"I'm a visitor to this planet, too," the Doctor ventured. Yes, yes, they'd been told not to speak, but he couldn't help it, really. The banging, clanking noises had started up again, and they put him on edge. He had to do something - just something! "I may be able to help you, if you tell me what the problem is?"
The voice laughed menacingly. "My, my! It seems the male has a death wish!" it mocked.
"Ah, tsh! I'm old! Older than you'd think, at first glance," the Doctor told the voice. "When you get to my age, you've got a couple of options: you either accept the fact that you're old and, therefore, you're past your prime, or you throw caution to the wind and take heart that you are still alive - and live!"
The voice gave a gravelly laugh, the sound echoing strangely in the dark room.
Rose's hand found the Doctor's arm and she gave it a squeeze as though to silently say, "Hey, you, crazy man - I don't want to die! Why are you provoking this guy... thing?"
"It's okay," the Doctor told Rose calmly. "Our friend here needs me. You see, he can't get his machine to work properly. But, tsh, how would I know that? That, my dear, is precisely why you kept hearing those strange noises."
"Just for the record," Rose piped up, finally, "I don't want to die. Then why am I running me mouth when you said 'Silence, Earthlings!'? That's a very good question. A very good question. I'm not stalling for time, at all. No, nope, I am not. I'm... I'm backing up this bloke. He's... clever. Like, real clever. He can help, if you give him a chance. And, really, we don't mean you any harm - none! We're here to help! That's why we popped over here for a looksie, see. We thought someone might be in trouble and needin' our help."
"I don't need your help!" the voice sneered, almost as though amused that Rose would even suggest such a thing.
"'I,'" the Doctor repeated. "Oh, I see. You're alone. It's just you! That's... lonely." His voice brightened, "Let us help you! I can help! It's what I do! I help!"
"You are not of this world?" the voice asked, a weary note straining to reach their ears through the strange, induced darkness.
"No. I'm a visitor, like you are. And a friend, I hope. Just let me help, please. You say you're a visitor?"
"Not intentionally," the voice replied tiredly.
"What went wrong? How did you end up here? Why this machine? What does it do?"
"So many questions."
"Yes, a lot of questions. Lots of questions. I've always got lots of questions. That's why I travel. To meet new lifeforms, learn new things."
The voice seemed to sigh, and the sigh rippled through the artificial darkness, vibrating the air as it passed through it, to their ears. "My cruiser ship was flying through the Deltarex Galaxy with myself and my family on-board, when it suddenly lost control and we flew into a dying star," it explained.
"I'm sorry. But what's the point of the inter-dimensional machine? You're trying to establish a pathway to another dimension, but why?"
"My cruiser's collision with that dying star and the resulting energy burst interacting with the cruiser's drive transported me to another dimension," the voice replied. "I'm tired. I want to get home. I want to see my family again."
"I'm sorry," the Doctor said, his voice tinged with sadness, "but you didn't get transported into a different dimension. I'm so sorry. What you experienced was a time paradox. You were thrown through time and ended up here, on Earth, in the 21st Century."
"I don't believe it! Time travel! And what of my family? Were they also transported to another time and place?"
"I'm sorry, but it's a miracle you survived at all."
Rose swallowed the urge to say something. She couldn't believe that all the Doctor could say was how sorry he was, or that time travel was possible, or that the only words she'd be able to come up with, in his place, were that she was sorry, too.
"Please, shut off the machine," the Doctor appealed.
With a heavy sigh, the voice consented. "There's not much point to it, anymore, if it won't take me home."
"No. I'm sorry. Ah! The dark! The dark - it's a defence mechanism! What is it called again, a Shadow Guard!"
"Hmm. I shall disable the Guard now."
"Thank you."
"Hmm..."
The darkness seemed to shift and Rose fought the urge to bat it away, it felt funny, and little pockets of light opened up in the black, like bubbles in a lava lamp, and then it was daytime, once more, as it had been all along, and Rose finally saw who they'd been talking to-
The Doctor clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her scream. It was... it was a lizard! A huge talking lizard!
How odd was that?
"Thaaaat's... different!" she said, as she took the Doctor's hand away from her mouth.
"You look 'different' to him, too, you know," the Doctor said.
"Oh, I'll bet, stranger!" Addressing the lizard man, now, she asked, "I'm Rose. What's your name?"
"Sephen Amelox Menyvo."
"Sephen. You never quite know who you're going to meet, 'round here, Sephen, but ya gotta love it!"
"Sephen, I can take you home," the Doctor told him.
"You have a vessel capable of inter-stellar travel?" Sephen asked.
"Yes. Oh, yes!"
Sephen sighed heavily. "Thank you," he said.
"Travel... amongst the stars?" Rose asked suddenly, catching the Doctor's eye. "Oh, this I have to see! Mind if I tag along for a bitsie, mister?"
"Not at all!" he returned, with a grin.
Yep, this guy was insane! But the good kind of insane. And she'd rather started to wonder: if Lizard Men existed, then maybe the Doctor wasn't telling such a tall tale, after all. Maybe he could travel amongst the stars.
No way could she turn that down!
She beamed back at this funny stranger who'd just dropped into her life one day, unannounced, with all sorts of crazy notions and crazy, exciting promises. "Sign me up, Doctor! I'm locked and loaded and ready to roll!"
Maybe not her best line, she thought, but, hey, she'd have plenty of time to perfect her one-liners on-board the Doctor's ship.
"Say it's fast!"
"She's fast!"
"Great!" She turned to Sephen with a smile. "Sephen, you'll be home in no time! Hey, you want some help packing that clangy-bangy thing up?"
"That would be very much appreciated, thank you," Sephen replied, and Rose bounded over eagerly to help him get the machine packed away and ready for transport.
The End