A/N: Hey guys, sorry for the late update. And I apologise now if there happen to be spelling and grammar errors. I'm working on it. Also, if you haven't checked out the poll, this is the last week to vote!
Kari's head was fuzzy as she waited for the horrible feeling that came with jumping to fade. "Sapphire waterfall." She heard someone say. "It's a waterfall made of sapphires. This enormous jewel, the size of a glacier." Kari couldn't help but smile at the voice, and the fact that it was going into a little ramble. "Reaches the Cliffs of Oblivion, and then shatters into sapphires at the edge. They fall a hundred thousand feet into a crystal ravine."
"I bet you say that to all the girls." Kari mumbled to herself, pushed herself off the ground and quietly sneaking around the corner and towards the man who was on the phone.
"Oh, come on. They're boarding now. It's no fun if I see it on my own. Kari isn't here, and even if she were, she would probably spend all day in the spa with you. You're a bad influence on her, Donna. Four hours, that's all it takes."
Kari knew exactly what Donna would be saying to the Doctor right now, that it's really eight hours and that it's like going on a school trip. And probably something about it being him who was a bad influence, and not her.
"You be careful, that's extonic sunlight." The Doctor said, a hint of concern in his voice. "All right, I give up. I'll be back for…" He didn't get to finish what he was saying, as Kari had crept up on him and covered his eyes with her hands.
"You know, I'm insulted that you think I'd rather spend the day lounging around by the pool instead of accompanying you to see the Sapphire waterfalls." She whispered to him, pretending to sound a little hurt by what he had said to Donna.
The Doctor reached up with his free hand and uncovered his eyes, turning his head slowly to look at Kari. There was a huge smile on his face as he looked at her. "Hello." He whispered to her, completely forgetting that he was on the phone to Donna and wrapping an arm around her, pulling her closer to him.
Kari smiled back at him just as much. "Hello." She managed to whisper, before the Doctor's lips pressed against hers, drowning out the rest of the world around them. She kept on smiling the whole time as she returned his kiss, knowing that both her hearts were pounding in her chest.
"Hello? Doctor?" She faintly heard Donna calling. "Hello? Oi, Spaceman!"
"I… uh, I think Donna is still on the other end of that phone you left hanging." Kari mumbled to him, as they broke apart and he continued to hold her close.
"Right… right, yes, Donna." He said, looking down at the phone and picking it back up. "Sorry, got distracted a little there. Now, where was I?" The Doctor said, as Kari listened in to what her super temp was saying.
"Distracted? You know, there's only one thing I can think of that can distracted you, especially to the point where you can't remember what we were talking about." Donna said, causing the Doctor and Kari to glance at each other. "Hi, Kari!"
"Hello, my super temp." Kari called back. "The Doctor was saying, we'll be back in time for dinner, we can go and try that anti-gravity restaurant."
"That's a date." Donna replied to her, actually rather happy that Kari had shown up when she did. She had been worried about the Doctor going on his little adventure on his own, but she really wanted to have her own little break of everything. "Well, not a date. Oh, you know what I mean."
Kari was giggling before the woman had even managed to get to the end of her sentence. "Yeah, I know what you mean, Donna. Enjoy the pool, and take it easy. I'll keep him out of trouble." She told her, still trying to contain her giggled, while the Doctor just rolled his eyes at her.
"We'll see you later." The Doctor said, getting ready to hang up the phone.
"Oi, and you both be careful, all right?
A smirk appeared on the Doctor's face now. "Nah. Taking a big space truck with a bunch of strangers across a diamond planet called Midnight? What could possibly go wrong?" He asked, causing Kari to groan.
She snatched the phone from his hand and quickly hung it up. "You just couldn't resist saying that, could you, Doctor? If anything goes wrong now, I am so blaming it on you." Kari told him, taking his hand and leading him over to the big truck that the last few people were boarding.
"Oh, you'd blame me even if it wasn't my fault." The Doctor told her, taking a tighter hold of her hand and giving her one of his best smiles. He really was happy to see her, and to have her coming on the trip with him as well.
"Well, obviously. I find it so much easier to blame it on you, gives you a reason to be extra nice to me to make it up to me." Kari informed him, a big grin on her face as they took their seats on the craft that would take them to see the Sapphire Waterfall.
"So, come on then. What have you been up to? Causing lots of trouble no doubt."
Kari looked at him, pretending to be shocked at his comment. "I'll have you know, my dear, dear Doctor, that I have been keeping out of trouble. Mostly. I can inform you now, that since I last saw you and Donna, I have only gotten into trouble once. And I got myself out of it as well."
The Doctor just looked at her, as the last few passengers finally boarded. "Right. Well then." He said, just as the hostess came over to the pair.
"That's the headphones for channels one to thirty six. Modem link for 3D videogames. Complimentary earplugs. Complimentary slippers. Complimentary juice pack and complimentary peanuts." She said, handing them everything as she spoke. "I must warn you, some products may contain nuts."
"That'll be the peanuts." The Doctor said, causing Kari to groan and roll her eyes at him a little.
"Enjoy your trip."
By now, the Doctor was just beaming away. He had his Kari beside him, about to go on a journey to the Sapphire Waterfalls. "Oh, I can't wait. Allons-y." He said, confusing the hostess.
"I'm sorry?"
Kari let out a sigh. "It's French, for let's go. Don't mind him, I think the nut warning applies to him as well." Her comment earned her a swift swat on the arm from the Doctor as he frowned at her slightly.
"Fascinating." She said, before going to walk away.
"Sorry, uh, what's your name?" Kari suddenly asked, turning a tad nervous. "It's just, we're going to be travelling together for a long time, and I'm one of those people who like to know everyone's names. I can't just keep calling you hostess, that's just very impolite."
The hostess just looked at her, and for a second Kari wasn't sure the woman was going to speak, but to her surprise she did, and there was a small smile on her face as well. "Janice. Janice Genève."
"I'm Kari, and this nut beside me is the Doctor." Kari said, making sure to smile as much as she could. "Nice to meet you."
Janice nodded at her, before moving on to tend to the pair that was seated behind the Doctor and Kari. "Why did you want to know her name?" The Doctor asked her quietly. "You're not one of those people who need to know names, you usually know everyone's name, and what's going to happen." He said, before pausing. "Oh, this is one of those times where you don't know what's going to happen, isn't it?"
"I may know, I may not know. I'm certainly not going to tell you, Doctor, that would ruin the element of surprise." She told him, not planning on giving anything away. She knew the episode, and she knew it well. After what had happened recently with the Angel, she was wondering how much more she could use the time vortex for.
That was one of the things that Kari had been thinking about, the time vortex that seemed to flow through her. She had only used it a few times, becoming the Angel of Time when she did, and she wondered now if she would be able to use it to save more people, the people she knew wouldn't return home. It gave her hope, hope that maybe she was doing some good there and not just following the Doctor around.
"Oh, you can never just give me a simple answer can you?" The Doctor asked her, moaning a little. "Always have to be keeping secrets, all the time, you have to have at least one thing that I don't know."
"Doctor, do be quiet." Kari said. "I believe that you are also very good at keeping things a secret from me. For quite a long time as well, if I recall correctly."
"Hobbes. Professor Winfold Hobbes." A voice suddenly called, taking both the Doctor and Kari by surprise.
They looked up to see the man sitting behind them leaning over the seats to greet them. "I'm the Doctor, and this is Kari. Hello." The Doctor said cheerfully.
"It's my fourteenth time." Professor Hobbes told the pair, clearly trying to impress them for some reason.
The Doctor couldn't help but beam away. His first time on that trip, and he got to go with Kari. "Oh, our first." He told the man, giving Kari's hand a squeeze.
"And I'm Dee Dee, Dee Dee Blasco." The tanned skinned woman who was with Professor Hobbes said, leaning over to introduce herself as well.
Hobbes glared at Dee Dee. "Don't bother the couple. Where's my water bottle?" He asked, making her sit back down in her seat and he quickly followed.
"So, uh, how's you're wrist now?" The Doctor asked her nervously, causing her to frown at him.
She had to think back to where they would have just been, to what adventure would have come before. That was when she remembered, the Library. "Oh, it's… it's fine now. I had to let it fix it up for me, because I was being bullied by a certain Miss Jones."
"Ah, when I tried to take Martha home and we ended up going after a monster instead." The Doctor said, remembering what had happened that day. "And, is everything else okay now?"
Kari turned her head a little and nodded at him. "Yeah, everything's okay. I saw her again, alive and well. It was… hard, to see her but I know there are more adventures to go, and plenty of time to see her still."
"Ladies and gentlemen, and variations thereupon, welcome on board the Crusader Fifty." Janice the hostess said, getting the attention of everyone who was waiting to depart for the trip. "If you would fasten your seatbelts, we'll be leaving any moment. Doors." The doors closed on her command. "Shields down." The windowed were quickly shielded as well, leaving them with only the electric lighting. "I'm afraid the view is shielded until we reach the Waterfall Palace. Also, a reminder. Midnight has no air, so please don't touch the exterior door seals. Fire exit at the rear, and should we need to use it, you first." Janice said, clearly trying to make a joke. "Now I will hand you over to Driver Joe."
Suddenly the intercom crackled into life. "Driver Joe at the wheel. There's been a diamondfall at the Water Witch Canyon, so we'll be taking a slight detour, as you'll see on the map." The holographic map came up and the Doctor was quick to inspect it. "The journey covers five hundred kliks to the Multifaceted Coast. Duriation is estimated at four hours. Thank you for travelling with us, and as they used to say in the olden days, wagons roll."
After that there was silence, as the vehicle shook slightly, meaning that they were finally on their way. "For your entertainment, we have the music channel playing retrovids for Earth classics." A new holographic screen appeared, playing some music that was even an old classic in Kari's mind. "Also, the latest artistic instillation from Ludovico Klein. Plus, for the youngsters, a rare treat. The Animation archives." Now a large screen showed up, playing Betty Boop cartoons. "Four hours of fun time. Enjoy."
Kari let out a groan as all the sounds started grating in her head. It was loud, and there were too many things going on at once. She rested her head against the Doctor's arm, trying to bury her face in it and drown out the sound a little. With a frown on his face, he quickly realised why she was doing that, and he whipped out his sonic screwdriver. There was a slight buzzing, before everything fell silent and the screens all returned to their homes.
"Well, that's a mercy." Professor Hobbes commented, glad to be rid of the noise and distraction.
That was when Janice quickly took control of the entertainment situation. "I do apologise, ladies and gentlemen, and variations thereupon. We seem to have had a failure of the entertainment system."
The Doctor didn't seem too bothered about it, and Kari gave him a slight grin, already knowing that it was him who had turned it all off. She reached up and gave him a quick peck on the lips. "Thank you, I don't think I could have dealt with a total of eight hours of that." All the Doctor could do was smile at her, glad that he had done something for her to make her smile, even if it was just something as simple as turning everything off.
"But what do we do now?" The woman sitting on the other side and a little further back with her husband asked, clearly disappointed that everything had gone wrong.
"We've got four hours of this? Four hours of just sitting here?" Her husband moaned, getting her to nod her head at him in agreement. Kari noticed their sun sitting further back, as far away from them as he could get, rolling his eyes. She couldn't help but smirk when she thought about the other places she had seen him.
"Tell you what." The Doctor said, getting up from his head and leaning over the back to look at everyone. "We'll have to talk to each other instead."
"Aw, but I wanted to use your arm as a pillow and get some sleep." Kari moaned, having actually planned on just sitting there with the Doctor for a while, even if she knew that they would end up taking with everyone.
The Doctor chuckled at her a little. "You can use my arm as a pillow on the way back, I promise." He told her, kissing the top of her head before pulling her up a little and out of the seat.
"So, Biff said, I'm going swimming." Val told them a short while later.
The man beside her nodded. "Oh, I was all ready. Trunks and everything. Nose plus."
"He had this little nose plug. You should have seen it."
"And I went matching up to the lifeguard. And he was a Shamboni. You know, those big foreheads?" Biff said, Val agreeing with him on everything he said. "And I said, where's the pool? And he said…"
"The pools abstract." Both Val and Biff said at the same time, before falling about laughing.
"It wasn't a real pool." Val told them, as Kari glanced over at their son who was sitting there, bored out of his mind.
"It was a concept."
The Doctor seemed happy enough to be listening to their stories, he was finding it interesting, but Kari wasn't. She knew what they were going to say, and she didn't really care about it all as much. But she put a smile on her face and tried to be polite. "And you were wearing a nose plug?" The Doctor asked, clearly not noticing that Kari was fed up now.
"I was like this." Biff said, before holding his nose and plugging it with his fingers, imitating how he looked that time. "Ooh, where's the pool?"
Kari sat there and listened to them some more, before she got up and went to get herself a glass of water or something, anything to get away from Biff and Val. The Doctor was quick to follow her, a hint of worry on his face. "You okay, Kari?" He asked her, wrapping his arm around her from behind.
"Yeah, just wanted to grab a drink. Do you want one?" She asked him, noticing Dee Dee coming over to where she was now as well. "So, Dee Dee, what brings you to Midnight then?" Kari asked the woman.
"I'm just a second year student, but I wrote a paper on the Lost Moon of Poosh. Professor Hoobes read it, liked it, took me on as researcher, just for the holidays. Well, I say researcher, most of the time he's got me fetching and carrying. But it's all good experience." She explained, as she gathered a drink for herself and the professor.
"And did they ever find it?" The Doctor asked, taking the plastic cup of water from Kari.
Dee Dee looked at him in confusion. "Find what?"
"The Lost Moon of Poosh."
She couldn't help but laugh a little. "Oh, no. Not yet."
"Well, maybe that'll be your great discovery, one day." The Doctor told her.
Kari couldn't help but smile, she knew where Poosh was, she knew where plenty of missing places were. "Here's to Poosh." She said, and the three of them raised their cups and drank to the missing moon. "Now, I'm going to go and chat with Jethro. He seems completely and utterly bored at the moment." Kari said, making her way over to where the young lad was sitting. "You alright there, Jethro?" She asked, sitting down beside him.
"No. I wish they had just let me stay at the resort." He grumbled, looking like the normal, grumpy teenager.
"Oh, come on. Don't tell me you do like a little adventure? Everyone likes an adventure." She told him. Kari couldn't help but smile to herself, if Asgard was real, then maybe Camelot was as well, and maybe the young man she was sitting next to was a descendent of the great Merlin. That had been another show she had watched, and enjoyed, and he was the spitting image of Merlin.
He looked at her, an eyebrow raised. "You call this an adventure?"
"Okay, so what would you call an adventure, Jethro?"
Jethro thought about it for a moment. "I don't know. Epic battles, sword fights, you know, all that stuff about knights and princes and stuff." He told her, taking her by surprise. "That's an adventure."
"So, knights, princes, sword fights? What about magic, and stuff like that?" Kari asked him. He really did remind her of the character of Merlin, and what he thought was an adventure sounded like him as well.
"Nah, there's no such thing as magic. There might have been, a long, long time ago. But everything is all based on science now, isn't it?" There seemed to be a hint of sadness on his face as he told her that, like he believed that there really did used to be magic, like he just knew that magic used to exist.
Kari stayed talking to him for a little while longer, before joining the Doctor back at the front again where he was just about to tuck into his meal. "Hello, how's Jethro?" He asked her, as she sat down in the seats across the aisle to where he was sitting with the woman named Sky.
She shrugged at him a little. "Oh, he's okay. He reminded me of someone. Not someone I've met or ever will meet, but he just… he's so much like him in some ways."
"You really are strange sometimes, you know that don't you?" The Doctor told her, making Kari just give him one of her best smiles.
"Well, of course I know. You like to remind me at least once a day. But think about this, if I'm the strange one, what does that make you?" She asked him. "Considering you're the one who deals with me, day in and day out. You must be even worse, since you're keeping me around."
"Oh, hush you." He replied, knowing that he wasn't going to get out of that one very easily. He generally found it difficult to win and kind of argument against Kari, she always had some response to everything he said.
Neither of them had noticed that Sky had been watching them the whole time. "So, are you two on honeymoon or…?" The woman asked, making Kari remember that she hadn't told the Doctor that she had just spent Christmas with him and Martha.
"Uh, no…" The Doctor started, before Kari decided to jump in and save him.
"We're engaged." She said, getting the Doctor to look at her sharply. "We've brought our friend Donna on holiday, was about time Donna had a nice rest."
"She stayed behind at the Leisure Palace." The Doctor told her, before turning to look at the woman rather than Kari. There was a smile on Kari's face, knowing that she had surprised the Doctor. "You?"
"No, it's just me."
"Oh, I've done plenty of that. Travelling on my own, until my Kari shows up. We love it. Do what you want, go anywhere." He said, beaming away now.
Sky just looked at him sadly, before looking over at Kari. "I'm still getting used to it. I've found myself single rather recently, not by choice." She said, before sitting back and poking at the food on her tray.
"What happened?" Kari asked her gently, even though she already knew what the woman was going to say.
"Oh, the usual. She needed her own space, as they say. A different galaxy, in fact. I reckon that's enough space, don't you?"
Even the Doctor was feeling bad for the woman now. He didn't always like travelling on his own, but he knew he would never be on his own for long. Kari would show up, she always showed up, and they would always travel together. He didn't even want to think about what it would be like if she wasn't there. "Yeah. We have a friend who went to a different universe." The Doctor said, thinking about Rose.
"And that wasn't her choice either." Kari added. "So, what's the food? Chicken or beef?" She wondered, looking at the meat on the Doctor's tray.
He looked at it, and poked it around a little. "I think it's both."
"Good job I'm not hungry then. I ate before I came to find you. Have a lovely meal, had a lovely evening actually." She told the pair, actually glad that she wasn't hungry. It didn't look all that great, and she wasn't even going to bother to try eating any of it.
The time passed quickly, and Professor Hobbes was entertaining everyone by giving a lecture on Midnight. Everyone seemed to be listening, even Jethro was paying attention to what the man was saying and the images on the screen.
"So, this is Midnight, do you see, bombarded by the sun. Extonic rays, raw galvanic radiation." He told them, before ordering Dee Dee to move on to the next slide. "It's my pet project. Actually, I'm the first person to research this." He told them, sounding rather proud and like he was trying to impress them all. "Because, you see, the history is fascinating. Because there is no history. There's no life in this entire system. There couldn't be. Before the Leisure Palace Company moved in, no one had come here in all eternity. No living thing."
"But how do you know?" Jethro asked, getting a smile from Kari. "I mean, if no one can go outside."
His mother just rolled her eyes. "Oh, his imagination. Here we go."
Kari just looked at the woman. "He's just made a really good point. How do you know? How do you know there isn't some life forms that can survive in this environment?" She said, looking around and at everyone, who were now all staring at her. "Humans evolve and adapt, many species do that. What's to say that hasn't happened here?"
Professor Hobbes smiled widely at Kari. "Exactly. We look upon this world through glass, safe inside our metal box. Even the Leisure Palace was lowered down from orbit. And here we are now, crossing Midnight, but never touching it." Just as he finished talking, there was a crunching sound, and everyone was shifted forwards in their seats a little.
"We've stopped." Val announced. "Have we stopped?"
Dee Dee shook her head. "We can't be, it's too soon." Now Kari was starting to fidget in her seat a little.
"They don't stop. Crusader vehicles never stop." Hobbes added, while Janice the hostess began to take control of the situation.
"If you could just return to your seats. It's just a small delay." She told them, before using the intercom to speak with the driver and find out what was actually going on.
Biff looked around at everyone, trying not to look uncomfortable and worried like everyone else was. "Maybe just a pit stop."
"There is no pit stop." Professor Hobbes warned him. "I've been on this expedition fourteen times. They never stop."
Everyone was starting to get a little aggravated now, which Kari thought was fair enough. Professor Hobbes was right, they didn't stop, but they had, and only she knew what was going to happen next. It was only now that the Doctor was starting to notice her nervousness.
"Kari, is everything okay?" He asked her quietly, both of them tuning out the noise from the people who were starting to panic.
She shook her head at him. "I don't like this, Doctor. Hobbes is right, something is wrong." Kari whispered to him.
"Ladies and gentlemen, and variations thereupon. We're just experiencing a short delay. The driver needs to stabilise the engine feeds. It's perfectly routine, so if you could just stay in your seats." Janice said, as the Doctor took Kari's hand tightly and pulled her out of the seat, leading her over to the door that lead to the driver's cabin. "No, I'm sorry, sir. Could you please…"
"There you go. Engine expert." He said, flashing his psychic paper at the woman. "And apprentice. Two ticks." The Doctor told her, before opening the door, ignoring Janice telling him that they weren't allowed in there.
Two men were sitting in the cockpit, and it didn't take them long to notice the Doctor and Kari standing there. "Sorry, if you could return to your seat."
"Company insurance." The Doctor told them, flashing his psychic paper once more. "Let's see if we can get an early assessment. So, what's the problem, Driver Joe?"
"We're stabilising te engine feeds. Won't take long." Joe told them, clearly trying to just fob them off with anything to get them to go away.
"Uh, no. I really don't think you're stabilising the engines feeds." Kari muttered, looking at the screens.
"Oh, she's right, see. That's the engine feed, that line there, and it's fine. And it's micropetrol engine, so stabilising doesn't really makes sense does it?" The Doctor said, taking both the men sitting there by surprise. "Sorry, I'm the Doctor, I'm very clever. And this is my beautiful Kari, she's just brilliant. So, what's wrong?"
Both the men glanced at each other nervously. "We just stopped. Look, all systems fine, everything's working, but we're not moving." One of the men said, causing the Doctor to whip out his sonic screwdriver and scan the control panel.
He looked at it and frowned. "Yeah, you're right. No faults. And who are you?" He asked, turning to the man who he knew wasn't driver Joe, the man who had told him that they had just stopped.
"Claude. I'm the mechanic. Trainee." The Doctor smiled at him, and gave Kari's hand a small squeeze. She was being too quiet for his liking.
"I've sent out a distress signal. They should dispatch a rescue truck, top speed." Driver Joe told them, obviously still trying to reassure them that everything was going to be fine.
"Will take them about an hour to get here, Doctor." Kari whispered, knowing that he was going to ask how long it would take for them to make it to where they were.
He nodded at her slightly. "Well, since we're waiting, shall we take a look outside?" The Doctor said. "Just lift the screens a bit?"
Joe just looked at him in horror. "It's a hundred percent extonic out there. We'd be vaporised."
"Nah. Those windows are Finitoglass. They'd give you a couple of minutes. Go on, live a little." The Doctor said, trying to encourage him to lift the shield. He wanted to see it, to see the fields of diamonds. Most of all, he wanted Kari to see it as well, hoping that it would make her smile at him at least.
After a few moments, Joe had made his decision and raised the screen, allowing the four of them to gaze upon the mass of diamonds. "Oh, that is beautiful." He said, looking over at Kari. He had been right, and she was just gazing at the view before her.
"Look at all those diamonds. Poisoned by the sun. No one can ever touch them." Claude said, admiring the view just as much as the others were.
Kari had phased out, her eyes scanning everywhere, looking for something, something impossible. She knew it was out here, but she just didn't know where.
"Did you just…" Claude said, grasping Kari's attention. "No, sorry, it's nothing."
"What did you see, Claude?" She asked him, knowing that he really had seen something, because she had seen it as well.
"Just there. That ridge. Like… like a shadow. Just… just for a second.' He told the group, pointing to where he thought he had seen something.
The Doctor looked and saw the worried expression on Kari's face. "What sort of shadow?" He asked, starting to get a little worried himself.
Before he had a chance to reply, there came a bleeping and the shields started to rise once more. But Claude saw it again, something dark in the bright light, running, running towards them. "Right, Doctor, Kari, back to your seats. And, er, not a word. Rescue's on its way." Driver Joe said, clearly feeling a little uncomfortable now. "If you could close the door. Thank you."
The Doctor led Kari out, worried because of how she seemed to be in her own little world. "What did they say? Did they tell you? What is it? What's wrong?" Sky asked, the moment that they were out of the drivers cabin.
"Oh, just stabilising. Happens all the time." The Doctor said, giving them the exact same excuse that he had been given, even though he knew it was far from the truth. He knew something was wrong, but he just didn't want to worry everyone there.
"I don't need this." Sky snapped. "I'm on a schedule. This is completely unnecessary."
The hostess told everyone once more to head back to their seats, before she disappeared into the cockpit herself. "Excuse me, Doctor, but they're micropetrol engines, aren't they?" Dee Dee asked, before Hobbes once again told her not to bother anyone. "My father was a mechanic. Micropetrol doesn't stabilise. What does stabilise mean?"
After that, it started falling into chaos. Everyone was talking over each other, panic starting to fill them all. The thought of running out of air, of being dead before anyone could even rescue them. Kari couldn't take it, all the noise, the shouting, the worrying, she couldn't deal with it all.
"Everyone just shut the hell up!" Kari shouted, making everyone fall silent instantly. "The air is on a circular filter, meaning we can breathe in this place for the next ten years. So all of you, just shut up and sit down."
They all just looked at her, wide eyed and shocked at the sudden change in her attitude. The only person that didn't seem too phased by it, was the Doctor. "It's okay, Kari, it's okay." He whispered to her, gently rubbing the top of her arm. "I'm here, everything will be fine." He knew he needed to reassure her a little, to get her to calm down.
She looked up and smiled at him, just as there came a thumping on the side of the truck. Two thumps. "Pull it together, Kari. Pull it together." She mumbled to herself, knowing what was going to happen next.
"What was that?" Val asked, as everyone turned to look at the spot where the thumping had come from.
"It must be the metal. We're cooling down. It's just settling." Professor Hobbes told them all, trying to think of his own rational explanation for the sound they had all heard.
Dee Dee nodded at him. "Rocks, it could be rocks falling." She suggested, knowing now that it was easy for these people to get upset and scared.
"What I want to know is how long do we have to sit here?" Biff asked.
What no one had noticed, was that the Doctor and Kari were both still fixed on the side of the vehicle, the side where another two thumps suddenly came from. This time, even Jethro jumped and got up from his seat to have a look.
"What is that?" Sky wasn't the only one who wanted to know, they all did. That was when they began to start panicking a little more.
Another two thumps were heard. "Knock, knock." The Doctor said, keeping a tight hold of Kari's hand.
"Who's there?" Jethro said, making Kari feel even more nervous.
Sky was panicking even more now. "Is there something out there? Well? Anyone?" She demanded. There was another two poundings on the side. "What the hell is making that noise?"
Professor Hobbes was not going to listen to their nonsense any more. "I'm sorry, but the light out there is extonic. That means it would destroy any living thing in a split second. It is impossible for someone to be outside."
"Someone, but not something." Kari muttered to herself, as the thumping came once more. She closed her eyes, listening to the noise all around her, the panic, the fear, the knocking four times. That was when she opened her eyes, when the knocking turned from two, to three, and then four.
"She said she'd get me. Stop it. Make it stop. Somebody make it stop." Sky cried in panic. "Don't just stand there looking at me. It's not my fault. He started it with his stories." She said, turning the blame to Professor Hobbes. "And he made it worse!"
"You're not helping." Val called, as the finger was now pointed to her husband.
Sky was getting more and more worked up now, it was clear for Kari to see that the woman wasn't just afraid, she was absolutely petrified. "Why didn't you leave it alone? Stop staring at me. Just tell me what the hell it is." Dee Dee tried to get her to calm down, but it wasn't helping, the pounding hadn't stopped, and it was getting closer to where Sky was standing. "It's coming for me. Oh, it's coming for me. It's coming for me. It's coming for me. It's coming for me." She cried, over and over again.
The next thing anyone knew, the whole place shook, the electrics sparking before the lights went out completely. Kari was thrown off her feet, along with everyone else. She went from one side to the other, as they kept getting tossed around. They were in darkness, and Kari could feel her hearts beating rapidly in her chest. This was one adventure that really did freak her out, because they never knew exactly what had happened. They would get out of it, most of them would at least, but they never managed to figure out the mystery of what had really happened. And that scared her. A lot.
A/N: As I have mentioned, you have one week left to vote on the poll. It will close when I upload the next chapter, so please vote if you haven't already done so. And a big thank you to everyone who already has voted.
I'm glad you all approve of the last chapter, I've been waiting to do that one for a while, but I thought it was still too early.
Hello and welcome to all you new readers! I'm happy to have you all here. And thank you to everyone who has taken the time to review as well.
Quick note, I've had rather a lot of PM's about posting another one of my Doctor Who stories that is on my profile, and I really am thinking about it. All I can say is if I do post it, I'm not sure if I will update that as regularly as this. I already have 5 stories going at the moment, three of which I really need to find time to update. So it's up to you guys.
So, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter, final reminder to go and vote on the poll for the next set of episodes you want me to really REALLY work on, and I shall see you all next week!
Pippa.