A/N: I love 4 very, very much, so I'm super excited to be writing my first chapter featuring him. Please try to enjoy! :)

Also, this chapter is a bit long...

I opened my eyes and saw white. White walls, white ceiling; everything was white. I sat up slowly, unsure of where I was or how long I'd been asleep. I noticed I was on a white bed with white sheets and that next to me was the Doctor, fast asleep in a silver chair.

His hat was loosely caught between his hands, which rested on his lap, and his head had fallen back to show his neck wrapped up with his scarf. I smiled when I saw that his mouth was open slightly. He looked like a teddy bear with an afro when he was asleep.

Trying not to wake him, I slowly brought my legs over the side of the bed and stood on them. I took two steps forward and tripped over the Doctor's scarf. I fell hard and landed on my side, the impact knocking the air from my lungs.

The Doctor jerked awake with wide eyes and arms frozen in an attack position. Then he saw me in a heap at his feet and smiled. He slid off the chair and knelt beside me, helping me back to my feet. "Are you alright?" he asked softly.

"Yeah. Fine. Brilliant. Fantastic."

The Doctor had a strong, supporting grip on my biceps and I had a shaky grip on his coat lapels. I briefly considered the thought that I had a thing for holding the aliens' coat lapels, but dismissed it as silliness.

"Can you stand?"

I nodded. "Uh huh. I just... tripped."

"On what, air?"

I blushed. "No. Your scarf, Mister Doctor. It's a bit long, in case you hadn't noticed."

"I thought you liked it!" he replied in hurt confusion.

"I do! I love it."

The Doctor smirked, his chest puffing out at my remark. He cleared his throat and tilted his chin up. "Yes, it is rather dashing, isn't it?"

"Very dashing," I agreed. "Very hot."

" 'Hot'?"

I felt my fading blush return with vigor. "Uh, I mean... It's a scarf, it's hot. It's gonna make your neck... hot..." That was not at all what I had meant, but I wasn't about to tell him that. He'd think I was obsessed with him and I couldn't have him knowing the truth.

"I see." The Doctor released my arms an stepped back. He smiled politely and shoved his hands in his coat pockets. "Care for an adventure, my dear?"

"With you? How could I resist?" I glanced down at my dress from my adventure with Eight and laughed a little. "Could I change first?"

"Certainly."

I looped my arm around his elbow and grinned. An adventure with Four was one thing that could make my life complete.

I had changed back into my favorite pair of jeans and my favorite blue tshirt that had somehow remained in the TARDIS wardrobe, despite my moving through her timeline. The Doctor was polite enough not to comment on my strange attire, only nodding in approval when I came out of the wardrobe in my twenty-first century clothes.

Sarah Jane and Harry Sullivan were waiting for us in the TARDIS console room when we enterd. As soon as Sarah saw us, her face lit up and she rushed towards us. The Doctor pulled his arm away from mine and chuckled when Sarah threw her arms around me in a tight hug.

"Oh, Diana, I'm so glad to see you! You just disappeared again and we weren't sure where you'd gone!"

"Well, uh... Here I am," I replied in confusion.

Sarah pulled back and smiled up at me. I smiled in return, a sadness washing over me as I remembered that Elizabeth Sladen was dead. But I tried to keep it from showing. So I just pulled Sarah Jane back into another hug and sighed. She laughed and patted my back.

"You alright?" she asked in my ear.

I nodded. We pulled away again and smiled widely at one another. "Just thinking." I looked around her at Harry and waved. "Hey, Harry. Nice to see you."

He blinked at me, seemingly in a state of extreme confusion. "Uh, yes. Hullo."

The Doctor chuckled and put a hand on my back, right between my shoulder blades. I looked over my back at him. "Now that the princess is awake," he began, "I say that we go on a quick trip. Harry here doesn't believe that the TARDIS can go anywhere."

"Of course it can't," Harry responded. "It's a police box, Doctor. It doesn't make any logical sense-"

"Not to you, it doesn't. But to every other intelligent being in this 'police box', it does." I snickered. The Doctor stepped away and stood by the console. "We're going to go to the moon."

"The moon?" Harry asked incredulously. "But that's impossible!"

"It's very possible, Harry Sullivan," I told the young man. "The Doctor can do anything with his TARDIS. Trust me."

Harry muttered something to himself and stepped forward, stopping at the Doctor's side. He looked slowly over the TARDIS console in amazement as the Time Lord started turning knobs and pressing buttons. We were all silent while the Doctor concentrated on flying. Then Harry leaned forward and punched a relatively large button.

"What's this one do, Doctor?"

"What- No! No, no, no! Don't touch anything, Harry Sullivan! Move back!"

The TARDIS suddenly tilted to one side, throwing me against Sarah Jane and causing us to topple over. Harry fell on his rear and let out a noise of shock while the Doctor held tight to the console and kept himself upright. I scrambled back to my feet and grabbed onto the Doctor's coat arm. As I started to ask him a question, the TARDIS shifted again and I fell against the Doctor's back. He let out an "oof" and fell forwards against the console with me on top of him. I apologized and stepped away from him, tripping when the TARDIS made another jerky movement.

The TARDIS finally landed and all three of us managed to stand up. The Doctor merely turned on his heel and went into another room. Various thuds and crashes were heard until the Time Lord finally re-entered the console room with two flashlights and two oil lamps. He handed Harry and Sarah the oil lamps and gave me a flashlight. Then he stomped towards the TARDIS doors and opened them.

"I say, I'm very sorry, Doctor," Harry said quietly.

I silently followed the Doctor outside, switching my flashlight on and moving it around me.

"You're a clumsy, ham fisted idiot, Harry Sullivan!" the Doctor snapped as he looked around our surroundings.

"Well I said I was sorry, didn't I?" Harry responded from inside the TARDIS.

"What? Come out!" There was a thud behind me and I saw Harry stumble out of the Doctor's time machine. "And don't touch anything."

"I'm only trying to open the door." Then I heard a gasp. I looked back at the human doctor and smiled. "I say, we've gone!"

"Whose gone?" Sarah asked as she stepped out and stood next to Harry.

"I mean, this isn't. We aren't where we were when. I've gone mad."

"That's how I felt the first time." Sarah stepped forward and looked at the Doctor. "Where are we, Doctor?"

"I've no idea," he replied.

"A quick trip to the moon, you said, just to prove to Harry."

"I didn't expect him to start messing about with the helmic regulator. Come away from there, Harry."

Harry stepped away from the TARDIS and looked at it in wonder. "You could sell that thing, Doctor," he said.

"I could what?!"

"Jolly useful in Trafalgar Square. I mean, hundreds of bobbies hiding inside it."

Sarah looked at me and sighed. "Harry?"

"Eh?"

"Stop burbling."

"What? Oh, sorry. Shock, I suppose. I must say, I feel very strange."

"Not much oxygen," the Doctor muttered casually. "Still, nothing to worry about."

"Not much oxygen isn't something we should worry about?" I asked him. "I actually quite like breathing, thank you very much."

"We'll suffocate without air, Doctor," Sarah added.

"We can survive for quite a while yet," the Doctor replied as he pulled a yo-yo out of his coat pocket.

"While you play with that yo-yo?" Sarah asked.

"Just a simply gravity reading, Sarah. Yes, almost certainly we're in some kind of artificial satellite. Now isn't that interesting?"

"Not really," Sarah responded blankly.

I took the yo-yo from him and placed the string around my finger. "I'll play with the yo-yo, Doctor. You figure out the problem."

The Doctor "humph"ed, bumping my shoulder and causing me to mess up. Then he walked around me and started inspecting the different buttons and switches on the walls around us. Sarah watched him with an exasperated expression.

"It's dark, it's cold and it's getting very airless, Doctor."

"All we have to do is get the power back on, Sarah. Let's see what's over here."

I gave up on playing with the yo-yo and trailed after the Doctor. Behind me, Sarah and Harry were talking. "Might as well go for a look round, I suppose. Are you coming?" she asked the human doctor.

"We'd better stick with the Doctor, don't you think?"

Sarah shrugged and stepped past Harry, looking around the walls in curiosity. after fiddling with some switches, the Doctor managed to turn the power on the satellite-spaceship-thing. He grinned proudly and turned back to face me. "Yes! That's better!" He gestured to the room while looking at me. "Incredible, don't you think?"

I laughed and nodded. "Yeah."

"I say," Harry began in awe, "what's all that for?"

"I've never seen anything quite like it," the Doctor said in reply.

"Doctor, look!" Sarah called.

I turned to see Sarah exit into an adjoining room in panic. I rushed towards her and followed her into the room. "Sarah, wait! Don't go in there."

"Why not?" she asked. "Doctor, come see!"

"In a minute, Sarah," he replied.

The door slid closed behind us, making me jump. I banged my hands against the closed door in a frenzy. Sarah looked back at me in confusion. "Diana, what-?"

"We're s-stuck!"

I stopped hitting the door and slumped against it instead, my breath coming short. Sarah and I realized that the shortage of oxygen wasn't just in the main room. She stumbled over to me and leaned heavily against the door like me. She weakly hit the door, calling the Doctor's name. I copied her actions and closed my eyes as the oxygen started to thin.

I hit the door one last time, whispering the Doctor's name, then fell to the floor.

I woke up to see the Doctor leaning over me, concern written all over his face. His eyes were wide and searching as they roamed across my face and his brows were drawn together. My mouth opened to talk, but I ended up coughing instead. "Easy, Diana," he said softly, resting a hand on my cheek. "You passed out from oxygen deficiency. You probably shouldn't talk or sit up at first."

I smiled and reached up to grab his scarf. "I told you so," I croaked.

"Are you alright otherwise?"

I nodded. "Little disoriented... Dizzy..."

"You just need a few minutes and a drink of water."

"Sorry," I mumbled.

"For what?"

"Wandering off."

"Just don't get hurt," he scolded me with a tap on the tip of my nose. "Awfully stupid of you."

"Gee, thanks."

The Doctor shook his head, trying to hide his smile. He moved his hand away from my face and stood up. I realized that I was on the ground, leaning against the wall next to the bed Sarah was laying on. I momentarily felt that the Doctor cared more about Sarah than me, then realized that I was probably right.

"Am I not special enough to get a bed, Doctor?" I asked, hurt seeping into my voice.

"Of course you are!"

"Then why am I on the floor?"

"Ah..." He awkwardly scratched the back of his head. "Well... Harry went to Sarah first while I brought the oxygen level to normal. So... You can blame him. I was trying to save your life."

"For which I thank you, Doctor."

He smiled fondly at me and nodded. "I'll be back with some water for you. Don't wander off."

"I'll try not to," I muttered sarcastically.

My eyes slid closed and I felt my head turn to the side. I was asleep within seconds.

-page break-

A hand shaking my shoulder woke me. I saw the Doctor's eyes staring down into mine; they were wide and worried.

"Sarah's gone. The bed transported her somewhere else on the station. Do you know where she could be?"

I blinked. "Uh... Maybe. I don't know how to get there, though."

He sighed. "Alright. Can you stand?"

"Yeah."

He gripped my hands and pulled me to my feet, moving his arms around my waist when my knees wobbled and I lurched forward against his chest. I felt my heart pounding hard against my breastbone at his touch. As I looked up at him, I felt like swooning. I'd always had an insanely large crush on this Doctor and having his hands on my waist was not helping.

"Sorry," I breathed.

"Perfectly fine, Princess."

I blushed and ducked my head shyly. His fingers curled against my hips, then straightened. His hands slid up my waist for a moment before he looked startled and pulled back. I noticed that his cheeks looked slightly pink and smiled.

"Come on. Lets go find Sarah.

"I think we'll try this way first," the Doctor told Harry and I. "That sound about right, Diana?"

I nodded. "I think so."

We headed counterclockwise around the room with the Doctor in the lead (of course), me directly behind him with a firm grip on his scarf, and Harry following close behind me. I remembered this episode relatively well, but some of the details were lost to me. So I helped guide the Doctor as best as my memory would allow, which was surprisingly good.

Harry pointed to a door with a tug on my shirt. "I say, what about the armory?"

"Not very likely," the Time Lord replied dryly.

The walkway finished at a door marked Area Q. The Doctor was about to ask me a question Jen a voice sounded, "This is a sterile area! Keep out!"

"It's just like a hospital," Harry noted.

I nodded and stayed close to the Doctor as he opened the door, all three of us watching as it slid up into the ceiling.

"Well, ought we, do you think?"

The Doctor glanced at Harry and rolled his eyes. "Don't be nervous, Harry," he said sarcastically.

Suddenly Harry jerked with a slight gasp, his shoulder bumping mine. Both me and the Doctor turned and looked curiously at him.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I saw something moving."

The Doctor scoffed. "Nonsense, Harry."

"I'm positive. I saw something move."

"A trick of the light."

The door slid closed behind us with a hiss, making me jump. I grabbed at the Doctor's elbow and held onto it very tightly.

"It wasn't a trick of the light," Harry replied. "I saw something moving."

There was a green trail on the metal grating immediately in front of the Doctor's feet. He gazed at it in confusion and curiosity. "It's like the trail left by a gastropod mollusc," the Doctor commented.

"A slug?" Harry asked.

"Or a snail."

"That size?!" The human doctor asked incredulously. "Impossible. It couldn't have got through this grille."

"Very interesting. A multinucleate organism?"

"Eh?"

I touched Harry's shoulder with a smile. "I don't understand half of what he says either. Don't worry."

"Let's find Sarah first, Harry, Diana. Come on."

We moved on to the intersection in front of us. "This looks promising," the Doctor told us with a slight smile.

We walked past a notice saying "Yellow Badge Personnel Only", the Doctor not paying the notice any attention at all. The room was small and had a yellow-ish tint to the walls. I recognized it from the episode and felt relieved that I could remember something. I tugged at the Doctor's sleeve to get his attention.

"She was in here earlier, Doctor, but she was... moved. Sort of."

The wall opposite the empty chamber where I knew Sarah had been earlier had sixteen blocks with numbers on them and had captured the Doctor's attention. He reached up to touch the blocks. "I think we're getting warm, Harry, Diana. Animal and Botanic."

The Doctor looked through a window on the door with the exact words of his last sentence. "Of course! That explains everything. Do you realise what this is? Aren't you feeling better, Harry?"

"No, I'm not."

"Then pull yourself together, man. This is fascinating! This is a cryogenic repository!"

I immediately thought of Khan from Star Trek and grinned. At least I finally knew something that the Doctor did, albeit only because I watched Star Trek.

"Repository?" Harry questioned. "For what?"

"Everything. Well, everything they considered worth preserving. Look at this." He pressed a button next to the numbered blocks and one of the blocks slid out. "Microfilm. It's a complete record. Music, history, architecture, literature, engineering. Incredible. The entire body of human thought and achievement."

"That's incredile," I muttered in awe. "All that knowledge, right here at my fingertips. It's amazing."

The Doctor smiled at me, a sort of proud look on his face. "It is incredible, Diana."

"Yes," Harry protested in confusion, "but what's it all for?"

The Doctor stuck out his lower lip as he considered Harry's question. "Posterity? I don't know. Why build all this and send it into space?"

"I say, couldn't be some sort of survival kit, could it?"

"Survival?"

"Yes, you know, the sort of thing they shove in lifeboats and things."

The Doctor grinned. "You're improving, Harry.

"Am I really?"

"Yes, your mind is beginning to work. It's entirely due my influence, of course. You mustn't take any credit."

I burst out in laughter. "Doctor," I said between laughs, "you are so full of yourself."

"But you love it," he replied with a smirk.

"Yeah, I do. You arrogant prat."

He playfully wrapped an arm around my shoulder and squeezed my arm. "Would you have me any different?" He didn't wait for my answer, probably because he already knew it. "Now, what's missing?"

"Missing?"

"Yes." The Doctor pulled away from me and looked at Harry as he explained. "If we are to assume that some great cataclysm struck Earth, and that before the end they launched this lifeboat, then the one obvious missing element is man himself. What's happened to the human species, Harry?"

A door slid open behind us, reminding me that we still had to save Sarah. We walked over and looked through the doorway, Harry resting a hand on my shoulder as he stood behind me like I did with the Doctor. "I say, what a place for a mortuary," Harry commented.

"We'll aren't you a little ray of sunshine?" I asked dryly.

"This isn't a mortuary, Harry," the Doctor told him. "Quite the reverse."

"Reverse? I'd hardly call it a nursery."

"Cryogenic chamber."

"What?"

"It's like a way to preserve humans for. really long time without them dying," I explained.

"Exactly," the Doctor replied. "Its an old principle, but I've never seen it applied on this scale. Look at them."

A short corridor close by and lined with four pods lead into another chamber with even more pods filled with sleeping humans.

"There must be hundreds here."

"Well, when you've seen one corpse, you've seen them all."

I sighed. "Harry," I started, "they aren't dead. They're asleep."

"The entire human race awaiting the trumpet blast," the Doctor continued.

Harry opened a pod and observed the sleeping human. "Dead as a doorknocker."

"Homo sapiens," the Doctor said in wonder. "What an inventive, invincible species. It's only a few million years since they've crawled up out of the mud and learned to walk. Puny, defenseless bipeds. They've survived flood, famine and plague. They've survived cosmic wars and holocausts, and now here they are amongst the stars, waiting to begin a new life, ready to outsit eternity. They're indomitable. Indomitable!"

" 'Puny and defenseless'?" I repeated with a not very well contained smile. "Should I be offended, Doctor?"

He smirked. "You're not puny or defenseless, so no."

"And you call me 'Princess' because I'm not defenseless?" "I call you 'Princess' because I can," he countered playfully.

"What do you think you're doing, Harry?" the Doctor asked.

I turned and saw Harry looking into the eye of a sleeper. "Sorry to contradict you, Doctor. Not a flicker of life."

"Suspended animation," the Doctor countered.

"There are no metabolic functions at all. I mean, look at him. Now, even in the deepest coma, the hair and fingernails continue to grow. The epidermis-"

"Total suspension, Harry." The Doctor closed the pod and looked pointedly at the human. "You can't survive ten thousand years in a coma."

"Ten thousand years?" Harry and I asked incredulously.

"Fifty thousand years, a hundred thousand. Time is immaterial. It's an amazing sight, isn't it? The entire human race in one room. All colours, all creeds. All differences finally forgotten."

Harry was wide-eyed and surprised. "Doctor, are you serious? The entire human race?"

"Well, it's chosen descendents. The operation must have been meticulously planned. Come on."

"Where are we going?" I asked

"First to find Sarah, then we're going to shut down the systems. We're intruders here, you know."

"Wait, what?" I was terribly confused, which made me feel completely stupid and useless. I couldn't, for the life of me, remember why we had to shut down the systems.

"Now just a minute, Doctor," Harry interjected. "Are you trying to tell that this is where it's all going to end? In here?"

"Not end, Harry, just a pause."

"But there's only a few hundred corpses- er, bodies in here. I mean, what's happened to the rest of humanity? Some global catastrophe?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yes, and they saw it coming, and made provision for it as best they could. Don't forget, it's something for you to be proud of."

"Doctor!"

"Yes?"

Harry pointed at a trail of green slime leading out of an air vent close to the floor. "Look."

The Doctor pondered the trail of slime for a moment. "Hm. Oxygen? Radiant heat? But this deep in space? I wonder..."

"Perhaps it's some kind of mold."

"Mold?" the Doctor repeated.

"And that trail we saw in the corridor."

"And that thing you saw moving in the corridor," I added.

"Dust," Harry suggested. "That, er, grille thing was a dust extractor. And then we opened the door after umpteen years and caused a bit of a draught."

"Hmm. Very convincing. All the same, I think we'll just check a few of the beds while we're here."

"What are we checking for, exactly?" Harry asked.

"Just to make sure that everything's in order."

"Right-o."

I started opening pods in search for Sarah, quickly opening and closing the pods when I didn't find the journalist. Harry found her whilst doing his own checking of the pods. He called for the Doctor and waved us over.

"What have you found?" the Doctor questioned as he wlaked casually to the human doctor's side. "Sarah! Oh, Sarah Jane."

"We can't help her now."

"Doctor-" I tried.

"No," the Time lord replied grimly. "She'll be like that for three thousand years at least. Even if we had a resuscitation unit, it's doubtful that we could revive her now."

"Doctor," I tried again. "We-"

"There must be something we can do. What's would a resuscitation unit look like?"

"Very like an oxygen cylinder."

"Doctor, would you please listen to me?"

"You'll recognise it if there is one."

Harry let out a cry of disgust and scrambled backwards. He straightened his coat and then knelt next to the large, dead bug that had fallen out of the cupboard he'd opened. "Well, it's dead, anyway," he noted.

The Doctor and I went to Harry's side to investigate the strange creature. "Very dead. Almost mummified," the Doctor commented.

"What is it?"

"That's something we can leave till later. No sign of the resuscitation tank?"

"Well, I hardly had a chance to look for one."

The Doctor toke an orange box from the cupboard and handed it to Harry. "Emergency medical kit, wouldn't you say?"

"A bit beyond me, I'm afraid."

"There must be something there that would help Sarah, but what? What?"

"Doctor, if you could shut your trap and just listen to me-"

"Later, Diana."

"Doctor, look!" Harry pointed across the room to one of the pods that had become active.

"Of course! They don't need a tank. The resuscitation phase is programmed in." The Doctor rushed over to the pod and opened the lid to reveal a woman. Her eyes were closed and she wore a white uniform with yellow on her shoulders. "Look, she's starting to breathe."

Harry trailed after him and nodded. "Yes, I think she is."

"No doubt about it."

"That means there's hope for Sarah. Yes, look, she's moving."

I hit my forehead with the palm of my hand and sighed. "Doctor, if you would just listen to me. I'm trying to tell you something important."

"Are you, now?"

"Yes! Sarah can be saved, you nitwit! Just wait for this woman to wake up and she can help us."

"Why didn't you say something before?"

"I did say something. You kept ignoring me."

"Well, why ever would I do that?"

"I don't know!"

The Doctor just grinned, winking at me and turning back towards Harry and the woman. I felt a rush of heat in my face and clamped my hands over my face so the Doctor wouldn't see. But I suspected he knew I was blushing.

"Independant sort of bird, isn't she?" Harry said with a sort of smile.

"Leave her, Harry."

"Yes, but she's-"

"There's nothing you can do. She knows what she's doing."

The woman slumped, then straighteneds up and steped down from the pod; it switched off. She looked around the room and started when she saw us. "Oh! Explain yourselves," she demanded.

"Well, there isn't very much to explain. We're just travellers in space like yourself," the Dcotr told her.

"That is not adequate."

"My name's Sullivan," Harry supplied with an inviting smile. "Surgeon Lieutenant Harry Sullivan, actually. This is Diana and this is the Doctor."

"You claim to be med-techs?" the woman asked.

Harry blinked. "Sorry?"

The Doctor stepped forward and explained. "My doctorate is purely honorary, and Harry here is only qualified to work on sailors. And Diana... Well, she's just brilliant."

I grinned and found myself standing a little taller at his compliment. He glanced over at me and gave me another wink when he saw me holding my head high. My blush returned and he just grinned. Damn flirt, I thought.

"My name is Vira," the woman said with a professional aura. "I am a first med-tech."

The Doctor looked very relieved when the woman said that. He clapped his hands together and smiled politely at her. "Well, I'm delighted to hear it. You see, we happen to be in rather desperate need of medical help." He wheeled a box over to Sarah's pod and glanced at Vira hopefully.

"This female is a stranger," Vira said.

"She's a friend of ours," Harry reassured the woman. "She got caught in the machinery."

"She was not among the chosen."

"Well, she's among the chosen now, isn't she?" I snickered; sassy Harry Sullivan was hilarious.

The Doctor sighed. "Is there any way of reversing the cryogenic process?"

"That can be dangerous. How long since she underwent tissue irradiation?"

Harry looked from to teh Doctor as he thought. "Can't be more than an hour, can it, Doctor? We haven't been here more than an hour altogether."

Vira put a circlet on Sarah's head and toke a reading.

"Is there anything you cand do for her?" Harry asked.

"Is she valuable?" Vira asked.

Harry was upset at Vira's comment , and so was I. Sarah Jane was terribly important and I hated hearing anyone say different. "Of value?" Harry snapped. "She's a human being like ourselves! What sort of question's that?"

The Doctor looked at Vira. "The answer is yes."

Vira glanced at Harry, then the Doctor. "Your comrade is a romantic."

"Perhaps we both are," he said with a quick look in my direction.

"I will inject a monod block."

Harry was relieved and smiled ever-so-slightly. "Ah, that'll do the trick, eh?"

"Your colony speech has no meaning."

"I mean it'll bring her round, reverse the process."

Vira injected Sarah's arm. "She will either survive or die. The action of the antiprotonic is not predictable."

"I see," the Doctor said. "You've changed her body into a battlefield."

"Battlefield?" Vira asked, somewhat confused. "I hypoid in classicals, but you dawn-timers have a language all of your own."

The Doctor smiled. "We do seem to have a small communications problem."

"I wish there was something I could do," Harry said softly as he stared up at Sarah's sleeping form. I found his concern for her incredibly sweet and touching and I couldn't help but feel a twinge of jealousy that nobody cared as much about me as Harry and the Doctor cared about Sarah.

"It is done," Vira told us. "There is nothing further. As she revives, her electrical field will draw power from the bionosphere." Vira took her trolley to another flashing pod across the room. She opened it to reveal a man with red fabric on the shoulders of his white uniform. "Here is our prime unit."

"Prime unit?" Harry questioned.

"Er, our leader, I think you would say. Noah."

"Noah? Oh, I see." Harry smiled and nodded, proud of himself for figuring out the little trick. "As in Noah's Ark, eh?"

"It is a name from mythology. His real name is Lazar, but we called him Noah as an amusement."

"Er, joke?"

Vira looked confused with Harry's wording for a moment. Then her face lit up in understanding. "Joke? Oh, yes. There was not much joke in the last days."

"What happened in the last days, Vira?" the Doctor asked her gently.

"Your colony has no records, no history? Where are you from?"

"London, actually," Harry said. "England. The Earth."

"That is not possible. The Earth is dead."

"I'm afraid you're probably wrong about that," the Doctor replied with an almost smile. He did love being right.

"The solar flares destroyed all life on Earth," Vira insisted.

"Ah. Solar flares. I see."

"Our scientists calculated it would be five thousand years before the biosphere became viable again."

"Oh, the absolute minimum, I'd say. But I'm afraid I've something of a shock for you, Vira."

"Shock?"

"You've overslept by several thousand years. You see, when we came here, we found a massive systems failure."

"The systems have no capacity for failure," Vira replied.

"Possibly not," the Doctor said ina greement. "But a long time ago, when you were dormant, you had a visitor. Come, I'll show it to you."

We all walked over to the dead insect-thing on the floor, observing it. I found it to be ugly and disgusting and very unpleasant to look at. But I had decided to go wherever the Doctor went, and if he decided to investigate the ugly bug then I would have to follow. Besides, his good looks made up for the large insect.

"Is it from space?" Vira questioned. "How did it get here?"

"I don't know yet. But observe the size of the brain pan. It had a purpose in coming here, and once inside, it severed most of the satellite's control systems, including your alarm clock, so to speak."

"What purpose?"

Harry was checking on Sarah with a gentleness I found admirable, considering our current situation. And I was proud of Harry for managing to hold it all together on his first trip with the Doctor. I had continued to stay at the Doctor's side, following him about the room since there was nothing else to do and I didn't want to leave him anyways. Vira, meanwhile, was chceking the other pods with dedication and seriousness.

"Still no change, Doctor," Harry declared sadly.

"No... For once in my life I feel surplus to requirements." Vira then called for the Doctor, somewhat worriedly. "What is it?"

"There's a technical fault in the bionosphere," she told him.

the fault's at this end. It's in the main power supply. "

"It must be corrected. If his heart stops now," she said in reference to Noah, "there's nothing I can do."

The Doctor nodded in understanding. "Don't worry. I noticed the Ark has a secondary power supply. Harry, you stay here and keep an eye on things."

"Right-o," Harry replied.

"Diana-"

"Oh, no. You are not getting rid of me so easily."

"It's safer for you if you stay here. Vira and Harry can protect you."

I crossed my arms across my stomach and raised an eyebrow, popping my right hip out as I stared at the Time Lord. "Well, I'd rather go with you."

"Why?"

"Because I want to."

He grinned and reached forward to grab my hand. "Come on, then!"

We ran back to the room we had originally started in. The Doctor dragged me around the room with him, flipping switches and pushing buttons like he was back home on the TARDIS. He called Harry's name as he did so while I just stood back and watched.

"Doctor?" Harry asked. "Doctor, where are you?"

"In the control room. Have you got the power back on in there?"

"Yes, we have. Everything's ship-shape now."

"Splendid," the Doctor replied, looking at me with the barest hint of a smile. "The fault seems to be in the main solar stack. I'm just going to take a look."

"Right-o." Harry spoke again after a few moments, but the Doctor was hardly listening. "I say, Doctor, don't be long, will you?"

The Doctor grabbed my hand again and I looked up into his eyes, his six-foot-three frame towering over me. We smiled at one another; he squeezed my hand and I squeezed his and it felt perfect. But when we turned around, Noah was there with a modernized gun pointed at us.

The Doctor just smiled at him, although he pushed me slightly behind him as though to protect me. "Ah, there you are. Awake at last."

"Move away," Noah ordered.

A frown appeared on the Doctor's face. He stepped back a little and gestured to the control panel behind him. "I'm just shutting down the power in the main stack."

"Touch that switch and I'll atomise her." My eyes widened and I stepped back in fright, reaching wildly for the Doctor's hand as I kept my eyes trained on Noah. I felt his fingers intertwine with mine and I felt safe again. The Doctor moved to stand in front of me again, his tall frame hiding me and protecting me. "Earth is ours," Noah declared.

"My dear man," the Doctor pleaded, "if you think for one moment we're laying claim to Earth, you couldn't be more mistaken. We're here to help you."

"By deactivating the main solar stack?"

"Precisely! There's something trapped in the stack, Noah, but at the rate its absorbing energy it won't be trapped for long. The stack must be shut down. Well, if you'd been down there with me, Noah, you-"

Noah shot the Time Lord mid-sentence. The Doctor fell backwards and I did my best to catch him so he wouldn't hurt himself. I only ended up trapped beneath him, making me an easy shot for Noah. He shot me and I passed out, the third time that day.

Voila! Chapter 4 is completed! Took me forever, but I'm just glad I finished it! (No hate on my bad writing, please?)