Thank you, everyone, for the favorites/alerts/reviews so far! I'm flattered. I'm also glad you're enjoying all of this... (smile) Here is another chapter; leave a review if you liked it (or just want something to do) and I'll update next time I am stuck on a writing assignment for all the college classes I have goin' on... (Or just want an excuse to write about The Doctor...)

Abriel woke up with a bandage on her face, foggy and unaware of where she was. There were shapes when she opened her eyes, foggy blotches that became clear shadows and then colored shapes. The cat wasn't anywhere to be felt as Abriel groped at the covers of material that definitely was not her blanket. Usually Smookie was where ever her master was sleeping, and her master never slept without her normal comforter. Tenitively, she put a hand to her forehead and pressed what she was sure was a bruise forming.

"Great," Abriel mumbled, trying to swing her legs over the end of the bed but failing. "What the hell happened? Twenty and unable to get out of freakin' bed." She called for the kitten, but he didn't come and Abriel had no idea where the door was to get out of the room she was in.

Looking around, she noticed the walls of the room were just like the walls of the control room, honeycombed and faintly glowing a dim yellow. There was a dresser across from the bed and Abriel could see her reflection in it's mirror, laying on the bed, disjointed and feet hanging over the edge where she had tried to get up. On the dresser were several objects she couldn't make out from so far away. The room itself wasn't spectacular, but large enough to hold not only a full sized dresser and a large bed, but a chair, bed tables, and floor lamps plugged into invisible outlets. It was unusual, unique, strange yet comforting, and Abriel knew she didn't belong there. A sense of emptiness had invaded the room and it seemed as though this wasn't an area many people came to, however many people the strange flying machine hosted still unknown. How she sensed it, Abriel couldn't explain. It seemed as though everything was untouched, unused, almost abandoned.

She called for her cat one last time and managed to swing her legs over the bed on her second attempt, touching her bare feet on the plush rug that had been laid out along the bedside. Patting the bandage and pressing on the wound she must have gotten in the moments after being knocked out, Abriel could feel the wound; cat scraches, deep ones. It wouldn't be the first time Smookie had ripped a few new holes in her. Thinking back to how she could have gotten the scratches, Abriel remembered the Doctor pulling the lever and the equivalent of an earthquake causing the world to shake. She had fallen forwards, still holding Smookie... Abriel guessed the rest explained itself.

A section of the wall pulled away from the rest of the round room and swung back to allow the Doctor to come striding through. Reluctantly, he looked around the room before facing Abriel. His face had turned deadly serious, poetically unhappy during those brief seconds he took to obviously re-live moments both he and the room had seen before. Smacking his lips and clicking his teeth, he grinned foolishly as he came back to the present moment.

"Well, you found yourself quite a concussion there, when I sent the Tardis flying off. My fault, really. I didn't tell you to hold onto anything, you and that creature of yours."

"Where's Smookie?" Abriel asked, closing her eyes and rubbing them. "Is he okay?"

"The cat? Yeah, oh, he's fine. Except, um, he's chosen a pretty bothersome place to hide after his little motion shock."

"Like where?" Abriel asked, genuinely frustrated, not willing to think any more than she had to at the moment. "Is he safe?"

"He's under the control panel," the Doctor answered, scratching the back of his head. "The Tardis can't go anywhere until he gets out or he'll get a nasty little surprise. Or, well, you don't need to know. The sooner you get your cat out of there, the better off we'll all be."

"Did you say Tardis? What the heck is that? And did you say flying? Are we stopped?"

"The Tardis is my ship, what we're flying in right now. Except, we're not flying because your darned cat is risking himself being fried to a crisp by hiding near one of the power supplies. We'll be flying once we get the furry little thing out and get a plan settled."

"You said we were going to save Earth?"

"Yeah, well, we'll do that as soon as you're able to get up and moving. The sooner the better."

The Doctor turned to leave but was stopped by Abriel's last question.

"Whose room is this?"

There was no answer as the Doctor bowed his head and continued out of the room, leaving the door wide open behind him.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

The control room was warm, compared to the cooler temperature of the bedroom. It was also brighter, giving Abriel a migrane within minutes. The headache could have also been caused by either the fact she had been unconcious for about a half hour or because Smookie refused to come out from behind a dangerous looking metal box and a clump of wires.

"Smookie, come out now! You're making me upset," the cat owner told her pet, who only hissed when Abriel tried to grab Smookie's tail.

"How old are you?" the Doctor asked, laughing, "You're talking like a two year old to a creature who doesn't understand half the words you say."

"I'm twenty and it's the only way he relaxes. Smookie is a very picky animal and all these hummings and clickings and beepings of this machine don't help much."

"What do you mean?" the Doctor asked, nearly insulted. "The Tardis hasn't ever had a visitor with a real live animal before, at least one who hasn't decided to take up residency in the controls!"

"So you've had pets before?"

"A dog, yeah..."

"You said you never had a real live animal in here, though."

"The dog was a robot."

Abriel raised her eyebrows in surprise and then turned her attention back to the control panel as Smookie crept toward her. She cooed words of praise as the cat sniffed her hand.

"You said Smookie only understands half of what I say?"

"Yeah."

"That means he actually does understand half, right?" Abriel said, hinting at sarcasm.

"Cats don't care what people have to say. Humans don't have anything to give them, really, in their minds except the occassional snack and things that make interesting sounds when you break them. And cats don't like the names humans give them most of the time. I mean, Mittens and Whiskers? How would a human like a first name like Hands or Toenail?"

Abriel ignored the Doctor as the cat finally darted out of the wires, jumping and hissing past Abriel and into the pile of comforter and bag of clothes Abriel still had laying where she had dropped them.

"And Smookie? What sort of name is that?" the Doctor asked, crunching his face and shaking his head. Now that the cat was out of danger, the strange man was back at the control panel, flipping switches and pressing buttons. Abriel wondered where she had hit her head; that railing over there looked like a likely candidate for whatever had knocked her out. It was her own fault for not being able to stand on her own two feet.

"His name was initially Michelangelo," Abriel stated, refering to her cat, "but I used so many terms of endearment with him he started answering to Smookie instead of his original name. Good enough for you?"

"Are you getting short with me?"

The Doctor furrowed his brows, putting a hand on his hip as he leaned on the other hand against something that looked like, if he accidentally pushed the lever down, would cause some sort of catastrophy. Again, he looked displeased with her and Abriel found herself slightly ashamed. He had done nothing but help her so far, even if he hadn't explained to her why he needed to drag her out of her sleep with vague mentions of saving the world.

"Yeah, sorry. I'm a little stressed. First I'm awoken in the middle of the night by a complete stranger and then I'm whisked away in a flying machine, then have a concussion. I'm a little stressed, like I said," Abriel snapped, apologizing a few seconds later. The Doctor shrugged his shoulders.

"It's understandable. But I hope your mood improves because we're going to need you to save someone."

"What is all this talk of saving the Earth, of humans? What is this all about?"

The Doctor sighed and tapped his fingers on the control panel, looking at his sneakers thoughtfully. He suddenly snapped the lever Abriel had been slightly worried about him leaning on upwards and there was a deep rumbing sound coming from the center of the ship, beneth the floor Abriel stood on. The cat growled and burrowed deeper in the laundry bag.

"It's not as easy as it sounds."

"It's not easy to begin with, is it?"

Abriel's incredulous voice seemed a little too shrill, a little too loud for her liking and she took a deep breath. Always in control, always calm, and never surprised. That was what she lived by and, even when swept away by an alien in the night with no promise of being returned to her house, she had always managed to be level headed and secure in her firm belief she was unshakable. Nothing could bother her. Perhaps it was because of the concussion, Abriel noted as she breathed deep. Looking up, she saw the Doctor looking at her with a calculating stare. It was unsettling and Abriel rolled her shoulders, feigning a stretch.

"I should probably explain what is going on so we can get this all done as fast as possible."

"But aren't you risking mistakes by going fast? I mean, it is the Earth you're talking about."

The Doctor kept looking at Abriel as he threw the last switch needed to throw the TARDIS back into motion. Abriel sunk to her knees most ungracefully as she lost her balance yet again. At least she hadn't hit her head this time.

"Maybe you should warn me when you do that?"

The Doctor ignored her for several moments, even though it was obvious he wasn't doing much of anything. Almost as an afterthought to the words running through his mind, the images and plans he had simmering like a heady concoction in that brilliant brain of his, he told Abriel to bring her things to the room she had woken up in.

"That includes the cat," he stated. The Doctor was none too fond of the still hissing creature.