With a sudden creak, the door swung open, startling Jane so she gasped and stepped backwards into the bushes, and in turn, a swampy spot. She always had been jumpy. But she was back at her post in a minute and, crouching again, continued to watch.

She was surprised to see a man half-stumble out of the door. He caught himself on the doorway and looked around, his face excited, his dark brown hair flopping into his eyes. He was pretty young; mid-twenties, Jane guessed, but she was bad at guessing ages. The pinstriped suit he wore was wrinkled, dirty, and a bit too big. Back in the bushes, Jane blushed. She thought he was cute.

'Wow!' he exclaimed, tumbling out of the box. He spun around and latched onto both sides of it, looking at the windows. 'Completely blown out. Whoo!'

He prepared to turn around again, but instead suddenly twitched and stopped, as if he had been punched in the stomach. Suddenly his grip on the box slipped, and he began to fall backwards.

Somehow Jane shot out of the trees fast enough to catch him, but just barely. Half-kneeling, she supported him by the crooks of his arms, his legs sprawled out chaotically. It was an awkward and uncomfortable position, and Jane struggled to hold him up. 'Um… oh, gosh…' she groaned.

His head had been resting partially on her shoulder, partially on her chest (much to her further discomfort). The man's eyes fluttered open, and he looked up at her so that they appeared upside down to each other.

'Hello!' the man said brightly, grinning.

'Er… hi,' Jane answered, grimacing in return.

He glanced up at her thick, dark ginger hair that was sliding out from under her cap and sucked in a deep breath. 'Your hair is ginger!' he cried.

'Ginger?' Her reply was filled with WTF-ery. 'Um, okay… Is that a problem?'

'It's fantastic! You're so lucky!'

'So I'm told. Well, um, yeah. You, sir, are… very heavy. Could you manage to, y'know, stand up? Cos this is rather, er, uncomfortable.'

Suddenly the man seemed a little more serious, and his mad grin faded away to a mild smile. 'Well, I can try.'

Together, they slowly stood up. When finally upright, she noticed that he was a good deal taller than she. On the other hand, this was not hard to achieve.

He looked down at her with an embarrassed smile, leaning on the girl with the support of his arm around her shoulder. 'I'm very sorry to ask, but I'm not well. Do you know someplace I could rest?' Suddenly it seemed harder for him to talk, and his breath came slower and shallower with every word. 'I really need… someplace to rest…'

'Oh! Um…' At this point, Jane was stuck. She looked down at her feet, trying to think.

(Meanwhile, the man coughed, and out of his mouth blew a puff of golden energy. He looked surprised and a little worried at this fact as it drifted up into the sky.)

This guy truly needed her help, she could tell, but she had no idea what exactly she could do for him. It wasn't like she could take him home, like a random dog discovered wandering around. Her parents would throw a fit. Plus it was still half a mile to the city bus, she only had fare for herself, and then it was another half mile from where she got off to her house…

But looking up at him, his eyes pleading, her innate kindness was triggered, and she forgot all else. 'Sure.'

'Thank you. You have no idea how much help you're really doing me.'

They began to walk through the wood, back towards the road. 'Oh, it's no problem,' Jane lied in a sweet voice. 'I figure it's a long walk to where I'm going, though.'

The next thing she knew, they were standing on the muddy curbside of North Road. This was where things got difficult.

'Now, you…' she trailed off, noticing that when she looked up to him, he seemed paler than before, and suddenly wearier. 'Ohhh, dear. Do you think you can walk on your own? Cos no offence, but there's still another half-mile to where I'm going, and my backpack's heavy enough.'

'Um…' it took a minute for the guy to put his thoughts together. 'Y'know…' He sucked in breath through his teeth. 'I don't think so…'

'Okay. Great. That's… I'll just think of something.'

A car went past, and they watched it continue up the hill and drive down the street.

It was then that an idea dawned on her.

'Tell you what. Can you at least make it up the hill, if you lean on me?'

The man looked up the small but steep hill that they were already halfway up. He judged the distance, then looked back down at his new companion. 'Probably. Why?'

She nodded, a mite mischievously, in the direction of a mailbox at the top of the hill, across the street from where they stood. 'Cos there's more curb over there, and the cars on that side of the road are going the same way I am.' Jane looked up at him. 'Wanna hitchhike?'

He couldn't help but grin a little. 'Sure.'

0-0

Short chapter, but no one's reading this anyway, so it's not like it matters.

Re-reading this makes my stomach churn. Like, 'Eeeeew, this is terrible, I don't wanna do it anymore…'

Whine whine whine. But I'm not giving up. Plus I'm just in a really bad mood cos I lost my wallet.

Aaaaaaaaaaargh.

So like I said. I based a lot of this off Tennant's regeneration ONLY because I really didn't know how else to do it. And because without this part, the story can't really go to where it needs to. Believe me, I looked it over and tried to think of ways I could fix it. But it just wasn't gonna happen. Sorry.

Oh, and if someone someday actually does, for whatever reason, read this: thank you! 8D