Episode 03: Anywhere But Home

The dinosaur towered over Eroica. The Earl stared up at it with wide eyes, his legs felt like water so he was fairly certain he wouldn't be able to run from it even if he knew where to run to. "Hm," he swallowed. "And to think, I always wanted one of these when I was a boy."

He hadn't heard Klaus come up behind him, but stared with wide eyes as the great gaping jaws began to drop down towards him, only to feel himself be suddenly jerked backwards and forcibly thrown to the floor of the police box. The Major, not knowing what else to do, slammed the wooden door shut, expecting at any moment for the wood to be blown to splinters as a giant reptile snout burst through. It didn't happen.

"Uh…thanks…" Dorian managed shakily, for the moment unable to get up off the floor.

Klaus glared at him. "I am not letting you die until you fix whatever the hell you did."

"What I did? Don't blame that thing on me!" Eroica squeaked, pointing a shaky finger at the doorway.

"You're the one who hit that switch!"

"How was I supposed to know THIS is what would happen? You know I'm not very mechanically minded, I don't exactly know a time-machine when I see it!"

"It's not a time machine! That's—that's impossible!"

"Then what is it!"

"It—we—we have to be hallucinating…" Klaus muttered, taking a deep drag off his cigarette and turning to look at one of the thin television screens set up along the control centre. It showed the tyrannosaurus rex outside butting its head angrily against the small wooden door to no avail. "Hallucinating…the KGB must have drugged us with something…ja…"

"I guess we can just try hitting random switches until we get back…" the Earl said thoughtfully, choosing to ignore the Major's muttering, which had quickly turned into German so he soon found he couldn't follow it anyways. "Oh well," the thief shrugged, and pulled one of the random cranks poking out from the control station.

Afterall, what was the worst that could happen?

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

Rose caught her breath shakily, leaning for support against a hard stone wall. She and the Doctor had successfully escaped the KGB and the androids—robots—the Cybermen that were not Cybermen—whatever they were. At least, for the moment, and her heart was still hammering from the race. She could still hear the crack of bullet shrapnel exploding behind her, though it was only in her head.

It was hardly the first time she had found herself running for her life in the Doctor's company, and she highly doubted it would be the last.

"What are you laughing about?" the Doctor asked, looking at her with a mixture of amusement and concern.

"Nothing, nothing," she smiled, wiping a tear out of the corner of her eye. "So, have you figured out what those guys chasing us are yet?"

"Nope," he replied.

"Or who might have sent them?"

"Not a clue," he grinned, the familiar twinkle in his eyes that signalled his infectious love for adventure.

She just laughed. "Fat lot of good you are, then!"

He laughed in response, reached forwards and grasped her hand in that almost careless, friendly way that made her heart jump and her blood burn in her veins. She locked her fingers securely around his and followed him through the narrow dark alleyway, the robot dog skidding by at their feet.

"Still, this beats sitting around all day eating chips and watching the telly," she grinned. "I can't wait to see what's in store for us this time around!"

"That's the spirit, Rose Tyler! Now, let's go find our friends and get my Sonic Screwdriverback."

"So did that guy steal it?" she asked, choking back a laugh. "And you're not mad at all, then?" she shook her head a little in disbelief.

He shrugged. "We'll meet up with them again, Rose. We have to. I mean, the four of us have to do something important enough for this villain to want to kill us all, don't we?"

"But don't you already know what's going to happen?" she asked. "I mean, here you are—a Time Lord—traversing back and forth through time and all across the galaxy, I mean you've seen the earth end—"

"So have you," he pointed out.

"—why don't you already know what's going to happen?"

He laughed. "Well, what would be the fun in living if I knew what was going to happen, Rose? This is what I live for—the adventure, the excitement—to watch history happen without always knowing how it's going to turn out. Come on, don't pretend you don't like it too!"

She shook her head, laughing. "You're crazy," she said affectionately. "Just crazy. But you're right," she squeezed his hand quickly. "I wouldn't trade it for the world."

Looking over at him in the dim light of the night-cloaked alley, she could just make out the glittering of his eyes, the flash of his ever-present grin. Yes, he was always smiling, but actually, she thought, feeling a familiar shiver run down her spine, he was the most serious person she had ever known.

He was the last survivor of his race, and there were times when he shed his mask of youthful exuberance and boundless enthusiasm, and dark shadows passed over his eyes—when he talked about his past, or rather when she pressed him for information about his past and he refused to talk about it, or when the situation became gravely serious and people depended on him—then he took on a serious, even commanding demeanour, all pretences dropped, and he ceased to be her easy-going, adventurous friend, and became the nine-hundred year old soul-survivor of his race.

She must have made some sort of sound, because he stopped walking and turned so that he was standing directly in front of her, inches from her, looking down at her with concern swimming in his eyes. "Rose, what's the matter? You've gotten all…quiet."

"Wh—what?" she asked, forcing a laugh. "I was just thinking, you know."

He gave her a questioning look.

"About you…" she avoided looking at him, gesturing vaguely as though trying to fish answers out of the surrounding darkness. The cool night air, which was quickly becoming quite cold, bit into her naked hands, and she shivered.

"Rose, I told you before, I am…this is me now, here and now, that's all that matters."

"I know. I…I don't want anything to change," she whispered suddenly, unable to stop herself from saying it, not even sure why she had said it. But it was the truth, and there were tears pricking in the corners of her eyes before she could reason why they were there either, and she felt embarrassed that he could see them, glinting silver in the dark.

"I want us to be…" Together? Except that could be taken too many ways, too many ways it couldn't be taken. She was his companion, his ally—his friend. "I want to be here for you."

"You are," he said firmly, and for one split-second, his eyes had the dark, gravely serious look to them, and she swallowed. Any other person would have felt daunted under the heaviness of that expression, she felt secure by it—safe. But anywhere with the Doctor was safe, even running through the back alleys of Russia, in the freezing cold, in the middle of the night, with armed men and cyborgs chasing them and the TARDIS no where in sight…

"The TARDIS!" she exclaimed suddenly, looking around for the familiar blue box. "Isn't this right where we left it?"

He broke away from her in an instant, sweeping around the area in a circle, looking absolutely horrified. "My TARDIS! My fabulous time ship! Is this where we left it?"

"Yes, remember, those are the trashcans that knocked over when it appeared, and…what could have happened to it?"

"Oh no…" the Doctor said suddenly, feeling the pockets of his treasured leather jacket once again. "Oh no!"

"What?"

"The Sonic Screwdriver wasn't the only thing I had in my jacket pocket! The—my TARDIS' key!"

Rose stared at him, eyes widening as she realized what he was saying. "You mean those two—the blond and that German bloke are—"

"Two HUMANS are mucking around in my time-ship!" the Doctor cried. "Little apes, BARELY able to function as a civilization, babies that haven't even left the womb—with no knowledge of time and space and the magnitude of the universe—are MUCKING AROUND IN MY FABULOUS TARDIS!"

It was more than a little harsh to hear her entire race described and berated as such, and Rose was more than a little annoyed by it. "Oh come on, Doctor, we humans aren't that bad."

"You couldn't handle seeing the things that are out there!" the Doctor replied indignantly.

"What do you mean?" Rose demanded. "I've seen—"

"Not you," the Doctor sighed. "But you're different, Rose."

She stared at him and he continued, not looking at her, still pacing around, obviously agitated by the TARDIS' absence. "You're compassionate and brave and strong, you don't run away screaming when we're confronted by zombies or aliens. You saw through the Nestene Consciousness' plan just like that," he snapped his fingers emphatically, "You…" he paused suddenly, as though just realizing what he was saying, and looked at her, his eyes clearly showing surprise, as though he had been saying things he had never meant to voice.

The situation could have been awkward, but was saved by the sudden surge of frigid northern wind that burst over them and the familiar low vibrating hum that signalled the TARDIS' arrival. Rose stared over the Doctor's shoulder, and he turned around in time to watch the rickety old police box shudder and fade and slowly appear, solid and real, in the alley before them.

Rose had barely gotten over her shock (it was always a bit of a shock, no matter how many times she saw it, to watch the thing just appear like that) when the Doctor had already flung himself at the wooden doors and was pounding on them and shouting. "Hey, in there! Get out of my ship!" He banged on the door loudly, knowing it was useless, after all he himself had told her that all the armies of Genghis Khan had tried and failed to break through that seemingly-wooden door.

But a moment later, the blue door creaked hesitantly open, and a pale and shaken-looking blond man stumbled out, his long golden curls tumbling over his face in a dishevelled order until he quickly straightened himself out and pushed the unruly locks back. "That's um…quite the…police box you have there," he said, smiling a little shakily. "I might have even been tempted to steal it if I wasn't so dreadful with machines."

"Alright, you've had your fun, now you and your friend get out of my TARDIS," the Doctor said, crossing his arms over his chest in a manner that made him look more like a petulant child than a commanding Time Lord.

And Rose almost commented on that, except that the deafening crack of a gun shot exploding behind them jolted through her bones and this time she knew it was not just in her imagination. The KGB and their non-to-friendly droids had caught up with them. At their feet, K-9 was beeping a loud warning.

"Shit!" she exclaimed, whipping her neck around so long blonde hair flew past her face, but it was no good, she couldn't see anything in the ally. "Get in the TARDIS, we can argue about this later!"

"But—" the Doctor began to object, and she could swear he was pouting.

"Get IN!" she exclaimed, shoving both Time Lord and blond thief into the police box and slamming the door after them as several more gunshots exploded in the distance.

Once safely in the TARDIS, Rose leaned back against the closed door and sighed deeply. "That was too close," she murmured.

"Come on, you call that too close?" the Doctor asked. "What about the time you were an inch away from being fried in the direct heat of the sun and I couldn't get the door to the observation deck open?"

Not exactly sure how she was supposed to take that comment, Rose decided to turn her attention to their two new guests. If what the Doctor had said about the four of them being friends was right, then she would probably be seeing a lot more of them, she decided. And then, as the Doctor moved to the control panel and began flicking a random assortment of switches, it hit her. They would be joining them, then? These two would be companions to the Doctor. It wouldn't just be her anymore, his only friend, his only companion in a lonely existence. She would no longer be special or different. Not to him.

It should not have stung as much as it did. She told herself that she was being selfish and jealous for absolutely no reason. She clenched her hands and forced her eyes to stare down at K-9, trying to concentrate on something other than the unpleasant feelings knotting in her chest. The image of the blond draping himself all over the Doctor during their escape from the KGB resurfaced in her mind, and she forced herself to look back at the two men and really look at them, now that they were out of mortal danger.

The blond was attractive, no question. He looked like a movie star or a rock singer or something, with a beautiful face, but a well toned chest, long limbs and tumbling golden locks of hair that reached his waist in a shower of gold. He held himself with a certain confident, easy attitude as well, and a poise that seemed to silently scream rich and elite. But at the same time, he did have a kind, sweet sort of face, even she had to admit that, he looked friendly, nice, in fact she might have found him attractive if she wasn't already so…

Okay, not thinking about that.

And besides, it was fairly obvious where the blond's preferences lay. Again, the scene from their escape. It must have been when the thief had picked the Doctor's pockets, but still, she couldn't help the little flare of anger it caused to boil deep inside of her, as shameless as that was. After all, the Doctor wasn't 'hers' she was his companion and every time anybody had even casually asked if they were more than friends he had always very fervently answered 'NO!' But then, the Doctor didn't seem to think about humans that way, after all, she had to remind herself, even if he looked like an ordinary man,he wasn't. He was an alien.

"You look beautiful!" he had gasped, seeing her in Victorian dress. Then paused and added, "...Considering."

"Considering what?"

"Considering you're human!"

While she was lost in her reverie, Doctor had finished with whatever adjustments he could to the ship, and came back to them, rubbing his hands together, his face alight with the childish energy and enthusiasm she found so endearing. "Alright then, let's introduce ourselves, shall we? We were sort of rushed before. I'm the Doctor."

The dark-haired man, who had been standing silently in the background since Rose and the Doctor had entered the TARDIS, shook his head at this, and walked over to them, boots falling loudly against the TARDIS' floor with the distinctive efficient stride of a military officer. "What is your name?" he demanded.

This man was just as attractive as the blond, Rose decided at once, now that she had gotten a proper look at him. He was tall, broad shouldered and obviously strong, the straight lines of his staunch NATO uniform only serving to heighten the dramatic sense of power and poise the man exuded. His face was handsome, even clouded with anger it held the look that one might find in the painting of an armoured knight or a statue of a Greek warrior, calm and determined and powerful. His eyes were a blazing military green, and his long raven-black hair fell over his shoulders in a dramatic sort of way. Yes, he was definitely very striking and handsome.

Oh well, Rose thought, if I'm going to be stuck with them, at least they're easy on the eyes.

"What is your name?" the officer repeated, eyes narrowed, his whole bearing that of a predatory animal.

God, he is even sexier than James Bond, Rose thought. A lot sexier.

"Just the Doctor," the Doctor repeated with his usual easy amiability, smiling away as always.

"And what are you a doctor of, exactly?" the German asked dryly.

"Oh, just about everything," the Doctor answered easily.

The officer looked ready to kill someone.

"I'm Rose Tyler," she put in, before they could start going in circles.

"Dorian Red Gloria," the blond said, nodding to her in a movement that somehow seemed to encompass all the grace and flourish of a regal bow. "The Earl of Gloria, at your service."

"So you are some spoiled aristocrat," Rose said, the words flying out of her mouth before she thought about them.

To her surprise, he just laughed. "I'm also known as Eroica, art thief extraordinaire," he told her, this time he did bow, a full-blown theatrical performance.

"WHY did you just tell them your name AND your criminal alias?" the dark-haired officer thundered at him suddenly, "Even YOU aren't that much of an idiot, you idiot!"

"Come on, we can trust each other," the Doctor said. "After all, we're in this together, aren't we? And you're Major Eberbach, aren't you? As they say in those twenty-third century legends?"

The Major gave the Doctor a look that was part withering contempt and part genuine confusion. Finally he appeared to relent and sighed. "Major Klaus Heinz von dem Eberbach, of NATO." He said, grudgingly.

"And he's the head of the family related to the German branch of the Hapsburgs, so I'm not the only blueblood, you know." Dorian added enthusiastically. The Major gave him a look that said pure murder and was obviously on the verge of gathering enough air into his lungs to really shout at the Englishman, and all Rose could think was great, just bloody great.

The Doctor continued on, seemingly oblivious to all this. "It's been a while since I was back on Earth. I mean, before I met Rose."

"Since you've been on…?" Dorian repeated thoughtfully. "So you AREan alien! You're the one the men at NATO wanted us to find information on—the alien!"

The Doctor smiled pleasantly and nodded. He seemed quite flattered, actually. "Yes, that's right. Although, you know that was just part of a trap. I'm fairly certain NATO already has me on file. At least UNIT does, I've worked with them a lot in the past."

"Why, that's magnificent!" the Earl continued enthusiastically. "I mean, here you are—a real live alien!" If this was a rude thing to repeatedly exclaim, it was smothered with so much childlike enthusiasm and natural charm that it went unnoticed. "And then this must be…your…your space ship! Why that's brilliant!"

"Don't say such idiot things!" the Major snapped angrily, clearly a little put-off by the fact that he hadn't had a chance to yell at the thief yet for the remark about his family.

"It's actually called a TARDIS," the Doctor explained, grinning from ear to ear. "And she's not just a space ship, 's a time machine, too."

"We got that, yeah," Klaus muttered darkly.

"Tar…dis?" Dorian repeated.

"Yep," the Doctor nodded, still beaming at them. "That's T-A-R-D-I-S: 'Time And Relative Dimensions In Space.'"

"Uh-Huh…" the Earl nodded, although he didn't seem to understand much, thoughtfully resting his fingers along his chin and surveying their surroundings once again.

"The TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental," the Doctor continued, following the blond's gaze.

"Oooh!" Dorian exclaimed appreciatively.

"Do you even know what that means?" Klaus snapped.

The thief blinked at him, "Why no, darling. But it sounds awfully impressive."

The NATO officer looked ready to throttle the thief, so Rose decided to intervene. With a determined shake of her head, the blonde young woman marched in between them, "It means the TARDIS is bigger on the inside than the out."

"Well we already figured that one out, you know," Dorian said, craning his neck to peer around them once again. "You know, you really should do something with the décor. Some paintings, a statue over there, perhaps…a couple of nice oriental rugs, that sort of thing…"

"Not this again!" Klaus groaned, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it.

The Doctor was, in the mean time, following the Earl's gaze and fluttery gestures around the control room as though actually considering it. Rose decided to put a stop to that. "Enough! The TARDIS is fine just the way it is! It's a spaceship…time machine…police box…thing…not a bloody hotel lobby!"

The aristocrat pouted and looked quite annoyed by her interference, whereas the Doctor merely shrugged amicably and went back to jabbing buttons and flicking switches around the control station as though he had forgotten them all already.

"Well then, where would you like to go?" the Doctor asked, looking up after a moment.

"Where..?" Dorian repeated.

"I can take you anywhere in the universe. Anywhen, too."

TheE arl's entire face lit up, the large blue eyes sparkling delightedly. "Wow…this is so amazing! I can't believe it. It's incredible!"

The Doctor smiled, and Rose could swear he looked downright smug.

"Wait," Klaus sighed tiredly. "We can't…this isn't…"

"You can't go back to your own time," the Doctor said after a moment, his sparkling eyes suddenly growing darker with pained shadows.

"Whyever not?" Dorian asked.

"Well, there's the whole matter of the man who is trying to kill us," the Doctor explained pleasantly, running around the control centre, flicking a few more switches and twisting a crank.

"That's not our problem," Major Eberbach snarled. "We need to go back."

"Oh, but it is your problem, Major. You see, when I said 'us' I meant all four of us. I don't think I need to remind you about the trap that was set upto use the KGB to take care of you."

"So this person is controlling the KGB?" Klaus asked.

"Oh yes, it shouldn't be difficult for him, not difficult at all. You see, he was the one responsible for your 'mission' as well. He must have gotten to your superiors."

"Who is this man?"

"I'm not sure," the Doctor admitted truthfully. "I mean, it all gets rather confusing, jumping around in time like this. But I…if you want to know what my best guess is, then I suspect he is another Time Lord."

"Another what?"

"A Time Lord, like me. You wanted to know who I really am, Major? The truth is, I'm an alien from the planet Gallifrey, a planet which no longer exists, mind you. It was destroyed in a war, called the Time War. For a long time I thought I was the only survivor of that war, but evidently I was wrong. And sadly, it doesn't seem like this other survivor is a very agreeable fellow, does it? In my time I've known a lot of good Time Lords, but this one, evidently, wants to kill us all. Which I'm fairly certain means he's of the evil lot."

"So why does he want to kill us, exactly?" Dorian asked, sitting along the counter of the control centre and pulling on knee up to his chin, hugging himself tightly.

"I imagine we try to interfere with his plans."

"Plans?"

"Oh you know, to take over the universe, that's what they always seem to want. Heaven knows why, I mean it's not as though they'd know what to do with it once they've conquered it all." The Doctor gave slight shrug, vaulting over the metal railing and landing down by a convoluted mess of wires that he began tinkering with.

"This is ridiculous," the Major breathed. "Just…ridiculous."

"So we can't go…home…" Dorian said slowly.

"Not until this is all over, it probably wouldn't be wise," the Doctor agreed. "For whatever reason, this Time Lord doesn't seem to like you very much."

"So what do we do? Fight him?" Dorian asked. "Find his intergalactic hide-out and blow it to smithereens?"

"Oh I imagine he'll come to find us sooner or later, they always seem to," the Doctor said quite amicably, as though they were discussing a cricket match. "Oh, and could I have my Sonic Screwdriver and Slightly Psychic Paper back, if it's not too much trouble?"

"What?" Dorian asked, startled at the abrupt turn in the conversation. After a moment of fishing through his pocket, he pulled out the items he had taken earlier. "You mean these things?"

"Yes, that's right," the Doctor smiled, swinging back up over the railing and snatching up the 'screwdriver' and paper.

"How's the paper 'psychic?'" the thief asked, arching on golden eyebrow.

"Shows people what they want to see, useful little thing for bluffing one's way into private parties and the like." Dorian watched with interest, clearly thinking how useful having his own slightly-psychic paper would be. "Oh, and you can keep the key, I have spares."

"Uh…thanks…"

"Rose, you've been uncharacteristically quiet," the Doctor said, suddenly turning to his young companion. "Something the matter?"

Not besides the fact that you just told these two strangers more in the last fifteen minutes then you told me in all the time I've been travelling with you, risking my life with you. I ASKED you for information and you never even told me the name of the planet your were from. But for them…But she couldn't say that, so she didn't say anything at all, although she felt the Earl's eyes watching her for a moment.

"Are you an alien too?" Eroica asked finally, looking her over quizzically.

"NO!" she snapped. "I'm a NORMAL human girl, not that I suppose you would know!" it came out sounding even more bitter and unfair than she had intended,and she felt heat rise to her face at the rudeness of what she had just said. She was a nineteen year old woman, for God's sake, she told herself, she shouldn't be getting so upset just because she was a little jealous.

The silence that had descended in the TARDIS was quickly growing uncomfortable, even for the Doctor it seemed, who quickly piped up with, "She's from the year 2005, though!"

"Really…so…" Dorian attempted to breach conversation since Klaus obviously wasn't going to and he hated the frigid silence. "…how does the Cold War turn out?"

0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0

"So, just how did the TARDIS come back to the right time and place for us?" Klaus overheard Rose asking the Doctor sometime later, after they had all more-or-less 'settled in.'

"Oh, well she would definitely come back for us," the Doctor said, regarding his ship affectionately. "She's really more…more than just a machine. Can't quite explain, we've had a bit of a psychic bond, you know. And even with all the trouble she's given me in the past, she'd never abandon me like that."

Great. So it wasn't just a police box that was a space-ship on the inside, it was a police box that was a space-ship on the inside that was emotional.

Gott.

Klaus rubbed his eyelids, he felt tired suddenly, drained. What the hell was going on? He couldn't quite come to terms with everything he had learned over the past few hours, and to think that they were hurdling through time and space and dimensions inside of a wooden box…he really wasn't sure how he was managing it at all. To stand there, without killing them and storming out of the box and convincing himself that it was all a complex hallucination and trick based on the effects of some drug the KGB had slipped him.

But then he did know. He would make it through the ordeal, no matter how…inane…because he was Iron Klaus and he was a survivor and whatever the truth was he would just have to come to terms with it and persevere. Because that's just what he did.

"What are you thinking?" the familiar golden voice interrupted his brooding. Eroica was draped around one of the twisting coral-like supports of the control room, a thoughtful look on his face. "It's really something, isn't it? I mean this, here?"

"Do you never stop talking?" Klaus sighed.

"Come on, darling, I haven't been bothering you in a while. I just had a very interesting conversation with that Doctor chap. He met Michelangelo and Shakespeare and Leonardo Da Vinci and— just think!" a rather dreamy, wistful sigh.

"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself," the Major snarled, his voice thick with sarcasm. "Meanwhile, NATO's probably proclaimed us missing or dead, and who knows what the KGB are doing…"

"Must you always think about work?" the thief sighed, brushing back a wave of golden curls that tumbled over his face, thick golden bracelets jangling together in sharp contrast with the sleek black burglar suit he was wearing.

Alright. Since when had he started to notice what the degenerate was wearing? Klaus sighed again, and reached for another cigarette.

"Alright, here we are!" the Doctor's voice proclaimed happily, and the man—alien—looked up from the control station, as the TARDIS came to one last shaky halt.

"Where?" Rose asked, regarding the door hesitantly.

"Venus. Well, one of the moons, actually. 5,000 years from your time, give or take. There's a lovely resort, if I remember correctly. We can rest up for a bit."

Dorian followed them out of the ship, turning back once to look at Klaus. "Aren't you coming…?" he asked.

Klaus felt the frown deepening on his face. To go out there. To admit that…all of these impossible things were somehow happening….

"Major?"

He blew a thick cloud of cigarette smoke into the air before sighing again, he'd been doing too much of that lately, and heading after the thief.

They stepped outside into a hot orange sunlight, the sky stretched above in a thick sea of orange tinged with clouds that were wisps of rose burning down into a deep, smouldering crimson along the horizon. They found themselves indeed, in the middle of an elaborate sort of palace with sloping golden walls, winding towers and large arching domes all covered in vines with sweet smelling white flowers that made the Major cringe a little, but he supposed would be enthusiastically appreciated by the thief.

"Looks like I made a mistake," the Doctor said, walking back towards them as attendants came to move the TARDIS, attendants that looked human but had skin that was ever-so-lightly tinged with violet and silver-blue hair, all dressed in flowing white robes and what looked like gold. "This isn't anywhere near Venus, not even the same galaxy, and the year…"

"I don't care," Dorian breathed, taking in the scenery with wide eyes. "It's…beautiful…incredible!"

The Doctor grinned. "Glad you like it. We could have rested in the TARDIS, but it's more comfortable here, it'll give us a chance to catch our bearings. Come on, I've gotten us rooms with a view of the ocean."

It was some time later that Klaus found himself standing on a balcony looking out over a massive stretch of sparkling ruby-coloured waters that shone like the fractured light of gems and rolled beneath them and around them to the end of sight in all directions, merging with the rose-red sky along the horizon. The wind was hot and tasted definitely sweet. Sweeter than air on Earth. So he was finally admitting it, he realized, he was not on Earth, there was more to the universe than he had thought.

And that meant that everything was different. He had thought he understood the universe, at least in principle, and he had been wrong. He had been wrong about the concept of what it was to exist…

And maybe that was why he had allowed Dorian to drag him out to the terrace and show him the view from the balcony. The Earl was certainly enjoying it, Klaus noted wearily, indeed the thief didn't seem the least bit tired for all they had been through, for all they had seen and heard. Eroica was absorbing it all with the wonder and excitement of a child, completely willing to accept everything just as it was shown to him, no matter how bizarre and…well…impossible it got. The Earl was stretched over the balcony's railing, drinking in the hot golds and crimsons of the alien ocean, the alien sky. And the hot golden light bathing his creamy skin and lustrous curls looked…well, it looked…

Klaus ground his cigarette under his heel and marched back inside, slamming the door to the balcony with more than a little force.

He was met with the Doctor's gaze almost immediately as the man barged into their room, an excited look on his face. "I've got it! We're on Luinway and these people are the Meren. And you'll never believe what just happened—I was just chatting with the manager of this place and he told me that their Solar Crystal was stolen last month."

"What's that?" Dorian asked, coming in from the balcony.

"The Solar Crystal is this sort of diamond that powers this entire world. Without it they can last for a little while on reserve power, but soon the atmosphere will fade away and they'll all die." The Doctor still looked remarkably excited.

"But that's dreadful!" Dorian exclaimed.

"But that's just what I mean, we'll have to get the Solar Crystal back for them! And since it was stolen in the first place, I see no reason why we can't steal it back." The Doctor explained.

"Of course!" Dorian exclaimed, a wide grin spreading across his face. "That is, after all, my specialty!"

To be Continued in Episode 04: The Diamond that Wouldn't Stay Stolen Part I