The Doctor had blurred some of the worst of Gina's memories to take away some of the pain. She no longer remembered the details of what had happened aboard Pegasus, just the fact that it had happened. He did not erase those memories completely, because he deemed them necessary for her personal growth. Instead, he taught her Timelord meditation techniques and shared with her some of his own painful memories.
After stopping in the year 1979, preventing the Vogons from destroying Earth, the TARDIS finally arrived in Woodstock in the year 1969. The Doctor was going to make good on his promise to Gina to attend the famous Woodstock festival with her.
Unbeknownst to the Doctor and his Cylon travel companion, the TARDIS had taken on two hitchhikers during their recent stop aboard the Vogon constructor ship. One of these hitchhikers was a human from southwestern England, the other one was a humanoid from somewhere in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.
Two hours earlier (relative time from the perspective of the TARDIS)
Arthur Dent suddenly found himself under water, surrounded by walls covered in white ceramic tile. Arthur was shocked, surprised, and at the same time realized he did not have much breath. Within split seconds, his survival instincts kicked in and he began swimming towards the surface, which was luckily not far away. As soon as his head emerged he started coughing. He had run out of air and started breathing too soon, getting some water into his lungs. With his hands flailing and his feet kicking, trying to keep his head above the surface, he was coughing and spitting out water.
Ford Prefect surfaced moments later, not far from him.
Just a split second earlier Arthur had been standing in front of what had been left of his house, staring at strange yellow objects in the sky. Standing next to him had been his friend Ford Prefect, who had just revealed to him that he was not from Guildford, but from a small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.
"Are you alright?" Ford shouted.
"I think I'll survive", Arthur replied after he stopped coughing.
Arthur Dent had water in his ears and his eyes were stinging from the chlorine. Blinking, looking around, he realized he was in a large swimming pool. A few feet away, Ford Prefect was swimming toward a ladder that led out of the pool. Arthur followed him.
"If I asked you where the hell we were," Arthur said weakly, "would I regret it?"
Ford climbed out of the pool. "We're safe," he said, water dripping from his hair and his clothes.
"Oh good," said Arthur.
"We're in a swimming pool," said Ford, "aboard one of the spaceships of the Vogon Constructor Fleet."
"Ah," said Arthur, "this is obviously some strange usage of the word safe that I wasn't previously aware of."
"Although it quite puzzles me why a Vogon Constructor Ship would have an Olympic size swimming pool", Ford remarked.
Arthur and Ford were in fact not in a swimming pool aboard a Vogon constructor ship. Vogon constructor ships do not have such amenities as a swimming pool. They had both materialized in the swimming pool aboard the TARDIS, which in turn had materialized in a cargo bay aboard one of the Vogon ships. When Ford's "electronic thumb" had transmitted its request for a ride, the signal had been routed through the TARDIS main computer, thanks to Gina's hacking of the constructor ship's computer system. The TARDIS, having a mind of its on, or better a mind of her own (since the Doctor's TARDIS has a female personality), decided to use the constructor ship's teleporter to transport the two hitchhikers aboard. The TARDIS began observing the two hitchhikers with her internal surveillance system and performed a threat assessment, resulting in both of them being classified as "mostly harmless". That essentially meant they were too incompetent to cause any serious harm to the Doctor, his travel companion, or the TARDIS herself.
"We need to see if we can find some dry clothes", Arthur suggested, pointing to a door that, in any other indoor swimming pool, would have led to a locker room. Ford was meanwhile drying his hair with a towel, which, to Arthur's surprise had not gotten wet when they had ended up in that pool.
Ford stuffed his towel back into his satchel, which must somehow be waterproof, even though it clearly did not look like it. They both walked through that door and ended up in a library instead of the locker room where Arthur had hoped to find a set of spare clothes in his size. The library had several rows of shelves filled with books of many different sizes and in many different languages. Arthur recognized literary classics such as Sun Tzu's "The Art of War", Plato's "Republic", various works by Shakespeare, Charles Darwin's "Origin of Species" and many more. Most books, however, were written in languages other than English, and most of those were even written in languages not known to most humans. It had electronic books as well.
While Ford downloaded an electronic copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy into his reading device, Arthur heard a noise and decided to sneak around the corner to see what that was. He could not believe his eyes. A hole opened. Not in the wall, not in the floor, not in the ceiling or in any of the shelves. In the middle of the room, in the air. An orangutan came walking out of that hole, as if that was the most normal thing in the world, carrying a stack of books under his arms. Arthur stood there in shock, watching. The orangutan walked to a desk that had a sign reading "Inter Library Loan" taped to it. He placed his books on the desk, picked up another stack of books from the same desk and walked back toward the hole. After the ape had walked through, the hole disappeared with the same noise it had come into existence.
The Doctor had not taken the time to rearrange the interior of the TARDIS in any meaningful manner since his last regeneration. Which was an irony, since being a Timelord and being able to travel through time, one who didn't know the Doctor could assume he would have plenty of time on his hands. So, most rooms and corridors inside the TARDIS were connected to each other in a seemingly random manner.
After stumbling around inside the TARDIS and walking around in circles at least three times, Arthur and Ford arrived in the wardrobe, the Doctors huge walk-in closet. With the words "Who in their right mind would wear anything like that?", Arthur looked at a long multicolored knitted scarf he had found and discarded it, while Ford tried on a wide brim fedora. After some searching they both finally found clothes that fit and changed into outfits that had been worn by the Doctor's previous incarnations.
While the Doctor and Gina were enjoying the Woodstock festival, Arthur and Ford finally managed to get into one of the older control rooms that had been used by a previous incarnation of the Doctor and was now in storage.
"Looks like we finally found the bridge of that thing", Ford said.
"Isn't this space ship supposed to have a crew?" Arthur asked.
"Believe me, you don't want to meet the crew of a Vogon constructor ship", Ford responded, still thinking they were aboard one of the ugly yellow ships.
"So how do we get back home?" Arthur asked.
"Your home? Sorry, but Earth is gone. My home? I don't want to go home just yet", Ford responded.
Arthur had still not come to terms with the fact that Earth had been destroyed by the Vogon constructor fleet. Of course, it had not actually been destroyed, thanks to the interventions of the Doctor and Gina Inviere. But neither Arthur nor Ford were aware of this.
"So, where are we going then?" Arthur asked.
"I was planning to stop by on the fourth planet of Barnard's star. The purple sky above the southwestern continent is lovely there this time of year. Where do you want to go?"
"Uhmmm, I don't know... Anywhere off this weird ship.
While Ford pulled his reading device out of his satchel and started to read an electronic book, Arthur began turning knobs and pressing buttons. He thought briefly he might get in trouble for that once the crew returned, but after what Ford had told him about the Vogons, they would be in trouble either way. He was frustrated with his current situation. Arthur Dent wanted to go home, or at least anywhere that was similar to home, since home no longer existed. And he started to feel a craving for tea.
A display that had been showing the date and time in Gallifreyan started changing. Instead of displaying the Gallifreyan equivalent of the Earth year 1969, it now showed symbols that translate into the Earth year 1260. Of course the Gallifreyans use different systems for measuring time than humans, and a Base 12 numbering system instead of Base 10. The location, which was shown on a second display, changed as well. By dozens of lightyears.
The TARDIS allowed her two passengers to take control. Had Arthur and Ford had any malicious intentions, the TARDIS would have either driven them insane, or ejected them forcefully. This TARDIS was very adventurous in nature. That was the reason why she had allowed the Doctor to steal her in the first place. She was curious what the two hitchhikers were up to and she knew that the Doctor and Gina would be safe on 1969 Earth at the Woodstock festival. Besides, being a time machine, she could always return a split second after she left, from an outsider's point of view. That way nobody would even notice she was gone.
Ford meanwhile realized that the copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which he had pocketed in the library, was from the Earth year 5178 and began browsing through it. Being a writer for the Hitchhiker's Guide, he hoped the information he might find could give him a serious advantage over the competition.