Notes: Ahhh, the sweet sound of lovely reviews! I aime you all so much! Yes, yes, I know, sue me now…as Tundraeternal rightly pointed out, Stella got into the TARDIS far too easily. But I do have a weak defence: I needed her in the TARDIS. That's all I'm gonna say. Thanks so much for your interest! Why is everyone so surprised that she's not a Mary-Sue? I thought they were bad…do you have such a low opinion of me my friends? Anyway…Without further ado…Chapter 2! Wow! I'm a poet and I didn't even realise it!

Partial credit for the first part goes to Tundraeternal! I've gone for incredibly angry with a hint of insanity, OK? Hope you like those well thought over reactions!

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Stella was on edge the moment the door opened. She looked around wildly for someplace to hide, but she was quite nervous about exploring the…place further. She didn't know what it was, and she definitely didn't like it. So she was almost relieved to see the couple who had ploughed into her earlier. She considered smiling at them…

…then she saw the guy's face.

"What the hell do you think you're doing!" yelled the guy. Stella wished she'd found a place to hide.

"I…I'm sorry…I didn't realise it belonged to you…" She cleared her throat. "What is it anyway?" she asked, hoping she didn't sound as afraid as she felt.

"I don't think you're in quite the position to be asking questions at the moment," said the blonde girl who'd helped her up earlier. The Doctor listened to the change in her voice as she helped him take command with interest. She was so adaptable to this kind of thing. She'd taken her world blowing up andaliens onEarthin her stride. Now she was intimidating an intruder like a pro. He turned his attention back to the matter at hand.

"I don't know how you got in here. I don't know who or what you are and I don't care. But if you don't leave, I will throw you out," said the Doctor in a fake calm voice. Somehow he managed to put venom in every syllable.

"Are you an alien too then?" asked Stella, surprising herself with both her words and the nonchalance in her voice. Silence hung in the air for a moment. But only a moment.

"Get…out…now!" yelled the Doctor, completely losing his temper. Rose grabbed his arm to stop him flying at the thoroughly petrified girl.

"Doctor, stop!" she said, clearly irritated by his outburst. She pulled him aside and lowered her voice so Stella couldn't make out her words. "That was completely unnecessary!"

"She broke into my ship! She had no right!"

"Yeah, I know! But she saw that alien!" Roe shot back. "She saw it and she was incredibly stupid, but she's also scared. Just tell her something to calm her down then let her go." The Doctor scowled.

"YOU say something if you're so bothered about the precious little darling," he muttered.

"My name is Rose Tyler; this is the Doctor," said Rose to Stella.

"Stella Brinley," said the girl quietly. "What is this place?" Rose glanced at the Doctor. He nodded, but didn't look happy.

"A space-time machine thing. We call it the TARDIS," explained Rose, trying to tell the girl what was going on without really telling her.

"Space-time?" Stella took a very deep breath. Rose noticed she had gone very pale, and felt slightly worried. "O-K…is…is that why it's…"

"Bigger on the inside? Guess it must be," said the Doctor through gritted teeth. "Now will you…please…leave?" Stella looked paler than ever.

"Well…" she said in a quiet voice. "Well if you don't mind…I think I'm going to faint now…" Moments later, she crashed to the floor and lay there, quiet still. The Doctor blinked.

"She took that surprisingly well."

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Stella was carried into a spare room to recover. The Doctor and Rose, meanwhile, made their way to the medical room, where the Doctor began bathing Rose's cut from earlier.

"Ow! That hurts!" complained Rose. "Be gentle!"

"I'm always gentle!" said the Doctor, looking offended.

"Says the guy who fixed the TARDIS with a hammer…and that hurts!" She knocked his hand away and pouted. The Doctor fell silent and folded up the wipe thoughtfully. Rose sighed. Now he was going to sulk. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine."

"Seriously though…I know you were just trying to help."

"It's fine," he insisted, taking her hand and tickling it softly. "See. Always gentle." Rose smiled.

"You know, after you left she seemed to come round for a while."

"Did she say anything?"

"Just rambling. She said she liked swimming, has six toes on her right foot and that her granddad called her 'Erdbeer'."

"What!"

"She said she was telling me stuff because I told her…stuff. She seemed a bit out of it though, and she passed out again straight after."

"No, not that…why 'Erdbeer'?" asked the Doctor, laughing. "Isn't that German for strawberry?"

"Oh I dunno…I thought it was the beer thing…you know, Stella Artois," said Rose, shrugging. She got up, feeling her cut experimentally.

"Here," said the Doctor, sticking a plaster over it. "It doesn't need stitches."

"OK. Shall I go and check on our little stowaway strawberry?" The Doctor grinned and she smiled back as she made her way towards the room where Stella had been unceremoniously dumped.

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Stella was awake before Rose even knocked on the door. She hadn't forgotten where she was and she didn't feel weak and pathetic, only rather cheated that it hadn't happened like it always did in books and on TV. People were supposed to feel that way after they'd fainted.

Instead, Stella thought about what would happen next. The TARDIS…what had frightened her before now filled her with a sense of excitement. She wondered if Rose Tyler and the mysterious Doctor had forgiven her enough to take her somewhere in their magical space-time thing. Her stomach gave a happy lurch as she wondered if they were already there.

So when Rose knocked, she sprang to the door and flung it open. Rose was confronted with an excited teenager with stars literally in her eyes.

"Where are we going?" asked Stella breathlessly. Rose laughed.

"You are going home, since there's nothing wrong with you," she said, smiling as she reached for the girl. Stella ducked under her arm and raced back to the control room, where the Doctor was lying under the control panel, pointing a weird stick at a dial.

"Take me with you!" exclaimed Stella. The Doctor scrutinised her carefully.

"Why?" he asked. He thought for a moment. "And not because you want to see the stars."

"Because I'm tired of being ordinary," she said, shrugging. The Doctor sighed.

"No, Stella."

"But…"

"Look, maybe if you were older…" The Doctor looked at her. "You're just a kid, strawberry girl. Forget it."

"You're leaving me on this crappy little planet because I'm too young?"

"You really think it's that bad here?"

"No…not exactly…it's just…"

"If you think it's bad here, then you are too young," said the Doctor firmly. "You don't have to see what I've seen and shouldn't. So I'm taking you to your house. I can manage it so you'll arrive home two minutes after we ran into you, that about right? Then you have to forget about us." At this point, Rose appeared unnoticed in the doorway.

Stella felt her hope being crushed beneath the Doctor's shoe. She folded her arms and did what ay other teenager would do: she sulked.

"I can walk home by myself, thank you," she said, folding her arms.

"That Portian is still out there."

"I can deal."

"You can't. Which is precisely why you're not coming with me and Rose. So, address?" he demanded, walking towards the controls.

"I can walk."

"Don't you want to feel it fly?" said Rose suddenly.

"Yeah, You'll be thrown all over the place. It's lots of fun! Address?" said the Doctor impatiently. Stella glanced at Rose, who did and said nothing. Just stared her in the face.

"4, Regent Close."

"Good girl," said the Doctor approvingly, typing something on a keypad and wildly throwing levers around and pressing buttons. "Rose, press that big green button over there will you? That's the one." Stella got the distinct feeling that she should be holding onto something, but Rose had already pressed it. The TARDIS leapt into life, whirring and shaking and generally throwing it's passengers around. Rose was proud to notice that for once, she did not land on the floor immediately. It took a whole five seconds before Stella, then her, then finally the Doctor crashed to the ground.

As she desperately tried to cling to a pillar and somehow scramble upright again, there was a longing at the back of Stella's mind. She wanted to go with them. She suddenly realised she wanted it more than she'd wanted anything else in her whole life, even more than new rollerblades and to win the swimming finals next week. The Doctor and Rose instinctively knew what she was feeling, but knew it wasn't right to drag her along with them. She was too young, too innocent. Rose knew that if she'd witnessed the destruction caused by the Dalek at fourteen, it would have destroyed her. It almost had now.

However.

The TARDIS must have known how Stella was feeling as well, somehow.

And the TARDIS obliged.