.

An odd laugh escaped Jay's throat. It wasn't funny, not really, and he knew that he should be frightened, but there was something so absurd about what had just happened that he couldn't help it.

"Nice job," Aliya said, eyeing the empty room before them. "So, to the control room, then?"

The Doctor, thunder instantly gone, turned to smile at her. "Yep, got to get everyone home. We'll get on that." He looked to Jenny and Jay. "You two, go down and through that door, check that everyone's actually left. Then meet us at the control room."

"Sure thing," Jenny said, grinning. "See you soon."

The two pairs headed off in opposite directions, with Jay following Jenny down the grand staircase into the space filled with empty seats. They made him think of the first class section on an airplane. Utterly decadent. But then what else he could expect from the people that had been occupying them?

"Come on, this way," Jenny murmured, nudging him with her shoulder, "We can look around a bit after we've done what Dad said."

They headed for the side door and walked through it into a corridor as well-decorated as the room they had just left.

"Do you always do what he says?" Jay asked curiously as they continued down it. "I mean, not to make that sound like a bad thing, because I guess he's the guy with the plan, but is he always the one in charge?"

"Usually," Jenny said, shrugging, "But like you said, he's the one with the plan. That means giving orders - well, instructions - is just part of what he does if he needs us. Which he does, even if sometimes he won't admit it."

"And you don't mind following instructions?"

She grinned. "Nah. It's good actually, because I've started trying to guess what he's going to tell me to do before he says it. It's a good learning experience. Plus, I was created to be a soldier, so the whole following orders or instructions thing comes naturally."

"Oh," he said, "I guess that makes sense."

They reached the end of the corridor and came out into a huge hangar, where the last few spaceships were pulling out and zooming off into the blackness of space and out of sight.

"Hang on, if that's space right there at the end of this hangar thing, how are we breathing?" Jay asked, eyes wide.

Jenny tilted her head as she considered the question. "Huh. I hadn't thought of that." She narrowed her eyes at the opening at the end of the hangar. "I think there might some kind of atmospheric barrier there, so it lets things in and out, but not stuff like air."

"Are you just guessing?"

She laughed. "Yeah, but I think I might be right. I can almost feel it, like it's making my skin tingle or something."

"Really?"

"I think so. Dad's helping me pick up on all this stuff, but it's tricky. There's a lot to learn."

"I never thought about aliens having to study to have cool powers," Jay said, "That makes me feel a bit better about, I don't know, everything. Somehow. Does that make my priorities really messed up?"

She smiled. "No. I think it makes you human."

He smiled back for a second, before something about her clear and innocent gaze got to him. How could she still have that childlike light in her eyes, and smile like that, if she could also look at the horrors they had seen today and be able to just walk away?

He jerked his head to look straight ahead, at the vastness of the stars past Jenny's theorised barrier. That didn't help calm him down.

"So, they're all gone, does that mean we can go back?" He asked.

"Yeah, sure." Her voice gave away her uncertainty as to his abrupt change in manner. But after everything that had happened, he couldn't quite muster up the energy to do anything but put his hands in his pockets, turn, and head back the way they had come.

Jenny followed him in silence, and they came back into the grand room that the Doctor had so efficiently cleared out.

"So, your dad can get me back home, right?" Jay asked her as they both did partial turns to take in parts of the room they had previously overlooked.

"Well, we need the TARDIS for that, but yeah," she replied.

"That's his spaceship time machine?"

"Yep! It's still in London, not far from where we all got teleported, but if I were Dad, I'd figure that if these sponsor people were able to use the tech here to teleport people from London into the arena, he should be able to hijack the system to teleport the TARDIS onto this station."

Jay lifted his eyebrows, impressed. "Do you think he'll think of that?"

"He'll have already started, if I know him," she said with a grin, before something caught her eye. "Hang on, what's that?"

Gold plating covered a strip of wall near them, with an engraved set of two columns of writing. They went to examine it further, and Jay got the idea that the writing in the columns were names, since some of them looked human enough and there didn't seem any reason for the other writing to be something else.

"I think it's the list of winners," Jenny murmured, "And their sponsors. God, there must be nearly a hundred games listed here. How long were they doing this?"

"Aliens have some weird names," he said, chuckling until his gaze landed on one name that made him gape. "Wait. No. No way."

"What?"

Jay's finger pointed to a name about twenty games back. Suzanne Collins. As plain as day, right in front of them, an earlier joke become reality.

"Is that-"

"The author, just like you said," Jay breathed, and found himself starting to laugh, "She didn't just get the idea watching TV, she won an alien gladiator fight to the death! Man, you couldn't guess it, if you looked at her. But size isn't everything I guess."

"So you're saying that the Hunger Games should have been set in space?"

"With alien tributes, yeah."

Jenny started laughing too, and Jay found that he just couldn't stop - he laughed until his belly ached. It was so ridiculous, so against all probability or logic, yet after the day he had had it was all too easy to accept.

They had just about gotten themselves under control when Aliya came into view at the top of the stairs, and her eyes locked onto them immediately.

"Both of you, up here, now," she shouted, and they hurried towards and up the stairs, "Come on, we've got to get back to the control room."

They followed her out the doors and through the corridors, walking so fast that they were practically jogging.

"What's wrong?" Jay asked, because something clearly was.

"Some...arsehole...set this entire place to blow," Aliya said through gritted teeth, "Some kind of safeguard, I suppose. Or maybe one of the sponsors teleported to the control room and did it before we got there. Either way, we've got minutes, if that."

"Did you get everyone home?"

"Yes, they're all fine, even if a few stragglers needed a bit of encouragement that it wasn't a trick."

Jay couldn't quite bring himself to be too worried about the aliens from the arena after hearing that the station was due to be blown up. "But what about us? Are we going to be able to get away in time?"

"I really hope so," Aliya replied, letting out a nervous laugh, "The Doctor's working on teleporting the TARDIS up here-"

"Told you," Jenny murmured to Jay.

"But there's a chance he won't be done in time."

"Nah, it's Dad, he'll manage it at the last second, no fun otherwise," Jenny said, grinning, and Aliya gave her a look that made it plain that she agreed but was worried all the same.

It wasn't long before they reached the control room to find the Doctor furiously typing away at a terminal, his forehead creased in a deep frown of concentration.

"How's it going? Anything we can do to help?" Aliya asked him.

"Yeah," he said, "Shut up." She rolled her eyes. "See, this is one of those times where I really wish I had a TARDIS remote control, the Rani had the right idea-"

"Well, we don't have one, and you'd be better served not wasting your time dwelling on things we don't have."

Jay's eyes took a look around the control room and landed on a nearby screen, where a countdown had just gone under the one minute mark. "Uh, is this how long we have until we get blown up?" He asked.

"Yes," the Doctor said, without looking up, "But don't worry, because we'll be out of here by then. Now please, hush and let me concentrate."

It seemed rather hypocritical of him to ask for them to be quiet when he had started rambling immediately after the last time he had said it, but Jay got the idea that it was just how he was, if Jenny and Aliya's shared looks of exasperation were anything to go by.

The Doctor did keep talking, but it was more mutterings under his breath to himself than anything else. Still, when it got to twenty seconds from the explosion, Jay felt the panic creeping in, and it seemed he wasn't the only one.

"Dad," Jenny said, sounding worried.

"I'm almost there!"

"Well you'd better be!"

"I just need to...aha! There!"

As the timer hit twelve seconds, a wheezing sound began to fill the air and a blue box began to appear in front of them, much to Jay's complete bemusement. When it was solid, he could see that it said Police Box Call Box across the top.

"Come on, inside," Jenny said to Jay, pushing him towards it, and he didn't have time to protest before she was throwing the door open and shoving him inside. He stumbled and fell to his knees, and heard the others climbing in behind him and then the doors slamming shut.

There was two seconds to breathe before they were thrown by a huge jolt, that Jay realised had to be the force of the explosion. If they were in a wooden box, he wasn't sure why they hadn't been destroyed, but he wasn't complaining.

Jenny fell on him heavily and he let out a yell as her elbow dug into his back. When things went from complete chaos to mere turbulence, Jay was able to sit up and take his surroundings in for the first time, only to blink.

"Wait, what?"

The place he was in was huge, a spacious control room of warm orange, with a small set of stairs nearby leading up to a platform with a glass floor that surrounded a round (or possibly hexagonal) set of controls. In the centre of them was a thick column of glass with what looked like a sculpture inside, stretching up to the ceiling.

It was beautiful. And without a doubt the coolest thing Jay had ever seen.

"I thought we went into a box," he said, awed, "How did we get in here?"

"This is the inside of the box," Jenny told him, rubbing her elbow and wincing, "Welcome to the TARDIS." She smiled at him and got up, offering him a hand which he took. "It stands for Time and Relative Dimensions In Space."

"So, it's bigger on the inside?"

Jenny grinned. "Yeah. Pretty cool, right?"

"Just a bit," he murmured, his gaze moving to where the Doctor was up by the controls and struggling to remain upright because of how the ship was still shaking. "So can you take me home now, Doctor?"

"Ah, hopefully," the other man replied, but was frowning at a screen in front of him.

"What's wrong?"

"Well, the force of the explosion may have sent us hurtling towards the nearest star. But that's fine, the TARDIS has-" The Doctor stopped, horror crossing his face. "...shields."

"You put them down onto partial for repairs this morning!" Aliya said, gripping the railing of the stairs.

"And the explosion of the space station wiped the partials out completely," he said, swallowing hard, "And we have about ten seconds until we hit the star."

"So do something!"

"Doing it! But brace yourselves, this is going to be rough!"

The Doctor's hands moved furiously across the controls for a few seconds, pressing buttons until he yanked down a lever that made the ship jerk again and the wheezing noise from before filled the room as the sculpture in the column above the controls began to move up and down.

Jay didn't realise he had squeezed his eyes shut until everything had gone quiet and it had become apparent that he wasn't dead. When he opened them, the other three were looking a bit out of sorts but otherwise alright.

"How did you get us out of there so quickly?" Aliya asked the Doctor as she righted herself.

"Hit the randomiser," he said, straightening his bowtie and letting out a long breath, "Didn't have time for coordinates. Still, we cut it way too close, that star's left the TARDIS a bit fried, by the looks of things. Or at the very least, overheated."

"What does that mean?" Jay asked.

"It means we're not in London in 2016, and won't be for a little while yet," the Doctor told him, "I'm sorry, Jay. But I promise to get you back there as soon as I can."

"Okay," Jay said, since there didn't seem to be much else he could say. "Where are we then?"

The Doctor grinned. "I don't know. Do you want to find out?"

I think I'm going to try and keep at least minor cliffhangers throughout the story. Because, I mean, is it really Doctor Who without continuous cliffhangers?

Thanks for reading, let me know what you thought! All feedback is appreciated!

-MayFairy :)