One

A slew of sparks led to a spew of alien epithets, with a few choice human ones, in several languages, just for good measure. Something popped loudly, startling the Doctor, and he sat up suddenly, half braining himself on the underside of the console as he did so. On impact, the sparking suddenly stopped, and a smooth B flat hum began emanating once again.

He shot the console a baleful look.

"Fine friend you are." He grumbled, rubbing the knot on his head.

He looked around. The interior of the TARDIS looked as though a toolshed had thrown up in it. Hastily stowing the worst of the clutter under a hatch in the floor, the Doctor fished out his faithful sonic screwdriver. He absently scanned the displays in the console as he did so, muttering about the fickleness of humans and machines alike. Something caught his eye.

"What do you mean you don't know where we are?" He asked the entire room in general. He stabbed peevishly at a bank of buttons. "Or when?"

Stab. Stab.

The Doctor grew wide-eyed as he stared at his display, mind working furiously to assimilate the impossible. They were nowhere. And everywhere. Off the map as it were.

"Here be Dragons…." Muttered a sarcastic voice in his head.

If the console was correct the fabric of time and space was almost impossibly thin in this place.

Make that places.

The console showed it almost like an intersection in the middle of nowhere with many roads branching off in all directions. They all intersected at this spot, but floated freely, connected to nothing at this point but each other. A time and place, in between time and places. Impossible!

With a life that has spanned centuries, time passes very slowly for a Time Lord. It seemed like only a few minutes he'd been tinkering with the TARDIS, but as he stood puzzling over the display, another thought pricked at the edge of the Doctor's awareness, for the first time in over 14 hours.

Bloody Hell!

"Rose!"

Upsetting the hat stand in his haste, the Doctor grabbed a beat up leather jacket that had been slouching under it and shrugged it on as he charged out the door, tucking his sonic screwdriver into some hidden inner pocket.

"Rose!"

It was night still, with the first hint of gray dawn illuminating just enough of the distant horizon for the Doctor to discern between land and sky. Fading, but still visible overhead, a sky full of unfamiliar stars stared down. Unseen, here and there, one would wink out, only to reappear a second later when that which had come between land and sky glided soundlessly on.

"Rose!"

The Doctor stood silently, listening for any hint of a response.

Silence.

Silently chastising himself for his single-mindedness, the Doctor locked the door behind him angrily shoving the key into the pocket of his well-worn black trousers. The lightening sky revealed a bleak expanse of flat mesa, with occasional odd, orange coloured rock formations jutting skyward to great heights, like long bony fingers pointing heavenwards from the ground. Here and there a little cluster of rocks huddled together, as if for safety. In the distance, orange cliffs loomed. Except for a few short, spiny bushes and the odd patch of silvery sedge grass, the landscape was devoid of vegetation. Just barely dawn, and already he could feel heat creeping into the day, battling with the last of the coolness of the desert night.

As he stepped, a tiny lizard darted to safety under a rock. Unseen by the Doctor, it coughed a little spark of flame, then disappeared down a hole.

The growing light revealed one single footprint in the windswept dust. Rose's Etnies runners had gone towards the cliffs, presumably with Rose in them. The Doctor winced, and berated himself again. Judging from the direction the sun was rising in, Rose had followed the sunset. Something that felt irritatingly like panic fluttered in him. She'd been out here all night.

Mentally kicking himself, and scanning every direction for any trace of her, the Doctor set out.

"Rose!"